Another fact about those incompetent bastards who led the British Army and prevailed on the western front. Remember those 1,186,337 men who had volunteered by December 1914? By September 1915 they numbered 2,257,521 and it was these men who were trained up to fight the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Kitchener's Volunteer Army was given scant credit by those already in France General Sir John French scoffed that it had taken the Germans 40 years and conscription to train and create an Army of 25 Corps. By June 1916 the British had formed 18 of those 25 Corps and they were ready to go into the line.

After the German assault at Verdun and after the British and French assault on the Somme brought it home to the Germans that they were not going to win on the Western Front. Falkenhayn the German Chief of the General Staff was dismissed, it had been his 1916 strategy to bleed the British and French white on the western front, his strategy failed and instead it was the Germans who were bled white as British, French and American industry surged ahead and output back in Germany started to decline. So much for incompetence eh?