The Great War

by Peter Hart

  I asked Corps Commanders to give me a written statement by Saturday, showing how they proposed to carry out the orders I had given them. On Monday next I would hold another meeting with Corps Commanders and discuss their proposals. Meantime the following points should be considered:

  1. Arrangements for bringing up the attacking troops in position of readiness near front line.

  2. How to get over our own wire obstacles. All wire should now be put down with this object in view.

  3. Study ground. Officers on the spot should correct maps daily. The enemy’s wire to be marked on map, etc.

  4. Guns to practise destroying enemy’s wire.

  5. Guns should be gradually and secretly placed in position to suit the scheme of attack. Targets to be registered gradually, so as not to attract attention.

  6. Most important. Officers should observe the enemy’s line daily most closely. We want to locate his Maxims.

  7. Mountain artillery and machine guns should follow the assaulting parties, so as to get into action quickly in new position.

  8. Mines. What can we do to defeat the enemy’s mines?

  9. Make saps with the object of supporting the attack.

  10. Can we bring trench mortars into position secretly, so that a large number of them can be massed against points which we mean to take?6

  General Sir Douglas Haig, Headquarters, First Army

  The significance of these directions cannot be denied. Haig had clearly taken note of the French experience in the Champagne battles and was already grappling with many of the fundamental problems of making an assault against entrenched positions. In his notes we see the surreptitious registering of artillery, interest in the surprise deployment of massed mortars, recognition of the problems posed by barbed wire, the care taken over arrangements for bringing up attacking troops, the primary importance given to locating German machine gun positions and an eye to the possibilities of rapidly deploying forward support weapons to assist in consolidation.

  Collectively his staff would devote much of their time to details of the artillery bombardment which lay at the heart of Haig’s plans. The emphasis was placed on destroying the shallow German trenches which, due to the raised water-table in the area, had to be augmented by sandbag barricades. The idea was to smash them down, killing the defending garrison and destroying any machine guns; after which a defensive curtain of shells would crash down to prevent any German reinforcements moving forward. To meet these demands, most of the British batteries on the Western Front would have to be concentrated at Neuve Chapelle. Once in place they were carefully registered by firing just the occasional shot in a manner that would not attract German attention to the new arrivals. A fire programme was drawn up for every gun, denoting targets, the timings of switches in target and the number of rounds to be fired. It seemed complex at the time, but this was merely the start of a process that would grow out of all recognition. This was the future.

  One specific problem becoming evident was that the guns would have to deal with the German barbed wire defences or the attacking infantry would not be able to get across No Man’s Land under fire. Wire cutters and the like were simply too slow; their wielders too vulnerable. The guns would have to do it before they attacked. But how? This had never been seriously considered before the war. Tests were carried out behind the line to try to determine the best type of shell and the length of bombardment that would be required to clear the wire. Shrapnel shells proved best able to cut it into small scraps no longer connected to the stakes; in contrast, high-explosive shells blew the wire up into the air, which, when it fell back to earth, still posed a serious obstacle.

  A tremendous debate ensued as to how long the preliminary bombardment should be before the troops attacked. Should it be a short, ‘hurricane’ bombardment or a more lengthy affair to ensure the destruction of the targets? Although Haig and his artillery specialists were not to know it, this choice would come to delineate the dichotomy between destruction and suppression. In February 1915, however, practical considerations held sway, not theory. Initial estimates required a bombardment of two and a half hours but, after considerable discussion and a series of tests, it was decided that a hurricane bombardment of thirty-five minutes would suffice for the 18-pounder field guns to clear the wire, by which time the 4.5-inch howitzers and heavy artillery would have destroyed the breastwork trenches. This was considered sufficient for such thin German defences as existed in March 1915; the calculations would change later in the war. In all, the First Army managed to amass surreptitiously 282 field guns and howitzers with an additional thirty-six heavier pieces. This amounted to one gun per six yards of front, which would rarely be equalled throughout the war. A special effort was made to secure a reasonable supply of ammunition, although this severely depleted the overall stocks available to the BEF on the Western Front. As the Germans had only twenty-four field guns and thirty-six heavy guns, the British now had a marked superiority of artillery. Of the British guns only a few were charged with tackling the German guns located back on Aubers Ridge. At this stage the German barbed wire and machine guns were considered greater threats to progress.

