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THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
WORLD VOLUME FIVE 1915-16
/
V
4^ 1^
THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
WORLD Editor-in-Chief Brigadier Peter
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Board Barker; Dr. John Bradley
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Lt.-Col. A. J.
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The Marshall Cavendish illustrated encyclopedia of World War One. 1. World War, 1914-1918 I. Young, Peter, 1915II. Pitt, Barrie Dartford,
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12879 Contents of Volume 5 1321
Genocide in Turkey A. O. Sarkissian
Kut— The Woodhouse of Kut— The
1328 Relief of
W.
F.
First
Attempt
1332 Relief Last Chance Lieutenant-Colonel A. J. Barker
1340 Townshend: Surrender, Capture and Disgrace Donald Clark 1350 The Kazak Tribes A. O. Sarkissian 1356 Verdun: Nivelle takes over Alistair
Home
Vimy Ridge Kenneth Macksey
1364 The British at
1370 East Africa Major R. Sibley
nil
Prelude to Jutland
Lieutenant-Commander Peter 1382 Jutland: The Battle-Cruisers
Kemp 1433
Dr Douglas Robinson
1396 Jutland: The Fleets Collide Vice-Admiral Friedrich Ruge
1440 The Air War: Tactics and
Technology D. B. Tubbs
1405 Jutland. Night Action: Confusion
and Escape Captain Donald Macintyre 1414 Jutland. Intelligence: Britain's Lost
Opportunity
1452 The Trentino Offensive Dr Kurt Peball 1461
Donald McLachlan 1421 Jutland:
The Death of Kitchener Sir Philip
A German View A British View Whose
Victory? Lieutenant-Commander Peter
1425 Jutland:
the
Zeppelin Raids
Peter Padfield
1417 Jutland:
The Air War: Stepping up
Kemp
Magnus
1466 Russia at the end of her tether Geoffrey Jukes 1476 The Brusilov Offensive Norman Stone 1489
Lambs the
for the Slaughter
— Training
New Armies
John Keegan 1493 The Somme Barrage Brigadier
1502 July
1,
Anthony Farrar-Hockley
1916
— A Generation
Sacrificed
Leo Kahn 1511
1516 \-HAT A MFE TVhIRTY ^
«lVEo
'
\.IC}\T)
Ua>Ri;E.
CMCS
THt,
KIO
Bo6 to OOMK into the WDBU3, AND USWD DEJ?m THE FATHER TWO AM) NINE TO
Was There The Somme — Counting I
the Cost
John Baynes 1517 The Sykes-Picot Agreement John Stephenson
1582 Balkan Politics
1520 Genesis of the Arab Revolt
James Lunt 1526 The Somme: The Second Stage Brigadier Anthony Farrar-Hockley 1538 Verdun: The Surrender of Fort Vaux Christian de St Julien
Alan Palmer 1591
Rumania Declares War Glenn Torrey
1596 Rumania at War Nikolaus Krivinyi 1601
1545 The Threat to India Brigadier John Stephenson
The Somme
— Bloody and Futile
Attrition
Ward Rutherford
1550 French North Africa: Unrest and Revolt Philippe Masson
1613 Delville Wood Deon Fourie
1619
I
1556 The Underwater War: Techniques
1621
Falkenhayn Ousted
and Developments Bryan McClean Ranft 1566 Naval
War
Black Sea Lieutenant-Commander Peter in the
Kemp
1570 Q-Ships: Killers in Disguise Rear-Admiral Gordon Campbell, 1573 The Brusilov Offensive: Victory to Failure
Geoffrey Jukes
From
VC
Was There
Leo Kahn 1629 The Somme: Debut of the Tank Major-General Anthony Farrar-Hockley 1638 The Tank Story Kenneth Macksey 1645 Constantine and Venizelos
Alan Palmer 1646 The Salonika Offensive
Alan Palmer
WHATAREDRACISTOABULL-
THE
:DCROSSISTOTHE
UN.
o thti already Long Ust of Outrages by the HUNS on The RED CROSS both on Land and fvea, there was added on January the 4th rhis Vear, the Sinking without warning In the Bristol Channel of the Hospital i-hip rwA.— Fortunately owing to the plondlci discipline and the Unselfish and Heroic. Cundiust of the Officers, Crew, and Th>< 'edlcal stafT. All the wounded, of who n rhBt*9 were ver 700 on board were •» ..od,— 3ut th jo poor Lascar Firemen went down with the ship. '.
1916 JAN
9
FEB
21
Battle of Verdun.
25
Germans capture Fort Douaumont.
29
British forces at
APR
MAY
Allies
withdraw from
Galiipoli.
Kut surrender to Turks.
British start building rail
and water
lines
on
Sinai
coast.
31
JUN
JUL
AUG
Battle of Jutland.
4
Russian offensive near Pripet Marshes.
5
Sherif Husein of against Turks.
1
Somme
Mecca organizes armed
revolt
begins.
25
Remnants of Serbian army
27
Romania enters the war. Germany declares war on Romania. Romania
28
arrive in Salonika.
declares war on Austria-Hungary. Italy declares war
on Germany.
SEPT
1
Mackensen's Danube army invades Romania. Bulgaria declares war on Romania.
Somme.
15
British use tanks at the
20
Austro-Germans halt Russian advance. Russians and Romanians halt Germans.
OCT
24
Fort
NOV
18
Battle of the
DEC
6
Douaumont
recaptured.
Somme
ends.
Germans capture Bucharest and
12
Joffre replaced by Nivelle.
18
Battle of
21
British take El Arish.
Verdun ends.
Ploesti oilfields.
The Armenians, a Christian and relatively prosperous minority within the backward and Islamic Ottoman Empire, became in 1915 the target of the first 'final solution' in modern history. Under the pretext that the Armenians were aiding Russia, the Turkish government ordered the mass murder and 'deportation' of the bulk of the Armenian population within Turkey. Approximately 500,000 were killed in the last seven months of 1915, and the majority of the remainder were 'deported' to desert areas and there either starved or died of disease. At the lowest estimate, 1,500,000 died as a direct result of this carefully-laid plan. A. O. Sarkissian. Below: An Armenian priest officiates at the burial of massacred Armenians
n>
The genocide of the Armenian people in Turkey during the First World War constitutes one of the most shocking and horrifying single episodes of that war, and stands as the
first
such international crime
modern history. Most of ancient Armenia was overrun by Sultan Selim in the year 1515 and the bulk of the Christian Armenians were thus placed under the Ottoman Turks. The Turks did not welcome having a large body of non-Moslems in their newly-conquered border provinces, and were determined to in
bring about changes in the composition of the population there. The process of change was initiated under Sultan Selim. First he appointed a Kurd (Idris Hakim by name) as governor of the country and gave him a free hand. The governor then caused the transfer of large groups of nomadic Kurds from their strongholds in the south (some even from northern Mesopotamia) to these Armenian provinces, offering
them
free
land.
These Kurds were also
granted immunity from taxation on condition that they act as organised militia. By a second move the governor rendered the Armenian majority impotent; he divided the country into small administrative units (called Sanjaks in Turkish) and appointed Kurdish chieftains as heads of these units. These Kurdish chieftains considered themselves privileged characters, even above the law, and acted as the undisputed overlords of the Armenian peasantry. The peasants, though more numerous than the Kurds and other non-Christian elements combined, were placed at the
mercy of the latter because the Armenians were not allowed, by the terms of the im'contract' with their conqueror, to or bear arms even in self-defence. This crippling disability, plus certain discriminatory measures, such as the inadmissability of their testimony in courts, and an unfair system of taxation, reduced the Armenians to the status of second-class subjects of the Sultans. In the course of subsequent centuries the Armenians were never able to rise above that inferior and degrading status, though by working hard as farmers and businessmen they could attain a degree of prosperity. In some ways they would be better off than many Turks and Kurds, but they could not attain even the semblance of equality with the Moslem subjects of the Sultans. In reality the relative and temporary economic well-being of many Armenians was looked upon as a standing insult to many poverty-stricken Turks, and served as an inducement to the lawless plicit
own
plunder Armenian homes. The Armenian inhabitants was reduced through the years by emigration, by forced conversion to Islam, and by periodic massacres, yet they still constituted perhaps more than one-third of the total population there at the outbreak of the First World War.
Kurds
to
number
of the
Appeals to the Sultan Late in the 19th Century Armenian community leaders presented innumerable petitions to the government in Constantinople and appealed to the Sultan for the
betterment of their kinsmen's lot in eastern Asia Minor. They pleaded with the authorities and literally implored the government to do something for the well-being and safety of Armenians against the brigandage of armed Kurds. They also asked for some reforms in the administration of justice in these border provinces. But the Sultan showed no sympathy for the suffering Armenian peasantry, and was not disposed to enact any reforms. On three distinct occasions during the four decades prior to 1914 (in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin, in 1895 by the May Reform Plan, and in 1914 by the February Reform Project), Ottoman authorities were induced by pressures from European governments to sign international agreements pledging introduce certain clearly stipulated reforms in the eastern provinces of the Empire. Unfortunately no serious attempt was made to introduce any of the stipulated reforms and the Ottoman government aired its resentment over Europe's intrusion in its domestic affairs by allowing (if not actually instigating) various massacres of the Armenian people. The Turks felt that since these foreign 'intrusions' in to
their internal affairs were occasioned, especially after the three above-mentioned instances, by Armenians clamouring for
reforms, they wanted to see an end put to such clamours by getting rid of the Armenians root-and-branch. The first large-scale massacres had taken place in 1896 under circumstances of revolting brutality — 'not merely massacres', in the words of Lord Rosebery, 'but hor-
rors unutterable, unsp)eakable, unimaginable by the mind of man'. The government of Turkey showed in this way its resentment of being 'saddled' with the May Reform Plan of 1895 by giving 'the signal for
massacres which on the lowest estimate made 80,000 victims in a single year'. On February 8, 1914, the signing of the third
and
last
international
agreement
bearing on the fate of the Armenian people
Turkey — the February Reform Project Asia Minor — was hailed by one of its principal signain
for the eastern provinces of
Gulkevich of Russia) as ushering in 'the dawn of a new and happier era in the history of the Armenian people'. It now seems, in fact, that even before the tories (M.
Ottoman government signed the agreement on February 8, 1914, Young Turk leaders had vowed to exterminate all Armenians in the Empire, and that the First World War provided them with the opportunity to implement their plans. Under wartime exigencies the Turks would seal off the country from the world outside, and they could restrict rigidly the movements of neutral aliens within the country. They could also warn the ambassadors and consular officials of neutral governments that they should not voice comments critical of the Turkish government, particularly comments bearing on
OKMS
CENTRES OF
ARMENIAN MASSACRE DeJr es Zor
The major centres
Armenian population in eastern Asia Minor, the historic homeland of the Armenian people; the reduction of the Armenians by massacre and starvation in 1915 [>
V Starvation,
of
the reality behind Turkey's policy of mass deportation of Armenians
Population 2 Killed
380 000
1500 000
1323
I
Minds that think ahke
you that the Government, by the order of the Jamiet, had decided to destroy completely all the Armenians living in Turkey ... An end must be put to their existence, however criminal the measures taken may be, and no regard must be paid to It
was
at first
communicated
to
either age or sex nor to conscientious scruples. Minister of the Interior, Talaat, 16/9/1915 — To the Government of Aleppo
have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity men, women and children belonging to the Polish speaking race. It is only in this manner that we can acquire the vital territory which I
we
all, who remembers today the extermination of the Armenians? AdolfHitler, 22/8/1939
need. After
that government's treatment of the nonMoslem peoples in the Empire. This being purely and simply an internal matter, the representatives of neutral governments were expected to refrain even from expressing opinions in public on such matters. Other steps could also be taken, such as encouraging the Kurds in eastern Asia Minor and other elements in many parts of the country to do their 'duty' against the Armenians in return for plunder. The planned procedure of deportations and massacres of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians called first for the swift elimination of Armenians from the armed forces and their quick extermination. Under the plan these numbering some 100,000, conscripts, were marked as the first batch of victims for outright massacre. Then simultaneous arrests of all Armenian community leaders throughout the country were to be effected. Many of these were marked down for summary hanging in public on some trumpedup charges, while the rest were to be marched off from prisons to their death at the hands of their guards in remote places. Finally, there was to be the uprooting of all Armenians (except those fortunate ones in Constantinople and Smyrna, who were to owe their salvation to the effective protest of the US Ambassador, the late Henry
Morgenthau) from their homes and their deportation to desolate and sun-scorched deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria. Such Turkey, 1915, and Germany, 1939. Below Armenian Christians lianged in Jerusalem by the Turks. Below right: 'Suffer the little Leff.-
left:
children'
1324
carefully planned procedure of deportations and massacres. Its execution was entrusted to the Ministry of the In-
was the
headed by Talaat Bey. October 29, 1914 Turkey entered the war, and in December the Turks launched their military operations against the Russians in the Caucasus. Initially they were successful and made considerable advances imder Enver Pasha. By the middle of January, 1915, however, their luck seemed to have run out, and soon they were in full retreat. During this fighting along the Caucasian front the Turks faced certain Armenian units (composed of Armenian subjects of the Tsar) fighting in the Russian terior
On
ranks. The fact that these Armenians of the Caucasus were fighting for Russia and against Turkey served as positive proof for Enver Pasha of the alleged Armenian treachery within Turkey.
Treasonable acts? Soon Enver Pasha was in Constantinople and became the instigator of the rumour that the defeat of the Turks in the Caucasus was caused by the treasonable acts of Armenian fighters on the Russian side. Then, in his feigned fury, he brought an official charge against the Armenians by declaring that Armenian 'draft-dodgers' in Turkey had crossed into Russia and were fighting against the Turks. This allegation became a powerful weapon in the hand of the government, and at once proved the most effective propaganda in rousing and inflaming the fanaticism of the Turks Thenceforth against the Armenians. government officials and other Turks who
allegation held, that the country, that the Armenians serving in Turkey's armed forces could not be trusted. Sometime in February a secret decree was issued to army commanders directing them to disarm Armenians in all fighting units, take them out of the fighting ranks, and then regroup them behind fighting fronts into special labour battalions. This was effected with relative ease, whereupon all the Armenians in these battalions were massacred by their former comrades on orders from commanding officers. By another decree the conscription age of Armenians was extended to include all
'In reality,' wrote Toynbee in h-s study of several hundred documents bearing directly on the Armenian tragedy, 'the situation had been growing tenser before the spring began. In outlying villages, men had been massacred, women violated and
males between the ages 15 and 60. Soon these conscripts were to share the fate of their kinsmen in special labour battalions. Having thus carried out the first part of the plan in strict secrecy and with success, the government thenceforth did not mind having its intention revealed. Late in April it showed its hand by ordering the arrest of some 1,000 prominent Armenians in Constantinople, and in a few days these were sent, in small batches and under armed guards, to various parts of Asiatic Turkey, to be murdered there by their guards. This single but significant and ominous event cast a dark shadow over the shocked and stupefied Armenians, particularly over those in Constantinople. They still did not sense the full extent of the catastrophe that was upon them, but even if they had been fully aware of the impending national tragedy, they were utterly powerless to do
tance (except for the few instances to be cited later) was assured by the swift and simultaneous action of the authorities in all localities. Large bodies of defenceless people, scattered in widely separated areas and composed of women and children, cannot put up much of a fight against armed gendarmes and licensed brigands.
believed
this
enemy was within the
anything about
it.
houses burnt down by the gendarmerie patrols.' By May the reign of terror was felt in all Armenian communities, in towns, villages and hamlets. The fate of Armenian
was settled, and all Armenian community leaders shared a similar fate. The process of orderly and quiet mass murders of elderly men, women and children was beginning without open mass resistance. The absence of any such resisconscripts
When the order for deportations was teleto the governors and other provincial officials, they were allowed some latitude as to the treatment to be meted out to the victims without weakening or delaying the execution of the plan. If it
graphed
were deemed expedient to eliminate the victims by massacres, the provincial and local authorities would have the assistance of Kurds, or criminals amnestied for such particular occasions, and even the aid of detachments from the armed forces, since there was complete co-operation between Talaat Bey's Ministry of the Interior and Enver Pasha's Ministry of War. The lati-
1325
tude thus allowed to these officials, however, did not permit them to treat the victims with any humane consideration. This point was brought out in plain language by Talaat Bey himself in a telegram to the Police Office at Aleppo, categorically stating that 'Regardless of women, children or invalids, and however deplorable the methods of destruction may seem, an end is to be put to their existence without paying any heed to feeling or conscience.'
Slow-moving death-caravan The general scheme of deportations called for driving Armenians living in border areas in the east, north-east and north (Van, Erzerum and Trabzon provinces) towards a general south and south-westerly direction. Those in western and northern regions (Adabazar, Ankara, Brusa and Ismid) were to be led to a southerly direc-
Another group from central Asia Minor and from Cilicia in the south-west was to join the deportees from northern and western regions. Armenians of other large towns, such as Kayseri, Sivas and Harpoot with their large Armenian communities, were also to be led to a southtion.
westerly direction. All these deportees, or their remnants, were to converge eventually and assemble at certain places in northern Syria, with Aleppo designated as their first halting place. Their next and last halting place was to be the sun-scorched Deir-el-Zor, the desert in south-eastern
Syria on the Euphrates, which soon became the mass graveyard of nearly all survivors of these long marches. Mass deportations and massacres began
almost simultaneously in June in nearly all towns and villages throughout the country, and went on with monotonous through the summer and regularity autumn. On a certain date an Armenian town (or village) would be surrounded by a body of gendarmes assisted by a large body of civilian Turks from neighbouring towns and armed with all sorts of tools, including farm implements. Then the Turkish leader, accompanied by a few gendarmes, would enter the town and order the people there, through a town-crier (whom he brought with him), to assemble at a certain open space, or at the market-place. Once there the people would be informed of the government's decision to have them transported to areas better and safer for them. The people then would be ordered to go back to their homes, take only a few things needed for a short journey and return forthwith to the assembly place. Meanwhile a few ox-drawn carts, commandeered by the government from Turkish villagers, or once owned by Armenians but now driven by Turks, would be there to serve as transports for the elderly and the invalids, while the rest of the people would be forced to straggle along on a prearranged route. Those providing transports were told that the journey would be short, and on their return they would become the owners of Armenian wealth as just compensation for their patriotic service. The other body of Turks who aided the gendarmes in surrounding the town, and who were to accompany the deportees as guards, were also promised booty in addition to the right of selecting as
many
girls for their
homes and
harems
as they wanted. This slow-moving death-caravan did not go far before the number of its deportees was reduced. Some would be disposed of on the way in order to lighten the loads of the ox-drawn carts, others for their failure to keep up with the group. Some maidens would also be taken out of the caravan by gendarmes, raped and then murdered. As the caravan arrived at its destination, usually an isolated place, the deportees would be surrounded and informed of their fate. Then the assassins would select a number of girls for their homes (and some boys), and then in one large mass-murder the remainder would all be slaughtered.
Open mass
resistance
During
this national tragedy there were only a few instances of open mass resistance. Of the four well-known cases, that in Edessa in the south-west, where some 10,000 Armenians engaged in a desperate fight for more than two weeks, was unsuccessful. So was the equally heroic but also abortive resistance of the people in Shabin-Karahisar in north-eastern Anatolia. The story of the two other better
known
instances is fortunately different. resistance in the city of Van in northeastern Asia Minor, a strategic Armenian stronghold for centuries, was courageously maintained for four weeks, and in the end proved successful thanks to the advance of Russian forces there late in May. Six weeks
The
later, when the Russians withdrew, began the mass exodus of all Armenians from Van
and neighbouring areas, numbering some 250,000, eventually nearly
all
of
whom
found safety in the Caucasus. Then there was the miraculous success of the resistance put up by a few thousand Armenians in Swediya (near Antioch in north-western Syria), where they went up to a chff on the coast and defended themselves against Turkish regulars for six weeks until they were rescued by a French warship. This has been vividly told in Franz Werfell's The Forty Days ofMussa Dagh. There were other instances of open resistance. One such involved a large Armenian village named Dendill, with 270 households, in central Asia Minor, between Kayseri and Sivas near the right bank of Kizil Irmak river. In June, when neighbouring villages were being emptied of
Armenian dwellers, the people of Dendill managed to carry a large supply of provisions to a deep rock cave high up on the side of a cliff, and in one night all of them (about 1,000 in all) slipped into it. Perched in this impregnable position they defied the Turks for some six weeks; even a large detachment of Turkish regulars (from Sivas) could not subdue them with powerful artillery. The end came when the water running to the cave was cut off and they surrendered, knowing well what was their
in store for them. At the start of the
war there were about 2,000,000 Armenians within the Ottoman Empire; about half of these were in the eastern part of Asia Minor, the historic homeland of the Armenian people. Approximately 500,000 were massacred in the last seven months of 1915, and the majority of the remainder were deported to desert areas where their numbers fast dwindled.
Except for a fairly large but unknown number of women, boys and girls (estimated at close to 200,000) who were taken into Turkish homes, the once thriving and relatively prosperous Armenian communities of central Asia Minor were virtually obliterated by a swift and deadly stroke conceived, planned and executed by the Ottoman government. For the Turks, 'deportation' was a convenient euphemism which served very well to conceal what was in fact the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
The men who devised
this vast scheme of 'deportation' could not have honestly believed that it could have been successfully executed without the accompaniment of mass murders and massacres. Incidentally, there is no clear evidence indicating that the German government was aware of Turkish plans in this respect. The Turks did not want to confide such a secret to their allies. Not until June 1915 did Ambassador
Wangenheim hear about it from Talaat Bey. In a dispatch to Chancellor Bethmann-HoUweg dated June 17 the Ambassador wrote: 'Talaat Bey openly stated that the Porte wished to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the war to make a clean sweep of their enemies at home without being troubled by foreign diplo.
.
.
matic intervention.' Subsequently when Wangenheim learned of the extent of the Armenian deportations under circumstances of unbelievable brutality, and Ger-
man
consular reports clearly shov
these
'deportations'
speedy
really of the
i
Uiai,
meant che Armenian
annihilation people throughout the country, he made repeated representations to the Turkish
no avail. The Turkdenied the existence of widespread brutality and questioned the veracity of German consular reports; then they deprecated any German interference in their domestic affairs, blatantly de-
government, but ish
leaders
all to
first
claring that 'they did not consider their allies competent to instruct them in
humanity'. Further Reading Bryce, Viscount, 'Report on Turkish Atrocities In Armenia', Current History (New York, November 1916, pp 321-334)
Hagopian, A. P., Armenia and the War (Hodder & Stoughton 1917) Morgenthau, H., Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (Doubleday 1918) Nansen, F., Armenia and the Near East (Allen &
Unwin 1928) Toynbee, A. J., Armenian Atrocities: the Murder of a Nation (Hodder & Stoughton 1915) Toynbee. A, J,, The Western question in Greece and Turkey: a study in the contact of civilisation (New York: Fertig 1970)
SARKISSIAN was born in Turkey in 1905. An his family was massacred by the Turks in 1915, but he survived to make his way eventually to
A. 0.
Armenian,
the United States. There he gained his BA (Syracuse University) in 1929 and his MA and PhD (Illinois University)
in
1930 and 1934 respectively. In 1940 of Congress as Analyst in
he joined the Library
VTurkish civilians stand around the corpses of massacred Armenians in Adana, near the Mediterranean coast
International Relations. His publications include l-listory
of the
Studies
in
Armenian Question
to
A
1885, and
Diplomatic History and Historiography.
1327
REUEF OF KUT THEFmSIArrEMPT By his constant and worrying appeals, General Townshend forced the hand of the relieving force to attack prematurely in January under conditions which invited disaster. Yet, after three desperate frontal assaults and three defeats, the attempts to relieve the fortress of Kut continued regardless of cost. F. W. Woodhouse
On the morning of January 4 the start was delayed until 1045 hours because a gale had damaged the bridging equipment. However, eventually the advance got under until, without having contacted the enemy, a halt was called at 1430 hours. The march continued on January 5, when some Turkish cavalry patrols were sighted, but no action developed; that evening air reconnaissance estimated that 10,000 Turks were now in position around Sheikh Saad. Discounting this increase in enemy strength, Younghusband planned his attack for 0830 hours on January 6, the intention being to continue to advance simultaneously on both left and right banks. He may be criticised
way and continued
not using the ability to concentrate rapidly on either bank, which his pontoon bridge gave him, in order to defeat the for
Turks had become clear to General Nixon that General Townshend's force was certain to be invested in newly Younghusband, General Kut. arrived from Egypt, was therefore in-
By December
4,
1915
it
structed to establish 28th Brigade, together with 6th Cavalry Brigade which was withdrawn from Kut, at Ali Gharbi; from there relief operations could be mounted. On December 7 Townshend signalled that he possessed only 60 days' rations for his troops. This information, plus the desperate shortage of river transport and the inadequate unloading and storage facilities at Basra, faced Nixon with a difficult decision. The limited time that the Kut garrison could hold out suggested that relief operations should be pushed forward at once, but against this was the condition and numbers of the immediately available troops; it was by no means certain that there was sufficient strength up-river to guarantee a successful relief operation. Military prudence suggested waiting until there was sufficient force gathered at Ali
Gharbi to ensure success. Against this was shortage of river transport, which made it. doubtful whether such a force could be gathered in time. In the event Nixon decided that the advance should start as soon as possible, with whatever forces were available, and this was the essence of the orders he gave to his newly the
arrived
commander
of the Tigris Corps,
General Aylmer, on December
7.
By December 15, shortly after Aylmer arrived at his Amara headquarters, it was estimated that the Turkish strength at and below Kut was about 15,000 men with 54 guns. Townshend had already stated that he hop)ed to be relieved in ten to 15 days, his ammunition, particularly gun ammunition, being limited and the morale of the Indian troops in Kut being low. All this led Aylmer to the conclusion that Kut must be relieved by January 10 if possible, since he could not rely on the town holding out beyond January 15. In turn this meant that relief operations must start not later than January 3, using the infantry division and cavalry brigade which should by then be at Ali Gharbi. The next development was the movement of a Turkish division downstream from Kut, reported by Townshend. At the same time Aylmer informed Nixon that he intended to advance on Sheikh Saad, some 30 miles upstream from Ali Gharbi, on January 3 with 7th Division and 6th Cavalry Brigade, and that he himself would follow with the rest of his force as soon as possible. In a signal to Towns1328
hend on December 30 Aylmer made it clear that he would have preferred to concentrate his force before advancing beyond Sheikh Saad — 'By far the best plan would be to advance all together from Sheikh Saad as a combined corps.' Only the urgent need to relieve Kut prevented Aylmer. Air reconnaissance on January 1, 1916 reported enemy positions at Sheikh Saad, with detachments five or six miles downstream. Arriving at Ali Gharbi on this day and hearing the report, and also finding preparations for Younghusband's advance still incomplete, Aylmer postponed the advance for 24 hours. It is surprising under the circumstances that preparations were as advanced as they were, since there was no propjer corps staff and Younghusband's 7th Division staff had not yet arrived from France. To add to the confusion, units were being sent up-river as and when they landed in Basra and this resulted in many of them arriving in advance of their brigade staff and often without much of their equipment. All this was made worse by widespread sickness, barely kept in check by
the inadequate medical arrangements. In addition the standard of training in many units was low, and indeed the division had never operated together before. On January 3 Younghusband was ordered to advance the following day to Sheikh Saad. His command now consisted of 16 infantry battalions, 17 cavalry squadrons and 42 guns. Naval support, under the command of Captain W. Nunn, RN, consisted of the gunboats Butterfly, Dragonfly, Cranefly and Gadfly. Enemy strength at Sheikh Saad was, at this date, estimated to be 900 cavalry, 1,100 camelry, two light guns, some machine guns and an infantry battalion. Younghusband's plan was to advance on both banks of the Tigris — General Kemball on the right bank with 28th Brigade, supported by 9th Field Artillery Brigade and with 92nd Punjabis from 19th Brigade in reserve, 6th Cavalry Brigade forming a flank guard on the left; on the left bank ,was Brigadier-General Rice with 35th Brigade, supported by a battery of gxms and a company of Pioneers, 16th Cavalry forming a flank guard on the right. The reserve, consisting of 19th Brigade and the Heavy Artillery Brigade, was to follow this force. In addition, three gunboats were to move abreast of the land force, leading the river transport, and the land transport, what there vas of it, was to move on both
banks of thenver. Younghusband made his headquarters in the steamer J ulnar, though later he transferred to Gadfly.
in detail, but throughout this phase of the relief operations the need for speed in
reaching Kut was uppermost in all commanders' minds. It must also be admitted that the general feeling at the time was that the Turks were no match for British troops and that they would be swept aside without difficulty.
Two-pronged advance Morning came on January 6 with a dense mist covering the whole area of the British attack. Instead of snatching at the opportunity for concealment which this gave, Younghusband delayed his advance until the mist began to clear— it was not until 0900 hours that the troops moved forward. For about four miles nothing occurred and then, at about 1000 hours, as the mist finally dispersed, the troops of Kemball's 28th Brigade, plodding steadily onwards, were able to see a long line of Turkish trenches about two miles ahead; behind them, constantly changing shape in the deceptive haze of the mirage, cavalry could be seen forming up. Whatever surprise there may have been — and the Turks seem to have been well-prepared — was now lost
and 28th Brigade came under fire from Turkish guns. Small arms fire was added to the din and the first unpleasant shock for the British was the indication from this that the Tiu-kish line extended much further to the left than they had expected. It soon became evident that the main attack of 28th Brigade, consisting of the Leicesters, 53rd Sikhs and 51st Sikhs, far from outflanking the Turks, was itself outflanked. As the British brigade edged further and further to its left, dangerous gaps opened up between the various units and 56th Rifles, maintaining contact with the river. As the attack developed it came under heavy fire and it was soon very clear that the Turks had no intention of giving up easily, as had been confidently expected by the more sanguine British commanders. Meanwhile 6th Cavalry Brigade, on the left flank of Kemball's force, was also in difficulties. Prevented from co-operating fully with 28th Brigade by a network of irrigation ditches, by 1300 hours they were engaged by a strong Turkish mounted force aided by Arab irregulars — the ubiquitous Buddhoos. This action halted the cavalry about four miles south of Sheikh Saad. By 1500 hours the British advance on the right bank, although within 500 yards of the Turkish front line, had halted. On the left bank, the British right. Rice's 35th Brigade, had fared no better. Here the exact position of the Turkish trenches was
even bank.
recommenced. Aylmer directed that a simultaneous frontal attack should be made on both banks. At 1145 hours Younghusband's force moved forward, 35th Brigade holding on the river bank, 19th Brigade starting its turning movement and 21st Brigade in reserve between the two. Shortly after 1330 hours, 19th Brigade came under heavy crossfire from the west and northwest and the brigade was found to be turning inside the Turkish defences. In the meantime 21st Brigade was ordered forward to close the rapidly widening gap between the two leading brigades, the Black Wa.ch and 6th Jats soon coming under fire. They and the Seaforths from 19th Brigade
well-known than on the right
less
By 1100 hours
Rice's leading batta-
37th Dogras, was under heavy fire from trenches about 800 yards away; there was no cover, casualties quickly mounted and the battalion stzirted to dig itself in. It became clear to Younghusband by 1530 hours that no more would be achieved that day (sunset was at 1710 hours) and he lion,
ordered all units to stand fast for the night, 28th and 35th Brigades remaining in contact with the enemy. Amazingly, Aylmer, moving forward with his reserve brigades,
was not aware
of
what had happened
the evening of January
6, all
until
contact with
Younghusband having been lost. When at last Aylmer did get a report from him, Aylmer ordered Young-
morning,
husband not
to get involved in serious action without further orders. In the front lines intermittent firing continued throughout the night and this, coupled with a soaking thunderstorm in the early hours, did not improve the troops' morale. Daylight on January 7 brought
another hot, muggy and foggy morning. Once again advantage was not taken of the concealing orders,
mist,
and
it
until
mud and
rain, wounded were brought in, ammunition was replenished, meals eaten and trenches dug. The next day, January 8, was similar to the two before — hot, humid
support they remained pinned down. Meanwhile the Turks made an attempt to encircle the British right with a force of infantry and Arab horsemen. This flank
of Aylmer's noon that action
because
was not
dispersed the Arabs, the Turkish infantry rapidly dug in only 400 yards from the British line. Fortunately they made no further attack, but their presence was a constant threat. On the right bank 28th Brigade was more successful. Kemball's attack had started at 1430 hours and by 1600 hours, with considerable dash and gallantry on the part of the Sikhs and the Leicesters, they had captured the enemy's forward positions. Here too, unfortunately, the casualties were very heavy, some 1,000 men having fallen in this brigade; and despite this, the Turkish second line and support trenches were so strongly held that by nightfall Kemball decided not to press on further. A quiet night followed, although the rain fell in torrents, and the British and Indian troops were glad of the respite. Throughout the night, hampered though they were by
strove desperately to move forward, but the Turks had waited till the attackers were only 300 yards away and their fire was devastatingly eff'ective. The Seaforths lost 20 officers and 380 men, while the Jats had only 150 survivors of the 485 who started out. Gallantry was not wanting, one small party of Seaforths getting within 40 yards of the Turkish line, where for lack of
stating his intention of renewing the attack
next
was guarded by 16th Cavalry anu lo suppwrt them Dennys had to swing five of his brigade machine guns towards this new threat. Although concentrated artillery fire, including the guns of HMS Cranefly,
The first of the attempts to relieve Kut- the actions at Sheikh Saad and the Hanna defile. Inset in the bottom is a balance of forces and a casualties chart for the whole of the period of the relief attempts-the British lost 23,000 attempting to save the besieged 13,000
V
22
13 January ^'
35Bde
y'
lis
Bde
'
;
^eiBty
VjField
~?
Ambulance
Bty
V>^19Bty '^''
Bde "*
Chittalo Fort
Artillery
^
^Ghurka HGhurka
^CavSdn 2 guns
See
20 Bty
~*28 Bty^.-.u '^104 Heavy ^1 Sussex Bty
^InfBde
/28 Bde*
28 Bde
All
defile
^
ICav Bde
.77Bty
Bde
6Cav, 21Bde
"'WJ?^ Hanna
guns 9 Bde
,P ^ 19Bde
defile
field
(102)
61 Howitzer Bty
23MtnBty
2 Rajputs
Gunboats'^
_„. ^remainder 7 Bde^ ™*
_
.
.
^
inset
tor first attack
•V
on
S Bty
Hanna defile January 21 1918
Turkish Cavalry
^
m
xS
^
^19 Bde Dennys
16 Cav Bde
TURKISH LINES I
BRITISH
POSITIONS
MILES
35Div
OKMS
^r^
^
52Div Sheikh
21 Bde
N orie
Saad
35 Bde Rice
Mesopotamia
Forces
(Dec 15- April 16)
CasuaKies
(Decl5-April16)
Turkish 50000
10000
British
58000
23000
-t
13000
(KGt)
Arab Horsemen Turkish
Cav
1329
and with the mirage playing strange tricks on the still-weary troops. Although the flanking cavalry on both banks of the river had brief skirmishes with Arab horsemen, there was little action; while the generals conferred, water and rations went forward and efforts were made to collect the wounded
who still
lay on the battlefield.
The next moves took place on the night January 8/9, when Younghusband decided to relieve 19th Brigade, who had suffered most so
far,
by 21st Brigade, 19th Brigade
in turn relieving 35th Brigade.
Mud, rain
to cause the guides to lose their way, so that it was not until dawn on January 9 that an exhausted 19th Brigade reached 35th Brigade's positions. However, all was in vain, since early morning cavalry patrols found the Turks to be withdrawing. By the afternoon the village was occupied and the action at Sheikh
and high winds combined
Saad was over. Turkish losses had been some 4,000 plus 650 prisoners, but the bulk of their troops had escaped and they had imposed significant delay on Aylmer's rehef force. The price paid for this dubious victory was 4,000 British casualties who could
ill
be spared.
By now Aylmer's
troops were very tired. In addition, the medical arrangements had
proved totally inadequate and this was affecting morale, particularly among the Indian troops. While the British soldiers could see that something had gone wrong and could accept it philosophically, the Indians could not understand why they were not being looked after properly. Eleven days after the battle at Sheikh Saad, a field ambulance unit on its way to the front found 1,000 British and Indian wounded still lying in the mud, most of them with only their first field dressings, applied on the battlefield, protecting their wounds. Many died, many had dysentery; there simply were not enough doctors, medical staff or stores to avoid a situation like that of the Crimean War.
Second
The withdrawal of the Turks from Sheikh Saad was not followed up at once, so not surprisingly the enemy stopped as soon as Khalil Pasha, their new commander, realized this, and dug in along the line of the River Wadi, some three and a half miles east of the Hanna defile. This defile lay between the Tigris and the Suwaikiya Marsh, and if the British could secure it, the Turks at the Wadi would be trapped.
'A most precarious undertaking' On January 11, aerial reconnaissance revealed the Turkish position at the Wadi, their strength estimated at some 11,000 men. Aylmer determined at once to outflank the Turks and capture the Hanna defile. Nevertheless he did not minimise his diflSculties and, while accepting full responsibility for the operation, he described it in a signal to Nixon as 'a most precarious undertaking'. In the Tigris Corps at least, the worth of their enemy was beginning to be appreciated. Aylmer's plan was for Kemball's 28th Brigade to cross the Tigris
and deliver a frontal attack across the Wadi, aimed at the Turkish main positions. This was intended as a feint, which would enable 19th, 21st and 35th Brigades, plus 6th Cavalry Brigade, to strike north-east up the Wadi, crossing it to take the Turks in the flank. This move was to be made during the night January 12/13 for an attack at dawn. January 12 was allocated for reconnaissance, but as the available maps were hopelessly inaccurate and the ground almost featureless, little advantage was gained. The night of January 12 was cold but there was no rain. By 0100 hours January 13 the cavalry was in position and by 0400 hours the infantry had arrived also — 35th Brigade on the right, 19th Brigade in the centre and 21st Brigade on the left. Since they had had little enough rest, the infantry may have welcomed the thick mist which greeted the dawn, the advance being
line Indian troops resting. The Indian troops fought well and incurred high casualties, but their morale began to fall as the medical services collapsed -they simply could not understand why they were not being looked after
delayed to allow it to clear. Nevertheless, by 0900 hours Roberts's cavalry had splashed across the Wadi and driven off the Turkish cavalry on the other side. The infantry followed soon after and 21st Brigade, the first across, set off for the Hanna defile led by l/9th Gurkhas; by 1100 hours they were under fire from guns and small arms. While the Gurkhas dug in only 200 yards from the enemy, the rest of the brigade began to move to the right and seeing this 19th Brigade also veered right, following the plan to secure the Hanna defile. But now a fatal delay occurred. Owing to the steepness of the banks the artillery were not yet all across the Wadi, indeed they were not all in action until 1330 hours; why they could not have provided support from the east bank of the Wadi is not clear. However, once the artillery were in action, 21st Brigade was soon fully committed against the Turks occupying a water course running at right angles to their main position on the Wadi. Two battalions of 19th Brigade were drawn into the fight also, and gradually they gained the upper hand, the Turks beginning to give ground. On seeing the enemy apparently with-
drawing Younghusband assumed that his turning movement was almost complete. Accordingly he moved 35th Brigade out to the right, with the intention of closing the gap between 19th Brigade and the Tigris, thus cutting off the Turks at the Wadi. But
35th Brigade soon came under fire and it was not until 1715 hours that the Buffs were in line with 19th Brigade's 28th Punjabis; with the setting sun in their eyes and under a crossfire, they were pinned down two and a half miles from the Tigris. What had happened might have been foreseen — as Younghusband extended his right in his outflanking movement, so the Turks extended their left to keep pace with him. Even so, it is possible that a wider sweep to the flank, followed by a really determined attack, might have caught at least some of
the Turks: regrettably, the two essential elements for success, surprise plus a real determination to push through, were lacking. This was exemplified by the cavalry brigade who, further to the right, had the opportunity to reach the Tigris across perfect going. Roberts had received no definite orders, however, and while they watched the action the opportunity passed. During all this activity to the north-east, Kemball's 28th Brigade had been holding the ring opposite the Turkish main position. By 1330 hours, as we have already seen, Younghusband was under the impression that his turning movement was successful; acting on this, plus an indication that the Turks were pulling out opposite 28th Brigade, Aylmer ordered Kem-
home
his attack. The gunboats in support and 9th Brigade, in reserve, moved up to 28th Brigade's original positions west of El Chitab Fort. Far from withdrawing, however, the Turks were soon found to be hold-
ball to press
were ordered upstream
ing strongly and Kemball's men walked into an annihilating crossfire. The irrigation channel immediately in front of the Wadi confused the attackers and, having crossed the deadly strip between it and the river, they found the latter's steep banks another fearful obstacle. With great gallantry the British tried to storm across, their ranks rapidly thinning, but as darkness fell 28th Brigade withdrew without even reaching the Turkish line.
Unexpected withdrawal With both attacks
at a standstill
and night
having fallen, an uneasy peace descended on the battlefield, broken only occasionally by outbursts of small arms fire. In the bitter cold and rain the British huddled in their forward positions, while the Turks took advantage of the darkness to withdraw to the Hanna defile; a move which the British did not discover till next morning. So the Wadi was gained, by default, and at a cost to the British of 1,600 casualties, 648 from 28th Brigade alone. And once again the Turks had escaped the decisive defeat which could have opened the route to Kut. Aylmer's anxiety to relieve Kut was no doubt the main reason why the attacks at Sheikh Saad and the Wadi had been so costly — in his impatience to get on he had played into the Turks' hands with repeated frontal attacks. Yet his anxiety had not diminished, for Townshend was once again calling for quick relief in a series of urgent signals. In reply Aylmer made it clear that in his view progress could not be 'anything but very slow'. The signals which then flew back and forth between himself, Nixon and Townshend did nothing to help his immediate problem — the forcing of the strong Hanna defile, its well-protected flanks making another frontal attack inevitable. By now the weather had turned really bad with gales and heavy rain; the whole area had turned into a sea of glutinous
mud, in which to walk was exhausting and to run impossible. The Tigris itself had become a roaring yellow torrent and the pontoon bridge, never very strong, had no sooner been moved up nearer the front and re-erected, than a steamer broke it, the wreckage being carried away by the gale. With no immediate prospect of replacing the bridge Aylmer's one tactical advantage over the Turks, the ability to operate on either bank of the Tigris at will, was
severely limited. The only bright spot in an otherwise gloomy scene was the news that Townshend had found additional supplies in Kut; relief was no longer quite so urgent. Nevertheless, Aylmer decided to press the advance, and to attack the Hanna position on January 21. As surprise was impossible and a frontal attack inevitable, adequate artillery support was essential. For this task Aylmer had 46 guns, plus two gunboats, each of whose heaviest armament was a 12 -pounder gun —by Western Front standards poor support indeed for a front a mile long. However, using the few guns he was able to ferry across the Tigris, Aylmer could engage the Turkish positions in enfilade. 7th Brigade and 33rd Cavalry were also ferried across the river and, commanded by General Keary, whose 3rd Division Headquarters had recently arrived, occupied Arab Village, south-west of the
Hanna position. On the night January
19/20 7th Divipreparation for their attack on January 21, advanced their forward trenches to within some 500 yards of the enemy. There had not been time, however, to construct adequate communication trenches from front to rear, so that supporting troops following-up the initial assault would be faced with a 2,000 yard advance virtually without cover. By dawn on January 20, 7th Division was in position. A short bombardment of the Turkish line, starting at noon on January 20, had little effect, despite the enfilade fire from the right bank. Owing to the flat terrain, any slight rise in the ground gave concealment for hundreds of yards and made observation of direct fire very difficult. To overcome this gunner observation officers used special ladders known as 'pulpits', but even the use of these did not always result in effective fire against the deep, narrow trenches at which the Turks were so adept. sion,
in
Black Watch obliterated Aylmer's original orders were that the attack on January 21 should be preceded by a bombardment starting as soon as possible after first light. However, as the grey dawn broke, a thick mist shrouded the enemy lines and action was delayed till this had cleared and the gunners had registered their targets. Fire was opened at 0745 hours and as the barrage fell on the Turkish front line the Black Watch on the left began their advance, slogging through the thick mud at little more than a slow walk.
The bombardment was
clearly ineffective
Turks were already shooting back When the guns lifted their onto the second line, some of the Black
since the to
some
fire
was doing no better and of the tw>; ing Dogra battalions only 25 men
-ssauit-
re.ached
the Turkish wire. Despite the losses, more and more men were flung into the battle. The Seaforths had some limited success, but apart from this no progress was made. Not least of the factors contributing to this debacle was the lack of control from divisional headquarters. As so often in this
campaign, communications broke down almost at once. At 0850 hours the impression at divisional headquarters was that all was going well, although 19th Brigade was checked. By 1115 hours it became clear at headquarters what had been painfully obvious to the forward troops for an hour or more — the attack had failed. To cap it all the wind rose and with it came pouring rain. Nevertheless, a fresh attack was ordered for 1300 hours, and although it started, the men, soaked, numbed by the wind and exhausted by their previous efforts, could not go on. At 1315 hours the operation was abandoned, and with it all immediate hope of breaking through the Hanna line. Younghusband ordered his
division back to their original positions, judging the conditions impossible for a renewed attack; the more sanguine Aylmer, reluctant to surrender the few gains made, tried to countermand this order, but he was too late — the withdrawal was completed during the night. So ended the first battle of Hanna. Of the 7,600 British rifle strength, 2,741 were casualties. The Turks, who had about 9,000 infantry, suffered some 2,000 casualties. The increasingly torrential rain precluded any immediate renewal of the offensive and the next few days after the battle were devoted to reorganization and to collecting
the wounded. Their situation was, thing, worse than at Sheikh
if
any-
Saad and the
Wadi. Many were left out all night on January 21 and although the truce arranged for January 22 enabled most to be brought in, this was not achieved without opposition from the Buddhoos; they stripped every body they could find, alive or dead, and even attacked the bearer parties. Conditions at the field ambulances were chaotic and are described in grim detail in Candler's The Long Road to Baghdad. The troops seemed to be losing confidence in their higher command, judging by this cynical verse which circulated in Mesopotamia at about this time: 'W stands for the wonder and pain With which we regard our infirm and insane Old aged generals, who run this campaign We are waging in Mesopotamia.'
effect.
did manage to reach the enemy front but most fell before getting there. With a few Jats who had managed to join them, the Highlanders tried to broaden their narrow foothold. The Turks they had driven back soon counterattacked, advancing up the communication trenches to right and left, hurling grenades as they came. The British were forced out and suffered even more casualties as they withdrew. Two officers and 15 men of the Black Watch survived this encounter and to all intents and purposes the battalion ceased
Watch
Further Reading
line,
Barker, A.
to exist. The rest of the attack was also effectively at a standstill, although 9th Brigade had moved forward to support the hard-pressed
35th Brigade.
On
the right 19th Brigade
J., The Neglected War - Mesopotamia 1914-1918 (Faber & Faber 1967) Black Tab, On the Road to Kut (Hutchinson
1917) Candler,
E.,
The Long Road
to
Baghdad, Vol
1
(Cassell 1919)
Moberly, Brig. -Gen. F. J., History of the Great War— The Campaign In Mesopotamia 19147978, Vol 2 (HMSO 1924) Nunn, Vice-Admiral Wilfred, Tigris Gunboats
(Andrew Melrose 1932) Townshend, Maj.-Gen. Sir Charles, My Campaign In Mesopotamia (Thornton Butterworth 1920)
[For F.
page
W.
Woodhouse's biography, see
783.]
1331
General Aylmer's plan for the fourth attempt to relieve Kut is probably the most criticised of all the relief attempts. His attack on the Dujaila Redoubt was little more than a fullscale frontal assault on the Turkish positions, an error compounded by mistakes in planning and organisation. Yet, owing to an unique night march, the British were able to get very close to the Turks and a complete surprise seemed possible. Unfortunately, there was no leader with the vision to appreciate the opportunity and order the advance, so a great chance slipped away. The attack began later without the element of surprise and the result was failure and high casualties. The medical services broke down, yet still the relief attempts continued as KCit began to starve. A. J. Barker. Below: British artillery officers observing and range-finding from a mobile observation ladder
- .^
^i
REUEF OF RDT THE LAST
CHANCE ^
A«*
'•
-^
->.
7^'4k^r
a
On January 24 - three days after the battle Hanna — General Lake, who had relieved
of
Nixon, sailed to the front to see for himself
how things were. En route he learned that Townshend had declared a second reassessment of the food stocks in Kut which now made him self-sufficient for 84 days and not the 22 he had originally forecast. Since the Hanna battle Townshend had been making a reappraisal of his position, in which the question of his breaking out had again become a major consideration. Unlike his predecessor, Lake did not rule out the possibility of Townshend's fighting his way out of Kut, but he signalled 'I
hope to effect your relief.' Seen from Aylmer's headquarters at the Wadi on the evening of January 27, however, the situation looked pretty gloomy. In the whole of the Persian Gulf there were about 63,000 British and Indian troops but 8,000 of them were in hospital and, for one reason or another, another 15,000 could not be actively deployed in Mesopotamia. This left about 40,000, and as the Turks were believed to have something like 35,000 men between Baghdad and the firing line, the British and Turks seemed to be evenly matched numerically. However, only about 14,000 men and 46 guns could be mustered, although another 11,000 and 28 guns were available as reinforcements when once they could be got up to the forward area. Facing the 14,000, the Turks were estimated to have about 10,000 on the right bank of the Tigris, forward of the Hai, and this figure did not take into account the reserves they could bring up from Shumran or ferry still
across the Tigris. Nor, in considering the relative strengths, must it be forgotten that the Turks were on the defensive, well dug in, and that they had already shown a remarkably propensity for trench warfare. That they would be reinforced before very long also seemed extremely probable as news had been received from agents in Constantinople that a force of 36,000 men
had left the Dardanelles for Mesopotamia on January 20. In view of all this, presumably Lake's first consideration was whether Aylmer should carry on trying to break through to Kut or whether he should order Townshend to try to break out; apparently he never wavered in his decision to adhere to the first alternative. At this point it becomes clear that Lake no longer trusted Aylmer completely. Probably some straight talking took place between the evening of the 27th and the morningof the 29th of January, and Aylmer was not exactly brimming with confidence about his ability to get through to Townshend. Aylmer was left in command of the Tigris Corps but Gorringe, who had recently been knighted for his earlier actions, was appointed his Chief-of-Staff. Aylmer's plan for the next attempt to get
through to Townshend has probably been the most criticised action of all the tragic attempts to relieve Kut. The idea was to attack up the right bank and take the strongly defended Es Sinn position from
where the town of Kut was plainly
visible.
mounds of ancient canal banks the country was as flat as a table, Except
for
the
with one notable exception, the Dujaiia depression. This depression ran from the right bank of the Tigris for some distance upstream of Magasis past the tomb of
Imam-al-Mansur
and it contained the strongly entrenched position which became known as the Diyaila Redoubt. The depres1334
sion itself was about 150 yards wide and six feet below the level of the surrounding countryside, and was covered with a stunted thorny acacia shrub which gave cover to hosts of partridges, jackals and wild cats. (Later in the campaign the cavalry collected a pack of hounds together to hunt the jackals and many of the oflSicers were in the habit of getting in some shooting at the few survivors of the partridges that remained after the battle of March 8. The Dujaiia Redoubt was the key to the whole position and Aylmer's plan was to carry this first and then pivot round it towards the Turks' rear, in order to cut their communications and make the right bank untenable. By this manoeuvre he hoped that the Turks would be compelled to evacuate the left bank, leaving him the command of the river and an open door to Kut. Between the beginning of February and March 7, when the attack took place, a consistent pressure was maintained against the Hanna defile. A continual bombardment was kept up on the Turkish positions but this had no other effect than to make the Turks dig deeper, for guns by themselves were not sufficient to force the Turks from their trenches. On February 26 Aylmer sent a signal to Townshend telling him what he proposed to do. An attack was to be made on the south of the Dujaiia Redoubt and Townshend was to send troops across the river to help as soon as he saw Aylmer's attack taking effect. Townshend replied to the effect that his 'full co-operation' could be expected. Rain fell steadily in the last days of February and first few days of March, turning the ground into a
morass which became almost impassable for the British troops. 'D' Day for the attack
had been
set origin-
March 6, but the state of the ground was such that Aylmer made up his mind on the 4th that it would have to be postponed for 24 hours, and next day he decided on a ally as
further postpx)nement; this meant that zero hour was not until dawn on the 8th. Townshend suggested later that the delay was fatal, and no doubt the Turks did know that a major offensive was in the offing. But, in view of what happened, it seems unlikely that they were aware of when it was to be launched or the exact point.
What Aylmer's plan amounted to was nothing less than a full scale frontal assault of the Turkish positions on the right bank of the river, employing virtually the whole of the Tigris force.
The main assault was to
made
while Major-General Younghusband with two brigades (19th and 21st) and a cavalry regiment (16th Cavalry) — force of about 6,500 men in all, supported by 24 guns — kept the Turks busy in the Hanna positions across the river. Three columns of infantry A, B and C, together with the cavalry brigade, were to march on the Dujaiia depression by night and assault the redoubt, and the Turkish line running back to the river from it, at dawn next be
Twenty thousand men were to assemble quietly at the Pools of Siloam about three miles due south of the Hanna position after dark on March 7; from here, directed and led by a small party moving on a compass bearing, they were to advance roughly south-west across the desert in columns of four. At a point some seven miles from the assembly area the force would split into its four component columns and continue to advance towards their individual objectives, until, at dawn, they day.
The attack on the Dujaiia Redoubt. The flanking night march was successfully achieved, but surprise was lost with fatal results. Part of a pontoon bridging train. Each pontoon could be carried on one cart, plus a section of the bridging material. To put up a bridge the pontoons were floated out, anchored at regular intervals, and the jointed bridging material was then laid over them t>
V
crosswise and secured
19/21 Bde 16 Cav Bde I
m * Ataba
Gunboats Mantis Mayfly
Marsh
"^Bdl/ 7/6di
__jEgy9Bde '
9Bdel^l
^
Gunboats Gadfly
Nukhallat
Suwada Marsh
'28
•Bait Isa
Bde
^%
36 Bde i^bBde
Dragonfly
"^37 Bde
35 Bde
? Concentration area for night march
Tigris
Umrr\ al
Baram
Sinn Abtar
8 Bde Keary -i~^-=r 61
Bt^ Point of
Divergence
vbS 1
Imam a! Mansur
r
/^
37 Bde
„n.
60Bty
61Bty
^C i 36 Bde /^8 Bde
BRITISH LINES
8Bty Kemball
#Cav Bde <^ Besouia
TURKISH LINES MILES
OKMS
.^ 3/
\ Hai Brirlge
1335
at locations from which to assault the Turkish striking force was to be
would have arrived they would be able
The main Columns A and B, under Major-General Kemball and they were to make for a point lines.
south of the Dujaila Redoubt. Meanwhile, Column C under a fiery Irishman, MajorGteneral D'Urban Keary, was to veer a mile or so towards the north, whilst the cavalry brigade went in the other direction to 'operate' on the left flank, because they were given no definite objectives these cavalry operations were to become little more than a swan round the open desert.
An unique night march The organisation of the force was the first mistake, and one which was to have a profound effect on the operations. Columns A and B were made up of brigades from three different formations which had never worked together before and neither Kemball, the commander, nor his staff, were known to the troops. The choice of Kemball as commander was made because of the qualities of dash and vigour he had shown in the attacks of Sheikh Saad and the Wadi, but the fact that he was a stranger to the troops was a serious shortcoming. There had been no time for any proper preparation for the attack and although extremely detailed orders were issued it turned out that these were only to have a paralysing effect on the subordinate commanders. A final limitation lay in the fact that the brigades moved with all their transport, ambulances and guns — not behind, as one might have expected in a night march which involved crossing difficult ground and which might have developed into a night attack. Because the units converging on the assembly area were given only a bare two hours to cover the distance between their bivouacs and the rendezvous, which in some cases meant a seven-mile march, it is not surprising that some of them were over an hour and a half late. In spite of an allow-
'No one emerged with reputation unscathed, unless it be the soldiers — British, Indian and Turkish — who suffered appalling privations'
Above right: Lieutenant-General Aylmer, Commander of the Tigris Corps. He lost the confidence of General Lake (commander of the lEF in Mesopotamia) when he expressed doubts as to his ability to get through to Townshend
Above
left:
General Gorringe, Chief-of-Staff
He was appointed by Lake when the began to lose confidence in Aylmer
to Aylmer. latter
Left: Major-General Kemball, commanding general in the attack on the Dujaila Redoubt. With diseased pedantry' he threw away the element of surprise in this attack by insisting on adh-ering rigidly to plan
Below: British troops watering horses in the shallow waters of the Tigris. The Indian troops were later the subject of some controversy: Townshend called them armed bands', but most commanders valued them highly
ance of an hour's margin for accidents this delay — which may be regarded almost as inevitably in the nature of things — was never made good. Nevertheless, the night march was remarkable and probably unique in British military history. In view of the fact that the only reconnaissance for it had been by air and of the extraordinary difficulties inherent in such an operation it was astonishingly successful. The troops set off about 2130 hours. The going was slow and there was a succession of halts as the compass parties, on whom everything depended, stopped to check their bearings. Distances were checked by means of a bicycle wheeled by one man of each compass party; as the column stepped out two men checked the revolution of its wheels whilst another counted steps as a means of comparison and yet another swung a pace stick as a further countercheck; thus an
aggregate distance was estimated. Eventually, shortly before dawn the force £irrived at the point where they were to split up. As planned the two leading columns then turned south along the Dujaila depression whilst C veered north, to face the Dujaila Redoubt from the east. Columns A and B continued along the depression as far as a bend two miles southwest of the redoubt — subsequently known as Kemball's Corner — where they formed up for the attack. It was nearly sunrise by this time but the Turks had given no sign
having spotted the British force; the few Turks who could be seen were merely standing on the parapet of their trenches yawning and shaking out their blankets. It seemed as if complete surprise had been attained and a reconnoitring patrol which went forward and entered the redoubt confirmed an earlier report received from a daring young officer, one Major Leachman, who was working as a political officer. (Disgviised as an Arab he had wandered through the Turkish lines during the night and found the strongpoint to be completely deserted.) Unfortunately, although these of
reports were accepted as being authentic, the prearranged programme — which was of a very detailed nature — included an artillery bombardment before the attack was to be launched. Still more unfortunately the occasion produced no leader with the vision to seize the opportunity and order the advance. Instead, word was telephoned back to Aylmer's headquarters with a request for orders and the reply came back 'Stick to programme'. In retrospect, it seems unquestionable that if the Dujaila Redoubt had been occupied at dawn on March 8 not only would Kut have been relieved, but the safety of the whole Turkish army on the left bank of the Tigris would have been imperilled. Three precious hours were wasted before any forward move took place and not only this, when the artillery moved up it was allowed to register in a leisurely manner and so the whole advantage of the surprise which had been attained was lost. As soon as Kemball's force had advertised its presence with the bombardment, Turkish reinforcements poured into the trenches of the redoubt, and at 1000 hours when the advance started again Khalil's men were ready to meet the attack. Three thousand of them had come from the Magasis Fort to strengthen the line and more were being ferried across from the left bank in native coracle-like mashufs and on skin rafts towed by motor-boats. An air
reconnaissance estimated that at least another 3,000 of them came across the river during the day. Some were caught by the British artillery as they marched across the open ground in close order, but most were unharmed by the gunfire and when once they got to the line of well concealed trenches south of the redoubt they disappeared from view and were safe. Then, as the line of British infantry advanced it was met with heavy rifle and machine gun fire at a range of about 700 yards. By noon Kemball's men had gained only 200 yards and in doing so they suffered very heavy casualties. The advance slowed to a halt,
but whilst they were frantically Jyong in orders were given for the advance to be continued and for an assault. Meanwhile, in accordance with the original orders, D'Urban Keary's column on the east of the redoubt was waiting for Kemball's attack to start before joining battle. It was supposed to have deployed at 0530 hours but it had been another hour before the correct point in the Dujaila depression, a mile short of the bend where the deployment was to be made, was reached. Even then the infantry were still mixed up with mules, artillery wagons and ambulances, and the guns with the column had yet to get into action. Surprise now was out of the question and because D'Urban Keary's column had held back, the last hope of carrying the position was gone. In his despatch following the action. Lake blamed the failure on Kemball's delay although this was not the full story. As Aylmer and Gorringe were both with D'Urban Keary, part of the responsibility must lie with them. A lightly held gap in the Turkish defences yawned in front of Keary's men and, if they had been allowed to go in, the redoubt could still have been taken. But they were held back, the preconceived plan was adhered to and the chance was thrown away. When once it did get moving again Kemball's column in the south still made very little progress in the face of the deadly small arms fire from the concealed positions to the left and in front of the redoubt. A series of attacks preceded by artillery fire were made throughout the day but the troops never really got to grips with their enemies, and they took heavy punishment, without hardly sighting the Turk. So far as they were concerned, the assault on the redoubt proper, which was still a mile away, was now out of the question, and by 1430 hours it became clear that any advance in this direction would entail the annihilation of Kemball's whole force. Once again it had been shown that the paltry bombardment of prepared
^nsL^
133'
-
positions with but a few field guns -which were not firing high explosive anyway and for which there was no aerial observation was an ineffectual screen for the infantry to advance under. Every advantage lay
with the Turks, although the numbers involved were probably evenly matched. Those who were occupying the Dujaila
Redoubt were the pick of the Ottoman army, fresh troops flushed with the success of the Dardanelles and strongly entrenched in a secure position which dominated the plain to be crossed by the attackers. By 1630 hours, when Kemball's attack was completely spent, Aylmer decided to rely on Keary's column to batter a way through on the east side of the redoubt. The Manchesters and the 59th Rifles formed up with the 2nd Rajputs in support and the tired waves of infantry siiook out into formation and started to tramp steadily forward into the sunset. But this last attack, which the troops had been ordered to push home at all costs, had little hope of success for as soon as they got a third of the way across the 3,000 yards that they had to cover, a rattle broke out from the redoubt and the advancing lines were caught in small arms fite from both flanks. At the same time Turkish guns, untouched by the British artillery, put down a heavy bar-
rage in front of "the line on which they were advancing. Despite this the Manchesters and the 59th Rifles managed to gain a loothold in the redoubt and two lines of trenches were occupied. No sooner had they broken in. however, than a counterattack was launched and a whole mass of Turkish infantry, hurling grenades in front of them as they came, threw hack what was left of the assaulting force. British and Indian discipline was good and the thin line of infantiy withdrew in good older under this intensive fire, to halt for the night 3,000 yards from the redoubt. It was all over and Alymer had lost about half of his men. The 8th Brigade alone, which had gone into action with 2,300 men, came out with 1.127; 33 British and 23 Indian oflicers fell in the attack and the 2nd Rajputs lost all their British officers and 12 out of the 16 Indian oificers: a company and a half of the lst/2nd (turkhas who went in with them were practically annihilated. Casualties in the whole Ibrce during the action
The camp
were close on 3,500, including 123 British and 23 Indian officers. The cavalry, who had been given the job of looking after the left flank, can be said to have had absolutely no effect on the battle at all. Like the cavalry, the garrison in Kut contributed nothing to the battle. The force deputed to cross the river, when the Relief Force was seen to be coming round the south of the Dujaila Redoubt, assembled in the palm groves south-east of Kfit early on the morning of March 8. Altogether it comprised about two weak brigades and each man carried about 150 rounds of ammunition and one day's rations. Through the haze the attack on the officers
redoubt could be seen developing, but as the relieving force came no nearer Townshend made no attempt to cross. In his opinion 'co-operation was of little practical use' at this stage.
During the night Aylmer'smen withdrew Kemball's Corner, their morning assembly area. The Turks followed them up but
to
although they shelled the British rearguard and there was a good deal of sporadic sniping in the dark. However, at dawn the ubiquitous local Arabs again appeared on the skyline to fall upon the wretched wounded, bayonelting and stiipping them of their equipment and clothing. Next day the retii'ei7ienl was continued back to the positions from which Aylmer's men had set out. Nothing had been gained and the troops weie weary and dejected. The official explanation of their retirement as relayed thiough Router's channels was that Aylmei's men had retired 'through want of water'; when the British troops heard of they greeted the announcement with it blasphemy and derision; they knew they had been beaten. They had not lost morale but they had lost confidence as a result of what they regarded as the ineptitude of their commanders. They had suffered heavy casualties and what they felt they needed
made no attempt
to attack
was
effective generalship. After the battle of Dujaila the Tigris Corps spent the rest of March licking its wounds. Apart from an occasional thunderstorm the weather was fine and clear and it was not so cold now. But. as the melting snows in the Caucasus poured into the headwaters of the Tigris, the river steadily
of the 30th Squadron, RFC, at Sheikh Saad. After the army's failure to reach Kut, desperate remedies were tried -air drops, and a suicidal attempt to sail up river
and swamps spread out from it to cover the land. As this happened the length of the front line contracted before them and the troops on both sides had to work hard repairing the bunds along the river bank in order to stop the trenches rose
from becoming water pits. The artillery was immobile and what fighting there was
came as the result of patrol actions or occasional flare-ups resulting from attempts to eliminate Turkish snipers. Everybody on the British side — everybody except the Army Commander and his staff, that is — felt that the relief of Kfit was fast becoming a hopeless proposition and the atmosphere was one of despondency. Preparations for the next operation, which once again was to be the one that would open the door to Kut, went steadily ahead. During this period conditions in the firing line had stabilised into trench war-
By the end of March thereUef of Kut was
fast
becoming
hopeless
.
.
.
akin in many respects to that in Flanders — but with modifications. '0-four, five five ack emma', on the morning of April 5 was fixed as zero hour for the first phase of the new operation — the capture of Hanna. Despite the fact that the fine weather had broken on March 30 every possible preparation had been made that could be made; so far as could be foreseen absolutely nothing had been left to chance. Guns had been massed on both banks of the river, the barbed wire entanglements in front of the Turkish positions had been shelled and shelled again in order to break fare,
them down and
the guns were
now
all
ready to pulverise the actual trenches. The 13th Division, whose arrival it had hoped had been kept a secret from the Turks, had rehearsed its operational roles on a scale model; every unit knew its tasks and its place. The first lines of the Hanna trenches were to be assaulted 'silently', there was to be no artillery bombardment until the attack was well under way. The trenches,
it
was hoped, would be
carried by surprise
— infantry, bombers and bayonets finishing the job when once the assaulting waves had reached their objectives. Only when first line had been taken would the guns open up, and then registering on the third line while the attackers were pushing on to take the second position. Behind the 13th Division the 7th was to mop up and be ready to move forward to help if this became necessary; on the right bank the task of the men of the 3rd was to pin down the Turks facing them and to shoot up any Turks across the river who were trying to move forward from the Failahiyeli
the
position.
For
ail
this to go well, all that initial surprise.
was wanted was the
An element
of
surpi ise
was achieved on
this particular occasion and the attack got off to a good start. But within a few hours it
.
had again bogged down and
.
.
and the
in
two actions
possibility
of Townshend
breaking out was reconsidered Fallahiyeh and Sannaiyat the 13th Division who bore the brunt of the fighting suffered over .3.(i()() casuahies — 46'^f of ho actual troops engaged This was an appnllinglv high casualty rale, evrn lor an at
I
attritional battle. The tempo ofthe figliting may also be judged from the fact that five Victoiia Ciosses were won in these two
To make matters worse the weather turned against the British with devastating violence, and the Turks broke down the bunds to assist the work of Nature. In spite of everything yet another attack was planned for April 13. This time the initial objective was the Turkish position at Beit Aisa. When it was launched — two days late, because of the state of the ground — the result was the same as before: nothing gained and appalling casuFaced with the same stalemate alties. Gorringe shifted his attention to the left bank of the river and on April 20 yet anactions.
other attack was staged. The objective was Sannaivat and once more it was a failure.
V ifa.
*K
^w% 'm
«
^l
By this time it is doubtful whether the action at Sannaiyat, even if it had been a success, could have saved Townshend. The fate of Kut was said to have hung on its outcome, but after Sannaiyat the Relief Force would
have had to fight its way through the Es Sinn position, and 'flesh and blood could do no more'. The Tigris Corps casualties, in the three weeks from April 5 to April 23 were just under 10,000 men; this was 25% of the force and in some formations the percentage was much higher. As an example — taking into still
account the reinforcements they received dining the period- one particular brigade lost over 100% of its strength and 190% of its British officers. In KCit there were about 12,500 men, and in the efforts to relieve them the Tigris Corps lost 23,000 in battle casualties alone in the lour months between Januaiy and April 1916; there were also large numbers of sick hut these are not included in this figuie. Coiiesponding Turkish losses during this period are estimated to have been about 10,000. The garrison in Kut was now on minirations, and to complete the sorry story the details of the last desperate attempt which was made to reprovision it must be recounted. At 2000 hours on April 24 the paddle steamer Jiilnnr, which had beeti specially prepaied and loaded with 270 tons of supplies, made a most gallant attempt to force the blockade. The mission was a forlorn hope, bitterly criticised, but a magtiidcenl adventure in the best Biitish naval tradition. Lieutenant II. O. B. Firman, R.N., was given command and
mum
Ivieutenant-Commander Cowley, who had been commanding the Mejidieh, ap[X)inted pilot. Cowley, a most unusual piratical character, had been in the service of Euphrates and Tigris Navigation Company for many years and because of this he was regarded by the Turks as one of their subjects. Knowing that they looked upon him as a renegade and that he would get short shrift if he was captured, the fact that he volunteered for the job in spite of it makes his actions even more outstanding; he did so because he knew the river and the Julnar well, and probably he was the man best suited to this suicidal operation. Owing to the floods, the Tigris was
then at
its
highest level and the darkness
and the shifting shoals would havf made the venture risky enough even with friends on both banks. But with a gauntlet of guns to be run for some 25 miles of river and
unknown obstacles to be navigated in the shape of mines and booms, the chances of the Julnar getting through were pretty remote. In the hope of distracting the Turks, her departure was covered by all the artillery that could be brought to beaiby Gorringe's force, but the Turks were too alert to be caught unawares. It was moonlight when the Julnar set off. Any hope of maintaining surprise for more than a few minutes was, of course, impossible and as soon as she came opposite the first Turkish lines there was a fusilade of rifle and machine gun fire from both banks. As she passed through the Sinn position the Turkish barrage intensified, but the Julnar had been fitted with armour plates and sand-bagged and she steamed on. Disaster came as she was nearing Magasis, about four miles off Kut 'eight and a half miles by river). Steel wire hawsers had been stretched diagonally across the stream and when the ship's rudder became tangled in one of these she was held. There the Turks were waiting for her; it would hardly be surprising if her arrival had not been expected, since she had been prepared lor the voyage at a known hot-bed of spies. After a quick and intense bombardment in which most of the crew were either killed or wounded, a boarding party administered the coup de f>race and next morning the
Amara,
Julnar could be seen from Kut lying alongside the river bank by the Magasis F"ort. Those ofthe crew who were still alive were hauled off into captivity; all that is, except the wretched Cowley who was executed. Further Reading Barker. A. J The Neglected War (Faber & Faber ,
1967) Candler. sell
E.,
The Long Road
to
Baghdad
(Cas-
1919)
Moberly, Brig. -Gen. F J Official History of the Great War- The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914-1918. Vol (HMSO 1923) Townshend. Ma| -Gen Sir Charles. My Campaign in Mesopotamia (Butterworth 1920) ,
I
[For Lieutenant-Colonel A. biography, see page 434. ]
J.
Barker's
& The surrender of Kut was an
UWNSHEND:
SURRENDER
CAPTURE
inglorious end to a sad chapter of British mihtary muddle. The Turks, having closed the ring around Kut, were content to fight off the relief attempts while waiting for the town to starve into submission, yet during this time of waiting Townshend made no attempt to break out or join up with the relieving force. Nor did he immediately conduct a thorough assessment of his force's food supply. Certainly Townshend's conduct, his character and personality, are at the centre of the controversy which surrounds the surrender of Kiit.
Donald Clark.
A personal signal from Townshend, only two days before
Below:
DISGRACE fp»^
tr-'Umt." &Sn^:'S^
the surrender. Revealingly, is loaded with self-pity and devoid of self-criticism The
siege of
Kut
al
it
Amara has been
vari-
ously described as a noble feat of endurance, a shameful episode in the history of the British army, the stand that saved Mesopotamia and the Middle East oil supply for the Allies, and the cause of much loss of British prestige in the Arab world. In parts it was all of these things. Even before the siege had ended knives were being sharpened in Whitehall and India and suitable scapegoats selected. No one emerges from its history with reputation unscathed unless it be the soldiers — British, Indian and Turkish -who suffered appalling privations during the five months' campaign. For the British it was, both politically and militarily, a campaign of errors. The 6th (Poona) Division and its commander undoubtedly exhibited fortitude of the highest order, certainly the Turkish forces were denied access to the Basra vilayet, but the cost in lives, lost prestige and embarrassment was high.
NAVAL SIGNAL.
Y' PWM
Except
for
two comparatively weak
at-
tacks on Woolpress village, one in late January and one in late February, concerted efforts by the Turks to capture Kut by storm had ceased by Christmas Day 1915. On December 20, 1915, von der Goltz had decided that the garrison must be starved out and that the bulk of the Turkish force must be used to deny access to the relieving troops. This, in fact, was exactly what happened. Nevertheless, the events leading to the success of the Turkish plan show that success was not inevitable. Townshend was to become the centre of the controversy that arose concerning the loss of
/^\''
..««:^ 1340
,t/
Kut and his
division,
and
this contro-
versy remains alive, if muted, to the present day. An accurate appraisal of the defence of Kut cannot be made without some knowledge of Townshend as a soldier. A serious student of military history, he habitually compared contemporary actions with those of the past. He was devoted to the principles of war laid down by Napo-
leon and maintained a high regard for those generals who he felt measured up to his own ideas of professionalism. He judged von der Gk)ltz to be Europe's leading strategist and his respect for him was such that he angrily ordered the immediate ceasefire of an artillery piece attempting to hit a group of German Staff Officers, including von der Goltz, who were visiting the Turkish positions outside Kut on January 16, 1916. There can be no doubt that he was convinced of the correctness of all his major decisions throughout the siege, and the tone and content of some of his telegrams to his superiors during this period leave the impression that he doubted the correctness of theirs. Finally, Townshend's relationship with his 'beloved 6th Division' was curiously ambivalent. Throughout the siege he informed his force of the situation by means of communiques. He believed these to be a sound method of maintaining morale, yet many of them have the tone of an apologia and some, distressingly, a publication of others' faults. The wisdom of the communiques has been questioned by some of his own subordinates. Beloved though his division was, he drew sharp distinctions between his British and Indian troops. There is no doubt that- the Indian element of the force had many deficiencies in leadership, morale and training, but remarks like 'they are proved to be utterly unfitted for modern war conditions in periods of stress, as now constituted. In the stress of siege they lose spirit very quickly' do not reflect either the whole truth or mature judgement. Elsewhere he describes his Indian battalions as "armed bands'. Overall the impression to be gained, from both
Townshend's memoirs and his biography related by his cousin Erroll Sherson, is of a leader giving comfort to the led and not just receiving but needing the adulation they gave him in return. Townshend says he determined to defend Kut as a river line, using the entrenched camp as a pivot of manoeuvre, with a defended bridge to throw his principal mass to either bank in offensive action against any isolated fraction of the enemy — 'I should manoeuvre as if I were fighting a defensive/ offensive battle.' Lack of time to establish a fortified bridgehead, owing to the priority
he felt he had to give to preparing the almost non-existent main defences, is the reason Townshend gives for failing to establish a bridge: 'Such dispositions would Jiave made all the difference in the world. As it was I was forcibly pinned down to the passive defence.' This time factor, combined with the further complication of the amount of bridging equipment available, warrants a closer study. Townshend's inability throughout the siege to cross the Tigris rapidly and in strength was to become a much discussed topic between himself and the relieving forces. Had he been able to do so, his defensive posture, his ability to support the relieving forces and his ability to escape would all have altered. Brigadier-General Rimington, GOC Kut prior to
Townshend's
arrival,
was
instruct-
ed to build a bridge connecting Kut to Woolpress village, while the 6th Division were arriving in the area from Ctesiphon. No bridge was built — Rimington's report stated that only 250 yards of bridging were available whereas the distance to be covered was some 450 yards. There seems some doubt about the accuracy of this statement
remains of the 6th Division's bridging train and the old Turkish boat bridge now in British hands, a large quantity of bridging material had arrived by river in Kut on November 28. Townshend's initial orders on taking command required a bridge to be built south of Kut where the river varied in width from 450-600 yards. On the right bank it was to be protected by a bridgehead of three since, in addition to the
redoubts and entrenchments. However, events show that the first construction was made on December 5 in the north-east corner of the entrenched camp by the fort. On December 6 the Cavalry Brigade left Kut by this bridge. Thereafter the bridge was dismantled and re-erected on a new 270-yard wide site east of Kut! The new bridge was completed on the evening of December 8 but the time for preparing the defensive bridgehead had run out. A detachment of Indian troops about to commence digging were driven back across the river on December 9 by Turkish attackers who had closed up on the garrison, and the bridge was severed on Townshend's orders on the night December 9/10. Attempts to save parts of the bridge failed and they were destroyed by gunfire. This loss of materials precluded any hope of a further attempt at constructing a per-
manent
bridge.
Had
the divisional bridging train been ordered to build initially in the second position east of Kut, a minimum of four
A noble feat or a shameful disgrace? days would have been available for preparing a defended bridgehead to include the so-called East Kut Mounds — a line of old canal embankments ten to 15 feet high. A bridgehead properly established in this area would have protected shipping as efficiently as the Woolpress position and denied Turkish observation on the right bank of the river. The attack on the second bridge, albeit at a difficult
moment, seems
for jeopardising the raison d'etre of the force. Townshend's reiterated view of his role was to detain as
an inadequate reason
many Turks as possible; at least as many as his own garrison. In this he failed and the failure may have been largely owing to the Turkish knowledge that a break-out was unlikely thereafter on the southern flank. Despite the bridge fiasco, other defence
works progressed speedily. In his despatch of March 10, 1916, he refers to the early period — 'I wish here to make the truth perfectly clear that Kut was absolutely without defences, not a single trench was the fort and chain of blockhouses dug a great drawback' — which conflicts slightly with Nixon's signal to the India Office on December 2, 1915, noting that the position across the Kut peninsula was practically finished. This apparent lack of rapport between Townshend and his superior, the commander of lEF 'D', pervades the history .
.
.
of the siege. Notwithstanding the exhaustion of his troops and the imminence of the Turkish forces, Townshend managed between December 5 and 25 to complete his
defensive preparations and at the same time ward off all attempts by the Tvu-ks to capture Kut by conventional assault.
The Turkish investing forces comineneed heavy shelling of Kut on December 8, incidentally destroying considerable stores of food in the fort. Shelling continued on December 9 and this bombardment preceded an assault during the night December 9/10 which brought the Turks to within 600 yards of the British forward line. By light on December 10 the Turkish infantry had apparently disappeared — unfortunately only a reminder for the garrison of how well the Turks had learnt to dig in rapidly. The next two days saw a slight advance of the Turkish positions again to the accompaniment of heavy shelling followed by a further attempt at assault on the night December 12/13. The attack was repulsed with heavy casualties to the first
Turkish forces estimated to be 2,000. The casualties and morale of the besieged were already beginning to worry Townshend — some 618 had been killed or wounded in the period December 9/13 while in a telegram on December 10 to General Aylmer, he says, 'I had to relieve one unit out of trenches last night, as the Brigadier-
General said he could not guarantee the safety of his sector unless it was taken
away at once.' The garrison thereafter enjoyed a period of comparative calm until December 24. Calm is hardly an accurate word to describe ceaseless digging and wiring in extremely unpleasant conditions subjected to intermittent shelling and continuous rifle fire. The force on the peninsula now had contact with the right bank of the river only by barge or launch owing to the earlier failure to establish a secure bridgehead. The battalion garrisoning Woolpress was supplied by these vessels at night. As a deterrent to Turkish encroachment in the area surrounding Woolpress a sortie was organised on December 14. A further sortie, on this occasion in the area of the fort, took place on the night December 17/18 to destroy Turkish sapping operations. This latter action, successful as it was, is ironically the only resemblance between Townshend's defence at Kut and his earlier action at Chitral which he had proposed to emulate. Close-quarter fighting Probably against the instructions of von der Goltz, the Turks launched their final and most serious attack against Townshend's defences on Christmas Eve. This attack by the newly-arrived 52nd Division developed into a sustained thrust against the fort at the north-east corner of the British first line, after a bombardment lasting from 0700 hours until 1200 hours. The heavy shelling rapidly crumbled the walls of the fort and the assaulting Turkish infantry effected a lodgement on the walls. Close-quarter fighting continued for some two hours and only the prompt support given to the immediate defenders of the bastion and north-east wall of the fort by the Volunteer Artiller\' Batten,' saved the situation. The attack was renewed at 2000 hours and fighting continued until 2400 hours. At one time it appeared that the Turkish infantry in the north-east bastion of the fort would break out of their lodgement area, but by desperate measures, with pioneers and sappers thrown in to aid the hard-pressed and much reduced infantry, the enemy were contained. A third attempt to press home the assault commenced at 0230 hours on Christmais Day but rapidly petered out. Townshend re-
1341
marks that 'the Turkish officer who commanded the assault should not have been pardoned for his failure. In an attack of this nature the reserves should be crammed on the heels of the storming parties. It was no time to think of loss of life, for if
you cannot afford to lose heavily you should not try an assault.' The defenders suffered 382 casualties and Turkish losses were estimated at 2,000.
The period December 25 to 31 was quiet except for shelling, troops in the north-east sector after the Christmas Eve fight had to acclimatise themselves to the smell of decomposition, but this was a trifling matter which was submerged beneath the atmosphere of optimism inside Kut. All defences were complete, damage to the fort had been repaired, the repulse of the Turks on December 24/25 had done much to restore confidence, trench mortars and periscopes had been fabricated by the sappers, full rations were still in issue, there were few signs of a breakdown in health and many were confident of coming success for Aylmer's relief force which was even then assembling at Ali al Gharbi.
Kut operations Khalil the investing forces. In his diaries he mentions the lack of suitable artillery as a severe handicap and that, after the first assault on the fort had been beaten back, this contributed to von der Goltz's decision to order the starvation tactic. As the investment of Kut proceeded the Turks were able to reduce the forces At
this stage in the
commanded
,j0^
•#
surrounding Townshend, and Khalil remarks that by the time his preparations were completed only two regiments remained. Khalil, a nephew of Enver Pasha, had been sent to the Turkish Sixth Army to resurrect a military career that had suffered an unpropitious start in the Caucasus theatre; Lawrence judged him as energetic rather than bright. Nevertheless, he was soon (on January 10) to replace Nur ud Din as overall commander of the Turkish forces in the Tigris Campaign. Probably the greatest controversy surrounding Townshend's conduct of the siege centred on the quantity of supplies available to the garrison. It can easily be seen that the time available to the relieving forces to concentrate and prepare their attack could be dependent upon the survival time of Townshend's force. The confusion that arose on this one point was owing in no small way to Townshend's neglect in ensuring that the supply situation was known from the beginning by both Nixon and Aylmer. How crucial was this error is debatable but the inability of each of the three headquarters to understand the intentions of the others compounded the problem. In simple terms Townshend estimated his food supplies on six dates between December 3 and January 24: • On December 3 one month's British rations, two months' Indian. • On December 7 two months' British rations, less meat, and two months' Indian. • On December 11 59 days' British rations, less meat, and 59 days' Indian. • On January 16 21 days' British rations, 18 days' Indian.
• On January 21 • On January 24
14 days' rations for all. 22 days' rations but can
last longer by commandeering food and eating horse flesh (3,000 mules and horses
available). All these estimates place Townshend's limit of survival between February 4 and
February 10, except the last which pointed to February 15, but left the situation openended. On January 25, after a preliminary signal saying 22 days' worth of some rations existed and 34 days of others, Townshend informed Aylmer and Lake that he, in fact, had 84 days' food plus meat on the hoof! Aylmer's views were modestly expressed in a signal of the same date: Tt must be acknowledged that Townshend's
telegrams throw a completely new light on the situation and I am delighted. I quite recognise there are other factors besides food but this new information, had it .
.
.
been communicated to me before, would have certainly modified much of what I have unsuccessfully attempted to do.' Whatever Townshend's views might have been on the tactical competence of Aylmer it must be admitted that the latter's hurried preparations for the initial attempts at relief were caused by anxiety over the
Kut food supply. Townshend says in his despatch on March 10 that on arrival in Kut he had instructed that 'a list of all supplies had to be furnished to me, including those available in the town, which would be commandeered if necessary'. In his memoirs he mentions that his orders
commandeer food had not at first been carried out. Lake, when forwarding Townshend's account of the siege to the Chief of the General Staff in Simla remarked, T cannot acquit General Townshend of a serious error of judgement in neglecting to to
GHQ
or OC Relieving state of supplies.' Townshend's argument was that as he fully expected relief within six weeks, for which period there could be no possible problem of supplies, he saw no need to enquire closely into the matter. After Aylmer's signal he replied that much of the additional food was obtained from within the town. To obtain these supplies meant upsetting yet again an already hostile population, some 6,000 in number, who, incidentally, remained in Kut after Sir Percy Cox had pleaded with Townshend not to evict them. Townshend asserts that one of the two things that struck him throughout the operation was that 'our people were always a month late in their plans and a division short in numbers'.
acquaint
either
Column with a
true
Floods, frost and falling morale The months of January, February and March were difficult and depressing for the Colonel Hehir, Townshend's garrison. senior medical officer, in his submission
Mesopotamia Commission stated that Kut was the most insanitary town that lEF 'D' had yet entered. Throughout January and February the temperature fell to freezing point every night. There was a continuous night frost from January 15 to February 8 and for three days in January the trenches were flooded with icy water. On January 21 the first line of defence in the north-west sector had to be abandoned as a considerable area was inunAbandonment by day brought dated. casualties, and repair work on flood damage had to be done at night. The morale of the force fell. No assault came to relieve the monotony of being shelled and sniped at by the Turks. No sortie or other offensive action was taken to excite flagging spirits. Occasionally the sound of sustained to the
gunfire from down-river raised hopes that
relief was at hand. Units stood by to cooperate with the relieving force when the word was given, but it never was. Bursts of hope were followed by communiques explaining the latest failure, exhorting all to further eff'orts and holding out faith in the future. From February 13 onwards the garrison was further plagued by the German aeroplane which had previously operated in a reconnaissance role, and which now commenced to bomb the town, seemingly taking some care to attack the General Hospital, set up in a bazaar, where numerous casualties occurred.
Although rations were not an immediate problem there had never been any fresh vegetables available and gradually the resulting imbalance in diet took effect. Men gathered local herbs and grasses to eke out their food; lack of knowledge of these plants contributed to an increase in enteric complaints and some deaths, including that of Brigadier-General Hoghton. On January 21 Townshend considered it necessary to reduce the ration issue by a half and thereafter the results of a poor diet became more obvious. In the case of the Indian troops their refusal to eat horsemeat led in the latter stages of the siege to a more rapid breakdown in their health. By the time sufficiently strong action had been taken to make them eat this otherwise forbidden flesh it was too late to recoup their strength. Brigadier-Generals Melliss and Delamain both considered that the communiques issued by their superior contributed to the Indian soldiers belief that relief was just around the corner and that there was no need to eat horseflesh. Having taken the precaution of obtaining a dispensation for this action from Muslim and Hindu religious leaders in India, Townshend did little to persuade his troops to take advantage of it and strict measures were taken too late in the day. The complete passivity of Townshend's defence during this period has received
much comment. General
Staff" in
It
was deplored by who were singulaTi-. ;
India
lacking in understanding of the aifair. Three types of action could have been taken — a major effort to co-operate with approaching relief units, a breakout, and local action. The credibility of the off'ensive/defensive role became suspect when Townshend destroyed his bridge. Any move to the right bank was hazardous especially if there was no intention of
off"ensive
abandoning the Kut peninsula. The time was critical. Too small a force mustered across the river was valueless and in danger. A larger force needed more time and, should the Turks have advance knowledge of the move, would leave the landward perimeter without reserves. Offensive action on the landward side was made difficult by the extremely poor going between the British and Turkish trenches, factor here
although this disadvantage applied equally Operations on either bank might just have been possible provided that timely and accurate information of Turkish moves and strengths had been available. Townshend accounted a breakout attempt to be a mistake as well as 'a terrible thing to leave behind me the wounded to the Turks.
and abandon them like a thief remove all his men and would take 14 days — possibly six working round the clock — and in his diary Townshend says 'it would want a Maskeleyne and Cook to get out of the place and if I could get away with 3,000 ... it would be a miracle, and there are no and
sick
.
.
.
in the night'. To stores from Kut
miracles in war'.
Whether Townshend could have cooperated with Aylmer and Gorringe is a moot point. He was certainly prepared for the contingency — flying bridges were constructed to cross the river and ramps made to cross entrenchments should relief come via the left bank. On March 8, at the time of Aylmer's last attempt at relief, the Turks thought that the 6th Division might cooperate with the Tigris Corps. Probabh^ an effort at this stage, even at the risk of the bridgehead being finally driven in, would have pulled Turkish reserves north to Kut. The
effect of Turkish shell fire on Kut. The population of Kut. estimated at 6.000, was hostile to the British, although, ironically, many of those who tried to escape were shot by the Turks
but Townshend was only willing to move when guaranteed a junction with the relief. Aylmer certainly expected help and signalled Kut asking for news of the 6th Division's moves. Townshend, on the other hand, held back as he felt his strength insufficient to help and because the crossing of the Tigris could never have been a rapid manoeuvre. Furthermore, he feared the hostile population of Kut who, apart from any direct action they might take, were in contact with the enemy. The latter, Townshend thought, would know all his moves including the work on bridge preparation. The continual passage of informers into and out of Kut calls in question the value of Townshend's communiques which in some cases may have provided information of value to the Turks.
Disease and hunger By February 29 more than 800 of the besieged had been killed or died of wounds, twice that number were wounded and there had been 443 deaths from disease. Gastroenteritis, diarrhoea and malaria affected the British troops whilst dysentery, pneumonia and scurvy were the more prevalent causes of Indian deaths. Both alike suffered from frostbite and trench rheumatism. The investing forces, of course, suffered no less than the besieged through the cold spell. Inundations of the Turkish advanced trenches and saps were sufficiently bad to cause their abandonment, and Khalil's front line opposite Kut was withdrawn some 1 ,500 yards and remained there after the land dried out in February. Although on interior lines of communication, the Turkish force also lacked supplies. Mesopotamia provided little and Turkish priorities were for the Third Army fighting the Russians. The Sixth Army was often short of food and clothing, and suffered unreplaced losses from sickness. On March 10 Khalil wrote to Townshend suggesting the unlikelihood of relief after the failure of Aylmer's attempt on March 8 and, in view of the disease und hunger reported by deserters, proposed that the garrison surrender to the Turks. Townshend rebuffed this suggestion but signalled Gcrringe, now OC Relief Force in place of Aylmer, on March 11 asking if negotiations with Khalil might start while preparations for further relief attempts were under way. He considered that negotiations would be more successful with food in hand as a
bargaining factor. Estimates at this time showed the garrison could exist at starvation rates until April 17. Townshend asked that his suggestion be put before the government 'in his ov/n words', should Lake agree to act, to prevent any misunderstanding of his meaning. Townshend's
argument
in this case was that Kut had served its purpose after three months. Lake disapprovingly forwarded the request and Townshend had his reply within a few days: he was to take no steps towards negotiations without authority from T v'- '^v? War Office had considered tht the Chief of the Imperial signalled India 'deprecating' T proposals. Deprecation or not tl tion must have sparked off a thought somewhere because Lake re a signal on March 29 saying that Cap '
d
.
T. E. Lawrence was due at Basra on Ma. 30 to try and purchase a Turkish leader lu facilitate the relief of Kut. A nu/nber of the communications with
1344
Gorringe and Lake show a lowering in Townshend's own morale and in his faith in his own forces and those trying to relieve him. Thus, on March 11: 'If the could authorise me deKut that on relief, they will be sent back to India to refit, it would have a most beneficial effect on their spirits and also lessen desertion.' On the same day he complains again of the conduct of his Muslim and Hindu troops and, three days later, after discussing with the plans for using his artillery to support the next relief attempt, he says '. anxious you bring your absolute maximum for it is plain that if the next effort fails we shall be lost'. Townshend's request for a respite in India for the 6th Division was refused by Lake, who considered that 3rd and 7th Divisions who had earlier fought in France were equally as deserving as the garrison of Kut. Throughout March the scale of issue of food had to be decreased. Reductions made on the 8th and 18th of the month weakened the troops and disease became more prevalent. Discussion of the supplies in Kut continued between Townshend and GHQ. On March 15 and again on March 18 he confirmed that the garrison could last until April 15. Troops in Kut had now started to faint whilst on sentry duty, many fatigues were impossible as the soldiers no longer had enough strength to do them, and sciu-vy amongst the Indians had reached a total of 580 cases by the end of March. They had still to be persuaded to eat horseflesh, and Turkish propaganda, in the form of broadsheets, added to their poor state of morale. Even more discornfort was caused by the annual Tigris floods reaching Kut by the middle of the month. Two of the redoubts were abandoned and communications with the fort were possible only by a raised track.
Army Commander
finitely to tell all in
GHQ .
.
Finally, from April 12 onwards, work in hand to modify the few aircraft of the Tigris Corps so that supplies might be dropped to the garrison. This was the first time that supply by air had been attempted. Apparently the idea was a sudden thought of the air commander in Mesopotamia. As late as December 1915 an lEF 'D' memorandum on the subject of employment of aircraft quoted reconnaissance, bombing, intercommunication and artillery observation as possible tasks but made no mention of air supply. Townshend, when asked, stated that an air drop of some 5,000 pounds a day would allow the garrison to exist indefinitely. A few days were spent modifying the aircraft and the attempt began. It was bedevilled by bad weather, few aircraft (none of which were in the best of condition), the threat of the
was put
superior German aircraft attacking them, and the inexperience of the pilots. As a result Gorringe told Townshend that the maximum daily drop would be 3,350 pounds only. Rations inside Kut were promptly reduced by a fvu-ther ounce. In the event some 16,800 pounds of food were air-dropped into Kut between April 15 and 27, unfortunately not enough. Townshend dismisses the attempt; in his memoirs he notes 'My anxiety now regarding food was intense, for it was patent to all of us that the air food supply service was a hope^ less failure.' Had the idea to feed Kut by air occurred earlier it might well have saved the day. Lawrence's opinion mentioned in Seven Pillars of Wisdom was that with eight aeroplanes resistance could have
been prolonged
in
Kut was
approaching the end. It is doubtful if more than a few thousand were capable of sustained physical effort by the beginning of April. Food issues became even less, reaching their lowest ebb on April 10 when the grain ration for all was reduced to 5 ounces, which, with horseflesh, was all that was left. Co-operation with Gorringe was out of the question whichever bank he advanced on. The effort of ferrying or building flying bridges was beyond the garrison and the landward front remained inundated—Turkish trenches had become dykes 11 feet deep and six feet wide and these inundations reached into the defended perimeter of Kut. Desperate measures were considered, and some tried, to keep the garrison from starving. Lake suggested that eviction of the 6,000 local inhabitants might save the day. Townshend replied that eviction by land was impossible because of the floods, while there were insufficient mahaihs to send even half the native population by river. Moreover the Turks had taken to shooting all Arabs
tempting to escaf;? from Kuf they would ither the locals consumed food that auld otherwise jrwlong irrison's resistance. Lake also suggestev.. 'tempt
by the Royal Navy to run and reach Kut 'th a K The navy cor; vv -d the agreed to tai^ on pro* means existed 3 all and .
i
-a.
ti
mtlet ship.
but other :'.sort.
to exhort all to
yet another effort and explained to the Indian troops that they now had to eat the horsemeat that had been so long available to them. More than half did so and the majority of the remainder followed suit after
The beginning of the end Quickly now the garrison
indefinitely.
