The Great War
Page 13
THERE WAS, HOWEVER, ANOTHER EASTERN FRONT to consider: the Austro-Serbian War that had commenced with the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on 28 July. The approximately 200,000-strong Serbian Army was commanded by the elderly figure of Field Marshal Radomir Putnik, who had to endure the embarrassment of being promptly interned by the Austrians in Budapest, where he had been undergoing an untimely medical treatment. Strangely, he was then released, presumably because the Austrians thought he would hardly be fit to exercise a competent wartime command. However, his offer to resign on the grounds of ill health having been rejected by King Peter I of Serbia, Putnik would go on to oversee the strategic direction of the Serbian Army, while his subordinates did all the work in the field. He would prove a formidable directing intelligence to Serbian military operations. The small Serbian First, Second and Third Armies faced the 270,000 men amassed in the Austrian Fifth and Sixth Armies with little immediate tactical ambitions other than to endure till their Russia allies had triumphed. The Serbian Army had recent experience in the Balkan Wars, but it was woefully equipped for a full-scale conflict with a major power.
Under orders from Conrad, the Austrian Fifth Army crossed the Drina River border on 12 August. The Austrians were determined to finish the matter quickly and saw no problems in defeating their weak opponents. In doing so they not only attacked with only half their available strength, but worse still they were advancing into the rough country of western Serbia rather than the northern plains. Putnik was initially taken aback by the attack, imagining it to be a feint, but recovered swiftly to rush in reinforcements. The resulting four-day battle forced the Austrians to fall back with the loss of some 23,000 casualties, the Serbs themselves losing 16,500. Small-scale Serbian offensives incurring on to Austro-Hungarian territory were markedly less successful, so the next major act occurred when, on 7 September, the Austrians launched a twin-pronged attack by the Fifth and Sixth Armies across the Drina to secure a firm bridgehead. The fighting was murderous, as Putnik marshalled his smaller forces as best he could, launching counter-attacks to disrupt the Austrian advance. The fighting climaxed in another four-day battle in the mountains, marked by a series of sanguinary frontal assaults by both sides. Eventually numbers told and the Serbs fell back and trench warfare took its iron grip. Here the Serbs had a crippling disadvantage: they had few guns and almost no ammunition, so the artillery exchanges were remarkably one-sided.
The Austrians attacked again on 5 November, when they used their artillery superiority to push back the Serbs. The Serbs withdrew slowly at first but pulled right back to shorten their front, although this meant that the capital, Belgrade, had to be abandoned, which the Austrians duly entered on 2 December. In the interim, supplies of artillery shells had arrived for the Serbs, despatched from the British and the French. This slightly rebalanced the equation, especially as the insightful Putnik divined that the Austrians were becoming overstretched as they pushed deep into Serbia. Putnik sensed a very real, although possibly brief, opportunity to defeat his opponents in detail. On 3 December he launched a counter-attack crashing first into the Austrian Sixth Army. The results were spectacular: the Sixth Army broke and fell back in complete disorder, at which point Putnik turned his forces on to the Fifth Army, which also crumbled under the pressure. Facing complete defeat, the Austrian armies retreated back to the borders and Belgrade was recaptured by the Serbs on 15 December. The campaign had been a fiasco for the Austrians: nothing had been achieved, thousands of men had died and the hated Serbs still preened themselves across the border, acting as beacons for all the disaffected minorities within their domains. Austria-Hungary had the war with Serbia she had craved in July 1914: distracted by the menace of the Russian armies, she did not have the strength to win it.
