*

The casual visitor to the Thiepval Memorial could be forgiven for believing that the Memorial records all those soldiers whose bodies were never found (or found and not capable of being identified) on the Somme battlefield. This is not the case, for it records only the British and South African 'missing'.  Visitors should be mindful that:

• The memorial does not include all those Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and Indian soldiers who fought on the Somme battlefield and whose bodies were never found or identified, for they are recorded on separate memorials.
  
• The memorial does not include the thousands of French soldiers who died on the Somme battlefield during the time that they 'held the line' here from the start of the Great War up to the Autumn of 1915.
  
• The memorial does not include a further 14,600 + British soldiers who were similarly 'lost' and never found when the German Army swept across the Somme battlefield in the Spring of 1918 (...and finally swept back).