The Great War

by Peter Hart

  5

  THE WESTERN FRONT, 1915

  ‘Never do what the enemy wants for the very reason that he wants it; avoid a battleground that he has reconnoitred and studied; and with even more reason ground that he has fortified and where he is entrenched.’1

  Napoleon I

  WESTERN FRONT WARFARE would prove to be one of the most complex military conundrums of the modern age. Napoleon could rail against it from the past, but what alternative was there for the Allies other than to attack the German fortified positions when the trenches stretched from the English Channel to Switzerland? The soldiers on both sides were well dug in, although they only had simple defensive systems early in 1915. The trenches were over six feet deep, with the firing bays separated by solid earth traverses, a parapet in front and a parados behind, a fire step for men to stand on in action, wire or wood revetments holding up the sides, duckboards underfoot and simple drainage systems to hold back the water. Zigzagging communication trenches ran back to a support line which was generally a sketchy notational line rather than real trenches. In front there was a barbed wire defence of one or two ‘double aprons’. Although by no means safe, the trenches enabled the troops to avoid the worst effects of artillery, machine gun and rifle fire. Only high explosives and shells from high-angle weapons dropped directly into the trenches posed a pressing danger. One thing was certain: a defending garrison tucked below ground level behind a tangle of barbed wire could deploy bolt-action rifles and enfilading heavy machine guns to deadly effect against troops attempting to cross No Man’s Land. Anyone caught in the open was horribly vulnerable to artillery fire, so any attack was an intimidating prospect.

  For the Germans, 1915 was a year of war that should not have been: their whole strategy had been based on a quick war. Now they found themselves embroiled in a two-front war, with two enemies – France and Russia – fully mobilised and another – Britain – slowly amassing her strength and relatively invulnerable behind her navy. The Chief of General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, faced a grim situation.

  As a result of the unfortunately widespread catchword ‘the war must be won in the East’ even people in high leading circles inclined to the opinion that it would be possible for the Central Powers actually ‘to force Russia to her knees’ by force of arms, and by this success to induce the Western Powers to change their mind. This argument paid no heed either to the true character of the struggle for existence, in the most exact sense of the word, in which our enemies were engaged no less than we, nor to their strength of will. It was a grave mistake to believe that our Western enemies would give way, if and because Russia was beaten. No decision in the East, even though it were as thorough as was possible to imagine, could spare us from fighting to a conclusion in the West. For this Germany had to be prepared at all costs.2

  General Erich von Falkenhayn, General Headquarters, German Army

  His personal preference was for a negotiated peace with one of Germany’s adversaries – preferably Russia – allowing Germany to concentrate on beating first France and then Britain – whom he had come to see as the ultimate enemy. There was a great deal of dissent in the German High Command, with an opposing school of thought rapidly coalescing around Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the victors of Tannenberg, who were far more confident that outright victory could be achieved over Russia in 1915. Falkenhayn lacked the authority to enforce his will; indeed, there were widespread conspiracies against him across the German military and political hierarchy, involving the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, Hindenburg (who sought the position of Chief of General Staff for himself) and the somewhat resentful Moltke. With the firm support of the Kaiser, Falkenhayn remained in post, but he was somewhat weakened in the process and was forced to send part of his reserves to the Eastern Front: this was a victory without power. Perversely, events forced his hand when Austria-Hungary appealed for help after a series of terrible reverses against the Russians and Serbs left her teetering on the brink of military collapse. There were also rumbling noises emanating from Italy and Rumania; it seemed that, rather than join the Central Powers as had been hoped, they were far more likely to join the Allies. This could only add to the pressure on Austria-Hungary. This combination of circumstances left Falkenhayn with no choice: he may have been ‘Westerner’, but it was evident that the war was being lost in the east. He began to send his precious reserves to the Eastern Front, intent at first on stabilising Germany’s faltering ally, then on making her secure from any future attack.

