Battle of the Somme reading

[treasure44]

Hi guys,

I'm currently doing my A level History coursework. My investigation is going to be based around the Battle of Somme and I will use a general question probably something like "To what extent did the Battle of the Somme represent a total failure for Britain"

Basically the idea is to present four different historian's opinions as the flesh of the argument and then substantiate or close the arguments down using primary sources or other opinions of historians. It must be academic historians not popular or unaccredited authors.

So far I have material from AJP Taylor, Liddel Hart and Jay winter.

Any recommended reading would be appreciated, as well as any other information. The task is daunting

Thanks in advance,
Ben

[bigross86]

Good luck. Show us the final work, I'm sure some folks here will be mighty happy to read it, then tear it apart for you. Some might even help you put it back together

[dave lukins]

Haig and Joffre could never agree strategies which resulted in thousands being massacred.

[clackers]

It's a controversial campaign, Ben, reflected in the writings about it. You can also check out the works by Prior and Wilson, and Martin Middlebrook ... I have Peter Hart's recent book around somewhere.

It was the first major effort by Britain's conscript army in WWI ... after nearly two years, the attitude of the French general Joffre was something like "about time". His own troops were heavily involved in defeating the German offensive at Verdun when the operation was supposed to be launched so it essentially became an operation commanded by Douglas Haig, a hero or villain depending on who you read.

His subordinate Henry Rawlinson believed incremental successes (sometimes based on surprise) leading to gradual erosion of the defences were possible, but Haig thought that a devastatingly long enough and heavy enough bombardment could bring about a decisive penetration that could carry right through the lines in a short amount of time, minimizing casualties. He even had cavalry saddled up ready to exploit!

I'll leave it up to your readings to come to conclusions, but for mine, if Rawlinson's alternate strategy wasn't to be followed (and it proved victorious later in the war in the Hundred Days Offensive), then at the very least Haig should have called off his own ambitious attempts much earlier than he did. They ended up as bloody attritional battles, even though that wasn't what he was trying for. I also think the German defenders aren't given as much credit as they should.

I think unforgivably Haig was to repeat the same mistake the next year at Passchendale, and that his crime was stubborness, rather than incompetence, if that's anything to the thousands of widows that resulted.