Battle of the Somme: Royals at Somme centenary commemoration

bbc ^ | 1 july 2016

[DUMBGRUNT]

More than a million men were killed or wounded on all sides at the Somme. The Battle of the Somme, one of WW1's bloodiest, was fought in northern France and lasted five months, with the British suffering almost 60,000 casualties on the first day alone... This was followed by the hymn Abide With Me... "It was in many ways the saddest day in the long story of our nation."

[DUMBGRUNT]

At the end of hostilities, five months later, the British had advanced just seven miles and failed to break the German defence

[DuncanWaring]

Related:

How J.R.R. Tolkien Found Mordor on the Western Front.

[SkyDancer]

I remember reading where if all the Great War dead from Britain marched six abreast past the Trafalgar Square monument 24/7 it would take a week/month (don’t remember which) for all to pass.

[SunkenCiv]

a second topic about Tolkien and the Somme:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3445440/posts

[OttawaFreeper]

What one of my history professors referred to in class one day as “The Great F$ck Up”.

[GreenLanternCorps]

That war touched everyone. One of the Queen’s maternal uncles was killed at Loos and another was a POW.

[Leroy S. Mort]

My grandfather was in a Lewis Gun crew with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. He was mustard gassed at Pachendale the year after the Somme but went on the live to the ripe old age of 85.

[SkyDancer]

The Brits lost somewhere around 950,000 give or take and it affected one in three families.

[LonePalm]

Although he was an American, my grandfather volunteered as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He spent three years on the Somme as an officer and surgeon.

We have a commendation for his hospital signed by King George V.

This is the one part of his many travels and exploits he didn't like to talk about.

"Ceterum censeo Hillary esse delendam."

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Vermont Lt]

The Brits lost more men in the first day than we did in Korea or Vietnam.

Can you even begin to imagine the shock to our country if we lost 1/10th of that in a battle?

Industrial killing is a bad business.

[minnesota_bound]

Ordering men over the top into machine gun fire is lunacy but the those that gave the order were safe.

[DUMBGRUNT]

As you go back in history, the combatants were closer together; the casualties were higher.

The most deadly weapon of all time? The tomahawk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Currie

General Sir Arthur Currie

Canadian historians, including Pierre Berton and Jack Granatstein, have described Currie as Canada’s greatest military commander. Although physically a large man, standing over six feet tall, Currie did not cut a heroic military figure. Nor was he a charismatic speaker. Described as aloof by his troops, who called him “Guts and Gaiters,” he nevertheless inspired them. He was a brilliant tactician who used his skills to reduce casualties and is credited with accelerating the end of the war. According to historian Jack Hyatt, “His slogan was, ‘Pay the price of victory in shells—not lives,’ and if he did anything heroic it was that.