The Western Front 1915 Stalemate & Going Nowhere 1
An Overview of the War in 1914 Overview of the Great War to end of 1914 Dr John Connor Why was the Western Front the most important and most bloody theatre of the First World War? I will try to briefly answer this question in this video. Coming up in this part of the course, are videos on the main armies that fought on the Western Front-- Elizabeth Greenhalgh to talk about the French Army, and I'll describe the German and British armies. The origins of First World War remains one of the great historical debates and is a complex combination of long term and immediate causes. The outbreak of the war is best understood as a reaction of the great European powers of the day-- Austria Hungary, an empire that in 1914 covered much of central Europe and the Balkans, Germany, Russia, France, and Great Britain, to an event on the 28th of June, 1914. This was the assassination of the heir to the Austro- Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie, in Sarajevo, the capital of Austrian-occupied Bosnia. Within 37 days, all the major European powers and their empires would be at war. Franz Ferdinand's assassin was Gravilo Princip, a Serb nationalist, who wanted the Slavic people of the Balkans-- Serbs, Slovenians, Croatians, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians-- to unite to form a united kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Austrians immediately decided to use Franz Ferdinand's death as a pretext for war with Serbia and to stop the rise of Slav nationalism. They gained the support of their more powerful ally, Germany. Then nothing happened for a month. This was summer in Europe, so the conscript soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army had returned to their homes on harvest leave. When the crops had been brought in, and the soldiers returned to their units, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia on the 28th of July. The bombardment of Belgrade began the next day. Russia, the largest European power, viewed itself as a protector of Serbia. And when it began mobilising its Army, Germany declared war on Russia on the 1st of August. German war plans required the invasion and defeat of France before fighting the main campaign against the larger Russian Army. So Germany declared war on France on the 3rd of August. On the morning of the 4th of August, German troops invaded Belgium as part of their plan to march through the kingdom to outflank and defeat the French Army. The British government decided it was necessary to intervene against Germany and in support of France and Belgium. When Germany did not stop their invasion, Britain declared war on the 4th of August. The German soldiers on the right wing of the advance marched 500 kilometres in four weeks through Belgium and northern France in summer heat to reach the river Marne, north of Paris. The Battle of the Marne began on the 5th of September. Four days later, the Germans retreated to a ridge above the River Aisne. On the 17th of September, the French tried to get around the end of the German line. Both sides tried to outflank the other. And in this way, the armies moved sideways, like crabs, northward into Belgium. The last major battle of 1914 was fought around Ypres, on the 21st of October to the 11th of November. The British and French armies held off the Germans at great cost. Almost 1/4 of a million men from both sides were killed or wounded in this battle. At the end of 1914, the war of movement on the Western Front had ended. The German and Allied armies faced each other in lines of trenches that stretched about 700 kilometres from the border with Switzerland to the North Sea at Nieuwport in Belgium. Any further offensive from that time on would involve a frontal attack against increasingly complex trench systems, in which the odds favoured the defenders. 2
With facing trench systems running for some 760 kilometres from the border of Switzerland to the North Sea, neither side could attack from the flank leaving only the possibility of a frontal attack. 3
By early 1915 the leaders of Britain, France and Germany suddenly realized that their expected short war would now become a protracted conflict 4
Britain - 1915 On 5 August 1914 - the day that he took over as Minister for War - Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum issued orders for the expansion of the army. He did not believe that the war would be 'over by Christmas' as the popular press in both Great Britain and Germany put it, but would be a long and costly affair.. He immediately set about expanding the regular army by raising a new component composed of wartime volunteers. Each man would sign up for new "general service" terms of three years or the duration of the war (whichever the longer) and would agree to being sent to serve anywhere the army needed them. On 6 August Parliament sanctioned an increase of 500,000 men of all ranks, to be raised and trained in batches of 100,000 men, referred to as (K1 K2 etc). 'Your King and Country need you: a call to arms' was published on 11 August 1914. It explained the new terms of service and called for the first 100,000 men to enlist K1). This figure was achieved within two weeks The decision to raise six new armies was insightful and its implementation was a significant national feat and vital to winning the war. Though 2,466,719 men joined the British army voluntarily between August 1914 and December 1915, even this enormous total was insufficient to maintain the BEF at a strength which would enable it to fight a modern industrialised war involving mass conscript armies. Declining volunteer recruiting totals led to increasing calls for compulsory military service throughout 1915. On 27 January 1916, the first Military Service Act introduced conscription for single men of military age, this being extended to married men by a second Military Service Act on 25 May 1916. 5