ON BOTH THE MAIN EASTERN FRONT and the Serbian sideshow the traditional break enforced in previous campaigns by the awesome power of ‘General Winter’ was simply ignored. The troops stayed out in the field, stoically manning their trenches: indeed not just in the fields, but deep in the dark forests, high in the mountains and on barricades winding across frozen lakes. As the temperature plummeted and the snow fell, living conditions became indescribably bad. Communication lines faltered and basic food rations were often scarce or non-existent in the front lines. Trees were hacked down by soldiers desperate for firewood to try and get a glimmer of warmth, but many men froze to death at their posts. Conditions were bad enough on the Western Front, but they were far worse in the depths of a continental winter on the Eastern Front which approached the limits of human endurance. Overall, the troops of both sides showed tremendous resilience: they knew there would be no going home for Christmas 1914.
4
THE SEA WAR, 1914–15
‘It is not, in my opinion, wise to risk unduly the heavy ships of the Grand Fleet in an attempt to hasten the end of the High Seas Fleet, particularly if the risks come not from the High Seas Fleet itself, but from mines and submarines.’1
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, HMS Iron Duke, Grand Fleet
NAVAL POWER WAS SOMETHING MUCH TO BE DESIRED at the end of the nineteenth century. The pre-eminent position of the Royal Navy and the manifest advantages this bestowed upon the British Empire were self-evident: the acquisition and maintenance of colonies; the safe passage for commercial traffic; and the ability to deploy troops rapidly at critical trouble spots across the globe. Without a significant degree of naval power overseas colonies would always be vulnerable to capture by stronger maritime forces in times of war. The British naval dominance was based on a navy grown organically from a thriving maritime commerce, which in turn was driven by the need to service and harvest the produce of overseas colonies. Indeed, there were enormous difficulties in creating a powerful navy without such a background, for a modern navy demanded a considerable investment, not only in the technical demands of constructing and manning state-of-the-art fighting ships, but also in the infrastructure of dockyards, ports and naval bases. The British were well aware of the origins of their power and the Royal Navy had adopted a simple but effective ‘two-power standard’, which sought to maintain its strength at a level equal to the next two strongest naval powers – usually France and Russia.
The rise of Germany in the late nineteenth century brought a third main challenger to Great Britain. The origins and effects of British naval domination had been spelled out by the American naval historian Alfred Mahan in his definitive work The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660–1783, a masterpiece which had gained much currency with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had become enamoured with the prospect of projecting German military strength overseas by means of a strong fleet. The German Navy had been gaining in strength, but it was proving a slow process. German naval deficiencies had been highlighted during the Franco-Prussian War, when the far superior French fleet had blockaded both the major German naval bases of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. The Prussian ironclads had remained quiescent in harbour, strictly forbidden to emerge. One young officer was beside himself with frustration.
The army reproached us for not attacking the whole French fleet when it suddenly appeared off Wilhelmshaven on its way home. We youngsters were also indignant at not being let loose on the enemy, but this caution was correct. We were three armoured ships to their eight, and we could only do 10 knots; and even if Captain Werner had advertised the König Wilhelm as the strongest ship in the world, this was not sufficient to counterbalance a three-fold superiority. In view of the lack of any possibility of refitment we should have had to expect the loss of our whole fleet, without reaping any advantage thereby. It was also difficult for the lay mind to understand why we did not at least attempt a raid. An engagement begun at sea, however, cannot be broken off if the enemy has the greater speed. In any case the navy was blamed for its inactivity, and we were not even allowed to count these years as war service.2
Sub Lieutenant Alfred Tirpitz, SMS König Wilhelm
After this humiliating debacle the German Navy stumbled on, unsure of its pu
rpose: was it coastal defence, piratical commerce raiding, or was there really the commitment required to become a major naval power? This confusion continued until the advent of a new Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office, Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, who took over in 1897. By this time Tirpitz was a splendid figure: bald, extravagantly bearded, badtempered, yet at the same time capable of exerting great charm and persuasiveness. Throughout his career he was driven by the belief that Germany must create her own battle fleet within a strictly limited timescale.
