John Buchan 
Battle of Somme 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The district is known as the Santerre. Some derive the name from sana term – the healthy land others from sarta term – the cleared land. Some say it is sancta term, for Peter the Hermit was a Picard, and the piety of the Crusaders enriched the place with a thousand relics and a hundred noble churches. But there are those – and they have much to say for themselves – who read the name sang terre – the bloody land; for the Picard was the Gascon of the north, and the countryside is an old cock it of war. It was the seat of the government of lovis and Charlemagne. It was ravaged by the Normans.