Despite the British vote to leave the EU and their opposite political views, the Socialist Hollande and the conservative Cameron wanted to seize the occasion to stress their World War I alliance and show their attachment to the ideas underpinning European unity.
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Young people lay wreaths during a service to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial on July 1, 2016 in Thiepval, France.
Elsewhere across the county people stood in silent tribute to the thousands who died on that first day of a battle which would rage on for 141 days.
At the commemoration, Jason narrated the ceremony, also reciting Isaac Rosenberg’s poem depicting the horrors of the First World War Break of Day in the Trenches. Each participant represented an individual soldier who was killed that day. The gift you have given your country is treasured by every one of us this day. “This soldier was the same age as me”.
He tweeted: “Just encountered these young WWI soldiers marching. one broke ranks and handed me this card”.
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary, the work was conceived and created by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller in collaboration with Rufus Norris, Director of the National Theatre.
Queen Elizabeth II attended a service at Westminster Abbey on Thursday, the eve of the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, one of the deadliest chapters of World War I. It took a month of rehearsing to prepare for the event.
Similar tributes are taking place across the country, with images being shared on social media via #wearehere, and some groups have been recorded breaking into powerful song.
Meanwhile, a similar scene occurred in Birmingham, where Verity Milligan captured the “wonderfully moving scenes” around a railway station.
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The sacrifices of the bloody campaign, which lasted from July 1 to November 18, 1916, are commemorated at the Memorial of Thiepval, erected in 1932 to honor the 73,367 servicemen of the British Empire who died in the Somme sector with no known grave.
