it's lived on in fame or infamy
depending which side you're on for a
hundred years now for it happened 100
years ago this week the black day of the
German army
[Music]
i'm indy neidell welcome to the great
war last week was the 4th anniversary of
the outbreak of the war and it still
raged as strong as ever in the West the
initiative had swung back to the Allies
and they were slowly pushing the Germans
back from the Marne salient a coup in
Baku installed a dictatorship and the
following day that city managed to fend
off the advancing Ottomans meanwhile in
Palestine the British were making plans
in fact Allen Donna's little plan part
of Edmund Allenby master plan began this
week doning wanted to send the Imperial
Camel Corps to attack almunawara
and also to destroy the railway viaduct
to the south of Amman this was also
something of a ruse since there were
more than a hundred and fifty kilometres
between the two targets and it would
give the impression that there was more
than one British force patrolling the
area
the attack on almunawara began in the
wee hours of August 8th with a diversion
that drew troops away from the railway
station there
the ICC then easily captured the station
and one of the readouts guarding the
line one of them was protected by
artillery and machine guns though but
the Royal Air Force flew in and began
bombing it and the defenders surrendered
the attackers then blew up the water
tower and this was a big deal for
without that supply a railway journey
from maan to Medina was basically
impossible
muda whare was halfway between lon and
Tabuk and this was the only source of
water between them the ICC then began
the long ride towards Amman further
north other mounted units were heading
away from another major city on the 4th
Colonel Bashar akov suddenly withdrew
his cossacks from baku and a thousand
men from the garrison and went north to
Derbent with no explanation the same day
the first british turned up in baku 70
infantry and a few officers this got
that city to thinking that twenty to
thirty thousand British soldiers were
soon to arrive they weren't the next day
the ottomans launched their first real
attack on Baku trying to break through
Wolf's gate which is a gap in the line
of cliffs that separates the town from
the railway they were held back by
artillery and rifle fire
noon when the city's defenders
counter-attack the attackers were pushed
back all the way to the railway taking
heavy casualties and losing 16 machine
guns the Ottomans decided to await
reinforcements before a further attack
they were also worried about the rumors
of a big British force supposedly soon
to arrive one place where there really
were big British forces was the Western
Front now by early in the week the
Allies had occupied sois song and the
Germans had now been pushed out of the
Marne salient thing is it had taken the
Allies 3 times longer to clear it then
it took the Germans to take it in the
first place and as David Stevenson
writes in with our backs to the wall
about OHL German High Command and
they're planning this week OHL
authorized more offensives to be planned
believing no further big allied attacks
were likely and judged that it could
stop them if they came then came August
8th German army quartermaster general
Erich Ludendorff would later call that
day the black day of the German army
this was the date of the beginning of
the Battle of M yen interestingly enough
a bunch of people have claimed credit
for this battle Stevenson says that
Douglas Haig and Ferdinand Fache
discussed it back in May but that its
immediate origins lay with Henry Rollins
British 4th army which held that sector
of the front both the Battle of Hamel
last month and Australian raids in the
region showed flawed German defenses and
Rawlinson was chomping at the bit to
take advantage of things while he could
he had made a proposal to Hague on July
17th to attack over the dry solid ground
with as many tanks as he could get and
five extra divisions four of them
Canadian Haig had passed this on to
Fawcett their meeting July 24th and
Fache said go for it but put the French
first Army on the British right flank no
Stephenson does not say that Rawlinson's
proposals were from Australia corps
commander John Monash but other sources
do anyhow if you remember Rawlinson have
been in charge of a lot of the attack on
the catastrophic first day of the Battle
of the Somme two years ago back then
Haig had Rawlinson prepare for a huge
breakthrough for the
cavalry to exploit and now though this
was a much more limited operation Haig
had Rawlinson set a target 20 miles
further back than the main target but
only if there was success on day one and
also and this is important
it was theoretical he didn't change the
