Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight
in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations,
sets new standards for the future, establishes better methods of
operation, or remains outside the capabilities of competitors. Genius is associated with intellectual ability and creative productivity. The term genius can also be used to refer to people characterised by genius, and/or to polymaths who excel across many subjects.
There is no scientifically precise definition of genius. Howard Gardener identified at least eight distinct categories of
intelligences, that are publicly generalized within the one noun
'Genius'. Those categories include linguistic, logical-mathematical,
spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and
naturalistic intelligence. Though many researchers have seen no evidence supporting his proposal
for independent brain-based intelligences for different types of
cognitive abilities.
Experts like Visser argue that the multiple intelligences (MI)
hypothesis is wrong and that the general intelligence factor (g) is
observable in non-verbal, non-quantitative, and non-paper-and-pencil
tasks regardless of whether tasks are timed or untimed. When used to refer to the characteristic, genius is associated with talent, but several authors such as Cesare Lombroso and Arthur Schopenhauer systematically distinguish these terms. Walter Isaacson, biographer of many well-known geniuses, explains that although high intelligence may be a prerequisite, the most common trait that actually defines a genius may be the extraordinary ability to apply creativity and imaginative thinking to almost any situation.
In the early-19th century Carl von Clausewitz, who had a particular interest in what he called "military genius", defined "the essence of Genius" (German: der Genius) in terms of "a very high mental capacity for certain employments".
In ancient Rome, the genius (plural in Latin genii) was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family (gens), or place (genius loci). Connotations of the word in Latin have a lineal relationship with the Greek word daemon in classical and medieval texts, and also share a relationship with the Arabic word al-ghul (as in the star Algol; its literal meaning being "the Demon").
The noun is related to the Latin verbs
"gignere" (to beget, to give birth to) and "generare" (to beget, to
generate, to procreate), and derives directly from the Indo-European
stem thereof: "ǵenh" (to produce, to beget, to give birth). Because the
achievements of exceptional individuals seemed to indicate the presence
of a particularly powerful genius, by the time of Augustus, the word began to acquire its secondary meaning of "inspiration, talent". The term genius acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: genius, as above, and Ingenium, a related noun referring to our innate dispositions, talents, and inborn nature. Beginning to blend the concepts of the divine and the talented, the Encyclopédie
article on genius (génie) describes such a person as "he whose soul is
more expansive and struck by the feelings of all others; interested by
all that is in nature never to receive an idea unless it evokes a
feeling; everything excites him and on which nothing is lost."
The assessment of intelligence was initiated by Francis Galton (1822–1911) and James McKeen Cattell.
They had advocated the analysis of reaction time and sensory acuity as
measures of "neurophysiological efficiency" and the analysis of sensory
acuity as a measure of intelligence.
Galton is regarded as the founder of psychometry. He studied the work of his older half-cousin Charles Darwin
about biological evolution. Hypothesizing that eminence is inherited
from ancestors, Galton did a study of families of eminent people in
Britain, publishing it in 1869 as Hereditary Genius. Galton's ideas were elaborated from the work of two early 19th-century pioneers in statistics: Carl Friedrich Gauss and Adolphe Quetelet. Gauss discovered the normal distribution (bell-shaped curve): given a large number of measurements of the same variable under the same conditions, they vary at random
from a most frequent value, the "average", to two least frequent values
at maximum differences greater and lower than the most frequent value.
Quetelet discovered that the bell-shaped curve applied to social
statistics gathered by the French government in the course of its normal
processes on large numbers of people passing through the courts and the
military. His initial work in criminology led him to observe "the
greater the number of individuals observed the more do peculiarities
become effaced...". This ideal from which the peculiarities were effaced
became "the average man".
Galton was inspired by Quetelet to define the average man
as "an entire normal scheme"; that is, if one combines the normal curves
of every measurable human characteristic, one will, in theory, perceive
a syndrome straddled by "the average man" and flanked by persons that
are different. In contrast to Quetelet, Galton's average man was not
statistical but was theoretical only. There was no measure of general
averageness, only a large number of very specific averages. Setting out
to discover a general measure of the average, Galton looked at
educational statistics and found bell-curves in test results of all
sorts; initially in mathematics grades for the final honors examination
and in entrance examination scores for Sandhurst.
Galton's method in Hereditary Genius was
to count and assess the eminent relatives of eminent men. He found that
the number of eminent relatives was greater with a closer degree of
kinship. This work is considered the first example of historiometry,
an analytical study of historical human progress. The work is
controversial and has been criticized for several reasons. Galton then
departed from Gauss in a way that became crucial to the history of the
20th century AD. The bell-shaped curve was not random, he concluded. The
differences between the average and the upper end were due to a
non-random factor, "natural ability", which he defined as "those
qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify men to
perform acts that lead to reputation…a nature which, when left to
itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads
to eminence." The apparent randomness of the scores was due to the randomness of this
natural ability in the population as a whole, in theory.
Criticisms include that Galton's study fails to account for
the impact of social status and the associated availability of
resources in the form of economic inheritance, meaning that inherited
"eminence" or "genius" can be gained through the enriched environment
provided by wealthy families. Galton went on to develop the field of eugenics. Galton attempted to control for economic inheritance by comparing the
adopted nephews of popes, who would have the advantage of wealth without
being as closely related to popes as sons are to their fathers, to the
biological children of eminent individuals.
Genius is expressed in a variety of forms (e.g.,
mathematical, literary, musical performance). Persons with genius tend
to have strong intuitions about their domains, and they build on these
insights with tremendous energy. Carl Rogers, a founder of the humanistic approach to psychology, expands on the idea of a genius trusting his or her intuition in a given field, writing: "El Greco,
for example, must have realized as he looked at some of his early work,
that 'good artists do not paint like that.' But somehow he trusted his
own experiencing of life, the process of himself, sufficiently that he
could go on expressing his own unique perceptions. It was as though he
could say, 'Good artists don't paint like this, but I
paint like this.' Or to move to another field, Ernest Hemingway was
surely aware that 'good writers do not write like this.' But fortunately
he moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward
someone else's conception of a good writer."
