The Somme

[Robert Dunlop]

Peter, a good analogy. Similarly, both France and Britain were frustrated with the delay in getting US troops into the lines in 1917/18.

Robert

[PMHart]

Absolutely Robert. Although I am a tremendous admirer of the achievements of the BEF once it had 'come of age' and acquired the artillery/shells to allow the construct of a lethal 'All Arms' battle philosophy in 1918, this does not require a denigration of the French effort in the Great War. The French Army bore the brunt of the war from 1914 to mid-1916. Even after that they bore a substantial - if not the main - burden. Their army was far better trained and backed by adequate artillery right from the start. After losing more men in 1914 than we did in the whole war, followed by the slaughter of the 1915 offensives in which much vaunted British efforts like Neuve Chapelle, Festubert and even Loos are just footnotes to the huge Franco-German battles raging further south, all trumped by the sustained German onslaught at Verdun, the French were desperate for the British to deploy their infant armies. I know little about Verdun (having only read Horne book thirty-five years ago and more recently reviewed the Osprey book) but it remains my perception that it was a titanic battle, the likes of which had never been waged in all history. I await with interest any proof that it was no real threat to the Allied cause in 1916. I suspect I will wait in vain!

Pete

[phil andrade]

Thirty years ago, when our older daughter was christened, we asked an old French friend of my wife's to be god mother. She was delighted with the appointment, and soon engaged me with me in dicussion about the Great War when she saw a war memorial in the churchyard dedicated to 1914-1918. " This is wrong, surely," she said "..you English did not come into the war until 1916 !" She was being serious, and really believed that....the anecdote certainly bears out your analogy with British perceptions of the USA, Pete.

Forgive my quibble about French losses in 1914 : they amounted to about 300,000 dead - an outrageous figure; but Britain was to lose about 750,000 in the whole war, a figure which the French were approaching by the end of 1915. Contrary to a popular view, the highest number of French deaths was not incurred in 1914, but in 1915, with some 350,000. The figure for killed and missing was indeed highest in 1914, but in this case the missing included a very large number of prisoners.

I would hate to be seen as being complacent about Verdun. It cost France, by official count, 378,000 casualties, of whom nearly half were killed or died from wounds, or taken prisoner. About ten per cent of all the French deaths on the Western Front in the Great War occurred there between February and December 1916. The threat was indeed real and the ordeal horrific. Joffre's claim that the loss of 200,000 men there by the end of May implied the ruin of the French Army, or that postponement of the Somme offensive until mid August would mean that the army would cease to exist, must be viewed as more of an emotional reaction than one based on sober analysis. Haig's reaction to this outburst is intriguing...he seems to exhibit condescension, almost disdain, but he does honour his pledge and, as GAC emphasises, refers to Joffre as "Generalissimo".

The nub of my interest in this question is the astonishingly successful performance of the French army on the Western Front in the second half of 1916. What did this indicate....that the Verdun fighting had taught the French, in the harshest possible school, how to manage their battle ? Or was it the efforts of the British, who were prodigal and clumsy, but held the German army by the throat and allowed the French to deploy more nimbly and effectively ? It should be noted that in the second half of 1916, the French claimed 70,000 prisoners, compared with the British count of just under 40,000, and achieved this disparity with significantly fewer casualties than the British.

For an army that was facing ruin, or even obliteration, this is a sudden and striking achievement.

Phil (PJA)

[PMHart]

Sorry I'm dreadful at statistics, always have been, doubt if it will change now as I decline into senility. You will however note that 1914 had only five months of fighting as opposed to 1915's more conventional full twelve.

Pete

[Steven Broomfield]

Haig's reaction to this outburst is intriguing...he seems to exhibit condescension, almost disdain, but he does honour his pledge

Just an observation, but Haig was a product of the stiff-uuper-lip school of British phlegm. Having a Frenchman ranting and getting emotional might well be something which Haig would find strange, embarrassing, even. Any reaction by a British general to his French counterpart becoming emotional in public could be viewed as a culture shock, rather than as a refusal to accept the facts.

[phil andrade]

Sorry I'm dreadful at statistics, always have been, doubt if it will change now as I decline into senility. You will however note that 1914 had only five months of fighting as opposed to 1915's more conventional full twelve.

