" Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

[Peter H]

Ernst Jünger in his Storm of Steel fairly sums up what the Somme battle meant to him:

Page 69:

..It marked the end of the first and mildest part of the war;thereafter,it was like embarking on a different one altogether.What we had,admittedly almost unbeknown to ourselves,been through had been the attempt to win a war by old-fashioned pitched battles,and the stalemating of the attempt in static warfare.What confronted us now was a war of material of the most gigantic proportions...

Jünger's book up to this point(he arrived on the Western front in December 1914) is mild reading.Artillery hits but it is not intense,raids are made and meanwhile much time is spent in the back lines having drinking parties and boar hunts.After July 1916 the gloom sets in--platoons wiped out,death and destruction,"drumfire" artillery barrages,"material battles".

In a sense,like Stalingrad,the Somme hinted to many Germans that while defeat was not inevitable,victory was not assured either.

[Attrition]

Christopher Duffy had some interesting things to say about the battle in 'Through German Eyes' which echo your quotation from Junger. Withal that British artillery was too light, had lots of duds and was rarely concentrated in the manner of 14th July the effect on the Germans (according to writing at the time) was devastating. The technological superiority that overtook the Germans was also evident - air attack as well as artillery observation is commented on from the start as is the increase in British effectiveness during the battle. It's quite surprising when you've been brought up on stories of British army incompetence to consider the possibility that in the Great War it became the most sophisticated one and that this process began in mid-1916.

[The_Enigma]

In my opinion that is the real legacy of Haig, not as a butcher who didn’t care about his men and lead them to their slaughter. But a man who helped shape the British Army into the war winning force it became and someone who was eager to allow new inventions and methods to be used i.e. mine warfare, new artillery methods and tanks etc.

[Terry Duncan]

All things considered Haig was quite a good commander, but has suffered a bad reputation mostly due to the memoirs of Lloyd-George which although false seems to have be accepted as truth by many.

As a side note, Haig's son has just died aged 91.

[Attrition]

Perhaps the strictures Haig came under once he was safely dead show a lack of empathy for all the non-Europeans (and Irish) who experienced mass casualties, famine, disease and slaughter at the hands of the English and British over the previous three hundred-odd years. Like so many other things Europeans took to the rest of the world, it came back to haunt them in the early C20th.

[glenn239]

How does this matter?

The claim is being made that German casualties at the Somme were somehow strategic in character. And yet two years later, neither the Somme nor those of all the other battles prevented Germany from the 1918 offensives, Germany’s bid to win the war before the Yanks got coming. In fact, the Somme can't be pinned as the cause of the Germans being prevented from doing much of anything, beyond Verdun.

The British took ground at roughly equal losses

The British failed at the Somme to gain meaningful ground, suffered a moderately unfavorable casualty ratio, and failed to prevent its allies (France, Italy, Russia, Rumania) from either being defeated or pushed to the brink of defeat. Looks like a big bloody tie to me. If you see a British victory, you are looking too hard for it. Flip the page to July 1918. You’ll have more satisfying reading from there.

As for industrised war i completely disagree with you, ground gained does not signify victory or defeat, even casualty ratios or the loss of equipment do not simply provide black and white answers.

And yet, had either marker been in your favour, you would have cited it without hesitation as proof of a British victory, correct?

[Attrition]

1918? Germany threw away its peace dividend from the east and achieved what Falkenhayn predicted in 1915 - operational success but no strategic decision. Knocking Russia out of the war was balanced by dragging America in, hardly a sign of strategic sophistication. Russia lasted longer and did more damage than expected afer beng chucked out of Poland. The British and French have at the very least a claim that the Somme led to the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line which in territorial terms was similar to the ground liberated in the Brusilov Offensive, yet against the German army not the declining Austro-Hungarians.

The German effort on the Somme was strategic, operational and tactical; any military operation has all three effects. The point is that German losses had a disproportionate effect on the German war effort because the evolution of the entente war machine went beyond improvisation during the battle and began to make Germany's overstretch work for them.

