The Allies had decided to launch an offensive against the Germans at late 1916. But then the Battle of Verdun started. It was a German offensive made to literally wear down the French.
French really needed help, a distraction to relieve the pressure off the French. So the Battle of Somme was rescheduled to the first of July 1916. It wasn’t meant to be at Somme, in fact Ypres is where the offensive should have been launched but because both the French and the British armies meet at the Somme river, the offensive was planned to launch there.
The Plan
Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson and General Sir Douglas Haig drew up the plan of the offensive.
First they would carry out a week-long artillery bombardment on the German defensive lines. This would hopefully destroy the barbed wires, flatten the trenches and eliminate the soldiers inside of it. They would also plant mines under key German strong points and fill it with explosives.
The British third army will make a diversion attack at Gommecourt, then the rest of the 16 British and French divisions can easily complete their goals of the day. The attack had been scheduled at 7:30 am.
Day 1
The offensive started at 7:30 as planned but later intel recovered from aerial observation said that most artilleries hadn’t even landed where they were supposed to. A few mines blew up under key strong points and the British took them but that was it. A few divisions did advance to the second line of German defense but they were quickly eliminated by German machine guns.
But far back south, there were victories as the armies there had achieved there goals. A few British divisions and all French Divisions were very successful. This was mainly because the German hadn’t expected the offensive to reach that far south.
For 4 months the Battle raged on, only at the end did the Allies defeated the third line of defense’s. Around that time too, the French defeated the Germans in Verdun. Two of the bloodiest battles ending at around the same time.