Pete

Yes, Pete, how right you are ....the rate of loss in those five months of 1914 was truly appalling, phenomenal would not be too strong a word. Nothing in the years after wards approached it. And, more shocking still, the preponderance of the loss was sustained in a few weeks in August and September. On one day - August 22nd - it is believed that 27,000 Frenchmen died. Five days of fighitng in August are reckoned to have cost 140,000 French casualties, killed, wounded or missing : from a total of 1,528,000 French troops who were posted as killed or missing in the entire war, 313,000 of them belong to August and September 1914. By contrast, just under half that amount ( 156,000) were killed, or were posted as missing, on all fronts, in the five months between February and June 1916, when the Verdun fighting raged at greatest intensity.

I not only take your point - I fully endorse it...and, I hope, enhance it.

PS : missing here includes prisoners

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Just an observation, but Haig was a product of the stiff-uuper-lip school of British phlegm. Having a Frenchman ranting and getting emotional might well be something which Haig would find strange, embarrassing, even. Any reaction by a British general to his French counterpart becoming emotional in public could be viewed as a culture shock, rather than as a refusal to accept the facts.

Yes...Haig preferred the more phlegmatic conduct of Petain, although he must have deplored his pessimism. Apparently, at the end of May, Petain -and, surprisingly, Nivelle - warned Haig that Verdun would be taken.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

On my shelves there is an earlier version of Haig's papers than the Sheffield and Bourne one : this work, The Private Papers of Douglas Haig , edited by Blake, contains this passage from May 24 :

Joffre was of the opinion that the offensive cannot be delayed beyond the beginning of July. Their losses at Verdun must be considered with the increase of the British. Also that the French would prefer to lose their casualties in an offensive attack rather than to melt away while sitting still.

That last sentence, which I have emboldened, is a crucial statement, which might go some way to explaining the paradox I have been grappling with. Those Verdun casualties, which were not unique - not even exceptional, actually - were more difficult to bear because they were incurred in a defensive role in a battle in which the enemy was deemed to hold the initiative. The loss of 200,000 men in these circumstances was producing a distraught reaction in the French high command, while the loss of an equal number in the Somme offensive was treated with relative equanimity.

Phil (PJA)

[Pete1052]

... both France and Britain were frustrated with the delay in getting US troops into the lines in 1917/18.

It took just over 12 months for that to happen. The "Amalgamation" debate muddied the waters on that issue. It wasn't just a matter of getting U.S. troops into action, it was also who would be commanding them.

[George Armstrong Custer]

On my shelves there is an earlier version of Haig's papers than the Sheffield and Bourne one : this work, The Private Papers of Douglas Haig , edited by Blake, contains this passage from May 24 :

Joffre was of the opinion that the offensive cannot be delayed beyond the beginning of July. Their losses at Verdun must be considered with the increase of the British. Also that the French would prefer to lose their casualties in an offensive attack rather than to melt away while sitting still.

That last sentence, which I have emboldened, is a crucial statement, which might go some way to explaining the paradox I have been grappling with.

That is not a crucial statement so much as a blindingly obvious one - removing the German invaders off French soil by military means was inevitably going to cost in blood, and of course the French would have preferred that that price bought them something more tangible in that direction than merely holding the line whilst leaving the enemy in occupation of large parts of sacred French territory. However, the toll of Verdun was also shared by the Germans, of course, as with the Somme and Third Ypres, and in the end that was a vital factor in their failed March 1918 offensive, despite reinforcement from the East, allowing the Allies to turn the tide and push them back up to the victory of the Armistice in November.

It's interesting that you now say that you also have Blake's edition of Haig's Diaries. Obviously you will have known, then, not only how far your cutting and pasting of elements from the shortened version from Sheffield & Bourne gave a totally false impression of what Haig was actually saying, but just how far you had removed it from the context of his full entry for 26 May which I quoted, and which Blake reproduces.

As far as the 'paradox [you] have been grappling with' is concerned, that seems to be a creation of your own imagination and one which is endowed with chameleon-like qualities as you adapt it to responses to it on this thread.

