0:00:23 > 0:00:28The First World War was so terrible that it haunts us, even 80 years on.
0:00:28 > 0:00:34Of all its battles, something is especially dreadful about the Somme.
0:00:34 > 0:00:39Its first day was the bloodiest in British history.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44The battle was fought from a bright July to a bitter November.
0:00:44 > 0:00:49On average, 3 lives were lost for every 12 inches of ground gained.
0:00:49 > 0:00:56It's easy to understand why, when you walk over the uplands above the River Somme.
0:00:56 > 0:01:02These open, rolling slopes were swept by machine guns and shellfire.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07The lethal evidence of war still lies in the fields of the Somme.
0:01:13 > 0:01:18A bomb disposal team is on standby to collect what the ploughs turn up.
0:01:18 > 0:01:23Last year it was 90 tons, and this year will be much the same.
0:01:23 > 0:01:28One and three quarter million shells were fired by the British
0:01:28 > 0:01:31in the first week of the campaign.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35A third of them didn't explode and lie here still.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39IN FRENCH:
0:02:33 > 0:02:40It's all right for the professionals to handle these shells, but the public should leave them well alone.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43Like the best French wines,
0:02:43 > 0:02:46fused explosive doesn't travel well.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50The best place to start a tour of the Somme is Albert.
0:02:50 > 0:02:5680 years ago, it was just 4 miles behind the British front line,
0:02:56 > 0:03:02and was transformed from a sleepy market town into a transit camp for the army.
0:03:02 > 0:03:09The Germans shelled the town's basilica because it was an artillery spotting post.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12Virgin Mary fell from her pedestal.
0:03:12 > 0:03:1680 years later, she's back on top.
0:03:16 > 0:03:23The town's fortunes have risen with her. Albert has finally profited from the war - as a tourist centre.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30This is a very big church for a very small town.
0:03:30 > 0:03:37Albert had been a pilgrimage centre in the Middle Ages, but somehow it never quite caught on.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42In 1916, though, there were British pilgrims here aplenty.
0:03:42 > 0:03:49Some were marching along this road, going up to the front line only a couple of miles away.
0:03:49 > 0:03:54Others came out of the line hunting for omelettes, chips and vin blanc.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57I think I'll follow their example!
0:03:57 > 0:04:00# Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war!
0:04:00 > 0:04:02# What do we want with eggs and ham?
0:04:02 > 0:04:06# When we've got plum and apple jam... #
0:04:06 > 0:04:11One of the pleasures of a town like Albert is ogling the patisserie.
0:04:11 > 0:04:17Sticky delights were an impossible dream to soldiers going up to the line in 1916.
0:04:17 > 0:04:24They lived on things like bully beef, McConachie's meat stew, hardtack biscuits,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26and ever-present plum and apple jam.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43This Roman road slashes across the battlefield.
0:04:43 > 0:04:49It runs ten miles from Albert, held by the British, to Bapaume, in German hands.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53The British hoped to clear this relatively easily
0:04:53 > 0:04:57and push on to Bapaume to use their cavalry.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02It turned out to be the longest ten miles in British military history.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05By early 1916,
0:05:05 > 0:05:11the war had fossilised into a line from Switzerland to the North Sea.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14Britain and France planned to advance,
0:05:14 > 0:05:20but the French were attacked at Verdun, so Britain led the offensive.
0:05:20 > 0:05:27This preserved trench gives a good feel for what trenches were like in 1916.
0:05:27 > 0:05:35They were dug zigzag, with bays and traverses, to prevent a shell burst from going all the way along.
0:05:35 > 0:05:42They'd have been deeper then, and men would have walked on duckboards in the bottom to try and keep dry.
0:05:42 > 0:05:48To see the enemy, they'd step up onto a fire step...and look over.
0:05:49 > 0:05:55The British planned to smash their way out of the trench war.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59They gathered 1,500 guns of every calibre.
0:05:59 > 0:06:08The week-long bombardment before the attack was the most awesome in the history of war up to that time.
0:06:08 > 0:06:15The Western Front was laced with barbed wire. There were great belts of it in front of the trenches,
0:06:15 > 0:06:23strung between these pickets, which are still some of the most durable features of the landscape.
0:06:23 > 0:06:28The British bombardment had been designed to cut the German wire.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30But too much of it remained intact.
