In the English-speaking world, the Battle of the Somme is, in many ways, a synecdoche for the First World War, and a byword for bloody futility. On the first day alone, 20,000 British soldiers died- five times as many as the bloodiest day in American history, the Battle of Antietam. It’s not even all that clear just how many men fought at the battle of the Somme, but nearly 300,000 of them died, with nearly 900,000 of them wounded. The wounded at the Somme included Adolf Hitler and Harold MacMillian, the future British PM. JRR Tolkien contracted a disease that changed his life forever. The authors Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves fought in the battle. The first American to die in World War I, Harold Butters, died at the Somme. Most of Canada celebrates the formation of Canada on July 1st, but Newfoundland memorializes her dead at the Somme that day.
There is a lot of myth-making surrounding the Battle. More than any other battle, it solidifies in the English world the narrative of working class men led to slaughter by daft upperclass louts, the stereotype of the unthinking, uncaring Chateau General, and the idea that World War One was a useless, pointless war. Some of this may be fair, some of this may be exaggerated. Some of it may come up in this post.
One of the reasons that the Somme weighs so heavily in the English world is that, for the most part, it is the first taste of industrial level war- the sort of war that the other powers had been fighting for years before the Battle. To understand this aspect of the battle, we should examine the army that fought the battle on the British side.
The Kitchener Army
In England, the Royal Navy comes first, and has since the 1500s. Navies are uproariously expensive- expensive to build, expensive to maintain, expensive to man. With the lion's share of any military budget going out to sea, the British Army had to find a way to succeed that did not rely heavily on numbers. This forced the British to rely on long service, professional soldiers, known for their discipline under fire and in the ranks, a long standing, professional NCO corps for primary leadership, and a highly effective officer corps led by, in most circumstances, an experienced, competent general in command- assuming there wasn't a genius handy. Even in the Napoleonic Era, when the French, Russians and Austrians were raising armies of hundreds of thousands of men, the main British army fighting the French rarely was larger than 60,000. (If you're curious about the exploits of this force, check out the archive for some of the battles in the Peninsular War- with more coming soon.)
This pattern continued into the First World War. At the outbreak of World War I, the British had, hands down, the best collection of infantry in Europe. Excellent marksmen, well trained in tactics and fieldcraft learned from decades of fighting in the Empire, and the only army that could boast a large number of leaders with actual combat experience, both in the NCO and officer ranks, the six divisions of the BEF were the best six divisions anyone could ask for in the war, 70,000 excellent fighting men.
The went into a battle against 1.5 million Germans. Their allies, the French, deployed 1.2 million in the first few weeks of the war. They were even outnumbered by the Belgians, nearly two to one. The BEF fought in several important engagements, and its participation was vital in preventing the Germans from reaching Paris before running out of ammo. The BEF was also, effectively, wiped out.
While there were many that believed the war would be short, Horatio Kitchener, Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, was not one of them. The veteran of a half dozen wars or so, he argued for a vast expansion of the army and the recruitment of a large number of volunteers to massively expand the British Army beyond the small BEF and the slightly larger Territorial Army, the British reserve and home guard army. Officially dubbed the New Army, men signed on for the duration of the war or three years, whichever came first. Rather than rely on the traditional recruiting grounds of the British army- the Public School for officers and the rural poor for enlisted men- Kitchener decided to recruit from all classes and walks of life, from the aristocracy to storeowner's sons in towns to the working class of the massive industrial towns of Manchester and Liverpool, to the stockbrokers of the City of London.
Recruiting an army of this scale was completely unprecedented in British history. The British government was loathe to introduce conscription, which had been a fact of life in the rest of Europe for nearly 50 years, and so relied on massive volunteer efforts. To ease the effort of convincing men to sign up for the war, the recruiters relied heavily on getting preorganized groups of friends to sign up for the war together. Recruiters pulled from recent school graduates, large factory complex, soccer team support groups, and small town civic organizations, promising these men that they could serve together with their friends and familiars. As a result, Kitchener's Army would be staffed largely by Pals Battalions, men recruited from the same neighborhood and town to fight alongside their mates.
These new recruits found a shortage of everything when they joined the army. Almost no one had a uniforms at the start- training sergeants were issued old red coats, while men trained in their civilian clothes and had to pass the hat to get uniforms made. They had no rifles or ammo, so drilled with sticks and old cannon to practice artillery work. However, as the British government organized industrial production, they were able to deal with these material shortages over the course of 1915, equipping the army with rifles, uniforms, artillery and machine guns.
