Flames over the Somme: A Retort to William Philpott

This response to William Philpott’s ‘Why the British Were Really on the Somme’ (War in History xi, 4) underlines Philpott’s failure to take adequate account of French sources, dismisses his long defence of Kitchener as beside the point and views his ‘strategic paradox’ as no more convincing for its reiteration. His ‘seven types of success’, offered as an alternative to my judgement that the 1916 battle of the Somme was a failure, are demonstrated to be fragile, nugatory and unsubstantiated. The theme of the response is that an examination and knowledge of French archival and published sources are crucial to any balanced understanding of the Somme battle.