Townshend continued
Townshend's ultimatum
to
them on
April 12. Colonel Hehir, however, noted on the same day that the Indians were now in a state of semi-starvation, emaciated and too weak to carry out the tasks of a defence force. It was clear that the chances of relief were slight indeed. On April 16 Townshend signalled Lake saying that the
Turks would probably demand an unconsurrender should Gorringe fail again unless they could be paid to let the garrison go. Should there be doubt of the chances of relief he considered it wise to commence negotiations at once while he still had some food available. Even the ditional
Arabs were at
this stage deserting
Kut
although the majority escaping were killed by the Turks. On April 19 Lake told Townshend that he hoped the garrison would not need to wait more than a few days for relief. It was a forlorn hope. By April 21 all ordinary rations had gone. Two days' emergency rations were made to last four days and for the remainder of the siege the garrison consumed the little food that had been got in by air. The desperate naval attempt to replenish the garrison with 270 tons of food in the J ulnar failed and the badly needed stores fell into Turkish hands. Townshend asked Lake whether or not negotiations should be opened on the 23rd and suggested that a parole be obtained, using money if necessary. His force was now so weak, and the Turkish besiegers themselves so short of supplies, that he hoped food would be allowed into the garrison while negotiations progressed. Two
Above
left:
The standard
daily ration in 1915
for British troops overseas: Bread, cabbage, beef, bacon, pickles, jam, cheese, tea, sugar
and condensed milk. Above right: The daily ration at the end of the siege of Kut: 12 oz of bread, IV4 lbs of horse meat, 1 oz of jam. Right: The siege of Kut as the end drew near.
Below: The chart shows the huge difference between Townshend's real needs in rations and the amount flown in. This was probably the 'ration-drop' in military history. Food free from low-flying planes in specially prepared containers
first
packages were dropped
dropped, per day dropped, duration
1 26Glbs (average) 19 OOOIbs (total)
needed, per day 5 OOOIbs needed for duration 76 OOOIbs (April 15-29)
days later he asked Lake to ensure that ten days' food was prepared for despatch to the garrison by April 29. Disease inside Kut was now causing 15 deaths a day from dysentery and many more from scurvy. Townshend asked that the Army Commander should carry out the negotiations, but the latter replied on April 25 saying that Townshend was more likely to achieve better terms once perrhission by the government had been given. The negotiations were not Townshend's preference since without food he felt he would be arguing from weakness whereas the Army Commander could have argued from strength by threatening a resumption of hostilities. Hardly a convincing argument
1345
^. •.*
.
nav^l signal.
JI^AJ/
P TP^^c:;^"^^^^
.^-
y^
\:: /^^
llVi/lWO.
--
1346
Sta. f/14.
SU.^96/l«.
V
--'' _^..^*'
;':'**,''
hours, April 29, 1916: Townshend's last signal from Kut. The attempt to buy freedom with £1,000,000, and then £2,000,000 had failed and the whole force went into captivity. The Turks were not calculatedly cruel to their prisoners, but their characteristic indifference to suffering caused many needless deaths. General Townshend (seated in the middle) with his Turkish captors immediately after surrender
A1330
V
'^•-
fi
in the circumstances!
On
April 26 the surrender negotiations commenced and, as with other details of the siege of Kut, controversy has raged
around them ever
since.
Townshend was
instructed to obtain the best terms he could and £1 ,000,000 were placed at his disposal. His first action was to write to the local Turkish commander saying that he was authorised to negotiate, that he wanted a six-day armistice, permission for food to be brought into the garrison and permission for Lawrence and Aubrey Herbert to join him at Kut to assist with the negotiations. Also on April 26 Townshend sent a letter to Khalil repeating these details and adding that he hoped Khalil, who had already expressed admiration of the garrison's efTorts, would grant honourable terms and allow them to return to India on parole. He added that Khalil would not then be
burdened with having
to
feed,
pay and
transport the survivors as prisoners of war. Khalil's reply was equivocal, saying that Townshend and the garrison would receive an honourable reception in Turkey as did Osman Pasha in Russia after Plevna.
Surrender The two commanders met on April 27 when all hostilities ceased. Khalil at first demanded an unconditional surrender followed by captivity. Further discussion and the mention of money elicited a hope from Khali! that better terms might be possible but Enver would need to be consulted first. Khalil was insistent, however, that while negotiations took place the 6th Division should move out of Kut after which they would be supplied with tents and food from the Ji/I»(ir. Tiiis initial conference was held by the two generals in secrecy. Lake, pressed again by Townshend to take over negotiations, refused on grounds of tlie
(lr'l,-iy
that
would
ciisiu'.
TowMHlicnd
WMK (old lie could (liici ^iiiis, iiioiicy and an exchange of prisoners in exchange for a parole. In addition Townshend was asked to obtain a guarantee for the civilian population of Kut and to do what he could lii.'^
the Tigris. On April 28 Townshend wrote to Khalil offering these terms and asking him to reconsider the matter. The garrison was not prepared to evacuate Kut in what amounted to unconditional surto block
render but would move to a tented camp on high ground near the fort to meet Khalil's wishes. Townshend pointed out that his doctors had said some 20-30 soldiers would die each day if taken into captivity in their enfeebled condition. Khalil, in his diary, remarks that it was necessary for Townshend to be taken prisoner to support Turkish morale, that he had no interest in the British manufactured weapons which his ammunition did not fit, and lastly that he considered the £1,000,000 offer a joke. Later on the 28th Khalil replied mentioning that Enver would parole only Townshend personally but his troops must stay captive. Townshend asked for further instructions from Lake and suggested 'upping the ante' to £2,000,000 with an exchange of an equal number of Turkish for the complete garrison at Kut. Lawrence and Herbert conducted the negotiations without success. In a letter to his mother in May 1916 Lawrence said he had been pessimistic of his chances, knowing Khalil had all the cards in his hands, and in fact the attempt failed. Later Khalil did agree to allow the seriously sick in Kut to go
POW
and then not from the J ulnar and, altboug the Turks had not behaved in any overtly cruel fashion at this stage, their lack of interest in the fate of the captives was sufficient to cause 300 deaths within a week of the surrender. This treatment presaged one of the most unpleasant episodes of the war. Four thousand of the remaining 12,000 POWs are known to have died in captivity, including over 70% of the British rank and file. Of the Indian troops the ultimate fate of many is unknown. One thousand three hundred are known to have died, but escapees were still arriving in India as late as 1924. The surrender was an inglorious end to a sad chapter of British military muddle. The blow to British pride was enormous and recriminatory action commenced almost at once, but for the dead and captive it was too late. The effects of the surrender at Kut reverberated round the War Office and the Cabinet, and if nothing else was achieved by this failure it at least forced a complete reorganisation of the army in Mesopotamia.
down to Basra in exchange for an equal number of Turkish POWs — Khalil specifying the regiments concerned and confirming to Lawrence his distrust of the Arab soldiery in the Turkish army who he stipulated should not be included in the exchange. On April 29 Townshend destroyed his guns and ammunition and told Khalil he was ready to surrender. He hoped for
Further Reading Barber, C. H., Besieged in Kut and After
wood
{B\ac\f.-
1917)
Barker, A. J., Townshend of Kut (Cassell 1967) Kearsey, A A Study of the Strategy and Tactics of the t^esopotamia Campaign 1914-1918 (Pitman 1930) ,
generous treatment for his division. At 1300 hours the garrison wireless tapped out 'good-bye' and was destroyed.
The strength of the garrison when the surrender came was 13,309. The total casualties amounted to 3,776, of which 1,025 had been killed or died of wounds, 2,'1'16 were wounded and 721 had flied of disrusc. riic liowpital iti KnI (oiilaincd 1,450 sick and wounded on April 29, most of whom were exchanged at once, followed
by a further group three months later. Colonel Hehir in his report to the Mesopotamia Commission notes that there had been 3,000 cases of disease during the siege. Later on April 29 the garrison moved into camp near Shumran. The food promised by Khalil did not appear until May 3
Lawrence, T (Cape 1935)
E.,
Millar, R., Kut, the
The Seven
Pillars of
Wisdom
Death of an Army (Seeker &
Warburg 1969) Stierson, E., Townshend
of
Chitral
and Kut
(1928)
MAJOR DONALD CLARK, MA,
BSc, was born
in
1932 and entered Sandhurst from school in 1951, from where he was commissioned into the South Lancashire Regiment in 1953. His career as a professional soldier has centred around the Middle East, where he has served in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, Aden and Muscat and Oman. As a graduate of the London School of Oriental and African studies he has long had an interest in the military aspects of Middle East
history,
Arab refugees returning to their war-ravaged Kut
homes
in
.y
1347
—
^
^'
Jft*'^
—
*-i.
Maj.-Gen. Townshend and the Staff of the 6th Poona Division -at Kut Al Amara: a relaxed group photographed before the Turks encircled them and the hunger set in. Faced with inevitable defeat and humiliation, he couldn't keep the wolf from the door.
By the late 19th Century, the Russian government's colonial policy had brought misery and hardship to the natives of the Kazak and Kirghiz provinces. They had been driven to barren pastures and their economy was in ruins. In 1916 uprisings greeted the government's conscription order and were met by repression. DrA. O. Sarkissian Right: In happier times — Kazaks at traditional games During the First World War the government of Tsarist Russia had to deal with some serious disturbances within its borders. Such a disturbance was caused by the unrest among the Kazak and Kirghiz tribes in Russian Central Asia in 1916. The disturbance and uprisings there, and their ruthless suppression, have not been adequately studied in the west, whereas the large body of literature produced by Soviet writers
obediently reflects the Soviet viewpoint and suffers accordingly. Russia's irresistible eastward drive in Central Asia, culminating in the acquisition of more than a million square miles of land by the end of the 19th Century, had also brought under her domination millions of part-nomadic, part-sedentary, unruly peoples. Most of the land thus acquired, extending from the Volga to the Chinese borders and comprising today's Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan (and also part of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic), was the home of the Kazak peoples. Maintenance of law and order in this sparsely populated area, and the effective governing of its motley peoples severely taxed the colossal imperial autocracy. By the late 19th Century the government had official
i^xr^a
formulated and adopted a colonial policy — a policy which called for the populating of the steppe country of Central Asia with Russian, Ukrainian and even with some German peasants from European Russia. The aim of this policy was to oflFer a solution to the pressing peasant problem in western Russia, where the sharp increase of the land-hungry peasants was causing an acute agrarian crisis, and to establish settlements in the area peopled with European Russians upon whose support the government could count in the event of an uprising by the natives. Under government auspices hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians were induced to move out of their homes in the west and go to these barren lands. Thus from the mid1880's until 1914 this mass movement of people to Central Asia continued, and for many years their number exceeded 100,000 annually. It is reported that in the years 1906-1912 more than 438,000 Russian and Ukrainian families were transported to and settled in Kazakhstan, and in one year (1907) as many as 577,000 people settled in this province.
This invasion of Central Asia from the west caused great hardship to the natives, especially to the nomad population of Kazakhstan. In its early stages the work of colonisation had proceeded slowly. It was not carried out on a large scale, and the authorities approached the problem of
nomad lands many Kazak and Kirghiz
sequestration and seizvu^e of cautiously; in
communities settlements were established with the consent of the natives. But all this had changed by the turn of the century. At this point the government felt compelled — and was almost forced (by the prevalent agrarian crisis in European Russia) — to embark upon a huge colonisation scheme.
Lands seized In 1892 the Siberian Railway Committee was given the task of managing colonisation in areas through which the railway would pass. In 1896 the newly-created Re-
settlement Administration Office (in the Ministry of the Interior) was charged with all administrative problems of colonisation. In 1905 the government accelerated the colonisation in the Kazak and Kirghiz
lands, ignoring, in the process, the interest of the natives and apparently oblivious to the consequent ruin of the pastoral economy of the land. Even parts of lands belonging to settled natives were seized; the government justifying its action by declaring that the conquered land was held by the state, and that the nomads were utilising it only on the sufference of the government. Inadequately small areas of lands were left for the use of the nomads, while the rest were declared 'surplus lands', reserved for the settlers. Thus gradually and systematically the Kazaks were squeezed out from the best pasture lands and forced to barren hills and scrublands. This caused the breakdown of the
Kazak stock-raising economy, which in its turn gave rise to the deep-rooted and justifiable disatisfaction of the natives with the government. And the government's unconcern with the lot of the natives engendered a spirit of hostility and not only towards itself but also towards the new settlers which was ignored at the risk of a mass
revolt.
Meanwhile large numbers
of
peasants from European Russia were being
settled in the steppe country;
by 1912 there
were already 1,500,000 new
settlers, con-
about 40% of the area's total population there. The administrative machinery in the colonised Kazak and Kirghiz lands may be regarded as an exemplary prototype of a modern police state. At the head was the Governor-General, a man all-powerful with the rank of a general in the army. For his conduct of all administrative matters, including agrarian, judicial and financial questions, he was responsible to the Ministry of War. He had at his disposal about 125,000 troops, deemed sufficient to quell local disturbances and also able to protect the settlers against native raids and outbursts, though not enough to cope v.nth a well-organised and ably-led uprising. Many new settlers were issued with army rifles for self-defence, and in appearance at least some stability and safety was mainstituting
With little difficulty the situation was kept under control, and a precarious calm prevailed. Soon after the outbreak of the war Russia mobilised more than ten million tained.
way committee had much influence
Above: A Kazak camp, where rice is being crushed between two stones. The Kazaks lived a nomadic life, totally dependent on their pastures. Below: Part of the Siberian railway. The rail-
in the colonised areas through which the railway ran, and meant much the same to the Kazak tribes as railroads in the USA meantto indigenous Indians
/ —
^''t
-
*
K^ V*
\
v^.
11
><:-••-.
^
'^'TJi II
^
^"J
**^i^H
&3 r:"
wj/^^E^^K^^^m
men, and by mid-1915 the
total
number
of
already drafted reached close to 16 million. This total represented about 40% of all industrial workers in the empire. Then, in its anxiety both for military reserves and labour reserves, the military command recommended the mobilisation of the Moslems of central Russia. A law, made in 1886, had exempted these peoples from military service, but the government, nevertheless, felt that they could now be mobilised in labour bat-
men
In making this recommendation army reasoned that when other sub-
talions.
the
ject peoples of the country their lives in the war, the
were sacrificing
Moslems should
make some contribution to the common cause in the form of labour. The government saw the force of this argument, and the Tsar signed a decree on June 25, 1916, calling for the drafting of 250,000 natives from Central Asia. It seems that the government made this logical but novel move somewhat precipitately, without clearly assessing the value of a labour force raised in this way, nor the difficulties involved in trying to create useful labourers out of disgruntled and disloyal subjects. While the military governors and other high officials of Central Asia were pondering the methods of implementing the decree, the natives in many parts of the land were organising uprisings to bring on 'the revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia'.
A broad
policy
On
the day the decree of June 25 was promulgated the leaders of the military and civilian authorities met under the acting Governor-General for the purpose of devising ways by which it would be implemented. They decided that almost half the total of 250,000 labourers were to come from Kazakhstan and Kirghiz province. At this point, certain officials, well aware of native opposition to any conscription, expressed doubts about the wisdom of acting on the terms of the decree. They advocated caution and circumspection. A broad policy was agreed upon, and its implementation was entrusted to native local officials, who were almost as bitterly detested by the natives as were the Russian officials.
In
the
northern
steppe provinces
all
age had been drafted and sent to the front and as a result, the
settlers of military
Kazaks had become indispensable as farm hands. But soon after the announcement of the conscription order many Kazaks employed by traders and by the Cossack units abandoned their work and returned to their villages. Kazak youths formed groups of 50 and 100 members, and, arming themselves with sticks, scythes and even with rifles, roamed the countryside, attacking local officials. The harvest was left on the i^'^ ground to rot. Disturbances spread it was not long before the whole country from Uralsk in the norti?-Semipalatinsk and Semirechinsk Chinese borders was in confusion. Th July and August the insurgents wanderca the countryside, killing native officials, burning chancelleries, looting post offices, and even skirmishing with army units and Cossack detachments. Conscriptii was postponed until September 15 an had a lulling effect, but the end o month saw an increase in disorders wujn
now assumed 1354
serious proportions.
The revolt of the Kazaks in Semipalatinsk (in north-eastern Kazakhstan) was one of the first outbreaks. When the Governor had made the announcement of conscription, he had explained that the work of conscript labour was needed to replace those who had been called up. I-n return the labourers would receive 'pay and
But
provisions'.
such
statements
could not mollify the Kazaks. On July 14 ominous disturbances broke out in and around Zaisan near the Chinese border. Two days later disorders gathered force and many local officials (including some Russians) were killed. The situation in other parts of the province was even more serious. At Karkaralinsk (in the northwest) the harvest was destroyed by the natives, and herds were seized. The Kazaks attacked and killed all local officials there. The Governor rushed to the scene, but there in his presence the Kazaks killed the chief of the area and attacked .,
,' ,
,.
.^ficer.
T measures were being il
ed of
Lu ui^
«
,
disorders
Akmolinak
in
government. Troops rk units) were rush, and the suppression
Semipalatinsk and in were carried
(in north-centre)
out with
little difficulty. "iie revolt in the Semirechinsk
province Vf^rnv 'Alma Ata) as its centre seemed t*it; -, for there the authorities ^^^^ nate resistance. It was in
this area that the Kazaks and the Kirghiz suffered most. In this relatively small province there was a large number of
Russians. But those of military age were at the front, the military needs of the war had denuded the area of most of its garrison, those left behind for garrison duty were not regular army men, and the army rifles issued to the settlers had been collected to help meet the desperate needs of the men on the fighting front. The first open resistance began early in August east of Verny. There, post offices and garrison headquarters were attacked, and heavy attacks were launched against the settlements. It was reported that in a small settlement of 650 people west of Verny only 35 survived an attack and subsequent attacks brought the number of settlers killed to more than 2,000. Insurgents even intercepted a convoy of arms and munitions, killed the soldiers accompanying it, and took 200 rifles and a large supply of cartridges. They were successful in holding the city of Tokmak (south-west of Verny) under siege for more than a week. But no lasting gain was achieved by these acts and in the end when they were suppressed by government forces many of them took to the hills, while many more (with tens of thousands of other hapless natives) crossed into China where a chilly reception and endless misery was to be their lot. Those unable to get away were left to face the wrath of the government's punitive force. During the early phase of these disturb-
the acts of the insurgents. In the Przhevalsk (south-east of Vernyj
oju
Kazaks were shot, none of whom had had any part in the revolt. The government again issued arms to Russian settlers allegedly for use in selfdefence, but on the pretext of searching for insurgents the settlers moved from village to village, robbing and killing natives as they went. Even Kazaks placed under arrest were not safe. In one particular village 517 people who had been placed under arrest were murdered by a mob of Russians while troops stood by. One punitive detachment claimed to have massacred 1,000 natives, General Pokrovsky reported that he burned an encampment of about 1,000 natives, while General Berg boasted of exterminating 800 desperate Kirghiz warriors. In this orgy of violence tens of thousands of innocent Kazaks lost their lives. It is impossible to be precise about the total number of victims, but one could hazard a guess that as many as 100,000 lives were lost in the massacres of 1916. Further Reading Allworth, E. (ed.), Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule (New York 1967) Becker, S., Russia's Protectorate in Central Asia 1865-1924 (Harvard University Press 1968)
Bacon,
E.
E.,
Central Asia under Russian Rule
(University Press 1960) Pierce, R. A., Russian Central Asia 1867-1917 (University of California Press) Sokol, E. D., The Revolt of 1916 In Russian Central Asia (University Press 1953) Wheeler, G., A Modern History of Soviet Central Asia {New York 1966)
Zenkovsky, S. A., Pan-Turkism and Islam Russia (Harvard University Press 1960)
in
£ [For Dr A. O. Sarkissian's biography, see m page 1327.]
when
the government did not have with the situation, its rage against the insurgents was forcibly kept under control. But it concentrated on building up the means by which it could 'teach these disloyal peoples a lesson'. Troops were brought from the Tashkent
ances
sufficient force to cope
UKRAINE
command, with machine guns and mountain artillery. Two Cossack regiments 'with batteries of artillery and two colt
machine gun detachments' were brought from the front in the west. The growing preponderance of government strength not only robbed the insurgents of any chance of success, but doomed them to destruction. Militias in the towns and villages were set up and strong detachments were sent against the rebels. One line of action was the systematic seizure of their herds, thus rendering them weak and less capable of resistance. But with or without their herds the insurgents saw the shattering of their dream, the failure of their attempt to free their land from Russian autocracy.
B/ack Sea
CHINA
OnOMAN EMPIRE
AFGHANISTAN
Orgy of violence months nearly
INDIA
of Russian Central Asia (except a few isolated pockets where guerrilla fighting continued to the end of the year) was pacified and reduced to 'normalcy'. The task of pacification had proceeded with cruelty and ruthlessness. It seems that punitive detachments acted on the stern dictum: no quarter given, no prisoners taken. Many villages were wiped out by artillery fire, and many innocent native villagers paid with their lives for In a few
PERSIA
all
.-J
I
.^^ 'Z "^2 "Z
^"
MOUNTAINOUS REGION COLONISATION PROGRAMME By 1912 1,600 000 new setlleis KAZAKS FORCED TO CHINA MILES
OKMS
Top
A
Kirghiz tribesman, victim of Russia's drive eastw/ards, which deprived him of the lands he depended upon for existence. Top right: A Moslem Kirghiz in Russian Army clothes left:
NffAt"
AREAS OF UPRISING 500
800
Above: The map shows the area formerly inhabited by the Kazaks and Kirghiz and which was now taken over by European Russians. This policy resulted from an agricultural crisis.
1355
VERDUN 0^ akes
Throughout April, the fighting on the hills around Verdun continued. Casualties on both sides were very high, hut on the French side, Petain's policy of constant replacement of tired troops had yielded some success, and by April 19 the Cfou P)-ince was resigned to abandoning his 'd) CcUii^ of hope and victory'. It was at this point that Knobelsdorf replaced Mudra and JdiFre manipulated the impetuous Nivelle int6 Petam's position. Both the new commanders believed«^ fighting to the end. AlistairHoriie. This page\ Rocks and debris are thrown up as a German \ mortar bomb bursts on a road near Verdun >i
.8-:u
-.
the dominant height on the -j.^»/-'«»«t^aB.«ji le Meuse, the Mort Homme, ?here the fighting had swayed backwards and forwards near the hill crest in a futile and devilish rhythm. On April 9, they had launched a massive combined attack on the heights of both Mort Homme and Cote 304, further west. But without decisive concks^g; the fighting line was merely st:^^Hlfe^t a little wider, its
ih'.
•^
the grave days at the was little to hold |:h except the inspiiing in
[lere
in command fully recognised
who was
I,
nt. ;r
He
of this
new Qerman
?w in fresh u'^)|^HPquickly
Army hg
thfe
coul^Send them one i^i^^bto Verdun, the le Staff
•*
m'.ree.
German
troops who had fought vay so heroically up the slopes of Homme on April 9 had reached a which their maps showed as the le •nit of the hill. Their di scour ageme^l 8 bitter when they saw ahead of thenv, ^1 few hundred yards distant, another '^'VGSlJ^t, 100 feet higher. It was between
ie^ two summits -Point 265 held by the jrmans and Point 295 still held by the |pnch-that a long-drawn battle of ^
.osperation
and the
now develop)ed on Mort Homme,
artillery of both sides
turned the
smoking volcano. A participant remembers: The trench no longer existed, it had been filled with earth. We. were croiH-hinfi in shell-holes, where the* mud
hill into
a
^a
"^
thrown up by each new explosion covered
and more. The air was unbreathable. Our own soldiers, the wounded and the blinded, crawling and screaming, kept falling on top of us and died drenching us with their blood. Suddenly the enemy artillery lengthened its fire, and almost us more
someone shouted: 'The Boches are coming!' As if by magic, every one of us, exhausted only a moment ago, immediately faced the enemy, rifle in hand.' It was only by a slender thread that the French had held the Germans on Mort Homme on April 9. A company commander, facing the German tide with ten men. would be told, 'There are no reinforcements.' And the Germans, throwing in at once
their
men
recklessly,
suffered
terrible
one division alone had to leave 2,200 men on the blood-soaked northern losses:
slopes of the
hill.
A young
French officer, Second-Lieutenant Jubert, describes how he moved his company up from the rear to recapture Mort Homme ridge — which they had just lost: / have rarely seen less hesitation, greater calm. We assembled without a word. Having put down our knapsacks, we took an ample supply of cartridges, as well as one day's extra rations. To gain time, my company, ignoring the communication trench, moved up over open ground in single file. Passing the first crest (Point 295. the southern summit) we descended towards the ravine where, as in a crucible, the deadly explosions and gas were concentrated in a roaring inferno. Another 30 yards and we were in the danger area. The German shells were raining down all round us, and the men were silent. They kept marching forward, grim-faced and in good order, towards the barrier of fire and steel that rose before us. He and his men then recaptured half a mile of what had once been trenches, and held them under unceasing bombardment for 36 hours.
slowness of his subordinate, Falkenhayn's elder brother, who was commanding XXII Reserve Corps on Mort Homme: 'We shall be in Verdun at the earliest by 1920.' Now, with his troops held, and even pushed back, on Mort Homme, exposed on its bleak northern slopes to the shattering, relentless bombardment of the French guns on the unconquered Cote 304, Gallwitz told Knobelsdorf with some force that it would be pointless to pursue the attacks on the Mort Homme until Cote 304 was finally taken. ical
See-saw battle By the end of April,
mud and
the misery, the French, with persistent, dogged counterattacks, had recaptured the
whole crest of Mort Homme and had wiped out virtually all the German gains of April 9. Meanwhile, as the focus of battle stretched ever westward in its vain outflanking attempts, the forces on the right bank of the Meuse, in the hills above Verdun itself, were still locked in fruitless combat, little different in character from the greater conflict on Mort Homme. Zwehl's VII Reserve Corps was engaged during most of April in a see-saw battle for one small feature, the stone quarries at Haudromont, a mile or so to the west of Fort
Douaumont. Throughout April, the right bank front never shifted as much as 1,000 yards — a bitter contrast for the Germans to the five miles they had advanced in the
excellent firing practice on our backs. I arrived there with 175 men, I returned with 34, several half mad. As soon as this battle was joined on Mort Homme, rain added to the misery and degradation. It rained solidly for 12 days following the attack of April 9. The
German
through
to
Despite
the
sides suffered appalling slaughter without ever seeing the enemy infantry, such was the devastating power of the massed
After being relieved from Mort Homme Captain Cochin wrote: / have returned from the toughest trial I have ever been through— four days and four nights — 96 hours — the last two days soaked artillery.
in icy
mud — under
terrible
bombardment,
without any shelter other than the narrowness of the trench, which even then seemed too wide; not a hole, not a dug-out, nothing, nothing. The Boches did not attack, naturally, it would have been too stupid. It was much more convenient for them to carry out
official history describes the consequences: 'Water in the trenches came above the knees. The men had not a dry thread on their bodies; there was not a dugout that could provide dry accommodation. The numbers of sick rose alarmingh'.' The German commander on the left bank, Gallwitz, was under no illusions. On taking over, before Mort Homme attack, he had noted; 'Too great a task,
undertaken with inadequate reserves.' He soon had cause to complain of the method-
first
semblance of success. overall correctness of the French plan, its sponsor, Petain, carried
any
through only from the narrow tactical standpoint of saving his men in the field, with little thought of where this drain on reserves would be leading French strategy. Joffre, on the other hand, was more conscious of the failure of his plans for a mighty breakthrough on the Somme than of the great and constant danger to France it
at
Verdun:
'the
could now easily do. Petain was already the idol of France, the saviour of Verdun. But eventually in mid-April the opportunity presented itself of promoting Petain out of Verdun to command the Central Group of Armies, and to put in the ambitious and confident General Nivelle, who had made an impression as commander of III Corps on the right bank opposite Fort Douaumont, as commander at Verdun, under the overall but remote direction
Joffre
of Petain.
despite the
four days of the offensive. Here, before Verdun itself, as much as on Mort Homme, the murderous artillery blanket laid down by both sides never lifted. In all, there were now nearly 4,000 guns in the salient. In April, casualties had risen by about 50%: on the German side to 120,000, on the French side to 133,000. The French High Command was the first to react to the anxiety caused by these casualties. Joffre, with his mind permanently tuned to the offensive, to the expectation of the masterly break-through which would end the war, found these great losses in Petain's army at Verdun, with no attack launched to justify them, nor even planned, hard to accept. It was not long before he was regretting his choice of Petain as commander at Verdun. This mistrust was aggravated by Petain's insistence on an unusually rapid turn-round of divisions in the line in the salient. By May 1, 40 French divisions had passed through Verdun, as against only 26 German divisions. Because of this, the French were able to maintain their miraculous resistance with ever fresh troops, so that the Germans, at all levels, constantly asked themselves where the French were getting their fresh men from. Increasingly demoralised by their enemy's resources, and themselves exhausted by their long spells in the fighting line, the Germans were unable to carry their massive attacks
It was typical of Mort Homme, and of Verdun as a whole, that soldiers of both
have been absorbed in this battle,' ]wrote in his Memoirs. But to replace Petain was not a thing
whole French
Army would
Petain
was deeply disturbed
this
at
change and feared that all his careful nursing of the French troops in the salient would be thrown to the winds by the impetuous Nivelle. He saw ahead of him the constant, negative task of keeping Nivelle in check.
was not
mand on May
1,
Even
Joffre noted:
'he
On
taking up his comNivelle declared with his
pleased'.
bold assurance, 'We have the formula!' A few days later, Joffre renounced Petain's Noria system of quick replacements to the Verdun front. It had been on April 19, in the midst of the slaughter and anxiety on Mort Homme, that Petain had been told of the impending change in the command. It was during the next few days that doubts and differences shook the generals of the German Fifth Army. Mudra, commanding on the right bank, one of the ablest German corps commanders, let Knobelsdorf know of his misgivings about the whole future of the Verdun offensive. Knobelsdorf at once got rid of him, sending him back to his corps in the Argonne on April 21; but first, Mudra had been able to express his doubts in a memorandum to the Crown Prince. As a result, the Crown Prince, on this same day, reached the irrevocable conclusion that the attack on the Verdun
usual
salient had failed, and should be called off altogether. He wrote later of this change of heart: / was now cotwinced, after the stubborn to-and-fro contest for every foot
of ground which had continued throughout the whole of April, that although we had more than once changed our methods of attack, a decisive success at Verdun could only be assured at the price of heavy sacrifices, out of all proportion to the desired gains. I naturally came to this conclusion only with the greatest reluctance; it was no easy matter for me, the
commander, to abandon my dreams of hope and victory! responsible
A
master plan
member of the Prince's staff who was not of this opinion, and he now clung to the reins of power in the Fifth Army even more tenaciously. In Mudra's place he put the Brandenburgers' ardent corps commander, Lochow, a general who believed in attack to the utmost limit; and Knobelsdorf himself set out to oppose any further weakening of the Crown Prince's resolve. On each side now, the original champions, Petain and the Crown Prince, with their horror of senseless carnage, had lost control to their ruthless subordinates, Nivelle and Knobelsdorf, both of them determined to fight to the bitterest end. By the beginning of May, Gallwitz, on the left bank, had put all his personal expertise in gunnery into a master plan Knobelsdorf w-as the one
Crown
1357
to
subdue the French bastion on Cote 304
at last. The new attempt would be a pure exercise; it would blast the artillery French off the hill; and this time it would
succeed.
over 500 German heavy guns on Cote 304, a front just over a mile wide. The bombardment continued for two days and a night. The French, lacking deep shelters after weeks of heavy
On May
opened
3,
fire
shelling, suflFered frightful casualties: it seemed to them 'as if to finish things off
Germans had decided to point a gun us.' Of one battalion, only three men survived. One by one the
the at
each one of
French machine guns were destroyed. For over two days no food or supplies could be got through, nor any wounded evacuated. Reinforcements got lost, the units were all jumbled together. The French command 'had pushed up men on top of men and set up a living wall against the Even monstrous German avalanche.' when the Germans had managed to obtain a foothold on the summit, it took three more days of bitter close combat before Cote 304 was finally theirs. About 10,000 Frenchmen had been killed there. The capture of Cote 304 made the first breach in the defence perimeter, the 'Line of Resistance', which Retain had laid down on taking up his command at Verdun at the end of February. The stage
was now
set for the final
German
attack
on Mort Homme itself The Crown Prince watched the opening of the assault from well forward: 'Mort Homme flamed like a volcano, and the air and the
a
position
earth alike trembled at the shock of thousands of bursting shells.' By the end of May the Germans had taken the whole of Mort Homme and the village of Cumieres at its foot by the Meuse. The Bois Bourrus ridge, from which the French artillery had menaced the German positions across the river on the right bank since the last days of February, was now itself overlooked by the Germans on Mort Homme and effect-
Verdun. The French were starting to fly their planes, too, in concentrated groups, though loosely controlled — an important step forward towards later co-ordinated interception techniques. Boelcke noted: 'They were sending out as many as 12 fighters protect two observation to machines. It was seldom that we could get through this protecting screen to reach
ively neutralised.
new French 107-mph Nieuport
This small clearing action on the left bank, as it had initially appeared to the Germans, had in the end taken three
appearing at Verdun, to challenge the long supremacy of the German Fokker. Bo-
as many lives as all the fighting on the right bank so far; and there were signs that the German losses might now be exceeding those of the French. Nevertheless, with this success the margin of retreat for the French had become very narrow indeed, and now the full weight of the German forces could be
months and
cost
them
thrown against the defences ringing Verdun itself on the right bank of the Meuse. The month from mid-March to midApril had seen a return of German dominance in the skies, when their new ace, Boelcke, who was also an imaginative organiser of air fighting, temporarily drove the French Cigognes pilots from the skies. This led to an immediate improvement in German artillery spotting, which contributed greatly to their successes in the left bank fighting. By mid-April, however, the tables had turned again. In this sphere, the French capacity for organisation was no less than that of Boelcke, and 226
French aircraft were now assembled over
the observation aircraft.' Furthermore, the fighter
was
elcke's reply to these new tactics, his socalled 'Flying Circus', though planned for Verdun, in fact made its principal appear-
ance over the Somme battlefield. To the infantry creeping in the mud and debris beneath them the airmen seemed to be men of another world. 'They are the only ones,' thought an infantry lieutenant, 'who in this war have the life and death of which one dreams.' The contrast was indeed extreme. On the ground, the battlefield stretched on in limitless horror, its landmarks erased, its objectives nearly forgotten. Yet from the air it looked absurdly small to contain such magnitude of suffering: the long-range guns and their distant targets were always simultaneously visible. With the noise of battle drowned by the aircraft's engine, it was 'a weird combination of stillness and havoc'. The airman, almost alone, had the detachment to view the battleground in all its concentrated defilement:
brown It
belt,
seems
to
there
is
only
that
sinister
a strip of murdered nature. belong to another world. Every
sign of humanity has been swept away.
The woods and roads have vanished like chalk wiped from a blackboard; of the villages nothing remains but grey smears. During heavy bombardments and attacks I have seen shells falling like rain. The artillery, the big guns especially, were indeed masters of the battlefield. Fresh troops approaching Verdun heard sounds 'like a gigantic forge that never stopped, day or night'. To be under constant, remorseless sentence of death or mutilation, not from enemy soldiers you could see, fight, and hope to outwit, but from guns remote, hidden, all-powerful, was to know an unrelenting fear. 'Verdun is terrible because man is fighting against material, with the sensation of striking out at empty air.' As the men, advancing up the communication trenches, approached the front line, the parapets grew steadily lower, eroded away by shell fire, until the trench became little deeper than a roadside ditch. The relief columns, coming up in the darkness, stumbled over the wounded. Suddenly the trench became 'nothing more than a track hardly traced out amid the shell holes'. In the mud, which the shelling had turned to a consistency of sticky butter, troops stumbled and fell repeatedly, cursing in low undertones. Heavily laden men fell into the huge water-filled shell craters and remained there until they drowned, unable to crawl up the greasy sides. With all reference points long since obliterated, relieving detachments got lost and wandered hopelessly all night; only to be Below: French engineers move into the ruins
Above: Like a strange lunar landscape, the Verdun
massacred by an enemy machine gunner as dawn betrayed them. In the front line, the troops spent each night
laboriously
scraping out holes in
which they might find the illusion of shelter and protection; all day long the enemy guns worked at levelling them. There was no chance and no longer any will to bury the
dead:
the
stench
of
putrefaction
throughout the Verdun battlefield was unbearable. Dead comrades were slung over
battlefield
was a mass of mounds and
the parapet into the nearest shell hole; and the guns churned up the mounting corpses into endless dismembered limbs. 'You found the dead embedded in the walls of the trenches, heads, legs and half-bodies, just as they had been shovelled out of the way by the picks and shovels of the working party.' The highly compressed area of the battlefield had become a reeking open cemetery. The French writer, Duhamel, serving as an army doctor, wrote: 'You
of
a village near Verdun to repair communications
-...^^e m.
shell craters
WtO«fiSHOP J^irff^lOH SCHOOL MFOf* eCNTfil^ ••-^'^ mAti j6afc CALIFORNIA gisiaa.^ _^*'*^
butcher', a tough, uncompromising excolonial officer, technically one of the most competent generals in the French Army, and every bit as self-confident as Nivelle himself. Of Mangin, Churchill wrote that he was 'reckless of all lives and of none more than his own, charging at the head of his troops, fighting rifle in hand when he could escape from his headquarters, he became on the anvil of Verdun the fiercest warrior-figure of France.' From the very day of the arrival of 5th Division in the sector opposite Fort Douaumont at the beginning of April, Mangin had engaged in frequent small but costly
Above: By Ihe middle eat,
of April,
German
positions held earlier
you drink beside the dead, you sleep
in the midst of the dying, you laugh and sing in the company of corpses.' There were few heroes' deaths, instead, 'those small painful scenes, in obscure corners, of small compass,
where you cannot
possibly distinguish if the mud is fiesh or the flesh mud'. A German soldier wrote that "the torture of having to lie powerless and defenceless in the middle of an artillery battle' was 'something for which there is nothing comparable on earth'; a Frenchman wrote, 'to be dismembered, torn to pieces, reduced to pulp, this is a fear that flesh cannot support'. The artillery came to be hated, their own included, even more than the enemy in-
The gunners always seemed to have an easy life, remote from the battle, with snug shelters and motor transport. Yet in reality, counter-battery firing on both sides was remorseless and accurate: 'Nobody escapes; if the guns were spared fantry.
they will catch it tomorrow.' If death came from the long-range counterbattery guns, it came with frightening suddenness; and in action the gunners had even less cover than the infantry. The few roads which could carry the nightly French munition columns out of Verdun city, creeping up head to tail, were a fixed target for the German gunners. Perhaps the bravest of all were those who were the least prepared for bravery, the runners, the ration parties, the stretcherbearers. 'Many would rather endure hunger than make these dangerous expeditions for food,' wrote a German soldier in to-day,
The
French
'hornmes-soupe', or 'cuistots', often made a round trip of 12 miles every night, returning with a dozen heavy flasks of wine lashed to their belt, and a score of loaves strung together like a bandolier; in many places having to crawl through the glutinous mud. They arrived with the flasks punctured by shell splinters, the bread coated with filth; or they never came back. Returning at dawn through machine gun fire, they declared they would never do it again; yet the evening saw them 'starling off" again on their erratic journey across the fields and gul leys'. The stretcher-bearers' lot was the worst, and volunteers were always few: the French troops at Verdun came to recogApril.
1360
in
the month had been shattered
nise that their chances of being picked up, let alone taken back for medical attention,
were extremely slim. And even
if they arrived at a casualty clearing station, their ordeal was not over. Many were just labelled 'untransportable' — their wounds too hopeless or too complex to deal with — and were laid outside, where before long a German shell would find the helpless pile and save the doctors some work. Inside, the surgeons, surrounded by dustbins filled with lopped-off" limbs, did the best they could to- patch up the ghastly wounds caused by the huge shell splinters. At the same time as Cote 304 was finally falling to the Germans, a terrible explosion occurred on the right bank in Fort Douau-
mont on May brewing up
8.
Bavarian soldiers had been on upturned cordite
coffee
cases, using explosive scooped out of hand grenades as fuel — a reflection of the generally careless attitude to life which consmall ditions at Verdun had engendered. explosion resulted, which detonated a store of hand grenades. These in turn ignited flame-thrower fuel, which flowed burning through the fort and set off" a magazine full of 155-mm shells. Those Germans who were not blown to pieces or asph)rxiated emerged from the fort through
A
smoke and chaos with uniforms shredded and faces blackened, to be mown down by their own comrades outside who mistook them for the most feared of enemies, the French African troops. In all, 650 Germans perished. But the tragedy had more significant consequences: it strengthened the
the Crown Prince in his resolve not to pursue the assault on Verdun, thus widening the rift between him and Knobelsdorf; and it induced the French to launch an important attack on Douaumont, which they had so easily lost in February. By now Nivelle was well set in the saddle as command.'- of the French Second Army at Verdun. Tie ni turn was driven forward by two close subordinates, both of them reckless of the cost of victory. On the one hand Nivelle had his Chief-of-Staff", Major d'AleuQon, a man dying of consumption, who possessed the ruthless disregard for lives of one who knows himself condemned; on the u er hand was General Mangin, commanding the 5th Division in front of Douaumont who was known as Mangin 'the
counter-attacks. Admittedly they contributed to the dislocation of German plans for a resumed offensive on the right bank, but probably less effectively than the stubborn defensive battle being maintained by Petal n on the Mort Homme. From his headquarters in Fort Souville, Mangin would peer at the great dome of Douaumont two miles away, until it became as much an obsession to him as it had once been to the Brandenburgers. He could think of nothing but its recapture. The fort was indeed a thorn in the French side. It housed large numbers of fresh and rested
German troops in immediate proximity to the fighting line. But above all it provided the finest observation point on the whole machine gunners impact on the fighting in April and May: 'They dominate us from Fort Douaumont; we cannot now take anything without their knowing it, nor dig any trench without their artillery spotting it and immediately bombarding it.' Mangin had already made one attempt on the fort, on April 22. His men had reached the superstructure before they were driven off' by machine guns. Now, as the scale of the explosion in the fort on May 8 filtered through to him, Mangin realised that a superb opportunity of recapturing it had been presented to him. He quickly obtained Nivelle's consent to an attack on May 22, though Petain, now a distant voice at Bar-le-Duc, would have preferred to wait until more troops were front.
One
described
of Mangin's
its
available.
Security was bad, and the
Germans had
time to make full defensive preparations. The opening artillery bombardment, from 300 guns for five days, including four new 370-mm mortars, was the most powerful French concentration yet seen at Verdun; but it was considerably less than this tough old fort could stand, and only one breach in the concrete was made.
'Thick hide' When the French infantry rose from their trenches for the assault, the German guns already had their range and they were decimated. Nevertheless, what remained of the 129th Regiment charged fearlessly and magnificently through the hail of shot and reached the fort in 1 1 minutes. Within half an hour, the greater part of the fort's superstructure was in French hands. The Crown Prince admitted, it 'seemed likely at one time that the fort itself must be lost'. But the French artillery, even the
370-mm
mortars, could not touch the inner
workings through its thick hide. The French, however, never had a firm enough hold on the superstructure, and from dawn on the next morning. May 23, the Germans were able to hem in the French force, and then destroy it with a
heavy mine-thrower. Mangin was hurling in fresh units,
but they reached the
fort cut Bethincourt
A
French company commander watched these attempts to relieve the hard-pressed 129th Regiment: Two companies of the 124th carried the German trenches by assault. They penetrated them without firing a shot. But they were insufficiently supplied with handgrenades. The Boches counterattacked with grenades. The two companies, defenceless, were annihilated. The 3rd Battalion, coming to their aid, was smashed up by barrage fire in the approach trenches. Altogether nearly 500 killed or wounded. The dead were piled up as high as the parapet. That night a few remnants of the French spearhead crept back to their lines in ones and twos. Their losses had been terrible, and they had left over 1,000 prisoners in German hands. Mangin's 5th Division did not have even a single company in reserve, and for a time there was a dangerous hole in the front, 500 yards wide. Before the disastrous French attack on Douaumont, Falkenhayn, always indecisive, might have been persuaded to to pieces or not at all.
share the Crown Prince's misgivings over Verdun. At a Fifth Army conference on May 13, Knobelsdorf too had seemed to fall in with the Crown Prince's wish to put off any further offensive. But when Knobelsdorf saw Falkenhayn immediately afterwards, his stubborn determination to wrest victory from Verdun had reasserted itself. Cote 304 and most of Mort Homme had now been captured, he pointed out; all could yet be won at Verdun if only the offensive were continued on the right bank. Finally Falkenhayn was convinced and gave his permission for the new attack,
XXIV Res
Above: French gains during the fighting on and around the
even allocating a fresh division for it. When the Crown Prince received Falkenhayn's order, he was in despair. Preparations for this operation, 'May Cup', to be launched on June 1, went quickly ahead. Three corps, / Bavarian, Reserve, and Corps, were to attack with a total of five divisions, on a front only three miles wide. The objective was to gain jumping-off points for a final thrust on Verdun itself— the Thiaumont stronghold, the Fleury ridge. Fort Souville, and above all, the north-eastern bastion of the French line, Fort Vaux.
X
XV
hills of
Verdun during
and May
April
To Knobelsdorf, success seemed assured. His artillery was now more numerous than the French, with 2,200 pieces against 1,777. This time his confidence might not be misplaced, for French morale had slumped badly following the failure at Douaumont, Mangin had been temporarily disgraced, ominous cases of
'indiscipline'
ginning to be reported.
were
to
face
were be-
And now the French
the fiercest onslaught the
Germans had yet made
at Verdun.
=
>
[For Further Reading and Alistair biography, see page 1035. ]
Home's
g, S.
The guns were the
Below: The German 17-cm naval rail gun. Maximum range: 25,700 yards. Barrel:
masters of the battlefield, their thunder was 'like a gigantic forge that never stopped, day or night'
Weight of gun and carriage: 25 tons. Weight of shell: 141 lbs. Rate of fire: 1 round-per-minute. Crew: 12 men. Bottom right: The French 370-mm mortar, one of the big guns that helped to press the French advantage at Verdun. It had a range of over five miles, using a 250-pound shell. It weighed 30 tons, complete with platform, could fire one round every two minutes and required a crew of 16 men
22'
6".
Traverse: 13°
left
to 13° right.
L,
*
ixmi
Above: A French
field
get the
1362
""he drivers
c.
of these vehicles took
wounded away
fc,
froi..
.isksto ;ront line
'-««^4-^..
%
fc
•>
(i
fl/gA?f;
Rain-filled
craters surround the ruined outer walls of Fort Douaumont
o
4 !|
THE BRITISH ATYIMYRTOGE The German offensive
at
Verdun forced the French to concentrate
all
their available strength on that sector of the line, thus leaving the British to cover the sectors left vulnerable by the removal of French troops and artillery. At Vimy Ridge, a labyrinth of tunnels — some prewar — already existed, and throughout April and May British tunnellers gradually improved their position; the Germans, seeing their advantage slip from their grasp, prepared once more to go into the attack. Kenneth Macksey. Below: British anti-aircraft gunners go into action
When
at last, in the
autumn
of 1915, the
French gave up their struggle to recapture the crest of Vimy Ridge from the Germans, both sides retired into their shelters along the shattered slopes and hoped for nothing more violent than a period of recuperation. Both were now content to pursue the selfassumed habits of the line they always adopted after operations had come to a The French tunnelled deep standstill. underground to counter German mining operations but withdrew as many men as possible from the front leaving only vedettes and strongly emplaced 75s to hold the patchwork of scrapes and shell holes linking what had once been villages and woods. The Germans dug deeper than ever through the clay surface into the firm chalk some 20 feet beneath. To both sides the crest was of paramount importance — the French regarding the long ridge as a prime stepping-stone towards the domination of the Plain of Douai beyond, the Germans seeing it as a shield against French aggression, but also as a threat against the important route centre of Douai and the ready springboard for an attack to-
wards the English Channel. There brooded incentive of maintaining prestige: ground which had been won or defended with vast outp)Ourings of suffering and
in no way distracted Allied attention from the main event in the fortress zone. Soon the strain upon the French at Verdun became overwhelming while the British, con-
blood could not, in the eyes of generals and politicians, be surrendered with impunity—and the personal accounts of the fighting men exude a sentimental attraction for one of the most dangerous sectors on the Western Front which justified their
steadily expanding their formations, were justifiably called upon to take over additional sectors of the line from the French, at the same time beginning preparations for their own offensive on the Somme. Early in
leader's conclusions.
March Allenby's Third Army began taking over from the French along the entire Arras section from Loos to Ransart.
the
Nevertheless, the early winter passed quietly enough along the Ridge where it ran from the Scarpe to Souchez. To the north the British Front seethed from a persistent and costly indulgence in raids and minor operations — the German Phosgene Gas attack near Ypres in December, the struggles for the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the Saint Eloi Craters overshadowing a host of smaller engagements that took place daily. But all paled to insignificance when the German offensive against Verdun opened on February 21 and the diversionary German attacks, which seized a few square yards of the Ridge near Souchez on February 8 and 21,
stantly
and
strength with
Illusory
new
calm
at Vimy before the British arrived, the illusion .was soon to be dispelled, but discovering that, in places, the French front line was m'arked only by sandbags and that in most others the parapets were not bullet proof, the British had first to restrain their offensive zeal while they tried to build up a firm base on a network of stronger trenches. Below, ground they took over a well developed French system of galleries and saps, but even these were soon discovered to be inadeIf all
seemed peaceful
quate since the German works were more extensive, deeper and, here and there, already burrowing underneath the British works. There was a twihght period of calm. A few German deserters crossed over, attempts were made at conversation (for in places the front lines were less than 50 yards apart) and the 18th London Regiment delivered a copy of The Times to the Germans to help bring them up to date with the news. Haig's mind was set on a minor offensive aimed at diverting the Germans from Ver-
dun and which would
also serve as a distraction from his own major preparations on the Somme. Logically it would have been wiser to retire a few hundred yards back from the crest of Vimy Ridge in order to nullify the effect of the German tunnels. Instead he opted for battle on the enemy's ground — a battle not just for possession of local trenches (for it was realised that there was no chance then of seizing the crest line) but, above all, for the mine shafts. Raid and counter-raid raged, punctuated by a recurring succession of underground demolitions. Below ground the tun-
nellers alternated digging and the emplacement of explosives with listening on the geophones to German activity, attempt-
ing to establish their rate of progress and to predict their intentions. When one side or the other was ready, a camouflet might be blown to destroy hostile workings, or a
charged mine set off to destroy a whole section of the line above. In either case both sides would then rush to the scene of the explosion to take possession of the wreckage. Thus, when the Germans blew up part of 25th Division on the Berthfully
onval sector it was the Germans who won the race to seize the craters and it provoked a similar operation by the British on May 15 to win them back. On the other hand a German mine which detonated in 47th Division's area on April 26 had been expected by the British and it was they who managed to seize and hold the crater. Throughout April and May the fighting on the Ridge intensified — and to the British advantage. By mid-May the Germans could gloomily observe that their previous superiority was being ruthlessly eliminated by the British who, with eight Tunnelling
Companies aided by five French ones, were both skilful and hard-working in the art. This state of flux affected the motivations of the personalities who commanded the opposing Corps. On the British side IV Corps was under Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Wilson — a Francophile, the close friend of Foch, a prewar Commandant of the Staff College, then Director of Military Operations, and until recently, SubChief of the General Staff in France. In late 1915 his career was flourishing, but with the removal of his patron. Sir John French, he had lost much of his influence: 'To me, personally, it has been an unkind year,' he wrote in his diary, 'finishing with Robertson getting CIGS which at one time it looked as though I was certain to get. On the other hand, command of a Corps of four divisions is a fine command and I shall enjoy it immensely.' On the German side was IX Reserve Corps, temporarily given to the command of General von Freytag-Loringhoven. He had, until recently, been the senior German liaison officer at Austro-Hungarian General Headquarters and was now Falkenhayn's De-
puty Chief of the General Staff. His star in the ascendant and he had requested this spell of command in order to get Western Front experience. Wilson and FreN'tag-Loringhoven had three things in common: overriding personal ambition, the means to pull powerful strings to their own advantage but also a total lack of experience of command in battle. Freytag-Loringhoven was not content with a sinecure: he sought a fullscale battle, and many of his followers agreed that this was necessary. To quote respectively from the 163rd and the 186th Regiments who held the northern half of the Ridge: The posts in the front line trenches and the garrisons of the dugouts were always in danger of being buried alive. Even in the quietest night there was always the dreadful feeling that in the next moment one might die a horrible and cruel death.
was
One stood in the front line defenceless and powerless against these fearful mine explosions. Against all other fighting methods there was some protection — against this kind of warfare, valour was of no avail. Running back, retirement were useless:
Below: Reinforcements for the German battery of 21-cm mortars near Arras
line:
Above:
In
troyed,
German troops
a natural chalk cave, partially desfind welcome shelter
from the clear heavens, like sudden occurrence of some catastrophe of nature these mine explosions took place. And: It was accepted that other parts of our trench system were undermined and might fly into the air at any moment. We could not fight the enemy any longer with his own weapons, for he was superior to us in men and material. Here, on one of the first occasions, was to be found the German admission that in technology they were being outclassed. Referring to mounting casualties and disquiet from the front due to the persistent British mine warfare, FreytagLoringhoven reasoned, 'Things could not go on as they were. If by attack we could throw the British over the position we had held until the end of September 1915 and so rob them of all their mine shafts we should have tranquillity'. He proceeded to sell this idea to headqu£uters and, by like lightning
the
of exploiting his considerable influence, was able to obtain no less than 80 batteries of artillery (including six of heavy howitzers) to support the equivalent of a single division in an attack on a 1,600 yard front. In the shelter of the steep north-eastern slope of the Ridge and among the nearby villages, this mass of artillery
dint
was
secretly assembled while the British positions were thoroughly explored from the air. At the same time additional fighter aircraft supported by anti-aircraft guns conspired with the weather to prevent British airmen from spotting the concentrations
on the ground. The bombardment was timed to start at 0500 hours on May 21 and the infantry were to advance at 1946 hours.
Those of the British who were unharmed — few enough — were half buried and choked by earth and practically disarmed. Coolly the Germans began to consolidate their objective as darkness began to fall. The carrying parties brought forward machine guns, timber and wire and got through without much difficulty, thus enabling construction to go on all night almost unhindered.
Patching up Nobody in 47th Division had a clear idea of what had happened, communications were broken and the co-ordination of a properly prepared counterattack impossible—the more so since the new German line was unlocated. At 0200 hours on the 22nd four companies tried to probe forward locally but were instantly repelled when key officers were killed or wounded. The best the British could do was patch up a new line a good 300 yards back from the original.
Wilson's primary reaction was to reinforce 47th Division with the 99th Brigade which was part of 2nd Division in Corps Reserve and to strengthen the artillery opposite the breach — though the latter was not so much in need since the real shortage was of ammunition for the guns already in position. Next he had to decide whether to hang on where he was or to counterattack on a leu-ge scale — nothing less would suffice. But counterattack what? The German front line was still undisclosed because they had stopped work on it at daybreak and it was not until midday, when signal lights were shot by the
The British suspected nothing. On the 19th the 140th Brigade from 47th Division German infantry as they accidentally came had taken over the line from a part of under fire from their own guns, that the 25th Division and since then had been British got a clear idea of this vital detail. heavily engaged on strengthening the Conference followed conference at the trenches, which were still not up to standard and lacked wire entanglements. When, on the 21st, the German bombardment (allocated 200 shells per hour per battery) worked its way to and fro across the British defences, dousing the front line and observation posts, sweeping the battery positions and sealing off Zouave Valley with a barrage, the effect was accumulative and finally suffocating. The ground had dried out in the Spring sunshine so that each explosion raised a cloud of dust which became denser as the day progressed until, for the observers on both sides, the entire crest and, more, particularly, the frontage to be assailed, was obscured to view. But whereas the
Germans knew were
precisely
falling, the British
where their
shells
returned the
fire
in doubt, guided for the most part by RFC aeroplanes and a kite balloon observer,
but without imposing any restraint on the German fire. Eventually, when the detonating of a mine on their left flank announced the moment for the German infantry to climb up into the open, nobody on the British side was aware of the event and the first wave from the 86th Reserve Regiment entered the British positions (what little remained of them), with hardly a shot being fired in retaliation. In fact, the chief cause of the Germans having to halt was their own box barrage where it sealed off those approaches which might be used by a British counterattack. Elsewhere there was a little cross-fire from the flank^ and some hand-to-hand fighting, but from 140th Brigade, crushed by the tumultuous shell-fire, there was barely a response.
1368
HQ
of
IV
Corps
moved up and the
while
reinforcements
artillery tried to re-
orientate itself Early on the 22nd Wilson opted for a moonlight attack at 0100 hours on the 23rd, but he regretfully postponed this when a message from Haig insisted that only a well prepared attack was permissible. So planning began for a heavier assault with still more artillery on the evening of the 23rd, but at the next conference, at 1400 hours, Haig's representative threw yet another spoke in the wheel by stating that the C-in-C desired 'a line to be established in a position which could
be maintained' which, in practice, would mean either leaving it where it was or attempting that which the French had utterly failed to do with a major offensive — to seize the whole of the crest of Vimy Ridge. Wilson fretted that further delay, such as Haig implied, would give the Germans far too much time to strengthen their new line — and in this he was supported by First Army Commander (Monro, who had returned from leave but 24 hours before) and Third Army Commander (Allenby).
Meanwhile a British deserter informed Germans of the counterattack which was meant to begin on the evening of the 22nd, and throughout that night and right
the
through the 23rd the German gunfire raged, pouring in shells of which there was no shortage while the British, still with only enough ammunition to support the attack which had now been set for 2025 hours, could do little to abate the carnage. As the evening advanced, 142nd Brigade on the left and 99th Brigade on the right crouched in the shallowest of jumping off trenches. At 1925 hours, the British £util-
programme began. This was the signal— Ta pPamature
lery
*bjie
turned out — for the German infamtry stand to. Upon these exposed men fell the weight of the British fire: likewise reserves sent impulsively across the open to fill in gaps suffered a number of quite unnecessary casualties. Far more effe tive, from the (German point of view, wa the extremely well thought out and accur ately placed barrages which they unleash ed at 2000 hours upon and behind the 991 h Brigade. One of its battalions — 1st Berkshire—lost 100 men almost at once and communications were wholly wrecked with the exception of one radio set. Yet this set proved the undoing of the brigade's attack since the last message it sent before being put out of action came from the acting CO of the Berkshires to say that he could not as
it
to
attack.
One
of his
company commanders,
appalled by the losses and the sight of the jumping-off trenches being obliterated, had sent a message to say that to advance would be plain murder. At any rate, the Berkshires stuck, though the units on their flanks advanced, one on the right gaining a subsidiary objective while 142nd Brigade, on the left, reached the old front line only to be driven out by counterattacks which might never have developed had the Berkshires gone forward. Wilson now intervened with a highly complex instruction to 99th Brigade, full of alternatives but fortunately Monro put his foot down and the impractical order
was withdrawn. BRITISH UNES LOST MAY 21
New demands on
material It was at last appreciated by the British that the Grerman attack was no major offensive but only local, though this did not deter Wilson from planning the relief of 47th by 2nd Division and making preparations for yet another attack on June 3 —
AFTER GERMAN
AHACK
FINAL
GERMAN UNES BEFORE ACTION
AFTER
P Sector 25Div
By 1915 the area around Vimy was honeywith a complex network of underground tunnels and bomb shelters like this German one Left:
combed
plans which had to involve Haig since they made demands upon increased allocations of artillery and guns just when the final arrangements for the Somme were in train. It was calculated that guns diverted at this stage to Vimy could just return to the Somme in time for the offensive, but that if the Vimy Ridge operation had to be prolonged in any way, they would be too late for the Somme and one portion of that attack would have to be cancelled. This Haig could not countenance and on May 27 all further reinforcements for Wilson were withheld. But the threat imposed by those insolent German trenches just a few yards on the British side of the crest of that crucial Ridge were at once a new challenge to Haig. Like Joffre before him, he came to realise that it must one day be stormed and so, even if IV Corps were not to execute an immediate attack, it could at least study the problem and make ready a scheme for a more propitious occasion. British losses had been severe — nearly 2,500 — the majority in IV Corps whose handling of the battle had been severely criticised by Haig. To Wilson it was: 'A nasty little knock; our casualties about 1,200 to 1,500. By a savage bombardment I have been knocked out of rotten trenches which we only took over on Sunday morning,' he wrote, and he could have added that with those trenches went every one of his mine shafts and that the resumption
"i
Above: The map shows the changing position the British and German lines during the May fighting for the all-important Vimy Ridge
mine warfare on
of
would be could also justifiably fulminate against interference from and Monro, and seriously consider court martialling the acting CO of the Berkshires. Grerman losses were not as great. They lost 1,344 men — mostly suffered during the British counterattack. On May 31 FreytagLoringhoven completed his stint at the front and could return to his desk. But a little further to the south, on the ridge near Neuville Saint Vaast on the same day as the German General departed, the British miners were again listening in to German conversations in an adjoining tunnel and, at a convenient moment on June 3, blowing four charges under the enemy lines. Such German over-confidence as the attack on May 21 might have created (and it was noted that the German tunnellers at Neuville had been noisy and careless in their procedures) was thus dispersed for ever as, once more, the British strove remorselessly for ascendancy on Vimy Ridge. of
much more
difficult.
his sector
He
GHQ
Further Reading Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (Cassell)
Grieve and
Newman, The
Tunnellers (Jenkins) of the 47th (London) Division (Amalgamated Press)
Maude
(ed.),
History
Kenneth page 245.]
[For
Macksey's
biography,
see
1369
EAST AFRICA German successes and Allied build-up At the beginning of 1915, the Germans won an important success at Jasin. But German losses were heavy, especially in officers, and conditioned Lettow Vorbeck's reluctance to pursue
any more actions of this nature. The Allies, in their turn, had inadequate resources for an offensive — nor could Kitchener
provide them — and they could adopt only a defensive position, and wait. Furthermore, as the rains came, their health and
morale began to deteriorate. Lettow Vorbeck had many more strong native troops and decided to use this great advantage to launch one of the most successful guerilla campaigns ever waged. R. Sibley. Left: An NCO of the Kaiserlich Schutztruppe (Ger-
man colonial troops) wearing the standard service dress with traditional cork sun helmet. Right: Actions in German East Africa 1915/16. The Germans retained the initiative
1371
The Secretary of State for War informed Wapshare that a defensive attitude should be adopted in East Africa except for minor enterprises, as no further reinforcements could be expected while all available men were required for more important theatres. Meanwhile, the overall plan of the German commander — Lettow Vorbeck — was to attract as many Allied troops as possible into East Africa and so divert them from the more vital theatres — however this far-sighted plan was to take some months before its aim was fully achieved. At the beginning of 1915 Lettow Vorbeck feared that the British forces in position at Jasin would attempt to push down the coast to Tanga; so after a detailed personal reconnaissance of the
map
prepared by Lieutenant Schaefer, he decided The plan was to attack the advanced post of Jasin and encourage the British to commit their reserves on to well-sited German positions. The German companies were ordered up to the New Moshi railway. This railway provided tremendous strategic mobility, and the efficiency of Lieutenant Kroeber, the officer in charge of the railway, ensured that this operation, working on interior lines of communication, was executed with great speed. A force of nine companies with two guns was assembled south of Jasin by January 17, 1915. The orders for the attack were given on January 18. Major Kepler with two companies was to attack Jasin from the right flank. Captain Adler with two companies took the left flank. The Arab Corps was posted to the north-west while Captain Otto, and the 9th Company advanced frontally, closely followed by Lettow Vorbeck's tactical HQ and the main body (one European company, two Askari companies and two guns). All company commanders attacked simultaneously. A platoon commander wrote of the attack: 'We were ordered to join Adler's column and attack the left area aided by a
to attack the British positions.
Above: An armoured car at a British camp in East Africa. After Jasin, Britisfi troops were split into isolated groups guarding important posts
was hardly surprising that the failures in East Africa during 1914 prompted the War Office to take control of operations there. The British forces in East Africa were reorganised and two commands were formed, the Mombasa Area and Nairobi Area under Brigadier-Generals Tighe and Stewart respectively. The regiments in the two Indian Expeditionary Forces were amalgamated and redistributed between these two commands. Shortly after the reorganisation, Major-General Aitken was ordered home in disgrace and the command was given to Major-General Wapshare. The disaster at Tanga had been blamed on Aitken; he was not to be employed again and the few remaining years of his life he spent trying to clear his name. It
»•„ -.
flank of Jasin at 0645 hrs, I received orders to join the fight with one platoon. We began firing at the enemy who were in a tower at a range of 150 metres, the platoon gained ground by advancing by rushes and after fixing bayonets we pursued the enemy who were slowly retreating. 'The morale of the men was good and the Askaris shot well.' The Germans surrounded Jasin Camp and the sisal factory. Captain Giffard vdth three companies of the KAR tried to relieve them but failed, so the Kashmir Rifles in the factory having expended their ammunition retired to Umba Camp. The ammunition in Jasin Camp, 300 rounds per man, ran out. Colonel Rajhbir
commanding the 2nd Kashmir Rifles was killed, and the fell on Captain Hanson who, because of the heavy shelling, the lack of ammunition and the exhaustion of the 101st Grenadiers, surrendered. On January 19 the white flag was hoisted over Jasin. The rapid concentration of the nine German Singh,
command
companies at a decisive point, good reconnaissance, surprise and a sound tactical plan gave Lettow Vorbeck another decisive victory over the British who suffered 500 casualties. This battle at the beginning of 1915 was of vital importance for two reasons: • Lettow Vorbeck lost one-seventh of his regular officers and 'the expenditure of 200,000 rounds proved that with the means at my disposal I [Vorbeck] could at the most fight three more actions of this nature. The need to strike great blows and to restrict myself principally to guerilla warfare was evidently imperative.
The guiding principle was to operate against the Uganda Railway.' • Lord Kitchener had forbidden further offensive action: 'You are entirely mistaken to suppose that offensive operations are necessary, you should concentrate your forces and give up risky expeditions.'
So the new year had started with yet another reverse
for the
Above: The severed lifeline. Lettow Vorbeck's prime target was the Uganda railway. In two months more than 30 British trains were destroyed British forces which weakened further the morale shaken by the defeat at Tanga. Lord Kitchener followed up with another
War Office telegram:
.. *^ _
-.V
'After careful consideration of the circumstances it is considered that for the present you should adopt a definitely defensive attitude along the Anglo-German frontier from the lake to the sea. The Secretary of State desires you to understand that with heavy calls all over the world it is not practicable to meet requirements of East Africa at present.' The rainy season started and the British forces adopted a strategically defensive position. The troops were split into small isolated groups guarding the Uganda railway and the frontier. General
4.
<^-
->
>x' \>
Se/oiv.'
>'
German
Askaris
m,
-JA'
into action
'l-VM-
S?^,
tv^-.::ti-
--.^.>:
move
.r^-.
on the foothills
...
/..
of Kilimanjaro
Wapshare had no reserve, and because of this tactical imbalance he could no longer counter German moves. The British forces had gone on the defensive tactically as well as strategically and the initiative was in the hands of Lettow Vorbeck. The small Indian outposts on the border without British officers neglected the basic infantry tasks of posting sentries and they were to prove easy targets for the German Askaris. In April Wapshare was ordered to the Persian Gulf and General Tighe took over command. His Chief of Intelligence, Captain R. Meinertzhagen, writing in his diary was frank: 'The chaotic state of affairs here is heartbreaking. No reserve, no discipline, lack of courage in leaders, thousands of unreliable troops and no offensive spirit. I wish to heaven I could get out of it all and fight in the trenches.' But a further problem faced the British commander. The health of the British and Indian troops was deteriorating alarmingly. This was to be expected in the unhealthy coastal area but further
inland the problem was just as acute. Some figures illustrate the alarming proportions to which the sickness had risen. By June 1915, for example, the 2nd Battalion Loyal North Lancashire Regiment had only 265 men of its 901 fit for action. Two Indian regiments, the Rampur Infantry and the 13th Rajputs, were unfit for service with 95% of their strengths down with malaria. The only soldiers in the British force unaffected by the harsh conditions were the Askaris of the King's African Rifles — but because of War Office disapproval it took a considerable time before more of these excellent soldiers were recruited and trained.
A lifeline attacked The scene was now set for Lettow Vorbeck to put into practice the lessons he had learnt in South- West Africa and to wage one of the most successful guerilla wars recorded. The classic principles of guerilla warfare — mobility, taking the enemy by surprise, avoiding pitched battles, self-discipfine, strong
leadership and a firm base from which to operate — well understood and applied by Lettow Vorbeck. The Germans were strategically on the defensive but unlike their adversaries they were tactically on the offensive. The target that Lettow Vorbeck set his forces was the British Uganda railway, the lifeline of the colony which carried all the supplies inland from Mombasa. A force of company strength was too large to be effective so it was broken down into small patrols of about ten men, Europeans and Askaris, who carried all their supplies and were completely self-sufficient. Good training and discipline enabled them to march across miles of waterless, thinly populated bush, blow up the railway and attack the small outposts. As they became more confident and skilful so their mobility increased and they took the British by surprise, avoided pitched battles and thereby tied down the British force on static guard duties. These patrols blew up the railway, cut communications, raided outposts, captured arms, ammunition and horses. The stretch of railway between Simba and Sambura came under constant attack, a stretch uncomfortably close to Mombasa. Sabotage was so successful that in two months over 30 trains were derailed and ten bridges destroyed. The British even resorted to the old Boer idea of putting a truck ahead of the locomotive to detonate any charge, but the Germans countered by introducing a delayed explosive charge on the tracks. The new railway which the British were building from Voi was also attacked and the area commander, BrigadierGeneral Malleson, was ambushed while making a reconnaissance. He escaped with his life because of the gallantry of Subadar Ghulam Haidar of the 130th Baluchis, who covered the retreat of the British car, and for this brave act was awarded a post-
command and were factors
all
humous VC. One successful German
patrol captured 57 horses which enabled Lettow Vorbeck to form a second mounted company and thereby give more mobility and an increased range of patrolling to the
German
forces.
These continual raiding parties,
b!.
.
"
tracks,
attacking outposts, derailing locomotiu to the lowering of British morale. Lettow Vorbeck realised that the war prolonged so preparations were put into effect l^ ^eifsufficient. Cotton cloth was now produced b\ he colony, the planters produced rubber tyres foi bit and even their own brand of motor fuel. Vast stocks o. made which were to prove invaluable in the years to come iia the Amani Biological Institute in Usambara produced quinine tablets in the fight against malaria. The German force was reorganised and improved. The field and rifle companies became more alike, by the cross posting of Euro-
1374
peans and Askaris to even up the balance. The total number of companies was increased to 60 and by the end of 1915 the strength was 2,998 Europeans and 11,300 Askaris. In any guerilla war Intelligence is a key factor. Both the Germans and the British had good Intelligence systems but only the
German commanders
paid proper attention to their Intelligence
Captain Meinertzhagen, the British Intelligence chief, developed a very sophisticated system and employed many Swahili speaking Africans as agents. His own particular brand of intelligence gathering was called the DPM method (Dirty Paper Method): he found that the German officers' latrines contained much information. Old message pads, notes on deciphering codes, private letters were all used as lavatory paper and from this collection of paper he reconstructed all the German officers signatures and distributed this to all field commanders so that the importance of any captured German document could immediately be recognised and evaluated. Unfortunately Meinertzhagen's very accurate information was disregarded by the British commanders who reports.
did not appreciate that central Intelligence was liable to be much more accurate than their own locally and haphazardly gathered information. An example of the accuracy of Meinertzhagen's work is worth considering. In March 1915, he assessed the German strength at 2,500 Europeans, 9,153 Askaris and 78 machine guns. The German returns for that period show 2,300 Europeans, 7,647 Askaris and 78 machine guns. If the German commander's overall aim was to divert as many British troops as possible from other theatres of war to German East Africa, then by May 1915 his plan was beginning to bear fruit. The 2nd Rhodesia Regiment, and the 25th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (Frontiersmen) were sent to Eas't Africa. The latter unit was raised and commanded by Colonel Driscoll and it included a wealth of fighting experience and individuality. The famous hunter, F. C. Selous, was a member and so was an exgeneral from Honduras and many others who had French decorations awarded while serving with the Foreign Legion. The size of the King's African Rifles was only marginally increased, as the report by Colonel Kitchener (brother of Lord Kitchener) had not viewed with favour the arming of so many Africans. It is unquestionable that the African soldier was the best type of soldier for this type of warfare (as the Germans realised) but it was not until 1916 that the was vastly expanded. After surprising difficulty a carrier corps was raised. In a theatre where all supplies had to be manhandled and carried, its formation was to be of vital importance, its eventual strength rising to 200,000 men. During August Major-General Tighe pointed out to the War Office that with the German replenishment of arms and ammunition coupled with the high sickness rate amongst the British and Indian troops, the situation had become critical in East Africa. By this time the German Protectorate of South- West Africa had fallen to the South African forces, and the Union government
KAR
was now prepared to send reinforcements to East Africa. The German commander was delighted with this news: 'It was important to encourage the enemy in this intention in order that the South Africans should really come and in the greatest strength possible and thus be directed from other more important theatres of war.'
The campaign in East Africa had taken on a new complexion for Colonel Hughes when van Deventer had arrived from South Africa to study the means for closer co-operation, and from that moment onwards South African troops began to arrive. The stimulus of South African support rallied the morale of the settlers and on their own initiative they introduced compulsory service. During December 1915 General Sir Horace Smith-Dorien was appointed commander of the East African forces and the Committee of Imperial Defence recommended substantial reinforcements. The general's plan for the campaign was to engage the German forces in the Kilimanjaro area while a separate force was to land at Dar-es-Salaam. This was not a new plan, for the foundations had already been laid by General Tighe with the construction of a water pipeline and a railway towards the Kilimanjaro area. Events in the south also entered a new phase. Brigadier-General E. Northey had been appointed commander of the forces on the Rhodesia/Nyasaland border of German East Africa and he arrived in Capetown on December 30, 1915. From this moment on substantial South African and Rhodesian reinforcements began to arrive in this area of operations. Smith-Dorien sailed for South Opposite, top left: British troops watch their Masai guides take their traditional refreshment of cows blood. Top right: A German Askari lies dead after a fight with troops of the KAR. Bottom: A patrol of the East African fvlounted Riflef, By 1915 their offensive spirit had been sapped
1375
'
Africa at about the same time but developed pneumonia during the voyage and he had to resign his appointment. The prospect of beginning the offensive obviously made some form of reorganisation necessary and General Tighe had concentrated towards the Kilimanjaro area and formed the 1st and 2nd Divisions. Recruiting in South Africa had gone well and the following units were raised: The 1st South African Mounted Brigade, the 2nd South African Infantry Brigade, the 3rd South African Infantry Brigade and the South African Field Artillery (five batteries).
Further reinforcements came from France, the 40th Pathans and 129th (DCO) Baluchis, while additional artillery came from England together with armoured cars. The Royal Naval Air Service, which had taken part in the Konigsberg operations also offered their help, and their aerial photography was to prove invaluable to the Intelligence effort. The King's African Rifles was slowly expanded to 133 officers and 4,200 Africans. Smuts had been offered the command in November 1915 but had turned it down because of political problems in the Union. The British government offered it again on Smith-Dorien's resignation and this time Smuts accepted. General Smuts reached Nairobi on February 22, 1916. Meinertzhagen wrote of him: 'One cannot talk to Smuts without being attracted by his personality. He is a fascinating little man and one leaves him after an interview with the impression that he has a first class brain. I found it such a pleasure to run over the situation on a map after the laborious processes and artifices one had to resort to with Tighe. Smuts grasps points at once and never wants telling a second time.' Smuts arrived in East Africa just as General Tighe's offensive on the German stronghold of Kilimanjaro was beginning. It started with a shattering defeat for the British forces at Salaita Hill under Brigadier-General Malleson. This made an impression on Smuts, for during the six months in the South-West African campaign only 113 were killed and 311 wounded but in a few hours fighting at Salaita Hill 133 South Africans were killed. Meinertzhagen records: 'Smuts is determined to avoid a stand up fight. He told me openly he intends to manoeuvre the enemy out of positions and not push them out. He told me he could not afford to go back to South Africa with the nick-name "Butcher" Smuts. Smuts' plan was as follows: The 1st Division, under MajorGeneral Stewart, was to march south from Longido to cut enemy lines of communication. The South African Mounted Brigade and 3rd South African Infantry Brigade (Brigadier-General van Deventer) were to attempt the seizure of Chala Heights, and the 2nd Division (Major-General Tighe) was to move against Salaita. The Reserve was to follow van Deventer in readiness to reinforce 2nd Division or the South African Mounted Brigade. On March 5 the 1st Division moved off from Longido but waited until dusk to avoid marching in the heat of the day. Engare Nanyuki was reached on March 6 and the division concentrated during March 7 but no opposition had been met. The thick bush at the foothills of Kilimanjaro slowed the division down by another day as General Stewart was not prepared to go through dense bush without prior reconnaissance. During this unambitious advance General Smuts was urging speed the whole time but this had little effect on 1st Division who were held up for a further day by a small German detachment. This sequence of events thereby ensured their late arrival on the scene of action. The commander had failed in his task, for it was not until March 14 that contact was made with the rest of the force. Meinertzhagen adds a colourful account in his diary: 'Stewart is still dawdling on the other side of Kilimanjaro and clearly has no intention of even attempting to play the game. Smuts sends him periodical rude messages enjoining haste but the man is quite incapable of making the effort. Smuts is very depressed about Stewart and sees the fruits of his stratgg; as been sound, '
'
thrown away.'
The Germans
pull
back
The Germans had moved south to T^;^ ed Chala on March 8 without meetii take Salaita unopposed, for the Germans
.
position.
The German
British forces.
The German
forces had not been effectively brought to battle tactical defeat, they had, in fact, retired at their own speed, at the same time inflicting severe casualties on the British. Smuts' original plan had not been entirely successful because the 1st Division had arrived too late to cut the German's lines of communication. Shortly the rainy season would start and it was of vital importance to drive the Germans behind the line
and had suffered no
Ruvu before this began. Smuts had decided that there should be changes in the command structure. After a stormy interview General Stewart resigned and left for India; Smuts declared that Brigadier-General Malleson had lost the confidence of his men and should therefore relinquish his command. Also at this time General Tighe left for India, but not in disgrace as the other two generals. At last there was to be firm leadership and direction in East Africa. On March 18 the advance to the Ruvu began. Van Deventer was ordered to made a wide flanking movement southwards from New Moshi towards Kaye. The 1st Division, now commanded by General Sheppard, was to attack down the road from Moshi whilst the 2nd Division was to operate from Taveta. The wide flanking movement of van Deventer's forces came up against the River Pangaili which was difficult to cross. When the attacks went in the Germans had again successfully withdrawn without being brought of the River
to battle.
When van Deventer reached Kaye he came under fire from a Konigsberg 4.1-inch gun. Smuts ordered the 1st Division to advance but they also came under heavy fire from the German positions. A limited hold was gained and General Sheppard ordered the division to dig in. When dawn broke the (jerman positions had again been evacuated. Lettow Vorbeck had made yet another successful clean break and executed a brilliant withdrawal operation at night. 'In spite of the various withdrawals we had recently carried out,' Vorbeck wrote, 'the spirit of the troops was good, and the Askaris were imbued with a justifiable pride in their achievements against an enemy so greatly superior.' The advance to the River Ruvu and the action at Kahe brought to a close the first phase of the campaign, which had been achieved before the rainy season. Since the arrival of (jeneral Smuts the German threat to the Kenya-Uganda railway had been removed, the British forces were now effectively commanded, and a gateway had been made into the German territory. The different fighting units, British infantry. South African infantry and cavalry. Regular Indian regiments. Imperial Service troops from Kashmir, Jhind, Kaparthalu, Bhurtpar; the battalions of the
manned by settlers from Rhoand Uganda, artillery manned by marines and seamen were all welded together for the first time into a fighting command. Lettow Vorbeck, who was awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Class during 1916, had not been brought to battle and defeated by any great tactical victory. He had in fact inflicted considerable casualties on the British forces while executing some brilliant fighting withdrawals. His aim was to avoid pitched battles and attract as many British troops as possible into East Africa, thereby preventing them from being employed in the main theatres of war. Both these aims, tactical and strategic, he King's African Rifles, regiments
desia,
achieved. As a prelude to the next offensive Smuts reorganised his command into three divisions, two South African, with a mounted brigade apiece,. and one British division. He further decided to expand the King's African Rifles, West African troops were to be sted to East Africa, and many irregular auxiliaries were to be ed and additional aircraft received. 'i iie scene was now set for the next phase in the conquest of "•'^rma-
forces
had pulled back onto
th-
;
'^
East Africa.
r
position and had been placed in a strong defensive lav Vorbeck was sure that he could in! ct a defeat on before being forced to retire. On Ma. 1 two Rhoilf ments, 130th Baluchis and 3rd KAR wero ordeied to seize ihe hiiis by frontal assault. It was the first time that the 3rd KAR, under Colonel Graham, had fought as a unit and they suffered the heaviest casualties. Colonel Graham was killed by a German
1376
machine gunner in this battle which was the most severe of the few stand-up fights in East Africa. The German position was not dislodged and a night attack with bayonet was undertaken by the 5th and 7th South African Infantry commanded by Colonel The Hon. J. Byron. Some of the South Africans held on to the ridge until daylight as there were no further reserves to consolidate the attack. In the morning it was seen that the Germans had evacuated the position but not without inflicting 270 casualties on the
ding al J., k,
1
Mei
Moy;
1.
General Smuts' Campaign in East Africa (Murray 1918) General von, My Reminiscences of East Africa (Hurst
Colonel
.d, iieti, H.,
[For Major Sih^o^
H.,
Army Diary 1 899-1926
The King's African ':
Rifles (Gale
biography, see page 360.]
{0\\\/er and Boyd) and Polden)
through offensive movements and bombardments,
to entice part
Grand Fleet out to a position where it could be attacked piecemeal, and for the rest to concentrate on submarine attack and mine warfare to sting the British into a retaliation that might produce the same results, with the hope, through this attrition, of reaching the stage where a full scale encounter between the two opposing fleets would not be too hazardous an of the
mm '>«>^s&^
German victory in a fleet action between the navies of Britain and Germany could decide the war in a day. At the end of May 1916 chance and intent combined to bring both fleets to this momentous trial of strength. Peter Kemp The long months
of inactivity in the North Sea which followed the battle of the Dogger Bank (January 24, 1915) had its inevitable repercussions in the morale of the Grand Fleet, where boredom and frustration had wide reign among men thirsting for action, any action. 'I feel we are so impotent, so incapable of doing anything for lack of opportunity, almost that we are not doing our share and bearing our portion of the burden laid upon the nation,' wrote Vice-Admiral Beatty from Rosyth, and his sentiments were echoed in every heart in the Grand Fleet. The occasional sweeps in the northern half of the North Sea, tactical exercises, target practices and the continual need to coal ship so eis
to be
ready
when
the great day
dawned were not enough to immured in their ships
satisfy even the least bellicose of the men in Scapa Flow, Cromarty and Rosyth.
All sorts of suggestions to stimulate some response from the Fleet were put up both in the Admiralty and
German High Seas
in the fleet, but in the end all were shattered against Jellicoe's rocklike refusal to be stampeded into any adventures that would
threaten the British command of the North Sea. By 1916 it was clear that Britain was winning the war at sea, even though it was by default rather than action, and that the naVal stranglehold on the German seaborne trade must, in the end, bring Germany down into defeat. This was Jellicoe's gospel, and though he was as ready and as eager for battle as any other officer in the fleet, every proposed operation, every suggestion to tempt the Germans out, had to be weighed against this overriding need to preserve the Grand Fleet's margin of supremacy over the German High Seas Fleet. The Admiralty's dilemma was to some extent solved by a change of command in the German High Seas Fleet. Admiral Pohl, mortally ill with cancer, was in February 1916 replaced by Vizeadmiral (Vice-Admiral) Reinhard Scheer, a far more able officer with a determination to pursue a bolder line than Pohl had ever conceived. Moreover, with his appointment there came from the Kaiser an agreement which gave Scheer far more freedom of action than had ever been accorded his two predecessors. All this was known and appreciated in the British Admiralty, and hopes were high that Scheer's bolder tactics might bring about the longhoped-for sea battle between the main fleets of the two nations. Scheer, however, was no foolhardy adventurer. He knew, just as well as did his two predecessors, that the High Seas Fleet was no match in' battle with the Grand Fleet, and it was no part of his plan to bring about any full encounter. His strategy was to try.
adventure. Scheer's first two efforts to implement a more forward strategy were nothing if not timorous. On February 10 he made a destroyer sweep east of the Dogger Bank; three weeks later, in conjunction with a Zeppelin raid on England, he took the High Seas Fleet as far west as the Texel in the hope that the Zeppelins might tempt out the Harwich Force of light cruisers and destroyers. Neither sortie achieved anything, and although on both occasions the Grand Fleet, alerted by the Admiralty (which had decoded some of the German signals) put to sea, Scheer was back in his base long before the British, who were steaming from their Scottish bases, could reach the scene. The British were the next to engage in this game of tip and run. The Harwich Force escorted the seaplane carrier HMS Vindex to a position west of the island of Sylt, and the seaplanes were launched in the early morning of March 25 to bomb what were thought to be Zeppelin sheds at Hoyer, on the mainland opposite Sylt. Beatty, with the Battle-Cruiser Fleet, was in position about 50 miles west of Horns Reef, with the main Battle Fleet further to the north. The Germans were very slow to respond. On the night of March 25/26 Hipper put to sea with the German battlecruisers, with two squadrons of battleships in support, but turned for home after reaching Sylt. The official German report blamed the rough weather for Hipper's decision to return so soon. Beatty remained cruising in the vicinity of Horns Reef for over 24 hours, but at no time was Hipper nearer than 60 miles from him. The seaplane raid achieved nothing beyond proving that there were no Zeppelin sheds at Hoyer. (They were at Tondern, inland.) Nevertheless the High Seas Fleet, or at least a major part of it, had put to sea as a result of this operation, and the British Admiralty was quick to suggest further similar raids to the
Commander-in-Chief. But Jellicoe would have none of it. A main fleet action fought in the waters of the German Bight, so far from British bases, was just not in his book of possibilities. Such an action would raise acute problems of fuel for destroyers and light cruisers, quite apart from the risk of exposing the Grand Fleet dreadnoughts to submarines and mines. And Beatty was entirely of Jellicoe's opinion. If a main fleet action were to be fought, it would have to be in open waters where the dice would be less heavily loaded in the Germans' favour. Scheer's next blow was the raid on Lowestoft and Yarmouth on April 25, an operation designed to coincide and support the Easter Sunday rising of Irish Nationalists, which was instigated and supported by Germany. Scheer put to sea with the High Seas Fleet at noon on April 24, but one of the bombarding battlecruisers, SMS Seydlitz, struck a mine off the Norderney Gap and was forced to return. The British Admiralty, again as a result of decoded signals, was aware of this movement, though not yet of its destination, and ordered the Grand Fleet to raise steam and put to sea. Similar orders went to the Harwich Force. As the Grand Fleet steamed to the southward it ran into a strong head sea which was too much for the destroyers. They were forced to disperse, and Jellicoe continued without them. Commodore Tyrwhitt and his Harwich Force sighted the German battle-cruisers at about 0700 hours while on their way to Lowestoft, and altered course to the south in an attempt to draw them away from their target. They refused to follow, but the 2nd Scouting Group of four light cruisers, escorting the battle-cruisers, engaged the Harwich Force. Tyrwhitt, having failed to entice the Germans south, had altered round again to the northward, but now found himself faced with the German battle-cruisers ahead of him, and by now six light cruisers, with two flotillas of destroyers, on his starboard bow. He had no alternative but to turn again and retire at his best speed.
A plan misfires
Ji
Here, then, was just the situation towards which all Scheer's planning had been directed. A sizeable portion of the British fleet (three light cruisers and 18 destroyers) were out on a limb, unsupported by any other fleet formations. What did the German admirals do? Konteradmiral (Rear- Admiral) Bodicker, commanding the battle-cruisers in the absence of Hipper, who was ill, called off the pursuit and retired at full speed on the remainder of the High Seas Fleet which Scheer had brought to the west of Terschelling, about 70 miles east of Yarmouth. As soon as the
1377
battle-cruisers for
home. As
were within 50 miles of him, Scheer himself turned for Tyrwhitt,
he altered course to the north-east
as soon as the Germans retired, and shadowed them until the Admiralty ordered him home. T'-.e nearest that Beatty was able to get to the High Seas Fleec was 130 miles; Jellicoe was still 300 miles away when Scheer reversed course and made for the security of his base in the Jade river. A British raid on the Zeppelin base at Tondern, on much the same lines as the Hoyer raid, was launched on May 4, again with the object of enticing the High Seas Fleet out. The Grand Fleet was off the entrance to the Skagerrak, but the seaplane attack provoked no immediate response. Jellicoe himself ordered the fleet to retire in the early afternoon, having waited for some seven hours in German waters for Scheer to make a move. In fact, Scheer did come out an hour after Jellicoe had left the field, but
only proceeded as far as Sylt before returning to the Jade. Even had Jellicoe delayed his departure, it was unlikely that the two fleets could have made contact with each other. All these pre-Jutland plans and operations, three German and two British, whetted the appetite in both fleets for further action. Early in May, Scheer reckoned he had found the ideal plan. Basically it was much in line with the previous operation at Lowestoft, where Bodicker had let slip the opportunity of annihilating the Harwich Force. Two things had gone wrong then: Hipper's illness, which had meant giving Bodicker the command, and the fact that Lowestoft was too far to the south for Beatty to get there in time. Hipper had now recovered from his illness, and Scheer had confidence that he would not repeat Bodicker's mistake if the opportunity offered. A raid by the German battle-cruisers on Sunderland, which was some 200 miles nearer to Rosyth than was Lowestoft, would draw Beatty out, and the High Seas Fleet, waiting conveniently out at sea, would overwhelm Beatty long before Jellicoe could get there from Scapa Flow. Scheer had two additional refinements to add to this plan. He had recalled his U-Boats from commerce operations late in April following the unfavourable international outcry after the sinking of the hospital ship Sussex, and thus had them available to play a part in the forthcoming operation. They were to be sent out advance of the fleet movement to lie off" the main British naval bases, in particular Scapa Flow and Rosyth. There they had a dual purpose, to torpedo British warships as they put to sea and
cations in the British Admiralty of German preparations for an operation of some magnitude, and Jellicoe was warned accordingly. His plan was postponed indefinitely until the German move-
ments were known
in
more
detail.
Scheer, however, had been having his troubles. His U-Boats were already out, but the repairs to the Seydlitz had not been satisfactorily completed by the 23rd, and there was a further postponement for another six days, to the 29th. On that day, blustery winds from the north-east ruled out the Zeppelin reconnaissance. It was the same on the 30th, but by now Scheer had reached the end of his time allowance. His U-Boats had been in position since the 23rd, and would reach the end of their endurance on June 1. It was, therefore, now or never so far as his plan went. Yet without his Zeppelin reconnaissance, with its vital warning of Jellicoe's position and movements, he was not prepared to take the High Seas Fleet so close to the British coast. Scheer substituted a second plan, not so daring as his first but designed to produce the same result. Instead of crossing the North Sea and bombarding Sunderland, the 1st and 2nd Scouting Groups were to show themselves off" the Danish coast as though on the way to attack British shipping in the Skagerrak, with the remainder of the High Seas Fleet following in their wake some 60 miles astern. Scheer was pretty certain that this movement of the two Scouting Groups would be quickly reported in London and
ip '^ -
'
make more
certain
^
as direct support to the light cruiser north-west, off" the south-western c Fleet, including the Battle-Crui^^' '
?
hile to the
he Grand ready
i
.
to
move south at full speed if the Gt Into this main plan Jellicoe built
>
—
the High Seas Fleet if it should not vc give the Grand Fleet its chance. Three h stationed to the south of Horns Reef and twn Bank, while the minelayer HMS Abdiel was lo field, already laid south of Horns Reef, to close northern channel used by German ships when le;u Also off" Horns Reef was to be the seaplane carrier HM. with an escort of light cruisers, to give warning of .. ment by Zeppelins which might prejudice the execution of ti Jellicoe's plan was due for execution on June 2, but u Scheer who got in first. Towards the end of May there were m.! ^
:
1378
0)
1 i
i
still,
would carry out an extensive search of the northern North Sea to make quite certain that a report of Jellicoe's movements would be in Scheer's hands in plenty of time to avoid a meeting between the two main fleets. This was something that Scheer was determined to avoid. The details of this plan were filled in during the first ten days of May. The early morning bombardment of Sunderland was to be carried out by the 1st Scouting Group -five battle-cruisers under Hipper's command-with the 2nd Scouting Gro-up of four light cruisers under Bodicker in company and two destroyer flotillas to act as a screen. Scheer himself, with the High Seas Fleet, would be at sea in an area 50 miles east of Flamborough Head. The date was to be May 17. Soon this had to be postponed for six days, since the repairs to SMS Seydlitz, mined on the occasion of the Lowestoft raid, would not be completed until the 20th. Accordingly, the U-Boats sailed to take up their positions off" the British bases by dawn of that day, and Scheer warned his Zeppelins to be ready to fly on the 23rd. Meanwhile, Jellicoe had been preparing his plan, aimed at drawing the High Seas Fleet into waters much further north than It had yet reached. The plan entailed a sweep by two squadrons of light cruisers from the Skaw down into the Kattegat and as far south as the Sound and the Great Belt. There was to be a battle-squadron of the older battleships in th^ Skagerrak to act
1
1^
m
to report their movements to Scheer. To he also brought in his Zeppelins, which
j^n'^^^^H
li 0)
Q.
E
^y* <^
^
a ^^-
h.
_^.
^^Vi^^^
^^k
^^^
.aflra^l ^^^Bj ^^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^K^^^H ^^^^^^1 HBl^^^^^^^^^^^^l ^^^^^^^^1
^^^^^1 ^^1
achieve the result he wanted. The Grand Fleet, from Scapa Flow, Cromarty and Rosyth, would put to sea and thus give his waiting U-Boats their chance to use their torpedoes with eff"ect. And there was still the chance that Beatty, eager to get at the reported German battle-cruisers, would come charging across the North Sea into his waiting arms. And if events did not work out as he expected, he would still be near enough to his own bases to get home in plenty of time. Lack of Zeppelins would not affect this operation, since his starboard flank was protected by the Danish coast, and his port flank could be efficiently guarded by light cruisers and destroyers. Scheer's mind was made up, and during the afternoon of May 30 he made the signal that the operation, as replanned, was to proceed. The battle-cruisers under Hipper were to sail at 0100 hours on the 31st, with their orders slightly amend-
Above left: Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet. Above right: Vizeadmiral Reinhard Scheer, Commander-in-Chief of the High Seas Fleet. Right: The prelude: British battle-cruisers lie at anchor
in
the Firth of Forth
ed at the last minute. Instead of showing themselves off the Danish coast, Scheer instructed Hipper to go as far north as Norway and make himself conspicuous there before dark on the 31st. If he made contact with any sizeable British force, he was to draw it southward until it came within range of Scheer's guns. Scheer himself sailed from the Jade at 0230 hours. Off the British bases the U-Boats were ready.
The British Admiralty was aware that something considerwas afoot as early as May 17. It was the departure from their German bases of the U-Boats which gave them the first indication. They knew, too, that the destination of all these submarines was able
the northern half of the North Sea, and the fact that no ships were attacked in that area during the succeeding few days made them doubly suspicious. Room 40, which was the centre inside the Admiralty which decoded intercepted German signals, came up during the morning of May 30 with a signal ordering the High Seas Fleet to prepare for sea and assemble in the Jade Roads by 1900 hours. Half an hour later Jellicoe was informed that the High Seas Fleet might be proceeding to sea the following day. During the afternoon another signal was intercepted (Scheer's orders that the operation was to proceed), and although it could not be decoded, it was obviously so important that the Admiralty ordered Jellicoe to sea, informing him that 'the Germans intend some operations commencing tomorrow'. A concen-
tration between Jellicoe and Beatty was to be effected ea-si of the Long Forties, some 100 miles west of the entrance u Skagerrak. Both the Grand Fleet and the Battle-Cruiser Heel were at sea by 2300 hours, two hours before Hipper left the Jade. These numbers, which show such an impressive superiority on the British side, do not tell the fulT story. The speed of the six German pre-dreadnought battleships, about 18 knots, reduced the speed of the German battle line to about two knots slower than Jellicoe's battle line of modern dreadnoughts. It is fair to say, however, that Jellicoe did not know that the predreadnoughts were with Scheer, and so far as he knew both fleets were of roughly equal speed. In gun-power, the British superiority was overwhelming. And in torpedoes, the British also had a considerable superiority. Of what was. Jellicoe thinking as he/^tood upon the bridge of the Iron Duke as she forged ahead through the darkness? Perhaps his thoughts can best be summed up by a document which he had sent to the Admiralty seven weeks earlier, and had circulated to his Grand Fleet admirals: The first axiom appears to me to be that it is the business of the Grand Fleet to nullify any hostile action on the part of the High Sea (sic) Fleet; secondly, to cover all surface vessels that are employed either in protecting our own trade or in stopping trade with the enemy; thirdly, to stop invasion, or landing raids, in so far as the strategical position of the Grand Fleet permits of this. So long as the High Sea Fleet is confined to its harbour, the whole of these desiderata are obtained, and although, of course, the total destruction of the High Sea Fleet gives a greater sense of security, it is not, in my opinion, wise to risk unduly the heavy ships of the Grand Fleet in an attempt to hasten the end of the High Sea Fleet, particularly, if the risks come, not from the High Sea Fleet itself, but from such attributes as mines and submarines. There is no doubt that, provided there is a chance of destroying some of the enemy's heavy ships, it is right and proper to run risks with our own heavy ships, but unless the chances are reasonably great, I do not think that such risks should be run, seeing that any real disaster to our heavy ships lays the country open to invasion, and also gives the enemy the opportunity of passing commerce destroyers out of the North Sea. Beatty 's thoughts ran in parallel with those of his chief. It is often considered that he chafed under Jellicoe's cautious attitude, that he was the sort of admiral who would have risked all on a single throw. This could not be further from the facts. In all his writings of this period there is clear evidence that he was as well aware as Jellicoe that the maintenance of the existing superiority in numbers of capital ships was the be-all and end-all of the naval war in the North Sea. And all his actions when, at the end of the year, he succeeded Jellicoe in command of the Grand Fleet are added evidence that he would never risk that superiority by action in unfavourable circumstances. He chafed, it is true, at the inactivity of the High Sea Fleet, but then, so too did Jellicoe and every other officer and man in the Grand Fleet. And what of Scheer? He, too, was putting to sea with equally prudent thoughts. In no circumstances was he prepared to face an action with the Grand Fleet. His one hope was to isolate a portion of the Grand Fleet and bring it to action, and no more. .
