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It seems we are in agreement that exhaustion, particularly in manpower and morale, was going to determine the end result. The issue lies with the means....From a counter-attritional perspective, you can argue that Britain should not have committed so many men to the attack on such a wide frontage. This would have saved British lives on July 1st. In essence, this was the approach that Belgium adopted after the heavy losses of the opening months of the war. They supported the British and French forces through holding operations but were not heavily involved in offensive operations until the last weeks of the war, when the German resistance in Belgium all but collapsed. Fewer British soldiers would have been killed or wounded if the Somme had been a very limited attack (or none at all). Conversely, fewer German soldiers would have been killed or wounded - freeing them up to continue pressuring the French and/or countering the Brusilov offensive in the East (the Somme was part of a much larger strategic effort that combined the Eastern and Western Fronts). At some time point, however, Britain would have been forced to participate in a very large battle. Either politically, through pressure from France, or because the Germans would not hold back (hence Operation Michael and the related Spring offensives when they were able). At which time, the 'saved' lives would have been lost....
If the war was truly attritional then it is perfectly possible to critique the performance of the high command in that respect and the Somme still has to come down as an abject failure. Whilst an offensive had to be made did it have to be made then with such deficient tactics and inexperienced troops? Saying these lives would have been lost in 1917 is not correct since the troops would have had an additional 12 months of experience and allowed the development and training to do something other than a human wave full frontal attack.
What caused the bulk of casualties on the Western front was artillery therefore fighting an attritional war should have focused on how best to expose the German troops to our artillery fire out of their dug outs. Yet we see emphasis on capturing bits of ground and sections of woods rather than how we could force Germans to be exposed to artillery. The High Command did not have a strategy to attrit the German Army and developed operations accordingly. The attrition was a side effect of the wasteful offensives that were launched in an effort to liberate occupied France and Belgium. ie the offensives still had geographical objectives rather than attritional ones.
What was the composition of the artillery munitions fired? Was it mainly shrapnel, with little penetrating power? Or was there a preponderance of HE?