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Is the Eastern Front the forgotten theatre of World War One?
In both size and ferocity, the fighting on the eastern front from 1914–17 outdid even the western front. So why, asks Nick Lloyd, has eastern Europe become the forgotten theatre of the First World War?
It was “incomparably the greatest war in history. In its scale, in its slaughter, in the exertions of the combatants, in its military kaleidoscope, it far surpasses by magnitude and intensity all similar human episodes.” Winston Churchill wrote these words in the early 1930s, in his six-volume chronicle of what was at the time the most terrible conflict of them all: the First World War. But Churchill didn’t have the trenches of France and Belgium in mind when committing this particular description to print. He was instead referring to the titanic battle for supremacy that unfolded in eastern Europe. Today, when we think of the First World War, images of blood-soaked battles of the western front almost immediately spring to mind. This terrible deadlock has come to define how historians, and the public more generally in the west, have understood the conflict. Bloody and seemingly inconclusive clashes – at the Somme, Verdun and Passchendaele – have become instrumental to the memory of what George Kennen called “the great seminal catastrophe” of the 20th century. Read more | The forgotten triumphs of Passchendaele But the First World War was always much bigger than the western front. It stretched out into the Middle East, across Africa, on the high seas. It spilled over into the European colonial possessions in east Asia. And it triggered a four-year cataclysm across East Prussia, Poland and Galicia, as the Allies, led by the Russian empire, embarked on a mighty struggle with the Central Powers, dominated by Germany and Austria-Hungary. Although the outcome of the First World War would ultimately be determined in the west, its origins can only be understood by looking at the power dynamics of eastern Europe and the Balkans. A blank cheque When a Serbian nationalist gunman murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, it sparked an international crisis that drew in the great powers. Russia moved to protect Serbia (its chief ally in the region), while Germany offered Austria-Hungary a ‘blank cheque’ to deal with the Serbs once and for all. Read more | The dangerous mythology of Franz Ferdinand's assassination It was entirely possible that a conflict between Tsar Nicholas II’s Russian empire and Emperor Franz Joseph’s Habsburg empire might have been contained to Galicia (the Austrian province that bordered Russia) but for the inherent inflexibility of German offensive doctrine. It was this that turned a local war into a global catastrophe. Germany’s war plan, named after its founder, Alfred von Schlieffen, demanded a swift and decisive victory against France – Russia’s main ally – before the pondering Russian masses could mobilise, ensuring that Germany was not faced with a two-front war. The Habsburgs should not worry, Colonel-General Helmuth von Moltke, the German chief of staff, told his counterpart in Vienna: “The fate of Austria will be decided not on the [river] Bug, but on the Seine.” Take the quiz | How much do you know about the First World War? Perhaps for this reason, the battles that were fought in eastern Europe are much less well-known than their equivalents in the west. For many years, the only reliable account in English was Norman Stone’s The Eastern Front, which was first published in 1975. Although Stone’s work remains an essential guide, the fighting in the east was an afterthought in many accounts of the war, either too obscure to explain fully or with sources that were too difficult to access or translate. This means that our understanding of the First World War has for too long been strangely lopsided and uneven. Fortunately, in recent decades a new generation of scholars have begun to analyse the war in the east and bring it in from the “deep freeze” (to quote the historian Sean McMeekin). These new accounts, often based on original archival research, offer fresh insights into the ‘other’ First World War, a dark mirror image of what was happening in France and Flanders, helping us to redress the balance away from the west. The size of the eastern front was perhaps its most obvious difference with the western front. Spread across 900 miles of front - more than twice the length of the trenches in France and Belgium – it was a hugely demanding theatre of operations, and included areas of dense forest, marshes and swamps, as well as the rugged, snow-bound Carpathians. It was little wonder that many of those who had fought in France and then deployed to the east, found it to be a strange and bewildering environment, almost primeval in its appearance. “The scene was suffused with three colours,” remembered one veteran of the Carpathians: “The ashen white of the endless fields of snow; the grave black of the endless mountain forests; the blood red of the flames of battle.” Aura of invincibility The fighting between Russia and the Central Powers was crucial to the outcome of the war. The German victory at Tannenberg in August 1914, when the outnumbered Eighth Army fought off the Russian First Army, disengaged, and then surrounded the Second Army, was a masterpiece of tactical and operational skill, and did much to give German forces the aura of invincibility that they retained for most of the war. On the contrary, Russia’s experience went from bad to worse, and culminated in the ‘great retreat’ of 1915 that surrendered most of Poland and (what would become) the Baltic States, forcing the tsar to take personal command of Russia’s armies. The scale of the fighting was almost beyond comprehension. In East Prussia and Galicia, hundreds of thou- sands of soldiers engaged in swirling battles of manoeuvre that “exceeded all previously held expectations of... war”, as one Austro-Hungarian soldier recalled. Between late August and early September 1914, the Austrians lost approximately 250,000 men killed or wounded, and another 100,000 taken prisoner. Junior officers, who were essential to the cohesion and effectiveness of the army, were killed off in vast numbers, causing Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austrian chief of staff, to bemoan (in December 1914) that the recruits he was now seeing were “far inferior in quality” to the troops he had when they went to war. By the spring of the following year, after the failure to relieve the besieged garrison at Przemyśl (which had cost another 800,000 casualties), the Habsburg army was little more than a rabble, unfit for major combat operations. The Russian army mobilised in 1914 with a strength of 4.5 million men, the largest army in the world, and although it was never as effective as the British and French had hoped, it performed well against Austria and ensured that at least a third of the German army would be fixed on the eastern front for almost the entire war. But this came at an enormous cost. During the ‘great retreat’, the Russians lost around 1.4 million killed or wounded, with almost a million men being taken prisoner. “No cartridges, no shells. Bloody fighting and difficult marches day after day. No end to weariness, physical as well as moral,” remembered one Russian officer. “Our regiments, although completely exhausted, were beating off one attack after another by bayonet or short range fire." Given such astronomical losses, it is a miracle that both the Russian and Aus- tro-Hungarian armies were able to keep fighting after the bloodbaths of 1914 and 1915. This was testament to the fighting spirit and determination of their men, but also the support they received from their allies. Because the Austro-Hungarian army was so dangerously weak in firepower and often suffering from fragile morale, Berlin had no choice but to send troops to prop up her ally. The task of ‘stiffening’ Austrian forces, in a process known as Korsettstangen (‘corset stays’), was not what the German High Command wanted to fulfil, but the Habsburg empire would probably have collapsed by 1916 without such support. This meant that German commanders were faced with a tortuous dilemma, and the correct balance of forces between east and west became a source of major disagreement within German strategy-making from 1914–17. “Any shift in one direction inevitably leads to a dangerous weakening of strength elsewhere,” Erich von Falkenhayn, chief of staff, wrote in August 1916. While many commanders in the east, including the powerful duo of General Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, advocated a much greater concentration against Russia, Falkenhayn correctly understood this was not possible given the strength of the British and French armies. Laboratory of war While the extent of the tactical and technological development on the western front has been widely acknowledged (such as the use of tanks, massed artillery, gas and aircraft), the eastern front has remained largely outside this debate. However, it should be seen as an essential laboratory of war, where new tactics and weapon systems were refined before being used elsewhere (including on the western front). For example, the first use of poison gas (xylyl bromide) occurred at Bolimov in Russian Poland in January 1915, three months before chlorine was used at Ypres in Belgium. Although the Germans would be disappointed by the effects of the gas at Bolimov (it was apparently so cold that the gas froze and was much less effective), it was a powerful indication of the technology that would be unleashed during the war. Germany also made extensive use of the eastern front to hone its assault tactics. The capture of Riga in September 1917 became a textbook operation, which showcased a range of new tactics aimed at neutralising enemy defences, not destroying them. A gifted German officer, Lieuten- ant-Colonel Bruchmüller, orchestrated the use of gas as a counter-battery weapon (targeted at killing or disabling Russian gun crews). This was combined with a ‘creeping barrage’ that would move with the attack, behind which highly trained squads of ‘stormtroopers’ would infiltrate through the enemy’s defences, bypassing centres of resistance to sow chaos and terror. This was the blueprint for the devastating attack against Italy in October 1917 (the battle of Caporetto) and was then utilised again on the western front during the spring of 1918. Nor was innovation and tactical development the sole preserve of the German army. The Russian empire may have suffered terrible losses in the opening phase of the war, but it learnt quickly how to conduct operations with remarkable sophistication. For example, the Brusilov Offensive in the summer of 1916 was one of the largest attacks of the war, as impressive as anything seen on the western front. General Aleksei Brusilov, the Southwest Front commander who masterminded the assault, focused on the closest cooperation