Today marks the 93rd anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. The offensive would continue until November of that year and led to more than 1.5 million casualties. The Allied offensive to the north and south of the River Somme in northern France was an attempt to draw German forces away from the Battle of Verdun to the south. On the first day alone, the British suffered 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 were deaths.

In the first phase of the offensive, known as the Battle of Albert, French forces advanced 6 miles, but the British made almost no gains in spite of the horrific casualties they suffered. However, the Allies did succeed in forcing the Germans to shift soldiers from Verdun to the Somme. On September 15th at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, the tank made its first appearance in battle. By November, the farthest Allied advance was only five miles.  The British alone had lost 420,000 soldiers for a gain of just 2 miles in their sector. Although the battle was not decisive, Germany finally recognized Britain as a strong military power and began its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in an attempt to knock Britain out of the war.

There were two divisions of Irish soldiers in the British Army at the Somme: the 16th Division and the 36th Ulster Division. Their conduct during the battle played a large role in the increase in tensions both between the Irish and their British rulers and between the Nationalists and the Unionists.

The 16th Division was formed in 1914 and consisted mostly of members of the Irish National Volunteers, a military organization formed in 1913 to ensure the implementation of Home Rule in Ireland. The nationalists felt that, in serving in the British military, they were proving their loyalty to Britain and would thus prove themselves worthy of being granted Home Rule. (A Home Rule bill had been passed in Parliament in 1912, but its implementation was put on hold because of the war). Within ten days of being deployed to the Somme, over half of the 11,000 men of the 16th Division were wounded or dead. Two members of the Division received the Victoria Cross (the highest British military decoration) for their actions.

The 36th Ulster Division was also formed in 1914 and consisted mostly of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, a Unionist militia founded in 1912 to block Home Rule in Ireland. After the war, the Unionists pointed to the Ulster Division’s actions, especially at the Somme, as their “blood sacrifice” for the right of continuing to be a part of the United Kingdom rather than minorities in a Catholic-dominated Ireland under Home Rule. The 36th was one of the few Allied divisions to make significant gains and achieve their objective on the first day of the battle. However, by the second day, the division had suffered over 5,000 casualties (2,069 dead), over half of its strength. Sir Philip Gibbs, a British war correspondent at the battle, described the Ulster Division’s assault as “one of the finest displays of human courage in the world.” Of the nine Victoria Crosses awarded after the Battle of the Somme, four were awarded to soldiers from the 36th Division.

It is not hard to see how such sacrifice led to a dramatic polarization in Ireland after the war. Both the Nationalists and Unionists had paid for their dreams of the future in blood. Both the 16th and the 36th, as well as the 10th Irish Division, served in many other battles during the war. By the time the survivors returned home, they believed that they had paid sacrificed enough to determine their own future.