Battlefest : Friends Of The Somme (Mid Ulster)

Film Presentation "From Defeat to Victory" 2006

Based on diaries, records and eyewitness accounts, this is the dramatized documentary of the two Battles of the Somme from the perspective of British and German soldiers. It shows how the major lessons learned by the British Army leadership after the disastrous first attacks of July 1916 were turned into victory at the second attempt in September 1916, arguably the turning point for the First World War.

Based on real accounts it follows a group of pals from Salford, mates from the local church, who joined up together to fight for King and Country. Walter Fiddes was a shop assistant, Stephen Sharples a builder, and Thomas Mellor a traveling salesman. They would fight - and die - side by side on 1st of July 1916, just three of the 20,000 who would fall on the first day of the Somme. 1st of July 1916 was the bloodiest day in British military history. But there was much more to the Somme than senseless slaughter.

The Somme: From Defeat to Victory challenges the traditional view of the battle as a disaster and reveals how it was on the Somme that the British Army learned to fight a modern war. The film shows how men like Lt Colonel Frank Maxwell and Private Frederick Edwards would help turn initial defeat into ultimate victory.

Two months after the failure of 1st of July, Maxwell, a maverick battalion commander, led a daring raid on the German positions where Mellor, Fiddes, and Sharples had been killed. The fighting was savage, but with the help of innovative tactics, such as the 'creeping barrage', and a new-fangled weapon, one of the first ever tanks, they eventually defeated their German enemy. Private Edwards who couldn't even write or read won the VC for his heroics and Lt Colonel Maxwell was promoted to command a brigade. The film offers a radical new perspective on the Somme, putting the terrible events of July 1st into their proper historical context.

Link to "From Defeat to Victory" DVD at Amazon click here