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Significance and Losses
The four-month siege at the Somme took an unprecedented toll on troops.
The first day of battle, which saw a Newfoundland regiment reduced to five dozen
men, also claimed 19,000 Allied dead and 38,000 wounded. That July day is still
the date of the bloodiest battle in history.
In total, over the four months, the
British lost about 420,000 soldiers and gained only about three kilometres – a
cost of about 1.4 centimetres per man. When winter set in and the battle wound
down, the French had lost 195,000 and the Germans as many as 600,000.
The Somme may have been the battle that finally broke the Germans' ability to
wage industrial war. It was certainly the battle that showed the British the
true face and cost of the conflict. The new English Prime Minister, Lloyd George,
called it: "The most gigantic, |
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tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fight
ever waged in the history or war." But it was also the battle where Canadians
again showed how they could fight determinedly and wisely even on a field strewn
with death, misery and regret. |
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The
battlefield after a Canadian charge
Waging war for months where soldiers were locked
in a death grip across a narrow strip of No Man's Land wore both sides to a near-fatal
thinness at the Somme.
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