Péronne, a sub-prefecture of the "Département" of the Somme, was one
of the centres of the sugar and hosiery industries in France, with a
pre-war population of about 5,000 inhabitants.
Built at the junction of the Rivers Somme and Cologne, which form a
picturesque girdle of marshes and ponds before the walls of the town,
Péronne was formerly a fortified city. Its brick ramparts and moats
were being dismantled when the late war broke out.