In which World War I battle was J.R.R. Tolkien’s battalion involved in 1916?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s battalion was involved in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Tolkien served as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers during the First World War. He arrived in France in June 1916 and took part in the Somme campaign, one of the war’s largest and most devastating battles. He served as a signals officer and experienced the conditions of trench warfare.

Tolkien became ill with trench fever and was sent back to England in October 1916. Most of the members of his battalion who had been his close school friends were killed, an experience that deeply affected him.

It is tempting to map individual Middle-earth events directly onto the First World War, but Tolkien resisted simple one-to-one allegorical readings. His wartime experience nevertheless contributed to recurring themes of loss, endurance, fellowship, landscapes scarred by conflict, and ordinary people facing overwhelming danger.