[For Lieutenant-Commander Peter Kemp's biography, see page 52.]
1379
3 Miscellaneous
77 Destroyers
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26 Light Cruisers
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8 Armoured Cruiser^
New
Indefatigable
Queen Mary
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Princess Roy
9 Battle-Cruisers Indomitable
Inflexible
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Neptune
St Vincent
Colli^gwood
Colossus
Revenge
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Marlborough
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Royal Oak
Iron
Agincourt
Hercules
Vanguard
Temeraire
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Duke
Thunderer
Conqueror
Monarch
28 Dreadnought
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tSIL/ Admiral
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16
IFl^^i Admiral
Dreadnoughts
In accordance with the Admiralty instructions the British ships sailed late in the evening of May 30. From Scapa Flow the main body of the Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe cleared the anchorage by 2215 hours: south of them a smaller detachment of eight dreadnoughts of the 2nd Battle Squadron, together with cruisers and destroyers, was steaming from the Moray Firth to join Jellicoe after noon on the following day, and to the south of them Vice-Admiral Sir Uavid Beatty led his Battle-Cruiser Fleet
the Firth of Forth, which he cleared at 2300 hours. Beatty's destination was a point 69j miles south-south-east (159 degrees) of the Grand Fleet rendezvous. This separation was dictated by the need for Beatty's force to be sufficiently far south to cover any German tip-and-run raids on the East Coast, while the Grand Fleet had to be far enough north to cover the armed merchant cruisers on blockade duty to the north of Scotland. While perhaps not the best way to catch the German fleet with the maximum concentration of ships, it seemed a necessary split and there was little danger in it; Jellicoe's dreadnought force, even without Beatty, was stronger than the High Seas Fleet; Beatty's battle-cruisers were faster and could avoid any stronger German force. If Beatty had seen nothing by the time he arrived at his destination he was to turn northwards and join the Grand Fleet. So they sailed through a clear night, the dreadnoughts in line ahead, each keeping station on the blue stern light of the one before, the cruisers spread in the van like a shield. With the dawn, reports of U-Boat sightings broke radio silence and the long columns split up into divisions and steered zigzag courses. Meanwhile the German fleet was steaming northwards on a converging course through the divers minefields of the Heligoland
down
the main battlefleet followed secretly. He had no intention of taking on the full strength of the Grand Fleet of course, and had no idea that Jellicoe was at sea in force; three separate reports from different U-Boats off the Forth and Invergordon that morning reported various units of the British fleet, but they were confused by the zig-zag courses being followed and Scheer discarded them as too vague and scattered to be meaningful. So he continued steaming northwards towards the British rendezvous. Jellicoe and Beatty were equally unaware of the Germans' movements as they steamed east through the bright morning. This ignorance remained complete until shortly before 1300 hours. '1230 Admiralty to Commander-in-Chief Grand Fleet. No definite news of enemy. They made all preparations for sailing this morning. It was thought fleet had sailed but directional wireless places flagship in Jade at 11.10 GMT. Apparently they have been unable to carry out air reconnaissance which has delayed them.' This ill-conceived message, which removed any sense of urgency from Jellicoe's progress towards the rendezvous, and which later caused him to distrust other Admiralty messages, was caused quite simply by lack of liaison between the Operations division at the Admiralty, who sent the message, and the Intelligence Department, who gave them the information. Operations asked Intelligence where directional wireless placed the German callsign DK (call-sign of the flagship), and having been told 'in Wilhelmshaven', sent their message to Jellicoe. However, Operations were not aware that Intelligence knew that it was German custom to transfer this call-sign to Wilhelmshaven to confuse the British when the flagship put to sea, as no one had asked.
'>i
In the afternoon of May 31 Beatty's and Hipper's battle-cruisers met, and the Battle of Jutland began. Seeking to lure Beatty on to the guns of Scheer's main fleet, Hipper led off^ to the south, but the roles were reversed when Beatty sighted Scheer and decided in turn to entice him into Jellicoe's arms. Peter Padfield. Right: UMS Indomitable at 25 knots. The battle-cruisers' speed and firepower was thought to give them a decisive role in battle
Bight. In the van
was the 1st Scouting Group, or battle-cruiser squadron, under Vizeadmiral (Vice-Admiral) Franz Hipper, preceded by its light cruisers and des"-following some way astern and dropping behind all the 'lend of the battleship line was still visible in the irst were the seven Koriigs of the 3rd but. 'ocent and powerful ships in the fleet, tli, nine other dreadnoughts of the H1.1, led by the fleet flagship, SMS Friedricn flag of Vizeadmiral Reinhard Scheer, ana '
^
..
dreadnought Deutschland class battleships (! which made up the 2nd Battle Squadron. These units of the fleet and also the weakest, so they const danger to the rest. Scheer's plan was a compromise, as we have seen. Fru.s ^ated in his original intention of an attack on Sunderland, he'^h.id ordered a sortie up the Jutland coast to the Skaggerak, and had instructed Hipper to show himself off the Norwegian coast while >.v
1!
So on May 31 the two opposing forces, which comprised the major part oT the first line dreadnoughts of both belligerents, steamed quite unwittingly towards their one great appointment with history. Those British officers and men not on watch basked in the early summer sun, far removed from thoughts of battle, the Germans, with their clocks two hours ahead of Greenwich, had finished their post-prandial stand-down and were at guncleaning stations, testing, adjusting, cleaning and oiling the whole elaborate apparatus of the great guns and fire control. Tl is worth looking at this organisation in some detail now, for sides had their points of advantage in the subsequent gun L'y this date fire control from a central command position iiau replaced the initiative of the individual gunlayer in his turret. This w;;.s because effective gun range had lengthened rapidly since the beginning of the century and with it the time taken by a shell to reach its target. So when firing at a moving target it was no longer any use pointing the guns at the target at the instant of firinc trigonometrical problem had to be worked ,
1382
some 20 or more seconds after the was due to arrive. Both sides had therefore produced electro-mechanical machines to work out the answer from the known and estimated factors available. The known factors were one's own course and speed, enemy range and bearing, while the estimated factors were enemy course and speed. The answers required from the machines were the 'deflection' or to give the position of the target
gun was
fired,
when the
shell
'aim-off" to the right or left of the target to compensate for its movement, the 'rate of change of bearing" and the 'rate of change
These 'rates', when found, were set on 'clocks", so that the initial range had been given correctly by the range-finders and the 'rate' had been given correctly by the computer, the 'clock' set to that 'rate' continued to show the correct range — until one or other of the ships altered course or speed. If the 'clock' range fell out of step with the rangefinder ranges as they came in or with the observed fall of shot, the 'clock' was 'tuned' until it kept to the correct 'rate". Of the systems in the opposing fleets, the British had by far the more elaborate. Each ship had a Fire Control Table situated in an armoured position, called the Transmitting Station, in the bowels of the vessel. Into this room came all the observed information about the enemy, and from it went the electrical leads which transmitted the required gun elevation and bearing to each turret. These 'elevation' and 'training' angles were not simply the result of the 'Table' answers, though: in between the plots and 'clocks' and the transmitters to the turrets were differential gearing systems which allowed the Gunnery Control Officer from a station aloft on the foremast to order any corrections which he considered desirable from his observation of the fall of shot of range". if
'clock' running at the 'rate of change of range'. T; system, in its comparative simplicity, was probably as effjcienas the more ambitious British fire control complex. For sighting the guns the British had a complete director firing system; this meant that the guns of the main battery were sighted not by individual gunlayers and turret trainers in each turret, but from a master sight aloft in a revolving tower on the tripod foremast. As this master sight was rotated to follow the target so its angle of 'training' was passed automatically by leads down the tripod legs of the mast and through the ship to the Transmitting Station, where it was corrected by the Fire Control organisation previously described, then electrically transmitted to pointers on dials in each turret. The men who trained the turrets never saw the enemy; they simply followed these pointers with pointers which moved with their own turret. The Germans had a similar system except that their director sight was a periscope protruding through the deckhead of a heavily armoured position just abaft the conning position in the fore superstructure. When it came to elevating the guns to give the projectile the correct trajectory for the range, the British system had a decisive advantage. British gunlayers followed a pointer moved from a Gun Range Counter in the Transmitting Station in exactly the same way as the turret trainers followed their training pointers. They also never saw the enemy. Further, they never had far to move their guns once they had been elevated from the loading position, as once all guns had been laid for range they were kept thus while the director layer up in his tower on the foremast waited for the order to shoot and then for the roll to bring his sight on target; as it came on, or fractionally before, he fired.
by a range
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The system, then, was not purely mechanbut was a complex mix of trigonometry and observation. However, it is possible that this Fire Control Table was ahead of its time; it relied on a multitude of flexible drives and bevelled gearing which must have produced small, but cumulative mechanical errors, and the instruments which fed it, particularly the rangefinders, were not sufficiently accurate in any case. It is probable therefore that observation or, as it was termed, 'spotting' was the more important component of fire control. Certainly the system had failed to hold the German range in the two high sneed and long range dreadnought encounters which had taken place so far, at the Falkland Islands and the Dogger Bank. The Germans had a simpler device, the Entfernuugs Unterschieds indicator, which had no flexible drives to feed range and bearing plots onto a Fire Control Table, but was simply a machine for working a trigonometrical problem from the known and estimated factors fed in by the operators; gun 'deflection' could then be read straight off. The elevation for the gun sights was kept simply
of the preceding salvo. ical,
The Germans on the other hand still employed a 'continuous aim' method in which each individual gunlayer had his own sight and kept it on target through every movement of his own ship. It was a strenuous system requiring months of training for a perfect union between hand and eye in every condition of weather, and in action it must have exhausted far more nervous energy than the British method. In addition it had the equally important disadvantage that the turret sights were much lower than the director sight aloft, and thus subject to continual fogging from spray, shell splashes, gun smoke and funnel smoke as well. As if to compensate for what must have been a crippling disadvantage in rolling weather, the Germans had one brilliant point of advantage in their Zeiss rangefinders. Whereas the British Barr & Stroud rangefinders had a base length of only nine feet, except for those on the latest Queen Elizabeth battleships, the German ones had a much longer base length. As shooting to the correct range forms perhaps 90'/f of the art of naval gunnery, the longer German instruments gave them a great advantage. 1383
III
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Another point of advantage which has been claimed for the Germans was a faster rate of firing the opening salvoes in a 'ladder' spread 'up' or 'down' for range, without waiting to 'spot' the previous salvo. It seems from British reports that SMS Liitzoic. Hipper's flagship, used some such system at Jutland. This is curious, however, as other German gunnery logs prove that their system of finding the target was quite as slow and deliberate as the British, that is they fired a salvo, all right-hand or all lefthand guns, waited until the Control Officer had 'spotted' the fall of sliot and had ordered a correction so many metres 'up' or 'down", 'right' or 'left', and only then fired the other salvo, again waiting to see the result from the shells before recorrecting and firing the reloaded first guns again. It was only when they had cros.sed or 'straddled" the target that they went into rapid fire. This was exactly the British system, bred on peace practice, which, of course, was all that most naval officers had to go on. As for the opposing guns, shells and armour plate, British dreadnoughts invariably had larger calibre guns class for class than the Germans, and the Germans invariably had thicker armour. But, of course, they needed it; they were faced with heavier shells. So it is probable that until the British Queen Elizabeth 15-inch gun battleship tipped the scales decisively in favour of British offensive power the two sides were very evenly matched so far as power of resistance was concerned. The quality of the steel in the shells and armour was slightly better on the British side, although unknown to the service the shells were liable to break up when they struck armour plate at an angle; for acceptance, they were tested at a 90 degree striking angle. The shells were also liable to explode on impact with thick armour instead of after piercing it as the bursting charge was unduly sensitive. However, it is doubtful if the German shells were any more efficient, at least on the first count. Finally, the German Krupp guns were more accurate than the British pieces, but the larger calibre of the British guns outweighed this advantage as their weightier shells had a flatter trajectory at any given range, and thus a better chance of hitting. They also had a greater maximum range and could keep the Germans under fire at distances at which they themselves could not be reached. In l)alance, as the twfi opposing forces moved nearer together, all the decisive advantages in a gun duel, weight, range and director firing seemed to lie with the British; the Germans' sole point of real superiority lay in their rangefinders. and while this was likely to give them a good start it was scarcely decisive. But. of course, there were other factors, and as always the greatest of these was chance.
By 1400 hours on May
31, Hipper's advance force of five battleahead with a semicircular screen of light cruisers ahead of it, had reached a position some 20 miles east of the position Beatty was making for. Hipper was thereft^re directly ahead of Beatt.\"s line of advance, but going northwards at right crui.sers in single line
angles to it. Beatty did not know this. And estimating that he would reach his ordered position in 15 minutes time, he made a general signal for his force to turn noilhwards at 1415 hours in accordance with his instructions to close on Jellicoe. The British Battle-Cruiser Fleet was then sailing in three separate divisions of heavy ships. Beatty 's flagship, HMS Liuii. led the 1st Battle-Cruiser Squadron of the latest 13.5-inch gun ships, HMS Princess Royal. HMS Queen Marx and HMS Ti^er. three miles east-north-east of them was the 2nd Battle-Crui.ser Squadron, the 1 2-inch gun ships HMS Neir Zealand and HMS I ndefatif^ahle. and well astern, five miles northnorth-west of Beatty, was the 5th Battle Squadron of four Queen Elizabeth class battleships. These were the latest, fastest, heaviest battleships in the Royal Navy, each mounting eight 15-inch guns with an eff"ective range and battering power overwhelminglv greater than anything yet in the German service. The explanation for the distance between this powerful squadron and the battle-cruisers may be that they were being kept away from the probable direction of approach of any (ierman force so that they would not be surprised by a stronger force, for although fast they were not as fast as the bal tie-cruisers; alternatively, Beatty might have been thinking of his junction with Jeilicoe. and of fitting his force easily into the Grand Fleet formation.
Accidental meeting
On
either side of the big ships were .screens of destroyers, and eight miles ahead six pairs of cruisers six miles apart .'ere spread on a 30-mile front on a north-east -south-west line, thus facing German waters. As 1415 hours approached, the time for the wholj British force to turn northwards, the most easterly pair of cruisers. (lalatea and Phaeton, were just 16 miles from the most westerly cruiser ol Hipper"s .screen, which was therelorejust below
HMS
1
384
HMS
the curve of the horizon from them. At which point chance took a hand. Exactly splitting the distance between the opposing cruisers was a neutral merchantman, the Danish steamer N.J. Fjord. Both sides closed to investigate her. Thus ended the chain of events which was unwittingly to draw the fleets together into a copvbook engagement between first, the light cruisers, then the battle-cruisers and finall\ the battle fleets themselves. At 1420 hours, by which time the rest of Beatty"s force had made the turn northwards, the Galatea, heading eastwards, hoisted the signal 'Enemy in sight", and at the same time sent a wireless message: 'Enemy in sight. Two cruisers probably hostile bearing ESE. Course unknown.' This was received by the Battle-Cruiser Fleet and the Grand Fleet 70 miles to the north with varying degrees of scepticism; there had been false alarms before. For Beatty, however, it was enough, and ordering his destroyers to take up a position for screening on a south-south-easterly course, he made a signal for a turn to south-south-east, leading ships together, the rest in succession, and immediately led around himself in the Lion. His course was designed to get between the Germans and their bases to the southward. However, the signal was made by flags and these, together with the Lion's funnel smoke, were blown by the light westerly wind and by the speed of the Lion's progress in a general north-westerly direction so that the signal was not picked up by the 5th Battle Squadron. While the battle-cruisers turned south, the four Queen Elizabeth class battleships continued on their northerly course towards Jellicoe, and by the time that Rear-Admiral Hugh EvanThomas, commanding the 5th Battle Squadron, had received the signal by signalling lamp, his four ships were ten miles from Beatty. Meanwhile, the opposing cruisers at the point of contact had fire on each other, and Hipper had turned his whole force .south-west to investigate. At 1435 hours the Galatea saw his smoke and reported it on the eastern horizon as from a fleet. Way to the north. Jellicoe picked up the message; he had already ordered steam for full speed at the first contact rep
opened
.
During
.
phase a seaplane launched from Beatty "s seaplane Eii^adine and piloted by Lieutenant F. J. Rutland, made history when it rose to .seek out the Germans, the first aircraft ever to do so during a naval engagement. But he too steered north after the gunfire and made no u.seful scouting contribution before a burst petrol pipe forced him down. While Rutland was aloft, Evan-Thomas' powerful 5th Battle Squadron cut corners towards Beatty and made up some of the mileage lost by the earlier signalling misunderstandings, so that when the opposing battle-cruisers sighted each other he was only seven miles from Beatty towards the north-west. It is probable that at this time the visibility from the eastwards was better than from the west, as Hipper made out the British battle-cruisers at about 1520 hours, some five minutes before the earliest British sighting of the German big ships. By 15.30 hours, however, with the two main forces .some 14 miles from each other and therefore hull down, both commanders were able to tell the approximate course of their opponents; Beatty, seeing Hippcrs live bi^ ships steering north, immediately altered course to the east to cross his wake and cut him ofl'from his bases. Hipper was watching for the move and decided not to be cut off", but to fall back on Scheer some 50 miles to the south-east. He therefore reversed cour.se to .south-east, and in preparation for the gun duel which was bound to follow, arranged his battlecrui.sers on a line of bearing in a west-north-west/east-south-east direction so that the funnel and gun smoke of his leading ships would be blown cle.ir of his rear ships by the westerly wind. So the forces clo.sed. For the British these were intensely exciting minutes; they had been waiting over a year for this chance to settle the issue begun at the Dogger Bank, and their confidence in the outcome was as great as their unbounded confidence in the superiority of their own service. The last time they had met, Hipper had run and only fortune and British signalling carrier,
this
HMS
misunderstandings had saved Hipper from annihilation, so they thought. This time they would have him. 'It looked like a sitter to me," (^ne officer From R' turret in the Tiger, confided to his diary afterwards. The only question was how long it would lake to put all five German ships on the bottom. Beatty has been criticised for his headlong charge at Hipper, and his impetuosity in not waiting to concentrate with EvanThomas" four great battleships trailing behind; no doubt these criticisms are valid in the cold light of hindsight and tactical law. But he was Beatty and his only experience had been German retreat, this was the Royal Navy and its only traditions were complete superiority and victory: it would have b(>en unreasonable to expect anything but immediate chase designed to prevent any part of Hipper"s force getting home. Besides, Beatty had six battle-cruisers to Hipper's five. The Germans waited resolutely at their guns as the range closed. There had been a marked hush in the control positions at the news of the British battle-cruisers, but this had only lasted a minute or so according to Hase, Gunnery Control Officer of SMS Derfflinger. 'then humour broke out again, and everything went on in perfect order and calm." Shortly afteivvards Ha.se himseli' saw the British force through his gunnery periscope, 'six tall, broad-beamed giants steaming in two columns. They wei-e still a long way off, but they showed up clearly on the horizon and even at this distance they looked powerful, massive He watched fascinated as the British 2nd Battle-Cruiser Squadron joined Beatty"s four ships: 'The six ships which had at first been proceeding in two columns, foi'med line ahead. Like a herd of prehistoric monsters they closed on one another with slow movements, spectre-like, irresistible. All was ready to open fire, the tension increased every second ..." Hipper expected the British guns to open outside his own effective range: the maximum range of the 13.5-inch guns of Beatty's leading four ships was 24,000 yards, the maximum range of his own guns was 19,700 yards, over 4,000 yards less. But unknown to him the short-base British rangefinders were over-estimating the range by as much as 2,000 yards, and as the two forces closed to within gun range, Beatty himself was not at his usual position on the Liun's compass platform, but was below on his bridge discussing a signal addressed to Jellicoe. His flag captain, Chatfield, waited impatiently above. '1 jChatfieldl wanted him (Beatty! to come on the compass platform and sent a message to Seymour, telling him to advise Beatty that the range was closing rapidly and that we ought almost at once to be opening fire But I could get no reply ... at 3.45 the range was 16,000 yards. I could wait no longer and told Longhuist to open fire. At the same moment the eneniN- did so. Seymour hoisted the "5" flag (engage the enemy! and oif went the double salvoes. Beatty came on the compass platform ..." As fire opened from both sides at 1547/1548 hours with some 15,500 yards separating the two forces, thus well inside German effective range, all the advantages lay with Hipper. First the visibility favoured him: the declining sun was brightening the western horizon and thus tending to silhouette the British ships. However, there is little in the eye-witness accounts to suggest that the British were seriously hampered by bad visibility at this stage, rather the reverse; an account from the conning toweiof the Tiger states, 'The Germans were showing up splendidly ..." The CJunnery Control Officer of the Linn, wrote. 'It is a perfect day, two ships of and all attention is concentrated on rangelinding the same class are first and second in the enemy line and these .' two ships fill the field of view of the high power glasses .'
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Undisturbed target practice But it was not long before othei' factors intei'vened: first the funnel smoke from the leading British battle-cruisers was blown down the range by the westerly breeze to hamper the rear ships, despite Beatty"s attempt to clear it by ordering his sciuadron on a line of bearing north-west, and secondly a part flotilla of destroyers which he had ordered into position ahead of the battle-cruisers strained up the engaged side further befouling the range with their multitude of funnels. Within 18 minutes of the opening salvoes the Prineess Royal was manoeuvring independently out of the line to try to clear her range. Hipper, as remarked, had formed his squadron on a line of bearing which, aided by the favourable breeze, successfully cleared his smoke from following ships. He was also in the classic position of crossing Beatty's 'T' as the British rushed in, and so he was able to maintain a steady course while Beatty had to alter course towards the south-east by degrees if he were to keep all his guns in bearing .\d(led to this, BeattN "s standing orders for disposition of fire in action with a numerically inferior eneniv were dis-
regarded by .some of his ships, as was his signal to the same eil'-r which was made by flags in the midst of a sudden rush of fia^ signals from the Lion's halyards. Consequently, while the two leading ships, the Lin)} and the Princess Royal, correctly concentrated their guns on the leading German ship, the SMS Liitzow, the third ship in the British line took the third German ship, and the fourth took the fourth German. This left the second German ship, the Derfflinger. unengaged altogether, and she enjoyed the vital opening minutes at undisturbed target practice. Her Gunnery Control Officer, Hase, noticed this curious fact after a few minutes: 'I laughed grimly and now I began to engage our enemy with complete calm, as at gun practice, and with continually increasing accuracy. All thoughts of death or sinking vanished. The true sporting joy of battle woke in me and all my thoughts concentrated on one desire, to hit, to hit rapidly and true, to go on hitting.' But probably the most important advantage that Hipper enjoyed was range-finding accuracy. While the opening British salvoes were falling as much as a mile over their targets many of the opening German salvoes were almost right on for range. The first salvo from SMS Mnltke, for instance, landed just 200 yards short of the Tiger and the next straddled her. Before the rear two ships in the British line had even opened fire the Linn had been hit twice by the Liitznw and shortly afterwards, at 1551 hours, the Tiger received her first two hits. Hipper's squadron was giving a superlative exhibition of shooting, its salvoes falling in tight bunches. The British fire control meanwhile was still generally overestimating the range and in some ships at least underestimating the rate of change of range. Indeed, the range was closing so fast in the opening minutes of Beatty's headlong charge. before his alterations brought him parallel to the German line, that the Derfflinger. having straddled the Princess Royal, was able to go into rapid fire including secondary armament so that a salvo left her guns every seven seconds. Meanwhile, the rear two ships in the British line watched for the splashes of their opening salvoes, guns silent, such was the advantage given to the Germans by Hipper's steady tactics and Zeiss's superb rangefinders. 'The German shooting at this time was very good,' wrote an officer from the conning tower of the Tiger, and we were repeatedly straddled, but funnily enough were not hit very often. I remembei' watching the shell coming at us. They appeared just like big bluebottles flying straight towards you, each time going to hit you in the eye; then they would fall, and the shell would either burst or else ricochet off the water and lollop away above and beyond you, turning over and over in the air.' By 1600 hours the British ships had received between 12 and 15 hits while the Germans had received probably four; the range had by then closed to less than 14,000 yards and both commanders began drawing away, Hipper south-east, Beatty south, so that the range opened slowly. Then at 1603 hours the Liitzow caught the Linn with a storm of accurate salvoes and Beatty turned another three points away to south-west by west. Another landmark occurred one minute later at the rear of the line, when SMS Vnn der Tann landed three shells from a four-gun salvo on the upper deck of the Lidefatigable. a remarkable feat. Smoke started billowing from the British ship's afterpart, and she failed to follow around on the alteration of course. From her next ahead, the Neic Zealand, the Torpedo Officer laid his glas.ses on her and saw the next German salvo straddle too, one shell hitting her forecastle, another the forward turret, both appearing to burst outside the armour. He continued to watch for some 30 seconds by his recollection, during which nothing happened, and then the ship quite suddenly blew up, commencing from forward. 'The main explosion started with sheets of flame, followed immediately afterwards b>' a dense, dark smoke, which obscured the ship from view. All sorts of stuff was blown high in the air, a fifty-foot steam picket boat for example, being blown up about 200 feet apparently intact, though upside down." It is usually considered that this explosion was caused by 'flash' from a shell burst inside a turret (whose armour was seven inches thick, and therefore penetrable by German shells passing down the ammunition hoists, igniting unprotected charges on its way and so entering the magazine, the doors of which were at that time left open in action for rapid handling. Supporting evidence for this comes from the Lion, whose centre or 'Q" turret was pierced by a shell a few minutes before the ]oss oi' the I ndefatigahle. The shell struck at the joint between the front armour of the turret and the roof armour, folding this back 'like an opened sardine tin" and burst inside the turret, killing the guns" crews and starting fires which spread to cordite charges in the gun loading cages. The officer in charge of the turret. Major F. J. W. Harvey of the Royal Marines, who was in the silent chamber behind the gun I
1385
MM
1548
1548
^«/5
JELLICOE'S PLANS
SCHEER'S PLANS
FOR JUNE 2 FOR MAY 31
FOR MAY 23 FOR MAY 31
1515
BRITISH MINEFIELDS British subs (June 2)
Scapa Flow
Left: The rival plans for the great clash between the navies of Great
Britain
U43
and Germany. Scheer hoped major portion of the Grand May 23, but mine damage to
to trap a Fleet on
U44
2nd Battle Squadron
SMS Seydlltz put paid to this plan, to the revised German of May 31 to produce the battle which was to decide the mastery of the North Sea for the
leaving Moray
it
scheme
Firth
(Cromartvl
U66 U63
^
rest of the
U51
1515 1515
war
U52 Rosyth
Sunderland
2nd Battle-Cruiser Flamborough Head
« s
Squadron Pakenham
JO
New
«
1415
"a.
Zealand
CO
indefatigable
t. .>^\ .^^^
*o^ Harwich
i
\<^^
^*
>^' 1515 1515
1415
1415 \ ^/«
5th
^
Battle Squadron
1415
Evan-Thomas 1st
Barham
Battle-Cruiser
Valiant
1415
Squadron
Warspite
Beatty
Malaya
Lion Tiger
Princess Royal
Queen Mary
1415
1415
1515
1445\ Right:
The context
of the first phase o* the battle: the battle-cruisers run to the south. Realising that he cannot hope to deal with Beatty on his own, Hipper decides to turn and lure Beatty's battle-cruisers down onto Scheer's main part of the High Seas Fleet to t*->" ^' jth Asa result of signalling fgi powerful element of Beatty r Battle Squadron, IS left behinc Hippera slight superiority o' m; •bined with their initial beti :
•
the poor protection ior enables the C cruisers to despatch two of then And then over the horizon appe.
British ships, this
Above: Phase Oneof theengagemen
I
Right:
The Royal Navy's first two
major casualties
Queen Mary
at
Jutland — HMS
(sister ship of
HMS
Lion, Beatty's flagship, and the largest ship sunk in the battle) Indefatigable (below). and Both vessels were lost as a result of great internal explosions
HMS
1415
ea/Phaeton Indefatigable blows up
1648
w u.
a^
Mm
1626 Queen Mary blows up
1648
1648"
% %
1648
1648
invincible
The technique of ranging as it might be seen through the binoculars of a British gunnery officer. The first ivo v.'as fired at the best estimated Left:
salvo "over":
down 400
'
(he German ship, and if the the shells falling short • ould call All shells short,
-if
i".
'
:-nqe400 (yards)'. If the over on the first salvo he would call All shells vor gun range 400'. This .y "ver smaller alterations * the salvo [lat could 1 be ..^ort. In this situation,
';.''. '
^'
be^ theoti.
1
shell'
would be
slightly
over or hitting "^he officer would then call Straddle- hold gun range,
go 2 short; a "straddle"
into rapid fire'
blows up
T 5 miles
Falmouth
10 miks
A^^*!^.
1
^ Above: The context of the second phase of the battle: Scheer s pursuit of Beatty up towards the main body of the Grand Fleet and the first German battle turn. With the arrival of the High Seas Fleet onto the scene. Beatty finds himself in the position Hipper had occupied so recently, that of drastic inferiority.
There is only one thing to do. Beatty tries to use his speed to entice the High Seas Fleet into the arms of the Grand Fleet. This he does, and much to Scheer's consternation, the wheel turns circle again and the Grand Fleet looms over the horizon. Starved of information, Jellicoe nevertheless manages to deploy brilliantly, cutting Scheer off from home and forcing him into his first battle turn. Below: Phase Two of the engagement in detail
I'!
1700
< a
N<4otfLlVv
^a\«* /Ui
1845
1830
Above: Calibre for calibre, British shells were capable of piercing thicker armour than the German ones, but only if they struck at an angle close to 90 to the surface being hit: at acute angles, the British shells broke up. The thickest armour pierced by the British was lO-inch on the "' i Seyd//fz with a 15-' theGermansyVz-.iioi. *ha 12-inc '
>_
.
Below: Shell performance. Though the used by the British penetrated better, they were filled with lyddite, which tended to explode on impact, and had a poor fuse as well. The result was that the energy of the explosion was often dissipated on the outside shells
of the target
were
(left).
German
shells
with trotyl and had a good fjs?, so that they penetrated =ind then -r jded, with better results (right) :
filled
5 miles
1
miles
®M(M Above: The context of the third phase of the battle: Scheer's second battle turn and his efforts to evade Jellicoe and clear his way back to the Jade estuary and safety. Scheer has realised that he stands little chance against the full Grand Fleet and is now intent on saving his force from annihilation. Jellicoe, on the other hand, is prepared to wait in his advant-
ageous position for the arrival of better visibility, in which the German fleet will stand no chance against his full might. All he has to do is to stay between Scheer and the Jade. Below: Phase Three of the engagement in detail
2100
2100
2030
""V/"" Of„,
'%.
Caiset
posen Oertt\«n9Cf'
2100
I
breeches, was mortally wounded, but he had the presence of mind to order the magazine doors closed. This order, for which he was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, undoubtedly saved the Lion as flash from the cordite charges eventually passed down the hoists to the handing rooms outside the magazine, killing the men who were obeying the order to close the door; some were found 'Q' turret and its as they died with their hands on the door clips. crew was wiped out, but the magazine and the ship were saved. It
should not be thought that the
'flash'
danger had been com-
pletely overlooked in the Royal Navy before Jutland; experiments had been conducted on it since the turn of the century, the conclusion of which was that if the lids of the metal boxes in which the cordite charges were stowed in the magazine were weakened
so that they would blow off easily, and if there was an escape trunk for this blast to dissipate itself out of the magazine, an explosion in one case would not affect others. Further, it was if 'flash' would pass down to the magazine with the current system of interrupted hoists at a "working chamber' below the turrets. It is difficult to decide how seriously the 'flash' danger was taken before Jutland. All that can be said is that in the excitement of action all safety precautions built in to the turret/ magazine system were nullified by the very understandable desire
doubted
magazine hands to keep their turrets supplied as fast as they To this end it is probable that the lids of some of the cases containing the cordite charges inside the magazine were removed before the charges were needed, and certain that the magazine doors were left open to pass the chatg. -a. nd J. a stockpile of charges with no protection save their o ^es was left just outside the magazine doors. There was ,y a perfect of the could.
i-
'
i
almost bare cordite leading ii/o the i., ^^v Jt. to the battle, Beatty's turn away from the Geirnans increased the range to 21,000 yards by 1610 hours, and the battle-cruisers' guns fell silent. However, by this time r i.tw force had entered. Evan-Thomas' 5th Battle Squadron, which iiadb^vn straining to follow the dark smoke of Beatty's southerly chase, had at last caught up to within 19,000 yards of Hipper's rear, and at 1606 hours his flagship, HMS Barham. opened fire with deliberate ranging shots on the Von der Tann. This was a prodi^ ms range, over ten miles, and all that the director layers had to sight trail of
To return
1.392
.
.
on were the high white stern waves of the German ships and their clouds of smoke. Nevertheless they had several advantages; they had the great 15-inch calibre guns which had a flatter trajectory than lesser weapons at any given range, they had 15foot base-length rangefinders, which while not as long as they might have been, were longer than any in the British battlecruisers, they had the length of the enemy ships to fire at, thus giving a greater allowance for any ranging error than the width of the ships which was all the battle-cruiser men had, and finally they had recently been with Jellicoe's Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow and had worked up their gunnery in constant exercises; there was no such chance for the battle-cruiser men from their narrow base at Rosyth. All these advantages soon told; the squadron's fire became increasingly effective and spread further up Hipper's line. Within six minutes of opening fire the Barham scored a hit on the Von der Tann. Hipper wrote of the 5th Battle Squadron's shooting: 'The fall of shot was practically on one spot as regards both range and deflection. The shooting demonstrated how carefully the British had eliminated all factors that increase the spread of guns firing as a battery, and how thoroughly their fire control installations are perfected [director with elevation control apparatus].
Beatty's flagship,
HMS
.' .
Lion, in action at Jutland after her Q' turret flash after a hit from a heavy shell
had
been destroyed by cordite
Beatty, no doubt heartened by this powerful reinforcement, altered back to a southerly, then a south-easterly course to close on Hipper, who had meanwhile also altered course to close on Beatty and come within gun range of at least one section of his opponents. So the two battle-cruiser forces soon opened fire on each other once more. For Hipper and his men, this stage of the action marks as heroic and successful a feat of arms as is to be found in modern naval history. While both Beatty and Evan-Thomas converged on him from positions just before and slightly abaft his
beam, thus bringing an overwhelming weight of shells from nine heavy ships on his five more lightly armed vessels, he held on resolutely, zigzagging due south to bring his shorter range pieces into eff'ective action. His boldness brought early rewards. As the Lion, leading the British line, came within range and hit his own
flagship Liitzow. so the Liitzow repUed with such devastating effect that the Lion disappeared temporarily beneath a cloud of smoke. The second ship in the German line was the Derfflinger, and her gunnery officer, losing sight of the Lion altogether, aimed his broadside at the third British ship, the Queen Mary, thinking that she was second and therefore his opposite number. This unfortunate ship was also under fire from her rightful opposite number, SMS Seydlitz, and as the range closed quickly the action flared up to a crescendo; the Queen Mary, probably the bestshooting ship in the battle-cruiser force, fired ftill eight-gun salvoes with great precision and rapidity as she found the range. Another point of fierce concentration was at the tail of the German line where the Von der Tann found herself under fire from both Beatty's and Evan-Thomas' forces, sometimes as many as four ships concentrating on her, although without any 'concentration fire' systems such as were perfected aifter Jutland. The Derfflinger/Seydlitz/Queen Mary duel developed in intensity. The British ship scored first with two shells which started fires in the Derfflinger, and followed this up with a succession of near
misses which deluged the German decks with sea water and helped to extinguish the flames. At this time Hase was experiencing one of the drawbacks of the German periscope director
system; his lens was continually fogged by funnel and gun smoke. He had a midshipman wiping this away with a mop, but there were times when he was entirely dependant on his spotting oflficer in the fore top, who also had a periscope, the movements of which Hase could follow with his own temporarily blind instrument. However, after seven and a half minutes he straddled the British ship at a range of 14,200 yards and went into rapid fire, which meant a salvo leaving his main armament guns every 20 seconds. Each one of these straddled the British ship. An officer in the conning tower of the Tiger, the Queen Mary's next astern, was watching her at the time. / saw one salvo straddle her. Three shells out of four hit, and the impression one got of seeing the splinters fly and the dull red burst was as if no damage was being done, but that the armour was keeping the shell out. The next salvo I saw straddled her, and two more shells hit her. As they hit I saw a dull, red glow amidships and then the ship seemed to open out like a puffball or one of those toadstool things
when one squeezes it. There was another dull red glow somewh k forward, and the whole ship seemed to collapse inwards. The funnels and masts fell into the middle and the hull was blown outwards. The roofs of the turrets were blown 100 feet high, then everything was smoke As with the Indefatigable, one of the Queen Mary's magazines had evidently exploded, either from a shell or shell fragment penetrating her armour or from flash passing down an ammunition hoist and entering through an open magazine door. Hase shifted his sights on to the Princess Royal. Meanwhile the British destroyers which Beatty had ordered to attack earlier had reached a position ahead of the battle-cruisers and were steaming towards the German line at full speed. Hipper, who had been undeterred by all the great guns opposed to him, turned his battle-cruisers away together from the torpedo threat; it was the standard counter in both navies. As the little ships raced between the lines of armoured gladiators trading death by ballistic calculation, so the German destroyers came out from the disengaged side of their turning battle-cruisers to meet them, and there followed a fast, disorganised melee, quick-firing guns in rapid independent, maximum rate of fire, maximum deflection. After the melee two German destroyers were seen to be sinking, j
.
.
.
and a British one was stopped in the water; the rest of the British destroyers then chased after Hipper to try to regain position for another torpedo attack. It was while they were racing eastwards that there occurred in the main action one of those moments in which legends are born. A signal rating, looking astern from the Lion's bridge, saw a shell hit the Princess Royal, which immediately became wrapped in a dense cloud of smoke and disappeared completely, but fortunately not permanently from view. The rating, however, conditioned to sudden disaster, promptly reported the Princess Royal sunk. On hearing this Beatty turned to his flag captain, Chatfield, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, 'There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,' after which he ordered an alteration of course two points towards the Germans. [This is not the generally accepted version of the story. As told by Chatfield himself, it was after the loss of the Queen Mary that Beatty made his famous remai'k. If this is so it could not have been followed by the equally famous order to turn 1393
toward the Germans; the Lion turned away shortly after the loss of the Queen Mary. It is, of (ourse, possible that Chatfield and Chalmers (Beatty's biographer) misremembered the actual prelude to Beatty's remark in the stunning concussion of events. is more flattering to Beatty, and comes from another Lion eye-witness, but is given only as a possible alternative to the accepted story.] While this alteration of course was in part caused by the relief afforded by Hipper's turn-away from the threat posed by the destroyers, it was nevertheless a triumph of fighting spirit, and as Churchill has. remarked, 'a moment on which British histoiians will be proud to dwell'. Then the smoke cleared and revealed the Princess Royal, the Tiger and the New Zealand following in perfect station, firing steadily. Just before this, the light cruiser HMS Southampton, some two miles ahead of Beatty, sighted the masts and upperworks of the leading battleships of Scheer's High Seas Fleet advancing from the south-east, and immediately flashed a signal to Beatty. Five minutes later, at 1638 hours, she sent a more detailed report by wireless: 'Have sighted enemy battle-fleet bearing approximately
The author's version
south-east course of
enemy north
.' .
.
There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today
.' .
.
By this time the head of Scheer's line could be seen from the Lion herself It was a momentous and thrilling sight, the first glimpse for the British officers in two long years of war of the main strength of the German naval challenge. More important, the whole complexion of the battle had altered suddenly and dramatically. At once the protagonists changed roles. Beatty the hunter, who had been led by Hipper almost into Scheer's arms, turned into Beatty the hunted, whose task was to lead both Hipper and Scheer into Jellicoe's arms. He ordered an immediate alteration of 16 points (180 degrees) to starboard in succession (1640 hours) and led back north-west towards the Grand Fleet, which was by now steaming south-east at forced full speed, 20 knots. Jellicoe made a signal to the Admiralty, 'Fleet action imminent'. And the signal halyards of the big ships jerked and twisted with a great and growing profusion of battle ensigns; white bunting crossed with red filled the air.
Round one
to Hipper interesting to compare the hitting rates of the forces up to the point when the battle took this reverse turn. In the opening 12 minutes between 1548 and 1600 hours the British battle-cruisers scored probably four hits against between 12 and 15 received; Hipper therefore achieved one hit per minute with five ships, Beatty one every three minutes with six. During the rest of the southerly action until the turn at 1640 hours, Beatty's remaining five ships scored probably nine hits against between 24 and 27 received; allowing for time outside effective range this gives very similar hitting rates to those of the previous period, one per l\ minutes by the Germans against one per 83 minutes by the British. Evan-Thomas' 5th Battle Squadron, coming into action at extreme range at 1606 hours meanwhile scored probably eight hits against none received before their turn northwards at 1650 hours, some ten minutes after Beatty. It is evident, therefore, that Hipper won the round in terms of hits as well as ships lost. The reason for the 5th Battle Squadron's late turn north after Beatty was, once again, the fault of flag signalling. The battleship men scarcely saw the Lion's hoists before they were steaming It is
:
;
!
i
^ \
I
i :
How disaster could overtake a great battlecruiser. Top: First blows. Lion takes some shells on her 'Q' turret. Above: The kill.
HMS
HMS
Queen Mary disappears in one huge explosion. Below: Aftermath. The pathetic remains of HMS Indefatigable sink. Inset: Beatty, after his
promotion to
full
Admiral
past the battle-cruisers on a reciprocal course; Evan-Thomas then led round 16 points as ordered, but by that time he was within 21,000 yards ot'Scheer's van, which concentrated its gunfire on the turning point and hit the so far unscathed M_|uadron nine times in as many minutes. The last ship in the line, Malaya, seeing the small area of torn and convulsed sea into which she was heading, put her helm over before time to avoid the inferno.
HMS
Some two miles still nearer the High Seas Fleet, the Southampton and three other light cruisers of her squadron who had pressed in re.'^olutely to investigate the exact composition of Scheer's fleet were also retiring, leading charmed lives among sprouting columns of water raised by the German
'
shells. They were only saved by exploiting the accuracy of the German range corrections and the extremely close bunching of each salvo; by putting their helms over slightly towards the spot where the last salvo had fallen they were able to anticipate the CJerman corrections and dodge successfully. The men on deck watched fascinated as the 'deadly and graceful splashes' rose mysteriously from the smooth sea around them. Meanwhile, to the north and east of them, Hipper also had turned northwards to chase Beatty; as he did so the British destroyers pre.'ised 'infernally near' and delivered a torpedo attack before being forced to retire. One torpedo from HMS Petard found a mark below the armour belt of the third German battle-cruiser, the Seydlitz, and tore a hole 39 feet long in her side with which she nevertheless managed to cope without leaving the line. One British destroyer paid the price of such close action and was brought to a standstill so that she and the destroyer previously stopped in the melee between the lines became impotent, sitting targets, sunk by Scheer's ships coming up behind Hipper. So the chase proceeded north-west. In the lead, making something over 24 knots and drawing out of effective gun range, was Beatty with his four remaining battle-cruisers; following some six miles astern was Evan-Thomas with his four battleships going 24 knots and behind them the Southampton's cruiser squadron. To the east Hipper and Scheer were doing their best to keep up, although Hipper was slowed to 22 knots by the torpedo damage
to the Seydlitz.
\
.
.
And something
wrong with our system.' During the latter part of the southern chase and the turn, the had greatly favoured the Germans. The sun had been
visibility
obscured, leaving the western horizon bright, while the eastern horizon remained hazy, so that while the British ships had been silhouetted and still were, the Germans merged into the mist. But now the sun came out again, lighting the German ships, and the 5th Battle Squadron, still within effective range with its own great 15-inch pieces, resumed its former excellent practice on the German battle-cruisers from outside Hipper's own range. During the ten minutes between 1705 and 1715 hours they scored 11 hits agaiiLst two received from the head of Scheer's line. Ha'se's comments on this phase of the action provide the best testimonial to the Biitish policy of heavier guns, offensive rather than defen'.ne |X>\vet tbiN jkiit of the action fought ay.iinst a numerically infenoi hut moie ixjv\erfullv auii<>d eneni\ «ho :kept u- under hu ,-f 'n^e- at which we were jit!p!f»'-- ^^.l.^ huhK ideprehfc.Hig nci\e k'tu- and p\as;3eralinu Ou^ or.K trie, m^ of defence? 'w. at H; 'e ^f the tut Ini (~h()»tLin>' '
*
i"
t
'
'?0(^^mm^uiLmu- directly for a
<>
lu
as^ 1(1 he north is that Bentty. head,uth .ielHcoe's (iisind Fleet, could not 1
by any stretch of imagination have been making for base; all were westerly. It seems astonishing that neithei ir. nor Scheer apparently realised this, but in the heat of the chase c'
!^
him blindly into a trap. As the British ships opened the range, the firing became intermittent; Beatty had lost contact with Hipper, and of the big ships, only Evan-Thomas' squadron was still exchanging shots with Scheer and potting at Hipper. Visibility still favoured the easterly German force greatly, but at extreme range hits were few. However, by 1735 hours, with Jellicoe's fleet only some 16 miles away and the two forces closing at a combined speed of followi'd
nearly 40 knots, Beatty altered from his north-north-west course to north-east for the double purpose of regaining contact with Hipper and crossing ahead of the Germans to prevent them seeing the Grand Fleet as it bore down on them. Hipper had meanwhile altered course to the north-west to regain contact with Beatty, and so it was soon after Beatty's alteration that the two battlecruiser forces sighted each other again and opened fire. This time the advantages were with Beatty. He was now crossing Hipper's 'T', and the sun at last clear and low in the west both dazzled the German gunlayers and lit their ships for the British, who found spotting conditions better than ever before. About the same time the 5th Battle Squadron also opened fire on Hipper, iind caught between these two at ranges between 15,000 and 16,000 yards the German battle-cruisers turned north-east and then east as Beatty closed and forced them round. It was a brilliant move; Jellicoe was little more than ten miles to the north-west of the Germans at this point, but Hipper caught no glimpse of him. Meanwhile Beatty's 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, ahead of the battle-cruisers, had sighted Jellicoe's cruiser HMS Black Prince at the extreme western end of the line of cruisers ahead of the Grand Fleet, and at 1740 hours, about the time Hipper was forced off to the north-east, the Black Prince herself made out Beatty's battle-cruisers through the murk of the northward action Shortly afterwards two more of Jellicoe's cruisers were sighted by Beatty's force. It was a moment of intense relief and excitement. 'I can hardly even now describe the thrill we all felt — the Grand Fleet had arrived.' For the Germans, though, it was the beginning of a period of infinite confusion, frustration and rapidly increasing danger. Even as Hipper turned east across the line of advance of the Grand Fleet he heard, incredibly, gunfire from right ahead in a position that no British ships from Beatty's force could possibly have reached. This was Rear-Admiral Hood's 3rd Battle-Cruiser Squadron and attached cruisers, which Jellicoe had previously ordered forward independently to support Beatty. Hood had steered east to cut the Germans off from their bases, and this, combined with natural errors in the estimated positions of the two British forces, had taken him down 15 miles east of Hipper. His ships soon disappeared in the patchy mist, but not before Scheer had received a reix)rt of enemy 'heavy ships' in the east.
'PETER PADFIELD was trained for the sea aboard HMS Worcester, am subsequently served as an officer on the P & O Line, After leaving P & O in his 'iale twentips for a pb ashore in industry he began writing naval and merchant naval history first attracting international notice with Ttie Titanic and the Caiitorritdn tn 1966 He then turned to writing as a full-time occupation. His other books include An Agony 6f Decisions urging the need for reform in thecolHsion leyuiatBaos, Aim Straigtit and Broke and the Stiannon, both biographies of great naval gunnery officers. He has also written a history of naval gunnery, tracing the influence of the developing art of gunnery on naval tactics
^•'
•«%.
1
395
,
i0^^
a:©' Lured on by Beatty, Scheer suddenly found himself faced by the might of the Grand Fleet, perfectly deployed for action. Poor visibility and expert seamanship enabled Scheer to escape, but on turning for home waters he ran into Jellicoe again. In the action that followed, many ships were mauled and another British battle-cruiser
Germans broke away once more Vice-Admiral Friedrich Ruge
lost before
the
'^^^31^'
1*9- f-x
'/
...
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The
SMUa Below:
dreadnought unleashes a salvo from her
main armament
at her opposite
fleets
met was
infiuencL
difficulty faced
by the c
in-chief in trying to get something Hke a clear picture of the disposition of their own forces and those of the enemy. And though wireless Intelligence had been greatly improved since its inception, much was still left to guesswork and intuition.
Two years of waiting, and now the final
clash: a
when the main The foremost was the
situation
factors.
number
Alter contact between the two fleets had been made, visibility continued to play an important part in all decisions. Both fleets covered large areas, and during its pursuit of the British battlecruisers, the German fleet stretched over 20 miles from the foremost scouts to the tail of the battle line. The fleet flagships were stationed in central positions, which made observation difficult, but smoke from hundreds of funnels, together with artificial smoke screens, soon aggravated the natural haze. It proved impossible for the commanders-in-chief to keep the whole of their own forces in sight, let alone those of the enemy. Binoculars were of great use and rangefinders helped, but as yet there was nothing like radar, and so the commanders had to rely to a great extent on the reports of their scouting forces, combined with their own intuition and judgement. This became strikingly evident when Admiral Jellicoe had to decide which way to deploy his Battle Fleet. During the battlecruiser action, the Battle Fleet had continued to steer southeast in six columns, with a screen of cruisers about five miles ahead. It was most trying for Jellicoe that he did not receive a single report on the position of the German heavy ships between 1700 and 1740 hours. HMS Lion did not pass any messages to HMS Princess Royal for onward transmission to Jellicoe (as was normal procedure), but the 3rd and particularly the 1st Light Cruiser Squadrons were all the time excellently placed to observe the German battle-cruisers and the van of the German battle fleet too. They relayed no information, however, although at 1713 hours Jellicoe gave his own position, course and speed as at 1700 hours to the Battle-Cruiser Fleet. As a result of various errors, there was a discrepancy in the dead reckoning of the two British flagships, which placed them five and a half miles too far apart. In this way the Battle-Cruiser Fleet drew the Germans towards the British main fleet, but did not give Jellicoe the bearings he so desperately needed to deploy his battleships at the right moment and in the best tactical way. As his fleet was much superior numerically as well as in the number and calibre of heavy guns. Jellicoe's plan was to form a single line ahead, if possible at right angles to the approaching German fleet, thus crossing its 'T', and so to bring an overwhelming weight of fire to bear on its van. To do so succes.sfully, he needed accurate information of the position, course and speed of the
German fleet. In exercises, Jellicoe had tried several methods of deployment and had gained much experience in handling his fleet. In addition to this, he possessed the equanimity and keenness indispensable in a man manoeuvring 150 fast-moving ships in quickly changing situations. While Jellicoe waited for the information on which to base his decisive manoeuvre, quite a number of events happened at very short intervals. At 1735 hours Beatty altered course from northnorth-west to north-north-east. It is not known whether he did own Battle Fleet or to get closer to his German opponents. The German battle-cruisers also altered to this new course because they came under heavy fire from the 5th
so to steer clear of his
whom they could see nothing except gun Derfflinger, for example, did not fire a single salvo
Battle Squadron, of flashes.
i
SMS
from 1742 to 1816 hours, but was hit repeatedly. As a consequence of Beatty's manoeuvre, the 1st Scouting Group did not run straight into the arms of Jellicoe, which it would original course. A minute ha\e done if it had continued on later, the German 2nd Scouting Group.} it.'-
««•
idl
SMS Liitzow. sighted and attacked the British light cruiser HMS Chester. This ship was scouting on the starboard bow of the 3rd Battle-Cruiser Squadron, which was steering south-south-east and which, in the decreasing still visibility, might have passed the German van completely but for this encounter. about four miles north-east of
A posthumous VC was no match for the four with 30 5.9-inch guns in all. Within a few minutes she received 17 hits, half her guns and all her fire control apparatus were out of action and she had had 30 of her crew killed and 46 wounded, almost one fifth of her ship's company. Fatally injured. Boy 1st Class John T. Cornwell (aged 16). remained at his post at one of the guns and was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. In spite of the heavy damage, the Chester succeeded in throwing the Geiman fire out by zigzagging and by using her high speed, which she was able to keep up as her engines were unhai'med. When this fight began, Rear-Admiral Hood, commanding the 3rd Battle-Cruiser Squadron, changed cour.se to starboard and steered north-west to intercept the pursuers of the Chester. At 1755 hours the Germans came in sight at a range of 11,000 yards at the most. They were taken completely by surprise, all the more so as two minutes earlier their attention had been drawn to the opposite flank by gunfire apparently directed at them but falling very short. Here freak visibility had enabled the armoured cruisers HMS Defence and HMS Warrior, stationed ahead of the main British fleet, to sight the 2nd Scouting Group at a distance of about 20,000 yards, but this was out of range of their old guns. More eff"ective, however, was the fire of the 12-inch guns of the With her
six 5.5-inch guns, the Chester
German
light cruisers,
three Inviucibles. The German light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden soon lay stopped with both engines disabled, while SMS Pillau was reduced to 24 knots after a shell had put four boilers out of action. She found shelter, however, in a smoke screen, as did SMS Frankfurt and SMS Elhing. What influenced the course of the battle more than the damage to the two light cruisers was the sudden appearance of British heavy ships east of the German battle-cruisers. They were taken for battleships with their tripod masts, and were reported as such. The three destroyer flotillas attached to the Scouting Force (the 2nd. 6th and 9th) and waiting on the disengaged side of the battle-cruisers now tried to attack the new adversai'y to the east. Some of them met with four destroyers of the British 4th Destroyer Flotilla, led by Commander Loft us Jones in Shark. A sharp brush ensued, in which the Shark was hit and stopped, and Acasta severely damaged. On the German side only the jB .98 was hit: her mast fell overboard and the twin torpedo tubes aft were put out of action. The German light cruisers and destroyers launched a number of torpedoes at the British ships but the Shark was their only victim. That the 3rd Battle-Cruiser Squadron, reinforcing Beatty on Jellicoe's orders, was a number of miles east and ahead of the Iron Duke would not have been important but for the fact that it broke up the strong concentration of German destroyers just before the deployment of the British Battle Fleet. From their favourable position the three German flotillas could have launched a mass attack which might have brought considerable results. Scheer, of course, was fully aware of the superiority of the I Grand Fleet in numbers and gun calibre. His aim, therefore, was I I to surprise the British and to catch only part of their forces. In fact he had already done so, but from his point of view it was I that not a single British ship had been reduced in -s unfortunate 5 speed. Two had blown up, but the others had got away. Should he E be confronted with the whole might of the Royal Navy he planned
HMS
HMS
to avoid a
gunnery duel at long range by very mobile
tactics,
by
smoke screens and by massed destroyer attacks. The same visibility that had revealed the 2nd Scouting Group
the use of
Defence and the Warrior enabled Beattys battle-cruisers keep their opposite numbers under fire. When Hipper saw his ships being hit repeatedly without being able to answer, he ordered a turn together of 180 degrees (1759 hoursl. This brought him back to the German battle fleet. Eleven minutes later he swung round again to take up station ahead of SMS Konig, now less than a mile away. During these events the British Battle Fleet steamed on at 20 knots, still in its compact cruising formation of six columns. At 1750 hours HMS Southampton correctly reported that the German to the to
battle fleet had changed course to the north, but put the German battle-cruisers to the south-west of their battleships, whereas they actually were to the north-north-east. Again, there was a discrepancy in the mutual positions. In the same minute, Calliope, flagship of 4th Light Cruiser Squadron, stationed about three miles ahead of the Battle Fleet and in visual touch with
HMS
reported by searchlight that there were gunflashes at a bearing south-south-west. This was the Lion, but the ships themselves could not yet be made out. At the same time. Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney in Marlborough, leading the starboard wing column, reported 'gun flashes on the starboard bow'. Jellicoe asked him by searchlight for details at 1755 hours. Five minutes later the Lion could be made out from the bridge of the Iron Duke. At 1801 hours and again at 1810 hours Jellicoe asked Beatty by searchlight: 'Where is enemy battle fleet?' In between (at 1802 Jellicoe,
HMS
hours) he gave orders by flags to change course by columns to the south, evidently in preparation for deploying on the starboard (right) wing which would have corresponded to the tactics evolved in exercises. It would have put the Grand Fleet in a favourable position, because the Germans would have been compelled to fire against the sun, which was already rather low over the horizon. It would also have facilitated cutting off" the German fleet from retreating towards Heligoland, a move which figured prominently in the British plans. However, only four minutes later (1806 hours) Jellicoe ordered his columns to turn back to the south-east, for he still had no information on the whereabouts of the German battle fleet. The moment for deployment to starboaid was gone beyond recall. At 1814 hours Beatty reported 'Enemy battle fleet SSW', and immediately afterwards (1815 hours) Jellicoe made the signal for deployment to port on the course south-east by east (122 degrees). He had delayed as long as possible, and in consequence some of the British units had got into awkward situations, for the cruisers and part of the destroyer flotillas were still screening the Battle Fleet while some flotillas to move to their battle stations in compliance with a flag signal hoisted a few minutes before, and a simultaneous wireless message. Action now was fast and furious in several places. The destroyer Onslow (Lieutenant-Commander J. C. Tovey) had tenaciously kept on the engaged lx)w of the Lion all the time and now made for the di.sabled Wiesbaden to attack her with guns and torpedoes
had just begun
HMS
Naval power incarnate: a line of British dreadnoughts steams on towards the great clash with the
embodiment
of
Germany's dream of naval supremacy— the High Seas Fleet Note how the signal flags flying from the yards are being
blown out by the wind and partially obscured by funnel smoke, both factors which materially affected the outcome of the battle, particularly in the battlecruiser action in the afternoon.
•»»>
»
*?
!
-y^^-^^
since the German ship was in a position to launch torpedoes at the British battle-cruisers. Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot in the Defence, in company with the Warrior, also set course for the Wiesbaden, bent on destroying her. He crossed the Lion's bows and compelled Beatty's flagship to make a sharp turn to port to avoid a collision. Wiesbaden still defended herself hotly and obtained several hits. At 1815 hours the two old British armoured cruisers suddenly came into full view of the van of the German battle licet and at least six of the German ships opened a tremendous fire upon them, at a distance of no more than 7,500 yards. After five minutes, the Defence disintegi-ated in a terrific detonation which could be seen and felt by most ships on either side. Not a man survived.
The Warrior continued to fire at the Wiesbaden., hu pelled to turn away .severely damaged. She was saved hilation then and there only by the fortuitous intervention :-: i.iie Warspite. When the deployment of the Battle Fleet began, RearAdmiral Evan-Thomas in Barham had assumed that the Marlborough would lead and had manoeuvred to take up station ahead of her. To do so he altered course to the east, in the direction of the German battleships. When he saw that the fleet deployed to port it was clear to him that he could not reach the van without interfering seriously with the gunnery of many of his own ship.= Therefore he decided to take station astern of the battle line and turned back. But he was soon compjelled to slow down, for there was not yet room for his squadron. When the columns turned 90 degrees to port to form line ahead, some were too extended, those behind them had to decrease speed and the rear of the long line was badly bunched up. Moreover, the light cruisers and destroyers on their way to their battle stations at the head and the rear of the line crossed the course of the battle squadrons, which were exchanging a lively fire with the leading German battleships. :
HMS
.
Ocean torn up by shells An officer who witnessed this
scene from a British light cruiser described his experiences as follows: The point where all this turning took place has been called Windy Corner. It uell earned its name. Apart from the risk and excitement of 15 or 20 large ships and 30 or 40 small ships all converging on to a point from every direction, the Germans were concentrating a heavy fire into the 'brown' or the turning point so that the whole ocean was torn up by shell splashes, and the noise was terrific. Every ship was steaming at high speed, and the majority of them were vigorously replying to the German fire by firing their own broadsides over the heads of There was any light craft that lay between them and the enemy handling of ships in that ten minutes of crossing the battlefleet's front such as had never been dreamt of by seamen before. In this confused situation the steering engine of the War.spite jammed and put her helm at 20 degrees starboard. She barely missed the stern of Valiant and continued to turn. Her captain decided to go on at full speed as long as the helm could not be moved. The War.^pite completed two full circles, confusing the laying of the German fire but herself replying vigorously with all her guns. Nevertheless, she received at least 11 hits by heavy shells, but her stout construction saved her and bad visibility enabled her to get away after the helm had been repaired. By her spectacular stunt the Warspite saved the Warrior, which with the last rev(jlutions of her engines .succeeded in creeping past until ,,she remained stopped just outside the sight of the German gunlayers. Two hours later she was taken in tow by the seaplane carrier Engadine but had to be abandoned the next morning. She lost 71 killed and 36 injured of a total of 822. In spite of the hammering the War.^pite had received, her main fighting elements — guns, engines and conning tower— were almost unimpaired. A gi-eat part of the living quartei-s were wrecked. The Executive Officer described a hit thus: A 12-inch shell came through side armour in boys' mess deck. Terrific sheet of golden .
.
.
HMS
HMS
Iron grey against a sea of grey and a sky of grey: Britain's survival resting in steel hulls stretching back to the horizon
^^
flame, stink, impenetrable dust, everything seemed to fall everywhere with an appalling noise. And somewhat later: Went aft again and found my cabin had been completely removed over-
hoard. Lobby in an awful state, and hJe about 12-feet diameter in the centre of the deck. Lot of burning debris in my cabin which we put out. In the middle of this heap was my wife's miniature, without its case, but otherwise perfect. Where shell hit the deck, planks and fastenings were removed as cleanly as if they had been shovelled away, in several places over
an area of 10 or 12 square feet. However, the Warspitc had several large shell holes in the waterline. Through them much water entered the ship, where it exerted dangerous pressure on the engine room bulkheads when the battleship steamed at high speed. Therefore she was reduced to 16 knots at most but at 2050 hours she reported repairs complete and asked for the Germans' position. Admiral Evan-Thomas ordered her to return to Rosyth directly, however. The concentration of ships at 'Windy Corner' gave Admiral Scheer the idea of 'doubling', attacking from two sides. To do so SMS Friedrich der Grosse would have turned to port and steered about north-west followed by the rest of the battle line. This would probably have meant the end of the Warrior and possibly of the Warspitc. particularly as the visibility would have been better. The main difficulty faced by Scheer was in maintaining contact between the two parts of the battle fleet, however, and in bringing them together again at the right time. The manoeuvre had never been tried by a modern fleet although it was well known in the times of sail. There was no short signal for it, and after a brief discussion with his chief-of-staff". Admiral Scheer abandoned this promising plan. While the Defence was being destroyed by German fire, the Onslow fired 58 rounds at the Wiesbaden and then advanced to attack the ships of the 1st Scouting Group with torpedoes. After receiving two 6-inch shells in the forward boiler room she fell back and fired one torpedo at the Wiesbaden, and this detonated under her bridge. Then this tough destroyer launched her last two torpedoes at the approaching German battleships but scored no hits. She took three more shells but managed to get away, until she came to a dead slop near the circling Warspitc. When the battle had moved away she was joined and taken in tow (1915 hoursi by the destroyer HMS Defender whose foremost boiler room had been wrecked by a I'i-inch shell which failed to explode but nevertheless reduced her speed to ten knots. Their homeward journey was described by Rudyard Kipling under the apt title The Cripple
and
the Paralytic.
And
more happened in those crowded minutes. While the main fleet was forming line ahead with an angle of 60 degrees where one division after the other changed course from north-east to east-south-east, and Beatty's force still blanketed a good deal of its fire, quite a number of battleships made out the unfortunate Wie.'ibaden. Each fired a number of .^alvoes at her and claimed to have sunk her. However, she remained afloat. Scheer received several reports about her, and in an attempt to help her, he ordered a turn together of two points to port (at 1818 .still
British
ywTig
hours) but the German battleships were not able to keep this course for more than a few minutes because they, as well as the battle-cruisers, now came under tremendous fire on the new course. Evidently, they could be clearly seen by the British, whereas they had nothing but a seemingly endless line of rippling flashes before them. The Derfflinger retorted directly to Scheer: '1st Scouting Group turning away because observation against the sun impossible', not to mention the numerous hits which the leading ships had received. Scheer realised the situation clearly enough
permit all ships, by flag signal, 'to manoeuvre by independent turns' to throw the British range and aim out. When, on the British side. Hood in the Invincible sighted the Lion, he reversed course by a turn to starboard in succession and now (1820 hours) led the British line. At a distance of 11,000 yards and less his three battle-cruisers opened a heavy fire and repeatedly hit the Liitzow, Derfflinger and Konig. Hood told the gunnery officer of his flagship: 'Your firing is very good. Keep at it as quickly as you can. Every shot is telling.' But now visibility improved for the German battle-cruisers. Between large areas of artificial and funnel smoke, a wide lane to a clear horizon suddenly opened, with the Invincible in sharp outline in the middle, no more than 9,500 yards away. The Derfflinger and Liitzow found the lange at once, and their first salvoes straddled and hit the target. Then the Invincible' s 'Q' turret blew up, throwing its roof high into the air, the magazines exploded and the large ship literally broke in two. Both halves came to rest on the bottom of the sea in a depth of about 150 to 180 feet, in an upright position with stern and bows high above the surface (1833 hours). to
Only six survivors There were only six survivors out of a crew of more than 1,000 men. The gunnery officer had 'simply stepped from the falling foretop into the water' as he put it when rescued by the destroyer HMS Badger. He and three of his ratings had at once found a raft, from which they had already cheered the Indomitable, the next astern but one, when she passed them. The other survivors were a lieutenant who had been in the conning tower, and a marine from the after part of a turret. He simply did not know how he got into the water alive. The Badger had been sent to the rescue by Beatty, though her captain thought he had to deal with the wreck of a German ship, and had not only a doctor but also an armed guard ready to deal with the prisoners. During these events the light cruiser HMS Canterbury kept to the east of the German fleet all by herself. Scouting ahead of the 3rd Battle-Cruiser Squadron on its run to the south-south-east she had joined action with some German destroyers and the 2nd Scouting Group, and continued to shadow them on their southerly courses, exchanging a few salvoes. She was hit once only, by a dud. At 1820 hours she turned to the north and came into an excellent position to watch the next important event, the first German battle turn.
For Scheer
an exact picture of the Only for rare moments could British ships be made out distinctly from the German flagit
proved as
tactical situation as
it
difficult to get
had been
for Jellicoe.
Heavy
forced the 3rd Battle Squadron, which was leadmore and more to starboard. The battle-cruisers were evidently under strong British pressure, too. An attack by the 3rd Torpedoboat Flotilla on the British van, ordered by
accordance with the situation. Therefore Captain Redlich, the commanding officer of the Wc^tfalen, the rearmost dreadnought of the 1st Battle Squadron, started the battle turn on sighting battle Signal Green (1836 hours) and the pre-dreadnoughts of the
Kommodore
2nd
ship.
fire
ing, to fall off
Michelsen, the leader of the group of torpedoboats, might have brought relief but was called off by him just after it had started (1832 hours) because he wanted to conserve his destroyer strength for later emergencies. A few torpjedoes were launched, however, and did reach the British battle-cruisers. But they were sighted in time and the British vessels avoided them. On turning back, the German destroyers met the crippled Shark, which fought back furiously with her remaining 4-inch gun. She disabled the V 48, probably with a hit in an engine room (1840 hours). From then on, the V 48 could move only very slowly at best. Attempts to help her failed, she was sighted and fired at by several British ships and finally sunk by ships of 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron (1850 hours). There were no survivors. The Shark herself could not be kept afloat. About 30 men took to two damaged rafts, though most of the survivors were compelled to hold to the life lines. At 1900 hours the Shark sank, and three hours later a Danish ship picked up the last six survivors. Lieutenant-Commander Loftus Jones, who had lost a leg during the last attack on his ship, was not among them. He was awarded a Victoria Cross. To get the situation in hand again, Scheer ordered a battle turn together of 16 points to starboard as a manoeuvre quickly to reverse course with the whole battle fleet. The cruisers and destroyers had to turn as best they could on the edges of the main fleet. On the whole, the British and German admirals had much the same ideas on the problems of leading large numbers of warships of various types in battle, but, in this method of completely reversing the course the Germans were one step ahead. Under normal conditions an evolution is prepared by hoisting a flag signal on the flagship and executed simultaneously the moment this signal is hauled down. In battle this could lead to difficult situations and even collisions, because the formation might be in disorder and vision of the signal obscured. Therefore this kind of complete turn around was begun from the rear when the last ship had received the signal. This was very short, one flag only or two words by wireless; every effort was made to get it through the line rapidly. The signal was not only flown from the bridges fore and aft but also from a battle signal station amidships on the disengaged side. In addition, there was a special short-range wireless station for battle signals in the conning tower of each big ship. As soon as the last ship had received the signal she started turning to starboard with standard helm and showed this by flying green flags (for a battle turn to port red ones) from several battle stations. As soon as the next ship ahead saw these flags she put her helm over, and so on. With this method each ship turned away from the next one, and the danger of collisions was reduced as much as possible. This was one of a number of tactical moves in battle. The signals were short and terse, the entire system simple and therefore practicable even under great stress. In training their fleet, the Germans had put great value on encouraging commanders and captains to take the initiative in
Battle Squadron followed his ship. However, the old predreadnoughts had not been able to keep the speed of the newer ships and were about a mile behind, so there was no danger of collision. They conformed at once, turning more quickly than their larger brothers. The whole manoeuvre went without a hitch although the theoretically straight line from the Liltzow to the Westfalen. eight miles long, was bent almost to a semicircle, and the van was under heavy fire, SMS Markgraf was hit while turning, and a shell descended on the conning tower of the Konig. glanced off and burst about 50 yards away, its splinters wounding several people, among then Konteradmiral Behncke (tall, gaunt and dark, with a short greying beard, called 'the Arab Sheik' because he looked exactly like one) who continued, however, to lead his 3rd Battle Squadron.
The battle-cruisers followed the battleships with the exception of the Liltzow which was damaged so severely and was so much down by the bows that she could not keep up speed and manoeuvre in company. Several destroyers hid her by laying smoke screens between her and the British line. This may have prevented the Canterbury from getting a picture of the situation although she must have seen part of the battle turn at least. In any case she joined the 3rd Battle-Cruiser Squadron again and stationed herself on its disengaged bow without making any special report. The Liltzow was not fit to act as flagship any longer. From the translation of a book on the battle of Tsushima he had made some time ago Korvettenkapitdn (Commander) (later Grossadniiral) Raeder recalled the unfortunate consequences of the Russian Admiral
Rojestvensky clinging too long to his damaged flagship. In his capacity as 1st Operations Officer he persuaded Admiral Hipper, but only with difficulty, to change over to another battle-ci'uiser. his staff went aboard tiie G 39 which was called alongside. Hipper intended to go to his old flagship Seydlitz. He ordered Captain Hartog oi'theDerfflingertQ lead the battle-cruisers until he could take over again. But the battle had now reached its climax and the Seydlitz was too much damaged already to act as flagship. It took them a long time to be transferred to the Moltke.
The admiral and
A
single hit
By 1840 hours the
battle turn had been completed, and Scheer gave west as the general course. On the British side the full
German manoeuvre was not was now in perfect order
realised at the time. after some bunching caused by a temporary reduction of speed. It now steamed at 17 knots, the battleships proceeded by the six battle-cruisers whose lead the Lion took again. Visibility was baffling, in some places hardly 2,000 yards, in others more than ten miles. Most ships had no targets, but the Wiesbaden and the V 48 came under fire again,
extent of the
The Grand
Fleet
although neither was sunk. At around 1850 hours the rear
divi-
sions of the Grand Fleet sighted battleships far away to the southwest and a few ships took tliem under fire and obtained a single
HMS Agincourt (foreground) with HMS Erin beyond her. The Agincourt carried the largest number of heavy guns mounted on any one capital ship; 14 12-mch guns in seven centreline turrets The Erin was armed with ten 13 5-inch guns m five turrets Both ships were originally ordered by foreign buyers (the Erin by Turkey and the Agincourt by Brazil) but taken over by Britain at the beginning of the war
IjISXt^**!
!!
:i^
hit,
on the Markgraf. at 20,000 yards. The van passed the wreck
of the Invincible, while the destroyer Acasta, severely damaged by several shells, came to a stop and lay out of control a few hundred yards off the engaged side of the battle line. Its crew greeted each passing ship with loud cheers. Beatty turned first to south-southeast (1853 hours) and then to south, reducing speed to 18 knots in order to prevent his distance from the battleships becoming too this moment Lion had a gyro failure and turned a whole because in making an S turn to give the battle fleet time to catch up, Beatty forgot to reverse his helm. When this happened, the Marlborough, near the rear of the line, was hit by a torpedo (1854 hours) probably fired by the Wieabaden. which punched a hole 70 feet long and 20 feet deep at the place of impact abreast of the starboard forward hydraulic engine i-oom. She took a list to starboard but could keep up 17 knots, although water seeped into the forward boiler rooms and some bulkheads came under a
great.
At
circle,
considerable strain. All this contributed in hiding the fundamental change in the situation from Jellicoe, although this state of affairs could not have lasted much longer in any case. Now Scheer took the initiative again by another battle turn. The High Seas Fleet reversed course to the east and again headed for the British battle line. Scheer did not know this for certain, for he had no accurate picture of the situation, but his intention was to come to grips with the British again. His main reason for this move was, as he put it, 'to surprise the enemy by a heavy blow against his battle line and to enforce a situation favourable for a mass attack by the destroyer flotillas'. If he continued to steer west he was sure that the British fleet would soon locate him and attack him in overwhelming strength. By taking the offensive himself he expected to bridge the interval of about an hour until it would be too dark for a general action between the battle fleets, but give the destroyer flotillas an opportunity for a night attack. He also hoped that it would be possible to aid the Wiesbaden, or at least to take her crew off. On the British side, Jellicoe (at 1856 hours) ordered his fleet to change course by divisions to approximately south by east (167 degrees). At the same time he received several reports of submarine sightings (which actually were not there) and of the torpedo hit on the Marlborough. Commodore Goodenough gave a correct report (1900 hours) on the position and easterly course of the German fleet. Three minutes later the Iron Duke passed the wreck of a big ship and was informed by the destroyer Badger that it was the Invincible. Immediately afterwards, the British battleships again sighted German ships and began to fire on them. Jellicoe decided to speed up the approach and at 1905 hours ordered his battleships to turn together three points to starboard to about south-south-west (201 degrees). However, he held this course only for four minutes and then turned back to south by east (167 degrees) under the impression of what seemed to be a planned destroyer attack on the centre of the British line. Actually the 5th Half-Flotilla was making an attempt to save the crew of the Wiesbaden, but came under such a heavy fire (mainly from the Colossus Division of the 1st Battle Squadron) that it was forced to turn away prematurely. In doing so, the V 73 fired one torpedo,
G 88 three. Neither the British shells nor German torpedoes found targets. The torpedo tracks were sighted by HMS Neptune and the Barham, who had sufficient time to avoid the torpedoes. Now most of the British battleships could make out their targets and began shooting in earnest, whereas the Germans rarely saw more than the flashes. Again they were heading into an arc of deadly fire. Soon Scheer realised that he would lead his fleet into annihilation if he kept on much longer, for the British
the
gunnery was becoming increasingly effective. Visibility was still very patchy and each battleship had only a few German ships in sight at the same time. Ranges varied from 19,000 yards down finally to 8,000 yards. In order to support the destroyer flotillas at the head of the line, Scheer at 1903 hours hoisted the battle signal '9 R', in Gei'-
man
'Panzerkreuzer ran!', 'Battle-cruisers, go at them regardThis they did, battered, as they were. The Derfflinger (Captain Hartog) led the charge, for the Liitzow now was entirely out of action after receiving 23 heavy shells, and was moving slowly to the south-west. A death-ride, and they knew it. In the Seydlitz. the second ship. Captain von Egidy wanted to bring home to his men what was about to happen. Therefore he ordered the ratings manning the telephones in the conning tower to pass on the following message: 'From Captain to Ship: Signal from C-in-C Fleet: Schlachtkreuzer ran!' As they had been trained, the men transmitted this message in measured and well-articulated tones to all battle-stations. The confirmations came from below in the same monotonous way. Then, as Captain von Egidy reported it later, there followed a kind of awed hush for a second or two. the ship seemed to hold its breath. Then they had grasped the idea, and through voice pipes, ventilation shafts and armoured passages an echo came back to the commanding officer which literally caused his heart to beat faster. The whole ship was one great wave of enthusiasm, they cheered, some sang the national anthem, others the Wacht am Rhein, stokers hammered with their shovels at bulkheads, over and again they shouted 'Drauf, Seydlitz!' ('Attack, Seydlitz!'), the battle cry of the Seydlitz cuirassiers of the Seven Years War, which we had adopted for our ship. 'Drauf, Seydlitz!' now was to lead us to the less of consequences.'
attack.
Meanwhile (from 1915 hours onwards) the 3rd, 6th and 9th and went at full speed into
Flotillas overtook the battle-cruisers
the blazing crescent formed by 33 big British ships with their numerous cruisers and destroyers. Only 17 of the original 27 destroyers could take part, for three were out of action, while the others were on tasks such as assisting the Liitzow or trying to help the Wiesbaden. Had the German battle-cruisers drawn the British fire in preparing the way for the mass attack, this would soon have brought relief to the hard pressed 1st Scouting Group. The distance between the lines was so short that the destroyers were recognised and fired on as soon as they left the pall of smoke and fumes obscuring the German van. Soon several German boats were hit, but all kept on until they could fire their torpedoes, 33 in all, at distances between 8,000 and 6,000 yards. Turning away
u^
-T'^SSSf*..
Below left and right: Gunnery officers, German and British. For two years they had been able only to practise, but now the outcome of the war depended on their skills. Both were drawn from the Deck or Executive branch of their respective services. Bottom left: SMS Konig opens fire. .Note her broad beam, making for a steady firing platform. Bottom right: The main action of Jutland. It is easy to see how the haze, smoke, shell explosions and cordite fumes soon fouled the range
they tried to throw out the British fire control by putting u ,: screens and making sharp changes of course. The S 35, hu\v«j received a heavy shell amidships, broke in tw^o and sank with her entire crew and all the men she had rescued from the V29. Not a single one of so many torpedoes damaged a British ship, but nevertheless they had a considerable tactical impact. Both sides knew the dangers from mass attacks of this kind and had developed tactics to counter it. Exercises had shown that there existed a sizeable chance of several torpedoes hitting unless the targets turned away several points and then individually manoeuvred away from the torpedo tracks if these could be made out. In a comparatively smooth sea this was not difficult because the compressed air driving the engine of the torpedo drew a fast advancing line of bubbles on the surface. It had to be taken into account that the torpedo itself streaked along under water some dozens of yards ahead of that line. Other measures were to turn into the tracks, a manoeuvre which gave less time for evasive action, however, or to intercept the attack in an early stage with light cruisers and destroyers. It was also possible to combine the two methods. Jellicoe chose the surest way. When the attackers reached positions favourable for launching their torpedoes, he ordered the battleships to turn away two points (at 1922 hours) and when this appeared insufficient, two more points (1925 hours). The conditions of sea and light were good for track spotting, but even so a hectic few minutes ensued for some ships. At least ten British battleships sighted tracks, and most of them were compelled to avoid them by the energetic use of helm and engines. Even so it was a question of luck. The Marlborough, already damaged, sighted three tracks on the starboard bow and turned into them. One passed ahead, the next one very close to the stem, which was swinging away from it, while the third broke surface abeam and then dived under again. Then its track hit the' battleship amidships, but not the torpedo, which had probably dived too deep when it disappeared from the surface again. The distance from bridge to bridge of the various vessels was about 550 yards, the ships themselves almost 200 yards long. When suddenly they had to turn with full helm and high speed, ..•
/
..
-.
some awkward situations were bound to result. However, collisions were avoided by skilful ship-handling and by what Jellicoe called in his memoirs 'neighbourly conduct towards each other'. Yet rapid changes of course and speed were inconvenient for gunnery and so most ships lost sight of their targets, their fire slackened and eventually ceased altogether. But avoiding torpedoes was not the only reason for the diminishing contact. When Scheer saw that at least two of his battlecruisers were heavily damaged, and fire from three directions (to quote his war diary) forced the van to turn away more and more, he repeated his orders to the flotillas to attack and at the same time (1918 hours) hoisted the signal for another battle-turn to starboard to reverse course. This was more difficult than before because the battle line was curved, distances between ships very small in some places (nominally 500 metres or 550 yards) and the British fire so heavy that several ships temporarily left the line to avoid concentrated salvoes. Here, too. neighbourly behaviour pre-
1403
vented collisions, the fleet flagship setting an example when at Scheer's suggestion, the Friedrich der Grosse turned to port instead of starboard to make more room for the others. A few ships slowed down and changed positions but soon the battle-fleet was on a westerly course which Scheer in a short time changed to south-west (1928 hours).
Immediately before and during the third battle turn, a number of German ships were severely punished. The Mar^g/a/" received four heavy shells within two minutes of turning whereas SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm, the next astern, was shaken violently by near-misses but not struck once during the entire battle. Again the battle-cruisers suff"ered the gravest damage. In the Derfflinger all the 6-inch guns of the port battery were put out of action. Then the right gun of the fourth turret received a direct hit which slewed the whole turret round and ignited some cordite charges. With the exception of one rating, everybody inside was killed and the turret silenced. A few minutes later a similar fate overtook the third turret and its crew. In both cases the magazines could be flooded ill lime. Simultaneously the conning tower was struck by a 12-inch shell which, however, did not pierce the armour but shook tiie whole tower to its foundations. Several officers and men were injured by splinters and yellow gasses got in througii the vision slits. Gas masks proved helpful until the air was pure again. The Liitzow and the Seydlitz were also hit, although the latter retaliated by putting two shells into the battleship Colossus, which,
liowever, caused
little
damage other than wounding
Around 1945 hours both
five
men.
sides ceased firing entirely.
Later on, the tactics of both commanders-in-chief in this part of the battle were criticised in some quarters, Jellicoe's as too cautious, Scheer's as too crude. The task of the British navy was not primarily to destroy the High Seas Fleet regardless of costs, but to ensure that Great Bi'itain continued to have unimpeded use of the vital sea lanes on the one hand and to deny them to the Germans. Jellicoe was much impressed by the dangers to his fleet during a general action from 'an intelligent use of submarines, mines, and torpedoes' as he put it himself. In a letter to the Admiralty dated October 30, 1914, he had outlined his overall plan to fight a general fleet action only in the northern North Sea, not near the German bases. In battle he was going to rely on his gunnery superiority and to avoid the threat from the German underwater weapons as much as possible. His turn away on recognising the mass attack of the German destroyers was fully in accordance with this plan, which the Admiralty had approved. Neither commander-in-chief had anything like a comprehensive picture of the situation. The technical development of means of extensive reconnaissance had not kept up with that of weapons and engines. Therefore momentous decisions had to be based on personal impressions and limited knowledge. Admiral Scheer was greatly influenced by the fate of the Wiesbaden and tried to help her. In his very short war diary this is the only special point he mentions in connection with his second battle turn. But he told his staff on the bridge that he was resolved not to slink away but to deal an unexpected blow to his adversary in order to upset his plans for the rest of daylight, which Jellicoe might otherwise utilise to get to grips again under circumstances unfavourable to the High Seas Fleet. It was a simple plan founded more on the intuition of a fighting man that on sober calculation utilising confirmed facts. When he saw his van again in a very dangerous position he acted with speed and energy. In this phase his ships suflered much more than their opponents, but he succeeded in delaying a new deployment of the Grand Fleet so long that serious contact was not re-established before darkness fell. He could not save the Wiesbaden, although several destroyers had tried to approach her and help as best they could. Contrary to the reports of several British ships, iKi".
I.Mii'li
ritiiiiiT
WMM
iMil
niiiilt
li\'
Ihrii
flit".
Hnlli'inl
oiil
of
recognition she kept afloat till after midnight. A lew survivors lell her on a damaged raft but onl> one man was rescued, after three days, by a neutral steamer. From the few belated reports which Scheer received, he got the impression that the British fleet had turned away in an easterly direction for good, whereas from 1945 hours on it steered southwest, in good order, with light cruisers scouting ahead, the battlecruisers in single line, the battleships following at a distance of six miles. Beatty could make out some German battleships against the western sky and reported their bearing and approximate distance 10 to 1 1 miles) and then the bearing of the leading r.hip (1945 hours), 'i'wo minutes later he made the urgent suggestion that the British battleships should follow his battle-cruisers in order to cut off the whole of the German fleet. Scheer evidently was more concerned with the possibilities of (
140.i
the following morning because he expected to meet British reinforcements from the southern North Sea bases. Therefore his main endeavour was to get nearer to Heligoland. He ordered a course south (1945 hours) and repeated the order several times. He did not take any steps to get his fleet into the old order again. The 1st and 3rd Battle Squadrons steamed in inverse order with the fleet flagship in the middle of the line, the old pre-dreadnoughts of the 2nd Battle Squadron proceeded on a parallel course a mile to the west, and on the other side the four battle-cruisers tried to reach the head of the line again. The result was that the courses of the two fleets converged, and there followed a series of short contacts. At 2000 hours Beatty gave orders to the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron 'to sweep to the westward and locate the head of the enemy's line before dark'. Soon they made out the old cruiser of the 4th Scouting Group and opened fire (at 2017 hours), which was answered promptly, with some damage on both sides. At that time (2014 hours) Jellicoe sent a wireless message to his leading battle squadron (the 2nd) to follow the battle-cruisers, but neither side found the energy to enforce a decisive action. Immediately afterwards Beatty sighted the German 2nd Battle Squadron which had drawn slightly ahead, and took it under fire as well as firing on the 1st Scouting Group, which showed clearly for a short time against the western sky where the sun had just set. After receiving some hits, both German groups turn to the west because they could see nothing of the British but their gun flashes. To avoid a collision the van of the dreadnoughts turned away, too. This again opened the range to the British Battle Fleet which had steered south-west and for a few minutes west-south-west from 2000 hours on. The light cruiser Calliope, scouting in the direction of the German fleet, was in full sight of the Iron Duke when she came under the fire of German battleships (2030 hours). She was hit five times but escaped by clever manoeuvring. Meanwhile it drew darker, visual contact between the British battle-cruisers and battleships was lost and there were increasing doubts whether ships sighted in the dusk were friend or foe. The four German battle-cruisers were again sighted and fired on for a few minutes at around 2100 hours, but were soon lost from sight. Jellicoe now ordered a course south and somewhat later, the adoption of night cruising formation. The day battle was over.
Further Reading
Bacon, Adm. Sir Reginald, The Life of Jotin Rushworth, Earl Jellicoe (London 1936) Bacon, Adm. Sir Reginald, The Jutland Scandal (London 1925) Bennet, G., The Battle of Jutland (Batsford 1964)
(HMSO 1924) Letters of David, Earl Beatty
British Admiralty, Narrative of the Battle of Jutland
Chalmers, Rear-Adm. W.
S.,
The
Life
and
(London 1951) Chatfield, Admiral of the Fleet Lord, The Navy and Defence Churchill, W. S., The World Crisis (IVIentor 1968) Corbett, Sir Julian, Naval Operations Volume III (Longmans,
Green
1923) Dreyer, Adm. Sir Frederic, The Sea Heritage (fvluseum Press 1955) Fawcett, H. W. and Hooper, G. W. W., The Fighting at Jutland
Macdonald) and Harper, Vice-Adm.
(IVIaclure,
Gibson.
L.
J.
E. T.,
The Riddle of Jutland
(London 1934) Groos, Captain O Der Krieg zur See 1914-1918 (Berlin 1920-1937) Hase, G. von, Kiel and Jutland (Skeffington) James, Admiral Sir William, Eyes of the Navy Jellicoe, Admiral Viscount, The Grand Fleet 1914-1916 (Cassell 1919) Harper, Rear-Adm J., The Truth about Jutland (Murray) Kahn, D The Code Breakers (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1968) Macintyre, Captain D., Jutland Marder, A. J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow Volume III ,
,
(GUP Rawson,
1966) R., Earl Beatty (Jarrold)
Scheer, Adm.
R.,
Germany's High Seas Fleet
in the
World War
(London 1020) luiiipio I'tilliMsoii.
A
(od
),
Waldemeyer-Hartz, Captain
rapois (Luiiduii I'J(jG) Admiral von Hipper (Rich & Cowan)
lliv Julllcoo
H. von.,
VICE-ADtVllRAL (aD) FRIEDRICH OSKAR RUGE joined the German navy in April 1914. During the war he served in the North Sea, the Baltic and the English Channel, and was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class. In November 1918 he was interned at Scapa Flow and took part in scuttling the German fleet in 1919. He was a prisoner of war until the beginning of 1 920 After this he was taken into the Reichsmarine where he became a specialist in the development of mines and minesweeping. He travelled abroad widely between tfie wars. During the Second World War he served in the North Sea, France, the tVlediterranean and finally as Director of Warship Construction in Berlin. He was recalled to the German navy between 1956 and 1961, and then became a professor at Tubingen University. In 1 979 he became President of the tVlarineakademie. He is also the author of numerous books, articles and pamphlets. .
JUTLAND
^^•i«W,
\^
/
V
I As in the growing darkness the main fleets drew apart, Jellicoe was confident, with some justice, that victory would be his the following day. As far as he knew, his fleet was still mostly intact, and he was astride the Germans' only avenue of escape. He could therefore afford to avoid the risks of a major night action and then annihilate the trapped Germans in the morning. But even these best laid of plans went awry. The Germans, moving more slowly than Jellicoe had anticipated, cut across the rear of the Grand Fleet towards the Horns Reef and safety. The only opposition, the British light cruisers and destroyers, could not halt the Germans despite their courageous attacks, and also failed to keep Jellicoe informed, so that he might intervene. Donald Macintyre. Above: The death of the pre-dreadnought SMS Pommern
of the evening of May 31, the interminable line of British battleships of the Grand Fleet had steered to the south-west, probing for renewed contact with the High Seas Fleet. The latter, after twice recoiling from the unexpected confrontation with the- greatly superior British, deployed across its path, had been steering south. Between the two battle lines, skirmishes in the dusk had taken place between the opposing light cruiser forces, and Commodore Le Mesurier's 4th Light Cruiser Squadron had made an ineffective torpedo attack on the rear German battle squadrons. Then, at about 2025 hours, Beatty's battle-cruisers, a dozen miles to the south-west, and out of sight of Jellicoe's van, engaged and drove westwards first the battered German Battle-Cruiser Force and then the German pre-dreadnought 2nd BaifZe Squadron, leading Scheer's battle line since his 'about-turn'. News of these encounters did not reach Jellicoe until 2100 hours. Scheer's main body, his dreadnoughts led by SMS Westfalen, had continued south, however, and was thus converging with the
Through the long summer twilight
"*'
British battle line. It
was 2045 hours and almost dark when from two British light HMS Caroline and HMS Royalist, stationed on the starof Vice-Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram's 2nd Battle
cruisers, board side
I
Squadron, leading the British line, the black bulk of battleships was seen dimly looming to the westward. It was the head of the German dreadnought squadrons. Flashing a warning to Admiral Jerram, the two light cruisers went into the attack, being received with a fierce storm of gunfire as they swoing round to launch torpedoes, one of which would have hit SMS Nassau had it not run too deep and passed below her keel. Only after Captain Crooke of the Caroline had assured him of the identity of his target had Jerram given permission for the attack. But Jerram himself remained unconvinced that the silhouettes dimly seen against the afterglow of the sunset were not Admiral Beatty's battle-cruisers, which he had been vainly seeking (since being ordered, about 45 minutes earlier, to follow them) as a result of Beatty's much criticised signal made at 1947 hours. At barely 10,000 yards, a range at which tremendous execution could have been done by the 13.5-inch guns of his squadron, Jerram hesitated, while the German ships, unaware of his presence, swei-ved away to starboard to avoid the light cruisers' torpedoes.
i
At the same time,
Jellicoe,
unaware
of the
momentous
encounter at the head of his long battle line, and finally convinced that all chance of a day encounter had gone, signalled for the Battle Fleet's course to be altered to south, the leading ships of divisions to turn simultaneously. Imbued wdth the doctrine of unquestioning obedience to orders from the Commander-in-Chief which governed the Grand Fleet and discouraged initiative by subordinate commanders, Jerram mutely complied. The two columns turned silently away from one another and faded into the darkness. Soon afterwards, Admiral Jellicoe, following his long-decided intention to avoid a night action, with all its advantages for the smaller, more manoeuvrable German fleet and the dependence largely on blind luck for the battle's outcome, signalled for the fleet to assume its night cruising disposition, a compact formation with squadrons in line ahead disposed abeam. Vizeadmiral Scheer, for his part, equally unaware of the near encounter at the head of his line, held to his southerly course and pondered his tactics for the night. His much-damaged battlecruisers and the 2nd Battle Squadron of pre-dreadnoughts were ordered to the rear. In the van were nine light cruisers of his Scouting Groups, while in the rear the torpedoboat flotillas were being organised by Kommodore Heinrich in SMS Regensburg tor night attacks on the British Battle Fleet. Steering a parallel course eight miles to the eastward and
now slowly assuming
their night disposition were the Grand Fleet's battle squadrons with the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron out
ahead, as was the swarm of destroyers, organised in five flotillas. Astern of the Battle Fleet were the four light cruisers of the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron under Commodore Goodenough in HMS
Southampton. Fifteen miles to the south-west of the Grand Fleet were Beatty's battle-cruisers with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron and the 1st and
3rd Light Cruiser Squadrons. Following Beatty's brief exchange of gunfire firstly with the German battle-cruisers and then with the 2nd Battle Squadron, they had continued to probe southwestward for a while, seeking Scheer's main body So closely ahead of Scheer's light cruisers did they pass that the Germans were able to read light signals passing between HMS Lion and HMS Princess Royal. One of these gave the challenge and reply for the night, a piece of information of which they would make good use later. At 2130 hours, the battle-cruisers turned to a
1406
southerly course at 17 knots to conform to that of the Battle Fleet, and this they held for the rest of the night. They played no further part in the battle; for at 2110 hours, Scheer decided that in the desperate situation he was in, with the Grand Fleet between him and his escape route, his only hope of avoiding a renewal of the unequal battle at daylight was to steer directly for the entrance to the swept channels through the minefields, in the vicinity of the Horns Reef Light Vessel, 90 miles away. If necessary, he would have to bludgeon his way through the British fleet, accepting the consequences. He signalled 'Battle E. No deviations. Speed 16 knots.' When half Fleet's course SSE an hour later the leading dreadnought, the Westfalen, was forced to turn to starboard to avoid the pre-dreadnought squadron which had not yet dropped to the rear, Scheer repeated his order, with the course amended to make up the lost ground, to SSE E. Once again the two fleets were on converging, but not now on collision, courses. For Jellicoe, having in mind the possibility of Scheer steering for the alternative escape route through the Ems Channel to the south of the British mine barrage, the entrance to which lay due south of his present position, had ordered a speed of 17 knots, a knot faster than Scheer's slowest battle squadron, which would keep the Grand Fleet across this route. In case fecheer should, instead, try to cut across his wake to make for the Horns Reef. Jellicoe now ordered his mas.sed flotillas to the rear, confident that they would off'er an impenetrable barrier. As a further t*J.J precaution he detached the fast minelayer HMS Abdiel to layjrl^T mines in the Horns Reef channel. UJ The British flotillas, few of whom had as yet taken any part in the battle, reversed course, passing between the columns of the Battle Fleet to make for their new station in the rear. Operating independently, the flotillas' order from west to east was: Castor flagship of Commodore Hawksley) the light cruiser and 15 of the 11th Flotilla; the 4th Flotilla, 12 boats led by Tipperary (Captain C. J. Wintour), and HMS Broke (Commander W. L. Allen;; the 13th Flotilla of nine boats led by Commodore Farie in the light-cruiser HMS Champion; a small division composed of four boats of the 9th and one of the 10th Flotilla led by Commander Goldsmith in HMS Lydiard and the 12th Flotilla, Faulknor (Captain A. J. B. Stirling). 15 boats led by Meanwhile, the German battle fleet was turning on to the course and into the formation ordered. The 2nd Battle Squadron was turning up into line astern of the dreadnoughts. The battlecruisers had also reached their station in the rear where Vizeadmiral Hipper was at last able to transfer his flag from the torpedoboat G 39 to SMS Mnltke, the least-damaged of his ships. With a battle-cruiser's deck under his feet once more, the indomitable Hipper soon chafed at the uninspiring station allotted him. He led off" for the van at 20 knots; only the doughty SMS Seydlitz, in spite of the 21 hits by heavy shells and the torpedo damage she had suff"ered, felt able to comply, though the resultant strain on her damaged hull was soon to slow her down and eventually to bring her near to foundering. At the same time the light cruisers and some of the flotillas moved out to port to probe for the British Battle Fleet. To appreciate the events which were to follow during the night, the reader must put out of mind the present-day warship where, in darkness or fog, the multifarious electronic equipment is able to present a picture of the situation around to the command and staff" in a sheltered bridge or operations room. All bridges were open platforms; in destroyers they were only a few yards above the level of the sea; their canvas sides gave a little shelter from the worst of the spray whipped back from the curling bow wave and no relief at all from the wind streaming across screwed-up eyes which, with the doubtful aid of simple day binoculars, were the only means of detection of another unit near by. The British, unlike the Germans, had no star shells with which to illuminate a suspicious stranger; nor had they the advantage held by the Germans in their iris shutters, behino which searchlights could be switched on and trained on the target prior to making the challenge. If an unsatisfactory reply, or none, was received, the target could be instantly illuminated by opening the shutters and the guns could open fire simultaneously. Communication between ships was by flashing lights or primitive spark wireless telegraphy, which was still at an early stage of development. Flashless propcllants for guns did not exist; each salvo temporarily blinded all near by. In addition to these materiel shortcomings, many of which affected each side equally, the Royal Navy, highly trained for battle by day, had neglected to practise night-fighting. Not so the Germans who, as a result, had developed the essential iris shutters, already mentioned, good searchlight control, star shells and the technique for using them to the best advantage. 1
if
HMS
i
HMS
HMS
It was shortly before 2200 hours that the British flotillas, some 50 boats in all. began to turn up into station astern of the battle squadrons. The eyes of all, squinting into the dark, were fixed on the next ahead as the close-order manoeuvre was being executed, V. hen the Tipperary and her half flotilla of five boats were sighted b\ a German flotilla which, until their challenge was not answered ar a distance of a few hundred yards, did not identify them as British. Four of the German boats fired a torpedo each before they faded back into the darkness. Luckily the sharp turn being i: ade by the British flotilla saved them, the torpedoes passing a-iern of the rear ship. Garland, the only one to appreciate Aiiat was happening; she radioed an enemy report and raised the alarm with a gunshot in the Germans' direction. At about the same time, the most westerly British flotilla, the In boat.- (if the 11th, led by the Castor, was similarly about to turn up into station when, unseen by them, the light cruisers SMS Frankfurt and SiMS Pillau passed on an opposite course as they moved out to feel for the British Battle Fleet. Without opening fire or exposing their searchlight-beams, the German cruisers also launched a torpedo each and turned stealthily away. All unaware of their danger, the Castor and her flotilla at this moment turned to take up station; the torpedoes sped harmlessly by. Once the manoeuvre had been completed and attentions on the Castor's bridge were less distracted, the presence of further black shapes off" the starboard bow was suddenly discovered. Guns were hastily trained in their direction; but then, from the unknown ships came a winking light flashing a group of four letters. The first two were those of the British challenge ifruit of the battlecruisers' carelessness tarlieri; and though the next two were incorrect. Commodore Hawksley hesitated: as he did so, a searchlight beam glaied in his eyes; shells burst against the upperworks, spewing vicious steel splinters to spread savage wounds among the gun crews at their open mountings. The Castor's fi-inch guns slammed hack in reply: but the combined fire of two of the German cruisers, SMS Hamburg and SMS Elbmg. was too overwhelming. After firing one torpedo, the Castor turned away, as did the Germans to avoid it. The firing died aw-ay and the wild night skirmish ended a.s suddenly as it had begun. Oi' the destroyers following the Castor, only the first two, Magu. felt confident enough that it was a GerMarne and man in sight to fire torpedoes, one of which ran true for the Elbing but pas.sed undorneath her; the remainder did not fire. That well-trained British ships could give a good account of themselve.-? in night action in spite of materiel shortcomings was show n when the four
HMS
HMS
HMS
Southampton's torpedoes bur.sting
in her
magazine.
