The Somme the battle for the truth

Not like today battles...WW1...was truly... the WORST of the WORST... from the soilder...who just weeks before...was.a farmer...shop keeper.
.. NOW here he is...on the battle field.... WHY...WHY...WHY....I am a farmer..............

Never let the French make decisions for you. That's my takeaway.

You've just gotta Love Peter Hart's passion for the subject AND regarding the waste of human life👍
It comes across in his books too-top man Pete,stay safe mate☮💚🖖

I'll never understand how they thought running directly into machine gun fire was a good idea, after the first slaughter there should have been a major change in game plans/strategy

The generals commanding this battle were pure morons.

This is one of the best docs on the somme i've seen with great historians and interviews

The summing up at the end of this documentary glosses over the crippling losses and repeated wholesale slaughter that went on here. Yes the mistakes were made again and again but ALL under the gaze of Haig. Saying that the British Army learnt is wrong - the battles in 1917 and 1918 around Ypres in particular showed the same lack of understanding and conditions which the men were told to fight in. Again all under the gaze of Haig. General Plumber I believe is one of the very few who comes out with any credit adopting the creeping barrage, bite sized objectives which the troops could then actually secure along with carefully briefing and planning. They were undoubtedly Lions led by Donkeys.

Here we go again - the British blaming what happened at The Somme on the poor quality of their troupes, and passing the main blame onto the French. Nonsense. The blame lay right at the top of command. They - all sides - were fighting a thoroughly modern war with 18th century battle tactics. The outcome of all this should been predicted well before the war ever started. The real problem was insufficient 'intelligence' information on your opponent, and an antiquated means of communication out in no-man's land. There were no radios. Nobody could use a blinker or semaphore because they would simply get mowed down by machine gun fire. There was no way to call off a useless gesture, such as sending thousands upon thousands of young men straight into machine gun fire. This attempt of the British to revise military history is both shameful and cowardly. Suck it up. You were willing participants in what might possibly have been the stupidest war in all of recorded history. You played a major role in this human folly.

It seems popular for British historians to blame the French for Haig's many mistakes at this battle. There was never going to be a big breakthrough anywhere with the tactics the British chose there.

Blame the men.......typical british history. Haig, Robertson, Gough, and dozens of divisional officers,routinely blamed the men for their bungling and failures. The brits had poor artilley, abysmal intellegence,criminal tactics, and trained in tactics that wouldnt have worked at waterloo. The brits took 1 of the finest bodies of men that ever marched, and basically murdered them. And even today we have fraudulent apologists blathering and defending this crap

Sounds cruel........ but it was a great thing people finally saw the light when it came to General Headquarters, Generals and the disregard for their own guys.

That German flag is handsome.

More then 70.000 on one day......o how proud we are that we think we can decide on someone else's life....and we raise the flag

Greetings from New Zealand. Those poor brave men.They went through sheer hell.They were real men.

The British army carried out an attack that was like a mass suicide

Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment, 范楚漳，環境先知： The Battle of Somme is the greatest blunders committed by human beings. The Great Britain 🇬🇧 , USA 🇺🇸, and France 🇫🇷 will forever be called and become “The Great Beaten”! USA President Harry S. Truman, participant of the Battle of the Somme will be renamed & called “Hairy Stupid Falseman”! General Rolandson will be call “General Rollover you are dead” !!!

There were no regular soldier who were fat and far too old
These blokes playing soldiers need to sort themselves out..

not a very good job of the 📣👄very poor

Look at David Fletcher, he's great on the Tank Museum's channel

Love the blunt brutal honesty of some of these British gentleman who call it for what it was.

a great documentary cause its full of common sense unlike alot of others which view everything thru the prism of uncontrolled emotions ((not to mention the comment sections where everyone says how they would do it better))

What abattle. and waste of life.
why do we do this??
*Still WHAT a BATTLE?

**THANKS FOR THE INFO WELL DONE!

On July 2, 1916 - the second day of the Battle of the Somme - British Generals Haig and Rawlinson should have been stood up against a wall AND SHOT !!!

Very informative and sad .thank you for posting.

1916 was the third year of the war ..... duhhhhh.

NB the French corps south of the British was XX Corps not XXX Corps.

My grandfather joined the Lancashire fusiliers in 1914 while underage, he was discovered and discharged. He joined up again in 1915 in the Staffordshire yeomanry and fought in Palestine and Mesopotamia, had he stayed in his original unit he would undoubtedly have been killed in this battle and I wouldn't be here writing this.

At long last. What really happened at the Somme. The fact that the British were building up for an offensive in Flanders when Joffre demanded the Somme so that Hague had to secretly move everything South, more quickly than he wanted too and fight the Somme before he was ready is not given enough prominence nor Hindenburg’s remark after the battle that he knew that Germany could not win the war after the performance of the British at the Somme!

2,500 meters??

