What demonstrates the sheer lunacy of the Somme was that the year before, at Loos, the Germans took out 5,000 British casualties and suffered not a single casualty. The Germans were so sickened that they stopped shooting when it was clear that the British were withdrawing. One result was that the Germans started to refer to the British as "lions led by donkeys."
My Mom's Grandfather, by the way, was at the Somme, in the British cavalry. He got blown up and his arm atrophied away a couple of years later.