The British were helped in their goal to kill and wound as many German soldiers as possible by the Germans themselves. At least in the initial stages of the battle, German practice was to hold all ground and to retake any position if it were lost at any price. This resulted in at least some German units packing the front trenches with troops in an effort to hold them. The trenches closest to the British lines could often be seen by British artillery observers and consequently bore the brunt of the artillery bombardment. Closely arrayed in the front trenches, the German defenders were vulnerable to this artillery fire. Further, when the British did seize portions of the German trench line, the German infantry inevitably counter-attacked to take back the lost positions. During these counter-attacks the German troops were often forced to leave the comparative safety of their trenches and suffered high casualties accordingly. Indeed, German troops were shocked by the weight of artillery fire used by the British and generally believed that they were losing this Materialschlacht, or battle of materiél.

The ferocity and the duration of the Anglo-French offensive on the Somme surprised the German high command. The casualties suffered during the long battle forced Falkenhayn to abandon this idea of a counter-offensive. Indeed, the British attritional tactics were extremely effective at wearing down the strength of the German army and gobbled up German reserves: Between 1 July and the battle’s end on 18 November, 90,00 German divisions served on the Somme front. During the height of fighting, German divisions could only last around 2 to 3 weeks on the front before having to withdraw to rest and refit. However, contrary to what the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig, argued at the time and some historians have argued since, the battle did not force the Germans to abandon their offensive on Verdun; the decision to slow this offensive had been taken before the Anglo-French attack. Moreover, the Germans still had a sufficient reserve of forces to send a number of divisions from the Western to the Eastern Front to face the Rumanians when they entered the war in August.

Along with all armies that fought in the battle of the Somme, the German army suffered greatly. As each army calculated casualties by different means, estimates of the numbers of dead, wounded and missing have been a matter of great debate since the war itself. Estimates of the German losses vary from 420,000 to 630,000. However, despite these heavy losses, the battle of the Somme can be seen as a German victory. The Entente forces were unable to break through the German defence and were unable to achieve the victory for which they hoped in July. Further, as the British army had, the German army learned valuable lessons from the experience. By the end of the battle, they had developed a more flexible defence in depth that was not dependent on holding forward positions at all costs. This defensive system allowed them to absorb the continued Anglo-French attacks both during the battle of the Somme and in the battles of 1917. Additionally, the battle forced the German high command to face up to at least some of their deficiencies in the technical realm. Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, the team that took command of the German army after the Rumanian entry into the war forced Falkenhayn’s resignation, developed an ambitious building program that re-equipped the German army with modern artillery and aircraft. Thus, despite the horrific casualties, the German army emerged from the battle of the Somme an even more formidable foe than before the battle.

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