British Strategy in 1915 Video Transcript: Early British Strategy Dr John Connor (Duration: 8 Minutes) The British Army in the First World War is really three different armies. The first army is the regular army. A small army of about a quarter of a million soldiers, who are all professionals. People who have made their career in the army. That's the army which forms the British Expeditionary Force which goes to France in 1914. That army is essentially destroyed in the battles of 1914. In late 1914 there is a rush of British volunteers. A volunteer army, of men wanting to join the army. We talk about the Pals battalions, which are battalions of local communities or local workplaces, who come together and want to join together and fight together Four million men volunteer in the British army in the First World War. This army is called the New Army. This also includes, we must remember, about 200,000 Irishmen. However by mid 1915 volunteer recruiting numbers begin to decline, and then there are calls for conscription. Conscription is introduced at the beginning of January, in 1916. Some 2.5 million men are subsequently conscripted into the British Army. So we have the regular army of 1914, the volunteer army of 1915, and then we have the conscript army from 1916. This is the largest army that the British ever have in their history. And in 1917 and 1918, this is the army which plays probably the biggest role in defeating the Germans on the Western Front. For the first time in history, Britain is a military power. We must remember that Britain in 1914 did not see itself as a military power. It was the world's biggest financial power. The city of London was the centre of world finance. It had a big, big, Navy. It also had a big merchant fleet. It had more merchant ships than any other country in the world at this time. So, in 1914 what it believed it would do to use its strengths, which were the Navy, which would do a blockade on Germany and stop any trade with Germany, coming in and out of German ports. And it would create an army. This is going to be that volunteer army, the New Army that is set up by Kitchener. This would take a while to develop. What the British would do in the meantime would be support their major allies who did have armies. The French and the Russians were the major military powers. So, they're going to provide them with finance to enable them to buy the munitions and weapons that they would need. And we must remember, this is one of the reasons why the British are interested in the Dardanelles Campaign. So the British and the French, in their attempts to do the Dardanelles or the Gallipoli Campaign, are actually trying to open that sea way, so that the Russians are able to export goods and be able to pay their way in the war. This doesn't happen. And so, therefore, the British find themselves under more financial strain, as they're forced to support the war effort of the Russians and the French. And over time they find that they're having to provide a large army, which they didn't intend to do. They were planning to have a smaller army to support the French and the Russians. But what they find is that, especially in 1917 and 1918, that their army is required to do the bulk of the fighting for various reasons. On the outbreak of war, the British Expeditionary Force was mobilised, and it was sent to France. It was later accompanied by a Corps of Indian troops. The British force marches into Belgium to face the Germans who are invading Belgium. It comes across the Germans at Mons, they're in a battle, and then the British are forced into retreat. They are totally outnumbered. The size of the British Expeditionary Force is so much smaller than the invading German army. It then withdraws. The British commander, whose name is, confusingly, Sir John French, doesn't really get on with the French. And he's concerned about keeping his army complete, because he's afraid that it may actually be needed to protect Britain if the Germans managed to do a landing in Britain. So he takes his troops out of the line. And he has to be put under pressure from the government to actually put them back into the line, to actually take their role in the fighting. Ironically, their disappearance and then reappearance comes at a very crucial time in the decisive battle of 1914, which is called the Battle of the Marne. And there is a gap between the two armies, the first army and the second army. This small British force just happened to appear between the two German armies. And this causes panic with the Germans. And is one of the factors which leads them to retreat from the Marne River and start withdrawing