Battle of the Somme in 45 seconds using Google Earth 

both sides collide and with trench warfare. cannot advance even with artillery support

Yeah, it’s tragic

@@Murmanskkk yeah It's just sad to think hundreds of thousands and even millions were just sent there to die

@@sardinianleftist even more sad to see ppl die in the last hour of the war. The only happy ending was the christmas truce

@@Murmanskkk that's the worst thing that most soldiers acknowledged the ending of the war even hours after the ceasefire was declared

Thanks, someone said it. Also the popular WW2 video showing makes this mistake. This is a MASSIVE mistake. There are some cases where the country shown with more troops had actually less troops in the battlefied, just more rotating troops.

I think they just need to add numbers while it’s ticking. Pause and add then start lowering again. I think it’s a pretty good representation for 45 seconds and almost no detail. It’s a great way to introduce people

Thanks for pointing it out, even in Wikipedia it says it and if you watch any map of the battle with divisions shown you can see there were nowhere near that many

Good point. That’s actually something that needs to be remember often .

And one of if not the most brutal war in history

i like more the ww1 than the ww2 the ww1 was more epic than ww2

@@rangolegal5718 Epic is not how I would describe WW1 or WW2. 16 million died in WW1 so calling the brutal and horrific deaths of millions (not even mentioning WW2) epic is quite insensitive.

@@rangolegal5718not really There is barely any border changes in the western front

answering both, I didn't mean epic in changing borders and such, I meant epic in question of how the two sides just got into a big crisis, although the entente recovered at the end of the war. But it's epic because it seems like more things happened in less time, the Ottoman empire entering, Italy betraying the defense pact, that is, it was not a war of who was stronger, it was a war of who could last the most, since both sides were practically the same strength

It’s almost like defensive warfare invalidates numbers?

@@lesdodoclips3915 The defensive battle favored the Germans and this is apparently forgotten, the Somme victory was a pyrrhic victory, i.e. a victory at a high cost of lives, the allies had 656,000 casualties, while the Germans had 400,000 casualties, even though they were attacked by tanks, artillery, and planes, the German forces retreated only 10km, and no strategic position that the allies planned to capture was actually captured, the Germans retreated only at the end of the year, by surprise, to a better fortified line 25km from the Somme

@@juliocesarfeitosa8438 it was a pyrhic victory for the germans

@@juliocesarfeitosa8438 they shouldnt have counterattacked.

@@juliocesarfeitosa8438 No one won at the Somme. The Entente lost many men but so did the Germans especially men the cannot replace, there's a reason they abandoned many of their hard won lands to retreat at the Siegfried line. So don't frame it as if only the allies suffered.

Because Of Stupid Charges

This was ww1

@@yannaingtun3675wouldn’t say stupid there was good tactics most ww1 battlefields weren’t just barbed wire etc it was craters,mud, and some sort barbed wires. But it won’t just be like a whole fuckin nuke came like a bunch of ww1 movies

The Allies wished they had Sherman Firefly tanks back in WW1

@@yannaingtun3675 because of lack of radios actually

And it saved the French at Verdun. It's staggering to think those were the sorts of decisions being made

@@juliantheapostate8295 the UK should have sided with the Germans

Yes, we fought the wrong enemy. As a Brit, I think of the German as my brother👍

@@ShireTommy_1916_Somme-Mametz in both WWs allies fought wrong enemy specially WWII US General George S. Patton said it after Germany defeated in WWII Hitler never wanted to start world war or fight with west (specially UK and US) just wanted to regain lands belong to Germany before WWI soviet was everyone's enemy, if attacking Poland to take Dantzic canal (who was for Germany but taken from it) was reason to declare war on Germany by France, must declare war on Soviet too, they attack Poland and took part of it too (France started world war without it , Germany would take Dantzig canal and war would be ended) about UK Germany waited for more than month and didn't attack UK lands and offered peace a lot but every time Churchill refused it! if Churchill was not war monger and wouldnt choose Stalin (one of the most evil men in history killed more than 20 million of its own people in his rein (beside another 20 milion soviet people died in WWII because of poor training and barely equipped and bad commanders in early half of war) without war in west, Germany could defeat Soviet easily,(and not lend lease from allies to soviet) UK+ Germany + US could be allies If US didnt have Atomic bombs soviet might continue his path to all of Europe after defeating Germany and they could take it! (maybe couldnt keep it for long time)

@@AliComputering that is true. Well said.

