Short History Of... - The Battle of the Somme

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

The Battle of the Somme was supposed to be the joint British-French offensive that would win the First World War. A string of battles spread over five months, it involved everything from cavalry charges, poison gas, and the debut of the tank. But the Somme was anything but victorious….on the first day alone, over 19,000 British soldiers were killed and more than 57,000 wounded, making it the single bloodiest day in British military history. So what was the Allied war plan, and how did it fail so spectacularly? What was its significance to the future progress of the war? And at what cost? This is a Short History Of the Battle of the Somme. Written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Alex Churchill, historian, director of the Great War Group, and author of the forthcoming ‘Ring of Fire: A New People’s History of the World at War, 1914’. Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Saturday the 1st of July, 1916. Just before half past seven in the morning, in an Allied trench along the River Somme in northern France. The middle of the First World War. Down in his dugout, with the rest of his battalion, is Johnny Jackson, a nineteen-year-old British soldier. As he grips a trench ladder, his head thumps with the skull-rattling percussion of shellfire, an incessant soundtrack for most of the last week. His own side have been bombarding the German positions two or three hundred yards away, ready for a big advance.

It's a dry, bright day, and Johnny is sweating in his regulation woolen uniform. On his head is a wide-brimmed, round steel helmet, and his legs are wrapped in long strips to stave off the dreaded trench foot that breaks down skin through exposure to the cold and wet. that breaks down skin through exposure to the cold and wet. He chews his lip. The moment is almost at hand. The grand attack is designed to knock the Germans out of the Somme region, loosening their hold on France. Johnny's heard it could even win the war for the Allies and send the Germans with their tails between their legs back through France and Belgium.

The Tommies, as the ordinary British soldiers are known, have been told by their senior officers that the artillery will have worked its magic. Over a million and a half shells have been sent over this last week. Word is, there won't be a German left for miles. The Tommies will simply walk through the now deserted German lines with the cavalry sweeping in behind. Suddenly, all goes eerily quiet, and there's just the sound of the gentle breeze

and the nervous breathing of the soldiers. Johnny is grateful to have had a tot or two from the flagon of rum delivered to his dugout yesterday, a little extra ration to steady the nerves. He thinks of his mum and dad back home and of his sweetheart, Elsie. Last night he wrote them all letters, just in case. But knowing he must stay focused, he glances at his commanding officer, who has a whistle poised at his lips. Now the officer takes a final glance at his watch and then puffs out his cheeks and blows. The sign to go over the top.

Unhesitatingly, the men clamber out of the trench, their guns and bayonets slung across their backs. Someone hoofs a football into the distance, a target for them all to focus on. In one great single line, they march towards the enemy trenches. But at once, Johnny's ears fill with the dreaded rattle of machine gun fire, and bullets whistle past his head.

The artillery cannot have done its job. The men are sitting ducks. Everywhere Johnny looks, men fall, some dying instantly, others wounded, collapsing in spasms of pain, their shrieks inescapable. Johnny goes on, staring into the distance. Up ahead, a great wall of densely knotted barbed wire is so thick it seems almost to be black. densely knotted barbed wire is so thick it seems almost to be black. He sees a hare, panic-stricken as it runs, looking for an escape route, and then, at that moment, Johnny is knocked off his feet, struck by a bullet to his shoulder.

The pain takes a moment to register as he sprawls on the earth. All around is a hell of fire and smoke and stink, but for a brief few seconds, calm descends upon him as he thinks of Elsie. His eyes close under the glare of the sun and then, unconsciousness overtakes him. The Battle of the Somme was supposed to be the joint British-French offensive that would knock Germany out in Western Europe and win the First World War. Really a string of battles. It involved everything from cavalry charges to the use of poison gas, air reconnaissance, and the debut of the tank.

The intention was to blast a hole through the encamped German army over 25 miles of front, forcing the German line backwards and severely denting their foothold in the country. But after a series of deadly skirmishes spread over five months, resulting in over 300,000 deaths and many more injuries, the Allies had pushed the German line back a mere six miles. On the first day alone, over 19,000 British soldiers were killed and more than 57,000 wounded. The single bloodiest day in British military history. So what was the Allied war plan? And how did it fail so spectacularly in its original aims?