Of these several encounters, astern of the British Battle Fleet, distant flashes from which were seen from Jellicoe's flagship. HMS Iron Duke, only the Garland's signal and a brief report from the Castor that she had been engaged with German cruisers had reached Jellicoe. He assumed that this signified the repulse of a
German attempt to deliver a torpedoboat attack, supported by cruisers, on his rear. For the time being there seemed to him to be no reason for any change of plan as he continued on his southerly course. The position, course and speed of the German battlefleet remained a matter for speculation, though in fact a signal from the Admiralty which, in retrospect, can be seen to clear up much of the doubt, was at that moment being decoded in the Iron Duke. Scheer. on the other hand, knowing from intercepted radio messages that the British destroyers had been ordered to the rear, and that his own destroyers had encountered some of them, was able to compile a clearer picture, one which showed that the Grand Fleet had drawn ahead during the last few hours. A small alteration of course to port would take him across its wake; soon after 22.30 hours he signalled for a course of SE A E. The next hour passed undisturbed by any further violent encounters, though, unknown to the British, two units of the German fleet actually came in sight of the black bulk of some of the battleships of Jellicoe's starboard column. The Moltke and the Seydlitz. stretching ahead of Scheers battle line, had had to weave their way through the scatter of light cruisers; some hasty still
manoeuvres to avoid which the Seydlitz had
had resulted, in the cou touch with the Moltke. Each therea operated independently; each, feeling her way south-eastwards for the Horns Reef, found her way barred. The Moltke twice came up against Jerram's squadron, being actually sighted on the first occasion by HMS Thunderer, whose captain. Captain Fergusson. decided against opening fire 'as it was inadvisable to show up our battle fleet', and did not even report the encounter. Blocked a third time at 2320 hours, the German battle-cruiser stood away to the southward and finally worked her way across ahead of the Grand Fleet, her path to safety clear. The Seydlitz. her speed steadily falling away, came up against Vice-Admiral Burney's 1st Battli Squadron, lagging behind the Battle Fleet as a result of HMS Marlborough's torpedo damage. She was sighted by the Marlborough, HMS Revenge and HMS Agincourt. as well as two light cruisers, but was allowed to disengage, unchallenged, finally to limp safely across the wake of the Grand Fleet to safety. While these almost incredible 'non-events' were taking place, and while the Westfalen was leading Scheer's line on a course which would take it across Jellicoe's wake, Jellicoe was pondering the signal from the Admiralty, the decoded version of which reached him at 2330 hours when he was snatching some rest in his little shelter on the Iron Duke's bridge. Consisting of a summary of three intercepted German messages, it read: 'German battle fleet ordered home at 2114 hours. Battle-cruisers in rear. collision
lost
Course SSE E. Speed 16 knots.' Accepted at its face value, this put Jellicoe in possession of most of the facts of the situation — that the two fleets had for the last two hours been converging, with the Grand Fleet steaming at a knot faster than the High Seas Fleet, and that consequently Scheer was making for the Horns Reef and must eventually cross his wake. Furthermore, looked at in the light of calm reflection after the event, the gunfire, searchlights and starshells which had been at intervals seen astern might have been expected to indicate that this was just w^hat was beginning to take place. Jellicoe. however, had doubts of the reliability of the Admiralty's information because, in an earlier message, they had given him a position of the Germans which he knew to be wrong. Another factor influencing him was a signal received from his most reliable scout. Commodore Goodenough, following his night encounter, which indicated that Scheer's battle fleet had been still to the westward at 2215 hours. Confident that if Scheer should later attempt to cross astern of him, his massed destroyer flotillas were well placed to repulse him, Jellicoe made no alteration to his course and speed. At 2106 hours Scheer had signalled for airship reconnaissance of the Horns Reef at dawn. An hour later he had ordered all his flotillas to assemble there. Both these signals and several later ones gi\ing .Scheer's position, course and speed were rapidly decoded in Room 40 and were passed to the Operations Room. 'There they were pigeon-holed by the Director who was unable to appre;
ciate their vital significance. Had Jellicoe received these signals, he
was subsequently to say, he would certainly have altered the course of the Grand Fleet and made for the Horns Reef Light V'essel. As it was, the information available to him and the flare and flicker of distant
gunfire astern seemed consonant with encounters between the opposing destroyer flotillas. It is impossible not to sympathise with Jellicoe when he later learned of the Admiralty's fatal lapse. Nevertheless, it is equally difficult to understand how Jellicoe could ignore the evidence of the night skirmishes in his rear, evidence which was to be reinforced during the next two hours, that some of the Germans at least were drawing across the rear of the Grand Fleet. The German battle line had swerved tem{X)raiily away, in spite of Scheer's strict orders, as a result of Goodenough's engagement at about 2215 hours. A lull had thus set in which lasted until 2330 hours, when the 4th Flotilla, the most westerly of the British units, once again came into action. Following Captain Wintour's Tipperary. in single line on a southerly course, were Spitfire. Sparroirhaick. Garland, Contest. Broke (divisional leader), Achates. Ambuscade. Ardent, Fortune. Porpoise and Unity. The whereabouts of the Germans — or indeed of other British units — was unknown, though Wintour suspected that the Castor and the 11th Flotilla were somewhere to starboard. When at 2315 hours he began to make out the dark shape of ships looming in that direction, therefore, he felt he must challenge. In reply came the blinding glare of searchlights and a storm of gunfire in which the little destroyer was reduced in a brief moment to a blazing wreck with her bridge swept away
HMS
and all on it killed. The ship the Tipperary had challenged was the Westfalen. head 1407
of Scheer's battle line. Further back on the battleship's port side light cruisers of the German 2nd Scouting Group, the ships which, no doubt, the Garland, the first to spot them, had taken for destroyers. The first five ships astern of the Tipperary each fired two torpedoes before sheering away to port; the Spitfire, however, the sixth destroyer, circled back to starboard
were steaming the
as her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Trelawney, took her back to the leader's rescue. Blinded by the gun flashes and searchlight beams, he could not see the towering mass of the leading German ships which had turned away to avoid the torpedoes. Out of the smoke and glare on his starboard bow there suddenly appeared the lofty bow of the battleship Nassau on a course to ram him. Trelawny swung his wheel to starboard in a desperate attempt to avoid the collision. It was too late for that; but he escaped the murderous ram and the two ships met, port bow to port bow, with a shock that heeled even the dreadnought over as, with a screech of tortured steel, they ground past on opposite courses. The blast from the 11-inch guns of the Nassau's forward turret wrecked the destroyer's bridge, bringing down her mast and foremost funnel, killing three men and wounding many more. With her hull torn open for a third of her length, the Spitfire staggered away, carrying with her 20 feet of the battleship's side plating, a trophy which she still had on board when she eventually
reached
port.
While this wild encounter was taking place, disaster had struck further along the German line. There the light cruisers had also sheered away to starboard to avoid the British torpedoes, and to do so had been forced to cut between the battleships. One of them, the Elbing, misjudging the manoeuvre, was rammed by the battleship SMS Posen and so badly damaged that she had eventually to be abandoned and scuttled by her crew. As the opposing units recoiled from one another and darkness swallowed them once again, the battleships were sternly ordered back to a course for the Horns Reef. On the port beam of the Westfalen, the cruiser SMS Rostock had taken station. The surviving destroyers of the 4th Flotilla, formed up astern of the Broke were led by Commander W. L. Allen on a converging course to renew the attack. Sighting the cruiser, and bemused by the events of the recent blind melee, he would not engage without first making the challenge. The vital advantage of the first shot thus sacrificed, the Broke was immediately overwhelmed as, with the same deadly efficiency, the German searchlights from the Rostock and the Westfalen unmasked their blinding glare and shells from point-blank range smashed into her, destroying the bridge and all stationed there; with the wheel jammed hard-a-port. the Broke careered away out of control to send her knife-edge stern slicing murderously into the starboard side of the Sparrowhawk. her next astern, as she, too, swung to port to fire torpedoes. And, as the two lay helplessly locked together, the Contest, next in line and unable to steer clear, carved off 30 feet of the Sparrowhawk's stern. The Broke and the Contest were able to limp away eventually out of action; their luckless victim was left to drift helplessly until abandoned and scuttled by her crew on the following day. Once again the German ships had been forced to sheer temporarily away to starboard to avoid the British torpedoes. The manoeuvre did not avail the Rostock, however: a torpedo exploding alongside a boiler-room wreaked such damage that she, too, had to be abandoned and sunk. At the cost of five of their number knocked out, the 4th Flotilla had caused the loss of two of the German cruisers; and now, under Commander Hutchinson of the Achates, the remainder formed up and resumed their southerly course, the Ambuscade, Ardent. Fortune, Porpoise and Garland following in that order. No attempt to pass to Jellicoe the vital information in his possession that they had clashed with the head of the German battle line was made by Hutchinson. A similar lack of tactical sense was displayed by ships of the British 5th Battle Squadron in the rear "of the Battle Fleet. This squadron had had a fair view of the two encounters. Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas, leading in Barham, had assessed the glare and thunder of guns first on his starboard quarter and then right astern as erciagements only between the opposing light forces. But from his lear ship, Malaya, in the flash from the torpedo which hit the Rostock at about 2340 hours, the leading German ship had been identified as a dreadnought. Yet no word was passed to Jellicoe. By now it was midnight. Eight miles astern of the Iron Duke, the head of the German line was about to cross the wake of the Battle Fleet. At this moment, from the bridge of the Achates, the black outlines of battleships to starboard were again sight. She was about to fire torpedoes when, between the Achates and the target, appeared the lower silhouettes of two cruisers. Thev
HMS HMS
m
1408
fact, two of the German 4th Scouting Group steering to ahead of the battleships; but that they could be British caused Hutchinson to hesitate; and while he did so the blazing inferno once again burst around the line of destroyers as the Westfalen took the Fortune for her target, being quickly joined by others of the battleship line. Within a few moments the Fortune was a burning wreck. The Porpoise, hit by a heavy shell, staggered away out of action. The remainder, having fired torpedoes, became scattered and played no further part in the battle, except for the Ardent. She once again came up against the head of the German line at 0015 hours. Closing to launch her solitary remaining torpedo, she was met by a concentrated storm of fire and sent to the bottom. The 4th Flotilla had finally shot its bolt. Though their torpedoes had failed to score during these last attacks, the little ships had managed to get some telling shots home with their comparatively puny gun armament before escaping into the darkness; the battleship SMS Oldenburg, in particular, suff"ered many casualties on the bridge and was only saved from collision with her neighbour by her wounded captain who took the wheel from the hands of the dying coxswain. The German battle line, indeed, though it had as yet suffered
were, in
cross
no losses as a result of the attacks, was, not for the
first
time,
thrown into considerable confusion. The Nassau, since her encounter with the Spitfire, had been trying unsuccessfully to get back into line and was finally to take up the rear station. Other ships had hauled out of line and circled before rejoining the line in stations other than their correct ones. Thus the German battle fleet's progress was delayed; but it was never halted or for long diverted from its stubborn drive through the opposition. Night encounter had brought disaster the meantime to another British unit. The armoured cruiser HMS Black Prince of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, which had suff"ered such rough handling earlier when the two fleets met, had been left behind when the Grand Fleet turned to the southward after deployment. Steering to rejoin, she had blundered into the middle of the German line to be battered to a wreck by the passing battleships and finally blown up and sunk with all hands. Though Scheer's battle line was by now across the rear of the Grand Fleet, there still remained a bar to his further progress and a means of informing Jellicoe of the situation: the 13th Flotilla of nine boats led by Captain Farie in the light cruiser Champion, five boats of the 9th and 10th Flotillas led by Commander Goldsmith in the Lydiard and the 14 boats of the 12th Flotilla, led by Captain Stirling in the Faulknor. Confusion had been caused among these by an unfortunate manoeuvre by Farie who, when shells passing over the 4th Flotilla during its first encounter landed near the Champion, imagined himself to be under fire and turned sharply away to port without signal. Only the first two of his flotilla, Moresby and Obdurate, saw the move and followed. The remaining seven continued on their southerly course and joined Goldsmith's division, thus, unknown to him, increasing his line from five boats to 12. Continuing eastward, Farie next ran across the 12th Flotilla, forcing Captain Stirling also to bear away in that direction until, by reducing speed, the latter allowed Farie's group to draw ahead, leaving himself free to resume the southerly course. As he did so, the German light cruisers Frankfurt and Pillau blundered into the rear of his formation. A brief, wild melee ensued during which the Menace barely avoided being rammed, while the Nonsuch, turning eastward at full speed to escape, lost touch with her flotilla and was never able to rejoin. Meanwhile, Goldsmith had been steering south-westward at high speed. It is an indication of how ignorant of the situation were the destroyers, where facilities for recording and plotting it were rudimentary, that Goldsmith had remained convinced that the violent clashes he had seen to the eastward during the previous hour and a half had been the result of mistaken identity and that British heavy ships, presumably the battle-cruisers to whom he was rightfully attached, had been firing at the 4th Flotilla. Now, therefore, he was steering to cross their bows and take up station on their starboard side. His course was effective to take what he still thought was his
m
line of only five boats safely across. Indeed, about half-an-hour after midnight, the first ten boats had safely crossed ahead, unseen
and not seeing, the Westfalen. The eleventh boat. Petard, narrowly scraped across the battleship's bow and escaped under gunfire which caused a number of casualties. Next in the line was the Turbulent. Her way barred, she could only turn parallel to the battleship at full speed in the hope of drawing sufficiently ahead to cross her bows. It was a forlorn hope: with a few savage salvoes from her secondary battery by,
The smaller ships that wove in and out of their mightier brethren in the dark 1.
SMS Rostock,
light cruiser,
the leader of
German torpedoboat flotillas at the Seeschlacht am Skagerrak', as the Germans called
the
the battle. During the 4th Flotilla's attack on SMS Westfalen, the Rostock contributed greatly to the repulse of the British boats, but then herself succumbed to a torpedo and had to be abandoned and sunk by her crew. 2.
SMS Stettin,
in which Kommodore von Reuter Scouting Group. 3. SMS Frauenlob, one of Germany's older cruisers, sunk with all hands by a torpedo from HMS Southampton. after a severe battering by gunfire. The loss of the Frauenlob occurred in the sort of situation which happened all too frequently in the night action: a ship would be sighted and a challenge issued, which if the recipient were hostile would bring down a storm of fire on the original
led the 4th
challenger. 4. Possibly the most unfortunate victim of the night action — the destroyer HMS Sparrowhawk, whose bows were severely
damaged
in a collision with one British desand stern cut off by another. She had to be abandoned and sunk the next day. 5. The
troyer
HMS Castor, leader of the 1 1th also fell a victim to the greatest problem of fighting at night— identification. light cruiser Flotilla.
She
Waiting too long before opening fire on two suspicious vessels, she was severely damaged by the fire from what turned out to be two German light cruisers. 6. Like the Castor, the divisional leader HMS Broke was devastated by German gunfire before she herself could open fire, went out of control after her bridge had been wrecked, swung round and rammed her next astern, the unfortunate Sparrowhawk
no
miles
m^ ffl^M W\ar\boro ..oh
2250,
_
BaTha"L CaUiope
2200
p^»hn^/Superb/lron.
Colossus
Orion/KingGeorg^ 2200
c,ov
2200 i?ett/in
2215
Xastor,
2235 5,---^;;\r|F r a u e n 1
St^»^^
b
2200
*tawiV^^tt^
-f^a^ 2200
>of,^
^S^'^"' TV^b«*
AeA^'*= ,^\T\es
JO^'
Frankfurt
S^^ tscWandlHannaiSI
leu
^
tettin
Scheer's flagship,
2130
SMS Friedrich der Grosse.
October 1912, she became flagship of the High Seas Fleet in 1914. Her main armament comprised ten 12-inch guns
Completed •
in
of the fourth phase of the As a result of overestimating the Germans' speed, Jeilicoe is pulling ahead of Scheer, with his light forces following in his wake to warn him in the event of the German appearing. This they fail to do, and the Germans cross Jellicoe's wake, so that Left:
The context
battle: the night action.
N-4-
is nothing between themselves and home. Below: Phase Four of the engagement in detail
there
0015 (Uune)
i7nnBarham_
2250
;i!^>
2350
2300
Right: The British 4th Flotilla's engagement with the van of the High Seas Fleet in detail. were too close to evade It was not until they the fire of the German vessels that the British destroyers realised that their opponents were dreadnoughts, not cruisers and torpedoboats
Falmouth Cruiser Squadron lst/2nd Light
I
^..icoe's flagship, HMS Iron Duke. Completed in March 1914, she immediately became flagship of the Grand Fleet. With 13.5-inch guns, she was better armed than her opposite number
2300
Horns Reef
miM Below: The final phase of fhe baffle in defail. The High Seas Fleet crosses fhe wake of fhe Grand Fleef. and now has a clear run for home, with only some British destroyers in the way. Though these meet and attack fhe High Seas Fleef. sinking the pre-dreadnought SMS Pommern. Jellicoe is not kept in fhe picture, and is thus deprived of his last chance to intervene and renew the battle on terms advantageous to himself. Jutland is over, and fhe High Seas Fleet remains substantially intact, even if severely shaken
Lightship
of 5.9-inch guns, the Westfalen blew the little ship to pieces. The lack of comprehension of, or even interest in, the situation beyond the confines of their own ship by destroyer men under the conditions of that era is nowhere better illustrated than by
the fact that Goldsmith remained ignorant of the origin or outcome of the brief but intense display of gunfire and searchlights astern of him. He made no enquiries of the ships in his wake; indeed he did not realise until daylight that others than his own flotilla had been following him as he steamed on to the south-west through the night. It did not occur to Thompson of the Petard that it was his duty to initiate a report for Jellicoe that he had been in contact with the German battle line. Another of the forces on which Jellicoe was relying to deny the Germans passage across his wake had now been eliminated. And, indeed, it was the last from which a signalled enemy report could have arrived in time for him to alter course to intercept Scheer before he reached the Horns Keef. There still remained Captain Stirling's 12th Flotilla: but the unfortunate manoeuvre of the Champion, noted earlier, had forced them away to the eastward. Scheer's route to the Horns Reef was for the moment clear; and dawn, which would remove much of the threat from destroyer attack,
was
more than an hour away. The sands were running Jellicoe, who still believed himself to be between Scheer little
out for and his base.
Contact at
dawn
Captain Stirling in the Faulknor had, indeed, been steering a southerly course since 0020 hours, a course which must in time bring him across the German line of advance; but the first streaks of dawn were already lighting the horizon behind him when at 0143 hours he sighted a line of large ships in the gloom to starboard, ships soon identified as German battleships. The 12th Flotilla was in three divisions; a division of four boats in line ahead was on either quarter of the Faulknor, astern of this formation came the flotilla leader HMS Marksman leading the re-
maining four. The nearest division to the Germans, the Obedient, Mindful, Marvel and Onslaught, on Stirling's starboard quarter, were ordered to attack. The four destroyers turned together at full speed towards the Germans; but already the growing light and the white froth of their bow and stern waves had betrayed them and the battleships had turned away. The latter were no longer a suitable target and the Obedient led her division back to rejoin the leader. Stirling now led his flotilla on a south-easterly course at 25 knots to gain a good attacking position. While doing so, he earned himself a portion of fame as the only one of the many destroyer men in action that night who realised the prime importance of reporting what they had seen. An emergency signal was radioed: 'Enemy's battle fleet is steering south-east, approximate bearing south-west. My position is ten miles astern of the 1st Battle Squadron." This would at last, though too late, have given Jellicoe the vital information he so sorely needed; but, though it was sent out twice on full power, it was jammed by the Germans and never taken in by the flagship where, as daylight slowly spread, Jellicoe was preparing to reverse course in the expectation of being able to renew the battle. The German line came in sight once again on the Faulknor's starboard quarter at 0206 hours, and Stirling led round 180 degrees to starboard to attack on an opposite course from ahead. The Mindful, with a boiler disabled, had been unable to keep up, but the remainder of his division followed round. With the darkness now being replaced by a misty twilight, their powerful searchlights no longer gave the Germans any advantage. Unable to identify the shadowy shapes streaking across the grey waters they hesitated and Stirling's four boats were racing by at full speed at less than 2,000 yards before the battleships opened fire and swung hurriedly away to avoid the torpedoes already on their way, two from the Faulknor, one from the Obedient, and four each from the Marvel and the Onslaught. Their torpedoes launched, the destroyers turned away together, covering their retirement with black funnel smoke. AH escaped unharmed through a storm of gunfire except the Onslaught, where a shell hit square on the bridge, killing her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Onslow, two other oflficers, the coxswain, both quartermasters and both signalmen. They had done their work well, however, and though by frenzied manoeuvres most of the battleships avoided the racing torpedoes, one failed. The pre-dreadnought SMS Pommern was struck fair and square. A series of internal explosions followed, culminating in one tremendous concussion as she blew up, broke in two and sank taking her entire crew of 844 men down with her.
By the time the 2nd Division, HMS Maenad, Narwhal, j.Ve fl-;,? and Noble, had followed the 1st Division round, the target v.'as already turning away; though the Maenad and the Narwhal launched three torpedoes between them and the Maenad then turned in chase to fire two more, they had little chance of hitting. For the Marksman's division, the situation was even more hopeless and by the time the Opal, having lost touch with the leader, led the Menace, Munster and Mary Rose to the attack, the German line had vanished into the deeper gloom to the westward. The Opal then led away to the southward. It was now 0215 hours. All the 12th Flotilla except the Marksman had by this time crossed ahead of the German line, which soon resumed its south-easterly course for the Horns Reef, now barely an hour's steaming away. Only the ineptly wandering Champion followed by the Obdurate, the Moresby and the solitary Marksman remained to the eastward. The two groups encountered one another at the moment that the rear ships of the German line were sighted crossing ahead at 0225 hours. 'What are ships bearing south?' signalled the Marksman to the Champion. 'German, I think,' came the reply; at which the inexplicably led away to the east to play no further part in the action. The stigma of this final spiritless reaction to the sight of the Germans was happily offset by the action of the Moresby whose captain, Lieutenant-Commander R. V. Alison, 'considering action imperative', as he reported subsequently, broke away, circling to port to launch a torpedo from the only tube he had available. That this lone effort failed to obtain a hit on the battleship target is not surprising. It is possible that it was responsible for the sinking of the German destroyer V 4, which blew up for reasons unknown, though the time given in the official German record discounts this. The last of the massed destroyer strength from which Jellicoe had expected so much had been brushed aside. The way to the Horns Reef lay open to the German fleet. Nevertheless, with nearly an hour's steaming still to go, daylight was now gaining fast. It was a moment that Scheer had been looking forward to with deep anxiety. His battle squadrons were in considerable confusion
Champion
eff"ective
with dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts mingled. What losses had resulted from the wild encounters in the night he did not know. He was in no shape to renew battle. But then as the light spread to reveal his battle line almost intact and no sign of the British, surprise and relief flooded Scheer's mind. His bold tactics had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. He had not merely succeeded in extricating himself from the nearly hopeless position in which he had found himself as darkness fell on the evening of May 31, with a vastly superior fleet between him and his base, but had also converted a strategic defeat, seemingly certain to result in his annihilation, into a situation in which he could plausibly claim a resounding victory. At 0324 hours he thankfully hoisted the signal to return to harbour. On the bridge of the Iron Duke, meanwhile, early optimism had faded to be replaced by a steadily growing gloom as the facts of the situation became known. At 0239 hours the Battle Fleet had reversed course to the northward and taken up battle order as eager eyes peered ahead for the Germans. At 0320 hours, hope had flared up briefly at the sound of heavy guns in the southwest and the fleet had turned in that direction, only to resume its northerly course when it was learnt that the firing had been one of Beatty's battle-cruisers, out of sight in that direction, driving
a prowling Zeppelin. Certainty that his great opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on the High Seas Fleet had slipped through his fingers finally came to Jellicoe when, at about 0415 hours, he read a message from the Admiralty reporting that at 0230 hours Scheer had been 16 miles from Horns Reef steering south-east by south at 16 knots. It was therefore already entering the swept channel between the minefields. Ordering the Grand Fleet to resume its cruising disposition. Jellicoe steered to sweep the battle area for ships known to have been disabled — SMS Liitzow and the Elbing- and in the hope that others might have fallen astern during the night. off"
CAPTAIN DONALD MACINTYRE retired from the Royal Navy in 1955 after a career divided largely between service in destroyers and as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm During the Second World War he commanded convoy escort groups in the Battle of the Atlantic, where he was awarded the DSO and two bars and the DSC On retirement he took up authorship. In addition to his Jutland, he has published the autobiographical U-Boat Killer, and historical works such as Narvik, The Battle of the Atlantic. The Battle for the Mediterranean and Battle for the Pacific together with biographies of Admirals Lord Rodney and Sir James Somerville.
1413
i-j>Tm
'^^«3E«>'
In the Intelligence centre based on Room 40 at the Admiralty, the British had a weapon which could have won Jutland tactically as well as strategically. By intelligent anticipation based on past experience, combined with deciphered German radio messages, Room 40 was able to provide Jellicoe with priceless information of his opponent's intentions and movements. But a few errors, brought about by poor liaison and a distinct lack of co-operation in London, robbed Jellicoe of information which might have enabled him to catch Scheer's fleet at the Horns Reef. Donald McLachlan. Right: Room 40's Intelligence: its sources and dissemination Intelligence might have brought the Royal Navy a decisive victory in the Battle of Jutland, but instead it was mishandled and misunderstood. For reasons which will be examined, Jellicoe did not trust, in the heat of battle on May 31, 1916, what the Admiralty told him had been learned from reading the signals of Scheer's fleet. So the chance of cutting off the Germans on their way back to base was lost. Yet for 18 months the deciphering experts of Room 40 in Whitehall, studying German wireless traffic, had protected the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow from being surprised by the High Seas Fleet, as they listened in on most of its moves and preparations to move. On the eve of Jutland the experts had enabled Jellicoe and Beatty to put to sea two hours before Scheer and Hipper left their bases, ignorant of how much the British knew. They could have directed the Grand Fleet on the morning after the battle to the area off Horns Reef where Scheer's ships were to rendezvous for their return journey through the minefields. There, naval historians believe, the great and final confrontation of the fleets would have taken place, without the hindrance of dusk and mist. Why events turned out differently can be understood only by explaining how the Operations and Intelligence staffs of the Admiralty worked — and even that is only a part of the total explanation. The idea that another country's military, naval and diplomatic signals could be in wartime intercepted, recorded, deciphered, translated and then analysed to discover that country's plans and intentions was in 1914 still rather novel. Both the British and the Germans had listened to each other's wireless traffic, but more for technical reasons than to gather Intelligence. The use of wireless at sea was still in a primitive stage and in peacetime in clear (that is, not coded). The Russians and Austrians had deciphering
organisations but few naval officers realised how systematic study of the signal traffic and behaviour of a fleet at sea and in its base might provide clues to the breaking of its codes. For example, the German listening station at Neumiinster deduced in 1916 that Beatty's battle-cruisers had left the Forth on May 30 because a weather report was broadcast from Rosyth. The Germans had noticed, by regularly monitoring traffic and relating it to known movements of British ships that such reports were made only when the fleet was at sea. Valuable clues could be gleaned from wireless traffic even when the content of signals could not be understood. The denser the traffic, the more copious the clues. Fortunately for the Admiralty, the Germans used wireless a great deal. Jellicoe, on the other hand, maintained the greatest possible wireless silence. British Ministers and staff' officers who were eager to use this information from the horse's mouth about German movements had to be warned to maintain the greatest secrecy and care lest the Germans be given any reason for suspecting that their codes had been broken. If they believed this had happened, they would change their code altogether or vary their ciphering more frequently so that their signals would take longer to read. (Obviously, the information contained in the signals of one fleet would he of little operational use to the other fleet unless made available in an hour or two.) Grounds for suspicion would be provided by strange and disastrous coincidences: a secret operation detected and
1414
frustrated, destroyers catching a submarine on the surface, a move in one capital countered in another.
diplomatic
Because such strict secrecy was maintained about this special Intelligence (always referred to in conversation by some misleading term such as the 'Japon return") officers did not always understand the importance of what was coming from the experts in Room 40 by way of the Operations Division, Admiralty. All that was passed on to them was items of advice and information like 'indications that the enemy fleet is preparing major operation'; and only the Director of that Division (DOD) knew that they came from a series of German signals deciphered and translated by civilians (not even in uniform) who worked all round the clock literally listening in to the Germans talking. Jellicoe, Beatty and one or two of their staff officers were in the secret — but no one else in the Grand Fleet. Intelligence received in the flagships was destroyed as soon as read. The total picture of what the Germans were doing was to be seen only by the Chief-of-Staff and a few others. Even the items which reached the in sealed red envelopes were only part of the total flow; and access to the room where the cipher-breakers worked was strictly limited.
DOD
Essential secrecy After Jutland, Jellicoe complained that he had received no regular general analysis of Intelligence about the German navy and in November 1916 he was allowed to receive a daily summary. The letter which he then received from Arthur James Balfour, First Lord at the time, gives a vivid picture of the precautions taken in the Admiralty. By unremitting care for two years we have prevented the Germans from discovering the method. I have had many anxious moments but so far the secret seems to have been well kept. If they have had their suspicions, these have not been strong enough to compel a change of system. Of the Board only the First and Second Sea Lord have official knowledge of it and the War Committee itself has not been informed. We must be most careful not to relax our precautions. I have agreed to a daily summary being sent to you by the despatch-bearing officer, which I hope will be of use to you. This is for your own personal information and I trust you will not show it to anyone except your Chief-of-Staff. It should not be registered or copied or referred to in official correspondence. Please burn it a few days after receipt. These precautions may seem excessive but the value of the information we get may be so great in major operations that its loss would be a national misfortune. We cannot be too cautious. Balfour was not exaggerating, but the passion for secrecy had a perverse influence. The men working on the German signals
knew next
to nothing about the movements of the British ships, partly because the Operations Division who controlled them also had secrets to protect, partly because of a natural jealousy between
regular officers and the 'amateurs' working their box of tricks. One witness from those days told Captain Stephen Roskill, the historian, that the DOD, Captain Jackson, on being told that the Germans had introduced a new code-book which was causing the Room 40 staff great difficulty, exclaimed 'Thank God, I shan't have any more of that damned stuff.') It was not possible therefore
Commander-in-Chief
(Admiralty) Operations Divisi
igence Division (Admiralty)
Admiralty R decoding and translating
locating
German coded signals
Internal
Espionage
from signals
Security
ams^tir
of Room 40 To explain the handling of Intelligence during the battle it is necessary to describe the origins of Room 40, more correctly described as ID 25. Credit for its formation goes not to the famous Captain Reginald Hall, who became Director of Intelligence only in November 1914, but to his predecessor. Captain Henry Oliver. It was Oliver who prepared the Intelligence Division for war,
The establishment
including the establishment of stations for the interception of German signals; and it was Oliver who, early in August 1914, asked Sir Alfred Ewing. then Director of Naval Education, to examine the intercepted German messages which had been sent in to the Admiralty by commercial companies and wireless enthusiasts. Ewing was one of the leading mechanical engineers of his day, had dabbled in cipher machines and was in a position to collect a small staff of naval instructors and schoolmasters, mathematicians and German-speakers. For a few weeks they wrestled with the meaningless jumble of letters and numbers little progi-e.ss.
They needed
luck,
lMi6
German ships
to apply knowledge ol' British movements and orders to the interpretation of German moves and signals which might he a reaction to them. This state of affairs reached the depth of absurdity when Room 40 was in a position to report during the Battle of Jutland that Jellicoe's orders to his destroyers at 2127 hours on the night of May 31 had been intercepted and deciphered by Neumiinster and then passed on to Scheer at sea within three-quarters of an hour, so enabling him to estimate Jellicoe's position. That is to say, there were moments in this battle of wits between the admiralties when one side learned from the other that its own messages were being read and might therefore deduce what action would be taken in consequence.
making
IMIS
HF/DFStationsI
Listening Stations intercepting and recording
what Intelligence men
code books and tables. In September the lucky break came and we can do no better than record the windfall in the words of Churchill, who was then First Lord and had the imagination to grasp at once the enormous value of what the Russians so generously passed on to their British ally. 'At the beginning of September, 1914, the German light cruiser Magdeburg was wrecked in the Baltic. The body of a drowned German under-officer was picked up by the Russians a few hours later, and clasped in his bosom by arms rigid in death, were the cipher and signal books of the German Navy. Late on an October afternoon Prince Louis |of Battenberg, First Sea Lord] and I received from the hands of our loyal allies these sea-stained priceless documents.' Shortly afterwards another piece of luck brought them from a sunken German destroyer, fished up in a trawler's net, one of the charts of the North Sea divided into numbered and lettered squares to which the Germans always referred in their signals instead of giving positions. Fantastic though these finds were they did not at once solve Room 40's problems. For on the code groups of the captured signal book the Germans imposed in their signals a cipher, and this had to be broken by someone who, knowing German well, also had sufficient naval experience to guess the content and purpose of signals only parts of which could be laboriously pieced together. But in two or three weeks. Fleet Paymaster call a 'pinch', or access to
.
.
.
IM119 PoW
ICensorship
Interrogation
on the German navy, had succeeded and by clear that major opportunities of analysis and interpretation would now present themselves. The breakthrough had come. The cryptanalysts, now growing in numbers, were moved from Ewing's room to a special room in the Old Building of the Admiralty and were to be known thenceforth under the disguise of its number — 40. It is perhaps worth mentioning here — because the error is often made — that the section which dealt with German political and diplomatic signals was not with the naval experts in Room 40 but was built up separately by 'Blinker' Hall. Churchill ordered that a picked staff officer was to study all the German intercepts, and compare them with what actually happened. They were to be kept in a locked book with the solutions, and all other copies were to be destroyed. There would lie the key to the mind of the German Naval Command and no one was to have access to Rotter, a specialist
mid-November
it
was
it
except the Chief-of-Staff.
A
delicate task
Hall, the new Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI). chose for the task Captain H. W. Hope, who had been recording the positions of German warships in the Chart Room — without the slightest knowledge of what Ewing's men had been up to. From now on Hope had the delicate task of deciding what Intelligence should be passed to the Operations Division: how much, in what form and with how much explanation. On him, therefore, fell the responsibility for protecting the source as well as exploiting it. He must pass on to the Grand Fleet as fast as possible the information necessary to find the Germans, but without giving the Germans reason to suspect that their code had been captured and the cipher — at first changed monthly by the Germans but later changed every midnight — quickly broken. He must also use his naval experience to ensure that his civilian cryptanalysts did not corrupt the information they extracted by some twist of imagination or loose translation. Fortunately for Hope, he had above him the former First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, to advise the 'top brass' about all the implications of information that came out of Room 40 as its success and its staff increased. It is not difficult to understand how such exclusive arrangements made for difficulties of co-operation and understanding. The Naval vStaff was barely two years old and none of its members had experience of how Operations and Intelligence should be coordinated in war. The very idea of the centralised direction of the fleet from Whitehall, with the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet being advised and ordered by telephone and landline, was new to captains and commanders who had only recently seen communication by wireless taking the place of signal by flags. By 1916 fair confidence in special Intelligence had been created in Jellicoe's mind because of previous successes in anticipating
'Blinker"
German movements. The first had come on December 14, 1914, when Room 40 had revealed the pattern of an operation by the German battle-cruisers, with light cruisers and destroyers, against some objective on the British coast. Exactly where was not discovered, but it was known they would leave the Jade early on the 15th and return late on the 16th. The Admiraltv deduced
1415
that the most likely purpose would be to raid Harwich or the Humber; and plans were made to trap the Germans on their way home. What Room 40 could not tell them was that the German objective was to shell Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby and, more important, that Hipper's bombarding force would be supported by a large portion of the German battle fleet. Because the Admiralty believed on the contrary that only the German battlecruisers were involved, and not the main fleet, it ordered only a detachment of the Grand Fleet south to support Beatty's battlecruisers. In the event Hipper's force escaped destruction and so did Warrender's detachment; and Germans and British alike a chance of inflicting decisive damage on one another if Intelligence at the outset had enabled the British had to surprise the Germans, the slowness with which the passed on German positions learned from signals intercepted during the battle was justifiably criticised in the Grand Fleet. It is reasonable to guess that only the overruling need for the closest secrecy prevented Churchill and Fisher from taking drastic action to ensure this did not happen again. The next big opportunity for Room 40 was the Battle of the Dogger Bank in January 1915. The orders to Hipper and his battle-cruisers to make a sweep towards the Dogger Bank area were read in the Admiralty and the Chief-of-Staff, Oliver, drew up with Admiral Wilson and Churchill a plan to catch the Germans. But again, relying too much on what the intercepted signal told them, they thought Beatty could do the job alone with his force at Rosyth and so Jellicoe's fleet was alerted too late for it to take part. None the less, the battle-cruiser forces met and it was judged that efficient handling of the German signal by Intelligence had
bemoaned lost. Even
DOD
contributed to the British victory.
A
lengthy process
In fairness to the men in the Operations Division it has to be realised what difficulties they faced. A German signal, was recorded by the listening station, transmitted to the Admiralty and then sent through the tube to Room 40. There it had to be deciphered, translated, handed to Captain Hope and studied for its meaning, and then action had to be taken. Its full significance for the battle could be appreciated only by reference to the plot of British movements and signals being kept in Operations Division down the corridor. Consultation was therefore necessary with the DOD watching, so far as he was able, the battle at sea. Having decided what use — if any — the information might be, they had to decide what risks would be run in passing it on. It could not be sent in clear — the quickest way — lest the Germans intercept it and realise that their own signals were being quickly read. It must, therefore, be carefully drafted and enciphered in the Admiralty, sent off and then deciphered in the flagship. If five minutes are allowed for each of these actions and then added up, it is -easy to see how an hour, or even more, might pass before Intelligence could clearly and safely reach an admiral at sea. It has also to be grasped that single German messages often meant nothing without a general picture or context in which to fit them. An order to minesweepers, for example, might or might not indicate preparations for a movement of big ships. The Intelligence men could not be sure of its meaning without additional material or without experience of what similar messages had meant in the past. German plans were not revealed on a plate — as is sometimes stated. Only very rarely would signal Intelligence tell the whole story. It provided clues from which the story of German intentions might be partially or completely built up and even that was not possible without the help of officers with knowledge of North Sea conditions, of the location of minefields, of the speed and probable endurance of various classes of ship, ir the seadogs needed the dons to tell them where the Germans were, the dons needed the seadogs to tell them what the Germans could do. Only the fuller narrative of the sea-battle will make clear the full tragedy of missed Intelligence opportunities during those two days. All that is attempted here is to understand how able and conscientious men could make such blunders. They had, of course, some success. About the warning of (iernian intentions sent to Scapa Flow on May 30 there is nothing to criticise. The Grand Fleet was given a crucial start on the Germans, who had no idea as ihey sailed northward that the Grand Fleet was at sea. There was no difliculty about wireless silence or security in the first stiige of alert because such messages from Whitehall went by landli'ij. But the piece of Intelligence received by Jellicoe at 0048 hour.'^ II.St, this time at sea, had momentous eff"ects. It placL'.: Mian flagship in the Jade at 2310 hours, making '"'' it he and Beatty with the battle-cruisers had nine to make their rendezvous. Yet less than '
three hours later, there was Beatty reporting contact with the Germans well out in the North Sea. How was Jellicoe to rely on Admiralty advice capable of such errors? Why should he prefer much later in the day the course of the German fleet given him (quite accurately) from this source to the indications sent him by his own cruiser captains, who believed themselves (wrongly) to be in touch with its main body? There can be no certainty about how the mistake about the flagship came to be made, but Marder accepts the account given to Admiral James (the chief authority on Room 40) by men working on Intelligence at the time. The Director of Operations himself, Captain Jackson, had come into Room 40 and asked where directional wireless placed DK, the harbour call-sign of the German C-in-C. In the Jade (the great bay in which lay Wilhelmshaven, base of the High Seas Fleet) he was told. Without explaining why he had asked, Jackson went off' and signalled to Scapa this solitary misleading fact. What he did not know — although Room 40 could have told him — was that this call sign was regularly transferred to the Wilhelmshaven W/T station when the German fleet went to sea, in order to mislead the British stations listening in. Sometimes even the flagship's wireless operator was left behind so that the British would recognise his 'touch'. Because of the distance at which they were kept apart from Room 40, no one in Operations Division would know this; and Room 40, to make muddle more certain, was not allowed to know about, or have any say in drafting, signals that Operations sent to Jellicoe. This was an organisational error, if ever there was one, rash and overbearing though Jackson seems to have been. The Germans made a comparable mistake by keeping their wireless Intelligence staff' at Neumiinster, where British signals were being intercepted and in some cases deciphered while the staff' which used them was 80 miles away at Wilhelmshaven. Scheer, too, got poor service. The next act in the tragedy of errors occurred not long before midnight on the 31st, when Jellicoe read a signal from the Admiralty (sent at 2240 hours) giving the homeward course of the German Fleet with which he had lost contact after the battle. The C-in-C did not believe that priceless piece of Intelligence because, shortly before this, the Admiralty had passed on -in good faith — the fleet position signalled by a German light cruiser which was ten miles out in her reckoning. It was immediately apparent from the British flagship plot that the German position was not correct. No one British was in this case to blame; it was right to pass on immediately without checking such Al Intelligence. But in the next stage of the night, during which the Grand Fleet was still seeking contact with the Germans, the errors made were unforgivable. At 2210 hours the DOD had received from Room 40 a signal made by Scheer an hour earlier in which he asked urgently for early morning reconnaissance by Zeppelins of the Horns Reef area. This, if passed on by Admiralty, would have told Jellicoe at once that Scheer's ships were returning to base by the northern route, and not by the southern one on which Jellicoe hoped to intercept them. We shall never know why this — like four other most revealing intercepts — was put aside for filing instead of being sent off most urgently. It has been suggested that, when the lull in the fighting had come, the Chief-of-Staff and the duty officers (who had had eight gruelling hours at their desks) went off for a badly needed rest and a meal, while their places were taken by an officer without experience in co-ordinating the work of Room 40 with that of Operations. So few officers had had to work on this most .secret information that only three or four of the Naval Staff knew how to use it. Again the charitable explanation is the administrative one; but it is not easy to shake off the suspicion that someone was lazy, or inefficient or shirked responsibility. Writers have blamed the Admiralty's mania for secrecy; but it was justified. The Germans were ready at Neumiinster to pounce on any careless ciphering or remarkable coincidence. They strongly suspected what Room 40 was up to, while not believing it could decipher as quickly as it did. Understandably, they judged its performance by their own, for which they lacked the aid of captured code books and charts. Had they guessed at the advantages enjoyed by their British opponents- who could master a freshly changed cipher in two or three hours — they would certainly have recommended code and cipher changes, not only in the German navy's signals but also in those of the German army and the Berlin Foreign office — and these might have been too much even for the ingenuity of Hall's men. If these invalu..ble sources of information had been closed to Whitehall in the critical months of 1917, it is possible that the result of the war
might have been
different.
1
[For Donald McLachlan 's biography, see page 1096.
]
When
our battle-cruisers put to sea on May 31, 1916, b in the van but sailed as 'Tactical Three', for Vizeadniiral von Hipper had hoisted his flag ',..,c new SMS Liitzuw. As always at the beginning of an operation, all watertight doors were thoroughly examined, every piece of apparatus tested and spare parts broken out to be handy in emergencies. The watch kept a sharp lookout for submarines, while the men off watch dozed. When at 1400 hours the message 'Enemy in sight' came in, bugles and drums sounded the General March to call all hands to battle-stations. Within minutes every station reported to the bridge that it was ready for action. Soon the British light cruisers came in view, and behind them dense clouds of smoke. Then tripod masts and huge hulls loomed over the horizon. There they were again, our friends from the Dogger Bank. At 1545 hours we opened fire. After a short time HMS Indefatigable blew up, followed after 20 minutes by HMS Queen Mary, our target as Tactical Number Three. The spectacle was overwhelming, there was a moment of complete silence, then the calm voice of a gunnery observer announced 'Queen Mary blowing up', at once followed by the order 'Shift target to the right' given by the gunnery officer in the same matter-of-fact tone as at normal gunnery practice. litz
was no longer
m
Now
four fast British battleships came up and directed heavy against our rear ships. But our main fleet came up, too: the British battle-cruisers turned away to the north, and we took up station ahead of our own battleships. We had not gone unscathed. The first hit we received was a 12-inch shell that struck the Number Six 6-inch casemate on the starboard side, killing everybody except the Padre who. on the way to his battle-station down below, had wanted to take a look at the men and at the British, too. By an odd coincidence we had, at our first battle practice in 1913, assumed the same kind of hit and by the same adversary, the Queen Mary. Splinters perforated air leads in the bunker below and smoke and gas consequently entered the starboard main turbine compartment. Somewhat later the gunnery central station deep down reported: 'No answer from "C" turret. Smoke and gas pouring out of the voice pipes from "C" turret.' That sounded like the time on the Dogger Bank. Then it had been 'C and 'D' turrets. A shell had burst outside, making only a small hole, but a red-hot piece of steel had ignited a cartridge, the flash setting fire to 13,000 pounds of cordite. 190 men had been killed and two turrets put out of action. Afterwards, a thorough examination showed that everything had been done in accordance with regulations. I told the gunnery officer: 'If we lose 190 men and almost the whole ship in accordance with regulations then they are somehow wrong.' Therefore we made technical improvements and changed our methods of training as well as the regulations. This time only one cartridge caught fire, the flash did not reach the magazines, and so we lost only 20 dead or severely burned, and only one turret was put out of action. When Beatty turned to the north, we had a wonderful view of the British destroyer flotillas going full speed into the attack, rhey v\ere intercepted by two of our flotillas, but we did not have much time to watch the furious engagement between the lines. Our foretop reported first one, then more torpedo tracks. We tried to avoid them by sharp turns but finally one got us a bit forward of the bridge. The blow was much softer than gunnery hits or near misses, no loud report, but only a rattling noise in the rigging. It was almost the same spot near the forward torpedo flat where we had struck a mine five weeks before. For the damage control party it was a repeat performance, and although they Ljrinned it was otherwise not much of a joke. The torpedo bulkhead held, but it was seriously strained, as were parts of the armoui'ed deck. Where the rivets had gone completely, the holes could be stopped with wooden pegs. Where they onh' leaked, which they did in great numbers — more than enough for our needs — they became a distinct menace because there was no way to plug fire
Although the Germans did not
lose
any of their
battle-cruisers in explosions such as those Invincible and Queen Mary, they did nonetheless suffer terribly. One ship
which destroyed
HMS
which took an enormous pounding was
SMS
Seydlitz: battered almost out of recognition and with her foredeck level with the water, she
managed to limp back home. Here we reprint the Seydlitz' captain's account of the feat. Below: The Seydlitz almost, but not quite, gone !B
-—-
-Z
'wm^ iJamijBi
them
effect i\el^.
Intolerable heat Both forward generators were casualties: one stopped entirely, while the other ran but failed to generate any current. Soon all this part of Compartment XIII was flooded, and with one third of our electric supply gone, all circuits had to l)e switched to the generators aft. There the air leads had been damaged by splinters, and in the dynamo room the temperature rose to 72 C (162 Fl The men had to put on gas masks but some fainted and had to be \g carried out. Eventually, the room had to be evacuated, although I a stoker returned from time to time to lubricate the bearings. The suc|:g lights failed, but the petty oflicer at the electrical switchboard ceeded in reswitching all the circuits from memory. In view of the
1417
ITORPEOO DAMAGE
COMPARTMENTS FLOODED MAY 31 (2100) I
1418
JUNE
1
FLOODED INTENTIONALLY (FOR COUNTERBALANCE) IJUNE1
Left:
SMS Seydlitz.
Seam.- 93i
Displacement: 24,610 tons. Length: 656
feet.
Armament: Jen
11-inch, 12 5.9-inch and 12 3.4-inch guns plus four 19.7-inch torpedo tubes. Armour: 1 inches and turrets 9i inches. Power/speed: 63,000-100,000 hp/27-30 knots. Complement: 1,068-1,143. Se/ow /e/f; The Seyd//fz as she made her way home. Her bows torn open by a torpedo, she soon began to settle forward and to starboard. The only way to keep her afloat was to flood certain port feet.
M
and
aft compartments, but even so her journey home was a chancy business. Below: The Seydlitz creeps back to Germany across the North Sea
f
>'
'
arrangements this was quite a feat. He could do only because he simply lived for his work and among his work. Besides this, the turbo-fans, the strong lungs of the ship, repeatedly failed because their leads were damaged, casings bent and vents perforated. However, the repair parties took special note of them and got them working again every time. In the conning tower we were kept busy, too. 'Steering failure' reported the helmsman and automatically shouted down the armoured shaft to the control room: 'Steer from control room.' At once the answer came: 'Steering failure in control room.' The order: 'Steer from tiller flat' was the last resort. We felt considerable relief when the red helm indicator followed orders. The ship handling officer drew a deep breath: 'Exactly as at the admiral's inspection.' 'No,' I said, 'then we used to get steering failure at the end, whereas now the fun has only just started.' Fortunately, we soon found that some springs holding down levers in the steering leads had not been strong enough for the concussions caused by the hits. Quite simple, but try finding that under heavy fire. The helmsman was a splendid seaman but every six months or so he could not help hitting the bottle. Then he felt the urge to stand on his head in the market square of Wilhelmshaven. Each time this meant the loss of his Able Seaman's stripe. At Jutland he stood at the helm for 24 hours on end. He got his stripe back and was the only AB in the fleet to receive the Iron Cross 1st Class. The first casualty in the conning tower was a signal yeoman, who collapsed silently after a splinter had pierced his neck. A signalman took over his headphone in addition to his own. In our battle training we had overlooked this possibility.
intricate battle it
Rippling salvoes Meanwhile, visibility decreased and there seemed to be an endless line of ships ahead. But we saw only incessant flashes, mostly four discharges in the peculiar British 'rippling' salvoes. Our ship received hit after hit but our guns remained silent because we could not make out any targets. This put us under a heavy strain which was relieved, to some extent, by ship handling,
changes of formation and zigzagging towards and away from previous salvoes. The port casemates suffered heavy damage, and chains had to be formed to get ammunition from the lee battery. In 'B' turret, there was a tremendous crash, smoke, dust and general confusion. At the order 'Clear the turret' the turret crew rushed out, using even the traps for the empty cartridges. Then they fell in behind the turret. Then compressed air from Number 3 boiler room cleared away the smoke and gas, and the turret commander went in again, followed by his men. A shell had hit the front plate and a splinter of armour had killed the right gunlayer. The turret missed no more than two or three salvoes. In the port low-pressure turbine, steam leaked out and the men had to put on gas masks. The leak was repaired by a man creeping on his belly in the bilge directly under the turbine casing. Electric light and boiler room telegraphs also ceased to operate under the frequent concussions. Fortunately we had practised working in the dark. Our men called these exercises 'blind-man's-buff"' because they were blindfolded to learn handling valves etc by touch. The stokers and coal trimmers deserved the highest praise, for they had to wield their shovels mostly in the dark, often up to their
knees in water without knowing where it came from and how much it would rise. Unfortunately, we had very bad coal, which formed so much slag that fires had to be cleaned after half the usual time, and grates burnt through and fell into the ash-pits. The spare ones had to be altered in the thick of the battle because even the beams supporting the grates were bent by the heat. Our repair parties were very efficient, the efforts of the electricians eclipsing all the others. They found solutions for the problems, invented new connections, created electric bypasses, kept all necessary circuits going and crowned their achievements by repairing the electric bak'o-- "n so that on the morning we got pure wheat bread. r M rea. Our aerials were soon in piec< - ,,ur ship deaf and dumb until a sub-lieutenant and s.:perator.? rigged new ones. The anti-torpedo net was ton; -tened to foul the propellers, but the boatswain and hiove the side to lash it. They did it so well that later, ;.p. ur difficult to untie it again. According to regulatioiis s were expected in a battle to tak? down and •]! we preferred them to prepare cold food fo -,end trickiest
-
;i
;
-
>
their stewards round to battle-station?
,.
.^
Around 2000 hours we came under then there followed a distinct lull, du opened and fresh air blown through ll.i. ,., the conning tower we stood before a fri'^htl last shells had passed through the adr.iira
1420
^^] ,,
,
burst in the lee of the conning tower, killing or mutilating my aide and his party of messengers and signal ratings there. Now darkness fell, and we had to make preparations for the next morning — for we were sure to meet the British again. Searchlights were repaired, night recognition signals rigged and ammunition carried to the undamaged guns. At first we could continue to follow the battle-cruiser SMS Moltke, but soon we had to slow down, for water began to come over the forecastle as our bows settled. Steering was difficult, as was finding the right course, for the main gyro compartment was flooded and the after gyro unreliable. Its normal circuit had been destroyed and the new connection short-circuited off and on. The shocks had made the magnetic compass entirely undependable. Sounding had its problems, too. The sounding machines in the casemates were scrap, while the hand-leads fouled the torn nets and then parted. Our charts were covered with blood and the spare charts were inaccessible in a flooded compartment. Under these circumstances it was not at all easy to make the correct course for the Horns Reef lightship. Moreover, all coal near the boilers had been used up, and bringing up more supplies from the more distant bunkers became increasingly difficult as a result of damage and the amount of water in the ship. Fortunately, our boilers could also burn oil, and supplies of this continued to flow, although the oil-pipes needed constant attention to prevent them from clogging. In this situation the aft look-out reported: 'Several large ships, darkened, approaching from astern.' Our night glasses showed four huge ships, British, no more than 2,000 yards away. Blast! They must have seen us and would therefore open fire at any moment. Should we try to ram? But their guns were still trained fore and aft! Our ship was too heavily damaged to attack, and I gave the orders: 'Hard-a-starboard, full speed ahead, engine room make as much smoke as possible — give British recognition signal.' A yeoman flashed the letter 'J', the leading ship promptly answered 'O'. That was the only light they showed for they had an excellently darkened ship. In a minute we got up so much smoke that they disappeared from view. [Other accounts make it clear that there was no exchange of light signals, but Thunderer did not open fire as her captain thought Seydlitz was only a destroyer and to open fire would only give away the position of the British.] When we reported this encounter by W/T, bright sparks flashed all over our rigging because torn wires touched the improvised aerials when the ship heeled over. At dawn, neither the Horns Reef light vessel nor any other ship was in sight. Suddenly our stern wave rose high, a sign of shallow water. Before my order 'Full speed astern' could take effect our bows scraped over the sea bottom, but soon the water became deeper again. A buoy gave us our position, and at the light-ship we got in touch with the rest of our fleet, the light cruiser SMS Pillau being detached to pilot us to the Jade river. Now a dogged fight to save the vessel began. The entire forecastle was riddled like a sieve. Through rents, holes, leaky seams and rivets water entered one room after the other until only the forward torpedo flat could be held. This big 'swimming bladder' gave the forward part of the ship just enough buoyancy. But she was so much down by the bows that the sea started getting into the forward casemates. Their covers were destroyed or bent, and the wood for shoring up leaks was somewhere under the forecastle. We used everything we could lay our hands on, mess tables, benches, eventually even the empty shelves from the shell-rooms to the dismay of the head gunner. Quite a number of compartments had to be kept clear by incessant bailing over a period of two days. Some bulkheads had to be watched carefully and shored up again from time to time. The whole ship's company was kept busy, and so sleep was possible only in snatches. Late on June 1, pump steamers arrived but so also did a stiff breeze from the north-west. We were off Heligoland then, with a list of eight degrees and very little stability, and could proceed at no more than three or four knots whether going ahead bows first or stern first, which we did part of the time. When seas started breaking over the waist, the Pillau made a lee on our starboard bow, and a tug laid an oil-slick. That helped until the wind abated. We could not have stood a heavy gale. On June 2 we anchored near the Jade light vessel to wait for the tide, for we drew 47i feet forward as against 30 feet amidships under normal conditions. But we made it and arrived in the early morning of June 3 off Wilhelmshaven locks, where we were welcomed by hurrahs from the crews of the battleships anchored there. The Seydlitz had been hit by 21 heavy shells and one torpedo, lost 98 men killed and 55 injured and had four heavy and two medium ns put out of action. i.
'
from a talk by the captain of von Egidy. ]
:!rinted ''ee
SMS
Seydlitz,
Kapitan
lii di die; As the Grand Fleet steamed southwards towards the battle-cruiser action, only vague reports were received by Jellicoe. But suddenly the battle-cruisers, pursued by the High Seas Fleet, loomed over the horizon, and the main fleet action was on. Below we print an account Neptwie of the battle as a midshipman in Invincible is ripped apart saw it. Below: in an enormous magazine explosion
HMS
HMS
Hill
My
action station was in the control top. some 60 or 70 feet above the upper deck, access to which could be gained either by ascending an interminably long iron ladder running up the interior of the mast, or by climbing up outside the tripod by means of iron rungs riveted on the struts. Flxperience of the difficulties of ascent had induced me some time ago to have a blue jean bag, in whose capacious interior I always kept the thousand and one gadgets so essential for the proper and comfortable fighting of an action -ear protectors, binoculars, a stop watch, a pistol, a camera, a respirator, sundry scarves, a woollen helmet and so forth. It was armed with this weighty 'battle-bag' that I clambered up the starboard strut of the foremast, past the steam siren (which sizzled ominously as one approached it; it is an abominable experience to have a siren actually sound when you are near to it!j, through a belt of hot acrid funnel smoke, and finally into the top through the 'lubber's' hole. The fleet was steaming in six columns of four ships each, and with the attendant destroyers, stretched as far as the eye could see. The course was approximately south-east. The sea was fairly smooth, and the visibility about 17,000 yards. The arrival of the gunnery officer completed our crew, the manholes were shut down, and after the preliminary testing of communications had been done, the turrets were trained out on the beam, and we settled down to a long wait. If the powers that be knew that there was anything in the wind, I must say they kept it to themselves very well. The first inkling that I received that there might soon be something doing was when I noticed that some of the older ships of the 1st Battle Squadron were finding it difficult to keep up with their younger sisters in the other squadrons. Messages of encouragement and regret were passed to them, but still the fleet swept on. Shortly afterwards I noticed that several ships were flying, instead of the customary ensign, three or four ensigns from various parts of the rigging, and, sure enough, the squeak of our halliard blocks announced that we were following suit.
know who
started it, but in about ten minutes the air with white ensigns, large and small, silk and bunting, hoisted wherever halliards could be rove. By about 1730 hours we had still seen nothing of the Germans, although we had received, and eagerly read, messages from the battle-cruiser force telling us that the Germans were out and were in close action with our battle-cruisers and with the 5th Battle Squadron. Soon afterwards all hands were sent to tea, and I was left alone in the fore-top as look-out. But five minutes after the last man had left, the sound of gunfire, heavy gunfire, came from the south. A minute later five columns of smoke appeared on the starboard bow and the flashes of guns became visible. All hands came running back to their stations; meanwhile the situation developed with startling rapidity. Beatty's battle-cruisers, for such the five columns of smoke proved to be, came into sight steaming at high speed to the northeast, and firing heavily towards the southward at an enemy which was out of our sight. Hood's squadron of HMS Invincible, Indomitable and Inflexible had gone on ahead to join Beatty. The leading ship of Beatty's squadron, HMS Lion it was I suppose, seemed to be on fire forward, and the other ships all appeared to have received some damage. The noise rapidly became almost deafening. The Lion was leading her squadron across the front of the battle squadrons within three miles of the leading battleships, and accordingly the Battle Fleet reduced to 12 knots to allow them to cross and drive aside the German battle-cruisers. The High Seas Fleet had not yet sighted the Grand Fleet, and was still steaming towards us. Shortly after 1800 hours the flashes of the guns of the High Seas Fleet became visible, and the Grand Fleet commenced to deploy to port, turning to north-east and then to east-south-east, I
do not
seemed
to be thick
British battleships zigzagging in the North Sea as a precaution against the ever-present threat of submarine-launched torpedoes
The great dreadnoughts Uved in constant fear of a small weapon — the torpedo. This was hard to detect, and its power to destroy was thought to be
enormous. But Jutland proved it to be an overrated weapon
HMS
so bringing our starboard broadsides to bear on the Germans. Marlborough was the battleship leading the starboard wing column of the fleet, and was, therefore, the nearest battleship to the Germans, and the first to open fire. The remainder of the fleet followed suit as soon as they had deployed. I shall not easily forget the dramatic atmosphere of the initial phase of the battle. The effect of the order 'Load' was to create a stupor, everything was happening so suddenly, it all seemed too good to be true. The opening salvo of the Marlborough brought an end to that unpleasant period of comparative inactivity, and thereafter our hands were full. My impressions of the following hour were naturally somewhat vague, there was so much to do, and so much to see. I remember the dreary monotone of the range-finder operator calling out the ranges, I remember the gunnery officer and the captain discussing through the voice-pipe the advisability of withholding fire until the ammunition could be most effectively used. I remember training my Dumaresq (an instrument for calculating the rate at which two ships are opening or closing each other) on to the target -a battle-cruiser of the Liltzow class — and work-
ing out the 'rate', which was probably much in error. I remember the ecstatic comments of the director layer in the tower below us when we had found the target and later saw that we were hitting, and also the opening salvo from our guns, in earnest at last. WarA few minutes after we opened fire, HMS Defence and rior appeared on our engaged side, steaming on an opposite course. The ships were practically continuously hidden by splashes, were being repeatedly hit by heavy shells, and must have been going through hell on earth. The Defence, which was leading, was just about abeam of the Neptune and barely a mile away, when she was hit heavily and blew up in one fearful cloud of smoke and debris. The fore-top fell with a sickening splash into the water and then the Warrior, herself damaged, listing to starboard and in places on fire, raced over the spot where the Defence had been only a moment before through the smoke cloud oi Defence's explosion. The two fleets were now heavily engaged, but the Germans were rapidly becoming more indistinct in the gathering haze, which was so soon to end the action. Whether this failure of visibility was just North Sea cussedness, or whether it was due to the heavy and continual gunfire I cannot say, but if it had not been for the flashes of the Germans' guns we should have had difficulty in picking out any target. It is a curious sensation being under heavy fire at a long range. The time of ffight seems more like 30 minutes than the 30 or so seconds that it actually is. A great rippling gush of flame breaks out from the Germans' guns some miles away, and then follows a pause, during which one can reflect that somewhere in that great 'No-Man's Land' two or three tons of metal and explosive are hurtling towards one. The mountainous splashes which announce the arrival of each successive salvo rise simultaneously in bunches of four or five to an immense height. One or two salvoes fell short of us early in the action, and the remainder, I suppose, must have gone over as I did not see them. HMS Her-
HMS
The might
of the
Royal Navy concentrated
m the North Sea
seemingly
interminable lines of dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts
cules, four ships astern of us, had been straddled on deployment, a feat which had greatly impressed me with the capabilities of the
German gunnery, but, with the exception of HMS Colossus, which received a 12-inch shell in the fore-superstructure and sundry small stuff" round about her fo'c'sle, no single battleship suffered any real damage from the Germans' gunfire. The Germans, however, clearly received some punishment as two battle-cruisers, which were rather closer than were their other ships, were engaged by us and by most ships of the rear squadron at one time or another, and we saw at least two of our salvoes hit, after which the two German battle-cruisers dropped astern, to all appearances badly damaged. The warm, red glow of a 'hit' is easily distinguishable from the flash of a salvo, and is extremely pleasant to look upon.
Our fleet was stretched out in one long, single line, and presented a marvellously impressive spectacle as salvo after salvo rolled out along the line adding to the fearful din which the Germans' shells and various other battle factors were already making. At 1820 hours we were fighting at 12,000 yards with common and lyddite shells. About this time the Invincible, which was leading the whole line, was struck by a salvo, turned nearly 180 degrees to starboard in her death agony, and lay burning and helpless. Her back was broken and her forepart was twisted round and upside down, giving her, when shortly afterwards we passed her 150 yards distant on our disengaged side, the appearance of having a swan bow. At the time we could not identify what ship it was. German destroyers were now (aboul 1840 hours) observed ahead of the battle-cruiser Liitzow, and soon afterwards they turned towards us to attack. Our secondary armament opened fire and scored a hit or two, but their attack was successfully made and a number of torpedoes were fired, which gave us a few anxious minutes. One torpedo crossed the line immediately under the Neptune's stern, and directly afterwards two other parallel tracks were spotted which seemed to be coming straight for us. The ship was turned under full helm and our stern put towards the track of the torpedoes, but we only avoided being hit by inches. About this time several other battleships besides the Neptune were hauling out of the line dodging torpedoes, with the result that the line became considerably lengthened, and was irregular in places where ships were trying to regain their station. We had dropped astern, and for some seven minutes HMS St Vincent was directly between us and the Germans, and we were unable to fire. Just after we had successfully dodged the torpedoes, we heard, or more exactly perhaps felt, a dull concussion and saw the Marlborough haul out of the line to port listing heavily. She had been hit by a torpedo but a few minutes later she regained her position in the line with only a slight list, and we saw her firing again strongly. [Reprinted from a narrative of the battle by a midshipman stationed in the foretop of Neptune.
HMS
I
Who won the Battle of Jutland? Both sides claimed it, and perhaps both had a right to do so. The Germans could claim a tactical victory in terms of ships sunk, but the British could claim a strategic one as the Germans had been driven from the North Sea. Peter Kemp
Who won the Battle of Jutland? Before this very vexed question can be decided — if ever it can be — there are a number of generalisations that need to be made. One of them is that battles are normally won by a superiority of tactics, but that wars are normally won by a superiority in strateg>'. And it follows from this that a basic principle of war must be (as it most certainly is) that tactics are governed by strategy'; that any individual or particular must be subservient to the objective of the war as a whole. Accepting this as a self-evident truth, one has therefore to take into account the higher strategic necessities which governed each commander-in-chief as he led his fleet into battle. Let us take Jellicoe first. He went into battle with the knowledge that, to quote Winston Churchill, he was 'the only man on either side throughout the war who could, by his actions, lose the war in an afternoon'. This is not hyperbole; it is fact. The whole basic British strategy, laid down and agreed before the war, was to subject Germany to a distant blockade based on the closing of the Dover Straits and the Orkney/Norway passage. This could only be achieved by British command of the sea; every other naval activity was subservient to this. It is pertinent in this connection to recall Jellicoe's memorandum to the British Admiralty of October 30, 1914, in which he stated unequivocally that there might, and probably would, be occasions in battle when he would have to refuse to comply with the enemy's tactics. For instance, if the enemy turned away, he would assume that it was their intention to lead the Grand Fleet over mines and would refuse to follow. / desire particularly to draw the attention of their Lordships, he wrote, to this point, since it may be deemed a refusal of battle, and indeed might possibly result in failure to bring the enemy to action as soon as is expected and hoped. Such a result would be absolutely repugnant to the feelings of all British naval officers and men, but with new and untried methods of warfare, new tactics must be devised to meet them. I feel that such tactics, if not understood, may bring odium upon me, but so long as I have the confidence of their Lordships, I intend to pursue what is, in my considered opinion, the proper course to defeat and annihilate the enemy's battle fleet, without regard to uninstructed battle
opinion or criticism.
The Admiralty Board agreeu with his thesis and expressed their confidence in any action he might feel he had to take in the ev^-.t oi battle with the High Seas Fleet. What would have been the effect of a defeat of the Grand Fleet? First, the essential command of the sea would have been lost, for it was upon the integrity of the Grand Fleet that it was solely full
based. Loss of British command of the sea would be followed inevitably by the breaking of the blockade of Germany, by German surface attack on British merchant shipping and transports, by the severance of sea communications between Britain and her armies overseas and by starvation of the home country. One may, perhaps, quote here an Admiralty comment made shortly after the battle and recorded in a Naval Staff Monograph published in 1927. 'The British fleet is vital to the success of the Allied cause. The German fleet is of secondary importance: its loss would not vitally affect the cause of the Central Powers, and it can, therefore, be risked to a much greater extent than the British fleet.'
It can be appreciated from all this what exactly was Jellicoe's objective as he led the Grand Fleet to battle. His primary object was to retain command of the sea, his subsidiary object was to annihilate the High Seas Fleet. His primary object succeeded; his subsidiary object failed. And what of Scheer? He had, as we know, put to sea to try to isolate a portion of the Grand Fleet and to bring it to action against superior force, but he was determined at all costs to avoid action with the fleet as a whole. In this intention he was out-manoeuvred, not once, but twice, and withdrew from the scene of action with precipitate haste. An all-out fight was the very last thing he wanted. And in his precipitate withdrawals he may well have raised in Jellicoe's mind the doubt which he (Jellicoe) had expressed to the Admiralty in 1914, that he would expect an enemy turn-away as a ruse to draw him over mines and submarines. Jellicoe, with the survival of Britain as a nation in his hands, was not going to be caught by tricks of that sort. We know now, of course, that at Jutland the Germans had no mines and no submarines, but Jellicoe did not know this. He had been informed (wrongly) by the Naval Intelligence Division in London that the German destroyers carried mines, and there had been reports of U-Boat sightings during the early stages of the action. With two commanders-in-chief, each for different reasons refusing to take risks, it is not surprising that the periods of direct action between the battle fleets were of such short duration. Scheer turned away behind smoke as soon as he sighted the Grand Fleet; Jellicoe refused to risk possible decimation by mine and torpedo. Both, in their particular positions at that time, unquestionably made the correct decision.
Statistics inconclusive one judges the result of battles at sea by the number of hits made upon the other side, by the number of ships sunk, or by the number of men killed, then there is no doubt that the High Seas Fleet were the victors. Here, though, one may question some of the figures. Officially, the Germans fired 3,597 heavy shells and made 120 hits; the British fired 4,598 heavy shells and scored 100 hits. These are German figures. (There do not appear to be any ofl^cial British figures of this nature.) But these figures do not give the true picture. As Professor Marder has pointed out 'From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Volume III), over a quarter of the German hits were made on the three armoured cruisers Warrior, Defence and Black Prince at ranges from 7,000 to 1,000 yards. Nor do the German figures credit any British hits by heavy shells on the German cruiser SMS Wiesbaden, which was battered into a wreck and sunk. So far as ship losses are concerned, the Grand Fleet lost 14 ships, totalling 111 ,000 tons: the High Seas Fleet 1 1 ships totalling 62,000 tons. The casualties amounted to 6,097 British officers and men killed, 510 wounded and 177 taken prisoner, against German losses of 2,551 dead and 507 wounded. Expressed as percentages of total strength, the British loss was 8.84% and the German 6.79%. But here again, these figures tell only part of the story. In the Grand Fleet, after the day's fighting, Jellicoe had 24 undamaged dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers while Scheer had only ten. Eight British dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers had been damaged If
HMS
1425
V
, -^
•
-^jC
w^>
^Mi GERMAN
BRITISH
ENEMY
/^explodes
explodes
vX
SHELL
^M
moves
j^l
down
J
X
FLASH
moves
down
lid off
SHELL BIN
single
DOORS
open
lid
^H
on
double closed
k^_
1*"" i\
Interlocking
GUN OPERATION Shell from
Magazine and
M Cordite from Handling Room ^
move up Main Hoist to Working Chamber & up rails to Turret
Ma9ann« rr?^ ^c:> I
n
against ten German, and proportionally this was greatly in favour of the Grand Fleet. And but for the shortcomings of the British armour-piercing shell, which broke up on hitting instead of penetrating and bursting inside, Scheer would certainly have
two more battle-cruisers (SMS Seydlitz and Derfflinger) and possibly one battleship (SMS KonigJ as well. Finally, in trying to judge the results of the battle against these yardsticks, Jellicoe was able to signal the Admiralty at 2145 hours on June 2 that the Grand Fleet was at four hours' notice for steam and ready for action. Scheer, in his report to the Kaiser, gave the middle of August as the date when the High Seas Fleet would again be ready. It must not be forgotten that when Jellicoe met Scheer at about 1800 hours on May 31, he had a vast superiority in ships of all types, even allowing for the loss of two of Beatty's battle-cruisers in the earlier action, about which he did not know until the following morning. His ascendancy in materiel was enhanced by his tactical skill in placing the whole Grand Fleet in line of battle between Scheer and his bases. It looked a certainty that the High Seas Fleet was doomed to extinction. Why was it not? One obvious reason is that naval battles are not ibught on paper but on the sea, and are therefore subject to conditions of wind, weather and, particularly, visibility. At 1800 hours, there were about three hours of daylight left, and the area was covered by a typical North Sea haze which gave a visibility of about five miles (10,000 yards) from Iron Duke's bridge The haze was made worse by the vast quantity of smoke poured into the sky from the funnels of the British battle-cruisers. lost
HMS
SMS Thuringen engages a British cruiser during the night action. Inset: The dangers of flash' had already '^srn shown during the Dogger Bank action. The German fleet had lea, ni that Previous page:
lesson from this, and a system of double doors and stringent security rules prevented the flash getting any further than the str'cken turret. In British ships, however, there was still a chain of explosive material going right down into the magazine
1428
A
second reason, mentioned above but equally relevant here,
was the failure of British armour-piercing shell. Unlike the German, which were fitted with trotyl, the British shells were filled with lyddite. The combination of lyddite and a too sensitive fuse caused the shells
to burst
on oblique impact, so that the whole
force of the explosion was outside the German protective armour and not inside. Lyddite, moreover, is in itself a very sensitive explosive, and liable to explode from the shock of impact alone, irrespective of the fuse setting. The German shells had a very
delay action fuse which, combined with trotyl, produced the burst inside the protective armour. In both short encounters between the battle fleets, where the British gunnery produced several hits, the German ships escaped destruction through the failure of the British shells. Admiral Dreyer, one of the greatest of the Royal Navy's gunnery experts and who was present at the battle, wrote that 'the hits that were made at Jutland as a result of tactical advantage and gunnery skill would, with efficient AP [armour-piercing! shell such as we had in 1918, have sunk six or more German capital ships.' Losses of this order at that stage of the battle would have inevitably led later to virtual annihilation. A third reason for the escape from annihilation of the High Seas Fleet was the fact that almost throughout the battle (the exceptions were two periods of about 15 minutes each) Jellicoe never knew exactly where the Germans were. Jutland must surely rank as the classic example of how a lack of reports on the enemy's position during action can hamstring a commander-in-chief. Basically this was the duty of the light cruiser squadrons, of which there were four in the British fleet that day, but the importance of enemy reports being fed into the fleet flagship was stressed in the Grand Fleet Battle Orders, and every captain of every ship who had read these orders must have known how essential it was to keep the commander-in-chief in the picture. Only one light cruiser squadron (the 2nd. under Commodore Goodenough) took this duty efficient
seriously,
and even Goodenough
failed at
one
vital
moment,
just
'
"f.
^^ .<^^^^
*%
^»^''
>^s^^
^^^ Battleships
Battleships
Barham Malaya
6
July 4
8
Warspite
13
Marlborough Colossus
.^^
July 21
Kbnig
June 24
July 16
Grosser Kurfurst
July 20
July 20
Markgraf
August
Kaiser
2
2
July 26
Ostfriesland
June 16
Helgoland Oldenburg
Nassau
JulylO June 10 June 17
Westfalen
June 24
Schleswig-Holstein
Rheinland
Battle-Cruisers
Lion
July 19
Tiger
July
July 15
Queen Mary
sunk sunk sunk
Indefatigable Invincible
Ajj.ijL
ou jL ^Ijj^ijL ""^
24
Liitzow
October 15 17
Derfflinger
Sept, 16
Seydlitz
July 30
August
2
21
4
Moltke
4
von der Tann
sunk sunk sunk
6 3
6
Light Cruisers
Light Cruisers
Chester
July 25
Canterbury
7
Dublin
June 17 June 20
Southampton Flotilla
'
sunk
2
Princess Royal
Armoured Cruisers Warrior 15 Defence 7 Black Prince 15
Julys
3
sunk
1
ll
I 1
I
I
ll
Elbing Pillau
sunk sunk
Wiesbaden
OIL inn
Rostock
Leaders Castor
about 10
Broke
9
Tipperary
several
August
31
sunk
July 20
2
Stettin
June 29
5
Munchen
4
Frauenlob Hamburg
sunk June 15
Anient
several
Acesta
3
Turbulent Nestor
several
Defender
several
Moorsom
1
Fortune
-^""
I
^
Torpedo Boats
sunk August
1
2
June 23 June 17
sunk
?
June 23
Onslaught
1
Onslow
5
Shark
several
sunk
Petard
6
June 27
Porpoise
2
June 23
August
June 20 June 15
1
1
July 31
3
G40 S32
1
S51
sunk sunk sunk
2
V27 V29 S35
Noble
1
sunk
2
July 31
Jki.J_
\r
G41
8
Spitfire
850 B38
June 19
sunk sunk
several
Sparrowhawk
June 13
1
V28
sunk
1
V48
-^-
'
sunk
leit: Battle damage — in this case one of the Seydhtz' lesser wounds, the damage to her deck caused by the fourth shell to hit her The damage may appear superficial, but it is essential to remember that shells were designed to penetrate before exploding. Above: Comparative damage at Jutland, Although the British lost more ships, they were able to repair their damaged ones far more quickly
/Above
turn-away at about 1915 hours, when he saw did not. At that moment JelHcoe was rendered blind by the Germans' smoke screen. The number of enemy sightings by individual ships and squadrons which were not reported to JelHcoe was unbelievably high. Even Beatty, during the run to the north, failed to inform the Commander-in-Chief of the position, course and speed of Scheer's battle fleet, so that even at the moment of deployment Jellicoe had no sure knowledge of Scheer's position. Even the Admiralty, which had the priceless information of Scheer's route to his home base, failed to inform Jellicoe that Scheer was making for Horns Reef. There was plenty of time to get this information through to Jellicoe to ensure that the Grand Fleet would be there in time to bar the way on the morning of June 1. As for the number of individual ships which sighted the Germans, especially during the night actions, and kept silent, it is difficult sometimes to understand how mature and highly-trained naval officers could so lightly ignore their palpable duty in battle. Here one can probably lay part of the blame on Jellicoe's method of command. He was a great 'centraliser' and fundamentally unable to delegate authority. One has only to look at the vast after Scheer's second
the
(ILLL
Frankfurt
July 17
Destroyers
I
1
Pommern
sunk Battle-Cruisers
movement and JeUicoe
extent of the Grand Fleet Battle Orders, some 70 pages of small print, to appreciate the minute detail with which Jellicoe made known his orders and desires to the fleet. The effect of all this detail was to stifle initiative, to produce the feeling among subordinate admirals and captains that the Commander-in-Chief had his finger on every pulse, and was in full control of the battle throughout. Nevertheless, the rigidity of the Battle Orders cannot
excuse the extraordinary lapse in passing information to the ship.
The GFBO's are quite
specific
flag-
on this point and were ad-
dressed to all cruisers, from battle-cruisers down to light cruisers. For the period of the approach, the Battle Orders lay down: 'It is of great importance that all cruisers should plot the position of the enemy's ships as they are sighted or reported'; 'After gaining touch with the enemy, the first essential is to maintain ii'. And after battle is joined: 'Reports of movements, provided they are made in good time, may be of great value, and any ship in a position to see clearly what is occurring, when it is probable that the Commander-in-Chief could not, should not fail to make a report'. 'Author's italics.) The instructions could hardly have been clearer. The question of tactics during the battle is best left to last, for it is on this point that most of the controversy connected with Jutland has raged. Let us consider, first, the two battle-cruiser admirals in the handling of their forces before we turn to the two main protagonists. Within the general heading of tactics, one must include signals and fleet or squadron organisation. Let us deal first with Hipper. It is almost impossible to fault him throughout the battle. He did all that a battle-cruiser admiral could do, and he did it with precision, dash and the sure touch of the expert. All through, he kept the Commander-in-Chief fully informed of
movements with clarity and speed. And when called upon launch their 'death ride' to extricate Scheer's battle fleet from disaster, his ships responded nobly and skilfully. There are a number of criticisms which have been made against Beatty, some of them which do not bear serious investigation though others may well have some validity. One point of criticism has been in his stationing of the 5th Battle Squadron five miles to the north of the battle-cruisers during the period of reconnaissance instead of sailing as a concentrated force. Beatty himself always said that he wanted them there so that he could fall back on them at need. This would appear perfectly reasonable. Another criticism has been directed against Beatty for not concentrating British
to
1429
1430
his force,
was
first
cruisers.
which included the 5th Battle Squadron, wh; sighted and before trying to engage the German There was
sufficient
time
for this,
and
it
P':
ils-
seems oda
m
the circumstances of the day that it was not done. Beatty's argument here was that, with his six battle-cruisers against the German five, he had a sufficient margin of superiority to dispense with the 5th Battle Squadron. This argues a faith in the gunnery excellence of his ships, which Beatty, knowing the facts as he must have done, should not really have held. The battle-cruisers' gunnery never approached the accuracy of that of the main Battle Fleet. It also seems a little unreasonable, when you have a weapon ready to hand, not to use it if time allows. This was a battle of the big ships, and in terms of fleet comparison, each German ship was worth one and three-fifths British ships. To try to make sure of two or three of them by using the whole weapon available was, in these terms, invaluable to the British cause. The vast inefficiency of the Lion's signalling has been another point of criticism for which Beatty must surely bear the blame. To rely solely on flag signals on a day of limited visibility and much funnel smoke does not argue the meticulous attention to detail which an admiral must exercise in the control of his fleet or squadron. Some of the signals made by wireless were not as clear and as precise as they might have been. Two possible victories had already been missed by Beatty through the inefficiency of his flagship's signal department: this should surely have been enough to warn him that something was wrong and needed rectification. This failure in the Lion was not confined only to the battle-cruiser action; it occurred again later in the battle, with disastrous results during the night actions. There was a failure, too, of correct concentration of the gunnery during the run south, which was responsible to some extent for the near loss of the Lion. Both the Lion and the Princess Royal concentrated, correctly, their fire on the leading German ship, the Liitzow, leaving one British ship to engage one German all down the rest of the line. But the Queen Mary, third in the British line, engaged the third German ship, not the second. This left the Derfflinger, second in the German line, unengaged, and she was able to direct her fire untroubled by any return fire. The same error was repeated further down the line, where the Tiger, instead of engaging the third German ship, directed her fire at the fourth, throwing out both her own and the Neir Zealand's fire, since both were now shooting at the same ship unknown to each other and unable to differentiate in the fall of shot for the correction of range and deflection. This had happened before at the Dogger Bank, when it was the Tiger which was the off"ender. This had been thrashed out at the time, and the captain of the Tiger was left in no doubt of his admiral's displeasure. It should not have happened again, and that it did once again argues a lack of attention to those organisational details which make a squadron or fleet efficient.
^^^m^
1^
Beatty's tactics correct Apart from the lack of preliminary concentration of force, which may or may not be a valid criticism, Beatty did all that was required of him on the purely tactical side. He made the initial contact, identified Scheer's ships when they came into sight, and led them back to the British battle fleet. Because of excusable errors in navigation, Beatty was seven miles to the westward of his estimated position, which meant that he appeared 65 degrees on the starboard bow of the Iron Duke instead of directly ahead, as Jellicoe had expected. Jellicoe himself had come down rather faster than he thought after taking in HMS Galatea's sighting signal and was 41 miles ahead of where he expected to be. The effect of Beatty being to the westward of his estimated position was that, when Jellicoe had to deploy, his squadrons were not square to the supposed line of the Germans" advance, so that his deployment would take longer, and take him further away from the Germans at the outset. Of Scheer's tactics, the less said the better. He was supposed to be the great tactical genius of German naval warfare, but he showed no sign of this at Jutland. Twice he blundered into the whole British Battle Fleet, each time entirely by accident; and there was an element of panic in his withdrawals, as witness his 'Battle-cruisers, at the enemy. Give it everything' signal. To order a 'charge' against battleships in line by battle-cruisers argues a measure of desperation. In his own book, written later,
One problem
of naval warfare often not fully appreciated Is that of faced by the commander-in-chief when trying to manoeuvre a fleet made up of several hundred ships of widely differing capabilities. This aerial photograph of two German battle-cruisers on exercises shows clearly the small margin of error needed to produce a collision tfie difficulty
1431
Scheer suggests that his second occasion of blundering into the Grand Fleet was a deliberate move 'to deal the enemy a second blow ... to have the effect of surprising the enemy, upsetting his plans for the rest of the day.' This is nonsense. If this were the case, the last thing any admiral would do would be to station his battle-cruisers in the van of the attack. He did not surprise Jellicoe or upset his plans; any surprise there may have been was entirely Scheer's. And finally Jellicoe. He has been criticised, first, for deploying on the port column of the Grand Fleet and not the starboard. Had he selected the starboard column on which to deploy, he would certainly have got into action ten minutes earlier, and at 4,000 yards closer range, but against this is the fact that the line of
would have been led by the 1st Battle Squadron, which was the weakest of the three making up the Battle Fleet. In Jellicoe's opinion, it would also have opened the head of the line, at the point of deployment, to massed torpedo attack from the German destroyer flotillas. Finally, by deploying on the starboard column, the German battle fleet would have had a small but significant overlap over the British line of battle, and the only force left with which to try to stop Scheer reaching his base would be Hood's three
battle
battle-cruisers.
Deployment on the port column, however, gave a very considerable overlap on the German line of battle and gave Jellicoe the priceless advantage of placing his fleet squarely across Scheer's only escape route. It also brought the considerable advantage of crossing Scheer's 'T', whereby the British battleships could fire their broadsides while the Germans could only reply with their forward turrets. Also, most importantly, deployment on the port column gave Jellicoe the advantage of the light, making his own ships almost invisible to the Germans while the German ships were silhouetted against the light in the west. Some critics have suggested that Jellicoe should have deployed on his centre column, which would have overcome the disadvantages of deployment on the starboard column and yet brought the Grand Fleet into action earlier and at a shorter range. There were two considerable disadvantages. One was that such a deployment required far more signalling and had not been practised by the Grand Fleet. The middle of a battle was no time to introduce a new manoeuvre. The second disadvantage was that deployment on the centre would have left Jellicoe leading the van of the Grand Fleet instead of being in the centre of the line. With the line of battle extending over six miles, it was obviously easier to control its movements from the centre than from the van. If one looks dispassionately at this question of deployment, there can be nothing but praise for Jellicoe's decision to deploy on the port column. He had very little time in which to make the which had been rendered harder for him by Beatty appearing so wide on the starboard bow instead of directly ahead. The first result of his deploying as he did placed the Grand Fleet decision,
in a position of great tactical superiority which would not have been gained with any other deployment, and after all, that must surely be the ultimate test on which to try to form a judgement. The second great point of controversy in Jellicoe's tactics is the turn away by divisions at 1922 hours, in face of the German torpedo attack. It is difficult to understand the reasoning of this criticism provided that one approaches the problem with the knowledge that Jellicoe actually had at the time, and not with the knowledge that has subsequently been gained.
Anti-torpedo tactics First, the turn-away as a countermove to a massed torpedo attack was incorporated in the Grand Fleet Battle Orders. All knew that this was the recognised defence, and no one had ever questioned it. Exercises carried out in Scapa Flow had shown that torpedoes fired at a line of ships in a massed attack would produce as many as 30% of hits, even with the ships manoeurving to avoid them. Moreover, Jellicoe had been informed by the Naval Intelligence Division (again wrongly as it turned out) that the Germans had developed a torpedo that left no track in the water, and so could not be seen approaching and thus give a ship a chance of dodging it. By turning away, and thus lengthening the range, the German torpedoes were running very slowly as they reached the British line. Twenty-one torpedoes reached the British line, and even though their speed was by then very low, several ships (HMS Marlborough. J^errulos, Aginco.,.,, Revenge, Thunderer and Colossus amon_: nad to alter course violenT ly to avoid them. Had the Grand luijt not turned av. and thus ^resented a narrower target, th-r? could well ha-, l.-en sevc' al hits, if only because the rank M have hceii less and the speed greater. One alternatu ,un towards the attack, and present ,;
.
1432
the smaller target bows on instead of stern on. This had never been practised by the fleet. If it had been tried, and had proved successful, Scheer's 'battle-turn' away might not have succeeded in breaking off" the action. But it would at the same time have given an opportunity for the German 2nd, 5th and 7th Torpedoboat Flotillas, which had been unable to get into a firing position because of Jellicoe's turn away, to launch their torpedo attacks. One argument often advanced by the critics is that there was no need to turn the whole fleet away, as only the rear was threatened. This argument seems to ignore the torpedo which passed between the Thunderer and the Iron Duke. To turn only one division away, however, was to divide the fleet, and without exact knowledge of the Germans' position, divided tactics were unquestionably a risk. It must be remembered here that Jellicoe had no knowledge at this time of Scheer's battle-turn away. His view was blanketed by the German smoke screen. Other ships saw the turn (the 5th and 1st Battle Squadrons) but none of them reported the movement to the Commander-in-Chief Goodenough, in the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, saw the German fleet on its new course after Scheer's turn-away, but, for the only time during the battle, failed to realise the importance of what he had seen and did not signal the information to Jellicoe.
Evasion tactics correct Thus there is no real reason to condemn Jellicoe for turning the fleet away. It was the normal procedure on both sides. The Germans had already done so during the action; Beatty did so at the Dogger Bank battle. To continue on the existing course, or to turn towards, in the light of the knowledge then existing on the bridge of the flagship, was to risk the loss of or severe damage to about six ships at the minimum. is often forgotten when directed at Jellicoe for his turn-away. Even if he had been able to see the High Seas Fleet make their 'battle-turn' behind the smoke, had assumed that he could dodge all the torpedoes, had turned straight for the Germans and made a signal for a general chase, the Grand Fleet could not have caught up with the fleeing Germans before dark. Only the 5th Battle Squadron was faster than the Konig class battleships, and to allow one squadron of four battleships to forge ahead on its own would have been asking for its annihilation. Finally, there has been much criticism of Jellicoe for not seeking a night action. This does not stand up to serious examination. One could, perhaps, blame Jellicoe for not having trained the fleet for night action in the two years before 1916, but this is as far as it can go. If we try to envisage the state of the battle as known on the flagship's bridge as darkness fell, we get the following picture. Jellicoe knew for certain that he was between Scheer and his base. He knew that night action was always a risky aff"air because of the difficulties of distinguishing between friend and foe. He knew that if he were reasonably served throughout the night with signals reporting the Germans' movements, a general action was certain on the morning of June 1. And so, reasonably and rightly, he settled down in night cruising formation to maintain his position between Scheer and his route home. If he had been served with the information which was actually gained during the night, from the British Admiralty, from the destroyers and from his own battleships, the battle would unquestionably have been renewed on the following morning. That he was not so served should not reflect either on his skill or his judgement. Jutland, as fascinating a battle to study as any that has ever been fought at sea, has been many times described as a battle of missed opportunities. This is certainly the case; the opportunities which presented themselves and were not taken were there in full measure. Both sides made mistakes, but it is difficult to think that any single individual on either side made fewer mistakes than Jellicoe, except perhaps Hipper, in his junior command. True, Jellicoe was a great 'centraliser' and the rigidity of his Grand Fleet Battle Orders could, perhaps, be said to have stifled individual initiative in his divisional and squadronal leaders. But he had the right to expect (and the GFBO's gave him good reason for this expectation) that his admirals and captains would be aware of their responsibilities in this connection. Alas, they were not, and as a result Jellicoe had to fight his battle in the dark. In recent years the most intense and analytical study of Jutland has been made by Professor Arthur Marder (From the Dread-
There
is
one other point here which
criticism
is
nought
Scapa Flow, Volume
III). It is difficult to disagi-ee with writes: 'Jellicoe has been most unfairlj^ blamed for not doing miracles at Jutland. He was as brave and enterprising as the best of them, and he did the best that was possible.'
to
him when he
[For Peter Kemp 's biography, see page 52.
