We’ve seen men die by the hundreds of thousands, as Europe has been ripped apart in just half
a year. New battlefronts have been opened to gain any advantage and soldiers come from
all around the world to die, while new technology has taken the war to the skies and beneath
the seas. Technology now turns to close combat as this week new weapons make their appearance
for the first time, including one of the most feared of them all; the flamethrower.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week we saw the British and French expand the war by bombing the Turks at the Dardanelles.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire had begun a second winter offensive against the Russians in the
mountains, while far to the north the Germans had officially halted their offensive against
the Russians after weeks of heavy fighting. In the West it was death as usual but with
the French and British making slight headway against the Germans.
The Western front was a stalemate but it wasn’t stagnant, for more and more British troops
were arriving throughout the winter and spring and they would soon be able to take over stretches
of the line from the French and even mount their own offensives. But where would this
happen? How would one choose a line of advance that would bring about a big German withdrawal?
Well, the British and French had been seriously analyzing that problem for weeks, and they
saw that it hinged on the rail communications that supplied the German army. Now, there
were three rail systems that led back across the Rhine River into Germany. The one furthest
to the south was also the shortest and was easily defended, so they looked at the other
two that supplied the huge German salient between Flanders and Verdun. If either of
those were cut, they reasoned, then the German troops in the salient would have to fall back
and you might create once again the conditions of open warfare that pretty much everyone
believed was a necessary prerequisite for gaining a decisive victory.
So the 1915 battle strategy was going to be offensives at the edges of the salient, in
the north against the Aubers and Vimy ridges that protected the German railways in the
plain behind them, and in the south against the Champagne heights that protected the Mezieres-Hirson
railway line. A best case scenario would be that the attacks managed to converge, which
would not only cut off the railway lines, but would surround the German troops. So the
British and French agreed on this as the main plans for the spring offensives.
The French, though, were actually still in the middle of their winter offensive, the
Champagne Offensive, that had been on since December, and they were actually making a
bit of headway this week. This week they were advancing from Perthes and managed to take
two kilometers of new ground from the Germans and dig new front lines in front of their
old positions between Perthes and Beausejour. All German counter-attacks were repulsed.
That’s a big deal on the Western Front.
There was also real foreshadowing this week in the west of horrors to come as new weapons
of war made their appearances for the first time.
On February 26th, Germans soldiers used flamethrowers for the first time in battle against French
trenches near Verdun. This was the first of over 650 flamethrower attacks, though it was
ineffective. Three days later, German troops tried advancing behind an armored shield for
the first time. This was also ineffective, as they lost about half their number. That
same day, March 1st, French troops were issued with grenades for the first time.
The warring nations were looking for any advantage- a new weapon, a surprise attack, even a foolhardy
attack- anything to beat the enemy, and the Austrians were no different from anybody else.
The Second Carpathian Winter Offensive had just kicked into gear as the Austro-Hungarian
Imperial Army tried once again to knock the Russians out of the Mountain Passes and break
the siege at Przemysl to free the Austrian army that was trapped there and now running
out of food and supplies.
From the beginning, this offensive seemed as doomed as the first even though, according
to historian James Scudieri, this was the only occasion on which the Austrians really
did have numerical superiority over the Russians, 41 divisions strong. But the men were exhausted,
many having fought in the frozen mountains for six weeks already, and illness and frostbite
were rampant. In addition, the Russians strategically fell back from the initial assault, and the
Austrians over-extended the few supply lines they had
On March 1st, Colonel Veith of the Austrian Third Army wrote, “Fog and heavy snow falls,
we have lost all sense of direction; entire regiments are getting lost, resulting in catastrophic losses." End quote.
There were though, for a change, reinforcements being sent to the front as the offensive unfolded,
but the center and the left flank both collapsed under Russian pressure, and the reinforcements
were just thrown in haphazardly wherever there were gaps and they basically traveled all
the way to the Carpathians to become cannon fodder. But throughout this week, the assault
continued, with the Austrians being repulsed daily, and the week ended with the Russians
crossing the Bistritza in the Eastern Carpathians and threatening the Austrian right flank.
If some of you are wondering why the name Bistritza sounds vaguely familiar, it’s
because that’s where Count Dracula used to hang out. Well, in books. I think it’s
fairly safe to say, though, that if you were in the Austrian army, and had been driven
out of tiny Serbia a few times in humiliation, beaten at the River San while a marching band
played and you were bombed by your own side, and had now spent 7 weeks in the freezing
mountains in cardboard shoes fighting Siberian solders, and on top of it all, Dracula suddenly
turned up... you wouldn’t be surprised. I doubt it. You’d say, “Oh, Count Dracula’s
here, you say? Whatever.” I mean, you had seen pretty much everything there was to see.
And one thing we had certainly seen again and again during the war was forts being bombed
and destroyed with ease by the frightening power of modern artillery, and that would
continue this week, although in a new location; the newest front in the war, in the Eastern
Mediterranean where throughout the week, the bombing of the forts of the Dardanelles that
guarded the entrance to the Black Sea continued, as it had since February 19th by the British
and French navies, only now it was the inner forts being destroyed, the outer forts having
been reduced last week.
There was also action much further to the east this week, a Turkish threat to the British
oil in the Middle East at the Battle of Ahwaz in Persia. British and Indian troops advanced
and attacked the enemy at their camp at Ghadir, 15 km to the northwest of the British base
at Ahwaz. The British suddenly found themselves greatly outnumbered, but they managed to fight
and withdraw, protected by their artillery until reserves could arrive from the base
and rescue them. Although this was a daring and perhaps even foolish attack on the British
part, it served its purpose, for there were no further serious attacks on the pipeline
and the Turks withdrew toward Amara. One other thing here; people have asked us about the
use of cavalry during the war- well, here it was the Indian cavalry who saved the day,
consistently charging into the enemy riflemen and saving the British infantry.
And that was the week; Indian cavalry showing their mettle in Persia, the Ottoman Empire
being bombarded not far from its capital, the Austrians being beaten back again and
again high in the frozen mountains, the Allies gaining new ground in the west and preparing
for spring offensives, and the flamethrower.
The flamethrower. That’s how far we’d come, in such a short time. It wasn’t enough
to drop bombs from the sky on civilians; it wasn’t enough to declare that merchant ships
could be mercilessly torpedoed and their crews sent helplessly to drown; and it wasn’t
enough to send hundreds of thousands of men to be chopped down by machine guns across
Europe. No, that wasn’t enough. Now you had poison gas; now you had flamethrowers,
both in their infancy at the moment, but both to soon see far greater use. And you want
to know something? For the people running this war, poison gas and flamethrowers wouldn’t
be enough either; there would come ever newer and ever more effective ways to kill people.
This was modern war.
But human beings were not the only ones being killed in this giant slaughterhouse called
the Great War. A lot of the logistics of World War 1 relied on animals. We made a special
episode about these essential helpers at the front. You can check it out right here.
If you want more in depth discussion about our show, check out our subreddit and now
that spring is on the horizon, please show our show at your next barbecue, to get your
neighbours and friends hooked. See you next week!