Dead German soldiers at the Battle of the Somme. The British fired over a million shells at the German trenches for five days. Most escaped harm by digging very deep dugouts (German spy planes had seen men getting ready to attack) but this dugout suffered a direct hit.

   The bodies of German soldiers killed by direct artillery hits in the trenches littered the field at the Battle of the Somme. British forces fired over a million shells into German trenches over five days. Most were spared in deeply dug trenches. The Battle of the Somme, raging from July 1 to November 19, 1916, was one of the most devastating battles of World War I. During these four and a half months of fighting, the British lost over 400,000 soldiers, the French 200,000, and the Germans approximately 450,000. Both the British and French armies considered gaining a mere 15 kilometers of territory a victory, but the cost was immense.

   Before the Battle of the Somme, British generals assured their soldiers, “The artillery bombardment will annihilate the enemy German forces, so by the time you reach the battlefield, the enemy will be gone.” On the first day of the Somme, 20,000 British soldiers were killed and 35,000 wounded. General Haig ordered further attacks, and the same tragedy repeated itself each time. In September, 50 tanks were deployed. Twenty-nine broke down before reaching the battlefield, and the rest quickly became bogged down in the mud. By the end of the fighting, the British and French armies had lost 620,000 men, while the Germans lost 450,000. The Allied advance at the front lines amounted to a mere 15 kilometers.

  The death toll during World War I was staggering. Approximately 9 million people died in total. This equates to over 5,000 deaths per day over more than four years. About 1 million of those dead were soldiers from the British Army and the British Empire. Millions more were wounded, suffering lifelong physical and mental scars. In Britain, British generals were blamed for the immense sacrifice of British soldiers. They were seen as incompetent, indifferent fools responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths. Field Marshal Douglas Haig, who commanded the army from 1915 to 1918, was particularly criticized and called “Slaughterer.”