BBC marks centenary of key 1916 WWI battles Jutland and The Somme

Published: 8 March 2016

This raft of programmes will give a new insight into the events surrounding some of the most poignant battles of the Great War
— Martin Davidson, Head of Commissioning, Specialist Factual TV

Across the BBC there will be live coverage of the key ceremonial events taking place in 2016, commemorating Jutland and The Somme. New television programmes include The Navy’s Bloodiest Day, about the naval battle at Jutland, and The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire, both on BBC Two. Online, there will be a series of BBC iWonder guides and timelines available that explain the background to the Somme, Jutland and Verdun - and tell some surprising stories from within those events.

BBC Radio 2 will feature newly-written ballads reflecting the stories from The Front, and a documentary remembering the music and the shows that soundtracked the events of 1916. BBC Radio 3 will be connecting audiences to a thoughtful collection of music and culture about WWI including essays, documentaries and concerts from the performing groups, whilst World War One: The Cultural Front will return to BBC Radio 4.

Leading BBC Scotland’s raft of programming will be a landmark three-part series exploring the impact of WWI on the future of Scotland’s politics, culture and identity, and from BBC Cymru Wales new documentaries will include historian Dan Snow’s account of his great, great grandfather Lloyd George being Prime Minister. And in its final outing, World War One At Home will return to BBC English Regions with around 200 new broadcasts.

Tony Hall, BBC Director-General, says: “The centenary of World War One matters to our country - but it also matters, at a really personal level, to families and communities everywhere. That’s why we’re bringing to life the voices of 1916 - through documentaries, drama and live events. And why every part of the BBC has joined together - with partners - to remember those who’ve sacrificed so much.”

Martin Davidson, Head of Commissioning Specialist Factual TV, says: “Continuing the BBC’s ambitious four-year WWI season across TV, radio and online, this raft of programmes will give a new insight into the events surrounding some of the most poignant battles of the Great War. New expert-led documentaries take you to the heart of these pivotal 2016 battles, whilst audiences can also delve into individual accounts and explore the inspiration for music and song that grew out of personal experiences and lasting impact of the battles of Verdun, Jutland and The Somme.”

On TV

On BBC One, The Centenary Of The Battle of Jutland will be broadcast live from St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall on the morning of Tuesday 31 May, with an evening highlights package on BBC Two. This will be complemented by events from across the UK recognising the importance of the Navy in WWI, with the BBC News Channel covering the afternoon service at Lyness on the nearby island of Hoy.

The Navy’s Bloodiest Day on BBC Two will bring the 12 hour naval battle at Jutland to life. On May 31 1916, the Royal Navy precipitated an apocalyptic head-to-head battle with the German Imperial fleet. 151 British warships, many the most modern in Britain’s Grand Fleet, confronted 99 German ships. This was supposed to be a walkover - Britain’s second Trafalgar. But it didn't work out that way. Instead, the Battle of Jutland was the bloodiest day in the history of the Royal Navy. During 12 chaotic hours, 14 British warships sank to the bottom of the North Sea with the loss of more than 6,000 Allied lives. For a century it's been considered one of the greatest disasters of WWI.

Presented by Dan Snow, engineer Shini Somara and naval historian Nick Hewitt, The Navy’s Bloodiest Day will go to the heart of the 12-hour battle at Jutland. With brand-new scientific experiments, they will probe the reasons why so many men died. Through the powerful words of eyewitnesses, read by current Royal Navy personnel; through emotional meetings with relatives of those who died; and on board the only surviving Dreadnought from the era, they come to understand what it was like to fight that day. And as the Royal Navy prepares to commemorate the centenary, they join the first official survey of the battlefield, searching to pinpoint the wrecks of the five giant British warships in which the vast majority of the Allied dead now lie entombed.

The programme also features brand new documentary evidence that helps a reassessment of the significance of the battle. Was Jutland a disaster, or in fact the forgotten battle where the First World War was won, and lost? The programme provides amazing visceral and visual detail helping to uncover what went wrong and why the battle unfolded the way it did.

