BEF isn't wiped out

Lets imagine Gen Douglas Haig doesn't authorized the disasterous Somme Campaign that wiped out the best and brightest soldiers from the British Units. I think with those soldiers who were saved from a certain death, Britain could have continued their tank program unimpeded and launced a campaign in 1917 or even 1918 with tanks used as shields to screen Allied advances. How does keeping the cream of the crop alive affect the BEF's ability to conduct operations for the rest of the war? And we all know about the complete incompetence of the BEF generalship but would better leadership have won the battle or was the Somme a completely inept asinine calamity that was doomed to failure?
 
What The Red said plus remember at the time it was attritional warfare that was taking place. If the BEF hadn't attacked at the Somme, they might have been fed into the fighting at Verdun. A lot (most?) of the BEF was combat inexperienced on the 1st of July, they learned an awful lot over the course of the battle, which made a huge difference to the battles in 1917/18. The generalship wasn't incompetent, they were doing the best they could with the men and material at hand at the time. Don't forget the very significant part the French played in the battle as well, something often overlooked in Britain, it was NOT solely a British battle.
 
they were walking at a snails pace packed shoulder to shoulder just to get machine gunned down in whole units, if thats not incompetence i don;t know what is.
 
There wasn't really a better way to maintain unit cohesion, and IIRC, the main reason for the walking pace of the advance was so that the men wouldn't panic and break.
 

Delta Force

Banned
they were walking at a snails pace packed shoulder to shoulder just to get machine gunned down in whole units, if thats not incompetence i don;t know what is.

It was a different time. World War I was the first time machine guns had been widely used in a war between major powers (as opposed to a major power against natives in an area under invasion or rebellion) and the tactics had not kept up with the weaponry.

We've done similar things more recently as well. They used to do nuclear tests in the 1950s where the bomb would be detonated with units of infantry entrenched nearby ready to rush forwards towards the blast (simulating a tactical nuclear strike). Now thanks to improved radiation science we know that it would be a terrible idea to have unprotected soldiers so close to a nuclear blast.

When you look at history you have to avoid taking into account what we now know. If those at the time thought that the problems could be overcome, to them it made sense to keep going at it. The machine gun really was the first time in history that a defense was made virtually impossible to take, so it did require new thinking to counter.
 
they were walking at a snails pace packed shoulder to shoulder just to get machine gunned down in whole units, if thats not incompetence i don;t know what is.

No they weren't, I would advise you read up on the actual military tactics used on the Somme. While hardly up to date they weren't Napoleonic. They also weren't the cream of the British Army. The overwhelming majority of the units committed to the Somme were green Kitchener volunteers, very brave but hardly veteran.
The Old Contemptibles of the pre-war Regular Army, the finest army in the world in 1914 were gone by this point, killed in 1915 waiting from the Kitchener volunteers to arrive.
 
they were walking at a snails pace packed shoulder to shoulder just to get machine gunned down in whole units, if thats not incompetence i don;t know what is.

I suggest you read some books that don't rely on the Blackadder school of history which themselves rely on the Lloyd George school of history.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Lets imagine Gen Douglas Haig doesn't authorized the disasterous Somme Campaign that wiped out the best and brightest soldiers from the British Units. I think with those soldiers who were saved from a certain death, Britain could have continued their tank program unimpeded and launced a campaign in 1917 or even 1918 with tanks used as shields to screen Allied advances. How does keeping the cream of the crop alive affect the BEF's ability to conduct operations for the rest of the war? And we all know about the complete incompetence of the BEF generalship but would better leadership have won the battle or was the Somme a completely inept asinine calamity that was doomed to failure?

The BEF was the majority of the regular British Army before the war. The BEF took heavy casualties in 1914, and by 1916, the original BEF soldiers were largely dead or disabled. Even if the same unit numbers are used, they are not really the same units. The pre-war cream of the British empire was largely destroyed "saving" France in 1914. Many of the troops at the Somme were green, and few are what can be called elite.

If no Somme, then the British have to learn the lesson at another battle, presumably in 1917 in your proposed offensive, so the 1917 offensive actually likely performs worse. The British attack at the Somme was to relieve pressure on the French. The Germans constantly moved troops around by rail, so they will have more troops to use elsewhere. The Somme overlaps Verdun offensive and the Brusilov offensive. If used in Verdun, then the losses are just transferred to France. If used to counter the Brusilov offensive, then the Russian advance may be stopped. The max upside departure for this is 400,000 fewer A-H prisoners and a lot more Russian casualties. Also, Romania may not join the war on the Entente side without a Brusilov victory. So net, net. British have a lot more green troops. And either France or Russia is much weaker with a bonus potential of Romania not entering the war and A-H having two more full armies for 1917 and 1918. Doing nothing for a full year is rarely the correct answer in a hot war. The Somme was a disaster for the British, but doing nothing could have been far worse. You fight a war with the army you have, not the army you would like to have.
 
My Grandfather's BEF

My Grandfather was in the BEF from 1914 serving throughout the war. He would say that it was not wiped out and survived diluted as the backbone and model for the hugely expanded Territorial and New armies.
Like his contemporaries he saw the war as unfortunate but necessary; as German war aims showed. Haig was respected and popular with the returning troops after the war. The answer to avoiding the casulties of the Somme would be to avoid the war. Haig was (rightly) under the operational command of the French and the Somme was necessary in the context of pressuring the northern front to relieve the centre. Read the actual accounts of the troops then Corrigan's 'Mud, Blood and Poppycock'. War is a filthy business whatever the circumstances and not something enjoyed any from Haig downwards but the vast majority saw it as necessary and saw Haig as a professional commander using the resources made available to him and recognising his task was to prosecute the war as directed by the country's elected representatives. It's called democracy you know: 40 million lemmings can't be wrong..... Left to themselves the crowned heads would probably have stopped it.
 
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