July 1, 2016 marks the centenary of the Battle of the Somme
A UK-wide two-minute
silence at 07:28 BST marked the start of the World War One battle on 1 July
1916. More than a million
men were killed or wounded on all sides at the Somme. The Battle of the
Somme, one of WW1's bloodiest, was fought in northern France and lasted five
months, with the British suffering almost 60,000 casualties on the first day
alone. The British and French
armies fought the Germans in a brutal battle of attrition on a 15-mile front.
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Memorial ceremony, close to the battlefields of the Somme, Prince Charles gave
a reading from The Old Front Line by John Masefield who visited the Somme in
1917 and recounted a landscape devastated by war. This was followed by
the hymn Abide With Me.
The Archbishop of
Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby, said in a prayer: "On this day
we remember all those caught up by the Battle on the Somme; those who faced the
terrible waste and devastation, those who fought against all the odds, who
endured the clinging mud and squalor of the trenches." Prime Minister David
Cameron read the words of Corporal Jim Crow, 110th Brigade, Royal Field
Artillery, which highlighted a moment of humanity and mutual respect amid the
hell that that part of France had become.
The actor Charles
Dance read "Aftermath", a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, which asks
"Have you forgotten yet?" At a vigil in France
on Thursday evening, the Duke of Cambridge paid tribute to the fallen soldiers,
saying "we lost the flower of a generation". Everything is
different here now, compared to this day 100 years ago. That morning thousands
of British, Commonwealth, French and German soldiers woke to bright sunshine
and birdsong, and looked out on fields mangled by trenches and bombardment as
they contemplated what was ahead.
Today rain poured down
on 10,000 people sitting on chairs set out in parallel lines, surrounded by
perfectly manicured lawns, as they remembered the nearly 20,000 Britons who
died here on this day a century ago, and contemplated what had passed. They looked up at the
Theipval Memorial to the missing. Those who gave readings stood between its
imposing walls and the names of 72,000 men who fought here, but were never
found.
Royalty, heads of
state and actors recalled what happened here through the words of those that
lived it. So too did serving personnel - some, young men, just like many of the
57,000 who were killed or injured during what remains the worst day in British
military history.
At an early-morning
ceremony at the Lochnagar crater, which was created by an explosion at the
start of the battle in La Boiselle, a rocket was fired to simulate the
artillery fire.
This was followed by
whistles to symbolise those that were blown a century ago as men scrambled from
the trenches.
The Battle of the
Somme
- Began on 1 July 1916 and was fought along
a 15-mile front near the River Somme in northern France
- 19,240 British soldiers died on the first
day - the bloodiest day in the history of the British army
- The British captured just three square
miles of territory on the first day
- At the end of hostilities, five months
later, the British had advanced just seven miles and failed to break the
German defence
- In total, there were more than a million
dead and wounded on all sides, including 420,000 British, about 200,000
from France and an estimated 465,000 from Germany
Find out more:
- How the Battle of the
Somme unfolded
- Why was the first day such a
disaster?
- Timeline: World War One
1914-18
- Has history misjudged the
generals of WW1?
- How did so many soldiers
survive the trenches?
- WW1 centenary - full
coverage
The Battle of the
Somme was intended to achieve a decisive victory for the British and French
against Germany's forces. The British army was
forced to play a larger than intended role after the German attack on the
French at Verdun in February 1916. World War One finally
ended in November 1918.
Also see