In a 2010 study conducted by the Karolinska Institute, it was observed that highly creative individuals and schizophrenics have a lower density of thalamicdopamine D2 receptors. One of the investigators explained that "Fewer D2
receptors in the thalamus probably means a lower degree of signal
filtering, and thus a higher flow of information from the thalamus."
This could be a possible mechanism behind the ability of healthy highly
creative people to see numerous uncommon connections in a
problem-solving situation and the bizarre associations found in
schizophrenics.
Galton was a pioneer in investigating both eminent human achievement and mental testing. In his book Hereditary Genius,
written before the development of IQ testing, he proposed that
hereditary influences on eminent achievement are strong, and that
eminence is rare in the general population. Lewis Terman chose "'near'
genius or genius" as the classification label for the highest
classification on his 1916 version of the Stanford–Binet test. By 1926, Terman began publishing about a longitudinal study of
California schoolchildren who were referred for IQ testing by their
schoolteachers, called Genetic Studies of Genius, which he conducted for the rest of his life. Catherine M. Cox, a colleague of Terman's, wrote a whole book, The Early Mental Traits of 300 Geniuses, published as volume 2 of The Genetic Studies of Genius book series, in
which she analyzed biographical data about historic geniuses. Although
her estimates of childhood IQ scores of historical figures who never
took IQ tests have been criticized on methodological grounds, Cox's study was thorough in finding out what else matters besides IQ in becoming a genius. By the 1937 second revision of the Stanford–Binet test, Terman no
longer used the term "genius" as an IQ classification, nor has any
subsequent IQ test. In 1939, David Wechsler
specifically commented that "we are rather hesitant about calling a
person a genius on the basis of a single intelligence test score".
The Terman longitudinal study in California eventually
provided historical evidence regarding how genius is related to IQ
scores. Many California pupils were recommended for the study by
schoolteachers. Two pupils who were tested but rejected for inclusion in
the study (because their IQ scores were too low) grew up to be Nobel Prize winners in physics, William Shockley, and Luis Walter Alvarez. Based on the historical findings of the Terman study and on biographical examples such as Richard Feynman, who had a self-reported IQ of 125 and went on to win the Nobel Prize in physics and become widely known as a genius, the current view of psychologists and other scholars of genius is that a
minimum level of IQ (approximately 125) is necessary for genius but not
sufficient, and must be combined with personality characteristics such
as drive and persistence, plus the necessary opportunities for talent
development.For instance, in a chapter in an edited volume on achievement, IQ researcher Arthur Jensen proposed a multiplicative model of genius consisting of high ability, high productivity, and high creativity. Jensen's model was motivated by the finding that eminent achievement is highly positively skewed, a finding known as Price's law, and related to Lotka's law.
Some high IQ individuals join a High IQ society. The most famous and largest is Mensa International, but many other more selective organizations exist.
Various philosophers have proposed definitions of what genius is and what that implies in the context of their philosophical theories.
In the philosophy of David Hume,
the way society perceives genius is similar to the way society
perceives the ignorant. Hume states that a person with the
characteristics of a genius is looked at as a person disconnected from
society, as well as a person who works remotely, at a distance, away
from the rest of the world.
On
the other hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is any
thing deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an age and nation
where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute of all relish
for those noble entertainments. The most perfect character is supposed
to lie between those extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for
books, company, and business; preserving in conversation that
discernment and delicacy which arise from polite letters; and in
business, that probity and accuracy which are the natural result of a
just philosophy.
In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant,
genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand
concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person. For
Kant, originality was the essential character of genius. The artworks of the Kantian genius are also characterized by their
exemplarity which is imitated by other artists and serve as a rule for
other aesthetical judgements. This genius is a talent for producing ideas which can be described as
non-imitative. Kant's discussion of the characteristics of genius is
largely contained within the Critique of Judgment and was well received by the Romantics
of the early 19th century. In addition, much of Schopenhauer's theory
of genius, particularly regarding talent and freedom from constraint, is
directly derived from paragraphs of Part I of Kant's Critique of Judgment.
Genius
is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be
given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that
can be learned by following some rule or other.
In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, a genius is someone in whom intellect predominates over "will" much more than within the average person. In Schopenhauer's aesthetics,
this predominance of the intellect over the will allows the genius to
create artistic or academic works that are objects of pure,
disinterested contemplation, the chief criterion of the aesthetic
experience for Schopenhauer. Their remoteness from mundane concerns
means that Schopenhauer's geniuses often display maladaptive
traits in more mundane concerns; in Schopenhauer's words, they fall
into the mire while gazing at the stars, an allusion to Plato's dialogue
Theætetus, in which Socrates tells of Thales (the first philosopher) being ridiculed for falling in such circumstances. As he says in Volume 2 of The World as Will and Representation:
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
In the philosophy of Thomas Carlyle, genius is called (in Past and Present) "the inspired gift of God"; the "Man of Genius" possesses "the presence of God Most High in a man". The actions of the "Man of Genius" can manifest this in various ways:
in his "transcendent capacity of taking trouble" (often misquoted as "an
infinite capacity for taking pains"), in that he can "recognise how every object has a divine beauty in it"
as a poet or painter does, or in that he has "an original power of
thinking". In accordance with his Great Man theory, Carlyle considered such individuals as Odin, William the Conqueror and Frederick the Great to be "Men of Genius".
