‘I noticed one of them walking calmly carrying a walking stick…. When we started firing…they went down in their hundreds. You didn´t have to aim , we just fired into them´
This evidence shows the sheer power of the machine guns and that maybe it was the naïve plans of the British army leaders were to blame rather than the armies themselves.
Here is a source which shows how the trench system worked:
In August1914 Lord Kitchener began recruiting for a new army. Various posters
were put up and speeches were made. Thousands of men volunteered recruitment took place in village halls and town squares although it was successful more men were needed. So in January 1916 the government passed an act which said that all single men between 18 and 41 could be called up to the army. In June it said that married men could also be called up. Men were organised into pals battalions. The idea was that men would have a higher morale if they fought with their families and friends but was this idea to blame for the failure in the Somme battles?
The inexperience of the new armies themselves was cause for grave concern and had a devastating effect on the already flawed plans of the British leaders. The soldiers involved in battle, who were mainly made up of enthusiastic volunteers, had been given very little training. This meant that had no shooting abilities and had been taught that the best form of attack was to advance slowly and in a straight line. The junior officers, who were made up of young men and boys plucked from public school some of whom would have been aged between fifteen and sixteen, were taught to obey unquestioningly and never to show initiative. These views brought to light by modern historians once again seem to suggest that the soldiers were very disorganised and that the Generals are to blame.
But a leader at the Somme battles, Major Drake Brockman also felt that the soldiers he had in his troops were inadequate and should not be fighting in a war. In 1930 after the war had ended he explained about how he felt the way in which the men became soldiers was wrong:
‘The 38th Division suffered from having a number of senior officers who owed their appointments to their political positions…Major General Phillips…was a member of parliament. He was thus promoted over the heads of many more senior and meritous officers…. It is hardly surprising that he was ignorant, lacked experience and failed to inspire confidence.
He also said
‘Lieut. Colonel David Davies knew nothing about soldiering´
This was probably true because in those days if your social status was good you were thought to be better than anyone else. But this was said over ten years after the war ended and so perhaps as the people started to want to know how their men died he simply shifts all responsibility on the soldiers chosen rather than talk about his strategies which failed miserably.
This photo shows a typical group of soldiers during the Battle of the Somme:
When Sir Douglas Haig was given the number of deaths they had suffered on July 1 1916 of the Somme battles he said:
‘I am inclined to believe few of the Corps left their trenches´
The truth is that they had actually suffered 14,000 casualties which shows that Haig is prepared to lie about the true facts of a battle. Haig refuses to accept this fact and simply shifts the blame onto the shoulders of the thousands of soldiers who had been wounded and killed during the battle. He does this so that his plans, which are shown here to be flawed, can continue to make himself look as if he has a great knowledge about war and that he is right. He also says this because it may boost the morale of the soldiers because they may think that there are cowards in the ranks and no soldier would want to be a coward and will vow to fight in the battles.
This statement also brings to light the question of whether the soldiers were brave enough to fight in the war. In the battle of Mametz Wood where the Welsh soldiers played a huge part it seems as though many soldiers ran away from the battle once it began to get very dangerous. The leader of the troops involved, Price-Davies was very disappointed with how they had performed and explained to the brigade commanders what had happened. He said:
‘The initial advance into the wood appears to have been carried out with the utmost gallantry by all ranks….After the wood was entered however….a certain degree of demoralisation set in…. The demoralisation increased…and culminated in a disgraceful panic during which many left the wood whilst others seemed quite incapable of understanding, or unwilling to carry out the simplest of orders.´
These words were heard by an eye witness at Mametz Wood and so they should be viewed as a very reliable source of what Price-Davies said but whether what Price-Davies said was true we don´t know. Major Drake Brockman said that
‘the Welsh division had run away´
Which makes us feel that maybe this is true. We get the Impression that Price Davies thinks of his men as cowards but some people may think them to be sensible for running away. But we can´t deny that soldiers are in fact used to fight the opposition however flawed the plans may seem and so these soldiers may be to blame the failures at the Somme Battles.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Somme Battles which will conclusively decide who was responsible for the failures in Battle is whether the leaders themselves were to blame for producing such flawed plans which gave inevitably disastrous results.
The Prime Minister at the time was David Lloyd George and he too w from as overwhelmed by the new system of trench warfare but failed to see that there were numerous faults in the armies plans:
‘When I ventured to express to Generals Joffre and Haig my doubts as to whether calvary could ever operate successfully….both Generals fell ecstatically on me, and….explained that he expected the French calvary to ride through the broken German lines on his front the following morning´
This shows that even the most important man in Britain did not have a clue as to how a war should be fought at that time.
The main aspect which puts the blame on the leaders in charge of the armies is their plans. The industrial revolution saw the advance of technology and with it the advance of technology in weapons like machine guns, gas, and howitzer guns. This meant that warfare had now changed from open pitched battles with calvary to charges to trench warfare. Because of this radical change, the plans of the Generals should have changed too, but they didn´t.
The Generals planned to bombard the German trenches continuously until they thought they had damaged their artillery which included massive pieces of barbed wire. The old cavalry tactics continued with the soldiers being told to go over the top of their trenches and walk slowly towards the enemy trenches. But the men rarelymade it further than their own trenches and if they did they were confronted with the huge pieces of barbed wire which had failed to be blown up. They would then be marooned in no mans land which gets its name because no man could survive there. This highlights the fact that the Generals in charge of the armies had no idea of how powerful the Germans barbed wire and machine guns were which led to so many fatalities. The Generals also failed to make their plans clear to the soldiers which led to many deaths. One soldier explained what had happened:
‘He said, “you´ll find the barbed wire in front of the German trenches blown away.” Blown away! Nothing of the sort! It was as solid as anything. That was the whole trouble. Wrong information.´
This source confirms that the battles were badly planned and executed by the Generals.
