'From this point the tourist should go on foot': experiencing the Somme, 1919-1939 by Mark Connelly.

Unlike Ypres, which although devastated was close to the channel ports and had its transport links rapidly re-established, visiting the Somme was a far more challenging prospect in the years immediately following the war. Nearly fifty miles across from Amiens to St Quentin and close to thirty miles long from Ayette to the Somme river crossings, this vast devastated space was restored only slowly. Visiting the Somme district was therefore both a difficult and sobering experience fully bringing home the destruction caused by the war and the immense challenge of reconstruction.