The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I - 08

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THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

WORLD VOLUME EIGHT 1917-18

*rf".

THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

WORLD Editor-in-Chief Brigadier Peter

Young

Board Barker; Dr. John Bradley

Editorial

Lt.-Col. A. J.

Professor John Erickson; Lt.-Cdr. Peter Kemp John Keegan; Kenneth Macksey; S. L. Mayer Lt.-Col. Alan Sheppard; Norman Stone Revision Editor Mark Dartford Archbishop Mitty High School Media Center

5000

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Way

San Jose, CA 95129

MARSHALL CAVENDISH NEW YORK, LONDON, TORONTO

Editorial Staff Young

Editor

Brigadier Peter

Deputy Editor

Kenneth Macksey

Co-ordinating Panel

Lt.-Col. A. J. Barker Dr. John Bradley Prof. John Erickson Lt.-Cdr. Peter Kemp

Reference Edition Published 1984 Published by Marshall Cavendish Corporation 147 West Merrick Road

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John Keegan S. L. Mayer Lt.-Col. Alan Sheppard

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N.Y. 11520 Printed and

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in Italy

by L.E.G.O. S.p.a. Vicenza.

No part of this book may be reproduced or any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holders. All rights reserved. utilized in

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Capt. Sir Basil Liddell-Hart

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Barrie Pitt

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The Marshall Cavendish encyclopedia of World War One. Bibliography: Includes index. 1.

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World War, 1914-1918— Chronology.

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The Marshall Cavendish illustrated encyclopedia of World War One. 1. World War, 1914-1918 II. Pitt, Barrie I. Young, Peter, 1915Dartford,

940.3

Mark

D521

ISBN 0-86307-181-3

New Edition

Marshall

86307 189 9 vol

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Cavendish Corporation.

(set)

86307 189 9 vol

12882

1917 JUL

1

Russian offensive

2

Greece declares war on the Central Powers.

31

OCT

in Galicia.

3rd Battle of Ypres.

24

Battle of Caporetto (12th Battle of Isonzo).

31

Beersheba taken by British forces.

NOV

6

Bolsheviks take over in Russia. 3rd Battle of Ypres ends. Canadians take Passchendaele Ridge.

7

British win 3rd Battle of Gaza. Supreme Allied Council formed.

20

DEC

Battle of

War

Cambrai.

7

U.S. declares war on Austria-Hungary.

9

Romania

signs armistice with

Germany.

British take

Jerusalem.

22

Trotsky .begins peace negotiations

at

Brest-Litovsk.

1918 FEB

MAR

10

Trotsky refuses to negotiate with Germans.

18

Germany renews

3

hostilities against Russia.

Soviets sign peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk.

21

Operation 'Michael' (Germany) to divide French and

23 27

Germans drive past Saint-Quentin towards the Somme. Paris shelled. Germans capture Montdidier, 32 miles from Paris.

14

Marshal Foch appointed Supreme Allied

British forces.

APR

Commander. 23

British naval forces raid

U-boat bases

at

Zeebrugge

and Ostend.

MAY

JUN

JUL

9

British scuttle

H.M.S.

3rd German offensive in the Aisne. reach Marne by end of May.

28

Americans capture Cantigny. Battle of

6

Battle of Bellau

Battle of the Piave.

15

2nd Battle of the Marne. Allies counterattack.

pushed back. Battle of

forces

Wood.

15

8

German

Chateau Thierry.

2

18

AUG

Vindictive in Zeebrugge canal.

27

Amiens.

German Aisne-Marne

salient

Contents of Volume 8 2329 Passchendaele: The Second Phase

John Keegan 2337 Plumer John Keegan 2339 Blockade of the Neutrals D. R. Shermer 2342 The French Armies: Recuperation and Recovery Guy Pedroncini 2348 Morale and Discipline Major-General E. K. G. Sixsmith 2357 Passchendaele: The Final Phase

Donald Schurman 2364 Caporetto Kurt Peball 2372 After Caporetto

Ronald Seth 2380

Rommel in Italy Erwin Rommel

2385 The Third Battle of Gaza Brigadier Peter Young

2392 Lawrence and the Arabs Major-General James Lunt 2404 Arab Nationalism Suleiman Mousa 2408 Zionism and the Balfour Declaration Lionel Kochan

2413 Cambrai: The British Onslaught

David Chandler 2426 Cambrai: The German Counterattack David Chandler

©culfcbc

2437 Fuller: Prophet of Armoured

War

John Keegan 2438 Tank Developments Kenneth Macksey 2441 Kerensky's Government Lionel Kochan

?rauen

2448 The Kerensky Offensive Norman Stone 2454 The Riga Offensive Eugene Hinterhoff 2462 The Russian Revolution Through Foreign Eyes

arfc«tt«t£

im freer!/ :.\ri«gdamlft<((c

2435 False Dawn: Tanks at Cambrai General Sir Michael Carver

J I

Harry Hanak 2464 The Sealed Train Harry Hanak 2469 Red October /. F. N. Bradley

2581

Army Songs

1914-18 John Brophy and Eric Partridge British

2596 The Language of the Trenches

John Brophy and Eric Partridge 2609 1918 Germany's Home Front Andreas Hillgruber 2615 Germany: 1918 New Strategy, New Tactics

Barrie Pitt

2627 The Allied Armies Barrie Pitt

2472 Revolution

at First

Hand

John Reed 2484 Trotsky and the Red Army John Erickson 2492 The Bolshevik Revolution World

—

Reaction

Rose Thomson 2498 Naval Ensigns

2506 Medals of the First World War 2514 Individual Aircraft Markings 2520 Army, Corps and Divisional Flashes 2521 National Aircraft Markings

2525 The Lansing-Ishii Agreement

Ronald Heiferman 2526 China: the Unlikely Ally

Ronald Heiferman 2528 U-Boats: the Tide Turns Bryan McLean Ranft 2537 The Convoy Controversy Lieutenant-Commander Peter 2545 Wilson's 14 Points

Kemp

Arthur S. Link 2553 Lloyd George and the Generals A. J. P. Taylor 2562 The Scandinavian Convoy Paul Kennedy 2568 The Otranto Barrage

Lieutenant-Commander Peter Kemp 2572 The Search for Peace Marvin Swartz 2576 Break Up of the Russian Empire Richard Pipes

4 P

'

:

y

The

first twenty-six days of the Third Battle of Ypres had cost the Allies 70,000 casualties for very limited gains. Command of the crucial sector of the battle now passed from Gough to the more cautious Plumer, who could be relied upon only to commit men to an attack aimed at limited objectives and with overwhelming artillery cover. Fine weather began to dry out the marsh in which the battle was being fought. Could Plumer's tactics save Haig's still cherished plan for a grand strategic breakthrough and reduce the appalling Allied losses?

JohnKeegan. Above: Ypres cathedral, September 1917

The

battle

of

Passchendaele

was now

Plumer's. But it was with heavy reluctance that he had taken over its direction (from the slapdash Gough), a reluctance which Haig had overcome only by insistent and urgent prompting. His reluctance, moreover, was understandable. The battle, which by the beginning of September had been in progress — progress being understood in a very relative sense — for just over a month, had resulted so far in gains of ground nowhere more than 4,000 yards deep, less at the essential points, and had cost nearly 70,000 casualties, 15,000 of them fatal. During August much of the battlefield had become waterlogged, due in part to the early onset of the autumn rains but also to the disruption of the man-made

drainage system by prolonged artillery fire. Much of this fire, moreover, had come from the German artillery, the British Fifth Army having failed to achieve superiority in gunpower — the vital factor in trench offensives. Since it had also failed to drive the Germans from the slight but decisively important heights which com-

2330

manded the battlefield (and which gave them observation of the whole plain of Flanders) their gunners were able, as the British never had been, to pick off targets of opportunity deep within the attackers' rear area. Reinforcement, re-supply and the relief of troops in the line thus remained a risky and costly affair for the British, undertaken as far as possible only at night. Even so, a blind German bombardment of any of the well known traffic bottlenecks was more likely than not to find victims: the passage of the Menin Road, artery of the offensive, was reckoned, by the transport drivers who nightly made it, an increasingly risky gamble. But besides these purely objective factors, Plumer had a particular reason for resisting Haig's request that he take over command of the crucial II Corps sector from Gough. For his skill lay in a special

demonstrated in his brisk and cheap capture of the Messines Ridge in June. His method demanded lengthy preparation and was tailored to the achievement of strictly limited objectives. sort of operation,

The Passchendaele

battle, however, had extended objectives, or had been endowed with them at its inception, and had recently

become a race against time, in particular against the coming of the even heavier rain which late autumn would bring. Haig,

who no doubt foresaw Plumer's

disarmed him by offering to grant him time for preparation, and agreed to settle for a limited gain: the Gheluvelt plateau, behind which sheltered the principal concentration of German artillery. If he did not speak to Plumer of 'breakthrough' or of such lesser but related designs as 'clearing the Belgian coast' it was not because he had surrendered belief in such notions himself, but probably because he judged it unproductive to try them on that hardheaded old warhorse. In any case, he judged the battle realistically enough to grasp that nothing would conic of it until the German guns had been beaten into silence. There were those, however, and they were becoming numerous, who doubted whether anything would now come of the objections,

/Above: The battle of the Menin Road Ridge, September 20 — shells bursting on the main

road to Zonnebeke. The the three battles in the second phase of Third Ypres, the battle achieved its final objectives by midday. 'Another first of

terrible assault

made on our

was

lines,'

Ludendorff recorded, '. .

.

the enemy's

onslaught was successful, which proved the superiority of the attack over the defence.'

A forward German reconnaissance unit Left:

with dog

2331

2332

'Blood and mud, blood and mud.

They can think of nothing better!' left: The fighting in the Ypres sector, August 25 -October 6, 1917. Left: 4th Division cooks in the Westhoek sector, October

Far

battle at

all.

Foremost among them was

the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who had disliked the project from the outset and saw all his worst forebodings realised. 'Blood and mud, blood and mud,' he was heard continually to mutter during this period, 'they can think of nothing better.' The litany was provoked in part by Haig's disingenuous despatch to the War Cabinet of September 2, in which he admitted that the offensive had fallen behind schedule, but blamed the delay on the bad weather and a shortage of heavy shells, and insisted that the weakness of the French made continuation essential and promised a speedy resumption. It»was not the Prime therefore that surprising Minister should have displayed more than usual interest in a French request to the British to match their own transfer of heavy artillery from France to Italy in support of a forthcoming Italian offensive; or that, on hearing of it, Robertson, Haig's faithful acolyte in the War Office, should have sensed another attempt by Lloyd George to reduce Haig's striking power; or that Robertson's warning should have

brought Haig hotfoot to London. When the two soldiers met the Cabinet Committee next day, it was to listen to a distinctly chilly strategic summary by the Prime Minister. The Russians were incapable of further effort, a judgement which the recent failure of the Kerensky Offensive and present disintegration of their armies rendered irrefutable; the Germans would therefore shortly be able to reinforce the Western from the Eastern Front; the French were recuperating; the Americans would not arrive in any numbers until the following year; the British

had ceased to make progress in Flanders; the Italians had begun a major offensive on the River Isonzo. Lloyd George's conclusion was that operations on the Western Front should be shut down temporarily and heavy artillery lent to the Italians, whose offensive promised to achieve much. 'I've 'eard different' was Robertson's retort, his aitches giving way as always under strain. He and Haig, arguing that it was unlikely the Italians would make anything more of the eleventh Isonzo offensive than they had of the previous ten, and aided by the silence or indecision of the rest of the Cabinet Committee, were eventually able to elude the fetters which the Prime Minister had hoped to cast round their strategic freedom of action. Haig left the meeting with permission given, or at least not refused, to proceed with the next

2333

round and having given no promise

to

divert guns to the Italians. But his enemy, Wilson, temporarily isolated from the world of power in Eastern Command, commented in his diary: Haig is not going to do anything really serious at Ypres this year. [He], Robertson and Kiggell [Haig's Chief-of-Staff] are running the maxim of superior forces at the decisive point, etc, into the ground. I believe that Lloyd George, knowing that Haig will not .

.

.

do any good, has allowed him to keep all his guns, etc, so that he can, later on, say: 'Well, I gave you everything. I even allowed you to spoil the Italian offensive. And now,

owing

to

gross

miscalculation

and

in-

capacity, you have entirely failed to do anything serious except lose a lot of men.' And in this indictment he will include Robertson and then get rid of both of them. It was a forecast of results, if not an analysis of motives, of uncanny accuracy. But Lloyd George was already taking steps to limit the scope of Haig's strategy by reducing the flow of men from Britain to France. Manpower in any case was running

2334

short, the main untapped supply being the new class of 18-year-olds, supplemented by returned wounded, 'comb-outs' of non-

combatant corps and reserved occupations, unhorsed Yeomen and unsaddled Cyclists. Even before Lloyd George had embarked on his policy of retaining as many men of these categories as possible in England, the divisions at the front had begun to report increasing deficiencies of infantry Most divisions were nearly 2,000 short by early September. Since they were all still organised on a 12 battalion basis (13 including the divisional Pioneer Battalion) their 'trench strengths' remained higher than those of the German divisions, which had been on a 9 battalion establishment for over a year. But it would increasingly become a question how much longer the British could afford their ampler style; soldiers.

more important, Lloyd George seemed to hope that these shortages would raise fundamental questions about BEF strategy. One important question about that strategy had not been raised in London on September 4, and that concerned the neces-

sity of 'taking the pressure off the French'. French had undoubtedly been in

The

since the spring mutinies, and Petain had certainly asked Haig to distract the Germans' attention from his straits

front meanwhile. But Haig had not made Petain's request the justification for his offensive plans when he first mooted them. By September, however, his ally's predicament had become a frequent refrain of Haig's, and he was subsequently to make it the whole explanation for his Flanders strategy of 1917. The evidence was growing, however, that the French recovery, for which Haig claimed to be winning time, was already well under way. On August 26, at Verdun, Petain had launched a limited offensive on a front of 11 miles, in which all objectives had been secured, including the heights known as Cote 304 and the Mort'Homme, captured by the Germans at such heavy cost in February 1916. This

success made it reasonable to ask whether the French any longer needed protecting from the Germans as energetically as Haig insisted. Since Petain pressed his requests

for assistance, a weighty appeal arriving on September 19, Haig was able to avoid having to answer the question.

He was thus free to concentrate his attention, from September 5 onwards, almost exclusively on Plumer's plans and preparations for the assault on the Gheluvelt Plateau. Plumer had submitted his proposals on August 29; as expected, they were for a battle divided into four clearly limited stages, each of short duration, fairly

widely separated in time and aimed

limited objectives. The operation order for the first step, 1,500 yards deep, was issued on September 10. It prescribed a weight and concentration of both infantry and artillery power as yet unmatched on the Western Front. The principal blow was to be struck by I Australian and New Zealand Corps and X Corps, on the front taken over from Fifth Army between the line of the Ypres-Roulers railway and Shrewsbury Forest. IX Corps, on the right, was to make a subsidiary attack; Fifth Army, on the left, was to launch a diversionary assault along its whole front. The success of the operation would lie, however, with the four first line divisions of 1 ANZAC and X Corps: these were 2nd and 1st Australian Divisions and 23rd and 41st Divisions. After some bargaining over at

I

boundaries with Gough, Plumer had been able to reduce the front of attack of each to 1,000 yards. The divisions were to attack front, each brigade with a battalion leading and three in close sup-

on a two brigade port.

Each division was

to

have

its

third

brigade in reserve and behind each division another was to be held close by. This was a normal, if rather dense, deployment. The weight and complexity of the supporting barrage, or more accurately barrage system, was unprecedented. There were to be five belts of fire in all, drenching a swathe of territory 1,000 yards deep with metal and explosive. The first belt was to be a shrapnel barrage fired by 170 18pounders; the second a high-explosive belt fired by 166 18-pounders and 114 4.5 inch howitzers; the third a belt of bullets fired by 240 Vickers machine guns; the fourth a high-explosive belt fired by 120 6-inch howitzers; and the fifth similar, fired by 168 heavy pieces, from 60-pounders to 9.2 howitzers. The density of guns along the front was higher than ever before recorded, of

men

muddy

pool

Above: A party crosses a in

Chateau Wood, once

a stand of living timber,

October. Right above: Searching the body of a dead comrade for identification papers,

Chateau Wood. Right below: German antiaircraft unit. Aircraft

played an important part in Plumer's battle

preparations, reporting objectives to the artillery

one gun to 5.2 yards. The barrage was to move over the first 200 yards in eight minutes, lifting 50 yards every two minutes, and was then to slow to a rate of 100 yards every six minutes. As always the infantry was enjoined to follow as close behind the barrage as possible. This injunction made sense, for the curtain of shells forced the defence into shelter and the quicker the infantry could arrive on its positions after the barrage had lifted, the less likely was it that the defence could man its firing positions, and the lower were the attackers' casualties likely to be. But to follow a barrage closely, even one

by gunners in whom confidence was was a tense experience, the boiling curtain of smoke and dust, and the unfired

felt,

relenting noise, urging every nerve in a man's body to retreat or hide from it, rather than keep pace with its slow advance. Even the most skilful gunners, moreover, could not guarantee 100% avoid-

ance of 'shorts', shells which because of faults in material or the gun-laying drop among friendly instead of enemy troops.

2335

Nevertheless, experience had proved beyond question that safety overall lay in hugging the rear edge of the barrage. The chance of shorts' causing casualties on this occasion would be reduced by the formation prescribed for the attack; instead of moving in dense waves, the infantry

were to advance in loose lines, composed of small groups each charged with a specific task of penetration or 'mopping up'. Two of the assaulting divisions, 1st and

2nd Australian, could be counted on

to

make

the best use of the creeping barrage. Now highly skilled and battle-hardened and still well up to strength, these contingents of fit and pugnacious colonials had acquired a reputation equalled by only a small elite of British divisions. The great mass, to which the other two attacking divisions, 23rd and 41st, both belonged, were of noticeably lower quality; weaker in numbers, particularly of fighting infantry (a scarcity heightened by Lloyd George's policy of retaining recently initiated troops at home as a brake on Haig's offensive inclinations), they were also obviously less 'for it'. In the trenches these Kitchener battalions displayed a splendid stoicism, and in the attack a decent obedience to orders and to their officers, but the heroic spirit displayed by the original Kitchener volunteers, and squandered on the Somme, animated few of the conscripts of 1917. Fortunately during the three weeks preceding Plumer's offensive, a sudden improvement in the weather did much to raise the army's heart, besides making the plan look a good deal more feasible than it had in August and greatly facilitating the tasks of preparation. These were herculean. Several thousand yards of plank road had to be built across the face of the battlefield in order to make 'jump-off possible; 3,200 yards of it were needed in I ANZAC Corps' area alone, demanding a daily delivery at Corps railhead of 250 tons of cut beech. Laid lengthways, with another transverse layer above, these planks provided a firm (though initially floating) path four or five feet wide, sufficient to let mules, carrying parties and columns of limbers get forward to battalion and battery positions. The labour gangs, 13,500 strong, also had to lay extensive networks of duckboards across the crater fields, essential if the infantry were not to drown on the way to the front line. As the ground dried out, however, which it did with surprising suddenness under the mid-September sun, cross country movement again became possible, though it could only be tried by larger groups at night.

Faulty defence

German infantry was not enviable at this moment of the battle than that of the British. Current German defensive doctrine, as laid down by the tactical expert, Lossberg, who had been sent to Army Group Rupprecht in order to conduct the defence, prescribed a very deep position held thinly in the 'outpost zone', with the 'main line of resistance' some 2,000 yards behind. Since the British had now captured the outpost zone, the 'main line of defence' was the first line of defence and its concrete pillboxes were no longer available as shelter for the German garrison battalions. They were condemned, like their enemies, to find what cover they could in shell hole positions further to the rear, which afforded The

plight of the

much more

2336

little protection either from the elements or from bombardment. Behind them stood the Eingreif (counterattack) divisions ready to 'lock in' to the battle wherever the British penetrated. But penetration was not Plumer's object for September 20, hence, in part, the failure of German defensive tactics that day. For fail they did. At the outset, a German barrage caught the 1st Australian Division as it was forming up in the morning mist and caused casualties and some confusion, but the infantry recovered from it quickly and pressed forward. They, together with 2nd Australian and the two British divisions,

were to share an exhilarating experience that morning. Beginning at 0540 hours they were to follow a barrage which had almost everywhere killed, disabled or dazed the German defenders, even inside the pillboxes which dotted the front of attack. Some of the pillbox garrisons showed fight but often a 'fatal confusion' ran through them, 'the weaker spirits being ready to surrender while some brave men continued to fire'. At a pillbox, where one German had fired between the legs of another attempting to surrender, and hit an Australian sergeant, a Lewis gunner, shouting

'I'll see to the bastards', fired three or four bursts into the entrance killing or wounding most of the crowd inside (the pillboxes

were

crowded because

nearby

German

infantry had almost everywhere taken shelter within from the barrage). At another pillbox, the garrison of which made signals of surrender but subsequently killed a much loved Australian officer, the attackers were with difficulty prevented from carrying out a wholesale extermination. At a third, where the Germans tried to surrender rather late, some Australians 'went mad' in the words of their commanding officer, and threw bombs into a crowd of them until only an officer and 40 men were left. But these were cases of exceptional behaviour on both sides; generally the Australians had little to do but follow the barrage and accept the surrender of the Germans, who in many cases came out to meet their captors, waving white

handkerchiefs or bandages. At about 1345 hours the infantry had secured all its objectives, with the exception of a section of Gheluvelt Plateau

Top: After the September 20 attack - disabled British tanks at Clapham Junction — picture taken from the Menin Road looking across the wastes of Flemish mud towards the stumps of Sanctuary Wood. Above: Ypres after three years as a front line town Opposite: Top: Stretcher carrying party of 2nd Canadian Division bringing in wounded after the battle of Broodseinde. October 6. Centre: Plumer (left), said by some to resemble an elderly cupid', and his commander, Haig. Bottom: British 15-inch howitzer Mark 1. Range: 10,000 yards. Weight of shell: 1,4501b. Crew: 12. Twelve of these howitzers were ordered by Churchill in November 1914, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty There were six in France at the time of the Armistice. They were manned by Royal Marines of the Royal Marine Howitzer Brigade A total of 25,300

rounds were

fired

PLUMER ral

ounl

ield

Marshal

GCMG, KCB,

did not

Sir Herberl i

Plumer,

>

later

F

and most trusted army the BEF'. Short and

look 'the besl liked

commander

in

stout with a red, rather stupid face, much obscured by a heavy white moustache,

he might have been the model foi n Colonel Blimp symbol of reaction and military imbecility. 1

l

ality, Ins

army, which had garri :e

the

end of 1914. was reckoned hting soldiers the best administered and commanded of the five in France. Plumer's stall' intelligent and endlessly painstaking,

aw that troops ifortaccommodated at rest, properlj plied and promptly relieved in the line and only committed to actions that were wisely conceived and supported. Plumer \.

ably

himself ensured that this should b< by constantly visiting all his subordinate commands, by weekending' battalion commanders at his headquarters and bj sending his personal junior liaison officers t<> spend at least two nights a week in the front line trenches. As a result, no o

army commander was as well known to his men as Plumer, or seemed to take as much care for their safety and welfare. Part of the efficiency of Second Army headquarters was attributable to the talents of his Chief-of-Staff, 'Tim' Harington, an outstanding staff officer and de\ subordinate. But much was due to Plumer's own character and experience, which had been extremely wide. Born at Torqu; 1857, he passed directly from Eton to the 1st York and Lancaster, of which he was appointed adjutant at the very of 22. In 1884 he served in 'the Sudan, taking part in the battles of El Teb and Tamai and winning the Order of the Medjidie for distinguished service. In 188") he entered the Staff College, subsequently served in staff appointments in Jersey and South Africa and, in 1896, raised and led an irregular column of horsemen to put down a Matabele rising in Rhodesia. In 1899, after a tour of staff duty at Aldershot, he was again sent to South Ai where he again raised and led an irregular regiment of horse in the early months of the Boer War, playing the leading part in the 'great De Wet Mint'. At the war's end, he was very rapidly promoted from Lieutenant-Colonel to Major-General awarded the CB and in 1904 was appointed to the New Army Council as QuartermasterGeneral. In 1906 he was knighted and given the Northern Command, whence in December 1914 he was transferred to V Corps in France. In May 1915 he replaced Smith-Dorrien as GOC, Second Army and began his long tour of duty in the Salient. 'Trust, Thoroughness and Training' he made the keynotes of his generalship It was not a recipe for dramatic success of the sort after which Gough strove but it explains the brilliant and cheap seizure of the Messines Ridge in June 1917, the most — arguably the only -cost-effective operation fought by the British army between October 1914 and August 1918. i

.

JohnKeegan

2337

known

as Tower Hamlets Spur, and the barrage stopped; it had lasted for eight hours and eight minutes. The gunners remained on the 'qui vive' for counterattacks;

the infantry began to dig

in.

Towards 1500 hours German infantry,

now known

from the 236th Division of the counterattack reserve, were seen 'dribbling across' from the Butte (the butts of a pre-war Belgian rifle range, one of the most commanding spots on this billiard table battlefield) to the eastern edge of Polygon Wood in which, an artillery observer reported, 'our men are souvenir hunting'. At this the SOS rockets were fired and the barrage crashed down again. No Germans emerged through it and no organised movement was observed after it lifted. to be

September 20, the 'battle of the Menin Road Ridge', could therefore be counted a success. X Corps had just failed to take all of Tower Hamlets Spur and some of Fifth Army's objectives on the left remained beyond the final line reached. But on a front of eight miles between Zillebeke and Langemarck, Plumer had achieved gains of at least 1 ,500 yards and secured the base for his next advance. He had also dislocated the German defensive system and inflicted heavy losses. Unfortunately, his men had also suffered much: including the casualties suffered on the 21st-23rd in

About 0600 hours a sergeant near

the en-

divisions were in consequence to be brought

thought the English were coming. I hurried out. The

Ypres from elsewhere. Plumer's preparations for the third 'step' proceeded meanwhile as before. The plan now was to make the sector north of Polygon Wood around Broodseinde the centre of effort, using all four Australian divisions, with Fifth Army and the British divisions of Second Army attacking on the right and left respectively. The only element of novelty was the absence of a preparatory bombardment — it had been decided to unleash the barrage simultaneously with the infantry assault. At 0600 hours on the morning of October 4, against a misty dawn with a light drizzle falling, the barrage crashed down and the infantry, chasing it hard to get clear of their own positions before they were caught by the German counter-bombardment, advanced into the crater field.

trance shouted out that he

was filled with smoke and this together with a ground mist made it difficult to see more than twenty yards or so Then the shelling slackened only to move on and become stronger than ever behind us. Suddenly I heard shouts of 'the English' from in front. I called the men out and we took up a position in the mass of shell holes on either side. Almost at once figures appeared moving towards us through the fog. They were coming on at a steady pace bunched together in groups between the water-logged shell air

.

.

.

holes. We opened fire and threw hand grenades into the midst of them. For a

moment round

I

the attack was held, but looking could see more English advancing

past us to right and left, and realised that our only hope was to run for it. With the few men near me I started back towards Zonnebeke but, after a few yards, saw it was hopeless as the enemy had already closed in ahead of us in their advance. The noise of machine gun fire from the village made us hope that a counterattack would soon be made to regain the position and four of us ran back. We had scarcely time to slam the door of thick oak planks when it was ripped away by a hand grenade. In fact, the German sector commander at Zonnebeke had been preparing a counterattack, as were all the others along the assaulted front. Three Eingreif divisions, 1 7th, 236th and 4th Bavarian, began to advance through the positions held by 50th, 3rd, and 23rd Reserve Divisions from about

1300

hours

onwards

and

came under

British fire soon after 1500. Everywhere their thrusts were broken up by intense barrages and they were forced to fall back or at best dig in close to the new British line. As on September 20, Plumer's limited

General Sir Hubert

Gough

(left)

attempts to capture the rest of Tower Hamlets, the total was over 20,000, of which about 15% were fatal. Second Army remained in good heart nevertheless, and by September 26, despite a German spoiling attack the previous day, it was ready to undertake the second of Plumer's 'steps'. This was designed to capture the whole of Polygon Wood, an Australian operation, with X Corps covering the right and Fifth Army advancing in conformity on the left: the extreme depth of advance was to be about 1,200 yards. The artillery necessary to support the push had been brought forward some 2,000 yards in the preceding week, and at 0550 hours on September 26 its by now well rehearsed barrage crashed down on the German half of the crater field. The surface was a jumbled patchwork of powdery, bare ground and wet shell holes, but conditions at first were generally dry enough for a dense curtain of dust to mingle with the smoke of bursting shells which the infantry followed gratefully. As a week before, they found the German defenders dazed and ready to surrender and by 1200 hours had achieved almost all their objectives. A company commander of the 3rd Battalion 34th Fusiliers in defence at Zonnebeke opposite the British V Corps has left an impression of the overwhelming impact of the Plumer offensive method.

2338

method had disrupted the Germans' defensive system by ensuring that their counterattack divisions would have to deliver battle within range of supporting artillery. In consequence these divisions took up to two hours to advance 1,000 yards and lost an eighth of their fighting strength in the process. Again, however, the British had lost 15,000 casualties, of which about 10% were fatal, for a gain of about 1,000 yards on an 8,000 yard front; and there were still ridges to their eastward, Passchendaele ridge among them. Haig, nevertheless, declared himself extremely satisfied with the progress of operations, and in conference with Gough and Plumer on September 28 revealed that he intended after the completion of Plumer's third 'step' to institute a breakthrough attempt again. His intelligence staff assured him, he said, that the Germans could not for very much longer sustain the losses now being inflicted on their front divisions and that the Belgian railway bottleneck made it impossible to reinforce the Ypres sector at the speed necessary to make good this erosion of their strength. In the face of his army commanders' barely disguised disbelief, he explained that he did not count upon breakthrough in early October, but merely wished to be ready for it; so had ordered two divisions of cavalry to concentrate immediately in rear of the attacking armies and the other three to remain within call and he was shelving offensive plans for other sectors of the front, notably a plan for a tank attack at Cambrai. Six infantry

to

Lossberg, the

German

defensive expert,

had issued new instructions following the failure of his tactics on September 20 and 26 when the Eingreif divisions had arrived too late. On this day the divisions in line were crowded into the front of the defended zone and the leading regiments of the Eingreif divisions were installed ready in the rear area of the battle zone. As a result, the unheralded barrage caused immense casualties among the densely packed Germans caught within its 1,000yard spread and nullified all efforts made local commanders to get counterattacks going. This was the first of the 'Black Days' which Ludendorff was to record in his diary. It left the German army in Flanders nearly 30,000 men weaker and their positions again dented in the most sensitive sector. Yet the wastage of British and Australian divisions had continued at a consistent rate and the depth of ground won on October 4 averaged only 700 yards. Worse still, the weather had now taken a turn for the worse. The drizzle which had begun on the morning of October 4 continued for the two following days, interspersed with heavy rain which became steady on October 7. It was enough to transform the Ypres battlefield, where the water table lay nearly everywhere only three feet below the surface and which was kept passable only by the careful maintenance of an extensive drainage system, into a soupy marsh. On the evening

by

of October 7, Plumer and Gough again obeyed a summons to GHQ at Montreuil. Their views were solicited. Both declared that they would welcome an order to close down the Ypres offensive. Haig declined to give it. He explained, as he had done so frequently during the last six months, that he could not risk taking the pressure off the Germans with the French still so weak, and even if a breakthrough should not now materialise, he preferred that his troops should winter on higher ground than that they now occupied. He therefore

expected to receive early news of their plans to re-open the offensive on October 9. Further Reading

Edmunds,

Brig.

Belgium 1917,

J.

E.,

Operations

in

France and

Official History of the

War

(Macmillan) Gibbs, P., From

Bapaume to Passchendaele (Heinemann, 1918) Gladden, E. N., Ypres 1917 (Kimber, 1967) [For John Keegan

's

biography, seepage

96.

]

No

state

was able

to escape completely the

effects of the First

there were

World War, although

some nations — the neutrals

who were spared

the carnage of the battlefield and the miseries of military occupation. Yet all the neutrals in differing degrees experienced a variety of difficulties as a result of measures which the belligerents found necessary for the prosecution of the war. Of the northern European neutrals, the two most important and most representative of the neutral position in the period

BLOCKADE

1916/18 were Holland and Sweden. The Netherlands, though smallest in area, had the largest population of the northern European neutrals. Holland was a nation of some influence because of its rich East Indies colony, its important merchant fleet, its key geographical location, and the stable industriousness of its population. These factors gave the Dutch a proud assertiveness by reason of which they did not accept passively the Allied regulations. Nevertheless, the delicacy of their geographical and economic position in between Britain and Germany forced them to compromise eventually on

many

issues.

As the

Of THE

NEUTRALS From the middle of 1916 Holland and Sweden were the two remaining major neutral nations still trading with Germany. By the end of the war the Allies

had

succeeded in exploiting the two neutrals' weaknesses to bring them to heel and force

them to

compromise their neutrality.

D. R. Shermer

largest and most populous of the Scandinavian countries, and the only one which had once been a great power, Sweden

inevitably assumed the leadership of the Nordic nations. The relative invulnerability of Sweden to the Allied economic

measures, her proximity to Germany, and her ability to halt the Allied transit trade to Russia, combined to give Sweden a measure of independence. However, food shortages in the later stages of the war caused Sweden also to modify her position. At the beginning of 1916, the principle of rationing of goods had been accepted by several neutral nations. Previously, certain commodity agreements had been negotiated with the Allies. Each agreement reflected the vulnerability or otherwise of the particular neutral, and the nature of the arrangements differed from country to country. Thus the agreements with the Netherlands Overseas Trust (NOT) were quite comprehensive, whereas those made with the Swedish Cotton Spinners Association were concerned only with a specific article. While these agreements reduced neutral trade with the

Central Powers in some commodities, many vital goods remained at least partially outside the controls. Britain had to tolerate this situation because of her need of

Dutch foodstuff's and Swedish ball-bearings, two examples. Meanwhile the Allies had been extending and refining their measures of economic warfare wherever possible. British fleets

to take

stationed at the northern entrance to the North Sea and in the English Channel inspected and cleared incoming and outgoing neutral cargoes, while under previous arrangements many neutral ships called voluntarily for clearance. By 1916 many neutral shipping companies refused to carry cargoes of which Britain would not approve, for the risks of detection and confiscation by British inspectors often outweighed the opportunity for illicit profits. As many necessary statistics are still incomplete or entirely lacking, it is difficult to estimate the total effect of such controls, but it seems evident that such German exports as could reach neutral outlets were severely handicapped and declined.

From 1916 to 1918 the main Allied measures of economic control fell into four categories: forcible rationing, navicerting, blacklisting and interception of mails. Some of these methods had been used previously, but all of them were increasingly effective after their co-ordination within the framework of the British Ministry of Blockade, established in February 1916. In March the French took similar steps by raising to cabinet status the Comite de Restriction des Approvisionnements et

du Commerce de VEnnemi. By August 1916 the effects of forcible rationing were being felt among the northern neutrals. The system was the product of

a

decision

taken

in

private

the

in

autumn of 1915 by the British government, when it agreed that more vigorous control of neutral dealings with Germany was necessary. Goods bound for neutral counwere more and more frequently detained by the British if they were found to be in excess of neutral requirements in prewar times. Such estimates were often entirely arbitrary and caused deep resentment in neutral capitals. To lessen the unpalatability of crude seizure of goods, the practice of navicerting was initiated. Navicerting was the result of neutral verification of the origins, destinations and contents of cargoes. If the British accepted the neutral declarations, a commercial passport or navicert was issued for an individual neutral vessel. Navicerts avoided the necessity of further inspections during a particular voyage and lessened the complications of trading, since shipowners could find out in advance if there were objections to certain classes of goods. Navicerting enabled the British to register objections to some cargoes of benefit to the Central Powers and in general provided a closer check on supplies, since for the issue of a navicert Britain required two weeks' notice of the following: • the name and address of the consigner; • the name and address of the consignee; • a complete description, and tabulation of the quantity, of the goods on board; • the name of the shipping line; • the approximate date of shipment; • the name of the vessel in which the goods were to be shipped, if known. tries

'Enemy

associations' blacklisted

Another method affecting neutral trade was the blacklisting of firms and goods. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act of December 1915, the British government was authorised to forbid trade between persons domiciled in Great Britain and persons or organisations of 'enemy associations' domiciled in neutral countries.

In the first blacklist, issued in February 1916, trade was forbidden with specific neutral firms of undoubted enemy association. Pressure against trade with a further category of suspect firms, none of whose cargoes in practice was allowed through the blockade, was accompanied by a secret list of all enemy and neutral traders for surveillance purposes. The system was strengthened by the appearance of French blacklists in August 1916. Shipowners were wary of carrying goods for a blacklisted company, since the ships might themselves be blacklisted and deprived of fuelling facilities while at sea. Although international law was evolving in a way inimical to interception of neutral mails, in practice British censorship of

2339

neutral mails and cables developed graduand by 1916 it was a further important check on neutral (and enemy) supplies and activities. Inspection was made easier by British controls over vessels entering or leaving the North Sea and by the pre-eminence of London as a centre of communications. Thus important measures for the regulation of economic activities had been established by the summer of 1916. It remains to see how the neutrals — of whom Holland and Sweden are representative — met the ally,

situation.

Standing firm The Swedish government

was

hyper-

sensitive to any infringement of its sovereignty. Thus when in December 1915 Britain had detained the ships Stockholm and Hellig OUw and had removed and censored their mails, Sweden retaliated by detaining all parcel post in transit to and from Britain via Sweden. After long arguments the two sides agreed 'that arbitration should be resorted to in cases of parcel mails carried on Swedish vessels where the prize court had given a decision with which

the Swedish government was dissatisfied', after other legal remedies had been exhausted. In return, Sweden was to release British mails immediately. The episode confirms that in cases where neutrals such as Sweden were useful to the Allies or had

measure of economic

a

self-sufficiency,

much

could be gained by standing firm. For their part, the Dutch were not very successful in distinguishing between censorship of letters and parcels. The Netherlands maintained that letters were protected by the Hague Convention, but after July 1916 the issue was not pressed much further, once the Dutch had forcibly stated their position in principle. In this instance Holland accepted the realities of British power while doing what it could to defend its

own

interests.

An

outstanding example of Allied manipulation of economics to force neutral facilities and concessions is provided by the regulation of the release of coal. Great Britain was an important supplier of coal to the northern neutrals for internal use, and the British held predominance in the supply of bunker coal to fuelling stations on the main trade routes. American coal was available but was not competitive. Yet Britain had to tread carefully in

Sweden, lest it hamper production and delivery of Swedish exports of iron ore and pit props to Britain. Britain attempted to allow Sweden to import coal only on condition that the ships would bring to England 'a return cargo of one ton of iron ore and two tons of pit props for every three tons of coal carried to Swedrestricting coal for

en'. Since British coal aided the production of Swedish goods for Germany, these exports could be regulated in some degree by consigning coal more freely to specific internal Swedish enterprises such as rail-

ways. In August 1915 a British-NOT agreement had promised coal exports to Holland if: • the coal was not furnished to any enemy vessel or any vessel trading with the enemy; • the coal was not used for by-products for export to the enemy; • the coal was not sold or transferred from one importer to another without British

permission.

2340

Between October 1915 and July 1916 the northern neutrals— Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark — tried to regulate the sale of ships to foreigners in order to conserve cargo space for vital imports. Yet their need for British fuel and other goods in some cases proved stronger than their ability to enforce these regulations. The next stage in the series of measures with which the neutrals had to contend began with the Allied Economic Conference in Paris during June 1916. Allied contra-

band and embargo

lists

were

unified,

and

during the same period the British and French governments clarified the legal status of the blockade provisions. The rules of capture laid down in October and November 1914 and subsequent arrangements with neutrals had already virtually nullified in practice the Declaration of London. In the British Order in Council of March 30, 1916, the right to capture and confiscate conditional contraband on board neutral-bound vessels was definitely stated; the burden of proof was on the owner of the goods. Article 19 of the Declaration of London was then abrogated. On July 7, 1916 the abrogation of the entire Declara-

was

tion last

effected in order to

remove any

hindrances to Allied necessities of war.

towards the belligerents. Britain now agreed to release coal and raw materials only in return for guarantees against re-exportation either of the imports themselves or of their by-products. Nevertheless the situation was complicated by the passage of the War Trade Law by the Riksdag in April 1916. This forbade Swedes making individual economic agreements with foreigners that would limit Sweden's freedom to import or export, or which would otherwise serve foreign interests, without prior permission of the government. In March the Swedes had held that no ship of more than 20 tons could be transferred to foreigners, and charters of longer than six months were forbidden

without governmental permission. Britain felt that Sweden had now gone too far in guarding her sovereign rights as a neutral, and retaliated by increased harassment

and detention of Swedish cargoes. Diffiwere increased by the Liguria case. In August 1914 Sweden had established a Royal Food Commission to culties with Britain

domestic supply of certain 1916 Britain detained the cargo of the ship Liguria on the grounds that on a single journey it was carrying more fats than Britain considered normal

ensure

the

foods. In

May

Swedish consumption in an entire quarter. After two months of argument, in July the Swedes gave sufficient guarantees against re-exportation to secure the release of the cargo. In August 1916, no doubt to pressure Sweden into a comprehensive agreement, Britain severely restricted exports to Sweden and issued specific licences only against guarantees against re-exportation. When in September the embargo was made absolute regarding antimony, coffee, cocoa, tea, raw materials for margarine and the like, the Swedes reluctantly had to accept the rationing principle. A draft AngloSwedish agreement of February 1917 did not lead to a formal agreement, because American entry into the war and the Russian Revolution created a new situation. The Allied transit trade to Russia was no longer important, and Sweden lost one of her chief weapons against the Allies. for

British high-handedness In order to increase their stuffs

and

to

deny them

own

food-

to the Central

Powers, in 1916 the Allies entered into systematic purchasing schemes with certain neutrals. In January 1916 the British told the NOT that continued Dutch imports of fertilisers would be allowed only if the

Dutch sold half of their agricultural exto Britain. Britain would supple-

ports

ment the Netherlands' grain if

Dutch exports of pork

to

supplies only

Germany were

reduced, since British fodder had been fattening Dutch pigs for German dinner tables! During February Holland attempted to regulate meat exports, and after a draft agreement in March, a definitive

British-NOT agreement was reached in June 1916. Britain was to receive not less than half of Dutch exports of pork, not less than one third of Dutch exports of cheese, and not less than a quarter of butter exports. The British were to buy certain amounts of these goods at fixed block prices amounting to a bonus. Moreover, Britain was now not to interfere with Dutch imports of fertilisers and foodstuffs. It was felt that Dutch goodwill and usefulness to the Allies merited these relatively favourable terms, but the British did not hesitate to exert coercion where it was needed, as when Holland fell behind on cheese deliveries in the summer of 1916. After much recrimination by the Netherlands against alleged British high-handedness, a fisheries agreement was concluded in August 1916, and in November further commodity agreements were reached. Despite all violations, it does seem that as a result Dutch trade increased with Britain and declined with Germany. In 1916 Britain's trade with Sweden proceeded on the basis of compensation agreements after the breakdown of the 1915 negotiations. By this time the uncooperative position of the Swedish government was being partly modified by the Liberal and Labour opposition in the Riksdag. These parties criticised aspects of the Swedish position on neutral rights and called for a more evenhanded policy

America tightens the screw As

1917

began,

the

Allied

blockade

measures were generally as effective as was possible before the American entry into the war in April enabled direct co-operation with the United States to prevent the export of many American goods. Just prior to America's participation, several neutrals, particularly Holland, began stockpiling American grain in expectation of an embargo on foodstuffs. Much American public opinion vociferously called for conservation of American supplies, yet there were also fears that a total embargo would drive the neutrals into the German camp or would provoke a German invasion of the contiguous Denmark or even neutrals — Holland, Switzerland. However, these fears were convincingly discounted in a memorandum of July 5, 1917, from the British Embassy in Washington to the State

Department. Yet the neutral position was difficult indeed. Not only did they need to maintain

some exports

to

Germany

in

return

essential imports; they also had to offset their exports to Britain, particularly of dairy products. The Netherlands had for

the nightmarish problem of feeding about 150,000 refugees and invalided soldiers, as well as the burden of helping Belgium. The Rumanian and Russian wheatfields, normal additional sources of supply, were effectively cut off during these years. Despite these arguments, the conservationists carried the day, and certain American foods were embargoed in July 1917. Pending receipt of statistical information requested by the United States, only a few export licences were granted to Holland, and more to Scandinavia. These nations were swiftly forced to undertake not to re-export American goods, for food shortages steadily worsened in Sweden and

Holland in particular. Yet American and Allied pressure was maintained: on August 30, 1917 the United States Export Administration Board, with British co-operation, voted to withhold all licences for exporting controlled commodities to the northern neutrals, and on November 28 the import of many commodities into America was forbidden without licence from the War Trade

The

neutrals: jealous of their freedom to trade, but distrusted by the belligerents and caught willynilly in the toils of total war

i

J

.-•

.

•

Board. But some concessions were made during the Christmas season as a propaganda gesture, and by April 1918 nonessential goods were more available. Even these pressures had not so far induced the Swedes to end their shipments of iron ore to Germany, indispensable as they were to Germany's war effort. In September 1917, the Allied and Associated Powers discussed outbidding Germany for the ore. In January 1918 a modus vivendi agreement was reached with the new Swedish government. Sweden was to receive specific amounts of grain and other commodities for internal use, in return for leasing between 100,000 and 260,000 tons of shipping to the Allies. In May a further agreement with Sweden was negotiated, in which the Swedes finally agreed to reduce (but not to cease) their iron ore exports to Germany. The American embargo had eventually caused this softening of the Swedish stand. The American embargo had resulted in 60 Dutch ships laden with foodstuffs being held in American ports. Despite Dutch reluctance to charter ships to the Allies for use in the war zone, a modus vivendi arrangement was signed in January 1918. Netherlands shipping in American ports was to be put into Allied service outside the danger zones, and the next month the American embargo on non-essentials to

Holland and Sweden was lifted. However, the Dutch were enraged by American and British requisitioning of further Dutch shipping, but negotiations which had

UlUUJ/fW^

A STKAIN ON THE AFFECTIONS. Nobvmuk

((.

Svtdt).

"WHAT—YOB

HEIiE,

TOO?

I

THOUGHT YOl WERE

A

F1MEND

OF GERMANY?" Svkok

f

was!"

reached an advanced stage in October 1918 were rendered obsolete by the ending of the

war in November. As the war progressed, the economic blockade had had increasingly severe repercussions on neutral trade, food supplies and freedom of action. America's declaration of war changed her attitude from that of defending neutral rights to that of defending belligerent necessities of war. This was a crucial factor in coercing a degree of co-operation from the neutrals.

The blockade was an important factor in ending the war — and in providing an object lesson to neutrals in the strengths and weaknesses of their position.

[For D. R. Shermer's biography, see page

Further Reading

Thomas A., The Policy of the United States toward the Neutrals (Johns Hopkins Press 1942)

Bailey,

Heckscher,

Eli F.,

and others, Sweden, Norway,

Denmark and

Iceland in the World War (Yale University Press 1930) Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1917, Supplement 2, Volume 2 (Washington, DC. 1932) Siney, Marion C, The Allied Blockade of Ger-

1914-1916 Press 1957)

many,

(University

of

Michigan

Siney, Marion C, British Official Histories of the Blockade of the Central Powers during the First World War', American Historical Review, vol.68 (January 1963) Vandenbosch, Amry, The Neutrality of the Netherlands during the World War (Eerdmans 1927)

407.]

2341

On

April 16, 1917, the offensive with which General Nivelle expected to make a decisive breakthrough did not succeed in advancing even as far as Joffre did in the battles he had fought in the previous years. The attacks in Artois and Champagne in 1915, the pounding of the Somme area in 1916, the savage onslaught of April 16 had all failed to break the

German

front.

One

after the other,

the

hopes raised by those various attacks had vanished. But after 33 months of war the failure of April 16 was likely to have unusual consequences, because it came after promises of a victory had been confidently given. First of all there came a crisis of the command, the second such crisis within five months. On May 15, 1917, General Petain, who

had successively criticised Joffre's tactics and forecast the failure of Nivelle's attempt at a breakthrough, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies of the North and North-East. 'When a choice had to be made between ruin and reason, Petain was promoted', General de Gaulle wrote. Obviously, it had become impossible to carry on the war as before: the appointment of General Petain meant a break with the past and signified the need for a recovery after the failure of April. From May to October 1917, Petain devoted himself to that task. When taking over the command, he was faced with a severe crisis. To overcome the after-effects of a failed offensive he had at his disposal nothing but an army shaken by a crisis of indiscipline. To enable France to keep the leadership of the Allied coalition, he inherited the failure of the only serious attempt at single command, born of the Calais agreements. He found himself facing the will of the GHQ to lead an autonomous military action in Flanders. Against the threat of a return of German troops from the Eastern Front, which was likely to happen because of the inaction of the Russian army during the Revolution, and to hold out till the coming of the ^American army, he had to reckon with the shortage of manpower in the French army, because French manhood had been lavishly sacrificed till May 1917. The decisions taken by General Petain in the first days of his command aimed at improving this difficult situation. On May 17, he decided to increase the number of divisions which were going to participate in the attack which Haig was planning to launch in Flanders. On May 19, his Directive No. 1 showed the expected break with the way the war had been conducted so far: he gave up 'for the moment' the attempt at a breakthrough. That decision meant that the end of the war was no longer to be hoped for prior to 1918 or even 1919. But, contrary to what has often been written, Petain did not intend to follow a policy of 'passive defence and inaction', as he did attack — but using his own tactics. Such important and sudden alterations implied new analysis of the war. They implied the conclusion that instead of vainly endeavouring to win quickly, Petain wanted to wait till he had the means. They also implied that the man who prescribed them possessed exceptional prestige and authority. Prestige had been acquired at Verdun in 1916. His authority born from the soundness of his criticism of his predecessors, was to be strengthened by the crisis of indiscipline — of which the mutiny

2342

They

are our soldiers,' said Petain of the mutinous French army after he succeeded the hapless Nivelle as Commander-in-Chief. He did not decimate their ranks. He restored their confidence, he showed that the High Command cared about the men's needs and sufferings, and he led the French army out of a very serious crisis. Guy Pedroncini. Above: Petain. Right: French infantry private in battle order — a fusilier mitrailleur with a Chauchat 8-mm light machine gun ,

was only the most spectacular aspect — that General Petain managed to overcome. The crisis of indiscipline was born of the meeting of two trends: an old dissatisfaction and sudden discouragement. Dissatisfaction had different causes: leave was irregular — at the eve of the attack of April, the percentage of leave had been badly cut down; the leave-trains were very slow, they were detained very long in stations because of ill-planned connections, the food given on the front was not sufficient in quality or quantity, the soldiers could not rest well at the rear of the front because of the lack of camps equipped with the proper facilities. Such dissatisfaction indiscipline — desertion, ininsults the officers, to drunkenness, demonstrations in trains and railway stations — and it ran freely throughout the crisis of 1917, the more as it crossed the wake of mutiny itself. But it went on after the mutiny had stopped, and it began to subside — towards the middle of June — when the decisions taken by General Petain brought about the return of leave permissions to a normal rhythm, allowed'

gave

rise

to

subordination,

soldiers to check the leave-book, improved the meals, set up better restcamps and finally made the soldiers realise that something had really changed. But at the same time, the consequences of the sad disappointment of the April offensive, still emphasised by the wearingdown engagements at the beginning of May, were ramifying. The troops had lost their faith in the High Command and they no longer believed victory to be possible.

the

Of course the soldiers did not refuse to defend themselves: at no moment did they think of opening the frontline to the Ger-

link which may be found between refusal of useless sacrifice.

December 1914

~v^\X

HOLLAND

FRONTLINE

BELGIAN /FRENCH BRITISH

MILES

50

GERMANY

BELGIAN

LUXEMBOURG

FRANCE

them

is

a

Although no officer took part in the mutiny, many understood their men, and few high-ranking officers were in if a favour of a severe attitude, neither General Petain nor the War Councils wanted a repression that would have gone beyond its aim through excessively harsh sentences. Five hundred and fifty-four were sentenced to death, but only seven immediate executions were ordered. These figures mean that one mutineer out of about 80 was sentenced to death and one out of 800 put to death. If we add that the War Councils granted extenuating circumstances to 50% of the mutineers brought to court and a reprieve to one out of eight, that none of the cases of decimation published up to this day can stand a close examination, it shows how mild and humane 'repression' remained. 'They are our soldiers' Petain had said.

Petain masters the crisis The mutiny ceased with the end of useless attacks, as the soldiers became convinced that the new General-in-Chief would not sacrifice them in hopeless assaults. General Petain effectively cancelled the attacks or operations successively planned for the

December 1915

December 1916 December 1917.

oesinghe

EMMEL

C40 miles •VsTUBERT Grenay Arras

I

I* Lens

»Monchy

30 miles

VatVnandovilliers

/St XSI

frontline there was no mutiny. Mutiny did not express a complete refusal to fight but only of a certain method of fighting, a method that was never successful. It was a military crisis which ceased only when its military causes had disappeared, after General Petain had adopted a new way of conducting the war. It is obvious that pacifist or defeatist propaganda played only a very minor part in the crisis: not only did it go on after mutiny had ceased without raising other similar trouble but the very features of the crisis are sufficient to refute any explanation of its origin other than a military one. First of all, the area it covered. It remained located between Soissons and Auberive-sur-Su'ippe, in the district where the April offensive had failed and where, at the beginning of May, limited attacks had been repeated. That is, everywhere

where courage alone had proved unavailing against fortified works and firepower. If the crisis of mutiny had been due to defeatist, pacifist or revolutionary causes,

appeared. In reaching this result repression had played only a minor part: the first two executions took place on June 10, 1917 whereas the mutiny had generally begun to recede by June 7. At bottom, there was deep harmony between General Petain who had condemned his predecessors' methods and the army who would no longer countenance them. General Petain intended to give the utmost importance to war material, he had come to the conclusion that the war had become 'industrial' — it is his own word — that the infantry was powerless in front of modern of defence. The mutiny called for an increasing emphasis on guns, tanks and aircraft; that was its deepest meaning. The government could no more do without General Petain after he had mastered the crisis of mutiny than they could have managed without General Joffre after the battle of the Marne. Besides, as he enjoyed the army's confidence, he was soon able to give back the High Command the authority lost because of Nivelle. These assets enabled him to impose his views more easily on the conduct of the war and in the

means

Quentin • Uuenti

mans — 'When we see them attack, we can't help it, we fire at them' — and in the

Fourth, Fifth, Tenth, and Sixth Armies and when his decisions became effective, mutiny became less frequent and then dis-

why

did not it extend to the whole army? in the district where it started, did it not take root and spread rapidly? A striking fact is the duration of mass insubordination — a few hours, one or two days — except for the mutiny at Missy-auxBois. Also its unevenness: one of the two brigades of the 41st ID, one of the most agitated infantry divisions, remained completely unaffected by the agitation which struck the other. The number of mutineers was about 40,000. It is easy to understand why General Petain could say to the War Committee of November 18, 1917 that the French army had been 'slightly disturbed by a shortlived crisis'. All things considered, rather than a rebellion it was a kind of strike. The mutineers did not belong to a precise social, professional, political, geographical or trade-unionist group: they were of different ages, they came from all parts of France, belonged to every trade,

Why,

had different family backgrounds, different judicial records. If there were among them a few recidivists, most of them were good soldiers, some were decorated. The only

training of the troops in new tactics, both defensive and offensive. The new General-in-Chief did not believe that in an offensive it was right to extend an attack once the first results were obtained and the element of surprise was finished. In a war of inaction, he intended to resume action by multiplying attacks with limited targets launched all along the front. He wanted them to follow one another as fast as possible and to be backed by powerful, rapidly-firing artillery and helped by aircraft and tanks. That doctrine did not arise from the crisis of mutiny. General Petain had been working it out since 1915. But, to a certain extend, the recent fall in morale compelled the High Command to be prudent. Petain thought it was imperative to possess power-

modern heavy rapidly-firing artillery which could give him strategic mobility,

ful

2343

for that purpose he made requests to the government. Not only did he want the programme of May 30, 1916 to be carried out and even given more importance, but he asked for a great number of modem heavy guns to be manufactured. But the want of raw material, the limited industrial capacity of France, and the shortage of labour imposed serious limitations on Petain could equip all his his plans. divisions with modern 155'sonly in August 1918 and he could never achieve strategic mobility since, on the day of the armistice, he had only 48 guns of heavy artillery out of the 288 he had asked for. As far as aircraft were concerned, General Petain wanted mastery of the air, 'a condition essential to success', he wrote on May 28, 1917. Indeed, he considered aircraft 'the decisive weapon, if it could hinder the enemy's replenishment well and long enough. Therefore, there is no restriction in numbers for aircraft as a fight-weapon because it blinds the enemy, it paralyses its transportations and it dashes its spirit'. To obtain those results, the new General-in-Chief asked for the number of planes to be increased and their quality to be bettered. But there again he came up against difficulties and delays in manufacturing, and it was only during the winter 1917/18 that he could set up pursuit and bombing squadrons. In the field of tanks, Petain decided in favour of the Renault light tank. On June' 20, 1917 he decided to create a special organisation for tanks. He demanded that the existing tanks should be technically improved and then decided on the manufacture of 3,500 light Renault 5-ton tanks for May 1, 1918. The Ministry of Munitions considered that the plan could not be implemented before spring 1919, but output in the course of summer 1918 belied that pessimistic forecast and enabled tanks to play a noticeable part. Thus, during the period of recovery, from May to November 1917, General Petain managed to calm a volatile situation, to choose the arms of victory and to specify the tactical conditions of their use, as well as to develop the training of the troops. The shortage of manpower could be counterbalanced only by the power and efficiency of the weapons, and that shortage was severe. All these reasons account for

and

General

Petain

sending

his

army

to

-by March

1918, only 12 divisions had not been through a camp of instruction. 'school'

Petain's 'experiments' During the summer and at the beginning of the autumn 1917, three experimental attacks with limited targets were successively tried in Flanders, at Verdun and on the plateau of the Malmaison. Flanders was a weak district for the Allies and the intensification of the submarine war gave it even greater importance. A Franco-British project had been afoot since December 1916: the idea was that the occupation of Ostend and Zeebrugge should be one of the aims of the campaign of 1917. General Nivelle had suggested that General Foch assume the conduct of the joint action. But after April 16, Field-Marshal Haig rapidly secured its command and the Cassel agreements put the French First Army under Haig's orders. The French preparations were thorough. The High Command chose good troops, on the whole spared by the crisis of morale

2344

/Above: Cannon-fodder for Nivelle, precious French lives for Petain. Their new

Commander-in-Chief improved their leave facilities and their food, but, most important of

all,

convinced them that useless attacks were a thing of the past, would not be

that they

expected to throw

away their

lives in

pointless offensives. Right: French colonial

troops captured by the Germans during the Nivelle offensive.

The French were notoriously prodigal with the lives of their colonial troops

tactics

and

ticism

it

from

provoked criticism and scepmany generals — Foch and

Joffre at their head. It was essential that it should be a success. Carefully planned, equipped with very powerful artillery (two

tons of munitions for one metre of frontline) and backed by numerous aircraft, the attack on Verdun in August 1917 was to mark a turning point in the conduct of the war: quick and swiftly-moving attacks began to replace heavy onslaughts. The attack on Verdun had two major results: first, the recovery of morale was stronger and more certain: if, at the rear of the frontline, during the days before August 20, there had been a little stirring, it disappeared completely as soon as the results of the battle were known. Also, the position of Verdun was completely secured and the troops had the impression of a decisive victory in that district. The balance of casualty spoke for itself: from August 20 to 25, for 16 divisions finally engaged, the total losses reached 14,970 men, including 10,500 wounded, that is, the average losses in one single day in the battle of the Somme. As for the ground gained, it equalled the poundings of October 24 and December 15, 1916, which had made Nivelle's reputation. So the aims of Directive No. 1 were reached: the infantry had been spared, the adversary had been worn down to the maximum with the minimum of loss. Compared to these essential results, any criticisms of detail passed on the operation seem of very little importance. In fact, the battle of Verdun was not so complete a success as that of the Malmaison: for want of another division in the attack, the new front on the right bank of the Meuse river was not strong. It led to a very expensive attritional duel, because the Germans attempted to win back the lost observation posts. The attack of the 'Chemin des Dames', called the battle of the Malmaison, on October 23, was a masterpiece of the limited attack. 'The postal censorship in the last days of October immediately after the

and made up of soldiers coming mostly from the north of France. He gave them a powerful artillery at an unusual density of 38 batteries to the kilometre. The planning of the attack did not leave anything to chance, and despite difficult topographical conditions — the canal of the Yser at Ypres had to be crossed first — the attack was a complete success. That success began to restore confidence to the fighters by proving to them that an attack — difficult as it might be — could be successful as long as it was carefully planned and backed by the necessary means. The results of the first battle fought according to the principles set by Petain in his directives confirmed the real efficiency of those principles.

But it was a joint inter-Allied action; the French army had not been alone in fighting. Therefore these operations did not create such a great stir as the victory

of Verdun, on August 20/23, 1917. A plan of attack in the district of

Verdun had been prepared by General Nivelle after the German strategic withdrawal of 1917, called the Alberich withdrawal. But Nivelle's was to be an attack on a large scale, using 40 divisions and intended eventually to replace the attack of April 16 in case the latter should have to be ultimately given up. As an officer of the army of the central district of France, General Petain had worked on the preparation of that plan. When appointed Commander-in-Chief on May 22, he decided to alter it deeply: he inserted the attack of Verdun in his directive No. 1, and planned to engage only ten divisions. But, as with the attack in Flanders, he demanded that it should be led 'with as much artillery as possible and by surprise' in order 'to spare the infantry'. It was the first experiment with the new

event, shows a real frenzy of victory among the units which took part in it', wrote Petain in his report on the morale and military crisis of 1917. The attack of April 16 had put the Chemin des Dames, the main district of mutiny, under an evil spell which had to be cast out. But sending the French army to attack those dreaded plateaux only three months after calm had been restored, was almost a challenge by Petain. Such an operation required complete success: 'Another failure in that district would have a disastrous effect,' wrote General Maistre, at the head of Sixth Army, entrusted with the attack. After several alterations between June and September 1917, a plan of action was

adopted

on

September

means were combined success. The density

15.

Exceptional

to contribute to its

of

artillery

was

superior to that in previous attacks, an average of 64 batteries per mile, reaching the proportion of one gun for every six yards of frontline for the 13th Division. The rate of fire was thus 16 to 20 shots per

minute

for every 100 metres of frontline against 12 to 15 in the battle of Verdun. Air strength was doubled and tanks were engaged for the first time since May 1917 — 14 batteries of tanks altogether. Their success, irregular in detail but unquestionable on the whole, contributed to the success of the attack.

2345

Where the 'rapidity and violence' advocated by Nivelle had failed, the methods of Directive No. 1 were a complete success. It justified the extension of the methods which had led to such conclusive results. For casualties inferior to 12,000 — including 2,000 dead -the battle of the Marne caused the Germans to withdraw from the Chemin des Dames with losses reaching about 50,000 men — among whom were 15,000 prisoners — 200 guns, 700 machine mins and 200 minenwerfer. In other words, a dozen divisions managed to capture in three days 707< of the machine guns and minenwerfer, and nearly 45% of the guns thai more than five Franco-British armies had been able to capture between April 9 and the end of May, during the great attacks of spring.

The victory of the Malmaison was a complete, flash victory. It appeared as the outcome of the method followed by Petain in 1917 to improve the moral and military situation of the army, and as a starting point for the ideas of tactics which, during the winter 1917-18, would guide the preparations for the battles of 1918. It bad the effect of mitigating the practical and moral consequences of the disillusion of April. But the limited attacks were too spasmodic to bring about a final victory by multiplying local victories. General Petain was well aware of this. In 1917, the war had taken on a very different aspect. After the Russian Revolu-

tion in

French left

March and the way it developed, the GHQ no longer had any illusion

as to the possibility of the Russian

army playing an important part in the war; as soon as June 13, 1917 Petain asked the Troisieme Bureau to study the consequences of a Russian defection and pointed to the necessity for the Allied forces to

be cope with the expected return of the German divisions from the Eastern

prepared

to

Front.

From

that time, the General-in-

Chief decided in favour of defence. Indeed, it was very important to get over the difficult months between the collapse of the Russian army and the advent of the American army. This gap was the more disturbing because in the interim the French army could not be supplied with enough new artillery, tanks and aircraft. By the end of October 1917, Petain had succeeded in improving the delicate situation of May 1917. He had managed to bring the crisis of indiscipline to an end and to restore hope arid confidence through victory. He had prevented the French army from losing heart and from ceasing to play the leading part in the Allied coalition. But in October 1917, General Petain did not overlook the fact that the future remained difficult: 'The situation at the end of this year remains complex and unprecise,' he said to the war committee on

November 18, 1917. The American troops were arriving too slowly for real hopes to be built on them for 1918, and the single command, which Petain asked for himself, French infantry await a attack. Above: Cleaning out a gun, Lorraine Left:

German

front. Right:

gunners

September

install

1917, a heavy trench

mortar on newly captured ground. Below: Renault tanks in the Champagne. Petain's new military doctrine required a strong air force, rapid-firing artillery and an increased and improved tank force

was unlikely to be created. The situation was such that at the beginning of November 1917 the French army was the main barrier against a German offensive in 1918. General Petain devoted the winter 1917-18 to prepare it for that task. Further Reading Pedroncini, G Les Mutineries de 1917 (Paris ,

1967)'

Renouvin, P., La Crise Europeenne et la Premiere Guerre Mondiale (Paris 1969)

GUY PEDRONCINI,

Assistant Professor at the in 1924. He specialised in modern history, especially in the history of the First World War. His publications include The Mutinies of 1917.

Sorbonne, was born

M&^*

I^jPj

JlAk.

I

MORALE

DISCIPLINE Of the major combatants in the war only the British army did not suffer any large-scale breakdown of discipline. A cross-section of the British nation, the army reflected the values and condition of a stable society. Major-GeneralE,K. G. Sixsmith 2348

:

W

m

4^

It is

not easy for those without experience

of the First World War to picture the conditions under which men of many nations lived during those four years. If the effort of imagination can be made it is even more difficult for a more sensitive and perhaps

more thoughtful generation to understand could have been maintained. The war poets and authors such as Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves have left brilliant and moving records of what war meant to a highly sensitive person, but few officers or men who fought in that war would find their own feelings mirrored in

how morale

those pages. It is not possible to consider the morale of an army without knowing the outlook and tradition of the civilian world from which it sprang, because an army, even a regular army, is a cross section of the nation. Britain had an unmistakable class system, rigid in the short term; the upper classes provided the officers, the lower classes the men. All were moved by patriotism and looked on authority in much the same way. The officer was brought up to fear God and honour the King, to owe allegiance and above all to accept responsibility and to lead. The NCO too would be steeped in loyalty and proud of the authority which he exerted in his more limited sphere. The soldier would be used to a lower station and a life lived largely at another's behest: he could soon be trained to instant and unquestioning obedience. In that word 'unquestioning' lies the difference between the soldier and the poet. For the unthinking soldier in the trenches in France or more distant lands his platoon, or at any rate his company, was his whole temporary world. Many of the poets lived in a different world — a world of the mind and the imagination — but the war poets have one great significance. They wrote during the time of the war, whereas the prose and the plays came later and are more an indication of disillusionment after the war than of what was felt during the war. Arthur Marwick in his study of British society and the war wrote: 'most of the bitterest words were reflected in the grim tranquillity of the postwar years. Though by the end of the war the soldier

A

was wearied and

Miner Success

'They must 'ave 'ad some good news or somethin',

Alf;

you can

'ear

'em cheerin'

quite plain'

Above: Bruce Bairnsfather's Old Bill - a clear case of low morale! Be/ow. The certainty of swift medical treatment-the best morale booster of

—

2350

all

.

sceptical,

to

call

him

disillusioned would be to add the sin of exaggeration to the folly of generalisation'. From a different standpoint Major-General Douglas Wimberley writes of his own contemporary records as a regimental officer: 'I did not emphasise the corpse side, so often exaggerated in books between the First and Second World Wars, which when you check the writer's service, you find as often as not had never really been in the front line.' The national attitude to courage may account for the difference in feeling at the time and in retrospect. Just as there was a fundamental belief in authority — whether it was expressed as Christian belief or otherwise — there was an acceptance of the necessity for courage. You might feel frightened but you must not show fear or talk about it, and cheerfulness must be the mask that would hide it. The pictures of Bruce Bairnsfather epitomise the courage shown by the private soldier with his imperturbable cheerfulness born part of a kind of fatalism and part of a complete lack of imagination. The officer's courage had necessarily to be more active and was expressed by a commanding officer in the

Brigade of Guards to an officer just joined from Sandhurst in the words 'You can forget your training, you have been sent out to show your men how to die'. Probably no single factor was so important in maintaining the morale of the British army as the belief in the necessity for courage, but, as Lord Moran has pointed out, courage is a quality which can be used up and there is a limit to nearly every man's powers of endurance. How was it that the British army never reached breaking point? In the regular avmy morale undoubtedly stemmed from esprit de corps, the pride which a man had in his battalion, his regiment or his battery. Second-Lieutenant Wimberley, joining his battalion in October 1915 wrote: 'Were we not with the 1st Camerons in 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the 1st Army? I would not have swapped with any battalion in the army.' Later on he marched with the battalion going into rest after an unsuccessful attack that had reduced all the battalions in the brigade to company strength: 'The men marched through the streets utterly weary, when suddenly as we reached the square, the band started "The Pibroch of Donnuil Dubh", and backs were straightened as we gave eyes right to the Colonel. It was extraordinary how the men bucked up to the old march past, which has been played by the regiment since before Waterloo.'

Baptism of fire The regular army that made up the BEF had almost ceased to exist by the end of First Ypres in early November 1914. The battalions that had fought for these three months had left often as few as one officer and 30 men of those who had landed in France in 1914. The regular divisions made up from the Colonial garrisons were similarly eaten away by the early offensive Yet Wimberley's words above show how the Regular spirit remained. Moreover Kitchener, about the

battles of 1915.

man to foresee a long war, had determined to build up the New Armies on this same spirit by using retired regular officers and ex-NCOs to form new battalions of the

only

old regiments. The first of the New Army divisions were in action at Loos in September 1915, but the real baptism of fire came at the Somme in the next July. Loos brought to light indifferent staff work and was perhaps the first step in what became a real division in the army — on the one hand the officers and men in the front line, and on the other the command and staff and the 'base wallahs'. Nothing unites like a common hatred, and this split — stronger than hatred of the Germans — created a bond among the fighting men which added to

their esprit de corps. The dislike of the staff was not really justified but it was understandable. The dress of staff officers was as much as anything to blame: even junior staff officers wore red tabs and arm bands and these, set off by shining field boots, were a subject for derision from the

and men coming filthy from the The failure of commanders and staff officers to visit the forward troops was

officers

trenches.

a subject of much criticism. From the point of view of the higher command this problem must be seen in perspective. This was not an army of the size commanded by Wellington in the Peninsula or Buller in Natal. Haig had more than 60 divisions under his

command,

so if he visited each of them once a year he would not be doing badly. General Sir Richard O'Connor, who served as regimental officer or brigade signal officer from 1914 until he took his battalion to Italy in 1917, saw Haig four times. Nevertheless, it is true that was unduly insulated from the front line; too much reliance was placed on the chain of command so that each transmission of information lost something of its impact. As a result, orders and instructions that were quite impracticable were often issued. In the forward areas the position was different. Brigade and divisional commanders did exert a considerable influence on their commands and the best of them were well known to their officers. But in the days of trench warfare a visit to the troops in the front line was a considerable undertaking and much time was taken up even to see a very small part of the front. During a battle the problem was made even more difficult because the state of signal communications in those days and the unduly rigid tactical doctrine meant that commanders were tied to their headquarters. Philip Gibbs, one of the most celebrated

GHQ

war correspondents, commenting on

this

aspect, says: Among [our generals] there was not one that had that mysterious but essential quality of great generalship — inspiring large bodies of men with exalted enthusiasm, devotion, and faith. It did not matter to the man whether an Army Commander, a Corps Commander, or a Divisional Commander stood in the roadside to watch them march past on their way to battle or on their way back. They saw one of these sturdy men in his 'brass hat', with his ruddy face and white moustache, but no thrill passed down their ranks, no hoarse cheers broke from them because he was there, as when Wellington sat on his white horse in the Peninsular War or .

.

.

even as when Lord Roberts, 'Our Bobs' came perched like a little old falcon on his big charger. Although there is undoubtedly truth in this generalisation it does not take into account the factors discussed above and Gibbs goes on to discuss a number of senior commanders of great personality, in particular Plumer, commander of Second Army, and Harington, his Chief Staff Officer. Haig was silent and reserved and, as Gibbs says, 'constitutionally unable to make a dramatic gesture before a multitude, or to say easy, stirring things to officers and men whom he reviewed'. Yet perhaps because of this aloofness and the very distance which separated him from the rank and file he did not suffer from the opprobrium directed to the command and staff as a whole. He remained rather a symbol of ultimate victory and retained the confidence of the army which he eventually justified in

August 1918.

The misery

of winter

The New Armies went

Somme — 'The

into the Battle of

Big Push' as they called it — earlier and less well trained than Haig had wished. They certainly went in with the highest morale and they shared the feelings of the generals that if they once got through they would have the Germans on the run. The divisions taking part were made up of the very best young men who had volunteered from factory and farm, from office and shop and from public school the

and university. The

first

attacks

made

week only part was captured. The attacks went on for five months and at the end of that time still went on, perhaps with less optimism, but with the same dauntless courage, the same heavy losses and the same lack of decisive success. From July 1 to the end of November the British army in France suffered almost 500,000 casualties and those that had survived had lived through appalling conditions. But their spirit had not been broken, as the ensuing years were to show. In some ways the conditions in winter even when no offensive was taking place were as bad as in the fury of the attack. little

of the

progress and after a

German

first line

Wimberley, aged 19, wrote of the winter before the Somme: The trenches during the preceding months were very wet; the communication trenches having some two feet of water at the bottom soft mud below that. Walking in this was by no means easy as one's feet sank into the mud up to the knee at every step, and one had to pull one's leg out as a cork comes out of a bottle. In consequence it was necessary to use one's elbows against the sides of

and

the trench to keep one's balance, as well as one's hands — one's arms always got wet by this process from the wet and muddy trench walls, while it was useless to wear gloves as they would have got sopped through. In consequence I found it better to use one's bare hands and keep the gloves fairly dry to wear in the dugout, though gripping the cold, wet mud was very unpleasant. I think one can say without exaggeration, that at times in the trenches we were none of us ever dry, and in consequence the daily rum ration was a blessing to the men, as for a

few minutes after swallowing it one felt a warm glow all over, however wet you were. During the so-called quiet periods — the winter months and the less active sectors during the offensives — a rather stereotyped routine was established. While a division was in the line the infantry company spent from two to four days in the front line and about the same period in support lines. This went on for a month or six weeks after which the whole brigade went into reserve and was possibly within reach of baths and some form of recreation, perhaps an athletic meeting or a concert party.

The

officers

probably lived in billets

and the men in a barn. Except when the brigade was in reserve everyone lived under intermittent or continuous shelling and when not in the front line men were called upon for carrying, wiring, digging parties and other fatigues. The great advantage of the Western Front over other theatres was home leave. This was well organised and, except

when postponed

for

some coming offensive, came round after six months or more. Officers and men usually got a week at home. Trains were uncomfortable and slow, but much needed facilities for baths and a complete change of clothing (the only effective means of delousing) were provided. Health in the trenches was surprisingly good. Trench fever, shell shock and trench feet were virtually the only troubles. Trench fever was a kind of influenza, probably the forerunner of 'Spanish influenza' which swept through Europe in 1919, but it never reached epidemic proportions in the trenches. Shell shock was the name then for battle exhaustion. Gibbs writes: 'there

were generals who

said,

thing as shell-shock.

"There

It

is

is

no such

cowardice.

I

2351 >/-••<.

.o-vraE

»

fc

I't^r'ivil

i r

i

<4

!

t

*

1f*

would court-martial every case." Doctors draw the line between shell shock and blue funk. Both are physi-

said, "It is difficult to

as well as mental."' The truth is as Moran says that every man has his limit of courage and that the fellow feeling, the humour, the pride in the unit, the fear of being afraid and the leadership of the best cal

and men kept the trouble well within bounds. 'Trench foot' was a kind of frost-bite, the result of living day-in dayout with wet feet. The answer was found in rubbing the feet with anti-frost-bite grease, and an officer was required to see the feet of his men so rubbed every 24 of officers

hours.

There is no such thing as shell-shock. I would court-martial every case'

J

*

iff'

•

•*,

&&&&VI 2352

*£

*

*\A kL-

••••

•*

r

Above

left:

Convalescent Highlanders bathing

at

Etaples, scene of the Bull Ring Mutiny in September 1917. Below left: British infantry in Flanders, 1917 — up to their knees in mud. Above: General

Henry Home and his charger at the First Army horse show at Chateau de la Haie, June 25, 1917. Attendance at the show may have been rather thin since the previous day Home's First Army had begun its diversionary attack on the Arras front towards Lens Sir

right: Entertainment for the troops — Georges Carpentier. the French boxer (left), after the war world light-heavyweight champion, sparring with a US Army sergeant, April 1918. Below: Australian medical orderly carrying a man with trench foot, one of the occupational diseases of soldiering on the Western Front. Below right: A stretcher bearer gives first aid to a wounded sergeant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during the battle of Polygon

Above

Wood, September

26,

.:>

Neither the three winters nor the long of the Somme fighting had broken the edge of the British army, and the spring of 1917 came with fresh hopes of a breakthrough. The disappointments of Arras were overshadowed by the failure of the French offensive, a failure which was to impose an even heavier burden on the

months

MK **"

'

British army. This burden was taken up in the long series of battles from the end of July to early November remembered as

Macleod R. Colonel Passchendaele. writing in retrospect says: For three and a half months through indescribable conditions of mud, bog and flood, and in the face of heavy shell and machine gun fire,

1917

2353

the to

army fought its way forward five miles Passchendaele. The endurance of the

In a calling where lack of vigilance, disobedience or inattention to detail may lead to disaster it is to be expected that the code of discipline should be strict. The New Armies were brought up on that same code which helped to make the BEF in 1914 the best army that had ever left Britain. Ian Hay in The First Hundred Thousand has written a delightful chapter on the range

was tried to the uttermost; their some from drowning, were terrible, but the objective was not reached. But troops

losses,

writing at the time, out of the line with his hattery for two days' rest on September 12, 1917 he wrote: / cannot tell you very much of what is happening out here now. But we are wearing out a lot of Bosche divisions if we aren't gaining much ground. Our progress should be judged not so much from the amount of ground we gain, but from the rate at which we use up German divisions and wear out their morale. When their morale is completely broken, they will break up, and we shall be able to advance as we will. But it will take a long time. The war will certainly not be over this year unless something very unforeseen happens. Yet no more than the Somme could Passchendaele break the spirit of the British army. It was no longer the cheerful spirit of the earlier days but rather a sceptical self-mocking acceptance and an ability still to see the sardonic humour of the grimmest situation. The bond between lighting men held firm.

The Anzacs — a corps d'elite The men from the Empire posed

a quite

problem of morale and discipline from the troops from the homeland. Their outdoor life, their superior field craft, their independent spirit and their feeling that they were men of a better mould made them truly a corps d'elite. The Australians were probably best of all. When brought to the pitch by training and organisation, as they were by General Monash, they were different

virtually irresistible in battle. Out of the line at rest they were almost as destructive. They knew nothing of discipline in the British sense — a period at rest was a drunken orgy and in battle the only neces-

sary discipline was courage. The Australians and New Zealanders had come to France after the harsh apprenticeship of Gallipoli. There their spirit had flourished and grown under conditions as indescribable as those of the Flanders mud. In the restricted area of Anzac Cove, under close and continuous fire, in times of costly defence or murderous attack, amid dirt

and dust and innumerable flies they had made a home from home. Monash, then commanding a brigade, had written: 'I am looking out where the men have been living for five weeks in squalor and dirt in rain and shine, and most of them are in rags; yet they are laughing and singing and joking and indulging in chaff and horseplay until it is their turn again tomorrow to face the awful ordeal of the trenches for a 48 hours' relief.' Rhodes James records what one of the Anzacs said about themselves: 'mildly cynical, very sceptical, and very critical of what they considered shortcomings in the conduct of their own comrades,

their officers,

senior

commanders

and other troops. They were a most matterof-fact, hard shelled and cynical mob, who at no time exerted themselves more violently than they had to.' They were quite oblivious of rank and were very outspoken, in some sense with a wide variety of ex-

making considerable overuse of one word either as noun, verb or pression but adjective.

humour

As an example

the identity disc

ii

hi

1

1

i«m«<

1

1 mi

of their grim was known as

ii

in

nn

ill

Wlill itttt

and application of military discipline. In it he says: 'In the army "crime" is capable of infinite shades of intensity.

It

simply

means "misdemeanour", and may range from being unshaven on parade, or making a frivolous complaint about the potatoes at dinner, to irrevocably perforating your rival in love with a bayonet.' In the Territorial Force the basis was rather different. Dr Reader, who had joined in 1913 and become a trumpeter in the Royal Artillery, writes 'We joined as "Saturday Afternoon Soldiers" for idealism, patriotism and fun which, without being snobbish, made us a class apart from the Regular soldier of that period. After our initial training I do not think we realised just how strictly disciplined we were, it was so easy to conform.' The casualties and the cross-postings to some extent broke down the identity of units and the rigours of trench life altered the outlook without destroying the inner meaning of discipline. The mode of punishment was. naturally such as would normally leave a man at his duties: thus for minor offences extra guards, piquets and fatigues, forfeiture of pay, for drunkenness fines, and for more serious offences Field Punishment No 1 or No 2. The second could be little more than forfeiture of pay but Wimberley criticised this idea and wrote 'If I gave FP2 I always tried to ensure that it was properly carried out as meant to be, that is as a severe punishment. And a severe punishment it is — the man loses pay, goes down a fixed number of places in the leave roster, is fed on bully and biscuits, gets no cigarettes or rum, and has those cigarettes he owns, and his money, kept from him during the punishment; and he is kept hard at work at manual labour or unpleasant sanitary duties. If it is carried out like this it need seldom be given, and does not lose its hold as an enforcer of discipline.'

The rules prescribed that Field Punishment No 1 should be the same as No 2 but that in addition 'he may be attached for a period or periods not exceeding two hours in any one day to a fixed object, but he must not be so attached during more than three out of any four consecutive days, nor during more than 21 days in all'. A further paragraph stated that the punishment must be calculated not to cause injury or leave a permanent mark on the offender and that it must be discontinued on the recommendation of a medical officer. To our minds now the punishment seems barbarous and it seems that many so regarded it then. Wimberley says he never gave it although he regarded it then as necessary for some types of offenders on active service. Reader writes of the disgust in his battery when it was awarded to a young soldier for 'dumb insolence' to a bullying type of NCO. He says 'After the degradation of the first day we erected a canvas screen to shield him from public gaze and took it in turns to talk to him. The screen was there for all the world to see but no officer or NCO made any move, they just ignored it so we knew where their sympathies were.'

'

Australians, notorious for too little discipline

and too much morale, in billets after

at

the front

a spell

~~

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T -

:«>uTi

t

7

J*

Hi B

H sn

In i

hUr .

v4* *l"i-i »v>

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The death sentence was in force for mutiny, cowardice, desertion, murder, striking or disobedience, sleeping at or quitting a post and casting away arms. Three thousand and eighty men were sentenced to death but only 346 (of whom three were officers) were actually executed, and of these 91 had first had their sentences suspended but had repeated the offence. Only two British soldiers were executed for mutiny and as may be gathered from the foregoing the morale and discipline of the British army was not such that fear of mutiny could be a reality. There was, however, one serious incident which, as might be expected, arose in a rear area, in the Infantry Base Depots at Etaples. Here occurred what was known as the Bull Ring Mutiny of which the only authentic account appears in a novel Love and the Loveless by Henry Williamson. The Bull King was the training area where thousands of men (returned wounded, released prisoners and new drafts out from home) received weapon training culminating in a series of assault courses intended to increase their offensive spirit. On the march to the Bull Ring parties passed the punish-

ment compound where men were undergoing Field Punishment No 1. The discipline was not that of a regiment where officers and men trusted each other but that of a mixed collection of men under a distant and unknown martinet. Most men believed that their instructors and the Military Police were men keeping themselves in safe jobs — the base loafers who were enemy No 1 to the fighting man. Williamson says: 'There was something damnable about a base system which treated old soldiers,

some with two and three wound

though they were rookies, expecting them at bayonet practice on the

stripes, as

usual straw-filled dummies to show frenzy for blood.' He goes on to tell that one morning in September 1917 the RSM 'gave the order, in his stentorian voice, "Take off your packs and fall in on your markers!"; but not a man among the 2,000-odd left his position. Instead, individuals began to light cigarettes; some sat down; others started to whistle. Then to sing.' Although the mutiny started good-humouredly it soon got out of hand and attempts were made to rush the compound and let the prisoners free. Armed detachments were ordered in by and the affair quickly fizzled out. Three men were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to death. It is not known if any of these sentences were carried out. The Etaples incident, and a few smaller incidents in other base camps, deplorable as they were, yet bring out the root of British army morale and discipline. The esprit de corps which with the discipline is the amalgam of the staunch fighting unit was absent. What happened could not have happened in a division, where authority is not distant but personified in the superior officer you know. who leads you and will if necessary die with you. To the end in the British army esprit de corps and discipline

GHQ

together gave the courage which conquered doubt and disillusionment. The spirit of the French was more mercurial than the phlegmatic British; in the beginning was the conscious belief in the glory of la Patrie. Victory deferred and the loss of half the regular officer cadre gradually changed this to that spirit of acceptance more akin to the British. But the

2356

French had more to accept than the British. The supply system often broke down, leave was not introduced until after the first year and then abominable travel arrangements frittered away the time. Worst of all were the medical arrangements, far below British or German standards, which increased the chance of permanent disablement and indeed gave faint hope for survival or decent care for a badly wounded man. The relations between officer and man were curious. In action the officer showed leadership based on devotion and amazing gallantry and imposed a savage discipline. But out of the line an officer had no care for his men and seemed not even conscious of any responsibility for their welfare. The spirit of the Russian army reflected the national qualities of the day. In 1909 the army had been compared to a heavy-

weight muscle-bound prize-fighter, who, because of his enormous bulk, lacked activity and quickness, and would therefore be at the mercy of a lighter but more wiry and intelligent opponent. General

Knox, the British Military Attache, said of the regimental officers in 1914: If not actually lazy, they were inclined to neglect their duties unless constantly supervised.' Of the men he said: 'The Russian peasant population is essentially pacific and the least Imperialistic in the world. It fought well on many occasions when the leading

was moderate.

It

would have continued

to

fight well if it had had some measure of success, but it soon lost trust in the governhigher type of ment and its leaders.

A

human animal was to

victory

required

to

persevere

through the monotony of

dis-

aster.'

During the Russian defeats of 1915 the morale of the army came successfully through a severe trial that might have been fatal in other armies. The officers did not lose heart and did not allow their men

simple raw material that trusted

— them —

The most disquieting features the feeling among the senior officers that they were being let down by the inactivity of their Allies in the west, and second the growing belief in the superiority of the Germans — that they could do anything and that it was hardly profitable to oppose them. Despite this Brusilov achieved considerable success against the Austrians in 1916 but on August 6, 1916, Knox wrote: 'The Russian Command spends all its time teaching the Russian soldier to die, instead of teaching him to conquer.' Writing of the Russian army on the eve of the Revolution Knox wrote: 'The army was sound of heart. The men in the rest of the winter would have forgotten the trials of the past, and would have attacked again with the elan of 1916. There can be no doubt that if the national fabric in rear had held together, or even granted the Revolution, if a man had been to despair.

were

first

man enough to profrom pacifist propaganda, the Russian army would have gained fresh forthcoming who was tect the troops

laurels in 1917,

and

in all

human

prob-

first. For example, a French officer told me that when the Italians were fleeing in 1917 the officers took off their badges of rank and commandeered traps and carts so that they could get away faster, leaving their men in the lurch. Out of the line the Italian officers did not mix with or play games with their men. They were rather horrified at British officers doing so.' All the strain that the Allies had to bear was borne by the Germans too. To a certain extent it was easier for them because of their national tolerance of being regimented. They were better trained too, and except for Verdun were not used for massed offensives until the well-thoughtout attack by new methods in 1918. But once the limit was passed then everything told against them, particularly as their manpower began to run out just as the entry of America gave countless resources to the Allies and more than offset the defection of Russia. British Intelligence always misjudged the resilience of German morale but Ludendorff admits that the

German army was almost at breaking point on the Somme. Of Passchendaele in 1917 a German account says: The defenders cowered in their water-filled craters without protection from the weather. Only rarely was it possible to supply the defenders with a hot meal. No division could last more than a fortnight in this hell. Then it had to be relieved by new troops. Brought up by lorry the new battalions were brought into the line usually moving from crater to crater. Only one who has experienced personally moving into a position on a major battlefield can know the feeling felt by each individual — young or old. By the explosions of Verey lights and here and there in the shine of a torch can be seen the strained and sweat-covered faces. Gasping and cursing, teeth gnashing and continual cursing are for the ear and are in fact the sound of the spiritual conflict being played out. Many in such an hour are changed but the majority of the German warriors have often tasted this hell and have triumphed over it. The bearing of German prisoners showed the gradual change. Those captured at Loos were very arrogant, but by the end of the Somme battle they had altered their man-

ner and were polite and subdued. Nevertheless there was no crack in the morale of the fighting men. As in Britain most of the books on the disenchantment of war were written after ten years or so of peace. Guy Chapman in collecting his miscellany of writings by those who fought says he found the majority of German writing nauseating. 'There is altogether too much hurra-ing and back slapping when a piece of trench is taken, and of reviling everybody else, friends and enemies alike, when it is lost.' Possibly the act that finally broke the morale of the German army was Ludendorff 's effort to create March 1918 offensive.

an

elite force for

the

Further Reading Baynes, J., Morale (Cassell 1967) Gardner, B., Up the Line to Death (Methuen

would have exerted a pressure which would have made possible an Allied victory by the end of that year. The Italians' heart was not in the war and, apart from corps d' elite like the Bersaglieri and the Alpini, showed no fighting spirit. Macleod, who went to Italy with the

1964) Graves, R., Good Bye to All That (Cassell 1957) Knox, Maj-Gen Sir Alfred. With the Russian Army 1914-17 (Hutchinson 1921) Moran, Lord, The Anatomy of Courage (Constable 1945)

British contingent in 1917, writes: 'The Italian officers thought little of their men, were aloof and looked after themselves

[For Major-General E. K biography, see page 1199.

ability

|

(!.

Sixsmith's

When

Passdiendade

THE FINAL

PHASE On

October 9, 191 7, it began to rain once more on Passchendaele Ridge, and on the 26th when the Canadians launched a third major assault it was still raining and the ground was drowned in mud. Their commander, General Sir Arthur Currie (pictured below

the Canadian Corps

was ordered hy

Sir Douglas llaig to capture Passchendaele Ridge, the battle in the Ypres salient had been going on since the beginning of August 1917. Slowly and painfully, British,

New Zealand and French had pushed forward against the higher ground that dominated the flat battlefield surrounding what was left of the city of Ypres. More than 400,000 casualties British and German) had been suffered since that day in August when British tanks had moved hopefully along the Menin Road, and then slithered off into the mud. Whatever may be said about the need for these attacks, or about the Australian, soldiers

i

early

optimistic strategic estimates that caused the fighting to commence near Ypres in 1917, it is clear that attritionslogging for land and killing Germans had come to dominate the minds of the men at GIIQ by the time October arrived. At that point in time, kindly weather and the sacrifices of thousands of men had brought the thrusting point of the attack to within about 2,000 yards of Passchendaele village.

directing a practice attack) was convinced that the task they had been set was not so much impossible as irrelevant.^

Although this article will deal with the purely Canadian effort, before going on to sum up the whole campaign, it must be stated that to separate the British-Anzac effort on October 12 from the Canadian push that followed is an unsatisfactory way of proceeding — for two reasons. First there is the fact that the Anzacs who had been in action in the salient for some time were not in any sense defeated troops. The Australians still had their heads up. When they handed over to the Canadians, after October 20, they explained meticulously the dangers and opportunities to their fellow colonials.

On

made about

all

sides

comments were

the mutual respect these sol-

diers showed for each other. Perhaps it was the fact that they were both proud homogeneous groups -but the fact is that

when they looked on one another they

cause of a series understandings.

S!

of

unfortunate

mis- | E

s

Donald Schurman

N?

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fty

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what they saw. Furthermore it must be borne in mind that a party of Austra- 5 lians had actually arrived at Passchendaele | village at one stage only to withdraw be- „ liked

m

Houthulst Forest

BRITISH OBJECTIVES


27 Div

FOURTH ARf (Gen

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(Gen Anthoine)

FIFTH ARMY (GenSir.Hubert Goua^i D,v

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(Lt-Gen the Earl of Cavan)

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NOV 3 NOV 6 NOV 10 GERMAN LINES ARMY BOUNDARIES

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OCT 12 OCT 13-26 OCT 26 OCT 27 OCT 30

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^44 Res Div

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Langemarck

Goudberg Copse

apour Farm

Wellemalen

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XVIII Corps (Lt-Gen Sir Ivor

Passchendaele

Maxse)

replaced by II

3 Cdh

Corps

(1

(Lt-Gen Sir Claud Jacob)

DivtyT^v

Cdn Div)Y aamkeek

on November 2

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2/3 39 Div Wood

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SECOND ARMY (Gen Sir Herbert Plumer)

Canadian Corps (Lt-Gen Sir

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Arthur Currie

Passchendaele: The final cost

BRITISH mw

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GERMAN

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230

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324 OOO 200 000

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A second

reason lies in the fact that Haig decided to take Passchendaele on October 7 before the French made their push towards the Houthulst Forest on the northwest of the battleground on October 9, and before the Anzacs and British were so badly smashed up on October 12. Also the rains had not come by October 7. It is true that there had been much rain in August, but September was not rainy and not all ground around Ypres was impassable. The rains that came in October, beginning on the 9th, broke the drainage system on the heights. Haig should perhaps have foreseen what barrage and rain might do to the ground. The fact is that when he ordered, on October 7, the attack to go in, against the advice of his army

had

commanders, Plumer and Gough, he had made his commitment — a commitment that involved the Anzac and the Canadian Corps. The geographical/military situation that had long existed on the Ypres salient was that to the northeast of the town the ground was low and traversed by streams that generally ran in a northwest/southeasterly direction, such as the Steenbeke. This flat land with its intricate drainage system was dominated by a crescent of

high ground extending in a slow curve from Westroosebeke. Passchendaele, some six miles on the east of Ypres, trailed southwards towards the Messines Ridge about four miles southeast of the town. When Messines was taken in June, the southern extremity of the strongpoint that the Germans held then lay across the Menin Road — known at its eastern end as the Gheluvelt plateau. Everything west and east of this crescent was visible to German gunners and their artillery range extended well to the north of Ypres. For the Germans it was an extremely pleasant position. For the Britons and French under their observation and open to sniper fire it was hell; cover, except that which they dug, was almost non-existent. By October 7, however, nearly all the Gheluvelt plateau, and the ridge up through Polygon Wood to Zonnebeke-Broodseinde was won from the Germans. All that was wanted to complete the capture of the high crescent was an attack on Passchendaele Ridge, bounded on one side, roughly by Broodseinde, and on the other along the Goudberg Spur. Unfortunately the fact that Haig did not include the capture of Westroosebeke (north of Passchendaele) in these final plans makes it less than likely that he was thinking as seriously of capturing strategic ground as he was of simply taking Passchendaele, killing 'Germans and claiming

a victory.

Looking more closely at the battleground that Haig had determined to capture, one sees a ridge with three spurs running off it in a southwesterly direction. The most northerly and shortest of these was the Goudberg Spur, the approaches to which were over low ground of almost quicksand variety. The middle spur, about one mile in Opposite top and bottom: The action around Passchendaele Ridge October/November 1917, and the total British and German casualties in the area from July 21 until the end of the year. In its assessment of Passchendaele, the British Official History distorts the record on two important counts — it minimises the extent of the mud, claiming that it was no worse than on the Somme in 1916, and (on the autnor's admission) doubles the German casualty figures and nearly halves the British

length, known as the Bellevue Spur was about mile wide and was divided from the main ridge by the Ravebeek stream, ordinarily about five feet wide but now surrounded by low, inundated ground. It was planned that the Allied attacks would follow these pieces of relatively high ground. It can be readily appreciated that the combination of concentrated German artillery in a narrow area, spurs protected and intersected by very difficult ground, carefully disposed pillbox positions and approach terrain that had been cut up by i

months

of

artillery

fire

and had been

hideously fought over did not make for an ideal battleground. This, quite naturally, was the immediate opinion of Sir Arthur Currie, the commander of the Canadian Corps. When given his orders, he objected to the task before him. He could see clearly that he had been set a task that was not so much impossible as irrelevant. The rains had come by October 13 when Currie was dragged into Haig's web. Could the Canadian Corps take Passchendaele? It was probable that they could but Currie, according to John Sweetenham, estimated the cost at 16,000 casualties. Nevertheless, he was ordered to attack. Currie, however, was not overawed by the red tape at GHQ. Haig knew that but he wanted the agony over swiftly. Currie, however, was certain that careful preparations were necessary, and that the operation had to be done in careful stages. He got his way. He liked and co-operated well with the Army Commander, General Plumer. The preparations, although they may not always have appeared so to the troops who attacked, were thorough and as good as they could be in that hellish area. Currie had set himself to do what he could to reduce the agony of his men's coming ordeal. He was omnipresent on the field — and in the Ypres salient that feat is worth noting in itself. He was offered paper returns of the whereabouts of Anzac guns that had disappeared in the mud. He refused to proceed unless the paper was replaced by gun metal and made sure that he got it. Indeed some 300 field pieces were moved up within range and operated at heavy cost to the Germans. They were a prime factor in final success. Currie preferred to lose shells rather than men.

soldier who has had experiences of a panicky takeover will appreciate the value of this mode of proceeding. Finally, Currie visited each of his brigades in turn and, with the aid of models, set out the nature of the task that the officers and men faced. His briefings expressed confidence concern-

ing the result, but made little effort to hide the formidable nature of the undertaking. The mood engendered seems to have been one of grim determination. The support that the Canadians got from the Anzacs on their right when the attack went in on October 26 gave them a secure flank. To the left of the Goudberg Spur the anchor was less firm. However, French elements attached to the Fifth Army had put in a spirited attack some days before the Canadians went in, and on the 26th itself they marched forward about onetenth of a mile towards the Houthulst Forest at the very north of the salient. The Canadians on the 26th, however, moved off at 0530 hours in the rain. On the right, following the barrage, and after a see-saw fight south of the Ravebeek, against very heavy German artillery and despite three counterattacks, the 4th Division was securely in its assigned objectives by 1000 hours. The 3rd Division, on the left, had a rough time as well. Cleverly sited pillboxes, especially at Laamkeek on the south edge of Bellevue Spur, plus a magnificent defence by the

Germans, made movement

of respite General Currie set out to satisfy himself about three things. The first, as has been seen, was that the artillery support should be as formidable as supply and placement in difficult terrain could make it. The second was that the troops who were to make the attack should have some acclimatisation time between their arrival at the forward positions and the moment when the actual attack went in. In the past it had often been the case that troops would arrive at their jumping-off places only a few hours before they attacked, having marched up the line throughout the preceding night. These arrangements were not by any means perfect in the event, but most of the assaulting troops in the first wave had a day or two to look about them before being asked to fight. Also, in the same manner as the retiring Anzacs briefed the first stage Canadians, so did the 3rd and 4th Divisions instruct their eventual relief force — the 1st and 2nd Divisions — when their turn came. Any

But

The morning of October 30 was cold. It did not begin to rain until about 1100 hours, but the ground was very damp. At 1730 the

hours

another barrage rechurned the advance resumed. Suc-

muck and

On the far right, by 2030 the 4th Division's objectives were taken. The cost was as terrible as the advance was swift; one battalion lost half its strength. For the 3rd Division the Bellevue Spur had to be fought for foot by foot, and the great success on its left by which the Goudberg Spur was approached closely was endangered by the fact that firm contact with the 18th Division on the left was not always easy to maintain. It was still touch and go in the late afternoon, but the Canadians had decided not to go back. For his energetic, intelligent and determined action amid Vapour Farm, the key position on the edge of Goudberg Spur, George Pearkes won a VC. Strong, but not carefully concerted attempts at counterattack on the part of the Germans were held. On November 2 the 4th Canadian Division left Passchendaele for good. They were relieved by the 2nd Canadian Division, and the 1st Canadian Division replaced the 3rd Division on November 4. At 0600 hours on November 6 Currie cess

Moment

difficult.

continual pressure directed in front of Bellevue Spur, plus the piecemeal destruction of pillboxes, enabled the troops on the far left to outflank these obstacles from higher and firmer ground. By 1530 hours the Canadians were on Bellevue Spur— just; but there they were to stay. Meanwhile, south at Gheluvelt, X Corps put in a 'forlorn' against the Tower Hamlets. It failed with the loss of about 3,500 casualties. Feverishly the Canadians worked towards the next step. Special mule and manpower lines were traversed with supplies, ammunition, and the fresh regiments coming up to relieve those who had done the work since October 26.

was

hours,

swift.

all of

2359

men

go for the third time. They no time. Following the swiftly moving barrage they were into Passchendaele village by 0710 hours. Over the whole salient they had reached their objectives by 0900 hours. A final push across the Passchendaele-Westroosebeke road on November 10 that took one hour let

his

wasted

finished Currie's job. The Canadians were all their objectives. The victors were relieved on November 14; they had suffered 15,654 battle casualties.

on

What The

trench, where?

description

of the

fighting

in

this

has been linked to the name of General Arthur Currie, and has assiduously avoided any attempt to isolate action

Canadian units for praise or blame for three reasons. In a short space it is not possible to be satisfactorily detailed and judicious. Secondly, Currie had both planned intelligently and catered to morale carefully. Thirdly, any attempt to describe the fighting at Passchendaele is bound to be based on isolated scraps of evidence. Even those who were there are unsatisfactory witnesses in the larger view.

L

not quite sufficient, in delineating of the Passchendaele battle, to simply refer to low, higher ground, spurs, defiles and distances. The approaches to Passchendaele Ridge, after the drainage system had been broken by artillery, and the rains poured down steadily in October, were not all exactly the same but they were similar. Everyone knows the story of General Kiggell, who, when he saw the approaches to the battlefield for the first time, burst into tears and said, 'My God, did we really send men to fight in that?' Upon which he received the cool reply, 'It gets worse further up.' Similarly most have heard stories of men and animals who, moving on the duckboards laid down near the mud, were sometimes drowned if they slipped off into the mud or crater holes filled with filth and water on either side. This was true of all the approaches and made the supply problem especially difficult, for in a small salient the Germans swiftly had the range of the ribboned routes. Consequently, casualties amongst support and communication troops were disproportionately It is

the

main outlines

high — over 1,500.

Ni

To describe

in detail the forward positions an impertinence for one who must rely upon hearsay, photographs, and the words of some few keen observers. On one occasion the author incautiously used the expression 'front line trench' to one who is

was

there.

The reply was a

scornful,

crushing question 'What trench — where?' To understand, just a little, one has to attempt to grasp three things. Firstly, there was no proper front line 'position', but only a series of craters filled with water in which men existed. The lines between these craters occupied by Canadians were maintained by human beings who made connections with other groups by exposing themselves — by making lateral quick dashes over exposed ground. Secondly, the problem of what was in front of them was difficult to determine for infantrymen, both Canadians and Germans. Shelling was constant, and to find out where a machine gun or a sniper was required considerable exposure and risk, for the lips of craters are not natural observation points; indeed they generally bar the field of vision ahead. Scouting under these conditions was vital — but it

i

~tU^ "SS*».

\ l+m

m m*

»

#

4

was no

fun. Thirdly,

German

aeroplanes

were in movement overhead as frequently as the weather allowed. They made it difficult to move Lewis machine guns about because they were specifically sent up to discover and destroy them. Consequently. when an attack went in the machine guns had to be manhandled about swiftly: they were vital to the prevention or holding of counterattacks, and it was difficult to know in advance where they could be sited once the rolling barrage ahead of the attack had torn up and re-cratered the ground ahead. Another fact that makes an understanding of this ghastly place difficult is the use of the word Passchendaele 'Ridge'. Strictly speaking, the expression is geographically accurate, but to Canadian eyes the slope was so imperceptible that the advancing troops almost doubted its existence, until they were on top and looked back over the slowly undulating sea of mud towards Ypres. To make the point clearer one need only think of Vimy — where the 'ridge' is a high promontory. But it is not the height of a rise of land that confers advantages on a defender as any visitor to,

say, Gettysburg can see.

Vr P

The

Cemetery Ridge is easy — but a deadly artillery killing ground. The slope towards

German

front line troops were inhibited like the Canadians, by the rims of craters. But their gunners could view their target areas more expertly. General Currie's gunners could roll a barrage, but to select and pinpoint targets was not so easy.

from

view-finding,

German morale begins

to

crack

of the most ironical factors concerning this fight was that it was the mud, so terrible in many ways, that minimised casualties to a certain extent. Muck absorbs the blast of high explosive and this undoubtedly cut down on the value of German artillery fire — except for direct

deed,

have

which are not so easy

to obtain. Inlikely that the 'Ridge' could not been taken early in October when it

fact that Currie did not let his rushes overextend themselves: that is, the infantryman was not asked to take more than he could be reasonably expected to

Another is the fact that Canadian machine gunners got up fast and took on counterattack formations at deadly close range, despite German sniping and good German aircraft work. The Lewis guns were very well handled from both a mechanical and a tactical viewpoint, and they undoubtedly saved many badly smashed up companies from the results of those horde attacks at which the Germans were so formidable. Another reason was the terribly effective Canadian rolling barrage and the swift savagery of hold.

One

hits,

were there would no doubt dispute this, but at Passchendaele the Germans displayed more of a brave reluctance to yield ground rather than a co-ordinated determined desire to retake what they had lost. One reason for this was undoubtedly the

is

the ground was a little harder, and the execution by shell bursts must have been consequently intensified. Another interesting feature of 'Canada's Fortnight' at Passchendaele was the fact that counterattacks were not more heavily put in by the Germans. Many who

closely followed infantry advance. Finally, it may be that there was something to be said for Haig's view that German morale in front of the Ypres salient was on the verge of cracking — or had cracked. its

e

1

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may

be instructive to look back over whole bloody encounter that lasted from August 1, 1917, until November 10, and to provide a summary. To facilitate this it is best to begin with the casualty figures. They were heavy on both sides, but preoccupation with the many deaths ought not to blind readers It

this

problems. The British Official Military Historians have placed the German losses at about 400,000 and the British at some 244,897. The Canadian Official Historian, cogently in my opinion, argues that the British probably lost about 260,000; the Germans 202,000. To these figures may be added about 50,000 Frenchmen, to the north of Ypres, according to Iveon Wolff. While exactitude is important to the historian, it may be more important here to ask whether or not corpse-counting tells us very much. Even supposing the Allied and the Central Powers' losses were about equal it would not tell us whether or not 'killing Germans' had been a worthwhile accomplishment in the campaign. Furthermore, corpse-counting does not tell us whether or not the claimed weakening of the Germans at Ypres contributed strongly to their final defeat in 1918. But, when Hindenburg writes 'It was with a feeling of absolute longing that we waited for the beginning of the wet season' and 'English stubbornness kept it up longer than otherwise', we are bound to take notice. Similarly, Ludendorff's statement that 'it must be admitted that certain units no longer triumphed over the demoralising effects of the defence battle as they had done formerly' is strong evidence in support of my own conjecture that German morale was lower than usual at to military

Passchendaele by November. Whether the Ypres offensive weighed heavily against German success in 1918 is a matter for speculation.

No

alternative to Haig? Hence the answer does not lie in casualty figures, and perhaps the only way the attrition argument is useful is when it is applied to the question 'would it not have

while the ground was hard;

it was the October-November wet conditions that were necessary for that. Therefore, Admiral

panicky statement that the Belgian coast must be captured or defeat would ensue was always emotionally based and by September not even supportable by Admiralty statistics. The fact that the French army was in

Jellicoe's

dire straits after the Chemin des Dames fiasco is not in doubt. It has been noted

that while Petain thought Haig's methods were not sound, he was ultimately content so long as the British Commander-in-Chief fought an offensive that would release pressure on French forces. How long this dangerous French morale problem existed is a much more difficult problem to assess. I suspect that, if the offensive at Ypres had stopped

of attack around Ypres

September, Frenchmen would have been ready to hold their lines, but the answer to this question is not at all clear. If it is admitted that Haig, and indeed Lloyd George, had to fight, why did it go on for so long? Since Haig promised to stop if casualties became prohibitive why did he not do so? Firstly, there is the too often forgotten fact that Byng's soldiers took Vimy Ridge on Easter Sunday, 1917. Secondly, there was the additional morale booster of Plumer's good work at Messines in June. To Haig the August failure must have looked like bad luck due to rain, and by September Plumer was again providing in

limited victories. To a soldier of Haig's temperament a number of tactical suc-

cesses—while perhaps

less impressive than the dreamed of strategic dash for the sea — were, nevertheless, better than the Somme. In the author's opinion a few trips to the front might have been beneficial to Haig's estimation of the power of men against barbed wire and machine guns or other forms of explosive entertainment. The armchair critic must remember, however, that Haig was subject, like most men, to fits of depression. These are luxuries high commanders cannot often afford in war and perhaps Haig knew what he did not want

to see.

been better, in 1917, to stand on the defensive?' This could lead one to consider the whole Lloyd George-Haig argument in detail. It seems to me that at the root of this trouble lay the fact that Lloyd George, and others, thought an attack in Italy or the Near East could be a substitute for fighting on the Western Front. I have discussed this matter elsewhere in this series, and concluded that neither politically nor militarily were the British in a position to give strong effect to such schemes. Whether one thinks Lloyd George

One is unable to apply this reasoning to events after October 9, 1917. It was Haig's business to know how and for what his men were killing and being killed in the mud. At that moment the British army was commanded by a man who was either in ignorance of what he ought to have known — by staff work if by no other way — or he was a man who wanted just one more

was right, it was a fact that the war was to be fought mainly in France, and this had been determined for them by events that neither man controlled. The point is that if Lloyd George had been able to sack Haig in 1917, could

worse ways to

or Haig British

he have found another general who would not be chained to the same sort of policy? I think the answer is no. Looking at the battle from the point of view of the original (1916) plan it is clear that the aim of liberating sections of the Belgian coast did not succeed. This was clear or, in my opinion, ought to have been clear by mid-August. Even the successes of September did not alter that fact. Fur-

thermore, I have encountered no evidence that German morale suffered severely

2362

victory in 1917.