What was its significance to the future progress of the conflict? And at what cost? I am John Hopkins from Noisa. This is a short history of the Battle of the Somme. It's the 5th of August 1914 in Westminster, London. The British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquithith rises to his feet to address a solemn House of Commons. Since 11 o'clock last night, he gravely pronounces, a state of war has existed between Germany and ourselves. His words come after five weeks of frantic international wrangling

and usher in what will become known as the First World War. Events began to spiral back on the 28th of June in faraway Sarajevo. On that day, a young Bosnian-Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated the visiting Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. What might have been a little local trouble in the Balkans escalated dramatically as the great powers of Europe were drawn into events on rival sides thanks to alliances struck over recent decades. Mighty Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible for the assassination and declared war on the Little Kingdom. That prompted Russia to come to Serbia's defense, which in turn caused Austria-Hungary's ally Germany to declare war on Russia. France then entered the conflict in

support of its ally Russia, and when Germany attacked France through neutral Belgium, it aggravated British fears of German ambitions to rule the continent. Amid pressure from France and Russia, Asquith saw no option but to join the fray. So by the end of August, the allied powers of France, Britain, and Russia are ranged against the so-called central powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Many more countries in Europe and beyond will be sucked into the conflict before its end, but by August the major battle lines are drawn.

The central powers prepare to battle the French and British on a western front and the Russians on an eastern front. Focusing westward first, Germany plans to sweep through neutral Belgium and down into France, where it can encircle Paris, paralyse the French and prevent the British from moving in. By displacing the French from their frontier fortifications, the Germans hope they can eliminate the nation as a meaningful force within 40 days. By the end of August, all seems to be going well for the Germans, who are firmly encamped in French territory. French and British forces are consistently pushed back, until the French register a victory in September, halting their retreat.

German hopes of a speedy victory collapse. Instead, the war turns into one of attrition. Over recent years there have been dramatic innovations in the machinery of war, from barbed wire to machine guns, and even more powerful artillery. Developments that have made it easier for armies to dig in and hold defensive positions than to actively make ground. By the year's end, the two sides face each other from entrenched positions that run continuously from the North Sea coast at the western edge of Belgium down over 400 miles through France

to the Swiss border. But with neither side able to gain a decisive upper hand, deadly battles are fought for minuscule gains. Before long, new horrors emerge, as poison gas is used in earnest for the first time in conflict. It's clear that the widely held belief that this might all be over by Christmas was mere fantasy. Leaders on all sides recognize that they're in for the long haul, and countries with histories of antagonism now find themselves standing as one against a common foe. Historian Alex Churchill is director of the Great War Group

and the author of several books on the war, including Somme, 141 Days, 14 Lives, and the author of several books on the war, including Somme, 141 Days, 14 Lives, and the forthcoming Ring of Fire, A New People's History of the World at War, 1914. Allies are an absolute nightmare because you have to suddenly become, in the case of Britain and France, you have to suddenly become best mates in an existential struggle for survival with someone you've been fighting against for a millennium. So it's like suddenly you've got to weigh up all of your national interests, what your country wants and what your country needs, and not fall out over it. When war was declared in August 1914, Britain boasted a regular army of some 250,000 men,

a force that had been quite sufficient to ensure the governance of the largest empire the world has ever seen. Such an army could cope with the struggles of, for instance, the relatively recent Boer War in South Africa. But it needs more bodies if it is to meet the demands of the modern, But it needs more bodies if it is to meet the demands of the modern, mechanized warfare that lies ahead. As early as the 7th of August, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, was spearheading a recruitment campaign. He asked for an extra 100,000 men to volunteer for the army, and within eight weeks, three-quarters of a million had signed up.

