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The British generals whose infighting lost the battle of the Somme
Strained relations between General Sir Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), and Sir Henry Rawlinson, the commander of the British 4th Army, are largely to blame for the failure of the battle of the Somme, says historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Writing for History Extra, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore explains how infighting lost the battle of the Somme... One of the questions that is often asked of me since I wrote my book on the battle of the Somme is: was there one event that led to the failure of the ‘big push’? It is hard to pinpoint one single cause, but if pressed I would specify the unhealthy relationship between two of Britain’s top generals. As mentioned in my book, they had very different views about how the offensive should be started. On the one hand there were the flamboyant views of General Sir Douglas Haig, the 55-year-old commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the eternal optimist. He was adamant that any attack plan should be ambitious, and should be calibrated so that there was at least the chance of a decisive breakthrough. If the plan worked, he wanted the coup de grâce to be administered by his beloved cavalry, the branch of the army where he had earned his spurs. On the other hand there were the more pessimistic opinions voiced by General Sir Henry Rawlinson, the 52-year-old commander of the British 4th Army, the organisation selected by Haig to carry out the Somme attack. If asked, he might have agreed that Haig was the British Army’s equivalent of Don Quixote, because like Cervantes’ fictional anti-hero, he did not face up to the real nature of what he had to assault. Lessons learned from previous attacks on the western front had convinced Rawlinson that Haig’s plan to break through the German multi-layered trench systems in one great rush, while desirable in theory, was unachievable in practice. The 4th Army’s commander believed that the most that could be accomplished on the first day of the Somme attack was the penetration of the front network of German barbed wire and trenches. The reason for his relatively unambitious approach was his realisation that to be sure of taking a trench system his artillery had to first cut the protective wire and pulverise the trenches. It was hard to accomplish this if the trench system targeted was too far away from the artillery – as was the case with the German’s second Somme position – particularly if it could not be seen from the British line. That explains why Rawlinson advocated pausing after capturing the first position while the artillery was dragged forward. Only then could the next stage of the attack commence, the softening up of the German second position, before the second assault went in. Rawlinson famously referred to his strategy as ‘bite and hold’. It required the attacker to bite off one German trench system at a time and, when selecting the objective, not to be too greedy. The men’s different expectations certainly made the planning of the attack more complicated. But they did not inevitably mean that the approach of one of the generals had to be totally ignored. Compromises reached after such creative tension can often capture the good points of both sides of the argument. However, for creative tension to produce constructive results it is essential that the opinions of both sides are given equal weight. That was not the case in this instance. Haig and Rawlinson had history: during the year leading up to April 1916 when the Somme plan was formulated, Haig had established a hold over Rawlinson way in excess of what should have been the case given their relative status. It meant the 4th Army’s commander was constrained when it came to challenging Haig’s tactics. The seeds of Haig’s unhealthy ascendancy, and of the resulting disaster that eventually ensued on the first day of the battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, were sewn during the British Expeditionary Force’s very first major attack in France. During the advance towards Neuve Chapelle on 10 March 1915, Rawlinson had made a mistake. He instructed the general of one of the divisions within his 1V Corps to use a unit to back up the assault on the German front system, when it should have been kept back so that it could carry on the advance after the first German position was breached. Rawlinson compounded his error by blaming the subordinate major general. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-154448900-647aaf3.jpg" width="850" height="630" alt="A formal portrait of Sir Douglas Haig on horseback at Poperinghe, 12 September 1917. Ministry of Information First World War Official Collection. (Photo by Lt E Brooks/IWM via Getty Images)" title="A formal portrait of Sir Douglas Haig on horseback at Poperinghe, 12 September 1917. Ministry of Information First World War Official Collection. (Photo by Lt E Brooks/IWM via Getty Images)" /> Matters came to a head when the major general complained that he was unfairly being made a scapegoat, and Rawlinson, humiliated, was forced to apologise. Field Marshal Sir John French, the then commander of the BEF, was all for sacking Rawlinson, but Haig, who as commander of the 1st Army was Rawlinson’s immediate superior, successfully argued he should be given another chance. Haig’s verdict, noted in his diary, was that “Rawlinson is unsatisfactory in this respect, loyalty to his subordinates. But he has many other valuable qualities for a commander on active service.” However, there were consequences. Although Haig’s intercession meant that Rawlinson was reprieved, it effectively neutered him. Unless there was a dramatic change in circumstances, never again could he challenge Haig without transgressing the unwritten rule between gentlemen that states that if a man saves your life or reputation then you must treat him like a brother, and never betray him. Rawlinson would have been particularly susceptible to the obligations imposed on him by such a rule. He was the archetypical English gentleman of the old school, whose actions and sense of right and wrong were strongly influenced by his family and their history. It was his family he had to thank for the baronetcy he had inherited, and their values would have been reinforced by the lessons about morality and chivalry he would have picked up while a pupil at Eton, Britain’s most prestigious public school, which was famous for the way it transformed the sons of rich and aristocratic families into pillars of the community. Although Haig, who had been a pupil at Clifton College, a less well-known public school, did not belong to the Old Etonian ‘club’, his money, contacts and subsequent education meant that he was to be treated as if cut from the same cloth. The rule that required Rawlinson to pay back Haig in kind would have been all the more applicable in this case because of the way Haig’s support acted as a shield against Sir John French on an ongoing basis. It was clear that French had a grudge against Rawlinson. The two had clashed over a proposed attack on Menin during the first battle of Ypres – and, in the aftermath of this, French had made it clear that Rawlinson was on his last warning. The mental torture inflicted on Rawlinson by French’s hostility was exacerbated by the fact that for weeks afterwards, whenever their paths crossed, French either totally ignored him or was studiously cold towards him. This naturally led Rawlinson to fear that French would seize on some other pretext to have him sent home. It prompted him to write in his diary: “I know Sir John will never forgive me for what I did at Menin, because he knows he was wrong and I was right. He is a vindictive little person and harbours resentment for years, so I don’t fancy I shall get any help from him.” Throughout this very difficult period, Rawlinson was comforted by the knowledge he had Haig’s support. That had been made abundantly clear to him. As Rawlinson recorded in his diary, after mentioning Sir John’s verdict, Haig had “then said he was quite prepared to fight my battles for me, and I might have every confidence in him. It was very good of him and I am certain I have a good friend and staunch ally… thanks to his strong character and personality.” Rawlinson’s daily jottings in his diary refer back to Haig’s steadfastness concerning this incident time and again. Whenever French’s behaviour made him feel insecure he would add a note repeating in substance the mantra he had recorded after his talk with Haig: “I feel quite sure I shall get justice in DH’s hands.