Why is the battle of the Somme regarded as a great military tragedy? The battle of the Somme started on July 1st 1916 and took place in the Somme

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Mark Whittle

History Coursework

Year 10

(Task 1)

Why is the battle of the Somme regarded as a great military                         tragedy?

The battle of the Somme started on July 1st 1916 and took place in the Somme area of France. The objective of the Battle of the Somme was to create a war of attrition. This meant the continuous bombing of the German trenches for seven days. The British army thought this would break the back of the German army and lead to a WW1 victory for Britain and the Allies.

        For many people, the Battle of the Somme was the battle that symbolised the horrors of warfare in , this one battle had a marked effect on overall  and seemed to epitomise the futility of

A military tragedy is caused by events during war such as loss of territory, failure of weapons and other unsuccessful events, which affect the army’s performance. However, a human tragedy involves procedures such as loss of lives, loss of family and friends and personal suffering. The Battle of the Somme was the result of both of these. I believe that the Battle of the Somme is regarded as such a great military tragedy because so much unhappiness was caused due to the amount of the strategy that went wrong. The fact that the tragedy was partly caused by delayed bombing, failed tanks an inexperienced soldiers highlights the fact that it is regarded as such a great military tragedy.

For many the Battle of the Somme is regarded as a great military tragedy. This is for many reasons, but in my eyes the biggest reason for this is the thousands of soldiers lost. In total the British army lost 419,654 soldiers, which is a daily loss of around 2,943 men. Overall, the first day of the Somme was a great failure. The British army suffered a total loss of 57,470, overall this meant there were 19,240 troops dead and 35,493 wounded, and this was an astounding blow for the British armed forces. Even after this disastrous first day General Haig still followed the same battle plan for another 4 months.

On the other hand you have to see the thousand of deaths, as General Haig would have, all those killed on the first day were volunteers. This is extremely sad if you look at it with a humanity aspect about it but Haig had done this purposely. Haig was using the volunteers to kill the German professional army troops; this meant he could keep the British professional army until later on in the war. The true inexperience of the volunteers did back fire on General Haig as so many lost their lives, the deaths of the soldiers enraged families as Haig had used them as a sacrifice almost so he didn’t loose any of his professionals.

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The fact that the French army withdrew from the battle because German invaded Verdun meant Haig had to make the decision whether to postpone the battle until a latter date. Haig thought about this but then he realised that if the Germans beat the French at Verdun, French would be out of the war, which we now know would of lead to Britain being defeated in WW1. Haig went ahead with the battle; this meant this once joint attack on the Germans was now being fought by half the troops that we had prepared to have. This meant even more ...

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