The Somme offensive started on 24 June 1916. With a week long artillery Barrage directed at the German positions, a staggering 1,738,000 rounds were fired. It is known as the largest artillery Barrage the world had ever known and it's claimed that at its height, it could be heard all the way to Hampstead Heath in London. Sir Henry Rawlinson addressed his officers with total confidence that nothing could exist at the end of the bombardment in the area covered.
The facts he was unaware of, was that the Barrage had been far less effective than anticipated. The German positions were 4 stories deep in place, often protected by reinforced concrete and that they were far from being obliterated. Only direct hits could have killed the men inside and many shells had been off target. The British also fired far too many shrapnel rounds rather than high explosive ordnance. The shrapnel rounds proved almost useless against barbed wire, men underground or in bunkers.
Haig insisted that the bombardment was to be spread across the first and second lines of German defenses, hence thinning out the effect of their bombardment. Later it was also discovered that as many as one third of the rounds failed to explode. Even today, farmers on the Somme still discover huge quantities of unexploded munitions from the barrage.
The ferocious barbed wire entanglements as wide as 50 meters in places and as thick as a man's finger were still largely intact. The British commanders just had no idea that their barrage was so ineffective. It was an inconceivable fact. The night before battle commenced, Haig wrote in a letter to his wife : "I feel like every step in my plan has been taken with Divine help. The wire has never been so well cut, nor the artillery preparation so thorough.".
This was but only the opening stages that flowed into the most awful fighting. Whole battalions of the French were wiped out. Today" lest we forget" the little red poppies are worn as a broach. So many innocents died during that war of the Somme.
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