🥺

We

(((communist dog)))

Ah yes the british planning carefully an offensive and losing 57k men on the first day, truly they were the masters of operational planning

Not quite, the Somme was actually the main allied offensive for 1916 and was planned far in advance. Verdun was the main German offensive of 1916 and started first, forcing the allies to rush their plans. The Somme offensive thus had to start earlier than planned, and also included far fewer french troops than the original plan. For the British, it was their first operation on that scale and many mistakes were made.

Not at all. The Battle of the Somme's main objective was to pierce the German Front. The Battle of the Somme was already scheduled a long time before the beginning of Verdun and Joffre was reluctant to send troops in Verdun rather at the Somme. That's probably Verdun that ease the pressure on the Somme, by attracting 50 Germans Divisions, rather than the opposite.

@@davidchardon1303 How can Verdun have eased pressure on the Somme when Verdun happened before the Somme? Yes a Somme offensive was planned, however the plans could easily have been shelved due to the German offensive. It has always been understood that a key objective of launching the Somme offensive BEFORE the allies thought they were ready was to ease pressure on Verdun, and there is no shame in that.

@@angloirishcad Because Verdun attracted more German troops to Verdun than the Somme to the Somme.

@@davidchardon1303 'Verdun attracted more German troops to Verdun'...of course it did, Verdun was an offensive battle by the Germans launched months before the Somme. The army on offense ALWAYS makes sure (if possible) that he has a numeric advantage over the defender. This does not change the fact the fact that the original plan for the Somme (December 1915 Chantilly conference), was a massive Franco-British attack to help end the war that year. Verdun changed everything and diverted most of the French effort away. New plans were for a mainly British offensive with more limited objectives PRECISELY to take pressure off Verdun, which it did (450,000 German casualties). You don't seem to understand that the German offensive at Verdun altered the allies plans.

them french men did all that just for there grandkids to fight alongside the germans unbelievable

@@salvatoreregalbuto5444 an entire generation of Frenchman died during this war and the population couldn't really recover for WW2. Without talking about all the technical/tactical and political issues France has right at the start of WW2.

@@x-a- Yeah nah more frenchmen died in Russia fighting stalin than in the battle of paris thats sad for any country

@@salvatoreregalbuto5444 the fact that you have so few knowing of history is a shame if you're from the UK..

@@salvatoreregalbuto5444 also you have no respect for the deaths, may you meet the devil.

Nope High casualties isn’t reallly a defeat It’s a phricc victory which is a term when a victory cost way too much Example: the battle with the Roman’s at Carthage that took 30,000 Roman lives but only 7,000 Carthage lines but still won the battle That’s a Phyricc victory

@@irenaveksler1935 Ok, time to go finish your social studies homework. You have school tomorrow.

@@AvengerAtIlipa lmao okay buddy

@@AvengerAtIlipa lol i think in this case he more like educated you

@@irenaveksler1935 if you're looking for an example of a Pyrrhic victory, why not use the original? The 'victory' of King Pyrrhus of Epirus against Rome where he lamented the losses he took

WW1 killed 15 Million WW2 killed 60 Million You're sure?

@@christiandauz3742 if you look at ww2 vs ww1 military casulties they were actually pretty close despite ww2 lasting 2 years longer. Though as a civilian ww1 was far better than ww2. In fact total military casulties in ww1 was 33 million while ww2 was between 45 and 50 million and despite ww1 lasting 2 years shorter than ww2 it has a higher military casualty rate than ww2.

@@gamingledgens2112 Bullshit Stop including the 70 Million deaths from the 1917 Influenza

@@gamingledgens2112ww1 didn’t have 30 million military casualties

@@irenaveksler1935 yes it did. Look at Wikipedia ww1 casulties.

I wonder if that girl ever felt shame

Also Verdun still has some Unexploded Artillery Shells probably

"probably has some unexploded artillery shells" uh ya there are entire areas of many WW1 battlefields completely blocked off to people because it's too dangerous to walk around.

​@@robbygood3458 Bro you didn't have to dunk on me like that.

