Travels Through Time: Stalemate on the Western Front
In this podcast, Simon Heffer reflects on the year 1916, as conscription was introduced and the Battle of the Somme claimed huge casualties.
On the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916, 19,240 men serving in the British forces were killed and a further 38,000 were seriously wounded.
At home, the public was initially unware of the death toll, conscious only of those in mourning clothes in their local communities. In late July 1916, British newspapers begin to publish casualty lists, and by early August, the names of almost 7,000 killed or wounded men were printed in The Times each day. Government censorship prevented papers from commenting on the lists themselves.
In this episode of Travels Through Time, historian Simon Heffer takes us back to the year 1916, as stalemate takes hold on the Western Front and British society adapts to the War.
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