The Great War

by Peter Hart

  Lieutenant Frank Mitchell, 1st Battalion, Tank Corps

  Their two female Mark IV tanks had been damaged by shells and were dropping back, so Mitchell decided that his tank must slow down to an absolute crawl if he was to have any chance of hitting his targets. He proved partially successful.

  The left gunner, registering carefully, began to hit the ground right in front of the Jerry tank. I took a risk and stopped the tank for a moment. The pause was justified; a well-aimed shot hit enemy’s conning tower, bringing him to a standstill. Another roar and yet another white puff at the front of the tank denoted a second hit! Peering with swollen eyes through his narrow slit, the gunner shouted words of triumph that were drowned by the roar of the engine. Then once more with great deliberation he aimed and hit for the third time. Through a loophole I saw the tank heel over to one side; then a door opened and out ran the crew. We had knocked the monster out! Quickly I signed to the machine gunner and he poured volley after volley into the retreating figure. I turned slowly at the other two, who were creeping forward relentlessly; if they both concentrated their fire on us at once we would be finished. We fired rapidly at the nearest tank and to my intense joy and amazement, I saw it slowly back away. Its companion did not appear to relish a fight, for it followed its mate and in a few minutes they had both disappeared, leaving our tank the sole possessor of the field.27

  Lieutenant Frank Mitchell, 1st Battalion, Tank Corps

  The knocked-out German A7V was the Nixe, commanded by Lieutenant Wilhelm Biltz, a professor of chemistry in his pre-war life. He was lucky to survive this sharp little action, a precursor of the future of armoured warfare.

  The tanks’ efforts were of little importance in the scheme of things and the German attack soon crashed through the badly weakened 8th Division. With the capture of Villers-Bretonneux the way to Amiens seemed wide open. It was left to the Australian Corps to launching a last-ditch night attack to regain the town.

  There was a howling as of demons as the 57th, fighting mad, drove through the wire, through their enemy. The wild cry rose to a voluminous, vengeful roar. There was no quarter on either side. Bathed in spurting blood they killed and killed. Bayonets passed with ease through grey-clad bodies and were withdrawn with a sucking noise. Some found chances in the slaughter to light cigarettes, then continued the killing. Then, as they looked for more victims, there were cries of, ‘There they go, there they go!’ and over heaps of big, dead Germans they sprang in pursuit. One huge Australian advanced firing a Lewis gun from the shoulder, spraying the ground with lead. It is unlikely that any of the enemy escaped their swift, relentless pursuers. They were slaughtered against the lurid glare of the fire in the town. One saw running forms in the dark, and the flashes of rifles, then the evil pyre in the town flared and showed to their killers the white faces of Germans lurking in shell holes, or flinging away their arms and trying to escape, only to be stabbed or shot down as they ran. Machine gun positions were discovered burrowed under hay stacks, crammed with men, who on being found were smashed and mangled by bomb after bomb after bomb. It was impossible to take prisoners. Men could not be spared to take them to the rear.28

  Sergeant William Downing, 57th Battalion, AIF

  The Australian troops were beginning to carve out a formidable reputation on the Western Front. Villers-Bretonneux had been recaptured, but more importantly the gateway to Amiens had been firmly shut.

  Ludendorff was becoming increasingly desperate. He had captured large swathes of despoiled ground, ruined villages, shattered copses and blasted roads, but he had failed to knock the British out of the war. Two large salients bulged into the British lines, but these were sources of weakness rather than strength. The British were still on their feet; the Americans were still on their way. This time Ludendorff resolved to launch an attack on the French using the contingency plans developed as Operation Blücher earlier in the year. The German Seventh and First Armies would attack the French Sixth Army stretched out along the Chemin des Dames Ridge. The idea was to suck in Allied reserves, thereby leaving the British vulnerable to a great new Flanders offensive, codenamed Operation Hagen, which was set to commence in July. It was ironic, then, that several British divisions were innocently holding a quiet sector of the French line that was about to be attacked. They had been sent there to recuperate, replacing some French divisions which were intended to allow Foch to create a mobile reserve.

