Why was the battle of the Somme regarded as such a military tradgedy?

Lewis Brooks 10GS GCSE History

Introduction

The battle of the Somme was a battle that took place in Eastern France and close to the border of Belgium. The battle of the Somme got its name because it was fought along the valley of the River Somme. The battle of the Somme began on the 1st of July 1916; the aim of the battle was to try and break the stalemate and to help relieve some of the pressure on the French at Verdun. The war was between the allies and Germany. The battle was a British offensive (attack) on the Germans.

In this essay I am going to look at cases of bad leadership, Human suffering and Failure in the battle of the Somme to then try and discover ‘Why the battle of the Somme was regarded as such a military Tragedy.’

Poor Planning & Pressure

One major reason for the tragic outcome of the battle of the Somme was due to poor planning and pressure.

The preparations for the battle of the Somme were rushed because the French urged the British to start their offensive on Germany earlier than planned to help lift the siege on Verdun and relieve the pressure on the French army at Verdun. The French had lost an enormous amount of men at Verdun and said that they were prepared to “fight to the last man,” this is why the French generals kept pressuring the British leaders.

This shows evidence of a tragedy because so many men were killed needlessly due to poor planning. The casualties and death total would have been far less if the French didn’t rush the British into the battle.

Failure of the British Artillery Bombardment

The battle of the Somme began with constant artillery bombardment of the German trenches for five days. The aim of this bombardment was to break down the German trenches also to break down the barbed wire protecting the German trenches.

The British generals were very naive before launching the first soldiers that were going to go over ‘no mans land,’ the British generals expected “nothing to be alive” in the Germans trenches due to the heavy artillery bombardment.

Haig told his men to walk across ‘no mans land’ because he said there wouldn’t even be ‘even a rat alive’ in the German trenches. However whilst the Bombardment was taking place, the Germans had prepared deep dugouts underground to protect themselves from the artillery bombardment. Once the bombardment had stopped the Germans had time to prepare for the British soldiers advance.

A German troop who was in the trenches during the artillery bombardment at the battle of the Somme said ‘…The machine guns were hurriedly placed into position. A series of extended lines of British infantry was seen moving forward from the British Trenches … They came on a steady, easy pace as if expecting to find nothing alive in our front trenches.’

This shows evidence of a tragedy because men were ordered to walk across ‘no-mans land’ So many men wouldn’t have died due to this order. It was a major case of bad leadership and failure to assess the situation.

The first day of the Somme Summary

The generals also failed to see the loss of the men on the first day of the battle of the Somme and didn’t change their methods of which to fight this war with. On the first day alone the British suffered 60,000 casualties and 20,000 deaths.

The aims of the battle were to gain a major breakthrough to break the stalemate and force the Germans back to their home country. These aims were not met because they didn’t force the Germans back to Germany. There was a type of breakthrough where as there was major fighting with each other with the idea to force each other back and forward, this did not work and Haig knew he was in for a battle of attrition.

Preparation Given to Soldiers

The generals didn’t make sure their soldiers and officers were adequately prepared.

The Soldiers thought they ...

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Preparation Given to Soldiers

The generals didn’t make sure their soldiers and officers were adequately prepared.

The Soldiers thought they were prepared to go over the top because of the artillery bombardment after this they were told to walk across no-mans land because the generals expected nothing to be alive in the German trenches. The British had dug tunnels underneath the German trenches and packed them with explosives. These were detonated at 7.28am on the 1st of July. Then immediately whistles were blown and the soldiers were ordered over the top. Each man carried:

Gas mask
Groundsheet
Field dressing
Trench spade
150 rounds of ammunition
Extras were such as sandbags and barbed wire

All of this added up to 80 pounds of equipment, which every man had to carry across no-mans land.

‘Thinking that the Germans had been destroyed by the bombardment, and fearing that their inexperienced soldiers would become disorganised in a rush attack, the generals had ordered the men to walk across no-man’s land.’ I don’t think this was sensible: the men should have been able to move quickly. The generals were very naive on this attack.

The officers were ordered to carry a pistol, they were leading their troops and so were easily marked out by a German sniper, as a result of this it caused chaos. Sergeant Jim Myers (rifle brigade) said, “The biggest mistake that was made in training was that we were never told what to do in case of failure . . . when it came to the bit, we didn’t know what to do.”

This is regarded as such a tragedy because men couldn’t run when they had all the heavy equipment on them and so were being fired at and couldn’t get away and were just shot dead or severely wounded they were like sitting ducks.

