Week after week in this war, something new happens that the world has never seen before,
and this week is no exception.
This week sees the first tank on tank battle in history.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week, the German Offensive in Flanders continued, but looked like it was stalling,
the Ottomans advanced in Eastern Anatolia, and the British and the Arab Revolt took a
big section of the Hejaz Railway in Palestine.
Here’s what followed.
Actually, something we haven’t seen very often- an amphibious operation- followed.
The British Admiralty report read (Chronology), “a naval raid was made on Ostend and Zeebrugge...
with exception of covering ships the force employed consisted of auxiliary vessels and
six obsolete cruisers.
Five of these, filled with concrete, were used as blockships... and, in accordance with
orders, were blown up and abandoned by their crews”
This was a Royal Navy plan to prevent the Germans from using the Canal there as a submarine
base for attacks in the North Sea.
See, 10km inland from Zeebrugge were concrete submarine shelters impervious to allied air
attack.
That base at Bruges also had workshops, storage, floating docks, everything to maintain, repair,
and arm the German submarine fleet.
An average day saw 18 subs and over 20 destroyers there, since the canal was big enough for
even a light cruiser to pass.
Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes planned the operation to sink ships and block the canal.
The Mole guarding Zeebrugge harbor was stormed and a lot of its facilities destroyed, the
railway viaduct there was too, but the ships in the canal were not sunk in the proper place
and within two days German subs could use the canal at high tide.
British casualties were 583, Germans 24.
A simultaneous attack on the canal entrance at Ostend, which also led to Bruges, failed
to block the entrance.
The Royal Navy was determined to try this new tactic again in a few weeks.
And speaking of casualties, the publication this week of “Das Neue Europa” estimates
German war losses - killed, wounded, or missing - up to last August 1st at 5 million.
They had, however, one extremely notable loss this week.
On the 20th, Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, shoots down his 80th plane Northeast
of Villers-Bretonneux behind German lines.
On the 21st the Red Baron himself dies, shot down above the Somme by either Canadian airman
Roy Brown or Australian infantry that fired at him from the ground.
Richthofen managed to land the plane but when the nearby Australian troops reached it, he
was dead.
When you think about it, the Red Baron is probably the most well known symbol of this
war, and the most recognizable name.
Kids who don’t know who the Kaiser or the Tsar were or any of the generals, still know
the Red Baron, so this was a major, major loss for Germany in terms of morale.
And even in the field, they were having morale issues.
So far, German Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff had no real concrete achievements
to show for either Operations Michael or Georgette, the enormous offensives of the past month.
The Germans were just short of Amiens, just short of Hazebrouck, and close to the pair
of Mount Kemmel and Mont des Cats that dominated the Ypres region.
Taking any one of those things would have been a real trophy, but Ludendorff didn’t
try to take one, he tried to do everything at once.
On the 24th the Germans advancing toward Amiens took Villers-Bretonneux, and this attack featured
the first ever tank on tank battle.
Georg von der Marwitz’s Second Army attacked, and the attack included 13 German A7V tanks.
The A7V “Nixie” met three British Mark IVs.
Two of them were the female version that was only armed with machine guns that could not
penetrate the A7V’s armor, and they were both forced to pull back when damaged, but
the male, with its six pounder gun, disabled Nixie and its crew had to abandon it.
The Mark IV then met two more A7V’s that retreated.
There were also seven of the new British medium Whippet tanks that came into action, running
down or machine gunning the enemy.
Three of the Whippets and the male Mark IV were also disabled or destroyed that day.
The next day, the British and Australian troops recaptured Villers-Bretonneux
The purpose of this operation was to make it possible to move up more forces for a renewed
attempt to take Amiens.
This operation cost the Germans 8,000 casualties for no gain.
The forward edge of the Michael salient was again static.
The Mount Kemmel attacks began well the 25th, and the Germans reached the top by 0810.
The defenders had been swept away, and Mont des Cats was right ahead and wide open.
Thing is, by now Ludendorff was wary of big unexpected success that took his men too far
into worthless terrain, as we saw in Operation Michael, so he ordered the attack to stop
when it took Kemmel and then await instructions.
So all day long the Germans waited there and failed to exploit one of their best opportunities
of the year.
The British finally arrived and began filling the gap late in the day.
When the Germans renewed the attack the next day, they were stopped.
German General von Kuhl said that if the Germans had taken Mont des Cats, the British would
have had to abandon not only Ypres, but also their positions on the Yser nearby.
