The Somme Battlefield Tour
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лип 2024
- The complete six episode compliation of my visit to the Somme Battlefield in Northeast France in February 2022.
0:00 - Episode 1 - The Pals attack on Serre
17:56 - Episode 2 - Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Park
43:32 - Episode 3 - Hawthorn Ridge
1:02:08 - Episode 4 - Lochnagar Crater
1:18:18 - Episode 5 - Stories of the Fallen
1:45:45 - Episode 6 - Death of the Red Baron
patreon - / vth
merch store - vth-store-3.creator-spring.com/
Instagram - / vloggingthroughhistory
Discord - / discord
For business inquiries contact: vloggingthroughhistory@gmail.com
my history/strategy gaming channel - / @thehistoryguy
#WW1 #History
Really appreciate that this video is finally getting picked up by the youtube algorithm. If you like these sorts of videos, check out this channel's home page for videos from historic sites all over Europe and the United States! If you think I've earned it, please consider subscribing.
superb post Sir,thank you
Subbed,excellent content sir I plan to view many of your offerings thanks so much
Typical American version of the event with incorrect facts and dates.
@urbanfox53 what is incorrect? Be specific. This was all well researched for months beforehand, mostly using British accounts.
Ignore him he's a wanker
To increase your views I will keep this running in the background. Since I seen the individual videos already :)
I had the honour about 30+ years ago of walking in your footsteps with a WW1 veteran. Wonderful homage to the fallen and life closure for George the veteran.
Priceless experience 👌
I’m 16 hopefully a future history teacher and I hate how I can’t pay my respects in that way anymore, god bless to all who served military or civilian in the War to end all wars !
Love hearing the emotion in your voice reading about the Pals. Shows how much history matters to you. Much respect. ❤
I'll be completely honest, this is the first one of your original content videos I've seen, and I'm incredibly impressed by the amount of detail that you have gone into with this series. The research that you did leading up to this trip really shows, and it's incredible the way that you have humanized those casualty numbers. Never really before had I thought about the individual soldiers who died, or experienced these things to the level of detail that you explained. War is a great evil, and takes so much from so many, typically only to gain so little. I understand that sometimes war is the only answer, but it was definitely moving to me to see you hold back tears as you talked about these young men who bravely gave their lives just trying to take 300 yards of field. I'll definitely be watching more of these in the future.
Chris, thank you for your kind words and appreciation of the work of "The Commonwealth War Graves Commission".
You have given give the soldiers who fought and died on both sides in Europe the same deference you have shown the for the soldiers of both sides of the Civil War in the US- Apolitical views and comment without judgement is a difficult thing to do well. I think this is why your profile is being recognised with the meteoric rise in subscribers
Thanks for this Tour. My grand-grandfather fought on german side at the somme, near Hawthorne Ridge. When I was I kid, he told me stories about this time. He also survived WW2 as a Reserve-Officer incl fighting in Normandy. He alsways said: The great war was by far worse from a soldiers point of view, then the WW2. Its not even imaginable for us today, what those men suffered. Thanks for honouring them with this brilliant documentation.
I toured Verdun when motorcycling across Europe in the 1980's. Those WW One battlefields are haunting. There is the feeling of being watched, .....and cemetaries everywhere. You do an excellent job. Take care.
What an education you gave yourself with that tour through those fields. Amazing.
i was born in Accrington 1954. found this so moving. i remember elderley relatives sat round a piano playing 'keep the home fires burning;' God rest the Accrington Pals who did their bit above and beyond the call of duty.
My great grandfather fought in the Somme with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, I always think about him and the hell he must have went through. He was was machine gunned in the hip and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Well done for presenting this amazing video.
My grandfather was an Aussie who was shot and lost his arm after only two months in the trenches.
@@bungee7503 Sorry to hear that my friend, so many great men were maimed, injured and destroyed in that war.
All that death…and for what!? Unbelievably sad. Thanks for the tour.
A tragedy indeed. But I wouldnt view them in vein. Their death, more than any death in a previous war, laid the groundwork for the decades of peace in recent times. Their death meant and means something to this day.
