by J E Kauffman
War on the East Front and in the Balkans
The entry of the Turks into the war in 1914 opened new fronts. In the Middle East, the British abandoned the Sinai, but repulsed a Turkish army of several regiments at the Suez Canal in February 1915. In April 1915, the world’s attention turned to the Dardanelles where an Allied invasion force landed at Gallipoli hoping to knock the Turks out of the war. The Allied command bungled the operation and the Turks pinned down the invaders for most of the year until they were evacuated in December 1915. The Allies lost 200,000 men. Initially, this operation seemed to offer the possibility of breaking the stalemate, removing the Turks from the war, and opening a supply route to Russia. Also in 1915, a British force tried to advance from the Arabian Gulf through Mesopotamia in an attempt to take Baghdad, but it was trapped in Kut in December 1915 and forced to surrender in 1916. Joffre did not pay much attention to the fronts opened by France’s allies since his priority was the defence of his own country and the ‘advantages offered by [secondary operations] were almost wholly theoretical …’.*
Joffre’s offensives in the West in 1915 failed to divert German troops from the Russian campaign before or during the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive. Hindenburg’s winter campaign in early 1915 was equally fruitless. In February, German troops out of East Prussia failed to breach the Russian fortresses on the Niemen and Narew river lines. The Russians relied heavily on these scattered fortresses on the Eastern Front to bolster their defences. In the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes two German armies inflicted heavy losses on a Russian army, but were stopped at the Augustów Forest. Austrian forces supported by some German divisions failed to relieve Przemyśl, the garrison of which, its resources expended, surrendered.34
The Russians failed to create a decent position on the Galician Front between Tarnów and Gorlice. According to Norman Stone, they prepared ‘not much more than a thin, ill-connected trench with a strand or two of barbed wire before it; and communications to the rear often ran over open ground’.** It took the Russians many days to move divisions into position because their railway system lacked the efficiency of the French and German railroads. In addition, almost half of their transport space was dedicated to horse feed for their numerous cavalry divisions. Availability of ammunition was also a problem at this time because Russian factories were unable to produce sufficient supplies. The Russian industry could not even produce enough rifles to equip all the soldiers. Despite the overall weakness of the Austro-Hungarian army, these factors gave the Germans the advantage.
Only the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive spearheaded by General von Mackensen’s 11th Army in May 1915 offered a chance for the Germans to break the deadlock in the East. It was the last spectacular victory for the German army under the leadership of Falkenhayn. The battle opened with a 4-hour hurricane bombardment with 476 field guns and 159 medium and light guns on the morning of 2 May. German artillery fired 700,000 rounds along a 48km (30-mile) front between Gorlice and Tarnów.35 The artillery virtually obliterated the Russian trench line, sowing panic among the troops before German infantry surged forward at about 6.00 am and created an 8km gap in the Russian lines. Within two days, a breakthrough at Gorlice turned into a pursuit. After the first week, the Russians lost over 200,000 men. The Russian formations south of Przemyśl retreated to avoid encirclement. Only 40,000 men of the Russian 3rd Army’s original 250,000 remained by 10 May. The German/Austrian armies advanced about 150km by 14 May. On 16 May, the Germans crossed the San River at over a dozen points, rendering the Russian position untenable. The trapped Russian troops were forced to abandon Fortress Przemyśl because its position, even if rehabilitated, offered no advantages.
General Mackensen renewed the offensive on 24 May. Between 2 and 31 May, the Russians lost as many as 412,000 men. The German victory was as great as the Russians’ triumph had been the previous autumn on the same ground.36 On 3 June, a British liaison officer reported that the Russian 3rd Army was a ‘harmless mob’ that allowed German and Austrian troops to retake the fortress at Przemyśl unopposed. Mackensen’s troops returned to the offensive on 13 June. A few days later, Austrian troops engaged the Russians at Lemberg, taking the city on 22 June, while Mackensen drove Brusilov’s 8th Army from Rava Ruska. The Kaiser rewarded General Mackensen with a field marshal’s baton as his troops advanced between the Vistula and the Bug rivers bagging over 150,000 prisoners by 30 June. Mackensen’s troops took the old fortress of Zamość, between Lublin and Lemberg. The collapse of the Galician Front forced the Russians to abandon the Polish salient finally giving Falkenhayn and Hindenburg an excellent chance to defeat them. Trench warfare did not dominate this battlefield, which was the most fluid in Europe, especially since German eastward advances widened the front. The Russians, even though overwhelmed, often resisted tenaciously.
