Battle of the Somme 1916
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 1 July 1916 – 17 November 1916 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1916 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | France | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Western Front | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | British Empire, French Third Republic, German Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 50.0156, 2.6975 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme; German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history. It illustrated the deadly potential of mechanized warfare that began in the mid-19th century.
The French and British had planned an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. The French army was to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Somme (revision 1380548354), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Capture of La Boisselle 1916 · 0 km
- Battle of Albert (1914) 1914 · 1 km
- First day on the Somme 1916 · 1 km
- Leipzig Salient 1916 · 1 km
- Capture of Ovillers 1916 · 2 km
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Other battles of the Western Front
- Capture of Hill 60 (Western Front) 1915
- Second Battle of Artois 1915
- Second Battle of Champagne 1915
- Second Battle of Ypres 1915
- Third Battle of Artois 1915
- Attack on the Boar's Head 1916
- Battle of Mont Sorrel 1916
- Battle of Thiepval Ridge 1916
- Battle of Verdun 1916
- Hohenzollern Redoubt action, 2–18 March 1916 1916
All 48 battles of the Western Front →
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