]
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saw an increase not only m Zeppelin activity but also The initiative now lay almost entirely with the Imperial navy, and its ships made a number of raids i
in their size.
over Britain. In spite of improved ships and techniques, however, the Zeppelins were still extremely vulnerable. Douglas Robinson. Below: British soldiers inspect the macabre imprint left by a fallen Zeppelin crewman
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The naval Zeppelin L 14. Length: 536V2feet. Volume: 1,126,400 cubicfeet. Ceiling: lO.OOOfeet. Endurance: 60 hours. Englnes:Fo\jr Maybach C-X, 220 hp each. Maximum speed: 55 mph. Armament: 8 to 10 machine guns. Payload: 15.7 tons. Crew: Normally 18
During the year 1916 the increased efiFort made in the air by the Zeppelins of the German army and navy matched the intensified struggle on the ground between the Allies and the Central Powers. The German navy was especially confident, having commissioned, on December 22, 1915, the first enlarged version of the 1915 model Zeppelin, the L 20. With two extra gas cells added amidships, the new craft displaced 140,000 cubic feet more and had^^ combat ceiling 2,000 feet higher than that of the L 10 class, from which she had been modified. In addition, Pohl had been replaced on January 18 as Commander-in-Chief of the High Seas Fleet by the energetic Vizeadmiral Reinhard Scheer. Meeting with Strasser on that same date, Scheer outlined an intensified strategic bombing campaign against the whole of England. A few simple code — phrases would direct the naval Zeppelins 'England North' denoting Edinburgh and the Tyne, 'England Middle' Liverpool and the Humber, and 'England South' indicating London and its surroundings. The German Army airship service, by contrast, was increasingly restricted by the strengthening of Allied defences on land. On January 31, 1916, nine naval Zeppelins, with Strasser aboard L 11, set out with orders to 'attack England middle or north, if at all possible Liverpool'. All of them reached England and for more than 12 ^Tburs searched for the large industrial cities in ground mist and low fog. Two airships claimed to have bombed Liverpool. The German commanders also thought that Sheffield was attacked three times, Manchester by two raiders simultaneously, and Nottingham, Goole, Immingham and Yarmouth once each. In reality not a single bomb fell in any of these places. The incident served as a warning to the British in terms of their frail defences. The defences in the Midlands were virtually nonexistent, and the airships moved wherever they pleased. Recent troubles with the new Maybach HSLu motors caused commanders to cut short their journeys over England. Released prematurely for service in the autumn of 1915, the new several
The German army Zeppelin LZ 77. She was brought down by gun fire over Revigny in February, 1916
•
power plants suffered for months from fractured crank shafts, broken connecting rods, and melted crank bearings and wrist pins. Nonetheless, both L 15 and L 21 claimed to have bombed Liverpool. Breithaupt, in L 15, circumstantially reported having made his attack on 'a large city complex, divided in two parts by a broad sheet of water running north and south, joined by a lighted bridge, recognised as Liverpool and Birkenhead.' He was traced with difficulty by the British observers, but probably this attack was one of three made on the town of Burton-on-Trent, which was well lighted. Max Dietrich in L 21 had overestimated a tail wind and was actually over the crowded Birmingham suburbs of Tipton, Wednesbury and Walsall. After vainly searching for Liverpool, Bocker in L 14 went as far west as Shrewsbury and dropped two tons of bombs on Derby on his way home. L 11 carried her bombs home with her, as Strasser was not satisfied that any of the targets sighted were military in nature and even with radio bearings from Nordholz and Bruges, the skilled Mathy in L 13 failed to reach Goole, his target, and his bombs fell on Scunthorpe, 15 miles to the south-east. Franz Stabbert in L 20 believed he had bombed Sheffield, but his was in fact one of the attacks made on Burton-on-Trent. L 16 and L 17, coming inland only a short distance over Norfolk, inflicted no damage at all. The last ship to leave England was Odo Loewe's L 19, which was over the island for nine hours. Two months' delay in Dresden after her commission, during which there had been constant trouble with the HSLu engines, had exasperated her commander, and Loewe was apparently determined to go all the way to Liverpool. Part of L 19' s bomb load fell on Burton-on-Trent, the rest on the Birmingham suburbs which L 21 had already attacked and from there to the coast L 19 wandered slowly eastward. It seemed she was having engine trouble although this was not mentioned in Loewe's attack report radioed at 0537 hours on February 1. L 19 failed to arrive at her base at Tondern, and her last signal at 1605 hours sounded ominous: 'Radio equipment at times
out of order, three engines out of order. Approximate position
Borkum Days
Island."
Then silence. was learned that
shortly after her last message, the Dutch island of Ameland, was heavily fired on by Dutch guns, and drove off helplessly before a south wind. Still later the Germans learned that on February 2 the Grimsby trawler King Stephen had found the wrecked Zeppelin floating 110 miles east of Flamborough Head, but after talking to the Germans huddled on the top platform, her skipper had sailed away leaving them to perish in the freezing North Sea. Angered by the world reaction to the Lusitania sinking the Germans made the most out ofthe King Stephen 'atrocity'. The nine-ship raid caused a sensation in the Midlands comparable to that in London in the previous autumn. Seventy people were killed, and 113 injured, and the ease with which the Zeppelins had wandered unopposed over the British Isles, bombing undefended towns, forced some top level reorganisation that was long overdue. On February 16. 1916. responsibility for the defence of England against air attack reverted fVom the Admiralty to the War Office. Anti-aircraft batteries were augmented, and the former haphazard aeroplane defence establishment was replaced by an orderly array of squadrons whose sole duty was night later
it
L 19 had appeared low over
and fighting. During the la.-l months ol U^iS.LZ 77, brought back from Namuito Cologne, had made experiments with radio direction finding. the ship herself sending out signals on which ground stations at Cologne, Metz, Strasbourg, Charleville and Friedrichshafen took bearings which were radioed back. LZ 77 also made some flights by moonlight near Cologne which convinced army observers that the Zeppelins could not be seen from the ground even on moonlit nights, hence permitting raids at any time. flying
Raid over Paris Shortly before Christmas. 1915, LZ 77 and LZ 79 were sent to Namur with orders to attack 'the strongly fortified armed camp of Paris', allegedly retaliating for enemy raids on Freiburg and Karlsruhe. Foul weather, however, delayed the first attack until January 29, 1916. LZ 77. experiencing engine trouble, turned back soon after take off. Hauptmann Gaissert in LZ 79 went on unopposed across the Western Front at 10,500 feet, and saw the glow of Paris from 40 miles away. French aeroplanes flying over the city betrayed their presence by firing red flares, but Gaissert pressed on, finally crossing the French capital from north-northeast to south-south-west at 10,000 feet. He aimed his 3,300 pounds of bombs at railway stations — the Gare de Vincennes, the Gare de Luxembourg, and the Gare Montparnasse — but civilians were the chief sufferers, particularly in the Belleville quarter. Eighteen bombs were dropped, killing 18 people and injuring 31. But the Zeppelin had suffered at the hands of the defences. Search-
lights
had so blinded the
difliculty
officers in
the control car
th;-;
making out
specific targets; a fountain of glowi the city as the machine gunners fired conb^..
had risen above ;. the raider and on leaving the target, the Zeppelin rapidly became stern-heavy and the after gas cells were found to be leaking badly. By shifting weights forward and lightening the craft as much as possible, Gaissert's crew managed to get across the Front at an altitude of 5,600 feet; but the LZ 79 became progressively heavier, and finally hit the ground at Ath, 50 miles .
at
short of her base.
The Zeppelins were .scheduled to make their contribution to Germany's Verdun offensive by bombing railway junctions on the lines .-upplying the ring of fortresses but such short-range operations against targets close behind the heavily-defended front were ill suited to their peculiar capabilities. The first raid was ordered for the evening of February 21, the day the German army's attack opened — only three days after the February full moon. Four of the six airships available in the west set out that night. In the clear moonlight over the trenches, the Zeppelins stood out as they had not done in the industrial haze around Cologne. The newest, LZ95, of the enlarged 1,200,000 cubic foot type, assigned to the junction at Vitry-le-Fran?ois, was carrying 8,800 pounds of bombs and could not climb above 10,500 feet. She presented an ideal target for the anti-aircraft gunners and failed
home. LZ88, destined for Chalons-sur-Marne, turned the faceof heavy snow squalls, landing safely at Maubeuge. The wooden-framed SL 7. ordered to attack Nancy or a railway station between Nancy and Verdun, returned to Mannheim with a claim to have dropped her 3,500 pounds of bombs on La Neuville. Lastly, Hauptmann Horn's LZ 77, after crossing the Front safely in spite of heavy anti-aircraft fire, was close to Revigny, her target, when automobile-mounted cannon firing incendiary shells set her alight. The flaming wreck fell at Brabant-le-Roi; all 11 of the reduced crew which Horn was carrying for the short-range mission were killed. The conclusions drawn from the Cologne trials were thus proven to be in error. Flights by two ships at Namur early in March proved that the Zeppelins could easily be seen by moonlight at combat altitudes with the naked eye, while the loud drumming of the motors, magnified by the resonance of the giant hull covered with tightly stretched fabric, enabled the ships to be picked up at a great distance with binoculars. It was likely that the Zeppelins had also been tracked by French direction-finding stations when they radioed requests for bearings. The campaign against the railway junctions near Verdun limped along until the end of the new moon period, though without further losses. Repeatedly the Zeppelins set out. only to turn back in the face of snow squalls or fog, while the LZ 88 and LZ 90 continued to have trouble with their new Mavbach HSLus. The to reach
back
in
(lermans could claim onlv one success — that of March 6 when LZ^)0 reported attackinj^ Bar-le-Duc with 6,700 pounds ofhombs. In fact, numerous changes and limitations ensued from the catastrophe al Brabant-le-Roi. SL 7, considered unequal to operations in the West even though only seven months old, was transferred to Konigsberg in East Prussia on April 5. The smaller million cubic foot Zeppelins remaining in the west, including LZ HI. LZ 87. LZ 88. LZ 90 and LZ 93. were ordered to be lengthened and enlarged to the same volume as the 1.200,000 cubic foot craft then coming into ser\ ice. Rut after March. 19 Ki, no Zeppelin was sent across the Western Front. Doubts as to the big ships' sui'vival and utilisation in land warfare had been created in the minds of the General Staff, and henceforth there was a decline in their use.
Even against England the army craft scored no real successes. Sometimes coming out while the naval craft were raiding, sometimes alone, they appeared singly or in pairs early in April, but inflicted no damage. The onlv purposeful raid involved five
LZ81. LZ87. LZ88. LZ 93. and LZ97. on April 25. 1916. claimed to have bombed Etaples in France; the next three falsely claimed to have bombed Ramsgate, Margate and Harwich respectively. LZ 97. commanded by Ihiuptimimi Lmnarz, who had made the first attack on London eleven months ships,
The
first
returned claiming a raid on the capital. Actually it would appear that her commander mistook the River Roding for the Thames, for the bulk of his 3,300 pounds of bombs fell between P\\ field and Ongar. Eight night-flying aeroplanes ascended from earlier,
The
sinister
sausage shape
an English town as
it
flies
of a
Zeppelin reflects the lights of its load of bombs
inland to drop
Lower now. the sharp fields
relief
raider is picked up by searchlights, throwing into the gondolas slung beneath its hull
around London, and one
pilot,
Second-Lieutenant William
Leefe Robinson, came close enough to machine-gun the Zeppelin. After more abortive attempts, the army ceased its raiding operations in ihe west because of the short summer nights. LZ S7 and LZ88 were sent east to operate over the Baltic under the
Naval Commander-in-Chief. The Russian Front, starved of airships, which in turn were handicapped by unfavourable location of their bases and increasingly effective Russian ground defences, was meanwhile turning in an even more unimpressive record. The old Z XIU. based at Warsaw in the centre of the front, made only two successful attacks during this period -on the railway stations of St()lpce on March 7, 1916, and of Luninietz on May 3. The larger LZ 86 was at first handicapped by being based far to the rear at Kiinigsherg in the north, but in mid-February she was transferred to the new forward shed at Kovno. Bad weather prevented an\- luither raids until April, but
she then made four successful attacks between April 2 and Ma> 3 on railway .stations behiiid the Russian lines at Minsk, Ruezyca and Wyschki.
Salonika attacked Zeppelins were employed by Bulgaria in the 1915 campaign which aimed to crush Serbia and to open a ground route to Turkey. Towards the end of that year an airship base, with a single shed, had been erected at Szentandras near Temesvar, Hungary, and in November the LZ 81 had flown from there to Sofia (not yet 1436
May 17, 1916, and on June 23, after an intermediate landing Temesvar, arrived at Jamboli. After two local flights to search for mines in the western Black Sea, the .SL 10 set out on July 27. 1916, to bomb Sevastopol and if possible, Batum. But the airship never reached these targets, nor did she return to Jamboli on the following morning. With 16 men aboard, she had vanished over the Black Sea. In the North Sea. the number of navy Zeppelins was reduced on at
after
with the inadequately tested HSLu engines. 1916, Korvettenkapitdn Strasser had ordered the
difficulties
On March
4,
newer L15. L16. L17. L20 and L21 to be taken out of service and their power plants were removed and shipped to the May-' bach plant in Friedrichshafen for rebuilding. Until the end of the month only the L 11 L 13 and /. 14 weie available for raids. All three were out on March 5 for an attack on 'England Noith. chief target Firth of Forth'. Set south by the wind, and battered by snow squalls which coated the outer cover with freezing slush, they reached England well south of the Forth. Breaks in the overcast sky enabled L 11 and L 14 to bomb the defenceless town of Hull to such effect that the citizens, in ugly mood, stoned a Royal Flying Corps vehicle in Hull, and mobbed a flying officer in nearby Beverley. The two Zeppelin commanders. Viktor Schiitze and Alois Bocker. reported such varied difficulties as fire on the radio antenna, gondola struts and girder joints in the gangway; and engines failing because of water in the petrol freezing and plug.
ging the fuel lines at
Mathy
in
L
—4
F.
13. frustrated
by drifting snow, was carried the
The gas bags explode, and the Zeppelin Roman Candles earthward. As the English air defences improved, more raiders met this fate
Struck by a shell the Zeppelin begins to burn. Without parachutes, from this moment on. the crew is doomed
ground route) carrying high officials to negotiate with the Bulgarian government. With the landing of a French and British rescue force at Salonika on October 5. 1915, this city of over 200.000 inhabitants became a target for the Temesvar Zeppelin. LZ 81 had to be withdrawn due to trouble with the unreliable HSLu motors, but LZ 85 replaced her in January 1916. and on January 31. flying a round trip distance of 885 miles in 18j hours, dropped 4.400 pounds of bombs on the city. The .second attack on March 17 was likewise successful, but the defences were stronger and the ship lost a propeller when she was hit by shrapnel. The next raid on May 4. 1916. found the Salonika defences fully alert. Direct artillery hits deflated many cells and caused the framework to buckle amidships: the wreck plunged into the Vardar marshes and was burned by the crew. Several days later the 11-man crew were captured as they tried to reach the Bulgarian lines on foot. With the consolidation of the Central Powers' position m the Balkans, a second base was founded at Jamboli in Bulgaria, so far south that malaria incapacitated many of the Germans during the hot summer months. The base was sited with a view to watching the Russian Black Sea Fleet and bombing its bases; as well as supporting the operations of the former German warships Cioebcn and Breslau ba.sed on Constantinople. A new SthutteLanz ship, SL 10. commanded by Hauptniann von Wobeser — who had so impressed Londoners with his daring assault on the capita! on September 7, 1915 — was placed in commission at Mannheim accessible via the
1437
1
length of the Midlands by a 44 mph north-west wind and was unable to get his bearings until he found himself in clear air over the Thames' mouth. With one engine dead, he chose to proceed to the Belgian base at Namur. Further engine failures frustrated his attempt to return to Hage later on March 6, and he did not get home until March 10, after new engines were shipped to
Namur
by rail. At the end of the month, with the new moon period, Strasser planned and executed a series of raids unparalleled throughout the war for peisistc.nce and determination. For nearly a week the Zeppelins took oft' every day to bomb England, covering the country from Edinburgh in the north to London in the south. In the first attack on March 31, .seven Zeppelins .set off" to raid London. Only five i-eached the British coast, and the lead ship, /, 15. while approaching London, was heavily damaged by anti aircraft gunfire at Dartford. An aeroplane piloted by SecondLieutenant Brandon also succeeded in dropping explosive darts on the Zeppelin. Breithaupt, her skipper, made a plucky and determined attempt to reach Belgium, jettisoning all his bombs as well as all but four hours' fuel, the machine guns, motor covers, spare parts, and also the radio after sending out a last distress message. But shortly after midnight, with L 15 down to 500 feet over the the overstrained framework collapsed in two places and the Zeppelin plunged into the sea a mile from the Kentish Knock Lightship. The elevator man was drowned; the 17 survivors were later rescued from the top platform by the destroyer Vulture, but only after being ordered to strip naked and embark no more than three to a boat. Next day the wrecked
Thames Estuary,
Zeppelin sank under tow off' Westgate. L 13 was also seriously damaged by gunfire while attempting to bomb an explosives factory at Stowmarket; Mathy abandoned his attack on London and headed for Hage, where he landed safely at 0,':i30. L 14 and L If) both claimed to have bombed London, but only reached Thamsehaven and Brentwood respectixely. L22, under Martin Dietrich, dropped her bombs on Cleethorpes: one, striking a chapel housing soldiers of the Manchester Regiment, killed 29 people and injured 53. During the next fi\e days, a few Zeppelins were sent out against England: but noni' i-eached London and the greatest damage done was the burning of a whisky waiehouse in Leith, inflicting £44.000 worth of damage. On the night of April 4 the four ships dispatciied were recalled due to bad weather, and landed at such distant locations as Dresden and Diiren in the Rhineland. The ^leat scries of raids was ineffective, but even the German Naval Staff, a memorandum to the Kaiser, was so deluded as to claim that in London 'it was reported that a big fire had broken out at West India Docks, and that at Tilbury Docks a munitions boat exploded (400 killed). Serious explosions also occurred at the Surrey Commercial Docks and at a factory, close to the Lower Road, at wliich shells were filled with explosives.'
m
Single casualty
new-moon period at the end of April coincided with the homhardment of Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft i)y the High Seas Fleet on the early morning of April 25, 1916. The night before, eight Zeppelins, led by Strasser aboard L21, were out hoping to attack London, hut they had to abandon the raid in the face of strong south-south-west winds and heavy 'fhe first attack of the
1
438
Three ships claimed to have attacked Norwich, and one Cambridge. Actually five houses were wrecked in Newmarket, and the only fatal casualty was a woman who died of fright when one of the raiders unloaded 45 bombs on the village of Dilham clouds.
in Norfolk.
The older Zeppelins, L6,L7 and L 9, covered the Fleet operation. L9. hovering between the main body of the High Seas Fleet and the bombarding battle-cruisers, had a narrow escape when two aircraft from the naval air station at Great Yarmouth dived on her and dropped bombs. The next raid occurred on May 2, when eight Zeppelins were sent out to attack 'England north, chief target Rosyth, Forth Bridge, English Fleet". Freshening south winds caused six of the ships to deviate to the Midlands, and there most of them united in bombing Danby High Moor in Yorkshire. An incendiary bomb finm /. 23 started a fire in the heather which attracted the attention of L 16 who reported bombing 'clearly recognisable railroad tracks and embankments'. L 13 also probably dumped her bombs on the moor, though her commander, Eduard Prolss, reported
dropping them on Hartleptool which was briefly glimpsed from overhead amid heavy snow. Of the two ships which held on for Scotland, L 14 was only briefly over land. She failed to find Edinburgh in heavy clouds, and optimistically claimed to have sunk 'two large warships' in the Firth of Forth. She was in fact over the Firth of Tay, and her bombs fell in fields near Arbroath. L20, under Stabbert, failed to sight any landmarks for hours, and when she needed bearings the most, found her signals would not reach Germany because of an ice-coated antenna. At 0100 hours, when the clouds rolled away, Stabbert was horrified to find himself, not over the Forth, but far north over Loch Ness, where he had been carried by a south-east wind. He at once put his ship on an easterly course and at 0400 hours reached the coast, not at the Forth as he thought, but at Peterhead, 100 miles north. Not until 0700 hours did Stabbert determine his position by descending low and shouting an inquiry to a small steamer, from which he learned that he was in 58 North, 3 East. From here it was impossible to reach Germany on the fuel remaining on board, so he steered for the NorThe
her back broken and in two pieces, Norwegian fjord after her forced landing on May 4, 1916 L 20
lies in a
wegian coast near Stavanger. The landing here was difficult due stiff, gusty winds off the mountains and down the fiords; the ship broke her back and ended up a floating derelict in the HafsQord. Some of the crew who jumped into the water were treated as shipwrecked mariners and repatriated; the others, including Stabbert, were interned. This was the last raid of the spring, further attacks being suspended because of the short nights of approaching summer, and also because of the increasing naval activity leading up to the Battle of Jutland on May 31. Scheer's original plan contemplated to
the use of the Zeppelins as defensive scouts, while he carried out a bombardment of Sunderland designed to lure portions of the Grand Fleet to sea where they could be attacked in detail. Unfavourable weather for days on end prevented the departure of the Zeppelins; finally on May 30 Scheer activated an alternative plan sending his fleet up the eastern North Sea with the Danish coast covering the right flank. Thus, in a negative way, Strasser's Zeppelins determined both the time and the place of the Battle of Jutland. Five Zeppelins belatedly took to the air on May 31, but saw none of the action due to low cloud. A signal from Scheer to Strasser requesting airship reconnaissance off Horns Reef early next morning was intercepted by the British, but not forwarded to Jellicoe, who continued south to cut off the High Seas Fleet from Wilhelmshaven. Strasser sent out five Zeppelins on the morning of June 1. One, Lll, under Schiitze, sighted and accurately
reported the presence of part of the Grand Fleet and the BattleCruiser F'leet north of Terschelling. Scheer, howevei'. paid more attention to a report from L 24 of a phantom fleet in Jammer Bay on the north coast of Denmark. This, he believed, was the defeated Grand Fleet, while Schiitze's report I'eferred to 'reinforcements from the Channel'. Unlike the armv's airship service, which was entering the penumbra of eclipse, the Naval Airship Division still enjoyed the full confidence of the Commander-in-Chief of'the High Seas Fleet, the Naval Staff, and the German public. With a new .series of monsters of 2,000.000 cubic foot capacity coming foi-ward. the German navy was preparing a dramatic win-or-peiMsh campaign against London. Further Reading
H G Fire over England the German air raids ot World War (Leo Cooper 1982) Gamble. C. F, Snowden, he Story of a North Sea Air Station (Uxtord
Castle,
I
,
I
University Press 1928) Jones. H. A., The War the Air. Vol III (Clarendon Press 1931) Lehmann. Ernst A and Mingos. Howard. The Zeppelins (Putnam & 1928) Robinson, Douglas H,, The Zeppelin Combat (Foulis & Co 1962)
m
m
[For Douglas Robinson's biography, see page 991.]
Co
tactics and technology "'" e first half of 1916 had led to the development of the Fokker Eindecker, and the second saw it become the dominant factor in the skies. But naturally the introduction of the new weapon led to new countertactics on the part of the Allies. These were the beginnings of the 'dogfighting' technique and its protagonists, the 'aces'. Meanwhile, the less glamorous but basically more important tasks of artillery observation and reconnaissance were developing apace, as were the infant bombing i_ forces of the warring powers. D. B. Tuhbs. Belowi^^WW C V armed reconnaissance machine, which went into proaBpfon towards the
*^'middleofl916
\
The period from August
1,
1915
to
June
30,
1916 opens with the
successful use of a synchronised machine gun and closes on the eve of the Battle of the Somme. On August 1 nine Royal Flying Corps two-seaters, flown solo to increase the bomb-load, raided Douai aerodrome, home of the newly introduced Fokker E I single-seater monoplanes. Oswald Boelcke, enjoying his Sunday morning sleep when the raiders first appeared, failed to score first
owing to his gun jamming, but his pupil, Max Immelmann, firing a machine gun for the first time in anger, wounded a British pilot in the left elbow and forced him to land. The 'Fokker Scourge' so richly advertised by publicists on both sides, had begun. So great was the agitation during the next six months in the British press and Parliament, and so elaborate the glorification of Boelcke and Immelmann in Germany, both of them receiving the Pour le Merite order, a decoration whose nearest British equivalent would be a GCB (not a VC as is often imagined), that it is tempting to see the whole period in terms of a Fokker syndrome. In fact the new armed C-Class two-seaters, which also started coming into service during the summer of 1915, seemed at first to have been quite as formidable as Tony Fokker's Eindekker. The important thing was that at last, after almost a year of unarmed docility, the German air force had begun to shoot back. The effect of this was felt immediately by the French Bomber Groups based on the Malzeville plateau, near Nancy, who had previously had things all their own way. The extent of these operations is not usually appreciated. The French had been regularly visiting the Saar valley and South Germany, with particularly devastating effect on the explosives plant at Rothweil. When, therefore, on August 9, GB 4 (No. 4 Bomber Group) lost four airincluding one of the escorting Voisin avio/is-canons to particularly offensive Aviatiks', it came as a shock. However, operations continued on a very large scale. On August 25 a French formation of no less than 62 bombers attacked the steelworks and blast furnaces at Dilligen, dropping converted 155-mm artillery shells, the standard heavy bomb of the period. Great damage was caused by molten metal, and considerable loss of life. Four of the
craft,
bombers were damaged by AA fire and two shot down. German 'Archies' were quite good. At the beginning of September one group (GB 2) was posted to Humieres in the Pas de Calais, but the remaining three pressed on with their raiding, with missiles both old and new: on September 6 they dropped 93 90-mm bombs and 8 155-mm, as well as a 580-mm Cheddite torpedo. A week later they flew up the Moselle Valley to Treves railway junction, causing three days' interruption to rail communications. The risks to the fragile Maurice Farman and Caudron biplanes, and to the strong but cumbersome steel-built Voisins were very substantial. The Parabellum guns on the rear ring-mountings of the Albatros, Aviatik and LVG CIs were better than the Hotchkiss, and it was now admitted that the 37-mm canon, designed for train-busting, was of little use in air-to-air fighting. Furthermore the French biplanes were desperately slow when laden, and their pusher layout provided a large blind spot which German two-seater and scout pilots quickly learned to exploit. By the end of September daylight bombing from Malzeville had been discontinued and the bomber groups dispersed to other sectors, where losses continued to mount and the morale of crews to decline. For a month or so bombing was carried on from Humieres against medium-range (Cambrai) and short-range (Lens) targets, but in December the Group's Voisins were taken off daylight operations. GB 3 returned to Malzeville for training in formation flying, at which the French were pioneers, and night-bombing, which this group began in earnest on April 10, 1916. During the French Champagne offensive of October 1915, GB 1, GB2 and GB 4 mounted some heavy attacks, 62 aircraft raiding the German HQ town of Vouziers on October 2 as part of the plan to clear the Paris-Nancy railway line and liberate Chalons-sur-Marne. They were met by armed German two-seaters and lost two machines. Outclassed and demoralised, the Voisin crews asked for an escort of Nieuport fighters. This offensive equipment was successful in keeping attackers at bay, but seriously curtailed the bombers' range, an-^ "'er a 19-bomber raid on Bozancourt on the 12th, escortt ree NicuTOrts. the rest returned to Malzeville for formatio. ghtu.g zvr The need for true formation flyi. ch v..ts to bpulsory in the British RFC in Janu, 916, w?:- Ir by that remarkable fire-eater, Capitaine Ha;
MF 29,
who
drilled his
Maurice Fari
'
iiots to
'\.-':\<,'.
ii_
by the centre machine, whi le himself he commission to drive off attackers and, from greater altitua. the position of each bomb-burst. He raiiUd the Roessler pois gas works at Dornach on August 26, 1915, and bombed the Aviai factory at Freiburg-im-Breisgau so effectively that the works tion, led
1442
i
;
were transferred to Leipzig. On September 25 the Germans placed a price of 25,000 marks on his head. 'Splendid!' wrote Happe, in a note dropped behind the lines. 'You will know my machine by its red wheels. Don't bother to shoot at anyone else.' This was after a three-machine raid on Rothweil from which only Happe returned, having managed in a Maurice Farman to ward off Boelcke flying a two-seater Albatros. Another favourite target was the German aerodrome at Habsheim, from which long-range reconnaissance aircraft kept a constant watch above the departements adjoining the German border, it being a recurrent nightmare to the High Command that French armies might one day burst through the Belfort Gap and overrun south Germany. It was Happe who modified the poor old 80-hp rotary-engined Farman by fitting a 130-hp water-cooled Canton-Unne, providing in this 'Type Happe' or 'camel-backed' Farman better performance and longer range. He was to continue day bombing, undaunted, until October 12, 1916. France was the only Power to possess a true bomber force, apart from the two 'Carrier Pigeon Units' attached to German GHQ, which were more in the nature of general purpose squadrons. If most of the French bombers retired from the fray they could hardly be blamed. The shortcomings of the Maurice Farman and Voisin have been noted. The twin-engined Caudron G IV was a failure because the observer could hardly shoot backwards because of the pilot, and its two engine nacelles made deadly blind spots on the flank. Supplies of Breguet-Michelin IV were held up because of the failure of a promised 220-hp Renault engine and the type was powered by the 130-hp Canton-Unne which gave it a top speed of about "70 mph and a ceiling of 13,000 feet, with a useful load of 650 pounds. Pilots did not like it. It stalled easily, was liable to spin without warning, had a long take-off run and was difficult to land; also, they disapproved of the armament and criticised the forward and downward view. Fortunately, when it came to escort and fighter aircraft the French had the best in the world, thanks to Morane-Saulnier and the Nieuport fie6e' designed by Gustave Delage. Fortunately, too, there were enough of them to arm some of the RFC. Fighters or Scouts? France, long before Britain and Germany, saw the need of specialised fighter units. She was fortunate in a tradition of sporting flying which dated back to the first European aviation meets of 1908-10. A French engineer, Seguin, had invented the rotary type of air-cooled engine around which all the most manoeuvrable aeroplanes were built, and the Staff early saw the wisdom of attaching an escadrille de chasse to each army. These units had been harrying German two-seaters, notably in Artois and Champagne, since January 1915. There were those in the Royal Flying Corps, including General Henderson, commanding the RFC in the field, who shared this view, but they were overruled by those who believed that one or two single-seater 'Scouts' — the term is significant — should be attached to each squadron for the use of the CO or other selected pilots when routine duties permitted. Additionally two-seater 'fighting machines' should be apportioned as available for patrol and escort duties. The Germans thought the same. The Fokker monoplane, when it appeared in July 1915, equipped with that most famous of all German 'secret weapons', a machine gun synchronised to fire through the revolving airscrew, was issued to selected Feldfliegerabteilungen (general purpose squadrons) including FlAbt 62, Douai. Here it was flown by Lieutenant Oswald Boelcke, recently distinguished by having shot down an Allied aeroplane from his
new C-class biplane, and his pupil, Fdhnrich Max Immelmann. Before discussing fighter aircraft and the tactics worked out by their pilots, it is logical to glance at aerial warfare as a whole, as it stood in the autumn of 1915. On both sides the General Staff now realised the importance of the air arm. Army units brought back strategic information based on long reconnaissance while corps' squadrons patrolled the lines, photographing the trenches, spotting for the artillery, locating hostile batteries, attacking observation balloons, bombing enemy aerodromes, and foiling the attempts of enemy aircraft to carry out similar duties. An in-
genious 'clock' code now enabled RFC observers to pinpoint the range and direction of their battery's shooting to within a few vards by means of a two-digit wireless signal (for example A3 ould signify a shot falling 50 yards due east of the target). otographic equipment, although still fairly primitive, was im.'ng, and on the German side, a photographic expert, LieuFricke, was soon to win the Pour le Merite for organising nch of the service. General H. M. Trenchard took over from General Hent in time for the Battle of Loos in September 1915, the i
i'
The knights of the sky' — new heroes for the sensation
seeking masses at
home — and some of the weapons which
they used and right: A French pilot (based on a picture of Lieutenant Nungesser), and a
Left
German
pilot (right).
The choice
of flying
clothing was conditioned by the time of year and the altitude at which the pilot expected to fly. In winter or at height the cold is intense. and privately purchased fur-lined clothing was warmer. Below: Aircraft armament. 1. The old style — an unsynchronised Hotchkiss on a Deperdussin. aerodynamically appalling and also inefficient. 2. The British .303-inch Lewis gun. sometimes seen without the casing around the barrel and gas cylinder. 3. The
German standard
flexible gun for rear defence. the 7.92-mm Parabellum. a lighter version of the Spandau' and usually seen with a fretted water jacket. 4. The Austrian Schwarzlose 8-mm machine gun. When adapted for aircraft use the gun was not very successful as its range was short and its rate of fire low. 5. The standard British fixed gun. the .303-Inch Vickers, also used by the French 6. A German 7.92-mm LMG 08/15 twin machine gun mounting. (These guns are known popularly as Spandaus after their place of manufacture.) This gun was the
<
standard fixed armament on German aircraft, twin mountings starting in the middle of 1916
JLSi
-^
1443
I
Royal Flying Corps comprised three Wings and a Headquarters squadron -a very fully employed force, for whereas the land forces of the BEF had increased from four to some 30 divisions, the strength of the RFC had grown only from four squadrons to 12 (equipped with a highly miscellaneous collection of aeroplanes to the number of 189 serviceable aircraft in France, and four Kite Balloon sections manned by the RNAS). In view of the Parliamentary outcry in the spring of the following year, it is often assumed that re-equipment of the RFC with manoeuvrable two-seater combat aircraft and the first armed single-seater scouts, came about directly as a result of the Fokker Eindekker, and that Allied interrupter-gears were copied from the Germans. A glance at the Order of Battle before Loos will show that several of the 'replies' were already in service, although not yet in sufficient quantity. For example, No 5 Squadron possessed a Flight of Vickers FB 5 'Gun Bus', and No 11 was fully equipped with this type. The first FE 2b had been flown to France on May 20, 1915; by September No 6 Squadron had four. Supplies of this Royal Aircraft Factory design were slow in coming through, but by the end of the year 32 were in service. Nearly every squadron owned its tractor scout, but at first the lack of an interrupter-gear made these difficult to arm. Local experiments were made, however, and a number of gun-mountings evolved, ranging from a 45-degree horizontal Lewis firing abeam to miss the airscrew, to the most eff"ective, found on Captain L. A. Strange's Martinsyde S I biplane as early as May 1915, which comprised a Lewis gun on the upper centre section, high enough to clear the propeller. This was the layout adopted on the Nieuport Bebe, used first by the French and later by the RNAS and RFC, and which was to bring such success to Georges Guynemer and Albert Ball. Of the two British pusher single-seaters which were to deal so stoutly with the Fokker threat during preparations for the Somme battle (the DH 2 and FE 8) both were on the drawing-board before Immelmann's initial victory on August 1. In the meanwhile pilots made do with the two most numerous two-seaters, namely the Morane Parasol and the BE 2c, which in design and conception could not have been more different. Of the Parasol, a well-known Morane pilot. Captain Cecil Lewis, has remarked that there was 'only one position to which it automatically reverted and that
The aircraft was 'ropey, treacherous, permitted no liberties and needed attention every second she was in the air'. In short very much a 'pilot's aeroplane', and it is no coincidence that famous French pilots often flew the Parasol solo on offensive patrol. It was in a Morane L-type of No 3 Squadron that J. B. McCudden had a successful brush with Immelmann's Fokker, holding it at bay with short bursts from a Lewis gun fired from the shoulder. A great advantage of the was a
vertical nosedive'.
dangerous
1444
to fly,
Morane was that the observer sat behind the pilot close enough shouted conversation, and with an excellent field of fire upwards, sideways and behind. This was very different from the
for
BE
2c,
the type chosen by the
RFC
for quantity production.
The BE would have made an excellent civil aircraft — in fact it looked surprisingly like the same designer's DH Moth biplane of the late 1920s, as used by Amy Johnson and others. One trouble was that the observer sat in front, tucked away below the centresection and hedged about with wires and struts. His armament was a Lewis gun which could be fired from the shoulder or plugged into any of several spigot mountings disposed about the cockpit. Another drawback was the machine's 'inherent stability', which
made it a steady observation-platform but discouraged rapid manoeuvring. One wonders why, with a mounting casualty-list as prompter, the authorities never revised the seating of the BE, placing the observer behind to guard the tail, as the Germans did
when the C-class two-seaters replaced the B-class in the of 1915.
summer
A 'joyous At
first,
scrap' however,
BE
pilots quite held their
own, even against
E III. One such 'joyous scrap' is documented from both sides. On December 29 Lieutenant Sholto Douglas (later Marshal of the RAF Lord Douglas of Kirtleside) made a reconnaissance to Cambrai and St Quentin escorted by another BE of No 8 Squadthe Fokker
Near Cambrai, says Douglas's report: 'We were set upon by Huns. Glen, my escort, was shot down, followed by two of the Huns. I was then set upon by the remainder. Child, my observer, downed one Hun. We fought the remaining three for half an hour. Petrol began to get low and engine sump was hit. So, relying on the stability of the BE 2c as against the Fokker, I came down in steep spiral to 10 feet above the ground.' This fight is described from the German side as well, for one of the Fokkers was flown by Lieutenant Oswald Boelcke, who in one of his letters home describes Douglas as 'a tough fellow who defended himself stoutly'. Boelcke forced the BE down from 6,500 feet to 3,000 feet when, he says, it should have been an easy matter to shoot the Englishman down because he had mortally wounded his observer, but Boelcke had been in two previous fights and now ran out of ammunition. The two continued to circle round one another but neither could do the other any harm. 'Finally Immelmann came to the rescue and the fight began all over again. We managed to force him down to 300 feet and waited for him to land.' Fortunately Immelmann's gun jammed, as machine guns of all makes did at that time, and Douglas was able to land just behind the French lines. There is more about this encounter in Lord Douglas's book Years of Combat, published in 1963. He comments on his lucky ron. six
escape, and explains that Child, his observer, was not in fact killed. Oswald Boelcke was led into believing that he had killed my observer because Child, who was facing backwards and firing over my head, became so physically sick through the violence of the way in which I was having to toss our aircraft about that he finally fell over and threw up all over me.' So much for the story that BE 2cs were too inherently stable to be thrown about. It should be noted, too, that in this fight Lieutenant Child shot down one of the Fokkers and Douglas records that (]len, his escort, had shot down another a few days before. In the early days of the Fokker menace there was controversy amongst BE pilots as to the best thing to do. Some, including Douglas, advised turning in under the Fokker as it dived to attack, thus getting out of the way, others, of whom Glen was one, believed in holding a steady course to provide one's observer with a steady gun-platform. It is interesting to note that the RFC (and especially the Third Wing) were sending at least one escort with
each reconnaissance aircraft, while Boelcke and Immelmann were still stalking on their own, not as a pair. Tactics were still highly personal. The usual Fokker method was to attack in a dive; it is uncertain whether the famous 'Immelmann turn', in which the pilot pulls up into the first half of a loop to gain height then stall turns to face his adversary again, was Immelmann's own invention or that of the Bristol Scout pilot Gordon Bell during a brush with an Eindekker. It was certainly effective. So was a ploy used by the peacetime actor and Gun Bus pilot Robert Loraine of No 5 Squadron, obeying his CO's injunction to be 'more aggre.ssive". 'I had asked Lubbock (the observer) to hold his fire until I gave him the order, for I meant to engage at the closest possible quarters. As we drew near to the German, approaching each other nose to nose, I pretended to outclimb him. He opened fire at about 400 yards, and I stood my machine almost on its tail to lure him on. As he came, I quickly dived, passing just below him with about five feet between my upper plane and his wheels, firing from both guns meanwhile, continuous fire with the enemy pilot as target.' The Albatros fell 20 yards behind the British front-line trenches; Loraine, having over-revved his engine in a dive, force-landed neatly in a ploughed field. At this time the Gun Bus was employed on ud hoc tactical duties, for example, to drive away aircraft interfering with wire-cutting near Ypres. After Loraine had fitted experimentally a 110-hp Le Rhone engine and coarse-pitch propeller in place of the 80-hp Monosoupape Gnome, the Vickers was found to be 4 mph faster than a BE 2c. Individual aircraft varied enormously, a fact which must be borne in mind when assessing published figures for speed and climb. For example, Loraine tested a HE 2c, taking one hour to reach 6,300 feet and one hour minutes to reach 8,200 feet. With a similar engine
W
left Oswald Boelcke. the greatest figure in the early German air Above right: Immelmann, Boelcke s pupil and rival, with the wreckage of one of his victims, a BE 2. Below left: German floatplanes,
Above force
mostly Friedrichshafen types, used for coastal reconnaissance
same airframe he reached 8,700 feet in an hour. Until January 1916 air warfare was a very personal matter, not only in the dropping of messages over the lines, but in the picturesqueness of individual incidents: Guynemer, one Sunday morning after shooting down a German over Compiegne, where he lived, spotted his father coming out of church, landed beside the road and asked Papa to 'please find my Boche'. Another time, when the non-commissioned Guynemer landed beside an artillery battery, having shot down a German in flames, the battery commander fired a salvo in his honour and, .stripping the gold braid from his own cap, presented it to the victorious pilot bidding him 'wear it when you, too, are promoted captain'. However, aerial fighting was becoming ever more organised. During the French Champagne offensive of October, the Germans wisely decided to group their single-seaters, forming small Kampfeinsitzerkoninnindo or Single-seater Detachments. Immelin the
The Tokker Scourge'
British opposition for the
Fokker Monoplane,
the Vickers FB 5 Gun Bus. Engine: Gnome Monosoupape, 100 hp. Armament: one .303inch Lewis gun. Speed: 70 mph at 5,000 feet. Climb: 5,000 feet in 16 nnins. Weight empty/ loaded: 1,220/2,050 lbs. Span: 36V2 feet.
Lengf/7;27feet2ins
Variations on a
theme — the manoeuvre
supposedly invented by Max Immelmann. For the sake of simplicity, two possible uses of the Immelmann turn have been combined into one. The diagram should be read from the bottom right hand corner and follow the German aircraft round the circle. If the Fokker were attacked from behind, the pilot could pull up into a half loop, and then half roll to right his aircraft, which would then be higher than the attacker, travelling in the opposite direction, and so able to escape. If he then saw another Allied aircraft, he could then reverse the procedure, half rolling and looping, to dive down onto his unsuspecting victim from behind. The beauty of the turn was that the Fokker could then repeat the initial
manoeuvre
to fly off or to put himself in ideal position for another attack
"^^.
*-
1446
an
The winter
1915/1916 was the time of the a mediocre, prewar, underpowered aircraft, the Fokker Monoplane, dominated the skies over the Western Front solely because it was armed with a machine gun synchronised to fire between the blades 'Fokker
of
Scourge— when
of a revolving propeller. A very small number of machines were fitted with two guns, but the loss of performance made this hardly worth while. 1. Oberursel U 1 100 hp rotary engine. 2. Wooden propeller. 3. Forward fuel tank. 4.
'Bungee' rubber cord undercarriage suspension bar. 5. Primer pump. 6. Main undercarriage structure, anchorage point for the main flying wires. 7. Wire-spoked wheels, 8. Built up ribs. 9. Main spars. 10. Leather torsion strips. 11. Rear of undercarriage structure, carrying the pulleys for the wing warping wires. 12. Wicker-work pilot's seat. 13. Fuselage bracing wires. 14. Wooden fin and elevator, with no fixed surfaces. 15. Tail skid, sprung with bungee' rubber. 16. Welded steel tube fuselage structure. 17. Doped linen covering. 18. Rear fuel tank. 19. Pylon forthe landing wires. 20. 7.92-mm LMG 08/15
synchronised machine gun
i
1447
mann remained at Douai but Boelcke left for an advanced landing ground near Rethel to fly what became known as 'barrage patrols' against French fighter, corps and reconnaissance aircraft. He returned to Douai in December and continued, almost alone amongst German pilots, to patrol behind the Allied lines where Fokker pilots were not encouraged to venture owing to the secrecy of the synchronising gear and the unreliability of the engine. The concept of barrage patrols was more fully worked out at \'erdun, where the great German offensive was launched along a nine-mile front on February 21, 1916. Here too, Boelcke fought his own private war, 'alles gam aiif eigene Faust'. Bored with escorting observation machines, he obtained permission to leave the rest of the KEK and establish a private landing-ground beside the Meuse. only seven miles from the front with one other pilot, an NCO and 15 men, after di.scharging himself from hospital to shoot down a Voisin which bothered the neighbouihood. Here was the true offensive spirit" .so dear to 1 renchard and the RFC. At first the idea of barrage patrols worked well. The aim was to drive the French air force out of the sky. and every available aircraft was concentrated above the lines, except for those giving close support to the infantry, forerunners of the contact patrol machines employed on the Somme. The French, in their slow
Farmans, Caudrons and Voisins were quickly downcast, but the defensive thinking of the German High Command soon proved a costly mistake- Not only did the barrage fail to keep out all intruders, but the concentration of so many pilots on this task meant that vital jobs were left undone. Counterbattery work was neglected, to the great damage of German ground forces, and, most important of all, reconnaissance machines did not fly where they should. Had they done so, the High Command would have learned that the Verdun citadel was largely dependent upon one road for its supplies, a road used by some 8.000 lorries a day. Had they known this and bombed the convoys. Verdun might have proved a rout for the French. Instead, the French underwent a change of heart. Petain took over and demanded from his fliers offensive tactics. Hurriedly moved in from other sectors the escadrllles de chassc were regrouped under Commandant de Rose. Chef d' Aviation of the Second Army. Among them came Brocard and the rest of his Storks, brought from the Sixth Army in Champagne. They found no lack of targets. The nimble Nieuport single-seater 'sesquiplanes" (for the lower plane was almost too small to count found new German fighters against them, including the Halberstadt D I biplane ilOO-hp Mercedes Pfalz monoplanes (which were almost indistinguishable from Fokkers and later marks of the Fokker i
i,
Manoeuvrable, and with the same firepower as DH2 retained a pusher layout
the Eindekker. the
itself, which was now feeling its age. The extremely 'clean' LFG Roland C III had a useful turn of speed 103 mphi, far higher than (
the other current German two-seaters such as the Rumpler C I (95 mph) and the LVG C II. whose maximum was 81 mph. The Storks suffered severely. Guynemer was shot down, wounded in the face and arm; Brocard, his CO, wounded. Lieutenant Deullen wounded. Lieutenant Peretti killed. But the French had regained the offensive, and to foster this spirit Commandant de Rose took a leaf from the German book and instituted the 'ace' system, announcing the score as follows: Chaput 7, Nungesser 6 and a balloon. Navarre 4, Lenoir 4, Auger and Pelletier d'Oisy 3. and several pilots with two apiece. Guynemer's tally, counting his work on two-seaters, was five. Meanwhile in the British sector flying hours mounted fast. In July 1915 the hours flown were 2.100, in August 2,674. In September, with the opening of the Battle of Loos they leapt to 4.740. New squadrons w-ere continually being formed, trained — after a fashion — and flown to France. By the end of June, 1916 there were 27 operational squadrons with BEF, flying 421 aeroplanes, together with 216 aeroplanes at aircraft depots, and four kite balloon squadrons now handled by the RFC. The RNAS Dunkirk were also most active, not only against shipping, docks, submarines and Zeppelins, but also on bombing raids, working closely with the French, with whom they shared the aerodrome at St Pol. Dunkirk. They had also obtained some Nieuport fighters. From the RFC communiques it is clear that 'Offensive Spirit' was never lacking: nothing could be more 'offensive' than the action of the BE 2c of No 2 Squadron which, 'on artillerj' registration', climbed to engage an LVG 4.000 feet above although armed only with a rifle. By late December, however, BEs were better armed, and to make up for it the Germans had learned to make multiple attacks. Fokkers were numerous and aggressive, often attacking three at a time. Casualties were numerous amongst the inexperienced new crews until, profiting from Third Wing lessons, HQ RFC issued an order on January 14 that every reconnaissance aircraft must be accompanied by at least three other machines, in the closest possible formation. At the same time the growth of the RFC made necessary the adoption of larger units than the Wing, and Brigades were established, each comprising a Corps Wing and an Army Wing, one brigade being assigned to each army. The Army Wings took over most of the long-range and high-performance aircraft, and the policy of arming each squadron with a single type of aircraft became standard as supplies improved. Single-seater and two-seater fighter machines were no longer scattered throughout the service. The first homogeneous fighter squadron. No 11, had arrived in France on July 25, 1915, armed with Vickers Gun Bus two-seaters. The first single-seater Fighter Squadron to go into action reached France on Februarv 7, 1916, No 24, under Major L. G. Hawker. VC. No 29 followed on March 25 and No 32 on May 28. These neat little pusher biplanes were fitted either with 100-hp Gnome Monosoupape or 110-hp Le Rhone. Once their habits were understood they proved popular
in the RFC. and highly unpopular with Fokker pilots, who had now met their match. The new formation tactics, too, preserved Formations from harm. Tiie provision of escorts was by no means easy: but it was now realised on both sides, that a pilot cannot fight and keep the whole sky under observation at the same time. He needs a second pair of eyes.
Between ihem the \'ickers Gun Bus. the FE 2b. and the DH 2 regained the mastery of the air. The Fokker Scourge may be said to have lasted six months. It was exceedingly tough while it lasted, especially to under-trained and inexperienced crews, who now formed a large proportion of the RFC. As Maurice Baring. Trenchard's ADC. wrote at the end of October, the RFC 'had been so used to doing what it wanted without serious opposition that not enough attention was paid to this menace, and the monoplane, in the hands of a pilot like Immelmann, was a serious, and for us a disastrous, factor. But ilie point is that our work never stopped in spite of this. The work of the armies was done. Fokker Scourge or no Fokker Scourge".
The
original
Fokker E
I.
80-hp monoplane, underwent several
changes. With clipped wings and a 100-hp Oberursel it was known as the E II; redesigned with 31' 2,'" wings this became the most famous Eindckkei of all. the Fokker E III. A captured 8U-hp Le Rhone engine iwhich had mechanically operated valves, pot atmospheric inlet valves like the Oberursel performed better. Experiments were made with the 160-hp two-row Le Rhone radial from a special French Morane, and by November 1915 a prototype E IV was flying with a two-row 160-hp Oberursel. Armament and synchronising gears also progressed. The classic di ve-and-shoot approach required concentrated fire for very short periods. Boelcke asked for and got a twin-Spandau installation. Immelmann asked for three, with the big Le Rhone to carry the extra load. He also had his guns tilted upward at an angle of 15 degrees. Boelcke said they should be aligned in the direction of flight. He reported that the 160-hp E IV was outclimbed by the Nieuport and that performance at height was unsatisfactory. Also, he said the engine quickly lost tune, and that fast turns in the E I\' could only be made by blipping the engine oH'. He recommended the development of a new fighter, preferably a biplane. Ironically, the worst point of the Fokker was the very feature that had brought it fame. The mechanical synchronising gear linkages gave perpetual trouble, and instances of pilots shooting away their own airscrews were very frequent. It happened to Boelcke. and it is recorded that Anthony Fokker himself put 16 shots through his own propeller. This happened to Immelmann twice, i
\
and a third such accident may have occasioned his death during a fight with an FE 2b of No 2*5 Squadron on June 18, 1916. The British naturally claimed a victory, for a bogey was laid. Immelmann's score at this time stood at 15, Boelcke's at 18. The latter's remarks on his colleague's death are convincing. 'Immelmann met his death by the most stupid accident,' he wrote home. 'The newspaper stories about an airfight are non.sense. Part of his propeller flew off", and the broken flying-wires, whirling round, ripped the fuselage apart.' There will always be argument, but at least the 'stupid accident" was not uncommon. With the exception of th^ Nieuport Scout, with Lewis gun on the upper plane fired by Bowden cable, the most effective antiFokker aircraft were pushers, whose rear-mounted engine and propeller allowed a clear cone of fire in a forward direction. The work started by the slow but effective Vickers FB 5 Gun Bus was carried on by another successful two-seater, the FE 2b. The singleseater 2 was also a pusher, and it was pushers which largely put an end to the Scourge. Meanwhile Allied tvpes of interruptergear had been developed, alid contrary to rumoui" they were not copied from the Germans. The first German example was captured on Apiil
DH
[For D. B. Tubb's biography and Further Reading, see page 541.]
^
\
«
M\ X
X
1449
7T£
%fea '&•'
The Trentino Offensive
At any time before the month of May, Alpine regions above the 1,000-metre mark are subheavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures. This did not prevent Conrad von
ject to
Hotzendorf from planning an offensive in the Trentino Alps for April 1916. KurtPebaU. Below: Winter soldiering on the Italian Front
General Franz Conrad von Hotzendorff was addicted to dreaming up wideranging schemes and strategies. This vein of fantasy shows up at its most fascinating in his plan for a devastating attack on Italy in the spring of 1916. During a strategy review in the German Headquarters at Pless on December 10 he first put forward his idea to General Erich von Falkenhayn. With every appearance of having given the matter careful thought, he proposed that they should undertake a joint offensive against Italy as soon as mopping-up operations in the Balkans were complete. Conrad was determined to bring Falkenhayn round to his point of view, and enthused at length about the possibility of mounting an attack from the strongly fortified Austrian positions in the high plains of Lafraun (Laveronel, and Vielgeruth (Folgaria). Sweeping out of these strongholds in the Lessini Alps, he insisted, they would be able to cut a swathe deep in the flank of the Italian army. He estimated that about 16 divisions would be needed for the attack and that it should be possible to push the 12j-mile Italian mountain front backwards in the direction of Thiene and Bassano, right back to the south-eastern foothills of the Alps. Conclusive victory there opened up yet further possibilities. Conrad envisaged a lightning attack that would carry the attacking army across 30 miles of lowlying plains to Venice itself. Once the Austrian army reached the Adriatic coast, the Italian army would be forced to concede a strategic defeat, and Italy herself might even be compelled to sign a separate peace with the Central Powers. There was one major problem to be overcome. Since the end of November 1915, Conrad and Falkenhayn had disagreed bitterly about their joint conduct of the war and Conrad now feared that his plans might not find a sympathetic audience strongly
among hayn
his allies.
granted
He was
Conrad's
right.
plan
Falken-
only
the
briefest consideration before announcing that, in his opinion, such an offensive would
require the use of at least 25 divisions. In a letter to Conrad on December 11, 1915, Falkenhayn explained that 'The use of such a large number of divisions can only be justified if the operation can be guaranteed to produce decisive change in the course of the war. Unfortunately, I
cannot agree with you about this. Even if this campaign should succeed, it would not be the death-blow for Italy.' He went on to make the point that Rome was powerless to sign anything without the consent of the Entente, 'for Italy is dependent on financial aid, food and coal. A is out of the question'. Falkenhayn seized on the occasion to
them
for
separate peace
give Conrad further warnings about the utter impracticability of his plan, pointing out that only one railway line served the entire area where the attack was planned to take place. In such a situation, only the crudest strategic and tactical plans for an offensive could be made. Indeed, he did not really believe that it would be possible to transport the necessary heavy artillery into mountain area, the operational 'especially as we are bound to allow one battery per 150 yards along the entire front'. But Conrad had no intention of allowing himself to be talked down. In his reply to Falkenhayn on December 18 1915, he explained that: 'I consider the offen-
sive against Italy to be the necessary prelude to the final and decisive victory. 'This victory must be gained in 1916; many reasons make success not merely necessary, but imperative for the survival of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire.' He then went on
to give precise details of his plan for a joint offensive. His attack was planned to cover a 25-mile-long front, manned by 16 divisions, divided into two armies, one in front of the other. He himself could raise the eight division strong army
for the first attack
by temporarily weakening his forces on the south-west front, and by taking two divisions from the Balkan front, as well as three from the Russian
The eight divisions required for the second follow-up army would have to be supplied by Germany. He proposed for this the German Alpine Corps, the 11th Bavarian Division, and the 4th German Reserve Corps. He had at his disposal 60 heavy artillery batteries, and hoped that he could count on an additional 30 heavy batteries front.
from Germany. Falkenhayn was adamant in his refusal. Conrad nevertheless continued making approaches about the prospect of a joint attack until the end of January 1916, and was joined in his efforts by the Austrian Foreign Minister, Baron Burian, who tried to approach the Kaiser himself, without success.
Other plans One factor that must strongly have influenced Falkenhayn's refusal was the decision he had reached early in December 1915, to mount an attack against the French at Verdun. It was also his conviction that the crude tactics of mass breakthrough, as practised on all fronts by all commanders were no guarantee of success as long as the defender was still capable of offering organised resistance. In his plans for Verdun he envisaged a scheme that would lure the main body of the French army into a barrage of deadly artillery-fire, incapacitating them to the point of no reAll were sistance. these conclusions scrupulously concealed from his allies until shortly before the onset of the Verdun attack on February 20, 1916. It would no doubt have been more advisable to inform Conrad about these major plans, instead of simply warning him of the risks involved in the Trentino offensive. As it was, Conrad not unnaturally felt that the refusal constituted a disavowal of all that the KuK army stood for. Angered and insulted by the rebuff", he determined to teach the Germans a lesson. He was not only utterly convinced of the expediency and logic of his strategy, but had also come to the regrettable conclusion that the time was now at last ripe for dealing once and for all with the 'arch-enemy', Italy. Go it he would, even if it meant going it alone. By now, at the beginning of 1916, the Russian front was peaceful, Serbia had been overrun, and it was only a matter of
time before Montenegro fell and Albania too in its wake. It was therefore essential, Conrad thought, to find some way of maintaining the morale of the people of the Danube monarchy at fever pitch, and what could be more ideal than a punitively successful attack against Italy? The Trentino offensive was, therefore, given the code-
name 'Punitive On February
Expedition'. 6 1916, Conrad gave the first orders for the offensive. He addressed himself to the Commander of the Austrian
South-Western Front, Archduke Eugen, making him Commander-in-Chief for the offensive, and ordering him to assemble a field force of two armies, consisting of 14 divisions, and 60 heavy artillery batteries. They were given eight weeks to prepare for the attack to begin on April 6.
The main attack of the offensive was to be carried out by the newly-formed Austrian Eleventh Army, commanded by General of Cavalry Viktor Dankl. This
army was composed mainly of troops drawn from the Isonzo Front in the south-west. Fifth Army under Boroevic provided its /// Corps, a division of infantry, and a division of riflemen. The Tenth Army under Rohr also provided one division, and the Tirolean Home Defence Corps under Roth provided its elite division, the 8th
The
Infantry Division, later renowned as the Kaiserjdger crack fighting force. VIII Corps was brought back from the Balkan Front, and three divisions were removed from the Eastern Front. The Austrian Third Army, under the command of General of Infantry Hermann Kovess von Kovesshaza, formed the nucleus of the second, follow-up army, reinforced by the / Commando Corps, two infantry divisions, one rifle division, and the 4th Bosnia-Herzegovina Infantry Regiment. all drawn from the Eastern Front. Offensive artillery was supplied in the form of 21 heavy batteries from Fifth Army, three from Tenth Army, and seven from the Tirolean Home Defence Corps. To these were added 15 heavy batteries from the Eastern Front, two from the Balkan Front, and 16 from within Austria. Transport into the attacking line was also organised for three 42-cm howitzers, two new-style 38-cm howitzers, and one 35-cm cannon. Provision was also made for the First Army to be supplied with 51 mountain batteries. Conrad had thus succeeded in raising an offensive force of 14 divisions, supported by 64 heavy batteries. Each of the two armies consisted of three corps. Eleventh Army boasted a fighting force of 103 battalions, and 178 batteries, plus 85,238 rifles, and 811 guns. Third Army in its turn boasted 89 half-battalions and 43 batteries, plus 71,996 rifles, and 245 guns. Conrad was so sure of the success of this offensive that he had decided, for purely prestige reasons to give the command of Corps of the Eleventh Army to Archduke Karl Franz Josef, the heir to the throne, then lingering in Vienna. It was to be the heir to the throne's first experience of command at the front, and nothing was left to chance. The corps was composed solely of elite divisions and experienced
XX
mountain
troops.
Conrad's plan for a naval attack linked to the main offensive, similar to that carried out in May 1915 by the KuK navy, when they bombarded the east coast of Italy immediately after the Italian declaration of war, was turned down by Admiral Haus as impracticable. Instead, he had to content himself with the formation of a so-called 'lagoon-fleet', based on Trieste and neighbouring ports. This fleet, consisting of small, flat-bottomed gunboats, armed launches, and various kinds of tugs was penetrate the Venetian intended to Lagoon, and force a passage to the rivermouths, should the occasion arise. Meanwhile, in the Lessini Alps, the troops had begun to assemble. Of all the Alpine regions, the Lessini Alps present the greatest
1453
!l
i!^^_
.^w^
^"W
"•I**-*
"
•Fform a vast 20-mile-broad ab of limestone, ravaged by the elements, split by :
colossal rock-faMs into
more
or* less isola-
ted undulating plateaux. The plateaux of Folgaria and Lavarone in the north of these Alps, and the plateau bordering them in the south, the Sette Communi, dominated by Arsiero and Asiago, are traversed by saddles and ridges that rise as high as 6,500 feet. Between the plateaux lie deep valleys and gorges. Many of the mountain peaks are cleft in two, and those in the higher regions are bare all year round. The backbone of defence in both groups consisted of chains of fortifications, stoutly constructed, most of them built before the outbreak of war. Among these should be mentioned the forts at Monte Torano, Monte Campomolon, the works along the ridges of Cortesina and Marcaira, and the armoured forts of Cima di Campolongo, and Monte Verena. The third defence zone stretched south and east of the Asiago gorge over the Sette Communi plateau towards Monte Kempel, lowering over Asiago. The backbone of these fortifications was the barricade of outworks 'AgnoPosina'. A further barricade of outworks off eastwards from Asiago to form a flanking line of defences that linked to the outworks at 'Brenta-Cismon' in the split
Breirta valley. Val Sugena was protected by three or more strongly constructed barricaded areas. On the Austrian side, the plateaux of Lavarone and Folgaria were well defended by the forts of Cima di Vezzena, Verle, Lusem, Gschwent, Sebastiano, Sommo Alto and Serrada, forming an ideal jumping-off" point for the offiensive. Three mountain roads and one cable railway with a daily capacity of more than 300 tons linked the 3,250-feet-high plateaux with the
railway commanding the Austrian marching-up position, centred in the 1,300 feet high stretch of the Adige valley between Bozen (Bolzano) and Trend. Troops coming from the Tyrol had to come through the Brenner Pass on a single-track railway, while those.tcoming from Carinthia were transported on a single-track line through the Puster valley, in direct line of enemy fire. Both met in the neck of the Trent valley before proceeding to their appointed field of operations.
The Austrian divisions began to assemble by the middle of February 1916, and all went according to plan. But even in these early days one fatal mistake had already been made. The Austrian IJigh Command were well supplied by their spy groups with information about the decisions taken at the Inter-Allied conference of the Entente Powers on December o, 1915. Assessing the reports, it seemed likely that the armies of the Entente were planning an all-out offensive on all European fronts, and that this would begin at the latest in the early
summer
ofJ=916. Acting
on mis
Conrad l)ushed forward the the inception of the Trentino offensive to April 6, 1916, in an effort to forestall Allied activity. An excellent idea that totally ignored the fact that heavy spring snow-falls in Alpine plateaux over 3,250 feet high make any military operations impossible until the beginning of May. Marching-up was indeed delayed. Avalanches occurred, blocking mountain paths and roads alike. It soon -proved im-
supposition,
date
for
Tyrol and moving the heavy position on the plateaux of Lavarone was also out of the question. By the middle of March the weather had improved slightly and the troops could set ofi^ again, labburing under terrible conditions. The roads and railways in the valleys were deep in snow, and in the mountains, massive drifts made progress agonisingly slow. By March 25 both armies had reached their assembly point between Bozen and Trent, and by the end of the month it was possible to move the artillery into position on the plateaux. But snow still lay so deep in the mountains that the commanders were forced to postpone the attack. 'The snow is so deep and soft,' reported Karl Franz Josef, 'that our heavily-laden infantry sink in right up to their thighs; in the event of an eneiny attack, they would be unable to move or seek cover. The chances of making a sucr cessful attack under such circumstances are absolutely nil.' Once again Dankl was forced to cease preparations, and put off" the attack. Frantic efforts were made to preserve the element of surprise, by putting out misleading reports, both at home and abroad, about plans for fictitious attacks elsewhere. Diversionary attacks were staged on other parts of the Italian front, but all this frenzied activity was pointless. When the snow had melted sufficiently for the offensive to be launched on May 15, the Italian High Command was only too well aware of the Austrians' intentions. Back in December 1915, Lieutenant-General Luigi Cadorna had been informed of the Austrian Trentino operation, and as early as February 20 1916, Brusato, the Commander of the Italian First Army, defending the Lessini stretch of the front, knew the exact details of the Austrian troop-concentrations. On March 22, further detailed reports reached the Italian High Command in Udine. These described the build-up of strong Austrian forces around Trent, and that an attack was intended over the plateaux of Folgaria and Lavarone. The Italians reacted promptly, reinforcing their defences in the Lessini Alps, and bringing up reserve troops for the First Army. Six nojvly-formed infantry regiments, and several heavy batteries were seconded to them from the Isonzo front. Skirmishes and raids staged along the Tyrol front hamperedAustrian troop movements effectively.
Lieutenant-General Cadoma'formulated a plan for defending the mountains by containing the Austrians, concentrating his forces in the Sette Communi area, and on either Side of the Valassa valley. Unlike his 'opponent, Conrad, Cadorna insisted from the very beginning on maintaining unity of command. Although the Austrian High
Command hj^j^>articularly inlportant. military 3V«NH|* occupy it on other Conral'^^r even
took the trouble Written and telegraphic 'cotoimunication with Archduke Eugen's army command was, he considered, quite sufficient. Cadorna, on the other hand, paid endless visits to the First Army along the front, personally inspecting every detail of the preparations. By so doing he anticipated and swiftly settled any disagreements that had arisen towards the end of April between the commanders of the First Army and himself. LieutenantGeneral Brusati, who had maintained that fronts,
to.visft th§ TVenlffront.
them, moving on to attack Monte Coston. left wing had to take Soglio d'Aspio at the same time. VIII Corps were faced with far more difficult terrain, and had to
The
divide their attack into several sections.
The 59th Infantry Division were
to charge downhill from their position, crushing the Italians dug in on the northern slopes of the Noriglio-Piazza line. Marching over the Terragnolobach valley, their next objective was a swift climb uphill towards the Platte von Moscheri, where the right wing were to lead the attack and capture the position. The left wing were to advance slowly in conjunction with XX Corps, flanking VIII Corps as they wheeled in to the attack. Thereafter the division were ordered to storm Monte Col Santo, thereby gaining an advantage over the Italians of some 5,500 feet. The 57th Infantry Division. moving out from Rovereto, faced a hard slog up the slopes of Zugna Torta, followed by a swift attack on Coni Zugna along the
mountain saddle. At 0600 hours on May
15, 1916, artillery the cold, clear dawn announced the beginning of the great attack, rising to its fire in
maximum
troops storm forward m a counterattack on the Austrian positions Their primary concern was to prevent an Austrian breakthrough onto the plains
Under cover
of their
own
artillery, Italian
the best defence would be to concentrate on reinforcing the first and second defence zones in the Lessini Alps, was removed from the command and replaced by LieutenantGeneral Count Pecori-Giraldi. Because of the mistakes made by the Austrians in concentrating too early, and to Cadorna's watchfulness, the Italian First Army boasted a fighting force of 176 battalions at the beginning of the offensive — 45 of them came, admittedly, from the militia, and seven from the customs! In Desenzano and Brescia, 18 battalions of the 44th Infantry Division, and the Sicilian Brigade were ready to move up. Reserves numbering 72 battalions in all were in waiting at Tagliamento, from where it was a simple matter to rush them towards Trent
when necessary. The artillery support consisted of 503 light guns, and 348 heavy guns, including those built into the forts. Cadorna's foresight did not stop there. He had allowed for a possible Austrian breakthrough to the Venetian plains by ensuring that five army corps were available there to form a separate army if need be. He had also given early warning to the XVI Coi-ps in Albania, and to the 48th Infantry Division in Libya to return home. However, a pall of gloom lay over the Italians in the anxious few days before the offensive began. Knowing the strength of the Au.strian artillery concentration, it w-as hard to believe that their countermeasures could succeed. But had the Italian High Command but known, the Austrian offensive bore within itself the fatal seed of its
own
defeat.
During the five-week-long wait before the beginning of the offensive, the Army
Command under Archduke Eugen had
in
taken steps that altered the whole situation. Acting on the initiative of his Chief-of-General Staf!', Feldmarscha/Iciitiiant Kraus, he had decided to tack simultaneously with both arm;, instead of staggering the attack. A dive^ sity of reasons occasioned this change of fact
were building up in the area destined for Corps. This was not, in fact, attack by true, but the commander was concerned to ensure that the so-called 'Cnnrn-Prince Corps' should achieve their planned prestige victor\'. He thereforo ordered /// Corps to delay their attack for five days, and to give artillery support to the 'C row ii -Prince Corps' instead. The firepower of the /// Corps was increased by the addition of a further division. The attacking right wing was also reinforced, again purely to guarantee the success of the 'Crown -Prince Corps'. VIII Corps at Rovereto were backed up by the addition of XXI Corps (under Liitgendorf of the Third Army: to him was also seconded the Eleventh Army. An additional reason for these changes was that the Crown Prince himself had expres.sed a wish to achieve the attack and breakthrough with the loss of as few men as possible. Accordingly, directions were issued at the end of April to the effect that any troop commander 'who shall carry out the task appointed to him without sacrifice on the part of his men" could reckon on gaining 'much honour and esteem'. This was confirmed by operational orders stating that infantry attacks should take place only after full initial artillery battery, and with constant artillery support. A further change in the original plan concerned the role to be played by the main command squad of the army. This group, VIII Corps under Kritek, was ordered to make an attack towards Borgo in the Val Sugana, in the hope that this feint would mislead the Italians into thinking that this was the
XX
)
main
the '
.
Prestige was the overriding factor. The Army Command had received informa plan.
lion apparently indicating that the Italians
1456
attack.
changes took place in an atmosphere of angry controversy, with telegrams racing between the Army High Command 466 miles away in Teschen, All
these
Army Divisional Command in Bozen, he Army Commanders in Trent. On .'ght of May 15, the last troops moved '
position and all eyes were focussed on two corps as they waited to pounce. iieir aims were clearly defined: XX Corps were to spearhead the attack against the heights of Monte Costa d'Agra facing .
intensity between 0900 and 1000 hours. In the four miles of the front covered by XX Corps alone 176 light guns, 54 heavy guns, and 23 extra heavy guns fired steadily, supported by 73 light guns, 54 heavy guns, and 13 extra heavy guns from the neighbouring /// Corps. The forts at Serrada, Sommo Alto, Sebastiano, and Gschwent also joined in the savage artillery fire. At 1000 hours the fire-range was increased, razing the slopes, and glancing off the mountain peaks, shells tore deep into the Italian fortification lines. The barrage of fire
took a heavy
toll
among
the Italian
and during the next two hours wave upon wave of Austrian infantry stormed out to the attack. The great battle for Folgaria and Lavarone had begun.
artillery,
After a short while the Austrians took the first Italian positions that had been completely destroyed by the bombardment. Corps gained a major At 1700 hours success as the 3r(l Regiment of the Tirolean Kaiserjdger captured the redoubts on Costa d'Agra; later in the evening the 14th Lim Infantry Regiment gained control of Monte Coston. In the afternoon of the next day the 59th Salzburg Infantry Regiment broke through into the trenches on Soglio d'Aspio, where the Italians had put up a strong defence. The whole corps had now succeeded in breaking through the first line of Italian
XX
defences. VIII Corps had a different story to
tell.
Backed up by an insufficient artillery barrage, they had at first been unable to gain any ground. The Italian defence was brilliantly courageous; the
and the Alpini
Roma Brigade
at Piazza fought desperately
for three
days until scarcely a
alive.
was not
It
Torta on
man was
until the fall of
left
Zugna
May
18 that the corps achieved The next day, the I2th Mountain Brigade of the 59th Division moved out on the left wing to attack Borcola pass and Monte Pasubio. On the same day, the lOlh Mountain Brigade of the same its
first
success.
division managed, after heavy fighting, to storm the heights of Col Santo. XXI Corps had a hard time of it too. Fighting in difficult terrain to the west of Valsara, the Kaisersc/iiitz Division attacked again and again without success, suffering heavy losses in the process. A few hours after the
beginning of the main attack on Folgaiia plateau. XV7/ Corpt: mounted their diversionary attack at midday in Val Sugana. Here too, the Italians put up a strong resistance, forcing the Austiians to pay heavily for eveiy inch of ground gained. Nonetheless, they succeeded that day in occup\ing parts of the dominant Armen-
Borgo itself fell, however, on and with that the active role of XVIII Corps came to an end. Thereaftei' they were assigned a purely defensive role on the left wing of the offensive (ronl. During this period A'X Corps advanced swiftly, spearheading the attack on the terra ridge.
May
22
Italian second line of defences. On May 17, the 2ncl Re^liiu'iit of the Tirol Kaiserjii^er captured Monte Maggio, whilst their
3rd Rc^nnciit captured Cima
Monte
CcKston d'Arsiero
di
Campu-
to the Linz to the 59th Salzburg Infantry Ri'ginienls the next day. On the 19th the hard-pressed Italians abandoned their positions along the line Monte Toraro, lozzo.
fell
14tli.
Monte Campolon and Monte Melignone, after destroying the forts. The della Verena pass was now in Austrian hands and the Crown Prince was able to inform the Aiiny Group Command: 'Breakthrough com-
A badly wounded
Italian
supports himself by a stiattered tree root
Innumerable prisoners had been taken. After questioning them and considering the events on the middle sector,
Valsa valley, they arrived too
the Austrian commander.'; came to the conclusion that the brunt ol their attack had succeeded in ciuppling the Italian defences. This was only partly true. The attackers now had to mark time for several days whilst the middle and heavy artillery caught up with them. All this delay gave the Italian High Command time to bring up reinforcements and complete defensive measures on a large scale on the Venetian plains, as instituted by General Cadorna. Immediately after the first news of the beginning of the Austrian offensive had reached the High Command at Udine, Cadorna set off for the front. On May 16 he arrived at Thiene. and promptly began the co-ordination of the defence. A few days before May 15, General Pecori-Giraldi had decided to centre his defence on Val Sugana. where XVIII Corps had stationed over 37 battalions, backed up at Primolano by over half of the 10th Infantry Regiment, acting as reserves. Along the offensive front, in the Lake Garda-Valsara sector the 37th Infantry Division had stationed 18 battalions. The nine battalions of the Agino-Posina group had to defend the Monte Col Santo area. Fifteen battalions of the 35th Infantry Division faced the Austrian Corps, and 20 battalions of the 35th Infantry Division faced the Austrian /// Corps. Reserves were grouped in the following fashion: ten Alpini battalions of the 9th Infantry Division stood ready in the Schio-Thiene sector, with a further six mountain batteries west of Ba.ssano. Volturno Brigade remained in Bassano itself. So far .so good. But by May 15, the commanders of the Italian First Army had lapsed into a certain confusion about the use of their reserves. The Austrian attack in Val Sugana had succeeded in making General PecoriGiraldi believe that this must be the focus of the offensive. Acting accordingly, he sent the Volturno Brigade to Primolano. But no sooner had they left, than he found himself forced to send the main body of the 9th Infantry Division to the help of the 35th Infantry Division. Hurrying to the
vent the destruction of the Roma Brigade at Piazza. When Monte Col Santo fell on May 18, the Volturno Brigade was recalled from Primolano. and transported post haste by lorry to Piano della Fugazza pass, where they arrived just in time to prevent the fall of Monte Pasubio. Finally, on May 19, the commanders had to use their last reserves, six battalions of Alpini, against the advancing Austrian XX Corps. Further reinforcements were on their way. The Sicilia Brigade, part of the 44th Infantry Division, and the main body of the 27th Infantry Division, had already reached Vicenza by train, XX, XIV, and X Corps were on their way from Tagliamento. Worried by the speed at wfiich the Austrian XX Corps was advancing, Cadorna saw that he must stake everything on preventing a breakthrough into the plains. Troops of the First Army were ordered to fight to the last man. Cadorna then hastened back to the High Command at Udine, and held a conference on May 20 with General Frugoni and the Duke of Aosta, the commanders of the Second and Third Armies. Cadorna now put forward the view that if the fighting followed its present course, the Austrians might well succeed in pushing forwards to the plains with six or eight divisions. All agreed to take steps for a possible evacuation of the Isonzo Front. On May 21, orders went out to form up a new Italian army (as had been decided earlier), using all available reserves. This army, the Fifth Army, was to regroup in the area Vicenza, Padua, Citadella. One cavalry division had to march with them to cover between Bassano and provide Breganze. The conference also decided to take all possible measures to strengthen the Trentino fiont. All agreed to abandon the second defence zone in the Lessini Alps, and concentrate on holding the third zone. To the troops already on their way to the front were added other units. Etna Brigade was removed from the Carinthia front, five cycle battalions from the Duke of Aosta's Third Army, and a few battalions of Alpini
pleted".
XX
offensive. Italian losses
In
containing the Austrian
were appallingly high, 12.000 dead and 40.000 captured late to pre-
from other areas were despatched to join the forces at Trentino. Lastly, on May 21, Lieutenant-General Legnio, commander of the forces in Carjnthia, was transferred to the post of commander of the forces in the Sette Communi area. His orders were to centralise the defence of that area. Having organised all this, Cadorna naturally turned to his Allies, requesting them to institute diversionary attacks on their fronts. In particular, he asked the Russians to begin their planned offensive on the south-western front as soon as possible. While the Italian High Command were thus occupied in creating a cohesive plan of campaign, the very opposite was going on in the Austrian camp. In the dark
At the root of this confusion lay an evil that was widespread throughout the AustroHungarian army. General Staff officers lived in fear of the higher army commanders, and rather than ask them for news about operational plans, and the progress
of events at the fi'ont. they tended to reh' on ordinary maps in drawing up their reports. The same lack of precise information about the actual state of affairs at the front also bedevilled their efforts to draw up plans for future action and to influence the commanders. Only thus can one explain the fact that, on May 20, Army Group Commander Archduke Eugen ordered a complete regrouping of his forces for no apCorps were sud/// reason parent denly attached to Third Army, under Kovess. This aimy was then ordered to sweep far out to the left to attack the Assa gorge, taking the eastern slopes, before moving on to storm the Brenta valley. Before undertaking this major operation, they were to move up to the support of the
'Croivu-Prince Corps'. The corps had too far forwards, and its left flank was in severe difficulties. Third Army was to attempt to relieve the increasing pressure exerted by the Italians before advancing on their own account. This was a momentous decision, that served onlv to emphasise the initial blun-
pushed
1457
der that had been
made when
the attack
Corps had been postponed for five days. Had they attacked in conjunction with the 'Crown-Prince Corps', their combined forces could have wrought havoc with the ItaUan defence. If they had succeeded in doing so, then the attack which had been supposed to start soon after May 20 in the direction of Arsiero-Piovene and Asiago-Valstagna in the Brenta valley, would have had even greater consequences. Stunned by the joint attack, partially trapped at Ospedaletto in Sugana, the Italian troops might well have crumbled and been forced to withdraw. The Austrians would almost certainly have won
by
///
their race against time, a race whose outcome became daily more doubtful as the
High Command rushed ever more reserves to the front. Regrouping the Austrian troops did serve, however, to maintain the impetus of the attack along a Italian
front. But this again failed to take into account the lesson to be drawn from the first few days of the fighting, namely, that in operations in the mountains, only
wide
a systematic advance could hope to bear A further disadvantage of this regrouping was a disruption of the command structure. In later years the then Chief-ofGeneral-StafiF of the Eleventh Army, Feldmarschalleutnant Pichler, was to comment rightly that, 'This resulted in the leadership and co-ordination of the frontmost corps on the plateaux falling into three different hands: the difficulty of maintaining a unified command on both sides of the Astico valley was thereby only increased.' Dogged from the very beginning by confused estimates of the time required for its success, the Austrian Trentino offensive now entered upon its second and final phase, further encumbered by the additional stresses described above. The sense of triumph that had reigned in the days of the early victories amid the peaks paled before the bitter realisation that as the defenders built up their resistance, so the attackers' forces would soon be spent. To an outside observer, of course, the Austrian offensive still seemed assured of success as May drew to a close. Conrad appeared positively smug when he received the congratulations of his German allies. On May 20 /// Corps began its attack. The Italian 34th Infantry Division in its stoutly-built trenches was unable to hold fast in the face of the artillery barrage supporting the attack. On the very first day, Cima di Leva fell, together with parts of the Marcai ridge north of Vezzana. On May 21, Monte Cost'alta and Costesin ridge, south of Vezzana, were stormed and taken. Battered and bruised by the attacking artillery, the Italian forts at Monte Verena, and Cima di Campolongo were first abandoned by their defenders and then fruit.
blown up. Within a few days the Austrian /// Corps stood at the entry to the Assa gorge, facing soaring heights of Monte Kempel and Monte Meata, with Monte Interrotto to the south. Monte Kempel dominating the Assa valley was taken on May 26 by the 43rd Styrian Guard Brigade in a brilliant surprise attack led by their mountain division. /// Corps split into two divisions to the east and west of the gorge, storming on towards Asiago. On May 28, its front troops reached points to the north and west of Asiago meeting little resistance on its way, as the Italians were carrying out their the
1458
strategic retreat as planned. But on the right wing, the Austrian attack had ground to a halt. The efforts made by part of the VIII Corps to capture Monte Pasubio had to be halted on May 24 owing to heavy snow. But on May 25, after heavy fighting backed up by tireless artillery fire, it
managed to capture Monte Cimone. The capture of this dominant position enabled Corps to reach Arsiero by May 27. That area then lapsed into trench warfare. XXI Corps had been grinding slowly onwards to Chiesa since May 15; further attacks in this area were a failure too. The only high point was reached when the Kaiserschiitz Division of the corps under Englert attacked the Buole pass in one of the bloodiest battles of the whole campaign. Several hours of artillery fire preceded the attack on the slopes by the Kaiserschiitz, the defending Italians holding fast, and answering the barrage with deadly accuracy. The Austrians split into small groups, trying to storm the heights held by the Italian Taro and Sicilia Brigades. Hour after hour they were driven back, only to attack anew. 'The Austrians flung themselves bravely into attack after attack,' reported an Italian brigade commander. 'Anyone watching them climb up, fall back, and then storm up yet again could not fail to be impressed by their courage.' But in the evening, Major-General Karl Englert reported to the corps commanders that the attack had failed. His division alone had lost 15 officers, and 614 men — about 13%
XX
of its fighting force.
The commanders
of
Eleventh Army then assigned XXI Corps to a purely defensive role of holding and /// the ground already gained. Corps, who had by now reached the plateau of the Setti Communi, also encountered a vastly superior Italian defence. Battle raged round Asiago and Arsiero from May 27 to June 16 when the Austrians were brought to a standstill. The Austrians now brought their reserves into action. The commanders of the Third Army were ordered to release / Corps, then acting as army reserve under von Kirchbach, to reinforce the right wing of /// Corps in the fighting west of Assa the
XX
valley. Another infantry division was also brought up from the Isonzo front, joining the troops already fighting on May 31. Two foot battalions were drawn from the Carinthia front. Conrad also thought of withdrawing a further division from the Russian front, but Falkenhayn himself
personally forbade this.
On May
26,
Army Group Commander
Archduke Eugen gave orders to shift the main weight of the effort to break through the third zone of the Italian defences to the area round Asiago. First of all, the Sette Communi plateau was to be occupied. /// Corps was then to fan out in the direction Lusiana-Breganze, and into the Brenta valley towards Bassano, thus opening the way for the final thrust into the Venetian
and XX Corps were to advance from Arsiero along the Astico, moving via Piovene to follow /// Corps. Meanwhile, on the Italian side, Lieutenant-General Legno had concentrated his reorganised troops and reserves for the defence d" Sette Communi. They were plains. /
stationed
iround Arsiero in the trenches
and defence-works on Monte Priafora and Monte Cegnio, and in positions on the heights of Monte Novegno. Around Asiago, troops were stationed in fortified trenches
on Monte Lemerle, and to the east of Asiago on the other side of the Frenzella gorge at
Monte
Meletta. In the six-mile-wide stretch of forest that extends south from Asiago to Arsiero he installed troops in a nest of fortifications and artillery posts. Italian defence comprised five divisions and two brigades of infantry, and two brigades of Alpini. While the battle raged on the Sette Communi plateau, the Italians formed up their Fifth Army in the area round VicenzaCitadella-Padua, completing preparations
The
by June
Lieutenant-General Cadorna HQ from Udine to Treviso, and from there on June 7 he ordered XXIV, XX, and VIII Corps of the Fifth Army to move up towards Thiene and Bassano. At the same time, part of X Corps from the First Army advanced from 5.
moved the Supreme Command
Verona to Valarsa. The Austrians had by then occupied Asiago and Arsiero on Sette Communi. XX Corps had finally succeeded, on May 30, in winning through to Monte Priafora, after tough and bloody fighting. In the afternoon a sudden attack by the Second Battalion of the Tirolean Kaiser Regiment gave it control of the peak.
The Austrian supply lines were becoming ever longer, and now led across increasingly difficult terrain. A shortage of ammunition set in. Artillery support for the attacking infantry dwindled, a fact that the Italians were quick to notice. Soon the Italian troops could boast that as far as artillery was concerned, they held the upper hand. Corps 'The wing of the Austrian fighting on and to the left of Monte Cegnio soon felt the effects of this superiority. The
XX
Italian artillery posts
were cleverly
situ-
ated amid the gorges and chasms, and the Austrian artillery had a hard job in pinpointing their position. Fighting in the chalky slopes and overhangs of this mountain swiftly degenerated into a hell of flying splinters of rocks and shells. It proved impossible to take the peak, so strongly was it defended by the Catanzaro and Pescara brigades. Part of the 59th Salzburg Infantry Regiment did, however, manage on the night of May 31 to gain a position below the peak, and hold it. But Corps the impetus of the attack by the petered out at this point. By June 6, it was clear to the corps' commanders that any further attack would be pointless.
XX
Impasse During
this time, the Austrian /// Corps'
storm Monte Meletta and Monte Lemerle had reached an impasse. The impenetrable forest to the south of Asiago efforts to
proved to be the decisive factor in this sector. In the fighting for Monte Meletta alone, the 2nd Bosnia-Herzegovina Infantry Regiment lost over half its men. Taking the toll for the whole offensive /// Corps sustained over two-thirds of its losses in the fighting for the forest.
Only / Corps under Kirchbach could point to any progress made. Groups of 101st Infantry Regiment had won its through to the borders of the Canaglia valley at Belmonte, where roads led down to the plains. Once there, they had been unable to do more than consolidate their gains due to lack of support. The Austrian Trentino offensive was already doomed to failure when alarming reports began to reach Army Group Com-
Top: Austrian troops bomb their way forward the early stages of the offensive. Left:. The Austrian offensive -dogged from the beginning and doomed to failure by confused planning, supply problems, shortages and objectives too grandiose for the difficult terrain. Centre: Generaloberst Roth, commander of the Tirolean Home Defence Corps, which contained the crack Kaiserjager Division. Above: Italian troops in the snow in
Height
in feet
over 6500
3250-6500 600-3250
300-600
AUSTRIAN ATTACK MAY 14 1916 LIIVIIT OF AOVANCE JUNE
WITHORAWAL END OMUS
17
1916
OF JUNE 1916 ?p
O-300
1459
mander Archduke Eugen at Bozen from Russia. The Brusilov offensive had begun on June 4. At first this news exercised no influence on the course of the Austrian attack, only on June 8 were two divisions seconded to the Russian front. Seated at the command in Trent, Conrad urged his forces to make one last effort and break through the three miles of defences that separated the spearhead of the Austrian offensive from the Venetian plains. On June 15 / Corps rallied in a last
desperate stand around Monte Lemerle. Its aim was to break through the hitherto impenetrable forest at its thinnest point in the direction of Monte Pau. But by the next day the attack had collapsed in the face of Italian defensive fire. Thus, on June 17, Conrad had finally to halt the Trentino offensive; in doing so he was in part responding to the need to throw all available reserves into action on the Eastern Front. Immediately prior to the halting of the offensive, a quarrel had broken out between the Commander of the Eleventh Army and Archduke Eugen, in which Conrad also played a devious part. On June 14 he had candidly informed
General Dankl that he was sadly disappointed in his conduct of the campaign. He alleged that Dankl had allowed his
army
'after
a successful start to split up,
beginning with the right wing, in such a way that one junior commander after the other attacked on his own initiative, lacking the support of a strong and centralised plan of action from above.' Raging with fury, Dankl rejected this incredible accusation, and asked to be relieved of his
command, a request that was granted forthwith.
Such was the end of the Austrian Trentino offensive, a sour ending, in which one of the commanders at the front was most unjustifiably blamed for its failure. It was the first major operation of the war in the high Alps employing all the then available techniques of warfare with the exception of gas, and its failure must be sought elsewhere. Firstly, the attack had been started far too early in the year, and secondly the normal techniques of war, such as infantry attacks made only with heavy artillery support, cannot be easily adapted to alpine combat. Confusion about the time required for such an offensive
gave the Italians the opportunity
to bring
up reinforcements right
into the heart of the intended breakthrough area. In considering the causes of this failure, one can-
not ignore the part played by foolish considerations of monarchical prestige. An army such as the KuK army, governed as it was in its entirety by such considerations, must inevitably be subject to fatal misdirection. All that was gained was a slice of the Lessini Alps, 40,000 Italian prisoners, and 300 captured guns. 12,000 Italians had died or been wounded in the campaign. The price paid by the Austrians for this gain was 5,000 dead, 23,000 wounded, and a further 14,000 sick. 2,000 Austrian soldiers were also taken prisoner. The Austrian
Army High Command had taken upon
it-
by running down its commitments on other fronts to undertake the Trentino offensive. With growing alarm they turned their attention to the momentous events that had taken place on the self a great risk
eastern front since June 4 1916.
[For Dr PebalVs biography, see page 935.
]
An Austrian trench in the high Alps. Digging in this terrain was impossible, and trenches had to be constructed of stones and frozen snow. During a thaw these became very unsafe
r
:
THE DEATH OF KITCHENER
As a military figurehead to the to the Duke of Wellington. Ever
British nation Kitchener is second only since his conquest of the Sudan in 1898, he had been at the forefront of public affairs, and by the outbreak of war in 1914 occupied a godlike position in the minds of the British electorate. But in the minds of his cabinet colleagues the position he occupied was rather less splendid. At first overawed by his reputation, the civilian ministers had quickly come to resent his autocratic manners. By the beginning of 1916 he was receiving scant attention from the other members of the cabinet, and an invitation from the Tsar for Kitch-
ener to visit the Russian armies was accepted with alacrity. Kitchener, however, was never to reach Russia. Sir Philip Magnus Above: Kitchener,
immaculate as ever
in civilian dress
«!' 1461 Mil
At the start of 1916 the war was going badly everywhere for the AUies, and Kitchener was made the scapegoat by his Cabinet colleagues. The unusual dichotomy between the conspicuous indifference with which Lloyd George and others had recently started to treat the Secretary of State for War and the adoration which the British masses continued to accord their legendary hero caused Kitchener much anguish. Only a strong sense of duty held him to his post during those last months of bitter humiliation.
Popular enthusiasm Kitchener placed his resignation in Asquith's hands on November 30, 1915, immediately after returning from a visit of inspection to the Dardanelles, but was persuaded to withdraw it. He was told that he alone stood between the armies and political chaos, and he was sustained by the warm friendship and support of King George V. Kitchener knew that the government relied upon the popular enthusiasm which he inspired and that his name had become the indispensable symbol of the nation's will to
any cost. He warned the Cabinet that the war might unless a continuous offensive was mounted in France throughout the summer. He demanded 70 divisions and threatened several times to resign when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Reginald McKenna, and the President of the Board of Trade, Walter Runciman, argued that 57 should suffice. They suggested that industry might be crippled, and that a financial crisis might inhibit the government from continuing to subsidise its Allies. Kitchener was criticised for giving no lead about conscription, but that problem appeared less urgent than did others. Two and a half million volunteers were enlisted during the first 18 months of the war, and Kitchener was more concerned to fill the trenches than lo .secure equality of sacrifice. He felt ill-equipped to handle the time- wasting political complications which any system of conscription involved, and was content, therefore, to keep in step with Asquith, who carried through all its stages in May 1916 a Bill conscripting to the armed forces able-bodied men aged
victory at
be
lost
between 18 and
45.
Kitchener's entire career before August 1914 had been passed
1462
on the frontiers of the Empire which he had helped to expand; and the army, when he joined it as a sapper in 1871, was intensely unpopular. It had buried in the Crimea the prestige which it had earned at Waterloo, and was regarded as a hotbed of patrician insolence. Unlike their counterparts in the Royal Navy, most British army officers plumed themselves upon their status as gentlemen and amateurs; but Kitchener developed early, to a unique pitch of obsessional intensity, an unparalleled thoroughness and drive. Those attributes quickly made him much the most professionally competent British soldier of his day.
He
cultivated a phenomenal moustache which
widely known, and
it
would be easy but wrong
'A word from
made
his features
to dismiss
it
with
him was decisive,
and no one dared to challenge it
at a Cabinet meeting.'
a smile. Its length and bushiness made it the ideal of all moustaches of all drill sergeants in all the armies of Europe. In that exaggerated form it became a symbol of national virility at a time when the midget British volunteer army was completely dwarfed by the huge conscript armies of the Continental Powers.
Portrait of an Imperialist In 1892 Kitchener, aged 41, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army, and he planned from Cairo a campaign to liberate the Sudan from the rule of a self-styled prophet known as the Mahdi. That war, launched in 1896, and concluded victoriously two years later with a tremendous slaughter of dervishes at the Battle of Omdurman, made Kitchener a national hero. After smashing Mahdism and governing the Sudan for a brief time, he was despatched, as Chief-of-Staff to Lord Roberts, to smash Krugerism in South Africa. The Boer War was fought in response to a deeply-felt British need for raw materials, markets and security; and President Kruger embodied, like the Mahdi, the nationalist aspirations of
his people. After succeeding Roberts as Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, Kitchener conquered the two Boer repubUcs, and was despatched thereafter in a blaze of glory to India as Commander-in-Chief His task was to prepare India to meet the threat of a Russian invasion which was believed at that time to be imminent: but Russia became involved in war with Japan. In the absence, therefore, of any more conventional opponent. Kitchener proceeded to overthrow the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, A resounding dispute arose between the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief over control of the Indian army; and, although right lay on Curzon's side. Kitchener's name carried much more weight at home. Curzon resigned when the British Cabinet decided in favour of Kitchener, who was sent in 1911 to rule Eg>pt and the Sudan. Kitchener set the clock back in Cairo by reverting to a system of personal rule. He bluntly informed the British Cabinet that it was fatuous to think in terms of parliamentary democracy or self-government in the Egyptian context. He planned, accordingly, to depose the mildly corrupt but amiable and frustrated Egyptian sovereign. Abbas Hilmi: to annex Egypt
Far
and to hurl into a continuous series of bloody battles on the Continent new armies containing millions of men. As a serving Field-Marshal and a Conservative translated suddenly to second place in a close-knit Cabinet of Liberal politicians of high intellectual calibre, Kitchener found the political and parliamentary atmosphere, which was the breath of life to his colleagues, so strange that it made him gasp. He longed only to be allowed to get on with his job of wrestling with problems and conflicting pressures which transcended all previous experience, and which he had been called in to resolve, without constant argument and vivid but wearisome discussion. He u.sed to ask Asquith who was the only colleague whom he really trusted: 'Why should X Y and Z tease me with questions about the War Oflice? I never ask them about education, or local government.' He was conditioned to command and lead, not to convince and persuade: and his colleagues resented any show of abruptness. In addition to the routine work of his department. Kitchener undertook to raise, train and equip new armies of unprecedented size: to mobilise the nation's industries for war: and to supervise ately
Kitchener photographed successes in the Sudan This formal portrait was used as the basis of many pictures of Kitchener, including the famous poster, long after he had ceased to appear quite so dashing left:
just after his
Centre left: Kitchener in Cairo As the virtual ruler of Egypt
between 1911 and 1914he opposed any ideas of democracy and. always unwilling to delegate, ruled almost
as an absolute
monarch
Left: Kitchener, as Secretary of State for War. seen leaving the War Office
Right: Kitchener in formal civilian dress, JooKing as uncomfortable as no doubt
he
felt
Far right: In the Service Dress of a Field-Marshal
formally to the British Crown: and to weld Egypt, the Sudan, Kenya and Uganda into a great new Near Ea.stern Viceroyalty. On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Kitchener was on leave in England, and his glamorous reputation inspired unlimited popular confidence. His reluctant acceptance, therefore, of an invitation to enter the Cabinet as Secretary for War, evoked an ecstatic outburst of applause. Lloyd George noted that the entire Cabinet was intimidated at first by Kitchener's presence, 'because of his repute and enormous prestige with all classes of people outside. A word from him was decisive, and no one dared to challenge it at a Cabinet meeting'. Winston Churchill described the intense admiration with which he listened to Kitchener proclaiming in soldierly sentences a series of inspiring and prophetic truths. That was Kitchener's hour, and he dissociated himself entirely from the view of the government, and of the War Ofl^ce, that the war would be brief He declared, on the contrary, that it would last for years: that it would be total war: and that it could not be won by the traditional weapon of sea power. He announced that he intended to create immedi-
the conduct of British military strategy throughout the world.
