Another of the reasons for this battle was that Britain and Germany both wanted to rule more countries than others and to kill as many soldiers as possible.
The British forces were commanded by General Douglas Haigh and the French by Joseph Jacques Cesaire. The German forces were commanded by Paul Von Hindenburg and Eric Lundendorff. The battle took place to attack the fortified German positions along the Somme River.
To do this they designed some tactics such as huge artillery bombardment. This was not very effective because shells were of a very poor quality and they were not powerful enough. Enemy’s barbed wire would be cut and dug outs smashed. This was not effective because the wire stretched a lot, which made it almost impossible to penetrate and dug outs were solid, deep underground and fortified with concrete. British would walk along no mans land with heavy packs. It wasn’t effective because the defenders were high ground which permitted them to see the walking British and attack them.
Most of this tactics were not effective because they under estimated the German army and over estimated their own army and equipment.
General Haig was titled “The Butcher of the Somme” and greatly criticized because of the number of casualties and the failure of his tactics. This also caused lots of british people to change their attitudes towards war.
Even thought the war did achieve its objectives; it was at a very high cost. The French only gained 6 miles of territory and the allied troops lost 600,000 casualties. The French were relieved while the British had little comfort.
From my point of view this battle was a huge campaign of attrition that achieved its main objectives. Although this battle was horrible it achieved its main objectives because it gained almost 7 miles of territory, killed about 450.000 German soldiers and managed to stop Germans from entering Paris and the rest of France. For the French this battle achieved its objective but the British did not gain anything and lost 2/3 of their men.
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