"France, Italy, Russia, Rumania" ? The French withstood Verdun well enough to attack on the Somme, Russia attacked twice in 1916 and did to the Austro-Hungarian army what the Germans did to them in 1915. Rumania's entry into the war was an emergency which the Germans couldn't ignore, which added to their overstretch and the Italians added to Austrian woes at relatively low cost to the Entente. The Germans were intending to smash the French and British as part of their Verdun + sequel strategy and failed.

[Terry Duncan]

The British failed at the Somme to gain meaningful ground

The entire war could fill that definition, especially as the term 'meaningful ground' itself has no actual hard definition. In a war where major battles were fought over slight ridge lines, The Somme was a victory.

And yet two years later, neither the Somme nor those of all the other battles prevented Germany from the 1918 offensives

This had far more to do with the Russian front shutting down than any failure of the Somme battles to achieve anything solid. The lack of German attacks in the west in 1917 could be an indication, and even if borderline it certainly helped the French from coming under too much pressure.

Looks like a big bloody tie to me. If you see a British victory, you are looking too hard for it. Flip the page to July 1918. You’ll have more satisfying reading from there.

When a diversionary attack, rushed through for political reasons, ends up taking ground it is a success, especially when it also manages to achieve its original goal too. The casualty ratio is about 1 - 1, the different methods of recording casualties make it too hard to get much information.

Amiens onwards is interesting, but somewhat too few books cover the period well and in depth, unlike the volumes that cover only the first day of The Somme. Whilst it is technically impressive and the efforts to take some positions were excellent, the result was never in doubt after the first few days in March. To my mind once Gough's men had not broken from the French or been routed, the game was up for Germany.

[The_Enigma]

As for industrised war i completely disagree with you, ground gained does not signify victory or defeat, even casualty ratios or the loss of equipment do not simply provide black and white answers.

And yet, had either marker been in your favour, you would have cited it without hesitation as proof of a British victory, correct?

At least you seem to have dropped some of the silly claims you made eariler on but here you are twisting what i have said and have failed to engage with the various other points and examples i raised.

Huge ground gains does not mean anything unless it achieves something i.e. Operation Barbarossa as i mentioned before or the various operations in the Western Desert; Operation Compass may have destroyed the Italian Tenth Army however without the ability to carry on the drive, due to various reasons, across North Africa and remove the Italian preseance once and for all it meant that the war would go on in the desert. Likewise the German-Italian counterattack tactically defeated the Western Desert Force, capturing large amounts of ground, but they lost in iniative and ran their supply lines to breaking point - again large gains in ground was meaningless as they could not take advantage of it.

As for the loss of equipment, again to draw on the Second World War because i have more knowledge on that subject that the First - although many comparisons can be made, at Dunkirk the Germans won a tactical victory and the British was forced to abandon vasts amount of equipment yet their fighting force was intact and able to fight another day. Material is meaningless unless you have the all important men to use it or factorys to replace it. Likewise with the Barbarossa example you skipped over, the Soviets lost huge numbers of the 25,000 strong tank fleet yet simpley just made new tanks to replace their losses.

I am not afraid to state when the British were defeated if they were, however this is not the case in this battle and you seem to be ignoring the points rasied from people who were there, the historical works cited and peoples anyalsis of the events that have been put forth to you.

If you take your blinkers off prehaps you will see that it was something more than a mass slaughter. Prehaps it is time to bite the bullet?

