 The line settled around the town of Thiepval and remained there until July 1916, when the Battle of the Somme was fought on and around the same ground.That Battle of the Somme was one of the most costly battles of World War I, by the number of troop casualties, as Allied forces attempted to break through the German lines along a front north and south of the River Somme.The Allies had originally intended the Somme to be the site of one of several simultaneous major offensives by Allied powers against the Central Powers in 1916.