Significance Of The Strategic Situation In 1916 Essay

“Awoke with the cold. Dozed off a few times. About 6 o’clock awoke with tremendous heavy fire and big shells flying overhead…” – Arthur Linfoot’s diary entry on July 1st 1916, the start of the battle.

[The Strategic Situation in 1916]

The strategic situation at the beginning of 1916 was one of a strategic stalemate. 1915 had been a good year for the Germans and their allies. The Russians were battered on the eastern front, losing Warsaw and most of Poland to the Germans. Serbia was conquered by Germany and Austria. The British French landing at Gallipoli had turned out to be a disaster, and the German led Turks successfully repelled the Allied expeditionary force there. The western front remained deadlocked. At the Chantilly conference of
The attacks were all along the line, from Beaumont Hamel in the northwest where Allenby’s forces assaulted the high ground there, to Fayolle and Micheler’s 6th and 10th armies in the south. At Gueudecourt near the center of the line, the Newfoundlanders found themselves in action again after their horrific losses of July 1st. “The British were experimenting with a creeping barrage, whereby the men moved forward behind a steadily advancing curtain of explosions designed to pulverize the German wire and to stun the German soldiers.” (Gilbert, P. 214) these tactics were horribly costly to the Newfoundlanders, with one in ten being killed, many by walking right into the barrage, but they advanced 600 yards, halfway to their objective…and had made a greater advance into the German lines than any other unit advancing that day." Gilbert, P. 215) The ‘creeping barrage’ did allow for greater Allied gains during the last month or so of the battle. The villages of Flers and Thiepville were seized by Gough’s and Rawlinson’s forces respectively, before Sept. 30th, and the village of Courcelette was captured shortly afterwards. The Fourth Army used tanks for the first time in the battle at Flers. On 15 September, “eighteen were in action…the village of Flers, the first objective, soon fell to New Zealand troops, supported by the new armoured monster.” (Gilbert, P. 183) The Canadians and the New Zealanders entered the battle for the first time here. The final British assaults, for apart from German counterattacks, that’s what the battle of the Somme was, British and French attacks on both sides of the Somme river between July and November 1916, were made along the Ancre river in the northwest of the salient, where Goughs 3rd and Allenby’s 5th armies were stationed. The Ancre Heights on the east side of the river were seized by mid November, and