The Canadians gave

it

to

him. It is not the least of the qualities of good troops that they are prepared to die for

'the

man on

horseback'.

There are

go.

Further Reading Bean, C. E. W., Official History of Australia

in

War 1914-1918 Vol. IV (Sydney 1933) Edmonds, Sir James E., Military Operations: France and Belgium 1917 Vol II (HMSO London 1948) Gladdin, E. Norman, Ypres 797 7 (William Kimber the

1967) Nicholson, G. W.

L. The Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919 (Ottawa 1962) Swettenham, John, To Seize the Victory (Toronto 1965) Wolff, Leon, In Flanders Fields (Viking Press, New York 1958)

[For Donald Schurman's

page

715.]

biography, see


we really

send

men

to fight in that?

5

gets worse further up'

... 'It

2363

Caporetto Indescribable confusion reigned among the Italian defenders as the Austro-German infantry advanced through the driving snow and rain along the Isonzo front on the morning of October 24. It soon became apparent that a rout was in progress. The invasion of war-weary Italy had begun. DrKurtPeball. Below: The big push begins — a small party waits to follow up a flame thrower attack

The enormous losses which the armies had suffered since 1915

Italian in 11

on the Isonzo — during the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo alone, between August 24 and September 10, 1917, the Italians had lost about 150,000 men dead, wounded, missing and captured — were the mainspring for the feverish antiwar propaganda pursued by the Italian Socialist and Communist Parties. If during summer 1917 their catchphrase — 'Next winter not another man in the trenches' — had been sheer fantasy, by early autumn it had grown to be a threatening spectre haunting the Italian Chiefs-of-Staff. And yet General Cadorna believed it possible to take up the offensive once again, immediately after the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo had died away, even though it would be possible only with substantial material help from the Allies. offensives

M

On September

11, 1917 the British MinWar, Lord Derby, paid a visit to the Commando Supremo in Udine during a tour of Italy. In his company were the Adjutant-General Sir Nevil Macredy and Major-General F. B. Maurice, the Director of Military Operations. At a meeting with Cadorna and his deputy, General Porro, Cadorna renewed his promises to continue attacking, promises he had made during ister of

the Chantilly consultations in the spring, so long as the Allies would maintain the pressure on the Western Front. But now he felt himself forced to press Lord Derby for urgently needed heavy, mountain and field artillery. He would then be in a position to set up the new divisions which would be urgently needed not only for a new offensive, but also in the event of a total Russian collapse, which was to be expected and which would release 70 or 80

Austrian and

German

divisions for the

Italian Front.

Lord Derby declared, probably from personal judgement, that the British expected to be able to send 40 heavy batteries (160 guns) to the Italians, and in addition Cadorna could count on receiving six heavy howitzer batteries from the beginning of October. However, while he could not promise any heavy field artillery, he was convinced that the French would help there. In fact, a week after these talks 200 British and French guns were on their way the Italians, but they were still en route when Cadorna suddenly, on September 20, sent a written communique to the British and French Military Mission, at GHQ, to the effect that he no longer into

s

tended an autumn offensive. He would have ~ to adopt defensive measures because an 1

^H MSCm

>•*%

r

9

>?«•

.

counteroffensive had to be Austrian reckoned with. In their annoyance, and without first checking Cadorna's arguments, the British and French governments immediately gave the order to withdraw the guns. Cadorna was accused of having attempted to extract the guns under false pretences, so the French batteries and two of the three British artillery groups were stopped during transportation and returned to France. This exhibition of deep mist rust of the Italians seems to have been caused by a clever piece of deception on the part of German secret agents in Switzerland who had broadcast the rumour that a large scale Austrian offensive on the Isonzo could be reckoned with during spring 1918. The withdrawal of the promises made by the British Minister of War severely weakened the Italian army, and in view of its poor morale and of the Allies' refusal to help, Cadorna was filled with a deep sense of gloom. When pressed by the Allies,

Cadorna later justified his decision for assuming the defensive on the grounds that he had expected a joint Austro-German offensive, for on September 14 the AustroSwiss border was closed, the Austrian Emperor and the German Attorney met in Bolzano, and simultaneously six German divisions arrived. Furthermore, it was ascertained that about 60 Austrian bathad been transferred from Carso northwards to the Bainsizza. The danger of a double offensive by the Austrians and Germans, from the Trentino and the Isonzo, seemed obvious. talions

The Italians wait with confidence In fact this had been nothing more than Austrian deception, and in any event towards the end of September the Italian High Command came to realise that the offensive was to take place only on the Isonzo. On October 6 Italian reconnaissance had identified 43 Austrian and German divisions on the whole Italian Front. Of these, 18. stood opposite the Italian Second Army on the upper Isonzo, and 11 j divisions opposite the Italian Third Army on the middle Isonzo. Furthermore, it had been established that the

German Alpine Corps and

the

German

12th Division, together with two Austrian divisions, were approaching the Isonzo. During the next few days still more reports arrived that strong German forces were grouping in the Save valley east of Caporetto (Karfreit). Large concentrations of troops near Tolmein (Tolmino) were identified; and on October 9 Intelligence confirmed 'The last week of October might be accepted as the most probable date for the beginning of the enemy offensive.' Then the information became even stronger. On the afternoon of October 20 a defected Austrian officer, born in Bohemia, revealed that the start of the offensive had been postponed to October 26 on account of bad weather, and that German troops would attack in the area of Tolmein: the next day Austrian deserters of Hungarian nationality divulged that the offensive would take place along the whole Isonzo front, from the Adriatic to Flitsch (Bovec), with the centre of gravity in the area south of Tolmein. The chief objective was to be the Kolovrat ridge. Four hours of

a-half hours of mortar fire against infantry positions. The attack was to be made on October 25 or 26. All this corresponded exactly with what was to happen. Cadorna and his staff, however, considered the Austrian counteroffensive over difficult mountain terrain totally impossible. 'The attack is coming, but I am confident of being able to meet

Cadorna telegraphed on October 21 Major-General Maurice: 'Owing to the very difficult country on the Tolmein sector, I am of the opinion that an attack there can be checked without difficulty and I am consequently holding that sector lightly.' And so they waited events with some confidence. On October 22 they gathered from a tapped conversation that Austrian telephone artillery were to open fire on October 24 at 0200 hours. On the other hand, Austrian and German staff officers had already realised that it',

to

was precisely this sector of the Italian Isonzo front which was the most vulnerable point. If they succeeded here in breaking through the Italian mountain position, then the whole Isonzo front could probably be rolled up from above and from the rear and laid open. Conrad von Hotzendorff had already given this advice during consultations with the Germans on January 23, 1917, and suggested a joint offensive. But, as in 1916, this had not been greeted with any enthusiasm by the Germans because the German High Command was preoccupied with events on their own Western Front. But they held out the prospect of returning to his suggestion after the expected Nivelle offensive. A month later, however, Conrad had been dismissed as Chief of the General Staff of the AustroHungarian army and posted as commander of the Austrian Trentino front. Following the Italian success in the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo, and fearing that Cadorna would begin his new offensive immediately, the Austrian High it

Command remembered

German engaged

on other plans and did not favour a reduction in forces on the Western Front, at first declined. But Hindenburg agreed in principle after the Emperor Karl had intervened with Kaiser Wilhelm. Lieutenant-General Krafft von Dellmensingen, highly experienced in mountain warfare, was delegated to reconnoitre the situation on the Isonzo front. There he realised that the plan suggested by Austria could lead to success, whereupon the German High Command agreed to support a counteroffensive on the Isonzo. On September 10 the final plans for the offensive were drawn up between the two HQs. There they

accompanied by gas

shelling were to begin the offensive. This barrage was then to be followed by one-and-

Eugen, but the Germans had reserved command to themselves for all operations, as

2366

artillery fire

Pontebba as far as Gemona. The Gruppe under the Bavarian General Freiherr von Stein, with HQ Bavarian HI Corps, the Austrian 50th Infantry Division, the Ger-

man

12th Infantry Division, the German Alpine Corps, and the German 117th Infantry Division, was first of all to take the Monte Matajur by storm, and then to advance with Gruppe Krauss. The Gruppe under General von Berrer, with German // Corps HQ, the German 26th (Wiirttemberg I) Infantry Division, and the German 200th Infantry Division, was to secure the left flank of Gruppe Stein and at the same time advance on Globacek. The Gruppe Feldmarschalleutnant under Austrian Scotti, with Austrian XV Corps HQ, the Austrian 1st and German 5th Infantry Divisions, had to support Gruppe Kosak during the crossing of the Isonzo in the Selo-Kal area. This Gruppe, drawn up on the north wing of the Austrian Second Army, under the Austrian Feldmarschalleutnant Kosak (with the Austrian 60th and 25th Infantry Divisions) was to deflect the Italians from the combat area of the German Fourteenth Army by an advance on the Heights of Vrh. The remaining Austrian units on the Isonzo had to take part only in the artillery barrage and to make local skirmishes.

Conrad's plan of

offensive of January 1917 and the interest in it. Ludendorff, who was

decided, as Archduke Eugen, Commander of the Austrian front between the Carnic Alps and the Adriatic, later reported, that this offensive would have to throw back 'the Italians across their state boundary, and, if possible, right across the Tagliamento'. For this purpose the German Fourteenth Army, composed of two Austrian and two German corps, was assembled under the command of the German General Otto von Below. They also put at its disposal some Jager and storm battalions, well equipped with artillery. The offensive was nominally under the command of Archduke

heavy

was usual for any joint enterprise. Thus the Austrians had little influence on the actual course of operations. The attack was to be led by four Gruppen. The Gruppe under the Austrian General Alfred Krauss, comprising the Austrian I Corps HQ, the 3rd (Edelweissdivision) Infantry Division, the 22nd Rifle Division, the 55th Infantry Division, and the German Jager Division, was to attack in the Flitsch valley in the direction of Saga and the Stol, and break across the basin of Caporetto. In the north this Gruppe was to be supported by the left inner wing of the Austrian Tenth Army with an attack across the Neveasettel into the valley of the Fella of

Misunderstandings and indolence The jumping off positions occupied by the Austrians and Germans were excellent, and their forces were numerically superior. In the Flitsch basin both the Austrian elite divisions (Edelweiss and 22nd Rifle Division) faced half the Italian 50th Division on a frontage of only three-and-a-half miles. Both divisions had the German Jager Division as a reserve. South of Flitsch the 50th and 55th Infantry Divisions faced the other half of the Italian 50th, 43rd and 46th Infantry Divisions on a front of about 11 miles wide. Strongest of all were the massed combat units at the bridgehead of Tolmein. On a breadth of about three miles, opposite the Italian 19th and 65th Infantry Divisions, stood one Austrian and three German divisions in the front line, with three German reserve divisions in the immediate vicinity. And about 12 miles to the east of Caporetto were three additional Austrian reserve divisions. Opposing the whole front of Fourteenth Army were only three Italian infantry divisions and one Alpi ni group, of which one division was in the third line from the Kolovrat to the Monte Matajur. The Italian 50th Division in the Flitsch basin had practically nothing behind it. The actual Italian reserves lay in the sector between Cividale and Cervignano, to the south. The Austrians' artillery superiority was

also immense. Fourteenth Army had 1,845 guns, of which 492 were heavy German 24-cm mortars. Furthermore, at Flitsch a German gas battery was placed in position, whose task it was to gas a corridor about 65 feet deep behind the Italian first line in Flitsch, through which the road from Flitsch to Saga leads. The majority of the German and Austrian batteries used gas shells which contained a gas against which the Italians' gas masks afforded very little protection.

take place on Second Army's front was, from the very beginning, a source of differences of opinion between Cadorna and the commander of Second Army, LieutenantGeneral Capello. Second Army occupied a front between the Vipacco stream south of

The uniform of the^j American Red Cross, with whom Ernest

Hemingway served during Caporetto

Gorizia (Gorz) and the Monte Rombon north of Flitsch. Cadorna advocated defence with small local counterattacks. Capello, on the other hand, believed it possible to remain elastically on both the offensive and the defensive, and so make a series of separate attacks into the left flank of the Austrians and Germans in the valley of the Vrh and from the Bainsizza. Therefore he concentrated his three reserve corps in the area between Plava-Monte Kuk, south of Caporetto, but without regard for his exposed wing in the Flitsch basin, which was now seriously weakened. Too late had Cadorna taken into consideration the danger of exposing the reserves behind Second Army's left wing. On October 20 he ordered Second Army to counterattack. Meanwhile Capello became ill and his deputy, General Montouri, did not obey

Bad terrain, bad weather The

battle terrain was difficult. In the sector of Gruppe Krauss attacks had to be made mostly across hills between 3,000

and

feet, with heavily wooded terrain was more favourable for attack in the sector Caporetto-TolmeinCividale-Plava, on the Isonzo. The Isonzo has a mountain ridge on its right bank from Saga as far as Tolmein, but which is broken by the Caporetto basin running from east to west. At this time of year the snow line lay

6,000

The

slopes.

at about 3,000 feet. As it had been raining continuously since October 10, the date for the attack (originally set for October 20) was repeatedly postponed, until it was eventually agreed on as October 24, despite bad weather. In fact, it eventually began in bad weather — it rained in the valleys, snowstorms raged on the hills, while both mountain slopes and valleys

order. He merely demanded minor troop adjustments which in their turn were not carried out by the corps commanders. Not until Cadorna himself went to the most seriously threatened IV and XXVII Corps on Second Army's left wing did he succeed in reinforcing IV Corps at

Cadorna's

Caporetto

were draped in mist.

On

the Italian side Cadorna had meantaken several countermeasures which either were accompanied by misunderstandings or were met with the indolence of the Italian corps commanders. That the Austrian counteroffensive was to

with

34th

Infantry

Division

(VII Corps). This division, however, was still moving towards the front when, on October 24 at 0200 hours, the Austrian

while

and German attack began with powerful whole Isonzo front, from the Adriatic to the Monte Rombon. In the Flitsch-Tolmein district the guns

V

Caporetto-the rout of the Italian army on the Isonzo. '400,000 soldiers were going home with the determination that for them at least the war was ended.'

artillery fire along the

ENTH ARMY

GERMANS AUSTR0- HUNGAR FRONTLINE PURSUIT

OCTOBER

24

-NOVEMBER

10

ARMY BOUNDARIES CORPS BOUNDARIES

Edelweiss

Gruppe Kraus

Div

FOURTEENTH

JagerOiv

ARMY

L55 Div

,»**"" Gruppe Stein

Caporetto

Div

.Ipenkorps

Gruppe

[200 Div

Berrer

liv

Cividale

Gruppe

,

l35Div„^ 4

XXVIII

~*

X

1

Gru PP e Yvm" * IV

Corps

Kosak

Div *.

*~ SECOND

FIRST XI Corps

ISONZO

ARMY

Monfalcone

THIRD

ARMY

XXI " C0r " S

Guff of Trieste

AKCH8.SHOP MHTV H,CH SCHOOL M EDIA •AN JOSE. CALIFORNIA i»ioa CENTE(t

2367

gas shells for two-and-a-half hours. artillery replied at once', according to the records of the Austrian General Staff', 'and their powerful and numerous searchlights nervously sought out our batteries and front lines. Soon the Italian lessened and searchlight activity fire diminished. The gas had obviously done its work and prevented the Italian artillery from directing their fire against our closely-packed storm lines.' After a pause lasting two-and-a-half hours the whole Isonzo front came under fire from high explosive shells from more than 3,500 guns, which were joined at 0700 hours by mortars. It was aimed at the Italian infantry lines, the HQ, ammunition dumps, approach roads and the Italian guns. At 0700 hours the infantry stormed forward from their lines. The first phase of the Austro-German counteroffensive had began. The gas shells had had appalling effects on the Italian lines. In one blow all communication links between the command posts and the front lines were destroyed. Panic spread rapidly among the Italian IV Corps, and also among 19th Infantry Division of XXVII Corps which lay west of Tolmein, while turmoil set in at HQ. Chaos was complete when at 0800 hours two powerful mines exploded in the Italian lines at Monte Rosso and at Monte Mrzli, followed immediately by the attack of the German and Austrian infantry. After only one-and-a-half hours, during which the attackers met with hardly any

became apparent that a 15-mile-wide

fired

it

'Enemy

penetration had been

resistance in Flitsch itself, Gruppe Krauss Italians and had to halt their race forward until their own artillery could catch up. General Krauss had given the order, before the offensive, to attack

had routed the

not only the Italian mountain positions — as Below had insisted — but also the valleys. Simultaneously with the advance of Gruppe Krauss, Lieutenant-General Stein had broken through where the two Italian corps joined up. On the Italian side it soon became apparent that Cadorna's instructions had not been heeded and that therefore the bulk of XXVII Corps still lay on the Bainsizza, and that the Italian first lines in the Caporetto sector were only thinly occupied. Here the German 12th Infantry Division quickly broke through the Napoli Brigade, transferred by Badoglio at the very last minute to the extreme left wing of his corps, of whom only a section so far had moved into position. Stein's units crossed the Isonzo and immediately pushed on north and west in the direction of Monte Matajur and along the foot of the Kolvrat ridge. At 1 1 00 hours they broke through the Italian lines on the left bank of the Isonzo. At 1600 hours the Germans occupied the town of Caporetto and swung into the line Starjiski-Staroselo-Matajur. During the late afternoon of October 24 This page. Top: The Italians were shocked when they realised that they faced German instead of Austrian soldiers Shock became panic, which in

turn rapidly degenerated Into flight. Bottom: Italian sign reads Camp'. Built by

The

POW

the Italians for Austriai. prisoners, the camp at Cividale was soon filled with some of the 50,000/60,000 Italian prisoners captured in the first three days of the offensive. Opposite page. Top: Under shellfire, German machine gun sections pursue the Italians across the Isonzo. Bottom: The Italians' 'systematic withdrawal' to the Tagliamento

2368

made

in the Italian

lines between Flitsch and Tolmein. Surprised by the impetus of the offensive, but above all shocked by the fact that suddenly they faced German instead of Austrian soldiers, the panic which had developed among IV Corps after the barrage degenerated into a flight which the officers could no longer control. Badoglio's 19th Division was swept along by this flight. By the evening Gruppe Stein had got a footing on the left bank of the Isonzo and had already advanced along the foot of the Kolovrat as far as Creda and towards the

Monte Matajur. The attacks by Gruppen Berrer and Scotti in the Tolmein-Selo sector had turned out not so successful, for here Badoghad carried out Cadorna's order of October 20 more faithfully. The attackers

to be lio

encountered obstinate resistance. Nevertheless, by evening they had reached the eastern spur of Monte Jessu (Jeza) — Berrer dominating the Kolovrat, and Scotti the

bottom of the Globacek valley. It was only at about 1900 hours that Cadorna was able to make a partial analysis of events on Second Army's front. Two reserve divisions were sent to the Monte Globacek area. The commander of Third Army, the Duke of Aosta, was ordered to despatch two divisions, as also

was the commander

of First

Army

in Tren-

Conte Pecori-Giraldi, who was to send off two divisions to the Isonzo as fast as possible. At 2100 hours Cadorna tino,

received the first news of the catastrophe which had befallen IV Corps. He reacted promptly and correctly by ordering XXIV and II Corps to withdraw from the Bainsizza during the night, to turn toward the north, and to join up with VII Corps in the Natisone valley and on the southern slopes of the Kolovrat. Meanwhile Lieutenant-General Capello had gone to his in Cormons, despite his severe bout of influenza, having already received garbled and unconnected reports on events at IV Corps. He was not

HQ

particularly disturbed by them, but arranged for three of his reserve divisions to be despatched to the upper Natisone valley, in order to establish a block there. Then he

moved his HQ to Cividale. By this time Cadorna had already ordered the commander of the Carnian Zone, Lieutenant-General Tassoni, to occupy the

Austrians and Germans were already advancing on the Monte Stol and pressing forward to Luico. The news arrived at about midday that the Monte Stol had been lost: it had been defended to the last round of ammunition by Alpini troops until they had had to retreat. It was now that the first thoughts of a large scale withdrawal

mind of the Commando

summit of the Monte Maggiore which commanded the Uccea valley west of Saga, and to hold it at all costs. This summit was to

emerged Supremo

be the pivot of the Italian defence if the Isonzo position had to be given up. Around midnight Cadorna ordered the Duke of Aosta and Lieutenant-General Capello to prepare the Tagliamento for defence, dis-

the idea when he ordered the Duke of Aosta, during the early hours of October

creetly

and under greatest secrecy.

'400,000 soldiers were going home' The catastrophe on the left wing of the Italian Second Army did not become fully clear until October 25 when Capello had

inform Cadorna, during the morning, that every position on his front east of the Isonzo had been lost, and that the

to

in

the

in Udine.

Cadorna himself had been working on

25, to

withdraw Third Army's heavy and

medium

artillery

behind the River Piave.

midday he received the very sick Capello, who implored him 'to give up contact with the aggressors and to withdraw At

at once to the Torre, or better still, behind the Tagliamento'. Cadorna agreed and Capello proceeded to his HQ at Cividale. The catastrophe which was developing around the Italian armies could probably have been reduced if Capello had not suddenly become so weak during the early

afternoon while he was working on the orders for withdrawal that he had to hand over his command to General Montouri. Even Cadorna had become uncertain and consulted Montouri on the retreat. He, in turn, insisted on consultation with his corps commanders and then informed Cadorna at 2100 hours that he considered the continued defence of the present positions held the promise of success. How General Montouri reached this conclusion, which was wildly divorced from reality, is uncertain. Ronald Seth writes: 'How the corps commanders and Montouri ever reached this opinion is one of the great mysteries of the whole battle. The only possible solution seems to be that the corps commanders were so out of touch with what was happening that they were ignorant of the true facts; and yet this seems incredible.' Anyway, the fact was that on the evening of October 25 two Italian corps were already fleeing from the mountains to the Friuli-Venetian Plain, and the Austro-German troops began to reap a

2369

success not hitherto experienced on the Italian Front. General Emilio Faldella remarked in his History of the First World War that it was a question of a grave error of leadership on the part of the Commando Supremo and the command of Second Army: 'On the subject of the reserves, the principal mistake was that they were held too far back from the Plezzo (Flitsch) valley. If there had been only one division at Bergogna ready to occupy the Stol and the valley of the Uccea, which leads up to the Saga, there could have been better resistance during the day of October 25.' However it may be, the Austro-German High Command had analysed correctly the vulnerable point of the Italian Isonzo front and there crushed the Italian troops by surprise tactics, though it must be said that the troops in the front line fought valiantly, with the exception of those at Caporetto. The German 12th Division had already gained the upper reaches of the Natisone valley at Creda by nightfall on October 24. During the next day they encountered strong resistance which was broken only when the German Alpine Corps succeeded in forcing a way across the Monte S Martino and between Luico and the Monte Matajur, right across the mountain range towards the south. Thus when the first German troops reached the Friuli-Venetian Plain in the Cividale area, units of Gruppe Krauss in the north had reached S Giorgio in the Resia valley from the direction of Saga, captured the Monte Rombon and crossed the Nevea saddle in the direction of the Racolan valley towards Chiusaforte and towards Resiutta in the Fella valley. That meant that the Austrian Kaiser Light Infantry Regiment 3 had captured, on October 26, the Monte Maggiore — the pivot of the Italian defence, as envisaged by Cadorna. In the south Gruppen Berrer and Scotti occupied the Globacek and advanced on the Italian third line of defence at

Monte Corado. The Austrian Second Army routed the Italians, who were already in the process of abandoning their positions, from the Bainsizza and on the Isonzo. Only the Austrian First Army was kept in reserve. With the advance on October 27 by the German Alpine Corps and the German 200th and 26th Divisions beyond Cividale and on to the River Torre only a few thousand yards from the Udine, the rout of the Italian army was complete. The Austrian Press did not exaggerate unduly in its reports of the capture of 60,000 Italian soldiers, while the reports by the German Fourteenth Army on Italian positions suggested the wholesale flight of Italian units from the mountains into the Venetian Plain.

At midnight, October 27, Cadorna received a report that the Austrians had penetrated the Porta di Montemaggiore. With the Italian Isonzo army in complete rout, he had no alternative but to order a 'systematic withdrawal' to the Tagliamento, and to reiterate his pleas for assistance from his French and British allies.

Further Reading Cadorna, Gen. L, La Guerre

alia

Fronte

Italians (Milan) R., Caporetto-The Scapegoat Battle (Macdonald 1965)

Seth,

[For Dr Kurt Peball's biography, see page 935.]

2370

'Soon the

Italian fire

lessened

and searchlight activity diminished. The gas had obviously done its work.

A Austrian

15-cm heavy field howitzer M 99. Range: 6,780 yards. Weight in action: Two tons 8.5 cwt. Weight limbered: Two tons 14.6 cwt. Weight of shell: 1 56 lbs. Muzzle velocity: 960 feet-per-second. Elevation: — 2 degrees/ -f-45 degrees. Crew: Eight, flare of fire: Two rounds-per-minute <] Austrian 15-cm heavy field howitzer M 14. Range: 8,858 yards. Weight in action: Two tons nine cwt. Weight of shell: 2 8 lbs. Muzzle velocity: 1,120 feet-per-second. Elevation: —5 degrees/+ 70 degrees. Crew: Eight. Motor transport was frequently employed Austrian 10.4-cm field gun. Range: 13,670 yards. Weight in action: Two tons five cwt. Muzzle velocity: 2,230 feet-per-second. Elevation: —10 degrees/+30 degrees. The gun was made of nickel steel, and the shrapnel shell had 70 bullets

VThe feld grau

uniform of the Austrian

Shown is the Austrian-style steel helmet with a ventilation hole in the top, although usually a cap rather than a steel helmet was worn. He is carrying a tornister (calf-hide full pack), a bread bag on his hip, and the M 1895 Mannlicher 8-mm rifle

infantry,

introduced

in late 1915.

V

2371

after

I

Caporetto

^

/ i

u With the panic spreading to most units, at midnight in the third day Cadorna ordered the disintegrating Italian forces to fall back to the line of the River Tagliamento. But the rout was to gain momentum and during the next few days the Italians were pushed right back to the Piave, deep inside their homeland. Here they resolved to stand. Ronald Seth. Above: The victors pose on an abandoned heavy gun 2372

The Italian Second and Third Armies were ordered to retire from the Isonzo front on October 27, 1917. The Third Army started off in good array, but as no one, least of the Commander, the Duke of Aosta, had been expecting the move, there was no time to draw up specific orders. In consequence, instructions were issued every few minutes and almost immediately changed, with the result that there was no attempt at traffic control and soon the lines of re1

treat were

jammed. Nor was the situation

helped by the mass of civilian refugees who, as soon as they realised what the army was doing, decided to emulate it and

.move off in the same direction. And the whole movement, which would have been uncomfortable at any time, as all retreats are, was made much worse by the heavy rain that continued to fall throughout the night. Fortunately for Third Army, the

Austro-Hungarian Army Commander, General Boroevich, on the Carso opposite, was taken off guard by the Italian move, and made no attempt to follow in pursuit. The Second Army's withdrawal was even more chaotic than the Third's, for conditions in its zone had already been extremely confused

when

its

received. General

order to retreat was

Montuori had been

in-

structed to fall back behind the River Torre, under cover of a rearguard, onto the third line of defence. But as a result of German pressure on Cividale, the left wing of the Italian XXVII Corps fell back on the Torre much too quickly. The AustroGermans, striving to maintain contact, lurched after it, and the impetus of their movement drove a wedge between Second wings, greatly adding Army's two to the already confused situation. However, early on the following day, October 28, the German pressure slackened somewhat, and Montuori breathed a sigh of relief. Too soon, however, for by a freak

chance a comparatively small body of Germans breached VII Corps' line, thereby creating another disaster for the Italians. The Second Army had been ordered to hold the line along the Torre until the evening of October 29, to give Third Army time to get clear with as much of its equipment as it could take with it. Like the Tagliamento, the Torre was in flood. Nevertheless, owing to the breach in VII Corps' line, Berrer's German 200th Division crossed the river at 0400 hours on the 29th, and swinging southward, widened the gap and drove towards Udine, where

Cadorna had established

his

High Com2373

";?

Sn M

7

Above General Armando

Diaz, the relatively

unknown corps commander who succeeded Cadorna as Italian C-in-C during the retreat. Above right: The debris of a hasty retreat on one of the roads away from the Tagliamento Below right: A reinforced dugout thrown up by the Austrians limit of their

when

they reached the Piave, the

advance

mand, and where Montuori also had

HQ. The 200th Division arrived

his

the town in the early afternoon, missing the

High

Command and

Second

in

Army HQ by

only an hour or two. Berrer, hard on the heels of his troops, was shot dead by an Italian carabiniere as he drove into the town. However, his troops split Second

Army

in two. In view of the utter confusion in which Second Army was deeply immersed, it seems at first sight surprising that the Germans did not achieve much more than they did. But they also were having their troubles. Many of their troops were newcomers not yet acclimatised to high altitudes, who tired rapidly. Secondly, the Austrian units of Below's Fourteenth Army and of Boroevich's Isonzo Armies had been short of food for a long period and one of the inducements that had been held out to them was the abundant food they woujd find in the villages of the Friulian plain. Somewhat to their surprise, they found these stories had not been myths, and unheeding of all orders, they paused in their pursuit to eat roundly for the first time

for

being constantly changed. As a result there was continual friction between staffs and field commanders. The situation came to a head on October 30.

Army had

temper and recriminations. In the event, Krauss and Stein were successfully stopped by the Italians, while Hofacker's attempt to cross the river at Codroipo created a scene of indescribable confusion. About 350,000 Italian stragglers and 40,000 refugees were all heading for the bridges by which he had hoped to cross the river, and in addition, impedimenta were cluttering the approach fields and thus presenting an immovable obstacle. Hofacker was tempted, at first, to disobey his Commander's orders However, he eventually decided to continue the pursuit and sent his Gruppe forward towards the Codroipo bridges. Immediately the Italians became aware of the approach of these troops they blew up the bridges,

annihilated'.

despite the fact that 12,000 of their men and large quantities of equipment and supplies were still on the wrong side of the

many months.

Thirdly, the German and Austrian Chiefs of Staff had originally ordained that the

German Fourteenth Army would advance no further than the Tagliamento. However, on the evening of October 29 Below ordered the bridges over the river to be seized before they could be destroyed. Within a short time of the order being given, Below was being asked by Ludendorff when he could have back five divisions needed for the Western Front. Below replied that as the situation in the Friulian plain was developing well he would retain these troops until the Tagliamento had been crossed. The Austrian Chief of Staff, in support of Below, telegraphed Hindenburg stressing that no troops should be withdrawn until the Piave was reached. The Italians' rapid retreat had clearly taken the Germans by surprise, and in their unreadiness, they, too, had not been able to issue coherent orders, which were also

2374

Pursuit to the death During the afternoon of the 29th, Hofacker, who had succeeded the dead Berrer as Gruppe commander, decided that the situation would give him a good opportunity to cut off the larger part of the Italian

Army and the right wing of Second Army. So he gave orders for his troops to wheel southward on to Latisana, at the same time persuading Scotti, on his left, to support him. At midnight, howThird

having heard that Third not yet crossed the Tagliamento, ordered the pursuit to be continued without any loss of time 'until the Italian army is ever,

Below,

His Gruppe commanders, Krauss, Stein and Hofacker, carried out these instructions on the following day, but in order to do so, they had to cross the front of

Boroevich's able result

Second Army. The inevitwas collisions, delays, loss

of

river.

At Pozzuoli the Italian XXIV Corps produced quite a different picture. They held off Hofacker's other divisions and Scotti 's Austrian divisions until nightfall. Thenafter three of

XXIV

Corps' divisions crossed

the Tagliamento at Madrisio and the remainder at Latisana, after a night march. The Austro-German pursuit had not, in effect, been a great success. None of the bridges across the Tagliamento had been seized, and by 0100 hours on October 31 the three Italian armies, except 250,000 men taken prisoner, were across the river. It had been Cadorna's intention, once across the Tagliamento, to pause so that his forces could form into some sort of order, and to give time for defences to be prepared on the River Piave, to which, even on this day, October 31, he knew he would have to fall back. He was able to carry out this intention, because when the German field commanders attempted to carry out Below's orders, part of their Fourteenth Army, in trying to cross Second Army's front, became caught up with that army, and instead of area. When of the right corps of Second

withdrawing, remained in the

commander

its

Army saw what was

happening, he informed Below that he was going to take over command of all the German soldiers in the area allotted to him, no matter to which army they belonged. So he forced his way through Fourteenth Army, but just as he was drawing clear, he found himself driving across Gruppe Scotti's front. Once again there was confusion, and by the time it was straightened out, night had fallen and all the German troops were still on the wrong side of the Tagliamento straight

awaiting the arrival of pontoons. Almost as soon as the Austro-German advance had begun on October 24, the Italian government had asked the British government for help. The British government had not been alarmed, because Cadorna had told the CIGS that he would be able to hold out for five weeks if attacked. Nor were they alarmed by the scanty news that reached them on the following day. On October 26, however, the day on which the Second Battle of Passchendaele began, Lloyd George was so perturbed by the information received from Colonel DelmeRatcliffe, head of the British Military Mission to Italy, that without consulting the War Cabinet, he directed the CIGS to send two divisions from France to Italy as quickly as possible. In the early hours of October 27, General Foch, who at this time had no command and had been sent to Italy by the French government, inquired of Cadorna whether

he needed help. If he did, Foch said, it would be forthcoming, because Paris had already decided to send four divisions to Italy. Cadorna told Foch that the situation was indeed very grave and that he was in need of all the help that could be spared. The British XIV Corps and the 23rd and 41st Divisions, together with No 28 and No 34 Squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps were placed under orders for Italy; and XIV Corps' commander, Lieutenant-General the Earl of Cavan, was placed temporarily in command. The French selected the staff

Tenth Army and the staff of XXXI Corps, and the 46th, 47th, 64th and 65th

of their

The seven groups of French which were in the process of being withdrawn from Italy, were ordered to stay where they were, and six other similar groups were sent to join them. All this was decided by October 27. It is Divisions.

heavy

artillery,

a different matter to move from nominating and allocating to shifting even such small forces, and it was not until

quite

October 29 that a movements plan was agreed upon. The earliest date on which the British and French troops could be on their

way to Italy was November 6. Painleve, the French Prime Minister, and Lloyd George had decided to visit Italy to boost the morale of the Italian government, and to see for themselves what the situation was. General Foch and the CIGS were instructed to go ahead of the Prime Ministers, and they arrived at

Cadorna's new headquarters at Treviso on October 30 and 31 respectively. Though Cadorna told Foch that he had directed resistance to be made on the Tagliamento, Foch telegraphed Paris, '[he does not appear] to place much reliance on this; he already has his eyes turned towards the Piave'. Cadorna also suggested to Foch that all the Allied contingents should be brought up to the Montello position on the Piave, so that when the Italian armies fell back on that river, Third Army would be on the Allied right flank, and Fourth Army on their left flank, while the battered Second Army would go into reserve.

Foch agreed. But hardly had orders been issued when Cadorna asked for two French divisions to be sent to Brescia. Again Foch agreed, but said that the other two divisions must remain at Verona, instead of going to,the Piave, to prevent too great a dispersal of the French troops. When Robertson arrived on October 31, he and Foch immediately conferred. They agreed that the 20 divisions Cadorna had asked for were not needed, since, in their view, the Italian forces were not beaten, and that provided order was re-established they could easily hold not only the Tagliamento, but offer resistance on the Piave, and on the northern (Trentino) front also. Disintegration and flight

By November

1

the Italian armies were

safely behind the Tagliamento, and on that day and the following one, they held off frontal attacks launched by the Germans on the passages across the river. These failures by the Germans decided General Below to try another tack. Asking for

the co-operation of the Austrian Tenth Army on his right, he planned to turn the Italian line from the north, with Longarone, on the upper Piave, his objective. These plans were abandoned, however, when on the night of November 2 the Austrian 55th Division forced a passage over the Tagliamento by the partly damaged railway bridge at Cornino, and by the German 12th Division rushing the permanent foot-bridge near Pinzano, at the same time fording the river a little further

The Italian Second Army, what remained of it, disintegrated and, according to German record, vanished. Below resouth.

turned to direct pursuit.

The Austro-German breakthrough at Cornino and Pinzano also threatened the Italian XII Corps, two of whose three divisions were cut off in the mountains by Gruppe Krauss, and driven towards the Austrian Tenth Army. During November 4 and 5, 10,000 men of these divisions were taken prisoner. The 3rd Division of XII Corps managed to escape westwards.

On the

afternoon of November

3,

Cadorna

informed the Italian government of the extreme seriousness of the situation, and that he proposed to withdraw his Third and Fourth Armies to the Piave, which he be-

lieved could be done in good order.

The

he intended to hold behind the Piave stretched from the sea to the steep bend which the river makes around the Montello, an oval-shaped hill which rises isolated from the surrounding plain, and which, with Mount Grappa, was a very important pivot. Both had been fortified after the Trentino offensive in 1916, and a huge entrenched camp had been prepared line

east of Treviso at the same time, as a support to the Piave line. The Italian Third Army was allotted the sector which extended from the sea to a bridge just south of Nervisa, and Fourth Army, the remainder — a total front of 120 miles, which was 100 miles shorter than the Isonzo front had been. The movements of Third and Second Armies — the latter was going into reserve — pre-

sented no difficulties, but Fourth Army placed in a considerable predicament. To reach its sector on the Piave from the line which it had held on the upper Tagliamento for the last two years, it had to file down the valley of the upper Piave past Longarone and Belluno. It would not have been such a dangerous situation had General di Robilant carried out the orders which Cadorna had given him on November 1— to bring his advanced troops back behind the crest of the Carnic Alps. However, Cadorna was certain that the movements could be carried out successfully. Now, on October 30, the British Prime Minister had again broached with Painleve the desirability of setting up a Supreme War Council, a suggestion he had first put forward on October 14. Painleve agreed, and it was decided that the two prime ministers should travel to Rapallo, 15 miles east of Genoa, and there discuss the plan with Signor Orlando and the Italian government. Foch and the CIGS were also summoned from Rome to attend the conference. The French and British held a preliminary meeting on the evening of November 4, at which a plan for sending help to Italy was agreed. When the Italian delegation arrived next day, it urged that 15 British and French divisions should be sent to help hold the Piave line. The French and British were of the opinion that this was far too many, and it was finally decided that eight divisions would suffice, the British promising to send two more immediately and others if called for. At their preliminary meeting on November 4, the French and British had also taken another decision, at the insistence of Lloyd George, supported by the CIGS. Both the Prime Minister and General Robertson had developed what amounted to a pathological hatred of Cadorna, and they were determined that he must be replaced. Painleve accepted the suggestion and at the meeting of the conference on the morning of November 8, presided over by the King of Italy, they urged the King to remove his Chief of General Staff. The King replied that it had already been decided to remove Cadorna, though he did not agree with all the criticisms which had been levelled against the general. The official communication of dismissal was prepared in Rome during the afternoon of November 8* and reached Cadorna on the morning of the following day within a short time of his having issued a stirring Order of the Day, which concluded with these words: We have taken the inflexible

was

2375

decision to defend here, on the new positions to the Stelvio, the honour and the life of Italy. Let every soldier know what is the cry, the command issuing from the conscience of the whole Italian people: To die and not to yield! Cadorna was succeeded by a relatively unknown corps commander, General Armando Diaz. If Cadorna ever needed vindication, he received it from his successor on the day following his appointment. Diaz reported to the Italian government that having had the opportunity of studying the dispositions and movements ordered by his predecessor, he would make no changes, with the exception of countermanding the orders given to Fourth and Fifth Armies to abandon their positions on the hills above the upper Piave, for no better plan than Cadnorna's could be devised, and he intended to implement it

from the Piave

'Let every soldier

the command issuing from the

know

whole Italian people: To die and not to yield!'

«~

in full.

There now began an almost miraculous transformation in the whole Italian situation. By November 11 di Robilant was in position from the Montello to the Brenta, and the Germans, having forced their way down the upper Piave, joined up with their forces in the Val Sugana. Diaz most feared a breakout by the Germans from the northern mountains, but the rain had returned and the mountain tops were white with snow, and it was unlikely that an attempt would be made under these conditions. The situation now saw the Italian First Army facing the Austrian Eleventh Army on the Asiago Plateau; the Austrian Tenth and part of Below's Fourteenth Army were

•

opposite di Robilant's Fourth Army from the Brenta to the Montello; and from the Montello to the sea, the Duke of Aosta's Third Army faced the remainder of the

* %.

i Titrffltfr

Jr

r

*

j«(**cr 44*£

$¥ j^^^"^^

flWPfc-

German

Fourteenth and the two Isonzo Boroevich. Di Robilant's Fourth Army, however, was too thinly strung out to please Diaz, and he ordered up all the men who could he (bund in depots and garrisons, for the most part halttrained youths of 17 and 18. All stood poised for the decisive battle. On October 28, the British GHQ in France despatched advanced parties to Italy, with instructions to report to the British Military Mission attached to the Italian Commando Supremo (General Headquarters). Three days later the main body of the 23rd and 41st Divisions were given their entrainment orders. About midday on November 6 the movement was begun and was completed by November 17. Lieutenant-General Lord Cavan, the temporary British Commander, accompanied by the Prince of Wales as his ADC, arrived at Pavia on the morning of November 5.

Armies

He went on immediately

to

Padua, where

he was received by King Victor Emmanuel and the head of the British Mission. On November 6 he visited the Commando

Supremo

at Treviso,

and had a long talk

with General Cadorna who was disappointed by the decision to concentrate the British forces so far back in the area Pavia-Mortara-Milan-Lodi. Lord Cavan agreed, subject to the consent of the British War Cabinet, to advance the concentration to the area about Mantua, where its northern flank would be covered by the French concentration near Lake Garda. When Diaz took over from Cadorna on November 9, he had pressed for the British concentration to be brought nearer still, but to this Cavan would not agree. However, it was thought advisable to send small parties of British troops to various Italian units, so that their presence could

however, On November seen. General Sir Henry Wilson and General Foch met General Diaz, who insisted on the absolute necessity for French divisions to take over the Piave line from Nervesa to a point around the Montello, otherwise he be

under

British (Gen

Sir

Herbert Plumer)

28 & 41 SQUADRON RFC XIV CORPS:23 &4I DIVISIONS

French (General Fayolle)

6

GROUPES OF

HEAVY ARTILLERY Gen Nounsson

XII CORPS?-

& 24 DIVISIONS XXXI CORPS:46> 47) 64 & 65 DIVISIONS 23

mnf-iviii.

AThe

French and British reinforcements which rushed to bolster the Italians. By November 27 (just over a month after the beginning of Caporetto) they were on the front near Vicenza VThe focal point for both the retreating and attacking forces — the bridges over the Isonzo, Tagliamento and Piave. The confusion of the pursuit matched the chaos of the retreat, and usually the Italians were able to reach the

bridges

first

and blow them

1

1

,

could not be responsible for that sector; and he pointed out that if the Montello was lost, the whole line would be lost. Foch would not agree, and a heated argument followed, during which Diaz read out a telegram from the Italian Prime Minister which urged that the Allied troops should be moved up, because there was a general feeling throughout the country that the Allies were hanging back. Eventually Foch gave orders for four French divisions to be brought up to the Vicenza area, and Cavan was instructed to bring up the British XIV Corps on to the French right. On the evening of November 13, General Sir Herbert Plumer,

who had been seconded

command

of the British Second

from the

Army

in France, arrived in

Mantua and

took over from Cavan. He decided at a meeting with Foch, Weygand, Sir Henry Wilson and Diaz to move the 23rd and 41st Divisions to the Vicenza line as soon as the road there could be cleared and billeting arrangements could be made, which Diaz thought could be done by November 19. He reported to the War Cabinet that if the Italians could hold the Piave line until the French and British were on the Vicenza line 'we should be able to hold that for some time, cover the retirement of the Italians, if one is made, and possibly deliver a counterstroke'. He also advised that two more British divisions should be sent out, followed by a brigade of cavalry. Meanwhile the French had sent up their XXXI Corps, comprising the 64th and 65th

%«*

-irta..

^

ft

*

^Wrf

i

Divisions,

commanded by General Rozee By November 12, the 46th and

d'Infreville.

VA British

patrol comes under shellf ire as Centers a village on the front line

A Another village near the front; a French colonel reviews his regiment

47th Divisions had also arrived, and XII Corps — the 23rd and 24th Divisions — under' General Nourisson were due by November 22. All the French troops were under the command of General Fayolle, who had been commander of the Central Group of Armies in France. Foch was of the opinion that the British and French troops should be under a single command, and that Fayolle should be the commander. The CIGS, however, absolutely refused to place such a brilliant general as Plumer in a subordinate command. He could scarcely do otherwise, for he had already given Plumer written assurance of complete independence. While both British and French contingents were moving into position, on November 16 the Austro-Germans launched their offensive on the Piave line. They made little progress initially, but when General Below took over personal command, he ordered an attack on the centre, which overlooked Monte Tomba. This attack, launched on November 22, also failed,

the other four, including the Alpine Corps and the Jdger Division, were to remain in Italy for the present

though with the aid of flame throwers

Monte Tomba was taken. This was followed by a general attack on

The miracle which Cadorna had initiwas brought to fruition by Diaz.

the whole front from the Piave to the Brenta. It began on November 23 and continued through to November 25. But the Austrians, poorly fed and almost in rags, were not in a fighting mood, and the Italians held them everywhere. On November 22 Diaz, Foch and Plumer agreed that the British and French troops should advance beyond the Vicenza line so that they could eventually take over the right of the Italian Fourth Army. There were one or two setbacks, but by November 27 the troops were in position. The British Official History says at this point: On November 23 General Foch, feelIn the ing that all was well, left Italy. eyes of the Allies the departure of General Foch marked the close of the great Caporetto offensive; hut it was not until December .

.

.

-r

Further Reading

Cadorna, General

.

.

Luigi,

La Guerra

alia

Fronte

Italiana (Milan)

Lloyd George, David, War Memories (Nicholson

and Watson) Ludendorff, General Erich von, Memoirs (Hutchinson)

My War

The War on the Italian Front (Cobden Sanderson, London)

Villari, Luigi,

Volpe, G., Ottobre 1917-dell'lsonzo al Piave

(Rome)

RONALD SETH. whose specialist field is the history, organisation and techniques of espionage, has also made a name for himself as a writer of military and naval history His books Return, Barbarossa: The Defence ot Moscow are on the required reading list at Sandhurst and West Point, and Caporetto The Scapegoat Battle became a best seller in Italy, selling almost 100.000 copies

.

2 that it was officially brought to an end on the Piave front by the Austro-Germans when the little Zenson bridgehead on the Piave was evacuated. Three of the German divisions were ordered back to Germany

'

ated,

—

Generals Diaz and Babington Division)

manage

(British

23rd

a smile, despite the debacle

ROMMEL IN ITALY In October 1917 Erwin Rommel (later to rise to fame in the Second World War) was a young man in command of a crack mountain unit on the Isonzo front. Marching at the head of the column, at 0800 hours on the 24th he led his men against the Italians on the first day of Caporetto. By the third day, as he describes in his own words, he and his men were exhausted by the gruelling terrain (pictured on the right), but the Italians' flight had opened up such good opportunities for rapid advance that he was keen to continue. .

.

In spite of the exhaustion following the seizure of Mount Cragonza, I was unable to give my men a well-earned rest on the summit. The splendid Technical Sergeant Hugel took up his new job with his characteristic energy, exploited his limited forces to a maximum and, without waiting for support, attacked along the ridge rising

towards Hill 1192 (3,840 feet) and the Mr/.li peak in order to gain additional ground. sent orders by runners to the detachI ment to follow quickly over Mount Cragonza and to take the Matajur road in the joined the direction of Mrzli peak. Then 2nd Company. A hundred yards farther on we ran into the enemy who was dug in on I

a wooded knoll on the ridge. On the east slope to our right the noise of combat increased considerably. Apparently rearward units of the Rommel detachment, climbing

from Jevszek towards Cragonza, were being fired on or attacked. But it might have been units of the Alpine Corps attempting to climb the Matajur Road from Luico to Mount Cragonza. Technical Sergeant Hugel was a past master at holding the

enemy who was weapons

superior in numbers and while simultaneously flank and rear with

frontally, attacking him in

These movements were accomplished in a few minutes and led to a repulse of the enemy, causing him to retire to the northeast, downhill towards assault

I

squads.

uico. .Since

we attacked readily whenever we met the enemy, contact with our rear was soon broken.

A

report reached us that the

detachment was being delayed by strong machine gun fire from Italian positions northeast of Cragonza and was almost a decided not to halt the mile behind me. I

2nd Company but

to continue the attack against the Mrzli peak until we encountered a strong enemy. By 0830 the 2nd Company, having dwindled to a platoon with two light machine guns, captured Hill 1192 a mile and a half west of Avsa. The enemy pre-

A German

section,

equipped with a light machine well

gun.

'.

.

.

every

Wurttemberg Mountain trooper in my opinion the equal of 20 Italians.'

was

(Rommel)

vented a further advance. He was in considerable strength half a mile northeast of Mrzli peak and plastered our newly won hilltop with heavy machine gun fire. A minimum force required to attack the enemy on the southeast slope of the Mrzli was estimated at two rifle companies and one machine gun company. In order to assemble these forces quickly, I hurried to the rear down the Matajur road. Hugel had orders to hold Hill 1192. Even after searching far and wide I found no liaison officer of the trailing Rommel detachment. After rounding a curve 700 yards south of Hill 1192, I suddenly ran into an Italian detachment which was coming from the direction of Avsa and was crossing the Matajur road. The Bersaglieri grabbed their rifles and fired. A quick leap into the bushes just below the road saved me from the aimed fire. A few adversaries followed me downslope through the bushes. But while they hastened down towards the valley, I was climbing towards Hill 1192. Arriving there, I ordered a fairly strong scout squad to establish contact with the other units of the Rommel detachment and to give the various company commanders the order to close up Hill 1192 as soon as possible. I had to wait until 1000 hours before I had assembled a force equal to two rifle and one machine gun company. These groups were composed of all companies of the Rommel detachment. Their approach to Hill 1192 was greatly delayed, because the various units were repeatedly involved in battles with the enemy, who was trying to retreat in a southwesterly direction across the Mount Cragonza -Hill 1192 line. I felt we were strong enough to engage the Italian garrison on the Mrzli. By means of light signals we asked for artillery fire on the hostile positions on the southeast slope of the Mrzli peak, with the astounding result that German shells were soon striking there. Then the lively fire of the machine gun company from Hill 1192 pinned the hostile garrison down in their

positions while two rifle companies under my leadership came into close combat with the Italians just below the ridge road. We succeeded in turning the hostile west flank. Then we swung in against the flank and rear of the hostile positions. But the enemy hastily withdrew when he saw us attacking in this direction and retired to the east slope of the Mrzli. We took a few dozen prisoners. Since I did not intend to follow the enemy retreating on the east or north slopes of the Mrzli, I broke off the engagement, continued down the ridge road towards the south slopes of the Mrzli and

brought up the machine gun company. Already during our attack we had observed hundreds of Italian soldiers in an extensive bivouac area in the saddle of the Mrzli between its two highest prominences. They were standing about, seemingly irresolute and inactive, and watched our advance as if petrified. They had not expected the Germans from a southerly direction — that is, from the rear. We were only a mile away from this concentration of troops. The Matajur road wound up over the partially wooded south slope of the Mrzli and, on the way west to the Matajur, passed just under the hostile encampment.

The number

of the

enemy

in the saddle

on the Mrzli was continually increasing until the Italians must have had two or three battalions massed there. Since they

come out fighting, I moved nearer along the road, waving a handkerchief, with my detachment echeloned in great depth. The three days of the offensive had indicated how we should deal with the new enemy. We approached to within 1,100 yards and nothing happened. He had no intention of fighting although his position was far from hopeless! Had he committed all his forces, he would have crushed my weak detachment and regained Mount Cragonza. Or he could have retired to the Matajur massif almost unseen under the fire support of a few machine guns. Nothing like that happened. In a dense human mass the hostile formation stood there as though did not

petrified and did not budge. Our waving with handkerchiefs went unanswered. We drew nearer and moved into a dense high forest 700 yards from the enemy and thus out of his line of sight, for he was located about 300 feet up the slope. The road bent sharply to the east and we wondered what the enemy up there would do. Perhaps he had decided to fight? If he rushed downhill we would have had a man to man battle in the forest. The enemy was fresh, had tremendous numerical superiority, and moreover enjoyed the advantage of being able to fight downhill. Under these conditions I considered it a vital necessity to reach the edge of the wood below the hostile camp. But my mountain troopers with the heavy machine guns on their backs were so exhausted that I did not expect them to make the steep climb through dense underbrush. Therefore I allowed the detachment to continue marching along the road while Lieutenant Streicher, Dr Lenz, a few mountain soldiers and I climbed on a broad front, about 100 yards interval between men, and took the shortest route through the forest towards the enemy. Lieutenant Streicher surprised a hostile machine gun crew and took it prisoner. We reached the edge of the forest unhindered. We were still 300 yards from the enemy above the Mata-

jur road;

it

was a huge mass

of

men. Much

shouting and gesticulating was going on. They all had weapons in their hands. Up front there seemed to be a group of officers. The leading elements were not expected for some time and I estimated them to be at the hairpin turn 700 yards to the east.. With the feeling of being forced to act before the adversary decided to do something, I left the edge of the forest and, walking steadily forward, demanded, by calling and waving my handkerchief, that the enemy surrender and lay down his weapons. The mass of men stared at me and did not move. I was about 100 yards from the edge of the woods, and a retreat under enemy fire was impossible. I had the im-

pression that

were

I

must not stand

still

1 came to within 150 yards of the enemy! Suddenly the mass began to move and, in the ensuing panic, swept its resisting officers along downhill. Most of the soldiers threw their weapons away and hundreds hurried to me. In an instant I was surrounded and hoisted on Italian shoulders. 'Evviva Germania!' sounded from a thousand throats. An Italian officer who hesitated to surrender was shot down by his own troops. For the Italians on Mrzli peak the war was over. They shouted with joy. Now the head of my mountain troops came up along the road from the forest. They moved forward with their habitual easy but powerful mountaineer stride in spite of the hot sun and their heavy loads. Through an Italian who spoke German I ordered the prisoners to line up facing east and below the Matajur road. There were 1,500 men of the 1st Regiment of the

Salerno Brigade.

I

did not

let

my own

Italians

de-

tachment halt at all, but I did call one officer and three men out of the column. Two mountain riflemen were assigned to move the Italian regiment across Mount Cragonza to Luico; and the disarming and removal of the 43 Italian officers, separated from their men, was entrusted to Sergeant Goppinger. The Italian officers became pugnacious after seeing the weak Rommel detachment and they tried to reestablish control over their men. But now it was too late. Goppinger performed his duty conscientiously.

While the disarmed regiment moved down towards the valley, the Rommel detachment moved past just below the Italian camp ground. Some captured Italians had

me

shortly before that the 2nd Regiof the Salerno Brigade was on the slopes of the Matajur; it was a very famous Italian regiment which had been repeatedly praised by Cadorna in his order of the day because of outstanding achievements told

ment

They assured me that regiment would certainly fire on us

before the enemy. this

The conquest of Mrzli and Matajur peaks by Rommel's troops on the second day of Caporetto. His task was made considerably easier by the willing surrender of so many

we

or

lost.

and that we would have to be careful. Their assumption was correct. The head of the Rommel detachment no sooner reached the west slope of the Mrzli than strong machine gun fire opened up from Hills 1467 (4,842 feet) and 1424 (4,700 feet). The hostile machine gun fire was excellently adjusted on the road and soon swept it clear. Dense bushes below the road protected us from aimed fire. My men were soon under control and I continued the march, not below the Matajur road in the direction of Hill 1467 but in a sharp turn to the southwest. I wanted to cross Hill 1223 (4,035 feet) at the double and head towards the hairpin turn in the Matajur road just south of Hill 1424. Once there, then the 2nd Regiment of the Salerno Brigade could scarcely escape and would be in a position similar to that of the 1st Regiment a half hour before. The only difference would be that a withdrawal to the south across the bare slopes of the

Matajur would be prevented by our fire, whereas on Mrzli peak a covered retreat through the wooded zone had remained open to the Italians. In order to deceive the enemy, I ordered a few machine guns to fire from the west slopes of the Mrzli. With the rest of the detachment I reached the turn of the road seven hundred yards south of Hill 1424 without undergoing hostile fire, for the enemy was unable to observe our movement through thick clumps of bushes. I prepared a surprise attack on the garrison of Hill 1424, which was still firing on the rearward units of the Rommel detachment and on our machine guns on the Mrzli. The success of the Mrzli had caused us to forget all our efforts, our fatigue, our sore feet and our shoulders chafed by heavy burdens. While I was expeditiously carrying out the preparations for the attack ordering the machine gun platoons in position, and organising assault squads, the order came from the rear: 'Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion withdraws.' (Major Sprosser had reached Mount Cragonza. The great num-

Mount Matajur

1641 Mount

Mrzli

1356

2 Regt

Regt Salerno Bde

a

Salerno Bde

1

^prZ.^

W1192

62

Inf

Regt

m&^

ber nl prisoners of the Rommel detachment, over 3,200 men, had reached him and given the impression that the hostile resistance on the Matajur massif was already hroken.) The battalion order to with-

left opened up again. Before us — scarcely 300 yards away — stood the 2nd Regiment of the Salerno Brigade. It was assembling and laying down its arms. Deeply moved,

draw resulted in all units of the Rommel detachment marching back to Mount Cragonza, except for the hundred riflemen and six heavy machine gun crews who remained with me. I debated breaking off the engagement and returning to Mount

side,

Cragonza. No! The battalion order was given without knowledge of the situation on the south slopes of the Matajur. Unfinished business remained. To be sure, I did not figure on further reinforcements in the near future. But the terrain favoured the plan of attack greatly — and every Wiirttemberg Mountain trooper was in my opinion the equal of 20 Italians. We ventured to attack in spite of our ridiculously small numbers. Over on Hills 1421 and 1467 the defender was facing east among large rocks and he dived for cover when our unexpected machine gun fire hit him from the south. The heavy fragmentation up there in the rocks considerably increased the effect of each shot. The hostile reaction was slight. Our machine guns had been emplaced in dense, high bushes, so that the enemy had trouble locating them. We kept attacking. The heavy machine

guns were moved up

in echelon.

From

Hill

1467 a hostile battalion tried to move off to the southwest by way of Scrilo. But the fire of one of our machine guns, delivered at 60 yards from the head of the column, forced the battalion to halt. A few minutes later, waving handkerchiefs, we approached the rocky hill 600 yards south of Hill 1467. The enemy had ceased firing. Two heavy machine guns in our rear covered our advance. An unnatural silence prevailed. Now and then we saw an Italian slipping down through the rocks. The road itself wound among the rocks and restricted our view of the terrain to a few yards. As we swung around a sharp bend, the view to the

the regimental

regiment. Quickly, before the Italians saw small numbers, I separated the 35 officers from the 1,200 men so far assembled, and I sent the latter down the Matajur road at the double, towards Luico. The captured colonel fumed with rage when he saw that we were only a handful of German soldiers.

Without stopping I continued the attack against the summit of the Matajur. The latter was still a mile away and 700 feet above us and we could see the garrison in position on the rocky summit. It apparently did not intend to follow the example of its comrades on the south slopes of the Matajur

who had surrendered and were marching Lieutenant Leuze used his few machine guns to give fire support for the attack which we attempted on the shortest route from the south. But the hostile defensive fire was very heavy there and the avenues of approach were so disadvan-

away.

tageous that

his

preferred to turn to the east

down

its arms. surprised an entire Italian company on the sharp east ridge of the Matajur 600 yards east of the peak. In total ignorance of events in its rear, it was on the north and was engaged with scout squads of the 12th Division who were climbing towards the Matajur from Mount Delia Colonna. Our sudden appearance on the slope in the rear with weapons at the

laid

We

ready forced this enemy to surrender at once without resistance.

An officer who hesitated to surrender was

down by

I

on the arched slope, unseen by the enemy, and attack the summit position from Hill 1467. During this movement small squads of Italians, with and without weapons, kept on moving towards the spot where the 2nd Regiment of the Salerno Brigade had

camp, Tolmein. '"EvvivaGermania" sounded from a thousand throats.

troops.

sat at the road-

my

POW

shot

commander

surrounded by his officers, and wept with rage and shame over the insubordination of the soldiers of his once-proud

own

They shouted with joy.

tSQi

While Lieutenant Leuze fired on the garrison of the summit with a few machine guns from a southeasterly direction, I climbed with the other units of my small group in a westerly direction along the ridge and towards the summit. On a rocky knoll a quarter of a mile east of the peak, other heavy machine guns went into position as fire support for the assault team disposed on the south slope. But before we opened fire, the garrison of the summit gave the sign of surrender. 120 more men waited patiently until we took them prisoners at the ruined building (border guardhouse) on the summit of the Matajur, Hill 1641 (5,414 feet). A scout squad of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, consisting of a sergeant and six men, met us during its climb from the north. At 1140 on October 26, 1917, three green flares and a white one announced that the Matajur massif had fallen. I ordered a one-hour rest on the summit. Round about we saw the mighty mountain world in radiant sunshine. Our view reached far: in the northwest the Stol lay six miles away and was being attacked by the Flitsch Group. In the west we saw Mount Mia (1,228 feet) far below us. We could not see into the Natisone valley, though it lay only two miles away and 4,700 feet below us. In the southwest were the fertile fields around Udine, Cadorna's headquarters. In the south the Adriatic glittered. In the southeast and east were the mountains so well known to us: Cragonza, Mount San Martino, Mount Hum, Kuk, Summit 1114. That war was still round about us was indicated by the prisoners sitting amongst

weak

artillery fire, and by an air which an Italian machine plunged burning into the depths. Nothing

us, by battle,

in

to be seen of our neighbours. I dictated the report which Major Sprosser demanded every day to Lieutenant Streicher.

was

[This

extract

is

reprinted from Infantry

Attacks by Erwin Rommel.

\

THE THIRD BATTLE

OF GAZA Allenby's arrival in Palestine galvanised the British forces there. Now was their chance to break the Turkish line. Peter Young The long and

m

bitter struggle between the 'Easterners' and 'Westerners' took a turn in favour of the former when the War Cabinet decided to reinforce the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and undertake the conquest of Palestine, which now became the most important single theatre of war outside Europe. Lloyd George, now the Prime Minister, was the most ardent of the Easterners. He believed that a military success was needed in order to sustain civilian morale and, as he told General Sir Edmund Allenby before the latter's departure for Egypt, 'he wanted Jerusalem as a Christmas present for the British nation'. In the Middle East, the collapse of Russia had released considerable Turkish forces,

Above: Preparing

wooden horses

for Allenby's

breakthrough -

the Jordan valley to hide the withdrawal of three cavalry divisions to the area of the attack. The ruse deceived the Turks. Below: Gaza after its capture set

up

in

and these were assembling about Aleppo for a counteroffensive against Baghdad. It followed that an offensive in Palestine could relieve the pressure on General Maude's army in Mesopotamia. Despite this, however, Turkey's strategic was by 1917 anything but happy.

position

Mecca and Baghdad had fallen. Jerusalem was threatened. In fact matters were in so poor a state that in April the Germans had sent Falkenhayn to attempt to redress the balance. After an initial tour of inspection

BRITISH OFFENSIVE OCTOBER 31 BRITISH OFFENSIVE

NOVEMBER 4 BRITISH OFFENSIVE NOVEMBER 6 TURKISH POSITIONS OCTOBER 31 6 NOVEMBER 4 TURKISH POSITIONS

NOVEMBER 6 ROADS RAILWAYS

19Div

27Di\3Cav lDiv Beersheb*-//

British Offensive

2.386

November 1&2

OKMS

8

HI

Corps

Left: Allegby's

breakthrough

in

southern

artillery whole his

Palestine Above: Imperial

Camel Corps outside Beersheba, November 1, 1917. The Imperial Camel Corps Brigade had been formed for service in the Western Desert (against the Senussi) and in Sinai, mostly of Anzac cavalry but with a few yeomanry units. The men adapted quickly and successfully to riding camels, and adapted their reconnaissance techniques (they were used for long-range desert reconnaissance duties) to the capabilities of the camel in May and June he came to the conclusion that, providing the Palestine Front was secure, a fo rce, co uld be assembled to strike

"against BagHfflta. It was decided to concentrate the force for this projected operation about Aleppo. It was to be known as Yilderim or Lightning. It included the Asiatic Corps, a special body of German troops. The corps was commanded by Colonel von Franckenburg und Proschlitz and, with its engineer, signal and medical

ammunition and supply columns, numbered some 6,500. The staff of Yilderim was composed of 65 German and nine Turkish officers, the latter being junior officers whose duties units,

were liaison. General Liman von Sanders, who had served in Turkey for three and a half years, alleges that he was not even consulted as

Under the circumstances it is strange that the Germans put more grit than oil into the works of the Turkish military machine. In May, Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Chetwode had taken over command from Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Dobell and had worked out a plan for the assault on Gaza. Immediately after assuming command, Allenby made a close reconnaissance of the front and accepted Chetwode's plan, with slight modifications, and his estimate of the troops required, a total of ten divisions, including three mounted, against the Turks' seven, one mounted. In order to bring the British force to the strength which Allenby and Chetwode required, it was necessary to produce reinforcements of two divisions, plus artillery. To meet this need, the 10th Division came from Salonika and the 75th Division to the plan.

scarcely

was formed

in Egypt from British Terri-

and Indian units. not found possible to provide quite torial battalions

It

was

all

the

Allenby

required^but

demands were met. His army now consisted of three the Desert Mounted, XX and XXI Corps^ The main factors which had to be taken into account in planning the third assault on Gaza were transport difficulties, the lack of water and the need to achieve secrecy and surprise. South of a line Gaza-Beersheba there were virtually no roads, far less metalled

roads. It followed that forward of railhead the troops counted on horsed transport and

which mechanical transport could be used was bound

pack camels,

for the extent to

extremely limited. The reliance on animal transport aggravated the water problem. The country south of Beersheba was virtually waterless. In consequence, every gallon for man or beast had to be carried, and for the striking force that meant 400,000 gallons a day. Wavell puts the problem with admirable clarity: When the question of transport and supply had been closely examined, it was found that the ruling factors were these: by the employment of all the transport available, including the trains of the three divisions opposite Gaza, the striking force could be supplied with food and ammunition up to Beersheba and for one march beyond; but it could be supplied with water only up to Beersheba; its further advance would be dependent on the water supplies at the place. The rapid capture of Beersheba therefore became the corner-stone of the whole plan. Allenby appreciated that it would not be possible to conceal his preparations against Beersheba and the Turkish left. He hoped nonetheless to persuade the Turks that his move in this direction was only a feint, and that, once more, the British intended to make a frontal attack in Gaza. The plan to be

had four phases: a secret concentration of six divisions (two mounted) opposite the Turkish left; the swift capture of Beersheba and its water supplies; a speedy assault of the Turkish left, rolling the line back towards Gaza; and a cavalry advance to harass or cut the Turkish line of retreat from Gaza. It was essential for the success of the plan that the Turks should have their attention fixed on Gaza itself. To this end a

determinednolclHg leanolclBI attack and a heavy bombardment were laid on. In order to deceive the Turks, the Intelligence Branch planted a staff officer's 'lost' note-book which revealed Allenby's inability to overcome the water and transport difficulties in the direction of Beersheba. Frequent reconnaissances in that area were calculated to give the impression that activity there amounted to mere demonstrations. Rumours were spread of a projected amphibious landing north of Gaza, and ships were allowed to be seen taking soundings off the coast. In the late autumn the RFC robbed the Germans of their long established air superiority.

The operation was

originally planned September, when the heat of summer would be over and when the winter rains still lay some two months ahead. But findfor

ing that the concentration, training and administration of the force could not be managed in time, Allenby decided to postpone his onslaught until October, accepting the risks that the November rains would transform the plain of Philistia into a sea of mud, and that the Turks, sensing danger, might devise some counter-stroke.

Baghdad

still

Meanwhile,

the objective

Turks

and

Germans were

slowly concentrating at Haidar Pasha and Aleppo, still with a view to the recapture of Baghdad, an operation which Enver wished to mount at all costs. But neither Jemal nor Falkenhayn was blind to the danger on the Palestine Front, where it was becoming increasingly unlikely that a British offensive could be withstood. The influential Jemal, while demanding reinforcements, was anxious not to have the

German Yilderim headquarters on back.

Falkenhayn

for

his his part actually

2387

.

\

\ k <

i

-

proposed the employment of the Yilderim in an offensive that would forestall Allenby's onslaught. He had his way — though only at the expense of conceding a division of command. All troops" south of Jerusalem and west of the Dead Sea were to come under Yilderim, while Jemal, who was not pleased at being superseded, retained command of the Hejaz and of Syria through which the Yilderim's lines of

army

communications ran. By mid-September the Seventh Army was on the move from Aleppo to the Palestine Front. Meanwhile, at Haidar Pasha on September 6, British agents had blown up a munitions depot collected to support the Yilderim plan. As Zero Day, October 31, approached, the British made their final preparations.

The Desert Mounted Corps and

XX

Corps

sidestepped gradually to the south-east, though movement by day was kept to a minimum, and constant aerial patrolling kept German reconnaissance machines at bay. Camps before Gaza were left standing and these were lit at night to further the deception. At the latest possible moment, railway and pipe-line communications were pushed out towards Beersheba, and wells were dug. Only one untoward episode marked these last days. On October 27 the Turks made a serious attack on the London Yeomanry (8th Mounted Brigade) and, after two dismounted attacks, overran Point 720 by a mounted charge. The garrison put up a spirited resistance: there were only three survivors. Despite this affray the British

deployment was completed successfully, and as late as October 29 the Turks were persuaded that there were six divisions in front of Gaza and only two (one mounted) opposite Beersheba.

The Turkish forces consisted of nine infantry and one cavalry division. The of Seventh Army only arrived at Hebron on October 27, while Falkenhayn himself did not reach Jerusalem from Aleppo until November 1. 20th Division (XV Corps), comprising some 4,500-5,000 rifles, reached

HQ

Ramie on November

6.

Kress von Kressenstein put the strength of his own army (the Eighth) at 24,000 rifles, 600 sabres, 390 machine guns and 231 guns. He estimated his total ration

2388

strength at 72,000. These figures, based on Turkish returns, were approximate, but he thought the numbers of guns and machine guns correct. The fighting strength of the two Turkish armies may be put at 40,000 to 45,000 rifles, 1,500 sabres and 300 guns. The Turks were short of food, equipment

and

horses.

They

had

suffered

fairly

heavily from British shellfire, while disease and desertion had both taken their toll. Their opponents were not fully aware of these shortcomings, however. In 1917, Beersheba (Bir es Saba) was a large Arab village, scarcely worthy the name of a town, even though its water supply made it the trade centre of what was in those days a very barren district. The Turkish garrison of Beersheba had prepared the place for all-round defence, ringing it with a single line of redoubts and trenches, nowhere in any great depth. The posts were well sited and constructed, with overhead cover and dugouts. There was, however, a shortage of barbed wire, especially on the east and the north, where an attack was not considered likely. The garrison, which belonged to /// Corps (Ismet Bey), consisted of the 27th Division, an Arab formation, and elements of the 16th, 24th and 3rd Cavalry Divisions, totalling 4,000 rifles, 1,000 sabres, four batteries of artillery and about 50 machine guns. In planning his counteroffensive, Falkenhayn had intended to

assemble Seventh Army at Beersheba for his attack on the British right, but when the battle began, this concentration was as yet incomplete. On the night October 30/31 more than 40,000 British troops, with 116 guns, were poised to fall upon the hapless garrison. By the standards of the First World War 116 guns, only 16 of them heavy, was little enough for bombardment and counterbattery work on a 5,000 yard front. Lest Allenby should be criticised for taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it must be remembered that speed was the essence of the plan, for it was absolutely necessary to crush the Turks so swiftly that they would have no time to destroy the wells. A full moon lit the sultry night as the British approached, their columns shrouded in choking dust. They had about eight

miles to march and the going was heavy, but by 0300 hours, thanks to careful reconnaissance and good staff work, they had reached their start lines 2,000 to 2,500 yards short of the Turkish line. The first phase was the assault of an outwork on Hill 1070, a commanding position about half a mile in front of the Turkish line.

The bombardment began

hours and soon the

at

0555

disappeared in a pall of dust. There was not a breath of wind to disperse the smoke, and the gunners, unable to observe the fall of shot, had to cease fire for three-quarters of an hour to let the dust settle. They opened up again at 0745 hours and at 0830 hours the 181st Brigade (60th Division) went in and stormed the hill. British casualties were not heavy. hill

The wire uncut Meanwhile, battalions of the 60th and 74th Divisions had been moving up. Once Hill 1070 had fallen the British batteries moved forward, under heavy Turkish artillery fire, and went into action at wire-cutting range. The bombardment lasted about an hour and a half (1030 to 1200 hours). General Shea (60th Division) arranged that his infantry should go in at 1215 hours, by which time he thought the Turkish wire on his front would be cut. General Girdwood (74th Division), though uncertain of the effect of the wire-cutting, accepted this. In fact the infantry found the wire practically undamaged, and had to shear their way through with their wirecutters, but few of the Turks waited for the assault waves, and by 1330 hours the British held the line from the Khalasa road to the Wadi es Saba, and were establishing their outpost line 2,000 yards to the east. At about 1900 hours the reserve brigade of the 74th Division, opposed only by a few snipers, took the Turkish position north of the Wadi es Saba.

XX

Corps had done

its

work

for less

than

1,200 casualties, it had carried three miles of trenches and redoubts, taking some 500 prisoners and six guns. By the standards of the Western Front it was a remarkable feat — the more so since the artillery support only worked out at about one gun to

/Above left: Turkish troops manning an advanced trench on the Palestine front. Above: Turkish infantry leaving their trenches for an attack

On June

every 50 yards. In France from 1916 onwards one gun to every ten yards of front

of the

was

a cavalryman, but he

28, 1917 General Sir Edmund Allenby [1861-1936], fresh from his recent success at Arras, took over the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. He was like so many

usual.

the late Field-Marshal Lord Wavell has assured us, 'no commander ever gave more careful study to the history and topography of the theatre in which he was operating than did General Allenby. Two books he consulted almost daily, the Bible and George Adam Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land. Nor was it only the natural interest aroused in an acute and exceptionally well-informed mind that impelled him to reflect so often on the past of the land. From those reflections he deduced much that was of value to him in

otherwise the night ride of 25-30 miles, through rugged and unknown country, was uneventful. By 0800 hours on October 31 the ANZAC Mounted Division was on the line Bir Haman-Bir Salim-Abu Irgeig; the 7th Mounted Brigade was deployed, dis-

mounted, opposite Ras Ghannam, and General Chauvel had set up his HQ on a commanding hill near Khashim Zanna. To the west he could see shells bursting on the Turkish defences. About 0900 hours the ANZAC Division advanced to assault the defences east and

gun

fire

they were compelled to dismount

half a mile short of the

hill.

At about 1100 hours General Chaytor launched two more regiments (3rd and 2nd LH) supported by the Inverness Bat-

They galloped across the plain to the south of the wadi, dismounting about 1,500 tery.

planning his operations.' Allenby was generous in his apprecia-

On

the right the 2nd Australian Light Horse attacked Tel es Sakatv. On the left the New Zealanders attacked the Tel es Saba. The 2nd ALH from Bir el Hamam galloped across the plain under a sustained fire of shrapnel and machine guns, being spared heavy casualties by their sheer speed. Near the Hebron road they dismounted, put their horses under cover, and slowly pressed forward on foot. It was hard going, but by 1300 hours the Tel es Sakaty and the neighbouring wells were in their hands. The Tel es Saba proved still more formidable. The tel (mound) is about 400 yards by 200, and rises steeply from the plain. On the Wadi es Saba side it is a sheer cliff. In places there were two tiers of trenches. About 0900 hours the New Zealand Brigade, supported by the Somerset Battery at a range of 3,000 yards, galloped forward to envelop the tel from the north and east. Met by a hail of rifle and machine

World War was no mere sabreur.

in the First

Indeed it has been maintained that Allenby's strategic handling of cavalry is unrivalled in British military history. As

Meanwhile, the cavalry column had set out from Asluj at 1800 hours on October 30. The advanced guard had a brush with a Turkish patrol south of Iswaiwin, but

north-east of Beersheba.

commanders

tion of the administrative skill of his predecessor, Lieutenant-General Sir A. J. Murray. T reaped the fruits of his foresight and strategical imagination, which

brought the waters of the Nile to the bor-

GENERAL ALLENBY

.' ders of Palestine. The arrival of Allenby was like 'a strong reviving wind' blowing through the camps of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. He .

.

lost no time in moving his Headquarters from Cairo to a camp at Um el Kelab, near Rafa. Thereafter his constant and inspiring presence had a most marked effect on the confidence of his troops, who were now prepared to put up with a temperature of 110T — with no shade — the Khamsin, that scorching desert wind, septic cuts, sandfly fever, 'Gyppy tummy' and practically no leave. To his men he was known as 'The Bull' from his large frame and heavy resolute face. The name also reflected his concern for correct dress. Allenby was a man of tremendous determination, not lightly to be deflected from his purpose. For such a one Palestine, with its stony rolling country, lack of barbed wire, and relatively small number of troops per yard, was a promising theatre.

2389

sards short

ol

the

Gradually the two

tel.

New Zealanders from

the east and Australians from the south, closed in on the hill The two horse artillery batbrigades,

forward and came into ranges ol only 1,500 and 2,500 rhe Turks hung on grimly and eventuallj General Chauvel, worried hy

pushed

teries

action ii iK \

at

the delaj to his plans, put in the .'ird LH Brigade and two batteries of the Australian Division on the New Zealanders' right. But by this tune (about 1440 hours) the latter, In- Auckland Regiment at their head, had rushed the Turkish line The previous afternoon Allenby had given Chauvel the most emphatic orders in lake Beersheba and its wells before nighl The protracted defence of Tel es i

now compelled Chauvel to throw caution to the winds. He ordered the Saha

Morse Brigade (Brigadierto attack, mounted, Grant) straight towards the town. Grant had some difficulty in assembling his brigade, which had to avoid casualties from air attack. Beersheba lay lour miles away down a long, gradual slope It was a good place for a gallop and though trenches could be seen on the air photographs there was no wire. At L630 hours the brigade moved off at a trot, deploying with two regiments up and one in reserve. The men were well spread out, at about four or five paces interval Having no swords, they held their drawn bayonets in their hands The 5th Mounted Brigade was ordered to follow the 4th, and the 7th Mounted Brigade was to advance south of the town. Further east the 1st and 3rd ALII Brigades were moving round the north of the town. The Turkish artillery opened fire as soon as the leading waves became visible, but, thanks to their speed and open order, Australian casualties were light. Some machine guns opened up on the left with some effect, but in the fading light the flashes gave their positions away, and they were silenced by the British guns. Infantry 4th

Light

General

from the trenches was damaging at but the Australians galloped on in a cloud of dust — no bad smoke-screen — and as they closed found the Turkish fire ineffective. Most of the Turks still had their sights set at 800 yards, and since the gunners also failed to shorten the range most of their shells fell behind the cavalry. The leading cavalrymen swept over two lines of trenches. Most then dismounted and began to mop up, but others galloped on into the town, riding down columns of retreating Turks and causing the utmost confusion. The Desert Mounted Corps took 1,400 prisoners and 14 guns that day, mostly in this magnificent charge. Ismet Bey himself narrowly escaped. Grant's losses amounted to no more than 32 killed and 32 wounded. The annals of modern warfare can show few more successful cavalry charges. It had a marked effect on the morale of both sides throughout the rest of the campaign. Allenbv's campaign was off to a good start. A Turkish formation (27th Division) had been practically wiped out and, far more important, Beersheba with its wells fire

first,

was

in

bis hands.

been prepared

Though

the wells

TURKS

BRITISH

Rifles

75

45

Sabres

'™

M

m 500

ooo

Guns 475 300 Above: Balance of forces for Third Battle of Gaza. Right: General von Falkenhayn, former German Chief-of-Staff, talks with one of his Turkish officers in Palestine. Below: Yeomanry mounted division out on reconnaissance in No-Man's Land, crossing Wadi es Saba in front of Shellal, August 1917

had

demolition the Turks, in their confusion, had fired only a few of the charges. It had been foreseen that it would take 48 hours to develop the water supplies in Beersheba. Allenby appreciated therefore that his attack on the Turkish left could not begin before November 3 or 4. He therefore timed XXI Corps' holding attack on Gaza for the night November 1/2. The defences of Gaza had been under constant and increasing bombardment since October 27 by 218 guns of XXI Corps. A cruiser, four monitors and other warships also shelled positions in the Turkish rear from the sea. The attack was made by the 54th Division iMajor-General Hare) with 156th Brigade (52nd Division) under command. The front was 5,000 yards, from Umbrella Hill to the sea: an area of sandhills, 100 to for

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150 feel high, where the heavy, loose sand was bound to make infantry movement slow. The defences were well constructed and wned, and were sited in depth. The first phase started at 2300 hours on November 1, when the 7th Scottish Rifles (156th Brigade) stormed Umbrella Hill, a position flanking the Turkish line. By 2330 hours, the position was in British hands. There followed a pause of four hours. This was intended to convince the Turks that the Umbrella Hill operation was an isolated one. Oddly enough this worked and by 0300 hours the Turkish guns had fallen silent. At that hour XXI Corps' artillery opened up with ten minutes of intensive gunfire, and then the main attack went in. By 0630 hours the farthest objective. Sheikh Hasan, was in British hands. Only on the front of the 163rd Brigade did some of the rear Turkish trenches manage to hold out. The Turks had laid contact mines in one sector and these blew up the assault wave of one of the leading battalions. Despite the bad going six British tanks gave

useful support to the attack. British casualties totalled 2.700. Those of the Turks,

excluding wounded, were 1,650. This gallant and skilful attack had the desired effect of drawing the attention of the Turks to Gaza, and they reinforced the garrison with a division from their reserve. The German staff of Yildenm reacted violently to the news that Beersheba had fallen, but they were far from appreciating its

real significance.

A

raid by Lieutenant-Colonel S. F. Newcombe, RE, and vigorous patrolling by the

ANZAC

Division

drew attention

to

El

Dhaheriya and the Hebron Road. It was suspected that the British were contemplating a wide turning movement north of Beersheba, or a cavalry raid towards Jerusalem. Newcombe, who had less than 100 men, was compelled to surrender on Below: Gaza seen from All el Muntar Beyond the sand dunes west of the town lies the Mediterranean

November

but not before he had

2,

drawn

Three of these battalions came down from Sheria and three from Hebron. While Generals Chetwode and Chauvel were laying on their plan to attack Sheria, a Turkish force, including the 3rd Cavalry Division, the 19th Division, parts of the 24th and the remnants of the 27th. was hastily launched

six battalions

on his

little force.

with the object of driving the British flank guard back to Beersheba. A confused fight developed around Tel el Khuweilfeh. Meanwhile, an acute water shortage, bedevilled by a strong Khamsin — the hot, dry wind off the desert which usually lasts for 50 hours — was causing delays in the development of the British plan. But on

November 6 the advance began again. The 74th Division had a hard day's fighting against well sited defences in country devoid of cover, fought its way forward and by 1330 hours had taken all its objectives. The division formed from dismounted yeomanry 'showed the cavalry spirit in the pace at which it attacked'. At dawn on November 7 the 60th Division stormed Tel es Sheria, where the previous night the Turks had burnt a great depot of stores and munitions before evacuating the formidable redoubt at Hareira. Meanwhile, on the night November 6/7 XXI Corps had taken the Ali Muntar Knoll, and the Turks were in full retreat from Gaza. A week's fighting had compelled them to quit the Gaza-Beersheba line, which had held up the Imperial troops for nine months. Further Reading

A Brief Record of the Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, July 1917 to October 1918 (compiled from Official Sources) Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine

Volume 2 Wavell. Col

(HMSO A

P.,

1930)

The Palestine Campaigns

(Constable 1928)

[For Brigadier Peter Young's biography, see

page

155.

]

iMSfl»

LAWRENCE AND THE ARABS The Arab Revolt seemed on the verge of collapse in late 1916, when a British mission arrived in Arabia. One member of the mission, Captain T. E. Lawrence, was to become perhaps the most renowned figure of the war. Major-General

James hunt

2392

Above: A British Rolls-Royce tender at Aqaba. Colonel Joyce is sitting in the front seathe was appointed Commanding Officer at Aqaba and was therefore Lawrence's nominal superior

The surrender of the Governor-General of the Hejaz and the garrison of At Ta'if to Abdullah on September 22, 1916 marked the high-water mark of the early stages of the Arab Revolt. The surrender was hardly due to Abdullah's generalship but to the fire of the Egyptian artillery rushed across from the Sudan by Wingate. After At Ta'if, however, things began to go badly. Feisal was forced to withdraw into the hills north of Medina. Ali failed to cut the railway and went down to Rabigh to examine the situation there, taking his brother Zeid with him. He then decided to take a prolonged rest from the rigours of campaigning. Much of the money and supplies provided by the British was misappropriated, and Feisal was having increasing difficulty in keeping his tribesmen in the field. They demanded gold, arms and food in return for their services, and little was forthcoming; therefore, as had been the custom in Arabia since time immemorial, they began to trickle back to their tents. It seemed only a matter of time before a Turkish counteroffensive compelled Sherif Hussein to flee precipitately from the Hejaz. This was the situation when a factfinding mission from Cairo landed at Jid-

dah on October 16. It was headed by Storrs, who brought with him Captain T. E. Lawrence. Lawrence had already formed clear views on the aims and direction of the Arab Revolt. In a paper written in January, 1916 he had discussed the advantages to Great Britain: [Hussein's] activity seems beneficial to us, because it matches with our immediate aims, the break up of the Islamic 'bloc' and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because the States he would set up to succeed the Turks would be as harmless to ourselves as Turkey was before she became a tool in German hands. The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handled they would remain in a state of political mosaic, a

tissue of small jealous principalities incapable of cohesion, and yet always ready to combine against an outside force. This was a remarkably accurate prediction that could only have been made by someone with historical insight and considerable knowledge of Arab character. Lawrence was, in fact, both a historian and an Arabist. He had taken first-class honours in history at Oxford before the war.

He had been born

in 1888 in Tremadoc, North Wales, the second of five sons born to Thomas Chapman by Sarah Maden, for whom Chapman had left his wife Edith. Chapman was an Anglo-Irish country gentleman of independent means, and heir to an Irish baronetcy. He did not get on with his wife, by whom he had had four daughters, fell in love with Sarah, and

eventually made his home with her. He had to leave Ireland in order to do this,

changed his name

to Lawrence, and finally settled in Oxford. T. E. Lawrence early gave evidence of much above average intelligence. He had an excellent academic career and was deeply interested in military history. He wrote his thesis on The Military Architecture of the Crusades and travelled in Syria in 1909 to study his subject. Probably his strongest influence at that time was D. G. Hogarth, his tutor, who stimulated his interest not only in history, but also in the Middle East. Hogarth was an Arabist, and although he was not a member of the British political establishment, he had many friends who were. He was also a traveller and archaeologist, connected with British Intelligence. When Hogarth took charge of the British Museum's archaeological dig at

in Asia Minor, Lawrence joined him. Later, in 1913, Lawrence and Leonard (later Sir Leonard) Woolley carried out a mapping and surveying mission in the Sinai Desert. They worked with Captain S. F. Newcombe, RE, who was to play a distinguished part in the Arab Revolt. Although it is unlikely that Lawrence was on the books of British Military Intelligence prior to 1914, he was certainly used by Hogarth as an agent.

Karkamis

Lawrence was only 28 years old in 1916, and very junior in rank, but he had already become something of a personality in Military Intelligence in Egypt. This can partly be explained by his close relationship with Hogarth,

who

exerted

considerable

in-

Arab Bureau; but it was at least equally due to Lawrence's flair for Intelligence work, his knowledge of the Middle East and its peoples, and his remarkably clear and perceptive mind. He had received no formal military training, fluence in the

his indifference to military punctilio infuriated many regular officers, and he was not in the habit of suffering fools gladly, however senior their rank. Yet this was the young officer selected to carry out a mission of extreme delicacy in Mesopotamia, where Townshend's forces were surrounded at Kut. On the direct instructions of the CIGS (General Robertson) Lawrence and was sent to consult with the 'If possible to purchase one of the leaders of the Mesopotamian Army such as Khalil

GOC

or Negib so as to facilitate the relief of

Townshend.' He was authorised to spend up to £1,000,000 as a bribe. He did not succeed in his mission and Townshend surrendered. Lawrence employed the rest of his stay in Mesopotamia in examining the situation, and wrote a critical report on his return to Cairo. not usual to select junior officers kind unless they are exceptional men, or possess exceptional qualifications. It is true that Lawrence did speak fairly fluent Arabic, and was conversant with Turkish and Arab customs, but this in itself would hardly qualify him for a mission of such importance and delicacy. Despite his unconventional attitude towards soldiering, and the enemies It is

for missions of this

he must have made by his brusqueness and intolerance, his reputation in Military Intelligence circles must indeed have been high for his superiors to have selected him for this mission. Even so his report was hurriedly edited before it could be shown to General Murray, then C-in-C in Egypt, lest it should give that conventionally-

minded

officer apoplexy.

2393

Lawrence had for some time been contriving an exchange from Military Intelligence to the Arab Bureau. There can be no doubt that his talents were better suited to a political organisation of this kind than to a military headquarters. His transfer was about to come through when he heard of the Storrs mission to the Hejaz and was given permission to accompany it. He was

aware as anyone

else in a position Cairo that the Arab Revolt was grinding to a halt and he believed the cause was faulty leadership. He had, in fact, already written a far-seeing memorandum on the Arab Revolt, The Conquest of Syria, in which he had said: The most probable claimant — barring the Sultan — to the Khalifate would be the Sherif of Mecca, who has been active in the last few years in Arabia and Syria, asserting himself as an arbiter of morals. He is held down by Turkish money — which we, via Egypt or India, could replace with interest -and by a Turkish Army Corps. The only way to rid ourselves of this (hostilities in the Yemen being impossible) is cutting the Hedjaz [sic] line. The soldiers are paid and supplied with arms along this line, and its existence is always a present threat of reinforcements. By cutting it we destroy

as well

to

know

•>4* N>

in

and we the Hedjaz civil government resolve the Hedjaz army into its elements — an assembly of peaceful Syrian peasants' and incompetent alien officers. The Arab chiefs in the Hedjaz would then make their own play, and for our pilgrims' sake one can only hope, quickly. In any case, if we cut the Pilgrim Railway the Turkish government would irrevocably lose the Haramein [Holy Places] and that draws their teeth and renders them harmless. The Bedouin tribes hate the railway which has reduced their annual tolls and way-leaves; and would help us cut it. This cutting can be done by occupying Deraa if Damascus is neutralised: at Amman, if Jerusalem .

.

.

can be passed, by blowing up a viaduct: and at Maan [sic by an occupation. Here is the blueprint of the Arab Revolt as it eventually developed under Lawrence's direction, but it was merely an idea in one man's mind on October 16, 1916, when Storrs and Lawrence landed at Jiddah. They were met by Abdullah, bland and smiling despite his gloomy news. There were three groups of Arabs in the field; Ali had about 5,000 men at Rabigh, Abdullah about 4,000 defending Mecca, while Feisal had 7,000 based on Yanbu' al Bahr. The Arabs appeared to ]

have abandoned their operations against Medina and the Turks were free to conduct a counteroffensive as soon as Fakhri Pasha felt the moment was ripe. All that remained, said Abdullah, was for Sherif Hussein to die fighting outside Mecca, and he requested that a British brigade, preferably Moslem, should be kept ready at Suez to move to the Hejaz in order to avert such a catastrophe. Lawrence did not care for Abdullah. He did not trust him, and the feeling was mutual. He said he would like to visit Feisal and examine the situation for himStorrs telephoned the Sherif in Mecca and obtained his reluctant agreement. Two days later Lawrence sailed to Rabigh where Ali was taking his ease among the date palms. Ali had all the personal charm of his family but was an old man at 37. He suffered from tuberculosis, was almost as pious as his father and equally as obstinate. Nevertheless, Lawrence thought him a better prospective leader than Abdullah, or Zeid, the Sherif 's youngest son, who was self.

Below: Feisal's Ageyl bodyguard. The Sheikh of Russ raised the Ageyl contingent in 1915 to aid Turkey and brought it over with him when he joined the Revolt. Right: The Arab Revolt, October 1916-November 1917

g

§

|

8

•

lljlllJSMIK

Lawrence's

movements i

Arrives at Jiddah on October 6.1916

2

Sails to Rabigh on October

3

Arrives at Feisal's

4/5/6

Leaves Feisal. returns

camp

in

1

the Hamra' Hills

to Jiddah.

Khartoum, where he reports

and then travels to

Wingate, and

to

afterwards on to Cairo Arrives in Yanbu' in

camp

in

the

hills

December 1916.

and returns

to

visits Feisal's

Yanbu'. Feisal

joins him there shortly

Leaves Yanbu' with Feisal on January

and

3.1 91 7,

moves on Al Wajh, which they enter on January 25 Visits Abdullah north of

Medina, and raids the Hejaz

10

Ma'am on March 26 Raids the railway again on March 28,

11

Returns to Al Wajh. arriving on April 14

12

In

Aba

railway at

el

company with Auda abu

Tayi. sets off to join the

May 9 and

Howeitat. They leave Al Wajh on at the first

Mudahrij

at

arrive

Howeitat encampments on May 28

13

Visits Nuri Shala'an at El Azraq

14

Raids the

15

Auda at Bair on June 28 Moves with Auda to Aba el Lissan Takes Aqaba with Auda on July 6 Goes to Cairo to report to General Allenby

Amman

June 24

Der' a railway at Minifir on

Rejoins

16 17 18 19

Returns from Cairo and raids the railway south of

20

Ma'an several times from his base at Aqaba On October 24 leaves Aqaba with part of the Arab forces to raid the

Yarmuk

The

valley.

unsuccessful. They then withdraw to 21

Is

raid is El

Azraq

captured while reconnoitring near Oer'a, but

escapes and returns to Aqaba on November 26

Supplies • Suez

• Aqaba

|

r\ SJ^

*

»AIWa|h

Yanbu' al

Balu

• >

Red Sea

^ Rabigh

Abdullah

Ateiba tribe

Port

\v

Sudan*

HEJAZ BRITISH

RAILWAYS

BRITISH

ATTACKS

TURKISH RAILWAYS TURKISH GARRISON AND DATE OF SURRENDER

».

r

.

„

June lb

LAWRENCES MOVEMENTS ARAB MOVEMENTS • Al r*

Ta'if

COMBINED MOVEMENTS OF

Sept 22

LAWRENCE MILES

TURKISH

21

DIV

OKMS

&

ARABS 50 80

2395

young and in any case half a Turk. Ih> mother was Turkish.) It remained to meet Feisal and judge his quality before a decision could be made. Accordingly Lawrence was provided by Ali with a camel and two guides who were stringently instructed to keep him away from other tribesmen. too

Hcjiiz tribes were fanatical Moslems, and although those from near the coast were a trifle more civilised than those in the interior, Ali was taking no chances.

The

was camped in the hills at Al Hamra' above Yanbu' al Bahr. Lawrence reached him after two days of discomfort for ht; was not yet accustomed to the paces of a camel. Feisal, a strikingly handsome man, who was then 32, came out to greet Lawrence and there was an immediate Feisal

rapport between the two men. 'I felt at first glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek — the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory,' wrote Lawrence; but first the leader must be given a sense of mission, and then the means with which to fulfil it. After the usual greetings Lawrence was ushered into a small dark room into which were crowded many Arabs, sitting crosslegged on the floor against the walls. They regarded the travel-stained foreigner with

2396

the red face and bright blue eyes with silent but searching scrutiny. 'And do you like our place here in Wadi Safra?' asked Feisal politely; it was the kind of question any Arab host would ask a visitor to his tent. 'Well; but it is far from Damascus.' The point was well made and it went home among the Arabs who were listening. There was a long silence, and then Feisal said, 'Praise be to God, there are Turks

nearer to us than that.' Lawrence had found his leader but it did not take him long to discover that morale was low. Perhaps the morale of the Egyptian gunners was even lower than the Arabs since their antiquated pieces were outranged by the Turkish artillery, and in any case they resented being sent into such a howling wilderness to co-operate with people they regarded as savages. Feisal's tribesmen were undoubtedly tough, and most of them carried a rifle and bristled with cartridge belts, but their standard of marksmanship was poor and they were too unsteady and capricious in temperament to be effective in conventional warfare. Only a few days before Lawrence's arrival, Feisal

had been forced

to

fall

back on

Al Hamra' from his previous position; the force sent against him by the Turks

consisted only of 80 camel-mounted troopers. The tribesmen were masters of the ambush, adept at hit-and-run tactics, and better able to operate in the dark than the Turks, but their lack of discipline, love of inter-tribal feuding made them Moreover, their sheikhs nourished a deep suspicion of British and loot

and

difficult to lead.

it had not gone unnoticed that both countries were in the habit of swallowing up those countries

French motives;

among them

they had come to protect. His mission accomplished, Lawrence sailed from Jiddah in HMS Euryalus for Port Sudan. Vice-Admiral Wemyss, commanding the East Indies Station, was flying his flag in the Euryalus. He had done much on his own initiative to support the Arab Revolt, and was to do even more as time went on; in this he was ably supported by Captain 'Ginger' Boyle, RN, whose ships were operating along the Hejaz coast.

Lawrence reported

Khartoum and

first to

him

Wingate

of his conclusions before travelling on to Cairo. He thought the situation 'full of promise', provided that competent Arabic-speaking British officers were attached to the Arabs as technical advisers. The Arabs also required artillery and other weapons. At the in

told

same time he advised against sending a British or French brigade, however composed, to the Hejaz since he believed its arrival would produce an adverse reaction among the tribes. Here he differed from

rence was arguing against in Cairo. Nor did Lawrence's knowledge of, and dislike

a prickly

French ambitions in Syria help mathe was determined that British influence, and not French, should predominate with the Arabs. The British C-in-C in Egypt was a cautious soldier. He was being pressed by the War Committee in London to take a more active part in the war against the Turks and was moving at snail's-pace across Sinai towards El' Arish on the Egyptian frontier. Behind the forward British troops elaborate lines of communication were being constructed, consisting of a water pipeline, railway, roads and depots, which was, of course, to prove of inestimable benefit in the future, but which inevitably slowed down the pace of advance. Murray, who was inclined to take counsel of his fears, was opposed to reducing his force in order to reinforce the Arabs, and in this he was supported by the CIGS with his rooted distrust of 'sideshows'. Robertson strongly resisted Wingate's proposal that

suspected the British motives for supporting Hussein. He soon crossed swords with Lawrence, since he advocated pouring British and French troops into the Hejaz — the very thing Law-

at least a brigade of regular troops should be sent to the Hejaz, and when pressed by the War Committee to do so he took the line that 'a total strength of 16,000 men' would be required to hold Rabigh and

Wingate who had already recommended that a brigade should be sent, and it also brought him into conflict with the French, with important consequences for the future.

French anxieties The French had not greeted the news of the Arab Revolt with unmixed delight. They knew, of course, of Hussein's ambitions, which ran counter to their own in Syria. However, once the revolt had begun, they were prepared to make the best of it, and steer it into channels best suited to their own aims. They made available in Egypt a detachment of Algerian troops for employment in the Hejaz, and in September 1916 they sent a mission to Jiddah under Colonel Edouard Bremond. Bremond was a first-class officer who spoke good Arabic. personality

He was, however, and

for,

ters;

Opposite page,

left:

thereby maintain a bridgehead in the Hejaz. Lawrence's report on the situation was therefore manna from heaven so far as both Robertson and Murray were concerned; he became a desirable ally, although the effect on Wingate was the reverse. When it was recommended from London that Lawrence should be sent back to the Hejaz to advise the Arabs, Wingate at first disagreed. However Clayton supported Lawrence, and Clayton had influence with Wingate. Lawrence was eventually sent back to the Hejaz, but it was as well that his relations with Wingate were patched up since the latter took over from McMahon as High Commissioner in Cairo at the end of December 1916. Meanwhile things had been going from bad to worse with the Arabs. Turkish propaganda on behalf of their new candidate for Amir of Mecca, Sherif Ali Haidar, was having its effect on the tribes. Ali and Abdullah were doing little to harass the Turks and Feisal's army was slowly dwindling away. Few of the Arab prisoners of war brought from India showed any inclination to take service under Sherif Hussein, and there were strong rumours that Fakhri Pasha was preparing to sally out from Medina. Early in December a Turkish force

Lieutenant-Colonel

S. F.

Newcombe

RE, senior

officer of the British military mission of January 1917, chief wrecker of the Hejaz railway. Opposite page, right: Feisal, third son of Sherif

Hussein. Reared among the Bedouin, educated in Constantinople and trained in the Turkish army, he was described by Lawrence as the leader with the necessary fire, and yet with reason to give effect to our science'. Left: Lawrence. Below: The first and second sons of Sherif Hussein -Ali (left foreground) and Abdullah (centre foreground)

§

I

2397

attacked Feisal and drove him back on Yanbu' al Bahr, and this resulted in more desertions. The situation was so serious that even the obstinate Sherif Hussein was

constrained to ask for reinforcement by British troops, but he chopped and changed his mind so often that no-one knew what he really wanted. By early December, when Lawrence landed at Yanbu' al Bahr, the Arab Revolt must have seemed as good as lost to all but the most determined optimist.

Lawrence went almost directly to camp, which he found in a state of confusion after the precipitate retreat from the Turks. He was immensely impressed Feisal's

by Feisal's handling of his volatile Bedouin, who were one moment full of ardour, and the next depressed and each blaming the other for his

own

knew enough

of the

mistakes.

He

already

Arabs

to appreciate all is required in

that one quality above the handling of them — patience — but he had never before met a man as patient as Feisal, nor one so accessible to all, high and low. He also learned that in dealing

with Arab tribesmen

them

it

is

fatal to

rebuke

public lest they lose face with their fellows. As he was to write later, in

While very

difficult

to drive,

the

Bedu

are easy to lead, if you have the patience to bear with them.' It was also at this early state in his connection with the Arab Revolt that Lawrence, at Feisal's prompting, laid aside British uniform and wore Arab dress. Not only was it far more comfortable in the conditions of the desert, but it

made him far less conspicuous among fanatical tribesmen to whom khaki uni-

but three or four of them in their own valleys or hills would account for a dozen Turkish soldiers. When they sit still they get nervous, and anxious to return home. Feisal himself goes rather to pieces in the same conditions. When, however, they have plenty to do, and are riding about in small parties tapping the Turks here and there, retiring always when the Turks advance, to appear

form almost automatically meant a Turk

in

or a Nasrani (Christian). Lawrence did not stay long with Feisal

another direction immediately after, they are in their element, and must cause the enemy not only anxiety but bewilder-

but hurried back to Yanbu' al Bahr, which was menaced by the Turks. He was now preoccupied with the organisation of Yanbu' al Bahr's defence but managed to find time to write a report on the Arabs which is worth quoting, not only for its accurate summing-up of the Bedouin as soldiers, but also because it foreshadows the strategy he was later to adopt in directing the

ment. Feisal arrived in Yanbu' al Bahr soon after Lawrence. He had been attacked by the Turks, and at a crucial moment in the battle one of his tribes, the Juheina, had suddenly left the field. When chided for this later, they said they were tired and had left to brew coffee. The Turks, however, were now within striking distance of

Arab Revolt. As a mass they are not formidable, he

Yanbu' al Bahr, and Boyle mustered five warships to assist in its defence. Captain Garland of the Egyptian army, a demolition expert, had supervised the building of defences, at the same time teaching Lawrence the gentle art of handling gelignite, and all now waited the expected Turkish assault. But it never came, perhaps because the Turks feared the effects of naval gunfire or, more likely, because they were having logistic problems. Their supply trains were being ambushed in the hills and the wastage of camels was serious. Whatever the reason may be, they turned back, and at that moment, in Lawrence's opinion, they lost their war with the Arabs. Yanbu' al Bahr had been saved but it

wrote, since they have no corporate spirit or discipline, or mutual confidence. Man by man they are good: I would suggest that the smaller the unit that is acting, the better will be its performance. A thousand of them in a mob will be ineffective against one-fourth their number of trained troops:

was clear that inactivity would defeat the Arabs just as surely as, if less quickly than, a head-on clash with the Turks. Feisal had earlier proposed an advance along the coast to capture Al Wajh which would provide a better base than Yanbu' al Bahr for operations against the railway. This proposal was shelved, but Lawrence resuscitated it, at the same time proposing that Abdullah should play a more active part in the war by moving his 5,000 men from Mecca into the hills north of Medina. From there they could raid the railway and also intercept the caravans bringing the Turks' sup-

from Hail in Central Arabia. Morewith Abdullah in their rear, the Turks would be hampered in their operaplies

over,

tions against Rabigh.

The Bedouin united As soon as the Royal Navy's co-operation had been assured, Feisal and Lawrence put the plan into operation. On January 3, 1916, a significant date in the history of the Arab Revolt, Feisal rode out of Yanbu' al Bahr at the head of his Ageyl bodyguard, villagers from Nejd who were among the stoutest fighters in Arabia. With him went tribesmen from the Harb, Ateiba, Juheina and Billi, all tribes of the Hejaz littoral,

and some mule-mounted Arab regulars. The force had ten machine guns and four mountain guns, taken over from the Egyptians and manned by Arabs. As far as the eye could reach there were thousands of marching camels, their riders chanting tribal songs as the dust rose in

A Bedouin tribesman. His head is covered with akeffiyeh, bound with an agal, a double coil of

goat hair

2398

clouds above them. As one Bedouin sheikh was to say later- 'We are no longer Arabs but a people.' Al Wajh was captured with little difficulty. It was bombarded from the sea and a naval landing party' met little opposition from its dispirited garrison of 200

Tribesmen on the quay at Aqaba after being transported from the HejSz by a British Red Sea steamer

Turks. Feisal entered Al Wajh on January 25, 1917, and was delighted, as were his tribesmen, with the virtually bloodless victory. This was how war should be fought, according to the Bedouin, and Lawrence was quick to note the fact. It was to play an important part in his tactics from now on. Shortly before the fall of Al Wajh, Lawrence was joined by Colonel S. F. Newcombe, an Arabist like himself, who shared his views on the direction of the campaign. Newcombe jvas to win himself a great reputation for his skill in disrupting the railway, and although much senior to Lawrence, he was happy to serve under him. The fall of Al Wajh had an astonishing effect on the Turks. Fakhri Pasha at once withdrew his troops to make Medina more secure and to guard the railway. The initiative passed to the Arabs, who possessed the mobility to harass the Turks without allowing themselves to become involved in a pitched battle. It has been said that 'The guerrilla wins if he does not lose; the conventional army loses if it does not

The Turks would never win by remaining on the defensive, but this is what Fakhri Pasha proposed to do. There was a lull in operations for several weeks after the capture of Al Wajh. This was used by win.'

the British to switch their base of operation in the Hejaz from Rabigh to Al Wajh and to build up supplies. The French moved their base to Yanbu' al Ali and Abdullah. At the

Bahr to support same time more

Arabic-speaking British officers were being sent to train the Arab regular army which was slowly being formed from prisoners of war, while officers like Joyce, Davenport, Hornby and Newcombe were developing their demolition techniques and working out their tactics for raids against the railway. Feisal was sending emissaries northward to enlist the support of the great tribes of southern Syria — the Howeitat, Ruwalla and Bene Sakhr. Meanwhile, in Mecca, Sherif Hussein, the revolt fast passing out of his control, was intriguing as tirelessly as ever.

Lawrence,

still undecided as to the next in the overall plan to capture Damascus, utilised this period to increase his in-

move

fluence with Feisal and to make himself indispensable in Arab eyes. He lived with the Arabs, ate their food, drank their water and wore their clothes. As his knowledge of them, their language, and their customs grew, so did his understanding of their characteristics. Either at this time, or not long after, he wrote a confidential guide for the handling of Arabs in which he displayed his great knowledge of Arab character. This could never have been ac-

quired without both sympathy and affection for them. Lawrence has indeed been criticised for making use of the Arab Revolt, and the Arabs, to further British ends, and it has even been alleged that he had no real liking for them. Of course, as a British officer, serving the British

government, his first loyalty must have been to his own country, but this does not

mean

that

it

automatically involved dis-

loyalty to the Arabs. Far from it, because in his view a British victory over the Turks was in everyone's interests, and if the Arabs contributed to that victory they could certainly expect to get more out of

they played no part. Moreover, no foreigner, living among Bedouin, can fail to be attracted by their virtues, however bird-witted and shamelessly importunate they appear to be. The Bedouin themselves are also quick to detect those who find their habits and behaviour distasteful. Had Lawrence felt no affinity to the Arabs, and they to him, it is safe to say that Feisal would have seen through him in a matter of weeks, if not of days. It was while engaged in a mission to Abdullah's lethargic front north of Medina that Lawrence finally worked out the final strategy for the Arab Revolt. Abdullah was doing little to harass the Turks and an intercepted Turkish telegram in Cairo foretold a withdrawal from Medina in order to reinforce the Turkish forces in Palestine. The British were about to launch an attack on the Turks at Gaza and Turkish reinforcements there might seriously affect the outcome. The Arabs were asked to take Medina if possible, or at any rate prevent the garrison from withdrawing. Lawrence therefore decided to visit Abdullah and to it

than

if

him into an attack on Medina. was not the most successful of missions, but it had important consequences. Lawrence was ill from dysentery and made galvanise It

little or no impression on Abdullah. He spent much of his time lying in his tent in a high fever. However, if this enforced rest brought no other benefit, it did provide the opportunity and solitude to work out his own theories on how best to direct the Arab Revolt. He came to the conclusion that the Arab aim was geographical — 'to occupy all Arabic-speaking lands in Asia'. Killing Turks was only incidental to this aim: 'If they would go quietly, our war would end.' The Arabs had the advantage of mobility — the Turks of trained soldiers and armament. 'The ratio between number and area determined the character of the war, and by having five times the mobility of the Turks we could be on terms with them with one-fifth their number.' He concluded: The idea of assaulting Medina, or even of starving it quickly into surrender, was not in accord with our

best strategy. We wanted the enemy to stay in Medina, and in every other harmless place, in the largest numbers. The factor

of food would eventually confine him to the railways, but he was welcome to the Hejaz

and

the Trans-Jordan railway, Palestine and Damascus and Aleppo railways for the duration of the war, so long as he gave us the other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the Arab world Our ideal was to keep his railway just working, but only just, with the maxiloss and discomfort to him. This was a change from Lawrence's previous views but it was to form the pattern of the Arab

railway, the

and

.