  In contrast, the French and British had little option but to attack on the Western Front. The partial success of the Germans’ offensive in August 1914 had left them able to dominate nearly all of Belgium and great swathes of northern France, with its wealth of coal and iron reserves. The Germans were also poised only some sixty or so miles from Paris. Joffre was determined not to adopt a passive approach, which would hand the initiative to the Germans, allowing them to make their own unfettered plans for a devastating offensive on the Western Front, or to transfer troops en masse to the Eastern Front in order to seek a victory over Russia. There was also a political dimension: Joffre was under intense pressure to remove the invaders from the sacred soil of France. Passively maintaining the status quo was not an option; the French wanted the invaders out of their country as soon as possible. The question was how?

  The challenge facing British and French generals in early 1915 was immense. How could they get enough troops across No Man’s Land to over-run the German front line? What about support trenches? How to consolidate gains from counter-attacks? How best to exploit any developing gap in the line? In the first engagements the problem was largely seen as how to take the German front line; after which, the presumption was, things would just sort themselves out and all would be well. But there was far more to it than that.

  The French had a winter of heavy fighting as they sought to test the limitations of trench warfare with a series of major offensives that started in December 1914 and stretched deep into 1915. The first attack was on 17 December by the Tenth Army in the Artois region, with the objective of gaining control of the heights of the Vimy Ridge that dominated the Lens–Douai plain. Many of the techniques associated with the siege warfare of a bygone age found new applications as they painstakingly sapped trenches forward across No Man’s Land, then connected them up to form jumping-off trenches as close as possible to the German lines. When the infantry attacked they fondly supposed there had been a devastating artillery preparation; they were very soon be disabused of that notion. They had made only trivial gains by the time the offensive ended in mid-January 1915. One improvement for the men was the gradual issue of new horizon blue uniforms gradually through the course of 1915. This was of course a massive undertaking and for a while the French soldiers presented an unprepossessing appearance in a bizarre mixture of old and new, although at least the light blue uniforms were less visible where it counted – on the battlefield.

  Further south, an offensive in the Champagne area opened up on 20 December 1914. The Fourth Army, commanded by General Fernand de Langle de Cary, was attacking along a 25-mile stretch from Auberive to Massiges in an attempt to break through to the vital Mézières rail junction, for which purpose some 258,000 troops had been amassed backed up by over 700 guns. A preliminary bombardment to cut the German barbed wire was followed by a brisk bombardment of the trenches and then the infantry assault moving forward in waves. They made minor gains but failed to break through: the artillery concentration may have seemed adequate but it was insufficient to break through well-established trench lines. After a pause, on 16 February the French launched the second phase of their offensive. By this time they had amassed even more guns, with a slightly higher proportion of heavier pieces. Their tactics involved a heavy emphasis on trying to maintain control in the chaos of battle: thus the artillery fired to a schedule and the infantry went over the top in accordance to an exact timetable. But when things did not go according to plan – and they hardly ever
did – then the guns and infantry found themselves completely out of synchronisation.

  The Champagne fighting was starkly attritional, as tactically significant positions were taken, lost, taken, and lost again. The French attacks segued into German counter-attacks of equal weight, with a particularly vicious battle being fought for the hitherto insignificant village of Perthes. Gradually the battlefield mutated into a sort of outdoor charnel house littered with human remains. There may not have been enough guns to create a breakthrough, but soldiers on both sides were horrified by the terrible destruction wrought by artillery on the human body.

