Abstract
Staff Ride Question: Did Haig try to be too ‘manoeuvrist’ on the First Day of the Somme? Was Rawlinson’s attritional approach of 14 July better suited to the capabilities of the BEF? What are the lessons for today’s commanders?
The BEF in July 1916
The Consequences of Britain’s pre‐war Strategy
At least some of the causes of the horrific events of the First Day of the Somme lie in pre‐war British Grand Strategy, at the heart of which was the quest for competitive advantage through trade and Empire. As far as Britain’s attitude towards Europe was concerned, the central strategic concept was the Balance of Power – the notion that Britain’s interests lay in preventing any one state, or group of states, from dominating the Continent, and in particular in not allowing the Low Countries and Northern France to fall into hostile hands. These imperatives manifested themselves in high defence spending relative to other European powers, the object of which was to maintain maritime supremacy and a ‘small, regular, Army committed to the conduct of limited operations in the pursuit of empire’.Footnote 1
As a result, Britain entered World War I with an Army that was potent for its size, and expeditionary in nature. But it was very much smaller than that of its major European comparators,Footnote 2 and therefore much the junior partner in the Allied Land Component. This initial status as a minority shareholder would significantly affect how events unfolded on the Western Front. The Royal Navy was to be of fundamental importance in winning the war ‘by enabling Britain to keep open the Atlantic lifeline by which supplies and…American troops crossed from the New World to the Old’.Footnote 3 But the Army was to pay the price of rapid transition from expeditionary to continental Army in blood on the fields of Picardy, Flanders and elsewhere.
The New Army
Credit is due to Lord Kitchener, appointed Secretary of War at the outset of World War I, for his immediate recognition, against the prevailing orthodoxy, that the war would not be short and would demand large numbers of men. At his behest, Parliament promptly passed a bill to raise 500,000 men to be formed into 18 new divisions, and the New Army was born.Footnote 4 The Territorial Force was also greatly expanded. The evidence suggests that, understanding the time it would take to create, equip and train a force of the scale required, Kitchener’s initial force generation plan did not envisage the British Army becoming the dominant player on the Western Front until 1917, by which time other continental armies would be exhausted. Britain could then win the war and dictate the peace. Unfortunately, the early successes of the Central Powers, and the high manpower losses of the other members of the Entente, forced Kitchener to abandon his initial plan shortly after its inception. Within months, ‘Kitchener’s Armies’ were being committed piecemeal almost as soon as they were formed.
As a consequence, the New Armies went to war short of every commodity save patriotic enthusiasm. Historical analysis of the British Army in World War I is replete with examples of its general lack of preparedness at the outset. The result of Britain’s massive mobilisation was felt in particular in the lack of experience of the Army’s commanders. ‘In mid 1916 the five men who were Army commanders, had, back in 1914, only been in charge of divisions. Most of the…corps commanders had then led infantry brigades. And many of the…divisional generals had started the war commanding battalions.’Footnote 5 As later sections of this article will show, the fact that commanders such as Generals Sir Douglas Haig and Sir Henry Rawlinson had not been tested at the level at which they were to operate was to have significant consequences on the Somme.
The Army’s lack of experience was by no means the only adverse consequence of Britain’s tardy conversion to total war. In a testament to the dangers of planning assumptions, Farrar‐Hockley reports that:
The final agreement [between the War Office, the Treasury and the Foreign Office as to the sort of war which might involve a British expeditionary force in Europe] foresaw four infantry divisions and one of cavalry in the field for at least two months during which four major battles would be fought, each lasting three days. Arms, ammunition, equipment and supplies were stockpiled against this contingency.Footnote 6
Very considerable efforts were made to recover from this weak starting position in equipment and stocks, in particular after Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions in May 1915. However, the capabilities of the BEF in 1916 did not augur mobility. Without, among other things, radio communications, responsive all‐weather intelligence collection, and mobile fire support, it was ill‐equipped for manoeuvre. In an era of transition between cavalry and armour, it also lacked an instrument of exploitation in which all had confidence. But an ability to manoeuvre at the operational level, highly desirable though it may be, is neither a necessary nor a sufficient component of the manoeuvrist approach.