.

.

mum

Revolt from then on.

A missionary task As soon

as he recovered, Lawrence tried Abdullah to his new theory of Arab strategy. Abdullah was a clever politician but his leadership was hardly dynamic. When Lawrence proposed a series of raids on the railway instead of an assault on Medina, Abdullah smiled and did nothing. Lawrence then prepared a raid on his own, and the station at Aba el Na'am to convert

2399

miles of the British front in Palestine. The

Turkish garrison in the Hejaz could continue to consume supplies and clamour for reinforcements, but their lifeline, the railway, diction.

was subjected to constant interMeanwhile the Arabs, operating

on the desert flank of the British, could

move steadily northwards, extending their operations towards Damascus which was their goal.

selected as target. There, on March 26, 1917 Lawrence laid his first mine. It was not a complete success but his party returned with 30 prisoners. A further raid two days later failed to blow up a train, but it was sufficient to convince Lawrence

was

of the correctness of his ideas. Tired of trying to instil some action in Abdullah, he returned to Feisal's camp at Al Wajh to seek new converts. Feisal and his sheikhs did not find it easy to accept the new gospel, nor for that matter did Newcombe and his band of train-wreckers, but Lawrence was patient. It says much for his powers of persuasion, and the Arabs' respect for his judgement, that eventually his arguments prevailed. Lawrence found a new ally to Feisal's cause had arrived in Al Wajh during his

absence with Abdullah.

He was Auda abu

Tayi, a sheikh of one of the divisions of the Howeitat tribe and a renowned desert raider. His adherence made it possible to move the revolt northwards into his tribal area and Lawrence at once began to plan a landward attack on Aqaba. Aqaba could easily be taken from the sea but it would then be a dead end. Between Aqaba and the hinterland lay the narrow gorge of the Wadi Ithm where a handful of soldiers could hold up an army. If Lawrence's aim of moving the Arab base northward to Aqaba was to be achieved, Aqaba must be taken from the land. It was a daring project since it would involve a desert journey of over 600 miles across some of the most desolate country in Arabia, and at the beginning of the hot season when the few wells were fast drying up. Only Bedouin could attempt such a journey, and then only a small party of them. Having first arranged with Feisal and Newcombe for a programme of raids against the railway, Lawrence set off with

Auda abu Tayi and about 40 tribesmen on to

| |

s g 2

| -

May 9. Feisal provided £20,000 in gold purchase supplies and support, but the

party travelled as light as possible. The Bedouin refer to the desert as al badia, or the wilderness, which is an apt enough description of what lay ahead. Once clear of the Hejaz hills and across the railway, they travelled across a deadly fiat monotony with only the mirage to keep them company. The traveller who lost his way would die quickly of sun and thirst. Only the Arabian ostrich and the gazelle could find sufficient nourishment to exist in such a wilderness, and even the birds shunned it, apart from the raven and the aptly named 'mourning' chat.

2400

It

took 19 days to reach the first enof the Howeitat. This was

campments

for Auda and was a hundred times Lawrence. He was many pounds

sufficient feat of

endurance

his tribesmen, but

worse

for

it

by the time they reached the Howeitat tents. While Auda set about rallying his clansmen, Lawrence set off alone on a journey to the settled areas lighter in weight

round Damascus to test opinion. This is one of the most obscure episodes in the Arab Revolt and doubt has been expressed

Lawrence ever made the journey. However, Wingate subsequently recom-

that

mended him for the Victoria Cross for carrying out this mission, and for the subsequent capture of Aqaba, and it is extremely doubtful if men like Wingate and Clayton could have been hoodwinked by Lawrence. It seems certain that during this period he met Nuri Shala'an, the leading sheikh of the Ruwalla tribe at El Azraq, in the northern Trans-Jordan desert, and tried to win him over to Feisal's side. His travels had not gone unremarked by the Turks and it was part of his deception plan to lead them into thinking that Damascus was to be the Arab target. Hints were dropped all over the desert that this was the case, and Lawrence added to it by raiding the railway between Amman and Der'a. Then he rejoined Auda at Bair, in the Wadi Sirhan, and together they set out for Aba el Lissan, on the edge of the

escarpment above Aqaba. By chance they had chosen a moment when a Turkish battalion was camped there. The Turks were outnumbered, and short of water. Sniped at during the burning heat of day, they were overwhelmed by a wild camel charge towards evening at the cost of only two Arabs killed. 300 Turks were killed, and 160 taken prisoner. Lawrence learned that Ma'an was garrisoned by only two companies, and the temptation to take the place was great. The Howeitat clamoured to do so, but Lawrence was not to be deflected from his strategic aim. They moved on to Aqaba, and on July 6, almost two months since they had left Al Wajh,

Aqaba surrendered.

It was a signal victory, Lawrence a personal triumph. The plan was his, and so was the will. Few Englishmen could have endured as he endured during the long and exhausting approach march, for even the Bedouin had been near the end of their tether. The capture of Aqaba was the real turning point in the Arab Revolt. It allowed the Arabs to switch their base from Al Wajh to Aqaba and brought them within 100

and

for

Allenby's perspicacity Soon after the capture of Aqaba Lawrence set off for Cairo to report in person on the Arab successes so far. His appearance at GHQ dressed in Arab costume led many to conclude he had 'gone native' but fortunately it did not have the same effect on General Allenby, recently arrived to take over command from Murray. Allenby in appearance and manner was the most conventional of officers, but he possessed a quick brain and a liking for the unorthodox. Lawrence met him and explained his theories. Allenby listened, approved and promised his help. This, said Lawrence, turned out to be 'enough for his very greediest servant'. He provided NCOs to train the slowly-increasing Arab regular army, and also arms and ammunition. Equally he helped to move Feisal and his

base from Al Wajh to Aqaba, and together with Wingate managed to persuade Sherif Hussein to place Feisal under Allenby's command. At the same time he was transforming the morale of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force which was low after two costly failures at Gaza. Feisal disembarked at Aqaba on August 7 and Joyce soon followed to organise the

Above at

Al

Feisal's army Wajh during a review. Wajh in the Hejaz was left:

Al

Feisal's headquarters from January to August 1917, when he removed to Aqaba. Above

v

Aqaba Lawrence

right: Interior of the fort at

after

its

surrender

to

and Auda abu Tayi on July 6. Below: The entry of Howeitat tribesmen into Aqaba, behind the black Bedouin

'

flag of the'

would be a future objective. With only one Arab companion, and dressed in local costume, he had little difficulty in walking through the defences. Later, while wandering round Der'a, he was seized by a sentry and hauled before the Turkish commander. He was then, according to Lawrence, subjected to sexual assault, and savagely beaten. Later he managed to escape from the dispensary into which he had been thrown, and got away. He had claimed throughout this ordeal to be a Circassian and his identity was not discovered. The coupled with the hardships he had undergone ever since leaving Al Wajh, left physical and mental scars which were to manifest themselves in the future. At the time, however, by a supreme effort of will, he kept control of himself, and as soon as he was fit enough to do so, rode down to Aqaba by forced marches. He arrived there on November 26, 'looking like a ghost', and acutely conscious of the Yarmuk debacle, but he need not have worried. Allenby was about to capture Jerusalem and the news of the minor failure would be drowned in the rejoicings for one of the great triumphs of the war. effects of this incident,

base. Armoured cars arrived from Egypt, air co-operation was arranged with the RFC, and tons of supplies were unloaded. To keep his Arabs occupied, and to pursue

aim of keeping the Hejaz railway working— 'but only just' — Lawrence led several raids on the railway south of Ma'an. The Turkish commander in Ma'an, who by now had almost 7,000 troops under his command, was as unenterprising as Fakhri Pasha, but it was clear that the same considerations as applied to Medina aphis

plied to Ma'an; unless the railway from the north was subject to interruption, Ma'an could easily be reinforced. The Arabs

therefore began to raid the railway be-

Amman and Ma'an. Meanwhile, Allenby had decided to break the deadlock on the Palestine front and planned to attack the Gaza-Beersheba line on Novem-

tween

ber 6, 1917. Both as a diversion, and to delay Turkish reinforcements, he asked the Arabs to cut the railway in the Yarmuk valley, west of Der'a, on November 5. This was an ambitious project, involving a march through the desert of at least 350 miles, and the final approach lay through a settled area. This meant that the raiders could not rely on reaching their target undetected, as they could in the desert, nor could thev mount their camels

fade away into the desert when attacked. However, Lawrence, appreciating the importance of Allenby's support to the Arab cause, persuaded Feisal to authorise the operation. On October 24 he led the raiders out of Aqaba and headed eastwards into the desert. The party consisted mainly of Bedouin, but there were some camel-

and

mounted Indian machine gunners. There was also an Algerian, Abd el Kader, long settled in Damascus and of some influence there. Auda warned Lawrence to beware of Abd el Kader, who was barely sane, and it possible that he did in fact betray the raiders to the Turks. The raid in the Yarmuk gorge failed. The demolition party was detected, the Bedouin porters dropped the explosives into the ravine, and there was nothing left but retreat. They fell back to the oasis of El Azraq, far out in the desert, but on the way managed to destroy a train and cut the is

railway between Der'a and Amman. Meanwhile, on November 6, Allenby launched his attack. He broke through and hurled the Turks back into the Judaean hills. There was then a short pause while he prepared to attack Jerusalem. Lawrence decided to use El Azraq as a forward base, but before returning to Aqaba he was anxious to reconnoitre Der'a which

Further Reading Antonius, G., The Arab Awakening (Hamish Hamilton 1938) Glubb, Lt-Gen. Sir John, Britain and the Arabs (Hodder & Stoughton 1959) Knightley, P. & Simpson, C, The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia (Nelson 1969) Pillars of

Liddell Hart, Sir Basil,

Lawrence (Cape

I

m

T.

E.

1934) Lloyd George,

D., Memoirs of the Peace Conference Monroe, E., Britain's Moment in the Middle East 1914-1956 (Chatto & Windus 1963) Nutting, A., Lawrence of Arabia: The Man and

the Motive (Hollis

& Carter 1966)

Storrs, Sir Ronald, Orientations (Nicholson

&

Watson 1943) H. W. V., History of the Peace Conference at Paris Watt, R. M., The Kings Depart (Weidenfeld &Nicolson 1969)

Temperly,

[For Major-General Lunt's biography, see p.

1525]

> v.*

Wisdom

Lawrence. T. E., The Seven (Cape 1935)

ARAB NATIONALISM To secure Arab adherence

cause Britain pledged her support for the Arabs' nationalist aspirations. Britain also committed herself to support Zionism and agreed with France over a carve-up of the Arab lands. The Arabs felt betrayed. Suleiman Mousa. Below: The beginning of betrayal? Feisal in Damascus after learning Britain's real intentions

2402

to the Allied

Abd al-Karim al-Khalil, President of the literary Club in Constantinople' was, in 911, perhaps the first to define the prin:iples of modern Arab nationalism as being a common tongue, a common history, a

»mmon homeland and common interests' this definition is generally still true to \rab nationalists today. Arab nationalism jegan with a liberal and progressive outook, unhindered by racial or religious bias. \n Arab was anyone who considered him>elf Arab; Arab political societies were not ponfined to Moslems, but included Chrisians and Jews. The idea of nationalism began first imong Arab intellectuals who had been nfluenced by Western culture or who had ibtained their higher education in Contantinople and Paris. The Ottoman Empire was like a commonvealth of races presided over by the Sultan, t is true that the Turks were the masters, >ut the Arabs held a privileged position, >eing the people of the Prophet Mohamned, because every

Moslem was enjoined

o read the Holy Koran in Arabic and the larly history of Islam, the Turks' religion oo, was connected with the great Arab tonquests. All citizens in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed equal civil rights regardess of race, creed or religion. The 1876 Constitution affirmed the principle of (quality of rights. Arabs were fully rewesented in all Ottoman parliaments con'ened between 1876 and 1918; many of hem rose to high positions in the civil ervice and the army. The Arab nationalist movement emerged |n the Arab countries of Asia, particularly

geographic Syria (Syria, Lebanon, alestine and Trans-Jordan). The counries of North Africa were under European ule, and in Egypt national thinking was hen local with an Islamic trend. In fact, tiost of the Egyptians sympathised with

(n

was established Western culture, and Arab intellectuals began to realise the backwardness of their countries and the necessity for reform. When the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) of the Young Turk movement forced Sultan Abdul Hamid in the July 1908 Coup to re-enforce the constitution, Arab intellectuals were jubilant in assuming that a new era had begun. Soon after the coup, the Turks lost most of their European territories in the Balkan Wars, while Tripolitania (Libya) was also lost, to Italy. At this, the Asian Arabs became alarmed and began to press for reform and participation in the central government. The CUP, however, came to

Jews were accepted as members. Reform societies were formed in 1912 in Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Aleppo and Basra, but the government soon suppressed them. Consequently, Arab nationalists held the First Arab Congress in Paris in June 1913. This Congress voiced Arab grievances, demanded reforms and a measure of autonomy. The support it gained in Syria, Iraq and in the European press obliged the CUP to meet the Arabs half-way: this took the form of an agreement granting the Arabs, in principle, some of their demands, including recognition of Arabic as an official language in Arab provinces. In March 1914, al-Fatat decided that the Arab national flag should

the conclusion that the best means of giving a new lease of life to the Empire was to rule the other races firmly. A policy of 'Turkising' the Arabs began by prohibiting the use of Arabic in official proceedings and in secondary education. This racial policy contributed to the growth of national feeling among Arab

represent the colours of the three great Arab estates: white for the Ummayyads, black for the Abbasids and green for the Fatimides.

lished. In general, contact

with

who formed "societies, of which the most important were: • The Literary Club: founded in Constantinople in 1910. This played an important role in rallying Arab intellectuals and leaders round the idea of nationalism; intellectuals,

A

•

Al-Fatat (the Young Arab Society): secret society established in Paris in 1911 by a group of young men who were continuing their higher studies. Its principle was 'to liberate the Arab nation step by step, by all legitimate and illegitimate means'. The central committee moved in 1913 to Beirut and in the following year to Damascus. Christians were accepted as

members: • Al-'Ahd

(the Covenant): Also a secret This was established in Constantinople in 1913 with membership confined to Arab officers in the Ottoman army. Its society.

autonomy

he Turks, because they opposed British tcupation. This article, therefore, deals

aim was

nth Asian Arabs only. About the end of the 19th Century, the

• The Ottoman Party

Jniversity of Constantinople was estabished and some young Arabs were able to btain higher education. In Syria, many ^rendi and American schools were estab-

to obtain

for the

Arab

provinces; of Administrative Decentralisation: established in Cairo in 1912 by a group of Syrians. Its aim was to develop provincial government in Arab countries on the basis of decentralisation. In addition to Moslems and Christians,

Birth of the revolt When -the Turks entered the First World War on the side of Germany, Arab nationalists decided to co-operate. Simultaneously, they continued their secret activities to face the eventuality of a German defeat. Early in 1915 the leaders of al-Fatat and al-'Ahd met and decided that it was imperative to ally themselves with a more powerful leader to lead the movement when the time for action came. They reached the conclusion that the Grand Sherif of Mecca, Hussein, a direct descendant of the Prophet, was the man most likely to accept their revolutionary ideas, as he was on poor terms with the CUP and aspired to independence. They sent an envoy, who informed him that the national leaders of Syria and Iraq, including high

ranking

the army, were seeking Arab rights and desired independence. Would he accept the leadership of the movement? The Sherif delegated his third son, Feisal, to investigate the scope of the movement. In Damascus, members of al-Fatat and al-'Ahd contacted Feisal and acquainted him with the extent of their activities. Feisal was convinced and joined al-Fatat. officers in

to defend

He informed promise made

his new colleagues of the to his father by Lord Kit-

2403

chener of support from Great Britain if the Arabs rose in rebellion. About this time, Jemal Pasha, the ruthless Turkish Commander-in-Chief in Syria, took a step which was decisive in alienating the Arabs. In April 1915, he arrested a

group of young nationalists and brought

them

to trial before

a military tribunal.

Thereupon, in July, Sherif Hussein — in agreement with the Arab societies — opened political negotiations with the British government. While the Sherif was engaged in the correspondence with

McMahon,

the

High

Commissioner

in

Egypt, Jemal Pasha sent 11 Arabs, including the President of the Literary Club, to the gallows on August 21 in Beirut.

2404

Many

leading families were deported to Anatolia and a large group of prominent Arabs were arrested and tried for trying 'to sever Syria, Palestine and Iraq from the Ottoman Sultanate and turn them into an independent Amirate'. The Turks took yet another measure to crush the Arab movement. In the summer of 1915 they transferred all Arab units in the Ottoman army from Syria to Gallipoli and the Caucasus. This proved a serious blow to Arab plans, as the intention of the al-'Ahd officers had been to rise in revolt and to use these forces to drive the Turks from Syria. The Sherif found himself, therefore, alone in shouldering the whole responsibility for the Arab movement.

Bedouin -nomadic desert Arabs, the spearhead of the Arab Revolt. There are few Asian Arabs, if any, whose ancestors were not pastoral desert wanderers

When

his negotiations with the British

government were concluded early in 1916, the Sherif made a last minute attempt to realise Arab aspirations without resorting to force. In March, he proposed to the leaders of the CUP a reconciliation on the following conditions: • A general amnesty

for

all

political

suspects;

• Autonomous and

Iraq;

administrations for Syria

and

• Autonomy

for the Hejaz Sherif 's hereditary rule.

under

the

These demands were refused and the Sherif was threatened with punishment it he persisted in his efforts. On May 6, 1916, 21 leading Arabs were executed in Beirut and Damascus at Jemal Pasha's orders. This arbitrary measure defeated the last hope for reconciliation. .The die was cast, and on June 10. 1916 the Sherif proclaimed the revolt in the name of all Asian Arabs, relying on the support of Great Britain both militarily and politically The ultimate aim of the revolt was the -

unity and independence of all Asian Arabs and the creation of a strong Arab state. In this revolt the Arabs fought for the first time in many centuries in the name of Arab nationalism. Young men — Moslem and Christian — flocked from all parts of Arabia, geographic Syria and Iraq to join the ranks. While fighting alongside the Allies, the Arabs were surprised to hear of the Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917. Arab nationalists had known, for some years, of Zionist ambitions and plans. Arab deputies in the Ottoman parliament had raised the subject of Zionism for discussion as early as 1911. They urged the

Ottoman government to take strong measures to forbid Jewish immigration to Palestine, to prohibit land sales to foreign to expel all those who were not

Jews and

Ottoman

citizens.

Indigenous Jews had always lived peacefully among the Arabs. No pogroms had ever taken place in Arab lands against Jews, because Moslems considered Jews as the 'People of the Book' and greatly respected their religion and their prophets. Arab opposition to Jews never emanated from religious or racial fanaticism, because both peoples belong to the Semitic race and worship the same God. But Arab fears were roused by Zionist plans and threats to their country. Even in 1915, two years before the Balfour Declaration, two leading Arabs assured Mark Sykes 'that Arabs, Christians and Moslems alike, would fight in the matter to the last man against a Jewish Dominion in Palestine'. When the Declaration was issued, the British authorities in Egypt, upon Foreign Office instructions, exercised special con-

over press comments 'in order that susceptibilities should not be offended'. Syrian political emigres in Cairo prepared a telegram of protest to Balfour. This said that Palestine was to Syria 'as the heart is to the body', but the British authorities prevented this and other protests being forwarded to London. General Clayton, Chief Political Officer in Egypt, informed the Syrians that the Declaration 'was not to be construed as meaning that a Jewish State or Government would be established in Palestine, but that the Jews would be given the right to emigrate and settle in Palestine, where they should have the same rights, to acquire property etc, as the inhabitants of the country'. On December 12, 1917, Clayton cabled the Foreign Office that the 'Arabs of Syria and Palestine fear repetition of story of Jacob trol

Arab

and Esau'. Successful propaganda As for the Arabs of Palestine, during 1917 British aeroplanes had dropped pamphlets on behalf of the Sherif of Mecca upon villages behind the Turkish lines. These urged them to 'come and join us fighting for the liberation of all Arabs from Turkish rule so that the Arab Kingdom may again become what it was during the time of your fathers'. The Turkish authorities punished with flogging and imprisonment any villagers found picking up and keeping these proclamations. Writing home about those proclamations, only a month before the issue of the Balfour Declaration, General Allenby said that they were 'an appeal from the Sherif to the Arabs to leave the Turks and join in the war against them for the freedom and independence of Arabia. A good many come in as a result of our propaganda.' When the Declaration was issued it was not mentioned in any of the propaganda directed to the Palestinian population by the British authorities in Egypt, even though the British army had occupied southern Palestine. After the war, the Zionist Executive reported: 'General Allenby's proclamation, published in Jerusalem towards the end of 1917, contained no reference to the Jewish National

Home', and indeed, 'during the whole of 1918 and 1919 the Declaration was never officially published, never even officially referred or alluded to, in any public function [in Palestine]'. Considering all this, the effect of President Wilson's 14 Points and the doctrine of 'self determination', 'the real impression left upon the Arabs generally was that the British were going to set up an independent Arab State which would include Palestine'. This fact led Palestinian Arabs to continue joining the Arab army till the end of the war. When the news of the Declaration reached him, Hussein asked his British allies for an explanation. The British government, early in January 1918, appointed Dr Hogarth, head of the Arab Bureau at Cairo, to convey to him a verbal assurance 'that the Entente Powers are determined that the Arab race shall be given full opportunity of once again forming a nation in the world'. In regard to Palestine itself, the message said 'we are determined that no people shall be subjected to another', but that, in view of the fact that there were in Palestine holy places sacred to Moslems, Jews and Christains, 'there must be a special regime to deal with these places approved of by the world'. The message further declared Britain's determination that no obstacle should be put in the way of the 'return' of Jews to Palestine 'in so far as is compatible with the freedom of the existing population

both economic and

political'.

Hussein was satisfied with these assurances. While the Balfour Declaration had guaranteed the 'civil and religious rights' of the original inhabitants of Palestine, Hogarth's message guaranteed their

'economic

and

political'

rights.

On

the

understanding that a limited number of Jews coming to Palestine would not impair the national status of the Arabs, then 93% of the population, Hussein said that he wel-

comed 'Jews

to

all

Arab

lands'.

As

for

international control of the Palestine Holy Places, he regarded this 'as a point to be reconsidered after the Peace'. The Arabs' evaluation of the Jews was based on their knowledge of those living in Arab and Ottoman countries; they knew

2405

them as a peaceful people capable of directing business and minor crafts, but far from being a fighting people. They did not see in the Jewish plans a serious danger. Hussein at the time thought that a few thousand

Jews wished

emigrate to Palestine, and, in deference to the wishes of Great Britain, he had no objection to their coming or to their enjoying full citizenship rights like the Arabs. Hogarth did not inform Hussein, and no one else did, that the Jews contemplated establishing a state of their

own

to

in Palestine.

Meanwhile, news of the Balfour Declaration had reached Feisal's army, to the north of Aqaba. Stunned by the news, officers and men declared their refusal to

continue fighting alongside the British unless Britain furnished assurances that she would carry out her basic pledges. Feisal reported this to his father, who, on February 3, 1918, wrote to the High Commissioner of Egypt, expressing his apprehensions and threatening either to withdraw from the alliance or to commit suicide. Hussein cited only one specific cause for anxiety: the reports circulated by Turkish agents 'among the Arabs of Palestine' that the intention of the British government was 'to put them under Jewish rule and let the Zionists govern them'. The following day, Balfour sent a telegram to Egypt for transmission to Hussein. It included the following: His Majesty's

Spearhead of Jewish colonialism? Chaim Weizmann (second from right) with other members of the Zionist Commission and British officers at

GHQ Palestine, April 3,

1918

Government along with their Allies . are determined to stand by the Arab peoples in their struggle for the reconstruction of an Arab World [They] reaffirm their former pledges to His Highness in regard to the freeing of the Arab peoples. Liberation is the policy His Majesty's Government have pursued and intend to pursue with unswerving determination, by protecting such Arabs as are already liberated from reconquest, and assisting such Arabs as are still under the yoke of f lie oppressor to obtain their freedom. .

.

.

.

.

!

2406

Hussein considered this new assurance as sufficient refutation of all the reports |

i

;

I

I

I

I

I

he had

received regarding the Balfour Declaration and the claims of the Zionists. He saw in the words 'freeing', 'liberation' and 'freedom' an adequate guarantee to the Palestinians who were an integral part of the Arab peoples. The High Commissioner of Egypt assured Hussein that his fears for the future were not 'positively founded on fact'. He hoped that the message of the British government 'will dispel any misgivings on your Highness's part or on the part of the Arabs generally as to the intention of the Allies towards the Arab countries'. Hussein therefore sent letters to the Arab troops and to the Syrians in Egypt, assuring them that Great Britain was still keeping in honour all the pledges given to the Arabs. During the spring of 1918, a Zionist

Commission headed by Dr Weizmann arrived in Egypt and later went on to Palestine. The inhabitants of Jaffa met the Commission with vehement opposition and protests. In Jerusalem some Arab notables were invited to meet the Commission on April 27, 1918. At the meeting Weizmann delivered a speech in which he stated that 'all the fears which have been expressed openly and secretly by the Arabs that they are to be ousted from their present position are due either to a fundamental misconception of our aims and intentions or to the malicious activities of our enemies.'

The Mufti of Jerusalem replied that statement 'removed

this

many

misconceptions'. The British government made several attempts to bring about accord between

I

Arabs and Zionists. Hussein, consequently, caused an article to be published which called upon the Arabs to be lenient towards the Jews because they were 'People of the Book', and because Arabs were bound to gain from their knowledge in science and industry. But he refused to take part in the committee which Mark Sykes planned to form in London, consisting of Arab, Jewish and Armenian representatives. The endeavours of the British government included arranging a visit, early in June, 1918, by Dr Weizmann to Feisal at his headquarters near Aqaba. Weizmann

talked about the benefits of co-operation ht'tueen Arabs and Jews. Feisal replied that although he realised the necessity for co-operation, he could not talk politics because he was simply a military commander and 'he could not discuss the future of Palestine in regard to Jewish colonisation or British protection'.

On June 16, 1918 the British government gave a further pledge which has since become known as the Declaration to the Seven Syrians. This Declaration stipulated that the future government of the areas already occupied by the Allied forces (which

included southern Palestine) 'should be based upon the principle of the consent of the Governed'. Regarding the areas still under Turkish control, the Declaration asserted 'that the oppressed peoples of these areas should obtain their freedom and independence'. No wonder then if Arab nationalists found in these solemn and binding pledges sufficient assurance to allay their apprehensions with regard to Zionism. Even after the capitulation of Turkey, the British and French governments found it necessary to issue, on November 8, 1918, a joint Declaration in which they announced that their object was 'the complete and definite emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations'. This Declaration was widely circulated in all Arab countries, including Palestine, and the Arabs deduced from it that Palestine was really included in its terms. In spite of all these pledges, the Palestinians protested vehemently against Zionist ambitions in Palestine. The first protest was made on December 12, 1918 by a group of Palestinians returning to Damascus from political exile and addressed to the Peace Conference at Paris and to the British Foreign Office. Accordingly one can say with certainty that from the beginning the Arabs have strongly opposed Zionism and expressed that opposition at the first opportunity. Mark Sykes, 'the evangelist of Zionism',

saw

this opposition during his visit to Palestine and Syria soon after the war. He was so 'shocked by the intense bitterness' that his views on Zionism underwent a drastic change.

Modern Arab nationalism developed on and progressive principles, of enhancing the awakening and enabling them to estaband independent state. Arab nationalism wanted the Arabs to be a useful and contributing factor in world civilisation. During the First World War, the Arabs believed that Great Britain was

constructive with the aim of the Arabs lish a unified

them achieve their objectives in exchange for granting her preferential treatment. They rose in revolt against the Turks and fought on the side of the Allies. But, before the war was over, willing to help

the Arabs discovered that Great Britain had planned with France to divide their homeland between themselves, and that Great Britain was planning to offer an integral part of their homeland — Palestine —to Zionism. To face this challenge, Arab nationalism waged a struggle against foreign domination and the Zionist invasion. This struggle has remained the basic factor in the Arab national movement until the present day. Further Reading Antonius, G., The Arab Awakening (Hamish Hamilton 1938) Barbour, N., Nisi Dominus (Harrap 1946) Gardner, B.,/W/enoy(Cassell 1965) Mousa, S., The Arab Movement 1908-1924 (Beirut 1970)

SULEIMAN MOUSA was bom in Trans-Jordan and educated in local schools, though he was for the most part self-educated During the Second World War he worked as a clerk for the British army After the war he worked for the Iraq Petroleum Company He is now a government employee with the Jordanian Ministry of Culture and Information. He began writing early in life, but published his first book only in 1 957. Since then he has published nine books including a History of Jordan in the 20th Century, T. E. Lawrence: an Arab View, and The Arab Movement 1908-1924.

2407

ZIONISM AND THE BALFOUR DECLARATION The war was a turning point in the destinies of both the Jewish and Arab nations. Jewish nationalism like Arab nationalism became the pawn of Britain's power politics. A measure of sympathy and a large degree of self-interest extracted from the British government a pledge of support for 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'. This declaration was intended to win the support of world Jewry for the Allied cause. It was to have a more profound and lasting effect than the British government had

bargained

for.

Lionel Kochan.

Right: A. J. Balfour. His 'declaration' was contained in a letter to Lord Rothschild

2408

The Balfour Declaration was issued

in November 1917, and represented the culminating point of two trends that had not come together seriously until three or four years earlier. These two trends were Zionism on the one hand, and British strategic and diplomatic interests in the Middle East on the other. In order to understand how these two influences eventually merged it is therefore necessary to consider their earlier history. Let us take Zionism first. Although the yearning for a return to Zion had been omnipresent among the Jews ever since the beginning of the Diaspora and although small groups of Jews made their way periodically to settle in Palestine, the Holy Land, thus maintaining an unbroken Jewish connection, it was not until the 19th Century that the movement became of international importance. Various currents of thought, secular, nationalist and religious, stimulated the new approach. They included men as diverse as Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1793-1874), who argued the case for resettlement in Zion from a religious standpoint, and Moses Hess (18121875). at one time a colleague of Marx and Engels, who argued in terms of a Jewish nationalism that deserved fulfilment on the same lines as the other nationalist striving of the 19th Century. Neither Kalischer nor Hess had much success in their lifetime. Not until a powerful negative factor became apparent in the 1880's and 1890's did the modern Zionist movement take on recognisable shape. This factor was the recrudescence of antisemitism in Russia (the pogroms of 1881 and after), in Vienna (the electoral victory of Liiger and the Christian-Social Party in 1895) and the emotions generated by the Dreyfus case in France (1894 and after). Taken together, these three situations must have cast doubt on the possibility that emancipation and the admission of Jews to the equal exercise of civil and political rights could ever become a reality. Leo Pinsker, a Russian Jew writing on the morrow of the pogrom of 1881, first voices his complete scepticism on this point in his pamphlet Auto-Emancipation. Through Pinsker's inspiration, the sporadic, intermittent movement for colonisation work in Palestine received further impetus. But it was not until Theodor Herzl, an Austrian-Jewish journalist and playwright, was converted to Zionism that the movement became a significant factor in Western Jewish life. Herzl was an assimilated Jew, educated in Vienna, who knew virtually nothing of Judaism or of the writings of Hess and Pinsker. But Liiger's victory at the polls in Vienna and his experiences in Paris during the early stages of the Dreyfus case (which he attended as foreign correspondent for the Vienna journal Neue Freie Presse) convinced Herzl that emancipation was no answer to the Jewish problem and that a Jewish state, though not necessarily located in Palestine, was the only solution to anti-semitism. Herzl embodied these ideas in his pamphlet The Jewish State (1896). The following year Herzl was instrumental in summoning the first Zionist Congress, held in Basle in 1897. This declared in its official programme: 'the aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law'. This required sympathy and co-operation of one or the other of the great powers and Herzl devoted the few remaining years of his life — he died in 1904 — to precisely this end. He turned first to Germany and saw the Kaiser twice in 1898 — in Constantinople and then in Jerusalem. But there was no response from the Kaiser to Herzl's plea that Germany use its good offices with the Sultan of Turkey — to whose empire Palestine then belonged — in favour of the establishment of a Jewish Chartered Company under

German

protection.

Following this rebuff Herzl turned directly to the Sultan. In 1901 and 1902 he put his case for Jewish immigration into Palestine to the Sultan and his entourage. The response was again

negative; and in 1902 Herzl turned to Britain, where his reception was much more cordial. Britain, indeed, had never been far from Herzl's intentions. As early as 1897 he had declared: From the first moment I entered the movement, my eyes were directed towards England because I saw that by reason of the general situation of things there it was the Archimedian point where the lever could be applied. The still existing happy position of the English Jews, their high standard of culture, their proud adherence to the English race caused them to appear to me as the right men to realise the Zionist idea. In 1900, at the opening of the fourth Zionist Congress in London, Herzl declared: 'England, great and free, looking out over all the seas, will understand us and our endeavours.'

Fruitless talks England did understand. Herzl's approach to England in 1902 was followed that same year and again in 1903 by serious discussions between himself and Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, regarding areas for Jewish settlement in El Arish (in the Sinai Peninsula) and in the East African Protectorate (soon to become the colony of Kenya). Nothing, in fact, came of these discussions. But they not only contrasted markedly with Herzl's failure in his negotiations with the Kaiser and the Sultan; they also pointed unmistakably to an even closer relationship between world Zionism and the British government. Why should this be so? Why should Joseph Chamberlain and his successors find it expedient to give support to the nascent Zionist movement? Once again it is necessary to turn to the past and to understand the nature of British involvement in the Middle East. Of course it had always been Britain's policy during the 19th Century to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire. But this clearly did not preclude occasional intervention in the Empire's internal affairs. This first became apparent between 1839 and 1841, when a British Vice-Consulate and a Protestant bishopric were established in Jerusalem; moreover, it is clear that Palmerston, the Foi eign Secretary, not only encouraged the movement of Jews to Palestine but also urged that they place themselves under British protection. In 1841 he wrote, for example, that 'it would be highly advantageous to the Sultan that the Jews who are scattered through other countries in Europe and Africa should be induced to go and settle in Palestine'. The necessary security for the new Jewish settlers would be provided by their position as British proteges. They would, Palmerston suggested, be 'allowed to transmit to the Porte, through British authorities, any complaints which they might have to prefer against the Turkish authorities'. Nothing came of this initiative. Nevertheless, the British consular authorities in Palestine in 1849 were instructed to afford -

British protection to stateless Russian Jews in Palestine, and this arrangement continued until 1890. What this amounted to, in fact, was that the Jews gave Britain a reason to intervene in Turkish affairs in a way similar to that enjoyed by such competing powers as France and Russia. If France had the Catholics, and Russia the Orthodox, then Britain had the Jews. However, this had little practical significance at the time. Not until the last two decades of the 19th Century and early in the 20th did the assumption of a common interest between Britain and the Jews in the Middle East begin to make sense. This was fostered by the construction of the Suez Canal (1869), the consequent shift in the centre of gravity of the Eastern question from Constantinople to Cairo and the British occupation of Egypt (1882). It is easy, therefore, to understand Joseph Chamberlain's initial interest in Herzl's scheme for a Jewish settlement in El Arish under British auspices. This would not only have helped to protect the canal but would also have extended British influence

2409

By the end of 1916, then, there was an Ottoman Empire condemned, in British eyes, to dissolution, an English disposition to use Zionism as a prop to Imperial policies in the Middle East and a world-wide Anglo-German rivalry for Jewish goodwill. Out of this heady mixture the Balfour Declaration was distilled. The immediate development of events brought this culmination

in Palestine at a time when more and more account had to be taken of the possible dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. Only the outbreak of the First World War brought these various factors together. Early in 1915, Herbert Samuel, President of the Local Government Board, and the first professing Jew to sit on

the British Cabinet, circulated a memorandum to his cabinet colleagues in which he argued on strategic grounds for a British protectorate over Palestine that would also give opportunity to the Jews to purchase land, found colonies and schools 'so that in course of time the Jewish inhabitants, grown into a majority and settled in the land, may be conceded such degree of self-government as the conditions of that day might justify'. With the exception of Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, none of the Cabinet was particularly impressed with this memorandum. More than a year passed before the British began to consider seriously the possibilities of giving official backing to a Jewish settlement in Palestine. By the end of 1916 two decisive factors had established themselves. The first was the certainty that the Ottoman Empire could not survive the war. As early as 1914, Herbert Asquith, the Premier, had sounded 'the death-knell of Ottoman dominion, not only in Europe but in Asia'. Secondly, the British government became sufficiently impressed, rightly or wrongly, by the importance of securing the backing of world Jewry for the Allied war effort as to induce Grey in the spring of 1916 to sound out Paris and Petrograd with the outline of a scheme for a British-sponsored Jewish settlement in Palestine. Furthermore, Grey added, 'when in course of time the Jewish colonists in Palestine [have] grown strong enough to cope with the Arab population, they may be allowed to take the management of the internal affairs of Palestine [with the exception of Jerusalem and the Holy Places! into their own hands.'

Hope

for the future

In the actual event, nothing came of Grey's initiative. It was the French, not the Russians, who gave it the coup de grace. But it remained a significant straw in the wind, a straw, moreover, that grew steadily thicker as influential British opinion in the person of Sir Mark Sykes (a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence with special responsibility for Middle Eastern Affairs)

saw the advantage that Britain might gain

vis-a-vis

France by

movement within the British orbit. The Zionist leaders, especially Weizmann, were pro-British, both in Britain and the United States. There was also a long tradition of friendship and admiration for Great Britain among the Jews bringing the Zionist

of Eastern Europe. Could not a common policy be built? At this point it is important to remember that there was also a negative motive powerfully impelling the British government in a pro-Zionist direction — this was the need it experienced to outbid German efforts for Jewish support. Early in the war a Committee for the East had been founded with the participation of leading German Jews. Its object was to serve as intermediary between the local Jewish population and the German authorities in those parts of Eastern Europe which had been or might be overrun by the German armies. Bearing in mind the prewar Tsarist record in the treatment of Russian Jewry it was perfectly comprehensible for Max Bodenheimer, one of the German members of the Zionist General Council, to write to Otto Warburg, Chairman of the Zionist Executive: 'As I see it, the Russian Jews have precisely the same interest as the German Reich in a decisive German victory.' Into the same pattern fits German advice to its consuls in Turkey to look sympathetically on 'Jewish activities designed to promote the economic and cultural progress of the Jews in Turkey, and also on the immigration and settlement of Jews from other countries'. But, of course, the fact that Turkey was a German ally inhibited a more open German support for Zionism.

2410

\

perceptibly nearer. As a result of the British cabinet crisis in December 1916, Lloyd George became Prime Minister and Balfour moved from the Admiralty to the more influential position of Foreign Secretary. Not only that — Asquith, the outgoing Premier, had never given the Zionists any encouragement, whereas Weizmann had ready access to Lloyd George through C. P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian and a life-long friend of the new Premier. Other pro-Zionists who now came into prominence were Lord Robert Cecil, Assistant Foreign Secretary under Balfour and Lord Milner, formerly High Commissioner in South Africa. The latter rapidly became a key figure in Lloyd George's War Cabinet and was ultimately the man mainly responsible for the actual phraseology of the Declaration. Milner, like Sykes, saw Zionism in the context of the dissolution of the Turkish Empire and it seems clear that he was mainly interested in the possibility of co-operating with the Zionists as a means of securing Britain's position in the new Middle East that would emerge from the war. At the time of these government changes a second pro-Zionist factor was beginning to emerge. By now the British had virtually completed the task of ejecting the Turks from Egypt and of establishing a reliable barrier against any threat to the Suez Canal. But would the British decide to press on to Jerusalem? Fortunately they did, despite setbacks at Gaza and elsewhere, and this new development further emphasised a community of interest between the British and the Zionists. It was a crucial turning point when Weizmann was told by Cecil in April 1917 that the British government would welcome a firm manifestation by world Jewry of its desire that Great Britain become their protecting power in Palestine. In return it was made clear that the Zionists could count on British goodwill. This bargain, it was hoped, would further impress the French, already subdued by Britain's physical possession of the country. In that climactic year of 1917, two other events furthered Zionist aspirations: the March Revolution in Russia, and the entry of the United States into the war. Both of these deserve closer consideration. The first was not an unmixed blessing. It undermined one Zionist argument, insofar as it removed the disabilities from which the Jews had suffered in Tsarist Russia and thus put an additional force behind assimilationist thought. Second, the March Revolution also provided impetus for a peace without annexations, which had a clear appeal to President Wilson. Lastly, the collapse of Tsarism rehabilitated Russia in Jewish eyes, destroyed the obnoxious alliance of Western democrats with Russian anti-semites and thus made it less necessary to appeal to the pro-German elements in world Jewry.

What matter

Russia's defection? So much for the negative factors. But the positive factors far outweighed them. Would the Tsarist government, for example, ever have approved the undertaking contained in the Declaration? Almost certainly not (although it must be remarked that its attitude to Zionism was not wholly hostile). Again, the weakening of Russia in the triangular Anglo-French-Russian struggle for postwar influence in the Ottoman Empire simplified the struggle in that area. Lastly, given the growing instability of the Provisional Government and the growth of pacifist sentiment, the importance of Russian Jewry, if it could be convinced of an identity of interest as between an Allied victory and the Jewish cause, was enormously enhanced.

Right:

The pro-Zionist cabinet

minister,

Weizmann with British officers at GHQ Palestine, May 1918. Born in Russia in 1874, Weizmann emigrated and studied in Germany before settling in

Herbert Samuel. Below:

England. During the war he worked in the explosives department of the Admiralty and was able to use his influence to further the

cause

of

Zionism

2411

Theodor Herzl-a disillusioned

assimilationist,

he called for the creation of a Jewish state and built up a world-wide organisation for the Zionist

movement

By a curious paradox, what applied to a declining Russia also applied to an emerging United States. In the latter, the support of American Jewry for the Zionist and British cause could be expected to blunt the edges of Wilson's anti-imperialist and antiannexationist policies. Furthermore, Zionism, as embodied in the Declaration, would help to ensure that the American Jewish masses felt a direct concern in the outcome of the war, for only ail Allied victory would realise Jewish hopes in Palestine. This was the immediate background to a number of messages from Weizmann and James de Rothschild to Brandeis in the spring of 1917, a critical stage in Zionist fortunes. Both Russia and America, wrote Weizmann, are at present proclaiming antiannexationist principles. I need not dwell on the fact that Jewish national democracy, and the Zionist organisation which essentially represents this democracy, trust implicitly to British rule, and they see in a British protectorate the only possibility for a normal development of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. Whereas, in my opinion, Great Britain would not agree to a simple annexation oj Palestine it would certainly protect and support a .

.

.

Jewish Palestine. Weizmann's optimism was not misplaced. Such opposition as still existed to a more open association of British and Zionist policy came from the as yet undefeated forces of anti-Zionism in Anglo-Jewry. Their argument as put, for example, by Lucien Wolf, spokesman of the Conjoint Foreign Committee, the leading English anti-Zionist body, was a familiar one. Wolf argued that the 'national postulate' inherent in Zionism implied 'the perpetual alienage of the Jews everywhere outside Palestine'. It confirmed, he said, the argument of the anti-semites by emphasising the unassimilability of the Jews, thus imperilling their status even in those countries where they were emancipated. During most of the war there had been a running battle between Zionism and anti-Zionists. This conflict also came to a head in the spring of 1917. On May 14 that year, the Conjoint Foreign Committee published a letter in The Times in which it decisively rejected 'the wider Zionist theory, which regards all the Jewish communities of the world as constituting one homeless nationality But the committee, in its representations to the British government, was in an embarrassing and inhibiting position of having to propound a policy that conflicted fundamentally with that of the government to which it was for ever protesting its loyalty. Its last shot was fired in the Cabinet itself by Edwin Montagu, Secretary for India — a man who said of himself that he had spent all his life trying to escape from the ghetto. But in the end all that Montagu could achieve was some slight delay. After passing through a number of drafts, the British War Cabinet finally approved the Declaration on October 31, 1917. The text reads: His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed in any other country.' At the time its full import could not be foreseen. But it did serve to inaugurate a period of Anglo-Zionist co-operation. When this period came to an end, the Declaration's importance as a herald of the State of Israel stood out clear and forthright. .

.'

.

Further Reading Parkes, J., Whose Land (Pelican 1970) Sachar, H., The Emergence of the Middle East (London 1970) Stein, L, The Balfour Declaration (London 1961)

[For Lionel Kochan's biography, see p. 1947.]

2412

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At 0620 hours on November 20 1917, 381 tanks moved forward from their last assembly points, led by their commander General Elles flying his flag in one of the leading machines in the true style of a 'land admiral'. The wire was easily crushed, German troops in the front lines fled in terror, and a huge hole almost six

miles wide and up to 4,000 yards deep was torn in the formidable Hindenburg Line. This was the dramatic birth of large scale tank warfare. Had Haig's armies at last discovered the real answer to barbed wire and machine gun war? David Chandler. Above: Brigadier-General Hugh Elles, Commander of the Tank Corps at Cambrai, painted by Sir William Orpen. Above right: Elles's Special Order, issued on the day before his Tank Corps went into action

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CAMBRAI THE BRITISH ONSLAUGHT 2413

page Right: Tank crewman Seconded

This

from other

men were

units,

\

crew-

distinguished

by their unorthodox clothing Most were issued with a blue steel

helmet and

leather jerkin The chain mail visor was intended as protection against metal splinters

^<^3

Far right: A Mark IV

^=gjj

female, adapted for fascine-laying

Below: A diagram

*'

!

fiffSy/

of

the Tank Battle Drill devised by Lt-Col J. F. C.

w

Fuller of Elles's staff

Opposite page. Left: Haig He wanted a local success to place

*=~^2f^k

FyP

•

*jd

rri

lw j

*?

y

--^si

against the Allied failures of 1917

Right: The British infantry who followed the tanks in groups of four platoons, in file

Tank echelon (usually one tank coy

4 sections of 3 tanks

Trench cleaners platoons per tank

(4

section.

Trench

36-40 men

per platoon

in

two

cleaners in extended order

files)

••••••< ••••••<

50 yds

Trench 'stop' parties

Trench 'stop' parties platoons per tank

(4

Half battalion in support

section)

German Half battalion in

Fascine. 4'

support

flag

3 The

are followed by second tank

and crosses last

tank

in

fire trench,

in

left to

rake

fire

trench with

1

then swings

4

All

5

Infantry 'trench cleaners' then clear the right to left, aided by

6

left to

movement

German

lines (2 platoons per trench) from

2nd & 3rd tanks.

Infantry 'stop' platoons secure trenches, set up blocks and improve wire gaps,

flanking fightrng tanks cross fascine bridges, then turn right to

shoot up the

rake support trench.

the vicinity of the objective.

through which the reserves then pass.

2414

3rd

(with aid of fascine) and drive on to breach second wire belt.

fire trench.

3 The remaining

and crosses the support trench towards the objective. in

diameter

'Wire crushing' tanks dispose of advanced posts, break wire, cross trench

2 Two

each section, which drops fascine, plants

each section crushes second wire barrier, drops fascine, plants flag

tanks then rally

in

1

Advanced guard tanks crush wire, create gap and swing main and secondary armament.

2 These

6"

movement

2nd movement

Variation by 5 st (Highland Division)

Sequence of Attack 1

1st

lines

British ob|ective

5,

4

General tank

6

Infantry,

fighting tank passes straight

ahead

to bridge

support trench

rally.

deployed

in

extended order, carry out normal 'cleaning' and

'stopping' role (from left to right).

The dramatic events in the vicinity of Cambrai in November 1917 occupy a

free of shell holes. Furthermore, the main line of the Hindenburg defences (to which

mind of delivering a war-winning blow at Cambrai — he knew his resources would

place in the history of the First in. general and in that of the Royal Tank Regiment (formerly the Tank Corps) in particular. November 20 saw the birth of large scale tank warfare, and for a brief but glorious moment it seemed that a decisive breakthrough had at last been achieved, and that an element of strategic mobility was about to return to the Western Front after three years of trench warfare. In fact the success was to prove more illusory than real, and the ringing of church bells throughout Great Britain on November 23 (the sole time this was authorised before the Armistice) was decidedly premature, for the well-known conditions of stalemate and positional warfare were to reassert themselves within three days of the offensive's opening. Nevertheless, as John Terraine has written: 'After Cambrai there could be no further argument; the decisive weapon of land warfare in the mid-twentieth century had now definitely arrived. A new dimension of war was established. Haig's armies had at last discovered what the real answer to wire and machine guns was.' Haig had been considering 'an attack of surprise in the centre with tanks, and without artillery bombardment' as early as February 1917. As the autumn of a year more dismal than any of its predecessors set in, the idea hardened into a firm

the

Germans had retired earlier in 1917) swung away to the northwestward and

never permit a massive exploitation even if the attack proved a success — but he was aware of the vital need to give the Allied governments and peoples some evidence of at least one tangible success to compen-

special

World War

resolve.

Haig noted

tember

16:

in his diary for Sepdiscussed with Byng some operations which he proposed. I told him I would give him all the help I could.' This laconic entry marks the practical genesis of the Cambrai offensive. General Sir Julian Byng, Commander of Third Army, was told that his command would be reinforced to a total strength of 19 divisions, and that the entire Tank Corps would be placed at his disposal. With these forces he was to launch a surprise attack on the German lines near Cambrai on a date — still to be confirmed — in November. The choice of both place and time was carefully considered. The rolling chalkbased downlands of the Somme region promised far better going than the morass of the Flanders front. It had also been a relatively quiet sector of the front for some time, and the ground was comparatively 'I

then north in a vast sweeping curve, and the capture of the ridge near the village of Bourlon would provide a superb view over the Germans' rear areas almost as far as Valenciennes. A quick surprise attack here might yield useful results. The Cambrai plain had been suggested as a suitable site for a large scale tank raid by Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, GSO 1 to Brigadier-General Hugh Elles, commanding the Tank Corps, in June 1917. Apart from being well drained, the area was bounded by two canals to west and east, the Canal du Nord, and the St Quentin respectively, and the Allied front included thick woods, more particularly near Havrincourt, and these would help conceal the final preparations. Intelligence reported only two German divisions in the line, with no more than five, and 150 guns, in support. A refined version of Fuller's plan earned Elles' full approval, and was forthwith forwarded to both GHQ and General Byng. Simultaneously, a second plan calling for a similar combined tank and infantry onslaught without a preliminary bombardment over the very same ground was being prepared by Brigadier-General H. H. Tudor, CRA to 9th (Scottish) Division. This scheme reached Third Army headquarters on August 23 via IV Corps. It was a plan based on these two schemes which won Haig's approval at a conference with Byng on September 16. The timing of the offensive was of the greatest importance to the British Commander-in-Chief. At first it seems he envisaged Cambrai as a purely diversionary attack, intended to ease pressure from the embattled divisions still locked (in September) in the agony of Third Ypres. In fact, however, that terrible offensive was to come to an unmourned conclusion two weeks before the opening of"Cambrai. Nevertheless, Haig well understood the need to strive for a success somewhere on the Western Front to set against the dismal tale of failures at Ypres, mutinies in the French army, the catastrophic situation developing on the Russian Front, and, more recently, the massive Italian disaster at Caporetto. There was no idea in Haig's

sate

in

casualty

some measure

for the horrific incurred in earlier failures. then to quote the Cambrai

lists

His object, Despatch, was 'a local success'. Sir Julian Byng, not surprisingly, was more ambitious. Briefing his corps commanders at Albert on October 26, he painted a picture of a three-stage battle opening the way to greater things. In the first phase, some 409 tanks followed by infantry were to smash a five-mile breach through the Hindenburg Line in the sector bounded by the two canals; their initial advance would coincide with the laying down of an unregistered bombardment by 1,003 guns which would provide the Germans with no warning of what was afoot. Next, a 'cavalry gap' would be carved towards the River Sensee, involving the capture of the key communication centre of Cambrai, the domination of Bourlon ridge, and the establishment of bridgeheads over the Sensee itself. Thirdly, the victorious Third Army would sweep north and west up the German line towards Valenciennes. Haig, as we have seen, was not so optimistic as his subordinate, and insisted on modifications to the plan. First, he laid down a 48-hour deadline for the initial

breakthrough; if that was not achieved by the time limit, the offensive would be closed down. Secondly, he insisted that Cambrai should be masked, but not actually captured, in phase two; far more important, in his view, was the physical occupation of Bourlon ridge — and the wood and village of the

same name — which would

afford a

superb view over the German rear areas for artillery observation posts at the

moment possible. Thirdly, Haig knew that the exploitation envisaged by Byng was beyond his means. The French, earliest

eager to share in such a promising opera-

had placed five divisions at his disposal near Peronne, intending to roll tion,

up the German line southwards in the exploitation phase, but the British Staff were not too keen to accept this aid. As for Third Army, no less than 14 of its 19 2415

Left: Trees cut down by the Germans across a road in the Flesquieres sector — one reason for the check here which ultimately jeopardised the battle Right: Lt-Gen

Kavanagh. His cavalry were to follow through

when

the tanks broke the German line

Far right: Maj-Gen Harper, 51st Division. He substituted his own infantry/tank drill for Fuller's— another reason for the check before Flesquieres

Below: 'Hyacinth', ditched on the first day in

the

German second

line

near Ribecourt

]

Left:

A

IV,

British

German Right: to

Mark

destroyed by shell fire

Mark

IVs wait

move forward again

across terrain (rolling chalk-based downland, comparatively free of shell holes) which promised good going for Fuller's

standard

tank drill (explained diagrammatically on page 2414) Far right: General Sir Julian Byng, Third Army.

He was more ambitious than Haig in his a estimate of the breakthrough possible at Cambrai. Haig had laid a

48-hour dead-

line for the initial

onslaught — if the major objectives were not achieved the offensive

had been bled white at Third Ypres, and both men and resources were almost at exhaustion point. As BrigadierGeneral John Charteris, Haig's Chief of Intelligence, wrote: 'We shall have no reserves. We shall be alright at first; afterwards is in the lap of the God of battle.' At there was therefore little divisions

GHQ

hope of a runaway success.

The Hindenburg Line A word must here be devoted

to the Hin-

denburg Line. The position comprised three lines of double trenches. The front line consisted of advanced posts, then a wide fire trench, with a support trench some 200 yards to the rear. A mile back was the official Hindenburg Support Line, once again two trenches deep, and two miles behind that was a third position, almost completed, known to the Germans as Siegfried II. Six belts of wire, the main one 100 yards deep, protected the main

positions, and all support and rearward positions were similarly provided for. Holding the Cambrai sector of this strong position were the 20th Landwehr Division, the 54th Division, and part of the 9th Reserve Division, which, together with the

183rd further south, formed the Gruppe

Caudry

XIII Korps); this formation formed part of General von der Marwitz's Second Army (HQ at Le Cateau), which in turn was under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria's headquarters. The front line forces

(or

were not particularly strong, as

subsequently admitted, for the German forces had also suffered considerably at Third Ypres. By a stroke of good fortune, however, the leading elements of the 107th Division, being transferred from the Eastern Front, began to detrain at Cambrai on November 19, and were placed under temporary command of 54th Division for use in any (as yet unforeseen) emergency. General Byng entrusted the brunt of the initial phase of 'Operation G Y' to his III and IV Corps, with the Tank Corps to the fore. Lieutenant-General Sir William Pulteney (III Corps), had four divisions (6th, 12th, 20th and 29th), a cavalry detachment, and the 2nd and 3rd Tank Brigades at his disposal. His task was to engage three divisions in the assault phase, and with them secure the offensive's right flank (aided by VII Corps on

Ludendorff

2418

was

to

end

right). First his divisions would be expected to breach the Hindenburg defences from Crevecoeur to Bonavis, secure the line of the St Quentin Canal, and then its

Marcoing and Masnieres form a bridgehead, through which the 2nd and 5th Cavalry Divisions of Lieutenant-General Sir C. T. McM. Kavanagh's Cavalry Corps would then advance to bypass Cambrai, sever its railway links, and' pour on towards Cauroir, and Iway, to force crossings at

to

seize crossings over the Sensee.

On Z+l

they would be followed by the 3rd and 4th Cavalry Divisions, whilst III Corps infantry formed a defensive flank from Gonnelieu to La Belle Etoile. Meanwhile, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Woollcombe (IV Corps), would initially

have committed two divisions —

the 62nd (West Riding) and the 51st (Highland) — to the battle, supported by the advance of a third — the 36th — on the left or northern flank of the offensive zone. They would be led into battle by the tanks of the 1st Tank Brigade, and it was ultimately decided that the corps would have 1st Cavalry Division under command. The IV Corps' task was to breach the German lines along its sector, capture Havrincourt, Flesquieres, Graincourt and Cantaing in the process, and then pass through its reserve divisions and the cavalry for the all important attack on the Bourlon complex (ridge, wood and village) — Sir Douglas Haig's prime objective for the first stage of the battle. It was envisaged that the 1st Cavalry Division would aid in the isolation of Cambrai by establishing contact with the main Cavalry Corps to its right, before wheeling left to attack Bourlon village from the northeast. One1 these objectives had been achieved, Byng would commit his reserve (V Corps — the Guards, 40th and 59th Divisions) to secure the Sensee crossings, and create a bridgehead to the heights beyond. These troops would advance over IV Corps communications. All these associated operations would be supported by some 300 Allied aircraft, four squadrons being earmarked for close tactical support of the assault itself. Finally, on November 17, Third Army notified all senior commanders that the offensive was to open at

HQ

0620 hours on Tuesday, November 20. Meanwhile, feverish but well-concealed preparations were being undertaken at all

One thousand guns were moved up and placed in camouflaged emplacements, and their crewi, instructed in the means of opening the bombardment without prior levels.

registration or ranging. Thirty-six special trains were steadily moving up the 476 tanks, first to the corps mounting area at Bray-sur-Somme, then towards their individual battalion 'lying-up' areas immediately behind the front. One by one, battalions were taken out of the line to train in tank/infantry tactics. The form of these followed the proposals of Fuller: tanks were to operate in groups of three, each vehicle carrying a heavy fascine of wood (weighing lij tons), in association with four platoons of infantry, following in file at prescribed distances in two waves. The Tank Battle Drill' would be followed by every assault formation except the 51st (Highland) Division, whose commander, Major-General G. M. Harper, a soldier 'of extremely strong views' (according to Woollcombe) imposed a variation which was to have important repercussions on his sector. Stage by stage the broad intention (but not the date) was revealed to lower formations. The final moves took place from November 17. The tanks (each battalion having a fighting strength of 36 machines supported by a further six) moved forward

.

uniforms and carrying rifles. BrigadierGeneral Elles took up his position in 'Hilda' towards the centre of 6th Division's front, his tank flying the improvised green, red and brown battle-standard (signifying 'from mud through blood to the green fields beyond'). A final message went to all formations: 'Zero-hour will be 0620 hours.' Precisely at the appointed minute the guns crashed out, and the first wave of

surged forwards into No-Man's each 'main body' vehicle being followed at 25 to 50 yards by the infantry platoons. As the guns successively raised their sights to keep the shell-line 300 yards ahead of the advance, a two-mile smoke-screen soon blinded the defenders

tanks Land,

of the Flesquieres sector, and a half-mile

by night, crawling along in bottom gear (to reduce the volume of engine noise) following white tapes over the last 1,500 yards, while aircraft flew low overhead and machine guns maintained routine fire tasks further to smother the tell-tale

rumble — with success. Camp fires were strictly forbidden by night and carefully controlled by day. On the 62nd Division's front, a false screen of trees and brushwood

was erected surreptitiously along the forward edge of Havrincourt Wood, behind which the divisional artillery was sited within 2,000 yards of the German front line. However, the Germans were not so completely fooled as has sometimes been claimed. Although on November 16 von der Marwitz reported that he did not anticipate a major British attack, Crown Prince Rupprecht was not wholly satisfied. Early on the 18th a German raid captured

NCO

men, who under interrogation revealed that an attack was being an

and

prepared

five

against Havrincourt. Consequently, the German 54th Division was placed on full alert from midday. On the 19th, German monitors picked up a snatch of a telephone conservation — 'Tuesday, .' As a result an infantry regiFlanders ment and several reserve battalions were switched into the Cambrai area, while Gruppe Arras was alerted that an attack .

.

on Havrincourt was likely the next morning, and that it might be accompanied by tanks — preceded, however, by a bombardment. From the early hours of the 20th, Gruppe Caudry was also stood-to. These moves, however, were mainly precautionary in nature and decidedly limited in scale. In sum, the Germans knew that something was brewing on the Cambrai sector, but failed to appreciate its scale or form. The German High Command was caught unprepared. As Ludendorff wrote: 'We were expecting a continuation of the attacks in Flanders and on the French front, when on November 20 we were surprised by a fresh blow at Cambrai.'

'Zero-hour will be 0620 hours'

By the hour before dawn on Tuesday, November 20, 216 tanks had been moved into carefully camouflaged positions along a six-mile front. A little way back waited a further 96 in support, and each of the nine tank battalions had six more in reserve besides three signal tanks per brigade. At appointed positions 32 special 'grapnel-tanks' waited (charged with tearing large gaps through the German wire), and two 'bridge-tanks' prepared to accompany the cavalry advance. Five divisions of infantry silently formed up behind their tanks, many officers donning privates'

screen filled Nine Wood, supplementing the prevailing autumn mists. Good progress was soon being signalled on all sectors. 'The German outposts, dazed or annihilated by the sudden deluge of shells, were overrun in an instant', wrote D. G. Browne in The Tank in Action. 'The triple belts of wire were crossed as if they had been beds of nettles, and 350 pathways were sheared through them for the infantry.' Reaching the German fire-trench, the tanks carried through their drill, passing over fascines to attack the support trench in similar fashion while the infantry poured into the German positions to clear them with grenade, bullet and bayonet. The Blue Line was occupied by 1000 hours. Progress was astoundingly rapid for officers and men used to measuring progress in yards. For the tank crews, the advance was exhilarating but far from comfortable. 'When it lurched it threw its crews about like so many peanuts,' recalled Captain D. E. Hickey, 'and they had to clutch on to whatever they could when we were going over uneven ground. The rattle of the tracked machinery produced the illusion of tremendous speed.' In fact, an average speed of 2 mph was deemed good going, but the lurches, restricted view, appalling din and fumes of the roaring engines placed a heavy strain on the tank crews, all wearing chain-mail masks as protection against metal splinters from inside of the hulls. These apparitions crawling out of the mists of a November morning in such large numbers terrified the leading German

2419

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formations. Many turned to flee. 'Without exaggeration', wrote a German officer of the scenes behind the lines, 'some of the infantry seemed to be off their heads with fright.' It seemed as if the entire front was collapsing, as the tank second wave passed to the front through their rallying comrades, and headed for the Brown Line — the rlindenburg support positions. On many sectors the rate of advance was mainamed unchecked. Away on the distant right, 12th Division had reached the Blue Line as early as 0830 hours, and within an hour all III Corps' initial tasks had been achieved. In front of Ribecourt, however, 'Hilda had become firmly 'ditched' and a frustrated Elles had to return to his headquarters, where he found time to send a telegram to Colonel Ernest Swinton (the creator of the Tank Corps) in London: 'All ranks thank you. Your show. Elles.' l

General Harper's peculiar tactics All this had been achieved with insignificant loss — except on the Flesquieres sector of 51st Division's front, where, as we have already recorded, tank casualties

had been heavy. Here officers were already complaining that an excessive interval had developed between infantry and tanks. Why was this? The arguments continue to this day, but it would seem that MajorGeneral Harper must bear personal responsibility. This officer had substituted his own infantry/tank drill for Colonel Fuller's standard version. By Harper's

method, the 'advanced guard tanks' were brigaded together, and ordered to push straight ahead over the fire-trench to achieve the maximum possible initial penetration, leaving the 'main body' tanks to support the infantry clearing operations. Even more important, Harper laid down an interval of 'not less than 100 yards' between tanks and following infantry, and insisted that the latter should advance, not by platoons in file, but by sections in extended order. The cumulative effect of these changes was that the lead tanks got far ahead of the infantry, and became easy targets, while far to their rear the Highlanders, in deployed sections, found far more difficulty in struggling through the wire than their comrades on other sectors, who passed through in file immediately behind their tanks, and thus kept in close touch with them.

2420

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Here was one reason for the check before — which ultimately ruined the effectiveness of the battle. But there were other reasons too. There was no denying Flesquieres

that Flesquieres constituted the strongest sector of the German position opposite IV Corps. Placed as it was on a reverse slope, its protective ridge forming the head of a re-entrant, leading down to the Grand Ravine valley, which was in turn flanked by the villages of Havrincourt and Ribe-

can be understood why General doubted the advisability of a straightforward frontal assault on such a position, with or without tank support. Other unfortunate coincidences created further difficulties. The master plan enjoined a pause to consolidate and regroup for the forces operating against the flanks of the Flesquieres salient after gaining their Blue Line objectives, and this encouraged the development of a certain loss of momentum in the centre. Furthermore, for some reason the effectiveness of the bombardment by the Allied artillery and court,

it

Harper

aircraft against the German artillery positions neighbouring the village left

much

to be desired,

many

of the

German

guns remaining in action against the exposed forward tanks. The garrison of Flesquieres sector, commanded by Major Krebs, consisted of three battalions, two machine gun companies, and five field gun batteries, supported by four batteries of howitzers and five of heavier guns. Parts of 213 Field Artillery Regiment were also placed under the com-

mand of 54th Division as they materialised from Cambrai with the leading troops of 107th Division. General von der Watter, moreover, had specifically and effectively trained his gunners to engage moving targets over open sights. These guns, thereproceeded to mete out destruction to 'E' Battalions of the Tank Corps. Some accounts claim that 16 tanks were knocked out before they even reached the Flesquieres wire; the modern consensus would seem to suggest only seven. This notwithstanding, there is no doubt that by last light on November 20 no less than 39 tanks had been destroyed or disabled (two temporarily) on the sector — sufficient, as it proved, to ruin the success of the first day's fighting and even to blunt the effectiveness of Third Army's entire offensive fore,

'D'

by

and

its side-effects.

Opposite page. Top

A Mark

left:

ditched outside Bourlon, the northern-most limit of the British advance. IV

Bourlon

Wood was

taken on the third day, but despite desperate attacks over the next four days the village itself never fell

Above: A Mark IV clears barbed wire, one of the most important functions of the new tank arm. Preliminary artillery barrages (there was not one at

Cambrai) consumed up to 4,500,000 shells to

achieve the same end Left: Fontaine, near Bourlon. German troops march round an

abandoned Mark on the third day

IV

2421

Haig and Byng called for

new

efforts,

but

tempers were becoming brittle. 'If you don't take Fontaine, General Harper', Sir Charles

Woollcombe declared,

'God help you!' The celebrated story of 'the gunner of Flesquieres' to whom even Haig paid homage in the Cambrai Despatch, has become the subject of great contention. Some versions speak of a German Major who single-handed operated an abandoned field gun to devastating effect before being killed himself. 'The great bravery of this officer aroused the admiration of all ranks' (Haig). The Germans, however, have never officially recognised the existence of this heroic officer, but Oberleutnant Zindler's eye-witness account claims the honour for Unteroffizier Kriiger of the 8th Battery. This NCO was stationed 500 yards east of the village, and the historian Becke claims that it was his gun that knocked out seven tanks, and that his body was found beside his gun. Thus there were many factors that contributed to the 51st Division's failure before Flesquieres. However, it cannot be disputed that the division's reserve brigade was never sent into the battle on the first day. It was also unfortunate that an attempt to launch 18th Brigade of the 6th Division against the flank of the position from the neighbourhood of Premy Chapel also foundered. Both circumstances are capable of explanation; Plan GY laid it down that the Highlanders' reserve was to be used only against Siegfried 11 — which had not been reached on this sector; and 18th Brigade Headquarters, well forward in the battle zone, was found only after a long search, and daylight was fading before an attack could be extemporised. By that time the rain was pouring down, so it was decided to call the effort off. One consequence of these setbacks was the failure to take Bourlon and its key ridge. An important role in this operation was entrusted to the 1st Cavalry Division (IV Corps). This force was under orders to pass up the Grand Ravin to Ribecourt, flank Nine Wood, press along the St Quentin Canal, and finally swing northwest to attack Bourlon. The cavalry commander, Major-General R. L. Mullens, on receipt of an erroneous message from the Cavalry Corps at 1130 hours to the effect that Ribecourt was still dominated by the Germans, adjusted his orders to incorporate an advance through Flesquieres. This was obviously impossible, and by the time 2nd Cavalry Brigade, leading the division, had extricated itself from

2422

the rear area of the blocked 51st Division and reassembled in the Grand Ravine, several hours had passed. Similar difficulties prevented any participation in the proposed 18th Brigade's attack, which was in any case hampered by command problems of its own. Thus 1st Cavalry Division spent a frustrating day; the only achievement was a useful raid by 'A' Squadron, 4th Dragoon Guards, which bypassed Cantaing and routed a German headquarters near Chateau-la-Folie. This was the most dramatic penetration of the 'Cavalry Gap' on the first day. Meanwhile, on the left flank of IV Corps, the 62nd Division had made great progress up the Canal du Nord, capturing both Havrincourt and Graincourt, and ultimately 186th Brigade reached the Cambrai-Bapaume highroad. Parts of 36th Division made equal gains along their sector to the 62nd's left. As for the fortunes of III Corps later on November 20, these too, had continued to be blessed with suc-

The Hindenburg Support Line had been substantially breached by midday. On the extreme right, 12th Division comcess.

menced the formation

of a defensive flank along Bonavis Ridge, whilst the 70 surviving 'runners' of the III Corps tank battalions led a further advance to the St Quentin Canal. Prominent in these operations were the men of 29th Division, who reached Nine Wood and Marcoing by midday. Further to the right, the canal bank was occupied, but not before the Germans had successfully demolished the main crossings. This caused some delay in establishing the 'cavalry gap' demanded by the plan; long lines of horsemen were already

Above: A

British Mark IV brings in a captured German 5.9-inch naval gun east of Ribecourt. Below: British tanks, two of them carrying fascines, move on the German lines. Opposite: The first nine days of Cambrai, the period of British success

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2423

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moving up from Villers Plouich towards Marcoing, and from Gouzeaucourt towards Les Rues Vertes, but the canal line had to be breached. This was, in fact, achieved about 1530 hours by 'B' Squadron of the Canadian Fort Garry Horse, which passed over an intact footbridge and routed a German battery, but in the end this intrepid formation was forced to stampede its horses and return to the bridge on foot under command of Lieutenant H. Strachan, who won the VC that day. Meanwhile, near Noyelles, the Reserve Squadron of the 7th Dragoon Guards also made a brief excursion to the north bank over three trestle bridges, but these relatively small scale successes, together with the exploit of the 4th Dragoon Guards already related, were the sum total of the cavalry's achievements on November 20. still

The breakthrough

is held Apart from these setbacks, however, almost all objectives set for the 'break-in' phase of the battle had been achieved. A huge breach — almost six miles wide and up to 4,000 yards deep, had been torn into the Hindenburg Line; even Siegfried II had been severely breached on the Marcoing sector. This achievement had cost some 4,000 British casualties, but over 4,200 German prisoners had been taken, besides 100 guns. Much would clearly depend on the outcome of the next day's fighting. Overnight, however, the Germans were taking steps to check the rot. The intrepid survivors of the Flesquieres garrison were withdrawn; the 107th Division continued to come up from Cambrai, proving an in-

2424

valuable source of

men

for

AV.VJ

patching the

between the Bapaume road and Masnieres. They were still very anxious about the situation, being unaware of how many of the British reserves had already been committed to battle. 'Fortunately,' recorded the German High Command, 'the enemy was himself taken by surprise by the extent of his success.' The renewed battle on November 21 from the British point of view is one of increasing exhaustion and a general reduccrucial sector

tion in forward momentum. In the early hours 51st Division had at last occupied a deserted Flesquieres, and 154th Brigade passed through to attack Cantaing — captured, along with 300 prisoners, by 0030 hours. A number of tanks and part of the 5th Dragoon Guards shared in this success, which extended the breach driven into the Siegfried II position to a width of well over two miles. However, the desperate weariness of the infantry — and the tank crews — made a full exploitation impossible. Petrol, water and even ammunition were all in short supply. So the theme for November 21 was one of 'consolidation' rather than of dramatic gains. There were, indeed, a few setbacks. On left of IV Corps, a German counterattack retook Moeuvres from 36th Division. That evening, however, Sir Douglas Haig decided that the battle should continue, although his original time limit had been reached without the gaining of all key objectives — most especially the Bourlon position and the exploitation of the 'gap' — and despite the increasing evidence that the Germans were fast recovering from their initial surprise and be-

ginning to bring up reinforcements. However, the bolder course won. 'After weighing these various considerations, I decided to continue the operations to gain the position.' Byng was accordingly ordered that IV Corps, supported by V Corps, was to continue its attack, whilst III Corps' offensive was to be 'shut-down' to a holding action on the right. The lure of Bourlon Ridge thus continued to exert its strong — and deadly — fascination over the

Bourlon

Commander-in-Chief. The next week's events were dominated by a herculean struggle for Bourlon. It was predominantly an infantry slogging match of the usual kind. For the British, the new phase opened badly with the loss of Fontaine on November 22 as German counterattacks slammed home against the tired 51st and 62nd Divisions. However, in rear the Guards Division and two fresh brigades of 36th Division were preparing to mount an attack to regain Moeuvres, while the artillery poured a relentless fire into Bour-

Wood and village. Next morning (November

lon

23),

100 tanks

Division against Bourlon ridge, with 432 guns giving fire support. Bourlon, however, was now the responsibility of Gruppc Arras which had two divisions in the line and a further two (including the 3rd Guards) moving up in support; there were also now 200 German guns to help contest the sector, while the arrival of Baron von Richthofen's famous 'circus' implied a serious challenge for control of the led 40th

Meantime Gruppc Caudry had received two new divisions, and Gruppe Busigny had taken over the left of air over the battle zone.

Am left: A fascine-laying Mark The fascines, carried on the unditching rail and released from inside, were 4 /2 feet in diameter, 10 feet long and T/2 tons in weight. Top right: The role of the 32 special grapnel-tanks. This page. Above and above right: A closer view of Fuller's tanks battle drill (shown on page 2414), showing in more detail the relationship between infantry and fascine-laying tanks

Opposite page. Top

IV.

Division and the dismounted 9th Cavalry Brigade were to be thrown against Bourlon

1

the

German

line to relieve its battered

neighbour of all distractions. The struggle for Bourlon reached its peak on November 23, when Major-General Sir John Ponsonby's 40th Division reached the crest of Bourlon Wood, but failed to penetrate the village beyond. In the space of 72 hours this single division was to lose 4,000 casualties. The Germans were suffering too, but Moser (commanding Gruppe Arras) noted that 'our artillery and aeroplanes are gaining the ascendancy more

and more'. Haig and Byng called for new efforts, but tempers were becoming brittle. 'If you don't take Fointaine, General Harper,' Sir Charles Woollcombe declared to the commander of 51st Division, charged with a new objective on the right of 40th Division, 'God help you!' Despite this admonition, little progress was ultimately made, and 40th Division's flank remained dangerously exposed. Shortages of manpower were being experienced, and Byng authorised IV Corps to use 1st Cavalry Division in infantry roles. He also brought in the Guards Division to relieve the 51st. A further major effort was ordered for midday on November 24; the gallant 40th

at

noon; the Guards were to attack the

Fontaine sector, and the 36th and 56th Divisions were to clear

German

positions

between Moeuvres and Inchy.

The battle was ferocious; at first it seemed that 40th Division might take the village, but by 1100 hours they had been repulsed save for one small party under Colonel Wade which clung to a segment of the village for two days. By this time the whole of the Cavalry Division was involved, but by last light the Germans had regained the northern edge of the Wood. Sir Douglas Haig might still publicly talk by three cavalry divisions, and had managed to detain two divisions earmarked, for transfer to Italy. about

a breakthrough

Brigadier-General Charteris (his Intelligence chief) was aware of the true situation: 'Things have not gone well. Our troops are tired, and the Germans are getting up large reinforcements; we have none available.'

Byng continued to fling his weary and depleted divisions against Bourlon, but to no avail. He switched his divisions to and fro, set new deadlines, tried to inspire his commanders and men to new exertions, but it was by now beyond the power of Third Army. Colonel Wade was rescued on November

26,

and heavy bombardments were

hurled at the Germans, who by now had seven divisions in the line, four of them in the key sector, and their artillery strength was 500. The last effort, as it proved, was made on

November

27.

The 62nd and Guards

Divi-

accompanied by 30 tanks, advanced yet again against the Bourlon and Fontaine sectors. Casualties were heavy. Fontaine was partly overrun, but a German counterattack, ten battalions strong, proved too heavy, and the Guards Division sions,

was driven back to its start line. By this time the 2nd Guards Brigade had been reduced to 500 men. At the day's end, the British line in Bourlon Wood had been driven back to the crest amongst the trees. After this failure the Commander-inChief was prepared to concede failure, and Third Army was ordered to close down its offensive. On November 28, IV Corps headquarters issued a significant order: 'Wire should be got up at all costs today, and wiring on the Bourlon perimeter systematically carried out by pioneers and R.E.' This signalled the end of the British adventure of Cambrai: the old conditions of stalemate had reasserted themselves. But the history of the Battle of Cambrai still had another, final, act to run. German artillery were now hurling shells against the newly-extemporised British positions in Bourlon Wood. On other sectors, both November 28 and 29 were relatively quiet days — but to some this seemed more menacing than reassuring. These fears were proved correct when, at 0830 hours on November 30, an intense German bombardment rained down on the British lines. Soon alarm signals were being received from many sectors. As one sergeant of the 1st Royal Berkshires reported to his officer: 'SOS gone up in 27 different places, and the Bosche coming over the 'ill in thousands.' The German counteroffensive had begun.

2425

CAMBRA1 THE GERMAN

tank surprise at Cambrai t Germans repaid the compliment with one which was similar in principle but different in metho Without a long artillery preparation, a short hurricane gas and smoke bombardment cleared the way for an infantry attack using new infiltration tactics. This was a foretaste of the offensives which were to smash through the British and French armies in spring 1918

Ten days

T»

after the

to

David phandk

COUNTERATTACK Below: A German war artist's impression of the lay of the stunning counterattack

MM-!i3n'&;«£

first

A

battery of 77-mm's in action. Shell tire was the greatest single cause of tank casualty at Cambrai, accounting for over one third of all losses on the first day (65 out of 179 tanks)

Following the eventual stabilisation of the front after the exhaustion of General Sir Julian Byng's dramatic but brief offensive,

was not long before the German High Command was planning a counteroffensive. On November 27, while the battle of Bourit

Wood still raged, Ludendorff conferred with Crown Prince Rupprecht at LeCateau. Meantime 20 divisions were being massed in the Cambrai area. Ludendorff was convinced that 'there has never been such an opportunity' for a successful blow, and insisted that all should be in readiness by November 30. The plan envisaged a short, intense bombardment followed by a rapid attack by Gruppe Caudry and Gruppe Busigny in the general direction of Metz, the village immediately to the south of Havrincourt Wood. If successful, the German generals hoped that this would compromise the whole British salient and compel its evacuation. Meanwhile, Gruppe Arras (some seven divisions and 130,000 men strong) would fire heavy barrages and conduct demonstrations designed to distract the British IV Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Woollcombe), and once the eastern attacks had become well established, Lieutent-General Otto von Moser was to launch an attack with three divisions to the west of Bourlon Wood and drive southwards. Reserve divisions would be held in readiness to consolidate and exploit the gains on both sectors of the German attack. The minimum to be achieved was the recapture of the Hindenburg position, but some officers spoke hopefully of a major breakthrough. lon

2428

November 28 saw the opening of a heavy bombardment against Bourlon Wood, 16,000 rounds of gas and high explosive pumped into the ravaged area. The violence of this shelling served to convince the British High Command that the major German blow, if and when it came, would almost certainly be launched against the northern part of the salient. Not that warnings of other possibilities were lacking. Major-General J. S. Jeudwine, GOC 55th Division (VII Corps), whose troops were holding a six-mile front facing Gruppe Busigny, reported ominous German concentrations in the vicinity of Banteux and Twenty-Two Ravines. Indications of a coming attack included German artillery registration on hitherto unshelled areas, a marked increase in German air activity over the front line, and the measures taken to prevent Allied aircraft reconnoitring in the Banteux area. Yet there was little sense of urgency at either GHQ or Third Army Headquarters, and Byng authorised no preliminary movement by the slender reserves. The British generals later denied vehemently that they were taken by surprise by both the scale and direction of the German shells being

onslaught unleashed on November 30, and attempted to blame junior commanders for lack of proper vigilance. Be that as it may (and subsequent research has not borne out the conclusions reached by the Cambrai Enquiry), in the words of the late Sir Basil Liddell Hart, the Germans 'repaid the tank surprise by one that was similar in principle if different in method'. When the German guns abruptly crashed

out shortly after dawn on November 29, there was no immediate indication of the line of the coming attack. All too soon, however, SOS signals were hurtling skywards and reports of attacks flooding into HQ VII Corps, as wave after wave of German troops (some 12 in all, the rearward lines being led by mounted officers) emerged one after another from the Banteux Ravine at the precise time (0700 hours) that Jeudwine had asked for the heavy bombardment. The focal point of the German attack was the boundary between III and VII Corps, and the brunt of the onslaught was borne by Major-General W. D. Smith's 20th Division and Major-General A. B. Scott's 12th Division — occupying the right of Pulteney's sector — and Jeudwine's over-extended 55th on the extreme left of VII Corps. The southernmost limit of Gruppe Busigny' s attack was opposite Vendhuille, but the northern extension rapidly grew as, at about 0800 hours, the

Germans committed Gruppe Caudry

to the attack from Bantouzelle to Rumilly, and drove forwards towards Marcoing. Thus III Corps suddenly found three of its four front line divisions heavily, and then critically, involved.

The form of attack was novel on the Western Front. Behind the intense and short bombardment, the German infantry came forward in groups, employing inCentres of strong opposiwere deliberately bypassed by the leading formations, which pressed on towards the rear exploiting the line of leasl filtration tactics.

tion

resistance.

Low-flying

aircraft,

strafing

and bombing, gave close support, and num-

maximum

penetration bringing the two and a half miles of Metz after their capture, in succession, of in,

the

Germans

to within

Gauche Wood, Gonnelieu and GouzeauThe significance of Metz to the Ger-

bers of artillery batteries advanced immediately behind the infantry. Similar methods had been employed with success in both Russia (notably at Riga) and Italy. They worked well enough in France on this

court.

bleak late-November morning, and would be re-employed on a huge scale the following spring with even more telling effect. The speed of the German penetration took manv formations completelv by surprise. Major-General Sir B. de Lisle (GOC 29th Division) was almost captured at Quentin Mill. Headquarters of 35th Brigade (12th Division) was surrounded, but BrigadierGeneral B. Vincent rallied his staff and fought his way out back to Revelon Ridge, where he began to form 'Vincent Force'

On the northern sector, meanwhile, another heavy engagement had flared up at about 0930 hours as Moser's Gruppe Arras began the secondary attack against IV and VI Corps. The German 49th Reserve, 214th and 221st Divisions advanced along a three-mile front running from Tadpole Copse in the west to the approaches to Bourlon Wood, supported by the fire of 500 guns. However, the Germans found them-

men of many units in an effort to stem the tide of the German advance, which was overrunning the gun-line, capturing many pieces before they could be withdrawn.

from

The

British line is torn open Soon the rear area of III Corps was jammed with retreating transport and guns, and here and there the flood was joined by

units of administrative troops. Numbers of front line battalions found themselves cut off, and communications were plunged into chaos. Generals desperately tried to find reserves to bolster the collapsing front.

But the German advance swept remorselessly forward, and by 1030 hours an eightmile sector of the British line from Les Rues Vertes to Vendhuille had been driven

man

plan lay in the fact that through it ran the most important route up the Grand Ravine to Flesquieres and distant Bourlon

Wood.

selves facing a maelstrom of artillery fire. In anticipation of just such an attack, Third Army had allocated IV Corps no less than eight division's worth of supporting artillery, together with corps and army heavy batteries, and these now made their weight of fire felt. Thus, when the German 3rd Guards Division (east of Bourlon)

attempted to probe towards Cantaing, the attack was disintegrated by gunfire, and by midday it had made no progress. On Moser's main sector of attack, however, the greatest pressure was felt by 56th Division (VI Corps), 2nd and part of 47th Divisions (both parts of iVth Corps). Despite heavy casualties, the German attacks kept coming forward. One group of eight British machine guns, part of 2nd Division, fired all of 70,000 rounds into the flank of successive attacks at close range

with dire effect. Nevertheless, so well pressed-home were the German attacks, that at 1030 hours IV Corps warned its artillery to be ready to fall back at short notice and took preliminary measures to garrison the Hindenburg Support Line in case it should prove necessary to abandon the front. For a time it seemed impossible that Major-General F. A. Davidson's 56th Division could remain in line, but it did hold despite relentless pressure and a growing shortage of ammunition. The Germans made some ground near Tadpole Copse, but nothing vital was lost. On the right of the 56th, the brigades of 2nd Division (IV Corps) also came in for a difficult time. For a period they found themselves out of contact with Major-General C. E. Pereira's headquarters, but 'A' Squadron of King Edward's Horse provided the GOC with 15 gallopers, who maintained a tenuous link with the embattled front line. Many units sacrificed themselves during these desperate hours, and many deeds of great gallantry were performed. The net result was that Gruppe Arras's attack proved abortive on November 30. The Official History justly describes this as 'an outstanding British achievement in the war on the Western Front'. It

local

must be recognised, however, that this success was made possible only at

the cost of absorbing a very high proportion of Third Army's resources in terms of both men and guns. Haig urged Byng 'to use his reserves energetically' as GHQ took steps to move four divisions from other sectors towards Bapaume and Peronne as a safeguard against a German breakthrough.

2429

2430

Opposite page: The

German counterattack

at

Cambrai. This page. Left: Air support in

embryo-an Albatros D V fighter comes down to harass a British

tank engulfed by the flames of a German

flammenwerfer. Though the bullets from the

D V's machine guns could not pierce the

armour of the

British

tanks, the splinters flaked off the inside

were enough

to

cause

great discomfort to the crew. It was during the later battles of 1917 that the Germans learned the lessons which were to make the .

ground/air liaison

K

of

the spring offensive

1918 so effectfve^w ii Below: German infantry advances to take most /

of

of the

ground

lost

ten days earlier"

•-

<

«?»

fcSk"

-*-

^

#•

'f:2**Qk*

r%-

MW

mm J5

*

I 'ri

**L

-*< V

Below: Germans pose confidently on the wreckage of a British tank which a few days before had sent them running in terror Inset: Another wrecked Mark IV, this one at Rumilly, captured by the Germans on the first day of their counterattack

X

>»

£ »

'

JLv

L •>•*>.

^

I

But Byng had soon played almost all his as we shall see, the whole of the Cavalry Corps was eventually committed in support of VII and III Corps, as well as

cacds;

man

the Hindenburg Support Line. By 1100 hours it had also proved necessary to transfer the Guards Division from IV to III Corps command. The major area of crisis remained on the where confusion was eastern sector, threatening to convert defeat into disaster A series of circumstances staved off this danger. Brigadier-General Vincent's 01st

Division

to

intrepid force on Revelon Ridge was first joined by 20th Hussars, who at once entered the fight in a dismounted role. Next to

appear was

1st

Guards Brigade from Metz,

the first echelon of Major-General G. P. T. Fielding's division to be sent up from a nst area to patch the staggering line. The 1st Guards Brigade did more: extemporising a counterattack towards Gouzeaucourt, by 1130 hours it had succeeded in clearing the village, while to the south large numbers of British cavalry extended the ad hoc line. The recapture of Gouzeaucourt was consolidated by the arrival of 36 tanks of 'A' and 'B' Battalions, switched to the south after the abrupt cancellation of their to the Somme. Then 5th Division, after a considerable

movement order

Cavalry approach march from Peronne, passed through the Guards towards Villers Guislain, only to be halted by severe German fire. Snow was of the opinion that it would have been far better to unleash the cavalry against the overextended southern flank of the narrow and still disorganised German corridor extending from the east of Gouzeaucourt, but Byng insisted on committing the cavalry to frontal operations. This decision may have sacrificed a chance

German breakthrough, and the Germans were afforded an opportunity to consolidate their gains. Be that as it may, by dusk some sort of a British line had been cobbled together, linking the shattered right wing of III Corps with the left of VII. By last light, 3rd Guards Brigade had come up, with 2nd in support in Gouzeaucourt Wood. The 20th Division was rallying on Welsh Ridge, and on its left 29th Division was still in firm possession of Marcoing after a day of heavy fighting. Administrative confusion had still to be sorted out, and many men went hungry. Others were more fortunate. 'Our rations captured', noted LieutenantG. E. Chandler of 11th Essex (2nd Division), who had spent an exhausting day digging extemporised positions, 'but another division shared with us'. On December 1 much of the drama of the day's fighting again centred around the events on the southern flank. With the intention of forestalling a renewed German attack, at 0630 hours 3rd Guards Brigade launched an attack towards Gonnelieu. It did not fare too successfully, but the appearance of a single tank at a critical moment near Green Switch Trench caused many Germans to surrender. Better fortune blessed 1st Guards Brigade which, aided by 16 tanks of 'H' Battalion, succeeded in retaking much of Gauche Wood and Quintin Mill. Mounted action by 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions on the left of the Guards achieved little of positive value, but there were now 74 tanks available in support of III and VII Corps flank. In the centre matters did not go well, both Masnieres and Les Rues Vertes were of a telling riposte to the

2434

but the German impetus was by now nearly exhausted. The same was true of the northern side of the salient, where the lost,

immediate

crisis

was deemed

to

have

passed by the end of December 1. Lieutenant-General Sir E. A. Fanshawe and HQ V Corps was able to relieve LieutenantGeneral Woollcombe and HQ IV Corps — the original hand-over planned for the 30th having been postponed. The Germans had not yet quite shot their bolt, however. After a reasonably quiet day on the 2nd, they advanced once again on December 3 and took possession of La Vacquerie from 61st Division, which had relieved parts of the exhausted 12th and 20th Divisions only the previous day. The same day, it was deemed necessary to withdraw from the British bridgehead on the east bank of the St Quentin Canal and reconcentrate 29th Division around Marcoing. Meanwhile, the German line assumed its final shape, running from south of Quentin Ridge to Welsh Ridge and thence to Marcoing. Ludendorff stridently claimed 'an offensive victory on the Western Front' but admitted that matters had not developed 'quite as well as I had hoped'. High British staff circles were far from happy with the

For the immediate future, however, the Germans needed rest and recuperation as much as their opponents. So ended the famous battle of Cambrai. For the British it had proved 'a sombre sunset after a brilliant sunrise' (Liddell Hart). The cost of the 17 days of triumph and tragedy had not been light. From November 20 to December 8, the 19 divisions of Third Army had lost 44,207 men. Over 6,000 of these casualties, together with the loss of 103 field and 55 heavy guns, had been the cost of November 30. The German Second Army (ultimately 20 divisions strong) confessed to 41,000 casualties, and the loss of 145 guns, but probably excluded considerable numbers of lightly wounded. Of their total admitted loss, 14,000 were suffered during the counteroffensive. What had been gained by either side from these exertions? In terms of the Western Front, precious little ground or overall advantage. It is true that two German divisions from the Eastern Front, intended for Italy, had been diverted to Flanders, but the British

programme had

for

reinforcing their Italian

been at least partially disrupted. On the other hand, both sides had learnt much of tactical value: on the British side the employment of tanks; on the allies

also

overall situation. On December 2, Haig visited the front and told Byng 'to select a good winter line' but not to issue any orders on the subject at that point. The problem was to find a truly secure position. Anxiety

German

centred around the continued German possession of Bonavis Ridge; unless it could be recovered, Haig considered that

George). Characteristically, Haig did not from accepting the ultimate responsibility. On December 3 he had written '. whatever happens, the responsibility is mine'. At the Cambrai Enquiry, several senior officers, including Byng, tried to blame negligence on the part of the fighting soldier. T attribute the reason for the local success on the part of the enemy to one cause and one alone', testified the commander of Third Army, 'namely— lack of training on the part of junior officers and NCOs and men.' Although General J. C. Smuts, consulted by the War Cabinet as an independent assessor, substantially agreed with this assertion, the verdict has been much modified with the passage of time. In the words of a recent historian

Third Army's position would remain precariously unbalanced, and the whole Marcoing/Bourlon salient would be compromised. Yet there were no fresh troops whatsoever with which to attempt its recapture, and the thought of becoming involved in a battle of attrition through the winter was unattractive to say the least, and, as Haig pointed out to the CIGS, there would be no question of sending further aid to Italy under the prevailing circumstances. A hard decision had to be taken. On December 3 it was decided that the Bourlon salient must be evacuated; the orders were issued next day. On the night of the 4th/5th the evacuation began, the troops falling back to the 'Yellow Line', some 2,000 yards ahead of the chosen final position. Thus blood-stained Bourlon Wood, the Marcoing area, and long stretches of the Hindenburg Line, were all abandoned to the Germans. The operation was completed by the early hours of December 7. To the west of the Canal du Nord, the British line was almost back where it had been on November 19. In the centre, Havrincourt, Flesquieres and Ribecourt remained in British hands, the new line here running along parts of the Hindenburg Support Line, but from Welsh Ridge it swung sharply away to the southwest, and the Germans were left with considerable areas of former British territory in their possession. Losses and gains more or less cancelled each other out. Not unnaturally, the Germans were astounded by these unforeseen developments. 'We are jubilant,' wrote Moser; 'since 1914 the first withdrawal of the proud Briton'. Ludendorff later described it as 'a good ending to the extremely heavy fighting of 1917. Our action has given us valuable hints for an offensive battle in the west if we wished to undertake one in 1918.'

the value of infiltration tactics.

As might be expected, there was much criticism in London about the reasons why 'a resounding victory' had been allowed to degenerate into 'a disastrous rout' (Lloyd

flinch

.

of

.

Cambrai, Robert Woollcombe,

'the

High

Command was

responsible for the confusion, and the troops for the valour'. Perhaps the ultimate reason for the bitter disappointments of the period between November 30 and December 7 has been most aptly summarised by John Terraine: 'Two years of offensive strategy had diverted the British army's attention from defensive problems.' This was demonstrably true at Cambrai. This shortcoming, together with the weariness of the troops, the shortage of adequate reserves, and the failure of. British military intelligence to estimate correctly the strength and intentions of the Germans, accounts in large measure for the final outcome of this celebrated engagement which brought the bitter year of 1917 to an unmourned conclusion. Further Reading Liddell Hart, Sir Basil. The Tanks, Vol (Cassell 1959)

1

Terraine, J „ Douglas Haig (Hutchinson 1963)

Woollcombe, R., The First Tank Cambrai 1917 (Barker 1967) \For

David

page 365.]

Chandler's

Battle:

biography,

see

The new tank arm had almost

all

of its

seized 'break-in'

objectives on the first

day of Cambrai and had opened the way for a massive advance, but on the second day the old conditions of stalemate reasserted themselves and the advance degenerated into yet another slogging match. Why? General Sir Michael Carver

FALSE

TANKS AT CAMBRAI

DAWN The arguments about the use of tanks at the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 were to set the pattern for arguments about the use of tanks in almost every which they were employed thereafter. Protagonists and antagonists were to adopt much the same positions and to remain as blind to and contemptuous of the views of their opponents as they were in the aftermath of the battle itself. The criticisms levelled by the tank enthusiasts in general were, first, that a higher proportion of the total number of tanks available should have been kept in reserve, ready for use after the initial attack on the Hindenburg Line; secondly, that there were no reserves of infantry available for the same purpose, and finally that the cavalry were not only too far back to exploit the opportunity to break out when it was presented, but that, when they were brought up to the starting post, they were unwilling or unable to achieve anything. In sum, the magnificent opportunity created by the employment of tanks in conditions that, for the first time, battle in

was thrown away because the higher command had insufficient faith in the tanks to back them exploited their potentiality,

up properly with adequate reserves and placed too much reliance on the cavalry. A fair amount of this criticism is based on hindsight: some of it is distorted and self-contradictory; but in general it is sound. However, it is oversimplified and glosses over many of the real difficulties. First of all it is important to clarify the aim of the battle — it changed significantly in the process of conception, and this had important effects on the soundness of its plan. Although Fuller's original idea, conceived as far back as June 1917, was for a joint Franco-British attack to capture St Quentin as a preparatory step for a further offensive in the spring of 1918, this was modified in discussion with Elles to a plan for a raid south of Cambrai 'to destroy the enemy's personnel and guns, to demoralise and disorganise him, and not to capture ground'. The area chosen was that on which the Battle of Cambrai was subsequently to be fought.

Fuller's proposal

was

for a force of three

tank brigades of two battalions each, one, or preferably two, divisions of infantry or cavalry with additional artillery and two air squadrons. The raiding force was to form three groups, the principal one intended to 'scour the country' in the area

between the Canal du Nord to the west and the Canal de 1'Escaut (also known as the St Quentin canal) to the east, a frontage of about six miles, while smaller groups operated on each flank. It was envisaged that the first line of tanks would go straight through to the Germans' gun positions and attack them: the second would crush the wire and work up and down the forward trench system in co-operation with the infantry: the third

would make for points of special tactical importance and would help in the mopping up. Only three hours after the attack had been launched, the force would begin to withdraw, forming a rearguard in cooperation with aircraft to protect dismounted cavalry who, it was imagined, would be escorting large numbers of prisoners back to the British lines. It is surprising that so eminent and perceptive a military critic as Liddell Hart should have looked favourably on this plan. To launch a major attack on the most suitable ground for tanks or. the whole front: to give a dress rehearsal, as it were, of what one would hope to do in any subsequent major decisive action: to abandon it all after only a few hours, having inflicted damage which would certainly not be decisive and which would not take long to make good, inevitably leaving a number of one's own tanks on the abandoned battlefield: to commit all these elementary military errors would have been folly indeed.

probably

The idea smoulders on Fortunately this plan was never pursued, but with its acceptance of a limitation of resources it had a pernicious influence on the plans which developed from it. Brigadier-General Tudor, Commander Royal Artillery of 9th Division, was anxious to try an attack with no preliminary artillery bombardment or registration, relying on survey methods of gun-laying and on the tanks for crushing wire. He persuaded his superiors in IV Corps to look favourably on these ideas as the basis for an ambitious attack 'to advance to Flesquieres ridge, swing left and roll up the German line to the Scarpe, with cavalry operating towards Cambrai'. This was whittled down at corps HQ to a more limited operation involving little more than the occupation of the front and support trench systems of the Hindenburg Line between the two canals, and the destruction of the forces, including their artillery, in that area. Three divisions, two cavalry brigades, eight field artillery brigades and Third Army's heavy artillery were considered necessary for this operation, and it was suggested that the Tank Corps should assess the number of tanks needed. The corps commander, LieutenantGeneral Woollcombe, sent this plan up to Third Army on August 23. Between then and September 6 Elles visited the area and found it very suitable for tanks. So much so that he thought that more could be achieved and that the tanks could clear the area up to the eastern canal. General Byng was fired with enthusiasm again

and had visions of his favourite cavalry at last coming into their own. He envisaged that the tank action would lead to a complete breakdown in the Germans' defence, as there were only two German divisions in the area and it was estimated that 48 hours must elapse before any reinforcements could arrive. By that time General Byng saw the whole Cavalry Corps deployed, galloping northwards to the River Sensee and breaking out northeastwards round Cambrai to cause havoc on the German lines of communication. Cold water was poured on this glorious concept by GHQ, but General Byng was told to continue to plan the operation in detail in complete secrecy. As the Flanders offensive gradually bogged down in the mud, Haig began to look around for other means of keeping the offensive going in order to prevent the Germans from attacking the French, still reeling from their mutinies. His aim was not just altruistic. He was determined to avoid taking over any more front from the French or reinforcing them. On October 13 the go-ahead for Cambrai was given. Byng was allowed to allot four fresh infantry divisions (of the five he said he wanted) to start training with the three tank brigades (less four battalions) that had been made available. A commanders' conference was held on October 26 at which the plan was divulged, the very day that Haig was told by the War Office to send two divisions immediately to stop the rot on the Italian Front as a result of the disaster, of Caporetto.

The

final

plan for the battle as issued

on November 13 was modified by Byng after comments by Haig. The aim of the operation was now to clear the whole area between the two canals right up to the River Sensee, which would involve an advance of about 15 miles as the crow flies. On the right III Corps was to secure and extend the right flank on the high ground west of the Escaut Canal. On the left IV Corps was to seize Bourlon Wood and Marquion, three miles further northwest on the Canal du Nord. The Cavalry Corps was to cross the Escaut Canal, surround and isolate Cambrai and cover the advance north and northeast of V Corps, which was to exploit the success as far as the River Sensee, sending troops to occupy the hills beyond it. Haig would then decide whether to advance towards Douai and Valenciennes, six and 14 miles respectively beyond the river. Haig insisted that Bourlon Wood should be captured on the first day and said that he himself would call the whole offensive to a halt after the first 48 hours, or even earlier, if the results gained or the general situation did not appear to justify its continuance.

This grandiose and ambitious plan was a far cry from the Tank Corps' proposal in June of a three-hour raid, penetrating only a few miles. In the light of" it, it is difficult to accuse Haig of having had no faith in

the tanks, although he can certainly be accused of expecting too much of his own arm, the cavalry. He might even be charged with having had too much faith in the tanks and of not allotting sufficient resources to see that the initial success expected of them could be exploited. In the light of the general concept of the battle, as it had finally developed, we must now consider the criticisms made of the part the tanks had to play. The grand total

2435

BRITISH tanks lost direct hits

TANKS

November 20 1917

Tanks

179 65

mechanical

fighting tanks

failure

71

ditched

43

216

III

108

IV

Corps

Corps 54 Reserve

others 18 supply per bde 3 signals per

bde

32 grapnel 2 bridging 1

telephone

Each symbol represents 10 tanks

GERMAN

BRITISH

itii ""ttitt

Very Heavy I

.idi

symbol lepresenls 10

of tanks

cjuns

was 476. Whether or not more

have been made available is not apparent and nowhere discussed. One must assume that HQ Tank Corps made available every tank that it was practicable to produce, man and maintain on the battlefield. From this total one should could

subtract 54 supply tanks; 32 fitted with grapnels for pulling away wire on the cavalry's path of advance; nine acting as wireless stations, one carrying telephone cable for Third Army and two bridging tanks. This left 378 tanks, 324 in the frontline and 54 in reserve to replace breakdowns. Thus 324 was the figure available for specific tasks. If, as has been suggested, as many tanks should have been kept in reserve as were allotted to the initial assault, the number of tanks available for the latter would have to have been reduced to about half of those actually employed. This would have been to put at risk the success of the attack on a 10,000 yard front of the formidable Hindenburg Line. On the right III Corps attacked with three divisions each of which had two battalions of tanks, one company of A Battalion with the 20th

HQ

2436

Guns

40

kill

being detached to 29th Division in reserve — the only reserve of tanks. The corps therefore had 216 tanks. IV Corps divided its three battalions (108 tanks) between its two assaulting divisions, 51st Division on its right, facing Flesquieres, having one company more than 62nd Division on the

In both corps approximately twoleft. thirds of the tanks were to be used against the first objective, the first trench system of the Hindenburg Line, and one third, with survivors from the first attack, on the second objective which was generally

speaking the support trench system, 3,000 yards further on. Some tanks, especially those directed on to the crossings over the Escaut Canal which the cavalry were to use, were given specific subsequent objectives. The remarkable success of the initial assault was proof of the soundness and efficiency of the tactical plan and of the organisation of this phase. To have halved or seriously reduced the proportion of tanks to infantry or to yard of front would have prejudiced the chances of success almost as much as it would have done to have reduced the frontage on which the attack was launched.

The operations on the first day, November 20, proved that on firm ground the combination of close co-operation between tanks and infantry with an artillery fireplan without preliminary bombardment or registration could overcome a defence which was taken by surprise both by the timing of the attack and by the scale of employment of tanks. How much of the success was due to the morale effect of the tanks and how much to the favourable conditions of poor visibility it is not possible to assess. But to suggest that significantly fewer tanks could have been used in the initial assault in order to retain more reserve for subsequent phases is to be wise after the event. In no previous action on the Western Front had attacks penetrated so far so quickly and achieved such decisive results. Too great an optimism as to the effect likely to be produced could have led to failure which would have been to the certain detriment not only of the acceptance and development of the tank, but also to the success of the following year's offensive. As far as the

concerned,

tanks themselves were nobody could have expected

of them on the first day. The failures elsewhere. If 51st Division had not had peculiar ideas of its own which separated its infantry from the tanks, Flesquieres might not have proved tinstumbling block it did. The inflexibility of the command arrangements, and the primitive communications available, meant that this stumbling block was not removed, as it could easily have been, by a thrust from the flank or the rear. This prejudiced severely the possibility of achieving the Commander-in-Chief's aim of capturing Bourlon ridge on the first day, an am-

more lay

bitious

aim

in

any

case.

The

failure of the cavalry The other major disappointment was the failure to secure, develop and exploit a crossing over the Escaut Canal between Masnieres and Marcoing in spite of the existence of a bridge capable of taking cavalry. Had the cavalry been brought up closer behind the attacking troops; had everybody made fewer mistakes and errors of judgement and omission; had the cavalry themselves acted boldly, perhaps the result might have been different. But the fact remains that, even after the barriers of wire had been left behind, the cavalry was both too vulnerable and too weak in fire and shock power on the battlefield to achieve anything when machine guns were present, unless the cohesion of the Germans' defence had totally broken down. The presence of the German 107th Division carrying out a relief in the Cambrai area was an unexpected asset to the defence, and it is most unlikely that, had the cavalry succeeded in crossing the canal in any strength on November 20, they could have developed operations of any significance beyond it on subsequent days or even perhaps been able to maintain their position there. Nevertheless, in view of the Commander-in-Chief's intentions, and the optimistic assumptions on which the plan was based, the initial positioning and subsequent deployment of the cavalry is certainly open to criticism. Given the basic failure to secure on the first day the two vital objectives on which the whole subsequent plan depended, what is to be said about the operations on November 21, and the following days? The available strength of tanks is relevant. Of the 378 tanks available on November 20, 179 were out of action by the end of the day, 65 by direct hits, 71 by mechanical troubles and 43 by ditching or other causes. Two hundred were theoretically available on November 21 — perhaps more, both because some of the mechanical troubles were cured, and because the grapnel-carrying tanks had completed their task. It must also be remembered that the decision as to what to do on the 21st had to be taken at an hour on the 20th earlj' enough to enable orders, the distribution of which in 1917 was a slow business, to be issued all down the line, based on the scanty and inaccurate information available when dusk fell. In fact Third Army's orders were issued at 2000 hours, having been previously approved by Haig. In essence they were to complete the tasks which had not been achieved on the first day. Few other commanders would have made a different decision. With all the advantages of hindsight it is now possible to judge that the decision of Haig and Byng was almost certainly wrong.

Many of their basic assumptions were false, especially as to what cavalry could achieve. They were over-optimistic, not only on that score, but also as to the effect on the Germans of even the unprecedented degree of success achieved by be tanks on the first day. If they had appreciated that they could count on success only where and when they could repeat (be sort of operations that day had seen, they might have revised their original unrealistic I

plan on more realistic lines. The tanks could not cross the Escaut Canal. It was therefore hopeless to expect operations beyond it to be developed successfully. If the plan had been limited to making certain of securing a line west of the canal, including Bourlon ridge, as a jumping off place for a subsequent offensive, it might have succeeded and the ignominious withdrawal caused by the counterattacks at the end of the month been avoided. Even though the initial plan was hopelessly unrealistic, there was still a chance of achieving this more limited aim, if a change had been decided on at the close of the fighting on November 20. It would have meant a pause on the 21st while tanks and infantry were reorganised, and prepared for a second major thrust for Bourlon ridge, while the right flank was firmly if this had failed on November should have been possible to develop yet another attack within the next few days before all chance of success disappeared. Admittedly the line reached would have been awkward to hold, overlooked as it would have been between Fontaine and Flesquieres by the high ground east of the canal south of Cambrai; but it would have been much easier and less vulnerable to hold than the deep and narrow salient that would have resulted if the original plan had been successful. However unrealistic the plan may have been and whatever the possibilities of better results than those achieved, the repercussions of the Battle of Cambrai were far more significant than the immedi-

held. 21,

Even

it

ate effects, local in place and time. The remarkable success of the tanks established them as a decisive weapon of war. It is astonishing that it was to be another 25 years, and half way through another world war, before it was finally recognised that horsed cavalry no longer had a part to play on the modern battlefield and that

the tank had taken

its place.

Further Reading Dugdale, G., Langemarck & Cambrai (Wilding 1932) Everest, J. H., The First Battle of Tanks Liddell Hart, Sir Basil, The Tanks, Vol (Cassell 1959) Military Operations: France & Belgium 1917, Vol III (HMSO 1948) Pree, Maj-Gen. H. D. de, The Battle of Cambrai (RA Institution 1928)

FULLER Prophet of

Armoured

War Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General) John Frederick Charles Fuller, DSO (later CB, CBE), who is remembered today as one of the most original and influential military thinkers of this century, was born at Chichester in 1878. Educated abroad and at Malvern, he was commissioned from Sandhurst in 1898 into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and almost at once ordered with it to South Africa. Appendicitis kept him out of the major battles of the Boer War and he spent the later guerrilla phase commanding block houses and reading widely. After serving in India in 1903/6, where he acquired what was to be a lifelong interest in its religions, he was appointed adjutant of a Volunteer battalion, the 10th Middlesex. This adjutancy gave him the chance to put his reading into practice, using real soldiers in tactical experiments, and also to begin writing. By the outbreak of war in 1914, besides having attended the Staff College, he had published articles on mobilisation, infantry tactics, weapon training and entrainment. The latter secured him the post, in August 1914, of railway transport officer at Southampton, from which he was later transferred to

Second

I

FIELD-MARSHAL LORD CARVER GCB, CBE, DSO, MC, was born in 1915 and was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. He was commissioned Royal Tank Corps in 1935 and during the Second World War he commanded the 1st Royal Tank Regiment in North Africa, Italy and France Since the war he has held a number of important appointments, including C-in-C Far East and Chief into the

the General Staff (1971-73). His publications include Second to None: The History of the Royal

of

Scots Greys; The Apostles of Mobility, War Since

1945 and A Policy

for

Army Headquarters

at

Tunbridge

By

the time he arrived in France in July 1915 the worst of the early fighting was over and he had established for himself a reputation as a Staff Officer of more than ordinary powers. Thus it was to turn out, though by no means at his own wish, that he was not to play any combatant role throughout the war. His creative and executive reputation grew during 1916, both through continued publication, notably of an article in which he satisfactorily defined for the first time the Principles of War, and through his creation of an Officers' School for the Third Army and then of a Senior Officers' Course for the BEF. He was therefore an obvious choice to fill the new appointment of Chief General Wells.