This is an EXCELLENT documentary. The level of research and rich detail about various key aspects and elements of the battle and the expertise of the contributors who appear on film is of the highest order. This has to be one of the best, most informative documentaries on the Great War and the Somme in particular that I've encountered anywhere. I hope that at some point you DO manage to complete the funding required to complete the project to your satisfaction with all the final polish and post production etc. My personal relationship with the First World War has changed dramatically over the past 12 months. I retired, took a DNA test and began researching my family tree. My family has always believed that we had no ancestors who fought in the 1914-1918 war. That family myth has been blown wide apart. To date I've discovered over 50 young men from across all branches of both my Maternal and Paternal lines who fought and died in the war. They were from across the British Empire, many had emigrated but returned to fight on the Western Front and every other theatre of war. It has been a humbling experience. Among them is a 2nd Lt who was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery during an action on the Somme. Another was a pipe in the Canadian Army who was awarded a Victoria Cross at the Somme for a truly incredible Boy's Own story of bravery. Both were killed in action. I discovered my father had an uncle of whom he knew nothing. He was killed 2 weeks after his 20th birthday and 2 weeks before the Armistice while fighting in Northern Russia with the Allied forces against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.His sister, my paternal grandfather never mentioned his name. Tragically 3 brothers were killed in France and Gallipoli, wiping out an entire generation of one branch. Another poor bloke was kicked in the head by a viscous horse while on duty and invalided out of the army and the last to die on active duty succumbed to exposure while on patrol in the Egyptian desert in January 1919. There were also those who were disciplined for being found drunk on duty and subjected to field punishment No1. I felt sympathy with the 5"5" 19 year old who faced this horrific punishment twice before being killed in action 3 days after completing his 2nd humiliation. I feel a sense of pride for each and everyone of these boys and complete anger at their needless loss. No one had ever spoken of them- no photos, no stories, nothing. Discovering their stories has made me reassess the war in a far more direct and personal way. It really brings home just how far the war cut a wide swathe through an entire generation that spanned the entire globe. I never fully appreciated that before. I'm so glad I discovered this family history while both my parents, now in their late 80s, are still with us.

Same old same old !!!!!!

Wall Street did okay. Rather like Ukraine?

Massive respect to the French for giving the land that so many died fighting for to the respective countries involved in individual battles. ❤❤❤

Isn't amazing the poms always defend their officers.. Haig name THE BUTCHER was well deserved.. Loyd George was right what he said about him..500 casualties was a pin prick for Haig.. the man was a lunatic 😡😡

Jesus, what god awful f*cking production values. Down arrow, skip and move on.

Where currently working on gathering diplomats, for our submariner's and fresh water regions, has lord Ian dun,can Smith's overview was to follow up maximising potential it was noted that free independent thaught and choice direction is something worth looking at to see if there's any 🤣

The Sommes was a matter of donkeys led by absolute total scumbags.
Trying to sell Haig and the Masonic officer classes' sacrifice of countless lads is beyond ridiculous and ghoulish.
This was a war of the ruling classes against the common people first and foremost.

Okay “your gonna need it” is the dumbest thing… how about just bringing all that “needed” stuff over after you have captured the lines….

History is a matter of looking into another age and culture that is beyond our own cultural concepts. Historians are never unbiased, when it comes to their sources, the fog of war is never foreseen, despite all the planning and tactics and strategy. The late general Pershing made a turn around like foch about the Versailles treaty, he said the allies should have beaten the German army on the field to the gates of Berlin. That alone made way for the myth of the stab intne back lie for the war of revenge .

This historian is full of it, all good f Haig's battles turned out to be battles of attrition. His defense to any reasonable enquiry from the govt, whom Haig thought of as almost as big of an enemy as the Germans, was that he was " wearing down the Germans" This was his constant refrain throughout the war. This historian is an insufferable fraud and Haig defender. I've seen him before

German cemeteries look so unloved and forgotten. Somehow, those guys died twice, once on the battlefield, and then a second time, in the memory of their people. WW1 in Germany practically doesn't exist. Armistice Day 11/11 coincides with the beginning of the carnival season in Germany, wich is allover the media that day every year, no mention of the war though. Very sad.

Company Sergeant Major Ernest Sargeant DCM, severely wounded by a Dum Dum bullet which removed one lung and nicked the other on September 16th near Delville Wood . Remembered seeing a tank then awoke in England- died in 1965

Some fine specialists and historians reporting here. You even here frustration and anger at British generalship. A colossal tragedy and folly.

Superb.

My great uncle Dan was killed in the Battle of the Somme.His body was not found.His name is on both the Thiepval and Ardrossan memorials.He was in a Scottish regiment.He was not a career soldier.

Mr Corrigan makes it sound easy when not in the line they where on working partys taking supplies up 2 the line out in front of the line on wiring partys so i doubt it was much fun at any time

why didnt they Hit the dirt!!!??? wouldve atleast had a chance

These stories are so so interesting I often wonder have I seen my grand uncle marching past he was in the Dublin fusiliers killed in 1918

Im currently visiting my dads great grandfathers grave in thiepval and its unbelievably sombre. The feeling weve all had here has been is something that will last with me for forever . His great grandfather and his 4 brother's all sent to their deaths. 2 of them leaning pregnant wives that turned out they'd never see or hold their first born child. Unthinkable