It seems as if it’s been coming for a while, but now it’s finally here.
This week 100 years ago, the United States joins the war.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the Toplica Rebellion against Central Powers occupation was finally crushed in the
Balkans.
Russia is still in a state of uncertainty after the February Revolution and the Germans
send Vladimir Lenin there from Switzerland to foment more dissent.
In the Middle East, a battle took place at Gaza that resulted in a British defeat.
Here’s what followed.
For two months, German unrestricted submarine warfare has been sinking shipping of any nation
and any kind, and that continued.
On the first, the American steamer Aztec was torpedoed and 28 of the crew drowned.
The following day, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
On the 4th, the Senate voted 82-6 to go to war, and on the 6th, the House of Representatives
voted 373-50 to go to war and the United States of America was now officially in a state of
war with the German Empire.
That day, 91 German ships were seized in American ports.
The US fleet was mobilized and the Naval reserve was called to colors.
Congress voted an emergency war fund of 100 million dollars, that’s 3.7 billion in today’s
money.
Getting men and material to Europe was going to take a lot of time and organization, but
the wheels were now in motion, although many American were in fact already fighting the
war.
Some had joined the British or Canadian armies; some flew for the French in the Lafayette
Escadrille or had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.
The European fighting had actually been relatively quiet for three months, but that would soon
change.
On April 6th, France’s military and political leaders gathered in President Poincare’s
railway car to discuss General Robert Nivelle’s upcoming offensive that he believed would
win the war.
They weren’t there to talk about the planning, though, but whether the offensive would even
happen at all.
French Minister of War Paul Painlevé was pretty much begging for it to not happen.
There were good arguments against it too.
With America joining the war, maybe the French army could rest up for a while until the American
forces would arrive.
I mean, Germany certainly wasn’t going on the offensive; they’d just this week finished
retreating to a new improved defensive line.
The uncertainty in ally Russia was another thing.
Painlevé was so sure of disaster that he tried to resign from the cabinet but was refused.
Nivelle, for his part, said that if he couldn’t proceed with the offensive, then he would
resign.
Poincaré knew that if popular hero Nivelle resigned it would mean the fall of yet another
government, and gave him the green light.
Nivelle’s offensive included the British opening the attack at Arras.
Nivelle’s plan had been for the British 3rd Army to attack south of Vimy Ridge on
April 9th and break through the Germans lines toward Cambrai.
This would be followed by a massive French attack on the 16th at the Chemin de Dames
once the British had pulled in the German reserves.
British Commander Sir Douglas Haig had extended the Arras attack to include an assault on
Vimy Ridge itself by the Canadian Corps, claiming - correctly - that he couldn’t really go
forward and leave this fortress in his rear.
The Canadian Corps was part of Henry Horne’s First Army, and he is truly the “unknown”
general of WW1.
He never wrote an autobiography or memoirs, he kept no diary, had no biographer, and isn’t
even mentioned often in dispatches from the time.
His wife even destroyed his letters.
This is a shame because he was a fairly good commander.
Anyhow, the Canadian Corps commander Julian Byng had spent the winter working out tactics
for storming the ridge.
He’d even sent his First Division commander Arthur Currie to study the French and German
tactics from Verdun and figure out what worked and what didn’t.
While pondering the problems, the Canadians mounted a series of trench raids and mining
operations that gave them a fairly detailed overview of the enemy positions, though at
the cost of considerable casualties.
Plans had been drawn up and debated during the winter, but of course they all had to
change because of the German retreat, although, fortunately for Nivelle, the Hindenburg Line
- as the Allies called the new defensive system - stopped short of the Chemin des Dames and
also of the Arras sector.
It pretty much bisected the ground between them.
Unfortunately for Nivelle, the defenses of the Chemin des Dames had been built up for
two and a half years and were among the strongest on the whole front and even had commanding
views over the French rear.
Also, the roads and railways behind the French ran the wrong way, side to side, and not up
to the front.
The Germans, knowing what was coming, had beefed up their manpower at the Chemin des
Dames from 9 to 38 divisions.
Nivelle just thought that was more to destroy.
