“At the start of 1916, the French called on the Brits to play a bigger role on the ground, which they agree to do at the Somme,” explains Peter Burness, a former senior historian at the Memorial. Britain’s “new army’’ – a volunteer force similar to the AIF – was required to step up. The massive German attack launched on the French fortress of Verdun on 21 February 1916 significantly reduced the French contribution to the Somme campaign, which was also being launched, in part, to divert the Germans’ attention from Verdun. The assault was originally planned as a joint French–British offensive which was part of a wider strategy of attacking Germany simultaneously on the Western and Eastern Fronts, with the aim of destroying Germany’s reserves of manpower. The offensive was eventually abandoned on 18 November with staggering troop losses and little ground gained. Today marks the 105th anniversary of the start of the Somme offensive, a series of fierce and ultimately futile battles that consumed the British, Australian and Dominion forces for much of 1916. ![]() Within 24 hours, the British army would suffer almost 60,000 casualties, a third of whom were killed, and record the most costly day in its history. ![]() In the early morning of 1 July 1916, more than 100,000 British infantrymen were ordered from their trenches in the fields and woods north of the Somme River in France, to attack the opposing German line.
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