The Somme

But...but this will not do! General Rawlinson had a moustache! The outrage! And none of the actors looks remotely like the person they're playing! The outrage!

Seriously, there's a lot of lunacy among those enamored with the Great War and all that. Indeed, nowadays, the first world war is big on the tourist map and there's a steady flow strolling along the farm fields and cemeteries in northern France. And accuracy is important. The most accurate detail, however, is to present the tragedy that was the Somme. And folly. What price life? To what end?

But to criticize this production because of minor inaccuracies is to miss the larger truths it reveals. As one of the other reviewers remarked, this movie is truly moving and poetic. It is somber and sorrowful and is closer to Fitzgerald's description in Tender is the Night:

"See that little stream—we could walk to it in two minutes. It took the British a month to walk to it—a whole empire walking very slowly, dying in front and pushing forward behind. And another empire walked very slowly backward a few inches a day, leaving the dead like a million bloody rags. No Europeans will ever do that again in this generation."

"Why, they've only just quit over in Turkey," said Abe.

"And in Morocco—"

"That's different. This western-front business couldn't be done again, not for a long time. The young men think they could do it but they couldn't. They could fight the first Marne again but not this. This took religion and years of plenty and tremendous sureties and the exact relation that existed between the classes. The Russians and Italians weren't any good on this front. You had to have a whole-souled sentimental equipment going back further than you could remember. You had to remember Christmas, and postcards of the Crown Prince and his fiancée, and little cafés in Valence and beer gardens in Unter den Linden and weddings at the mairie, and going to the Derby, and your grandfather's whiskers."

"General Grant invented this kind of battle at Petersburg in sixty- five."

"No, he didn't—he just invented mass butchery. This kind of battle was invented by Lewis Carroll and Jules Verne and whoever wrote Undine, and country deacons bowling and marraines in Marseilles and girls seduced in the back lanes of Wurtemburg and Westphalia. Why, this was a love battle—there was a century of middle-class love spent here. This was the last love battle."

"You want to hand over this battle to D. H. Lawrence," said Abe.

"All my beautiful lovely safe world blew itself up here with a great gust of high explosive love," Dick mourned persistently.

This was a quite entertaining TV show on channel 4. It had good actors, quite accurate information and wasn't boring. The only bothering thing about this show was that it did not seem as dangerous and as depressing as it was. When the first man got shot in the head you did not feel quite moved. There could of been dramatic sequences as them watching their friends get killed in front of their eyes. Also I expected there to be shells which exploded and sent out fatal shards and iron balls at the British and French but just saw a small explosion in the ground. The build up of the movie was very big but the actual battle was not brilliant. An entertaining experience but could of been better.

Excellent, moving and heart-breaking, but one would conclude from this production that Gen. Sir Douglas Haig had nothing to do with this battle, despite the fact that he will be eternally known as the Butcher of the Somme.

The Somme . The very name has the same effect as the name Stalingrad such as its notoriety in the annals of military history , a battle that had well over a million dead and wounded with the British Army suffering 20,000 dead on the first day ( The largest number of fatalities in a battle in recorded history up to that time ) and a battle that changed the very mentality of every Briton born after it where cynicism and Euro scepticism replaced idealism , so any docudrama on the battle especially when it gives the view of the British , French and Germans should be welcomed shouldn't it ? Alas this channel 4 production has got it sadly wrong

From the very start there's a lack of historical context . The French were taking very heavy casualties at mthe battle of Verdun ( Though they were also inflicting heavy casualties upon the Germans too ) and the British both militarily and politically were under very heavy pressure from the French to launch a massive offensive upon the Germans . This context is not gone into here for some reason and personally I think it's wrong not to point out why the British were so keen to mount an offensive . On a similar vein this docudrama frequently uses the word " Inexperienced " to describe the British army at The Somme . The reason being that most of the experienced British troops of the volunteer BEF had already been killed in the battles of 1914-15 , it's not like the British army hadn't seen any fighting which is a possible impression we may have been left with if this docudrama was your only source of First World War history . The British characters featured are fairly unrepresentative too . One's a poet , one's a Christian socialist and the third lied about his age to join up . Are you saying these three men are an accurate mainstream cross section of the British army in 1916 ? Yeah right

Another serious problem - Perhaps the main one - is to do with British generals Haig and Rawlinson . The plan was entirely Haig's but for some reason history has been rewritten so that General Rawlinson is the major architect of The Somme offensive with Haig only being mentioned a couple of times . This seems very poor history on the part of the producers and I have to ask what history source are they taking these incorrect facts from? Rawlinson might have been in charge of the British fourth army but it's Haig who should take any criticism or credit for the battle . There's also a problem with the casting since Rawlinson would have been in his late 50s at the time of the battle but here he looks in his early 40s . Most ridiculous of all the Dorset born Rawlinson speaks with a pronounced Scottish accent ! General Douglas Haig may have spoken with a Scottish brogue since he was from Edinburgh but Rawlinson wouldn't and I can't help feeling that the producers have actually mixed up the two generals !

There are a few other things I could criticise like the scale of the battle doesn't come across very well but considering the budget that would be unfair . There are some plus points like for once the French successes are illustrated something a lot of history books forget and we're also shown the German point of view also but let me repeat this is a relatively poor history lesson not helped by the fact it's difficult not to compare this with the BBC's superb docudrama on the evacution of Dunkirk the previous year and for the sake of honest history anyone seeing channel 4's THE SOMME should also view the BBC's THE GREAT WAR which is the definitive documentary on the First World War . Possibly the definitive documentary of all time full stop

On the 1st of July 1916 thousands of British and French troops rose out of their trenches and attacked the German lines. It resulted in widespread slaughter, mainly on the British troops. This documentary explores all three combatants, a company of the Royal Manchester Regiment, a German officer and private's experience, and finally the French get a mention in the form of a field hospital operated by an American nurse and a front line officer. Also the popular image of the Somme is dispelled. The initial French victories are at last recognized. And for once, the British are not portrayed as getting shot down the instant they go over the top, instead the firing starts about 200 yards of the German lines, as it really happened. The accounts of poetic Captain May and his valiant Sergeant will not fail to move the viewer, as May writes heart wrenching letters to his wife and young daughter. The Christian Socialist Sergeant, May's friend who inspires the men is the best possible image of the British NCO. The documentary also focuses on the delicate subject of murdering prisoners which on the first day, which on the British sector did happen. The German's are also portrayed well, the professional "by the book" officer who successfully defends his trench and the private's who viewed the Somme as a cushy sector before getting killed in the battle. Unfortuanatly the French army is usually left out of these programs, so it was good to see their achievements portrayed accuratley.

The only slight criticisms of the program I have are

1. We don't see the explosions of the underground mines in the British sector.

2. We don't see the legendary pipers of the Highland Regiments who played their pipes as bullets and shells landed all around them, encouraging the men who eventually would take their objectives.

3. Finally it would have been good to see the Ulster Division in action with some of there officers wearing their famous orange sashes.

These complaints are minor. This is a breathtaking documentary that should be released on DVD. Ch4 again beats the politically correct BBC who alter events to suite the modern age eg look what happened in the horrible Docu-Drama Dunkirk. But thats another story.

Watch this documentary for the true story of the Battle of the Somme.