Military Operations, France and Belgium 1916, vol. 1

2–12 May 1915

Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA TO

Page 24. Add to Note 11 : ‘‘Falkenhayn’s plans for 1915 are given in full in the German official account, Volume VII. (published 1931). He did intend to attack on the Western Front in the spring of 1915, but circumstances prevented him from doing so. The first reserve of 6 corps (4J new organizations) which he collected for the purpose was taken from him by the Kaiser’s order, under Hindenburg’s influence, to reinforce the Eastern Front as the Tenth Army, and fight in the Winter Battle in Masuria. The second reserve, 14 divisions, which he organized by April, by reducing the number of battalions in a division from 12 to 9 and various other economies, eked out by new units, was to be assembled in France. The crisis in Turkey brought about by the landing of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on Gallipoli compelled him, however, to decide that before he could attack again in the West a way through Serbia to Constantinople must first be forced. Even this had to be postponed ; for Austria, in fear of declaration of war by Italy, declared that she would make her peace with Russia, even at the cost of surrendering Galicia. In con- sequence, Falkenhayn’s striking force, as the Eleventh Army, was sent to the Austrian front and made the successful break- through at Gorlice-Tarnow.

CHAPTER XI

Note : The German Break-Through at Gorlice-Tarnow, May 1915 .......

TO WHICH MOST FREQUENT REFERENCE IS MADE

An official monograph on the Gorlice-Tarnow campaign.

PLANS FOR THE SOMME

It must be admitted that the problems of semi-siege warfare and the large concentration of guns necessary for the attack of great field defences had never been studied in peace time by the General Staff. Under the influence of General H. H. Wilson it had been content to follow French ideas as to the nature of the next war, and ignored and almost resented being told of the information obtained by its Intelligence branch as to the preparations being made and methods practised at manoeuvres by the Germans. Now G.H.Q. was unwillingly but unavoidably tied to French theories. The experience gained in the war as a result of French and British attacks, and of the methods used to meet German attacks, had been chiefly negative. So far the only successful break-through had been the Austro-German victory at Gorlice-Tarnow, accomplished against a thinly held sector of a very long line, which was diffi- cult to reinforce and manned by troops of low intelligence, ill supplied even with essential munitions. The attacks of

22–25 November 1915

Battle of Ctesiphon (1915)

PLANS FOR 1916

abandon an enormous tract of country. Poland was lost to them and their front line now ran, north and south, 180 miles east of Warsaw. Italy, with 50 divisions against 35 Austro-Hungarian, had fought the first four battles of the Isonzo, but had been unable, owing to the mountainous nature of the country, to do more than gain a little ground. At the end of 1915 she had not yet declared war against Germany. Bulgaria had joined the Central Powers, and with her assistance Serbia and Montenegro had been overrun : the Serbian army, cut off from retreat south- wards, had at the end of November been forced to a disastrous retirement south-westward across the Albanian Alps to the coast of the Adriatic near Scutari and Durazzo. The Franco-British expedition sent to assist the Serbians had arrived too late, and was reduced to holding on at Salonika, in Greek territory, with the attitude of Greece, still nominally a neutral, uncertain. The Gallipoli expedi- tion had failed, and the evacuation of Suvla and Anzac was proceeding on the day on which Sir Douglas Haig took over command in France. In Egypt the Suez Canal was passively defended by holding its banks ; an attack on it had been repulsed, but the Turks still remained in a threatening position in the Sinai peninsula.^ On the western frontier of Egypt the Mahdi-el-Senussi had in November become actively hostile, so that it had been found necessary to send a force against him. In Mesopotamia the battle of Ctesiphon had been fought on the 23rd November ; General Townshend’s advance on Baghdad had failed, and his column had been obliged to fall back on Kut, where it was besieged. In East Africa an expeditionary force sent from India to Tanga had been defeated and driven back to its ships ; the enemy had then taken the offensive and made raids into British East Africa, Nyassaland, Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo. A substantial local success had, however, been gained in German South-West Africa, that colony being surrendered to General Botha in July 1915.

4 June – 20 September 1916

Brusilov Offensive

CHAPTER III

IV. The Brusilov Offensive . . . . 55

BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE

BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE

NOTE III

The Austrian offensive was made by two Armies, under Generals May. Dankl and Kovess, numbering some 194 battalions, with 276 heavy guns, on a front of forty miles, south-east of Trent, and penetrated to an average depth of eight miles, extending beyond Asiago. The Italian forces, part of the First Army under General Brusati, at the beginning of the battle, numbered 118 battalions, organized in three divisions and the Alpine Group E, with 226 heavy guns. The offensive practically came to an end between the 24th and the 27th May. The Brusilov offensive of the 4th June in Galicia then caused the Austrians to withdraw part of their forces, and take up a defensive position. On the 16th June the Italians counter-attacked, and recovered a zone, about three miles in depth, of the ground lost.

NOTE IV

The Brusilov Offensive®

1 July – 18 November 1916

Battle of the Somme

PREFACE

1 The “ Official Nomenclature ” for the operations on the Somme 1st July to 18th November 1916 is The Battles of the Somme 1916 ”, divided into twelve battles : Albert, Bazentin Ridge, Delville Wood, Poziferes Ridge, Guillemont, Ginchy, Flers-Courcelette, -Morval, Thiepval Ridge, the Transloy Ridges, the Ancre Heights, and the Ancre 1916. The operations are, however, invariably spoken of as “ the Battle of the Somme ”, or simply “ The Somme ”, and, for shortness, the latter name is used throughout this volume.

PREFACE

The history of the plan for the Somme offensive makes it clear that the three commanders principally concerned had different conceptions for its conduct. General Joffre desired an attrition battle (to be fought mainly by the British) to exhaust the enemy’s reserves. As it turned out, he was compelled to ask for a battle to relieve Verdun. The Somme achieved both these objects. In proof that the second of them was gained, there is Marechal Petain’s generous testimony in 1930, that by the Somme Verdun “ etait degage et sauve That this was the case is fully corroborated by the German records quoted in this volume : on the day that the Somme bombardment began General von Falkenhayn ordered drastic economy of men, material and ammunition before Verdun; and from the day of the infantry assault on the 1st July onwards began shifting 1 See page 121. 2 Verdun ”, p. 119.

PREFACE

that there would have been complete victory everywhere on the 1st July had the infantry been ordered to cross No Man’s Land at the fastest speed possible, instead of at “ a steady pace”, although there was no creeping barrage to help them in this first stage. An officer, who rose from the rank of captain to that of major-general during the war on the Western Front, has said that the Battle of the Somme was lost by three minutes. In any case, it was a hard lesson, the apprenticeship to war on a large scale for the British Army, as General Mangin put it ; but the staff and troops took the experience to heart and the difference between the handling of the divisions and units on the 1st and, ssiy, the 14th July was most remarkable. The principle of mutual assistance, for instance, which was entirely neglected on the earlier date, was practised with valuable results on the latter.

PREFACE

^ As it is proposed to publish next a volume on 1918, the first draft of which has already been circulated to “ all concerned ”, it may be some time before the final volume on 1916, completing the Battle of the Somme, is issued. It has therefore been considered desirable to make a few general remarks on the battle in this volume, and print two notes at the end of it on German views of the fighting, and on the comparative casualties, which otherwise would be more appropriate at the close of the narrative of the battle.