Two lines of thought were emerging at that time: the tactical necessity for a battle fleet, if we were striving for sea-power and wanted to build ships to some purpose; and the political necessity of establishing a protecting navy for Germany’s maritime interests which were growing at such an irresistible pace. The navy never seemed to me to be an end in itself, but always a function of these maritime interests. Without sea-power Germany’s position in the world resembled a mollusc without a shell. The flag had to follow trade, as other older states had realised long before it began to dawn upon us.3
Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office
These intense ambitions would be encapsulated within the Navy Act passed by the Reichstag in 1898. This envisaged a navy of nineteen battleships (two squadrons of eight battleships, a flagship and two spare ships), which was then doubled to thirty-eight in the subsequent Navy Act of 1900. The excuse for this was provided by the high-handed action of the British in stopping and searching three German mail boats for contraband intended for the Boers. The German fleet would embody two principles that would complicate the position of the Royal Navy in the early twentieth century. The first was the concept of the ‘risk fleet’.
To protect Germany’s sea trade and colonies in the existing circumstances there is only one means – Germany must have a battle fleet so strong that even for the adversary with the greatest sea power a war against it would involve such dangers as to imperil his position in the world. For this purpose it is not necessary that the German battle fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval power, for a great naval power will not, as a rule, be in a position to concentrate all its striking forces against us. But even if it should succeed in meeting us with considerable superiority of strength, the defeat of a strong German fleet would so substantially weaken the enemy that, in spite of victory, he might have obtained, his own position in the world would no longer be secured by an adequate fleet.4
Memorandum, Naval Act, 1900
Although the Royal Navy was never mentioned, there could be no confusion as to who this ‘greatest naval power’ was. Britain had substantial responsibilities and commitments around the globe and would find it difficult to concentrate a superior fleet for any moment of decision chosen by the German Navy. The British were well aware of the German threat. Their pace of battleship construction increased, more squadrons were recalled to home waters and, as we have seen, the era of ‘splendid isolation’ came to an end with the Entente Cordiale, in which the bulk of naval responsibility for the Mediterranean was handed over to the French and at the same time committing the British Expeditionary Force to fighting alongside the French on what would be the Western Front.
There were other challenges to the Royal Navy. Technology was on the march and the conventional pattern of battleship design was in danger of drifting into obsolescence due to cumulative advances in gunnery and propulsion. At the Admiralty the First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher, had the responsibility of co-ordinating Britain’s response to this threatening situation. If they were too slow in responding then the Royal Navy would fall behind her competitors, but take a wrong turning in the design of the new battleships and she could lose years. The British had to get it right first time. When the final designs for the prototype that would give its name to a generation of capital ships, the Dreadnought, emerged, they certainly represented a marked step forward. She was armed with ten 12-inch guns which allowed a broadside of eight 12-inch guns, with armour plate that fully matched conventional standards but was also capable of an impressive 21 knots powered by the very latest Parsons turbine engines. Once Fisher had made his decision, its execution was stunning: the Dreadnought was laid down on 2 October 1905, launched on 10 February 1906, went for her sea trials in October 1906 and was finally fitted out and completed by December 1906. The naval race had been rebooted from scratch, but the Royal Navy had managed to secure a huge advantage. While other nations pondered how to respond, British shipyards resounded with hammering and riveting as the new generation of dreadnoughts took shape on the stocks. The Germans began their own dreadnought programme in July 1907 but not only had the British secured a crucial lead, they had the determination to press home their advantage.
It was a similar story with the other great Fisher innovation, which indeed became his great passion: the battlecruiser. This was an entirely new class of ship with a strong main armament of eight 12-inch guns, but with only the relatively thin armour of a cruiser. It was intended to be used to clear the seas of any commerce-raiding cruisers which found themselves unable to fight or flee. For Fisher, the battlecruisers rather than the dreadnoughts would be the real future: he believed that speed would be their armour. This became his mantra and he constantly campaigned for bigger guns and more speed over the next few years as summed up in a letter to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, in December 1911.
