Battle of the S the first day of the S 1st of July 1916 in 1915 Britain was unable to launch any major attacks but that was all about to change the British volunteers who made up the new armies were eager to go to battle the aim of the offensive was to attack in picy north of the river Som break through the German line exploiting the Gap with Cavalry this was to be a joint angalo French effort however many troops from the French army had to be withdrawn to reinforce were done general Douglas hag's plan would use 750,000 men against the German front line General Henry rollinson would lead the main attack with the fourth Army while General Edmund Allenby and the third Army would lead supporting operations morale was high amongst the British and especially with the new Army recruits after an 8-day British bombardment which ha thought would destroy the German forward defenses the attack began British soldiers moved across no man's land on the 1st of July at 7 30 in the morning they were soon hit by machine guns and explosive shells as they progressed towards the German line the advance was been halted because of barbed wire and heavily defended trenches General fa and the French sixth Army did well in the South but the British army suffered a ping heavy losses they had suffered 58,000 casualties with a third of them killed the battle had failed for a number of reasons on that day the bombardment was inadequate because of the lack of artillery and weakness of their shells in destroying barbed wire and C in the enemy trenches the delay between the barrage and the attack gave the Germans time to recover to their positions and man them ha did not prepare an alternative plan for July the 1st because he did not have faith in the new troops to cope with anything but the step-by-step approach drummed into them pre- battle the state of communications also meant that any intel he received from the front line would be outdated by the time it reached him the first day of the pm has been called the worst day in the history of the British army watch our other videos to learn more get your copy of simple history World War I available on Amazon now