Somme Battle

[Old Tom]

Today is an anniversary of the last day of the Somme campaign.

Old Tom

[trenchtrotter]

Indeed but oh how it dragged on with local battles throughout the bleak wet cold winter of 1916 / 17 especially astride the Ancre.

TT

[phil andrade]

Thanks for reminding us, Old Tom.

The British Official Historian summed up the nature of the fighting ninety seven years ago today when he wrote ( and I cite this from memory, in the hope that I'm reasonably accurate) :

" Our vocabulary is not adapted to describe such an existence, because it is outside experience for which words are normally necessary."

I've read that some men actually died from exhaustion and exposure in a snowstorm as they struggled to move through the mud in the Ancre sector. I wonder how many thousands were cut down by enemy fire.

One of them was 2nd Lt. Eric Smart, whose father sent him a letter that very day, encouraging his " Dear Little Boy" to seek solace in Allied victory and God's protection. The letter was returned with the word " MISSING" stamped on the envelope.

Eric Smart is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

Phil (PJA)

[David Ridgus]

Teaching 'Journey's End' at the moment. To give them some context I have been showing the class a documentary about 1st July. We finished it today. I asked them if they could remember 1st July this year and when they said no I reminded them that it was three weeks before the summer holidays. I then told them that the battle they had just watched the first day of ended at today's date. They were shocked. I must say it brought it home to me what an extraordinary slog it was.

David

[phil andrade]

Haig himself emphasised in his own commentary on the war that July 1st 1916 was the inauguration of one colossal engagement that continued until November 11th 1918.

But the Somme stands in British public memory as the pre-eminent battle.

This is the anniversary of the 141st and final day of that battle.

I doubt that the soldiers who endured the horror of that crater field wilderness noticed much of a change in the days after November 18th 1916.

The " Battle Nomenclature" committee provides the official phases and dates that define the history of the Somme and other battles.

This is an opportune moment for me to consult Jack Sheldon's THE GERMAN ARMY ON THE SOMME, and see how things in the Ancre valley appeared to German eyes ninety seven years ago today.

Phil (PJA)

[gilbo139]

Harry Dimmock wounded at Le Transloy 97 yrs ago today...........died 2 days later ...RIP

[Stoppage Drill]

Teaching 'Journey's End' at the moment. To give them some context I have been showing the class a documentary about 1st July. We finished it today. I asked them if they could remember 1st July this year and when they said no I reminded them that it was three weeks before the summer holidays. I then told them that the battle they had just watched the first day of ended at today's date. They were shocked. I must say it brought it home to me what an extraordinary slog it was.

David

I've used a similar technique to get a point across, which I think I've mentioned on the forum before.

You might like to try this out with your class.

Talk about the Wootton Bassett repatriations, then point out that if - notionally - we had started to bring back one body British war dead per hour from 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918, non-stop, 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, then we would still have 7 years to go.

[phil andrade]

Here's another one.

Every single one of the eleven chimes rung out from Big Ben during the Remembrance Day Service at Whitehall represents one hundred thousand British Empire dead from the Great War.

One in every nine of these were casualties of the Battle of the Somme.

Phil (PJA)

[David Ridgus]

Thank you gentleman, those are two powerful images that I will definitely use

David

[roel22]

I've also asked myself how to visualize the massive losses. What does 125.000 British dead (of the Somme battles) look like?

Let's place them next to each other, 70 cm. per body. With 125.000 dead that's 88 km.

And that's only the British.

Something to think about when you're driving to the (Somme) battlefields.

Roel

[Chris_Baker]

In some ways they were the lucky ones. Add the (guess) 150km of maimed, mentally scarred men. And the 500km of families, friends and sweethearts whose lives were shattered by the loss.

[MBrockway]

Without in any way diminishing the sheer appalling nature of the Somme slog (in which my grandfather fought), I found this thought-provoking gobbet in Gordon Corrigan's Mud, Blood & Poppycock (p.298) recently ...

The Somme - 01 Jul to 18 Nov 1916

Duration: 141 days

British & Commonwealth divisions engaged: 53

Total KiA & DoW: 95,000

Deaths per division per week: 89

Battle of Normandy - 06 Jun to 25 Aug 1944

Duration: 81 days

British & Commonwealth divisions (or equivalent) engaged: 19

Total KiA & DoW: 22,000

Deaths per division per week: 100

Corrigan goes on to explore provocatively some of the possible factors in our differing perceptions of the two battles. I tend to take Corrigan with a pinch of salt - for example, he does not take into account that the WW2 divisional establishments were probably too dissimilar to make a ratio of 'Deaths per division per week' strictly comparable - and I certainly know which of the two battles I would choose to be in myself. Nevertheless I think it's good to have one's tree shaken every now and again.

Let us remember them all

[phil andrade]

Corrigan's analysis is deeply flawed.

