The western front, p.33
The Western Front, page 33
14.‘An entirely new situation’
Both sides entered 1917 with a sense of steely determination, having fixed upon strategies that they believed gave them a fighting chance of striking the decisive blow over the coming months. For the moment, however, the front was frozen solid. The winter of 1916–17 was the coldest of the war; a bitter spell of weather that brought polar conditions to the front, with trenches encased in thick, lying snow, whipped up into curls by fierce prevailing winds. GQG had now moved to Beauvais, forty miles north of Paris; a change demanded by French deputies who were eager to bury the memories of Chantilly and make a new start. The Agricultural Institute was chosen as its new home, a ‘rambling and venerable old barrack’ with no central heating which lay at the end of a series of twisting alleyways.1 Nivelle would have preferred to remain in Chantilly – as would have most of his staff – but the decision had been taken, and long columns of trucks, buzzing with despatch riders, made the journey north, transporting the hundreds of tons of furniture, signalling equipment and paperwork that were required for a modern military headquarters and which, it was hoped, would mark a new start for France.
As well as organizing his new base of operations, Nivelle found himself trying to pin down the details of the forthcoming offensive. His ‘guiding idea’ – which he explained in a plan of operations issued in late January – was to destroy the German armies on the Western Front; an act that would take place in three main phases. Firstly, the British would attack towards Cambrai, some time around 15 March, followed four or five days later by Franchet d’Espèrey’s Northern Army Group attacking in the direction of Saint-Quentin. Then, after another short pause, the main group of French armies would push north from the Aisne and bring about the crisis of the battle.2 These plans bore a striking similarity to the offensives of 1915, when Joffre had launched preliminary attacks in the north before trying to break through in the centre (albeit in Champagne, not the Aisne), but Nivelle hoped that they would enjoy more success this time. The French Army of 1917 was undoubtedly a more powerful instrument than it had been two years earlier. It had a much heavier array of artillery, with an almost unlimited supply of shells to throw at the German lines. Nivelle would also be able to deploy 130 tanks that had been under top-secret development for months.3 But his army was facing a stronger and deeper series of defences than had been attacked in 1915, and an opponent that was learning quickly. Nivelle believed that it would be possible to replicate the October and December attacks at Verdun on a much grander scale, employing not just a handful of divisions, but whole armies to create the conditions for a mass breakout. Such a dazzling plan of action, breathtaking in its ambition, should have raised serious concerns in Paris, but there was only a curious willingness to let Nivelle get on with it; to see what he could do. France had tried everything else; now she would place her trust in an officer who had been a mere colonel of artillery in 1914.
For all his affable confidence, Nivelle found his astonishing rise hard to comprehend. When he first heard rumours that the Government had ‘mentioned his name’ in connection with becoming Commander-in-Chief (as early as July 1916), he had written to his wife expressing his dismay. ‘That would be sheer madness on the part of high command and I would never agree to replace General J[offre], who gives me increasing accolades, grants me more power, and has every confidence in me.’4 Throughout the winter he remained his usual breezy self, reassuring his staff that everything was in order and that his methods were sound, even if those closest to him detected a growing unease. When Edward Spears, a British liaison officer with Tenth Army, interviewed Nivelle after his trip to London, he noted the weariness with which the French general approached the coming operation. He believed that British plans to attack in Flanders were unsound and that they could not have a decisive result. ‘To drive the Germans a little way off is no good’, he said. ‘You must destroy them, smash their strength.’ Moreover, if they were going to do it, then it must be now, for ‘the French could not last another twelve months’.5
Nivelle’s mood was not helped when Haig started to drag his heels. By late January, Haig had informed GQG about the difficulties he was having in moving enough supplies from the Channel ports along the congested French railway network and how this might require him to revisit their plan of operations. Nivelle bristled at Haig’s letter and (in a reply several days later) stated that he did not see why anything should change because ‘the preparations for such a large offensive . . . are made gradually, in order to be carried out before they are fully completed, if the general situation so required’.6 Nivelle was also growing concerned that the British were using difficulties on the railways to either limit the scope of their preliminary attack or delay it until late spring. Vallières, who remained as liaison officer at GHQ, warned Nivelle that he had ‘reservations’ about British commitment and suspected that the ‘current transport crisis’ was just ‘an excuse for delay about which the British General Staff are pretending to be concerned’.7
