Quotes About July 1916

In August 1914, the BEF mustered two corps totalling four divisions (plus a cavalry division) from an Army which, at full strength, could muster eleven divisions. When the Battle of the Somme opened two years later, on 1 July 1916, the BEF could muster 58 divisions in 18 corps organized in four armies

To understand the background to the most momentous telegram ever sent, we have to go back to July 1916. Jutland has just been fought, the British and their allies are dying in unprecedented numbers on the Somme, and the American general John Pershing is fighting in Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. It isn't going well for him.

Today the Somme is a peaceful but sullen place, unforgetting and unforgiving. ... To wander now over the fields destined to extrude their rusty metal fragments for centuries is to appreciate in the most intimate way the permanent reverberations of July, 1916. When the air is damp you can smell rusted iron everywhere, even though you see only wheat and barley.