(GSO 1) at Tank Corps Headwhen it was created in December He came to the post, however, with

Staff Officer

quarters 1916.

no preconceived enthusiasm for armour. Indeed, his attitude has been described as 'caustically sceptical' towards tanks, which he regarded apparently as 'an adjunct' to the infantry and not as an arm of their own. His views were quickly to change and he was to infuse the Tank Corps staff with all the confidence he came to hold in the decisiveness of the tanks' future role, while himself working out from first principles both tactics and major operational plans. Of these the most important was that for Cambrai. [John Keegan.]

Peace

2437

Movable

Emergency Door

turret.

Machine Gun

/

Gunner.

—

r Petrol ;

Reservoir

l/encilator-

,

Radiator

Motor

Change-Speed Lever Steering Lever-

Entrance -

Oil Reservoir

Elv Wheel and principal Clutch

''Steering Clutch and brake 1

Pedal for releasing Clutch

drah

-

^Change Speed Gear

Driver v

Pedal

Starting Handle

DIACUAMMATIC SECTION OF A hKENCH LIGHT (OR "MOSQUITO") TANK.

When

they had recovered from their initial shock, the Germans dismissed the tank as a mere 'terror' weapon and devoted little time or energy to its development. Not so the British and French, some of whose officers clearly saw the possibilities of the new arm and were gripped by a sense of urgency. Kenneth Macksey

The British Gun Carrier Mark More a self-propelled gun than a tank, the first was in service by January, 1917. The model pictured here carries a60-pounder gun, although other Gun Carriers were fitted with a 6-inch howitzer. In the static war of the Western Front, the appearance of mobile guns caused considerable confusion to the opposing artillery spotters. Above: The French Renault Mosquito' tank. Equivalent to the British Whippet tank it had inferior cross-country characteristics but a good turn of speed. Below: The German A 7 V. A large armoured box on a Holt-type chassis weighing 30 tons, the A 7 V reflected the lack of importance attached to tank development by the German command. Opposite page. Above: A British Mark V, male. Successor to the Mark IV, the tank of Cambrai, the Mark V was the first heavy tank that could be driven by one man. It first appeared in 1918, and saw action in July of that year. Below: A British Mark IV with a tadpole' tail. The tail extension was added to increase the trench-crossing ability to 14 feet, but it proved lacking in rigidity and strength Top

Gun

left:

I.

Carrier

TANK DEVELOPMENTS

2438

J

ITT

—

.

1

When the surviving handful of tanks were extracted from the Somme mud in November 1916 a rough poll of opinion taken from men

might have indicated that there was little future so slight had been its effect. The Germans, recovering from their initial surprise, were almost unanimous in regarding tanks as a 'terror' weapon designed, more than anyat the front

for the

new weapon,

thing else, to attack their soldiers' morale. Confident in their men's ability they were content to leave the solution of the problem to the artillery and infantry. One wrote that the troops 'soon learnt to know its vulnerable parts and attack it accordingly'. Another saw the tank as 'a comparatively easy prey for the artillery who detailed special guns to deal with it'. But at the British a more enlightened view prevailed. Here the tanks' initial mechanical failures and the inexperience of the crews were recognised as the inevitable results of untested equipment and organisation. Haig's approval of the new idea was reflected in his demand to the War Office for 1,000 new tanks and the setting up, on October 8, 1916, of a special central organisation in France to develop the fighting capacity of the tanks. Thus, long before the Battle of the Somme had ended, he brought into being the HQ of the Tank Corps and guaranteed the new weapons'

GHQ

future.

To head the new corps came Elles — the same sapper

officer

who

earlier that year had reported favourably to Haig on the experiments in Britain. few weeks later he was joined by his new Chief Staff Officer, Major J. F. C. Fuller, an intellectual and sceptical infantryman. Once convinced that the tank was a feasible weapon, it was Fuller, by his own example, who urged

A

the other members of the staff not only to collect, synthesise and disseminate every scrap of information about tanks, but also to devise original and improved ways of employing them. Together this team was to turn an amorphous collection of men and machines into a coherent fighting force capable of working closely among themselves and in reliable fashion with the infantry who, incredulously, were beginning to regard tanks more as a help than a hindrance. Throughout the winter of 1917 the new organisation grew, publishing a flow of tactical notes, and issuing a flurry of technical directions to the crews and to the newly founded workshop organisation. The men of the Tank Corps were enthusiastic and quick to learn, but the indoctrination of senior officers and those who would enter battle with the tanks was more difficult. Progress with original ideas was bound to be slow in an army which still had much to learn about the older established weapons. The unimaginative employment of tanks at the Battles of Arras, Bullecourt, Messines and Passchendaele stemmed more from ignorance than bigotry. Even so, every obstacle seems to have been thrown in the tanks' path despite the appeals of the Tank Corps officers. Only lip service was paid to the principle that tanks, like any other weapon, did best when used by surprise and in large numbers rather than in pairs and even singly. More serious from the tanks' point of view was the sight of strengthened German defences, based on deep ditches and defended by field artillery, growing up to make the future task of Allied tank forces more difficult. They were not to know that, by November 1917, the Germans had virtually dismissed tanks as a serious threat. Indeed, the French tanks had also done badly on the Chemin des Dames

2439

and the newly arrived Americans were openly saying that there were no military prospects for a weapon of which the Germans had taken full measure. But those who decried the deficiencies of the original machines overlooked the rapid changes that technology could effect. Even as the first thin-skinned British Mark I's were being delivered in June 1916, it was decided to attempt the construction of a shellproof tank— an order which eventually resulted in the production of a machine with two to three inches of armour, armed with a 57-mm gun and five machine guns, weighing 100 tons and sardonically nicknamed 'Flying Elephant'. In fact, before trials commenced on this monster, it was rejected in January 1917 as being too costly. By then, however, it was realised that, although shell fire was the tanks' worst enemy, the chances of Mark I's survival were better than Kitchener and many others had first imagined. In fact the most dangerous threat to the Mark I, apart from its incipient unreliability, turned out to be the existing German armour-piercing bullet which easily penetrated the low quality British 10-mm armour plate. Based on battle experience, production of the earlier Mark I, Mark II and Mark III tanks was real ricted to only 200 and the main effort concentrated upon building a more reliable and battle-worthy machine. Mark IV, when she began to arrive in France in April 1917, looked, at first glance, very much like her predecessors except that the tail wheels had been removed. She was still underpowered by the 105-hp Daimler engine and still required four men to drive and steer h but in other ways she was much more formidable. The 57-mm is were now short barrelled and better suited to use on rugged g lai than the original, longer naval types. Unfortunately the substitution of the Lewis machine gun in place of the original Hotchkiss and Vickers guns was a retrograde step, though not crippling. Range of action had been increased by carrying additional petrol, but the most important modification was an increase .

.

1

in the maximum thickness of the frontal armour to 12-mm — sufficient to defeat the Germans' armour-piercing bullet and thus to render their infantry wholly dependent on artillery for pro-

tection.

The sense

of urgency were improving their original rhomboidal tanks, both they and the French were searching for means to increase both the number of tanks available and their speed across country. William Tritton made his proposal for aJChaser' tank in December 1916, seeing the need for a faster tank to exploit a breach, once it had been made in the German lines by the heavier tank. In effect he envisaged armoured vehicles in lieu of the horsed cavalry which had already shown its incapacity to operate in the open. From the Chaser was to come the development, throughout 1917, of the first Medium A's, later known as Whippets. These 14-ton tanks, with a speed of 8 mph (twice that of the Mark IV) and armed with four machine guns, were entering production just as the Tank Corps was being ground into the mud of Passchendaele, but were not to be ready for action until 1918. The French became active in the construction of light tanks after the comparative failure of their early Schneiders and St Chamonds. On the suggestion of Estienne, in July 1916 an order had been placed with the firm of Renault for a simple, armoured machine gun carrier weighing six tons, capable of accompanying the infantry in the assault. By December the first model — called Renault FT-was ready and in March 1917 an initial order for 150 was placed. Unlike the British Whippet, which was given a good trench crossing capability of seven feet, the FT was struggling when crossing a six-foot gap and at first it was not received with acclaim by those in the French army who believed that an armament of a solitary machine gun was inadequate. Nevertheless, after successful trials in April 1917, coincident with the failure at the Chemin des Dames, the initial order was expanded to 1 ,000 and large scale production begun of the simplest and cheapest tank yet designed. Nothing like the sense of urgency which gripped the Allied tank pioneers ever caught the Germans. Principal Engineer Vollmer of the Department A 7 V was instructed to design and produce a tank in November 1916, but because the General Staff remained so confident in the ability of the troops at the front to defeat tanks on their own, little enthusiasm was imparted to the work. Nevertheless, in January 1917 a wooden mock-up of the tank that was to be known as A 7 V had been produced and four days later an order for 100 was placed. But German industry was strictly orientated, as in everything else in 1917, to the demands of the basic military strategy. In the east, where they were on the offensive and the front was fluid, there was no overriding need for a 'storm tank'. Nor was there an immediate need for one in the west since

As the

2440

British

army stood on the defensive, although the possibility one day, they would have to attack and break the trenches, and might need tanks, seems to have been overlooked. Partly out of haste, but also because he lacked strong backing, Vollmer could do no better at first than mount a large armoured box on top of a Holt type chassis, based upon the one which had been demonstrated by Mr Steiner of Holts before the war and which, since then, had been lying, disused, in Austria. The 30-ton A 7 V, which appeared in prototype in October 1917, was therefore no more promising than the original French tanks on their Holt chassis. None would be ready for operations in 1917 and only 20 were ever made since an over-strained German industry was already fully committed to the manufacture of conventional weapons. Under these circumstances a project for a 150-ton heavy tank, launched in March 1917, can only be viewed as a distraction instead of part of a well thought out scheme. In spite of the losses incurred by Allied tanks throughout the there the that,

summer and early autumn of 1917, both the British and French tank forces improved in quality and quantity. The British took delivery of nearly 1,000 Mark IV's before November 20 and had about 450 ready for action that day. By then the French possessed some 500 Schneiders and St Chamonds although, in its phase of defensive recuperation, the French

attritional artillery battles of the

army found

little

use for them. The waste caused by mechanical

overlaid almost every other consideration — even though most Allied machines were remarkably efficient considering the haste in which they had evolved. Nevertheless, any one tank which ran more than 20 miles without breakdown signified the performance of a notable feat even by a well trained crew. All crews had been hurriedly trained and few reached a high standard in 1917. Morale, however, was high. The Tank Corps had been fortunate in its leader in France and in the staff who served him. Not a brilliant man, Brigadier Hugh Elles nevertheless possessed the freshness of youth combined with a calm competence which gave men confidence. By gently fighting their battles at GHQ, he was able eventually to win the Tank Corps a square deal. If, in his GSO I, Fuller, he possessed a man with a caustic wit who rubbed up senior officers the wrong way, he also owned a genius — an officer endowed with genuinely original ideas who visualised a role for the tank far beyond its original concept as a mere instrument of assault. While guiding the tactical thoughts, training and operations of the corps through a trying year of innovation, Fuller was always searching for new ways to employ the tanks as the dominant technical weapon in a decisive battle — in a role subservient neither to infantry nor artillery. But within the framework of his most sweeping concepts, he made detailed plans like any good staff officer, demanding that tanks should never be launched into battle without thorough and minute preparation. Thus when it was decided to give the tanks their first big chance in a massed attack, Fuller and his staff were ready with settled and well understood methods for moving tanks secretly and swiftly from one front to another. They had also collected detailed information about every piece of German-held terrain where tanks might have to be used and, in so doing, had created a reconnaisunreliability

sance organisation which always provided the crews with accurate information in plenty of time before action. Meticulous but simple drills had been devised for co-operation between tanks, infantry, artillery and aircraft in the assault — drills which, at Cambrai, were to revolutionise the whole scheme of assault. Where it was known that the tanks would have to cross the immensely wide anti-tank ditch running like a spine the length of the Hindenburg Line, great rolls of brushwood — called fascines — were made ready to be carried forward by the leading tanks to make the crossing possible.

when the tanks went into action each crew commander his predecessors on September 15, 1916 — knew his task. understood the problems to be overcome and knew that artillerj infantry and aircraft were briefed to give specific aid to the tanks. This time

— unlike

And each crew member was trained to a higher standard than ever before, while the machines were vulnerable only to German artillery and stood a fair chance of reaching their limited objectives without breaking down. Further Reading F. C, Memoirs Watson 1936)

Fuller, J

of an Unconventional Soldier (Nicholson &

Liddell Hart, Sir Basil, The Tanks, Vol

I

(Cassell 1959)

& Batchelor, J Tank (Macdonald 1970) Nehring, W., Die Geschichte der deutschen Panzerwaffe, 1916 Macksey,

K.,

(Propylaen 1969) Ogorkiewicz, R. M.,

,

Armour (Stevens

1960)

[For Kenneth Macksey's biography, see page 245.

\

bis 1945

In the summer of 1917 Russia was in the throes of revolution. In the countryside a fullscale peasant revolt was in progress; in the towns inflation was increasing the workers' unrest; at the front the army was disintegrating. Power was ebbing perceptibly

Provisional Government which seemed unable to come to grips with the nation's problems. Only one party seemed to know what it wanted. Lionel Kochan.

away from the

KEREIISKV'S

Below: War-blinded demonstrate in Petrograd

GOUERIMIEM

Government and for the The Bolsheviks' call for peace had more appeal for a war-weary people for the Provisional

continuation of the war.

Ml BOHHU rMonMHoft wsm S55* CBCGOJW h

When

the

cabinet

of

the

Provisional

Government was remodelled in May it brought an apparent unity and solidarity Tereshchenko, the new Foreign Minister, proudly claimed that the new ministry was supported by all the parties — Cadets, Popular Socialists, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. 'Only the Bolsheviks oppose the government' he concluded. This was true, of course, but Tereshchenko's confidence did not at all do justice to the situation. to the political scene.

The government had a programme that corresponded well enough to the demands of the time. Thus it promised to regulate economic life 'on the model of the other belligerent states', to prepare the organised transfer of the land to the peasants, to create a system of local government and a strong central authority. In foreign affairs the new ministry undertook to continue the quest for peace, while preserving unity with Russia's Allies and taking as its prin-

ciple

the

self-determination

of

peoples

without annexations on either side, 'which excludes the realisation of the plans of German imperialism'. Meanwhile, the army would be reorganised with a view to 'preparedness for attack'. However, with the exception of foreign policy and the preparation of an offensive (see page 2448), the government took few determined steps to implement its domestic policy. As a result, all those problems, primarily social, that began to make their presence felt in the spring, became progressively exacerbated during the summer and early autumn. Whether one looks at the town, the village or the army — the picture is the same. It is a picture of increasing restiveness, hardship and the inevitable resort to violence. In the countryside, for example, seizure of the land by the peasants continued apace, though naturally its incidence varied from area to area. But it is true to say that by

the

summer

trict of rural

of 1917 every important disRussia had succumbed to vary-

ing stages of disarray. In April and May the most seriously affected provinces were those in the central agricultural and middle Volga regions (Kursk, Tula, Ryazan, Tambov). A month or two later the move-

ment had spread north-eastwards to Kazan, southwards to Voronezh and the Ukraine, and to Belorussia and the west. The peasant movement was by no means anarchic or arbitrarily violent. It was conducted for the most part under the auspices of spontaneously elected peasant or cantonal committees who made it their object to drive out the private landowner. From

Kovno we have a report that describes what the peasants were doing and how little heed they took of any authority other than that emanating from their own elected bodies. Relying on the protocol of the peasant assembly in Disna of June 4, the cantonal and village committees removed 2441

ght of the Russian bear, 1917 Lenin by the Germans) and Trotsky support Red Guards attacking capitalism and Tsarism, Kerensky and Kornilov at each other's throats

2442

the landowners, disposed of privately

owned

meadows, woods, pastures, etc. as if they were their own property. They take away the workers, issue decrees regarding the pasturing of cattle on meadows, on clover or other arable land, both to private individuals and to military units and organisations.

When

the

commissar

tried to restrain the

peasants from land seizures they shouted to him: 'We elected you and if you don't go with us then we'll throw you out'.

From Voronezh reports indicate in detail how the peasants waged their campaign to hamper the continuation of private farming. They pastured their own

precisely

cattle on private lands and seized estates. Trespassing on corn, hayfields and young forest plantations became a common pracAfter driving away the servants, tice. labourers and any German or Austrian prisoners of war employed on the estate, they would divide it amongst themselves, at low rentals, payable to their own cantonal committees and not, of course, to the landlord. To expropriate land and property — this was the aim in the summer months. Terror and violence did not characterise the peasant movement until

the autumn.

A roughly parallel movement was

simul-

taneously taking place in the towns. It had a bitterness all its own, generated by the increasing deterioration in urban living conditions, as compared with the relatively prosperous countryside. Food shortages continued in the major cities — even of such essential foodstuffs as bread, potatoes, grain and meat. Common sights on the streets of Moscow and Petrograd were scuffles amongst the disappointed queues of hungry people. It is true that industrial wages rose but they failed to keep pace with the soaring price of necessities. Between February and July 1917, wages rose by 53% — but rye bread by 150%, potatoes by 175%, clothing and shoes by 170%. A further source of disruption was the enforced closure of factories through shortage of raw materials and fuel, transport diffi-

and lack of orders. Between March and July 568 firms employing more than 100,000 workers closed down.

culties,

In these circumstances, increased tension between capital and labour was expressed at times in actual physical assault

on unpopular employers and managers. The conflict took, however, a more significant form politically in the growth of the factory committee movement. The committees would sometimes set up central commissions to supervise a firm's books and accounts or even attempt to take over an enterprise and operate it themselves. The government, represented in this respect by a Menshevik minister of labour, Skobelev, tried to limit the scope of the committees and to urge a full return to work. But Skobelev's appeal had scant success. By contrast, when the second com ference of factory committees was held in August in Petrograd, their leadership was solidly Bolshevik. This gave substance to Lenin's prophecy that these committees 'must become the organs of insurrection'. But the time for that had not yet come. Before it did, there would be necessary a massive swing in influence from the moderate left wing parties to the Bolsheviks, a yet further deterioration of morale in the army, and yet further decay in the authority of the Provisional Government. Already in June there were certain signs

pointing in this direction. Thus at a popular demonstration organised that month by the Petrograd Soviet, Bolshevik slogans were dominant in the crowd. 'AH power to the Soviets!', 'Down with the ten capitalist ministers!', 'Peace for the hovels, war for the palaces!' — this was the message of the crowd. Of course, Petrograd was not Russia but given the importance of the capital in the political life of the empire, what Petrograd had to say could not be underestimated. Moreover, it must never be forgotten that the government was never anything but 'provisional'. The permanent form of government could only be settled by the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly. But the elections to this body were not scheduled to take place until September 30, with the Assembly itself to meet a fortnight later. The cabinet hoped that this decision would disarm those of its critics who urged the speedy convocation of the Assembly, and, in particular, 'remove from Bolshevik agitation its sting paralyse the action of its demagogic distract the masses from symparson pathy for the Bolsheviks.' .

.

.

.

.

.

were not attacking. So, in view of the Russian government's declared intention to seek peace, what possible point could there be in any Russian offensive? The Germans thereby hoped to encourage fraternisation and thus promote the idea of a separate Russo-German peace. Though with different ultimate aims the Bolsheviks were likewise propagating defeatism and fraternisation. The two campaigns in conjunction enjoyed much success, as the amount of desertion abundantly demonstrated. To such good effect that Tereshchenko declared '... a separate peace might well have come about under the pressure of spontaneous forces by a simple cessation of all .' military action at the front Thus the Provisional Government had to face the dilemma of choosing either the possibility of concluding a separate peace with Germany or of launching an offensive. As long as the front remained idle, the .

army would

commitment

to

continue

to

fulfil

her

obligations to the Allies. This was an obligation that the Provisional Government not only inherited from the Tsar but also reaffirmed. This reaffirmation was all the more impressive in that it had provoked a very severe cabinet crisis in May. This in turn was followed by a certain democratic attenuation of Russian war aims through the emphasis on self-determination. However, the same item in the government's programme also included the reorganisation of the army with a view to 'readiness to attack'. In specific terms this signified the preparation of an offensive on the Eastern Front. The summer of 1917, it must not be forgotten, was the most critical period of the whole war for the Allies (the mutinies in the French army, British shipping losses in the Atlantic). Any diversion that Russia might mount in the east could not but be highly welcome to the Allies. There was thus great pressure from this quarter on Russia. But this was not the only factor to impel the Russian government towards the preparation of an offensive. Equally, if not more, important was the deliquescent state of the home front and the army. The importance of this can only be understood in the light of conditions at the actual fighting front. The front was in fact quiet. 'There was neither the crack of machine guns nor the exchange of artillery fire', Kerensky, Minister of War, noted on returning from Galicia. 'The trenches were deserted. All preparatory work for offensive operations had been abandoned. With their uniforms in. ludicrous disorder, thousands of troops were devoting their time to interminable meetings.' Most of the officers were completely confused. The local Galician population looked on in surprise and amusement. This state of affairs formed part of a deliberate German attempt to foster Russian defeatism. Their argument was simple and straightforward: they, the Germans,

infallibly continue to disinte-

and

deserters flow to the rear, adding their own dissatisfaction to the already disturbed home front. Kerensky

grate,

on this point: No army indefinite idleness. An army may not always be in a position to fight, but the expectancy, at all times, of impending action constitutes the funda-

was most can

A new Russian offensive? But whatever substance there might be in this hope was dissipated, not only by the interval of some six months between the first promise to summon an assembly and its actual meeting, but also by Russia's

.

explicit

remain

in

mental condition of its existence. To say to in the midst of war that under no circumstances would it be compelled to fight is tantamount to transforming the troops into a meaningless mob, useless, restless, irritable and therefore capable of all sorts of excesses. For this reason and to preserve the interior of the country from the grave wave of anarchy threatening from the front it was incumbent upon us ... to make it once more an army, i.e. to bring it back to the psychology of action, or of

an army

impending action. There were also certain right-wing generals, such as Denikin, who even anticipated that the intoxication of a successful offensive would, as it were, 'roll back' the revolution and give 'some possibility of internal peace'. Also, of course, the Allied

powers gave every encouragement to the projected offensive, both because it would relieve the pressure under which they themselves were suffering and also help, they believed, to bring internal stability to Russia.

These were some of the pressures behind offensive. It was meticulously prepared and on some sections of the front Russian troops were superior in numbers, guns and aeroplanes to the Germans and

the

Austrians. But the will to win was the fatal deficiency from which the Russian troops suffered. They achieved some short-lived local successes but when the Germans counterattacked on the south-western front the Russians retreated in disorder. The men did not heed their officers and

abandoned their posts, sometimes whole units deserted in a body and fled to the rear 'with or without guns, able-bodied, bold, shameless and fearless of consequences'. The same picture showed itself on the northern, western and Rumanian fronts. General Knox, the British military attache in Russia, declared that the Russian army had been 'irretrievably ruined' as a fighting organisation. If this was the state of affairs at the fighting front, it could hardly be said that circumstances on the home front were any more encouraging. The military offensive 2443

partially overlapped with what became as the 'July Days'. These lasted from July 16 to July 18, and were marked

known

by the virtual occupation of Petrograd by armed soldiers and sailors and militant factory workers from all the major plants in the city. They thronged into the central areas of Petrograd and concentrated -in front of the Tauride Palace where the Executive Committee of the Soviet had its seat; and the demonstrators urged the Soviet to take power. The Soviet refused and the demonstrations fizzled out in disorder and incoherence.

Unknown

agitators

Even today there

is

uncertainty as to the

real promoters of the demonstrations and what they hoped to achieve. It is certain,

however, that some Bolshevik leaders (though not Lenin) encouraged the demonstrators. Obviously, their demand to the Petrograd Soviet that it take power from the Provisional Government fitted in absolutely with Bolshevik policy of 'all power to the Soviets'. But it is also true that other Bolshevik leaders tried to restrain the demonstration and, when this proved impossible, to give it as organised a character as possible. But whatever the truth of the matter, the 'July Days' were immensely significant, particularly for the Bolsheviks. In the first place, it became clear to them how

2444

easily the centre of Petrograd could be

occupied and dominated by the crowd,

SE3

how

easily a disciplined body of armed men could have seized the government. In other words, despite all the confusion and uncertainty that surrounded the July Days,

they served to some extent as a tryout for November. In the second place, however, and of more immediate importance, the July Days offered the government the opportunity to denounce the Bolsheviks as traitors to the state. During the night of July 17/18 the government published documents which purported to show that Lenin was a German agent who had been 'commissioned to use every means in his power to undermine the confidence of the Russian people in the Provisional Government' and to agitate for the speediest possible conclusion of a separate peace with Germany. These allegations were not entirely untrue, of course, in that this

1

Y

'

VBnH

•

IL

J

1

was

why

the Germans had enabled Lenin to return to Russia in the first place. But if Lenin was seeking to undermine confidence in the Provisional Government — as was indeed the case — then it was not in order to further the aims of German imperialism but to promote his own revolutionary aims. However, in the agitated atmosphere of July 1917, this distinction was easily overlooked. Government agents ransacked the Bolshevik party headquarters, closed down Pravda, the party journal, forced

-

jl^*5v

r

Hi

Ifcum f

%

Below left: The July Days in PetrogradCossack detachments in Palace Square. Occasional sallies by the Cossacks sufficed to quell the rising. Lenin saw how easily a disciplined insurrection could succeed

Asian peasants. Russia's population, had to be won over by concessions or coercion if the new regime was to succeed. Above: Industrial workers, backbone of the Bolshevik Party

Lenin and other party leaders into hiding and thrust the party itself into a semiunderground existence. The 'revelation' that the Bolsheviks were German agents

succeeded in postponing the elections to the Constituent Assembly until the end of November, ipso facto they condemned the

seriously jeopardised their standing in the country. Russia might be sick of war, the army 'irretrievably ruined' and the urban and rural population intensely dissatisfied—yet this by no means signified that any large body of opinion was prepared to sign a separate peace with Germany. In fact, following a renewed cabinet crisis in July-August, originally precipitated by violent dissension over the land question, a new government with marked 'conservative' tendencies was formed, with Kerensky as Premier. It had a majority of 11 socialists as against seven Cadets

put

insurrection coincides with a deep mass upheaval against the government and the bourgeoisie, caused by economic disruption and the prolongation of the war'. What was required was the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat supported by the poor peasantry 'to put into execution the programme of our party'. Trotskyi correctly amplified this to mean that the Soviets became 'wholly subordinate to the struggle of the proletariat and the semiproletarian masses in the town, the army and the country, for political power, for a revolutionary dictatorship'. The Bolshevik Party did not accept this more radical policy without protest. In fact the Sixth Party Congress in midAugust compromised to the extent of arguing that the party's task was to assume the role of 'advance-guard against counter-revolution' from which it must also defend the Soviets, factory committees etc. But there was in substance no doubt that the Bolsheviks had moved a step closer to the direct struggle for power.

and non-socialists. But

who imposed

their

it

will.

was the latter Thus the new

Cabinet took power to prohibit any publication that advocated disobedience to military orders or contained appeal to violence; processions and street meetings in Petrograd were banned; the peasants' land seizures were condemned; and hard labour was the declared punishment for any person 'guilty of an act of violence designed to change the existing state structure in Russia, or to sever from Russia any of its parts, or to remove organs of the supreme power in the state or to deprive them of the possibility of exer.' cising such power Moreover, Cadet influence in the new.

.

government was powerful enough — howweak numerically — to impose severe limits on the government's freedom of action. The government must, in short,

ever

itself to safeguarding the conquests of the revolution and not undertake measures that might lead to civil strife: 'Therefore the carrying out of all basic social reforms and the determination of all questions relating to the form of government are to be left absolutely to the Constituent Assembly'. Since the Cadets also

restrict

government it

to a period of standstill, to at its lowest.

But the wide range of problems afflicting Russia in the summer of 1917 simply would not await this leisurely time-table. The immediate sequel to the repression of the Bolsheviks, on the one hand, and to the stand-still policy enforced on the government, on the other, was to produce a radicalisation of political attitude in which moderate views were progressively eliminated. In other words, Bolshevik policy took a sharp turn to the left and certain middle-class elements began to think and plan in terms of a military dictatorship that would, as it were, roll back the revolution. In the centre, the government remained isolated: 'The central government does not know what is happening in the outlying districts, and in the localities they don't know what is happening in the central government', Avksentiev, the new Minister of the Interior, confessed. 'I will say more,' he continued, 'the provincial commissars do not know what the cantonal commissars are doing, and vice versa. Every canton pursues its own policy, works for itself, and thinks that this expresses the highest idea of democracy.' Previously the Bolshevik slogan had been, of course, 'all power to the Soviets'. But when the Soviets — through their Central Executive Committee — denounced the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution, the old policy plainly became untenable. For the first time, therefore, Lenin, now in hiding, made mention of a direct struggle for power. 'All hopes for a peaceful development of the Russian revolution have vanished for good,' Lenin proclaimed. The choice was between a military dictatorship and 'a victory for the workers' armed uprising which is only possible when the

Left: Central

peasantry,

80% of the

Counter-revolution parallel movement on the right was identified with General Kornilov. He com-

The

manded the south-western front during summer offensive and at the end of July was appointed Commander-in-Chief. the

His positive policy was not clear— in any case Kornilov had little or no political experience — but he certainly believed, as he himself said, that 'the time has come to hang the German agents and spies, headed by Lenin, to disperse the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies so that it can never reassemble'.

With

this

programme, vague though

it

was, Kornilov attracted the attention and support of a committee of private banking and insurance interests which had collected funds to support 'moderate bourgeois candidates for the Constituent Assembly and for combating the influence of socialists

2445

Crowds

scatter as a machine gun opens Nevsky Prospekt — Petrograd during the July Days. Above: Lenin, shaved and wearing a wig, as he disguised himself for his Finnish exile. In July he was forced to flee Petrograd or face arrest. From Finland he continued to lead the Bolsheviks, urging on his often reluctant comrades into ever more Left:

up

in

intransigent opposition to the Provisional

Government. He returned to Petrograd on October 22 and at a meeting the following day argued the Bolshevik Central Committee into deciding to prepare for

armed

insurrection.

Below: A Bolshevik harangues a crowd Petrograd

2446

in

the front'. The committee therefore placed its funds at Kornilov's disposal Tor the purpose of organising an armed struggle against the Soviets'. Members of the Cadet party also supported Kornilov. But this confidence was misplaced. For reasons that are still not fully clear, a dispute broke out between Kornilov and Kerensky, the Premier. Early in September the latter dismissed Kornilov from his post as Supreme Commander, alleging that he sought to make himself a reactionary military dictator. Kornilov refused to give way and, despite attempts to mediate between the two men, ordered those troops loyal to him to march on Petrograd. The attempt was a fiasco. The vigorous reaction of the Petrograd Soviet showed how mistaken was Lenin's analysis of the Soviet as a mere satellite to right-wing forces. The Soviet organised the workers into defence squads and formed a special all-party committee (including Bolsheviks) Tor struggle with counter-revolution' to co-ordinate all measures of resistance to Kornilov. Amongst the most effective were railwaymen who diverted trains, blocked the lines and removed the rails, thus making it impossible for Kornilov to bring his troops to the capital. Other workers agitated amongst the troops and persuaded them to turn against their leader. The Kornilov attempt failed miserably, and without bloodshed. But it gave rise to further confusions in the political situation. On the one hand the Soviet proved unable to come to any clear decision regarding a coalition government. A new coalition government of Cadets, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) was in fact formed at the beginning of October with Kerensky remaining as at

Premier but

it

had no

real impetus behind

contrast one thing stood out — the determination of Lenin to press forward to power. When the Bolsheviks defended the Soviet against Kornilov, they did much to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the left-wing forces. They were no longer traitors to the revolution but amongst its most ardent defenders. Lenin, though still in hiding, was grimly set on thrusting home this advantage. He was writing The State and Revolution at this time and in it he called for 'boundless audacity in destroying the old state machine entirely for the purpose of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, destroying bourgeois parliamentarianism, for a democratic republic after the type of the Commune, or a republic of Soviets of workers' and soldiers' deputies, for the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.' In concrete terms Lenin urged the Kerensky government to arrest Milyukov, to arm the Petrograd workers, to dissolve the Duma, to legalise the transfer of land to the peasants, to introduce workers' control over grain He did not, of course, seriously expect Kerensky to fulfil any of these demands. But they were, he hoped, a means of drawing the masses into the struggle against Kerensky, of arousing and influencing the people. Added impetus to this aggressive approach came from certain significant signs of a swing in popular opinion towards the Bolsheviks. At the third All-Russian Conference of Factory Committees at the beginning of November more than half the delegates were Bolsheviks. Local elections it.

By

.

.

in Petrograd

.

.

.

.

and Moscow

in October

and

November

showed a considerable inBolshevik sympathisers. The same applied to the trade unions (which had initially been a Menshevik stronghold) and to the strategically placed K roust adt Soviet which had assumed semiautonomous powers. Characteristic of the autumn situation was the growing influence of Bolshevism not only in the areas north and west of Petrograd but also in the adjacent naval and military units. The most momentous and dramatic change of all took place in the great Petrograd Soviet itself. On September 22 the Bolshevik deputies presented a resolution on the method of electing the presidium of the Soviet. This was, in fact, a matter of substance not procedure. The session took place amid great tension. Trotsky remembered the scene: 'All understood that they were deciding the question of power — of the war — of the fate of the revolution. In every corner of the hall an impassioned although whispered agitation now began. The old presidium or the new? The coalition or the Soviet power? The crease

also

in

arms of an unseen scales were oscillating. The presidium, hardly able to control its remained throughout whole hour upon the platform.'

excitement,

the

When there came a majority for the Bolsheviks by 519 to 414 (with 67 abstainers) there was ecstatic applause. Trotsky, the Bolshevik, took the place of the Menshevik Chkheidze, as chairman. Overall, the disposition of forces in the early autumn showed Bolshevik predominance in the key industrial centres (Moscow, Petrograd), the garrison towns and the northern armies. Amongst the peasant Soviets and the front-line troops the Socialist Revolutionaries continued to hold sway. On the other hand, a left Socialist Revolutionary party had split off from the main party to make common cause with the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks (apart from the Caucasus, especially Georgia) had everywhere lost the leading place in the Soviets that they had held at the beginning of the revolution. This was the rough picture of the relative balance of forces in the autumn. But it cannot render the differing mood and morale of the various contending parties. Above all, it cannot show the forcefulness with which Lenin spurred on his followers at last to make a direct bid for power: 'Having obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in both capitals, the Bolsheviks can and must take state power into their own hands,' wrote Lenin on September 22 to the Bolshevik Central Committee. 'History will not forgive us if we do not assume power now,' he added. 'To refrain from taking power now ... is to doom the revolution to failure.' It was now — or never. The Central Committee was at first by no means prepared to fall in with Lenin's prodding. In fact it was almost a month before they could be persuaded to share his sense of urgency. At one point Lenin even wanted to resign from the Committee so that he would be free to carry his agitation into the rank and file of the party. His principal opponents were Kamenev and Zinoviev who thought it hazardous for the Bolsheviks to strike out on their own and preferred to wait for an anticipated Bolshevik victory in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. But this opposition came to naught.

Lenin's arguments prevailed. The last point to be settled concerned the date of the proposed insurrection and here Trotsky's view prevailed — that it must coincide with the second Congress of Soviets so that the Bolsheviks would be able to give the impression that the actions of a single party, lacking an overall majority, had the authority of the Congress as a whole. This delay infuriated Lenin. As late as November 6 he implored his colleagues to

remember that everything 'now hangs by a thread', that matters 'could not be solved by conferences, or congresses (not even by congresses of Soviets) but exclusively by peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed people. We must not wait! We may lose everything!! The people have the right and are in duty bound to decide

such questions not by a vote but by force.' Trotsky organised this force. It consisted of Bolshevik-minded military and naval units and of Red Guards formed from armed factory workers. These activities were by no means unknown to the government, but they inspired no special fear. On the contrary, Kerensky almost looked forward to a Bolshevik uprising for it would justify their repression. 'I only wish they would come out,' he told Buchanan, the British Ambassador, 'and I will then put them down.' This was a grotesque underestimation of Bolshevik strength and an equally grotesque over-estimation of the strength of governmental forces. During the night of November 6/7, Trotsky's forces went into action, and almost without bloodshed occupied all the key points in Petrograd — railway stations, bridges, telephone exchange, state bank. When Buchanan

walked along the Neva quay on the morning of the 7th he noted that everything had a more or less normal appearance, apart from groups of armed soldiers stationed near the bridges. Tn the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee I announce that the Provisional Government no longer exists.' Thus ran Trotsky's proud declaration on the afternoon of the 7th. This was true enough and it became truer still when the Bolsheviks, with Lenin as chairman, formed the all-Bolshevik Council of People's

Commissars. Its first acts, promulgated at 11 pm on November 8, were to declare an armistice and to abolish private property in land. The security of the Bolshevik position in Petrograd at this time — still more in Russia as a whole — was doubtful. Yet for all that, in the most unpromising

circumstances, a new government had come into existence that would not only make a complete break with its predecessors since

and

ill,

March but would also, for good indelible mark on world

make an

history.

Further Reading

Browder,

R. P.

and Kerensky,

A. F.,

The Russian

Go vernment (Stanford U.P.) Isaac, The Prophet Armed —

Provisional

Deutscher,

Trotsky: 1879-1921 (Oxford UP.) Knox, Major-General Sir Alfred, With the Russian Army 1914-17 (London 1921) Kochan, Lionel, Russia in Revolution (Paladin) Snub, David, Lenin (Penguin) Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution

(London 1934) [For Lionel

Kochan 's biography,

see

page

1947.]

2447 I

The Eastern Front had seen little action since the autumn of 1916 and the Germans had every intention of letting this state of affairs continue.

The Russian Provisional Government, however, decided to reactivate the front in

£ **»

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—

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if

an attempt to halt the "

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disintegration of the

army

and of society. But would the troops fight?

Norman Stone

Not long after the March Revolution of 1917 in Russia, there began events without precedent in history. An army of over 2,000,000 men began to disintegrate, almost entirely without pressure from the enemy. No one knew how to deal with this; no one even knew how to explain it. Arguments about the war became academic; the men, in a famous phrase, were voting against it with their feet. The army at the front had had little to do with the original revolution. That had been accomplished by working men and soldiers in the rear towns, particularly in Petrograd. At this time, the men were still essentially in the hands of their officers; the latest Soviet volume of documents on the collapse of the army shows little evidence of serious trouble at the front up to the March Revolution. But once the authority of the Tsar had gone, there was nothing to put in its place; the professional men and 'bour-

— as Lenin

called them not tradition. With every batch of reservists coming up to the line, the unrest of the towns was carried into the army, and relations between the officers and the men there began to reflect the increasingly tense class-relations inside Russia. The army had always been run on geoisified landlords'

— ruled by

phrase,

highly authoritarian lines, and had been modelled on the Prussian army. Soldiers were treated as a kind of military furniture, to the point where all conversations of a military nature had to follow a prescribed litany, to be learned from a book. In Germany; something of this system survived, partly because the German officers were sustained by a magnificent corps of NCO's, partly because German patriotism was strong enough to survive the experience of the German army. Neither was true in Russia. NCO's were haphazard, unwilling appointments; the best of them had been killed off; and the others sympathised much more with the men than with the officers. Patriotism in Russia was strong enough, but it could not withstand war-weariness. Peasants might be patriotic for their country. They might even be willing to give a life for the Tsar. They did not want to give a life for their banker. Besides, whatever the moral constitution of the army, material conditions were deteriorating beyond repair. In normal times, the Russian peasant would put up with virtually anything. Now, events were forcing him to be revolutionary. Transport was in crisis; there was not enough coal, rolling-stock and railway lines were in bad repair. The apparatus of food production was running down. Inflation was ruining anyone who did not have large property. The men worried for their families, and blamed everything on the government. Inside the army, the same troubles were evident. No Russian soldier could mistake the fact that his superiors had no idea what to do. Strategy from the beginning had been a story of missed openings. Men who had bungled things in 1914 or even in 1905 were still in charge. General Kuropatkin, for instance, thought that the way to achieve a success was to shine huge searchlights in the Germans' eyes and thus dazzle them. As it turned out, the Russian attackers were silhouetted against the lights, and 3,000 of them died on a single occasion.

The

Guard

Corps

had

been

kept out of the line for several months in 1915 and 1916, so as to be used as a fresh body of men when the crisis came. During

these months, the Guard was trained in the methods of 1912; and its entry into battle — the Kovel battles of 1916 — turned out to be one of the bloodiest episodes of the war. Increasingly often, army supplies of food ran out. The authorities would then give money to the soldiers in place of food, and the soldiers would compete for supplies in the shops of the towns in the rear. Prices rose, goods disappeared, and the soldiers could only spend their money in illicit distilleries; hence, towns like Gomel and Rovno were often filled with hungry and drunken soldiers on the rampage. It is possible that if there had been fighting, the army would not have gone this way. But for the first few months of 1917 nothing of importance happened at the front; and indeed, the entire front north of the Pripet had seen little action since the autumn of 1915 — a couple of weeks' futile action in 1916, and a few days at the beginning of 1917. The men could not see why they were there. They were hungry and bored. They despised their officers. They listened to agitators who talked of a 'revolutionary peace'. Still, by the spring of 1917 there was still enough elemental patriotism to keep the army together; and under the shadow of the German 'thrust to the east' Russians felt that they could not afford to quarrel. Certainly the Germans made gestures for peace, and allowed their men to fraternise. Local armistices were put into effect; even the Habsburg Archduke commanding the southern part of the front gingerly put a toe into revolutionary waters. But at heart the Russians knew that they ought to fight on; Ludendorff's disguise as a dove of peace was not convincing. At the same time, the breakdown of supply and discipline, the bankruptcy of strategy, and the anarchy at

home seemed

to

make any

effort futile.

In these circumstances, the Provisional Government felt that the only way to keep the country going was to remind the men that there was a war on. Since the Germans would not attack — for fear of provoking a nationalist revival — the new authorities decided that their army should attack, an argument sustained by Alexander Kerensky, the new War Minister. Agreements of a rather vague kind had been made with the Allies at Chantilly late in 1916: there was to be a joint spring offensive. Ruzsky and Evert, commanding the front north of the Pripet, had been hopeful about their chances of defeating the Germans, but everyone supposed, however, that the Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia could also be beaten. The Rumanians were full of fight. The material weight of the army was now very great — huge artillery reserves had been assembled.

Putting the army into shape The only real problem was: would the men fight? As it happened, morale recovered with a prospect of action. The men knew that Russia had to be defended. Virtually every

institution of the Revolution deaction; the Petrograd Soviet at this time contained only 150 or so Bolsheviks out of over 1,000 members, and it passed resolutions demanding a revolutionary offensive. One army soviet declared, 'Our task is to get the army back into such shape that, when our Commander orders, any part of the army will come and arrest us.' Kerensky as War Minister went on frequent tours of the

manded

front to inspire the men with his oratory; this 'balalaika of the regime', as Lenin called him, was capable of stirring great enthusiasm. He told the men: 'the time of talks and of persuasion in the army has must command, not confer.' now gone. By and large, these efforts were successful:

We

it is probably fair to say that almost Russian soldiers wen! into action in two minds. Some of the units were refractory. A division of Second Guard Corps met Kerensky with prolonged catcalls and booing. The Second Cavalry Corps near Tarnopol had to go into action against a mutinous regiment that had dug itself in. The proceedings in the army Soviets were often extremely ambiguous: meetings of over 1,000 delegates would alternately cheer a government speaker and then a Bolshevik arguing on wholly different

though all

lines. In Kamenets Podolsk, in June 1917, huge ovations were accorded both to Ensign Krylenko, a Bolshevik, and to Stankie-

speaking for the Provisional Government. Under these conditions, the new governors of Russia hoped that victory would turn the balance towards them. In June, Kerensky, heartened by his reception at the front, fell into a mood of rapturous confidence, and talked of a Russian Valmy. French commentators supposed that the Russian Revolution would triumph over foreign enemies just as their own had done in the 1790s. They assumed that the vich,

would somehow overcome barbed wire and machine guns. Kerensky's summer offensive was predialectic of history

pared, haphazardly, for the latter part of June. To start with, grandiose plans were drawn up for attacks on all parts of the front; but the essential attacks would come in Galicia. Here, Seventh Army (Belkovich) was to strike the main blow, by Brzezany; the army was to cross the river Zlota Lipa, take Bobrka and seize Lvov from the south. This blow was to be accompanied by a subsidiary one by Eleventh Army, further north, around Zloczow: Eleventh Army (Erdelyi) was to try and take Lvov from the north. Subsidiary attacks by the Special Army towards Kovel and Eighth Army south of the Dniester were also foreseen. Generally, the troops seemed reliable enough for the time being, although some corps marched into action only after swearing that, if the attack failed, they would massacre the corps staff. For the operation, several of the more outrageously out of date generals were removed -general-adjutants of the Tsar cut a ludicrous enough figure in an army that had become half-rabble, half-debating society. Brusilov, by far the best general in the army, took over from Alexeyev; Gutor took over the south-western front command. Great weight was assembled: on a front of 65 kilometres there were 31 infantry divisions and many cavalry divisions, with 800 light, 158 medium and 370 heavy guns, together with enormous reserves of shell. This quantity was hitherto unequalled on the Eastern Front. When Mackensen broke through at Gorlice in May 1915, he had had only 600 guns. Despite the promise of a new Russia, the military pattern was the depressingly familiar one; the offensive's failure was inevitable, even if the troops had been in condition. The lessons of 1916 were ignored. Oddly enough, where the Russians had been hampered beforehand by lack of materiel, they were now hamfirst class

2449

pered by too much of it. The unprecedented quantities of guns and shells misled the commanders. They put their faith in bombardment, supposing that they could now do to the Central Powers what Mackensen and Gallwitz had done to them in the summer of 1915. The Staff's preparations were both obvious and inadequate. The Germans knew from the end of May to expect an offensive; and little secret was made of the direction. Bridges were built over the Dniester and its tributaries; new railway lines were constructed; huge, un-

Above: Alexander Kerensky. Minister

of

War

Government Known by some Russian generals as the little Joan of Arc',

in

the Provisional

he made a tour of the front in an effort to raise the enthusiasm of the troops for a revolutionary offensive — The hard but glorious duty of defending revolutionary on the Russia Free sons of Russia points of your bayonets you will bring peace, Right: The last right, truth and justice kick of a rotten regime' and massive German retaliation Below: Austrians on the Galician .'

front erect prefabricated wire barriers

camouflaged ammunition dumps were set

know whose orders to take. The 'Revolutionary offensive' was in fact no more than the last kick of a rotten regime. The results of the offensive were not surprising. In the main theatre, Seventh Army had 20 infantry divisions at or near the front. These were supposed to strike along the Zlota Lipa valley and to take the heavily fortified town of Brzezany, scene of intense fighting the year before. The Germans knew what to expect. Their Siidarmee (Graf Bothmer) had stood its ground here before. Its troops fortified their line to the point of impregnability. The strongpoints

up. The offensive was publicly discussed in the press and in the Soviets for weeks

of this front were two heights, on either side of the river: the Dzikie Lany and the

beforehand; constant desertions from the front occurred. But serious preparation was perfunctory. The great offensive of 1916 had been meticulously prepared: there had been continual digging from Pinsk to Czernowitz as communicationstrenches, saps and dug-outs were constructed. The digging before the Kerensky Offensive was minimal. One officer found that, to take his troops up to the line for the attack, he had only a narrow trench in bad repair; his men had to crawl forward for a mile through heavy enemy shrapnel before they could arrive, exhausted, in the front trench to await the battle. The seemingly endemic lethargy of the Russian armed forces reasserted itself: guns did not co-operate with infantry; reserves were kept too far behind the front; huge masses of cavalry cluttered up the rear areas, never to be used; commanders and staffs were changed at the last moment; units

Lysonia. The Russians could not advance unless these were taken. The heights were brilliantly prepared for defence: gunemplacements dug deep into the rocks, deep shelters dug for reserves, and a profusion of machine gun nests sketched with the usual German precision. On July 1, after two days' bombardment, the Seventh Russian Army attacked. The bombardment had been largely ineffective, despite its weight: the heavy guns, which the Russians were not used to handling, strewed shells around aimlessly, and the other guns, though well used, did not have the power to disrupt the Germans' positions. The Germans withdrew from their first line — following the new tactical prescriptions — and waited for the Russians to stumble up to the

did not

second line. A massacre followed. The Russians managed to push on to the third line, but found in the usual way that reserves were either too far behind or were

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prevented from coming up by a curtain of fire. On July 2, on both heights, the offensive was attempted again, and with much the same results. A wedge was driven in the river valley between the two heights, but the troops in this salient were quickly overwhelmed by crossfire from the heights, and had to withdraw. By July 6, the fighting here was over, the Russians returning in dejection to their own lines. Now, but only after the failure of the offensive here, the troops began to refuse discipline. A division was ordered by its commander to use hand grenades and stop a German flanking movement: the men refused, for no one had ever taught them to use hand grenades; and they marched back to the rear, bringing parts of other divisions with them. The offensive -as a whole was more suc-

German

where it was less expected. In the Brzezany area, the Germans had been in no doubt as to the Russians' strength and intentions; Siidarmee was sent 22 batand two German divisions as teries reserve. On Eleventh Army's front, the Russian attack was less severe, and had

XXI Corps XVIII

obviously prepared. Here, 1 divisions were to be used to force a way

ELEVENTH

SECOND

ARMY

ARMY

OKms

40

Zloczow*

• Lemberg "

x-»

(Lvov)

%

Lemben

IX Corps

SUD °*

ARMY

Czer

Koniuchy

XXV

Corps

XXXIV Corps XXII

XXVII Res Corps

Coi

\ll Guard Corps

II

Cav rps t

XXJQU Corps

XXVI Corps

'ENT>

ARMY

THIRD

ARMY XII

Corps

Kamenets Podolsk*

Corps

XIII

Siidarmee iHofmann's Austro-Hungarian and the right-hand corps of the Austro-Hungarian Second Army (Kletter's 9th). Both of these were stiffened by

German troops, but the Austro-Hungarian army command was much more lackathan Siidarmee's, and the Austro-

XVII

Corps

SEVENTH

ARMY RUSSIAN

LINE

JULY

1

^/

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE JULY 1-16 GERMAN/AUSTRIAN

LINE JULY

GERMAN/AUSTRIAN

LINE JULY 16

1

GERMAN /AUSTRIAN COUNTEROFFENSIVE POSITION JULY 19

JULY 22 JULY 25

JULY 28 JULY 31

AUGUST 3 FINAL LINE

*r

HUNGARY

XV Corps

25th)

daisical

AUSTRIA

XXVReTc^^.^CLanCor,,

through Lvov.

Siberian Corps

.Warsaw

less

Zborow and Koniuchy towards They faced the left-hand corps of

V

V Corps

RUSSIA

Miles

cessful

been

Corps

Hungarian soldiers themselves appear to have screwed their eyes tight shut and hoped there would be no serious action, despite the signs Their positions, based on tin- village of Koniuchy, were less formidable than those to the south. The Russian bombardment here was more effective: it took the Austrian troops by surprise. On July the Russians drove a wedge into the hue between the two enemy armies by Koniuchy The two army commands quarrelled about use of reserves, with the result that they were never given orders until too late On July 2, the Russians again hombarded the Austro-Hungarian lines; and since the Austro-Hungarian troops had now lost their strong first line, and had to make do with a much less effective second line, they were almost caught in the open, and bombarded from their flanks. As well, one ol the Austro-Hungarian divisions in IX Corps — the 19th -was recruited largely in Bohemia; and here the Russians had a great advantage They threw into line a recruited Brigade, Czechoslovak Rifle among Czech prisoners of war in earlier years. When the Czechs of the 19th Division heard their own accents being used by 1

2452

.

the attacker, they were unable to fight, and threw down their arms. As a result, the two divisions on either side of them were outflanked and almost surrounded. Bv the end of the day, 9th Corps had lost 10,000 of its 16,000 men. However, by now the quarrel between the two army commands about use of reserves was settled; and three Cerman divisions rapidly came to stabilise the line. The Russians had taken 14,000 men and over thirty guns. They could not advance further over Koniuchy, and their offensive died down by July 6. The greatest success of all came, as usual, where no one expected it. The pattern of June 1916 was repeated. South of the Dniester, Kornilov's Eighth Army had been ordered to make a feint to help the main operation to the north. Kornilov had only six infantry divisions and some cavalry on a front over 100 kilometres wide; and was told to advance towards Kalusz, and if possible take Halicz. He faced roughly the same number of German

and Austro-Hungarian troops, who were assembled as the Austro-Hungarian Third Army, under an elderly Hungarian cavalryman, Tersztyanszky. Kornilov was able to

profit from the considerable ineptness of Austro-Hungarian staff work, The front was dominated by a height, the Jutrena Cora, which commanded the area for many miles and was generally regarded as the key to the area south of the Dniester. Tersztyanszky resolved to hold it. Unfortunately, the height would not be defensible if its eastern slope were taken, as, from there, the Russians would enjoy excellent coverage from the top. The eastern

slope was, moreover, strictly indefensible, since it was commanded by heights on the other bank of the river Bystrzyca Solot-

winska, which were in Russian hands. This was an impossible position: unless the Austro-Hungarian army was prepared to attack, the Jutrena Gora was useless to it. Many junior officers pointed this out,

and were

When

told to

Kornilov's

mind

their divisions

own

business. attacked, on

6, they had an easy success. The Austro-Hungarian 15th Division, holding Jamnica on the eastern slope, were bombarded into the ground, as bad been foreseen. By July 8 the Russians occupied the eastern slope, and began to outflank the summit, unseen by the Austrian gun-

July

ners. Tersztyanszky reacted with his usual incorrigible taste for futile sacrifice, and threw in all his reserves in an effort to

the eastern slopes: and even troops could do nothing in these circumstances. By July 10 the Austrian Third Army had been entirely broken, gave up the heights and retired to the Lomnica, 30 miles away. Nothing stood between Kornilov and the town of Eialicz, which fell on July 12. However, the story of June 1916 was repeated; Kornilov had no reserves; the armies to the north of him were passive; and the Germans sent four divisions to the area. By July 16 Kornilov, facing a counterattack, had to withdraw from Halicz. This was the last action of the old Russian army. Now the Germans took their revenge. Despite the fighting in the west, they sent eight divisions to Galicia, and at once launched a counteroffensive, on July 19. It was an immediate success, though barely deserving the name of battle, since the Russians retreated without lighting. Tarnopol fell on July 26, with the German Kaiser watching the battle. The Russians streamed back in disorder to the Zbrucz,

retake

German

Above: General Kornilov — the small success he had in the offensive made him the idol of the Right. This encouraged him to try to overthrow the Provisional Government and set himself up as dictator and saviour of Russia. Below:

Wrecked cars retreat

litter

the path of the Russians'

the old Austro-Russian border. Only there did they begin to fight; and Kornilov, now in charge of the front, inspired, or terrorised into the men, a new spirit. Special 'Death Battalions' attached to every division rounded up deserters and fugitives anil treated them unmercifully. Thousands of corpses, shot or hanged, were discovered by the Germans bearing notes: 'I betrayed my country.' By this harshness, the Russian army recovered, and was able to halt the Germans on the border. The Austrians retook Galicia and the Bukovina; but they could make no further progress here. Kornilov thereby confirmed his growing reputation in Russia. He was the only man to profit

from Kerensky's offensive.

Further Reading Ferro, Marc. La Revolution Russe (Pans 1967) Kerensky, Alexander. The Kerensky Memoirs: Russia and History's Turning Point (Cassell 1966) Sidorov. A. (Ed), Revolyutsionnoe dvizheme v armn (1967) Der Weltkrieg, Vol. XIII (Reichsarchiv)

p

| =>

^ | ro

[For 465.

1

Norman

Stone's biography, see page & J

3

The Riga Offensive was a unique operation. It was the time on either of the two major fronts that the 'strategy of the indirect approach' was applied. It succeeded in eliminating a large Russian bridgehead, but an unusual example of wise Russian generalship saved a complete army from capture. Eugene first

"We^iga

Hinterhoff.

Below: The Kaiser in Riga

Offensive

.

.

.-%.

-

. .

;]

i~-t,

,.

The German Riga Offensive

in 1917 could hardly be described as a spectacular operation, or one that represented a turning point in the war, but it deserves a careful study. During the Riga Offensive, the Germans had at their disposal overwhelming artillery support, good generals and highly trained troops. They were also facing an army undergoing a process of rapid decay, and yet they managed to win only a partial victory. During the great Austro-German offensive of May-September 1915, which, beginning with the breakthrough at Gorlice-Tarnow, had cleared the Russians from Galicia, the German Eighth Army, under General von Below, had been operating on the German northern flank, near the sea-coast. Its task had been to envelop the Russian right flank, but the Germans had failed to fulfil their mission as a result of a counteraction by Russian reserves. By the end of 1915, any further advance of Below's troops had been brought to a standstill along the River Dvina, with the Russians retaining a large bridgehead on its western bank, covering Riga, as well as a few smaller islands along the course of the river. The Dvina is a slow-flowing stream inset with several islands above the bridgehead, but it becomes considerably wider as it approaches Riga. The countryside near the town is flat, broken only by thickets and lines of trees, and traversed by a number of streams, notably the Klein Jagel, and the Gross Jagel, flowing almost parallel to the Dvina. On the bridgehead itself the ground is marshy and often waterlogged, but further east there are sand dunes and extensive woods, which grow close to the river banks and afford good approach cover. The front of the Riga bridgehead ran westward in a convex curve from a point on the Dvina 12 miles above Riga to a point on the coast 25 miles west of the city beyond the great bend in the River Aa. From the German point of view, the capture of Riga would be the prelude for an offensive towards Petrograd. If such advance had been made after the Revolution, it could have seriously affected the already profoundly shaken morale of the highly

demoralised Russian army, bringing peace on the Russian Front

much

nearer.

The decision to launch an operation against the Riga bridgehead had already been taken in December 1916, when General Sauberzweig, Chief of Staff of the German Eighth Army, received an order to submit to the C-in-C Eastern Front plans for such an attack. In the opinion of the German High Command, two factors were considered to favour the success of the operation: the presence on the Eastern Front of a few extra divisions after the repulse of Kerensky's offensive, and the progressive decay in morale of the Russian army, especially noticeable among the garrison of the Riga bridgehead. Major-General Sir Alfred Knox, in his extremely interesting diary, describes how soldiers of the Russian Twelfth Army, stationed in the Riga area, stormed the brewery; many got drunk and a few were drowned in the vats. 'Members of Twelfth Army committee, sent to reason with the rioters, unfortunately got drunk themselves.' He also writes that the soldiers in the trenches were short of boots and warm clothing, and many of them were without greatcoats — they were simply gambling them away or selling them on the black market. As a result of increasing lawlessness and the breakdown of discipline, the officers were losing control, and any attempt to restore order often resulted in riots or assassinations; in fact, many tens of thousands of officers were massacred. The writer was an eyewitness when a commanding officer of an infantry regiment deployed on the front line was trampled to death by his soldiers who later set upon any officer they could lay their hands on. The disposition of both sides on the Riga bridgehead in August 1917 was as follows: The Russian Twelfth Army, under General Klembovsky, held the bridgehead and the line of the River Dvina up to Jakobstadt; it consisted of II Siberian Corps (four infantry divisions, a Lettish brigade and one cavalry division), VI Corps (three infantry divisions, Army Reserve of two infantry and one cavalry division). The German front from Friedrichstadt (on the Dvina) to the sea was held by Eighth Army, consisting of seven and a half divisions with an average of 17j miles per division. For the offensive the High Command put at the disposal of the Commander of Eighth Army eight infantry and two cavalry divisions; however, the most important addition to the strength of Eighth

Army was

in heavy artillery: every gun possible was collected from the Eastern Front. The purpose of this massive concen-

tration of artillery fire was to support a river crossing in the face of the Russians holding well prepared defensive positions. In choosing their strategy the Germans had two alternatives; a frontal attack on the bridgehead, supported by a naval action, which would involve storming the Russians' fortified positions on the 10/15 mile wide expanse of the Tirul marshes, making the prompt exploitation of success difficult; or by-passing the bridge-

2456

Left:

German

field artillery

near Riga.

The ones that did not run awayRussians dead at their posts at the approaches Right:

to Riga.

Below: German troops crossing the Dvina near Borkowitz

'y

'<

«V

^v.

.

I

«

a

rf

2457

German Riga Offensive, September 1-5. Above: German troops landing guns on the island bombardment of Osel. To secure passage for their ships through the Gulf of Riga to their new Baltic port, from October 12-20 the Germans carried out seaborne assaults on the Russian-held islands —Osel, Moon and Dago — commanding the mouth of the gulf Top: The

of Osel. Right: Naval

head

to attack it from the rear by crossing the Dvina and pushing north in the general direction of the sea. Although it would involve a river crossing and the storming of consecutive Russian lines of fortification, General von Hutier, Commander of the Eighth Army, chose the second alternative. The gist of his plan was as follows: to make a surprise crossing of the Dvina near the island of Borkowitz on a front of 2\ miles, in the direction of Uxkiill, prepared by a massive artillery support; to follow the first assault by the main force, consisting of three divisions and all the cavalry, with the task of pushing forward towards the coast north of the river Klein Jagel, and to cut off the Riga garrison from Petrograd;

2458

to follow the

main

effort

with two divisions, which simultaneously

acted as a protection on the German right flank against any Russian counterattack. General Hutier's forces were assembled several days before D-Day in the area of Schaulen some 75 miles south of Riga, where they underwent rigorous training on ground similar to that of the forthcoming attack. All movements were conducted in deepest secrecy, yet still the Russians got wind of German preparations and withdrew men and supplies from the bridgehead. But the Russians badly miscalculated German intentions, believing that instead of trying a difficult river crossing, the Germans would launch a frontal attack upon the bridgehead, in the

•

^"S,

general direction of Riga. As a result, the Russians had transferred their most unreliable divisions from the bridgehead, to the east bank of the Dvina, in the area of Uxkiill, which happened to be the sector chosen by the Germans for their main thrust. General Klembovsky, unable to rely on his troops, decided that if there were a major German offensive, he would gradually evacuate the bridgehead and retire towards well fortified positions north-east of Riga; all his dispositions were made on assumption of a frontal attack by the Germans. The offensive began at 0400 hours on September 1, when the German artillery fired gas shells upon Russian positions on the

eastern bank of the Dvina for two hours; a heavy ground mist greatly assisted the gassing, and, according to prisoners, most of the batteries and later the infantry positions on the banks of the river, held by the most unreliable troops, were abandoned in a panic-stricken flight. The actual crossing was preceded by a bombardment beginning at 0600 hours. As soon as the crossing began, the construction of three bridges was put under way. At 0840 hours the island of Borkowitz was taken by a surprise assault, and the garrison of the neighbouring Elster island was taken prisoner. At 0910 hours the three attack divisions went into action under strong artillery fire and with the support of low

2459

flying aircraft; the Russians, taken by surprise and overwhelmed artillery preparations, either fled or surrendered without

by

resistance.

German

losses

were extremely

By 1700 hours

slight.

the three attack divisions had captured the Russian second line positions, and established a bridgehead 7| miles wide on the eastern bank of the Dvina, in preparation for the next phase on the next day. Yet, in spite of the most meticulous German preparations, in spite of an overwhelming artillery superiority, and in spite of better troops, everything went wrong with the execution of the German plan, only a few hours after a successful crossing. Apparently, the advancing German divisions were too tightly tied down to the schedule of the operation, which became unrealistic after the ease of the initial success. Precious hours were wasted, and a relentless pursuit after the second position had been reached would probably have delivered the passage of the Jagel into Ger-

man hands at small cost. Time was given to the Russians to take counter-measures. Karly in the morning of September 2, General von Hutier learned that the Russian bridgehead had been evacuated, and that General Klembovsky was still able to throw his reserves against any German advance over the difficult marshy ground of the Tirul marshes. Hutier ordered General von Berrer, in command of the centre group, to press on to the north of the Gross Jagel. Yet, in view of stiffening Russian resistance, and, above all, of difficult ground with dense thickets and narrow twisting roads, the German advance during the second day was slow. In the meantime, the Russians, taking advantage of the difficulties experienced by the Germans, and using their few crack troops for rearguard action, withdrew along the Riga-Pskov highway. The German advance began again at dawn on September 3, when 14th Bavarian Division managed to capture a bridge over the Gross Jagel, pushing forward in a north-easterly direction; the neighbouring 1st Guard, during the crossing of the Gross Jagel, encountered strong Russian resistance. By the end of the day, all attack divisions of Berrer's group were deployed several miles south of the highway and railway along which the Russians were escaping. Meanwhile, Russian morale had improved after the initial shock; General Klembovsky ordered his VI Siberian Corps to move along the coast, leaving the highway clear for the retreating vehicles; at the same time, he ordered II Siberian Corps to counterattack in a south-westerly direction in the area of Hinzenberg. As a result of Russian resistance, it was only in the afternoon of the fourth day, September 4, that the German troops took the important positions in the Hinzenberg area along the highway and railway to Pskov; late that afternoon 1st Guard Division crossed the highway, and by the end of the day it reached the southern bank of the River Aa, and soon afterwards the seacoast.

On

fifth day there were only a few small skirmishes, as both had achieved their objectives: the Russians, although they had lost some 25,000 men and considerable artillery, had managed to escape from a German trap, withdrawing to positions in the area of Wenden. German losses were much smaller: some 4,200 men. Although the Germans had achieved one of their aims, the capture of the Riga bridgehead, they had failed in a much bigger aim, the trapping of the whole of Russian Twelfth Army. The Germans, advancing on what was perhaps too broad a front, had not reached the vital highway crammed with retreating Russian troops and transport. General Hutier had had an easy task: the Russians had voluntarily evacuated the western part of the Riga bridgehead before the attack, and evacuated the rest in great haste as soon as the attack began. As Major-General Sir Alfred Knox wrote,

the

sides

'the

Russians refused to

Right:

The

fight'.

Kaiser's retinue outside the

Schwarzhaupterhaus

in

German-

occupied Riga Further Reading Buat, General, Hindenburg et Ludendorff — Strateges (1923) Bruchmuller, Oberst, Die Deutsche Artillerie in den Durchbruchschlachten (1921)

Edmonds, Brigadier-General J., Volume VIII, 1924) Hindenburg, Paul von, Out of My

Hutier's

Rehearsal (Army Quarterly,

Life (1920)

Knox, Major-General Sir Alfred, With the Russian Army 1914-17 (1921) Ludendorff, My War Memories (1920) Wachenfeld, Lieutenant-Colonel, Der Duna Ubergang in 1917 (Wissen

und Wehr 1923) Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918 (Volume

13,

Bundesarchiv 1956)

[For Eugene Hinterhoff's biography, see page 502.

2460

|

2461

On August

4, 1914, European socialists ad found that the old-fashioned ties of patrie and fatherland were stronger than 1

rational ties of class solidarity. But who did not abandon the internationalist stand which they had taken before the war. Both the Bolshevik and the Menshevik faction of Russian social democracy abstained from a vote of confidence and a vote for war credits in the Duma. Hut there was no unanimity among the Russian socialists in exile. In Britain too there was opposition. While the Labour Party swung into support of the government and soon had a representative in the government, its leader Ramsay MacDonald opposed it and so did the Independent Labour Party. They were horrified to find Britain at war in alliance with the Tsar. But the greatest courage of all was shown by the two socialist deputies of the Serbian parliament both of whom voted against war credits. An antiwar attitude was of course also taken by the socialists of those countries not involved in war. An international socialist conference, t

chairman of the party, attacked the government, and by implication his own party. He and 17 other deputies were expelled from the parliamentary party. So they formed

1

THE

hi-

there were some

representing socialists from both belligerent camps, met in the village of Zimmerwald in Switzerland in September 1915 and again in the village of Kienthal in April 1916. Not much, however, could be achieved until mass slaughter, deprivation, hunger and a victory which always lay beyond the achievement of either side had sapped the will to continue fighting. It was then that the Russian March Revolution gave the working class of Europe an opportunity to see the way out of the impasse. Lloyd George wrote later: The shock that came from Petrograd passed through every workshop and mine and produced a disquiet which made things difficult in recruitment and munitionment.' The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies appealed to the workers of Ger-

many and Austria-Hungary

to

throw

off

the yoke of their own capitalist governments just as the Russian people had shaken off the yoke of Tsarism. The Soviet also forced its own government to announce that Russia wanted a peace without either annexations or reparations, a peace signed on the basis of the declaration of the Zimmerwald Conference. The Russian demands and the gradual collapse of Russia caused much consternation among Russia's allies in the west. Socialist politicians from France, Britain and Belgium, some of them members of their own governments, were sent to Russia. Most of them came back convinced that Russia could not continue the war and hence that a negotiated peace was the maximum that the Entente could achieve. The Russian Revolution had a more immediate effect on the workers and socialists of Germany and Austria than on those of the Entente powers. German socialism and the German working class had been in a latent state of excitement for some time Opposition to the official socialist party line had been getting stronger. On December 2, 1914 Karl Liebknecht, a socialist deputy, and the bearer of an honoured name among socialists, broke the monolithic unity of support for the war by voting against the War Credits Bill. A year later he was joined by 19 other deputies, while 22 abstained. In March 1916 the sixth War Credits Bill, forming part of an emergency budget, was presented to the Reichstag. Hugo Haase, who had before the war been

2462

themselves into a Social Democratic Arbeitsgemeinschaft, led by Haase, Georg

REUDUITIMI

THROUGH FOREIGn EVES 'Bliss

was

it

in that

dawn to

wrote Wordsworth of his feelings at the time of the French Revolution. Much the same emotion stirred European socialists when they learned of the Russian Revolution of March 1917the Russian people had at last thrown off the yoke of be

alive,'

obscurantist autocracy.

European socialism which had lain dormant since the outbreak of war began to stir. However events in Russia contributed neither to ending the war nor to promoting social revolution.

Harry Hanak.

Below: Rosa Luxemburg

Ledebour and Wilhelm Dittman. The attempt to heal the rift at a party conference in Berlin in September 1916 was a failure. In January 1917 the dissidents held a congress in Berlin. Seventy-two parliamentary constituencies out of 397 were represented at this congress, from which the Independent Socialist Party of Germany (USPD) arose. The extreme leftwingers,

known

as the International

Group

(more commonly the Spartacists, commemorating the leader of the slave revolt in Rome), attended as a minority. Out of 157 delegates only 35 belonged to the Spartacus group. At this time its leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Liebknecht were both in prison. The Russian Revolution coming at the end of the worst winter of the war — the 'turnip' winter — quickened political development, and at a conference in Gotha in April 1917, the USPD was actually founded. At the conference Haase spoke of the hope coming from the east and wondered whether the government would bring in reforms now or wait till the workers began 'to speak Russian'. But the USPD was not extremist. It was antiwar and its leaders like Karl Kautsky or Kurt Eisner had little in common with the extremist Spartacists who hoped to use the party as an umbrella organisation while they prepared their version of the March and November events in Russia. Rosa Luxemburg wrote from prison: 'Of course the marvels in Russia are like a new lease of life for me. They are a saving grace for all of us. I only fear that you do not all appreciate them enough, do not recognize sufficiently that it is our own cause which

winning there.' At the end of April 1917, the German workers, who had in any case been resorting ever more frequently to strike action as a weapon of protest, came out in mass strikes in a number of German cities. The immediate cause of the strikes was the lowering of the weekly bread ration from 1,800 to 1,350 grammes. For the first time a call was made for the establishment of is

workers' Soviets. In the summer German sailors, in close contact with the USPD, went on strike and demanded the conclusion of a peace on the basis of the terms put forward at the International Socialist Conference in Stockholm. The Russian Revolution had its effects on parliamentary politics too. Even before its outbreak, the Chancellor BethmannHollweg had grasped that great changes would have to be introduced in the internal

government of Germany. The socialists had always turned their sharpest fire at the three-class electoral franchise of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was to them a

symbol of Germany's aristocrat capitalist government. But the government was slow to pay attention. The Kaiser's Easter Message of April 7 promised direct and secret, but not an equal, franchise in Prussia. A further promise to introduce a bill reform was made in July but was only the defeat of Germany which swept away the three-class franchise. In the same month the German Reichstag passed its peace resolution demanding a for franchise it

peace of reconciliation and understanding

with no 'compulsory acquisitions of tory'.

the whole of Russia. Finally there was a Jewish socialist party known as the Bund.

terri-

The resolution was not however a

On March

27, 1917 the Petrograd Soviet informed the Poles of 'the victory of liberty over the Russian gendarme'. It further declared that Poland had the right to total independence. These events caused a

great victory for either the socialists or the Centre parties. Indeed, its originator, Matthias Erzberger of the Centre, was later to claim that it was not incompatible with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. As in Germany the whole Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was shaken by strikes during the early months of 1917. The A us trian Social Democratic Party continued to support the government, knowing full well that the government was as keen to gel out of the war as it was itself. Indeed, its ever more radical attitude enabled the party to remain in close touch with the working class. In any case, with the summoning of the Austrian parliament in May 1917, for the first time since the beginning of the war, it possessed an even better platform for its propaganda than the censored press. In the Kingdom of Hungary, as in the Kingdom of Prussia, the great political question was the extension of the franchise. The year 1917 had seen a massive strengthening of the socialists and of the trade union movement whose numbers increased from 55,000 to 215,000. The Emperor wanted to force a franchise reform on the unwilling Premier Tisza who experimented instead with various forms of 'fancy franchise'. On May 22, in the face of ever greater working class agitation, the Emperor asked the Hungarian Prime Minister to resign. It was, as the socialist newspaper Nepszava wrote, a victory for the proletariat. The new premier Esterhazy was conciliatory towards the socialists. He offered them the post of a State Secretary in his government and paid a visit to the editorial offices of Nepszava. But franchise reform was not introduced. There was no majority for a thoroughgoing reform in parliament. In other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and also in Poland the Russian Revolution caused a radicalisation of working class politics in the social, but above all in the national, sense. Under the impact of the Russian Revolution and with the creation of Czechoslovak army units who fought their first major engagement at the battle of Zborov in July 1917, the nationa-

wing

rapprochement of all the parties of the left and the PPS moved over to opposition to the occupying powers. This move was confirmed at the PPS conference held in June. Pilsudski resigned his seat on the State Council which the occupying powers had created in Warsaw and recommended that Polish soldiers in the auxiliary units which the Germans had created should not take the oath of allegiance to the German Emperor. Pilsudski planned an armed uprising the aim of which was to break through to Polish forces fighting with the Russians. But after he had openly told the German governor in Warsaw of the plan he was arrested. In France opposition to the policy of the

government

little

became

socialists

change

in this attitude.

The British took a similar stand. Those who had always opposed the war, the ILP, the minute British Socialist Party and various peace organisations gathered in a congress in Leeds in June and demanded peace without annexations. The conference also overcame the reluctance of the Labour Party to participate in the Stockholm Conference. The effect of the Russian Revolution on European socialism was to reactivate its political life, dormant since August 1914. It had greatly strengthened the left and pacifist wings of these parties — the two

democracy began to seek the destruction of the Dual Monarchy. When its leader, the left winger Bohumir Smeral, appeared at the Stockholm Conference he had to admit that 95*% of the Czech nation sought an independent state, a policy that he himself did not agree with. Indeed, the Czech delegation in Stockholm called for an independent Czech state within the Habsburg Monarchy. Partitioned Poland was in 1917 under list

among

stronger only gradually. After all the hereditary enemy still occupied part of Republican France. In 1915 a resolution demanding a peace campaign submitted to a socialist congress received only 76 votes out of 2,736. Yet at the beginning of 1917 the socialist ministers resigned from the government. In May 1917 there was an outburst of mutiny among the troops after the failure of the Nivelle offensive. They were joined in their actions by strikers in some factories. The mutineers were suppressed by force and some of them executed. French socialists, as keen as most others to go to Stockholm, were hindered in their antiwar protests by the continued presence of German troops in France. This attitude had been expressed with finality by the French delegate at Kienthal in 1916. 'Certainly we will vote against war credits — on condition that French soil is free of enemy troops.' The March Revolution had caused

of Czech social

were by no means

identical. It

produced

the military occupation of the Central Powers. In November 1916 they had established a 'Kingdom of Poland', but it remained a structure on paper rather than in reality. The Polish socialists had for many years been split into a number of parties. The Polish Socialist Party (PPS) sought the

the Stockholm Conference but it could neither stop the war nor bring about a social revolution. The words of Kaiser Karl to Kaiser Wilhelm of April 1917 were unnecessarily alarmist: 'We fight against a

establishment of an independent Poland which should also be socialist. The PPS split before the war into a 'Right' and a 'Left'. The left objected to the anti-Russian policy of the PPS leader Jozef Pilsudski and sought to carry on a struggle in alliance with the Russian Social Democrats. It therefore drew close to the Social Democratic movement of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) which under the

which finds its strongest general misery and hunger.'

leadership of Rosa Luxemburg sought a revolutionary transformation of spiritual

new enemy, who the

Allies:

is

more dangerous than

against

international

lution

Top: Mathias Erzberger, leader of the leftof the German Centre Party. After the Russian Revolution he began to oppose German war policy. Above: Jozef Pitsudski, Polish nationalist leader. When the Petrograd Soviet declared Poland's right to independence he withdrew his allegiance to the Central Powers

wing

revoin

ally

Further Reading Fainsod, Merle, International Socialism and the World War (Cambridge, Mass. 1935) Luxemburg, Rosa, The Crisis of German Social

Democracy (New York 1919) Rosa Luxemburg (Oxford UP. 1966) Schorske, C. F., German Social Democracy Nettl, J. P.,

1905-1917 (Wiley 1965)

[Harry

Hanak's

biography

is

on page

2468.]

2463

From

the moment Lenin learned of the downfall of the Tsar in the Zurich newspapers all his energy was directed to-

wards

thing— returning

one

to Russia. The party which he had built as an instrument of revolution needed to be brought under his direct control without delay. The Germans jumped at

the chance of helping him. In the words of LudendorfF: 'From a military point of view his

THE SEfllED TRflin

journey was justified, for it was imperative that Russia should fall.' Harry Hanak The outbreak

i

FROM PETROGRAO

LENIN S ROUTE

ZURICH MILES

200 I

"Zurich April 9

Berne Sept 5

1914

1917

'SWITZERLAND

of

war found Lenin

living in

Poronin, near Cracow in Austrian Poland. As a Russian subject he was arrested on August 7, but owing to the intervention of the leaders of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, he was released on August 19. It was clearly impossible for Lenin to remain longer in a belligerent enemy country. On September 5 he arrived in Berne, Switzerland with his wife and her aged and ailing mother. Lenin's last Swiss exile lasted just over two and a half years. It was the most profitable period of his activity because during this time he managed to establish himself as the most prominent leader of Russian and European anti-war socialism. His work was directed to a vicious attack against capitalism for bringing about the war and to an analysis of the causes of war published under the title of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, a work which is still regarded as one of his major contributions to the corpus of Marxist learning. His attacks were directed even more so against those socialists of both the Entente and the Central Powers who sprang to their countries' defence — and they were in the overwhelming majority. Lenin's wife wrote that never was Lenin 'in a more irreconcilable mood than during the last months of 1916 and the early months of 1917. He was profoundly convinced that the revolution was approaching.' But, not necessarily a revolution in Russia. Indeed the March Revolution came as a surprise to him. His aim was now to return to Russia immediately. Clearly he wanted to be in Petrograd during these great events. But what drove him to a paroxysm of frenzy was the action of the Bolsheviks in the capital. Stalin, Kamenev, Muranov, Molotov and Shlyapnikov adopted a conciliatory policy towards the Mensheviks and towards the Provisional Government. They acted like the defensists and the social patriots that Lenin so much hated. It was time for the master mind to pull his

The

wayward

difficulty

followers together. to get to Russia, for

was

neutral Switzerland was surrounded on all sides by the belligerent nations. To go through France and then by sea from England was impossible. This was the route to Russia, taken by those of whom the Allies approved like Plekhanov and the Czech, Masaryk. But a Socialist Revolutionary, V. Chernov, who had been living in France, was turned back from Dover, even though

2464

Right: Lenin's request (signed

WI.UIianow)to the Zurich police for permission to stay in Zurich,

dated April

18,

1916. 'I am working on a book and need a few months to make use of the

Zurich

libraries.'

The Swiss Social Democratic Party has added a note accepting responsibility for

him.

Far right: The agreement, dated April 9, signed by Lenin and his travelling

companions, recognising the conditions of their journey in the sealed train. Besides acknowledging the conditions agreed

between Platten and the German authorities, the signatories also

agree to accept 'complete political responsibility for this journey'

he had all the necessary papers. Other plans were tried only to be equally rapidly discarded. At one time Lenin seriously pursued the plan of travelling through Germany as a Swede and even sent a photograph to Hanecki, his closest

Zurlo*. dan IS. April 1910.

Pollaalvoralaod dar Stadt S U r

Job **l**4» "^ *~ -•

«u

•

i«p*pi»r»

••illlauM 1*

:»i

lalfar

*•

*

J

•

o b.

('-.,

BriuohiD, air di*

h0f '

•rullto. mjoh la 2urlob oho* (uiu^i Aua*l>

i

fJf

tu^l

i

Jon naoa iiq* Auf •oir\*Jt»-

to

*•• 3i»dt

JHiuii San

Baro ol

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collaborator in Stockholm, asking him to get a forged passport. The trouble was, of course, that Lenin knew no Swedish. So he proposed to travel as a deaf mute. His wife soon squashed that idea. 'You will fall asleep and see Mensheviks in your dreams and you will start swearing, and shout, and give the whole conspiracy away.' Only one way was possible — through Germany with the knowledge and connivance of the German government. The German government had come to the conclusion very early in the war and very much earlier than the Entente that its foes could be weakened and perhaps even knocked out of the war by encouraging dissident national and social groups among them. Ireland, India, Egypt, Morocco were all fields of German endeavour. They had only very limited success there. But the Russian Empire, multi-national and socially weak, was a more promising field. The Germans had established early contact with various groups of Russian revolutionaries. One of them, Alexander Helphand, known as Parvus, had told the German ambassador in Constantinople that the interests of the German government were identical with those of the Russian democrats. He soon turned up in Berlin and in a talk at the Foreign Ministry he put forward his plans for a mass strike against the war and against Tsarism in Russia. As part of this plan financial support was to be given to the Bolsheviks whose 'leaders are in Switzerland'. The Germans were impressed by Helphand and used him as their chief adviser on Russian affairs. They also handed over to him 1,000,000 marks for revolutionary propaganda in Russia. Helphand's next task was to gain the support of Lenin. This was not easy. Helphand's sudden vast riches, and the scandals he

was involved

in,

made

it difficult

for

him

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gain an entry into socialist circles. One German socialist described him as a Russian informer, a Turkish agent, a scoundrel, a confidence trickster and a speculator. He arrived in Zurich and put up in the best hotel in town with his retinue of blondes. He managed to a restaurant but Lenin,

meet Lenin after

a

in brief

conversation with him, would have nothing do with him. But some co-operation between Helphand and the Bolsheviks did take place.

to

The German government was informed about Lenin from other sources too. The Estonian nationalist and ex-Bolshevik Keskuela told the German Minister in Bern, Romberg, that Lenin's group was the only Russian socialist group that actively opposed Tsarism. The idea that Lenin and the other Bolsheviks should travel through Germany was born simultaneously in the mind of Helphand in Berlin and in the mind of the Menshevik Martov in Switzerland. Helphand got to work quickly. His idea was that Lenin and Zinoviev should be smuggled through Germany. To Lenin this was totally unacceptable. It would make him a creature of the Germans and he ran the risk, if he ever got to Russia, of being arrested. He would in any case be totally discredited among the Russian socialists. 2465

After this false start the negotiations with the Germans were carried out rapidly. By the end of March 1917 the Germans were prepared to allow a group of socialists through Germany, though the terms had not yet been agreed on. Lenin came under heavy criticism both from those who opposed the trip as such and from those who maintained that the Russian socialists could travel through Germany only on condition that they had previous approval of this step from the Russian government or from the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in Petrograd. Lenin knew that such approval would never be received. Robert Grimm, a prominent Swiss socialist and a Left Zimmerwaldist, negotiated with Romberg. In the middle of these negotiations Grimm was replaced by Fritz Platten, the secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party. Lenin told Platten that Grimm was trying to sabotage the talks and that he was too close to the MenRight:

A

party of

Russian ladies

and gentlemen cross a Stockholm street, April 14,

1917 Lenin in his new clothes with

homburg

hat

and

umbrella and in typically urgent discussion with a

comrade heads the procession. Zinoviev leads his son by the

hand. Far right: Fanciful Soviet painting of Lenin on the last stage of his journey to the Finland Station

sheviks. It is likely too that Lenin had greater faith in controlling the insignificant Platten rather than the forceful Grimm. On April 4 Platten spoke with Romberg and suggested that the Russians should travel through Germany 'without any stops and in sealed or even shuttered

compartments'. He was himself prepared to accompany them. The German minister urged the Foreign Ministry to accept the demands of the suspicious Russians before they had a chance to change their minds. He also thought that it would make a good impression on Swiss socialists. The next day Platten presented nine conditions which the Germans accepted. He, Platten, undertook to accompany the party and to bear full responsibility for the Russians. All communications between the Germans and the Russians should go through Platten. The Russians were not to leave the carriage and the carriage was to be granted extra-t;rritorial rights.

There is still some doubt about the exact number of people on the train. It seems that there were 33 of whom only 20, perhaps 25, were Bolsheviks. They were Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and their close friend Inessa Armand. Zinoviev and his wife and son were on the train and so was his brother George Safarov. Two other prominent Bolsheviks were on the train, George Sokolnikov and the Caucasian Mikha Tskhakaya. There was a friend of Krupskaya, Olga Ravich. Karl Radek, at that time still an Austrian citizen, was also in the party. A certain Dr Oscar Blum tried to get on the train. Lenin believed that he was an agent of the Russian police and turned him bodily off the train. Platten agreed that the Russians should buy railway tickets at the normal tariff. They all travelled second or third class. Lenin managed to collect more than 1,000 Swiss francs for the journey and most of it came from the comrades in Sweden, pre-

sumably from Hanecki. The Swedish socialist Strom recounts that Lenin told him that a Swiss manufacturer provided the money! The Swiss socialists too, said Platten, provided some financial help and a lot of food for the journey, most of which was taken

off

by the Swiss customs

They need not have worried

officers.

as they were provided with excellent food from the train restaurant throughout their journey. Indeed, money was never a problem. On the day that Lenin and his party left Zurich Romberg telegraphed Berlin to say

2466 •'"

Cr

.*

<+*L*l

that it was essential that the Russians be not compromised by any contact with the Germans. He also believed that it was absolutely essential that the German press should avoid all comment and that the Swiss role should not be mentioned. It was, after all, on the Swiss part a most unneutral act. The next problem was to ensure that the Russians be allowed into Sweden and Romberg asked Berlin to get in touch with the Swedish authorities. This permission was readily given. The ferry boat landed at Trelleborg in Sweden. The Russians were met, after

some mishaps, by Hanecki. They immediately left by train for Malmo where Swedish socialists prepared a meal for them. From Malmb they went by train to Stockholm, arriving at 9 am. They were met by two Swedish left socialists Karl Lindhagen and Ture Nerman. While in Stockholm Lenin drew up an account of the journey, pointing out that none of the party had had any contact with the Germans. He also received a message from the Petrograd

Transported ... in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia'

Soviet stating that all the Russian socilists would be welcome in Russia. Help-

hand

tried to

meet Lenin but Lenin

re-

fused to see him. Instead the Swedish socialists took the party for a meal and for a rest in the Hotel Regina. The porter did not want to allow such a scruffy group of people inside and allowed them to pass only after Strom had guaranteed to meet their bills. Indeed, Lenin was so shabbily dressed that he was led off to a shop to buy

some clothes. That same evening the party

left for the long journey to Petrograd around the Gulf of Bothnia. They crossed the frontier at Haparanda-Tornio, one of the great links in the smuggling chain of northern Europe. During the journey from Tornio to Beloostrov, the frontier post separating Russia proper from Finland, Lenin began his political activity on Russian soil. He told the soldiers on the train why he was against the war and by the end of the journey he had convinced them, though not their officer. At that time Finland was part of Russia, although it enjoyed autonomy. Much to his surprise he was met at Belopstrov by about 100 workmen shouting his name. The welcoming workers carried him on their shoulders. He made a speech attacking the Provisional Government and calling for an end to the war. It was a good omen. It was also a foretaste of what would await him on arrival at Petrograd. At the station to meet him were also three prominent Bolsheviks, Lev Kamenev, Alexander Shlyapnikov and Alexandra Kollontay. This gave Lenin the chance to inform himself about the situation in Russia and in the capital. It also gave him the opportunity to berate Kamenev gently about the conciliatory attitude that he and other Bolsheviks had taken towards their opponents. At 11.10 pm on April 16, the train steamed into the Finland Station in Petrograd. The station was crowded with workers and a military guard of honour was there to welcome the returning heroes. The band played the Marseillaise, at that time not only the anthem of the French bourgeois republic but also of the Russian social democrats. In Zurich, when they had left, the Russians had sung the Internationale. Lenin was led into the Tsar's waiting room. There Chkheidze, chairman of the Soviet, made a speech of welcome, while someone "

2467

pushed a bouquet of flowers into Lenin's arms. Chkheidze expressed the hope that Lenin would 'defend our revolution from every kind of attack both from wjthin and from without. We believe that what is needed is not disunity but the closing of the ranks of the entire democracy. We hope you will pursue these aims together with us.' Lenin's reply was not addressed to the Executive Committee of the Soviet but to the soldiers, sailors and workers whom he greeted as the heroes of the Russian Revolution. He assured them that the hour was not far off when the workers of Germany under the leadership of Karl Liebknecht were going to turn their weapons against the government. In order to disarm any criticism of collusion with the Germans he pointed out that he was as much against German exploiters as Russian exploiters. Soon he was carried out and lifted onto a turret of an armoured car while searchlights played in the sky, paying their homage to Lenin. At 12.30 am the party arrived at the luxurious Kshesinskaya Palace, formerly the home of the prima ballerina, a former mistress of the Tsar, now the headquarters of the Bolsheviks. Again Lenin addressed the crowd and again he harped on the evils of a capitalist civil war which he hoped to turn into a social war. Then he addressed the senior Bolsheviks present. For two hours he lectured them and berated them and blamed them for the support that they were giving the Provisional Government and for their support of the war. Finally at 5 am he and his wife went to his sister's flat. Next day he spoke again, and his speech is known as the April Theses. He shocked many revolutionaries, including many Bolsheviks. But he outlined with great frankness the whole of his activity from that moment till his seizure of power in November. He declared total war on the Provisional Government. He continued to regard the war as 'a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government'. He pointed out that Russia was in a period of transition which should be used by the proletariat to seize power. The new power was to be vested, not in a new government, but in the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. The annexationist war aims of the Provisional Government were to be renounced.

The Germans were pleased. In gram from an agent in Stockholm

a teleit

was

stated, 'Lenin's entry into Russia successful. He is working exactly as we would wish.'

Further Reading Futrell, Michael, Northern UndergroundEpisodes of Russian Revolutionary Transport and Communications through Scandinavia and Finland, 1863-1917 (Faber 1963) Krupskaya, Nadezhda, Memories of Lenin

(London 1970) Zeman, Z. A. B., Germany and the Revolution Russia, 1915-1918. Documents from the Archives of the

German Foreign

in

Ministry

(London 1958)

HARRY HANAK was born in Czechoslovakia in 1 930 and was educated at the universities of Dublin, London and Heidelberg He is Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and at University College. London. He specialises mainly in the history World War and in Soviet foreign policy.

First

2468

^¥1

of the

Left: Soviet

painting of Lenin's the Finland Station in Petrograd. A piece of faked history, the picture shows arrival at

Stalin,

who

later

styled himself Lenin's closest

comrade, standing behind the Bolshevik leader. In fact, Stalin

was not

at

the

station to greet Lenin. Indeed one of Lenin's first political actions

on

his return

to attack

was

and

repudiate the conciliatory policies put

forward in Pravda by its editors,

Kamenev and Stalin

>

RED OCTOBER By November 1917

the soldiers' demands for peace and the peasants' hunger for land had grown into a pressure which was threatening to blow Kerensky's Provisional Government apart. Into this explosive scene stepped Lenin, confident that his small Bolshevik Party should seize this chance to lead a dramatic insurrection in the name of the people. DrJ. F. N. Bradley. Below: The storming of the Winter Palace, a still from Eisenstein's October (in which many of the actors were reallife veterans of the fighting)

The November Revolution tincd as

is

usually de-

comprising the sequence of events

between November 5 and 15, 1917. An American journalist conveniently dramatised these ten revolutionary days which shook the world, and afterwards the concept of the November Revolution became more or less established. However, when probing more deeply it will be seen that ten days hardly make a revolution, but are in fact a coup d'etat (or, as Bolshevik historians themselves concede, an armed uprising). If we are to speak meaningfully of the Bolshevik Revolution, ii should comprise not only the coup d'etat of November 1917, but also the various coups de force

June and July 1918 and above all the war 1918/1920. In March 1917 the collapse of Tsarism was so unexpected and complete that all Russians, even those who had plotted its downfall, were'at a loss what to do next. Those who gained power soon recognised that Russia was in the grip of anarchy and in

civil

could

do

nothing but 'swim along the

anarchic current'. But Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov), while equally surprised by the unexpected windfall, showed no hesitation as to the next step. Very shortly after his return to Russia from Switzerland, he publicly announced his 'theses', winch were in fact instructions for further action. Lenin thought that the March Revolution was unfinished, that the working class represented by his Bolshevik faction should come to power, and he proposed that he and his government should wield power effectively and not just drift like the Provisional Government. This was a declaration of intent and Lenin never wavered in his determination to carry it out, though he had to modify certain details. In the end he convinced other Bolsheviks and ultimately the whole party, but his first and independent 'convert' was a Menshevik, L. D. Trotsky. As the traumatic shock of the March Revolution wore off, other individuals and groups began to think of seizing power. They were mainly right-wing elements and they realised the

2470

simple truth: in the prevailing anarchy whoever succeeded in acting in an organised way would come to power. When the right (General Kornilov) began to think of a coup d'etat, Lenin was already on the way to convincing his Bolshevik faction that power should be seized in an armed uprising; but in July 1917 he suffered a serious

setback.

Some

of

his

followers

thought of putting his 'April prescriptions' into practice in an unorganised and spontaneous way: they tried to exploit the Bolshevik conference and street demonstration in Petrograd to spark off a riot and ultimately a coup d'etat. Incredible as it may seem, they came within a hair's breadth of success. In the end the Provisional Government managed to muster a battalion of loyal troops who dispersed the rioting Bolsheviks with machine gun fire. Lenin had to run for his life and many other

among them Trotsky

and However, Lenin learned a lesson even from this failure, he became absolutely convinced that an Bolsheviks,

Stalin,

ended up

in prison.

organised coup would bring him power. He continued to bombard the remaining Bolshevik leaders with his instructions to organise a coup d'etat against the feeble Provisional Government. On October 23, 1917 the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party finally yielded and voted overwhelmingly to execute Lenin's idea of the armed uprising and risk their personal and the party's political future in this dangerous enterprise. This decision meant that this

time there would be no spontaneity, but all would be planned and well prepared. However, already in September 1917 the Bolshevik plotters were forewarned that their coup would have to be better organised than that of General Kornilov, whose attempt had just collapsed. But while undoubtedly impressed by this failure Lenin and the Bolsheviks were convinced that they could stage-manage their coup much better than the general. Militarily they did not have to be more efficient: all they needed was the neutrality of the Russian

army. September 1917 was for them a turning point.

On September

11, after his release,

Leon

Trotsky, who had joined the Bolshevik Party and passionately shared Lenin's ideas, was not only elected President of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers but also personally took on serious preparations for a coup. But curiously enough, despite Trotsky's advocacy of a coup, at the decisive party meeting he was not included in the party revolutionary centre which was to prepare the uprising. Bubnov, Dzerzinski, Sverdlov, Stalin and Uritsky who formed the committee could not hope to pull off a successful uprising. Nonetheless, aided by Trotsky, who was in charge of revolutionary preparations in the Workers' Soviets and among soldiers, and prompted by Lenin, they were to play an important role. However, Trotsky's role was to be decisive. He gained the neutrality of the Petrograd garrison and enabled the Bolsheviks' tactical plans to be carried out. The size of the garrison troops under the

command

of the Petrograd Military Disappeared most intimidating; when thinking of the numbers no one in his right mind could even contemplate an armed coup. However, Trotsky, as President of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet, trict

knew

the military situation well enough become convinced that all this might was really a wooden giant with clay legs. Nonetheless, garrison troops amounted to some 350,000 men, and to neutralise them all would require an excellent pretext. to

Trotsky immediately found a most convincing one. Petrograd garrison troops feared only one thing, namely a transfer to the fronts for active duty, and this was precisely what the Provisional Government was planning for them. Trotsky therefore

decided that they should stay in Petrograd to defend the revolution instead. After a campaign of agitation along these lines only two regiments refused to act on Trotsky's orders. Only some 63, 000 guard reserve troops remained to be dealt with, and they were deeply demoralised, but

Trotsky was convinced that they would neither heed Bolshevik orders nor support the Provisional Government. -Then there were some 25,000 infantry, 5,000 women volunteers and 7,000 officer-cadets. The task, not only of neutralising them, but also of converting some of them to the Bolshevik cause, was infinitely more difficult than dealing with the garrison. However, again the strength of these forces was impressive only on paper. Soon Trotsky found out that they were quite leaderless and would never act positively; they had one common hatred, and that was the Provisional Government. Thus Trotsky and the Bolsheviks made the right but risky deduction that their opponents would cancel themselves out. For the purposes of the uprising, Trotsky decided to mobilise and make use of the Petrograd Soldiers' Soviet and of its special subcommittee, the Revolutionary Military Committee. The Bolshevik Party infiltrated heavily both the Soviet and its committee with its military experts, in-

'All power to the Soviets' Left:

The All-Russian Soviet

of

Workers' and

Soldiers' Deputies in the Taurides Palace,

Petrograd, in whose name Trotsky and Lenin planned the coup. Above: The President of the Petrograd Soviet, Leon Trotsky, the man who secured the neutrality of the 350,000strong Petrograd Garrison and effectively breathed life into the revolutionary slogan

eluding Antonov-Ovseyenko and Podvoysky. Antonov was secretary of the subcommittee and completely eclipsed the president, a Left Social Revolutionary, P. E. Lazimir, who proved rather naive and later joined the Bolshevik Party. Though the Bolsheviks were a minority on this committee they made it a most prestigious and pliant tool. There were, however, other forces on which Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks could call: some 10,000-12,000 Red Guards, who, under the command of I. Yurenev, had only just been armed by the Provisional Government itself. But the most important source of armed power for the Bolsheviks was the Baltic Fleet which contained some 60,000 shock troops of the revolution, tough sailors. The political basis of Bolshevik power in Petrograd was the factory committees and the 11 districts of the city which they controlled, but above all the Soviet of the Workers and Soldiers dominated by Trotsky. Power was to be seized on behalf of the Soviets, and the meeting of

the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets became the target day. Lenin was to announce the seizure of power to the Congress and then form the new government

on

its

behalf.

When on

October 29, 1917 Lenin returned clandestinely to Petrograd from Finland to take part in the actual uprising, these organisations and forces went into preliminary action. However, though simple and clear the Bolshevik plans also contained flaws. Antonov-Ovseyenko, who was in charge of military planning, envisaged the occupation of the Winter Palace, the seat of the Provisional Government, as well as the Maryinsky and Tauride Palaces which housed the PreParliament and Duma respectively. This was logical, since the symbols of power had to be liquidated. But he also wanted to occupy points of strategic importance, such as railway stations, telegraph offices, the main post office, the state bank, the all

telephone exchange and even the electriand water works. But these tasks were beyond his means and they should have been reduced in number. Above all he forgot about the defences of the Smolny Institute itself. This was the seat of the Petrograd Soviet and henceforth the headquarters of the armed uprising. In this institute, originally for young noble ladies, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets was to take place. That such a vital centre should be left undefended until the last moment was a dangerous oversight. For really effective military forces Antonov-Ovseyenko had to rely on the Baltic Fleet which was outside his immediate control at Kronstadt and Helsingfors (Helsinki). In fact he could not start the revolutionary machine without the sailors and they all arrived very late. All these flaws made the outcome of the uprising rather problematic. Nevertheless on October 27 the central committee and Lenin decided to go ahead. Lenin and Piatnitsky informed the committee members that Moscow would rise simultaneously with Petrograd. This made the uprising in Petrograd inevitable despite the flaws. Two days later, at another central committee session Lenin made sure that everyone thought of and prepared for nothing but the insurrection. Though the central committee continued to meet frequently in order to retain its grip on the plans and actions, politically it was the Soviets, above all the Petrograd one, which were struggling for power. Since the Bolshevik Party also put into action an elaborate plan of military deception, the insurrection itself was to be directed by the Revolutionary Military Committee. On November 2, 1917 the subcommittee was finally established and put firmly under Bolshevik control. On that very day Lenin met the Bolshevik military organisers and reprimanded Zinoviev and Kamenev for opposing the uprising. Next day the Revolutionary Military Committee established its staff and appointed commissars who were detailed to various regiments to keep them neutral or gain them to the Bolshevik cause: Kiselev was sent to the 1st Reserve Car Company, Zaitsov went to the Egersky Guard Regiment, Kotsyubinsky to the Finland Regiment, Gorbatchenko to the Volynsky, TerArutiunyan to the Peter and Paul fortress, and so on. On the same day the Revolutionary Military Committee issued an ultimatum to Colonel Polkovnikov who

city

wanted

to transfer Petrograd garrison troops to the front. The troops would not go in spite of his orders. Thus the neutrality of the Petrograd garrison was founded on self-interest not on loyalties or ideological

adherence.

Throughout November 4 the Revolutionary Military Committee continued its preparations for the uprising. It detailed many more commissars to other regiments, railway stations and ships moored on the Neva. Yet Trotsky was not happy with developments so far: several delays and half measures were upsetting the plans. Thus the Social Revolutionary members forced the Revolutionary Military Committee to declare publicly that it was not the headquarters of a revolutionary rising but a defence organ of the Petrograd garrison. Though obviously a paper declaration not binding on the Bolsheviks, it was nevertheless confusing. In the evening Antonov's report on the measures taken by the Revolutionary Committee were approved by the Petrograd Soviet, which was a political success for the Bolsheviks. But the move succeeded in confusing and deceiving the Left Social Revolutionaries with whose aid the Bolsheviks controlled the Soviet sub-committee; at the same time Trotsky found out that the fortress of Peter and Paul was not quite neutral and its control remained a condition for any

armed rising. The following day was spent

in final

checks on the Petrograd garrison. Soviet representatives, and Trotsky personally, had to visit and convince the Fortress and 'recalcitrant' units, above all the Bicycle Battalion which had already once before checked Bolshevik ambitions. After this final round of inspections, all was ready for the ultimate coup de force planned for the next day. However, at long last the Provisional Government saw through the facade of feints, and decided on countermeasures. It is clear that these came too late and only slightly delayed the Bolshevik success. On November 6 at 1.55 am the Military District Headquarters began to counteract the orders of the Revolutionary Military

Committee, which led inevitably to insurrection. Since the command could not be sure of the loyalty of the Petrograd garrison, it called for elite units stationed in the vicinity of the capital. The Rifle Regiment at Tsarko Selo (Pushkin) was ordered to Petrograd, and an hour later so was the 1st Company of the Peterhof officer-cadets. Early in the morning, the

Pavlovsk Battery was called to Petrograd as well as the Women's Battalion. At 5.30 am the Provisional Government Commissar arrived with a picket of soldiers at the printing plant of the Rabochy put, a Bolshevik newspaper, and after some resistance closed it down. This action seems to have exhausted further determination of the Provisional Government to oppose the Bolshevik coup and nothing else was done. In the meantime the Bolsheviks were putting the finishing touches to the preparation of the rising itself: at 8 am (or 9 am) the central committee met again and detailed Kamenev and Berzin to work politically with the Left Social Revolutionaries. Bubnov was put in charge of railways and Dzerzhinsky of post and telegraph .

services. Since the Smolny Institute, the political and military headquarters, could

2471

easily be raided by government troops, it in the was decided to set a reserve Fortress. Afterwards the central committee members dispersed for action. At the same

HQ

the Revolutionary Military Committee issued its defiant Order No. 1: it appealed to everyone for aid claiming that the Petrograd Soviet and the committee were in danger; government armies were marching on the capital, the Rabochy put was closed down as well as the Soldat and was clear that reactionary elements it were plotting against the scheduled Soviet congress and the Constitutional Assembly which was to be elected shortly. After this tactical appeal which was, of course, quite untrue, the commissars and the Revolutionary Military Committee went into full action. To start with the commissars persuaded some units of the Litovsky Regiment to go to the Bolshevik printing press and reopen it. It was considered politically vital that the Bolshevik

time

Party should maintain open communication with the Petrograd public. The operation was easy: the police guards at the

Rabochy put went off most willingly when it was explained to them that the order for closure was issued without the authority of the Revolutionary Military Committee and was therefore invalid. When shortly afterwards the District Military HQ riposted with an empty declaration that only its orders were to be obeyed, it became clear that the coup would be smooth. General Bagrateni then issued another futile order: to be issued from the Petrograd arsenal on his orders only. Subsequent sacking of the Bolshevik commissars was not only futile but theoretical, for they controlled the situation on the spot and did the sacking themselves. The Bolsheviks had made a good start. But all was not lost yet for the Provisional Government. It still found itself obeyed, and put into operation several countermeasures. Thus the Smolny's telephones were disconnected and consequently communications between the HQ and the men in action were considerably slowed down. The cruiser Aurora which was ordered back to its Kronstadt base from the Neva mooring, the very centre of Petrograd, started preparations for sailing. Above all three officer-cadet units and the Women's Battalion which arrived to protect the Provisional Government began to execute their orders: they lifted the bridges across the Neva so that no outside force could enter the city itself. It was abundantly clear that the Bolsheviks would have to bring in their Red Guards from the outer suburbs and sailors from the naval bases across the bridges, and this measure was intended to stop them. The Bolsheviks themselves suffered a setback when the Helsingfors sailors, without whom they could not possibly take the whole capital and keep it, failed to arrive. All the same they proceeded with the final measures: Trotsky told a meeting of some of the available central committee men that the Provisional Government would simply be arrested and a new government elected by the congress of the Soviets. Last but not least Lenin arrived in person (heavily disguised) to supervise the coup and assume political leadership afterwards. While the coup d'etat was properly to start the next day, throughout November 6, 1917 both sides were busy with measures and countermeasures which obscured the

arms and ammunition were

2472

It is not even clear started first. The Bolsheviks began to load their Red Guards in the suburbs onto requisitioned lorries and concentrate them around the Smolny. But to do it they had to cross the bridges and enter the city. According to government orders they

beginning of the coup.

who

have been unable to reach the Smolny, for the bridges were controlled by government troops. However, considerable confusion surrounded the bridges: the Liteyny Bridge was not lifted because the cadets who arrived to perform the operation were disarmed by an unidentified unit, presumably from the Petrograd garrison, and sent back to their barracks. The Troitsky Bridge which was to be raised by the Women's Battalion, remained down, presumably because the operation proved too difficult for the brave women in military uniform. But the Nikolayevsky Bridge went up and Red Guards trying to cross the Neva this way were stopped and disarmed, though not arrested. The Dvortsovy Bridge was also under strict government control. Thus Bolshevik operations must have been disrupted even by these inefficient countermeasures. However, in the evening, when the women and cadets were to be relieved, no relief came and they departed, all the bridges passing under the control of garrison troops dispatched there by the Revolutionary Military Committee. On the eve of the coup the city was wide open to should

the revolutionary forces. During the evening of the same day the Provisional Government suffered further reverses. The units of the elite Cyclist Battalion which guarded the Winter Palace, the seat of the government, decided to leave their posts and withdraw to their billets. Then it became known that the officers-cadets from the military academies outside Petrograd refused to obey orders to move to the capital: the Pavlovsk Battery would not come either. Next came a Bolshevik reverse. When at 5 pm Commissar Pestkovsky arrived to take over the Telegraph Exchange the employees refused to co-operate with him and his soldiers, and for the time being at least the Bolsheviks did not really control this means of communication, for the commissar and his troops could not work the exchange on

own. The same evening Trotsky attended the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet and reported on the situation in the city and measures taken by the Revolutionary Military Committee. He carried on with the Bolshevik deception plan and disclaimed any knowledge of a military uprising, saying that this would take place only if forced on the Soviets and its committee which was peacefully awaiting the congress of the Soviets and cared for nothing else. Simultaneously with this meeting Bolshevik commissars held meetings in all the barracks of the Petrograd garrison requesting the soldiers to protect the Soviet and the congress against any reactionary threat. At the same time Bolshevik units beat off two desperate actions by the Provisional Government: they sent off a police detachment which had turned up to close the Rabochy put down again and disarmed cadets who attempted to do the same with the Petrograd Soviet journal. Commissar Stark and some Kronstadt sailors, who began to arrive during the day, took over peacefully the Telegraph Exchange and later Commissar Katz and his unit occupied the their

REVOLUTION AT FIRST HAND An American journalist's eyewitness account of the panic

and confusion on the outskirts of revolutionary Petrograd as Kerensky's Cossacks closed in The truck hurtled on towards Romanov, through the bright, empty day. At the cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving their rifles. We slowed down, and stopped. 'Passes, comrades!' The Red Guards raised a great clamour. 'We are Red Guards. We don't need any passes. ... Go on, never mind them!' But a sailor objected. 'This is wrong, first

We

must have revolutionary Suppose some counter-revolutionaries came along in a truck and said: "We don't need any passes"? The com-

comrades.

discipline.

rades don't know you.' At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and soldiers joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard

produced his dirty bumaga (paper). All

were alike except mine, which had been issued by the Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries declared that I must go with them. The Red Guards objected strenuously, but the sailor who had spoken first insisted. 'This comrade we know to be a true comrade,' he said. 'But there are orders of the Committee, and these orders must be obeyed. That is

i

.' revolutionary discipline. In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck and watched it disappear careering down the road, all the .

company waving

.

farewell.

