[ SECRET POST #3665 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3665 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #524.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: whatcha reading

[(Anonymous)]

Er well, I go into this with caution because the Somme is such a mythic event in British consciousness, and saying anything that goes against the Blackadder school of thought (for want of a better term) tends to result in dogpiling.

But. The book looks at the analysis of the battle that the German High Command was doing from day one. Things like statistical analyisis of age of captured soldiers, which told the Germans that the British could keep putting young, fit men into the front line, month after month. Very careful interviewing of British prisoners - the "a cup of coffee and a sympathetic ear" school of information gathering, much more productive than beating people up. And the British morale remained surprisingly high, right through the godawful first few days and into November. "We're going to win this war" was the message they kept telling the Germans, and eventually the Germans had to agree. They called off the terrible year-long meat-grinder siege of Verdun, which is basically what the Somme was designed to do, (thank-you Joffre) and possibly another major attack further north, because the Somme stretched them to breaking point.

Somewhere in the book I believe there's a reference to the Germans trying to open diplomatic channels at the end of the battle. I can't find it again and don't know if I can read through the whole thing in search of it - it's a really tough read, as I said. But I suspect there's a chance the battle could have ended the war, if the politicians hadn't been so pig-headed.

So when people say it was a great British victory, hell yes it was. Not because of the few miles of ground gained (though even that was a major achievement by the standards of the mutual, 400-mile siege) but because it was a game-changer. The Germans were fairly caught on the hop by some of the British innovations, eg tanks, and they realised that even in war-of-attrition terms, they weren't going to win.

Unnumbered tears shall ye shed... Tolkien fought in it, and he should know.

Re: whatcha reading

[skeletal_history]

Thank you for the detailed answer! (I hope you see this a day late!) I've put this on my to-read list.

Re: whatcha reading

[(Anonymous)]

I did indeed! Hope you find it interesting (I can't say I hope you enjoy it, because the Somme...)