Up until the end of 1916, the war was at a stalemate. Earlier in the year, Germany had launched a huge bombardment on the French town of Verdun. The British answer to this was a planned attack on the Somme. The attack was tried to be kept a secret but somehow or another, the Germans caught whiff of it and took precautions for it and prepared steps to prevent it.

This is how the British hoped the battle would take place:

The Battle began early on the first of July 1916. The tactics which they were ordered to follow were just crazy. They were told to walk straight towards the machine gun fire. They were in lines and two paces away from each other. It was ludicrous.

As you may have expected, the plan was just a complete disaster and did not turn out as hoped.

This is the true story:

This battle was one of the worst days in history for British troops. There were 56,000 casualties - 23,000 of them died. The battle continued for many months until it finally came to an end in November. Britain lost a total of 419,654 and the French 204,253. The Germans also ended up with a lot of dead troops. They lost about 600,000 troops!! Although the battle raged on for about five months, the Germans still managed to keep their front line intact.

The outcome of the battle was that around 1,223,907 soldiers lost their lives and the war was still no closer from being settled.

We now see the outrageous tactics that were used and ask the question... Why?  Why did they use these tactics?  They don't really have the right to be called tactics.  People weren't known as individuals ...but as numbers.

Weapons used in World War One

This was the war for new weapons. A lot of new weapons were used for the first time. Most of them were just really experimental. In this section I will look at some of the new weapons used in this war.

The Tank

At first, the idea of a tank was dismissed by the Ministry of War who just thought the idea was quite hilarious. How wrong could they be though. For years before, farmers had been using tractors to plough their fields and one man suggested that they should reinforce it with steel plates and fit it with machine guns. As I said the idea was dismissed and a note left beside the plan's reading "the man's mad". A Colonel Swinton then suggested that they should put some armour plating around the side of it and a add a few guns. The army again rejected the plan but the navy weren't so naive to ignore the suggestion and they spent £75,000 on improving the design. The government did however give in to it as long as these "Land Ships" could travel 4 mph, turn sharply, reverse, climb 1 in 1 slope of a least 5 feet, cross a gap of 8 metres, keep going for at least 20 miles as,well as two machine guns and a cannon. The requirements were a lot but they eventually managed it.

A Typical British Tank

Tanks were first used in the Battle of the Somme, 1916, which you now know was a complete disaster. One thing they were very useful for was that they just trampled all over barbed wire without a care in the world. They could also get over the trenches. The tanks did get pretty frustrating for the armies. They were always breaking down and running out of petrol.

Later on at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, generals then began to think up strategies for the tanks and they were beginning to get used in there best way, unlike at the Somme when they weren't really used to their full potential.