The Battle of the Somme was to be fought over terrain that reminded many soldiers of southern England: rolling downs, fields and woods. For men who had moved from the Ypres Salient, the change of scenery from the "dreary, drab and depressing surroundings of Flanders to the open plains of the Somme" lifted their spirits.
Just behind the British front line was Albert, a small town dominated by a large basilica. Early in the war, a shell had hit the basilica and dislodged a large gilded statue of the Virgin holding the infant Christ. The statue leaned out at a precarious angle over the street, giving rise to the idea that Mary was offering Jesus as a propitiation for man's sins; a more prosaic legend was that the war would only end once the statue had fallen.
Gary Sheffield, The Somme.