The Army leaders also seemed as though they felt the need to cover up anything which may have questioned their skills. This was cleverly done by reporting back to the British press about how well they were doing in the war and completely ignoring the truth which was that thousands were dying at each battle which meant the reality of the situation was disguised.
This source is a fine example of the type of propaganda that was rife at the time:
Several other articles and posters were included in the British press back home which gave the impression that their men were winning the war with ease. One newspaper at the time wrote:
‘The toll of blood today has been fairly high but….happily there is a large proportion of slightly wounded cases….I have seen many lads….shouting that they are not downhearted´
And the Daily Chronicle wrote:
Ist July, 1916: At about 7.30 o'clock this morning a vigorous attack was launched by the British Army. The assault was preceded by a terrific bombardment, lasting about an hour and a half…. the British troops have already occupied the German front line. Many prisoners have already fallen into our hands, and as far as can be ascertained our casualties have not been heavy.
These sources show the censored version of events at the Somme with the true reality being disguised to keep up the spirits of the country so they feel that their men are having fun whilst fighting for their country. This stereotypical image of the soldiers shouting with their arms in slings and bandages was used in posters and was totally fictitious.
Most of the soldiers looked up to their generals during the war as their leaders and showed them respect. But as the war continued some began to question their skills as commanders of the troops while they watched the death toll continue to rise. One soldier shared some of his thoughts about the leaders in a poem:
‘…Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead,
And we´re cursing his staff for incompetent swine
…As they slogged up the hill with rifle and pack
But he did for them both by his plan of attack´
The poem describes the General as an ‘incompetent swine´ which undoubtedly shows that they held a very dim view of the General in charge of them. And It explains that it was his ‘plan of attack´ which killed them. But not all of the Generals thought that the plans were effective Corporal Harry Shaw from the Welsh Fusiliers agrees with many people that the plans were to blame saying
‘…it wasn´t worth the price….´
This shows that after the war even the leaders themselves think the plans were wrong and caused the deaths of thousands of soldiers.
Now that we have seen all aspects of who was to blame for the failures of the battles at the Somme we can now gather the evidence shown and conclude as to whether it was in fact solely the new armies who were to blame for this. One cause of the failure was that the soldiers did not have the weapons to match the that of the German´s. This was because of a recent industrial revolution which meant war was now mechanised rather than still being still being based upon traditional cavalry charges. The generals had no idea how much war had changed and had not expected the industrial revolution to change the methods of war.
A large proportion of the heavy guns available gave poor range and could not penetrate the German dug-outs thus causing the British plans of bombarding the Germans to fail. The soldiers then had to cross no mans land to reach the other side carrying weapons weighing more than half their body weight which made it almost impossible to get out of the trenches. The rifles which the British used could fire a bullet about every four or five seconds which had to be reloaded manually whereas the machine gun was capable of firing seven to eight rounds a second and in comparison the machine gun is obviously the more effective weapon which the Generals turned down. The Generals do not seem to have given much thought to the fact that maybe the Germans would have powerful weapons too.
One journalist who watched the preparation for the battle said:
In front of us was not a line but a fortress position, twenty miles deep, entrenched and fortified, defended by masses of machine-gun posts and thousands of guns in a wide arc.
This again highlights the sheer size of the amount of weapons that the Germans had prepared before the battle had began.
The Generals thought that this battle would be like any other and ordered the soldiers to march at a walking pace to the opposition. This gave the Germans a good aim at the thousands of soldiers walking towards them. Haig used this strategy to stop any confusion and keep them to their duty.
The inexperience of the soldiers also played a part in the failures of the Somme because they had no idea of how to fight in battle and many boys had come straight from school and were now in charge of a group of men. They had no idea of what war was like and this meant they probably missed their families and spoke to their ‘pals´ about this which could have lowered morale within the troops.
But after we look at all the evidence shown I think the industrial revolution, the inexperience of the soldiers and Haig´s plans were all to blame for the failures of the Somme rather than solely the new armies. But the army Generals and particularly Haig were to blame for most of the deaths in my opinion. Colonel Boraston said:
‘the principal cause of failure was the inexperience of the troops themselves….The proportion of fully trained regular officers was still very much higher than in our own.´
Yes, the new armies did not perform very well and were very inexperienced but why were they fighting in the war in the first place? Because the army Generals decided it would be a great idea to recruit members of the public to join the army rather than train the current members to a high standard.
Modern Historians today also talk about the fact that the Generals thought the war would be like the traditional cavalry style and were not prepared for the war:
‘The Generals expected that the war would be broadly similar to the last major war Britain had fought in Europe…. With men advancing shoulder to shoulder.´
I totally agree with the fact that the Generals were not expecting this type of war and so soldiers were expected to die at first. But when the soldiers kept on being killed battle after battle the generals did nothing and kept on sending waves of men over the top and onto the floor to their death. This shows that the Generals should take responsibility for their actions which killed thousands of men and these plans, as corporal Harry Shaw said after the war, eventually became ‘sheer bloody murder´. We can now conclude that it was wrong for the contemparies to blame the new armies for the failures at the battles of the Somme because there were many other things which contributed to the failures, particularly the extremely flawed plans by the generals.