Falkenhayn approved Hindenburg’s plan to encircle Brest-Litovsk as the German armies in East Prussia joined the general offensive. On 5 July, a Russian counteroffensive held Mackensen’s forces in check for a week. On 6 July, the German 9th Army moved against the centre of the Polish salient towards Warsaw and launched a gas attack that failed. The 12th Army thrust southward from East Prussia on 13 July and advanced about 8km towards the Narew in four days, eliminating 70,000 Russian troops. On 15 July, German troops attacked eastward from East Prussia towards Riga as Mackensen’s forces advanced north into the Polish salient, taking Radom on 18 July. On 21 July, they besieged the fortress of Ivangorod while other German troops crossed the Vistula. In the north, the 12th Army overran Różan and established bridgeheads over the Narew in the face of fierce Russian counterattacks between 23 and 30 July. During the last week of July, the Russians began evacuating Fortress Warsaw and Riga.
In early August 1915, Falkenhayn, who was responsible for army operations on all fronts, halted further advances. The Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive had raised the hopes of the Central Powers because it represented their greatest victory. A serious problem for Falkenhayn after he had taken command in 1914 had been creating a reserve and distributing the newly formed divisions effectively. He struggled to maintain a proper balance of forces, but, by his own account, he often seemed to face crises resulting from the need to shift his divisions or corps from one front to the other. In late 1915, despite Hindenburg’s success, which took a heavy toll on the Russians and allowed deep advances, Falkenhayn saw no indication that the Tsar wanted to negotiate an end to the war. Thus, he decided to stop the eastern offensives in September and sent an army to help the Austrians knock Serbia out of the war. Although Hindenburg did not agree with him, Falkenhayn realized that the onset of the autumn rains would reduce the Russian dirt roads to mud. At the same time, the German engineers would have to convert the Russian broad-gauge railways to standard gauge if they were to support the advancing army.37
The Wild Card – Italy
With the belligerents locked in a stalemate on the Western Front and before the Gorlice Offensive routed Russian forces in Galicia, Italy joined the war on the side of the Entente on 23 May 1915. On 14 May, Conrad, anticipating Italy’s entry into the war, dispatched troops to the Southern Front, including a corps from Galicia that arrived just in time. The Italians, wooed into joining the Entente, were encouraged to strike at Austria to relieve pressure on the Russians. After some success on their Alpine border, they launched their main offensive on 23 June at the Isonzo Front, where they suffered heavy losses. This was to be the first of many defeats on the Isonzo Front for the Italians. General Luigi Cadorna, Chief of the General Staff, was one of the worst Allied generals. He boasted that he would break through on the Isonzo and march on Vienna and Budapest, but nothing came of his bravado. The 2nd Battle of the Isonzo (18 July–3 August) reached a climax with 42,000 Italian and 45,000 Austrians casualties and small gains for the Italians.38 Before the end of 1915, the 3rd and 4th battles of Isonzo brought a total of 275,000 casualties for Italy and 165,000 for Austria. This was the only front in the war where the Austrian and Slavic troops fought with equ
al commitment since there was a history of conflict between them and the Italians.
In late summer, Field Marshal Mackensen, at the head of 11th Army, left the Russian Front for Serbia where he launched an offensive on 6 October and soon took Belgrade. Bulgaria, seeing a golden opportunity, joined forces with the Central Powers on 11 October 1915, rendering the Serbian position untenable. The Allies tried to enter Serbia from Salonika, Greece, but failed. By December, Austro-German forces had occupied all of Serbia. The remnants of the Serbian army joined the Allies in Greece. Falkenhayn was finally able to open a rail link to Turkey and eliminate one major front for the Austrians allowing them to concentrate their troops on the Italian and Russian fronts.