between attacking infantry and supporting artillery, ensured that his plans were cloaked with an effective deception campaign, and coordinated a series of multiple thrusts that almost broke the Habsburg army. The effect of the opening bombardment was devastating. “At times it sounded like heavy railroad trains crashing into each other at roaring speed,” wrote one eyewitness. “There was a wild raging, rumbling, crashing and splintering that shook you to your very soul.” Then the Russians surged forward and quickly swamped the Austrian positions. Within just six days an entire Habsburg army had disintegrated, losing 82,000 casualties out of a total strength of 110,000 men, and bringing the empire to the brink of collapse. Once again, Falkenhayn had to send reserves to the Austrian front, and in return, demanded unified command, with Germany firmly in charge of operations in the east. The Brusilov Offensive would prove the high point of Russia’s war. By March 1917 – with his armies ground down by mounting defeats – Nicholas II had lost the confidence of his generals and agreed to abdicate. This was perhaps the single most important decision in the history of the eastern front, setting in chain the world-shaking events of the Russian Revolution. Although the tsar’s abdication did not immediately take Russia out of the war, the political chaos spreading out of Petrograd (the capital formerly known as St Peters-burg) was devastating for the fighting efficiency of the Russian army. By as early as 22 March, the command- er-in-chief, General Mikhail Alekseev, commented glumly that the revolution had “changed the strategic situation and the picture of the whole war dramatically... Agitators spread from Petrograd in all directions, reaching every part of the army”. Last chance for victory When Lenin’s Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in November 1917 (the so-called ‘October Revolution’ of the old-style Julian calendar), a new age of world history had arrived. This would not only usher in an entirely novel kind of regime in Petrograd, a regime that actively sought to overthrow the entire international Despite Germany’s triumph at Brest-Litovsk, no one really emerged victorious from the eastern front. By the time the guns fell silent in France on 11 November 1918, imperial Germany lay in ruins, the Austro-Hungarian empire had dissolved, and Russia was now a chaotic zone of competing ‘red’ (Bolshevik) and ‘white’ (anti-communist) elements. Even those powers that had nominally been on the victorious side – Romania, Serbia and Italy – were so damaged by the cost and consequences of war that it would take them generations to recover. In this sense, the eastern front never really ended. It only changed and continued in one form or another for several more years. As western Europe returned to peace, fighting flared up across what had once been the western half of Russia, in Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Poland, where new states, some stronger than others, were being established. Writing in the early 1930s, Winston Churchill concluded that the conflict that wracked eastern Europe from 1914 was nothing less than the worst misfortune to hit mankind “since the collapse of the Roman empire before the barbarians”. The fighting in France and Belgium may continue to dominate narratives of the First World War. But, as Churchill was all-too aware, there is no way of understanding the conflict without centring it on the horrors that unfolded in the east. Timeline: The Eastern Front 28 June 1914 Serbian nationalist student Gavrilo Princip guns down Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro- Hungarian throne. A month later Austria declares war on Serbia, triggering a domino effect that will draw much of Europe into war. 23 August 1914 Austria-Hungary’s victory over the Russians at Krasnik in Galicia reveals how costly modern combat will be, with thousands of casualties. 26 August 1914 Germany’s stunning victory at Tannenberg, when its forces surround and rout an entire Russian army, secures East Prussia. It also gives German troops an aura of victory that will last until the final weeks of the war. 22 March 1915 Russia’s capture of the fortress of Przemyśl is a disaster for the Austro-Hungarian empire. It marks the high point of the war for the Russians and forces Germany to divert more troops to the eastern front. 2 May 1915 The Central Powers’ Gorlice-Tarnów counter-offensive proves one of the most decisive operations of the war. It sparks a chaotic ‘great retreat’ of Russian forces that ultimately hands Poland and much of the Baltic region to Germany. 5 September 1915 Tsar Nicholas takes personal charge of the war effort. The decision will be widely seen as a tragic error, taking the tsar out of the capital and associating his own person with the course of the war. 18 March 1916 The failure of another massive Russian attack – at Lake Naroch in modern-day Belarus – has a debilitating effect on the morale of the tsar’s armies and highlights the enduring challenges of conducting complex offensives on the eastern front. 4 June 1916 Russia launches the Brusilov Offensive, one of the most brutal battles of the First World War. The attack triggers the collapse of one Austrian army and effectively destroys Habsburg strategic independence. 15 March 1917 Nicholas II abdicates, ushering in a period of acute political crisis in Russia. The following month, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) arrives at the Finland Station in Petrograd on the fabled ‘sealed train’ from Zurich. 1 July 1917 The Kerensky Offensive (named after the Provisional Government’s war minister, Alexsandr Kerensky) is touted as the moment when a free Russia would embrace its new democratic identity. Instead, it is a dismal failure and reveals how poor morale is across the army. 7 November 1917 Lenin’s Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace and seize power. The ejection of the Provisional Government ushers in the first communist dictatorship in the world. 3 March 1918 The Bolsheviks sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a devastating peace with the Central Powers. Russia loses much of its western borderland. But the revolutionaries now have breathing space to consolidate their power. 23 August 1914
Alternate history: what if the Schlieffen plan had been successful?
Nige Tassell and Professor Nick Lloyd consider the alternative shape of the 20th century had Germany’s bold military strategy not failed
Revised back in 1905 by Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the Schlieffen Plan was a military strategy deployed by Germany in 1914 with the aim of winning the war in Europe in swift fashion. Rather than engage with France on its border, German troops would take a circuitous route through Belgium and the Low Countries in order to outflank and envelop the French army, forcing a quick surrender. With the French threat removed, Germany would then relocate its forces to nullify Russia in the east. Based on a misguided prediction that Britain wouldn’t step in to defend Belgium, the plan failed, leading to a protracted stalemate on the battlefields of western Europe and a four-year world war that is estimated to have claimed up to 15 million lives. Nick Lloyd, professor of modern warfare at King’s College London and author of The Western Front: A History of the First World War (Viking, 2021), is in no doubt that the successful execution of the Schlieffen Plan would have avoided such a catastrophic amount of casualties. “Had it achieved its aims and knocked France out of the war, then the Western Front as it became known would not have existed. The British Expeditionary Force could not have continued without French support and would have been forced to leave the continent very quickly, akin to the scenes witnessed in the summer of 1940.” More from our alternate history series What if... the Cuban Missile Crisis had escalated? What if... Napoleon had defeated Russia? What if... George III had not 'lost' the colonies? What if... the Spanish Armada had landed in England? What if... Alexander the Great hadn't died so young? What if... Argentina had won the Falklands War? What if... Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s first son had lived? What if... Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor? As well as the heavy death toll having been avoided, Europe would not have suffered from the crippling economic damage caused by the First World War. “If the war had come to a conclusion in 1914 or 1915, Europe would have remained the most powerful continent in the world. It’s likely that some form of economic recovery would have taken off in 1917–18 and brought greater prosperity all round, thus avoiding the kind of economic crash we would see in 1929.” Had the Schlieffen Plan achieved its goals both in the west and the east, Professor Lloyd sees the map of Europe being redrawn, with Germany possibly annexing coveted territory such as Poland and the Baltic states. In the west, Belgium “would also certainly have been annexed and put into a close economic and political relationship with Germany, with garrison troops being stationed in the country to guarantee Germany supremacy.” And what of France? “Berlin would have likely demanded a more punitive peace treaty to that of 1871, with significant reparations, the demobilisation of the French army, and adjustments on the border to suit German interests.” Prestige and power The political and military make-up of the following decades would have looked very different had German domination prevailed. “It is certainly likely that a victorious war in 1914 would have added greatly to the prestige and power of Imperial Germany,” explains Professor Lloyd. “Kaiser Wilhelm II would have taken his place among the great leaders of history as his empire expanded in both the east and west, and looked to dominate Europe in peacetime with its chief rivals unable to stop it.” Victory, of course, wouldn’t have precipitated the depth of domestic dissent that Germany suffered from after the strict terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in 1919, which ultimately led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. “There would have been no great grievance or betrayal to react against, as the National Socialists would do, and Adolf Hitler would have remained a fringe figure in German politics, likely campaigning for a more hard-line victorious peace and for more annexations, but without the appeal that he would have by the 1930s.” A different cold war Just as Hitler’s rise would have been avoided by a successful Schlieffen Plan, a communist Russia might not have come into being. “However,” cautions Professor Lloyd, “even if Russian casualties and territorial losses had been less than what it actually suffered in 1918, it’s likely that some form of revolution or palace coup would have taken place. This would have reduced the power of the tsar and allowed greater forms of democratic participation in Russian life, actually weakening the forces of Bolshevism and communism and allowing Russia to evolve in a more stable and less revolutionary way. “Despite this, the lure of communism would likely have remained in many parts of the world, including South America and Asia. Yet, without a Soviet Union to spearhead and support these communist movements, it’s more likely that establishment forces would have been able to hold on in many places, keeping communism at bay.” And what of Britain’s place in a Europe redefined by the Schlieffen Plan? “The British could not have continued the war,” Professor Lloyd concludes. “The government of Herbert Asquith would have likely fallen and a new ministry come into power that sought to work with Germany to forge the best path forward. There would probably have been a period of uneasy coexistence, followed by a kind of cold war until Germany’s conquest was set in stone. “The history of the 20th century would have been unrecognisable had the Schlieffen Plan succeeded.” This article was first published in the March 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed
So often derided for their perceived incompetence and ignorance that resulted in countless deaths, the military leaders of the First World War may have struggled to adapt to a new type of conflict, but were they really ‘donkeys’? Nick Lloyd highlights the careers of 10 generals on the Western Front
The generals of the First World War, particularly those that served on the Western Front in France and Belgium, have collectively been condemned throughout the last century as a dangerously myopic bunch. They were incapable of fighting effectively, and repeatedly ordered their men to undertake futile offensives that gained little more than a few square miles of shell-shattered ground. As such, these generals are often referred to as ‘donkeys’. The truth, however, is more complicated. Over recent years, revisionist historians have begun to question the ‘lions led by donkeys’ claim, arguing that these men were hard done by when it came to posterity since they faced an unending series of fiendishly difficult challenges. Chief among them was the need to coordinate evolving weapon systems of unprecedented lethality and strength, including artillery, machine guns, tanks, and air power. Read more | A–Z of the First World War This had to be done with only limited mobility and without the communications technology that would have allowed for rapid exploitation of any success. They also had to organise military activity within a complex strategic environment in which they had to work alongside politicians, in order to find some way out of one of history’s most devastating wars. Here is a brief guide to 10 of the most important generals on the Western Front: General Joseph Joffre France’s field commander between 1914 and 1916, Joffre did not look like a soldier; he never missed a meal and so had a notable paunch. Yet he possessed a grasp on military operations that was essential to France’s survival. His decision to fight at the first battle of the Marne in September 1914 proved to be a turning point in the early stages of the war as it prevented a quick German victory. Although over the following two years he was unable to beat the German Army, Joffre deserves his place as one of the most significant soldiers of the 20th century. Colonel-General Helmuth von Moltke <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/04/GettyImages-559143871-f1d40c2-e1682071013948.jpg" width="619" height="412" alt="Engraving depicts German Field Marshal and Prussian Army Chief of Staff Helmuth Graf von Moltke (1800 - 1891), mid to late 19th century. Known as 'Moltke the Elder,' his nephew Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke led the German Army at the outbreak of World War I." title="Engraving depicts German Field Marshal and Prussian Army Chief of Staff Helmuth Graf von Moltke (1800 - 1891), mid to late 19th century. Known as 'Moltke the Elder,' his nephew Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke led the German Army at the outbreak of World War I." /> Helmuth von Moltke the younger, nephew of the great Prussian general of the 19th century, had been appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1906, and was the man to lead Germany into war in 1914. But he was unable to coordinate the invasion of France and Belgium, known as the ‘Schlieffen Plan’, and suffered a nervous breakdown in September. With a personal demeanour that bordered on the depressive, Moltke the Younger lacked the energy and determination to stamp his authority on his commanders – who frequently acted independently – and struggled to cope with a war of such violence and destruction. Read more | 10 surprising facts about First World War uniforms Field Marshal Sir John French In the South African War, Sir John French was a cavalryman who oversaw the relief of Kimberley in 1900. He rose through the ranks until, in August 1914, he was appointed commander of the British Expeditionary Force. Although personally courageous he was intellectually limited and struggled to cope with the demands of the Western Front. French soon became depressed and anxious about the great loss of life in the army and, following the British defeat at the battle of Loos in the autumn of 1915, was replaced by Sir Douglas Haig. General Erich von Falkenhayn Cold, calculating and thoroughly modern in his appreciation of military power, Falkenhayn led Germany through its most successful spell of the war, between 1914 and 1916. He authorised a shift of resources to the Eastern Front and the Balkans, and oversaw the dismemberment of the Russians and the conquest of Serbia and Romania. The successes came crashing down, however, with Falkenhayn’s decision to unleash the battle of Verdun in February 1916 with the intention to ‘bleed white’ the French Army. It was a fateful mistake that caused horrific casualties and sucked the German Army into a deadly battle that it could not win. On the podcast | Life in the trenches: everything you wanted to know General Philippe Pétain The intelligent and perceptive Pétain bucked the trend in the pre-war French Army by emphasizing the importance of firepower and the extreme danger of mass frontal assaults. Having gained a reputation as a thoughtful and careful officer, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief following the disastrous Nivelle offensive in the spring of 1917, and was instrumental in returning the army to health following the outbreak of mutiny and disorder. Pétain ensured that the French, despite widespread exhaustion, would be able to continue into 1918. General Sir Douglas Haig Arguably the most controversial and reviled military commander in British history, Haig took charge of the British Expeditionary Force in December 1915 and led it through both its worst days (including the first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916) and its best (such as the battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918, and the breaking of the Hindenburg Line on 29 September 1918). His sense of method and order, his calmness and self-possession, distinguished Haig from the more mercurial Sir John French, but he showed a lack of imagination towards alternative methods of operations. Throughout 1916 and 1917, he continued to insist in the decisive breakthrough despite many of his own generals having abandoned the concept. General Sir Henry Rawlinson An infantryman who commanded the British Fourth Army on the Somme, Rawlinson’s main contribution to military tactics was the notion of ‘bite and hold’. By as early as 1915, Rawlinson had recognised the impossibility of breaking through heavily defended trench systems without prohibitive casualties, so devised a way of fighting that concentrated firepower on small parts of the front, which could be ‘bitten off’ and held by infantry. This would hopefully provoke the enemy into making repeated and wasteful counter-attacks. Rawlinson’s ‘bite and hold’, by focusing on attrition rather than gaining ground, proved highly effective in 1916-17, if not always convincing its critics, Haig among them, that it was a viable way to the fight the war. His Fourth Army went on to play a key role in the final offensives of 1918 that broke the Germans. Read more | Jutland: the battle that won the First World War General Ferdinand Foch Foch had served on the Western Front since 1914 when, in the last year of the war, he was appointed Allied generalissimo. Aggressive and self-confident, he had never lost his sense of purpose and optimism in the face of enormous casualties sustained by the French between 1914 and 1917. His oft-quoted maxim that ‘A battle won is a battle which we will not acknowledge to be lost’ sums up his indefatigable character and enduring belief in victory. In March 1918, Foch was chosen to head up the defence of Amiens, and was then granted additional powers to coordinate all coalition forces across the Western Front the following month. He led the Allied armies to victory in 1918. General Erich Ludendorff Ludendorff was a prodigiously gifted staff officer: aggressive, uncompromising and excelled at battle tactics. From August 1916 to October 1918, he served as the main German field commander. But as the war dragged on, he showed a lack of strategic insight into Germany’s challenges and an increasingly cavalier attitude. By 1918, Ludendorff had become a near-dictatorial figure and refused to recognise the need for a political settlement that would bring a successful conclusion (with some necessary compromises). He insisted upon a final, decisive victory on the battlefield, which led to his decision to mount a massive assault on the Western Front in March 1918, known as Operation Michael. It was a miscalculation of enormous proportions that would bring the German Army to defeat just eight months later. General John Pershing Pershing was the United States’ field commander in France in 1917-18. During that time, he had to find the balance between the need to create a single, unified army with its own sector of the front, and the understandable British and French desire to deploy American infantry sooner and in greater numbers. Inscrutable and hard to read, Pershing needed to combine a willingness to work with US partners and a toughness in defending the nation’s interests. Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about America’s entry and involvement in the First World War He grew convinced that the Allied powers were too pessimistic and worn down by trench warfare, and wanted his infantry to fight open, manoeuvre combat. This soon put him at odds with some of his own officers, many of whom recognised the lessons that had been learnt by the British and French since 1914, and urged caution on the battlefield. Despite disappointing results at the battle of St Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the autumn of 1918, Pershing was indispensable to the Allied victory that year.
