The+Reasons+for+the+Somme



The Battle of the Somme was one of the most important events in all of WW1 and began on the 1st July 1916 and lasted for a total of 3 months and ended on the 18th of November of the same year. Till this day it is still hard for us to ignore the long reaching effects of this devastating battle, as such I believe it is only proper for us to begin by informing you on the reasons why the Battle of the Somme was fought.

The Battle of the Somme was initiated by the Allies for many reasons, the first among them was to relieve the pressure on the French garrison at Verdun.

Verdun was the pride and joy of France, it was their strongest fortress and greatest defense and was the one they felt sure could weather the assault of the German army. And when the German attack finally came and the garrison at Verdun was on the brink of failure, the French commander [|Ferdinand Foch] knew that if action was not taken the morale of the French soldiers would be destroyed and despair would consume the hearts of France's defenders. It was because of this that he urged General Haig to attack the German forces gathered at the Somme.

[|Sir Douglas Haig], supreme commander of the Allied forces, knew that if some form of victory was not achieved soon by the Allies, the morale of his soldiers would collapse owing to the long line of exhausting defeats they had previously suffered at the battles of the [|Mons] and [|Marne]. He believed that:

"A marked success there, even if not decisive would surely encourage doubters to believe in the final victory on the main front and to continue the effort to attain it" -- //Sir Douglas Haig//

But this was not the only reason why the Battle of the Somme was allowed to commence. Haig and Foch were avid believers in the policy of attrition which is based on the concept of bleeding the enemy to death before they did the same to you. This type of warfare was entirely new and had been adapted to combat the use of trenches and other such new fortification techniques, because of this nobody really knew just how damaging this policy was capable of being. The Battle of the Somme was launched partly because of this misled belief, the belief that one could truly win the war by "killing German soldiers." //Sir Douglas Haig//

Furthermore, one year prior to the attack Lord Kitchener had launched an extremely successful recruitment campaign which had resulted in a flood of new recruits. These new recruits formed what was known as Kitchener's Army at the time, and numbered well into the millions. Even though they had only experienced the most rudimentary of training, the newly instated Field Marshal - Sir William Robertson - had insisted that Kitchener's army be put into action. With a flood of soldiers fresh from training coming to reinforce the tired and battered troops fighting on the Western Front, the commanders were given new hope that they might yet be able to turn back the relentless German army. Because of this a new series of attritional battles commenced, battles fought with tactics designed to use the Allies' numerical superiority to their own advantage, battles fought with only one purpose: to kill German soldiers. The great Battle of the Somme was but one of these massive confrontations.

In addition to all this, the Somme was where the British army retreating from their confrontation with the Germans at the Marne and Mons had met with the French forces gathering from all corners of the nation. It was because of this coincidence, and the fact that the German army was entrenched only a few miles away, as well as all the other reasons that I have given on this page, that the Battle of the Somme had been launched.

[] [] The War to End Wars 1914 -- 1919 GCSE Modern World History for Edexcel by Steve Waugh and John Wright (Textbook)
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