Vast Selection of Royalty Free Images and Historical Information

Title: British cavalry ride past ruins 1916

Description: British cavalry ride past the ruins of the bombarded cathedral in the town of Albert, in the Somme Department of Northern France, this church wrecked during the 1916 Battle of the Somme (AKA: Somme Offensive; July 1-November 18, 1916 ), one of the most prolonged and bloody battles of World War I; hundreds of British guns opened the battle on June 24, 1916, bombarding German positions until British divisions under General (later field marshal) Sir Douglas Haig (1st Earl Haig; June 19, 1861-January 29, 1928) attacked on July 1, 1916, while French divisions under the command of General (later field marshal) Emile Fayolle (Marie Emile Fayolle; May 15, 1858-August 27, 1928) attacked and made good penetration into German territory at the south on the banks of the Somme River; the British Fourth Army commanded by General Sir Henry Rawlinson (Henry Seymour Rawlinson; AKA: Baron Rawlinson; February 20, 1864-March 28, 1925), however, was met by a storm of bullets from myriad German machine gun positions from Fricourt northward, and the advancing British troops were slaughtered wholesale, suffering 57,450 casualties that one day, the heaviest loss endured by the British Army in any day in history; for more than three months the combatant armies attacked and counterattacked, but made little gains and in the end, the Germans suffered 650,000 casualties; the British 420,000 and the French 195.000; the waste of human life in such attritional warfare disgusted the world and eventually caused France's two top military commanders, who planned the Somme offensive, Marshal Joseph Joffre (Joseph Jacques Cesaire Joffre; January 12, 1852-January 3, 1931) and General (later marshal) Ferdinand Foch (October 2, 1851-March 20, 1929), to be retired, albeit Foch was named a marshal in 1918 and was made Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front;

Category: World War I

Keywords: artillery, Battle of the Somme (July 1-November 18, 1916), battlefields, battlegrounds, barrages, bombardments, British cavalrymen, British troopers, cannonades, cathedrals, churches, destruction, First World War, The Great War, guns, horses, ordnance, rubble, ruined buildings, ruins, shelling, War to End All Wars, World War I, WWI.