The western front, p.29
The Western Front, page 29
German commanders were predictably dismayed when scattered reports of the fighting reached them through the maelstrom. Rupprecht clambered up to the top floor of a house overlooking the battlefield and stared ruefully at the ‘clouds of smoke’ that obscured the horizon. The sound of the shellfire was terrible, ‘resounding like the noise of some great waterfall, every now and then abating, then swelling violently up again’.8 In First Army, which had taken the brunt of the assault, General Below considered withdrawing his forces to a rear line, then being constructed, only for Lossberg to veto it with his familiar argument about what they had done in the past. ‘During the previous year’s battle in Champagne,’ he reminded Below, ‘I had advocated conducting an unrestricted fight to hold every inch of ground. I was convinced that was the correct course of action here too.’9 But staying and holding on was hardly ideal either, as German front-line soldiers found their morale wilting under the sustained pressure of what seemed like an increasingly unequal struggle. ‘You could not imagine it’, one veteran admitted after the attack on 15 September. ‘They surprised us in a manner never seen before. They came on unstoppably in front of us. Behind came numerous armoured automobiles armed with machineguns [sic], flamethrowers etc. In addition, the greatest part of the trench garrison was certainly killed or buried alive by the preceding bombardment. What remained wanted to surrender but was mostly killed.’10
At Fourth Army headquarters, Rawlinson was pleased by the results of the day’s fighting, even though (as he had expected) it had not been possible to exploit British gains to any significant degree. He issued orders for the resumption of the attack the following day ‘to enable the Cavalry Corps to push through to its objectives and complete the enemy’s defeat’, but rain fell that evening, softening the already spongy ground and adding to the difficulties of moving up guns and consolidating their positions.11 With more wet weather on the way, it was decided to postpone another major attempt until a joint attack could be properly coordinated with the French. Further attacks towards Morval and Lesbœufs were undertaken on 25 September; again noticeable for the concentration of firepower Rawlinson was able to throw at the German defences – over 400,000 shells – and this time alongside significant support from Fayolle’s Sixth Army.12 By the evening of 26 September, Rawlinson had cleared most of the German third line, with Reserve Army, on his left, orchestrating the capture of Thiepval – a strongpoint that had resisted repeated attacks since 1 July. Finally it seemed the British were getting ‘the knack’.
Haig was well pleased with what had been accomplished. He wrote to the King on 5 October telling him about the ‘highly satisfactory’ results of recent operations. ‘The troops see that they are slowly but surely destroying the German Armies in their front, and that their enemy is much less capable of defence than he was even a few weeks ago.’13 Prisoner examination seemed to show that something had broken in the morale of the German forces facing the British, a claim that struck Haig as significant: ‘Officers have no trench maps and are ignorant of the ground’, he noted in his diary. ‘Artillery is handicapped by the general confusion prevailing and want of good observation posts . . . [The] only arm in which Germans appear still to have confidence is [the] machine gun, but machine gunners are handicapped by lack of proper emplacements . . . The 1916 recruits are not seasoned or steady under fire.’14 Yet the disappointing debut of the tanks and the lack of any obvious strategic results increased the pressure on Haig. New attacks were mounted on 1 and 7 October, but the onset of poor weather – mist that prevented aircraft from operating, heavier rainfall, and the accompanying mud that grew slippier and deeper every day – condemned British attacks to bloody failure. With intelligence revealing a fourth and fifth defensive position being constructed behind enemy lines, it seemed that the battle was reaching its final, concluding stages.
Haig was not yet ready to admit the ‘great push’ was over. In a letter to Sir William Robertson (dated 7 October), he reiterated the good results and explained how he was keen to continue operations into October and, if necessary, through the winter.15 Accordingly, orders were issued for the renewal of the offensive, with Fourth Army launching new attacks towards the villages of Ligny-Thilloy, Beaulencourt and Le Transloy on the afternoon of 12 October. Rainfall fell most of the day, worsening the already precarious ground conditions, and sapping the morale of the battalions in the line, many of which were already under-strength and exhausted. The result was another bloody repulse. Little air cover could be provided because of the poor weather, which left German gunners free to pound British trenches. Artillery support was also too weak to batter down the defences, which inevitably meant that battalions found themselves under sustained machine-gun fire as soon as they tried to cross no-man’s-land. The following day, as he flicked through the grim casualty returns, Rawlinson’s Chief of Staff, Archibald Montgomery, penned a short but insightful note on why success had been elusive, including the ‘absence of surprise’; ‘difficulty of observation’; a lack of ‘sufficient Assembly Trenches’; distant machine-gun fire; and, more ominously, ‘the Moral[e] of the Enemy appeared to have improved, as his troops fought with greater stubbornness’.16
The attacks on the Somme may have been contained, but the effect on the German Army was stark. September was the worst month of the battle for the defenders: a terrible period of endurance that, in hindsight, would come to be seen as the tipping point, the moment that marked the great slide towards defeat. Together First and Second Armies sustained 135,000 casualties, a high percentage of which were prisoners, raising serious concerns at OHL about the Army’s morale. On 26 September – the day that Thiepval finally fell to Gough’s Reserve Army – Ludendorff wrote to Rupprecht about the difficulty they were having in providing enough reinforcements and reserves for the battle:
The relief schedule of the army group of Crown Prince Rupprecht said that it ‘provides for a regular changeover of the divisions after fourteen days’. This cannot be carried out in the long run. The army group will, therefore, have to change its relief process so that only at the fighting hotspots will the divisions be replaced every fourteen days; in all other places they will have to stay longer in the front. A fairer changeover should also be sought within First and Second Armies so that troops from quiet sections are posted to the places under threat and vice versa.17
For Rupprecht, the problem of reserves was only one of many. An honest man, lacking the supreme ambition or lust for power that characterized other senior German officers, Rupprecht had long been concerned about the deterioration in the army caused by ‘continued, prolonged and exhausting fighting’. While he recognized that German infantry were ‘inferior to that of the enemy in terms of size’, they had always been ‘far superior in terms of quality’. However, over recent months ‘this qualitative superiority has been significantly diminished due to the large losses, especially of officers and NCOs’, which was also combined with a worrying expansion in the number of enemy artillery batteries.18 He also had to deal with the growing falling out between his senior commanders. Max von Gallwitz had not taken his demotion from army group lightly and accused Rupprecht of prioritizing the defence north of the Somme, leaving him without enough forces to defend against the French. When Rupprecht and his Chief of Staff, Hermann von Kuhl, paid Second Army a visit in late September, Gallwitz did not even deign to send an officer to meet them, leaving them to make their way to his office unescorted.19
The meeting was predictably stormy. Gallwitz pointed out ‘the unequal distribution of forces in the two armies’. In First Army, each division held a frontage of 2.5 kilometres, but in Second Army it was 4.5 kilometres. While Gallwitz had a point about the comparative number of troops north and south of the river, both Rupprecht and Below understood that the British sector posed the more dangerous threat. Rupprecht found Gallwitz ‘very temperamental’; while Kuhl complained that Second Army did not send enough reports and orders to the army group, leaving them in the dark about his operations. Gallwitz shrugged off their questions and warned them about a major attack that he believed was imminent along the French sector.20 All Rupprecht could do was explain how he was issuing a directive on the construction of a rear defensive position between Arras and Laon, which would begin immediately. Until that was completed, Gallwitz simply had to hold on whatever the cost.
The strain on the German High Command was understandable. They had all been impressed by the intensity of the fighting; the huge array of resources that the French and British could now deploy, and the arrival of tanks, only hardened a belief that the Somme fighting was becoming deeply unbalanced. They had all seen the shattered remnants of battalions march back from the line: the thin files of muddied men, faces drawn with glassy eyes – a picture of total exhaustion that unnerved them. Casualties in those units sent to the front could be shockingly high. When 86 Fusilier Regiment assembled southeast of Saint-Quentin in early September, the regimental historian recorded that there was nothing left but ‘debris’. Total casualties on the Somme had been seventy-eight officers and over 3,300 men. In just two months of fighting, the regiment had lost more men than its entire regular combat strength had been at the beginning of the battle. This was not an unusual occurrence. 26th Reserve Division fought valiantly at Ovillers and Beaumont Hamel throughout July, but sustained over 10,000 casualties. Even elite divisions found the Somme a terrible ordeal. 1st Guards Division lost over 5,000 men in just two days of brutal combat in mid-August. Likewise 2nd Guards Division was heavily engaged at Pozières and Thiepval, losing half its strength.21
The losses, as bad as they were, were only part of what made the Somme such an ordeal for the German Army. Surviving in a sea of craters, under almost non-stop artillery fire, German infantry were reduced to a kind of savage desperation in their struggle for survival. Chaplains reported that attendance at religious services had dropped, while regimental officers duly noted a growth in sickness and rates of desertion, with incidents of self-inflicted wounds rising throughout the battle. ‘This is no longer war, but mutual annihilation’, complained one sergeant after weeks in the line.22 Gallwitz blamed the policy of ‘pure defence’, which had ‘an erosive and crippling effect’, and was concerned that junior officers were not impressing upon their men the importance of digging in. ‘Sweat saves blood. A leader who does not rigorously encourage his troops to dig trenches is negligent with the lives of his men.’ Even Rupprecht, not one prone to unnecessary defeatism, admitted in early October that ‘The large number of prisoners that we have lost recently is a bad sign. Generally there is so much to be depressed about!’23
