Why Is The Battle Of Somme Important

Battle of Somme With over seven months of vigorous planning came one of the bloodiest battles in military history during World War I, known as the Battle of Somme. The four month Battle of Somme was the cause of over one million lives, endeavoring to conquer the Western Front between France and Germany. Among the amount of artillery shells intended to support the British, projected to be substantial in paving the way for ground troops to triumph over the enemy force. The battle, originally planned to be a quick and easy victory, turned to be a long and gruesome one. The lives sacrificed from The Battle of Somme generated new tactics, techniques, and procedures to follow throughout the war's end.
The Bosnian province apprehension by Austria-Hungary
in the summer of 1908 angered much of the local population. The population made conspiracies of an abrupt assassination to the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand. The assassination was a critical event in the setting, which ultimately led to the beginning of the First World War. During the planning phase of the assassination, seven young Bosnian Serbs joined in alliance. Many attempts transpired on Ferdinand's life, one being blowing up his personal car with an ordinance of some type. In fear of dying and for the safety of his wife, Ferdinand decided to return home. His decision to leave was not soon enough, resulting in the death of him and his wife (Cowley). Following Ferdinand's death, a number of occurrences lead to the beginning of the First World War. These actions started with the British Expeditionary Forces attempts to put a halt to rapid advances made by the Germans (Griffith). Throughout the war, The Battle of Somme was one of the bloodiest battles in military history. The battle resulted in over one million total casualties and brought forth lessons of wartime execution.
The planning began in late 1915, almost seven months before the Battle of Somme had begun. The original plan called for a French-British combined attack to the German lines within French land located near the Somme River. The currently existing battle in Verdun drained the French power from this attack on the Western Front, making the primary manpower the British troops. The German Chief of General Staff stated, "I will bleed France white in Verdun" (Duffy)! The advancement of the German power forced the French troops from Somme to reinforce their Verdun ground. The movement of French troops made the primarily British force first in the fight on the Western Front. The plan to pave the way for the soldiers on the ground was the steel rain of artillery shells. British artillerymen had an immense amount of strenuous work ahead of them. The British Commander in Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, called for eight days of continuous bombardment of artillery shells to destroy enemy fortifications and cripple the enemy forces (Duffy). Eight days of artillery would decimate almost any fortified area of defense. On 24 June, 1916 around 0730 hours, the whistles of war were blown. The whistle was the indication for the British artillerymen to begin the assault on the German lines.
Artillery was Commander Haig's plan of enemy terrain devastation.
It was the key to the offensive movement for the British to advance and destroy the Germans. Within the eight days of raining artillery steel, the British artillerymen shot 1,738,000 rounds (Cowley). It would equal up to 217,250 rounds of artillery shells per day. The thought behind Haig's plan of bombardment was to destroy the fortified trenches and barbed wire placed in front of the German trenches, paving the way for British troops. "The enemy's position to be attacked was of a very considerable character, situated on high, undulating tract of ground. They had deep trenches, bomb-proof shelters, and wire entanglements forty yards broad often as thick as a man's finger. Defenses of this nature could only be attacked with the prospect of success after careful artillery preparation" (Cowley). Haig knew the only way his men could gain land would be through fierce artillery. The vast amount of artillery came to the Germans as a bit of a surprise. The surprise lasted only the first day of battle. The beginning assault of artillery was a sign for the Germans to prepare for combat. The artillery surprised the German's not only because the tremendous amount of shells, but they were malfunctioning and not exploding on impact. The malfunctioning of artillery shells aloud the German's to develop slowly for a large-scale attack to their lines. German soldiers bunkered into their concrete bunkers to avoid the rain of
artillery, and then immediately refortified their lines of defense (Duffy). The unexploded artillery was unknown to the British-French troops. With the 200,000 plus rounds fired per day, it would be hard to determine if individual rounds were to not explode. The Germans, being on the opposite side of the firing, precisely determined they had many faulty rounds impacting behind their lines. It then gave the Germans the confidence to continue fortification of their defenses during the bombardment.
On 1 July, after eight days of shooting a tremendous amount of artillery, the British-French troops believed the subsequent ground attack would be a walk through. With confidence in their artillery, the forces continued the advance toward the German lines. The soldiers executed a frontal attack in broad daylight armed only with their rifles. The land between the British-French and Germans was an open field known as no man's land (Duffy). As the troops marched forward and confidently assaulted the German front lines, another surprise awaited them. The Germans let the British-French forces come within range of their heavy machine gun defenses and opened fire. The artillery did not do the damage the British-French anticipated. Instead, the German forces established fortification with manpower and defenses due to the malfunctioning of the artillery. The eight days let the German command call more reinforcements to assist in the defenses from the apparent future attack. As the machine guns open fire against the British-French troops, they decimate the dream of easily overrunning the German lines. The bloodshed caused by the German machine gunners was horrific to the British-French troops. At the end of the first day, British-French troops lost 57,470 troops to machine gun fire and conquered only a small portion of the Western Front (Duffy). The number of soldiers killed in action is a record high in all military battles for one day's loss of troops (Griffith). The British troops continuously attempting to gain territory deeper into the German lines became a repeating failure. The British maintained only the southern part of the Western Front for months before successfully gaining more grounds. It was not until Haig received the assistance of a few tanks in September that the British forces progressed further behind enemy lines. The battle continued a slow progress of uncertainty and thoughts of failure for a few remaining months. It was not until 18 November, 1916 that the battle had come to its conclusion (Griffith). The Germans were pushed from their lines of defense and controlled by the British-French forces.
To this very day, Haig's decisions to push forward considering the massive amount of deaths are in controversy. Some say the offense was important and to others a waste of good men for one's pride. The Western Front was a tremendous gain to the Allied forces during the war and provided them with an excellent advantage gained.
The Western Front was a well-thought asset during the Battle of Somme, as it brought many tactics and techniques that we still correlate to today's military.
During the Battle of Somme, the British developed a crucial learning point on the development of an operational mindset inside the Western Front. Although the improvement was perceptible, it did not quantify the ability to maneuver through the frigid rain and mucked field. Battlefield terrain displayed a significant role in regulating the character and outcome of many of these encounters. The appearance of low hills and ridges contributed the focus for many of the most famous enfeebling battles of the Western Front, as each side wrangled to attain the strategic advantage distributed by the high
landscape.
Despite a range of the collision of geology on trench establishment, tunneling, and water supply, few have considered terrain as a whole in influencing the outcome in the Battle of Somme. In the winter of 1916, the British developed a significant strategy in the battle, which focused to break through the German defenses on the Western Front. The British treasured ritual and moral values of a gas chemical that would breach the dominance of the Germans. However, this was only a theoretical solution. Non-reliant in the credence of gas, a further advantage to the assaulting troops was the capitalization of an unequivocal form regarding groveling barrage. Countered by the defenders soldiers and weapon momentum into no-man's land, it was significant to sweep the unified area with artillery fire. They produced a creeping barrage that rose in increments of 50 yards, so that it moved forward slowly, keeping pace with the infantry (Duffy). The firing batteries elevated their fire to become the forward outskirt of the barrage, and the scheme reduplicated to keep the barrage lurching forward without endlessly halting. Howbeit, the barrages would not correctly lift from one point to another, leaving unperturbed lines at undoubting hours. In spite, it was imperative that the infantry displayed gratifying surveillance to the line of the barrage.
Having the brainpower, the 21st Division assisted by the detonation of three mines beneath the German lines, giving them their unified name. The mines remained a pure diversion of craters. It was to provide an interruption to the pernicious flanking ammunition of the German machine guns. With the lead Battalion preceding forward, the support battalions followed within heels reach. The merciful artillery affected them from every direction, depreciating the size of their forces. Per contra, the 18-pounder gun was disputable of the British Artillery. Another field artillery gun soldered a 35-lb shell up to 6,600 yards with an exclusively looping trajectory (Griffith). The heavy artillery shells smashed down the German defenses causing a massive expansion in the siege batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery.
An advantage that the Germans had was long white chalk lines bending across the green hills of the Western Front. It was a tremendous asset from the subsoil and became easily seen by the ground observers. However, not only was it visible by the use of aerial observation through the Second-Line system, it was well out of parameter of the British field artillery (Griffith). General Haig from the British forces, wanted to continue his proposal attacks in the northern part of the Western Front between La Basse and Ypres. The disadvantage of the deliberate method was that they had to hold the German troops in their front. If the attack succumbed, it would have continued the attacks elsewhere from the Western Front. Britain's Commander in Chief believed the British Artillery would be well-founded enough to assure the dictatorship German artillery almost irrelevantly. Making the corps on the left bank, the economy of German General, General Falkenhayn, was now a distinct disadvantage. Despite the fact that the heavy artillery would navigate precisely, the divisional artillery was to manipulate repulsively, arrogating the Germans in the trenches of the Western Front. Since frankly bombarding before a conflict and then reciprocating to other targets proved fatally deficient, barrages supplied covering fire throughout the infantry assault. The German forces ensured their success with reinforcements. Details were always diverse with the situation, but the infrastructure was never distrust. As German tactics transitioned, so did the barrage, to the point where a light bombardment and a massive barrage would be identical. Increasing refinement in infantry tactics, artillery tactics, and combined arms tactics, granted a transformation to the focus of fire, away from a linear barrage. "A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. There is only one hospital, a single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands.