Saturday, November 18, 2006
This Day in History
On this day in 1916, British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig finally calls a halt to the pointless slaughter along the Somme river in northeastern France which began on July 1, 1916 after a week of intense (but ineffective) bombardment of the German trenches. The Germans survived in deep dugouts and when the bombardment lifted and the British came out of their trenches and walked in waves across no man's land, the Germans carried their Maxim '08 machine guns up to their firing points in the trenches and shot out the heart of the British attack with cross enfilade fire. 60,000 British soldiers fell dead or wounded on the first day. During the four months of the battle, there were 90 separate mass infantry charges towards the well defended trenches and a horrible butcher's bill--146,000 British soldiers died (more than the American battle deaths during its 2 years in the war).
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:12 AM 
