The Somme - source related study.

G.C.S.E Coursework

By February 1917, the lists of casualties and the news of the overall failure of the 1st day of the Somme had reached home. Despite this, the Generals still made an effort to cover it up. However many in the press, who had, months before, declared the Somme a titanic success, turned their backs on Britain’s Military leaders.

Cartoonists such as the one who created source B, tried to make their feelings heard.

Source B is from a British magazine published in February 1917. This is three months after the Battle of the Somme ended. (November 1916) By now the news of its initial failure would have reached home. The artist has found his scapegoat in the generals, and he would be looking to discredit them, to convince the British public of the battle’s failure.

The Cartoon shows a “Major General” addressing the troops before a practise attack. The general and his staff have been made to look large and stubby. They look well fed and well kept. A sign that they haven’t been to the front line. For this, the Germans called them donkeys, and called the British foot soldiers lions. “Lions led by donkeys”

The soldiers around the parade ground however, are without faces. There could be two reasons for this. Firstly, the artist may not have wanted the mothers, brothers, wives etc to see their own sons in the shape of the drawn soldiers, and therefore the artist has meant not to cause hurt. However, secondly, and more probably, the artist has created the impression that the General sees men as numbers and not human lives. Yet these men are also those who kept small towns and villages such as Accrington together, and the general’s plan of pals battalions only worked to an extent. If all these men were killed or wounded, what would happen to these close-nit communities back in the homeland?

The text below the cartoon shows the general saying to the men, “I want you to understand that there is a difference between a rehearsal and the real thing. There are three essential differences…”

Here, the General has just contradicted himself; he says that there is one difference, and then goes on to say that there are three.

Next he says, “First there is the absence of the enemy.”

However at this point, he is forced to ask the Regimental Sergeant Major for the second. The RSM answers; “The absence of the general.”

Here the artist has made his point that the Generals are nowhere near the battles that they order to happen. He is right. At the time of the Somme, General Rawlingson was at a chateau in Quierriere,15 miles behind the frontline. The artist also at this point is showing the generals to be very dim. Not only do they contradict themselves, but they also cant remember what they were going to say. The general in the cartoon has to be given the second reason why a practise is nothing like the real thing and doesn’t even remember to mention the third.

It is obvious from this cartoon that the artist is out to attack the Leaders of the British Military. He doesn’t however mention the amount of ground that was won; only seven and a half miles, but I’m sure that he would have done if possible.

Overall, I feel that the message of the cartoon is that the loss of so many men and the lack of ground gained is not the fault of the private, or lieutenant, but the generals who didn’t even get their boots dirty.

Both sources C and D are about the 1st day of the Battle of the Somme and both mention similar and dissimilar details about it.

Source C is an extract from a novel published in 1994, about the day before the battle of the Somme. The problem with an extract is that it could have been taken out of context. It was also published at a date, over fifty years after the battle, meaning that it is definitely a secondary source. Finally, it is a novel, and a novel doesn’t have to be fact. It can be fiction.

However despite these faults, this extract does seem very factual. The only query that I would have with it is when it mentions a “colonel” addressing the troops. Both the video “Battle of the Somme” (a video made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle) and the book “1st day on the Somme” by Martin Middlebrook, state that a General/Brigadier General took the last parades and addressed the troops.

Source D, however, is an eyewitness account of the first assault on the German lines in the battle, told by a German soldier. The problem with an eyewitness account is that the eyewitness can only know what is happening in his area. However we do know that all along the line, roughly the same events occurred except between Montabon and the French sector of Mametz where the Surreys and the French did break through the German lines. Only to loose the ground again because no “cavalry push” came to back them up.

There is only one main similarity between both sources. The bombardment of the German trenches.

Source C “You can hear the bombardment going to work on his (the enemy’s) defences. The bombardment will stop tomorrow and you will attack.”

Source D “A German solider describing what happened when the bombardment of the German lines stopped.”

Both extracts describe the bombardment stopping, however we know that the bombardment didn’t stop, it just lifted to the German reserve lines.

There are also two more main differences between the sources:

Timing
Different perspective

The timing is different because, the German eyewitness source is the day of the Somme, and the novel extract is from the night before. However both refer to the 1st day of the battle.

