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The battle of the Somme The battle of the Somme was organised as a joint operation between Britain and France and was accepted by General Sir Douglas Haig who was the BEF commander. It was also an attempt to destroy German manpower. At first the plan was to use mainly French soldiers but when the Germans attacked Verdun in February 1916 it turned the Somme offensive into a very large British attack. Haig was now in …

…they had broken through but German reinforcements arrived in time to close the gap back up. Haig thought the Germans were ready to retreat and he continued making attacks with some successful breakthroughs. With the cold weather fading, Haig decided to bring it to an end. Since the 1st July, the British had suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000 and the Germans lost in the region of about 500,000 men with some land gained but only reached 12km.