As the 11 British divisions advanced towards the German front lines the slaughter began. Even though a few units managed to get across they were forced back. By the end of the day the British had suffered 60,000 casualties, 20,000 of whom were dead. Also 60% of all officers involved in the first day were dead. The battle went on with a stalemate being the result, Haig used new offensive tactics bringing ion tanks, but because of there light Armour, small numbers and often subject to mechanical failure they made little impact.
Torrential rain in October turned the battlefield into a muddy quagmire and so the battle ended in a stalemate with British losses of 420,000, French losses of 195,000 and German losses of 650,000.
The battle of the Somme is regarded as such a great military tragedy because of many things, but there are three main reasons why.
Firstly because of flaws in the plan: The British army was mainly made up of new recruits like pals battalions and Kitchener’s army. This inexperience proved costly when the British were firing there bobs the men that manned the guns often missed or the bombs didn’t explode. As well as having inexperienced soldiers in their army they chose bad land to launch an attack. The Germans had two years to fortify their trenches and get ready to defend, this proved invaluable when the British bombed them for a week using approximately 1.3 million bombs. The Germans also occupied the best defensive positions with high ground, small villages and woods. Lastly the British bombardment did not give the expected results. Shells didn’t explode and the British had very few high explosive shells, Shells they did have didn’t cut the barbed wire and some of them were even duds. If they did have enough bombs they didn’t have good gunners, those that they did have were young, inexperienced and often missed their targets. Germans had plenty of time to get to cover because they knew when an attack was coming. Haig can be blamed as well because there was no contingency plan if the bombardment failed.
The officers in charge of the bombardment would not believe that the bombardment had failed and were therefore sending men to their deaths. The officers were not expecting resistance so the men had to carry all of their provisions across no man’s land and their plan offered no other options.
Lastly when the men were walking across the Germans manned their machineguns and massacred the British. The reason for this was that after the bombardment there was a gap of around 10 minutes while the soldiers were waiting to go over the top, this let the Germans get to their machine guns and get their defenses ready, thus making it inevitable that the British were going to suffer huge losses.
This could have all been prevented if the officers in charge had been a bit more flexible and maybe put some more firepower into the German trenches or not waited 10 minutes and used surprise to get the Germans while they were getting ready.
Some statistics:
60,000 casualties on the first day – 20,000 dead.
Pals battalions decimated.
1st Newfoundland regiment ceased to exist.
Numerous tragic stories.
Even after the tragedy of the 1st day the battle went ahead. The British furthest line of advance lay only seven miles forward of the first attack on the 1st of July.
Great Britain suffered 420,000 killed and wounded/
The Germans suffered 620,000.
Optimism disappeared after the battle of the Somme.
Lastly Haig was remembered as a great general before the battle, and after the battle of the Somme his reputation was very badly tarnished.
Even though many people accept that the Battle of the Somme was a great tragedy there were good outcomes as well. The British army was now a lot tougher and could better prepare for their next battle and loose fewer lives. Lastly the Somme didn’t win the war but it ensured that Germany didn’t.
In conclusion I agree that the battle of the Somme was a great tragedy for the loss of lives was great, many good reputations were tarnished even though it wasn’t necessarily their fault and lives were needlessly lossed, but there were a few good outcomes, one being that the main objective was done, the army was toughened up and the British army would never make that mistake again.