First Day

BBC Worldwide Learning

Historian Peter Barton explores the events leading up to and on the bloody first day of the offensive. Walking the battlefield, he explains the failures that led to over 20,000 British deaths and argues that to get a better understanding of events, one should not only confront what the British did badly but what their enemy did better. Based on research in German archives, Barton shows just how much they knew in advance about Allied plans through captured documents and interrogations of British prisoners and deserters.

Defence in Depth

BBC Worldwide Learning

Historian Peter Barton concentrates on the second phase of the battle, from the middle of July to the middle of September 1916. Barton reveals how an Allied advance on objectives which should have lasted days and weeks took months and resulted in yet more carnage on the Somme battlefield.Whilst British tactics were unvarying, that of their German enemy evolved using the changing landscape of the battlefield. The slowness of the Allied advance during this period Barton explains by the emergence of new German tactics—defense in depth.