Both sources are different in perspective because the 1st is by an English man, and written in 1994, and the second is from a German (biased) and is an eyewitness account.

Overall, the sources are different in three ways but only similar in 1. Therefore they give a dissimilar impression of the ...

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There are also two more main differences between the sources:

Timing
Different perspective

The timing is different because, the German eyewitness source is the day of the Somme, and the novel extract is from the night before. However both refer to the 1st day of the battle.

Both sources are different in perspective because the 1st is by an English man, and written in 1994, and the second is from a German (biased) and is an eyewitness account.

Overall, the sources are different in three ways but only similar in 1. Therefore they give a dissimilar impression of the 1st day of the battle of the Somme.

From both sources you can gather that the 1st day of The Somme didn’t go to plan. General Rawlingson said, “Nothing can exist in the area covered” by the bombardment, but why then was the German eyewitness able to quote on the battle? (Source F)

The British casualties on the first day of the battle of the Somme were enormous compared with any other battle fought by the British army. Source F tells us that on the 1st of July 1916, the total amount of men killed, wounded, missing etc was “57,470.” We have no reason to dispute these figures, because they aren’t those recorded after battalion role-calls. They are the Official British Army Figures. However we usually round this figure up to 60,000. In comparison, the number of men taken prisoner is minute. Only 585 men were captured, and this shows that the battle, and even the war, was very different to any other.

Source D and E give reasons why these figures were so high.

Source D (the German eyewitness account of what happened on the first day of the battle) describes how the British came in a “series of extended lines.” This made it easier for the German machine gunners because they didn’t have to adjust their sights. They could just move the machine gun, in big “swings of death”. He quotes next that the “British infantry came on at a steady pace” (walking) and as if “expecting to find nothing alive” in the German trenches. This shows both General Rawlingson’s false hope in the bombardment and is also a betrayal of Rawlingson’s lack of confidence in this new volunteer army.

Rawlingson was extremely confident in his bombardment (which didn’t stop, as the source says, but lifted onto the German reserve lines.) He quoted that, “nothing could exist in the area covered by it.” However, from source E we know that German soldiers did survive, and that the Germans had enough men to defend their line from many heavy assaults.

Source E shows a complete contrast to the German account. It describes (in his own words) a diary entry by Sir Hankey about his visit to the Somme. The fact that it is a diary entry shows that it is probable that what he says is true to what he saw. As it is a diary entry, Hankey would have no need to lie to himself. There is however that chance of bias.

Hankey is an important official at this time. He is “Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence and of the war council.” This man has obviously been sent by the government to observe the goings on at the front and as the General in charge of the Western Front; Haig, would be set the task of showing Hankey “around.” Therefore he would show him the better parts of the line. Places where the British had at least had minor victories or breakthroughs. One of these places could be Montabon or Mametz, where the British and French did make breakthroughs on the first day of the battle of the Somme. (Only to lose the ground soon after because the promised cavalry advance didn’t come.)

Source E was written on the 9th of September 1916. This was also the month in which the tank was first used. This therefore could also be the reason why Hankey has been sent out, and why the source describes so many German prisoners.

However, even though Haig has shown Hankey the best parts of the line, Sir Maurice does show his worries about the Somme campaign. He tells of the German prisoners being “fine, intelligent-looking men with no sign of poor physique or moral,” and he voices his fears that Haig and the over high-ranking officers have an “over-opinion” of their sides superiority over the enemy. He latter says that despite the fierce fighting, the Germans “are still very strong” and then he maybe describes a personal opinion about why the bombardment didn’t have the required effect on the first day of the battle. “They dig better than our men and consequently, their losses are probably less.”

This was true and therefore on 1st July, 1916, after the British bombardment lifted on to the German reserve lines, the Germans were still there, “live and kicking” to fight the British back.

What both sources don’t mention is the lack of intelligence the British had before their attack and also, how the small amount of intelligence they did have was used.

Before the battle of the Somme, the British found a German dugout intact, after heavy fighting. They found that it was extremely deep and dug in to tough chalk. The bombardment that the British used against the Germans, would obviously do much less damage to these than the British generals expected. However this information wasn’t used.

