British royals commemorate Somme's 100th anniversary in France
1 July 2016 12:58 PM IST1 July 2016 12:58 PM IST
William, his wife Kate and brother Prince Harry attended the start of an all-night vigil at the Thiepval memorial.
Britain's Prince William, his brother Prince Harry, and Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton on Thursday paid tribute to a generation lost at the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after the deadliest battle in British history.- Soldiers' accounts of the battle are due to be read and the service and all night vigil were attended by descendants of the men who fought.
- The Queen attended the moving service and laid a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in the Abbey before an all night vigil will be held around the tomb - the first in 50 years.
- The Queen attended the moving service and laid a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in the Abbey before an all night vigil will be held around the tomb - the first in 50 years.
- It's a huge, unusual peace memorial near the French town of Ovillers-la-Boisselle.
- They are among the battle's many victims. Six months of fighting left more than 400,000 soldiers dead or missing.
- Rows and rows of crosses and simple markers surround the towering brick Thiepval Memorial, honoring tens of thousands of British and South African forces who died in the Somme and have no known grave.
- A century on, the eerily calm, bucolic fields belie the slaughter wrought there, and are now the haunt of tourists visiting war cemeteries and overgrown trenches.
- In addition to around 20,000 British fatalities on that first day, tens of thousands more were maimed or wounded.
- However carnage ensued on both sides despite the frontline barely moving, in a battle that came to symbolise the horrors of trench warfare and the futility of the conflict.
- The Battle of the Somme was launched on July 1 as Allied forces hoped to relieve the pressure on the French, who were racking up losses in Verdun, by attacking the Germans further north at the Somme.
- A century on, a birds-eye view of the World War I battlegrounds conveys the unprecedented scale of what happened.
- Prince Harry read out a poem, while soldiers at the vigil read out letters from those who had fought in the battle.
- \"Tonight we think of them... We acknowledge the failures of European governments, including our own, to prevent the catastrophe of world war,\" the prince, also known as the Duke of Cambridge, said.
- Soldiers from the UK, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand and Pakistan will take turns maintaining the vigil until 7:30 am (0530 GMT), the precise time that tens of thousands of troops clambered out of the trenches only to be mown down by German guns.
- William, his wife Kate and brother Prince Harry attended the start of an all-night vigil at the Thiepval memorial to honour the 1.2 million troops of different nationalities who were killed, injured or listed as missing.
- \"We lost the flower of a generation and in the years to come it sometimes seemed that with them a sense of vital optimism had disappeared for ever from British life,\" William said at a ceremony in northern France.
Britain’s Prince William, his brother Prince Harry, and Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton on Thursday paid tribute to a generation lost at the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after the deadliest battle in British history.
William, his wife Kate and brother Prince Harry attended the start of an all-night vigil at the Thiepval memorial.
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