The

soldiers

consulted in low tones for a moment, and then led me to a wall, against which they placed me. It flashed upon me suddenly; they were going to shoot me! In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only sign of life was smoke from the chimney of a dacha, a rambling wooden house a quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers were walking out in the road. Desperately I ran after them. 'But, comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary Committee!' They stared stupidly at my pass, then at

each other. 'It is different from the others,' said one, sullenly. 'We cannot read, brother.'

took him by the arm. 'Come!' I said. go to that house. Someone there can surely read.' They hesitated. 'No,' said one. The other looked me over. 'Why not?' he muttered. 'After all, it is a serious crime to kill an innocent man.' We walked up to the front of the house and knocked. A short, stout woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling 'I don't know anything about them! don't know anything about them!' One of my guards held out the pass. She screamed. 'Just to read it, comrade.' Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly: The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is
'Let's

I

:

Democracy, an internationalist. Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation. 'We must take you to the Regimental Committee,' they .

.

.

In the fast-developing twilight we trudged along the muddy road. Occasionsaid.

ally

of soldiers, who stopsurrounded me with looks of men-

we met squads

ped and

my

pass around and arguing violently as to whether or not I should be ace,

handing

killed.

.

.

was dark when we came

to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles, low, sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions. A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards, talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged It

hole

made by Kerensky's cannon.

.

.

.

stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups, who turned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly and then with a rush, thundering, with faces full of hate. 'Comrades! Comrades!' yelled one of my guards. I

'Committee! Committee!' The throng haltbanked around me, muttering. Out of them shouldered a lean youth, wearing a red arm-band. 'Who is this?' he asked roughly. The guards explained. 'Give me the paper!' He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then he smiled and handed me the pass. 'Comrades, this is an American comrade. I am chairman of the committee, .' and I welcome you to the regiment. A sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and they pressed forward to shake my hand. 'You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to the Officers' Club, where there are some who speak your .' language. ed,

.

.

.

.

One of the special problems of revolution: how to identify the enemy? Here the guards around Smolny inspect the credentials of someone who wants to enter the Bolshevik HQ. A few miles away John Reed, the American journalist, was almost shot because

illiterate

soldiers

could not read his papers

He led me across the courtyard to the door of another building. An aristocraticlooking youth, with the shoulder-straps of a lieutenant, was entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking hands, went back. 'I

your

am

Stepan Georgevich Morovsky, at service,' said the lieutenant in per-

French. From the ornate entrancehall a ceremonial staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On the second floor billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from the hall. We entered the dining-room, at a long table in the centre of which sat about twenty officers in full uniform, wearing their gold and silver handled swords, the ribbons and crosses of Imperial decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a place for me beside the colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard. Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any officers' mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution? 'You are not Bolsheviki?' I asked Morovfect

sky.

A smile went round the table, but I caught one or two glancing furtively at the orderly. 'No,' answered my friend. 'There is only one Bolshevik officer in this regiment. He is in Petrograd tonight. The colonel is a Menshevik. Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist-Revolutionary of the Right Wing ... I should say that most of the officers in the army are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in democracy; they believe that they

must follow the soldier-masses. Dinner over, maps were brought, and the .'

.

.

colonel spread them out on the table. The rest crowded around to see. 'Here,' said the colonel, pointing to pencil marks, 'were our positions this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovich, where is

your company?' Captain Kherlov pointed. 'According to orders, we occupied the position along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o'clock.' Just then the door of the room opened, and there stood the chairman of the regimental committee, with another soldier. They joined the group behind the colonel, peering at the map. 'Good,' said the colonel. 'Now the Cossacks have fallen back ten kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up advanced positions. Gentlemen, for tonight you will hold the present line, strengthening the positions by Tf you please,' interrupted the chairman of the regimental committee. 'The orders are to advance with all speed, and prepare to engage the Cossacks north of Gatcbina in the morning. A crushing defeat is necessary. Kindly make the proper

—

dispositions.'

There was a short silence. The colonel again turned to the map. 'Very well,' he said, in a different voice. 'Stepan Georgevich, you will please Rapidly tracing lines with a blue pencil, he gave his orders, while a sergeant made shorthand notes. The sergeant then withdrew, and ten minutes later returned with the orders typewritten, and one carbon copy. The chairman of the committee studied the map with a copy of the orders before him. 'All right,' he said, rising. Folding- the carbon copy, he put it in his pocket. Then he signed the other, stamped it with a round seal taken from his pocket, and presented it to the colonel.

—

.

'

.

.

Here was the Revolution! [From John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World, published in Penguin Books 1966.]

2473

Above: Brodsky's painting of Lenin at Smolny where during the night of the coup he drafted the Decrees on Peace and Land which he presented to the Second Congress of Soviets the next day. Above right: The cruiser Aurora steams into Petrograd and its sailors pour onto the streets to reinforce the Bolsheviks' Red Guards in their quick and virtually bloodless coup. Below: Barricades in the streets

e

and squares

of Petrograd

J

mt

-to make sure that Bolshevik reinforcements arrived safely, and government forces, if any, not at all. At 10 pm Lenin finally reached the Smolny and at midnight the Red Guards were sent out to patrol the city streets and take over control from government police and troops.

Bsttic Railway Station

The armed

rising begins In the early hours of November 7 the meticulously prepared coup (or armed uprising) swung into full action. Units of the Sapper Battalion led by their commissar took over the last railway station, Nikolayev; at the same time Commissar Feirman (not a Bolshevik but a Left Social Revolutionary) seized the Central Electricity Station and cut off power to government buildings. It is clear that Commissar Feirman and many others, both leaders and men, were completely deceived by the Bolshevik tactics. The commissar thought he was acting in the interest of the Petrograd Soviet and the Revolutionary Military Committee supposedly controlled by his Left SR comrades. He was under no deception when he occupied the Central Post Office, but when he ordered the cutting off of the telephone lines from the Winter Palace and the Military District HQ, his orders were not obeyed. While many people were deceived by Bolshevik tactics, it is obvious that the preparations for a Bolshevik coup were known to their opponents, and above all to the Provisional Goverm ent which still attempted countermeas res. Yet the coup caught the Provisional Government in

2476

«

.*

^r^*#

complete disarray. At about 3 am on the morning of November 7 the Pavlovsky Regiment patrols which acted on the Revolutionary Military Committee's orders stopped a car and arrested its two occupants. They turned out to be Minister Kartashev and the chief of the Provisional

Government's counter-espionage, Lieutenant-Colonel Surin. Neither had any idea of what was going on and why they were arrested. They were taken to the Smolny where Dzenis, one of the Bolshevik commissars, took the two men under arrest, released the Minister immediately, and detained the colonel for only a short time. There were no other arrests during the coup, except at the end when ministers were put under arrest and conducted to the Fortress prison. The see-saw struggle over the bridges to an end. The Kronstadt began to take an active part in the coup and proved very efficient. The Aurora, which failed to sail up the Neva, now moved up to the Nikolayevsky Bridge, landed a party and lowered the bridge so that it could be used by Bolshevik forces. Amazingly the government succeeded in sending an elite unit to the bridge to try and lift it up again, but the move failed. In the meantime some 200 Red Guards arrived to guard the bridge and such numbers could not be dislodged without bloodshed; both Bolshevik and government forces shrank from it. The effects

came

finally

sailors

of the Bolshevik occupation of various strategic points in the capital began to be felt. Officer-cadets from Peterhof, who had

Above: Inside the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government. Its defenders melted away as the Red Guards closed in. Right:

One

of the first acts of revolutionaries— the release of political prisoners

showed willingness to come to the aid of the Provisional Government when the other academies had refused, could not depart, for the railway line and stations were under the control of the Revolutionary Military Committee which would not let them through. Trotsky's estimate that the Provisional Government would find precious little with which to defend itself was proving right. However discouraging all this must have seemed to the Provisional Government it was far from giving up the struggle. The pattern of the coup was becoming clear and Kerensky decided to act personally. After all the elite 1st, 4th and 14th Don Cavalry Regiments were part of the Petrograd garrison and could be called upon. These Cossack troops alone could put an end to any coup in strictly military terms, but despite their anti*Bolshevik feelings they were also deeply demoralised. Three days before the coup they wanted to crossmarch through the capital (the cross-march was a traditional religious ceremony) but were forbidden to do so by the Provisional Government. Now the same government in the person of its Prime Minister was appealing to them to protect it and die for for

it.

Kerensky forced the commanding

Petrograd Military District, General Bagrateni and Commissar Malevsky to send telegrams to these Cossack

officer of the

—

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—

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regiments ordering them to come to his aid. But their reply was a blunt no. Trotsky's other prediction was proved right. After

this

failure

Kerensky

became

He

telegraphed to General Cheremisov, C-in-C of the Northern Front, to send his elite formations to the defence of the capital in order to suppress the Bolshevik coup. Once again Cossack regiments were called for, but they proved very slow and in the end never arrived in the capital. The Bicycle Battalion and the Oriannbaum cadets, who were ordered to come to the Winter Palace to protect the government, also failed to arrive. During this time of desperate bungling, Bolshevik forces, aided by confused SR commissars, occupied the National Bank, the Telephone Exchange and the Warsaw Railway Station. Commissar Kislyakov-Uralov, detailed to take over all the printing presses in Petrograd, completed the operation by 11 am. The Bolshevik central committee was in continuous session, or better was actively participating in the coup. On instructions from the central committee the Revolutionary Military Committee moved out of the frantic.

Smolny and formed their field tonov, Bubnov, Podvoysky, and

HQ. AnChudnov-

sky moved out to conduct operations in person. At 10 am Lenin, who was at the Smolny through the night, felt strong

enough

to issue his first political declara-

which was plastered over the capital, told the Russian citizens that the Provisional Government was no more. Although this was strictly speaking not accurate, the Provisional tion: this declaration all

certainly on the way out. Frantic telephoning and telegraphing went on through the morning, but there was very little to show for it. Colonel Polkovnikov was forced by Kerensky to request aid not only from General Cheremisov but also from the Generalissimo of the Russian armies in the field, General Dukhonin. But their response proved disappointing too,

Government was

and by 11 am Kerensky made his own Leaving the government in the Winter Palace he requisitioned two American cars and left for the northern armies HQ. The idea was to bring back loyal troops which would suppress the Bolshevik uprising, but it was clear to friend and foe alike that he was abandoning the capital decision.

to the insurrectionists. After his departure

no one attempted any countermeasures and everyone waited passively for the inevitable conclusion. Needless to say Kerensky never returned to the capital. Even though the Bolsheviks did not know of Kerensky's departure, it became clear that the crowning success of the coup would come with the taking of the Winter Palace where the headless Provisional

Government was

in session.

At

noon Bolshevik sailors and units of the Lithuanian and Cuxholm Regiments politely dissolved the Pre-parliament, the last political body supporting the Provisional Government, took over the Admiralty and began to move against the

Winter Palace itself. As they began to encircle the Palace Trotsky, presiding over the Petrograd Soviet meeting, once again declared that the Provisional Government

was dead. He was, however, absolutely right

when he

said that the 'revolution'

was a peaceful one without any bloodshed so far. Lenin also addressed the meeting, and told the members that power was theirs and bade them to form a govern-

ment. The session then passed Volodarsky's resolution which praised the successful uprising, urged the formation of a new

government which would immediately open peace negotiations, order wholesale nationalisation and land distribution. At 2 pm the decisive moment of the uprising had arrived: the Winter Palace was finally sealed off and surrounded by Bolshevik forces. Antonov-Ovseyenko took personal charge of the forces concentrated against the Palace, the bulk of which was the Kronstadt and 2nd Baltic Fleet sailors who had finally arrived in the morning. He also had units of the Pavlovsky and Keksgolm Regiments which joined the uprising and the Petrograd, Vyborg and Vasileostrov Red Guards. But even with these relatively 'huge' forces Antonov hesitated and decided to attack the Palace at 9 pm under the cover of darkness. Paradoxically, after Kerensky had abandoned the defence of the capital as hopeless, and before the Bolsheviks isolated it, the hapless government managed to muster its defence forces. Despite their previous refusal, units of the 14th Don Cossack Regiment did after all arrive at the Palace. They were preceded by various groups of officers cadets and the Women's Battalion. The government appointed a three-man defence committee (Kishkin,

2477

'All procrastination

and hesitation

v.

'wg^nr^i

will be regarded as treason to the revolution' (Trotsky)

!*#<<**»».

•*%»• *nw

n

«

r— cs Ta~«a

9-

m *

v

#*

Palchinsky, Rutenberg) and Colonel Anayev became officer-in-command. However, the vigour and determination of Kerensky was missing and nothing but desperate telephoning was done after these measures. Commissar Stankievich again asked General Dukhonin's aid but was told bluntly to help himself. The Generalissimo asked the commissar what had happened to the loyal Cyclist Battalion and could not be answered because no one knew anything about it. Then the Bolshevik forces took the last important centre of administration, the Ministry of War next to the Winter Palace. When Antonov-Ovseyenko issued his ultimatum for surrender, and was bravely answered by the Provisional Government, the defence of the Palace began to crumble. Once again confusion favoured the Bolsheviks: Commissar Akashev ordered the artillery cadets and their four guns back to their billets and was obeyed. The commissar and two other cadets were caught in time and arrested, but the unit got away, considerably weak-

ening the defence. As the evening drew near the defence forces began to feel demoralised, but their opponents also lacked resolution. No one wanted bloodshed and it became clear that whoever persevered longest would win. The elite Cossack units which did turn up at the Palace regretted it bitterly. They felt ofTended at being ranged side by side with the Women's Battalion. Most of the officercadets felt like following their Michael Academy comrades, and other army officers in the Palace, in the euphoria of the place, got hopelessly drunk. General Palchinsky had very little to co-ordinate and the defence of the Palace rested in fact in the hands of the old Tsarist commissioners who controlled the gates and the lights. After a good evening meal, the ministers once again refused to surrender and made it known that they were prepared, if necessary, to face heroic death. After this demoralising declaration they ordered the lights to be put out. The unexpected darkness caused considerable commotion among besiegers and besieged alike. In the resulting confusion the first shots were fired and four officer-cadets defending the Palace were hit, probably by their own fire. Seeing their comrades slightly wounded the Constantine Academy cadets decided to return to their quarters and left without telling anyone. When the word of their departure finally filtered to the Smolny and to the anxious ministers it elicited two different reactions. Lenin urged his forces to take the Palace immediately; the ministers began frantic telephoning for aid again. They succeeded in getting in touch with the Petrograd Duma (Municipal Council; the Duma was an elected body while the Soviet was a curiously spontaneous institution) and drew encouragement from that quarter. The Duma apparently was also under attack by Bolshevik forces but it succeeded in beating them off, and presently would undertake negotiations with the Bolsheviks to relieve the besieged government. A Duma delegation then actually left for the Smolny, but its mediation was rejected. The delegates were told to go to the Winter Palace and talk the Provisional Government into surrender. When the Aurora and the Fortress garrisons also refused to receive Duma delegations, the Duma leaders called on some 300 followers

2480

*

-.

^--L*d

who had gathered outside the Municipal Building to form a marching column and led them to the Winter Palace. Their intention was to relieve the besieged rather than persuade them to surrender. But they were an unarmed column: they were halted several times and when they reached the Palace perimeter Bolshevik units dispersed them. The besieged knew nothing of the outcome of this abortive attempt, but could see that no relief was coming. The GHQ at Mogilev telephoned late in the evening to say that the Cyclist Battalion and three other regiments were on the way to Petrograd. But General Cheremisov stopped all troops moving towards the capital pending

the capital, Lenin began to act as if he were master of the whole country. At 10.45 pm, when most of the delegates for the 2nd Congress of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets arrived, the Bolsheviks found out that they controlled a clear working majority. The Menshevik President Dan, knowing this, refused to open the Congress and Lenin therefore seized the initiative and proposed to the assembled delegates the election of a new praesidium to take over the management of the Congress. The 515 delegates present voted 14 Bolsheviks onto the new body: Lenin naturally led the Bolshevik faction, and Trotsky, Zinoviev,

further orders.

were among the newly elected members. The Left SRs had seven members, the Mensheviks three and there was one Menshevik-Internationalist on this

More immediately around the Palace the Bolsheviks began to feel restless when the hour fixed for the assault approached. At

pm the first fusillade burst out, but no one seems to have been wounded. Ten minutes later the Aurora was finally persuaded to fire at the Palace to cow it into submission. Most of these shots, however, went wide, and missed the target. Then the 300-strong Cossack contingent, led by its colonel, negotiated a free passage through the ranks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, which was among the forces besieging the Palace, and left for their billets. Once again, no one was told of this desertion, but when it became known and after another salvo from the Aurora, the Women's Battalion tried a sortie, then surrendered and was disarmed. After them another small unit of cadets was led through the ranks of the besiegers to their academy: defence forces were rapidly melting away, but Antonov-Ovseyenko still did not give orders for the final assault. Wild unsystematic shooting by both sides was always followed by negotiations and this game continued throughout the hours of darkness. But the Palace continued to defy Bolshevik forces. Bolshevik agitators who penetrated into the Palace were disarmed and interned in various rooms within the Palace. As time went on the defending forces were so weak that they felt unable to cope with such numbers of agitators and parliamentarians. Around 11 pm Chudnovsky who had been to the Palace as a negotiator realised that there were no defenders left and ordered the final assault. The excited and restless Red Guards, garrison soldiers and sailors broke through the gates and began a cautious but systematic penetration of the Palace. Room after room fell to the advancing Bolsheviks in search of the Provisional Government now defended by a mere handful of young cadets. Finally at 1.50 am on November 8, 1917 Bolshevik forces reached the Malachite room where the government 9.30

Antonov-Ovseyenko was waiting. quickly told of the discovery: he arrived and arrested the ministers in the name of the Revolutionary Military Committee. Ten minutes later he telephoned the Smolny Institute that the Winter Palace, the last bastion of the Provisional Government, was under Bolshevik control. He then had plenty of trouble getting the arrested ministers safely to prison. The incensed victors wanted to lynch them. Perhaps as a

sat

result of this disappointment or to celebrate the accomplishment of the last important task of the coup, Bolshevik forces in turn melted away in one immense drunken orgy. Even before this final military victory in

Kamenev, Antonov-Ovseyenko and Krylenko

important body. The Bolshevik-dominated praesidium then threw out all resolutions condemning the Bolshevik uprising and proposed their own agenda which was to deal with more immediate tasks: the formation of a new government, problems of war and peace and the Constitutional Assembly. Smarting under this defeat all the oppositon delegates left en masse, abandoning the Congress to the Bolsheviks. After the walk-out and in order to consider the agenda and resolutions more fully, the Bolsheviks adjourned the session. Shortly after the adjournment Lenin heard that the Winter Palace had been finally taken, and the Provisional Government was on its way to prison. He could form a new government. At 3 am when the Congress reassembled, Lenin personally gave the news of the Palace's fall. Subsequently it was decided to form revolutionary committees on the Northern Front and in all army units. Before the session adjourned once again the delegates sanctioned overwhelmingly the uprising (only 12 voted against). The Congress was reconvened for 9 pm on November 8. By then Lenin was Prime Minister (Chairman) and his government (the Council of National Commissars) was warmly applauded by the delegates. Among other things the Congress approved decrees presented to it by the chairman of the council: the decree on immediate peace was passed unanimously, as well as that regulating the distribution of land. The Congress also approved the composition of the new government which included Trotsky as Foreign Minister and Stalin as Minister of Nationalities. Then the Congress closed and the delegates dispersed.

Lenin was in power as a result of the uprising, but he controlled only the imperial capital. The Bolsheviks also rose in Moscow and finally overpowered their opponents there on November 16, 1917. In several other cities attempts were made at takeovers, but they were unsuccessful. Only the faraway Krasnoyarsk became Bolshevik on November 1 and Krasnovodsk followed next day. However, a lot of fighting had to be done in and around Petrograd before the new government could feel itself safe. It took Lenin and the Bolsheviks over three years of bloody civil war before he and his party brought under their control the whole of Russia. The almost bizarre coup in November 1917 was but the bloodless beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution. 1

[For

Dr Bradley's

biography, see page

99.

AWith

the Tsarist

emblem on

gates draped, the Winter Palace has But this was only the beginning of the revolution which was to engulf Russia in civil war its

fallen to the Bolsheviks.

V

Red Guards at the entrance to Smolny which had bristled with cannons and machine guns since the day before the coup when Kerensky had belatedly tried to suppress the Bolshevik Party

2481

THE MOST IMPORTANT BUILDINGS TAKEN IN THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER 7 BY THE REVOLUTIONARY FORCES PLAN OF ATTACK BY THE RED GUARDS. THE REVOLUTIONARY MILITARY UNITS, AND THE SHIPS AND SAILORS OF THE BALTIC FLEET PARTY DISTRICT COMMITTEES AND RED GUARD HQs PRINCIPAL CENTRES FOR THE ORGANISATION OF RED GUARD UNITS REVOLUTIONARY UNITS OF THE PETROGRAD GARRISON COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY UNITS OF THE PETROGRAD GARRISON IMPORTANT COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY CENTRES OF RESISTANCE THE REVOLUTIONARY FORCES' MAIN ATTACKS ENCIRCLEMENT OF THE WINTER PALACE BY THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 7 GUNFIRE FROM THE CRUISER AURORA FROM 2140 HOURS BOMBARDMENT. OF THE WINTER PALACE FROM THE PETER-PAUL FORTRESS AT 2300 HOURS THE WINTER PALACE, TAKEN AT 0210 HOURS ON NOVEMBER 8

2482

1

CENTRAL TELEGRAPH OFFICE

2 MAIN POST OFFICE

VBnZZb V/////J

3 TELEPHONE EXCHANGE 4 STATE BANK 5 RAILWAY STATIONS 6 BRIDGES I

MILE

J 1

KILOMETRE

Left: The stages of the Bolshevik takeover in Petrograd in November 1917. Below (top and bottom): Two views of the storming of the Winter Palace, both subsequent Soviet versions, correspondingly romanticised

Petrograd, for so long the fashionable centre of Tsarist Russia, now the hub of the peoples' revolution

2483 .

TROTSKY AND THE RED ARMY

(

i

To ensure the success

The Bolshevik coup could scarcely have survived a month had it not enjoyed the support of the Petrograd garrison. In the longer term, the Bolshevik Revolution could never have survived

without the Red

Army

(a

high

proportion of which came straight from the Tsarist army). Both the loyalty of the Petrograd troops and the creation of the Red Army were the work of Trotsky. John Erickson. Left: Red Guards.

Below: Leon Trotsky

of their plans for the seizure of power in November 1917, the Bolsheviks worked assiduously to paralyse the Imperial Army which might otherwise be used against them by the Government. The party's Provisional specialists in military affairs, the men of the Bolshevik Military Organisation, were concerned with crippling an army rather than building one; but once in power, these same Bolsheviks who were so expert at demolition faced a fight for survival which demanded nothing less than the creation of a new army, one able not only to fight but also capable of defeating the enemies of the Soviet regime, a task for which, as Lenin himself readily admitted, neither ideological nor political preparation of any kind had been made.

The seizure

of power was relatively easy, but the task of holding it agonisingly difficult: the shock of assuming the responsibilities of government had a stunning effect. One of the very few not to be overawed or intimidated by the magnitude of

was Leon Trotsky, who had masterminded the efforts to neutralise the army in November 1917 and who subsequently supervised the feverish work of organising and fielding a new army, thus arming the revolution in a fashion which none had foreseen. Writer, orator, revolutionary (though an official adherent of the the problems first

Bolsheviks only after May 1917), Trotsky was neither a soldier nor a military theoretician, he lacked any direct experience of military service or training, but he possessed enormous powers of persuasive oratory, relentless energy and great skill in organising. This combination of fiery talents made him the inevitable enemy of the slothful and the incompetent, imparting to his activities an aura of abrasive arrogance and irritating conceit, which his enemies were not slow to magnify and exploit.

At the age of 38, and in the tense days before the Bolshevik coup, Trotsky took up his first key military post as master of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Under the guiding hand of Trotsky and the Bolsheviks of the Military Organisation,

Committee became nothing less than the chief lever of the revolution. In his capacity as president, Trotsky sent out his own commissars to the military units in Petrograd, displacing those of the Provisional Government: the Committee knew the temperature of each regiment and followed every shift of opinion in the barracks. The military skills involved in the Bolshevik insurrection were of a rudimentary nature: political acumen, nerve and a rare decisiveness lay at the root of Trotsky's success. The purely military plan envisaged joint action by the Baltic sailors and workers detachments from the Vyborg district of Petrograd, both advancing from this base to the centre for the final blow. For all the fumbling and scuffling, the Bolsheviks took over: on November 7 Trotsky declared in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee that 'the Provisional Government no longer exists'. Yet having taken power, these armed intellecthis

had to protect their new-found regime, from arguing to administration, from sabotaging a system to securing one. Responsibility for military affairs was vested in the Military Naval Committee with its complement of 'military' Boltuals

to turn

sheviks headed by Dybenko, Krylenko and Antonov-Ovseyenko, agitators rather than

The new government, committed democratic peace formula built round no annexations and indemnities,

experts. to a 'no

national self-determination',

managed

to

arrange a truce on the Eastern Front and thus won a little time. While the old army continued to disintegrate, a process encouraged by Bolshevik demonetisation and speeded by desertion, instructions went to the General Staff to draw up plans for a

new

Soviet Army.

The plans proliferate

December 1917 the plans proliferated — a mixture of the old army with a new force, a Socialist Guard composed entirely of inIn

dustrial workers, a militia force, a NationalSocialist Guard, a brand-new Socialist Army — all at a time when desertion drained men from the front; Lenin also foresaw the

onset of civil war, which meant speeding up the formation of a revolutionary army. Trotsky was meanwhile despatched to

Brest-Litovsk to spin out the negotiations

with the Central Powers, to win more time for the Soviet government. The decision to demobilise the Imperial Army and raise a new force emerged as a result of the All-Army Conference on Demobilisation which assembled at the end of the year. But desertion had already far demobilisation, creating an immediate demand for men. In January 1918 the Military Affairs Commissariat proposed to move all available Red Guards — barely trained and poorly armed as they were — into front areas, with a new force of ten corps to be raised in the ensuing

outstripped

Though advertised as the 'cement new army', this was scarcely a solution

ten days. of a

with the armistice hanging in the balance.

The Soviet republic needed nothing less than a new army and needed it urgently. It was the Demobilisation Conference which breathed the first faint life into what was to become the 'Red Army' by authorising the establishment of an administrative body to" form a new army, detachments of which were being formed by soldiers committee and commissars in a number of areas and in varying guises — the 'National Revolutionary Guard', the 'Revolutionary Red Army', the 'Red People's Guard' and even a force called the 'International Socialist Army'. By the end of January 1918, the Third Congress of Soviets was considering plans for the new army, approving a draft decree for a force designated the Worker Peasant Red Army (RKKA), a document duly submitted to Lenin: on January 28, 1918 the Red Army officially came into existence and with it a new administrative body, the All-Russian Collegiate for the Organisation and Administration of the Worker Peasant Red

Army. Lenin harboured no illusions about the military weakness of the Soviet republic; he removed the absolute stipulation on voluntary enlistment from the decree on the Red Army and emphasised now, as he had done in December, the need for disciplined regiments and for proper training, using if need be former officers of the Imperial Army whose special skills must be exploited. Gone was his earlier preference for a militia; with the exception of the worker-peasant link (scored into the

name of the new Soviet fighting force), scarcely anything now remained of Lenin's earlier theories about armies and the 2485

manner in which they should be organised. The days of utopianism were drawing rapidly to a close. he |xi
specialists assigned to deal with the purely

men

(the category which counted for most) probably did not amount to more than 50,000 at this time: the squads of sailors were ruthless but scarcely an army, the highly disciplined I

Latvian

Rifle

Corps amounted

to

some

7,000 men but they were also fighting in the I'kraine or on the Western Front, with reserve units held in Petrograd, Moscow and Velikiye-Luki. Elsewhere it was a tale ol hastily improvised units and a bewildering variety of fighting detachments scooping up a few men here and there; of the 30,000 Red Guards only a third were in any condition of military readiness, with discipline and order steadily breaking I

down. The volunteer system, which was the principle on which men were to be enlisted in the Red Army, everywhere

showed signs of failing disastrously. The confusion was made worse by organising mainly on 'detachment' lines, resulting in a conglomeration of small units unconnected by any command system. I Corps, recruited in Petrograd, was designed to have six rifle battalions and a machine gun battalion; at the end of February it |M)sscssecl staff and three 'battalions' (800 workers in all) with 20 electricians from the city tramcar depot running the technical unit. The Northern Front garnered only a few thousand volunteers for the Red Army while the rest galloped home in droves; the Petrograd garrison shrank disastrously, Twelfth Army on the Northern Front reported that it could no longer hold on, and in the south Eighth Army was on the point of being disbanded. ;i

Panic as the Germans advance The resumption of the German advance on February 18 threw the whole disordered military situation into grim relief. There was a scramble to improvise the defence of Petrograd and the Committee for the Revolutionary Defence of Petrograd scraped up volunteer detachments to deploy between Pskov and Reval (Tallin): the Extraordinary Petrograd Military District Staff also set to work on defence measures, being converted at the beginning of March into the Supreme Military Soviet, Vysshyi Voennyi Sovet, which became the first real Soviet command group manned by military specialists — the Voenspets, a euphemism to cover the presence of ex-Imperial officers

serving the Soviet government. The German screw tightened, but even after news of the renewed German offensive Lenin was prepared to sign the peace treaty for all its rapacious terms; to those who clamoured for national war against the Germans Lenin pointed out that this option was not open, that universal arming would mean putting weapons in the hands of the Soviet regime's internal enemies. Even at the price of complete capitulation Lenin must sue for peace: it might cripple Russia but it would preserve the revolution at the price of a peace 'like the hangman's noose', as Trotsky put it. On Marcb 3 the Soviet delegation signed the treaty and accepted the draconian stipulations which lopped off whole chunks of Russia. At this juncture Trotsky relinquished his responsibility for foreign affairs and took over as People's Commissar for Military Affairs (War Commissar), charged with organising the Red Army. Krylenko

2486

was pushed out and the Supreme Military was staffed with more military

Soviet

military (or operational) aspects of defence: its first acts was to approve the campaign plan for 1918, which envisaged a fighting Soviet withdrawal behind the River Volkhov in the event of further Ger-

one of

man and

Finnish thrusts. The Supreme

Military Soviet also ordered the formation of 'screens' (zavesy), holding units to cover the Western and Northern Fronts with additional defensive sectors shielding Moscow and Petrograd: each sector of the screens was to be run by a Military Soviet manned by one ex-Imperial officer flanked by two commissars. The bloody clashes in tbe south and east which finally blazed into a massive civil war, came under another body, the Operations Section lOperod) of the Commissariat for Military Affairs: Operod was formed in January, 1918 as part of the Extraordinary Defence Staff of the Moscow District set up to work with the Red Guard. This dualism of two bodies each responsible for separate aspects of military affairs resulted in what Soviet historians call the period of 'parallelism' in the early history of the Red Army — two concepts of an army, two concepts of command and two images of the real 'enemy'. This was the situation Trotsky inherited, though it represented only one facet of the prevailing chaos. The overriding task was to garner the men needed for a new army. The volunteers simply had failed to materialise: the recruiting returns for April 1, 1918, reporting on enlistment in Moscow, Petrograd and seven regions in the Soviet republic, showed that 114,678 men signed up, augmented by a further 40,000 who joined the Red Army from units of the Imperial Army still within the old front areas (producing a grand total of 153,678 recruits). There were sound reasons, therefore, for the military specialists to object strongly to the volunteer principle, a protest reinforced by their criticism of 'elective command' which did so much damage to the idea of rank and the principle of authority.

Trotsky's new broom — the Commissars While some Bolsheviks were prepared to go along with the idea of a mass army and the limited use of military specialists, this attack on the cherished principle of volunteerism produced the first fierce clash over Soviet military policy; on March 25, 1918 Lenin encountered the organised protests of Bolsheviks furious at the growing use of the specialists, the proposed terms of military service, the role of the commanders and the place of commissars. The 'utopians' fought their rearguard action, pleading for a true proletarian army raised through proletarian centres based on the south, the Urals, Siberia and the Volga. The Council of People's Commissars, Sovnarkom, had even set up a special commission, assisted by its own ex-Imperial professional military advisers, to draw up plans for a Socialist militia, but Lenin and

Trotsky between them now seemed set

upon a methods use

course of implementing new which included the deliberate

of ex-officers,

the

centralisation

command and the establishment of a

of

proper

military-administrative machine. In April Trotsky set his new broom to work in an effort to bring some order out

Left:

Demobilisation

The Bolshevik promise of peace meant the release of millions from the old army. Many who had joined as boys and knew no other life would naturally gravitate

towards any new army Below: The old army had a high Illiteracy rate.

Nonetheless Bolshevik pamphlets found a wide audience, and it was the Bolshevik commitment to peace that gained them such widespread support in

the forces

and confusion. Elective comdropped, though it persisted unofficially for many months to come in a variety of forms. Universal military training for 'the toiling masses' was of the chaos

mand was

brought

in

formally

by the decree of April 22, a

measure intended to provide trained reserves and to which Trotsky himself attached cardinal importance: the univer-

off or to repair disaster,

tiveness

began as

proved

its effec-

on many occasions, and what sheer expediency began to assume

a complicated institutional form. Two elements of Trotsky's system were nevertheless essential to his success: the centralisation of the political apparatus in the Red Army and the very real independence of Red Army political organs from the civilian

came

sal military training administration iVse-

party machine. Trotsky very quickly

vobueh) set about preparing elementary training for school children, military youths and all men between 18 and 40. For the first time the position of the commissar was regulated and the political apparatus given its own administration, centralised from the outset. Commissars were no new device, having been used in the Imperial Army in 1905 and generously employed by the Provisional Government, yet the functions of these ubiquitous

to rely upon his own special method of stiffening wavering Red Army units with

figures were far from clear and their status largely undetermined. One early attempt to organise the work of the commissars came with the creation of the OrganisationAgitation Bureau of the All-Russian Collegiate for the Formation of the Red Army early in February, but at the beginning of April a new set of decrees and regulations

revised

the

existing

arrangements:

the

contingents of commissars and party members, using them as the equivalent of shocktroops — a tactic which worked but which also brought a rain of criticism that the centre interfered too much.

of the amateur army Relations between the centre and the regions or districts proved to be difficult from the very start. Local party bodies in the regions set up their own military units, taking a fierce pride in their creations and instilling a vigorous sense of military autonomy into the system. Self-

The end

appointed commanders and self-styled armies abounded: detachments formed up at will, variously armed and indifferently trained. In the south there was a typical

military-political commissar now emerged as a military commissar, identified as 'the political organ of Soviet power in the armed forces' and responsible for maindiscipline' and 'revolutionary taining supervising the military specialists, the

example,

ex-officers.

division (the 39th) and assorted detachments scattered all the way from Maikop

In their supervisory role, as watchdogs over the ex-officers who ran military units in an operational sense, the military commissars were acting as agents of the government: in their other role they represented the party, though not all military commissars were Bolsheviks and the formal stipulation about the political qualification of a commissar mentioned him only as a 'tested revolutionary'. Even at this early stage, however, they conformed to Trotsky's subsequent picture of the control system in which the ex-officer, employed for his military skills but politically suspect, was flanked to left and right by two military commissars with revolvers in their hands. The counter-signature of the military commissar was required for all military-operation orders, though the commissar had no authority to interfere in operational affairs: this arrangement, the commander-commissar relationship, was introduced under the name of dual command, a clumsy and inefficient affair which more often than not played havoc with military efficiency or subjected the military specialists to

some rough handling from

military commissars bent on humiliating the hated officer class. The military commissars also acquired their own administrative system. On April 3 the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars (Vseburovoenkom) took the place of the Organisation-Agitation Bureau, but even more important, on May 2 the AllRussian Agitational Bureau of the Red Army was established which meant that the military commissars were to be centrally appointed rather than under local and often haphazard arrangements. This central direction of the commissars placed a very powerful weapon in Trotsky's hands and one which he used to great effect in the coming months. Sending the right commissar to the right spot, either to head

Revolutionary of the Soviet Defence Staff at Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad); forming up at Tikhoretsk in March, 1918 this army drew its men from the Red Guard, from a former Imperial infantry

South-Eastern

Army, established on the orders

to Taman' and Novorossiysk. Avtonomov, the 'army commander', assembled 20,000 men at Ekaterinodar, but sheer insubordination and indiscipline on his part enabled the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army to escape the trap set for it. Avtonomov was the archetype of many commanders deter-

mined to run their own armies their own way. To the east of Moscow First Red Army under Kharchenko disposed of 10,000 men but the army was nothing but a patchwork of detachments with elected commanders; only 3,000 of the men could be counted of any use and many detachments (the strength of which might vary from 20 to 100 or more men) had to be disbanded as being too hopelessly disorganised. On April 24 Podvoysky, one of the 'military Bolsheviks' and an ardent champion of a democratic army based on volunteers, was put in charge of the Supreme Military Inspectorate (Vysshaya Voennaya Inspektsiay), set up to arbitrate in disputes between the centre and the regions over questions of organising the Red Army. It

took but the briefest experience in the field, however, to chasten Podvoysky very considerably: what he saw of ramshackle units finally convinced him that an amateur army simply could not work. Podvoysky's new inspectorate had neither an establishment nor prescribed functions: it operated under the general direction of the party and the Soviet government. But out of this confused overlapping of the Supreme Military Soviet, the All-Russian Collegiate and the Supreme Inspectorate, Trotsky abruptly brought his own order by setting up the All-Russian Supreme concerned priStaff (Vserosglavshtab) marily with planning the manpower requirements of the Red Army. This new centralised staff virtually took over the functions of the feeble and inefficient

2487

Collegiate for the Formation of the Red Army where Podvoysky had acted as president typically, the Collegiate set up an agitation section but never organised a <

I;

miihi lisation

department. The formation

the new staff marked the end of parallelism (to use the Soviet term), for a numliii ol nther institutions and administrations were also closed down at the same time, checking the mushroom growth of one agency after another. In mid-May Trotskj also supervised the splitting of the Supreme Military Soviet into two administrations, Operations and Organisation, with individual sections for military communications, an economic inspectorate, held engineers, artillery and a medical service. Of equal, if not greater long term significance was the promulgation of the plan for a standardised military administration, with the scattered military sections of

and Red Army

Staffs concerned with re-

cruiting being replaced by Military Commissariats at all administrative levels in the territory under Soviet control, the okrug (district), the guberniya (province), uyezd (small district), volost (rural township) and urban commissariats, all linked in a chain of command and connected with the local Soviets at their respective levels. Though much remained to be done to implement these measures, they established the framework of the real Soviet military system. Already Soviet-controlled territory was being divided into military districts, first suggested by areas for the screens and confirmed on May 4 as four Military Districts — the Northern Commune (White Sea), Yaroslavl, Moscow, the Volga and the Urals.

Any blown which

illusions about Soviet strength were to pieces by the violent explosion

was detonated, ironically, by a relatively small force, the 35,000/40,000 men of the Czechoslovak Legion — former prisoners of war and deserters from the army, now dispersed along the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway on their way to Vladivostok and thence by ship to France — who were determined to fight against Trotsky's order on May 25 instructing local Soviets to disarm them: any armed Czech found on the railway line was to be shot down where he stood. The Bolsheviks had tried persistently to undermine the legion; like other prisoners or ex-prisoners, they formed a valuable pool of trained soldiers, and the bulging camps in Siberia, through which the Czechs were passing, attracted the Bolsheviks in their hunt for trained soldiers. 'International detachments' in the service of the new regime had already appeared in 1917 — Polish, Serb, Rumanian and Chinese volunteers came forward and the First International Legion of the Red

Austro-Hungarian

Army began Civil

recruiting early in 1918.

War

Faced with Trotsky's ultimatum, the Czechs decided to fight their way out. Their revolt brought about the rapid collapse of Soviet power in Siberia, the middle reaches of the Volga and the Urals, grave

enough

in itself, but the action of the sorely-tried Czechs spread far beyond the confines of the Soviet hinterland, for it triggered off full scale Allied intervention and promoted the establishment of formid-

able anti-Bolshevik White Armies. A ring enemies closed on the Soviet republic.

of

The Czechoslovak Legion

revolts

Without men, however, these paper plans could never be filled out. The ex-officer military specialists in Trotsky's new cenworked away on their plans to raise the Red Army to full strength, 30 divisions for a first target, followed by a revised total of 88: 28 first line divisions would be raised at once, with two groups of 30 coming later as second line divisions, a fine military solution to the Soviet problem but one that bumped straightway into the hard facts of life — shortage of men, which meant accepting half-strength companies from the outset. Nor was it tral staff

simply rank and file soldiers who were wanting; each infantry division would need at least 600 officers, and the military statisticians of Vserosglavshtab estimated that 18,000 officers would be wanted immediately, with the total requirement reaching some 55,000. The very word 'officer' caused hackles to rise, suggesting hated privilege and abuse of authority. The Red Army used the term 'commander' { komandir) and the few military schools for Red commanders turned out a handful, but only a handful, of new commanders; they could never satisfy the Red Army's present needs. First recruits, then officers and NCOs, these were the priorities,

though

for

the

moment, as the Soviet

regime laboured through its breathing space won at the price of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, neither Lenin nor Trotsky would countenance systematic mobilisation. Trotsky had clearly accepted the military skills

specialist,

the ex-officer whose

he was determined to exploit, but in

first half of May the last bastion of volunteerism remained to be toppled.

the

2488

What had been small

scale, if ferocious,

actions of the civil war now expanded into giant battlefronts, expanding as the forces slowly but steadily built up. The breathing

space bought at Brest-Litovsk vanished overnight and the strategic tables were turned on Lenin. The idiosyncrasies of men like Podvoysky, the prim military planning of the military specialists, the conceit of the amateur commanders and Trotsky's own reservations were all hurled aside in this cataclysm. The Red Army as a fighting formation had to be hammered together on the Eastern Front in the Urals and on the Volga: real armies took shape, the military commissariats set about mustering men, Red regiments shed their' committees, soldier assemblies and self-appointed commanders. Even desertion helped for once, since it skimmed off the shiftless and the incompetent. When the Czechs struck, the Bolsheviks had neither strength nor organisation. The chief of the northwestern screens, Myasnikov, rushed eastwards to take command of Red forces operating against the Czechs and the White troops: he assigned Podvoysky to take over the Eastern Czechoslovak Front and commanded the West Front (Ural-Orenburg) himself, leaving the Troitsk Military Commissariat to supervise operations in the Chelyabinsk region. Simbirsk organised its own Extraordinary Defence Staff. Yet the military specialists of the Supreme Military Soviet took the whole crisis very calmly, dismissing the danger: General Bonch-Bruevich noted somewhat disparagingly that 'the Czech threat scarcely appeared real, while from the Germans we could expect anything'. For the ex-officers this was not real war,

but the party-dominated Operod also failed to rise to the occasion and remained inert, an Operations Section which issued no operational orders. Struggling in the field and wrestling with disorganised and panicstricken units, Podvoysky quickly changed his tune: his report to Lenin, a document entitled 'The tasks of Soviet power in the struggle with the Czechoslovak revolt', now pleaded for 'swift and decisive abandonment of the volunteer system'. Myasnikov, recalled from the east, vehemently denounced the detachment system and pleaded at the Fifth Congress of Soviets for 'a powerful, well-equipped manoeuvrable regular army', a refrain taken up by the Sixth Petrograd All-City Conference on the Red Army early in June which stressed unification and amalgamation.

'The struggle for bread' decision had already been taken. On May 29 a government decree introduced compulsory military service for the working class, a step dictated by the need to fight 'internal and external counterrevolution' and to mobilise for 'the struggle for bread'. A few days later Trotsky convened a special mobilisation conference in Moscow and selected an extraordinary commission to supervise the first crucial

The key

experimental call-up: the commission, drawing on Moscow alone, decided on a preliminary target of 10,000-12,000 men aged between 18 and 40. No such caution, however, could be practised in the east where

men were desperately needed. The decree authorising the call-up of five age groups (1893-97) in 51 districts of the Volga, Urals and West-Siberian Military districts was rushed out on June 12 and the necessary regulations prepared in two days. The. first Moscow mobilisation proved to be an unqualified success but that in the east was a fiasco, falling far short of the target of 275,000 men. The Supreme Military Soviet concluded, therefore, that mobilisation must for the moment be aimed at the industrial workers and set about revising mobilisation plans; as a result, of the 15 mobilisations carried out between June 12 and August 29, no less than 11 were directed at workers, with the brunt falling on Moscow and Petrograd. Trotsky deceived neither himself nor his associates about the degree of success achieved: at the All-Russian Conference of Military Commissars held between June 7-11 he stated bluntly that hopes for the army had been realised 'to the extent of 30%'. In the east, where the Czechs smashed into the flimsy Red units, the number of men climbed slowly to 50,000 at the end of June, with 366 machine guns and 133 field guns. A new North-Urals-Siberian Front was being formed: Muraviev, a former Imperial colonel, now commanded the eastern sector, and all Soviet forces were being deployed as four armies. On June 27 Mikhail Tukhachevsky, an ex-Imperial lieutenant and commissar in the Moscow area, arrived in Inza to take command of the First Revolutionary Army (First Red Army) and immediately began concentrating detachments into three rifle divisions. First Red Army on its own initiative (though with the approval of the Simbirsk party committee) carried out the first of ex-Imperial organised mobilisation officers to serve with the Red Army. This occurred at the beginning of July: at the end of the month, on July 29, 1918, Trof sky

pushed through his most controversial decision with Order No 228 — a general mobilisation of former Imperial officers, a bold but risky move which provoked fierce resistance and resentment. The military specialists began flooding into the Red Army which began to fill out with desperately needed commanders. Under similar orders Trotsky also mobilised ex-

NCOs, though

this produced less consternation; in their wake came doctors, veterinary personnel and administrative staffs. all 'ex-Imperials'. Without these men the Red Army could not have fought, much less survived; Trotsky had to fight tooth and nail for his specialists, but their efficiency loyalty, however grudging, more than justified his decision, and no less than 48,409 ex-officers were finally drawn into the Red Army, not to mention over 214,000

and

ex-NCOs. The mobilisation of the workers of the Red Army march through Moscow. The only available trained commanders for this army were ex-Tsarist officers, and they discharged this task under the guise

Below: Troops

of military specialists', frequently finding

themselves

at

loggerheads with the commissars

and a special mobilisation of worker NCOs in June, July and August also began at long last to fill up the empty regiments and vacant divisions; while volunteoiism persisted men came only in dribs and drabs, but in these three months the Red Army acquired 540,123 men and 17,800 NCOs. Trotsky had also ensured that they would have trained commanders. The Eastern Front proved to be the battle school of the Red Army: at this stage it was an army largely officered by ex-officers in their guise of military specialists and stiffened with contingents of party members. Yet in the early summer

and panic loomed large as army was flayed by the Czechs and the Whites with their 'officerbattalions'. During the first week in August Trotsky, having brought shape and of 1918 defeat this fledgling

direction to the system, left Moscow for the front, travelling in his special train

which subsequently became famous in its right as he travelled the war zones. At Sviyazhsk, en route to Kazan', the train stopped and here Trotsky was engulfed in the war at its most critical point. For a

own

month at Sviyazhsk the fate of the revoluhung in the balance. 'That month,'

tion

Trotsky remarked, 'was a great training school for me.' He was learning alongside the new Red Army he had fashioned. Further Reading Chamberlain, W. H., The Russian Revolution, Vols 1-2 (Macmillan 1935) Erickson, J., The Soviet High Command 1918-1941 (Macmillan 1962) Mackintosh, M., Juggernaut — A History of the Soviet Armed Forces (Seeker & Warburg) Trotsky, L, History of the Russian Revolution Vols 1-3 (Gollancz 1932-67) Trotsky, L, My Life (Scribner's 1930) White, D. F., The Growth of the Red Army (Princeton 1944)

JOHN ERICKSON,

after serving with the British Intelligence Corps in the Second World War, read history and Slavonic languages at St John's College, Cambridge, followed by a period as Research Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford, specialising in the military history of the Soviet Union. He has lectured extensively in Russian and European History and Politics at the Universities of Edinburgh, Manchester and Indiana. His publications include The Soviet High Command 1918-1941 and Stalin's War with Germany.

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JU 3BPABCTB7ET EFA3JIHII 31 TPyflflDIHXCJI BCEI CTFAI!

The world-wide proletarian revolution has begun!' Bolshevik Russia declares on world capitalism

2490

war

Tob. /leHMH

OMMIU/1ET

3eM/IK) OT HeMMCTM. Far left: May 1, traditionally Labour Day, was celebrated for the first time in a proletarian state in Russia in 1918. Left: Russia's high rate of illiteracy lent an enhanced importance to posters as a means of promoting revolutionary fervour. Even as late as 1947 Lenin's figure appears on a poster exhorting the colonial peoples to follow the Russian path to freedom. Above: The new broom' and the 'clean sweep' are both ideas central to a revolutionary reformer. Here Lenin is shown sweeping up the world's waste material, kings, capitalists,

and

priests

2491

THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION

WORLD REACTION The

Russian Revolution had been welcomed by the Allies who hoped that it would democratically unite the whole nation behind the war, but the second Revolution they treated with bitter hostility, for the new government declared its first priority to be an immediate first

search for peace. Rose

Thomson

The Allied powers had greeted the overthrow of the Tsar and the setting up of the Provisional Government in March 1917 with expressions of approval and encouragement. The United States in particular — the new, strong ally with which the exhausted British and French armies had now been blessed — saw in the new 'democratic' Russia a more fitting ally than in the old, and was able, consequently, to redefine her own motives for entering the war: with Russia's shift towards a more representative system of government the war could now be seen as a struggle of the demo-

cratic nations against the despotic. But, paradoxically, for all their initial enthusiasm, it was the Allies who, by their insistence on Russia's renewal and reinvigoration of her war effort, helped to bring about the collapse of the Provisional Government. They had, in their eagerness to supply the new regime with financial aid and goodwill missions, totally failed to understand the realities of the situation that faced Kerensky. They had taken too little account either of the feelings among the vast, weary Russian population, or of the implications of the Marxist domination of Russian revolutionary thought. But, more important, they had failed to realise the significance of the dangerous 'duality of power' that characterised the new regime, whereby the Provisional Government lacked any real authority over the troops who took their orders from the Petrograd Soviet. The Allies readily gave Kerensky recognition and approval, but their financial help was tied to the demand that Russian soldiers should remain at the Eastern Front — and it was precisely this demand that Kerensky's government was unable to meet. It remains doubtful whether even a unified and strongly entrenched government could — at this advanced stage of physical and moral weakness within the Russian army — have instilled new life into the country's war effort, but it is certain that the Provisional Government's prospects for doing so were poor. Many of the socialists, to whom the soldiers looked for leadership, had already voiced their disillusion with the war which they had come to regard as a 'war of imperialists' and had long come to the conclusion that Russia would benefit from a separate peace. The country's enthusiasm for the war had evaporated; with the bleak prospect of another winter before them the Russian people silently echoed these feelings. Had the Allies released Kerensky from the burden of continuing the war, it is possible that his government would have been able to stabilise and that their concept of his revolution — a gradual progression towards constitutional government along 'western' lines — might have materialised. As it was, the pressures were too great and the call for peace too strident.

Bitterly unfriendly first act of Soviet power affecting the immediate interests of the Western Powers was a call to end the war. The focal point of Lenin's revolutionary programme was his peace programme — his belief that the only war in which Russia should now involve herself should be the internal one, waged by the proletariat to abolish the status quo and establish power over their own lives. He had made use of slogans like 'War is evil, Peace is a blessing' which had established some kind of ideological bridge with nonBolshevik peace factions, both in Russia itself and in western Europe. But this was not a formula to inspire western government leaders deeply involved in a world war, and when the Decree on Peace was announced it was seen as a highly unfriendly move. Not only did it threaten to violate Russia's formal obligation, established at the beginning of hostilities in 1914, not to make a separate peace, but in appealing firstly to the 'peoples' of all the belligerent nations it was viewed as a direct snub to the governments of those peoples. Furthermore, the call by the Workers' and Peasants' government 'to begin immediately negotiations for a just and democratic peace' was accompanied by a call to end the colonial system and by a direct appeal to all the workers of Europe to overthrow their governments in similar fashion and take power into their own hands. The Allied leaders recoiled in horror. George Kennan writes that 'the Decree on Peace was the first example in Soviet diplomacy of what was later to become known in Soviet usage as "demonstrative diplomacy" — diplomacy designed not to promote freely accepted and mutually profitable agreements as between governments, but rather to embarrass other governments and stir up opposition among their own people'. Such opposition as the Soviet leaders had envisaged was in fact confined to minority groups, and the Allied govern ments were 'embarrassed' not so much by demonstrations as bj the imminent prospect of the removal of some 40 Austro-Germao divisions to the Western Front. In their panic, as the full implications of Russia's departure from the war sank in, they were thus led to the misguided conclusion that if they could restructure

The

Lloyd George. His opinion was that a government which could break a war pact to country's social framework at the expense of its allies should be ostracised

restructure

its

2492

..

war aims to a shape more akin to the 'no annexations and indemnities' formula, Germany's unwillingness to comply with such a policy would be revealed and Russia might be kept in the war. The Soviet government's approach to peace was formally transmitted to the Allied governments on November 22 — 14 days after the announcement of the Peace Decree. Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador, who, in the confusion following the Bolshevik coup on November 7, had been advised to remain in the capital and 'await events', urged the British government to reply to the communication by means of a statement in the House of Commons demonstrating its rejection of the peace formula, but affirming that it would be prepared to negotiate terms with 'a legally constituted government'. The same afternoon, the Allied envoys in Petrograd held a meeting to discuss Trotsky's communication. Their decision to refuse all negotiation with the their

Bolshevik government was reached unanimously. All of them believed at this stage that the life expectancy of what they called the 'pretended government' was short and they shaped their policies accordingly. The British, French and Italian Ambassadors, Buchanan, Noulens and Carlotti, instructed their military representatives at General Dukhonin's headquarters to protest against the violation of the 1914 agreement, and instructions arrived from Washington that American official policy was to echo these sentiments. (The United States had not, of course, signed the

agreement. In London on November 23 Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of the Blockade and a member of the War Cabinet, made a statement to the press on the question of recognition of the Soviet government. With the unwillingness of the Allied governments to commit themselves to any more coherent policy than that of dispatching protests and apparently waiting for a counter-revolution to make its due appearance, the press had been forced back on supposition, and in some cases spontaneous vituperation. Cecil's statement must therefore have come as something of a relief, being the first responsible definition of the British government's attitude to events in Russia they had been able to obtain. On the question of the Soviet armistice proposal he said: 'If it represents the real opinion of the Russian people, which I do not believe it does, it would be a direct breach of treaty obligations and Russia's alliance. Such an action, if approved and ratified by the Russian nation, would put them virtually outside the pale of civilised Europe.' Asked whether the Allies were likely to extend recognition to the Bolshevik government, Cecil stated that he 'could not imagine such a step possible'. Cecil, too, was labouring under the illusion that there was a significant body of opinion in Russia still enthusiastic about the war, but the press was right in taking his opinion as a state-

ment

of official policy. The British government was to become its belief, clearly articulated at the Inter-Allied Conference in Paris, that a government that could break a war pact to restructure its country's social framework at the expense of her allies was not playing fair and should therefore be ostracised. At such a time, it was not surprising that it viewed events as it did. Britain and her allies were so involved in the war that they had failed to grasp Russia's disillusion with the purposes for which it was being fought. But back in June of that year, a minister of the Provisional Government had in fact spoken for all but a small minority of Russian people when he had told a Russian aide to the Root Mission (see Volume 5 Number 6) to 'explain to these Americans that we are tired of this war'.

hardened in

Lord Robert

Cecil, Britain's

Minister of Blockade. 'Such an action would put them virtually outside the pale of civilised Europe' .

.

.

Allied secrets exposed On the day following the despatch of the Peace Note (November 22) to the Allied governments, Trotsky, as he had promised, began publication of the secret treaties — the 'dark plans of conquest and its robber alliances and deals' that had been concluded by the Allies during the first two years of the war. These included the Sykes-Picot Agreement (see Volume 4 Number 55) and the Treaty of London, a secret agreement signed by Britain, Russia, France and Italy in April 1915. By this agreement Italy would be granted considerable territorial concessions in Turkey and the Balkans provided she joined the Allied camp within one month. Trotsky's purpose in exposing the 'traditional practices of the older Powers' was twofold. Firstly, he wanted to demonstrate to the Russian people that the Bolshevik government's foreign policy would proceed along 'honourable' and 'open' lines and that it decried all forms of secret diplomacy. Secondly, he hoped to further his appeal to the peoples of Europe to take up the revolutionary sword by showing them that 'German imperialism, in its cynicism and rapacity, yields in nothing to the rapacity of the Allied countries'.

2493

The treaties were published three days later in the New York Times and three weeks after that in the Manchester Guardian. Reaction to their appearance was stronger in America than it was in London and they certainly influenced Wilson in the framing of his 14 Points on which he began work almost immediately. In British radical circles the

George Buchanan, British Ambassador. 'If anything could tempt Russia to make one more effort it would be the knowledge that she was

Sir

perfectly free to act as

she pleased without any pressure from the Allies'

demand

for a redefinition of

peace

aims was made, but there was not the spontaneous outcry that Trotsky had envisaged. Meanwhile, without waiting for a reply to his invitation to Allied representatives to a discussion of peace terms, and angered by the sharply- worded protests to General Dukhonin (who, though anti-Bolshevik, had retained his position as Commander-in-Chief in the field until a suitable replacement could be found), Trotsky had encouraged the opening of immediate and informal peace negotiations with the Germans. He had issued a directive to the soldiers to take the first initiative: 'Let the regiments on the front immediately elect plenipotentiaries to initiate formally negotiations for an armistice with the enemy.' It had long been levelled at the Bolsheviks by other political factions in Russia that they were 'German agents' who would allow their country to be overrun by the Central Powers. Now in Petrograd the Allied envoys murmured a similar charge. But Trotsky constantly repelled with acrimony the suggestion that he favoured the Central Powers at the expense of the Allied camp. The situation at the Russian Front, which had disintegrated beyond repair, demanded immediate action and Trotsky stated clearly that he could not wait upon the deliberations of the Allied statesmen. What he hoped for was a general peace involving all the belligerents — the end of the world war. 'It was unthinkable at this time,' writes E. H. Carr, 'that the new regime should seek to favour one capitalist government, or group of governments, against another.' Bolshevik opposition to capitalist regimes — whether British or German — was absolute and non-selective and Trotsky entertained little hope, at any time during the revolution, that they would be sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause. From the Americans Lenin and Trotsky had hoped at least for a greater measure of co-operation, and during the first days following the establishment of the new regime the actions of individuals within the American community in the capital furthered these hopes. Raymond Robins, a member of the American Red Cross Commission, was among the few to be impressed by the strength and resilience of the new government after an informal interview with Trotsky at Smolny three or four days after the seizure of power. He had approached Trotsky without the knowledge of his embassy, and the pretext for the meeting was his concern for the safeguarding of Red Cross supplies. But the interview convinced Robins that for the time being anyway his country should extend its co-operation to the new regime by continuing to supply it with financial and other aid. By this course of action, he hoped that America would place itself in a position to influence the Russians in their negotiations for peace — in particular to stiffen their backs against harsh German demands.

Germany agrees

to

peace

Trotsky indicated to him that he valued this kind of co-operation and that he felt it worthwhile for Robins and his colleagues to remain in Petrograd, and Robins left the interview cautiously optimistic. His optimism communicated itself to General Judson, the United States Military Attache and Chief of the American Military Mission, and Judson approached his principles in Washington 'with a suggestion that he offer to the Soviet authorities his collaboration in the technical points of the armistice, with a view to influence the wording in such a way as to bind the Germans not to transfer troops from the Eastern to the Western Front'. But this was a vain hope. From the moment of the announcement of the Peace Note the transfer of divisions had begun. If the German government felt no ideological bond between itself and the Soviet regime, it certainly welcomed the prospect of an armistice with Russia as it regarded a build-up of troops on the Western Front as a vital step towards winning the war. With more and more American troops now pouring into France to replace the tired and battered French and British divisions it was unthinkable that Germany should respond to Allied attempts to prevent her from exploiting the new situation. Only anions minority groups — in Germany, as in Britain — had Lenin's appeal for immediate universal peace struck a real chord; the government under Wilhelm II was still boldly determined, not only on winning the war, but on winning that war for which it had sacrificed a generation of manhood, together with all its annexations

and indemnities. Judson's belief that a friendly attitude should be adopted

2494

to-

wards the Bolsheviks was not taken by his military colleagues, who followed their Allied counterparts in delivering stern communications to Dukhonin's headquarters protesting against the conclusion of a separate peace. Trotsky viciously attacked all such protests, primarily because they chose to ignore his demand for a general armistice and secondly because they were handed to Dukhonin and not directly to the Bolshevik authorities. He openly accused the Allies of 'fanning civil wars' and dismissed their charge that Russia was violating her treaty obligations in the the following terms: As soon as it came into existence the Soviet of Peoples' Commissars declared publicly that Russia was not bound by her old treaties which had been concluded behind the backs of the people for the benefit of the bourgeois classes of Russia and the Allied countries. Any attempts to bring pressure on the revolutionary Soviet Government by means of dead treaties is bound to fail miserably. Leaving aside the threats which cannot divert us from the struggle for an honest democratic peace, we should like to say that the republican government represented by the Soviet of Peoples' Commissars proposes not a separate but a general peace, and in doing so it feels that it expresses the true interests and desires not only of the Russian masses, but of all the belligerent countries. Soldiers! Workers! Peasants! Your Soviet Government will not allow the foreign bourgeoisie to wield a club over your head and drive you to the slaughter again let all know that the soldiers, workers and peasants of Russia did not overthrow the governments of the Tsar and Kerensky just to become cannon fodder for the Allied im.

.

.

perialists.

Britain had promised that 'any violation of the treaty by Russia by the most serious consequences', but threats of this kind were treated by Trotsky as mere proof that the Allies wished to continue the war to satisfy their own lust for territorial expansion and did not deter him for one moment from his urgent and now irrevocable steps towards a settlement with Germany. By Sunday, November 25 the new Soviet Commander-in-Chief, General Krylenko, had replaced the unfortunate Dukhonin and had despatched a peace delegation to the German lines near Dvinsk. On the 27th a written communication from General Hoffmann, the German Commander on the Eastern Front, stated that the Germans were prepared to negotiate an armistice and that negotiations would take place at Brest-Litovsk on December 1. The same night, Robins received a telephone call from the Smolny Institute informing him of the success of the preliminary negotiations. He was dismayed. It now seemed clear to him that his hopes of his country's power to influence the terms of the Russian/ German settlement had been futile. 'Beaten' he recorded in his will be followed

diary, 'the

General Krylenko. His action as the

first

new Soviet

C-in-C was to horrify the Allies by sending a peace delegation to the Germans

game

is lost'.

Robins was alone among the Allied representatives in Petrograd — all of whom were living in a state of almost total confusion and uncertainty — in formulating a proposal which, although it had Allied interests firmly at heart, demonstrated some measure of sympathy for the Bolshevik cause. The reaction of all the Allied statesmen was unswervingly hostile. On November 27 Sir George Buchanan had submitted a recommendation to the British government that it should be left to the Soviet authorities 'to decide whether they will purchase peace on Germany's terms or fight on with the Allies'. This proposal, for all its apparent concern with Russia's right to determine her own future, merely demonstrated that Buchanan still believed that Russia could be brought back into the war. 'If anything could tempt Russia to make one more effort' he said in his message to Lloyd George, 'it would be the knowledge that she was perfectly free to act as she pleased, without any pressure from the Allies.' Lloyd George went over Buchanan's proposal with Colonel House, Wilson's representative who was in London prior to the Inter-Allied Peace Conference in Paris. Both agreed that it might be worth a try, but it met with shrieks of derision from the French and the Italians. Clemenceau went as far as to say that the conclusion of a separate peace by Russia would, seen in any light, amount to a betrayal and that 'if all the celestial powers asked him to give Russia back her word he would refuse'. The only outcome of Buchanan's proposal was a shift of emphasis by the British government from the 1914 treaty as a basis for its objection to the Soviet peace to a deliberately obscure concern for the 'deeper principles' at stake.

The Bolsheviks are ostracised Meanwhile, Trotsky's Peace Note was

still

unanswered, Allied

policy on the question of official recognition of the Bolshevik government as yet unstated. But it was now clear to the Allied governments that the Soviet authorities were entrenched in the principal centres of power at least, and that they would soon have to arrive at a decision. On Saturday, November 21 House had cabled the US Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, to the effect that

2495

the French and British considered the situation 'to be hopeless' and recommended that the American government make 'no more advances' to a regime that had come to power through terrorism. This echoed Cecil's statement of November 23, but it was now also clear that Allied hopes of a counter-revolution were not to be fulfilled — for the time being at least. Support for Kerensky had evaporated and no other anti-Bolshevik leader of any significance had yet emerged. Wilson was harassed by contradictory recommendations. Ambassador Francis urged rejection of the Bolsheviks through the breaking off of Soviet-American relations and the ignoring of Trotsky's Peace Note; Bakhmetev, the Pro-

Government's Ambassador to Washington who still remained at his post, urged Wilson to make some sort of reply. As the Allied statesmen assembled in Paris for the Inter-Allied Conference on December 1, Lansing began compiling a memorandum, finally presented to the President on December 4, in which he strongly advocated non-recognition. American policy along these lines, though not publicly stated at the time, dates from visional

il,

Lansing urged that the refusal to recognise the Bolsheviks should be motivated 'not on repugnance to their fantastic social experiments but on sound democratic grounds' — namely that the Soviet government did not represent the will of all the people. Wilson endorsed these recommendations and official silence was henceforth maintained between Washington and Petrograd. Allied policy followed Washington's lead; relations between the Soviets and the Allied governments were accordingly reduced to 'backstairs contacts' — a cautious maintaining of 'informal' relations essential to the safety of western residents in Petrograd and designed to influence Russia's attitude towards the Germans and the terms of the armistice. The burning question of the separate peace still pervaded all meetings between the Allied statesmen. At the Inter-Allied Conference Wilson and House demonstrated that they had no new ideas to put forward, but merely resorted to an earlier misapprehension—namely that if the Allies, led by America's example, could alter their war aims to a point where they no longer smacked of 'annexationism' Russia might, even now, 'make one more effort'. It was of little significance that the French and Italians rejected House's proposals along these lines at the Conference. Lenin's dislike of his former allies' imperialistic war aims was real enough, but his concern to free his country from an odious war was at the very root of his revolutionary programme and no amount of reappraisal on the part of the Allies could shake it. In denying Russia's treaty obligations and proceeding immediately towards a separate peace Lenin liberated himself from the impediment which had complicated Kerensky's search for political stability, and he knew that this was the first essential step to his programme of reform. House's belief that the Allies should rethink their war aims was, however, a restatement of a conviction now felt by many in the Allied camp. 'The Russian collapse itself had added to this feeling', writes Kennan, 'causing many people in the west to question for the first time the possibility of total victory. For many, what the Bolsheviks were doing struck at the heart of these misgivings.' But if there was an emergent feeling, nurtured by the Americans, that the enthusiasm with which the Allies had gone to war three years earlier might have been misguided, there was apparently little readiness to reflect on the deeper social and political realities behind the Bolshevik success. The statesmen of the western world were — as were the majority of the people — totally preoccupied with the war in all its aspects and found it impossible to regard the Bolshevik Revolution as anything else than a serious blow to the Allied cause. Because it was seen only in its relationship to the war, it is hardly surprising that it was greeted with alarm and indignation and that it aroused no more positive feeling in the majority of western minds than bitter resentment and negation. this point.

N 7

Colonel House, President Wilson's closest adviser. He recommended that the ?

American government make no more advances to a regime that had come to power through terrorism'

Further Reading Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution Vols 1-3 (Macmillan 1950) Davison, H. P., The American Red Cross in the Great War (New York 1920) Kennan, G. F., Russia Leaves the War (Faber & Faber 1961) Mayer, Arno J., Political Origins of the New Diplomacy (Yale 1959) Reed, John, Ten Days that Shook the World (Lawrence & Wishart 1961)

ROSE THOMSON was

in London in 1 943 She was educated at the Francis Sorbonne and at the University of East Angha Since leaving university in 1 967 she has worked as a teacher and as a script-reader lor a film company, and is an Assistant Editor on History of the First World War She is currently working as freelance journalist. She has for a long time been a keen student of the First World War in all its aspects, and particularly of the Russian

Holland School,

Revolution.

2496

born

at the

THG HQfllMYOF military heraldry is the perpetuation for traditional reasons of medals, insignia, uniforms, and flags that originally had a functional purpose. Sometimes the functional purpose has survived alongside the tradition. New functional needs give rise to new devices, which in their All

pass into tradition. Medals and orders have a long

turn

The functional importance

of communicating between two ships at sea, and in spite of the advent of wireless they were still used as the main means of communication in the First World War. That they were unable to fulfil

history,

but it was not until 18th Century that they began to be distributed to soldiers in the way that we now know. The original func-

this

the

shown both

awarding medals was twofold. As an incentive to good service and courageous conduct medals have rarely been bettered, and the mystique that surrounds the highest awards for gallantry sheds glamour on their holders even in this anti-

week

tional

purpose

I

of

les

had an equally important purpose. The award of medals for campaign service ensured that a commander inspecting a regiment could decide almost at a glance how much experience, and of what kind, that regiment had. Hence

medals, both for. service and courage, have proliferated,

for

and

this

week we show

a

cross section of the medals of the First World

War

of

naval flags has always outweighed their decorative value. Originally flag signals had been the only method

and

role

Dogger Bank

at

at Jutland, but

less the insignia

was

satisfactorily

flags

we

nonethe-

and

naval

illustrate

played

an

this

important

part in the war. Aircraft

markings

and

in-

signia constitute a huge and complicated subject, and we do not claim to have covered

comprehensively. It became apparent early in the war that

it

WH

Unlike medals, unit and forare still badges more concerned with function than with morale or mystique. Designed at once to enlighten

mation

and baffle foe, unit markings of formations over

friend

the size of a battalion represent a proliferation of ingenious designs, ranging trom straightforward initialsthrough keys, stars, horseshoes, animals, to puns on the com-

name.

mander's

Originally

the esprit de corps of a British formation was based on its local

identity,

Scottish,

west

country, and so on. But as the war took its toll and units

became more and more mixed, badges

the

replaced

the

territory of origin as the point identity. Men became of immensely proud of their unit

sign.

The BEF

in

France was

required identifying marks, both to distinguish friend from foe in the air, and to prevent ground troops shooting at their own aircraft. Aircraft, unlike ground troops, were not bound by the need to

the largest force that Britain

camouflage

a distinct character, a character that was partly determined by the badge of each

aircraft

themselves,

so

that where it was permitted colourful and eccentric individual markings were adopted, as well as national and unit insignia. Both are illustrated this week

has

deployed

ever

in

one

theatre for as long as four years, and in the close proximity of the Western Front

men came mation

to know each forwell, and each took on

formation.

In

pages we the

many

the

following

offer examples of unit signs of the war

Although the navies of the First World War presented a drab sight in their grey basic

Great Britain

United States of America

2498

Germany

paint schemes, the flags that each wore were entirely different. Usually, each navy had three types of flag, apart from signalling ones. First, normally worn on the jackstaff at the bows, was the jack (the national flag or a variation of it). The other two types, flown from masthead, yardarm or stern, were the naval ensign (the navy's flag) and the command flag of the officer commanding a fleet or squadron. Left: Ensigns of the First World War. Right: Dressed overall — the British fleet before the war. Far right: British naval flags. Below: HMS Canopus, flying all three main flags on her masts

nflvmerciGrc

& 4 <

Great Britain

El ^^?1

#

Royal Standard

Vice Admiral

Roar Admiral

BLUE

YELLOW

I

I

RED Mercantile Ensign Red Ensign

n

1 r.i

Portugal

LL_

France

rr

1

Admiral

X y

M.i.jii

Officer commanding a division

GREEN

1

Admiral

tear-Admiral

Commander-

Commander-

i/ice

1

H

WJ IJ Vice- Admiral

Rear Admiral

Ensign and Jack

BLUE Head

Rear-Admiral under another

of State

orders

s

Captain

Commanding

commanding

Officer

I

RED

a division or station

Captain commanding a division

Naval flags and ships of

some

of the Allies are illustrated

Above: The flags Portuguese Republican Navy and Merchant Marine.

on

this page.

of the

Above

right:

The

flags of the

Italian

Navy and elements

of

the Royal Navy. Immediately below: Flags of the Greek Navy. Below: The flags worn by the third most powerful navy of the war-that of the United States

French Navy. By arrangement, the conduct of the naval war

of America. The Coast Guard Service (the Revenue and Life-

against the Imperial German Navy in the North Sea and Channel was a British affair, the French Navy concentrating (not very efficiently) on the prosecution of the maritime war against the Austro-

saving Services combined) mounted anti-submarine patrols in the western Atlantic.

Hungarian Navy and German U-Boats in the Mediterranean Sea,

in

conjunction with the

Bottom: USS New York, flying three ensigns and a senior rearadmiral's flag (by the ensign at the head of the mainmast). Right: The 1903 French armoured cruiser Ernest Renan, wearing the jack at her bows

Greece

^^^__^^^^^^^^^^^J

Admiral and Jack

Rear-Admtral

Vice-Admiral

Ensign

Captain commanding a division

BLUE

I

RED Royal Standard

United States of America

******* ******** ******* ******** ******* Jack

Vice-Admiral

Ensign and Mercantile

Rear-Admiral

Presidents Flag

2500

Naval Militia

J

n

2501 L

f* ^^~

•

•

•

•

—

Japan

Jack and Mercantile Ensign

m Ensign

.il

St.1nd.1rd

Vice-Admiral

r~

i_ Senior Officer

Officer

commanding

Torpedo division

/Above left: The Japanese destroyer Shirakumo at the siege of Tsingtao in late 1914. The Japanese refused to

send

Russia

their fleet to aid

the Allies

in

the Mediterranean,

and

restricted their naval activities to the siege of

Ensign

Tsingtao, pursuing the German East Asiatic Squadron out of the Pacific and escorting the Australian convoys at about the same time. Above right: Flags of the Imperial

Minister of Marine

Jack

Admiral

Vice- Admiral

Rear -Admiral

Japanese Navy Left:

The Russian dreadnought

Petropavlovsk. She was built to a design originally drawn up by Cuniberti, the Italian cofather, with Fisher, of the dreadnought, but was completed so late that she was obsolete, with dreadnought

armament and battle-cruiser protection. She is wearing the jack (based on the Cross of St Andrew, Russia's patron saint) at her bows. Right: The flags of the Russian Imperial Navy Right, below centre: The naval flags of one of the smallest navies among the Allies, that of the soon-overrun Kingdom of Rumania. The largest ship in her navy was the 1,320-ton cruiser Elizabeths, mounting four 6-inch guns

Bottom

left:

The

Italian

sub-

^rJrf&V^ Imperial Standard

HMB

YELLOW*

Mercantile Ensign

Rumania

b: Ensign

SLUE

YELLOW RED Mercantile

ED Italy

Ens, 9 n

Jack

marine PulHno, flying the ensign from her stern. Right: naval flags.

Italy's

The

colours of red, white and green were the colours of Italian

Napoleon's 1796.

Italian

Legion

Vice-Admiral

Rear Admiral

in

These colours were taken

over about 50 years later by the King of Sardinia. To them he added the arms of his house, Savoy, a white cross on a red shield with a blue border. Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, was proclaimed King of Italy in 1861,

and

RED BLUE

Royal Standard

I

GREEN

YELLOW

Mercantile Ensign

his flag

became the national one. The crown was peculiar to the navy 2503

Photograph above and right: Cousinly amity before the war: the Hohenzollem' gig carrying the Kaiser pulls away from the Russian Imperial yacht Standart in Swinemiinde after a courtesy visit. The gig is flying the Imperial German Navy's ensign from her stern and a form of the Imperial Standard at the bows. The Standart is wearing the jack at the bows and flying the ensign from her stern. Right: Flags of the Imperial German Navy. The colours were derived from the red and white of the Hanseatic League and the black and white of Prussia. The black cross is taken from the arms

•

of the Teutonic Kn the eagle from the arms Of thlT" rulers of Prussia, the Hohenzollerns. It was only after the. war that the ensign became known as the Imperial War Flag'. Below: Turkish fla< Red is a traditional MosL.. colour. The crescent was probably adopted from the badge of Constantinople, which the.Turks took in 1453.

Germany

The origin of. the" uncertain. The centra in the Imperial Standan tughra', a symbol containi 4

a stylised palm-print^ Sultan's name, the word Khan and a phrase meaning 'theevi victoriou

Turkey

Vice-Admiral

Rear Admira

Right: The naval flags of the Imperial Navy of the Austro-

Hungarian Empire. The colours of red, white and red were taken from trie arms of Leopold Heldenthum, Duke of Beb

whose white coat became so bloodstained in a battle that the only white leftwas under

berg,

his swordbelt. The eaglJB that of the Habsburg family, the rulers of the Empire '

Imperral Standard

Mercantile Ensign

^Ul^

y

BDMOGTHOe OFTHG FIKT WOULD WfiH

mCDfllS

Medals are the tokens of a nation's esteem. They are awarded in time of war and in time of peace for acts of exceptional gallantry and valour, and for services to the war effort or to the well-

be regarded as a cross between the Victoria Cross, awarded for acts of singular gallantry, and the Companion

being of the nation. We are here concerned with the medals awarded in time of

field of

war. These fall into three categories: those for valour,

made up

those for 'just being there' and those for services rendered. The first category comprises

the

world's

most

famous and coveted medals: the British Victoria Cross, the United States' Medal of Honour and the senior awards of other countries. In some nations, the medal for outstanding bravery and that for great services were one and the same. Take, for example, the highest award Germany could bestow, the Pour le Merite.

awarded

Although to

it

was

men who had

performed great and valiant acts in the field, it was also given to generals and other men in recognition of their conduct of the war or of other signal services. In this respect, the Pour le Merite can

of the Bath, conferred for services to the war effort or

particular

success

The second for

in

the

command

'just

or direction. category, that

being of

there',

the

is

campaign

medals. Whereas gallantry decorations are usually in the form of a cross, the

campaign medals are usually circular in form, and awarded to men who have taken part in a specific campaign. These are awarded without reference to a man's performance, but merely in recognition of the fact that a soldier or sailor has been involved in a particular campaign. This is not to belittle the role of the ordinary soldier, for without him the war could not have been fought, and against his

deeds must be measured those of the 'heroes'.

The third category, that of always services rendered, resulted in wry amusement for the ordinary soldier. To him, 'base wallahs' were decorated

for

incompetence,

<">

A

not for outright theft of the and soldiers' rations equipment. The attitude is understandable, but is largely if

line

Without these erroneous. 'base wallahs', no army could survived. They were labouring under unforeseen difficulties, and were therefore inadequately trained, and inexperienced, and often deserved the DSOs and other decorations they received. It is worth noting that the

have

Allies

were

far

more

prolific

award Germans, in two national Others were struck by the states making up the Empire for their own contingents, and still others were struck for particular events, such as the 1914 advance on Paris, but on the whole, the Central Powers restricted themselves to a few all-embracing medals.

with the institution and of medals. The particular, had medals only.

A French investiture. Note the regimental flags in the background. Below: The Leff:

United States' Medal of Honour. Illustrated is the Army version-the Navy's is similar, but the medal is suspended from an anchor, not a bar

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Top row, left to right: Great Britain. Britain's highest award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross. This is a cross pattee, in bronze,

suspended from a claret ribbon. 633 were awarded in the First World War, 187 of them posthumously; the Distinguished Service Order, awarded only to

commissioned

officers; the Military Cross, instituted on

December 31, 1914, and awarded to warrant officers and above; the Distinguished Flying Cross,

a?

instituted in

December

1918 and awarded retro-

z<*

spectively to officers and

warrant officers of the RAF; the Air Force Cross, the same as the DFC, but awarded for acts of bravery not necessarily in the face of the enemy; the Distinguished Conduct Medal, '

awarded to NCOs and men only. The Distinguished Service Medal, instituted October 1914 for

in

petty officers

and men

of the RN and NCOs and men of the Royal Marines.

Centre row,

left to right: Military Medal, instituted in March 1916, and the equivalent of the for NCOs and men; the

The

MC

Indian Distinguished Service Medal (reverse). Its award was extended in July 1917 to Indian non-

combatants on

"**.

w

,.

field

service; the Meritorious Service Medal (Army); the 1914 Star, with the '5th Aug-22nd Nov 1914' bar, awarded to those who were actually under fire «

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during that period; the 1914-1915 Star; the British War Medal; the Victory Medal. Bottom row, left to right: The United States of America. The distinguished Service Cross (Army), second pattern. This cross

was awarded

member gardless

to any of the army, reof rank, who

have distinguished himself or herself by extraordinary heroism'; the Navy Cross, the US Navy's and Marine Corps' equivalent of the DSC; the Distinguished Service Medal (Army), awarded for 'exceptionally meritorious service'; the 'shall

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Silver Star, awarded to indicate 'a citation for gallantry in action'. .; the Distinguished Flying Cross, for aviators who had .

been recommended for, but had not been awarded, other high medals; Queen Mary decorates a sailor; the US Victory Medal

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Top row, left to right: France. The Legion d'Honnour, France's highest decoration. This is awarded only for gallantry in action or 20 years' distinguished service in military or civilian life. Illustrated is the badge of an Officier, the fourth of the five grades; the Medaille Militaire, awarded only to generals commanding armies, admirals commanding fleets and NCOs in the army or navy; the Croix de Guerre, instituted in April

1915 and awarded to

soldiers and sailors of

J

«

r

all

ranks mentioned in despatches by a general or CO; the Croix de Guerre des Theatres d'Operations Exteriers. The Medaille de la

Reconnaissance

Francaise, awarded from 1917 on for acts of devotion in the public interest. Illustrated is an of the highest of the three classes, in silver

example gilt;

the Medaille

memorative de

v %i

''iSmS/^

la

ComGrande

Guerre, for all mobilised during the war; the Medaille Interalliee dite 'De la Victoire'.

Centre row, left to right: Medaille d'Orient; the Medaille des Dardanelles. The different ribbons of these medals were decided upon at the request of those who had served in the Dardanelles; the Medaille des Evades, for escaped POWs; the Croix du Combattant, for all holders of a combatant's card; the Croix du Combattant Volontaire, for those who volunteered for service; the Ordre de la Merite Maritime (obverse), 3rd Class. Montenegro. The Order of Danilo, third of the five classes. Bottom row, left to right: Imperial Russia. The Cross of St George, 3rd Class, awarded only for gallantry in action; the Order of St Anne, 2nd Class. When

awarded for

military

services, the cross

had

crossed swords

between

its

limbs; the

Order of St Stanislas, 2nd Class, without swords; the Order of St Vladimir, 3rd Class, with swords. Japan. The Order of the Rising Sun, 4th of eight classes,

awarded to

all

ranks of the army and navy for gallantry; the Order of the Second Treasure, 4th of eight classes, awarded for meritorious service; the

Victory Medal.

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Top row,

left to right:

Italy. The

Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus, 5th Class; the Order of the

Crown

Class; the

of Italy, 5th

War Cross; the

War Medal

(two bars). Czechoslovakia. The Revolutionary Cross.

i

Portugal.

The Victory

Medal.

Rumania. The War Cross. Centre row, left to right: Belgium. The Order of

Leopold

I,

5th of five

classes, with swords.

V

It

was

awarded to officers for gallantry and long service, and to NCOs for pro-

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fessional services; the Order of Leopold II, 4th Class; the Order of the Crown, 4th Class; the Croix de Guerre. It was awarded for the

same deeds as

its

French

counterpart, and also for long service. Rumania. The Order of the Crown, 3rd Class; the Order of the Star, 5th Class with

swords.

Boffom row, left to right: Greece. The War Cross.

was at first solely Venizelist, but was later adopted nationally. It was granted only for gallantry initially, but later for war

This

services

in general. Illusthe 3rd of three classes: the Medal of Military Merit, 4th Class.

trated

Serbia. The Order of St Sava, 5th Class; the Order of Takowa, 3rd Class.

Kaiser Wilhelm decorates one of his soldiers. There were only two German awards open to all, the Iron Cross and the Pour le Merite. Each member state of the Empire struck its own medals II

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is

Poland. The Order of Military Virtue, 5th of five classes; the Cross of Valour (with a Second World War ribbon).

Germany. The Pour le Merite, Germany's highest award; the Iron Cross, 2nd Class.

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2514

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AIOAFT \\\MM Pilots are

these

almost by nature individualists, and the

First

World War gave

men

j

the opportunity to let their extrovert personalities have free rein. This took many forms: wild and riotous living, hair-raising stunt flying, a constant attempt to debunk authority, 'brass hats' in particular, and last but not least the extraordinary private markings of their aeroplanes. The Germans had a penchant for bright, regular patterns over large areas of their machines; the Russians for the macabre; the Italians for iridescent paint and fanciful animals; the French for names and animals; the British for overall gaudy paint schemes if they could get away with it; and the Americans for comic figures. This is necessarily oversimplified, for such a llist can be neither exclusive nor comprehensive, but gives an idea of the Isort of men who flew these early warplanes. Even if the exercise of this individualism did not stretch over the whole machine, most of the prominent ipilots, with the exception of the British, managed to add small but

I

and unit markings. Left: The real thing: two French markings. Above: The Sioux head unit marking of the Escadrille Lafayette, a volunteer unit of Americans flying with the French air force. distinctive personal

2515

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Far Left top: The unit marking

SOP 226,

a French Sopwith 1V2Strutter reconnaissance aeroof Escadrille

unit using British

planes, as the

name

of the unit

and the binoculars around the chicken's neck indicate. Far left centre above: The unit marking of Escadrille SPA 6, a SPAD fighter unit. Far left centre below: Typical fighter unit emblem — the greyhound and hare of SPA 81. Far left bottom: The emblem of the US 91st Aero Squadron in France.

Photograph, bottom of page: The flaming comet personal

markings

Leutnant Bertrab an Albatros III fighter. Photograph, left above: A prancing devil decorates the side of this Italian Pomilio PD general purpose machine. Note also

The D

of

aircraft is

the rear-view mirror at the left hand side of the cockpit.

Photograph,

A marking

that

left

below:

was to gain

fame

in the next World the aircraft of the Flying Tigers' — the

great

War on

American Volunteer Group operating with the Chinese against the Japanese. Here the shark's mouth is under the nose of a British Sopwith Dolphin fighter is

1918. This a very blatant marking for in

and the pilot was no doubt soon told to remove it a British machine,

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Unit markings of the First World War, usually on the

fuselage sides. Left, top to bottom:

The US 22nd Aero Squadron (SPAD XIII); the US 27th Aero Squadron; the US 25th Aero Squadron (SE Escadrille one of the

5a); the stork of

SPA

73 (SPAD

XII

squadrons making up the elite Cicognes (Storks) Groupe, France's premier fighter unit. Each escadrille used a different variation of the basic stork symbol. The US 95th Aero Squadron (Breguet 14 A2), a bomber Right, top to bottom:

unit.

The most famous American symbol-the 'Hat in the ring' of the 94th Aero Squadron (SPAD XIII and Nieuport 28). The symbol denoted the United States' final entry into the war. The Polish 16th

Reconnaissance Squadron (Breguet 14 A2), operating against the Russians in 1920.

The US 1 1th Bombardment Squadron (DH 4). The cocotte (a stylised bird

made of C

paper) of Escadrille (CaudronGIII).

folded

1

Opposite page left, top to bottom: Large Union Jacks were painted on the wings

and fuselages of British aircraft from late August 1914to early 1915. They were easily confused with the German cross, however, and replaced by roundels. The aircraft are Bristol Scouts of the RNAS in France. A French SPAD single-seater. Another great French type, in this instance a Salmson 2 A2 two-seater reconnaissance aeroplane. The emblem neatly sums up what the observer must have felt when he stood to peer over the side! One of France's favourite sons, Georges Guynemer, in the dark uniform, with a general inspecting his

SPAD

(Vieux

Charles), the beginning of which can just be seen to the left of the general's legs. Note also the cicogne.

Opposite page right, top to bottom: Fuselage roundel on US Marine Corps' aircraft. It

was

all

red with the

exception of the eagle's head and chest (white), the centre of the roundel (white) and the middle ring of the roundel (blue); the dragon sported of his Albatros D V by Leutnant Hans Joachim von

on the side

Hippel. The dragon was red, with yellow flames issuing from its mouth; the markings of Escadrille BR 127 (Breguet 14 A2 bombers); the duck family markings of the Section Artillerie

Lourde 220 (Breguet

14 A2) artillery reconnaissance unit; the

US

147th Aero

Squadron (Nieuport

28) with the motto (not painted on the aircraft) Who said rats'

2518

2519

COM& DMOflL FLflSHGS The

British, early in the war,

the need to identify the transport and personnel of the formations of the army, the felt

BEF

.

in particular. Initially

this took the form of armlets and boards with the number of the particular formation upon it. But this was poorfor security, so badges were

instituted, either painted

on signs or sewn on uniforms. Basically there were five types of badge or sign in use in the First World War: • Distinctive signs with no particular origin or meaning; • Territorial signs such as the thistle of the 9th (Scottish)

Division;

• Cypher signs; • Puns on the GOC's name; and • Battle honour signs, such as the umbrella of the 54th (East Anglian) Division, chosen after their

storming of Umbrella Hill near Gaza.

The badges are identified rows, from the top and left to right. Top row: 61st (South Midlands) Division, a cypher derived from the Roman letters for61-L, Xandl; 11th (Northern) Division, the Ankus or Egyptian key of life, chosen in that country; Russian Relief Force (white on blue), merely a distinctive sign. 2nd row: 34th Division, chosen as a distinctive sign; 48th (South Midland) Division, a distinctive sign; 51st (Highland) Division, a cypher of H and D. 3rd row: 67th (Home Counties) Division, a distinctive sign; 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, a red and white distinctive sign with an exhortation; 23rd Division, a distinctive Maltese Cross in a circle. 4th row: 32nd Division, a cypher of four 8s (which make 32); XIX Corps, a pun (three in

'whats' for its GOC, General Watts); the Cavalry Corps (St George is the patron saint of

cavalrymen). Bottom row: Army, a distinctive white stripe on all vehicles; 56th (London) Division, a 'territorial' sword from the arms of the City of London; 3rd Division, a yellow cross and circle from the arms of its a. GOC, General Haldane 5 First

2520

FIOD Ofc

FOG nnnonfiL

MOflFT riMKina Despite the warnings of the prewar Hague Convention,

which realised that national insignia on aircraft would be needed in any future war, Great Britain entered the

First

World War with no national markings, the only distinguishing marks being the army or navy serial numbers on the rudder. Though recognition sheets were issued to the infantry, the latter apparently took great delight in firing upon any aeroplane that flew within range of them, be it

above them would not notice them so easily. Although individual pilots had begun to experiment before the war, no general camouflage scheme was adopted by the British until late in 1916,

when an upper-

surface finish of brown/khakigreen (olive drab) was adopted, the under surfaces re-

maining the light shade of cream (plain-doped linen) the whole machine had presented before the era of pigmented dopes. Metal cowlings and the like were usually painted black or dark grey. Wooden parts were usually left in their natural colours. When nightflying aeroplanes started to appear, an all-over olive drab finish was adopted, with roundels minus the white por-

The Sopwith Dolphin,

tion.

of

79 Squadron, illustrates a typical 1918 day camouflage and markings. The SE 5 shows standard RFC and B' Flight,

RAF

fuselage camouflage and markings (note the rudder striping) and the special coloured additions of 60

Squadron in the summer of 1917. The High Command soon insisted that these nonstandard markings be removed, as it did with all active service squadrons. The

away with were those on

only machines to get bright finishes

Allied or German. Such was the novelty of aeroplanes that untrained observers could not tell one from another. Thus the first initiative came

Home

from pilots, who took to painting Union Jacks on their machines in prominent positions. Late in August 1914, the Union Jacks were usually painted in the form of a shield: a directive sent out in October

adopted the roundel (red circle outermost) based on the cockade of the Revolutionary era.

altered this to a full-chord

standard-shaped emblem. The Union Jack framed by the outline of a shield

was therefore

abandoned. Another

failing of

emblem

as a national marking was that the St

this

George Cross could be confused with the cross used by the Germans, so the RFC adopted the tricolour roundel used by the French air force, but with the colours reversed (red in the centre, blue on the outside). This took effect from

December 11. 1914. The BE 2a illustrated shows the form

of the roundel

adopted

by the RNAS. without a centre and with the red initially

outermost. The RNAS soon took to the RFC roundel, however. The next problem to be faced by the RFC was that of camouflage. It was soon realised that aeroplanes could go about their business with much less disturbance if they blended with the colour of the ground, so that machines

Establishment.

The French,

unlike the

had realised the need national markings as early

British,

for

as 1912.

In

that year they

was placed

This

in all

the areas

now considered normal,

also painted a diagonal band round the fuselages of their aircraft, the band being made up of three thin stripes of red, white and blue.

French squadrons were

numbered consecutively

facturer, Vfor Voisin, SAL for Salmson and so on. If

a

squadron changed the type

of aircraft

it

flew, the prefix

altered accordingly.

The Nieuport 17

illustrates

the upper-surface finish peculiar to SPADs and Nieuports in late 1916, before the introduction of camouflage. The SPAD XIII is in the standard green and brown/buff

camouflage used from 1917 onwards. The machine is in the unit markings of Escadrille SPA 48. The Breguet 14 is in the finish usual to

bomber

and is from Escadrille BR 127. French naval aeroplanes started the war in natural finish, but were usually finished in grey overall from 1917 onwards. Instances of ordinary air force camouflage were not infrequent, however, especially on fighters, which might be co-operating with aircraft: buff overall,

force units. Late in the war, an anchor was added to the roundel to indicate that the aircraft on which it was painted was a naval one. air

When in

May

entered the war

Italy

1915, she altered her

markings from the

earlier

pattern of individual squadron

except for the fuselage sides.

designations and aircraft

The rudder markings adopted were three vertical stripes of blue, white and red, with the

serial

blue stripe leading. When the British adopted the French markings and reversed the order of the colours on the roundels, they did not do so with the rudder stripes. The French had much the same experience as the British with camouflage, but adopted a system of disguising their machines in late 1916/

These were

early 1917, when a green and buff upper-surface camouflage

was chosen. The lower

surfaces remained clear- or greydoped. Night-flying aeroplanes

were painted blue-black overall, upper and lower surfaces, and had only rudder stripings as national markings. The aces, a term coined by

the French, were allowed great latitude in the marking and finish of their

machines, and

several had very brightly

Names common, as were insignia, and many aces

numbers to the more

common Allied

the national colours of red, white and green. The peculiar aspect of the Italian system, however, was that the red and green in

circles were interchangeable in position, apparently at the whim of the unit. As there was

no other country that used these colours, there was no risk of confusion. Camouflage was not standard, but most squadrons seem to have devised their own particular patterns,

some

of

them very garish. Much use was made of iridescent paints. The Savoia-Verduzio-Ansaldo 5, of the 87 Squadriglia(La Serenissima), illustrates Italian markings and colourings for smaller aircraft. Larger ones, such as the giant Caproni bombers, had the same national markings but were

coloured aeroplanes.

usually

clear-doped

unit

practice of

roundels and rudder striping.

were

fairly

in

order of formation, letters being prefixed to the number to indicate the type of aeroplane being flown by the unit. These letters were an abbreviation of the name of the manu-

left in

their natural,

finish.

The 87 was

Squadriglia, incidentally,

associated with the city of Venice, as the unit insignia (the Lion of St Mark, Venice's patron saint) and title indicate. After Belgium had been overrun by the Germans in 1914, the Belgian air force was rebuilt by the French, with

French equipment and machines. It played a small in the war and produced a

but important part thereafter,

celebrated balloon-busting

ace

in Willy

Coppens de

Houthulst.

Basic camouflage on Belgian aircraft, from the beginning of 1917 onwards, was an upper-surface finish of pale grey and green camouflage, with grey under surfaces. The French pattern of national markings was followed, with the Belgian colours of red, yellow and black replacing the French ones. This is illustrated on the Hanriot HD 1, a type used by the Belgians as one of their main fighters, despite the fact that it was a French design that had not found favour in its own country. It was also used in Italy in considerable numbers, and acquitted itself well in both areas. The Imperial Russian air forces used a variety of different markings during the course of the war. The wings and fuselage were marked with a square and a triangle respectively, each divided into white, red and blue portions.

There was an alternative to this, however, in the form of an optional roundel, with more rings than was usual on Allied aircraft (a white outer ring, then red, white, blue and white again in the centre). The Imperial Russian Navy also used a rudder marking in the form of the naval ensign — a blue St Andrew's Cross on a white background. The use of these markings was somewhat haphazard,

some

large aircraft, for

example, having two roundels on the fin, one above the other. The Russians were also unusual in painting a roundel on each side of the tailplane

on some types

of aircraft.

At the beginning of the war,

Russian

aircraft

were

in

natural doped finish, but by the beginning of 1915 a grey overall finish had been adopted as standard, and this remained the authorised colour until Russia dropped out of the war at the end of 1917.

The SPAD A2 and MoraneL, both French types service with the Russians

Saulnier in

long after they had become obsolete on the Western Front, illustrate the somewhat odd appearance of Russian markings and overall finish.

2521

Rumania's small

air

force

was equipped wholly with aeroplanes of French origin, and not surprisingly her national markings were derived from the French ones. As Rumania's colours were red, yellow and blue, however, the white of the French roundel was replaced by yellow in the Rumanian roundel. The Nieuport 17 makes this difference apparent. The basic colour

scheme for Rumanian aircraft was the same as that for Russian ones- pale grey overall.

Serbia's air force was equipped solely with French types, and the Greek air force almost entirely with them. The national colours of Serbia were the same as those of France, so identical markings were used. After her entry into the war, Greece's air force, which had been very weak in 1914, became ever

stronger and more efficient,

and also used French insignia on its machines. No Serbian or Greek machines are shown. Japan's war effort in the air was restricted to gunnery and artillery spotting at the siege of Tsingtao in 1914. The majority of the aircraft used were French, although an increasing number of indigenous types made their debut during the course of the war. By 1918, several types of

machines were being adopted, and the illustration of Japanese markings is on a Sopwith1 /2-Strutter. Portugal's air force took no part in air operations on the Western Front, but did undertake war flights from British

1

the Azores, patrolling against

German U-Boats. Her markings are illustrated on the FBA Type B flying boat. Portugal possessed a fair number of British and French flying boats. China's minuscule air force took no part in the war, but as she was one of the Allies, her markings are shown here, on the Caudron G III The story of the markings used by the United States is a lengthy one. The need for national markings first became apparent during the MexicanAmerican war' of 1915. As a result, a blue star in a white disc was adopted as the

marking for aircraft accompanying the US expedition. There was still no ruling on the markings for aircraft at home.

On

France, the the American Expeditionary Force adopted the by-now standard roundel of the other Allies, but with the order of the colours altered to avoid confusion with the roundels of the French arrival in

air units of

and

British air forces.

2522

These

were, from the outside, red, blue and white. The rudder stripes were red, white and blue, in that order from the rudder hinge. These markings were always made as large as possible, the wing roundels often extending from leading to trailing edge. Late in 1917, these AEF markings were adopted as standard in

US also. Aircraft in the US were finished in a buff colour, while those destined for

the

France were usually painted with a dope that produced a pale grey finish. The war experience of the Allies had

shown camouflage

be vital, however, and the AEF's air units thus started to use a version of the French system, although very considerable latitude was allowed to the various squadrons. The US Navy opted for to

different markings. On April 21, 1917 the Navy chose a variation on the earlier starin-a-circle motif. This was a red-centred white star in a blue disc, while the rudder stripes were the same as the

AEF.

(In fact,

it

was the AEF

which copied the stripes of the Navy.) In 1918, the Navy adopted the AEF roundel for its aircraft in the European theatre in place of the star, but the latter was retained for other areas. Before the war, the Navy's standard finish

copied by the other Central Powers in form and in colour, and became a marking very different and distinct from that of the Allies. The German national marking, then, was the Cross Pattee, or Iron Cross, from the arms of the royal house of Prussia.

This was in use from the start of the war until the spring of 1918. On March 20, 1918 it was ordered that from April 15 of

the same year the earlier type of cross should be replaced by the Greek Cross, known to the Germans as the Balkankreuze. And, unlike the Allies, the Germans used the same marking on the fin/rudder and the wings. Although the cross was basically just that — a black cross -it soon proved necessary to add a contrasting white edge to let the cross stand out against the background colour of the wing. (The difference between the Cross Pattee and the Greek Cross, incidentally, is this: the former's limbs are wider at their ends than in the centre, where they join, and do not have parallel sides, whereas the latter has

and parallel sides.) As with the other countries fighting in the First World War, camouflage was at first unknown in Germany. Up to the end of 1915, all aeroplanes had a natural cream or buff straight

finish, the

colour of doped

linen, but this often

became

had been plain varnished fabric, but in mid-1917 a navygreen or navy-grey finish was adopted. The US Marine Corps' aeroplanes were in the same finish as the Navy's, and had

a dull grey when subjected to the outdoor rigours of active service. The first form

similar markings, with the

overprinted with a screen of small black dots) was tried, with very little success. Later in the year, at about the time the Allies were coming to realise the need for camouflage, the Germans also introduced their own pattern, a sprayed-on colour scheme of green, purple and brown patches on all upper surfaces. Later, with the introduction of types with a rounded fuselage, it became possible to use an under-surface camouflage, in which a well-defined line could be established between the upper and lower

exception of the roundel on the fuselage side. This had an anchor across it. The SPAD XIII, of the 22nd Aero Squadron, shows the standard AEF markings, the DH 4 those of the

day-bomber squadrons and the Thomas Morse Scout those of the

US Marine Corps'

aircraft.

The Central Powers

differed

from the Allies in the form of their national entirely

markings. They eschewed the roundel entirely, and based their markings on the square or portions of it, as in the square Turkish symbol and the cross of the other powers, with their straight outer edges. The idea behind this

camouflage was introduced 1916, when an experiment (in which natural fabric was

of in

surfaces. Where this was possible, the under surface was painted grey-blue. When paint became rare in 1918, these machines were left with

not initially to make the markings of the Central

their plain

Powers

merely varnished.

was

radically different

from those of the Allies. It was more an opportune accident, based on the fact that the most obvious symbol for the Germans, the leaders of the Central Powers, was the cross of the Hohenzollern family of Prussia. Thereafter,

it

was

The

plywood fuselages

deterioration of Ger-

many's overall war situation meant that from late 1917 onwards, the German Empire had great difficulty in obtaining linen of good enough quality to cover aircraft. Even when this

was

obtainable,

it

could

not take the number of coats dope to proof it and to

of

camouflage

it,

and so camou-

flage-printed fabrics were introduced. These were of two types. For the smaller aircraft, there were fabrics with lozenge or irregular shaped patterns in black, blue, brown, green, yellow and pink. For larger machines, such as the G and R machines, there was a fabric with an 18-inch hexagon pattern of black, blue, grey,

red-mauve, blue-mauve and sage green. latter type of fabric of too inferior a quality

This

was

forthe wings and tailplanes of the large R types, so these lifting surfaces were covered with the best linen available, usually hand-painted to match the regular hexagons of the printed fabric used on the fuselage and fin/rudder units. The Albatros D III (Leutnant Voss of Jasfa 5) shows typical fighter camouflage and markings of the spring of 1917, the

Roland C II (Leutnant Seibert of FIAbt 5) the pilot's individual markings and the national markings of the autumn of 1916 and the Pfalz D XII the 1918 markings and camouflage of Leutnant

Kammerer of Jasta

35.

Although the national insignia were fixed, other markings were not, and great latitude was allowed to pilots in fighter units, especially the aces.

Austria-Hungary used the German markings throughout the war, with the addition of three broad stripes of red and white (the latter in the middle) on the wingtips of naval aircraft, as a form of ensign. These markings earlier

were also carried on the tail occasionally, as on the Phonix D fighter shown. Camouflage I

followed the German pattern. Initially the Turks used an

emblem based on

their national with a white crescent and star on a red square, but in 1915 they changed this to a white-edged black square. This was done to avoid confusion with the red on Allied markings and to bring the markings into conformity with the black and white of the other Central Powers. The flag,

Turks used German aircraft throughout the war (flown for the most part by Germans too), with a natural or sandy brown

(AEG CIV). Bulgaria's markings, like Austria-Hungary's, were the same as Germany's. The cross on the lower wing had no white edging (Fokker E III). On the upper surfaces, the Bulgarians used a strip of green paint along the trailing edge of the finish

wing to differentiate their machines from German ones

Great Britain

Great Britain

Sopwith Dolphin

SE5

Great Britain BE 2a

France

France SPADXIII

France Breguet 14 A2

Nieuport 17

Italy

Italy

SVA5

SVA5

Russia

Russia Morane-Saulnier L

SPADA2

Belgium Hanriot

HD

1

Rumania Nieuport 17

2523

Japan Sopwith 1V2-Strutter

FBATypeB

United States of America

United States of America

United States of America

SPADXIII

DH4

Thomas Morse Scout

Germany Albatros D

I

Austria-Hungary

PhonixDI 2524

Portugal

Germany LFG Roland CM

China

Caudron G

Germany PfalzDXH

Turkey

Bulgaria

AEG CIV

FokkerEII

On June

13, 1917.

Japan's

Ambassador Extraordinary and

Viscount Kikujiro

Plenipotentiary, left for the United States where he joined the ministers and representatives of the other Allied countries in expressing the gratitude of their governments for the decision of the United States to enter the war against Germany. Ostensibly, the object of the Ishii mission was similar to that of the other Allied missions, that is to discuss the wartime role of the United States. In reality, however, the Ishii mission had as its real purpose the discussion of Japanese interests in China. After arriving in Washington, Viscount Woodrow called upon President Ishii Wilson with whom he initiated discussion of Japanese-American conflicts in China. In their conversation, he found Wilson amicable and flexible, though firmly committed to the Open Door policy and opposed to exclusive spheres of influence in China. Upon Wilson's suggestion, Ishii continued these discussions with Secretary of State Robert Lansing, cabling his superiors in Tokyo after his meeting with President Wilson that the prospects for a Japanese-

American rapprochement

in

the withdrawal of the United States from any desire to exercise influence in Chinese

Ishii,

The LansingIshii Agreement America, who had been foremost in urging Britain to restrain her ally Japan, was party to an agreement that gave Japan almost a free hand in China. In an exchange of notes, Robert Lansing and Viscount Ishii Ironically,

recognised 'Japan's special position' in China. Ronald

Heiferman. Below: Robert Lansing, US Secretary of State

China seemed

brighter than he had originally anticipated. In their first conversation, Ishii suggested to Lansing that the misunderstandings which divided Japan and the United States in China were largely the result of German propaganda which deliberately misrepresented Japanese actions in China in order to exploit Japanese-American

method of avoiding future misunderstandings and confrontations in China was to issue a joint affirmation of the Open Door

to recognise that 'special interests' in China.

Viscount

Ishii

adamant attempt

understood

that

any

could wreck the conversations. Sensing the anxiety of Lansing to come to some understanding with the Japanese, Ishii did not insist that the United States recognise

Japan's

paramount

settling instead for a

position

in

China,

vague and ambiguous

Chinese government had in its relations with foreign governments always followed the principles of justice and equality; that the rights extended to friendly nations by treaty had been consistently respected; that the special relations created by territorial contiguity were provided for in the treaties; and that henceforth as before, the Chinese government would adhere to these principles, but that it could not allow itself to be bound by any agreement entered into by other nations. The Chinese discounted the value of outside guarantees of their independence. To them, only sufficient strength and force would guarantee this. The assertion that Japan would defend China's sovereignty was meaningless to a people

In the end, the Lansing-Ishii agreement proved to be an unfortunate episode in Japanese-American diplomacy which benefited only the Japanese. Chinese faith in American policies in China was under-

mined as a result of American recognition of Japan's special interests there. The short term benefits of the Japanese-Ameri-

statement of Japan's 'special interests' agreeable to both Lansing and himself. The United States and Japan exchanged formal notes on the situation in China on November 2, 1917. In his note to Viscount Ishii, Lansing recognised Japan's special position in China based on the territorial propinquity of the two nations. In return, Viscount Ishii reaffirmed Japan's adherence to the principle of the Open Door providing equal opportunity for all nations to participate in the commerce and industry of China. Speaking for their respective governments, both men declared their opposition to the acquisition of any special rights or privileges by any government in China that would affect the territorial integrity of China and the sovereignty of the Chinese government. This was the substance of the Lansing-Ishii agreement.

Japan had

to battle over semantics

States dismissing their obligation to affirm the agreement in the following terms: The

sions, all will be well.'

principle. Ishii replied to this suggestion

was willing

Lansing concerning the limited meaning of American recognition of Japanese interests in China, most Chinese accepted as real the Japanese interpretation of the notes which included recognition of Japan's political as well as economic interests in China. This being the case, the Chinese were highly critical of the agreement. Several days after the publication of the texts of the Lansing-Ishii notes the Chinese addressed a formal statement to the governments of Japan and the United

who saw Japanese actions in China as the c chief threat to their sovereignty. As this view was put in an editorial of the China Press: 'If Japan, to put it plainly, will defend China against Japanese aggres-

Lansing agreed with this differences. analysis, promptly suggesting that the best

by pointing out that such a declaration had already been made in the Root-Takahira notes of 1908. In addition, he also pointed out that this principle had been written into Anglo-Japanese agreements and other Japanese treaties with the Allies. Simply to repeat this declaration, Ishii thought, would cast doubt on Japan's integrity. On the other hand, Ishii suggested that if a new declaration were to include additional provisions, such as some recognition of Japan's special interests in China, the Japanese government would warmly join in such a statement. At their second meeting, Lansing inquired of Ishii what expression might be used to define Japanese interests in China should there be an agreement between the United States and Japan on this matter. Ishii suggested that the United States recognise Japan's 'paramount interest in China', pointing out that this phrase had frequently been used to define American interests in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Lansing objected strongly to such phrasing, informing Ishii that any nation which accepted Japan's paramount interest in China would be forced to acquiesce in all Japan did there. This the United States was not prepared to do, although Lansing

Despite the pious protestations of

affairs.

