Page 19 - History of War - Issue 30-16

THE SOMME: 1916–2016
One of the most famous
images of WWI was taken
on 1 July. The scene
depicts a ration party
of British soldiers in a
communication trench
any years after the event, a German the trenches of the Western Front, stretching
infantryman called Stefan Westmann from the English Channel to the Swiss border.
Mrecalled the i rst moments of the Throughout 1915, there had been a series of
Somme: “The British Army went over the offensives against the invading Germans, but
top. The very moment we felt that the British these had made little progress and resulted in
artillery i re was directed against the reserve huge casualties. The French lost 335,000 men
positions, machine gunners, German machine during offensives at Artois and Champagne,
gunners, crawled out of the bunkers, red-eyed, while the British had lost tens of thousands of
sunken eyes, dirty, full of blood [from] their men at Loos and Aubers Ridge-Festubert.
fallen comrades, and opened up a terrii c i re. To make matters worse, the Germans had
The British Army had horrible losses.” deployed poison gas on a large scale for the
Even this nightmarish description would prove i rst time at the Second Battle of Ypres in
to be an understatement. 1 July 1916 was the Belgium, forcing the British to abandon part
worst day for casualties in the entire history of the Ypres sector. The Entente allies were
of the British Army and a disastrous beginning caught in an unsatisfactory defensive position
to a campaign that has become synonymous along the Franco-Belgian border and, on 6
with the futile, deadly offensives of the Great December 1915, the high command met to
War. Tragically, it was not meant to be this discuss the war’s progress. The Chantilly
way. The war may have ended in 1918, but the Conference resulted in an agreement between
Somme was planned to be the offensive that the British and French for a huge combined
would end the war two years earlier. Because offensive with the maximum forces available
it so obviously failed, it has been tainted as and in the quickest time possible.
a monumental blunder ever since, despite
evidence for a number of small successes on
that was often ill-judged but highly ambitious “1 JULY 1916 WAS THE WORST
its i rst day and a level of strategic planning
and detailed. DAY FOR CASUALTIES IN
By 1916, the war had long descended
into a static nightmare. Contrary to popular
THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE
predictions, it had not i nished by Christmas
1914 and the armies of Britain, France and
Germany were locked in a deadly stalemate in BRITISH ARMY”
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