What most people get wrong about the Battle of the Somme
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st of July 1916. After a week-long artillery bombardment of the German lines, tens of thousands of Allied troops went 'over the top' in an attack that would become synonymous with the horrors of trench warfare. The British army took over 57,000 casualties on the first day alone making it the bloodiest day in British military history. But who really won the Battle of the Somme? To find out, we have to look at the Somme beyond the first day.
Despite heavy losses on both sides, fighting continued for another 141 days. During the rest of the battle, the British experimented with new tactics like creeping barrages and new technologies like the tank. By the end of the battle the British had advanced a maximum of 7 miles, but they had taken a sizeable chunk out of the German army.
In this episode of IWM Stories, Alan Wakefield looks at the Battle of the Somme with the help of archive film, photographs and battle maps.
Correction - 00:02 - The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st of July 1916.
The very first tanks of WW1: • The very first tanks o...
First World War stories: • How did WW1 Start? | C...
What happened during the battle: www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-h...
Key facts about the Battle of the Somme: www.iwm.org.uk/history/key-fa...
How the battle was filmed: www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-th...
The First World War Retold: shop.iwm.org.uk/p/26674/The-F...
0:00 Intro/The first day
1:50 Why fight on the Somme?
2:56 British unpreparedness
4:41 Beyond the first day
5:50 Infantry tactics
6:27 Artillery tactics
6:51 Tanks
7:36 End of the battle
8:06 Impact on Germany
8:44 Impact on Britain
9:55 Conclusion
Order and license the HD clips used in this video on IWM Film’s website:
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My grandfather was a sniper in the Anglian Regiment at the Somme, so he didn't go over the top with his 600 man regiment. His job was to pick off any Germans that showed themselves. At the end of that day his 600 men were down to six. They were all absorbed into the Middlesbrough regiment.
He survived the war, despite being wounded 3 times, and being caught up on the barbed wire in no man's land twice. He fought at the Somme, Ypres and Mons.
I was told all of this by my grandmother, as he never once spoke to me of his experiences
Not Middlesbrough, Middlesex
The Anglian Regiment was formed in 1964, from older country regiments. How could your grandfather been in the Anglians almost 50 years before they were formed? Also, the british army did not have snipers in 1916...
@@acosorimaxconto5610 Slip of the tongue, i think he meant jetfighter pilot!😁
@@acosorimaxconto5610 Yes they did. They had them in 1915, although they called them sharp shooters. Look up Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
Yeah, its not a win for anyone involved. Maybe politicians and companies benefit.
My wife’s great grandfather was a Kiwi who spent his 21st birthday in a Somme trench. His position was shelled that very day. Without his knowledge, he was blown out of his hole and woke up in a hospital behind the
lines. He had physical injuries that healed over a six month period in England. From there he returned home. His 21st present from the Germans troops was a huge blessing for us all.
Are you trying to say that the German's helped him to blow out the candles on his cake? :P haha
My great uncle was killed at the Somme during an attack on the German trenches around Courcelette. He was a member of Canadian Corps serving with the 31st Battalion Alberta Regiment. He is buried in Adanac cemetery. Adanac is Canada spelt backwards.
My grandfather was one of five male cousins. Two served in Canadian regiments. And two died including one in the Battle of the Somme.
My great grandfather fought at the Somme…on the German side.
He earned some medals there I think an ek2 (eisernes Kreuz zweiter Klasse) and i used to have his bayonet but gave it away.
Funny thing I actually have Canadian citizenship because my grandpa emigrated after the second ww.
Crazy how many battles Germany fought even after taking so many casualties. I wonder how many young good lives were wasted in those wars, it’s in the millions.
Germany started the decline of European hegemony, i also think that this war could’ve been prevent easily all the monarchs in Europe were related they should’ve had a big dinner Table discussion and solved it right there.
Was it a battle worth fighting to make Justin Trudeau Prime Minister?
@@NightHawk-nf1my The German administration of Samoa showed remarkable humanity in preventing naval bombardment after New Zealand annexed that country for Britain. If only the New Zealand government had showed half as much care in the next 50 years.
🇭🇲❤️🇨🇦
This is one of the few battles in history, where both sides seem to have claimed defeat!
Yes, this battle was so bad that it was a combined defeat.
It was a defeat of humanity.
All the young men who could have pushed the human race forward.
the germans did not really recognice that - if you compare the losses with other battles of the same year. Somme was just one among a lot of others in german history where Verdun was the meat grinder and a lot more known.
German pupil do learn 0 about Somme and british offenses and losses except Gallipoli and the invention of the tank. Somme does not really exist compared to the series of flandres / ypres battles which would be the next big one after Verdun.
It was a german pyric victory
@@thecalmclone2813 Pyrrhic.
The film "The Battle of the Somme" did have an effect on the public's perception of war,but not the one the authorities hoped for. It was meant to be a morale booster but instead women were fainting in the cinemas and men were saying " this can't be happening or it can't be true".I watched a very good documentary about it a few years ago but can't recall its title.
And to top it all off, a lot of that "combat footage" was fake. The famous shot of soldiers going "over the top" with the one guy who immediately goes limp and slides back down? Fake. The shot of troops advancing through smoke and barded wire as several of them fall? Fake. Both were staged.
It wasn't really possible to get real film footage in an area where the bullets were actually flying because the cameras of the day were far too big and cumbersome. Notice how the camera never moves within a shot except sometimes to pan left or right?
Also, while today, when we see the kind of jumpy, shaky footage that comes from filming on the move, to us it implies action taking place and can be a useful technique for telling a story, but in 1916 both filmmakers and audiences were still thinking in terms of seeing action take place on a stage and seeing everything through the "fourth wall." First person perspective was still a new thing that "artsy" filmmakers might have been experimenting with, but good "respectable" types (like the people in charge of propaganda) would have seen jumpy, all-over-the-place footage as just sloppy, poor quality camera work that needs to be cut out. Better to just stage it so you can "convey the *_essence"_* of what was happening. _("Conveying the _*_essence"_* is an age-old euphemism for "making shit up.")
I read an article many years ago about the lack of film from the trenches the British troops, am sure the higher up folks didn’t approve of it however when the Americans joined in they apparently did take a lot of film.
@@Guitcad1 That footage was referred to in the documentary that I watched. The people who compiled it were well aware of its significance. They said it was quite possibly the defining moment of propaganda as the then government realised the power of the media.
Wish I could remember the title of that documentary as it was a real eye opener.
My maternal grandfather survived the Somme, three brothers (my great uncles) didn't. Grandad saw one brother vanish just a few yards to his front. None of them have a known grave. Mother told me long after granddad died. He never talked about it. RIP all those who fell.
No one can ever understand the carnage on the Western Front without visiting it. I've been to the Somme Battlefield Memorial. It isn't difficult to cite statistics but to see those names, the graves. The feeling is impossible to describe and I had read dozens of books on the war. Nothing can prepared me for what I saw. 25 years later and seeing pictures of the bring back what I felt then.
Roger, I went there too. I completely agree with you about the emotional impact of walking the ground, visiting the cemeteries and reading the names, particularly those of the unknown.
I went as a youth, didn't take it all in. Read up on it as an adult. So I'd say you're experience is personal as is mine. You cannot begin to start talking for others. You just sound stupid. That or you just thought your comment sounded cool.
I also went to France to see the memorials - particularly Arras - where I saw many, many memorials as well as the Arras tunnels and a section of the Somme - truly a sobering experience
there was NEVER a Allied victory
it was an Armistice , no surrender of german troops, as later in the treaty
the german position was weakend, by Muteny and revolution.Allied manipulation and exploitation,
later Free Europe paid dearly. ww2, never to forget
When I went through that region as a kid, I was travelling on bike with my parents. We used michelin maps to locate ourselves and find our way. The number of memorial and cemeteries was astonishing and in itself was already scary. Then you go to the actual monuments, see the long lines of tombs, looking like they stretch forever, see the Thipeval memorial, with all the "disappeared" people. You get closer and relises how small the names are and how the big monument is covered in them.
It's a special feeling. My sister and I were young, it was summer, we were in vacation, doing a big trip in another country, on another continent. But we were both subdued and silent for a big part of the day. It was sobbering.
Gaining 7 miles for the cost of 600,000 casualties cannot be claimed a success by any standards, especially considering that all of it was lost in the spring offensive within weeks.