That crushing burden thrown on his shoulders was a measure of his country's unpreparedness for total war: but the cloak of authority was missing. The vast undefined power which he exercised was not derived ofl^cially from Parliament, but by informal delegation from the Cabinet. Kitchener was neither Prime Minister nor Minister of Defence, and he lacked the vital machinery of a Chief-of-Staff's committee which co-ordinated the higher direction of the fighting services during the Second World War, and provided Churchill with an integrated instrument for directing the nation's war effort with the speed and consistency of a single will.
Kitchener brought to his task a titanic energy and an autocratic resolve which, seasoned with a touch of inarticulate poetry, lifted his prestige to a height unparalleled in British annals. His personality towered over the land: he performed miracles of improvisation: but he never willingly delegated responsibility. He was so eager, for example, that his new armies should be formed wholly in his own image, and that they should be cut from the
1463
outset to a standard professional pattern, that he caused confusion and waste of effort by duphcating the machinery of enHstment. He discouraged enlistment through the county territorial associations because he distrusted the Territorial Army. He regarded its spirit unfairly as incurably amateur, and encouraged in consequence all volunteers who sprang forward in response to his appeals to enlist as regulars for the duration of the war through special machinery which he devised in the Adjutant-Generals branch of the War Office. Despite a notorious shortage of all types of high explosive shells, Kitchener fought hard but unwisely to retain, in his own hands at the War Office, control over the manufacture and supply of munitions. He resented the establishment in May 1915 of a Ministry of Munitions with Lloyd George at its head. Ignoring in the same way the intolerable strain involved. Kitchener continued to act from choice as his own Chief-of-Staff until December 1915, when his colleagues stripped him of his responsibility for military strategy, and insisted that Sir William Robertson should be appointed CIGS.
The
and frustration felt by Kitchener was relieved on 1916 by the receipt of a message from the Tsar. Nicholas II, who had rashly proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief in Russia aftQr the defeats of 1915, invited Kitchener to visit all Russian fronts, to offer advice and to report subsequently to the British Government about outstanding problems of supply and
May
strain
13,
military co-operation. After consulting the King and the Prime Minister, Kitchener found, as he had expected, that his colleagues would be as happy to see him depart as he was to say goodbye to them for some weeks. On May 26, accordingly, he asked the Russian Ambassador, Count Benckendorff, to transmit his formal acceptance to the Tsar. The chief of the British military mission in Russia, Sir John Hanbury-Williams, was privately notified next day that Kitchener hoped to arrive at Archangel by sea on
June 9. While the Admiralty was
secretly arranging that journey. Kitchener took an unusual step in an effort to conciliate his backbench critics in parliament. He offered (on May 31 to give personally in confidence 'information on points of difficulty when it )
1464
may
properly be given' to
room at the War Office handing in their names to
all
members who cared
to
come
to his
11.30 am on Friday, June 2, after their Whips. So many members accepted that invitation that the meeting, held in the shadow cast by the disappointing Battle of Jutland, had to be transferred to a large committee room at the House of Commons. After observing drily that his 'previous work in life' had not qualified him to be a debater, or to follow closely the various turns and twists of argument'. Kitchener offered an impressive factual defence of his administration of the War Office. He explained his attitude on a at
Strange rumours started that he was not dead, that like King Arthur he was in an enchanted sleep in a remote cave
Left: The route taken by Kitchener on his way to Russia. HMS Hampshire struck a German mine off Marwick Head and sank. There were only 12 survivors Above: The last known picture of Kitchener boarding the ship that was to take him to Russia, but which in fact took him to his death. Right: King George V and Queen Mary arrive for Kitchener s memorial service at Westminster Abbey The news of his death was greeted at first by incredulity, and a sense of awed
numbness gripped
the land
number of subjects, including munitions supply and conscription; and he begged members in conclusion to resist the temptation to ask foolish and unnecessary pailiamentary questions. That soldierly speech and its confident delivery by the remote and formidable monolith whom few members had ever met evoked mund upon round of applause; and, after replying with pungent good humour to a number ot questions. Kitchener enjoyed a resounding triumph. Purring with satisfaction, he motored to Downing Street and afterwards to Buckingham Palace where he related his story with the gusto of a schoolboy to Asquith and the King. Asquith had a profound admiration and affection for Kitch-
fsy
!•
ener. whom he regarded as a big man in every way: and he recorded that he 'left the room gay. alert, elastic, sanguine. I never saw him again'. On Saturday. June 3. Kitchener discussed his Russian journey over luncheon with the King at Buckingham Palace, and motored
country house, Broome Park, near Dover. He was accompanied by his personal military secretary. Colonel O. A. G. FitzGerald, who had been his most intimate friend for many years and who was, like himself, a bachelor. After luncheon on Sunday, June 4, Kitchener returned to London and spent an hour signing official papers at the War Office. They dined subsequently at York House, St. James's, which the King had lent Kitchener for the duration of the war. After dinner Kitchener was driven to King's Cross, where he boarded a special train to Thurso. The official party bound for Russia consisted of FieldMarshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and Colonel FitzGerald; H. J. O'Beirne. Counsellor at the British Embassy in Petrograd; Sir Frederick Donaldson, technical adviser to the Ministry of Munitions, and his assistant, L. S. Robertson: Brigadier-General W. Ellershaw: Lieutenant R. D. Macpherson: a cipher clerk. Kitcheners personal detective and three servants. On the morning of Monday, June 5, Kitchener was conveyed with his party by the destroyer Oak to the Iron Duke, flagship of Sir John Jellicoe. After lunching with the Admiral and touring the ship. Kitchener left at 4.15 and boarded the cruiser Hampshire which had been detailed to take him to Archangel. A heavy northeasterly gale was worsening, but Kitchener, who was an excellent sailor, and always impatient in small matters, rejected Jellicoe's suggestion that his departure should be delayed until the weather showed signs of improvement. The Hampshire started accordingly at 5 pm on a route ordered by Jellicoe westward of the Pentland Firth and close to the western coast of the Orkneys. Two destroyers which had been detailed to escort her were detached at 7 pm by the Hampshire's captain on account of the very heavy seas. Some 40 minutes later, when about a mile and a half off Marwick Head, the Hampshire struck a mine. It had been laid by the German submarine U 75 on the night of May 28/29, when the German High Seas Fleet had been preparlater to his
ing to challenge the British Grand Fleet in the Battle of Jutland. The German intention had been to hamper the British concentration by mining the exits from Scapa Flow. The Hampshire heeled over to starboard, settled down by the head and sank within a quarter of an hour. A bare dozen survivors contrived to reach a wild inhospitable coast with cliffs rising sheer out of the sea, and they gave no coherent account of Kitchener's movements after the explosion. When he left his cabin a cry of 'make way for Lord Kitchener' was heard, and he at one moment in the gunroom flat and, at another, motionless on the steeply angled deck staring out to sea with FitzGerald at his side. As he was extremely susceptible to cold, he probably kept on his heavy greatcoat and choked to death among the first in the angry waters. FitzGerald's body was washed ashore: Kitchener's was devoured by the Atlantic. The news, published at about midday on June 6, was greeted at first by incredulity. The mission to Russia had been a closely guarded secret, and a sense of awed numbness gripped the land. Strange rumours started to circulate that Kitchener was not really dead: that he had been betrayed, and made prisoner by the Ger-
was seen
mans: or that he had been spirited away to some remote island cave and plunged, like King Arthur or Barbarossa, into an enchanted sleep. The subconscious minds of a surprisingly large section of the semi-educated masses recoiled from the need to accept the fact that their demi-god could perish without jeopardising the cause which he symbolically embodied.
Further Reading Arthur. Sir George.
Magnus.
Lord Kitchener, 3 vols (Macmiilan 1920) — Portrait of an Imperialist
Sir Philip, Kitctiener
(John Murray 1958) SIR PHILIP MAGNUS. FRSL, JP. is the biographer of Edmund Burke, Gladstone, Kitchener and King Edward VII, After leaving Oxford he became a civil servant for a time, and he served during the Second World War as a Major in the Intelligence Corps m Iceland and Italy He and his wife (Jewell Allcroft) live in Shropshire near Stokesay Castle which they own and open to the public
1465
RUSSIA
AT THE END OF
O aO;l>KMbl norATb
HER TETHER Russia-acountry of 167 million inhabitants, 133 million of whom could neither read nor write -had found by 1916 that wars were not won by manpower alone. Her wastage rate in both men and materials had been huge, and replacements were not forthcoming with either sufficient quantity or speed.
Geoffrey Jukes. Below left: The Grand Duke Nicholas, most able member of the Royal Family. Right and below right: An appeal for investment in government war stocks
1466
.'lAf^HblAVb K I^TO A\0.*K67b
IIOAH^ICATbCfl
HA
O2 /o
B0EHIIblH3AIHb
The population of the Russian Empire in 1914 was about 167,000,000, over double that of Germany, and in view of the size of the countr>' and its population, it was in-
It
was
realised after Russia's defeat in
the 1904/5
war with Japan that the Con-
keep the country
scription Law required overhauling, but decision-making proceeded so slowly that only in 1912 was a new law promulgated; even then, it amended the old law only in unimportant details. In consequence, the annual contingent of recruits remained inadequate, and the only way in which requirements could be met remained the maintenance of a minimum physical standard which was the lowest in Europe.
running, while the prevalence of illiteracy (80"^ of the population could neither read nor write) extended the time required for training troops, and increased the numbers of personnel involved in administration. Furthermore, the 1874 Conscription Law had already been found unsuitable for a major war, as it allowed too many exemptions. Whereas in Germany only about 2% of men of military age were entitled to exemption from military service in peacetime because of family conditions, 48% were so entitled in Russia, and of these about half were totally exempt from call-up even in time of war.
in Germany 37% of men of military age were rejected on grounds of health, only 17% of the annual Russian contingent were so exempted. This led in its turn to high sickness rates in the field, and a more rapid rate of attrition of reservists. Equally misconceived had been the policy in regard to the 1.1% of young men with higher education. As in most countries, deferment in order to complete education was readily granted, but in contrast to most, the recruit with higher education served a shorter period than others (one to three years instead of four), thus reducing the chance that he could be
evitable that her allies looked on Russia as a vast reservoir of manpower. But, in
the low efficiency with which labour was used in industry and agriculture, the poor state of the road and rail system, and
fact,
the severity of the climate meant that a very large number of able-bodied men
was needed simply
to
Whereas
properly trained to officer rank, and leading to a totally inadequate reserve of officers. These deficiencies were further compounded by the lack of a numerically
adequate cadre, especially of non-commissioned officers. The average number of these in the Russian army was two per company, compared with 12 per company in the German army, and thus the
numbers available bone
for
providing a back-
to the units as they
expanded
to
war
establishment, or for re-establishing them after the heavy attrition of 1914-15, were as inadequate as in the case of officers.
Disastrous shortages Just as reform of the Conscription Law had come too late, so had re-evaluation of problems of firepower and logistics received tardy and superficial attention. Approval for an increase in all kinds of artillery had been granted only shortly before the outbreak of war, and even if the plan had been implemented it would not even have sufficed to bring the artillery of a Russian division up to the strength of its German counterpart. In any case the prospects for
1467
Right: See caption on page 1473 Below: The colossus that wasn t. German peasants in East Prussia flee from the expected onslaught of the Russian steamroller In August 1914. The German victory at Tannenberg put an end to any such fears
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Its
fulfilment were poor, because although
programmed for completion by April 1917, it made no provision for expanding existing gun factories or for the provision of new ones. By 1916 the General Headquarters requirement was for 6,720 new guns of 3-inch calibre per annum, plus the repair of 3,780 (versus the 1910 estimated To meet these rerequirement of 889 1.
quirements was completely beyond the powers of the handful of State arsenals. The inadequacy' in artillery manufacturing resources was matched in machine gun production. In common with most belligerents, the Russian High Command had underestimated the importance of
weapon. At the beginning of the war, the number of machine guns available ibr the field army, then 3,000,000 strong, was just over 4,100, and it was soon realised this
that this
number was
totally insufficient.
According to the war plan, only lO'^i of the annual requirements for machine guns was available at the outbreak of war, and the Tula arsenal was the only production facility available. rupt
and
inefficient
Under the
regime
cor-
prevailing
while Sukhomlinov remained Minister of War, it was not likely that the situation would improve, but fortunately the Artillery' Department had acted undei' its own initiative early in the war, and placed contracts with various private firms. These were producing 350 machine guns monthly during 1915, and steps were being taken to increase output to 1,000 a month during 1916. When Sukhomlinov was replaced by (leneral Polivanov in September 1915, the new War Minister placed large orders for machine guns, 31,170 to be delivered within 15 months, at an average rate of 2,078 monthly. Since even the new factories could not deliver half this number, attempts were made to place orders abroad, but by then the French and British producers were fully taken up with orders for their own armies, while the neutrals
were busy manufacturing machine guns for both sides. Thus Russian requirements for machine guns came no nearer fulfilment than those for artillery, and in 1916, aftei' making allowance for combat losses and wastage through mishandling, only some 12'/f of needs could be met.
But the most acute shortage of all was small arms, and it was in these that the first supply crisis had occurred. The mobilisation plan of 1914 had estimated the total need in rifles for the first two years of the war at 5,900,000, an underestimate, as it turned out, of over one-third. By the time the 1915 campaign began, an acute shortage of rifles was manifest, and unarmed reinforcements were a common sight among the infantry regiments in the front line. At first Sukhomlinov countermanded plans in
buy rifles abroad, referring to the problems which would be caused by differences in calibre, but eventually he relented, to
only to find that, as in the ca.se of machme guns, foreign manufacturers had already received contracts from the other belligerents. As a result, the shortage of rifles was never made up, and against an estimated requirement of 200,000 rifles a month to replace wastage and losses, Russian manufacturers turned out in 1915 an average of 71,000, rising in 1916 to only 111,000. Even allowing for 2,434,000 rifles purchased abroad, and those captured (mostly from the Austriansi, the Russian army had.
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by mid-1916, barely sufficient to cover normal wastage, and had in effect nothing available with which to arm recruits. At the beginning of the war there wei'e only three factories producing small-arms ammunition, while stocks were almost 600,()00,()()0 rounds below the estimated i-equirements, themselves inadequate, and by early 1915 all the prewar stockpile had been used up. There then began an acute lasted which shortage ammunition throughout 1915, during which monthly production, although increased threefold, was never more than 50^^ of requirements. It
was
clearly necessary to build pt least
one new factory, but under Sukhomlinov nothing was done, and it was April 1916 before a decision was made. By then, an approximate balance l)etween needs and supplies had been reached, and ammunition shortage was no longer acute. But this was almost entirely owing to the shortage arms. If in 1916, small arms ammunition was not acutely short, this was only because there was a 35'/f shortage of rifles, and an H87( deficiency in machine guns, while the army had suffered a major crisis, and numerous opportunities for military success had been lost. of small
The decline begins In particular, the retreat of
1915 had had
dire effects upon army morale. At the front, the picture was one of withdrawal, forced usually by lack of supplies and conducted, for the most part, in good order. Certainly the army as a whole realised its strength
was undermined, and mass hallucinations comparable to the 'Angels of Mons', or rumours like those which had swept England about 'Russians with snow on their boots', were prevalent in some units. Man\' of these centred on hopes that the Japanese (whom the Russians considered particularly formidable because of Russia's defeat at their hands in 1904-5) were about to intervene on Russia's side; some, indeed, claimed to have seen Japanese troops in the rear positions. But such rumours and hallucinations were far from universal, and the front line troops were more inclined to regard the disasters of the 1915 campaign as unfortunate but not irreversible. However, the retreat produced one of the most tragic consequences of war in the form of hundreds of thousands of refugees, who flooded into and through the rear positions, spreading alarm among the rearward troops and converging upon the towns which, themselves in the grip of food shortages, could scarcely have been worse prepared to receive them. The impression left upon the country, as thousands of the refugees starved in their midst, was of catastrophe, complete and irreparable. The new Minister for War, General Polivanov, reported 'Demoralisation, surrender and desertion are assuming huge proportions. General Headquarters seems completely at a loss, and its orders are taking on a hysterical character.' Pubto be
and governmental anger began to direct against the Commander-in-Chief, the Grand Duke Nikolay Nike The Grand Duke was not res) the munitions shortage, or the ina lic
itself
.
'•,
of the
transport system. His dei withdraw was inevitable and righi the armies had stood fast they woulc.
been surrounded and wiped out. In atuK r^ing the General li"ad(|uarters. the Ministers did not in fact intend to bring down I
1470
Grand Duke. The ministerial darts were aimed, rather, at the Ministry of War, where the replacement of Sukhomlinov by Polivanov had not yet led to the wholesale clean-out of incompetents for which they and the country hoped. But the Grand Duke himself, having devoted the whole of his life to the army, was sacrosanct. The professionals looked upon him as one the
of themselves, while to the peasant soldiers he was, with his six-foot-six stature, piercing eye, and incisive manner, an incarnation of Holy Russia, 'fhe Tsar himself stood in .some awe of him, but both the Empress and the dissolute monk Rasputin hated him. The Empress suspected him of plotting to become Tsar, and resented his
inclinations towards representative government, which she regarded as undermining the principle of autocracy. He, in his turn, was fully aware of Rasputin's unhealthy influence over the Royal family (he had first introduced Rasputin to the palace, and he had never ceased to regret it) and had offered to hang him if he should ever appear at General Headquarters. Throughout the retreat from Galicia and Poland, Rasputin systematically fed the Empress with arguments against the Grand Duke, which she in turn used to influence her husband. The Tsar, himself convinced that only thus could he restore unity to the country, finally took over command himself on August 7, 1915, two days after the fall of Warsaw. The peasant soldiers grieved, Ludendorff (who was later to say 'The Grand Duke was really a great soldier and strategist') rejoiced, while Britain and France heaved sighs of relief at this evidence that Russia meant to stay in the war. The Tsar's Council of Ministers was aghast, believing that his action would concentrate all the nation's anger at defeat upon his head, and disrupt the unity essential to autocratic rule. The generals were less upset, as they understood the Tsar intended to be merely a figurehead, with a respected professional Chief-ofStaff,
eyev,
these were remote from the main centres of the country, to which they were linked only by single track railway lines. Vladivostok, on the shores of the Pacific, was
about
6,000 miles from the front, and it could be kept open in winter and its port facilities were good, the transit of supplies involved an immensely long sea voyage, after which the speed at which they could be transported depended entirely upon the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was subject to frequent interruption during the winter, and in summer possessed the disadvantage of not being continuous. At Archangel, the situation was little better, because although the sea and rail transits were shorter, the railway was also of inadequate capacity, and the port itself frozen for several months of the year. As at Vladivostok, cargoes began to pile up on the wharves and along the river bank. A third alternative was Murmansk, which is kept free of ice by the Gulf Stream. Unf'ortunately Murmansk was then only a fishing village with neither port facilities nor rail connections.
though
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breathing space during the winter of 191516
as
the
Germans,
ihe belief that
in
Russian losses during the 1915 campaign had made them incapable of any serious further offensive, transferred their main back to the Western Front, in order to open the attack on Verdun, in February 1916. Russia badly needed this relief, as
effort
her supply difficulties were the result not merely of low efficiency, but of geography. As both Germany and Turkey were her enemies, the main ports of the country th( se of the Baltic and Black Sea coasts -re sealed off from the outside world with them both the lucrative export iiaJo in wheat and the import of advanced ndustrial products, notably machine tools ind weapons, from hei allies and from America. The only routes by which Russia's trade links with the mtside world could be maintained were hi igh the ports of Archangel and \\. .k. Both of '
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cisions.
A breathing space The new military leadership was given a
\
J
^-•^31
General Mikhail Vasilyevich Alextaking all important military de-
He had already commanded the Northern Front with a measure of success, so he possessed their confidence, and with the replacement of Sukhomlinov by General Polivanov as Minister of War the army had good reason to believe that supply would not again be as had as it had been.
i
The
state of the railways had become before the war was six months old, when a fuel crisis arose in the Ukrainian coal mines. The drafting of miners into the army and the inability of the railways to move coal from the pitheads were partly responsible, but basically the crisis resulted from intensified wartime demand. In March 1915 the Ministry of Transport was invested with powers of control over fuel producers, and a special committee representing commerce, industry and government was set up to oversee fuel supply. When the crisis of supply within the armed forces spread to food and fodder, similar powers were conferred upon the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on May 19, 1915, and another committee was set up to control agricultural supplies, food prices, and the supply of food and fodder critical
to the
army.
Discontent with the passivity, bureaucratic inertia and corruption of the Minis-
War under Sukhomlinov came to a head during Ma>' 1915 as the Russian armies retreated from Galicia, primarily because of their lack of ammunition. The Provisional Committee of the Duma asked its President, Rodzyanko, to make representations to the Tsar, seeking to place try of
By the end of 1916 25% of the working population was in the army, or dead, wounded, or captured
— the main towns
reported a bread and shortage. Meat was hardly to be found in the markets, and sugar was practically non-existent. Increased food prices were common to all the belligerents, but they increased more in Russia than elsewhere. Compared with 191314, food prices had by early 1916 increased by 50-70''^ flour
in in
England, and 20 — 50'/? in France. But Russia the increase averaged 114^^,
and
in
some of the main
cities
it
was
much
larger, so that in Moscow in June 1916 butter cost 220Vf more than in July
left: A German view of how the unwilling Russian masses were goaded into battle On on. you dogs! read the caption Fight for Civilisation! Left: Tsar Nicholas II, having appointed himself C- in -C, takes a closer interest in his new profession. Below. General Polivanov took over as Minister of War from Sukhomlinov, Less corrupt and more efficient, circumstances conspired to make him equally unsuccessful and unpopular
Far
1914, beef 371'/?, mutton 381'/ and rye bread 150'/. Comparable increases had taken place in the prices of fuel and clothing while wages had failed to keep pace. The economy was in disarray, and attempts by the municipalities to fix prices merely drove more commodities on to the black market, while their efforts to improve supply by .setting up their own purchasing organisations were only of limited success. The attempt to control the burgeoning economic crisis was belated and inadequate. Machinery for local execution of the supply scheme proved hopelessly inefficient. Nor did the attempt to co-ordinate and systematise the transport of goods meet with the success it deserved, because of the continued strain upon the railway system and the priority inevitably accorded to military traffic. In the six provinces controlled by the Moscow Regional Committee, for example, only 34.9'/ of planned shipments actually took place during June 1916, and the trend showed no signs of improvement. One bright spot was that the 1916 grain harvest in most parts of the country was an excellent one, but in hope of increased prices the landlords hoarded their grain. Inevitably, the bread shortage in the towns, alongside the abundance of grain
known to exist, led to strained relationships between urban and rural populations, in which representatives of the municipalities justly accused the landlords and peasants of profiteering, while spokesmen for rural industries pointed out with equal justice that to apply price control to foodstuffs, while leaving industrial producers armament supply under the jurisdiction of a Special Council. On June 7, 1915, this Council came into existence. Its effectivewas impaired by the fact that Sukhomlinov was made chairman, but it ness
served as the prototype for other Special Councils, four in number, which were set up by law on August 17, covering national defence, fuel supply, food and transport, and absorbing the earlier committees. A fifth
council, on Refugee Relief, end of August.
was
set
up
at the
Autocracy v Parliamentarism At the urging of the Empress and Rasputin, the Emperor refused to abandon autocratic powers and form a government based on majority support in the Duma. At the same time, public discontent with the government's (and hence the Tsar's) conduct of the war was such that some spreading,
not
responsibility for decisions, odium which they incurred, had become a necessity. However, it was realised in the Duma that participation in the Special Councils did not in fact give it any increased say in the direction of the war effort, while the actual government of the country remained in the hands of the if
of
at least of the
Tsar and Ministers appointed by him. The
summer 1915 19-September
session of the 31
Duma
(June
was held during a period
of serious military reverses, with the Russian armies in retreat along the whole front between the Baltic and Galicia, and bitter criticism was directed at the government, centering on the conduct of the Ministry of War. Under the influence of the military defeats, the 'patriotic coalition' of all except the extreme left parties began to dissolve. A new gi'oup, comprising all except the parties of extreme left and right, came into existence. It took the name of the 'Progressive Bloc", came to comprise over two-thirds of the Duma, and demanded government. The autorepresentative cracy, however, refused to surrender its privileges. Instead it prorogued the Duma. By the beginning of 1916, with about 257? of the working population in the army, dead, disabled or captured, the dire effects of the war had spread throughout the economy, but were particularly felt in the cities. Shortages and the breakdown of food distribution led to a rise in profiteering and black market activities to unprecedented heights. There was a partial failure of the harvest in 1915, and even in the richest bread-basket of all — the Ukraine, and the fertile lands of the North Caucasus
free to
charge what they liked, was
dis-
criminatory. In the midst of mutual recrimination, the supply situation in general
continued to deteriorate.
Rasputin — a demonic influence Relations between the Tsar and the Duma continued to be bad, but perhaps more fatal to Russia's prospects in the war was the continued attack by the Empress against members of the government who had incurred the ire of Rasputin. With the Tsar away from day-to-day contact with his Ministers, his vulnerability to his wife's suggestions increased, and from mid-1915 onwards a succession of appointments were made, all instigated by the Empress's 'Friend', and all disastrous. First of these was that of Stiirmer, a nonentity, to take the place of Goremykin a.s Prime Minister. Goremykin had often expressed his wish to retire, but the manner of his going was both a surprise to him and an insult to the Duma. Acting on an ingenious suggestion of Rasputin's, the Tsar appeared in person before the Duma on February 22, 1916. gi-eeted them as 'Representatives of the Russian people', and conferred a decoration upon the President, Rodzyanko. Stiirmer's presence was temporarily for-
1471
gotten, and his appointment passed without incident — at least for the time being. Genera! Pohvanov. the Minister of War, was the next to go. He was the ablest organiser amongst the Russian generals,
and had effected immense improvements in army supply and training, but his aversion to Rasputin was combined with an eagerness to seek the support of the Duma in revitalising the army. The combination of these two tendencies doomed him in the eyes of the Empress, who urged her husband to dismiss him. On March 25, 1916, the Tsar complied, replacing him with (ieneral Shuvayev, who was more distinguished for his loyalty than for his organising abilities, as events were to show, .'^azonov, the Foreign Minister, followed (loremykin and Polivanov into retirement in July 1916. No replacement was appointed. Stiirmer adding Sazonov's responsibilities to those of Prime Minister, and thus further destroying relations with
Britain and France, which regarded him as completely untrustworthy. With the economy in chaos, the army in disarray, and with relations between Tsar, (Government and Duma at a low ebb, renewed offensive action by Russia was hardly to be expected, and the German decision to withdraw troops from the East for
use at Verdun seemed thoroughly justified. However, two factors had bt-en overlooked: the organising talent of the new War Minister, General Polivanov, and the im|)ortance of Russia to the Allied cause. Polivanov set himself energetically to the lask of overcoming the ammunition shortage, by expanding production and improving supply and handling, while the Allies -stepped in
up their deliveries of ammunition.
order to ensure that the Eastern Front
remained
in being.
The offensive
is planned The improvement wrought by Polivanov within a few months was remarkable, and the Chief-of-Staff to the Commander-inChief, General Alexeyev, was enabled to turn his mind once again to the possibility of offensive operations. The German
armies on the front were very strong in iirepower, despite their reduced numbers, l)ut the armies of Austro-Hungary were altogether lower in quality. Their ranks were full of South Slavs and Poles, whose enthusiasm for Teutons was low, their t-quipment and training were poor com|)ared with that of the Germans, and their generalship a doubtful quantity. On the one hand, an attack on the Austro-Hungarian front offered greater prospects of -uccess; on the other, Germany was the
main enemy, held the greater and more important expanses of Russian territory, and stood closer to Petrograd (Leningrad). Alexeyev's initial proposal was that the main assault should be an attempt to recapture Vilna iVil'nyusi, which meant a headlong assault upon the (jerman armies under Hindenburg and Ludendorff in the Haltic provinces and Poland. The main assault would, therefore, be delivered by General Evert's We.st 'Front' (the Russirin lerm for an Army Group supported by (ieneral Kuropatkin's North-West P'roni i,
The
Army Group
facing the Austrians, South-West Front, was to receive none of he heavy artillery or infantry re.-erves, as most of the.se would go to North, and the balance to North-West Front. It would remain on the defensive during the
GHQ
I
!
.|7'>
stages of the assault, but it was in to exploit the success of its northern neighbours once they had advanced sufficiently far westwards to bare the north ffank of the Austrians. However, its Commander-in-Chief. General Ivanov. had been broken by the defeats of the previous year, and had sunk into a mood of severe defeatism. A replacement had to be found for him, and Alexeyev's choice fell on the Commander of Eighth Army of the South-West Front, General A. A. Brusilov. His appointment took effect at the end of March 1916, and almost immediately he was summoned to a Council of War. held at Mogilev on April 14. The Tsar personally presided, and also present were Alexeyev, the three .\rmy Gi-oup Commanders with their Chiefs-of-Staff, Ivanov. the War Minister, General Shuvayev iPolivanov having been dismis.^ed through the successful intrigues of Rasputin and the Empress), and the Grand Duke Sergey Mikhailovich, Inspector-General of the Artillery. The principal item on the agenda was. naturally, Alexeyev's proposed offensive against the Germans. Kuropatkin at once pointed out that the German defensive positions were extremely .strong, and expressed the view that immense casualties would be incurred initial
to join
without any commensurate success, especibecause of the shortage of heavy artillery ammunition. Alexeyev disagreed with him, but had to agree that the artillery position was poor, so the War Minister and Inspector-General of Artillery were asked for their opinions. Both declared that while ally
immense quantities of light artillery ammunition could be provided, production of heavy shell was inadequate, supplies from abroad very hard to come by, and no improvement could be expected during the coming summer. Evert then said that he was in complete agreement with Kuropatkin. and opposed the mounting of an offensive until the artillery position improved. Thus, after all the parties had spoken, Alexeyev's plan lay in ruins. It was at this point that Brusilov intervened. He argued that the great weakness of Russian offensive planning in the past had been the lack of 'pinning-down' attacks, designed to prevent the transfer of enemy forces to threatened sectors, and
asked for permission to attack at the same time as his neighbours. Even if no success attended his efforts, at least the chances of Evert and Kuropatkin would be improved. Alexeyev agreed in principle, though he refused to allocate any additional resources to the South-We.st Front, and Evert and Kui-opatkin then grudgingly accepted Alexeyev's plan. Thus, in the course of one morning the plan for the
summer
offensive was modified and agreed, an army which by Western standards was no longer capable of large operations committed itself to an assault along all its front, and the seeds of what became known to posterity as the 'Brusilov offensive' were
sown. It was in striking contra.st to the normally glacial pace of Russian decisionm.aking, and would have important effects v.Don the Western and Italian Fronts. In of the still parlous state of the econ.
.
'
and the doubts over supply, to agree was an act of faith. But agreed as. and though no firm date could be at all
it
lor it, a provisional deadline of Mav 1916 was fixed. The Front Commanders then dispersed to begin preparations.
.set
Further Reading Brusilov. Gen, A. A., A Soldier s Notebook 1914-18 (Macmillan 1930) Golovine. Lt-Gen N N The Russian Army .
in
War (OUP 1931) Knox. Maj-Gen Sir Alfred. With the Russian the World
4/-m/ 7974-77 (Hutchinson 1921) Ludendorff. Gen My War Memories 1914-18. Vol 1 (Hutchinson 1919) Pushkarev. S-. The Emergence of Modern Russia 1801-1917 (Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1963) ,
GEOFFREY JUKES was
born in 1928, and was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar Sctiool. Carmarthen, and at Wadham College. Oxford From 1956 to 1965 he was employed at the Ministry of Defence as a specialist in the affairs of the Soviet bloc, and in 1965 he |0ined the
Foreign Office as a researcher into disIn 1967 he joined the staff the International Relations Department.
armament problems of
Australian National University His publications include Stalingrad, The Turning Point and Kursk, the Clash of Armour, as well as a number
He is a keen student of all military studies, and contributed to Purnells History of the Second World War as well as the present History, of articles
Poverty, privilege, and poor administration
Left: Cossacks, excellent when riding down civilians (as shown on page 1468), are shown in this German cartoon as surrendering instantly when confronted by German infantry. In fact Cossacks (whose position was in some ways analogous to the Highlanders in the British army) were loyal to the Tsarist regime, and excellent fighters. Below: Weary, cold
and probably very hungry, Russian troops captured by the Austrians. Russian losses in prisoners were huge, often because of mis-
management, but latterly also because of large scale desertion. Inset: Not weary, not cold and certainly not hungry, the Tsar surrounded by senior army officers in 1914. On his right, lighting a cigar, is the Grand Duke Nicholas, then Commander-in-Chief
1473
1474
Contenders in Brusilov's offensive A Russian artilleryman, wearing the distinctive dark-green trousers. 2 The Russian 1902 7.62-cm field gun, part of the superior Russian artillery concentration. Range: 7, 130 yards. Weight in action: 2,600 lbs.
1
Muzzle velocity: 1,935 feet-per-second. 3 The Austrian 12-cm fortress gun. Range: 8,749 yards. Weight in action: 8,064 lbs.
Muzzle velocity: 1,690 feet-per-second. Rate of fire: Two rounds-per-minute. 4 The Russian 6-inch howitzer. 5 A Russian cavalry officer in standard uniform. 6 An Austrian cavalryman in the field-grey tunic and iron-grey breeches which were introduced in 19 15 and were standard uniform by 1916. His small and side arms were the cavalry sabre M 1904, the 8-mm carbine model Mannlicher 1895, and the Roth-Steyr8-mm pistol M 1907 (or the Steyr9-mm pistol M 12. or the Rast-Gasser revolver 8-mm M 1898). His belt and
equipment were
still
of leather
<]4
1475
THE BRimiLOV OFFENSIVE
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,
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The Brusilov Offensive was based on a
single, simple idea.
Up to this date, argued Brusilov, Russia's offensives had failed through lack of support, and the Germans had always been able to divert reserves from quiet sectors of the front. A general offensive would provide an opportunity for breakthrough at the weakest point. In fact, however, the amazing success of the offensive on Brusilov's front was due not to the supporting actions (which never materialised) but to high standards of planning, and Austrian unpreparedness
Norman Stone
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could be when properly organised and handled, lop right: General Lechitsky (right), and Gteneral Alexeyev (left). >Above; Riltesian'artillery in action with spotter plane abov§
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Brusilov's offensive was prepared with a carefulness most unusual in the Tsar's army. Brusilov himself was by a long way its best general, showing a certain touch of greatness. Almost alone among the higher commanders on the Russian side, he was mentally adaptable, and did not relapse into the resentful pessimism of his colleagues. He saw that existing methods of attack were inadequate — the conventional wisdom, natural enough, was that a battle could be won only by concentrating colossal fii-epower and infantry reserves on a very
narrow sector, and by pouring through cavalry to exploit the resulting breakthrough. Brusilov saw that this was faulty — the enemy could always rush up his reserves by rail faster than the attacker could move his on foot. Thus the essential point was to pin down the enemy's reserves before making the breakthrough: this would mean attacking on a wide front, with many lesser attacks at favourable points. Brusilov therefore ordered all his armies to attack: Eighth (Kaledin) in the north, opposite Lutsk, Eleventh (Sakharov). Seventh (Shcherbachevi and Ninth (Letchitsky) south of it, to the Rumanian border. He directed them: Only by insistent attack of all forces on the wide.st possible front will you be able to bind down the enemy properly and deprive him of the chance to throw in his reserves' — a doctrine of staggering originality that impressed the Russian High Command's Chief-ofStaff M. V. Alexeyev, as mere foolishness. It came near to winning the war for Russia. The trouble was that, by Brusilov's method,
the Russians' own reserves were tied down themselves, and could not therefore exploit any breakthrough unless they had timely support from somewhere else. This possibility hardly occurred to Alexeyev, who regarded Brusilov's front as subsidiary. The armies of the south-western sector prepared all along the line from the Pripet (Pripyat) Marshes to the River Dniestr (Dnestr). Everywhere there was extensive digging, to disguise from the Austrians the true direction of the offensive. Enormous trench systems were constructed for reserves, and the front lines were sapped slowly forward so that the jump-off lines would be as close to the Austrians as possible— in some places as little as 50 yards. The strictest orders were given for co-operation between infantry and artillery: the gunners were instructed not to put on their usual Tire-work display" of useless firing. Gunners were stationed for a time in the front trenches so as to get to know the infantry subalterns. The morale of both officers and men was high; they were properly trained, no longer the aimless militia of 1915; and, miraculously for the Tsarist military administration, they even had rifles. The guns were in good condition with much ammunition. The Russian plan was tor Eighth Army to move forward along the Rovno-Kovel railway line and seize Lutsk and the line of the River Styr; at the same time, diversionary attacks were to be made by the other armies, in particular Letchitsky's Ninth, designed to sweep into Bukovina and to threaten eastern Galicia from
the south. Eighth Army had 13 divisions against the Austrian Fourth Army's six; Ninth Army had some nine infantry and four cavalry divisions against the Austrian Seventh Army's ten infantry and five cavalry divisions. Broadly speaking, Russian battalions were larger than Austrian ones, and the Russians had on Eighth Army's front twice the number of guns of Austria's Fourth Army, and on Ninth Army's front about half again as many as the Austrians. The ammunition was more plentiful, and they had, surprisingly, more guns of heavy calibre. It seems also that their shells were more effective than they had been in 1915. They were certainly better directed. Eighth Army, with IV Cavalry Corps and XL'VI Army Corps on the lower Styr by Kolki and Chartorysk under General Gyllenschmidt, V Cavalry
Corps and XXX Army Corps under General Zayontchkovskv south of them, and four strong corps -XXXIX, XL, VIII and XXXIl — in the flat region between Rovno and Lutsk, began its attack with a long bombardment on June 4. Ninth Army, with XXXIII, XLI, XI Corps, a combined ^svodny) Corps and III Cavalrv Corps prepared to attack on both sides of the River Dniestr, particularly south of the river, towards Czernovitz (Chernovtsy), capital of the Bukovina. The two armies between them. Seventh and Eleventh, were also groomed for an offensive. Eleventh Army was to attack from Tarnopol, Seventh across the River Strypa. All these onslaughts began on June 4, with a hurricane
bombardment.
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The Austrians were, in fact, in a mood of fatuous confidence, and had returned, free from German supervision, to many of their old slovenly ways. Their commander, Conrad, had deliberately thinned the front in the east so as to pursue an offensive against the Italians. In particular, he had taken the best divisions and some heavy guns from the front of Fourth Ai-my in Volhynia and that of Seventh Army on the frontiers of Bessarabia. The Austrian front was divided among five armies — from the Styr in the north to the Rumanian frontier these were Fourth Archduke -Joseph Feri
dinand
i.
First
iPuhallo).
Second
(
Bohm-
Deutsche Siidarmee (a mixed German-Austrian force in East Galicia, under a German Commander, Graf von Bothmer), and Seventh tPflanzer-Baltin). Fourth, and later, First, Armies were included in an Army Group under a German General. Linsingen, whose command embraced all troops between East Galicia and the Pripet Marshes. Relations between Linsingen and his Austrian subordinates were ruffled; relations between Archduke Joseph Ferdinand and his Chief-of-Staff, Berndt, were appalling. The Austrians had conErmolli),
structed a position of formidable strength, three belts, each composed of several lines with concrete shelters, of trenches,
machine gun nests, forests of barbed-wire entanglements, and gigantic 'funk-holes', Fuchslocher, in which reserves would be hidden and saved from bombardment, even by the heaviest calibres. Behind this formidable defence, however, the Austrian Fourth Army was slowly
rotting.
The Archduke spent
ing, or boating
his days huntalong the Styr with a set of
aristocratic friends, whose military duties were imprecisely defined. The troops themselves were mainly Slavs, few of whom saw much point in fighting Russians to help
Germans; officers were generally inexperienced, and the old corps of N.C.O.'s had been decimated. Nonetheless, the Austrian army had stood up reasonably well so far; it was defeating the Italians; and, even without German help, it had been able to defeat the Russian offensives of winter 1915-1916. But for the insight of Brusilov and the courage of his men, the Austrian army might have repeated the feat. The Archduke was ludicrously nonchalant; and Linsingen saw no reason to worry, telling
German Kaiser
that he could 'guaranhim against any attack by the enemy opposite in his present strength'. His Chief-of-Staff, Stolzmann — with whom his relations were also bad — said the same on a journey to Austrian
the
tee the front entrusted to
Headquarters in Teschen, where he was in attendance tor the birthday of the Austro-
Hungarian C-in-C, Archduke Frederick.
The onslaught begins The Archduke's birthday was on June
4.
Brusilov had his present ready. A bombardment of great intensity destroyed much of the Austrian wire along the whole front; testing patrols of Russians followed and were beaten back with extravagant gunfire from the Austrians. On the front of Eleventh Army, facing the Austrian Second, a dangerous situation developed
the Austrians as the Russian XVII Corps (Yakovlieff) broke through at a particularly favourable point on the River Ikva, at Sopanov. Elsewhere the Russian attacks made little progress, although on Ninth Army's front the Russian divisions for
made some inroads, particularly around Okna and Dobronoutz (Dobronovtsel. These were small gains, but they achieved what Brusilov wanted; Austrian reserves were at once committed. To face the Sopanov breakthrough, a reserve division of Fourth Army was set moving towards the south; and the other reserves everywhere were sent nearer the front line. In fact the Austrians had made a cardinal, though understandable, error in defence. They committed about two-thirds of their troops to the defence of the very first position, well within range of the Russians' heavy guns; and the other third was not far enough away. They were, therefore, speedily involved in a haphazard, piecemeal defence instead of being used for an effective counterattack. June 5 was the day of disaster for the south of the Dniestr
Austrian Fourth Army. The Sopanov breakthrough was effectively countered, as Sakharov did not have reserves to exploit it and in any case seems not to have expected to break through there. But to the north, a huge gap had been torn. The reports going back by Hughes apparatus — primi five teleprinting system — from Fowr^/; Army Headquarters in Lutsk to the Headquarters of Linsingen's Army Group in Jablori, a hundred miles away, sounded confident enough until 1030 hours: there-
In spite of occupying positions of considerable strength, the Austrian armies facing Brusilov were ill-prepared and demoralised
§ •
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the German staff officers became aware that there had been a disaster of the after,
greatest scope. Waves of Russian infantrymen, well-prepared for their task, had seized the first trenches and, carefully using their reserves to maintain momentum, had rushed the second trenches also, where the bulk of the Austrian troops
had been pinned down by ted
gunfire.
Some
brilliantly direcof the Austrian regi-
ments had given up almost without firing a shot— 40th Regiment, for instance, made up largely of Ukrainians, was captured en masse with hardly a casualty. In most the formidable Austrian positions acted as a trap for their defenders, not for the Russians — the troops could not -or would not — get out of the deep dugouts in time. The Austrian guns were too few in number and had been detected in advance: they were silenced almost at once, and there were shameful episodes of gunners' withdrawing their pieces long before they were compelled to. Officers lost their heads, and not many of the men showed much initiative. The centre of the Austrian position, the villages of Olyka cases,
fell almost at once. The single reserve division, 13th, a Viennese one, was involved in the general rout, and counterattacks all failed except in the extreme south. By the evening of June 5, the whole Austrian line was reeling back towards the Styr, losing thousands of prisoners. There was nothing anyone could do — no reserves were at hand, and in any case Linsingen failed to see how bad things
and Pokashchevo,
were.
He
told the
Archduke
to hold on.
This order was irrelevant to the situaOn June 6, the Austrian divisions fled back through the dusty fields towards Lutsk, hoping to defend the line of the Styr, to which it was the key. The town was the pride of Fourth Army, which had captured it a year before, and the Archduke was determined to hold it. Unfortunately for him, the survival of Lutsk really depended on the retention by the Austrians of Krupy, which stands on hills overlooking Lutsk from the south-west. Its fall would give the Russians an excellent vantage-point for artillery. Krupy was to be held by the battered Hungarians of Szurmay's Corps, and they retreated there in much disorder during June 6 with the Russians following hard. It was unlikely that decimated and demoralised troops would be able to hold either Krupy or Lutsk; but in any case the defenders were in a poor position as their fields of fire were restricted by clouds of dust and the ripening cornfields. Early on June 7 the Russian XL Corps reached Krupy, sustained by exultant morale. Szurmay's troops virtually fled over the River Styr, giving up the heights; and Russian guns tion.
began
to fire into
Lutsk
itself.
X
The defen-
ders here, part of Martiny's Corps, were no better state of morale, and they too began to crumble as the first Russian horsemen reached the perimeter. Panicstricken and confused junior officers initiated a retreat and were then swept back by their men; there were hideous scenes in the late afternoon as the defenders of the perimeter crowded towards the barbed-wire
m
on the second line, many of them being crushed against it; engineers blew up the Styr bridges prematurely, on one occasion while a battalion was crossing. By the evening of June 7, the Austrian Fourth Army was behind the Styr, having lost 60,000 men, most of them as prisoners, with a huge stock of military supplies of all kinds — lorries, food, rails, even locomotives. The Russians also captured huge stores of wine and spirits; and this contributed to the pause that followed. For the next three days, the Austrians reeled back some 30 miles beyond the Styr; Russian cavalry probed as far as Vladimir Volynskiy. Linsingen hastily summoned a few
battalions of reserves. The Russians could no doubt have gone as far as Lemberg had they tried. But Brusilov, and still more Kaledin, decided this would be imprudent. Kaledin practically had a nervous breakdown at the extent of his own victory, suspecting that there must be a trap somewhere. Brusilov, moreover, had too few reserves to exploit his victory: and maybe he was worried that the Germans would attack his northern flank as
they had done in autumn 1915 in roughly similar circumstances. At all events, a combination of real and imagined weakness stopped Kaledin's offensive just when it was on the threshold of a gigantic victory. In particular, the Russian commanders were perplexed at the continued resistance of one part of the Austrian line — the bend of the Styr at Kolki and Chartorysk. This bastion dominated the salient that the Russians had created around Left: Russian soldiers take cover as a shell bursts on their objective. Top right: Too many chiefs? Bohm-Ermolli and his staff One of the main causes of the Austrian rout v\/as the low standard of generalship, exemplified by the commander of Fourth Army. Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, who spent much of his time hunting and boating. Centre right: German troops await the onslaught in gas masks. Bottom right: Austrian troops man an anti-aircraft machine gun, but It was not from the air that the blow was to fall
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Lutsk, and Brusilov thought that, until was conquered, he could not safely pursue his attacks beyond the Styr to Kovel and Vladimn- Volynskiy. He reined in Kaledin mot that he needed much reining in and re-issued orders for the conquest of the Styr bastion. In fact, this did not fall. It had been attacked on June 4 and 5, but the ground was very marshy and intersected; the Austrian defenders were of better material than further south; even the heaviest shells had their effect mufHed in the marshes. The Russian commanders here, Gyllenschmidt and Zayontchkovsky, had too much cavalry, and too little real weight. They sustained ^reat losses in this fruitless attempt. The situation could only be saved if EverL's 'western front' took action, as indeed it was fully expected to; and Brusilov telegraphed personally to General Lesh, commanding the it
I
Russian Third Army, southernmost army of Evert's front, T turn to you as your old companion in arms with the completely private, personal request' that he should
attack to turn the Styr bastion from the
But Evert remained adamant. He would not let Lesh attack until mid-June, and kept finding excuses to put off his main attack on Vilna, the success of which appeared to him doubtful. In the upshot, he put it off until early July. Lesh did. however, send the Grenadier Corps into an attack in mid-June at Slonim and Stvolovitchy. This attack cost the Corps 8,000 men and achieved nothing. In fact the German High Command was able to transfer virtually what it wanted from its own front to the Austrian one south of north.
the Pripet Marshes.
A
cry for help The Central Powers were put into an unpleasant situation through their defeat at Lutsk. In the first place, it became clear to Conrad that he could not survive without German help; and this help would only be given if he himself gave up the Austrian offensive in Italy so as to turn troops to the east. Conrad swallowed his very considerable pride, and on June 6 begged his German opposite number, von Falkenhayn, for troops. Falkenhayn at once insisted that they give up their Italian offensive, and at the same time offered a few divisions for Linsingen's front. All in all some eight divisions were found,
some
of
them from
Italy,
and some from
the west, thus laming the German effort at Verdun. Relations between Falkenhayn and Conrad got steadily worse throughout June, as defeat piled on defeat.
Conrad blamed Falkenhayn for his extravagance in the west, Falkenhayn scoffed at Conrad for having a large appetite and poor teeth. However, the Germans could not let their ally sink, and therefore sent troops in increasing, though never in sufficient, numbers. By June 12. as the Russian Eighth Army became increasingly stuck west of the Styr at Lutsk, and as the Russian High Command languorously set about sending reserves to it, the Germans began to gather a force for counterattack. Eight fresh Austrian and German divisions were assembled on the River Stokhod, which now formed the front line. They were to attack the northern flank of the Lutsk Left:
German trenches under bombardment.
Right: The Brusilov Offensive June to August. 1916. Evert's supporting attack by Lesh s Third Army never materialised
salient,
Brusilov's offensive — the only time the Russian steamroller really
The Russian
overall
offensive by this so-called Angriffsgruppe Kovel was to begin in mid-June, and Linsingen once more began to prate confidently of going on to capture Rovno. However, just as they began to recover from the catastrophe in Volhynia, the Central Powers had a new shock in the south. Letchitsky's Russian Ninth Army had begun to attack on June 4 south of the Dniestr. For the first few days, it gained
worked
Right:
and were placed under the
command of one of Falkenhayn's favourites, von der Marwitz, who in 1915 had seen much service in the east. The counter-
little — the usual minor inroads were made, only to be checked by Austrian counterattacks, as in the winter offensive a few months before. The Austrian commander, Baron Pflanzer-Baltin of Seventh Army, was perhaps the most celebrated Austrian general of the war; his army was strong, and contained some crack troops, such as Major-General Snjaric's 42nd Division of
bear, so long the ogre of
British public opinion, now conveniently transfigured by Punch into a powerful ally. Below: Russian troops double forward under heavy fire. Of the 23 troops in the picture, five are already casualties. Assuming that they still have sonne distance to go, and that the opposing fire will become more, not less, intense, it is frightening to reflect how few will reach their objective
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Croat territorials. However, the Russians showed an unexpected persistence. In the first place, Letchitsky had been able to concentrate some six infantry divisions with nearly 500 guns on a ten-mile front — twice what the Austrians had in the same area. On June 4, the Austrians were obliged to call in their reserves; on June 7 the Russians attacked north of the Dniestr and forced the Austrians to send further reserves there in order to hold on to the position. By June 9. all the Austrian troops had thus been committed to the front line. The Russians, by contrast, had some stamina in reserve. Pflanzer-Baltin was sick in hospital at Kolomea (Kolomyya), and yet insisted, in his feverish state, on running the battle from his bed. He refused the local commanders permission to retreat. By June 10 the Austrians began to crumble and trickles of Russians began to pour through the defences in the region south of the Dniestr,
by Okna and Dobronoutz; these trickles increased in volume, and there was little to hold them up. Seventh Army had given quite a good account of itself, but it had been worn down in the front line, and the Russian Ninth Army, a microcosm of the Russian Empire, with Cossacks of the Kuban and from beyond the Ussuri, Caucasian militiamen, Buryats, Mongols and Ukrainians as well as Russians, came flooding into Bukovina south of the Dniestr. Pflanzer-Baltin's army had no reserves; its guns were running out of ammunition; and it had already lost many of its heavy guns to the Italian Front for Conrad's offensive there.
Maybe the army might have saved something had it been allowed to retreat in the most natural direction, to the south-west. The general had wanted this. But he was over-ruled by Conrad in Teschen, who wanted the army to fall back to the west, along the Dniestr so that it could keep its
link with the
German
Siidarrhee,
and
at
same time protect this army's flank. The reasoning was impeccable. The results the
were disastrous. There were few roads in land between the Dniestr and the Pruth (Prut), and only a primitive railway the
system. The transport of Pflanzer-Baltin's army was already flowing south-west and south, taking up most of the roads; now the army itself used the same roads, only in a diff'erent direction. Pflanzer-Baltin confused the issue further by telling his troops on the north of the Dniestr — X/// Corps under General Rhemen zu Barensfeld and VI Corps under General Arz — to retire south of the river, an order he failed to communicate to other quarters. Thus the area south of the Dniestr became packed with fleeing troops; in particular, the town of Kotzmann (Kitsman), ancient settlement of the Bukovina Jews, was a scene of insuperable chaos. PflanzerBaltin appears to have lost control alto-
.'1
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gether: he suggested a plan that might save his army, but at the expense of the rest of the front — he wanted to retire into the Carpathians, scene of his earUer victories, and give his army a respite. But conditions elsewhere made this an impossible dream, and the wreck of the Seventh Army, with no more than 30,000 of its original effectives (90,000), struggled back towaids Kolomea, reaching the line of the Czeremosz river by mid-June. The situation was an appalling one, with hardly a redeeming feature. Two great holes had been punched at both ends of the Austro-Hungarian front: and the centre armies were no less exposed. In fact, the armies of the centre — Puhallo's First,
Bohm-Ermolli's Second, and Graf von Bothmer's Siidarmee — had each suffered some kind of defeat. Puhallo had had to withdraw on June 13 from the town of Dubno, losing considerable numbers of prisoners,
so as to escape the threat of
envelopment from north and south: BohmErmoUi had, after the Russian Eleventh Army's breakthrough at Sopanov on the Ikva, retreated almost to Brody, on the Galician frontier. Siidarmee had stood well enough, but its right wing at Jasloviets on the River Strypa had been beaten back by the Russian Seventh Army Shcherbachevi. and on this front generally there reigned an epidemic of nervousness. There were no troops for counterattacks except in Volhynia, and even there they were insufficient. In fact the Austro-Hungarian front was saved by the obverse side of Brusilov's method. The Russian armies had not enough reserves, having committed their strength to a series of partial blows. These had achieved considerable success, but would remain only gigantic tactical, not strategical, successes if they were not exploited. This was now the' case. The Russian Eighth Army in Volhynia was paralysed by lack of supplies and reserves; •
its
commander busied himself with the
minor task of reducing the Kolki bastion, while the Austrians, with German help, hastily reformed their front west of the River Styr. In the same way, Letchitsky's Ninth Russian Army simply had not the reserves to exploit its victory south of the Dniestr. By mid-June, its guns were even running out of shells, and he could only order his numerous cavalry to round up the thousands of Austrian prisoners. He decided to push forward not to the west, where he could no doubt have finished off Pflanzer-Baltin's army, but to the south where he could capture the whole of
Bukovina and
*5-
its capital,
Czernovitz.
By
mid-June, this town had fallen, together with considerable trophies, and the Russian III Cavalry Corps moved south towards the Rumanian frontier. The Ausdefenders— X/ Corps and some trian cavalry under General Korda — retired first to the River Suczawa and then right back to the Hungarian border, by Kirlibaba and Dorna Watra. They clung uneasily to the foothills of the Carpathians, and by June 21 Letchitsky's troops had captured the whole of Bukovina. This was a brilliant, but strategically irrelevant prize — the essential fact was that the bulk of the Austrian Seventh Army had been Russian troops pass through the town Buchach. badly damaged by their
Left:
of
preliminary
bombardment 1487
able to retire to the west, to the towns of Kolomea, Kuty and Czerniawa, where it could be supplied with men and guns. All three High Commands were astonished at the extent of the Austro-Hungarian collapse. The Russian High Command was caught unready, with all its weight disposed elsewhere. The Tsar and Alexeyev knew that they had reached a
the Germans. The two northern coip.'^ of Seventh Army were put under the orders of Bothmer, commanding Siidarmee; and Pflanzer-Baltin himself was saddled with a
decisive stage in the war. All Russia was in the grip of gigantic patriotic enthusiasm: Brusilov himself received thousands of congratulatory telegrams, including one from his former commander Grand Duke Nicholas — 'I kiss, embrace, congratulate
of the Russian line. Linsingen and Marwitz both hoped that this attack would strike at the neck of the Russian Eighth Army's position, and perhaps force the
and bless you.' But Brusilov's Army Group was now running out of shells and reserve troops. Its casualties had been not inconsiderable, and in fact reached 300,000 by the end of the month. Yet to send troops from one part of the line to another was, in Russia, an immensely time-consuming affair, for the railway network was both
exiguous and badly managed. Merely to feed the armies caused frequent crises on the line. The transporting of an army corps — two divisions — took three weeks, or, if the whole of traffic was arranged to suit two weeks. Thus Alexeyev promised it, Brusilov V Siberian Corps early in June: it arrived fully only by June 20. The Germans, by contrast, brought in seven divisions in ten days. Now Alexeyev was forced to throw in more divisions to exploit Brusilov's successes — he arranged for 23rd and 1st Divisions and I Turkestan Corps to travel south, partly from Evert's, partly from Kuropatkin's front. This took time. Relations between Alexeyev and Brusilov were not very good: Alexeyev wanted to press on to Lemberg via Vladimir Volynskiy, Brusilov preferred to turn his troops north-we.st, towards Kovel, where they would cut an important railway and also perhaps turn the flank of the Germans around Pinsk. Above all. Evert, despite a great concentration of troops, remained frozen in a defensive attitude: he feared the
Germans' discipline and firepower, and in any case appears to have been envious of Brusilov's successes. There were not a few Russians on Brusilov's front who referred to Evert's German origins and pronounced him to be a traitor. At all events, Brusilov did not get either direct or indirect support until the Austrians had re-formed their line; he was forced to put off renewing his offensive until the end of the month. The Central Powers profited greatly
from this respite. Marwitz' Angriffsgruppe Kovel began to form on the River Stokhod, on the northern side of the new Russian
had hitherto held the Styr bastion by Kolki were reinforced, and constituted a permanent threat to the Ru.s.sian Eighth Army; some of the Germans' best generals were sent — Marwitz himself, Bernhardi, Liittwitz, and FaJkenhayn's brother, Eugen, who had done well in Serbia a year before. Troops were stripped from other fronts — even a grudging Hindenburg being forced to send some from the Riga sector. Falkenhayn sought to control Austrian operations more firmly than before. He insisted that Conrad abandon his offensive in Italy, which had in any case begun to slacken, and forced him to send troops from there to the Dniestr salient; the troops that
He used
his powerful blackmailing position to assert control even over Pflanzer-Baltin, the one general whose prestige front.
gave him a certain independence
vis
a
vis
German
Chief-of-Staff, Seeckt.
The greatest
crisis
The Marwitz counterattack from the Stokhod began on June 16 with a bombardment
Russians to withdraw altogether from the Lutsk salient. As it happened, the offensive simply struck into the middle of Russian reserves: Brusilov had been gathering his new troops for an assault on the Styr position at Kolki and further west, and for an attack on Kovel. The Germans' divisions thus merely hit a new Russian front. Marwitz could not expect much help from the Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army on his right. It had received new troops, but they were untrained conscripts, soon affected by the despair of the survivors of Lutsk. The Archduke himself had been replaced early in June by a fireeating Hungarian General, Tersztyanszky — who was, in fact, reduced to tears at the sight of his new command. These troops had a habit of running at the appearance of Russian cavalry patrols. The troops on Fourth Army's right were in better shape, and had been stiffened by German forces, but they too were not capable of energetic attack: as Hell, Chief-of-Staff of Linsingen's Army Group, was to observe, 'We are sitting all the time on a powder-barrel.'
countryside over which Marwitz' troops were supposed to attack was broken, and in places marshy — the kind of terrain
The
rise was likely to be commanding importance. Worse, the weather turned to rain, which made the ground marshy and affected the working of field railways. Heavy guns tended to sink
in
which any slight
of
marsh, and supply of all kinds was difficult. In these circumstances, Marwitz' attack made very little progress. He won a bridgehead over the Stokhod with great difficulty and heavy loss by June 20; and there was furious fighting for the heights of Kivertsy, on the Stokhod, which dominated the German side. After a week's fighting they fell to the troops of Bernardi but the strategic effect of this was minimal. By June 25 Marwitz had generally advanced about five miles with losses of nearly 50%; all round the salient there had been local attacks by the Austrian and German forces, which also resulted in a few miles being gained at high cost. The German commanders did not dare to be ambitious for fear they would be let down at a decisive moment to the axles in
by their
allies:
justified.
Marwitz decided
a fear that
was
entirely
to switch the
his counteroffensive, and of his troops to the southwesternside of the salient, along the River Lipa; he set up his headquarters at Tartakov on the 27th, and renewed the
direction
of
moved some
counteroffensive while Luttwitz took over his former sector along the rivers Stokhod and Turya. The renewed counteroffensive made no progress, merely exhausting the Germans. On one occasion, an Austrian division that was supposed to be supporting the C.erman attack was itself attacked by surprise and driven back almost to Sokal, on the Bug: this led in the end to
al)and()nnu'nl
Mai'wilz'
of his
offensive.
Brusilov had now gathered his reserves from elsewhere, and was preparing for a new attack on the Styr bastion, combined with Evert's stroke from the north towards Baranovitchi. Meanwhile, the Austrians' situation south of the Dniestr worsened. In the first place, Pflanzer-Baltin was not sent much in the way of German support — the two divisions from Macedonia and the west, under General von Kraewel, went instead to Siidarmee. An Austrian division from Italy arrived, but it was not well-equipped for the type of war prevailing here, and its morale rapidly sank once it entered the
ranks of Seventh Army. Pflanzer-Baltin's
army was
fatally divided in its functions, as well as stricken by its recent defeat. One part of it was supposed to defend
southern Bukovina, and prevent the Rusmoving over the Golden Bisinto Hungary (which was thought likely to bring Rumania into the war against the Central Powers). The other part was supposed to hold the flank of the East Galician armies, between the Dniestr and the Pruth; and it was expected to defend the Carpathian passes into Hungary, the Rotonda, Tartar and Prislop sians from trica river
These tasks were contradictory: defence of the Dniestr flank was likely to mean abandonment of the passes, while defence of the passes might mean loss of the Dniestr flank. The contradiction was not resolved. Letchitsky attacked between the Dniestr and the Pruth on June 28, as a prelude to the renewed general offensive ordered by Brusilov. The AustroHungarian army suffered a new disaster, as Letchitsky's Corps outflanked its positions at Kolomea, and drove it back, with a further loss of 40,000 men, towards the Carpathians. Falkenhayn was now forced to give up the Dniestr counterattack and use his new German troops under Kraewel merely to sustain the Austrian line. All in all, the situation for the Germans and their allies at the end of June 1916 was an appalling one. In the west, the battle of Verdun had turned out to be a grisly failure, the legend of which persists to this day: 12 square miles bought at a cost of over 500,000 casualties. The British were about to launch an offensive on the Somme, preceded by a week's hurricane bombardment; the Italians had taken the offensive again; Rumania looked like intervening. The counterattack of General von der Marwitz had failed altogether, and a new Russian offensive was expected on the Styr bastion, then regarded as the key to the whole front in Volhynia. A gigantic Russian force was gathering by Baranovitchi for an offensive; south of the Dniestr, the Austrians were in panic-stricken retreat; in Eastern (lalicia the front was exposed and its occupants unsure of themselves. This was in fact the greatest crisis of the war so far. passes.
Further Reading Brusilov,
Gen A
A..
A Soldier's Notebook
79/4-78 (Macmillah 1930) Knox, A,, With the Russian Army 1914-17 (Hutchinson 1921) Reichsarchiv: Der Weltkrieg, vol 10 (Berlin 1936)
Rostunov,
Moscow [For 466.]
I.
I.,
General Brusilov (Voyenizdat,
1964)
Norman
Stone's biography, see page
^,,ORTHESi^
%
The massive response to his appeal for volunteers caught Kitchener by surprise — there were simply not enough resources to equip and train them adequately. John Keegan describes how the army tried to meet this challenge and what state the New Armies were in by the time of the Somme offensive. Above: Training exercises in Cheshire 1915 1489
By September 15, over 500,000 men had volunteered, thus exceeding the in-
day.
the end of 1915, Kitchener's First Hundred Thousand -KI, the original New Army — was well on the way to becoming a veteran force. Since not a single unit
By
crease in the size of the
had had any existence before August 1914, the achievement was remarkable. But even more remarkable was the presence at Ihe front of divisions of the Second, Fourth, and Fifth'New Armies also, divisions which in many cases had not been until December 1914, and had had to lead the most makeshift of military existences for months
patriotism and sense of duty. He had counted upon kindling a response. He had not reckoned on setting into motion a genuinely popular movement, on a scale unseen in England since the days of Chartism. Yet that is what volunteering for the New
afterwards. This very encouraging start to the wartime expansion of the army threatened, however, to be a short-lived boom, for, grudging though the allotment of officers and NCO's to the First New Army was by conventional standards, it nevertheless consumed at a single gulp almost all the fit and able trained leaders available. Yet
Armies quickly became. The most successful means of harnessing this outburst of patriotism proved to be through the Comrades' or Pals' Battalion scheme, initiated by Lord Derby in Liverpool in late August, 1914. The arrangement he came to with Kitchener was that local
meanwhile untrained men continued to numbers
authorities should be empowered to raise battalions, bearing the initial cost themselves (to be reimbursed later) on the basis of a guarantee, which the War Office
flood into the recruiting offices in
unimagined, even by Kitchener himself. He had appealed-on August 8 for 100,000 men at once, as against the 30,000 usually recruited into the regular army in a normal year. Within a fortnight he had got them all:
was
a fortnight later his recruiting staff to attest over 30,000 men in a single
promised to honour, that men enlisting together should serve together. These formations, especially the Public School Battalions, have been described as Above: Training in tne art of trench digging — a gruelling and unromantic introduction to soldiering for the recruits to Kitchener's
New
fi
army sanctioned
by Parliament on August 6. In the meantime, however, the machinery of the army, particularly that concerned with outfitting and training, was overwhelmed by the press of numbers. Kitchener had appealed to his countrymen's
Armies. Above right: Kitchener was surprised at the response to his appeal — volunteering quickly assumed the proportions of a
genuine popular mass movement. Belov\/: Physical training for the young and not so
young volunteers
/
..^-^
So they were. Essentially, the ill-effects of this system of recruiting stemmed from the fact that the Public School Battalions (and some of the Pals' Battalions) creamed off the 'officer material", leaving the majority of the Pals' Battalions to face the problems of training an adequate complement of without
lack of expertise determined very closely what form the attack would take. It was to be preceded by a long bombardment, long because the inexperienced artillery would need a good deal of time to register their
ill-conceived.
guns, and would hence compromise surprise and might just as well therefore make a virtue of necessity; and it was to be
officers.
accompanied by an extremely rigid bar-
Yet, somehow, this problem was overcome, as was the scarcity of clothing and equipment, so that all the 30 divisions of the New Armies were fit to go overseas by spring 1916. However, there still remained one problem which was not so easily soluble: the training of artillery batteries. Infantry soldiers can be made quite quickly from raw civilians, but skill in gunnery takes time and practice to acquire. Few of the Kitchener divisions could claim confidence in the ability of their gunners. Since it was accepted by all that the Somme was to be an 'artillery battle', that is, a battle in which the success of the infantry in capturing ground would depend on the success of the artillery in killing the enemy, destroying his defences and barring their reinforcement or reoccupation by moving ('barrage') fire, the artillery's
rage—not the slow 'creeping' barrage at which the French were becoming expert,
BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF. BE CERTAIN
THATYOURSO CALLED
REASON
IS
NOT A
SELFISH EXCUSE' LORD KITCHENER
^^^^^^^H
but a series of sudden 'lifts' of a curtain of fire, from one line of objectives to the next. Anything more complicated would be beyond the New Army. The infantry's advance was thus tied to the pattern and timing of the artillery bombardment. The leading infantry must arrive on the objectives as soon as the artillery lifted, then clear and consolidate the position and still leave themselves time to advance to the next objective before the barrage lifted again. Given that this was to be the pattern of attack, one by now well established on the Western Front, the cycle of training through which newly arrived infantry battalions and drafts were going in the spring of 1916 laid heavy emphasis on bomb-throwing and bayonet-fighting, both
GHQ
In May had issued its own directive, a two-page quarto pamphlet, on 'The Training of Divisions for Offensive Action', the
regarded as very necessary skills in trenchand on drilling in extended order, the formation in which infantry were to
clearing,
first official publication on the subject since the beginning of the war, but it did not reveal with any conviction the existence of a clearly thought-out staff solution of the problems facing the BEF. Almost nowhere does it define principles or proffer firm advice. In only one passage did GHQ's pamphlet show any real prescience: 'All must be prepared', it read, 'for heavy casualties, and must realise that the magnitude of the interest at stake necessitates the greatest self-sacrifice from one and all.' In that respect, at least, Kitchener's splendid army of volunteers was ready.
follow the barrage.
commanding the Fourth Army which was to make the principal attack, nevertheless recommended in his Tactical Notes to his command, issued in May, that the initial advance be made by small parties, but none of his troops seem to have been practised in the method. The Rawlinson,
principal kind of training to which major units were subjected took the form of a rehearsal in the back areas of the exact task they would have to carry out on 'Z Day'. The near side of the barrage was indicated by men on horseback or walking with flags: the outlines of the German trenches were
Further Reading Brophy, John, The Five Years (Arthur Barker,
marked by pegged-out tapes, though sometimes they were dug; and onto them the infantry practised advancing and consolidating, synchronising their timings with the barrage. What could be learnt on these field days constituted the only guidance available for most of the officers of the New Armies in the weeks before July 1, 1916. There was very little written material available to form their ideas on the nature of the ordeal they were to undergo.
1936) Cruttwell, C.R.M.S.,
A History
of the Great
War (OUP, 1934) Germains,
IIICINFORCED COKCRKTE. i:Kt> AHAriltAN'CK. Kill.
A
TOU V
V. W., The Kitchener Armies (Peter Davis) Williams, B., Raising and Training the New /Arm/es (Constable)
Military Operations: Vol. 1 (HMSO)
Punch cartoon of 1915 a complacent Bull assures Kitchener (flatteringly shown as he looked In 1900) of his support. And in fact John Bull was echoing the senti-
France and Belgium, 1916,
In this
John
ments
of
VTrench
many people warfare a
la
in
1915
training
manual
[For John Keegan's biography, see page 96.]
THE SOMME BARRAGE
r.^
The Somme barrage gets under way — British howitzers in action
V*
1493 ^1
^
British and French tactics for the Somme offensive hinged upon a massive and prolonged artillery barrage. Despite recent examples to the contrary, it was hoped that an intense seven-day bombardment would destroy all German resistance and leave the way open for easy infantry penetration. Accordingly, the British and French marshalled over 1,300 heavy guns and more than 2,000,000 shells, and began to pound the German line. By the seventh day most of the shells had been fired with an effect so stunning that nearly all present were convinced that there could be nobody left alive in the German trenches. Major-General Anthony Farrar-Hockley. Below: German painting of the Somme battlefield viewed from a balloon. Right: The Somme front on 'D' day
A
•
'
V1ig5^T--^^«
V-L
••*yiv'*
V'.X
..V
VT^\s^;
So much tragedy, «o much emotion now pervades our view of the First World War
1
that we tend to overlook the perspective of the men involved, not least of those engaged in the direction of the war. For example, at the end of 1915 the British cabinet was appalled that they were not a whit nearer victory despite a year of hard fighting and a casualty list exceeding 500,000. But whenever they talked of an armistice, their debate was frustrated by an intolerable fact: Germany, the aggressor, the invader, occupied almost all Belgium and a rich tract of France. So, oij December 28, the cabinet approved I paper of intention prepared by its war corr^ mittee, which included this paragraph: Every effort is to be made for carrying out'^. the offensive operations next spring in the main theatre of war (France and Flanders) in close co-operation with the Allies, and in the greatest possible strength. Yet within a week their apprehensions of mass slaughter persuaded them to hesitate. At the end of this paragraphic following was added: although it must not be assumed that such operations are finally decided on.
,
,1
?
?WPF
^
i
'"'
^
1
"^
f*
I
%-
M'wv- "mrnrn'-
'^^ ^
Weekly— sometimes daily — until April 1916, Mr Asquith and his cabinet colleagues, severally and collectively, discussed ways and means of defeating the Germans without heavy loss; all the while agreeing jointly with the French that 'we have to destroy the morale of the German Army and nation'. At length, with the crocuses bursting through the grass in St James's Park, with all prospect of a spring offensive past, the decision had to be taken. On April 7, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir William Robertson, was able to telegraph to General Haig in France that the government approved a combined offensive with the French in the summer. The planning staffs of the Allied commanders-in-chief in France had not of course been waiting on this authority. Since February, Joffre and Haig had struck a form of bargain: they would
A A British shell explodes
in
the
German
trenches prior to the attack on La Boiselle, half way along Fourth Army's front <] The lanyard is pulled, and one of the 1,732,873 shells expended by the Allies in the preliminary bombardment a British 8-inch Mk V howitzer
is
fired
from
jointly undertake a major assault on the German defences on either side of the River Somme. They do not appear to have been attracted to this sector by any special strategic prize. It was more a matter of convenience: along the river the British and French armies joined together. When the bargain was made, Joffre believed that a common action round this junction point would inake it easier for him to retain control of the timing and direction of the offensive. Haig's agreement was qualified by private reservations. While General Rawlinson and the headquarters of the
newly created Fourth Army studied the
Somme lines, preparations for offensive operations in other British sectors continued. Haig's preference was for a summer campaign in Flanders; but he was not anxious to be drawn into the battles of attrition which Joffre believed to be necessary. But while the planners of both nations were busy at their maps and sums, their were reminded that the initiative did not lie with them alone. At 0430 hours in the morning of February 21, 1916, the Germans fired the first shot of their opening barrage at Verdun. After drenching the still
chiefs
French defences with high explosive for eight hours, the German and French infantry locked in a dreadful struggle. The events at Verdun soon put the British and French at variance in the matter of timing for their summer offensive. As
more and more French divisions were drawn in to bolster the crumbling French line across the Meuse — from which they emerged exhausted and depleted after a period of days — it was only reasonable from the French point of view that the British should be asked to hasten the date
A
little after 11 of the Allied offensive. o'clock on the morning of Friday, May 26, Joffre came to Haig's headquarters to ask directly for an opening date. 'The moment I mentioned August 15,' Haig wrote in his diary, 'Joffre at once got very excited and
shouted that "The French Army would cease to exist if we did nothing till then". The rest of us looked on at this outburst of excitement, and then I pointed out that, in spite of August 15 being the most favourable date for the British Army to take action, yet in view of what he had said regarding the unfortunate condition of the
French Army,
I
was prepared
to
com-
:
.
•
mence operations on July 1 or thereabouts. This calmed the old man, but I saw he had come to the meeting prepared to combat a refusal on my part, and was prepared to be very nasty.' In the previous winter, the French offensive had been conceived as a massive venture employing 40 divisions from the Somme southward to Lassigny. It was hoped that the British would employ 25 divisions to the north of the river. Now on the last day of May, the French President, Prime Minister and Minister for War came from Paris to see Haig with the brief that 'one can and one must foresee the eventuality of the British army conducting the offensive'. The change of view had already been recognised by Haig. Recounting the events ot the meeting in his diary, he remarked: 'The slow output of French heavy guns was pointed out and the need for supplying Verdun with everything necessary was recognised, and I said that In view of the possibility of the British having
the high ground to the valley of the south again across the Flaucourt plateau. Most importantly, the first line of German trenches had been cunningly dug amongst the many outcrops of the main ridge Hne, so as to command every approach from the west.
Jofire misconstrued Haig's reluctance: the question in the latter's mind was not
Somme and
'whether?' but 'where?' When Joffre wrote blandly on June 3 to ask what notice Haig required to open the offensive on July 1, he obtained a straight answer- '12 days' notice for an attack on July 1 or later,' and a direct question, 'how many French divisions will be taking part?' Since Joffre's staff had been quite unable to find 20 divisions, the reply was vague; General Fayolle's Sixth Army would attack astride the Somme 'to support the British". Now they had it. Fayolle had but 12 divisions and his assault frontage was limited to about eight miles. This contribution, necessarily diminished by the demands of Verdun, was but a fragment of the original scheme; but it was enough to ensure that the British would fight also on the Somme that summer. The trenches of tlie British Fourth Army ran ibr 20 miles from the village of Hebuterne south across the Ancre to the Willow Stream bv Fricourt, then east to the Bois
observation, the British and French took care during their preparations, confining much of their movement and construction work to the night. They used wire netting, hessian and paint in camouflage successfully by day but had not the means or as yet the skill to deny all their activity to the air observers in aircraft or balloons. The very fact that the allied flying corps concentrated progressively to deny access to German aircraft and intensified their attacks on balloons confirmed that something of importance was happening to the west. The sightings of new roads, railways and hutments in rear, the glimpses of new' battery positions, were more than enough
all
Aware
enemy's advantages
of their
^
in
\—
JL,
-^R>,
.i^flflW
^w^
1
1
.
'•'
^^^^^^^hI
^.mJ^^^^^M>^
a/^
>'%ls^ Joffre- he was anxious for a British effort to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun to
attack alone,
it
was most desirable
to
bring to France the Divisions which the Allies held at Salonika. Beat the Germans here and we can make what terms we like!' Haig was now in difficulty. Having agreed to attack on the Somme so as to combine directly with the French it was now clear that France might not participate. There was a British plan for an independent attack in the sector but it showed little promi.se.
Flanders beckoned Haigstrongly still.
D' day agreed Joffre was aware from the reports of his liaison staff at the British headquarters
that
Haig was not enthusiastic
for the feared that, lacking a P'rench presence, the British might withdraw altogether from offensive action in 1916. The Russians had achieved nothing in their assaults round Lake Narotch and
Somme
project.
He
were asking urgently
them
for
heavy ordnance
a new operation. The Italians were calling similarly for help after their defeat in the Trentino. The needs of these allies might ofi'er a ready excuse for British inactiv-ity irf-France. But to
help
1498
in
General Rawlmson (left). Commander of the Fourth Army (the striking force), and Haig
Robertson. CIGS On April 7 he passed on the government's approval of the offensive
de Maricourt. The wood was held by the French, Maricourt village just behind was shared by British and French companies. Two miles to the south lay the left bank of the Somme. The country here, both north and -south of the river, is downland, open grazing above rolling chalk hills with a scattering of woods. It had been a quiet sector. The woods and villages were mostly unbroken, the trees in full leaf; patches of the grassland were bright with larkspur. Opposite both Rawlinson's and Fayolle's armies lay the Second Army of General Fritz von Below, comprised of three corps and, depleted by the removal of forces for the attack on Verdun, lacking any appreci-
suggest what all this presaged. While preparing to open the onslaught at Verdun, Falkenhayn had warned all army commanders that they must expect Allied relief attacks elsewhere. Since he would be unable to send reinforcements to any other
able army reserve. In May, Below and his Chief-of-Staff, Griinert, became convinced that they were about to be attacked. From about Hebuterne to the Ancre, Below's regiments were on ground generally overlooked by the British though often hidden by woods and re-entrants. 'The Serre knoll was an important exception, offering an excellent view north-west t- Hebuterne. west to the copses amongst the British trenches and south along the road to BeauTourt. Below the Ancre, the Germans held
to
point along the
German
line,
he advised —
and they would have needed very good reasons for ignoring his 'advice' — that each regimental front should be held in strength as far forward as possible. They should not surrender a metre of ground. If a section of trench should be lost it must be retaken immediately. The officers and men forward must understand that the order was to defend their position to the last man, to the last round; order.-^ which would surely persuade them to fight tenaciously from the outset since they would realise that there was no hope of being told to fall back if pressure became intense. The consequences of this policy were twofold. First, as the majority of each division was within the range of the Allied field artillery, it was necessary to provide them with adequate shelter. Deep shafts were sunk into the chalk below the trenches and galleries were run out on either side, providing safe living
quarters in dormitories for the soldiers and separate rooms for the officers. Fresh air was pumped in: stocks of bottled water, biscuits and tinned food were cached against emergencies when fresh rations could not be brought up daily. Secondly, surface strong points were provided a little in rear of each front trench to house medium machine guns and many of these positions were constructed in reinfoixed concrete by the end of June. In certain areas, the strong points were connected by tunnels to form enclosed fortresses. Throughout the second line of defence — on average 4,000 yards behind the first — there were deep dugouts and a number of gallerif^s. When Below warned Falkenhayn of his expectations, he was sent an additional detachment of 8-
deep shafts and
inch howitzers, captured from the Russians, and a reinforcement of labour units to speed the development of the third line, five miles behind the first. Between midMarch and the beginning of June, the
^^^^y
ground and
the lie of the trenches, it is quite conceivable that he will attempt only to pin the front of 26th Reserve Division by
went well, the cavalry under Gough should exploit any full breach of the enemy defence lines by passing through into the
artillery fire (that is, the ground immediately north and south of the Ancre valley), but he will not make a serious attack. To oppose (the French south of the Somme), XVII Corps is too weak, both in infantry
in the enemy rear while the infantry attack swung north towards Arras up the line of the enemy trenches. Alternatively, Haig's orders continued, 'after gaining our first objective as described we may find that a further advance eastwards is not advisable. In that case, the most profitable course will probably be to transfer our main efforts rapidly to another portion of the British front but leaving a sufficient force on the Fourth Army front to secure the ground gained, to compel the enemy to use up all his re.serves and to prevent him from withdrawing them elsewhere.' Between January and June, 19 divisions were sent to France to join the British Expeditionary Force. Eleven had seen active service before — some were Gallipoli veterans — the remainder were from the New Armies formed by Kitchener. By May, Rawlinson had 16 divisions in his army, in-
and guns. Even against an enemy attack on a narrow front made only as a diversion the Guard Corps (on the extreme left of his line) is also too thin; it is holding 36 kilometres with 12 regiments, and behind it there are no reserves of any kind. It was on this day, June 6, that Haig accepted that he was committed to the Somme offensive. Perhaps due to the uncertainty, he had not given Rawlinson precise orders during the long preliminaries of reconnaissance and preparation, an omis-
sion which had inhibited Fourth Army commander. Yet, whatever his task was to be, Rawlinson was very clear by June that the enemy defences were formidable; any
open country
'^/CTSflj^S [
L
M m s^bm ^^^J^jKe ^^^•"^^^r
-TV
^v)i
Fayolle. Commander of the French Sixth Army which played a much-reduced role in the attack
German wire was
consistently thickened in
front of the forward defences.
made in preparaenemy attack, Below and Grii-
Despite the progress tions against
nert remained anxious. In each divisional area, almost all the infantry were committed to the first line; even the corps reserves
had been tapped points between
to
man
trenches at critical
divisions.
On May
25,
Griinert proposed to Supreme Headquarters that they should make a preventive attack on the British front. He asked tentatively for more infantry. With the battle at Verdun at its height, there were none, though Falkenhayn made no objection to a local venture within their own resources. As encouragement, he sent two more batteries of artillery. By June 6, Below was more sanguine about the British threat but still
very anxious about the French below the Som.me. He reported that: The preparations of the British in the area Serre-Gommecourt, as well as the increase of 29 emplacements of artillery in the past few days, detected by air photographs, lead to the conclusion that the
enemy thinks
first
and fore-
most of attacking the projecting angles of Fricourt and Gommecourt. In view of the
Below,
Commander of
the
German Second Army
which was understrength and lacking
in
reserves
attempt to breach the two main lines would be costly. Imaginative and shrewd, he was also an ambitious man. In April, it is piobable that he hoped to co\er himself against failure by suggesting that; It does not appear to me that the gain of 2 or 3 more kilometres of ground is of much consequence, or that the existing situation is so urgent to demand that we should incur very heavy losses in order to draw a large number of German reserves against this portion of our front. Our object rather seems to be to kill as many Germans as possible with the
and the best way to do appears to me to be to seize points of tactical importance which will provide us with good observation and which we may least loss to ourselves,
this
certain the Germans will counterattack under disadvantages likely to con-
feel
duce heavy losses. Haig rebuked him for this limited view but it was June 16 before the strategic concept
was
finally
made
clear,
when
the prin-
were issued to Fourth Army and subsidiaries to First, Second and Third, acting in support. In brief, Rawlinson was cipal objectives
main feature in front of him between the Ancre and Montauban. If all to seize the
General Home.
Commander of the
British
XV
Corps facing the corner stone of the German
line
eluding a share of those recently arrived, and had allocated three to each of his five corps headquarters. His plan envisaged an assault by two divisions in each corps with the third ready to exploit or reinforce. In retrospect, there is an ominous similaritj' in the orders issued within each formation for the first assault, even though the ground and the enemy in front of each division
was markedly
different.
But
it is
easy to criticise, to forget that an operation was developing on a scale never attempted before by the British army. Its professional commanders still had much to learn in the handling of vast numbers of men: their communications were inadequate for the type of operation envisaged: many of the subordinate commanders and staffs were amateurs, the majority of the regimental officers and men raw. None knew this better than Haig. It may sometimes be said of him that he was overconfident in himself but he was seriously concerned to keep matters simple for the assault forces, without inhibiting the enterprise of the junior commanders. Stage by stage he discussed the tactics to be employed with Rawlinson, and with Allenbv whogeright
1499
was
flank corps
Rawlinson's
to attack
men went
Gommecourt
as
forward.
Along the whole front from mid-June onwards there were to be local attacks and raids: no hint was to be given that one sector was more important than another. A barrage of some days' duration was to be fired by the Royal Artillery with the aim of breaking the enemy wire and destroying the other defences: eroding the strength of the German troops in the first line; reducing to as great an extent as possible their guns, howitzers and mortars by a great weight of counter battery fire: and striking the enemy's routes forward into the battle area. Because telephone lines were so often cut, all British artillery fire for the assault was to be controlled by time. At a given time, zero hour, the guns would lift to let the infantry cross No-Man's Land into the first of the enemy trenches. After a time judged to be adequate to complete the subjection of these, the fire would lift again to permit a second advance. Provided the
Germans knew and obeyed theory, the general plan
Loading one
of the
the rules of this
must succeed.
305-mm
his task to distil practical directions
from the high sounding but vague orders issued by Joffre's staff for the offensive. Foch wished to delay the attack of Fayolle's army for at least several days after the British attack, believing that the French divisions would gain the advantage of surprise. Understandably, Rawlinson did not agree: one of Fayolle's corps, XX, was directly on his right on the north bank of the river. Any delay by the French here would uncover his flank. Foch continued to argue doggedly for his proposal and won eventually the concession that the I Colonial and XXXV Corps south of the river might attack a little after zero but on the same morning. The objective of XX Corps was Hem, where they expected to breach the enemy first line. The other two 1500
The
British
artillery
support
for
the
was unique. The preliminary bombardment was to be fired over five days, U, V. W. X and Y. On U and V days the gunners were to register and cut enemy barbed wire: on W, X and Y the shells were oflfensive
on enemy defences while wire-cutting continued. Counter-battery fire would feature on every day. There would be checks and pauses to deceive the enemy, to persuade them that an assault had begun so that they would hasten up the steep ladders from their shelters to man the fire to rain
strips only to be
raked with
shellfire.
When
these stratagems no longer tricked the foe, gas would be fired to persuade them that an assault had begun at last. The programme for Z day, the day of assault, was so arranged that the usual 80-minute bombardment at that time should be fired for only 65
guns, part of the massive French barrage
In the French sector. General FayoUe had borne with good humour the many visits paid to him. The British called periodically and a valuable friendship developed with Rawlinson and his headquarters. Amongst the French, Foch appeared often. As Commander of the northern group of armies it
was
were directed to pass through both the first and second lines to capture the Flaucourt plateau. To support this attack, the French artillery was to fire for eight days beforehand, 117 heavy batteries supplementing the many field and medium guns.
spotted for the guns. They found 102 enemy batteries and began early the counterbombardment. But this was the last day of good weather for some time. Morning mist, low cloud and bursts of heavy rainfall hampered observation on the ground and in the air. Numbers of dud shells or fuses delayed still more the gunners' work. The high rate of fire wore seriously the buffer springs and smoothed those gun barrels which had al-
ready once been relined. On Wednesday, it was decided to go on firing until the 1st and assault on that day. Forward, the infantry trenches were manned by skeleton forces while the bulk of each battalion rested in such billets as could be found immediately in rear. On the Friday night, June 30,
A mine explodes under the Hawthorne Redoubt
minutes. It was hoped that the enemy would be sufficiently used to the former to stay below while the British infantry crossed.
This mass of shells and mortar bombs, high explosive, shrapnel and phosphorus gas was to fall upon a frontage of attack of 25,000 yards. 1,010 British field guns and howitzers, 427 heavies and 100 French pieces fired for Rawlinson's army. 2,000,000 shells and bombs lay stacked ready for their use.
Vague orders As
suggested, for Z day. After some demur, the 29th was accepted at GHQ. At 0700 hours on June 24, therefore, the first of the heavy guns was loaded and the gun position officer cried 'Fire'. The bombardment had begun. Sunday the 25th was a fine warm day in contrast to two preceding days of summer storms. The Royal Flying Corps scouted or Joffre
all the preparations went forward, there were a series of final crises among the Allied chiefs as to Z day. On June 12 the Germans renewed the assault at Verdun and Clemenceau sought to bring down Briand's government in Paris. Joffre urged Haig to bring forward the opening date to June 25. Haig agreed. On the evening of the 16th came a telephone call to say that Verdun was secure and Briand's government had won a vote of confidence. June 29, even July 1, would now be preferable.
ten minutes before zero
commanding ofl^cers consulted with their brigade commanders and there were some disquieting reports that long stretches of uncut. Still the boom and bang of the bombardment, faithfully maintained by the weary gunners after a week, raised many hopes. Early on the Saturday morning, July 1, the clouds cleared. Breakfast was eaten in the dark, kit was packed and dumped. Company guides began to lead their fellows forward across the dark wet ground. The German lines were quiet as the soldiers marched heavily into the foremost trenches, weighed down with full marching order: rifle and ammunition, grenades or bombs, a digging tool and perhaps some other special load. Below ground, the miners waited, sweating in the heat of the narrow tunnels leading to the mine chambers they had cut under the enemy positions. The warm sun rose dispelling the mist. It was Z day. Zero hour approached.
enemy wire remained
[For General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley's biography, see page 396. ]
The date
is
agreed.
Early on Saturday
morning the clouds cleared. It was Z day, Zero hour
Top: The British 8-inch IVIk VI howitzer, the power behind the Somme barrage. Range: 10,000 yards. Weight in action: 9 tons 9 cwt
The British 6-inch 26 cwt howitzer. Designed in January 1915 to replace the 6-inch 30 cwt howitzer, this piece was coming into use by the time of the Somme. Range: 10,000 yards. Weigtit in action: 4 tons 6 cwt Centre:
Below: The guns
Hamlyn Reid
at
work-a
entitled
painting by
Barrage on the
Somme
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AGENERAnON At 0730 hours on July 1 the greatest barrage ever fired by the British army Hfted, and the first wave went 'over the top'. Never had so many men walked so confidently to a certain death — for the barrage had not done its job of destroying all resistance. Innumerable Grerman machine gunners emerged unscathed from their deep dugouts and began to mow down the heavily-laden attackers. The blood bath of the Somme had started. Leo Kahn. Above left: Zero hour— the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers fix bayonets. Below: British troops attacking near Mametz on the southern part of Fourth Army's front
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Over the top Bottom left: A painting of the German machine gunners who survived the intensive barrage to cut the attackers down in swathes Below: The Tyneside Irish Brigade of the 34th Division advancing to attack La Boiselle Top right: German gunners using a 7 62-cm Russian field gun. Captured on the Eastern Front, these guns were modified and then used on the Somme. They were light enough to be
manhandled
'^RNBpBK^^F
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*"• A
1 dawned under a cloudless sky. The German lines, visible through patches of low-lying mist, seemed very quiet. The
July
and French gunfire was intense from the early hours of the morning and rose to a furious climax shortly before zero hour, when trench mortars joined it with a rapid bombardment of 30 rounds a minute.