It's early 1915 in Newcastle, in the north-east of England. A young dock worker has just finished his shift and is headed to the pub for a well-earned pint with his father, also a docker, and a group of workmates. But as he walks, something catches his eye. A poster freshly pasted to a wall. He has seen similar ones many times over the last few weeks. Lord Kitchener, a stern-looking man with a great walrus moustache and dressed in military uniform, stares out at him, urging the young men of the country to enlist today.

country to enlist today. Soon enough, the dockers are in the pub. The beer flows, and there is excited talk of the upcoming football match. The young docker keeps thinking about that image of Kitchener. Just a few weeks ago, he got the news that one of his cousins had perished over in France at the Battle of Ypres. When the war had started back in the summer, it seemed like it wouldn't last too long,

and lads like his cousin, who had been in the army for years, couldn't wait to prove themselves on the battlefield. But now it's looking like this war is going to be a lot longer and a lot more painful than originally thought. painful than originally thought. He makes his decision, leaning over to his father and whispering close to his ear. The older man, startled but proud, grips his son's hand and solemnly shakes it. Then the lad leaves the pub, the door swinging shut behind him, and he heads straight for the recruitment office just a few streets away. As he approaches, he sees a group of men his own age heading in the same direction. Recognizing one of them, he learns they are signing up too, recruiting for a so-called PALS battalion, groups of friends, work colleagues, sports clubs, or other community groups

who enlist, train and fight together. Someone strikes up the first notes of, it's a long way to Tipperary, and the throng becomes a choir. By the time the office is in sight, they join a queue snaking up the road. Feels like a street party. When the docker finally gets to the front of the queue inside the bustling office, he fidgets with nervous excitement. A sergeant major sat at a desk takes his name and sizes him up. He is certainly tall enough, over the five foot three threshold. He looks fit too, although he will need to pass a medical and have an eye test. He looks fit, too, although he will need to pass a medical and have an eye test.

There is just one problem. He's still too young to join. When the sergeant major asks him his age, he tells him, honestly, that he is 18 years and nine months. But that's three months too young for fighting abroad. So, after an awkward silence, he tries again, claiming he is in fact 19 years and 9 months. The sergeant major raises an eyebrow, but nonetheless hands him his form to sign. In a national emergency, the army is only too willing to wave him through with a little white lie. Moments later, the young man is one of a group taking an oath on the Bible, swearing to faithfully defend his majesty and to promise to obey the authority of all generals and officers. He pledges to serve as long as the war lasts.

But though he's never even heard of the place yet, his war will last only as far as the war lasts. But though he's never even heard of the place yet, his war will last only as far as the Somme. Many are caught up in the excitement of going overseas to do one's bit for their country, of adventure and glory. But there is social pressure too. Women up and down the country have taken to pressing white feathers into the hands of young men not wearing uniform. The white feather has long been a symbol of cowardice, and the slur bites hard. Better to risk one's life for king and country than draw the condemnation of the opposite sex. Men from every walk of life leave their old existences behind. Men from every walk of life leave their old existences behind.

They swap jobs in schools and factories, offices and shops, for many months of tough training, while the regular army continues to battle on the front line. While learning the rudimentaries of military discipline and weapons handling, they live together under canvas, already foregoing the luxuries of home. But resources are limited, and they have to make do with inferior quality uniforms, frequently with only a cardboard cap badge, until manufacturers catch up with demand. So where the French and the Germans conscripted millions of men who were already supposed to be reservists and had training and stuff like that, we have those hundreds of thousands of men who've never held a rifle before. Soldiers' paybooks include a message from Kitchener himself,

reminding his men to always be considerate to the locals they will encounter overseas and to Allied soldiers. They're also warned to avoid the temptations both in wine and women. The proud volunteers in Kitchener's army are ready to go off temptations both in wine and women. The proud volunteers in Kitchener's army are ready to go off to the front when the time comes. But it will be some time before the new recruits are shipped off to France. By December 1915, the soldiers of the regular army have battled through another year. And as they face a second difficult winter, stalemate reigns on the Western Front.

1915, for the Allies, is a complete disaster on all fronts, basically. There's battles at Neuve-Chapelle, there's catastrophic French offensives in Artois and the Champagne as well. And all they do is cost men. And it's everybody coming to terms with this new type of warfare that they don't fully understand. So these generals, they're not stupid. They've trained for decades for the job that they're doing. But the job that they're doing has changed so dramatically. But it's the scale that blows everybody away. And 1915 is very much about looking for a way to break the enemy

whilst you're still mobilizing your entire country. So World War I is a war that the scale is so big you can't win it unless the whole nation is in, in terms of production, manpower. And that doesn't happen overnight. In Chantilly, northern France, Allied leaders convene at the headquarters of Joseph Geoffroy, Supreme Commander of the French. The British forces in France and Belgium are represented by Sir John French.

