|
---|
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
Associated articles
|
The
Battle of the Somme
took place in
World War I
. The battle began on 1 July 1916, and ended on 18 November 1916. The battle was named after the French
River Somme
where it was fought.
On the first day the
British Army
had 57,470
casualties
, of whom 19,240 were killed. The
French Army
had 1,590 casualties and the
German Army
lost 10,000?12,000 men. The
Allies
planned to attack together, but the French were busy with the
Battle of Verdun
, so the main attackers were British. The cost of the battle, and the small gains, have been a source of
grief
and
controversy
in Britain. In German and French writing, the first day of the Battle of the Somme has been little more than a footnote to the mass losses of 1914?1915 and the
Battle of Verdun
.
During the battle of the Somme more than 1.5 million people either died, were wounded or went missing. This battle was the worst battle in WWI, especially from the point of view of
Britain
.
For five days the British fired
shells
at the German
trenches
to destroy them. At 7:30 am on 1 July the British
generals
ordered the British
soldiers
out of their
trenches
and to advance towards the German trenches. The German trenches were unusually deep, and the German soldiers were able to take the
machine guns
down during the bombardment, and bring them up afterwards.
Whole books have been written about this disaster,
[6]
[7]
[8]
but it is still not clear why it happened. It is very clear, though, that the
artillery
barrage failed in its objective. Where enough German
machine-gunners
survived, supported by their artillery, the British attack failed, with many casualties. The effectiveness of the defensive
weapons
decided the result. In such an environment, a soldier with a
bayonet
was
obsolete
and
infantry
formations
useless.
[9]
The
Germans
used
poisonous gases
as
weapons
at first. (This is now called
chemical warfare
.) Germany first used
chlorine
gas
. Death from chlorine gas was very painful, causing the victim to
suffocate
after suffering from burning pains in their
chest
. However, because of its
green
color and strong smell, chlorine gas was easy for the enemy to detect. It also blew back on the Germans when they used it. To protect themselves, they began to wear dampened
material
over their
mouths
and
noses.
Soldiers dampened this material with
urine
because it made these masks work more effectively. The British soldiers were given
cotton
pads and
respirators
.
The Germans began to mix chlorine gas with a different gas, called
phosgene
. Phosgene gas is colorless, more deadly than chlorine, and smells like moldy
hay
. A person does not get sick as soon as they inhale phosgene gas; it does not take effect until 24 hours later. Then the person’s
lungs fill with fluid
, which can cause them to
drown
.
The soldiers in the trenches used
rifles
. Most soldiers used the
bolt-action rifle
, which could fire 15
rounds
per
minute
and could kill a person as far as 1.4
kilometers
away. This rifle was invented in the
United States
by a
Scottish
man called
James Paris Lee
. The bolt-action rifle had a metal box where the
cartridges
were put on top of a
spring
. As the bolt opened, the spring forced the cartridges up against a stop and the bolt pushed the top cartridge into the
chamber
as it closed. After the rifle was fired, the opening of the bolt ejected the empty cartridge case and the return
stroke
loaded a fresh round. The cases held 3, 5, or 29 cartridges each.
[
source?
]
Both sides also used
machine guns
. These were so large that four men were needed to operate each one. They had to be put on a flat surface. They had the power of one rifle.
Larger
field guns
needed up to 12 men to operate them. They fired
shells
which
exploded
when they hit. The machine guns were a major force for the Germans, who used them to their full effect as the British forces simply walked over
no man's land
straight into the open gunfire. The British did not have access to many machine guns, which made their task even more difficult. The Germans were in a higher position than the British, which gave them the upper hand.
The first
tank
was called
'Little Willie'
, and it had a crew of three men. The maximum speed that it could travel was three
mph
and it was not able to cross the
trenches
. The first tank
battle
,
Flers-Courcelette
named after the two
villages
that were the objectives for the attack, started on 15 September 1916. Out of the 49 tanks that should have been there only 36 arrived. This was the first time that tanks had been used in
World War I
, but because they were only armed lightly and the
mechanics
of them often went wrong they did not make a great impact. However, casualties were low in the tank crews.
Mines (devices planted underground which explode when something gets close) were used to hurt and surprise the enemy. Anti-infantry
land mines
have been in use since the invention of
gunpowder
and were used in the defense of breaches of
fortresses
in the 18th and 19th
century
(the British
assault
on the breach at
Badajoz
suffered many casualties from mines). However, these were activated remotely by a defender lighting a very fast-burning fuse at the appropriate moment. The British used 11 mines on the first morning of the Battle of Somme to startle and damage the German front line. The holes left by the mines were used by the
Germans
for machine guns afterward. The soldiers that set the land mines were called sappers.
