The Somme 1916

The heavy losses on the first day of the Somme were more to do with German success than British failures


The 1916 Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles of the First World War, with more than one million casualties. The British and French forces attempted to break through the German lines along a 25 mile front north and south of the River Somme in Northern France.

The first day could be recorded as a German success because it was there preparations during the continued artillery   strikes they dug deep bunkers which sufficiently protected them from the attacks. Then when the British thought they were dead and   there equipment damaged they started a slow march across no mans land to attack the German positions but they just pulled there machine guns out and started a killing spree this killed 19,240 British soldiers on the first day. The weapons had a big roll to play for the British soldiers as without them they would have been slowly killed of one by one.

But the first day could also be down to British failures like the fact the artillery didn’t work. The failures of that day were started off by the artillery not doing its job and only twisting the barbed wire into even more deadly shapes. The artillery had obviously not been testing on a test battlefield. This was the first mistake. This then led the British commanders mistakenly thinking that they had lost lots of men and equipment and initiating a slow march towards the German trench. They then popped up from there trench and shot them all down. The British carried this on for days and weeks until they brought in there new invention. The tank.
So all in all it is both sides that caused this tragic battle as the Germans were very well prepared but also made many blunders and made it very easy for the Germans to win on the first day but in the end the British learned from there mistakes and brought in there new invention the tank which broke the German trench and hailed the downfall of...