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-"Yet not a man wavered, broke the ranks, or attempted to come back".
-"They hung there in grotesque postures. Some looked as though they were praying; they had died on their knees and the wire had prevented their fall".
-"If the opposing forces are approximately equal in numbers, in courage, in moral and in equipment, there is no way of avoiding payment of the price or of eliminating this phase of the struggle".

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Updated July 02, 2016 00:33:28

Britain and France have recalled the horrors of the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after their troops fought and died together in one of the defining offensives of World War I.

Britain's royal family, Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande took part in a commemoration at the Thiepval Memorial in northern France to remember the one million who were left dead, injured or missing in the 141-day battle.

Guards of honour, bagpipes and military bands accompanied the moving ceremony in the shadow of the imposing memorial inscribed with the names of 72,000 servicemen who went missing in the surrounding fields.

During the ceremony narrators, using old letters, poems and songs, took some 10,000 guests - who scrambled to pull on plastic ponchos as the clouds burst - through one of the deadliest battles of all time.

"There was high explosives, shrapnel, everything you can imagine. Terrific, hurtling death," read a letter from Private Sean Fendley of the British Army of the first time soldiers went "over the top" to face their German enemy.

The offensive was launched to ease pressure on French forces taking a hammering at Verdun, and was preceded by the largest artillery bombardment in history, with some 1.5 million shells lobbed at the Germans.

However, this was not enough to break German defences, and of some 55,000 soldiers who scrambled out of their trenches, 20,000 would be dead by the end of the first day of fighting - the bloodiest in British military history.

'Failures of European governments': Prince William

The Battle of the Somme was a tragedy not only for British, French and German troops, but also Commonwealth nations whose soldiers fought for Britain.

Guests from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan, Canada and Ireland also attended the event - Germany was represented by former president Horst Koehler.

The commemorations began with the blast of whistles on a former battlefield and in Parliament Square in London at 7:30am sharp (local time) to mark the start of the offensive.

The previous night Queen Elizabeth attended a night-long vigil in Westminster Abbey, while her grandson Prince William was in France along with his wife Kate and brother Harry at the vigil at Thiepval.

"We lost the flower of a generation, and in the years to come it sometimes seemed that with them a sense of vital optimism had disappeared forever from British life," said Prince William.

"We acknowledge the failures of European governments, including our own, to prevent the catastrophe of world war."

By the time the battle ended on November 18, the frontlines had only moved a few miles, and the attritional battle became a defining event in the war, symbolising the horrors of trench warfare and the futility of the conflict.

It was also the first battle in which tanks were used.

Prince Charles narrated an account of the devastated battlefield from the writer John Masefield.

"There is nothing white, nor alive, nor clean, in all its extent; it is a place of ruin and death, blown and blasted out of any likeness to any work of man, and so smashed that there is no shelter on it," he said.

"All wars end; even this war will someday end, and the ruins will be rebuilt and the field full of death will grow food, and all this frontier of trouble will be forgotten."

A century on, the eerily calm, bucolic Somme farmlands belie the slaughter wrought there, and are now the haunt of tourists who come to visit some 400 war cemeteries across the region, and the overgrown warrens of trenches.
AFP
Topics: world-war-1, history, royal-and-imperial-matters, france, united-kingdom

First posted July 01, 2016 09:56:57

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Britain, France mark 100 years since Battle of the Somme

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Updated July 02, 2016 00:33:28 Britain and France have recalled the horrors of the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after their troops fought and died together in one of the defining offensives of World War I.

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The attack of France eventually overwhelmed the German defenses and the German army was weakened and retreated to new, and shorter, defensive lines.

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a long stalemate settled in, with the German army digging defenses faster than Allied attacks could take place. The German could make strong defenses while the Allied had strong attack.

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In the battle of Attrition the German started to lose artillery power while the French had enough power to attack the rushes and capture the German trenches.

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The British army attacked north of the Somme with fourteen infantry divisions, while the French attacked astride and south of the Somme with five divisions.

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Stage 1:The battle of Somme started with week long artillery bombardment on the German line. On the first day resulted in 57,470 British casualties. 

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Stage 1:The battle of Somme started with week long artillery bombardment on the German line. On the first day resulted in 57,470 British casualties. 

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The British army went on to a defensive tactic by attacking divisions of the North and South of the Somme. The equal deaths smashing into each other led the France to attack in rushes and capture the German ground. This weakened the Germans and made them retreat ending the battle.

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he aims of the battle were to relieve the French Army fighting at Verdun and to weaken the German Army.

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It was fought near the Somme River in France.

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July 1st 1916 to November 1916

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It was one of the largest battles of the first world war. It was known to be very bloody battles of so much casualities between all the nations.

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General Rees commander of 94th Infantry Brigade at the Somme.  His army was described to be going in one by one and being killed one after another, but the army was very determined to die for their nation and weren't obligated to retreat.

Douglas Haig was a top British military leader during World War l. He was known for his strategy of attrition, which his offensives resulted in large numbers of deaths ,but able to wear down the German army. He was seen as stupid for his cause of so many deaths for his reckless strategy.