Volunteers started to come into play also. By 1916 during the battle of the somme, the army was mostly volunteers with remnants of the professional and territorial divisions. This is the general, the chief architect of the battle of the somme. Here he is Walking Around his chateau. Every morning he would take a four minute walk around the chateau, precisely timed. Interesting man vilified by a lot of historians and then a rehabilitated by a lot of historians. My opinion of him is rather low but i try to be neutral about how i show him. There he is riding a horse in the front. Everyday he would also take a ride if he could with the 17th lancers which is a unit that he used to command because the general was in calgary officer and he believed in the calgary three at the battle of the somme was to relieve pressure on the french fighting against the germans. His idea was after a massive bombardment basically an unprecedented bombardment. The british infantry would take the german trenches and the calgary would go through and the stalemate, you heard of the stalemate of the cold war one, the trench warfare would be broken and and the calgary would roll up the german flanks and won again it would be a movement and so for those who say that some historians will say that he was wrong about certain things but there was a learning curve and eventually he got and its true in 1918 he won the battles but he still believed in the calgary because after the war i will read you the quote. He wrote airplanes and tanks are only accessories to the man with the horse. So he definitely had a different conception about modern warfare. This is a picture of british troops coming out to the somme. It was a major road, a lot of back roads were reduced and a lot of material had to come out as you could imagine. The average british regiment had about 19 or 20,000 soldiers and maybe 60 or 70 trucks were motorized vehicles and 5,000 horses. So one of the things i have to remember is the horseless still the Main Transport vehicle. This is the famously i told you about this for roger that was going to be launched at the german position one. There was one done for every 17 yards of the front. Its an often quoted figure it was an unprecedented bombardment, but a lot of the British Artillery wasnt as big as this much of it was much smaller and also in 1916 a lot of the shells were duds so about 30 re savitt sun presented bombardment had a lot of bark but the fight wasnt quite what was advertised to be. The british lead a lot of track before the battle to bring as much stuff up as possible and here you see the dump where soldiers are unloading things from the train and then the shells would be taken in the end of bombardment 1,500,000 shells were fired before the infantry actually attacked. Here ratio the british soldiers going to the front. As i mentioned they were mostly volunteers and they were quite enthusiastic about the war at this point. In the recruitment drive, kitchner came up with this idea of the battalion so a lot of the deal was he would join up with your pals so a lot of friends joined from the same villages and towns and units were built even not professional courses like clerks or there was an artist by telling and for example and so friends joined up together. Perhaps one of the reasons they were enthusiastic is a lot of them were told that it would be a sort of cakewalk. They were told the bombardment would be so heavy that no german would be alive in the trenches when they got their. And heres the bombardment. It was planned to go on for five days and it did and there was a rain squall and so the battle was postponed by a couple days so the firing went on for another two so at the very end of it, the shells that were put there for the on board and had to be stretched over a couple more days. This is one of the beloved calvary units that came from india. Its one of the three british regiments, the calgary that was put right behind the front lines waiting for that breakthrough so it could go to the gap. Mostly the Indian Calabresi because that is one of the units but on the first day of the somme was british soldiers, pretty much the both to the capricious fault there is a newfoundlander unit but it was a part of canada as a selfgoverning colony. Around evening time, soldiers who were meant to go over the top would be coming into the trenches and these are the ones in the first wave the would be given wire cutters as i show here. The hope is that the barbed wire is a very effective antiinfantry and was used extensively by both sides and the hope is that the artillery bombardment would cut the wire and a really varied and places and the soldiers would get to the wire and they would try to cut through so their comrades could go through. Night falls, the soldiers tried to get some sleep. In some places the trenches were so crowded some soldiers spent the last night on their feet. On the left of this illustration or where you can see the barbed wire at night time the british soldiers would have gone out and cut a hole in their own barbwire in other words in front of the british trenches because obviously you need a place where the troops can go through. In the background by schoenbohm board met and we are getting towards morning now and in the last 60 or 65 minutes the british intensified the bombardment. Now its around 7 20 a. M. On july 1st. Its a bright day with a ray of sunlight and use ev and grenade thrower some industry what soldier would take a grenade to give them when they got close to the german lines. The average soldier had equipment that was about 60 to 65 pounds. At the bottom left you see the soldiers having their rum and rationed because a was standard in a major attack from the would drink tea laced with rum and according into Martin Middlebrook who wrote the great book some of them went over drunk. I guess to self medicate for the major battle. On the right you see them fixing the next bayonet and they would prevail. Just before the troops went over, the british exploited large mines under the trenches and they had been prepared for weeks or months. Obviously they were minor in the british army and they would have tunneled under the german lines and exploded into some of the larger ones were heard in england. Blew the debris 4,000 feet into the air. So they went off and then