@jackudark8848 massively agree with your comment. To simply call the deaths and casualties inane robs them of the very sacrifice they offered. Yes deaths caused by wars are tragic but we should definitely revere the sacrifice they made. I absolutely understand what the original commenter was saying and yes in the broad scheme of things it's a tragic loss of life. But when these men died they did so believing that what they were doing meant something. Also we often forget that ww1 was much bigger than the somme offensive. People were fighting and dying all over the theatre of war throughout the world on both sides. WW2 was far bloodier sometimes for far less.
To stop German imperial aggression. Which was a forerunner of Nazi Germany.
@@ja_u what the fck you are talking about? They laid the groundwork for decades of peace???
20 years later the fought an even more evil war... we never had peace
@@SMB96 Curious to be back here a year later.
If you know anything about the world wars you would understand. The second World War's inception was fueled by the aftermath of the first World War. Reparations, slow recovery, poverty, hunger, etc.
The second World War arguably got us 75years of peace and without the first World War the second and especially its aftermath wouldve looked very different. The mistakes of the first World War were taken into consideration and avoided the second time around. Now you might argue cynically that the first was therefore useless but I would strongly disagree. We know, thanks to plenty of examples, that big conflicts wont just be settled with one war, however big and long. There is so much more to it than fight and win/lose.
That was the best most informative, sensitive and ‘human’ presentation of the First World War I have ever seen. I’m speechless at the carnage, and what’s that saying ‘ the only thing we learn about History is we never learn.
Thank you for all your effort.
I have just watched you narate the fate of the Accrington Brigade. I saw you choke. I'm sat here in tears as I write as accrington was the birth place of my mum and my Grandfather was a survivor, although only due to an accident the day before the attack. You have proven beyond that you feel the pain of the suffering the families felt. Tiny villages around Accrington ceased to exist because of the Pals Brigades.
The Somme is and forever shall be, I imagine, the first thing British people think about in regards to WW1, over 100 years later, it still leaves an everlasting scar on our collective psyche. Thank you for your documentary minI series, I know you are historian but I was surprised by how well researched this is and how much I learned. I will be showing it to my father who doesn't really interact with the internet, as I am sure he will appreciate this even more than I already have. Thank you again.
Never forget Passchendaele.
UA-cam is a better place with you in it. Thank you for your dedication and work! Always look forward to your works. Here's to more and pushing the caliber of your content!
As someone from Newfoundland I would like to sincerely thank you for spreading the story of the newfoundland regiment. July 1st is a very bittersweet day for us newfoundlanders as the whole country is celebrating canada day while NL is also remembering the sacrifice of the men on that fateful day.
I think learning how the Commonwralth joined together to become one in their fight against the Kaiser's aggression in Europe, is a lesson we all can learn from today. Like the majority of Brits I thought Newfoundland was part of Canada, not a separate land with it's own Government, separate from the rest of Canada. Great video.
@@docfurious2408 You were correct in the first place.Newfoundland is a province of Canada.
Have been to the Newfoundland memorial 3 times and will go again at the end of this year as well. It’s very moving. Lest we forget.
@@Anglo_Saxon1In 1914 it wasn't part of Canada
@@steveforster9764 Fair comment 😉
As long as there are people like you sir they will not be forgotten.
If there is a heaven, I hope there is a special place in it for those who share personal histories, ensuring that individuals like those buried at the Somme can never be forgotten. By making these videos that will be on the Internet for all time, you have ensured that these brave souls have not been lost to time. Thank you, sir.
There are plenty of places out there where people can get the big picture and learn about troop movements and generals, my goal in my trip to France was to tell stories that people maybe have never heard before. Glad there are others who appreciate these stories as much as I do
Really well made and very poignant video,three of us went recently to many of the places shown in your excellent video very well done.Thank you .
I'm so glad you were able to go man.