You began by making the case that:

"Joffre's protest that the French army would be ruined - let alone cease to exist - seems preposterous; the rate of loss suffered at Verdun was modest compared with what had been incurred in Joffre's offensives of May and June, and of September and October, in 1915;" , and "The essential question that I'm trying to ask is : how dangerous for the Entente was the situation at Verdun in May and June 1916? [...] Verdun itself, for all its notoriety, was not consuming French lives at anything like the rate of Joffre's own offensives the previous year" , followd by "Please, address my question about Verdun and the inordinate effect that its cost - quite moderate compared with previous experience - had on the discussions between the British and French commanders" . There is no mention by you in any of this of the idea that what was excercising Joffre's mind about the continuing cost of Verdun in May 1916 was the accumulative toll on the French army from August 1914 onwards which Verdun ran on top of.

I highlighted the speciousness of your above case, and the lack of any 'paradox' in my post # 11. Having seen which way the prevailing wind was blowing from my own and other posts, in your post # 13 you quietly adopted the main point I'd made in explanation of Joffre's excitement over Verdun as if it was something you'd been implying all along - "George - as you point out, it was the "previous experience" which made these Verdun losses so frightening, especially in a battle of such duration." Having made my point a part of your own argument didn't stop you from going on in post #15 to accuse me of writing 'cobblers' for, allegedly, wrongly implying that you were trying to state a case at all - despite what I have just quoted above from the case you were making.

Having deftly shifted your argument to incorportate my criticism of it in your post # 13 - ie you write that "it was the 'previous experience' which made these Verdun losses so frightening, especially in a battle of such duration" - you then read Robert's extract from Huguet's Britain and the War: A French Indictment and once again the basis of your argument metamorphosed. Predictably, you homed in on the final paragraph, where Sir John French scapegoats Haig to Joffre and Foch for British failures at Loos, ludicrously boasting of how he'd have achieved a breakthrough in Haig's place, and that Haig was prevaricating without cause. Taking from this what you want to, and at face value, you now shift in your post # 23 to claiming that this - French's allegation of Haig's delaying unnecessarily to attack at Loos in September 1915 - is what caused French's excitement on 26 May 1916 when Haig mentioned 15th August. You wrote: "Viewed in this light, Joffre's outburst on May 26 1916 seems more understandable, and, I daresay, more justifiable. If Frenchmen in the High Command were feeling like that before Verdun, then it's small wonder that Joffre displayed an "outburst of excitement" several months later." Yet this ignores the fact that Huguet's is a self-confessedly polemical and partial view - have your read it? - which is highly critical of, and often misunderstanding of, the British military establishment.This becomes understandable when one knows that Huguet's main inside source was the highly duplicitous and Francophile Sir Henry Wilson, to whom Huguet dedicates his 1928 book. Huguet's book is certainly not without its value as a point of view - and particularly so as a contrast to similar polemical pieces about the French by British authors. Robert clearly understands the limitations and caution with which Huguet must be used in his follow up post, when he refers to the latter's 'catalogue of issues with the BEF', and recommends Doughty's Pyrrhic Victory as a broad, less agenda-based, means of understanding why the scale of France's contribution over the previous two years is the explanation for Joffre's premature outburst when Haig mentioned 15 August during their meeting on 26 May 1916. I read Robert's quote from Huguet as being intended to be taken in its entirety as underlining that context of French effort since 1914. Your latching on to Huguet's reference to French ludicrously accusing Haig of unnecessary delay at Loos, as the basis of Joffre's outburst the following May, would only be sustainable - even if it were true - if what Haig was proposing on 26 May was indeed a delay of British involvement on the Somme until 15 August. As it is, however, Haig's full account of that meeting, which I quoted earlier, makes it crystal clear that he was only making Joffre aware of what the relative states of readiness of the BEF on a given set of dates between 1 July and 15 August would be. Joffre jumped in prematurely and expressly on the issue of the state of the French army making 15 August for a British launch on the Somme unsustainable; after allowing him to vent his spleen - probably much along the rather embarrassed lines described by Steve Broomfield in post # 30 - Haig continued by pointing out that, ideal options aside, he was in any case convinced enough by Joffre's arguments of strategic necessity to fall in with his requirement for a British attack on the Somme on or about 1 July. So I'm afraid, PJA, you were more on the money when you shifted to adopt the points made in my post # 11, and made a shift too far when you moved on to pounce upon John French's attempted scapegoating of Haig at Loos at the end of Robert's extract from Huguet.