there was silence. And of course the whistles blow and the british troops start going over the top and i shall an officer there with his browning Service Revolver and what sort of interesting about the First World War is that the not the high command but the Junior Officers like the lieutenant and the captains lead from the front and throughout the war and including of course the battle they had a high casualty rate than the average infantryman and the officer class was generally from the aristocracy basically, very well educated, graduates of cambridge, oxford. The high command didnt have great confidence in the volunteer army. Most of these troops were seen combat for the first time. So they were told to line up outside of their own barb wire and move sort of napoleonic style in a row towards the german line. The high command didnt want to disorganize the advance. They were told to walk. They were told not to stop for anyone who was wounded. That the wounded would be picked up later. They were two or three paces apart and these lines move towards the german position about a minute apart from each other. So they were just rows of infantry. This was the idea, moving towards the german trenches. Now, ive talked about this bombardment. The germans were very defensive minded at this particular time, and they had dug very deep dugouts. 40, 50 feet below ground. Most of the soldiers were taking shelter from this bombardment. The machine gun positions were often concrete reinforced and wouldve taken a direct hit and knocked them out. The british, on the other hand, actually never wanted their soldiers to be comfortable in the trenches. They never wanted their soldiers to feel, have a defensive mindset. So there were dugouts but they were just a few feet below ground usually for officers and most of their soldiers in the trenches would have dug a hole into the side of the trench or sheltered with a cape. So the soldiers began to move out. Meanwhile, many germans survived. They hear its silent. The british barrage has gone further to the rear of the german line. Son that these soldiers, these germans are manning the machine gun posts. They just are cutting down the rows of reddish soldiers. British soldiers. And then the german artillery begins firing into no mans land, basically puts up a wall of shellfire. And in the first hour of the battle of the somme, its estimated the british concurred 30,000 casualties of which 10,000 were dead. Just to put that into perspective, thats more than the amount of american servicemen killed in iraq and afghanistan combined. Thats in the first hour. The germans wouldve trained their machine guns right on those openings in the barb wire that the british soldiers were going through. Many british soldiers lost their lives right as i got out of the trench and workload, clustered together. The germans also began firing into the british trenches which were packed with troops waiting to go over the top in subsequent waves are in many british soldiers died or were wounded before the left the trenches. When someone died in the trench they would just throw them over the side. Obviously, with the wounded in the trenches, the stretchers were trying to get them out and, of course, there were scenes where the soldiers were trying to move forward and stretcher bearers were trying to go back. In some cases sort of at the top right, they actually got out of the trenches and walked across open ground because it was just faster to get someone medical care. This is a battalion a post. Its where basically light casualties would be on a daytoday basis. These were just very quickly overwhelms. You have one medical officer and a few orderlies. Most of the casualties was sent, get to the rear. And here i so i shall Wounded Soldiers coming out of the trenches. The walking wounded as im showing here were basically told just to keep walking to the casual declaring stations which could be miles behind the front. So they helped each other get to the rear. The more serious the injured seriously injured would be put on ambulances, either motorized ambulances like this one here or horse ambulances. Again, there were many horses used in this sort of thing. This is a casual declaring station where surgery could actually be done and they were doing in these tents. But as you can imagine, the overflow of casualty meant that not everyone could be treated right away. So they began just laying out the wounded in the field, and many died unattended. Here i show a soldier going through the effects of one of the debt. The british would have dug graves right by the casual declaring station, sort of predug them knowing there would be casualties that wouldnt survive their wounds. And so the book basically ends in the grave with the soldiers being buried. When they were idea get their names would be painted on a temporary wooden cross just to know where the body was. So after the war, whatever they could to get what to do with those bodies. So on the first day of the somme, i mentioned figures before but the total on the first day of the somme, the british at 57,000 casualties, of which 21,000 were fatalities. So the casualties, cash at the rate basically one out of every two soldiers who was thrown into the battle that day. So you can see what the battle of the somme really covers over the psyche of the british nation. The battle went on for another four and a half months, and about a million about 1,200,000 people were casualties on both sides because the funds were also involved, including the germans. So that you get a brief overview. And i would be happy to take your questions, if you have any. Yes . Where did the battle occur . The somme is, its in eastern france. Its hard for me to describe exactly. I can probably pointed out on the map but its the eastern part of france. The frontline ran through belgium and into eastern france, and then all the way down to the swiss border. Yes . Your book, your other stations called the mine a book by sebastian. Have you read that book the . I havent read that book. You should. [laughter] im looking at this and then seeing everything that was an image that was conjured up by suggesting sebastian, i think you would find it well worth your time. Thank you for saying that. Its interesting because i spent some time in the imperial war newseum looking