America's mistake, Japan's gain The Japanese were generally satisfied with the agreement which they believed confirmed their political and economic policies in China. This view was shared by most other governments including the government of China which viewed the agreement as a sign of tacit American approval of Japanese policies in China indicating

can detente in China were poor compensation for the loss of face suffered by the United States in Chinese eyes. The ambiguity of the agreement permitted the Japanese to consolidate their gains in China and, if the United States did not recognise the legitimacy of these gains, little was done to dislodge the Japanese from them. Without a precise definition of their special interests the Japanese expanded their position in China, leaving the Chinese no alternative but to accede to these gains until a postwar rectification could be made. The agreement, which had been conceived of by Lansing as a means of insuring the continued independence and sovereignty of China's government, offered little real protection against the advance of the Japanese. Further Reading

Woodrow Wilson and

the Far East 1952) Griswold, A. W., The Far Eastern Policy of the United States (Harcourt Brace 1938) Fifield, R.,

(Crowe

Ishii,

1

1

Kikujiro, Diplomatic

Commentaries

(Baltimore 1936) Reinsch, P., An American Diplomat in China (Doubleday 1922) W., The International Relations of Young, Manchuria (University of Chicago Press 1929)

C

[For Ronald Heiferman' s p. 1040.*}

biography, see

after the outbreak of war the Chinese government had adopted a policy of neutrality toward the belligerents. Since

Shortly

the parties to the European conflict had substantial interests in China, the first priority of the Chinese government was to avoid an extension of the European war to Chinese soil. Powerless to enforce China's neutrality should any of the all

belligerents wish to violate it, leaders of the republican government mounted a diplomatic campaign aimed at engaging the belligerents in an agreement to exclude China from the conduct of the war. Unfortunately for the Chinese, this campaign failed, not so much because of British or German objections (the plan would have been advantageous to them) but because of

Japanese opposition. Allies, as early as 1915, had sought have China declare war against Germany, but the chaotic political situation in China, combined with strong Japanese objection, temporarily ended the attempt

The

to

bring her into the war. The question of her participation was not taken up again until February 1917 when the United States circulated a note inviting neutral countries to sever diplomatic relations with Germany as a gesture of protest against the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare begun on February 1. The decision of the United States to sever diplomatic relations with Germany and her note of February 4, 1917 suggesting that other neutrals do likewise, had far leaching effects in China. Although Chinese officials were initially hesitant to follow the lead of the United States, they saw in the American overture a means of securing certain benefits, particularly a seat at the postwar peace conference at which they might plead their case against Japan. Before taking any formal action, however, the Chinese made explicit to Paul Reinsch, American it Ambassador to China, that any action on their part would be deferred until they could be assured that Japan would not take advantage of any change in China's status with regard to Germany. Clearly, the Chinese were much more concerned with Japanese reaction to the change in China's neutral status than they were with to

German

responses.

Paul Reinsch, acting on his own initiative, persuaded the Chinese to join the United States in severing diplomatic ties with Germany, contingent, of course, on assurances of financial aid and full partici-

pation at the peace conference following the war. Such assurances were personally made by Reinsch in a note to the Chinese cabinet on February 7, 1917. Believing that Reinsch's statement represented the official American view, the Chinese sent the following telegraphic message to Berlin on February 9, 1917: The new measures of submarine warfare inaugurated by Germany, imperilling the lives and property of Chinese citizens to an even greater extent than the measures previously taken which have already cost so many human lives to China, constitute a violation of the principles of public international law at present in force; the tolerance of their application would have as a result the introduction of arbitrary principles incompatible with even legitimate commercial intercourse between neutral states and belligerent powers. In case contrary to its expectations its protests be ineffectual, the government of the Chinese republic will be constrained to its profound regret to sever diplomatic relations existing at present between the

two countries.

On March

10, 1917, the German governreplied to the Chinese communique of February 9. Conciliatory in tone, the German note expressed surprise over the Chinese threat to sever relations with

ment

Germany: The Imperial Government is ... willing to comply with the wishes of the Government of the Republic of China by opening .

negotiations to arrive at a plan for the protection of Chinese life and property, with the view that the end may be achieved and thereby the utmost regard be given to the shipping rights of China. The reason that has prompted the Imperial Government to adopt this conciliatory policy is the knowledge that once diplomatic relations are severed with Germany, China will not only lose a truly good friend but will also be entangled in unthinkable difficulties. Despite the conciliatory nature of the German note, the Peking government was committed to severing diplomatic relations with Germany. Indeed, on the day that the

bassies were immediately closed and the Dutch were entrusted to act as their agents in China until normal diplomatic relations

might be resumed. Having severed diplomatic relations with Germany, the Chinese government laboured over the decision to declare war on Germany for five months. The strain of reaching a decision on this matter shook the Republic to its foundations, nearly causing the collapse of the central government. The debate was set against a background of constitutional division and governmental chaos in which the issue was not so much whether to declare war but, rather, how to go about the business of reaching a decision within the framework of constiTo complicate government. tutional matters further, debate over the war issue occurred at a time when the question of constitutional revision had been introduced in parliament, resulting in a split between those who favoured stronger executive powers and those who preferred to see the powers of the executive subordinated to the legislature. Thus, debate over the declaration of war became a contest between those who, like Premier Tuan Chi-jui, favoured greater executive powers, and those who, like President Li Yuanhung, maintained the primacy of the legislature. Although there were. legitimate differences of views concerning the war issue, such differences were obscured by this domestic controversy. Premier Tuan and his supporters in the Peiyang military clique favoured an immediate declaration of war against Germany without waiting for full parliamentary debate and approval. On the other hand, President Li Yuan-hung, although not necessarily unfavourably disposed toward declaring war on Germany, was determined that parliamentary prerogatives be upheld at all costs and refused to curtail discussion of the matter in parliament. Debate continued for several months

arrived in China (March 10, 1917), the Chinese parliament voted in favour of severing diplomatic ties with Germany. Four days later (March 14,

during which time Tuan Chi-jui and his supporters tried every method to persuade members of parliament to vote in favour of war. Failing in this, supporters of the Premier organised a massive demonstration against parliament on May 10, 1917. The demonstration degenerated into a riot. Para-military groups, such as the

and German miniswere summoned to the Foreign Ministry where their passports were returned and they were instructed to leave the country. The Austrian and German em-

Citizens Corps, participated in the mob action. Led by generals of the Peiyang clique, they took advantage of the occasion to lay siege to the parliament building. Under such pressures, members of parlia-

German message

1917), the Austrian

ters

America's entry into the war left China in an awkward position. Henceforward America would be an ally of Japan, and would find it oppose Japan's territorial demands at any peace conference. The Lansing-Ishii agreement merely confirmed China's fears. Her only chance of retaining some say in the peace settlement after the war was to declare for the Allies. Ronald Heiferman

difficult to

LI526

CHINA the unlikely Ally

A week

ment

and

members

(July 12, 1917), 50,000 Republican troops led by lieutenants of Tuan Chi-jui laid seige to Peking. The capital city was quickly retaken, the restoration of the Manchus was crushed and Chang Hsun fled to the safety of the Dutch legation in Peking

voted to suspend debate and all of the cabinet resigned in protest, except for the premier, Tuaa Chi-jui. Presidenl Li Yuan-hung, already under considerable pressure to dismiss Tuan, was toned to move against him after the Peking (layette revealed Tuan's connection with those who led the parliamentary riot and his close association with Japanese interests in China. On May 23, 1917, Tuan Chi-jui was relieved of his position and replaced by Wu Ting-fang. The dismissal of Tuan Chi-jui precipitated a political crisis between parliamentary forces and military leaders loyal to Tuan which threatened to plunge the nation into civil war. Torn between his loyalty to the principles of constitutional government and the necessity of avoiding a disastrous civil conflict in China, Li Yuan-hung finally acceded to the ultimatum of the northern warlords who supported the deposed Premier, and dissolved parliament on June 12, 1917. With Tuan Chi-jui in forced retirement and parliament dissolved, the country was divided and affairs came to a standstill. At this critical juncture, attempts were made to mediate between the warlords of the Peiyang clique and the constitutionalists in parliament; the mediator was to be Chang Hsun, a reactionary general of the old regime. Instead of mediating the dispute between Li Yuan-hung and the tuchuns (warlords), Chang Hsun took advantage of the chaos of the moment to attempt a restoration of the Manchu dynasty. On July 1, 1917, with his forces in control of Peking, Chang Hsun restored the last Manchu emperor, Henry Pu-yi (Hsuan-tung), to the throne which he had been forced to abdicate in February 1912. When President Li Yuan-hung refused to resign his presidency to support the revived monarchy he was temporarily imprisoned, but later he was released to the Japanese who escorted him to their legation in Peking from where he led the resistance to the restoration of the Manchus. In this endeavour, Li Yuan-hung was joined by his parliamentary colleagues and many of his adversaries in the Peiyang military clique who quickly disavowed any intent to support a revival of the monarchy. Within days after the beginning of the abortive attempt to restore the Manchu dynasty, all but three provinces in China declared against the monarchy. On July 5, 1917, hostilities between Chang Hsun

his

opponents began.

where he sought July

14,

Tuan

later

political sanctuary.

Chi-jui entered

On

Peking and

the following day he reassumed his position as Premier over the objection of Li Yuanhung who resigned from the presidency and left the city. After Li Yuan-hung's resignation, parliamentary forces fled southward where they later organised an opposition government in Canton. For the time being, however, control of the Peking government fell into the hands of Tuan Chi-jui and his clique. On August 14, 1917, exactly five months to the day after China had severed diplomatic relations with Germany, the Chinese government issued a declaration of war against Germany and Austria, and immediately confiscated German interests in China not already taken by the Japanese. Beyond these acts, the Chinese contributed little to the war effort. The sole purpose of the declaration of war was to strengthen the hand of the Peking government both at home and abroad. With the country officially at war with Germany, the Peking regime activated constitutional restrictions on civil liberties and political dissent, treating opposing political factions as treasonous if they dared voice objections to the policies of Tuan Chi-jui. On the international scene, China's entry into the war guaranteed her a seat at the peace conference and permitted the Peking government to negotiate a large loan from a new consortium of European banks. Although the ostensible purpose of the loan was to refurbish the Chinese army for possible action in the war, the equipment and supplies purchased with the funds were used instead against the rebel government at Canton. Further Reading LaFargue, T. E., China and the World War (Stanford University Press 1937) Li Chien-nung, A Political History of China (Prentice-Hall 1956) Tien-yi, Woodrow Wilson's China Policy (University of Kansas City Press 1951) Wheeler, W. R., China and the World War (Macmillan 1919) Li

[For Ronald Heiferman's biography, see p. 1040. |

Yuang-hung, cautious in his war on the Central Powers, opposed the Premier Tuan Chi-jui and refused Top: President

Li

attitude to declaring

to resign in favour of the restored Manchu dynasty until eventually forced to do so. Above: General Tuan Chi-jui. China s Premier, favoured an immediate declaration of war on the Central Powers. His dismissal in May 1917 by Li Yuan-hung provoked a crisis between the military and parliament that led to Li Yuanhung's resignation

2527

1

I

U BOATS the tide turns German U-Boat campaign came to success, in fact a case of too little and too late. This was well recognised by the German naval authorities, and Tirpitz described the campaign as 'a measure of despair'. The difficulties lay in keeping enough U-Boats at sea to inflict the required losses, at the same time making good their own Close though the it

was

losses,

Below:

which were heavy. Bryan McLean Ranft.

A diminishing threat to Allied shipping. German crewmen range in a U-Boat gun on a target

ftf

/ f

2528

n

The German naval chief's conviction that the U-Boat was going to do what Germany's armies had failed to do, drive Britain out of the war, was turned into a dogma by the 81X0068868 of the first three months of the unrestricted campaign launched on February 1917. Like their British counterparts they exaggerated the organising a complete convoy System covering British home waters, the North and South Atlantic and the Mediterranean. They were unchanging in their belief that if only they could get the necessary industrial manpower and resources to increase substantially the number of submarines operating against the convoys, they would carry out their promise to the Emperor. Britain, the centre of enemy power and will to resist, would be defeated by the new form o\ the guern de course, waged ruthlessly by the submarine and the mine. Two distinguished German admirals. Tirpiti and Scheer, did not share this confidence Although Tnpit/ admitted that the opening of the unrestricted campaign in 1917 was inevitable because it was the only possible way to defeat Britain, he thought that it was too late He bitterly condemned the weakness of Germany's political leaders who had called off the earlier campaign in April 191ti under American pressure. This had raised doubts about Germany's tenacity of purpose and above all, had given the British time to improve their countermeasures. If the 1916 campaign had been continued. British morale would have crumbled while the German people would have been more steadfast under the blockade, knowing that their enemies were suffering too. Now in 1917 Germany had got the worst of all worlds. America was in the war against her, domestic morale was low, and. at least from April. Allied countermeasures were beginning to take a heavy toll of the U-Boat force. Moreover, Tirpitz considered that the civil authorities were so lukewarm in their support of the campaign, that they would never provide the industrial resources necessary for its success. 'As a measure of despair, half-heartedly, and with already broken prestige, we undertook the unrestricted campaign, which, a year earlier, would 1,

difficulty of

*

Leaving a tell-tale scarcity of targets

wake a U-Boat periscope scans the sea for victims. A was to be the lot of U-Boat Commanders after June 1917

have appeared as the act of a strong people confident of victory.' Scheer, in command of the High Seas Fleet until his appointment to be Chief of the Naval Staff in August 1918, shared Tirpitz's views that if Germany had persisted in 1916 she would have won a decisive victory before America entered the war. A great deal was to depend on Germany's ability to build new submarines relative to the enemy's capability to destroy those

^ ^^^JWB;

(May 1917-December

Attrition at Sea

1918)

10

At Sea

61

42

45

Dock

24 47

28

30

59 27

60

53

132

130

121

In

Under Repair lotdl

130

55

30

60

33

50

26

17

29

29

53

39 46

81

57

70

139

140

137

134

132

50 129

44 18

55

36

45

45

43

17

15

17

10

5

72

63 125

53

61

59

67

112

121

69 124

80

125

128

121

127

July

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

March

May

April

June

July

Aug

Causes of British Losses 175

1917

176

197

May 219

227

240

GERMAN U-BOATS COMMISSIONED U-BOATS IN SERVICE U-BOATS LOST

M^ I

=1

June

BRITISH FIGURES)

NO. OF SHIPS LOST

(TONNAGE

1

I

IN BRACKETS) TOTAL LOSSES OF! NEUTRAL & ALLIED SHIPS

332

2530

332

BY ALL FORMS OF ENEMY ACTION

(819)

1

No

of

II'

Oct

6 )

Nov

Submarines

106(320 572) 116(391 004)

(3

947)

1

(1

608)

84(310 551) 68(173 437)

July

11 (44 927)

August September

6(17 651)

October

6(13 324) 8(18 754)

1

(1

159)

79 (261 649)

8 (23 608)

1

(2

284)

56(154 806) 76(227 195)

November December

88 (319 931)

9 (22 335)

1918 57(179 973) 68(224 501) 79(194 839)

I

1

(2

395)

March

3

(4

619)

April

2

(1

863)

May

1

(3

707)

June

2

(4 330)

3(4 211)

66 (209 379) 59(188 729)

49(158 660) 37(165 449)

July

August September

41 (145 721)

October

1

(3

030)

November

1

(1

721)

48 (136 864) 23 (545 77) 1

(1

622)

11") Dec

Ships(tonnageinbrackets)

1

January I

Sept

Surface Craft

14(28 114) 4(19 256)

February

NEW SHIPS (QUARTERLY

Mines

L»

US

L2

May

54

37 18

2(103

15)

German U-Boat

Losses

Causes of Destruction 1917 1918 (In all waters) Mine Depth Charge Submarine (Torpedo)

Mine

14 12

18 24

8

6

Gunfire

5

6

Ramming

3

5

Decoys

5

2

6 3

1

Sweeps

1

1

2

1

Accident

1

U

Aircraft nets. Nets etc

H.E.

Li

OFF N IRELAND U6 8b UB 124 x 89 U 45 UB 82 1

Captured

Wrecked

Unknown

4

5

Total

63

69

ATLANTIC (J

49

U81

UC 29 U

99

DOVER BARRAGE ENGLISH CHANNEL UB 36 UC61 UC66

UB1U

(JC65

UB 108 UB 18

UC 16 UC 50

U M13, U 93

UB 56 UB 35

UB UB

UB38

UB31

UB

33 55

UB 103 UB 109 U

109

UC 79

UC78 UC77

58

UC69

British Shipping Losses

May - July Ships convoyed

sunk!

:

|8

1

August - October 1917

917 No. sunk

707

356

1 1

2

November

1

917

- January

1918

Ships sailing independently

420

169

February — April 1918

% of

total losses

J57]

31 y.

93% 37] 30%

82%

|n

75] 41%

812

83%

221

[17 163

85

57J

T

May -July 1918

60%

1 1 1

259

156

33%

|19 374

103

43| -38%

78%

26-13% 80%

August —October 1918

2531

n

-

/ already in commission. German official sources show that in 1917 she had 138 U-Boats in commission at the beginning of the year. She built 103 as compared with losing 72, a net gain of 31. She thus began 1918 with a force of 169 of which 81 were lost. These losses exactly equalled the new construction during the year and she thus ended the war with 169 boats. The additions in 1917 marked the climax of the building programme and the 1918 figures show quite conclusively that she was not capable of achieving the strength needed to overcome the convoy escorts.

More mines, and better mines The German Naval Staff realised

that rapid success they had promised, they

if

they were to gain the

must attack Allied mer-

it was most concentrated — in the English Western Approaches. To get to these hunting grounds without excessive expenditure of time and fuel, the U-Boats must penetrate the Dover Straits. Commanders were given detailed instructions for this dangerous passage. It should always be made at night, with the current, and, if possible, on the surface. If forced to dive by British patrols, the submarine was to submerge deep enough to go beneath the net barrier known to be there. They were also to dive when minefields were suspected. Up to the autumn of 1917 the U-Boats had little trouble with British mines which were usually found near the surface and were notoriously inefficient. Submarine commanders in 1917 were also warned of the growing number of patrol vessels equipped with hydrophones. These could be evaded by diving deep, running quietly on one electric motor and turning off all auxiliary machinery. Once through these dangers and nearing the shipping routes, submarine captains in 1917 were not given the free hand they had had in previous years. In an effort to use their resources more efficiently, the command gave each boat a priority area so that all likely killing grounds were covered. After the introduction of the convoy system in April 1917, a few farsighted U-Boat captains saw that a possible countermeasure was to concentrate a number of boats in a simultaneous attack. Some boats were equipped with special radio apparatus to direct others into the attack and experiments were made in the last year of the war. After September 1917 the U-Boats found that they could no longer afford to despise British mines. A new type, based on a German model, was now being laid in great quantities. Offensive

chant shipping where

Channel and

its

Top: Mines. Second only to the depth charge as an anti-submarine weapon, mines accounted for 14 of the 63 U-Boat losses in 1917. Editor's note: The figures for U-Boat losses are difficult to arrive at, as primary sources often conflict. The figures in the chart on page 2530 refer to the Western Approaches and the North Sea only, and include only a part of 1917. They therefore differ slightly from the figures given in the article which cover the whole year and all waters. The same applies to British shipping losses

TV^ -

2532

—^^^^fcjM -i/

minelaying operations in the Heligoland Bight were frequently mounted and in the second half of 1917 accounted for at least six submarines. Similar fields were laid off the Flanders submarine bases and these in the same period claimed another five victims. An equal number were sunk in the defensive minefields in British home waters. In the year as a whole 20 U-Boats were sunk by enemy mines, as well as another six which accidentally hit their own. The mine was by far the most effective antisubmarine weapon of the time. In 1918 it was to destroy another 18 victims. New techniques in the Dover Straits were to present the U-Boats with their chief mining threat in that year, but they also found increased danger nearer home. New fields in the Heligoland Bight claimed their first victim in January, and further laying in the Kattegat threatened those who tried to emerge via the Kiel Canal and the Baltic. That the total losses for the year were not proportionate to the vastly increased British minelaying effort was due entirely to the great resources and determination which Germany put into minesweeping. But against the increased dangers in the Dover Straits she could do little, except launch an occasional destroyer raid at night. Up to the end of 1917 the mined net-barrage had been easy to evade. By the beginning of June no less than 190 safe passages had been made, mostly on the surface at night. Only eight U-Boats had actually touched the mines and another eight forced to dive by patrols. None were sunk. By October the defences were strengthened by a deep mine barrage, which was continually increased for the rest of the war. Simultaneously plans were being discussed to have the barrage much more heavily patrolled and the Straits so brilliantly illuminated that no submarine could hope to slip through on the surface at night. That something more was needed was established by the fact that despite the new mines, at least 35 submarines got through in November and December. On December 14 the Admiralty ordered additional patrols and illumination to be inaugurated. With the new leadership of Admiral Roger Keyes, the new methods soon brought results.

Under the glare of searchlights and flares and constantly threatened by a patrolling force of about 100 ships supplemented by aircraft, the U-Boats found surface passages equally impossible by day or night. If they dived there was the danger of the new deep mine barrage. In January 1918 five submarines were sunk in the Straits as compared with only two in all the previous years of

the war. In February the German-based boats were ordered to use the safer but much longer northern route round Scotland. The smaller Flanders boats, however, were still getting through the Straits and this led to a raid on their base at Zeebrugge in April 1918. Despite what was believed at the time, the raid did little to delay the submarine sailings and it was the strengthening of the Straits barrage and air-bombing raids on the bases which were ultimately effective. In June and July only nine I -Boats attempted the passage. The last one to do so was blown up on September 16. Henceforward the Flanders boats too had to use the longer northern route before they could attack their prey German sources give a vivid picture of the succession of perils which faced the Flanders boats before September 1918. With their brief rest periods disturbed by air raids, they sailed from their bases only to be immediately confronted by the 35 miles of minefield between Dunkirk and the Scheldt. They had either to make a long detour through Dutch waters or else to try to slip over the danger at night; the sea was not deep enough to dive beneath the mines. This peril surmounted there was then the Dover net barrage to be evaded and then the Straits themselves with their mines, searchlights and ubiquitous patrols now abundantly equipped with the deadly depth charges. Even if they got through it was with nerves already strained that captains and crews arrived on the hunting grounds to face the ever-increasing strength of the convoy escorts. At the back of their minds was the haunting thought that all their earlier dangers had to be faced again before they returned to base. It was with great relief that they received the order to use the northern route in future. Even this was soon to have its own dangers. Encouraged by the success of the Dover defences, the Allies decided to mine the 240mile channel between Orkney and Norway. Laying began in March 1918 and over 70,000 mines were used. It was a magnificent technical feat, but the material results were small, chiefly due to faults in the new American mines and the depths at which they were laid. A further weakness came in August when the craft patrolling the barrier were withdrawn for other duties. No more than six U-Boats were actually destroyed by the Northern Barrage. It is now known that the passages through it increased from a monthly average of 30 in the first half of 1918 to 42 in July/ September. Although it must have had an additional depressing effect on the U-Boats' morale, its laying was probably an unnecessary burden for the Allies to assume. By the time it was operational, the convoy system had already defeated the submarine, but the British and American naval leaders were still doubtful that it was the decisive weapon. This can be accounted for partly by the fact that more submarines were still being sunk by other methods. As already mentioned, mines in 1917 accounted for 20 U-Boats, while another 22 were sunk by ships and aircraft on patrol and hunting operations. Against these figures, only six were destroyed by convoy escorts. In 1918, the patrols and hunters came out on top with 24 successes, as against 18 by mines and ten by convoy escorts. 1

Convoy — the answer to total war Germany's aim was to sink so much

Allied shipping that not

enough tonnage would remain to feed the British people, maintain war industries and bring American troops and munitions across the Atlantic to confront the already weakened German

armies in France and Flanders. It was this aim which the convoy system frustrated. As it was more widely applied the tonnage destroyed decreased significantly. Simultaneously, the Allies, by more efficient use of the ships available and by stepping up their building and repairing effort, gradually made good some of the devastating losses suffered in the early months of 1917. By resorting to unrestricted submarine warfare Germany had turned her struggle with the Allies into a total war. This was her undoing. In such a contest economic strength and staying power were equally as important as military strength. Germany's mode of total warfare had brought the richest nation in the world into the ranks of her enemies and the sea power of the Allies was to prove just sufficient in the summer of 1917 to hold the ring in the waters of the Channel and its approaches until that power could be brought to bear. The six months from February to July 1917 had certainly been a period of staggering losses. Britain herself had lost 2,350,000 tons of shipping in addition to the loss of 1,500,000 tons by Allied and neutral nations. There had already been an appreciable shipping shortage at the end of 1916, so the position was indeed serious. Yet even before the full effects of convoy could be assessed, the underlying position in the food and materials essential

was not so precarious as the loss of merchant ships might suggest. This was due to the development of a more effective rationing system which cut down non-essential imports to make shipping space for those which were vital, and of organisation to ensure a more rapid turn round of ships in port. Financial arrangements made by the government had prevented the withdrawal of Scandinavian shipping which Germany had hoped would be caused by the submarine campaign. In addition, steps to increase shipbuilding and speed up repairs were instituted in both Britain and America which began to bear fruit by the end to Britain

of 1917. As a result of all this, in the first six months flour imports were actually 450,000 tons up on the corresponding period of 1916. This increase was to be maintained for the rest of the war, largely by concentrating on bringing in American supplies in fast liners to replace grain from the more distant South America and Australia. There were, however, substantial reductions in other essential foodstuffs, particularly meat and sugar, and supplies for the civil population had to be more stringently limited. In essential industrial materials there were few serious shortages, largely because of the shipping space made available by import limitations of non-essentials. Supplies of the two most important raw materials, wool and iron ore, were well maintained, but the priority given to grain and munitions on the Atlantic run did result in a serious shortage of cotton. There was enough for war purposes, but again the civilian population suffered. The government's most serious worry was over oil supplies.

The U-Boats had made heavy attacks on tankers and new building wartime construction navy was oil-burning, and increasingly motorised armies were swallowing up fuel, shortages could directly limit operational e efficiency. By the beginning of June, stocks in Britain amounted % to only 750,000 tons, under three months' supply. Drastic action s was required and took the form of fitting liners and tramps in the | fell

far behind. Moreover, as the majority of

for the

Atlantic trade with double bottoms to their ballast tanks in which oil could be carried. This meant reduction of their fribd and munition carrying capacity, but oil was the priority and the first

Below:

In

happier days. After the adoption of convoying, U-Boat rarely run the risk of picking up their victims

commanders could

2533

-s <»

J;

in July was the beginning of a regular traffic. Fortunately the work required was easy and took only three days to complete. At the same time an accelerated tanker building programme was begun.

shipment

Germany's Thus

failure

end of July, although the British government was anxious about the general shipping situation and particularly concerned about oil, they realised that if shipping losses could be gradually decreased, victory was in sight. In Germany, although the picture was superficially similar, the long term prospects were very different. The winter of 1916/17 had been endured by the German people, but it had been a bitter struggle. In May some relief came with the arrival of grain supplies from the newly conquered Rumania. Meats and fats, however, were critically short and there was evidence of the effects of undernourish-

ment

at the

in the

armed

forces as well as

among civilians. Added

to this

was a growing weakness

in future military capacity because of the virtually complete success of the Allied blockade in stopping imports of war materials by sea. The U-Boat campaign offered the only hope, not now of victory, but perhaps of exhausting the Allies so that they would accept a peace favourable to Germany. Such was the hope of the German naval command in the second half of 1917, even although their original plan to defeat Britain within six months had already failed. Political and military leaders were full of doubts, and if they had known exactly how the war against shipping was developing, their doubts would have

been confirmed. Yet there was no complacency in Britain. Convoy, introduced in April and gradually extended, had produced no miracle. It was true that the staggering losses of April, when 373 ships were sunk, were not repeated. In May the losses had reassuringly dropped to 287 ships of 593,206 tons, but this was a false dawn. In June there was a significant rise to 683,000 tons; of the 290 ships sunk U-Boats in dock at Kiel. Over the period May 1917 to December 1918 Germany's serviceable U-Boats numbered between 120 and 140. At any one moment only one third of these would be at sea; the remainder would be in dock for servicing and repairs

Im^m^i

*5S

aw *a #

;

iz# --

t >

:

but 18 were victims of U-Boats. The May results had been all the more encouraging because the decrease had been most marked in the really critical area of the South-Western Approaches, and had been accompanied by the sinking of seven submarines in home waters compared with only three in April. The June increases were most serious in these same waters, a rise of almost 509}, and the total losses would have been even more depressing but in the Mediterranean sinkings. The initial for a drop of 27' decline in losses in the Mediterranean was not due to the introduction of convoy, there were neither the escorts available nor an} confidence in its efficacy on the part of the British, French and Italian naval chiefs on the spot. The method of protection adopted was a mixture of patrolled and unpatrolled routes, although occasional convoys were formed for groups of not more than three especially important ships sailing between Malta and Alexandria. Great hopes were put into the provision of a net barrage across the Straits of Otranto, to bar the entry of U-Boats into the Mediall

<

terranean from their Austrian Adriatic bases. Italian refusal to provide destroyers to patrol it prevented its being constructed for some time. One good omen for the future was the creation of a better working relationship between the French and British commanders-in-chief. Even more promising for the future was the beginning in May of a small scale convoy organisation for ships sailing in both directions between Malta and Alexandria. Although the convoys were never of more than four ships and the escorts only armed trawlers, only two of the 275 ships which sailed in them up to mid-July were sunk. Overall success in the Mediterranean became a reality; except for a temporary setback in August there was a constant decline from the 32 British ships sunk in April to 17 in June, eight in July and seven in September. Although in the Mediterranean itself convoy was slow to be generally adopted, as early as May 10 there was an experimental ocean convoy from Gibraltar to Britain. It was a complete

,„

J n J z

success -all of its 17 merchant ships arrived safely. Station keeping was well maintained, and at the end of the trip the merchant ship Masters were completely convinced of its practicability. Equally significant, in the light of the strong economic arguments previously advanced against convoy, the voyage took two days less than it would have done on the diversionary routes hitherto used. Ships and time were saved, two essential commodities in this kind of war, and yet it was not until July that another Gibraltar convoy was organised. On the Admiralty's credit side, however, was their insistence on starting Atlantic convoys despite the lack of enthusiasm shown by the US Navy. On May 24 the first eastbound convoy left Hampton Roads, Virginia. Despite fog and heavy weather, formation was maintained and only one of the 12 merchantmen was torpedoed. This success continued in June. None of the 61 ships which sailed in convoy was lost and it was found possible to handle convoys of up to 20 ships, with a consequent increase in the economical use of escorts. Despite these successes, and the report of the Admiralty's Trade Convoy Committee in early June that a regular system should be inaugurated, this was not done until the end of the year. As yet, Jellicoe and the admiral directly responsible for the security of merchant shipping, Duff, were still not completely convinced of convoy's efficacy. Jellicoe refused to set up a regular ocean system until a far greater number of escorts was available, and refused to take destroyers from the Grand Fleet to meet the need. These doubts were shared by the US Navy, where many officers shared their British counterparts' preference for hunting and patrolling. A view was held at the time that the increased losses in June 1917 were directly attributable to the taking away of ships from these duties to supply convoy escorts. Jellicoe was still pessimistic about the ultimate outcome and in June warned the Cabinet that shortage of shipping might make it impossible to continue the war throughout 1918. More ominous were slight signs that the shipping community was beginning to lose faith in the Admiralty and might soon refuse to send their ships to sea unless more effective security was provided. These facts must have been in Lloyd George's mind when he removed Jellicoe from the Admiralty at the end of 1917. In fact the situation had improved substantially by then. In July, thanks to the arguments of Admiral Sims, the US Navy dropped its opposition to the extension of convoy and a regular North Atlantic schedule was instituted, operating at three/four day intervals. Outward bound ships to the United States were still sailing independently and in August the U-Boats began to concentrate on them with a consequent increase in losses. Equally heavy damage was being sustained on the unescorted South Atlantic and Mediterranean routes and even Jellicoe was convinced by the contrast. In mid-August regular westward-bound Atlantic convoys followed the institution of regular convoys from Gibraltar at the end of July. In August, too, a beginning was made on the South Atlantic route to Sierra Leone and Dakar. Of all the 600 ships which sailed in convoy during July and August only three were torpedoed and it became increasingly clear to both the British and German Admiralties that the great proportion of ships still being sunk were either sailing independently or else, for various reasons, had parted from their convoy.

Sinkings

fall

dramatically

Thus, by November 1917, a complete ocean convoy system was in full swing. On an average day 16 homeward-bound and seven outward-bound convoys would be at sea; neutral as well as Allied ships were included. Experience had shown that not only were large convoys perfectly manageable but also that they gave greater security. The average size on the Atlantic run was 20/25 ships; the largest in the whole war was of 47 ships, in June 1918. Behind the ships at sea was a worldwide organisation for the control of shipping, the assembling and sorting out of the ships into convoy according to their destinations and speed; for the provision of appropriate escorts at the right place at the right time; and, most fascinating of all, for the gathering and interpretation of Intelligence about the movements of the U-Boats. This last was largely the work of the mysterious Room 40 in the Admiralty in London. An extract from an official Admiralty publication describing the scene on the operations room gives some indication of how it all worked: Midnight at the Admiralty. The Atlantic Homeward Convoy, passing through Rendezvous H, is due and has been picked up 200 miles from Cape Clear. Down the pneumatic tube from Room 40 comes a cylinder rattling noisily into the wire basket — a directional perhaps from U65 and an intercepted signal from U69. They are quickly plotted and their positions lie only a few miles off the track of the incoming convoy. There is a rapid consultation. A message goes out within a quarter of an hour to the

2536

Commodore of the Convoy. He has received it by 1 am and the whole convoy has been swung off its course. At dawn when the two submarines rise to the surface the convoy is many miles away. The percentage of losses of ships in convoy of the total number sailing shows the true significance of what was happening. In all the convoys sailed in 1917 the total loss rate was no more than 1.23% of sailings. The U-Boats themselves began to incur heavy losses, particularly from the British minelaying effort which increased every month. Especially significant was the fact that in the last four months of 1917, the 32 U-Boats sunk almost equalled those newly commissioned. Here were two vital factors in the war against merchant shipping which were turning against Germany. The Naval Staff's confidence in the submarine war had been proved unjustified, but only just in time for the Allies. From now onwards further weaknesses in the German position began to emerge. U-Boat attacks were made with less skill and determination owing to the loss of experienced captains and crews and the decreasing morale of those who replaced them. In Germany itself, the High Command accepted the failure of the campaign before the end of the year and decided that a last desperate effort in France must be made. 1918 saw a continuation of the fall in merchant ship losses. In June, for the first time since the unrestricted campaign began, new shipbuilding exceeded the total lost at sea. These successes were achieved despite desperate German attempts to throw more U-Boats than ever into the war against the convoys. But they failed even to equal the strength achieved in 1917. The total operational strength available, 123, was six less than in the previous year and the average monthly number of boats at sea was 60 as compared with the 70 of 1917. Despite great efforts, the monthly average commissioning rate of submarines was only eight, with the result that, between January and November the loss of 83 exceeded by three the total number built. This element too had turned against Germany; but it was not the decisive one. Claims made after the war by Tirpitz and Scheer, that it was only lack of new construction which caused the U-Boat campaign to fail, are invalid. As 1918 continued, convoy protection was extended to coastal traffic and intensified on the ocean routes. The figures show conclusively that, unless Germany had found some means to defeat the defensive strength of the convoy, no practicable increase in her U-Boat strength would have swung the struggle in her favour. When the war ended and it was possible to examine the workings of the convoy system in detail, its claim to have been the decisive factor in saving Allied shipping from the submarine was established beyond any doubt. Of the 16,070 ships sailing on ocean convoys throughout the war, only 96, or 0.60%, were sunk; in home waters convoys, 161 of the 67,888 sailing were sunk, 0.24%. The victory was not absolute; in the last six months of the war British losses still averaged more than 140,000 tons a month. But it was sufficient to ensure the survival of the Allies until their armies went into the final offensive in summer 1918. There is no need to look any further into the reasons for the success of convoy than the words of Karl Donitz, whose own U-Boat fell victim to a convoy escort in the Mediterranean. After the war he thought deeply about the reasons for his country's defeat at sea, and wrote: The oceans at once became bare and empty; for long periods at a time the U-Boats, operating individually, would see nothing at all; and then, suddenly, up would loom a huge concourse of ships, thirty or fifty or more of them, surrounded by an escort of warships of all types. The solitary U-Boat, which most probably had sighted the convoy purely by chance, would then attack, thrusting again and again and persisting, if the commander had strong nerves, for perhaps several days and nights, until the physical exhaustion of both commander and crew called a ha-lt. The lone U-Boat might well sink one or two of the ships, or even several, but that was but a poor percentage of the whole. The convoy would steam on. In most cases no other German U-Boat would catch sight of it and it would reach Britain, bringing a rich cargo of foodstuffs

and raw materials safely to port.

Further Reading Doenitz, Karl, Ten Years and Twenty Days (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1959) Fayle, C. E., Seaborne Trade, Vol III (Longmans Green 1924) Gibson, R. H. & Prendergast, M The German Submarine War 1914-1918 (Constable 1931) ,

Grant, R. M., U-Boats Destroyed (Putnam 1964) Hezlet, Vice-Admiral Sir

A The Submarine and Sea Power ,

(Peter Davies

1967)

Marder, Moffat,

A. J.,

A

W

[For Bryan

,

From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow. Vols IV & Maverick Navy (Conn Wesleyan UP 1976)

McLean Ran ft 's biography, see page 693.

V(OUP

1969)

THE CONVOY PONTROVERSY The unprecedented assemblage of naval power inScapa Flow and the harbours of eastern Scot land could do nothing to cut down Britain's merchant

shipping

losses.

The Admiralty

emed equally

ineffective,

and here Peter Kemp analyt the mistaken thinking that «J motivated the opponents of convo\ ing. Below: American destroyers escort a convoy

M

':*£«. * i

i

Below:

HMS Seymour,

destroyer

:'

flotilla

a later

leader,

Marksman

completed

in

class 1916.

The need for flotilla leaders, providing accommodation for the flotilla's senior officer and his staff and superior radio equipment, _was realised just before the war, and several larger versions of the basic destroyer type were built for the purpose. Events proved the need for these leaders— without them it was almost impossible to co-ordinate a flotilla containing up to 20 destroyers. Displacement: 1,670 tons. Length: 325 feet. Seam: 31% feet. Power/speed: 36,000 hp (turbines, driving three screws)/34 knots. Armament: Four 4-inch, one 3-inch AA and two 2-pounder guns, plus four 21-inch torpedo tubes (two sets of two). Complement: 106 (116 with senior officer

and

2538

his staff)

Contestants in the battle for the sea-lanes

i

Above: The German submarine U 139. This boat, launched on December 12, 1917, was one of the last classes of big boats to be built by Germany. It was also one of the few boats to be named: Kapitanleutnant Schweiger, after one of the war's great U-Boat captains. Displacement: 1 ,930/2,483 tons. Length: 3 1 1 feet. Beam: 29% feet. Draught: 17V4 feet. Power/speed: 3,300 hp and 1,780 hp/ 15.8 and 7.6 knots. Armament: Six 19.7-inch torpedo tubes (four bow, two stern) and two 5.9-inch and two 4.1inch guns (one of the latter

is

not visible)

Crew: 62-80. Top: The coastal U-Boat UB 80, launched on August 8, 1917. Displacement: 516/646 tons. Length: 182 feet. Beam: 19 feet. Draught: 12 feet. Power/speed: 1,060 hp and 788 hp/13.4 and 7.8 knots. Armament: Five 19.7-inch torpedo tubes (four bow, one stern) and one 3.4-inch gun. Crew: 34. This boat was of the final (UB III) type of coastal U-Boats. incorporating the lessons of the earlier classes

es

.

J^fcL

Below: A German torpedo. 1. Air charging valve. Fuel charging valve 3. Fuel tank. 4. Air cylinder. 5. Warhead. 6. Exploder charge. 7. Primer. 8. Detonator horn. Bottom: The motive

2.

parts of a German torpedo. 1. Contra-rotating propellers (one propeller was impractical as its torque would have deflected the weapon

from its course) 2. Rudder (another below) 3. Hydroplane. 4. Differential gears for propeller drives. 5 and 6. Fuel tanks. 7. Mechanism for regulating the depth at which the torpedo was to run. 8. Starter latch (engaged as the torpedo was fired). 9. One of four cylinder heads on the engine 10. Air cylinder. Up to 1908, all torpedoes had been driven by compressed air alone, but the later type illustrated used two fuels and an engine, this giving the torpedo a much higher speed and greater range. Range and speed had to be balanced out, increased speed severely curtailing the maximum range

LAIR CHARGING VALVE FUEL (WATER) CHARGING VALVE 3. FUEL AND WATER TANKS 4 AIR FLASK, AIR VESSEL 2.

5.

WARHEAD

7.

EXPLOSIVE CHARGE PRIMER

8.

HORN

6.

2539

Convoy routes and convoy composition The convoy system, as

finally introduced in 1917, solved Britain's desperate problem with the U-Boats, but this is not to say that the convoy itself did not have its drawbacks, for all its advantages. The chief advantage lay in the concentration of force around the object to be defended, so that the ships of the Royal Navy could look after a specific number of vessels in a convoy instead of attempting to patrol the inherently indefensible sea lanes themselves — the hunter tethering a goat near himself and waiting for the tiger to come to him rather than he himself wandering the jungle in search of his elusive quarry. The disadvantages are obvious: the convoy is held down to the speed of its slowest element, once a submarine has found it, it has a multitude of targets, the merchant ships' captains were unused to sailing in close formation, especially at night, the large area covered by it made it more vulnerable if it ran across a minefield, and lastly it was difficult to assemble the ships at the right place and time at departure and to unload them at their destination

LIGHT CRUISER

DESTROYER

^\A/*

^A/*

MERCHANTSHIP TROOPSHIP

ARMEO TRAWLER

.

BALLOON \i

-

~\

^* ^s/^4

To redress the balance of American troopships convoy on their way to Europe the

in

old.'

Merchant goods were not the only seaborne traffic that needed the protection of convoys, and indeed it had been the successful ferrying of British troops to France that first pointed the way to convoy. American troopships would clearly be high on a U-Boat commander's list of priorities, and it was fortunate for the Allies that by the time they started arriving in any strength the convoy system was in force

A German view U-Boat campaign,

Right: of the

the British Lion in his island

caged

Below: Dazzle painted ships in convoy- the British

castle.

Lions answer

some

(after

delay) to the

U-Boat siege

Writing of the situation at sea in April 1917, Sir Henry Newbolt,

war

Naval Operations, had this to say. 'Everything, indeed, combined to show that the Allies were really within sight of disaster. The lists of sinkings, the number of successful attacks, the increasing use of the torpedo, the moderate rate of German submarine losses all told the same story. Admiral von Holtzendorff's prophecy of victory was verging towards fulfilment, and only a change in our system of defence could turn the tide.' in his official

history

And indeed, as 1917 advanced, the shipping losses caused by the U-Boats rose to staggering figures, and such losses could never be replaced by new ships built. In the whole of 1916 British shipyards produced 542,000 tons of new merchant shipping; in the first quarter of 1917 the figure was 246,000 tons, or less than 20% of the tonnage lost. It was little wonder that Admiral Beatty, commanding the Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow, was dismayed at the

2542

'I would like to scream at times', he wrote in April to Carson, the First Lord of the Admiralty, 'when I think of all the sacrifices that have been made, the gallant efforts of our glorious army, and the navy is losing the war as fast as the army is winning it. We are sitting on top of a volcano which will blow the navy and country to hell if we don't pull ourselves together.' Although Beattv could write in such terms, he had few new ideas to put forward to combat the U-Boats. The defence of trade, of course, was outside his duties as Commander-in-Chief, but the fate of the two Scandinavian convoys of October and December 1917, for the defence of which he was responsible as C-in-C, was hardly an advertisement of any particular skill in this direction. He became an advocate of convoy after the Longhope conference (held in the Orkneys in April 1917) which was called to consider the best way to defend the trade to Scandinavia. The conference came

figures.

out in favour of convoy, and Beatty forwarded its proposal to the Admiralty with a strong recommendation for adoption. But it is necessary to remark that Beatty's recommendation in favour of convoy was limited only to the Scandinavian traffic; he was still a long way from thinking that a system of convoy was either possible or even desirable for seaborne traffic as a whole. Until at least March 1917 no one of any real importance in the Admiralty seriously considered convoy as an answer to the naval woes arising from the U-Boat warfare. The subject was brought up for discussion from time to time, but both Jellicoe, as First Sea Lord, and Rear-Admiral Duff, whom Jellicoe had brought to the Admiralty to organise anti-submarine warfare, were firmly against it. The classic arguments, deployed time after time, were, first, that there were not enough escorts: second, there were too many merchant ships; third, merchant ships were unable to keep station in convoy; fourth, the merchant ship skippers did not want convoy; and fifth, any system of convoy would choke the ports as the ships in convoy would all arrive simultaneously for the discharge of their cargoes. That all these were purely specious arguments never dawned upon the Admiralty Board or, indeed, upon the majority of admirals serving afloat (though there were one or two exceptions among the latter). It was an odd situation. Although all the evidence of the war went to prove that the system in operation of patrolling fixed steamship routes was a complete failure, and although most members of the Board recognised this, the only response was to order more and more patrol craft to try to bolster up a discredited system. It did not dawn on anyone in the Admiralty that from the large number of patrol craft could be drawn the escorts which a convoy system demanded. The second argument, that there were too many merchant ships, arose from an extraordinary lack of penetration in studying the weekly port clearance figures. These figures recorded the weekly clearance of all ships of over 100 tons entering and leaving a British port. By accepting these figures at their face value the problem certainly appeared immense, but a simple analysis would have revealed that the figures were grossly inflated by the inclusion of all coastal traffic and that the number of ocean-going ships was relatively small enough to make adoption of a convoy system a practical

operation in terms of escorts required. The third and fourth arguments in truth carried no weight at all, although weight was put on them in the Admiralty deliberations. There was no inherent difficulty in keeping station in convoy; if ships under sail could do so during the Napoleonic Wars a century before when convoy was compulsory, ships with steam engines could do so much more easily. And although the merchant skippers may have preferred to sail independently, clamouring for a gun to be mounted on board for self-defence, their personal preferences should never be allowed to count in a national emergency so grave as was now existing. And finally, the argument of port congestion just did not hold water. The regular and ordered arrival and departure of convoys would enable the necessary port and transport facilities to be organised in advance, a vast improvement on the haphazard arrival of independently routed ships, too many of which were not even arriving at all. As April drew to its close, with its still mounting tale of losses, it was obvious to all, in the government, in the Admiralty, in the Grand Fleet, that some new method of combating the U-Boat must be found. Jellicoe's answer was to scrape the barrel still further for ships to be sent out on patrol. The declaration of war on Germany by the United States appeared to give a possible answer, and Jellicoe's first request to the new ally was 'at least twice as many patrol craft, such as trawlers, sloops, etc, as we have at present, and we require at least another 100 destroyers'. Writing after the war, Jellicoe implied that it was the entry of America into the war that made the institution of convoy possible, but it is quite certain that he was still not considering convoy as a possible answer even after the American entry. There is no doubt that the entry into the war of the United States did help very considerably with the provision of suitable ocean convoy escorts, but this was appreciated after her entry, not before. The crucial reason for the decision by the Admiralty at the end of April to introduce ocean convoy was the fairly sudden conversion of Admiral Duff, who was head of the Anti-Submarine Division at the Admiralty, and Duff's conversion was to a great extent the result of an analysis of the port clearance figures by Commander Reginald Henderson, a member of Duff's staff in charge of the sailing and protection of coal shipments to France. In order to keep

2543

:

:

:

.

her war industries running, France needed vast quantities of British coal, having lost her own coal mines in the German advance of 1914. Losses to the U-Boats had been severe in 1916, necessitating the closure of some French factories, and in fact the shortage became so serious that a French naval officer was sent over to London to propose the sailing of daily convoys to bring the coal over safely. At a conference at the Admiralty on January 2, 1917 it was decided to sail four protected convoys daily, one each from Penzance, Portland, St Helens and Southend, though they were to be called 'controlled sailings' instead of convoys in case the latter term should sound too warlike for the large number of neutral ships engaged in this particular trade. These 'controlled sailings' were begun early in February, using armed trawlers as escorts. The result was dramatic. From the start of the scheme until the end of April 1917, no more than five out of a total of over 2,500 colliers had been sunk by U-Boats; and these figures continued to improve as the war progressed. This experience convinced Henderson that only in a full convoy system could the essential ocean trade of the nation be protected from the U-Boat onslaught. He had tremendous support from Norman Leslie of the Ministry of Shipping, who was liaison officer between that Ministry and the Admiralty and, from April onwards, the head of the Ministry of Shipping's convoy section. So deeply did Henderson feel that a convoy system was the only answer to the problem that he went behind the back of his Director, Admiral Duff, and deployed all his arguments direct to the Prime Minister himself. Such disloyalty can perhaps be best excused by the extreme gravity of the situation at sea where the appalling losses, if continued, would inevitably have brought the country to defeat. From February onwards, Henderson's efforts were seconded by those of Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the War Cabinet. Fqually convinced that convoy was the only possible way of reducing the shipping losses, he wrote a memorandum on the subject which was discussed at a meeting at which the Prime Minister, Carson (First Lord of the Admiralty), Jellicoe, Duff and Hankey himself were present. It got nowhere against the continued opposition of Jellicoe and Duff, who again produced all the old specious arguments. Carson was, if anything, in favour of giving convoy a trial, even at this early date (February 1917), but he was not prepared to go against his professional advisers. It was not until early in April that the first real breakthrough came. Henderson had been pressing Leslie to get a detailed analysis of the weekly port clearance figures which had figured so largely in the Admiralty's opposition to convoy. As presented week by week, they showed a total of around 5,000 arrivals and departures. Ironically enough, this average weekly figure was quoted by the Admiralty in an attempt to minimise to the public the effect of the weekly losses: 80 ships torpedoed weekly against a weekly total of 5,000 arrivals and departures did not look so bad. And for the opponents of convoy it was a useful figure to flourish. How could anything like this number weekly be absorbed in a convoy system? Where were the escorts to come from to protect numbers such as this? Leslie's break-down figures of the weekly clearances gave Henderson the information he needed to clinch his arguments. What he wanted to discover was the number of ocean-going ships which arrived and left weekly in our ports, and thus for the first time obtain a realistic figure which would govern the size of the convoy problem. He discovered that of the approximate 2,500 arrivals and 2,500 departures recorded each week, no more than about 130 arrivals and 130 departures were of ocean-going ships of 1,600 tons and above. This, then, was the true size of the problem. To put these ships into convoy was not so difficult a matter. Henderson gave these figures both to Duff and to Lloyd George, the Prime Minister. The latter had already made up his mind to force the issue with the Admiralty and with these figures he reckoned to have the clinching argument. As late as April 23, at a meeting of the War Cabinet, when he again brought up the subject of the adoption of a convoy system, he received the stock reply from Jellicoe that the matter was still under consideration. Exasperated by this answer he informed the War Cabinet that he proposed to visit the Admiralty in person and, in his own words, 'take peremptory action on the question of convoy'. This is perhaps a little less than the truth, these being the words he wrote in his War Memoirs some 15 years after the event. He was in fact authorised by the War Cabinet to visit the Admiralty to investigate 'all the means at present in use in regard to anti-submarine warfare'. His visit was arranged for April 30. In the meantime Duff had come round to the view that convoy was a possibility and should be given a trial. There were four reasons to account for his change of heart. First, and always foremost, were the steadily mounting losses at sea, which were

2544

particularly heavy in the three or four days which preceded Duff's conversion to a convoy system. Second, and equally important though Duff did not mention it in his memorandum to Jellicoe, were the figures which Henderson had given him of the weekly clearances of ocean-going ships. For the first time Duff now knew the overall size of the problem, and knew that the provision of convoy escorts was not beyond the capacity of the navy to provide. Third, he had the example of the French coal trade and its relative immunity from U-Boat attack as soon as it had been organised into regular convoys. The figures of losses in comparison with sailings, quoted above, were as clear an indication as anyone could wish that U-Boats were deterred from attacking ships when in convoy. Finally, there was the fact of America's entry into the war, with the prospect of her assistance in building up the escort forces.

Jellicoe takes the plunge It has been said by many writers and historians, and Lloyd George himself gives this impression in his writings, that it was the imminence of the Prime Minister's visit that finally goaded a reluctant Admiralty to take the plunge into a convoy system. This is not so. Duff's memorandum, with comments by other members of the Naval Staff, was in Jellicoe's hands, and orders had been sent out for a trial ocean convoy three days before Lloyd George's visit. It is not necessary here to describe in any detail the success of the first ocean convoys. The first one sailed from Gibraltar on May 10; the first transatlantic one sailed from the United States on the 24th; both not only made their passages without loss but also arrived more speedily than if the ships had been sailed independently. As more and more merchant ships were brought into the system, so their immunity from the U-Boats convinced the advocates of convoy that they were right. But the professional heads of the navies, both British and American, were still not convinced. The April decision to give a trial to convoy covered only homeward-bound ships. Those which sailed from Britain to trans-ocean ports were still sailed independently, many of them in ballast. And now a new phenomenon began to make its appearance. Whereas up to May 1917 the majority of the victims had been inward-bound ships with their valuable cargoes, after May 1917 it was the outward-bound ships which produced the great majority of the casualties. And the continued rate of sinking of these produced in July a grave warning to the War Cabinet from the Ministry of Shipping that the continued drain of such losses would exhaust the pool of available ocean-going ships within two or three months. By July, even the last-ditch opponents of convoy were convinced. Jellicoe no longer dragged his feet, and the Americans, too, laid aside their initial doubts and became converts to the new faith. In August Duff pressed upon Jellicoe the need to extend the system so that it embraced outward-bound ships as well as inward, and

found Jellicoe in a distinctly co-operative mood. The decision was taken on August 11, and the first outward-bound convoy from Britain sailed two days later. It got through the U-Boat danger area unscathed. With the success of a convoy system now proved beyond any cavil, it was extended rapidly to cover the South Atlantic as well as the North. It was October before it was introduced in the Mediterranean, but in spite of the doubts of Admiral GoughCalthorpe, the Commander-in-Chief, it produced results fully comparable to those being experienced in the Atlantic. By November the whole system was in operation. The losses at sea had already fallen considerably during the previous two months, from November they fell even more rapidly. They were never negligible, of course, and the overall shipping position remained delicately in balance right through until the end of the war. In 1917 the U-Boats had sunk 354 ships of 834,549 tons. Seven months later, when convoy was at last in full swing, the figure was 113 ships of 259,521 tons. There could be no doubt that, in the U-Boat war at least, the Allies were over the hump.

Further Reading Bacon, Sir Reginald, The Life of John Rushworth, Earl Jellicoe (Cassell 1936) Jellicoe, Earl,

The Submarine

Peril (Cassell 1934)

Lloyd George, David, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George (Nicholson & Watson 1933-36) Marder, A. J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol 4 (OUP 1969) Newbolt, Sir Henry, History of the Great War; Naval Operations, Vol 4 (Longmans 1928)

[For Lieutenant-Commander Peter Kemp's biography, see page 52.

President

Wood row Wilson

his study in the closest confidant.

sat

down

White House with

in his

Colonel Kdward M. House, to begin work on his first definitive statement of war aims The time, early January 1918, was a critical moment, perhaps a turning point, in the war. and the President believed that he could no longer defer a full and frank avowal of what the

Analysis of the

American people were fighting for Pressures on Wilson for a comprehensive statement of war aims had been mounting ever since American entry into the conflict m April 1917. By midsummer. Wilson be-

Fourteen Points

lieved that be could no longer postpone a statement of war amis 'My own feeling is,' be wrote to House on August 23, 'that we should speak at the earliest possible moment now.' In anticipation, on September 2 he asked House to assemble a group of experts, soon to be known as The

Although a war-weary western world was carried away by the

Inquiry, to study the war aims of all the belligerents and to attempt to set down America's own objectives in the war The opportunity, indeed the necessity, for decisive presidential action came not long after the establishment of The Inquiry. In the greatest catastrophe that had yet befallen the Allied cause, the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd on November 7. 1917, and on the next day issued an appeal for a general peace conference on a basis of no annexations and no indemnities. Two weeks later, the new Soviet government headed by Lenin and Trotsky appealed to the Central Powers for an armistice: soon afterward, on November 22. it published the Allied secret treaties in the files of the Russian Foreign Ministry. They were widely printed in British and

high ideals of President Wilson's Fourteen Points, they were very much a product of the President's own thinking, and not of the Allies' concerted war aims. Indeed in many cases they ran counter to the stated aims of one or other of the Allies, and this was to make their universal application almost impossible. Here S. L. Mayer takes the points one by one and highlights their contradictions

full

American newspapers.

Amid

this swirl of events. Allied leaders met in Rapallo, Italy, in the wake of the Italian defeat at Caporetto, to constitute the Supreme War Council and, soon afterward, in Paris to work out the first plans for

co-operation through the new agency. As it turned out, Colonel House was in London during and immediately after the Rapallo Conference. He hastened to Paris on November 22 to join the inter-Allied discussions preliminary to the first meeting of the Supreme War Council on December 1. Much had to be done, House knew, but one necessity was supremely urgent: The American and Allied governments had to act quickly to answer the Soviets and to reassure their own liberals and socialists who were denouncing the secret treaties and endorsing the Soviet call for general peace negotiations. The matter was 'of vast importance', he told the President in a telegram on November 30. If Wilson approved, he would introduce a resolution affirming that the American and Allied governments were not waging the war 'for the purpose of aggression or indemnity", but only to rid the world of militarism so that all nations should be free 'to lead their lives in the way that seems to them best for the development of their general welfare'. The resolution, Wilson replied on December 1, had his entire approval. 'You will realise

how unfortunate

it

would

be,"

he went on,

the conference to discuss peace terms in a spirit antagonistic to my January ['Peace without Victory'] address to the Senate. Our people and Congress will not fight for any selfish aim on the part of any belligerent, with the possible exception of Alsace-Lorraine, least of all for divisions 'for

POINTS The citizens

of America, no than President Wilson himself, required overwhelming moral reasons for such a less

revolutionary step as joining a European war. Such reasons must put them indisputably in the right, and exalt the war into a crusade. On January 8, 1918, President Wilson rose to address Congress, and for two hours enunciated, to growing acclaim and excitement, the fourteen principles that constituted an avowal of America's war aims. So great was the appeal of the President's address, that from this

moment on his Fourteen

Points became the touchstone against which all peace

attempts were measured. ArthurS. Link

and anomalies The Fourteen Points were presented

to the

Congress of the United States by President Wilson on January 8, 1918. They were meant to be a brief statement of Allied war aims and as such became an engine of propaganda both at home and abroad. Although Wilson made this speech in good faith, hoping that it would bring the war to a speedy conclusion, many of the points raised were highly idealistic. Indeed, Wilson's allies had

made

secret treaties

during the war which abrogated some of the points he raised. Since the Fourteen Points eventually became the basis on which the Armistice with Germany was agreed,

it

was

essential that these points

were viable and agreed among the Allies before the}" were presented to Germany. Regrettably, this was not the case.

The

Fourteen Points could be said to have helped bring an end to the First World War, but they were unfortunate in that the Allies were unable to implement all of them, a fact which provoked bitter resentment later on.

Open covenants

of peace, openly This point implied that all treaties would be negotiated in a semipublic atmosphere rather than in the usual private diplomatic manner. Wilson hoped to eliminate the making of secret treaties rearranging the maps of Europe, Asia and Africa after the war. To have accepted this point would have meant that arrangements like the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Treaty of London between Britain and Italy of 1915, and other private negotiations would have had to be abrogated or made public, something that the Allies 1.

arrived

at.

2545

of territory such as have been contemplated in Asia Minor. I think it will be obvious to all that it would be a fatal mistake to cool the ardour of America.' It was also impossible, apparently, to cool the acquisitiveness of America's Allies. House's report on this meeting came to Washington just as the President was drafting the Annual Message that he would deliver to Congress on December 4. All that Wilson could do at this point was to intensify his ideological warfare and to try to make American intentions plain in a

concerned were loath to do. Public diplomacy also implied the collapse of international diplomacy as it was then known, since secrecy made compromise possible, free from the pressures of propaganda which would inevitably accompany the new form of diplomacy in which the press would be informed of every stage of negotiations. It was widely felt that the prewar secret treaties helped bring about the First World War; their abolition,

Wilson Phis

general way. Once Germany had a government which represented her people, he said in this address, the United States would be eager to talk peace. The voices of humanity everywhere were demanding that the war should not end 'in vindictive action of any kind; that no nation or people shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have themselves done deep and abominable wrong'. The formula 'No annexations, no contributions, no punitive indemnities', although used by the Germans to lead the Russian people toward peace, expressed the instinctive judgment of plain men everywhere. The American government intended no wrong against the German Empire, no interference with its internal affairs. The German people had been deceived into thinking that they were fighting for their very life and existence. Just the opposite was true. They were enslaved by military masters who, if victorious, would continue to disturb the peace of the world, and Americans were in fact fighting for the emancipation of the

German

Freedom of navigation upon the seas, in peace and in war. This proposal was not accepted by Great Britain, inasmuch as the strategic points which Britain controlled around the world were specifically designed to protect British shipping in wartime and prevent enemy shipping from passing unharmed. The Suez Canal, for example, was closed to enemy shipping in both world wars, and the existence of the Cape of Good Hope within the Empire as well as Gibraltar, Singapore and Aden, to name the most obvious, were meant as

much

if

the worst should

of war. This point was contested bitterly by Britain and never became part of the final peace settlement, although Germany, which lacked these strategic points, would have welcomed its inclusion.

The removal ... of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations. The final peace treaties were unable to put teeth into this point, and in 3.

actual

Upon

his return to the

United States,

at Paris left the President no alternative but to move on his own as soon as guidance came from The Inquiry. House returned on December 23 with some preliminary data from The Inquiry, but still lacking the formal report.

Prompt American action became desperately urgent on Christmas Day, when Count Ottokar Czernin, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, spoke on behalf of the Central Powers to the Soviet delegates at the armistice talks that had begun at Brest-Litovsk on December 22. Offering

trade

restrictive

practices,

and other forms of protection increased after the First World War rather than diminished, one of the factors which helped to bring about the Great Depression. 4.

a

and the Soviets pressed their J campaign for a general class war in West- s ern Europe, then some answer had to be 3 made to Lenin and Trotsky, lest their siren | song of peace seduce war-weary soldiers g and liberals, labourites and socialists in

House went at once — on December 18 — to the White House for a report and review. He and Wilson agreed that House's failure

fact,

tariff barriers

happen,

the west.

as a deterrent against prospective

enemies as a protection for British shipping and staging areas for naval action in time

people.

And

could prevent another war. assumption.

false

2.

While Wilson waited for House to return from Paris, events in Russia emphasised the growing urgency of the need for a more comprehensive presidential statement, both to the Russian people and the world. Disappointed by the silence from Paris, Trotsky signed a separate armistice with Germany on December 15. Next Lenin and Trotsky appealed to the 'Toiling, Oppressed, and Exhausted Peoples of Europe' to overthrow their capitalistic governments and join the Soviets in making a democratic peace. Perhaps, Wilson thought, it might still be possible to stiffen the resistance of the Russian people to the Germans, if only they could be persuaded that American and Soviet war aims were not radically different.

felt,

was a

Above: Count Czernin, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister. Of all the belligerent powers Austria stood to be the greatest loser by the application of Wilson's Fourteen Points. Left: Wilson trims the new Europe' into shape. In theory Wilson s points meant the principle of self-government; in practice they meant the dismemberment of the Central Powers to the advantage of the Allies

Adequate guarantees given and taken

that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. This disarmament proposal was attempted after the war. The Allies made certain, for example, that Germany was completely disarmed. The Washington Naval Conference of 1921/22 made tentative steps toward mutual disarmament in the Pacific, and the KelloggBriand Pact of 1928 outlawed war as an instrument of national policy. But three years after the Kellogg-Briand Pact Japan invaded Manchuria. This action was followed by the Sino-Japanese War and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, to mention but a few examples of how disarmament and the abolition of war worked. Eleven years after the Kellogg-Briand Pact the Second World War began. Wilson's high hopes, although shared in theory by most peoples, were found to be impracticable in a world still shackled by the nationstate system.

A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. This was one of the most 5.

.

.

.

unrealistic of all the points.

The

British,

French and Japanese, particularly, were

2547

the terms for a general peace settlement, Czernin said that the Central Powers intended no 'forcible annexation of territory', would deprive no country of its independence and wanted minorities to enjoy the right of self-determination. Moreover, 'the Russian demand for immediate evacuation of territories occupied by an adversary' conformed to German intentions. However, Czernin warned, the Germans would demand the return of colonies seized from

them. Three days later, the Central Powers agreed to another postponement of the armistice talks to enable Trotsky to issue still another invitation to the American and Allied governments to send representatives to Brest-Litovsk. This the Soviet Foreign Minister did on the following day,

December

29.

portended the beginning of a German-Austrian peace offensive, it, too, Wilson knew, would have to be answered. Hence he must have summoned House by telephone soon after reading the text of Czernin's address, for the Colonel arrived at the White House during the evening of Friday, January 4, 1918. This time he brought with him The Inquiry's report, which had just been prepared by its Executhis

If

tive

Committee.

Thirty-nine pages in length and entitled The Present Situation: The War Aims and Peace Terms It Suggests', this document was divided into many sections but actually

into

two main

parts.

The

first

reviewed the existing military and diplomatic situations in some detail and listed the assets that the Americans and Allies enjoyed. The President, this part of the document urged, should take the diplomatic offensive at once. He should prove to the Russians that the United States was not unwilling to state war aims, 'show the way to the liberals in Great Britain and in France, and therefore restore their national unity of purpose' and unite the American people who desired an idealistic settlement. The second part of the report, entitled 'A Suggested Statement of Peace Terms', dealt with Belgium, Northern Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine, France, Italian frontiers, a settlement for the Balkans, Poland, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and a League of Nations.

Drafting the Fourteen Points House ate a hurried dinner. Then he and Wilson went to the President's study, where they talked until 11.30 pm, mainly about the general things that Wilson should say in what they now agreed should be an address to a joint session of Congress. They also looked over maps and statistical materials that The Inquiry had supplied. As soon as House left, Wilson pored over

The Inquiry's report, summarising in shorthand on the margins of its pages the various peace terms and objectives that had been suggested. Wilson and House resumed their discussions on the following morning, January 5. Sitting at his desk in front of his portable typewriter, Wilson typed out in summary form the points that he wanted to make, and House numbered them, grouping the general points first, the specific ones next. Except for placing the point concerning a League of Nations at the end, Wilson accepted the Colonel's

arrangement. Formulating most of the points went easily enough, but three were particularly troublesome because they affected the

2548

two

major Allied powers, France and and the defecting Ally, Russia. Wilson gave his most intense attention to the statement concerning Russia. House showed the President a cablegram that he had received while in Paris from Boris Bakhmetiev, Ambassador to the United

Britain,

now defunct Kerensky government. Any attempt by the Allies to evade the Bolshevik demand for an armistice and statement of peace terms, Bakhmetiev warned, would only strengthen the Bolsheviks and increase anti-Allied feeling States of the

in Russia. House had also recently conferred with the former Ambassador, and the two men agreed that Russia could be

separated

from

Germany

'friendliest expressions of

only by the sympathy and a

promise of more substantial help'. Concurring totally, the President drafted the point in this spirit. Also delicate was the point concerning Alsace-Lorraine. House suggested that it might be best to ignore the subject altogether. Wilson concurred momentarily, but

time and again he returned to this matter about which he felt very deeply. He had to speak out, he told House, and the two agreed on the following compromise formulation: 'Alsace-Lorraine to be restored to France, but without excluding Germany from the use of the economic resources of those provinces.'

Then there was the point concerning freedom of the seas, which Wilson and House knew might be particularly offensive to the British. Following House's strong urging, Wilson framed a simple but very strong statement favouring 'absolute freedom of navigation and of the seas outside territorial waters in peace and in war'. The drafting of the points was completed within less than two hours, and only one question remained to be answered before the two men went to lunch — whether to inform the British and French governments that the President was about to make a major pronouncement on war aims. They must have concluded that communication with Clemenceau could only cause trouble, perhaps fatal delay; in any event, no message went to Paris. But, Wilson and House believed, there was a good chance that the British might not disapprove, and the President typed out the following personal note for House to send The President wishes me to let Prime Minister and you know that he feels that he must presently make some to Balfour:

the

specific utterance as

a counter

to the

Ger-

man peace suggestions and that he feels that in order to keep the present enthusiastic and confident support of the war quick and effective here that utterance must be in effect a repetition of his recent address to the Congress in even more specific form than before. He hopes that no utterance is in contemplation on your side which would be likely to sound a different note or suggest claims inconsistent with what he proclaimed the objects of the United States to be. The president feels that we have so far been playing into the hands of the German military party and solidifying German opinion against us

and he has information

which seems to open a clear way to weakening the hands of that party and clearing the air of all possible misrepresentations

and

misunderstandings. Wilson's schedule was so crowded that he was not able to begin work on his address during the afternoon of January 5. Urgent

problems had to be discussed, for example, with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Treasury. In the middle of these conversations, news from London came like a bolt out of the blue — that Lloyd George had just delivered his own war aims address in a speech to the Trades Union Congress in London. Seeking primarily to keep representatives of the Labour Party in his coalition, to appease the Liberals and anti-war radicals, and also to reply to Czernin, Lloyd George declared that Britain was not fighting a war of aggression against the German people and that 'government with consent of the governed must be the basis of any territorial settlement in this war'. However, he emphasised, Germany would have to right the wrong done to Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine would have to be returned to France, while there could be no thought of returning Germany's colonies to her. An independent Poland was an urgent necessity for the stability of Europe. Legitimate Italian territorial claims should be satisfied, and the subject minorities of the Habsburg Empire deserved 'genuine self-government on true democratic principles'. Only a postwar international organisation to preserve peace could relieve the world of its crushing burden of armaments. As for Russia, Lloyd George made it clear that he believed that the British could do nothing to avert the catastrophe befalling that unhappy country. Wilson read the text of this speech on

Saturday afternoon, January 5, and saw House soon afterward. The terms which Lloyd George had announced, the President said, were so close to his own that it would be impossible for him to make his contemplated address to Congress. House insisted that the situation had changed for the better rather than for the worse. The Prime Minister, he said, had cleared the air and made it all the more necessary for the President to speak out. Wilson's immediate second thought confirmed this conclusion. Not long afterward, he told Wiseman that he was delighted 'to find George's speech coincided so closely with his own views. It was important that the British and American world-policies should run on similar lines.' The President closeted himself in his study on Sunday morning, January 6, and, working with furious concentration, completed a shorthand draft and a typed transcript of his address by mid-afternoon. In this version, the point relating to the

freedom of the seas read: 'Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war. Without this the intercourse and interdependence of nations which is the very cement of peace and good will can be broken by the selfish and arbitrary action of any single state that has the sea power to break it and security of right is impossible.' The point concerning France read: 'All French territory must be freed and the invaded portions restored, and Alsace-Lorraine must be reunited to France, but without excluding Germany from the use of the economic resources of those provinces.' House came to the White House study in the late afternoon, and Wilson read him the draft of the message. 'I thought', House wrote in his diary, 'it was a declara-

human liberty and a declaration of the terms which should be written into the peace conference.' However, neither man tion of

.

was yet fully satisfied with the statements concerning the freedom of the seas and Alsace-Lorraine. Unsuccessful in resolving these issues, they agreed to sleep upon them and review them the next day They found the right formulae in the White House study after lunch on Monday. January 7. House suggested that Wilson affirm his belief in the freedom of the seas, but add the qualification except as 'the seas might be closed by international action in order to enforce international covenants'. The British, House might well accept such a declaration; Wilson made the change in his draft at once. On the point concerning AlsaceLorraine, House suggested that Wilson omit any reference to German economic interests in the provinces and say simply that a just settlement of a matter that had unsettled Europe for half a century was as much in Germany's interests as those of France. Wilson worded the formula himself, amending his draft to read: 'The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1S71 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted in order that peace once more be made secure in the interest of all.' The address was now virtually in its final form, and Wilson called Secretary of State Robert Lansing to his study at 3 pm and read it to him. Lansing suggested a fewverbal changes, which Wilson accepted The President then had his stenographer prepare a new typed version of his own much amended draft. He went through the new copy, made a few additional changes, and sent it to the Government Printing Office for a reading copy. Wilson's Secretary. Joseph P. Tumulty,

WOII'S

said,

Germany and Turkey. No were held in the partitioned which passed to Britain, Japan and France under the mandate system at the end of the war. This point, like so many others, was never carried out and was took over from plebiscites territories

anathema 6.

POINTS Realism versus Idealisi

The evacuation

of

allies.

Russian terriwas accomplished.

all

Despite the huge annexations made in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which concluded the Russo-German part of the First World War, Germany's gains were given up. After the war the Germans did not argue this point, as they had accepted it in good faith and carried it out to the letter.

Belgium

.

.

.

must be evacuated and

restored. This was also accomplished, although the Germans had intended to do this even if they won the war — they had intended to make Belgium a satellite state

and annex certain portions of its

territory,

including Liege. This point did not mention, however, the fact that Belgium wanted territorial compensation in Germany, a small portion of which Belgium annexed after the war. The areas of Malmedy, St Vith and Eupen are still part of

a joint session of Congress pm to hear a message of great importance from the President of the L'nited States. The summons was so hasty that several Cabinet members and most of the Diplomatic Corps did not know that the session was to take place. Speaking as was his custom in a conversational tone and without physical flourishes, Wilson began by reviewing the parleys in progress at Brest-Litovsk. The Russian delegates, he said, had very properly demanded that these negotiations be conducted in the open, with the entire world as an audience. But for whom were the representatives of 8, for

Belgium and

at 12.30

still

German-speaking.

AH French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in

8.

1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine should be righted. If the principle of national self-determination, which Wilson preached, were to be honoured, then it was not absolutely clear that a wrong had been done with respect to Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War. At that time and even now, Alsace is largely Germanspeaking and Lorraine has some German• •

Central Powers speaking? For the moderate authors of the Reichstag Resolution of July 19, 1917, or for those who insisted upon subjugation and conquest?

speaking areas, although the vast majority of the populations of these provinces speak French as well. No plebiscite was held in these territories to determine whether or not they wanted to remain in Germany or be turned over to France. Many historians believe that the Alsatians and Lorrainers

the

The end of secret diplomacy? Regardless of the results at Brest-Litovsk, Wilson went on, the Russians had challenged their adversaries to avow their war objectives frankly. The challenge should be met quickly and candidly. The American and British governments had already spoken; the failure to make a definitive statement lay with the Central Powers. There was, moreover, a voice calling for definitions of principle and of purpose — the voice of the Russian people. They were prostrate and helpless before the grim power of Germany, and yet they had stated their programme with such universal human sympathy as must evoke the admiration of every friend of mankind. They wanted to know where the United States stood, and the American people wanted

America's

to

tory. This point actually

7.

made hasty arrangements next morning, January to meet

interested in seizing and partitioning Gercolonial territory and had no intention of recognising the principle of national self-determination in the colonial world. The mandate system of the League of Nations was merely a convenient cloak for the advancement of Anglo-French imperial aims. Despite the protests of Gandhi and the African and Asian revolutionaries, Britain and France did little to advance the cause of national self-determination in their own colonies. They certainly were unprepared to countenance this principle in the colonies they eventually

man and Turkish

were not unhappy by the change, however. The Germans did not dispute this point after the war, as they accepted the fact if they lost the war these territories would have to be handed over. In any case, Germany had planned to evacuate and restore occupied France with minor exceptions after the war even if she had won.

that

Above: President Wilson relaxes at golf Like other American Presidents he found golf an excellent anodyne to the troubles of curing the world's ills Below: Lloyd George, also a golfer A comparison of the two faces suggests Lloyd George might have won. As far as

Wilson's peace proposals were concerned, however, they echoed so largely what he would have liked to have said himself, that in spite of their embarrassment to British interests, he was obliged to pay lip service to them

Readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognisable lines of nationality. This was one of the stickiest points which Wilson raised. 9.

Italy fought bitterly to acquire the territory promised to her by Britain in the Treaty of London, whether it was Italianspeaking or not. After walking out of

2549

him, Wilson, to respond with utter simpliand frankness, for the American people deeply desired to help the Russians 'attain the utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace'. The United States, Wilson continued, believed that the day of secret diplomacy and territorial aggrandisement was dead and gone. It sought only a secure city

and peaceful world. Here,

almost

enumerating

his

abruptly, points,

Wilson began 14 in number.

came statements

of five basic general planks of the advocates of a new, democratic world order: 'open covenants of peace, openly arrived at', with no secret diplomacy and treaties; absolute freedom of the seas, with the qualification noted above; removal so far as possible of barFirst

to economic intercourse among disarmament 'to the lowest nations; point consistent with domestic safety'; and 'a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims', based on the understanding that the interests of the people involved were as important as those of claimant imperial

riers

powers.

Coming

to specific objectives,

impaired.' So there

could be no compromise on Russia and Belgium. However, the President implied that his next six points were negotiable, for in mentioning them he said that they 'should' rather than 'must' be achieved. They were a settlement for France according to the formula already quoted; readjustment of Italian frontiers recognisable lines of nationality'; an opportunity for the 'autonomous development' of the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; evacuation of the Balkans and free development for the states of that region; security for the Turkish portions of the Ottoman Empire, but autonomy for the Sultan's subject peoples and internationalisation of the Dardanelles; and creation of a free, independent and sovereign Poland with access to the sea. The final, fourteenth, point was in Wilson's mind the most important for the long future; XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independ-

2550

clearly

integrity

to

great

For such objectives, Wilson went on, the American people were fighting and would continue to fight until they were won. The American people had no desire to injure Germany or to force her to change her institutions; they wanted her only to take her rightful place in the new world order. However, he added, before peace talks could begin he had to know whether German spokesmen represented the Reichstag majority or 'the military party and the men whose creed is imperial domination'. He had spoken in terms too concrete to admit any further doubt or question, the President concluded. He had asked only for justice and fair treatment for all peoples, great and small. For the vindication of these goals, the American people were ready to devote their lives and everything they possessed. 'The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.'

Wilson ad-

dressed himself first to the all-important Russian problem: VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may The treatment afforded herself desire. Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. Equally indispensable to a lasting settlement, Wilson went on in Point VII, was the evacuation and complete restoration of Belgium, without any limitations on her sovereignty whatsoever. 'Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever

'along

and territorial and small states alike. ence

Lofty ideals and hard realities Excitement in the chamber of the House of Representatives, where the joint session sat, mounted as Wilson spoke, and there

was frequent applause as the speech progressed and a standing ovation at the end. Reverberations throughout the United States and Europe gave overwhelming proof that Wilson had seized the moral leadership at least of men in the west who yearned for peace and a new democratic world order — labourites, moderate socialists, anti-war radicals, and liberals. In short, the President had issued incomparably the greatest liberal manifesto of the war. In the United States, even Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson's bitterest critic, had a kind public word to say about the Fourteen Points Address. The leading Republican newspaper in the country, the New York Tribune, expressed the reaction of the entire American press when it said that the address 'had spoken what his country felt'. 'In a very deep sense,' it added, 'Mr. Wilson's words constitute a second Emancipation Proclamation. Today, as never before, the whole nation marches with the President, certain alike of the leader and the American socialists were just cause.' as pleased as moderates and liberals. 'It is, on the whole,' said Morris Hillquit, a leader of the Socialist Party, 'a full and true expression of the aspirations of all demo-

movements in this war.' British labourites hailed Wilson as their own spokesman, as the man who would lead them in the fight for a generous peace. In a public statement on January 10, a joint committee representing the British Trades Union Congress, the Labour Party and the Co-operative Parliamentary Representation Committee approved every one of Wilson's points, including the one on the freedom of the seas, adding 'The spirit of this historical utterance is a spirit to which democracy all over the world can respond.' The entire French Left, majority and minority socialists alike, were, as one authority has put it, 'galvanised into the President's most ardent supporter in the Entente'. An Inter-Allied Labour and cratic

Socialist Conference, meeting in London on February 23, issued a memorandum on

war aims that was thoroughly Wilsonian in language and spirit. Even Lenin responded warmly to the Fourteen Points Address, saying that he 'approved of [the]

message and thought it a potential agency promoting peace'. Moreover, the address was printed in Izvestiya, and Lenin permitted an American agent to distribute millions of copies throughout Russia. Allied newspapers supporting the wartime regimes on the whole commented favourably on the address, but they did not fail to give evidence that neither they nor their political leaders were quite yet prepared to embrace the new diplomacy. Friendly London newspapers bridled at Point II about the freedom of the seas, while the Times observed: 'Our chief criticism of the President's speech is that in its lofty flight of an ideal it seems not to take into account certain hard realities of the situation.' This was the theme of many commentators in the Paris press. As Pertinax put it in L'Echoe de Paris, 'Here, we are outside the realm of acquired experience, in those blissful realms where all the friends of humanity have tried to build the Salento of their dreams.' In Italy, only Roman Catholic and socialist newspapers greeted the President's address without strong reservations. All pro-government editors feared that Point IX concerning Italy's boundaries would bar Italian occupation of the eastern Adriatic area. The Fourteen Points Address was widely noted by the German press, some newspapers, the influential Kolnische Zeitung among them, publishing the text in full. Only Vorwarts, organ of the Social Democratic Party, was mildly favourable in comment, although it denounced the speech as an attempt to persuade the Russian people to 'plunge themselves into the bloody morass of general war'. Millions of copies of the Fourteen Points Address

and subsequent Wilsonian peace pronouncements were dropped over German trenches and cities by airplanes and distributed from Switzerland and Holland by American and Allied agents. Wilsonian rhetoric went to war in one of the most intense campaigns in modern ideological warfare, and it has often been observed that it was a crucial factor in undermining German morale and will to continue the war. However that might have been, the vast majority of German socialists and moderates continued to support the Imperial regime and High Command, even

when they

decided to make a supreme bid on the Western Front in the spring at a predicted prodigious cost in human life. Not until the German cause for victory

was

irretrievably lost did moderates and most socialists begin to show warm enthusiasm for the Fourteen Points.

'Force alone shall decide' For a brief moment it seemed that Wilson had indeed set off transatlantic conversations that might lead to serious peace discussions. Speaking to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Austrian Reichsrath on January 24, Count Czernin declared that the Habsburg government found in Wilson's address 'a considerable approach to the Austro-Hungarian point of view'. 'We agree', he concluded, 'not only on the great principles in general, but our views also approach each other on several concrete peace questions. The remaining differences do not seem to me so great that discussion

.

of this point should not bring clarity

and

rapprochement.'

The new German Chancellor, Georg von Hertling, gave

F.

an address to the Reichstag Main Committee on the same day that Czernin spoke. Wilson's tone had certainly changed, Hertling said, and Germany could agree wholeheartedly with many of the President's general points. But the Chancellor made it clear that Germany would brook no interference negotiations with Russia, was in its evasive about Belgium, and emphatically declared that Germany would never his reply in

return Alsace-Lorraine to France. Wilson and House studied these speeches and reports from Europe on February 8 and 9, and the President went back to Congress on February 1 1 to make a formal public reply. An exchange of peace views had begun, he said, and in the hearing of the entire world. Czernin's reply had been altogether friendly. However, Hertling had either been evasive or had used the language of the old diplomacy. Peace. Wilson went on. could not be made by old methods and according to old standards. The question of whether peace conversations could continue, he concluded, depended upon whether the belligerents could agree on four principles. First, should justice govern the settlement of all particular issues. Second, peoples and provinces were not be bartered in the forever discredited game of the balance of power. Third, every territorial settlement should be made for the benefit of the peoples involved. Fourth, all well-defined national aspirations should be accorded the utmost satisfaction 'without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism'. The dialogue between Washington, Berlin and Vienna came to an abrupt end on March 3, when the German High Command imposed a Carthaginian treaty upon the Bolsheviks at Brest-Litovsk. Not long afterwards, on March 21, the German army, now strongly reinforced with divisions from the east, began an offensive on the Western Front to end the war before strong American reinforcements could bolster the British and French. It was, therefore, to be battle to the death, and Wilson confessed his disillusionment and despair in a Liberty Loan address at Baltimore on April 6. He had tried, the President said, to judge Germany's purposes without hatred or vindictiveness. Now it was clear who Germany's masters were. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty had revealed their intention to be the masters, not only of the Slavic peoples, but also of all of Europe. His dreams of a negotiated peace had been shattered. 'Germany', he concluded, 'has once more said that force, and force alone, shall decide whether justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of men. There is, therefore, but one response possible from us: Force, Force to the utmost. Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust.' This was also the theme of Wilson's so-called Four Additional Points address at Mount Vernon on July 4. 'The Past and Present are in deadly grapple,' he cried, 'and the peoples of the world are being done to death between them. There can be but one issue. The settlement must be final. There can be no

WOlfS

the Paris Peace Conference and subsequently fighting for Fiume, the Italians not only acquired all Italian-speaking territory in Europe outside Switzerland and the French border areas, but they also took

South Tyrol, an entirely German-speaking area south of the Brenner Pass as well as Slavic areas on their eastern border. They also pressed for Turkish and Albanian territory, and were successful in achieving some of their extravagant claims. The principle

of

national

self-determination

was distorted grossly after the war, and was recognised only when it suited the victorious Allies 10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development. This point was also distorted beyond all .

POINTS Realism versus Idealisi

.

recognition after the war. Czechoslovakia contained large minorities of Germans, Hungarians, Poles and even Ukrainians, after the peace settlement; Hungary not only lost its Slavic and Rumanian minorities, but millions of Hungarians were left outside Hungarian territory against their will. Austria no longer had a minority problem after the war, since most of her former territory was partitioned, but there were German-speaking people in Hungary, Italy and other countries of Central

Europe who would have preferred to remain Austrian. Most of the borders of Central and Eastern Europe were settled on the basis of who could grab the quickest

war was over. The principle of national self-determination was honoured in part, but there were gross inequities. after the

11. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied terri-

tories restored; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along lines of allegiance and nationality. Friendly counsel was never really considered by most of the Balkan states. The Greeks fought the Turks, the Hungarians .

.

.

Rumanians, and so on. Alwas created out of Serbia, Montenegro and some former Austrian and Slavic-speaking territory, and given access to the sea as the Fourteen fought the

though

Yugoslavia

Points suggested, the perpetual nationality Balkans continued after the war, with disputes solved usually by war in the time-honoured fashion. crisis in the

12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a

secure

sovereignty,

but

nationalities which are Turkish rule should be undoubted security of President Woodrow Wilson as he appeared in 1918 The spirit of his Fourteen Points has subsequently been criticised for being so far out of touch with the practical considerations of world politics. But should not world politics also be criticised for falling short of President Wilson's ideals?

the

other

now under assured an life

and an

absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development. The Turkish Empire was partitioned by Britain and France with the help of the mandate system, and autonomous development was stifled. Even the undisputably Turkishspeaking parts of the Empire were fought over by the victorious Allies, and Mustapha Kemal had to fight hard to keep Turkey Turkish. Britain sought to control the Dardanelles, and after a bloody struggle, Greek-speaking minorities were pushed out of Asia Minor by Kemal. 13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably

2551

compromise. But while he accepted the necessity

for a

military victory and waged war with increasing fury with the rapidly growing American army on the Western Front, Wilson all the more desperately sought to assure the liberals and socialists who had rallied behind him that they had not trusted him in vain. In his Mount Vernon no-compromise speech, he went on to reiterate the ends for which the American and Allied peoples were fighting. First, 'every arbitrary power anywhere that can separately, secretly, and of its single choice disturb the peace of the world' had to be destroyed or reduced to 'virtual impotence'. Second, every territorial, economic or political question had to be settled upon the basis of the free acceptance of the settlement by the peoples immediately concerned. Third, all nations had to agree to

govern their conduct towards one another by the same principles of honour and respect for law that governed the individual citizens of all modern states in their private relations. Fourth, an organisation of peace had to be established to check 'every invasion of right and serve

make peace and justice secure'. Wilson attempted a final summing up in New York on September 27, in the so-

to

called Five Additional Points speech. They were that equal justice should be done to

peoples in the peace settlement, that interests should not be permitted to override the common interest, that there could be no secret or special understandings within the common family of the League of Nations, that there should be no selfish economic combinations or any form of economic coercion within the League, except as a means of preventing aggression, and that all international agreements should be made known in their entirety to the world. all

special

The Wilsonian peace programme was now complete in every particular, and Wilson stood unrivalled and unchallenged spokesman of liberals, moderates and moderate socialists. It was the eve of as the

the Armistice, and, unknown to himself, Wilson would soon face the greatest challenge to his leadership during his entire career. It was the one of translating visions and ideals into reality. However, one fact was now surely clear — that the peace settlement, however it might be made and whatever terms it might include, would ever afterward be judged according to the degree to which it embodied Wilson's Fourteen Points and realised his dream of a new world order.

Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea. This was, perhaps, the most unrealistic of all the points. The Baltic coast was populated almost exclusively by Germans who did not want to become part of an independent Poland. If Poland were to have a frontier on the Baltic, it would have to include large numbers of Germans. The problem was solved by giving Germans over to Poland, creating a free city out of the German port of Danzig under the authority of the League of Nations, which was the major port used by Poland. Germany was separated by a Polish Corridor inhabited by many Germans, and was to be a point of controversy for the next 20 years. The Polish Corridor satisfied neither Germans nor Poles and violated Wilson's principle of national self-determination. Poland also included large populations of Russians, Czechs, Slovaks and Lithuanians, whose territory was seized after the war by Polish armies. Plebiscites that were held in border areas between Germany and Poland often resulted in dis-

and even after plebiscites were which voted to remain German were given to Poland anyway, although some of the results of these plebiscites were tortions,

held, areas

centred round the Polish Corridor and the reclamation of Danzig, which was taken from Germany despite the fact that 99% of the people in the area were German and wanted to be part of Germany. 14.

A

F., Germany's Aims War (Norton & Co. 1967)

Fischer,

in the First

World

Fowler, W. B., British-American Relations, 19171918 (Princeton University Press 1968) Gatzke, W., Germany's Drive to the West (Johns Hopkins 1950) Link, A. S., Wilson, 5 volumes (Princeton University Press 1947-1965) Mayer, A. J., Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918 (Yale University Press 1959) Martin, L. W., Peace without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the British Liberals (Yale University Press 1958)

Arthur page 2020.] [For

2552

S.

Link's

biography,

see

general association of nations

must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. Wilson's dream

of a League of Nations was realised, but it was not to be the strong guardian of peace that he envisaged. The United States, Germany and Russia, three of the most powerful states, were not in the League from the outset, and its lack of universality and the insistence of all nations that they retain all of their sovereignty made this valiant attempt to establish some sort of international government a failure. Wilson hoped that the Fourteen Points would be an instrument for peace. Actually, Germany resented the fact that after they accepted the points as a basis for the Armistice, they were distorted

Further Reading Baker, R. S., Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, 8 volumes (Doubleday, Page 1927-1939)

Many

Polish territories after the bitterly disputed by their neighbours, which made Poland's position between the wars increasingly insecure. The outbreak of the Second World War largely

upheld.

war were

and

altered.

German

territory, like

northern Schleswig and Memel, not mentioned in the Fourteen Points, was taken from her anyway. Rather than helping to make a lasting peace, the Fourteen Points became a disappointment and a mockery of the high principles which motivated them. Further Reading Bailey, T. A., A Diplomatic History of the American People (Appleton-CenturyCrofts Inc 1958)

Garman, H. J., & Syrett, H. C, A History of the American People Vol (Alfred A Knopf 1952) Hicks, J. D., Mowry, G. E Burke, R E The American Nation (Houghton Mifflin Co II

..

,

1965)

[For

S. L.

Mayer's biography, see page

19.

LLOYD

GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

\

»

Who was to run the war — the generals or the politicians?

The controversy raged

in all

the belligerent nations.

No

less in Britain. If anyone in

Britain could bring the generals under civilian control it was Lloyd George — and he knew it A. J. P. Taylor. Right: Lloyd George addresses the Canadian troops of General Sir

r, A r.

/

Sam Hughes (right)

,

;

i

**!

days war was the sport of kings. were fought by professional armies. The mass of people took no part except to pay and to suffer. The First World War could not be run in this way. It involved everyone. Millions of men were In the old

The

wars

be.

Clemenceau completed. In Germany the

else can.'

politicians

abdicated

favour of the Russia failed to proin

muni-

Great General Staff. duce either military or civilian leadership, and this failure provoked the Revolution

tions factories. Food was rationed. Industry was directed from above. Public opinion, too, had to be directed. The war had to be made popular even in an absolutist country such as Tsarist Russia. Every belligerent country was faced with a political problem:

of March 1917. In Great Britain the conflict between soldiers and statesmen was fought more decorously. But it was fought. No doubt the traditions of the British constitution did much to ensure the victory of the civilians.

who should run the war? The war had not only to be run efficiently, which was difficult enough. It had also to be run convincingly so that the mass of people would continue toco-operate in it. In practical terms there were two rival groups of claimants to the supreme direction: the statesmen and the soldiers. Each country came up with a different answer.

But a statesman was needed to defend these traditions. This statesman was Lloyd George. Alone among the political leaders he was ready to exercise supreme power when the need presented itself. He

conscripted

into

more, and

women

the

armies.

also,

worked

Millions in

But what drove him in the last resort was that he said like Chatham: 'I know that I can save this country and that no one

French generals started with virtually unchecked power and were gradually brought under civilian control, a process which

contended against other politicians as well as against the generals. He was accused of self-seeking, and no doubt he was ambitious as every successful politician must

Few Englishmen had a great

asked: how should war be conducted? The wars of the

even the Napoleonic Wars, had been remote affairs. The Secretary of State for War assembled an expeditionary force and past,

appointed a commander-in-chief. The expeditionary force departed for a field of operations which chose itself— the Spanish Peninsula, the Crimea, South Africa. The government had no further concern except to nourish the distant army with men and supplies. Much the same happened in August 1914. The British Expeditionary Force, under Sir John French, took its predestined place on the left wing of the French armies. The Cabinet waited passively for the expected victory. Instead of decision there was deadlock. The line of trenches ran from the Swiss frontier to the sea. The war became one of undefined duration. Strategy had to be determined, and there was no obvious way of doing this. In 1904 a Chief of the Imperial General Staff had been appointed to provide strategic guidance. He had carried little weight and in August 1914 actually went to France with the BEF. The Secretary of State for War was left in solitary glory. If he had been a civilian, he might have worked with his Cabinet colleagues as other ministers did. But he was not a civilian. He was a general, and the most famous general of the Empire at that: Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum. When the war broke out Asquith, the Prime Minister, was temporarily in charge of the War Office. This could not last. Asquith hastily appointed Kitchener as much to sustain the prestige of the government as for any other reason. Kitchener had been out of England for 40 years. He had conducted military affairs in India and Africa as an autocrat.

He

distrusted

all

politicians and was too old to change his ways. He sat silent in Cabinet, resentful of questions and refusing all discussion. This silence did not conceal any secret plans.

Kitchener, too, had no idea what to do. He complained of the deadlock in France: 'This isn't war.' Nevertheless he kept the armies and their supplies under his sole control.

With Kitchener at a loss, the Cabinet took the initiative and, after rambling spluttering discussion, hit on a plan: the expedition to the Dardanelles. Kitchener doubted and then acquiesced. The subsequent failure at Gallipoli was largely due to the fact that no single authority was responsible for it. Some Cabinet ministers

condemned the

Gallipoli

campaign

all

merely condemned it. He put forward an alternative: an expedition to Salonika. This, he thought, was the real back-door into Germany. Besides he wanted to lay hands on the spoils of the Ottoman Empire as compensation for the costs of the war. Here for the first time Lloyd George, though only Chancellor of the Exchequer, claimed to give strategic along.

Lloyd

George

not

leadership.

His immediate conflict with Kitchener, Left: Prime Minister before Lloyd George. Asquith visits the Western Front in August 1916 His leadership of the war-effort lacked drive and determination, his old-fashioned liberalism did not accord with the needs of a society at total

2554

war

however, was over supply, not over strategy. Munitions ran short. The newspapers railed against the 'Shells Scandal', Lloyd George was convinced that the War Office could not produce munitions and that ho could. In May 1915 his opportunity came. A political crisis, provoked by the resignation of Fisher the First Sea Lord, destroyed the Liberal government. Coalition took its place. Asquith had hoped to get rid of Kitchener. The Unionists insisted on keeping him. But his powers wore shorn. Lloyd George became the first Minister of Munitions. Supply was firmly in civilian hands. The generals lost a vast slice of the war effort. The door was opened for Lloyd George to become 'the man who won the war' He negotiated with labour. Hecreated new factories. He produced the shells and guns. This was Lloyd George's first victory over the generals.

Victory for the military party By October 1915 it was clear that the campaign had failed. Lloyd Gallipoli George among others pressed for withdrawal. Kitchener was sent to the Near

massed infantry attack. Robertson played side-shows. Gallipoli was evacuated; Mesopotamia and Egypt were kept on a tight rein. Everything was concentrated on France, where the first independent British offensive began on the Somme on July 1, 1916. It was a total failure: mass slaughter and no strategic gain. The Cabinet was not consulted before the Somme offensive and barely informed. After the Gallipoli affair, the Cabinet was glad to stand aside. Lloyd George at first rated Robertson highly and called him 'the best strategic mind in the British army'. During the winter of 1915/16 Lloyd George was mainly concerned to bring in compulsory military service, and this put him

down the

on the side of the generals. Lloyd George's other obsession was the co-ordination of the Allied effort. France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, he claimed, were fighting four separate wars, and the war could be won only if their plans and resources were

brought under a single direction. In a roundabout way, this prompting by Lloyd George led him to supreme power. For Kitchener, a good negotiator, was dispatched to Russia in order to secure the co-ordination which Lloyd George wanted. Kitchener sailed from Scotland on June 5, 1916. The ship carrying him struck a mine a few hours after leaving harbour. Kitchener was drowned along with most of the crew. The War Office was vacant. The generals planned to put in a man of straw — Lord Derby or Walter Long. The politicians did not realise how completely Robertson had usurped the Secretary of State's powers. They supposed that the War Office was still a key post. Bonar Law, the Unionist leader, agreed that only Lloyd George was big enough for the job. Together

Bonar Law and Lloyd George imposed their on Asquith. On July 4, 1916 Lloyd George became Secretary of State for War.

will

In the excitement of grasping at this high

East to report. It was Asquith's intention he should never come back. But Kitchener refused to be discarded. In November he returned. A revolution in military affairs had taken place during his absence. Sir Douglas Haig succeeded

that

John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Sir William Robertson was called home to become Chief of the Imperial General Staff. These were considerable improvements. Haig was a more competent general than French. Robertson was a highly efficient staff officer. The appointments were also a victory for the militaryside. Haig, unlike French, was a skilled publicist, friendly with George V, in close touch with Northcliffe the press lord and with discontented politicians. Robertson Sir

wrote his own terms of appointment. He alone was to be the strategical adviser of the government. All orders to the armies in the field were to be issued in his name. Kitchener, the Secretary of State, was virtually superseded. Robertson was on the way to becoming military dictator. Unlike Kitchener, he was not a member of the Cabinet and could therefore ignore it. He rejected suggestions from ministers with the remark: 'I've 'eard different', and said to Lloyd George: 'It is a waste of time explaining strategy to you. You would not understand my explanation unless you had

my experience.' The Gallipoli expedition had been initiated by the Cabinet, not by the War Office, and its failure discredited the civilian direction of strategy. Sir William Robertson, it was felt, would surely do better. Robertson was an uncompromising 'westand of course Haig, commanding the British forces on the Western Front, agreed with him. Both men were convinced that Great Britain's military strength should be concentrated in France and that the war could be won there by repeated offensives. They had no new idea for strategy in the field by which the trench deadlock could be broken. They relied solely on artillery bombardment and a erner',

Right: Andrew Bonar Law, Conservative leader in the Commons and Colonial Secretary in Asquith s coalition government. He was a constant supporter of Lloyd George's ambitions,

becoming Chancellor in Lloyd George's government and a member of the War Cabinet

2555

Lloyd George did not investigate Robertson's powers. Only when established at the War Office did he realise that he was a mere figurehead without a voice in strategy. Robertson refused to give him strategical information and insisted that at the War Council he must simply support whatever Robertson proposed. Even worse, Robertson told Northcliffe about Lloyd interference, and attempted George's Northcliffe threatened to break Lloyd George if it went on. Lloyd George rebuked Robertson for this gross 'breach of conoffice,

and discipline' and on October 12, 1916 wrote to him: 'It ought to be decided whether 1 must choose between the position of a dummy or a pure advocate of all opinions expressed by my military adYou must not ask me to play the visers. fidence

.

.

.

part of a mere dummy. suited for that part.'

I

am not

in the least

Even now Lloyd George hesitated to a direct attack and deprive Robertson of his extraordinary powers. As he said of himself, 'I was never in favour of frontal

make

attacks, either in politics or in war, if there were a way round'. His way round was that the existing War Council of the

Cabinet, an inchoate body without powers, should be swept away and replaced by a council of three, with himself in the chair and in full executive control. Lloyd George's original purpose was to bypass Robertson. But he also proposed that Asquith, though Prime Minister, should not be a member of the new War Council. This provoked a great political crisis. Bonar Law and most of the backbenchers in both parties backed Lloyd George. The senior statesmen in both parties backed Asquith. Lloyd George won.

On December

7,

1916 he became Prime

Minister, free, or so he supposed, to run the war as he chose.

'Sack him now!' Lloyd George set up a War Cabinet of five, all except Bonar Law free from departmental duties. The War Cabinet was to be a 'committee of public safety'. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and for that matter the First Sea Lord, would be under its orders. This was easier said than done. Robertson remained adamant. When the new government was formed, Lloyd George had promised the Unionists that he would not dismiss Haig. He had said nothing about Robertson, and F. E. Smith, Attorney General, advised: 'Sack him now!' Bonar Law, who had less experience of Robertson, would not agree, and Lloyd George dared not go against the man who had helped to make him Prime Minister. Robertson remained supreme. Once more Lloyd George tried to find a way round. He attended an inter-Allied conference in Rome and proposed that the main military effort of the year should be made on the Italian Front. The Italians let him down. Their Commander-in-Chief refused the proffered support. A new door opened accidentally. Lloyd George met General Nivelle who had just succeeded Commander-in-Chief of the Joffre as French armies on the Western Front. Nivelle claimed to have discovered a secret way of winning the war. Though Lloyd George would have dismissed such nonsense from a British general, he was fascinated to hear it from a French general, especially one who spoke good English. For once Haig and Robertson agreed, seeing that the offensive Nivelle proposed was to

2556

be on the Western Front.

But Lloyd George had another trick in He decided to put Haig under Nivelle's orders. He secretly asked the French to draft a directive in this sense and then got the War Cabinet to approve it at a meeting which Robertson did not attend. On February 26, 1917 an AngloFrench conference was held at Calais, store.

ostensibly

coming

discuss transport for the offensive. In the late afternoon to

Lloyd George's 'way round' — the Supreme War Council Below: Lloyd George en route

for a

War Council

meeting of

the

Supreme

Sir

Henry Wilson and General Foch, recognised

Allied

with General

as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies

on

April 13,

1918

Nivelle innocently produced the directive subordinating Haig and the BEF to himself. Lloyd George added that the War Cabinet had already endorsed it. Robertson and Haig protested violently. They even invoked the British constitution which they had not always respected in other w a\ s In the end a compromise was reached: Haig would conform to Nivelle's strategic plans, hut only for the coming offensive and with the right of appeal to the British

government

he thought the offensive was m jeopardy. This was no mora than what Haig had done in practice with J offre on previous occasions. Lloyd George's trick

had

not

if

worked

Quite the contrary. The position of Haig and Robertson was enormously consolidated They had defied the Prime Minister and won. Lord Derby, who had become Secretary ofState for War in Lloyd George's government, backed Robertson unreserv-

and Derby, though himself weak — 'a feather pillow' Haig called him — was a formidable political figure. The King encouraged Haig to resist Lloyd George and ostentatiously made him a field-marshal. On top of this, Nivelle's vaunted offensive was a total failure. Nivelle was dismissed in May. The French army was ravaged by edly,

mutiny. Petain, Nivelle's successor, followed a defensive strategy and was content to wait for the arrival of the Americans, who had entered the war in April 1917. Haig and Robertson seemed vindicated in their opposition to Lloyd George's plan for a supreme command. As a final handicap, Lloyd George was locked in conflict with the Admiralty over the introduction of convoys for merchant ships. The Admiralty refused to introduce convoys. Lloyd George imposed the system and it was a triumphant success, perhaps Lloyd George's greatest contribution towards winning the war. Lloyd George could not quarrel with the generals while he was quarrelling with the admirals. Indeed he enlisted Haig's support against Jellicoe, the First Sea Lord, and Haig, always ready to jettison a falling ally, duly obliged, calling Jellicoe 'an old woman'.

Yet Lloyd George had great reason to quarrel with the generals or at any rate to argue with them. For Haig wanted another offensive in France, this time of his own devising. Previous British offensives had been conducted in conformity with the French. The Somme offensive had been proposed by Joffre, and those of spring 1917 had been auxiliary to Nivelle's. Haig had never had much faith in them. His own solution was an independent British offensive in Flanders, far away from the French. This looked attractive on the map. The British would break out from the Ypres salient which they had held since October 1914 and would roll up the German line from the south. One spring and the British would be in Ostend. Another spring and they would cut all the Belgian railways on

which the Germans depended. The Germans would have to evacuate Belgium and north-eastern France. The war would be won before the Americans arrived — a consummation which Haig, in contrast to Petain, greatly desired.

The

reality

was

less attractive.

The

Bel-

gians had opened the dykes and let in the sea. The German northern flank was therefore securely protected. At Ypres the ground was heavy clay. The water never drained away. Bombardment churned it into deep mud. The Germans had been fortifying their line for over two years. They had brought in divisions from the

Eastern Front where Russia had been

vir-

tually defeated. Haig hoped to win with a bare equality of men. Haig himself never visited the proposed field of battle. Nor did his Chief-of-Staff until the battle was over. Essentially what Haig feared more than the Germans was the diversion of British military strength to Palestine and the Near East. He could only justify the primacy of the Western Front by a great offensive and therefore ignored all the practical difficulties, preferring to do the wrong thing rather than do nothing at all. Lloyd George did not want to be responsible for

another Somme. But he was in a

position or thought he was. He depended on the support of the Unionists in the House of Commons, and they had a blind faith in the generals. He himself had

weak

2557

promised resist

to

win the war.

when Haig promised

How to

could he

the service leaders on equal terms in the

win the war

Chiefs-of-Staff's Committee. No such committee existed in the First World War, and in any case Lloyd George did not possess

for him? Haig was a skilful publicist, whatever his defects as a military leader. He

conciliated members of Parliament who visited his headquarters. He was in close touch with Asquith and other leaders of the Liberal Opposition. He had the support of the King. Most of all he knew how to handle the press. Lloyd George said afterwards: 'GHQ could not capture Passchendaele Ridge, but it was determined to storm Fleet Street, and here strategy and tactics were superb. Lord Northcliffe had, ever since 1916, been the mere kettledrum of Sir Douglas Haig, and the mouth organ of Sir William Robertson.' Lloyd George was Prime Minister. Theoretically he was supreme. But he had no means of asserting his power. Effective machinery for enforcing civilian control over the generals was lacking. In the

Second World

War

Churchill could meet

Churchill's practical knowledge of strategy.

The War Cabinet

itself

had

to

make

the

strategic decisions. All its members except Smuts were as unqualified as Lloyd George, and Smuts paradoxically took the side of British generals whom he had beaten in

the field during the Boer war.

The War Cabinet ought

to

have received

strategic guidance from Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. But Robertson thought that it was his duty to support Haig unreservedly, the more so as Haig was his senior in rank. Robertson had no faith that Haig's proposed offensive would succeed. The most it would do was to kill Germans. No matter, it would assert the primacy of the Western Front. Robertson held the members of the War Cabinet in contempt. He wrote to Haig: 'Lloyd

George is a real bad 'un. Milner is a tired dyspeptic old man. Curzon a gas-bag. Bonar Law equals Bonar Law. Smuts has good instinct but lacks knowledge.' In the middle of June 1917 the War Cabinet held prolonged sessions. Haig came over from France and was persistently cross-examined by Lloyd George. Why should this offensive succeed when others had failed? Would the French support it? What evidence was there that the Germans were, as Haig claimed, demoralised? At each question Haig grew more confident. There was, he thought, 'a reasonable chance' of reaching Ostend; a little later 'a very good chance' of complete victory before the end of the year. The members of the War Cabinet were arguing in the dark. They were not told that the French were against the offensive and were convinced that it would fail. They were not told that all the British generals except Haig were against it, nor that it had been condemned both by Haig's Intelligence staff and by Robertson's staff in London. They were not told the truth about German strength. They did not learn that the Flanders weather broke in August, as the staff reported, with the regularity of the monsoon.

The War Cabinet wavered. Smuts supported Haig. Bonar Law reported that the House of Commons would not tolerate interference with the generals. Only Milner supported Lloyd George. Besides, the War Cabinet had many other problems to discuss — foreign policy, finance, unrest at home, Ireland, agriculture, the coal shortage and so on indefinitely. Lloyd George had to leave one meeting for his daughter's wedding. The statesmen could not go on arguing with Haig for ever. He was told to prepare an offensive. Meanwhile the War Cabinet would think again. It

never found time

Haig reported that

to

all

do

so.