The western front has long been synonymous with futility and deadlock. Yet, argues Nick Lloyd, the great battles of 1914–18 triggered a period of enormous innovation – one that ultimately ushered in a new age of warfare
Listen to this article: The western front occupies a fixed and unchanging position in our memory of the First World War. It is synonymous with trenches and bloody, futile combat; a place of barbed wire and poison gas, of massed artillery batteries and machine-guns, mud and blood. It was where the armies of Germany and France, the United Kingdom and America (alongside a host of minor powers and colonial possessions) placed the bulk of their military strength and where they suffered the majority of their casualties. This arena of combat left a legacy of commemoration and remembrance that continues to influence our attitudes to the war to this day. That the western front was the most important theatre in the First World War is surely beyond doubt. Allied victory in France and Belgium ensured that Germany could not win the war (despite defeating Russia on the eastern front and Serbia in the Balkans) and that the British, French and Americans would go on to shape the postwar settlement at Versailles. But what is up for debate is the western front’s reputation for stalemate and futility. I would argue that, far from being a stale and unchanging arena devoid of strategy or innovation, the battles fought in France and Belgium witnessed an astonishing degree of change and development – on both the German and Allied sides. The western front was a cauldron of war in which modern warfare was forged. Going to ground The central problem on the western front between 1914 and 1918 was the relationship between firepower and space. The armies of 1914 possessed weapons of enormous power: quick-firing artillery, modern magazine-fed rifles, and machine-guns, but only limited ability to move quickly when they left their railheads. Although manoeuvre was possible, once armies were engaged in combat, infantry rapidly went to ground and began digging trenches or foxholes to escape the lethal fire-swept zone between the two forces. This created a major problem for commanders who needed to move onto the offensive to win the war. By the end of 1914, commanders of both sides were convinced that trench warfare could be shaken off, but they underestimated just what it would take to do so. The French Army attacked throughout the winter of 1914 and the spring of 1915, pushing forward in a vain attempt to snap the German line in two. It was in Champagne (north-eastern France) where the basic tactical methods of the next three years were hammered out. Attacking infantry would firstly attempt to close with enemy positions by digging saps before a furious artillery bombardment was fired. The preliminary bombardment would increase into what the Germans called trommelfeuer (“drum fire”) before the infantry went “over the top”. But too often the artillery did not do its job, either because it was not heavy enough (a lack of howitzers combined with the fact that high-explosive shells were still not available in large numbers), or that it was inaccurate, leaving the infantry exposed to a hail of rifle and machine-gun fire once they left their trenches. Some hoped to avoid this problem by utilising novel weapons (the German army deployed poison gas at Langemarck near Ypres in April 1915), or by avoiding the western front entirely (such as the attempt to knock the Ottoman empire out of the war at Gallipoli). The French Army had little option to do either, so put its faith in massing its forces at crucial points and refining its methods of attack. This almost succeeded at Vimy Ridge on 9 May 1915, when the latest techniques in artillery registration, “creeping barrages” and infantry tactics based on infiltration, broke the line and allowed French assault troops to seize their objectives. But the break-in could not be exploited and it took too long for reserves to move up to the front, allowing German reserves to seal off the penetration and pulverise it with shellfire. A nightmare of barbed wire As quickly as the Allies developed new methods of attack, the defenders worked on counter-measures. “The main characteristic of the French attacks was an irresistible artillery preparation, defying all description, directed against that portion of the line which they intended to break ” noted one German report from 1915. Because French artillery fire was becoming so intensive, German forward positions were soon reduced to “little more than a mass of ruins”. Therefore, what was needed was “not one or even several lines of fixed defences, but rather a fortified zone which permitted a certain liberty of action, so that the best use could be made of all the advantages offered by the configuration of the ground, and all the disadvantages could as far as possible be overcome”. The western front was now becoming thicker and deeper – a nightmare of sandbags, barbed wire and fortifications. By the end of 1915, French commanders fully understood the dilemmas they were facing and the difficulty of achieving the great breakthrough that would restore the war of movement. General Philippe Pétain, a future commander-in-chief, noted (in November 1915) how present operations had “demonstrated the difficulty, if not the impossibility, in our current state of armament, our method of preparation and opposing forces, of taking successive enemy positions in one wave”. The only thing to do was to conduct a series of separate attacks involving “a considerable use of manpower” and an “unprecedented expenditure of ammunition” to gradually chew through enemy lines. He would fight fire with fire and operate in an avowedly attritional manner, dispensing with the idea of a breakthrough. These dilemmas continued into 1916 – a year defined by the twin battles of Verdun and the Somme, which have come to symbolise trench warfare in all its horror. Mass slaughter became condensed into a small area of the front with such intensive artillery fire that these battlefields was reduced to a moonscape of mud-filled trenches. The German attack at Verdun in February 1916 was probably the world’s first modern battle, in which German aircraft (notably the Fokker Eindecker) gained control of the air before the attack went in. German troops went forward (now wearing newly issued steel helmets) after the most murderous bombardment yet seen, intending to occupy ground that had been razed by the shellfire. Although the French line buckled, reserves poured into the sector and a bloody equilibrium ensued. Various attempts were made to break the deadlock in 1916. Germany used phosgene (that could penetrate French gas masks), sent in flamethrower teams and even deployed their 420mm “Big Bertha” super heavy howitzers – all in the attempt to cripple the French army. The French responded both on the ground and in the air. By the early summer, they had wrested control of the air back from Germany with a new generation of aircraft, including the Morane-Saulnier monoplane and the Nieuport XI Bébé, which were grouped into special fighter squadrons and tasked with mounting offensive patrols. The French also benefited from a rapid industrial mobilisation and were now able to fire off hundreds of thousands of shells every day. On 24 October they recaptured Fort Douaumont (which had fallen in February) after firing half a million shells and coordinating their infantry with air support in an impressive set-piece attack. A lack of “knack” The British also went through the same process of trial and error that the French had undergone. Despite some promising results in the battles of 1915, at Neuve Chapelle and Loos, the attack on the Somme in July 1916 was the first time the British mounted an offensive on a mass scale – attempting to break the line in a way that most French commanders had already abandoned. But lacking the skill or the technology (British guns were frequently inaccurate; shells were plagued by shoddy manufacture; and there was not enough high-explosive), the result was the worst day in the history of the British Army (1 July 1916). Battalion after battalion attacked the German trenches, but found the defences intact, the wire uncut, and the defenders battered, but still full of fight. A French observer commented ruefully that the causes of failure were “poor artillery preparation” and the “neglect of mopping-up enemy trenches after the first assault waves” had gone forward. “The British,” he concluded, “have not yet got the ‘knack’.” It took months before the British got the “knack”. Fighting on the Somme went on throughout the summer and autumn, and although British performance improved (most notably in their use of artillery), it was the arrival of tanks in September that seemed to offer a new way of breaking the stranglehold of trench warfare. These armoured vehicles were slow, and vulnerable to field guns, but they had an immediate impact, helping British divisions to advance and presenting the defenders with another significant problem. That month, one of Germany’s most senior commanders, Crown Prince Rupprecht, noted that the army was being worn down by “continued prolonged and exhausting fighting”. Germany had previously been “inferior to that of the enemy in terms of size” but “far superior in terms of quality”. But this had now changed, owing to the huge numbers of casualties that had hollowed out her armies and left her with a growing problem of poor morale and defeatism. Now condemned to the defensive, there seemed little way out other than hoping that another wonder weapon, unrestricted submarine warfare (which began on 1 February 1917), would somehow strangle the Allies before she succumbed. By 1917, the Germans were finding defence on the western front increasingly difficult. Although the year began well with the collapse of the Nivelle Offensive in April (in which a series of over-ambitious French attacks on bad ground failed), the growing disparity between Allied armies awash with guns, shells and tanks, and a German army increasingly threadbare, was a stark one. Germany continually improved her defensive tactics, widening yet further the defensive “zone”, and sucking the British and French in, before hitting them with counter-attacks from the rear. But the cost