Battle_Of_The_Somme

Battle Of The Somme Brandon Hampton The battle of the Somme was a war enabled by mass industrialization. Communication and logistic problems were prevalent because of the inhumanly large scale of the battle. Countless deaths and unknown amounts of suffering occurred because of general staff miscalculations. Keegan is able to explain that the battle of the Somme simply came down to the potentially deadly British artillery versus the German machine gunners that sought shelter in their underground bunkers. Keegan explains that Kitchener’s army recruits were still a little green and relied upon artillery bombardments to win the battle. The one ton shells, capable of blowing craters in the earth ten meters deep, fired by the British artillery was not enough to completely obliterate all of the German machine gunners. This failure of the British artillery’s effectiveness caused the death of many British infantrymen. When the artillery barrages stopped, the remnants of the German machine gunners returned to the surface to unleash hell. Keegan analyzes the not just the battle, but the battle, keegan, war, british, artillery, machine, gunners, german, type, somme, side, questions, own, men, just, go, explains, each, because, answer, win, wills, weapons, weaponry, way, vision, versus, upon, unleash, unknown, underground, ton, ten, surreal, surface