War is expensive. Think of the millions of bullets fired so far this war and realize
that every one of them had a price tag, and of course, the shells for the big guns were
even more costly. This week, we see all over Europe, what happens when military production
cannot keep up with the demands of the war. Here’s a hint; thousands of people die.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week a German U-Boat sank the passenger liner Lusitania with over 100 US citizens
aboard, provoking outrage and war lust across America. The Germans launched a massive offensive
in the east that put the Russians in full retreat, while an allied attack at Gallipoli
failed with enormous carnage.
We’ve mentioned a few incidents over the past weeks far to the south in German Southwest
Africa, but I’d like to look at it a little deeper today.
Union forces had made gains throughout the spring, but this week, on May 12th occupied
their main objective, the capital of German Southwest Africa, Windhoek. But really, the
Germans were in a hopeless position down there. Often outnumbered and with no hope of being
reinforced from Germany, they also had to sometimes fight in one of the world’s most
desolate regions, but as they lost, they were actually allowed to return to their farms
and families and it’s kind of interesting to note that today, 100 years later, German
is still used as an everyday language alongside Afrikaans in parts of Windhoek, now the capital
of Namibia, though it hasn’t been official since 1990, and there is still a German subculture
there, more so than pretty much any other city in the southern hemisphere.
But back to the Germans in the northern hemisphere, who were making great headway in the east
as the Gorlice-Tarnow offensive continued.
After pushing the Russians back into full retreat last week, the advance continued all
this week in Galicia and the Carpathians. This offensive was German General Mackensen’s
ambitious plan to knock Russia out of the war. Thing is, though the Russians were retreating,
the advancing Germans and Austro-Hungarians were only making about 10 kilometers a day,
facing stubborn resistance, and the Russian army did not become a rabble, it was still
very much an army. But their leaders’ lack of foresight and lack of preparations had
betrayed them and at this point they had no alternative than to continue to retreat toward
the next point of defense, Przemysl fortress, which the Russians had finally taken from
Austria-Hungary only weeks ago after a siege lasting months.
The Russians, in their retreat, were now destroying railway lines, tunnels, stations, and more,
which would take weeks for the attackers to rebuild, slowing them even further, and the
German gains were dearly bought. One estimate puts their casualties from May 2nd to May
12th at over 120,000 (Story of the Great War). However, Mackensen claimed in this same period
to have taken 103,000 Russian prisoners, 69 guns, and 255 machine guns in addition to
inflicting casualties far greater than those his army took, so it was still a huge success.
But the Russian supreme Commander Grand Duke Nicholas had a basic plan now. A continued
retreat on a gigantic scale would stretch the German lines enormously, and even if it
meant the sacrifice of Warsaw or Lemberg, it was the same tactic that worked against
Napoleon 100 years earlier.
Just a side note here, the Russians were actually successful further south this week in Bukovina
pushing the Austrians back until the middle of the month when the fighting petered out
there. They were also somewhat successful in the far north: while losing Libau the 8th,
they beat the Germans at Krakinow the 9th and forced them to retreat on the 10th.
But the fighting was certainly not petering out on the western front, where the Second
Battle of Ypres was still in full swing, and even more fighting got going May 9th, which
marked the first time in the war that combined Anglo-French forces attempted to break strongly
fortified German trench lines as they launched the Second Battle of Artois.
French General Joseph Joffre was determined to launch another great offensive and thought
he’d learned a lot from the First Artois and Champagne offensives during the winter.
He had this to say, “Attackers at all echelons will be imbued with the idea of breaking through,
of going beyond the first trenches seized, of continuing to attack without stopping until
the final result.” (Hart p.144) Well, that’s a translation, but now you had the $64,000
dollar question: Did the allies now have the means or the knowledge to break the German lines?
The French attack was launched at Vimy Ridge under General Victor D’Urbal. First, five
hours of shrapnel bombardment was to take care of the German barbed wire emplacements,
but it didn’t work and when the French attacked, they were slowed or stuck by the wire and
then they were nailed by machine gun fire, but they did eventually force the Germans
to withdraw to new lines, some as far back as five kilometers. Unfortunately, the Frenchmen
that advanced that far were fired upon by their own artillery.
The British attack was launched to capture Aubers Ridge. But their artillery bombardment
also failed, many shells were actually duds, and the British were unable to break through
the mostly undamaged German defenses. What actually happened, though, was more disastrous
than it just sounded; when the first British assault failed, many men who had been wounded
or took cover in no man’s land were killed by a 40-minute British artillery bombardment,
and British soldiers running back to their own lines after the failed assault were not
only fired upon by Germans, but since they had a bunch of prisoners their own side thought
it was a counter-attack and fired as well. Few survived the crossfire.
General Sir Douglas Haig ordered a second attack, in spite of two of his three generals
protesting, and it too was savaged by German machine guns. For the one-day Battle of Aubers
Ridge, 11,161 men, 458 officers, were lost.
Thing is, the main reason this failed and the reason there was no attack the next day,
was because of insufficient and inadequate artillery shells. British Commander John French
had given orders for shells to be 75% shrapnel and 25% high explosive, but at Aubers Ridge
they had been only 8% high explosive. Six million shells were supposed to be delivered
to the army by this time; around two million had actually been delivered, so the British
had a real artillery crisis.
And the newest British and French front also seemed to be in crisis this week.
At Gallipoli in the Dardanelles, the much hoped for, even expected, advance and victory
had descended into trench warfare by this week, and by May 13th, when 570 British sailors
drowned when the Battleship Goliath was torpedoed by the Turks, all plans for a renewed naval
assault through the straits of the Dardanelles were called off. It was evident by this time
that there would be no advance without significant reinforcements. In trench warfare situations
we have seen time and again that it was almost impossible to advance without artillery support,
but here, both sides were short of shells.
There was one bright moment there this week for the Allies on the 12th as an Indian brigade
of Gurkhas managed to creep behind Turkish lines under cover of darkness and take the
hill at Y beach, known in future as Gurkha Bluff, and force the Turks to withdraw, but
in future Turkish defenses reached right down to the waves and this maneuver would not happen again.
And further to the east a dark chapter was still being played out as on May 10th, 950
Armenian leaders were arrested in Diyabakir.
And so the week comes to a close, with the Germans continuing to drive the Russians back
in the east, the Russians holding their own in Bukovina and Lithuania, nobody going anywhere
at Gallipoli, German Southwest Africa slowly changing hands, and not one, but two major
battles in progress on the eastern front.
Imagine being those Russians fighting this week on the eastern front. The German High
Command had counted on the Russians being forced back by the German advantage in heavy
artillery and they were right, but the Russians were stubborn and threw themselves time and
again against heavy batteries with bayonet charges, suffering tens of thousands of casualties
desperately trying to disable the artillery and tens of thousands more desperately trying
to hold on to the little artillery they had. Or the French and British in the west, running
out into no-mans land and then realizing that their artillery was firing duds and they were
exposed to the enemy. In Gallipoli too, where the war had sunk to the monotony and filth
of the trenches you see the same lesson that only now were leaders beginning to learn.
You can’t win this war if you don’t equip your soldiers; all you can do is send them
by the thousands to certain mutilation and death.
Check out our episode from week 24 of the war right here.