The Failure of the Somme essays

The Failure of the Somme essays On the 1st July 1916, after a weeklong artillery bombardment; General Haig launched the "Big Push" attack across the river Somme. With the French Army being hard-pressed to the south at Verdun the British intended to breakthrough the German defences in a matter of hours. The mistrust that Haig had of the so-called "New Armies" showed itself in the orders to the troops to keep uniformed lines and to march towards the enemy across no-man's land. This, with the failure of the artillery bombardment to dislodge much of the German wire, or to destroy their machine-gun posts, led to one of the biggest slaughters in military history. When the attack began the Germans dragged themselves out of their dugouts, manned their posts and destroyed the oncoming waves of British infantry. There were also other factors, which contributed to the failure of the Battle of the Somme: 1) The Night before the initial attack men were sent into No-mans land to cut holes in the Allied barbed wire to allow troops to pass through the next day. After they had done this they then proceeded to tape the gaps, which allowed the troops to see where the gaps were. But this also allowed the Germans to see where they were coming from, so when the battle started they got up from the trenches and aimed their machine guns at the holes and the proceeded to mow down the incoming Allied troops. 2) Secondly, the five-day artillery bombardment had no affect on the barbed wire except for making it a larger deadlier mess. This was because the shells threw the wire into the air and then made it tangled which made it even more difficult for the Allied troops to advance towards the German Trenches. 3) Before the initial attack the Allies started stockpiling supplies and men behind the lines to prepare for the upcoming major attack. The Germans then found out about the attack because of reconnaissance planes who spotted the additi ...