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The First World War was so terrible that it haunts us, even 80 years on.

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Of all its battles, something is especially dreadful about the Somme.

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Its first day was the bloodiest in British history.

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The battle was fought from a bright July to a bitter November.

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On average, 3 lives were lost for every 12 inches of ground gained.

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It's easy to understand why, when you walk over the uplands above the River Somme.

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These open, rolling slopes were swept by machine guns and shellfire.

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The lethal evidence of war still lies in the fields of the Somme.

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A bomb disposal team is on standby to collect what the ploughs turn up.

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Last year it was 90 tons, and this year will be much the same.

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One and three quarter million shells were fired by the British

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in the first week of the campaign.

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A third of them didn't explode and lie here still.

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IN FRENCH:

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It's all right for the professionals to handle these shells, but the public should leave them well alone.

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Like the best French wines,

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fused explosive doesn't travel well.

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The best place to start a tour of the Somme is Albert.

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80 years ago, it was just 4 miles behind the British front line,

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and was transformed from a sleepy market town into a transit camp for the army.

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The Germans shelled the town's basilica because it was an artillery spotting post.

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Virgin Mary fell from her pedestal.

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80 years later, she's back on top.

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The town's fortunes have risen with her. Albert has finally profited from the war - as a tourist centre.

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This is a very big church for a very small town.

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Albert had been a pilgrimage centre in the Middle Ages, but somehow it never quite caught on.

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In 1916, though, there were British pilgrims here aplenty.

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Some were marching along this road, going up to the front line only a couple of miles away.

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Others came out of the line hunting for omelettes, chips and vin blanc.

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I think I'll follow their example!

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# Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war!

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# What do we want with eggs and ham?

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# When we've got plum and apple jam... #

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One of the pleasures of a town like Albert is ogling the patisserie.

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Sticky delights were an impossible dream to soldiers going up to the line in 1916.

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They lived on things like bully beef, McConachie's meat stew, hardtack biscuits,

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and ever-present plum and apple jam.

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This Roman road slashes across the battlefield.

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It runs ten miles from Albert, held by the British, to Bapaume, in German hands.

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The British hoped to clear this relatively easily

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and push on to Bapaume to use their cavalry.

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It turned out to be the longest ten miles in British military history.

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By early 1916,

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the war had fossilised into a line from Switzerland to the North Sea.

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Britain and France planned to advance,

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but the French were attacked at Verdun, so Britain led the offensive.

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This preserved trench gives a good feel for what trenches were like in 1916.

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They were dug zigzag, with bays and traverses, to prevent a shell burst from going all the way along.

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They'd have been deeper then, and men would have walked on duckboards in the bottom to try and keep dry.

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To see the enemy, they'd step up onto a fire step...and look over.

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The British planned to smash their way out of the trench war.

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They gathered 1,500 guns of every calibre.

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The week-long bombardment before the attack was the most awesome in the history of war up to that time.

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The Western Front was laced with barbed wire. There were great belts of it in front of the trenches,

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strung between these pickets, which are still some of the most durable features of the landscape.

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The British bombardment had been designed to cut the German wire.

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But too much of it remained intact.

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News that the wire wasn't being cut quickly reached the British command. But the reports were largely ignored.

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The attack timetable overruled reality, and bombardment continued.

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Professor Westmann was a German medical officer in the front line.

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- GERMAN ACCENT:
- Seven days and seven nights.

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Soldiers in the bunkers became hysterical.

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They wanted to run out

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and fights developed to keep them in the comparative safety of our deep bunkers.

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We had nothing to eat and nothing to drink,

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but constantly shell after shell burst upon us.

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The sound and fury of the guns drove many to the edge of despair.

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But it didn't kill them.

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Most British shells were absolutely no use against deep German dugouts.

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They were immaculately prepared, supported with timber, and some even had wood panelling.

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This one has collapsed, 80 years after it was first dug, after years of having tractors driven over it.

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The British didn't rely on guns alone.

