Hi everyone,
I’ll, first, talk about the battle of Somme in general. This battle started the first of July 1916 and was started by the British to draw the German soldier from Verdun as we can see in Condon chapter 7(Condon Ch7-1vudier). The offensive started really badly for the British troops losing nearly half of the men of the first attack. This was a hard attack because with the invention of new deadly weapons the defenders now held a huge advantage over the enemy since artillery are hard to move. But around the end of the offensive the British took a small territory over the Germans but without real breakthrough. The only purpose of this attack was to shift the attention of Germany from Verdun to Somme. It succeeded in a way because the French were victorious in Verdun.
Secondly, in this battle, the use of machine guns was really effective against the British troops resulting in thousands of death which really help the German army. Furthermore, it is at Somme that the first tanks were use by Britain, but those tanks didn’t really helped because they could only move at the speed of 5km/h and they had mechanism problems. Therefore, those new technologies had a great impact in the battle of Somme with the artillery and the new machine guns except the tanks. Those, even if they weren’t of any good in WW1, were improve a lot and then were use has one of the main component of the German army in WW2.
Charles, I really enjoyed reading your blog post as I did not have much background knowledge on Somme and in fact I was not completely understood on exactly what drew the British and French to incite another battle there. But from my understanding was it only to distract the German’s that the Allies took the battle elsewhere? My interpretation may be mislead but, I took it that it was also to reclaim some of the dignity and reaffirmation of power the allies felt they lost in Verdun, and to ensure the Central Powers knew they were still strong. Reading your post gave me more insight as to why the British and French lost Verdun but were able to make up for Somme, when tactics came to mind I did not think of the new weapons or technology that had just been created at the time. Nice job with the article, but maybe specify when you say new technologies it’s just weaponry, or give more detail and explain just one other.
Hi Charles,
I am really interested in the Battle of Somme and it is the battle that I have probably studied most intensively during our WW1 unit. Despite this, your blog post really gave me great insight into how the technological developments affected the outcome of this particular battle. I especially liked how you highlighted how significant the machine guns had in causing so many casualties. I believe you could have added a little more historical detail, such as who the major players were in the battle, when it took place, strategies used and the amount of casualties etc.
Charles,
Battle of the Somme is indeed one of the most important of the First World War. A few details about strategies, tactics and technologies were shared, but not developed or connected to the bigger picture. Given the purpose of this blog to analyze historical significance, I wonder what it is that is historically significant about the Battle? Your interpretation of significance does not come through, so I am left wondering.