The capture of ground is not a complete measure of the effectiveness of the battle or who won.
Hindsight, its great isn't it. The Spring Offensive was hardly a success as it directly led to Allied Victory by overextending the German Army.
Was the Spring Offensive a success then because it took more ground?
@@questionmaker5666 It was a close victory if Ludendorff didn’t make so many mistakes such as not deploying all units in the eastern front (literally all of them) to the western front, rotating the troops so they can’t get exhausted and didn’t took chance of the weakspots on the British supply lines also the logistics issue the germans had (The sacrifices of the men in somme would ended in vain if Ludendorff didn’t made such costly errors.
Could you now tell us what happened on the Somme on the 2nd of July 1916.
The more I learn about this the more I understand why my grandfather never spoke about it.
Me too, he never said a word either. He was wounded on the Somme....RIP Grandad.
Mine also. He was gassed and crippled by it.
Nor did mine. I suspect that he figured we would never have been able to understand it, because we weren't there. And he was probably right.
My great grandfather was wounded by shrapnel over here and brought back an old cannon shell. He didn't from what I know ever really speak about it.
Thats the thing thats never mentioned about ANZAC day these days,the numbers of returned soldiers that never marched on the day
My great great uncle died at the Somme originally he was a child soldier in the British army because he was so tall for his age about 5 foot 11 at 16 he would constantly get harassed by soldiers which later was found out to be a tactic used by the army in order to get as many conscripts as possible. Also, older women would go mad with him call him a coward since they didn’t know his age. He lied about his age and signed up and then ended up dying at 18. He got blew up by an artillery shell when he went over the top and his body was never found. He never even got to know his baby sister properly, my great grandmother since she was only 2 when he left since she was born on the day the titanic sank. She never remembered him aswell which is sad since it was her only sibling.
Dam
That sucks I'm sorry
Ronnie Corbett's great uncle died at Custers last stand. He was camping nearby and went over to complain about the noise.
@@christophercook723 Isn't your comment a little gratuitous?
@@lawrencewood289 No
My grandfather fought at Gallipoli, Ypres and the Somme in the Australian army. Lucky him, he didn't miss out on anything.
No white feathers in his letter box ❤️🏴
Traumatized
So did my great grandfather , he was killed at Pozieres
Lest we forget… ❤
Question: "What most people miss about the Battle of the Somme"
Answer: "All the poor, young souls who never got a chance to live"
Quite right, having toured virtually all the western front be it museums, trench systems, memorials, and Cemetery's the loss of life is astronomical. Totally uncalled for. From our prospective purely fear of Germany being the top dog of Europe who may go on to impact on our trade etc. But in fighting them we basically sped up our own demise.
Talk about missing the point. Black Adder historians certainly know their stuff.
Absolutely it’s almost like the butterfly effect,how many generations of just one British,German or french serviceman were affected by this nonsense war?
And when the dust settled,Hitler lived!!!😡
The attempt to justify this insanity is disgraceful
@@SandyYoung1 Dust settled? The German elite won. They, the German military, industry, finance, politicians lived to fight another day. They won a cease fire. A truce, and remained intact and in control. Kaiser Wilhelm retired, Ludendorff supporter of Hitler, Hindenburg Chancellor.
The dust was very unsettled.
This lesson learned by western "victors" when that lesson was paid tuition called WW2.
My great grandfather died on day 1 of the Somme. He was a Lance Serjeant with the Northumberland Fusiliers, Tyneside Irish battalion. They were effectively wiped out as a fighting unit.
My grandfather also a Fusilier. Fortunately, he survived although he died before I was born. Sorry for your loss.
That would of been at La Boisselle. The decisive battle that ended the British Empire
@@westleymanc Huh?
My grandfather lost half a leg on the Somme. I'm certain he carried a lot of mental scars also. He died in 1937 so I never got to meet him, one of my lifes great regrets.
My grandfather was a machine gunner at the Somme. He was wounded by a shrapnel shell that went off directly above him. He came back with a metal plate in his skull, and one leg shorter than the other with a metal pin down its length. As bad as his injuries were, had he not been wounded, and removed to a hospital, he may have been killed on another day of fighting, and I wouldn’t be here. I have huge respect for his bravery and cannot be certain that I would have had similar courage.
My Grandad went over the top on the 1st day with the Tyneside Irish I never met him but I can only imagine the horrors he must have seen.
My grandfather was 20 years old when he lost an arm from shellfire on the Somme. He was with the Prussian Guards opposite the French. He joined up in 1914 and won the iron cross first and second class in that first year and was wounded three times in total. Being invalided out probably saved his life, as his unit went on to serve at Verdun where the rest of them were killed except for the cook. He died before I was born so unfortunately I never met him.
My respect Thomas. on my side. i got a wounded in Notre dame de Lorette, a "gueule cassée ( hit in the back of the face ) and a pulverized in 14 in the Aisne near Soissons , hit by a shell. they could not find him back. 3 out of 4 grand grand fathers.
When considering the Battle of the Somme, it's worth bearing in mind some numbers.
In 1914, the Allies fought the First Battle of Ypres. In that battle, the British forces number 163,897, and they took 58,155 casulaties. That's a horrifying 35% casualty rate - and the Allies won that battle. Compare that to the Somme, and that infamous first day, when British forces numbered around 390,000 and took 57,000 casualties. That's around 15%. It's horrible, and by no means am I trying to downplay the suffering and loss of that day, but it _is_ a much lower casualty rate than Ypres - around 15%.
There's this image of WWI, of generals just doing the same stupid thing over and over. As Blackadder put it "Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir? [...] It's the same plan we used last time, and the seventeen times before that". But the numbers don't lie - things were changing by the time of the Somme. Casulaties were far worse, proportionally speaking, in the earlier battles of manoeuvre.
The first battle of Ypres lasted over a month, not one day.
@@jonny55091 Okay. Compare the whole battles. At the Battle of the Somme, the Allies deployed 2.5 million men, and took 620,000 casualties. That's a rate of 25%, vs 35% at Ypres. A higher rate of casulaties for the whole battle than for the first day, but still lower than Ypres.
At that stage of the war the killing technology was better than the communication tech and pointless attacks couldn’t be stopped.
A lot of people don't know how devastating the opening months of the war were. Almost all of the murderous technology, and no trenches
The actual Allied casualty rate over the Somme campaign was closer to 25% killed or wounded and that the German rate was significantly less.
600,000 Allied v 500,00 German casualties can’t be classified as a victory when your gain around 10km. Or to quote Blackadder “We've been sitting here since Christmas 1914, during which time millions of men have died, and we've moved no further than an asthmatic ant with heavy shopping.”
Did you listen to the whole clip?
The first days were a disaster no argument.
Every army fights the last war it fought.
My grandfather on my fathers side lost three of his brothers in WW1 and served from 1914 until the end of the war.
My mothers father lost most of his right hand, his brother discharged as feeble minded / shell shock.
When I as a youth criticised Haig I was slapped down. They were right, I was wrong.
Today’s understanding of that period of that time is better than it was only a few years past.
It’s easy to say looking back you shouldn’t have your men up that hill into barbed wire and machine guns.
They didn’t think they were doing so.
Tens of thousands of men died. Incompetent maybe ignorance certainly .
But stupidity, no.
They were acting on the information they had and military doctrine of the time.
Academics have desperately tried to redeem Haig and the rest for 50 years because both world wars stand as such an obvious monument to the folly of the European upper classes. Humanity lead to the meat grinder in the folly of Empire.
@@tedwarden5803 The first days of the Somme battle were 2 years into the war.
"Every army fights the last war it fought." Is a terrible quote that is also not at all accurate. Militaries are always updating between wars. If they don't, that quote isn't an excuse for that kind of gross stupidity. If your saying that they were justified in utilising tactics from the previous century despite 2 years of evidence of its futility then I have to ask why?
"When I as a youth criticised Haig I was slapped down. They were right, I was wrong." Nonsense. Haig should be heavily criticised. What exactly about his career makes you now believe that he is above reproach?
"It’s easy to say looking back you shouldn’t have your men up that hill into barbed wire and machine guns." It should have been easy then too. Charging up hill at fortifications has been known to be a terrible tactic for thousands of years. The machine gun should have made it even more obviously so.
