The First Day on the SommeThe First Day on the Somme was the blackest day of slaughter in the history of the British Army. This is a powerful account of the experiences of soldiers who faced it. On 1 July 1916, a continuous line of British soldiers climbed out from the trenches of the Somme into No Man's Land and began to walk slowly towards dug in German troops armed with machine guns and defended by thick barbed wire. By the end of that day, as old tactics were met by the