Philip Gibbs, a journalist, watched the preparation for the major offensive at the Somme in July, 1916.  He wrote:

Before dawn, in the darkness, I stood with a mass of cavalry opposite Fricourt.  Haig as a cavalryman was obsessed with the idea that he would break the German line and send the cavalry through.  It was a fantastic hope, ridiculed by the German High Command in their report on the Battles of the Somme which afterwards we captured.

In front of us was not a line but a fortress position, twenty miles deep, entrenched and fortified, defended by masses of machine-gun posts and thousands of guns in a wide arc.  No chance for cavalry!  But on that night they were massed behind the infantry.  Among them were the Indian cavalry, whose dark faces were illuminated now and then for a moment, when someone struck a match to light a cigarette.

Before dawn there was a great silence.  We spoke to each other in whispers, if we spoke.  Then suddenly our guns opened out in a barrage of fire of colossal intensity.  Never before, and I think never since, even in the Second World War, had so many guns been massed behind any battle front.  It was a rolling thunder of shellfire, and the earth vomited flame, and the sky was alight with bursting shells.  It seemed as though nothing could live, not an ant, under that stupendous artillery storm.  But Germans in their deep dugouts lived, and when our waves of men went over they were met by deadly machine-gun and mortar fire.

Our men got nowhere on the first day.  They had been mown down like grass by German machine-gunners who, after our barrage had lifted, rushed out to meet our men in the open.  Many of the best battalions were almost annihilated, and our casualties were terrible.

German machine-gunner at the Somme

The officers were in the front.  I noticed one of them walking calmly carrying a walking stick.  When we started firing we just had to load and reload.  They went down in their hundreds.  You didn't have to aim, we just fired into them.

Private George Morgan, 1st Bradford Pals, took part in the Battle of the Somme on the July 1, 1916

There was no lingering about when zero hour came.  Our platoon officer blew his whistle and he was the first up the scaling ladder, with his revolver in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  ‘Come on, boys,’ he said, and up he went.  We went up after him one at a time.  I never saw the officer again.  His name is on the Memorial to the Missing which they built after the war at Thiepval.  He was only young but he was a very brave man.

General Rees, commander of 94th Infantry Brigade at the Somme, described how his men went into battle on July 1, 1916

They advanced in line after line, dressed as if on parade, and not a man shirked going through the extremely heavy barrage, or facing the machine-gun and rifle fire that finally wiped them out.  I saw the lines which advanced in such admirable order melting away under the fire.  Yet not a man wavered, broke the ranks, or attempted to come back.  I have never seen, I would never have imagined, such a magnificent display of gallantry, discipline and determination.  The reports I have had from the very few survivors of this marvellous advance bear out what I saw with my own eyes, viz, that hardly a man of ours got to the German front line.

George Coppard was a machine-gunner at the Battle of the Somme.  In his book “With A Machine Gun to Cambrai”, he described what he saw on the July 2, 1916

The next morning we gunners surveyed the dreadful scene in front of our trench.  There was a pair of binoculars in the kit, and, under the brazen light of a hot mid-summer's day, everything revealed itself stark and clear.  The terrain was rather like the Sussex downland, with gentle swelling hills, folds and valleys, making it difficult at first to pinpoint all the enemy trenches as they curled and twisted on the slopes.

It eventually became clear that the German line followed points of eminence, always giving a commanding view of No Man's Land.  Immediately in front, and spreading left and right until hidden from view, was clear evidence that the attack had been brutally repulsed.  Hundreds of dead, many of the 37th Brigade, were strung out like wreckage washed up to a high-water mark.  Quite as many died on the enemy wire as on the ground, like fish caught in the net.  They hung there in grotesque postures.  Some looked as though they were praying; they had died on their knees and the wire had prevented their fall.  From the way the dead were equally spread out, whether on the wire or lying in front of it, it was clear that there were no gaps in the wire at the time of the attack.

Concentrated machine gun fire from sufficient guns to command every inch of the wire, had done its terrible work.  The Germans must have been reinforcing the wire for months.  It was so dense that daylight could barely be seen through it.  Through the glasses it looked a black mass.  The German faith in massed wire had paid off.

How did our planners imagine that Tommies, having survived all other hazards - and there were plenty in crossing No Man's Land - would get through the German wire?  Had they studied the black density of it through their powerful binoculars?  Who told them that artillery fire would pound such wire to pieces, making it possible to get through?  Any Tommy could have told them that shellfire lifts wire up and drops it down, often in a worse tangle than before.

57,470 Casualtes On The First Day

On the first day of fighting 110,000 men attacked the German lines.  According to official statistics the first day’s casualties were 57,470 – over half of those who had ‘gone over the top’.  This included 19,240 who were killed or died of their wounds, 35,493 who were wounded, 2,152 who were missing and 585 who were taken prisoner. 

As the first day’s fighting drew to a close, Haig wrote:

‘Very successful attack this morning...  All went like clockwork...  The battle is going very well for us and already the Germans are surrendering freely.  The enemy is so short of men that he is collecting them from all parts of the line.  Our troops are in wonderful spirits and full of confidence.’ 

A Report by Haig on the first day of attack, July 1, 1916