Late in the year, Falkenhayn formulated a new strategy for 1916. By the beginning of 1916, Germany had reached its high water mark of the war even though Russia did not surrender until the end of 1917. The French had suffered immense losses in their 1915 offensives. German/Austrian forces had advanced deep into Russia, Serbia was eliminated, the Allies were about to abandon the Gallipoli Campaign, the British stood on the verge of defeat in Mesopotamia, a rail link to the Turks was open and the Italians had taken huge losses in exchange for small gains. Rumania continued to waver and remained neutral for almost another year. However, Falkenhayn was not convinced that another major offensive in the East would bring Russia down. He also thought that the German forces were stretched to the point that there were insufficient divisions available to exploit any breakthrough in the West. He decided to strike a decisive blow in the West to cripple the French army and force the British to seek an end to the war. Like Joffre, he believed that victory in the West was the only pathway to a negotiated peace. To achieve this goal, he thought, he must launch a major offensive against either Belfort or Verdun in a battle in which the goal was not to achieve a breakthrough and initiate a campaign of manoeuvre, but simply to kill.
1915 – Seeking New Methods and Alternatives
As the prospect of a brief war evaporated in 1915, the combatants sought alternative pathways to victory. After several unproductive operations, none of which achieved a knockout blow, and the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of infantrymen Joffre finally concluded that artillery should be the dominant arm. In August, he began to disarm many of the French forts to beef up his own field artillery.
All the belligerents had calculated their munitions needs based on past conflicts. As a result, their artillery expended most of their ordnance by October 1914. During 1915, the industrial complexes of all the major belligerents had to expand ammunition production to prevent further shortages and they had to develop new weapons and equipment for the war effort.39 The French lacked heavy artillery and mortars, a requirement for trench warfare. Joffre, who had pushed for the manufacture of howitzers even before the war, strove to correct the situation. Falkenhayn decided that the German 77mm gun lacked the efficiency and great range of the French ‘75’ and ordered German industry to develop a similar gun, but this did not reach the battlefield until late 1916.40 Germany also had to face the problem posed by an embargo that cut off its imports. The Germans had to find alternatives for production of explosives, but they were unable to compensate for shortages in food production. They had to rely on neutrals like the Netherlands to provide it with limited amounts of imports.
As war casualties escalated rapidly for all the warring nations, it became necessary to improve individual protection. One of the first and most successful innovations was the metal helmet, which was adopted by the French, the British and the Germans. Through most of 1915, the French soldiers wore a steel skullcap under their kepi, but in May, the steel Mle 1915 Adrian helmet went into production. It was designed to protect the wearer from shrapnel and other flying objects but not from bullets. By the end of 1915, there were enough helmets to equip most of the French army.41 The British and the Germans followed the French lead. That same year, John Brodie designed the Mark I Helmet (or Brodie Helmet), which weighed a bit more than the Adrian helmet but provided about the same protection. The Germans replaced the leather pickelhaube, with which they had begun the war, with the Stahlhelm (steel helmet). While the British helmet looked like a medieval foot soldier’s panshaped headgear, the Stahlhelm resembled the late medieval sallet. All these helmets, with slight modifications, were used in the Second World War. The German design offered the greatest protection – especially to the neck. It was tested in late 1915 and issued to Stosstruppen (storm troops or Sturmtruppen). In 1916, it began to appear in the remainder of the army.42
Assortment of German weapons from early trench mortar to Austrian 305mm Mörser (on loan with crews). Also, examples of German grenades.