On Thursday 30 June BBC One will begin its commemorations of the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, with overnight vigils both in the UK and France. The following day on Friday 1 July will be a special early morning broadcast to mark the start of the battle, followed later in the morning by the formal commemorations of the Thiepval Ceremonial Event, with TRH The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry in attendance. Songs Of Praise on BBC One will also be marking the anniversary of the battle of the Somme with a special programme in July.

In The Other Side Of The Somme, on BBC Two, historian Peter Barton will tell the story of the battle that more than any other has come to define the WWI experience. Using unique access to unseen German military documents, he will present the battle from the point of view of the German regiments who lined up in the trenches opposite Haig’s much vaster army.

On Radio

Radio 2
The Ballads Of The Great War – 1916 (BBC Radio 2, November 2016). A yearly series broadcast over the centenary duration of the First World War, which presents a hard-hitting but lyrical account of life and death on the Western Front in words and music. The third programme will focus on The Somme: an hour of archive testimony from those who were there, mixed with 10 newly-commissioned songs written by the cream of British folk songwriters.

In The Songs & Shows Of World War 1 - 1916 (BBC Radio 2, November 2016) Russell Davies will spotlight the music and the shows that sound-tracked the events of 1916.

Radio 3
Afternoon On 3 from 2pm will feature a performance of Morning Heroes, a choral symphony by Arthur Bliss. Bliss was injured on the Somme on 7 July 1916, and his brother was killed there in September. Morning Heroes was not composed until 1930, when he finally felt able to express his trauma in a public way. It is dedicated ‘To the memory of my brother Francis Kennard Bliss and all other comrades killed in battle’.

Conducted by Adrian Partington, the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales will present a concert of choral and orchestral music. Radio 3 In Concert (7.30pm) will feature music by composers with strong links to the battle, including George Butterworth and Frances Purcell Warren, who were both killed in action; and Albert Roussel who served in the transport division for the French army carrying troops to the battlefield.

In Dawn On The Somme (BBC Radio 3, 3 July 2016 6.45pm) Dr. Kate Kennedy will explore how the First World War and the Battle of the Somme in particular changed the shape of 20th century classical music and its relationship to war, and discusses the musical questions raised in the aftermath. The Somme offensive inspired one of the greatest and largely overlooked works of memorial in British 20th century music, Arthur Bliss’s Morning Heroes, a work which set the pattern of musical remembrance for Britten’s War Requiem. In examining the genesis of Morning Heroes, Kate Kennedy will discuss the role of music in mourning, celebrating or commemorating death in war, and the moral responsibilities of composers when writing about such events.

Radio 3’s 'Arts and Ideas' programme Free Thinking will be recording a landmark edition exploring the life of David Jones and the way his epic poem of World War 1, In Parenthesis, fits into his career as a writer and artist. Jones was present at fighting around Mametz Wood during the Battle of the Somme. The programme will be recorded in front of an audience at Welsh National Opera before the premiere on 13 May, and broadcast at 10pm on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 18 May. It will then be available as an Arts and Ideas download.

On 1 July, the BBC will commemorate the Battle of the Somme in Music with concerts to mark the first day of the battle.

The BBC Performing Groups will mark the centenary. At BBC Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff, the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales present music by composers who fought or died in the battle, and works written in memory of them. From the Maxwell Hall at the University of Salford the BBC Philharmonic presents a programme of works by UK composers who served on the Somme including George Butterworth, Cecil Coles and Ivor Gurney plus the world premiere of Stephen Davismoon’s memorial to the fallen, God’s Own Caught In No Man’s Land. At St Paul’s Knightsbridge, the BBC Singers will present a concert of works reflecting the anniversary, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo will play a key part in the ceremony taking place at the Thiepval Memorial.

A series of Radio 3 Essays will feature five new poems written in response to the battle, commissioned by 14-18 NOW and broadcast for the first time (4 - 8 July). The series will feature poems by Paul Muldoon, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Bill Manhire, Jackie Kay and Daljit Nagra, who will also present their poems and explain the inspiration behind them.

