Battle of the Somme centenary commemorated
July 1, 2016 2:56 AM   Subscribe

BBC: Commemorations are taking place to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme in World War One. Guns were fired in central London ahead of a two-minute silence at the time the battle commenced at 07:30 on 1 July 1916. Ever wondered what life would have been like for you 100 years ago?, Why was the first day of the Somme such a disaster? posted by marienbad (33 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
I, on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this; -
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

From Before Action by Lt. Noel Hodgson

(The poem Prince Harry read today as mentioned in the BBC piece)
posted by chavenet at 3:21 AM on July 1, 2016 [7 favorites]


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posted by thelonius at 3:34 AM on July 1, 2016


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

1.332 million .s
posted by scruss at 3:48 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenched there,
And streched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! and angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so,
but slew his son, -
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

An excerpt from the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten using the poems of Wilfred Owen.
posted by meinvt at 5:17 AM on July 1, 2016 [14 favorites]


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As always when thinking of the Somme, my thoughts go to that aweful, awe inspiring finale to Blackadder goes Forth, which for three quarters of the episode had the usual antics as the tension slowly was ratcheted up, to end with Blackadder and co going over the top, to cut away from the obvious studio set to a field full of poppies somewhere in Flanders.
posted by MartinWisse at 5:23 AM on July 1, 2016 [22 favorites]


Commuters woke up to a living reminder of the dead this morning - young men in WWI uniforms at Sheffield Station this morning. more from ITV and the Mirror.
posted by anastasiav at 5:44 AM on July 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


@MartinWisse

Yes I remember watching when it was first transmitted, absolutely staggering, a real tearjerker even now.

SLYT
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:47 AM on July 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


The Great War channel is doing a great job of week by week coverage of what happened 100 years ago. There are tons of additional specials, bios, technology, arts.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:48 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

From Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
posted by cwest at 5:54 AM on July 1, 2016 [10 favorites]


My first reaction was remembering the SommeWorld theme park, but now I'm thinking of all the white feathers, and how many men were there because of them.
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posted by MtDewd at 5:58 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Here are my notes and links from the post I also put up today:

On July 1st 1916 began the deadliest day in British history. One hundred years ago today, British imperial soldiers left their trenches to attack German lines supposedly suppressed by an extraordinary artillery barrage. By the day's end 20,000 of them would be dead, the first casualties of nearly half a million by the terrible battle's end. All told almost a million casualties occurred on all sides, the Somme became Britain's iconic WWI event, and the struggle has been controversial ever since.

In 2016 commemorations have begun.
In France one person preserves and maintains a single crater from the battle to this day. Elsewhere is the massive Thiepval monument.



Visuals

A BBC gallery. 27 images from the Telegraph. Photos colorized and annotated. More photos.

Photos, maps, paintings from from Wikimedia Commons.

Pierre's photo impressions.

Postcards.

From the Canadian War Museum.

Items in the Europeana collection. More than 1000 hits (!) in the First World War British Poetry Archive.

Flickr photos. Pins from Pinterest.

Timeline of the full almost five months long battle.

Animated map.

Very detailed map.





Texts

Ten quotations.

Reporter Philip Gibbs describes the battle.

Alfred Ball, one soldier's account.

Alfred Dambitsch on destructive technology.

Commanding general Douglas Haig's summary of the battle at year's end.

German Crown Prince Rupprecht reflects on the British attack during the battle.

The German official statement.

John Buchan's 1916 account (between bouts of writing spy fiction about WWI).

The first appearance of the tank in war.

A 1918 Michelin book, "In memory of the Michelin workmen and employees who died gloriously for their country", followed by their 1919 battlefield guide.

John Masefield's 1919 history.

Alan Seeger's death; "I Have A Rendezvous With Death".

On the French role and the German experience.



Audio

"Somme Battle Stories", AJ Dawson, published in 1916, read aloud.

Tanks on the Somme.



Film

From a 1916 British film .

From a 1927 British film .

Interviews with veterans, combined with contemporary footage .

More footage .

Archaeological digs into British and German trenches .

"The devil is coming" , the BBC's 1964 documentary. A 1976 documentary , narrated by Leo McKern. A more recent BBC work .

Here Comes Kitchener's Army .

2006 BBC/Open University documentary .

Examining contemporary footage .



