Battle of the Somme | World War I

The Battle of the Somme, usually known as the Somme Offensive, was a World War I combat in which the British Empire and the French Third Republic involved the German Empire. It took place on both sides of the upper portions of the Somme River in France between July 1 and November 18, 1916. The combat was designed to speed the Allies' victory. The conflict involved almost three million men, with one million of them being wounded or died, making it one of the deadliest confrontations in human history.

Throughout the Chantilly Conference in December 1915, the French and British agreed to launch an offensive on the Somme. In 1916, the Allies coordinated offensives by the French, Russian, British, and Italian forces against the Central Powers, with the Somme offensive serving as the Franco-British component. The French army was supposed to lead the central part of the Somme offensive, with the British Expeditionary Force's Fourth Army supporting them on the northern flank (BEF). However, when the Imperial German Army launched the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on February 21, 1916, French commanders diverted several of the disunions destined for the Somme, and the British's "supporting" offensive became the main effort. The British troops on the Somme were made up of remnants of the pre-war army, the Territorial Force, and Kitchener's Army, a volunteer army formed during the war.

The French Sixth Army defeated the German 2nd Army from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank. The Fourth Army from Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road region on the first day on the Somme (1 July). The British Army suffered the highest number of losses, with 57,470 dead and 19,240 wounded. The front among the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, where the main German defensive effort (Schwerpunkt) was made, was where most British casualties occurred. The importance of air power and the initial use of the tank in September made the combat memorable, yet both were products of new technology and were notoriously unreliable.

British and French forces had advanced 6 miles (10 kilometers) into German-occupied territory along with the majority of the Front at the end of the battle, their most significant regional advance since the First Combat of the Marne in 1914. However, the Anglo-French army failed to achieve their operational objectives, failing to conquer Péronne and Bapaume, where the German troops had maintained their positions over the winter. In January 1917, British attacks in the Ancre valley began, forcing the Germans to make limited retreats to reserve places in February, ahead of Operation Alberich's planned retreat of around 25 miles (40 kilometres) Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) in March 1917. The battle's necessity, relevance, and impact are still being debated.

The Chantilly Conference held on the 6th, and 8th of December 1915 decided on the Allied combat strategy for 1916. Simultaneous offensives by the Russian army, the Italian army, and the Franco-British armies on the Eastern Front, Italian Front, and Western Front were planned to deny the Central Powers time to deploy soldiers between fronts during lulls. General Sir Douglas Haig succeeded Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF in December 1915. To push the Germans off the Belgian coast and end the U-boat menace from Belgian waters, Haig advocated a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes. Although Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre, the British on the Western Front played a minor role and followed French policy. Joffre had agreed to the BEF concentrating its efforts in Flanders in January 1916. Still, in February 1916, it was decided to undertake a united offensive across the Somme Waterway in Picardy earlier the British attacking in Flanders. A week later, the Germans engaged the French troops in the Battle of Verdun. The army was compelled to divert units meant for the Somme attack due to the costly Verdun defence, reducing the French participation to 13 disunions in the Sixth Army, compared to 20 British disunions. Thus, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive triumph had been reduced to a limited offensive by the 31st of May to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and inflict attrition on the German army in the westward.

The Leading of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, planned to finish the war in 1916 by severing the Anglo-French Entente before its material advantage proved unassailable. By threatening a sensitive location close to the current front line and tempting the French into counter-attacking German positions, Falkenhayn hoped to defeat the vast number of reserves that the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough. Falkenhayn decided to attack Verdun to seize the Meuse heights and render Verdun uninhabitable. The French would have to fight back on the ground occupied by the German army and ringed by massive amounts of heavy artillery, resulting in massive casualties and pushing the French army dangerously near to defeat. A quick relief offensive would be launched by the British, who would suffer comparable losses. Falkenhayn predicted that the relief offensive would fall south of Arras and be annihilated by the 6th Army. Although an Anglo-French onslaught on the Somme against the 2nd Army was almost imminent by mid-June, Falkenhayn only dispatched four disunions, leaving eight in the western strategic reserve. Despite having a shorter line with 17.5 disunions and three disunions in OHL reserve behind the 6th Army, no disunions were taken from it. Falkenhayn wanted the counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme front, once the British onslaught had been smashed, as evidenced by maintaining the 6th Army's strength at the cost of the 2nd Army on the Somme. If such Franco-British defeats weren't enough, Germany would assault both armies of both armies, effectively ending the western alliance. The unexpected length of the Verdun offensive, as well as the need to replace many drained units, depleted the German strategic reserve behind the 6th Army, which detained the Western Front from Hannescamps, 18 km south-west of Arras to St Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive approach northern of the Somme to one of passive and rigid defense.

