Page 25 - History of War - Issue 30-16

THE SOMME: 1916–2016

French troops preparing
to attack – location and “ENGLAND’S
date unknown
BEST SWORD”

EVEN THOUGH VERDUN LIMITED THE
FRENCH TROOPS AT THE SOMME, THEY
STILL LAUNCHED AN UNEXPECTED BLOW
By June 1916 the French army had been
engaged at Verdun for four months. The process
of bleeding it white, that General von Falkenhayn
had thought would bring the war to an end, had
failed. Douglas Haig had seen the French suffer
at Verdun, and came increasingly to believe
that his army was now the main Allied offensive
force. Joffre’s demand that the Somme offensive
should begin before Verdun exhausted the
French army’s reserves obliged Haig to advance
the start date of the campaign, although his own
troops were not yet fully trained.
causes of their check are to be found in the bluffs in front of the Bapaume-Péronne Road. Though the number of divisions the French
bad artillery preparation and the failure to mop Successive lines of defence were taken by could initially commit to the offensive reduced
up the trenches passed by the irst waves… the repeated, well-prepared, set-piece attacks. from 42 to 18, their ighting ability had not been
British do not yet have the ‘way’.” In the interim, however, dealing with German affected as much as Haig believed. General
Fayolle’s veteran French troops – the XX counterattacks and undertaking local small- Pétain’s ‘noria’ (waterwheel) system steadily
Corps had fought in Artois and at Verdun – scale operations to improve the jumping-off cycled divisions in and out of the Verdun battle
outclassed the keen but green volunteers of line for the next attack would steadily use up before they were fought out. Therefore, the
divisions committed to the Somme offensive
Kitchener’s army. After witnessing their initial French infantry reserves. Something more
check, Joffre assigned Foch a subsidiary effective was needed. maintained their potential.
On 1 July, some of France’s elite formations
objective – ‘train the English’. When Foch revived the offensive with a – the XX ‘Iron’ Corps and the I Colonial Corps
Their way was to serve the French army series of co-ordinated blows by the French
– began the offensive. Foch, who anticipated a
well as the offensive continued. Fayolle, an and British forces in September, the French long attritional battle, deliberately limited the
artilleryman himself, would not mount attacks army took the lead. General Alfred Micheler’s
number of divisions committed initially so that
unless the guns had been brought forward Tenth Army joined the battle south of the river he would have a reserve to sustain the offensive
to smash the German defences. South of on 4 September. Fayolle’s army struck several for some months.
the river on 2 July, colonial troops seized the strong blows north of the river, inally breaking The Germans had not expected such a heavy
German second position, having advanced through the Germans’ last line of defence along blow on the French front – some had started
their guns during night to pre-prepared forward the Bapaume-Péronne road and into open to think they would not attack at all – and had
positions for this purpose. Over the next few country at Bochavesnes on 12 September. concentrated their defensive strength opposite
days, they followed up the retreating enemy Unfortunately, this breach was too narrow to be the British front where, rightly, they expected
onto the Flaucort Plateau, high ground south exploited, and Foch reverted to his objective of the main blow to be struck, and where a defeat
of the river from which they could target wearing out the German army’s reserves. would be more catastrophic.
artillery ire to support the advance to the Only the onset of winter, which turned the
north. In all, the Colonial Corps advanced battleield into a quagmire and made progress Below: General Marie Émile Fayolle, commander
of the French Sixth Army, in discussion with
seven kilometres before their advance was dificult, saved the German army, whose General Henry Rawlinson
halted opposite the bend in the river in front manpower reserves were exhausted. The
of Péronne, the deepest penetration of the French attack stalled in mid-November in the
enemy’s lines to date. Unfortunately, a lanking muddy ields opposite Bois Saint-Pierre Vaast,
advance south of the river, however effective, a huge wood beyond the Bapaume-Péronne
was not going to overwhelm the main German road that the Germans turned into a fortress.
defences on the Somme. The year ended in anti-climax after the effort
Thereafter Sixth Army conined its advance and sacriice that the poilus had made for
to the north bank of the river, in support victory at the Somme and Verdun.
of the British attack to the north. Once the The French suffered 202,567 casualties in
British advance stalled on the Bazentin Ridge the entire Somme campaign, less than half
in mid-July, the French advance outpaced the British total, while taking more ground
that of Rawlinson’s army, fanning out on the north and south of the river and probably
inlicting disproportionate losses on the
enemy in front of them. It was a measure of
their experience and technique developed
during 1915’s costly battles – the sort of
apprenticeship the British army underwent
on the Somme. Foch concluded that the
Somme was, “A battle which worked, always
victorious, beating the Germans, pushing
them back. We should continue in this vein
The Adrian helmet as far as we can, denying them any freedom
was introduced to of action and opportunity, continue to beat
protect the head from them.” He was to put the offensive methods Images: Alamy, Getty
falling shrapnel
he developed on the Somme to good effect
in 1918 when, as allied generalissimo,
he drove the Germans from France in a
sustained three-month offensive.

25