@@PeriLlwynog That's a pretty common point of view but it's a myth, not reality. WW2 was fought to defeat fascism.
As for WW1, the 'folly of empire' was mainly a German thing at the start of the war because most warmongering was by the Germans. Don't take my word for it, that's what German historians said when they read the classified government documents from 1914. The war started because Germany wanted to build an empire *in europe*. None of the others had these war aims.
@@doogle13 Well, to be honest, the British forces were the best equipped in 1914, but their numbers were ridiculously small. Britain didn't like conscription, and for the most part didn't ready itself because it was more interested in politics in the Empire rather than in Europe. In that sense they were underequipped, but ultimately, nobody has a crystal ball to see into the future. At the start of the war the French had red trousers and cavalry with breastplates, and the Germans had helmets with decorative brass spikes on top, nobody had protective helmets at the beginning. This was a form of warfare nobody had fought before, and the biggest killer wasn't the 'over-the-top' attacks, but super accurate artillery. That, and the Western front was the main theater of war, so it naturally had more casualties, same as the Eastern Front in WW2.
As for Haig, any other general probably would've done the same thing and with the same results. Think about it. To break out of trench warfare, you had to cross over open ground, an acre-wide belt of barbed wire, reach the enemy trenches, capture them, and keep doing the same thing over four or five trench lines very quickly, break into open country, and still have most of your men alive and ready to fight. In 1916, the inventions that would make this happen were in their infancy, and in 1914 they didn't even exist.
When it came to charging uphill, they knew that this wouldn't work on its own so they attempted to use artillery to soften them up, but the biggest problem was that the German defensive positions turned out to be too well protected for the barrage to be effective. The plan wasn't 'make them walk over and hope for the best'. The plan was 'make them move over in formation to positions that will be destroyed'. The big reason that reports of deep positions didn't stop the attack wasn't so much Haig, but the fact that his junior staff officers didn't have the balls to tell him that things were going wrong until an hour into each attack.
Just discovered your channel and your videos are really excellent. Excited to spend many hours working through your content!
A lesson in what still drives the British Army, especially infantry regiments....constant, hard training and deployments to maintain readiness and awareness. Even subsequent smaller conflicts have been important at 'quiet' times in later British Army history in keeping that expertise current.
Sweat saves blood Bernard Mountgomery .
For anyone interested in what happened on 1st July 1916, I heartily recommend Martin Middlebrook's book 'The First Day on the Somme'.
great content!
thoroughly enjoyed this.
My Great Uncle was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and his body was never found.He was attached to the Tyneside Irish brigade of the Northumberland Fusiliers.I have visited the La Boiselle memorial to the Tyneside Scottish and Irish regiments..very moving.His name is mentioned with pride on the Thiepval memorial.
I read that no war had more deaths with no body being found than WWI. High artillery kills and buries what's left of the bodies.
Also the small detail that there was more than one battle of the Somme as the Somme refers to the banks of the river Somme. The second Battle of the Somme was 21 August 1918 - 2 September 1918. However there were seven battles located on the banks of the Somme river during the FWW.
Great, concise video. Comment to say thanks and feed the YT algo.
Really good video.
I recommend reading Storm of steel for anyone whos interested in WW1, its a memoir of a German officers experience in the war.
His recollection of the Somme in particular is truly chilling, especially in contrast to the neutrality he which he seems to view the war as a whole. its seriously a great book and is extremely exciting for a memoir and gives great insight into the war.
By Ernst Junger if anyone wants to seek it.
You are right. I read that book 10 years ago.
I've read it. HE was a brave man, alas, whose men just managed to hold the line against the Allies.
My Great Uncle was wounded at the Somme. He came home with a blighty wound meaning his war was over. But after recovering he went back and was killed with two other men when a german shell landed in their dugout, 17th October 1917.
If there is a heaven and hell then he and men like him must now be in heaven, as they had already lived in hell.I
Never forget!
I really appreciate that this channel tells all of the different regiments and where they were from. If i were in charge, Id make it the duty of every educator to put all men in equal light when talking of conflicts, atleast when they had them.
This is an excellent short video on the battle. Interestingly not all commenters have listened to it and rely instead on ill conceived but memorable sound bites.
I agree, it's a great book. I hadn't heard of the 'friends' battalions before that.
@@H-Zazoo
'Pals' battalions?
@@Wotsitorlabart Yes correct, that's it.
John Buchan's history of WWI is extremely informative,and worth a read.
Everything about WW1 is just insane
I was taught, and taught, that the battle began on 1st of July. The narrator says 1st June. As to who won, ask the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Canada Day, coincidentally, is 1st July, but it is not recognized in Newfoundland and Labrador…the Regiment, nearly wiped out that fateful day, is the focus of each 1st of July…
780 out of 805, was it? Something crazy like that. It happened , like ten minutes after they arrived. It must have been hard when they joined Canada in 1949. Do they celebrate the day they joined instead of the day of Confederation?
No, the battle didn't start on 1st July. It started on 24th June.
@@robertstallard7836 You must be the only person that includes the preparatory artillery barrage as part of the battle. Congratulations!
I’d always remembered it was 1st July too. Easy to remember as it’s my birthday
Not to underestimate the impact of that war on Newfoundland history and society (it was tremendous and disastrous), but I remember growing up in Newfoundland and learning all about the Newfoundland perspective of the Somme. As far as we were concerned, it was a one-day affair called the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel, and the only soldiers involved were of the 1st Battalion, Newfoundland Regiment against the whole bloody German army. Our history teachers always found a way to blame the British for it all (forgetting that Newfoundland was proudly British at the time, and the regiment was fighting in a division of the British regular army).
And for the record: there are many Newfoundland families with kin wearing uniforms of the Canadian Armed Forces - they are very proud of them, and very proud to call themselves Canadians. You can bet your bottom dollar that Canada Day is observed in Newfoundland and Labrador!
I have seen the opening footage of the soldiers going over the top many times over the years but have always questioned whether it is 'real' or a piece of War Department reconstruction. The reason I have always doubted its authenticity is because of what happens to a soldier at around 13 seconds in. All the troops go over the trench and, more or less standing upright, charge off towards enemy lines. However, whilst none of them seem to be hit at all by enemy fire, one poor man, seemingly the last to rise, has barely put his head over the mud when he looks to his left and then falls back down. In fact, if you look carefully, I'm not even sure his head actually rises high enough to be above the trench line. Now either he is the unluckiest soldier of the action, to be hit by a bullet travelling inches above ground height whilst all his mates stand up and run off unscathed, or the director shouted, 'OK, Johnny, fall back down the slope'. I don't question this out of any sense of malice or ill will - just pure curiosity. Clearly much of the footage is unquestionably genuine. Can anyone throw any light on this issue?
Most of what is seen is filmed during training exercises. The lack of full kit, tidiness of trenches, trenches to wide and not deep enough.
@@cptdarling501 Thank you SO much for replying. What you say makes a load of sense. Thanks again.
The wounded man carried on anothers shoulder is real as he died around thirty minutes later.
@@davidmcintyre998 I don' think that is in the clip I'm referring to though David. I am really only talking about the film up to around 14 secs. In fact I now see that several men look round and straight at the camera as if waiting for instructions. So, for that part it would seem that the idea of it being filmed during training is probably correct. What happens after 14 secs is obviously a mixture of films edited together and i am making no comment about all of that.
@@neil6477 I know the footage you mean, it is played for the camera as are most shots said to be of actual combat, very rare are shots of both sides in frame stills or moving although some does exist, you probably know better than me that some of the most common catching both sides was taken by USMC cameramen during the island fighting in the Pacific that was because both sides were on top of each other,i have also seen footage of British soldiers charging up to where the huge mine was exploded under the German positions this being at the time considered rare i was amazed by the modern day experts being able to pinpoint just where the footage was shot from,i suppose its well to remember the words of the late Alan Whicker the combat cameraman who actually films combat is soon a dead combat cameraman.
"The Somme was the graveyard of the peacetime trained German Army" according to a German staff-officer. A very bloody step on the road to victory, a bit like Grant's overland campaign in 1864. British and Imperial casualties were about 100,000 killed and 300,000 missing. I live near Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan and do a talk about the battle. When I point out that this is the same as everyone in the Vale of Glamorgan being killed and everyone in Cardiff wounded or missing in four and a half months you can really see the cost of war hit home to the audience. And remember while we lost 20,000 killed on 1 July the French lost 23,000 killed on a single day in August 1914 (can't remember the date but you can look it up.) I was lucky that none of my family were in the army but seeing a note remembering 'Mum's first boyfriend' on the Memorial to the Missing in Arras really got to me.
