LOST GENERATION
The Battle of the Somme
It started on July 1st and lasted until November 1916. The Battle of the Somme sums up the horror and futility of trench warfare in WW1; this one battle had a marked effect on overall casualty figures and epitomises the futility of trench warfare. By the end of the battle, the British Army had suffered 420,000 casualties ,the French lost 200,000 men and the Germans nearly 500,000.
For many years those who led the British campaign have received a lot of criticism for the way the Battle of the Somme was fought – especially the British General, Douglas Haig. This criticism was based on the appalling casualty figures suffered by the British and the French.
Going over the top at the Somme was the first taste of battle for many soldiers as they were part of “Kitchener’s Volunteer Army”, persuaded to volunteer by posters showing Lord Kitchener himself summoning men to arms to show their patriotism. Some soldiers were still boys as young as 16, and the majority going to battle had no idea what warfare entailed.
1st July 1916
Andy Farr
Recreation of the iconic photograph from the British film "The Battle of the Somme".
Acrylic on canvas, 2016
This image is part of a sequence introduced by a caption reading "British Tommies rescuing a comrade under shell fire”. The injured man died 30 minutes after reaching the trenches, one of the 19,240 British men to die on that day.
The scene is generally accepted as having been filmed on the first day of the battle. This image, and the film sequence from which it is derived, has been widely published to evoke the experience of trench warfare, the heroism and suffering of the ordinary soldier, and the huge casualties sustained by the British Army during the initial assault on German lines.
In spite of considerable research, the identity of the rescuer remains unconfirmed. The casualty appears to be wearing the shoulder flash of 29th Division.
Tom and Wes, employees at the Stafford’s Gatehouse Theatre have been painted into the iconic Somme photograph by Andy Farr. To remind us that 100 years ago they would have been fighting in The First World War as volunteers or conscripts.
The trench was a horrible sight. The dead were stretched out on one side, one on top of each other six feet high. I thought at the time I should never get the peculiar disgusting smell of the vapour of warm human blood heated by the sun out of my nostrils. I would rather have smelt gas a hundred times. I can never describe that faint sickening, horrible smell which several times nearly knocked me up altogether.
Captain Leeham