By the beginning of 1918, the huge loss of experienced troops on both sides of no man’s land had led to severe manpower shortages. Many of the soldiers deployed in France and Belgium as the New Year dawned were only 18 years old. Raw youths at the beginning of the year, those who survived would become hardened fighters during the bitter battles of the German offensives and the Allied advance to victory that followed, leading to the Armistice on the 11th November 1918.

They joined those who had been fighting for months or years, many of whom would not quite make it and whose graves are particularly poignant. This commemorative tour will allow us to reflect on the men who fought, and died, for their countries in the final months of the First World War.

We will have a lecture before dinner on the first night. We devote the second day to looking at some of the places that would have loomed large in the memories of the survivors of the later 1918 battles: the Canal du Nord and the Hindenburg Line. On Armistice day we will look at the re-taking of the old Somme battle areas and lay our wreath at the great Memorial to the Missing at Thiepval.

Frederick James Hodges, born in the summer of 1899, came out in early April, still not fully trained, to join the Lancashire Fusiliers. He wrote later; ‘No longer laughing boys full of weird enthusiasms after we had been blooded. We rapidly became experienced for the simple reason that so much was expected of us.’

ITINERARY
Day 1 (Tuesday): Depart Victoria Coach Station, London 09:00. Cross the channel by le Shuttle. Drive south to our hotel in Arras. Talk on the ‘Men of 18’. Dinner and overnight (2 nights).
Day 2: We look at the experiences of men of many nationalities who fought in the area of The Canal du Nord (Marquion, Fins, Gouzeaucourt) and visit the ‘International’ cemetery at Tincourt. Lunch break in Peronne. The Historiale de la Grand Guerre, Peronne. The St.Quentin Canal (Bony), the Hindenburg Line and beyond (Montbrehain) and the 1918 Memorial to the Missing at Vis en Artois.
Day 3: Thiepval – 1916 and 1918 and the building of the Memorial to the Missing. Armistice Commemoration and the laying of our wreaths. Group lunch. Return to UK. Arrive approx 20:00 Folkestone and 22:00 London.