It was during the battle of la percée de Charme. Every armies climbed on the learning curve during the war indeed
not sure where you got the 300,000 missing figure. I think you mean about 300,000 Wounded.
August 22nd, 1914 the French lost 27,000 KIA in one day.
The first couple of months of the war were insanely bloody for the French. Horrifically so. What a lot of people forget is that trenches were brought into save lives. In those first months, armies were still engaging each other in the open in a 19th Century fashion, but on the an industrial 20th Century scale with industrial weaponry to match.
I guess the main thing is that August 22nd was that those 23,000+ French who were killed were killed in multiple different battles spread across the front. The 19,000 British soldiers killed at the Somme was in a single battle along a much narrower front.
For perspective BBC had a documentary which was interesting on the German defenders adapted to the Allies tactics - "The Somme 1916 - From Both Sides of the Wire". Not sure success is the best description of the failure to achieve the objectives set at a stupendous cost in life.
The maps are quite confusing. What is the orientation ?
@ImperialWarMuseums why does the video start out telling us that whistles rung out on 1st June 1916? Was it not 1st July?
The British losses on the first day of the Battle of the Somme were close to what America lost during it's entire time in Vietnam.
Nonsense! US and allied forces deaths in Vietnam are given as 282,000. Get a grip, for God's sake!
@@rogueriderhood1862 hence why he said US and not allied
@@rogueriderhood1862 US deaths in Vietnam are given as 58,220. Your number includes estimated South Vietnamese casualties, which were between 200,000 and 250,000. But OP specified what _America_ lost.
@@Werrf1 Fair enough, but the original poster said that British losses for the 1st July, 1916 were close to American losses during it's time in Vietnam. American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War 58220, British soldiers killed on 1st July 19240, so not close at all. The total of British casualties includes killed, wounded and missing, if you calculate the American casualties on the same basis, then you have to allow for this. There are various formulae for calculating the proportion of wounded and missing compared with killed, but the lowest us usually given as 2:1. With a total of 58220 killed this would give a total of 116440 wounded and missing, giving a total of 174660, and possibly much greater.
@@rogueriderhood1862 ...I THINK YOU MADE YOUR POINT- NOW BUG OFF!!!
Good to see a specific call out of Pozieres and the brave fighting done by the Australians to achieve victory there.
You compared the total casualties in that battle with the casualties at the Gallipoli campaign.
It is worth remembering that a number of Australians (in for example 1st Battalion) saw action at the Battle of Lone Pine and then again at Pozieres.
'Somme into the breach' is a fantastic moving book/audiobook . Tragic loss of life
My Grandfather served in the KOYLI, lost his leg at the Somme on 12th August 1916 and always said that he was the first grouse to be shot! 3 days before he was found alive....the mud stopped him bleeding to death.
A question about casualties. What was the return to units of those considered casualties. It seems like any given casualty had 4 many out comes. Died on the battle field, died of wounds (eg my great grandfather), repatriated on a medical release or recovered and RTU. So of the 50,000 how many fought again?
Also on a secondary point. Operations such as the Somme battle certainly soured the colonies on the idea of allowing the British to control and command their troops. By 1917 Anzac and Canadian troops were their own formations and commanded by their own leaders.
None of the ANZAC forces participated on the first day of the Somme, but they did participate later (the Canadians were there on the first day) at Fromelles (a "diversionary" attack/disaster) and Pozieres, and the Kiwis much later at Flers-Courcelette, all of which caused a great number of casualties.
The Pals battalions are mentioned in this video as ones which caused great losses to specific areas, from which they had been recruited. All of the Australian battalions (and the Kiwis too I believe) were recruited locally, throughout the war. For example, the 1st Div AIF was made up of 4 battalions from NSW (1st to 4th), 4 Victorian battalions (5th to 8th), and 4 battalions from Queensland/SA/Tas/and WA. This applied in large part to the five divisions that Australia raised in the First World War. For example, the 8th Battalion was largely raised from Ballarat in Victoria, so any casualties were of serious concern to many, many regional areas.
The charge scene in the movie Gallipoli (1981) involved 4 lines, comprised of Victorians (1st and 2nd wave by the 4th Light Horse Regt) and West Australians (3rd and 4th wave from the 10th Light Horse), with the last wave (featuring Mark Lee) from WA where everyone knew what their fate would be.
And of course, the AIF was all-volunteer; conscription was voted down in two plebiscites (1916 and 1917), so there were no conscripts in the Australian Army in WW1.
I've wondered that as well. I've read several autobiographies of soldiers in the war and several were wounded twice. Meaning some of hte casualties were repeats and it wasn't all new men getting wounded. though so far as i can tell all the dead only died once.
I think all the Somme did was teach the British Army during WW1 how to fight and start learning from the mistakes from previous battles, such as using the Creeping Barrage as cover for advancing infantry, and using tanks and infantry together, i think its also Amien later on where everything came together where it was like the British version of Blitzkrieg.
The British didn't learn anything. The first real use of tanks, artillery, aircraft and men was planned and devised by John Monash an Australian commander. Unfortunately, many British historians refuse to acknowledge the efforts of the 'colonials', Canadian, New Zealanders, Indians and Australians.
@@slatibaadfast ...AREN'T YOU A LITTLE BIASED?!
@@slatibaadfast Why have you got to be such an arse?
You're wrong actually as well. The Battle of Cambrai was the first successful use of both the new artillery and infantry tactics, devised by British Army Major General Henry Tudor with the tank raids devised by British Army Major General J.F.C Fuller. The decision to combine both of these proposed plans was a decision made by Canadian Field Marshal Julian Byng.
You are doing exactly what you say British historians are doing. You say it was a team effort (which it was) but also attribute the successes to one single man.
@@slatibaadfast except the fact that the 100 days offensive in 1918 was fought under the leadership of Haig and co and they very much took advantage of every hard learned lesson. Try reading history not propaganda. The Great War channel does ww1 week by week in real time. I suggest you start there.
It taught the British that sort of thing. It also taught the Germans things, like how to deal with tanks, and the importance of having defence in depth. Nobody won that abysmal battle. Both sides took a few lessons from it and that's all.
The concept that anybody won in this horrific bloodbath is beyond my comprehension.
My paternal grandfather was wounded on the first day of the battle of the Somme, aged 17, having volunteered, at age 15, in 1914. When he recovered, he was to be transferred to the Royal Scots, and sent to Fermoy in Ireland. However, learning that he was still underage, he was honourably discharged.
I’d suggest reading The Somme by the Australian military historians Prior and Wilson. Going back to the original sources, they calmly and painstakingly take apart the whole ‘bloody victory’ frame which is so popular among British historians these days.
I'd recommend everyone avoid Prior and Wilson like the plague. Ignoring over 60 years of historical research coupled with an Australian inferiority complex leads to a very poor reading of all things to do with the British military
Stick to Peter Hart and Gary Sheffield
@@lovablesnowman
I don't think many Australians have an inferiority complex. I get the nuance by the way. I won't start a lecture since if your smart enough to quote the authors you have you are also smart enough to know of commonwealth contributions in ww1
@@chrisbuesnell3428 No-one doubts the commonwealth contributions, but the problem is that a myth has arisen of the "good old jackaroo digger showing those weak-chinned Brits how it was done". The truth is that the ANZACS were experiencing their first major conflict, using men who, in the main, were inexperienced city boys just like the British (many of whom were British emigrants, anyway!). They made huge mistakes at the beginning (as every military starting out will), but soon learned, and eventually came to be as capable as any other nation's soldiers taking the field. (for example Monash - a German speaking Pole, incidentally! - at the Battle of Hamel).
If there is one thing the Aussies are good at, it's PR, and the number of memorials etc. springing up that commemorate the Australian contribution tend to give a skewed picture. Gallipoli, for example, where there were more French dead than Australian, (and four times as many British!) is regaded as almost wholly an ANZAC venture, yet they were only involved in one area of the peninsula.