of doing so was growing. The German command team of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff-recognised that a radical overhaul of industry was needed if they were to procure the weapons they needed. “People – as well as horses – must increasingly be replaced by machines.” Despite growing exhaustion and declining manpower resources, the Allies continued to hone their offensive tactics throughout 1917. By the summer, the combination of heavy artillery, intelligent and flexible infantry formations, new tanks, and the presence of aircraft (providing reconnaissance and spotting, and occasionally bombing and strafing ground targets), allowed the Allies to break into any German positions they cared to attack, inflict damaging losses on their opponents, and hold on to their gains. Typical of this new approach was the French attack on La Malmaison in October 1917. An abandoned fortress situated on the Chemin des Dames ridge, Malmaison was taken after a six-day bombardment that included the use of “special shells” (phosgene and phosphorous) fired against German gun batteries, saturating them in poison. Although the ground was difficult, a topsyturvy moonscape, the infantry took their objectives on time. “It’s frightful,” remembered one veteran. “Everything is devastated, we stumble into huge craters, German corpses everywhere, blown to pieces, others over by gas, dying. It’s dreadful, but superb.” The final roll of the dice Everything came full circle for the final year, 1918. With Russia defeated, the German supreme command decided to gamble everything on a decisive attack in the west. It was the final roll of the dice. Massing 77 divisions along the attack sector, supported by 6,400 guns, Ludendorff was gambling upon breaking the front, separating the British from the French, rolling up the line, and then forcing the Allies to sue for peace. It was an audacious, breathtaking plan. Everything that had been learned from four years of war would be put into the operation. A five-hour bombardment, high-explosive and gas, would neutralise enemy positions, interfere with their artillery, and so disorientate the defenders that they could not resist properly. German divisions went through an unrelenting process of training and preparation for the assault. Elite stormtroopers would lead the attack, bypassing centres of resistance to spread chaos in the enemy’s rear. The opening of the German spring offensive on 21 March 1918 ushered in a series of massive battles that would only cease with the armistice of November 1918. Germany’s three attacking armies broke through the stretched Allied lines on the Somme, threatening to separate the British and French armies, and inflicting terrible losses. Perhaps as many as 21,000 British soldiers were taken prisoner on 21 March, and with the Allies in disarray, the moment of German victory appeared close. Faced with what seemed like imminent defeat, the British and French agreed to appoint General Ferdinand Foch supreme commander in order to co-ordinate their efforts in defence of Amiens, where their two armies joined. The German army had mastered the techniques required to break through a trench network, combining artillery, infantry and air power, to impressive effect, but they lacked the logistical support to sustain such a large offensive over succeeding days, and had little way of moving their troops around the battlefield quickly. The result was impressive initial gains (as seen in the attacks on 9 April, 27 May and 9 June 1918) that proved harder to repeat as Allied reserves arrived, which they were now doing at speed. By the summer of 1918, the United States (which had entered the war in April 1917) was finally able to deploy significant manpower on the western front – thus turning the tide of the war. All the elements of combined-arms warfare that would define the 20th century – infantry, artillery, armour and air power – had come together by the summer of 1918. The Franco-American counter-attack on the Marne on 18 July wrested the initiative away from the German army and ushered in the final phase of the war. Now the horrors of trench warfare had been banished as a new kind of fighting emerged: more mobile and decisive. First World War: beyond the western front Utilising a surprise tank attack – led by the new Renault FT-17, the first modern tank with a revolving turret – French and American divisions launched themselves against the German lines and took 20,000 prisoners in a matter of hours. Afterwards, a German report noted sadly: “The tanks, employed in numbers never known before and much better developed technically, rolled ahead of the infantry in long, connected lines. Our defence was not adapted to this mass employment on a wide front and was effective only in spots.” The events of 18 July were “a turning point in the history of the world war”. Over the next three months the Allied armies mounted a final advance that brought the German army to defeat. Victory had been the result of one of the most impressive and consequential technological and tactical transformations in the history of war. Human flesh had been replaced by technology and industry. A violent, bloody birth of a new age in warfare had taken place that was worlds away from the two-dimensional battlefield of 1914. The western front deserves to be remembered not as an unchanging arena of futility, but as a radical moment in history. This content first appeared in the March 2021 issue of BBC History Magazine
The western front: a cauldron of innovation
Nick Lloyd reveals how the First World War’s western front was shaped by transformative military and technological advancements
In the popular imagination, the western front of the First World War has long been synonymous with futility and deadlock. But Nick Lloyd, author of new book The Western Front, argues that this was far from the case. It was in fact a cauldron of innovation and an epic struggle against the odds, shaped by transformative military and technological advancements. Nick Lloyd is the author of The Western Front: A History of the First World War (Viking, 2021) Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones Buy now on Bookshop.org
Operation Alberich: the story of Germany’s retreat in 1917
The story of Operation Alberich – Germany’s retreat into the Hindenburg Line – occupies a relatively minor place in histories of the First World War. Yet the story of the retreat, featured in Sam Mendes’s new blockbuster film 1917, takes us out of the claustrophobic trenches to face the greater forces at work that would determine the outcome of the war. Dr Nick Lloyd explains…
This week, the movie 1917 comes to UK and US cinemas. Directed and produced by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes, 1917 tells the story of two British soldiers, Schofield and Blake. The men are in a race against time to deliver a message calling off a doomed attack in which the lives of hundreds of men, including Blake’s own brother, are at stake. Set in April 1917, the movie focuses on a little-known period of the First World War on the western front, when the German Army conducted a major retreat from positions they had occupied throughout 1915 and 1916 into a new, specially-built defensive position: this was known as the Hindenburg Line. The story of Operation Alberich – Germany’s retreat into the Hindenburg Line – occupies a relatively minor place in histories of this period, which often focus on the devastating events in Russia that were taking place at the same time (the February Revolution that began Russia’s descent into Bolshevik tyranny, for example). Operation Alberich is often seen as a minor annex to the allied campaign on the Somme in 1916, or simply as a prequel to the spring offensives of 1917 that provoked mutinies in the French Army. In fact, it marked an important phase in the Great War and revealed how much had changed since the opening round of fighting in August and September 1914. The First World War: Was it worth it? The forgotten triumphs of Passchendaele What did Germany retreat in 1917? By the end of 1916, the First World War was more than two years old and there was no indication that it would end any time soon. Throughout the year, heavy and sustained fighting had taken place at Verdun and the Somme, twin battles that produced spiralling casualties but did little to bring about a decision for either side. In late August 1916, the German Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, was replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, assisted by his deputy, Erich Ludendorff. Both men had been brought in to provide a fresh assessment of Germany’s situation, which was looking increasingly precarious. Caught in two brutal battles and facing growing Entente superiority in manpower and artillery [Entente being the understanding between Britain, France and Russia], the German Army was being ground down in what they called the materialschlacht (the ‘material battle’). The British and French Armies were now able to wield thousands of guns and millions of shells, turning the front into a shell-pocked wasteland. They also devised new means of breaking the trench deadlock – using tanks, for example, which made their debut in September 1916. As Ludendorff later wrote, Germany “had to bear in mind that the enemy’s great superiority in men and material would be even more painfully felt in 1917 than in 1916”. Ludendorff grew concerned that the German Army’s strength was fading. “If the war lasted, our defeat seemed inevitable.” Recognising that the German Army could not withstand a recurrence of ‘Somme fighting’ in the following year, Hindenburg and Ludendorff authorised the creation of a vast new defensive position in France running from Arras, west of Cambrai, St Quentin, down to Vailly-sur-Aisne, which straightened out the ‘great bulge’ in the western front, shortening their front line by 30 miles and releasing 10 divisions from defensive duty. The retreat into the Hindenburg Line began on 9 February 1917 and over the course of the following week German troops moved into their new positions, laying waste to a vast zone of French countryside in which orchards were felled, villages razed to the ground, bridges blown, and roads and railways torn up. Listen | Professor David Stevenson discusses