The battle was a joint offensive by the British and French forces – fought along both sides of the River Somme in France – aimed at decisively defeating the Germany Army. Britain quickly responded by modifying existing chemical works to manufacture ‘war gases’, and more effective gas masks. The area between the two sides was called No Man’s Land and it was very dangerous because there was lots of barbed wire and shell-holes and no man’s land is usually a sea of mud. It had many political and social effects. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! The British soldiers were given cotton pads and respirators. It was more effective if they did use urine instead of water. Later in the war even more deadly poison gases were used by both sides. Britain quickly responded by modifying existing chemical works to manufacture 'war gases', and more effective gas masks. At Idmiston Down, Wiltshire, a circular trench was dug to test the effects of poison gas. The terrain, however, was so devastated that most of the tanks got bogged down in the mud. […] Source: 7 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of the Somme […], […] 7 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of the Somme  […], […] 7 Things You May Not Know about the Battle of the Somme […], […] sustained such appalling losses during the Battle of the Somme that virtually every fit serviceman was now needed for fighting. In German and French writing, the first day of the Battle of the Somme has been little more than a footnote to the mass losses of 1914–1915 and the Battle of Verdun. The British used 11 mines on the first morning of the Battle of Somme to startle and damage the German front line. In his 1959 history of the Royal Tank Corps, Liddell Hart called the decision to use the tanks a long-odds gamble by Haig. When the battle of the Somme opened, the British army had its medical facilities on full standby. For the British army such casualty figures were unprecedented, as the Battle of the Somme was the first time Haig's forces had spearheaded a prolonged, large scale offensive. These include that erected over the battlefield grave of Arthur Wells, one of 6 local men killed at the Somme. Fatalities were commonplace with troops suffering terrible head injuries. The first symptoms were shooting pains in the legs and this was followed by a very high fever. At the outbreak of the First … The war memorial on the North Yorkshire moors to the two local shepherds killed on the Somme must be very rare indeed. The first tank was called 'Little Willie', and it had a crew of three men. In such an environment, a soldier with a bayonet was obsolete and infantry formations useless.[9]. It is known to be one of the largest and costliest battles of World War One, with over 1,000,000 casualties in just four months. Providing so many working tanks proved impossible. The holes left by the mines were used by the Germans for machine guns afterwards. After the rifle was fired, the opening of the bolt ejected the empty cartridge case and the return stroke loaded a fresh round. The Battle of the Somme took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916. As well as causing lots of scratching, lice also carried disease. Phosgene was more deadly than chlorine, was colourless and smelled like mouldy hay, but it took 24 hours to take effect on the victim. The effect of the German Bergmann and MG08 ‘Spandau’ machine-guns continues to be a long time after the ‘day of breathtak­ing summer beauty’, as Siegfried Sassoon de­scribed 1 July 1916, the starting morning of the Battle of the Somme. It also blew back on the Germans when they used it. Aircraft. They had the power of one rifle. Trench Foot was an infection caused by standing in the wet for a long time and not being able to dry your shoes and socks out. The effectiveness of the defensive weapons decided the result. For the first time, all front-line troops were issued with steel helmets. Whole books have been written about this disaster,[6][7][8] but it is still not clear why it happened. On July 20, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, poet Robert Graves was struck by a shell and was so badly wounded that the next day he was reported to have died. His body was never found. Gases such as mustard and Chlorine gas were blown over into the enemy trenches; the gas burned and destroyed the respiratory tracts of anyone without a gas mask, causing terrible pain and death. Later in the … Accordingly, was gas used in the Battle of Somme? Britain fielded a one million strong ‘New Army’ made up of inexperienced but enthusiastic volunteers from all walks of life, raised in a fervour of patriotism by Field Marshal Lord Herbert Kitchener, Secretary of State for War with his iconic recruiting drive, ‘Your Country Needs You!’. This battle was the worst battle in WWI, especially from the point of view of Britain. This offered no protection from shrapnel, especially from shells bursting in the air. By January 1917, it … Increasingly, archaeological evidence in England is discovering elaborate training trenches, instructional models and full-size mock-ups of the German lines used to prepare troops for living and fighting in the trenches. Robert, who was 17, lied about his age in ordered to enlist. Instead, they were later recovered and reburied with identical headstones in specially designed war cemeteries in France and Belgium. It also blew back on the Germans when they used it. Mines are a way to blow up the enemy and really shock them. Was also a big rat problem, because there were lots of corpses urine of. To salvage half of them there was also a big rat problem, because there were of... 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