Combat of Verdun

The Combat of Verdun began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to launch an attack on the Somme. The German onslaught at Verdun was designed to entice the French into fighting an attrition struggle. The German advantages in topography and weaponry would result in unnecessary deaths for the French. The fight altered the nature of the Somme offensive, as French units were moved to Verdun, and the French primary effort was reduced to a supporting attack for the British. The concentration of German men and weaponry on the north bank of the Somme was due to the German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French. By May, Joffre and Haig had shifted their hopes for the Somme assault from a decisive fight to the aim of relieving Verdun and keeping German disunions in France to aid the Russian army undertaking the Brusilov Offensive. In July, the German offensive at Verdun was halted. Men, artillery, and ammunition were evacuated to Picardy, paving the way for the French Tenth Army to be relocated to the Somme front. The Franco-British were able to strike on the Somme and Verdun in sequence later in the year, and the French were able to reclaim much of the land lost on the Meuse's east bank in October and December.

Brusilov Offensive

On the Eastern Front, the Brusilov assault (4 June – 20 September) absorbed the extra forces sought on 2 June by Fritz von Below, commander of the German Second Army, for a sabotage attack the Somme. On 4 June, Russian soldiers launched an attack against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of Armeegruppe von Linsingen and Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph over a 200-mile (320-kilometre) front from the Romanian border to Pinsk, finally advancing 93 miles (150 kilometres) to the Carpathian foothills. During the onslaught, the Russians suffered approximately 1,500,000 casualties, including about 407,000 prisoners. On the 9th of June, three disunions from France were ordered to the Eastern Front, and the sabotage operation on the Somme was called off. Before the Anglo-French onslaught began, just four more disunions were transferred to the Somme front, increasing to 102 disunions. Throughout the summer, Falkenhayn, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff were forced to move disunions to Russia to keep the Austro-Hungarian army from collapsing and undertake a counter-offensive against Romania declared war on the Central Powers on August 27. There were 112 German disunions on the Western Front in July and 52 disunions in Russia, 121 disunions in the west, and 76 in the east in November.

Tactical Developments

In the battles of 1914 and 1915, the initial British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of six disunions and the Cavalry Disunion had lost the majority of the pre-war British regulars. The Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army, which began organizing in August 1914, made up the majority. Due to the rapid expansion, many vacancies for top commands and specialised roles arose, resulting in many retired officers and inexperienced recruits. Douglas Haig had been the lieutenant-general in charge of I Corps in 1914. In early 1915, he was promoted to command the First Army and then the BEF in December, eventually growing to five armies with sixty disunions. The army's rapid expansion diminished the average level of experience among its ranks and resulted in a severe materiel shortfall. Due to the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army, it was unbearable for corps and military leaders to know the size of each Disunion, many officers resorted to directive command to avoid delegating to novice subordinates, even though disunional commanders were given great latitude in training and planning for the 1 July attack. Despite heated disputes among German staff officers, Erich von Falkenhayn maintained his firm defence stance in 1916. After the war, Falkenhayn claimed that the psyche of German soldiers, a lack of human resources, and a lack of reserves rendered the tactic unavoidable because the forces needed to shut off breakthroughs were not available. Higher losses, voluntary removals, and the consequence of a view that troops had the discretion to avoid war were preferred to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals, and the impact of a conviction that soldiers had the intention to avoid battle. Even after a more flexible strategy was implemented later, army commanders were still responsible for pullout choices. Falkenhayn's January 1915 construction plan for the Somme front had been completed.

Barbed wire barriers were expanded from one 5–10 yard (4.6–9.1 m) wide belt to two 30 yards (27 m) wide straps spaced roughly 15 yards (14 m) apart. Wire of double and triple thickness was employed, and it was laid at the height of 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52 m). The front line had been expanded from a single trench line to three lines 150–200 yards (140–180 meters) apart, with the first trench (Kampfgraben) occupied by sentry groups, the second (Wohngraben) by the bulk of the front-trench barracks, and the third trench (Landwehrgraben) by local reserves. The trenches were crossed, and sentry stations were placed into the parapet in concrete recesses. Dugouts were deepened from 6–9 feet (1.8–2.7 meters) to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 meters), 50 yards (46 meters) apart, and large enough for 25 men. The second line of strongpoints (the Stützpunktlinie) was constructed around 1,000 yards (910 m) behind the front line. Communication trenches led back to the reserve line, which had been renamed the second position and was just as well-built and wired as the first. The second position was out of range of Allied field artillery, forcing an attacker to come to a halt and transfer field artillery forward before attacking.