some of the key events of 1917 An unsure response The allied powers responded fitfully as the German line began to give way. General Robert Nivelle, the French Commander-in-Chief, was already planning a massive new offensive for the spring of 1917 in which two armies would attack along the Aisne river towards the Chemin des Dames Ridge northeast of Soissons. Unsure how to respond to the German Army’s retreat into the Hindenburg Line, he ignored growing calls from his subordinates to alter their plans and catch the enemy off balance with a sudden attack. Nivelle could not be moved, insisting: “There seems little likelihood that the enemy will abandon without fighting, and indeed without resisting to the utmost, one of the principal pledges he holds on our soil, that is to say the line nearest Paris, which includes Roye, Noyon and Soissons.” Tentatively, the British and French forces moved forward, unsure of what was ahead of them and aghast at the swathe of desolate ground they encountered. It was this destruction that gives 1917 some of its visual power and which is a crucial part of the story. In contrast to most films about the First World War, where static trench warfare is a central theme, 1917 shows the two protagonists making their way across the razed ground, dealing with rampaging biplanes and shell-shocked civilians; offering an unfamiliar and disorientating theme of movement in a war usually known for its immobility. First World War: beyond the western front From the Napoleonic Wars to Vietnam and Iraq: a history of war trauma By the time the German retreat had come to an end and the Hindenburg Line had been occupied at the end of March 1917, allied plans for the rest of the year had been badly scuppered. With more German divisions available to resist Nivelle’s thrust along the Aisne, there was much less chance that his forces would be able to break through, restore the war of movement and deal the German armies a decisive blow. When his attack finally went ahead on 16 April, the result was a disaster. Two French armies attacked uphill through snowstorms and sheets of hail and sleet, making gains but getting bogged down in fierce fighting along the bare slopes of the Chemin des Dames. The British fared better. Sir Douglas Haig’s British Expeditionary Force had struggled through a bloody campaign on the Somme in 1916 but mounted a promising preliminary attack at Arras on 9 April 1917, using revised infantry tactics and the latest techniques in artillery registration [involving laying guns for better accuracy by adjusting the gun's range and trajectory based on weather/wind conditions]. Following a punishing preliminary bombardment and creeping barrage, Canadian troops secured the heights around Vimy and dealt the German Army a heavy blow in the north. But it mattered little. So much hope had been invested in Nivelle’s offensive that its failure sparked off mutinies in the French Army that almost brought the First World War to a premature end. What did the German retreat achieve? Despite the sense of failure that hung over allied operations in the spring of 1917, Hindenburg and Ludendorff saw little reason to crow. The occupation of the Hindenburg Line had bought time and given Germany a greater flexibility in how they fended off enemy attacks, but allied superiority in the technological and industrial methods of war (including air power, armour and artillery) would only strengthen as the war continued. In August 1916 Germany launched the Hindenburg Programme, a renewed campaign of domestic industrial production aimed at matching British, French and later American output [following the USA’s formal entry into the war in April 1917], but the situation darkened during 1917 as allied forces launched a renewed series of attacks, at Arras, Messines, Ypres and along the Aisne. The year 1917 would see some of the greatest crises of the 20th century: America’s entry into the First World War; Russia’s tumble into revolution; and the intensification of fighting on the western front, which set the scene for the climactic operations of 1918 when the fate of Europe would be decided. Sam Mendes’s film brings some welcome attention to this pivotal year, and in the German retreat into the Hindenburg Line we can see how greater forces were at work that would go on to have profound implications for the nature of warfare and the outcome of the First World War. Nick Lloyd is reader in military and imperial history at King’s College London based at the Joint Services Command & Staff College in Shrivenham.
It may have become a symbol of pointless slaughter but the infamous 1917 offensive saw Allied forces inflict a series of shattering defeats on their German foes. Nick Lloyd explores...
For 100 years, the third battle of Ypres – more commonly known as Passchendaele – has symbolised the horror, slaughter and futility of the First World War. No other battle, not even the Somme or Verdun, has acquired such a horrific reputation. The battle was, so it was said, fought knee-deep in mud and water, with British and Commonwealth troops being sacrificed by stubborn commanders for useless gains. The historian AJP Taylor memorably called it “the blindest slaughter of a blind war”, and subsequent generations of historians have done little to challenge this depressing narrative. There is, however, much more to the third battle of Ypres than is popularly assumed. In this centenary year (2017) it is absolutely vital to look again at the battle and consider it afresh. When writing a new history of Passchendaele, I was struck by just how much of the fighting did not conform to the popular image of the battle – the mud and folly – and how effective the British Army had become by 1917. Who was involved in the First World War? Who was on each side? The great misconceptions of the First World War In particular, it is illuminating to focus on the forgotten middle phase of the fighting – between 20 September and 4 October – which reveals another, much more compelling, story. Not only did these battles bring the German army to the brink of defeat, they also illustrated how the campaign should have been fought since the beginning of the attack. Together they offer a different side to the battle: an unknown battle of Passchendaele. Paralysis by mutiny The battle emerged after the spring of 1917 when the British and French armies on the western front were facing a particularly bleak time. The French spring offensive – the so-called Nivelle Offensive – had failed spectacularly, and during April and May serious outbreaks of indiscipline and mutiny paralysed the French army. With French troops demanding better conditions and pay, more leave and an end to mindless offensives, it fell to the British Expeditionary Force, under Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, to take the initiative. Haig believed that British forces should be concentrated in the north, in Flanders, for an ambitious drive towards the railway junction at Roulers, while breaking out along the coastal sector and securing the German U-boat bases at Ostend and Zeebrugge, which were an increasing menace to shipping across the Channel. Despite serious reservations in London about the scope of what Haig was proposing, the offensive began on 31 July with a mass assault by the British Fifth Army commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough. The initial attack achieved some success, with British forces advancing about 3,000 yards along most of the front, although failing to gain the important high ground on the Gheluvelt Plateau (on Gough’s right), which overlooked the town of Ypres. Listen | Professor David Stevenson discusses some of the key events of 1917 There had also been heavy fighting throughout the afternoon as the advanced British positions came under heavy counterattack from German reserves – so-called Eingreif divisions – which pushed the British back. This was the essence of German defensive tactics in 1917: the front trenches were evacuated while the bulk of her manpower would be deployed deeper into their defensive positions (where they would be less vulnerable to British guns), while relying on counterattacking units to restore their position. This was exactly what had happened on 31 July. Far from being the beginning of a war-winning offensive, the battle now ground to a halt. British casualties had been heavy (more than 31,000) and the arrival of unseasonal and unusually persistent rainfall, which swept in during the afternoon and continued for days, prevented any further exploitation. “Frightful weather. The worst experienced this year. Put a stop to everything except gun fire,” remembered a junior British officer, AH Roberts. It was not until 16 August that Gough could restart major operations, but it was a hopeless exercise. The battlefield was sodden, preventing supplies from moving up and exhausting the infantry, which now made their way up to the front along perilous duckboards that had been laid over the moonscape of mud. The battle of Langemarck, which took place on that day, was a bitter disappointment. Progress was extremely costly – another 15,000 casualties – and only limited gains were made, and none whatsoever on the crucial high ground. The failure at Langemarck did not dent Gough’s determination to move forward, and he authorised small-scale attacks throughout the month, with his men clawing their way forward – fighting through nests of enemy pillboxes and concrete strongpoints, while struggling to drag enough guns and ammunition forward over the wet ground. It was this part of the battle that seemed to epitomise the failings in the British Army at this point in the war: battalions pressing forward without sufficient preparation and often without flanking support; commanders gambling with men’s lives in the hope that something would turn up. As the war correspondent Philip Gibbs noted scornfully, the view after Langemarck was that the men were “victims of atrocious staff-work” and that Gough’s Fifth Army had ‘“an air of inefficiency” about it that was extremely costly. Plumer prevails It was evident that something else was required. Haig’s plans for a mass breakout in Flanders had never been popular in Whitehall, and the lack of progress brought the spotlight back onto his army where questions would inevitably be raised about what was going on. In late August, Haig was forced to relent. He asked General Sir Herbert Plumer, commander of the British Second Army, to take over responsibility for a renewed push on the Gheluvelt Plateau. But unlike Gough, who had tried to drive as deep as possible into the German line, Plumer was a much more cautious, careful general. He was one of the leading advocates of so-called ‘bite and hold’ attacks: limited advances into the German line (perhaps no more than 1,500 yards) based upon overwhelming firepower and exhaustive preparation. He requested as many guns as possible and three weeks to prepare, which Haig granted him. His attack would go in on 20 September 1917. 