The purpose of this investigation is to discover to what extent the Battle of the Somme was a defeat for the Allies.

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A. Plan

World War One involved many major battles that stretched all along the Western and Eastern Fronts. During this investigation I shall be exploring into, and talking about one of the major and significant battles, the Battle of the Somme which ran from July to November 1916. The purpose of this investigation is to discover to what extent the Battle of the Somme was a defeat for the Allies. In order to research and write about this investigation I am going to use two major sources for information on the Battle of the Somme. One of my major sources is a book about the First World War. The book is called World War 1, and is written by Susanne Everett with an introduction by John Keegan. This book covers much more than just the Battle of the Somme and in my investigation I will only be using the part of the book that talks about The Somme and Verdun (page 72-96). My other major source is the website http://en.wikipedia.org. This website has huge amounts of information on the Battle of the Somme. I will only be using certain sections of it.

Word Count: 190

B. Summary of Evidence

        The Battle of the Somme was an attempt by the Allies to avert some of the pressure from Verdun. At Verdun Germany was heavily bombarding the French, and they were close to cracking. Because the French were so weak at Verdun, the date of the battle of the Somme was brought forward. The Somme was on the Western Front, the place where the Allies were planning to attack was a 40 mile stretch of the line north and south of the Somme River. (http://www.wikipedia.org). This attack gained them 12km at the farthest point, however it cost them many thousands of lives.

The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st of July, 1916. This day was forever remember and is often used as a symbol for what happened in the war. The first day is also famous as some of the tactics used by the Allies are very questionable. In the Battle of the Somme, it was the Allies led by Haig and Foch, the two generals, fighting against the Germans led by Von Gallwitz and Von Below (http://en.wikipedia.org). Eight days before the start of the war the Allies begun heavy bombardment of the German front lines. This bombardment ended on the 1st day of the battle. On the first day of the battle alone it was estimated that 2 million shells were used. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~wausie/Somme.html). It was followed by a creeping barrage in the hope that the troops would walk through the Germans lines behind the bombardment. Everyone expected the Germans to be wiped out, and that they were going to receive almost no resistance. Some troops were even told “you will find the Germans all dead, not even a rat will have survived” (S. Everett, 89). This was far from the truth. The Allies met stiff German opposition and thousands were killed or injured. “The British had suffered 19,240 dead, 35,493 wounded, 2,152 missing and 585 prisoners for a total loss of 57,470.” It was also said at one point on the line, the ratio of British to German deaths was 18-1. (http://www.wikipedia.org).

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        After this first day, Haig continued the onslaught of the German trenches without much success. (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWsomme.htm) However, this proved to be very ineffective and after some time General Haig conceded that his tactics were not effective and the new tactic of attrition was used. This tactic meant that the troops would no longer attempt huge breakthroughs but rather try to slowly break down the enemy. This tactic was slightly successful as it gained them up to 12km at the farthest point; however it caused the death of many British and French men.

        New technology was also brought in to ...

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