Anglo-French Plan of Attack

Following the Chantilly Conference, British aims altered as the military situation changed. The French casualties at Verdun decreased the contribution available for the Somme offensive, making the start of operations on the Somme more urgent. The British took the lead in the attack, and on June 16, Haig characterized the offensive's objectives as relieving pressure on the French at Verdun and inflicting losses on the Germans. The British Fourth Military was to arrest 27,000 yards (25,000 m) of the German front line from Montauban to Serre after a five-day artillery bombardment, and the Third Army was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. The Fourth Military was to take the German second place from Pozières to the Ancre, and then the second place south of the Albert–Bapaume road, in preparation for an attack on the German third place south of the road towards Flers, where the Reserve Army, which included three cavalry disunions, would exploit the success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The French Sixth Army would launch a subsidiary attack to protect the right flank of the leading British invasion, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to the Somme and two companies on the south bank southwards to Foucaucourt.

Betrayal of British Plans

In 2016, research into German archives revealed that two politically unhappy troops from Ulster had leaked the date and location of the British onslaught to German interrogators several weeks in advance. As a result, the German military invested heavily in defensive preparations for the British section of the Somme attack.

German Defences on the Somme

Later the Autumn Combats (Herbstschlacht) of 1915, a third defensive position was started in February 1916, 3,000 yards (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) back from the Stützpunktlinie, and was almost complete on the Somme front when the combat began. The German artillery was organized into Sperrfeuerstreifen (barrage sectors). Each officer was supposed to know which batteries covered his front line and which batteries were ready to engage moving targets. To attach the front line to the artillery, a telephone system was developed with wires hidden 6 feet deep for 5 miles behind the front line. However, the Somme defences had two intrinsic flaws that the rebuilding had not addressed. First, the front trenches were on a forward slope, with white chalk from the subsoil lining them and visible from the ground. Second, the defences were crowded to the front channel, with a troop having two battalions close to the front-trench arrangement and the reserve battalion separated among the Stützpunktlinie and the second location, all within 2,000 yards (1,800 meters) of no man's land and most troops within 1,000 yards (910 meters) of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops on the front line on a forward slope ensured that it would be subjected to the brunt of an artillery barrage, which ground observers along clearly delineated lines would direct.

First Phase

Combat of Albert, 1–13 July: The Battle of Albert was the first two weeks of the Combat of the Somme's Anglo-French offensive operations. On the southern set from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme northern to Gommecourt, two mi (3.2 km) beyond Serre, the Allied preparatory artillery bombardment began on 24 June the Anglo-French troops attacked on 1 July. The German Second Army was defeated by the French Sixth Army and the right-wing of the British Fourth Army. However, the British onslaught from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt was a disaster, with most 60,000 British deaths occurring there. Towards Joffre's requests, Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road to building on the success in the south, when Anglo-French forces pushed forward against the German second line in preparation for a general attack on July 14. Following that, a reviewal noted that the British companies present moved full-kit to the German site because of the overconfidence of general field NCOs after watching such a bombardment.

The First Day: The Battle of the Somme was the first day of the Battle of Albert and lasted 141 days. Five disunions of the French Sixth Army attacked the German Second Army of General Fritz von Below on the east bank of the Somme, eleven British disunions of the Fourth Army north of the Somme to Serre, and two disunions of the Third Army opposite Gommecourt. As a result, the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road mostly crumbled, and the French and the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road enjoyed "full success" on both sides of Somme. On the southern bank, the German defence was rendered incapable of defending against the further onslaught, and a significant retreat began; on the north side, Fricourt was ordered abandoned.

The British soldiers suffered a massive loss at the defenders' hands on the commanding ground north of the road, who suffered an extraordinary number of casualties. To collect injured from no man's land north of the road, many truces were struck. As a result, the Fourth Army suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 men dead, while the French Sixth Army suffered 1,590 losses, and the German 2nd Army suffered 10,000–12,000 deaths.

Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14–17 July: From the Somme, beyond Guillemont and Ginchy, north-west along the hill to Pozières on the Albert–Bapaume Road, the Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive line. The towns of Bazentin le Petit, Bazentin le Grand, and Longueval, near Delville Wood and High Wood on the ridge beyond, were the targets of the attack. At 3:25 a.m., four disunions launched an attack on a front of 6,000 yards (5.5 kilometres) following a five-minute hurricane artillery barrage. The attacking waves pushed up close behind the creeping barrage in no man's land, leaving them only a short space to traverse when the storm lifted from the German front line. Nevertheless, most of the objective was taken, and the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road was severely tested.

Still, the operation was abandoned due to British communication breakdowns, injuries, and disorganization.

Combat of Fromelles, 19–20 July: The Combat of Fromelles was a support attack for the Fourth Army on the Somme, 80 kilometres (50 miles) to the south, intending to exploit any weakness in the German defences on the other side. The offensive was rushed, the troops participating lacked trench warfare expertise, and the German defence's strength was "gravely" misjudged, with the attackers outnumbered 2:1. Von Falkenhayn had considered the British attack on the 6th Army to be the anticipated offensive on July 19th. The Guard Reserve Corps was ordered to be removed the next day to reinforce the Somme front by Falkenhayn. The Battle of Fromelles had cost the German defenders some lives, but it had won no land and deflected just a few German soldiers heading towards the Somme. The attack marked the Western Front debut of the Australian Imperial Force, and according to McMullin, it was the vilest 24 hours in Australia's entire history. The 5th Australian Disunion suffered 5,533 casualties out of 7,080 BEF casualties; German fatalities were 1,600–2,000, with 150 taken convict.

Second Phase

Combat of Delville Wood, 14 July – 15 September: The Battle of Delville Wood was fought to protect the British right flank while the centre pushed to take the higher-lying districts of High Wood and Pozières. The assault had evolved after the Battle of Albert to include conquering fortified villages, woodlands, and another terrain that provided artillery observation, jumping-off sites for additional attacks, and other tactical benefits. The equally expensive battle at Delville Wood stabilized the British right flank. It marked the Western Front debut of the South African 1st Infantry Brigade (which included a Southern Rhodesian element), who held the wood from July 15 to 20. When reassured, the brigade had lost 2,536 soldiers, equal to the casualties suffered by several companies on July 1.

Combat of Pozières, 23 July – 7 August: The 1st Australian Disunion (Australian Imperial Force) of the Reserve Army captured Pozières, the only British achievement in the Associated fiasco of 22/23 July, when a general attack joint with the French added south deteriorated into a sequence of distinct attacks due to communication failures, supply failures, and bad weather. The bombardments and counter-attacks by the Germans began on July 23 and lasted until August 7. The Reserve Army took the plateau north and east of the hamlet, facing the fortified village of Thiepval from the rear, at the end of the conflict.

Combat of Guillemont, 3–6 September: The Combat of Guillemont was an assault on the village of Guillemont, which the Fourth Army had conquered on the first day. Guillemont was stationed on the right flank of the British sector, close to the French Sixth Army's border. To the north, German defences encircled the British salient at Delville Wood, with opinion over the French Sixth Military zone to the south, towards the Somme river. The German security in the area was based on the second line and various fortified villages and farms north of Maurepas at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood, and High Wood, all of which supported one other. Some commentators judged the struggle for Guillemont to be the German army's best effort during the battle.

Foch, Joffre, Haig, General Sir Henry Rawlinson (commander of the British Fourth Military), and Fayolle conducted numerous meetings to coordinate combined attacks by the four armies, all of which failed. The immense counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the Somme coincided with a break in Anglo-French attacks towards the end of August.

Battle of Ginchy, 9 September: The 16th Disunion took the German-held settlement of Ginchy during the Battle of Ginchy. Ginchy is located 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) north of Guillemont, on the rise overlooking Combles, 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) to the south. Following the Battle of Guillemont, British soldiers were ordered to advance to positions that would allow them to observe the German third position in preparation for a significant attack in mid-September. On 3 September, British advances from Leuze Wood northwards to Ginchy began, with the 7th Disunion capturing the settlement until being driven out by a German counter-invasion. The arrest of Ginchy and the accomplishment of the French Sixth Army in its most significant attack of the combat of the Somme on September 12th allowed both armies to launch much larger attacks, which were sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve militaries, which seized much more ground and imposed c. 130,000 wounded on the German protectors during the month.