General Rawlinson always thought that the bombardment would do the soldier’s job for them, however patrols were sent out in to no-man’s land during night raid, and they reported that the German barbed wire wasn’t being cut, as was planned.

Later, Lieutenant Colonel Sands saw that the Germans had the high ground on all three sides of the valley that he would attack down. He would have to march down this valley for 750 yards. He believed his men would march into disaster. Yet when he reported this, no attention was given to it.

Both sources also don’t mention the mines used in the assault. Before the battle, 5 mines were places near German strong point, and were set to blow five minutes before 7:30. (Zero hour) However, at 7:20, an officer blew his mine at the Hawthorn Redoubt. This was a costly error. It provoked a German artillery bombardment on all the packed British trenches in the area, and helped the Germans to get poised and ready for the British assault.

From the evidence that I have given I have found that source D describes the reasons for the casualty figures in most detail, and source E also gives a few reasons. Nonetheless, I have also explained a few out of the many reasons that weren’t mentioned, why these figures, 60,000, were so high. These figures also show that the type of warfare had changed from that of the century before, and that the generals, Rawlingson and Haig especially, weren’t yet accustomed to it.

Source G is an extract from Lloyd George’s memoirs, published in 1933-36

At the time of the battle of the Somme, George was the Minister of munitions for the British army, and therefore, was in charge of weaponry send to the Western Front. I.e. guns, bullets and shells.

It is common knowledge that Rawlinson’s battle plan relied solely on his five-day (ended up seven days, due to bad weather) bombardment of the German trenches. He put a lot of faith in it. “Nothing can exist in the area covered by it.” However it is a fact that hundreds of the shells used in this bombardment were duds, either due to their age or quality. This meant that the bombardment on which so much rested, was less effective than was thought. (Hundreds of Germans survived)

As Minister of Munitions, Lloyd George would have been in charge of selecting the shells for the bombardment, and many soldiers/civilians may have thought George the reason why the bombardment, and in some cases, the battle went so wrong. He could also have been a good scapegoat for such figures as Haig and other high ranking officers who looked to shift the blame for the failure of the first day of the battle on to another’s shoulders.

Lloyd George’s memoirs may be his way of clearing the blame for the initial failure of the battle and with hindsight; he could use other methods of distracting the responsibility from him.

Source H is an extract of a report send by General Haig in December of 1916 to the British cabinet about the effects of the battle of the Somme.

By December 1916, the results of the battle of the Somme would have reached home. The British public would also know the casualty lists and the happenings of the 1st day.

The British cabinet would also know these things. Therefore, Haig would be worried that his “employers” may sack him for these allegations of failure. In his report, he would be out to make the Battle of The Somme look like a success.

In source G, Lloyd George says that the “great war…killed off” our best “officers and men.” At the time his memoirs were published, Lloyd George was trying to fight for appeasement with Germany after they invaded Czechoslovakia. He would be desperate to prove to the British public that war had, the last time been awful and that they shouldn’t fight another. His quotes nevertheless were pure opinion. However, the extract ends with another quote, this time, factual. “Our great offensive failed to achieve its objective of a breakthrough.”

In H, Haig doesn’t even mention the Somme’s battle plan. “To take the villages of Montabon to Gommecourt in a morning, and then breakthrough into the open countryside beyond with the cavalry and take Bapaume.” Instead he writes to the British Cabinet about the lesser of the Somme’s objectives and what he believes the German moral is like! Even to this, he has no real proof.

General Haig had many different bits and pieces of intelligence coming in about anything from the Somme to the amounts of rations given out in one day. However this information didn’t go directly to him. It was primarily given to Haig’s intelligence officer, Charters. Charters knew that Haig’s confidence was at this point, extremely brittle. For this reason, Haig was given censored information about the battle. Later, in his autobiography, Charters revealed that he had not let a lot of bad, nevertheless, vital news from reaching his superior. In the source we get a slight indication of this. Haig writes that “A considerable proportion of the German soldiers are practically beaten men, ready to surrender if they could, thoroughly tired of the war and expecting defeat.” This comment is alone strange, because the Germans fought long and hard for another two years after it, and many didn’t surrender even when given huge chances. This isn’t the end however; Haig later says, “We have proved our ability to force the Germans out of strong defensive positions.”

