It was 1916 on the 1st of July
That artillery and smoke blackened the sky.
Shots rang out and men fell dead,
It was 1916 on the 1st of July
That artillery and smoke blackened the sky.
Shots rang out and men fell dead,
The sky was black, while the ground was red.
To battle the Germans the French and British had come,
To the bloodiest fight of the War, The Battle of the Somme.
While artillery rained down on the German side
The allies swallowed their fear and stood with pride.
Waiting to be ordered over the top,
To run without question, don’t look back and don’t stop.
But this is when the slaughter started,
Machine guns screamed out as bodies and limbs became parted.
Fifty-eight thousand casualties in one single day
‘A necessary loss’ the Generals would say.
‘We will rest for now and recommence tomorrow
No time for the men to indulge in their sorrow’
So they readied the next batch of men for the slaughter,
Would they fare better when faced with the mortars?
The answer to this question was obviously no
As the casualty counts continued to grow.
For every single centimeter of ground that was taken
The lives of two men were sadly forsaken.
And so the battle waged on and on,
The bloodiest battle of World War One.
Yet as they made progress towards German lines,
The allies had one thing in the front of their minds.
For the Germans had a weapon the allies had yet to discover
One that would find men even if they took cover.
As the allied assault drew nearer and nearer
The time to use this weapon had never been clearer.
The little grey canisters flew through the air
Giving the allied forces more than a scare.
The men now engaged in a fight for their lives,
They could not protect themselves with their guns or their knives.
Their only weapon now was a mask
But fitting it in time was a very hard task.
‘Gas, Gas!’ some men would cry
Most had masks, the rest would die.
Their screams could be heard as they approached their death,
Blood curdled in their lungs as they drew their last breath.
Eventually their eyes would roll back in their head
And with a final twitch and spasm they lay still, dead.
And so the battle waged on and on,
The bloodiest battle of World War One.
Even with the threat of the German gas,
It was time for a final allied assault to mass.
And with this Britain unveiled their tank
When the battle ended they had this to thank.
It stormed over No-Man’s Land, through German wire,
The Germans shook in fear as it prepared to fire.
For the British troops it opened the way,
For the deaths of their comrades the Germans would pay.
And the German death count grew and grew
As the allied assault continued to break through.
And though the fighting had not ended,
The morale of the allies began to get mended.
They pushed with valor towards their objective,
With a new vigor the Germans had not expected.
Although the enemy held, and did not retreat
This battle is viewed as a German defeat.
It was 1916 on the 21st of November
That the five month long battle was finally over.
No shots rang out but thousands were dead,
The sky was still black, the ground was stained red.
To battle the Germans the French and British had come,
To the bloodiest fight of the War, The Battle of the Somme.
