The Battle of the Somme
The historic 1916 silent documentary film The Battle of the Somme is probably one of the most famous of all military actualite films, although a few scenes were, by necessity, reconstructed after the event. When it was shown in Britain, its unprecedented public success – almost half the British population saw the film – established cinema as a major tool in British propaganda for the rest of the war. The Battle of the Somme also allowed the civilian populations in Britain and overseas to gain an insight into the realities of trench warfare.
The film is a unique record of the events surrounding the opening of the Battle of the Somme, and it remains a key source for historians.
These clips show British forces on the first day of the Somme offensive, 1 July 1916.
Click on the links below to play the clips.
 Scenes at Bray. Platoons of the Buffs, Bedfords, Suffolks, and a battalion of Royal Welsh Fusiliers moving up on the evening before the attack. |
| Meanwhile the 4 - 7 inch guns were giving the enemy no rest. |
| A field battery brought up across the captured German tranches, in action within 2 hours of the Germans retiring. Two dumb victims. Horses killed in bringing the battery up |
| A sunken road in "no man's land" occupied by Lancashire Fusiliers. (20 minutes after this picture was taken, these men came under heavy machine gun fire.) |
| Scenes at the dressing station for slightly wounded at Minden Post. In background appear a battalion of Manchester Pioneers waiting to go down to the German trenches when captured. |
| British wounded and nerve-shattered German prisoners arriving. Officer giving drink, and Tommies offering cigarettes to German prisoners. |
| IWM 191 |