Somme 1914-18: Lessons in War

The Somme is a name with particular resonance for the people of Britain, for here, in 1916, the flower of her youth was cut down. Terrible though that day was, it takes its place in a wider story: the long, painful process of learning how to fight a new kind of war. From the war movement of 1914, when the French fought on the fields of the Somme, the conflict evolved to massive frontal assaults by the British and Allied troops in 1916. Here the first tank was first used in September 1916. Incre…