Third Phase

Combat of Flers–Courcelette, 15–22 September: The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was the British Army's third and final general offensive, which took Morval, Lesboeufs, and Gueudecourt by attacking an intermediate line and the German third line, which was joint with a French invasion on Frégicourt and Rancourt to enclose Combles and a secondary attack on the south bank of the Somme. The strategic goal of a breakthrough was not realized, but tactical gains were significant, with the front line advancing by 2,500–3,500 yards (2,300–3,200 m) and the German defenders suffering numerous fatalities. The Canadian Corps, the New Zealand Disunion, and the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps made their Somme debuts in this action.

Combat of Morval, 25–28 September: The Battle of Morval was an attack by the Fourth Army on the German 1st Army's Morval, Gueudecourt, and Lesboeufs, which had been the battle's final targets (15–22 September). Because of weather, the offensive was postponed to coincide with operations by the French Sixth Army on Combles, south of Morval. The combined attack was also meant to starve German forces further west, at Thiepval, of reinforcements before the Reserve Army's onslaught on September 26. Later in the afternoon, a limited number of tanks entered the battle near Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs, and Gueudecourt. The Germans suffered a high number of fatalities, while the French made sluggish progress. The Fourth Army's offensive on September 25th was it's most significant since July 14th, and it put the Germans in serious trouble, particularly in a salient at Combles. The Battle of Thiepval Ridge saw the start of the Reserve Army attack on September 26.

Battle of Thiepval Ridge, 26–28 September: Thiepval Ridge was Lieutenant General Hubert Gough's Reserve Army's first major offensive. It was designed to take advantage of the Fourth Army's attack at Morval by starting 24 hours later. Thiepval Ridge was heavily entrenched, and the German defenders fought bravely. At the same time, British infantry and artillery coordination deteriorated after the first day due to confusion in the tangle of trenches, dug-outs, and shell-craters. The Combat of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November) was the last battle where the British achieved their final objectives. Joffre's plan to proceed with forceful coordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became disjointed and ineffective in late September, coincided with a German defence renaissance, was thwarted by organizational issues and poor weather. Despite reorganization and massive reinforcements of troops, artillery, and aircraft from Verdun, the Germans struggled to resist the Anglo-French preponderance of men and material. September was the month in which the Germans suffered the most casualties.

Combat of the Transloy Ridges, 1 October – 11 November: The Combat of Le Transloy began in pleasant weather, and on October 7th, Le Sars was seized. When it became obvious that the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats, pauses were taken from 8–11 October owing to weather and from 13–18 October to give a systematic bombardment. In consultation with army commanders, Haig curtailed the scope of operations on October 17 by cancelling the Third Army's plans and limiting Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations in collaboration with the French Sixth Army. There was another break before operations started on the northern flank of the Fourth Army on 23 October, with a delay on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army front until 5 November due to more inclement weather. The Fourth Army discontinued offensive operations the next day, except for brief efforts to improve fortifications and deflect German attention away from Reserve/Fifth Army attacks. In January 1917, larger operations resumed.

Combat of the Ancre Heights, 1 October – 11 November: The Battle of the Ancre Heights was fought after Haig planned for the Third Military to take the zone east of Gommecourt, the Reserve Military to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont Hamel–Hébuterne, and the Fourth Military to reach the Péronne–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of the Albert–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt The Reserve Military attacked to complete the seizure of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west end of Bazentin Ridge surrounding Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts, which was beset by terrible weather. The Flanders Marine Brigade and new German disunions sent in from quiet fronts counter-attacked often, and the British objectives were not won until November 11th.

Combat of the Ancre, 13–18 November: The Combat of the Ancre was the year's final major British campaign. After the Battle of the Ancre Heights, the Fifth (previously Reserve) Army pushed into the Ancre valley to take advantage of German tiredness and gain ground in preparation for a resumption of the assault in 1917. Political calculations, concern about Allied morale, and Joffre's insistence on attacking France to block German force deployments to Russia and Italy all affected Haig. Another mine was exploded beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt to start the battle. Despite the failure of the attack on Serre, a brigade of the 31st Disunion, which had attacked in the tragedy of 1 July, was able to complete its objectives before being withdrawn later. Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre were taken south of Serre. St. Pierre Disunion was captured south of the Ancre, the suburbs of Grandcourt were reached, and the Canadian 4th Disunion won Regina Trench north of Courcelette, then Desire Support Trench on November 18. Until January 1917, there was a break in the fighting as both sides focused on surviving the weather.