Generals refusal to change their tactics

The general’s refusal to change their tactics led to a war of attrition. The generals used the same continuous plan; this led to the same results from the start of war in July to the end of September 1916.

The generals were very naive; they underestimated the role of the machine guns, which led to unnecessary deaths. The generals just didn’t know the power of the German machine gun and how they could take out a whole battalion in seconds.

Although the generals underestimated the German machine guns they overestimated the British tanks. The British tanks were first used on 15th September 1916. The tanks were supposed to protect the advancing British infantry from the German machine gunners. At first sight of the tanks the Germans were scared and retreated to because they had never seen anything like the tank before.

The tanks were too slow so the Germans had time to retreat and even build up their defences. Most of the tanks broke down by the end of the first day of use or they got stuck in the mud. Haig was criticised for the use of the tanks before they were fully developed.

I think this ads weight to the claims of the battle of the Somme being a tragedy because men died due to Haig’s bad leadership and underestimation of machine guns.

The role of the Generals

All the factors I have mentioned in the previous paragraphs about the bad leadership of the generals ended in Tragedy. The consequences of the general’s mistakes were hundreds of thousands of men dying because of these mistakes. Quite clearly the generals were ill equipped for their jobs and made tragic mistakes and were responsible I think for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

However by the end of the battle of the Somme only 6 miles of ground were taken. The final casualties were British 415,000, French 195,000 and the Germans lost around 600,000. This shows that the British lost 415,000 men for the sake of 6 miles of land.

Nearing the end of the war people started to lose confidence in the generals and particularly General Haig. Most of all the troops had lost all respect for the generals and confidence in them, at the start of the war people were raring to fight for ‘king & country,’ but by the end of the war the soldiers couldn’t care less. Their own battalion shot many of their men for ‘cowardice.’ The troops had lost belief in the generals leading them to victory in the war.

There was a propaganda film made to try and persuade people into backing the war, people walked out of the film because they knew men that were dying, one woman screamed ‘they’re dying.’ The film damaged the morale on the British mainland showing what was happening in the war.

In the First World War men from the same village served in the same battalion. If the battalion were wiped out then there would be no men in many villages, friends and brothers fought side by side and so died side by side.

Conditions in the Trenches

The conditions in the trenches were horrendous. The worst problems for the troops were the rain and the cold. The artillery bombardment destroyed the drains of the battlefields; this led to the battlefields getting clogged up with mud, which many soldiers drowned in. If you had a small wound it was almost a certainty that you would get blood poisoning, gangrene and leading to death. There were hundreds of human corpses in the trenches, which also made disease a certainty. The rats in the trenches grew fat from all the human flesh. There was constant noise, and a lack of medical supplies with a shortage of food. The dead bodies caused a dreadful smell in the trenches especially in the summer Corporal Joe Hayles said; “There was a terrible smell. It was awful it nearly poisoned you . . . Wicked it was! Bodies all over the place. I’ll never forget it. I was only eighteen . . .” The men had to stand in puddles of water in the trenches for hours on the front line, which led to trench foot by the end of the war 75,000 men suffered from trench foot. The men knew if they were ordered over the top there would be a slim chance of returning, many men suffered from shellshock in the trenches this meant their whole body would shake and would sometimes develop a stammer. Every day the dinners for the soldiers were beef, a biscuit and jam.

For the soldiers the war was ‘mud, sleet, ice, mud, noise, jagged steel, horror piled on reeking horror.’ These were the words of an observer of the war telling you what the soldiers thought about the war.

For some men it was worse to recover, because they would be disabled or mutilated. In the trenches the troops didn’t get much sleep, they lived in constant fear of future attacks.

This could be described, as a tragedy because men had to live in real fear and dreadful conditions in the trenches.

Psychological effects on soldiers

The conditions that led to physical stress also had other effects on the soldiers these were psychological effects. Everyday the men had to live through the fear of death, injury, seeing men who they knew from back home dying in the same battalion beside them. The biggest fear of all for all of the men was going ‘over the top’ if they went over the top the men knew there was little or no chance of returning alive. The men also feared the thought of drowning in mud; these thoughts went through the soldier’s minds in the trenches constantly.

The noise was so loud constantly and horror led to soldiers suffering from ‘shell shock.’ Men even tried to get injured just so that they could be taken off the front line and would be safer for a couple of weeks or until they were fit to fight again. Men tried to run away or pretend to be mad, all this just so that they could get home, if they were thought to be doing this to just get home the men would be shot for ‘cowardice.’

