Battle of the Somme: Difference between revisions
←Replaced content with 'It is a sex position' Tag: blanking |
ClueBot NG (talk | contribs) m Reverting possible vandalism by 88.98.47.161 to version by 173.57.41.49. False positive? Report it. Thanks, ClueBot NG. (1722447) (Bot) |
||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{Redirect|The Somme|the region|Somme}} |
|||
It is a sex position |
|||
{{For|other meanings}} |
|||
{{EngvarB|date=November 2013}} |
|||
{{Infobox military conflict |
|||
|conflict = Battle of the Somme |
|||
|partof = the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] of the [[World War I|First World War]] |
|||
|image = [[File:Map of the Battle of the Somme, 1916.svg|300px]] |
|||
|caption = Battle of the Somme 1 July – 18 November 1916 |
|||
|date = 1 July – 18 November 1916 |
|||
|place = [[Somme River]], north-central [[Somme]] and southeastern [[Pas-de-Calais]] Départements, France |
|||
|coordinates = {{Coord|50|1|N|2|41|E|type:event_region:FR|display=inline,title}} |
|||
|result = British-French victory |
|||
|combatant1 = {{flag|British Empire}} |
|||
* {{flag|Australia}} |
|||
* {{flag|Bermuda}} |
|||
* {{flag|Canada|1868}} |
|||
* {{flagcountry|British Raj}} |
|||
* {{flag|Newfoundland}} |
|||
* {{flag|New Zealand}} |
|||
* {{flagcountry|Union of South Africa|1912}} |
|||
* {{flag|Southern Rhodesia|1890}} |
|||
* {{flagcountry|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} |
|||
{{flagicon image|Flag of France.svg}} [[French Third Republic|France]] |
|||
|combatant2 = {{flag|German Empire}} |
|||
* {{flag|Baden}} |
|||
* {{flag|Bavaria}} |
|||
* {{flag|Prussia}} |
|||
* {{flag|Saxony}} |
|||
* {{flag|Württemberg}} |
|||
|commander1 = {{flagicon|UK}} [[Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig|Douglas Haig]]<br />{{flagicon|France}} [[Ferdinand Foch]]<br />{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} [[Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson|Henry Rawlinson]]<br />{{flagicon|France}} [[Émile Fayolle]]<br />{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} [[Hubert Gough]]<br />{{flagicon|France}} Joseph Alfred Micheler |
|||
|commander2 = {{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria|Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria]]<br />{{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Max von Gallwitz]]<br />{{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Fritz von Below]] |
|||
|strength1 = 13 British and 11 French divisions 1 July<br />51 British and 48 French divisions July – November |
|||
|strength2 = 10½ divisions 1 July<br />50 divisions July – November |
|||
|casualties1 = 623,907 |
|||
|casualties2 = c. 400,000 – c. 500,000 |
|||
}} |
|||
{{Campaignbox Somme 1916}} |
|||
{{Campaignbox Western Front (World War I)}} |
|||
The '''Battle of the Somme''' ({{lang-fr|link=no|Bataille de la Somme}}, {{lang-de|link=no|Schlacht an der Somme}}), also known as the '''Somme Offensive''', was a battle of the [[First World War]] fought by the armies of the [[British Empire|British]] and [[French colonial empire|French]] empires against the [[German Empire]]. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on either side of the [[River Somme]] in France. The battle was one of the [[List of World War I battles|largest]] of World War I, in which more than {{nowrap|1,000,000 men}} were wounded or killed, making it one of humanity's [[List of battles by casualties|bloodiest battles]]. A Franco-British commitment to an offensive on the Somme had been made during [[Allies of World War I|Allied]] discussions at [[Chantilly, Oise]] in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the [[Central Powers]] in 1916, by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. The main part of the offensive was to be made by the French Army, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the [[British Expeditionary Force (World War I)|British Expeditionary Force]] (BEF). |
|||
When the German Army began the [[Battle of Verdun]] on the [[Meuse]] in February 1916, many French divisions intended for the Somme were diverted and the supporting attack by the British became the principal effort. The [[first day on the Somme]] was a serious defeat for the German [[2nd Army (German Empire)|Second Army]], which was forced out of its first line of defence by the French [[Sixth Army (France)|Sixth Army]], from [[Foucaucourt-en-Santerre]] south of the Somme to [[Maricourt]] on the north bank and by the British [[Fourth Army (United Kingdom)|Fourth Army]] from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. 1 July 1916 was also the worst day in the history of the British Army, which had {{nowrap|c. 60,000 casualties,}} mainly on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and [[Gommecourt, Pas-de-Calais|Gommecourt]], where the attack failed disastrously, few British troops reaching the German front line. The British Army on the Somme was a mixture of the remains of the pre-war regular army, [[Territorial Force]] and the [[Kitchener's Army|Kitchener Army]] which was composed of [[Pals battalions]], recruited from the same places and occupations, whose losses had a profound social impact in Britain. |
|||
The battle is notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the [[tank]]. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated {{convert|6|mi|km}} into German-occupied territory, taking more ground than any offensive since the [[First Battle of the Marne|Battle of the Marne]] in 1914. The Anglo-French armies had failed to capture Péronne and were still {{convert|3|mi|km}} from [[Bapaume]], where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February, before the scheduled retirement to the {{lang|de|''Siegfriedstellung''}} ([[Hindenburg Line]]) began in March. |
|||
General Sir [[Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig|Douglas Haig]], the commander of the BEF and General [[Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson|Henry Rawlinson]] commander of the Fourth Army, have been criticised ever since, for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916 [[Winston Churchill]] criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since. |
|||
A rival conclusion by some historians (Terraine, Sheffield, Duffy, Chickering, Herwig and Philpott among others) is that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916 and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the battle puts it in a continental perspective, which is inaccessible to those who do not read German and French, because much of the writing has yet to be translated into English. The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war, which the continental armies had been engaged in for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918. |
|||
==Background== |
|||
=== Strategic developments === |
|||
[[File:Western front 1915-16.jpg|right|thumb|<center>The Western Front 1915–1916.</center>]] |
|||
Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the [[Chantilly, Oise|Chantilly]] Conference {{nowrap|6–8 December 1915}}. Simultaneous offensives on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] by the Russian army, on the [[Italian Front (World War I)|Italian Front]] by the Italian army, and on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] by the Franco-British armies, were to be carried out to deny time for the [[Central Powers]] to move troops between fronts during lulls. In December 1915, General [[Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig|Sir Douglas Haig]] replaced General [[John French, 1st Earl of Ypres|Sir John French]] as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes to drive the Germans from the [[North Sea|Belgian coast]] and end the [[U-boat]] threat from Belgian waters.{{sfn|Hart|2006|pp = 27–37}} Haig was not formally subordinate to Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy. In January 1916, Joffre had agreed to the BEF making its main effort in Flanders but in February 1916 it was decided to mount a combined offensive where the French and British armies met, astride the Somme River in [[Picardy]] before the British offensive in Flanders.{{sfn|Hart|2006|p = 37}} A week later the Germans began an offensive against the French at [[Battle of Verdun|Verdun]]. The costly defence of Verdun forced the French army to commit divisions intended for the Somme offensive, eventually reducing the French contribution to {{nowrap|13 divisions}} in the [[Sixth Army (France)|Sixth Army]] against {{nowrap|20 British}} divisions.{{sfn|Doughty|2005|p = 291}} By 31 May the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French army at Verdun by a battle of attrition.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp = 81, 86}} |
|||
The Chief of the [[German General Staff]], [[Erich von Falkenhayn]] intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, before its material superiority became unbeatable. Falkenhayn planned to defeat the large number of reserves, which the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough by provoking the French into counter-attacking German positions, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line. Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun and take the Meuse heights making the city untenable. The French would have to conduct a counter-offensive, from ground dominated by the German army and ringed with masses of heavy artillery, leading to huge losses and bring the French army close to collapse. The British would then have to begin a hasty relief-offensive and would also suffer huge losses. Falkenhayn expected the relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the Sixth Army and be destroyed.{{#tag:ref|Despite the certainty by mid-June, of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the Second Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve. No divisions were moved from the Sixth Army, despite it holding a shorter line with {{nowrap|17½ divisions}} and three of the reserve divisions in the Sixth Army area. The maintenance of the strength of the Sixth Army, at the expense of the Second Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkehnayn intended the counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=248–249}}|group="Note"}} If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack both armies and end the western alliance for good.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp = 206–207}} The unexpected length of the Verdun offensive and the need to replace many exhausted units at Verdun, depleted the German strategic reserve placed behind the Sixth Army (from Hannescamps {{convert|18|km|mi}} south-west of Arras and St. Eloi, south of Ypres) and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence.{{sfn|Wynne|1939|p = 104}} |
|||
====Battle of Verdun==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Verdun}} |
|||
The Battle of Verdun ({{nowrap|21 February – 18}} December 1916) began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was intended to threaten the capture of the city and induce the French to fight an attritional battle, in which German advantages of terrain and firepower would cause the French disproportionate casualties. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun and the main effort by the French diminished to a supporting attack for the British. German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 18–19}} By May Joffre and Haig had changed their expectations of an offensive on the Somme, from a decisive battle to a hope that it would relieve Verdun and keep German divisions in France, which would assist the Russian armies conducting the [[Brusilov Offensive]]. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July and troops, guns and ammunition were transferred to Picardy, leading to a similar transfer of the French Tenth Army to the Somme front. Later in the year the Franco-British were able to attack on the Somme and at Verdun sequentially and the French recovered much of the ground lost on the east bank of the Meuse, with counter-offensives in October and December.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp = 412–413}} |
|||
====Brusilov Offensive==== |
|||
{{main|Brusilov Offensive}} |
|||
The Brusilov Offensive ({{nowrap|4 June – 20 September}}), absorbed the extra forces which had been requested on 2 June by General von Below the Second Army commander, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. On 4 June 1916 Russian armies attacked on a {{convert|200|mi|km}} front, from the Rumanian frontier to Pinsk and eventually advanced {{convert|150|km|mi}}, reaching the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of {{lang|de|''Armeegruppe von Linsingen''}} and {{lang|de|''Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph''}}. During the offensive the Russians inflicted {{circa|1,500,000 losses}} including {{circa|407,000 prisoners}}.{{sfn|Dowling|2008|pp = xv, 163}} Three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned. Only four more divisions were sent to the Somme front before the Anglo-French offensive began, bringing the total to {{nowrap|10½ divisions.}} Falkenhayn and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff were forced to send divisions to Russia throughout the summer, to prevent a collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army and then to conduct a counter-offensive against [[Romania during World War I|Rumania]], which declared war against the [[Central Powers]] on 27 August.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|p = 27}} In July there were {{nowrap|112 German}} divisions on the Western Front and {{nowrap|52 divisions}} in Russia and in November there were {{nowrap|121 divisions}} in the west and {{nowrap|76 divisions}} in the east.{{sfn|Miles|1938|p = 555}} |
|||
=== Tactical developments === |
|||
The original [[British Expeditionary Force (World War I)|British Expeditionary Force]] (BEF) of six [[division (military)|divisions]] and a Cavalry Division, had lost most of the army's pre-war regular soldiers in the battles of 1914 and 1915. The bulk of the army was made up of volunteers of the [[Territorial Force]] and Kitchener's [[Kitchener's Army|New Army]], which had begun forming in August 1914. Rapid expansion created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. In 1914, Haig had been a Lieutenant-General in command of [[I Corps (United Kingdom)|I Corps]] and was promoted to command the [[British First Army|First Army]] and then the BEF in December 1915, which eventually comprised five armies with sixty divisions. The swift increase in the size of the army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an acute equipment shortage. Many officers resorted to directive command to avoid delegating to novice subordinates, although divisional commanders were given great latitude in training and planning for the attack of 1 July, since the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army made it impossible for corps and army commanders to know the capacity of each division.{{sfn|Simpson|2001|p = 34}} |