He's a man under pressure, particularly since the last October in Loo, when the largest British offensive of the year barely managed to dent the German line, despite Britain's first use of poison gas. With little in the way of success to report, he has lost the support of his political masters at home and is in the process of resigning. This will be his final official engagement in his current post. the process of resigning. This will be his final official engagement in his current post. The Allies need to establish their strategy for 1916 with a view to somehow ending the deadlock on the Western Front. As for the Germans, they're winning already kind of, so you have to think about it in terms of the fact that they've already crossed the border and embedded themselves

in France. So as long as they're not kicked out of France and Belgium, they're not losing yet. So there's arguably a lot less impetus for them, but they are actually planning to try and win the war as well on the Western Front. But the Allies do still hold some cards. For one thing, they can call upon far greater manpower than the enemy. They are determined to make this advantage count. So they agree to launch simultaneous offenses on both the western and eastern fronts. And now that Italy has entered the war on their side, the Allies can attack from the south too. Jofra and French come up with an ambitious plan for the Western Front, based on a bullish assessment of their situation.

All of that mobilization of your population is looking quite good. You've got enough artillery shells. You've got enough men. Those men that all rushed in to be recruited in 1914, They're ready now. Kitchener's armies are ready. So it's very much when they sit down to plan what's going to happen in 1916, the British and the French, it's very much about how do we win the war this year. They hit upon undertaking a massive joint offensive at the Somme, scheduled for the summer. It will be led by the French but

with substantial backup from the British. But it's not an entirely natural choice of location. As the point on the Allied line at which the French and British forces converge, it's a battlefield chosen less for any tactical advantage it might offer than because it is logistically convenient. There is nothing about the Somme that makes it a desirable battlefield and the place where you'd want to try and win the war. It's better than where they've been fighting in 1915 because that was all France's mining country. They're fighting on slag heaps and in amongst pit entrances and mining paraphernalia. And that's terrible. And nobody wanted to fight there.

But literally the only reason it gets picked is because the French are fed up with the British as they perceive it not pulling their weight. They want the British to make a big show. At this point, France has already suffered like a million casualties. They have been bled white in 1914 and 15, and they want the British to take the slack up. That's what they want. And the reason they pick the Somme and demand that we fight down there

is because it's going to be where the two armies meet. There is just one problem. 1916 begins with France and Britain planning an offensive on the Somme. But what they don't know is that Germany is planning their own big show as well. An operation on the scale of the Somme takes much planning. Troops in vast numbers need to be trained up and brought to the front line. Supplies must be stockpiled and plans made for getting them to the front. Roads have to be prepared and railways too.

There are all kinds of landscapes to contend with, from farmland to swamps as well as ground already pockmarked by fighting. The Allied leaders know they're looking at months of preparation. The intensive planning phase is due to start in April. But then, in February, the Germans launch their own surprise. At 7.15 a.m. on the 21st of that month, the skies above the fort city of Verdun, about 150 miles southeast of the Somme, thunder with the noise of over 800 German artillery guns.

Over the next 10 hours, they launch a million shells at a 19-mile-long stretch of the French line in the hope of pushing the French army further backwards and exhausting it. These are the first strikes in a battle that will last until the end of the year, leaving some 300,000 soldiers dead and over three-quarters of a million wounded. the year, leaving some 300,000 soldiers dead and over three quarters of a million wounded. For the French and Germans, it is the defining engagement of the entire war. It's absolutely catastrophic in scale. So everything that we're planning to rewrite the rulebook on the scale of an offensive in the summer, the Germans do their version in February.

And in the first few days, France is absolutely in dire straits. Verdun is really important. It's along the border and is specifically a fortress town. So it's pivotal to French defense. If Germany take it symbolically as well, it's a complete nightmare. Germany take it symbolically as well. It's a complete nightmare. In June, on the Eastern Front, Russia, ally of the French and British, launches what is known as the Brusilov Offensive against the Central Powers in Galicia, part of modern-day Ukraine. Though they suffer massive loss of life, the Russians make significant inroads. Though they suffer massive loss of life, the Russians make significant inroads. Crucially, the action also helps relieve a little of the pressure on the French at Verdun by stretching Germany's resources.

