SIR – I wish to comment on the article in the T&A of September 17. I do not believe you can sum up a four-year war fought by industrial nations with armies in their millions with an account of one day of one battle (the first day of the Somme), a visit to a few cemeteries and quotes from two war poets.

This is not an acceptable summing up. I grieve for the deaths of our young men (under a million, unlike the losses of the French, German and Russian armies each of whom lost over a million killed) every time I visit the battlefields of the Great War.

Britain entered the war by treaty and for defence of its trade and empire. Ruthless politicians, Lloyd George in Britain and Clemenceau in France, were appointed prime ministers to ensure victory, defeat was not an option. The Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916) was not a defeat. Consider how the German army was driven back to its starting lines with over 400,000 casualties (including 143,000 dead) at the Battle of Verdun (February-December, 1916) – now that was a defeat.

Peter J Palmer, Buttermere Road, Bradford