|||
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, Falkenhayn continued the policy of unyielding defence in 1916.{{#tag:ref|Falkenhayn implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy inescapable, since the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat, were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, decisions about withdrawal still reserved to army commanders.{{sfn|Sheldon|2005|p=223}}|group="Note"}} On the Somme front Falkenhayn's construction plan of January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt {{convert|5|–|10|yd|m}} wide to two, {{convert|30|yd|m}} wide and about {{convert|15|yd|m}} apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid {{convert|3|–|5|ft|m}} high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to three, {{convert|150|–|200|yd|m}} apart, the first trench occupied by sentry groups, the second ({{lang|de|''Wohngraben''}}) for the bulk of the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from {{convert|6|–|9|ft|m}} to {{convert|20|–|30|ft|m}}, {{convert|50|yd|m}} apart and large enough for {{nowrap|25 men}}. An intermediate line of strongpoints (the {{lang|de|''Stutzpunktlinie''}}) about {{convert|1000|yd|m}} behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve line, renamed the second line, which was as well-built and wired as the first line. The second line was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move field artillery forward before assaulting the line.{{sfn|Wynne|1939|pp = 100–101}} |
|||
== Prelude == |
|||
=== Anglo-French plan of attack === |
|||
British intentions evolved as the military situation changed after the Chantilly Conference. French losses at Verdun reduced the contribution available for the offensive on the Somme and increased the urgency for the commencement of operations on the Somme. The principal role in the offensive devolved to the British and on 16 June Haig had ordered that the objectives were to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and inflict loss on the enemy.{{sfn|Miles|1938|p = 86}} After a five-day artillery bombardment the British Fourth Army was to capture {{convert|27000|yd|m}} of the German first line from Montauban to Serre and the Third Army was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. In a second phase the Fourth Army was to take the German second position, from Pozières to the Ancre and then the second position south of the Albert–Bapaume road, ready for an attack on the German third position south of the road towards Flers, when the Reserve Army which included three cavalry divisions, would exploit the success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The French Sixth Army, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to the Somme and two corps on the south bank to Foucaucourt would make a subsidiary attack to guard the right flank of the main attack made by the British.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 21, 64–65}} |
|||
=== German defences on the Somme === |
|||
After the {{lang|de|''Herbstschlacht''}} ("Autumn Battle") in 1915, a third defence line another {{convert|3000|yd|m}} back from the {{lang|de|''Stutzpunktlinie''}} was begun in February and was nearly complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of {{lang|de|''sperrfeuerstreifen''}} (barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried {{convert|6|ft|m}} deep for {{convert|5|mi|km}} behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses which the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench, with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the {{lang|de|''Stutzpunktlinie''}} and the second line, all within {{convert|2000|yd|m}} and most troops within {{convert|1000|yd|m}} of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope guaranteed that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines.{{sfn|Wynne|1939|pp=100–103}} |
|||
== Battles of the Somme campaign == |
|||
===First phase: 1–17 July 1916=== |
|||
====First day on the Somme, 1 July==== |
|||
{{Main|First day on the Somme}} |
|||
[[File:British plan Somme 1 July 1916.png|thumb|<center>British objectives, 1 July 1916</center>]] |
|||
The '''first day on the Somme''' was the first of 141 days of the Battle of the Somme and the opening day of the '''[[Battle of Albert (1916)|Battle of Albert]]'''. The attack was made by five divisions of the French Sixth Army either side of the Somme, eleven British divisions of the Fourth Army north of the Somme to Serre and two divisions of the Third Army opposite Gommecourt, against the German [[2nd Army (German Empire)|Second Army]] of General [[Fritz von Below]]. The German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road. On the south bank the German defence was made incapable of resisting another attack and a substantial retreat began; on the north bank the abandonment of Fricourt was ordered. The defenders on the commanding ground north of the road inflicted a huge defeat on the British infantry, who had an unprecedented number of casualties. Several truces were negotiated, to recover wounded from no man's land north of the road. The Fourth Army lost {{nowrap|57,470 casualties}}, of which {{nowrap|19,240 men}} were killed, the French Sixth Army had {{nowrap|1,590 casualties}} and the German 2nd Army had {{nowrap|10,000–12,000 losses}}.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 41–69}} |
|||
====Battle of Albert, 1–13 July==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Albert (1916)}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Albert''' comprised the first two weeks of Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment commenced on 24 June and the Anglo-French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt {{convert|2|mi|km}} beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German Second Army but from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt, the British attack was a disaster where most of the c. {{nowrap|60,000 British}} casualties were incurred. Against Joffre's wishes Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road, to reinforce the success in the south, where the Anglo-French forces pressed forward towards the German second line, preparatory to a general attack on 14 July.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 76–78}} |
|||
==== Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14–17 July ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Bazentin Ridge}} |
|||
[[File:Bazentin le Petit 14 July 1916 map.png|thumb|<center>The [[21st Division (United Kingdom)|British 21st Division]] attack on Bazentin le Petit, 14 July 1916.</center>]] |
|||
The Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive position from the Somme past [[Guillemont]] and [[Ginchy]], north-west along the crest of the ridge to [[Pozières]] on the Albert–Bapaume road. The objectives of the attack were the villages of [[Bazentin le Petit]], [[Bazentin le Grand]] and [[Longueval]] which was adjacent to [[Delville Wood]], with [[High Wood]] on the ridge beyond. The attack was made by four divisions on a front of {{convert|6000|yd|km}} at {{nowrap|3:25 a.m.}} after a five-minute hurricane artillery bombardment. Field artillery fired a creeping barrage and the attacking waves pushed up close behind it in no man's land, leaving them only a short distance to cross when the barrage lifted from the German front trench. Most of the objective was captured and the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road put under great strain but the attack was not followed up due to British communication failures, casualties and disorganisation.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 79–85}} |
|||
==== Battle of Fromelles, 19–20 July ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Fromelles}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Fromelles''' was a subsidiary attack to support the Fourth Army on the Somme {{convert|80|km|mi}} to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite. Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was "gravely" underestimated, the attackers being {{nowrap|outnumbered 2:1}}. On 19 July, von Falkenhayn had judged the British attack to be the anticipated offensive against the 6th Army. Next day Falkenhayn ordered the [[Guards Reserve Corps|Guard Reserve Corps]] to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front. The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German defenders but gained no ground and deflected few German troops bound for the Somme. The attack was the début of the [[First Australian Imperial Force|Australian Imperial Force]] on the Western Front and "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history".{{sfn|McMullin|2006}} Of {{nowrap|7,080 BEF casualties}}, {{nowrap|5,533 losses}} were incurred by the [[5th Division (Australia)|5th Australian Division]]; German losses were {{nowrap|1,600–2,000, with}} {{nowrap|150 taken}} prisoner.{{sfn|Miles|1938|p = 133}} |
|||
=== Second phase: July – September 1916 === |
|||
==== Battle of Delville Wood, 14 July – 15 September ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Delville Wood}} |
|||
[[File:Delville Wood 14 July 1916.png|thumb|<center>Map 1: Positions on 14 July 1916</center>]] |
|||
The '''Battle of Delville Wood''' was an operation to secure the British right [[Flanking maneuver|flank]], while the centre advanced to capture the higher lying areas of High Wood and Pozières. After the Battle of Albert the offensive had evolved to the capture of fortified villages, woods and other terrain which offered observation for artillery fire, jumping-off points for more attacks and other tactical advantages. The mutually costly fighting at Delville Wood eventually secured the British right flank and marked the Western Front début of the South African [[1st Infantry Brigade (South Africa)|1st Infantry Brigade]] (incorporating a [[Southern Rhodesia]]n contingent), which held the wood from 15–20 July. When relieved the brigade had lost {{nowrap|2,536 men}}, similar to the casualties of many brigades on 1 July.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|p = 251}} |
|||
==== Battle of Pozières Ridge, 23 July – 7 August ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Pozières}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Pozières''' began with the capture of the village by the 1st Australian Division (Australian Imperial Force) of the [[Reserve Army (United Kingdom)|Reserve Army]], the only British success in the Allied fiasco of 22/23 July, when a general attack combined with the French further south, degenerated into a series of separate attacks due to communication failures, supply failures and poor weather.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 94–95}} German bombardments and counter-attacks began on 23 July and continued until 7 August. The fighting ended with the Reserve Army taking the plateau north and east of the village, overlooking the fortified village of [[Thiepval]] from the rear.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 94–96}} |
|||
==== Battle of Guillemont, 3–6 September ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Guillemont}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Guillemont''' was an attack on the village which was captured by the Fourth Army on the first day. Guillemont was on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the French Sixth Army. German defences ringed the British salient at Delville Wood to the north and had observation over the French Sixth Army area to the south towards the Somme river. The German defence in the area was based on the second line and numerous fortified villages and farms north from [[Maurepas, Somme|Maurepas]] at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood and High Wood, which were mutually supporting. The battle for Guillemont was considered by some observers to be the supreme effort of the German army during the battle. Numerous meetings were held by Joffre, Haig, Foch, Rawlinson and Fayolle to co-ordinate joint attacks by the four armies, all of which broke down. A pause in Anglo-French attacks at the end of August, coincided with the largest counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the Somme.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 98–100}} |
|||
==== Battle of Ginchy, 9 September ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Ginchy}} |
|||
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R05148, Westfront, deutscher Soldat.jpg|thumb|<center>A young German ''Sommekämpfer'' in 1916</center>]] |
|||
In the '''Battle of Ginchy''' the [[16th (Irish) Division|16th Division]] captured the German-held village. Ginchy was {{convert|1.5|km|mi}} north-east of Guillemont, at the junction of six roads on a rise overlooking Combles, {{convert|4|km|mi}} to the south-east. After the end of the [[Battle of Guillemont]], British troops were required to advance to positions which would give observation over the German third position, ready for a general attack in mid-September. British attacks from Leuze Wood north to Ginchy had begun on 3 September, when the 7th Division captured the village and was then forced out by a German counter-attack. The capture of Ginchy and the success of the French Sixth Army on 12 September, in its biggest attack of the battle of the Somme, enabled both armies to make much bigger attacks, sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve armies, which captured much more ground and inflicted {{nowrap|c. 130,000 casualties}} on the German defenders during the month.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|p = 355}} |
|||
=== Third phase: September – November 1916 === |
|||
==== Battle of Flers–Courcelette, 15–22 September ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Flers-Courcelette}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Flers–Courcelette''' was the third and final general offensive mounted by the British Army, which attacked an intermediate line and the German third line to take Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt, which was combined with a French attack on Frégicourt and Rancourt to encircle Combles and a supporting attack on the south bank of the Somme. The strategic objective of a breakthrough was not achieved but the tactical gains were considerable, the front line being advanced by over {{convert|2500|–|3500|yd|m}} and many German casualties being inflicted. The battle was the début of the [[Canadian Corps]], [[New Zealand Division]] and [[tank]]s of the Heavy Branch of the [[Machine Gun Corps]] on the Somme.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 112–124}} |