But it is not enough to avert a major rethink of the Somme offensive. What had been anticipated as a British-backed French operation is now said to be a British-led one, with whatever support that the French can muster. Instead of Britain and France planning a grand offensive to win the war, France are just hoping that when Britain starts to fight this battle, they're going to chuck some troops in, they're not going to pull out completely, but their role in the Battle of the Somme shrinks really considerably by the time it's launched. But for Germany, the situation may be even bleaker.

With the Russians hitting hard in the east, they also face fighting two catastrophic, potentially war-defining battles at the same time. In the British trenches, towards the end of June, the troops know something big is coming. They're just not sure exactly when. For weeks, they've been practicing drills time and again, ready for when the order comes. There are continuous deliveries of shells, guns, ammunition, and heavy artillery, and rallies of firing all day long. The soldiers have had plenty to eat and drink, too, and enough smokes. Though they don't complain, they know it's more evidence that the big one is coming.

Everybody knows you treat your soldiers just before you send them into battle. Then, on July 1st, it's time. The whistles blow, and thousands go over the top in the first surge, with thousands more following a hundred yards behind. Wave after wave head out, sure in the knowledge that the artillery will have done its trick, and they'll be able to walk all the way to Berlin if they need to. In fact, the first day's target is an advance of approximately 10 miles. Except, instead of an open pathway, they find plenty of Germans still there,

and they're far better defended than the Allies in dugouts 30 feet deep. The impact of the Allied artillery bombardment has had little effect in the northern sectors of the line. But elsewhere, it's not all in vain. In the south, they do actually get somewhere. The objectives for the first day of the Somme were ridiculous. They were never going to happen. They were overenthusiastic. But at the southern end of the battlefield and in the French sector, it's not actually a huge catastrophic failure.

It's heavy casualties and hard fighting, but the French and the British do get somewhere. In some places of the 25-mile front, the Germans have been weakened by artillery bombardment and territorial gains are made. But it's nowhere near enough, and along the northerly half of the British line, it is carnage. German guns pick off the British Tommies at will as they wander,

dazed and horrified, over no man's land. By the end of the day, over 19,000 men have been killed and many more wounded, some dreadfully so. The physical harm is self-evident, but the mental scars will take longer to appear. The French have seen similar losses before. On a single day in August 1914, at the Battle of the Frontiers along the French and Belgian borders, they lost 27,000. But the British have never experienced anything like this. The deadliest day in British military history. Nor is it exclusively a British tragedy. Among the Allies are a force of some 750 from the British Dominion of Newfoundland, now part of Canada.

Only 68 of them emerge from the day unscathed. only 68 of them emerged from the day unscathed. Battalions of Kitchener's Army, comprising those enthusiastic lads who signed up early on, have been on the front for months, but this is the first time that they've been used in such significant numbers, and it has been a disaster. The army officer and poet Siegfried Sassoon will remember this day as a sunlit picture

of hell. But there is no time to retreat and regroup. The allied generals have a decision to make. Focus attention on the southern part of the line where some progress has been made, or try to get the northern section up to speed. Village by village, ridge by ridge, wood by wood, the Allies attempt to consolidate their gains northwards. Although those first-day losses are never surpassed, what follows is a mishmash of engagements along the front over the coming weeks and months.

Minimal gains come at huge costs. In mid-July, for example, the Battle of Byzantine Ridge claims 13,000 lives on all sides. The Battle of Fromelles sees the introduction of Australian troops on the Western Front, and 5,000 men are lost on the first day. Then there is the drawn-out Battle of Delville Wood. The South Africans get fed in at Delville Wood. They start fighting for that mid-July. They can't comprehensively say they've got it until the beginning of September.

So there's a South African brigade, and they go into Delville Wood with a strength of like 3,200-odd, and they come out with 700 men. And they come out marching past their commanding officer, and he's weeping as the remnants walk past him. And they're only in there about five days. Troops from other parts of the empire, Canada, the West Indies, New Zealand and India, all make great sacrifices too.

