Week 12: Wednesday, April 12
This photo, taken in September 1916, shows members of the New Zealand Division resting in a communications trench during the Battle of the Somme. Although British and Imperial forces lost heavily on the first day of the day of the battle, the fight went on until mid-November, when poor weather made further advances impossible.
1) What factors determined the location and timing of the British assault at the Somme in 1916?
2) What were the two main steps of the artillery plan for the attack? What were the different tasks assigned to the artillery? What were the problems and limits of the artillery bombardment?
3) How did the character of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) determine the infantry tactics associated with the attack?
4) What were the problems with the attack on the first line of German trenches?
5) What were the problems with sustaining the attack once British forces sought to penetrate more deeply into German lines?
6) Why did the attack press on in spite of the horrific casualties suffered by the first wave? What facilitated the men's will to combat?
Other Questions
1) Why did Keegan assert that the Somme was less complex than Waterloo? In what ways was the Somme more complex, though?
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Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle, 2006.