Radio 4
Verdun is the sacred wound of France. No other battle of the Great War would so define the trauma of loss, the bitterness of occupation and the Republic's desire to repulse the ancient enemy. It began in a rain of steel and ended with both sides exhausted, but crucially France undefeated. It was the last battle the nation would fight alone and would, in the decades to come, help shape modern Europe. In Verdun - The Sacred Wound, which was broadcast on Radio 4 in February and is now available on the BBC Radio iPlayer, David Reynolds explores both the many meanings the battle generated in 1916 and the memory of loss that came to shape France and Germany in the post war years.

The returning Radio 4 series World War One: The Cultural Front, presented by Francine Stock, commissioned from 2014 to 2018, examines how literature, art, music, theatre and popular culture responded to the conflict a century earlier. In April the series returns with a focus on 1916, when the horrors of long trench warfare, with the prospects of peace diminishing, led to an enormous range of art and culture. How did artists and writers respond to the arrival of the tank on the battlefield? And could patriotic song and stage works maintain morale on the home front during the darkest days?

In 2016 Radio 4’s ongoing Great War drama Home Front will approach the Somme from the perspective of ordinary people in Britain, as they experienced it. With scant information, they remained optimistic about the battle and many honestly believed that this would be the final push. They went in droves to the cinema to see The Battle Of The Somme, one of the most significant and successful pieces of British propaganda, hoping to see loved ones on screen.

Voices Of The First World War, in which Dan Snow brings the sound archive collections of the Imperial War Museum and the BBC together for the first time, will continue to tell the story of World War One through the voices of those who were there; while drama series Tommies will reveal, among other threads, the hidden true story based on secret German documents of how a British signalling blunder contributed to the terrible death toll on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

In Jutland: The Battle That Won The War (May 2016 Radio 4), Lord West will tell the story of the Battle of Jutland, arguing that it was the most important military confrontation of the First World War, tipping the scales decisively in favour of Britain and her allies.

This December Peter Hennessy will present Radio 4’s Archive On 4: Lloyd George’s Revolution. In a dramatic Downing Street coup in December 1916, David Lloyd George ousted Herbert Asquith as prime minister and proceeded to rally an empire exhausted by two years of bloody stalemate in Europe and transform British government into an efficient war machine. Lloyd George's changes amounted to a revolution in approach and organisation. This revolution was essential in achieving the massive national effort needed in order to wage and eventually win a total war. Peter Hennessy will explore how Lloyd George galvanised Britain by radically changing the office of Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and by creating a permanent Cabinet secretariat (the forerunner of today's Cabinet Office).

Online

There will be a series of BBC iWonder guides and timelines available that explain the background to the Somme, Jutland and Verdun and tell some surprising stories from within those events. These will be available at www.bbc.co.uk/iwonder and its content will be rich with bespoke interactivity, video and audio, and the format is fully responsive, providing a consistent experience on desktop, tablet and mobile.

An iWonder guide presented by Lucy Williamson, BBC Paris correspondent, explores the Battle of Verdun - one of the most savagely fought battles of World War One. Verdun was also the longest, lasting 300 days and leaving an estimated 800,000 soldiers dead, wounded or missing. At the end of the bloodshed, France emerged as the victor, yet neither side had much to show in the way of military gains. This guide, devised with consultant historian David Stevenson, includes videos and clickable content for an immersive exploration of what caused Verdun to be the longest battle of WWI.

BBC iWonder will also resurface two of its award-winning digital interactive dramas, Footballers United and its interactive episode for BBC Three series Our World War.

Footballers United will combine fictional and archived content to tell the true story of a community and characters surrounding the Heart of Midlothian football team from 1914-1919 in Scotland. It will follow the stories of both the men and women, in Edinburgh and around the country, whose lives were forever changed by World War One. The drama will be available at footballersunited.co.uk via desktop, mobile and tablet.

The interactive episode High Wood, part of drama series Our World War, will blend broadcast quality drama with animation. Written by Marco Crivellari and directed by Scott Rawsthorne and Jon Shaikh, this immersive experience will tell the story of the 1st South Staffordshire Battalion during the battle of High Wood at the Somme. Based on real accounts from soldiers at the time, the interactive episode will put you in charge of a group of men in one of the most deadly conflicts during the Battle of the Somme, the fight for control of High Wood on 14 July 1916. It will be available from bbc.co.uk/ourworldwar on tablet and desktop.