This is false. The only places that the British “forced” the Germans out of were small town such as Montabon and Mametz, which were retaken the same day. (July 1st) The British did enter the German trenches all along the Somme later on in the battle, but forced no-body out of them. The Germans had voluntarily withdrawn, to get out of their strategically bad positions in a salient. They withdrew in to the ‘Hindenburg Line,’ creating a straight, more easily defended line in which they were parallel to the British front.

At no point does Haig mention breakthrough in his report, however this was his first day objective and the one main objective of the war. Haig does however mention that “the amount of ground” that they won “was not great.” Yet this was the whole point of the battle!

Both sources mention numbers of men, in the form of casualties.

Source G refers to the loss of the “British best.”(Source F: 57,470 casualties) It says that the Germans lost a lot of good men, but that, the British lost many more of their best. (This could be an insult to those who survived)

Source H, mentions the amount of German losses: “The German casualties have been greater than ours.” This was true by the end of the battle, but Haig had at this time only guessed it.

Overall, it comes down to only one point, which I can use to choose the most reliable source for its account of the Battle of the Somme. Both authors have motives to deflect the truth and both sources are full of opinion, however only source G, refers to the failure of the Battle, because the British army “failed to achieve its objective of a breakthrough. Unlike source H, source G shows us the true aim and hope of one of Britain’s most bloody battles. To breakthrough the German lines, race through France and in to Germany, and therefore end the war.

The historian A.J.P. Taylor wrote, “On the Somme … perished …the zest and idealism with which nearly three million English men had marched forth to war.” However, did all of Lord Kitchener’s Volunteer army march to war with Zest and Idealism in the first place?

In 1914, men “flocked to the colours”. Many wanted to impress sweethearts or wives, hundreds wanted to have a “crack at the Kaiser” and “fight back the Hun” like the crusaders centuries before them. Others wanted to fight for and protect their King and country and some wanted to save the British Empire, in which they fully believed. But still there were those men who had been pressurised and even forced to fight. In Trafalgar Square, and outside cinemas and theatres women handed out white feathers to men, not in uniform and at home, there was often a lot of pressure from children parents and even spouses to fight. These men didn’t go to war with zest and idealism.

Source A is made up mostly of opinion; “there are those who see the Somme…as an event so terrible that it killed the breezy, crusading spirit of 1914-15.”

In fact it finishes by saying that the 9th Yorks and Lancasters regiment “lost 423 men in its first battle!” We know that this wasn’t an isolated event, all along the Somme line; there were huge casualty lists. Source F is an official casualty list and it shows nearly 60,000 men died on the first day! Source A would certainly help to back up Taylor’s statement.

Source B, is the Cartoon portraying the Generals in charge of the Somme as fat, un-feeling men. If the cartoon is true, the ordinary soldier would have his zest and idealism snatched away, punctured because he wouldn’t be able to trust his own leaders. The General-ship was inept.

In Source C, British soldiers are standing, listening to a General, talking about the next day, the 1st July. They cheer him but their cheers are quelled by the Military Police in the area. They quickly shout out orders and say how, “that any man shirking his duty would be shot.” The men’s reaction to the treat of being shot by the MP’s betrays the fact that they wanted to be there. They had joined up for this. This showed the presence of Zest and Idealism. However from the other sources describing the following day, we know that these “great expectations” would soon be squashed.

In the second part of the Source the MPs threaten the men as we’ve heard. This would have been contributory to the slow puncture of zest. We are told that after the strong reprimand, the group “was split between excitement and the wanting to be home with their mothers.”

Source D was written by a German soldier and is about his experience of the first day of the battle of the Somme, behind a machine-gun. It tells of what happened when the bombardment lifted from the German front line to their reserve lines.

The source touches on the British confidence, or rather, Rawlingson’s confidence in his weeklong bombardment of the German lines. “They came on at a steady pace…as though expecting to find nothing alive in our trenches.”

Usually there is a draw back to this kind of source because it is an eyewitness account and the eyewitness can only comment on what is happening around him. However, this source seems reliable because we get the same kind of accounts up and down the lines, I.e. “The 1st day of the Somme” by Martin Middlebrook. The only places that the British and French didn’t have this result was at Montaubon and Mametz, where the French and the Surrey Regiment did break through, only to fall back due to the fact that the cavalry didn’t come to push through. However, on the whole, everywhere else, all regiments failed their objectives and the British Zest and idealism was crushed by such stiff German resistance.