Subsidiary to and consequent on your above shape-shifting case about how 'preposterous' Joffre's concerns over Verdun were, you argued that:

"There are some comments made by Haig that suggest that he felt Joffre was exagerrating [sic] the peril of Verdun." . You followed with a doctored cut and paste from Haig's Diary from 26 May 1916 which completely changed what Haig was actually saying, and on which you found the following as a valid proposition: "More to the point : did Haig imply that there was a good deal of hype in Joffre's depiction of Verdun?" ."

Yet when I pointed out, in some detail and at some trouble, how completely you had misrepresented what Haig had written in his Diary to suit your own preconceptions, your only response was "What is the "case" that you imply that I'm trying to state? What motivates you to write such a load of cobblers?" As is quite clear, I wasn't implying you were making any case - your own posts detail the points you tried to make by fair means and foul. What is worse, possessing as you do Blake's edition of Haig's diary, you cannot have been unaware of not only how you had falsified the meaning of what Haig wrote by your cutting and pasting parts of it, but how entirely out of context these were to the complete entry on his meeting with Joffre.

I have spent some time on this thread counteracting your deliberately skewed quotes from Haig's diary, Phil, and your chameleon-like shifting of the goalposts in an attempt to maintain credibility as your misunderstandings and misleading talk of 'paradoxes' are corrected. The veracity of your accusation that I'm talking 'cobblers' I'll leave for others to judge. No offence personally, but having established the way you use sources and build specious and ever-shifting arguments upon them which are time-consuming to correct, I won't be continuing in that vein - life's just too short. I look forward, though, to engaging with other contributors as I'm sure that Robert will develop the arguments - largely historiographical ones - over the original proposition made when he opened this thread. In the meantime I intend to take a look through the relevant dates during the run up to 1 July 1916 in the Haig Papers this week, to see if any previously unpublished material of relevance turns up.

George

[Jack Sheldon]

Some very interesting contributions here. I have not read Huguet, I blush to admit, but, because I am working on 1915 at the moment, I have been re-reading Joffre's Memoirs. (Memoires du Marechal Joffre 1910 - 1917 Tome Deuxieme). PP 70 and 71 are really rather interesting. Joffre's priority, by agreement with French, from Dec 14 was clearly to have the British relieve his XVI, XX and IX Corps at the earliest opportunity, so that he could build up the strength he needed to launch his Tenth Army attack in Artois, but his irritation at the vexatious delays, certainly by the time he came to publish his memoirs fifteen years later, was directed much more at the British government than at French. He criticises the despatch of 29th Div to the Dardanelles, the 'late' arrival of the Canadians and the substitution of, vingt-quatre bataillons de valeur moindre. He specifically states that these changes, which came just when his orders of 21 January 1915 stated that the offensive was 'imminent' were the fault of the British government and he says that French, souffrait loyalement de ces incertitudes which constrained his (French's) ability to take action to relieve the pressure on Eighth Army.

He does not comment at length about Neuve Chapelle and there is nothing to suggest that the British preparations tore him from his chair, as the Germans might say. He accepts that the first day brought worthwhile results but the operation as a whole, fut un success sans lendemain. So much for Neuve Chapelle!

Jack

[phil andrade]

As far as the 'paradox [you] have been grappling with' is concerned, that seems to be a creation of your own imagination and one which is endowed with chameleon-like qualities as you adapt it to responses to it on this thread.

I have spent some time on this thread counteracting your deliberately skewed quotes from Haig's diary, Phil, and your chameleon-like shifting of the goalposts in an attempt to maintain credibility as your misunderstandings and misleading talk of 'paradoxes' are corrected. George

As a chameleon, I must protest !

You have failed to address an important aspect of my posts.

The successes achieved by the French - on the Somme and elsewhere - in the second half of 1916 appear all the more remarkable in view of the punishment of 1914, 1915 and of Verdun itself. No shape shifting here, no moving of goal posts, and certainly no pre conceptions on my part. I invite discussion on this...it is, after all, an important aspect of how Verdun impinged on the Somme, and I hope to learn from others' contributions.

In the meantime, with a tongue longer than my body coiled up inside me, and with huge, bulbous eyes protruding from the sides of my head, I await the chance to flick up any flies you're gracious enough to cast my way.

Phil (PJA)

[salesie]

As a chameleon, I must protest !

You have failed to address an important aspect of my posts.

