This is John Batcher, comment by Professor Nick Lloyd, author of the story of the First War,

the Western Front, a history of the Great War in 1914- 1918, about what the so-called allies couldn't do. They couldn't work

together. The coordination of the Second War was not in the first war and note that we've gone back to a lack of coordination in the

Europe again. It looks like we've returned to the beginning 1914. This is

about the French and the British in particular side by side on the Western Front.

Professor Nick Lloyd commenting, a hundred years later in, almost no change.

More of this later.

What we see is that these two great battles of Sommer-N-Verdon that we talked about

smoldering through 1916, but ultimately they are a terrible experience for the Germans, for the British, for the French.

But decisive victory seems quite far away.

And you know, there's a growing sense of impatience as you can imagine and Nivell is promoted

chauffeur as I mentioned before is kicked upstairs, they need someone fresh, someone with new

ideas and Nivell seems to have what he calls the formula.

And so they don't really know what the original plan for

1970 is to continue the song into 1917 that's what Hee wants to do. But when Joffra is kicked upstairs all the plans get essentially scrubbed and they start again. Now Navell's perspective is the French

cannot continue the war for much longer. They are running out of manpower, they're

running out of patience. There's only so much they're going to do. And so he

believes that with the right artillery support, with the right

gun fire, with the right plan, he can essentially do what Joffra had wanted to do in 1915,

which is break through on that crucial sector along the Shimindi Dam, not Champagne, which is what Schofra wanted,

Nivel Chuses of Shimindi Dam.

And they can do this and they must do this now or else they will they will fail.

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