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-463987013-fcd086c.jpg" width="1000" height="630" alt="King George V with General Sir Henry Rawlinson and General Congreve at St George's Hill, near Fricourt, 10 August 1916. From ‘His Majesty the King 1910-1935’ introduction by H W Wilson (Associated Newspapers Ltd, London, 1936). (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="King George V with General Sir Henry Rawlinson and General Congreve at St George's Hill, near Fricourt, 10 August 1916. From ‘His Majesty the King 1910-1935’ introduction by H W Wilson (Associated Newspapers Ltd, London, 1936). (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> With the benefit of hindsight, Haig’s promise that he would fight Rawlinson’s battles for him has a sinister ring about it, given what transpired. Haig was able to use his hold over Rawlinson to dominate him, and to require him to fight the Somme battle in the way he desired. The fact that Rawlinson could not challenge him might not have mattered, had Haig not become so sure that his strategy was the correct one. This confidence was partly a product of his belief that God would support the commander of the side in the conflict that had been wronged, partly because he had been brought up to believe nothing in life was insuperable, and partly because of his previous experience on the western front. On several occasions he had seen how opportunities in France and Belgium were not fully exploited because attacks were not ambitious enough. If Rawlinson had been determined to make Haig accept his relatively modest attack plan, he should have expressly explained all of the reasons why he was advocating a restrained approach. One of the most important factors was his belief that he only had enough artillery and shells to attack the front German trench system. He was relying on a ruling by his artillery experts who told him that he must have one heavy gun for every 100 yards of front line attacked. Applying that ruling to the Somme, he did not have enough guns even to capture the 20,000-yard front line he had originally selected. But he appears not to have mentioned this to Haig. If that is correct, it would explain why Haig felt he could with impunity order him to attack the German second position as well. Notwithstanding Rawlinson’s failure to point out the most important pitfall inherent in the extra depth of the thrust that Haig was requesting, no one can say that, prior to the attack, the 4th Army commander did not himself appreciate the dangers that were part and parcel of Haig’s demand. “I am not at all sure that we can undertake this further objective with the guns we shall have,” he wrote. “If we have to do too much, we shall water down the bombardment to such an extent that we may not get in.” But for some unexplained reason, Rawlinson did not explicitly apply the principles underlying his diary note. This failure was repeated in a memorandum he sent Haig on 19 April 1916. In this, he stated that while he could cater for the extra yards of front in the Montauban sector (by using one of the divisions he had originally earmarked for the reserves), it would be impossible without the provision of extra guns. But there was no reference to how the extra depth of the attack requested by Haig to the north of the Albert-Bapaume road made it essential that he should be given extra artillery for that as well. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-3278971-666c386.jpg" width="2400" height="1832" alt="A view of George V with his army commanders at Buckingham Palace, celebrating the Silver Jubilee. From left to right are Australian Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood, General Henry Rawlinson, Field Marshal Hubert Plumer, the king, Sir Douglas Haig, Lord North and Lord King. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" title="A view of George V with his army commanders at Buckingham Palace, celebrating the Silver Jubilee. From left to right are Australian Field Marshal Sir William Birdwood, General Henry Rawlinson, Field Marshal Hubert Plumer, the king, Sir Douglas Haig, Lord North and Lord King. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> The only points that Rawlinson would not give way on related to the suggested attack on Gommecourt (Rawlinson stated that he did not have the resources to include it in his plan), and the form of the artillery softening up process. Rawlinson, in his original plan, had favoured a 48–72 hour bombardment, over the alternative, a hurricane onslaught lasting just five to six hours. Haig had queried whether the former option might forewarn the Germans of what was to come, only for Rawlinson in his considered reply to counter that the hurricane version would not give the gunners time to cut the wire in front of the German trenches, which would take several days. Furthermore it would be impossible to do that at the same time as bombarding the German trenches. The bombardment would throw up dust and smoke, concealing the wire from the artillery observers, who needed to see clearly in order to direct the gunners’ shells onto it. Haig would eventually give in to Rawlinson on both these points. Gommecourt would be attacked by General Edmund Allenby’s 3rd Army, and Rawlinson could carry out his methodical bombardment. But because Rawlinson never challenged Haig’s demand that he should attack the second system north of the road during the first day of the attack, it stayed in the plan. Rawlinson’s failure to make his case properly and stand his ground on this important issue raises questions concerning his competence and integrity. Did he realise that Haig’s plan was so impractical that it unnecessarily put the lives of his men at risk, yet refuse to challenge it robustly because of his personal circumstances? Did the gentleman’s code of honour require him to let Haig win the argument over the depth of the attack as a reward for saving Rawlinson’s career in the wake of the Neuve Chapelle affair? And did this trump his duty to protect his men by insisting the plan should be workable? Or was he so overwhelmed by the huge task he had been set that he really did not appreciate the scale of the shortage of artillery? The former explanation seems more likely than the latter. Whichever is correct was beside the point as far as the situation of the British infantrymen was concerned. Following what had been cooked up by their two most senior generals, they were to be ordered to attack a German defence system consisting of deep trenches and dug outs which, far from being obliterated, in many areas were untouched. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Hugh Sebag-Montefiore is the author of Somme: Into the Breach (Viking Penguin). This article was first published on History Extra in September 2016
The Somme: was it really a monstrous failure?
