Battle of Flers-Courcelette - Aftermath

Aftermath

The performance of the tanks was patchy. Of the 49 ordered only 32 were able to reach their assigned start positions on the battlefield and of them, seven failed to start - leaving 25 moving forward at the commencement of the attack. In the end, the tanks proved to be largely a psychological asset, emboldening the attackers and intimidating the defenders where they moved forward. Tactically however, they provided little advantage or support to the attackers with most breaking down or becoming immobilized in the terrain of the battlefield and only nine actually reaching and penetrating the German lines. Even where they were successful they were hard pressed to advance across the cratered battlefield faster than a soldier's walking pace.

When Winston Churchill, formerly head of the Landships Committee but now a backbench MP, heard of the tanks use and performance at Flers-Courcelette he responded: "My poor 'land battleships' have been let off prematurely on a petty scale" . The flaws that were exposed in the designs of the Mark I at Flers-Corcelette led to refinement and redesign and the ongoing redevelopment that led to the tank being a formidable weapon by the war's end.

Ultimately, the Battle of the Somme would continue on for almost two more full months after Flers-Courcelette, but none of the battleplans that followed set the grand objectives that Flers-Courcelette or the July battles of Albert, and Bazentin Ridge had when total breakthrough was the intended outcome of the attacks. Though there was success found in pushing the Germans back at Flers-Courcelette, the failure to decisively cut through the German lines convinced Haig and his Army commanders Rawlinson and Gough to scale back their objectives in further attacks on the Somme to smaller 'bites' of strategically significant territory in limited attacks.