  As we forced our way through the deep narrow trench, what a horrible sight met our eyes! In a place where a trench mortar shell had burst, there lay, torn to pieces, about eight of the Alpine Chasseurs – some of the finest French troops in a great bloody heap of mangled human bodies; dead and wounded. On the top a corpse without a head or torso and underneath some who were still alive, though with limbs torn off or horribly mutilated. They looked at us with bleeding, mournful eyes. The crying and moaning of these poor, doomed enemy soldiers went to our hearts. We couldn’t get out of the trench to avoid this pile of bodies. However much our hearts shrank from trampling over them with our hob-nailed boots, we were forced to do it!3

  Lieutenant Walter Ambroselli, 3rd Battalion, 12th Grenadier Regiment

  The French had one advantage in their famous 75 mm guns that, notwithstanding their flat trajectory, could generate a reasonable bombardment through their sheer rapidity of fire. Ensign August Hopp would experience the awful reality of being caught at the centre of a French bombardment on the Heights of Combres on 21 February 1915. There was no romance in this mechanistic warfare in which human bodies were pitted against exploding shells.

  It started at 3 o’clock, and at the same time they poured in a terrific flanking fire on our left. One after another my brave men met his fate, either from artillery or infantry fire. It was ghastly; I had to keep urging the men to stick it out, not to lose courage, knowing all the time that I might be hit myself at any moment. I crawled out to the flank position, where there was no cover at all and encouraged the men lying there – Corporal Seckinger and Privates Platzr and Plemmer – to keep a good look out, so that the enemy should not suddenly fall upon our flank. I had to shout in their ears, such a thunder was going on all around. Then, just as I had crawled down again into the trench I was thrown over by a fearful concussion. Up above, there the three were lying, a soft gurgling sound was heard; the legs of the one nearest me jerked convulsively once; then all was deathly still. And so came the turn of one after another.4

  Ensign August Hopp, German Army

  The French casualties on the Champagne Front in February and March totalled over 40,000.

  Joffre ordered another spring offensive on the St Mihiel Salient commencing on 30 March. Heavy fighting produced only minor gains at great loss; indeed, it merely succeeded in triggering the first of a series of effective counter-attacks by the Germans which began on 23 April and soon stripped away the meagre French gains. Of course the French retaliated and there was a further welter of bitter fighting. Constant vigilance was required, as Lieutenant Maurice Genevoix discovered on the Les Éparges Ridge on 25 April.

  ‘Take cover!’ Too late: I fell on one knee on the ground. A sudden shock went through my left arm. It’s behind me, bleeding profusely. I want to straighten it: I cannot. I want to get up: I cannot. I look at my arm as it shudders with the shock of a second bullet, and the blood pours from a second hole. My knees are stuck to the ground as if my body was made out of lead, my head bowed. Before my eyes a scrap of material jerks, the dull thud of a third bullet. Dully, I see the deep furrow of red flesh on my left breast near the armpit. I had to get up, drag myself out of sight. I didn’t lose consciousness; my breathing sounded strange, gasping, quick and shallow. The treetops swirl across a dizzying sky.5

  Lieutenant Maurice Genevoix, 106th Infantry Regiment

  He was one of some 65,000 French casualties in the St Mihiel Salient.

  It was evident that the French artillery was still not equipped with enough heavy guns or shells to smash the German defences. As a result it was increasingly forced to rely on long preliminary bombardments by the field artillery to try and wear down the German trenches before the poilus went over the top. However, this put even more strain on French ammunition supplies and when replacement stocks proved to be of poor quality due to the sudden expansion in production, there were frequent cases of misfires and premature detonations. Such secondary considerations typified the nature of modern warfare in which the solution of one problem merely uncovered, or created, additional difficulties to be overcome. Analysis of the fighting threw up more difficulties: thus, while de Langle de Cary at one point emphasised the difficulties of achieving a breakthrough and advised concentrating on carefully chosen points of tactical significance, Joffre, by contrast, pointed to the necessity for adequate artillery support and warned against narrow front attacks against which the Germans could concentrate their artillery and machine gun response from neighbouring unaffected sectors. Neither was right; neither was wrong. This was clearly going to be a long and complex war.

