Today is the 105th anniversary of the 1st of July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

An iconic moments in the history of the Great War, and in many, an iconic moments in the history of the Great War,

and in many ways an iconic moment in the history of the 20th century.

I've used this quote from AJ P Taylor before.

He said that for him the first day of the Battle of the Somme was the true moment the 20th century began,

not on the 1st of January 1900, but on the 1st of July 1916.

And what he meant by that was this was a day not of victories but of disaster

when more than 57,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers became casualties in a single day, and that this day would herald a new type of warfare, total war, industrial war, with killing on an industrial scale, which would characterize much of the rest of the 20th century.

And today, many of us will be thinking of that

moment in time on that beautiful summer's morning when thousands of British soldiers went over the top

and we'll be pondering on our own journeys across that song landscape and perhaps thinking

of soldiers we've researched or ancestors that we lost that

day. But first, what of the background to the 1st of July 1916 that first day of the Somme?

How did it happen? At the end of 1915 there was a new commander-in-chief of the British forces

on the Western Front, Douglas Haig. He'd taken over

from Sir John French after the failed Battle of Luz in 1915, and Haig met with his French

counterparts of the French general staff to discuss forthcoming offensives. The French were always

keen on throwing the Germans out of France.

They weren't too bothered by Belgium, which for Britain was our main theatre of operations.

Haig had in mind a plan to attack along the Massines Ridge, and here used tunnelers of the

Royal Engineers to dig underneath the German positions along the ridge and destroy them.

This would, of course, become the Battle of Messines in June of 1917.

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