Other developments included body armour, similar to a breastplate, moveable shields that could be pushed along the ground, various types of optical equipment, such as periscopes for observation from the trenches, and standard manufactured grenades. The Stosstruppen units, created in 1915, were the first to test the new helmets, flamethrowers, infantry gun and other equipment. They also developed a new attack procedure, which consisted of advancing waves of soldiers with machine guns and light artillery. The storm-troop units that formed in 1916 actually applied these new tactics to the battlefield.43
The Balancing Act
In 1914, Falkenhayn could not quickly replenish his depleted divisions in northern France because the railheads behind his right wing were five days’ march behind the front. Failure to maintain adequate logistical support during and after deep penetrations in enemy territory created a shortage of munitions on all fronts. Railroads as well as horse-pulled wagons were key to logistical support for most of the war. The Germans had to deal with the great distance separating their two main fronts. The Allies, on the other hand, had the advantage of deploying along interior lines thanks to the French rail network, which allowed them to shift their forces rapidly.
After 1st Ypres, Falkenhayn switched to the defensive in the West because he had to send six infantry divisions to the East, which stripped him of reserves. He ordered the creation of belts of several lines of trenches to be held by a minimum number of men while the excess troops formed a reserve. Falkenhayn eventually realized that it was unrealistic to order his troops not to give up any ground. During the initial engagements, troops in the first trench line suffered heavy casualties. As a result, he ordered only a few troops to remain in the first line until the enemy infantry actually advanced. Even with the newly formed divisions, he was unable to meet the demands of the two-front war. In April 1915, the structure of the German infantry division changed from two infantry brigades, each with two infantry regiments of three battalions (twelve infantry battalions per division). Falkenhayn removed one brigade headquarters and one of its regiments, and reassigned the remaining regiment to the other brigade giving the division three infantry regiments, totalling nine battalions. The fourth regiment and the brigade headquarters often went to form a new three-regiment division. The French infantry divisions underwent a similar change, but it was not until late 1916 that about forty divisions had converted from two brigades of four regiments to three regiments (without a brigade headquarters) in the closing stages of the Battle of Verdun. Most of the remaining French divisions converted in 1917. Both French and German armies had to stretch their resources in manpower as casualties mounted.
Falkenhayn launched 2nd Ypres in 1915, his only offensive in the West that year, as a diversion to cover the movement of units from the Western Front to the Eastern Front. He claimed he used poison gas to compensate for a shortage of troops. However, despite achieving some early success with this new weapon, he did not have enough troops to exploit the situation. Joffre had his own difficulties in maintaining his forces on the Western Front and blamed it on fruitless sideshows like the Dardanelles Campaign. In any case, it is doubtful that these diversions would have changed the outcome of his three failed offensives in 1915. Joffre and his generals finally began to realize that artillery must pave the way for the infantry a
nd that infantry charges in mass formations with flags flying and bands playing were no longer practical. Elan and bayonets would no longer bring about victory.
Western Front, 1915.
‘Artillery conquers, the Infantry occupies’, asserted Pétain, but the problem for the French as well as the Germans was that they had not established a proper role for the artillery during the first months of the war. Trench warfare required an effective use of artillery, the new role of which was defined during 1915. It may have been less noticeable on the Eastern Front where trench lines did not dominate. After the Germans opened an offensive there, the artillery did not have to advance in order to breach non-existent Russian trench lines. However, the Germans did use their guns in the East to attack fortified positions or to open the assault in order to crush Russian defences. In the West, the continuous trench lines increased in depth in 1915 and the war took on the character of sieges where big guns were needed to break enemy positions. The Germans entered the war with howitzers and heavy mortars, the high trajectories of which allowed them to destroy enemy trenches. Their 77mm guns, like the French 75mm guns, were direct-fire weapons and they were ineffective against trenches or wire barriers. However, they proved more valuable when they were pushed up to the front in direct support of troops attacking strongpoints or in defence against infantry attacks. In 1915, the Germans developed more effective methods than the Allies did. The British, who had some success with the hurricane barrage at Neuve Chapelle, seemed convinced that a bombardment lasting days would be more productive. Although the extended bombardment proved to be rather ineffective, the Allies continued to employ it. After 1915, the creeping barrage followed by troops showed more promise, but timing, observation and effective communications were important to ensure success.