In the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, genius entails that an individual possesses unique qualities and talents
that make the genius especially valuable to the society in which he or
she operates, once given the chance to contribute to society. Russell's
philosophy further maintains, however, that it is possible for such
geniuses to be crushed in their youth and lost forever when the
environment around them is unsympathetic to their potential maladaptive
traits. Russell rejected the notion he believed was popular during his
lifetime that, "genius will out".
In his classic work The Limitations of Science, J. W. N. Sullivan
discussed a utilitarian philosophy on the retrospective classification
of genius. Namely, scholarship that is so original that, were it not for
that particular contributor, would not have emerged until much later
(if ever) is characteristic of genius. Conversely, scholarship that was
ripe for development, no matter how profound or prominent, is not
necessarily indicative of genius.
Literature and pop culture
The Google Books Ngram Viewer indicating a marked decline in use of the word "genius" from 1700 to 2022
Geniuses are variously portrayed in literature and film as both protagonists and antagonists, and may be the hero or villain of the story. In pop culture, the genius is often stereotypically depicted as either the wisecracking whiz or the tortured genius.
Throughout both literature and movies, the tortured genius character is often seen as an imperfect or tragic hero
who wrestles with the burden of superior intelligence, arrogance,
eccentricities, addiction, awkwardness, mental health issues, a lack of
social skills, isolation, or other insecurities. They regularly experience existential crises, struggling to overcome
personal challenges to employ their special abilities for good or
succumbing to their own tragic flaws and vices. This common motif
repeated throughout fiction is notably present in the characters of Dr.
Bruce Banner in the Hulk and Dr. Henry Jekyll in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, among others. Although not as extreme, other examples of literary and filmic
characterizations of the tortured genius stereotype, to varying degrees,
include: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus, Dr. John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, Leonardo da Vinci in Da Vinci's Demons, Dr. Gregory House in House, Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting, and Dr. Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, as well Stanford Pines in Gravity Falls.
One of the most famous genius-level rivalries to occur in literary fiction is between Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty; the latter character also identified as the modern archetype of an evil genius.
1 July 10 1⁄2 divisions July–November 50 divisions
Casualties and losses
c.420,000 c.200,000
British figures c.440,000–600,000German figures 237,159–429,20941,605 men captured by the French 31,396 men captured by the British
The Battle of the Somme also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies.
More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one
million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history. It illustrated the deadly potential of mechanized warfare that began in the mid-19th century.
The French and British had planned an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers
in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the
Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. The French army was
to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the
northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse
on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of the divisions
intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became
the principal effort. British forces comprised a mixture of wartime
volunteers from the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army with the remains of the pre-war army.
On the first day on the Somme (1 July) the German 2nd Army suffered a serious defeat opposite the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. The 57,470 casualties suffered by the British, including 19,240 killed, were the worst in the history of the British Army. Most of the British casualties were suffered on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, which was the area where the principal German defensive effort (Schwerpunkt) was made. The battle became notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank in September but these were a product of new technology and proved unreliable.
At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6.2 miles (10km) into German-occupied territory along the majority of the front, their largest territorial gain since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The operational objectives of the Anglo-French armies were not achieved, as they failed to capture Péronne and Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals in February before the strategic retreat by about 25mi (40km) in Operation Alberich to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) in March 1917. Debate continues over the necessity, significance and effect of the battle.
Strategic developments
The Western Front (January 1915 – December 1916)
Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6 to 8 December 1915. Simultaneous offensives on the Eastern Front by the Russian army, on the Italian Front by the Italian army and on the Western Front by the Franco-British armies were to be carried out to deny time for the Central Powers to move troops between fronts during lulls. In December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French
as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in
Flanders, close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast and end the U-boat threat from Belgian waters. Haig was not formally subordinate to MarshalJoseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy.
In January 1916, Joffre had agreed to the BEF making its
main effort in Flanders but in February 1916 it was decided to mount a
combined offensive where the French and British armies met, astride the
Somme River in Picardy before the British offensive in Flanders. A week later the Germans began the Battle of Verdun
against the French army. The costly defence of Verdun forced the army
to divert divisions intended for the Somme offensive, eventually
reducing the French contribution to 13 divisions in the Sixth Army, against 20 British divisions. By 31 May, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory had
been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French
at Verdun and inflict attrition on the German armies in the west.
The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn,
intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916,
before its material superiority became unbeatable. Falkenhayn planned to
defeat the large number of reserves which the Entente could move into
the path of a breakthrough, by threatening a sensitive point close to
the existing front line and provoking the French into counter-attacking German positions. Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun to take the Meuse
heights and make Verdun untenable. The French would have to conduct a
counter-offensive on ground dominated by the German army and ringed with
masses of heavy artillery, leading to huge losses and bringing the
French army close to collapse. The British would mount a hasty relief
offensive and suffer similar losses. Falkenhayn expected the relief
offensive to fall south of Arras against the 6th Army and be destroyed. Despite the certainty by mid-June of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the 2nd Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve.
No divisions were taken from the Sixth Army, despite it holding a shorter line with 17+1⁄2
divisions and three of the divisions in OHL reserve behind the 6th
Army. The maintenance of the strength of the 6th Army, at the expense of
the 2nd Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkenhayn intended the
counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme
front, once the British offensive had been shattered. If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack
the remnants of both armies and end the western alliance for good. The unexpected length of the Verdun offensive, and the need to replace
many drained units at Verdun, depleted the German strategic reserve
placed behind the 6th Army, which held the Western Front from Hannescamps, 11mi (18km) south-west of Arras to St Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence.
The Battle of Verdun (21 February – 16 December 1916) began
a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme.