The BEF’s weaknesses in mobility and firepower relative to more modern armies do not therefore suffice to explain its failure to be manoeuvrist on the Somme in 1916. After all, the German Army of the day was not radically more mobile, yet Lind describes World War I German tactics as ‘the basis of modern maneuver warfare’,Footnote 7 endorsing Liddell Hart’s likening of German attacks to ‘a torrent bearing down on each successive bank’. In the same way, other manoeuvre warfare theorists point convincingly to examples of manoeuvre warfare throughout history from armies that preceded the BEF of 1916 and were much less potent.Footnote 8 As we shall see shortly, why the BEF was not manoeuvrist was more a consequence of command culture than of capability.
Britain’s Military Strategy in 1916
Just as any failure on the Somme cannot be explained by a manoeuvrist approach being inconceivable at the time, nor would it be accurate to characterise the battle as the inevitable consequence of those that preceded it. As Gary Sheffield summarises, in the initial battles at Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne and elsewhere, ‘through a combination of being at the right place at the right time, fighting skill and bloody‐minded tenacity, the BEF…played a role out of all proportion to its size in halting the German onslaught’.Footnote 9 The subsequent British offensive battles of Neuve Chapelle and Loos, in March and September 1915 respectively, resulted in no ground gained and considerable casualties. However, in early 1916 the BEF was close neither to defeat nor exhaustion. Instead, to enhance our understanding of the Somme we need to look closer at how Britain’s military strategy had developed thus far in the war.
After the Allies’ lack of success in turning the German’s northern flank in the Race to the Sea at the outset of the war, subsequent failure on the other flank at Gallipoli, and heavy French and Russian losses in 1915, Britain had no choice but to play a large part on the Western Front in 1916 in defence of the Allies’ Centre of Gravity – alliance cohesion. ‘The Plan of Action Proposed by France to the Coalition’ prior to the Inter‐Allied Military Conference at Chantilly in December 1915, suggested concerted attacks on the Russian, Franco‐British and Italian fronts. Shortly afterwards, the British Cabinet agreed that ‘France and Flanders will remain the main theatre of operations’ and that ‘every effort is to be made for carrying out the offensive operations next spring [1916] in the main theatre of war in close cooperation with the Allies, and in the greatest possible strength’.Footnote 10
Thus the BEF’s newly appointed Commander‐in‐Chief was committed to a major offensive in 1916 on the Western Front. In addition, Kitchener’s instructions to Haig in December 1915, made it clear to the latter that he was not at liberty to conduct a campaign of his own choosing. ‘His governing policy’ should be to ‘achieve…the closest cooperation of French and British as a united army’.Footnote 11 As a result, Haig believed that he had broadly to comply with French wishes over the timing and location of his main attack. Although initially he envisaged a spring campaign launched from the Ypres salient, which made strategic sense from a British perspective, not least in its proximity to the Channel coast, Haig ultimately conformed to the plans proposed by General Joseph Joffre the French Commander‐in‐Chief. After a period of negotiation the two commanders agreed on a simultaneous Anglo‐French offensive astride the Somme, to be initiated in mid 1916.Footnote 12 This ground was chosen for no better reason than it was where British and French armies met. Furthermore, once the Germans had attacked at Verdun in February 1916, the timing of the attack was driven by the requirement to take the pressure off the French.
Haig and The Manoeuvrist Approach
British Objectives for the Somme Campaign
In the words of the Official Historian, ‘the Somme offensive had no strategic object except attrition’.Footnote 13 In the orders he issued on 16 June 1916, Haig described the object of British Fourth Army, and part of the British Third and French Sixth Armies, as ‘relieving the pressure on the French at Verdun and inflicting loss on the enemy’.Footnote 14 In light of the analysis that follows, it is important to recognise that, at one level, Haig’s objectives (and those of the Allies) were successfully achieved. Faced by successful Russian attacks in Galicia and the Anglo‐French offensive on the Somme, General Erich von Falkenhayn, the de facto German Commander‐in‐Chief, called a halt to offensive operations at Verdun on 11 July. It is also true that German casualties on the Somme were acute, and ultimately less easily replaced than those of the Allies.Footnote 15 But to characterise the Somme as a success on these grounds is to ignore the failures of senior British commanders during the battle. Nor is there evidence to suggest that Allied governments, or even Haig, would have traded over 600,000 casualties to secure an equivalent number of German casualties and a few square miles of ground, if they had been offered this result at the outset of the battle.
A Manoeuvrist Design?