As we reach the centenary of Britain's most notorious battle of the First World War, Gary Sheffield questions whether it truly was uniquely terrible...
In the early evening of 14 July 1916, two squadrons of British and Indian cavalry launched a surprise attack on German infantry and machine-gunners near High Wood in the north-east corner of France. Carefully using the folds in the ground to conceal their advance, the horsemen of the 7th Dragoon Guards charged the defenders, got in among them, and killed and wounded a number with their lances. Stunned by the sudden assault, 32 Germans surrendered. Their shock action over, the 7th and Deccan Horse dismounted and entrenched, but when the anticipated support from reserve infantry failed to materialise, they fell back. The two squadrons had lost about 100 men. It was a remarkable end to a remarkable day – one that had begun at 3.25am with an artillery bombardment and a successful infantry attack on the German trenches on Bazentin Ridge. However the success was to be short-lived. To take advantage of the initial advances, reserves needed to be rushed up – a feat of organisation that was to prove beyond the capabilities of the inexperienced British Expeditionary Force (BEF). That’s why, when the cavalry did get into action, it wasn’t until the evening. So the ‘dawn attack’ of 14 July, which promised so much, ended up gaining little. In the final analysis it was marred by administrative bungling, early gains too easily surrendered and, of course, bloodshed – an all-too familiar story in the long, brutal battle of the Somme. The Somme has, over the past century, become a byword for futility. It is widely regarded, in Britain at least, as a uniquely terrible slaughterhouse. The casualty figures speak for themselves. Almost 20,000 British troops lost their lives on 1 July 1916 – the opening day of General Sir Douglas Haig’s ‘big push’ against German forces – in what remains the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. By the time the battle ground to a halt in November, Britain had suffered an estimated 420,000 casualties (killed, wounded and missing), while the French and German armies had lost perhaps 200,000 and 500–600,000 respectively. Yes, the Somme was a truly terrible battle. But the question is, was it uniquely terrible – a horrific aberration in the history of Britain’s military endeavours? And is it fair to damn it as an abject failure? Combined assault The origins of the battle of the Somme lay in December 1915 when Britain, France, Italy and Russia agreed to launch synchronised attacks in 1916. Franco-British forces were to unleash a combined assault in the area of the river Somme, even though an attack further north, at Ypres, held more attractions to General Sir Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief of the BEF. If the BEF broke out from Ypres, Haig argued, it would place key strategic objectives, such as the German-held Belgian coast, in reach. But the French insisted on the British fighting alongside them on the Somme. The attack was preceded by a massive bombardment of German positions. With Allied guns pounding the enemy for seven days, morale among the attackers was high – surely nothing, they reckoned, could live through the artillery’s onslaught. Unfortunately, a combination of faulty tactics, the inexperience of the British gunners and lack of high explosive shells meant that the bombardment was ineffective across most of the front. The infantry attacked on 1 July at 7.30am. Near Thiepval, 36th (Ulster) Division drove deep into the German defences, only to be forced back because the attacks of the divisions on their flanks had failed. This allowed the Germans to concentrate their fire and counterattacks on the Ulsters. Something similar happened to 56th (London) Division at Gommecourt. In the south of the battlefield, by contrast, the British and, even more so, the French, made major advances. But it is the failures of 1 July 1916 that are remembered, along with the dreadful losses: 57,000 British casualties, of whom 19,000 were killed. Before the battle, Haig hoped to break the German defences and open mobile warfare once more, but he had always recognised that a back-up plan of limited advances was essential. The failure to break through on the first day of the battle made that contingency a reality. Fighting from 1 to 13 July took the form of a number of small-scale or attritional attacks, usually costly in lives. British losses were enormous. But so were German. With the defenders under enormous pressure on the Somme, General Erich von Falkenhayn, the de facto German army commander-in-chief, halted the massive offensive on French forces at Verdun (which had begun in February) on 11 July. One of the Allies’ major objectives – to relieve the pressure on the fortress city – was fulfilled. Building on the partial success of 14 July in the southern sector of the battlefield, relentless Allied attacks crashed into resolute German defences. The German policy of immediately counterattacking Allied gains meant that places such as High Wood, Longueval and Guillemont were the scene of bitter – and repeated – struggles. The South African Brigade captured Delville (‘Devil’s’) Wood on 15 July but the Germans quickly recaptured it. British troops then retook the wood on 27 July, with fighting continuing there until early September. Brutal training In the northern sector of the battlefield, the fighting was equally fierce. The mostly inexperienced British empire troops and their leaders endured brutal on-the-job training on a battlefield dominated by high explosive shells. The result was confusion, courage, mistakes, the painful learning of lessons that were not always properly absorbed, and the death, wounding and traumatising of hundreds of thousands of men. Yet across the battlefield the Germans were steadily, if slowly, driven back. By September the French army was shouldering a larger share of the fighting and, on the 12th, it almost penetrated the German defences at Bouchavesnes. Haig launched a major push on 15 September, when 12 British, Canadian and New Zealand divisions, supported by the first ever tanks to see action, advanced about a mile – far short of the hoped for breakthrough. As ever, the losses were high. A British chaplain later wrote: “The glory and success of [the battle of] September 15th I did not see, but the cost of it I shall never