|||
==== Battle of Morval, 25–28 September ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Morval}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Morval''' was an attack by the Fourth Army on [[Morval]], [[Gueudecourt]] and [[Lesboeufs]] held by the German [[1st Army (German Empire)|1st Army]], which had been the final objectives of the [[Battle of Flers-Courcelette]] (15–22 September). The attack was postponed to combine with attacks by the French Sixth Army on [[Combles]], south of Morval and because of rain. The combined attack was also intended to deprive the German defenders further west, near Thiepval of reinforcements, before an attack by the Reserve Army, due on 26 September. Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt were captured and a small number of tanks joined in the battle later in the afternoon. Many casualties inflicted on the Germans but the French made slower progress. The Fourth Army advance on 25 September was its deepest since 14 July and left the Germans in severe difficulties, particularly in a [[Salients, re-entrants and pockets|salient]] near Combles. The Reserve Army attack began on 26 September in the [[Battle of Thiepval Ridge]].{{sfn|Philpott|2009|p = 383}} |
|||
==== Battle of the Transloy Ridges, 1 October – 11 November ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Le Transloy}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Le Transloy''' began in good weather and Le Sars was captured on 7 October. Pauses were made from {{nowrap|8–11 October}} due to rain and {{nowrap|13–18 October}} to allow time for a methodical bombardment, when it became clear that the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats. Haig consulted with the army commanders and on {{nowrap|17 October}} reduced the scope of operations by cancelling the Third Army plans and reducing the Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations in co-operation with the French Sixth Army.{{sfn|Miles|1938|pp = 458–459}} Another pause followed before operations resumed on 23 October on the northern flank of the Fourth Army, with a delay during more bad weather on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army front, until 5 November. Next day the Fourth Army ceased offensive operations except for small attacks intended to improve positions and divert German attention from attacks being made by the Reserve/Fifth Army. Large operations resumed in January 1917.{{sfn|Miles|1938|p = 474}} |
|||
==== Battle of Thiepval Ridge, 26–28 September ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of Thiepval Ridge}} |
|||
The '''Battle of Thiepval Ridge''' was the first large offensive mounted by the [[British Reserve Army|Reserve Army]] of [[Lieutenant General]] [[Hubert Gough]] and was intended to benefit from the [[British Fourth Army|Fourth Army]] attack at [[Battle of Morval|Morval]] by starting {{nowrap|24 hours}} afterwards. Thiepval Ridge was well fortified and the German defenders fought with great determination, while the British co-ordination of infantry and artillery declined after the first day, due to confused fighting in the maze of trenches, dug-outs and shell-craters. The final British objectives were not reached until the [[Battle of the Ancre Heights]] (1 October – 11 November). Organisational difficulties and deteriorating weather frustrated Joffre's intention to proceed by vigorous co-ordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became disjointed and declined in effectiveness during late September, at the same time as a revival occurred in the German defence. The British experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment and tank–infantry co-operation, as the Germans struggled to withstand the preponderance of men and material fielded by the Anglo-French, despite reorganisation and substantial reinforcements of troops, artillery and aircraft from Verdun. September became the worst month for casualties for the Germans.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|pp = 130–131}} |
|||
==== Battle of the Ancre Heights, 1 October – 11 November ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of the Ancre Heights}} |
|||
The '''Battle of the Ancre Heights''' was fought after Haig made plans for the Third Army to take the area east of Gommecourt, the Reserve Army to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont Hamel–Hébuterne and for the Fourth Army to reach the Péronne–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of the Albert–Bapaume road. The Reserve Army attacked to complete the capture of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west end of Bazentin Ridge around {{lang|d|''Schwaben''}} and Stuff Redoubts, during which bad weather caused great hardship and delay. The Marine Brigade from Flanders and fresh German divisions brought from quiet fronts counter-attacked frequently and the British objectives were not secured until 11 November.{{sfn|Miles|1938|pp = 447–456 & 460–466}} |
|||
==== Battle of the Ancre, 13–18 November ==== |
|||
{{Main|Battle of the Ancre}} |
|||
[[File:Mametz Western Front (Frank Crozier).jpg|thumb|<center>Mametz, Western Front, a winter scene by [[Frank Crozier]]</center>]] |
|||
The '''Battle of the Ancre''' was the last major British operation of the year. The Fifth (formerly Reserve) Army attacked into the Ancre valley to exploit German exhaustion after the Battle of the Ancre Heights and gain ground ready for a resumption of the offensive in 1917. Political calculation, concern for Allied morale and Joffre's pressure for a continuation of attacks in France, to prevent German troop transfers to Russia and Italy also influenced Haig.{{sfn|Miles|1938|pp = 476–477}} The battle began with another [[Mining (military)|mine]] being detonated beneath [[Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt]]. The attack on [[Serre (Somme)|Serre]] failed, although a brigade of the 31st Division, which had attacked in the disaster of 1 July, took its objectives before being withdrawn later. South of Serre, Beaumont Hamel and [[Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre]] were captured. South of the Ancre, St Pierre Division was captured, the outskirts of Grandcourt reached and the Canadian 4th Division captured [[Regina Trench]] north of Courcelette, then took Desire Support Trench on 18 November; large operations ended until January 1917.{{sfn|McCarthy|1995|pp = 148–162}} |
|||
== Aftermath == |
|||
===Analysis=== |
|||
[[File:Battle of the Somme 1916 map.png|thumb|<center>Progress of the Battle of the Somme between 1 July and 18 November.</center>]] |
|||
At the start of 1916, most of the British Army had been an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers.{{sfn|Miles|1938|pp = 570–572}}{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp = 150–151}} The Somme was the debut of the Kitchener Army created by Lord Kitchener's call for [[recruitment to the British Army during the First World War|recruits]] at the start of the war. The British volunteers were often the fittest, most enthusiastic and best educated citizens but British casualties were also inexperienced soldiers and it has been claimed that their loss was of lesser military significance than the losses of the remaining peace-trained officers and men of the German army.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|p = 186}} British casualties on the first day were the worst in the history of the British army, with {{nowrap|57,470 British}} casualties, {{nowrap|19,240 of}} whom were killed.{{sfn|Edmonds|1932|p=483}}{{sfn|Prior|Wilson|2005|p=119}} British survivors of the battle gained experience and the BEF learned how to conduct the mass warfare that the continental armies had been fighting since 1914.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|p = 186}} Germany and the other European powers began the war with a trained force of regulars and reservists, each casualty sapped the experience and effectiveness of the German army. [[Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria|Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria]] wrote, "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield".{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|p = 156}} A [[Attrition warfare|war of attrition]] was a logical strategy for Britain against Germany, which was also at war with France and Russia. A school of thought holds that the Battle of the Somme placed unprecedented strain on the German army and that after the battle it was unable to replace casualties like-for-like, which reduced the German army to a "militia".{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp = 436–437}}{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|p = 156}} The destruction of German units in battle was made worse by lack of rest. British aircraft and long-range guns reached well behind the front-line, where trench-digging and other work meant that troops returned to the line exhausted.{{sfn|Duffy|2006|p = 326}} Despite the strategic predicament of the German army it survived the battle, withstood the pressure of the [[Brusilov Offensive]] and conducted an invasion of [[Romania during World War I|Romania]]. In 1917 the German army in the west, survived large British and French offensives at [[Battle of Arras (1917)|Arras]], the [[Nivelle Offensive]] and the [[Battle of Passchendaele|Third Battle of Ypres]], though at great cost.{{sfn|Sheldon|2009|p = 398}} |
|||
Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the end of August 1916. At a conference at Cambrai on 5 September, a decision was taken to build a new defensive line well behind the Somme front. The {{lang|de|''Siegfriedstellung''}} was to be built between Arras–St. Quentin–La Fere–Condé, with another new line between Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. These lines were intended to limit any Allied breakthrough and to allow the German army to withdraw if attacked. Work began on the {{lang|de|''Siegfriedstellung''}} (Hindenburg Line) at the end of September. Withdrawing to the new line was not an easy decision and the German high command struggled over it during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members wanted to take a shorter step back to a line between Arras and Sailly, while the First and Second army commanders wanted to stay on the Somme. Generalleutnant von Fuchs on 20 January 1917 said that, |
|||
:Enemy superiority is so great that we are not in a position either to fix their forces in position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more (Von Kuhl, Diary 20 January 1917){{sfn|Sheldon|2009|p = 4}} |
|||
and that half measures were futile, a retreat to the {{lang|de|''Siegfriedstellung''}} was unavoidable. After the loss of a considerable amount of ground around the Ancre valley, to the British Fifth Army in February 1917, the German armies on the Somme were ordered on 14 February to withdraw to reserve lines closer to Bapaume. A further retirement to the Hindenburg Line ({{lang|de|''Siegfriedstellung''}}) in [[Alberich (World War I German operation)|Operation Alberich]] began on 16 March 1917, despite the new line being unfinished and poorly sited in some places.{{sfn|Sheldon|2009|pp = 4–5}} |
|||
The British and French advanced about {{convert|6|mi|km}} on the Somme, on a front of {{convert|16|mi|km}} at a cost of {{nowrap|419,654 British}} and {{nowrap|202,567 French}} casualties, against {{nowrap|465,181 German}} casualties.{{sfn|Miles|1938|p = xv}} Until the 1930s the dominant view of the battle in English-language writing, was that the battle was a hard-fought victory against a brave, experienced and well-led opponent. Winston Churchill had objected to the way the battle was being fought in August 1916, Lloyd George when Prime Minister criticised attrition warfare frequently and condemned the battle in his post-war memoirs. In the 1930s a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood and futility" emerged and gained more emphasis in the 1960s when the 50th anniversaries of the Great War battles were commemorated.{{sfn|Bond|2002|pp = 1–104}} Since the 1960s the "futility" view that the battle was an Anglo-French disaster, has been criticised as a myth. In recent years a nuanced version of the original orthodoxy has arisen, which does not seek to minimise the human cost of the battle but sets it in the context of industrial warfare, compares it to the wars in the United States between [[American Civil War|1861–1865]] and Europe between [[Second World War|1939–1945]] and describes the development of the armies of 1914 into modern all-arms organisations, using the scientific application of fire-power on land and in the air, to defeat comparable opponents in a war of exhaustion. Little German and French writing has been translated, leaving much of the continental perspective and detail of German and French military operations inaccessible to the English-speaking world.{{sfn|Terraine|1963|p = 230}}{{sfn|Sheffield|2001|p = 188}}{{sfn|Duffy|2006|pp = 324 & 327}}{{sfn|Chickering|1998|pp = 70–71}}{{sfn|Herwig|1996|p = 249}}{{sfn|Philpott|2009|p = 625}} |
|||
=== Casualties === |
|||
{{main|World War I casualties}} |
|||
{| class="wikitable" align=right style="margin:0 0 1em 1em" |
|||
!Nationality |
|||
!Total<br />casualties |
|||
!Killed &<br />missing |
|||
!Prisoners |
|||
|- |
|||
|United Kingdom||align="right"|350,000+||-||- |
|||
|- |
|||
|Canada||align="right"|24,029||-||- |
|||
|- |
|||
|Australia |
|||
|align="right"|23,000||align="right"| ||align="right"|< 200 |
|||
|- |
|||
|New Zealand||align="right"|7,408 ||-||- |
|||
|- |
|||
|South Africa||align="right"|3,000+||-||- |
|||
|- |
|||
|Newfoundland||align="right"|2,000+||-||- |
|||
|- |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black"|Total British Commonwealth |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black" align="right"|419,654 |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black" align="right"|95,675 |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black" align="right"|- |
|||
|- |
|||
|French||align="right"|204,253||align="right"|50,756||- |
|||
|- style="background:#eeeeee" |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black"|Total Allied |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black" align="right"|623,907 |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black" align="right"|146,431 |
|||
