by the need to contain the first major British offensive of the war. From 24 June (includ-
ing the seven days of artillery preparation) to 13 November, the new British Army, greatly
swollen in size by the millions of volunteers of 1914–15 (between August 1914 and
September 1915, 2,257,521 men volunteered), attacked repeatedly on the unpromising
and strategically marginal open terrain of the Somme. Douglas Haig, the new British
Commander in Chief of the BEF, failed to achieve his intended breakthrough, but, as with
the French at Verdun, he did succeed in inflicting terrible and, in quality of experienced
regular soldiers, irreplaceable losses on the Germans. Overall casualties on the Somme
comprised 420,000 for the BEF, 195,000 for the French, and an unsustainable 650,000
for the Germans. In the context of the 434,000 losses at Verdun, it was plain for the
Germans to see that they had allowed themselves to be sucked into a war of attrition
which they could not possibly win, given the greatly superior numbers available to the
enemy coalition.
1917: political upheaval, but growing military competence
A new German High Command, the Hindenburg–Ludendorff team, prepared for 1917
by constructing a new defence zone, the so-called Hindenburg Line, in the winter of
1916–17, in order to shorten their front and economize on manpower. As for victory, the
baton was passed to the German Navy, but not to its High Seas Fleet, which was cowering
in port, still traumatized by an accidental near brush with disaster at Jutland on 31 May
- For the third time in the war, permission was granted to wage an unrestricted
submarine campaign. Beginning in February 1917, the Navy predicted that if it could
sink in excess of 600,000 tons of Allied shipping each month for five months, Britain
would be compelled to sue for peace. The strategic logic was reasonable, but like many
plausible theories it foundered in practice. On 10 May the Royal Navy was ordered by
the British government to institute a convoy system, and that wrote finisto the prospect
of Germany winning the war by maritime blockade. Not only did the submarine cam-
paign fail, but it had the well-anticipated effect of triggering a US declaration of war on
6 April. Much as in 1914, when execution of the Schlieffen–Moltke Plan was a reckless
gamble on a short-war victory in fear of an unwinnable long war, so the U-boat campaign
was a no less reckless bet on short-term victory, with the consequences of American
belligerency wholly discounted.
In 1917 the Germans were on the defensive on land in the West, pending the delivery
of victory by blockade at sea. But the Allies’ Russian front collapsed, despite energetic
efforts by the Kerensky government to fight on, and eventually there was a near cessation
of hostilities by the Russian Army after the Bolshevik Revolution of 7 November. As a
consequence, Germany’s geopolitical context was transformed. A glittering strategic
opportunity beckoned for 191 8. Apart from the notable addition of the United States as
a most welcome co-belligerent, 1917 was a terrible year for the Allies. Russia suffered
two revolutions and left the field. France staged a spectacular, but alas unduly well-
heralded, great offensive on the Aisne and in Champagne (the Nivelle Offensive – named
after its boastful, smooth-talking author, General Robert Nivelle), with 1,200,000 men
and 7,000 guns, from 16 to 20 April. The French lost 120,000 men in only five days,
and the operation was abandoned. The result of this failure, truly a forlorn hope, was
that forty-six of the 112 divisions in the French Army staged mutinies great and small
88 War, peace and international relations