BBC Scotland

In March, BBC Two Scotland will air Scotland: The Promised Land, a three-part landmark series exploring the impact of WWI on the future of Scotland – its politics, identity and culture.

WWI was one of the first modern conscription wars – and if it had been a people’s war it had to be a people’s peace. This series, narrated by Ken Stott, is the story of that peace and the people who shaped its tumultuous progress in the decade that followed the end of the war. It is a contested story of broken promises and political conflict, as a generation of extraordinary characters battle over competing visions for a country’s future, which still resonate today.

One episode will focus on how the political landscape changed as a whole new democratic electorate was allowed to vote; the second on how the aftermath of war brought about dramatic changes in the Highlands and Islands; and the third on the cultural revolution as a generation of writers and artists fought to revive Scotland’s voice and culture.

Later in the year, BBC Two Scotland will also screen a one-off documentary marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Erskine Hospital for injured soldiers, while another documentary which will examine how technological assistance for the blind and visually impaired developed from war-time medical breakthroughs.

On 31 May, there will be extensive coverage of the events marking the commemoration of the Battle of Jutland on television and on BBC Radio Scotland. BBC Scotland will also produce iWonder guides and World War One at Home features on the naval battle.

During the anniversary of the Somme, 27 June - 1 July, there will also be episodes of World War One at Home, focussing on how various communities across Scotland were affected. There will also be features on Good Morning Scotland and Newsdrive on Radio Scotland and on social media, tracking the fortunes of Scottish troops who took part in the battle. The anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and the connections to Scotland will be explored in World War One at Home features.

BBC Alba’s highlights will include Cuimhneachan/Remembrance, a four-part series based on the wealth of Gaelic song and poetry from the recently published first anthology of poems written about the Great War. In the anthology’s foreword Prince Charles described it as an “invaluable legacy in First World War reminiscences for future generations”. This new series will feature specially recorded performances from four of Scotland’s finest Gaelic singers as well as telling the story behind the composition and composer.

Other highlights on the channel include: Gillean Grinn, a documentary that will examine the effect of the war on Uist; Cairdeas Cogaidh, a look at the contrasting fortunes of two WWI soldiers; Caileagan a' Chogaidh Mhòir/A Great Adventure, the story of the Scottish Women's Hospitals; Clann a' Chogaidh Mhòir/ Small Hands In A Big War, a series that will tell the story of the war-time period through the eyes of the children who were alive at the time; Trusadh - Turas a’ Chogaidh Mhòir, a documentary on the war fields of France; Leabhraichean-latha a' Chogaidh Mhòir/Great War Diaries, a series based on letters and journals written between 1914 and 1918; and HMS Timbertown, a documentary on the Isle of Lewis men who were among a Royal Naval division interned in a Dutch camp after fighting at Antwerp.

Radio nan Gaidheal will have two 30-minute documentaries on the Battle of Jutland and the Battle of the Somme. These will supplement the continuing series Seachdain sa Chogadh which each week will bring audiences a snapshot of the events of the War from a Highland/Island standpoint.

On BBC Two Scotland, there will also be another chance to view the two-part series, Scotland’s War At Sea, and the one-off documentary The Supreme Sacrifice, on McCrae’s Battalion, the volunteer footballers’ battalion raised from the East of Scotland.

BBC Wales

BBC Cymru Wales will broadcast a range of TV programmes to mark World War I anniversaries in 2016. TV output will include:

Dan Snow On Lloyd George: 2016 marks the centenary anniversary of David Lloyd George becoming Prime Minister. Dan Snow is his great, great grandson, and will set out on a personal journey to tell the story of ‘the man who won the war’.

Mametz with Gareth Thomas: Gareth Thomas’s great uncle fought and died at Mametz and Gareth tries to find out what really happened there. A new archaeological dig will bring together descendants of soldiers from both sides of one of the bloodiest conflicts in Welsh history.

Weatherman Walking: two special programmes will see Derek Brockway taking his popular walking show to the former First World War battlefields of northern France and Belgium.

