Progress

First video update:

I messed around with my video this weekend and ended up deconstructing it and pulling it off youtube. I didn't like the way I wrapped the video up the first time and I am working on a better ending. I don't know if I should wrap each video up as one unit or segue from one video to another though the script.  I also pulled some clips out of the lineup so the video that I have to show today is incomplete. Right now the video is almost 4 minutes long. 

Here is the script I am working from right now:

July first 1916 is touted as the first day on the Somme of World War One. In the Somme offensive more than a million men were wounded or killed making it one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.

The Somme Offensive took place in the north of France on the rolling planes of the Picardie region. Picardie is sparse farm country and the terrain looks suited to ancient pre industrial battles. But, according to historian Fred R. Van Harts-  veldt in his book The Battles of the Somme, 1916: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography, the Somme was a proving ground for modern war machinery and tactics.

While tanks and airplanes are the shining stars of the battle of the Somme and the most prominent modern technology used in the First World War, the Somme also featured less famous innovations that have had equal cultural impact.

Those innovations were mining and the moving picture. (Hawthorn mine vid.)

To open the battle of the Somme, the British detonated the largest mines ever used in war. According to a propaganda video made by the British Topical Committee for War Films and filmographer Geoffrey H. Malins, soldiers tunneled under the German lines to place the charges. The tunneling company had to be ever vigilant for German counter mining efforts. Once the charges were place the men returned to the surface and the charges were detonated with an electric current.

The two  largest mines contained 24-thousand kilograms of ammonal. Two mines, the Lochnagar mine, and the Y-Sap mine were detonated at 7:30 am near La Boiselle. The third mine contained 18-thousand kilograms or explosive and was detonated under the hawthorn ridge redoubt. According to Malins in his book, “How I Filmed the War” the hawthorn ridge mine took seven months to construct, but meer seconds to explode. This third mine was detonated at 7:20am. Malins, who was filming on a hand-cranked camera at the time, described the explosion in his book  “The ground where I stood gave a mighty convulsion. It rocked and swayed. I gripped hold of my tripod to steady myself. Then, for all the world like a gigantic sponge, the earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet. Higher and higher

it rose, and with a horrible, grinding roar the earth fell back upon itself, leaving in its place a mountain of smoke.”

After the mining the British troops were ordered “Over the top.” Troops were assured that the mining and bombardments had done all of the work and they just had to march over no man’s land and take the German trenches.  That was not the case. The early explosion of the hawthorn mine tipped off the Germans, and many British were killed or wounded because they entered no man’s land unprepared for a real fight. According to the IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM’s Voices of the First World War Podcast, “the casualties” on July 1, 1916, “were the heaviest ever suffered by the British Army in any 24-hour period.”

Today the Somme is still pock marked and scarred with craters and trenches. On our recent class trip to France we visited both the Lochnagar Crater and the Hawthorn Ridge Crater.

At the Lochnagar Crater there is a small shrine to commemorate the lives lost in the war. Surrounded by farmland, the crater is one of many small memorials in the area. On the other hand, the Hawthorn Ridge crater is hidden in a stand of trees and unmaintained. There is little evidence from the road that the stand if trees hides part of history’s angry past.

Inside the crater it is clear that the area was shelled many times after the initial explosion. The ground is rutted and hilly. The hole is so deep that the nearly hundred year old trees growing inside barely reach the lip of the crater. 

Next Video Progress:

My next video is going to be on the stollens because I think the video from the stollens is the most fun. It has been a little difficult to find historical footage from the German side. Probably because of the language barrier. But, I am planning to have the video completed by next week Monday.