The First Day of the British Offensive on the Somme on 1 July 1916 That Killed Approximately 19,240 British Soldiers Before Lunch

The Battle of the Somme had been agreed at the December 1915 Chantilly inter-Allied conference as the 1916 main Anglo-French offensive on the Western Front. The original plan had been a joint Franco-British attack with larger French participation; the February-July 1916 German offensive at Verdun had diverted French troops, leaving the British Fourth Army under General Sir Henry Rawlinson as the principal attacking force.

The British objective was to break the German defensive line at multiple points along an 18-mile front north of the river Somme between the villages of Maricourt and Serre. The overall British commander Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig had expected the offensive to produce a breakthrough that British cavalry could exploit to reach the open country beyond.

The bombardment

The British preliminary artillery bombardment began on 24 June 1916 and ran for seven days. Approximately 1,500,000 shells were fired at German positions. The doctrine of the bombardment was that it would destroy the German barbed wire, the German trench garrison, and the German artillery — leaving the British infantry attack to advance over an essentially empty battlefield.

The bombardment did not work. The reasons identified by subsequent military analysis were:

— Approximately 30 percent of the British shells were duds — defective ammunition produced under wartime industrial pressure — The German bunker construction had been deep (up to 12 metres) and reinforced concrete; the British shells were predominantly shrapnel rather than high-explosive, and could not penetrate deep bunkers — Approximately 25 percent of the British barbed wire targets were uncut after the seven-day bombardment

The British infantry assault troops were not adequately informed about the bombardment failures. They had been told that the bombardment would produce easy success.

7:30 a.m. on 1 July 1916

The British infantry attack began at 7:30 a.m. on 1 July 1916. The signal was a whistle blown by each company commander. Approximately 120,000 British infantrymen climbed over the parapets of the British trenches and advanced toward the German lines.

The German machine guns were intact. The German garrison had survived the bombardment in the deep bunkers and had returned to the firing parapets within minutes of the bombardment’s cessation.

The British infantry advance was conducted at walking pace in extended lines — the doctrine of the time was that disciplined troops should walk across no-man’s-land carrying heavy equipment (approximately 30 kg per soldier) rather than rush. The intended effect was to preserve formation and control. The actual effect, against intact German machine guns, was catastrophic.

The British casualties accumulated at a rate of approximately 30,000 men per hour for the first two hours.

The casualties

The official British casualty figures for the first day were:

— Killed: 19,240 — Wounded: 35,493 — Missing: 2,152 — Captured: 585

Total: 57,470 casualties.

The daily casualty rate is the highest single-day casualty figure in the history of the British Army. It exceeded the casualties of all previous British Army engagements of comparable size by approximately a factor of four.

The geographic concentration was particular. The Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel attacked at approximately 9:15 a.m. with 752 men. Within 30 minutes 710 were casualties — 233 killed or died of wounds, 477 wounded. The regiment ceased to exist as a fighting unit by midday.

The Accrington Pals — a Pals Battalion recruited from a single Lancashire town — lost 235 killed and 350 wounded out of approximately 720 men engaged. The pattern was repeated across approximately 40 of the 120 British battalions that attacked on 1 July 1916.

What followed

The Battle of the Somme continued for 142 more days after 1 July 1916. The offensive achieved a advance of approximately 6 miles at the deepest point. Total British casualties across the battle were approximately 420,000. French casualties were approximately 200,000. German casualties were approximately 465,000. The battle did not produce the breakthrough Haig had planned.

The Battle of the Somme established the structural pattern of Western Front trench warfare for the remaining two years of the war. The introduction of the tank at Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916 — the first combat use of armoured fighting vehicles — was a Somme innovation, though the 1916 tanks were mechanically unreliable.