Military History of the First World War
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The Battle of the Somme
The Allies planned to attack the Germans in the region of the Somme. Initially, it was planned as a joint British and French operation, but as the French losses at Verdun were so severe, and their morale was low, the operation increasingly became a British led one, with the French in support. It was expected that the British heavy guns would be able to destroy the German defences, and Hiag, the British commander-in-chief, deployed 1,400 guns for this purpose. However, the German defences were established over a depth of up to 3 miles, and the firepower was insufficient. Thus, the German defences, including barbed wire, were substantially intact when the British launched their attack on 1st July and the British sustained 57,000 casualties, including 19,000 dead, over the course of the day. It was the greatest loss in a single day ever suffered by a British army and the greatest suffered by any army in the First World War. They barely advanced. Haig persisted with the attack, but did not succeed in breaking the German lines. However, from a strategic point-of-view, the attack was not a complete disaster. The British fired more than 7 million shells at the German defences between the beginning of July and the middle of September. The Germans were over-awed by the massive firepower of the British and the German troops suffered enormously. In September Haig was able to deploy tanks for the first time and by that time British gunnery had improved to the extent that they could fire a barrage in front of the advancing troops. However, when Haig deployed tanks on the 15th September he could not risk using artillery as well; the tanks proved mechanically unreliable and their first use did not produce a breakthrough. The Allies lost about 650,000 casualties in the action, to the German 400,000.
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Contents of
Military History of the First World War
1 The Central Powers and the Entente
2 The run-up to the war: The July Crisis, 1914
3 Military Planning in Advance of the War
4 Serbia and the Eastern Front, 1914
5 The Battle for the Marne
6 The Race to the Sea and the First Battle of Ypres
7 First Battle of Ypres
8 The Pacific
9 Africa
10 The Eastern Front during 1915
11 Italy enters the war
12 The Balkans
13 The Western Front
14 Gallipoli
15 The Western Front, 1916
16 Verdun
17 The Battle of the Somme
18 The Trentino Offensive
19 The Brusilov Offensive
20 Romania
21 The Russian Front in 1917
22 Mesopotamia
23 The Nivelle Offensive
24 The Third Battle of Ypres (The Battle of Passendaele)
25 Cambrai
26 Caporetto
27 German offensive in Russia, 1918
28 Ludendorff's offensive in the West
29 Allied counter-offensive
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