The trench - the end

The moment when 19th Century infantry tactics met 20th Century weapons.

James Bond, Harry potter...who else are we going to see in the trenches?

"If only they'd run, they would have overwhelmed us" A German soldier near Thiepval. Can't remember his name.

As a teenager, 50 years ago, I knew a former British infantry Lieutenant by the name of Hetherington, who lived across the road from my aunt and uncle in Windsor, to whom I was sent on holidays. ...... On 1st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of The Somme, he left the trench with nothing but a swagger stick. ...... The reason was simple - a piece of German shrapnel had bent his Webley revolver like a banana. ...... He showed me the very same revolver - a piece of history!

The distance between British and German trenches was so long that it was simply impossible to run the whole distance in full gear. The men were told to walk until they were close enough to start running. If they had ran from the beginning, they would have been completely exhausted by the time they were in the most effective range of German rifles. Also the grass is still green on the British side of the no-mans land, whole another story on the German end, where we cannot see (British artillery fired at the Germans, duh). Also a majority of shells used in Somme were time fuzed shrapnels that exploded on top of the trenches, shooting lead pellets in all directions. These shells left the ground mostly intact.

"Oh my God! They killed James Bond!" "You bastards!"

Never knew James Bond was a ww1 soldier.

"The only ones to get across the wires were a lieutenant and a sergeant...the sergeant practically had both legs sheared off by hand grenade splinters; even so, with stoical calm, he kept his pipe clenched between his teeth to the end. This incident, like all our other encounters with the Britishers, left us pleasantly impressed with their bravery and manliness." - From Ernst Jünger's "Storm of Steel", Michael Hofmann's translation, pg. 125.

The Somme was a horrible, horrible disaster, especially that first day. 60,000 casualties, 30% dead. Literally walking over a mile of open ground with machine guns and small arms fire coming at you from the front. Just awful. Bless the survivors and all they saw.

J.R.R Tolkien was a young second Lieutenant from C -company, 13th Special Brigade ,Lancashire fusiliers he entered combat in this battle lost 2 good friends from the Barrovian Book Club there...he actually started writing 'The book of lost Tales part 2' in Late July in the trenches of the Somme before succumbing to trench fever in October of that year

My great uncle was in battles like this. He used to tell me stories about it as he made me pancakes as a youngster. RIP Budd, He was gassed, shot, etc but somehow survived. Sgt. US Army

British battle strategy: WALK in a wall formation, so even if the Germans miss you, they'll most likely hit someone else

"Don't forget your stick lieutenant" "No sir! I wouldn't want to face a machine gun without this"

That's got to be the lamest No man's land I've ever seen

This film depicted the first assault on the some by the British in July. The battlefield is actually quite accurate, if you look at real footage of the 1st of July you see that most of the fields were still normal and not littered with shell craters. Before the battle started the British fired shells on the German lines for a week long. Maybe there would be some craters in the fields from artillery that missed the lines, but the battlefield wasn’t a moonscape yet like Verdun or Flanders for example.

If it's depicting the battle of the Somme then it's pretty realistic. British soldiers were told to walk across no-mans-land with heavy gear on and got massacred. Hundreds of thousands died as a result of the general's decision.

Awfully nice field, considering it's been shelled for the last two years!

These men are brave as all can be.. to prepare yourself to storm into almost certain death is something that not a lot of people have the mental fortitude to do. It's a shame how many good men were lost on both sides.

green grass in no mans land. so accurate

My grandpa was in the U.S. Army during WW1. He started out in artillery and was then sent to the trenches. According to my mom he had some horrific stories. R.I.P. Hugh Cotton, Red Arrows.