Two Weeks at the Somme Killed as Many Soldiers as a Century of Wars Combined
After a century without a great-power war, people had little sense of what one would mean.
The Rest Is Politics: Leading · The Storm Before The World War? | Odd Arne WestadIn the first fortnight of the Somme offensive, the death toll among soldiers matched the total for all wars fought from 1815 to 1914 combined.
That comparison comes from Odd Arne Westad, the author of a new book on the lead-up to the First World War. He says part of the problem was "a complete lack of imagination," that "great power war is something that happens at a different level," and that, looking at today, people "just aren't prepared for thinking along those lines."
Westad says there had not been a major war between the leading powers for 100 years before 1914, as after 1945 in our time, and people got used to peace lasting forever.
Questions people ask
How bloody was the Somme overall?
The Somme was fought from July to November 1916, largely by British and French troops against Germany, and produced more than one million killed and wounded on all sides. The first day, July 1, remains the bloodiest day in British military history, with about 19,000 British soldiers killed and nearly 60,000 wounded or missing.
Why were the hundred years before 1914 relatively peaceful for great powers?
Europe had no general war after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, partly because the major powers built alliances and congresses meant to preserve the balance and avoid another continent-wide conflict. There were still major wars, including the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the American Civil War, but none mobilized whole industrial societies at once.
Why did World War I kill on such a different scale?
Armies entered 1914 with railways, mass conscription, machine guns, heavy artillery, and barbed wire that made defense vastly stronger than attack. Commanders still ordered mass infantry advances, so soldiers were exposed for weeks and months in a way Napoleonic-era battles had rarely produced.