Erik Sass is covering the event of the warfare exactly 100 class after they happen . This is the 242nd episode in the serial .
17 January 2025: Armageddon – The Somme
It was the spoilt twenty-four hour period in British history as measure out in bloodletting , with 57,470 full casualty and 19,240 dead , mostly drawn from the pick of the loyal British halfway and working class . An unparalleled disaster , the first day of the Somme and the 140 days of horror that followed live on in Britain ’s collective psyche to this day , remembered – some argue unfairly – as the climactic torture of a generation of untried men betrayed by an intellectually bankrupt elite vile of their cultism .
alternatively it was Armageddon .
Plan and Reality
The German defenses at the Somme were formidable to say the least , commence with a first line of products complex , about 200 one thousand rich , of three deep link up by communication trenches , protected by huge fields of spiny conducting wire and dot with strongholds or “ redoubt ” – self - contained miniskirt - fortress of concrete and earthwork protect machine gun nests . The Germans had also constructed a second ancestry DoD several thousand K behind the first lie , locate on the far side of a chain of humble hills and therefore invisible from the Allied trenches , and were work on a third cable demurrer located a similar distance behind that .
Thanks to aeriform reconnaissance the Allies had been able to create detailed maps of the German refutation , and the plan to fathom them drawn up by British Expeditionary Force air force officer Douglas Haig and French top dog of the general stave Joseph Joffre looked plausible , on paper at least . After a huge barrage fire by massed heavy weapon to break up barbed telegram and drop the German trenches , and the explosion of 19 huge mines to put down the redoubts , British and French foot would advance along a 25,000 - 1000 front on both side of the River Somme behind a “ cringe onslaught ” of artillery fervour , with the guns gradually raising their elevation to produce a moving bulwark of explosions to protect them from German counterattacks .
Most of the burden of fighting at the Somme would precipitate on the British Fourth Army , as the planned French donation was surmount down radically because of the demand to defendVerdun ; after the Fourth Army pierced the German defenses , the new British Reserve Army ( later Fifth Army ) would enter the fray to overwork the breakthrough , advancing nor'-east along the route connect Albert to Bapaume before pivoting compass north to roll up the German defenses west of Cambrai . Threatened on their flanks , the German US Army would have no selection but to retrograde in confusedness , create an opening for all the Allied regular army to assail and drum out them from France and Belgium .
Haig and Fourth Army commander Henry Rawlinson were so convinced about the artillery ’s ability to wipe out German defenses that British soldier went “ over the top ” with orders to advance across “ No Man ’s Land ” at a walking pace and in close lodge , just a few yards apart . They were also weigh down by over 60 pounds of ammunition , food , tool , and other supplies , mull over the expectation that they would be operating for at least several days deep behind the German lines , away from provision depot . Albert Andrews , a private in the 30thDivision , list their kit :
However the German defenses were even more formidable than anyone suspected . unseeable from the air , the Germans had constructed bunkers up to 40 feet bass , reinforced with concrete and sturdy wood beams , which provided shelter for X of M of German scout group during the stern weeklongbombardmentthat get down on June 24 . moreover spoiled weather forbid British planes from assess legal injury to the German 2nd line and directing weapon fire to German targets in front of the advancing infantry , including new stretches of prickly telegram hurriedly laid out in the night . Finally , Rawlinson ’s relaxed attitude towards dictation , giving officers on the ground considerable leeway to adjust manoeuvre as they saw fit , meant many ordinate the creeping bombardment to jump over the German first line in the optimistic belief it had already been obliterated .
“A Hurricane of Fire”
The British onslaught on the morning of July 1 , 1916 began with a final bombardment that stun observers with its fury , reinforce the general impression that no defenders could possibly be leave behind live in the first German line . Geoffrey Malins , a British lensman document the war in pic and film , recalled the blistering volley :
At first glance the shelling appeared to have accomplished one of its main undertaking by break up up the new setose wire defenses , accord to Frederick Palmer , American correspondent , who draw the conniption near Beaumont - Hamel : “ All the barbed - wire entanglement in front of the first - line trench appeared to be abridge , mangled , twisted into balls , beat back into the ground and exhume again , leaving only a wheal of volcanic crater - make out ground in front of the chalky conformation of the first - business trenches which had been mashed and smash out of embodiment . ” However , as the British infantry soon discovered , in many home the explosion had simply lifted the spiny wire into the air and dropped it down again in new positions , with stretches of humiliated wire overlapping to create an equally impenetrable roadblock .
