What went wrong with the British plan for victory?
The capture of the devastated French hamlet of Beaumont Hamel on 18 November marked the end of the main British offensive on the Western Front for 1916. An offensive that was to prove as controversial as any battle in history and one which would cast a dark shadow over, not only the British Army, but also the psyche of a nation for the remainder of the 20th century.The Battle of the Somme saw unprecedented loss of life and destruction for the British Army and also widespread condemnation for its leaders – especially its Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig. Haig has been vilified in popular rhetoric as the butcher whose incompetence lead to the senseless slaughter of thousands of his men, and the seemingly disastrous failings of the objectives set for the battle have long been levied at the feet of the austere Scot.
That the offensive failed to achieve the intended outcome cannot be disputed, but before acquiescing to the popular notion of ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ it is necessary to examine the complexities of the Battle - or series of Battles as the offensive was, to dissect the British Army’s performance and the failings it encountered during those blood soaked months of 1916.
The British Army had no alternative other than to commit her large army to a major offensive during 1916. Faced with pressure from her partners in the coalition France, Russia and Italy – Haig reluctantly agreed to a joint Franco-British offensive to take place astride the River Somme in Picardy. French plans were then thrown into turmoil by Falkenhayn’s German offensive at Verdun in February 1916 and the subsequent decision to cede no more ground – thus tying up thousands of French troops, and more importantly their heavy guns, which would have been utilized in the Somme offensive. Nonetheless, the British planning went ahead largely unchanged.
It was planned that an intensive artillery bombardment would crush the German defensive positions enabling Fourth Army to capture the enemy’s first, second and third lines. The Reserve Army, which included the Cavalry, would then exploit the open ground beyond by capturing Bapaume before rolling northwards all the way to Arras.
By any stretch of the imagination, Haig’s concept for victory was highly ambitious and his plan for a quick and decisive battle was at odds with the Commander of Fourth Army, General Sir Henry Rawlinson. Rawlinson was a strong advocate of the ‘bite and hold’ method of attack;
‘What we want to do now is what I call, ‘bite and hold’. Bite off a piece of the enemy’s line….and hold it against counter-attack. The bite can be made without much loss, and, if we choose the right place and make every preparation to put it quickly into a state of defence, there ought to be no difficulty in holding it against the enemy’s counter-attacks, and in inflicting on him at least twice the loss that we have suffered in making him bite.’[1]
Although Rawlinson did occasionally attempt to revert to his favoured tactic during the Battle, his failure to convince his superiors of the merits of this style of offensive led to him accepting Haig’s method of attack and, especially on the opening day of the battle, these were on the whole unsuccessful and costly. If Fourth Army had implemented the more realistic aims of the ‘bite and hold’ strategy, the outcome of the initial phases of the battle may have been different.
That the battle quickly developed into a Battle of attrition is also at odds with the character and original plans of the Commander-in-Chief. At heart Haig was a romantic whose plans to implement the cavalry to exploit any breakthrough, harked back to Napoleonic times. It can be argued that Haig was unprepared for the attritional struggle that transpired and this lack of a tangible strategy promoted a sense of disorganisation that permeated through his staff and corps commanders – making way for confusion and an inconsistency in attacks made during the offensive.
This is not to say that Haig did not embrace the mantra of modern warfare – he appreciated that artillery would have a vital role to play in any breakthrough, although the way it was utilised and its overall performance was a lesson to be learnt for future offensives – especially in 1918.
Due to the extensive defensive positions the German Army had dug into the chalk of the Somme region, the intensive British bombardment prior to 1 July 1916 had been largely ineffectual in inflicting mass casualties on a defensive force who, although traumatised by the constant inferno, were able to emerge from the safety of their dugouts to face the assault at 0730am on the opening day of battle. Add to this the failure of the shells, of which it is estimated that 1 in 3 failed to explode, to cut through the German barbed wire and it becomes apparent why 60,000 British casualties were taken on that one day alone. Worn out barrels combined with poor weather – rendering the air superiority enjoyed for ranging and observation ineffective – added to the inaccuracy and performance of the artillery.
Due to Haig’s insistence of an attack in depth, as opposed to Rawlinson’s ‘bite and hold’ tactic, there were too few artillery pieces given too much to do. Whereas Rawlinson’s plan would have allowed for a greater intensity of fire power to fall on a smaller area of attack, the Commander-in-Chief’s optimism for a major breakthrough and exploitation, in reality, lead to this firepower being too thinly spread along the whole line of attack thus actually denying the advancing troops adequate support.
The subsequent phases of battle saw smaller, localised attacks but without efficient and effective counter-battery work – the German artillery were able to concentrate murderous levels of fire in limited areas, inflicting severed losses and the attackers – as happened in the assault on Pozières where more explosive ordnance landed per square mile than anywhere else during the entire war.
