LAND & WATER 
August 24, 1916 
The Nature of the Somme Offensive 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE first stroke of the Somme offensive resulted 
in the gain of a wide belt of territory. There 
followed after something like a fortnight 
another stroke which captured yet another 
b(>lt, but a belt much narrower than the fust. Since 
tliat date, now five weeks past, the movement on the 
map, though continuous, has been slight. What do 
such tactics mean ? 
The answer to that question is exactly the same as the 
answer to similar questions that might be asked about 
the Italian front, the Galician, the Volhynian and the 
new pressure which is taking place in front of Salonika. 
The enemy is at a disadvantage now in every one of the 
factors that make for tinal success in war, and he will be 
at an increasing disadvantage progressively as time 
proceeds. He is at a disadvantage niuTierically. He is at 
a disadvantage further in the quality of the last men 
whom he can call up as drafts. He is at a disad\'antagc 
in munitionment ; and though the offensive is so far 
slight in this factor it is increasing. He is at a dis- 
advantage for his civilian maintenance in food and 
clothing and every necessary. He is strategically at a 
disadvantage, for the Allied superiority lias now given 
them the initiative. 
Under such circumstances the whole plan of the Allies 
is a united, consistent and increasing pressure. 
When the British forces exercise their " pressure " 
between Guillemont and Thiepval, when their Commander 
sends us news of so many hundred yards of trench taken 
here and there, of a depth of so much being taken upon 
a front of so much, we know from the casualty lists that 
appear what a price is being paid. What we must 
remember is that these efforts are exacting a price from 
the enemy which he also has to pay, and which he can 
far less afford to pay. 
The first and most obvious way in which this price is 
being exacted is in the necessary losses in the front line 
fighting. Here it may be said that the offensive pre- 
sumably loses more than the defensive. Even so the 
very great numerical superiority of the Allies renders the 
effort amply worth while. 
But there is very much more in the problem than tliis. 
Apart from the losses inflicted in the first line of fighting 
(the continual drifting back of unwounded prisoners, 
100 here, 200 there, a thousand, over a thousand, 200 
again, and so on day after day), apart from the men 
killed and wounded but not captured along the line 
where there is actual contact, you have the effect of 
artillery continually bombarding the enemy's depots 
and billets, his commimication trenches, his back lines. 
Here again, one may say " Yes ; but he is causing us 
similar losses." The reply is insufficient. H he had a 
superiority, or an equality in artillery, and above all in 
the power of directing his artillery through observation 
from the air, he would be inflicting upon us similar or 
greater losses than that which he himself suffers. But 
the boot is on the other foot. The Allies have the 
superiority in heavy artillery, in the number of pieces 
and in their munitionment, and they have a very clear 
and striking superiority in aerial observation. They 
are obtaining, with every new fragment of the ridge, 
opportunities for direct obser\'ation as well. So in 
this factor again the Somme offensive means a heavier 
loss to the enemy tli^an to the Allies, and a loss which, 
even were it equal, he could far less afforc^. 
And there is a third factor. It is the factor of concen- 
tration, and it is the most important of all. 
When you undertake pressure of this kind upon any 
sector of the front, you at once summon to that sector 
great forces of the enemy. The fact that the enemy has 
to wait until he is quite certain what your main effort is 
and exactly where it will be delivered, enables you- at 
the outset of such operations to achieve immediate and 
important success, visible upoti the map and appreciable 
in thn great number of prisoners captured. Once he is 
clear upon the nature and the direction of your blow he 
rapidly masses forces to meet it. The effect of this 
special concentration is clear if you can condemn the 
enemy, who is weakening in numbers, and necessarily 
becoming more and more inferior to yourself in that 
respect as time goes on, to concentrate first upon one 
point, then upon another, then upon a third, and so 
forth upon an increasing number of points. You compel 
him to particular and heavy losses in each such point, 
and j-ou weaken him correspondingly in the sections of 
the line not for the moment attacked. Every new 
attack as it develops tries him further and further. 
• When the process has been carried on to a certain 
point — not definable exactly in time, but inevitably 
reached if the process shall continue — he breaks. 
That is the doctrine of the great general offensive of 
1916, and that is the meaning and value of the Somme 
offensive in particular, and that is why that offensive 
continues and will continue, and that is why the longer 
it continues the worse for the enemy, quite independently 
of any movement upon the map. 
General Effect of Local Pressure. 
Let mc give a particular example. The enemy has 
constantly present before us over 20 divisions. He has 
possibly brought in altogether, counting those sent back 
to rest and to recruit —the equivalent of 30 or more in 
the last nine weeks. We know how many German 
divisions were found available to meet the 'Russian pres- 
sure in the East. They were eleven in number. Ln the 
absence of the Somme offensive the German divisions 
sent south in aid of the Austrians wonld not have been 
eleven, they would have been perhaps 26. 
You cannot, of course, accurately gauge the pressure 
upon one sector nor the immediate effect upon another. 
The effect is general. Evert attacking Baranovitchi 
prevented ■ Hindenburg from sending units south, just 
as much as the Allies in the West prevented the German 
units from being sent eastward. 
The prettiest working model of the system was, of 
course, the swing eastward of General Cadorna's force, 
which broke the Isonzo front a fortnight ago, and which 
I write of elsewhere in this number. My readers will 
there see the diagram in which I show what the con- 
centration of 18 Austrian divisions in the Trentino 
meant. The Italians counter-concentrated and stopped 
the Trentino offensive. But, meanwhile, that offensive 
had weakened the Austrian line upon the Isonzo. The 
Italian superiority in numbers, coupled with the smooth- 
ness and rapidity with which the Italians worked their 
railway communications, swung a great body suddenly 
fro n west to east. It appeared on the Isonzo front before 
the Austrians could counter-concentrate there and broke 
it. 
The effect of pressure, in one place in producing weak- 
ness in another place was here exemplified over a distance 
of not more than 200 or 300 miles upon the exterior 
lines, and of not more than a hundred or so on the 
interior, but the principle is exactly the same, whether 
it is a question of a hundred miles or a thousand or 2,000 
miles. The Italian pressure, visible and striking when 
the Isonzo front broke, was almost equally valuable at a 
moment when there was still no movement upon the 
map. It was felt upon the Austrian front in the north 
and was an integral factor in Brussilov's success, just as 
Brussilov's pressure was a factor in the Italian success 
and in ours. 
That is the way for each of the b,elligerent Allies to 
record the sacrifice and the objects of its own depart- 
ment. And the more public opinion recognises this 
truth, the more probably hopeful it will be of a result 
which is inevitably and mathematically dependent upon 
the growing superiority of those whom the Central 
Empires challenged two years ago when their victory 
seemed to be an equally certain matter of a few weeks. 