@@robertstallard7836 Gallipoli is so important to the Australian culture because it united us as a nation in appreciation of the teamwork, hardships and sacrifices those men made. Australia was a new Federation and up until then still something of a political experiment. We also got to fight alongside the Kiwi's which has time has shown works a hell of a lot better than playing them at rugby. The French and British sacrifices were great. You will have to ask these countries why they are not remembered more. The campaign in Mesopotamia has similarities. John Monash was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and was a successful engineer, project leader, and colonel in the reserves before the start of the war. Few Australians had any position of authority over their own troops in France until after the reasons Gallipoli and the First Battle of the Somme could be analysed. In my opinion Monash, like Currie, have not received the credit they and their men deserve for shortening the war.
@@lovablesnowman I’ve read Peter Hart’s The Somme a few years ago. The way he describes the battle almost makes it seem like a succes story. So I wouldn’t recommend that historian at all, unless you like a complete l anglocentric view of the battle.
'I am not an Ulsterman, but yesterday, the 1st. July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world.'
Captain W. Spender
36th Ulster Division
My grandfather Andrew cheevers went over the top that day 36th ulster division was over 40yrs. Got wounded i used to visit him in foster greens hospital in Hollywood County down so I can say I was I the presence of a ward of somme survivors !! I face the Reverend Ian Paisley took the funeral service at my house in north Belfast my grandfather was 96 when he passed away.
Nice to see Bernie Cribbins at 6.26 with the binoculars 😆
The length and scope of these battles turn them into something between a battle and a campaign, with a whole length of smaller sub-battles and commitment of troops across a broad area of operation.
Imperial War Museum.....no one notices the narrator/script has the date wrong in the first few moments. 1 month later, they still can't be bothered re -recording the soundtrack.
Nobody.
Only Death wins in every war.
And I say that as both a combat veteran and a lifelong military historian.
Credentials.
"...it's only THE DEVIL that wins wars." - Air Chief Marshal, Arthur T. "Bomber" Harris, RAF
I would say the military industrial complex wins too.
@@kx4998 I can't entirely disagree with you, and agree that it's distasteful.
But whose fault is that, really?
On the one hand we are all grousing about a 'lost' war in Afghanistan, but just 18 months ago we were complaining about an 'unwinnable' and 'never-ending' war there.
I live in a garrison town and we have a lot of veterans around here. And a lot of people who are half my age are having a really tough time with the 'what was all of it for' questions right now.
OTOH, veterans have a very large political hammer in their hands when they stand up as candidates for office and ask their opponent, 'So what did YOU do after 9/11?'
Yeah but we won the Second World War and it was 100% worth fighting.
so,not so black and white as you make out there pal.
My grandfather died there on the 9th and is mentioned at the Menin Gate panel 11.
7:02)The big rear wheels were to help steer the tanks. In The Somme battle all wheels were destroyed or made unusable. The tanks were still able to work. Wheels were left off later tanks.
_Pyrrhic victory_ - a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.
Except it wasn't, strategically it wasn't a defeat, the French army held just and the BEF gained an education in modern warfare.
Day 1 was a disaster due to unpreparedness ...
Decisive strategic victory you mean.
Yes, named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus in his disastrous victories over the Romans in the battles of Heraclea and Asculum. Two thousand years and countless millions of unnecessary deaths later and they still hadn't figured out that sacrificing almost their entire armies for virtually nothing was a bad idea. Even worse, we're still at it today. Humans have the most highly developed minds of any living creature we know of and we use them to more efficiently slaughter each other. Not looking good, boys and girls.
@@RobBCactive Tell that to descendants of the dead, wounded, missing and survivors whose lives were ended or irrevocably changed for the worse. They'll no doubt be delighted by your astute observation.
@@frankmiller95 That’s a complete non-argument and is pointlessly emotional. The vast majority of victories come at a cost, doesn’t mean they aren’t victories.
Im surprised that the artillery doctrine was so flawed. Napoleon always concentrated is artillery. Even when he had fewer cannons. It was always more affective. You would think that they would've learned from him.
Not when you overestimate the effects of that artillery.
By Cambrai in 1917, the British had learnt to concentrate their artillery. But didn't bring up reinforcements fast enough.
British artillery was so refined at the battle of Hamel enemy artillery could be targeted individually with precision. 136,000 rounds were fired within that 93 minutes time span.
very good and informative video :) Btw your voice is
This is one of the best explanations of the battle I have seen, good job!
The British and French lost more troops in WWI than in WWII.
Correct, by far!
Especially the French...
In the last eleven months of WWI, British forces lost as many servicemen than in the whole of WWII.
In fact, the armies of the British Empire lost fewer men in the Boer War, WW1and WW2 COMBINED than France did in WW1alone, half a million less than Germany did in WW1 alone and nearly a million less than Russia in WW1 alone. Most people who only look at British casualties miss the fact that British casualties in WW1 were easily the heaviest that Britain has ever suffered in any conflict in its history, however in a world wide context they were comparatively light compared to other nations. WW2 casualties in Germany and the Soviet Union were truly horrendous. Russia lost around 13 million and Germany around 7 million.
@@stuarthall3712 oh yes indeed, most are well aware of other countries casualties, like at the two year siege of Leningrad in WWII more Russian people died than all US and UK WWII war dead combined but I wasn’t talking about the other countries, and I’m allowed to talk about UK casualties on their own thank you.
And the second set of problems- the tactical, technical, logistical. The British army isn't just blundering or charging blindly, as so often accused in pop culture. They're trying every method available to them and pushing tactics and technology. They didn't have all the WW2 stuff- they were busy inventing it.
It's impossible to command and control an army of that size with runners,telephones,carrier pigeons and flares.
That’s an often overlooked fact. People act like the allied generals were blundering bafoons. Some were. Same with the German and Austrian generals. But the Somme while a terrible battle that stretched on far to long was fought using the best technology and tactics available at the time. I’m sure Haig would have loved a tiger tank or 2 maybe even a drone and laser guided missile. They weren’t availabl.
Precisely. It was next to impossible to exploit a victory without radio communication. There were also not nearly enough vehicles, and very few cross country capable ones
@@Trebor74 YOU ARE WRONG
@@Trebor74 It's all they had! And they were learning. By 1918 the BEF was the best trained, equipped and led army that Britain has ever put into the field.
my grandather was wounded 15/9 at Ginchy . 2 Bde Coldstream Guards. he returned to he front in the RE Light railway Operating company in January 1917 and stayed until 1919.
My grandfather, a Kitchener volunteer, was one of those firing one those 60 pounder guns. Unlike the infantry the artillery started firing seven days before the attack and, again unlike the infantry, would spend most if not all of their time at the front line.
Haig created a huge army from practically nothing. He didn't even have anything close to the training cadre to allow the New Armies to expand so quickly. Wars are not won by defending and if there is blame for all the death involved, well, it wasn't Haig who committed his nation to battle. Informal negotiations were going on all through the year 1916 but national leaders kept the war going, not the soldiers.
Warfarebhas always been a see saw battle between defender and attacker. For example, Hastings, Senlac Hill ,where the steadfast.heavy infantry which had reigned supreme, went into history under the hooves of the newly emerging heavy cavalry,who would in their turn meet their demise 300 years later at the hands of longbow men. The British Generals ( the French were even worse), hadn't realised that the advent of magazine loading rifles, and the machine gun,in a ditch,behind barbed wire, had made the offense suicide . They were bloody callous fools. The German army went on to the defensive,and showed great innovation, and made the allies pay a terrible price for every foot won.
But did they keep the war going as you say. The allies had certain war aims. These were not met in 1916. The Germans thought they could win. It's quite complex. When the war reached a certain point vengeance became a factor. That is total surrender.
It wasn't Haig's job to 'create' an army, there was a huge administrative system at home for that. His was to command it only
@@michellebrown4903 The British generals probably had a better appreciation of the power of modern rifles than anyone else.
The generals were not fools and they realized that the key to breaking defenses was largely artillery (which also had as much as machine guns do do with stopping attacks). However in 1916 the British artillery and the British infantry were not yet up to the task. As the video notes, Haig knew this and told his superiors, but he was ordered to attack anyway.
The Germans were not on the defensive in 1916, they were on the offensive at Verdun. In 1917 they went on the defensive in the west so they could concentrate on knocking Russia out of the war in the east. This done, they went back on the offensive in the west in 1918. They understood that whatever the powers of the defense, the war was not going to be won by skulking in their own trenches behind barbed wire.