[Attrition]

~~~~~Whilst it is technically impressive and the efforts to take some positions were excellent, the result was never in doubt after the first few days in March.~~~~~

1918 shows how far Germany had fallen behind. It's attack technique was far more dependent on excellent and self-sacrificing infantry than that of its opponents. As usual, even when a Great War army was forced back it wasn't encircled or routed (perhaps Brusilov 1916 is the only example of this occurring) and let's not forget that the British were fighting Lloyd-George as well as the Stormtroops.

The Germans had divided their army into first- and second-class segments and used the best bit which obtained operational successes rather than the strategic decision which was the only thing which could save Germany. Later the British with the French and Americans used a vastly more mechanical and integrated weapons system to ease a less efficient yet more homogeneous infantry force through some of the strongest defences in the world. The losses the Germans inflicted were some of the highest in the war yet it was the German army which disintegrated. I suggest that the beginning of this can be found in the 1916 battle.

[Michate]

1918 shows how far Germany had fallen behind. It's attack technique was far more dependent on excellent and self-sacrificing infantry than that of its opponents. As usual, even when a Great War army was forced back it wasn't encircled or routed (perhaps Brusilov 1916 is the only example of this occurring) and let's not forget that the British were fighting Lloyd-George as well as the Stormtroops.

Nope, it was dependant on heavy concentrations of secretly deployed artillery firing LOTs of shells (3.1 million shells on 21 March in support of operation Michael and an additional 1.3 million across the rest of the front), to destroy the enemy communication system, blind and suppress his artillery and morally shake his infantry.
Infantry force was of course heavy, too, but that was due to the specific requirement to attack simultaneously along a rather broad front - the aim behind that was that the enemy should not have enough reserves available to fill the gap after the breakthrough.
All this "Stosstruppen" balleyhoo is mainly made for high school kids turned armchair generals. You won't find much of it when reading the more serious literature or contemporaneous manuals and pamphlets. Infantry certainly should adapt its attack technique to the emerging battlefield situation - attack in less dense formations formated more in depth than width ("Lichte Haufen" = Stosstrupps) and integrate modern "troop" weapons (light machineguns and mortars), once they arrived in numbers. Allied infantry did the same, of course. The density of the infantry divisions in the attack should actually be slightly less than that of Allied infantry divisions in attacks (2.5-3 km as compared to 1.5 km).
The most obvious difference to Allied technique was that the Germans urged their troops as far as possible, insetad of stopping and contining at another time and space, as the Allies frequently did. This was mainly due to the difference of the strategic situation both sides found themselves in - the Germans knew they had only a limited number of chances before the Americans arrived in force.
And of course there was a large plethora of technical and logistical and air forces around, more or less of the same character as those of the enemy.
Infantry was of course demanded to accept taking heavy losses, but that applied to all armies on the Western front (you can compare losses for both sides during 1918, they were roughly similar for both sides during the period of German attacks and Allied attacks).

Which all worked fairly well at instances as the 21 March and especially 27 May 1918, and not so well at Mars (partly because preparation was missing, the attack depended on rapid shifitng of heavy arillery from Michael northward) or 15 July 1918, when the French, east of Reims, based on excellent knowledge of the attack very well applied defense in depth techniques so that the German artillery preparation lacked in effect. Then they could shift reserves to the Western side of that city, where the Germans initially had made better progress, but were in a very difficult situation after crossing the Marne in a confined bridgehead.

As to routed, during the Michael operation the Allies lost more than 90,000 PoWs in 10 days. BTW, a good part of the Russian army was routed in 1915 following the German-Austrian breakthrough at Gorlice-Tarnow.

But no, forget it, this is all rubbish, actually each British defeat can be completely attributed to 1. weather and 2. D.L. George :roll: Perhaps Ludendorff's esoteric beliefs were not as unsound as the might appear to the uninitiated early 21 century observer

The Germans had divided their army into first- and second-class segments and used the best bit which obtained operational successes rather than the strategic decision which was the only thing which could save Germany. Later the British with the French and Americans used a vastly more mechanical and integrated weapons system to ease a less efficient yet more homogeneous infantry force through some of the strongest defences in the world. The losses the Germans inflicted were some of the highest in the war yet it was the German army which disintegrated. I suggest that the beginning of this can be found in the 1916 battle.

Anyone had better and less good divisions, in particular the Germans and the French, because they had to scrape to the bottom of their manpower reserves, creating divisions from overaged Landwehr men. The Brits were spared this, because they always held but a small (if relatively densely covered) sector of the Front. Plus they had been spared the early slaughter in 1914-15. Nevertheless they had their "shocktroops" too, mainly from the dominions, which were heavily used in attacks.

