Slaughter by timetable
The Battle of the Somme is a powerful image of the futility of war. But there were good reasons for fighting it and a terrible logic about why the battle plan failed. From the point of view of the teenage soldier, the generals were grey, old men. But on their decisions hung the fate of thousands.
The lead up
Stalemate on the Western Front
Trench kitchen: the construction and comfort of the German trenches amazed British
soldiers
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The First World War started in August 1914 and, by winter, both the Franco-British and the German armies on the Western Front (in France and Belgium) were deadlocked. Both sides built a system of defensive trenches, protected by barbed wire, sandbags and machine guns, which prevented the other side from advancing. After several battles in 1915, the situation on the Western Front by 1916 was one of total stalemate, with neither side being able to move forward.
For the young soldiers, this could be very uncomfortable. The trenches were very primitive, the rationale of the British generals being that if their trenches were too well made, soldiers would be discouraged from fighting. Whenever the British soldiers captured a German trench, they were amazed at how comfortable it was.
A strike on three fronts
At an international conference on 6 December 1915, the Allies – Britain, France, Italy and Russia – decided to try to win the war by attacking the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey – from all sides. So they agreed that the French and British would attack on the Western Front while the Italians fought in the Alps and the Russians concentrated on eastern Europe.
General Sir Douglas Haig became commander of the British army in France in December 1915. He favoured an attack on the German lines in Belgium, because it was near British supply lines on the French coast. But Britain was the junior partner in the coalition with France, so Haig had to comply with French ideas about the best place to attack.
French held at Verdun
The French idea was to attack the Germans on either side of the Somme River in Picardy, northern France, in the summer of 1916. Haig agreed in early February, but this plan fell apart when the Germans struck first, attacking the French fortress of Verdun on 21 February 1916. This unexpected attack led to a bloody battle of attrition, with both France and Germany losing thousands of men for no gain. To hold Verdun, French troops were siphoned off from the line at the Somme.
This meant that the British army had to take the main burden of the Somme attack. As the bloodbath at Verdun dragged on, the French became increasingly desperate for a British attack to relieve the pressure on them. Haig and the commander of his Fourth Army, General Sir Henry Rawlinson – both men in their mid-50s and experienced soldiers, but cautious fighters – came up with a plan.