Battle of the Somme

[eatcustard]

Also remember the British officers could not change tactics like the German counterparts without asking permission from high up. So large chunks of the offensive stuttered because they were not allowed to attack a different "softer" point.

[Penelope Stopit]

If any of you wish to read a very good book about the British Officers of WW1 I recommend - Six Weeks by John Lewis-Stemple, this book like most other WW1 books is a heartbreaker and should be read by all IMO

[RizzoTheRat]

eatcustard said:

Also remember the British officers could not change tactics like the German counterparts without asking permission from high up. So large chunks of the offensive stuttered because they were not allowed to attack a different "softer" point.

How had that level of rigidity come in? Had there been issues with commanders not trusting subordinates or sharing their plans sufficiently in the past?

These days British doctrine insist on the commanders intent being known 2 levels down, giving the lower level commanders a lot of leeway to react to the situation, and there's a lot of emphasis on the "Strategic Corporal" (ie a low level commander can do things that have a massive impact), so it seems crazy that back then the command chain was so rigid.

[Penelope Stopit]

RizzoTheRat said:

eatcustard said:

Also remember the British officers could not change tactics like the German counterparts without asking permission from high up. So large chunks of the offensive stuttered because they were not allowed to attack a different "softer" point.

How had that level of rigidity come in? Had there been issues with commanders not trusting subordinates or sharing their plans sufficiently in the past?

These days British doctrine insist on the commanders intent being known 2 levels down, giving the lower level commanders a lot of leeway to react to the situation, and there's a lot of emphasis on the "Strategic Corporal" (ie a low level commander can do things that have a massive impact), so it seems crazy that back then the command chain was so rigid.

Remember, nothing like this had happened before

[JagLover]

Vocal Minority said:

Foch wanted the Somme offensive to relieve the pressure off the French seige at Verdun. Asquith was coming under pressure to make a break through.

It's not right, but that's why.

It also helped in the success of Russia's Brusilov Offensive that cost the Austrians a million casualties (including 400,000 taken prisoner)

If you are in a war, and both of your major allies are struggling, it is sometimes not an option to sit on the defensive no matter how unfavourable the chances of breakthrough look.

[DMN]

RizzoTheRat said:

eatcustard said:

Also remember the British officers could not change tactics like the German counterparts without asking permission from high up. So large chunks of the offensive stuttered because they were not allowed to attack a different "softer" point.

How had that level of rigidity come in? Had there been issues with commanders not trusting subordinates or sharing their plans sufficiently in the past?

These days British doctrine insist on the commanders intent being known 2 levels down, giving the lower level commanders a lot of leeway to react to the situation, and there's a lot of emphasis on the "Strategic Corporal" (ie a low level commander can do things that have a massive impact), so it seems crazy that back then the command chain was so rigid.

My post above, and the youtube video within answers your question, I hope.

[ikarl]

Penelope Stopit said:

And let's not forget that they made the ultimate sacrifice to give all of us a future and all we have given back is to use and abuse and destroy

Whilst the World can truly be a terrifying scary place at times, it also holds an amazing amount of beauty and complexity that can be missed from time to time.

There are kind people all around me, that given the chance, would help me through most things life will throw at me.

I genuinely feel like I'm living in a time where most people are smart, show initiative and don't try to stitch me up at every turn, and hopefully at some point in the future you may feel like that too.

[Dan_1981]

Johnnytheboy said:

In a similar way (and to a much larger and more costly extent) to the Dieppe Landing stopping D-Day being a disaster, battles like the Somme had to happen to happen in order that tacticians realise that simply throwing more infantry and more shells at an enemy trench wasn't going to work.

IIRC the first tanks appeared during the Somme but in very small numbers, and inappropriately deployed. So the seeds of change were there.

Yes, understand there were recorded instances of tanks facing cavalry. Which is faintly ridiculous if it wasn't so horrifying.

The mines that were laid underneath the frontlines by the British engineers however make for very interesting reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_on_the_first_d...

Inparticular the huge Lochnager mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochnagar_mine

Also listened to Five live this morning and took a moment at 7:30 to listen to the silence, and the repeated gun fire from the cannons.

I don't think (m)any of us can imagine what it was really like to stand there waiting to go 'over the top'

[Jasandjules]

More4 played a show called "Somme" the other night, it had excerpts from diaries and letters of those who were there, along with the re-enactments.

19,000 dead in one day. Many thousands died of curable injuries on the fields.

And for a truly somber thought, consider that the Russians in WWII lost 19,000,000. That is 20,000 per day, every day, for nearly 3 years. Imagine if every day for a year was a Battle of the Somme...

[don4l]

Kermit power said:

grumbledoak said:

We will remember them.

I think the end of Black Adder IV is the saddest, most moving portrayal of warfare I've ever seen in either fiction or documentary. It really brings home the fact that those who died weren't just soldiers. They were also normal blokes, just trying to get through it all and have the occasional laugh with their mates in spite of the adversity. All the more shocking, I think, because right to the very last second of the programme, we were sat there waiting to see what comic turn would keep them out of harm's way.

The main thing I can't get my head round is the sheer scale of it. My grandfather's earliest memory is of their village priest collapsing in his pulpit as he tried to read the list of the men from the village who had been killed, and realised that it contained the name of every single man of military age in the whole village. They'd joined up together, trained together, marched off to war together, gone over the top together and all died together on the same day.

Of course, the loss is no less for the families of those who've died in Afghanistan & Iraq more recently, but part of me will always be relieved to see their individual deaths announced on the evening news, because as long as an individual solider's death is nationally newsworthy, I know there's still hope for our humanity.

