Through German Eyes: The British & The Somme 1916

by Christopher Duffy

The key battle of the First World War from the German point of view

The Battle of the Somme has an enduring legacy, the image established by Alan Clark of 'lions led by donkeys': brave British soldiers sent to their deaths by incompetent generals. However, from the German point of view the battle was a disaster. Their own casualties were horrendous. The Germans did not hold the (modern) view that the British Army was useless. As Christopher Duffy reveals, they had great respect for the British forces and German reports shed a fascinating light on the volunteer army recruited by General Kitchener.

The German view of the British Army has never been made public until now. Their typically diligent reports have lain undisturbed in obscure archives until unearthed by Christopher Duffy. The picture that emerges is a far cry from 'Blackadder': the Germans developed an increasing respect for the professionalism of the British Army. And the fact that every British soldier taken prisoner still believed Britain would win the war gave German intelligence teams their first indication that their Empire would go down to defeat.

Genres: History, World War I, Germany, Military History, Nonfiction, British Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Christopher Duffy (born 1936) is a British military historian. Duffy read history at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1961 with the PhD. Afterwards, he taught military history at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the college of the British General Staff. He was secretary-general of the British Commission for Military History and vice-president of the History Society of Ireland. From 1996 to 2001, he was research professor at the De Montfort University, Leicester. Today he lives and works as a freelance author.

Duffy's special interest is the military history of the European modern age, in particular the history of the German, Prussian and Austrian armed forces. He is most famous for his writings about the Seven Years' War and especially Frederick the Great, which he called self-ironically "a product of the centuries-old British obsession with that most un-British of creatures". Duffy is fluent in six languages and has published some twenty books about military history topics, whereof several were translated into German.

Reviews

[Dropbear123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 rounding down.

Would recommend if interested in the First World War. I found the book enjoyable to read but I’m already quite interested in the First World War so other people might find it boring. The book examines the British army in the Somme campaign through things like the German intelligence reports and German analysis of British technology, as well as interrogation of British prisoners of war which is a significant part of the book. Part 1 is about what the Germans wanted to know broadly about things like the British home Front, the morale of the Imperial troops or what kind of soldiers Britain was fielding. Part 2 is short and is about the preparations for the 1916 Somme campaign. Part 3 is a detailed account of the entire campaign through to November 1916 and how the British and Germans saw the battle. Part 4 is about German views on particular pieces of technology like tanks, grenades, machine guns or the Royal Air Corps as well as the conclusion. Overall the book makes a fairly positive case for the British army in 1916 but doesn’t gloss over the flaws.

The book does not have much on the experiences of ordinary German soldiers beyond suffering from artillery and demoralisation and interactions between British and German soldiers are also limited so if you’re looking for stuff on that then this book might not be for you.

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"the British were finding their way towards the tactical revolution that spread through their armies on the Western Front in 1917, when the platoon was made the basis for fire and manoeuvre, in a way that combined something of the tactical skill of the pre-war Regulars with the mobile firepower of the Lewis gun. In the long run it was to prove a more promising development than that of the celebrated Storm Troops, who remained a minority within the German Army and who in 1918 sucked the unimproved masses of the German infantry forward to be massacred by aircraft and machine guns" [p. 275]

[Russ Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

in light of recent documentaries commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, I thought I'd reread this which I read some time earlier. This is derived from German reports, not only assessing the British on the Somme (which some others have entirely relied on) but also the German reports on the situation faced by the Germans themselves, their failings & successes. The conclusion reached is that yes, the British suffered more casualties on the first day of the battle (just to mention that the reverse had to be true the week before, when the British shelled German trenches for a week with few losses to themselves - the Germans were clear on the damage & casualties caused by this barrage, although it didn't achieve all the British wanted), but after that both sides were locked in a brutal war of attrition, albeit where the Germans were pushed gradually back, losing ground & men all the time, until they reached a crisis in September (which, had the British had known & been able to take advantage of, might have led to the hoped for collapse). The replacement of Falkenhayn by Hindenberg & Ludendorff & the strategic retreat to the Hindenberg Line were signs of defeat (although what sort of victory is it when you win a small slice of muddy French hell?), not a triumphant strategy (the German lines on the Somme in July 1916 were well prepared, which is why the British lost so many on the first day; they would not have been abandoned if the Germans hadn't lost the intitiative). Losses (from a number of sources, some more reliable than others, none with any particular wish to make the British look good) come to slightly less German casualties that British in the battle to slightly more. All in all a welcome addition to the library on this, the most terrible of days for the British Army.

[Russ Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a very interesting book, mainly because it avoids the clichés and frequently repeated tomes concerning the First World War in general and the Battle of the Somme in particular. It does this by being made up of contemporary German reports written whilst the battle was taking place, mainly made up of debriefs of British prisoners of war (which means the reader gets a insight into how both sides viewed the battle at the time it occurred). Because these were intended to inform the German army fighting the British on the Western Front, then it was in the audience's best interests to be as accurate as possible, even if the result might make for uneasy reading (in many places British equipment, tactics & fighting prowess are reported to be better than their German equivalents). Whilst the usual modern view of the Battle of the Somme (from a purely British point of view) is that it was a pointless slaughter that achieved nothing, the German view appears to be that the British won the battle; both sides suffered terrible losses (of a scale that no politician could ever try to justify nowadays, but what then was seen as a terrible burden, but one that had to be suffered), but the British achieved what they set out to do, whilst the Germans did nothing but lose.

[Peter Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through German Eyes


For far too long the Somme has just been known for the carnage on the first day and written off as a failed offensive. This book redresses that. It demonstrates just how much the British army improved after the first day and how they got a lot right by the end of the battle.


The inclusion of German evidence is long overdue and that makes this book an even greater success. Duffy shows just how much strain the German army was under during the offensive and also how much of a shock British skill was.


This was a fascinating read.

[AskHistorians]

A remarkable and necessary work that offers a recontextualization of the Somme Offensive -- so often viewed as a thoroughly British tragedy -- from the perspective of those troops against whom wave after wave of Englishmen advanced in the summer and fall of 1916. Seeing this event from the other side paints a somewhat different view of it than is typically enjoyed, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[James M.]

Duffy recounts the Battle of the Somme as seen through the eyes of the German officers and soldiers. Although full of interesting accounts, Duffy's work is decidedly pro-British. Superior forces, artillery, weaponry and tactics...You'd have never known that they lose, on average, nearly 3,000 men a day......