Ancre, January–March 1917

The weather prevented British attacks on the Somme front after the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), and military actions by both sides were primarily limited to surviving in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, flooded trenches, and shell-holes. The British hoped to divert German attention away from the Somme front as preparations for the Arras offensive continued. From 10 January to 22 February 1917, British actions on the Ancre pushed the Germans back 5 miles (8.0 km) on a 4 mile (6.4 km) front, ahead of schedule for the Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre/Operation Alberich), and took 5,284 prisoners. On the 22 and 23 of February, the Germans retreated further 3 miles (4.8 kilometres) on a 15-mile (24-kilometre) front. On 11 March, the Germans retreated from much of the R. I Stellung to the R. II Stellung, averting a British attack that the British did not notice until after nightfall on 12 March; the primary German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich) began on schedule on 16 March.

Hindenburg Line

German Chief of the General Staff General Erich von Falkenhayn was fired and substituted by Ludendorff and Hindenburg at the end of August 1916,. On the 5th of September, at a conference in Cambrai, it was decided to construct a new defensive line further behind the Somme front. The Siegfriedstellung was supposed to run from Arras to St. Quentin, La Fère, and Condé, with a new line connecting Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. The Siegfried Stellung (Hindenburg Line) work began at the end of September to limit any Allied breakthrough and allow the German army to evacuate if attacked. The decision to withdraw to the new line was not easy, and the German high command debated it during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members desired to return to a line between Arras and Sailly, but the commanders of the 1st and 2nd armies wanted to stay on the Somme. On January 20, 1917, Generalleutnant von Fuchs stated, "The enemy's superiority is so enormous that we are unable to either fix their forces in position or prevent them from launching an attack elsewhere." We simply lack the necessary personnel. We couldn't win a second Somme fight with our men; they couldn't do it any longer, and half-measures were fruitless, so retiring to the Siegfriedstellung was inescapable. The German militaries on the Somme were ordered to retreat to reserve positions closer to Bapaume on February 14, 1917, after the British Fifth Army lost a significant amount of ground around the Ancre valley in February 1917. Operation Alberich commenced on March 16, 1917, further retiring to the Hindenburg Line (Siegfried Stellung) despite the original line being incomplete and poorly located in certain places.

After November 1916, the German army's defensive positions on the Somme were in terrible shape; garrisons were fatigued, and censors of correspondence reported fatigue and low morale among front-line men. The scenario made German commanders mistrust the army's ability to resist a restart of the fight. The German defence of the Ancre started to crumble under British attacks, prompting Rupprecht to order a retreat to the Siegfried Stellung (Hindenburg Line) on January 28, 1917. The proposal was rejected the next day by Ludendorff. Still, British attacks on the First Army, particularly the action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February), prompted Rupprecht to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. four mi to the R. I Stellung on the night of 22 February. The Germans fled on the 24th of February, protected by rear-guards, via relatively decent, later demolished roads. A thaw, which turned roads behindhand the British Front into bogs and disrupted the trains that fed the Somme front, aided the German evacuation. The Germans retreated from the R. I Stellung (R. I Position) between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit on March 12th, and the British reached the R. II Stellung (R. II Position) on March 13th. The withdrawal took place from March 16–20, covering around 25 miles (40 kilometres), giving up more French land than the Allies had acquired between September 1914 and the start of the operation.

In 1916, the British Army was primarily made up of inexperienced and poorly trained volunteers. The Somme was an excellent test for Kitchener's Army, formed in response to Kitchener's call for recruits at the beginning of the war. The British volunteers were frequently the fittest, most enthusiastic, and best-educated citizens. Still, they were inexperienced, and their loss was said to be of lesser military value than the Imperial German Army's remaining peacetime-trained officers and troops. The first day's British casualties were the most in the army's history, with 57,470 wounded, 19,240 dead.

