What do you do if you’re a neutral nation surrounded by war and some of the “friendly”
warring nations want to transport troops through your capital city?
Well, if you’re Greece, you fight back.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef died and his grand nephew Karl ascended to
the throne.
There were also political appointments in Russia and Germany.
Central Powers forces took Craiova, capital of Western Wallachia, much to Romanian dismay,
while other Central Powers forces were crossing the Danube to the south.
Even further south in the Balkans the Allies took Monastir, but were not strong enough
to advance much further, and the hu ge news from the Western Front was the end of the
Battle of the Somme.
I’d like to begin this week with some reflections about that enormous battle.
At the Somme, the British had had both air and artillery superiority.
Their aircraft were, for the most part, free to direct artillery fire and take photos of
defenses, but these advantages were often negated.
One huge factor was the weather.
Even at the height of summer, there was so much cloud and rain that often for days on
end planes could not be deployed.
Artillery accuracy was also not quite advanced enough that spotting could be used effectively.
Adjusting the range of the heavy guns took a long time, which reduced the number of shells
that could be fired.
Still, British Commander Sir Douglas Haig’s guns fired 19 million shells during the battle,
which is just under 150,000 shells per day, but since it was the British who were on the
attack, the gunners were required to take out small targets - trenches or machine gun
posts - that are difficult to hit.
The Germans had the relative luxury of firing into the general areas where British and French
were forming for attacks or moving into no-mans land.
So the British superiority in artillery often didn’t translate to success in the field.
The British also often got themselves into positions where the Germans could do maximum
damage with fewer weapons.
The right angle around Delville Wood in July and August, the northern flank on July 1st;
there are many other examples of the British exposing themselves to intense enemy artillery.
Much has been written about the supposed inferiority of the British infantry.
However, Robin Pryor and Trevor Wilson write in “The Somme”, “... the British infantry
when they were adequately supported by firepower - the factor that was the determinant of victory
on the western front - could perform as well as their enemy...
Whatever failings the Somme demonstrated in the British army, it is hard to argue that
the performance of the combat infantry was one of them.”
If you want to know what those two thought of the High Command at the Somme, they thought
pretty little of Hugh Gough, that his dithering was disastrous for his troops, and that “his
performance at the Somme should have seen him sink into a well-deserved obscurity.”
They find Sir Henry Rawlinson more of an enigma.
He had been one of the originators of “bite and hold” tactics in 1915 and a couple times
at the Somme tried to go back to that style of attack.
His plans were far more realistic than Haig’s, but whenever he was challenged he ended up
attempting the grandiose designs of Haig’s mind, usually with disastrous results.
But most of all, they think that Rawlinson didn’t have any fixity of purpose - that
he would see a course of action that he thought very sensible and well thought out, and then
proceed in a completely different direction.
Of course it was Haig who had control.
Haig who set the battle’s parameters July 1st, Haig who directed where resources went,
when and where attacks would happen, and what the objectives were.
Haig claimed he achieved three things at the Somme; he relieved the pressure on the French
at Verdun, he pinned the German army to the Western Front, which relieved pressure on
the Russians, and he began the process whereby the German army would be worn out by one continuous
battle over the next couple of years.
Do these stand up?
Pryor and Wilson say no.
Haig planned the Somme without thinking about Verdun.
The Somme did eventually focus German attention away from Verdun, but that hadn’t been Haig’s
intention.
Did he pin the Germans to the Western Front?
Um, no, he didn’t.
15 German divisions left the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme, and they were
now overrunning Romania.
As for the continuous battle - how many times over the past few months have we seen Haig
launch a new offensive that was designed to be the great breakthrough?
Haig had always believed in the decisive battle, and it wasn’t until the Somme was nearly
over that he was talking about a campaign in 1917.
He did adopt modern weapons like the tank and the airplane, but he still thought cavalry
would carry the day in the end.
And if you look at his search for the big breakthrough, you see that he was the opposite
of an attritional general, and that, far from having too little imagination, he had too
much - dreaming of cavalry charges and Napoleonic victory.
You can also blame the civilian British War Committee, for it was they who provided the
horses, guns, and shells.
They were worried straight from the start about the casualties and the lack of progress,
and by September they could no longer pretend that they were getting anywhere or tying down
the Germans.
In October Haig asked them for permission to continue the offensive; this at a time
when they were worried about the effect the drain of manpower would have on Britain’s
ability to continue the war, but in a total loss of nerve, they did not even discuss his
request.
“The Somme” writes, “The battle ran its muddy, bloody, and inconclusive course.
The civilian leadership therefore failed the men for whom they claimed to be trustees.
The soldiers who became casualties in their hundreds of thousands fought well in a good
cause.
But they deserved a plan and competent leadership as well as a cause.”
But everybody though their cause was just, including the German forces now invading Romania,
hoping to take the vast Romanian reserves of oil and grain.
We’ve talked before about Erich von Falkenhayn’s and August von Mackensen’s forces, but what
of the third German force, in the north along the upper Olt Valley in the Turnu Rossu pass
region?
Well, they had moved quite slowly through the mountains, encountering nightmarish logistical
problems, but on the 25th, General Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen reported that the
resistance before him was broken.
His divisions were now heading toward Pitesti and Campulung, which they took the 29th.
Also in the north, Alexandru Averescu’s Romanian 2nd army had been preventing the
Germans from heading south from Brasov since mid October, but he was now withdrawing.
The whole northern half of the Romanian front had been ruptured.
The Romanians now faced three columns converging on Bucharest.
General Constantin Prezan was put in charge of its defense.
His plan was to crush the enemy forces one at a time before they could unite in overwhelming
numbers.
Mackensen’s forces coming from the south were both the nearest and the smallest of
those three columns, but on the 27th and 28th, his German and Bulgarian forces had entered
Giurgiu (Giurgevo/) on the Danube, which had a railway line that ran directly to Bucharest.
Soon, Mackensen had complete control of the Dan ube.
However, on the 1st, at the end of the week, the Battle of the Arges River began as the
Romanians attacked Mackensen’s flank.
This was Prezan’s hammer.
That same day the Germans captured two Romanian officers who had the plans for the defense
of the capital on them, and Falkenhayn realized that Mackensen was in growing danger.
And one place that had seen danger growing all autumn was Greece.
Greece was pretty much split in two by this time.
Last week the Venizelists, supporters of Eleftherios Venizelos, had declared war on Germany and
Bulgaria, so now on the 30th, 3,000 British, French, and Italian troops landed at the Piraeus
and marched to Athens, but they were attacked by King Constantine’s Royalist forces.
He had refused the Allies permission to supply the Salonika front from Athens.
The Allied forces withdrew after a few hours of scattered fighting.
And the skies over Britain saw action as two out of seven raiding zeppelins were shot down,
and on the 28th came the first daytime Gotha bomber raid on London.
Ten were injured.
And so the week ends with three columns made up of all four Central Powers converging on
Bucharest as the Romanian defense of the capital kicks into gear.
The other European fronts were fairly quiet, but in Greece there was ever increasing turmoil.
Which you could see coming.
The country was split but was still neutral.
At least, the Royalist side was.
But the Allies had landed hundreds of thousands of men on Greek territory, and had even taken
control of the press and the police.
Now they wanted to use the capital to transport troops?
The action there this week was pretty small, sure, but ominous in foreboding.
Would the Allies just give up trying?
Would Greece give up fighting back?
Maybe neutral is no longer possible in this modern war.v
If you want to learn more about the fascinating history of Greece during the Great War, you
can click right here to watch our special episode.
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