0:06:32 > 0:06:39News that the wire wasn't being cut quickly reached the British command. But the reports were largely ignored.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44The attack timetable overruled reality, and bombardment continued.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49Professor Westmann was a German medical officer in the front line.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54- GERMAN ACCENT: - Seven days and seven nights.
0:06:54 > 0:06:59Soldiers in the bunkers became hysterical.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01They wanted to run out
0:07:01 > 0:07:09and fights developed to keep them in the comparative safety of our deep bunkers.
0:07:09 > 0:07:14We had nothing to eat and nothing to drink,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18but constantly shell after shell burst upon us.
0:07:18 > 0:07:23The sound and fury of the guns drove many to the edge of despair.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26But it didn't kill them.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31Most British shells were absolutely no use against deep German dugouts.
0:07:31 > 0:07:37They were immaculately prepared, supported with timber, and some even had wood panelling.
0:07:37 > 0:07:45This one has collapsed, 80 years after it was first dug, after years of having tractors driven over it.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52The British didn't rely on guns alone.
0:07:52 > 0:07:58The Somme was a scene of underground war. As a prelude to the assault,
0:07:58 > 0:08:05the British dug tunnels to lay 19 mines beneath key German strong points.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09Today, their craters still scar the landscape.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16This is the largest of them - Lochnagar Crater.
0:08:16 > 0:08:22It took 66,000lbs of explosive to make this hole.
0:08:22 > 0:08:28Most of the mines were blown at 7.28, 2 minutes before the main attack began,
0:08:28 > 0:08:33in what was then the largest ever man-made sound.
0:08:33 > 0:08:40They killed hundreds of Germans, but they didn't solve the infantry's real problems.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44The mines only dealt with a small part of the German defences.
0:08:44 > 0:08:49They also signalled that the attack, long expected, was about to begin.
0:08:49 > 0:08:55When the British advanced, the guns fired onto German reserve positions,
0:08:55 > 0:08:59allowing front-line troops to leave their bunkers.
0:09:00 > 0:09:05Machine gunners crawled out of the bunkers,
0:09:05 > 0:09:09dirty, full of blood from the blood of their fallen comrades,
0:09:09 > 0:09:13and opened up terrific fire.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18This piece of precision machinery
0:09:18 > 0:09:24meant death for thousands of British soldiers that bright summer's morning.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28It's the German 1908 machine gun. Although it's heavy -
0:09:28 > 0:09:35it takes two men to comfortably lift it - the Germans had plenty of time to get it up from their bunkers
0:09:35 > 0:09:40and set it up in the wreckage of trenches or in shell holes.
0:09:40 > 0:09:43It has a range of over 2,000 yards,
0:09:43 > 0:09:48and in country like this the machine gun is king.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58'Amateur historian Bill Turner knows the Somme better than most.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03'He has a passionate interest in the Accrington Pals,'
0:10:03 > 0:10:08a battalion of volunteers raised in Lancashire in 1914.
0:10:08 > 0:10:15The Accringtons were recruited by the town's Lord Mayor in response to Lord Kitchener's call for men.
0:10:15 > 0:10:23There were dozens of similar battalions waiting in the Somme trenches on 1st July, 1916.
0:10:23 > 0:10:30They believed their country needed them. They also believed in the preparations made by high command.
0:10:36 > 0:10:44Bill, there's not much left of it, but this was the front-line trench form which the Accringtons attacked.
0:10:44 > 0:10:46Yes, it was indeed.
0:10:46 > 0:10:54The Charlie company were at this end of the trench, and it was the starting point for the whole attack.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59- What sort of men were they? - Oh, they represented the community.
0:10:59 > 0:11:05They were miners, engineers, textile workers, office workers, shop assistants,
0:11:05 > 0:11:10young boys who should have been at home with their mothers.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15There were family men who had several children.
0:11:15 > 0:11:21- What did they expect from the battle of the Somme?- I think they thought
0:11:21 > 0:11:23it would be the turning point.
0:11:23 > 0:11:30All they'd enlisted and trained for would culminate in the battle, ending the war.
0:11:30 > 0:11:35The Accringtons were on the northern flank of the main British attack.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38All along the 18-mile front,
0:11:38 > 0:11:43the first wave of 60,000 men was waiting for the signal to go.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47The morning of July 1st was clear and bright.
