Imagine 1916. Europe was in the grips of the most destructive conflict yet known – the Great War or the World War I. Much of the brutal battle took place on the Western Front where British, French and German armies were locked in a bloody stalemate along 450 miles of trenches.
Neither side could break the deadlock. The combination of barbed wire, machine guns and heavy artillery meant troops trying to cross No Man’s Land, the open ground between the trenches, were decimated en masse. But the Allies were determined to free the areas of Belgium and France occupied by Germany.
The British and French had agreed to launch a joint offensive in the summer of 1916. But before that in February the Germans launched a massive attack on the French fortress city of Verdun. Its defence required all the available French reserves. So the summer offensive was led by the British. Its main objective was to take the pressure off the French at Verdun.
The attack was to take place along a 25-mile front near the River Somme in July. General Douglas Haig was the British commander on the Western Front for most of World War I.
The Somme had so far been a quiet sector allowing the Germans to build up strong defensive positions. In front of their trenches there was barbed wire. Below were 10-metre-deep dug-outs to shelter German troops from artillery fire.
The zero hour was 7.30am. To overcome the German’s formidable defences the British carried out a week-long artillery bombardment with 1,400 guns. This was expected to destroy German barbed wires, flatten trenches and decimate their soldiers. The British were confident of victory. But on the eve of the assault there were reports that the British bombardment had only been partially successful. 1.6 million shells were fired. But due to inexperienced gun crews, a shortage of heavy guns and faulty shells, much of the German barbed wire remained intact. German defenders too remained unharmed in their dug-outs. And from captured prisoners and listening in to uncoded phone calls the Germans knew exactly when and where the British were coming.
On July 1, 1916, at 7.20am the British detonated a huge mine under German strong point – the Hawthorn Redoubt – and the British troops rushed forward to occupy the crater. At 7.28am further mines were detonated under German bastion.
In the 7 days leading up to the big push 1.5 million shells were fired from the Commonwealth and French trenches. Germans waited for the shelling to stop. At 7.30am when British officers blew their whistles, the Allied troops went over the top. Lying in wait the German troops raised themselves up from their dug-outs to set up their machine guns. And the rest is history.
In fact, some of the British soldiers assumed that German defences were destroyed in the shelling and so they just walked over the No Man’s Land expecting no resistance. However, much to their dismay, the opposite happened. The Allied troops became easy targets of the German machine gunners. The British infantry advanced bravely but were shot down one after the other.
July 1, 1916, was the worst day in British military history.
By the end of the first day 57,000 Commonwealth soldiers had been killed, injured or missing.
This was the biggest single loss of lives in the history of the British Army.
The fighting continued over the next five months and by the end of the battle about 420,000 British soldiers had perished. The battle would see both sides lose 1.2 million soldiers.
Today cemetries dot the country lanes of this part of France. 100 years on they are maintained immaculately. The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world. On its wall are names of 72,000 soldiers. Each one died on the battle of Somme but their body was never found. So they don’t have a grave of their own.
The fallen remembered
The thousands of soldiers who perished on the first day of the Battle of the Somme have been honoured at commemorations in the UK and France.
The Prince of Wales and Prime Minister David Cameron joined French president Francois Hollande in remembering those who sacrificed their lives for their country during a ceremony at the Thiepval Memorial on the former battlefield in the Picardy region of France.
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cornwall also paid their tributes to the fallen.
Some 10,000 people were invited and watched the ceremony which included Army personnel and music from military bands.
The Duchess of Cornwall visited the grave of her great uncle, Captain Harry Cubitt, who was the eldest of three sons killed and the only one whose body was found.
She was quoted on Sky News as saying: “It is such a long time ago and it made me suddenly realise what it must have been like for my great grandparents, to have three sons within 18 months of one another being killed.”
The service was also attended by the Queen. Prayers were also offered for the First World War dead.
Cameron said the 100-year commemoration allows people to “reflect on the sacrifice not just of the thousands of British and Commonwealth troops who gave their lives, but of the men on all sides who did not return home”.
Handing out cards
As part of Battle of the Somme commemorations,
commuters in London were stopped in their tracks by volunteers dressed as World War I soldiers, singing “We are here because we are here”.
The 1,400 participants walked through train stations, shopping centres and high streets. Each represented a soldier killed at the Somme on July 1, 1916. They handed out cards across Britain with the name and regiment of their soldier and, where known, his age. Passerby said they were moved to tears by the experience.
Indian Soldiers' Sacrifice
The World War I battle was seen as a military tragedy for Britain and Commonwealth countries.
Britain declared war against Germany on 4th August, 1914.
The British Expeditionary Force did a great job in holding superior German forces but after 2 months of hard fighting they had suffered very heavy casulties and had reached the end of their capacity to hold on further. It was at this critical juncture that the Indian divisions were thrown in to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force. Indian soldiers were deployed widely and fought in the battles of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, the Somme and Passchendaele and in even greater number in Mesopotamia.
It is universally accepted that the arrival of Indian divisions helped in stabilising the line and prevented the Germans from overrunning France and reaching the channel ports.
The Indian forces were however not equipped to fight a modern war. They were trained and equipped to fight on North West Frontier against tribal forces.
They were therefore ill-equipped to meet the conditions they faced in Europe. They entered the war in mid-september at the onset of a severe European winter. Clad in their summer uniforms and equipped with obsolete weapons, yet they fought with distinction, dedication and courage, and helped to break-up the repeated German assaults.
By the end of 1918, over 11 lakh Indian soldiers had served overseas, more than 74,000 died, and over 1,37,000 were wounded.
Where is the Somme?
The Somme is a river in northern France and the fighting was along a 40km line north and south of the river, between Serre and Curlu.
The Battle of the Somme
July 1 – November 18, 1916
Casualties during Battle of the Somme
German Soldiers: 500,000
British Soldiers: 419,654
French Soldiers: 204,253
British Soldiers on the first day of Battle of the Somme: 57,470 of which 19,240 died.
Total Casualties: 1,123,907
Speaking to Asian Voice, Dr Kusoom Vadgama, a historian and an authority on the history of the Indian peoples in the British Empire, who has been fighting to give Indian soldiers their due (in terms of recognition and acknowledgement by the British) for their immense contribution to the two world wars, said: “I am going to wait for another week or so to see how much they say, because every time they talk about British soldiers’ contribution. I am just waiting how much they mention it in the media. Only once or twice I heard British authorities say Commonwealth soldiers without giving any specific figure. I am angry about it but I thought I will wait for some more time. But this Somme thing is very very upsetting. They haven’t given any breakdown of how many people (Indians or from the Commonwealth) died. You can’t keep on saying that so many British died. The Indians were soldiers of the Raj. In a way we were under the British rule. lBut they haven’t mentioned anything specific about Indian soldiers’ contribution. It’s very disappointing.”
7/7 bombings anniversary
On July 7, 2005, London was rocked by the worst single terrorist attack on British soil.
A decade has passed after the incident. This week the Queen and Prime Minister David Cameron will lead services to remember those caught in the crossfire.
A total of 52 people were killed in the attacks and more than 770 people were injured.
On the fateful day, four men with rucksacks full of explosives attacked central London. The target was London’s transport system, at the end of the morning rush hour. Four bombs went off there – three on the London underground and one on a bus.
The Tube station bombs went off at about 8.50am on trains near Liverpool Street and Edgware Road stations, and on another Tube train travelling between King’s Cross and Russell Square.
A fourth bomb went off on a bus in Tavistock Square, London, about an hour later.
