Tunnels had been dug under the German trenches and filled with explosives. At 7:28am these were detonated just before the British attack, therefore giving the Germans 2 minutes warning.
At 7.30 am, the men went over the top in to the trenches. Each man carried a gas mask, groundsheet, field dressings, trench spade, 150 rounds of ammunition and sometimes extra sandbags and barbed wire. This all added up too roughly 80 pounds.
They all thought that the Germans had been destroyed by the bombardment , so all the men were ordered by the Generals to walk in straight lines across no mans land.
They were slaughtered. They went down in their hundreds. The Germans didn’t have to aim they just had to fire and they were sure to get someone. All the troops were all ordered just to carry pistols. Some detonated mines so that they could cover themselves
Some British units captured enemy positions, but in the afternoon the Germans recaptures most of their land back they had lost earlier.
British casualties on the first day were 20,000 dead and more than 35,000 wounded , probably more than any war on any one day. The British soldiers at the Somme were volunteers, who had joined up in response to Kitchener’s ‘Your country needs you’ poster.
In the First World War, men from the same town joined together in the same regiment and died together. Friends and brothers died side by side, and towns lost all their young men in the same battle.
Despite the first day, Haig in his HQ in the château at Valvion, 50 miles behind the lines was still confident. He continued to attack for 4 more months. He made a major attack using the same plan with the same results, in September.
By August, Lloyd George the prime minister had lost confidence in Haig. At home a propaganda film made to encourage support for the war, backfired back at them. There was much grief and horror as they saw what they were going through. The film was quickly taken off screen.
At the front, also, morale began to fall. The British troops had reached the limit of their ongoing endurance and had had enough.
On the 18 November, as winter came near the battle grinded to a halt . Only 6 miles of ground had been taken. The final calculated casualties were:
British 415,000, French 195,000, Germans perhaps 600,000.
Lloyd George called the battle of the Somme: ‘The most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fight ever waged in the history or war’.