As for Ludendorff’s complaints about reliefs, Rupprecht understood the dilemma he was facing, but could offer little comfort. In a reply written on 29 September, Rupprecht noted that ‘The army group strongly believes that full replacements must be provided if at any point a company fails. However, such a possibility must be anticipated because experience already shows that units deployed on the Somme for the second time do not have the same fighting power as on the first tour. The reason for this is the lack of experienced officers and a sufficiently trained team . . .’24 Kuhl described the process of managing the movement of divisions in and out of the line as like ‘living from hand to mouth’. The original aim was to have sufficient reserves available so that no division would have to be deployed at the front for longer than two weeks. However, this soon proved impossible to manage. ‘The divisions often had to be sent urgently to the Somme front without enough rest and were expended too quickly.’ Therefore, local commanders had to have ‘nerves of steel not to lose their heads and to deploy the incoming reinforcements’ prematurely. It was only through the intervention of the Supreme Command, which provided extra reinforcements, that the front was held.25
Fortunately the pace of the battle slowed during October and allowed the German Army enough time to relieve worn-out units and replace them with fresh divisions taken from across the Western Front. At Verdun, the Crown Prince was ordered to maintain a strict defensive and provide as many troops as possible (to be replaced by exhausted ones from the Somme). The defence was also bolstered by the arrival of new aircraft – particularly the fast and sturdy Albatros D.II – that were formed into ‘pursuit squadrons’ (Jagdstaffeln) and made an immediate impact upon the air war. Very quickly it became apparent that the British and French would no longer have free rein over the German lines. The Albatros outclassed their fighters and proved lethal against the slower-moving reconnaissance aircraft that were crucial to the counter-battery effort. German infantry, who had long complained about the dominance of British and French aeroplanes over their trenches, now looked up to see silhouettes of ‘silver-grey, short, stubby’ aircraft ‘in a compact battle array’, chasing off their enemies or swooping down upon them, their twin forward-firing machine-guns chattering away. The obvious superiority of German fighters produced an immediate surge in morale.26
The changing balance of power in the air was revealed on 17 September, a warm Sunday with fine, clear skies, when Jagdstaffel 2, the first squadron to be equipped with the Albatros, was out in force. In a series of chaotic dogfights over Cambrai, the German squadron scored six victories, including an F.E.2, which was shot down by one of its newest pilots, Manfred von Richthofen, who had joined the squadron the previous month. It was only the beginning of a remarkable rise as Jagdstaffel 2 rapidly chalked up victories in the closing months of 1916. By the end of October, it had fifty kills to its credit – striking fear into the British and French and sparking an urgent search for answers.27 On 29 September, Major-General Hugh Trenchard, commander of the RFC, wrote to Haig requesting an urgent increase in the ‘numbers and efficiency of the fighting aeroplanes’ at his disposal. ‘Throughout the last three months the Royal Flying Corps in France has maintained such a measure of superiority over the enemy in the air that it has been enabled to render services of incalculable value. The result is that the enemy has made extraordinary efforts to increase the number, and develop the speed and power, of his fighting machines.’ With the arrival of the Albatros, Trenchard warned that they were now in serious danger of losing their ‘present predominance in the air’.28
*
At GQG, Joffre could only look upon the gradual petering out of the offensive with a feeling of sadness. His frustrations with Haig occasionally bubbled over into a cross word, or an unkind aside that the British were hanging back, but never into a real break in relations. Haig liked ‘old Joffre’, but (privately at least) never placed much stock in his ideas, preferring instead to stand his ground whenever the French demanded too much. On 18 October, Joffre asked Haig again to consider a return to wide-front operations, only to spark a spiky response from the British Commander-in-Chief, who reminded Joffre that he, and only he, would judge when attacks should be mounted.29 Vallières immediately sensed the tension when he saw Haig several days later. ‘It’s the first time that Sir Douglas Haig receives me coldly, stating that he needs lessons from no-one, that he knows as much about the art of war as General Joffre, and that he does not accept the terms of his note.’ Vallières managed to arrange a ‘reconciliation’ lunch between the two men, but was horrified by Joffre’s ‘abdication’ of responsibility after he told Haig to disregard any future letters from Chantilly. ‘He makes quite a poor picture’, wrote Vallières; ‘very tired, having put on an extraordinary amount of weight, taking little painful steps as though walking on eggs . . .’30
With the British not proving as pliable an ally as the French would have liked, Joffre had little choice but to relent. He was now increasingly besieged, with deputies in the French Parliament becoming more restive over the conduct of the war. The War Minister, Roques, had already informed him in August that parliamentarians would be free to inspect ‘all the army services’ and allow the Government to be kept ‘constantly informed’, which provoked another threat of resignation.31 Joffre now felt himself to be surrounded by enemies, and even his chief lieutenants – men who had been with him since the opening days of the war – were not above suspicion: Foch, condemned to fight a battle he never believed in; Pétain, unsympathetic to Joffre’s calls to attack; and Castelnau, ever genial, but a constant rival at GQG. Instead, Joffre looked to Nivelle, the pleasant and easy-going commander of Second Army. On 13 September – two days before Haig would launch the tanks at Flers – Joffre visited Verdun to attend a ceremony in the citadel and, taking Nivelle aside, told him that he must retake Fort Douaumont. If the British would not make the decisive push on the Somme, then maybe it would have to be done at Verdun. ‘Don’t count on the English,’ he had told members of the Superior Council of National Defence several days earlier, ‘just count on ourselves, count only on ourselves.’32