The first desideratum of all is speed! Your fools don’t see it – they are always running about to see where they can put on a little more armour! To make it safer! You don’t go into battle to be safe! No, you go into battle to hit the other fellow in the eye first so that he can’t see you! Yes! You hit him first, you hit him hard and you keep on hitting. That’s your safety! You don’t get hit back? Well that’s the improved 13.5-inch gun! You don’t care a damn then whether your bottom’s dirty or a compartment bashed in with a torpedo making you draw water, because you have a big margin of speed over your Noah’s Ark Dreadnought of 21 knots!5
First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher
But the introduction of German battlecruisers meant that the battlecruisers ended up fighting each other and their thin armour meant that both sides delivered blows that they themselves could not withstand. The additional problem was that their heavy-gun armament provided a temptation to include them in the battle line. The battlecruisers would prove to be the main protagonists in the engagements between the British and German fleets and as such the intended function of the class was compromised and they would prove distressingly vulnerable.
The naval race between 1906 and 1914 was of exceptional severity. In both Britain and Germany there were naval scares which caused extravagant spurts in construction. Proposals for ‘naval holidays’ during which both sides would suspend building for a period were sunk by mutual suspicions. For the British the situation was complicated by the proliferation of dreadnoughts under construction all around the world, but particularly in the Mediterranean where the French dreadnought fleet would soon be joined by a conglomeration of Italian, Austrian and Turkish dreadnoughts over the next few years. The permutations seemed endless and the costs ruinous, for these mighty ships were the very acme of modern technology. Each successive class of battleship brought incremental improvements that raised the stakes ever higher. Size may not have been everything, but it certainly allowed for heavier guns, improved armour protection and better engines. In just eight years the Dreadnought, went from being the mistress of all she surveyed to near obsolescence upon the advent of the super-dreadnoughts under construction in 1914.
In contrast to the British fixation on guns and speed, the Germans concentrated their efforts on making their ships as near possible to unsinkable. German armour was generally both thicker and covered far more of the vital areas. The German ships also had the advantage of being built only for service in the North Sea and North Atlantic, so for the brief periods that they were at sea their crews could put up with the discomfort caused
by cramped mess decks and a high level of bulkhead subdivision below decks. This was impossible to countenance for British ships and crews operating in a global role. Tirpitz explained his philosophy:
So long as a ship is afloat, it retains a certain fighting value and can afterwards be easily repaired. Thus the deadly injury of that part of a ship below the water line is the ultimate aim of the weapon of attack, and the increasing of the buoyancy of the vessel the main object of protective measures. As soon as the Navy Bill was settled I caused this question of buoyancy to be taken up with great thoroughness. We soon found out that we had to experiment with real explosions in order to gain sufficient experience. As we could not sacrifice modern ships, and could not learn enough from the older ones, we built a section of a modern ship by itself and carried out experimental explosions on it, with torpedo heads, carefully studying the result every time. We tested the possibility of weakening the force of the explosion by letting the explosive gases burst in empty compartments without meeting with any resistance. We ascertained the most suitable kind of steel for the different structural parts, and found further that the effect of the explosion was nullified if we compelled it to pulverise coal in any considerable quantity. This resulted in a special arrangement of a portion of the coal bunkers. We were then able to meet the force of the explosion, which had been weakened in this way, by a strong, carefully constructed steel wall which finally secured the safety of the interior of the ship. This ‘torpedo bulkhead’ was carried without interruption the whole length of the vital parts of the ship. These experiments, which were continued through many years, and on which we did not hesitate to expend millions, yielded moreover information concerning the most suitable use of material and the construction of the adjoining parts of the ship. In addition to this, the whole of the underwater parts of the ship were designed for the event of failure to localize the effects of the explosion, or of several hits being made, and so forth; endless labour was expended upon details such as the pumping system or the possibility of speedily restoring a listing ship to a vertical position by flooding certain compartments. Finally, we completely abandoned the practice of connecting the compartments below the water line by doors. The buoyancy which was attained by our system stood the test. In contrast to the British ships, ours were well-nigh indestructible.6