10 facts you (probably) didn't know about the First World War The First World War: Was it worth it? What followed was the most decisive phase of the third battle of Ypres and showed how the campaign should have been fought since 31 July. The battle of the Menin Road (as it would subsequently be known) was a world away from the muddy slaughter of July and August. Benefiting from a spell of warm weather that allowed the ground to dry up, Plumer’s attack was spearheaded by two Australian divisions which smashed into the German line and advanced on schedule. With an intensity of firepower almost double that achieved on 31 July, Plumer’s men crept forward into a wasteland of smoke and fire and met a demoralised, terrified enemy. Lieutenant Alexander Hollyhoke, serving with 7/Australian Battalion, remembered “a wall of dust and fumes, intermingled with shell bursts… Here and there a dead German was seen – killed by the barrage or a shot from the advancing troops. Prisoners, cowed and broken, began to come in in groups, or crouched in shell holes until sent to the rear.” Crucially, German defensive tactics, which had proved so successful earlier in the battle, failed to dent Plumer’s advance. Whereas Gough’s attacks on 31 July and throughout August had been based upon pushing the British infantry as far as possible, Plumer ordered a strictly limited advance that would not exhaust his men or leave them strung out and unable to hold on. Three German Eingreif divisions were sent forward that day, but they ran into a trap. With good observation from Royal Flying Corps aircraft above the battlefield, pre-planned barrages were fired on their concentration points and approach routes, which crippled the momentum of the German divisions. By the time they arrived on the battlefield they were met by a phalanx of steel as shell bursts tore up their columns as quickly as they came up. When they did manage to close with the attackers, they found them dug-in and supported by an impressive array of machine-guns. Giant, invisible fists Plumer was only just getting started. Another attack was launched six days later – the battle of Polygon Wood – and it largely repeated the story of Menin Road. Once again, British and Australian troops pushed forward under a heavy bombardment and captured their objectives on time. And when the German counterattack units tried to recapture the lost ground, the British were waiting for them. Running into a storm of machine-gun and shellfire, they could only make minor advances towards their objectives and suffered heavily for it. “Geysers the size of houses consisting of soil, metal splinters and rocks erupt everywhere,” recorded a German regimental history. “It is as if giant invisible fists were pounding, clobbering everything without mercy. Everyone who hasn’t been hit yet looks for a gap in the horrible wall of fire, half insane from breathlessness and terror.” Another 1,200-yard ‘bite’ had been taken into key German positions around Polygon Wood and Zonnebecke. Amiens: the battle that broke the Germans 'Foch's Grand Offensive': the biggest battle you've never heard of 20 battles that shaped Britain The German response was one of disbelief, shock and confusion. “We are living through truly abominable days,” wrote a staff officer, Albrecht von Thaer. “I no longer have any idea of what should be undertaken against the English… The last few days have brought us the bitterest loss of life here.” At the German high command, Erich Ludendorff was equally appalled. On 30 September he informed the general staff that the “latest British attacks – artillery barrage, smoke, machine-gun fire against our massed divisions on a comparatively narrow front – are almost irresistible”. The Germans’ front-line garrisons had been smashed and their counterattacks were ineffective, which called into question their whole defensive posture and whether their reliance on defence-in-depth tactics was still appropriate. In response, Ludendorff authorised the heavier manning of the German front line and ordered a major counterattack to go in on the morning of 4 October, hopefully knocking the enemy off balance and regaining the initiative. Ludendorff would find, however, that his tactical tweaking was exactly the wrong medicine for the embattled German army. General Plumer had planned his third step – the battle of Broodseinde – for the morning of 4 October and it would be his most successful battle so far. Ten minutes before Ludendorff’s counterattack was to go in, Plumer’s divisions surged forward behind a “wall of flame” that decimated the German defenders. Capturing Zonnebecke and Broodseinde, the Australians ran into crowds of German prisoners and stepped over the bodies of dozens of their compatriots, killed by the bombardment that morning. “What were the horrors of the Verdun and of the Somme in comparison to this?” asked a German divisional history. “The whole earth of Flanders shook and seemed to be on fire.” Yet another advance had been made into the German positions, which seemed, at long last, to be on the verge of collapse. Broodseinde would mark the high point of the third battle of Ypres. What Plumer had achieved was remarkable: conducting three major blows in just two weeks that brought the British to the Gravenstafel Ridge, the penultimate area of high ground before the heights of Passchendaele. In doing so, he had rescued Haig’s offensive, done enormous damage to the German army and dealt adroitly with the defensive tactics that had proved so effective earlier in the battle. It was a masterclass of operational art, of combining the tools of warfare – artillery, infantry, armour and air power – to achieve realistic objectives against a formidable enemy (and over difficult ground). Thickets of barbed wire The only problem was that it was now October and the good weather that Plumer had benefited from over the last month was at an end, and over the next few days heavy downpours returned the battlefield to its earlier state of water-filled shell holes, mist and low cloud. The weather was, as the German commander Crown Prince Rupprecht noted, their “most effective ally” and, once more, it would save the day. Under such conditions there was simply no way that Plumer could continue to be effective, not with Haig at GHQ urging him to attack again after a pause of only a few days. While Haig was convinced that a breakthrough was imminent, Plumer was not so sure, but did as he was told and mounted further pushes towards Passchendaele on 9 and 12 October. Both failed. The attackers found themselves under heavy fire, struggling to cross the waterlogged battlefield and caught out by insufficiently smashed defences and thickets of barbed wire that blocked their way up the ridge. After a pause of two weeks, the final phase of the battle began in mid-October with Canadian troops taking the lead and eventually securing the village of Passchendaele on 6 November 1917. Within days the battle was called off. Given the abject failure to achieve Haig’s ambitious objectives for the 1917 campaign – to break out of the Ypres salient and secure a series of major ports along the Channel coast – it is not surprising that the battle has been judged a failure. Yet had it been conducted differently, and had General Plumer been in charge from the start, it is not too difficult to imagine a different result: a series of hammer blows that put the German army under intolerable pressure. Indeed, had Plumer been able to secure another two or three victories on the lines of Menin Road, Polygon Wood or Broodseinde, then the German army may have been left with no choice but to give up most of western Belgium and retreat to a stronger line. Better that than enduring the terrible pounding Plumer was giving them. But this is not the story that we know so well from Passchendaele. The success that Plumer and the Second Army achieved between 20 September and 4 October has never been properly recognised. Charles Bean, the Australian official historian, later wrote that Broodseinde was “an overwhelming blow”, the importance of which “has never been fully recognised except by the commanders and forces that took part”. Yet Bean’s insight has faded from view as the other side of Passchendaele – its mud and futility – became the dominant interpretation (helped in part by a series of superb, shocking photographs of the stark landscape). But this is only part of the story. As Broodseinde showed, when well led and fitted into an appropriate battle plan, British soldiers (alongside their compatriots from Canada, Australia and New Zealand) could achieve remarkable success, taking objectives and doing great damage to the enemy. Let us hope that in this centenary year our understanding of this iconic battle will rise above the old myths of mud and blood and stupidity, and that we’ll then appreciate the unknown battle of Passchendaele. This article was first published in the August 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine Passchendaele: The anatomy of a battle Dates: 31 July–10 November 1917 Location: Ypres, Flanders, western Belgium Phases of the Battle: 31 July 1917 Battle of Pilckem Ridge 16 August 1917 Battle of Langemarck 20 September 1917 Battle of the Menin Road 26 September 1917 Battle of Polygon Wood 4 October 1917 Battle of Broodseinde 9 October 1917 Battle of Poelcappelle 12 October 1917 First battle of Passchendaele 26 October–10 November 1917 Second battle of Passchendaele Casualties: British: 244,897 German: between 217,000 and 240,000 Victoria Cross Awards: 61
Debate: Is British history too fixated with the story of the world wars?