The role of the troops has also to be considered. By the summer of 1916 Kitchener’s new army were in the field – in fact a number of them had already been bloodied at the disastrous Battle of Loos in September 1915. But what they made up for in morale and determination, the majority of them lacked in battle experience. The overriding image of these citizen soldiers is of wave after wave of Tommy walking to their deaths in parade ground-like discipline, lacking in any initiative and lacking in fighting ability. On the whole this argument can be discredited as there were numerous examples of determined, skilful assaults which only failed due to lack of artillery support or the indecisiveness of the senior commanders. The successes south of the Albert – Bapaume road at Mametz and Montauban on 1 July are examples of a breakthrough not being exploited, due to poor battlefield communication and indecisiveness from the commanders. German troops were seeing fleeing across open ground and small raiding parties found whole areas undefended. Despite this the troops were not moved forward and this lack of consistent continuation of attack was to prove a unfortunate theme for the rest of the battle – allowing the German’s to strengthen and consolidate defensive lines time and time again. This was never more so than following the initially successful assault on the Bazentin Ridge on 14 July.
Again on the 1 July the failure of 36th (Ulster) Division to hold the ground gained in the imposing Schwaben Redoubt near Thiepval, was due to lack of support and a contingency plan that failed to adapt to a situation that left the Ulstermen’s flanks exposed on either side. This was heightened by the ineffectiveness of British counter-battery fire prior to the assault which enabled the German artillery to swamp no-man’s land with a murderous barrage – in effect sealing the attacking troops off from any support. This scenario was typical of much of the front that day.
Troops in the majority of areas were left further exposed by the lack of an effective creeping barrage – the standard practice in later offensives. British guns on 1 July lifted their fire from the front line trenches at zero hour and started hitting the second and third lines – thus leaving the surviving German’s to take almost free aim at the advancing British with machine guns and small arms fire.
There were also strategic mistakes in timings – not least in the somewhat misguided decision to fire the great mine under the Hawthorn Redoubt at 07.20am – ten minutes before zero hour and eight minutes before the other detonations further south. That the surviving German troops managed to re-group and consolidate the resulting crater before the British attackers, lead to great loss of life in that area and also the loss of any surprise and confusion that may have been gained by firing the explosive immediately before going over the top.That the offensive was a traumatic and costly experience for the citizen soldiers of Kitchener’s new army cannot be denied but historian Paddy Griffith argues that the British Army which emerged from the battle was a more professional and solid unit which was now battle trained and in a position to launch a successful campaign in the following years.[2] This argument has some relevance but it is also relevant that the British suffered 432,000 casualties of which 150,000 were killed and a further 100,000 were severely wounded. In retrospect the battle destroyed the fighting capabilities of 250,000 men – of the men who fought on the Somme, one out of every two never fought again. The suggestion that Haig was now carrying out a battle of attrition and success was judged by inflicting greater losses on the enemy that were received does not stand up to closer scrutiny. Although figures were never officially published, it has long been quoted that the German Army suffered over 600,000 casualties. Following extensive research, Prior and Wilson give a rather smaller figure of 230,000 German casualties.[3] This startling statistic supports the theory that the aims of an attritional battle were now also failing for the British.
It can be said that the British Army’s lack of experience did play a role in the early weeks of the offensive but it was the inability of the commanders to formulate a consistent strategy for which their men could be utilised that contributed to the failure of the battle plan.
Whether the effectiveness of the attack would have been greater if the French had been involved to the extent as previously planned is also interesting. Their commanders were more experienced than the British and the French artillery were greater equipped than their British counter-parts – this is somewhat evident by the success of the British units who fought adjacent to the French Army near Montauban and who benefited from their artillery support.
But the fact that Falkenhayn launched the offensive at Verdun in February and the subsequent battle of attrition makes this viewpoint irrelevant.
In retrospect the simple fact is, the British Army of 1916 were not up to the task of achieving the over-ambitious plans set it by its Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig.
Inexperienced troops, inadequate artillery, poor communications and an inconsistency within army command were all underlying factors in the failure of the British battle plan.
The lack of any serious breakthrough by either side during the previous two years of war on the Western Front, despite numerous bloody offensives, is a stark testament to the difficulties the commanders had in breaking the stalemate.
It was a steep learning curve but lessons were indeed learnt by the British Army on the Somme, albeit at a heavy cost, and the development of new battlefield weapons such as the tank – first seen unsuccessfully at Flers in September – along with the complete restructuring of Infantry/Artillery cooperation lead to the eventual victory by the allied forces in 1918.
The Somme, as has been noted by many historians, is the battleground where the British Army lost its innocence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Prior & Wilson, The Somme (London, 2005)
Middlebrook, M, The First Day on the Somme (London, 1984)
Sheffield, G, The Somme (London, 2003)
Edmonds, Brig-Gen J.E, The Official History of the Great War, Military Operations France and Belgium December 1915 – July 1 1916 (Woking, 1986)
Brown, M, The IWM Book of the Somme (London, 1997)
McCarthy, C, The Somme – The Day by Day Account (London, 1995)
Charlton, P, Pozieres 1916 – Australians on the Somme (London, 1986)
[1] Maurice, F, The Life of Lord Rawlinson of Trent (London, 1928)
[2] Griffith, Paddy, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack 1916-1918 (London, 1994)
[3] Prior & Wilson, The Somme (London, 2005)
