By the end of the day, 20,000 British soldiers were dead and 40,000 wounded. However, scores of heavy German machine guns had survived the artillery onslaught, and the infantry were massacred. During the preceding week, 250,000 Allied shells had pounded German positions near the Somme, and 100,000 British soldiers poured out of their trenches and into no-man’s-land on July 1, expecting to find the way cleared for them. On July 1, the British launched a massive offensive against German forces in the Somme River region of France. However, General Douglas Haig, commander of Allied forces at the Somme, saw the promise of this new instrument of war and ordered the war department to produce hundreds more.
At Flers Courcelette, some of the 40 or so primitive tanks advanced over a mile into enemy lines but were too slow to hold their positions during the German counterattack and subject to mechanical breakdown. During the Battle of the Somme, the British launch a major offensive against the Germans, employing tanks for the first time in history.
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