I have just returned from a trip called 'All Quiet on the Western Front ' I've always been interested in the Great War, probably because when I was at a convent boarding school in the 1960's we had an ancient French nun who had lost 2 brothers in the French army during ww1, she still cried, and wanted to tell us about it but we were young and disinterested, but obviously she had got through to me because I am now learning all I can about this dreadful conflict, my interest was 're-awakened when I read Testament of Youth by Vera Brittan, all so sad and such a waste of those brave young men and animals, you often see a dog in the French photos I think the soldiers made pets of them for some comfort.
I have really enjoyed these videos, thank you for making them.
Wow, lo e the quality and compassion of your videos. When we still lived in west yorkshire back in the 70s and 80s we had contact with old soldiers thru our medical careers. My wife became a Sister in community nursing and i met a few surviving ww1 guys and a couple agreed to talk to us. Sam in the West Yorks reg. had his life saved by being shot thru the knee by his officer's incompetence whilst servicing his Webley.He wassent home and his convalescence took 6mths avoiding July 1st where his battalion suffered 70% casualties.
He was retrained as a linesman and had to keep communicacions going in the 3rd Ieper.He died in 1980s and left me his trench diary and medals.❤
we have toured ieper,flanders,somme and Verdun.All those combatants deserve our respect and awe.
Thank you for a great video. Some of the guys in Fricourt Cemetery are actually Danish. Not geographically but by hearts and minds as their parents were born in what at that time was Denmark but lost to Germany in the war in 1864 and their children were brought up speaking Danish and with Danish values and the majority saw themselves as Danish not Germans . This area known as North Schleswig was voted back to Denmark by a referendum in 1920. To of my great grandfathers fought in the Emperial Army during WW1 but they were anti-German before and after the war.
30,000 "Danes" went to war for Germany and around 6,000 never saw their homes again. Lots of Danes immigrated to US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ and joined up and sometimes there would have been Danes against Danes somewhere on the front.
To all of you who fought from all nations....you are never forgotten
A detailed , sometimes emotive account of the horror of war. I congratulate your research and knowledge. Been there many times , somehow linked to the awful carnage that touches the heart. A most excellent presentation. Thank you.
This was a really great series. The way you present these men's stories is very powerful. Cant wait to see what comes next
Thank you Chris
My late husbands grandfather was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his service at Verdun. He was the last "metrailleure" standing in a machine gun nest to which all the young men ftom his village had been assigned. The men who lay dead all around him were his childhood chums. So his medal came at the cost of all the boys he grew up with. I talked to him about it in 1984 when he was 87. He cried tears remembering and feeling guilty he couldn't save them. I appreciate your sensitivity to the traumatic event that was this war. It permanently changed the boys who fought and lived and the reverberations fr their PTSD were felt later by their offspring who weren't even alive at the time.
So senseless... And i know what you meant when you said the sheer number of names of the dead was overwhelming. I felt overwhelmed by the number of dead on the Vietnam wall. I can't imagine seeing any multiple of that. Good job on the series. Gonna watch it again.
That’s very sad indeed…
Absolutely stunning stuff Chris. Not only do you provide content which educates and entertains, you've provided me with a link to the past like no one else has done before. All the best to you sir.
My uncle enlisted in the Navy in the buddy system in the 60s
Watched them all individually as they were coming out and just rewatching because the whole story works great.
Great content, have not been watching the battlefields until The Somme and now I'm watching the old ones plus can't wait about what's to come.
A very moving account of this terrible time. My father's brother was killed later in October after enduring months of these abominable conditions. Like so many others, his body was never found so his name is recorded on the Thiepval monument.
Through your extensive research and sensitive narration, you have brought this alive to me like no other has. Many thanks to you for this, as well as for your care in pronunciation of English, French and German words and names, which all too often are mangled by linguistically insensitive American voices. Many thanks and best wishes.
THANK YOU CHRIS !!!
I am from The Netherlands, the Somme is about 3 hours by car, on the way to Paris. I remember my Belgian grandfather and my grandmother telling me about the War 14-18, as they called it. They lost 4 boys at the end on WW 2. This is one of the best videos on this subject, with great respect for all people that lost their lives in such a useless war. Thank you for this video.
