The Battle Of The Somme Flashcards
The reason
- French had been taking severe losses at Verdun to the East of Paris
- decided to attack the Germans to north of Verdun, forcing the Germans to move some of their men away from Verdun battlefield thus relieving the french
Bombardment of enemy lines
Field Marshall Haig battered enemy lines with five day long artillery bombardment intended to destroy German barbed wire, wreck their trenches and kill all in them
Why did the bombardment not work?
Germans had deep dugouts for their men, into which they moved those in the front lines to keep safe
When shelling stopped they moved out of these within minutes and got their machine guns ready to face the British and French
Slaughtering soldiers
Not all shells exploded (badly made) some weren’t explosive enough to cut barbed wire - pointless
What happened after the shelling
Allied troops climbed out from trenches and were ordered to walk to German front lines
Many were slaughtered by machine gunners
Others were unable to cross un cut barbed wire, and were shot there instead
When did the battle end and how many died
November 1916
British had lost 420,000 men
French 200,000 men
And the Germans 500,000
Why was July 1st a failure?
- they planned so heavily that Germans knew what they were going to do (photos from planes)
- > they reinforced barbed wire so it was hard for soldiers to get through and shells were ineffective
- plan relied on Germans nearly all being killed, no back up plan if that didn’t happen, and some survived
- generals were out of touch with the front, often miles back, so thought all was going well
- most Germans were in trenches way behind the front
- British soldiers presumptuous
- attacked during daylight(7:30) , so Germans could see them and prepare
- told to advance at ‘walking pace’ -> generals too overconfident -> walking gave Germans time to get out and shoot
How many shells fired?
1.5 million
How many Brit casualties
57 000
19 000 killed