forget… Whereas [at the field hospital] on ordinary days one triple tent for officers and one for men sufficed, now all the rows of them were in use and the ground outside was covered in stretchers.” Still the battle went on, despite heavy rain that turned the ground into a quagmire. General Joffre, the French commander-in-chief, directed that the attrition would continue. The British attacked one hill, the Butte de Warlencourt, time and again. Shortly after it was captured, Lieutenant-Colonel Roland Boys Bradford VC, commander of 1/9 Battalion Durham Light Infantry, commented that the Butte “had become an obsession… It loomed large in the minds of the soldiers in the forward area and they attributed many of their misfortunes to it. So it had to be taken.” The final phase was the battle of the Ancre (13–18 November) in the north of the battlefield, where the 51st (Highland) Division stormed the fortified village of Beaumont-Hamel. Having seized this target (which was originally meant to be taken on 1 July) – and with the offensive running out of steam, and the weather worsening – the Allies closed the battle down. Appalling casualties In the case of some great military clashes – Hastings in 1066, Waterloo in 1815 – there were clear winners and losers. This was not the case with the Somme. When it ended, the attackers had advanced about seven miles, but had failed to rout the defenders, or even force them into a major retreat. Both sides suffered appalling – and comparable – casualties. On the face of it, the Somme was a draw. But when you place it into a wider perspective, it soon becomes evident that its outcome favoured the Allies. With their greater manpower resources, the British and French empires were better equipped to sustain the dreadful attrition than the Germans. By the end of the battle, the BEF had completed its apprenticeship, had learned and applied numerous lessons, and was, in 1917, a much more experienced and competent army. The German army, although still a formidable force, had lost key personnel. A staff officer, Captain Hans von Hentig, commented that: “The Somme was the muddy grave of the German field army… dug by British industry and its shells.” Before the Somme, German High Command had underestimated the British Army. Now, it faced the unpalatable reality that it was confronted with a major new force on the western front. The German leadership responded in two ways. In early 1917, it abandoned the old Somme battlefield and pulled the army back to a formidable defensive position, which the British dubbed the ‘Hindenburg Line’. Even more significantly, it took the fateful decision to try to force Britain out of the war through unrestricted submarine warfare – allowing U-boats to sink merchant vessels, regardless of nationality. This was bound to bring the neutral USA into the war. Yet the Germans reckoned that a starving Britain would be compelled to sue for peace before American power could make a difference. In doing so they made an enormously costly strategic miscalculation. So, while the Somme was not an Allied victory in the traditional sense, it did amount to a significant strategic success for the British and French. In this respect, it was no failure. Wars in deadlock The Somme is remembered – perhaps more than any other military encounter in British history – as a battle of attrition. Thousands of men lost their lives fighting for tiny pockets of land that were, in many cases, soon surrendered back to the enemy. But, for all that, the Somme was hardly uniquely attritional. From Verdun to the great battles on the western front of 1915 and 1917–18, to the massive campaigns in eastern Europe, the First World War was pockmarked by protracted, grinding bloodbaths. And this style of combat was not confined to the fighting fronts: submarine warfare and blockade were both designed to slowly but relentlessly starve the enemy population. What’s more, attrition as a weapon of war didn’t disappear with the signing of the armistice in November 1918. In fact, it was all too typical of the high-intensity military operations that dominated the first half of the 20th century – and that includes the Second World War. Despite its reputation as a predominantly swift-moving and decisive encounter, the 1939–45 conflict often descended into deadlock too. Yes, the German army overran its enemies at lightning speed in the early years. But from late 1941 – with the Allies on the ropes but crucially not knocked out – Somme-style slogging matches returned to the battlefield. The sheer size of the USSR, allied to the iron laws of logistics, meant that the Germans were unable to capitalise on their initial successes in Operation Barbarossa. Soviet commanders learned from their earlier defeats, and the Red Army eventually proved to be a formidable and skilful enemy. British empire forces, although not as numerous, likewise learned lessons and became much more capable on the battlefield. The entry of the USA into the war in December 1941 brought a large, fresh and technologically advanced army into the anti-German coalition. The shifting balance of resources was also reflected in the skies, where Allied aircraft – once terrorised by the Luftwaffe – soon reigned supreme. So, by the middle of the war, the German advantages that had served them well in earlier years had largely been eliminated. Now, the armies were much more evenly matched. Stalemate ensued. This deadlock tended to be shorter in duration than in the First World War. Tanks, motorised transport and aircraft helped make fronts more mobile and restored the possibility of decisive manoeuvre such as battles of encirclement, largely absent from the western front from 1915–18. Nevertheless, campaigns such as the second battle of El Alamein (1942), Stalingrad (1942–43), Kursk (1943), Monte Cassino (1944), and Normandy (1944) produced conditions highly reminiscent of the western front, complete with casualty rates that often equalled or exceeded those of a generation before. This is the context in which we need to understand the battle of the Somme. It was not an aberration. It was like so many other battles of the early 20th century – battles that had evolved by the Second World War without losing their essentially attritional character. Yes, British Army losses in 1939–45 were substantially lower than in the First World War. But that was the case for two reasons. First, the army was much