Page 41 - History of War - Issue 30-16

THE SOMME: 1916–2016

the Germans. Delville Wood was important TO WHAT EXTENT DID THE BATTLE
particularly with the way they hung on after CONTRIBUTE TO THE EMERGENCE OF
they’d been given a very hard time trying to take TACTICAL AERIAL WARFARE?
the wood. They were able to hold onto their bit It became the starting point for huge
against a heavy German attack. improvements in techniques for example in air
photography, which became a very important
AUSTRALIAN CASUALTIES WERE HEAVY part of what the airmen on both sides tried to
AT POZIÈRES, BUT WHY IS THIS BATTLE do. Reconnaissance was the key to inding out
SO ILL-REMEMBERED IN THE YEARS what the enemy was doing on the other side of Above: A British lare gun that belonged to Sergeant
FOLLOWING IT? the hill and a lot of the battles that were fought E Gray of the 7th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment. Gray
died of his wounds attacking Fricourt on 1 July
For the Australians, Gallipoli gets prominence in the air between the ighters were to protect
because it’s the irst time that the Australians the reconnaissance aircraft of your own side. If standard and either didn’t go off or went off too
are committed to a battle of that size in their you were carrying out reconnaissance over the early. Better shells were produced which were
history, so it’s the signature battle. At Pozières, German lines, the Germans would come along able to cut the wire because, instead of digging
they were ighting on the Western Front for the and try and shoot you down so you had to have into the ground and then going off with a bang,
irst time and they had a lot to learn on how to ighters to protect your reconnaissance aircraft. which didn’t have any effect on the wire at all,
ight there but that’s no criticism of them at all. Many of the dogights were not just because they produced fuses that were so sensitive that
They did have very heavy casualties but chaps thought they’d like to go and have a ight they went off the minute they touched anything
they became one of the crack outits as part in the sky. What they were trying to do was gain and that helped to cut the wire. All of this came
of the British Army later in the war; they were air superiority over that sector of the battleield after the Somme.
put in where things were starting to go wrong so that reconnaissance aircraft could have a Thirdly, the gunners began to realise that
to put them right. This tends to overlay their free run at taking photos of the other side. you couldn’t just aim your gun by looking down
performance at Pozières. In a sense, there’s a the sights and iring directly, it all had to be by
natural inclination to try and forget about things HOW DID BRITISH ARTILLERY FIRE what was known as ‘indirect ire’. This meant
that didn’t go terribly well and play to the things IMPROVE AT THE SOMME? that the ire had to be observed by someone
that did, which is a perfectly natural thing to do. The British artillery improved hugely in a else using a telephone line correcting it and all
Everybody, including the imperial troops, number of ways. Firstly, they got better trained the techniques for that progressed as the war
learned a huge amount from the Somme. because when Britain entered the war in 1914 progressed and it got even better using by air
Somebody once called it, “The crucible of there weren’t enough guns to equip the newly photography. The gunners eventually, not in but
the British Army,” because huge numbers of raised artillery regiments. They trained on logs as a result of the Somme battle, were able to
lessons were learned about the use of artillery, and some artillery regiments ired their irst bring down ire without doing any pre-ranging,
the use of ire and movement and tactics on practice live rounds when they got to France in which gives away the fact that you’re going to
the battleield, which meant that everybody got 1916, so they obviously weren’t very good at it. ire on a target. They were able to call down the
much better and more expert. The Australians Secondly, there was the problem of the ire quite suddenly for a few minutes before an
made a speciality of it and they were among the quality of shells. Some of the shells that attack without the enemy realising that an attack
best troops on the Western Front. were produced in a great hurry were not up to was coming because it was all done so quickly.

British infantry go over the top at the
Battle of Morval on 25 September 1916.
Morval was a partial success in the later
stages of the Somme offensive

41