In your opinion, was the Somme a victory or a defeat?

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In your opinion, was the Somme a victory or a defeat?

The battle of the Somme can be recorded in history as both a huge victory in military enforcements and tactics, or as a defeat with the amount of soldiers who devastatingly lost their lives.

The Somme was one of the most memorable battles in World War II as it was the worst disaster in British Military History. One way the battle is remembered as a public defeat and humiliation is that on the fateful day of 1st July 1916, approximately 20,000 men horrifyingly lost their lives and their dignity because the stubborn and callous Generals, mainly General Moorland, were inflexible in their battle plans, and led these somewhat brave civilian recruits to their prominent death. General Moorland was also 3 miles away from the action of the front line, sitting in a tree house and planning the strategies, and he had no idea of the gravity of the situation. He refused to allow a change in battle plans, and stubbornly continued to order men to cross No Mans Land at walking pace, for a frontal attack, when a roundabout attack would have been more useful.

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The battle was also a defeat because the German forces caught wind of the Allie plans, and slyly built dugouts to hide in while the first phase of the Allied attack was in progress. This first phase was to bombard the German trenches with as many bombs as they could muster, as they believed no-one could have survived such a hostile bombardment. This represents another prominent failure because, had the battle been a victory, the Germans would not have caught news of the phases of attack, and would not have been ready in position when the Allied Civilian Recruits ...

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