1. What does this statement mean:
Think!
What does this statement mean:
“Lions led by Donkeys”

2. “Lions led by Donkeys”- Is this an accurate assessment of the Battle of the Somme?

3. Outcomes: To know what happened at the Battle of the Somme
To explain reasons for and against the assessment
To make an overall judgement about the statement using a GCSE style question.
Starter
Look at this photo carefully.
Write down all the words you would use to describe this man in your book.

4. Task
Glue in the map and explain why the British army was ordered to attack on the Somme front in the summer of 1916.
Heavy French losses at Verdun brought the date of the Somme offensive forward by a month, to 1st July, on the insistence of General Joffre. The aim was to divert German attention from Verdun in defence of the Somme. General Sir Douglas Haig would have preferred to attack later on, on the open plains of Flanders where there was more to be gained strategically, and when the volunteer army raised by Kitchener had been trained more fully.
However, as Britain was the 'junior partner in a coalition with France... the French tended to call the shots'.

5. What happened
When the men went over-the-top at 7:30 am on 1st July, wave after wave were simply mown down by enemy fire. Approximately 60,000 men were killed or wounded by the end of the first day. The French, attacking where the defences were weaker, had been more successful yet without back up from the British they were unable to hold on to their advance.
Convinced of eventual success Haig allowed the bloodshed to continue despite the growing losses. By the time he called off his 'Great Push' on 28th November 1916 more than 450,000 British, 200,000 French and 650,000 German soldiers had been slaughtered. After four months of fighting the Allies had advanced a distance of no more than five miles.

6. “Lions led by Donkeys”- accurate assessment
“Lions led by Donkeys”- NOT accurate assessment
A- “advance in such admirable order”
“magnificent display of gallantry” but “hardly a man of ours got the German front line”

7. Source A “They advanced in line after line, dressed as if on parade,
and not a man shirked going through the extremely heavy
barrage, or facing the machine-gun and rifle fire that
finally wiped them out. I saw the lines which advanced in
such admirable order melting away under the fire. Yet not
a man wavered, broke the ranks, or attempted to come
back. I have never seen, I would never have imagined,
such a magnificent display of gallantry, discipline and
determination. The reports I have had from the very few
survivors of this marvellous advance bear out what I saw
with my own eyes, viz, that hardly a man of ours got to the
German front line.”
General Rees, commander of 94th Infantry
Brigade at the Somme, described how his men went into
battle on 1st July, 1916.

8. Source B Born In 1861 General Haig had been trained as a
Cavalry Officer (mounted
soldier). His career had
been spent fighting
enemies of the Empire in
India and other parts of the
World that did not have the
weaponry the Germans had.

9. Source C
Concentrated machine gun fire from sufficient guns to command every
inch of the wire, had done its terrible work. The Germans must have
been reinforcing the wire for months. It was so dense that daylight
could barely be seen through it. Through the glasses it looked a black
mass. The German faith in massed wire had paid off. How did our
planners imagine that Tommies, having survived all other hazards –
And there were plenty in crossing No Man's Land - would get through
the German wire? Had they studied the black density of it through their
powerful binoculars? Who told them that artillery fire would pound such
wire to pieces, making it possible to get through? Any Tommy could
have told them that shell fire lifts wire up and drops it down,
often in a worse tangle than before.
George Coppard was a machine-gunner at the Battle of the Somme. In his book
With A Machine Gun to Cambrai, he described what he saw on the 2nd July, 1916.

10. Source D By the third week in November the three
main objects with which we had commenced
our offensive had already been achieved:
Verdun had been relieved; the main German
forces had been held on the Western front;
and the enemy’s strength had been
considerably worn down.
Extract from “Sir Douglas Haig’s Great Push”,
Hutchinson, 1917.

11. British artillery firing on the first day of the Battle- July 1st 1916
Source E
British artillery firing on the first day of the Battle- July 1st 1916

12. Source F
The reasons the British failed was not due to the Inability of Haig but:
Inadequate artillery- If the artillery had done its job properly to break the barbed wire and destroy the German trenches, the British attacks would’ve been successful.
Poor communications, which led to Battalions advancing too fast, or charging hopeless causes at great loss.
John D Clare, historian, 2008

13. Source G
We were very surprised to see them walking. We had never seen that before. When we started firing, we just had to load and reload. They went down in their hundreds. You didn’t have to aim, we just fired into them.
By a German machine Gunner
on the Somme

14. Source H The soldiers were ordered into battle on the
following day and every day for 20 weeks. Haig
was later much criticised for this. He and his
supporters pointed to the fact that he had pinned
down a large part of the German army for nearly 6
months. He was also under pressure from the
French to continue fighting on the Somme, since
the Battle of Verdun…was still being fought 200
km away. (the first day of the Somme was the 132nd of the Battle of Verdun)
School history textbook 1996

15. Source I
On 1 July an enormous British army began to move slowly across 'no-man's-land' towards the German defences. The soldiers had been told the enemy trenches would be smashed. They had expected shell-shocked soldiers ready to surrender...Everywhere they met a hail of accurate machine-gun fire... A brave volunteer army had marched to its death.
LE Snellgrove, The Modern World Since 1870 (1968)

16. “Lions led by Donkeys”- Is this an accurate assessment
of the Battle of the Somme?

17. On the one hand this is an accurate assessment of the
“Lions led by Donkeys”- Is this an accurate assessment of the Battle of the Somme?
On the one hand this is an
accurate assessment of the
General's leadership at the
battle of the Somme
Evidence
Explanation
However, it is possible to say
that this statement is unfair
and not accurate
Evidence
Explanation
Conclusion: Overall I think…

18. “Lions led by Donkeys”- Is this an accurate assessment of the Battle of the Somme? 10 marks
1-2 Marks (equivalent to U-G):
You offer simple generalised comments about the assessment provided in the question.
3-4 Marks (equivalent to F-E):
You identify a range of specific examples of evidence to support the assessment provided, but offer no explanation as to why the assessment is accurate.
Or, you identify a range of specific examples of evidence to go against the assessment, but again you offer no explanation as to why the assessment is accurate.
5-6 Marks (equivalent to D-C):
You explain why the assessment is accurate, using specific examples of evidence to support the interpretation provided.
Or, you explain why it is not accurate, using specific examples of evidence to support them.
7-9 Marks (equivalent to B-A*):
You explain both sides of the argument
10 Marks (equivalent to A*)
For top marks you will reach a conclusion as to how accurate this assessment is

19. The battle of the Somme- events.
1) a huge new army of Volunteers was created to launch the attack.
2) Supplies and men assembled on the Somme front to attack
3) German defences were bombarded with over 1.5 million shells for seven days before the attack.
4) The bombardment was supposed to destroy the German defences, break their barbed wire and kill most of the defenders
5) Three big mines and 7 smaller ones were exploded under the German defences.
6) The Infantry was then to advance across no mans land and break through the German defences
7) Cavalry was the to be sent through the gap in the German line and attack it from behind.
Strengths of the plan
Weaknesses of the plan