Documentary about the catastrophic events that began on July 1, 1916. With access to little-known German military archives, Peter Barton examines documents that reveal a very different history, one that contradicts many of the myths and falsehoods that grew up around the battle. Given that the German forces were sometimes outnumbered five times by the British and their French ally, why was this bloodiest military confrontation hailed at the time and since then as a British victory? There are new answers to the questions that still haunt us a hundred years later: why did it take so long and why was there such a massacre.