British General Douglas Haig planned and executed the Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916-March 21,1917. Reflecting on the British casualties that occurred in this and other battles during the First World War, he wrote (De Groot, 1989):

Credit must be paid to the splendid young officers who were able time and time again to attack these tremendous positions. To many it meant certain death, and all must have known that before they started.

Asking men to get out of trenches and to run into machine-gun fire and artillery shells: certain death. The suicide missions of contemporary terrorists are trivial compared with the missions undertaken by the soldiers of the First World War.