The Somme %E2%80%93 From Defeat to Victory

The Somme From Defeat to Victory is a 2006 BBC documentary film made to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

The 16th Service Battalion 2nd Salford, Lancashire Fusiliers was one of the Pals Battalions that had been created to allow friends and colleagues to fight sidebyside. OnJune 1916, Cpl. Stephen Sharples quells the fears of Pvt. Walter Fiddes and best friend LncCpl. Thomas Mellor that the war would be over before they could see action with the announcement that their battalion would soon take part in the big push. The three men were among the volunteers that had joined up in 1914 in response to Lord Kitcheners call to make up the bulk of the British Army. To relieve the French at Verdun, an AngloFrench diversionary attack is to be launched at the River Somme. German divisional commander Gen. Baron Franz von Soden relies on the experience of veterans such as Cpl. Friedrich Hinkel against the biggest British military deployment in the war thus far. The British go overthetop at 7.30 a.m. onJuly expecting little resistance after adays artillery bombardment of enemy positions but are met by machinegun fire within minutes.Cpl. Hinkel faces the 36th Ulster Division, which is quickly forced into retreat while 500 yards 460m away Cpt. Thomas Tweed leads the 2nd Salford Pals BCompany in an attack on the Thiepval Plateau that sees the death of Mellor. The Ulster division regroup to take the stronghold of the Schwaben Redoubt and MajGen. Sir Edward Percival recommends committing the reserves to secure the position and take Thiepval from the north but corps commander Lt.Gen. Sir Thomas Morland rejects the new plan. With twothirds of his company dead or wounded Tweed takes refuge for two hours behind a bank in nomans land. Sharples disappears attempting to capture the enemy machine gun nest and Fiddis is wounded taking a message to battalion requesting withdrawal. Moorland, somemiles 4.8km from the front, follows the failure of the first and second attacks on Thiepval by sticking to the battle plan and ordering a third. The more adaptive German commanders retake the

Source: Wikipedia