Lives of the First World War

At 7.30 am all along the front line, officers in the trenches blew whistle and their troops scambled 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 continous machine gun fire and artillery 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 an 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 Novemeber, more than a milllion men had been wounded or killed. After four months of fighting, the Allies had advance a mere five miles.

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