Some of you regular viewers might like to see a brief refresher on what’s recently
gone on, and some newer viewers may want to catch up more quickly, so this is part of
our series of Recaps so you can get it all together in your heads
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Recap Special covering May, June, and July 1917.
As May began, two major offensives were in progress on the Western Front.
They were Britain’s Battle of Arras, and France’s Nivelle Offensive, and they had
been really hyped up before they began as the final battles that would win the war,
but by now, after several weeks of fighting, the casualties were well into the hundreds
of thousands and the Germans were anything but beaten. Those offensives would continue
in fits and starts before ending in May, the British one actually gaining more ground than
any other Western Front offensive since trench warfare had begun in 1914. The failures of
the French one, though, caused French Commander in Chief General Robert Nivelle to lose his
job. Philippe Petain replaced him. Morale among the French army was at an all-time low,
and rumblings of mutiny could be felt more and more as the month progressed.
The Macedonian Front came to life in May as the Italians, French, Russians, Serbs, and
British attacked Bulgarian and German positions at Crna Bend, East of the Vardar, and Lake
Doiran. The attacks lasted for a couple of weeks but were failures. The Bulgarian defenses
were just too well built.
The Italian front also saw renewed action as the Italians launched the 10th Battle of
the Isonzo River against Austria-Hungary. It began with some big successes for the Italians,
but they were soon checked and the battle was called off after several weeks of frustration
and 150,000 Italian casualties.
There were two new conceptual additions to the war this month: on May 25th a new kind
of warfare began when 23 German Gotha bombers carrying 13 bombs each took off from Belgium
for London. Only two reached England because of cloudy skies, but the five bombs dropped
by one of the planes caused more damage than any zeppelin raid ever had.
Also, a convoy of merchant ships guarded by destroyers sailed from Gibraltar to Britain
without a single loss to a German submarine. The convoy system had been dismissed earlier
as useless, but after this the British admiralty began looking into it seriously. They had
to do something, having lost nearly 900,000 tons in April alone - 50% more than what Germany
believed was needed monthly to drive Britain out of the war. The convoy system was officially
introduced May 24th.
As June began, British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig was making big plans.
Even though his spring offensive had just come to an end, he was champing at the bit
to begin a major one in Flanders, complete with amphibious landing. As a prelude to that-
weeks or months down the line- he wanted to take a strongpoint that would serve as a pivot
for that offensive. The Battle of Messines Ridge thus kicked off June 7th with the detonation
of hundreds of tons of explosives tunneled under the German positions. The entire ridge
blew into the air, an estimated 10,000 Germans were killed, and the British took possession
of the chain of craters that remained.
The French army finally did explode into mutiny in June, as tens of thousands of men refused
to go over the top. Many even left the trenches altogether. The general mutiny would last
for weeks before the lid could be put down on it, though it would take months for it
to end altogether. The main complaints were low pay and lack of leave, and the soldiers
generally made clear that they weren’t against continuing the war, but against more suicidal
offensives. Petain went around and personally spoke with every single regiment that had
seen mutiny. He did a very good job of ending it without draconian measures that could have
further damaged morale. Men were guaranteed leave and their living conditions were improved.
After the British losses at the two Battles of Gaza earlier in the spring, there was now
a shake up in the Middle Eastern Command, and Edmund Allenby took over from Sir Archibald
Murray and began making plans for an advance to take Jerusalem. He was to be aided in this
by Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab Revolt, who would take the port of Aqaba at the top
of the Red Sea in early July.
The Italians launched another offensive in June, this time in the Trentino to take a
chain of peaks. They did take Mount Ortigara, but the attack as a whole was a disaster,
and they eventually lost Ortigara again. The offensive lasted three weeks and failed to
move the line on the map at all.
In Greece, the Allied machinations finally bore fruit, as King Constantine- who favored
neutrality- was forced to abdicate in favor of his son. By the end of the month, Greece
was in a state of war with the Central Powers. Also at the end of June, the first American
troops arrived in France, 14,000 strong, though they needed training and the next contingent
would not arrive for another three months.
And as June had rolled on, Russia, in spite of pretty chaotic conditions in the army,
began planning a July Offensive that would unite the country, improve morale, and show
the Allies that Russia was still in the game.
And that offensive began July 1st.
The Kerensky Offensive, named after Prime Minister and Minister of War Alexander Kerensky,
made great strides the first half of July, breaking through the Austro-Hungarian lines
for dozens of kilometers in places. It also featured attacks by the Russian Women’s
Battalion of Death, the first of its kind, and the Czech Legion, that continued to make
a name for itself.
However, the offensive began to run out of steam, and German reinforcements and a strong
counter attack later in the month completely routed the Russians, with thousands of them
simply throwing down their rifles and running away. But what were they running away to?
Petrograd saw the “July Days” mid month, with rioting and looting and 70,000 armed
workers and soldiers in the streets. The Bolsheviks, who wanted an end to the war, even began trying
to take over the city, but order was restored and though Leon Trotsky was arrested, Vladimir
Lenin escaped to Finland. Documents were found in the Bolshevik headquarters showing that
they were receiving direct funding from the German High Command. This was political dynamite
and turned the tide against the Bolsheviks for the time being.
And though Russia may be in full flight on the eastern front, in Romania a Russo-Romanian
Offensive pushed back the Austrians and German with a ringing victory in the Battle of Marashti.
The Germans were also active in the field on the Western Front. They were well aware
of Haig’s coming offensive, though not when exactly it would come, and so on the 10th
they launched a pre-emptive assault, Operation beach Party. This attack would weaken the
British positions for their assault and this week premiered two new German gas weapons,
Blue Cross and the dreaded Mustard Gas.
At home in Berlin, though, a crisis in the Reichstag resulted in Chancellor Theobald
von Bethmann-Hollweg losing his post and being replaced by the ineffective and unknown Georg
Michaelis, and more and more Germany became a military dictatorship run by Quartermaster
General Erich Ludendorff.
And as the last third of the month rolled in, the British artillery bombardment for
the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele, began with the British using ten times the
density of artillery that they had used at the Somme last summer.
That Battle would begin on the final day of the month, but one date that has more meaning
than that was July 28th. For on that date the war that would end by Christmas turned
three years old. It was now being fought by soldiers from all over the world, was actively
being fought on three continents, had a military death toll well into the millions, and a civilian
death that had also climbed into the millions. This was total war, and it was something the
world had never seen before. Mustard Gas, tanks, huge explosions underground in the
field, and civilian bombings, strikes, and just plain chaos in the streets at home, everyone
was affected by the war, everywhere.
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