The Battle of the Somme was
planned by the British and French.
The french's help in the battle of the
Somme had to be cut back because the
French were already involved in fighting
off a vicious German attack in Verdun.
General Haig still went ahead
with the attack even though half
of the French troops were
fighting in Verdun.
The Battle of the Somme started on July 1st 1916
and ended in November 1916.
By the end of the battle, the British
had lost 420,000 and the french
nearly 200,000.
Field Marshall Haig and the others who led the British
campaign received a lot of criticism for the the battle
of the Somme was fought, mainly Douglas Haig.
The criticism was based on the
appalling casualty figures which were
suffered by the British and the French.
The Battle of the Somme was fought to
relieve the French from the Germans in
Verdun.
To relieve the French, the Allied
High Command decided to attack
the Germans to the north of
Verdun meaning the Germans
had to move their men away from
the Verdun battlefield thus
relieving the French.
The battle started with a week
long artillery bombardment on the
German lines where 1,738,000
shells were fired.
The plan was that the artillery
guns would destroy the
German trenches and barbed
wires placed in front of the
trenches.
This was supported by Field
Marshall Haig.
The Germans had deep dugouts which protected
them from the bombardment.
This meant that when the bombardment stopped,
The Germans would have known that it was a
signal for an infantry advance.
So all they had to do was move out of the
dugouts and go to the machine guns to face
the British and French.
The lessons oof the Somme
were that they developed new
tactics, such as; creeping
Barrads, Tanks, Ariel use and
commanders on ground.