|style="border-top:2pt solid black" align="right"|- |
|||
|- |
|||
|colspan="4"| |
|||
|- |
|||
|Germany |
|||
|align="right"|465,000||align="right"|164,055|| align="right" |38,000{{sfn|Boraston|1919|p = 53}} |
|||
|} |
|||
The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest battles of the First World War. The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly conference on 15 November, was 485,000 British and French casualties and 630,000 German. A German officer wrote, |
|||
{{quote|Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word.| sign= Friedrich Steinbrecher}} |
|||
In the first volume of the British Official History (1932) Edmonds wrote that comparisons of casualties were inexact, because of different methods of calculation by the belligerents but that British casualties were {{nowrap|419,654 from}} total British casualties in France in the period of {{nowrap|498,054}}, French Somme casualties {{nowrap|194,451 and}} German casualties {{nowrap|c. 445,322}} to which should be added 27%, for woundings which would have been counted as casualties using British criteria; Anglo-French casualties on the Somme were over {{nowrap|600,000 and}} German casualties were {{nowrap|under 600,000}}.{{sfn|Edmonds|1932|pp = 496–497}} Edmonds's addition of c. 30% to German figures to make them comparable to British criteria was criticised as "spurious" by M. J. Williams (1964). McRandle and Quirk (2006) cast doubt on Edmonds calculations but counted {{nowrap|729,000 German}} casualties on the Western Front, from July to December against {{nowrap|631,000 by}} Churchill, concluding that German losses were fewer than Anglo-French but that the ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses was eroded by attrition.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp = 601–602}} Sheffield wrote that Edmonds's calculation of Anglo-French casualties was correct but that for German casualtes was "discredited", quoting the official German figure of {{nowrap|500,000 casualties}}.{{sfn|Sheffield|2003|p = 151}} In the second British Official History volume (1938) Miles wrote that total German casualties in the battle were {{nowrap|660,000–680,000 against}} Anglo-French casualties of fewer than {{nowrap|630,000 using}} "fresh data" from the French and German official accounts.{{sfn|Miles|1938|p = 553}} |
|||
{|class="wikitable" align=right style="margin:0 0 1em 1em" |
|||
|colspan="4" style="text-align: center;"|'''Western Front Casualties'''<br>(British monthly)<br><small>July–December 1916</small> |
|||
|- |
|||
! Month |
|||
! Casualties |
|||
|- |
|||
| July||196,081 |
|||
|- |
|||
| August||75,249 |
|||
|- |
|||
| September||115,056 |
|||
|- |
|||
| October||66,852 |
|||
|- |
|||
| November||46,238 |
|||
|- |
|||
| December||13,803 |
|||
|- |
|||
| Total British||513,289 |
|||
|- |
|||
| French<br>||c. 434,000 |
|||
|- |
|||
| Total Anglo-French||c. 947,289 |
|||
|- |
|||
| German||c. 719,000 |
|||
|- |
|||
|Grand total||c. 1,666,289 |
|||
|- |
|||
| colspan="4" style="text-align: center;"|{{#tag:ref|Churchill, W. S. C. ''The World Crisis'' (1923–1931){{sfn|Churchill|1938|p=1423}} Philpott, W. ''Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century'' (2009){{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp=600–602}}|group="Note"}} |
|||
|} |
|||
In 1938 Churchill wrote that the Germans had {{nowrap|270,000 casualties}} against the French, between February and June 1916 and {{nowrap|390,000 between}} July and the end of the year (see statistical tables in Appendix J of Churchill's "World Crisis") and {{nowrap|278,000 casualties}} at Verdun.{{sfn|Churchill|1938|pp = 1427, 1004}} Some losses must have been in quieter sectors but many must have been inflicted by the French at the Somme. Churchill wrote that Franco-German losses at the Somme were "much less unequal" than the Anglo-German ratio.{{sfn|Churchill|1938|p = 966}} Doughty wrote that French losses on the Somme were "surprisingly high" at {{nowrap|202,567 men}}, 54% of the {{nowrap|377,231 casualties}} at Verdun.{{sfn|Doughty|2005|p = 309}} Prior and Wilson used Churchill's research and wrote that the British lost {{nowrap|432,000 soldiers}} from 1 July – mid-November ({{nowrap|c. 3,600 per}} day) in inflicting {{nowrap|c. 230,000 German}} casualties and offer no figures for French casualties or the losses they inflicted on the Germans.{{sfn|Prior|Wilson|2005|pp = 300–301}} Sheldon wrote that the British lost "over {{nowrap|400,000" casualties}}{{sfn|Sheldon|2005|p = 398}} Harris wrote that total British losses were {{nowrap|c. 420,000, French}} casualties were over {{nowrap|200,000 men}} and German losses were {{nowrap|c. 500,000, according}} to the "best" German sources.{{sfn|Harris|2008|p = 271}} Sheffield wrote that the losses were "appalling", with {{nowrap|419,000 British}} casualties, {{nowrap|c. 204,000 French}} and "perhaps" {{nowrap|600,000 German}} casualties.{{sfn|Sheffield|2011|pp = 194, 197}} |
|||
In a commentary on the debate about Somme casualties, Philpott used Miles's figures of {{nowrap|419,654 British}} casualties and the French official figures of {{nowrap|154,446 Sixth}} Army losses and {{nowrap|48,131 Tenth}} Army casualties. German losses were described as "disputed", ranging from {{nowrap|400,000–680,000.}} Churchill's claims were a "snapshot" of July 1916 and not representative of the rest of the battle. Philpott called the "blood test" a crude measure compared to manpower reserves, industrial capacity, farm productivity and financial resources and that intangible factors were more influential on the course of the war. The German army was exhausted in 1916, had a loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent defeats, caused it to collapse in 1918, a process which began on the Somme, echoing Churchill that the German soldiery was never the same again.{{sfn|Philpott|2009|pp = 602–603}} |
|||
==Subsequent operations== |
|||
===Ancre, January – March 1917=== |
|||
{{Main|Operations on the Ancre, January – March 1917}} |
|||
After the [[Battle of the Ancre]] (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on the Somme front. British operations on the Ancre from {{nowrap|10 January – 22 February 1917}}, forced the Germans back {{convert|5|mi|km}} on a {{convert|4|mi|km|adj=on}} front, ahead of the schedule of the [[Hindenburg Line#Alberich Bewegung|Alberich Bewegung]] ("{{lang|de|''Alberich''}} Manoeuvre"/"Operation {{lang|de|''Alberich''}}") and eventually took {{nowrap|5,284 prisoners}}.{{sfn|Boraston|1919|p = 64}} On 22/23 February the Germans fell back another {{convert|3|mi|km}} on a {{convert|15|mi|km|adj=on}} front. The Germans then withdrew from much of the {{lang|de|''R. I Stellung''}} to the {{lang|de|''R. II Stellung''}} on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation {{lang|de|''Alberich''}}) commenced on schedule on 16 March.{{sfn|Falls|1940|p = 115}} |
|||
===Hindenburg Line=== |
|||
{{main|Hindenburg Line#Alberich Bewegung|l1=Operation Alberich}} |
|||
Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition, the garrisons were exhausted and censors of correspondence from front-line soldiers reported tiredness and low morale. The situation left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28 January caused Rupprecht to urge that the retirement to the {{lang|d|''Siegfriedstellung''}} (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal next day but British attacks on the First Army, particularly the Action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. {{convert|4|mi|km}} to the {{lang|d|''R. I Stellung''}} (R. I Position). On 24 February the Germans withdrew, protected by [[rear guard]]s, over roads in relatively good condition which were then destroyed. The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption to the railways which supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March the Germans withdrew from the {{lang|d|''R. I Stellung''}} between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached the {{lang|d|''R. II Stellung''}} (R. II Position) on 13 March.{{sfn|Falls|1940|pp = 95–107}} |
|||
== Commemoration == |
|||
[[The Royal British Legion]] with the British Embassy in Paris and the [[Commonwealth War Graves Commission]], commemorate the battle on 1 July each year at the [[Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme|Thiepval Memorial to the Missing]]. For their efforts on the first day of the battle, The 1st Newfoundland Regiment was given the name "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" by [[George V]] on 28 November 1917.{{sfn|Steele|2003|p = 10}} The first day of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated in Newfoundland, remembering the "Best of the Best" at {{nowrap|11:00 a.m.}} on the Sunday nearest to 1 July.{{sfn|Steele|2003|p = 192}} The Somme is remembered in [[Northern Ireland]] due to the participation of the [[36th (Ulster) Division]] and commemorated by veterans' groups and by [[Ulster unionism|unionist]]/Protestant groups such as the [[Orange Order]]. During the [[Northern Irish Troubles]] the date was associated primarily with the Orange Order and regarded by some as part of the '[[Orange walk#The 'marching season'|marching season]]', with connection to the Somme. The [[British Legion]] and others commemorate the battle on 1 July.{{sfn|Robinson|2010|pp = 86–87}} |
|||
== See also == |
|||
{{Portal|World War I}} |
|||
* [[Order of battle for the Battle of the Somme]] |
|||
* [[List of Canadian battles during the First World War]] |
|||
== Notes == |
|||
{{reflist|group="Note"}} |
|||
==Footnotes== |
|||
{{reflist|4}} |
|||
== References == |
|||
{{refbegin}} |
|||
;Books |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Bond|2002}} |
|||
|title=The Unquiet Western Front: Britain's Role in Literature and History |last=Bond |first=B. | authorlink= |year=2002 |publisher=CUP|location=London| edition= |isbn=0-52180-995-9}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Boraston|1919}} |
|||
|title=Sir Douglas Haig's Despatches |last=Boraston |first=J. H. | authorlink= |year=1919 |publisher=Dent |location=London | edition=1920 |oclc=633614212}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |ref={{harvid|Churchill|1938}} |
|||
|last=Churchill |first=W. S. C. |title=The World Crisis |publisher=Thornton Butterworth |location=London |year=1923–1931|edition=Odhams 1938 |oclc=4945014}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Chickering|1998}} |
|||
|title=Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 |last=Chickering |first=R. | authorlink= |year=1998 |publisher=CUP |location=London | edition=2nd, 2004 |isbn=0-52154-780-6}} |
|||
* {{cite book|ref={{harvid|Doughty|2005}} |
|||
|last=Doughty |first=R. A. |title=Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operation in the Great War|location=Cambridge, MA|publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University|year=2005|isbn=0-67401-880-X}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Dowling|2008}} |
|||
|title=The Brusilov Offensive |last=Dowling |first=T, | authorlink= |year=2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington IN | edition= |isbn=0-253-35130-8}} |
|||
* {{Cite book|ref={{harvid|Duffy|2006}} |
|||
|title=Through German Eyes: The British and the Somme 1916 |last=Duffy |first=C. |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicholson |year=2006 |location=London |edition=Phoenix 2007 |isbn=978-0-7538-2202-9}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Edmonds|1932}} |
|||
|title=Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916 Vol I: Sir Douglas Haig's Command to the 1st July : Battle of the Somme |last=Edmonds | first=J. E. |authorlink= |year=1932 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |edition=IWM & Battery Press 1993 |isbn=0-89839-185-7}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Falls|1940}} |
|||
|title=Military Operations France and Belgium 1917: The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the Battles of Arras |last=Falls |first=C. | authorlink= |year=1940 |publisher=HMSO |location=London | edition=IWM & Battery Press 1992 |isbn=0-89839-180-6}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Foley|2007}} |
|||
|title=German Strategy and the Path to Verdun : Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 |last=Foley | first=R. T. |authorlink= |year=2007 |publisher=CUP |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-04436-3}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Harris|2008}} |
|||
|title=Douglas Haig and the First World War |last=Harris |first=J. P. |authorlink= |year=2008 |publisher=CUP |location=Cambridge|edition=2009 |isbn=978-0-521-89802-7}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |ref={{harvid|Hart|2006}} |
|||
| last=Hart | first=P. | title=The Somme |year=2006 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |isbn=978-0-304-36735-1}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Herwig|1996}} |
|||
|title=The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914–1918 |last=Herwig |first=H. | authorlink= |year=1996 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |location=London | edition= |isbn=0-34057-348-1}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|McCarthy|1995}} |
|||
|title=The Somme: The Day-by-Day Account |last=McCarthy |first=C. | authorlink= |year=1993 |publisher=Weidenfeld Military |location=London | edition=Arms & Armour Press 1995 |isbn=1-85409-330-4}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Miles|1938}} |
|||
|title=Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916 Vol II: 2nd July 1916 to the End of the Battles of the Somme |last=Miles |first=W. | authorlink= |year=1938 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London | edition=Battery Press 1992 |isbn=0-901627-76-3}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |ref={{harvid|Philpott|2009}} |
|||
|title=Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century |last=Philpott |first=W. |authorlink= |year=2009 |publisher=Little, Brown |location=London |edition=1st |isbn=978-1-4087-0108-9}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |ref={{harvid|Prior|Wilson|2005}} |
|||
|last1=Prior |first1=R. |last2=Wilson |first2=T. |title=The Somme |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0-300-10694-7}} |
|||
* {{cite journal |ref={{harvid|Robinson|2010}} |
|||
|title=Remembering War in the Midst of Conflict: First World War Commemorations in the Northern Irish Troubles |last=Robinson |first=H. |journal=20th Century British History |volume=21 |issue=1 |year=2010 |doi=10.1093/tcbh/hwp047 |issn=1477-4674}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Sheffield|2001}} |
|||
