The western front, p.16
The Western Front, page 16
On the scarred slopes of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and Neuville-Saint-Vaast, the fighting went on. The skies were full of the screech of exploding shells, as thousands of Frenchmen toiled like ants across the blackened landscape, never ceasing their continuous movement to and from the front line. For the defenders, the days were fearful and wracked with pain, as men, worn down with tiredness, endured the horrors of seemingly endless trench warfare. ‘Two days without intermission in a half-blown in trench, with every man keenly on the alert the whole time; bayonets fixed day and night’, was how one German soldier remembered Souchez in the late spring of 1915:
Opposite, only about twenty yards away, the enemy, lying in wait. Between us saps run out, guarded by barricades. A mountain of bombs lies ready to hand beside them. Right on top of one such barricade, but out of our reach, lies a comrade, his dimmed eyes gazing westward; his trusty weapon in one hand, the other stretched out as he made ready to spring; his once fair hair dyed dark red with blood. Many are lying like that outside the trench, friend and foe. Nobody buries them; nobody has time.22
After the intensive fighting of 9–11 May, the front had settled down to a series of small-scale attacks, continuous bombardments and regular trench raids. On 19 May, General d’Urbal informed Joffre that under the present conditions ‘the course of action that should be taken is to methodically take out, by means of heavy and overwhelming artillery fire, followed by a suitably prepared infantry assault, each of the spots identified as necessary to us as starting points’.23
A final effort was made on 16 June, with the French bringing up more guns and shells and plastering the German lines with torrents of fire, including the first use of gas shells – a mixture of carbon disulphide and phosphorus – which acted as both an asphyxiant and an incendiary and was targeted at enemy batteries, managing to silence them for an hour and a half.24 French infantry made progress in places: the cemetery of Souchez was taken and the Moroccan Division again distinguished itself, gaining about a kilometre of ground, but then found itself in an exposed position, enfiladed on either flank. Eager to press on, d’Urbal offered to send reinforcements, but Pétain refused them, believing that unless his flanks could be cleared up, new units would simply suffer losses unnecessarily. Tenth Army was now reaching its limits. Reports from the front admitted that German guns were becoming more and more dominant, while French artillery was increasingly prone to accidents. Barrels would burst or swell from over-firing, sometimes injuring or killing the gun crews. On 16 June, XXI Corps lost seven guns after their barrels exploded; the following day Pétain’s corps lost another nine, which led GQG to send a furious note complaining about a ‘serious crisis’ and ordering commanders to only fire when absolutely necessary.25
By mid-June, the Second Battle of Artois was over. It had been what one French general called the ‘maximum effort’ that the Allies had been capable of. On 9 May, the French had attacked with fifteen infantry divisions, supported by three cavalry divisions and 1,075 artillery pieces. On 16 June, almost twenty divisions were in place, with six reserve divisions and 1,160 guns – against just a dozen battered German divisions. Ammunition consumption was unprecedented. Nearly two million 75 mm and 350,000 heavy-artillery shells had been expended in five weeks’ intensive combat. Yet it was still not enough. French casualties totalled over 2,200 officers and 100,000 men.26 Afterwards one of Pétain’s divisional commanders, Émile Fayolle, gloomily asked: ‘What will be done after this abortive attempt? Should we conclude that any opening is impossible? This is definitely the case if the Hun have many defence lines that are spaced out from each other meaning that artillery cannot take them simultaneously under fire and that there are men to defend them. The fate of the war is now in the hands of the Romanians and the Bulgarians . . .’27
