Going over the top in long straight lines was retarded in 1916 and even the French knew that. They advanced in platoons, with rush's from shellhole to shellhole. The French gained twice the ground at half the casualties at the Somme. British casualties for the first day of fighting on the Somme came to 57,470 officers and men, of whom 19,240 were killed, so roughly half of the infantry committed were casualties on the first day of action. By contrast, only 23,628 German soldiers were killed on the entire Western front for the month of July 1916. British deaths, on this one day, exceeded German figures for such combat heavy months of the war as August 1914 and April 1915. While Butcher Haig kept feeding the slaughter, he grossly over estimated German loss. The German's on the Somme inflicted casualties at 2-3 to 1. After the war, Churchill, the War Office statsticians, the Official Australian War History, all demonstrated the absurdity of Haig's claims. There was no vital objective any where on the Somme, anyway. Monumental insanity.?