The successes achieved by the French - on the Somme and elsewhere - in the second half of 1916 appear all the more remarkable in view of the punishment of 1914, 1915 and of Verdun itself. No shape shifting here, no moving of goal posts, and certainly no pre conceptions on my part. I invite discussion on this...it is, after all, an important aspect of how Verdun impinged on the Somme, and I hope to learn from others' contributions.

In the meantime, with a tongue longer than my body coiled up inside me, and with huge, bulbous eyes protruding from the sides of my head, I await the chance to flick up any flies you're gracious enough to cast my way.

Phil (PJA)

If the performance of the French Army during the second half 1916 is to be viewed as remarkable, relative to what went before, then surely it is highly relevant to also compare it to its parlous state in the spring/summer of 1917? In these terms, is not an even greater conundrum (about the French Army) created i.e. by mid 1916 it had learned valuable lessons but by 1917 it had un-learnt them?

Consequently, does the placing of the Somme into a post as well as a pre 1916 context show us that the Somme or Verdun, or any other battle for that matter, did not operate in a vacuum, and that Haig's analogy in his final despatch, of the war in effect being "one-continuous battle", is pretty much spot-on?

Cheers-salesie.

[phil andrade]

Yes, there is a kind of Hubris Nemesis flavour to the story of Nivelle, who proclaimed that "We have the method !" after the recapture of Ft. Douamont, and who subsequently presided over one of the great debacles of his country's military history. There is also the fact that the Germans appear to have learnt a lot, too.

Edit ..sorry, this was a response thrown together in a hurry, and I didn't do justice to what I was trying to say.

It wasn't so much that the French "un-learnt" lessons; it was more that the Germans were surely improving their methods too.

Phil (PJA)

[Robert Dunlop]

Forgive me but the post-Somme performance of the French army in general and Nivelle in particular is off-topic for this thread. The issues have been discussed elsewhere, including here and here.

Robert

[phil andrade]

For July to October 1916, the Reichsarchiv tabulate 538,000 German casualties on the Western Front, all sectors. Against the British, the loss is tabulated at 200,000; against the French, 338,000. In the meantime, the French, according to their Journal Officiel

suffered 341,000 casualties, while the statistics of The Military Effort show British casualties to have been 453,000. This is very stark testimony to the relative skills of the two Entente armies, and it is my belief that the experience gained by the French at Verdun was of inestimable importance in this regard. There is scope to argue that, perhaps, some of the casualties suffered by the Germans were incorrectly attributed to the French sector when they were actually inflicted by the British. There is also little doubt that the British attacked in terrain that was more unfavourable, and where the Germans enjoyed a greater advantage. All the same, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the British were losing two to one, while the French achieved virtual parity in the exchange rate.

The most obvious reason for this, I suggest, is the much higher ratio of heavy guns in the French ordnance, and the more lavish use of firepower in proportion to manpower. If Verdun demonstrated anything, it was husbandry of infantry and prodigality in shells.

Edit : in connection with my last paragraph, I've just picked up an interesting allusion while browsing through my copy of Doughty's Pyrrhic Victory. Describing the Verdun fighting of August, 1916, he mentions that while the French were consigning entire divisions to the sectors involved in the heaviest combat, only two battalions were closely engaged....hence the reduced casualties. Are there any indications of how the British deployed their infantry in the Somme fighting i.e. what proportion of an attacking division was actually closely engaged ? I realise, of course, that in this warfare, the ubiquity of artillery fire meant that troops in a support role were bound to be hit, but was there a knd of notional "sharp edge" proportion of participants in the most intense fighting ?

Phil (PJA)

[George Armstrong Custer]

I have been re-reading Joffre's Memoirs [.....] his irritation at the vexatious delays, certainly by the time he came to publish his memoirs fifteen years later, was directed much more at the British government than at French. He criticises the despatch of 29th Div to the Dardanelles, the 'late' arrival of the Canadians and the substitution of, vingt-quatre bataillons de valeur moindre. He specifically states that these changes, which came just when his orders of 21 January 1915 stated that the offensive was 'imminent' were the fault of the British government and he says that French, souffrait loyalement de ces incertitudes which constrained his (French's) ability to take action to relieve the pressure on Eighth Army.

He does not comment at length about Neuve Chapelle and there is nothing to suggest that the British preparations tore him from his chair, as the Germans might say. He accepts that the first day brought worthwhile results but the operation as a whole, fut un success sans lendemain. So much for Neuve Chapelle!