The German offensive at Verdun was intended to threaten the capture of
the city and induce the French to fight an attrition battle, in which
German advantages of terrain and firepower would cause the French
disproportionate casualties. The battle changed the nature of the
offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun, and
the main effort by the French diminished to a supporting attack for the
British. German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French
contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the
north bank of the Somme. By May, Joffre and Haig had changed their expectations of an offensive
on the Somme, from a decisive battle to a hope that it would relieve
Verdun and keep German divisions in France, which would assist the
Russian armies conducting the Brusilov Offensive. The German offensive
at Verdun was suspended in July, and troops, guns, and ammunition were
transferred to Picardy, leading to a similar transfer of the French
Tenth Army to the Somme front. Later in the year, the Franco-British
were able to attack on the Somme and at Verdun sequentially and the
French recovered much of the ground lost on the east bank of the Meuse
in October and December.
The Brusilov offensive (4 June – 20 September) on the Eastern Front absorbed the extra forces that had been requested on 2 June by Fritz von Below, commanding the German Second Army, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. On 4 June, Russian armies attacked on a 200mi (320km) front, from the Romanian frontier to Pinsk and eventually advanced 93mi (150km), reaching the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of Armeegruppe von Linsingen and Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph. During the offensive the Russians inflicted c.1,500,000 losses including c.407,000 prisoners. Three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June
and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned. Only four more
divisions were sent to the Somme front before the Anglo-French offensive
began, bringing the total to 10+1⁄2
divisions. Falkenhayn and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff, were forced
to send divisions to Russia throughout the summer to prevent a collapse
of the Austro-Hungarian army and then to conduct a counter-offensive
against Romania, which declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August. In July there were 112 German divisions on the Western Front and 52 divisions in Russia and in November there were 121 divisions in the west and 76 divisions in the east.
The original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of six divisions
and the Cavalry Division, had lost most of the British pre-war regulars
in the battles of 1914 and 1915. The bulk of the army was made up of
volunteers of the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army,
which had begun forming in August 1914. Rapid expansion created many
vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to
many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. In
1914, Douglas Haig had been a lieutenant-general in command of I Corps and was promoted to command the First Army
in early 1915 and then the BEF in December, which eventually comprised
five armies with sixty divisions. The swift increase in the size of the
army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an
acute equipment shortage. Many officers resorted to directive command to
avoid delegating to novice subordinates, although divisional commanders
were given great latitude in training and planning for the attack of 1
July, since the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army made it impossible
for corps and army commanders to know the capacity of each division.
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers,
Erich von Falkenhayn continued the policy of unyielding defence in
1916. Falkenhayn implied after the war that the psychology of German
soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy
inescapable, as the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not
exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat
were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect
of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more
flexible policy was substituted later, decisions about withdrawal were
still reserved to army commanders. On the Somme front, Falkenhayn's construction plan of January 1915 had
been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt 5–10 yards (4.6–9.1m) wide to two, 30 yards (27m) wide and about 15 yards (14m) apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52m) high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to a position of three lines 150–200 yards (140–180m) apart, the first trench (Kampfgraben) occupied by sentry groups, the second (Wohngraben) for the bulk of the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from 6–9 feet (1.8–2.7m) to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1m), 50 yards (46m) apart and large enough for 25 men. An intermediate line of strongpoints (the Stützpunktlinie) about 1,000 yards (910m)
behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back
to the reserve line, renamed the second position, which was as
well-built and wired as the first position. The second position was
beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop
and move field artillery forward before assaulting the position.
French losses at Verdun reduced the contribution available
for the offensive on the Somme and increased the urgency for the
commencement of operations on the Somme. The principal role in the
offensive devolved to the British and on 16 June, Haig defined the
objectives of the offensive as the relief of pressure on the French at
Verdun and the infliction of losses on the Germans. After a five-day artillery bombardment, the British Fourth Army was to capture 27,000 yards (25,000m)
of the German first line, from Montauban to Serre and the Third Army
was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. In a second phase, the Fourth
Army was to take the German second position, from Pozières to the Ancre
and then the second position south of the Albert–Bapaume Road, ready for
an attack on the German third position south of the road towards Flers,
when the Reserve Army which included three cavalry divisions, would
exploit the success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The
French Sixth Army, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to
the Somme and two corps on the south bank southwards to Foucaucourt,
would make a subsidiary attack to guard the right flank of the main
attack being made by the British.
Betrayal of British plans
Research in German archives revealed in 2016 that the date
and location of the British offensive had been betrayed to German
interrogators by two politically disgruntled soldiers several weeks in
advance. The German military accordingly undertook significant defensive
preparatory work on the British section of the Somme offensive. Other intelligence which warned the Germans included POW reports,
interception of Rawlinson's message to his troops and early detonation
of a mine. Thus alerted, the Germans were waiting in their trenches when
the British troops went over the top.
German defences on the Somme
British
aerial photograph of German trenches north of Thiepval, 10 May 1916,
with the German forward lines to the lower left. The crenellated appearance of the trenches is due to the presence of traverses.
After the Autumn Battles (Herbstschlacht) of 1915, a third defensive position another 3,000 yards (1.7mi; 2.7km) back from the Stützpunktlinie
(Support line) begun in February 1916 and was almost complete on the
Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a
series of Sperrfeuerstreifen
(barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries
covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage
fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried 6 feet (1.8m) deep for 5mi (8.0km)
behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The
Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses that the rebuilding had not
remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white
chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences
were crowded towards the front trench with a regiment having two
battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion
divided between the Stützpunktlinie and the second position, all within 2,000 yards (1,800m) of no man's land and most troops within 1,000 yards (910m)
of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The
concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope guaranteed
that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by
ground observers on clearly marked lines.
The Battle of Albert was the first two weeks of
Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. The Allied
preparatory artillery bombardment began on 24 June and the Anglo-French
infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the
Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt, 2mi (3.2km)
beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British
Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German Second Army,
but from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt the British attack was a
disaster where most of the c.60,000 British
casualties were incurred. Against Joffre's wishes, Haig abandoned the
offensive north of the road, to reinforce the success in the south,
where the Anglo-French forces pressed forward towards the German second
line, preparatory to a general attack on 14 July.
