Lots of stories today about the centenary observations of this horrific battle.
I think this one is the best.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... -uk-france
The best part...
Images from the battle including some Canadians.
It was a sort of General Grant/Stalin move where the numerically superior side just hoped to bleed the other out first. The technically superior side, Germany, hoped to kill so many more that its smaller numbers wouldn't run out. The Somme took the heat off the French at Verdun so there was a logic to it by the mad standards of the war. Verdun and the Somme were the Stalingrad moment where the Germans began to realise their better army was going to be slowly ground down.
Despite their ultimate success, the Allied powers all learnt an important lesson from the war - avoid fighting the German army as long as possible. The Germans learnt precisely the wrong lesson from their victory on the Eastern front and came a cropper in Russia a few decades later as a result.