Setting aside whether or not the battle achieved its aims, is there a sense in which Haig’s concept for the Somme was designed to be manoeuvrist? In British doctrine the Manoeuvrist Approach calls for ‘results disproportionately greater than the resources applied’.Footnote 16 On this ground alone, Haig’s offensive manifestly fails the manoeuvrist test. But if the plan for the Somme was attritional at the strategic level, could it be characterised as manoeuvrist at the operational or higher tactical levels?
If we look hard, we can find elements of Haig’s plan that would be consistent with a manoeuvrist concept of operations. He certainly desired to achieve a breakthrough and to exploit success. In his letter to Rawlinson of 21 June 1916, amplifying his initial order of 16 June, Haig directed that ‘every effort must be made to develop the success to the utmost by firstly opening a way for our cavalry and then as quickly as possible pushing the cavalry through to seize Bapaume’. Thereafter, his intention was to roll the enemy up from the south ‘taking the enemy’s lines in flank and reverse’ and drive the Germans from the Arras salient. There is also no doubt that Haig wanted to achieve surprise. For example, he advocated that the battle be preceded by a ‘hurricane bombardment’ lasting only 5–6 hours.
However, merely desiring breakthrough, exploitation and surprise does not constitute a manoeuvrist approach. In the first place, Haig conceded to Rawlinson on length of the bombardment, which was then planned to last for five days, but ultimately lasted a week because the weather delayed Z‐Day. In similar vein, although there was an attempt at deceiving the German commanders, this was not a fundamental part of the plan.
Second, Haig never generated the conditions that would allow the cavalry to achieve what he hoped of them. The command and control arrangements for the cavalry under General Sir Hubert Gough are so opaque that they continue to confuse commentators today. Suffice to say that ‘as late as 27 June, two days before the proposed attack, Gough complained to Haig that he was certain of neither his position, nor his objectives under Rawlinson’.Footnote 17 Haig allowed Rawlinson to make and execute a plan that paid little heed to the cavalry. Indeed, when studying the evolution of the plan for the Somme, it is possible to draw the conclusion that even Haig doubted that they would succeed. Perhaps in his subconscious mind the cavalry acted as a sop to compensate for the fact that his sole objective was attrition and for the absence of operational level objectives. (The latter point is supported by the fact that the cavalry’s objectives on the Somme were expressed as a line parallel to the line of departure rather than a thrust at an angle from itFootnote 18 ).
Certainly, there is no sense in which Fourth Army’s concept for the battle can be seen as a shaping operation designed to enable cavalry breakthrough. In the 61 paragraphs of the two plans Rawlinson submitted to Haig for 1 July, the cavalry is the subject of only one:
As regards the employment of the cavalry, it appears to me that the best use we can make of them is immediately after the attack on the line Grandcourt‐Pozieres has been successful, and that they can be of the greatest assistance in enabling us to reach the further objectives, if we succeed in inflicting on the enemy a serious state of demoralization.Footnote 19
This was a throw‐away line, not a plan. In similar vein, Rawlinson’s Tactical Notes issued to the Fourth Army in May 1916Footnote 20 contain headings for ‘Cooperation of Artillery with Infantry’, ‘Aeroplanes’ and ‘Balloon Communication’, but never mention the cavalry.
Thus the elements of Haig’s plan that might, at first glance, represent a manoeuvrist approach were no such thing. Furthermore, the case against Haig being described as manoeuvrist is strengthened still further when one considers other ways in which the plan for the Somme lacked the manoeuvrist approach. British Defence Doctrine (BDD) characterises the manoeuvrist approach as:
One in which shattering the enemy’s overall cohesion and will to fight, rather than his materiel, is paramount. Manoeuvre warfare….aims to apply strength against identified vulnerabilities. Significant features are momentum and tempo, which in combination lead to shock action and surprise. Emphasis is on defeat and disruption of the enemy by taking the initiative and applying constant and unacceptable pressure at the times and places the enemy least suspects, rather than attempting to seize and hold ground for its own sake. It calls for an attitude of mind in which doing the unexpected and seeking originality is combined with a ruthless determination to succeed. … A key characteristic of the manoeuvrist approach is the attacking of the enemy commander’s decision making process by attempting to get inside his decision making cycle, …thus achieving superior operational tempo. Footnote 21
And elsewhere BDD describes Mission Command in terms that make it clear that some form of decentralised command is an essential corollary to the manoeuvrist approach. Neither Haig, nor his plan, measure up well to any of this. There is no evidence of any intention to shatter the enemy’s cohesion and will. And far from attacking the enemy where he was weak, ‘the British command decided to send its infantry against some of the strongest defences on the Western Front’.Footnote 22 Of shock action, originality, and attempts to get inside the enemy’s decision making cycle, there is precious little sign.
