The Somme – From Defeat to Victory
| The Somme – From Defeat to Victory | |
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BBC DVD Cover
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| Written by | Detlef Siebert |
| Directed by | Detlef Siebert |
| Starring | |
| Narrated by | Alisdair Simpson |
| Theme music composer | Alasdair Reid |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
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| Running time | 58 min |
| Distributor | BBC |
| Release | |
| Original release | 2 July 2006 |
The Somme – From Defeat to Victory is a 2006 BBC documentary film made to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
The film was produced in conjunction with the Open University and was intended to go beyond the standard histories that end with the British defeat at the end of the first day to demonstrate how the British learnt from their failures and developed radical new tactics that would help the allies to win the war. The film mixes dramatic re-enactments and archive footage augmented by readings from the diaries, letters and reports of the men involved.
The 16th (Service) Battalion (2nd Salford), Lancashire Fusiliers was one of the Pals Battalions that had been created to allow friends and colleagues to fight side-by-side. On 21 June 1916, Cpl. Stephen Sharples quells the fears of Pte. Walter Fiddes and best friend L/Cpl. Thomas Mellor that the war would be over before they could see action with the announcement that their battalion would soon take part in the big push. The three men were among the volunteers that had joined up in 1914 in response to Lord Kitchener’s call to make up the bulk of the British Army. To relieve the French at Verdun, an Anglo-French diversionary attack is to be launched at the River Somme. German divisional commander Gen. Baron Franz von Soden relies on the experience of veterans such as Cpl. Friedrich Hinkel against the biggest British military deployment in the war thus far. The British go over-the-top at 7.30 a.m. on 1 July expecting little resistance after a 7 day's artillery bombardment of enemy positions but are met by machine-gun fire within minutes.
Cpl. Hinkel faces the 36th (Ulster) Division, which is quickly forced into retreat while 500 yards (460 m) away Capt. Thomas Tweed leads the 2nd Salford Pals’ B-Company in an attack on the Thiepval Plateau that sees the death of Mellor. The Ulster division regroup to take the stronghold of the Schwaben Redoubt and Maj-Gen. Sir Edward Percival recommends committing the reserves to secure the position and take Thiepval from the north but corps commander Lt.-Gen. Sir Thomas Morland rejects the new plan. With two-thirds of his company dead or wounded Tweed takes refuge for two hours behind a bank in no-man’s land. Sharples disappears attempting to capture the enemy machine gun nest and Fiddis is wounded taking a message to battalion requesting withdrawal. Moorland, some 3 miles (4.8 km) from the front, follows the failure of the first and second attacks on Thiepval by sticking to the battle plan and ordering a third. The more adaptive German commanders retake the Redoubt rescuing Hinkel’s position and forcing the Ulstermen into a bloody retreat.
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