Free Republic

IN the summer of 1916, a young Oxford academic embarked for France as a second lieutenant in the British Expeditionary Force. The Great War, as World War I was known, was only half-done, but already its industrial carnage had no parallel in European history. “Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute,” recalled J. R. R. Tolkien. “Parting from my wife,” he wrote, doubting that he would survive the trenches, “was like a death.”

More than a million men were killed or wounded on all sides at the Somme. The Battle of the Somme, one of WW1's bloodiest, was fought in northern France and lasted five months, with the British suffering almost 60,000 casualties on the first day alone... This was followed by the hymn Abide With Me... "It was in many ways the saddest day in the long story of our nation."

LONDON -- You might think London a curious locale from which to celebrate July 4th, or Independence Day as we say. But the city abounds with British citizens who admire our country. I spent the evening of July 4th in the vast and glorious edifice that is the English-Speaking Union, observing the 90th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of all time and certainly of World War I, the Battle of the Somme. "July 4th," one of the assembled Brits remarked, "it is the 230th anniversary of one of your happiest moments. Tonight we are observing one of our...