FIRST SOMME BATTLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 51, 30 January 1932, Page 2

FIRST SOMME BATTLE.

lost in three minutes. The first battle of the Somme was lost in three minutes, according to an officer quoted in the volume of the British Official History of the War,, which deals with the disastrous opening of the Franco-Belgian campaign . in 1916. Tliero were 60,000 British casualties that day. ' General Edmonds, compiler of the history, in quoting the officer’s view, expresses the opinion that there might have been a complete victory everywhere if light-equipped patrols had crossed “No Man’s Land” in the speediest way and up the Germans. Instead of that being attempted, the British troops were burdened when ordered to move.' / . Infantrymen advanced at a steady and very slow- pace, and had sometimes to traverse 500 yards in that way. The Germans' were thus enabled to man their parapets. General Edmonds adds that in spite of the courage and self-sacrifice of the British, the- troops, especially the officers, were so insufficiently trained that probably it'was well they did not break through the German lines. Therefore, they were not tested in open warfare against the then more experienced Germans. The writer emphasises, moreover, that the British at the instance of the French,. attacked at a. time-and a place far different from those which they would themselves have chosen. Nevertheless, the Somme was also the grave of the majority of the mighty German peace-trained army. After it. German; fighting. power,- morale and discipline waned. It is estimated that the French and British losses in five months on the Somme were more than- 600,000, - and those of the Germans’ nearly, as many.