Charles Whittlesey closed his short message — delivered by carrier pigeon — to his higher headquarters asking them to cease firing artillery ... and leg by enemy fire but still managed to ...

One of Maxim's early prototypes could fire 666 rounds in a minute – around 11 bullets every second. In the battlefield conditions of WW1 this meant ... was the brutal artillery bombardments ...

But the British soldiers were unable to break through the German defences and were mown down in their thousands by machine gun and artillery fire. This day set a bloody precedent: the Somme ...