On 1 July, 1916, a continuous line of British soldiers climbed out from the trenches of the somme into no man's land and began to walk steadily towards dug-in German troops armed with machine-guns and defended by thick b...On 1 July, 1916, a continuous line of British soldiers climbed out from the trenches of the somme into no man's land and began to walk steadily towards dug-in German troops armed with machine-guns and defended by thick barbed wire.