Click here for all the information concerning the hundreth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. The Big Push covers the gigantic battle of the Somme in summer-fall of 1916. Rivaling Verdun in ferocity, scale and casualties, Somme was Britain's first real chance to open up the Western Front in World War I. Battle of the Somme - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. British soldiers . The battle commenced on the 1st July 1. November 1. 91. 6. Find out how the First World War Centenary Partnership is marking 100 years since The Battle of the Somme. The Battle of the Somme left a deep mark on millions of families across the Commonwealth. It is important that we never forget what happened on the battlefields, and honour the memory and bravery of those who served and those. Welcome to the official website for the UK national commemorative event to mark the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Thiepval Memorial on 1 July 2016. The battle was named after the French River Somme where it was fought. On the first day the British Army lost 5. The French Army had 1,5. German Army lost 1. The cost of the battle, and the small gains, have been a source of grief and controversy in Britain. In German and French writing, the first day of the Battle of the Somme has been little more than a footnote to the mass losses of 1. This battle was the worst battle in WWI especially from the point of view of Britain. For 5 days straight the British fired shells at the German trenches to destroy them. At 7: 3. 0 am on the 1st July the British generals ordered the British soldiers out of their trenches and advance to the German trenches. It is known that the German trenches were unusually deep, and the German soldiers were able to take the machine guns down during the bombardment, and bring them up afterwards. Whole books have been written about this disaster. It is very clear, though, that the artillery barrage failed in its objective. Where enough German machine- gunners survived, supported by their artillery, the British attack failed, with many casualties. The effectiveness of the defensive weapons decided the result. In such an environment, a soldier with a bayonet was obsolete and infantry formations useless. They used chlorinegas to begin with but it gave off a strong smell and was green so it could be easily seen by the enemy. It also blew back on the Germans when they used it. They began to wear dampened material over their mouths and noses. It was more effective if they did use urine instead of water. The British soldiers were given cotton pads and respirators. Death from chlorine gas was excrutiating and you suffocated after suffering from a burning pain in your chest. The Germans then started to use a different gas called phosgene which they mixed with the chlorine. Phosgene was more deadly than chlorine and was colourless and smelled like mouldy hay but it took 2. Rifles were used by the soldiers in the trenches. The main type of rifle that they used was the bolt- action rifle which could fire 1. This type of rifle was invented by a Scottish man called James Paris Lee, in America. The bolt- action rifle had a metal box where the cartridges were put on top of a spring. As the bolt opened, the spring forced the cartridges up against a stop and the bolt pushed the top cartridge into the chamber as it closed. After the rifle was fired, the opening of the bolt ejected the empty cartridge case and the return stroke loaded a fresh round. The cases held 3, 5 or 2. They had to be put on a flat surface. They had the power of 1. Larger field guns needed up to 1. They fired shells which exploded when they hit. The machine guns were a major force for the Germans as they used them to their full effect as the British forces simply walked over no man's land straight into open gun fire. The British on the other hand did not have access to many machine guns therefore making their task even more difficult, as the Germans had the upper hand to look upon them as their position was higher than the British. The first tank was called . The maximum speed that it could travel was 3 mph and it was not able to cross the trenches. The first tank battle, Flers- Courcelette named after the two villages that were the objectives for the attack, started on 1. September 1. 91. 6. Out of the 4. 9 tanks that should have been there only 3. This was the first time that tanks had been used in World War I, but because they were only armed lightly and the mechanics of them often went wrong they did not make a great impact. However, casualties were low in the tank crews. Mines are a way to blow up the enemy and really shock the enemy. Anti- infantry land mines have been in use since the invention of gunpowder and were used in the defence of breaches of fortresses in the 1. British assault on the breach at Badajoz suffered many casualties from mines). However these were activated remotely by a defender lighting a very fast burning fuse at the appropriate moment. The British used 1. Battle of Somme to startle and damage the German front line. The holes left by the mines were used by the Germans for machine guns afterwards. The soldiers that set the land mines were called sappers. There was a lot of disease in the trenches. The toilets in the trenches were mainly buckets and holes. This meant that diseases like dysentery spread very quickly. Dysentery causes stomach pains and diarrhoea and sometimes sickness. The body can become very dehydrated which can cause you to die. The water supply in the trenches was not very good. They added chloride of lime to purify the dirty water that the men collected from the shell holes but the soldiers did not like the taste of the chloride of lime . One man described them as, . A lighted candle applied where they were thickest made them pop like Chinesecrackers. After a session of this, my face would be covered with small blood spots from extra big fellows which had popped too vigorously. This was known as pyrrexhia or trench fever. The first symptoms were shooting pains in the legs and this was followed by a very high fever. The disease did not kill the soldiers but it did stop them from fighting. Trench Foot was an infection caused by standing in the wet for a long time and not being able to dry your shoes and socks out. Your feet would go numb at first and then turn red or blue, and if you got gangrene you may have to have your foot amputated. Brigadier- General Frank Percy Crozier argued that: . This was from being wounded or having them blown off by mines or shells. There was also a big rat problem, because there were lots of corpses. One soldier, Harry Patch, claimed they were as big as cats. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself! The soldiers that went over the top were easy targets for enemy machine gunners. In the battle the Allies lost about 6. Germans lost just as many. The Prince of Wales served on the Somme as a Staff Officer. He was genuinely disappointed not to be involved in the fighting. However, the understanding his service gave him of ordinary men and the admiration he earned from them, influenced the rest of his life as Prince of Wales and Edward VIII. Today, the place where the Battle of the Somme took place has lots of cemeteries, war memorials and museums for people to visit and pay their respects. Also, some farmers find remnants of barbed wires. Finding them is known as the . Battle Tactics of the Western Front; The British Army's Art of Attack 1. Yale University Press. ANZACS, The Media and The Great War. The definition of 'victory' after such a tremendous bloodletting during the Battle of the Somme is very much disputed by historians such as John Frank Williams. If Germany attacks: the battle in depth in the West. West Point Military Library. The first day on the Somme. London: Penguin Books. When the barrage lifts: a topographical history and commentary on the Battle of the Somme 1. Norwich: Gliddon Books. Yale University Press, p.
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