A narrative history of one of the blackest days for the British army, the first day of the Somme Offensive, 1st July 1916. The British Fourth Army lost 57,470 soldiers, the French Sixth Army suffered 1,590 casualties and the German 2nd Army 10,000. Over the next 141 days, there were between 750,000 and 1 million casualties. From the author of "Napoleon The Great".