Battle Of Somme Essay

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Battle of Somme During World War 1, many battles occurred throughout the war, but one battle was a major loss for the Allies, especially to the British losing a major portion of there army in the first day of the battle. The outcome of the battle would be a bloody fight to capture Somme from German forces. The aim was to divert German attention from Verdun in defense of the Somme.The Battle of Somme was a devastating loss to the British for these reasons.The reasons the British suffered major loss at the Battle of Somme were because the initial artillery bombardment was a failure, the British did not have the French support, the Germans had prepared for the attack, and Ally infantry remained exposed. The Battle of Somme started with an …show more content…

When the Allies first went up the somme from there trenches they were meet with fire from German machine guns and German troops almost unharmed by the bombardment as stated before. The Germans mowed the Allied troops down with ease since the somme had no cover and the troops were left exposed in the middle of the first with gunfire coming from all over from the Germans at the top of the somme. This was a major reason the British almost loss 60,000 troops on the first day of the battle due to the Germans being almost unharmed by the artillery and the infantry completely left exposed to the gunfire. The British troops were also slowed down by the barbed wire set by the German army to slow the allies from advancing. The barbed wire was effective as it slowed and got troops struck and gave the Germans time to fire upon the British troops trying to capture to the somme. The main cause of the massive amount of casualties the British suffered on the first day was due to the German machine gun placements killing Allied troops as they made their advance from the trenches to try and take the area. The machine gun would be the most effective weapon in the war due to the fact it could shoot much faster than any gun a normal soldier could carry and didn't need to be reloaded for a while since the gun was belt feed meaning less reloading and more bullets to be