At 7.30am – designated ‘Zero Hour’ – on 1 July 1916, over 200,000 men of the British Army emerged from their trenches in the Somme Valley, northeastern France. They were met by a relentless barrage of machinegun, rifle and artillery fire from the German positions. This assault, which had been part of an Anglo-French plan to break through the German lines, quickly unravelled, deteriorating into a waking nightmare. Before the day was out, over 57,000 casualties – including 19,240 deaths – made that day, the first of the battle of the Somme, the bloodiest in British military history.
PLANNING THE BIG PUSH
During the winter of 1915–16, Allied commanders had agreed to a French-led strategy for a joint attack astride the River Somme where the Anglo-French armies met, aimed at repulsing the Germans from