smaller. Second, the British, unlike in 1914–18, did not have to fight for a prolonged period against the main enemy – defeat in 1940 and the Dunkirk evacuation ensured that. However, casualty rates for individual units reveal that the fighting was very bloody – especially during the campaign in western Europe in 1944–45. The level of losses during the bitter advance from Normandy to the Baltic would have been grimly familiar to infantrymen who fought on the Somme two decades earlier. Gary Sheffield is professor of War Studies at Wolverhampton University. A new edition of his biography of Haig has just been published: Douglas Haig: From the Somme to Victory (Aurum Press) Five defining moments on the Somme 1) The BEF takes the lead Unexpectedly, it was the BEF and not the French army that contributed the most troops to the first stages of the Somme. The initial plan had the French taking the lead. However on 21 February 1916 the Germans attacked around the French city of Verdun. The fighting there sucked in large numbers of French divisions, forcing the progressive scaling back of the French contribution to the forthcoming offensive. If the battle-hardened French army had assumed the lion’s share of the fighting rather than the inexperienced British, what would the outcome of the Somme have been? It’s a fascinating counterfactual. 2) Blood and glory on 1 July The 1st of July 1916 was a day of mixed fortunes for the Allies. In the north of the battlefield the offensive was a disaster. In places the barbed wire was not cut, and the gunners had failed to deal with enemy artillery and machine-guns. Some divisions captured ground but were driven back through lack of support. But in the south the raw soldiers of XIII Corps, including Pals from Liverpool and Manchester, and the 8th East Surreys, who kicked footballs into action, captured all their objectives. The French also made a major advance, at a tiny cost in casualties. 3) Empire troops are cut down On 1 July the 1st Newfoundland Regiment lost 324 men killed and 386 wounded out of a total of 801, in a brave but doomed attack near Beaumont-Hamel. This was the first contingent from the Dominions of the British empire that fought on the Somme. The Australians first came into action, around Pozières, in mid-July and August. The South African Brigade made its name at Delville Wood in mid-July, while Canadians and New Zealanders made their Somme debut in late August and September. The Somme was an important milestone in the emergence of Dominion divisions as elite formations. 4) The advantage is lost In the early hours of 14 July, British infantry crept out under the cover of darkness into no man’s land. This lay between the British front line, captured from the Germans on 1 July, and the defenders on Bazentin ridge. When the attack was launched at dawn the defenders were surprised and rapidly overrun. A great victory appeared to be at hand. But, as we explain on page 24, it was not to be, for it proved impossible to get reserves to the right place rapidly enough to exploit the success. A cavalry attack turned out to be too little, too late. 5) Tanks roll into action On 15 September 1916, the tank appeared for the first time upon a battlefield. Trench deadlock spurred the development of numerous weapons, including mortars and hand grenades, but the most significant was the armoured fighting vehicle. Initially developed by the British, the Mark I tank deployed in the fighting at Flers-Courcelette was a fragile machine that broke down easily. Its performance was patchy, but the success of one machine at the village of Flers was reported in the press and caught the public imagination. Why Haig was no butcher The general’s strategy in 1916 was fundamentally correct Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig is one of the most controversial generals of all time, and his performance during the battle of the Somme is central to his reputation. He has become known to some as ‘The Butcher of the Somme’, although there is no evidence that anyone called him that while the war was going on. Interestingly, until the 1960s it was Passchendaele (properly, the third battle of Ypres) that was popularly regarded as the epitome of wasteful horror, rather than the Somme. Among the charges against Haig’s conduct of the Somme is that he was an old-fashioned cavalry general who failed to adapt to trench warfare. In reality, Haig was thoroughly conversant with modern war. After the trauma of the Boer War, he played a key role in reforming the army and preparing it for a new conflict. Haig had, among other things, been responsible for modernising the British Army. Cavalry (reformed by Haig and others) continued to have a place on the battlefield, even on the Somme. As C-in-C from late 1915 onwards, Haig oversaw the transformation of his inexperienced army of volunteers and conscripts to a war-winning force – but the battle of the Somme took place very early in this process. He was consistent in his belief that trench deadlock should be seen as a transient phase, and that the BEF should be ready for when ‘normal’ conditions returned to the battlefield. Ultimately Haig was proved right in 1918, but it took far longer to break the stalemate than he had anticipated. Whatever else he might have been, Haig was not a technophobe. He was a keen supporter of advanced technology, such as aircraft, quick-firing artillery and machine-guns. He has been criticised for supposedly throwing away the advantage of surprise by prematurely committing a small number of tanks to battle on 15 September. This is unjust. Tanks were simply too primitive to be war-winners, and their use to support the infantry was appropriate given the circumstances. If Haig had waited for months for large numbers to be available, the secret would probably have leaked out. Haig has also been accused of being vastly over-optimistic, with dire results for his troops. There is some truth in this, but only some. He believed that British shelling had cut German barbed wire prior to the attack on 1 July, but that was what his intelligence staff had told him. There was a collective failure, rather than it being solely down to Haig. But Haig was culpable for the disastrous decision to order the artillery to fire on multiple targets during the preliminary bombardment, to ease the infantry’s way through the dense German positions and restore mobile fighting. The weight of