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The Somme was a scene of underground war. As a prelude to the assault,

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the British dug tunnels to lay 19 mines beneath key German strong points.

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Today, their craters still scar the landscape.

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This is the largest of them - Lochnagar Crater.

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It took 66,000lbs of explosive to make this hole.

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Most of the mines were blown at 7.28, 2 minutes before the main attack began,

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in what was then the largest ever man-made sound.

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They killed hundreds of Germans, but they didn't solve the infantry's real problems.

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The mines only dealt with a small part of the German defences.

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They also signalled that the attack, long expected, was about to begin.

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When the British advanced, the guns fired onto German reserve positions,

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allowing front-line troops to leave their bunkers.

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Machine gunners crawled out of the bunkers,

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dirty, full of blood from the blood of their fallen comrades,

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and opened up terrific fire.

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This piece of precision machinery

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meant death for thousands of British soldiers that bright summer's morning.

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It's the German 1908 machine gun. Although it's heavy -

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it takes two men to comfortably lift it - the Germans had plenty of time to get it up from their bunkers

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and set it up in the wreckage of trenches or in shell holes.

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It has a range of over 2,000 yards,

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and in country like this the machine gun is king.

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'Amateur historian Bill Turner knows the Somme better than most.

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'He has a passionate interest in the Accrington Pals,'

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a battalion of volunteers raised in Lancashire in 1914.

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The Accringtons were recruited by the town's Lord Mayor in response to Lord Kitchener's call for men.

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There were dozens of similar battalions waiting in the Somme trenches on 1st July, 1916.

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They believed their country needed them. They also believed in the preparations made by high command.

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Bill, there's not much left of it, but this was the front-line trench form which the Accringtons attacked.

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Yes, it was indeed.

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The Charlie company were at this end of the trench, and it was the starting point for the whole attack.

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- What sort of men were they?
- Oh, they represented the community.

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They were miners, engineers, textile workers, office workers, shop assistants,

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young boys who should have been at home with their mothers.

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There were family men who had several children.

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- What did they expect from the battle of the Somme?
- I think they thought

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it would be the turning point.

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All they'd enlisted and trained for would culminate in the battle, ending the war.

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The Accringtons were on the northern flank of the main British attack.

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All along the 18-mile front,

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the first wave of 60,000 men was waiting for the signal to go.

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The morning of July 1st was clear and bright.

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The sun glinted off tin triangles the troops wore on their backs so planes could track their progress.

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They were already tired by the time they got this far.

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Thank you.

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Yes, they would be exhausted.

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They'd travelled seven miles overnight. They were heavily laden.

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- What sort of things were they carrying?
- They had full pack on.

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Some would have a shovel, some a pick.

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The intention was not so much to attack.

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They would be going across, really, to consolidate the German trenches,

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hopefully destroyed by shellfire.

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We did think that when the time came, there would be nothing alive when we went over there.

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We'd never been over. We didn't know what to expect. We looked forward to it!

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We expected that when we did go over the top, we would find it just a cakewalk.

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As soon as men left the trenches, they came under fire.

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They were trying to get through the gaps in the wire and the German fire concentrated on those gaps.

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The four lines never really got off to a start from here on.

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The attack had really failed.

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The German machine gunners had our line taped to an inch,

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and our fellas, they just went down

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like sickled grain.

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We got halfway across and then the two machine guns found us.

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The air was full of bullets. One went between my fingers.

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The bullet's there before you know. Then you see the bleeding and feel the pain in your leg.

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Not a living soldier was to be seen.

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There was dead and dying all over the place.

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This is as far as many of them got -

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just 100 yards from the front line.

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Almost 600 of the 720-strong battalion

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were killed or wounded in just 20 minutes.

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Today, the cemeteries run along the British front line,

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where so many soldiers were killed before they'd even seen their enemy.

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20 minutes' brisk walk from where the Accringtons went over the top,

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the Lancashire Fusiliers were waiting their turn.

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Overnight, they'd crept into a sunken lane in no-man's-land, 100 yards from the Germans.