The Great War’s Lost Poet: David Jones. Owen Sheers will set out to discover the story of the man behind In Parenthesis, looking at how the poem came to be written and why it remains a lesser-known masterpiece. And In Parenthesis - Behind The Scenes At The Opera will take a look at a new production by Welsh National Opera based on the work of David Jones.

Visions of the First World War: Kim Howells will look at Welsh art from and about the First World War, from the morale-raising prints of 1914 to the poignant memorials that still stand in towns and villages across Wales.

The Forgotten Soldiers: the untold story of Tiger Bay’s servicemen and women who left to serve their country in World War I, and returned to face intolerance and riots. WWI Women (working title) will look at the crucial role women played in the war effort and will ask how their achievements were recognised, and was the war a turning point in women’s lives?

BBC Radio Wales will mark the anniversary of the Battle of Mametz. Mametz Wood was the objective of the 38th (Welsh) Division during the First Battle of the Somme. The attack occurred between July 7 and 12 July 1916.

Daily war bulletins in Good Morning Wales will cover events at home and in France during this period. Tx 4 mins daily 1-15 July

Weston’s Band Of Brothers (June 25 and July 2 at 1.30pm): Simon Weston will look at the formation of the 38th (Welsh) Division, their role in the Battle of Mametz and the battle’s legacy.

Two Arts Show Specials: How Mametz has influenced the work of photographer Aled Rhys Hughes, who now devotes a whole exhibition to the subject (tx – June 29 at 18.30); and In Parethesis, where Paul Henry will reflect on the epic poem by David Jones which is based on his experiences of fighting at Mametz (July 6 at 6.30pm).

In July, Radio Cymru will host a season of programmes about the Battle of the Somme, focussing on Mametz Wood.

Y lôn i Mametz (Monday, June 27, July 4 and July 11, 12.30pm) - Ifor ap Glyn will follow the journey of Captain Dafydd Jones from Landdewi Brefi – through his letters – from the military training facilities, to the French trenches en route to Mametz Wood, where he was killed, like many other Welsh men.

Stiwdio (Wednesday, July 6 and 13, 12.30pm) will feature stories from World War I including photographer Aled Hughes who has created an exhibition about Mametz Wood and a book by Alun Cob.

The station will also feature a series of monologues, based on the people caught up in the battle (Monday to Friday, July 11-15), a repeat of the 1916 programme, portraying events during the year, including the history of the Battle of the Somme and other features across the schedule.

BBC England

The BBC’s ambitious World War One At Home project will return to BBC English Regions for the last time to broadcast around 200 new stories about life on the home front of the UK and Ireland from June 25. One of the stories of courage, loss, and loyalty to be released is about the Accrington Pals - more than 560 of the 700 Pals were killed or wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme – July 1st 1916 and their story will feature on BBC Radio Lancashire. This and many other new stories can be discovered at www.bbc.co.uk/ww1 then click on World War One At Home or by listening to BBC local radio and regional television.

Since its launch in 2014, World War One At Home has unearthed around 1000 stories from Perth to Porthcurno, and from Newtownards to St Asaph and these have featured across BBC local radio and regional television, on The One Show, BBC News, Radio 4, 5 Live and BBC Scotland, Wales and Ireland - as well as developing into a unique online collection for people to explore.

The project is the result of a partnership with Imperial War Museums and the Arts and Humanities Research Council and has sparked a UK-wide live event tour that has been visited by over thousands of people across the country, and a free, BBC e-book where the experiences of people and communities are depicted using digital technology, archival film and recordings, photographs and documents from Imperial War Museums and a host of other museums, archives and individuals.

BBC Northern Ireland

BBC NI will mark the centenary anniversaries of events in 1916 – A Year Of History which showcases a range of special programming and content across television, radio and online. Read more in their press release here

Notes to Editors

Publicity contacts:

The Navy’s Bloodiest Day – YL
The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire – YL
BBC Radio 2 – AF
BBC Radio 3 – MC
BBC Radio 4 – SW
BBC iWonder – MA
BBC Scotland – JG
BBC Wales TV - MCR
BBC Radio Cymru – SM7
BBC Radio Wales – SG
BBC English Regions – BR2
BBC Performing Groups – VT2

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