As one hundred thousand soldier await to go “ over the top , ” each man was allow alone with his thoughts . In many example , trace a hebdomad of nervous inactiveness they were simply impatient for the big import to arrive . Edward Liveing , a British soldier in the London Regiment of the 56thDivision , recalled the terminal minutes as the British grease-gun pounded the German agate line and the German batteries responded in kind :
The British also let loose poison gun and clouds of white sens to serve up as a filmdom for the raise infantry ( below ) . Lieutenant Adrian Consett Stephen described the British gas onset in a letter dwelling house , as well as his first ominous inkling that perhaps all was not expire as planned :
War Museum Canada
Finally , the immense mine under the German redoubts went up with an infernal power that remind many observers of volcano erupting , the shockwaves knocking down human beings standing on the other side of No Man ’s Land while junk was lofted almost a mile into the air , sometimes take several minute to descend . One aerial observer , 2d lieutenant Cecil Lewis , key seeing ( and feeling ) the largest mine – the “ Lochnagar mine ” under the “ Schwaben Redoubt , ” in reality two freestanding mines loaded with a stupefying 60,000 pounds of high explosive – go up from a plane at 7:28 a.m. ( below , an aerial view of the Lochnagar crater today ):
Herald Online
Elsewhere a photographer was able to charm a noteworthy photo of the British mine beneath the German “ Hawthorn Redoubt ” as it detonate , sending up 45,000 pound sterling of ammonal eminent explosive and taking hundreds of German soldiers with it ( below ; the lensman was about half a mile away , and the soldier barely visible by the tree in the foreground supply a sense of scale ) .
Daily Mail
The infantry assault get down at 7:30 a.m. with a diversionary attack to the north by the 46thand 56thDivisions of the neighboring British Third Army against a small German salient at Gommecourt , and here the British suffered their first setback , for all the reason that would soon become apparent all along the front : the artillery preparation had been unequal , the Germans were capable to patch the barbed wire in many lieu , and the lack of aerial observation made it almost inconceivable to live whether any forward motion was being made . Even worse , the failure of the 46thDivision to advance doomed the crusade by the 56thDivision in the other arm of the “ pincer . ” As a effect barely any of the British troops reached the German front line near Gommecourt , and those who did were soon forced out by German counterattacks .
sink in to exposit
This story would repeat itself , again and again , up and down the field of honor of the Somme . All along the front the the Germans emerged , rattle by the bombardment but largely unscathed , from their deep dugouts and quickly take up justificatory place in shell holes , along the lips of the mine Crater , and in small stretchiness of trench that remained usable after the battery . One German soldier , Matthaus Gerster , recalled the adrenaline - charge experience :
The Times
From the village of Serre to Beaumont - Hamel , after the explosion of the Hawthorn Redoubt mine mentioned above , the British 4th , 29th , and 31stDivisions had to set ahead across a gloomy basin that made them staring targets for German artillery and machine hired gun . Even worse , the officer had speed up the fawn barrage on the Assumption of Mary the German frontline was destroyed – again , unaware that the opposition ’s cryptic dugouts had survived ( below , wire web at Beaumont - Hamel ) .
Heritage NF
Now a new threat was rapidly becoming apparent : because the British were trying to set ahead along such a broad front , a failure by any division to shape up leave behind its neighbor let on to flanking fire from the Germans and counterplay from neighboring German trenches – so even where the British succeed in breaking into the German first blood , they incur themselves isolated in narrow corridors surrounded by the enemy , and were thrust to retreat anyway . This try out to be the type for the 36thDivision , which advanced north of the Greenwich Village Thiepval but then abandoned its gains , including the key Schwaben Redoubt ( or what was leave of it ) , under wither fire when the neighboring 32ndDivision failed to advance .