However, the Entente could replace these losses. The Central powers could not. This goes double for food and supplies due to the Royal Navy blockade

@@juliantheapostate8295 maybe so but that isn’t the point. There’s a reason the first day of the Somme is regarded as the darkest day in the history of the British army. An absolute catastrophe

@@chrisstucker1813 it is the point. The point in the Somme was to save Verdun and win via strategic attrition. I'm not saying it was a great idea, but what was the other choice? Let Von Moltke break through at Verdun and knock France out of the war?

@@chrisstucker1813 the darkests day was the fall of singapore, where they lost to a force 3x smaller and an army "inferior than theirs" just because they are asian

True. And to this day people still die for nothing, or rather, to line the pockets of defense contractors, billionaires, and governments.

Trenches

Trench warfare always suits the defenders. That’s why they were stuck in trenches for 4 years - they simply couldn’t find a way to open up the front despite trying all sorts of things like digging huge mines under enemy trenches, introducing tanks and sending in special assault troops (stormtroopers). The super effective use of blitzkrieg by the Germans in WW2 changed warfare forever and prevented another trench war.

@@chrisstucker1813 the front was breached on several occasions. It just wasn't possible to exploit this ahead of a counter attack due to lack of motorisation and real time wireless comms. 2 factors the Germans brought in spades in 1939

Defensive warfare?

Also trench warfare

Or, simply imagine being on the defensive in extremely fortified defensive positions which renders the enemy's 3 to 1 advantage pretty much useless. Germany isn't that special, otherwise they wouldn't have lost so catastrophically lol

@@maximilianodelrioWe didn't lose catastrophically. We fought the world for like 4 years and still caused much more losses than we suffered.

Tu penses que ce sont des purges bien organisées ?

I'm pretty sure Day 1 had 60k British casualties

That's because the first day had like 60k British casualties lol

Best

Неизвестно

the field marshall ordered a general charge (even with horaes) and the germas responded with intense machine gun fire. in that moment the british realized that charges don't work against machine guns

@@arriba_teruel Well it was common knowledge by 1916 that frontal charges didn’t work, but because of trench warfare that was literally the only option (not to mention that the Germans were charging Machine guns as well and Horses were moved to a logistics role after 1914)

For real they won ww1 the French were just sore losers

@@arriba_teruel false. The British infantry were ordered to walk most of the distance. To help with coordination but also so they still had the strength to fight at the target areas

@@juliantheapostate8295 I have read that the military thinking at the time was that the Germans could never have survived the proceeding bombardment which went on for five days. Hence the order to walk the distance. Expect they did survive it. And the rest is tragic history.

Helmut Von Moltke actually 'started it' with his 'strategy' for Verdun

43th

no taste

You heard something like "doitsha falk" mwaning german people

@@tennebroussalley5678 just to correct the spelling: he said “deutsche Volk”, but the meaning is correct

Yes , they could have won if their allies had done better.

And if german goverment didnt give up

@@souradeepmitra7128 And the Entente would have won earlier if the Russians had done better

They still lost so clearly they didn’t do well enough

Russians weren’t really much of a threat, their army was so bad that if the Austrians weren’t totally incompetent they probably could’ve held them on their own

There were never that many men at once, so it's more like having 20 divisions attacking a tile and constantly rotating the ones that get destroyed

They were in stalemate

@@BurcasLurton but they had number advantage

@@stevensamuels4041 this is not how it works

Deutsche Qualität

*loses the war*

@@silverhost9782 just 1 vs 7 (ottoman was literally cant hold it even from start because it was fightining with 4 rebels at the same time austria hungry was on against russia and serbia germany got whole russia america britain and france congrats you won 💀

@@NoSilentSS That doesn't make any sense lmao, how can you discount Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, when they occupied large amounts of allied troops and resources? The way you wehraboo types pretend Germany fought without help all the time is utterly embarrassing

Defensive trench efficiency, not german

1vs 1 against German is not a fair battle 3 vs 1 against German is fair battle This is German power!

@@ericvonmanstein2112 beaten by the french in 2vs 1 ? the german till late 17 were always more than the allie ont the western front

@@luxhistoriae1172 no ,the German army got brief superiority in numbers in 1918 The allies were always equal or larger in size than the Germans since Germans were fighting in Italy and Russia too

@@ericvonmanstein2112ompletely un true, for almost the entire war, the entente fought with numerical disadvantage in France

@@ericvonmanstein2112 that's just the power of defensive warfare, Germans aren't special

To destroy Germany for the Allies, to become the definitive European hegemon for Germany