However the confidence of the soldiers was to be a negative object in their attack as the Germans 40ft trenches caught the English and French unexpectedly and neither did they know that the Germans trenches could see the English trenches, which meant that the Germans knew what the English were doing.
The Germans stood their ground and as allied soldiers walked to the German trenches the Germans set up their machine guns and started to shoot. The Germans could not believe the ease of shooting the soldiers. This is one of the reasons why the Battle of the Somme was seen as a military tragedy because of the plan not working. Many men were shot down with few gaining only a few yards. The German soldiers used a steady sweeping motion when shooting their guns giving them great success in shooting the allied soldiers down. The British soldiers had to carry the equivalent of 4 stones in their bags not giving them any time to move out of the way of German fire.
Even when faced with the German onslaught Haig demanded that the assault continued causing more unnecessary deaths.
Had the allied soldiers charged the German line or gone back and planned another strategy they would have stood a slight chance. This is another reason why the Battle of the Somme was seen as such a great military tragedy.
Another reason why the Battle of the Somme is seen as a great military tragedy is that the first day was the worst for deaths and injuries on the first day.
In total, on the first day, the British faced 57, 470 casualties with 19, 240 soldiers dead, 35,494 fatally wounded and 2, 152 men missing. This is a big factor in why it was seen as a military tragedy with huge numbers of casualties.
Another reason why the Battle of the Somme was seen as such a great military tragedy is that the men who died went into this Battle thinking that they would see the end of the war with this battle but they died and the war did not see an end to it until 1918, two years later with many more people dieing in the process.
Furthermore, by November 1916 of the Battle of the Somme the soldiers surviving had only gained 125 square miles. Some soldiers got past the German lines, went into German territory and destroyed villages defending German lines but the Germans soon released their own attack driving the British back.
An additional reason why the Battle of the Somme was seen as a tragedy is that the numbers killed was extremely high. In total approximately 1.1 million soldiers were killed which is a huge number of deaths and to make it worse the war did not end with the end of the Battle, which means that the numbers killed would keep growing. This large number of deaths caused the Battle of the Somme to be the worst battle of the war and a great military tragedy.
Also the Battle of the Somme destroyed communities because men and boys went away to fight and never came back. This meant whole communities lost men and boys who were workers and people struggled to live. This is another reason why the Battle of the Somme was is seen as such a great military tragedy.
One final reason that the Battle of the Somme is seen as a great military tragedy is that a great amount of soldiers who died were young men. These young men were the future generation, the English Rose of the future. This meant in future battles there would be fewer men to fight and also parents were distraught due to the deaths of their young ones.
In conclusion, the Battle of the Somme is seen as such a great tragedy because of the vast numbers of British soldiers killed on the first day, the numbers killed in total, the amount of communities destroyed, the small amount of ground gained by the British, the war not being ended at the end of the battle and also the number of young people killed in the Battle. These are the reasons why the Battle of the Somme is seen as such a great military tragedy.