The Germans planned to resume the attack the 29th.
There was one army that was just joining the attacks, the Americans.
On April 20th they were in action on the St. Mihiel salient.
(Gilbert) Two companies, 655 men, were attacked by 2,800 Germans including many shock troops.
The outnumbered Americans fell back, 2/3 either killed, wounded, or missing.
American Commander John Pershing - in spite of the terrible odds - was angry at what he
thought was terrible American generalship, and he was only prevented from removing some
senior officers by them being awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French as a boost for
American morale.
But Anti-American feeling was really high in both British and French high commands and
governments.
Lloyd-George wrote, “This kind of result is bound to occur on an enormous scale if
a largely amateur United States Army is built up without the guidance of more experienced
General officers.”
Thing is, as we’ve seen, when the US joined the war a year ago, its army was under 100,000
men, and of course training and equipping and sending over hundreds of thousands of
men in a matter of months was not going to magically provide an army of the quality of
experienced French and British troops that had been fighting at the front for nearly
four years.
American divisions were twice the size of the other Allies, the main reason being that
they didn’t have enough officers for standard division size.
Winston Churchill though (Gilbert), whose mother was American born, said that the real
problem at the front at the moment was German superiority.
And the Germans were influencing people who were not even really part of this war.
On the 20th the details of intentions of the Finnish White Party are published in Stockholm.
1) to defeat the Reds 2) to establish a monarchy on the German pattern
3) to control the Murman railway and have an ice free port in the north
4) to make Finland part of a confederacy stretching from the north cape to Baghdad.
And on the 21st the United Diets of the Baltic provinces request that Germany form them into
a monarchy under the King of Prussia.
That would be giving up independence, but down in the Caucasus this week the Tiflis
Diet proclaimed the independence of the Transcaucasian Federative Republic.
The head of the government, the Georgian Menshevik Gegechkori, yielded his place to another Georgian
Menshevik, Akaki Chenkeli, who was in Trabzon as leader of the peace negotiations with the
Ottomans.
In the field, the two sides were fighting near Kars, and there was a muddle when one
side learned of an armistice a day before the other.
Since the conditions included the Armenians retreating from the region, the Ottomans entered
Kars the 25th.
It was a few months over 40 years since the storming of Kars under Armenian Loris Melikov.
And that was the week, the death of one of Germany’s greatest, if not the greatest,
legends.
Transcaucasian independence, Americans in battle in France, a naval raid in Belgium,
Germans blowing a big opportunity, and tanks fighting tanks for the first time in history.
The attack on Villers-Bretonneux was one of the first big operations where the Germans
utilised their A7V tanks.
Which means that the British infantry soldiers also had to experience fighting one of these
for the first time.
The following is from tank commander Ernst Volckheim who was attacking that day with
his tank “Alter Fritz”:
“The enemy is only 400m in front of us, which makes it easy to observe him... at 4:30
we climb into out Kampfwagen, which gently roll forwards as if they knew what was expected
of them... at 6:30 we - three Kampfwagen as one group - are commencing our attack... at
6:58 we are crossing the first line... all hatches and flaps are closed, weapons are
readied.
Dense fog surrounds us... multiple smaller artillery guns are targeted and silenced...
There is no noticeable enemy fire so far - it’s eerie when our heavy colossus is rolling over
machine guns and men alike.
You better don’t look.
But you can see the enemy so close by; only the protecting armor is between us and him...
You can close in on the enemy and he can’t hit you with the rifle butt or even shoot
at you...
It’s only 7:12 when we see the houses of Villers-Bretonneux through the fog right in
front of us.
We are surrounded by intense artillery fire.
You can feel the impact through the air when they are close by.
Later on we find out that this was our own barrage...
(An enemy) steps outside the houses and sees our vehicle, a German Kampfwagen for the very
first time, and runs back into the village panic-stricken.
Some lay down forever because our forward machine guns and the main canon’s canister
shot are doing their work...
We arrive where the infantry is being attacked from a fortified brickyard.
Rapid fire is hitting us...
It’s coming down like a hail storm because there must be almost 20 machine guns firing
which we return fire on.”
They took the brickyard and around 150 prisoners and advanced together with the infantry.
The men were cheering, “Hooray, tanks!”
Hooray, tanks.
If you want to learn more about the German A7V tank, we filmed an episode about it at
the German Tank Museum and you can find out more about that right here.
Our Patreon supporter of the week is William Novotny.
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the one about the German WW1 tanks.
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