British
At that point the German batteries
also
opened up strongly. During the night the assault troops had quietly moved up to their action stations, and the wire in front of their trenches had been cleared away. At 0730 hours on July 1, 1916, the Allied
guns lengthened their range, and within seconds whistles blew, and along the whole 25-mile front north of the
Somme the Allied
infantry, with bayonets fixed, the top as one man.
went over
The attack on the German first line (disregarding for the moment the French supporting action south of the Somme, which commenced two hours later) had been planned as a coherent operation, and neither in the weight of the bombardment nor the timing and tactical methods of the initial had any distinction been made between the weaker and stronger parts of the German defence line. However, the very uneven effect of the bombardment and other factors had increased the diversity attack
of fighting conditions in different sections of the front, so that from the earliest stage
^BHA
nmyKm^ti-Mf^tk.
the operation dissolved into a number of separate battles, the outcome of which ranged from full success to disastrous failure. They must, therefore, be considered
one by one. We will begin with the southern sector containing, on the German side, the villages of Montauban, Hardecourt and Curlu. The British XIII Corps, commanded by General Congreve, VC, started from a position facing north, between Carnoy and Maricourt, on the lower slopes of the Montauban ridge. On its right the French XXII Corps advanced simultaneously from a line between Maricourt and the river— the first time in the war that British and French units were joined in action. On this sector the bombardment had done its work well. Moreover, the Germans had not expected that this part of the front would be included in the first assault; in fiict, they had planned the overdue relief of their tired 109th Reserve Regiment, which was holding the line opposite the British corps, for the
morning of that day. In these
comparatively
favourable
circumstances
possible for the assault forces to carry out their tasks more or less according to plan, and despite determined German resistance they did so with great dash. The XIII Corps was composed of the 30th, the 18th (Eastern), and the 9th Divisions; it
was
the last-named was in reserve two miles
behind the front and did not take part in the day's fighting. The objectives of the 30th Division were to be reached in two stages, the first being the capture of Dublin Trench, which, about 1,000 yards behind the German front hne, connected the two strongpoints of Dublin Redoubt at the eastern, and Glatz Redoubt at the western end. At Dublin Redoubt contact was to be re-established with the left wing of the French corps. The second stage was the' capture of Montauban, the heights lying immediately beyond it, and a trench, Nord Alley, which ran east of the village down to Dublin Redoubt and was to protect the right flank. The advance on Dublin Trench was the work of the 89th Brigade, whose two leading battaUons, the 17th King's and 20th King's, crossed the 500 yards of No-Man's Land with but few casualties, and found the barbed wire well cut. They overran the feebly defended front trenches easily, leaving it to special mopping-up parties to take prisoner the 300 or more Germans who were still in their dugouts. The second line of trenches was also quickly reached and taken; so quickly, in fact, that further progress was delayed for a short time because the artillery barrage covering the advahce had not yet lifted from the position which the brigade was about to attack. For, consistently with the rigid tactical
planning of the offensive, the British batwere under orders to keep to their
of the 18th Division, and as soon as the covering barrage had lifted, the brigade
time-table and 'lanes' of fire: the alternative system of 'creeping' barrages, that is, series of short lifts more closely adapted to the actual movements of the infantry, had been rejected as involving too great a risk of error and confusion.
charged up the slope. It was in some disarray owing to the heavy casualties it had suffered, but it was effectively screened from enemy observation by a smoke barrage launched from Glatz Redoubt. The task turned out to be much easier than expected, since the Germans had by that time recognised the hopelessness of their position. The attackers found the trench along the southern edge of Montauban and the ruins of the village deserted; and a few hundred German soldiers left in the trench on the ridge 200 yards north of
teries
fixed
However, as soon as the barrage had lifted, the 89th Brigade pressed on and at 0830 hours they arrived at Dublin Trench, which was deserted and battered almost out of existence, so that the two battalions had no further task for the day but to repair the trench and consolidate their positions generally. At the same time, another unit entered Dublin Redoubt to link up with the French, who had already arrived there. The 21st Brigade had to fight harder and suffered heavier casualties before reaching their objective, Glatz Redoubt. Its leading battalion also had no difficulty getting beyond the German front in trenches, but their subsequent advance was held up by raking machine gun and
from The Warren", a network of trenches which, though for the greater part situated in the area of the 18th Division, protruded slightly into that
rifle fire
German
30th. The battalion affected, the 18th King's Liverpool, lost nearly threequarters of its effectives in this engagement before the survivors were able to scatter the German party. After that the advance was rapid. At 0835 hours the 21st Brigade entered the redoubt and linked up with the 89th Brigade in Dublin Trench. The 30th Division had therefore fully attained the first objective in just over an hour. of the
Screened by a smoke barrage The 90th Brigade, which had been waiting in
a sheltered valley west of Maricourt,
now moved from its assembly trenches in order to mount the attack on Montauban through the new positions of the 21st Brigade. The 18th Manchesters and the 17th Manchesters reached these positions ahead of time, but on the way up they had had to pass through a German artillery barrage and the punishing fire of a wellconcealed machine gun. Their losses had been considerable; all the commanders of the leading companies had been killed or severely wounded. There was some hesitation whether an immediate further advance on Montauban should be risked. It would mean that the assault columns had to go forward with their left flank exposed, for the right wing of 18th Division was hanging back. On the other hand, it was realised that the quick fall of Montauban would greatly benefit the operations
Montauban — it was the eastern stretch of the defence line called Montauban Alley — surrendered without a fight. Nord Alley had been secured in the meantime, and the successful operations of the 30th Division were rounded off with the capture of an important German observation post at La Briqueterie, to the east of Montauban. Fighting had ceased before 1300 hours; during the rest of the day the troops were hard at work digging new trenches and building supporting strongholds in anticipation of a German counterattack on Montauban. The 18th Division, under the command of Major-General Maxse, had been in the area around the village of Carnoy since March 1916 and was therefore well acquainted with the terrain and the nature of the
German
defences. Its
first
objective,
corresponding to that of the 30th Division, was the Train AUey/Pommiers Trench line, which was the continuation of Dublin Trench westwards from Glatz Redoubt, to be reached by 0830 hours. The Germans had abandoned their first trench line on this front and withdrawn to the support line, Breslau Trench; but in No-Man's Land they had fortified and manned a large crater field, which had come into being as a result of extensive mine fighting during May. It was a formidable obstacle and its existence was one of the reasons why the three brigades of the division made progress at very different speeds. The 54th Brigade, forming the left wing,
advanced between two mines which men of the Royal Engineers had set off a few minutes before zero. The destructive and demoralising effect of these mines had been considerable, so that the brigade had little difficulty in overrunning the German front and support lines. The 11th Royal Fusiliers on the left then moved on so quickly that they arrived at Pommiers Trench, the first objective, when the trench was still under the fire of the British artillery. The advance of the other leading battalion, the 7th Bedfordshire, was al-
most as quick, although it had severe losses before the German machine guns in the third trench could be rushed. Both battalions entered Pommiers Trench at 0750 hours. At the same time the 53rd Brigade also arrived there, having overcome resistance from the western edge of the crater field in No-Man's Land with the aid of a flame-thrower, and crushed some stiff
German
opposition at several points
behind Breslau Trench. The brigade did not, however, succeed in capturing the strongpoint The Loop at the eastern end of Pommiers Trench, and one of its battalions, the 6th Royal Berkshire, lost 12 officers and 339 other ranks in the attempt. The two leading battalions of the 54th and 10th Essex of the 53rd Brigade then advanced on Pommiers Redoubt, which was situated about 300 yards behind Pommiers Trench. A frontal assault failed, but by means of outflanking movements the attackers managed to penetrate through the barbed wire on the western and eastern sides of the redoubt, and after savage hand-to-hand fighting the last few survivors of the garrison surrendered at 0930 hours. The hardest fighting of the morning fell to the lot of the 55th Brigade on the right. The advance of 7th Queen's across NoMan's Land was slowed down by heavy machine gun fire from the eastern part of the crater area, into which a party of the 7th Buffs had vainly tried to force an entry. By the time the 7th Queen's approached what had been the German support line, but was now, in fact, their front line, their strength had been greatly reduced, the British barrage had already moved on, and the Germans had rushed reinforcements to the trench and the strongpoints behind it. In consequence, the advance of the battalion came to a halt before Breslau Trench. This check also affected the 8th East Surrey on the right, for their left flank was exposed to enfilades while they were struggling to overcome enemy resistance in the already-mentioned maze of trenches. The Warren. Only when the Ger-
mans
in
The Warren began
of
retreat
after
the
While their comrades
in the toreground take cover, men of the 34th Division press their attack on La Boiselle
mS^-
.J^f^
^
to fear for their
fall of Glatz Redoubt, and gradually withdrew, did the 8th East Surreys, now supported by two companies of the 7th Buffs, succeed in getting near their first objective. Train Alley, which, however, they had no longer the strength to attack immediately. Two and a half hours after zero it looked as if the 18th Division, despite its successes on the left wing, might not be able to attain the objectives of the day; but with the fall of Montauban and Pommiers Redoubt German resistance in the whole area weakened considerably. Shortly after 1000 hours the
line
triangle formed by Fricourt and the wood behind it started the Willow Stream Valley, the stream itself forming the demarcation line between the areas allotted to the 7th Division and the 21st Division respectively. The German second position was here three miles behind the front line, and there were two strong intermediary lines: Fritz Trench — Railway Alley- Crucifix
Trench and White Trench — Wood Trench — Quadrangle Trench; this second intermedi-
French infantry, more successful than the British, advance across trenches captured from the Germans, The photograph was taken from a French aeroplane
7th Queen's finally cleared Breslau Trench and moved up to Train Alley, and a little later The Loop surrendered to the 6th Royal Berkshires. Only in one stronghold, about midway between Breslau Trench and Train Alley, did the Germans maintain themselves, but this could not stop the general British advance. The Germans
were forced to withdraw from Montauban Alley at one point after another into the Caterpillar Valley, which lay beyond the ridge. Finally, the seizure of two advanced lines immediately overlooking the valley was accomplished without difficulty, and the success of the XIII Corps was complete.
The famous
'Iron Corps' The French XXII Corps — the famous 'Iron Corps', which had distinguished itself in the Battle of Verdun — found it even easier
than the British 30th Division did to overrun the whole of the German first position. objective of the corps was a line running about 1,000 yards behind the German front; Hardecourt was just outside, Curlu
The
The French troops crossed No-Man's Land under the useful cover of a thick morning mist. They found the German trenches, and even many of the dugouts, completely destroyed and the greatly outnumbered enemy unable to put up more inside that line.
than sporadic resistance. An exception were the detachments of the 63rd and 6th Bavarian Reserve Regiments that garrisoned Curlu. The first attack on that village was repulsed by a counterattack of the
Bavarians, and the French had to form a provisional front facing Curlu. Everywhere else the objectives had been reached by mid-day, and when the 30th Division, with which the French had linked up at Glatz Redoubt, captured Montauban, the commander of the French 39th Division suggested a joint attack on Hardecourt with, possibly, a further advance upon the German second position. It was a tempting suggestion, but as at that time the situation in part of the area of the 18th Division was precarious and the 30th Division might be ordered to lend a helping hand, the French proposal had to be rejected. In fact, a golden opportunity was missed in this way. We know now that the Germans expected and feared an attack on Hardecourt, for they had hardly any forces left to defend it. In the afternoon the French renewed their operations against Curlu,
and
after
a
fierce
bombardment
lasting
over an hour the village was stormed at 1830 hours. In the sector of Lieutenant-General Home's XV Corps, adjoining the XIII Corps on the left, the front described a sharp curve around the village of PVicourt, so that the right wing of the XV Corps was facing north, the left wing east. The German defences, held by six battalions of the 28th Reserve Division, were particularly strong in this area. Fricourt and the village of Mametz, east of Fricourt,
ary line was the final objective that the corps was to reach on the first day. Fricourt was considered too strong for an immediate frontal assault: part of the right brigade of the 21st Division and the left brigade of the 7th Division therefore remained in their front trenches for the time being, waiting for the other battalions to isolate Fricourt village and Fricourt Wood by their advance. It was also hoped that successful operations in the adjoining sectors — that of the XIII Corps on the right and of the III Corps on the left — would threaten the safety of the whole German position in the Fricourt sector and so lead to a collapse of German resistance. The advance of the 7th Division, south of the Willow Stream Valley, had two im-
mediate objects: to capture Mametz and to form a defensive flank facing Fricourt. On the front of the outer brigade, the 91st, No-Man's Land was only 150 to 200 yards wide, and German opposition in the front trenches was exceptionally weak; but
machine gun and rifle fire from Mametz and from Danzig Alley, a deep trench running through the village from the south and continuing eastwards, inflicted heavy losses on the leading battalions. Despite this they advanced steadily uphill, and shortly after 0800 hours the 1st South Staffordshires, having rushed Cemetery Trench close to the southern edge of Mametz, were beginning to penetrate into
same time the 22nd Manchesters were occupying Bucket Trench, less than 200 yards away from the the village, while at the
line. From then on, first intermediary however, German resistance stiffened. The bulk of the South Staffordshires were forced to fall back on Cemetery Trench, and the advance of the 22nd Manchesters was Reinforcements from the suphalted. porting battalions failed at first to improve the situation. It was only after two heavy re-bombardments of Danzig Alley and
Fritz
Trench beyond
it
that the tide turn-
were veritable
More reinforcements were ed again. brought up, and before 1400 hours Danzig Alley and a section of Fritz Trench were in British possession. By that time the 1st
work
South
fortresses, and a tight netof trenches extended over an area of 1,200 yards in depth. From the apex of the
had resumed the attack on Mametz, this time with success. Staffordshires
;
:
Only the northern quarter was still in German hands.
of the village
Whilst the operations against Mametz, though more difficult and time-consuming than expected, thus proceeded satisfactorily, the 20th Brigade struggled in vain to establish the defensive line towards Fricourt, a line which was to run from a point east of Bois Frangais near the front trenches of the 22nd Brigade to the northwestern edge of Mametz. The 2nd Border Regiment on the left got past the German front line fairly easily, and in spite of heavy casualties during their further advance reached their objective, Apple Alley, shortly after 1000 hours. On the right wing of the brigade, the 2nd Gordon Highlanders rushed the German defenders in the front trench before these could throw the bombs with which they were preparing to meet the attack; only the left company suffered severely when it was held up by a stretch of uncut wire. Subsequently, however, the battalion was exposed to heavy fire from The Shrine, a strongpoint in front of Cemetery Trench, and stubborn resistance had to be overcome before it could occupy Shrine Alley, about 300 yards behind the
so heavily that they were forced to stop their advance when they had taken the front trench. This check had not been ex-
in the III
pected; the supporting battalions had been ordered to pass through the lines of the leading battalions to the second objective
so, he could make such a decision only by almost wilfully ignoring the known facts of the situation. The 50th Brigade HQ pointed out that the 7th Green Howards, on the left of the intended attack, were
Corps area to the north matters were developing as satisfactorily as they were in fact in the sector of the XIII Corps.
Even
of the day between 0830 hours and 0900 hours, by which time it had been hoped the first objective would be in British hands, but instead of this they had to be sent up as reinforcements in order to carry the advance beyond the German front trench.
facing the strongest German defences in the whole area and would have practically no chance after the elimination of the 10th West Yorkshires, who had been meant to provide the necessary protection on the
Eventually the brigade reached the Sunken
Road and detachments moved Trench.
A
Green Howards' left flank. The protest was and the results were foreseeable.
into Crucifix
counterattack by strong Ger-
man bombing
parties
in vain,
The battalion ran into a devastating machine gun barrage as soon as they left
was repulsed. The
64th Brigade captured the German front and support trenches within ten minutes, although the two leading battalions had lost mo.st of their officers and more than half of their effectives in No-Man's Land. There was again some hard fighting before the brigade reached Sunken Road and could send parties forward to occupy Crucifix Trench. Any advance on the second objective, however, had to be postponed because of the machine gun and rifle fire which came from the woods lying ahead.
their trenches; within minutes it lost 15 and 336 other ranks. The survivors held on in shell holes in No-Man's Land until darkness allowed them to return to their starting positions. The 7th East Yorkshires, trying to come up in support of the Green Howards, suffered a similar fate. The 22nd Brigade of the 7th Division, attacking with two companies of the 20th Manchesters and a company of the 1st Royal Fusiliers, also failed, if less catasofficers
VTractors bringing up
British 8-inch howitzers Death Valley, near Mametz The men are sheltering from shell bursts straddlmg the road [> French and British progress on the first day at
j»> ^^^*-'--
1:^.
/-:
jurii
'^^M ^'vi'^dSM^. Iront line and still far short of the objective, Orchard Alley; and for the time being no
further progress could be achieved. In the centre of the 20th Brigade's front the 9th Devonshires were unable to penetrate beyond the German support trench, and it took death-defying courage to get even this far. From their first steps into NoMan's Land, here 400 yards wide, they came under punishing fire from high ground behind the German front trench, from Fricourt Wood, and from the trenches south of Mametz. By the time the battalion had reached and cleared the German support trench it had suffered crippling losses, most of them in No-Man's Land.
A strong counterattack The
21st Division, attacking in an easterly disposed of four brigades, the 50th Brigade having been attached from the 17th Division. The 62nd Brigade was in reserve. The 63v(i ,.:id 64th Brigades had as their first objective the occupation of Crucifix Trench, but in order to reach it they had to clear n sunken road running direction,
about 700 yards
hrt.inc^
hne. The left batt. the 10th West Yo defensive line towa The two leading Brigade crept into minutes before zero hi by the German machi
1508
fV,,.
r,y^rr
".
-
The leading companies crossed No-Man's Land without serious loss and
trophically.
Just as the 20th Brigade did not succeed, as we have seen, in forming a front towards Fricourt in the area south of the Willow Stream Valley, the 10th West Yorkshires of the 50th Brigade failed to do so on their side, and here the failure was much more calamitous. The leading companies passed through No-Man's Land
without much difficulty and reached Red Cottage at the northern fringe of Fricourt. But before the third and fourth companies could reach the German front trench, the defenders had brought out their machine guns from the dugouts. Exposed to murderous fire from several directions, both companies were practically annihilated in No-Man's Land; only a few survivors got as far as the front trench, where they held out until nightfall. All the regimental staflF, including the Lieutenant-Colonel in
command, were killed. The companies at Red Cottage were now completely isolated and succumbed to German counterattacks later in the
The
morning.
attack on Fricourt, to be carried out by the centre of the XIII Corps, vas scheduled fir 1430 hours, and the corps ." na der persisted in this plan although neither of the wings had achieved the " "'asure of success which had been con(--! 1T1 essential precondition. He was (1 by an overoptimistic view of the -ituation, partly engendered by iv misleading information that direct
.
occupied the trenches immediately behind the German front line, but the support units sustained crippling losses, so that the assault lost its initial momentum. After a series of fierce attacks and counterattacks the brigade was able to hold on in the German positions which they had captured, including the second support trench and stronghold known as 'The Rectangle', but a further advance on Fricourt could not even be attempted. During the afternoon, nothing of importance happened in the area of the 21st Division, but the 7th Division managed to reach the whole of its first objective against gradually diminishing German resistance. The northern part of Mametz was captured, after a last desperate stand by a small German party, at 1600 hours; the bulk of the garrison and the staff of the 109th Reserve Regiment had withdrawn earlier. By evening the entire Fritz Trench had been cleared, junction had been made with the left wing of the XIII Corps, and the flank facing Fricourt had been established. If the successes of the XV Corps in the Fricourt Salient were much less complete than those of the XIII Corps in the Montauban sector they were still quite satisfactory. Fricourt itself was still in German hands, but it was clear that the Germans would not be [continued on page 1513]
1509
I
WAS THERE
This first-hand account by a British NCO gives some idea of the awe-inspiring and exhilarating effect on the waiting Allied troops of the massive barrage, and then of the nearsuicidal
walk across No-Man's
Land. Below:
An
early casualty
was the last hour of the bombardment—at least, I mean, before we went 1st July. It
over the top — and as though there were some mysterious sympathy between the wonders of the ear and the eye, that bewildering tumult seemed to grow more insistent with the growing brilliance of the atmosphere and the intenser blue of the July sky. The sound was different, not only in magnitude but in quality, from anything known to me. It was not a succession of explosions or a continuous roar; I, at least, never heard either a gun or a bursting shell. It was not a noise; it was a symphony. And it did not move. It hung over us. It seemed as though the air were full of a vast and agonized passion, bursting now with groans and sighs, now into shrill screaming and pitiful whimpering, shuddering beneath terrible blows, torn by unearthly whips, vibrating with the solemn pulses of enormous wings. And the supernatural tumult did not pass in this direction or in that. It did not begin, intensify, decline, and end. It was poised in the air, a stationary panorama of sound, a condition of the atmosphere, not the creation of man. It seemed that one had only to lift one's eyes
to be appalled
by the writhing of the
tor-
mented element above one, that a hand raised ever so little above the level of the trench would be sucked away into a whirlpool revolving with cruel and incredible velocity over infinite depths. And this feeling, while it filled one with awe, filled one also with triumphant exultation, the exultation of struggling against a snowstorm in high mountains, or watching the current of a swift and destructive river. Yet all the time one was intent on practical details, wiping the trench dirt off the bolt of one's rifle, reminding the men of what each was to do, and when the message came round, 'five minutes to go', seeing that all bayonets were fixed. At 0730 hours we went up the ladders, doubled through the gaps in the wire, and lay down, waiting for the line to form up on each side of us. When it was ready, we went forward, not doubling, but at a walk. For we had 900 yards of rough ground to the trench which was our first objective, and about 1,500 yards to a further trench where we were to wait for orders. There was a bright light in the air, and the tufts of coarse grass were grey with dew. 'It
wasn't courage'
hadn't gone ten yards before I felt a load fall from me. There's a sentence at the end of The Pilgrim's Progress, which has always struck me as one of the most awful things invented by man; 'Then I saw there was a way to Hell, even from the Gates of Heaven, as well as from the City of Des-
I
truction.'
To have gone
so far
and been
undoubtedly man and no one till he cracks, been worried by the thought; 'Suppose one should lose rejected
walks
at
last!
between
Yet
precipices, knows the rottenness in him and then it's too late. I had
head and get other men cut up! Suppose one's legs should take fright and one's
refuse to move!' Now I knew it was all right. I shouldn't be frightened and I shouldn't lose my head. Just imagine the joy of that discovery! I felt quite happy and self-possessed. It wasn't courage. That, I imagine, is the quality of facing danger which one knows to be danger, of making one's spirit triumph over the bestial desire to live in this body. But I knew that I was in no danger. I knew I shouldn't be hurt; knew it positively, much more positively than most things I'm paid for knowing. I understood in a small way what St Just meant when he told the soldiers who protested at his rashness that no bullet could touch the emissary of the Republic. And all the time, in spite of one's minor happiness, one was shouting the sort of thing that NCO's do shout and no one attends to; 'Keep your extension.' 'Don't bunch.' 'Keep up on the left.' I remember yelling the same things days after, in a dressingstation.
Well, we crossed three lines that had once been trenches, and tumbled into the fourth, our final objective. 'If it's all like this, it's a cake walk,' said a little man beside me, the kindest and bravest of friends, whom no weariness could discourage or danger disturb, the man whom I would choose of all others to have beside me at a pinch — but he's dead. While the
men dug
furiously to
looked about me.
On
make a firestep I the parados lay a
wounded man
of another battalion, shot, judge by the blood on his clothes, through the loins or stomach. I went to him and he grunted, as if to say, 'I am in horrible pain, you must do something for me; you must do something for me.' I hate touching wounded men — moral cowardice, I suppose. One hurts them so much and there's so little to be done. I tried, without much success, to ease his equipment, and then thought of getting him into the trench. But it was crowded with men and there was no place to put him. So I left him. He grunted again angrily and looked at me with hatred as well as pain in his eyes. It was horrible. It was as though he cursed me for being alive and strong when he was in torture. I tried to forget him by taking a spade from one of the men and working fiercely on the parapet. But one's mind wasn't in it; it was over 'there', there where 'they' were waiting for us. Far away, a thousand yards or so half-left, we could see tiny kilted figures running and leaping in front of a dazzling white Stonehenge, mannikins moving jerkily on a bright green cloth. 'The Jocks bombing them out of Mametz,' said someone. Then there was a sudden silence, and when I looked round, I saw the men staring stupidly, like calves smelling blood, at two figures. One was doubled up over his stomach hugging himself and frowning. The other was holding his hand out and looking at it with a puzzled expression. It was covered with blood — the fingers, I fancy,' were blown off— and he seemed to be saying; 'Well, this is a funny kind of thing to have for a hand.' I'm thankful to say there was no question of what to do for them. It was time to advance again and we scrambled out of the trench. to
is taken from an article in the Westminster Gazette of October 24, 1916, by an NCO (22nd Manchester Regiment I .]
[This extract
Each
soldier carried
66 lbs of equipment,
making
it difficult
to get out of a
trench, impossible to move faster
than a slow walk, impossible to rise or lie down quickly
Every infantryman on the
first
day of the
Somme
wore 'fighting order' consisting of the normal equipment including steel helmet and entrenching tool, less the pack and greatcoat: with rolled ground sheet, water-bottle and haversack in place of the pack on the back. In the haversack were small things, mess tin, towel, shaving kit, extra socks, message book, the unconsumed portion of the days ration'. Two gas helmets and tear goggles were carried, also wire cutters, field dressing, iodine, 220 rounds of ammunition, two sand bags and two Mills grenades. The total weight carried per man was about 66 lbs. 1 towel. 2 housewife' 3 extra socks. 4 soap. 5 iron rations. 6 preserved rations. 7 canvas holdall containing comb, shaving kit, etc.
1511
Within the
first
twelve hours 60% of the officers and 40% of the men had
become casualties A working party of men from various regiments in a sunken road near La Boiselle on the British lines of communication. On the left is a stretcher party, and behind them are <]
German
prisoners Bringing inthe wounded at Beaumont Hamel. Total British casualties on the first day were 57,470. French losses were comparatively light
V
*./ ,
'^*
,r^*
J**^
w^ ••>
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,^^i@r»
•
^
.
able to hold it for long. In the areas north and south of the Willow Stream the British forces had penetrated the strong German defences in a depth of over 2,000 yards, and the capture of Mametz was an important achievement by itself The cost, however, had been heavy: the casualties of the
day numbered over 8,000 -about 2,000 more than the casualties of the XIII Corps. In dealing with the southern part of the front we have described the movements of the units
engaged
in the attack in
some
This was possible and appropriate because conditions in the front zone of the German defences were, on the whole, as the general staff had assumed them to be, even if German resistance was rather stiffer, and British losses were consequently higher, than had been hoped. With one or two exceptions, the assault forces managed to accomplish the first task of clearing the enemy's front positions, and that being done, an orderly advance on planned objectives could begin. There were delays and setbacks, but only within a margin that must be allowed for in the planning of any large-scale operation: and where unexpecdetail.
ted situations arose in individual cases, officers
and men usually showed themenough to deal with them.
selves adaptable
Unsurpassable courage However, when we turn
to the sectors north of the Fricourt Salient we are confronted with an entirely different picture. Along that whole front the effect of the preparatory bombardment had been miscalculated, and the aims of the attack were thwarted before the troops could come to grips with the enemy. It would be misleading to describe these events as if we were concerned with properly conducted military operations. There would be no sense in trying to assess success or failure in different parts of the front with reference to tactical objectives when, in fact, plans broke down almost everywhere from the start, and none of the day's objectives was approached, let alone reached. The British attack presents a story of unsurpassable courage and discipline; but if we consider that warfare, for all its horror, can still have an element of reason and purpose, then military history reached one of its lowest points on that day in 1916. Shortly before zero hour, the Middlesex and Devons left their assembly positions and began to crawl across No-Man's Land, towards the German front line trenches. A storm of bullets from machine guns and rifles met this advance, much of the fire being in enfilade from the direction of La Boisselle and Orvillers. The space to be crossed was anything between 500 and 700 yards, a terribly long distance when the advance had to be made through a perfect hail of bullets. Moreover the enemy began to speed up his barrage and soon four shells a minute were falling in No-Man's Land and the British trenches beyond. At 0730 hours the barrage lifted and the Middlesex and Devons rushed towards the enemy's trenches. The first three waves of both battalions were shot to pieces. Of the first wave only a few gallant survivors reached the German front line, some men of the Middlesex crossing the enemy's front line and getting actually as far as his second line: they were never seen again. At 0800 hours a message reached battalion headquarters from the brigade that the enemy's front line had not been forced
and C Company was ordered to delay its advance. But at about 0823 hours, as the nerve-racking 'rat-tat-tat' of the enemy's machine guns, from across No-Man's Land, seemed to have died down, C Company was ordered to advance. On reaching the front line trenches, however, the reason hostile machine gun fire had died down was at once apparent: all movement in No-Man's Land had ceased. The intervening space — that dread space of dead land— was littered with motionless forms. The head of B Company had apparently penetrated the enemy's trenches; their helmets could be seen on the parapet and still and inert bodies hung over the enemy's wire. All was comparatively silent and the survivors of the
company
lay close in shell holes in front
of the battered entanglements. On the parapet of the enemy's trenches could be seen the bodies of West Yorkshiremen, intermingled with those of men of the Middlesex and Devon Regiments. All were still, dead and living alike, for any movement instantly brought down a hail of machine gun and rifle bullets.
These quotations from the diary of a battalion refer to incidents that happened in the sector of the III Corps, but with different names of places and units they might describe the situation at almost any point between Gommecourt and La Boisselle. In many places the assault was completely stopped in No-Man's Land: in others small groups persevered and overran the nearest German trenches, but since the strength of the German dugouts had been underrated, not enough emphasis had been laid in the instructions on the need of 'mopping up': when the attackers had passed and were advancing under fire from the defences in front of them, the Germans climbed out of their dugouts and opened fire from the rear. Even in the few cases when larger columns, already crippled by their losses in No-Man's Land, managed to penetrate to some point in the depth of the German first position they found themselves isolated and were lucky if they could fight their way back to the trenches from which they had started. Such actions were gallant forays, but they were not, as they were meant to be, part of a general advance, and they brought no tactical advantage. Inevitably, communication between battalion and brigade headquarters, brigade and division headquarters, and division and corps headquarters broke down to a large extent in such conditions, and there was another factor which contributed to the general lack of direction: the commanders of divisions were expressly forbidden to make persona! inspections of the combat zones. The nature of the fighting has been summed up by a German eyewitness: The special mark of the battle of the Somme was this: wherever the attackers met some resistance they split apart. Thrust was followed by counterthrust, and in each narrow space there was utter destruction without any larger purpose. Like two beasts of prey, each of which has sunk its fangs so deeply into the other's flesh that it cannot let go, so the two armies were tearing one another to pieces, and soon the leaders on either side were but impotent bystanders; all they could do was to send fresh forces forward, but they could not bring about any change in the monotony of the battle. The confusion, as the quotation indicates, was as great on the German as on the British side, though, of course, the Germans
1.513
;
essentially more straightforward task, namely, to prevent a British breakthrough at any threatened point.
had an
Sheer madness The disasters of July
1, 1916, were failures of generalship -there can hardly be any
argument about that. Especially the methods adopted for the first assault appear in retrospect as an act of sheer madness, which turned the potential asset superiority into a decisive disadvantage. It is reported that on some German soldiers left their occasions trenches and stood on the parapet to fire with greater ease at the crowded formations of the approaching British. If that was, as an English writer called it, a display of idiotic bravery, it was also a clear demonstration of the fact that even in the open a machine gun can be used with deadly effect against an enemy advancing 'at a steady pace' and 'in successive waves of extended lines'. As we have seen, the tactical planning of the British High Command was based on an over-sanguine belief in the efficacy of the bombardment and the theory that only of numerical
were suitable an army in which most officers and men had little or no combat experience. But it should not be assumed that these decisions were taken quite casually and without serious argument. Thus General Rawlinson, with the approval of Sir Douglas Haig, had emphatically advocated an attack rigid, detailed instructions
for
before sunrise, so that the assault troops could approach the German front trenches under cover of semi-darkness, but the French generals had insisted that good light for the artillery was the more important consideration; and as far as their own sector was concerned they may have
been right. Haig had also been in favour of infiltration rather than a massed assault, that is to say, an advance of small detachments, probing the weaknesses of the enemy positions,
instead of waves. In this case
was the opposition of his own army commanders that persuaded him to abandon the idea, and it is, of course, true that such infiltration methods would have required, besides a more flexible system of artillery cover, a greater measure of independent it
decision on the part of officers of lower
rank and NCOs, and for this it would certainly have been better if more veterans had been available. But rigid planning and instructions to the effect that 'officers and men in action will usually do what they have been practised to do, or have been told to do in certain situations' did not help matters when plans went completely awry; on the contrary, they merely inhibited, at least in the all-important first stages, the great native talent for shrewd improvisation. The verdict of a commentator in the Official History seems justified:
'That greater success was not gained was
much due to faulty tactical direction from the General Staff, and to lack of experience in t'le higher ranks, as to rawness in the lower ranks.' ' '^That thing? turned out very as
•
differently
been employed
manent
1514
.single per•nrt
(if limit.
sector of the X Coi village of Thiepval. 1 li well fortified zone, cor.ra strongpoints, one of which
had
tactics
if
jp the
.uiid
the
'irly ijor \'
'ig
tip of the salient formed by the German front line. The attack on the Leipzig Salient was carried out by the 97th Brigade of the 32nd Division; the 16th and 17th Highland Light Infantry formed the leading battalions. Commanding officer of the brigade was BrigadierGeneral Jardine, who had been attached to the Japanese army in the Manchurian War of 1904-1905, and had absorbed the Japanese tactics in dealing with the entrenched machine gun positions of the Russians. On his orders, the leading companies left their trenches seven minutes before zero hour and crept forward in small groups to within 40 yards of the German front trench, and when the barrage lifted at 0730 hours, they surprised the enemy with a sudden, determined rush. The method worked: before more than a handful of the defenders could leave their dugouts, the German front trenches were overrun and the redoubt was firmly in British possession. An immediate advance by the 17th Highland Light Infantry on the Hindenburg Trench about 150 yards farther on soon came under fire from another redoubt, and it would have been futile to press it, in view of the fact that the British assault forces on the left and right of the brigade had not been able to force the German front positions. Brigadier Jardine was informed that both flanks of the detachment were exposed, and that the barrage was moving on without any troops following it. Under these circumstances he again disregarded the General Staff instructions, in two respects: he gave orders that the Highlanders should be withdrawn before they were faced with almost certain annihilation, and that two batteries should be taken out of the barrage in order to cover the retreat to Leipzig Redoubt, which was carried out without much loss. This is not to say that different tactical planning would have achieved the break-
Redoubt at the
through which (despite later denials) was certainly the concrete aim of the Allied leaders. As conditions were, such a result was probably altogether out of reach. All that can be asserted with confidence is that more could have been gained with
much
this is why the battle is so often remembered with great bitterness. With the wisdom that comes after the event we know that the planners banked far too first
less sacrifice,
day of the
The
and
Somme
disasters
of July 1 were failures of generalship much on
the hoped-for efficacy of the prebombardment; but we must remember that a 'battle of material' on that scale was then without a precedent from which lessons could have been learned. Nor would it be fair to blame the British leaders too heavily for underrating the strength and quite novel sophistication of the German defence works. More difficult to understand is the obstinacy with which the generals persisted when it had become very obvious that the planned methods of attack would not work. Faulty judgment is frequent and pardonable in all human aff"airs, but in a military leader the unwillingness to face facts is a cardinal sin. We have seen that ominous reports brought back by patrols in the last two days before
liminary
zero were taken rather lightly; in one instance such a report was dismissed with the comment that the men were scared. There was also blind obstinacy at work in connection with the frontal assault on Fricourt, but the best example is provided by the operations of the VII Corps of the Third Army in the Gommecourt sector at the northern end of the front. The attack in that region had been planned as a subsidiary action, designed to bind enemy
which might otherwise be used elsewhere against the British Fourth Army. Neither Gommecourt itself nor any particular German line in the area were designated as tactical objectives. It was not without misgivings that this sector had been chosen for a purpose of this sort. The German defences there were even stronger than at any other point. No-Man's Land was very wide, the hilly terrain was a factor in favour of the defenders, and the front was too narrow to be suitable for a massed attack. But then, a massed attack was hardly required. Since Falkenhayn had refused to provide the reinforcements which his army commander. General Fritz von Below, had urgently demanded, the forces
Germans found themselves
in the difficulty that they were holding positions of great strength, but had barely enough men and artillery to defend them. They could not without the grave risk of a local enemy breakthrough greatly reduce their forces in any front section. All that was necessary to prevent them from doing so was to keep the threat of an impending attack alive by limited offensive action whenever there was a sign of weakening resistance. But the British corps commander, General Snow, and the General Officers under him were not men of half measures, as one historian has phrased it rather euphemistically. What should have been a feinting operation was turned into a full-scale battle — or, rather, a series of ferocious engagements — which lasted well into the evening. The attack on Gommecourt was pressed as relentlessly as if the outcome of the war depended on the capture of the village.
Wave
after
wave was thrown
into
this
hopeless battle, and individual advances were attempted again and again. At the end of the day not a square inch of ground had been gained. The VII Corps may have achieved its object: 'to divert against itself forces which otherwise might be directed against the main attack near Serre', but at the appalling cost of nearly 7,000 casualties. The operations in the Serre area had failed nonetheless, as had all the other attacks north of the Fricourt Salient; and there was not even the consolation that the Germans had had an equally high price to pay for their successful defence. German losses in that sector amounted to a little over 1,200. From the rest of the operations in the northern and central sectors we may single out the action of the 36th (Ulster) Division in the area of the X Corps, because that action started with great promise and demonstrates all the more effectively how useless it is to persevere with an isolated advance when its success cannot be exploited owing to the failure of connected operations. In the northern half of the sector two fortified villages, St Pierre Divion and Thiepval, were situated at a short distance behind the German frontline. North-east of Thiepval lay Schwaben Redoubt, a large strongpoint with a front
face of 300 yards, on top of the Thiepval plateau. This was a key position, firm possession of which might well decide the outcome of the whole battle in the area. The plateau, including the redoubt, was the first objective of the 36th Division. By all accounts the fervour and staying power of the Ulstermen was outstanding even among the cream of fighting men who made up the armies engaged in the first battle of the Somme. German resistance in their path
was no
formidable than at any other onslaught of the 8th and 10th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (of the 109th Brigade) and the 1 1th Royal Irish Rifles (108th Brigade) completely overwhelmed the defenders in the first three lines of trenches, and soon the plateau and the outer trenches of the redoubt were reached. In spite of heavy losses, the attack of the Irishmen showed no signs of slackening, and the ofl^cer in command of the German garrison saw that there was no hope of holding out; acting against the principles insisted on by the German General Staff he decided to abandon the redoubt for the time being. At 0900 hours the two brigades could report that they had attained less
point, but the ferocious
the
first
objective.
Almost 60,000 British casualties about the same time, the reserve
At
brigade, the 107th, set out to attack the German second position through the lines of the leading brigades. It was a premature move, as the division commander realised; but when after some delay Corps revoked the order to advance it was too late. The 107th Brigade actually came within a hundred yards of their objective, but there they ran into the British barrage, which had not yet lifted. Forced to halt in the open they suffered severe losses, and the Germans had time to reinforce their defence line. There followed a number of
HQ
sharp skirmishes with undecisive results, but with both flanks in the air there was little the brigade could achieve, and in the end it was ordered to fall back on Schwaben Redoubt. Meanwhile, an attack by the two other battalions of the 108th Brigade in the direction of St Pierre Divion had collapsed in No-Man's Land, and the 32nd Division, on the right of the 36th, had made hardly any progress in their attempt to capture Thiepval. With these defensive successes the Germans were able to use the full force of their barrage to cut the lines of communication in the rear of the Ulster Division, and the men on the plateau remained entirely unsupported and exposed to constant sheUing, while the Germans were building up assault columns for a counterattack on Schwaben Redoubt. The Irishmen held on during the whole afternoon and evening, although the number of killed and wounded grew steadily and the supply of hand grenades and ammunition was gradually giving out. The final result was a foregone conclusion: when at about 2200 hours the German infantry advanced from three sides, the exhausted battalions had no option but to withdraw to the original British frontline. Aided by falling darkness they contrived to do so in good order, but during the day the division had lost nearly 5,000 men. Altogether, the tremendous British effort thus ended in plain defeat, for the ground
and slight tactical advantages gained in the southern sectors were insignificant if measured against the hoped-for results and
the casualty toll of 60,000. But when one reads the German accounts, one also realises that in defeat the British soldier had at last won the respect of the entfny. It had long been a popular notion in Germany that Britain, as a sea-faring nation, had produced excellent sailors, but that her soldiers were, man for man, greatly inferior to Germans and Frenchmen. That legend, too, died on 1 July, 1916. If the British attack on the 18-mile front between Gommecourt and La Boisselle presents an essentially simple picture of uniform failure made certain during the first half-hour of the battle, the attack by the French Sixth Army south of the Somme, between Frise and Estrees-Deniecourt, can be summarised in the brief sentence that everything went according to plan. It had been intended to be no more than a supporting operation, but its success, combined with British progress in the Montauhan region, decisively changed the strategic aspects of the offensive. There are several reasons which account for the good fortune of the French. The units engaged, the I Colonial Corps and the XXXV Corps, under the direct command of General Fayolle, consisted of battle-hardened veterans, who instinctively made the best use of every opportunity. They disposed of 85 batteries of heavy artillery, opposed by only eight German batteries. The German defence lines were not nearly so strongly fortified as those north of the Somme, and the bombardment had made a much more thorough impact. Most important of all. General Pannwitz, the German commander in the area, shared Falkenhayn's illusion that the French army would not be able to take a major part in the offensive, and he felt confirmed in his belief h\ the fact that at 0730 hours the French south of the Somme continued the bombardment and stayed in their trenches. When they struck two hours later they took the enemy completely by surprise; and unlike the British they were not compelled to advance on an enemy lodged on higher ground. Even so they were not inclined to obey General Staff instructions by moving across No-
Man's Land
'as if at
manoeuvres', but. like
Brigadier Jardine's men in front of the Leipzig Salient, they advanced in small groups, exploiting any natural cover that the ground provided. Once they had rushed the unprepared
An abandoned German trench
at
German front trenches their advance was swift. They had difficulties and appreciable losses only on their extreme right flank; for whilst the British, at Gommecourt, had done too much in order to contain the enemy forces in the sector adjoining the main battle area, the
defenders in the
French had neglected to do anything. By midday the whole of the German first position was occupied, with the exception of Frise, which was on one side protected by the Somme. Encouraged by their quick and
comparatively easy progress, the French then overreached themselves in going
beyond the objectives of the day and attempting to penetrate into the German second position. They nearly succeeded, but the Germans held on desperately until nightfall. However, the hold of the Germans on their second position was so precarious that General von Below reluctantly authorised a withdrawal, during the night, to safer positions near Peronne; a sensible decision in the circumstances, though later severely condemned by Falkenhayn.
The relative weakness of the German opposition in that sector is also evidenced by the fact that the French took more than 4,000 prisoners. But satisfactory as the French success was, it did not provide the quick tactical breakthrough which alone could have turned the battle of the Somme into a clear Allied victory instead of an undecisive battle of attrition. During the night, while the survivors of the day's blood-bath were trying to gather fresh strength for future action and the Allied generals were revising their plan of campaign, trainloads of German reinforcements were being rushed to the Somme front
from
all sides.
Further Reading
Edmonds-
Sir
James E
,
Official History of the
Great War, Military Operations in France and Belgium. 1916 (Macmillan 1932) Girard. G La BataiUe de la Somme en 1916 (Charles-Lavauzelle 1937) Grote, H H Somme (Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt 1937) The Somme Death of a Generation Harris J .
.
.
(Hodder&Stoughton Kabisch. E
.
Somme
1966)
1916 (Vorhut Verlag)
Wyrall. E.. The West Yorkshire Regiment in the War 1914-1918. Voi 1 (Tfie Bodley
Head 1924-1927)
[For Leo
Beaumont Hamel. where
Kahn 's
biography, see page 475.
a British attack
was
later
\
repulsed
1515
COUNTING THE COST General
For
Joflfre,
who regarded
the
Somme
offensive as a battle of attrition, with the aim of exhausting German reserves and relieving the pressure on Verdun, the day was a success. For General Sir
Douglas Haig, who hoped for penetration of his enemy's lines followed by rapid exploitation, it was a failure. To General Rawlinson, commanding the British Fourth
The first day ofthe Somme was
parisons between British and German losses are almost inipossible to make. The only British wounded not recorded are those who actually remained with their
the most costly single day of ,, T L D the war -yet, as John Baynes concludes, neither side was able to halt the slaughter i
battalions.
I
went much
as expected, Army, the battle because he had never believed in the possibility of more than a step-by-step
/
advance.
General von Falkenhayn, the Chief-of-
German Field Army, had to begin moving men and munitions from Staff of the
Verdun
to the
knew
so he
Somme
at this
that
1, and Verdun
French victory, Germany, therefore, although the Somme front held, and the tremendous attack launched against it was only successful in places, the day was a bad one in strategic terms. The Somme front, seen from the attackers' view-point, was in all some 25 miles wide. Engaged in the battle were three French corps of the Sixth Army, five British corps of the Fourth Army, and one corps from the Third Army. These eight corps comprised 25 divisions, 19 of which in the end be a albeit at terrible cost. For
initial assault. On the right, the French, attacking either side of
were involved in the
Somme, captured
XV
their two-mile front. On their left, Corps was partially successful, capturing
Mametz, and making a bridgehead a mile wide and three-quarters of a mile deep. From here north, however, it was a dif-
XV
ferent story. Fricourt, in the middle of Corps front, was not taken. Around the junction point with III Corps a small penetration was achieved, but everywhere else this latter corps was beaten back. X Corps made only one slight gain of half a mile deep and the same distance wide. VIII Corps was totally unsuccessful, and on the extreme left of the front, VII Corps of Third Army also failed to reach any of its objectives in the area of Gommecourt. Seen through German eyes, as summarised in a paper written at First A rtny.
great English-French infaif^ assault took place on a front of 40 ki metres between Gommecourt and the west _r
\T
'the
1
:ii
J
I "^
v,_y
/
/V-«^ / /
V-^
men
in the same area. Some more detailed losses are available for certain other units.
ALLIED SHELLS SHELLS/
^^^ HH ^^^^^^^^" ^K S^K i^^ 'm^^^^^^ K ^^^ ^^^^^^
The
M^^^ 56,885 V » i
BRITISH LOSSES
J
were suffered north and south of the River Ancre the Germans were able to regain at all points by July 3. "On both sides ofthe of the Somme, however, the English and French had driven a deep wedge into our defensive front. On this sector our losses were so considerable that there was no available strength with which to carry out the intended counterattack.'
virtually all their
South of the river the XXXV and I Colonial Corps made a breach four miles wide and a mile deep: north of it XX Corps advanced straight to their intended new positions, capturing a belt two and a half miles wide and over a mile deep. The British XIII Corps, immediately to the left of the French, successfully advanced to capture Montauban, and most of their other objectives. At the deepest they were one and a half miles into German territory on objectives.
HQ,
?^
"S
l^"^
/
y 1,732,873 //
front on July
moment
would
the
1^^ ^^ ^-^ / Jf^yJ (J
A
1
•!
^1
bombardment was continued on a
Counting the cost The losses suffered by the French were generally light, though the XXXV Corps, being on the ffank flank was heavily shelled from the unattached German positions to its south. The British losses can be given in detail, and with confidence in their absolute accuracy, because one member of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence in the 1920's devoted six months to working them out for this one day alone. Killed or died of wounds: 993 officers, 18,247 soldiers. Wounded: 1,337 officers, 34,156 soldiers. Missing: 96 officers, 2,056 soldiers. Prisoners of war: 12 officers, 573 soldiers. Thus total British casualties on the first day were 57,470, comprising 2,438 officers and 55,032 soldiers. Shown by divisions, the worst hit was the 34th, which was part of III Corps, and was the one involved in the minor success at the junction point with XV Corps just north of Fricourt. Its losses totalled 6,380. Strength of divisions averaged about 10,000, with roughly 8-9,000 infantry. Most of the casualties were in this latter group in each case. The German losses cannot be exactly known in the same
way
for July 1, 1916 because they have never been worked out in this detail. Casualties as made up from their returns,
''
.
-
There are figures for some ofthe German regiments which give an idea of the losses sustained at certain points in the line, though they are not complete. Opposite the British XIII Corps the 109th Reserve Regiment—vaore like a British brigade and about 3,000 strong- lost 42 officers and 2,105 other ranks. The 6th Bavarian Reserve Regiment lost 35 officers and 1,775
-
121st Reserve Regiment operating north of Beaumont Hamel had 7 officers ^i^ied and 9 wounded: 192 soldiers killed, 282 wounded, and 70 missing. North again opposite VIII Corps, the German 170th Regiment lost 9 officers and 233 other ranks killed, 20 and 252 wounded, and 136 soldiers missing,
Since the state of any army's morale is as important as the ground it holds, if not more so, July 1, 1916 cannot be assessed without a short explanation of the state of this factor at the end of the day. The French, after their successful advances, were naturally in very good shape. The British were not aware of the full extent of their overall losses, though within separate formations the very high casualties were only too clear. Fourth Army issued orders at 2200 hours to all corps to 'continue the attack' on July 2, and allotted
HQ
them each
objectives. There is no evidence any major breakdown of morale, though few attacks were in fact able to be launched next day. The Germans held firm as July 1 ended, and were able to launch counterattacks to recover some areas of lost ground on the 2nd. What had worried them most had been the colossal bombardment, which had gone on for a whole week, and had seen
of
1,732,873
shells
fired
at
them by the
Most of their accounts of the
battle stress the horror of this sustained artillery fire over such a prolonged period, and it Allies.
had
undoubtedly
a
most
demoralising
effect.
The losses on both sides on July 1, 1916 combined to make it one of the most costly days of fighting in history; at the close of it none of the combatants showed any sign of having come to the end of their strength. Further Reading ^"^^g^"' '^19^2^'^'°''' °' ^^^ ^'^^' ^^'' ^°' ^
W. S The World Crisis 191 1-1918 (Four Square Books 1960) Farrar-Hockley, A. H.. The Somme (Batsford
churchill,
'
1965) Official History, Military
Operations: France
andee/g/um 7976 (Macmillan
1932)
j-11
sector
which considerably overlapped the zone of attack'. Such small losses of ground as
owever,
these figures ^do "not include lightly wounded men who remained in the corps, area. For this reason, direct com-
(Hutchinson 1964)
[For John Baynes' biography, see page 743.]
Ottoman Empire extended south eal from Turkey itself to take in Mesopotamia, Syria and the whole of the Arab peninsula with the exception of Aden. In the second year of the war, Britain and France began to formulate plans for
In 1914 the
the future of these territories in the event of
an Allied victory - plans which demonstrated Western Europe's unconcern with the nationalist aspirations of the Arab leaders. In November 1915 negotiations opened in London between France and Britain aimed at determining the future of the Arab world, negotiations which took no account of similar discussions between the British High Commissioner at Cairo and Sherif Hussein of Mecca. John Stephenson There were many disiUusionments to be experienced by a young man at the War Cabinet Office in those days, and not the least was contained in a box file labelled 'The war aims of the Allies". 0;?e evening we uerc nn hsie duty with nothing much to do, a vnlleague and I got the file out, took a few blank maps, and set about tracing on them those war aims. We had not, however, gone very far before
we discovered
that vast areas, particularly in the
Near East, had
been promised to at least two separate powers, so we put the cards back in their box, tore up the maps, and returned to our normal work sadder, if wiser, men. No single incident illustrates better this quotation (taken from Promise of Greatness by Sir Charles Petrie) than the making of the Sykes-Picot agreement. This agreement was made as a result of negotiations between the government of Britain and France on the post-war plans for the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire. These territories were handicapped by their disunity and ignorance of the art of government. They were also more susceptible, even than the Balkans, to the greed of outside powers — a political fact that was quick to show itself. Britain's occupation of Eiiypt had long rankled in Ru.ssia and France, and when wa)' broke out Egypt wa.s transformed into a Protectorate. Russia promptly indicated that she would require compensation — namely Con^ stantinople, and Monsieur Cambon, the French Ambassador in I London, suggested to Grey, the Foreign Secretary, that disI cussions concerning French and British interests in the area ° should begin at once. Grey believed that if the Allies were victorious in the war, Sir Mark Sykes. the British government s reptheir aim should be to establish a lasting system of free selfresentative on the Ottoman Empire negotiations government in all the territories previously belonging to their enemies, but this was not a universally accepted view. Apart from Russia's claims on Constantinople, France had already laid claim to Cilicia and Syria — the Mediterranean littoral extending as far south as the Eg^'ptian border and as far east as Damascus. An interdepartmental committee under Sir Maurice de Bunsen of the British Foreign Office had recommended that Palestine be excluded from the French claims. 'Palestine,' said the committee, 'must be recognised as a countrj' whose destiny must be subject to special negotiations.' Lord Kitchener, it is believed, went further, and favoured detaching Southern Syria as far North as Acre Bay to form a separate entity and to fall under British influence with a view to consolidating Britain's interest in India and Egypt. Russia had secured, in the promise of Constantinople, the end for which she had schemed and fought for so long; France was claiming in Syria only what she had traditionally wanted; Britain, whose Middle East policy had collapsed, could onl}' look to
151
her threatened interests and try to protect them. Far from gaining free self-government, the Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the European powers, and Britain had to grab a share or lose her standing in the east; such is the logic of the Imperial position. Britain had a coherent idea of what her policy towards Islam should be, but was prevented from pursuing it straightforwardly by the size of her Empire and by her complex administrative machinery. The Foreign Office was responsible for policy towards Turkey and the Middle East generally, and had never deviated for the 19th Century view of the 'Eastern Question' — which in Britain's case involved a spurious friendship with Turkey that was linked to the hope of extending her influence over any paxt of Turkey's dominions which the Sultan should prove incapable of retaining. The area of Foreign Office control included Egypt and the Sudan where the Foreign Office had long pursued a policy of leaving everything to the man on the spot. The India Office in London was responsible for the Indian sphere of influence, which at that time included Aden, Oman, the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia—all Arabia except the Red Sea coast from Jedda northwards. Here again the India Office had been content to leave everything to the man on the spot, the Viceroy of India. Lastly there was the War Office in London, to which Kitchener came in 1914. This was directly concerned — from the intelligence standpoint—with the military potential of Turkey in the event of war, particularly where British possessions or spheres of influence in the Middle East were threatened. The War Office, the Viceroy, and the British Agent in Egypt were all well informed and kept in touch (if not in agreement) with each other, but the British Government had formulated no clear-cut policy in the Islamic field, and found itself, when the crisis of war with Turkey came, in the crossfire between the advocates of one course or another. It was at this point that Sir Mark Sykes, assistant to Sir Maurice Hankey in the Committee of Imperial Defence, was made principal adviser to the Government on Middle Eastern affairs, and thus became the government's representative in the Franco-British negotiations on the future of the Ottoman Empire.
Rival negotiations Sykes had travelled extensively in the East since early youth, was a master of several languages and had written at least two notable books. In these he had showed no enthusiasm for the demise of the Ottoman Empire, any more than he expressed a liking for some of the Ottoman's subjects, notably the Arabs and the Armenians. He took little interest in the claims of Arab independence at this stage of his career, still less if these conflicted with the claims of our allies, the French. Sir Mark's French counterpart in the negotiations was Monsieur Georges-Picot, a trained diplomat, who, until recently, had been French ConsulGeneral in Beirut. He arrived to open the negotiations in Novem-
Monsieur Georges-Picot He arrived
London
for negotiations
in
m November
1915
ber 1915. At the same time as negotiations opened between the British and the French, other discussions about the future of the Arab world were being carried out between Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner at Cairo, and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca. McMahon was no expert on Middle East aff"airs as most of his service had been in India, but he had at his elbow Sir Reginald Wingate, Ronald Storrs, an Arabic expert, and figures such as Gilbert Clayton and D. G. Hogarth, members of the 'Arab Bureau'. The Sherif Hussein and one of his sons, Abdulla, 5 were no strangers to British diplomacy. Some approaches, correct I and tentative, had been made to him before the war as to his £ altitude in the event of differences of opinion with the Ottoman o government, and when war broke out the approaches became more to the point. He had then no ambition beyond being confirmed in the perpetual Amirate of Mecca with as much independence as could be wrested from his Ottoman overlord. He had worked for this since his appointment to the Amirate in 1908, partly by subduing neighbouring Arab tribes in the name of the Ottoman government, and partly by consolidating his own position against the central authorities. But these activities hardly qualified him for leadership of the Arabs at the outbreak of war. He had a past to live down in which, while working for his own aggrandisement he had posed as the representative of the central goveinment. His record was well known in the Moslem world. The witten record of the McMahon-Hussein negotiations con.sists oi letters dated between July 14, 1915 and March 10, 1916. In his k cr ( \e fourth of the series, dated October 24) McMahon wrote: 'Th,^ tv >> districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to ihe west the districts of Damascus Horns Hama and Aleppo cannot be .said to be purely Arab and should be excluded from the limits demanded.' The Sherif replied (the fifth .
•
>
1518
i
of the series, dated November 5) 'we renounce our insistence on the inclusion of the vilayets of Mersina and Adana in the Arab King-
dom. But the two
Caspian
Black Sea
CAUCASUS
Sea
'Aleppo
MESQPOTAMA
[•Horns
Mediterranean
ipoli
•Oamasttis
Sea
WWNATIONAL
SPHERE
erusateni
ARABIA Aqaba
^1 ^3
FRENCH SPHERE IMOEPENDENT ARAB STATE FRENCH SPHERE OF INTEREST
IN
!
INDEPENDENT ARAB STATE IN BRITISHSPHERE OF INTEREST MILES
400
I-
OKMS
600
of the Sykes-Picot agreement: Franco-British influence east of Suez
The conclusions
tion
whatever of Palestine.
first of these quickly ceased to matter but the second was very serious: the introduction of 'spheres of influence' if they had not been explained to the Sherif, might have caused his refusal to join the Allies. The third was to lay the foundations of a problem which is with us to this day.
The
__ BRITISH SPHERE
r
vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut and their sea coasts are purely Arab vilayets'. To this McMahon replied (number six dated December 14) 'with regard to the vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut the Government of Great Britain have fully understood and taken careful consideration and a further communication on the subject will be addressed to you in due course'. The vague nature of the geographical descriptions given in the correspondence is one of the starting points in the arguments that were later to engulf the whole issue. But any ambiguities about geographical limits paled into insignificance in comparison with Kitchener's 'spiritual ambiguity' of October 31, 1914 when, in a message to AbduUa, the Sherifs son, he suggested that: 'It may be that an Arab of true race will assume the Khalifate at Mecca or Medina and so good may come.' Kitchener's message was clearly reiterated in McMahon's letter to the Sherif, dated August 30, 1915: 'We declare once more that His Majesty's Government would welcome the resumption of the Khalifate by an Arab of true race.' The Khalifate naturally presented a far more dazzling prospect to Hussein than the mere Amirate of Mecca. With it went both the spiritual and the temporal leadership of all Islam. For the Khalifate in Sunni Moslem dogma is the only legitimate political institution of Islam; the Khalif is the master of the Moslem community who holds temporal sway over all moslems, who protects the religion, enlarges the bounds of the Moslem dominion and wages war on unbelievers and heretics. Kitchener could have no conception of a Khalifate offered to Hussein in these terms. At the most he probably envisaged a spiritual leadership, a papacy of Islam, but certainly not a position of a temporal allegiance and political power. McMahon then, was making promises and raising hopes that had little chance of fulfillment should Turkey be defeated and a settling-up became an immediate necessity rather than a distant problem. But to make confusion worse confounded, the Sykes-Picot Agreement had now been concluded, and introduced further factors many of which were at direct variance with even the loose and imprecise terms of the McMahon-Hussein letters. Sykes and Picot knew, when they started work, that'letters had been exchanged with Mecca. The whole of their draft was communicated to McMahon in Cairo in April, 1916. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that many people besides McMahon and his staff had seen both the letters and the draft Agreement, and must have spotted the essential discrepancy — the insertion of oldfashioned 'spheres of influence' in the Arab areas. It is fair to conclude that at the time, the statesmen and officials reckoned that since the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence had been imprecise there was no fundamental conflict between the two documents. There were, in fact, many points on which the Agreement and the Correspondence differed. By the Agreement only, Britain was to be granted a small enclave containing the ports of Haifa and Acre. The two documents differed about arrangements for the interior of Syria; the Sherif had been given to understand by the Correspondence that he would be wholly independent, but the French, by providing advisers and functionaries under the terms of the Agreement, claimed to have a measure of supervision. The Agreement was specific that Palestine must have an international administration; the Correspondence had made no men-
Further Reading Antonius, George, The Arab Awakening (London 1938) Balfour, Curzon. Grey: Standard Lives Soviet American Rivalry in the Middle East {Praeger 1969) Hurewitz, J Kedoune, Elie, England and the Middle East (Bowes and Bowes 1956) Kedourie, Elie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies (Weidenfeld and Nicholson) Leslie, Shane, Mark Sykes: His Life and Letters (Cassell 1923) Monroe, Elizabeth, Britain's Moment in the Middle East (Chatto and
C
Windus 1963) Storrs, Sir Ronald, Orientations (London 1933) Sykes, Sir Mark. The Caliph's Last Heritage (London 1915)
Thornton. A. P., The Imperial Idea and its Enemies (Macmillan 1959) Williams, Ann, Britain and France in the Middle East and North Africa (Macmillan 1968) Wingate, Sir Ronald, Wingate of the Sudan (Murray 1955)
[For John Stephenson's biography see page 401
.
]
1519
Genesis of the Arab Revolt On June 10, 1916, Sherif Hussein Ibn Ali, Amir of Mecca and -Keeper of the Holy Cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina, pushed a rifle through the window of his house in Mecca and opened fire on the barracks of the Turkish garrison. The 62-year-old Hussein was an Arab prince, not a military leader, but by this symbolic act of defiance he signalled the outbreak of the Arab Revolt against the Turks. Fighting had in fact begun five days previously in Medina where two of Hussein's sons, Ali and Feisal, had raised the crimson banner of revolt at the head of 30,000 tribesmen and 500 Turkish-trained Arab troops. But the Turkish commander in Mecca, when he received the news, assumed that this was just another tribal outbreak. He had even telephoned Hussein with the information and had requested the Sherif s co-operation in putting down the insurrection. Hussein's reaction was to order an immediate assault on the Turkish barracks. The tocsin of rebellion had been sounded to the Arabs from Mecca, the holiest place in all Islam.
A way
of
life
Throughout most of recorded history the word Arab has signified only the inhabitants of the Yemen and Nejed and the nomadic tribesmen of the desert; indeed the word implied more a way of life, that of the nomad, than a race. But in the 7th Century these nomads became the first converts to the new religion of Islam and burst out of their deserts to establish an empire. The word Arab then came to signify the ruling caste of this empire which in its heyday extended from the River Indus to the Atlantic coasts of Spain. After the collapse of the Arab empire the word Arab reverted to its original meaning, and most of the inhabitants of what we now call the Middle East called themselves Syrians, or Egyptians, or more usually Muslims. Arabs were the nomadic tribesmen who roamed the deserts with their flocks and herds. The citizen of Beirut or Damascus, making the arduous pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, felt no aflSnity with the uncouth Bedouin, their matted ringlets reeking of camels' urine, who came riding in from the desert to exact tolls from the caravan. For 400 years the Turks ruled over the majority of the Arabicspeaking peoples: Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, the Yemen and Nejed all formed part of the Ottoman Empire. Allegiance was owed by all these peoples to the Sultan in Constantinople, but Turkish rule was mainly confined to the cities and settled districts. In the desert and mountains the tribes acknowledged only the leadership of their own sheikhs. Travellers might be provided with a Turkish passport, but they must still pay tribute as they passed from one tribal territory to the next. "As herdsmen and wolves, soldiers and Bedouin may never agree,' wrote C. S. Doughty, and from time to time the Turks, exasperated beyond endurance, would send a punitive expedition against the tribes. For the most part, however, they were content to leave them alone. This suited the tribesmen, and although 'Turkish rule was gendarme rule', it was not resisted everywhere; only in the settled areas was there increasing discontent with the corruption and inefficiency of Turkish oflficialdom. The Ottoman Empire was disintegrating by the end of the 19th Century. The British had ousted the Turks from Egypt, the Balkan provinces were seething with revolt, and Italy coveted Turkey's remaining possessions in North Africa. Russia's designs on Constantinople remained unchanged. There were even stirrings in the Arabic-speaking provinces, and this despite the efforts of Sultan Abdul Hamid (1876-1908) to woo the loyalty of his Arabic-speaking subjects in order to offset the Turkish losses in Europe. He was the first and last Turkish ruler to make a conscious effort to conciliate the Arabs, basing his policy on Pan-Islamism, but not even this treatment could reconcile them to the fact that they were widely treated as second-class citizens. Two secret societies had been formed in Syria by 1914; one, Al Fatah, consisted of Arab intellectuals and officials, while the other, Al Ahed, was composed of Arab officers serving in th.^ Turkish Army. Neither was aware of the other's existent ind ibr obvious reasons. The Turks gave short shrift to plotters ist their regime. It was not easy to provide a focus these Arab aspirations. In Damascus and Beirut there were small groups of Arab intellectuals and officers who were feeling their way towards Arab nationalism, but in the more remote provinces anti-Turkish t.
1520
feeling did not have a nationalistic character. It stemmed from a dislike of Turkish attempts to strengthen their authority, for the tribes were determined to maintain their traditional independence in tribal aff'airs. Thus there was no common pattern in Arab discontent, nor was there a single Arab leader who could provide both purpose and direction. Only one Arab personality had a reputation that extended beyond the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire — the Amir of Mecca, custodian of the Holy Places, for on him fell the responsibility for organising the annual pilto Mecca and Medina. He was appointed by the Sultan, but must come from the family traditionally vested with the custody of the Holy Places, the Hashemites, and as such he was a lineal descendant of the Prophet Mohammed and called Sherif, or noble. It is obvious that whoever held this appointment must become known to Muslims all over the world, and this was certainly true of Sherif Hussein (1854-1931) who was appointed Amir of Mecca in 1908. He may not have been able to muster as many tribesmen to his banner as Ibn Rashid, the pro-Turkish sheikh of the great Shammar confederation of Central Arabia, nor Ibn Saud, Ibn Rashid's rival, who was slowly consolidating his grip on Nejed. But theirs were names known only in the desert; Hussein was known throughout Islam. He was a complex personality who had been brought up in the desert among the Bedouin, as were his sons after him, and he never lost his love for desert life. Abdul Hamid had distrusted
grimages
Under Turkish
rule, the
Arabs had long
suffered the indignities of second class citizens, and by 1914 discontent in the Arabic speaking provinces was growing rapidly. In him and kept him in exile in Constantinople for nearly 17 years, but Hussein had merely taken advantage of this opportunity to provide his sons, Ali, Abdullah, Feisal and Zeid with a modern education. He was a true Arab aristocrat, courteous and hospitable, but his mild exterior concealed an iron will and the obstinacy of a Bourbon. He was determined to restore the powers and prestige of the Amir of Mecca and this had already brought him into conflict with the Turks and led to his exile. So long as Abdul Hamid remained on the throne, Hussein would never become
Amir
of Mecca.
'Iron will'
There was however a revolution in Turkey in 1908. Young army officers and civilians, disgusted by the increasingly arbitrary rule of Abdul Hamid and humiliated by the backwardness of their country and the loss of the Balkan provinces, forced the Sultan to grant a modern constitution, and shortly afterwards deposed and exiled him. Few of the Sultan's Arabic-speaking subjects cared much about parliamentary government, and there were even those who regretted the overthrow of such a staunch Pan-Muslim, but most educated Arabs welcomed the revolution. They hoped that the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) which was now at the head of aff'airs would prove sympathetic to Arab aspirations. These aspirations were not for independence, but for decentralisation in local government and for the recog.
June 1916, in the wake of British pledges to the Arabs for their support against the Turks, the Arab revolt, led by Sherif Hussein, began. Major-General Lunt. Below: Mecca nition of Arabic as the official language in the Arabic-speaking provinces. Arab hopes were raised when the Young Turks reversed Abdul Hamid's policy and appointed Sherif Hussein as Amir of Mecca. His son Abdullah remained in Constantinople as vicechairman of the Turkish parliament, as did Feisal, who was the member for Jidda. But it did not take l6ng for the Arabs to become disillusioned with the new regime. They found little sympathy for their aspirations in Constantinople. The Young Turks were xenophobic nationalists and a Pan-Turkish Movement replaced Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamism. Turkey was ruled by a triumvirate — Enver, Talaat
and Djemal. 'There are no longer Bulgars, Greeks, Rumanians, Jews, Muslims,' said Enver. 'We are all equal, we glory in being Ottoman.' But the British ambassador reported of the Young Turks in 1910: 'to them "Ottoman" evidently means "Turk" and their present policy of "Ottomanisation" is one ot pounding the non-Turkish elements in a Turkish mortar'. The Armenians were the first to feel the heavy hand of the Young Turks, and they were followed by the Kurds and the Chaldean Christians. Fear grew among Arab intellectuals that it might be the Arabs' turn and paradoxically, it was partly as a result of Abdul Hamid's Pan-Muslim policies that Enver and his henchmen were provided with the means of bringing the Arabs to heel. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire had been hastened next,
by the appalling state of its internal communications. It used to take weeks for dispatches to reach the capital from the farthest outposts, and months for reinforcements to traverse the mountains and the desert. This situation was transformed in 1908 when a railway was completed between Damascus and Medina Its construction had begun in 1900 and was part of Abdul Hamid's PanIslamic policy; indeed he proclaimed that it was being built to facilitate the pilgrimage to Mecca, thereby financing it by contributions from pious Muslims from all over the world, but its strategic importance was obvious. It followed the line of the old pilgrim road, Darbal Haj, from Damascus to Medina, and the intention was to continue it to Mecca. A branch line ran from Deraa, south of Damascus, by way of the Yarmuk gorge into Palestine. It eventually linked Jerusalem and Beersheba with Damascus, and on completion extended as far as Al Auja on the Egyptian frontier. The existence of this railway made it easier to reinforce the Turkish garrisons in Palestine and the Hejaz. The Hejaz Railway was planned and constructed by German engineers with the backing of the German government. This at once made it suspect in British eyes. The British were even more alarmed when the Germans were granted a concession in January, 1902, to construct a railway across the Euphrates to Mosul, and thence via Baghdad to Basra. The government of India, always jealous of its influence in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, became almost hysterical at the prospect of German influence approaching so close to India. Fortunately the railway progressed slowly, owing to the many engineering difficulties encountered, but it was destined in due course to bring some of the most distant Arabic-speaking provinces under tighter control from the centre. It fitted in well with the 'Ottomanisation' policies of Enver and the CUP. It was in fact Sherif Hussein's stubborn opposition to the extension of the Hejaz Railway to Mecca which first brought him into conflict with the Young Turks. They retaliated by appointing Vahib Bey, notorious for his anti-Arab sentiments, as GovernorGeneral of the Hejaz in February, 1914. One of his first acts was to order Hussein to hand over the antiquated muskets of his personal bodyguard. This was followed by a strengthening of the Turkish garrison, consisting of the 22nd Division, with headquarters in Medina, and with regiments deployed in Medina. Mecca and Jidda. The 21st Division was garrisoning Asir, to the south of the Hejaz. Some of these troops were Arab conscripts serving under Turkish officers, but the majority were Anatolian Turks, among the most stubborn defensive fighters in the world. sufficient troops at their disposal to overawe the Hejaz, and were also able to reinforce them quite rapidly by the newly-opened railway.
The Turks had quite
Coffee-shop meetings Discontent in Turkey's Arabic-speaking provinces was growing rapidlv bv the beginning of 1914. The Arabs felt they had been
1521
Right In uneasy line-up. Sheikh Ibn Rashid with Fakhri Pasha and Gihalib Bey Arab loyalty to the Turks could not alwaysbereliedupon/^boue The Arabian peninsula showing the German financed Hejaz Railway
down by the CUP and they were bitterly opposed to 'Ottomanisation". However, their opposition lacked leadership and direction — it was mostly confined to conspiratorial meetings in the coffee-shops of the big cities. Then, in the same month as Vahib Bey arrived in the Hejaz to crack the Turkish whip, the Amir Abdullah, second son of Sherif Hussein, visited Cairo on his way to attend the Turkish parliament in Constantinople. Lord Kitchener was British Agent and Consul-General in Egypt and he knew of course of the Arabs' discontent. He was sympathetic when Abdullah told him of Hussein's desire to make the Hejaz independent, but was understandably cautious when Abdullah asked outright for a pledge of British support. Friendship with Turkey had long been traditional British policy, said Kitchener, and he therefore doubted whether Britain would intervene in any conflict between the Arabs and the Turks. A .somewhat disenchanted Abdullah continued his journey to Constantinople, but within six months Britain was at war with let
Germany and Kitchener was on his way to London to become Secretary of State for War. Shortly before leaving Cairo, Kitchener told his Oriental Secretary, Mr (later Sir Ronald) Storrs, to write to Abdullah, by then back in Mecca, and ask what Sherif Hussein would do if the Turks entered the war on Germany's side. Storrs, a brilliant Arabist, was well-known for his pro-Arab sympathies, but Hussein's reply was non-committal. He knewhe could not deal with the Turks unaided, and he also knew there were several alternative Sherifs kept in Constantinople to replace him if ever he fell foul of the Turkish government. He therefore preferred to sit on the fence for the time being. Britain was not, however, prepared to bring the Turks into the war against them for the sake of the Arabs. Turkey was well placed to threaten the Suez Canal and communications with India. The Turkish garrison in the Yemen was a threat to Aden, and the Turks could close the Shatt al Arab, down which passed the oil from the British-owned Persian fields. Quite apart, however, from these strategic considerations, the British, and the French also, were worried about the feelings of their millions of Muslim subjects if Turkey allied herself with Germany. The hard core of the Indian Army was Muslim, while thr" French Colonial Army contained thousands of Muslim troops. The Sultan of Turkey styled himself ("aliph of Islam, and although his right to claim the leadership of the world's Muslims was disputed by many Islamic jurists, he was nevertheless regarded bv iv Muslims as their spiritual leader. On every count it would for the Allies if Turkey stayed out of'the war. Unfortunately the pro-German element in the Tur.,;i.h government was in the ascendant. Ru.ssia declared war on Turkey on 4 November after bombardment of Odessa, and Britain and France followed suit the next day. Shortly afterwards the Sultan proclaimed a jehad, or Holy War, against the Allies. Sherif Hussein's :
>
1
522
position was now crucial. If he, as custodian of the Holy Places, endorsed from Mecca the Caliph's call to Holy War, its appeal to the faithful would be immeasurably strengthened; if he failed to do so, much of its force would undoubtedly be lost. The Turks, well aware of this, at once brought pressure to bear on Hussein. Likewise the British, frantically exhorted by the government of India, did their utmost to dissuade him from doing so. For several months Hussein prevaricated, ostensibly on the grounds that he was seeking advice from other religious leaders, and then excused himself from openly supporting the Holy War. He pointed out that the British, who controlled the Red Sea, could Easily blockade the Hejaz, whereupon the Turks tightened their grip on the Hejaz Railway and restricted the flow of supplies. They also sent P^akhri Pasha, organiser of the Adana massacres in 1909, to take over command in Medina. There followed months of intensive political intrigue during which the British sought to win over Sherif Hussein to the Allied side, while the Sherif endeavoured to obtain the highest possible price for his support. At first these negotiations were conducted on the British side by Sir Henry McMahon who became High Commissioner in Cairo in January, 1915. He was assisted by Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Sudan. The government of India also insisted on having a say in the matter because of its so-called 'sphere of influence" in Mesopotamia, the Gulf, and the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed the one constant factor in Britain's Middle Eastern policy since its inception in the 19th Century has been the quantity of the cooks involved and the poor quality of their broth. However, at the end of March, 1915, it was at least agreed that responsibility for Arab affairs in the Hejaz and northwards would be transferred from India to the High Commissioner in Egypt.
Exceptional privileges If the British had landed
at Alexandretta, which Kitchener had one time contemplated, the Arab Revolt might well have started in 1915. The Turkish garrison in Syria consisted mainly of Arab conscripts who were seething with discontent, and Feisal, who was paying a visit to Damascus, reported to his father that the chances for a successful rebellion were good, providing a British landing at Alexandretta secured the Arabs' flank. But the British went to the Dardanelles instead, and Feisal, in Turkish uniform, went in due counse to Gallipoli to observe the battle. Meanwhile, the McMahon-Hussein negotiations continued, and in July 1915 Hussein made a formal request for Britain to guarantee the independence of all Arabic-speaking lands in return for the entry of the Arabs into the war against the Turks. He defined this future Arab state, of which he doubtless expected to be king, as stretching from the Taurus Mountains to the Indian Ocean, excluding only Aden, and from the Red Sea and Mediterranean at
coasts to the Persian frontier. Within this area Britain would be given economic preference, although the exceptional privileges given to foreigners under Capitulations would be abolished. These were in fact the terms agreed with Feisal by the Arab secret societies in Syria.
At but
first
sight they were extremely favourable to the British, reply stated that 'as for the questions of frontiers
McMahon's
and boundaries, negotiation would appear
to be premature". Doubtless the Foreign Office, as w'ell as McMahon and his advisers, considered that Hussein, who was after all only an Arab Prince with no real army, was pitching his demands too high, and in any case they had to take into consideration the views of iheir ally, France, who was at the time bearing the brunt of the war in the west. Ever since the time of the Crusades France had maintained that she had a special relationship in Syria which also included the Lebanon and regarded herself as the patron of the large Syrian Christian community w^hich acknowledged i
i,
allegiance to Rome. When Hussein protested at this cold douche. McMahon spelt it out more precisely in his letter of October 24. 1915: 'The districts of Mersin and Alexandretta. and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus. Horns, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab and must on that account be exempted from the proposed delineation." He went on to say: 'As for the regions lying within the proposed frontiers in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to the interests of her ally France, I am authorised to give you the following pledges on behalf of the Government of Great Britain, and to reply as follows to your note: 111 That, subject to the modifications stated above, Great Britain is prepared to recognise and uphold the independence of the Arabs in all the regions lying within the frontiers proposed by the Sherif of Mecca. i2i That Great Britain will guarantee the Holy Places against all external aggression." This seemed to be conclusive enough, but Hussein returned to the charge and reiterated the Arab claim to the districts of Aleppo and Beirut. When McMahon pointed out French interests in these two districts and suggested that the matter should be studied further. Hussein warned him that the Arabs would certainly claim Beirut and its coastal regions' once the war was over. He also said that 'Any concession designed to give France, or any other power, possession of a single square foot of territory in those parts is quite out of the question". These far-reaching claims must have seemed a case of folie de grandeur so far as McMahon and the Foreign Office were concerned: they certainly placed no credence in Hussein's dream of a great Arab state ruled by the Hashemites. McMahon sent a polite but non-committal reply
and
left it at that.
But there were other fingers in the pie. Britain, France and Russia had entered into negotiations for the carve-up of the Turkish empire, and it was also thought necessary for Britain and France to gang up against Russia who was staking a claim to Palestine. The British negotiator was Sir Mark Sykes, an able official with considerable experience of the Middle East, but whose judgement was inclined to be impulsive and erratic. The French appointed Monsieur Georges-Picot, a diplomat of great charm and some talent, who had recently been Consul-General in Beirut. In his hurried departure from his post after the outbreak of war he left behind some incriminating documents which enabled the Turks to penetrate the Arab secret societies, with disastrous results for some of his Arab friends. Having conveniently parcelled out the Ottoman Empire to the mutual advantage of Britain and France, but without any regard to McAlahun s arrangements with Hussein, the Sykes-Picot Agreenuni ua.> signed in London on May 16, 1916. By it France was to receive the greater part of Syria and the Mosul district in Mesopotamia, while Britain got southern Syria and most of Mesopotamia, including Baghdad and Basra. Palestine was to be placed under international control. The Arabs were to have the rest of the pie. which contained few plums, and in any case their area was to be divided into two zones: in Zone A French influence was to predominate, and the British in Zone B. It is hardly surprising that the terms of this agreement burst like a bombshell in Cairo although it is highly unlikely that no-one there had any inkling of what was going on. Certainly Hussein, whose ear was always kept very close to the ground and whose agent Al Faruqi kept him well posted about developments in Cairo, must have had a shrewd idea of some, if not of all the clauses in the agreement. While all these political interchanges were taking place, the British were building up Egypt as a major military base. They had also established an Intelligence centre in Cairo with the task of furnishing both military and political intelligence: this organisation was called the Arab Bureau. There is apparently something about the Arabs which has an indefinable but irresistible attraction for a certain type of Englishman. The majority of Arabian explorers had been British: others went to the Middle East as diplomats, merchants, soldiers, archaeologists, or just as travellers, and promptly succumbed to the 'spell of Arabia". It is hard to account for this, and maybe there is no real affinity between the Arabs and the British, but when war broke out in 1914 both the Foreign Office and Military Intelligence could call upon the services of several British civilians with a comprehensive knowledge of the Middle East. These 'Arabists" found their way sooner or later into the Arab Bureau which was headed by a 41-year-old Brigadier Gilbert Clayton, of the Sudan Service. Among them was D. G. Hogarth, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and orientalist, archaeologist and writer. -Hogarth had
1523
been involved of his proteges
in intelligence activities before the war, and one was a 27-year-old archaeologist, T. E. Lawrence.
Lawrence had studied under Hogarth at 'Oxford, and had subsequently worked for him at the archaeological dig at Carchemish in Asia Minor. Hogarth had almost certainly recruited him for intelligence activities in the Middle East before the war, and Lawrence was among other things an expert in the order of battle of the Turkish army. He arrived in Cairo towards the end of 1914 and worked at first for Military Intelligence, but he was, of course, closely connected with the Arab Bureau. As such he must have known of the negotiations between McMahon and Hussein, and later of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Cowed by brutality Apart from the easy defeat of the Turkish attack on the Suez Canal February 1915, the war against the Turks had not been going very well for the Allies. Gallipoli was evacuated finally on January 9, 1916. Turkish troops had advanced from the Yemen and were entrenched only a few miles from Aden. General Townshend surrendered at Kut on April 29, 1916. Large Turkish forces were assembled in Palestine and con.stituted a serious threat to Egypt and the British base there. In Syria, Djemal Pasha, furnished with the evidence provided in the correspondence of M. Georges-Picot, struck at the Arab conspirators and his hangmen were working overtime. Disloyal Arab formations had been dispersed and their places taken by loyal Anatolian troops. Feisal had undertaken a dangerous mission to Damascus early in 1916 in order to regain contact with the secret societies and gauge the situation there. He was hardly encouraged by what he found. The Arabs were cowed by Djemal's brutalities. He forced Feisal to witness executions, doubtless pour encourager les autres, since by now the Turks must have got wind of Hussein's plotting. Feisal himself went in daily danger of execution and wrote to his father counselling delay. This was hardly the time to break out in revolt. But the Turks were forming a movable column in Damascus whose destination was the Hejaz, and in the Turkish empire movable columns were synonymous with massacre. The ostensible purpose of this column was to escort a party of Germans under Major von Stotzingen down to the Yemen where they were to open up a wireless station for communication with German East Africa and conduct propaganda in the Horn of Africa. However, Hussein knew that the main object would be to overawe the Arabs and he became increasingly impatient to get his blow in first. The flow of arms across the Red Sea to equip his tribal levies was well under way, thanks to the efforts of Sir Reginald Wingate, but there was a long way to go yet before there would be enough arms to go round. Wingate counselled caution, as did McMahon, and so did various emissaries from the Arab Bureau who came and went from Jedda. Everyone therefore was surprised when Hussein took the bit between his teeth and ordered the revolt to begin at Medina on June 5, 1916. Although he had had no military training, he did not consult his sons, and indeed Feisal only just got back from Damascus in time for the rising. The Arabs could put 50,000 tribesmen into the field but had only rifles for 10,000; they had no machine guns and no artillery. Wingate was appalled when he received the news: 'His army is practically a rabble and run on Dervish lines.' Hussein was not the first Arab leader, nor would in
he be the tical
last, to scorn military considerations in pursuit of poliobjectives. He was too self-willed to seek advice, and too
obstinate to heed it if it had been given. Surprisingly the revolt began well. The Turks were caught off their guard and reacted with their usual ponderous slowness. They easily repulsed All's and Feisal's attack on Medina by frightening the life out of the undisciplined Bedouin by their artillery, but Fakhri Pasha was not to be tempted far from his entrenchments. Likewise the considerable Turkish garrison in Taif, the summer retreat from the burning heat of Mecca, did little rriore than exchange shots with Abdullah's tribesmen who encircled them. In Mecca itself 1 ,000 Turks surrendered after their barracks had been set on fire, but two small forts outside the city held out for almost a month. They unwittingly aided the Arab cau.se by shelling the city, narrowly missing the sacred Ka'aba, and providing vSherif Hussein with a wonderful opportunity to enlist the .sympathies of Islam against the Turks Success was equally marked along the coast, l,i due to ships of the Royal Navy and Indian Marine. They led the Hejaz ports, in co-operation with Arab attticks from thi idward side, and Jedda surrendered on June 16 after three airci iit from the seaplane carrier Ben-myChree had bombed the defenders the previous evening. Rabegh, farther up the coast, was easily taken, while Yenbo surrendered after a short bombardment on July 27.
1
521
Wejh, 180 miles north of Yenbo and garrisoned by 1,200 Turks, alone remained in Turkish hands. Meanwhile Wingate, reacting quickly to this sudden turn of events, rushed two Egyptian mountain batteries and four machine guns across the Red Sea from Port Sudan. There were obvious political dangers in employing Egyptian troops to aid the Arabs in ridding them of the Turks, but Hussein needed artillery, and Christian gunners would probably be unwelcome on the sacred soil of Islam. On the day the Egyptians embarked at Port Sudan, Fakhri Pasha struck back at Medina. He had been busy sowing dissention among the tribes who made up Feisal's army, and judging the moment ripe, he made a sudden sortie and captured the suburb which had sheltered Feisal and some of his tribesmen. The place was given over to the sack, and the Arabs were left in no doubt that similar treatment would be meted out elsewhere as soon as the Turks felt strong enough to do so. It came as a rude shock to the Bedouin whose tribal code laid down that the persons of women and children were sacrosanct in war. Tribal warfare consisted mainly of raiding each other's flocks and herds and was governed by elaborate rules of conduct handed down through the centuries. Loot was the main attraction, and once obtained the immediate impulse of the tribesman was to return to his tent. Moreover, there was no real enthusiasm for a cause; the tribesman's first loyalty was to his family, then to his clan, and then to his tribe. His clan might be at feud with other clans within the tribe, and almost every Bedouin tribe was at feud with another. The Turks were only secondary in all this, and once the initial excitement of attacking them was over, inter-clan and intertribal jealousies soon supervened. Commanding a tribal army was like handling mercury — the drops no sooner came together than they began dispersing. Fakhri Pasha's successful sortie at Medina had just that effect; the tribes began to go home. Mean-
while the Turks were urgently assembling reinforcements for the Hejaz. Eight battalions were collecting at Damascus, together with Sherif Ali Haider to replace Sherif Hussein. He was to take with him the holy carpet of the annual pilgrimage to bolster
Captain T. E. Lawrence, recently returned to Cairo after carrying out a delicate intelligence mission in Mesopotamia.
his authority.
Sherif Hussein and his sons were well aware of the need to interrupt the flow of Turkish reinforcements but seemed powerless to do so. Ali had made an unsuccessful attempt to cut the
railway at Medain Saleh and had then withdrawn. The railway was protected by fortified posts and the Arabs had no demolitions. They merely sniped at troop trains from maximum range and were correspondingly disheartened when they steamed merrily on. After an auspicious beginning the revolt was losing impetus and morale was falling. By the middle of August All's and Feisal's army was beginning to disperse. Had Fakhri Pasha decided at this moment to march down to Mecca, he would undoubtedly have taken the city and nipped the rebellion in the bud, but he chose to wait for reinforcements and lost the great opportunity. For another man was waiting in the wings to step onto the stage, and his appearance would transform the Arab Revolt. He was Below, far left: Sheni Hussein of Mecca. After 17 years in exile, he was finally appointed Amir of Mecca by the Young Turks but came into conflict with them over the extension of the Hejaz railway and led the Arab revolt in June 1916. Below left: Sir Ronald Storrs, Oriental secretary to Kitchener in Cairo. When Kitchener left Egypt to take up his post as Secretary of State for War, he left Storrs to sound out Arab opinion in the event of Turkey's entry into the war. Below right: Sir Henry McMahon, negotiator with Hussein on the future of Arab lands and the price of the Arabs Intervention on the side of the Allies. Hussein's boundary demands conflicted with Britain's promises to France and had to be shelved. Below, far right: Abdullah, Hussein's son. He asked outright for a pledge of British support
N Further Reading Antonius, George, The Arab Awakening (Hamish Hamilton) Doughty, C. M., Arabia Deserta (Jonathan Cape) Glubb, Lieutenant-General Sir John, Britain and the Arabs (Hodder & Stoughton) Graves, Robert, Lawrence and the Arabs (Jonathan Cape) Mousa, Suleiman, 7. E. Lawrence: An Arab View (GUP)
MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES LUNT was
born in 1917 and educated at King (lOM) and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in 1 937 and served in India and Burma during the Second World War. Since then he has served in Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Germany, Aden, and in India. He retired from the regular army in 1972, and currently works with Alvis Ltd of William's
Coventry.
General Lunt has spent nine years of his service in the Middle East where he and became deeply Interested in the 'Lawrence Legend', and also Middle Eastern problems In 1 952 he raised a Bedouin reconnaissance regiment for the Arab Legion and commanded it until 1 955. There were 41 Bedouin tribes represented in his regiment and he spent much of his time in the desert as the only Englishman among over 800 Arabs. Later he commanded the Arab army in Aden from 1961 to 1964. Since leaving Sandhurst Major-General Lunt has written several books and learnt Arabic
contributed numerous articles and short stories to magazines and journals
1525
1
somm niE SECOND
Tiiii:
S'E/IOI
^
/r
•
'
the first day of the Somme offensive, had the British more in casualties than any other ay of the war. In the days that followed they ^ruggled to reinforce and reorganise their units at both French and British commanders vacilited between extreme caution and dangerous ptimism, and the gains achieved were won at lormous cost. Major-General A. Fari'ar -Hockley iuly 1, st
:.
British troops
man
the
huge 9,2-mch gun
nng the Struggle for positions
at
Albert
of the Fourth Army man a battery of 60-pouncler guns near Contalmaison — a vital position to be gained before the main British assault could be launched Below right:
Below: Soldiers
({hen Pickelhaubers now replaced by coal-scuttle helmets) load a field
German troops gun
at
Mametz Wood
.C'#:
On the
night of July
1,
the British trenches
were crowded and confused. Remnants of the assault battalions driven back at one time or another during the day's fighting
were engaged in attempts
to reorganise, to discover who was missing, who safe. Rolls were checked, inquests held as to who could vouch for men known to be dead or wounded. From the rear came reserve brigades
or divisions to take over from those who had lost most heavily during the day. Across No-Man's Land, those who had secured lodgements - tenuous on the left, shallow in the centre, substantial on the
ment and replenishment.
—
Despite the uncertainty and disorder,
'^-'^--^
,-
.,
>wassoon ;he
front.
From
the rear came the quartermasters' columns with ammunition, water, food, defence stores — even mail for some. The engineers were at work, reinforcing the infantry, repairing defences, helping on VIII Corps' front to bring in wounded. The signallers were about tracing the broken ends of their cables. Infantry mixed with the medical and service corps in searching for wounded and passing them back to the rear. So many men lay still on the battlefield alive but unable to move, some to be found by the devotion of friends returning to the scene of one or another desperate action of the day. Others were lucky to be discovered by supply columns or signallers or sappers — even by the enemy, searching under the bright moon
own
for their
casualties.
Gradually, a form of control was reasserted. Rallying points were established
-
At Fourth Army headquarters, orders were issued at 1000 hours for the attack to be continued 'under corps arrangements as early as compatible with adequate previous artillery preparations'. It was an order based on ignorance of the situation rather than ruthlessness. Rawlinson noted in his diary at 1900 hours that 'The casualties to date are 16,000'. They were, of course, almost 58,000. The success of and XIII Corps on the right, and of the
XV
French, was taken as a sign that every other corps' sector on the front of attack would break with one more hard punch. .During the night, the realities of the battlefield became manifest. Just after midnight on July 1, Gough telephoned to say that an attack by either VIII or X Corps was out of the question on the 2nd. Extensive reorganisation was necessary in the trenches. The reserve formations coming up needed time for reconnaissance in daylight; the gunners wanted to redeem their failure in wire cutting and to register hard targets disclosed by the assault on the 1st. The engineers were overburdened with tasks. He expected that both corps might renew operations on the 3rd. In III Corps, the relief of the 8th Division by the 12th was largely completed in darkness; but the 19th Division, struggling to pass through the crowded trenches, supply columns, signallers, stretcher parties, had only one battalion forward at dawn. Two brigades of the 19th should have attacked at 2230 hours on the night of the 1st. Now it was accepted that only one would get into the forming-up area during the forenoon. They should attack at 1600 hours on thei.|fternoon of July 2. Aak^;*„ Fricourt, the defences against
Home had told his infantry line the attack' by day daunted eral
Plhns were made for a setmidday on the 2nd. His .lowever, were not wasting the .7, kness. With a cool curiosity, two battalions patrolled into the outskirts of the l^t.
Ption at
next day.
—
and brought back the surprising good news that it appeared to be empty. village
Vulnerable The hours of toil and terror for the British during July 1 had tended to obscure from them the fact that the prolonged Allied bombardment and the deliberate assaults, bravely pressed, had brought the enemy close to a serious tactical defeat, possibly a strategic reverse. General von Below
had not agreed with Falkenhayn's
first
apprehension that the pressure on him was a feint, a preliminary to a sudden major attack further north. His corps commanders — Pannewitz south of the Somme, von Stein to the north -shared Below's belief that they occupied the front of the Allied summer offensive. By the 1st, Pannewitz had lost the whole of his 121st Division's
field
artillery
opposite
the
French southern assault line, and six of eight heavy batteries. That evening, he learned that Feyolle's divisions had captured his entire front trench system from the Somme bank southward to the Amiens road. They were poised to assault his second line. His colleague Stein was yet more vulnerable. In six days, 109 of his guns and howitzers had been destroyed or damaged. He had lost so many soldiers that, before zero hour, the greater part of his infantry reserve had been committed to man forward defences. Much of what re-
mained had been committed to help stem the drive of the Ulster Division above Thiepval. The loss of Hem, Hardecourt, Montauban and Mametz left Fricourt hanging; hence its abandonment. For the same reasons, he had drawn back from Trones and Bernafay woods. At the high point of crisis during the morning of the 1st, his Chief-of-Staff had prepared a plan for withdrawal of the whole first line south of the Ancre. But the Allied advance had ended in the afternoon and the counterattack by Thiepval had prevailed. General von Below released the greater part of his
is^jmsi^
As it was, Rawlinson explained to Haig that he could not advance
slender reserve to Stein for a night attack to recover Montauban. In the event, therefore, the principal operation of the night was conducted by the Germans — though not without difficulty. It was planned that 12th Reserve Division should cross their start hne at last light; but the majority were still alighting at dusk from the trains that had carried them from Cambrai. Zero hour was postponed to 2330 hours; but the division was still marching towards the Willow Stream in darkness through strange country. P'inally, linked with three battalions of Bavarians, the nine from the division began the ascent to Montauban, preceded by a weak bombardment. The German bombardment roused the British defenders of Montauban, who sum-
son's proposals.
their own artillery in reply. British and F'rench guns responded, the shrapnel cutting effectively into the massed enemy ranks. One of the assault regiments, which
mer
moned
lost its way during the final approach, appeared before dawn on the FrancoBritish boundary where Balfourier's soldiers opened a hot rifle and machine gun fire. One small party entered Montauban village but was killed to a man. After sunrise on the 2nd, patrols from Montauban and Hardecourt found amongst the dead a number of German wounded, and took
from Mametz and Montauban until Congreve had fully reorganised. The congestion in the area behind Maricourt, with British and French units muddled together, was delaying this and, besides, Congreve wished to consider at length the 'very open ground' on his line of advance. Finally, they had to settle the matter of flank protection with Balfourier's corps; for an advance northward would oblige the Allies to diverge. While all these arrangements were in hand, Rawlinson argued, the remaining corps should complete the capture of the German first line. Scarcely convinced, Haig grudgingly agreed. He departed to see Gough.
Sunday, July 2, was another fine sumday. At Fayolle's headquarters, the staff" were unable to understand what held the British back. Balfourier was anxious
left bank of the get Congreve in to Bernafay or Trones woods or the briqueterie behind and between them; a step
to
advance again up the
Somme. He could not
which would cost them nothing but would secure his left flank. South of the river, the Colonial and XXXV Corps triumphed in two sharp actions which resulted in the capture of Herbecourt, well inside von Pannewitz' second line, and its switch system to the river bank. The French assaults were once more undertaken by infantry moving in small groups, operating at the initiative of regimental commanders as soon as they had left their trenches.
By the afternoon of the 2nd, Pannewitz recognised that he could not hold the Flaucourt plateau. All his own reserves had been committed and General von Below had nothing left in Army reserve.
On
the eastern edge of the plateau, the third line of defence was now adequately
had
them
.4..*-»^^w
prisoner.
At 1030 hours that morning, Haig came again to Querrieu. He did not like Rawlinson's concept of operations: it aimed to press at the points of failure while resting on those of success. Neither he nor Rawlinson knew that Fricourt was at that moment being occupied, the trenches beyond soon to be snatched by the enterprise of the local battalions: or that Bernafay Wood and the edge of Trones were under investigation by the impatient infantry in XIII Corps who could not understand why Congreve held them back. Had this information been to hand, it might have persuaded the Commander-in-Chief to deny Rawlin-
'-.'$.
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s^.
\
1
It *^^t
^-M ikljMi ,
r^-
;'.,-'
i ^ Wk'-.
i^1 '
^w
r
r
The weapons — large and small — of the attack 'organised for
amateurs by amateurs'
Top to bottom: Canadian Ross rifle Mark III 303 calibre: Canadian Ross rifle Mark .303; .303 long Lee Enfield rifle Mark .303 rifle No 1 with short magazine; .303 pattern 14 (P14) rifle. The Ross rifles have been the cause of considerable controversy. Issued by the Canadian government to their troops, they often proved troublesome in muddy conditions and were frequently discarded in favour of the SMLE. However, this rifle had a large following and was used extensively for sniping purposes 2 Top: .303 P14 rifle fitted 1
II
I:
with telescopic sight Bottom. Rifle 303-inch,
Mark
III.
Short
Magazine Lee
Number
1
Enfield with telescopic
sight 3 .303 Vickers machine gun Mark 1. Originally called the Vickers Maxim, this gun was adopted by the British in 1912 and has an extremely sound reputation.
nr
<^ J
Opposite page, top: The German 5-9-inch howitzer. Elevation: to 45 Traverse: 4 left to 4 right. Maximum range: 9.296 yards. Weiglit: .
92 lbs. Opposite page, left: The French 120-mm short gun, made in about 1890 but nonetheless in service throughout the war. Opposite
British 158
786
French 49 859
page, bottom: The British Mark 7 naval gun on an artificial mounting which adapted it for use on the battlefield. Bottom: The British Mark 1 9.2-inch howitzer. Maximum range: 10,000 yards. Rate of fire: 2 rounds per minute. Below: The latest toll of deaths on the Somme
mmm 103 000
German
July2-14
li-
4 Top
@^
left: Oval grenade- Egg Top right: Hand grenade, the Mills Bomb. Centre: An unidentified percussion grenade. Bottom: Grenade No 2. or Tonite Grenade. 5 Top: Two flare pistols by Scott and Co of Birmingham. Left: Wire cutters to be attached to a rifle muzzle. Bottom: One of the more bloodthirsty specials' improvised at trench level. 6 Top to bottom: Newton rifle grenade: a cheap form of Hales rifle grenade: Hales grenade: hand grenade. 7 The Webley .455 Automatic pistol Mark 1 No 2, with detachable stock and holster- again made by Scott and Co. 8 Top left: Webley .455 pistol Mark V. Centre left: WebleyFosbery automatic revolver .455. Bottom left: Webley automatic .455 Mark 1 No 2. Centre: Webley-Green 455 revolver Right: Webley .455 pistol Mark VI No 1 .
