This article by O'Brien Browne really brings home the horrors of this battle .... terrible !! http://www.worldwar1.com/tgws/rel012.htm
I think that the estimate is grossly exageratted. Using an average of most of the reliable and official sources, the total fatalities for the battle of Verdun (French & german) would be more like 182,000 (still not exactly a small figure though!!!) out of a total of 758,000 casualties (killed, wounded & missing)
The loss of life and those wounded was huge at Verdun ... reference books frequently give differing figures such was the magnitude of loss. It is probable that an accurate figure will never be known ( The book the Road to Verdun quotes over 700,000 all together ) as Scrimnet said on another thread ..... http://ww1talk.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=417&highlight=verdun I think that numbers quoted in the article here were casualties .... and about half of all casualties at Verdun were killed ! Annie
The Somme offensive was going to happen even without Verdun - initial planning had begun 3 months before the Verdun battle had even started (though hadn't really been formulated very much by the end of February 1916). What Verdun did was to push forward the launch date of the Somme and alter the overall objective of the battle (a major part of the new objective is as has been quoted). It had also become a more predominantly British battle because of Verdun whereas the original plan would have made it mainly a French operation but supported by the British (like the 2nd and 3rd battles of Artois the previous year in which the British contributions are (in the UK) more famously known as the battle of Aubers Ridge and the battle of Loos). It was originally intended to be part of a co-operation between the French/british in the west, the Russians in the East and the Italians in the south in simultaneaous offensives designed to force the Central Powers to be put under intense pressure on all fronts - and possibly force them to sue for peace.
I don't want to start anything about Haig ........ but I do know he didn't want to start on the Somme so early .... but thats beside the point ... suffice to say ... he did ..... and it was more than a disaster ! Written by Haig on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme 'Good-morning; good-morning!' the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. 'He's a cheery old card,' grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both by his plan of attack. Siegfried Sassoon
Day one might have been (for many of the British units)...but the battle as a whole? The 420,000(ish) casualties suffered by the German Army on the Somme (plus the 360,000(ish) german casualties at Verdun over a slightly longer period) pretty much put paid to any real hopes of Germany winning the war on the battlefields of France and Belgium. Basically, the Somme put them on the back foot and made them unable to launch any real offensive operations for nearly a year and a half - and even then it was only out of desperation. If attrition was the way to conduct a battle, then the Somme ,for the British, was a roaring success.
I agree the Somme was a turning point in the war - though not evident at the time - the casualties of that first day still distort the achievement of the rest of the campaign for us - which was never as costly or wasteful of lives ! All the same .... the awfulness of the campaign has had a profound and lasting effect on Britain - the "Pals battalions" from the north of England - where whole streets or factories of young men enlisted together were particularly hard hit on the first day - it impacted on small communities in a way still remembered today ! That the Germans suffered heavier casualties than the British and regard the Somme as a defeat is ( I know ) often overlooked. The battle also saw a French army fighting alongside the British - which suffered some 200,000 ( ? ) casualties. Today we remember that the Somme campaign of 1916 gave excessively high casualties for all the participants - yet somehow failed to give victory ! Annie
