Dimitri’s Reviews > Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century > Status Update

By 1917 "bite & hold" could take German-held high ground."the Allies' ability to destroy German divisions in the field faster than they could be reconstructed, in combination with moral exhaustion & material degradation would bring victory" Foch nibbled multifold, but unlike Ludendorff never tried a strategic victory via tactical rupture. His genius was to kick & punch the line back in diminishing waves.

Haig felt after 2.5 month slog the time was riper than usual for a Big Push on his ambitious cavalry maps now that the Germans were worn, his armies were refreshed & combined arms were a thing: the first tanks needed to be battle tested, the infantry was trained in assault & artillery spotting was sharp, especially in 6th Army...

September sparked a fresh round of Haig vs. Rawlingson, the strategic vs. the tacitcal view, to break all 3 German lines in 1 go or to breach them 1 by 1 in the French style... Philpott incorporates a lot of anti-Gary Sheffield and anti - Prior & Wilson remarks here... I put a fat pencil mark IMPORTANT HISTORICAL DEBATE POINTS...

On September 12th, 6th Army was posed to carry its 5 divisions as far as the Mont St.Quentin itself, but their initial breakthrough got plugged while the tandem British Battle of Flers-Coulette to capture villages on the Bapaume-Péronne road also lost momentum.
Wet autumn weather&shorter daylight were regulary starting to affect the follow-up dimension anchored on logistics, as well as overall coordination.

Rumours of a compromise peace were unwelcome for the Allied planners on the Somme, who sensed a tipping point in September. The 4th Army attacked in "Fayolle" style; sector by sector behind a creeping barrage that was more in tune with a peculiar stretch of ground, instead of a one-speed-fits-all jump barrage preceding a general attack like on July 1. Deville Wood fell & Péronne almost but Thiepval not..

"Personal losses which provoked the most intense civilian engagement with events in France had to be rationalized in terms of the Greater Cause. Individual suffering&grief had to be mediated through a narrative of purpose&sacrifice, of nobility&bravery amid the tragedy of battle"

Sixth Army was made the sword arm out of the August impasse: with Foch's methodical method, it could outflank Péronne via the Péronne-Bapaume Road. Yes, ye good ol' outflank !

Tactics on the Somme were slow to advance also. German counterattacks - in spite of all the stormtroop business - were usually as thickheaded as the British, whose uneven, piecemeal progress forced them to disentangle themselves before the next attempt under a creeping barrage - adopted by the French 6th Army as the new standard. Such redress was intransigent to trench warfare...

In August, things looked equally frustrating on the ground as on the map:

With the British locked around Thiepval on one bank & the French around Péronne, Mont St. Quenton towered Sauronesque behind. The French 6th Army scored some sluggish success against a dispersed & deepened second line between Maurepas & Cléry.

In 1940, French infantry would grumble that they never saw any of their aircraft in the skies: in 1916, the boot was on the other foot. An aggressive strategy that added bombing, straffing & dogfights in protection of friendly spotter planes to the classic passive balloon defence proved succesful, at the price of many sorties per day & high losses.