Which battle did J.R.R. Tolkien fight in during World War I?

J.R.R. Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme during World War I. He served as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers and was sent to France in 1916.

The Somme offensive began on 1 July 1916 and became one of the war’s bloodiest campaigns. Tolkien served in the trenches and developed trench fever, an illness that led to his return to England in October 1916. Most of the officers in his battalion were killed, an experience that deeply affected him.

It is common to claim that Tolkien’s entire mythology is a direct retelling of the Somme, but Tolkien resisted simple one-to-one interpretations. His wartime experiences nevertheless informed themes of friendship, loss, endurance, industrial destruction, and ordinary people facing overwhelming danger.