One thing the factories could not make, however, were leaders with experience. All of those leaders, particularly the junior officers and sergeants, had been in the BEF, and they were mostly dead or invalids at this point. The few that were left had to hold the line with the TA. As a result, the Pals would go to war with few experienced commanders. Those with experience largely came from the British Indian Army, when the government impressed officers on leave in Britain, or from the half pay Reserve List of officers who couldn't find positions in the TA or BEF. The rest of the leaders came from volunteers who came from the Right Schools. When they ran out of those men, they just grabbed anyone who looked promising.
It took a year for the New Army to train and equip up, heading for France in late 1915. Some of the units in the army fought in the Battle of Loos in late 1915, but most troops only saw skirmishing in the trenches before the Somme.
Preparing for the Somme
The purpose of Kitchener's Army was to provide a massive influx of new troops, fresh and rested, equipped with the latest weapons and trained to a high standard, to open a new offensive on the Western Front. In fact, in the winter of 1915, the Entente powers decided to launch a massive, multi-front attack on the Western, Eastern and Italian fronts. Throughout December, January and February of 1915-16, the British and the French debated where they would exactly carry out this offensive, finally settling on an area near the Somme River.
All of these plans were preempted by the Germans. In mid February, a massive German army ripped into a weak, strategically vital, sector of the French line near Verdun. The battle of Verdun, the war's largest, changed all the priorities on the Western Front, and, in the entire war. France needed help, and needed it as quickly as possible. The Italians and the Russians stepped up their timetables for offensives to draw off German troops. Instead of a massive combined offensive to rip the Germans apart, the British would have to launch the Somme offensive largely alone, and with the objective of just getting the Germans to pay attention long enough for the French to survive the crisis of Verdun.
(For more on the Battle of Verdun, click here.)
The Germans, on the other hand, had decided to deepen their fortifications in all sectors that were not Verdun. The first line of German trenches were dug deeper, with concrete reinforcement for scouting positions and machine gun nests. Along the front, the Germans ran two thirty meter deep wire belts, with machinegun kill zones made even thicker. The front line connected to the second line trench via a series of trenches, with the second line equally reinforced where possible, and out of range of Allied artillery. Between the two lines lay concrete blockhouses loaded with men, extra ammo, and plenty of machine guns. Telephone wire, buried two meters deep, connected the front lines to the artillery parks, which had pre-registered firing plans for everything from no-man's land to the rear trenches, and everything in between. Behind the lines lay railheads, ready to gather reserves and supplies for fighting at the front, and the beginnings of another, third trenchline.
The Summer of 1916
General map of the battle
While the Battle of the Somme officially opened when the British and French went over the top on July 1st, 1916, the action opened a week before. For seven days before the assault, the British and French launched a massive bombardment of the German front lines in the sector, with thousands of guns firing 1,500,000 shells into the German position. Many shells were aimed at breaking up the trenches- which succeeded, mostly- destroying machine gun positions- which didn't- and blowing up barbed wire- which actually made it all worse. The artillery bombardment was supported by air reconnaissance, leading to a massive air battle over the front. The British also constructed a number of mines under the German line, with hopes of blowing trenches across no man's land and into the German trench system.
The main attack, however, would be conducted by mass infantry assault across narrow fronts. Each division was assigned about half a mile of front for several thousand men to cross. The infantry would be supported by a barrage as they advanced. However, because the attacking elements did not have radios, and had to leave their telephones behind, they would have no way to direct the artillery. So, the British would use a creeping barrage- essentially, the artillery would shift fire on a preplanned timetable, moving forward 50 yards every minute. 100 meters behind the artillery came the first wave of troops, followed by two more waves several minutes behind the first.
The whole thing fell apart rather quickly. While the mines destroyed several important strong points, the artillery had turned no-mans land into a complete quagmire full of shellholes, barbed wire, and Germans. Weighed down by 65 pound packs, and marching shoulder to shoulder to keep cohesion and mass, the British troops began falling behind the 50 yards a minute pace needed to keep up with the artilllery. When the British guns shifted off the German positions, rather than a 50 yard sprint to make the attack, the British were still hundreds of yards back, giving the Germans time to rush out to their machine guns and open fire on the advancing first wave, caught out in the open and in massed formation, inflicting horrific losses.
In spite of this, the British continued their attack. The second and third waves continued the attack, driving forward over the fallen first wave into murderous artillery and machine gun fire, sweeping into the German first trenches. Reinforcements came in, and tried to make an attack towards the second line of the German defenses. However, those lay beyond Allied artillery range, and, at any rate, the attacking troops could not contact their batteries and had no machine gun fire support, either. These attacks proved quite futile in moving forward, but further attacks widened the foothold in the German lines.
By the end of the day, 20,000 British dead lay on the field of the Somme, with another 40,000 wounded and crying out for aid. German losses were about a tenth of that number. The British had managed to advance a little less than a mile along a three mile front.
It was the best single day advance the British had made since the war started.
