When World War I broke out in August 1914, great throngs of British men lined up to enlist in the war effort. At the time, it was generally thought that the war would be over within six months.

There is no evidence that the 'War would be over by Christmas' was ever held in wide belied in 1914. Kitchener called up the new armies with the knowledge that they wouldn't be ready until 1915 at the very least, and he didn't expect the British Army to be making any major effort until at most 1916, more likely 1917.

On the Western Front–the battle line that stretched across northern France and Belgium–the combatants had settled down in the trenches for a terrible war of attrition.

Attrition did not become the aim of Allied strategy until the Inter-Allied Conference at Chantilly in November, 1915. The stated goal of the General Allied Offensive next year would be the 'destruction of the enemy's armies', specifically those of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

With the aim of raising enough men to launch a decisive offensive against Germany, Britain replaced voluntary service with conscription in January 1916, when it passed an act calling for the enlistment of all unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 41.

This had more to do with the fact that compulsion under the Derby Plan wasn't working, and Britain needed to institute a more organized system of providing the Army with manpower. Conscription, which was already utilized by all the major combatants, would weed out those men that were needed for vital war work, and thus ensure that industrial and military demands could be met efficiently. As Richard Holmes points out in Tommy, many conscripts would argue that they would have volunteered sooner or later, but conscription made that choice for them.

Near the end of June, with the Battle of Verdun still raging, Britain prepared for its major offensive along a 21-mile stretch of the Western Front north of the Somme River.

It was not a solely British offensive; British 4th Army under Henry Rawlinson would attack along a 20 km front north of the Somme, but south of the Somme Emile Fayolle's French 6th Army would attack along a 10 km front. It was a joint offensive, coordinated by Ferdinand Foch, aimed at inflicting heavy losses on the German Army, and driving it from it's positions in Picardy, centered on the Thiepval-Combles Massif, Lassigny and the Flaucourt Plateau. It would also have the immediate effect of forcing the Germans to disengage from their offensive at Verdun, and give the French Army time to recuperate and counter-attack.

For a week, the British bombarded the German trenches as a prelude to the attack. British Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, thought the artillery would decimate the German defenses and allow a British breakthrough; in fact, it served primarily to remove the element of surprise.

Haig was C-in-C British Armies in France and Flanders; General Sir Henry Rawlinson was GOC 4th Army. Rawlinson was the one who decided on a methodical bombardment, and it made sense. Haig, for his part, wanted a short, hurricane barrage, but with the state and quantity of British shells and artillery, in tandem with the length of front and depth of enemy defences, this was unfeasible. Moreover, there was really no point in operational surprise on the Western Front: allied papers tracked the build-up, the Somme sector was where Franco-British lines met and thus the only place a joint offensive could be launched; the build-up requires for an offensive was obvious to the enemy; a methodical bombardment would ensure that the enemy's positions were thoroughly shelled, and would spare the British guns from excessive wear in a short time, which a hurricane bombardment would have entailed. There were plenty of officers and soldiers sceptical of the bombardment, and even it had worked, there still would have been bloody fighting ahead.

When the bombardment died down on the morning of July 1, the German machine crews emerged from their fortified trenches and set up their weapons. At 7:30 a.m., 11 British divisions attacked at once, and the majority of them were gunned down.

Except for, y'know, XIII & XV Corps south of the Albert-Bapaume road, that reached basically all of their first day objectives; or 36th Ulster Division, which captured the Schwaben redoubt, and was only driven out by nightfall; and the Leipzig redoubt, where the British gained a foothold in the German lines.

The soldiers optimistically carried heavy supplies for a long march, but few made it more than a couple of hundred yards.

They were carrying the supplies that would have been needed to consolidate positions, and hold out against enemy counter-attacks. What should they have left behind? The extra ammo, the extra rations and water? The spare barrels and mags for the Lewis Gun, their spade? The sand bags and barbed wire coils?

Five French divisions that attacked south of the Somme at the same time fared a little better, but without British success little could be done to exploit their gains.

Without British success? Certainly, north of the road the situation was abysmal, but south of the road the entire German defensive line had been unhinged; soon after the Germans would abandon Fricourt, and the commander of XIV Reserve Corps would order a retreat to the second position, completely unhinging the Somme defenses west of Peronne.

After the initial disaster, Haig resigned himself to smaller but equally ineffectual advances, and more than 1,000 Allied lives were extinguished for every 100 yards gained on the Germans.

What's the source on those 1000 allied lives per hundred yards? Allied dead and missing was 131 000 total, French and British. Moreover, they claim that 'Haig' resigned himself to smaller advances ignores a) Rawlinson was the commander on the ground, joins by Gough and the Reserve Army; and b) the attack on Bazentin Ridge, the broad front attacks attempted in August, and the successful broad front assaults in September at Flers-Courcelettes and Thiepval. Moreover, Haig pressured Gough and Rawlinson to attempt more broad front attacks, but the commanders of the armies and corps did have to face their own inexperience and other pressing factors. A) The British guns and shells were poor quality and often defective; B) The BEF received only 50% of the shells it was expending on the Somme, and the British had to carefully husband their resources; C) broadfront attacks could take as much as a week to coordinate and prepare, and were still no guarantee of easy success; and D) the time spent planning a broad front assault was time given to the Germans their prepare their defences and plan counterattacks, with one such attack involving wan entire division being launched in August, with bloody results.

Continued