Historians Dr Nick Lloyd and Dr Tracy Borman consider the significance of the First and Second World Wars in British history and debate whether we in Britain are too fixated with the story of the world wars
Dr Nick Lloyd: “The world wars’ central place in British memory and identity is right, proper and perfectly understandable” It has become fashionable to decry Britain’s interest in the First and Second World Wars as an unhealthy obsession – a kind of jingoistic and militaristic nostalgia for the nation’s status as a global power. But this would be a petty and uncharitable assessment of the magnitude of such events and of Britain’s pivotal role within them. There is no doubting the central place that the world wars occupy in Britain’s national memory. Every year on 11 November, we stand silently to remember those who fell – a tradition that first began in 1919 to commemorate the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities on the western front. Read more | 5 things you need to know about Armistice Day In Britain the world wars are the defining events of our modern history, as definitive as the Reformation and the Civil War were in the 16th and 17th centuries. The First and Second World Wars marked the greatest collective endeavour in Britain’s history, when almost the entire population played their part. From soldiers and sailors; airmen and air women; munitions workers and bus drivers; miners and farmers, the world wars transformed the nature of the British state and the citizen’s relationship to it. In 1914 (as historian AJP Taylor famously wrote), “a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman”. The coming of war would alter this forever, bringing with it (among other things) conscription, rationing and censorship, the Defence of the Realm Act, the mass employment of women in industry, the bombing of London, the shelling of coastal towns and the beginning of British summer time. The country would never be the same again. When the First World War broke out in August 1914, it marked the beginning of a new age of mass slaughter, total war and revolution that would only come to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was a war in which the industrialised societies of Europe and the United States waged an unremitting fight of such intensity and horror that it is still difficult to comprehend, even now. For the first time, Britain raised a mass citizen army and took a major role in fighting a continental enemy… and suffered accordingly. Losses were unprecedented. Sixty thousand casualties (including almost 20,000 dead) were sustained on 1 July 1916 alone, the worst day in the history of the British Army. More than 700,000 British people lost their lives in the war, with another 250,000 from the Dominions of the empire – a staggering total that was nearly double the fatalities inflicted by the Second World War. The losses of the First World War and the terrible conditions in the trenches have become seared in national memory as a tragic and futile waste. Indeed, it is not surprising that the current boom in family history research has been, to a considerable degree, a reflection of our collective desire to find out what role our ancestors played in this seminal catastrophe. The Second World War has been remembered very differently. While the memory of 1914–18 is still firmly anchored in the idea of ‘lions led by donkeys’, the Second World War has become etched in our national psyche as a ‘good war’ that ended in overwhelming triumph. In contrast to the continuing sense of confusion and tragedy that haunts our memory of the First World War, the Second World War is constructed as the story of how Britain and its empire stood up to the force of Nazi tyranny, avoided defeat, and thus saved western civilisation. This stirring narrative owes much to the influence of Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister, whose inspirational speeches (such as ‘Our Finest Hour’; ‘We Shall Fight Them on the Beaches’; and ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’) galvanised the country and became part of our national lexicon. And while some historians have tried to diminish Britain’s role in the Second World War, this should not distract us from the vital part that Britain played in keeping resistance to Nazi Germany alive between 1939 and 1941 (when the Soviet Union and Germany were allied together), and in helping to forge an alliance that would emerge victorious in 1945. Read more | Did Churchill’s postwar speeches save the world? However we might like to ignore or downplay the story of the world wars, they remain central to understanding the modern world and global affairs to this day. Indeed, most, if not all, of the defining events of the 20th century were either directly caused by, or were a consequence of, the upheavals of 1914–45. The Russian Revolution; the breakup of the Ottoman empire; US entry into global affairs; the Versailles and Sykes-Picot treaties; the Wall Street Crash and Depression; appeasement, the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust all had their origins in the world wars. As did the League of Nations and the United Nations; the mass growth of air and space power and the atomic bomb; the collapse of European empires and the beginning of the post-colonial age; the Welfare State and the Cold War. The central place that the world wars occupy in British memory and identity is neither unhealthy nor jingoistic – it is right, proper and perfectly understandable. Dr Tracy Borman: “Fixation with the world wars – significant though they were – gives a distorted view of British history” If we, as a nation, are fixated on the two seismic military conflicts that dominated the last century, then it is to some extent understandable. Although there were hugely significant and devastating wars before – and indeed after – none have captured the imagination so much as the First and Second World Wars. These two conflicts, played out in a myriad of theatres across the globe, traumatised entire societies, triggered huge political upheaval and resulted in an unimaginable loss of life. By the time peace was declared in 1945, the world had changed almost beyond recognition – physically, politically, socially and morally. There is also an immediacy to the world wars. Even though the veterans who march past the Cenotaph every remembrance Sunday are becoming fewer each year, their children, grandchildren and other relatives carry forward the stories of their experience. By comparison, events such as the Norman Conquest, Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe or even the industrial revolution, fascinating though they are, seem hopelessly distant. Was 1945 the world’s year zero? 10 surprising facts about William the Conqueror and the Norman conquest Little wonder that historians have been endlessly telling and retelling the story of the world wars ever since. Until recent times, the Second World War in particular dominated the national curriculum – so much so that primary and secondary age children could have been forgiven for believing that little else happened between the end of the Tudor era and modern times. The Stuart and Georgian eras were as good as airbrushed from history. And yet, I would argue that this fixation with the world wars – enormously significant though they were – gives a distorted view of British history. The distortion is all the greater because our obsession extends to wars in general, not just the two global conflicts of the 20th century. Even though history is no longer taught as a long list of dates, 1066 (the battle of Hastings), 1415 (the battle of Agincourt), 1588 (the Spanish Armada) and 1815 (the battle of Waterloo) still resonate among large swathes of the population. They are, if you like, the punctuation marks of history. Famous military encounters such as these certainly led to dramatic shifts in national and international relations, whether it was a change of dynasty or an uneasy peace after years of fighting. But what about the events which happened in between? For me, this is where the real history lies: in the everyday. Although I am a Tudor specialist, I have researched and written about a broad range of periods and subjects: from the Normans and Stuarts to the Georgians and Windsors. It has always been the minutiae of the people and events I have studied that have held the greatest appeal – and significance. The devil really is in the detail. History’s ‘hidden aspects’ can be its most revealing. For example, the seemingly irrelevant details of monarchs’ private lives can give an entirely new insight into the desires, prejudices and morality that motivated their public decisions. Take Henry VIII, for example. Upon his sex life, the future of a dynasty depended. The tragic obstetric history of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, meant that Henry had no male heir to show for more than 20 years of marriage. This made the king susceptible to the seductive charms of Anne Boleyn, sparking one of the most transformative and turbulent periods of our history, when he (and his able minister Thomas Cromwell) overturned Britain’s entire religious and political establishment in order to take Anne as his wife. Read more | Not such a prude after all: the secrets of Henry VIII’s love life Appreciating the longer narrative of history also helps us to understand the context for the more dramatic bursts of military conflict. The trigger for the Civil War might have been the ill-advised policies of an ineffectual monarch, but its roots can be traced to the social, economic and religious upheavals of the previous century. Likewise, William the Conqueror may have become nominal king of England after triumphing at the battle of Hastings, but it took many more years of bitter campaigning before he could finally feel secure on his throne. Even then, this ultimate victory was won as much by the gradual tide of Anglo-Norman integration and the benevolent influence of William’s wife Matilda as the flurry of military encounters. The quieter, unsung heroes, such as Matilda of Flanders (England’s first crowned queen), will only enjoy their place in the sun if we accept that the broader, more detailed sweep of history is just as fascinating, if not more so, than the great military conflicts of our past. Wars may be the punctuation marks of history, but in my view the long sentences in between make for far more enlightening reading. This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2016