Joffre was not quite ready to rely upon dubious allies on the Eastern Front for deliverance. He wasted little time in planning another assault, on this occasion what he called a ‘double action’ that would be on a much greater scale than the attack in May. He visited the front when he could, often going to Reims, which lay close to the German line. Once there he would be chaperoned to a suitable observation point from where he would peer through binoculars at the enemy positions along the horizon that were now hidden by the long grass. His choice of battlefield was the same as it had been in December 1914: Champagne and Artois. On 12 July, he informed Foch and Castelnau of the outlines of the new operation. Foch would attack in the north, rupturing the German front, seizing Vimy Ridge, and, most importantly, drawing in enemy reserves and fixing them in place. The main assault would then be made by Castelnau’s group of armies in Champagne, which would comprise the bulk of French strength, including Second Army, now commanded by France’s rising star, Philippe Pétain. Once Castelnau’s men had gone forward, this would be ‘the signal to attack on the fronts of the other armies of the Republic’.28
In London, Britain’s political and military leaders were increasingly preoccupied by operations in the Mediterranean. On 7 June, at the first meeting of the reorganized War Cabinet, now renamed the Dardanelles Committee, it was agreed to reinforce General Sir Ian Hamilton in Gallipoli so that a major offensive could be launched later in the summer, which would hopefully break through the Turkish defences. On 26 June, Kitchener authored an appreciation of the situation in which he stated bluntly that the only theatre in which the Allies could achieve a decisive victory in the near future was the Dardanelles. He was adamant that the French Army ‘must not be exhausted by continuous offensive operations which lead to nothing, and which possibly cause the enemy fewer casualties than those incurred by us’, with a policy of ‘active defence’ on the Western Front being the most sensible option.29
A meeting of Allied leaders was held on 6 July, with the British delegation, including Asquith, Kitchener and the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour, travelling to Calais to discuss strategy for the remainder of the year. But as soon as they landed on foreign soil things began to go awry. The British had not been told the time of the main conference and, assuming that it was mid-morning, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at their hotel, leaving the French Prime Minister, René Viviani (who was accompanied by Joffre and Millerand), ‘ramping up and down the dismal Calais platform’ waiting for their allies to turn up.30 When things eventually got started, no clear agreement was reached. Kitchener, speaking fluent French, agreed to send six New Army divisions to France immediately, with more to follow, while at the same time calling for the cessation of major attacks in France.31 Joffre was certainly glad to hear about the reinforcements, but he shrugged and mumbled when Kitchener talked about continuing what he called a ‘war of attrition’. Although the French Commander-in-Chief made it clear that he favoured an offensive, he was careful enough not to promise too much, keeping the French delegation happy (who had been wary of over-committing to new operations) and leaving the British with the (incorrect) impression that he agreed with Kitchener.
The following day Asquith and Kitchener headed off to Ypres (where they reviewed troops), while Joffre hosted another meeting at Chantilly with military representatives from Russia, Italy and Serbia. As he had done all year, Joffre argued that the Allies had to coordinate their attacks to put the enemy under as much pressure as possible. At the same time, they had to prevent the Central Powers from concentrating against one member of the alliance at a time. ‘Under these conditions,’ he explained, ‘the basic principle for the Allied armies bearing the main brunt of enemy forces is that they are entitled to count on the support of a vigorous offensive by those friendly armies that are less keenly pressed.’ Therefore, for reasons of military honour and national interest, it was necessary for the Franco-British armies to take the offensive as soon as possible. Sir John French, who was in attendance, gave his support to Joffre’s proposals. Attacking not only made strategic sense, but it was also important from the perspective of morale. ‘The French soldier, more than any other, has offensive qualities that must be used.’32
