Articles
At 7:30 am on 1 July 1916 the British barrage lifted from the enemy front trenches. Along a 14-mile stretch, the BritIsh infantry moved forward. By the end of the day 20,000 British forces were killed and a further 40,000 injured in what remains the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. After nearly five months of brutal trench warfare, total casualties on both sides topped one million, with only six miles of ground taken. By all accounts, the battle was disastrous. Prime Minister Lloyd George considered it 'the most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fight ever waged in the history of war'
It was widely anticipated that the artillery would destroy the German defences to such an extent that the initial assault would be a 'walk-over'…
At 7:30 am on 1 July 1916 the British barrage lifted from the enemy front trenches. Along a 14-mile stretch, the Britsh infantry moved forward. By the end of the day 19,240 officers and men had been killed and 35,493 wounded. The frighful total of 57,470 caualties made 1 July 1916 the bloodiest day ever in British military history…
In the summer of 1916, the incessant round of British attacks and German counter-attacks that characterised the Somme in 1916 seemed to offer the front line troops nothing but unending sacrifice…
The weeks between mid-July and mid-September brought a change in tactical conditions on the Somme, from siege-type operations to semi-open warfare…
The British and Dominion forces on the Somme suffered a terrifying total of 419,654 casualties. The French, though still short of Péronne, had gained over twice as much ground as the BEF for 204,253 losses – about half the cost. Estimates of German casualties vary hugely – between 237,000 and 680,000…
The story of Private Arthur ‘Archie' Surfleet, who had not enlisted until January 1916 and had only joined ‘B' Company of his unit at the front on 8 June…
Britain began the war with a small but relatively well-equipped medical service. However, as the size of field armies increased, so did the numbers involved in battles, which saw numbers of wounded arriving at the aid stations far beyond those contemplated in 1914…
Few aspects of the history of the First World War are so hedged about with myth and misconception as the use of machine guns. This article concentrates on developments in the tactical deployment of the Vickers gun on the Western Front…
'We got into no man's land, and I followed the first line into the smoke. Everything seemed unreal - the noise was so great that it just became a constant sound, and I could see men dropping, like puppets with no strings'…
In all there were some 60 tanks in France at the start of 1916. The battle plan reflected an understandable lack of experience or even comprehension of what these new weapons were supposed to do…
‘Patrolling was done by an officer who was rarely accompanied by more than four to six men, often by only one. Knowledge of the enemy's wire, reliefs, troops and so on, was sought. The capture of an enemy patrol, a dead man's identification marks, overhearing talk and recognising dialect, aided intelligence'…
To be successful the German defenders had to be able to survive any preliminary shelling and still be able to man their trenches before the attackers could cross no-man's land and enter the trench system…
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