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Part one - Wednesday 23 January, 10pm
Part two - Wednesday 30 January, 10pm
This powerful and touching docu-drama recounts in detail the story of the bloodiest day in British military history. Told through the letters, diaries and journals written at the time, the film draws on the thoughts and feelings of the men who lived - and died - there to capture the eyewitness experience of the battle of the Somme.
At 7.30am on 1 July 1916, British soldiers mounted an attack on German army positions in northern France: the biggest battle mounted by Britain since Waterloo. "The Big Push" was meant to break the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front, offer relief to the French at Verdun, and get the war moving again. However, the attack plan, a compromise reached by British commander-in-chief Douglas Haig and his army commander Henry Rawlinson, was fatally flawed.
As 60,000 British soldiers went "over the top" they were met by a devastating barrage of German machine guns and artillery that should by then have been destroyed by the preliminary British barrage. By the end of the day over 19,240 men were dead, with another 35,493 wounded. A byword for the futility of war, the Somme marked the end of chivalrous notions of combat, and loudly heralded the mechanised slaughter of modern warfare.
When to watch
Find out when The Somme is on TV
Related links
Interview with historian Andy Robertshaw
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