Russia’s great retreat continued throughout the summer, darkening Allied council chambers and raising the horrifying spectacle that the Eastern Front might collapse entirely. Warsaw fell on 4 August; the northern fortress of Kovno surrendered two weeks later; and by the end of the month German and Austrian forces had cleared Poland, struck north into Courland, and even reached the town of Brest-Litovsk over 200 miles from where they had started out. The retreat was, however, finally coming to an end. Russian forces were now more concentrated than before, much nearer their lines of supply, and finally benefiting from an increased output of guns and shells as their industry geared up for a prolonged war. In contrast, Falkenhayn’s troops were exhausted, far away from their railheads and coming up against impassable terrain along the western approaches to Russia: marshes and forests where there were few roads, no railways and little food.33
Falkenhayn spent most of his time in Pless, plotting his victories on increasingly large-scale maps and toasting his success with the Kaiser’s favourite pink champagne. Although Hindenburg grumbled that they had not yet done enough, that their operations had ‘not led to the annihilation of the enemy’ (as he put it in a letter of 13 August), Falkenhayn snapped back: ‘The annihilation of the enemy has never been hoped for from the current operations in the East, but purely and simply a decisive victory in accordance with the aims of G.H.Q.’34 Moreover, Falkenhayn’s thoughts were increasingly focused on the Balkans, where negotiations with Bulgaria were at an advanced stage. Once this alliance was concluded, Germany would move south, opening up a land route to the Ottoman Empire and settling the ‘Serbian question’ once and for all. As for the Western Front, Falkenhayn was content to watch and wait. At a conference at Metz on 29 July, attended by army Chiefs of Staff, he reiterated that there was no indication the Entente would launch another attack in the near future. A large consignment of shells had left England for the Dardanelles, while it was unclear whether the French were preparing for another offensive after the cessation of fighting in Artois. It was therefore necessary for each army to gather intelligence on the enemy through raids or small-scale operations while preparing to hold the line for some time to come.35
The fear that Falkenhayn was underestimating Allied resolve only grew as the weeks passed. Fritz von Lossberg felt the General was being too optimistic and that it was surely not possible that France and Britain would leave Russia to be dismembered without doing everything they could. When OHL ordered another corps to move east the following month, Lossberg grew anxious. ‘I was most uncomfortable with that decision, because I thought increasingly that our enemy in the west was marshalling new forces for a large-scale attack. If that happened, OHL had only three complete and two weak divisions in reserve on the Western Front.’36 In Champagne – the probable site of any future French action – Karl von Einem was acutely aware of OHL’s disinterest. When they met in early August, Falkenhayn told him how things were ‘moving very slowly’ on the Eastern Front and that he had no desire to be ‘dragged further into the country’. Nevertheless, Einem worried that some of his infantry divisions were going to be ‘siphoned off’ and pleaded with Falkenhayn not to ‘further weaken the army too soon . . .’37
Sir John French had initially pledged himself to Joffre’s renewed offensive and met with Foch to arrange the finer details. Foch wanted the British to extend Tenth Army’s attack up towards the La Bassée Canal, while also relieving French units south of Arras with Kitchener’s Third Army, which was scheduled to arrive later in the year. Sir John agreed to these requests, but found himself backtracking rapidly once General Haig had been given an opportunity to look over the proposed site of the offensive. The area north of Lens was ‘very difficult’, Haig reported; littered with mining buildings, slag heaps and very well-sited defences that would require extensive siege operations. Although it might be possible ‘to capture the enemy’s first line of trenches . . . it would not be possible to advance beyond because our own artillery could not support us’.38 Sir John, always volatile, now began to sink back into fits of depression and frustration that made his commanders uneasy. He fretted that he was being cornered into another disaster like the one at Aubers Ridge and struggled to find a way out. He visited the front, but came away more depressed than ever, his depression compounded by the realization that the BEF lacked the numbers of guns and munitions that would have given his troops a fighting chance of success.
