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World War I · Western Front · July 1 – November 18, 1916
The Battle of the Somme
On the morning of July 1, 1916, British and French soldiers climbed out of their trenches along the Somme River expecting to walk through German lines smashed by a week of shelling. By nightfall the British Army had suffered the worst day in its history. The battle ground on for four and a half months, cost more than a million casualties and saw the first tanks go into action.
A British Mark I tank near Thiepval, September 25, 1916
Quick facts
The Somme at a glance
| When | July 1 to November 18, 1916 (141 days) | |
| Where | A 25-mile front on both sides of the Somme River, Picardy, northern France | |
| Sides | British Empire and France vs. Germany | |
| Allied leaders | Gen. Sir Douglas Haig; Gen. Sir Henry Rawlinson (Fourth Army); Gen. Émile Fayolle (French Sixth Army) | |
| German leaders | Gen. Fritz von Below (Second Army); chief of staff Falkenhayn, then Hindenburg and Ludendorff | |
| Casualties | More than 1 million: about 420,000 British Empire, 200,000 French and 450,000 or more German | |
| Ground gained | About 6 miles at the deepest point | |
| Result | Indecisive; the Allies advanced slightly and wore down the German army |
The big picture in 30 seconds
Why the Somme matters
- Its first day is still the bloodiest in British military history.
- Tanks went into battle for the first time on September 15, 1916.
- It relieved pressure on the French at Verdun.
- It turned Britain’s volunteer “Pals” army into a hardened, if bloodied, fighting force.
57,470
British casualties on July 1
1.5 million
shells in the opening bombardment
49
tanks for the first tank attack
1 million+
casualties on both sides
The plan
The “Big Push”
At a conference at Chantilly in December 1915, the Allies agreed to attack together in 1916. France would lead, along the Somme where the British and French sectors met. Then Germany struck first at Verdun, and the French share shrank. The British, led by Sir Douglas Haig, took the main role. Most of the British infantry were volunteers of Lord Kitchener’s “New Army,” many in “Pals” battalions of friends, neighbors and workmates who had joined up together in 1914.
The plan relied on artillery. For a week from June 24, more than 1,500 guns fired about 1.5 million shells to cut the barbed wire and destroy the German trenches. But many shells were duds or shrapnel that could not cut wire, and the Germans sheltered in deep dugouts up to 30 feet underground, ready to climb out with their machine guns.
Where it happened
A chalk upland above the river
The battle was fought on rolling chalk country north and south of the Somme River, around villages such as Thiepval, Beaumont-Hamel, Pozières and Flers. The Germans held most of the high ground and had fortified the villages and woods for nearly two years.
Simplified map. The British attacked north of the Somme River, the French astride it.
How the battle unfolded
Four and a half months
After the disaster of the first day the battle became a long, grinding struggle for woods, ridges and ruined villages.
At 7:30 a.m. whistles blew and about 120,000 British troops advanced. Many were cut down in no man’s land: 57,470 casualties, 19,240 of them killed. In the south, British and French troops took their objectives.
Bitter fighting for Mametz Wood, Delville Wood (held by South Africans), High Wood and Pozières, taken by Australians at a cost of 23,000 casualties in six weeks.
The first tanks go into action. Of 49 available, about 32 reached the start line and a handful helped capture the village of Flers. Canadians take Courcelette.
Autumn rain turns the battlefield to mud. The last attack, at the Ancre, takes Beaumont-Hamel. The battle ends on November 18 in sleet and snow.
July 1, 1916
The bloodiest day
Some men were told they could walk across no man’s land with rifles at the slope, because nothing could have survived the bombardment. Instead the Germans emerged from their dugouts and set up their machine guns. At Beaumont-Hamel the 1st Newfoundland Regiment, from a colony that was not yet part of Canada, advanced at about 9:15 a.m. In less than half an hour about 700 of its roughly 800 men were killed, wounded or missing. July 1 is still Memorial Day in Newfoundland.
Because Pals battalions were recruited from single towns, the losses fell on whole communities at once. The Accrington Pals lost 584 of about 720 men in minutes near Serre. Newspapers printed casualty lists for weeks.
Commanders and soldiers
Commanders and soldiers
.jpg/500px-General_Sir_Henry_S_Rawlinson_(cropped).jpg)
Why it mattered
A terrible lesson in modern war
The Somme did not break through, but it relieved Verdun and badly wore down the German army, which fell back to the new, shorter Hindenburg Line early in 1917. A German officer called it “the muddy grave of the German field army.” For Britain, it became the symbol of the war’s waste. The British army also learned hard lessons about artillery, tactics and tanks that it used to win in 1918.
“It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further.”
Maj. Gen. Sir Beauvoir De Lisle
On the 1st Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel, July 1, 1916
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Books and sources
- The First Day on the Somme, by Martin Middlebrook (1971)
- The Somme, by Peter Hart (2005)
- The Face of Battle, by John Keegan (1976)
- More recommended books