The British had not been able to use their planes to check that the German trenches, barbed wire, soldiers and heavy artillery had been destroyed because of low-lying clouds throughout all the bombardment days. Ironically on the 1st day of the attack it was a beautiful, sunny summer’s day. The barbed wire protecting the German trenches had not been cut by the British shells; it had just been thrown into the air and come straight back down again. The British found the wire almost intact so when they had attempted to force their way through it with their 66lbs of unnecessary equipment, they were all severely scratched.
The British were planning to surprise the opposition but when the bombardment stopped the Germans already knew they would be coming so they set up their machine-guns in preparation. The British were also at a disadvantage compared to the Germans as they had a ‘new’ army (recruited from General Kitchener’s campaign for soldiers) who weren’t very well trained and on the whole they were fighting uphill. All these factors contributed to the Battle of the Somme being a disaster for the British.
3) When General Ludendorff said that the British army were ‘lions led by donkeys’ he meant that the soldiers were lions as they were so brave but the generals were the donkeys because they made so many mistakes. I agree with this statement as I think the soldiers were lions and the generals were donkeys and I will prove this in my answer.
In this paragraph I will prove that the soldiers were worthy of being described as lions:- Most of the soldiers who fought at the Battle of the Somme were from Lord Kitchener’s appeal for troops (i.e. volunteers) and weren’t very well trained. However, they always did what they were told, no matter how stupid the orders were and they put up with living in the horrible conditions of the trenches facing death every minute of the day. They did things the generals wouldn’t do themselves without complaint and there were no mutinies in all four years of the war. 60,000 of their troops either died or were seriously injured on the first day of the Battle of the Somme but despite this the soldiers did not give up, they kept fighting bravely although it was obvious that as soon as they went ‘over the top’ they would probably die.
When the British were fighting at Gallipoli in Turkey they needed more soldiers so they made an appeal and lots of people signed up; mostly in PALs. These troops were predominantly Australian; they didn’t have to go to war because their country wasn’t even in it. However, they still signed up and fought bravely for the British and the generals continued to make them fight throughout the whole campaign, even though they knew they couldn’t make a breakthrough.
Now I will explain why the generals were described as donkeys:- the generals ordered the soldiers to do foolhardy things, things which they would never consider doing themselves such as walking across No Man’s Land to capture enemy territory. The generals thought that their shells had cut all the barbed wire in the seven-day bombardment but the wire was almost intact as no one had been to check it. It was described as ‘passable’ in places so if any soldiers managed to get through it they would all have been severely scratched. The generals also thought that all or nearly all of the enemy were dead because they had blown up their trenches but in actual fact hardly any Germans were dead because they had been hiding in their deep dug-outs throughout the bombardment days thus resulting in that when the British went to attack, the Germans were ready and waiting with their machine guns already set up. Although there was no ‘hard’ evidence to back up the generals’ story they still told the soldiers to walk across No Man’s Land and attack. This was part of the reason that there were so many casualties.
This wasn’t the end of the generals’ stupidity. General Haig was supposedly the biggest donkey as he was in overall charge of the Western front. The generals had made the soldiers carry 66lbs of unnecessary equipment which the soldiers carried without complaint. This equipment could have easily been left in the trenches so that it wasn’t ‘wasted’ when soldiers were killed and their bodies left in No Man’s Land. Another thing the generals did to get themselves described as donkeys was that when the soldiers went into battle they told them to hold their guns pointing upwards instead of in a position to fire. If the British had been ready to fire at the Germans when they emerged from their trenches then maybe not so many soldiers would have died. The final things the generals did wrong were sending all the soldiers ‘over the top’ at once and getting the whole plan completely wrong.
General Haig was supposedly most to blame because as Rawlinson was the artillery expert he didn’t want to overrule him when he had misgivings about the large reliance on heavy artillery. Rawlinson was only 2nd in command and Haig was 1st but as he was from a cavalry regiment he felt he should let Rawlinson get on with it. Some historians describe him as the ‘butcher of the Somme’. World War One was only won because America came into the war on Britain’s side and because the Germans were too exhausted to fight and had run out of supplies. However, as I will explain next, some historians have praised Haig saying his actions were justified and worthwhile as he won the war in the end.
Some historians have a different view. They think that Haig was the best man for the job at the time and that he was right to do what he did. They have praised him and concentrated on 1916 and 1917 when, in their opinion, the British army had had the best offensive they had ever seen. Haig had come from a cavalry regiment but he still had misgivings about the plan which they say make his actions acceptable. They also recognise another good thing in Haig; he saw the advantages of using aircraft and tanks which helped him win the war in the end. Some people must have liked and respected Haig despite his performance at the Somme because when he died, in 1928, more than 30,000 old soldiers attended his funeral.
To conclude; yes I do agree with the view expressed by General Ludendorff that the British army was made up of ‘lions led by donkeys’ because of the reasons I have stated in my answer.
