“We lost the flower of a generation and in the years to come it sometimes seemed that with them a sense of vital optimism had disappeared for ever from British life,” William said at a ceremony in northern France.
“It was in many ways the saddest day in the long story of our nation,” he added, speaking on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the start of the World War I battle in which some 20,000 British soldiers died on the first day alone.
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