  When the Germans attacked, the battered British divisions were totally unable to hold the line. It was doubly unfortunate that General Denis August Duchêne, the commander of the French Sixth Army, was unable to grasp the concept of defence in depth, determined as he was to hold the ground along the ridge top that had been won at so much cost in previous years. As a result, far too high a proportion of his units were concentrated in the Forward Zone, which made them excessively vulnerable to the German bombardment that began with awesome force at 01.00 on 27 May 1918.

  A thousand guns roared out their iron hurricane. The night was rent with sheets of flame. The earth shuddered under the avalanche of missiles, leapt skywards in dust and tumult. Even above the din screamed the fierce crescendo of approaching shells, ear-splitting crashes as they burst. All the time the dull thud, thud, thud of detonations and drum fire. Inferno raged and whirled round the Bois des Buttes. The dugouts rocked, filled with the acrid fumes of cordite, the sickly sweet tang of gas. Timbers started: earth showered from the roof. Men rushed for shelter, seizing kits, weapons, gas masks, message pads as they dived for safety. It was a descent into hell. Crowded with jostling, sweating humanity the dugouts reeked, and to make matters worse headquarters had no sooner got below than the gas began to filter down. Gas masks were hurriedly donned and anti-gas precautions taken – the entrances closed with saturated blankets, braziers lighted on the stairs. If gas could not enter, neither could the air. As a fact both did in small quantities and the long night was spent 40 foot underground, at the hottest time of the year, in stinking overcrowded holes, their entrances sealed up and charcoal burners alight drying up the atmosphere – suffocation rendered more complete by the gas masks with clip on nostrils and gag in the teeth.29

  Captain Sydney Rogerson, Headquarters, 23rd Brigade

  From 03.40 the German infantry tore through the French and British front lines. Soon the survivors were streaming back across the Aisne. There was much desperate fighting and many acts of heroism in what must have seemed a lost cause.

  We each fall back in turn, pausing to fire when the black helmets appear from the pale fields. When a section gets up and moves off, the enemy mows it down from left, right and front. We can clearly see that Sirey is surrounded, struggling in the storm of grenades. If we can get two or three platoons to regroup, we can go forward to disengage a neighbouring company in trouble. Near the Saconin road, Lieutenant Chauveau defended himself for more than an hour. When the Germans got to him, he was lying wounded among his dead; he refused to surrender, went to his death firing on his attackers with his revolver.30

  Private Georges Gaudy, 57th Infantry Regiment

  The British divisions had been in a bad state to start, having been smashed up in both the Somme and Flanders. They were full of young recruits and veterans that had already been to the well too often. As they were pushed back from the Aisne they soon descended into deep disorder. At times there were very real echoes of the type of fighting in 1914.

  A German field gun battery galloped up to the top of the ridge, unlimbered and opened fire on us. Being fired at by guns over open sights was a new experience – and a shattering one! The shells arrived with such a vicious ‘whizz’ and each one seemed to be aimed at you personally. I was not the only one who found it unnerving. Everyone did and the whole lot of us just broke and ran. This was the only time I saw a real rout. It is true that we had been retreating the whole day, but not, most of the time, on the run and we had had in mind the finding of a position where we could make a stand. But now it was just panic flight; with each m
an, including me, thinking of nothing but saving his own skin.31

