The battle of the Somme

Los Mas Buscados

Publicado: Feb 14, 2008

Por: jbmilitarycollector

Duracion: 8:10

The Battle of the Somme July 1st 1916-18 November 1916. The battle was planned on December 5th 1915 by the French commander general Joffre and was intended as a joint French-British attack. But the battle of Verdun drastically reduced the amount of French troops available for the offensive so about 80% of the troops used would be British. General Haig the British commander would have preferred to attack in Flanders assisted by a landing on the Belgian coast. Eventually at a conference on February the 14th 1916 an agreement was reached by which Haig accepted Joffre's plane for the Somme offensive even though the Somme sector was thought to have the strongest defences on the western front. The attack was preceded by an eight-day artillery bombardment of the German lines, beginning on Saturday 24 June. The idea was that the bombardment would destroy all forward German defences, including the barbed wire unfortunately this did not happen. Instead of concentrating the artillery on several places to create a breach in the defences it was spread evenly across the front so the fire was dispersed and many strong points and machine gun posts were never touched added to this a large part of the heavy guns were of obsolete pattern with poor range plus a lot of the ammunition were duds and of the wrong type to destroy bunkers and wire. The attack began at 07:30 on 1 July with the detonation of a series of 17 mines. One of which the Hawthorn Crater which is shown in the video just before the troops go over the top. The troops attacked in waves at walking pace carrying 66pounds of equipment they were slaughtered. There were 58,000 British casualty's on the first day nearly 20,000 of them killed which to this day remains a one-day record. By the end of the battle on the 18th November there were 420,000 estimated British casualties. During the battle tanks were used for the first time on September 15th and achieved some success but they suffered from poor mechanical reliability plus the artillery churned up ground was unsuitable and they were used in groups rather than en mass. The bulk of the British army at this time was made up of the pals battalions were whole towns and villages joined up and served together with the result that a generation of a town or village would be wiped out. I have tried to show this in the video by showing them marching to war and arriving at the front before going over the top after the artillery bombardment. I have also tried to show that the battle of the Somme was actually a series of battles not just one by jumping from one battle scene to another. For anybody that's interested in 20th century military and home front collecting have a look at my web site to see my collection.There are also more videos plus speeches and news broadcasts of the 20th century. Plus veteran recording. And don't miss the veterans section look for the poppy. http://server.microlite16.com/josephs-militaria-and-homefront-collection.co.uk/

Canal: Education

Tags: army  artillery  battle  british  gun  history  machine  planes  somme  tanks  troops  war  ww1 

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