Sir Rawlison: The Battle Of Somme

“During my whole life I have not found a happier hunting ground than in the course of the Somme Battle. In the morning, as soon as I had got up, the first Englishmen arrived, and the last did not disappear until long after sunset. Boelcke once said that this was the El Dorado of the flying men”. This was quoted from a German soldier named Manfred von Richthofen. This was how he was describing July 1st 1916 as the British forces were walking towards his position in no mans land. July 1st would go down as the bloodiest day in the British military history. Battle of Somme was one of the largest planned and deadliest battles that involved multiple countries attacking the German front at once. The Chantilly Conference of 1915 was conducted between

The idea originally came from the French Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Joffre and was accepted by General Sir Douglas Haig, the British Expeditionary Force commander. Sir Haig and General Henry Rawlison came up with the plan to attack Somme. Sir Rawlison would be in charge of the main attack and his fourth army would advance towards Bapaume. While General Allenby and his cavalry division along with the third division would come up from behind and fill in the gaps. Haig had 27 division’s approx. 750,000 men under his command compared to the Germans 16

Some were farmers looking to better their life. The British military at the time was never really introduced to trench warfare they always relied heavy on a light military by that i mean they would always be swift to attack lighter and not as well equipped troops. In the past they major fighting the British had to deal with were usually dealing with minor uprising or rebels of their controlled territory. This is where the doctrine in conducting warfare that they were a light and fast moving military. They were not at all trained in massive army fights compared to the German military. The British had a had a program called PAL, basically it meant you could join with your buddy and both of you would be in the same battalion and company fighting along aide with each other. This program made it possible that when soldiers were lost to combat that it was even amongst other villages so there wasn’t one whole village who took most of the casualties and other didn’t. In 1916 the British government adopted the law Military Service Act March it specially specified that men from the ages of 18 to 41 were eligible to be called up for service to fight in the war unless they were married or served in a job as a teacher or clergymen. By then end of the war 2.3 million men were picked to serve their county