@@brucetucker4847 l have studied the Great War in some depth, you say British generals " were not fools" .... many seemed to be . A callous disregard for the lives of the common soldier only eclipsed by a criminally backward French high command , who had a saying " the battle will be won by the Poilu bearing his heart " in other words, proffering his chest to enemy fire. Climaxing with Nevilles repeated frontal assaults with huge casualties that finally broke the French army . The French lost the Battle of France, 1940 , at Verdun.
Re regiments from the same village and all that, (09:00 and on), notorious was Inniskilling. It was wiped out in the beginning of Waterloo in 1815 and it was wiped out again on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Twice over 90% dead. Now, don't tell me a name has no meaning. The answer to "Would a rose by any other name not smell as sweet?" is "No, it wouldn't."
An IWM video as well, you would think they'd know wouldn't you?
I see the point you're making and many of the Irish regiments in the British army have a proud and storied history. However 'Inniskilling' is just one of nearly 10 different anglicised spellings of the original Gaelic place name - meaning the "Island (Inis) of Ceithlenn". It has been known as Enniskillen for a very, very long time - the British Army just keep one of the archaic anglicised spellings for a fusilier and dragoon regiment. I'm afraid the name has no etymological link to "killing" and death. Good day to you and good luck, from an Irishman with an avid interest in military history.
This is my first appreciation of the bigger picture of the Somme.
Did he say the 1st of June in the intro? Although they got it right in the later part of the video and description
4:25 "Unfortunately, not allowed to fight on the Western Front" I'd say that West Indies regiment was very fortunate in retrospect.
The plus side of bigotry? The French had much less racial superiority problems. They had blacks from Africa fighting on the front lines and thought nothing of it. OTOH, the British felt the blacks lacked the courage to endure and did not want them running away enmass.
Opening statement refers to 1st June 1916 ... the battle actually started on 1st JULY 1916.
If ever there was a lose-lose situation it was this. But you could say that for most of the "battles" in the Great War. Lambs to the slaughter on all sides......When I was a kid we had a neighbour who lost both legs on the Somme. At least he got back......
Why have you put the word battles in quotation marks. ?
@@chrisbuesnell3428 My guess would be because they had very high casualties, but with little result. A bit like when Bonaparte was lacking in cavalry after 1812
I am no expert, let me start with that. But listening to this British authors of the video talking about British success, well, it's no wonder why they praise British army. But we shouldn't forget that Germany was fighting more than just this front sector. They had easter front with Russians open, they were helping Austro-Hungarians in fight with Italy ...
Yes, indeed British army was learning at the Somme sector, but it came at such a price, that I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about it. Thanks for a nice video!
One word sums up the battle of the Somme .... Madness !
My Maternal Grandfather was there and survived otherwise I would not be here! He was almost blown up as well as being subject to Mustard Gas, eventually made it back to Australia and married Lucy May Bell. Mum was the second of 5 children and we still have all of the letters he wrote, and also compiled in to a book, NFP. He never spoke of his time there, however was a humble and kind man in the time I shared with him as well as a Worker for all of his days.
RIP Stan. John, Australia.
Your grandfather Stan sounds an amazing man to not only serve and survive but also be a kind and humble gent after doing so. My Great-Grandmother told me stories of her husband, Walter, who died in spring 1918. I have visited his French grave a few times. It never fails to affect me. His only son was my Grandad Fred, who served in The Lowland Division during 2nd WW. R.I.P. these wonderful men.
@@chasc301 Thank you for sharing your story with me and others. John.
88% of all British and Empire troops who served in WW1 survived, and c75 % of all of the same who served on the Somme survived without a scratch. Have some perspective.
@@anthonyeaton5153 I told my perspective, the truth is in my comment. Their is an expression for your comment!
There are lies, dam lies and statistics!
No scratch you say, I would love for you to go through their experience and say you were unharmed while coping with PTSD.
John.
My Grandad was a stretcher bearer on the Somme ,never met him though.My other Grandad was in the Staffs Yeomanry in Egypt.
You should define what a casualty is it not only includes killed but also injured, missing and taken prisoner. I agree with the learning curve but although it is upwards it undulates in performance in future battles. The major effect on the central powers is physiological overawed by the material the allies can bring to the battle. They retire to a much easier shorter defensive line. The Germans are also learning with defence in depth and actions like positioning machine guns behind the trenches.
What most people miss about the whole question of leadership during WW1 is that Haig, "Wullie" Robertson and the British generals were NOT the ones giving the orders. Policy in both France and Britain was decided by Politicians like Clemenceau and Lloyd George. This was passed to the Military High Command as "the Word of the Gods" and they were expected to carry them out, forthwith. Haig made himself very unpopular with Lloyd George by contesting may directives, often supported by the CIGS, "Wullie" Robertson as the orders were often in contradiction to military reality. (Lloyd George's memoirs are about 60% devoted to shifting the blame to the military and the Generals, and off his own (SUBSTANTIAL) responsibility for many of the disasters that happened (EG: From November 1917 thru to May/June of 1918, Lloyd George held almost 1 MILLION troops back in the UK, and refused to reinforce the BEF in France, even at the height of the German 1918 offensive (Operation Michael) After the offensive was halted at a massive cost, The British Cabinet FORCED Lloyd George to send those troops and the war was then won in a little over 100 days, as the German Army had begun to collapse, along with their home front. And guess which general was the architect and director of the victory campaign.... Douglas Haig. Once he was ready to fight the war he had trained for all his life, and had some idea of how to use the new technology, he won that war in 100 days. (And yes, the French and Americans helped but the largest, most damaging advance was from the British army, which ended the war on November 11, barely 10 km from the Belgian town of Mons, where they first met the German Army in 1914.
Well said and Haig did not have the authority to select his own `chief of staff’ `Whitehall decided who.
Written out of British history are the three battles in France under the command of General John Monash, the Australian officer who designed battles which could be fought and won in a couple of hours. The name of Monash is celebrated all over Australia,unknown in the UK, but the Australian involvement in France is acknowledged by the French who,in the north, even celebrate ANZAC Day
“Written out of British history”
More just irrelevant
Not quite. I am well aware of Monash's 'Bite and Hold'. The counter to the German defence in depth
@Michael Rolfe Sad to hear We must somehow make it more known the 🤝🏻
That’s a pretty impressive story, have you also heard of Sir Arthur Curry? He was a Canadian general who was mainly responsible for reforming the Canadians from a rag-tag mob into an actually efficient fighting force, as well being one of the key minds behind the victory at Vimy. After the war, he was attacked by corrupt Canadian politicians and sadly died defamed and depressed.
@@lesdodoclips3915 .
I wouldn't say irrelevant. He spoke 4 languages including German fluently. Played violin and piano. Achieved degrees in engineering. Mathematics and law. Led the largest army on either side of the great war. That was over 200,000 men. Was knighted in the field by King George the fifth. Halted the breakthrough of the Germans at amiens in early 1918. This arguably stopped a German victory in the war. Devised new tactics that led to the breakthrough s of the so called 100 days that ended the war. By the way dodo. Your as dumb as one.
I think you should differentiate between casualties and deaths. 57,000 casualites on the fist day was 19,200 deaths. Setting off at 7.30am was not a good idea either. Tell the chap with the blue shirt to raise his screen, he appears to be talking down to us.
It seems there's a mistake in the narration. This first day of the Somme was July 1, not June 1 as stated in the video.
This is a blatant example of tweaking the narrative. The Entente powers did have set objective for their offensives and did not achieve them, plain and simple.
Contrary to the suggestions of the video, the Entente gernerals did not have the overarching goal of wearing the enemy down by throwing their own soldiers into the meat grinder. They always hoped for the big breakthrough that would enable them to return back to mobile warfare, to sweep deep into enemy territory, encircle enemy armies and inflict a decisive defeat.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
You see a lot of this, especially these days. The institutions with power never have a whole lot of critical things to say about themselves.
"the british army is just not prepared for this battle" sums up all british ww1 campaigns in one sentence.
Until you actually read about some of them.
@@HandGrenadeDivision are you trying to suggest that we were prepared for mons? or cambrai 1 and 2? delusional.
*Proud to say my Father-in-Law fought there RGA at Gommecourt.*
not proud to say that my grandfather fought there. What is to be proud of?
