The first day on the Somme (1 July 1916) was the beginning of the Battle of Albert (1–13 July) the name given by the British to the first two weeks of the Battle of the Somme (1 July–18 November) in the First World War. Nine corps of the French Sixth Army and the British Fourth and Third armies attacked the German 2nd Army (General Fritz von Below). The attack was from Foucaucourt south of the Somme, northwards across the Somme and the Ancre to Serre and Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond, in the Third Army area. The objective of the attack was to capture the German first and second defensive positions from Serre south to the Albert–Bapaume road and the first position from the road south to Foucaucourt.
The German defence south of the road mostly collapsed and the French had complete success on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from Maricourt on the army boundary with the French northwards. XIII Corps took Montauban and reached all its objectives, XV Corps captured Mametz and isolated Fricourt. The III Corps attack on both sides of the Albert–Bapaume road was a disaster, making only a short advance south of La Boisselle, where the 34th Division suffered the most casualties of any Allied division on 1 July. Further north, X Corps captured part of the Leipzig redoubt (an earthwork fortification), failed opposite Thiepval and had a great but temporary success on the left flank, where the German front line was overrun and Schwaben and Stuff redoubts captured by the 36th (Ulster) Division.
German counter-attacks during the afternoon recaptured most of the lost ground north of the Albert–Bapaume road and more British attacks against Thiepval were costly failures. On the north bank of the Ancre, the attack of VIII Corps was another costly failure, with large numbers of British troops being shot down in no man's land. The VII Corps diversion at Gommecourt was also costly, with only a partial and temporary advance south of the village. The German defeats, from Foucaucourt to the Albert–Bapaume road, left the German defence on the south bank incapable of resisting another attack, A substantial German retreat began from the Flaucourt plateau to the west bank of the Somme close to Péronne. North of the Somme in the British area, Fricourt was abandoned by the Germans overnight.
Several truces were observed to recover wounded from no man's land on the British front; the Third Army diversion at Gommecourt cost 6,758 casualties against 1,212 German and the combined casualty count with the Fourth Army reached 57,470, (19,240 of which had been fatal). The French Sixth Army suffered 1,590 casualties and the German 2nd Army suffered 10,000–12,000 casualties. Orders were issued to the Anglo-French armies to continue the offensive on 2 July; a German counter-attack on the north bank of the Somme by the 12th Division, intended for the night of 1/2 July, took until dawn on 2 July to begin and was destroyed by the French and British troops opposite. Since 1 July 1916, the British casualties on the First Day and the "meagre gains" have been a source of grief and controversy in Britain.
Background
Strategic developments
In July 1915, the French Commander in Chief Joseph Joffre held the first Allied conference at Chantilly. In December, a second conference agreed a strategy of simultaneous attacks by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies. The British theatre of operations was in northern France and Flanders but in February 1916, Haig accepted Joffre's plan for a combined attack astride the Somme river, around 1 July; in April, the British Cabinet agreed to an offensive in France. The nature of a joint offensive on the Somme began to change almost immediately, when the German army attacked Verdun on 21 February. In March, Foch proposed a Somme offensive on a 28 mi (45 km) front, between Lassigny and the Somme with 42 French divisions and a British attack on a 16 mi (25 km) front from the Somme to Thiepval with 25 divisions. French divisions intended for the joint offensive were soon diverted to Verdun and the offensive was eventually reduced to a main effort by the British and a supporting attack by the French Sixth Army.
BEF reinforcements
The Somme was to be the first mass offensive mounted by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the first battle to involve a large number of New Army divisions, many composed of Pals battalions that had formed after Kitchener's call for volunteers in August 1914. By the end of the Gallipoli Campaign, twelve British divisions were in Egypt and from 4 February to 20 June, nine were transferred to France. From Britain and Egypt the 34th Division and 35th Division arrived in January, the 31st Division and the 46th (North Midland) Division in February, the 29th Division, 39th Division, 1st Australian Division and 2nd Australian Division in March, the New Zealand Division in April, the 41st Division, 61st (2nd South Midland) Division and 63rd (2nd Northumbrian) Division in May, the 40th Division, 60th (2/2nd London), 4th Australian and 5th Australian divisions in June and the 11th (Northern) Division on 3 July. The 55th (West Lancashire) Division and 56th (1/1st London) Division were reassembled, a battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment and the South African Brigade joined in April, followed by a contingent of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps in July.
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, General Erich von Falkenhayn, the head of Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, the supreme command of the German Army) insisted on a tactic of rigid defence of the front line in 1916 and implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy inescapable, since the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, discretion was still reserved to army commanders. Despite the certainty by mid-June of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the 2nd Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve. No divisions were moved from the 6th Army, despite it holding a shorter line with 17+1⁄2 divisions and three of the divisions in OHL reserve being in the 6th Army area. The maintenance of the strength of the 6th Army at the expense of the 2nd Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkenhayn intended a counter-offensive against the British to be made closer to Arras north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered.
Tactical developments
French
The offensives of 1915 showed that attacks would inevitably be slow and costly; on 8 January 1916, GQG issued "Instruction sur le combat offensif des petites unités" ("Instructions on Small Unit Offensive Operations") and "Instruction sur le combat offensif des grandes unités" on 26 January ("Instructions on large Unit Offensive Operations"). On 20 April, General Ferdinand Foch, commander of Groupe d'armées du Nord (GAN, Northern Army Group) issued "L'Instruction du Général Commandant du GAN sur la bataille offensive" ("The GAN Commander's Instruction on Offensive Battle") an 82-page pamphlet on the stages and processes of an attack on enemy positions prepared in depth. The pamphlet was a substantial revision of Note 5779, derived from "But et conditions d'une action offensive d'ensemble" (Purpose and Conditions of Comprehensive Offensive Action 16 April 1915), a manual compiled from analysis of the fighting in 1914 and the basis of French offensive planning in 1915. Battle would now be methodical until the power of resistance of the defender was broken by "moral, material and physical degradation", while the attacker retained the ability to continue the offensive; a breakthrough was unlikely but not ruled out. Co-ordination of artillery and infantry was fundamental to the process, in which artillery would destroy defences and then infantry would occupy them, infantry objectives being determined by the capacity of artillery to prepare the way and limit casualties.