There would be a five-day preliminary barrage, and Haig would have Edmund Allenby’s 3rd
Army attack on a ten-mile front supported by 1,700 big guns.
They would also use 40 Mark I tanks in the assault.
The attack would break through the Hindenburg Line and advance on Cambrai.
Horne’s First Army, attacking to the north at the same time, was to take Vimy Ridge.
There was a precise timetable for everything.
The German first line was to be taken in 36 minutes, remain there until +two hours when
the big guns were brought up, then take the second line at +2:45.
They would consolidate there until +6:40 and then take the Feuchy strongpoint by +8 hours.
This was all a 4.5-mile advance.
Once this had happened, the Cavalry Corps would exploit the success.
Now, if you add in the Canadian Corps and 1st Army big guns, you get 2,817 total artillery
pieces, which was like 1,800 more than the Germans had, but the Germans had solid experienced
troops, and the defensive line facing Allenby was pretty hardcore.
The British official history describes the defenses of the Arras-Cambrai road as “a
veritable fortress” and that would be the axis of Allenby’s advance.
Also, the tanks were unreliable still, would start from up to a mile behind the infantry,
and they had a serious tendency to break down before even reaching the starting line.
The British did have air power- 9 squadrons of between 16 and 24 planes for bombing, artillery
spotting, photography, and the like - with , FE2s, BE2s, the premiering Bristol F2B,
and the new SE5’s, which, though very limited in number, were one of the fastest aircraft
of the whole war.
Thing is, toward the end of the Battle of the Somme six months ago, air superiority
had swung back to the Germans and their new Albatross fighters.
The Germans were outnumbered in the air, though, and had adopted a defensive strategy that
went so far as to forbid fighter planes to fly beyond their own front lines.
This meant that when they had engine failure - which was common - they could glide down
and be back in the air the next day, while for the Allies that often meant becoming a
POW.
The deceased German flying ace Oswald Boelcke had set up a system to save fighter pilot
strength; with good communications with the frontlines so fighters would usually only
fly when there were targets, and they flew in packs so they had local air superiority
when they did.
Last year he had organized the first Jagdstaffel - Jasta - a dedicated fighter squadron, and
wrote his seven rules for fighter pilots.
By April 1917, the Red Baron himself was in charge of Jasta 11 in the Arras sector opposite
the British, and they flew the Albatross D.III fighters, which gave them the performance
edge over the British.
We would soon see battles in the sky between the British Offensive strategy versus the
German defensive strategy.
Here’s a wee spoiler- this month would become known in Britain as Bloody April.
Anyhow, the artillery barrage for the Battle of Arras began at 6:30 on the morning of April
4th and continued for the rest of the week.
And that’s where the week ends, with preparations for two major offensives on the western front
underway.
Also this week, the first Portuguese troops reached the trenches, and on the Mesopotamian
Front where the British had been advancing, British and Russian forces were now in touch
at Kizil-Robat.
And the United States joined the war.
Would that be a big deal?
It may, if they get troops over to Europe in force before the war can end.
To train and equip a million or more men - and over six times that number were currently
on just the Western Front - would take maybe a year, maybe more, and Germany planned on
winning by then, the U-Boats driving Britain out of the war, Lenin driving Russia out of
the war, and the rest... that would take fighting, and that would take real dedication by this
point.
I’m gonna end with a quote I found in Martin Gilbert’s “the First World War”.
Albert Einstein wrote to a friend on the 3rd about the extreme nationalism of the younger
scientists, “I am convinced we are dealing with a kind of epidemic of the mind.
It can be compared with developments at the time of the martyrs, the crusades, and witch
burnings.”
Just realize that whoever wins, the sheer hatred between nations by this time may well
make any lasting peace insurmountable.
The US participation of the war might seem minor to you, but when you walk among the
rows of crosses of American soldiers in the Meuse region, you might get a different perspective.
We certainly did and you can check our episode about that right here.
Our Patreon supporter of the week is Goran Drakulić - thanks to your support on Patreon
we were able to visit original WW1 battlefield and we will do more of these in the future.
See you next time.