`Until 1916, Great Britain had played relatively little part in the serious fighting of the war. As Russia's Brusilov Offensive had ground to a halt, Italy had suffered in the Alps, Serbia had been overrun and more importantly France was close to breaking point at Verdun, the allies turned to Britain to make a more decisive contribution to their combined effort. There needed to be a great offensive to relieve the pressure elsewhere in Europe and perhaps to end the war altogether. With this in mind, the British high command devised a plan for a joint attack with the French at the River Somme. However, far from delivering a telling blow to the German army, the resulting battle became the most notorious British military disaster there has ever been.

`The overall plan had been to use the new British national army for the first time in this battle, and the preparation of these men for war had been ongoing since 1914. 'Kitchener's Army' went to the Somme having had little (if any) previous experience of battle. They were not highly regarded by their commanders and the bulk of the officers and equipment had been directed to the regular army which was at the

`The inflexibility of the British plan was perhaps its greatest weakness. It was assumed that the great bombardment would work, since, according to the generals, nothing could have survived the week of continuous attack by the artillery. Consequently, there was no contingency plan to fall back on should (as indeed happened) the bombardment be unsuccessful. The official instruction issued by Haig to Rawlinson was to continue the bombardment if necessary until it had achieved its objectives. Rawlinson, however, whether reluctant to believe that the bombardment could fail or eager to get on with the battle, pressed on regardless of the worrying information which he was receiving concerning the extent of the German defences or the intactness of the barbed wire.

`Two problems of quality also affected the initial bombardment. Firstly, the shells were often badly made, exploding too early so the force of the explosion was directed harmlessly into the air rather than into the ground where it could damage the German dugouts, or not at all - a noticeable proportion of them were useless 'duds'. Secondly, the gunners were often the 'green' troops of Kitchener's Army, and consequently lacked the accuracy of the more experienced regulars. The result of all this was that despite seven days of the heaviest bombardment yet seen in the war, the artillery had achieved nothing like total success.

`A further problem with the bombardment was that the shells were generally of the wrong type, and often badly made. Most of them were shrapnel shells of little use for destroying the entrenched German infantry. High explosives were really needed to produce a sufficiently concussive effect to cause real damage to the dugouts, but these were in short supply as a result of the incapacity of British industry to produce them in great numbers. Only about 1/3 of the shells fired were high explosive. Given the excess of shrapnel shells, a use was found for them in the cutting of the barbed wire entanglements which had been placed between the opposing trenches. This was achieved to nothing like the desired extent, and when the infantry advanced on 1st July they found far too few gaps in the wire through which to pass. In fact, it is probable that again high explosive would have been the better ammunition to use, for although shrapnel might create more cuts through the wire, high explosive could disorder it, throwing it around and creating larger gaps for the infantry.

`The drawbacks associated with the battlefield, though, were to prove costly. Because this part of the front had been a 'quiet sector' since 1914, the Germans had had almost two years to prepare their defences, and had done so extremely well. The soft subsoil allowed trenches to be dug to a depth of ten feet, and the dugouts within them in which the Germans were to shelter, to one of thirty feet. Furt

Some topics in this essay:
French British, Haig Rawlinson, Montauban British, Army' Somme, Kitchener's Army, Alps Serbia, River Somme, Salisbury Plain, British Army, Brusilov Offensive, ground chosen, shells fired, german trenches, attack plan, machine guns, barbed wire, joint attack, infantry walk, plan british, german dugouts,