Canadian Troops Dressing Wounded in a trench during Battle of September 1916
The Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days beginning with the opening day of the Battle of Albert.
The attack was made by five divisions of the French Sixth Army on the
east side of the Somme, eleven British divisions of the Fourth Army
north of the Somme to Serre and two divisions of the Third Army opposite
Gommecourt, against the German Second Army of General Fritz von Below.
The German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road mostly collapsed and
the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did
the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume
road. On the south bank the German defence was made incapable of
resisting another attack and a substantial retreat began; on the north
bank the abandonment of Fricourt was ordered. The defenders on the
commanding ground north of the road inflicted a huge defeat on the
British infantry, who took an unprecedented number of casualties.
Several truces were negotiated to recover wounded from no man's land north of the road. The Fourth Army took 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 men were killed. The French Sixth Army had 1,590 casualties, and the 2nd German Army had 10,000–12,000 losses.
The British 21st Division attack on Bazentin le Petit, 14 July 1916.Soldiers digging a communication trench through Delville Wood
The Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive position from the Somme past Guillemont and Ginchy, north-west along the crest of the ridge to Pozières on the Albert–Bapaume road. The objectives of the attack were the villages of Bazentin le Petit, Bazentin le Grand and Longueval which was adjacent to Delville Wood, with High Wood on the ridge beyond. The attack was made by four divisions on a front of 6,000yd (5.5km) at 3:25 a.m. after a five-minute hurricane artillery bombardment.
Field artillery fired a creeping barrage and the attacking waves pushed
up close behind it in no man's land, leaving them only a short distance
to cross when the barrage lifted from the German front trench. Most of
the objective was captured and the German defence south of the
Albert–Bapaume road put under great strain but the attack was not
followed up due to British communication failures, casualties and
disorganisation.
The Battle of Fromelles was a subsidiary attack to support the Fourth Army on the Somme 80km (50mi)
to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite.
Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked
experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was
"gravely" underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1.
On 19 July, von Falkenhayn had judged the British attack to be the
anticipated offensive against the 6th Army. Next day, Falkenhayn ordered
the Guard Reserve Corps to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front. The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German
defenders but gained no ground and deflected few German troops bound for
the Somme. The attack was the debut of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front and, according to McMullin, "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history". Of 7,080 BEF casualties, 5,533 losses were incurred by the 5th Australian Division; German losses were 1,600–2,000, with150 taken prisoner.
The Battle of Delville Wood was an operation to secure the British right flank,
while the centre advanced to capture the higher-lying areas of High
Wood and Pozières. After the Battle of Albert the offensive had evolved
to the capture of fortified villages, woods, and other terrain that
offered observation for artillery fire, jumping-off points for more
attacks, and other tactical advantages. The mutually costly fighting at
Delville Wood eventually secured the British right flank and marked the
Western Front debut of the South African 1st Infantry Brigade (incorporating a Southern Rhodesian contingent), which held the wood from 15 to 20 July. When relieved, the brigade had lost 2,536 men, similar to the casualties of many brigades on 1 July.
Captured 15 cm (150 mm) Ringkanone 92 German gun near Mametz Wood, 10 August 1916.
The Battle of Pozières began with the capture of the village by the 1st Australian Division (Australian Imperial Force) of the Reserve Army, the only British success in the Allied fiasco of 22/23 July,
when a general attack combined with the French further south,
degenerated into a series of separate attacks due to communication
failures, supply failures and poor weather. German bombardments and counter-attacks began on 23 July and continued
until 7 August. The fighting ended with the Reserve Army taking the
plateau north and east of the village, overlooking the fortified village
of Thiepval from the rear.
British gunners watching German prisoners passing after the taking of Guillemont, 3 September 1916
The Battle of Guillemont was an attack on the village
which was captured by the Fourth Army on the first day. Guillemont was
on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the
French Sixth Army. German defences ringed the British salient at
Delville Wood to the north and had observation over the French Sixth
Army area to the south towards the Somme river. The German defence in
the area was based on the second line and numerous fortified villages
and farms north from Maurepas
at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood and High Wood,
which were mutually supporting. The battle for Guillemont was considered
by some observers to be the supreme effort of the German army during
the battle. Numerous meetings were held by Joffre, Haig, Foch, General
Sir Henry Rawlinson (commander of the British Fourth Army) and Fayolle
to co-ordinate joint attacks by the four armies, all of which broke
down. A pause in Anglo-French attacks at the end of August, coincided
with the largest counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the
Somme.
In the Battle of Ginchy the 16th Division captured the German-held village. Ginchy was 1.5km (0.93mi) north-east of Guillemont, at the junction of six roads on a rise overlooking Combles, 4km (2.5mi) to the south-east. After the end of the Battle of Guillemont,
British troops were required to advance to positions which would give
observation over the German third position, ready for a general attack
in mid-September. British attacks from Leuze Wood northwards to Ginchy
had begun on 3 September, when the 7th Division captured the village and
was then forced out by a German counter-attack. The capture of Ginchy
and the success of the French Sixth Army on 12 September, in its biggest
attack of the battle of the Somme, enabled both armies to make much
bigger attacks, sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve armies, which
captured much more ground and inflicted c.130,000 casualties on the German defenders during the month.
The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was the third and final
general offensive mounted by the British Army, which attacked an
intermediate line and the German third line to take Morval, Lesboeufs
and Gueudecourt, which was combined with a French attack on Frégicourt
and Rancourt to encircle Combles and a supporting attack on the south
bank of the Somme. The strategic objective of a breakthrough was not
achieved but the tactical gains were considerable, the front line being
advanced by 2,500–3,500 yards (2,300–3,200m) and many casualties were inflicted on the German defenders. The battle was the debut of the Canadian Corps, the New Zealand Division and tanks of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps on the Somme.