When September arrives, time is running out to make the decisive breakthrough before the bad weather comes in hard. The Allies have one more throw of the dice. It's early morning on the 15th of September, 1916, near the German-occupied villages of Flair and Kusselet, along a dense, woody section of the Somme battle line. A cool, hazy day. A German soldier, a teacher until he was called up, peeps out from his trench. He stares out across the sea of mud that is no man's land, smoke billowing to the sky from the artillery attack. He's trying to work out the source of a loud, unfamiliar noise. A great, low rumbling.

It is the din of a very large petrol motor, but it's accompanied by a disconcerting mixture of squeaking and creaking. All around is the debris of a long few weeks. The German front line was significantly further forward than here back in July, but he and his comrades have slowly but surely been pushed backwards by Allied assaults. They have been expecting another offensive, and it seems like it's on its way, if the tell-tale hurricane of artillery they've had for the last half an hour is anything to go by. But what to make of this unfamiliar noise?

It gets closer and closer, until, through his binoculars, he is able to make out the cause. But it's unlike anything he has ever seen. A great, lumbering, camouflaged metal monster. From the side it is a curious rhombus shape, and from the front its nose slopes sharply. To the rear are a pair of large wheels to help steer it, but it moves along on two great tracks, like those of a tractor, stretched round its entire body. It pulls itself along like some huge metallic insect, but slowly.

He guesses it's going no more than five to six kilometers per hour. The soldier shouts over to some of his comrades, urging them to come and see for themselves. There are gasps of surprise and a whirl of speculation. It may not be pacey, but it is terrifying, bearing a heavy cannon alongside several machine guns. Watching it trundle towards him, the former teacher almost marvels at the way it crushes everything in its path. Uneven ground, shell holes, dense barbed wire, abandoned trenches. It just rides straight over them all.

And as it carves out a path across this doomy terrain, the enemy infantry follow closely behind. Fear rising inside him, he aims his machine gun at the beast and fires off a volley. But the bullets bounce off it like peas. Even when he tosses a grenade in its path, it seems to have no effect. He looks towards the others in his trench, hoping beyond hope that someone has an answer. But none of them do. With the monster's fixed guns pointed directly at their stretch of trench, their collective instinct is to abandon their position as already lost,

to save themselves, to fight another day. The tank rumbles on towards the village of Flair, where wrecked buildings sit beneath billowing clouds of smoke. And though many of his battalion are rounded up as prisoners by the British infantry following the tank, the soldier manages to escape into the trees. When he has made it to the relative safety of a secure German position, he tells his startled officers of what he has seen, the birth of what will eventually become a military game-changer. The birth of what will eventually become a military game-changer.

This is the first time such a weapon has been used in warfare. The British call it a tank. But they have been shrouded in secrecy, even on the Allied side. Brought up to the front line by stealth, and stored under tarpaulins to ensure the element of surprise. If a Tommy has seen one, he's been told it's a water tank to help keep them all hydrated. The Battle of Flere-Courcelette, coming just over halfway through the Somme offensive, represents an important staging post in the development of modern warfare.

But in practical terms, the new technology is not yet refined enough to dictate the outcome of the Somme. Only a tiny percentage of German soldiers ever see a tank for themselves. Of the few dozen tanks at the front, several are mechanically unfit to be rolled out. Others succumb to mechanical failure on the way to the enemy. One is even put out of action by a robust tree trunk. And the Allies don't yet have the tactics or know-how to deploy their tanks to the greatest advantage. Nonetheless, the handful that do get through cause panic and chaos. The sky, too, is becoming an increasingly important crucible of the war.

Where the Germans had been dominant in 1915, the Allies are now using aircraft to survey the battlefield, photograph enemy configurations, and report back crucial intelligence. Before long, these aircraft will be fitted with machine guns to strafe the enemy, too. will be fitted with machine guns to strafe the enemy too. As the war progresses, the skies will fill with more aircraft, each aiming to shoot the other to the ground in spectacular aerial dogfights. The Battle of Flers-Causselet, fought over a week, does not bring the crucial breakthrough that the Allies have hoped for. Though important strategic gains are made, they come at a cost of 30,000 killed or wounded for the Allies. The Germans record four times that number, with 130,000 casualties across the various engagements in September. And now autumn is setting in. Months of fighting has left the Somme landscape more like a moonscape.