Strictly speaking Gommecourt wasn’t part of the Somme offensive. It was a diversionary attack to draw some of the German troops away from the main battle line.
@@davidcolin6519 *He did his part Fighting for His Country against the Oppressors, and lost his Leg at Leiven in May 1917 !*
@@GrrMeister You don't get it, do you? Why was he fighting? What was the purpose of the war? The oppressors? Which oppressors? What, you mean the ones who, only 4 years later, did their utmost to destroy what few workers' rights they had? The oppressors who continued to force miners to work for a pittance while having their health slowly destroyed? They're oppressors who continued to demand that house servants still lived in abject fear of being raped by their "Masters".
I think that you are getting your world wars mixed up, WWII was fought against tyranny, WWI was fought out of national pride, idiocy and hubris, nothing more. And those very same factors contributed to the "Settlement" at Versailles and were major factors in the rise of fascism afterwards.
That your grandfather lost his leg is a travesty, because it was lost in a war that was fought for no good reason. But fighting for your country, when your country didn't need to fight, when fighting was not about justice but was more about blindly following an idiotic government should not be something to be proud of. My grandfather was a Lieutenant at the Somme. I am not proud of him, because he was a S.O.B. He managed to fight in 2 separate actions that were shameful; The suppression of The Easter Rising, and the White Russian war.
Really, if you don't even know your history, how can you be proud of any of it?
My great grandad fought in the Somme, her was in the royal field artillery, he got his hand blown off by German artillery fire. His brother dug the very trenches the men used. He went over the top and we believe he killed a good few men.
Good analytical history, we need get away from the War Poet’s myths ( whom my grandfather who served four years in the Royal Lancashire Fusiliers in France in WW1 despised) We need to understand while they wrote probably good literature ( I am not in a position to truly judge) but very inaccurate history. I personally recommend anything by Gary Sheffield or even better Mud, Blood and Poppycock by Gordon Corrigan an ex army major and university research fellow who clearly know a bit about the realities of the military and workings of war.
Furthermore whilst he saw and experienced untold horrors my grandfather regarded the first world war as necessary and never regretted serving in it. Interestingly he was a graduate of Liverpool University and 26 when he volunteered in 1914, but shrewdly managed to avoid getting a commission until very late and was in officer training when the armistice came in Nov 1918. The sudden dramatic end probably saved his life as the life expectancy of junior infantry officers during the allied offences of the hundred days in 1918 were horrendous with far worse overall casualty rates than any day of the Somme except the first day.
Necessary for what? What did your grandfather win?
@@robsmissen4 That's a fair question. Very simplistically Britain won having a Europe that was not dominated by the Kaiser and the Blood and Iron militarism that fathered Nazism. A short lived victory perhaps.
Am I correct to assume you think war is always something best refused like a second eclair?
@@tamlandipper29 What if they gave a war and nobody came?
@ Germany made some bad mistskes thats why. Building the High Seas Fleet was a direct challenge to the UK and totally unecessary. Britain declared war because amongst other things it would under no circumstances allow Belgium and its ports to be controlled by Germany.
@ And the German Navy’s aim in both World wars was to starve Britain out, have you heard of the U-Boat war? but typically the Germans failed, twice, but Britain certainly did not fail as you rightly point out, same with strategic bombing, the Germans tried twice and the British then showed them how to do it right.
I'm just curious, does anyone know if the footage at the start (where we see people dying) is genuine or reenacted? And more generally was there a lot of reenactment footage done at the time, as was the case in WW2?
It's a recreation, staged by the photographer Geoffrey Malins and included in the film The Battle of the Somme. It was filmed in a training area behind the lines, and you can see the soldiers are not carrying the equipment actually carried by the assault troops. There is some authentic footage in Malins' film, but none of infantry actually going over the top. A good source is 'Ghosts on the Somme - Filming the battle June - July 1916'. This book looks at the film and analyses where and when each scene was filmed. Malins also wrote an account of his work in 'How I Filmed The War.'
@@rogueriderhood1862 Thank you for such a detailed answer, that's really interesting!
@@conorlane1Happy to help. It's surprising how often that particular footage is used and passed off as the real thing. Actual footage of the infantry assault would be pretty grim viewing.
There actually is a small amount of real footage in the movie, of British infantry advancing over No Man's Land. It comes shortly after the footage of the Hawthorn Redoubt mine going up. The soldiers are far off in the distance, and they're very hard to see in the grainy film. What _is_ noticeable, however, is an abrupt edit, as though Malins realized after the fact that he'd been filming the actual deaths of hundreds of men and decided that it was too disturbing for public viewing.
@@rogueriderhood1862 You can actually see one of the "killed" soldiers readjusting his body towards the end of the footage, likely because the director told him to (he seems to be looking towards someone behind the camera).
why does this video say (at 0:02) the attack on the Somme started on the 1st of June 1916 when the troops went over the top? It's fairly well known they went over the top on the 1st of JULY 1916, it's kindof hard to believe an otherwise excellent IWM documentary would get that wrong. Thanks.
Apparently the Germans don’t fire immediately the British attack, there’s a perfect killing enfilading area which the machine gunners wait for the British to enter. Whilst the British were advancing the Germans shouted “raus raus” then as they got closer the Germans shouted in English “get back”.
I recently decided to take a DNA test and begin to research my family tree. For the past 87 years my parents were under the impression that no members of our family were involved in the fighting during The Great War. My research has blown that myth wide open. I've discovered 20 ancestors who fought between 1914-1919. 17 of them were killed, four of them at the Somme, two at Gallipoli and one fighting in Northern Russia at Toska near Archangel in the Russian Civil War supporting the White Russians two weeks after his 20th birthday.. One young boy won the VC during the later stages of the Somme, another survived Gallipoli and fighting with the The Imperial Camel Corp on the Egyptian Front only to die after a cold he caught during a winter night patrol in the desert developed into pneumonia. My grandparents never mentioned any of this to us- no photographs or letters were kept- they were consigned to memory where they were grieved silently. The trauma must've been overwhelming. One great aunt lost two of her three sons. Such a waste, total carnage. To listen to this "the Somme needed to be fought" nonsense fills me with anger.
20 ancestors ? I don't think so, I'm sorry, really. Assuming you are between 10 and 50 years old today, your ancestors who fought during WW1 were either your great-grand fathers, or your great-great-grandfathers (ie generation 3 or 4, with you being generation 0)
Considering that everyone has, for each given generation, 2^k ancestors at the k generation (generation 1, I have two parents, generation two, I have four grandparents, then 8, 16 you get the idea), you had 2^4 = 16 great-great grandparents, if none of your ancestors were inbred (don't laugh or look horrified, it was common at some point to marry a distant cousin, and we're all inbred at some point).
Out of these 16 ancestors who were between 20 and 40 in 1914-1918, half of them were women (no offense to gay people, that's just the most effective way we found to make babies yet). So at most, you had 8 men in age to fight during WW1.
One could argue that different generations could have fought at the same time, father and son, but that would mean that the son was under 20 years old, while the father had his son at exactly 20. And both would have died, yet having enough time to produce a descendant. Seems possible, sure, but not common by any means. So at most, in a very particular situation, you had maybe 9 or 10 ancestors who fought during WW1. But definitely not 20, and if you're doing genealogy without using basic maths to validate what you find, well, you should.
Very interesting comment though, and don't take this personally. I'm just a random guy on RUclips, after all. My respects to you and your ancestors.
If the Somme hadn't been fought we would have lost the War. The Germans already had everything they needed and were using Verdun to force the French to surrender. Their exit strategy was Bethmann's September Programme and was a Europe dominated by Germany in perpetuity. The Germans lost at Verdun because The Somme was so successful. By the end the Germans were hanging on by their fingernails.
In the Second World War, the battle to break out of the Normandy Peninsular took three and a half months, and the casualty rate was higher than The Somme. Should that one not have been fought?
@@RO8s well said, these revisionist halfwits are looking at things they have not a clue about from their 2022 sjw eyes
@@alioshax7797 I think you are forgetting people of whom you do not descend directly, but are part of your bloodline, like brothers of your great great grandfathers or grandmothers. at that time people had a lot of children. you can descend from someone who never Even fought and still have many ancesters that did fought
@@aad6632 That's true, but then they're not technically your ancestors.
