https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpCUFw-EnNw

99 years ago today, on July 1, 1916, the British, with the assistance of the French, made the first attack of the Battle of the Somme. Tens of thousands of British soldiers were killed and wounded, for very minimal gains. We visited the Somme Battlefield on our recent Europe Tour. Here are pictures of how this horrible battlefield looks nearly 100 years later.

Lochnagar Crater, blown up under German lines

 

There are thousands of graves across Flanders with inscriptions like this, for soldiers who could not be identified. They are known only to God.

 

Shell craters in the Newfoundland Memorial

 

German front lines in the Newfoundland Memorial

 

The Danger Tree. When the 1st Newfoundland charged on July 1, none made it past this stump, just a few dozen paces from their lines.