Andrew Robertshaw, the museum’s Head of Education together with education officers, Tristan Langlois and Julian Farrance, will be in the Somme region between 26 and 30 June, for the march to mark the start of the battle.
Part commemoration and part educational project the Somme March will see dozens of costumed interpreters - meticulously kitted out in period uniforms - marching as closely as possible across the old British front line of July 1 1916 from Serre to Maricourt. Along the way they will stop for authentic living history encampments, battlefield tours and commemorative events.
“In many ways it’s a pilgrimage, a battlefield tour and it’s also educational,” explains Andrew. “The march is also really part of commemoration events across the Somme during early July.”
Andrew’s job will be to present the museum angle, working with the public and to do to the battlefield tours. “What we’re doing is taking the museum and making it into 3-d on the battlefield where the events took place,” he says.
A familiar face to many interested in battlefield archaeology, Andrew Robertshaw fronted a five-part Discovery Civilisation programme in 2005 based on an Army Museum-sponsored archaeological dig on the Somme.
The programme ‘Finding the Fallen’, (which was also a related exhibition at the museum last year), centred on the discovery of several human remains, the poignant quest to identify them and to trace the men’s relatives.
It’s an experience that affected all involved and Andrew is keen to take the insights gained into the Somme March. “To actually stand on the spot and talk about the experience is something that you can’t achieve in a museum,” he says.
A number of schools in the UK have been signed up to write letters to the soldier interpreters as they make their way across the old British lines. The soldiers will of course be writing back – on period style postcards and field post letters. The daily diary of the Army Museum’s Tristan Langlois will be also available to read on the BBC and National Army Museum websites between June 26 and 30.
Part of the museum’s First World War handling collection is being taken over to be used during the educational talks, whilst the interpreters will be striving to portray the lives of soldiers at rest, going from place to place behind the lines as closely as they can.
The team from the museum - and indeed most of the marchers - had relatives who fought during the First World War and there will be several wreath-laying ceremonies at cemeteries along the route. For Andrew and many on the march it’s that personal connection that makes it a valid way of commemorating the battle.
“I think if anyone has a right to do this kind of thing it’s the descendants of those people who fought and died in the First World War,” he says. “I won’t be dressing up in uniform but if I did I would wear the same uniform as my grandfather, soldier 41959 John Andrew Robertshaw, and feel fully justified in doing it.”
“I think that by combining interpreters dressed as British, German and French soldiers the march be able to get over a sense of what the experience of the ordinary soldier was.”
Historical interpreters have become a familiar sight at many of our museums and heritage sites and the National Army Museum has a good relationship with them.
“We prefer them to actors,” says Andrew, “because they bring great skills to the museum. They tend to have good historical knowledge, performance skills and an educational intent. They are also very good at interacting with the public, so this event, this march, really harnesses that.”
The march also provides a handy way of developing the skills of their interpreters and Andrew believes the sense of comradeship that will develop over the five days will be an important experience for all involved. “Obviously they are not going to be shot and shelled but they are going to eat, sleep and drink together,” he says.
The Ministry of Defence has sent over trucks and other logistical back up to help the tour and some of the tour companies involved in Somme Battlefield tours have also been informed, but Andrew is keen to stress that the march is not a commercial venture.
“We have done some publicity,” he says, “but we don’t want to turn it into some publicity stunt. This project is essentially educational, we will be working as hard as we can to get over the sense of what it was like for the soldier.”
Both the forthcoming Somme exhibition at the museum and the Somme March promise a closer look at a First World War battle that began with the British Army suffering the heaviest casualties ever inflicted upon it in a single day, but as Andrew says: “There are as many ways of interpreting the war as there are people.”
“What we will be doing in the exhibition and on the march is portraying the experience of private soldiers, whether they be British, German or French, to convey the experience of men who fought in it.”
The Somme March takes place between 26 and 30 June. For more details see the Somme March website.
Somme 9th Anniversary opens to the public on July 1 2006, for more details of events at the museum marking the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme see the National Army Museum website
