Week 7

Tasks

• Research more on the Battle of the Somme and find more things to add to my front lines map
• Add new material to the front lines map
• Georeferencing

Research

As I began doing more research on the Battle of the Somme to add to my front lines map I was finding so much great information that I could use, but for some reason it was really hard for me to visualize. So I decided to print off a blank map of the front lines of the Battle of the Somme. I used this to draw on and write notes to keep my thoughts straight.

The blank map I used for my notes

The first thing I decided to add to my map was the other mine explosions that happened on the first day of the battle. On the pre-modified map I only had the Lochnagar and Hawthorn Ridge craters. These were the only ones that I really knew about because we visited these sites during our class trip to Northern France. In total there were eight large mine explosions and eleven small mine explosions.

• At the Lochnagar site there was one large mine and two small mines that were detonated.
• At the Hawthorn site there was one large mines that were exploded.
• At the Y-Sap site there was one large mine explosion.
• At the Tambour site there were three large mine explosions all detonated near each other.
• At the Mametz site there were two large mine explosions, one at Bulgar Point and one at Casino Point, surrounded by nine other small mine explosions.

 

A picture of how Lochnagar Crater looks today

Now that I have all of the mine explosions located on the map I believe it gives the viewer a better idea (visually) of the events that took place on the first day of battle and how such an extravagant beginning led to such an uneventful battle.

After locating the mine explosion locations I decided to break down the Battle of the Somme by the smaller battles that happened within the five months leading up to the end of the battle.

1. The Battle of Albert (July 1 - July 13) - This battle led to the capture of Mametz Wood, the city of Contalmaison, and Trones Wood.
2. The Battle of Bazentin Ridge (July 14 - July 17) - This battle was an assault from the city of Bazentin to the city of Longueval.
3. The Battle of Delville Wood (July 15 - September 3) - This battle led to the capture of part of Delville Wood and the whole of the city of Longueval.
4. The Battle of Pozieres Ridge (July 23 - September 3) - This battle led to the securing of the city of Pozieres.
5. The Battle of Guillemont (September 3 - September 6) - This battle led to the capture of the city of Guillemont and part of Leuze Wood.
6. The Battle of Ginchy (September 9) - This battle led to the clearing of the city of Ginchy and the capture of the rest of Delville Wood.
7. The Battle of Flers - Courcelette (September 15 - September 22) - This was when tanks were first introduced into the Battle of the Somme. This battle led to the capture of the city of Flers and the clearing of High Wood.
8. The Battle of Morval (September 25 - September 28) - This battle (with the assistance of a tank) led to the capture of the cities of Morval, Lesboeufs, Gueudecourt, and Combes.
9. The Battle of Thiepval (September 26 - September 28) - This battle led to the capture of the city of Thiepval and a German strong point located of Mouquet Farm.
10. The Battle of Le Transloy (October 1 - October 18) - The objective was to capture the city of Eaucourt L' Abbaye. This mission was unsuccessful.
11. The Battle of Ancre Heights (October 1 - November 11) - This battle led to the capture of the Schwaben Redoubt (a german strong point) and the temporary capture of the Regina Trench.
12. The Battle of Ancre (November 13 - November 18) - The objective was to secure the area between Beaumont-Hamel and Serre. This mission was unsuccessful.

The blank map after I added all of my notes and illustrations

Adding New Material

Now all I had to do was add the new information I had acquired onto my pre-existing front lines map of the Battle of the Somme. The first thing I did was I added the new craters and wrote descriptions for each of them. I wasn't a huge fan of the symbol I had originally chosen for the craters (The red triangle with an explanation point in the center), so I chose a new symbol that is orange and somewhat resembles an explosion. 

Picture of the newly added mines with their new symbol

While I was adding the new mine craters I was placing them in the positions that history has shown they were in I figured out that my original front lines were not exactly in the correct position. This put a lot of the mine explosions well behind the front line from the beginning of the battle on July 1st. So I made the executive decision to re-draw all of the front lines from the Battle of the Somme. Something that was different this time was instead of using the free-hand drawing tool I used the regular line tool where you keep clicking and it automatically connects the dots. This was much easier for me because the free-hand lines were very touchy and I would keep messing up. Along with the correctly placed mine explosions and the fact that I've drawn these lines about 5 times for each date, I added other features that were significant to the battles within the battle to help me re-draw the front lines. To my front lines map I added the land marks; the Schwaben Redoubt, Mouquet Farm, High Wood, Bazentin Wood, Mametz Wood, Delville Wood, Trones Wood, and Leuze Wood. 

