If you order your custom term paper from our custom writing service you will receive a perfectly written assignment on The Somme offensive. What we need from you is to provide us with your detailed paper instructions for our experienced writers to follow all of your specific writing requirements. Specify your order details, state the exact number of pages required and our custom writing professionals will deliver the best quality The Somme offensive paper right on time.
Out staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in The Somme offensive, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your The Somme offensive paper at affordable prices !
It was a perfect Summers day, sunny with clear skies. At 70am on the 1st July 116 the British army arose from their trenches preparing for the massive infantry advance. Little did they know, that this traumatic day would be the bloodiest twenty four hours in the history of the British Army. The question is, to what extent was the battle of the Somme a failure? The battle of the Somme proceeded from July till November of 116, during that period over a million casualties were sustained, and for what? A savage and brutal stalemate achieving only a small amount of the original aims intended. The Battle of the Somme was a complete failure from day one.
The Somme offensive was planned at the Chantilly Conference, January 116 by commander of the French army Joseph Joffrey and Commander of the BEF Sir Douglas Haig. It was planned that a battle would take place on the Somme River. Joffrey demanded that the date of commencement be brought forward as if it was any later he claimed that “the French army would cease to exist”, due to the on going battle at Verdun. Skillful defence from French army, unabled Germans to break French resistance at a pricely cost of 50 000 casualties to the French army and 6000 to the Germans. The battle of the Somme was necessary to relieve pressure at Verdun, however, land gain and breaking through was their closely followed second priority. Britian was able to launch an attack for several reasons. The munition factories had reached near capacity, the British army had reached a strength of 1 6 000 and was increasing at 100 000 a month. Conscription was introduced in January 116, a factor majorly contributing to the downfall of the British army due to inexperience and poor training of the Soldiers.
Haig held a consistent belief in “the offensive”. He saw defensive warfare as unmanly, bad for morale and overall, quite pointless. Not only did he see defence as worthless, he had blatant disregard for the modern tactics of warfare and current weaponry as referred to in Haigs statement. He stubbornly stuck to the out of date belief in the value of cavalry which proved to be a bigger hindrance then success throughout the battle. More training and experience was needed to master this tactic, not to mention, horses were time and effort consuming and expensive to provide for. His statement also referred to the use of Calvary in the future and it continued success, this again highlights his stubbornness and inflexibly reguarding the development of modern weapons and warfare tactics. Haig claimed that the machine gun was a much overrated weapon and made similar remarks about the use of tanks and airplane showing little knowledge of warfare tactics and inflexibility. Haig sought to achieve breakthrough of German line and break the stalemate on the Western Front. After a short period of time it was evident that due to Haigs foolishness and ignorance he had lead his men into a bloody stalemate that crushed the morale of soldiers. It is not hard see that Haigs judgement reguarding the use of Calvary was at a disservice to the British army and a major factor contributing to the failure of the battle..
The battle of the Somme was destined to failure before it even begun. Haig planned to launch a seven day artillery bombardment in effort to break the German defences, then send forth a limited offensive using fifteen divisions in 14 and force Germans to surrender, this extremely inflexible plan did not succeed for several reasons.
Buy cheap The Somme offensive term paper
The preliminary artillery bombardment had the unfortunate affect of warning the Germans that an attack was imminent giving them plenty of time to prepare for it. The German dugouts were well constructed and heavily fortified as shown in the illustration. Germans had prepared trenches not only for protection but as a tactic of warfare. Trenches were built with defence mechanism such as machine guns and barbed wire, defending from artillery and infantry assaults, thus preventing breakthrough. The robustly constructed dugouts completely protected the German soldiers from the British artillery bombardment and allowed them to obliterate the British soldiers as they walked across no mans land on the 1st of July. The illustration demonstrates an average bunker type built by the Germans in 116. These dugouts were usually - metres deeps and could house twelve men. Trenches were easily accessible for soldiers obtain machine gun fire. Most German dugouts consisted of one or more rooms lined with boards as clearly demonstrated in the source, well constructed dugouts assisted solider morale as it was a place were the men could rest and regain strength in a reasonably comfortable environment.
The initial bombardment began on the 4th June and continued for seven days. 5000 tones of shells were fired. Haig claimed “not even a rat would be alive at the end of it” however, the outcomes were entirely different to what he had intended. The memories of Corporal WH Shaw clearly express his experience of the faulty bombardment and the outcomes of July 1st 116.
British soldiers were lead to believe that there would be little of no opposition from the enemy and they would be greeted with empty trenches, however, Many of the British shells failed to explode leaving German defences virtually untouched in parts. Not only did many shells fail to explode but they were generally the wrong type. Shells needed to be high explosives to make any impact on German dugouts but only about one third of shells fired were highly explosive. The remainder, were Shrapnel shell, and while these created impressive craters and showers of mud they did little to effect German positions. The bombardment had not made any impact on the barbed-wire entanglements it had intended to as referred to in the Corporals memories. Not only was the barbed wire intact the German dugouts were almost completely sheltered from the attack leaving the soldiers ready to fire on the expected infantry advance.