Nice. Good job
Most underrated youtuber ever
It’s like you described before this trip-awe in being in such a historic place mixed with oppressive sadness at the human lives and stories that were lost making that history.
There we are
Liverpool my city. It took many years but there is now recognition in lime street station of the men who left from there. Lest we forget.
Thanks for this!
Thank you for compiling all the videos into 1
Thanks for this amazing work. Our duty of memory is so important. Reality over Hollywood’s bashing if France 🇫🇷
great video!
I just want to say these are my favorite videos of yours keep it up :)
So many young lives taken to soon on both sides!! ❤️
May they all rest in peace.
Amazing work Chris.
My hometown of Blackburn getting a mention! :D
The Accrington Pals are celebrated and cherished in this part of the world. The memorial built using the famous 'Accrington Brick' and the East Lancashire regiment who still have the EGYPT insignia on their crest of arms.
Magnificent effort, I love seeing the growth of your channel, you deserve every success.
This was a good idea Chris. Putting all these together makes it like a feature length documentary. You really seem to get emotionally moved by the stories you tell. That makes a difference from other UA-cam history people.
Absolute masterpiece.
This is absolutely THE best summary of the Battle of the Somme I’ve ever seen. Thanks so much for creating it and for making the human stories so often missing from military history a part of your story. This battlefield is high on my bucket list.
Absolutely worth a visit. I have so many more stories I want to tell from there, and I can't wait to go back.
Funny Edward Stanley the Earl of Derby I believe is the son of Lord Frederick Arthur Stanley the 16th Earl of Derby who donated the Stanley Cup on March 18th 1892 while serving as Governor General of Canada
I myself have extensively visited these sites, thank you for making this series of films it brought back many memories, I would like to complement you on your approach and the quality of the content & thank you for keeping their stories alive we will remember them.
Brilliant descriptions and information , many thanks for this video .
This is an amazing documentary. My Grandfather fought there. He was with The South Wales Borderers Defence Corp3 KSL1. He was from North Wales and joined up aged 19. Miraculously he survived. I often wonder how ? He was injured, shell shocked, gassed, trench feet and was sent to a hospital in France. He was discharged back to Blighty. He died in 1972, aged 74 years and never spoke about his time there, apart from " It was hell on earth ". RIP to all the fallen. We will remember them.
So glad he survived. I cannot even begin to imagine what he must have experienced. Headed back there next week.
very interesting, i shall keep this in the background!!!!
Fascinating
Just in time for me to get to the data entry portion of my job that takes hours
So good that I'm going through each individual episode and like'ing them individually!!!
the full package! just what i’ve been waiting for
also found this as the first video on my home page. hope that’s a good thing for your view count!
Spectacular work! Thanks for your excellence in video and editing.
Excellent content. Severely underrated.
Thank you soooo much for this series. I have cried like a baby, especially with Corporal Dwyer's singing. Empathy is such an important quality! And I thank God for the ability of feeling the emotional pain they must have felt. And I thank you for your amazing the coverage, and for your empathy. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
These videos are so educational! I was never taught 99% of this
Your presentation is superb and understandable that it disturbs you, well done.
Thank you for your wonderful empathetic tour, I hope you do many more. Thank you again.
Heading back to the Somme next week to do at least 6 more videos.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Thank you sir.
Your presentation skills have been honed over the last year! Awesome work!
I very much appreciate your videos. This one in particular is overwhelming. When you said 'over 3000 British cemeteries', I had to rewind and listen several times. just to make sure I heard correctly. It is often unfathomable to comprehend the number of brave, young lives that were lost in that war, and this one statement somehow got through to me of just how overwhelming the whole death toll was. Thank you for all of your work.
A really good video. Thank you so much for highlighting such an important story to tell. Great work
thank you been wating for this one
First here, first time looking into these videos.
Absolutely love this video - especially the section on the Royal Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel. I did a self driving tour from Ypres down to the Somme battlefields a few years back - Beaumont-Hamel, as it is preserved, just chokes one up. Same trip - driving through a single lane in the middle of farmers fields... just came across a small CWGC cemetery. On a small country lane, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere.