|title=Forgotten Victory, The First World War: Myths and Realities |last=Sheffield |first=G. | authorlink= |year=2001 |publisher=Hodder Headline |location=London | edition=Review 2002 |isbn=0-7472-6460-0}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |ref={{harvid|Sheffield|2003}} |
|||
|title=The Somme|last=Sheffield |first=G. | publisher=Cassell |year=2003 |location=London |isbn=0-304-36649-8}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Sheffield|2011}} |
|||
|title=The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army |last=Sheffield | first=G. |authorlink= |year=2011 |publisher=Aurum Press |location=London |isbn=978-1-84513-691-8}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Sheldon|2005}} |
|||
|title=The German Army on the Somme 1914–1916 |last=Sheldon |first=J. | authorlink= |year=2005 |publisher=Leo Cooper|location=London | edition=Pen & Sword Military 2006 |isbn=1-84415-269-3}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Sheldon|2009}} |
|||
|title=The German Army at Cambrai |last=Sheldon | first=J. |authorlink= |year=2009 |publisher=Pen & Sword Books |location=Barnsley |isbn=978-1-84415-944-4}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Simpson|2001}} |
|||
|title=The Operational Role of British Corps Command on the Western Front 1914–18 |last=Simpson | first=A. |authorlink= |year=2001 |publisher=Spellmount |location=London|edition=2005 |isbn=1-86227-292-1}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Steele|2003}} |
|||
|title=Lieutenant Owen William Steele of the Newfoundland Regiment: Diary and Letters |last=Steele |first=O. W. | authorlink= |year= 2003 |editor=Facey-Crowther D. R. |publisher= McGill-Queen's University Press |location= Montreal | edition= |url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=BSiK5NKOsTwC&lpg=PP1&dq=Lieutenant%20Owen%20William%20Steele%20of%20the%20Newfoundland%20Regimen&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true |accessdate=3 July 2013 |isbn=0-7735-2428-2}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Terraine|1963}} |
|||
|title=Douglas Haig : The Educated Soldier |last=Terraine | first=J. |authorlink= |year=1963 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |edition=2005 |isbn=0-304-35319-1}} |
|||
* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Wynne|1939}} |
|||
|title=If Germany Attacks: The Battle in Depth in the West |last=Wynne | first=G. C. |authorlink= |year=1939 |publisher=Faber |location=Connecticut |edition=Greenwood Press 1976 |isbn=0-8371-5029-9}} |
|||
;Websites |
|||
* {{cite web |ref={{harvid|McMullin|2006}} |
|||
|title = Disaster at Fromelles |last = McMullin |first = R.| location = AU |newspaper = Wartime Magazine |volume = 36 |year = 2006 |url=http://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/36/article.asp |accessdate =14 April 2007}} |
|||
* {{Cite web|url=http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol072iu.html|title=The South African Military History Society|work=The South Africans at Delville Wood|pages=Military History Journal (S Afr MHJ) – Vol 7 No 2|accessdate=23 July 2009 |archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5iXU0fHWz |archivedate=25 July 2009 |deadurl=no}} |
|||
* {{Cite web|url=http://www.collectionscanada.ca/first-world-war/interviews/025015-1400-e.html|title=The Somme in Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914–1918|accessdate=9 September 2009}} |
|||
* {{Cite web |url=http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/germanarmywwi.html |title=Germany in World War 1|accessdate=9 September 2009 | archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20091003001248/http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/germanarmywwi.html| archivedate= 3 October 2009 | deadurl= no}} |
|||
* {{Cite web|url=http://www.delvillewood.com/premiereguerre2.htm|title=South African War Museum: Delville Wood |accessdate=9 September 2009}} |
|||
{{Refend}} |
|||
==Further reading== |
|||
{{Refbegin}} |
|||
;Books |
|||
* {{cite book |title=Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914–1920 |last=Anon |first= | authorlink= |year=1922 |publisher=HMSO |location=London | edition=1st |url=http://ia700607.us.archive.org/5/items/statisticsofmili00grea/statisticsofmili00grea.pdf |accessdate=27 June 2013 |oclc=1318955}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Ball |first=S. |title=The Guardsmen |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-00-653163-0}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Buchan |first=J. |title=The Battle of the Somme |publisher=George H. Doran |location=New York|year=1917 |oclc=699175025}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Gilbert|first=M, Sir |title=The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |year=1994 |edition=2006 |isbn=0-8050-8127-5}} |
|||
* {{cite book |title=Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories 1915–1948 |last=Green |first=A. | authorlink= |year=2003 |publisher=Frank Cass |location=London | edition= |isbn=0-7146-8430-9}} |
|||
* {{cite book |title=A Record of the Battles and Engagements of the British Armies in France and Flanders 1914–1918 |last=James |first=E.A. | authorlink= |year=1924 |publisher=Gale & Polden |location=Aldershot | edition= |oclc=250857010}} |
|||
* {{cite book |title=The War in the Air, Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol II |last=Jones |first=H. A. | authorlink= |year=1928 |publisher=Clarendon Press|location=London| edition=N & M Press 2002 |isbn=1-84342-413-4}} |
|||
* {{Cite book | last=Keegan| first=J.| title=The First World War|year=1998| publisher=Random House| location=London|ISBN=0-09-180178-8}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Liddell Hart|first=B. H. |title=Foch: The Man of Orleans|publisher=Boston, Little, Brown |year=1932 |oclc=16161900}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Liddell Hart|first=B. H. |title=History of the First World War|publisher=Book Club Associates |location=London|year=1970|edition=3rd 1973 |oclc=819218074}} |
|||
* {{cite book |last=Masefield|first=J. |title=The Old Front Line|publisher=The Macmillan Company|location=New York City|year=1917|url=http://ia600303.us.archive.org/11/items/oldfrontline01mase/oldfrontline01mase.pdf |accessdate=27 June 2013|oclc=1183536}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=MacDonald|first=L.|title=Somme 1916|publisher=Penguin Books |location=London |year=1983|isbn=0-14-017867-8}} |
|||
* {{cite book |title=Ragtime Soldiers: the Rhodesian Experience in the First World War |last=McLaughlin |first=P. |authorlink= |year=1980 |publisher=Books of Zimbabwe |location=Bulawayo |isbn=0-86920-232-4}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Middlebrook|first=M. |title=The First Day on the Somme|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1971 |location=London |isbn=0-14-139071-9}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Neillands|first=R. |title='The Great War Generals on the Western Front 1914–1918''|publisher=Magpie Books|year=2004|isbn=1-84119-863-3}} |
|||
* {{cite web | title =Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919 |last= Nicholson |first= G.W.L. | year= 1962 |publisher= Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationary |location= Ottawa |url=http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/docs/CEF_e.pdf|accessdate=27 December 2012|oclc=557523890}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Nomenclature Committee as Approved by Army Council|title=Report of the Battles of the Somme |editor=Cmnd 1138|publisher=HMSO|location=London|year=1922|edition=N & M Press 1994|isbn=1-84342-196-8}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Prior|first=R. |title=The First World War|publisher=Cassel & Co|location=London|year=1999|edition=1st|isbn=0-304-35984-X}} |
|||
* {{Cite book|last=Prior|first=R. and|coauthors=Wilson, T. |title=The Somme|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|year=2005|edition=1st|isbn=0-300-10694-7}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Recouly|first=R. |editor-first=Mary Cadwalader|editor-last=Jones|title=Foch, The Winner of The War|location=New York|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|year=1920|oclc=2036520}} |
|||
* {{cite book |last=Regan|first=G. |title=The Guinness Book of More Military Blunders|location=London|publisher=Guinness Publishing|year=1993|isbn=0-85112-728-2}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Robertshaw|first=A. |title=Somme 1 July 1916: Tragedy and Triumph|publisher=Osprey Publishing|year=2006|isbn=1-84603-038-2}} |
|||
* {{Cite book |last=Sacco|first=Joe |title=The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|year=2013|isbn=978-0-393-08880-9}} |
|||
;Websites |
|||
* {{cite web |title=The Battles of the Somme, 1916: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography | last=Van Hartesveldt |first=F.R. |year=1996 |publisher=Greenwood Press 1996 |location= |url=http://www.questia.com/read/23324074/the-battles-of-the-somme-1916-historiography-and Online edition |accessdate=27 June 2013 |isbn=0-31329-386-4}} |
|||
{{Refend}} |
|||
== External links == |
|||
{{Commons category}} |
|||
{{Spoken Wikipedia|Battle_of_the_Somme.ogg|31 January 2009}} |
|||
* [http://pierreswesternfront.punt.nl/content/2008/03/somme-introduction Battle of the Somme, maps and photo essay] |
|||
* [http://www.1914-1918.net/bat15.htm The British Army in the Great War: The Battles of the Somme, 1916] |
|||
* [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/node/2455 New Zealand and the Battle of the Somme] |
|||
* [http://www.images-en-somme.fr/historial-de-la-grande-guerre.php Peronne Great War Historial] |
|||
* [http://www.puredarren.com/somme.htm The Somme – Northern Ireland Remembers] |
|||
* [http://maps.omniatlas.com/europe/19160920/ Map of Europe during the Battle of the Somme] |
|||
* [https://ia600506.us.archive.org/3/items/notesonrecentope00unitrich/notesonrecentope00unitrich_bw.pdf Experience of the German First Army in the Somme Battle, 24 June – 26 November 1916, Below F., pp. 77–143 (1917)] |
|||
{{World War I}} |
|||
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2013}} |
|||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle Of The Somme}} |
|||
<!--Categories--> |
|||
[[Category:Battle of the Somme| ]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of the Western Front (World War I)|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving Australia|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving Canada|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving Germany|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving France|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving New Zealand|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving South Africa|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles of World War I involving the United Kingdom|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:1916 in France]] |
|||
[[Category:Tunnel warfare|Somme]] |
|||
[[Category:Conflicts in 1916]] |
|||
[[Category:Battles involving the French Foreign Legion]] |
|||
{{Link GA|es}} |
Revision as of 20:21, 27 February 2014
Battle of the Somme | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Western Front of the First World War | |||||||
![]() Battle of the Somme 1 July – 18 November 1916 | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
![]() | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
13 British and 11 French divisions 1 July 51 British and 48 French divisions July – November |
10½ divisions 1 July 50 divisions July – November | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
623,907 | c. 400,000 – c. 500,000 |
The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme, German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on either side of the River Somme in France. The battle was one of the largest of World War I, in which more than 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed, making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles. A Franco-British commitment to an offensive on the Somme had been made during Allied discussions at Chantilly, Oise in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916, by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. The main part of the offensive was to be made by the French Army, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
When the German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse in February 1916, many French divisions intended for the Somme were diverted and the supporting attack by the British became the principal effort. The first day on the Somme was a serious defeat for the German Second Army, which was forced out of its first line of defence by the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the British Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. 1 July 1916 was also the worst day in the history of the British Army, which had c. 60,000 casualties, mainly on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt, where the attack failed disastrously, few British troops reaching the German front line. The British Army on the Somme was a mixture of the remains of the pre-war regular army, Territorial Force and the Kitchener Army which was composed of Pals battalions, recruited from the same places and occupations, whose losses had a profound social impact in Britain.
The battle is notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6 miles (9.7 km) into German-occupied territory, taking more ground than any offensive since the Battle of the Marne in 1914. The Anglo-French armies had failed to capture Péronne and were still 3 miles (4.8 km) from Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February, before the scheduled retirement to the [Siegfriedstellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Hindenburg Line) began in March.
General Sir Douglas Haig, the commander of the BEF and General Henry Rawlinson commander of the Fourth Army, have been criticised ever since, for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916 Winston Churchill criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since.
A rival conclusion by some historians (Terraine, Sheffield, Duffy, Chickering, Herwig and Philpott among others) is that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916 and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the battle puts it in a continental perspective, which is inaccessible to those who do not read German and French, because much of the writing has yet to be translated into English. The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war, which the continental armies had been engaged in for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918.
