Editing Battle of the Somme (section)

==Histories of the battle==
The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war in which the continental armies had been engaged for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918.<ref>On the German historiography see {{cite journal |last=Foley |first=Robert T. |year=2011 |title=Learning War's Lessons: The German Army and the Battle of the Somme 1916 |url=https://www.academia.edu/1833451 |journal=Journal of Military History |volume=75 |issue=2 |pages=471–504 |issn=1543-7795}}</ref><ref>On the French historiography see Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century, William Philpott (2009) and {{cite journal|last=Greenhalgh|first=Elizabeth|date=July 2003|title=Flames over the Somme: A Retort to William Philpott|journal=War in History|volume=10|issue=3|pages=335–342|issn=1477-0385|doi=10.1191/0968344503wh281oa|s2cid=159609046}}</ref><ref>On British historiography see {{cite journal|last=Philpott|first=William|year=2006|title=The Anglo-French Victory on the Somme|journal=Diplomacy & Statecraft|volume=17|issue=4|pages=731–751|issn=1557-301X|doi=10.1080/09592290600943262|s2cid=153318860}}, {{cite journal|last=Deverell|first=Christopher|date=Spring 2005|title=X. Haig versus Rawlinson-Manoeuvre versus Attrition: The British Army on the Somme, 1916|journal=Defense Studies|volume=V|issue=1|pages=124–137|oclc=55201531|doi=10.1080/14702430500097317|doi-access=free}} and {{cite web |url=https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140606014721-81743749-historiographical-essay-on-the-battle-of-the-somme |title=Historiographical Essay on the Battle of the Somme |last=Coleman |first=Joseph |year=2014 |access-date=26 February 2015}}</ref><!--putting source cites in the text like this can override the linkage between sfns and the long reference in the references section. Better to put the references in the references section and use a sfn and page range to link to it PS 2011 is a year not a date.-->

Haig and General Rawlinson have been criticised ever since 1916 for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916, Churchill, then out of office, criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since. In 2016, historian [[Peter Barton (historian)|Peter Barton]] argued in a series of three television programmes that the Battle of the Somme should be regarded as a German defensive victory.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/entertainment/14625124.The_Somme_from_the_German_side_of_the_wire/ |title=The Somme from the German side of the wire (From The Northern Echo) |access-date=1 August 2016 |newspaper=Thenorthernecho.co.uk|date=18 July 2016 }}</ref>

[[John Terraine]], Gary Sheffield, [[Christopher Duffy]], [[Roger Chickering]], Holger Herwig, William Philpott ''et al.'' wrote that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916 and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the battle puts it in a continental perspective. Little German and French writing on this topic has been translated, leaving much of their historical perspective and detail of German and French military operations inaccessible to the English-speaking world.{{sfn|Terraine|2005|p=230}}{{sfn|Sheffield|2002|p=188}}{{sfn|Duffy|2006|pp=324, 327}}{{sfn|Chickering|2004|pp=70–71}}{{sfn|Herwig|1996|p=249}}{{sfn|Philpott|2009|p=625}}