Of course, the battle was hardly over. Further attacks pushed the Germans back over the next two weeks, opening the wedge in the German front line further. The German defenders on the south end of the field had to abandon their front lines, retreating further back behind the strong points. Two weeks after the original attack, the British mounted a major effort to push into the German second line on July 14th. Opting for a quick barrage before the attack, 40,000 men crammed into a two and a half mile front, rushing for the German second line. The attack was actually a success. However, no one in the British side knew it because of poor communications. The Germans refortified the position, and launched several attacks to try and drive the British back over the next week. Hoping to find and undefended section, the British launched an attack with an Australian Corps- which ran smack into a full German defense. 6,000 dead Aussies later, the British retreated.
Attack on 14th July
The British had to give up an attack on their main line after this. The salient in German lines left the British open to counterattacks along the shoulders, and British intelligence believed their southern flank most vulnerable to German reserves rushing to the front. Also, the British had to face the fact that there was little chance for a breakthrough that would open the war up to maneuver. For the rest of the battle, both sides would fight for positions of local importance, either good defensive positions, good points for making other, local attacks, or spots with good artillery observation.
On July 14th, in addition to the attack at the center, the British also launched an attack into the woods that dominated the right flank of the British advance. For two months, in a series of rain soaked days that turned the woods to mud, the Germans and British fought back and forth over the field, often desperately short on artillery, ammo and food. Poor communications on both sides led to attacks that went off without support, or defenders left in the lurch, leading to heavy casualties. The battle expanded to the fields, farms and towns around the woods. In spite of the shortages, the pressure to capture and hold the wood kept the troops going until the Germans gave up in mid September out of sheer exhaustion.
The Battle for the Heights
As summer turned into autumn on the Western Front, the British attacks had pushed the Germans out of their second line, and shored up their weak points in their position. Further reinforcements to the British army, from England, as well as the Canadian Corps, troops from South Africa and other poitns of the Empire, brought the army up in strength. The Royal Flying Corps had largely taken control of the sky overhead, and the first tanks had arrived at the front to provide armored fire support for attacking troops.
With these new forces in hand, the British decided to make another general attack to take the heights that dominated their new positions. Along the Somme sector, the British went over the top, supported by tanks and another creeping barrage. This time, some of the timing issues in the barrage were worked out by hard experience over the previous months, and, from 15 to 22 September, the British cleared out the old German third trench line below the heights. Of course, the Germans had had a few months to fortify those heights.
However, in spite of the German position, fortification and reinforcement, in many ways, the Germans were at the end of their string in September. Attacks on the first major ridge, the Theipaval, were rapidly successful, and the Germans looked to be in a developing crisis as they fell back. However, more German men rushed to the front, taking up positions on the dominating Transloy and Ancre Ridges to the west of the British positions.
In many ways, the attacks on these positions, which lasted from October 1st until mid-November, were schools for new British tactics. The testing of limited objective, bite and hold attacks, the use of artillery creeping barrage, infantry- tank cooperation, and gas tactics and techniques were tested on the small scale as the British and Imperial forces made their way up the tall hills. The British also managed to improve their forward supply operations, their communications and their coordination. The Germans, conversely, suffered from increasing supply exhaustion and strain as the battles went on, leading to a general collapse and retreated that the British were unable to exploit. With the heights in hand, the British reformed their defenses, while the Germans established a new defensive line over the winter of 1916-17.
The next year would see a major Allied offensive along the front, the British limited attacks at Cambrai, refining the tactics of the Somme, the Slaughter of the Innocents at the bloody battle of Passendale, the complete collapse of the French Army and its mutiny, the near-destruction of the Italians at Capperetto, and the collapse of the Russian Empire and its exit from the war, and, to wrap the year up, a British offensive to take Jerusalem.
The Butcher's Bill.
The British offensive had advanced about six miles in five months, along a front about 15 miles wide. About 100,000 British troops died, more than 10,000 per square mile taken, with another 300,000 wounded. The French suffered about 80,000 dead and 150,000 wounded, while the Germans lost 160,000 dead and about twice that wounded. (Keep in mind, the Germans also suffered about the same losses at Verdun, as well.)
In many ways, what made the losses so acute in Britain was the practice of recruiting pals battalions. Since so many units drew from tightly knit communities, neighborhoods and towns, when units went over the top, those communities were absolutely gutted of their young men. Dozens, if not hundreds, of bodies and broken men would come home in a rush after an attack or serious action, affecting small communities deeply- and, yet, affecting the neighbors barely, if at all. And so, the small towns and neighborhoods suffered randomly- either the horror of having their youth slaughtered for unknown and unknowable reasons, the bitter, grinding waiting to see if the casualty lists came to your town tomorrow, or the shocking survivor's guilt of gotten off without much loss at all- for reasons no one at home could comprehend.
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