The ground has been churned up by millions of shells and the boots of hundreds of thousands of men. The rain has transformed swathes of the front into swampland. And things only get worse as October turns into November and the sleet comes. But still, the engagements continue. You've just got guys going at it and it's just rinsing you for men and rinsing you for equipment. And you can look at it now and go, what were you trying to achieve? What did you think you were going to achieve? And then October and November, you're just, why? Because they carry on with these tactical little approaches

in consistently deteriorating weather. And that's when you start seeing the pictures that you're familiar with of the Somme, where there's men up to the knee in mud, and they can't walk, and the supplies can't get through. There's dead people everywhere. Dead bodies are nasty. people everywhere. Dead bodies are nasty. On the 13th of November 1916, British troops advance into the Ancre Valley. The plan is to exploit German exhaustion. They take some ground during the Battle of Ancre, but it's a miserable experience, even by some battlefield standards. Then the snow comes, and on the 18th the operation ends. The Allies have advanced a grand total of about six miles along the front since July. Accurate assessment of the human cost is hard to come by, but for the Allies casualties are

estimated at 600,000, including approximately 150,000 fatalities. The British have borne about two-thirds of those losses. The Germans suffer half a million casualties, of whom 150,000 are killed. After approximately 140 days of bloodshed, the Somme offensive draws to an anticlimactic finish. Or does it? I refuse to put the 18th as a date on it when you've got a body of troops stranded in a dead end trench out on the north end of the battlefield, who literally are sitting out there till the 23rd until the ones that survive can get away. So it sort of peters out by the end of November. But then, yeah, that's it.

It's done. And they haven't won. And it's over. And everybody's exhausted. The fighting might be done, but its impact continues to reverberate. For Germany, engaged not only on the Sommeomme but in another bloodbath at Verdun, just surviving to the end of the year is a victory of sorts.

The French also have Verdun to contend with, which eats up much of the nation's energy. In Britain, though, the Somme starts to take up a unique place in the collective psyche. the Somme starts to take up a unique place in the collective psyche. It's December 1916, a somber build-up to Christmas up and down the country. Homes in every village, town and city have had the dreaded knock at the door and the delivery of a telegram that begins, Regret to inform you. The precursor to the news that a loved one is killed or missing in action. There have been many such communications since the war's start.

But the Somme represents a different scale of slaughter. And perhaps a change in the collective narrative in Britain. There is no hiding the fact that this has not been the enemy-breaking campaign that had been hoped for. Despite the best attempts of the press to keep spirits high and put a positive spin on events over in France, the truth of great suffering is impossible to hide. It's really hard to say what your average person in the street felt. So newspapers were censored, newspapers were full of propaganda.

If you're living in London and you're seeing newspapers saying, oh, there was a battle today on the 15th of September and we made lots of gains. Hurrah! It's not going to tell you those gains cost 30,000 and the actual objective was to destroy the German army and it didn't happen. But then think about how you experience the Somme if you are living in, let's say, Grimsby. So Grimsby had a battalion. They were the only chums battalion. They didn't like power, so they were the Grimsby chums. They were battered on the 1st of July and then battered again in August. So if literally half the street has had a telegram delivered,

you're going to see the battle very differently. And you might be reading about success, but if you've got 700 guys dead in one day from your little town, that is definitely going to colour how you see it. Growing disquiet of the nature of the war finds extraordinary cultural expression in all manner of art forms, but most famously in war poetry. A host of names whose verse will resound through the generations served on the Somme at one time or another, among them Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Wilfred Owen.

