I 'm Indy Neidell and this is another exciting episode of "Out of the Trenches",
where I sit here, in the chair of wisdom, and answer your questions about the first world war.
From Facebook, Chris Rhenius writes:
Well, by 1914, the idea - the classical idea - of the fortress was outdated.
Years before, the introductions of high-explosive shells made concrete walls nearly obsolete in themselves.
Defenders couldn't just sit out an attack anymore, since artillery had superseded the defence structures of the past.
If you take a look at forts in Verdun or Belgium,
you see that they often had a triangular or pentagonal shape.
Modern artillery bombed the walls pretty quickly, so only those structures that were underground
could really withstand bombardment.
All right, well, let's talk about some fortresses of the war.
The Austrian fortress of Przemyśl leaps immediately to mind.
It was besieged twice by the Russians, in 1914 and 1915.
And although the defenders held out until the spring of 1915, the Austrians had to give up eventually.
Now, the Russian artillery wasn't really strong enough to breach the walls
and much of it could not get there in the first place through the terrain.
But since the Austrians were not able to break out and could not be relieved, they were trapped.
Now, Verdun, it's very interesting, because it had a net of fortresses that supported each other
- four different forts on all the hilltops -
And even after the Germans bombed the living hell out of them, the remnants were able to withstand the assaults.
Also, they had armies outside of the fortresses that supported the defence
and gave the Germans no chance of really getting close enough.
That was supposed to be the original plan at Erzurum, which fell to the Russians without a big fight,
but as the Turkish regiments outside of the walls were beaten back, the fortresses had to be given up.
It was just not possible to really sustain a prolonged siege.
You have tens of thousands of men inside the walls, which would eat through all the food reserves
pretty quickly, even in a major supply point like Erzurum,
and then it's also of course only a matter of time before disease would break out.
NJS1346: A question for "Out of the Trenches"
WWI was a time where many old and new technologies clashed.
That was the same with body armour.
While the French Adrian helmet resembled the old Napoleonic headgear,
the British Brodie was very close to the Chapelle De Fer, which were famously worn by the top level longbowmen
in medieval times, the German steel helmet was also a fallback to medieval technology.
The same principle was attached to shields and body armour, since it became common to use shields
in front of rifles and machine guns inside the trenches
The experiments with steel body armour also took a lot from medieval designs.
By the end of 1915, the British army had designed a canvas jacket with layered metal plates,
called the Dayfield Body Shield, and a more sturdy version of that jacket, the rigid hard armour they have.
These weighed like 5 or 6 pounds and you could wear them under a uniform, but they would only protect
against shrapnel, or bullets with low velocity, so they were only really of minor help.
The Germans experimented with thicker and heavier nickel plate armour.
It was usually strong enough to take a round from a .45, but it would not hold against rifle fire - a rifle bullet would have penetrated.
But the heaviness of it would exhaust the soldiers much quicker and if you were advancing over muddy
or flooded areas it would just drag you right down.
So they were often given to sentries or machine gunners.
Other experiments were chain screens in front of the helmets to cover the eyes,
complete battle harnesses over your shoulders and knees and even, like, little shield bucklers, like that.
Yeah, we will probably do a special episode on them later, because it's a really cool story, but here is a basic rundown.
The Belgian Expeditionary Corps in Russia was a group of 444 Belgian soldiers, equipped with armoured cars
from Peugeot and Mors-Minerva. And they were sent to Russia, at the request of the Tsar, to help fight the Germans.
Since Belgium was formally neutral and not a military ally of Russia, these men were considered volunteers.
And they were more or less part of the Imperial Army.
They were shipped in through Arkhangelsk in December 1915 and were personally inspected by the Tsar,
by Nicholas, before they headed out into the fighting zones of Galicia.
Now, they were actually a very colourful bunch of people.
In the corps served for example
a world famous wrestler. True story.
The brothers Thiry, who were two famous Walloon poets and Julien Lahaut who would later become the leader of the Belgian Communist Party.
Now, after Russia succumbed to revolution, and after Russia left the war after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
the small Belgian corps was suddenly surrounded by enemies.
In much the same way as the ancient tale of Xenophon, they had to find their way back home again.
Since going west was impossible and the route to Murmansk was blocked by the Bolsheviks,
they had to go east. So, they went east. They destroyed their armoured cars, to prevent them from falling into Bolshevik hands
and they found their way to the Trans-Siberian Railway, which took them through China.
They finally reached the US in June, 1918. That's a really good story.
If you 'd like to see the actual episode where we first mention the Belgian armoured car division, you can click right here, check that out.
Do not forget to subscribe, for all your dreams to come true. We will see you next time.