I think most historians and commentators have refuted his claim ; although I think we all agree that his approach is very welcome and does a lot to repudiate the more unfair and caricatured perceptions of the Great War.

It must be true that it was every bit as dangerous to carry a rifle and close with the enemy in 1944 as it had been in 1916. The big difference was that a damned sight fewer men had to do the job, and this was reflected in the total loss of life in the respective battles.

Phi (PJA)

[Stoppage Drill]

Yes, it's long been an article of faith with me that a British infantry battalion in 1944 was a more deadly place to be than on the Western Front in 1916, but only when the unit was in contact.

The periods of non-contact in 1944, even though theoretically still engaged, tended to be comparatively lengthy and comparatively safe, when compared to the fatal vulnerability of men occupying trenches which were well registered by enemy guns.

[phil andrade]

That's an illuminating point, Stoppage Drill.

The array of weapons that the infantryman of 1944 had to contend with was more diverse and deadly than that faced by his counterpart in 1916. To counter this, the soldier of 1944 enjoyed greater dispersal and shorter periods of contact.

I don't think that even the most extreme rates of loss in the rifle companies in 1944 exceeded those of the Somme ; they might have rivalled them.

Dad had served as an infantryman in Italy in 1944. He was in a mortar section, which might have given him a significantly better chance than the riflemen. I remember his reaction to watching the Great War series on the BBC in the mid 1960s :

"Thank God I wasn't in THAT one !".

Editing here : I wonder if that dispersal in the 1944 battlefield that I allude to actually increased the psychological stress, in so far as the man felt more isolated in the " empty battlefield", and more vulnerable to the sudden shock of combat. The incidence of " hysteria" cases among the battle casualties in Normandy testifies to this.

Phil (PJA)

[bmac]

I'm really not sure what is the point of comparing Normandy and the Somme. Significantly different weapons systems available to both sides, significantly different tactical and strategic positions, significantly different short and long terms outcomes with WW2 over 8 months after the end of the Normandy campaign and WW1 two years after the end of the Somme. Normandy as an 'investment' gave a far better return and I doubt whether the subsequent casualties suffered by the British Army up until 29th April 1945 were remotely similar, relatively or absolutely, to those suffered by the BEF in 1917 and 1918.

[phil andrade]

It's a historiographical exercise, or indulgence, Bill. Sorry if that sounds a bit pseudy.

The way people perceive the Battle of the Somme might stand as a microcosm of the Great War. There are frequent allusions to the casualties of the Somme by those wishing to emphasise how cheap and successful the Anglo-American military operations of the Second World War were....Churchill cites this in reference to El Alamein ; Chester Wilmot in his account of D-Day. The Somme, especially its first day, is used as a benchmark to flatter the generalship of Monty and Co.

It bothered me a bit that Corrigan's misleading assessment of the two battles had gained some credence. That said, I think he has done some great work.

You're right, of course.

Phil (PJA)

[MBrockway]

I posted Corrigan's table with large caveats! The comparison seemed flawed but interesting nevertheless.

His thesis inter alia was not to create a pecking order of battles, but rather to look at how The Somme has accrued symbolic meaning in British & Commonwealth culture as an isolated 'spike' in the graph of typical attrition rates in British battle history and how much of that is put at the door of a casual attitude to losses by the general staff - much as Phil has said above.

He agrees that nobody can dismiss the debacle of 1st July, but claims the rest of the battle was much more in line with other modern era battles.

The book reads as a series of confident lectures by a self-assured military commander, with less of the more cautious tone an academic historian would adopt. Nevertheless I think it's important and valuable that assumptions and received wisdom are challenged by such writers - it stimulates the more academic to dig out the detailed research (e.g. to build better stats on casualty rates) needed to properly investigate such challenges.

As I said - it's good to have one's tree rattled now and again - it provokes one to look harder at one's own beliefs. With The Somme though, however you look at them, the facts are appalling

Mark

[bmac]

"... a self-assured military commander". As a matter of interest, in what wars did Corrigan fight and in what role?

[paulgranger]

Based on his Wikipedia biography, I don't think he's ever seen action. Not that that precludes him from writing military history, nor does it mean he wasn't a 'self-assured military commander', but I see where you are coming from.

[bmac]

I suspect being 'self-assured' was the least of his problems.

[MBrockway]

"... a self-assured military commander". As a matter of interest, in what wars did Corrigan fight and in what role?

Does one need to have seen action to be a self-assured commander?

[Stoppage Drill]

Yes.

Otherwise, until tested, one is merely "cocky"

[MBrockway]

Yes.

Otherwise, until tested, one is merely "cocky"

Sorry - it was a rhetorical question: the answer must clearly be 'No', otherwise any officer unblooded in battle would be barred from command. One can be an excellent and self-assured leader without seeing action. All that is uncertain at that point is whether those qualities will be maintained during the stress of battle. Likewise there must be many battle virgin officers who are self-assured and confident, but who most definitely would not be seen as 'merely cocky'.