  Lieutenant John Nettleton, 2nd Rifle Brigade

  As their units disintegrated, neither the British nor the French could stem the German advance. A hole some thirty-five miles wide and twelve miles deep was ripped into their lines. Over the next few days the French would try to plug the gap using their local reserves – but it is noticeable that Foch ignored pleas for access to the strategic reserve that he insisted on holding back until he knew exactly what the Germans intended. In contrast Ludendorff was swept away by the impressive tactical gains and began to abandon his original concept of a diversion before the last great Flanders offensive that would win the war. He could after all point to some 50,000 Allied prisoners and 800 guns captured during Operation Blücher – impressive by any standards. Ludendorff even had visions of an advance across the Marne River and all the way to Paris. He began to commit his own reserve divisions to the battle. Yet even as his troops pushed forwards, the age-old problems dogged their steps. The French reinforcements began to arrive in force while the German communications were stretched, their troops exhausted and their artillery disorganised. Most significantly of all, the American 2nd and 3rd Divisions helped shore up the French line at Château-Thierry on the Marne. Their attitude was summed up by Colonel Wendell C. Neville of the Marine Corps Brigade, when a local French officer suggested that tactical retreat might be in order, ‘Retreat? Hell – we only just got here!’ Having helped stem the tide of the German advance, on 6 June, the US Marine Brigade (part of 2nd Division) launched an attack to clear the Germans out of Belleau Woods.

  We started off in trench warfare formation, the only formation we knew, which consisted of four waves with the first wave and all waves holding their rifles at what is called ‘high port,’ not even aiming or firing or hip firing or anything like that. Now we got out of these woods and we moved towards Belleau Woods, nobody firing a shot. Bayonets fixed, moving at a low steady cadence that we had been taught. On our left, approximately 200 yards, was the redoubt of Belleau Woods. It’s an eminence, a little raised place; the little hunting lodge was up there. It’s a rocky place. It was teeming with machine guns; I mean it seemed that way. And nobody, literally nobody was firing a shot at these Germans. They had us enfiladed. They were to our left front; and as we got out far enough, we were perfectly enfiladed from them. So it was absolutely like a shooting gallery and not a single Marine of ours firing a shot. We weren’t trained that way. We went on. Well, of course, as soon as we came out of this first band of woods in my platoon (there were approximately 52 men) there were only six people got across the first 75 yards. All the rest were killed, wounded and pinned down. I mean we were down into a ravine which was perfectly enfiladed and just ‘Bloop!’ a few machine guns – and that was it.32

  Sergeant Merwin Silverthorn, 5th Marines, AEF

  Tactical naivety could be painful and a good deal of intense fighting ensued before the capture of the wood was completed on 26 June. So the learning process had begun for another army amidst the frenzy of the Western Front.

  Falling into his own trap, Ludendorff triggered Operation Gneisenau to widen the salient from Noyon to Montdidier with an attack launched at 24.00 on 8 June. At first the Germans were successful, over-running the Forward Zone on 9 June and pushing forward some four miles. Then it was the same old story as the French managed to stabilise the front. But something new emerged on 11 June, when the French launched a counterattack under General Charles Mangin driving into the western flank of the burgeoning salient. The French were using their own shock tactics as they attacked without a preliminary barrage to preserve surprise, utilised a deadly creeping barrage, with close support for the assaulting troops from large numbers of Renault FT tanks and ground-strafing aircraft. Stymied again, Ludendorff was forced to suspend the attacks. If the Germans ever had a real chance of winning the war on the Western Front in 1918, then now it had passed. The arrival of summer brought with it an accelerating stream of fresh American divisions on to the Western Front. Although unused to modern warfare, they represented the end of hope for the German Army.

  Ludendorff was caught in a cleft stick. He could stand back on the defensive and prolong the war as long as possible; or he could make one last grab for outright victory. He decided to launch his Friedensturm – Peace Offensive – with an all-out attack on the French and the Americans with the Seventh, First and Third Armies from Servon to Château-Thierry in what would become known as the Second Battle of the Marne. Once the French were defeated Ludendorff resolved to turn for the final decisive battle with the British in Flanders. But the French easily detected the precursors of this huge offensive and were ready and waiting: the German methodology was now fully understood. Indeed, before the German bombardment opened up at 00.10 on 15 July, the French front lines were cleared to avoid casualties, while the massed French guns actually opened up their fire first, flaying the German gun batteries and crashing down on the infantry as they moved up for the assault planned to commence after 04.15. It was the start of a very bad day for the German Army. In the sector manned by Captain Jesse Woolridge the Germans attempted a crossing of the Marne on pontoons and a floating bridge.

