About this episode

This episode discusses the catastrophic events of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, focusing on the northern sectors where British forces faced significant failures.

At 7.30am on the morning of 1st July 1916, whistles blew along a front stretching more than twenty miles. Tens of thousands of British soldiers climbed from their trenches and began walking towards the German lines. By nightfall nearly 20,000 of them would be dead. It remains the bloodiest day in British military history. But that catastrophe was not evenly spread across the battlefield. Some sectors were disasters. Others achieved limited success. To understand what happened, we need to begin in the north, where the British offensive would suffer its greatest failures. A Family History of the Somme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHGcFvlDUds Join Our Community: ⁠https://not-so-quiet.com/⁠ Use our code: Dugout and get one month free as a Captain. Support via Paypal:⁠ https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq-paypal⁠ Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! E-Mail: ⁠nsq@battleguide.co.uk⁠ Battle Guide YouTube Channel:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT⁠ Our WW2 Podcast:⁠ https://battleguide.co.uk/bsow⁠ If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter:⁠…

People in this episode

Hosts: Dr. Spencer Jones, Dan Hill

Guest: James Taub

Topics covered

• The Somme
• British military history
• World War I
• military strategy
• battlefield analysis

Keywords

• Somme
• British soldiers
• World War I
• military disaster
• battlefield
• July 1 1916
• historical analysis

Sponsors

Battle Guide

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Battle Guide, YouTube

More episodes of WW1: Not So Quiet On The Western Front!

• Episode 136: The Somme in the South - Forgotten Victory · July 20, 2026 · 53 min
• Bonus Episode: Reichs & Republics The Turnip Winter of 1916/17 · July 20, 2026 · 1h 0m
• Episode 134: France's Elite Units · June 29, 2026 · 54 min
• Episode 133: The Gallipoli Evacuation: A Forgotten Success Story? · June 22, 2026 · 1h 3m
• Episode 132: Battles that Shaped the 20th Century · June 15, 2026 · 51 min

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