If I ran after them my men might think I was running away. I pulled out my revolver and very nearly shot at them, but I thought it wouldn't do any good, as they all had their backs to me so would have thought that anyone hit was hit by a German bullet. I shouted out to them to halt, but they took no notice. “Some men of the line regiment who had appeared on our right started running back. The British were mowed down from machine gun fire and more than 20,000 soldiers lost their lives. The slow, massive advance was no match for the new weapons of the war. “ No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.” (Owen) The soldiers staggered across a crater-filled field known as ‘No Man’s Land’ in long orderly lines. On the morning of July 1st, 1916, 100,000 British troops came out of their trenches and advanced toward the German lines. The British and French planned to attack on a 24km front between Serre north of the Somme River. To relieve the French, the Allied forces decided to attack the Germans to the north of Verdun therefore requiring the Germans to move some of their men away from Verdun and into the Somme battlefield. The French lost 200,000 men and the Germans nearly 500,000.įor a number of months the French had been taking severe losses at Verdun (to the east of Paris). By the end of the battle, the British Army had suffered 420,000 causalities including 60,000 on the first day alone. The British commanders have received a lot of criticism for the way the battle was fought. For many people, the Battle of Somme was the battle that symbolised the horrors of trench warfare in World War One. The Battle of Somme started in July 1st 1916.
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