Soldiers advance on the Somme

As the English curse their World Cup exit today, the historically-minded can get a bit of perspective by remembering that this is the 90th anniversary of the the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916.

This Guardian Review article, 'We go tomorrow ', by Mark Bostridge, reminded me of this anniversary, and reminded me, too, of the great book, First Day on the Somme by Martin Middlebrook. Middlebrook interviewed as many veterans of that horrendous day–Britain’s worst single day of warfare ever, with close to 20,000 killed–at what must have been about the last possible moment; by the time of the book’s publication in the early 1970s, even the youngest participants in the Somme would have been in their 70s.

The Imperial War Museum has a fine online exhibit, The Battle of the Somme, featuring images (like the one seen here of the Tyneside Irish advancing on the morning of 1 July 1916), video clips, audio interviews of combatants, and more.

Tags: somme, wwi, anniversary, exhibition