Thanks for that, Jack - one always looks to you, of course, for German sources, and in doing so sometimes overlook the fact that your books on the German perspective are always researched 'in the round', with full cognizance of the context into which your German material is placed. Joffre, of course, had plenty of experience of his own of government policy being, on occasion, somewhat less than supportive. Thus in your precis of a relevant part of his Memoirs, he clearly sees elements of the British military effort on the Western Front being hamstrung even more overtly by their government's policies - the Gallipoli diversion in particular. This is supportive of my suggestion that Huguet did not speak for Joffre and that any allegation that Joffre's 'excitement' on 26 May 1916 can be attributed to perceptions formed by him of French's attempted scapegoating of Haig over events of September 1915 along the lines reported by Huguet is ill-founded. The scale of the burden and loss shouldered by the French from 1914, along with consequent political machinations behind his back, are what impelled Joffre's concern about the impact of the continuing toll at Verdun in May 1916 - alongside that concern, any suggestion that what really exercised his mind was French's jibes about Haig in September 1915 is laughable.

The plain fact of the matter is that there is no great mystery or complexity over the reality and the role of Verdun in the evolution of the planning for the Somme. That Robert has begun this thread is largely due to the need to clarify some misconceptions on these points which have been aired elsewhere on the forum recently. These range from the idea that Haig was somehow culpable for not exercising some mythical strategic independence from the French regarding the 'placing of the Somme' in the summer of 1916, regardless of the fact of his being a junior partner in a coalition at a period when the long-suffering senior partner was under continuing pressure at Verdun, to fatuous assertions that Haig's diaries and letters provide evidence that he thought Joffre was in the nature of a 'big girl's blouse' for his protestations over the ongoing impact of Verdun on the French. If this thread demonstrates the ludicrous and counter-factual nature of such assertions, then it will have served a useful purpose, despite tangental waffling to the contrary.

George

[Jack Sheldon]

Thanks for that George. Not having read Huguet, as I explained, I could not properly draw the conclusion you have, but I am sure you are right. I was inspired to return to Joffre and see what I could glean about the 26 May 16 meeting. In Memoires p 236 Joffre states that he was aware of the British desire for the date of 15 August for the start of the attack when Haig wrote to him on 8 May.

'On 8 May, basing his argument on the fact that by about 15 August the British army would be reinforced with 200 heavy guns, he requested a delay in the date of our offensive'. Je ne pouvais entrer dans ces vues. He goes on to say that requiring the French army to prolong the immense efforts it was making at Verdun would play into the hands of the Germans in the long run, because it would end up with the French being unable to participate in operations on the Somme. Whilst that is true, it is also undeniably the case that Joffre did not want to give Haig the opportuity to drop the Somme idea and launch an independent attack elsewhere. I actually think that Joffre was conflating several sources of information in making that statement because, as a next step, I turned to that well known cure for insomnia Les Armees Francaises dans la Grande Guerre Tome IV Deuxieme Volume and Annexes 1er Volume to it.

Relevant documents are:

Annex 194. (Haig's letter to Joffre dated 8 May 16) H refers to earlier letters, points out that the longer he has to prepare, the better, but he does not mention 15 Aug or heavy guns, just that 'I shall be in a much better position to attack at the end of July or beginning of August than I shall be in June'.

Annex 265. (Briefing note for the planned conference between Joffre and General Robertson) This states that the British army can be ready for operations fom 15 June, but that it has requested a delay until August. The offensive should begin 15 days after the launch of the Russian offensive. It concedes that there might be value in waiting to see if the Germans withdraw troops to the Eastern Front, but that the Allies should not wait until the Russian attack was checked.

Annex 301. (Letter of 13 May 16 from Robertson to Joffre) R advocates a general delay in launching attacks by all the Allies, outlining how he believes the balance of forces and their preparedness between the Allies and the Germans will improve in favour of the former, but he accepts that there are other viewpoints, states that he does not wish to go against the conclusions of the Chantilly conference and stresses that he remains committed to the principle of a major offensive, but does not wish to launch until preparations are complete.

Annex 305. (Letter 14 May 16 from Joffre to Haig) J lays huge stress in this letter on the toll that Verdun is taking and leaves no doubt in H's mind about the need to stick to a date at the beginning of July.

