History is a very strange thing . What was once considered true may no longer be perceived to be true a few years later down the line . I remember the 1980s and 1990s when commemorations were dedicated to the second world war where leading German figures would constantly and consistently apologise for the Nazis which they didn't and perhaps shouldn't have to . Now however with cultural changes there is an element in Germany that they too feel themselves to be portrayed as victims of Nazism . Instead of Nazi aggression being portrayed on screen there seems to be an emphasis on the last year of the war in Germany where the regime started weeding out " traitors and defeatists " to the regime This revisionary view of history is universal . Here in Britain there's a train of thought that the worst generals Britain had were all confined to the first world war . Hardly surprising since Britain lost 800,000 people in four years of war compared to half that number in 1939-45 and that these lives were wasted for absolutely nothing by arrogant ruling class men who didn't have a clue what they were doing . This documentary tries to put a different spin on things and dispel the myths put forward in the 1960s by Alan Clark and John Laffin who had their own agenda in creating myths When you're using unimaginable figures of slaughter it helps if you show the human face of war . We're introduced to the young men who did the fighting and dying . It also makes the point that in the first half of the war Britain was something of a junior partner in relation to the French and the French were fighting for their very survival at the Battle Of Verdun and the British had to relieve the hellish pressure on their ally by launching an offensive at the Somme What this documentary does is put things in to perspective and blow away a few myths constantly repeated over the last forty years . It was the first large scale offensive by the British with the view of comprehensively defeating Germany . Maverick officers who could think outside the box and use their own intuitive like Lt Col Maxwell would be promoted and useless Generals like Morland stuck miles behind the front unable to contribute to events as they happened would be quietly moved on to other duties by the high command . It also makes the point that being a senior officer didn't make you exempt from being killed in action The docudrama makes all these points but to be honest it does do them well but could have made the points even better . A large scale battle like this would be difficult to put in to practice . If things start to go wrong - which they did - there's no contingency plans except to perhaps call off the offensive which considering the stakes wouldn't have been an option . This isn't necessarily " inflexibility " that this docudrama criticices the high commend for . To deviate from a plan which on paper did in theory have a very high chance of success would have probably doomed the offense to failure anyway . Certainly Haigh and the high commend could have changed the plan earlier rather than committing to it during the entire Summer but this they did in September which whilst not being more successful was certainly less unsuccessful and was a brutal and bloody learning curve for the British Army fighting a war of such violent intensity that Britain had never seen before or since . Perhaps the greatest British General of the 20th Century Edmund Allenby who in the Palestine campaign of 1917-18 who introduced mobile war similar to the Blitzkrieg strategy of twenty years later had no success on the Western Front when he was in command of the British Third Army . Seeing men being slaughtered in their tens of thousands isn't something unique to the British Lastly the documentary does touch upon the lessons learned at the Somme and introduced new tactics such as the creeping artillery barrage and does make the point that it is a very intricate and complicated form of tactic but shows the British could learn from their mistakes . Sadly the point that these lessons learned that led to the allied victory during the 100 days offensive in 1918 where the British Army killed and captured more German troops than the armies of France , Belguim and America combined goes with little or no mention

This film tries to give a documentary reconstruction of the battle of Somme. Though details are laid out quite well about how the first days of the battle happened, these are actually not very informative. Yes, battles are truly terrible but there are better films to watch to get this experience. A documentary should focus much more on the context, causes and outcomes. Also, the memories of soldiers are not very informative and only give a generic feeling of "how terrible war is". I think this film only gives a rather constrained view on the whole Somme battle. Watch Kubrick's Paths of Glory or any other fiction films about the First World War to get an idea of the nightmare. And if you want to see a good documentary (about France in World War II) watch "Le chagrin et la pitie".

I found "The Somme" almost by accident while browsing the Web, and as somebody doing World War I research of his own, I was left with very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it is a fresh look at the bloody battle that cost over a million lives. On the other, however, in attempting to bring out a new, and often unseen aspect, it glosses over months of fighting and the actual experience.The show begins with a description of the Somme, some of the men involved on both sides, and the first day of fighting, which is famous for being the most brutal day in British military history. At this point, the documentary tells the history well, and the recreations are brutal and intense, just as they should be. The fatal lack of flexibility of the British command staff that resulted in the loss of British gains in the first day is well highlighted and explored.Unfortunately, it is after this that "The Somme" starts to run into trouble. The documentary is so dedicated to highlighting the advances made as the British army adapted to the conditions and learned how to fight the Germans that it glosses over the price of these lessons, or how long it took for them to sink in. "The Somme" fast forwards from July 1st to the end of September, ignoring in its account the massive attrition on both sides, the hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the fact that the true horror of the Somme lay not in the first day, but the months after, where the losses were so great that new trenches were being dug through corpses. The creeping barrage and the tank are not quite so impressive when it takes at least 200,000 casualties and months of assaults to get to using them. And, to make matters worse, the documentary doesn't actually cover the end of the battle at all, or give the viewer any sense of where the battle lines actually stood at the end.If anything, "the Somme" should have been longer, and not so willing to gloss over the attrition phases of the battle. The Battle of the Somme lasted four and a half months, and to use only two assaults in the entire battle to tell its story, particularly when reducing the massive losses to a single mention at the end, hardly does justice to the Somme or the men who died there at all.

This programme was made to commemorate the 90th anniversary of WWI's Battle of the Somme, and I think it is a great homage to the soldiers who died on the battlefield. It is informative and actually recreates the battles - rather than just boring old diagram after diagram, we actually see soldiers going over the top against the German guns. The commentary is informative, and as the programme is based on real historical forces, expect 100% accuracy in all departments and a well-researched and made programme. One of the most striking things you will see is that the soldiers actually walked across the battlefield rather than running. This undoubtedly cost many more lives and just went to prove the true stupidity of the generals at the time. The soldiers were, as it was put, "lions led by donkeys". And this effective doc, packed with drama, emotion and action, will only help to prove this case even further. Though it would have been far more effective to see it on the 90th anniversary day (which I did), I still strongly recommend this programme to anyone who doesn't know much about the Somme. Brilliant. 10/10