0:11:47 > 0:11:54The sun glinted off tin triangles the troops wore on their backs so planes could track their progress.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59They were already tired by the time they got this far.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02Thank you.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05Yes, they would be exhausted.
0:12:05 > 0:12:11They'd travelled seven miles overnight. They were heavily laden.
0:12:11 > 0:12:16- What sort of things were they carrying?- They had full pack on.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20Some would have a shovel, some a pick.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25The intention was not so much to attack.
0:12:25 > 0:12:30They would be going across, really, to consolidate the German trenches,
0:12:30 > 0:12:32hopefully destroyed by shellfire.
0:12:32 > 0:12:41We did think that when the time came, there would be nothing alive when we went over there.
0:12:41 > 0:12:47We'd never been over. We didn't know what to expect. We looked forward to it!
0:12:47 > 0:12:54We expected that when we did go over the top, we would find it just a cakewalk.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01As soon as men left the trenches, they came under fire.
0:13:01 > 0:13:08They were trying to get through the gaps in the wire and the German fire concentrated on those gaps.
0:13:08 > 0:13:14The four lines never really got off to a start from here on.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17The attack had really failed.
0:13:19 > 0:13:25The German machine gunners had our line taped to an inch,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28and our fellas, they just went down
0:13:28 > 0:13:31like sickled grain.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35We got halfway across and then the two machine guns found us.
0:13:35 > 0:13:40The air was full of bullets. One went between my fingers.
0:13:40 > 0:13:47The bullet's there before you know. Then you see the bleeding and feel the pain in your leg.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Not a living soldier was to be seen.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54There was dead and dying all over the place.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57This is as far as many of them got -
0:13:57 > 0:13:59just 100 yards from the front line.
0:13:59 > 0:14:03Almost 600 of the 720-strong battalion
0:14:03 > 0:14:08were killed or wounded in just 20 minutes.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14Today, the cemeteries run along the British front line,
0:14:14 > 0:14:19where so many soldiers were killed before they'd even seen their enemy.
0:14:19 > 0:14:2420 minutes' brisk walk from where the Accringtons went over the top,
0:14:24 > 0:14:29the Lancashire Fusiliers were waiting their turn.
0:14:29 > 0:14:35Overnight, they'd crept into a sunken lane in no-man's-land, 100 yards from the Germans.
0:14:35 > 0:14:41An army cameraman filmed them in the lane before they left its shelter.
0:14:41 > 0:14:48They were shelled just after first light. But at 7.30, whistles blew and they went over the top.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57There were German machine guns in the wood edge, more on the far slope.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02At this range, the gunners could scarcely miss.
0:15:02 > 0:15:08The attackers were stopped dead as soon as they crossed the lip of the sunken road.
0:15:08 > 0:15:15A few wounded survivors crashed back into it. Corporal George Ashurst tells us what it was like.
0:15:15 > 0:15:22"Picking myself up and looking round, my God, what a sight. The whole road was strewn with dead and dying men.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27"Some were talking deliriously, others calling for help and water."
0:15:27 > 0:15:32The Fusiliers' commanding officer, Colonel Martin Magniac, was here.
0:15:32 > 0:15:37He sent a message to headquarters, telling them what had happened.
0:15:37 > 0:15:45"I tried two advances. Both failed. We are mown down by machine-gun fire and only get a few yards beyond road.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49"If you wish, I will of course attack."
0:15:49 > 0:15:56Brigade HQ cancelled the next attack, but, tragically, Magniac had already ordered his reserve forward.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01Only one officer and three men got even this far.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13Along two-thirds of the British front line, the story was the same.
0:16:13 > 0:16:20Confused reports came back, and fresh troops were thrown in to reinforce failure.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25Only in the south did some divisions reach their objectives,
0:16:25 > 0:16:30and speedy German counter-attacks made some gains difficult to hold.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37Some attackers were killed outright.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42Others were hit and took refuge in shell holes like this.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44They carried field dressings.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49These were really pads of gauze with cords to tie them on -
0:16:49 > 0:16:53pathetically inadequate for many wounds.
0:16:53 > 0:17:00Some wounded managed to crawl back to British lines after dark. Others were dragged to safety by mates.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03But many simply bled to death here.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07Often, they were in shell holes like this for days.
