on 1 July 1916. To the right of the British, a smaller French force, transferred from Verdun. The men advanced in rigid lines. The German trenches ahead had not been decimated by the artillery but were brimming with guns pointing towards the advance. What followed went down as the worse day in British military history – 57,000 men fell on that first day alone, 19,240 of them lay dead.

One of Britain’s generals at the Somme, Sir Beauvoir de Lisle, wrote, ‘It was a remarkable display of training and discipline, and the attack failed only because dead men cannot move on’. Despite the appalling losses, Haig decided to ‘press [the enemy] hard with the least possible delay’. Thus the attack was resumed the following day – and the day after that.

On 15 September, Haig introduced the modern equivalent of the cavalry onto the battlefield – the tank. Originated in Britain, and championed by Churchill, the term ‘tank’ was at first merely a codename to conceal its proper name of ‘landship’. Despite advice to wait for more testing, Haig had insisted on their use at the Somme. He got his way and the introduction of thirty-two tanks met with mixed results. Many broke down, but a few managed to penetrate German lines. As always, the Germans soon plugged the hole forged by the tanks. Nonetheless, Haig was impressed and immediately ordered a thousand more.

The Battle of the Somme ground on for another two months. Soldiers from every part of the Empire were thrown into the mêlée – Australian, Canadian, New Zealanders, Indian and South African all took their part. The battle finally terminated on 18 November, after 140 days of fighting. Approximately 400,000 British lives were lost, 200,000 French, and 400,000 German. For this the Allies gained five miles. The Germans, having been pushed back, merely bolstered the already heavily fortified second line, the Hindenburg Line.

Change at the Top

In Germany, pressure was mounting. A British blockade of German ports was having an effect – resulting in desperate food shortages, food strikes and what the Germans called the ‘turnip winter’ of 1916–17. The scale of losses at the Somme brought about the sacking of Falkenhayn in August 1916, replaced by the duo that had so much success on the Eastern Front – Hindenburg and Ludendorff.

Falkenhayn was not the only casualty – in December 1916 in France, Joffre was replaced by the popular Robert Nivelle who had made his reputation as Pétain’s deputy during Verdun. Nivelle promised he had a scheme which would win the Allies the war within just two days. When Nivelle revealed his plan, it seemed to both the French and British no different from previous strategies. Nivelle threatened to resign. The government, fearing the backlash of the French public, allowed Nivelle free rein.

Changes were afoot in Britain also – Herbert Asquith, too long an impotent leader of a coalition, resigned, to be replaced on 7 December 1916 by former Secretary of State for War, David Lloyd George. Before the war, Lloyd George had been amongst its staunchest opponents and almost resigned on the issue. Asquith persuaded him otherwise but it earned Lloyd George much rancour from within his own party, the Liberals, so that as a coalition prime minister he became overly dependent on the Conservative majority. As the new prime minister, Lloyd George was committed to winning the war, ‘The fight must be to the finish – to a knockout blow’ but he would have to work with his commander-in-chief, Haig, whom he disliked and felt had little regard for the lives of his men. When, in February 1917, Lloyd George effectively subjugated Haig and his generals to the French, albeit only for the duration of the Nivelle’s offensive, he also earned the animosity of Haig.

Part of Nivelle’s grand plan was to distract the Germans with an offensive designed to relieve the stricken city of Arras, in Belgium. The Germans had deeply entrenched themselves in the high ground of Vimy Ridge surrounding the city back in September 1914, and had pounded the city ever since. Previous attempts to dislodge the Germans had failed.