Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History It. This podcast is first broadcast on the

2nd of July 2021. It's 105 years since the battle of Somme began in northern France.

British and French troops made a gigantic set piece attack, beginning on the 1st of July

1916. That day would be the bloodiest day in the history of the British army. 60,000

men killed and wounded. Countless more, no doubt, carried the trauma with them for years

to come. My great grandfather was present at the Battle of Somme. He was actually a general.

He was one of those generals who was responsible for the shambles that was the first day's

attack. He sat in a shadow which I visited behind the lines and he wrote to his wife and

said, but in the wind blows in the right direction I can hear the guns. And what he was

actually listening to was the sound of a catastrophe. In his sector at Gomkort there were no gains

to speak of. Some incredibly brave infantrymen fought their way into the German frontline

trenches through the wire. They were then obliterated in the German counter-barrage and

German counter-attacks. They fought in small groups till the ammunition ran out and they

fought with their fists, clubs and knives until they were wiped out a few survivors

crawled back across Nomezland and the cover of Dupts. In the days that followed, my great

grandfather tried to shift the blame off himself. He tried to blame others. Anyone who's been

involved in a gigantic catastrophe knows that the first thing he'd do is try and say

it wasn't your fault. In the case of my great grandfather, he appeared to blame the men

themselves. He wrote to a senior officer, I regret to inform you, the men lacked offensive

spirit. This is pretty grotesque and is something that has subhaunted my family ever since.

I've met descendants of the men that were killed that day, died as they attempted to cross

barbed wire that remained uncut by British artillery as they held out in beleaguered positions,

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