On July 1, in broad daylight, one hundred thousand men, the Newfoundlanders among them, climbed out of their trenches and advanced shoulder to shoulder in line, one behind the other, across crater-torn waste of No Man's Land. Weighed down by 30 kilograms of equipment each, they advanced slowly towards the awaiting German guns.
From their starting position in the British support trench known as St. John's Road, the Newfoundlanders had to cross 230 metres of fire-swept ground before they reached even their own front line. As they made their way through zigzag lines previously cut in the British wire, casualties came with increasing frequency. Those of the leading companies who finally emerged into No Man's land could look down an incline to see for the first time the barrier of the German wire, 500 or more metres away. It was a wonder that any man could remain unhit more than a minute in the fire that swept across the exposed slopes. Nevertheless, holding as best they could the parade-ground formations then prescribed for assaulting infantry by the General Staff, the thinning ranks pushed steadily forward. Half-way down the slope, an isolated tree marked an area where the enemy's shrapnel was particularly deadly. Called "The Danger Tree", its twisted skeleton has been preserved and still stands at the spot where many a gallant Newfoundlander fell on that tragic July day.
The attack was launched upon a 30 kilometre front, from north of the Somme river between Arras and Albert, and ran from 1 July until 18 November, at which point it was called off.
Haig took over responsibility from Joffre for the planning and execution of the attack. Haig detailed preparations progressed slowly, much to Joffre’s irritation. Haig intended to fashion the attack using the ideas of both himself and , whose Fourth army was to spearhead the assault.
The attack was preceded by an eight-day of the German lines, beginning on Saturday 24 June.
The expectation was that the cruelty of the bombardment would entirely destroy all forward German defences, enabling the attacking British troops to practically walk across No Man’s Land and take possession of the German front lines from the battered and confused German troops. 1,500 British guns, together with a similar number of French guns, were employed in the bombardment.
Following the artillery bombardment, it was determined that a would precede the advancing infantry to the German front line, and onwards to the second and third trench lines. The Royal Artillery had prepared an underground network of telephone cables so as to enable forward observation officers to monitor and correct the barrage as the battle progressed.
Rawlinson’s was instructed by Haig to consolidate after a limited advance. Rawlinson’s troops went into battle heavily-laden with supplies for that purpose. Meanwhile to the north the rest of Fourth Army, in addition to 1 Corps of Third Army, attempted a complete breakthrough, with cavalry standing by to fully exploit the resultant gap in the German lines.
Haig’s background in cavalry convinced him that the coup de grace of the attack would best be carried out by cavalry troops. Following the taking of the German lines, the plan was for the British to break through to Cambrai and Douai, thus breaking the German line in two.
However the advance artillery bombardment failed to destroy either the German front line or the heavily-built concrete bunkers the Germans had carefully and robustly constructed. Much of the munitions used by the British were badly constructed and ineffective. Many charges did not go off; even today farmers of the Western Front unearth many tons of unexploded ‘iron harvest’ each year.
During the bombardment the German troops sought effective shelter in such bunkers, emerging only with the ceasing of the British artillery bombardment, when the German were manned to great effect.
In early September the French Tenth Army under joined the attack on a 20 kilometre front to the south. Meanwhile the British attack was renewed in north-east, the , by the Fourth Army on 15 September. This latter attack made use of for the first time and deployed 15 divisions of men; even so, it gained under a kilometre of ground.
These first tanks, which totalled 50, were sourced from the Machine Gun Corps, 'C and 'D' Companies, and reached the Somme in September. Mechanical and other failures reduced the original number of participating tanks from 50 to 24. Whilst they achieved a large measure of shocked surprise when sprung upon the German opposition, these early tanks proved unwieldy and highly unreliable.
The tanks were rolled out at 06:20 on the morning of 15 September. forces moved to force the enemy off the northern end of the main ridge and away from Fourth Army.
In October Joffre urged Haig to continue the offensive. By this time the French forces in Verdun were on the offensive and were gaining ground. Joffre was concerned that Haig should keep up the pressure on the Germans so as to prevent a diversion of German manpower back to Verdun to assist with the German defence there.
On 13 November the BEF made a final effort on the far east of the salient in the Battle of the Ancre, in which they captured the field fortress of Beaumont Hamel.
Despite the slow but progressive British advance, poor weather brought and ending to the Somme offensive on 18 November. During the attack the British and French had gained 12 kilometres of ground, the taking of which resulted in 420,000 estimated British casualties, including many of the volunteer ‘pal’s’ battalions, plus a further 200,000 French casualties. German casualties were estimated to run at around 500,000.
Sir Douglas Haig’s conduct of the battle caused – and still causes – great controversy. Critics argued that his inflexible approach merely repeated flawed tactics; others argue that Haig’s hand was forced in that the Somme offensive was necessary in order to relieve the French at Verdun.
John Keegan, Military Historian on
the Battle of the Somme
“They [the Allies] fired millions of shells. It was the biggest barrage that had ever been. So, they were firing over 100,000 shells a day; relentless, relentless banging and booming of this tremendous bombardment. So loud, you could hear it in England, if the wind was in the right direction (60 or 70 miles away). So, that gave the soldiers great confidence because they thought: "How can anybody live under this bombardment?" Which is what they were intended to think, and which the High Command themselves thought. But, of course, there was a great deal of preparation, and soldiers did make their wills. Every soldier's pay book (which he had to carry) had a little blank will form in it. And, there were special provisions in the war: you could make a valid will without it being witnessed, you merely had to sign. And, so, commonly, they would say: "I leave everything to my mother," and sign their names, and that was their will. It was a religious army, in many ways. Very high degree of churchgoing in England, and even more so, in Scotland and Wales, before the First World War. So, there were countless services. If they belonged to communicating branches of a Christian church, they commonly took communion. And, there was a great deal of writing letters of home, and of shaky hands. But, I think in an optimistic -- and perhaps, not even forced optimism -- I think they really believed they were going to win a great victory on July the first.
The British go up out of their trenches, shoulder to shoulder, for about ten or fifteen miles, and proceeded to advance across no-man's-land. And, as they did so, the Germans, (who, of course, had been waiting in terror in their trenches), realized when they heard the bombardment stop that they attack was coming. So, they rushed up from their dugouts beneath the trenches and set up their machine guns and began to fire for their lives -- literally for their lives -- because, of course, it was kill or be killed. They just saw in front of them wave after wave of khaki-clad men -- two, or three, or four, five hundred yards away -- plodding on towards them. And, they just began killing them, cutting them down as fast as they could. And, in many cases they did really kill almost everybody in front of them.”
PICTURES:
Trenches
Sir Douglas Haig Sir Henry Rawlinson
The Somme Battle field
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