So ordering 57k men to be mowed down because there is no other tactic was vital to wear down the enemies machine gun trigger finger?
That's an easy comment to make in hindsight but it's not fair comment on the commanders who had to make decisions at that time. The British didn't want to fight that battle, on that ground, at that time, but were forced to do so. So they did the best they could in the circumstances of war. They preceded the battle with the biggest artillery barrage in history: a week of shelling, which was so intense it drove many German soldiers mad. Regrettably, it didn't cut the wires, or kill the german front line troops who were protected in very deep bunkers.
However, as this narrator states, we learnt. If you read books like 'Up To Mametz' by Wyn Griffith, you will see that the British became very adept at trench warfare, a far cry from the myth of lions led by donkeys.
@@crashrr2993 To me it sounds as excuses for their own failures. I bet that had it turned out an actual victory on July first that the Brits would have claimed it as theirs and theirs alone. Seeing as that it was a massacre.... it's the fault of the French. Yeah, sure. How about the generals standing up for their men and pointing out that they are not ready? No, can't do that because that would mean admitting that they were lacking,slacking and pompous gits.
Why is the lions led by donkeys a myth? The British high command where a bunch of elitist idiots that had no concern for the amount of men they put trough the grinder. They were daft old men that failed to grasp that the world had moved on. Just look at their battle plans and how long they took to see that heavy shelling prior to going over the top didn't work and in fact only served as a warning that there was going to be an infantry assault.
This is the usual shallowness with which people approach WW1. Just look at casualty figures for various offensives and you'll find that they were usually comparable, sometimes even favouring the attacker (case in point, Verdun). Positions, once taken, would be counterattacked by the other side. Great offensives ending at the enemies' wire are a post-war myth; they were beaten back in blood. And that's what attrition warfare is all about, and it's how the war was won.
@@PDVism The British lost more generals fighting in the front line than any other nation! We have always led from the front. The Great War was a turning point in warfare, when whole economies were mobilized to fight a war. This was new, and hard to counter, for everyone - hence the stalemate. However, contrary to popular myth, the British commanders adapted: they developed tanks and invested in aeroplane development.
When the Americans joined the Commonwealth in the fight against Germany, they thought they knew better... They didn't and, having seen their troops massacred, they quickly adopted British tactics.
@@crashrr2993 Would that be the glorious tactics such as were used in the battle of the Somme? Keeping in mind that the war started in 1914 and the battle of the Somme took place in the summer of 2016.
How about the battle of Ypres in 1917? When it took until the 6th november before a staff officer visited the front line and utter the phrase 'Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?' British losses being over 400k (deaths, crippled, deserting or prisoner of war) for that 6 month period.
Doesn't sound to me as if the British high command, and specifically Haig, learned any lessons at all.
Before you spout more jingoistic claptrap you might do well to actual learn about the history that you're talking about.
By the way, US troops didn't arrive on the front until the summer of 1918. Yes they made the same mistakes as the other generals in believing in frontal assaults. Claiming that they learned from the British is however a bit rich seeing as that the Brits seemed to have been the slowest student to learn that it just didn't work.
The First World War was a war of attrition, Germany was basically forced to throw in the towel because they ran out of resources while in 1918 thousands of fresh American troops were coming over the Atlantic. The losses on both sides during the battle of the Somme were roughly similar & it says a lot that later that year the Germans withdrew their forces to the strategically stronger Hindenburg Line.
Interesting video but if you don't mind me saying so your choice of title for the video is a little... odd? I understand what is meant but maybe just a tad more consideration?:)
That same old narative: British historians desperately trying to shift blame for the horrendous casualties to the French. Whilst at the same time downplaying the role of the French at the Somme, and in the end claiming that Verdun wouldn't have been won if it wasn't for the British sacrifice at the Somme.
Another way of putting it is:
The French had to push the British hart to lift a finger to help. In the end, the French had to commit more (!) troops than the British (not counting commonwealth troops).
The horrendous casualties were due to outdated tactics of the British army, and lousy planning by the Generals. The French had way less casualties the first day en met more of their objectives. The French stopped attacks that went nowhere, used creeping barages and ducked for cover.
In the end, the British and the French triumphed over the Germans at the Somme. In the meantime, the French beat the Germans at Verdun. The German army would only be able to replace the losses after the armistice on the Eastern front.
You are correct overall France played a slightly larger role in both battles of the Somme and verdun but the Somme offensives were mainly british forces and artillery covered by the British and it was actually a french plea to the British government to launch offensives to relieve the stress at verdun forcing Haigs hand into attack so no it’s mroe of a 50/50 situation when you considered that the french in this point during the verdun fighting were out of breath and were almost dead
@@whotf9312 Slightly lager role than the Brits at Verdun??? Why not just asking the Germans, they should be less partial...
@@whotf9312 Look at the data, e.g. through Wikipedia. There were more French than British troops at the Somme. There were 0 British troops at Verdun.
One of the reasons is: The French had conscription. So the French could call up a massive army. The British were still building up theirs.
British focus has always been at its Navy, which was by far the most powerful in the world.
@@gravityskeptic8697 never said there were brush at verdun i Meant to say what happened at the Somme Directly dictated the events of verdun as it forced Germany to deplete its reserves and go on the defensive and relieving the pressure that was placed on France which at that point was at breaking point and set to be defeated soon after
The battle started on July 1st, not June 1st. Can't believe that you got that wrong!
Saying the Somme started on June 1st rather than July 1st is an astounding mistake by the Imperial War Museum. It's not as if the horror of the Somme is changed by the wrong date, but how can the so-called ultimate authority on British military history screw up such a detail and get the video produced and approved to post on RUclips. Hardly anyone commenting noticed. No wonder history is so easy to wipe out.
@@brucelevitt6168 it’s as if they didn’t matter,every second of this nonsense war should be accounted for.
No it didn't! It started on 24th June.
@@robertstallard7836 again? Amazing, I was just reading this same thing on another thread. what did you pull that date out of? A book, or maybe wikipedia? Probably from someplace the sun doesn't ... well, you know.
First day of the Somme was 1st of July!can't believe IWM missed that mistake
WWI was the beginning of modern industrialized warfare on a huge scale, no one had had any previous experience of it and so they had to learn on the job, inevitably many paid with their lives in the learning.
My grandfather's generation lost their youth to the first world war, his children's lost their's to the second world war, and by the time Vietnam came along people finally said they'd had enough.
But advertising makes war look glamorous and fun. Top Gun made it cool, sexy, and clean. Heartbreak Ridge was a tough guy's wet dream of American Marines whipping out a bigger gun than the Grenadian forces.
Nothing in reality will compare or cover up the Hollywood depictions of meaningful death, heroics and comradeship in movies when it comes to innocent young minds.
They're cooked and done before the age of ten.
Hollywood war movies are often a recruitment tool. The studios get to use military equipment but the movie has to get approved by the military before it can be released. It's a cooperation and showing how pointlessly horrific war actually is would negatively affect recruitment numbers and as a result the overall work relationship.
@@user-hv6wb5gk8p I agree "The Engineering of Consent'' by Bernays 1947. Is an eye opener. Chomsky makes use of it and the title more recently.
"Who won the battle of the Somme?" Sir Basil Zaharoff.
Who is that?
French militaries consider this battle as a victory, they won their objectives and more... Pyrrhic's victory
Records probably don't exist but my Grandfather was captured on the somme and I have no idea where his unit was on 24th Nov 1916 when he was captured.
He was with the 17th Lancashire fusiliers (Bantoms) PTE H.V.Harrison no 32836. How do I find out if records exist?
Lancashire Fusiliers copped it really bad on the first day. If he was captured he was probably very lucky.
I love history, I read it constantly. I do have a question though. When reports like this say "a week long artillery bombardment" what does that mean exactly? Literally a week straight? Or an hour on hour off, or a few hours a day for a week? It all sounds awful, but I cannot imagine living through a week of straight artillery bombardment.
One week straight. Units rotated in and out, but the artillery shells just kept on firing.
Who won? Probably the people who sold the rifles, helmets and guns.
Check out the speech "war is a racket" by major general Smedley Butler. The state and its corrupt connections are the ones that profit.
Same people who are continuing to win today. Eisenhower told us to beware the Military Complex but greed will always win. 🙏
So the Americans
@@arejaycee5704 have you even seen Eisenhower's speech?