  The Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 10 March 1915

  The French had gained a poor opinion of the BEF during the 1914 campaign, only alleviated by its late-flowering demonstration of determination during the First Battle of Ypres. Still doubtful of British capacity to undertake an offensive, Joffre’s initial priority for the BEF in 1915 was to get his British allies to accept a greater share of the front line, stretching from the Ypres Salient down to the La Bassée area. This would allow the French to release more troops for their own offensives. Although the BEF was grossly tardy in taking over more of the line, Sir John French proved surprisingly willing to launch a supporting attack in what would ultimately be the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

  It is well worth examining the stages in which the different components of the BEF were added to the plans of the generals in their early attempts to crack the problem of a successful offensive. The first part was obvious: infantry were ever-present. The tactics were essentially those of fire and movement, an approach frequently decried as old-fashioned, with scornful reference to ‘Boer War tactics’. Yet what else could it have been based on? It was far too soon to digest properly the lessons of 1914. The second traditional element was the use of cavalry. The role of cavalry had been deeply controversial before the war, with a strange dispute arising between those promulgating pure cavalry reliant on shock and awe and those in favour of mounted infantry. Although the cavalry had been invaluable in 1914 both for reconnaissance in open warfare and to plug gaps in an emergency, afterwards they became very much an afterthought – a force to be used when the battle was all but done to try to maximise the spoils of victory. In the absence of any other fastmoving strike force, it was the cavalry or nothing when it came to rapid exploitation.

  The third primary grouping was the artillery. The Royal Artillery had gone to war with little grasp of its role in combat. It was thought the gunners’ task was to shower the opposing infantry with shrapnel shells spraying out deadly steel balls. When batteries were deployed in a defensive role in support of the infantry it was not yet understood that this did not mean that the actual guns had to be sited close to the infantry their shells were defending. Positioned within a few hundred yards of the infantry, many gunners were soon despatched by the German artillery or infantry. When the guns were covering an attack there was also no concept of suppressing the ability of the German infantry and artillery to fire on British troops while they were vulnerable in No Man’s Land; early in the war it was destruction or nothing – yet there was a shortage of the high-explosive shells that would make destruction feasible. There was a predominance of field guns, firing on a flat trajectory, with insufficient howitzers capable of dropping shells into the German trenches. And of course the Royal Artillery was simply too small: it lacked the thousands of guns, t
he trained gunners, the techniques, the tactical sophistication and the almost unlimited supplies of munitions necessary to dominate the modern battlefield. It would take years to remedy these stark deficiencies

  The Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the first major BEF attack on German entrenched positions, would be conducted by the First Army (the IV Corps and Indian Corps) under the command of General Sir Douglas Haig. The Germans’ situation on the Western Front had worsened after their strategic decision to send substantial forces to join the operations on the Eastern Front against the Russians. Consequently there were only two German divisions left to face the six divisions of the First Army between the La Bassée Canal and Bois Grenier; indeed, neither side had much in the way of reserves. The attack was originally envisaged as a joint offensive with the French, but they dropped out after finding themselves already over-committed. Sir John French decided that the BEF would carry on regardless. The British Commander in Chief was determined to dispel the prevailing view among his French allies that the BEF was incapable of launching an effective offensive action.

  The German front line formed a salient around Neuve Chapelle. Haig’s overall plans called for converging attacks by IV Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson, and the Indian Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Sir James Willcocks, supported by massed artillery on a frontage of 2,000 yards, to seize the village before taking up defensive positions. Success would trigger further attacks on either side of the breakthrough intended to widen the gap and then push towards the Aubers Ridge which offered the possibility of disrupting German communications to Lille. As the artillery had only sufficient ammunition for three or four days of serious operations, contingency plans were also prepared to take up defensive positions depending on the degree of success of the whole operation. Throughout the planning process Haig adopted a broadly collegiate approach, consulting experts and holding conferences with the commanders and senior staff charged with carrying out the attack. His subordinates and their staff officers were expected to work out the elaborate details, but there is no doubt that Haig provided insightful guidance.