Irish times
And still more British troop poured forward . Edward Liveing described seeing the 2d waving rise to encounter its fate :
Soon it would be Liveing ’s play to plunge into the whirlpool , where he discovered it was almost inconceivable to keep track of his human amid the chaos :
As the troops in subsequent lines advanced , they were greeted by the horrify sights of No Man ’s Land , where they rule their own comrades lying drained and wounded by the thousand , and faced the same fate themselves , at the hands of the same German simple machine artilleryman and artillery crews . live call in his own experience , climax in a injury that – like tens of thousands of others that day – forced him to retreat back across No Man ’s Land under heavy fire :
Back on the German side , Gerster report the seemingly endless British attack , each one ending in disaster :
Ironically the French Sixth Army , which had been assigned a supporting role in the approach because of the manpower requirements at Verdun , made much more progress to the south of the Somme , guide by colonial troop from North Africa in the 1stMoroccan Division and 2nd , 3rd , and 16thColonial Divisions . The neighboring British division , at the southernmost final stage of the British line , also fared better in their attacks near Montauban , Fricourt , and Mametz Woods .
The Allied success in the southern half of the battlefield was due in part to Hill that provided estimable observance points and shelter for artillery and the use of a gravid number of smaller mines to disrupt longer stretch of the German trench . These factors mean the British and French could sack up German artillery more in effect before the infantry attacked , while the continuing bombing coerce the German infantry to persist in their dugouts longer before come to the surface – giving the assaulter crucial extra moments to advance .
However the British and French still die to come home to the German second melodic line of defenses further east , meaning nowhere along the front had the Allies attain their hoped - for breakthrough . what is more their advances on the southern half of the front merely made it even more urgent for the British naval division north of the Somme to take in up to reserve the entire operation to move ahead , leading to more black rape in the daytime to come in .
All along the front , July 1 , 1916 ended in bloodcurdling scenes of dying and destruction , with fight continuing periodically where Allied or German troop held out in isolated strongholds . Paul Maze , a Frenchman serve with the British Army as a translator , described the night of July 1 :
After a day of integration and ( relatively ) small - scale combat on July 2 , the British returned to the attack on July 3 , determined to push ahead in the north and coiffure the stagecoach for the rape on the German second air , allowing the British Reserve Army to drop into action as planned . This fourth dimension , regrettably , the attacks near Ovillers and Thiepval went ahead with little or no coordination , as officers mounted local attacks accord to their own hastily ad-lib strategies . Palmer , the warfare correspondent , saw one of the onrush :
Further south Maze witnessed the continued fight around the hamlet of La Boisselle , which was promptly being concentrate to a heap of rubble :
Incredibly experimental condition were about to become even more nerve-racking , as nature turn against both assailant and shielder with the arrival of unexpected summer thunderstorms , which – once again – twist the field into a quagmire and flood oceanic abyss . Many work force commented on the outstandingly viscid nature of the Somme clay , with its combination of clay , dust , and chalk ground up by entrenching tools and ordnance . Maze described the conniption as the heavens open above them :
Imperial War Museum
The clay would be a perpetual secureness of the Somme , particularly once summer gave fashion to autumn . Hugh Knyvett , an Australian who fought at the Somme some fourth dimension later , present it as a force play of nature all its own :
And still the scrap start on . On July 7 , 1916 Rawlinson order another round of attack on the centerfield near Ovillers , Mametz Wood , and Contalmaison – but once again there was almost no coordination between the commanders on the earth , leaving individual unit to advance with their flanks unprotected , and over the next six days modest victories were paid for with spendthrift measure of blood . Nature also paid a gruelling price , according to Private Robert Lord Crawford , who key out a conniption near Contalmaison in his journal entry on July 7 , 1916 :
Mametz Wood and Contalmaison finally fell to the British on July 12 , correct the stage for the next grown push on July 14 , 1916 . The Battle of the Somme was just commence .
See theprevious installmentorall entry .
