Campaign and battle maps for the British Army, 1914-1918

Sources of trench and campaign maps

There are three excellent digitised collections of trench maps.

Trenchmapper
(Produced by the Western Front Association. Free for anyone to use, but subscribing WFA members can get higher resolution images)

National Library of Scotland collection

McMaster University collection

There are several places that you can buy digitised collections of trench maps.

The Western Front Association
(Simple collections of large jpg format images. No navigation or other tools)
Naval & Military Press
(Beware that some products are not Vista or Windows 7 compatible)
Great War Digital
(Very sophisticated and GPS enabled collection, under Linesman brand)

Sadly, the excellent collection of French maps formerly at Croonaert Research Services appears to have disappeared, following the death of its originator.

Campaign maps

Discovered in books and odd places, these maps show the battle lines and movements of forces during the war. Maps from various histories of the war:

France and Flanders

1914

The Von Schlieffen Plan – Germany’s planned attack on France, 1914

Scene of the Chief Operations near Mons and Charleroi – August 1914

1st Phase of Retreat from Mons, British Positions 23rd – 28th August 1914

2nd Phase of Retreat from Mons, British Positions 28th Aug. – 6th Sept. 1914

The British Positions before Ypres, October 29th, 30th and 31st 1914

Battle lines of Germany’s attack on France, 1914

Lines of the Allied Armies in Northern France at the end of Oct. and beginning Nov. 1914.

1915

British and French positions before Bethune 25 January 1915.

Battleground of Neuve Chapelle 10-14 March 1915.

The Ypres Salient before and after the Second Battle of Ypres, April – May 1915.

Operations of the First Army May – June 1915.

The first day of the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915.

Allied line round Loos and Hulluch 8 October 1915.

1916

Scene of the fighting at St. Eloi and the British Salient round Ypres in the spring of 1916.

British line in Artois in the spring of 1916 after the relief of the French army south of Loos.

The Allied Line from the Sea to Rheims, in June 1916.

Map of the Somme from Philip Gibbs “The Battles of the Somme” published 1917.

Allied Battlefield on the Somme : showing gains from July 1st to September 18th 1916.

The join of the British and French lines on the Somme at the end of July 1916

The Battle of the Somme : position of the British line at the end of July,1916.

The Battle of the Somme : positions on Thiepval Ridge, September 14 – October 31, 1916.

The Battle of the Somme: Allied lines before September 15 and the beginning of October 1916.

1917

The Battles of the Ancre : British advances from October, 1916 to February 28, 1917.

Butte de Warlencourt : position of British line at the end of November 1916.

German retirement to the Hindenburg Line March 1917.

The Battle of Arras: lines from April 9th to May 17th, 1917.

The Battle of Messines : lines before and after the battle, June 1917.

The Northern Flank of the Allied Line, July 1917.

Ypres Salient before the Battle of July 31, 1917.

Battle area East of Ypres, showing line before attack on August 16, 1917.

The Battle of Ypres, successive stages of Allied advance, July 30 – November 26 1917.

The Battle of Cambrai, November – December, 1917.

1918

The German advance & British retreat, March 21st – April 5th 1918.

Allied Lines in Flanders before and after the German Offensive in Flanders, April, 1918.

Allied lines in Flanders – during the German offensives April 9th – April 30th, 1918.

British Second Army front south-east of Ypres in Mid-June 1918.

Line of British Fourth Army before Amiens on July 4th 1918.

Allied line north-west of Rheims May 27th 1918, and position west of Rheims June 6th, 1918.

Limit of the German advances on Paris, July 1918.

Positions of the British and French Armies, August 1918.

The Battle of Amiens, August 8th 1918.

The Battles of Amiens, Bapaume, and the Scarpe : Allied line between August 8 and September 8, 1918.

Roye captured by the French, August 1918

Positions of the British and French Armies in Mid-September 1918.

British Attack on the Hindenburg Line between Cambrai and St. Quentin, September, 1918.

British advance on Western Front (published 5 September 1918)

British advance on Western Front (published 6 September 1918)

The Belgian Coast, 1918 :Allied Line between September 28 to October 25, 1918.

The British Line east of Lens and Armentieres, October 3, 1918.

The Allied Line on October 18, 1918.

Allied line on August 8, 1918 and on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.

“Foch’s campaign” 18 July to 11 November 1918 (from Pollard’s Short History of the Great War)

The Theatre of War on the Western Front showing the main battle lines September 1914 to November 1918

Other theatres

Western Frontier Force (Senussi operations)

Mesopotamia (Tigris /Sannaiyat area) (4.5Mb download)

Mesopotamia (Tigris /Sannaiyat area Mar-April 1916)

Mesopotamia (Tigris /Sannaiyat area March 1916) (1.7Mb download)

Salonika theatre overview (Note: 2Mb download)

Sketch and trench maps

The maps in this section are to demonstrate what these maps can offer to you as a researcher. They are ones I have found tucked away in the unit war diaries. As such, they represent a tiny sample of the enormous number and variety of maps contained within the diaries. Unless stated they are all Crown Copyright. The source WO95 numbers given are National Archives piece references. Click on the thumbnail for the full size image.

How to interpret a trench map

Sources of trench maps

There are three excellent digitised collections of trench maps.

Trenchmapper
(Produced by the Western Front Association. Free for anyone to use, but subscribing WFA members can get higher resolution images)

National Library of Scotland collection

McMaster University collection

There are several places that you can buy digitised collections of trench maps.

Modern maps

I find www.viamichelin.co.uk indispensible for modern-day online road maps of France and Flanders. Google Earth is excellent for modern day satellite images as is Geoportail for France

France and Flanders
Source	Area	Date	Click thumbnail for full image
2865	La Quinque Rue (Festubert) 1/6th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.	Jun 1915
2730	Eaucourt L’Abbaye (Somme) 1/7th London Regiment.	Oct 1916
2882	Attack at Beaumont-Hamel 1/7th Gordon Highlanders.	Nov 1916
Source	Area	Date	Click thumbnail for full image
2686	Raid on Nash Alley near Lens. 1/5th South Staffordshire.	Jun 1917
2686	Positions W and NW of Lens. 1/5th South Staffordshire.	Jun 1917
2686	Lievin. 1/5th South Staffordshire.	Jul 1917
3065	Frezenberg (Ypres). 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment Beware: 3.3Mb download	Aug 1917
2800	Wallemolen – Bellevue (nr Poelcapelle and Passchendaele, Ypres). 1/5th Duke of Wellington’s	Aug 1917
2730	Oppy and Gavrelle (Arras sector) 1/7th London Regiment Beware: 2.2Mb download	Sep 1917
2806	Wallemolen (nr Poelcapelle, Ypres). 1/4th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Inf.	Oct 1917
2954	Moeuvres 1/4th London Regiment	Nov 17
2954	Moeuvres – Inchy en Artois 1/4th London Regiment	Nov 17
Source	Area	Date	Click thumbnail for full image
1437	Wancourt 2nd Suffolk Regiment	Mar 18
1437	Hinges 2nd Suffolk Regiment	Apr 18

Other Theatres
Source	Area	Date	Click thumbnail for full image
5195	Butaniyeh – Nasiriyeh (Mesopotamia) 2nd Royal West Kent	Feb 1916
4668	West of Jerusalem (Palestine) 2/14th London Regiment (London Scottish)	Nov 1917
4659	Gaza 1/8th Hampshire Regiment	Nov 17
4659	Gaza 1/8th Hampshire Regiment	Nov 17
4659	Gaza 1/8th Hampshire Regiment	Nov 17