The battle of the Somme was organised as a joint operation between Britain and France and was accepted by General Sir Douglas Haig who was the BEF commander. It was also an attempt to destroy German manpower.
At first the plan was to use mainly French soldiers but when the Germans attacked Verdun in February 1916 it turned the Somme offensive into a very large British attack. Haig was now in charge of this operation and with help off Sir Henry Rawlinson, came up with his own plan of invasion. Haig hoped to completely destroy the German forward defences in just 8 days.
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