The Bloodiest Day in the British Army's History

1st July 1916 was the day Britain and her Allies started a big attack across a twenty five mile part of the front line. The attack happened to the north of the River Somme in rural France. Little villages are littered around the region together with the town of Albert. It was to be the battle that for various folks, characterized the horrors of the trench warfare of The First World War.

The Battle of the Somme lasted roughly four months with very little reward for Allied forces. The casualties endured by either side were terrible; the British Army endured 420,000 killed and wounded, the French Army 200,000 and the Germans practically half a million.

The Germans were dug in deep and strategically held the high ground thus it was clear a major effort would be essential to make inroads into German defences. The plan was to lay down an artillery barrage for 7 days before the attack. Furthermore, many mines were laid beneath the German lines. It was felt that the mines and artillery would bring about such destruction, Britain and her Allies would just simply need to move over no mans land and occupy the trenches. Sadly, this was far from the situation.

For seven days prior to the attack, a fearsome barrage was put down by the Alllies firing nearly 2 million shells. Having said that, the German trenches were dug deep into the earth delivering them with relative safety from the barrage. The mines did inflict deaths as planned but in most cases, the Germans had sufficient time to make ready their defences once the artillery stopped and Britain and her Allies went over the top.

All along the line, the story was similar. Courageous soldiers went over the top and were killed prior to getting anywhere near their objectives. At Beaumont Hamel, only 68 of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment, finished the day uninjured out of around 800 men. At La Boisselle, the Tyneside Irish was essentially wiped out as it sought to move forward more than 1 mile over open ground in full view of German machine guns.

Nevertheless, there were some achievements. The French had made advances in the north and south of the lines. The 36th Ulster advanced on and took the Schwaben Redoubt and so becoming one of the few to accomplish their main objective. Unfortunately, running low on ammo, German counter attacks compelled the Ulstermen to pull back later that day.

The 1st day of the Somme had cost Britain about 54,000 casualties, 21,000 of those being killed. Now, the site of the Schwaben Redoubt is marked by the Ulster Tower and close by at Thiepval, the Memorial to the Missing commemorates the names of about 70,000 men who fought at the Battle of the Somme.