Brief overview
Intended to be a decisive breakthrough, the Battle of the Somme instead became a byword for futile and indiscriminate slaughter, with General Haig's tactics remaining controversial even today.

The British planned to attack on a 15 mile front between Serre, north of the Ancre, and Curlu, north of the Somme. Five French divisions would attack an eight mile front south of the Somme, between Curlu and Peronne. To ensure a rapid advance, Allied artillery pounded German lines for a week before the attack, firing 1.6 million shells. British commanders were so confident that they ordered their troops to walk slowly towards the German lines. Once they had been seized, cavalry units would pour through to pursue the fleeing Germans.

However, unconcealed preparations for the assault and the week-long bombardment gave the Germans clear warning. Happy to remain on French soil, German trenches were heavily fortified and, furthermore, many of the British shells failed to explode. When the bombardment began, the Germans simply moved underground and waited. Around 7.30am on 1st July, whistles blew to signal the start of the attack. With the shelling over, the Germans left their bunkers and set up their positions.

As the eleven British divisions walked towards the German lines, the machine guns started and the slaughter began. Although a few units managed to reach German trenches, they could not exploit their gains and were driven back. By the end of the day, the British had suffered almost 60,000 casualties, of whom nearly 20,000 were dead: their largest single loss. Sixty per cent of all officers involved on the first day were killed.

It was a baptism of fire for Britain's new volunteer armies.

Many 'Pals' Battalions, comprising men from the same town or same profession, had enlisted together to serve together. After early optimism, news of the scale of the losses broke slowly, often only once letters from surviving officers and comrades reached the families of the dead. For example, casualty lists only began to reach Grimsby on 10th July and, in many towns and cities, confused rumours bred panic and anger in the affected communities. In the Accrington Observer and Times, initial accounts of success quickly gave way to pages filled with names and photographs of those killed, missing and wounded. Percy Holmes, the brother of a Pal, recalled that "I remember when the news came through to Accrington that the Pals had been wiped out. I don't think there was a street in Accrington and district that didn't have their blinds drawn, and the bell at Christ Church tolled all the day." Few homes remained untouched: an epidemic of grief swamped the country.
 

The French advance was considerably more successful. They had more guns and faced weaker defences, yet were unable to exploit their gains without British backup and had to fall back to earlier positions.

With the 'decisive breakthrough' now a decisive failure, Haig accepted that advances would be more limited and concentrated on the southern sector. The British took the German positions there on 14th July, but once more could not follow through. The next two months saw bloody stalemate, with the Allies gaining little ground. On 15th September Haig renewed the offensive, using tanks for the first time. However, lightly armed, small in number and often subject to mechanical failure, they made little impact.

Torrential rains in October turned the battlegrounds into a muddy quagmire and in mid November the battle ended, with the Allies having advanced only five miles. The British suffered around 420,000 casualties, the French 195,000 and the Germans around 650,000.

Haig

"Kill more Germans" summarised Haig's strategy as Commander in chief of the British forces in France during most of World War One. His war of attrition resulted in enormous numbers of British casualties and his leadership remains controversial.

As a young officer, Haig fought in the Sudan, in the Boer War and held administrative posts in India. From 1906-1909 he was assigned to the War Office, where he helped form the Territorial Army and organize an expeditionary force for any future war in Europe. When war broke out in August 1914, Haig led the 1st Corps to northern France. In early 1915 he became commander of the 1st Army before succeeding Sir John French as commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force in December.

In 1916 Haig was responsible for the Battle of the Somme, which cost 420,000 British casualties over four months for minimal gain. The next year saw further stalemate: the US entered the war in April but the French command wanted to stay on the defensive until the first of the Americans arrived. This frustrated Haig, who was subordinate to the French general Robert Nivelle. From May he was given more authority and determined to defeat the Germans with a purely British offensive. The resulting Third Battle of Ypres from July to November 1917 (also called Passchendaele) saw further enormous British casualties that shocked the public back home. Passchendaele failed to reach Haig's objective - the Belgian coast - but nonetheless succeeded in weakening the Germans and helped prepare the way for their defeat in 1918.

Supported by King George V, Haig believed that the war could only be won on the Western Front. This caused friction with David Lloyd George, Secretary of State for War and Prime Minister from December 1916. Unlike Haig, he thought that the war could be accelerated by attacking from the east. However, Haig remained in his post and from March 1918 succeeded in stopping the last German offensive of the war (March-July 1918), before showing perhaps his best leadership in the victorious Allied assault from August onwards.

After the war, Haig organised the British Legion and travelled throughout the British Empire collecting money for former servicemen. He was created an earl in 1919
 

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