The Battle of the Somme

Slide 1: The Battle of the Somme Worksheet to accompany this presentation can be found at www.activehistory.co.uk

Slide 2: Background The German Schlieffen Plan, which opened the First World War,  failed in its daring attempt to defeat France in a matter of weeks in 1914. This had led to the establishment of an enormous system of  trenches stretching from the Swiss border to the North Sea. The early war of rapid movement had become bogged down in a  war of attrition (wearing down), in which the side with the most men and ammunition would eventually win. Germany recognised that the longer this went on, the worse her  situation would be, and continued to press hard on the Western Front. In February 1916 the Germans launched a massive attack on the  French lines at Verdun and, in order to relieve the pressure on the French, a British attack was planned on the Somme