Map of the land marks I added that were significant to the battles

While these land marks helped me draw the front lines for each date, you can also see how they really helped to shape the front lines. The lines tend to go around certain points, which shows you at that date who controlled what land marks. 

After I finished adding all of the mines, land marks, and re-drawing the front lines it was time to begin adding the battles to the map. This is something I had to think about for a while because I wasn't exactly sure how to represent the battles of the map with the tools that were available to me. I decided to draw circles around landmarks and cities that were important in the battle and then adding a flag near the circled items to give a description of the occurrences from the battle. As an example I will show you the battles of Albert and Bazentin. 

The Battle of Albert

The Battle of Albert is represented by circles around Mametz Wood, the city of Contalmaison, and Trones Wood. I just used the circle line tool to draw the circles. These are the land marks that were captured by the British in the Battle of Albert. There is then a green flag you can click on which represents that the objectives of this battle were achieved. This information explains the occurrences during this battle. 

The other type of explanation for a battle I has used thus far would be how I represented the Battle of Bazentin.

The Battle of Bazentin

The Battle of Bazentin is represented by an arrow starting at the city of Bazentin and pointing to the city of Longueval. This shows the assault towards Longueval that happened during these days. As you can see there is no need for the informational flag in this battle because there is only the one feature. All of the information can be found by clicking on the arrow. 

Something I found out while I was working on the Battle of Bazentin was when you draw a line you can double click on it and the program adds extra points to the line that you can move to your liking. This is how I made the arrow curve. This would have been nice to know when I decided to re-draw the front lines. I possibly could have just moved the lines, but by then I had already completed that task. 

So far I have only added up to the Battle of Morval on my map, and already I have come to a realization. To present this map I will need to turn on and off each battle as I show it, because all together the map looks very clustered and doesn't make sense.

Clustered front lines / battles map

Unfinished map: Front Lines of the Battle of the Somme

Georeferencing

There are several maps I have that I'm going to georeference. Georeferencing - Aligning geographic data to a known coordinate system so it can be viewed, queried, and analyzed with other geographic data. Georeferencing may involve shifting, rotating, scaling, skewing, and in some cases warping, rubber sheeting, or orthorectifying the data (As stated by Esri Support).

First what you need to do is add a basemap and locate the area that you are going to be focusing on. After you have found your area of relevance you will click the Add Data button and click on the map that you are wishing to georeference. When ArcMap attempts to upload the map a pop-up will occur on your screen. This pop-up is just explaining that the map your are attempting to upload cannot be projected because it does not have any spatial reference. Which pretty much means the map doesn't have coordiantes so ArcMap is unsure as to where the map you uploaded should be placed on the basemap. You will just click ok and the map will be placed in a random spot on the map. The next step is to pull up the georeferencing toolbar. This is found by clicking on the Customize tab, clicking on toolbars, and selecting to bring up the Georeferencing toolbar.

 

The Georeferencing toolbar will look like this

 

 

Next you will click the Viewer tool on the toolbar and this will bring up your selected map. After that is brought up you will choose the Add Control Points tool on the toolbar. To begin the georeferencing process you will click on a specific point on the map that you uploaded, and then click on the same point on the basemap. You will continue to do this and the ArcMap program will shift the map to fit on the basemap.

 

 



A map of the front lines of the Battle of the Somme that is georeferenced

 

Question: What do I do with a photo once it has been goereferenced?

 

I am attempting to find photos that I could georeference of the front lines for the individual battles of the Somme. I had maps but they didn't have enough geographical points, which is necessary to accuratly georeference a map.

 

 

While looking for trench maps of the Battle of the Somme I found this legend that explains what all of the figures on the map mean. Most trench maps don't have a legend that go along with them.