Battle of the Somme 1 - The origins of the Somme Campaign

Military Leaders at the 2nd Chantilly conference 6th Dec 1915
L to R (front row) Porro (It), French, Joffre and Jilinsky (Rus) 

We have seen how during 1915 the co-ordination of initiatives by the British, French and Russian triple entente had begun to take shape. Along with their newer allies Belgium, Italy and Serbia they held a first conference at Chantilly, outside Paris, on 7th July 1915. This did little more than agree principles, but at a second conference at Chantilly in December an outline was agreed for a major Anglo-French offensive in the area of the Somme river, and it was to take place in mid-summer 1916. Only two days before this, at an Anglo-French summit in Calais, Kitchener had prevailed upon the French Prime Minister Briand to pull out of the stalemated occupation of Salonika, in the same way that Britain was preparing to abandon Gallipoli. Crucially the French C-in-C Joffre was missing from the Calais meeting, and two days later he cajoled the partners in Chantilly to keep the Salonika front open, thereby retaining the interest of Russia, Italy and Serbia in that area. (It was also a volte-face re his arguments of late 1914).
Thus the eastern partners left the conference committed to simultaneous operations with the Anglo-French big push in Summer 1916, and a more general agreement to respond if any of the partners came under significant assault from the central powers. It was the latter eventuality that triggered the actions of 1916. We have also seen how Falkenhayn's pre-emptive strike on Verdun in February (Post 5/2/16) resulted in the Russian Lake Narotch offensive (Post 25/1/16). The Austrian offensive in the Trentino encountered stiff Italian resistance (Post 3/5/16) causing them to denude further their positions on the Eastern Front. As a direct consequence, Brusilov's offensive (Post 15/5/16), launched earlier than the Somme but in part to support the beleaguered Italians and French punched right through the Austrian positions and gave Russia its most successful campaign of the war. Only with the arrival of strong German reinforcements from the northern parts of the Western Front was Brusilov stopped.
All these events had a significant bearing on the Battle of the Somme.

The British army that fought at the Somme bore little resemblance to the BEF that had been hurriedly thrown into the breach at Mons and had fought so staunchly at Le Cateau and along the Great Retreat. Recall that around 150,000 hardened professional soldiers were all but wiped out in the desperate campaigns of 1914, a fate largely shared by the second line territorials through the attritional actions of 1915. Only in 1916 did the products of Kitchener's vision - the new army comprising well over a million volunteers - begin to arrive in large numbers in France. The Somme was to be their first major test.

The British section of the front
was to the north of the river
itself

In the euphoric early days of the war men had enlisted in their tens of thousands from all parts of the country, giving most of the new battalions a local intimacy that was – at first – seen as an advantage for morale. From the 'pals' battalions all over England (especially the industrial north) to the rifle brigades of the City of London and the Public Schools battalions men flocked to the recruiting call. National institutions such as the Post Office and the Railway companies provided many of their own battalions, often to the detriment of essential occupations. "The four counties of the Industrial North between them produced 134 New Army battalions, just over one-third of the thirty divisions eventually raised by Lord Kitchener in the whole of the United Kingdom" (from Martin Middlebrook: The First Day on the Somme). 

These locally named units e.g. Accrington Pals were created so quickly that the War Office struggled to allocate them within the existing Regimental and Divisional structure, resulting in dual names for many battalions throughout the war. Empire troops were also arriving in greater numbers, but only the Newfoundlanders would feature on the infamous first day actions. 

The rigid, class structured view of the army, meant that finding sufficient officers who were also ‘gentlemen’ provided one of the biggest challenges, and many public school educated members of the new volunteer battalions were removed to be rushed through officer training. 

From the 1914 position, with two army corps commanded by Haig and Smith-Dorrien reporting to the Commander-in-Chief Sir John French, the BEF had now expanded to five armies reporting to the C-in-C, now Douglas Haig. For the Somme battle, three armies were involved: the 4^th, commanded by Rawlinson would cover the majority of the front; the 3^rd under Allenby covered the northern limit, and, in reserve, the 5^th, commanded by Gough which was initially a Corps of cavalry, but would grow in size through the campaign.

General Fritz von Below.
A quintessential Prussian General

The German side of the battlefield was defended by their Second Army. In 1914 this had been the eastern part of the great sweeping German hammer, commanded by the veteran Bulow. Bulow had suffered a heart attack in early 1915, and had been replaced by a near namesake, Fritz von Below.
Initially, Below's Army was responsible for the whole of this front. His men were experienced and battle hardened, but at a significant numerical disadvantage.

As with a very different BEF,  the terrain for the battle was a significant change from the now familiar flat mud and clay stretches of Flanders. The gently rolling countryside of Picardie rests on chalk, much easier ground for making permanent trenches and defensive positions. The Germans had made the best of their opportunities to do so in the months since this portion of the Front had stabilised in late 1914. They had built at least three lines of defence, incorporating villages and hamlets within the lines, and built a number of redoubts at crucial points, which would allow them to concentrate machine gun and light artillery fire on movements from almost any point on the Allied side. The digging of the chalk left jagged white scars along the landscape on both sides of no-man's land, easily visible from aerial surveillance.