to a safer line. Following that the British find themselves involved in what we call the Race to the Sea, which isn't really a race to the sea. But what it is, is that the different armies, the German, French, and British armies, are each trying to get around the side of the opposing armies. The last major battle in October-November of 1914 is the 1 st Battle of Ypres, where the British manage to hold off a major German offensive and hang on to Ypres. And at that point we end up with the end of mobile warfare. There is now a line from the North Sea to the Swiss border. And the only way an attack can be conducted anymore is not by trying to do a manoeuvre to get around armies, but by conducting a frontal attack. Over the course of the 1915 year, as the British are gradually getting more troops into the line, they find themselves playing a larger and larger role in the fighting on the Western Front. On the British sector of the Western Front in 1915 they had the remnants of the original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) as well as the Indian Corps, (although it's initially very difficult for them to fight effectively because they've not been trained for fighting in a modern European environment) and the Canadian Corps, which began arriving on the line in late 1915. In addition divisions of Kitchener s New Army begin to arrive in strength. From the 10 th 13 th March 1915, the British, for the first time, attack the German trench system front on in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. A whole lot of artillery was needed to protect the infantry as they attacked. But there weren t enough shells for the guns. On just one day the British artillery fired more shells than they did in the entire South African War, which was a conflict which went for three years, and was the last major war the British had fought in. As a result the British were forced to call off their attack. Clearly, in 1915 the capacity of British industry had not yet risen to the level that was required to provide sufficient shells for the army, which led to the infamous shell crisis and a change of British Government. The 2 nd Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 nd April to 25 th May 915, which marked the first occasion that poison gas, chemical warfare, was used in war. Then, at the end of the year, at a place called Loos in France, the British played their part in the big French offensives which have been happening in the Artois and the Champagne regions of Northern France. The Indian army played a major role in this battle, and it was also the first time that the British also used poison gas in their attack. 6
1915 Shell Scandal By 1914, most European armies had doubled their shell stocks, holding between 1,000 and 1,500 rounds per gun, thought to be enough for about six months fighting. Larger quantities in peacetime created the danger of obsolescence: crucial now was the speed at which munitions industries could be converted to wartime production. By late 1914 however shell shortages emerged more quickly than anticipated for France within six weeks, during the battle of the Marne, and for other armies, including the British and German, by November. The shortening of the day and the worsening of the weather as winter approached then provided some respite. In August, it had been assumed that the initial control on shell consumption would be not output, but transport. In manoeuvre warfare, artillery batteries were limited to the shells they could carry in their gun limbers or could draw from immediate sources of resupply. The development of trench warfare stabilized armies lines of communication while increasing the number of available targets. So as guns expended more shells, their demands were relayed all the way back to the factories. The problem was compounded because the need to destroy field fortifications rather than kill infantry crossing open ground created additional and different demands - for heavier artillery, whose manufacture was much more complex, and for high-explosive shells, not the shrapnel or fragmentation shells on which pre-war plans had rested. Pre-war production was overwhelmingly vested in government factories. They met the limited demand for shells while maintaining quality control. The first need on the war s outbreak was to widen the sources of production to private industry. Private firms required reassurance that converting plants would be worthwhile, and so governments loaded them with orders which guaranteed their profits. However, the industry lacked both machine tools and skilled manpower, especially as conscription had taken so many men, and unfulfilled orders accumulated. The Central Powers, cut off from overseas supplies, worried about raw materials, especially nitrates for explosives and copper for the driving bands of shells. Quality became subordinated to quantity in the bid to satisfy demand: France made shells in two parts to simplify production and Germany exploited pre-war research to replace steel with cast iron. As a result, shells could explode prematurely in the barrel, destroying the gun and killing the crew, or fail to explode at all. In the winter of 1914-1915, every belligerent confronted shell shortage to varying degrees. A military problem, which could have been alleviated by tactical solutions, became an industrial one, and then a political one. Generals rationalized their own failures by saying they could only break the enemy line if they had enough guns and shells. They were not wrong. This was an artillery war, but by increasing the length of bombardments they exacerbated the problem. They turned the spotlight on The Causes of Shell Shortage onto the politicians, pushing them to challenge the workings of the free market. 7
