Battle of the Somme
The British attacked on the Somme on 1 July 1916 and lost 57,470 men on the first day, of whom 19,240 were killed. The offensive had been planned as a joint Anglo-French operation and became mainly British when Verdun consumed the French army. The bombardment ran for seven days and fired some 1.7 million shells, and the infantry were told that the German wire would be cut and the front-line trenches destroyed. A high proportion of the shells were shrapnel, which does not cut wire, and up to a third were duds; the German dugouts were up to ten metres deep in chalk and the garrisons came up when the barrage lifted. The attacking battalions walked forward in lines at 7.30 in the morning because the New Army divisions were considered too inexperienced for anything more complicated. Whole communities were destroyed in an hour, since the pals battalions had been recruited by town and street. The battle then continued for four and a half months. Tanks were used for the first time in September, in numbers too small to matter and with most of them breaking down. The line moved about ten kilometres at its furthest. Total casualties were around 420,000 British, 200,000 French and between 430,000 and 600,000 German. The German army's own assessment was that its trained pre-war core did not survive it. The film The Battle of the Somme, shot during it and shown in Britain that August, was seen by some twenty million people within six weeks. It is the first time a mass audience saw its own army's war, including footage of men being hit, and part of it was staged.
- Year: 1916 CE
- Category: Military