Source F shows the British losses on the first day of the Battle, 1st July 1916. It states that 57,970 men were lost on that day and we usually round that figure up to 60000. These are official British Army figures and therefore, we have no reason to question them.

With such a grotesque number of casualties, how could zest and idealism still exist in the British lines?

Lloyd George is the author of source G. At the time, George was the minister for munitions at the Somme. When he wrote the source, he was fighting for appeasement, and pacifism. His memories of which, source G is an extract, could easily be coloured with hindsight.

Lloyd George could feel responsible for the huge number of casualties because his shells, of which many were duds, may have helped contribute to the first day’s failure. In this self-blame, he could have a motive to deflect blame onto Haig and/or Rawlingson. He says, “We failed to achieve our objective of a breakthrough.” This is his way of blaming those in command. This quote is fact. With this on their minds how could the average British soldier; keep hold of his zest and idealism?

We can also use source H, to back up A.J.P. Taylor’s opinion that Zest and Idealism perished on the Somme as well.

In this source, Haig is trying to highlight the successes of the war. Therefore it is positive. “We have forced the Germans out of strong defensive positions.”

However, Haig had a motive to being biased. He had to try and prove to the British Government that the battle of the Somme was a success to keep his job. Therefore we question the reliability of this source.

In his report, Haig ignores his battle plan and sidesteps to the lesser of the battle’s achievements. And this also contradicts source G. “It was supposed to be a war winning battle.” However again, like in source G, we wonder how the British soldier could still have zest and idealism when he knows that in a battle where the British lost more men than any other combat, the battle’s orders weren’t even accomplished.

On the other hand, source E shows that Taylor’s opinion on the loss of zest and idealism could be false.

An extract from the diary of an important member of parliament, source E describes a visit to the Somme by Sir Maurice Hankey. (Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence and of the War Council) Because of his position Hankey would have had access to a lot of private information, but he still didn’t have all of it, even though he should have.

Hankey, as a visitor to the Somme, would have Haig as his guide. Haig would talk about his optimism and confidence, which we know as overconfidence.

In the Extract, Hankey writes that the many German prisoners were “Intelligent, men with good physiques and high moral.” However we have to remember that they are still prisoners. If the British are capturing such fit and healthy men, then why should their zest and idealism leak? The 9th of September, about which the diary entry describes, was also the date of the introduction of the tank, and this was an added fully of hope for the British.

Finally, source ‘I’ disagrees with Taylor’s opinion. Written by General Ludendorff (the commander of the Eastern Front at the time of the battle of the Somme) in August 1916, it describes the state of the German army on the Western Front (which Ludendorff took command of after the Somme.)

Source ‘I’ is an extract from a book by Ludendorff, which was printed extremely quickly to stop the author from being blamed for the failure of the war. He talks of the British pushing the German lines back, where in fact the German’s retreated by their own free-will to get into a more easily defended position. The “Hindenbourg Line.” He says how his army was “completely exhausted.” And this would help him with the German public, because it shows that even though the German army was near defeat, he, General Ludendorff managed to carry the war on for two more years.

“When the Battle of the Somme began the Entente had a tremendous superiority, both on land and in the air. The Entente troops had worked their way further and further into the German lines. We had heavy losses in men and material. As a result of the Somme fighting we were completely exhausted on the Western Front. If the war lasted, our defeat seemed inevitable.”

If this extract is true, why on earth would the British army loose its zest and idealism?

The weight of evidence in these sources shows that the British zest and idealism did perish on the Somme. However, to make a more valid decision, I would have liked: a key British eyewitness, newspapers from the time, the original battle plans, and photographs. Also, source F is one-sided and therefore I would also want the German casualty figures.

With these sources, I could make a more valid judgement.

However I still agree with Taylor’s statement because, only seven and a half miles was gained at the deepest point in the line with huge casualties. The British only managed to push the Germans into a more defendable position in the Hindenburg Line, and the bombardment on which so much rested, was a failure.

A lot of effort and minimal achievement.