Artillery bombardments were to be co-ordinated with infantry attacks, various types of artillery being given targets suitable for their characteristics, for the cumulative destruction of field defences and the killing of German infantry. Heavy artillery and mortars were to be used for the destruction of field fortifications, howitzers and light mortars for the destruction of trenches, machine-gun and observation posts; heavy guns and mortars to destroy fortified villages and concrete strong points. Longer-range guns were to engage German artillery with counter-battery fire, to deprive German infantry of artillery support during the attack, when French infantry were at their most vulnerable. Wire cutting was to be performed by field artillery, firing high-explosive (HE) shells and supported by specialist wire-cutting sections of infantry, which would go out the night before an attack. During the attack, the field artillery would fire a linear barrage on trenches and the edges of woods and villages. Infantry tactics were to be based on reconnaissance, clear objectives, liaison with flanking units and the avoidance of disorganisation within attacking units. General attacks would need to be followed by the systematic capture of remaining defences to obtain jumping-off positions for the next general attack.
British
In 1915, British tactical thinking had been based on the experience of its Western Front battles, particularly the Battle of Loos in September and the study of French and German experience in translated manuals and pamphlets. British planners knew the importance of organised artillery firepower and the integration of types of weapons and equipment. Creeping barrages, smoke screens and cloud gas discharges were to be used along with aircraft, Stokes mortars (a light trench mortar), Lewis guns (a light machine-gun) and elaborate signals systems to counter the chronic lack of communication, once infantry advanced beyond their telephone system when they attacked. Troops were to advance in a succession of lines grouped into waves, followed by parties to consolidate captured ground or pass through the leading troops and continue the advance.
The 9th (Scottish) Division had attacked at Loos with four battalions on a front 1,600 yd (1,500 m) wide, each battalion in three waves. A second battalion followed each of the leading battalions in the same formation, ready to leapfrog beyond and a second brigade followed the first as a reserve. Six lines of infantry, with the soldiers 2 yd (1.8 m) apart had confronted the German defence. Lines and waves had been made thinner and shallower since then. On 14 July 1916, in the attack on Longueval, the 9th (Scottish) Division advanced with four battalions. Companies were arranged in columns of platoons, creating four platoon waves 70 yd (64 m) apart. One of the attacking brigades advanced with each battalion on a two-company front with two companies behind and a second battalion following on. Each section of the front was attacked by sixteen platoon waves. Six platoons had attacked on a front of about 1,000 yd (910 m), roughly one soldier every 5.5 yd (5.0 m).
German
On the Somme front, the construction plan ordered by Falkenhayn in January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt 5–10 yd (4.6–9.1 m) deep to two belts 30 yd (27 m) deep and about 15 yd (14 m) apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid 3–5 ft (0.91–1.52 m) high. The front line had been increased from one trench to three, dug 150–200 yd (140–180 m) apart, to create a front position, the first trench (Kampfgraben, fighting or battle trench) occupied by sentry groups, the second (Wohngraben, accommodation trench) for the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from 6–9 ft (1.8–2.7 m) to 20–30 ft (6.1–9.1 m), 50 yd (46 m) apart and large enough for 25 men. An intermediate line of strongpoints (Stützpunktlinie) about 1,000 yd (910 m) behind the front position, wired for all-round defence, had also been built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve lines, renamed the second position, which was as well built and wired as the first position. The second position was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop an advance for long enough to move artillery forward.
Prelude
Anglo-French preparations
Aircraft
For long-distance reconnaissance, bombing and attacks on Die Fliegertruppe (the Imperial German Flying Corps up to October, then Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte, [German Air Force]) the 9th (Headquarters) Wing of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was moved to the Somme front, with 21, 27, 60 squadrons and part of 70 Squadron. The Fourth Army had the support of IV Brigade RFC, with two squadrons of the 14th (Army) Wing, four squadrons of the 3rd Wing and 1 1 Kite Balloon Squadron, with a section for each corps. Corps squadrons, 3, 4, 9 and 15 had 30 aircraft for counter-battery work and 13 aircraft for contact-patrol, where reconnaissance aircraft flew low over the battlefield to map the positions of British troops. Brigade headquarters had been ignorant of events and arrangements were made for the swift transmission of information forwards. There were 16 aircraft for trench reconnaissance, destructive bombardment and other duties and nine aircraft in reserve.
VII Corps (Lieutenant-General Thomas Snow) in the Third Army was given 8 Squadron with 18 aircraft and 5 Kite Balloon Section. On the Somme the RFC had 185 aircraft against the German 2nd Army aircraft establishment, which also had to face the French Aviation Militaire on either side of the Somme (the Anglo-French air effort considerably outnumbered the Germans until mid-July). Protection for corps aircraft was to be provided by standing patrols of pairs of aircraft and offensive sweeps by the two army squadrons. Bombing attacks were to be made on the railways behind the German front, with the main effort beginning on 1 July, to ensure that damage could not be repaired before the offensive. Troops, transport columns, supply dumps and headquarters behind the battlefront were to be attacked and the ammunition depots at Mons, Namur and Lille were to be specially attacked. The French Sixth Army (General Émile Fayolle), had 201 aeroplanes.