Annex 375. (Letter 19 May 16 from Joffre to Robertson) J returns to the cost to the French army of allowing the Germans to continue to wear down the French army at Verdun without Allied response and that although the Germans were not in a strong position to launch an attack against the Russians that situation could change. It was important, therefore, for the Russians to attack while the situation was favourable and for this not to be delayed. These two considerations should determine the debate concerning the start of the offensive.

Annex 461. (Letter 22 May 16 from Joffre to Haig) This letter stresses the cost of Verdun and informs Haig that he has directed Foch to amend his plans for the offensive correspondingly.

Annex 494. (Briefing note, dated 23 May 16, in preparation for the forthcoming Beauquesne conference). This lays out the likely British position in detail. Heading A. 'Date of the Offensive' is interesting. It states. 'The Commander in Chief (i.e. Joffre) has informed General Haig that the Anglo-French foreces earmarked for the joint offensive, should be ready to attack on 1 July.' and 'The British Commander in Chief, though he has declared his readiness to attack on that date, has, on several occasions, repeated his wish to see the offensive delayed by at least a month'.

Annex 537. (Letter from Foch to Joffre dated 24 May 16) This spells out the exact consequences for the French offensive on the Somme of the reduction in manpower and equipment. This would have ensured that Joffre had all the facts at his fingertips for the forthcoming conference.

Annex 624. (Minutes of the 26 May Beauquesne conference, dated 17 May 16). After a briefing on Verdun and questions by Robertson concerning losses there, Joffre provided a tour d'horizon, including inofrmation about the Italian and Russian fronts. He then summarised,

'2/3 of the available French forces are engaged at Verdun

The Italian army is fully engaged

The Russian army will commence operations in about twenty days' time.

There can be no doubt that the moment is approaching rapidly when the available Anglo-French forces must launch their attack. (original emphasis)'.

Joffre stated that this could not be later than 1 July and that the date should be adhered to.

'Haig stated that there was complete agreement between General Joffre and himself ...As far as the date of the attack was concerned the most favourable moment for the British army would be 15 August because by that time the artillery would have been reinforced by 200 heavy guns and the divisions would have been better trained. nevertheless they would be in a position to attack from 20 June' N.B. This seems to be the first mention in writing of 'heavy guns' and '15 August', but Joffre may have been briefed on these specifics verbally earlier.

General Joffre stressed that it was the bounden duty of the British army to become involved in the fighting, before the French army became worn down through attrition ... '

'There was agreement on two matters.

The armies of Britain and France were to be ready to attack on 1 July.

General Haig would make known to the French Commander in Chief the amount of notice he required so as to be able to complete his final preparations ... '

In addition Annexes, such as 260 in which Joffre is given authority to disband two cavalry divisions and create eight infantry regiments with the man power and Annex 373 when Joffre raises the disparity between manpower promised and actually made available to the army between 1 Mar and 15 May 16 show how difficult the manpower situation was becoming and how Joffre had to explore every avenue to improve the situation.

In my opinion, having reviewed this material, if Joffre became hot under the collar on 26 May, it was only because Haig apparently had one last attempt to state the case for delay when he, Joffre, had already made it clear that 1 July was not negotiable. The fact that Haig acquiesced readily, suggests that he arrived at the meeting fully expecting to have to concede the point, given that he was fully aware of the pressures Verdun was placing on the French, who were, after all, the senior partners in the coalition.

Jack

[salesie]

Forgive me but the post-Somme performance of the French army in general and Nivelle in particular is off-topic for this thread. The issues have been discussed elsewhere, including here and here.

Robert

You are forgiven, Robert - I wasn't thinking about Nivelle in particular, but attempting to point out (to PJA) that if Haig's analogy of "one-continuous battle" is valid (and I think that it is) then looking at any battle/period in detailed isolation is to take a snapshot of events and to perhaps lose sight of the "full picture" i.e. as one example of several, if the French performance in the second half of 1916 is to be viewed as remarkable, given what went before, then its near collapse a few months later has to be absolutely so?

But now that PJA has introduced his "football-score" casualty stats, I'm definitely out of here.

Cheers-salesie.

