Soldiers who went to war on their bikes
ONE hundred years ago, thousands of men and boys from Greater Manchester were involved in the largest conflict of the First World War, the Battle of the Somme, in which there were one million casualties.
The fighting broke out on July 1 and continued until November 18, 1916 and graveyards around the city are scattered with the evidence.
To commemorate the battle the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has launched the ‘Living memory Campaign’ to tell people about the 300,000 plus war graves that are here in the UK and to encourage people and communities to remember the forgotten front of war graves and memorials. Our charity Sustrans is supporting these commemorations by showing how they can be reached on foot or by bike using the National Cycle Network. During the 141 days of the Battle of the Somme, our website will show the locations of the 200 biggest war graves sites in the UK on our website map. Many of the sites can be reached using the 14,000 miles of National Cycle Network routes that cross the country.
The Battle of the Somme was fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German empire on the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. It was the largest battle on the Western Front and became one of the bloodiest battles in human history. There are six significant war grave sites for the First World War in Greater Manchester including graveyards in Weaste, Failsworth, Philips Park, Heaton in Bolton and the single largest site at Southern Cemetery, where there are 785 graves of people who lost their lives.
Visiting these sites by bike is actually a fitting commemoration for the battle as many soldiers at the time went to war on bikes. There were cycling companies or battalions in the armies of Britain and British India, as well as the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand forces. Cyclists were deployed on fighting fronts all over the Western Front, including the Somme, and in June 1916 divisional cyclist companies were enlarged into battalions and placed under the authority of their Army Corps for use as a type of cavalry or yeomanry unit.
Many of the UK war graves are of people from cycling battalions.
»●To see war grave sites that are near the National Cycle Network, zoom in and look for the vertical oblong red markers (without numbers) on our http:// www.sustrans.org.uk/ ncn/map or look up http://www.cwgc.org/ about-us/cwgc-projects/ living-memory.aspx