Commandant français General Ferdinand Foch (France, Northern Army Group), General Marie Fayolle (France, 6th Army), Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (United Kingdom, BEF), General Henry Rawlinson (Fourth Army)
VS
Adversaire German Empire (Second Army, General Fritz von Below; Guard reinforcements, reserve divisions)
The battle of the Somme was the largest Allied operation of 1916, launched to break through the German front, relieve Verdun, and end attrition warfare. Beginning on 1 July 1916 on a 40 km front, it mobilized British, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Newfoundlanders, Irish, Indians, Portuguese, and French. Artillery preparation (1.6 million shells in one week) was meant to annihilate German lines but largely failed. On 1 July, the British army suffered the worst day in its military history (≈ 58,000 casualties in 24 hours), while the more experienced French advanced further to the south. The battle became a succession of local attacks on Pozières, Thiepval, Longueval, Guillemont, Flers-Courcelette (first use of tanks on 15 September), Combles, and Bapaume. The Allies gained a few kilometres of ground at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, missing, gassed, and mutilated. The Somme embodies the horror of industrial war, Franco-British solidarity, and tactical learning in blood. Villages were razed, the landscape transformed into a lunar desert, and collective memory marked forever.