In May 1915, the British Liberal government fell in part because it had failed to deliver sufficient shells, and its successor established a ministry of munitions under David Lloyd George (1863-1945). France appointed the socialist politician Albert Thomas (1878-1932) to a comparable job, albeit still situated within the ministry of war. Both states worked with private industry to meet national targets. In Russia, businessmen created a war industries committee, but the government was reluctant to cooperate. The Prussian war ministry set up a raw material agency at the war s outset, but did not address munitions production directly until confronted, in September 1916, with the so-called "Hindenburg Programme". Although it created a weapons and munitions procurement agency, Germany never resolved the tension between collectivism and the free market, and never established an independent and all encompassing ministry for munitions. 8
World War I was a total war, involving the governments, economies and populations of participating nations to an extent never seen before in history. This was distinct from the way smaller wars had been fought, like the Crimean War (1853-56) and late-19th century colonial wars. In total war a term not coined until the 1930s, by German general Paul von Ludendorff the entire nation was called into service, rather than just its military. Governments played an active and interventionist role, passing laws that would be intolerable during peacetime. Ministers and departments took control of economic production, nationalising factories, determining production targets, allocating manpower and resources. Conscription was introduced to bolster military forces and resources like ships, trains or vehicles were commandeered for military purposes. Wartime governments also acted to protect national security, by implementing press censorship, curfews and strict punishments for breaches and violations. They also made extensive use of propaganda, both to raise public morale and to raise money through war bonds. 9
Germany - 1915 OUT Helmuth von Moltke IN Eric von Falkenhayn As early as October 1914 it had become clear to the German Great General Staff that the initial Von Schlieffen strategic plan for a quick victory on their Western Front had failed badly, and that henceforth they would be required to conduct full blown war simultaneously on two fronts, which was the one thing they had sought to avoid. In response, the Germans revised their strategic planning in early 1915. This involved a complete shake up of their armies, and the replacement of the aging von Moltke (& 30 other generals) with General Eric von Falkenhayn, who was now placed in charge of the German armies on the Western Front. In January 1915 von Falkenhayn issued instructions that formidable German trenches were to be constructed across France and Belgium in a manner that would enable them to be successfully defended for long periods of time by small numbers of men against superior forces. This need was forced on them because of their requirement to also provide soldiers to their armies in the East to fight against a much larger Russian army. Because of this necessity to meet manpower requirements on two fronts, German commanders in 1915 recognised much more quickly than their Allied counterparts the necessity to better conserve their available manpower resources on the battlefield. It was within this context that in March and April of 1915 German infantry divisions were reduced in size from 4 Regiments (Brigades) to 3. That is, a German Division was reduced from 12 Battalions (approximately 12,000 infantry) down to 9 Battalions, or approximately 9,000 infantry, but with significantly increased artillery and machine gun capabilities. As a consequence of this restructure six new infantry divisions were able to be formed, without actually increasing the number of men in uniform, but with each new division having increased overall firepower. 10
French Strategy in 1915 Despite suffering catastrophic losses in its offensive Battles of the Frontiers and on the subsequent retreat into France, the French strategy of L offense a outrance / Elan Vital remained clear cut - to simply attack and throw the Germans back out of France as quickly as possible, by employing the utmost offensive aggression. For the first half of the War French generals either supported élan vital as the main infantry doctrine for fighting the war, or they were quickly replaced for failing to do so. As late as mid 1917 many French Generals still exhibited their support of the e lan vital doctrine by merely having high casualty rates of their own soldiers, thereby proving that they had not lacked the appropriate offensive spirit. 11