Haig had instructed all soldiers to walk across no mans land as been practiced in training. The British soldiers began to emerge, some not even making it out of the trenches before being brutally gunned down by German Soldiers. Although the bombardment did not effect the Germans dugouts, it had managed to churn up the ground making it even more difficult for infantry to advance. As the men were expecting empty trenches they were instructed to carry sufficient food and ammunition to hold on against German resistance, this making packs extremely heavy and again making the advance diificult. As men emerged from the trenches they were simply mown down. One German officer quoted “When we started to fire we just had to load and reload. They went down in there hundreds. We didn’t have to aim we just fired into them”. The recollection by W.H Shaw clearly exhibits the disaster that occurred on July 1st. Human life was given no regard as they were “picked off like flies”. Almost no land was gained on that day, despite this shocking reality over 40 000 were injured and 0 000 lay dead. This day demonstrates distinctly the extent to which the Somme was a failure and a complete waste of human life.
Convinced of eventual success Haig allowed the bloodshed to continue despite the increasing losses and even after 4 months only 5 miles had been gained. Soldier morale had come to an all time low as the Battle of the Somme and had caused the destruction of the “finest flower of Britain’s young generation”. The lives of so many young men had been lost nonetheless the blood bath continued.
In September of 116 the tank was introduced to the Somme battle field. Due to Haigs lack of interest in modern warfare the tank was not used to its full ability and were it was expected to do great damage it did little but lower enemy soldiers morale. Source 4 is a photograph of the first tanks employed in 116, NOTE SPECIFIC FEATURES. It was decided that a large number of tanks would be assembled to launch a massed surprise attack in hope of breaking through German lines. A massed attack had a much greater chance of sustaining a breakthrough, yet many more tanks were required then planned as these early tanks were prone to a high number of mechanical failures, a factor which was not taken into account by Haig and other officers. By September 116 only 60 tanks were available, however, there were many other factors undermining the first use of the tank. The early tanks were difficult to steer, very slow at 6km/h and were bogged very easily. A skillful and experienced crew was needed to operate the tanks successfully in spite this fact, crews were only partially trained in using the tanks, and Commanders had little idea how to use them effectively. The tanks were first sent out into the mutilated and churned up ground of the Somme Battle field and were they entrapped deep in the mud making them an easy target for German Soldiers. Due to a lack of knowledge, the tanks were set against trenches more complex then what they were intended for and they were put to waste instead of being used in area were they would be practical. The tanks purpose was to provide and antidote to the machine gun and break the stalemate on the Western front however, due to misuse and the stubborn idea of past warfare tactics the tank was misused prolonging the loss of lives and progressing further away from any hope of the murderous battle ceasing.
For the Battle of the Somme to be a success it must have achieved some of the objectives that the campaign had originally intended. After the battle, Haig claimed that the battle had not been to break through the German lines, but to wear down the enemies strength using the war tactic of attrition. If this was so, the battle could have been considered a success, however, despite his claim it is clear from his orders before the battle and the later revealed diary concealment that attrition was not his original intent. Although the Battle of the Somme did relieve pressure from the French army at Verdun to what extent reguarding the loss of human life? The battle concluded with the appalling total of over a million casualties. Much responsibilities falls to Haig and assisting commanders, due to there inflexibility and stubborness, it is quite evident they had no mercy for the men that sacrificed there life due to there stupidity. A mere 8 miles was gained by the offensive during the period of the battle, yet even this proved worthless as it was later retrieved by Germans months later. Intended to be a decisive breakthrough, the battle of the Somme instead became a byword for futile and indiscriminate slaughter. Whole units died together and local newspapers were constantly filled with lists of dead, wounded and missing soldiers. The question is, To what extent was the Battle of the Somme a failure? No matter what outcomes were achieved during the battle of the Somme they is no specific way of describing the battle of the Somme a success due to the absoultute butchery of inocent soilders lives.
SOUCE 1
I believe that the value of the horse and the opportunity for the horse in the future is likely to be as great as ever…aeroplanes and tanks are only accessories to man and the horse, and I feel sure that as time goes on you will find just as much use for the horse-the well-bred house- as you have done in the past.
Book review written by Sir Douglas Haig 16
Extracted from J. Ellis, Eye deep in Hell Trench Warfare in World War I pg 76
SOURCE
German dugouts 116
Extracted from A.McCallam, Evidence of War pg
SOURCE
Our artillery hadn’t made any impact on those barbed-wire entanglements. The result was we never got anywhere near the Germans. Our lads were mown down. They were just simply slaughtered. You were either tied down by the shelling or the machine guns and yet we kept at it, making no impact on the Germans at all. And those young officers, going ahead, they were picked off like flies. We tried to go over and it was just impossible. We were mown down.
Memories of Corporal WH Shaw, Royal Welsh Fusiliers
SOURCE 4
BIBLIOGRAPHY
McCarthy, Chris (1) The Somme The Day by Day Account
Arms ad Armour Press, New York
McCallam, Anne (16) Evidence of War
Heinemann, Melbourne
J. Ellis (176) Eye Deep in Hell Trench Warfare in World War I
Pantheon. New York
Please note that this sample paper on The Somme offensive is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on The Somme offensive, we are here to assist you. Your cheap custom college paper on The Somme offensive will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.
Order your authentic assignment and you will be amazed at how easy it is to complete a quality custom paper within the shortest time possible!
