Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy.
Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast and end the U-boat threat from Belgian waters. In December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Simultaneous offensives on the Eastern Front by the Russian army, on the Italian Front by the Italian army and on the Western Front by the Franco-British armies were to be carried out to deny time for the Central Powers to move troops between fronts during lulls. Debate continues over the necessity, significance and effect of the battle.Īllied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6th to 8th December 1915. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February before the strategic retreat by about 25 mi (40 km) in Operation Alberich to the Siegfriedstellung ( Hindenburg Line) in March 1917. The operational objectives of the Anglo-French armies were unfulfilled, as they failed to capture Péronne and Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. The battle became notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank in September but these were a product of new technology and proved unreliable.Īt the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6 mi (10 km) into German-occupied territory along the majority of the front, their largest territorial gain since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. Most of the British casualties were suffered on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, which was the area where the principal German defensive effort ( Schwerpunkt) was made. The 57,470 casualties suffered by the British, including 19,240 killed, were the worst in the history of the British Army. On the first day on the Somme (1 July) the German 2nd Army suffered a serious defeat opposite the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert– Bapaume road. The British troops on the Somme comprised a mixture of the remains of the pre-war army, the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army, a force of wartime volunteers. When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of the divisions intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became the principal effort. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire.
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