French Strategy in 1915 Video Transcript French Strategy in 1915 The German Army was more powerful (than the French army). The only way you can use a conscript army to defeat a powerful enemy-- and it was always assumed that Germany would be the enemy, the French were quite clear about that. It was assumed that the only possible way to defeat a German invasion was, in fact, to attack them. It was not at all successful. It was a total disaster. On August the 22 nd 1914, the French lost an enormous number of men. It was the highest daily total for the war. Joffre had already sent a couple of his most southern armies into Alsace. The Germans had better artillery. They were simply better trained. They threw the French back into France, and those initial offensives were very costly for the French. Partly because the French Commander-in- Chief, General Joseph Joffre, was not the sort of character to panic-- unlike Moltke, on the German side, it might be added. He kept his head. Another important factor is the fact that the French were, in fact, retiring on interior lines, of course. They were in their own country. They had their telephone and telegraph communications. They had railways-- most importantly, they had railways. So it was possible to retire, and they retired a very long way in very hot summer heat. The British, of course, meanwhile, had also arrived on the continent. And it must be pointed out that, in fact, the British, with their few divisions, are a minute proportion of the total French force. The French had 44 active divisions plus all their reserve divisions. So the British initial four divisions are a tiny portion of the whole. However, they'd all retreated back down a very long way, mostly on foot and ended up below the River Seine and even below the River Marne, which is just about level with Paris-- on the same latitude as Paris, generally speaking. Consequently, by the time the Germans also arrived on the Marne in pursuit of the French and British, they were worn out. Not only were the soldiers worn out-- sun stroke, blistered feet, and so on-- they'd marched the whole way, but the horses had run out of fodder. It was impossible to feed the number of horses required to pull all the artillery and the wagons and equipment and all the rest of it. So they were exhausted by the time the two armies-- or the three armies, I should say, because there were British there as well-- by the time the three armies met on the River Marne, the Germans were exhausted. And the French, to the Germans' surprise, had managed, in fact, to retreat, to turn around, and to advance. So the Battle of the Marne, named thereafter the Miracle of the Marne for obvious reasons, was, in fact, a success-- put a halt to the German invasion. The French strategy in 1915 was set by political and Allied considerations. At the end of 1914, once the Battle of the Marne had been won and the Germans had been stopped, yet again, at the First Battle of Ypres, it was obvious that the defensive battle had been won. However, German troops still sat in most of-- practically the whole of-- Belgium, and they occupied the mineral-rich industrial areas of northern France. Therefore, for political reasons, the strategy for 1915 could only be that the Germans had to be attacked and driven out of France. You couldn't have the army simply sitting there and watching the Germans-- who were stripping French factories, who were taking French citizens for forced labour in Germany, not immediately, but that came in. And the French had lost their manufacturing capacity, all their iron furnaces, and so on, in north-eastern France. So for political reasons, the French Army could not simply sit there. Therefore, the strategy had to be one of an offensive. The second consideration was the Allies. Russia had done what it promised. Russia had attacked Germany in eastern Prussia. Although, it had not been successful-- they'd been driven back, but they had done what they said they would do. And if Russia was not to say, "well, OK, we've done our bit, we're going home", then obviously, if Russia called for help because they were being attacked, then France had to respond. So, once again, the emphasis was on offensives. That was the only strategy that was possible in Joffre's eyes. Now, the French battles of 1915 were both major and minor. One really cannot praise Joffre for what went on in 1915. First of all, there were a series of mini battles in the mountainous area in eastern France, in the Vosges-- attempts, basically, to capture hilltops-- mountaintops-- which would give observation over the enemy. So there are awful battles in snow and, later on, in mud in the hills-- in the Vosges Mountains-- and south of Verdun, as well. So a lot of minor battles-- but there were, in fact, two major operations. One was in Artois, which is where the French and British lines joined and where General Ferdinand Foch had been appointed to coordinate the French, British, and Belgian forces in the North. First Artois had been going on over the December-January period but had to be given up because the weather was just too awful. Second Artois took place in May-June 1915. And Third Artois-- I think the repetition of the names is indicative of the repetition of the type of battles they were. Third Artois took place in September. That was one of the major battles. The other major battle was further east in Champagne, where the Fourth Army, in the early part of the year, attempted to attack the German lines. And in September, at the same time as Third Artois, the First and Fourth Army, with Second Army, also attacked the German lines in Champagne. Now, the point about making these two battles the principal battles is that the German front ran in a bulge, if you like, which looks towards Paris. Although, they weren't necessarily aiming at Paris. And Artois in the northwest and the Champagne in the southeast were on the flanks of this bulge. Therefore, if you could attack the bulge, break into it, that was the aim, although they never actually managed that-- break into it, that would have forced the Germans to retreat. 12