Sir John refused to be hurried into committing to Joffre’s proposals and explained, in a letter on 10 August, that he would prefer to fight north of the La Bassée Canal, which offered better opportunities for success. However, because he had promised to support Joffre, he would now reinforce Haig’s First Army ‘in accordance with the wishes, which you, as Generalissimo expressed’. This would allow him to aid French operations ‘by neutralizing the enemy’s artillery and by holding the infantry on its front’. Sir John’s sleight of hand was obvious and Joffre spotted it immediately. French was proposing to conduct an artillery demonstration (not an infantry attack), which would hold the Germans on his front and shell their trenches, but not risk an all-out assault with the likelihood of tens of thousands of casualties. As might have been expected, Joffre refused to accept this and wrote back swiftly: ‘You will certainly agree with me that this support can only be effective if it takes the form of a large and powerful attack, composed of the maximum force you have available, executed with the hope of success and carried through to the end.’39
Joffre’s patience was almost exhausted. He followed his letter up with another strongly worded telegram to London (through Millerand), which arrived just as Kitchener was digesting news of the latest failure in the Dardanelles. General Hamilton’s summer offensive had failed to break through, with New Army divisions getting bogged down amid the harsh scrubland of Suvla Bay. The Secretary of War had seen much in his long career, but this must have been one of his worst moments. He was confronted, once again, by serious complaints about the commander of the BEF at the same time as his faith in Hamilton was all but extinguished. With no choice but to return to France, Kitchener spent three days at the front between 16 and 19 August, talking to senior officers and coming under fierce pressure from both Joffre and Millerand. In the end, he gave in, telling Sir John that whatever his previous objections, he must now ‘cooperate vigorously’ with the French. This was confirmed at a meeting of the Dardanelles Committee on 20 August, when Kitchener explained, at length, that they could no longer avoid making ‘a real serious offensive in the West’.40
No one liked it, but Asquith felt that he had little choice but to accept Kitchener’s advice. While ‘far from sanguine that any substantial military advantage will be achieved’, Kitchener was (as Asquith wrote in a letter to the King), ‘strongly of opinion that we cannot, without serious and perhaps fatal injury to the alliance refuse the cooperation which General Joffre invites and expects’.41 The ‘drawbacks and dangers’ of such a course were pointed out ‘with great force’ by Winston Churchill, who continued to argue his case for weeks, but with little result. When the Dardanelles Committee reconvened on 3 September, Churchill implored the Secretary of War ‘to discourage, by every means, the idea of the prosecution of a violent offensive in France’. K stared glassily at him, before taking off his cap, smoothing down his hair and shrugging his shoulders. If he did so, he replied, he would ‘break the Anglo-French alliance’, something that he was not prepared to do. Unfortunately, he added, ‘we had to make war as we must, and not as we should like to’.42
Joffre had played his cards well, showing an agility and craftiness that belied his heavy frame. Now that he had enlisted Kitchener’s support, he returned to the French Government and presented his case for an autumn offensive. Despite the news that there had been some sort of breakthrough in relations between the British and French, there was only lukewarm enthusiasm in Paris. We are ‘going to be dragged into a new offensive, less in the hope of really helping the Russians than because we think we must justify ourselves in their eyes’, was how Poincaré responded when he heard the news.43 Nevertheless, there was little motivation to appeal against Joffre’s judgement, even though his prestige was becoming increasingly tattered. He had got rid of another general, Maurice Sarrail, commander of Third Army, on 22 July, provoking a storm of protest in the French Parliament. Sarrail was one of the most powerful political generals in France, beloved of the left and a staunch republican, who – so it was whispered at the time – might be an ideal replacement for the current Commander-in-Chief. Joffre claimed that the decision was made because of poor performance in the field, but few believed him.
Joffre was now becoming an isolated figure, walking a lonely path where some of his closest allies began to waver in their support of him. Even his senior commanders were split upon the nature of the attack and what could reasonably be expected from it. At a meeting on 11 August, Foch and Castelnau had clashed over the outlines of the new offensive, with the former preferring a more limited siege-type operation, while the latter remained wedded to the decisive ‘rupture’. When Foch said he needed ammunition for an extended series of attacks, taking place over many days, Joffre told him that ‘siege war’ was not what they wanted. Castelnau agreed: ‘The aim is to create a flank in the enemy position, and then to manoeuvre from there. The first operation, therefore, is to breach the front – or at least to push it back enough in terms of breadth and depth to give us the necessary space for manoeuvre.’ They should ‘look to create this breach by a methodical attack rather than a rushed assault’. If this was done properly, they could gain ten or twelve kilometres within one or two days.
Foch was unimpressed. In Artois, he said, the enemy had brought up three reserve divisions almost immediately, which prevented them from breaking through. Their artillery could only be effective against the first enemy line, with the second and third each requiring separate attacks. In the discussions that followed, it was perhaps inevitable that Joffre would side with Castelnau.