In contrast, the correspondence between Haig’s staff and Rawlinson concentrates on the ground to be taken, almost to the exclusion of all else. That neither Haig nor Rawlinson understood tempo can be seen from the way that the Battle of the Somme was fought: a handful of set‐piece major actions interspersed with a myriad of uncoordinated, ineffective and enormously costly small encounters.Footnote 23 There is no sign of any guiding hand seeking to connect actions together to deliver the momentum necessary to overwhelm the defenders.
As far as command is concerned, the picture is a little more complex. Haig’s orders for the battle are commendably focused on objectives. But instructions issued by Haig’s HQ enter into immense detail on how armies and corps were to fightFootnote 24 . That Haig recognised the need to avoid over control is not in doubt, but the degree to which he could not resist it is evident in Instructions to the Fourth and Reserve Armies issued on 2 August 1916. Despite saying in this document that ‘it is not intended that the initiative of Army Commanders should be curtailed as regards choice of methods or in undertaking minor operations in furtherance of the general plan’Footnote 25 , Haig’s Chief of Staff detailed precisely how the attack was to be progressed. In contrast to the German Army of the time, and no doubt in part due to its inexperience, the BEF was largely incapable of decentralised command. Rawlinson’s Tactical Notes even went so far as to warn that ‘all criticism by subordinates of their superiors, and of orders received from superior authority, will rebound on the heads of the critics’.Footnote 26
Rawlinson and Attrition
So much for Haig being too manoeuvrist on the First Day of the Somme. But did Rawlinson’s attritional approach, as characterised by the planning and execution of operations on 14 July 1916 work better, and was this approach better suited to the capabilities of the BEF?
Rawlinson before the Somme
Since I took over command on April 1 1901, we have marched 5,211 miles, and we have halted in 276 camps. The casualties we have inflicted on the Boers come to 64 killed, and 87 wounded. We have taken 1,376 prisoners, 3 guns, 1,082 rifles, and 68,600 rounds of ammunition. There have been no regrettable incidents, and our own casualties have been 12 killed and 42 wounded.Footnote 27
So said Rawlinson in his farewell to his mounted column in South Africa in May 1902. This does not sound like a commander wedded to an attritional approach. Yet on the first day of the Battle of the Somme a number equivalent to half of the British Army of today became casualties in his Army. To understand this calamity, it is necessary to examine the part Rawlinson played in the BEF’s campaign leading up to 1 July 1916.
Rawlinson’s first major action, fought as the commander of IV Corps, was at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915. This battle is worthy of mention because it provides many uncomfortable parallels with what was later to happen on the Somme. Haig, who at this stage was commanding First Army, was Rawlinson’s immediate superior, as at the Somme. Conscious of the importance of the infantry not outpacing the range of the artillery, Rawlinson planned a limited attack. In contrast, Haig wanted ‘an operation of considerable magnitude’ in which success would be exploited by ‘pushing forth mounted troops forthwith’.Footnote 28 Rawlinson captured his objectives within four hours of H‐Hour, but having largely declined to plan for Haig’s subsequent objective, the follow‐on attack on Aubers Ridge failed, and the battle ended after only three days. Some ground had been gained, but the BEF’s position had not been significantly enhanced and there were 7,500 casualties in Rawlinson’s IV Corps alone. Shortly thereafter, Rawlinson reported to Kitchener that:
If we had not tried to do too much our losses would have been one quarter of what they were and we should have gained just as much ground, but the idea of pushing through the Cavalry, which has just been seized hold of by our leaders, all Cavalry Officers, was the origin of our heavy losses.Footnote 29
Thus Neuve Chapelle helps explain Rawlinson’s subsequent attitude to the cavalry at the Somme. It also shows Rawlinson failing to comply with his commander’s intent, and Haig failing sufficiently to insist on him doing so. The point is not that Rawlinson was wrong and Haig right, or vice versa, but rather that the battle that ensued satisfied neither man’s concept of operations, just as was later the case at the Somme in 1916. Neuve Chapelle also sees Haig failing to press Rawlinson forward ahead of the Indian Corps, when success arguably beckoned, and Haig failing to stop Rawlinson persevering with attacks when success was no longer possible. Haig repeated these kinds of errors at the Somme.