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An army cameraman filmed them in the lane before they left its shelter.

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They were shelled just after first light. But at 7.30, whistles blew and they went over the top.

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There were German machine guns in the wood edge, more on the far slope.

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At this range, the gunners could scarcely miss.

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The attackers were stopped dead as soon as they crossed the lip of the sunken road.

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A few wounded survivors crashed back into it. Corporal George Ashurst tells us what it was like.

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"Picking myself up and looking round, my God, what a sight. The whole road was strewn with dead and dying men.

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"Some were talking deliriously, others calling for help and water."

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The Fusiliers' commanding officer, Colonel Martin Magniac, was here.

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He sent a message to headquarters, telling them what had happened.

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"I tried two advances. Both failed. We are mown down by machine-gun fire and only get a few yards beyond road.

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"If you wish, I will of course attack."

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Brigade HQ cancelled the next attack, but, tragically, Magniac had already ordered his reserve forward.

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Only one officer and three men got even this far.

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Along two-thirds of the British front line, the story was the same.

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Confused reports came back, and fresh troops were thrown in to reinforce failure.

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Only in the south did some divisions reach their objectives,

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and speedy German counter-attacks made some gains difficult to hold.

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Some attackers were killed outright.

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Others were hit and took refuge in shell holes like this.

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They carried field dressings.

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These were really pads of gauze with cords to tie them on -

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pathetically inadequate for many wounds.

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Some wounded managed to crawl back to British lines after dark. Others were dragged to safety by mates.

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But many simply bled to death here.

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Often, they were in shell holes like this for days.

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'The luckier ones made their way to field dressing stations, sometimes in ruined houses near the front.

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'One was in the cellar of a house in Auchonvillers.

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'It's now owned by a British woman, Avril Williams.'

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- Hello, how are you?
- Hello. Come in.

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I've come to see your wonderful cellar, if I may.

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- Avril, this was a dressing station in 1916.
- Mm-hm.
- How do you know?

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Because of the graffiti that was left. It shows stretcher-bearers.

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There's one here - J Gay, 1st 4th Ox/Bucks.

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- There's a carved stretcher-bearer in the stone, so it had to be a stretcher-bearers' post.
- Let's look.

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Down here we have a signalman, JE Hargreaves, 1918, Oswaldtwistle.

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And there's his flags. It's the only 1918 one we have.

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- Have you found anything else down here?
- Yes. Lots of bits and pieces.

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We found bullets of all countries.

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Buttons. We found coins - English.

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This was on the floor, obviously to stop them sinking in the mud.

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We found two cap badges. That's the Canterburies'.

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- They retook Auchonvillers in 1918.
- Yes.

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And then we found these - morphine.

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- We found seven.
- It's a morphine ampoule?
- Mm-hm.
- How was that administered?

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Apparently, it was too big a dose for one person,

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so as the stretcher-bearers brought the injured up...

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If they had no chance, and they were in terrible pain, they went along the line pushing a little in.

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- Pushing it in?
- They'd take off the top and put it into a needle. They were huge needles.

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They'd go along, injecting as they went, to ease the pain and get them on their way.

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By nightfall on the 1st of July, the British army had suffered 57,000 casualties,

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about half the men who'd taken part in the attack.

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Many were from the Pals' battalions.

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Men from the same streets and factories who'd joined up together had died together. In return,

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they'd taken a few miles of German front line - more a devil's bargain

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than the breakthrough Britain had hoped for.

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But the Battle of the Somme was just beginning.

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It took two days for the full scale of the disaster to filter through to British commanders.

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It was longer still before the British public realised what had happened.

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But there were sections of the line where gains could be exploited.

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Kitchener's volunteer army had been terribly bloodied, but it had learnt lessons. Over the coming months,

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thousands more British soldiers were poured into the struggle, until more than a million had been committed.

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In war, it's often the simplest things that work best.

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Many British commanders had learnt from the 1st of July

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and argued that a night attack would make those German machine guns much less effective.