On

July 25

was ready. The War

wholehearted 'its do so only as an afterthought at the end of a meeting. So began what was officially called the third battle of Ypres; popularly, from its final episode, Passchendaele; and, most truly, by Lloyd George, the battle of the mud. The drainage system of Flanders broke down. August was the wettest for many years. Men, guns and tanks disappeared into the mud. Haig had promised to stop the offensive if it did not succeed immediately. He did not do so. The offensive dragged on for three months. In September Lloyd George tried to stop it. He crossed to France where Haig told him that a German collapse might come 'at any moment'. Lloyd George was convinced that 'he had backed the wrong horse'. Back in England Lloyd George debated whether to dismiss Haig. Immediately came the threat that Robertson would resign also. Lloyd George canvassed the members of the War Cabinet and some of the Dominion Prime Ministers. They gave Cabinet

support'

him

sent

hastily

— resolving

little

support.

to

Many

of

them were

be-

witched by Haig's confidence. Others feared a political upheaval: the backbench Unionists would revolt and bring Asquith back to power as the generals' champion. Lloyd Left: Sir William

Robertson, Chief of the

November 1915. became Minister of War he

Imperial General Staff from

When

Lloyd George

began trying to strip Robertson of his wide powers Strategic adviser' to the War Cabinet, he was

2558

in

practice a staunch supporter of Haig

George played with the idea oi' holding a general election This would have been a bizarre event with Lloyd George campaign-

defeat at Caporetto British and French troops had to be sent In the Italian From British, French and Italian statesmen

against the British generals, not against the Germans In any ease his most fervent supporters were also the most fervent for Sir Douglas Haig In the end Lloyd George merely took two out-of-work secret from advice generals Sir John French, whom Haig had superseded, and Sir Henry Wilson, ~\n Irishman with the gift of the gab who fancied himself as a Strategist Both gave Lloyd George the advice he wanted: the offensive in Flanders must he stopped. Nothing happened. The offensive dragged on until November when it finally stuck in the mud Many Germans had been killed and even more British Otherwise nothing had been achieved.

gathered

ing

George was determined on a Haig and Robertson must go He soon convinced himself that they were intriguing against him just as he was Lloyd

change

at

Rapallo Lloyd George's plead

A Supreme Allied War Council was instituted It was to he com iiu:

can

led [he


|x>>cd of the throe I'm

me Mi msters

it

t

heir

deputies and would receive strategical advice from a body of military represen tatives, meeting at Versailles. Lloyd George appointed Sir Henry Wilson, his favourite, as the British representative. Robertson, it seemed, had been by-passed Lloyd George rejoiced too soon. Back in London, Robertson briefed the Unionisl press and the Liberal Opposition. 'Hands off the Army' was the cry Lloyd George's critics denounced the idea of two sets of military advisers, perhaps giving contradictory advice There was a debate in the House ol Commons. Lloyd George retreated Hi' declared that the Supreme War Council

would have no executive authority It would merely discuss and co-ordinate. He repudiated or,

as

simo

it

any.

was

idea

called,

Personally

I

ol

a

united

an Allied

am

utterly

command, generalis-

opposed

to

The House of Commons was satisfied rhere was no division, and Lloyd George was held to have triumphed. He had done so only by running away

that

suggestion.'

Robertson's authority over strategy had been consolidated The deadlock between him and Lloyd George persisted Not, however, for long Karly in the new year of 191 8 the military representatives at Versailles suggested that a general reserve of British and French troops should he formed The suggestion seems to have come from Foch, the French Chief-of-Staff, and it was commonsense. With Russia out of the war, a German offensive on the Western Front was to be expected, and the Allies could best meet it by drawing on a single general reserve Wither Haig nor

planning against them He believed that he was laced by a cabal 'which would overthrow the existing War Cabinet and especially its Chief, and enthrone a Government

which would be practically the nominee and menial of the military party'. This went too far Both Haig and Robertson briefed politicians on behalf of the great offensive. Robertson can perhaps be said to have intrigued with Asquith. Haig certainly sought support from the King. But neither of

them

really tried to interfere nominate a government or direct civilian affairs as Ludendorff did in Germany. Smuts was sent over to France in search of some better general than Haig He returned with the report that while one or in politics, still less to

two generals such as Plumer were marginally more sympathetic, they had no flash of genius which would make the upheaval worth while. In any case appointing a new Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front would enhance its importance, and basically Lloyd George wanted a new strategy, not a new Commander-inChief of the BFF. Haig therefore survived after

discarding

members

the

more

optimistic

of his staff.

'Hands

off the Army!' heart Lloyd George clung to the belief that Germany should somehow be attacked from the rear While Haig had been failing to advance in Flanders. Allenby was sweeping into Palestine and gave Lloyd George the conquest of Jerusalem as a Christmas present. An eastern strategy demanded a new Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and this mean! getting rid of Robertson. Once more Lloyd George shrank from a frontal attack. A proposal to dismiss Robertson brought firm protest from Derby, the Secretary for War. strongly supported by the Unionist backbenchers Lloyd George reverted to his old solution -an inter-Allied direction of the war If this were achieved, the national Chiefs-of-Staff would lose their autonomy

At

and independence. Event- gave Lloyd George

Ins opening. In

October 1917 the Italians suffered a great Right. Sir John French, first Commander-inChief of the BEF French lost his command in December 1915. two months after the disaster at Loos and after a certain amount of behind-

the-scenes of Haig

activity

by Robertson on behalf

2559

Petain liked surrendering any of the forces under their control, but they made no open objection.

The

decisive objection

came from

Robertson. He asked who would control the general reserve. If the Versailles committee did so, then the Chief of the Imperial

General Staff would lose what Robertson called his 'constitutional' authority over strategy. Robertson therefore insisted that Sir Henry Wilson should remain clearly subordinated to himself. In this way, the general reserve would not be in fact a general reserve at all. Lloyd George saw his chance. Robertson was told that he could remain Chief of the Imperial General Staff, with Wilson independent at Versailles. Alternatively he could go to Versailles, in which case Wilson would succeed him as CIGS and become supreme in London. Robertson was trapped. He refused either of the alternatives. He also refused to resign. Lloyd George determined to dismiss him. Once more the Liberal Opposition rallied to Robertson's support. Within the government Lord Derby, Lord Robert Cecil and Walter Long threatened to resign. Haig came over from France to sustain Robertson. The King 'strongly deprecated the idea of Robertson being removed from the office of CIGS'.

Lloyd George triumphs This time Lloyd George was defiant.

He

members of Parliament that, if they thought some other government would run the war better, 'then it is their busitold the

God's name, to put that other in!' He told the King's secretary: 'If His Majesty insisted upon Robertthe King would son's remaining in office have to find other Ministers'. Lloyd George's threats were decisive. He alone had the confidence of the country. If there were a general election, he would win it. Support for Robertson melted away. The

ness,

in

Government

.

.

.

House of Commons did not divide. The King explained that he had been misHaig adroitly abandoned understood. Robertson and declared that 'he was prepared to accept whatever was decided by the Cabinet'. Even Derby withdrew his resignation, though he was shunted off to Paris as ambassador in April. Sir Henry Wilson became CIGS. Rawlinson, his successor at Versailles, was put under his orders just as Robertson had insisted, and no one turned a hair. In a sense Lloyd George had triumphed. Wilson, though as much a 'westerner' as Robertson, was ready to talk like a politician and to provide full strategical information. Moreover, despite his brilliance, he lacked the gift of decision and was prepared to leave the final decision to Lloyd George. The

Minister had become supreme. Events soon took this position from him. On March 21, 1918 the Germans began their last great offensive on the Western Front, and with this the long debate between 'westerners' and 'easterners' was over. Henceforth until the end of the war the Allies had to make their main effort on the Western Front without arguing about

Prime

it.

The German offensive also provoked the unity of command which Lloyd George had advocated in vain. Haig and Petain had not set up a general reserve as they had been instructed to do. When the Germans advanced, the British and French armies were on the point of falling apart — the 2560

back to the Channel ports, the French to Paris. Haig now needed French help. At his appeal, Lord Milner went to France on behalf of the War Cabinet. An Anglo-French conference Doullens at appointed Foch 'to co-ordinate the action of the Allied armies'. This was inadequate. Lloyd George recognised that Haig's opposition to a supreme command had crumbled under the German blows. He therefore summoned a further meeting at Beauvais on April 3, and there Foch was given 'the British

strategic direction of military operations'. later the War Cabinet named Foch 'Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies'. This time Lloyd George had really got his way. He still had to face a belated, or better a posthumous, attack. The conflict between soldiers and statesmen had been decided. Even Haig was content. Sir Frederick Maurice, Director of Military Operations,

Ten days

was

not.

He had

supported Robertson and

now resigned in his turn. But he believed wrongly that Lloyd George was plotting to dismiss Haig also and therefore determined

to fire a parting shot.

On May

7,

1918 he published a letter in The Times, accusing Lloyd George of giving false information

army

about* the

strength

of the

France to the House of Commons on January 1, 1918. This was a dead issue. The only thing which mattered now was to stem the German advance. Though Maurice professed loyalty to constitutional principles, the only purpose of his letter was to overthrow Lloyd George. British

in

Once more the Liberal Opposition

rallied

to the cause of the military. Asquith demanded enquiry by a select committee. In

Below: Sir Henry Wilson, CIGS. Even Robertson's sacking and Wilson's appointment did not give Lloyd George the opportunity of bringing in a new strategy. The German spring offensive ended once and for all the debate between easterners' and westerners'

May 9 Lloyd George ahowed, whether fairly or not, that the figures which Maurice impugned had been supthe debate on

plied by Maurice's critics

were

mented: 'The

own department. The

routed

man who

F.

E.

Smith com-

enters into real and

controversy with Mr Lloyd George must think clearly, think deeply, and think ahead. Otherwise he will think too late.' There was one last twist of a paradoxical kind. Lloyd George and the War Cabinet had imposed unity of command Yet in July 1918 they became afraid that Koch was making excessive demands on the tierce

British army Milner went to France and told Haig that, if he defied Koch, the War Cabinet would support him Haig did not

Below: Sir Douglas Haig with General Joffre Haig had friends in high places and Lloyd George had to exercise care in dealing with him If he dismissed Haig many of his supporters in Parliament would turn against him. Moreover. Haig enjoyed the confidence of the King

take up the offer. He remained loyal to Koch, and under Koch's direction the Allied offensive brought victory over the Germans in November 1918. Lloyd George was hailed, rightly or wrongly, as 'the man who won the war'. Lloyd George may have won the war against the Germans. Hi' was less success lul against his own generals and won at best a defensive battle. Perhaps it would be truer to say that he won and did not know what use to make of his victory. Lloyd George was in all things a man of expedients and individual enterprise. He imagined that if he found the right man for the job success would follow of itself. This was how he himself had succeeded at the Ministry of Munitions and how later he put things right at the Admiralty — simply by putting Eric Geddes in place of Carson. So too regard to the war on land, he supposed that all would be well if he found a

m

different

Commander-in-Chief and a

dif-

strategic adviser. In reality the military problems of the First World War cut deeper than individuals. Victory demanded entirely new methods which only a few junior officers surmised. Churchill ferent

commented

truly: Lloyd George and Haig were the best we could do, and they were both wrong. Lloyd George never showed any interest in the technical problems of war. He did not initiate the manufacture of tanks. He did not

how these should be used. war was still something which

seek advice

In his view,

the civilian statesman approached from outside. This was exactly the view which

Asquith had taken, except that Lloyd George complained more when things went wrong. Lloyd George certainly tried to interfere in strategy, but again mainly in a negative way. He doubted whether the war could be won on the Western Front and failed to suggest any better alternative. Though Allenby reached Damascus by the end of the war thanks to Lloyd George, it was a very long way from Damascus to Berlin.

Lloyd George also failed to devise any civilian statesmen could direct strategy. Once he had put Wilson in place of Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff he left things much as before. Wilson had less autonomy, but this did not benefit Lloyd George. It restored the authority of the Secretary of State for War, and when Churchill held this office he promoted the British intervention in Russia entirely against Lloyd George's wishes. Lloyd George stumbled on the solution at the end of his official career without knowing that he had done so. During the Chanak crisis he instructed the three Chiefs-of-Staff— army, air and navy — to give joint advice, and from this sprang the

new system by which

Chiefs of Staff's Committee which was Churchill's main instrument for directing the Second World War. Beaverbrook best summed up the crisis between Lloyd George and his generals: 'The politicians gave little credit to the generals. The generals denounced the politicians. The soldiers and sailors serving in the forces had little confidence in either. The public had no heroes.'

Further Reading Beaverbrook, Lord,

Men and Power,

1917-18

(Collins 1956) Blake, Robert (editor), The Private

Papers of Douglas Haig (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952) Bonham-Carter, Victor, Soldier True (1963) Chambers, F. P., The War Behind the War (1939) Taylor, A J

P..

Politics in

Wartime (1964)

TAYLOR is a historian and a journalist, FelMagdalen College, Oxford, and Honorary Director of the Beaverbrook Library He was formerly Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Manchester. From 1953-63 he was Lecturer in International History at Oxford University and from 1938-63 he was Tutor in Modern History at Magdalen College. Oxford. In 1956 he became a Fellow of the British Academy. His works include The Habsburg Monarchy, 1815-1918, The Struggle A

J

low

P

of

Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918, The Russian Revolution of 1917 (script of the first lectures ever given on television. 1958), The Origins of the Second World War, The First World War: An Illustrated History, English History, 1914-45 and From Sarajevo for

to

Potsdam

2561

THE SCANDINAVIAN

CONVOY 1917 Throughout almost the whole of 1917, a strategic stalemate existed in the North Sea and Kattegat regions. This was due to the caution felt by both the British and the Germans about employing their battle fleets and also to the growing importance of the U-Boat campaign against Britain's western sea lanes, which forced all other naval aspects of the war into a subsidiary position.

The

all-out U-Boat offensive dominated the thinking of the two navies in the North Sea.

The

result

was

strategic stalemate.

Paul Kennedy. Right: The actions in the North Sea, 1917 Jellicoe his job.

duties and another 29 were refitting. Apart from the other factors, therefore, the British battle fleet was immobilised by lack of escorts. This did not prevent various bodies and individuals from considering more offensive schemes, from a blockade of the German ports to breaking into the Baltic, but all these fell foul of the Admiralty's aversion to risking the battle fleet in dangerous waters: it was better to be passive and to retain command of the

sea than to be daring and to lose

August 19, 1916 (see Vol. 4, p. 1729) and continued without alteration by Beatty when he became C-in-C, Grand Fleet. On that occasion, not only had the British battleships been dogged by Zeppelins

Scheer pounces The stalemate continued

most of the time while knowledge of the enemy's whereabouts remained scanty, but the Grand Fleet had repeatedly sighted and been attacked by German submarines. Chastened by this experience, and acutely aware of his shortage in destroyers, Jellicoe had insisted that the battle fleet avoid going further south than the Fame Islands and further east than 4°E unless the need was 'very pressing'. Beatty proved to be equally cautious, or perhaps even more so: he was also worried about the structural weaknesses of his ships and the poor quality of his shell, both of which had been revealed at Jutland.

On

the German side, too, caution was advisable. Scheer was aware that at Jutland his forces had had a narrow escape and was unwilling to become involved again in a toe-to-toe battle with the much larger Grand Fleet. The isolation and destruction of part of the British battle fleet remained his ideal for this would swing the entire naval balance. Moreover, Scheer lacked the necessary submarines to deploy far in front of the High Seas Fleet, while a further brake upon action was the Kaiser's firm opposition to any risky ventures with his battleships. Only if the circumstances were very favourable — if the British fleet well

ventured near to the German coast so that it could first of all be attacked by submarines and torpedo-boats — would the Germans give battle; yet the British policy precluded such an event from taking place. As the year 1917 passed, the situation showed little sign of change. With the Grand Fleet containing 32 battleships and the High Seas Fleet only 21 by July, there was less reason than ever for Scheer to change his mind. Beatty, however, was more concerned about the changing balance in battle-cruisers (which the Admiralty had greatly miscalculated); and, more especially, about the chronic shortage of light cruisers and destroyers, which left the battle fleet's protection from submarines and mines much reduced and affected the scouting services of the Grand Fleet. The most important reason of all for the continued stalemate in the North Sea, however, was the fact that both navies were in a life-and-death struggle as a result of the German decision to carry out unrestricted submarine warfare. For the Germans, this strategy offered the only chance of breaking their most formidable foe, and every other aspect of the naval war was subordinated to this aim. Scheer himself felt that his fleet 'will have to devote itself to the single task of bringing the submarines safely in and out of harbour', and this became a further ground for maintaining the 'fleet in being' policy. Not only were the U-Boats too busy to partake in the fleet operations, but the High Seas Fleet could not afford to be weakened in battle lest this prevent it from supporting the German minesweepers in keeping the submarine bases open. Finally, the disorders in the German fleet, which took place in July and August, cast doubt over the entire morale and discipline of the men under Scheer's command, and thus over their battle effectiveness. On the British side, the alarming losses in merchant vessels caused the Admiralty to withdraw more and more destroyers from the Grand Fleet. By July, of ihe 109 destroyers theoretically attached to Beatty's command, 46 vere absent on anti-submarine

engaged

2562

fleets

the Germans took the initiative. The Admiralty's handling of events was to cost

Upon the British side, this was merely a continuation of the policy formulated by Jellicoe after the disappointing action of

for

The

eyed one another warily, neither daring to risk a move. Both feared the outcome of another engagement on the scale of Jutland. Finally, however, in the late autumn of 1917

it.

until the late autumn and early winter, a series of small actions in the North Sea brought reverses to the Royal Navy and aroused much criticism of the way Jellicoe was handling the overall strategy. The first of these incidents occurred with a German attack on October 17 upon a convoy, travelling from Norway to Lerwick in the Shetlands. This traffic, of considerable importance to British industry, had been regularly escorted since the beginning of 1917, the first real convoy system which the Admiralty had agreed to. By this time, however, it was a humdrum event and there was little expectation that the Germans would steam so far north from their bases to interrupt it. Yet Scheer, eager to do something with his surface vessels and hoping either to paralyse this trade or to cause a diversion of the British anti-submarine forces onto this route, ordered two fast minelayers, SMS Brummer and SMS Bremse, to attack this particular convoy. The British were, in fact, aware that a German move of some sort was in the offing, and various forces totalling three cruisers, 27 light cruisers and 54 destroyers were despatched to patrol lines in the North Sea; but they were not told to expect an attack upon the Scandinavian traffic nor, more significantly, was the convoy escort warned that the enemy was on the move. The German ships achieved complete surprise when they sighted the convoy just after 0600 hours on October 17. Although the two Mary Rose and Strongbow, valiantly chaldestroyers, lenged their larger opponents, they were soon overwhelmed by gunfire and sunk. Nine Scandinavian vessels, totalling some 10,248 tons, were also sunk, and only three merchant ships and two armed trawlers survived the slaughter and picked up the few survivors. Racing southwards again, the Brummer and Bremse were soon back in harbour and receiving congratulations for their daring and successful raid. Beatty, who only learned of the action after 1600 hours, ordered his light forces to cut the raiders off from their base but this measure proved to be far too late. The key factor, an Admiralty Court of Enquiry later decided, was the failure of the destroyers to wireless the news of the attack. Although one of the investigating body felt that the action 'was not less glorious to the Navy than that in which Sir Richard Grenville perished', the Mary Rose and Strongbow would have done better to order the convoy to scatter and send out the alarm, avoiding a close-range battle with their heavier opponents. Nevertheless, despite this event and widespread criticism in the press, Beatty was not too despondent at the overall picture. The German raid had been very lucky, and the sinkings did not deter Scandinavian vessels from carrying out their trade with Britain. Moreover, the German endeavours to keep the exits of their submarine bases free of mines were becoming so noticeable that there was now a prospect of a fleet action at last. The more mines the British laid at the end of these exit channels, the further into the North Sea the German sweepers had to work — and the greater protection they required by their High Seas Fleet forces. Although the original object of the minelaying was to stop the passage of U-Boats into the Atlantic -and the British were already employed in setting large-scale mining and patrol traps in the centre of the North Sea in early October -the consequences were becoming much more exciting. In fact, by the latter part of 1917, German minesweepers were working as far as 150 miles

when

HMS

HMS

North Sea 1917

NOVEMBER

17 1917

.BRITISH

J3ERVAS

ENGLAND

f\^h\) 2563

from the -Jade and requiring battleship support; and this gave Beatty the incentive to despatch forces to sweep into the Heligoland Bight on the late afternoon of November 16. As it happened, Scheer had also decided to send his minesweepers and their

same area. The German minesweeper

escorts into the

force was escorted by eight destroyers and covered by Rear- Admiral von Reuter's Second Scouting Force of lour light cruisers; the dreadnoughts SMS Kaiser and SMS Km scnn provided distant support, patrolling near Heligoland. On the British side, Beatty directed Vice-Admiral Napier to steam through the Bight with the light battle-cruisers HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious, eight light cruisers and ten destroyers. Close cover was provided by five battle-cruisers and nine destroyers under Vice-Admiral Pakenham, who was in charge of the whole sweep, while the First Battle Squadron (six battleships and 11 destroyers) gave more distant cover, patrolling outside the mine barrier. If it came to a clash, therefore, the odds were heavily in

favour of the British.

Last big-ship engagement of the war At 0730 hours on November 17, as they were steaming due east through the Bight, the British cruisers sighted the German minesweeping force ahead of them and quickly opened fire. Realising at once that he was outnumbered, Reuter put out a dense smokescreen and soon turned to the south-east, where his battleship support lay. With his target obscured from sight, Napier was unaware of this change of course until 0811 hours, when he ordered his ships to follow. The action settled

down

into a chase,

'i

£*

c

rather like the beginnings of the Jutland battle (though on a much reduced scale), since both the British and German forces engaged had larger units behind them. However, the pursuit was not pressed home with noticeable vigour, which was partly due to the relatively slow speed of some of the British cruisers and to the fact that Napier did not increase the speed of his light battle-cruisers above 25 knots — although they could do over 30 knots and had been designed for this very purpose by Fisher. Fire was exchanged at ranges between 15,000 and 10,000 yards but at 0820 hours the Germans put down a second smoke-screen and, 15 minutes later, a third. Fearing that his quarry had changed course behind the smoke, Napier ordered a turn to the north-east. By 0852 hours, as the smoke cleared and the chase was resumed, Napier had lost 5 miles by these alterations in course. As a result, Reuter's forces were almost out of range. At 0900 hours the battle-cruiser HMS Repulse, detached by Pakenham somewhat earlier, was able to catch up with Napier's forces. This welcome reinforcement had little immediate consequence, however, because of a series of misunderstandings and faulty staff preparations upon the British side. Napier ignored Pakenham's signal to break off the chase at 0908 hours but half an hour later, just as he was beginning to close up on Reuter's forces again in the face of German torpedo attacks, he ordered all but the light cruisers to discontinue the action. The reason was that Napier had reached a line, which on his chart marked the beginning of a 'dangerous area', a region mined by the British in 1915. In fact, this map was vague and inaccurate, and he could have pursued Reuter for another 30 miles without encountering

danger. Beatty and Pakenham knew this from their special monthly charts of all minefields, but this information had nut been passed on to Napier (the charts of the light cruisers had no minefields marked in this region at all!'. Had Napier been given the correct information, there seems little doubt that a much larger conflict would have ensued By 0940 the British light cruisers had drawn closer to their opposite numbers and a heavy exchange was taking place: a German shell struck the conning tower and bridge of 11MS Calypso, killing the captain, the navigator and many others Moreover, Heuter had succeeded in leading his pursuers hack to the mam German force, and by 0950 the British cruisers were being straddled with shells from the battleships Kaiser and Kaisenn. The hunters became the hunted, and Ke.u -Admiral Alexander-Sinclair, in charge of the light cruisers, ordered a retreat. They fell back upon the Repulse, which had followed them into the 'dangerous area' and now covered them very ably, putting a shell through the midships of the cruiser SMS Komgsberg. The British forces wore not pursued, however, and in any case a dense fog fell around 1040 hours and prevented all thought of further action. By 1300 hours the light cruisers had rejoined a rather anxious Napier and the entire British force was returning to base. This action of November 1 7, the last big-ship engagement of he war, had proved most disappointing for the British. As regards shell damage, there was little in it, although the British gunnery had not been very impressive: Alexander-Sinclair's ships had taken seven hits, the worst being on the Calypso; Reuter's force had taken five hits, the worst being on the Konigsberg, and had t

HMS Repulse, M-class' destroyer HMS Romola, monitor HMS Erebus

Below: Renown-c\ass battle-cruiser

HMS Peregrine,

R-class' destroyer

and submarine E 25in dock

also lost a patrol boat Much more dissatisfying was the fact that, having surprised an inferior German force far from its base in clear daylight, it had proved impossible to bring it to decisive action, fhe confusion over the position of minefields had been of crucial importance, and the failure here provoked recommendations for improving the system of stall' preparation, particularly of the lighter forces. No fault could he found with the actions of the light cruisers and the Repulse, and the determined measures of both

were praised by Beatty, But Napier was considered to have committed 'an error of judgment' in failing to increase the speed of the (llorious and Courageous after the fust change of course. No satisfactory explanation was, or has been, offered for this failure, which in the view of the (icrmans saved Router's ships from destruction, 'fhe whole affair, in fact, was rather disturbing and, as Professor Marder notes: 'That the failure on 17 November occurred nearly 18 months after Jutland had revealed serious deficiencies in staff work, co-ordinated action, and gunnery caused many to look askance at the Admiralty.' No sooner had criticism of the Royal Navy's handling of matters

died down somewhat than it arose again, after the destruction of a second Scandinavian convoy by German forces on December 11. As a result of the attack of October 16, the Admiralty was consider- | ing alterations in the convoy system. These involved lengthening S the intervals between sailings and increasing the covering force. ^

There

were

important economic

arguments

for

maintaining |

the daily flow at this particular time and, in any case, no decision a upon this had yet been reached. On the other hand, it had been » thought wise to increase the strength of the forces giving cover i

Above: 'Ka/ser-class' dreadnought SMS Kaiserin. Left: Admiral Reinhard Scheer, Commander-in-Chief of the High Seas Fleet. Below: SMS Prmzregent Luitpold, a 'Ka/serclass' dreadnought. The five Ka/ser-class' dreadnoughts- SMS Kaiser, Friednch der Grosse, Kaiserin, Prinzregent Luitpold, Konig Albert — were completed between October 1912 and August 1913. In 1914 Friedrich der Grosse

became the flagship

of the C-in-C, the others

formed the 3rd Battle Squadron. All except Konig Albert were at Jutland. Displacement: 24,380 tons. Length: 564 feet. Beam: 95Va feet. Power/speed: 30-35,000 hp/21-23 knots. Armament: Ten 12-inch, 14 5.9-inch, eight 3.4-inch, four 3.4-inch anti-aircraft guns and five 19.7-inch torpedo tubes. Armour: Belt 13% inches, turrets 11% inches. Crew: 1,0881,178

rR

men

y :

2566

to the convoys.

On December

11,

when Scheer despatched two

of destroyers to raid British sea communications, the three vessels of the Third Light Cruiser Squadron were patrolling at the mouth of the Skaggerak, while the two armoured Shannon and I IMS Minotaur were further to the cruisers north-west, covering both the east-bound and the west-bound convoys along the Lerwick-Bergen route The two German destroyer forces had entirely different missions. While the Third Half-Flotilla was to attack the Scandinavian trade the Fourth Half-Flotilla was to disrupt merchant shipping along the east coast of Britain. The latter had little success in its mission: it repeatedly missed a small convoy steaming southwards along the coastline, but fell upon two of the stragglers in the early morning of December 12 and sank them, together with a much smaller steamship, before returning to base. Despite the sound of gunfire reported on shore, the presence of enemy warships was not realised by the Admiralty, who believed that a U-Boat had been responsible. But, as the Official History noted, 'even if they had known of it earlier, it is hardly likely that they would have been able to parry or to avoid the second blow, which was then about to fall'. At 1 145 hours on the same day, the Third Half-Flotilla encountered an east-bound Scandinavian convoy of six merchantmen, escorted by two destroyers and four armed trawlers, about 25 miles south-west of the entrance to Bjornefjord. Having ordered the convoy to scatter and wirelessed the alarm to Beatty at Scapa half-flotillas

HMS

Flow, the destroyers HMS Partridge and HMS Pellew gave battle to their four more powerful opponents. As well as being heavily outnumbered, the defenders were in tin leeward position in the face of strong wind from the north-west and could hardly see their enemy. Moreover, the German destroyers fired with extreme accuracy, crippling the escort force, while one of their number concentrated upon the merchantmen. The Partridge, hit in the engine-room where everyone was scalded to death by the steam, was later battered to a standstill by shells and torpedoes; and the vessel blew up soon after the crew had taken to the boats. The Pellew was also hit in the engine-room and her speed much reduced, but as she turned out of the fight she was covered by a blinding rain squall which saved her from destruction. The raiders then turned to assist their companion in the destruction of the rest of the convoy. Nothing escaped their deadly and efficient pursuit: 'within an hour of the enemy's first appearance nothing was left of the convoy or its escort but the Pellew, steaming towards Norway with her port engine-room full of water, and a few ships' cutters, with a handful of survivors on board lying wounded and half conscious below the thwarts, or splashing listlessly at the oars as the boats laboured and drifted in the heavy seaway.' Worst of all, the raiders again escaped interception. The Partridge's message was only sent to Beatty, as the escorts did not even know that they had distant cruiser support! Nevertheless, these messages were picked up by the Shannon and Minotaur and they turned immediately to the scene of the action, sending their accompanying destroyers on ahead of theni. This force was 60 miles away, however, since it had been giving protection to the west-bound convoy before proceeding to the east-bound one; and all that these destroyers could do was to pick up the convoy's survivors. On the other hand, the Third Light Cruiser Squadron, which was about 85 miles south-east of the scene of destruction, was in a favourable intercepting position and Beatty ordered them to search for the German destroyers. Although the two forces must have passed very close to each other in the late afternoon, no sightings were made and the Third Half-Flotilla returned to base unscathed. While recognising that the Scandinavian traffic would always be subject to a surprise raid by German forces, the Admiralty was most shocked by this disaster and realised that the system required several improvements. The shortage of destroyers to accompany the cruiser supporting force had meant that both an eastand a west-bound convoy had to be covered by the same force, which was strategically unsound. It was, therefore, decided to sail the convoys every three days (and later at four- or five-day intervals) to avoid having two of them at sea at the same time: it would also ease the burden upon the covering forces. The responsibility of the various commands concerned was redefined to avoid future confusion, while the western assembly point was changed from Lerwick to Methil on the Firth of Forth. As this brought the route nearer to enemy bases, a powerful supporting group — for a while an entire battle squadron — sailed with each convoy. This was not the end of the matter, however, for the public criticism of the Admiralty in the wake of this second convoy disaster and the failure of the November 17 fleet action was intense. It also gave fresh ammunition to Lloyd George, Milner, Northcliffe and those others who were seeking Jellicoe's dismissal. The enquiry into the convoy's destruction caused a strong difference of opinion between the First Lord — Geddes — and Jellicoe, who prevented his chiefs attempts to find scapegoats to ease the political pressure. The breach widened with further incidents and became decisive after the First Sea Lord's refusal to see Bacon sacked for the failure of the Dover Patrol to halt the U-Boat traffic through the Channel (see Vol. 6, p. 2301). At this, Geddes took the plunge and asked for Jellicoe's resignation, which was promptly given. The Deputy First Lord, Wemyss, took over three days later. Though many in the fleet were outraged at this, the critics of the Admiralty felt that 1918 would bring a better and more vigorously led naval policy. But, as Jellicoe and Beatty had repeatedly pointed out, it took two sides to make up a fleet action; and there was little indication that the strategic stalemate, which the raids upon the convoys had in no way disturbed, would greatly change in the near future. 1

Further Reading Gladisch, W., Der Krieg Zur See: Der Krieg in der Nordsee, Volumes VI and VII (Berlin 1937 and 1965) Marder, Arthur J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Volume 4, '1917: Year of Crisis' (Oxford University Press 1969) Newbolt, Sir Henry, Naval Operations, Volumes IV, V and VI (Maps) (Longmans 1928 and 1931)

[For Paul Kennedy's biography, see page 633.]

2567

THE OTRANTO BARRAGE mI the

aintained their faith rossthe ban

ma

Adriatic. I

Peter

end of the war the

It

fruitles

wasteful exercise.

Kemp. Below: Squadron Italian destroyers on

patrol in the Adriatic

i •

j

\

mmm.

4F-

The Otranto Barrage, discussed in a previous article (Vol. 6, p 2266), continued to prove a running sore throughout 1917 and, indeed, through 1918 as well. Looking hack at it now from a distance of over 50 years, it is difficult to understand the pro longed and pathetic devotion to this demonstrably inefficient attempt to stop German and Austrian U-Boats emerging from their bases in the Adriatic into the wider waters of the Mediter ranean, there to send so many Allied merchantmen to the bottom. Throughout the whole oi' the war the Mediterranean provided a sorry spectacle oi' Allied naval incompetence. Allied operations had got off to a had start in the first tew days of the war when an inefficient British Commander-in-Chief and a bungling Admiralty clerk had between them allowed the German battle-cruiser Goeben and the cruiser BresldU to give the slip to a vastly superior British Mediterranean Beet. Following this the traumatic experience at Gallipoli and the indecision at Salonika had done less than nothing to revive Allied naval morale in this inland sea. An even sadder aspect of the Mediterranean scene was the belief, held by many naval officers, that the exposed southern flank of the continental war could have provided a means of seriously damaging Germany and her allies if only the national war leaders had had the wit and the will to use it But the seats of power were occupied by men devoted to the idea of a continental strategy for Britain, and any Mediterranean-based campaigns were relegated to the category of unsupported sideshows. On the naval side it was the structure of the command chain which inhibited any sort of forward policy. Nominally the French provided the supreme command in the Mediterranean but this was never exercised in any way as a co-ordinating factor in overall naval operations. For the rest, the inland sea was divided into areas, with France responsible for the western Mediterranean basin lexcept for a small area east of Gibraltar) and the area around Cyprus; Britain responsible for the Aegean, the sea communications between Malta and Egypt, and the area immediately of Gibraltar; and the Italians for the waters around their coasts, including the Adriatic, and a small area off the North African coast around Tripoli. There was virtually no cohesion between these areas: each national admiral controlled operations in his command without reference to adjacent areas under other national control. Such naval danger as existed for the Allies in the Mediterranean

was virtually concentrated in the Adriatic At Pola, on the northern Adriatic, lay the Austrian Heel Both France and Italy each had dreadnought Meets in the Mediterranean superior to the Austrian, vet each considered that her main naval ami was to contain the Austrians. ThU8 two large Meets were maintained Operationally to watch one Meet which was inferior in strength to either of them. In addition, eight British battleships were maintamed in the Mediterranean, largely at the request of the Italians, until January 1917, when Jellicoe, after very hard bargaining,

managed

to get

Italian

agreement

to

withdraw

live of

them

in

order to use their combined crews of 9.000 officers and men to better advantage in the light against the U-Boats in the Western Approaches. With the Austrian Heel securely contained at Pola, the threat the Mediterranean was reduced to the U-Boats, whose two bases, ('attain and Pola, lav north of the narrow straits between Otranto and Durazzo. A mobile barrage of indicator nets covered the II miles of the Otranto Straits, operated by trawlers and drifters. If the barrage was to be in any way effective, and even then doubtfully, destroyers were also required to be permanently on patrol, their object being to force U-Boats on the surface to dive and then to attack them when they were caught in the nets. The destroyers allocated to the Otranto Barrage were Italian, and it was not the Italian Commander-in-Chiefs policy to keep his destroyers at sea. He relied on picking up signals for assistance from the trawlers, whenever a U-Boat was located, before ordering his dest rovers to the scene. Such a system was of course futile, and it can hardly have caused surprise that the vast paraphernalia of the net barrage proved to be no more than a mild nuisance to the U-Boats. The British C-in-C in the Mediterranean, Admiral GoughCalthorpe, was no believer in convoy as the correct antidote to the U-Boats and was half-hearted in setting up a convoy system in November 1917 when instructed to do so by the Admiralty. In spite of the dismal record of the Otranto Barrage, which claimed but a single U-Boat in the whole of 1917, Gough-Calthorpe still pinned his faith on its deterrent value and came up with a new plan to increase its size vastly. The mobile net barrage was to be replaced by a fixed net barrage, usi-ng 150-foot nets with their tops 30 feet under the surface, and with mines incorporated in the nets. The first of these nets were laid in October 1917, but

m

Part of a flotilla of British net drifters in Taranto harbour— fitted with hydrophonesfand armed with six-pounders and depth charges

2569

Allied strategy in the Adriatic — pathetic waste of naval resources

/Above: Aboard a British net drifter. Members of the crew put on the earphones of a hydrophone while a rating prepares to cast the detection disc. Above right: Aboard a French vessel patrolling the Otranto Barrage after the signalling of a U-Boat. Below: The AustroHungarian dreadnought Viribus Unitis. Displacement: 20,000 tons. Speed: 21 knots. Armament: 12 12-inch and 12 6-inch guns. Armour: Belt 1 1 inches, turret 1 1 inches. Austria-Hungary's four dreadnoughts, based at Pola, were seen, as a constant threat by the Italian navy and dictated its strategy

4*

2570

^

J

\

bad weather in the Straits broke them up. A fresh start was made a few weeks later and this barrage was gradually extended until finally it stretched from a deep minefield off Otranto to Fano Island, off the Albanian coast, a distance of 45 miles. The second part of this new barrage plan was a vast increase in the force of ships used to patrol the nets. Until now patrols had been carried out by net drifters, trawlers and motor launches, with a few destroyers available for protection. Under GoughCalthorpe's new system this force was to be increased to some 270 vessels, consisting of destroyers, sloops, torpedo-boats, submarine chasers, trawlers, drifters and motor launches. This collection of ships was known as the Otranto Mobile Barrage Force, and was placed under the command of Rear- Admiral Howard Kelly. The function of this force was to force the U-Boats to dive long before they reached the nets, to keep them submerged and to hunt them with depthcharges. Well to the north of the fixed net barrage was an advanced destroyer patrol, which in daylight hours operated across the Adriatic about 20 miles north of Brindisi and in the dark hours patrolled a line about 25 miles to the south. Its purpose was both to force U-Boats on the surface to dive and to provide early warning of any attack by the Austrian fleet on the barrage. To the south of this destroyer force a patrol of trawlers, fitted with hydrophones, manned a line above the fixed net barrage, with three destroyers permanently in support. The object of the trawlers, and that of the drifters which manned the actual line of the net, was to hunt U-Boats detected by the hydrophones. The submarine chasers operated from a base in Corfu and covered the area below the line of the nets. They were responsible for the U-Boat which, having evaded the forces higher up and dived under the net, came to the surface to recharge her batteries, which by then should be nearly exhausted by the prolonged diving. As a final long-stop, a couple of sloops flying kite balloons kept watch below the submarine chasers. The total depth of this vast barrage system, from the destroyers in the north to the sloops in the south, was nearly 200 miles, and if a U-Boat had been forced to proceed submerged for the whole of this distance, her batteries would inevitably be uncomfortably low and she would need to surface where, in theory, she would become a sitting duck for the submarine chasers. It was a good theory but it never worked out that way. Most U-Boats found enough empty sea to make part of their passage on the surface,

especially in the dark hours, and thus still had enough battery power to see them well out into the Mediterranean before they had to surface again. Two further elements were added to the barrage, an Allied submarine patrol area to the north of the destroyer patrol line and a force of 72 aircraft operating from Taranto and Otranto. The submarine patrol accounted for two kills in 12 months, but unfortunately only one of them was a U-Boat. The other was an Italian, torpedoed on the surface by a British patrolling submarine. It would be pleasant to be able to record that this vast assembly of ships, aircraft, nets, and minefields did something to relieve the pressure caused by the U-Boats on the trade routes through the Mediterranean. From the German records it is known that the monthly average of U-Boat passages through the barrage was 24, or a total of something like 260 for the year during which the war had still to run. Two U-Boats were killed in attacks by the barrage force and one was caught in the nets and so badly damaged by mines that she was forced to surface. Her captain scuttled her after she was abandoned by her crew. It was, on any count, a poor return in relation to the vast force deployed. Many of the ships employed in the barrage force could have been used as convoy escorts, and thus have paid a far greater dividend in terms of merchant ships saved from destruction. Some of the blame, perhaps, can be laid on the crazy command structure in the Mediterranean which made impossible any real integration of the three Allied fleets there; but most of it, unhappily, must lie at the door of the British admiral who continued to think, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that there was a better answer to the problem of the U-Boats than a convoy system. Further Reading Fayle, C. E History of the Great War, Seaborne Trade (John Murray 1920-24) Hurd, Sir Archibald, History of the Great War, The Merchant Navy (John Murray 1921-29) Kerr, Admiral Mark, Land, Sea, and Air (London 1927) Marder, Arthur J., From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Volumes 4 and 5 (Oxford University Press 1969 and 1970) and V (Longmans Newbolt, Sir Henry, Naval Operations, Volumes 1928 and 1931) ,

I'

[For Lieutenant-Commander Kemp's biography, see p. 52.

2571

The Search

gressive political groups within the Allied nations, thus providing him with an added means of applying pressure upon any associated government which opposed his liberal objectives. Although Wilson pur-

for Peace

sued this dual diplomacy with some skill, he was not ultimately successful in reconciling liberal principles with national necessities, perhaps in part because he never clearly ordered the priorities and

The idea of a negotiated peace gained popularity in 1917. Socialists in all countries for it. Men in power

clamoured

toyed with

it.

Marvin Swartz

Moves for peace between May 1917 and 1918 were the diplomatic February weapons wielded by powers engaged in total war. The major belligerents on both Bides had no desire to conclude a peace which was not the expression of a decisive military victory. They were determined, however, to use their statements of war aims and peace proposals as a means both of undermining pacifist opposition on the home front and of encouraging it within the enemy camp. The Russian Revolution of March 1917 affected all the belligerents. Although the Revolution did not cause opposition to the war, it did inspire greater efforts on the political left to force the governments to

war aims, and was a new inthem to do so as a means of heightening the tensions within enemy

declare their

ducement

for

nations.

On May

1917 the government of newly reorganised with Alexander Kerensky as Minister of War, Prince

19,

Lvov,

plotted the results of his policy in his own mind. During 1917, when moderate (and relatively ineffective) liberal forces in all countries were prepared to listen to his appeals, more determined advocates of a

compromise peace were disappointed by the warlike tone of some of his statements. The President's message to Russia of June 9, 1917 displayed the dual nature of Wilsonian diplomacy. Its liberal idealism was abundantly evident: 'The position of

America in

this

war

is

so clearly

avowed

man can

be excused for mistaking it. She seeks no material profit or aggrandisement of any kind. She is fighting for no advantage or selfish object of her own, but for the liberation of peoples everywhere from the aggressions of autocratic force. No people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. No territory must change hands except for the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty.' In addition to this idealism, however, there were hints of a punitive war against Germany: 'Of course, the Imperial German Government and those whom it is using for their own undoing are seeking to obtain pledges that the war will end in the restoration of the status quo ante. It was the status quo ante out of which this iniquitous war issued forth, the power of the Imperial German that no

clearly stated its rejection of a separate peace. It adopted 'openly as its aim the reestablishment of a general peace which shall not tend toward dominion over other nations, the seizure of their national possessions, or violent usurpation of their territories — a peace without annexation or indemnity and based on the right of nations to decide their own affairs.' The Lvov government issued this declaration in the hope of boosting the sagging morale of the Russian people and inducing the demoralised army to continue to fight. But

the call for 'a peace without annexation or indemnity' had a greater impact outside Russia. The democratisation of Russian war aims, combined with America's entry into the war in April 1917, broke the exclusive allegiance of the advocates of a compromise peace to the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. The Russian government could continue in power only by making concessions to the revolutionary and pacifist forces on its left. Wilson, as a war director without an army in the field, had to reassure the Allied powers of his commitment to their cause by means of rhetoric. The President attempted to play a dual role as leader both of international liberal opinion and of a national war effort. He wo seemingly contratried to make thes. dictory facets of 1; diplomacy complementary. His appeal liberal principles — such as nationalism, elf-determination and democracy — was i nded to undermine the more or less pi nrious domestic political truce within eac, if the Central Powers. At the same time, as designed to form a link between Wii in and proi

2572

Ramsay MacDonald— He sacrificed his career and faced unpopularity because he would not become a jingo "yes-man" '

Government within the Empire and

its

widespread domination and influence outside of that Empire. That status must be altered in such fashion as to prevent any such hideous thing from ever happening again.' According to most advocates of a negotiated peace the overthrow of the German government would be possible only after military victory. After April 1917 many of them sought their inspiration from Russia rather than America. The appeal of the Russian Revolution and Wilsonian idealism affected all the belligerent nations at a time when there was stalemate at the front and growing restiveness at home. Some belligerents in each coalition were gravely weakened during 1917. Among the Allies, Russia was crippled by revolution, Italy was troubled by bread riots, strikes and the disaster at Caporetto and France by military setbacks, army mutinies and the spirit of defeatism. On the side of the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary suffered from conditions verging on famine, the revolt of national minorities, and the ineffectualness of the new Emperor, Karl. After May 1917 Germany and Great Britain were (he bulwarks of their respective alliances and bore the major burden of the war. Yet they, too, were increasingly rent by internal divisions. In Germany and Britain advocates of a peace by negotiation, encouraged by the Russian Revolution, tried to persuade their

Woodrow Wilson — could

he remain the leader opinion while calling for a punitive war against Germany?

of

world

liberal

governments to seek to end the war by diplomatic means. The so-called parties of the workers in both countries, the British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), continued to observe the domestic political truce ged at the outbreak of the war. But

anan in this

year of 1917 they began to pay more attention than hitherto to the warnings of their own left wings As a result, the newly formed Independent Social Democratic Party tl'SPDl in German] and the Independent Labour Parts ILP) and its ally, the Union of Democratic Control, in Britain exerted an influence not only on domestic political alignments but also on their respective governments' foreign policy. In Germany the demand tor a compromise peace, as well as that tor reform of the Prussian suffrage, exacerbated tensions and threatened to undermine the political truce (Burgfrieden). The Social Democratic Party, inspired by the call from Russia, argued for a 'peace without annexations or indemnities' and linked this with an insistence upon internal political reform. Kaiser Wilhelm 11 granted equal suffrage for Prussia, in principle, on July 1 1. 1917 The next da\ under pressure from Ft'ldmarschall von Hindenburg and General Ludendorff, he requested the resignation of his Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. A week later, with the question of peace still unanswered, the Catholic Centre Party joined with the progressives and the SPD to pass a resolution in the Reichstag expressing the desire for 'a peace of understanding'. The resolution was vague. By denouncing 'forced acquisitions of territory' it left the way open for some annexations. The new Chancellor, George Michaelis, accepted the resolution 'as I interpret it', insofar as it did not compromise 'the conditions of existence of the German Empire upon the continent and overseas'. Put in these terms, the Reichstag resolution meant little, and it had no practical effect upon the war aims of Imperial Germany. It was, nonetheless, an

events of that year combined with W8J weariness to increase the influence of these groups. They were able to use the pro nouncements of Woodrow Wilson and the as Government Russian Provisional weapons in their domestic political fight. Inspired by the Russian Revolution, the ILP joined with the avowedly Marxist British Socialist Party to form a United Socialist Council, which, supported by George Lansbury's Herald, arranged a conference at Leeds on June 3, 1917. More than 1,100 delegates came for the one-day meeting. Although the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress avoided the gathering, delegates attended from local councils and Labour parties, trades

crisis

women's and socialist societies, as well as from the ILP and BSP. Ramsay MacDonald moved a resolution welcoming the Revo-

.

KCihlmann— his attempt at a separate peace with Britain foundered on British suspicion and opposition from the military indication of the increasing restiveness of the Left, with which the German government had to reckon. In Britain, whereas the Parliamentary Labour Party supported the war effort, ILP leaders declared as early as August 1914: 'The War, with its harvest of misery for the workers, is the outcome of secret diplomacy and militarism on the continent and in this country, against which the ILP has always fought and must continue to fight." James Ramsay MacDonald was the ILP's ablest politician. He had resigned from the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Labour Party in August 1914 when it refused his advice to reject the government's demand for war credits. After this, the Independent Labour Party rallied behind him. 'He sacrificed his career and faced unpopularity because he would not become a jingo "yes-man" and that determined our support,' stated the chairman of the ILP, F. \V. Jowett. Following his resignation MacDonald became one of the founders of the Union of Democratic Control.

tion in Russia without reservations. Philip Snowden pledged that British Labour would work for the Russian aim of 'a peace without annexations or indemnities'. A resolution on civil liberties, with Bertrand Russell as one of the speakers, was also presented. Finally, the conference called for the establishment 'in every town, urban and rural district, of councils of workers' and soldiers' delegates for initiating and coordinating working-class activity in support of the policy set out in the foregoing resolutions, and to work strenuously for a peace made by the peoples of the various countries, and for the complete political and economic emancipation of international labour.' Beatrice Webb observed that the delegates at Leeds 'were swayed

by emotions: an emotion towards peace and an emotion towards workers' control'. She considered the revolutionary overtones of the conference 'silly' but admitted that it

Labour turns against the war direction of its dynamic secretary, E. D. Morel, the Union of Democratic Control worked to organise radical Liberal and Labour opposition to the war and to make that opposition politically effective. It made use of the propagandist talents of Normal Angell, Bertrand Russell, H. N. Brailsford, J. A. Hobson and Goldsworthy Dickinson, among others. It also cooperated closely with the ILP, providing it with a foreign policy programme which forcefully articulated its objections to the

Under the

Count Czernin-fearing that a fourth winter war would break up the Empire he opened

of

negotiations with the French

war. The ILP-UDC opposition achieved only limited success before 1917, but the

Pope Benedict— the to

make

all

Left

the running

could not be allowed

in calling for

a

negotiated peace

2573

Henderson's colleagues in the War Cabinet knew that he had formerly been a member of the General Council of the Union of Democratic Control, with whose aims he was still in sympathy. They feared that, if the socialist meeting were held at Stockholm, it would call for the peace by negotiation which the UDC advocated and

which the British government opposed. They argued that the Stockholm conference could have a disastrous effect upon Allied solidarity; 'that one or other of the Allied Governments might find itself practically committed to terms of peace which did not meet the views of the Allies as a whole; and that the situation in regard to the making of peace might be taken, to a great extent, out of the control of the Governments'. When on his trip to Paris Henderson associated with MacDonald, one of the best known opponents of the British govern-

ment, the Cabinet was deeply concerned that the government might be accused of endorsing the programme of the Union of Democratic Control. Sir Edward Carson warned the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, that his Unionist friends questioned whether the government had not been behind Henderson's visit to France. Lloyd

George was dependent upon Conservative He forced a showdown with Henderson. The Labour leader resigned from the War Cabinet. G. N. Barnes took his place as Labour representative, but he was an inadequate substitute. Henderson, freed from his Cabinet responsibilities, began to voice his UDC opinions — and to win the Labour Party to them, thereby putting additional pressure on the Lloyd George government for a statement of war backing.

Sir

Edward Carson- warned Lloyd George

about Conservative opposition to

letting

Henderson attend the Stockholm conference

was

'significant as proving the existence of a powerful ferment in the Labour Movement'. It was this possibility — that British Labour might fall under the sway of its left

all

the Eui opean powers, including -

insist upon a moderate UDCtype peace — which frightened the government. Two days after the Leeds Conference the War Cabinet decided that it should do something 'to counteract the pacifist movement'. The government established a National War Aims Committee under the chairmanship of Captain F. E. Guest, joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. Its task was to help the country 'to resist insidious influences of an unpatriotic character'.

wing and

renounce any attempt to annex Belgium, a necessary pre-condition to any settlement. But the Pope persisted in issuing his

At the same time that the British government tried to counteract anti-government

peace. A pressing appeal to those in their hands the destiny of the nations'. He asked for the evacuation of 'call for

agitation in the country, a crisis erupted within the Cabinet. The secretary of the Labour Party, Arthur Henderson, had been included in the War Cabinet in order to give representation to the Labour movement, in which he was a highly respected figure. Returning from a trip to Russia in July 1917, Henderson favoured British Labour's attendance at an international socialist meeting to be held in Stockholm, so long as decisions reached there were not

who have

Belgium and occupied France and the of the German colonies. He asserted that Poland should have 'the sympathy of the nations' and that a 'spirit of equity and justice must guide the examination of the other territorial and political restitution

questions'.

binding upon governments. On July 25 Henderson persuaded the Labour Party executive to submit the question of partici-

2574

Britain, obviously suffering

from the strains of war, Pope Benedict XV issued a peace message, dated August 1, 1917 and published on August 15. The Pope had known for some months, through his Nuncio in Munich, Cardinal Pacelli, that Austria-Hungary was searching desperately for peace and that the left-wing opposition in Germany was preparing to denounce annexationist war aims. Since taking up his post in May 1917 Pacelli had discussed the problems of war and peace with Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party, Bethmann-Hollweg and the Kaiser. He failed to obtain a promise from the German government that it would abide by the Reichstag resolution of July 19 and

Showdown with Henderson

pation at Stockholm to a special Labour conference in a fortnight's time. Then, at the end of July, accompanied by Ramsay MacDonald and G. J. Wardle, a supporter of the war, Henderson went to Paris to make arrangements for the co-operation of Allied socialists at Stockholm.

Government's war policy

Germany and

aims.

With

Arthur Henderson-once he had left the Cabinet he began to voice his objection to the

Prince Lvov-the call for peace without annexation or indemnity' was an attempt to raise morale and undercut anti-war agitators

There was no mention of

self-

determination, a principle which if applied would destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Pope was, in fact, trying to preserve the rule of the Catholic Habsburgs, perhaps re-establish a Catholic Poland and stem the rising tide of revolution. He wanted to break the monopoly of the European Left over calls for a compromise peace and make it possible for the incumbent rulers of Europe to end the war under the aegis of the conservative Vatican. The Pope's peace proposal met with no

success. For the Allies, President Wilson gave the definitive reply on August 27, 1917. He refused to return to the status quo ante bellum, as the Pope advised, so long as the present German regime remained in power. 'To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by his Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can Bee, involve a

recuperation of

its

strength

and a renewal of its policy,' according to Wilson. 'We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure,' he concluded, since 'no man, no nation could now depend on that word'. By seeming to adhere to the slogan 'no peace with the Hohenzollerns' Wilson assumed the role of war leader of the Allied cause - and disappointed the advocates of a peace by negotiation. Although Austria-Hungary sought salvation through the papal peace move, or other, the real determination of the policy of the Central Powers was made by

any

Germany. The German government

re-

jected the Pope's overture by replying to it, after long delay, in vague generalities, with no mention of Belgium or AlsaceLorraine.

One reason for this noncommittal approach was that the new German Foreign Secretary, Richard von Kiihlmann, wanted to conclude a separate peace with Britain. Partly because of opposition from military and annexationist circles within Germany and partly because of well founded British suspicions, Kiihlmann's plan, like the Pope's, produced no result. Meanwhile, the desperate Habsburg regime carried on secret negotiations of its own with the Allies; since the Foreign Minister, Count Ottokar Czernin, feared that a fourth winter of war, with the hard-

Austro-Hungarian ambassador

ships it entailed, would probably result in the break-up of the multi-national Empire.

The great obstacle

in

Umdon.

m

to success in this as

previous negotiations was that the Allies wanted to detach Austria-Hungary from

Austrian peace moves Caernin had disliked the Emperor Karl's

Germany;

whereas

and Karl which they would not find themselves at the mercy both of their enemies and their betrayed sought

personal negotiations through his brotherin-law. Prince Sixtus, which had failed the spring of 1917, because he saw them as an Allied attempt to drive a wedge between the Central Powers. But his chance of working out a compromise peace in conjunction with Germany seemed remote as long as the German High Command continued to hold out for annexationist war aims. Beginning in August 1917, a series of meetings were held in Switzerland between Count Nicholaus Revertera, who was attached to the Austrian Legation in Berne, and Major Abel Armand of the French General Staff. Armand at first suggested that Austria cede the Trentino to Italy and make Trieste a free port; Britain and France would then try to have Poland, Bavaria and Silesia added to the Habsburg Empire. Karl declined to make the required concessions; he also recognised that the proffered gains were all to be at Germany's expense. If he entered into talks on this basis, the Allies could disrupt the AustroGerman coalition by revealing Austria's 'treachery'. This was, indeed, the French objective. The Emperor, therefore, refused the terms. He found later ones aiming at a general peace no more acceptable. The Armand-Revertera negotiations

m

a

German

general

Czernin

peace,

in

ally.

A victorious peace in the East After failing to break the Allied coalition by encouraging meetings in Switzerland in September 1917 between Baron Oskar von der Lancken, head of the German Political Section in Belgium, and Aristide Briand, a former French Premier, Germany achieved a notable success when Russia left the war after the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917. Bolshevik and German delegates met at Brest-Li tovsk on December 20, 1917, two weeks after Rumania had announced an armistice with the Central Powers. The German terms of peace were designed to realise Germany's annexationist war aims in the east. The Bolsheviks hesitated to accept the terms presented to them but were finally forced to do so by Germany's

overwhelming military superiority. They finally signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. The October Revolution in Russia and the subsequent Bolshevik propaganda

offensive intensified the internal struggle within the belligerent nations between the champions of military victory and the advocates of peace by negotiation. Lloyd George's war aims statement of January 5,

were briefly resumed again in February 1918) came to nothing. So, too, did conversations, held in Berne in December 1917, between General Jan Christiaan Smuts, the South African statesman who (which

1918 and Wilson's Fourteen Points speech three days later were attempts to meet the challenge posed by the Bolsheviks. In these public declarations the British Prime Minister and the American President were appealing for the loyalty of their own leftwing opponents and hoping to rouse internal opposition to the governments of the Central Powers. Their success in both respects was limited. Diplomacy might be used as a weapon in war, but the ultimate decision depended upon military force.

was a member of the British War Cabinet, and Count Albert von Mensdorff, a former

Further Reading Chambers, Frank P., The War Behind the War, 1914-1918 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and

Company 1939) Fischer, Fritz, Germany's

Aims

in the First

World War (New York: W. W. Norton &

Company

1967)

Forster, Kent, The Failures of Peace: The Search for a Negotiated Peace During the First World War (Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania 1941) Gatzke, Hans W., Germany's Drive to the West (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1950, 1966 edn.) Graubard, Stephen Ft., British Labour and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1924 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1956) Mayer, Arno J., Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1959) | Recouly, Raymond, Les Negotiations secretes 5 Briand-Lancken (Paris: Les Editions de France 1933) |

a

James Brown, Official Statements of War Aims and Peace Proposals (Washington: The

°

Carnegie Endowment for International

|

Scott,

5

Peace 1921) § Swartz, Marvin, The Union of Democratic S

|

Control in British Politics during the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971)

An

Italian soldier's farewell to his family. For all that the ordinary people on both sides, civilians as well as soldiers, had to suffer in their leaders' pursuit of total victory rather than peace, popular enthusiasm for the war diminished surprisingly little over the four years

[For

Marvin

Swartz's

biography,

see

704.]

2575

__

BREAK UP OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE No sooner had the Russian

people thrown off the yoke of Tsarism than the subject peoples of the once monolithic Empire began to demand their own national independence. Richard Pipes. Below: Red Guards, the new masters of Russia

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Before the Revolution very few Russians realised they were masters of extensive colonial possessions The vastness of Russia — already it occupied one sixth of the globe's surface — and its ethnic diversity were to them a source of pride and comfort. Bat Russians did not give much thought to the fad that a state of such size had been put together at the expense of its neighbours. Nor did they seem to fear that in the age of democracy and nationalism their subject peoples would not remain docile forever. The experience of the Habsburg Empire, which had been brought to a state of near paralysis from national conflicts, was lost on them Enlightened Russians were prepared to concede that the Poles and Finns had a right to more selfgovernment than they were granted by the imperial administration, and perhaps even deserved to be given full independence. But no public figure took seriously the political aspirations of the other national groups, which began to be voiced in the latter part of the 19th Century, or pondered the implications for Russian national unity of the country's racial multiplicity. The first census of the Russian Empire, conducted in 1897, revealed that Russians tor 'Great Russians', as they were officially designated) made up only 44.3 r of the population. The majority consisted of large and small ethnic groups, some racially and linguistically close to them, others entirely distinct. This statistic should have given pause both to those who then ruled Russia and to those whose ambition it was to replace them. But there is no indication that this happened. First, by lumping the Ukrainians and Belorussians together with the Great Russians into one common 'Russian' nationality, it was possible to inflate the proportion of Russians to tiT' This procedure still left a sizeable minority; but constituting two-thirds of the population, the Russians (thus defined) enjoyed a far more secure position than the j

;

.

Germans

in

Austria-Hungary, who were to one by subject peo-

outnumbered three

ples of quite different stock. Second, a large part of the non-Russian population was regarded as culturally so backward it seemed inevitable they would in time Russify' and dissolve without trace. These are the reasons why the national question' occupied little place in the de-

that

liberations of the political parties in prerevolutionary Russia. The liberals viewed national frictions and the national aspirations of the minorities as a natural consequence of the bureaucratic administration of the empire. They expected that the introduction into Russia of a more democratic regime with administrative decentralisation would suffice to neutralise any separatist tendencies. The socialists regarded nationalism as a by-product of the capitalist system: it would disappear, they felt certain, with the socialisation of the means of production and the abolition of the state based on the division of classes. For the record, opposition parties, liberal and radical alike, inserted in their programmes statements condemning national oppression and religious discrimination, and promised national self-determination to the minorities. But these statements were so vague that they can be regarded as perfunctory. Russian politicians and publicists had no inkling of the potential explosiveness of minority nationalism.

For all the lip service they paid to it, most of them regarded the 'national question' as a nuisance, not much more urgent than the so-called 'woman question'. l^emn was no exception. He was utterU convinced that nationalism was primarily a device employed by the capitalists to divert the attention of workers from social questions. It would not lor long survive a successful proletarian revolution, especially if the proletariat of what had been the dominant nations showed the least tact and understanding in dealing with the emancipated colonial peoples. Lenin show-

understanding and no sympathy sentiments that move people to rally around national causes. However, he was a better politician than any of his rivals. He usually took a cold, realistic view of things and did not allow doctrine to cloud his judgement. He also had fewer scruples. Convinced that mankind stood on the threshold of a new epoch in its history, which would make the entire past obsolete, he felt /ree to make all kinds of promises, certain that he would never be ed

little

for the

called

upon

to

make them

good.

Weapon for revolution On the eve of the First World War,

while living in Austria, he had an opportunity of observing at first hand the national conflicts that were tearing that country apart, and became aware of the strategic value of nationalism in his own struggle for power. He decided to make use of this weapon to gain support for the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party among the minorities of the Russian Empire. In 1913 he formulated a 'solution' of the national question in Russia which offered the minorities everything, and, at the same time, nothing. Minorities which so desired were to be free to separate from Russia and become sovereign states. Those which did not desire to avail themselves of this right were to receive no national guarantees or institutions within the Russian state, and had to be prepared to assimilate. Since the actual demands of the nationalists among the Russian minorities centred on autonomy, sometimes combined with federalism, rather than on independence, Lenin's offer was so generous as to be meaningless. Criticised by some of his followers for making exorbitant promises, Lenin explained (in writings not intended for publication) that the right which he offered would never be exercised collapsing, capitalism because, before would integrate economically all the regions and nationalities to such an extent that none could entertain the idea of separation. The value of his programme lay in its 'psychological' impact, or, to put it differently, in its potential as a dema.

gogic device. It is a quality of authoritarian governments that as long as they function they

appear immovable and indestructible, because they manage to keep out of sight those expressions of discontent and those pressures for change which in more open societies always seethe near the surface. Until the eve of its downfall, Imperial Russia seemed unshakeable. Historians inclined to depict the last decades of the old regime as a relentless slide toward inevitable doom must explain why foreign investors, for whom thev future of Russia was a matter not of philosophic specula-

saw things the (ircat Reforms of the onwards, English, German and, 18(>()'s above all. French hankers treated Russia as an outstanding place to locate capital; France invested in Russia more money than in any other country, including its own colonies. But once Imperial Russia fell, its agony was brief. After the abdication of Nicholas II, government dissolved in a matter of days. Suddenly there was no bureaucracy, no police, no one to issue or to execute orders. As soon as the bonds that had held the Empire together loosened, everyone began to demand what he had been previously denied. The peasants clamoured for more land, the workers for higher wages, the intellectuals for more jobs, the nationalities for greater self-government. The Provisional Government sought in vain to hold the line until a Constituent Assembly, properly convened, had the opportunity to reconstruct the state. The country would wait no longer; and Kerensky, by unnecessarily delaying the elections to the Assembly, aggravated the situation and encouraged each group to take the law in tion but of personal fortune, differently.

From

own hands. No one was particularly

its

surprised by the

vehemence of the peasant unrest, a foretaste of which had been experienced during the disorders of 1905. Nor was the pressure exerted by the industrial workers and other employees unexpected, for they were

known

to be influenced socialist jdeas. The

by trade unionist

demands made by the nationalities, however, did come as a shock, the more so that they emanated

and

from areas and from ethnic groups which previously had shown no propensity to-

ward nationalism. The separatist forces, barely noticeable at the beginning of 1917, in less than two years caused the Russian Empire to break apart into more than a dozen separate political entities. During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, many Russians ascribed this development to German, Austrian and Turkish machinations. The Central Powers undeniably played their part in the disintegration of the Empire by providing diplomatic, financial and military support to the nationalist leaders from the Russian borderlands. They had an obvious interest in weakening the Provisional Government and reducing its capacity to wage war. But the Central Powers also supported Lenin and his followers, and yet one would not seriously explain the triumph of Bolshevism in terms of foreign intrigue. The source of the impressive nationalist forces released by the Revolution (as those of Bolshevism) must be sought not in the actions of hostile foreign powers but in circumstances inside Russia. Very briefly, one can say that the national strivings of the Russian minorities which surfaced in 1917 represented particular, local variants of the same demands that were voiced simultaneously by the Russians. What in central Russia assumed the form of political, economic or social demands, in the borderlands crystallised into nationalism. It is difficult to see how it could have been otherwise: in an empire as diverse as Russia, no general, nation-wide reform could have taken care of all grievances and aspirations. In the end, each region and nationality concluded that the best chance of obtaining

2577

satisfaction lay in

own

assuming control of

its

destiny

Two examples

illustrate this

7

argument.

The provinces inhabited by Ukrainianspeaking peasants embraced a large por-

M

1

tion of the 'black-earth' zone, the richest agricultural land in the Empire. Immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II there arose in this region a kind of political

'

^ iffi'd'

L*yL

lobby, led by intellectuals and backed by the well-to-do and middling peasantry. These groups feared a nation-wide pro-

gramme

of agrarian reform

them

which would

^^W^l]

share land with the impoverished peasantry of the north, or, worse, deprive them of ownership of the land by force

to

nationalisation or socialisation. Through the Ukrainian Council or Kada, local politicians began to apply pressures on the Provisional Government, demanding that the government recognise the right of the Ukraine to solve the agrarian question in accord with its own needs. In July, 1917 the Provisional Government partly yielded to these pressures, acknowledging the Kada as an organ speaking for the region and granting it the right to submit to the Constituent Assembly proposals for solving the agrarian question in the Ukraine. As the year drew to a close, the Rada increasingly assumed administrative responsibility, filling a vacuum left by the old regime and turning itself into a kind of

shadow government. In the southern Urals and the steppes of Central Asia, inhabited by Turkic nationalities (Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Kirghiz), the agrarian problem was different from that in the Ukraine. But here, too, first for autonomy and then independence represented a disguised

the clamour for

land issue. Ever since they had penetrated this area in the mid16th Century, the Russians had been steadily encroaching on the land of the indigenous nomads, transforming their pasture into arable. The natives rebelled from time to time, but the Imperial government always succeeded in reasserting its authority over them. The anarchy which followed the Tsar's abdication seemed to offer an excellent opportunity at long last to expel the unwelcome Russian colonists. From 1917 until 1920, when they were forced to capitulate once again, the Turkic groups in this region rose in defence of their claim to ancestral territories. The burden of their wrath was directed against the Russian and Ukrainian peasants who had entered this region just before the war under the resettlement programme organised by Stolypin. Statehood to them meant the right to expel the Slavs and recapture their ancestral grazing lands. If one were to survey the other borderlands one would often encounter a similar situation. The sudden surge of nationalism then would be seen not as an inexplicable mass hysteria, incited by Russia's wartime enemies, but as an understandable expression of the divergent grievances and wants of an enormous, multinational empire. By and large, until the Bolshevik seizure of power in November, the nationalist intellectuals active among the minorities effort to resolve the

thought in terms of an accommodation within a democratised and decentralised Russian state. This situation changed radically after the Bolshevik coup d'etat. In

some

areas, the local politicians, familiar

with Lenin and his programme, wanted to

2578

1

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The former subject peoples of the Tsar — could the Bolsheviks rule them too? Custodian of the Great Seal of the Hetman On January 22, 1918 the Rada proclaimed Ukrainian independence. Two weeks later, however, Soviet forces entered Kiev and set up a Soviet regime. The Germans thereupon invaded the Ukraine and set up a puppet government headed by Hetman Skoropadsky. 2. Ukrainian dignitaries with their German masters in Berlin. 3. A shepherd from the Caucasus. The Caucasus was the last part of the Tsarist Empire to be brought under 1.

of the Ukraine.'

Soviet control. 4. Soviet power comes to Uzbekistan. Under Russian eyes an Uzbek peasant is handed the deeds of ownership of his land. 5. The power of Islam in Samarkand. 6. Kazakh nomads. In January 1918 a Soviet

Commissariat for Muslim Affairs was set up to win support for the Bolsheviks among the Muslim peoples of the former Russian Empire

part of a Bolshevik-ruled state. >e no Elsewhere, they had no desire to become involved in the Civil War which broke out almost immediately alter the overthrow of the Provisional ( lovernment. One by one, in the winter of 11)17-18, the borderlands H>gan to proclaim their independence, tasing their claim on the Bolshevik nationity programme which had now become

government policy. An empire which had taken over four centuries to consolidate was crumbling before everyofficial

one's

eyes: Finland, the the Belorussia,

Baltic

states,

Ukraine, the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasia, the Bashkir territories, the steppes of Central Asia, Turkestan, even Siberia, each claimed sovereign status. Had Lenin acquiesced in this process as he was bound to by his solemn proiland,

nouncements—the

state under his control would have been not much greater than that which Ivan the Terrible had acquired on his accession to the throne nearly 400 years before. But Lenin never allowed either doctrinal considerations or moral scruples to stand in his way. Events had

given a lie to his expectations that nationalism would be an anachronism by the time socialism had toppled capitalism: in that case, the national programme had to be readjusted. The right to self-determination, interpreted as the right of every nationality to separate and form a sovereign state, was now abandoned. It was replaced by a hastily conceived and executed federalism, an arrangement Lenin had found particularly loathsome before 1917 because he regarded it as promoting and institutionalising nationalism. In early December 1917 Bolshevik-led troops entered the Ukraine and soon afterwards toppled the local national government, replacing it with a pro-Soviet government controlled by the Russian Communist Party and directed from Petrograd (later from Moscow). From then on, no attention was paid by the Red Army to claims of local governments to sovereign status. Whenever the fortunes of the Civil War brought Soviet troops to an area which had proclaimed its independence, they either scattered or arrested the local government, established a Soviet-type regime, and tied the area to the Russian centre. In this task they were actively assisted by much of the local Russian population which felt itself threatened by the nationalist aspirations of the natives and preferred to be ruled from the Russian heartland. The process of reintegrating the borderlands was not always successful, for sometimes the Allies intervened to stop the Communist advance. In this manner the Baltic states and Poland escaped, for the time being, the fate which befell the other nationalities. In the course of this Imperial reconstruction, the Soviet government developed sophisticated techniques of subversion and political manipulation which it used later in Eastern Europe. The white generals and politicians might have profited from the Bolshevik failure to respect the rights of the minorities had they felt able to agree to the disintegration of the Empire. But this they were unable to do. Although they fought the Bolsheviks not to restore the monarchy but rather to overthrow a Communist dictatorship and return to the nation the right of free choice, by and large they were people of the old regime with little understanding of the

2579

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intrii

politics.

ind deviousness of modern Each time thej were approached

nationalist leaders with requests for bj victorious White moveguarantees thai would respect the sovereignty of the separated borderlands, they hedged. They could have given the guarantees and lien, having toppled the Bolsheviks, withthem But this was not their way ot doing things, and so they lost much support The failure of the most powerful White general, Anton Demkin, in the autumn Ol 1919 to come to terms with Marsha! Piisudski of Poland probably decided the Civil War in favour of the Bolsheviks for this was a moment when Denikin's Volunteer Army was approaching Moscow and the assistance proffered by the Poles could well have spelled the difference between victory and defeat. .1

1

1

In

the end,

the

nationalist

movement

helped bring down the Provisional Government and contrihuted significantly to the failure of the Whites to gain power. The Soviet government, even though it flagrantly violated every one of its statements on the nationality question, by its generous promises and by cultivating (for the time being) co-operative nationalist leaders from the borderlands, at least managed to secure assistance from some of them. But the four years which elapsed from the February Revolution to the Bolshevik conquest of Georgia (February 1921) — the final act in the reconstitution of the Russian Empire set in motion powerful nationalist forces. They have since been driven underground, like so much else in the Soviet Union. They fester, nonetheless; and only time will tell whether the Russian Empire has not been dealt a fatal blow during the years of Revolution.

Further Reading Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923, Volume 1 (Penguin) Kolarz. W., Russia and Her Colonies (London 1953) Pipes, R., The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Mass 1954)

RICHARD PIPES was Professor of History at Harvard 1963 to 1974 when he became the

University from

Frank B Baird Jr Professor of History there. He was born in Cieszyn, Poland in 1923 and emigrated to the United States in 1940. After wartime service in the US army he went to Cornell University and then in 1 950 became a Harvard faculty member In 1 968 he became Director of the Russian Research Centre at Harvard, and in 1973 Senior Research Consultant at the Stanford Research Institute Strategic Studies Center, Washington DC. His publications include The Formation ot the Soviet Union, Europe Since 1815 and Russia under the Old Regime

Women

barge-haulers on the Volga, 1913. The Russian peoples revolutionary demand for political, social

and economic freedom

released the pent-up desire for national freedom among the non-Russian nationalities

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We're here We're here

Because We're here

Because w BRITISH

ARMY SONGS 1914-

The songs sung by the

British soldiers between 1914 and 1918 have left us an unique record of the folklore of the trenches. All the alternating moods of scepticism, cheerfulness, disiTTusion and s otf cte precating courage that moved the soldiers are reflected in their songs. Many oftfie songs existed before the war, some have survived the war and found their way into the body of inherited English vocal lore, but the majority belong specifically to the trenches. The following article is reprinted from The Long Trail by John Brophy and Eric Partridge, both of whom served on the Western Front in the infantry. Above: The words of the title were sung with a kind of lugubrious zest to the tune of Aula Lang Syne by men in just the same state of fed-up muddiness as this soldier 1

v i

>

The popular

tradition of war, as seen through civilian eyes in Britain, makes an emphatic distinction: military battles, however picturesque and moving, are never in the same class as battles at sea. Tennyson might versify the Charge of the Light Brigade and Kipling (taking a kerbside, civilian-spectator view of a marching column) pound out a spondiac rhythm about boots, but it was Nelson and his Jolly •Jack Tars (many of them kidnapped into the Navy by the Press Gang) who dominated the popular songs of the 18th and 19th Centuries. 1914 changed all that, and not only because the war at sea, though immensely successful from the start, was undramatic by comparison. In 1914 Britain began to turn young men into soldiers and went on doing so, on a scale unprecedented, throughout the following four years until she had three and a half million men under arms at the end of a war in which, on the Western Front alone, two and a half million British soldiers had been killed, wounded or otherwise put out of action. More than 900,000 died. It is not true that a whole generation of males was wiped out, but the incidence of death was far higher than decimation. On the Western Front out of every nine soldiers five became casualties, but if only troops in forward areas are taken into account — infantry, field artillery, trench engineers and so on — it is probable that out of every nine men eight became casualties, and three or even four of those — perhaps after being wounded several times — eventually were killed or died of wounds. The war was a war not only of physical endurance but of nervous and moral endurance. For the men who survived it, it became in retrospect an experience to be thrust out of memory most of the time, an experience impossible for

the mind to digest, and, for many, tolerable only when some of the less distressing events were selected for recall and dressed up with sentimental emotions. In 1914 and early 1915 many men were so eager to enlist that the Army's organisation was overwhelmed. Seven divisions of Regulars had gone to France to fight on the left flank of the French, the Territorials were mobilised, and there was everywhere a shortage of uniforms, equipment and weapons for the volunteers. There was just as great a shortage of men able to play, even in an out of date style, the part of drill instructors and junior commanders. With so much improvisation, a few months passed before those who enlisted in newly created battalions discovered exactly what it was they had let themselves in for. They had engaged to serve, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks in the year, for an undetermined number of years, as private soldiers in a complex organisation incidentally designed to enforce the will of each and every superior on those in the lowest rank of all, to make them jerk into action at the word of command, stand still at the word of command, go anywhere and do anything at the word of command. In order to carry out what they had conceived, for the most part romantically and generously, as a patriotic duty, the young civilians

were compelled

to undergo a preliminary process not unlike what would now be called conditioning. It involved an almost total surrender of personal liberty and an

immediate,

unconsidered

obedience to orders. Military discipline was not new in history but some of its 1914 characteristics

2582

were from

fairly

modern and probably derived

Century deference to the success of Prussian methods in the field: significantly it was after 1870 that parade helmets topped with metal spikes and a jerky, noisy kind of drill were adopted by late 19th

the British Army. This was the process through which first 100,000, then a million, eventually several million civilians were passed to be transformed into soldiers. The penalties for disobedience ranged from a temporary loss of leisure, if any, a temporary loss of pay and some extra duties, through pack drill — mostly marching at speed with rifle and full equipment (which weighed about 60 pounds) to specialised forms of punitive imprisonment and,

Above: Men of a Canadian regiment take a meal behind the lines. Right: Parodies of hymns were popular. Here two lines echo Abide with me

on active service, Field Punishment

No

1:

this involved the offender subsisting on a diet of bread and water and, lashed by

hands and ankles

to a wheel or a gate, being exhibited to his comrades in one of the ancient postures of crucifixion. Ninetynine men out of a hundred never ran any great risk of the more drastic punishments but this was only because the spirit in which King's Regulations were administered was more flexible and humane than the spirit and letter of the regulations themselves. The possibility of severe

hung perpetually over the private soldier and indeed some Regular NCOs boasted that if they really wished to do so they could make sure that any man under them would he sent to a military prison. As soon as a private soldier realised the power of the organisation to which, body and soul, he now belonged, he realised also that, while he might learn certain ways of outwitting it, outwardly he had no choice but to submit. Any form of direct defiance was worse than useless. It is noteworthy that while many of the songs sung by the troops were sentimental in content and in melody, few have the lilting light-heartedness so characteristic of the late Victorian and Edwardian period which immediately preceded 1914. Even ragtime, which had the attraction of novelty and a transatlantic brashness as well, was comparatively little sung by the punishment

Oh, Sergeant £

Oh, Sergeant,

"

£)h, Sergeant,,

»Oh, bring back

my

rations to

me

troops, perhaps because its

not always easy to

march

rhythms were

to,

but perhaps

also because it was too individual, too selfassertive. The Army rarely allowed a private soldier to be an individual: he was a

name and

a regimental number, and on returns of strength was likely to be shown as one of so many 'rifles'. If and when he were killed or wounded, another man took over the rifle. It is all understandable but, to the private soldier of 1914-18, left alone for a few rare moments with his own thoughts, hardly reassuring. The songs here set out were universally sung in British Expeditionary Forces at one time or another during 1914-18. They come from the ranks, especially from the private soldiers without ambition to bear office or special responsibility. The very roughness of the metre, the assonances, the faulty rhyming and the occasional omission of rhyme indicate their illiterate or semiliterate origin. They are the songs of homeless men, evoked by exceptional and distressing circumstances; the songs of an itinerant community, continually altering under the incidence of death and mutilation.

Warriors

unknown

Like mediaeval ballads, these songs are anonymous, and even the method of their composition is a mystery. Much speculation and a deal of scholarship has failed to prove how the ballads originated. One theory is that each of them was composed by an individual poet,

now unknown; and

that

repetition by professional minstrels merely polished the text and altered a word here and there. Another theory holds that the ballads were community songs, in building

The Bells of Hell Tune: Founded on a Salvation

The bells

Army song

of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling For you but not for me: And the little devils how they sing-a-ling-a-ling For you but not for me. Death, O where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling, O Grave, thy victor-ee? The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling For you but not for me.

which each person present would add a line or a stanza at a time. The same inductions may be applied to these soldiers' songs and — although they are so recent — with as little hope of final proof. The only to whom they can be attributed is 'Warrior, or Warriors, Unknown'. Most units included at least one man with some literary experience: a small journalist, a writer of Christmas card verses or parish magazine poetry, or someone with a gift for personal abuse, who would produce, for the battalion or battery concert-party, jests and ditties about topics of the moment or outstanding personalities of the unit. Songs of that kind correspond to the 'family' joke abhorred by visitors. They lack universality of spirit and application, but they may be a clue to the origin of true Army songs, many of which are parodies. The

author

2583

Hush! Here Comes a Whizz-bang Tune: 'Hush! Here comes the dream man' Pre-1914 pantomime song) (

Hush! Here comes a Whizz-bang, Hush! Here comes a Whizz-bang, Now you soldiers, get down those stairs, Down in your dug-outs and say your prayers. Hush! Here comes a Whizz-bang,

And it's making straight And you'll

the wonders of No-Man's Whizz-bang (bump!) hits you

see

If a

men who composed battalion songs, and other men, satiric or jocular but not able to produce a complete and original composition, would often find an opportunity so to twist and rearrange a line of a popular concert or music-hall song as to travesty its sentiments or satirise some aspect of the common lot. The wit, delighted with his inspiration, would shout it aloud, louder than his comrades singing the original words. If the variation was appreciated, it would be taken up generally, and other minds, expanding the idea, might improve the phrase and possibly add to it. That this is a likely origin for many of the songs may be seen from one or two aborted parodies. In 1917-18 there was current a 'ragtime number', The Black Eyed Susans, and it became customary at one part of the refrain to sing instead of the proper couplet: The Orderly Sergeant knows I'm coming, I can hear him softly humming.

I

for you:

all

Don't

Want

Land

is now quite beyond proof. inherited from the professional Army of pre-1914 and may derive from an oral tradition reaching back to the pressgangs and prisons of the 18th Century. They sprang into being at different stages of the war — Mademoiselle from Armenteers, for example, is a 1915 song, / Wore a Tunic is 1917. The majority are period songs and became obsolete, mere souvenirs of departed comradeship and never-to-berepeated adventures, the moment the war ended in 1918. It is as such unique memorials that they are here collected. It would be difficult to the point of impossibility to establish a date when any one of these songs was sung by one battalion, battery, brigade or division while still unknown to the rest of the BEF. Radio was in use, but it sent telegraphic messages only, by long and short 'buzzes', and there was no amplification by loudspeaker at the receiving end. Songs such as these were never sung in music-halls or concert

author was

Some were

to be a Soldier

I Walk Out With a Soldier' (1914 patriotic music hall song)

Tune: 'On Sunday

don't want to be a soldier, I don't want to go to war. I'd rather stay at home, Around the streets to roam, Living off the earnings of a well-paid whore. I don't want a bayonet up my arse-hole, I don't want my bollocks shot away. I'd rather stay in England, In merry, merry England, And fornicate my bloody life away. I

There for some reason the afflatus ceased, and the parody was never completed. Similarly with Colonel Bogey, probably the most frequently heard marching tune in the Army. Some bars of the refrain went very well to a percussive repetition of the word 'bollocks', which could be hurled against the Warwickshires or any other regiment whose name would fit the metre. The rest of the tune was too intricate and, although it was known, whistled and hummed everywhere, no further words were ever attached to it. Songs that were invented were either snatches of nonsense or satire, or pseudoballads that told a story — usually a bawdy one. These may be more convincingly ascribed to a single author, but who that

2584

halls,

and

records.

never

put

No more than

on

gramophone

a few bowdlerised

fragments got into even ephemeral print.

The rapid and thorough propagation of soldiers' songs through the Army was due to the intermingling of men from different units in billets and estaminets behind the line, and in hospitals, base-camps and troopships. After July 1st, 1916, the system of restoring an invalided man to his

own

battalion or battery broke down; 'Base were sent 'up the line' to those formations which at the moment were most in need of reinforcements. A man who enDetails'

in the Devons might, after being wounded or sick, find himself in the Border Regiment or the Northumberland Fusiliers, listed

and, after another wound, in a nominally Lancashire battalion composed of former Munsters, Scots Fusiliers, Norfolks and possibly every regiment in the Army. Most of the songs fall readily enough into one or other of six categories.

Satire on war: Plain-speaking about war, the cold eye and the literal tongue turned upon what lies beyond the flagwaving and speech-making, the deliberate lowering of exalted spirits — this sort of realism is often supposed to be the discovery of the 1914-18 soldier. The warriors of previous ages are understood to have conducted themselves as romantically as the conditions of their warfare allowed. Seemingly, they believed the patriotic songs, and were slaughtered in very pretty attitudes, decorating the background effectively for their more fortunate comrades who survived with no more than a few romantic rents in the scarlet tunic or a becoming ba n iage round the head. Thus the witness of Clio. The disillusionment, the bitterness, the grousing of the soldiers of the past are not much on record and we are incited to believe (as they themselves perhaps believed, once the danger and the fatigue were over) that the martial spirit in the 'days of old' took no account of lice or the smell of corruption. It is hardly probable. As E. Montague pointed out, the stubborn, strictly agnostic spirit which ruled in the dangerous places of 1914-18 is to be found in Shakespeare's Henry V, in the foot-soldier Williams. Even a Great War does not utterly transform national character: it can but expose the foundations, the conflicting stresses and inertias on which it is built. If British soldiers half a century ago were jesting about the death which slew their comrades and seemed their own certain fate, if they cheated hysteria with songs making a joke of mud and lice and fear and weariness, it must have been because their forefathers had evolved the same ironic method of outwitting misfortune. When the victims can mock Juggernaut even as they writhe under the wheels, then by so much do they subtract from his victory. That a man should be familiar with Hush! Here Comes a Whizz-bang or the second stanza of If the Sergeant Steals Your Rum did not, during a bombardment, alter or diminish the incidence of shells that burst around him, but knowledge of such songs may well have reduced the emotional distress caused by fear, and aided him, after the experience, to pick his uncertain way back to sanity again. Similarly, when the romantic conception of war proved false, out of date, useless, the man in the line was helped in his daily endurances if he could ridicule all heroics and sing, with apparent shamelessness, / Don't Want to be a Soldier or Far, Far from Ypres I long to Be. These songs satirised more than war: they poked fun at the soldier's own desire for peace and rest, and so prevented it from overwhelming his will to go on doing his duty. They were not symptoms of defeatism, but strong bulwarks against it.

C

Satire on the military system: A great part of Army procedure was (or so it seemed to a private soldier) devised for parade purposes. Polishing brass buttons, presenting arms, adjusting alignment on the parade ground, saluting officers with the hand further away, and keeping one's

Far, Far from Ypres Tune: 'Sing >

,

Me to Sleep'

Far, far from Ypres I long to be, Where German snipers can't snipe at Damp is my dug-out, Cold are my feet,

me

w* Waiting for whizz-bangs wsend me to sleep. 1

*»>

'M

X *.

wsm

^.y.

Opposite page and above: Many of the soldiers' songs were imitations or parodies of current popular songs. Hush! Here Comes a Whizz-bang is a clever adaptation of a pre-1914 song, and / Don't Want to be a Soldier is a brilliant reversal of the meaning and mood of the original patriotic song on which it was based. It is still sung, and has been subjected to wide variation. Far, Far from Ypres is more sombre tone but parodies a pre-1914 sentimental song. Ypres should be pronounced Eepree not Wipers' in

,

*

in line with the seam of the trousers, all this appeared somewhat irrelevant to the main purpose of winning the war. The new recruits were assured that

thumbs

punctiliousness in such trifles had a miraculous moral effect, and in some unspecified

manner would make them into efficient As soldiering was a new science

soldiers

them, they were compelled to believe the professors until their own experience let in a great flood of naked light and the old colonels and majors were seen to be maunderers speaking from the book, blind to reality. By that time it was too late. Military discipline in 1914-18 was so hierarchic and rigid that it could be altered only by revolution — and a revolution would have meant defeat. The British soldier to

continued to suffer the absurdities and irritations of a system designed, a century or more before 1914, to transform tramps and wastrels into pretty puppets. He did not suffer silently. His comments off parade, and occasionally sotto voce on parade, were incisive and impolite. The very discipline against which he rebelled kept his opinions out of his songs, although some indication of his thoughts and feelings about the handling of the New Armies may be found in We Are Fred Karno's Army. Another hymn tune parody, Fred Karno's Army was sung with immense zest. Fred Karno was a popular comedian who specialised in the comedy of complete incompetence. The combination of a hymn tune and Fred Karno was irresistible

VMnak.

a^|»

:

*P


X

<**v

\ V

! >

«

_<

Fred Karno's Armv Tune:

The Church's one

Foundation'

We are Fred Karno's army, The ragtime

infantry:

We cannot fight, we cannot shoot, What earthly use are we! And when we get to Berlin, The Kaiser he will 'Hoch, Hoch! Mein

say, Gott,

What a bloody fine

lot

Are the ragtime

infantry!'

iimi iiimiiiMinin' iii

'umt K trr .immtm

Greeting to the Sergeant No

tune, usually chanted

You've got a kind face, you old bastard, You ought to be bloodywell shot: You ought to be tied to a gun-wheel,

And

left

there to bloodywell

Satire on superior officers: The solresentment against the system to which he was subjected often took the form of reflections on a particular person in authority over him, who seemed to typify the general stupidity or who was notoriously inefficient or domineering. Superior rank was, by its own nature, a target for satire: chiefly the colonel, the sergeantmajor, the quartermaster-sergeant and the Bergeant. The colonel figures in songs of this kind because he was the supreme authority the private soldier knew, but officers generally escaped satire; not that the private failed to recognize that they had a much more comfortable time than he, but because they belonged to the excessively privileged class, the barons, so to speak, of the anachronistic feudal system in which the private soldier was serf, sculdier's

lion

and

The

load-carrier.

sergeant, how-

ever, along with the sergeant-major and the quartermaster-sergeant were close at hand, and all the rant and bluster in the world failed to conceal a single defect. With the colonel they are the comic villains of

If you

want

rot.

to find

know where he

the sergeant-major,

know where he is. want to find the sergeant-major, know where he is, He's boozing up the privates' rum. I

is, I

If you

If you I

want

to find the

know where he

is, I

want to find the sergeant, now where he is, I know where he If you want to find the sergeant, know where he is, k

is.

I

He's lying on the canteen floor, seen him, I've seen him, Lying on the canteen floor, I've seen him, Lying on the canteen floor. I've

If you I

want

to find the

know where he

is, I

quarter bloke,

know where he

is,

want to find the quarter-bloke, I know where he is, He's miles and miles behind the line.

is.

want to find the CO, know where he is,

I

He's down in the deep dug-outs. I've seen him, I've seen him, Down in the deep dug-outs, I've seen him, Down in the deep dug-outs.

%

••

want to find the old battalion, know where they are, I know where

If you I

tuf

they are.

want to find the old battalion, I know where they are, They're hanging on the old barbed wire. If you

Hanging on the old barbed wire.

1

.

If you

sergeant two — We Haven't Seen tht Sergeant, and that terse objurgation which is called in these pages Greeting to the Sergeant.

If you

M

CO,

know where he

I've

The Old Barbed Wire

4

seen him, I've seen him, Boozing up the privates' rum, I've seen him, Boozing up the privates' rum. I've

The Old Barbed Wire, while the C.S.M. had all to himself— The SergeantMajor's Having a Time — and the platoon

one song

n

I

I've

p

seen 'em, I've seen 'em,

Hanging on the old barbed

wire,

seen 'em,

Panegyrics of civilian bliss, past and present: Present experience always subordinates what is distant in time or space. Yesterday is never real as today is, and if we stand in Oxford Street the most vivid imagination in the world will hardly bring Whitehall before our eyes in any comparable fashion. The very fact that men became soldiers, enrolled themselves in a masculine community and were bandied about northern Europe and the least attractive quarters of Africa and Asia inevitably made their own civilian past and the normal civilian routine of England (which newspapers and letters showed to be continuing) seem unreal. Siegfried Sassoon speaks of soldiers:

***

j'

C •*

"

.?-'

.-->

If you

seen him, I've seen him, Miles and miles behind the line, I've seen him, Miles and miles and miles behind the

Dreaming

of things they did with balls

and

bats,

And mocked by hopeless longing to regain

I've

Bank-holidays,

and

picture-shows,

*****

Jf

**i.Ti

"^tv*

and

spats, line.

And going to the office in the train.
Behind the Lines We've got a sergeant-major Who's never seen a gun; He's mentioned in despatches For drinking privates' rum,

And when he sees old Jerry You should see the bugger run Miles and miles and miles behind the lines! •

2588

•

Glorious Tune: The National Anthem

•

Glorious! Glorious! One shell hole between four of us. Soon there will be no more of us Only the bloody old hole. many of the soldiers songs, perhaps even a majority. are attacks on their immediate superiors Among officers the most frequent targets are staff officers, the colonel, and the quartermaster. The most frequent target of all is the sergeant, the

Left: Inevitably

immediate and unanswerable arbiter of most private soldiers' lives. Above: A terse and callous comment, sung fittingly to the second half of God Save the King

w

r

,

•.»''

\S*

XL «

_

x 1

v

'>.

if

-mrfat ?

s

lit*

I

Don't

Want

to Die

want to go home, I want to go home, I don't want to go in the trenches no more, Where the whizz-bangs and shrapnel they whistle and roar. Take me over the sea Where the Alleyman can't get at me.

I

Omy, want to die,

I

don't

I

want to go home.

'i

When this Bloody War is Over Tune: Hymn, 'Take

it

to the

Lord in Prayer'

When this bloody war is over, O,

how happy I shall be!

When I get my civvy clothes on, No more soldiering for me. No more church parades on Sunday, No more asking for a pass, shall tell the sergeant-major To stick his passes up his arse. I

When this bloody war is over, O,

how happy I shall be!

When I get my civvy clothes on, No more soldiering for me. I shall sound my own revally, I shall make my own tattoo: No more NCO's to curse me, No more bleeding army stew. Above and below: Two songs that epitomise the soldier's longing to be out of the war, and in some safe, comfortable place. They were both famous and popular, but When this Bloody War is Over, set to a hauntingly nostalgic hymn tune, is perhaps the most moving of all the songs. Opposite page: Wore a Tunic is remarkable both for the aptness of the words to the tune, and also for being the only song that expresses resentment of civilian shirkers'. Send Out the Army is a typical and vigorous debunking of the idea of 'duty' I

p

appropriately called Dreamers. appeared only in the disproportionate and deliriously fantastic quality of a dream The life impoaed on a man by the War v% as so unnat oral. and at the same time involved such a com-

The poem

is

for to the soldier civilian life

plete enslavement of body and mind, that his presoldiering past became as incredible as the possibility of an undisturbed and liberated future. The most ordinary details of normal life were longed for more intensely than saints on earth have desired the benefits of their paradise. / Want to Go Home, the soldier sang, mockingly perhaps, but without pretences. That was what he wanted most of all, though some more obscure aspiration fixed him in his trench until certain conditions should be fulfilled.

He kept the hard-flogged

flesh

and survive. It is almost as fantastic, that tour decades and six years have gone by, to visit the same or other old battlefields, tidied up, restored to cultivation, unrecognisable, some with fullgrown trees, planted since 1918, now thirty feet high where nothing but roots and stumps had been left in the rent and polluted earth. What is most disquieting on such a visit is to realise how little space — right

now

80 miles perhaps - separated the line, the soldier's troglodyte world, the world which might have been another planet, from home, from England, from sanity.

Tune: 1914 music hall tune

going with

Send out the army and the navy, Send out the rank and file, Send out the brave territorials, They'll face the danger with a smile (I

Wore

Tune:

Send out

Wore a Tulip'

But for God's sake don't send me!

wore a tunic, khaki tunic. And you wore civilian clothes. We fought and bled at Loos, While you were on the booze. The booze that no one here knows. I

A dirty

sang at all in the front line it at a time and under the breath, unless they had reached a tacit and reciIf soldiers

was one

procal arrangement with the Germans opposite. When they sang on the march it was during a route march for exercise or to shift quarters, and only after the successive commands had been given 'March at Ease' and 'March Easy'. These permissive orders,

O, you were with the wenches While we were in the trenches Facing the German foe. O. you were a-slacking While we were attacking Down the Menin Road.

Celebration of drink and other comforts:

Even

don't think!)

my mother, Send out my sister and my brother,

a Tunic

'I

teetotallers will join boister-

ously in the chorus of a good drinking song, and it must not be inferred from songs of this kind that it was an army of drunkards which won the War. Remarkably few soldiers were reduced to bestiality by thein experience but all felt a renewed zest in which animal pleasures — among the quenching of thirst and the warming of chilled bodies rank high. Hence the celebration of beer and rum.

Nonsense and burlesque: There is a long British tradition of nonsense, and such refrains as Inky-Pinky Parley-Vous and Skibboo are in the direct line from the Elizabethan Hey Nonny Nonny Noes. They are no more than singable sounds invented to go with a tripping tune. Down by the Sea and Wash Me in the Water are examples

like the provision of a band at the head of the column, were the Army's way of encouraging troops to sing in the belief that it was good for morale. Singing, with intervals of silence or of whistling or humming, provided a distraction from the long, slow count of the heavy laden miles. How many miles could not be calculated in advance because it was very rare for troops to be told where they were going or for what purpose. If they were told, the information usually proved to be false. Many of the songs soldiers made up for their own entertainment are songs of weariness, disbelief and exasperation.

mind

During training, in camps and billets line, and whenever soldiers had the opportunity, and the money, to visit estaminets, a different sort of song was also in demand, more of a set piece for one man, or perhaps a trio, to render: such songs sometimes told a story, a ribald story as likely as not, but sometimes they were clearly incomplete, no more than snatches from substantial lays, handed down by earlier generations of pub-singers and halfforgotten. Songs of these kinds were not universal favourites and were sung, to

with highfalutin sentiments, and more formal literature has produced nothing better in this kind than / Have No Pain, Dear Mother, Now. Immediately after the Armistice of 1918 it was an eerie experience, in Flanders or Picardy, to walk in daylight, from what had been a back area, past reserve and support trenches to the old front line, moving above ground and every now and then pausing where a few months earlier it would have been impossible to stand up-

make a change, duringbrief intervals inconversation and in the predominant singing of music hall songs, old and new, not otherwise connected with the Army or the War. Every unit, almost every platoon or battery, had in its ranks a few men who cherished a repertoire of popular songs and fancied themselves as soloists or leaders of unecclesiastical choirs. Most of them could and would render, with emotional histrionics, The Lost Chord, Trumpeter, What are you Sounding Now and Sweet and Low.

examine them and no content at all, but sing them in good company and they satisfy some deep, unsuspected thirst of the spirit. Such songs annihilate logic. Others burlesque the

of irrational fooling:

there

is

human

capacity for gratifying the

all taken very seriously, as things of beauty, joys for ever. Towards nightfall, when they were off duty and out of the line, the troops tended to become sentimental, and anyone then attempting ribaldry or even facet iousness might earn a communal reprimand. As the evening wore on, the songs chosen often had a soothing lilt of the lullaby about them and their themes were domestic — true love, home, mother and the roses round the cottage door. This may not be easy to reconcile with the coarseness of some, and the callousness of a few, of the songs here recorded.

Send Out the Army and the Navy

ribald promises, listed in When this Bloody War is Over. There was little envy of civilians avoiding the perils and discomforts of war. The soldier had his opinions and stated them bluntly. After that, the matter was done with. / Wore a Tunic stands alone, and it had but a 'limited run'. I

These were

behind the

In retrospect, however, there may be something poignant in the lullaby sweetness of some of the tunes. The soldiers of 1914-18 were, after all, young men, many of them very young. Anyone in the ranks who was over 35 was regarded as elderly, and in the later years of the war most of the infantry reinforcements were 18-year-olds.

A young man's war The typical British soldier — one perceives now — looked boyish when he went into the Army and, if he survived, boyish when he came out. Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, the Ypres Salient, the Somme and Passchendaele may belong to history but that history was not often perceptibly written on the faces of those who made it. That may be because it is a national characteristic of the English — and I think the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh have it also — to retain a good deal of their adolescent ways long after they are physically, and legally, mature. Or it may simply be that the convention of those days against making a fuss was more powerful than even the experience of war. In February 1964, Lord Attlee, being interviewed for television,

was asked about

Gallipoli,

where he had

served in the infantry. At once his face was transformed, and instead of an elder statesman there appeared a subaltern of 1915, complete with debonair smile and period jargon, who was disarmingly resolved to pretend that Gallipoli had been only a kind of natural history expedition, involving a certain amount of sleeping rough but on the whole quite interesting. The troops of 1914-18 did little or no singing when they were in the line or on their way to the line. Coming out after a tour of duty in the trenches was another matter. Nerves began to relax after days or weeks of tension and as soon as the company had a mile or two of road behind them a kind of sotto voce singing or some soft whistling would begin. The tune was all that mattered then, not the words. In battle no one thought of singing. The pattern of

2591

Western Front battles, crude, cumbersome, conducted in time rather than in space, is mi liar now to most people as the shape i

of a mastodon to a palaeontologist. A continuous strip of No-Man's Land, at places only 50 yards or less wide, wound from the Channel coast inland to the French frontier with Switzerland. In certain parts the 'front line' was nominal, defended by wire entanglements, mines, and spaced-out emplacements, keeps and redoubts, but in general it is true to say that No-Man's Land was bounded on each side by systems

of interconnected trenches, six, eight, ten feet deep, revetted and sandbagged and dug zig-zag to limit the effect of explosions. The trenches and emplacements on both sides were occupied continuously by infantrymen who, according to time and place of circumstance, suffered light or heavy

casualties as the price of holding the ground. Matties were long in preparation, and might continue long after everyone involved in them knew that there was no hope of attaining their purpose. While the trench deadlock held, and it held for four continuous years, any advance had to be made across No-Man's Land which was cluttered with formidable obstacles constructed of barbed wire, and the attackers were exposed, the moment they 'went over the top', to artillery fire from a distance and to rifle fire and especially machine gun fire at short range. On the Somme in 1916 battalions which at dawn were 800 strong

were reduced by afternoon to 100 men. The following year tactical formations were modified but the essentials of a deadlock situation remained. Preliminary bombardments intended to facilitate the attack made the ground impassable to the attackers who, because they had been subjected to a counter-bombardment, were generally disorganised and often demoralised before they began. The War had become an enormous institution with the prestige of a barbaric religion.

It

demanded

unquestioning devotion and, as if the serpentine trench lines of the Western Front were a fire-breathing monster, it demanded

human lives. At Passmany infantrymen who were

daily sacrifices of

chendaele

wounded or whose strength gave out drowned slowly in liquid mud. Millions of shells burst on the Western Front but the machine gun still commanded the devastation. The defence was broken only twice. At the end of 1917, attacking without the dubious benefit of a preliminary bombardment, British tanks broke through in front of Cambrai to a depth of five miles. Open country lay beyond, with the prospect of a decisive war of manoeuvre, but GHQ had provided no reserves to follow up. The following spring the Germans attacked, using gas shells and infiltration tactics, and

Army into a prolonged retreat. The Germans got so far and no further, perhaps because they were without cross-country vehicles. The British and French had acquired a new ally, the United States, coming belatedly into the war and deploying troops slowly but providing, as it were, a vast overdraft of manpower. It was, many consider, because they knew this that the German armies were at long last forced out of the trench systems forced the British Fifth

where so many millions had died, and compelled to sue for a Cease Fire. The carnival celebrations of 'The Armistice'— a word often pronounced with the second syllable accented — neatly timed for

2592

I

Have no Pain

Tune: 'My Love

is

Like a Red, Red Rose'

have no pain, dear mother, now, But O! I am so dry. Connect me to a brewery

I

And leave me there to die.

\

:

y^

I *>,?<-

SfiTC

Wash me in the Water Tune: Salvation

Army hymn tune

Wash me in the water That you washed the

colonel's

daughter

And I shall be whiter Than the whitewash on the wall. Whiter Than the whitewash on the wall. O, wash me in the water That you washed the colonel's daughter,

And I shall be whiter Than the whitewash on the wall. t

The songs on these pages reflect two of the soldier's most immediate longings, to clean himself up, and to have a drink, not just any drink, but beer. In men whose staple alcoholic diet at home was beer, the hardships of war induced a thirst that ving blong' went hardly any way towards quenching

the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, were held, spontaneously enough, in London, Paris, New York and other cities. On the Western Front the advancing troops were too tired for junketing and too sceptical: there had been false alarms of peace before. The Allies halted: the Germans withdrew out of sight and out of range of rifle, machine gun and artillery fire. This agreed 'dise engagement' brought about a sudden relief from mental and nervous tension, after s four and a half years, which constituted for | most of the surviving soldiers the first sign that their soldiering days were almost over. 76 !!

*

I

There were some minor celebrations, however. One battalion, marching into a liber-

ated village, found themselves greeted by the inhabitants waving Union Jacks. The flags, it appeared, had been sold to the villagers, under some duress, by the quartermaster-sergeant of the German rearguard just before it left. And at one hospital, not far from Etaples, a Scottish officer recklessly signed an order — which was duly posted in the wards — declaring: 'To celebrate the conclusion of hostilities every patient will be allowed an extra piece of bread and jam with his

RAMC

The relationship between British troops and French civilians was one of mutual exasperated friendliness, and it is characteristic that the only lasting legacy passed down by the millions of men who spent four years in France is the

saga of Mademoiselle from Armenteers. The doings of the accommodating Mademoiselle are universally known, extend now to scores of verses, and are sung with bawdy gusto. We print here one of the original, more pungent verses

tea.'

[Taken from The Long Trail by John Brophy and Eric Partridge, published by Andre Deutsch, 1965.]

X>

^.x j*«3 ^V> <£•>'

W

>

*ifc.

L

J*.

*

&

f**

Mademoiselle from Armenteers tune rune: Universally known, originally French music hall

Mademoiselle from Armenteers, Parley-vous!

Mademoiselle from Armenteers, Parley-vous!

Mademoiselle from Armenteers, for forty years, She hasn't been Inky-pinkv oarlev-vous.

2995 'j

"'

",,

i

>

The Language of the

Abdul: Turk, individual or

collective.

Abort: German for water-closet or latrine. The word occurs frequently in books written by ex-prisoners of war. About Turn: The village of Hebuterne. Ace: A fighting air-pilot of outstanding ability. Obviously, from cards. Originally from French as. Ack emma: Air Mechanic, in the Royal Air Force. Also am morning. Adjutant's nightmare: A confidential Army Telephone Code Book. Very complicated and frequently revised. A bright idea of 1916. Adrift: Absent without leave.

Trenches

meant a German notice-board, which more often than not was headed Achtung. Alley: Run away! Clear out! Or in full Alley tootsweet. From the French Allez tout de suite. Often also alley at the toot.

arose. English, Scots, Irish,

Alleyman: A German. French Allemand. Not much used after 1916. Ally Sloper's Cavalry: The ASC-Army

made

all

their contributions,

and the

garnished with liberal borrowings from French, Hindustani, and cockney rhyming slang echoes the atmosphere of the trenches result,

Service Corps — responsible for all road transport behind the lines. Ally Sloper was a comic character in a popular paper (prewar) called Ally Sloper's Half Holiday. The ASC were so named by the infantry and artillery because, having good pay, comfort and comparative safety, they were hardly considered to be soldiers, at all. A variant was Army Safety Corps. Angels of Mons: These supernatural interveners on the battlefield — intervening on behalf of the British — were fictitious. They occurred in a story by Arthur Machen printed in a London evening paper. Very soon large numbers of people were convinced that the intervention was a part of military history. The late Eric Kennington, asked if he believed in the Angels of Mons once replied: 'Madam, I was one of them!' Anti-frostbite: In the winter of 1914-15 this commodity, which looked rather like lard, was supplied in two-pound tins; it evidently contained pork fat, for the tin was marked 'Not to be given to Indian troops'. Afterwards, Whale Oil was issued; it arrived in rum-jars. Owing to its foul smell, little was used as intended; the order was that, before going out to a Listening Post or on patrol, each man was to be stripped and rubbed down with whale

HQ

oil

by an

NCO!

Assistant Provost Marshal. A sort of Head Constable of Military Police. A harrier of too lively subalterns, an eagle eye for omitted salutes, surreptitious drinks, over-stayed passes. It is said that APM's often acted as guides for Generals wishing to see the night-life of the large towns in France and Belgium. For the hardened type of APM, see C. E. Montague's Rough Justice (Chatto & Windus, 1926). Apres la guerre: A magical phrase used by soldiers jokingly for the indefinite and remote future, and as a depository of secret sentiment, longing for survival and for the return of peace. The two usages can be seen in the ribald ditty composed by some unknown warrior — 'Apres la guerre finie', and a later music-hall song, fairly popular in 1917-18, of which the refrain began, 'Apres la guerre, There'll be a good time gladsome faces, smiling everywhere;

APM:

missus,' etc.

2596

A

Turkish big

at Gallipoli.

Balloonatics: These operating, or in charge of, observation balloons. Baloo, or Berloo: Bailleul. Probably Albert, Armentieres, Amiens, Bailleul, and Ypres were the towns most familiar to the British soldier on the Western Front.

Bandagehem,

Dosinghem,

Mending-

hem: Certain

hospital stations in Flanders, on the analogy of such place-names as

Ebblinghem. Battle bowler:

Officers'

slang for steel

helmet.

Agony: A newly-arrived officer showing nervousness or confusion. Ak duni: Among Regulars: instantly. From Hindustani. In 1914-18 it also

Every war throws up its own jargon and usage, and among the British armies in France an almost separate language Welsh, Canadians, Anzacs,

Asiatic Annie (or Ann):

gun

The battle bowler that up his shrapnel-pierced

didn't. A soldier holds steel helmet

Battle police: Military policeman employed on special duty behind the lines during an attack. They were armed with revolvers and had authority to stop unwounded stragglers and turn them back (if necessary using the revolvers) to the danger area where military police never appeared.

Beachy

Bill:

A

big

enemy gun

at Gal-

lipoli.

Beef hearts: Beans. With a rhyming pun on farts. Before you come up: 'Come' is the normal illiterate error for 'came'. This is the classic crushing retort of the private soldier, the unanswerable argument from experience and seniority. Later, many elaborations were invented such as, 'Before you knew what a button-stick was'; 'Before your (regimental) number was dry';

'Before you was breeched' or 'Before you nipped'. Variants were, 'I was cutting

barbed wire while you was cutting your milk teeth.' 'While you were clapping your

hands at Charlie,' ie Chaplin, and: 'When you were off to school with a bit of bread and jam in your hand.' The most vivid variants were: 'Before your bollocks dropped', 'Before you lost the cradle-marks off your arse', and 'When your mother was cutting bread on you.' Bert: Albert, the town.