explosives was spread far too thinly, and key German positions were not suppressed. This had bloody consequences for the attacking infantry, many of whom got no further than no man’s land or, at best, the enemy front line. Haig also consistently overrated the effect of attrition on German morale. He was not well-served by his intelligence staff in this regard, although it is not true to say that they simply told him what he wanted to hear. Haig’s performance as a general on the Somme was patchy but by no means all bad. He made mistakes and sometimes expected too much of his raw troops. On occasion he was let down by senior subordinates. But while Haig’s strategy was sometimes clumsy and wasteful, it was fundamentally correct. The Somme was a critical phase in Haig’s apprenticeship as a high commander, an essential stepping-stone to the victories of 1918. In late 1916, a divisional commander reflecting on 1 July suggested “that perhaps we had all been rather optimistic as to what it was possible to do”. Haig’s reply was unusually candid: “Well, we were all learning.” This article was first published in the July 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine
Sunday marks the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt, a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War. To mark the occasion, we’re running a Battles Week exploring clashes from ancient Rome right through to the Second World War. Here, we round up 17 of our best battles podcasts…
D-Day and the Wars of the Roses In this May 2014 podcast, military historian James Holland challenges some popular assumptions about the 1944 Normandy campaign and recounts his experiences of meeting veterans. Meanwhile, historian and author Sarah Gristwood pays a visit to Tewkesbury Abbey, which was a pivotal location in the 15th-century Wars of the Roses. Click here to listen. The battle of Agincourt Ranulph Fiennes talks about his ancestors’ involvement in the battle of Agincourt, in this October 2014 podcast. Also in this episode, Paul Preston explores the life of Spanish communist politician Santiago Carrillo. Click here to listen. England and Scotland go to war George Goodwin describes the Anglo-Scottish battle of Flodden, in this episode recorded in August 2013. Plus, Gary Sheffield considers how First World War commanders coped with the peculiar challenges of that conflict. Click here to listen. The battle for Madagascar and the Wars of the Roses Tim Benbow describes the Second World War battle for Madagascar, while Sarah Gristwood reflects on the role of women in the Wars of the Roses, in this podcast recorded in September 2012. Click here to listen. The battle of Britain Dr Anthony Cumming challenges traditional assumptions about the battle of Britain, in this October 2007 podcast. Also in this episode, Top Gear presenter James May explains his admiration for the Wright Brothers, while author and journalist Leo McKinstry reveals how the Spitfire nearly missed its finest hour. Click here to listen. An RAF fighter station in England during the btttle of Britain, 16 August 1940. Members of the Squadron rest between battles, and listen to an account given by a New Zealand officer (right) who has just bailed out of his aircraft, having been shot down by an enemy aircraft. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Waterloo 200 special Expert historians Julian Humphrys and Tim Blanning reveal how Napoleon was finally defeated at the battle of Waterloo, and offer their thoughts on the legacy of the events of 1815. Plus, we broadcast a bonus audio version of a recent article on the tragic ascent of the Matterhorn. This podcast was recorded in June 2015. Click here to listen. The battle of Marathon Michael Scott offers his insights into the 490 BC battle of Marathon, while Laurence Rees explains why Hitler didn’t press his advantage at Dunkirk in 1940. Also in this May 2010 episode, Gillian Mawson tells the stories of Guernsey’s Second World War child refugees. Click here to listen. Richard III vs Henry VII Chris Skidmore describes how the first Tudor king seized the crown from Richard III at Bosworth, in this June 2013 podcast. Meanwhile, Brendan Simms examines Europe's past, present and future. Click here to listen. Re-living the Battle of Blenheim Professor Richard Holmes takes our Time Machine back to the 1704 battle of Blenheim, in this March 2008 podcast. Also in this episode, Professor Lisa Jardine looks at the relationship between England and the Netherlands in 1688, and historian and broadcaster Michael Wood offers his thoughts on Alfred the Great. Click here to listen. Battle of Blenheim, 13 August 1704. Hand-coloured engraving. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images) The battle of Quebec In this September 2009 podcast, Dan Snow gives his opinions on the momentous battle of Quebec that took place more than 250 years ago. Plus, we speak to Tracy Borman about how Elizabeth I grew envious of the other women at her court. Click here to listen. The battle of El Alamein In this November 2012 podcast, Jonathan Dimbleby considers a momentous Second World War clash. Also in this episode, Emelyne Godfrey reveals the story of suffragette martial artists. Click here to listen. The Somme Historian Andrew Roberts talks to us about his new book on the opening day of one of World War One’s bloodiest battles, in this September 2015 podcast. Also in this episode, Professor Christopher Whatley discusses the events of the Jacobite revolt, 300 years after the 1715 uprising. Click here to listen. The Spanish Armada Robert Hutchinson explores the reality of the Spanish Armada campaign of 1588, in this July 2013 episode. Meanwhile, Professor Michael Fulford discusses the discovery of a huge Iron Age mansion at Silchester. Click here to listen. The Spanish Armada. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) The battle of Poitiers Bernard Cornwell considers the 1356 battle of Poitiers, in this October 2012 podcast. Also in this episode, David Reynolds discusses Britain's Second World War strategy. Click here to listen. Trafalgar Sean McGlynn delves into the story of England's medieval battle of Trafalgar, in this June 2012 podcast. Meanwhile, John Romer considers ancient Egypt. Click here to listen. The battle of the Bulge In this May 2015 podcast, military historian Antony Beevor offers a fresh interpretation of the 1944 Ardennes offensive that represented Hitler’s final attempt to turn the tide of the war. Meanwhile, journalist Wendy Holden tells the remarkable tale of three young women who gave birth while in Nazi captivity. Click here to listen. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-152246241-7becd1a.jpg" width="1200" height="900" alt="An American infantryman take time out for a pipe smoke during a lull in the fighting during the Battle of the Bulge (January 1945). (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)" title="An American infantryman take time out for a pipe smoke during a lull in the fighting during the Battle of the Bulge" /> An American infantryman takes time out for a pipe smoke during a lull in the fighting during the battle of the Bulge, January 1945. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images) Gallipoli In April 2015, on the centenary of the battle of Gallipoli, Australian writer Peter FitzSimons describes the disastrous Allied campaign of 1915. Meanwhile, historian Cormac Ó Gráda, author of Eating People Is Wrong, explains how famines occasionally resulted in cannibalism. Click here to listen. To explore our podcast archive in full, click here.
Books interview with Andrew Roberts: "I'd like to put an end to the 'Blackadder' view of the First World War"
Andrew Roberts talks to Matt Elton about his book on the first day of the battle of the Somme, the infamous 1916 operation that resulted in the deaths of thousands of men
This article was first published in the October 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine In Context Starting on 1 July 1916, the battle of the Somme was a joint operation by French and British empire forces near the river of the same name in France. Military leaders were confident of the success of their plan – an aerial barrage followed by infantry advance into German trenches – but the battle was to become one of the bloodiest in history: on the first day alone around 20,000 Allied soldiers died, with tens of thousands more injured. By battle’s end in November, the Allies had gained only five miles. Much of the blame for this has since been pinned on British commander Douglas Haig. To what extent was the decision to fight at the Somme a political one? It was highly political. British forces needed to help the French, which sounds like a strategic military decision – but actually the Somme was chosen because it was where the two armies would overlap, or at least be adjacent. It would be a powerful propaganda move if the two armies could co-ordinate the biggest attack of the war thus far. How much was overconfidence an issue in the planning of the operation? It’s clear from General Haig’s diaries that he was wildly over-optimistic. It wasn’t entirely his fault: his chief intelligence officer, John Charteris, led him to feel that the Somme was going to be a big victory instead of the worst day in the history of the British Army. We can see why they thought this. The sheer amount of ordnance they were going to be dropping on the German barbed wire and dugouts should, by any normal calculations, have resulted in a walkover. The British men were expected to just walk across no man’s land and take possession of the first couple of lines of German trenches, only possibly fighting for the third line. Key among the reasons why this wasn’t the case is that barbed wire is an awful lot hardier than it seems. The wire was cut in some places but the men, heavily weighed down by their equipment, came up against uncut wire all too many times. Ultimately, the intelligence staff must bear some blame for that, as must the Royal Artillery. What’s your take on Haig? I usually take very strong views for or against people. I’ve been attacked quite a lot for my pro-Napoleon stance, for instance. Although I think I’ve been objective about him, a lot of people who have written in about my [BBC] TV and radio shows don’t think that at all. I certainly don’t go along with the ‘Haig was an idiotic donkey’ line that Alan Clark and various other people have come up with. Equally, I think that – though they’re very fine historians – several of Haig’s apologists have gone a bit too far. He was in command of the army on the day that the British suffered the largest number of casualties for the smallest amount of ground in the history of warfare. He must take some responsibility for that, regardless of whether or not he was fabulous in the last three months of the war. But I think Haig was a good moderniser. He was a highly intelligent man, and the idea of writing him off as some ignorant blimp is monstrous libel. He learned from his mistakes, and it was only because he and the army were capable of doing so that we did eventually have those last three months of victory. Why didn’t the bombardment work? Some historians argue that as many as a third of the shells were duds. We were buying a lot of shells from the US at the time, and there are various conspiracy theories about sabotage in munitions factories where German-American people worked. I don’t personally give very much credence to that sort of thing. I think the war office ordered the maximum number of shells in the minimum amount of time and, as a result, people cut corners and sold things that ultimately didn’t work. I also wonder if there was a bigger reason, though: even if all of the shells had gone off, it takes more than shellfire to cut barbed wire. And British forces hadn’t developed techniques such as the ‘creeping barrage’ – infantry closely following advancing artillery fire – until much later in the operation. After the bombardment, the order was given for the men to start advancing. What did the Germans make of this? They were shocked. They couldn’t believe their eyes. It’s important not to generalise too much: there were battalions that crept out before the whistle blew at 7.30am, and there were battalions who made a run for the German trenches. But, in the main, the men were ordered to advance at walking pace because the commanders didn’t want them to be exhausted when they captured the first lines of trenches. You can understand their concern: men were carrying any combination of their kit, rolls of barbed wire, Lewis guns, Bangalore torpedoes, stretchers, water – most cumbersome of all – and more. It could be half their body weight. To do it even at a trot would leave men completely breathless by the time they got across no man’s land. So in a way the decision to