  The general fire ceased and their creeping barrage started – behind which at 40 yards only, mind you, they came – with more machine guns than I thought the German Army owned. The enemy had to battle their way through the first platoon on the river bank – then they took on the second platoon on the forward edge of the railway where we had a thousand times the best of it – but the [Germans] gradually wiped it out. My third platoon [took] their place in desperate hand to hand fighting, in which some got through only to be picked up by the fourth platoon which was deployed simultaneously with the third. By the time they struck the fourth platoon they were all in and easy prey. It’s God’s truth that one company of American soldiers beat and routed a full regiment of picked shock troops of the German Army. At 10 o’clock, the Germans were carrying back wounded and dead [from] the river bank and we in our exhaustion let them do it – they carried back all but 600 which we counted later and fifty-two machine guns. We had started with 251 men and five lieutenants. I had left fifty-one men and two Second Lieutenants.33

  Captain Jesse Woolridge, 38th Infantry Regiment, AEF

  The Adjutant of the German 5th Grenadier Regiment certainly agreed as to the level of resistance offered by the Americans.

  It was the severest defeat of the war! One only had to descend the northern slopes of the Marne: never have I seen so many dead, nor such frightful sights in battle. The Americans on the other shore had completely shot to pieces in a close combat two of our companies. They had lain in the grain, in semicircular formation, had let us approach, and then from 30 to 50 feet had shot almost all of us down. This foe had nerves, one must allow him this boast; but he also showed a bestial brutality. ‘The Americans kill everything!’ That was the cry of horror of 15 July, which long took hold of our men. A day like 15 July affects body and nerves for weeks. Our lines were thinned. Low spirits took hold of most of the men.34

  Lieutenant Kurt Hesse, 5th Grenadier Regiment

  Then came the main French riposte, commencing just three days later, on 18 July. Foch determined to strike hard at Soissons, augmenting his Sixth and Tenth Armies with four divisions from the AEF, thereby threatening the whole bloated Marne Salient carved out by Operation Blücher. This was a mighty assault led by Mangin’s Tenth Army backed by over 1,500 guns and some 300 tanks. There would be no preliminary barrage, just a huge creeping barrage, a mixture of high explosive, shrapnel and smoke shells rolling along ahead of the attacking infantry, designed to blast, kill or blind the German machine gunners.

  Absolute peace reigns! No roar of guns, not even a rifle shot! We are silent and a bit cast down just awaiting for the big moment. 04.35! A tremendous barrage roars out behind us with the sound of thunder; the creeping barrage that triggers our advance. The 75mm shells fly fast over our heads to expl
ode in the valley at the edge of the forest. The heavier shells follow, flying higher in the sky to explode on our distant objectives: gun batteries, German reserves, etc. Without losing a moment we go down to the river, each section behind its leader.35

  Lieutenant Émile Morin, 60th Infantry Regiment

  As the barrage rolled forward the massed Renault, St Chamand and Schneider tanks crushed their way through the barbed wire. Of course, not everything went smoothly; in particular, the Americans found it difficult to fit in with the French plans and working methods, which led to a degree of confusion.

  The battle does not become coherent again until late afternoon. The reasons for this are evident; there was the haste and confusion incident to the last minute concentration for the attack – all made inevitable by the French Army and Corps instructions wherein order and deliberation were compromised to the end that a surprise might be achieved. Thus, no reconnaissance by the American officers was possible. Changes of direction in the course of action, especially on a terrain without prominent natural land marks, are difficult under the most favourable circumstances and to the best-trained troops. Finally, the Division orders enjoined rapidity of movement, and an advance without long halts on the successive objectives. The attack waves got off on time, they advanced, and continued to advance. They lost formation, but retained so much individual energy that the German formations on their front were destroyed or rendered incapable.36