actual battle plan which would feature
for the first time the Australians and
the Canadians attacking side-by-side
they wanted to maximize surprise but
also equipment so the artillery had way
more shells than it needed and Haig gave
Rawlinson almost the entire British tank
fleet including the new mark fives they
had also identified 95% of the German
heavy guns using things like aerial
photography the 4th army had four
Canadian five Australian five British
divisions and one American one Arthur
Curry's Canadians had not been involved
in the defensive fighting over the past
few months and had instead been training
for open battle they like the
Australians had a reputation for
innovation and aggression
well the attack at 4:20 a.m. achieved
surprise even in the first hour
thousands of Germans surrendered in the
face of 2,000 heavy guns filled guns and
howitzers 342 heavy tanks 72 light tanks
and nearly 2,000 airplanes they even had
a hundred and twenty supply times the
German first line was overrun before
they could alert headquarters with the
Australians and Canadians leapfrogging
each other the leap frogging was
something that Monash and rowlandson
figured would allow deep penetration of
the German lines beyond allied artillery
range but with tanks and field guns
moving up guided by planes the
Australians advanced 15 kilometres by
noon what was new and shocking was the
refusal of the German troops to respond
to orders even to attempt to stop and
fight the Germans lost more than 650
officers and 26,000 troops that day
two-thirds of them surrendered they did
so willingly eagerly often in large and
well armed groups still german general
georg von der Moffitt's amazingly
managed to bring them under control
again not only did he stabilize the
lines
he launched a counter attack that took
back a few miles of territory this was
not the huge route that is sometimes
portrayed even though it was the biggest
Allied breakthrough on the western front
of the war which is pretty damn
impressive but remember all those tanks
sound impressive but a heck of a lot of
Tanks broke down after just an hour or
two in action and they weren't all that
tough to put out of action otherwise I
mean they rolled over on uneven ground
they got stuck in mud or in shell holes
and of course big guns could blow them
to pieces by the night there were only
155 tanks in action also Allied aircraft
did not manage to destroy the Somme
bridges to prevent reinforcements from
arriving so eight German divisions had
arrived by the morning of the ninth on
August 9th therefore the Allies faced a
rapidly strengthening antagonist they
had lost surprise and most of their
tanks were ahead of their artillery and
telephone lines had no pre-prepared
attack plan and did not begin until well
into the day okay they still made
advances sure and the French captured
Mont Didier but as the week ended the
momentum was slowing and slowing the
Ludendorff required his men to hold
positions that weren't really valuable
and refused to listen to his commands
advise to retreat to the Hindenburg Line
and regroup he just wouldn't give up all
the territory the Germans had taken
since March even though a lot of it was
not really defensible and something else
that really was not defensible was
happening in the skies over Britain on
August 5th
Captain Robert Leckie future chief of
staff of the Royal Canadian Air Force
shot down a German Zeppelin these 16th
destroyed it was a seven engine model
under the command of Peter Strasse a
Zeppelin legend who held the title
leader of airships and had one the poor
Lemery Strasse and the rest of the 22
men crew were all killed by now the air
defenses on the east coast of Britain
were seriously well developed they had
searchlight stations home defense
squadrons and warning control centres so
a Zeppelin raid by this time pretty much
a suicide mission this would be the last
Zeppelin brought down of
war the Allies were active all over
though on the 3rd the British land at
Vladivostok two days later so do the
French on the 6th the Czechoslovak
Legion takes kazan and i reached the end
of another week with british success in
palestine home defence in baku and the
black day of the German army on the
Western Front it was pretty dark in HL
the cars are told Ludendorff we have
reached the limits of our capacity the
war must be ended and here's a quote
from Ludendorff from August 9th at the
end of the week and a hundred years
later it's the end of this week - we
cannot win this war anymore but we must
not lose it if you'd like to learn more
about the German defenses on the Western
Front the Hindenburg line you can click
here for our special about that our
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