  The Battle of Neuve Chapelle marked the first effective addition of aircraft by the British to the existing mix of infantry, cavalry and artillery. Aerial photographic reconnaissance had advanced apace since the beginning of the war and the images produced allowed a photographic map to be produced detailing the German trenches at a scale of 1:8000. There had also been huge advances in artillery observation from the air. Indirect fire was all very well, but there had to be someone who knew where the target was in order to correct the range and direction as necessary. Shooting ‘from the map’ required far more accurate maps and survey techniques than were available in 1915. Long gun ranges and terrain meant that even front line observers telephoning corrections back to the guns could not help if the target was concealed from view behind some trees or, even worse, a ridge. Guessing was useless and nothing more than a waste of shells. The great innovation was to use aircraft carrying wireless transmitters which allowed correcting messages to be sent directly to the gun batteries using specially lettered and numbered squared maps with a simple clock code to indicate the relative position of the shells as they fell around the target. Very early on in the planning process for Neuve Chapelle Haig brought in Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Trenchard, commander of First Wing, Royal Flying Corps (RFC) for a briefing meeting on 16 February 1915. There is no doubt that Trenchard was flattered to be granted such an audience.

  This was the first time I had ever seen Haig. I was very nervous beforehand as I had always heard that he was very reserved, austere, severe and that he did not believe in a great deal in air. He ordered me to go round to his HQ about five o’clock in the evening and asked me about the use of aircraft in battle. I tried to explain what I thought they would do in future besides reconnaissance work, how our machines would have to fight in the air against German machines and how we should have to develop machine guns and bombs. He was interested. Then he said he was going to tell me something that only three or four people in the world yet knew; in March, somewhere in the vicinity of Merville and Neuve Chapelle, we were to launch an attack on the Germans. I was not to tell anybody. He asked: ‘What will you be able to do?’ I explained rather badly about artillery observation, reporting to gun batteries by Morse and signal lamps, and of our early efforts to get wireless going. On the map I showed him the position of my squadrons and said what their several tasks could be. When I’d finished he said: ‘Well, Trenchard, I shall expect you to tell me before the attack whether you can fly, because on your being able to observe for the artillery, and carry out reconnaissance, the battle will partly depend. If you can’t fly because of the weather, I shall probably put off the attack.’7

  Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Trenchard, Headquarters, First Wing, RFC

  Haig’s account of the meeting is rather more prosaic: ‘I told him the plan and asked for his proposals as to dispos
al of aeroplanes for reconnaissance and also for artillery observation.’ But Haig’s later actions showed that he had been paying close attention. On 22 February he noted:

  At 10 am I motored to Merville and held conference there regarding plans for offensive. I went into the plans sent in at some length, and insisted on the necessity of methodical preparation, and that every individual man should know exactly what his task was. Thanks to the wonderful map of Enemy’s trenches which we now had as the result of airplane reconnaissance it was now possible to make our plans very carefully beforehand.8

  General Sir Douglas Haig, Headquarters, First Army

  These first steps established a close association between Haig and Trenchard that would endure for the whole war, and indeed defined the relationship between the BEF and the RFC as a whole. From this moment onwards air operations would be fundamental to every major offensive. Reconnaissance and artillery observation became the prime purpose of RFC operations and soon there were hundreds of the corps aircraft engaged on these unglamorous but crucial missions. Ideas of bombers engaging in interdiction attacks to wreck German communications pinch points were nothing but pipedream fantasies. Aircraft in 1915 could not carry a sufficient bomb payload to do significant damage and, as their bomb-aimers were still relatively inaccurate, they rarely hit their targets anyway. In essence, the RFC was the handmaiden of the Royal Artillery.

