The war on the Eastern Front has been actively fought since August 1914, and all sides have
claimed great victories as the front lines have moved back and forth across the endless
expanse of land, and now, 39 months after the fighting began, the Eastern Front goes
quiet.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the British attacked with a force of over 300 tanks at the Battle of Cambrai,
the largest such force ever assembled.
They made great initial gains, but were soon stopped as over half of the tanks were put
out of action.
The Russians demanded an armistice, the British advanced in Palestine and German East Africa,
and British General Sir Stanley Maude died in Mesopotamia.
Here’s what followed.
There was actually a lot of action down in east Africa this week.
On November 25th came the Battle of Ngomano between the Germans and Portuguese.
German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was running low on supplies and had invaded Portuguese
East Africa to foil his British pursuers and find the needed equipment.
The Portuguese were under Major Joao Pinto, but they were not only way outnumbered by
the Germans and Askari, they were also outflanked while they were camped.
The Portuguese force was nearly destroyed, and von Lettow-Vorbeck got enough supplies
to continue his guerrilla operations for another year.
According to Edward Paice, the 500-700 captured Portuguese were used as porters for the machine
guns, rifles, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition von Lettow-Vorbeck’s
men captured.
He destroyed his German weaponry, which he couldn’t re-supply, and used the Portuguese
weapons and even Portuguese uniforms from now on.
He marched south to attack more Portuguese positions.
However, on the 27th, the Mahenge force, under Colonel Tafel, which was over 3,500 Germans
and Askari strong, surrendered unconditionally near Nevala.
This means, actually, that German East Africa is - for now - entirely clear of German forces.
And another front that seems like it too might soon be clear of German forces is the Russian
one.
This week, hostilities ceased on the Eastern Front.
On the 27th (Gilbert), three blindfolded Russian emissaries crossed German lines near Dvinsk
with the authority to make armistice arrangements with the Germans.
That same day, Bolshevik Foreign Minister Leon Trotsky published the secret treaties
Russia had signed with the other Allies between 1914 and 1917, which included that giving
France a free hand in the west to take German territory, that giving Italy chunks of Austria
and Turkey, that giving Romania the lands it wanted, and that giving Russia Constantinople
and the Dardanelles.
The Sykes-Picot agreement was published in Britain in the Manchester Guardian.
This was the one that divides up the Middle East after the war among the Allies, and it
caused huge embarrassment when made public, since it certainly looked like the British
and French promises to the Arabs for future independence in exchange for aid during the
war were not planning on being kept.
Trotsky declared (Gilbert), “The government of workers and peasants abolishes secret diplomacy,
with its intrigues, secret cyphers, and lies...
In revealing before the whole world the work of the governing classes as it is expressed
in the secret documents of diplomacy, we turn to the workers with that appeal which will
always form the basis of our foreign policy, “Proletarians of all countries, unite!”
There were, of course, fronts, that were active this week.
On the Western Front, the Battle of Cambrai continued.
On the 27th, the British 62nd Division, that had reached Bourlon Ridge last week on the
first day of the battle, now tried to take Bourlon Wood.
They attacked with 30 tanks, and though they made initial progress, the German counterattack
put a halt to that.
The tanks sent in to take the Village of Fontaine-Notre-Dame proved to be totally unsuitable for the narrow
streets.
They had no free field of fire and could easily become sitting ducks.
Some of them did at least glimpse the town of Cambrai itself from the far side of the
village but were called back since the infantry could make no headway against the German machine
guns.
The next day, the whole offensive was stopped and the British dug in.
They now held a salient with its front on the crest of the ridge.
The Germans intended to take this salient back and also attack around Havrincourt, and
they would do this using the new Hutier assault tactics that we saw at Riga.
On November 30th, they attacked at 0700 and swiftly advanced, especially in the south.
So swiftly, that British Brigadier-General Berkeley Vincent actually had to fight his
way out of his headquarters.
The Germans did take big casualties at Bourlon itself, but persevered until nightfall and
the arrival of tanks allowed the British to hold on, as the week ended, with the Germans
taking 6,000 prisoners and 158 guns.
