Somme Trench Description

Fought between July 1 and November 1, 1916 near the Somme River in France, it was also one of the bloodiest military battles in history. On the Western Front, of France where British, French and German armies are locked in a bloody stalemate along 450 miles of trenches. There have been a lot of casualties, but neither sides can break the deadlock. The combination of barbed wire, machineguns and heavy artillery means troops trying to cross No Man's Land, the open ground between the trenches. The Allies are committed to more attacks. They're determined to liberate the parts of France and Belgium that were occupied by Germany in the first months of the war. The British and French have agreed to launch a joint offensive in the summer of 1916. The

Here the Germans have two formidable, defensive lines... with a third under construction. Each consists of three lines of trenches: fire; support; and reserve; connected by communication trenches. They bristle with machinegun positions; and are anchored on fortified villages and strongpoints. In front of the trenches, there are thick belts of barbed wire. Below, are dugouts, some 10 metres deep, to shelter German troops from artillery fire. Telephone lines, buried six feet deep, allow troops at the front to communicate with artillery batteries during an attack.The German troops that hold the line are well-trained, and most are combat veterans. 'They know we're coming all right!' The offensive will be led by the British Fourth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson. With Haig, he draws up the plan of attack. To overcome the Germans' formidable defences, the British will carry out a massive, week-long artillery bombardment with fourteen hundred guns. This is expected to destroy German barbed wire, flatten trenches, and kill their 19 mines are also dug under key German strongpoints, and filled with explosive, ready to detonate just before the attack

And it's just the first day in a battle that rages for another four months, finally ending in November, amid freezing rain and mud. By then the Allies have advanced 10 miles, at a cost of 430,000 British casualties; 200,000 French casualties; and 450,000 German. It makes the Battle of the Somme one of the bloodiest in history. In British popular memory, the Somme is remembered as an unmitigated disaster, and tragedy: evidence of the incompetence of British generals, and the pointless sacrifice of the gallant soldiers under their command. But to those who fought it, and those at home,the Battle of the Somme was seen as a success: Casualties were enormous, and hard to bear;but across Europe, every warring nation was suffering terrible losses, as all commanders struggled to find an answer to trench warfare. And at the Somme, the British had not only helped save their French ally, who went on to defeat the Germans at Verdun, but learned vital lessons about how to fight on the Western Most of all, the Battle of the Somme had been a costly, but necessary, wearing down of the German army – an immensely painful, but vital step on the long road to