0:17:13 > 0:17:21'The luckier ones made their way to field dressing stations, sometimes in ruined houses near the front.
0:17:21 > 0:17:26'One was in the cellar of a house in Auchonvillers.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30'It's now owned by a British woman, Avril Williams.'
0:17:30 > 0:17:33- Hello, how are you?- Hello. Come in.
0:17:33 > 0:17:38I've come to see your wonderful cellar, if I may.
0:17:41 > 0:17:46- Avril, this was a dressing station in 1916.- Mm-hm.- How do you know?
0:17:46 > 0:17:51Because of the graffiti that was left. It shows stretcher-bearers.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56There's one here - J Gay, 1st 4th Ox/Bucks.
0:17:56 > 0:18:03- There's a carved stretcher-bearer in the stone, so it had to be a stretcher-bearers' post.- Let's look.
0:18:03 > 0:18:09Down here we have a signalman, JE Hargreaves, 1918, Oswaldtwistle.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13And there's his flags. It's the only 1918 one we have.
0:18:13 > 0:18:18- Have you found anything else down here?- Yes. Lots of bits and pieces.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23We found bullets of all countries.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27Buttons. We found coins - English.
0:18:27 > 0:18:33This was on the floor, obviously to stop them sinking in the mud.
0:18:33 > 0:18:38We found two cap badges. That's the Canterburies'.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41- They retook Auchonvillers in 1918. - Yes.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45And then we found these - morphine.
0:18:45 > 0:18:52- We found seven. - It's a morphine ampoule?- Mm-hm. - How was that administered?
0:18:52 > 0:18:57Apparently, it was too big a dose for one person,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01so as the stretcher-bearers brought the injured up...
0:19:01 > 0:19:08If they had no chance, and they were in terrible pain, they went along the line pushing a little in.
0:19:08 > 0:19:15- Pushing it in?- They'd take off the top and put it into a needle. They were huge needles.
0:19:15 > 0:19:22They'd go along, injecting as they went, to ease the pain and get them on their way.
0:19:22 > 0:19:29By nightfall on the 1st of July, the British army had suffered 57,000 casualties,
0:19:29 > 0:19:34about half the men who'd taken part in the attack.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36Many were from the Pals' battalions.
0:19:36 > 0:19:44Men from the same streets and factories who'd joined up together had died together. In return,
0:19:44 > 0:19:49they'd taken a few miles of German front line - more a devil's bargain
0:19:49 > 0:19:53than the breakthrough Britain had hoped for.
0:19:56 > 0:20:00But the Battle of the Somme was just beginning.
0:20:00 > 0:20:07It took two days for the full scale of the disaster to filter through to British commanders.
0:20:07 > 0:20:13It was longer still before the British public realised what had happened.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18But there were sections of the line where gains could be exploited.
0:20:18 > 0:20:26Kitchener's volunteer army had been terribly bloodied, but it had learnt lessons. Over the coming months,
0:20:26 > 0:20:34thousands more British soldiers were poured into the struggle, until more than a million had been committed.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38In war, it's often the simplest things that work best.
0:20:38 > 0:20:43Many British commanders had learnt from the 1st of July
0:20:43 > 0:20:50and argued that a night attack would make those German machine guns much less effective.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52On the night of 13th-14th July,
0:20:52 > 0:20:58British troops assembled in a valley at the foot of the German-held ridge.
0:20:58 > 0:21:03They were guided into position by thousands of yards of white tape,
0:21:03 > 0:21:07laboriously surveyed in by map and compass.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12The infantry waited in no-man's-land
0:21:12 > 0:21:17while a lightning bombardment hit German positions, then they attacked.
0:21:17 > 0:21:22In the darkness, the German machine gunners were blind
0:21:22 > 0:21:29and the British were able to get through the wire with few casualties. The attack was a success.
0:21:30 > 0:21:35Throughout July, the British crept on inch by bloody inch.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38But they were stalled here
0:21:38 > 0:21:41for much of the summer.
0:21:50 > 0:21:57These Somme woods are still gashed by trench systems and speckled by shell holes.
0:21:57 > 0:22:04In summer 1916, they were full of undergrowth. British shelling had felled trees, to worsen the tangle.
