Open country was reached on the first day of the Somme, as in the feature film 1917

A breakthrough the British Army has done its best to forget

Senior officers in the British Army in WW1 could not be told what to do. Usually it led to chaos, the failure to do anything systematically. Paradoxically, on the Somme, it led to something quite REMARKABLE. A story the British Army has done its best to forget

By the second day of the battle, 2 July 1916, the French and British at the southern end of the line had broken through all three lines of German defences, taken prisoners, and in some places even captured German heavy guns. They were staring at two miles of open country, virtually empty of Germans. All were ready to press forward.

Now the breakthrough needed to be exploited. After two years of standing around feeding their horses, the CAVALRY's moment had arrived.

But after all his ludicrous bluster before the attack, the British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig refused to advance. It was another pattern that would repeat itself again and again into 1918.

The truth on the Somme in 1916 was that Haig had been completely taken by surprise by the success of the amateur Pals regiments and the divisions alongside them at the southern end. And he had apparently not even taken into consideration the possibility that the French might make any progress. Nobody had made any plans about what to do. And, of course nobody on the front line was permitted to take the initiative on their own. The breakthrough had been made - but nothing was done to exploit it.

Some historians are inclined to write this British success off  as a fluke. They had cheated. They’d been helped by French artillery. But that’s exactly the point - they were on the same side! If you used your heavy guns correctly, then an entrenched defence was very possible to break.

Episode 06 - The British who cheated on The Somme

The Livens Flame Projector took 300 men to carry and assemble, most of it underground for greater surprise.  17m long and 2.5 tons

Ivor Maxse is a forgotten hero of the Somme

Maxse was commander of the 18th Division of XIII Corps. He'd decided in the Boer War that sending men against machine-guns was useless. He’d been stationed on the Somme since mid-1915, admired his new volunteer soldiers (which was rare) and spoke good French (which was even more rare).

Maxse also made it his business to learn from the French commanders (which, according to William Philpott, the historian of Anglo-French relations during the war, was unheard of!). In particular Maxse admired the French general Ferdinand Foch. He called him, tellingly, ‘a man with brains essentially.’

Long before the battle of 1 July 1916, Maxse sent his artillery commander, Alan Brooke to learn gunnery from the French. (Brooke would later be Chief of Imperial General Staff, the top British Army General, in the Second World War).

He had also listened to Major Christopher Baker-Carr who, as we saw in the second episode in this series, had set up the British machine-gun school.

Maxse also trained his men to use the new Stokes Mortars and light American-designed Lewis machine gun. Both of which the army had ignored for many years, losing precious manufacture and training time. In fact Lloyd George had got a Maharajah to pay for the Stokes Mortars when the army refused to cough up.

Maxse also installed horrific, Livens flame-throwers, commissioned Russian saps (tunnels) to send his men under No Man's Land safely, and 'push pipes' to rapidly blow new trenches in No Man's Land for men to shelter in. Most radical of all he shared as much information as he dared with his men.

By midday on 1 July 1916 Maxse’s men had suffered a number of casualties. But, like the French to the South, they had taken all their objectives.