Battle of the Somme: Marking a century since one of the First World War's bloodiest conflicts

At 7.30am as the great guns fell silent, the men of the British Fourth Army went over the top to begin ‘the big push’ and launch an offensive at the German trenches.

The German positions had been heavily bombarded for five days and the British infantrymen had been led to believe that it would be a walk-over.

The men, in ‘fighting order’ and each carrying some 30 kilos of equipment, emerged from their trenches and lined up to file through their own barbed-wire before fanning out to form lines abreast.

Just moments after they moved towards the enemy positions at walking pace, the German machine-gunners began to rake ‘no man’s land’ with a hail of deadly fire.

Wave after wave of men followed, each presenting incredibly easy targets that were immediately scythed down.

Some fell back as they left their trenches, some took a few faltering steps before they were hit and some, those with charmed lives, strode through the withering fire until they fell.

Few reached half-way and even fewer managed to reach and enter the German trenches.

On that terrible first day of the Battle of the Somme anything up to 50,000 troops were cut down, more than 2,000 every 60 minutes.

But the awful casualty figures would continue to escalate – in just five months on the Somme three-quarters of a million were killed or just disappeared.

Those that did survive the first bloody encounter weren’t given long to live. About three months was the average life expectancy on the Somme, and in that time life was hell on earth.

The total casualties were fifteen times greater than those suffered by the British Army on D-Day and a staggering fifty times the daily losses at El Alamein.

It was the blackest day in the history of the British Army.

Despite the horrific carnage unfolding, the communiqués from the Front being carried on the pages of the Southern Daily Echo at the time offered a much more encouraging outlook of events.

Reports in the Echo on July 1, 1916 carried the following telegraphic report from the British headquarters in France, which read: “Attack launched north of the River Somme at 7.30 in conjunction with the French.

“The British troops have broken into the German forward system of defences on a front of sixteen miles.

“Fight is continuing.

“The French attack on our immediate right is proceeding equally satisfactorily.

“On the remainder of the British front raiding parties again succeeded in penetrating the enemy’s defences at many points, inflicting loss on the enemy and taking some prisoners.”

In the days that followed, the news filtering across the Channel from the Somme remained biased in the Allies favour.

On Monday, July 3, 1916, a “thoroughly exhilarating” communiqué recorded by French forces revealed the brilliant successes we making against the Germans.

According to the statements of captured German prisoners, most of whom were very young, 31 of their battalions had been disorganised by the severe handling they had undergone, and by the fact that the French artillery had not only annihilated the defences and cut off food and supplies, but prevented any control resuming amongst the German troops.

No fewer than 13 captive German balloons were destroyed by French airmen during the artillery action, with a further two succumbing the following day in an attack where the French were described as “absolute masters of the air”.

These French exploits also included the capture of over three miles of the enemy’s second line just south of the Somme, near the village of Herbecourt and part of Assevillers.

Good progress was also reportedly made between these points, with many further prisoners and guns taken.

The Daily Echo also reported that in the north of the Somme the enemy made no attempt to counter-attack during the night and, according to the French reports, our Allies were also consolidating the captured areas.

“Slow, but sure” was the succinct phrase used in the French semi-official review of the action that seemed to concisely sum up the great Anglo-French offensive move.

That first “big push” was the prelude to a bloody battle that would rage on for a further five months until mid-November when winter set in.

By the end of that awful time no fewer than 415,000 men of the British Army – many of them volunteers of “Kitchener’s Army” – would be dead, and twice as many maimed or wounded.

Today, much of the battleground that surrounded the narrow twenty mile long front has been reclaimed by nature, although many of the scars of that horrific battle can still be seen.

At La Boiselle, the Lochnagar Crater – the largest mine crater on the Western Front – remains as a memorial to the men who fought in the Battles of the Somme.

Purchased by Englishman Richard Dunning in the 1970s as a lasting memory to all those who fell at the Somme, the crater measures an enormous 300 feet across and 90 feet deep .

It took anything between six months to a year for the 100 tons of explosives to be placed by British Army Tunnelling Companies under the German position, which commanded the hillside until the British detonated the mine in 1916.

The mine crater, blown by the British under the German front trenches at the start of “the big push” on July 1st, 1916, became a week later, a mass grave for the men who fell nearby on that disastrous first day of battle.