[George Armstrong Custer]

These are excellent French sources, Jack, which show that neither Haig nor Joffre came away from the meeting of 26 May '16 with any significant difference in their perceptions of what was agreed and why. I rather suspect that by running through the dates between 1 July and August 15, with the latter being the earliest and ideal date at which he considered that the BEF would be in an optimum state of preparation, Haig was, to put it colloquially, basically covering his own a*rse. He was also, of course, only stating the truth so far as the ideal timescale for British preparedness was concerned. Despite this, and as you rightly indicate, there's no doubt that Haig arrived at that meeting in the full knowledge that French requirements consequent on, inter alia, the ongoing situation at Verdun, combined with his strategic subordination to those requirements as C-in-C of the junior partner in the Alliance, compelled his acquiescence to beginning his offensive at the start of July.

My reading of Haig's account of his discussion with Joffre is that the latter leapt in abruptly and prematurely when Haig mentioned August 15th in his overview of how British preparedness would stand at various dates from 1 July. One gets the impression that, having been quietly taken aback by Joffre's vehement interjection, the more phlegmatic Haig seems to have continued, after a moment of rather uncomfortable silence, along the lines of if Joffre had only let him finish, he was about to go on to say that despite August being the optimum date for the British, he was entirely convinced by French requirements that he begin on or about 1 July. I think Haig, six months into the job as British C-in-C, aware that he was on the verge of launching his first huge operation in that capacity and all that rested upon that, was at the same time acutely conscious that his role was that of junior partner in the Alliance. He casually refers to Joffre as the 'Generalissimo'. Consequent upon all of this, I suspect his motive for insisting on running through the state of preparedness forecast for the BEF by certain dates was not only, as I previously mentioned, to cover his own back by making these facts a matter of record, but also as a means of underlining his personal knowledge of and responsibility for the BEF and to his own government despite his junior role in the Alliance. In other words, it was only a statement of demarcation lines as a preamble to confirming that he was acceding to Joffre's strategic requirements and an acceptance of the reasons given for these.

George

[George Armstrong Custer]

if Haig's analogy of "one-continuous battle" is valid (and I think that it is)

So do I.

George

[phil andrade]

The French inflicted as much - maybe more - damage on the Germans in the Somme fighting as the British, at less than half the cost.

They were fighting the same enemy, in the same area, at the same time, so there must be an explanation for this disparity.

Fayolle reckoned that British tactics were "infantile".

Those 200 extra heavy guns that were expected by mid August, along with the better training of the infantry - both features that Haig emphasised as important reasons for delay - are significant as "might have beens" in so far as a reduction in British casualties are concerned.

It seems that lack of heavy guns and a more clumsy deployment of infantry were principal reasons for the inordinate difference between British and French losses in the battle.

In this respect Verdun was of paramount importance, because it allowed the French to exert the pressure on Haig that ultimately proved fatal to thousands of British troops who might otherwise have survived.

I'll see myself out.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Annex 624. (Minutes of the 26 May Beauquesne conference, dated 17 May 16). After a briefing on Verdun and questions by Robertson concerning losses there,

Jack

That catches the eye. Confusing that the minutes were written nine days before the conference..... a typo ? Why did Roberstson need to ask questions concerning losses at Verdun ? Memory might be playing me false, but didn't he remark that the figures given by the French were "tall" ?

Hadn't the Germans already done their worst at Verdun, or was a delay of the Somme offensive until mid August going to be beyond French endurance ?

Phil (PJA)

[Jack Sheldon]

Go to the top of the class, Phil: 27 May. I am paraphrasing and precising the contents of the Annexes. The casualty question arose after Joffre made this statement: '52 of our divisions have already been through the battle. At that rate, in two months time we shall only have one fresh division, even though we take care to withdraw our units from the battle before they are totally worn down.'

'General Robertson requested the figures for French and German losses. General Joffre estimated that up to 15 May our losses had amounted to 150,000 (less sick) against 350,000 for the Germans (including sick). It was understood that these figures were approximations, but that they were based on credible hypotheses'.

General Joffre resumed his briefing of the complete situation ...'

Jack

[phil andrade]

Thank you, Jack...forgive me if I might have appeared ungracious jumping on that date disparity.

Somewhere I have read - and I cannot remember where - that Robertson remarked that the French were broadcasting some "tall" figures. Joffre's estimate for French battle casualties is pretty reasonable.

Was there a perception in some British minds that Frenchmen were exagerrating the impact of Verdun in order to put pressure on Haig & Co ?

Phil (PJA)