The Bloodiest Day In The British Army’s History
1st July 1916 was the day Britain and her Allies started an enormous attack across a 25 mile part of the front line. The assault happened to the north of the Stream Somme in agricultural France. Tiny towns are littered around the region together with the city of Albert. It was to be the battle that for diverse people, characterized the terrors of the trench warfare of the First World War.
The Battle of the Somme lasted roughly 4 months with little reward for Britain and her Allies. The casualties sustained by each side were horrific; the English Armed forces sustained 420,000 killed and injured, the French Military 200,000 and the Germans nearly half a million.
The German soldiers were well dug in and tactically held the more good ground therefore it was plain a huge effort would be needed to make inroads into their lines. The plan was to lay down an artillery bombardment for seven days before the offensive. In addition, lots of mines were laid under the German ditches. It was supposed that the mines and artillery would generate such devastation, Allied Forces would just need to walk thru no mans land and take the ditches. Unfortunately, this was not the way things worked out.
For seven days before the attack, a fearsome barrage was put down by the Alllies firing nearly 2 million shells. Having said that, the German ditches were dug deep into the earth delivering them with relative safety from the barrage. The mines did inflict deaths as planned but in most situations, the Germans had sufficient time to make prepared their defences once the artillery stopped and Britain and her Allies went overboard.
All along the line, the eventuality was similar. Brave men went over the top and were fatally injured before getting anywhere close to their objectives. At Beaumont Hamel, only 68 of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment, finished the day uninjured out of almost 800 men. At La Boisselle, the Tyneside Irish was effectively destroyed as it tried to advance more than 1 mile across open ground in full sight of German machine guns.
Even allowing for that there were some excellent results. The French Military had made advances in the north and south of the lines. The 36th Ulster advanced on and took the Schwaben Redoubt as a result becoming definitely one of the few to accomplish their principal objective. Unfortunately , running out of ammo, German counter attacks forced the Ulstermen to pull back later on that evening.
The 1st day of the Somme had cost Britain about 54,000 casualties, 21,000 of those being rubbed out. Now, the site of the Schwaben Redoubt is revealed by the Ulster Tower and close by at Thiepval, the Memorial to the Missing honors the names of approximately 70,000 men who fought at the Battle of the Somme.
The futility of ditch warfare in World War I are summed up by the first day of the Somme. Military tactics had been left behind by advances in weapons technology and ended in the deaths of numerous men.