The disagreements rumbled on for the next few weeks and it was not until 26 February that a conference was held to try to end the impasse, with the British delegation – led by Lloyd George, Haig and Robertson – meeting Briand, Nivelle and Lyautey at the somewhat dreary Station Hotel in Calais. After discussing British supply needs, the French delegation agreed to increase the amount of rolling stock available to Haig towards the end of March, by which time further upgrades to the railway network would have been completed. Haig believed that once the transport situation had been resolved, he would need three weeks, only for Nivelle to say that this must be reduced to no more than fifteen days. It was at this point that David Lloyd George sprang his trap. He dismissed the group of British and French supply experts with a wave of his hand, saying that it was up to them, ‘the specialists’, to study the question in detail. The most important thing, from the Allied perspective, was unity of command. ‘The enemy has only one army’, he said. ‘The Allies must ensure that they have the same advantage, particularly in battle; without this complete success cannot be guaranteed.’ Everyone, he added, must speak ‘openly and frankly’ about the ‘joint effort’. He urged Nivelle to explain his plans again, which he did, and when suitably prompted the French general asked for ‘a precise and formal agreement’ to settle the relationship between the two Armies and the two commanders. Lloyd George quickly agreed to this, asking Nivelle to elaborate on his ideas for unity of command and a document, apparently drafted beforehand, was soon being circulated among the delegates. From 1 March, the French General-in-Chief (Nivelle) would have ‘authority’ over the British forces in France and Belgium ‘in all concerns’, including the planning and execution of operations. A senior British staff officer would reside at GQG and remain under French orders.8
The idea of putting Haig under French command had emerged a week earlier during a conversation between Lloyd George and Bertier de Sauvigny, the French Military Attaché in London. The British Prime Minister explained that he had complete faith in Nivelle, but that he needed to be able to call upon all the forces on the Western Front. Now Sir Douglas Haig, newly promoted to Field Marshal, could not be openly subordinated to a foreign general, but Lloyd George would, if it was deemed necessary, secretly order Haig to obey Nivelle.9 At a meeting of the War Cabinet on 24 February (at which Robertson had been told that he need not attend), a strong argument was made in favour of Nivelle. The French had ‘practically twice the number of troops in the field that we had’; they were ‘fighting on French soil’; French commanders were ‘without question . . . superior’; and Nivelle ‘made a much greater impression’ upon the War Cabinet than Haig. Therefore, in the words of Lord Curzon, he was ‘the right man to have supreme command’. Lloyd George was thus authorized ‘to ensure unity of command both in the preparatory stages of and during the operations’ that Nivelle had planned.10
The conference had now broken up for dinner and Sir William Robertson, who had said little, returned to his room. When he was handed a copy of the document, his face darkened with suppressed anger and disbelief. He could, under no circumstances, agree to these proposals and went to see Haig, who was equally perturbed, muttering that his men ‘wouldn’t stand being under a Frenchman’. The matter was not resolved until the following morning, when Hankey, who had attended the conference in an administrative capacity, saw Robertson. ‘He was in a terrible state’, he remembered, ‘and ramped up and down the room, talking about the horrible idea of putting the “wonderful army” under a Frenchman, swearing he would never serve under one . . .’ He told Hankey that it was the only time in the war that he had not slept through the night and he was now considering handing in his resignation. It would not, however, come to that. Lloyd George quickly grasped how outraged his commanders were and began to backtrack. Hankey was tasked with coming up with what he called ‘his formula’, whereby Haig would be placed under Nivelle’s orders for the forthcoming offensive only and also allowed to report back to London if he felt French demands would ‘endanger the safety of his army’.11
