Download The First Day of the Somme

Honors U.S. History
WWI
The First Day of the Somme
During the American Civil War Richard J. Gatling hoped to become wealthy by selling the Union
army his hand-cranked precursor to the machine gun, the Gatling gun, It could unleash up to
200 rounds a minute, as compared to the 2 to 3 rounds a minute from a rifled musket being
loaded and fired by a well trained soldier. Gatling considered his weapon “providential,” the
ultimate device, he wrote Abraham Lincoln, for “crushing the rebellion.” After the war, Gatling
even spoke of social benefits. His gun would ease the pain and suffering of war. Only one
soldier would be needed “to do as much battle duty as a hundred” because of its “rapidity of
fire.” His weapon would “supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently exposure
to battle and disease would be greatly diminished.”
Hiram Maxim, another inventor, offered a major improvement to Gatling’s weapon in
1884 when he demonstrated a mechanism that would permit the gun to fire automatically,
simply by depressing the trigger-the modern rapid-firing machine gun was born. Because of
such technological breakthroughs, water cooled machine guns capable of firing 600 rounds per
minute were commonplace in the arsenal of weapons used by the armies engaged in World
War I. The Maxim gun, as they were generally known, could spray an area with bullets and
easily destroy an area of soldiers trained well enough to fire their breechloading riffles only 15
times a minute. The machine gun proved to be an effective killing weapon.
More sophisticated weapons did not, as Richard Gatling had assured his
customers, result in any reduction in the size of wartime armies. During Europe age of
industrialization, the major powers built up ever-larger military forces, as if only huge masses
could defeat the enhanced firepower of new weapons such as the machine gun.
When the armies of Europe first collided in August 1914 after Germany’s
penetration through Belgium, a stark reality became clear. Firepower, both in the form of small
armies and large artillery, was so overwhelming that neither side could defeat the other
without virtual annihilation.
What apposed were apposed lines of trenches over what was called the Western Front, running
without interruption south from the North Sea all the way through France to the boarder of
Switzerland. For the next three years, combat became a horrible contest in which one side or
the other periodically tried to break through these trench lines.
The Battle of Somme was in many ways typical trench warfare. Up until June 1926 this
sector in Northeastern France was inactive. German divisions had been present since 1914 and
had constructed three defensive lines of trenches running back from “no man’s land,” an area
of 500 to 1000 yards wide on the other side of which were trenches manned by the Allies- the
British to the north and the French to the south of the Somme River. Because of a fearsome
struggle occurring far to the south at Verdun, the Allied high command, after preliminary
planning decided in May 1916 to mount a massive offensive in the Somme sector.
If German lines could be permanently ruptured, then it would be possible to roll up
enemy divisions on the other flanks. German soldiers would face surrender or retreat, thus
breaking the military deadlock in favor of the Allies. To breech the German trenches in
coordinated fashion along a stretch of 50 miles involved detailed planning, considering the
thousands of troops and massive firepower the Allies faced. Further, surprise attacks were
impossible. German artillery and machine gun operators could obliterate waves of soldiers
trying to cross no man’s land, even before they reached the barbed wire place in front of the
German tranches. The alternative was to prepare the way with an extended artillery
bombardment.
The Battle of Somme was launched with a seven-day cannonade. During the last week of
June, some 50,000 British artillerists fired 2,960,000 rounds at the German trenches. By the
evening of the second day, wrote an observer, “Some sectors of the German front line were
already unrecognizable and had become crater fields.” The next day, British started to release
clouds of chlorine gas hoping it would seep into the dugouts 20 or more feet below-ground
where the German soldiers were at the moment, living, surviving, and listening carefully for the
climatic fury of the bombardment, a sure sign that the infantry assault was to begin.
At 6:30 A.M, on July 1, 1916, one hour before infantry troops were to advance, the
cannonade reached “an intensity as yet unparalleled… along the whole front.” German soldiers
noticed the difference and knew that the moment of reckoning was near. The whole course of
the battle would depend on their ability to get back above ground, set up their machine guns
and begin firing before the enemy overran them. It was a moment for which they had
repeatedly trained.
As zero hour approached, thousands of British and French soldiers made final
preparations in their trenches. Their assignment was to secure control of the second German
line by the end of the day. Soon they would climb up scaling ladders and jump over the top,
then listen for the sounds of whistles from their platoon leaders to guide them across no man’s
land. Most found themselves “sweating at zero hour,” supposedly from “nervous excitement.”
Many had attended church services the previous day. Explained one British soldier, “I placed my
body in God’s keeping, and I am going into battle with His name on my lips.” Everyone received
a warm breakfast and a healthy ration of rum to settle their nerves.
Promptly at 7:30 A.M., the race began. “Over the top” went hundreds of thousands of
British and French. Up and out of their dugouts came German soldiers. In most areas the
Germans were ready with time to spare. Their machine gun and artillery fire and artillery fire
cut a third of the British battalions to shreds before they reached what remained of the first
German trenches.
British soldiers who survived witnessed unbelievable sights. One watched as “two men
suddenly rose into the air vertically, 15 feet perhaps” as a German shell hit the ground ahead of
him. “They rose and fell with the easy, graceful point of acrobats,” he noted, as they as they
died. Another saw men “falling forward,” stating it was “some time before I realized they were
hit.” In one company only three soldiers made it to the German barbed wire. Their leader, a
lieutenant, looked around in amazement and said: “God, God, where’s the rest of my boys?”
Hardly over the top, a British sergeant heard the “patter, patter” of German machine
guns. “By the time I’d gone another ten yards,” he explained, “there seemed to be only a few
en left around me; by the time I had gone twenty yards I seemed to be on my own. Then I was
hit myself.” This sergeant was among the fortunate. In some sectors, British soldiers was
evaded machine-gun fore and reached the other side “were burned to death by [German]
flame throwers.”
From the British perspective, the fighting went poorly that day. By evening they had not
captured the German second line, but they had suffered 60,000 casualties, including 21,000
dead. By compassion the Germans, who get most of their machine up and operating,
experienced only 6000 casualties.
The battle, however, had just begun. It would rage in fits and starts until November 18,
1916, when the Allies decided that a breakthrough in the Somme sector was not attainable. By
that time the British had suffered 420,000 casualties, the French an estimated 200,000. No one
knows exactly how many soldiers the Germans lost, but a fair guess would be in the 500,000 to
600,000 range. Yet virtually no ground had been lost or gained by either side.
It is not surprising, then, that the Allies rejoiced when the Americans finally entered the
war. They needed more than loans and war goods to achieve total victory. Field Marshal Joseph
Joffre, the former French commander-in-chief, said it all when he arrived in the United States
after Congress declared war in April 1917. Declared Joffe with his usual bluntness: “We want
men, men, men.”
Answer the following questions as you read The First Day of the Somme on your own paper in complete
sentences.
1. How did Mr. Gatling believe that he could change warfare?
2. How did the changes in the Gatling gun affect the soldiers of World War I and the overall armies
throughout Europe?
3. Draw a diagram of the German, British, and French positions at the beginning of Battle of the
Somme?
4. What was the goal of the British and French forces at the Battle of the Somme?
5. Explain, using specific reasons, why the allies decided to begin the Battle of the Somme with an
artillery bombardment
6. Describe the strategy of the British and the German during the battle of the Somme.
7. How would you describe the attitude of the British soldiers the day of the battle? What would
explain this type of attitude?
8. Give several examples that reflect the magnitude of the Battle of the Somme?
9. Why is the Battle of the Somme a good example of the World War One?
10. How did technology effect world war one?