One soldier said, “ the battlefield is fearful. One is overcome by a peculiar sour, heavy and penetrating smell of corpses. Men that were killed last October lie half in swamp and half in beet-fields. The legs of Englishmen stick out into the trench, the corpse being built into the parapet: a soldier hangs his rifle on them.” Seeing this everyday must have had some very damaging affects on the soldiers.

This could be described as a tragedy because what thousands of men had to go through and witness was ‘horrific’ “Men lived in constant fear of attacks from shells, gas and snipers.” This quote shows what the men thought about all day long which could send anybody crazy.

The psychological and physical effects the men went through for so little land. You cannot justify the deaths and strain the suffered wasn’t worth it for the small amount of land that was gained.

Changing attitudes towards the leaders

During the war soldiers attitudes changed on both sides. Corporal Harry Shaw (Royal Welsh Fusiliers) said, “Whatever was gained, it wasn’t worth the price the men had to be paid to gain that advantage. It was no advantage to anybody. It was just sheer bloody murder. That’s the only words you can use.” This quote shows this. The soldier’s morale was low and had lost all their faith in the Leaders and politicians running the war and just wanted the war to end it there and then.

At the beginning of the war men wanted to sign up for the war for the glamour and fighting for ‘king and country’ and didn’t want to stay at home because women handed out white feather s as a mark of cowardice. People at home were beginning to think the war would never end lost and faith in the politicians. You could tell that people were losing faith with a song that was sung in the trenches:

”Forward Joe soaps army,

Marching without fear

With our own commander,

Safely at the rear

He boasts and strikes

From morn till night and

Thinks he’s very brave,

But the men who really

Did the job are dead

In their grave.”

This quote shows what the soldiers thought of the war and how they wanted to go home to their families. Another song sung was:

If you want to find the old battalion,

“I know where they are…

They’re hanging on the barbed wire.

I’ve seen ‘em, I’ve seen ‘em,

Hanging on the old barbed wire…”

This poem shows that men thought they were going to die and shows you what was going through their minds. Some of the soldiers at the start of the war were singing ‘God save the king’ but by the end of the war a soldier said, “Towards the end of the war, we were so fed up we wouldn’t even sing ‘God save our King’ on church parade. Never mind the bloody king we used to say, he was safe enough; it should have been god save us.” This quote shows how they wanted to fight at the start and by the end couldn’t care less. Poor leadership, sheer human horror etc led to this change of attitude towards the generals and the war. I would describe this as a tragedy.

The battle of the Somme as a battle of failure

The failure of the generals know how to win the war meant that it was going to be slogged out and made the battle into a war of attrition, the generals mistakes were because of the bad leadership and poor planning. The failure of planning and preparation cost thousands of lives; the preparations were rushed just to help the French. The generals refusal to change their tactics led to the same results from the start of July to the end of September which led to thousands of death for a breakthrough that didn’t come for a long while. The new weapons were supposed to provide the breakthrough needed to end the war, the tank was supposed to provide this but the tanks weren’t developed and so broke down or got stuck in mud, the generals also underestimated the role of machine guns causing even more deaths. The tanks were supposed to protect men from machine guns but failed to do this because they broke down, men were also not protected by their own generals because they were naive. The generals didn’t try and adapt to the conditions and help their soldiers out of the terrible conditions. Over the battle of the Somme only 6 miles were gained with a high loss of life, which personally I don’t think, was worth the life of 1 man never mind thousands. The aims were not met in the battle of the Somme because there was a failure to find a breakthrough and all the high hopes were shattered.

Conclusion

By the end of the war both sides had suffered the same. I would say the battle of the Somme was an all round ‘tragedy’ not just military. Nothing was gained but a hell of a lot was lost. Men died for their country, but so many men wouldn’t have needed to die if there wasn’t such poor quality of leadership and preparation. General Haig tried to justify the amount of men lost by saying that the British won the battle. This is arguable because we lost over 400,000 men and yes the Germans lost more men, but you cannot say who won the battle because how many men they lost for just 6 miles of land. Who knows how many men we would have been lost if it weren’t for the fate of the weather, which ended the war due to the horrendous conditions. What the men had to suffer and the amount of deaths shows evidence of a tragedy, but the bad leadership also shows evidence of this, and then there is the fact that we didn’t win the battle after all the pain and suffering of the soldiers on both sides. Although Haig thinks ‘we won the battle,’ in my opinion he couldn’t have been more wrong, the battle was a complete failure. Approximately 1,115,000 men died for just 6 miles; did anybody actually win the battle?