The amended agreement was eventually signed on 27 February (with Haig adding a marginal note in his copy: ‘Signed by me as a correct statement, but not as approving the arrangement’). What Lloyd George had exactly won at Calais was unclear. He had lost the trust of his two most senior commanders and only gained a temporary arrangement that was far from his cherished unity of command. He also set off vicious rumours that he had placed the army under French control as a first step towards the introduction of a republic in Britain.12 As for Haig and Robertson, they both left Calais under a cloud, furious about the actions of the Prime Minister and smarting from their perceived humiliation. On 2 March, Robertson dashed off a note warning the War Cabinet that Calais ‘might prove to be the thin end of the wedge which the French have for long desired to obtain for bringing the British Armies in France under definite French control’. Officers and men ‘could not be expected to fight nearly as well’ under a French general; there might be objections from the Dominions; and, moreover, ‘that entirely to entrust the fortunes of this great battle to a foreign Commander, who as yet has had no opportunity of proving his fitness for the position, was a serious step viewed from the standpoint of the Empire’.13
As the Entente struggled to coordinate its forces for the spring offensive, the international situation suddenly began to shift, propelled by twin crises that had been brewing for months. In Russia, the strains of war were becoming unendurable. On 22 February, a sudden improvement in the weather brought huge crowds out on to the streets of Petrograd, with thousands of people joining large demonstrations over working conditions, as well as familiar complaints about the poor quality of bread. Over the next few days the situation grew darker, with strikes spreading across the city and provoking a violent response from the authorities. The garrison was called out, agitators were arrested, and about forty people were killed when crowds were fired upon. But far from putting down the disturbances, the shootings only provoked further anger and sparked off a mutiny in the Petrograd garrison, which refused to follow orders. Within days, the Tsar’s authority in the city had collapsed and a hastily drafted abdication manifesto had been signed, which handed the throne to Nicholas II’s brother, the Grand Duke Michael. Although it was hoped that this would head off any further disturbances in this ‘grave hour of national trial’, the abdication of the Tsar was a mortal blow to Russia’s war effort and intensely disorientating to her armies still in the field.14
As Russia was beginning to falter, America was taking the necessary steps to shed her neutrality and enter the Great War. Walter Hines Page, the US Ambassador in London, regularly cabled Washington with news of the latest sinkings around the United Kingdom, but on 24 February the 61-year-old native of North Carolina was given information of an entirely greater magnitude. That day, Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, handed Page a cipher telegram that had been intercepted by British Naval Intelligence between Dr Arthur Zimmermann, Germany’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and her minister in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt: ‘We intend to begin on the 1st of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavour in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.’15 When President Wilson was informed of the ‘Zimmermann Telegram’, he reluctantly began to move in the direction of war. Within days he had proposed a state of ‘armed neutrality’, whereby US vessels could do whatever was necessary to protect ‘our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas’.16
The United States was not yet at war, but the feeling that America was girding herself for a looming conflict was becoming inescapable. The Armed Ship Bill was defeated in the Senate (when a small group of senators filibustered for two days), but the publication of the German note in the press on 1 March caused a sensation and emboldened those who wanted to meet the challenge of Germany head on. Even Wilson, who had campaigned as the man who ‘kept us out of the war’, recognized that Germany’s constant provocations could not go unanswered. After he was inaugurated for his second term on 5 March, he directly addressed the coming storm. Wearing a top hat, with a thick black coat around his shoulders to ward off a chilly wind, a sheath of notes in his hand, Wilson delivered his address with deep solemnity and sadness. ‘We have been deeply wronged upon the seas, but we have not wished to wrong or injure in return; have retained throughout the consciousness of standing in some sort apart, intent upon an interest that transcended the immediate issues of the war itself. As some of the injuries done us have become intolerable we have still been clear that we wished nothing for ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all mankind – fair dealing, justice, the freedom to live and be at ease against organized wrong.’ The ‘tragic events’ of the last thirty months of war had, he believed, ‘made us citizens of the world’.17
