July 1, 1916-November
16, 1916
The Somme campaign in 1916 was the
first great offensive of World War I for the British, and it produced
a more critical British attitude toward the war. During and after the
Somme, the British army started a real improvement in tactics. Also,
the French attacked at the Somme and achieved greater advances on July
1 than the British did, with far fewer casualties.
But it is the losses that are most
remembered. The first day of the Somme offensive, July 1, 1916,
resulted in 57,470 British casualties, greater than the total combined
British casualties in the Crimean, Boer, and Korean wars. In contrast,
the French, with fewer divisions, suffered only around 2,000
casualties. By the time the offensive ended in November, the British
had suffered around 420,000 casualties, and the French about 200,000.
German casualty numbers are controversial, but may be about 465,000.
How did this happen? In early 1916, the
French proposed a joint Franco-British offensive astride the river
Somme. Because of Verdun, the British army assumed the major role of
the Somme offensive. Hence, on July 1, 1916, the British army attacked
north of the Somme with fourteen infantry divisions, while the French
attacked astride and south of the Somme with five divisions. In
defense, the German army deployed seven divisions. The British attack
was planned by Douglas Haig and Henry Rawlinson, GOC Fourth Army. The
two differed about the depth of the offensive and the length of the
bombardment, so the adopted plan was an awkward mixture.
The artillery was the key to the
offensive, but it did not have the ability to cut all the wire,
destroy deep German trenches, knock out all enemy guns, or provide a
useful barrage for the infantry attack. And at zero hour on July 1,
the artillery shifted away from the German front trenches too quickly
and left the infantry exposed. But the French, with Verdun experience,
had much more heavy artillery and attacked in rushes, capturing more
ground and suffering less.
After July 1, a long stalemate settled
in, with the German army digging defenses faster than Allied attacks
could take place. Despite small advances, the Somme became a bloody
battle of attrition, and Haig has been criticized for prolonging the
campaign into winter, especially for the last six weeks. The Somme was
an expensive lesson in how not to mount effective attacks, but the
German army was also weakened and in February retreated to new, and
shorter, defensive lines.
Tim Travers