Big Bertha: Specifically the heavy German gun that bombarded Paris in the spring of 1918; generally, any very big

German

gun.

Bill lent

Harris: Bilhama. a disease preva Egvpt, contracted from the water

in

of the Nile.

Bird-cage: The term the Bird-Cage was applied also to the entrenched camp built around Salonika by the Allies in 1915-16. Both terms were sometimes applied to the point occupied by a sniper Birdlime. Time It was also used for a Recruiting Sergeant Biscuits: Small square mattresses, three making a bed for one man, in camp or barracks. Very hard: hence the name. Bivvy: Bivouac. A makeshift tent to hold a tew men: a waterproof sheet tor sheets) supported by a central ridge pole three feet or so above the ground. Bivouacs provided a pleasant feeling of privacy and airiness -in summer. The word was also used loosely for a small dug-out or other form of temporary habitation. Black Hand Gang: A party selected, from volunteers when possible, for some hazardous enterprise such as a trench raid. Blanket drill: The afternoon siesta, much prized by some 'old' soldiers with years of service in India behind them. Blighty: England, in the sense of home. In this one word was gathered much of the

Sometimes called The Suicide Club. Bomb-proof. Splinter-proof only. Bomb-proof job: Employment at the base or on the Lines of Communication Bone-orchard: Cemetery. Pre 19] civil I

ian

Brock's Benefit: The rockets and flares sent up at night from the opposing front lines, both tor the detection of foes in NoMan's Land and as signals. From civilian displays of fireworks and a manufacturer's

name. Buckshee: Surplus: free; adjective applied to anything come by with unexpected ease: 'There's some buckshee rum going tonight.' Also used as an adverb: T got this bread from the cookhouse, buckshee.' It was also used as a noun, meaning an extra share or surplus. 'Now the rice has gone round, what about a bit of buckshee?' A development of the Persian backsheesh: a gratuity, a tip, but Regular soldiers pre-1914 took the word from Hindustani.

to his

credible. Blighty to

normal

life,

exchange

for

a permanent return

Blimp: Air Force slang

Buckshee? A British soldier army transport cart

Bugger

all:

type of

small, dirigible white airship used principally for anti-submarine surveys over the Channel. In the 1930s the cartoonist David Low invented a Colonel Blimp, rotund of face and figure, as a symbol of reactionary stupidity. Blue cross gas: German sneezing gas; from the mark on the shells. Blue unction: Blue ointment used to ex-

terminate 'crabs'. Bolo: A spy; from Bolo Pasha, shot for treason in 1918. Bombardier Fritz: Variant pom Fritz; pommes de terre frites, chips. Bombers: Experts with hand grenades.

Nothing.

An

lifts

a calf onto an

Australian

sol-

dier is said to have described the Egyptian desert as 'miles and miles and bloody miles of bugger all'. Bull: Bullshit: Not spit and polish but any kind of pretentiousness or incredible

nonsense. Bull-ring: Training ground at the Base, where up-the-line soldiers, just out of Base hospitals and convalescent camps, were put through arduous 'courses' by PT and other instructors

for the

on the burning deck, Whence all but he had fled.' Cat walk: Pathway of bricks across French and Belgium farm fields; often only one

were performed, and wounded were classified into dangerous, slight and 'return to England' case**. Chink: A Chinese. There was a large Chinese Labour Corps employed behind the lines and at the Bases on the Western Front. They were liked because they were good-natured and amusing, but they were

which he could faintly remember, a never-never land. The word was further used as an adjective, not merely for things English and homelike; but as a general expression of approval. For example, 'This is real Blighty butter' — meaning ideal, as good as English. It was also used of a wound. The word is thought to be a corruption of the Hindustani bilaik:

in

All combatant soldiers say, major: especially the infantry. A journalistic expression, only used with the implication of quotation, by soldiers. Of German origin. Canteen medals: Beer stains on the breast of a tunic. Pre-1914 Regular Army. Casabianca: The last one, especially of cigarettes. From the poem: 'The boy stood of,

at regular intervals. He was also liable for extra fatigues. CCS: Casualty Clearing Station. Tents or huts behind the lines where operations

which

to Blighty.

Cannon-fodder:

below the rank

guardroom

of faerie, a paradise

arm

also classified

to barracks. A major punishment, applicable only out of the line. A soldier on CB had to report during what would normally be his free time, to the

him abnormal and inthe soldier was a sort

foreign country, especially England. It often occurs in the adjectival form bilaiti. An alternative derivation is from Vilayat, Persian for strange or foreign. From this arose an Urdu corruption, Belait, which soldiers distorted to Belati, and eventually to Blighty. Blighty one: A wound sufficiently serious to take the sufferer back to England. To most of the combatant troops on the Western Front to 'get a blighty one' was a hope and a dream and, if and when it came true, the wounded man would be openly envied. It was in general the only honourable release and many men — perhaps all men at certain times — felt ready to lose a leg or an

Wounded men were

during convalescence in this manner. C3 thus became a term of contempt — not applied to a man who was C3, but, by analogy, to a thing or an action. Canary: An instructor at the Bull Ring; so called from the yellow brassard he wore.

CB: Confined

home-sickness and affection and war-weariness. Far more than the actual distance separated him from England. He had entered another mode of existence, ugly, precarious, insane, bearing hardly to

category.

brick wide.

soldier's

any resemblance now had become

The Bing Hoys. C3: Early in the war only men fit for active Service were accepted. Afterwards recruits were enlisted lor Home, Garrison and Base duties, and were graded according to physical fitness. Al. B2, Bii. (','{ was the lowest

under

fire.

who had rarely, if at all, been From Spanish bull-fights be-

cause of the cruelty involved and the fact that the training ground was often sited on sand. The most notorious was at Etaples. Bumf: Toilet paper or newspaper used for that purpose. Short for bum-fodder, an expression dating back to the seventeenth century. Also used, however, in a specifically military sense (chiefly officers' slang) for orders, instructions, memoranda, etc, especially if of a routine nature: 'Bags of bumf from Division.'

Business: The French town, Busnes. Byng Boys, The: The Canadians; from the name of their 1917 commander, Lord Byng, and prompted by the popular revue

not often to be seen actually at work. Chin-strap: Except by mounted troops the chin-straps of khaki field-service caps were never used. A steel helmet, however, was liable to fall off and the chin-strap was often lowered round the jaw. Many a man, however, preferred to keep it hanging loosely on the back of the neck for fear a bullet or fragment of shrapnel, striking the helmet, should cause the strap to choke him or break his jaw. The phrase to come in on your chin-strap meant to finish a march or a carrying party so fatigued that (figuratively) only the chin-strap kept the

body upright. Chum, Long-eared: A mule. Long-faced chum=a horse. But long-haired chum — a

girl,

a sweetheart.

Civvy: Civilian: adjective or noun. A word freighted with much emotion, envy, fond memories and eternal hope. See the songs, 'When this Bloody War is Over'. and T

Wore

a Tunic'. Client for Rouen:

A

'venereal' case.

Clutching hand, The: The quartermaster sergeant.

Coal-box:

The

shellburst of a 5.9 or the black smoke. Sometimes used of the shell itself. Cold meat ticket: Identity disc. Contemptibles, Old: The original Expeditionary Force. Journalese, allegedly from a speech by the Kaiser in which he referred to the 'contemptible little British

heavier

shell.

From

Army'. The phrase should perhaps have been rendered as 'contemptibly small'. low. very Flying Contour-chasing:

2597 wmmBmHMumimammyMMmmnuummm

m~*

1 #;.
**;irw?

Cookhouse

official:

Cook's Tour:

A

A

<•*

baseless rumour.

made, during a quiet period, by Members of Parvisit to the front,

liament, journalists and other civilians. Corpse factory: Many people believed that the Germans were driven to obtaining fats by melting corpses. This particular rumour perhaps arose from the fact that many of the German dead were sent to

Germany

Crabs:

for burial.

A

variety of louse that lays its eggs at the roots of human body hair.

Extremely

irritating.

Creeping barrage: Not only used

in a

technical sense but applied metaphorically in convalescent camps where men were divided into four groups according to physical fitness. A man had to show that he could march a certain distance before progressing from one group to another. The weakest marched or walked so slowly that the term 'Creeping barrage' was applied to them. Crucifix corner: On the Western Front almost any crossroads or intersection of

roads with a Calvary. Crummy: Itchy because of louse-bites. Cushy: Soft; comfortable, luxurious. Especially, safe where danger was the general rule. Other people were always getting cushy jobs. Typical cases were, 'This is a cushy sector'; 'He's been having a cushy time'. (From Hindustani.) Derby men: Men recruited under a voluntary scheme instituted (just before conscription became law) by Lord Derby. It was understood that young, unmarried men were to be called up for service first. Der Tag: German for 'The Day' which meant variously: 'The day when we Germans declare war on' or 'conquer England', 'come into our own'. Popularised by officers, often facetiously for any much-desired date or goal. Devil-dodger: A scripture-reader or a chaplain.

Digger: Used by Australian troops as a vocative for either a personal friend or a stranger. Derived from the first days of the gold-fields in Australia when the word was used to distinguish the holder of mining rights over a few square yards from a squatter or farmer. In time, the diggers became a fairly common term for Australian troops and (among British troops) sometimes for New Zealanders. Later in the war it was sometimes used as a vocative by English soldiers in place of the commoner 'chum'. Divisional Comic Cuts: Soldiers' term for cheering communiques issued from Divisional Headquarters, in which some of the information was known to be false and the rest was suspect. Comic Cuts was pre- 191 4, a cheap humorous periodical for the very young. Dixie: A large iron pot, oval, with an iron lid and a thin white metal handle devised to bite into the hands carrying it. Stew, rice, porridge, soup and tea were boiled in the dixie; bacon and biscuit-pudding were cooked in the lid. The word is not from the United States but India; degschai, a cooking-pot.

Dodging the column: The art and science of avoiding unpleasant and especially dangerous duties. The phrase originated in India and South Africa where a column was a mobile body of troops. Doing

It:

Doingt, a town near Peronne

-0

*

Mj

^^k

mt

'

r<-~ DORA: The

Defence of the Realm Act:

of regulations everyone in Great Britain

a

multiplicity

Dough-boys:

American

own name. They

affecting their

soldiers;

disliked

being called

in general they provided for the soldier off duty behind the line many and many a happy hour. The name had a magical quality in 1914-18 — and still has for those who survive.

charged but

Yanks and Sammies. Dug-out disease: Chronic fear of death and danger which kept those, whose rank permitted any choice, safe in their dugouts.

Dug-out king: Familiar way of referring an officer or NCO who took advantage of his rank and office to remain in his dug-out whenever the trench above was under bombardment. Some of this genus never showed their heads above ground to

from the till it

moment

was time

of entering a position

to leave.

Dumb

insolence: A military crime. Allowing a derisive or disbelieving or amused or uninterested expression to appear on one's face when spoken to by a superior officer. There was little hope of pleading 'Not Guilty' to such a charge. Duration: The duration of the war. Always, of course, until the end, a period unfixed and apparently unlimited. The volunteers of 1914/15 enlisted for 'three years or the duration of the war' — an ambiguous phrase which caused endless argument among optimists who expected the end to come, each year, by the following Christmas. 'Roll on. Duration' was a frequent exclamation in moods of depression.

NOBBLED

Ow long are you

up

lor. Bill 9

"Seven years" Yer lucky-l

m duration"

N

tjt?L

^ -^HLJl

A

pessimistic

YfBr^/M

comment by

Bairnsfather's

A scene near Armentieres. origin of the

Unlikely to be the

song on page 2595!

Etaples: A small town just inland from Le Touquet, the site of many infantry base depots and hospitals. The cemetery with its crosses reached to the horizon, and the tented depots in bad weather were cheerless. Discipline at Etaples was so repressive that in 1917 a mutiny, said to have been provoked by military police, broke out. An account of this may be found in Memories and Base-Details by Lady Angela Forbes, who during the war ran an officers' club at Etaples; also in the columns of the Manchester Guardian on several dates during February, 1930. For some unguessable reason, Etaples was always pronounced 'Ee-tapps', with the accent on the first syllable. Eye-wash: Official deceit or pretentiousness, especially an appearance of virtue designed to conceal a disgraceful reality. Threats of punishment which could hardly be carried out were eye-wash; published despatches from the front were eye-wash; the Orderly Officer's Any Complaints was eye-wash. Some of the Regular Army's tradition of smartness (now called 'Bull') came under this heading. The term is perhaps taken from an oculist's lotion for bathing the eye, which often caused temporary blindness or at least, blurred sight;

may date from pre-1914 when officers adding colours to their sketch-maps in the hope of concealing inadequacy as maps were said to use eye-wash. In officers' 1914-18 slang: artificial tidiness; arranged it

cartoon soldier

Est ami net: There is no equivalent in Great Britain. On the Western Front an estaminet was not a pub. Neither was it a cafe or a restaurant. It had some of the qualities of all three. It was never large and was found only in villages and very minor towns. It had low ceilings, an open iron stove; it was warm and fuggy; it had wooden benches and table. It sold wine, cognac and thin beer, as well as coffee, soup, eggs and chips and omelettes. The proprietress (a proprietor was unthinkable) had a daughter or two, or nieces, or younger sisters who served at table and made no objection to tobacco smoke and ribald choruses in English and pidgin French. No doubt some estaminets over-

an inspection. Fanny: A member of 'The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry' — a pre-war woman's horsed ambulance unit, which early in the war acquired motor ambulances and sent detachments both to the BEF and to the French Army. for

Five

nine: Variant: five-point-nine: a hated, very destructive German high-explosive shell; also the gun. Fly-catchers: Officially Fleet Fighters;

much

fast protective fighter.

Flying arsehole: Observer's badge, RAF; the

O

with a wing.

Diggers by name, diggers by nature. Australian troops at work behind the lines

C •

£~

2599

FP

Field Punishment No 1. Notoripart of the punishment consisted in the offender being lashed, like one crucified, to a gun-wheel by wrists and ankles for one hour in the morning and one in the evening for as many days as were specified up to twenty-eight. The intention was to humiliate as well as to exhaust him, and in the past it may have been that his comrades were expected to jeer at him. It has been stated that some unfortunate men were so lashed to guns in action! Unlikely, but not impossible. Generally FP No 1 was awarded only rarely, and, by an open conspiracy, often the period was arranged to fall while the unit was in the line, where such punishment was quite impracticable. The general routine seems to have been, even behind the line, to omit the lashing to the wheel. The remainder of the punishment consisted of pack-drill and a diet of bread and water. Front: To people in Britain the Front

No.

ous

1:

because

meant

Northern France and Belgium. Across the Channel it meant the forward area, not the front-line trenches especially. Used in the Boer (and perhaps earlier) wars, so probably derived from frontier.

Used in Italian and French 1914-18. Funk-hole: A term, dating from the South African War, for a dug-out or other shelter. No disparagement of the occupants was implied by the civilian slang word, funk, coward or cowardice.

for

Funky

villas:

The

village

of Fonque-

original and usual meaning was that the cable or telephone line had 'gone disconnected'. Dis was a fateful dis:

The

word for the linesman (a signaller). It always meant urgent work, probably in the dark and under fire, for shelling was the normal reason for telephone lines 'going dis'. 'We are dis to Brigade' was a Battalion HQ signaller's way of announcing that the only means of communication with Brigade HQ would be by runner. Goody-la!: Chinese Labour Corps for 'Good!' Taken over by British troops for facetious use, it became a catch word. Also in the negative

No

Goody-la.

Gorblimey: Field Service caps softened by removing the wire frame. Early in the war a soft cap was issued with earflaps

when not in use, could be buttoned on top. Gorblimey is a Cockney expression and was probably used before the war in ridicule of civilian peaked caps attached; these,

of startling colour and worn at an angle. pre-1914 civilian (probably children's) song, revived in John Brophy's novel Waterfront (1932) and the film based on it (1948) and later by Mr Lonny Donegan, ran something like this: My old man's a fireman, Now what do you think of that?

A

He wears gorblimey trousers And a little gorblimey hat. Gorgeous wrecks: A volunteer

defence corps in England. Over-age civilians, who underwent some military training, sparetime, and wore a brassard with the Royal Monogram GR — Georgius Rex. Green envelope: A form of envelope not subject to the ordinary regimental censorship. The writer signed a declaration on the outside that the contents gave no military information. Green envelopes were issued sparsely and infrequently, but some could be obtained by bribery or by barter.

2600

tin

Soldier's

shirt of regulation

buttons.

Gun

fire:

before the

Tea served (sometimes) first

to troops

parade of the day, which

was normally before breakfast. A derivation from the morning gun of a garrison town may be correct, but gun-powder, which, at least as early as 1800, meant a fine green tea, had by 1860 come to mean a coarse or common tea; gun fire may well have arisen by analogy. Hate: A bombardment; 'The morning hate is due now.' An allusion to the German Lissauer's Hymn of Hate, composed in August, 1914, and directed against Britain. Hazybrook: Hazebrouck, in the North of France; a rather gloomy railway town of some importance. Hell-Fire Corner: On the Menin Road, near Ypres. So named in October 1914; the name soon became official. There were numerous other, but less famous, HellFire Corners on the Western Front. Horn forty: A goods wagon on the French railway, in which troops were transported at an average speed of If miles an hour. From the inscription on the outer walls:

Hommes 40, Cheuaux 8. Iggry: Hurry up! (from the Arabic iggri). The Australians appropriately named a crossing in Bullecourt: Iggry Corner. Imsni: Go! Away with you. (Arabic, picked up in Egypt.) I

villiers.

Gone

Greyback:

grey flannel. It was grey all over and through and through and had sharp-edged

salute the brave dead:

A

formula

affec-

ted by some officers of high rank visiting troops at the Front. On one legendary occasion these ritualistic words were addressed to a man laid out by rum, who staggered to his feet and attempted a salute.

Jankers: CB or confinement in a military prison. Perhaps from the jangling of fetters (in old-time prisons). Hence Jankers King, the provost sergeant; Jankers Men, defaulters. Jildi (often

Jeldi): Quick, look sharp, Also used in the phrase 'on the jildi'; 'Get those bags filled on the jildi'. (From Hindustani.) Johnny: Short for Johnny Turk. Very rarely for a German. Johnson: Synonymous with Coal-box. Name given from a negro pugilist, Jack Johnson. One of the 'advertisements' in The Wipers Times of February 12, 1916, has: 'The Johnsons. A Shout. A Scream. A Roar,' a most apt description of their advent and explosion. Jolly Polly: Gallipoli.

hurry.

Kamerad: Comrade. A German

expres-

used by prisoners requesting mercy. Often put to facetious uses by British soldiers among themselves; 'Kamerad!' when a story showed no signs of ending. Kibosh: A sudden end or a severe punishment. A popular comic song early in the war ran 'Belgium put the kibosh on the Kaiser.' Also used as a verb. The word is pre-victorian in origin. Dickens uses it. Lady of the Limp: Also the Virgin of the Limp, The Hanging Madonna, and, especially, The Leaning Virgin: high upon La Basilique de Notre-Dame de Brebieres, at Albert. Damaged by shell-fire the figure was displaced till it leaned out almost sion,

parallel to the ground far below. seen from a great distance.

Landowner:

To

become

a

It

could be

landowner

.. ctt Christmas dinner 1916 Not even the presence ol a newly interred corpse can diminish these men's enthusiasm for a meal that for once consists of something more than pozzy (jam), hard tack (biscuits), and /

bully beef

Below: Dixies, usually used for keeping tea or a stew hot, were a familiar feature of army life At those moments when a hot meal would have been most welcome they were nowhere to be seen, and when they were available their very considerable weight had to

be hauled along yards of muddy trenches Only rarely were they seen piping hot on top of the mobile field kitchens as here

Bottom: Another ever-present feature trench

life

- corpses. The name given

of to

identity discs, cold meat tickets, would have startlingly appropriate in this case

been

meant, to be

killed, the

grave being the

estate.

Latrine rumour: Wild and insubstantial and prophecies. These usually took one of the following forms: 1 Rumours about German strategic and tactical plans, new weapons and traps; (2) Changes stories

(

)

High Command, new theatres of war, Napoleonic schemes for victory; (3) Secret doings by one or other of the Allies which would relieve the pressure on the British

of

front; (4) Spy and treason stories; (5) Auguries of a life of comparative ease and luxury in the near future. Some battalions were always about to be moved to India, Egypt or even Samoa; others were to be employed sweeping the paths in the grounds of GHQ Chateau. Such rumours became associated with latrines because these shanties were practically the only places in which a private soldier could be comparatively secure from the eye and voice of authority. Consequently men sat there for long periods, reading newspapers, gossiping and exercising their imagination and credulity. Lazy Eliza: A long-range heavy shell

passing well overhead. Lead-swinger: An habitual malingerer. Often used with only the faintest suggestion of reproach; 'Lend a hand you old lead-swinger.'

Linseed Lancers: The Royal Army Medical Corps.

Lone Pine: A famous

position on Galnear Anzac Cove. It passed into Australian folklore. Originally from a pre1914 music-hall song 'The Trail of the lipoli;

Lonesome Pine'. Mad minute:

A

newspaper phrase

for

British rapid fire during the Retreat from

On the rifle range every man was trained to put 15 aimed shots in one minute on to a 4-foot target at a range of 300 yards. The name was also applied to the frenzied minute spent charging down the assault course, bayonetting straw-filled dummies representing enemy soldiers. MD: Medicine and Duty. A pill was given to a soldier who reported himself sick, without serious cause, together with orders to report himself to his platoon sergeant for immediate duty. Mons.

continued on page 2606

2601

MOTOR TRANSPORT A Revolution in Warfare

Above: An

Italian field

ambulance,

by the Italia concern. Below: A British Daimler motor bus. taken over from the Tramways (MET) Omnibus Co by the Royal Marine built

force sent to Antwerp

managed

in

1914.

be brought back from Antwerp were used by

Those

that

to

>

T

B**-^^^^^^^

the Royal Naval Division. The khaki paint dates from the latter time, the earlier livery being blue, with the original advertisements i

2602

Although to modern eyes the vehicles shown on this page hardly appear to be revolutionary, their arrival on the battlefields of 'the First World War heralded the end of the centuries-old predominance of the horse as the sole means of battlefield transport and as the

major shock weapon

Above: A French Renault 15-ton artillery tractor. Note the drum of wire for towing bogged-down guns and vehicles. Left: A German Bussing mobile workshop. The sides are

shown

in

the

down

where they served as working platforms and surfaces. Below: A French SaconneyDelahaye balloon winch car. The winch is at the rear of the vehicle, behind the large tool and accessory box position,

2603 nuiTirwMTiiiiiimi

Right:

An

RAMC orderly

attends the

wounded

an advanced dressing station Unkindly

at

known as Rob All My Comrades because of the tendency of

personal effects to disappear from a

wounded man.

RAMC did

in fact

the per-

form miracles of hard work and improvisation to care for the

wounded The case

in

stretcher the foreground

has an improvised rifle and bayonet splint

on

his leg

Carry me back to dear old Blighty, Put me on the train to London town.

Take me over there, Drop me anywhere, Liverpool, Leeds or Manchester. Below: A good Blighty one', the much-souqht-after light wound that would earn an honourable return to England. This one, however, would earn only a temporary reprieve

2605

1 Mesopolonica: Rumour had it in every battalion on the Western Front that the next move would be to the east and comparative ease and safety. In time this hypothetical and unknown destination

came to be called Mesopolonica — a compound of Mesopotamia and Salonica.

^5

Micks: Any

MO:

Irish unit.

Medical Officer attached to a bat-

talion or battery. MO's varied considerably in quality; some were brutes, some

ap*"

were born underlings, most were quite human. In the line all worked hard, many were notably brave. They were good to

wounded men unless they suspected selfinflicted wounds but towards some other

*C

ranks reporting

sick, it is said that

many

MO's exhibited neither

\

intelligence nor courtesy. Malingerers could get away with it again and again; men that their

\*

comrades knew to be ill would be ordered back to duty sometimes to die soon afterwards. As the war progressed and more and more men were conscripted to replace killed, wounded or diseased, the medical profession appeared to lower its professional standards astoundingly. Old soldiers still weak from unhealed wounds were sent back up the line and among the

those

conscripts

making up

drafts of 'reinforce-

ments' were many incapacitated by age, by physique and by chronic ailments. Mons man: One of the original BEF in France. Popularised by journalists, who, however, got it from the troops. The 1914 Star, unofficially the Mons Medal, was awarded to all who served in France in a BEF unit between August 5 and midnight of

November

22/23, 1914.

Moo-Cow Farm. Moquet

Farm.

A

scene

of fierce Australian fighting on the Somme. Mutt and Jeff: The British War Medal and the Victory Medal of 1919. From comic paper characters. Napoo: Finished; empty; gone; non-exist-

Corrupted from the French // n'y en a plus = there is no more, given in answer to enquiries for drink, when the estaminet keeper expected officers or highly paid troops — Australian, New Zealand, ent.

Canadian or pay higher

came

to

ASC men who prices.

be used

for

From many

could afford to the word of the destructhis

and disappointments of 'The bread's napoo'; The old dugout's napoo'; 'Napoo rum'. Also sometimes as a verb. Nichevo: No more; finished; gone, disappeared; dead. From the Russian. Used in prison camps in Germany and by the North Russian Expeditionary Force. So too the Russian Niet Dobra, meaning 'no tions, obliterations

war;

^mOf_

good'.

NYD: A on

medical term, sometimes written

labels. Technically, 'Not yet diagnosed'.

Interpreted Dead'.

I

Ocean

by the patient as 'Not Yet

villas: Auchonvillers, a

town near

Arras.

•'1'"**%.

Old One O'Clock: Von Kluck, commander

,^X'

•

y^j^* i'J*:-"*

^'•pfc^rW-V

of the German First Army in 1914. Old soldier. One grown old in sin. A term of mingled admiration and criticism, implying cunning in the art of dodging work and trouble from authority, to the point of malingering. Orders: The daily trial, by the Commanding Officer of a battalion or other unit, of minor offences. So-called because the punishments were listed the next day in

J»t,

•_<%e*«

L_k Battalion Orders, displayed outside the Orderly Room. The practice was rarely, if ever, kept up in the line. Packet of Fags: A well-remembered Russian cruiser that in 1914 helped to escort British troops from the East. From the four thin upright funnels. Padre: Chaplain. An accredited priest or minister wearing military uniform. From the Portuguese and Spanish Padre Father. This word was adopted by the priest Army from the Portuguese in India during the 18th Century. A chaplain had few definite duties: he could make himselt useful or could slack. In general, it may be said that all Roman Catholic padres were respected, because they came into the line and because they lacked the haw-haw voice. Church of England and Nonconformist padres were popularly divided into three The man-of-the-world who classes: (1) swore and over-drank — he was despised and disliked: (2) the earnest but ineffectual; despised but tolerated; (3) the spiritual but determined, who made himself useful as a first-aid man and distributor of cigarettes. Chaplains were respected when they showed courage under fire

and some

moral and spiritual

their

for

qualities.

Plugstreet:

English

Ploegsteert. a

wood

in

approximation Belgium.

Pneumatic cavalry:

Cyclist

to

battalions.

Popehnghe, a town behind the line in Belgium offering many amenities to troops on rest. Pork and beans: Facetious approximation to Portuguese, who maintained two divisions in France. Pork and Beans, with very little pork, was a staple part of Army

Pop: Short

for

rations.

Potato-masher:

A

type of

German hand-

grenade.

Pozzy: Jam. Derivation untraced. Sometimes pronounced possy. This word, of obscure origin, dates apparently from about 1884. Perhaps from Swazi, Basuto, or Zulu. Negroes in South Africa used the word, before 1900 at least, to designate

any sort of sweetmeat or preserve. The word may possibly have owed its revival during the Great War partly, at any rate, to the fact that in 1914 and early 1915 English troops had (? from canteens) condensed milk in small tins bearing a carnation on the label and the legend 'Posy Brand";

when jam was

'napoo', this con-

densed milk was spread as a substitute on bread and biscuits; later, when jam be-

came more

In the of

form

first

An

Gong:

available — plum

and

Pull-through: Facetious

name

for a

very

soldier. Literally, a cord for

cleaning the barrel of a rifle. Pung: A sly sleep at telephone duty. Signalese.

Push: An attack in force, by several infantry divisions working in co-operation. The word first became popular, perhaps through journalism, in 1916, and The Big Push was the general name at that time

Regular

'Eighteen

Army years

variant: of unde-

Sally Booze: Sailly la Bourse, a small but famous village on the Western Front. San Fairy Ann: An extremely popular phrase, approximated into English from the French ca ne fait rien — It doesn't matter, it makes no difference, why worry? Fatalistic, cynical, applicable to all kinds of situations. 1916 and later. Variants were

San Fairy and San Fairy Anna. Sanitary fatigue: One of the most unpopular duties in the Army, except with a few

years of the war only one

old

Ki

tected crime.'

job.

jam was

and thin

years.

Rooty

may

apple. Later other kinds were supplied, chiefly doubtful mixtures such as gooseberry and rhubarb. Tins also were replaced by cardboard cylinders. To the end an issue of strawberry jam or raspberry jam was an historic occasion. tall

artistic spiralling of putties, their helical

cometry. The salvation of one's soul and the health of the sergeant's liver depend on that.' There were two accepted ways of winding the puttee for active service, and several dressy ways for social service. The word comes from the Hindustani for bandage. Puttee became accepted in English late in the 19th Century. Quarter bloke: The Quartermaster, an usually commissioned from the officer ranks of the Regular Army and approaching (or ensconced in) middle age. Occasionally used loosely for the Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant. Both men were responsible for providing supplies of food, clothing etc, for the entire unit and distributing them to the Company Quartermaster-Sergeants. It is possible there were some honest men among QMs. RAMC: Royal Army Medical Corps, responsible for the transport of wounded behind the lines and the organisation of hospitals. Often called the Rob All My Comrades, because the private effects and souvenirs of an unconscious man might sometimes disappear on the way to hospital never to be recovered. Roll On, Demobilisation: The nickname given to the engines of the Railway Operating Department plying between 'Pop' and 'Wypers'; because of the huge ROD painted in white letters on their sides. Roody Boys: Rue du Bois, near Neuve Chapelle. Rooty medal: Long Service Medal, earned by eating army rations for a number of

to do service as a generic

plentiful, possy (or pozzy)

have continued name.

for the British assaults on the Somme in July and August. The word indicates the desired ideal rather than the actuality. Also an Army unit. Puttee: The cloth band wound round the leg from the upper of the boot to near the knee; to give support when walking. 'A whole pamphlet might be written on the

who wangled

it permanently as a cushy included the digging of latrinetrenches and the emptying of the buckets; the burial of dung and urine; and the disinfection, in the line, with chloride of lime of places where old corpses were unearthed. Sawmill: A hospital operating theatre. Sergeant-Major's: Better-than-usual tea was known as sergeant-major's on the assumption that the SM would always get the best of everything. 'Short arm' inspection: Conducted periodically by the MO, to detect symptoms of venereal disease. A platoon of men would be lined up, without privacy, in a hut. The name is derived, by obvious analogy, from the inspection of rifles on parade. Sick: When a soldier was, in his own opinion, so ill that he was unable to perform his duties, he went sick by giving his name

*r*"

&?**

It

A welcome in this

addition to army rations, but not, case, buckshee'. British troops buy

geese

in Bailleul

market place

the orderly corporal and reported the next morning very early for sick parade.

arrangements could not be continued.

The regimental Medical Officer saw him, asked him a question or two, usually gave him a standardised purgative pill, known as Number 9, and marked him down as MI), medicine and duty, Light Duty, or Excused Duty. Malingerers were reported for punishment, if the MO were sufficiently

trenching

to

Tooth pick: Facetious

to

an

ambulance.

The

Number

9 pill was said to counteract the constipating nature of much of the only food available up the line. SIW: Self-Inflicted Wound. A most serious

crime committed by

men temperamentally

or physically unfitted for the line, or men so over-strained by service that they were

longer responsible for their actions. cases of SIW were hushed up by sympathetic authorities, but there were Beveral special SIW hospitals at the Base, where conditions were said to be severe to the pitch of persecution. Six by four: Bumf— toilet paper — these being the dimensions in inches of the Army article. Naval bumf was 5 inches by 5

no

Many

inches.

Soldier's Friend: A well-known brand of brass polish — a pink tablet on which the soldier spat to produce a paste. Used for cleaning buttons, badges, etc. The manufacturer's name misinterprets the soldier's attitude to the commodity. SRD: Service Rum Diluted: The initials stamped on the body of a rum jar. The dilution

must have been

infinitesimal.

Popular amplifications of the initials were Soon Run Dry and Seldom Reaches Destination.

A Royal Scots Fusilier wears nicknamed a Teddy Bear'

his goatskin coat,

superstition on the Western Front was the belief that the third man to light a cigarette from the same match would inevitably be killed then and there or very soon afterwards. It was so strongly established that

anyone third

inadvertently

man would have

attempting his

hand or

to

go

his face

pushed violently away. See C. E. Montague's story, 'The First Blood Sweep' in Fiery Particles (Chatto & Windus, 1923). Three blue lights: It was a standard joke

among soldiers who despaired of the war ever ending that the coming of Peace would be announced by rocket: three dark-blue lights, quite undetectable against a night sky.

Ticket: Official discharge from the Army, especially a discharge given for medical reasons before the full period of service (in the pre-1914 Regular Army seven years with the colours) had expired. To work one's ticket was to scheme, by bribery, malingering or any other means, to get out of the Army. It would be noticed that a certain man kept complaining of chronic pains or began to behave peculiarly. Comments would be turned aside by old soldiers with the remark, 'He's only trying to work his ticket.' Thus the phrase in time became a facetious suggestion that a man was

slightly insane.

Tin hat: Typical British facetiousness

for

a steel helmet. Tin-opener: Facetious for a bayonet. Tommy: Short for Thomas Atkins, a journalistic name for a private soldier from one TA who mythically distinguished himself at Waterloo; or perhaps a formal name Service

rumour

Rum that

Diluted.

Its

men went over

scarcity

belies the

the top while drunk

Strafe: Noun and verb: a punishment or admonition; 'I just heard the CO strafing the cooks like hell.' Also used for a bombardment by shells, There's a bit of a strafe going on in the supports.' From the German phrase and song— 'Gott strafe England.' Teddy bear: A shaggy fur or goatskin coat issued for trenchwear in 1915. Third man: A powerful and universal

2608

bayonet, en-

Topee: The Wolseley type of sun helmet used in Egypt and other hot climates. Travelling circus: A detachment of machine guns operating at no fixed point:

sure of his diagnosis; those who were unable to hold themselves upright were — in

time — removed

for

tool.

on documents like 'John' and 'Richard Doe'. Never used by English troops except

when imitating the style of a newspaper or a charitable old lady. Used by Australians and New Zealanders; also derisively or

as an adjective;

Tommy officer,

or a

Tommy

NCO,

but never 'Tommy Private'. Picked up by the French and Germans from newspapers. See articles on Soldiers' Slang in The Quarterly Review of April, 1931.

'Tommy'

(or

Tommy's) cooker: Tiny

stove, producing very heat very slowly. Officially distributed at periods when the normal cooking

solidified-alcohol little

very unpopular with the troops who after the visit were left to endure the enemy's retaliation. An inspection of the trenches by the staff: also unpopular. Trench foot: Feet frost-bitten in the trenches. A common winter ailment, at one period it was a crime to get trench foot, but no humane commander enforced the penalty. He might wake up next day to find that he himself had trench foot. Trench fever: A mysterious, perhaps rheumatic, fever induced by the conditions of trench life. Many suffered from it. Tube-train: A heavy shell passing well above with a rumble. Uckeye: All right, OK. From Hindustani. VC mixture: Rum. A winter issue — occasional. Rarely issued before an attack. Vin blanc. White vin ordinaire. Rarely good in Northern France, but in great demand because the beer was even worse, and spirits — except expensive cognac — not available. Vin rouge was not so popular, perhaps because its name was not so amusing to English ears. Wazza: A low native quarter of Cairo. The Battles of the Wazza were two Australian brushes with the police in 1915. White Sheet: Wytschaete, a town in Flanders.

A light shell fired from one smaller field-artillery guns — the 18-pounder, the French 75, the German 77. The term is onomatopoeic, and was applied to the explosion. Owing to the short range and low trajectory, whizz-bangs arrived as soon, if not sooner, than anyone heard them. Windy corner: Any place dangerous because of enemy fire, the most famous being that near the Menin Gate Ypres). Whizz-bang:

of the British

(

Wipers Express: The German

42-centi-

metre shell (a calibre roughly equivalent to our 16-inch) first used, or first notably used, at the Second Battle of Ypres. Woolly bear: The burst, especially the resulting smoke, of any big German HE shell, particularly of 5.9 shrapnel. confusingly, for a small German HE bursting with black smoke. Ypres: According to the press of the the British soldier pronounced this

Also, shell

time,

word

Wypers. He may have done so in 1914 or early 1915. After that the majority of the troops seemed to harbour a suspicion that French was not properly pronounced by

the same rules as English. They never attained a French pronunciation, but they avoided a straightforward anglicisatiorf. The commonest methods of tackling Ypres were 'Eepray' and 'Eeps'. The Scottish surname Wiper, Wypers, is from Ypres. and the medieval Ypre Tower of Rye, one of the Cinque Ports, was long known as the

Wypers Tower. Zeppelin in a cloud: Sausage and mash [This glossary is an abbreviated version of the one compiled by John Brophy and Eric Partridge and printed in The Long Trail, published in 1965 by Andre Deutsch by whose kind permission this extract is reproduced. \

I

!

II

7

HE

cw

I

i

iir.f'Xi*#:>
A German home in the last winter of the war. A picture of the directors of Germany's fortunes looks down on a family's grief

The

with which Germany had entered the war began to crack in 1917. As hardship increased popular unrest grew. And it was not just dissatisfaction with the war; it was also a desire for reform of the institutions of the Reich. If the workers could not have bread, they must have political rights. In parliament the parties of political unity

the centre and

left

Punch cartoon February 1918 about

Left:

of

the unrest

in

Germany.

'You're not looking your best today, father.' The Kaiser: No, my boy; think want a rest from what our friend Hertling calls the Little Willie:

I

I

"Unbroken Joy of Battle".'

combined

forces to articulate popular

demands. But the Reichstag was impotent. Germany's rulers could ignore calls for a democratic constitution and a

democratic peace. Only

when

defeat seemed inevitable did Ludendorff prepare to give way to popular pressures.

Below left: Berliners exchange potato

Andreas Hillgruber

peelings for firewood.

As the grip of the Allied blockade tightened waste

In 1917 the fragile political truce in Ger-

many came to an end. The tensions of German society, which had been temporarily

materials became valuable commodities to

obscured by the nation's upheaval in war, became re-exposed as the political consensus broke down. Three factors contributed to the political crisis of 1917: the effects of 'hungry' winter of 1916-17 on the masses; the growing doubts about the efficacy of unrestricted submarine warfare among a section of the country's leaders; and finally the effects of the Russian March Revolution (and the call of the Petrograd Soviet for 'a peace without annexations and indemnities') on the German working class and its political arm, the Social Democratic Party. The problem

be processed and reused

peace became interwoven with the question of internal reform and the poli-

of

tical fronts

to both these

were determined by attitudes complex problems.

The Social Democrats, the Progressive People's Party, and the National Liberals began to press for the immediate implementation of the promised 'new orientation' of German internal affairs, which had been postponed to the end of the war. If political reforms were not forthcoming, they argued, the government could not

count on the continuing support of the working class, whose war-weariness had been growing since March. Bethmann-Hollweg's government could no longer continue to balance the opposing

aims of the conservatives, who were

cling-

ing inflexibly to the constitutional status quo (particularly in their stronghold, Prussia), and the socialists and liberals, who were clamouring for the reform of the Prussian electoral system and the introduction of parliamentary government. Nor could the government now avoid a decision. Bethmann-Hollweg, who was himself convinced that immediate reforms were vital, sought to win the Kaiser's approval for the reform of the Prussian electoral system (the introduction of the secret, direct and equal ballot instead of the obsolete three-class voting system). The Chancellor's efforts, however, only succeeded in stirring up opposition from the conservatives and the right-wing elements grouped around the High Command.

Growth of the peace movement The compromise solution contained in the Imperial Easter Message of April 7, 1917, which promised a new electoral system with secret and direct, but not equal, voting postponed till after the war, was a great disappointment. The first large-scale strikes in Berlin and in Leipzig a few days later, which were triggered off by a cut in the bread ration, were a symptom of the growing unrest. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), on whose attitude everything depended and which was harmed by strike action 'from below', was faced with a far greater problem when the 'Social Democratic Study Group', a body which had split off from the SPD group in the Reichstag in 1916 and which opposed the SPD leader's support for the government, refused war credits, declared itself in 'funda-

2610

Right:

Fit for

In the newly formed 'Working parties Circle of the Inter-Party Committee' which lasted until the end of the war. leading representatives of these four parties, which composed the majority in the Reichstag, discussed the peace plans proposed by Erzberger to the Reichstag and the introduction of parliamentary government.

active

service- drawing by the

German

artist

George Grosz A bitter satire on the German

manpower shortage and the deteriorating food situation

in

1918

I'm-

i

h

in.

i

ii ii

sacked

Although Bethinann appealed successfully the Emperor for equal franchise in Prussia this concession by the monarch was publicly proclaimed on July 1- --the parliamentarians of the majority parties -especially Erzberger and Stresemann, leader of the National Liberals — increased their efforts to obtain a new Chancellor, their idea being that this would provide more favourable conditions for their own peace moves. Their endeavours coincided with the aims of the High Command although the motives of the latter were entirely different— namely to get rid of a to

Chancellor who was opposed to their farreaching military objectives in the east and west. Under pressure from these two sides Wilhelm II accepted Bethmann's resignation on July 13. There was nobody suitable to succeed him who could have taken the middle road both in internal and foreign affairs as he had done. As a solu-

Below right: Berliners crowd round a mobile

tion of the dilemma and as the majority party in the Reichstag could not produce a of State Under-Secretary candidate,

municipal kitchen for a cheap meal- Hot dinners. 35 pfennigs a portion

mental opposition to the reigning system' and then, at a congress in Gotha on April 11. 1917, founded the German Independent Social Democratic Party USPD). This split in the SPD was not a conseI

quence of the prewar doctrinal struggles Marxists and between orthodox Revisionists in the party, hut was based purely on differing attitudes to the war. This was apparent from the fact that the two leaders of the orthodox and Revisionist wings (it the prewar party, Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, were supporters of the USPD. while other Marxists and Revisionists remained in leading positions in the 'Majority SPD' 'MSPDi. Just how heterogeneous the USPD was. became apparent when the 'International Group' 'known as Spartacus'). founded by Karl I.iehknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on •January 1. 1916, joined the new party. The International Group was determined to end the war by any mean.-, lair or foul, and about a socialist revolution. to bring whereas the USPD itself adhered to the principle of legality. Political agitation by Spartacus. whose leaders were arrested. had little effect, however, because of the censorship. The SIM) thus found it more difficult evaluate the influence of to (JSPD's pacifism Rut it now had to take into account pacifist pressures on the left, if it did not wish to estrange the masses After a renewed request by the AllRussian Con^res> of Soviet- the leader- of the SPD were instructed on -June 26. 1917. to demand from Bethmann-Hollweg the adoption of the peace formula of the Petrograd Soviet as well as a promise of internal reform-. On July 2 the Chancellor refused to commit himself openly. 'On -June 26 during secret discussions on the intended appeal for peace by Pope Benedict, Bethmann had suggested to Nuncio Pacelli for the first time a solution based on the

restoration to Belgium of its complete independence from Germany, France and Great Britain.) The conflict between the Chancellor and the SPD deepened on July 6 when the Centre Party, which was in a key position in the Reichstag, came out in opposition to the government. Erz-

who now- took a very pessimistic view of the war, succeeded in persuading his party, which had hitherto supported the leadership of the Reich completely, to approach the SPD and the two liberal berger,

Michaelis, who was at the same time Prussian State Commissioner for Food Supplies, was appointed. Up to then he had not concerned himself with the politics of the Reich. It soon became apparent that he leaned closely towards the High Command and as a result came into conflict with the majority in the Reichstag. On July 19 the Peace Resolution was passed in the Reichstag through the votes of the SPD, the Progressive People's Party and the Centre Party, by 212 votes to 120. (The National Liberals were aiming at internal reforms and thus thev collabor-

261

1

Hindenburg with on the Eastern Front: on his right Ludendorff, on his left Hoffmann. Below: Appeal poster

Left:

his staff

for the Ludendorff

Fund forWar-Wounded, started in

May 1918

$rtm*0rft^enb*eitt&to*t* 2612

ated at times in the Inter-Party Committee with the three other parties. As far as the war was concerned, bowever, they stood on the 'right'.) The majority parties were for 'a peace of understanding and of reconciliation of the nations' with which 'compulsory acquisition of territory, and political, economic and financial oppression' were incompatible. This formula rones ponded with the idea held by the SPD that the nature of the war should he purely defensive, fought to restore the status quo of August 1914, but it could at the same time include an indirect extension of Germany's sphere of power by negotiation. The consent of the new Chancellor Michaelis (agreed upon with the High Command* to the Peace Resolution, to which he added 'as I interpret it', increased the ambiguity of the decision. While there were no repercussions abroad as a result of the Peace Resolution the opponents of the so-called 'peace of renunciation' were banding together. The conservatives, the All-German Union and groups of right-wing agitators united in the establishment of the German Fatherland Party on September 2. 1917, by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz and the former East Prussian Director General Wolfgang Kapp. This was to become a reservoir for all those forces which espoused the 'victorious peace' programme of the High Command. This organisation professed to understand the objectives of the war and did not intend to be just another 'right-wing' party like the existing ones, but pointed far beyond the constitutional monarchy of the prevailing type with its anti-parliamentary passions, its national-ideological establishment and its

demagogic

effect.

By July 1918

it

had

attracted 1.250,000 members, surpassing the German party with the greatest membership up to then — the SPD. The attempts of the People's League for Freedom and

Fatherland, which was founded in November 1917 by liberal professors to counteract the polarisation of the German nation into two hostile camps, achieved no great success in spite of being supported by the unions. The expectations of the majority parties in the Reichstag strengthened by their alliance and the Peace Resolution, that they might be able to turn the constitutional monarchy into a parliamentary one, were not fulfilled. No opportunity for this itself while Michaelis was ChanThere was, however, an advisory committee of seven in the Reichstag, to which five members of the majority parties belonged, and which on September 10 discussed with Michaelis and the new Foreign

presented

cellor.

Secretary. Kuhlmann. the German reply to the papal offer of August 1 to act as mediator between the belligerents. As, however. Kuhlmann had his own idea of a compromise peace, which he hoped to realise by establishing direct, secret diplomatic contact with Great Britain, the only concrete response from the government was a reference in general terms to the Peace Resolution. In Kuhlmann's view it was essential not to lose a bargaining counter by agreeing prematurely to waive the claim to Belgium. On the other hand the parliamentarians did not know what importance might be placed on a binding agreement about Belgium in view of the papal action. Because of this problem, and because the Pope's attempts to mediate failed on account of the German attitude, the

demanding the

postponed any secret diplomatic approach to the Allies and thus the majority in the Reichstag lost all possibility (rf further participation in this most important sector of foreign affairs. (The negotiations at Brest-Litovsk in the winter of 1917-18 were to reveal how isolated

Courland and Lithuania, the aim of his government to change the status quo in the east at the expense of Russia. As was to be seen before, during and after the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk then' were radical differences of opinion between the

Kuhlmann's position in the German leadership was and how the predominance of the High Command and the 'collective

political leaders of the Reich, the majority parties and the High Command as to the extent and methods of this change

movement' which was behind it had determined German war aims since the dismissal of Bethmann.)

Army influence at the peace table

government

A summer of unrest Although the massive strikes in Berlin and Leipzig, in which over 300,000 workers took part, came to an end in the latter part of April further strikes were continually breaking out during the summer of 1917. In the middle of August 16,000 men at the Leuna Works came out on strike. More alarming in the opinion of the German

was the fact that the unrest of the summer was spreading to parts of the German fleet. Hunger strikes developed into an anti-war movement supported by several thousand men. The Fleet commanders tried to bring the situation under control by numerous arrests and severe action against the ringleaders. (Max Reichpietsch and Albin Kobis were shot on September 5. The connections of the ringleaders

)

leaders with the

new opportunity

USPD

gave Michaelis a

for attacking the party in

the Reichstag. As the Chancellor's arguments were not sufficiently well founded the SPD supported the USPD and counterattacked Michaelis. Since the Centre and the Progressives dissociated themMichaelis's remarks, the selves from majority in the Reichstag was convinced after October 22 that a new Chancellor was needed. Once again the Reichstag could present no candidate from its own ranks. As the High Command in this case kept in the background for fear of further strikes the Kaiser decided on the 74-year-old former president of the Centre Party (he belonged to its conservative right wing) and the then Prime Minister of Bavaria. Hertling. On November 1 he was appointed Chancellor of the Reich and Prussian Prime Minister. A small concession to

right of self-determination

for Poland,

At the peace negotiations which began on December 22 the Chief-of-Staff of the German forces in the east, Major-General Hoffmann, took his place beside the leader the German delegation, Kuhlmann. Thus the High Command had the opporof

tunity of directly influencing the negotiations away from the compromise line

which had been laid down in the Crown Council on December 18 towards its own line.

The lengthy

public

differences

of

opinion right

about the interpretation of the of self-determination during the

Brest-Litovsk negotiations and the obviously increasing influence of the High Command on these negotiations disappointed the hopes of the masses for a quick settlement in the east, and increased the crisis of confidence, which had become permanent through the ever deteriorating food situation. In December 1917 the weekly potato ration in the towns had dropped to 7 pounds per head, the bread ration to 4 pounds, and the meat ration to 8| ounces. So the strike slogans issued by the USPD

parliamentary government was wrested from Hertling by the appointment of the south German Progressive, Payer, as ViceChancellor. For reasons of health he could not take up his post until the spring. The president of the National Liberals in the Prussian Diet of Friedberg became VicePresident of the Prussian Ministry of State.

different aims Spartacus — with (demonstration of the wish for peace on the one hand and revolutionary fight for power on the other) — fell on fruitful ground. The nucleus of the movement which led to the great strike of munitions workers on January 28, 1918, was the circle of 'revolutionary stewards' from the Berlin Union of Metalworkers, who had reliable men to report to them from the armaments industry. Inspired by the strikes in Austria in the middle of January they issued their strike slogans. The strike of more than 500,000 workers in Berlin and of about 1,000,000 in the Reich as a whole, had such watchwords as 'Peace without annexations', 'Democratise the constitution of the Reich and Prussia', 'Lift the state of emergency' and 'Repeal the law enforcing civilian war-work service'. The unions dissociated themselves from this political strike, but the USPD and SPD sent representatives to the Action Committee, the representatives of the SPD being Ebert, Scheidemann and Otto Braun, whose aims were to bring the movement

The

influence of the Inter-Party Committee of the majority parties reached its peak

under control and to an early dissolution. On February 3 the leaders of the 'revo-

during these weeks. Within a few weeks the situation had changed dramatically. The Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia and the armistice on the Eastern Front revived hopes for victory. This in turn soon led to an upheaval in the political balance of power and the re-emergence of the High Command as

lutionary stewards' called off the strike after a violently enforced return to work had been threatened following an intensification of the state of emergency. It had

the dominant force in German politics. In his answer to the message sent out by

Lenin and Trotsky on November 28, in which they proposed — as they had before on November 8 — general peace negotiations on the basis of 'no annexations and no indemnities', Hertling, who had rejected Michaelis's acceptance of the Peace Resoagreed in principle to disclaim annexations. He indicated, however, by lution,

and

been proved that there was not as yet a widespread revolutionary mood amongst the German workers. But the dilemma of the SPD, which was subjected to criticism from the left (USPD and Spartacus, because of its co-operation with the leadership of the Reich and the 'throttling' of the strike) and from the right (its partners in the Inter-Party Committee, because of its participation in the Action Committee) had become more obvious than before.

The great strike was a signal for the leadership of the Reich to reach an agreement at Brest-Litovsk as soon as possible. 2613

Kiihlmann decided to conclude a separate treaty with the Ukraine on February 9. Trotsky broke off the negotiations on February 16 because of the High Command's additional demands for the evacuation of Estonia and Lithuania by Russian troops. Although the majority of the members of the Reichstag were behind Kiihlmann when he warned against the resumption of hostilities, the Crown Council in Bad Homburg decided on February 13 to support the army's wish: namely to compel Lenin's government to sign a treaty by advancing on the whole length of the front from Finland to the Ukraine, an advance which was

to

begin on February

19.

On

March 3 the treaty was signed. Russia disclaimed any rights to the Ukraine, Poland, Courland and Lithuania. In the Reichstag the Conservatives, National Liberals, the Centre and the Progressives voted for the treaty. The SPD abstained from voting in order not to cause a complete break with its partners of the Inter-Party Committee. Only the USPD rejected the treaty as 'a Diktat'. A resolution passed by the majority parties, in which the hope was expressed that the right of self-determination in Poland, Lithuania and Courland would be granted and which was intended to manifest the continuing solidarity of the central parties, had no influence on German Ostpolitik of 1918, which in both word and deed overstepped the limits fixed at Brest-Litovsk.

An empire in the east In such politics long-term aims were interlaced with decisions, which had to be made as situations arose — staving off the revolution and fighting the Allies' attempts to force Russia to continue the war. Kiihlmann regarded the treaty of Brest-Litovsk only as a temporary solution, which would be revised if a general peace were reached by secret contacts with Great Britain. For the High Command, however, the treaty represented an important element of the 'victorious peace' which was to be attained through the success of the great offensive in the west (from March 21, 1918). This 'victorious peace' was to secure permanent room

German expansion on

the Conan advance across the Ukraine and the Crimea into the Caucasus would give Germany a jumping-off area for

tinent. Strategically,

for

attacking

British

positions

in

the

Middle East and India in continuance of the struggles of the world powers in this or the next war. Economically, German involvement in the Ukraine, the Caucasus and — at least the aim was this — in the rest of Russia would secure the raw materials and trading areas for continuing the economic war which Germany expected after the cessation of hostilities. At the same time Russia was to be a substitute for lost overseas markets. Thus the idea of a part directly, part indirectly Germandominated economic area in the east was replacing the idea of a German-led Central

Europe, which was to be arranged with Germany's allies, particularly Austria-Hungary. Into this scheme of things fitted the plans for a 'national re-allocation and regrouping of land', which were demanded especially by Ludendorff and propagated by '-fives of the the Memorandum on the Ot

War of the All-German Unio which had been suppressed by Bethmann (ollweg in 1914 but were now being circuh >d by the OHL. These plans envisaged rese ling the 2614

scattered groups of German nationals in Russia and overseas in those regions of

which bordered Germany and which would now come under German influence. Making the Crimea a German colony and Sebastopol a German naval base was an important part of the plan. After Kiihlmann had been forced to resign on July 9 the High Command emerged triumphant at the head of the German leadership. However, the conflict about German policy in the east continued under his successor Hintze on a different level. Ludendorff and Hintze had a common goal — to attain permanent domination of the eastern areas by Germany. The method to be used was, however, debatable. Ludendorff wanted to overthrow Lenin's government by further military encroachment to the east and put into power instead of the Bolsheviks a right-wing Russian government, which would be dependent on Germany. To Hintze Lenin's government seemed to be the suitable instrument for realizing indirectly the exploitation and long-term weakening of Russia. Hintze had his way in this conflict. On August 27 new treaties were signed, in which Lenin agreed to the surrender of Livonia and Estonia and recognised the independence of Georgia. He also agreed to supply one quarter of the oil extracted at Baku and to pay 6,000 million roubles for German Russia

recognition of the integrity of Russia. Ludendorff's plan, to use Lenin's request of August 1 for German military aid against the Allies as a means of occupying Petrograd and installing an anti-Bolshevik opposition government, came to nothing — as a result of the unfavourable turn of events on the Western Front, which be-

came apparent on August

8.

Preparing for defeat Although the offensive in the West which had been greeted by the High Command with exaggerated hopes had little effect after March 21 (Ludendorff's nervousness had become obvious during the Kiihlmann the majority parties of the Reichstag clearly did not realise that the war was nearly over. In the middle of July the Reichstag went into recess until the autumn and even the Inter-Party Committee interrupted its work for two months. In this way the summer months passed without any parliamentary decisions being made either on home or foreign affairs. Only at the beginning of September did the crisis),

parties

resume their campaign

for insti-

the postponed reforms. On September 12 at the first sitting of the InterParty Committee after the summer recess, the SPD demanded categorically the introduction of parliamentary government and the subjection of the military to political control. This was a direct attack on the High Command. This initiative miscarried in the first instance because of the opposition of the partners, more especially of the Centre Party. Centre Party support for the tuting

SPD would have meant abandoning

'their'

Chancellor, Hertling. Not until September 26, when the collapse of Bulgaria became known, did the left wing of the party led by Erzberger have any success against Hertling. Even the National Liberals who had dissociated themselves in the previous months from the Inter-Party Committee now supported the introduction of parlia-

mentary government. Whether this new attack would have

change things basically remains an open question as these efforts in the Reichstag coincided with Ludendorff's abrupt volte-face on September 28. Now, by preparing the ground for an armistice and for the introduction of parliamentary government — things he had strictly refused to consider before — he hoped to halt the catastrophe which in his view was descending on the Reich and to arrange lenient peace terms. On September 29 he arranged sufficed to

with Hintze to address a peace offer to President Wilson, based on the Fourteen Points of the American President's speech

January 8, 1918, and which had so far been rejected by the leaders of the Reich. Without the preparations which had been going on in the Inter-Party Committee since the middle of 1917 the formation of a government by Prince Max of Baden might not have been accomplished so quickly, in spite of Ludendorff's insistence on quick action. The Inter-Party Committee's candidates for ministerial office were accepted on October 2 and 3 without more ado. That the new government was a coalition government of the centre parties was obvious, among other things, from the following appointments: union leader Gustav Bauer as head of the newly formed Ministry of Labour; Trimborn, Reichstag member of the Centre Party, as Home Secretary; SPD party leader Scheidemann, Reichstag member of the Centre Party Erzberger and Haussmann, a Progressive, as ministers without portfolio. On October 4, under pressure from the High Command, an offer for an armistice was sent to the American government. The change in the government to the centre parties was reflected in the social area by a further approach, prepared during the last two years, between employees and unions as a of

result of the concessionary policy of the Prussian Ministry of War and the Reich's

armament offices. Employees and unions were recognised de facto as social partners. The decisive question during the last phase of the war, which began with the formation of Prince Max's government, was whether those forces who stood for social harmony would maintain the upper hand, or whether extreme, reactionary or revolutionary groups would drive the warweary masses to acts of desperation.

Further Reading Craig, Gordon, The Politics of the Prussian Army (Oxford University Press) Feldman, Gerald D., Army, Industry, and Labour in Germany 1914-1918 (Princeton University Press) Fischer, Fritz, Germany's

War Aims in the First World War (Chatto & Windus) Schorske, Carl E., German Social Democracy 1905-1917 (Harvard University Press) Williams,

J.,

The

Home

Fronts Britain, France

and

Germany (Constable 1972)

ANDREAS HILLGRUBER was

born in Angerburg in 1925 He studied history, German language and literature and pedagogics in Gottingen from 1948-52 and took his doctorale at the University of Marburg in 1953 From 1954-64 he was a secondary school teacher Between 1 965 and 1968 he was a lecturer at the University of Marburg Since 1 968 he has been Professor of Modern History at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau His works include a study of Hitler's political and military strategy, a study of Germany's role before the two Continuity and world wars, and a study of East Prussia

Discontinuity

Bismarck

in

in

to Hitler'

German

Foreign

Policy

from

Belo w: German troops moving along nmunication trench, 1918' a com

Ludendorff knew that Germany

had to win the war America could make her presence felt on the battlefields, and that only a strategic defeat of the British on the Western Front would bring that before

victory. Barrie Pitt

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Bj the end of 1917, Europe was on the verge of bankruptcy — a bankruptcy of blood and spirit, of manhood and human hopes. inm despondency was the mood which now dominated the people of the warring nations — not yet plunged into defeatism, but unable to perceive the means of victory. Yet two events had occurred in 1917 which seemed to offer the golden prize first to the Central Powers, then to the Allies. In March the Russian Revolution had begun; in April America had entered the war. Given time, the Becond event would prove the more significant. Ludendorff had realised for some time that between the end of the British 1917 offensive and the summer of 1918 Germany must win the war: otherwise the arrival of the American armies would tip the balance against the Central Powers and all their hopes and ambitions would be tumbled in the dust. In November it became obvious that there was little now to fear in the east, and that a steady drainage away from that front of all first-class fighting material could be begun. A decision must be forced in the west. On November 11, 1917, Ludendorff presided at a conference held at Mons to discuss the manner in which this could be brought about. The Kaiser was not present although his headquarters were not far away, nor was the Crown Prince who commanded the group of armies astride the Somme, nor Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria who commanded the northern army group and at whose headquarters the conference took place. Prince Rupprecht did, however, have a short conversation with Ludendorff before the conference began, although its subject is not recorded. At the conference table with Ludendorff were Colonel Count von der Schulenberg (Chief-of-Staff to the Crown Prince's army group) and General von Kuhl (Chief-of-Staff to Prince Rupprecht's army group). There were also the heads of various sections of the General Staff, including a Lieutenant-Colonel Wetzell and an infantry captain. All points of view were listened to with respect and attention and there appears to have been little attempt by the junior ranks to curry favour with the more senior by sub(

scribing to their opinions. The main, broad issue first to be decided was whether to launch an attack westwards against the British-held sector of the front, or southwards against the French. The disadvantage of the first was that in the event of the British retreating, they would do so across old battlefields and the desolation and waste intentionally created by the Germans when they retreated to the Siegfried Line (known to the Allies as the Hindenburg Line). This would undoubtedly hamper the attackers and aid the defenders, and the British were likely to prove difficult enough to dislodge from the first line of trenches without giving them the advantage of successive lines in which to fall as they went back. On the other hand, the French had an almost unlimited space behind them into which they could retreat, and memories of the vast sack which had contained the German armies in 1914 stirred many doubts: even with reinforcements from the Russian front, there was a limit to the length of line the Central Powers could hold, especially with, once again, ever-lengthening lines of communication. A successful onslaught on Verdun might dislodge the eastern hinge of the French army with advantageous results — and undoubtedly with enormous effect upon French morale and Franco-American co-operation: but as Ludendorff presciently remarked, the British might not feel themselves compelled to send assistance to the French at Verdun, and he would then find himself faced with the necessity of mounting a second large-scale offensive in Flanders.

He eventually summed up at the conclusion of the conference in the following words: • The situation in Russia and Italy will, as far as can be seen, make it possible to deliver a blow on the Western Front in the New Year. The strength of the two sides will be approximately equal. About 35 divisions and 1,000 heavy guns can be made available for one offensive; a second great simultaneous offensive, say as a diversion, will not be possible. • Our general situation requires that we should strike at the earliest moment, if possible at the end of February or beginning of March, before the Americans can throw strong forces into the scale. • We must beat the British. The operations must be based on these three conditions. There were to be many more conferences, many alternative schemes were discussed, but in the final analysis it always came back to the belief that as Britan had made herself the dominant partner in the alliance, it was the British army which must be broken. If that happened, the Fr< ch would capitulate. But there seemed no reason to believe that i rench collapse would persuade the Anglo-Saxons to lay down tl r arms. Moreover, once the British line broke, their armies wou\i have little room for man;

2616

oeuvre and none for escape: they would soon find themselves penned with their backs to the sea. So much for the broad strategic outline — its details would be decided upon by Ludendorff at the appropriate time, but none knew better than he that there is more to waging war than drawing large red arrows on maps. For months he had watched the British hurl themselves at the German trenches, doubtless in attempts to translate into reality other red arrows on other maps. They had failed to burst through and defeat the German armies for a number of reasons, one being that they had been inadequately or wrongly trained, and another that their attacks had been organised and directed upon mistaken lines.

The new

tactics

Ludendorff saw no point in learning from his own errors when he could do so from other people's, and he was also well aware that his reserve of manpower was limited. His forces must therefore rely upon tactical skill instead of sheer weight, and brain must be used to defeat brawn. He issued decrees that all troops must undergo special offensive training, and sent for experts to direct it in accordance with a newly issued handbook entitled The Attack in Trench Warfare, conceived and written by an extremely able infantryman, Captain Geyer. Instructional centres were set up behind each army's front, and all divisions transferred from the east en route to their attack positions passed through them. Units already in the line were combed of their youngest, fittest and most experienced soldiers (or, more often, the weaker elements were weeded out of existing battalions), and formed into Sturmabteilungen — storm troops. Armed with light machine guns, light trench-mortars and flamethrowers, their duty was to cross the trench-lines, bypass centres of hard resistance and machine gun posts and if possible break through to attack the enemy artillery. The emphasis in their training was placed on methods of infiltration. Not for Ludendorff's troops the steady advance in line with each man conscious of those to right and left of him: contact with the enemy in front was the aim, and the fastest, not the slowest, must set the pace. Nothing must hold the infantry up — if the artillery barrage was 'creeping' too slowly for the leading storm troops, then methods of signalling must be worked out whereby they could instruct the barrage to lift forwards. This was in itself a radical innovation, for in previous offensives — especially

by the British — the last people to issue orders to the rear support were the fighting troops. The storm troops would be followed by 'battle units' consisting of infantry, machine gunners, trench-mortar teams, engineers, sections of field artillery and ammunition carriers — and all were to be ready to take over the duties of other sections if necessary. Above all they must be prepared and trained to attack defended positions and repulse counter-attacks with rifle and bayonet, always bearing in mind that no obstacle must hold them up too long: if a defended position would not fall to them as they were then constituted, it was to be left for heavier units behind to deal with. Even tanks were to be allowed virtually free passage through their ranks if any were encountered, although the accompanying infantry must be attacked and annihilated. Another revolutionary precept for the Western Front, was that reserves should be thrown into the battle where the attack was progressing, not where it was held up. They must flood along the channels already opened and either widen it by mopping up centres of resistance left behind by the advancing storm troops, or leapfrog over them if fatigue or wounds had brought them to a halt.

With memories of their own tactics when they retired to the Hindenburg Line, the German troops were expressly warned against booby-traps, poisoned food and drink, and the possibility of suicidal snipers. All this training needed considerable organisation, but having initiated it, the instructors found that the troops needed little pressure to keep them going. It seems that they felt instinctively that such war games and night exercises as they were called upon to perform had a realism which most of their previous training had lacked — for the British had not had a monopoly of old-fashioned ideas and elderly instructors. After years of small raids, small offensives and long periods of static misery, all welcomed an attempt at a decisive offensive. While his troops were training, Ludendorff and his immediate advisers (among whom was the acute Lieutenant-Colonel Wetzell in his capacity as Head of the Operations Section of the General Staff) had been adapting their ends to their means and coming to certain conclusions as a result. The first was that they would have more men for the offensive

German offensive plans for 1918 ARMY

Vimy 1

GROUP

A BELGIAN

f

SEVENTEENTH 1 ARMY

1

PRINCE

1RUPERT

(0 von Balow)

ARMY

(King Albtrt)

ARMY GROUP 1CR0WN PRINCE

ARMY GROUP ALBRECHTOF WURTTEMBERG German

ARMY GROUP NORTH

fmnt Backed march

SIXTH. FIFTH & FOURTH ARMIES (Gen Franchet d'Esperey)

21

front of attacks expected 8Y SUPREME WAR COUNCIL CODE NAMES BRITISH FRONT LINE

BELGIAN FRONTLINE

FRENCH FRONT LINE

—

ARMY GROUP BOUNOARIES ARMY BOUNDARIES 10

ARMY GROUP EAST SECOND, FIRST & EIGHTH ARMIES

MILES

Gen de Castelnau)

DETCH'A' Gundell)

Germany's last bid for victory fail

— to

would mean

Above: The plan for German strategic victory on the Western Front, 1918. Left: Ludendorff, architect of the plan. It was daring and imaginative, but he staked everything on a knock-out blow against the British. Would his gamble payoff?

total defeat

I'iBwiwa z t if".-i-(

r\ if,fi\k*r*/f+

Below: Germans prepare a defensive position on the forward edge pf a mine crater. Inset, below left: German troops march through a ruined and deserted village. Inset, below right: An A 7 V Uberlandwagen, carrying concrete blocks for pillboxes, passes a German troop bivouac on its way to the front. Only a few of these load-carrying versions of the German A 7 Vs were completed by the end of the war. Instead of an armoured superstructure plain wooden dropside platforms were mounted on the A 7 V tank chassis. They also had two hooks for hauling trailers. The Germans were in fact far inferior to the Allies in the development and use of load-carrying tracked vehicles

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On March 3 the Treaty of BrestLitovsk was signed, and hostilities on the Eastern Front ceased. As thi> development had been foreseen for some weeks, Ludendorff had already been able to milk away from the Eastern Front a considerable number of divisions and several thousand ancillary troops All fit men under 35 years of age were rapidly transferred westwards, their places being either left vacant or filled by the than they had originally thought.

Below: A mortar

is

brought into position by an infantry

preparation for the Ludendorff Offensive

detail in

elements combed from the storm troop battalions. No ranks had been spared in this purge, for as an essential part of these preparations a general reserve of officers up to the rank of regimental commander was built up at each Army Headquarters on the Western Front, to cover the anticipated wastage. Nor did rank excuse its bearer from training at the instructional centres. In addition, by virtue of the Hindenburg Industrial Scheme,

Ludendorff recalled 123,000 men from industry to the colours Bj the date of the first attack 136,618 officers and 3,438,288 other ranks would be wedged into position on the Western Front in 194] division-, of which 67 were concentrated along the 60-mile stretch of front between Arras and l.a Fere Facing this concentration were 33 British divisions, of which ten were as much as 15 miles from the front line, and two were 25 miles.

This concentration of German troops was to he carried out under possible secrecy. All important and large-scale troop movements were carried out at night, and the attack divisions were kept back until the last possible moment —both in older to rest then) and also to conceal the enormous accumulation of troops in the relatively small area Railheads especially were kept free of congestion in daylight, and no loop rams were allowed to draw thi' strictest

t

Inset: Railway

Germans had been

t

gun installation For months before their attack the building up an extensive railway network in the rear

2^51

Am

MDTKMMflba

The various batteries of artillery and trench mortars assigned to each section of front

As the barrage moves forward, the Storm Troops rush forward over the Allied

seek

bypassing

to destroy the British wire,

trenches and strong-points, to allow the Storm Troops to

penetrate to the artillery lines

The more heavily armed suppo> front line centres of resistance to

all

lines,

but the most easily taken pockets of resistance, and attempt to take the

less well defended artillery

oops move

i

a.

prevent an orderly retreat by thi

in after

the Storm Troops, mopping up

The ordinary infantry and reserves move up

at their

own

investing the Fortified Localities behind the lines,

systems and reducing Fortified Localities with the aid

Allies

waves

to

move ahead

in

pursuit again

speed, clearing the trench

of artillery,

allowing the previous

^

Storm troops — fast moving and hard hitting

Left:

The new German

infantry tactics.

Above: Firing hand grenades in a sap. Right: A German storm trooper of 1918, carrying a Bergmann 9-mm 181 sub machine gun with snail-type magazine and stick bombs in two large canvas grenade bags. Wearing 1915 pattern steel helmet and grey-green jacket of 3rdJager Battalion (the storm unit of Second Army), leather reinforced breeches, puttees and ankle boots. Entrenching tool and gas mask are carried behind. Small detachments of storm troops were maintained at battalion, regimental or divisional level, but the main body of storm troops was contained in 18 officially designated battalions, one being attached to each army

in unless

arrangements had been made

for the

immediate

dis-

persal of the men. Special 'safety officers' were appointed to watch over and control all means of communication, including censorship of mail and use of the telephone. All officers given any specific details of the attack were required to take an oath of secrecy — which in view of the terms of their commissions and allegiance to the Kaiser must have infuriated some of the more stiff-necked— and all maps and papers were kept securely under lock and key unless in use. Special police planes and balloons flew or hovered over the concentration area to ensure that no new tracks were made across open spaces by marching feet, and that all instructions

regarding camouflage were meticulously obeyed. The thickest veil of secrecy was drawn across the activities of the artillery, for the expert who had been brought across from the Eastern Front to stage-manage this aspect of the attack was a strong advocate of the tactical value of surprise. Colonel Bruchmiiller had been in charge of the artillery during the attack by General von Hutier's army upon the strongly fortified positions at Riga, and the General had been so impressed that he had earnestly recommended Ludendorff to listen to the advice of this artillery expert. At Riga, Bruchmuller had demonstrated the greater value of gas-shell over high explosive during the hours immediately preceding an infantry attack: for one thing, gas-shell left the ground surface virtually intact, for another it poisoned whole areas and in favourable weather conditions would affect reserve gunners brought up almost as much as those originally present when the shells burst. Above all Bruchmuller insisted upon the value of the short, intense bombardment. The British had bombarded German posi-

I

The German army training school at Sedan Left: Storm troops practising the attack. Below: Using a flame-thrower

•

•-

«*

1

4&1*

_:.

4^

m

Somme battle had opened and for 13 days before the first assaults of the Passchendaele offensive, with results that were afterwards only too obvious. The ground became impassable and the time taken by the troops to cross it gave the German machine gunners opportunity to move into position to mow them down. These bombardments had also given the army commanders full warning of where the blows would fall, and time to concentrate reserves — out of danger but ready for counter-attack. Before the bombardment could begin, however, Bruchmuller was faced with the problem of getting his guns into position — and this was in many ways more difficult than that of troop movement. Guns have all the blind obstinacy of inanimate matter, as any artilleryman who has manhandled them into position at night will agree, and even when apparently co-operating with their turns for five days before the

sweating servitors, they

still

move on wheels which unavoidably

leave tracks. In the end the deployment of the guns was divided into three classes; they were detailed under the direction of reconnoitring staff who had carried out all their ground inspection only during hours of dawn. First there were the emplacements in which guns would be completely concealed; these were occupied as soon as possible, and either the wheel tracks were obliterated before daylight or some form of camouflage was erected until the traces had disappeared. The second class included those which could be kept concealed in the neighbourhood of their firing positions, and these too, were brought up at night as soon as possible and camouflaged in their temporary positions. During the night preceding the attack they would be manhandled into position, each one moving to an exact time schedule since the area was likely to be congested with the traffic of the third class. This was the remainder of the artillery, for which no concealed positions could be found; they were to be brought up from the rear into pre-surveyed positions and go into action within minutes of arrival. They would fire, moreover, without the benefit of 'registration' shots, by which fire upon a target is observed and corrected until it is accurate — a procedure which reveals to the enemy exactly where the fire will fall when the bombardment opens. A system of mathematical prediction of range and bearing had been devised by a Captain Pulkowsky which had already given satisfactory results, although as usual, there were several men, old and experienced in their profession, who shook their heads dubiously over such attractive-sounding theories. The spirits of all troops would be much uplifted if only they could realise that the enemy army has to cope with much the same degree of narrow-mindedness and dull-witted obstinacy as their own. In the end, it all comes down to the mentality of the directing chief.

To drive the

British into the sea Ludendorff gave final decisions regarding the direction and scope of the offensive on January 21, after a tour of the Western Front with General von Kuhl and Colonel Count von der Schulenberg. He would greatly have liked to attack the Allied line along its northernmost 50 miles — from just south of Armentieres up to the coast — in converging attacks on each side of the Ypres Salient which would meet near Hazebrouck and cut the vital north-south railway which fed the armies, then turn north and drive the British into the sea. Two schemes, St George 1 and St George 2, had been drawn up by which this might be accomplished, but reluctantly Ludendorff came to the conclusion that they would be too dependent upon the weather. He had no desire to engulf his armies in the mud that had absorbed the force of the British attacks of 1917. South of this area -along the 30-mile front covering Bethune and Arras — the British held the heights of Vimy Ridge in strength. And although the plans, Valkyrie and Mars, which Ludendorff's indefatigable staff had produced were very attractive, there was too great a risk that their promise would be thwarted by the sheer tenacity of the British infantry. But from Arras down past Saint-Quentin to La Fere ran a long stretch of his own immensely strong and extensively excavated Hindenburg Line — surely the best place in which to concentrate his force and from which to launch his attack — and he had great hopes that the British might rely upon the devastated nature of the ground for its defence, and thus not man it too strongly. In any case, his troops were lined for infiltration, and the trenches, ditches, and craters should -d them more than the defenders. For attacks upon this ar the staff had produced an overall plan under the code name St Tichael, which was sub-divided into three sections, numbered dowi irds from the north. The left flank of the St Mici lei 3 attack lay therefore on the banks of the Oise where it flowt through La Fere. As the river l

2626

flowed on across the lines, it was to continue as the left flank of the attack in that area. Furthermore, four miles on behind the British lines was the Crozat Canal, which bent away northwestwards to connect the Oise with the Somme. This canal would act very conveniently as a line upon which one southern attack group could rest and guard its flank, while the remainder of von Hutier's Eighteenth Army would break the British front on each side of Saint-Quentin, and flood forwards until it reached the concave line of the Somme between Ham and Peronne. This would be the flank of the whole offensive, and von Hutier's duty would be to see that no counter-attacks broke through to upset the balance of the main weight of the attack, to be borne by General von der Marwitz's Second Army (St Michael 2) and General von Below's Seventeenth Army (St Michael 1). These two armies would drive forwards until they had reached, respectively, Albert and Bapaume, and on that line they would swing north and obtain the decision. They would be aided first by an attack, named Mars South, to be launched against Arras by right-wing units of Below's army (south of the Scarpe, which would protect its northern flank) and then early in April, when the weather should be settled enough to provide the essential firm going, by the St George 1 and St George 2 attacks in the north. As Ludendorff knew only too well the vanity of man's proposals and the myriad accidents which can overset them, he also instructed his staff to draw up plans for offensives along all the rest of the front, from La Fere south and east as far as the eastern flank of the Verdun Salient, naming them, with an odd mixture of religious and classical flavours, Archangel, Achilles, Roland, Hector, Castor and Pollux, from west to east. But the main emphasis was to be on Michael, supplemented by Mars to the north — and possibly even by Archangel to the south, although this was an unlikely possibility. The most vital part of the Michael scheme was the smashing in of the British front along the Flesquieres Salient, the sweep through Manancourt and Ypres to the Albert-Bapaume line and the breakout to the north. The southern sector around Saint-Quentin was only a limited advance to secure the flank of the main attack. Once the offensive was launched and under way, the British line would start to totter, and when their reserves from the Ypres front were rushed south to contain the attack, then St Georges 1 and 2 would flatten the Ypres Salient, tear the line away from its anchorage on the sea and roll it up from the north. It would be supported by artillery, trench-mortars and air cover transferred north from the St Michael front as soon as circumstances allowed. One of the factors which may well have persuaded Ludendorff to attack on both sides of Saint-Quentin and to place his main reliance upon St Michael, was information, which had reached the German Staff the week before his decision, that the British had agreed to extend their line southwards and relieve the French along a further 25 miles of the front. This took the British line down to the village of Barisis, south of La Fere, and meant in effect that with a little extension, the St Michael 3 attack might strike the point of juncture of the Allied armies. On January 16, Lieutenant-Colonel Wetzell had received from the Chief-of-Staff of Hutier's Eighteenth Army, General von Sauberzweig, a letter which contained the following passages: It may now be accepted that the British have taken over the front of the French HI Corps. They will no doubt take over that of the XXXVII Corps up to the Oise, so that in future the Oise will be the boundary between the French and the British [not quite correct, but very nearly] The Eighteenth Army will therefore have only the British opposite it. This will make the situation more favourable The offensive is principally intended to strike the British. to us They now stand opposite us on the whole front of the group of armies which is to make the offensive. It need not be anticipated that the French will hurry at once to the help of their Entente comrades. They will first wait to see if their own front is not attacked also, and decide to support their ally only when the situation is quite clear. That will take some time, as action to deceive the French will be made by the Crown Prince's army group. All in all, therefore, the prospects for the German spring .

.

.

.

.

.

seemed excellent, and Ludendorff and his staff had good reason to face the immediate future with hope and confidence.

offensive

Further Reading Gough, Sir Hubert, The Fifth

Army (Hodder & Stoughton) Moore, William, See How They Ran (Leo Cooper) Tschuppik, Karl, Ludendorff, The Tragedy of a Specialist (Allen & Unwin) Spears, Sir Edward, Prelude to Victory (Cape) Official History of the War, Military Operations: France and Belgium 1918 (Macmillan)

[For Barrie Pitt's biography see page 31.]

The Allied Armies iiwaitiiijj flic

onslaught

After the disasters ofl917 the Allied plans on the Western Front were for retrenchment and defence. 'I await the tanks and the Americans,' Petain told his grateful troops. Indeed the steady build-up of American forces was the reason why, for the Germans, 1918 would have to be the year of decision. The threat of a massive German offensive soon became apparent. Barric Pitt. Below: US soldier shows off his rifle to Poilus

**^

I

iTM'mi

i

n

I

II

i

On December

14, 1917, Field-Marshal headquarters issued a series of instructions with regard to the forthcoming activities of the armies under his command. Somewhat to the surprise but greatly to the relief of those regimental Eiaig's

who

received a copy, the emphasis first time in the war to be placed upon defence. This indicated a complete reversal of principle and thought, and entailed a moderate amount of re-training for the troops, almost all of whom had been thoroughly prepared for the Sommes and Arrases of the war, but not for the glorious retreat at Mons. During this period of retrenchment, however, their offensive spirit was not to be allowed to wither. It would receive continual nourishment from a series of trench raids to be carried on during the winter and early spring. Some of the raids were undertaken by a handful of men led by one officers

was

for

March 21 BRITISH GERMAN

the

some were mounted on ambitious lines using the strength of two or three companies. As always with the British, an attempt was made to recapture the competitive atmosphere of school sports, and some divisions instituted a monthly cup for award to the battalion with the greatest success. One point was awarded for identi-

Armies Seventeenth Third Second Eighteenth 33 Divisions 67 Fifth

(Infantry 30)

officer,

m mm

(Cavalry 3)

rr\

I7IO Light

Guns 4010

fication of opposing enemy units by articles taken from dead bodies, two points were awarded for each live prisoner captured, three for each enemy machine gun or trench mortar brought in. On the night of February 10-11, men of the Australian 3rd Division mounted a raid on the German-held village of Warneton. Possibly because their Divisional Commander, Major-General Sir John Monash, was one of the few among the Allied commanders with a 'big business'-type brain, his officers and men too, thought in large-scale terms: 195 men under nine officers took part in this raid, and they had the support of well organised artillery and

tactically placed covering fire.

The River Lys crossed the lines at Warneton, and to the south it flooded almost the whole of No-Man's Land and the trenches each side of it. But to the north, the trenches were continuous and strongly held, and in the area of the proposed raid some 250 yards apart. The raid was to be made upon a frontage of nearly 500 yards, between the northern edge of the flooded Lys and the remains of the ArmentieresWarneton railway

line.

A

road once

bi-

sected this front, running eastwards from the centre of the Australian positions, and the vague lines of its embankments were still perceptible, piercing the German line and continuing to the ruins of the village some 250 yards behind. The night was warm, with the promise of rain and no moon, and just after 2100 hours the leading groups of Australians crept out into the shell-holes in front of their positions and began to work their way forwards to the edge of their own wire: Bangalore torpedoes had previously been laid in selected positions, each with a length of fuse leading back towards the raiders. At 2200 hours, a h ivy barrage opened up on the German fron >ne, the fuses were wn, cutting the fired and the charges l The width of necessary gaps in the wl the trench-mortar and an llery barrage had been extended well non of the railway line in order to deceive the Germans, plywood and to heighten the deceptio figures of crouching men had bt >n set up '

2628

& Heavy Guns 2S88

976

The Overall Balance ALLIED GERMAN

mmm mmm mm 186 Divisions 194*1

ttttttttt

(Infantry 176)

(Cavalry 10)

rr\

in that part of No-Man's Land as well. Small parties lying in shell holes operated

these figures by controlling wires: they lay under a horizontal tapestry of machine gun and rifle bullets and it was not long before the wooden figures were splintered by bullets or blown apart by grenades. In the mettntime, however, the raiding

had worked their way through then(one party on each side of the road) and were searching for gaps in the German defences. The party on the left found them easily enough and went through into the German trenches, but the right-hand party ran into trouble because parties

own wire

some German

troops, instead of sheltering

from the barrage in their dug-outs, had thought it wiser to avoid it altogether by

moving out their

own

into the shell holes in front of As the right-hand party of

lines.

Australians searched for gaps in the wire they were sniped at from these positions,

and also machine gunned from a nest set out from the German line on their own right flank. The Australians went to the ground, pulled the pins from their grenades, and tried to bomb their way forwards. Then the left-hand party already clearing the front German positions realized the situation on their right, charged along the trench and attacked the German snipers from behind, thus allowing the men trapped in the open to swarm through a gap they had themselves blown in the wire. There was a brief, vicious hand-tohand struggle and then the second party were in the German positions. The raiders spread out and began to penetrate the communication trenches. Danger of mistaken identity during the confusion was minimal — apparently because of the phrases used by the Australians as they fought — and the separate parties linked up time and time again in the web of trenches behind the front position. Prisoners were dispatched overland

(many were

killed

by their own machine

gunners), a nest of dug-outs on the left flank was blown in, but a concrete multiple machine gun nest in the second line on the right proved invincible. After half an hour, the withdrawal began and the tumult rose to a height. Both Australian and German artillery and trench-mortar batteries were in action now, each trying to block the movement of the troops: the Australians wished to stop German reinforcements re-occupying their own trenches so they shelled the village

and its communication lines, the Germans endeavoured to stop the return of the raiders by dropping a curtain of fire into No-Man's Land. Through this inferno the raiders and their prisoners made their separate, precarious ways. Very lights and star shells lit the scene with garish intensity, trenchmortar bombs exploded in clouds of earth

and the horrid debris of battle, machine guns laced the darkness with tracer. Shortly after 2300 hours the Australians began to pour back into their own trenches. They had lost two officers and eight men killed, 29 men had been wounded and nine men of the 37th Battalion were missing. They brought back with them 33 prisoners who were immediately hurried off to divisional headquarters for questioning, and claimed that while in the German trenches they had killed just over 100 of the original occupants. This information was not regarded as particularly important, and

phase of the German offensive. On theSomme Germans had amassed an enormous superiority over the British. whole Western Front, however, there was a rough balance. Above: Petain watches the

Opposite page: Balance

of forces for the first

front, the critical sector, the

Over the

construction of prefabricated barbed-wire entanglements

2629

indeed was received with a certain amount

Home. This army covered

and

of scepticism.

coalfields

But the information obtained from the prisoners was considered important for it

cause of that. It comprised 14 divisions, including two Portuguese divisions and the Canadian Corps. 1,450 guns and howitzers were concentrated here, and together with the advantages of the ground they were considered enough to beat off any attack which the Germans could launch: its northern half faced the southern section of Ludendorff's St George 1 scheme, its southern half the whole of Valkyrie. The fourteen divisions of General Sir Julian Byng's Third Army held the next 28 miles — to face Mars, Michael 1 and the northern half of Michael 2 — from Arras down to the Welsh Ridge on the southern face of the Flesquieres Salient. And the remaining 42 miles of the

making up Army Group North under General Franchet d'Esperey. They held, in

began an accumulation of evidence which during the next few weeks flooded into GHQ Gradually a picture of the imminent German offensive began to form in the minds of those who were to direct the defence against it. Less than three weeks before it was launched, this picture was not inaccurate, although there was evidently some lack of important detail, for on March 2 Haig wrote in his diary: The usual statement on the position of the enemy was made by my Intelligence Officer (Cox). He gave reasons why we think the enemy is preparing to attack on the fronts of our Third and Fifth Armies. I emphasised the necessity for being ready as soon as possible to meet a big hostile offensive of prolonged duration. I also told Army Commanders that I was very pleased at all I had seen on the fronts of the three Armies which I had recently visited. Plans were sound and thorough, and much work had already been done. I was only afraid that the enemy would find our front so very strong that he will hesitate to commit his Army to the attack with the almost certainty of losing very heavily. Haig's fears might have been set at rest by a closer examination of the defences.

The defenders The

front to be held by the Allies was some long, stretching from the sea to

440 miles

Switzerland. The northernmost 18 miles — from the sea past Dixmude to the banks of a small stream called the Coverbeek — were held by the single cavalry division and the 12 infantry divisions of the Belgian Army under the command of their King, who rarely strayed more than ten miles from their front. Although it would invariably act in concert with the British on its right flank, it did not form an integral part of Haig's command. The southern 150 miles of the front, from the St Mihiel Salient to the Swiss border, was of secondary importance. Guarded by the immensely strong fortress positions built by the French and by the inaccessible Vosges country, it had never been seriously menaced by a German offensive — which justified the contention of the British that they held as great a length of the really important section of the line, in proportion to their strength, as the French. It was this central section that was under threat, and by the middle of March the British and French armies were holding themselves ready to withstand an attack anywhere along the line of entrenchments 270 miles long between the Coverbeek and the St Mihiel Salient, of which the British held 125 miles and the French 150. The British sector was held by four armies. From the Belgian right flank on the Coverbeek, around the blood-drenched Ypres Salient to just north of Armentieres, lay the 12 divisions f the Second Army — all breathing heart It sighs of relief at the news of the prom d return to them of their beloved comm. der, General Sir Herbert Plumer. This the army — s

though they were unaw. would face the St George la

From Armentieres,

=

of

it

— which

2 attacks.

alon he Lorette 33 mile, far as the village of Gavrelle, just north Arras, lay the First Army under General r Henry

and Vimy Ridges

2630

for

t

i

the Bethune and had been strengthened be-

British front — from Gouzeaucourt down past La Fere to Barisis — was the responsibility of the twelve infantry and three cavalry divisions of General Sir Hubert Gough's Fifth Army. Nearly ten of these 42 miles were, however, partially guarded by the Oise where it flooded into a wide, marshy valley south of La Fere. Eight divisions were held in Reserve. Each infantry division was composed of nine battalions, and owing to such factors as leave, sickness and overdue reinforcements, each battalion could be considered to muster an average of only 500 rifles. Obviously, some divisions of each army must be held in reserve inside the army area (apart from Reserve) and the line divisions were in fact so disposed that some 36,000 rifles were spread out along 20 miles to face the Michael 1 and 2 attacks, while 31,000 rifles, along 28 miles, faced the southern flank of Hutier's Eighteenth Army, on its Michael 3 sweep to the Crozat Canal and the Somme. This, in theory, gave one man to each yard along the defences of the northern sector, and one man to each 5 feet along the

GHQ

GHQ

southern — but it would be an extremely foolhardy commander who placed his entire force in one thin line in the front trenches, quite apart from the fact that the

Commander-in-Chief had expressly forit. Defence in depth was the sug-

bidden

gested technique, troops in the forward positions fighting until they were overwhelmed by the first onslaught, the main mass waiting farther back in the 'Battle Zone' to absorb the remaining momentum of the offensive and to launch (it was hoped) the decisive counterattacks. As the depth of this Battle Zone was to be, in places, as much as 4,000 yards and yet a further 'Rear Zone' was envisaged behind it, there would be considerably less than one man to every 5 feet along any line facing the Michael attacks. Four manned lines, for instance — one forward, two in the Battle Zone and one in the Rear Zone — would give an average of one man to every 20 feet, which can hardly be called excessive, and although defensive fortification would help to economise manpower to a great extent, there was a point beyond which it would no longer be effective. No machine gun, however efficient, will hold up the enemy unless there is a machine gunner behind it. The men of the Fifth Army were thus likely to find themselves thinly dispersed — especially in view of the novel tactics which Hutier's army intended to employ.

From Barisis as far as the beginning of the Verdun Salient, were the Sixth, Fifth

Fourth

French

Armies,

together

all, a front of 70 miles, while the whole of the Verdun Salient itself was occupied by the French Second Army. The French First Army held the southern flank of the St Mihiel Salient, the Eighth the next 30 miles to the Vosges, and the remaining 70 miles down to the Swiss frontier were held by the Seventh Army. These last four armies made up the Army Group East under General de Castelnau. Both army groups were part of the command of the French Commander-in-Chief, General Petain, who had probably the most lucid and certainly the most realistic mind among the Allied commanders. It would be a mistake, however, to consider the Petain of 1918 a defeatist: he had every intention of ensuring that the Allies defeated the Central Powers, but not at an inflated price. If Britain or possibly America cared to act extravagantly, that was their own business (although he regretted waste of any sort) but so far as his own country was concerned, Petain was determined that no more of her blood should be poured out than was absolutely necessary for victory. France had, in his opinion, already paid out enough, and Britain had paid out so much of late that she was seriously weakened (not that this was any business of Petain's except in so far as it affected the total Allied effort). Therefore, to any man of logic and commonsense, it was obvious that the correct strategy was to remain strictly on the defensive, and to await the build-up of the American armies, which could then bear the burden of the remainder of the war. T await the tanks and the Americans!' he

told his troops, to their

To be

immense relief.

fair to Petain, as far as

he was

concerned, the American armies could also have all the immediate glory of victory, as well as its burden. Reserve, self-discipline and self-effacement are the indicative words in any description of Petain, and he had sufficient faith in the future to believe that France's contribution to victory would be recognised by history, irrespective of who led the victory parades. But that was something in the far future. More immediately he believed that in the

coming German offensive, LudendorfFs main attack would be against his own Fourth Army in the country east of Rheims (the organisers of Ludendorff's Roland scheme would have been flattered) and, despite what the British believed, Petain was to remain for a long time convinced that the Champagne would be the scene of the greatest battle.

As the French — unlike the British — had ample room for withdrawal and manoeuvre behind their front, so long as they left a shield for Paris on their left flank, Petain could arrange to keep a larger proportion of his troops in reserve than Haig could possibly have afforded. Of a grand total of 99 divisions, he placed 60 in the line, retaining 15 behind the Vosges front (he suspected that the Germans might try to force a passage through Switzerland, thus ending the war as they had begun it with a violation of neutrality), 20 divisions behind

the central front between Soissons and Bar-le-Duc and, in accordance with a verbal agreement with Sir Douglas Haig, four divisions available to aid the British. Two of these last divisions were deployed

Training for the breakthrough. Americans on an assault course at Fort Wadsworth, USA

M

just west of Soissons, and two in the northern sector of the front, behind the Belgians.

'The best damn' divisions in any army' There remained the Americans — who could undoubtedly contribute an extra reserve of strength behind the French front, if only their Commander-in-Chief could be persuaded to throw them into the battle Four large-size American divisions bad so far arrived in France, and General Pershing had set up his headquarters at Chaumont, some 60 miles south of the point of the St Mihiel Salient. US troops in the surrounding countryside interspersed with spells in the quiet sectors of the line, during which

were undergoing training

they were while their

commanded by French officers own officers acted as observers.

These divisions were the 1st Division, a regular division made up to strength with a small proportion of wartime volunteers (of whom one had already been killed during the first American brush with the enemy), the 2nd Division, composed of both United States Marines and regular infantry, the 26th 'Yankee' Division, which had won the race to be the first National Guard division to be sent overseas — the

men were from New England and had all been spare-time volunteer soldiers similar the 42nd territorials — and 'Rainbow' Division of National Guardsmen, drawn from every state in the Union. Each division consisted of one field artillery

to

British

and two infantry brigades, which with supply and repair units made up a total strength of 975 officers and 28,050 men. There were thus some 116,000 American soldiers in France, and it is not surprising that their Commander-in-Chief had to guard them jealously against the designs of the military and political heads of the other Allied nations, for they were very fine-looking troops indeed. They were young, they were fit, they were enthusiastic. Their bodies were not scarred by year-old wounds, neither had their nerves been stretched beyond endurance by months of mud, blood and a troglodyte existence. As a result, General Pershing was able to insist at this time upon a standard of smartness and discipline to which the French had never aspired except with regular elite regiments, and which the British had been forced to abandon in all but the Guards Division and a few battalions of some of their more famous and old-established regiments.

Human

nature being what

it

is,

the

French and the British were jealous of the Americans — with the jealousy which all men who had been through Verdun and Passchendaele felt for those who had not, with the jealousy of all men aged and embittered by the chaos and disaster of battle, for those who still looked forward to the fray with eager confidence. And if the Tommy and the Poilu were jealous of the Doughboy, the British and French staffs were envious of the American command. They were basically envious that America still had such men as these left, for when Pershing referred to his divisions as 'the best damn' divisions in any army' it was no aid to his popularity that he may well have been nght. His army in 1918 was composed of elements akin to those of the German Stud -t Divisions, which had perished in the \inderhich mord of October 1914, the division held the flower of British manhoo and '

2632

were slaughtered on the Somme, and those which were the pride of French audacity and had been trodden into the plains of Verdun and Champagne. These had all been magnificent fighting armies, for in addition to youth and vigour the men comprising them had possessed those two inestimable military virtues — in the eyes of the staffs — innocence and hope. Now General Pershing's army was the only one to possess those priceless gifts in abundance; no bitter memories of muddle and waste would hold his men back, no distrust of strategy weaken their resolution. They had, in fact, already given evidence of this, for American engineers had been engaged in work behind the British line since the end of 1917, and Edmund Blunden spoke of them as 'men of splendid but risky ease of mind'. Their trench raids too, carried out by battalions training in the French sector, were pressed home with an eagerness and an elan which had been lacking on the Western Front since late 1916, and one lately carried out by men of the Rainbow Division had even been distinguished by the presence of the Divisional Chief-of-Staff, Colonel Douglas MacArthur, wearing turtle-necked a sweater and an overseas cap, for he disdained the use of a steel helmet. However, despite the most urgent pleas from Allied commanders, Pershing refused

up any of his fighting troops for incorporation into other armies — either as individual infantrymen fed into understrength British battalions, or as battalions to fight in the line under British or French command. His intention was to build an to yield

American army and then

to direct

it

in

— in

co-operation with those of his Allies, certainly, but as a separate and distinct component of the total force. In this he had the legal warrant contained in his official instructions, which he received from the American Secretary for War, Mr

battle

Newton

D. Baker, military operations

and read in

part: In

against the Imperial German Government you are directed to co-operate with the forces of the other countries employed against that enemy; but in so doing the underlying idea must be kept in view that the forces of the United States are a separate and distinct component of

combined forces, the identity of which must be preserved. This fundamental rule is subject to such minor exceptions in particular circumstances as your judgement may approve. The action is confided to you and you will exercise full discretion in the

determining the manner of co-operation. This was the part of his instructions which General Pershing staunchly upheld at many a formal and informal discussion of the developing military situation. He also stubbornly countered the attempts by the voracious (and increasingly worried)

command

staffs of his allies, to nullify the effects of this part of his instructions by

political or administrative

manoeuvre.

In early 1918, for instance, he assured President Wilson and Secretary Baker that the imminent danger was by no means as great as Lloyd George and Clemenceau would have them believe, adroitly pointing out that if the British were as short of men along their section of the front as they claimed, they could hardly afford to keep so many army units abroad in such places as Palestine and India. He had also been gratuitously provided with one excellent argument against the amalgamation of

American with British units, by the everhelpful Marshal Joffre. Even inside the British army, the Marshal pointed out, the Canadians and Australians, and even the Scots and the Irish, were kept together in their own corps and divisions. And when Sir William Robertson (still CIGS at that time) stated that Britain would be willing to forgo shiploads of essential supplies in order to bring over 150 American infantry battalions, without their administrative divisional 'tails', Pershing suggested that the same space could better be used to bring over complete divisions. There was of course no reason why Pershing should have courted popularity with his allies. He was convinced — rightly — that the armed strength under his command would be the decisive force on the field of battle. But he also seems to have believed that it would continue to be so even after a collapse of the British or French armies. When at a crucial phase of the battle to come he was asked by an indignant and vociferous Foch whether he was prepared to risk the French being driven back behind the Loire, Pershing answered crisply and unequivocally 'Yes!' — and his certainty that the Americans would still be able to retrieve the situation

would have been admirable

in less pre-

carious circumstances.

Desperate preparations Not that this was likely

to be of much assistance to the British. There was very little that was going to be of much assistance to them save their own fortitude. In front of the impending Michael attacks, the men of the right wing of the Third Army and the whole of Sir Hubert Gough's Fifth Army, were valiantly endeavouring to carve a coherent defensive system into the devastated waste intentionally created by the Germans in 1917 as they retreated to the Hindenburg Line. In places this was

proving far more difficult than Ludendorff could have hoped for, even in his most optimistic moments, especially in the St Quentin area and southwards on the stretch recently taken over from the French. The chief problem was one of transport. Every necessity of life itself, plus the material for holding the line while sound defensive positions were being built behind it, had to be brought forward for miles across a flat but cratered surface, at night. By early March there was a labour force of nearly 48,000 men available behind the Fifth Army front in addition to the men of the army, but so difficult was the problem of transport that the great part of this force had to be employed laying roads and railways leading up to the proposed Rear Zone (the Green Line) while the defences of the Battle Zone were finally undertaken largely by the men who would have to fight in them — and there were just not enough of them to carry out this Herculean task in the time available. Every building, every tree and natural barricade had been methodically flattened by the Germans, so there was nothing in the area to assist or afford a short cut in the construction of the defences. Villages had been reduced to the foundations of their buildings — which invariably lay across the best line for the trenches — trees and orchards had been cut down so that their trunks were just high enough to obstruct fields of fire without offering the slightest cover. What trenches remained had crum-

'

•

Lett:

A first sergeant

the American infantry, wearing the fighting dress adopted in

in late 1917.

He has

a British steel helmet

and

British-style

gas

mask case and puttees. The revolver carried would have been either a Colt 45 or a Smith and Wesson 38. Right: General Sir Hubert Gough, Commander of Fifth Army, covering the southernmost 42 miles of the British sector — the area threatened

by Ludendorff 's Michael' attacks

Above: General de Castelnau, of

Commander

Army Group

East.

Right: General Franchet d'Esperey,

Commander of Army Group North

2633

and enthusiastic, not scarred or soured by three Young,

fit

years of war

bled and were half-full of debris. Only where wire belts were not wanted, it seemed, had they been constructed solidly enough to withstand the passage of time. By early March the outlines — they would never be rmlth more -of the defensive Battle Zone had been laid across this desert of apparently wilful unhelpfulness. There were wire belts with no trenches behind them, hah-fmished switch lines with no wjwe, lengths of trench working towards each other but not yet connected. In view of the obvious impossibility of building and manning continuous-trench systems, it had been decided to form a series of wired-in redoubts (the 'blob* system, as it was derisively named by those whose military development had not passed the 'thin red line' stage), all, in

^#

:

::

theory, with mutually supporting fields of

Bui even with the consequent economy would yield, it had been calculated that for the defences behind the Fifth Army front nearly 300 miles of trench with appropriate wire belts would be d. and that it would take 500 nun up to three months to bury the essential telef'ui'

of labour that this

tiothp

"aid

have

prepared all those defences in a lew weeks,' wrote Sir Hubert (Joupfh in after years. the effort was made, lor the men that their lives would depend almost solely upon their own endeavours. By now. everyone sensed the approaching battle. Almost evei\ night the eneim raided the front trenches and ux>k one or two prisoners s

from the Fifth Armv: and even day

it

be-

rw*

K

came more and more dangerous to loiter anywhere in the open, as the enemy shellrew increasingly active. By the middle of March, the men were feeling the strain of the hack-hreaking manual labour combined with accumulating sleeplessness. Their condition was not eased by the fact that their commander, Sir Hubert Gough, did not enjoy a lucky reputation. He was, like Haig, a cavalryman. Like the Commander-in-Chief he was also a man of immense determination; he was charming, ebullient, and psychologically inclined and fitted for the attack, and one gathers the impression from his writings that he viewed the preparations for defence with glum reluctance. By himself he would have made a popular commander, for his manner was gay and friendly and he felt a genuine

sympathy

for the plight of his troops, to

which the few that came into personal contact with him responded with affection; but he had in the past retained about him a staff which had made itself bitterly disliked and with whom many of the fighting officers were not even on speaking terms. His command had also suffered such severe casualties — sometimes through sheer misfortune—that many men feared and hated to be

appointed to the Fifth Army.

Some

of his staff had in fact been recently to other spheres of action (at Haig's instigation) but as a result of the new faces at Army Headquarters, the troops merely felt that their destinies were now controlled by devils they did not know. As the days went by and the offensive loomed nearer, Gougb did as much as possible to dispel the results of past misfortunes; but he was faced with gigantic

removed

problems, and could thus spare little time meeting and heartening his troops. This was unfortunate, for all men before battle like to feel that the apparent arbiter of their destiny is at least somewhere in the neighbourhood. for

Before the storm week before the attack it became evident that it would fall on March 21. Evidence suggesting that Gough's Fifth Army would have to bear the brunt of the attack had so accumulated that Haig reluctantly — for he

A

was suspicious of a feint here — sent three more divisions to the Fifth Army area; but only under the condition that they were held in reserve, in places specified by his staff. One of these divisions was 15 miles behind the front and another 25 miles — this in circumstances where it was doubtful if they could move forward much quicker than 10 miles in 24 hours. So on the evening of March 19, Gough rang up GHQ to request permission to move them some 8 miles nearer to the enemy. For his pains, he was read a lecture upon the conduct of military operations by Haig's Chief-of-Staff, Sir Herbert Lawrence, and specifically forbidden to move a man; it was also suggested that Gough had been both unwise and rash in moving his own reserves nearer to the front during the previous week, without seeking guidance from the speaker — a grim-vi; aged man, two stages junior to Gough in rank, who had only held his post for two months and who now — to quote the General purred on the telephone like a damned put v-cat'. But, however soft his voice, the Cl ief-ofStaff insisted that the reserve div; ons remained where he ordered. It had been raining on and off during

2636

that day and the hopes of Gough's intelligence staff had risen as a result. However, in view of their insistence nine months before that the bucketing downpours then persisting should not affect the advance of

determined troops, this optimism warm showers seems unreasonable. Perhaps it was due to the need for a crumb of comfort, for there was little to be found elsewhere. Every hour brought them evidence of the almost inconceivable detail with which the German offensive had been planned and of the massing of men and arms along the short length of front. Prisoners recently taken had revealed that assault troops in the forward positions had been there for ten days while others moved up close behind them, but food and a moderate degree of comfort had been so excellently organised that there was no drop in morale. For weeks past, ammunition had been hauled into position and was now piled in mountains around the guns. A German trench-mortar section which had deserted en masse (it had just been transferred from the Italian Front, and its members were appalled by the extent of the really

over a few

preparations and the holocaust it foreshadowed) supplied details which gave a clear and fairly accurate picture of divisions lying one behind another to an unprecedented depth, of vast accumulations of rations, ammunition, bridging materials and the thousand other essentials of war. Three German armies — the Eighteenth, the Second and the Seventeenth — were wedged into position along an infinitesimal front, their 42 divisions having all been brought up to full strength with fit, eager troops, well trained and confident. A large proportion of them, moreover, would be fighting over ground they already knew, either from the Somme battles or from their retreat to the

Hindenburg Line.

So there was little for the British intelligence staffs to do but to issue carefully and noncommittally phrased warnings, and pray for a renewal of the torrential rains in which they had watched their own hopes founder nine months previously. But the following morning (Wednesday, March 20) was damp with white fog, not sodden with cloudbursts, and although later there was a little more rain, it was only heavy enough to mix with the dry and powdery earth surface, to form a thin slick over everything. There was no deep mud. The troops in the British front line had little need of the intelligence warnings that an attack was coming. They had lain in forward listening posts too long and counted the number of German raids on their lines during the last weeks too accurately to have any doubts on the subject. The date was the only detail of which they were uncertain and they were prepared to accept the staff's forecast. They waited in their positions during that last day, cold, contemptuous, isolated from all the world except each other — and the Germans across the silent, shattered earth.

During the afternoon they either volunteered or drew lots for the various obviously suicidal tasks, and in due course as evening fell (it was raining softly again) some of them moved along the front trench to the saps, and out towards the isolated forward posts. Each man carried a Very pistol:

when he

fired his

enemy

in ten minutes or less. As the last reached the post, the sap trench was blocked with knife-rests and wire entanglements behind him; if there was an officer or senior NCO in the forward post, he usually occupied the rearmost position in order to

man

block the retreat of any whose nerve, in the face of an inescapable destiny, should fail. During the early part of the night it was not completely dark; faint stars shone mistily through light clouds, and the rain ceased. From in front came the rumble of transport, an occasional stammer of machine gun fire, the boom and crash of an isolated German battery firing a few rounds in order to give the impression that all was as usual, that tonight would end as all others had — with stand-to and rum and tea and early morning 'hate'. It is doubtful whether many were deceived: only the young, the prisoners of hope. Just before midnight it was noticed that the flares from the enemy lines were not quite so bright, that the crack of explosion was losing its edge. Cloud cover was solidifying and closing down; mist was rising. By 0200 hours visibility all along the front had been reduced to a few yards, fog was thickening and nothing could be seen of enemy activity except occasionally a silvered glare in the whiteness above, refraction from a flare which had soared above the ceiling of the fog. In a hundred isolated posts pushed out in front of 20 miles of trench, men watched the increasing pearly density with emotions ranging from a sickly and unfounded hope that it might cloak them from the wrath to come, to cold anger. There was little enough religious feeling left in these men after four years of war, but there were many who questioned that night whether the motto 'Gott mit Uns' on German belt buckles, might not after all have some basis in fact. That Fritz could conjure weather to defeat British attacks had been a wry, half-accepted belief for many months. Now it appeared that Ludendorff could order conditions for his own attack. So that no element might be missing from their condition, platoon officers in the section opposite St Quentin received telephoned instructions from Headquarters that, in view of information just brought in from a raid, all gas cylinders in their trenches were to be turned on. The gas mixed thickly with the fog, remained static, and caused considerable discomfort to those in its immediate vicinity — and German units in St Quentin twice complained of the unpleasant smell. At 0330 hours British artillery began sporadic bombardment of trench and road junctions behind the enemy lines in the hope of catching troop concentrations and traffic jams, and a few shells came back over in reply. Beyond this, the enemy line was silent — and, owing to the fog, invisible. But the British infantry knew it was there, and as they lay in their shallow ditches or leaned against their parapets, they listened for the thunder that all knew was coming. They said their prayers, or they swore softly to themselves as they wiped the condensation from the metal parts of their weapons, or they kept silent; each in his own solitude of hope or despair, fear or disregard, acceptance or bitterness. And they waited for the battle to start.

green flare he

would be signalling his own death or defeat, and those behind could expect the

[For Barrie Pitt's biography, see page 31.

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