British troops moving up to the attack during the Battle of Morval, 25 September 1916.
The Battle of Morval was an attack by the Fourth Army on Morval, Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs held by the German 1st Army, which had been the final objectives of the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September). The attack was postponed to combine with attacks by the French Sixth Army on Combles,
south of Morval and because of rain. The combined attack was also
intended to deprive the German defenders further west, near Thiepval of
reinforcements, before an attack by the Reserve Army, due on 26
September. Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt were captured and a
small number of tanks joined in the battle later in the afternoon. Many
casualties were inflicted on the Germans but the French made slower
progress. The Fourth Army advance on 25 September was its deepest since
14 July and left the Germans in severe difficulties, particularly in a
Salients, re-entrants and pockets salient near Combles. The Reserve Army
attack began on 26 September in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge.
The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was the first large offensive mounted by the Reserve Army of Lieutenant GeneralHubert Gough and was intended to benefit from the Fourth Army attack at Morval by starting 24 hours
afterwards. Thiepval Ridge was well fortified and the German defenders
fought with great determination, while the British co-ordination of
infantry and artillery declined after the first day, due to confused
fighting in the maze of trenches, dug-outs and shell-craters. The final
British objectives were not reached until the Battle of the Ancre Heights
(1 October – 11 November). Organisational difficulties and
deteriorating weather frustrated Joffre's intention to proceed by
vigorous co-ordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became
disjointed and declined in effectiveness during late September, at the
same time as a revival occurred in the German defence. The British
experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment
and tank–infantry co-operation, as the Germans struggled to withstand
the preponderance of men and material fielded by the Anglo-French,
despite reorganisation and substantial reinforcements of troops,
artillery and aircraft from Verdun. September became the worst month for
casualties for the Germans.
The Battle of Le Transloy began in good weather and Le Sars was captured on 7 October. Pauses were made from 8–11 October due to rain and 13–18 October
to allow time for a methodical bombardment, when it became clear that
the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats. Haig consulted
with the army commanders and on 17 October
reduced the scope of operations by cancelling the Third Army plans and
reducing the Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations,
in co-operation with the French Sixth Army. Another pause followed before operations resumed on 23 October on the
northern flank of the Fourth Army, with a delay during more bad weather
on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army
front, until 5 November. Next day, the Fourth Army ceased offensive
operations, except for small attacks intended to improve positions and
divert German attention from attacks being made by the Reserve/Fifth
Army. Larger operations resumed in January 1917.
Battle of the Ancre Heights, 1 October – 11 November
The Battle of the Ancre Heights was fought after Haig made
plans for the Third Army to take the area east of Gommecourt, the
Reserve Army to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont
Hamel–Hébuterne and for the Fourth Army to reach the Péronne–Bapaume
road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of
the Albert–Bapaume road. The Reserve Army attacked to complete the
capture of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west
end of Bazentin Ridge around Schwaben
and Stuff Redoubts, during which bad weather caused great hardship and
delay. The Marine Brigade from Flanders and fresh German divisions
brought from quiet fronts counter-attacked frequently and the British
objectives were not secured until 11 November.
Mametz, Western Front, a winter scene, painting by Frank Crozier
The Battle of the Ancre was the last big British operation
of the year. The Fifth (formerly Reserve) Army attacked into the Ancre
valley to exploit German exhaustion after the Battle of the Ancre
Heights and gain ground ready for a resumption of the offensive in 1917.
Political calculation, concern for Allied morale and Joffre's pressure
for a continuation of attacks in France, to prevent German troop
transfers to Russia and Italy also influenced Haig. The battle began with another mine being detonated beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. The attack on Serre
failed, although a brigade of the 31st Division, which had attacked in
the disaster of 1 July, took its objectives before being withdrawn
later. South of Serre, Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre
were captured. South of the Ancre, St. Pierre Division was captured,
the outskirts of Grandcourt reached and the Canadian 4th Division
captured Regina Trench
north of Courcelette, then took Desire Support Trench on 18 November.
Until January 1917 a lull set in, as both sides concentrated on enduring
the weather.
After the Battle of the Ancre
(13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped
by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly
restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged
trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras
continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on the Somme
front. British operations on the Ancre from 10 January – 22 February 1917, forced the Germans back 5mi (8.0km) on a 4mi (6.4km) front, ahead of the schedule of the Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre/Operation Alberich) and eventually took 5,284 prisoners. On 22/23 February, the Germans fell back another 3mi (4.8km) on a 15mi (24km) front. The Germans then withdrew from much of the R. I Stellung to the R. II Stellung
on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by
the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the
Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich) commenced on
schedule on 16 March.
Von Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and
Ludendorff at the end of August 1916. At a conference at Cambrai on 5
September, a decision was taken to build a new defensive line well
behind the Somme front. The Siegfriedstellung
was to be built from Arras to St. Quentin, La Fère and Condé, with
another new line between Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. These lines were
intended to limit any Allied breakthrough and to allow the German army
to withdraw if attacked; work began on the Siegfriedstellung
(Hindenburg Line) at the end of September. Withdrawing to the new line
was not an easy decision and the German high command struggled over it
during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members wanted to take a shorter
step back to a line between Arras and Sailly, while the 1st and 2nd army
commanders wanted to stay on the Somme. Generalleutnant von Fuchs on 20 January 1917 said that,
Enemy superiority
is so great that we are not in a position either to fix their forces in
position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We
just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of
the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more. (20 January
1917)
—Hermann von Kuhl
and that half measures were futile, retreating to the Siegfriedstellung
was unavoidable. After the loss of a considerable amount of ground
around the Ancre valley to the British Fifth Army in February 1917, the
German armies on the Somme were ordered on 14 February, to withdraw to
reserve lines closer to Bapaume. A further retirement to the Hindenburg
Line (Siegfriedstellung) in Operation Alberich began on 16 March 1917, despite the new line being unfinished and poorly sited in some places.
Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme
after November 1916 were in poor condition; the garrisons were exhausted
and censors of correspondence reported tiredness and low morale in
front-line soldiers. The situation left the German command doubtful that
the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence
of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28
January 1917 caused Rupprecht to urge that the retirement to the Siegfriedstellung
(Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal the next day,
but British attacks on the First Army – particularly the action of
Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) –
caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary
withdrawal of c. 4mi (6.4km) to the R. I Stellung (R. I Position). On 24 February the Germans withdrew, protected by rear guards,
over roads in relatively good condition, which were then destroyed. The
German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the
British front into bogs and by disruption, to the railways, which
supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March, the Germans withdrew
from the R. I Stellung between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached the R. II Stellung (R. II Position) on 13 March. The withdrawal took place from 16–20 March, with a retirement of about 25mi (40km), giving up more French territory than that gained by the Allies from September 1914 until the beginning of the operation.
Analysis
Progress of the Battle of the Somme between 1 July and 18 November.
At the start of 1916, most of the British Army was an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers. The Somme was a great test for Kitchener's Army, created by Kitchener's call for recruits
at the start of the war. The British volunteers were often the fittest,
most enthusiastic and best-educated citizens but were inexperienced and
it has been claimed that their loss was of lesser military significance
than the losses of the remaining peacetime-trained officers and men of
the Imperial German Army. British casualties on the first day were the worst in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties,19,240 of whom were killed.
British survivors of the battle had gained experience and
the BEF learned how to conduct the mass industrial warfare which the
continental armies had been fighting since 1914. The European powers had begun the war with trained armies of regulars and reservists, which were wasting assets. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria wrote, "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield". A war of attrition
was a logical strategy for Britain against Germany, which was also at
war with France and Russia. A school of thought holds that the Battle of
the Somme placed unprecedented strain on the German army and that after
the battle it was unable to replace casualties like-for-like, which
reduced it to a militia. Philpott argues that the German army was exhausted by the end of 1916,
with loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent
defeats causing it to collapse in 1918, a process which began on the
Somme, echoing Churchill's argument that the German soldiery was never
the same again.
The destruction of German units in battle was made worse
by lack of rest. British and French aircraft and long-range guns reached
well behind the front line, where trench-digging and other work meant
that troops returned to the line exhausted. Despite the strategic predicament of the German army, it survived the
battle, withstood the pressure of the Brusilov Offensive and conquered
almost all of Romania. In 1917, the German army in the west survived the
large British and French offensives of the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Battle of Ypres, though at great cost.
The British and French had advanced about 6 miles (9.7km) on the Somme, on a front of 16 miles (26km) at a cost of 419,654 to 432,000 British and about 200,000 Frenchcasualties, against 465,181 to 500,000 or perhaps 600,000 German casualties. Until the 1930s the dominant view of the battle in English-language
writing was that the battle was a hard-fought victory against a brave,
experienced and well-led opponent. Winston Churchill had objected to the way the battle was being fought in August 1916, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George
criticised attrition warfare frequently and condemned the battle in his
post-war memoirs. In the 1930s a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood and
futility" emerged and gained more emphasis in the 1960s when the 50th
anniversaries of the Great War battles were commemorated.
Transport
Until 1916, transport arrangements for the BEF were based
on an assumption that the war of movement would soon resume and make it
pointless to build infrastructure, since it would be left behind. The British relied on motor transport from railheads
which was insufficient where large masses of men and guns were
concentrated. When the Fourth Army advance resumed in August, the wisdom
of not building light railways which would be left behind was argued by
some, in favour of building standard gauge lines. Experience of
crossing the beaten zone showed that such lines or metalled roads could
not be built quickly enough to sustain an advance, and that pausing
while communications caught up allowed the defenders to recover. On the
Somme the daily carry during attacks on a 12mi (19km) front was 20,000 long tons (20,000t) and a few wood roads and rail lines were inadequate for the number of lorries and roads.
A comprehensive system of transport was needed, which required a much
greater diversion of personnel and equipment than had been expected.
The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest battles
of World War I. The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme,
made at the Chantilly Conference on 15 November 1916, claimed that the
Germans suffered 630,000 casualties, exceeding the 485,000 suffered by
the British and French. As one German officer wrote,
Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a
more ghastly word.
—Friedrich Steinbrecher
Modern scholars contend that the Allied figure for German casualties was significantly exaggerated. According to German Reichsarchiv
tablulations, all sixty-nine divisions involved on the Somme
battlefield suffered a total of 237,159 casualties of all types. These
numbers are verified by what the official Australian historian, Bean,
calculated.
Churchill wrote that Allied casualties had exceeded German losses. In The World Crisis (first published in the early 1920s, reprinted in 1938), he quoted the German Reichsarchiv data, showing that on the Western Front between February and June 1916, the Germans had suffered 270,000 casualties against the French and 390,000 between July and the end of the year (Appendix J); he wrote that the Germans suffered 278,000 casualties at Verdun and that around one eighth of their casualties were suffered on "quiet" sectors. According to the tables, between July and October 1916, German forces on the Western Front suffered 537,919 casualties,288,011 inflicted by the French and 249,908 by the British; German forces inflicted 794,238 casualties on the Entente.
In 1931, Hermann Wendt published a comparison of German
and British–French casualties which showed an average of 30 per cent
more Allied casualties than German losses on the Somme. In the first 1916 volume of the British Official History (1932), J. E.