  Haig also paid much consideration to the planning of the infantry assault. Officers were carefully briefed with both aerial photographs and sketch maps so that they would know where they were and what lay ahead of them once they had broken into the German lines. Painstaking preparations were also undertaken to improve the existing communication trenches and dig specially constructed assembly trenches where the troops could form up under cover. When the moment of attack came at 08.05 Haig required his men to advance as quickly as possible to secure maximum benefit to the chaos and panic engendered in the German ranks by the bombardment. Arrangements were also in place to rapidly push forward both machine guns and mountain guns to help support the infantry as they consolidated their anticipated gains. Attention was also paid to improving telephone lines to allow the generals to follow what was going on. Once they had secured the German front line a further assault would be made on the village itself at 08.35 and through to occupy the trenches previously occupied by the British in 1914, when they were known as the Smith-Dorrien Line. Not all of these attempted innovations worked, but there is no doubt that they prefigured many future developments.

  The barrage blazed out at 07.30 on 10 March 1915. While half the 18-pounders thrashed the German barbed wire with shrapnel fire, the rest combined with the heavier guns to flay the German trenches. After ten minutes the field artillery switched to creating a barrage line to the east of Neuve Chapelle to prevent either the escape or reinforcement of the German garrison troops. The waiting infantry watched on stunned.

  The noise almost split our numbed wits. As the shells went over our heads we grew more and more excited. We could not hear each other. Shots from the 18-pounders were screaming not far over our heads, and much higher up, higher than the highest mountain of Europe, high explosives from the 15-inch howitzers were rushing like express trains. After a while we could trace the different sounds. There was no difficulty in making out the German trenches. They had become long clouds of smoke and dust, flashing continuously with shell bursts, and with enormous masses of trench material and bodies sailing high above the smoke cloud. The purely physical effect on us was one of extreme exhilaration. We could have laughed and cried with excitement. We thought that bombardment was winning the war before our eyes. Incredible that the men in the German front line could have escaped. We felt sure we were going to pour through the gap.9

  Lance Corporal William Andrews, 4th Black Watch

  In reality, the shrapnel shells had to be very well judged to have any effect on the wire, while to hit a relatively narrow trench line enough times to guarantee its destruction demanded careful registration and a plethora of HE shells. Given the grim consequences for infantry caught in the open under machine gun or artillery fire, failure meant that the term ‘hanging on the old barbed wire’ soon came to have a terrible resonance.

  Almost before I had time to realise it, I found myself up against the German wire. It was bared and twisted and almost unbroken, for the bombardment had proved ineffective at that particular point. Of how we got through that wire I have no clear idea. I have a vague recollection of tearing at it with my naked hands and, with the help of one of my corporals, dragging away the remains of a cheval-de-frise, while a German fired at us at a range of only 4 or 5 yards and missed us both. After that the fellow must have bolted, as I remember throwing myself through the remaining strands of wire.10

  Lieutenant Malcolm Kennedy, 2nd Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)

  It is tempting to dwell on the dramatic stories of failure rather than the rather more mundane accounts of success, and this can skew our vision of the real progress that was made. Five of the eight assault battalions took their objectives advancing some 1,200 yards with minimal losses to take Neuve Chapelle and the flooded remnants of the Smith-Dorrien Line by 09.00. Many battalions went almost unscathed. It had also been demonstrated that, following these new tactics, the British tactics could break into the German lines. The question was, could they break through to the uplands of the Aubers Ridge and beyond? Haig gained permission from Sir John French to move forward a cavalry brigade in case it was needed for reconnaissance.

