🎧 The First Day of The Somme
🎧 Dan Snow's History Hit
•
46m
Dan Explains the first day of The Somme which remains the bloodiest day in the history of the British army; a symbol of the senseless carnage of the First World War. At 7:30 a.m. on July 1 1916, the British soldiers climbed out of their trenches and advanced towards the German lines. They were met with a bombardment of machine gun fire, artillery barrages, and a hail of bullets from the well-entrenched German troops. It was a bloodbath.
It wasn't supposed to happen like that- beforehand, the British had spent several days bombarding the German lines, believing they would destroy their enemy trenches and barbed wire defences, making the British advance straightforward and almost painless. They didn't know just how well-fortified the Germans were in their deep dugouts. When the bombardment stopped, the Germans manned their defences, waiting for the British to walk right into their line of fire.
In chilling detail, Dan retells the astonishing story of that fateful first day of The Somme- determining what really happened in the days leading up to it and what the men endured when they went 'over the top', using the diaries of the men who were there.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited and sound designed by Dougal Patmore.
Up Next in 🎧 Dan Snow's History Hit
-
🎧 Toto Koopman: Socialite, Vogue Mode...
Toto Koopman was remarkable; she was a high society socialite who risked her life wining and dining with Italian blackshirts in order to gather information for the Dutch intelligence service in WWII. When she refused to work as a spy for the Italians, she was thrown in a detention camp. She escap...
-
🎧 Wagner vs Putin: A History of Russi...
On the 24th of June, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his paramilitary group Wagner carried out what appeared to be an attempted coup in Russia. In a seismic turn of events, his mercenaries marched across the Russian border without resistance and seized key military installations in the city of Rostov...
-
🎧 The 20th Century Arms Race
The 20th century heralded a revolution in how wars are fought. From military strategy and planning to the weapons and equipment used on the ground, modern militaries have radically changed how they operate. So what major changes have there been? And what is the purpose of war in the first place?
...