For the time being, overseas developments had little impact on the German High Command, which was preoccupied with its impending transfer to Bad Kreuznach in the Rhineland. Given what Ludendorff had called the ‘supreme importance’ of the Western Front, OHL had moved to the agreeable spa town to be closer to its armies in France over the coming months. A third army group was also created, commanded by Crown Prince Wilhelm (with three armies), while Duke Albrecht of Württemberg took over the southern sector of the Western Front from Metz down to the Swiss border. An Allied attack was still awaited keenly, and with 154 divisions in the west, ranged against 190 British, French and Belgian ones, the Germans were faced with a sizeable numerical disadvantage, which only added greater urgency to the need to re-equip their men with more guns and ammunition.18 A Supreme War Ministry had been created in November 1916, headed by Wilhelm Groener and tasked with driving forward war production, but it struggled to meet the ambitious targets set by OHL. Bureaucratic infighting, trade union resistance and political disagreements all conspired to water down Hindenburg’s demands for the radical remobilization of Germany’s war effort, leaving the generals fuming that they were being denied the tools of victory by politicians who did not realize ‘that the war meant life or death to Germany’.19
In a letter to Freiherr von Lyncker, Chief of the Kaiser’s Military Cabinet, Hindenburg bemoaned the failures of the production programme. ‘The weapons industry was and is inadequate. In September 1916, for example, field gun production was at the same level as in February, and that is simply inadequate.’ German forces were now being ‘paralysed’ because munitions production was ‘way below promised figures’. Hindenburg admitted that they now had greater stocks of shells than at the beginning of the Somme offensive, but this had been achieved not through increased production, but ‘solely through the greatest economy on the part of the armies, to whom I had to give very precise instructions . . . We will “survive”, I have never doubted that. But it must happen with the minimum loss of human lives, and to achieve this goal I am still firmly in favour of a continuously expanding armaments programme and a healthy nutrition and workers policy, which, alone, will enable this programme to be realized.’20
Out at the front, the mood of the German Army dipped as the ‘turnip winter’ dragged on and food supplies, meagre at best, became increasingly scarce. ‘The turnips we receive almost every day are usually frozen’, remembered one soldier. Their meals consisted of small amounts of meat – no bread could be found – with lard or some kind of fat substitute, and supplies in their local canteens were scant: ‘there is absolutely nothing edible to buy’.21 Indeed, things were so bad that Hindenburg issued a decree in March warning that savings needed to be found because the army consumed 70 per cent of Germany’s total food. ‘Nothing superfluous must be consumed and not even the smallest amount must be allowed to perish. I urge all commanding officers to explain to their subordinates the seriousness of the domestic economic situation and the significance of the economic battle between our enemies and ourselves, which is becoming more difficult every day, and to repeat these instructions from time to time. We can hold out – but only if everyone makes the utmost savings’, until such time as their enemies succumbed to the submarine war.22
For the time being, then, the only relief for Germany’s armies would come from the retreat to the Siegfried Line. Ever since Rupprecht had been authorized to begin planning the withdrawal in early February, demolition teams had been hard at work turning the ground in front of the new defences into a wasteland, stripped of anything that might be of value to the enemy. The devastated zone was a pitiful sight: between six and eight miles deep and grim testimony to the fiendish and spiteful ingenuity that was brought to bear on some of the most fertile agricultural land in France. Trees were felled. Bridges were blown up. Telegraph wires were cut. Railway tracks and roads were torn up or booby-trapped. Water supplies were poisoned. Arsenic was leaked into the River Somme at Barleux, while wells were routinely blocked up with piles of stinking manure and the carcasses of slaughtered livestock. Banks were looted. Shops were burnt to the ground. Civilians were deported and those who could not work – ‘useless mouths’ – were left to greet their liberators, starving and bewildered by the destruction around them. ‘They came in singing in 1914’, said one woman in the town of Nesle, ‘but they left in silence.’23