The German decision to further strengthen the division between mobile and less mobile divisions is of course debatable. However it was absolutely indispensable if any attack was to be tried at all. The shortage of motor vehicles combined with the extreme shortness of horses simply did not allow to make more than a limited part of the army mobile. In simple words, there were simply to few horses available to move all guns and all carriages.

The Germans lacked mainly in two areas. One was the often mentioned absence of tanks, which meant of course a critical combined arms weakness. For example tanks allowed the Allied articles to skip any preparation against enemy infantry and just concentrate on moving barrage and counterbattery. The Germans did not have that option.

And the mentioned lack of mobility meant that any offensive, even after succesfully breaking through enemy lines, would run out of steam before objectives in operational depth could be reached, and that there would be larger intervals between large scale attacks - moving Ludendorff's battering ram took time.

BTW, the "strongest defense in the world" is just a myth - read what German commanders had to say about the "Siegfried" line in spring 1917, and again in 1918. Nevertheless, and despite the preparedness of part of the German forces to surrender more easily, the Allied advance was at snail's pace at high losses, until the Germans decided to retreat to the Antwerp-Meuse line. Except an Austrian token force, they had no Allies to bolster them after defeats, like the French did with Gough's army, or later the Americans did with the French at the Marne.

[Michate]

So, in essence the logic of the attrition strategy driving the Somme battle can be summed up as:
- "We pound them until their army does not exist any more." - "But we loose as many, or more, men than they do." - "That is correct, but we have a great deal more men."

[glenn239]

The point is that German losses had a disproportionate effect on the German war effort

The opposite is true. After the Somme, the British were bogged down for two years in Flanders while the CP either eliminated or brought to the brink of mutiny four Entente powers. This trend, which would have seen the war end in a German victory (stalemate in the west, victory in the east) was reversed only with the intervention of the United States.

The casualty ratio is about 1 - 1

= stalemate.

At least you seem to have dropped some of the silly claims you made eariler on but here you are twisting what i have said…

The question was,

And yet, had either marker been in your favour, you would have cited it without hesitation as proof of a British victory, correct?

Your answer ran to 345 words in length, and nowhere did you deny that if either of these criteria had been gained, you’d have cited them as proof of a British victory.

As to routed, during the Michael operation the Allies lost more than 90,000 PoWs in 10 days.

I would rate the March offensive as a British victory. Although casualties were roughly equal, the Germans failed in their strategic objective.

[monk2002uk]

Nope, it was dependant on heavy concentrations of secretly deployed artillery firing LOTs of shells (3.1 million shells on 21 March in support of operation Michael and an additional 1.3 million across the rest of the front), to destroy the enemy communication system, blind and suppress his artillery and morally shake his infantry.

Michate, I agree that this was a very significant factor, far far more important than the 'Stormtroops'. The wide frontage of attack was also very important. Ludendorff also exploited a technique made famous by von Moltke the Elder. This involved converging all of the assault forces into the zone of attack at the last moment. Another major factor was used to mislead the Entente forces. Preparations for attack were made across the Western Front, not just in the St Quentin area. Finally, Ludendorff preferred to attack the most weakly defended areas at the outset. Operation Mars (and the cancelled Operation Valkyrie) was an exception, and failed accordingly.

All this "Stosstruppen" balleyhoo... Infantry certainly should adapt its attack technique to the emerging battlefield situation - attack in less dense formations formated more in depth than width

I agree with your comment about Stosstruppen. It should be noted that many German accounts describe British and Dominion assault troops as Stoss- and Sturmtruppen (NB: there were some excellent British assault divisions that were just as successful as the Dominion divisions). The British did not use highly specialised assault troops who were assigned to assist conventional forces, but the contribution of these specialised troops in Operation Michael was tiny.

Although many German divisions were trained to operate according to the principles that you outlined (eg. less dense formations), there are many examples where this did not happen adequately in 1918, and the German infantry suffered accordingly. Even Ludendorff lamented this problem.

With regards to the French defense of Reims, General Petain had to intervene personally to get French General Degoutte to distribute his forces in depth. Despite the lessons meted out to the French in Operation Blücher-Yorck and the attack on Mont Kemmel, many French generals were reluctant to change their habit of defending with most men in the front line.

Robert

[glenn239]

The British did not use highly specialised assault troops who were assigned to assist conventional forces

These formations were called, “Australians” and “Canadians”.