Battle of the somme
Storyboard Text
- The Battle Of The Somme July 1st 1916 - November 18th 1916
- The Battle of the Somme, fought in northern France, was one of the bloodiest battles of WW1. For five months the British and French armies fought the Germans in a brutal battle. Most of the British soldiers volunteered in 1914 so this was their first battle experience. The aims of the battle were to relieve the French Army fighting at Verdun and to weaken the German Army. Approximately 1.25 million men died.
- The British assumed that a lengthy bombardment would destroy barbed wire defences and eliminate the German front line. There was plenty of ammunition for the planned bombardment. Confidence was high. They said “nothing could exist at the conclusion of the bombardment in the area covered by it“ It would be a walkover to the German trenches across no mans land, but the bombing did little to the wire and the Germans waited in their deep dug outs.
- Keep a steady pressure on the Somme battle!
- At 7.20 am, a mine containing over 40,000 pounds of explosives was detonated under the Hawthorn Ridge, the German machine gun position. Many German soldiers were killed in the explosion but reserve soldiers had moved machine guns to the edge of the crater caused by the explosion, and fired on the British attack.
- 420,000 British Casualties
- 200,000 French Casualties
- Most casualties were men in their late teens or early twenties.
- 60,000 British casualties on first day of battle alone.
- At 7:30 am nearly 100k British troops walked towards the German front line. The British artillery remained silent to allow them to cross No Man's Land, but something had gone badly wrong. Machine guns tore apart the troops. The bombardment hadn't killed the Germans who had been sheltered in their well built dug outs and tunnels. Their heavy bombing had made sea off shell craters and the shrapnels hadn't broken the barbed wire, it tangled it, making it even harder to pass.
- The British did not break through the German lines on 1st July, Haig told them to keep going. The troops did their best, thousands were lost on both sides while getting nowhere. In the three months after 1st July 1916 the British continued to attack and gradually capture the German positions on the German front, and continued to suffer huge casualties. The last attack took place and Beaumont Hamel was finally captured on the 13th of November.
- Wear down the enemy troops!
- Another mine was placed under Hawthorn Ridge, but this time it was detonated as the attack began 5:45 am so the Germans couldn't see the attackers. Shells full of deadly gas were fired at German troops to make sure they could not join in the battle. They were supported by tanks and machine-guns firing over the heads of the infantry. Beaumont-Hamel was captured and 2,000 German prisoners taken. This time only 2,200 British soldiers lost their lives.
- 500,000 German Casualties
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