Sanguinary even by the shocking standards of the Somme, the battle for the half-mile square Delville Wood lasted for the seven weeks from 15th July. The four regiments of the South African Brigade entered the wood at the beginning, on the 15th July, and a terrible struggle ensued, from which the brigade emerged 5 days later having lost 2,400 of the 3,152 men with which they had entered. In the ensuing weeks the wood passed repeatedly back and forth between the opposing sides. The Germans were finally expelled from their remaining toehold on 3rd September, by which time the wood had been reduced to a moonscape of shell holes, ragged trenches and shattered tree stumps. Now regrown within its original boundaries, the wood is the property of the South African nation, and here they commemorate their dead of both wars. Cut through by wide rides named after streets in Edinburgh and London, it is a beautiful and peaceful place, the only hint as to the carnage of 99 years ago the time-softened zig-zag of trenches through the graceful hornbeam, oak and sweet chestnut trees.