the battle of the Somme

the battle of the Somme

1. 1st July -18th November 1916

2. the Germans had begun an all out attack on the French town of VERDUN. The German army chief set out to completely destroy the French army. The British and French forces decided to attack at the Somme river to relieve Verdun

3. first the British bombarded the German lines with shells for 8 daysto try and destroy the barbed wire in no man's land to make it easy for the soldiers to attack

4. after the shells had stopped the British and French soldiers were old to venture across no mans land because there would be no Germans there to attack back.

5. the British soldiers detonated mines under the German trench line to destroy the German trenches. however one went off 10 ins early so the Germans found out what was happening

6. the shells didn't destroy the German trenches and instead the Germans managed to set up their machine guns

7. the British soldiers were mown down by the German machine guns but back at home it was presented as a success at first

8. the tank was first used but they were slow and didn't help overall

9. In October there was torrential rain and so the battle field was like a massive swamp

10. the British suffered 420,00 casualties

11. the French suffered 200,000 casualties

12. the Germans suffered 500,000 casualties

13. the British gained 12km of land