Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8982 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-07-03
• Rating: Exempt
• Formats: Black & White, Colour, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 79 minutes

Customer Reviews

The Somme - From Defeat to Victory
As you watch this impeccably researched 59min DVD, commisioned to mark the 90'th anniversary of the battle, and listen to the actual words of just a few of the men who fought and died in it; it puts the problems we face today into genuine perpective.

The programme centres around a few volunteers of the 2'nd Salford Pals Battalion/16'th Lancashire Fusiliers; as they attacked and were mown down, by their Westphalian opposite numbers in the 180'th Inf Regt, holding the French chateau of Thiepval on 1'st July 1916. It's hard to believe now, but 19,240 British soldiers were killed, with 37,000 wounded; on the first day of a battle which lasted six months!

This programme differs from many others however, in that it documents the entire Somme 'campaign' which continued on until December 1916. It illustrates how the British Army reacted to those losses; permitting use of initiative by junior officers, introducing combined attacks, creeping artillery barrages, first deployment of tanks, and use of aircraft for observation.

Using these radical new tactics, the British Army and their French allies eventually 'won' the battle of the Somme. German pressure on Verdun was reduced as they were forced to replace 500,000 casualties lost on the Somme; which enabled France to hold at Verdun. Total British casualties were 432,000, France lost 'only' 200,000, plus another 543,000 at Verdun!

This programme attempts to justify those losses by explaining how the Generals 'learned' lessons; and by applying those lessons, eventually emerged victorious from World War One. But it is only when we realize these losses were from just one battle amidst many; and that all were highly selective in nature; being fit young men aged 18-35 years; that the true enormity of World War One revealed.

Europe slaughtered her best and finest sons, literally by the millions, during those terrible years; with social, economic and genetic effects that have never really been put right. I shall conclude this review with the words of Kaiser Wilhelm who, as he signed the declaration of war in 1914 said; "Gentlemen, you will have reason to regret this.". Never were truer words spoken than those.The Somme - From Defeat to Victory [DVD] [2006]

Great documentary film
This has to be the best BBC adaptation on the World War one, in a very long time.

Not too long and its got all the important factual history you need in it.

Reconmend this to any one with a passion to know all about the WW1.

Plus Im biased, my husband is in it too!!

A worthwhile DVD to have in your collection.

Visual History of the Somme
This excellent book gives a rare picture of events leading up to the Somme disaster. Haig and other officers responsible for the strategy were obliged to follow the dictates of the French generals. This point is usually lost and a number of misconceptions are clarified. The background which led up to the war both from the point of politics and the people is well explored. The design of the book is stunning and the pictures well researched and beautifully laid out.