Tri-Service

Public Ballot For Battle Of The Somme Centenary

Eight thousand tickets are being made available to members of the public enabling them to attend the Battle of the Somme centenary in France next year.

The event at the Thiepval Memorial will take place on the 1st July 2016 and will be open to residents of the UK, France and Ireland.

The online ballot will open on the 28th of September with tickets being allocated in pairs, free of charge.

Plans are also being drawn up to broadcast the ceremony in towns across France and the UK.

In Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State Theresa Villiers, led tributes to the soldiers from the 36th Ulster and 16th Irish Divisions who fought side by side at the 1916 Battle of the Somme.

A commemorative event marking one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War is held every year but preparations for the centenary are on a far bigger scale.

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said:

"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..

The centenary event will be an opportunity to not only pay tribute to those that sacrificed so much but to ensure that their legacy continues for generations."

The Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days, claimed over one million casualties and saw the Allies advance just 5 miles (8km).

On the infamous first day alone 20,000 British soldiers died as overly confident commanders ordered their men to walk slowly towards the German lines - only for them to be slaughtered by machine gun fire.

A national trauma reflected upon by the current French defence minister Jean-Marc Todeschini.

"A hundred 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."

"A hundred 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 lies for her."

"Yesterday a land of suffering, today a land of shared remembrance, Thiepval on 1 July 2016, will see a new expression of the friendship between France and Britain."