The Battle of Albert (1–13 July 1916) is the British name for the first two weeks of British–French offensive operations of the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment commenced on 24 June and the British–French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt, beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German 2nd Army but from near the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt, the British attack was a disaster, where most of the casualties of the day were incurred. Against the wishes of General Joseph Joffre, General Sir Douglas Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road to reinforce the success in the south, where the British–French forces pressed forward through several intermediate lines closer to the German second position.
The French Sixth Army advanced across the Flaucourt plateau south of the Somme and reached Flaucourt village by the evening of 3 July, taking Belloy-en-Santerre and Feullières on 4 July. The French also pierced the German third line opposite Péronne at La Maisonette and Biaches by the evening of 10 July. German reinforcements were able to slow the French advance and defeat attacks on Barleux. On the north bank, XX Corps was ordered to consolidate the ground captured on 1 July, except for the completion of the advance to the first objective at Hem next to the river, which was captured on 5 July. Some minor attacks took place and German counter-attacks at Hem on 6 to 7 July nearly retook the village. A German attack at Bois Favières delayed a joint British–French attack from Hardecourt to Trônes Wood by until 8 July.
British attacks south of the Albert–Bapaume road began on 2 July, despite congested supply routes to the French XX Corps and the three British corps in the area. La Boisselle, near the road, was captured on 4 July; Bernafay and Caterpillar woods were occupied from 3 to 4 July and then fighting to capture Trônes Wood, Mametz Wood and Contalmaison took place until early on 14 July, when the Battle of Bazentin Ridge (14–17 July) began. German reinforcements reaching the Somme front were thrown into the battle as soon as they arrived and suffered many casualties, as did the British. Both sides were reduced to piecemeal operations, which were hurried, poorly organised and sent troops unfamiliar with the ground into action with inadequate reconnaissance. Attacks were poorly supported by artillery, which was not adequately co-ordinated with the infantry and sometimes fired on friendly troops. There has been much criticism of the British attacks as uncoordinated, tactically crude and wasteful of manpower, which gave the Germans an opportunity to concentrate their inferior resources on narrow fronts.
The loss of about casualties in one day was never repeated but from 2 to 13 July, the British had about casualties; the rate of loss changed from about per day. From 1 to 10 July, the Germans had against a British total of about from 1 to 13 July. The effect of the battle on the defenders has received less attention in English-language writing. The strain imposed by the British attacks after 1 July and the French advance on the south bank led General Fritz von Below to issue an order of the day on 3 July, forbidding voluntary withdrawals ("The enemy should have to carve his way over heaps of corpses.") after Falkenhayn had sacked , the 2nd Army Chief of Staff and , the commander of XVII Corps, for ordering the corps to withdraw to the third position close to Péronne. The German offensive at Verdun had already been reduced on 24 June to conserve manpower and ammunition; after the failure to capture Fort Souville at Verdun on 12 July, Falkenhayn ordered a "strict defensive" and the transfer of more troops and artillery to the Somme front, which was the first strategic effect of the British–French offensive.
Background Strategic developments
The head of , General Erich von Falkenhayn, intended to split the British and French alliance in 1916 and end the war, before the Central Powers were crushed by Allied material superiority. To obtain decisive victory, Falkenhayn needed a way to break through the Western Front and defeat the strategic reserves which the Allies could move into the path of a German advance. Falkenhayn planned to provoke the French into attacking, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line.
Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun over the Meuse Heights, to capture ground which overlooked Verdun to make it untenable. The French would have to conduct a counter-offensive, on ground dominated by the Germans and ringed with masses of heavy artillery, inevitably causing the French huge losses and bringing the French army close to collapse. The British would have no choice but to begin a hasty relief offensive to divert German attention from Verdun but would also suffer huge losses. If these defeats were not enough, Germany would attack both armies and end the western alliance for good.
The unexpected length and cost of the Verdun offensive and the underestimation of the need to replace exhausted units there, depleted the German strategic reserve placed behind the 6th Army, which held the front between Hannescamps south-west of Arras and St Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence. On the Eastern Front the Brusilov Offensive began on 4 June and on 7 June a German corps was sent to Russia from the western reserve, followed quickly by two more divisions. After the failure to capture Fort Souville at Verdun on 12 July, Falkenhayn was obliged to suspend the offensive and reinforce the defences of the Somme front, even though the 5th Army was on the brink of the strategic objective of the offensive.
