Great Britain's Great War by Jeremy Paxman

Author:Jeremy Paxman [Paxman, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780670919642
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

10. The Great European Cup Final

Whistles blow and the dying begins.

The worst day in the history of the British army dawned bright and clear. Many of the men who mustered early on the morning of Saturday 1 July 1916 in the gentle downland around the River Somme were filled with eager anticipation, having been told they would be taking part in the decisive battle of the war. This would be the battle to end all battles, in the war to end all wars. Douglas Haig, who had replaced Sir John French as Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in December 1915 after French had succumbed to intense pressure to resign, had gone to bed the previous evening having confided to his diary that ‘preparations were never so thorough, nor troops better trained. Wire very well cut, and ammunition adequate … The weather report is favourable for tomorrow. With God’s help, I feel hopeful.’ The attack had been prophesied by deafening artillery barrages – which had lasted for days on end, louder and more prolonged than anything the soldiers had ever heard before – in which British guns had poured shell after shell on to the opposing German positions. Many felt sorry for the poor devils hoping to survive the bombardment. Come to that, it was almost unimaginable that flesh and blood could endure such a thing.

What followed was the most sickening calamity in British military history. There were a number reasons for its failure. For a start, while soldiers returning to Britain on leave before the planned Somme offensive had been told not to talk about it, it was not much of a secret. ‘Everybody at home seemed to know that the long-planned offensive was due to “kick off” at the end of June,’ recalled Siegfried Sassoon later, ‘even Aunt Evelyn was aware of the impending onslaught.’ Secondly, although the Allies had agreed months beforehand to co-ordinate attacks on the Germans in 1916, the timing and location had been altered by frantic appeals from the French for a new offensive to relieve the pressure on the emotionally important city of Verdun, more than 100 miles to the west. Here, the German commander, Erich von Falkenhayn, had promised to ‘bleed France white’ by luring in reserves and then destroying them with artillery fire. This ‘meat grinder’ battle – the most sanguinary in history – severely reduced the number of troops France was willing to commit to the Somme attack. Thirdly, the original British Expeditionary Force having now been more or less wiped out, most of the British forces at the Somme were untested volunteers from Kitchener’s army. Fourthly, British intelligence had underestimated the strength of the German trenches, some of which were up to 30 feet deep. Fifthly, General Haig persistently deluded himself about the state of the German army, even maintaining after the catastrophe of the first day of battle that it was on the point of collapse. Sixthly, while the accumulated reserves of shells at the start

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