There was a lot of
disease
in the trenches. The
toilets
in the trenches were mainly
buckets
and holes. This made it easy for diseases to spread quickly. For example, many soldiers got
dysentery
, which causes
bloody
diarrhoea
. The diarrhoea is severe and can make a person so dehydrated that they die.
The
water
supply in the trenches was not very good. Soldiers collected
rain
water from the holes made by enemy
shells
. They added
chloride
of
lime
to purify this dirty water. However, the soldiers did not like the taste of the chloride of lime (which tasted a bit like modern
swimming pool
water).
The soldiers in the trenches suffered from
lice
. One man described them as "pale fawn in colour, and they left blotchy red bite marks all over the body.” Another soldier said:
"The things lay in the seams of
trousers
, in the deep furrows of long thick
woolly
pants, and seemed
impregnable
in their deep entrenchment. A lighted
candle
applied where they were thickest made them pop like
Chinese
crackers
. After a session of this, my face would be covered with small
blood
spots from extra big fellows which had popped too vigorously."
Lice caused severe
itching
and also carried a disease called
trench fever
(
pyrrexhia
). The first
symptoms
were shooting pains in the
legs
. This was followed by a very high
fever
. This disease did not kill the
soldiers
, but it did stop them from fighting. It was very common. From 1915 to 1918, between one-fifth and one-third of all British
troops
who got sick had trench fever; about one-fifth of ill German and Austrian troops had the disease.
[10]
Another common problem was
trench foot
. This was another
infection
, caused by standing in wet conditions for a long time and not being able to dry out
shoes
and
socks
. Trench foot caused soldiers’ feet to go numb, then turn
red
or
blue
. It can cause
gangrene
, which sometimes requires the foot to be
amputated
.
Brigadier-General
Frank Percy Crozier
argued that “The fight against the condition known as trench-feet had been incessant [never-ending] and an uphill game." The only way to get rid of trench foot was to dry the feet and change into dry socks several times a day. This was not possible in the trenches.
Mines
and shells injured tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides. In many cases, soldiers were so badly injured that doctors had to amputate parts of their bodies.
Because there were so many
corpses
in the trenches,
rats
were a serious problem. The rats carried disease and ate the corpses of dead soldiers. They ate the eyes first, then burrowed into the corpse and ate the insides. One
soldier
,
Harry Patch
, claimed the rats in the trenches were as big as
cats
. Another said: “The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself!"
The area between the two sides was called
No Man’s Land
. It was very dangerous because there was lots of
barbed wire
and shell-holes. Also, no man’s land was usually a sea of
mud
. The soldiers that “went over the top” (left the trenches to attack the enemy) were easy targets for
machine gunners
. On both the German and Allied sides, about 600,000 soldiers died in the battle.
The
Prince of Wales
served on the Somme as a Staff Officer. He was genuinely disappointed not to be involved in the fighting. However, his service influenced the rest of his life as Prince of Wales and
Edward VIII
.
Today, there are
cemeteries
, war
memorials
and
museums
on the battle site.
When
farmers
living near the battle site
plow
their fields, they often find remnants of
barbed wire
,
bullets
,
shrapnel
, and unexploded
bombs
. This is called "
iron
harvesting."
- ↑
Griffith, Paddy (1994).
Battle Tactics of the Western Front; The British Army's Art of Attack 1916?1918
. Yale University Press. p. 84.
ISBN
0-300-05910-8
.
- ↑
Williams, John Frank (1999).
ANZACS, The Media and The Great War
. UNSW Press. p. 162.
The definition of 'victory' after such a tremendous bloodletting during the Battle of the Somme is very much disputed by historians such as John Frank Williams.
- ↑
Sheffield 2003, p. 156
- ↑
The Battle of the Somme
,
historylearningsite.co.uk
- ↑
Wynne, Graeme Chamley (1976).
If Germany attacks: the battle in depth in the West
. West Point Military Library. Greenwood Press. p. 131.
ISBN
0837150299
.
- ↑
Middlebrook M. 1971.
The first day on the Somme
. London: Penguin Books.
ISBN
0-14-139071-9
- ↑
Farrar-Hockley A. 1970.
The Somme
. London: Batsford.
ISBN
0-72780-129-5
- ↑
Gliddon G. 1987.
When the barrage lifts: a topographical history and commentary on the Battle of the Somme 1916
. Norwich: Gliddon Books.
ISBN
0-947893-02-4
- ↑
Prior R. & Wilson T. 2005.
The Somme
. Yale University Press, p116.
ISBN
0-300-10694-7
- ↑
Justina Hamilton Hill (1942).
Silent Enemies: The Story of the Diseases of War and Their Control
. G. P. Putnam's Sons.