The battle of Somme is considered the deadliest battle of World War One. The British army suffered over 57,000 casualties (including 19,240 killed) on the first day of Somme offensive. Thirty-seven sets of British brothers lost their lives on the battle’s first day, and one man was killed every 4.4 seconds. The fight lasted for 141 days and when the battle was over the British suffered around 420,000 casualties. For all of their efforts and losses, the Allies managed to move the lines 6 miles at their deepest penetration.
The British bombarded the German trenches with heavy artillery for 8 days before the start of the offensive. However, the plan went terribly wrong because the Germans had a large network of trenches and underground bunkers. The British military fired over 1.6 million shells, dropped bombardments on the entire front line, second line and third line.
Here below are some colorized portraits of British soldiers who fought in the battle of the Somme. The images were taken by French couple Louis and Antoinette Thuilliers as mementos to send home before the soldiers went to fight and die in battle. And the photographs were colorized by French bank technician, Frederic Duriez.