Easterners Verse Westerners Disputes The Easterners Verse Westerners Disputes In early 1915 both the Allies and the Germans faced the same question: where to deploy their scarce resources and concentrate their forces East or West? To the French, it was self-evident that the main effort in 1915 had to be to expel the Germans from their national territory. However they were open to sending limited forces to the East in order to protect and possibly extend their post war colonies. For the British government the situation was less clear cut. Britain itself had not been invaded and was not likely to be. Most British policy makers favoured concentrating forces on the Western Front but a few thought that sections of Britain s New Armies might be better deployed to other theatres in the East. Winston Churchill, Britain s naval minister, was a leading figure among the so-called Easterners. He considered that a naval strike against Turkey could knock that country out of the war and re-open the Black Sea trade route to Russia; that would allow the Russians to export their grain and earn hard currency which in turn would enable British and French industry to resupply the Russian army and allow it to attack the Germans and Austro- Hungarians with renewed vigour. Germany s military planners also had the dilemma of whether to focus on their West or East, and likewise had its own version of the Easterners versus Westerners quarrel. Erich von Falkenhayn, the recently appointed commander of the German army in 1915, believed that victory could only be won on the Western Front. But Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the commanders in the East, argue that if resources were given to them they would be able to inflict a war-winning defeat on the Russians. Hindenburg and Ludendorff enjoyed great prestige, thanks to German victories at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, and as a result Falkenhayn could not overrule them. 13
Innovation of 1915 14
Poisonous Gas The German army first employed poisonous gas in launching one of their few offensive attacks at the battle of 2 nd Ypres in April 1915, in an experiment to see how effective it might be. While the gas caused considerable pain for many it created consternation in the British lines involving large scale troop withdrawals from the front line. However, the Germans were unprepared for that event, and failed to have sufficient troops available in reserve to exploit the opportunity they had created. 15
Following the use of gas for the first time by the Germans at 2nd Ypres Lord Kitchener Wrote: The use of asphyxiating gas is, as you are aware, contrary to the rules and usages of war. Before, therefore, we fall to the level of the degraded Germans by retaliating in kind I must submit the matter to the Government.These methods show to what depth of infamy our enemies will go in order to supplement their want of courage in facing our troops. 16
Subject to the vagaries of the wind direction. 17
While poisonous gas caused more than 1,000,000 casualties during the war, it was greatly effective in influencing the outcome of the war. 18
Western Front battles of 1915 French Army Spring Offensive in Champagne (10 December 1914 > 17 March 1915) The Battle of Neuve Chapelle - (10 > 13 March 1915) The Battle of Hill 60 - (17 > 22 April 1915) The Second Battle of Ypres - (22 April > 25 May 1915) Second Artois Offensive (9 May > 18 June 1915) 2 nd Champagne Offensive (25 Sept > 15 October 1915) 3 rd Artois Offensive (25 Sept > 15 October 1915) 19
The Battle of Loos Fought from 15 th September to 19 th October 1915. A battle launched under the command of general Douglas Haig. It involved a continuous preliminary bombardment which showered 250,000 shells on to the German defences over four days, but with minimal effect. The British released chlorine gas onto the German lines, but changes in wind direction blew some of the gas back across their own lines. The British enjoyed considerable early success in over running the German front lines, but progress was then halted because of a lack of ammunition and the late arrival of fresh reinforcements. This allowed the Germans to regroup and counter attack, forcing the British troops back to their own trenches. The British at Loos suffered casualties of some 50,000, including 20,000 killed. Gains Nil Lessons Learned??????? For further information about this battle refer to the Tool Box Article: The Battle of Loos 20
Comparison of the Western & Eastern Fronts Only show the first two minutes of this video! 21