Battle of the Somme

Allied Forces, 1,500,000
General Ferdinand Foch, Commander-in-Chief British Army, 700,000
General Sir Douglas Haig, Commander
General Sir Henry Rawlinson
General Home
General Sir Herbert Gough
General Butler
General Allenby

French Army, 800,000
General Fayolle
General Micheler

German Forces, 1,300,000
General Falkenhayn, Chief-of-Staff
Northern Group—Duke of Wurttemburg
Central Group—Crown Prince of Bavaria
Southern Group—German Crown Prince
General von Buelow
General Gallwitz

1,375,000 Soldiers Fall in the First Battle of the Somme

England's First Citizen Army, newly arrived in France, in co-operation with a French Army, received its baptism of fire in that pitiless five-months' struggle in Picardy known as the First Battle of the Somme. For sheer waste of men, blundering tactics and the inefficiency of the lesser officers commanding, this battle holds a unique place among the more tragic encounters of the World War.

The Battle of the Somme, which opened on July 1, 1916, had for its principal object the reduction of the German salient at Noyon, whose apex projected westward to within 50 miles of Paris. Its secondary object was to relieve the pressure upon the French at Verdun by compelling the Germans to transfer a considerable force from that theater of war to the Somme. The battle was fought on a 30-mile front, bounded by the Rivers Ancre and Somme, the British holding 20 and the French 10 miles of the line. The immediate objective of the British was Bapaume; that of the French, Peronne. The Allied forces numbered 1,500,000 men and the Germans 1,300,000.

After the range of the German trenches had been found by the Allied airships, there was launched on June 28, 1916, a most terrific artillery bombardment, which continued incessantly for four days and nights, rising to a hurricane pitch of fury. It was only partially successful, for the Germans had built themselves perfect protection from shell-fire in the form of large bomb-p...

Hitler served in France and Belgium in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment (called Regiment List after its first commander), ending the war as a Gefreiter (equivalent at the time to a lance corporal in the British and private first class in the American armies). He was a runner, one of the most dangerous jobs on the Western Front, and was often exposed to enemy fire. He participated in a number of major battles on the Western Front, including the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Passchendaele. The Battle of Ypres (October 1914), which became known in Germany as the Kindermord bei Ypern (Massacre of the Innocents) saw approximately 40,000 men (between a third and a half) of the nine infantry divisions present killed in 20 days, and Hitler's own company of 250 reduced to 42 by December. Biographer John Keegan has said that this experience drove Hitler to become aloof and withdrawn for the remaining years of war.

The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme Offensive, took place during the First World War between 1 July and 18 November 1916 in the Somme department of France, on both banks of the river of the same name. The battle consisted of an offensive by the British and French armies against the German Army, which since invading France in August 1914 had occupied large areas of that country. One of the largest battles of the First World War, by the time fighting had petered out in late autumn 1916 more than 1.5 million casualties had been suffered by the forces involved. It is understood to have been one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded.

In July 1916 The Battle of the Somme, where nearly 20,000 British Soldiers died on its first day, soldiers in their thousands were wounded, 57,000 casualties on the first day. Home interest in the Battle was intense. Almost every family in the land knew someone fighting in the Somme. It was a long time before the truth about the Somme slaughter began to appear in the newspaper columns of casualties. Whole pages were grey with hundreds of names, column after column of dead soldiers. British families were all in mourning, grief-stricken by the news. Rotherham became a community suppressed in grief and deeply saddened pain. Whole streets had drawn blinds, and flowers were laid in memory of the dead and wounded soldiers, with the battle to rage until November of that year.

Tending men with terrible wounds and young soldiers with the effects of poison gas was difficult nursing. As their battle scars healed their mental scars would run much deeper. These men who bared their souls for battle, anticipating their fate without any question, were now left with much time to reflect on all the mutilation of battle. They had seen friends bodies ripped apart in battle, and their fate pulled into question while the smell of death was all around them. Helping to heal these haunting memories were as much part of nursing as treating their open wounds. During its first year of opening, 450 soldiers received treatment at the hospital. Most men despite their wounds and haunting memories remained cheerful throughout their stay. Life in Oakwood was made as comfortable as possible for the men.