Previously: the battle in 2006; one extraordinary graphic novel; the Verdun context; air combat over the Somme, a webcomic; images of the Somme.
posted by doctornemo at 6:35 AM on July 1, 2016 [39 favorites]


Hardcore History, by Dan Carlin, did a series on the Great War called Blueprint for Armageddon and it is incredible. I think the Somme is covered primarily in Episode IV.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:42 AM on July 1, 2016 [7 favorites]


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posted by longdaysjourney at 6:47 AM on July 1, 2016


In Newfoundland, though it is also Canada day, we are mourning the losses at Beaumont Hamel.
posted by peppermind at 8:03 AM on July 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


#wearehere
posted by Etrigan at 8:17 AM on July 1, 2016 [4 favorites]


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posted by MattWPBS at 8:26 AM on July 1, 2016


They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
posted by MattWPBS at 8:27 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


In Newfoundland, though it is also Canada day, we are mourning the losses at Beaumont Hamel.

The Somme is like a fractal tragedy; I can't comprehend a million casualties in six months, I can't comprehend nearly 20,000 dead in a day, I can't comprehend the Royal Newfoundland Regiment starting the day with 780 men and only having 68 available for roll call the next day. There's no scale at which it makes sense.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:29 AM on July 1, 2016 [12 favorites]


The Somme is like a fractal tragedy...

As I said in the other thread, I listened to those Hardcore History podcast episodes, and I had to stop them playing more than once because the story is so intense. It made me sad, then angry then, sad again, sad again... (And that's listening to them over the year or more it took him to release them, too!)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:42 AM on July 1, 2016 [4 favorites]


How appropriate to commemorate this immediately after Britain, in the name of nationalism, elects to divide itself from a peaceful union with Europe.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:52 AM on July 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


A recently digitized unit history for Ulster Division on July 1, 1916:

"Now comes the news of battle”: July 1, 1916 – the Somme

With photographs, maps, poetry.
posted by mfoight at 9:12 AM on July 1, 2016


Wow. Well done to whoever thought up the #WeAreHere idea, with the men in uniforms handing out names of the dead. I've got chills from it, and I'm all the way over here in Chicago.
posted by dnash at 9:41 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


If we left a dot for each casualty, on both sides, how long would this page be?
posted by Rumple at 9:51 AM on July 1, 2016


It's also the 100th anniversary of the Lochnagar Mine explosion. It was one of the largest single conventional explosions of it's time and the crater is still visible to this day. If you end up in the area, there's a memorial today.

Sadly, they have to remind visitors not to bring confetti [PDF] to the memorial. The mind boggles.
posted by flyingfox at 10:18 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have a picture of my grandfather in uniform a little while before he went into battle at the Somme. I'm not proud of him and he's not a hero. He was a conscript and survived by pure dumb luck. Why honour those whose luck ran out? Or anybody who was there at all? I'm going to raise a glass to all the folks who hid in closets, stowed away on merchantmen bound for China, or ran away to the wilds of South America. That's the kind of fellow who deserves honour in the whole bloody mess.
posted by Emma May Smith at 10:27 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Why honour those whose luck ran out? Or anybody who was there at all?


I don't know- spare a thought for the young men who were needlessly sacrificed for the hubris of aristocrats and wealthy industrialists?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:47 AM on July 1, 2016 [19 favorites]


We honor both heroes and victims, so I think honoring the victims of the Somme makes perfect sense.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:48 AM on July 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


#wearehere is astonishing: to do such a thing on that scale, so quietly, taps into the immensity of the 1916 battlefields, and the local ties of the pals' brigades. I'm in bits.

The BBC just revealed that artist Jeremy Deller and the National Theatre's Rufus Norris were behind it: they'll be talking about it on Front Row in... about 15 minutes.
posted by holgate at 11:01 AM on July 1, 2016 [4 favorites]




Background to the WeAreHere memorial. Thanks National Theatre. I don't think I've seen a war remembrance in recent years that so evocatively captured the absolute loss and anguish ... I'm crying and I'm in Canada looking at it on Twitter.
posted by chapps at 11:32 AM on July 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


Correction... not a project if national theatre, commissioned project directed by National Theatre director.
posted by chapps at 11:33 AM on July 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


>>>Poor communications meant commanders knew little of what was happening on the battlefield. The 1st Newfoundland Regiment (not pictured) was almost wiped out as troops advanced towards no man's land and were shot dead before reaching their own front line.
>>>Many returned servicemen wouldn't talk about what happened in the war because it was so traumatic.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 2:36 AM on July 2, 2016


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posted by PippinJack at 4:30 PM on July 2, 2016


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