That series of blackadder was based on "Journey's End".

I went to see this in Woking Theatre a few years ago. It started out as pure comedy. By the middle it had sobered up considerably.By the end there were no laughs.

The final scene, where they all go over the top, knowing that they would all be killed was harrowing.

When the curtain came down there was absolute silence in the theatre.

I wondered how on Earth the cast could take a curtain call.

The answer came when the curtain went up. The cast were all stood stock still with their faces whitened up so they looked, well, dead.

The theatre was absolutely silent until a sniffle was heard from the middle of the auditorium. Then another... Within a few seconds, the whole audience were sobbing out loud.

[peterperkins]

This is not a musical video that makes light of the situation.
It's a gritty musical reminder of how it was.
Sorry for quality.. But it was dimly lit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaHcP53MRSQ

[andymc]

Have historians analysed it and came up with any conclusions? Was it a colossal blunder by the generals? Haig in particular has been castigated.

Blackadder so true to the truth it could have been a ducumentary

[J4CKO]

andymc said:

Have historians analysed it and came up with any conclusions? Was it a colossal blunder by the generals? Haig in particular has been castigated.

Blackadder so true to the truth it could have been a ducumentary

Amazing how it took a comedy programme to bring it home, the Juxtaposition of comedy and horror really worked, a landmark moment in television that involved no vanity, a rare moment and part of why Blackadder is so treasured, you got to know those characters, then see them cut down and then the poppies regrow over their bodies, massively powerful, more than any documentary, what a legacy for those actors and writers, still pales next to those they were portraying.

[Derek Smith]

Vocal Minority said:

The First World War was something of a perfect storm. There is an arguement (though not a slam dunk I admit) that it was inevitable given the political position on the continent at the time, and the fact that war was undergoing industrialisation.

Foch wanted the Somme offensive to relieve the pressure off the French seige at Verdun. Asquith was coming under pressure to make a break through.

It's not right, but that's why.

Read The Sleepwalkers:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sleepwalkers-How-Europe-W...

It is convincing. It is terrible in its implications. far from being inevitable, according to the author, and backed up all the way through, there were umpteen times when a little bit of sense would have turned things around. It is heartbreaking.

For a view from the trenches of the battle, and the build up, you could do a lot worse than read A Covenant with Death, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Covenant-Death-John-Harri...

A friend of an uncle was interviewed for the book and his story is entwined in the narrative.

The poetry that came from those in the trenches is remarkable.

[dcb]

J4CKO said:

Amazing how it took a comedy programme to bring it home, the Juxtaposition of comedy and horror really worked, a landmark moment in television that involved no vanity, a rare moment and part of why Blackadder is so treasured, you got to know those characters, then see them cut down and then the poppies regrow over their bodies, massively powerful, more than any documentary, what a legacy for those actors and writers, still pales next to those they were portraying.

Indeed.

I've been over to Ypres more than a few times and it's rightly harrowing.
As a devout European, always happy to take anyone who wants to there.

Interestingly, there are about 11,000 or so souls at Tyne Cot, the biggest Allied
WW1 cemetery. Names are marked on Portland stone monuments.

At Langemark, the matching German cemetery only a few km away, there are IIRC about 44,000 souls.
It's physically less than half the size of Tyne Cot, but has been a collection
point for various German cemeteries scattered across Belgium.

In my view, the Germans of the 1950s and 1960s did the right thing in making sure that
assorted youth clubs relocated their war dead into one place.

Apart from the YugoSlavs fighting amongst themselves in the 1990s, we've
had peace in Western Europe for many decades. We have our differences,
but long may it continue.

[MrAndyW]

[Axionknight]

Did anybody see the groups dressed up as soldiers parading through train stations today? It happened in Glasgow and a few other places I believe. Terrific stuff, a superb tribute to the fallen

[don4l]

I'm booked on a tour in September.

I almost regret booking it. I booked it because I genuinely feel that we need to remember those who fought for our freedom. As a sailor, I have visited most of the Normandy beaches, as well as some of the places where the Americans landed.



After writing about "Journeys End" earlier, I began to regret booking the WWI tour.

We will be doing the following over 5 days. I've got a feeling that we will return utterly drained:-

Last Post Ceremony Menin Gate

Ypres Salient. Visit includes Hill 60 tunnelling and mining, Passchendael and Tyne Cot. Drive to Ypres.

Lens area. Battle of Loos (briefing en route.)
Loos 1915 Battlefield. Dud Corner Cemetary, St Mary’s Advance Dressing Station.
Hill 70.

Somme battlefield including Sheffeld Memorial Park, Hawthorne Ridge and Sunken Road, Beaumont Hamel, Newfoundland Memorial.

Thiepval Memorial, Ulster Tower La Boiselle and Lochnagar mine crater. Pass New Zealand Memorial, Mametz Wood and High Wood (first use of tanks).

Visit Vimy Ridge including preserved trenches, Canadian Memorial and tour of Grange Tunnel with Canadian student.

========================================

[PH5121]

My great grandad is one of those who died at the Somme and has no known grave.

I would like to visit the battlefields and take my two sons so they learn the sacrifices of previous generations.

[Vocal Minority]

Axionknight said:

Did anybody see the groups dressed up as soldiers parading through train stations today? It happened in Glasgow and a few other places I believe. Terrific stuff, a superb tribute to the fallen

Yep saw them in Birmingham. Saw a major riding his horses drown Colmore Row in the traffic!