Why Was the Big Allied Push of 1916 Made at the Somme?

Relief, Delville Wood South African Memorial, Somme

Mark M. Hull

After the war, memories of the event—some more accurate than others—propelled this complicated series of unit actions into the position it has held since: a byword for the hemorrhage of lives for no gain and for military leaders’ uncaring sacrifice of an entire generation of young men.

The Reason Why 

The Somme River Valley theater of operations stretched some 15 miles, with the British sector neatly divided by the old Roman road that ran from Albert (British side of the line) to Bapaume (under German ownership). German forces occupied the key terrain feature—a ridge running west to east from Thiepval to Morval. The terrain was lightly wooded with a scattering of small villages and towns, although by 1916 the trees were gone and the towns were little more than standing ruins. War came early to these parts and stayed. 

The Somme did not suddenly become a battlefield in 1916. On the contrary, it had been the established demarcation between German and Allied forces since August 1914, when the Kaiser’s army lost its mobility and with it, any chance of realizing the quick victory that Germany required. The resulting stalemate did not mean an end to aspirations of offensive success; as different schemes were tried throughout 1915, the Germans asked themselves where the Allies were vulnerable rather than if the war was still winnable. Chief of the German General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn determined that the French fortress town of Verdun was the new “where.” He reasoned—somewhat sensibly—that the French would sacrifice almost anything to hold it, and that France would be “bled white” in the attritional struggle that ensued. By the early months of 1916, although it cost the Germans almost as much as the French, Falkenhayn still believed he was close to realizing the strategic goal of exhausting enemy manpower and with it, the enemy’s political will to continue the fight. If the French were to survive, they required immediate assistance from their British allies. 

The Somme Was the First Major Action for
the Pals Battalions

With the public failure of peripheral operations at Gallipoli, the British returned to the continent as the main theater of operations, and prior to the Verdun crisis, envisioned the main attack by Commonwealth forces at Ypres in 1916 with the aim of reaching the Belgian coast. For a variety of reasons, the plan collapsed due to the inability of their Russian allies to put together an offensive on the Eastern Front until summer and the Belgians’ refusal to support operations in Flanders. By February, both British and French staffs had scrapped their initial plans in favor of a joint Somme operation in July along a broad front—and it was just then Falkenhayn launched the Verdun operation that forced the Allies to rethink yet again the questions of where, when, and to what extent. 

Historians have long debated the true goals of the 1916 Somme offensive. It was at least partially designed to divert German reserves and thereby take pressure off the French to the southeast. But was the aim more ambitious than that? The commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), General Sir Douglas Haig, seemed of two minds. When writing about the upcoming operation in April 1916, he wrote that “I think we can do better than this by aiming at getting a large combined force of French and British across the Somme and fighting the enemy in the open!” 

This would appear to indicate unambiguously that the goal (at least at that time) was just that – a war-ending breakthrough that would collapse German resistance and pierce the equilibrium on the Western Front. His subordinate field army commanders were less optimistic, and doubted the chances for the rosy outcome Haig put forth. Fourth Army commander Lieutenant General Henry Rawlinson believed that the attack was likely to be “sustained over a considerable period of time”—meaning an attritional wearing out of the enemy rather than a decisive breakthrough. In response to this, Haig insisted, “The enemy must be beaten!” This schism of expectations between commanding general and key subordinates did not bode well for what was to follow. Haig was further prompted by the operational directive from the French Marshal Joffre, “We can envision knocking out the German army on the Western Front, or at least an important part of their forces.” As the time for the July offensive neared, Haig was watchful for any signs that Fourth Army’s planning embraced objectives that he thought too timid.  In any event, as historian W. J. Philpott observed, “For Britain the Somme was a battle fought for intangible strategic gains, to sustain an ally as much as defeat the enemy.”

One thing was clear—after the German onslaught at Verdun, the French contribution to any offensive in the Somme would be significantly reduced, as would the horizontal frontage of the battlespace. The British would not be making the push alone, but for most British units engaged, it would feel as though they were. With the Allied decision to attack and the general operational guidelines established, the British next had to consider how to best assemble sufficient manpower and material resources.

French Forces at the Somme

Postscript

Of course, the Allies won the Great War, more than two years after the Somme offensive. Did the Somme play a vital role in that success? Was this an important aspect of the attritional struggle that collapsed the German army in October and November 1918? Did the more than 19,000 men who died on 1 July alone contribute to that first V-E day? How should we interpret the greater meaning of what happened on the Western Front in 1916? Unfortunately, none of these questions have a satisfying answer, and perhaps that is why our cultural memory of this long-ago event is so ambiguous. 

Source: Excerpted from "The Somme, 1916" by Mark M. Hull, in Forgotten Decisive Victories, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2017