Neuve Chapelle should have told Rawlinson something about the employment of artillery. After all, he recognised that ‘if the artillery cannot crush and demoralise the enemy’s infantry by their fire effect, the enterprise will not succeed’.Footnote 30 Concentrated as it was on only one short German trench line of 2,000 yards, the British artillery achieved a massive weight of fire, and in so doing destroyed many enemy trenchesFootnote 31 and cut the wire entanglements that were regularly to prove the infantry’s undoing on the Somme. Yet Rawlinson does not appear fully to have identified these lessons, let alone learned them. His artillery fireplans on the Somme only reached or exceeded the weight of fire employed at Neuve Chapelle once – on 14 July. It is no coincidence that the latter was the BEF’s most successful day during the battle.
Rawlinson’s Part in the Plan for 1 July 1916
In a letter to the King’s Private Secretary in March 1915, Rawlinson elucidated the essence of the scheme of manoeuvre subsequently identified as his trademark:
What we want to do now is what I call, ‘bite and hold’. Bite off a piece of the enemy’s line, like Neuve Chapelle, and hold it against counter‐attack. The bite can be made without much loss, and if we choose the right place and make every preparation to put it quickly into a state of defence, there ought to be no difficulty in holding it against the enemy’s counter‐attacks and inflicting on him at least twice the loss that we have suffered in making the bite.Footnote 32
Unfortunately, as Rawlinson recognised in a letter to Kitchener soon after, this approach ‘does not of course result in any decisive victory which could affect the final outcome of the war and it only very slowly forces the enemy’s line back towards their own frontiers’. Given the capabilities of the BEF in 1916, Prior and Wilson may well be right in concluding that this approach was ‘probably the only successful warfare which lay open to Britain’Footnote 33 . But if so, they are equally right to point out that:
First, the men exercising the highest command over Britain’s forces were not inclined to fall in with Rawlinson’s (inherently gloomy) line of reasoning… Second, Rawlinson himself would prove anything but a single minded advocate for the artillery dominated policy which, momentarily, he had come to embrace. Footnote 34
To support the second of Prior and Wilson’s assertions above, we need only look at the central issue of the objectives on the first day of the Somme. Following Haig’s initial planning guidance, Rawlinson’s first plan entailed an attack on a 20,000‐yard front to a depth of between 1,000 and 2,000 yards.Footnote 35 Given the amount of artillery available, the associated fireplan would have led to a weight of fire in excess of that available at Neuve Chapelle. Unfortunately, Haig overruled Rawlinson’s muddled and insufficiently forceful arguments in defence of his plan, doubling the distance to the first objective, and thereby halving the intensity of the supporting bombardment. Worse, partly as a consequence of this decision, Fourth Army’s eventual fireplan did not insist on the use of smoke,Footnote 36 despite the latter having been one of the recognised successes of the Battle of Loos, and paid insufficient attention to counter‐battery fire.Footnote 37
But the failure of command goes deeper than this. As Prior and Wilson point out, on 30 June 1916, the evidence available to Rawlinson indicated that the British counter‐battery programme had failed to subdue the German artillery and that a considerable proportion of the German dugouts remained intact.Footnote 38 Yet despite knowing this, and despite believing that Haig’s initial objectives were unachievable, and that the cavalry would make no useful contribution, Rawlinson persisted in sending his men over the top the next morning. By nightfall, over 50,000 of his Army were casualties, of whom 15,000 were dead.
Fourth Army’s Plan for 14 July 1916
Over the period 2–13 July, Rawlinson failed to coordinate a series of chaotic and separate attacks by his subordinate commanders that resulted in a further 25,000 casualties in Fourth Army. His next major attack was to take place on 14 July in the southern third of his area, using two of his corps in attack, supported by flank attacks by another of his corps and by the French and Reserve Armies. For this attack, Fourth Army had only two‐thirds of the guns available on 1 July. However, and crucially, much less ambitious depth objectives meant that the artillery could concentrate its fire on a greatly reduced amount of enemy trench line, with the result that the three‐day preparatory bombardment achieved a greater intensity even than the opening fireplan at Neuve Chapelle.Footnote 39 In another significant innovation, in order to address the existence of 1,500 yards of open ground in front of the objective, Rawlinson assembled the force in no man’s land at night and launched a dawn attack. No doubt encouraged by the strong support of his corps commanders, this time Rawlinson pursued his plan in the face of strong objections from Haig who advocated a quite different attack and thought that:
our troops are not highly trained and disciplined, nor are there many of the staff experienced in such work, and to move two divisions in the dark over such a distance, form them up and deliver an attack in good order and in the right direction at dawn, as proposed, would hardly be considered possible even in a peace manoeuvre.Footnote 40
Rawlinson’s subsequent attack proved Haig wrong. The artillery destroyed the wire, concealed the forming up point and suppressed the German trenches, and the German front line was successfully overrun. If the attack had concluded at that point, to be succeeded by a series of similar and coordinated actions, it would have demonstrated that ‘bite and hold’ worked and that Rawlinson well understood the capabilities of the BEF. It might even have been manoeuvrist.