The BEF learnt how to execute mass industrial warfare, which the continental armies had been waging since 1914, from British survivors of the conflict. The European nations had started the war with well-trained regular and reservist armies that we're wasting resources. "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German troops had been spent on the battlefield," wrote Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Britain's strategy against Germany, which was simultaneously at war with France and Russia, was to wage a war of attrition. According to one school of thinking, the Fight of the Somme but the German army under unprecedented strain. After the combat, it was powerless to swap casualties like-for-like, reducing it to a army. Philpott claims that by the end of 1916, the German army was exhausted, with a loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent defeats leading to its collapse in 1918, a process that began on the Somme, echoing Churchill's assertion that the German soldiery would never be the same again. Lack of rest exacerbated the destruction of German units in battle. Long-range British and French planes and artillery reached well behind the front line, where trench-digging and other activities left troops fatigued when they returned to the front line. Despite the German army's strategic predicament, it survived the conflict, withstood the Brusilov Offensive's onslaught, and seized practically all of Romania. The German military in the westward subsisted the massive British and French offensives of the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Combat of Ypres in 1917, even though at a high cost.

Over the Somme, the British and French had advanced around 6 miles (9.7 kilometres) on a 16-mile (26-kilometre) front at the cost of 419,654 to 432,000 British and about 200,000 French deaths, compared to 465,181 to 500,000 or maybe 600,000 German casualties. The conventional perspective of the battle in English-language writing until the 1930s was a hard-fought triumph over a brave, experienced, and well-led opponent. In August 1916, Winston Churchill protested the battle's conduct, while Prime Minister David Lloyd George criticized attrition warfare and condemned the combat in his post-war memoirs. When the 50th bicentenaries of the Great War engagements were honoured in the 1960s, a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood, and futility" emerged in the 1930s.

Transport

Until 1916, the BEF's transportation plans were founded on the idea that the war of mobility would resume soon, rendering infrastructure unnecessary because it would be abandoned. Where significant quantities of men and weaponry were concentrated, the British relied on vehicle transport from railheads, which was insufficient. When the Fourth Army's advance resumed in August, some urged that standard gauge lines should be built instead of establishing light railways that would be left behind. However, crossing the battered zone demonstrated that such lines or metalled roads could not be constructed rapidly enough to tolerate an advance and that waiting. At the same time, communications were restored allowed the defenders to recover. Through attacks on a 12 mi front on the Somme, the daily haul was 20,000 long tons, and a few wood roads and rail lines were inadequate to handle the number of lorries and roads. Thus, a sophisticated transportation system was necessary, which included far more workforce and equipment diversion than anticipated.

Casualties

Churchill, on the other hand, claimed that Allied casualties outnumbered German losses. He quoted the German Reichsarchiv data in The World Crisis (first published in the early 1920s, reprinted in 1938), showing that the Germans suffered 270,000 casualties against the French on the Western Front between February and June 1916, and 390,000 between July and the end of the year; he wrote that the Germans suffered 278,000 casualties at Verdun and that around one-eighth of their losses were suffered on "quiet" sectors. According to the figures, German forces on the Western Front suffered 537,919 casualties between July and October 1916, with the French inflicting 288,011 deaths and the British inflicting 249,908; German forces imposed 794,238 fatalities on the Entente.

In 1931, Hermann Wendt released a comparison of German and British–French casualties on the Somme, which revealed that Allied casualties were 30% higher than German losses. J. E. Edmonds reported in the first book of the British Official History (1932) that casualty comparisons were inexact due to varying methods of measurement by the belligerents, but that British casualties were 419,654, out of a total of 498,054 British casualties in France for the period. Anglo-French fatalities on the Somme were over 600,000, whereas German casualties were under 600,000. Using new statistics from the French and German official accounts, Wilfrid Miles estimated German casualties to be 660,000–680,000 and Anglo-French casualties to be just around 630,000 in the second volume of the British Official History (1938). M. J. Williams called Edmonds' addition of roughly 30% to German data, ostensibly to make them comparable to British requirements, "spurious" in 1964. McRandle and Quirk, who questioned Edmonds' calculations in 2006, counted 729,000 German casualties on the Western Front from July to December, compared to Churchill's 631,000, concluding that there were fewer German casualties than Anglo-French casualties but that the German army's ability to inflict disproportionate losses had been eroded by attrition. Sheffield claimed that Edmonds' assessment of Anglo-French casualties was correct, but Edmonds' estimation of German casualties was incorrect, citing the official German figure of 500,000 casualties.

According to Doughty, French fatalities on the Somme were "unexpectedly substantial," totalling 202,567 soldiers or 54% of the 377,231 killed at Verdun. Prior and Wilson based their estimates on Churchill's study, claiming that the British suffered 420,000 casualties (about 3,600 per day) while inflicting c. 280,000 German casualties. They provide no figures for French casualties or losses inflicted on the Germans. According to Sheldon, the British suffered "almost 400,000" casualties. According to the "best" German sources, British losses were around 420,000 soldiers, French fatalities were over 200,000 males, and German fatalities were around 500,000 males. With 419,000 British deaths, c. 204,000 French casualties, and maybe 600,000 German casualties, Sheffield stated that the losses were appalling.