have the men walk did make sense – they should just have organised it so that some of the equipment came up after the trenches were captured rather than at the same time. But they did believe that the Germans were going to be surrendering, not firing back. How unfair is it to paint the British soldiers as inexperienced and naive? I think that it’s misguided. Many hadn’t seen action before, but by no means all of them. Lots had seen action at Gallipoli, and most had been volunteering in the autumn of 1914, so had 18 months’ training. So while it’s true to say this was a baptism of fire, the men nonetheless performed just as well as soldiers who had seen action for years. They were pretty fit and healthy; some had been getting better food than they had ever eaten before, which is astonishing. The British Army did manage to give three hot square meals a day to soldiers who had been pretty much undernourished until then, particularly those from working-class backgrounds. Which personal testimonies particularly stood out for you? The ones that really hit me were from the people who went back into no man’s land when they didn’t need to and weren’t ordered to, in order to save their wounded comrades and bring them back. Many of the wounded ended up in enormous shell holes and had to wait till dark to get back. Can you imagine having to wait there for hours? For many of the battalions, the whole thing was over in 10 minutes, between 7.30am and 7.40am. They then had to spend the entire day in the boiling heat, with only a limited amount of water, waiting for darkness to fall so the machine guns would not get them. Anyone who deliberately went back in to that situation to rescue a wounded comrade shows a level of heroism that I’ve never seen in my life – and I hope never to have to. It leaves one absolutely staggered with admiration. The volume of the wounded can sometimes be overlooked, can’t it? For every man killed, roughly two were wounded. That scale of wounded men was unexpected, and therefore there weren’t the nurses, the medicaments or the clearing stations, let alone the trains, to bring them back. This is where that overconfidence we mentioned earlier resulted in terrible things happening. Many more men died as a result of being wounded than would have been the case if they’d been a bit more pessimistic. What psychological effect did the huge number of deaths have on the British Army? It’s fascinating that it didn’t break the morale of the army completely. It had suffered a 50 per cent casualty rate, which is an unbelievably large number for any engagement at any stage in history. It’s a testament to the cheerfulness of the British fighting and working man. These guys had come straight from farms and offices and factories, and volunteered, yet even an attrition rate of 50 per cent was not enough to break their morale. The French mutinied the following year; the entire Russian army mutinied; and in 1918 the German army mutinied. But there was no question of that happening with the British. The bravery they showed, the sheer doggedness and willingness to carry on fighting month upon month upon month, is very moving. To survive from the beginning to the end of the battle of the Somme, when certain death faced you on a daily basis, is something that almost defies belief. Is it right to see the slaughter as having been unavoidable? It was important that we maintained the offensive. You couldn’t fight the First World War by stopping and hoping that the other side was going to fall to your machine guns. You don’t win wars by not going forward. In many ways the most important point about the Somme is that the high command and the general staff, the officers and the junior officers, did learn lessons. Infantry tactics were completely altered, and things such as the creeping barrage were developed. So in that sense the Somme did ultimately lead to victory two years later. Was that level of blood loss necessary? The answer has to be: no. One can never say that the death on one day of more than 19,000 people was ‘necessary’, especially for so little ground gained. How would you like your book to change readers’ views of this day? I’d like to put an end to the ‘Blackadder’ view of the First World War – the ‘donkey’ theory of a château generalship of moronic upper-class twits, miles behind the lines, who didn’t care about their men fighting and being slaughtered. Equally, I think that the revisionist lot, who make out Haig to be better than he was, have now gone too far. What I’d like this book to do is to present a more rational and, to my mind, much more believable view than either of those two extremes. Elegy: The First Day on the Somme by Andrew Roberts is published by Head of Zeus (320 pages, £20)
Andrew Roberts describes the opening day of one of World War One’s bloodiest battles, while Christopher Whatley explores the 18th-century uprising in favour of the Stuarts
Historian Andrew Roberts talks to us about his new book on the opening day of one of World War One’s bloodiest battles. Meanwhile, Professor Christopher Whatley discusses the events of the Jacobite revolt, 300 years after the 1715 uprising
Did the Somme offensive achieve anything?
As dawn broke on 1 July 1916, the curtain rose on one of the most furious periods of bloodletting of the entire war
The Somme was a slaughterhouse. This massive offensive in northern France resulted in well over a million British, French and German casualties. Almost 20,000 British troops were killed on the opening day, the bloodiest 24 hours in British military history. 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about the battle of the Somme The Somme: was it really a monstrous failure? But did the battle achieve anything? Well, in terms of land, very little. When the offensive was called off on 18 November, the Allies had advanced a paltry five miles, and had been forced to relinquish many of the gains they’d achieved earlier in the battle. However, the Somme wasn’t just about gaining land. Among the aims of the offensive was to force the Germans to divert resources from a massive assault of their own on the French fortress of Verdun, and to use up manpower the Germans simply couldn’t replace. To what extent the Allies met these aims is open to debate: the Germans failed to take Verdun, but were still very much in the war for the next two years. This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine