"The Lessons of the Somme" Topic

"…of the First World War: the whistle summoning men "over the top" of their trenches to be instantly slain by machine-gun fire; mass slaughter for pitiful gains of ground; indifferent and incompetent officers refusing to acknowledge that their plans had gone desperately wrong. And then there was the mud, which also figured as the extra-horrible feature of that other great British and imperial fiasco a year later, the Battle of Passchendaele.

In the past quarter-century, revisionist historians have sought to amend the story of the Somme. They instruct us that the battle lasted not just a single day, but almost five months of continuing British attacks. The German losses over the length of the battle were probably even heavier than the British: more than 450,000 against Britain's 420,000. The first day of the Somme ended in catastrophe, and the campaign in futility, not because the British commanders were idiots, but because the problems they faced were too new and too hard. All these assessments have been absorbed by specialists, but none has made much impress on the public imagination.

What's been left behind, instead, is a memory of the Somme as the place—of all places—where the supposedly orderly certitudes of the Victorian era were bullet-riddled and smashed to bloody human fragments…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Lions led by Toothless Old Lions…

The Crawling Abattoir that "WAS" the Somme.

*Verdun* "Redux"???

CHRIST!!!

What a mad house.

I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Tactical thinking at the time had not adapted to the weapons that existed. This led to the carnage that was the Battle of the Somme.

True, but after the first few attacks they should have seen that the good old frontal charge was just not doing it any more.

But nope they kept on sending soldiers over the top to get slaughtered.

The idiots in charge did not learn and they were not leading any of these charges.

If they did they would have started to think about new tactics:

Like starting the Artillery barrage and continuing it while the troops went over the top and attacked.

Then when the troops were closing in on the enemy trenches they should have shifted the artillery fires to the enemies rear. So that they would hamper enemy forces moving forward.

@Mithmee,

Sorry, but I'm afraid that pretty much everything you wrote is wrong. Don't worry, though – many people in the UK also still believe this stuff.

A BBC documentary made a few years ago showed that the lessons learned on day one were being applied as early as two weeks later. (Incidentally, around 5/8 of the attacking battalions on day one never "went over the top" but actually infiltrated out into no mans' land and began their assaults from directly in front of the enemy trenches.)

The "idiots" you refer to, whilst not leading the charges per se, operated well within range of German guns and snipers to "see for themselves" exactly what was going on. About 200 British generals were killed or seriously wounded by direct enemy action in WW1 – a figure far higher than for the French (142) and German (258) armies, which both regarded officers as a "management asset" rather than to provide leadership. (Bear in mind also that (a) the French and German totals are for ALL causes – combat, age, disease, suicide, accidents, etc – and (b) that these armies were 2x and 3x the size of the British Army, respectively.)

After an attack, troops were given feedback forms to fill in, to provide information on what worked, what didn't, and why. It should also be remembered that the choice of the Somme was made by the French (and enthusiastically supported by British politicans), not by the British – Haig wanted to attack much later in the year and further north.

As regards artillery tactics, they did exactly what you wrote. I suggest you go and look up these articles:-

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Unfortunately, what people overlook is that it wasn't just the infantry who were "new" to warfare – the gunners mostly were recently recruited as well, and their performance during the preliminary bombardments often reflected this. This was in addition to the large batch of defective American fuses, and the poor quality of some of the ammunition being manufactured in the UK. It's also worth noting that where the gunners had to focus on two lines of German defences, rather than just one, the wire was either poorly cut, or not cut at all.

I would suggest that you forget "lions led by donkeys" – it's nonsense.

"… around 5/8 of the attacking battalions on day one never "went over the top" but actually infiltrated out into no mans' land and began their assaults from directly in front of the enemy trenches."

> Do you have a reference citation for the above comment? I'd be interested to read more about it.

B

I know it's only Wikipedia, but as a summary of 1 July, it's quite good. Scroll down to "Aftermath" which notes that 53 out of 80 battalions advanced from positions in front of the British front line trenches, either covered by the terrain, or in positions specially prepared for the attack. Another 10 rushed from their trenches, and 12 advanced at a steady pace behind precisely the type of creeping barrage that Mithmee claims the British high command never used.

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The numbers quoted are taken from "The Somme" by Prior and Wilson, published in 2005.

Personally, I would agree that Haig erred in trying to seize too much ground in the northern sector, which dissipated the artillery effort there to the point that the Germans were not neutralised in the same way they were in the southern sector, where both British and French forces had considerable success.

You have probably read it:

British Butchers and Bunglers of World War One
by John Laffin
ISBN 0 333 47715 4

Sobering to read.

Hump your pack and get a move on. The next hour, man, will bring you three miles nearer your death. Your life and your death are nothing in these fields – nothing, no more than it is to the man planning the next attack at GHQ. You are not even a pawn.

Guy Chapman, in a valediction to an anonymous infantryman in The Passionate Prodigality.

And yet, strangely, the "butchers and bunglers" won. Odd, eh?

Oh, and in doing so lost fewer men, both numerically and as a percentage of those in uniform, than every other major combatant nation – and most of the minor ones, too. Even odder……

Sobering? Not really – and certainly not as sobering as the reviews of Laffin's work on Amazon. If you want a proper assessment of British generalship in WW1, read "The Great War Generals on the Western Front" (Robin Neillands – a former RM Commando), or "The Chief" (Prof. Gary Sheffield), or…well…pretty much anything by a REAL historian, as opposed to some whinging Okker with a post-Colonial axe to grind.

SM – I hope that this thread is not headed in a "Great Britain won the First World War" direction. Statistical arguments of the sort you mention are unconvincing to me. Even after nearly 100 years, there is still no real consensus as to what the true losses were among the warring nations. Even if the claim you cite is true, a causation link must still be established to demonstrate that such pleasantly economical casualty figures were the result of good British generalship rather than some other factor(s). I by no means believe that the following was the case, but just for the sake of argument the very same claim could be made for an army that sat behind its defenses and avoided engaging the enemy.

Let's just say that I am extremely skeptical of "Official Histories" as they relate to WW1.

B

No it isn't – and it's pretty obvious that it isn't. I'm simply trying to show that some of the drivel being spouted on here is exactly that.

Incidentally, it was Pershing – no Anglophile – who said that Haig was the man who won the war.

There were instances on the first day of the Somme where generals had not appreciated the best way to use a preparatory barrage. At least one such, General Hunter Weston, was dismissed soon after the attack failed completely in his corps' sector.

The bigger problem was that the British army lacked the numbers of artillery, both heavy and field artillery. Field Marshals French and then Haig both pushed for more artillery and ammunition. More guns and shells were made available but not the numbers requested. And the ammunition proved faulty, causing increased numbers of premature bursts and duds that failed to explode. The latter problem affected the heavy- and super-heavy guns and howitzers. In some areas of the attack, large numbers of duds were lying on the ground as the British advanced.

Several divisional and corps commanders used additional support to get the attacking infantry into the German trenches. Along Mametz ridge for example, Russian saps were tunnelled through No Mans Land. The cover was blown off these as the assault went in, enabling the infantry to cross largely unscathed. More importantly, this tactic enabled supports to cross in follow up.

The Ulster Division got men well forward in No Mans Land before the artillery lifted. The assault teams had minimal distance to cross once the barrage moved forward. This enabled the teams to get into the German lines before the defenders could mobilise. Russian saps were not used, which meant that, once the German defenders recovered on either side of the break-in (which reached the German second line), the success could not be reinforced.

The major lesson, however, that was learned before the first day of the Somme was the need for width. Early in 1915, Neuve Chapelle had proved that a break-in was possible but the narrow width of the attack meant that the Germans could contain it. Not only could the artillery in the immediate area counter the break-in but the artillery on either side could too. This trebled the amount of artillery available to the Germans. These lessons were followed through in subsequent major attacks, with Loos being the immediate predecessor to the Somme. Loos was fought along a wider front than Neuve Chapelle but the lesson learned was the the next big battle (the Somme as it turned out) needed to be a wider front still.

In order to gain width, the attack was pushed north to Serre. In addition, an attack was put in by Allenby's Third Army on Gommecourt. It failed, as did the attack towards Serre. But both attacks had a very very important effect. The preparations for Gommecourt were repeated along Third Army's front. These preparations fooled von Falkenhayn into thinking that the main Allied attack would be out of Arras, north of the Somme. Von Falkenhayn refused to allow any reinforcements to be moved from von Rupprecht's Army to the north. The German commander covering the Somme, von Below, therefore did the only thing he could. He moved infantry and artillery north from the French and the southern end of the British sectors in the Somme. The reinforcements enabled the Germans to defend the northern end of the British attack but the British assault on Mametz ridge and all of the French attacks were completely successful on July 1st.

It is unfortunate that the comments about Laffin's work were tied to his being an Australian. Laffin is but one example of writers who took an approach that blamed the generals for being stupid and failing to learn. The danger of this approach, especially when it is poorly researched as in Laffin's case, is that we end up focusing on the wrong issues. The notion of the general's being donkeys, stupid and incapable of learning, raises the possibility that we just need 'smart and innovative' generals to win wars. We end up thinking that Stormin' Norman is such a general when we see 'smart' bombs dropping into the top of buildings in down-town Baghdad for example. A lightening assault across the desert and lo, what a wonderful 'victory'. All these years on, however, and the 'war' continues. It has a different form because the combatants have learned.

There is another aspect to this debate as well. We would not be discussing the casualties, except perhaps to laud how few there were, if Britain and the Dominions had had to play the part of the Soviet Union in WW2. My grandfather fought in WW1. He survived and was prepared to talk about his experiences. He was very clear. There were casualties because the Germans were very good and very determined defenders. So long as the Germans were not prepared to stop then it had to be war of attrition. So it proved with WW2, as it had done with the American Civil War before.

Let us not be fooled about why casualties occurred lest we miss the real point. War is awful and we need to do everything to avoid them happening in the first place.

Robert

At least one such, General Hunter Weston, was dismissed soon after the attack failed completely in his corps' sector.

As I recall it he had the good sense to see that a continuation of an attack that was just producing casualties to no advantage had no point so stopped the attack during the first day. The resultant low 'butchers bill' caused Haigh to sack him although he showed sensible command initiative.
The BBC are currently showing a very interesting history of the Somme battle to mark the centenary; it seems to be trying to make a good balanced argument with the merit of using German sources for additional data.

The attacks mounted by HW's corps were completely unsuccessful. The Newfoundland Regiment suffered the highest casualties of any British or Dominion regiment on the day. The other regiments that attacked were also heavily hit. As a result of HW's lack of success, flanking corps suffered heavily too, including the British corps south of the Ancre. The Germans on the higher ground around Beaumont Hamel were able to take 36th Division and elements of the reserve division in enfilade with MG and artillery fire from north of the Ancre.

My good friend was responsible for translating the material from the Bavarian archives for the BBC series.

Robert

It is unfortunate that the comments about Laffin's work were tied to his being an Australian.

I hold my hand up here; I did this because there was a wave of Antipodean (and also, to a lesser extent, Canadian) "historians" from the late 1960s onwards, who sought to claim that British generals had sacrificed the ANZACS in order to save the lives of British soldiers. Completely untrue, of course, as illustrated by Birdwood's popularity when he toured Australia after the war, but – rather like the Breaker Morrant controversy – it tends to stick in the Aussie consciousness.

We would not be discussing the casualties, except perhaps to laud how few there were, if Britain and the Dominions had had to play the part of the Soviet Union in WW2.

Did you mean to say "…had NOT had to play…"?

This is a point that John Terraine makes very well in his WW1 book "The Smoke And The Fire". It is worth noting that, if you take out the massive death toll from the Spanish 'Flu, UK combat losses in WW1 were not much more than they were in WW2, when – with all due apologies and respect to the 8th and 14th armies – we did almost no fighting on land for four years.

In WW2, the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the German attacks. If Britain and the Dominions had been responsible for bearing the brunt of the German military might then the casualty figures would have been vastly different, with losses in WW2 exceeding those of WW1 by a quantum level.

Robert

Ah, I misread you the first time. I agree entirely with what you are saying.

For the benefit of others, Haig's command on the Western Front was 10 times the size of the 8th Army at Alamein, more than 5 times the size of 21st Army Group in NW Europe June '44 to May '45), and 2.5 times the size of 14th Army at its largest (1945). At its peak, the Western Front army was almost the size of the entire British Army (ie globally) in WW2.

When I was little, instead of taking me to the park to play like my mother wanted him to, my grandfather would take me to a bar called "The Honeypot" where he and other WWI veterans hung out. I heard so many stories about the war from so many points of view (including German). I wish to God that I could've recorded what I heard for posterity.