Background
Strategic developments
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Western_front_1915-16.jpg/220px-Western_front_1915-16.jpg)
Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference 6–8 December 1915. Simultaneous offensives on the Eastern Front by the Russian army, on the Italian Front by the Italian army, and on the Western Front by the Franco-British armies, were to be carried out to deny time for the Central Powers to move troops between fronts during lulls. In December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced General Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast and end the U-boat threat from Belgian waters.[1] Haig was not formally subordinate to Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy. In January 1916, Joffre had agreed to the BEF making its main effort in Flanders but in February 1916 it was decided to mount a combined offensive where the French and British armies met, astride the Somme River in Picardy before the British offensive in Flanders.[2] A week later the Germans began an offensive against the French at Verdun. The costly defence of Verdun forced the French army to commit divisions intended for the Somme offensive, eventually reducing the French contribution to 13 divisions in the Sixth Army against 20 British divisions.[3] By 31 May the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French army at Verdun by a battle of attrition.[4]
The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, before its material superiority became unbeatable. Falkenhayn planned to defeat the large number of reserves, which the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough by provoking the French into counter-attacking German positions, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line. Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun and take the Meuse heights making the city untenable. The French would have to conduct a counter-offensive, from ground dominated by the German army and ringed with masses of heavy artillery, leading to huge losses and bring the French army close to collapse. The British would then have to begin a hasty relief-offensive and would also suffer huge losses. Falkenhayn expected the relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the Sixth Army and be destroyed.[Note 1] If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack both armies and end the western alliance for good.[6] The unexpected length of the Verdun offensive and the need to replace many exhausted units at Verdun, depleted the German strategic reserve placed behind the Sixth Army (from Hannescamps 18 kilometres (11 mi) south-west of Arras and St. Eloi, south of Ypres) and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence.[7]
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun (21 February – 18 December 1916) began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was intended to threaten the capture of the city and induce the French to fight an attritional battle, in which German advantages of terrain and firepower would cause the French disproportionate casualties. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun and the main effort by the French diminished to a supporting attack for the British. German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme.[8] By May Joffre and Haig had changed their expectations of an offensive on the Somme, from a decisive battle to a hope that it would relieve Verdun and keep German divisions in France, which would assist the Russian armies conducting the Brusilov Offensive. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July and troops, guns and ammunition were transferred to Picardy, leading to a similar transfer of the French Tenth Army to the Somme front. Later in the year the Franco-British were able to attack on the Somme and at Verdun sequentially and the French recovered much of the ground lost on the east bank of the Meuse, with counter-offensives in October and December.[9]
Brusilov Offensive
The Brusilov Offensive (4 June – 20 September), absorbed the extra forces which had been requested on 2 June by General von Below the Second Army commander, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. On 4 June 1916 Russian armies attacked on a 200 miles (320 km) front, from the Rumanian frontier to Pinsk and eventually advanced 150 kilometres (93 mi), reaching the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of [Armeegruppe von Linsingen] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). During the offensive the Russians inflicted c. 1,500,000 losses including c. 407,000 prisoners.[10] Three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned. Only four more divisions were sent to the Somme front before the Anglo-French offensive began, bringing the total to 10½ divisions. Falkenhayn and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff were forced to send divisions to Russia throughout the summer, to prevent a collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army and then to conduct a counter-offensive against Rumania, which declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August.[11] In July there were 112 German divisions on the Western Front and 52 divisions in Russia and in November there were 121 divisions in the west and 76 divisions in the east.[12]
Tactical developments
The original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of six divisions and a Cavalry Division, had lost most of the army's pre-war regular soldiers in the battles of 1914 and 1915. The bulk of the army was made up of volunteers of the Territorial Force and Kitchener's New Army, which had begun forming in August 1914. Rapid expansion created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. In 1914, Haig had been a Lieutenant-General in command of I Corps and was promoted to command the First Army and then the BEF in December 1915, which eventually comprised five armies with sixty divisions. The swift increase in the size of the army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an acute equipment shortage. Many officers resorted to directive command to avoid delegating to novice subordinates, although divisional commanders were given great latitude in training and planning for the attack of 1 July, since the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army made it impossible for corps and army commanders to know the capacity of each division.[13]
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, Falkenhayn continued the policy of unyielding defence in 1916.[Note 2] On the Somme front Falkenhayn's construction plan of January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt 5–10 yards (4.6–9.1 m) wide to two, 30 yards (27 m) wide and about 15 yards (14 m) apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52 m) high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to three, 150–200 yards (140–180 m) apart, the first trench occupied by sentry groups, the second ([Wohngraben] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) for the bulk of the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from 6–9 feet (1.8–2.7 m) to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m), 50 yards (46 m) apart and large enough for 25 men. An intermediate line of strongpoints (the [Stutzpunktlinie] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) about 1,000 yards (910 m) behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve line, renamed the second line, which was as well-built and wired as the first line. The second line was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move field artillery forward before assaulting the line.[15]
Prelude
Anglo-French plan of attack
British intentions evolved as the military situation changed after the Chantilly Conference. French losses at Verdun reduced the contribution available for the offensive on the Somme and increased the urgency for the commencement of operations on the Somme. The principal role in the offensive devolved to the British and on 16 June Haig had ordered that the objectives were to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and inflict loss on the enemy.[16] After a five-day artillery bombardment the British Fourth Army was to capture 27,000 yards (25,000 m) of the German first line from Montauban to Serre and the Third Army was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. In a second phase the Fourth Army was to take the German second position, from Pozières to the Ancre and then the second position south of the Albert–Bapaume road, ready for an attack on the German third position south of the road towards Flers, when the Reserve Army which included three cavalry divisions, would exploit the success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The French Sixth Army, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to the Somme and two corps on the south bank to Foucaucourt would make a subsidiary attack to guard the right flank of the main attack made by the British.[17]
German defences on the Somme
After the [Herbstschlacht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("Autumn Battle") in 1915, a third defence line another 3,000 yards (2,700 m) back from the [Stutzpunktlinie] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) was begun in February and was nearly complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of [sperrfeuerstreifen] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried 6 feet (1.8 m) deep for 5 miles (8.0 km) behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses which the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench, with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the [Stutzpunktlinie] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and the second line, all within 2,000 yards (1,800 m) and most troops within 1,000 yards (910 m) of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope guaranteed that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines.[18]
Battles of the Somme campaign
First phase: 1–17 July 1916
First day on the Somme, 1 July
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/British_plan_Somme_1_July_1916.png/220px-British_plan_Somme_1_July_1916.png)
The first day on the Somme was the first of 141 days of the Battle of the Somme and the opening day of the Battle of Albert. The attack was made by five divisions of the French Sixth Army either side of the Somme, eleven British divisions of the Fourth Army north of the Somme to Serre and two divisions of the Third Army opposite Gommecourt, against the German Second Army of General Fritz von Below. The German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road. On the south bank the German defence was made incapable of resisting another attack and a substantial retreat began; on the north bank the abandonment of Fricourt was ordered. The defenders on the commanding ground north of the road inflicted a huge defeat on the British infantry, who had an unprecedented number of casualties. Several truces were negotiated, to recover wounded from no man's land north of the road. The Fourth Army lost 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 men were killed, the French Sixth Army had 1,590 casualties and the German 2nd Army had 10,000–12,000 losses.[19]
Battle of Albert, 1–13 July
The Battle of Albert comprised the first two weeks of Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment commenced on 24 June and the Anglo-French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt 2 miles (3.2 km) beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German Second Army but from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt, the British attack was a disaster where most of the c. 60,000 British casualties were incurred. Against Joffre's wishes Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road, to reinforce the success in the south, where the Anglo-French forces pressed forward towards the German second line, preparatory to a general attack on 14 July.[20]
Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14–17 July
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Bazentin_le_Petit_14_July_1916_map.png/220px-Bazentin_le_Petit_14_July_1916_map.png)
The Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive position from the Somme past Guillemont and Ginchy, north-west along the crest of the ridge to Pozières on the Albert–Bapaume road. The objectives of the attack were the villages of Bazentin le Petit, Bazentin le Grand and Longueval which was adjacent to Delville Wood, with High Wood on the ridge beyond. The attack was made by four divisions on a front of 6,000 yards (5.5 km) at 3:25 a.m. after a five-minute hurricane artillery bombardment. Field artillery fired a creeping barrage and the attacking waves pushed up close behind it in no man's land, leaving them only a short distance to cross when the barrage lifted from the German front trench. Most of the objective was captured and the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road put under great strain but the attack was not followed up due to British communication failures, casualties and disorganisation.[21]
Battle of Fromelles, 19–20 July
The Battle of Fromelles was a subsidiary attack to support the Fourth Army on the Somme 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite. Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was "gravely" underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1. On 19 July, von Falkenhayn had judged the British attack to be the anticipated offensive against the 6th Army. Next day Falkenhayn ordered the Guard Reserve Corps to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front. The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German defenders but gained no ground and deflected few German troops bound for the Somme. The attack was the début of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front and "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history".[22] Of 7,080 BEF casualties, 5,533 losses were incurred by the 5th Australian Division; German losses were 1,600–2,000, with 150 taken prisoner.[23]
Second phase: July – September 1916
Battle of Delville Wood, 14 July – 15 September
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Delville_Wood_14_July_1916.png/220px-Delville_Wood_14_July_1916.png)
The Battle of Delville Wood was an operation to secure the British right flank, while the centre advanced to capture the higher lying areas of High Wood and Pozières. After the Battle of Albert the offensive had evolved to the capture of fortified villages, woods and other terrain which offered observation for artillery fire, jumping-off points for more attacks and other tactical advantages. The mutually costly fighting at Delville Wood eventually secured the British right flank and marked the Western Front début of the South African 1st Infantry Brigade (incorporating a Southern Rhodesian contingent), which held the wood from 15–20 July. When relieved the brigade had lost 2,536 men, similar to the casualties of many brigades on 1 July.[24]
Battle of Pozières Ridge, 23 July – 7 August
The Battle of Pozières began with the capture of the village by the 1st Australian Division (Australian Imperial Force) of the Reserve Army, the only British success in the Allied fiasco of 22/23 July, when a general attack combined with the French further south, degenerated into a series of separate attacks due to communication failures, supply failures and poor weather.[25] German bombardments and counter-attacks began on 23 July and continued until 7 August. The fighting ended with the Reserve Army taking the plateau north and east of the village, overlooking the fortified village of Thiepval from the rear.[26]
Battle of Guillemont, 3–6 September
The Battle of Guillemont was an attack on the village which was captured by the Fourth Army on the first day. Guillemont was on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the French Sixth Army. German defences ringed the British salient at Delville Wood to the north and had observation over the French Sixth Army area to the south towards the Somme river. The German defence in the area was based on the second line and numerous fortified villages and farms north from Maurepas at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood and High Wood, which were mutually supporting. The battle for Guillemont was considered by some observers to be the supreme effort of the German army during the battle. Numerous meetings were held by Joffre, Haig, Foch, Rawlinson and Fayolle to co-ordinate joint attacks by the four armies, all of which broke down. A pause in Anglo-French attacks at the end of August, coincided with the largest counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the Somme.[27]
Battle of Ginchy, 9 September
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R05148%2C_Westfront%2C_deutscher_Soldat.jpg/220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R05148%2C_Westfront%2C_deutscher_Soldat.jpg)
In the Battle of Ginchy the 16th Division captured the German-held village. Ginchy was 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) north-east of Guillemont, at the junction of six roads on a rise overlooking Combles, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to the south-east. After the end of the Battle of Guillemont, British troops were required to advance to positions which would give observation over the German third position, ready for a general attack in mid-September. British attacks from Leuze Wood north to Ginchy had begun on 3 September, when the 7th Division captured the village and was then forced out by a German counter-attack. The capture of Ginchy and the success of the French Sixth Army on 12 September, in its biggest attack of the battle of the Somme, enabled both armies to make much bigger attacks, sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve armies, which captured much more ground and inflicted c. 130,000 casualties on the German defenders during the month.[28]
Third phase: September – November 1916
Battle of Flers–Courcelette, 15–22 September
The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was the third and final general offensive mounted by the British Army, which attacked an intermediate line and the German third line to take Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt, which was combined with a French attack on Frégicourt and Rancourt to encircle Combles and a supporting attack on the south bank of the Somme. The strategic objective of a breakthrough was not achieved but the tactical gains were considerable, the front line being advanced by over 2,500–3,500 yards (2,300–3,200 m) and many German casualties being inflicted. The battle was the début of the Canadian Corps, New Zealand Division and tanks of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps on the Somme.[29]
Battle of Morval, 25–28 September
The Battle of Morval was an attack by the Fourth Army on Morval, Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs held by the German 1st Army, which had been the final objectives of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (15–22 September). The attack was postponed to combine with attacks by the French Sixth Army on Combles, south of Morval and because of rain. The combined attack was also intended to deprive the German defenders further west, near Thiepval of reinforcements, before an attack by the Reserve Army, due on 26 September. Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt were captured and a small number of tanks joined in the battle later in the afternoon. Many casualties inflicted on the Germans but the French made slower progress. The Fourth Army advance on 25 September was its deepest since 14 July and left the Germans in severe difficulties, particularly in a salient near Combles. The Reserve Army attack began on 26 September in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge.[30]
Battle of the Transloy Ridges, 1 October – 11 November
The Battle of Le Transloy began in good weather and Le Sars was captured on 7 October. Pauses were made from 8–11 October due to rain and 13–18 October to allow time for a methodical bombardment, when it became clear that the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats. Haig consulted with the army commanders and on 17 October reduced the scope of operations by cancelling the Third Army plans and reducing the Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations in co-operation with the French Sixth Army.[31] Another pause followed before operations resumed on 23 October on the northern flank of the Fourth Army, with a delay during more bad weather on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army front, until 5 November. Next day the Fourth Army ceased offensive operations except for small attacks intended to improve positions and divert German attention from attacks being made by the Reserve/Fifth Army. Large operations resumed in January 1917.[32]
Battle of Thiepval Ridge, 26–28 September
The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was the first large offensive mounted by the Reserve Army of Lieutenant General Hubert Gough and was intended to benefit from the Fourth Army attack at Morval by starting 24 hours afterwards. Thiepval Ridge was well fortified and the German defenders fought with great determination, while the British co-ordination of infantry and artillery declined after the first day, due to confused fighting in the maze of trenches, dug-outs and shell-craters. The final British objectives were not reached until the Battle of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November). Organisational difficulties and deteriorating weather frustrated Joffre's intention to proceed by vigorous co-ordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became disjointed and declined in effectiveness during late September, at the same time as a revival occurred in the German defence. The British experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment and tank–infantry co-operation, as the Germans struggled to withstand the preponderance of men and material fielded by the Anglo-French, despite reorganisation and substantial reinforcements of troops, artillery and aircraft from Verdun. September became the worst month for casualties for the Germans.[33]
Battle of the Ancre Heights, 1 October – 11 November
The Battle of the Ancre Heights was fought after Haig made plans for the Third Army to take the area east of Gommecourt, the Reserve Army to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont Hamel–Hébuterne and for the Fourth Army to reach the Péronne–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of the Albert–Bapaume road. The Reserve Army attacked to complete the capture of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west end of Bazentin Ridge around [Schwaben] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and Stuff Redoubts, during which bad weather caused great hardship and delay. The Marine Brigade from Flanders and fresh German divisions brought from quiet fronts counter-attacked frequently and the British objectives were not secured until 11 November.[34]
Battle of the Ancre, 13–18 November
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Mametz_Western_Front_%28Frank_Crozier%29.jpg/220px-Mametz_Western_Front_%28Frank_Crozier%29.jpg)
The Battle of the Ancre was the last major British operation of the year. The Fifth (formerly Reserve) Army attacked into the Ancre valley to exploit German exhaustion after the Battle of the Ancre Heights and gain ground ready for a resumption of the offensive in 1917. Political calculation, concern for Allied morale and Joffre's pressure for a continuation of attacks in France, to prevent German troop transfers to Russia and Italy also influenced Haig.[35] The battle began with another mine being detonated beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. The attack on Serre failed, although a brigade of the 31st Division, which had attacked in the disaster of 1 July, took its objectives before being withdrawn later. South of Serre, Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre were captured. South of the Ancre, St Pierre Division was captured, the outskirts of Grandcourt reached and the Canadian 4th Division captured Regina Trench north of Courcelette, then took Desire Support Trench on 18 November; large operations ended until January 1917.[36]
Aftermath
Analysis
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Battle_of_the_Somme_1916_map.png/220px-Battle_of_the_Somme_1916_map.png)
At the start of 1916, most of the British Army had been an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers.[37][38] The Somme was the debut of the Kitchener Army created by Lord Kitchener's call for recruits at the start of the war. The British volunteers were often the fittest, most enthusiastic and best educated citizens but British casualties were also inexperienced soldiers and it has been claimed that their loss was of lesser military significance than the losses of the remaining peace-trained officers and men of the German army.[39] British casualties on the first day were the worst in the history of the British army, with 57,470 British casualties, 19,240 of whom were killed.[40][41] British survivors of the battle gained experience and the BEF learned how to conduct the mass warfare that the continental armies had been fighting since 1914.[39] Germany and the other European powers began the war with a trained force of regulars and reservists, each casualty sapped the experience and effectiveness of the German army. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria wrote, "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield".[42] A war of attrition was a logical strategy for Britain against Germany, which was also at war with France and Russia. A school of thought holds that the Battle of the Somme placed unprecedented strain on the German army and that after the battle it was unable to replace casualties like-for-like, which reduced the German army to a "militia".[43][42] The destruction of German units in battle was made worse by lack of rest. British aircraft and long-range guns reached well behind the front-line, where trench-digging and other work meant that troops returned to the line exhausted.[44] Despite the strategic predicament of the German army it survived the battle, withstood the pressure of the Brusilov Offensive and conducted an invasion of Romania. In 1917 the German army in the west, survived large British and French offensives at Arras, the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Battle of Ypres, though at great cost.[45]
Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the end of August 1916. At a conference at Cambrai on 5 September, a decision was taken to build a new defensive line well behind the Somme front. The [Siegfriedstellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) was to be built between Arras–St. Quentin–La Fere–Condé, with another new line between Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. These lines were intended to limit any Allied breakthrough and to allow the German army to withdraw if attacked. Work began on the [Siegfriedstellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Hindenburg Line) at the end of September. Withdrawing to the new line was not an easy decision and the German high command struggled over it during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members wanted to take a shorter step back to a line between Arras and Sailly, while the First and Second army commanders wanted to stay on the Somme. Generalleutnant von Fuchs on 20 January 1917 said that,
- Enemy superiority is so great that we are not in a position either to fix their forces in position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more (Von Kuhl, Diary 20 January 1917)[46]
and that half measures were futile, a retreat to the [Siegfriedstellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) was unavoidable. After the loss of a considerable amount of ground around the Ancre valley, to the British Fifth Army in February 1917, the German armies on the Somme were ordered on 14 February to withdraw to reserve lines closer to Bapaume. A further retirement to the Hindenburg Line ([Siegfriedstellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) in Operation Alberich began on 16 March 1917, despite the new line being unfinished and poorly sited in some places.[47]
The British and French advanced about 6 miles (9.7 km) on the Somme, on a front of 16 miles (26 km) at a cost of 419,654 British and 202,567 French casualties, against 465,181 German casualties.[48] Until the 1930s the dominant view of the battle in English-language writing, was that the battle was a hard-fought victory against a brave, experienced and well-led opponent. Winston Churchill had objected to the way the battle was being fought in August 1916, Lloyd George when Prime Minister criticised attrition warfare frequently and condemned the battle in his post-war memoirs. In the 1930s a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood and futility" emerged and gained more emphasis in the 1960s when the 50th anniversaries of the Great War battles were commemorated.[49] Since the 1960s the "futility" view that the battle was an Anglo-French disaster, has been criticised as a myth. In recent years a nuanced version of the original orthodoxy has arisen, which does not seek to minimise the human cost of the battle but sets it in the context of industrial warfare, compares it to the wars in the United States between 1861–1865 and Europe between 1939–1945 and describes the development of the armies of 1914 into modern all-arms organisations, using the scientific application of fire-power on land and in the air, to defeat comparable opponents in a war of exhaustion. Little German and French writing has been translated, leaving much of the continental perspective and detail of German and French military operations inaccessible to the English-speaking world.[50][51][52][53][54][55]
Casualties
Nationality | Total casualties |
Killed & missing |
Prisoners |
---|---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 350,000+ | - | - |
Canada | 24,029 | - | - |
Australia | 23,000 | < 200 | |
New Zealand | 7,408 | - | - |
South Africa | 3,000+ | - | - |
Newfoundland | 2,000+ | - | - |
Total British Commonwealth | 419,654 | 95,675 | - |
French | 204,253 | 50,756 | - |
Total Allied | 623,907 | 146,431 | - |
Germany | 465,000 | 164,055 | 38,000[56] |
The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest battles of the First World War. The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly conference on 15 November, was 485,000 British and French casualties and 630,000 German. A German officer wrote,
Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word.
— Friedrich Steinbrecher
In the first volume of the British Official History (1932) Edmonds wrote that comparisons of casualties were inexact, because of different methods of calculation by the belligerents but that British casualties were 419,654 from total British casualties in France in the period of 498,054, French Somme casualties 194,451 and German casualties c. 445,322 to which should be added 27%, for woundings which would have been counted as casualties using British criteria; Anglo-French casualties on the Somme were over 600,000 and German casualties were under 600,000.[57] Edmonds's addition of c. 30% to German figures to make them comparable to British criteria was criticised as "spurious" by M. J. Williams (1964). McRandle and Quirk (2006) cast doubt on Edmonds calculations but counted 729,000 German casualties on the Western Front, from July to December against 631,000 by Churchill, concluding that German losses were fewer than Anglo-French but that the ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses was eroded by attrition.[58] Sheffield wrote that Edmonds's calculation of Anglo-French casualties was correct but that for German casualtes was "discredited", quoting the official German figure of 500,000 casualties.[59] In the second British Official History volume (1938) Miles wrote that total German casualties in the battle were 660,000–680,000 against Anglo-French casualties of fewer than 630,000 using "fresh data" from the French and German official accounts.[60]
Western Front Casualties (British monthly) July–December 1916 | |||
Month | Casualties | ||
---|---|---|---|
July | 196,081 | ||
August | 75,249 | ||
September | 115,056 | ||
October | 66,852 | ||
November | 46,238 | ||
December | 13,803 | ||
Total British | 513,289 | ||
French |
c. 434,000 | ||
Total Anglo-French | c. 947,289 | ||
German | c. 719,000 | ||
Grand total | c. 1,666,289 | ||
[Note 3] |
In 1938 Churchill wrote that the Germans had 270,000 casualties against the French, between February and June 1916 and 390,000 between July and the end of the year (see statistical tables in Appendix J of Churchill's "World Crisis") and 278,000 casualties at Verdun.[63] Some losses must have been in quieter sectors but many must have been inflicted by the French at the Somme. Churchill wrote that Franco-German losses at the Somme were "much less unequal" than the Anglo-German ratio.[64] Doughty wrote that French losses on the Somme were "surprisingly high" at 202,567 men, 54% of the 377,231 casualties at Verdun.[65] Prior and Wilson used Churchill's research and wrote that the British lost 432,000 soldiers from 1 July – mid-November (c. 3,600 per day) in inflicting c. 230,000 German casualties and offer no figures for French casualties or the losses they inflicted on the Germans.[66] Sheldon wrote that the British lost "over 400,000" casualties[67] Harris wrote that total British losses were c. 420,000, French casualties were over 200,000 men and German losses were c. 500,000, according to the "best" German sources.[68] Sheffield wrote that the losses were "appalling", with 419,000 British casualties, c. 204,000 French and "perhaps" 600,000 German casualties.[69]
In a commentary on the debate about Somme casualties, Philpott used Miles's figures of 419,654 British casualties and the French official figures of 154,446 Sixth Army losses and 48,131 Tenth Army casualties. German losses were described as "disputed", ranging from 400,000–680,000. Churchill's claims were a "snapshot" of July 1916 and not representative of the rest of the battle. Philpott called the "blood test" a crude measure compared to manpower reserves, industrial capacity, farm productivity and financial resources and that intangible factors were more influential on the course of the war. The German army was exhausted in 1916, had a loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent defeats, caused it to collapse in 1918, a process which began on the Somme, echoing Churchill that the German soldiery was never the same again.[70]
Subsequent operations
Ancre, January – March 1917
After the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on the Somme front. British operations on the Ancre from 10 January – 22 February 1917, forced the Germans back 5 miles (8.0 km) on a 4-mile (6.4 km) front, ahead of the schedule of the Alberich Bewegung ("[Alberich] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) Manoeuvre"/"Operation [Alberich] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)") and eventually took 5,284 prisoners.[71] On 22/23 February the Germans fell back another 3 miles (4.8 km) on a 15-mile (24 km) front. The Germans then withdrew from much of the [R. I Stellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) to the [R. II Stellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation [Alberich] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) commenced on schedule on 16 March.[72]
Hindenburg Line
Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition, the garrisons were exhausted and censors of correspondence from front-line soldiers reported tiredness and low morale. The situation left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28 January caused Rupprecht to urge that the retirement to the [Siegfriedstellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal next day but British attacks on the First Army, particularly the Action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. 4 miles (6.4 km) to the [R. I Stellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (R. I Position). On 24 February the Germans withdrew, protected by rear guards, over roads in relatively good condition which were then destroyed. The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption to the railways which supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March the Germans withdrew from the [R. I Stellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached the [R. II Stellung] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (R. II Position) on 13 March.[73]
Commemoration
The Royal British Legion with the British Embassy in Paris and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, commemorate the battle on 1 July each year at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. For their efforts on the first day of the battle, The 1st Newfoundland Regiment was given the name "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" by George V on 28 November 1917.[74] The first day of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated in Newfoundland, remembering the "Best of the Best" at 11:00 a.m. on the Sunday nearest to 1 July.[75] The Somme is remembered in Northern Ireland due to the participation of the 36th (Ulster) Division and commemorated by veterans' groups and by unionist/Protestant groups such as the Orange Order. During the Northern Irish Troubles the date was associated primarily with the Orange Order and regarded by some as part of the 'marching season', with connection to the Somme. The British Legion and others commemorate the battle on 1 July.[76]
See also
Notes
- ^ Despite the certainty by mid-June, of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the Second Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve. No divisions were moved from the Sixth Army, despite it holding a shorter line with 17½ divisions and three of the reserve divisions in the Sixth Army area. The maintenance of the strength of the Sixth Army, at the expense of the Second Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkehnayn intended the counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered.[5]
- ^ Falkenhayn implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy inescapable, since the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat, were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, decisions about withdrawal still reserved to army commanders.[14]
- ^ Churchill, W. S. C. The World Crisis (1923–1931)[61] Philpott, W. Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century (2009)[62]
Footnotes
- ^ Hart 2006, pp. 27–37.
- ^ Hart 2006, p. 37.
- ^ Doughty 2005, p. 291.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 81, 86.
- ^ Foley 2007, pp. 248–249.
- ^ Foley 2007, pp. 206–207.
- ^ Wynne 1939, p. 104.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 18–19.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 412–413.
- ^ Dowling 2008, pp. xv, 163.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, p. 27.
- ^ Miles 1938, p. 555.
- ^ Simpson 2001, p. 34.
- ^ Sheldon 2005, p. 223.
- ^ Wynne 1939, pp. 100–101.
- ^ Miles 1938, p. 86.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 21, 64–65.
- ^ Wynne 1939, pp. 100–103.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 41–69.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 76–78.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 79–85.
- ^ McMullin 2006.
- ^ Miles 1938, p. 133.
- ^ Philpott 2009, p. 251.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 94–95.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 94–96.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 98–100.
- ^ Philpott 2009, p. 355.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 112–124.
- ^ Philpott 2009, p. 383.
- ^ Miles 1938, pp. 458–459.
- ^ Miles 1938, p. 474.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, pp. 130–131.
- ^ Miles 1938, pp. 447–456 & 460–466.
- ^ Miles 1938, pp. 476–477.
- ^ McCarthy 1995, pp. 148–162.
- ^ Miles 1938, pp. 570–572.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 150–151.
- ^ a b Sheffield 2003, p. 186.
- ^ Edmonds 1932, p. 483.
- ^ Prior & Wilson 2005, p. 119.
- ^ a b Sheffield 2003, p. 156.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 436–437.
- ^ Duffy 2006, p. 326.
- ^ Sheldon 2009, p. 398.
- ^ Sheldon 2009, p. 4.
- ^ Sheldon 2009, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Miles 1938, p. xv.
- ^ Bond 2002, pp. 1–104.
- ^ Terraine 1963, p. 230.
- ^ Sheffield 2001, p. 188.
- ^ Duffy 2006, pp. 324 & 327.
- ^ Chickering 1998, pp. 70–71.
- ^ Herwig 1996, p. 249.
- ^ Philpott 2009, p. 625.
- ^ Boraston 1919, p. 53.
- ^ Edmonds 1932, pp. 496–497.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 601–602.
- ^ Sheffield 2003, p. 151.
- ^ Miles 1938, p. 553.
- ^ Churchill 1938, p. 1423.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 600–602.
- ^ Churchill 1938, pp. 1427, 1004.
- ^ Churchill 1938, p. 966.
- ^ Doughty 2005, p. 309.
- ^ Prior & Wilson 2005, pp. 300–301.
- ^ Sheldon 2005, p. 398.
- ^ Harris 2008, p. 271.
- ^ Sheffield 2011, pp. 194, 197.
- ^ Philpott 2009, pp. 602–603.
- ^ Boraston 1919, p. 64.
- ^ Falls 1940, p. 115.
- ^ Falls 1940, pp. 95–107.
- ^ Steele 2003, p. 10.
- ^ Steele 2003, p. 192.
- ^ Robinson 2010, pp. 86–87.
References
- Books
- Bond, B. (2002). The Unquiet Western Front: Britain's Role in Literature and History. London: CUP. ISBN 0-52180-995-9.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Boraston, J. H. (1919). Sir Douglas Haig's Despatches (1920 ed.). London: Dent. OCLC 633614212.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Churchill, W. S. C. (1923–1931). The World Crisis (Odhams 1938 ed.). London: Thornton Butterworth. OCLC 4945014.
- Chickering, R. (1998). Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (2nd, 2004 ed.). London: CUP. ISBN 0-52154-780-6.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Doughty, R. A. (2005). Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operation in the Great War. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University. ISBN 0-67401-880-X.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Dowling, T, (2008). The Brusilov Offensive. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-35130-8.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Duffy, C. (2006). Through German Eyes: The British and the Somme 1916 (Phoenix 2007 ed.). London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. ISBN 978-0-7538-2202-9.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Edmonds, J. E. (1932). Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916 Vol I: Sir Douglas Haig's Command to the 1st July : Battle of the Somme (IWM & Battery Press 1993 ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-89839-185-7.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Falls, C. (1940). Military Operations France and Belgium 1917: The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the Battles of Arras (IWM & Battery Press 1992 ed.). London: HMSO. ISBN 0-89839-180-6.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Foley, R. T. (2007). German Strategy and the Path to Verdun : Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916. Cambridge: CUP. ISBN 978-0-521-04436-3.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Harris, J. P. (2008). Douglas Haig and the First World War (2009 ed.). Cambridge: CUP. ISBN 978-0-521-89802-7.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Hart, P. (2006). The Somme. London: Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-36735-1.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Herwig, H. (1996). The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914–1918. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 0-34057-348-1.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - McCarthy, C. (1993). The Somme: The Day-by-Day Account (Arms & Armour Press 1995 ed.). London: Weidenfeld Military. ISBN 1-85409-330-4.
- Miles, W. (1938). Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916 Vol II: 2nd July 1916 to the End of the Battles of the Somme (Battery Press 1992 ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-901627-76-3.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Philpott, W. (2009). Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century (1st ed.). London: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1-4087-0108-9.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Prior, R.; Wilson, T. (2005). The Somme. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10694-7.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Robinson, H. (2010). "Remembering War in the Midst of Conflict: First World War Commemorations in the Northern Irish Troubles". 20th Century British History. 21 (1). doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwp047. ISSN 1477-4674.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Sheffield, G. (2001). Forgotten Victory, The First World War: Myths and Realities (Review 2002 ed.). London: Hodder Headline. ISBN 0-7472-6460-0.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Sheffield, G. (2003). The Somme. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-36649-8.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Sheffield, G. (2011). The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army. London: Aurum Press. ISBN 978-1-84513-691-8.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Sheldon, J. (2005). The German Army on the Somme 1914–1916 (Pen & Sword Military 2006 ed.). London: Leo Cooper. ISBN 1-84415-269-3.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Sheldon, J. (2009). The German Army at Cambrai. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84415-944-4.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Simpson, A. (2001). The Operational Role of British Corps Command on the Western Front 1914–18 (2005 ed.). London: Spellmount. ISBN 1-86227-292-1.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Steele, O. W. (2003). Facey-Crowther D. R. (ed.). Lieutenant Owen William Steele of the Newfoundland Regiment: Diary and Letters. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2428-2. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Terraine, J. (1963). Douglas Haig : The Educated Soldier (2005 ed.). London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-35319-1.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Wynne, G. C. (1939). If Germany Attacks: The Battle in Depth in the West (Greenwood Press 1976 ed.). Connecticut: Faber. ISBN 0-8371-5029-9.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
- Websites
- McMullin, R. (2006). "Disaster at Fromelles". Wartime Magazine. AU. Retrieved 14 April 2007.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - "The South African Military History Society". The South Africans at Delville Wood. pp. Military History Journal (S Afr MHJ) – Vol 7 No 2. Archived from the original on 25 July 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - "The Somme in Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914–1918". Retrieved 9 September 2009.
- "Germany in World War 1". Archived from the original on 3 October 2009. Retrieved 9 September 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - "South African War Museum: Delville Wood". Retrieved 9 September 2009.
Further reading
- Books
- Anon (1922). Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914–1920 (PDF) (1st ed.). London: HMSO. OCLC 1318955. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
- Ball, S. (2004). The Guardsmen. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-653163-0.
- Buchan, J. (1917). The Battle of the Somme. New York: George H. Doran. OCLC 699175025.
- Gilbert, M, Sir (1994). The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War (2006 ed.). Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-8127-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Green, A. (2003). Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories 1915–1948. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-8430-9.
- James, E.A. (1924). A Record of the Battles and Engagements of the British Armies in France and Flanders 1914–1918. Aldershot: Gale & Polden. OCLC 250857010.
- Jones, H. A. (1928). The War in the Air, Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force: Vol II (N & M Press 2002 ed.). London: Clarendon Press. ISBN 1-84342-413-4.
- Keegan, J. (1998). The First World War. London: Random House. ISBN 0-09-180178-8.
- Liddell Hart, B. H. (1932). Foch: The Man of Orleans. Boston, Little, Brown. OCLC 16161900.
- Liddell Hart, B. H. (1970). History of the First World War (3rd 1973 ed.). London: Book Club Associates. OCLC 819218074.
- Masefield, J. (1917). The Old Front Line (PDF). New York City: The Macmillan Company. OCLC 1183536. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
- MacDonald, L. (1983). Somme 1916. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017867-8.
- McLaughlin, P. (1980). Ragtime Soldiers: the Rhodesian Experience in the First World War. Bulawayo: Books of Zimbabwe. ISBN 0-86920-232-4.
- Middlebrook, M. (1971). The First Day on the Somme. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-139071-9.
- Neillands, R. (2004). 'The Great War Generals on the Western Front 1914–1918. Magpie Books. ISBN 1-84119-863-3.
- Nicholson, G.W.L. (1962). "Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919" (PDF). Ottawa: Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationary. OCLC 557523890. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- Nomenclature Committee as Approved by Army Council (1922). Cmnd 1138 (ed.). Report of the Battles of the Somme (N & M Press 1994 ed.). London: HMSO. ISBN 1-84342-196-8.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link) - Prior, R. (1999). The First World War (1st ed.). London: Cassel & Co. ISBN 0-304-35984-X.
- Prior, R. and (2005). The Somme (1st ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10694-7.
{{cite book}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - Recouly, R. (1920). Jones, Mary Cadwalader (ed.). Foch, The Winner of The War. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. OCLC 2036520.
- Regan, G. (1993). The Guinness Book of More Military Blunders. London: Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-728-2.
- Robertshaw, A. (2006). Somme 1 July 1916: Tragedy and Triumph. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84603-038-2.
- Sacco, Joe (2013). The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-08880-9.
- Websites
- Van Hartesveldt, F.R. (1996). Online edition "The Battles of the Somme, 1916: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography". Greenwood Press 1996. ISBN 0-31329-386-4. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
{{cite web}}
: Check|url=
value (help)
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Battle of the Somme, maps and photo essay
- The British Army in the Great War: The Battles of the Somme, 1916
- New Zealand and the Battle of the Somme
- Peronne Great War Historial
- The Somme – Northern Ireland Remembers
- Map of Europe during the Battle of the Somme
- Experience of the German First Army in the Somme Battle, 24 June – 26 November 1916, Below F., pp. 77–143 (1917)
- Battle of the Somme
- Battles of the Western Front (World War I)
- Battles of World War I involving Australia
- Battles of World War I involving Canada
- Battles of World War I involving Germany
- Battles of World War I involving France
- Battles of World War I involving New Zealand
- Battles of World War I involving South Africa
- Battles of World War I involving the United Kingdom
- 1916 in France
- Tunnel warfare
- Conflicts in 1916
- Battles involving the French Foreign Legion