Their combination of gas shells, low flying aircraft, and stormtroop tactics was as effective
as the British tanks and combined attack had been last week.
Those were new field tactics, but there were also evolving ideas at play behind the lines.
The new Italian Army Chief of Staff, Armando Diaz was already taking big steps to reform
and refit his army after the huge loss at the Battle of Caporetto.
Perhaps the only fortunate thing to come out of that battle for him - other than his new
job - was that the front line on the Piave River was 170 km shorter than the older lines,
and otherwise his reduced forces might not have blocked the Austro-German attempts at
breaking it.
He had only 33 intact divisions at the moment, but 130,000 French and 110,000 British soldiers
will have arrived by the end of December, and Allied shipping made sure that the coal
and food shortages did not become overly serious.
As he set about rounding up his dispersed men and rebuilding infantry divisions and
artillery regiments, he also was reforming the conditions and treatment of his army.
This month, rations were increased and even the variety of food was increased, wages were
too.
Canteens near the front were set up that sold goods at a discount.
Annual leave went from 15 days up to 25.
All soldiers were given free insurance and death benefits were paid without delay.
Diaz also took steps to improve morale, after an internal report found that many men did
not identify with the war aims, and many did not belie ve the war was necessary and must
be won.
Diaz stated (White War), “The best system for fighting anti-war propaganda is the elimination,
as far as possible, of the causes of discontent.”
So he issued guidelines on propaganda.
It would be channeled partly through newspapers, and each army would have one, which would
feature a humorous angle on army life, if possible written by the men themselves.
There would also be posters, films, and theater.
A new organization called P Service would coordinate all of this.
It’s job was simply to spread the conviction of the necessity of the war, and propaganda
would be adapted to its audience, and would no longer just be all-purpose slogans.
“In some situations, the men would gain most from discussions with a P officer, in
others, a musical revue would be the best way to build faith in “our growing superiority
over the enemy and our inevitable victory.
Photographs from the front were exhibited around the country, while films and plays
toured the land...
The Italian army became, of all things, a model of integrated information management.”
(White War)
Of course, as Mark Thompson wrote, “vigilance easily warped into vigilantism”.
There was now obviously less tolerance of neutralists and pacifists, and a woman in
Bologna, for example, got six months in jail for saying the Germans were invincible and
the war was Britain’s fault, but in general the repression of dissent worked quite well
and the restoration of the Italian army was well underway.
And here are some notes to end the week.
On the 25th, there were mass demonstrations in Budapest.
Over 100,000 Hungarians marched in favor of peace and the Bolshevik revolution.
On the 28th, Estonia declared independence from Russia, and here’s something else that
actually happened last week - Leutnant Rudolf von Eschwege, the German ace flying on the
Macedonian Front, met his fate November 21st.
The Allies were protecting their stores and ammunition dumps from air attack with balloons
filled with explosives.
One such balloon took the life of the “Eagle of the Aegean”.
And that was the week - attacks and counterattacks at Cambrai, the Germans invading Portuguese
East Africa, and an end to hostilities on the Eastern Front.
The leaders of the German Empire were pretty elated this week.
Count Georg von Hertling, the new German Chancellor since Georg Michaelis was forced from office
in earlier November, gave public support to the Bolshevik appeal for peace.
Kaiser Wilhelm even suggested to his Foreign Minister von Kuhlmann that Germany suggest
an alliance with Russia.
The Austrians too welcomed the Bolshevik proposal.
But this looked bad for the Allies.
The German Western Front had held all year against massive Allied offensives, Macedonia
held, in Italy the Austrians were within striking distance of Venice, the Ottomans might be
losing ground in Palestine and Mesopotamia, but Anatolia was currently under no threat,
and on the now quiet Eastern front?
From that front, the Germans were transferring 42 divisions (Gilbert) - that’s more than
half a million men - to the west.
Imagine being a French or British soldier on the western front and after three and a
half years of total war, the enemy suddenly brings in yet another 500,000 battle-hardened,
experienced troops.
Just imagine that sinking feeling; that it was only going to get worse.
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