  Yet just as everything seemed to be going so well the offensive began to fall apart. Winkling out the pockets of German resistance proved both difficult to organise and very costly in practice. Many of the troops were in a state of absolute confusion. Unused as they were to the headlong stresses of combat it was inevitable that many were incapable of thinking clearly. Although the junior officers had been well briefed, severe casualties meant that in many instances NCOs were left in command with little clue as to what they were meant to be doing. Delays multiplied as the communications fell apart under German shellfire, despite the best efforts to bury the telephone lines. The passing minutes turned into hours as Willcocks and Rawlinson, in charge of the Indian Corps amd IV Corps respectively, struggled to a get a grip on the situation. They were hesitant to order the next advance towards Aubers Ridge until all the original objectives had been secured. But every minute that passed was exploited by the Germans to reorganise and move up their reserves. As the breach torn in their lines measured only 2,000 yards across, they were soon able to plug the gap. Renewed British attacks were made over the next three days but resulted only in severe losses and no significant advances. By the time the battle was over the First Army had suffered 11,652 casualties.

  Neuve Chapelle was a failure in attaining the declared objectives of Aubers Ridge: the capture of the battered remnants of the village of Neuve Chapelle and the straightening out of a minor salient were surely not worth such a cost. But real success was never likely given the greenness of almost everyone involved in offensive operations. And there were considerable benefits to the BEF from the experience. The innovations overseen by Haig would establish many of the basic features of British offensives for the rest of the war. That is not to say that the arrangements were perfect; perfection at the first attempt would be remarkable indeed. But Neuve Chapelle represented a remarkable start. Haig welded a willingness to use innovatory techniques to a firm grasp of the practicalities of warfare in 1915 to oversee the creation of tactics that were fit for purpose in tackling a weak German front line backed only by a weak support trench with negligible artillery support. With more experience in maintaining command and control much more could be achieved.

  As with the French there was a debate as to what the lessons actually meant. Rawlinson was of the same opinion as de Langle de Cary.

  What we want to do now is what I call ‘bite and hold’. Bite off a piece of the enemy’s line, like Neuve Chapelle, and hold it agains
t counterattack. The bite can be made without much loss, and, if we choose the right place and make every preparation to put it quickly in a state of defence, there ought to be no difficulty in holding it against the enemy’s counter-attacks and inflicting on him at least twice the loss that we have suffered in making the bite.11

  Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson, Headquarters, IV Corps

  The problem was that in 1915 the BEF had neither the artillery nor the shells to make ‘bite and hold’ a feasible operational methodology. As a tactic it was also far too slow to meet the political requirements imposed on Sir John French and Joffre. After the battle it was evident that the frontage attacked at Neuve Chapelle had been too narrow, and the gap it created far too easily plugged by the Germans. The rest of 1915 would see the British generals trying to expand the length of front attacked, but without the artillery and shells needed to have much chance of success.

  Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April 1915

  Having bowed to a combination of pressure and circumstance in diverting resources to the Eastern Front, Falkenhayn now attempted to maintain some degree of strategic surprise by covering the departure of his divisions from the Western Front. As he did not have the men or ammunition to launch a more conventional offensive, he sought to test the stalemate at Ypres by using the new German secret weapon of poisonous gas. At 17.00 on 22 April 1915, his Fourth Army launched an attack at Ypres employing some 168 tons of chlorine released from thousands of steel bottles in cloud form. The Germans and French had both tested the lethal potential of gas before to little effect, but this would be markedly different. The German troops were equipped with simple respirators but, despite a fair degree of accurate warning intelligence, the Allies had failed to take notice, preferring to believe that the Germans would not stoop so low. (The use of gas had been expressly forbidden by the Hague Convention of 1907.) In consequence, the men of the French 45th (Algerian) and 87th (Territorial) Divisions holding the northern sector of the salient were caught completely unawares with no protective masks. The chlorine invaded their bodies, burning and choking them and destroying their lungs. Colonel Henri Mordacq, a staff officer with the 45th Division, would witness the chaos at first hand.