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Battle of Verdun
German offensive in the western front. Erich von Falkenhayn had been proposing a more aggresive strategy in the western front and this was the moment it came to fulfillment. By putting the french under pressure they could not attack the germans so easily -
Preparatory Artillery Bombardment
The objective of this artillery bombardment was to break the barbed wire and collapse the german trenches. This was unsuccessful despite the bombardment lasting one full week -
Battle of Albert
The first day of this battle is known as "the bloodiest day in the history of the british army". In total there were 70,000 casualties of which 57,000 were british soldiers. The french were much more succesful in their attempt, but the allies took a 2 week break before their next attack -
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Battle of the Somme
An Anglo-French offensive which had the objective of dividing the german resources on the western front as a defense mechanism against the german offensive in Verdun -
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1st Phase
The british innexperienced volunteer-filled army stumbles to try and get some victories while the french make decent progress in the south -
Battle of Bazentin Ridge
This british attack had the villages of Bazentin le Petit, Bazentin le Grand and Longueval as objectives, but despite being successful poor british communications made it lack a follow up attack. It finished on July 17th -
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2nd Phase
The british and french attacks change their targets to the fortified villages supplying the german army and overall tactical points of interest, such as woods and highground -
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Battle of Delville Wood
This "salient" of the german first line took more than a month to finally have control over due to the artillery attacks coming from three directions at the same time -
Battle of Fromelles
What was supposed to just further support the french success of the south was turned into a complete failure as preparations were rushed and german deffense was greatly underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1 -
Battle of Pozières
The battle started with the australian first division taking the town and being retaliated by the germans up until august 7th when british and french cooperation finally worked. The australian first division also took the plateau looking over Thiepval -
Battle of Guillemont
One of the most crucial battles of the Somme, as the fortified village of Guillemont was surrounded by german key points such as High Wood and Falfemont Farm. After a previous failed british attack the allies (UK and France) join to win the battle. After this ally progress really opened up -
Battle of Ginchy
The ally victory in Ginchy deprived Germany of multiple observation posts and September ended up with 130,000 german casualties -
Battle of Flers-Courcelette
The plan was a joint anglo-french attack with the british attacking the towns of Morval, Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs
and the french attacking Frégicourt, Rancourt and Combles. However, the french had trouble in Combles which caused the british attack to be delayed to a later date. This battle introduced tanks to the war -
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3rd Phase
The overall fighting slowed down significantly and the british especially started to experiment with different weapons. The cold weather forced the battle to end -
Battle of Morval
The British attacked Morval, Gueudecourt, Lesbouefs while the french attacked Combles to combine with the British reserve army that would attack the next day -
Battle of Thiepval Ridge
The attacks of the day before successfully isolated Thiepval and that allowed the objectives of the reserve army in Thiepval somewhat achieved. The reserve army experimented with the use of gas and combined infantry-tank attacks -
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Battle of Le Transloy
This battle suffered delays in operations and even the cancelation of Third Army activities due to bad weather. Fourth army were reduced to only joint attacks with the french -
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Battle of Ancre Heights
This battle was characterised by a back and forth of counterattacks between the british reserve army and the germans. It wasn't until November 11th that the reserve army secured the area -
Battle of Ancre
The Battle of Ancre was the last british operation of the year and the objective was to gain territory in the Ancre Valley and to prevent germans from repositioning to other fronts. The fighting stopped after the 18th because the bad weather was too bad to deal with -
Distraction
The british continued operations in the Somme to distract the germans while they prepared the offensive in Arras (where the german second line was made by Hindenburg)