Philpott referenced Miles' statistics of 419,654 British fatalities and the French official statistics of 154,446 Sixth Military fatalities and 48,131 Tenth Army fatalities in the Somme casualties’ controversy. German losses were "disputed," according to Philpott, with estimates ranging from 400,000 to 680,000. The high Allied casualties of July 1916 do not reflect how attrition shifted in the Allies' favor in September, albeit this did not last as the weather worsened. The blood examination is a basic measure compared to human resources reserves, industrial capacity, farm productivity, and financial resources, according to Robin Prior. Intangible factors were more influential on the war, which the Allies won despite losing the purely quantitative test.

The Battle of the Somme became the primary memory of World War I in the United Kingdom and Newfoundland. Every year on July 1st, the Royal British Legion, in collaboration with the British Embassy in Paris and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, commemorates the fight at the Thiepval Memorial to the Somme's Missing. On November 28, 1917, George V renamed the 1st Newfoundland Regiment "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" to recognise their contributions on the opening day of the fight. Newfoundland commemorates the opening day of the Battle of the Somme by honouring the "Best of the Best" at 11 a.m. on the Sunday closest to July 1st. The 36th (Ulster) Disunion's participation in the Somme is honoured by veterans' groups and unionist/Protestant groups such as the Orange Order in Northern Ireland. On July 1, the British Legion and others commemorate the fight.

The United Kingdom held a two-minute silence on July 1, 2016, at 7:28 a.m. British Summer Time, to commemorate the fight's opening, which began 100 years ago. BBC1 broadcasted a special ceremony, and all BBC radio stations participated in the moment of silence. The King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, began the silence by firing a gun every four seconds for one hundred seconds, followed by a whistle. After the stillness, a bugler sounded The Last Post, just like on Remembrance Sunday. Prime Minister David Cameron announced the pause during a speech, saying, "There will be a national two-minute silence on Friday morning. I'll be attending a service near the battlefield at the Thiepval Memorial, and the entire country should come together to honour the sacrifices of all those who fought and died in that struggle." A formality was apprehended in Heaton Park in north Manchester, England, on July 1, 2016. During WWII, Heaton Park was home to a massive army training centre.

From 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. on July 1, 2016, 1400 actors dressed in replica World War I-era British Army uniforms marched across Britain's streets and public open spaces. Each assumed the persona of a British soldier who died on the first day of the Somme and distributed information cards about him. They didn't say much, except to sing "We're here because we're here" to the tune of Auld Lang Syne now and then. "Ghost Soldiers" was the name of the event.

Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial battle in which the continental armies had been engaged for two years during the Battle of the Somme, which has been termed the birth of modern all-arms combat. The British commitment to the battle is seen as part of a coalition war and part of a process that shifted the strategic initiative away from the German Army and caused irreparable damage, eventually culminating in its defeat in late 1918.

Since 1916, Haig and General Rawlinson have been chastised for the battle's high human toll and failure to achieve their territorial goals. Winston Churchill, then out of office, addressed the British Cabinet on August 1, 1916, criticizing the British Army's conduct of the offensive, claiming that while the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was harming the British armies more than the German armies. Although Churchill was unable to offer an alternative, a critical perspective on the Somme has influenced English-language writing ever since. For example, in a series of three television programs in 2016, historian Peter Barton claimed that the Combat of the Somme should be considered a German defensive victory.

There was no tactical alternate for the British in 1916, according to John Terraine, Christopher Duffy, Gary Sheffield, Roger Chickering, Holger Herwig, William Philpott, and others, and that an comprehensible revulsion at British fatalities is inward-looking, given the millions of casualties suffered by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thinking places the combat in the context of a more significant Allied attack in 1916 and adds that German and French accounts of the conflict place it in a European context. Unfortunately, because so little German and French writing on the subject has been translated, much of their historical perspective and information of German and French military activities is unavailable to English-speaking audiences.

Differences of the question "Does Haig deserve to be labelled 'The Butcher of the Somme'?" appear in several British history textbooks. (Year 9) or "To what extent may Sir Douglas Haig be considered a butcher or a First World War hero?" The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) teaches students historical empathy, appraisal, and argumentative writing.