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On the night of 13th-14th July,

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British troops assembled in a valley at the foot of the German-held ridge.

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They were guided into position by thousands of yards of white tape,

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laboriously surveyed in by map and compass.

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The infantry waited in no-man's-land

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while a lightning bombardment hit German positions, then they attacked.

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In the darkness, the German machine gunners were blind

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and the British were able to get through the wire with few casualties. The attack was a success.

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Throughout July, the British crept on inch by bloody inch.

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But they were stalled here

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for much of the summer.

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These Somme woods are still gashed by trench systems and speckled by shell holes.

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In summer 1916, they were full of undergrowth. British shelling had felled trees, to worsen the tangle.

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They were ideal nests for their German defenders.

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Each of the Somme woods had its own mythology. Mametz Wood had bitter memories for the 38th Welsh Division.

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Delville Wood was known with reason as Devil's Wood.

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And then there was High Wood, ghastly by day, ghostly by night - the rottenest place on the Somme.

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If the woods proved a nightmare,

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the heavily fortified villages and hamlets were no better.

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Some of the heaviest fighting on the Somme took place along the Roman road from Albert to Bapaume.

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The villages today show few signs of the intensity of the fighting.

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But every cellar was a strong point, every open courtyard a deathtrap.

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There's evidence enough stacked in one front garden -

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thousands of shrapnel shells fired by the British in an attempt to dislodge resolute German defenders.

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Pozieres, on the Roman road in the very centre of the battlefield,

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was reduced to stinking rubble by bombardments in July and August.

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All this was built up after the war.

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It's typical of the ghastly slogging match that the Somme had now become

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that it took the Australians, newly arrived on this front, 23,000 men to take this village.

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Many Australians were deeply disillusioned.

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One wrote that he'd had enough of British staff, methods and bungling.

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The growing infantry casualties on the Somme were becoming intolerable.

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The British desperately needed something that could blunt the devastating power of the machine gun.

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They pinned hopes on a lumbering hunk of metal almost as dangerous to its drivers as to the enemy.

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Early on the morning of the 15th of September, tanks went into action here for the first time ever.

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The first was used to clear a German trench on the edge of Delville Wood.

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Four in High Wood fared badly amongst tree stumps.

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Many more swayed and clattered over this bare, open crest behind me,

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making for the village of Flers.

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A British pilot looked down on the scene and said,

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"A tank is walking up the main street of Flers with the British army cheering behind it."

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But the cheers faded as the tanks proved themselves to be too slow and mechanically unreliable

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to make the war-winning breakthrough.

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Heavy autumn rains turned the chalky soil of the Somme into a quagmire.

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The dream of a breakthrough became as distant as the memory of summer.

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The battle squelched to a halt in November, with the British still short of Bapaume.

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They were dug in on these bare ridges, with the wind keening across.

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All around, a landscape of wrecked tanks and corpses.

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Life in these trenches was close to unbearable.

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It was two miles to carry stretcher cases to the nearest light railway.

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The army was losing 1,000 men a week with frostbite and trench foot.

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The Thiepval memorial dominates the skyline of the Somme.

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On it are inscribed more than 70,000 names.

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These are the men who have no known graves.

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These great pillars are a monument

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to the old world of brass bands and cricket fields, pithead cottages and broad acres.

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Among the writers, artists and musicians commemorated here is George Butterworth,

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whose music and songs have become an epitaph to the lost age.

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Those whose bodies WERE recovered lie in 188 British and Commonwealth cemeteries throughout the region.

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It's impossible to visit the Somme without being struck by the sheer scale of the human sacrifice.

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Some of these soldiers died in July, expecting a quick breakthrough.

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Others died in a muddy slog that went on till November.

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Even now, historians still argue about what it all achieved.

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The Allies had suffered over 600,000 casualties, the Germans perhaps more.

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But the British army had lost something else - its innocence.

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It had lost its belief that the power of patriotism and the human spirit

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could triumph over the machine gun and the shell.