General Sir Henry Rawlinson
Henry Rawlinson commanded the British Fourth Army on the Somme and, in 1918, planned the offensive that broke the German line. Born in Wiltshire in 1864, the son of the Assyriologist who deciphered cuneiform, he was educated at Eton and Sandhurst and served in Burma, the Sudan and South Africa, where he was besieged in Ladysmith. He commanded a corps in 1914 and 1915, and after Neuve Chapelle and Loos concluded that with the artillery available, an attack could take a small bite of ground and hold it against counter-attack, but could not break through. He called it bite and hold. He was given the Fourth Army for the Somme in 1916 and was overruled. He wanted a short intense bombardment and a limited objective; Haig wanted a long bombardment and a deep advance. The compromise produced a week-long shelling that failed to cut the wire or destroy dugouts, and on 1 July the British suffered around 57,000 casualties, some 19,000 killed, on the first day — the worst in the army's history. He learned from it. He organised the successful night attack at Bazentin Ridge that month, and later insisted on combined operations. By August 1918 the doctrine had matured. At Amiens on 8 August he attacked without a preliminary bombardment, using predicted artillery fire, some 500 tanks, aircraft and infiltration tactics, achieving complete surprise. The German line collapsed some eleven kilometres, and Ludendorff called it the black day of the German army. He broke the Hindenburg Line in September. He died in India in 1925.
- Lived: 1864 CE – 1925 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: general