Unfortunately, this was not what happened. Perhaps in part influenced by a feeling that he had failed to use the cavalry properly to exploit success on his right flank on 1 July, Rawlinson’s plan now called for his three cavalry divisions to break out to a distant line that was not in fact to be secured until 15 September, during the battle in which tanks were to be used for the first time (at Flers). Attempting to cross ground made slippery by recent rains, and unbridged trenches, most of the cavalry failed to get to the line of departure, and those that did were easily dealt with by the Germans.
Despite this failure, it is fair to say that, by the standards of the Battle of the Somme, Rawlinson’s attack on 14 July was a success, and one that demonstrated the kind of action to which the BEF of the day was best suited. That said, in the absence of a coordinated campaign, it was merely a tactical victory, its achievements quickly dissipated by the slaughter that continued until Haig’s campaign on the Somme ended in mid‐November 1916.
Lessons For Today’s Commanders
Failure of Command
Events leading up to and during the Battle of the Somme show that both Haig and Rawlinson were fundamentally of an attritionalist mindset. But Haig’s yearning for the breakthrough that would provide strategic meaning to what he was doing fatally compromised any chance that attrition might succeed, and significantly increased the numbers of casualties in his own force. Conversely, Rawlinson’s failure to insist on pursuing a more rigorously attritionalist approach significantly compromised his chances of success. This is the most significant failure of the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
At its core is inadequate analysis. Neither commander learned the lessons of events leading up to the Somme, or those of the battle itself. Neither grasped the consequences of his actions because neither achieved clarity of intent. It is certainly true that both were significantly constrained by their own inexperience and that of the tools at their disposal, by the absence of appropriate doctrine, and by operating in coalition, without the benefit (that the Germans had) of unity of command on the Western Front. But, to my mind, even in combination, these constraints do not excuse what happened on the Somme in 1916. Both Haig and Rawlinson had a professional and moral duty to estimate the situation and plan much better than they did, and to execute their plans much better than they managed.
Shortfall in Coordination
At a lower level, the Battle of the Somme also represents a shortfall in coordination, albeit that, given how the BEF evolved, this is an altogether more forgivable failing than that of command described above. After a pre‐war tour of German military establishments, Rawlinson observed:
We live in watertight compartments, the infantry know nothing about the artillery, nor the artillery about the infantry, the cavalry nothing about either. This was in direct contrast to the Germans who were always working together.Footnote 41
All‐arms cooperation had improved by the Battle of the Somme and efforts had been made to integrate air support. However, it was not until 1918 that the BEF really developed into an early system of systems. By the end of the war the ubiquitous use of new artillery techniques (calibration, the use of meteorological information, flash spotting and sound ranging), and developments in aerial spotting and photography, were integrated with light and heavy machine guns, rifle grenades and trench mortars, tanks and armoured cars, gas, smoke, wireless telegraphy, and the administrative systems to ensure that all of these things were in the right place at the right time.
It was not just that the quality of technology and manufacture developed later in the war was absent in 1916, or that the BEF on the Somme wanted for the volume of weaponry and ammunition subsequently available. What the BEF in 1916 lacked above all was the synergy to be gained from the coordination of all its constituent parts. Modern forces have recognised the significance of coordination, but failures of the BEF in 1916, and its successes in 1918, emphasise the power achieved by maximising integration.
Notes
1 Hew Strachan, The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford: OUP 1998) p. 79.
2 Gary Sheffield, The Somme: A New History (London: Weidenfeld 2003) p.5. ‘In August [1914] the 100,000 strong British Expeditionary Force (BEF) crossed to the Continent, where it took its place in the line of battle alongside the sixty‐two division French Army.’
