Today is a historic day. I suppose that every day is historic in some way or other but today is a day of quite serious anniversaries. Of course, there are many events that are recorded as having happened on July 1st but I will go back only to 1690 when William III [of England] the Dutch King of the House of Orange decisively defeated King James II at the Battle of the Boyne and laid the foundations of Troubles in Ireland in general but in Northern Ireland in particular. A few months later the remnants of James II forces were defeated again and the French aided Irish rebellion was at an end. James finally gave up on his attempts to regain the throne of England and the last Catholic king went into exile in France living at the the Chateau de Saint- Germaine - en - Laye until his death in September 1701 at the age of 68. The commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne has been an important day in the Protestant life of Northern Ireland and members of the Orange Order have marked the event by marching through the streets of many towns in the province. These marches have been seen as nothing but deliberate provocation by the Catholic Republicans and clashes have resulted year after year. They caused particular provocation during the worst days of unrest. Is it not time that these marches and demonstrations were finally dumped in the great dustbin of history and Loyalists stopped celebrating the activities of a Dutch king who died over 300 years ago?
Another event that occurred on July 1st took place 226 years later. At 7.30 am on July 1st 1916, the British and French Armies under General Haigh attacked the German trenches in the Somme. For a week prior to the Allied attack, guns had been firing shells continually at the heavily fortified German positions but the bombardment was not successful in destroying the fortifications - and the Germans knew well what was coming. They took cover until the shelling stopped - as it had to when the Allied troops started their advance - then the Germans came out, set up their own machine gun positions and waited. As the heavily loaded soldiers advanced they were simply mown down by the guns. By the end of that first day the British had lost 20,000 men dead and another 40,000 wounded. In this disaster, 60% of all the British officers involved were killed. I mentioned in "The Dead of Afghanistan" the loss of 235 men - the Accrington Pals - in a period of 20 minutes. They were not unique; other groups of "pals" who joined up together and went to war together, died together on that day. Hague pursued his attacks in the Somme until November when winter weather called a halt. By then the British had suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000 and the Germans 500,000. By the arithmetic of the First World War, the Germans won. The allies had gained a few miles but the slaughter made little difference to the progress of the war. Two more years would be required on the killing fields before everyone gave up.
Another, but less apocalyptic, event that occurred on July 1st was the first use of the Emergency number 999 in Britain. This began in London on 1st July 1937 and very soon after it was used nationally. The service was introduced following a disastrous fire in London the previous year when a member of the public had tried to ring the Fire Brigade only to be held in a queue for some considerable time by a busy operator - all calls in those day had to go via an operator. The numbers 999 were chosen because they could be used with minimal modification of coin operated red call boxes which had A and B buttons. It was easy to adapt them to allow 999 calls to be made without need to insert a coin. The system has been in use with little modification ever since. Perhaps it can be remembered as one of the more successful achievements of Neville Chamberlain's time as Prime Minister.
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