The Battle of the Somme

The Battle of the Somme was a horrific 4 month conflict that started on july 1 1916 in which over 1.5 million men died. The major players in this battle were the British, French, and Germans. This was the first use of tanks in any war. The battle was meant to end the war quickly and to draw Germans away from the ongoing conflict at Verdun that was sapping France's stregnth. The plan of attack was to pound the Germans with so many shells that there would be few germans left to fight. This was plans were made at the Chantilly confrence. The battle was headed off by a week long artillery barrage that started one week before the attack. The problem with a barrage of this size was that the smaller shells did little damage but ended up putting so many craters in the no mans land that when the troops did cross, they were easy pickings for the many, many undamaged german machine gun nests. Such was their overconfidence that there would be few germans left that the officers in charge of the initial assault commanded the troops to walk, not run or charge, walk over no mans land. The combined casualities on both sides of the first day were close to 65000(casualities include those wounded, captured,or killed). The news papers of the time covering the battle were wildly inaccurate, claiming that there were few British and French casualities and that the Allied powers had gained lots of ground (although the 7th division and XIII company had success capturing the first german line with few casualities). The british overran the german's second line eventually, causing them to retract from verdun, but with such disproportionate losses that this event will be forever infamous. This topic relates to the theme of "Taking a Stand in History" because The Battle Of The Somme was fought to, as I said earlier, stand up for the French and lighten their load.