Edmonds wrote that comparisons of casualties were inexact, because of
different methods of calculation by the belligerents but that British
casualties were 419,654, from total British casualties in France in the period of 498,054. French Somme casualties were 194,451 and German casualties were c.445,322, to which should be added 27 per cent
for woundings, which would have been counted as casualties using
British criteria; Anglo-French casualties on the Somme were over 600,000 and German casualties were under 600,000. In the second 1916 volume of the British Official History (1938), Wilfrid Miles wrote that German casualties were 660,000–680,000 and Anglo-French casualties were just under 630,000, using "fresh data" from the French and German official accounts.
The addition by Edmonds of c.30 per cent
to German figures, supposedly to make them comparable to British
criteria, was criticised as "spurious" by M. J. Williams in 1964.
McRandle and Quirk in 2006 cast doubt on the Edmonds calculations but
counted 729,000 German casualties on the Western Front from July to December against 631,000 by
Churchill, concluding that there had been fewer German losses than
Anglo-French casualties but that the ability of the German army to
inflict disproportionate losses had been eroded by attrition. In 2003 British historian Gary Sheffield wrote that the calculation by
Edmonds of Anglo-French casualties was correct but the one for German
casualties was discredited, quoting the official German figure of 500,000 casualties.
Western Front casualties July–December 1916
Month
No.
July
196,081
August
75,249
September
115,056
October
66,852
November
46,238
December
13,803
Total British
513,289
French
c.434,000
Total: Anglo-French
c.947,289
German
c.719,000
Grand total
c.1,666,289
Dead German soldiers in a captured German trench near Ginchy, August 1916
Doughty wrote that French losses on the Somme were "surprisingly high" at 202,567 men,54 per cent of the 377,231 casualties at Verdun. Prior and Wilson used Churchill's research and wrote that the British suffered 420,000 casualties from 1 July to mid-November (c.3,600 per day) in inflicting c.280,000 German casualties and offer no figures for French casualties or the losses they inflicted on the Germans. Sheldon wrote that the British lost "over 400,000" casualties. Harris wrote that British losses were c.420,000, French casualties were over 200,000 men and German losses were c.500,000, according to the "best" German sources. Sheffield wrote that the losses were "appalling", with 419,000 British casualties, c.204,000 French and perhaps600,000 German casualties.
In a commentary on the debate about Somme casualties, Philpott used Miles's figures of 419,654 British casualties and the French official figures of 154,446 Sixth Army losses and 48,131 Tenth Army casualties. Philpott described German losses as "disputed", with estimates ranging from 400,000 to 680,000.
The high Allied casualties of July 1916 are not representative of the
way attrition turned in the Allies' favour in September, although this
was not sustained as the weather deteriorated. Philpott quoted Robin Prior (in Churchill's World Crisis As History
[1983]) that the "blood test" is a crude measure compared to manpower
reserves, industrial capacity, farm productivity and financial resources
and that intangible factors were more influential on the course of the
war, which the Allies won despite "losing" the purely quantitative test.
In the United Kingdom and Newfoundland, the Battle of the Somme became the central memory of World War I. The Royal British Legion with the British Embassy in Paris and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorate the battle on 1 July each year, at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.
For their efforts on the first day of the battle, the 1st Newfoundland
Regiment was given the name "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" by George V on 28 November 1917. The first day of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated in Newfoundland, remembering the "Best of the Best" at 11am on the Sunday nearest to 1 July. The Somme is remembered in Northern Ireland due to the participation of the 36th (Ulster) Division and commemorated by veterans' groups and by unionist/Protestant groups such as the Orange Order. The British Legion and others commemorate the battle on 1 July.
Thiepval Memorial to the British Missing of the Somme
On 1 July 2016, at 7:28a.m. British Summer Time, the UK observed a two minute silence to mark the start of the battle which began 100 years earlier. A special ceremony was broadcast on BBC1 and all BBC radio stations participated in the silence. At the start of the silence, the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery fired a gun every four seconds for one hundred seconds and a whistle was blown to end it. Just like a Remembrance Sunday silence, a bugler played The Last Post after the silence. The silence was announced during a speech by the Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
who said, "There will be a national two-minute silence on Friday
morning. I will be attending a service at the Thiepval Memorial near the
battlefield and it's right that the whole country pauses to remember
the sacrifices of all those who fought and lost their lives in that
conflict." On 1 July 2016, a ceremony was held in Heaton Park in north Manchester in England, which was the site of a large army training camp during the war, and the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales suggested that churches conduct a Requiem Mass for the dead of the battle on the same day.
In Britain on 1 July 2016, 1,400 actors dressed in replica
Great War British Army uniforms, walked about in streets and public
open areas, from 7:00a.m. to 7:00p.m.
Each took on temporarily the identity of a British soldier who died on
the first day of the Somme and handed out information cards about that
soldier. They did not talk, except for occasionally singing "We're here because we're here" to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. This event was called "Ghost Soldiers". Histories of the battle
The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of
modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight
the mass-industrial war in which the continental armies had been engaged
for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as
part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic
initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage,
leading to its collapse in late 1918.
Haig and General Rawlinson have been criticised ever since
1916 for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their
territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916, Churchill, then out of
ministerial office, criticised the British Army's conduct of the
offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had
forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was
damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though
Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the
British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing
ever since. In 2016, historian Peter Barton
argued in a series of three television programmes that the Battle of
the Somme should be regarded as a German defensive victory.
John Terraine, Gary Sheffield, Christopher Duffy, Roger Chickering, Holger Herwig, William Philpott et al.
wrote that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916
and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given
the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since
1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general
Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the
battle puts it in a continental perspective. Little German and French
writing on this topic has been translated, leaving much of their
historical perspective and detail of German and French military
operations inaccessible to the English-speaking world.
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