Just think, if Haig hadn't taken four years to figure out the Rolling Barrage or Box Barrage, there could've been far far FAR less lives wasted on suicidal charges across no-man's land.
Actually, the British used at least some of the sophisticated artillery tactics it took them three years to master as early as Neuve Chapelle (in 1915). Part of the problem was Haig's stupid obsession with attack over broken ground.
Either way, their ineptitude got a lot of people needlessly killed.
Before the battle of Somme the British troops were promised that the artillery will destroy the German defenses.
This was basically Hague's idea, and a stupid one at that. His subordinate, Rawlinson, had none of it. The reason they were so successful at Neuve Chapelle, he said, was that they used way more artillery (double or triple) and all at once. The barrage at Chapelle lasted about an hour, not a week. In that hour they fired double the tonnage/yard as in the week at the Somme. Chapelle also had way less wire, because the Germans were taken by surprise - and they had no time to organise a counter-attack until the British had already taken their positions.
This "bite and hold" strategy was never really tried, but probably would have won the war by 1917. If you kill a German for every Brit you lose on the attack, while taking a bit of land to maintain morale, the Germans just lose. Eventually the Germans would have organised defence in depth, but by that point the British would have had tanks to crush all those forward MGs. Instead they attacked at Paschendale and very nearly lost.
Also, the British might have made a determined corps-strength attack before July 1st and saved the French army.
Commander of the VIII:th Army Group Hunter-Weston told his troops, just before the attack, that the artillery has blown all the barb wire to smitheriins and they can just walk across the no man's land.
Total lunacy. If only Hague had worse connections and less political nous. He married Henretta Jamieson, so at least his family made good whiskey (his family also owned scotch distilleries, so this was truly a marriage made in heaven).
Also, Franz Ferdinand has one day to live.