3 Sheffield, Somme (note 2).
4 By mid‐1916, Fourth Army alone numbered 500,000 and the BEF 1.5 million men.
5 Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Command on the Western Front: The Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1914–18 (Oxford: Blackwell 1992) p.138.
6 A.H. Farrar‐Hockley, The Somme (London: Batsford 1964) p.70.
7 William S. Lind , ‘The Theory and Practice of Maneuver Warfare’ in Richard D. Hooker Jr (ed.) Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology (Novato, CA: Presidio 1993) p.7.
8 Such as the victories of the Thebans at Leuctra in 371BC, Hannibal at Cannae in 216BC, Genghis Khan in Transoxiana in 1219–20, and Grant at Vicksburg in the American Civil War.
9 Sheffield (note 2) p.5.
10 Brig.‐Gen. Sir James E. Edmonds, Official History of the Great War: Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916, Vol.1 (London: Macmillan 1932) p.10.
11 Edmonds, 1916 (note 10) Appendix 1, p.40. Kitchener’s instructions went on to say to Haig ‘I wish you distinctly to understand that your command is an independent one, and that you will in no case come under the orders of any Allied General further than the necessary cooperation with our Allies referred to above.’ These orders are less clear than they ought to have been, but Haig’s actions in 1916 suggest that he read them as an instruction to comply broadly with Joffre’s intent.
12 By the time the battle started the French contribution was much reduced from that originally intended as a result of France’s requirement to reinforce the defences at Verdun.
13 Edmonds (note 1) p.31.
14 Ibid. Appendix 13, p.86. The British First and Second Armies, together with the balance of the Third Army were ordered to ‘operate at the same time, with a view to misleading and wearing out the enemy and preventing him sending reinforcement to the scene of the main operations’.
15 There is considerable debate about the exact numbers of German casualties, but most commentators believe that they were of the same order as those of France and Britain – approximately 600,000.
16 British Defence Doctrine, 2nd edn. (2001) p.3–5.
17 Martin Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme (London: Allen Lane 1971) p.90.
18 Edmonds (note 10) Vol.1, Map 2. The enclosed map was drawn by the Official Historian after the war, but the fact that the cavalry’s objectives are depicted as a line to be gained is consistent with how Haig described their task.
19 Edmonds (note 10) App.10, p.82.
20 Ibid. App.18, pp.131–47.
21 British Defence Doctrine (note 16) p.3–5.
22 Prior and Wilson, Rawlinson (note 5) p.169.
23 Ibid. p.205. For example, in the 62 days between the major actions on 15 July and 14 September there were 41 attacks, during which, on average, only 5 per cent of the available force engaged the enemy, at a cost of 82,000 Fourth Army casualties.
24 Edmonds (note 10) App.16, pp.91–124. This included such details as how many sandbags were to be carried by each man.
25 Ibid. Vol.2, App.13, p.36.
26 Ibid. Vol.1, App.18, p.132.
27 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.8.
28 Ibid. p.35.
29 Ibid. p.72.
30 Ibid. p.25.
31 The concept of suppressing or neutralising enemy trenches at the moment of attack, rather than attempting to destroy them beforehand, did not become common practice until 1917.
32 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.78.
33 Ibid. p.79.
34 Ibid. p.80.
35 Ibid. p.144. To confuse matters, Rawlinson’s initial plan declared at its outset that the depth of the attack would be ‘2,000 to 5,000’ yards, but it is clear from the remainder of the document that this claim did not reflect his real objectives, which were well short of the German 2nd line of defence.
36 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.162. Where smoke was used, at the discretion of the local commander, such as by 56th Division in the diversionary Third Army attack at Gommecourt, the attack was often successful, (despite in 56th Division’s case, being preceded by three hours of German shelling because no attempt had been made to conceal their attack).
37 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.172. As a consequence of the decision to double the distance to the first objective, only 128 of the 60‐pounders and 40 notoriously inaccurate 4.7‐inch guns were allocated to counter‐battery tasks. As a result, on 1 July, the Germans still had 598 field guns and 246 heavier cannon available.
38 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.176. Rawlinson also had reason to believe that wire‐cutting had generally been successful. This was an error, which better intelligence processes would have overcome, but was not an error for which Rawlinson was directly to blame. Intelligence also over‐estimated the degree of damage that had been done to the German trench systems.
39 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.191 quotes figures of one eighteenth the amount of trench line to be attacked relative to 1 July and twice the weight of fire of Neuve Chapelle.
40 Prior and Wilson (note 5) p.193.
41 Ibid. p.6.