at the Photo Archives there, and there were many great pictures but very few pictures of combat. And the way i could get those images was by first person accounts of the battle, but also some fictional accounts. Theres a great book by frederic manning, for example, and its like when youre reading prose can you get images in your head. Basically what i did was i to those images floating in my head and tried to put them on paper. [inaudible] okay, good. [inaudible] definitely. You get a lot out of fiction and the first person account. I think were using the microphone so if you want to come out. [inaudible] go ahead while we are waiting spent what inspired you to write this or to do this production . Im familiar with many of the photographs in the real war newseum, and the detail that you captured this exquisite. And your knowledge of the battle is equally so. And i would like to know, what inspired you and how you ended up doing the work that youve done. How did that all come together to . All right. Well, i spent a lot of time thinking about the battle of the somme and First World War. I grew up in australia and in australia, world war i figures also very heavily into the national consciousness. And i remember as a boy, the day they came rate those landings commemorate those land, class with stop and over the loudspeaker they would broadcast the stories of soldiers from First World War. So its sort of in your head in that way, but then i read about quite a bit as a boy, too, and i had that little boy fascination with stuff like bike lanes and you know, the gas mask they were wearing. It was all so surreal and its sort of intrigued me but horrified me, too, especially even as a kid reading about no mans land and what that meant literally. As a boy no mans land you take the words literally get it means like no man can be in this land. So that sort of stuff just told me and. But at the same time when i begin to realize that armies just battered each other over, and gained almost no ground, that sort of horrified me. I mean, in 1915, hundreds of thousands of people died in eight square miles were exchanged. Its really shocking to think that people would be thrown into this sort of a furnace. Later on, i mean, my interest went so far that i actually hitchhiked out to the somme battlefield and spent three days camped out just reading tombstones but its very poignant, because families were allowed to have an inscription on the tombstone of the departed person, maybe 10 words. And what can you say in 10 words . And most were the same, the same, the same but every now and then something stood out where someone tried to Say Something different. And i spent time in flanders also doing the same thing so it stuck with me for a long time. And actually what happened is, i was in new york i was living in new york with a guy named matt and we both have an interest in world war i. This was 15 years ago, and he said, wouldnt it be great if you to a panorama of the western front . I just sort of forgot about 15 years later he called me up and now is an editor at w. W. Norton and said would you be interested . I thought about it and i said i dont want to do a panorama but i do want to do a narrative. And i thought about the tapestry and how thats a narrative. And its also read in a way, youve read it from left to right. It tells a story of the norman invasion of england. It shows ships being built crossing the channel and then the battle of hastings. Said to me i already had a template for the idea. Thank you. Thanks. I really appreciated your talk and the wonderful ella stations and drawings. Two things. I was curious about the sources for the pictures themselves, you know, and maybe you will tell us, if you havent already, i got in public, but photographs, whatever and sort of the process of creating these wonderful illustrations you did. And second, last night i was looking at this calendar from this year, and it was based on the art was paintings from the civil war. And this kind of maybe think about people different but going right up there, one to the other without body armor or anything like that. Just a little bit of a loose question, but any thoughts you might have about relating world war i, you know, in 1914 to the civil war 70 years before. Something like that. To answer your second question first, it seems like the civil war had many modern, what we would call modern aspects to it. There was trench warfare, bombardments, the siege of cities. There were a lot of things that became familiar to a greater degree in the 20th century that we saw in the civil war. I think thats true. Now, as far as the images, like i said i was at the imperial war newseum looking for those sorts of details you dont normally find in a look of photographs of world war i. You often see the same picture over and over again in different books. But any specific details and even looking at the blinders they have this marvelous of archived getting ideas. When theres a whole binder on mules, okay, mules. Utility for him to realize how much they would bring up mortar a nation and all kinds of things. So it gave me ideas looking at those archives. The other thing i did when i was in london, i sat down with a world war i historian named julian, and the sort of answer a lot of questions i had about, you know, the small detail that the question get when youre drawing you can think how exactly did they give how exactly did it over the top . Thats the images of people going out all at once. Which is a really typical. Normally they would go up a ladder because they have to get through a little bit of barbed wire. They had to go up over the top through certain areas. He explains a lot of that sort of stuff to me. So those were my sources. Plus, osmosis. Because ive been reading about the First World War. Its sort of sunk into my head now. A related question. I was interested more in the drawing techniques and immediate, and also how you came to decide on this accordion fold book section. I will credit my editor with that because he is the one who suggested the accordion style structure. So he gets full credit for that. As far as the drawings and how i went about it, basically i had 12 sheets of paper but it wasnt like one long drawn i was doing. It was 12 sheets, about a yard long each, basically i call them two pag