Today back in 1916 Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I, called off the Battle of the Somme in France. The offensive began on July 1, 1916.The Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles of the First World War: by the time fighting had petered out in late autumn 1916 more than 1.5 million casualties had been suffered by the forces involved, making it one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded. To put this in to some sort of perspective that's approximately a quarter of Scotland's population.