The British–French plan for an offensive on the Somme front had been decided at the Chantilly Conference of December 1915 as part of a general Allied offensive by the British, French, Italians and Russians. British and French intentions were quickly undermined by the German offensive at Verdun which began on 21 February 1916. The original proposal was for the British to conduct preparatory offensives in 1916 before a great British–French offensive from Lassigny to Gommecourt, in which the British would make a maximum effort. The French would attack with on a front of and the British with divisions on a front on the northern French flank. The course of the battle at Verdun led the French gradually to reduce the number of divisions for operations on the Somme, until it became a supporting attack for the British on a front with only five divisions. The original intention had been for a rapid eastwards advance to the higher ground beyond the Somme and Tortille rivers, during which the British would occupy the ground beyond the upper Ancre. The combined armies would then attack south-east and north-east, to roll up the German defences on the flanks of the breakthrough. By 1 July, the strategic ambition of the Somme offensive had been reduced in scope from a decisive blow against Germany, to relieving the pressure on the French army at Verdun and contributing, with the Russian and Italian armies, to the common Allied offensive.
Tactical developments
1 July
The First day on the Somme was the opening day of the Battle of Albert (1–13 July 1916). Nine corps of the French Sixth Army and the British Fourth and Third armies attacked the German 2nd Army (General Fritz von Below) from Foucaucourt south of the Somme to Serre, north of the Ancre and at Gommecourt beyond. The objective of the attack was to capture the German first and second positions from Serre south to the Albert–Bapaume road and the first position from the road south to Foucaucourt. Most of the German defences south of the road collapsed and the French attack succeeded on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from Maricourt on the army boundary, where XIII Corps took Montauban and reached all its objectives and XV Corps captured Mametz and isolated Fricourt. The III Corps attack either side of the Albert–Bapaume road was a disaster, making a substantial advance next to the 21st Division on the right and only a short advance at Lochnagar Crater and to the south of La Boisselle; the largest number of casualties of the day was suffered by the 34th Division. Further north, X Corps captured part of the Redoubt, failed opposite Thiepval and had a great but temporary success on the left, where the 36th (Ulster) Division overran the German front line and captured temporarily the and Stuff redoubts.
German counter-attacks during the afternoon, recaptured most of the lost ground and fresh attacks against Thiepval were defeated, with more great loss to the British. On the north bank of the Ancre, the attack of VIII Corps was another disaster, with large numbers of British troops being shot down in no man's land. The diversionary Attack on the Gommecourt Salient by VII Corps was also costly, with only a partial and temporary advance south of the village. The German defeats from Foucaucourt to the Albert–Bapaume road left the German defence south of the Somme incapable of resisting another attack and a substantial German retreat began from the Flaucourt plateau towards Péronne; north of the river, Fricourt was abandoned overnight. The British army had suffered its highest number of casualties in a day and the elaborate defences built by the Germans over two years had collapsed from Foucaucourt south of the Somme, to the area just south of the Albert–Bapaume road north of the river, throwing the defence into a crisis and leaving the s "buoyant". A German counter-attack north of the Somme was ordered but took until on 2 July to begin.
2–13 July It took until 4 July for the British to relieve the divisions shattered by the attack of 1 July and resume operations south of the Albert–Bapaume road. The number of German defenders in the area was underestimated but British Intelligence reports of a state of chaos in the German 2nd Army and piecemeal reinforcement of threatened areas, were accurate. The British changed tactics after 1 July and used the French method of smaller, shallower and artillery-laden attacks. Operations were conducted to advance south of the Albert–Bapaume road, towards the German second position, in time for a second general attack on 10 July, which due to the effect of the German defence and British–French supply difficulties in the Maricourt Salient, was postponed to 14 July. German counter-attacks were as costly as British-French attacks and the loss of the most elaborately fortified German positions, like those at La Boisselle, prompted determined German efforts to recapture them. A combined British–French attack was planned for 7 July, postponed until 8 July after a German counter-attack at Bois Favière captured part of the wood. The inherent difficulties of coalition warfare were made worse by the German defensive effort and several downpours of rain, which turned the ground to mud and filled shell-holes with water, making movement difficult, even in areas not under fire.