A Lucky Assassination: A Different Somme Offensive

[Adrien_skywalker]

This will be the last thread that I create currently with my ongoing story-line's. This is something that I have been laying a lot of groundwork for.

Basically, most of what I have read indicates that Field Marshal Douglas Haig handled the Somme offensive very badly, to put it in the least offensive manner. This scenario envisages what could have happened if a different commander was in charge?

So, my scenario is this. Three months prior to the Somme Offensive, Haig gets assassinated while laying the ground work for the offensive.

With his death, who would be in line to take that responsibility, and who would be given the command of the BEF and consecutively the responsibility for the Somme Offensive? What can be done differently from Haig's plans?

These are the ones I am actively considering as replacements for Haig.

General Frederick Stanley Maude

General John Monash

General Herbert Plumer

General Henry Wilson

Sir William Robertson (CIGS at the time)

 

[marathag]

Three months prior to the Somme Offensive, Haig gets assassinated

Why assassinated? would not food or alcohol poisoning be enough to get him away from France for a few months.

Problem is, whoever takes over the job has little recourse than to use the exact tactics that seemed to make Haig such a Donkey that will get a lot of men needlessly killed, but possibly, and I mean slight chance, would call the slaughter off sooner when it was obvious that this 'Big Push' wasn't working.
Despite a far larger and longer shelling of German Trenches that had ever been done. Too bad many of those 1.5M shells would turn out to be duds

An attack had to be launched to take pressure off the French at Verdun.

So you are going to get 60,000 casualties on Day One(near 20k killed), all those inexperienced Pals Battalions will go over the top and walk slowly into a meatgrinder, no matter who was in command. General Rawlinson of 4th Army ordered that infantry troops were to advance at a walking pace in evenly spaced lines.
Perfect targets for the German Machine gunners.
The handful of Tanks deployed didn't change that

unless somebody calls off the attack sooner than OTL November, after 141 days with 420,000 casualties and 125,000 deaths

 

[marathag]

Period Documentary on the Somme

 

[Deleted member 94680]

How does changing the CiC of the BEF change the French demands for an offensive alongside Verdun?

Haig’s replacement wouldn't be Robertson would it? Isn’t CIGS to CiC BEF is a step down?

 

[Lalli]

Surely Haig made several mistakes in Somme but can someone else be much better? There was much of pressure commit such suicidal attack and there wasn't much other options. Someone might do better but it probably wouldn't change much.

And why to kill Haig? Probably you can replace him without any violence. For example just let him break his leg when he falls from his horse.

 

[Adrien_skywalker]

I considered those options, but then I thought that even if he was indisposed, he still had enough political connections to make a nuisance of himself and interfere indirectly, considering that the command staff was beholden to him. So, I intended a clean break of sorts. Then again, even with Haig gone, casualties numbering at least a 100,000 at the minimum are guaranteed to occur in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Haig gets a bad rap, but he did the best he could given the limitations of WW1 militaries, the institutional issues inherent of that generation, and the coping of militaries with strategic priorities and the revolution in military affairs that bewildered everyone.
As it was on the Somme he wanted to wait another 2 months to train and prepare his forces, as his 'New Armies' were still not fully trained and ready for combat and he knew that. The thing is political pressure because of the French being driven to the breaking point at Verdun meant he couldn't wait any more and did what he could get get his forces together in time to try and help the French with the early offensive. I don't think someone knew without experience in that position would do any better.

 

[Derek Pullem]

If Haig dies in March 1916 then Rawlinson (commanding 4th Army) will not have completed his assessment of the campaign plans yet. Which means his less ambitious plans for the offensive (precursors of "bite and hold") may be adopted. This might make the attack slightly less disastrous.

 

[sts-200]

Haig certainly has a bad reputation, in no small part thanks to 1970s+ biased histories (politically biased IMO - but happily this is not a political site, so perhaps we should leave that there). I find some more recent histories to be a little more neutral.

However, there is no doubt Haig made mistakes, but what would anyone else have done?
Most of what was proposed sounded like sensible common-sense tactics and ideas.

Heavy artillery barrage
-to break up barbed wire with shrapnel
-to crater the ground, providing cover for slow-moving troops

Troops to carry heavy loads of ammunition and supplies to ensure they can stay in action, partly to compensate for their inexperience.
Use of the few tanks that were available as widely-spaced 'mobile machine gun posts'.
An all-out initial attack, in the hope that the sudden pressure would break the lines.
Then maintain the offensive, to take pressure off the French and to 'wear the Germans down'.

Without hindsight, I find it hard to criticise any of those ideas.
Was it a failure? - yes certainly.
But ideas have to be tried, and it could have been worse.

I don't know what sort of story you have in mind, but do bear in mind that the Germans were just as appalled and damaged by the Somme as the British. Afterwards, the Germans believed they couldn't afford to fight another similar battle, and the offensive prompted the withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in early '17 - although you can argue whether that is an accomplishment, as they then benefited from well-prepared fresh defences of their own choosing.

 

[Garrison]

Basically, most of what I have read indicates that Field Marshal Douglas Haig handled the Somme offensive very badly, to put it in the least offensive manner. This scenario envisages what could have happened if a different commander was in charge?

Then frankly I think you need to do some different reading. The issue in 1916 was very simple, the British Army in France had expanded from 6 divisions to 60 divisions in two years. No one had ever envisioned Britain raising such a mass army. There was no conscription, so no pool of trained and experienced men to draw on in the way the French and the Germans could, and there was no infrastructure in place produce the weapons such a mass army would need, especially artillery. None of the responsibility for this BTW rest with the generals, it was all political decision making. As to the Somme itself this was originally a French offensive with the British in a supporting role. The British Generals didn't not like the plan, they felt it was terrible ground to fight on, there were no clear strategic objectives and they were well aware their army was far from ready for such large scale operations. the politicians in London nonetheless insisted that the French had to be supported and so the Generals had to go along, of course these were the same politicians who would later condemn the generals as callous butchers.

This situation was bad enough but then the Germans struck first at Verdun. Now the French insisted the Somme attack had to go ahead to pin down the German forces there and prevent them hitting Verdun from a different flank. At the same time they insisted on increasing the British role to the point that it was essentially a British battle with French support rather than the other way round. So the British face a taking on the lead role in a battle they didn't want but must fight to take the pressure off Verdun with green troops, officers still learning to command forces larger than they've ever imagined, with inadequate artillery, oh and once the troops are out of their trenches the only means of communications is runners carrying messages so the fog of war descends over the battlefield instantly.

You can swap Generals all you like but unless you are going to change the entire landscape of the war in 1916 I doubt you'll change the outcome of the Somme.

 

[Garrison]

I don't know what sort of story you have in mind, but do bear in mind that the Germans were just as appalled and damaged by the Somme as the British. Afterwards, the Germans believed they couldn't afford to fight another similar battle, and the offensive prompted the withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in early '17 - although you can argue whether that is an accomplishment, as they then benefited from well-prepared fresh defences of their own choosing.

The German withdrawal in the west to the Hindenburg Line was a smart move, completely undermined by the decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare and of course the Zimmermann Telegram. Once the Americans entered the war they couldn't simply sit behind their defences and hope to wear the Allies down. That lead to the Kaiserschlacht, the Hundred Days and the armistice.