0:22:04 > 0:22:09They were ideal nests for their German defenders.
0:22:09 > 0:22:16Each of the Somme woods had its own mythology. Mametz Wood had bitter memories for the 38th Welsh Division.
0:22:16 > 0:22:21Delville Wood was known with reason as Devil's Wood.
0:22:21 > 0:22:28And then there was High Wood, ghastly by day, ghostly by night - the rottenest place on the Somme.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35If the woods proved a nightmare,
0:22:35 > 0:22:40the heavily fortified villages and hamlets were no better.
0:22:40 > 0:22:49Some of the heaviest fighting on the Somme took place along the Roman road from Albert to Bapaume.
0:22:49 > 0:22:54The villages today show few signs of the intensity of the fighting.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59But every cellar was a strong point, every open courtyard a deathtrap.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03There's evidence enough stacked in one front garden -
0:23:03 > 0:23:11thousands of shrapnel shells fired by the British in an attempt to dislodge resolute German defenders.
0:23:13 > 0:23:18Pozieres, on the Roman road in the very centre of the battlefield,
0:23:18 > 0:23:23was reduced to stinking rubble by bombardments in July and August.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26All this was built up after the war.
0:23:26 > 0:23:31It's typical of the ghastly slogging match that the Somme had now become
0:23:31 > 0:23:38that it took the Australians, newly arrived on this front, 23,000 men to take this village.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42Many Australians were deeply disillusioned.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47One wrote that he'd had enough of British staff, methods and bungling.
0:23:47 > 0:23:53The growing infantry casualties on the Somme were becoming intolerable.
0:23:53 > 0:24:01The British desperately needed something that could blunt the devastating power of the machine gun.
0:24:01 > 0:24:08They pinned hopes on a lumbering hunk of metal almost as dangerous to its drivers as to the enemy.
0:24:14 > 0:24:21Early on the morning of the 15th of September, tanks went into action here for the first time ever.
0:24:21 > 0:24:26The first was used to clear a German trench on the edge of Delville Wood.
0:24:26 > 0:24:31Four in High Wood fared badly amongst tree stumps.
0:24:31 > 0:24:36Many more swayed and clattered over this bare, open crest behind me,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39making for the village of Flers.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44A British pilot looked down on the scene and said,
0:24:44 > 0:24:51"A tank is walking up the main street of Flers with the British army cheering behind it."
0:24:58 > 0:25:05But the cheers faded as the tanks proved themselves to be too slow and mechanically unreliable
0:25:05 > 0:25:08to make the war-winning breakthrough.
0:25:08 > 0:25:13Heavy autumn rains turned the chalky soil of the Somme into a quagmire.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18The dream of a breakthrough became as distant as the memory of summer.
0:25:18 > 0:25:26The battle squelched to a halt in November, with the British still short of Bapaume.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30They were dug in on these bare ridges, with the wind keening across.
0:25:30 > 0:25:35All around, a landscape of wrecked tanks and corpses.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40Life in these trenches was close to unbearable.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45It was two miles to carry stretcher cases to the nearest light railway.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50The army was losing 1,000 men a week with frostbite and trench foot.
0:25:55 > 0:26:01The Thiepval memorial dominates the skyline of the Somme.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07On it are inscribed more than 70,000 names.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12These are the men who have no known graves.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16These great pillars are a monument
0:26:16 > 0:26:24to the old world of brass bands and cricket fields, pithead cottages and broad acres.
0:26:24 > 0:26:31Among the writers, artists and musicians commemorated here is George Butterworth,
0:26:31 > 0:26:36whose music and songs have become an epitaph to the lost age.
0:26:50 > 0:26:58Those whose bodies WERE recovered lie in 188 British and Commonwealth cemeteries throughout the region.
0:27:00 > 0:27:07It's impossible to visit the Somme without being struck by the sheer scale of the human sacrifice.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12Some of these soldiers died in July, expecting a quick breakthrough.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16Others died in a muddy slog that went on till November.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21Even now, historians still argue about what it all achieved.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26The Allies had suffered over 600,000 casualties, the Germans perhaps more.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31But the British army had lost something else - its innocence.
0:27:35 > 0:27:41It had lost its belief that the power of patriotism and the human spirit
0:27:41 > 0:27:46could triumph over the machine gun and the shell.