Public ballot announced for Battle of the Somme centenary memorial tickets

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

English and French leaders speak of "shared remembrance" ahead of ceremony at memorial next year

A public ballot will allocate 8,000 free tickets for next year’s centenary commemoration of the Battle of the Somme at the site's Thiepval Memorial.

Held on July 1 2016 at the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world, the ceremony will feature representatives from the battle’s combatant nations and organisations such as The Royal British Legion.

British, French and Irish residents will be able to apply for the ballot from September 15.

The commemoration is an Anglo-French venture commemorating the men who fell at the Somme and the enduring alliance between the British Empire and France.

“100 years ago, our country was a global battlefield to which the Commonwealth nations, in a rush of comradeship, sent hundreds of thousands of their children,” says Monsieur Jean-Marc Todeschini, the Secrétaire d’Etat auprès du ministre de la Défense, en charge des Anciens combattants et de la Mémoire.

“100 years later, the Somme is still exposing its scars, left by the bitter fighting between 1916 and 1918, and its places of remembrance that bear witness to France’s gratitude to the British soldiers who sacrificed their lives for her.

"Yesterday a land of suffering, today a land of shared remembrance, Thiepval will see a new expression of the friendship between France and Britain.”

Fought between July and November 1916, the battle left more than a million soldiers dead, killed or captured.

Despite a week-long artillery bombardment at the start of the campaign, the German defences remained strong and mounted a stubborn defence until the onset of winter brought the campaign to an end with an Allied gain of only five miles of ground.

“The tragic events at the Battle of the Somme left a deep mark on a huge scale - nearly everyone in the UK will have an ancestor who fought or died at the Somme," said John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary.

"It’s important that people across the UK have the chance to remember and honour these brave soldiers."

• Visit the Somme 2016 Ballot website for more details.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/military-history/first-world-war/art530732-public-ballot-announced-for-battle-of-the-somme-centenary-memorial-tickets