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Battle of the Somme
 
The mission of the KelticDead Music initiative is to find tunes and songs from around the world that have  
Celtic, Folk, World, Americana, and Seafaring origins, and arrange them into simple sheet music formats for folk  
musicians to use, as well as provide links for the music that follows the arrangements to help in hearing how it  
can be played. In addition, other links are provided for the stories and possible lyrics about the selections within  
video-based, KDM Broadsides for a music-education experience.  
All the selections and sheet music content provided in the KelticDead Music initiative are from traditional,  
made-public, made-public with credits, or cited credits where applicable. This material content is given with  
permissions. Patrick O. Young, KelticDead Music.  
Battle of the Somme  
The melody of Battle of the  
Somme was written by the  
Pipe Major, William Lawrie,  
at Oxford, as a “piper’s  
retreat” tune from the field  
after a band performance.  
William died in 1916 in the  
same year in which a battle  
was engaged in World War I  
which became known as the  
most fierce and costly battle  
in terms of human life.  
Made public picture. Battle of the Somme Guns.  
The melody was later dedicated to those that died in that battle,  
and as a folk tune, it was quite popular within Celtic music circles.  
The battle started on July 1st 1916 as an Allied offensive against  
German forces along the western front of the war. It was located  
near a river in France called the Somme River.  
The Allied British and French armies initially engaged the German  
forces with 1.75 million rounds of field artillery in an effort to take  
out the already entrenched German bunkers, as well as mitigate  
the barbed wire that lay between the two lines.  
Unfortunately, for the allied forces, more than half of the  
ammunition fired that day did not explode leaving most of the  
German defenses in tact and operational.  
When the Allied call to advance was made, the British forces walked  
out into murderous machinegun fire suffering more than 57,000  
wounded casualties on that first day alone with more than 19,000  
soldiers killed. The French soldiers were positioned south, along a  
weaker front, and managed to advance about 1.5 miles.  
Continued …  
 

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