It's early July on the old front line and this week after a week of very intensely hot weather it's rained

and the grass in the cemetery here at Ville Chappelle is damped this morning with the trees surrounding the cemetery are full of summer birdsong.

There's blackbirds and robins and in the distance I can hear a chif-chaff.

I feel like I've very much returned to this landscape of the First World War.

And I've travelled down today, coming across on the Euro Tunnel, down the motorway,

and swung off into this area that's near to the town of Betune,

which is a big rest area, training area, stores and supplies area for the British Army on the Western Front,

particularly in the first two years of the war.

But it's brought us into an area where in the spring of 1916,

the men of the 11th, 12th and 13th battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment,

the first, second and third South Downs battalions,

came into this area with the rest of the units of the division they were a part of,

the 39th Division, which was one of the last Kitchener's Army,

new Army divisions to come across to France.

These were battalions that have been formed in 1914,

but didn't come across to the Western Front until March of 1916.

Not because they were no good or they weren't wanted.

By a quirk of circumstance, they found themselves being held back

until the British Expeditionary Force, the army on the Western Front needed them

as it expanded its line along that front and the size of the BEF grew.

And by the spring of 1916, the Battle of the Somme was looming in the distance

and men would be needed for that but their part was well they took part in the battle of the

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