1531
ij-
Above: Soldiers of the 10th Worcestershire Regiment bring m German prisoners after the attack on La Boiselle. Below: The German commander, General von Below, with members of his staff at his headquarters at St Quentin. In the foreground field telephonists relay his orders to the front
developed to cover Peronne on the river bank and Villers Carbonnel on the Amiens road; but it was held by only three battalions. If he left the regiments fighting still in the last trenches of the old second line they would be overwhelmed next day by the spirited French Colonial Corps. He needed these men urgently to help in the third line: indeed, without them it would be taken. Very much aware of Falkenhayn's order that every trench must be held to the last, Pannewitz did not feel able to order a withdrawal on his own responsibility. He telephoned Second Army headquarters to ask permission to do so, adding that he would continue to fight in the second line on the Amiens road for as long as possible. Griinert, the Chief-ofStaff, agreed that they had no choice but to withdraw; the Supreme Command would be informed. Soon after dark, Pannewitz' men began to slip back across the plateau behind a screen of machine guns. The only other loss in Second Army that night was the western half of La Boiselle. The British attack prepared by General Bridges' 19th Division was devised neatly and with cunning. Ovillers was shelled
and smoked with every sign that
it
was
be attacked in the afternoon and at 1600 hours, with all the German defensive fire falling north of the Albert road, the 6th Wiltshires and the 9th Royal Welsh Fusiliers slipped across into La Boiselle to the south. The two battalions bombed their way forward into the centre of the village, supported by the 9th Cheshires. Before dark they had connected up their line with their comrades in the Schwaben Hohe. General von Stein did not, however, declare this loss to Army headquarters. As on the previous night, when he had concealed his withdrawal from Fricourt by making it appear that the village had fallen during the assault on July 1, so now he simply stated that 'the main positions of La Boiselle have been held despite a second (enemy) attempt to storm them'. to
Griinert dismissed The next day, Monday, July 3, Falkenhayn came to Below's headquarters at Quentin. With him was Tappen, St. Chief of the Operations Staff at Supreme Command. Though it is almost certain that he had known of Pannewitz' plan to withdraw from the Flaucourt plateau — and made no attempt to prevent it — he demanded to know how such a voluntary abandonment of ground could have been permitted, reminding Below and Griinert that 'the
principle of position be to yield not one foot of first
warfare must ground; and if it be lost to retake it immediately by counterattack, even to the last man'. Consistent with the principles and discipline of the general staff corps, Griinert was dismissed. His replacement was Colonel von Lossberg. Happily for Below, Falkenhayn brought him other and better news. As promised, three
divisions aircraft were en
and
three
flights
of
route for ^.?fw.)ifKi Army from the general reserve. Two more were
being withdrawn for him from Crown Prince Rupprecht's army, two from Verdun. Notwithstanding the reservations he had expressed to Below, Falkenhayn had curtailed operations against the fortress zone as soon as he heard of the Somme bombardment on June 24. On July 1, he ordered 16 heavy batteries to be sent to Second Army, 15 from Verdun, all of which should be in position by the 3rd. A further 22 were being assembled. Such time as Rawlinson had had to exploit his enemy's weakness was passing swiftly. During the day, scouts of the Royal Flying Corps saw columns of men, guns and wagons entering Bapaume. The bombers attempting to pass through to strike these and other targets reported persistent attacks by a number of German aircraft. Haig's anxiety had grown during the 2nd. After visiting Gough, he cancelled the attack by VIII Corps on the 3rd and limited that by X Corps to the assault on Thiepval spur. He pressed again for the combined movement forward of XV and XIII Corps. Congreve's corps was not, however, moving that day. The Army plan was to assault the Thiepval spur, Ovillers and the remainder of the defences at La Boiselle at 1515 hours. At 2100 hours. Home hoped to capture Shelter and Bottom Woods. At 0255 hours, while the artillery was bombardment, firing preliminary the Gough telephoned to say that the two brigades of X Corps could not be ready
Above: British prisoners help the Germans to bring in their wounded across the jungle of twisted wire and broken posts. Many British units lost almost all their numbers during the fighting before 1400 hours. The attacks on Ovillers and La Boiselle began without them, therefore, the infantry leaving their assembly trenches promptly at 1515 hours. Opposite Ovillers, the five battalions of the 12th Division — West Kents, Queen's, Buffs, Berkshires and Suffolks — with their detachments of gunners and sappers — crossed
No-Man's Land and passed quickly through
enemy wire. Then, in a dawn delayed by extensive clouds, they the gaps in the
lost in shadows and the smoke of bursting shells and bombs. Even before they reached the almost deserted front German trench, red rockets were shooting up from the fortified observation posts covering Ovillers, instructing the batteries back along the road to Bapaume to fire on the British assault. Understandably anxious not to hang about in the open under the enemy shrapnel, the assault pressed on without clearing completely the deep dugouts in the support trenches. Soon from these and trenches outside the circumference of the advance emerged three or four groups large enough to attack piecemeal the five battalions. Caught in the fire of the machine guns, the driving power of the British infantry fell away. Still, through the early part of the morning, one or another company drew in on Ovillers, capturing outlying houses. At-
were
tempts were made to reinforce them from the
trenches
of
the
12th
Division
but
No-Man's Land was rent by shrapnel and high
explosive,
despatched
precisely
to
deny such a move. What finally defeated the assault force was the shortage of grenades and small arms ammunition. At about 1000 hours, a few small parties struggled home to their own line. By noon, the count disclosed that 2,400
and men had been lost. At about 0700 hours that morning, one attempt to reinforce the assault on Ovillers had been made by 9th Essex Division. In the smoke and blast which broke up the battalion's movement over No-Man's Land, one rifle company lost direction to veer officers
It thus through the left flank of the assault on La Boiselle, evading the observation of the enemy whose eye at this point was on the village. Piecemeal it
southeast across the Albert road.
came
in
gathered in 220 Germans. Meanwhile, the two foremost brigades of the 19th Division were fighting through the eastern half of La Boiselle, capturing prisoners from the
many weak units among the strong points and interconnecting tunnels. But relief was already on its way for the German garrison. A regiment reconstituted and reinforced on the 2nd was marching towards Pozieres, from which it delivered in the afternoon a strong counterattack at a time when the British, having taken the whole of La Boiselle, had lost many men and were short of ammunition.
The German 190th Regiment drove them almost out of the ruins. Two of the British battalion commanders had been killed and another wounded. The leader of those remaining was an extraordinary cavalryman, Adrian Carton de Wiart, commanding the 8th Glosters; the more remarkable because he had lost an arm already at the Second Battle of Ypres and wore a black patch over the eye socket which had been emptied in Somaliland. The soldiers called
him
'Nelson',
and somewhat
like
the great sailor, he declined to be rebuffed by the enemy's fire. Often leading a storming party, he brought his force back into La Boiselle. Grenades were collected from the dead and wounded they passed; Carton de Wiart, lacking a hand, used his teeth as a mean of removing split pins from the Mills bombs, thus originating one of the most pronounced features of war fiction. When it was dark, they had recaptured over half the village and were able to link up with the 12th Division by
a trench dug alongside the Albert road. To the north of III Corps, the attempt by two brigades to fight their way forward at 0600 hours from the Leipzig Redoubt and the other shallow enclaves on the Thiepval spur was a brief and costly failure. The lesson plainly to be learnt from Thiepval to La Boiselle was that the frontal attack into strong enemy defences was the most expensive way of operating and the least promising. It was not a new lesson. To the east of Fricourt, however, the defences were still weak. Although snipers and a number of isolated machine guns hindered the advance of the bat-
1533
Gommecourt-Albert Road. A new VI Corps headquarters took command under Lieutenant-General von Gosler from the road to the north bank of the Somme. South of the river, the discredited Pannewitz was replaced by Lieutenant-General von Quast. These organisational arrangements simplified
the control of the defence.
Even the weather turned, culminating
in
a thunderstorm on the afternoon of July 4. The trenches were filled with water; the dirt tracks in the forward areas, the broken shell-torn ground became heavy with clinging mud. 'Walking, let alone
became hellish.' Haig made his own changes in organisation. Cough's position had been regularised on July 3: VIII and X Corps became under him the 'Reserve' Army. As army commander. Cough now answered directly to the Commander-in-Chief. The next day, his right boundary was brought down to the Albert-Bapaume road so as to permit fighting,
Rawlinson's army to concentrate for a renewal of the off"ensive. No longer willing Above: Playing with of cards, Tfieir
fire''
British soldiers take time off
newspaper would
of 21st and 17th Divisions on Shelter and Bottom Woods, they could not stem it. At 1130 hours it appeared that a counterattack was developing: a contact aeroplane reported a column talions
approaching from Contalmaison. Without waiting for artillery support, the left hand brigade commander, Brigadier-General Rawling, moved up his reserve battalion and directed them to attack the German column from the flank under the covering fire of his Stokes mortars. It was quickly done, and a surprise to the Germans who yielded 800 officers and men to the Allies as prisoners.
Major decisions By 1500 hours,
all objectives had been taken. Six hours of daylight remained. XV Corps' headquarters had already been informed by an air observer that its troops had occupied the woods and connecting trenches: and the report included the priceless news that both Mametz Wood and the quadrilateral of trenches connecting the wood with Contalmaison had been evacuated by the enemy. Soon there came a request from 17th Division to patrol forward with a view to occupation of these empty defences. General Home replied that he could not 'engage in patrol action
which
might bring on an engagement
before he was prepared to accept it'. His corps was to pay dearly for this decision. Relenting after a second request, he allowed the 7th Division to occupy the southern strip of Mametz Wood after dark. General Congreve similarly gave way to the entreaties of his infantry, permitting the occupation of Bernafay Wood after a bombardment of 20 minutes and a set-piece assault. Inside were 17 men of the 12th Reserve Division, three abandoned field pieces, three machine guns. Each corps
commander found
it necessary to ask Rawlinson's permission before taking thes major tactical decisions. It had not been an easy day for Rawlinson. His interview with P'och that morning had been inconclusive; the French would not co-operate in any movement while Hawlinson kept XIII Corps inactive. In the afternoon, he was present at an unpleasant meeting between Haig and Joffre.
1
r,34
from fusing Stokes mortars for a successes
to
game
fiave reported recent Allied
object of the visit ito me), Haig wrote his diary, was to discuss future arrangements. Joffre began by pointing out the importance of our getting Thiepval Spur. To this I said that, in view of the progress made on my right near Montauban, and the demoralised nature of the enemy's troops in that area, I was con-
The
in
sidering the desirability of pressing my attack on Longueval. I was therefore anxious to know whether, in that event, the French would attack at Guillemont. At this,
General Joffre exploded in a fit of rage. He could not approve of it.' He ordered me to attack Thiepval and Pozieres. If I attacked Longueval, I would be beaten! I waited calmly till he had finished. His breast heaved and his face flushed! The truth is the poor man cannot argue, nor can he easily read a map. But today I had a raised model of the ground before us. I quietly explained what my position
him as the 'Generalissimo'. responsible to the British Government for the action of the British Army; and I had approved the plan, and must modify it to suit the changing situation as the fight progresses. I was most polite. Joffre saw he had made a mistake, and next tried to cajole me. I had gained an advantage through keeping calm. My views have been accepted by the French Staffs and Davidson (chief of the operais
relatively to
I
am
solely
.
tions section
at
GHQ)
is
.
.
to
go
to
lunch
with Foch tomorrow, to discuss how they can co-operate in our operations (that is the capture of Longueval). Haig thus succeeded in securing French co-operation where Rawlinson had failed; but Rawlinson's procrastination had reduced the advantage of agreement. For the tide had turned — at least for the time being — against the Allies. The two divisions from the German general reserve «; deploying into the line; a third was aching, the fourth close behind. All titteries lost in the bombardment had :w been replaced wit'^ an addition of 14 u) the total Below had .rayed before July 1. By July 6, the reginnntal machine (the French)
gun companies were compl.lely reconstituted and within a week [• se were supplemented by independent co upanies. Stein's front
was contracted
to the sector
stay
aloof,
the
Commander-in-Chief
urged on Fourth Army the need to secure Contalmaison, Mametz Wood and Trones Wood as a preliminary position from which to launch the assault. Cough was ordered to capture Pozieres to secure the left flank. The programme of relief, planned several weeks before, was activated so as to bring in a succession of troops from quieter areas to take their turn at the ar-
duous work ahead. Home began with an attempt to take Mametz Wood, but despite a series of ruthorders to 'attack', 'attack again', 'repeat the attack', his obedient infantry could not triumph over the cross-fire of emplaced machine guns, the intensified shellfire and the rain. Eventually, by a less
combination of III and XV Corps, Contalmaison and Mametz Wood were taken on Thursday, July 13. In the meantime, Gough had struck for Pozieres with five battalions but succeeded only in squeezing round the south-eastern outskirts of Ovillers. Much of his remaining strength was absorbed in holding the German counterattacks round Thiepval. The Ulster lodgement was lost; Leipzig Redoubt was just held after four intense local actions.
On the extreme right, Congreve was still struggling on July 13 to take possession of the once empty Trones Wood. The prizes so dearly won by Pulteney's and Home's corps were not asked for lightly. At some stage — it is not precisely clear staff
when — Rawlinson and his chief of had come to the idea of renewing the
off'ensive
by a
large-scale
night
attack.
Given possession of Contalmaison, Mametz Wood and the northern portion of Trones Wood — all on the far bank of the Willow Stream — there was everything to be said for the use of darkness in which to form up in No-Man's Land for a rush forward into the enemy trenches just before dawn. It was an unusual concept and hence likely to be a surprise. If it could be organised and kept secret, so many of the dreadful features of the deliberate assault in daylight would be obviated. But the French were not enthusiastic. They could not believe that an assault by several divisions in this manner could be kept secret from beginning to end, and they did not accept that the organisational problems of leading out such a mass of men in darkness to the many precise form-
ing-up places could be overcome. There were, besides, such matters as artillery control, maintenance of direction by the troops, the phasing-in of support battalions. Foch would have nothing to do with such an operation, and his staff derisively stated that it was 'an attack organised for amateurs by amateurs'. On his own initiative, the kindly Fayolle offered Rawlinson a barrage, to be fired on his behalf across the common flank with Balfourier's static corps. Haig, himself, was also unconvinced at the outset. He enquired acidly among his staff how Rawlinson expected XIII Corps' headquarters, which took five days to reorganise its trooper^ after the victory at Montauban, to cope with a night operation of this magnitude. But he was won
round by Rawlinson's advocacy. His only proviso was that they must secure Trones
Wood beforehand. From July 8 to
12, the 30th Division struggled daily in good and bad weather to capture the long wood pointing due north to Longueval. Balfourier's XX Corps helped by pushing forward to recapture Hardecourt and the knoll of Maltz Horn
Above: Dogs were sometimes used to take messages to and from the front. Special attachments were strapped to them to carry the notes. Below: Wearmg the trophies of the day's fightmg, soldiers of the 13th Royal Fusiliers take a brief rest after the attack on La Boiselle on July 7
^..^
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iARMY
ronqueviliers
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Farm. The Germans were not prepared
to
the wood. Twice, when the British infantry had occupied the greater part of the tangled interior, they counterattacked successfully. On July 12 a fresh division, the 18th, commanded by Major-General Maxse, was brought in to relieve the 30th, which had lost the equivalent of five of its nine battalions in the struggle. Already postponed by two days, the Fourth Army's offensive was due to begin at 1525 hours on the 14th. The entire lose
wood, Maxse was told by Congreve, was to be captured 'at all costs' by midnight on the 13th. As Maxse's battalions only completed their occupation of the trenches at 1700 hours on that same day, it was an order almost impossible to obey. Reconassault and artillery plans were made in haste throughout the moriiing and orders issued in the afternoon. At 1900 hours, the 7th Queen's, 280 strong, bolstered by a company of 7th BuflFs, set out from Bernafay Wood to seize the northern tip of Trones. Their task was to cut off any enemy driven north. The remainder of the Buffs and 7th Royal West Kents advanced from the south to clear through the trees. As the British bombardment ended, a German barrage burst on them. The Buffs and West Kents persevered, leaving their
naissances,
wounded
by brigade brigade headstretcher quarters heard the sound of heavy small arms fire from different portions of the wood. For almost three hours there was no news of any of the infantry; then, at 1030 hours, a message came back with a large
number
to be brought parties. Soon
of
in
wounded
tured their
Buffs. They had capobjective — a strong point an important ride — but were in numbers that their second
first
commanding now so weak
advance had been thrown back. At 1100 what remained of the 7th Queen's came in — 80 strong. The West Kents did not return at all; they had been virtually hours,
destroyed as a unit.
passed this unhappy Corps headquarters at midnight. Congreve's question as to what they intended to do about it was met with the reply that the 54th Brigade were ready to go in in place of the 55th.
General
news
Maxse
to XIII
were thus particularly grateful to Fayolle for the support of the French flank batteries. Otherwise, French fears of catastrophe persisted. That evening, the eve of Bastille Day, the British liaison officer with Sixth Army came to Querrieu to beg Rawlinson on behalf of Balfourier to postpone the assault until full daylight. 'Tell General Balfourier with my compliments,' said General Montgomery, Fourth Army Chief-of-StafF, 'that if we're not on Longueval Ridge by 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, I'll eat my hat.' The outcome of this proposition now depended upon the 22,000 men moving in a series of columns in single file out from the trenches under the bright moon. By 0300 hours on the morning of July 14, all
were in place, trench mortars and medium machine guns immediately on the flanks or in the rear. To many, the remaining minutes of waiting, while a chill morning mist rose about them, seemed endless. Others, exhausted after a day of carrying ammunition and stores for the assault force, were delighted to rest. Between foremost infantry and supports, the engineer field companies, at hand to fortify the defences to be seized on the Longueval waited with their own assorted For a brief time, the front fell silent except for the distant sound of the barrage being fired north of the Ancre on the front of Hunter- Weston's VIII Corps. The Germans opposite were not aware of their immediate danger but expected "an attack at some point within the next few days'. IV Corps, under General Sixt von Armin, was coming in to the line in relief. Its 7th Division was taking over the sector from Pozieres to Bazentin-le-Petit wood on the night July 13. Standing patrols, a hundred metres or so in front of the trenches, saw and heard nothing. Opposite Longueval, a battalion of the 16th Bavarian Regiment, aware of operations against Trones Wood, sent out two fighting patrols. One disappeared, never to be seen again; the other encountered briefly a British party — perhaps a part of the screen established by XIII Corps. When it returned to report contact, two other parties went forward to investigate but each came back Ridge, loads.
to say that they could find nothing. Sentries
remained above ground, looking forward
Fear versus optimism Preliminary moves for the main
assault were already being made. Partially screened by an outpost line pushed forward immediately after darkness to within a few hundred yards of the German front trenches, six brigades of Fourth Army — on the left, two from XV Corps; on the right, four from XIII — were being led out by guides under a full moon to form up in areas carefully marked. It was comparatively quiet.
The bombardment
fired inter-
mittently over the preceding four days was now replaced by the customary night harassing. The principal aim of this plan was to give the enemy no hint of an immediately impending attack. But there was an important secondary advantage to be gained; the stocks of shells were not abundant. There had been strict rationing for some days of all natures of ammunition
above 4.5-inch. Both Haig and Rawlinson Left: British and French gains during the second phaseof thefighting around the Somme. 'Daring had become the password of the new Allied offensive and it brought some success
into the moonlight.
At 0320 hours that morning, those watching were dazzled and deafened by a sudden blaze of light on the southern and western horizon. The Allied howitzers and trench mortars began on the instant to rain shells and bombs on the German positions. To the east the sun was rising. From the patches of ground mist, the leading battalions rose to come forward when, precisely five minutes after its beginning, the artillery barrage lifted. Such a brief period of bombardment misled the Germans. With the exception of one Bavarian unit, they remained below in their deep shelters. In a final rush, the British battalions carried the first line. Even where the wire remained uncut, the storming parties which had broken in won adequate time for their comrades to cut the barriers by hand. The Allied barrage lifted again at 1535 and 1625 hours, the faithful infantry following it each time. Those of the enemy emerging from their deep dugouts to catch the assault battalions in the rear — as on July 1 and immediately afterwards — were taken by the support battalions pressing in deliber-
ately to defeat them. Despite brave German counterattacks, and XIII Corps were established on the ridge by 1000 hours, with almost every objective in their hands. When the news reached Fourth Army headquarters, the French liaison officer, Captain Serot, passed it to Balfourier's staff. 'They dared to do it,' he said, 'and they have succeeded.' 'Well,' came the reply, 'General Montgomery won't have to eat his hat!'
XV
Attack and counterattack Sixt von Armin took command of the embattled front at 0900 hours in the morning. Already, he had learnt that a British sweep — under the dynamic direction of Colonel Maxwell of the Middlesex — was
German garrison from Trones Wood; two German regiments on Longueval Ridge had been compl^ely overwhelmed; three battalions, at one point or another, had withdrawn behind detachments shortly to be destroyed, and once again the artillery had suffered severely. Once again, the sector under attack was reinforced piecemeal and for some hours it proved impossible to say accurately which portions of it were manned, which open. The noise of battle around the village of Longueval and, on its eastern edge, Delville Wood, correctly indicated that a fierce
driving the
struggle continued there. Apprised of this situation in XIII Corps on his right, Lieutenant-General Home declined to allow his 3rd Division commander, Major-General
Haldane, to exploit his front now open and empty. To this and several other suggestions that morning that the infantry in the centre should press on to the almost deserted High Wood 1,000 yards ahead, he sent a reminder that the cavalry were coming through. But soon the news that Longueval had been counterattacked caused the cavalry to be held back by XIII Corps. In fact, the South Africans who had joined the exhausted Highland and Lowland Scots were helping not only to beat off the German counterattacks but to recover lost ground. High Wood remained open through the afternoon. Overhead, the Royal Flying Corps sent message after message reiterating the absence of a formed defence on and around it. At last, in the late afternoon, the 7th Division was sent forward; and in the evening, a few squadrons of cavalry came up so that by nightfall some sort of a British line was forming across the southern half of this high point on the Longueval Ridge. At last, too, the German reinforcements were flocking in. The sector opposite Hunter-Weston was clearly too well defended to be attacked. At Ovillers a daj-light assault had been driven back. Below gave Sixt von Armin almost every reserve available to plug the gap on the crest through which it was believed that the British had broken through between
Longueval and Pozieres. These reports reckoned without that excessive caution which characterised Congi-eve and Home and, once again, it robbed the assault forces of the full fruits of their victory. By midnight, the northern half of High Wood was occupied by a strong force of Germans behind whom were four battalions digging new trenches and dugouts.
High Wood had become high-water mark. [For General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley's biography, see page 396. ]
1537
i.
^Iwattack to the right-L J^of the Metise. Now the r«^*. ^ important obstsill in thji. ..,
''
.
to
Verdun was
FtTrt Vau5&^
garrisoned by a French uni •«urvivaTwll^|lti|em the ad. ,
ationoftheiriittackers.
^'
'"'
^'StJulien^^i
^.n^-
^^K^^
main attack that would take Verdun.
In history there is no example known of a battle which lasted as long and was as violent as that which went on for five
At this stage in the fighting, the strengths of the two opponents were approximately the same. Their front lines were manned according to different methods, making comparison difficult, but it can be estimated that there were about 20 divisions on each side. Their value was identical, their courage equal, but the Germans, more methodical and disciplined, had a tactical advantage over the French. They succeeded in avoiding losses by digging shelters, driving saps and opening
months around Verdun. Towards the" end of February 1916, a sudden attempt to break the French line was followed, in March and in April, by a series of battles for the positions necessary to a new assault. This lapsed into a battle of attrition which might have continued over many months, but at the beginning of May, indications of offensive preparations from the Allies
prompted the Germans to new action. On 15, an offensive launched by AustriaHungary against the Italian army having failed, Falkenhayn was forced to draw important reinforcements from the German armies in Galicia. On the Russian front, Brusilov was preparing a new attack and Britain, it was rumoured, had begun pre-
trenches. But even more significant was their supply of heavy artillery which gave them the mastery of the battlefield. In all, they had 2,200 guns, out of which 1,730 were heavy guns, whereas the French could line up only 1,200 field-guns, including 570 heavy guns. Relying on this superiority, they had worked out plans for a major
May
parations for another offensive. In Falkenhayn's mind the only way out of these difficulties was to hasten the collapse of France which he considered to be the 'main sword of England'. But Germany realised that a new attempt to break through had to be made, and the Kronprinz accordingly received the order to push forward towards the ridges of the River Meuse. His troops were exhausted by their fierce preparatory attacks on Hill 304, on Mort-Homme and on Thiaumont, but morale was still high rafter their success in the defence of Douaumont from May 22 to May 25. Their new mission was to complete the advance towards the points necessary to cover the ;
;
)
breakthrough. j;
Right bank attack
In spite of General von Gallwitz' success 5 on the left bank of the river Meuse, General I von Knobelsdorf, leading operations at s Verdun himself, on May 30 reverted to I the German Staff's original plan: to decide ^ the issue on the right bank, Gallwitz was ^ accordingly ordered to slow down his action 5 but did so unwillingly. The French were in a temporary .state of confusion having I" just lost Mort-Homme and Hill 304, and a Above: An occupied German trench near determined attacker mii^ht well have Verdun By June 1916 the ground was scarred gained a decisive victory against them on beyond recognition Below: German troops work forward behind a barrage of gas shells the hills south of Esnes and Chattancourt. E
'SIP
i||#
'•^s^v^:
felt bitter enough to write: 'the result of this plan is that we will be stopped
Gallwitz
French
on both banks'. Twenty-six German mortars and 24 heavy howitzers were withdrawn from the
bank and Gallwitz' successes deleft clined accordingly. He managed to complete the capture of Hill 304, and the
June 1916
German
^^mn m^ 67 000
5
1
567
XXII Reserve Corps which had already taken Mort-Homme, managed to seize Chattancourt. But the same units were used continually in these actions, the 38th
and 51st Divisions in particular, and their strength was declining. On the French side, General Deletoile (XXXI Corps) succeeded General Berthelot and from the River Meuse to the La Hayette ravine, the 65th and 19th Divisions were managing to hold the line. On June 15, a fierce attack on Mort-Homme by the 65th Division inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans and managed to recapture the trenches south of this position. But the fighting on this bank was gradually fading, and on July 1 the Allied offensive was launched on the Somme; thereby precluding the chance of further operations on the left bank. General von Gallwitz was transferred to take command over the endangered front of the Somme and was succeeded by General von Frangois at Verdun. His transfer signalled the end of one of the most bloody episodes at Verdun. Mort-Homme and Hill 304 are still wrapped in dark horror.
The Germans now concentrated their efforts on the area occupied by III and XII
July 1916
3
I
000
15 969
Above: German and French casualties In the latest stage of the Verdun fighting. Both sides believed that this bloody sacrifice was necessary for ultimate victory
in the east sector of Verdun during June and early July 1916. The capture of Fort Vaux by the Germans meant that they could press on towards Souville and Verdun
Corps; the sector occupied by III Corps, under command of General Lebrun, included the sector of Tavannes and the sec-
right
tor of Souville. In the centre of XII Corps'
Fort Souville.
under General Nollet, was Poivre ridge and on the right was Thiaumont farm, held by the 151st Division.
On Whitsunday, June 1, three corps from von Lochow's army rushed forward, jumping off from a line running from Nawe Wood on the west, and to Damloup on the east. The 1st Bavarian Division, X Reserve Corps and XV Corps made some headway, and the attack was the most violent in the Thiaumont and Vaux sectors where three divisions, about 60,000 men, made a dash between the Cailette woods and Damloup. At the same time the 50th Division was
Below: Fighting
sector,
Whitsunday attack At the end of May, the French front
line
included the Damloup village salient. Fort Vaux, the north-east edge of Fumin Wood, and the Vaux pond dam which crosses half way up Caillette Wood, stretches north of Thiaumont farm, then across Dame ravine and Nawe Wood and cuts the road BrasDouaumont, west of Haudromont quarry. To implement their operation on the
bank of the Meuse, the Germans had to get hold of Fort Vaux in order advance towards Verdun and set foot on
first
to
attacking the fort itself Through a clever pincer movement the Germans were able to attack both ends of this salient: in the
1541
February by a direct 420-mm hit and the fort could therefore be used only as an observation post and as a garrison for no more than 250 men. Observation was possible from the front but not the rear. As early as June 1, the Germans seized Caillette Wood, the Bazil ravine and infiltrated into Fumin Wood. On June 2, they attacked the fort itself. It was not long before they had taken a foothold on the flanks, and then on the top. Shortly afterwards, the 50th Division overcame
French resistance at Damloup village and was able to complete the encirclement of the fort and sever its communications. P'rench counterattacks, launched immediately, lacked artillery support and failed; but the Germans had not succeeded completely in breaking down the resistance of the fort. The situation in the garrison,
however, was
An aenal view ot Fort Vaux, one of the key on the right bank of the Meuse
forts
the Hardaumont works and in the Damloup. Fort Vaux had been rebuilt in concrete in 1911, surrounded by ditches ten yards wide f and supported on the flanks by two caseI mates, each of them equipped with two
west
at
east at
S
75-mm
guns.
S,
another
75-mm gun had been
The
central
with destroyed in turret
critical.
Hundreds of soldiers,
looking for shelter in the confusion, had now raised the strength of the garrison to six companies. Poison gasses then invaded the fort through breaches on the flanks and the situation in the overcrowded underground barracks became untenable. The successive bombardments had damaged the pipes and water was scarce. By June 4, the water tank level had come down to six or seven cubic yards and the water ration had to be reduced to half a pint per man per day. Many volunteers for water-carrying missions never came back. In order to save water and supplies, Major Raynal, the commander of the fort.
Fort Vaux. The French, deprived of water supplies, finally surrendered it on June 8
and
decided to evacuate a large proportion of his men. During the night of June 4, under command of a volunteer, Second-Lieutenant Buffet, the approximate strength of a company succeeded in escaping and reaching the rear headquarters near Tavannes. Buffet came back the following night to meet his besieged fellows and to Below: German troops with supply the slopes of Mort
cart
on Ridge
Homme- Dead Mans
signals received by Fort Souville testified to the desperate struggle these
men were
undergoing: 'Enemy working — western side of the fort — digging mine chamber to blow up vault; pound quickly with artillery.' And later, 'Are attacked by gas and flame-throwers, close to collapse.' By the evening of June 6, there remained only 12 gallons of water for several hundred men, most of which had to be kept for the wounded. The operation ordered by General Nivelle to relieve the fort was carried out by Colonel Savy's brigade, but it failed dismally on June 8 with heavy losses. The attempt served only to promote distrust and hostility among the troops who knew it was too late to send in reinforcements. General Kurst von Reden granted the garrison the honours of war. The French soldiers came out of the smoking ruins under arms, while two platoons of Prussian soldiers presented arms. Major Raynal, as a prisoner of war, was allowed to keep his sword.
French troops on the vast, outer walls of Fort Vaux a few days before it fell to the Germans
bring
orders
for
a
combined operation
planned
Consolidation Having mastered the fort, the German staff immediately drove home their attack. Taking advantage of their initial success, they were aiming to widen the breach and gain a foothold on the Fleury
to relieve the fort. Inside the fortress, the situation
was
Ridge.
The
last
frontal
becoming
worse
and
worse.
was sent off, bearing the message; 'We stand fast, but are suffering heavy gas attacks. We need urgent relief. This is our last pigeon.' The last visual carrier-pigeon
Knobelsdorf's plan consisted of a thrust against the line SouvilieTavannes; the first advance on Souville was to be made from the west; it was designed to open the way to Froide-Terre Ridge, the last key position at the junction
S.,
The Kronprmz
to his father:
We
must have a
higher pile to see Verdun'
and east. Knobelsdorf spurred his divisions into action, reinforcing them with fresh troops of the /// Bavarian Corps and the famous Alpine Corps. They resumed the assault on June 8. The crack Bavarian regiments of/ Corps surged against the French positions, but from of the roads going north
.1&^^
^
Nawe Wood
to
Thiaumont farm,
the
French 151st Division stood its ground in spite of heavy casualties in the 293rd and 337th Regiments. The Germans succeeded in taking the Thiaumont works from the 52nd Division but were forced to pause in their attack at this point due to exhaustion. General Nollet, commanding the sector, was now able to send reinforcements and during the night, the French reoccupied the Thiaumont works. Undercover of darkness the Germans had withdrawn; they had found their positions untenable and prefered withdrawal at this point to suffering heavy losses. But the French had evacuated Thiaumont farm and the Germans were able to establish a position there.
The companies were already reduced to half their strength. Many soldiers had been buried under landslides caused by the explosion of 305-mm guns. Pungent smoke and thick dust poisoned the air, the soil was torn up and covered with debris. At night time, the Germans sapped their way forward and at 0400 hours the fearful crash of the bombardment was resumed. The soldiers of Vendee expected the final assault after such a violent burst of fire. Some of them began to pray. At 0600 hours the Germans rushed forward but an immediate counterattack, supported by machine gun fire, dislodged them. The French troops were able to advance up to the trenches of the 137th Regiment, but the ground there was torn up; most of the long trench had been smothered by earth and only a few bayonets emerged, showing the place where the soldiers had died at their combat posts. This is one of the most tragic episodes of the days at Verdun. Two battalions had been utterly destroyed, after awaiting death for 50 hours with patience and resignation, in a nerve-shattering bombardment, during which they had neither supplies nor water. 'These people from Vendee, they were tough guys,' said Major Dreux, a survivor of the second battalion.
No withdrawal As early as the beginning of June, Petain reported that 'the Germans want a quick decision at Verdun and give battle on the right bank of the River Meuse with all means available and a real superiority in heavy artillery; we cannot afford any withdrawal. At all costs we must stand on a front line marked by the Bourru Woods on the left bank and on the right by the intermediate line Froide-Terre-Souville-Tavennes. To lose this position would mean to place bridges over the River Meuse under German artillery fire and to be forced to retire from the right bank.' He stressed the great moral and material advantage the Germans would gain if they could seize Verdun and insisted upon a quick start of the British offensive. The C-in-C, nevertheless, gave priority to the immediate offensive on the River Somme; he had rightly estimated that the
German
were worried by this imminent threat and therefore threw their last resources into the battle: on the right, staff
the Bavarians, in the centre, the Alpine Corps, the 103rd Division at Souville and the 50th Division at Tavannes. (ieneral Nivelle had reorganised the Second Army into seven sectors: on the
bank
A
sector (VII Corps), B sector (XV Corps), C sector (XXXI Corps), and on the right bank, D sector (XI Corps with left
1544
General Nollet and later General Mangin), E sector (VI Corps with General Paulinier and the 130th and 12th Divisions in particular) and sector G (II Corps). A new standard gauge railway line was ready for service on June 20 and would help bring constant supplies to the French divisions. The German attack began on June 21, with a bombardment concentrated from Nawe Wood to south of Damloup, followed by two preparatory attacks. At Nawe Wood and north-west of the Thiaumont works, where so much blood had already been
The other one, south-west of Fort Vaux, disrupted the front line of the 12th Division and inspilled, the attack failed.
between Fumin Wood and La Vaux-Regnier Wood. The following day and the rest of the night the German guns increased their fire, pounding the French positions with gas shells from Froide-Terre to Tavannes, and making untenable the low ground where the men were forced to make a stand comewhat-may. At 0600 hours on June 23, the German divisions began their major attack on Fleury. The French held their positions; despite the fierceness of the blow. Both sides had equal experience and skill in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, and on the left, on the south edge of Nawe Wood and on Hill 321 the French managed to beat off the onslaught. But on the right the French were outnumbered; the Bavarians carried the Thiaumont works by storm. The 129th Division was submerged, the 121st Battalion of Chasseurs wiped out. On the right the French 130th Division, outflanked on the east and on the west, was forced to withdraw from Fleury after a desperate street fight at the south end filtrated
of the village. In the centre, the Alpine
Corps was unable to break out from the railway ravine and the heroic 307 Brigade (General Bordeaux), stood up alone against the 103rd German Division. The 407th Regiment put up a gallant defence to cover Souville and stemmed the enemy's advance. On June 21 the regimental strength was 2,800 men; five days later only 1,200 men returned from the front line. The French 129th Division had withdrawn to the Froide-Terre Ridge; the Germans had seized the transversal ridge of Fleury south of Nawe Wood and had infiltrated between Mangin and the Paulinier Army Corps. At 1200 hours, General Petain telephoned to the Chantilly stating that: 'the situation is bad; if the Germans reach the reverse slope, we must be prepared to withdraw on the left bank'. Bearing in mind the fact that one-third of the French artillery was concentrated on the right bank, we understand Petain better when he writes: 'June 23 was a particularly critical day. The situation was very serious, our last position from Fort Souville was nearly invested. If we had lost it, Verdun
HQ
itself
would have emerged undefendable
From Souilly, General Nivelle, always self-confident, reported that the situation was 'serious' but well in hand and that he did not foresee any withdrawal. In the afternoon Petain made his report to Chantilly and reiterated his daily request: 'we must advance the time of the British offensive'; clamouring for reinforcements, he obtained four fresh divisions. At this point, Joffre retained the remarkable self-possession as he had shown on the Marne. General Claudel, the assistant to the major-general, had drawn his attention to the dangers of loosing men and equipment by putting up a resistance on the right bank without any chance of withdrawal. 'But Joffre, already bent in a familiar attitude to sign the order for reinforcements, his left arm resting on the table, his back stooped, his pen close to the paper, slowly raised his head and showed perhaps a slight hesitation in his eyes. Then having recovered all his serenity, Joffre signed: "There it is, my dear Claudel," he said, "I have already signed so many others." The night of June 23 was relatively quiet. With fresh units. General Nivelle was able to stop the German advance and even to launch several counterattacks in order to clear the positions suitable for a withdrawal. On the Froide-Terre Ridge and around the Thiaumont works, severe fighting took place over the strong points which changed hands several times. The French counterattacks on June 24 and 25, brought little A more important one, result. launched by two brigades on June 27, '
failed also.
After ten days, the French still faced a on the right bank of the Meuse. In spite of eight attacks, the Thiau-
difficult situation
in German hands and the French feared a renewed attack by the Germans. But on July 1, the Battle of the Somme began and the Germans, from now on,
mont works remained
started to lose the initiative. Their present offensive against Verdun had no longer much significance, but to ease suddenly their pressure on this key point would have underlined before world opinion the failure of German hopes. Furthermore, it
was important
to prevent the French from transferring to the Somme battlefield part of their resources at Verdun. After the capture of the Thiaumont works on July 1, General Nivelle planned a new operation and reorganised the front line, 'in order to bring all means available in the hands of a single commander'.
General Mangin, commanding
D
sector
up
to Fleury, led this operation but the Ger-
mans
On
July 11 they — the final episode that was not entirely revealed by French official reports of the time, in order not to disclose how close they were to losing the battle. took the initiative.
launched the
last large-scale attack
in
the centre of a vast circle, the edges of which were held by the Germans. Our positions on the right bank would have
then been condemned.' At the beginning of the afternoon, the German advance was stopped but the French line was not continuous, and a large gap had been opened between the Souville and Tavannes sectors. In the afternoon, the Germans tried to exploit their initi il success, and the last French reserves were thrown into the battle.
Further Reading
Beumelburg, Wermer, Combattants Allemands a Verdun (Payot) Bordeaux, H., Verdun (Plon) Petain, Marechale, La Bataille de Verdun (Payot) Raynal, Commandant, Journal du Fort de Vaux (Albin Michel) Remains, Jules. Les Hommes de Bonne Volonte (Paris)
[For Christian de StJulien's biography, see
page
669.
]
THETHKEAT TO INDIA
Persia: the key to India, the Germans thought, and the disturbances produced in the area by their agents required much effort before they were put down. John Stephenson. Below: British troops on the North-West Frontier, where Germany hoped by an insurrection to tie down the Indian Army
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,
Of the several threats to India's security, the one posed by the Moslem religion was of paramount importance, by reason of the faith's world-wide connexions. Hinduism and its offshoots were rarely exported — there were no large communities abroad — but Islam was international and the centre spiritual power was in an enemy capiand its most holy places within the dominions of that enemy — the Ottoman
of
its
hope of an independent and friendly buffer state in Persia. That unfortunate country was to become the happy hunting ground of Germans, Turks, Russians and British, whether for espionage, sabotage, the passage of agents, the organisation or suppression of brigand gangs, the passage of military forces or any other purpose.
tal
Empire.
surprising that the Government of India, with Persia and Afghanistan adjacent, and Turkey immediately behind, was deeply distressed that it should be calling on its own Moslem soldiers to fight against their coreligionists. If the Ottoman Caliph were to call for a jehad against the enemies of Islam it might be very difficult for a true Moslem, particularly if goaded by a fanatical clergy, to resist the call. But in the event neither in India nor among the Moslem soldiers overseas did the threat ever show signs of getting out of control. There was only a handful of deserters from the besieged Kiit. But the influence of the Caliph was gradually undermined by certain factors. The leading Indian Moslems never really thought that the Central Powers would win the war. The wave of loyalty in 1914 counteracted It
is
not
such hostile propaganda as reached India. No credence was given to stories that Germany had embraced Islam, that the Kaiser had performed the haj and now called himself Hajji Wilhelm. The Turkish alliance with the Germans was looked on askance, and the purity of Islam under the rule of the Young Turks was suspect. Nevertheless, the threat remained throughout the war, even though the rebellion under the Sherif of Mecca and the frequent friction between the Shia and Sunni sects made gaps in the Pan-Islamic front. Both Persia and Afghanistan were of course Islamic countries, the Shia being in the majority in Persia and the Sunni in Afghanistan.
The political position of these countries must now be examined, and we must revert to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which has already been noticed (Volume 1,
Number
16) in
of India.
The Convention was signed with-
connexion with the defence
out reference to two countries affected by it. Though Afghanistan and Persia were immediately concerned with the results of the Convention the deliberate policy was to present it both to the Amir of Afghanistan and the Shah of Persia as a fait accompli. And these potentates detested it. The Amir relied for the integrity of his country on being able to play off the Russians against the British -now they were friends and anything might happen. In Persia the effect was still worse. There the fatal phrase 'zones of influence' took on a more than usually sinister meaning. The Russians, who had already caused chaos northern Persia by every means of military penetration, jobbery and economic invasion, regarded the Convention as confirming and justifying any action they chose to take in their zone, which included the richest part of northern Persia. The British seemed to be tarred with the same brush even though thev had hitherto enjoyed the high regard of the Persians and made no attempt to do anything in their small desert zone to the south and east. Thus the result of the Convention of 1907 had been to ruflle the Amir Habibullah of Afghanistan and to make a mockery of any
m
1546
A
wise and able ruler
In Afghanistan the situation was more stable owing much to the remarkable personality of the wise ruler, the Amir Habibullah, who had succeeded his ruthless father the Amir Abdurrahman (Abdur the Merciful) at the turn of the century. Habibullah had steadily cultivated the goodwill of the British under both Curzon and
Minto, and the genuine friendships which were forged by his visit to India in 1907 were proof against such diplomatic stupidities as the Convention we have noticed. Throughout the war he never broke faith with the British. With tremendous skill and courage he handled Germans, Turks and Russians; somehow he kept control over his brother Nasrullah and his son Amanullah, who were openly on the side of the Central Powers and anti-British.
And he managed
his intractable clergy.
Germany's aims and influence on Turkey have already been described Volume 1 (
Number
15),
much farther was the German
but she looked
than that. Her goal domination of India. She hoped by playing on the Persian hatred of Russia and Britain to eliminate their influence completely, to
gain Persian sympathy, and to plant agents in Afghanistan, Baluchistan and among the frontier tribes. Germany's success, for a time, was great. Her agents were men of very great ability and drive. The one to become best known was Wassmuss, sometimes described as the German Lawrence, but in some ways the greater
man. He worked far from home and preferred a lone hand. He had a passionate love for Persia and could pass as a Persian among Persians, made himself virtually king of south-west Persia and was a sore trial to the British in that area. Captain
Oskar Niedermayer was an artillery officer and a trained geologist. He had travelled widely in the Near East and Persia before the war and was to lead the Turco-German Mission to the Amir Habibullah. Zugmayer, a scientist, had travelled in Persia and had penetrated as far as British Baluchistan. There were several others and the plan was to despatch them with arms and gold, aided by Swedish officers of the Persian Gendarmerie, to drive out British and Russian subjects and seize the treasuries of the Imperial Bank of Persia and the Russian Banque d'Escompte. These missions would be strengthened by German officers who would organise local Persians a force capable of joining in the invasion of India. In the north the plan failed owing to the presence of Russian troops; in the south and central regions it is fair to say that by the end of 1915 British influence was entirely removed. Men such as Pugin at Isfahan, the notorious Seller, Zugmayer and Greisinger in Kerman were frankly out to eliminate the British and retained paid gangs for the specific purpose of into
killing.
The
British
Consul-General
at
Isfahan was wounded; the Russian ViceConsul was murdered, as was the British Vice-Consul at Shiraz. Wassmuss eflfected
Waiting for a
somewhere of
German reconnaissance
aircraft
Mesopotamia: eight Lewis gunsl an Indian unit prepare to put up a barrage in
the capture of Colonel O'Connor, the Consul at ShTraz, on October 15, 1915, and held him and the entire British colony in the neighbourhood of Ahram until there was an exchange of prisoners in August 1916. Bushehr was attacked and had to be reinforced from the forces in Mesopotamia. German propaganda, which had failed so ignominiously in India, was swallowed whole. But in one matter the German plan failed. They could not raise Persian forces to fight on their side. The Persians disliked their German instructors almost as much as they hated the Russians. Feldmarschall Colmar von der Goltz, in supreme command in Iraq and Persia, summarised the situation in February 1916: 'Anarchy in Persia; nothing to be done; dust, cupidity and cowardice; vast expenditure and no return.' But we must leave these matters for the moment to follow the fortunes of Captain Niedermayer and the Turco-German Mission to Kabul. Turks and Germans could never be brought to full agreement as to objectives. The Germans wanted ultimately to control India; the Turks had a PanTuranian plan which aimed at Central Asia. The Turks even tried to prevent Niedermayer from penetrating into Persia. Yet he not only succeeded in entering but got his party, which included the Turkish mission under Kazim Beg, with an escoi't of some 80 gendarmes, across the Lul desert, and approached the borders of Afghanistan opposite Herat. The physical effort of this march had been terrific; he had now to contrive to outwit the cordon of Russian and Indian troops which had been spread out to catch him. This he did by the clever use of decoy parties which were duly captured while he himself with the core of the mission made a dash for
'Anarchy in Persia; dust, cupidity and cowardice; vast
expenditure and
no return'
Herat which was reached on August 24, and Kabul towards the end of September.
German mission muzzled The Amir had already reported
to
the
Viceroy of India that the mission had arrived in Herat and he now kept them cooling their heels in Kabul for some weeks before he would consent to see them. His subsequent handling of them was masterly. Delay and frustration were his weapons; promises on one day, withdrawals on the next. In January 1916 he actually signed a draft treaty of alliance with Germany demanding the assistance of a strong force and insisting on receiving fantastic sums of gold. Twice Niedermayer tried to leave but the Amir found reason for detaining him. Finally, he realised that without the arrival in Afghanistan of a powerful Turkish force there was no hope of winning over the astute Amir. And the Russian victory at Erzerum in March 1916
prevented that. The mission was dismissed from Kabul in May 1916, and scattered. Niedermayer's great effort was a complete failure, but his courage and initiative under the most appalling physical and political difl^iculties were truly remarkable. British and Russian countermeasures included the formation of the East Persian Cordon, designed to prevent the infiltration of German and Turkish agents but E S quickly developing, in the British sector, I into a highly efficient military striking
£
controlling the Sarhad (Frontier) area in which robber bands, aided by German money, were playing havoc with local
E
security.
s -^
force
These minor (by First World War
standards) operations were characterised by improvisation, bluff, the spreading of rumours, initiative of small columns under junior commanders working under extreme conditions of desert, drought, the terrible 'yuk-sud-o-bist\ the dehydrating wind lasting 120 days, menacing with death any humans exposed to it without adequate water and water discipline. Infantry developed amazing marching powers; cavalry quickly learned to ride camels. By the end of 1916 the danger from enemy agents was largely thwarted and the Baluchistan border was reasonably quiet. The year 1916 was also to see a vast improvement in the situation in South Persia. By the end of 1915 ten out of 17 branches of the Imperial Bank of Persia had fallen into German hands; Kermfmshah, Hamadan, Sultanabad, Isfahan, Yazd, Shiiaz and Kermiln were all under their influence; British consuls had been expelled, and such British subjects as had not been captured compelled to leave. The position of the British Minister in Teheran was a difficult one. At this point a momentous decision was taken. In agreement with the Persian government, a British mission was charged with the duty of raising a Persian force to take the place of the decayed gendarmerie, the object being to restore law and order in the interests of the Persian and British governments. The strength of the force was to be 11,000 and it was to be raised by General Sir Percy Sykes, an officer with a long and distinguished record in the Indian Political Service who had indeed served for many years in Persia. There was to be a similar Cossack Brigade in the north and both forces were to be maintained for the duration of the war. Sir Percy, with a handful of British officers, landed in Bandar Abbas in March 1916, and where von der Goltz had failed, not only succeeded in raising a force but, with the help of one regular occupied Kerman in battalion, Indian June, Yazd in August, Isfahan in September, and ShTraz in October. KazeriJn was occupied in December and the roads to BiJshehr and Ahvaz were opened. Thus by the end of 1916 the flanks of the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force in Persia and
Arabia were safe. Sykes had done wonders with the material at his disposal; his was no easy task, but the improving fortunes of the
army
in
Mesopotamia had
contri-
buted to his success. Sir Percy has given in his History of Persia a full and fascinating description of the difficulties and success of his mission. Operations in Persia went on to 1918, but the worst was over.
The war
in
Aden
time responsibility for the defence of the route to India via Suez was divided between the Home and Indian governments, the dividing line being north of the Turkish-Arabian district of Yemen. India therefore provided the Aden Brigade which consisted of one British and two Indian
At
this
battalions, the Aden Troop, some artillery and ancillary troops, relying a good deal on local resources. Shortly after the outbreak of war the regular British battalion
was replaced by a Territorial battalion of the South Wales Borderers. A land attack on Aden was considered most unlikely. Distances were great, the terrain was mostly waterless desert, and the Turkish forces of the Yemen were difficult to reinforce. But at this time the
1547
of the VII (Yaman) Army Corps, General AH Said Bey, was a vigorous and thrusting man who realised that the key to the situation was the demeanour of the local Arab tribes who would follow the side which showed itself more enterprising. His first action was to menace the Sheikh Said Peninsula in the vicinity of Aden. Luckily the veteran 29th Indian Brigade happened to be nearby, in transports, on its way to Egypt, accompanied
commander
by HMS Duke of Edinburgh. A combined operation was quickly improvised and successfully carried out on November 10/11, 1914, and the Turks were driven out with the loss of their artillery. The 29th Brigade then proceeded on its way to Egypt. Unfortunately this successful action was not followed up; the Turks and their Arab hangers-on took heart again, and some months later reoccupied the peninsula and from there actually carried out an attack on the island of Perim. This was successfully beaten off by the 23rd Sikh Pioneers. But otherwise the garrison of Aden remained passive with depressing effect on the morale of the Arabs, particularly of those sultanates most friendly to the British. It had been found necessary to garrison the islands in the vicinity of the Straits and this was made the responsibility of the Indian battalions of the brigade. The mobile column, of which the newly arrived British battalion formed the nucleus, was the only offensive portion of the force. This was called into action in July 1915 when the Turks advanced and Lahej, the sultanate closest to Aden and the only one to which the Aden force could render help, was threatened. Lahej was 25 miles from Aden and except at Sheikh 'Othman, six miles out of Aden, the route was waterless. The British Territorial battalion was raw. Sent out in 1914, it had little training, no experience whatever of tropical conditions, and only one officer, the quartermaster, had served abroad. They settled in Aden,
officers were sent to India on various courses and the battalion, which was still on the old eight-company basis, proceeded to reorganise itself. The sick rate became high and there is little evidence that any attempt to toughen the battalion or to prepare it for the arduous conditions of the Protectorate was made. The column set out on its march to Lahej on the afternoon of July 3, the first stage being the six miles to Sheikh 'Othman where was the water supply for Aden. It included a 15-pounder battery and a 10pounder pack battery, both dependent on camels. The transport column was improvised with untrained camels led by illdisciplined Arab drivers unused to army work. The six miles to Sheikh 'Othman produced a virtual collapse from heat, two British soldiers dying from heatstroke. The decision was made to move on to Lahej, 19 miles away, at 0300 hours next morning — a plan taxing for even a skilled and tough force on its first stage out, but productive of chaos in this case. By 0900 hours the men's water bottles were empty, heatstroke was again claiming its victims, and there were man\ stragglers. Within four miles of Lahej the column collapsed, but roused by the sound of firing ahead where the advanced guard of the column — a detachment of the 109th (Indian) Infantry and the Aden Troop — were in action at Lahej, they struggled on. By superhuman efforts of the few who were still capable of action, a defence was organised and night attacks by Turks and Arabs were held off. The Turks seem to have been shaken by the fierce defence and withdrew for a distance. But at this point news was received of a disaster to the camel convoy moving in support of the column. All the Arab drivers had absconded, cutting the camels loose, and the result was the loss of all food, medical stores, water equipment, machine guns and, most important, reserve ammunition of all kinds. The 15pounders were stuck in the sand.
-^-'^/r.
,.»*•
,JLL,
'':"<*'.. ?*^?'^r
^ »^>A
Stragglers, heat-
and constant Arab marauding
•stroke
Above: The Amir Habibullah of Afghanistan, a subtle and devious ruler, but a friend to the British in an uncertain hour. Right: The area where Germany and Turkey stirred up trouble forthe Allies-Persia. Afghanistan and Aden. Below: The 33rd Punjabis, well-trained and acclimatised troops, at Sheikh Othman
There was nothing for it but withdrawal and this began on the early morning of July 5. Mercifully and unexpectedly there was no pursuit by the Turks and little harassment from the Arabs. Parties had been sent out from Aden to collect stragglers and to help the column to safety. The heat conditions were as on the advance and it was a broken force which, 24 hours after the start from Lahej, struggled into
Sheikh 'Othman. This important post, too, was abandoned and straightway occupied by the Turks. Retribution was almost immediate. Another regular formation of the Army in India, the 28th (Frontier Force) Brigade under the experienced drive of Major-
General Sir George Younghusband, now landed, quickly surprised the Turks at Sheikh 'Othman and drove them off. Sir George temporarily took over command of the Aden Brigade and rapidly restored the prestige which had suffered severely in the disaster. Thereafter, until the end of 1916, activity in the area was spasmodic and does not call for further description. The unfortunate British battalion, which was the victim, rather than the cause, of the calamity, was transferred to India. Further Reading A Summary of the Diary of
tfie
Aden Troop
(Allahabad Press) Chlrol, Sir Valentine, India
(Constable) Dyer, Brig-Gen. R. E. (Witherby) Moberly, Brig-Gen. F
H.,
Old and
New
Raiders of
tfie
Sartiad
J., Operations in Persia 1914-1919 (HMSO) O'Dwyer, Sir Michael, India as I Knew It 18857925 (Constable) Skrine, SirClarmont, The World War In Iran
(Constable) Sykes, C, IVassmuss (Longmans) Sykes, Sir Percy, History of Afghanistan (Macmillan)
Sykes, Sir Percy, History of Persia (Macmillan)
\ ?
i
Within half a century, France had suc-
FRENCH NORTH AFRICA:
UNREST
AND REVOLT I
> I
I i
France had to divert fighting men to hold down her North African colonies, where there was much small-scale but savage fighting against the desert Arabs. Philippe Masson
ceeded in reconstituting a colonial empire which, in area and population, was the second biggest in the world. On the eve of the outbreak of war, it included the North African Maghreb, comprising Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, the greater part of the Sahara and considerable territories in Black Africa along the rivers Senegal, Niger and Congo. In addition to some islands in the West Indies and five settlements in India, the French flag also flew over Madagascar, Reunion and Indo-China, which comprised the two Vietnams of the present day, Laos and Cambodia. On the eve of war, there were doubts
about the loyalty of the colonial popula-
But the first weeks of the war dispelled any anxiety. On the whole, the regular troops returned to France and were tions.
by territorial formations sent from there. Two divisions from Algeria thus participated in the first battles on the Western Front. In Morocco, where French replaced
still covered only half the popuGeneral Lyautey refused to withdraw to the coast in accordance with his instructions. A withdrawal could have led to a general uprising and the defection of the native troops. Furthermore, Algeria's western flank would have been uncovered, resulting in the immobilisation of considerable forces. Nevertheless, Lyautey was able to despatch his regular troops to France, but did not abandon the 'pacified' areas until the arrival of reserve formations. This is what he called preserving 'the lobster's shell', while removing its inside. The only failure in four years was the massacre of the Laverdure column in November 1914. Being forced to concentrate all her forces
authority lation.
on the Western Front, France was able to only a secondary contribution to the colonial fighting taking place outside her own territories. Nevertheless, French detachments took part, alongside the British forces, in the conquest of Togo and Cameroon. In the Middle-East, the vessels Regain and d'Entrecasteaux made their contribution to the defence of the Suez Canal. However, the quiet reigning in the colon-
make
possessions did not mean that there large-scale threat to the Moslem territories of North Africa posed by the Senussi Confederation. This resulted, on the borders of Tunisia and the Sahara, in fighting which was difficult and arduous, even though it did not reach the intensity of the fighting on the Western Front. The Senussi movement had made its appearance in North Africa at the beginning of the 19th century. This religious sect was founded by Ben Ali Senussi, a native of Tlemcen in Algeria, who, after a visit to the Hedjaz, had installed himself in Benghazi in CjTenaica. Inspiring themselves from the Almoravides or the Wahabis, the Senussi sect preached a return to the purity of primitive Islam, though it did not disregard a sense of action for all that. The doctrine gained a very considerable success with the nomads. Its religious chiefs were venerated, administering justice, controlling political life and ensuring the prosperity of the oases. From the Gulf of Syrte to the Sudan, the land was covered with Zaou'ia (Senussi settlements or strongholds). Towards 1895, the movement implanted itself solidly in southern Libya, at Kufra and in the Fezzan. In 1902, the Senussi clashed with French detachments on the shores of Lake Chad. By that time, ial
was no
I
the sect already comprised two rival branches, the 'Mahdis' and the 'Cherifs', from the names of the founder's sons, the former installed at Kufra and the latter in the Fezzan. The war was to give the movement a new impulse. In November 1914, the Sultan of Constantinople declared a Holy War, thus to provoke risings in French and British territories, as well as restoring his influence in Libya, where Italy had established her rule between 1911 and 1913. This call was heeded immediately by the nomads of Tripolitania the more so since they had preserved a favourable opinion of the Ottoman occupation. Turkish ofiicers returned to their former possession and contributed to the setting-up of mehallas, well-armed military formations trained in western fashion. The Germans also took the opportunity to send arms, ammunition and advisers. For several years, French warships patrolled the sea between Crete and Tripolitania capturing several vessels loaded with men, and equipment which was to be landed from submarines or schooners. By the end of 1914, despite the Italic, government's neutrality, the well-led Senussi had achieved great successes over the Italians whose occupation of the Fezzan and the Libyan oases was only a few months old. Successively, the garrisons of Sebha, Ghadames, Sinauen and Nalut were forced to withdraw precipitately in the direction of the French posts of the Eastern Hoggar. By June 1915, Italy had evacuated the whole interior of Libya and her troops were bottled up in Tripoli and Homs. They did not regain the initiative until 1916.
hoping
Above
left: Lyautey, the French commander in North Africa. He managed to control the fighting there while sending as many valuable first line troops as possible to Europe. He also gained enormous respect from his opponents. Above right: France's mainstay in the desert: a private of the celebrated Foreign Legion. Below: France s opponents: part of a camel-mounted Arabmehalla
1551
_J X
FRENCH
TERRITORIES
ENGAGEMENTS
M.ES
500
GabesJ^Q
"^
July 10)
FoumTatouine'X
June 26/ Sept RemadaJX June XDehibat
Nalut
Sfnawan
• Ghadames
LIBERIA
The war against the Senussi
in
North Africa: pinprick raidsoveravast, empty and arid land
This series of victories naturally aroused great enthusiasm among the Senussi who now. on the advice of the Turks and the Germans, began to envisage large-scale action against the British possessions and the French territories. In addition to the quality of their troops, the Senussi possestwo advantages — their ideology's sed power of seduction and a remarkable position in the heart of Moslem Africa. In fact, in Egypt, the Senussi failed to
combine their operations with those of the Turkish army operating in Palestine and
won at Marsa Matruh and Solium, any threat was eliminated by April 1916 and it was the same in the Sudan in 1917. In the west, on the Sinai. After a few successes
other hand, operating against the French, the Senussi were to exert an indisputable pressure up to 1917 from the Niger to Southern Tunisia, taking advantage of the size of the theatre of operations, the sympathies of certain nomad tribes and the weakness of the French troops. As a result of the continued drain to the Western Front, shortages of officers and NCOs were considerable, while the best battalions were replaced by ill-trained 'territorials', ignorant of desert fighting conditions. It was first of all in Southern Tunisia that Khalifa ben Asker. a member of a distinguished Tripolitanian family who
was to prove the French's most unyielding opponent, directed his effort. In September 1915, Ben Asker, counting on the support of the Foum Tatahouine 'dissidents', laid siege to the post of Dehibat, which was defended by 1,800 men. Following the failure of his attempts, he shifted his effort to the Bordj (village or settlement) of Oum Souigh at the beginning of October. The siege lasted seven days. Two rescue columns failed to break the Senussi ring. A decision was achieved, however, on October 9. A force of 2,000 men, organised by General Boyer, defeated Ben Asker's mehalla on the banks of the Wadi Nekrif. P\)l lowing this victory, the southern Tunisian frontier was quiet for six months, the French taking advantage of this to bring up reinforcements and to regain control of the populations whose loyalty had been shaken lor a brief while. But in June 1916, having reconstituted a force of 2,000 men, and with the support of several thousand auxiliaries, Ben Asker renewed his attempt and once again laid siege to Dehibat. Despite the support of a mortar and two Italian 68-mm guns, the Senussi were unable to reduce the 2,000-strong garrison. Repeating his manoeuvre of the previous year. Ben Asker then concentrated his efforts on the post of Remada. which he invested on June 26. Five columns
attempted to relieve the besieged garrison. One of them fell into an ambush and was completely wiped out. However, one detachment succeeded in reaching Remada and forced the Senussi to fall back. But the Senussi threat was not completely eliminated until June 30. On that day, a large column gained a decisive success against Ben Asker's mehalla, which was forced to recross the border in utter rout. After this battle of Bir el Moghri, the Senussi renounced any further large-scale attacks on Southern Tunisia. In all, the fighting in this sector had involved nearly 15,000 men on the French side, though they suffered much greater losses through sickness than through enemy action. In 1915, over 1,500 men died from various diseases. Between 1916 and 1918, the Senussi, having to deal both with internal difficulties ;ind a renewed offensive attitude on the part ot the Italians, made attempts to cross the border with only small bands of reduced numbers, while the French command had more modern equipment available, lornes fitted with machine guns, opei'ating in close liaison with aircraft. The experiences of the British in Egypt and even of the Italians around Tripoli had. in fact, proved the worth of aircraft for reconnaissance in the desert. The first squadi'on landed in Tunisia on July 10, The war section
m
North Africa: a French machine gun a dried-up wadi
moves up along
1
m K^,
1916.
The aircraft, each fitted with a gun and capable of carrying
which had been temporarily reoccupied.
abandonment
facilitated
the
infil-
machine
This
bombs, operated from Foum Tatahouine, using Gabes as their supply base. The aircraft operated over a range of 125 miles, in liaison with the machine gunequipped lorries to which they supplied
tration of audacious small bands which harried posts and attacked isolated detachments. Thus, during the course of autumn 1916, it became increasingly hazardous to supply Fort Polignac. Two convoys were strongly attacked and did not reach their
the information they obtained. Combined attacks against the centres or hideouts of the Senussi chieftains produced excellent results and contributed to the weakening and demoralisation of the tribe. However, the slowing down of operations on the Tunisian frontier did not mean it was forgotten that the Senussi threat j^ersisted farther to the south and that Ben Asker had decided to bring his main effort to bear on the Sahara, in order to turn the French flank in North Africa. At the beginning of 1916, he attacked in the direction of the Hoggar where he hoped to obtain the support of the Touaregs. On March 6, 1916, a mchalla of several hundred men equipped with a few guns invested the post of Djanet, which was held by about 50 Saharans and Goums. all
The
siege lasted until March 24; an attempted sally failed and the survivors were captured. A single survivor returned from captivity in 191!S. This success did not aff'ect the Touaregs of the Hoggar, who participated in operations in the Central Sahara, but shook the loyalty of the Oulliminden Touaregs, north of the Niger, whose revolt was broken only after
the action of Anderamboukane, fought between May 7/9, 1916. However, Senussi pressure remained active in the area of the Hoggar. During the
course of the summer of 1916, it proved necessary to evacuate the post of Djanet,
The year ended with an event which shows the extent of the Senussi penetration. The Reverend Pere de Foucauld, who had gone to seek peace in the hermitage of Tamanrasset, was murdered. The worsening of the situation led to the evacuation of Fort Polignac, whose scurvydestination.
garrison was completely exstricken hausted. The Ajjer Touaregs fell into dissidence in their turn and attacked the post ol Ain el Hadjar. Farther to the south a strong mehallci led by Kaoussem attacked in tiie Air (or Azbine) and laid siege to Agades whose garrison of about 100 men resisted for nearly three months.
This constant withdrawal from French finally alarmed the French government. After being appointed Minister of War, General Lyautey decided to create a single command in the Sahara. This he gave to Genera! Lapei'rine, the positions
creator of the Saharan units and a man thorougiil>' accjuainted with the countr\'. .\s soon as he arrived in March 1917. Laperi'ine renounced the tactics based upon the defence of isolated posts and advocated movement and a resumption of contact with the populations. P^rom then on. the situation improved
Depommier's column Agades on March 3, inflicting a decisive defeat on Kaoussem's niehal/d which fled in the direction of the
rapidly.
succeeded
Captain
in relieving
Above: French Zouave troops from North Africa. It was Lyautey's greatest achievement that he
was able
to hold down North Africa with the of men, and send the rest to Europe
minimum
Fezzan. This defeat marked a turning point in the history of the Senussi movement. From then on, they gave up actions in strength supported by hght artillery in favour of small isolated raids. During the summer of 1917, the Hoggar region progressively regained its tranquillity. 'Dissidence' was only sporadically manifested. In November 1917, General Laperrine was able to make a tour of over 2,500 miles throughout the whole Sahara up to the Niger without encountering any appreciable incidents. Naturally, the fighting in southern Tunisia and the Sahara cannot bear comparison with the battles on the Western Front. The numbers engaged, over a huge theatre of war, were extremely small and the men did not have to suffer the ordeal of artillery bombardments. However, the soldiers fighting in Africa encountered their own particular type of suffering: exhausting marches in torrid heat, the continued fear of ambush and the violence of the engagements. Likewise, the Senussi rising may appear to be a small-scale event. But the stake was high. Serious reverses in southern Tunisia or in the Hoggar would have had serious repercussions throughout the whole of Islamic North Africa, which in General Lyautey's words constituted a 'soundingdrum'. It must not be forgotten that the only serious incidents recorded in Algeria were the risings in the mountainous regions of the Aures and the Hodna in 1916, regions which border the Sahara. In any case, the colonial empire's participation in the war effort was a considerable one. Economic assistance was marked by the export of raw materials and foodstuffs
which saved foreign exchange and compensated for the loss of the occupied territories. But above all, the colonial to France,
with a population of nearly 50,000,000 inhabitants, supplied several
territories,
hundred thousand workers and fighting men.
On the whole, the behaviour of these coloured troops was remarkable, especially that of the North Africans and the Senegalese, even though these proved unable to bear the rigours of a European winter and were considered seasonal fighting-troops, being moved each winter to the more clement shores of the Mediterranean. The Vietnamese alone showed little ardour and were not considered as good fighting material. The participation of colonial troops made it possible to keep up the numbers of the French army, thus countering Germany's considerable demographic advantage. However, we cannot entertain the opinion often advanced that these native troops were sacrificed in order to preserve the existence of French fighting men. The losses of the colonial troops amounted to 70,000 men, which is a considerably lesser proportion than for the native French, who lost over 1,300,000 men during the war. Further Reading Ferry, Colonel J., Le Sahara dans la Guerre (Revue HIstorlque de I'Armee 1967) Leclerc, Colonel R., Les Ailes Francaises en Tunisie (Revue Historique de I'Armee 1955) e Montalembert, Capitalne de, Le Front Sudo Tunisien (Revue Historique de S I'Armee 1955) ^
5
[For Philippe
Mas son's
biography, seepage
Below: The terrain which was as active an to the French as the Arabs. But the Arabs had an advantage Inasmuch as they had lived in such desert conditions all their lives
enemy
5* JV
.
s
ik ^A
fe
I
116.]
1555
THE UNDER
WATER
WAR
1556
TIXIIIMOIKS
DKVKLOPMENTS After the protests of the United States had
brought Germany's
first
U-Boat campaign
to
an
end, Germany's political and military leaders plunged into endless rounds of talks about launching an all-out submarine offensive against Great Britain in an effort to drive her out of the war, despite the fact that this might force the United States' hand and bring her into the war on the side of the Entente. While these talks were going on, the U-Boat arm continued its limited offensive and applied the lessons and tactics learnt in the first campaign, as the British continued to try to find a counter to the submarine — in vain. Bryan McCleau Raiift. Above and left: The end of another Allied ship: the torpedo hits, the ship settles and then sinks issi
1558
Contrary to the general belief engendered by Allied propaganda, did not invariably sink Allied merchantmen without warning and leave their crews to perish. If conditions allowed, and there was no danger from other Allied vessels, the U-Boat might well pick up the survivors, as in this painting by Hans Bohrdt of a U-Boat in heavy weather. Above: The control room of a U-Boat, a jungle of Left:
German submarines
controls, wiring and pipes. It is unlikely that anyone in a submarine would nave been as cleanly and tidily dressed as they are shown here
first German submarine campaign against merchant shipping, launched in February 1915, had revealed all the factors involved in this new type of warfare. Attacking either on the surface with gun fire, or below the surface with torpedo, the U-Boat could sink Allied merchantmen faster than replacements could be built. This point was first reached in August 1915. If the trend were to continue, the Allies' ability to wage the war would gradually diminish because of shortage of vital sea transport. If the rate of sinkings could be increased they might have to seek a hasty peace. Naval countermeasures to the submarine had proved ineffective. Despite the deployment of many hundreds of patrol vessels, their lack of effective location apparatus and destructive weapons for dealing with submerged U-Boats made successful attacks very rare. A little more success had been achieved by the guns supplied to a small proportion of merchant ships and a few spectacular sinkings had been effected by the disguised Q-ships.
The
During the whole of 1915, however, only 20 submarines were sunk as compared with the 61 new boats added to the German strength. The new year was to begin with an operational force of 58 boats available to attack merchant shipping. If these were to be ruthlessly used there seemed little that the Allied navies could do to prevent the year's losses soaring above the 855,000 tons lost by German action in 1915. But here was Germany's dilemma. If her submarines were to achieve a significant number of sinkings without exposing themselves to the attacks of Allied patrols or the guns of their destined victims, they had to attack without warning and thus without giving crews and passengers any chance of escape. Despite Germany's assertions that this departure from accepted international practice was justified by Britain's o\\ti breach of international law in the arrogant interference with neutral shipping involved in her strangling blockade of Ger-
many's food and industrial supplies, neutrals had reacted violently to the sinking of their ships and the deaths of their citizens. So strong were the protests of the United States in particular that the unrestricted campaign in British home waters had been called off in September 1915 and was continued only in the Mediter1559
Left: Inside the engine room of a U-Boat. Above: Admiral Holtzendorff, the German navy s mam advocate of unrestricted U-Boat warfare Below: Clinging to whatever wreckage they can find and to a raft, survivors from a torpedoed ner in the Mediterranean wait to be picked up
.-4
*^*»
-
••
..^
ranean, where American ships were few. The central issue in the war against shipping in 1916 was to be the German government's
between the increasing attractions of unlimited UBoat warfare and the danger of antagonising neutral powers. For Britain, as the AUies' leading maritime and naval power,
vacillation
there were two aspects to the war against merchant shipping. The first was a matter of maintaining shipping tonnage and carrying capacity for military operations in all theatres as well as for the supplies of raw materials and food required in Britain both for civilian and military purposes. The second was to find methods of applying the vast naval resources available in ways which would both protect shipping and sink the submarines which were its chief assailants. Despite the politically imposed restrictions on U-Boat activity in 1916, Britain did not succeed in any of these tasks. As 1916 began the governmental departments concerned with shipping and supplies began to realise the effect of the previous year's losses. Demands for shipping were continually increasing. To the normal imports required to maintain Britain's industry and pxjpulation were added txie demands for munitions and other war supplies. France and Italy were dependent upon Britain for the bulk of their coal. The Admiralty and the War Office were constantly demanding the requisitioning of shipping for their particular purposes and thus significantly diminishing the tonnage available for civilian supplies. To make matters worse the building of new merchant ships, except for tankers and frozen meat ships, had virtually ceased. The limited skilled manpower and physical resources of the shipbuilding industry were fully occupied with naval demands. It was estimated that in 1916 there would be a shortage of at least 3,000,000 tons of merchant shipping, quite apart from any increased losses from German action or the withdrawal of neutral shipping under the threat of German attack. It was this general shortage of shipping essential to carrying on the war which was to make the later stages of the submarine campaign a matter of defeat or victory for the Allies. Although the Admiralty must have been aware of the gravity of a renewal of the submarine campaign, the losses of 1915 had not caused them to make any drastic reappraisal of the anti-sub-
marine measures which had so demonstrably failed. There were some improvements in equipment and in the strength and organisation of the anti-submarine forces, but no systematic examination of the tactical problems involved in the location and destruction of underwater attackers. During the year hydrophones capable of locating a submarine by picking up the noise of its propellers or
engines became available, but they were limited in efficiency. They could only operate in good weather, several craft fitted with them were needed in order to get accurate cross bearings and the engines of all neighbouring craft had to be stopped while they were working. On the weapons side something effective had emerged, a powerful bomb released over a ship's stern and exploding at a pre-set depth. Two models of these depth-charges were decided upon by the end of 1915. The larger carried 300 pounds of high explosive and could be operated only by the larger and faster anti-submarine vessels. The smaller craft had to be content with one containing 120 pounds of high explosive. Both types were detonated by a hydrostatic pistol set to explode at either 40 or 80 feet. Although they had to burst within a few feet of a submarine to cause severe damage, and this was very difficult to achieve, they could also damage equipment and shake the morale of the crew by the noise and shock waves of their detonation. If only the location problem could be more frequently and accurately solved, they could be highly effective. Distribution to the anti-submarine forces began in January 1916, but for most of the year supplies were so short that only two could be allocated to each vessel. It
U
was not until March when the (^-sh\p Fariibnrouf>h sank the 68 that they scored their first success. Complementary to the depthcharge was the paravane which was in general service by the end of the year. This was a sweep carrying 400 pounds of high explosive which could be towed at high speed by destroyers and other fast craft to a depth of 200 feet. Its function was to search activelv for submarines cruising underwater, whereas the depth-charge could only be used with any hope of success after a submarine had been detected and its location fixed. Further att mpts were made in 1916 to block the passage of submarines by minefields. In April and May a barrage of moored nets and mines, reinforced by deeply positioned mines, was laid off the Belgian coast between Nieuport and the Scheldt. It was de.signed to .stop the exits
from Ostend and Zeebrugge through which
the smaller U-Boats of the Flanders flotilla came to attack shipping in the Channel and its approaches. It may have added to the strain on their ships' companies but there is no evidence that it destroyed a single submarine. The most encouraging results were obtained by the arming of; merchant ships with guns capable of inflicting severe damage on the normal lightly-built submarine. In 1916 as in the previous year, the majority of attacks were made by surfaced submarines using their own guns. This enabled them to make use of their
•# -3PJJ*"='.
'S#.-*.'f^&tA"
•..-^^
1561
superior surface speed and conserve the few highly expensive torpedoes which they carried. British poHcy was to arm all merchantmen but there was a chronic shortage of guns. Nevertheless, by December 1915 766 had been equipped, a number which increased to 1,100 by April 1916. In the 12 months from January 1916, of the 310 armed ships attacked, 236 escaped as compared with the 67 unarmed vessels which survived 301 attacks. Despite all this, 1916 was to be a year of increasing merchant ship losses and of continuing failure to locate and destroy submarines. This was due entirely to the Admiralty's inability to grasp the true nature of the tactical problems to be solved. The root of this failure was the practice of using anti-submarine forces on the basis of two misleading conceptions. These were, that only 'offensive' measures would defeat the submarine and that the thing which needed protection was trade routes rather than ships. In combination these two concepts ensured that the hundreds of vessels employed on anti-submarine duties spent their time in fruitless offensive searches in areas where a submarine's presence was suspected or on equally fruitless patrols along the routes laid down for shipping to follow. The searches failed because of the inadequacy of locating equipment, the patrols because a lurking submarine would submerge until the patrolling craft pas.sed by and then wait in safety until the next unprotected merchantmen came along the route. This pattern had become clear in 1915 when shipping had been diverted away from the normal routes, where U-Boat activity was expected. This must have increased the problems of the British. In the following year in order to concentrate the patrols, shipping was directed onto well-defined and obvious routes through the most dangerous waters near the British Isles. Although these were changed at intervals it was only a matter of time before intelligent submarine commanders located the new routes. Faced with increasing losses, the Admiralty could think of nothing but to demand more and better anti-submarine craft. A large destroyer building programme was launched and Jellicoe was under constant pressure to release some of his Grand Fleet flotillas for trade protection. In a letter to the First Lord, Balfour, in October 1916, the Commander-inChief put his finger on the problem but did not take his thought to its logical conclusion: 'The destroyer is, of course, very efficient defensively as a screen to individual ships or to a large number of ships, but, except in more or less confined waters, is not an efficient offensive weapon, because she must actually get into contact with a submarine which is a difficult matter if the submarine has plenty of sea room.' .
.
Another Allied ship
.
.
.
.
lost, and with her the chance of many supply runs for the material-hungry war effort of the Entente Powers
Like almost
all his
British naval contemporaries Jellicoe failed convoy escort
to realise that the so-called 'defensive' screen of a
was
in fact a most effective 'offensive' organisation because an attacking submarine had to come within the range of its locating and weapons systems if it were to launch a successful attack on the merchantmen being escorted. By the end of May 1916 the lesson was there to be read. Since the beginning of the war, despite all the 'offensive' strength of the anti-submarine patrols, only 32 German U-Boats had been lost. Of these casualties 12 could be attributed to mistakes or inexperience on the part of their crews. The remaining loss of less than one per month by Allied naval action was a clear demonstration of the failure of the methods being used. The problems confronting Germany at the end of 1915 were of a quite different order. These were neither technological nor tactical but arose from the differences which arose between her naval and political leaders. The former argued that if they were allowed to reopen an unrestricted submarine campaign against merchant shipping, they could bring Britain to her knees within six months. The 1915 campaign had been devastating enough and now, with a far bigger submarine force available, and with the boats themselves having greater cruising range and underwater speed, a decisive result was possible. They admitted that the renewed onslaught would bring strong protests from the United States, but urged that Britain would be defeated long before America was likely to intervene. To the demands of the naval leaders were added the voices of the generals. They were now convinced that unless Britain's support of France were removed, victory on land was impossible, especially in view of the increasing effects of the blockade. If the navy, as it admitted, could not defeat the Grand Fleet, then a ruthless submarine campaign was the only way to drive Britain out of the w^r. The Chancellor and his political colleagues were unconvinced. They were doubtful of the navy's ability to defeat Britain in this way, perhaps through having too flattering a view of the Royal Navy's ability to find countermeasures to the submarine, and they were sure that the risk of quick American intervention was far greater than the admirals and generals admitted. The political leaders, up to November 1916, were successful in convincing the Emperor. Writing soon after the war, Admirals Tirpitz and Scheer both claimed that if they had had their way in 1916, the result would have been different. There can be no certainty in such arguments, but the assertion is far from being without foundation. In September 1915, the German Naval High Command had de-
cided that it was too dangerous for submarines to operate in British home waters if they were not allowed to attack without restriction. By November, attacks in the North Sea had also ceased and the only submarine activity to continue in this theatre was the minelaying of the smaller boats based on Flanders. This situation continued during the first two months of 1916. The mines, laid in small clusters along the crowded trade routes and frequently renewed, presented a continuous task to Britain's minesweeping forces. The Dover net-barrage was no obstacle to the U-Boats and ships were sunk by their mines as far west as the Needles. The heaviest losses came in the Dover Straits themselves and in the approaches to the Thames where the crowded shipping had to keep to a few well known channels. In January and February, 17 British and several neutrals were sunk in this way. As Gtermany introduced bigger boats, with a far longer range and a capacity of 18 mines instead of the 12 of the original craft, this was going to be an increasing threat. Even bigger submarines, carrying 36 minec, were being produced for more distant operations. All minelayers carried torpedoes and the majority of them a gun as well. The lull in torjsedo and gun attacks did not apply to the Mediterranean, where a force of less than six U-Boats based on Austrian ports did a significant amount of damage, chiefly by gunfire. They were soon operating in the western part of the sea, as well as the east and as near as 60 miles to Marseilles, such was their contempt for the Allied countermeasures. These countermeasures were nominally under the control of the French Commander-inChief but there was no effective co-ordination. Because of the narrowness of the sea, diversionary routing was virtually useless and patrols were as ineff'ective here as in British home waters. The only effective counter was the guns of armed merchantmen and ten attacks were repulsed in this way in January and Febru ary. During the same period 11 British ships were sunk. Although this was not a large number it was serious because most of them were large vessels employed on the long trip to the East or Australasia via the Suez Canal. Such was the Admiralty's inability to provide protection that in March they insisted that all such trade must go by the longer route via the Cape of Good Hope. This was the first instance in the war of submarine attack producing the abandonment of a major trade route. It also further strained Allied shipping resources by prolonging the voyage. The Mediterranean trade itself, much of it carrying vital grain and coal to Italy and the south of France, was faced with a perilous future if Germany could spare more or bigger U-boats.
No effective antisubmarine measures. Bigger and better
German submarines, and more of them. At this stage an all-out submarine offensive could have been decisive
The knowledge that the U-Boats were being
so effective in the
Mediterranean gave additional strength to the advocates of the resumption of unrestricted attacks in British home waters and the North Sea. These had been reinforced by the appointment of Admiral Scheer to the command of the High Seas Fleet in January. Scheer was determined to end what he considered the unnecessarily defensive role of the German navy and saw the submarine as the main way of going over to the offensive. So he joined the Chief of the Naval Staff, Holtzendorff, in renewed pressure on the Emperor and his ministers. In this they were aided by the Chief of the General Staff, Falkenhayn, who wanted a weakening of the Allies' will to continue the war as an adjunct to the great offensive on land he was planning for the spring. At last the German leaders were beginning to see the advantages of the simultaneous use of land and sea power. While the military men were trying to overcome the objections of the hesitant Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, the United States unintentionally aided them. In a diplomatic note on January 18, the US not only denounced the sinking of merchant ships by U-Boats, but also urged the Allies to disarm their merchantmen, as a step towards getting Germany's agreement to conducting attacks against them with humanity. This was interpreted in Germany as indicating that America was turning against the Allies and would not take any practical action against Germany if the U-Boat war was stepped up. The Chancellor's position was weakened and he agreed in principle to the resumption of the unrestricted campaign. On the plea that very promising negotiations were going on with the United States, he did secure a postponement of the opening of the campaign until April. In the interval, attacks on merchantmen were to be allowed 'accoi'ding to the rules of prize law for the time being', as the decision was phrased. This meant that the submarine commanders were entitled to sink armed merchant ships and transports on sight but that on no account were ordinary passenger steamers to be attacked. The frustrations the restrictions imposed on aggressive submarine commanders are vividly expressed in an extract from the log of the captain of a U-Boat operating off the mouth of the Seine in the summer of 1916: In all, 41 day-approaches (that is, approaches with torpedoes ready for discharge, but without actually discharging) were carried out, and none of the steamers showed the signs indicated as distinctive of transports
.
.
.
On
hand
the other
in the early
morning
light,
we
camouflaged steamers (three collier type and three They were painted black with grey or brown upper works, and showed no flag I was firmly convinced that they were transporting troops or important material, but as my view was not confirmed by the signs mentioned in the regulations (troops in large numbers, quantities of guns or waggons, men stationed on deck) 1 could not attack these either. Even with the restrictions, Allied losses began to mount and the greater range of the newer submarines was demonstrated by the frequency with which they began to operate in pairs off the west coast of the British Isles. The total losses for Britain were 90,000 tons in March, the bulk of them in the Channel and its approaches and the mouth of the Thames. Fortunately the pressure in the Mediterranean eased and only three ships were lost there during the month. But Germany was again doomed to frustration because of her continuing failure to understand American reactions. At a conference at Wilhelmshaven on March 6, the naval high command gained a relaxation of the restrictions. In
saw
in all six cargo vessels).
.
.
.
future all ships in the war area, identified as British, except passenger vessels, could be sunk without warning. This, together with the finer weather and the new U-Boats operating far out into the Atlantic beyond the range of normal British patrols, soon increased the losses. In April, 37 ships were sunk by submarine attack and a further six by mines, making a total of more than 140,000 tons, approaching the peak of August 1915. This was checked not by any successful British countermeasures but, as in the 1915 campaign, by an extremely strong American protest over the loss of American lives in the sinking of the French cross-channel steamer Sussex, at the end of March. Faced with a threat by the United States to break off diplomatic relations, the German Chancellor was able to force a major retreat on the naval leaders. In future the submarine war against commerce was to be carried on in accordance with the strictest prize rules, ships being boarded and searched and their passengers and crew removed before they were sunk. Admiral Scheer decided that it was too risky for submarines to operate in these conditions in British waters and the campaign was called off, although operations in the less drngerous Mediterranean were to continue. Even there the increased number of armed merchantmen kept the Allied losses in check. Of the 20 armed ships attacked in May and June only two were
1
564
sunk. So the fears of a huge increase in losses in the summer were not fulfilled. By June they had dwindled to 37,000 tons, the lowest figure since August 1915. In some ways this was a misfortune to the Allies, for even if it did not produce complacency, it certainly resulted in a lack of any sense of urgency to find more effective methods of dealing with the U-Boat should a major campaign again be launched. Furthermore, the long term attrition of Allied shipping deserved more consideration than the temporary decrease in monthly losses. Since January 1, 1916, nearly 500,000 tons of British shipping had been destroyed. This was two and a half times the output of the shipyards during the same period. This, added to the military demand on shipping space, was leading month by month to a diminution of the carrying capacity of the British mercantile marine. If imports of vital goods had not been proportionately reduced it was due to the continuing arrival of neutral ships. So far they had been ready to take the risks of submarine attack in return for the great profits to be made. Would this continue? Neutrals were to be put to the test in the latter months of 1916. In October, recognising that the Battle of Jutland had ended any possibility of major action by the High Seas Fleet, Scheer ordered the reopening of submarine operations, under the prize regula-
The new campaign was particularly disturbing. There was an acceleration in sinking rates: in the first eight months of the year these had averaged 56,000 tons, while in the last four the figure was raised to 121,000 tons. Delivery rates of cargoes were being slowed down by delays in the ports and the effects of rerouting and zig-zagging. In the Mediterranean, where 40 ships were sunk in October, the number of attacks without warning went up each month. A new illustration of the increasing range of the submarines was given by the appearance of U 53 off the American coast, where she sank five ships off Rhode Island in a single day. But it was in home waters and the North Sea that the losses were the greatest. The total losses for October were no less than 176.000 tons, more than 30.000 tons greater than the hitherto tions.
blackest month of August 1915. In addition to British tonnage, there were increasingly serious losses to the vital cross-channel French coal trade and to neutral shipping in the North Sea, chiefly Norwegian. 102,500 tons of neutral shipping were destroyed and there was a real danger that the Scandinavian shipping, which brought the Narvik iron ore essential for Britain's munitions industry, would be withdrawn. Prompt action by the British government in providing especially favourable insurance facilities, staved this off for the time being. In the light of these mounting losses a greater awareness of the seriousness of the situation began to arise in the Royal- Navy. Admiral Jellicoe, in particular, now realised that the defeat of the submarine rather than the destruction of the High Seas Fleet was to be the decisive factor in the war at sea. He was aware i)ot only of the shipping losses but of the rapidly increasing number of U-Boats. At the end of 1916 there were to be 140 in service compared with 58 at the beginning of the year. Allied sinkings between June 1916 and the end of the year were to be only 15 as compared with 74 newly commissioned. Aware of this pattern. Jellicoe considered that there must be a complete reorganisation of the Admiralty directed towards producing effective offensive measures to defeat the U-Boat. If this were not done, he wrote to the First Lord, he foresaw the submarine campaign being able 'To force us into accepting peace terms which the military position on the Continent would not justify and which would fall far short of our desires'. In November a series of meetings of the War Committee of the Cabinet with Jellicoe present were held. As a result of these and of the government's growing dissatisfaction with the lack of drive in the Admiralty the decision was taken to make Jellicoe First Sea Lord with the specific task of defeating the German submarine campaign. Simultaneously in Germany, the advocates of unrestricted U-Boat warfare were gaining the a.=;cendancy. Further Reading Campbell. Rear-Adm. Gordon, VC. My Mystery Ships (Hodder & Stoughton 1928) Corbett, Sir Julian, Naval Operations Volume III (Longmans Green 1923) Fayle, C E Seaborne Trade. Volume (John Murray 1923) II
,
Hezlet.
Vice-Adm.
Sir Arthur,
The Submarine and Sea Power (Peter
Davies 1967) Marder, A. J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (OUP 1965-6) Newbolt, Sir Henry, Naval Operations. Volume IV (Longmans Green 1928) Scheer, Adm. R.. Germany's High Seas Fleet in the World War (Cassell 1920) Tirpitz,
Grossadm
[For Bryan
von.
Memoirs (Hurst & Blackett 1919)
McClean Ran ft' s biography,
see page 693.
]
The defeat of the submarine, rather than the destruction ofthe High Seas Fleet, was to be the decisive factor at sea
tt
H
NAVAL WAR IN
THE BLACK SEA Turkey's efforts in the Caucasus were almost entirely dependent on sea transport in the Black Sea, but once the new Russian dreadnoughts had made their appearance, Russia was able to play havoc with this essential traffic, despite the presence of the Goehen, and to make many other telling raids along the coast. Peter Kemp Until the end of October 1914, the Turkish neutraUty party had successfully blocked all Enver Pasha's moves to plunge Turkey into the war, and it took a particularly German trick to force the issue. The German Military Mission, with Enver's backing and without the knowledge of Jemal and the rest of the Turkish ministers, ordered Admiral Souchon, of the Goeben, to lead a combined Turkish-German squadron into the Black Sea. Early on October 29 a signal was received in Constantinople from the Goeben that this squadron had been treacherously attacked by the Russian fleet and that in retaliation the German ships had bombarded Russian coastal towns. This signal was so glaringly false that even the German Military Mission was forced to discard it, and later put out a revised statement, equally false, that the Russian minelayer Proof had been discovered laying mines at the entrance of the Bosporus, that she had been sunk, and that the German and Turkish ships had
then bombarded Russian towns on the Black Sea coast. What actually happened was that Admiral Souchon, in the Goeben and with a minelayer in company, had left Constantinople on the 28th, steamed to Sevastopol, and during the night had laid a minefield off the entrance to prevent the Russian Black Sea Fleet from emerging. He then proceeded to bombard the port, but drew off after the Goeben had been hit three times by the coast defences. Three Russian destroyers then managed to get through the minefield and chased the Goeben off", hitting her again and causing casualties. On the way to the Straits of Kerch, the Goeben fell in with the Proot which, far from being a minelayer as generally believed, was an unarmed transport. Unable to escape, she scuttled herself Meanwhile the Breslau, in company with the Turkish cruiser Hamidieh, was bombarding the towns of Odessa, Theodosia and Novorossiysk. They then rejoined the Goeben and returned to Constantinople, where the original story put out by the German Military Mission was at once shown to be false. But all efforts by the Grand Vizier, backed by Jemal Pasha, to undo the harm caused by Admiral Souchon's unauthorised raid and keep Turkey neutral foundered on a Russian declaration of war; and pledged to follow the lead of their ally, Britain and France had to follow suit. War was declared by Britain against Turkey on November 1. The Russian Black Sea Fleet was materially far superior to that of Turkey, even when the Goeben and Breslau were added to it. Its main strength consisted of five pre-dreadnought battleships, with three cruisers, 17 destroyers and four submarines. Only in speed did they compare badly with the Goeben, so that the chances of bringing the German ship to decisive action were always slim. Yet they were remarkably efl!icient, as compared with the Russian Baltic Fleet, for it was only in these Black Sea waters that the lessons of the Potemkin mutiny of 1905 had been really learned and put into effect. In command was Vice-Admiral A. A. Ebergard, a keen and efl[icient leader, who took pains to keep his fleet up to date in modern technological development. It is of interest that his was the only fleet in the world fitted with short-wave wireless telegraphy to signal ranges and deflections, as well as firing orders, from the control position near the bridge of the ship to the guns themselves. This was the equivalent of the director control system which was only then being introduced into the British and German navies, but more sophisticated because of the radio link as compared with the electric wiring in the British and German ships. Whereas shell damage could sever the director control cables in British and German ships, it left the control link in Russian ships undamaged.
1566
Ebergard, after the declaration of war, was soon in action. On November 6 he mined the entrance of the Bosporus, sank four Turkish transports and bombarded the port of Zonguldak, from which coal mined in the Heraklea district was transported by sea to Constantinople, there being no rail link between the towns. On the 17th he was at sea again, this time bombarding Trabzon, the supply port of the Turkish army in the Caucasus. Admiral Souchon, fearing for the safety of five Turkish transports in the
area, was also at sea on the 17th to give them cover. On the following day, by now on the way home, the Russian squadron sighted the Goeben and Breslau in misty weather at a range of about 8,000 yards. There was a brief engagement before the superior speed of the G^erman ships took them out of range. The Goeben hit the Russian flagship levstafi four times, killing and wounding 55 men; the damage done to the Goeben was not known, though spies later reported it as serious.
Bombing
attacks
concentrating his attention on Zonguldak and its coal trade to Constantinople, Ebergard fitted out two small passenger ships as seaplane carriers and mounted a series of bombing attacks on the port. Since this was the only source of Constantinople's coal supply, without which both Turkish and German ships would be starved of essential fuel, it was an obvious target of strategic importance. An attempt to block the entrance of the port with four blockships failed when the force was intercepted by the Goeben and Breslau in very bad weather, and both the escorting ships and the blockships were sunk. However, on this occasion the Goeben was severely damaged when she struck two Russian mines. A Russian prisoner on board the Goeben was able later to get information back to the Russian authorities of the routes taken by the two German ships, and these were promptly mined. As there was no dry dock at Constantinople large enough to take the Goeben, her underwater damage had to be repaired by the use of coffer dams. With the opening of the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, a new burst of activity was mounted in the Black Sea. During March the coal port of Zonguldak, with its two subsidiary ports of Kozlu and Kilimli, were revisited and bombarded. The defending shore batteries were silenced, port installations heavily damaged, and eight colliers sunk in harbour. Another sortie was made later in the month to the entrance to the Bosporus where Fort Elmas and Riva, on the eastern side of the entrance, and the forts at Cape Rumili, on the western side, were bombarded. A large Turkish transport was forced to beach herself No continuous blockade of the Bosporus was, however, possible because of the limited coal capacity of the Russian ships, and Ebergard had continually to return to refuel. This gave Souchon the chance to slip out into the Black Sea with a plan to bombard Odessa, where Russian transports were gathering with a view to supporting the Dardanelles campaign by landing an army corps on the shores of the Bosporus. The Goeben had by now been repaired, and she and the Breslau were reported to Ebergard as being at sea on April 3. Ebergard, having refuelled his ships, was in fact leaving harbour when he received the report, and though he sighted the Goeben and chased her all day, the superior speed of the German ship enabled her to keep out of decisive range. Meanwhile, two Turkish cruisers, the Medjidieh and Hamidieh, had appeared off" Odessa to attack the transports, but the former was sunk in the minefield guarding the port and the attack was called off". The only disappointing aspect of the day's activity was the Still
1
'V^m''
/
ttilliitti
The crew
of a Turkish destroyer with
....
its
aac
mixed Turkish/German crew. The Germans woul