Their critique of the war, and of those commanding it, capture a change in public attitude already widespread by the end of 1916. It's a shift doubtless exacerbated by the imminent introduction of universal conscription. For the first time, men of serving age will not have the choice whether to sign up or not. People by the end of 1916 are done. They're done. They want this to end now, please. They want their lives back. They want their people back. They want to see their people again. They want to be normal and they've had enough and there's no end in sight. Among the victims of this pervasive discontent is the government of Herbert Asquith. Despite being an intelligent leader who achieved much

in peacetime, the Prime Minister is temperamentally unsuited to war, and saw no reason not to take the weekend off and retire to his country pad in its early days. There is increasing criticism, too, of the military leaders, almost exclusively plucked from the upper ranks of British society. Many feel that their incompetence and hubris is causing the deaths of ordinary young men in unimaginable numbers. It's a case of lions led by donkeys, some say. The military elite are accused of living it up in chateaus far behind the front lines

and persisting with tactics that are little short of suicidal. Worst of all, they are seen by some as being indifferent to the fate of those under their command. But the picture is perhaps not quite so simple as that. I have a real pet peeve with the lions led by donkeys, thinking it isn't fair, really. I mean, there are some decisions in some battles where I wring my hands and I'm like, what are you doing?

But no general wants to waste life. No general is sitting there going, yeah, go on, just shove them in. Who cares if they all get shot? You don't want to waste that manpower. There are some stupid decisions throughout the battle, in every battle, but they're not consistently unbothered by the thought of men being killed, either on a human level or on a work level. You're a bad general if all your men die. And these guys are at the absolute top of their profession and they got there for a reason. But that said, they're fighting blind. No one has ever done this before. So that shows as well. Some historians come to see the Somme as the classic example of what is sometimes termed the mud, blood, and futility of the First World

War. A slaughterhouse that achieved little of strategic value to either side. An explosion of irrational violence that fell far short of the aims of the Allies who instigated it. of irrational violence that fell far short of the aims of the Allies who instigated it. But was the offensive misguided from the moment of its inception? But then you have to ask yourself, what else were they going to do? What else would they have done in 1916? Because sitting there and doing nothing that works for the Germans, they didn't in the event they did Verdun. But the Allies can't just go, oh, we'll just wait and see what happens.

They had to do something. They thought they were doing something that would make the difference and win the war. Turned out they didn't. The suspicion that it has all been for nothing drives a wedge between the rulers and the ruled. Long held traditions of deference to those in authority seem to be slowly fading in the face of this previously unimaginable scale of futile loss of life.

But perhaps the loss, though savagely painful, is not as futile as widely believed. For one thing, the strain on German resources wrought by the Brusilov Offensive in the East and Verdun and the Somme in the West sees Berlin resume its program of U-boat attacks. In a bid to break the British blockade of Germany's own crucial supply ports, Berlin orders the targeting of commercial and passenger shipping in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. This action provokes the US President Woodrow Wilson to declare war on the Central Powers in 1917.

The addition of America to the Allied side is crucial towards their eventual victory less than a year later. While the price paid in the mud of the Somme is extravagantly high, not only in human life, but in the Pandora's box of social discontent that it unleashes, the Allied military leaders do gain invaluable knowledge. Although there are more deadly attritional battles to come, the use of tanks and aircraft take on more important roles. And changes in infantry formation are designed to prevent the Tommies from ever again being cannon fodder as they have been here. This is why it's not futile and we can't say they never should have done it because war, dispassionately taking away the human suffering, war is all about concentrating all of your resources and learning as you go until you have enough answers.

and we didn't have all the answers, but we wouldn't have had all the answers in 1918 if we hadn't made these mistakes in 1916 and we hadn't learned from them. So I think it's really important to remember that the Battle of the Somme is a staging post that does guide the Allies towards victory. Today, the scene of the battle is notable for its tranquility, though the scars, trench remnants, shell holes, and of course the cemeteries, are potent relics of the horrors that

played out here. More than a hundred years on, mere mention of the name of the Somme resonates. Perhaps most markedly of all, the battle marked the moment when ordinary people started to truly question their leaders. Next time on Short History, I will bring you a short history of the Aztecs. The modern version of Aztec religion is that they were all desperately superstitious and believed that the world would literally end tomorrow

if they didn't sacrifice X numbers of human beings. But there's no real evidence for that. Towards the end of their realm, when they were very powerful and were trying to intimidate other people, they did sacrifice large numbers of people. But for most of their history, they were just trying to survive. That's next time.