History Revision - Assessment 4
The Somme
Where was it?
Somme is a river, Picardy, France
Where were the armies on this?
The German trenches were East to this
The 2 sides
Triple Entente
Triple Alliance
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy
Britain, France, Russia
Trenches
Why were they difficult to capture?
Artillery Fire
Important Figures of WW1
Douglas Haig
They had lots of barbed wire
They were underground
The cover provided by the trenches was effective as it exposed very little of the soldier's body.
They were arranged in zig-zags
The race to the sea was a race in which both sides built trenches from the North sea to the Swiss border
It ran between the British and French trenches
Replaced Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of all British Forces at the end of 1915
He lived from 1861 - 1928
Served as a Inspector-General of all Cavalry in India
He was educated at Oxford University and the Royal Military academy in Scotland
Stalemate
When both armies are unable to move.
Hazards
Weak structure
Heavy objects were on the ground
Waterlogged Trenches
Disease
The British/French plan on the Somme
They were going to have an extremely large offensive attack
They had a large numerical advantage
Why did they fail at the Somme?
1/3 of all shells did not explode
The Germans hid in concrete bunkers while this happened
All machine guns survived - they were meant to be destroyed
There were 100,000 Brits
On the first day there were 57,000 British casualties - 20,000 dead
The men were told to walk - they assumed machine guns were destroyed and the men were inexperienced
They were attacking uphill
They attacked on the 1st July
The German trenches were protected by lots of barbed wire
It changed because the French were fighting in Verdun at the same time