Great work. Thank you
This was really great. Cut past the pomp and the glory and straight to the truth of it. An objective and honest reflection of what was the most horrific and pointless conflict in human history. A great and unbiased honoring of all of the poor souls who lost their lives there on both sides. Thank you sir.
Love this sort of content mate
Excellent upload - thank you.
This is really great stuff!
Absolutely outstanding video. Thank you so much for doing this 😘
My great-grandfather was in Company C of the 3rd Pioneer Infantry (US). From Ancestry's website, I found him listed as an arrival back to the US in 1919 on a troop transport -- The USS Mexican -- from St Nazaire, France. When I Wikipedia the "USS Mexican" I find from the dating that he would have been on the ship when the picture was taken! This kind of connection to history is fascinating to me, it makes history feel more immediate and personal.
I similarly had a 3x great-grandfather who was captured during the fall of Richmond in Civil War, and there are pictures of Libby Prison on the date that he would have been there (he did not survive prison and is now in a mass grave in Newport News).
You remind me so much of my very favourite history teacher, Mrs. Maddox. Just like her, your passion to view and understand struggles of the past from all perspectives seeps through to us and it makes committing these events to memory seemless. I just wanted to let you know that your influence is very much appreciated.
Excellent documentary. I had a 19 year old relative killed on the second day of the battle on the 2 nd July 1916. He was from Burnley but served with the Royal Liverpool Rifles. Tragic waste of young life.
This is really great! I made my final college history paper on the cause of WWI and hearing you talk about what happened after is really interesting!
Thanks for making this! It's like a movie
Great video, thanks for posting this.
Absolutely marvellous. I really felt the emotion coursing through your commentary and at one or two points you seemed close to tears. As a British First World War enthusiast I would like to say how wonderful this was coming from a US UA-cam channel. I always get the impression that Americans move straight from the Civil War to the Second World War and you have shown that this isn’t the case. Many thanks. Thank you for honouring our fallen.
Doing my best to educate my fellow Americans on the Great War. Also, you're a Baggie fan? Same! On my way to the UK next week to see my first game at the Hawthorns on Feb 13.
Fantastic! Yes I am - I was a local but now live in Kent, still metaphorically hurting from last Sunday (on and off the pitch) but we go again! Have a great time, we have a good record against Cardiff so hopefully they’ll put on a show for you! Have followed on Twitter/X as well.
Great and emotional watch, thank you!
loved this episode
great work,thanks
There is are also still preserved trenches in Flanders I think. Check 'Dodengang' in Diksmuide
I cannot lie at 15:00 mins in I nearly cried, what those men were said to do is truly horrific and important
Excellent video. Thank you Chris
Great Video very well researched!
thank you for doing that, it's amazing
PLEASE keep putting out this original content! It is fantastic and higher quality than many big budget productions!
Recent subscriber here and even more recent viewer of your original videos. Thank you so much for telling these stories. You've reinvigorated my love of history, especially of WWI and WWII
This channel is such a gem
A really brilliant piece of work
This is absolutely heartbreaking. Can't imagine what the people of those towns went through. So many friends, family, co-workers killed in a a few days or weeks.
Chris, this series was amazing. I watched a lot of videos about WW1 but this is one of the most emotional and heartbreaking journeys I've seen so far. Especially the 5th episode. Keep up the good work and I can't wait for your future trip in Europe, wherever that would be.
Very great work...! Thank Y!
Pleasant surprise with your detailed knowledge
My granddad had 5 small children so they didn't conscript him until late 1916. By that time, so many pals battalions had been wiped out that they were distributing the men. He lived in West Yorkshire but was sent to the East Yorkshire Regiment. Didn't help much coz he was killed in the attack on Oppy wood 3.45am Thursday 3rd May 1917... My dad, his son, was conscripted and shipped off to fight in the jungles of Burma in WW2. He survived and lived to age 81
This is absolutely brilliant. God bless, and thank you.