The Main Battles

The Battle of the Somme , 1916

Ever since the end of 1914 , the war had developed into a stalemate. Both sides were heavily defended and any attack would cost thousands of casualties. In 1916 , Germany raised a massive attack on the French town of Verdun and later that year , a mainly British attack was planned on the Somme. This was the first important battle that the British had provided a larger proportion of the troops than the French.

The attack was supposed to be a secret but before it the Germans had learnt all about it and had taken steps to prevent a disaster.

The attack was as planned :

The battle began propery at 7.30 am on the 1^st July , 1916. The troops were instructed to form lines of them about two paces away from each other and walk towards the enemy line , basically walk towards machine gun fire!!

It turned out to be a complete disaster. As the next picture shows , the battle was anything but a success.

As the picture shows , the barbed wire had not been successfully cut and when the troops that had lasted the machine gun fire reached it , they had a terrible time getting through. The picture below shows troops preparing to go ‘over the top’.

That single turned out to be the worst day in the history of the British army before and after 1916. There were 56,000 casualties of whom 23,000 died. The battle continued for a number of months with no success and finally ended in November. The British had lost a total of 419,654 men and the French 204,253. The Germans ended up with a death toll of around 600,000 men. The attack had lasted for nearly 5 months but the German front line remained intact.

The battle had been a failure for both sides , bringing not one side closer to victory.

Passchendaele , 1917

The attack here was to be on the flat land of Flanders. It was intended that the armies attack straight after Messines Ridge but terrible weather set in slowing their progress a full six weeks , giving the Germans plenty time to prepare themselves for the oncoming attack.

There was a big difference from the ground at Vimy Ridge in April , it was sodden making the advancement of weapons (tanks etc.) almost impossible.

The hope of a successful attack in such conditions was gone but still General Haig insisted on the attack going ahead and this proved to be a bad decision as the British suffered a loss of 30,000 men in the first week and 67,000 by the end of the month.

The battle went on and any hope of getting to the Belgian coast was abandoned. On the 6^th November , the Canadians managed to capture Paschendaele and soon after the fighting died down. British death toll was 250,000 whilst the Germans was 200,000.

The Battles of 1915

January came and the French mounted their first attack on Champagne. British contribution was small and thus the French army did most of the fighting.

The attack was unsuccessful with losses of 100,000 soldiers due to the machine gun fire. They had gained little more than 8km.

The attacks came to a halt around March.

Then came the first offensive by the British force and it was on Neuve Chapelle. As Germans did not consider the BEF a major problem , they had most of their troops positioned in a different place. The BEF managed to breakthrough the German lines but hesitation by Generals among communication problems lead to the German troops re-positioning and many of the BEF were wiped out by little over 12 machine guns , almost 13,000 men.

The battle of Ypres

Early fighting after the beginning of the war had been mainly movement. The Germans attacked Ypres and were killed in a slaughter by British troops.

This lead to the realisation that any attack would mean massive casualties but if they didn’t they couldn’t win!!

This lead to the mentality that more and more men would eventually breakthrough.

These battles are only a selection of the battles that occurred but they alone show that in every battle , there were massive casualties which shows that the pure principle of fighting as discussed earlier in ‘The tactics of Trench Warfare’ and the number of battles that occurred contributed greatly to the casualty and death toll.

Conclusion

To conclude my report on , I would like to think that I have shown through each of the different topics that Trench Warfare contributed massively to the colossal number of casualties in the First World War.

In my opinion , the major topic I have covered has been tactics. I outlined the fact that the tactics were crazy and that is personally how I feel. These men were almost committing suicide every time they went ‘over the top’ towards the enemy trenches. This is another reason :

Pictured above is one of the various types of machine gun used widely during the trench battles.

I see this weapon as another major factor in the death toll rising to such a ridiculous level with many of these guns firing up to 600 rounds a minute!! Men would be walking straight into the path of these awesome weapons and it is inconceivable how any men managed to survive the machine guns fire.

The death and casualty figures for the first day of ‘The Battle of the Somme’ are quite amazing. The fact that that was the worst casualty or death toll day for Britain before and since the war is saddening. Just to think that all those men were sacrificing themselves for the good of our nation makes you feel proud and thankful.

Let us just all hope that we never experience such slaughter and pain ever again as it is dreadful and it really puts life into perspective.