Lives of the First World War

At 7.30 am along the front line, officers in the trenches blew whistles and their troops scrambled up ladders to go over the top. There was no running. Instead, troops were ordered to walk towards the enemy lines. Met with relentless and continuous machine gun fire, thousands of brave men were cut down in minutes. By the end of that first day, 19.240 British soldiers had lost their lives and the casualty figure (killed and injured) was and over - whelming 57.470. It is the highest number of casualties suffered by the British Army in a single day. The 1st of July 1916 is rightly referred to as the worst day in British military history, but the battle raged on for another 140 days. When it finally ended on the 18th of November, more than a million men had been wounded or killed. After four months of fighting, the Allies had advanced a mere five miles.

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