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 we’ve made a series
of recaps to help out, and this is one of them.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Recap Special covering August, September,
and October 1917.
The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, began the day before
August- July 31st.
This Allied Offensive kicked off promisingly enough, but soon enough, German counterattacks
and torrential rain caused everyone to dig in.
Still, in the first two days, the British 5th Army had advanced further than the British
had in any Western Front offensive so far.
By the time the battle really got going again ten days later, though, artillery and rain-
which destroyed the land and overwhelmed the drainage system- had turned the ground into
a battlefield in name only.
It was virtually impossible to fight through, not that they didn’t try.
Attacks and counterattacks continued sporadically throughout August, but they didn’t gain
much more land for the Allies, and produced a combined casualty toll that climbed over
100,000.
On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was still in retreat from its own failed July
offensive.
The month also saw all sorts of political machinations at home in Petrograd, the capital.
Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government was losing the support of the people, thanks
in part to the losses in the field, the Bolsheviks, who promised peace, were gaining more and
more support, and General Lavr Kornilov, a war hero and new Army Commander in Chief,
was looked to by many as a possible authoritarian leader to save Russia from chaos.
But the chaos grew and grew, and by the Moscow State Conference near the end of the month,
it was described as, “chaos in the army, chaos in foreign policy, chaos in industry,
chaos in the nationalist questions.”
Russia was also fighting in the field, helping out its ally Romania.
The Battle of Marasti ended on August 1st with a Romanian and Russian victory, and the
month also saw the Battle of Marasesti and the Second Battle of Oituz on that front.
These were both Central Powers offensives, and though they gained ground initially, the
Romanians held the line, even after the Russian troops were pulled away mid month to defend
their own collapsing front.
Meanwhile, in the far northeastern front, the Germans were driving toward Riga, the
4th largest city in the Russian Empire.
The Canadian Corps had its first major action of the war under Canadian leadership at the
Battle of Hill 70 in France, and it was a success, not just in the field, but also as
a diversion to prevent German forces from heading to Ypres.
The French launched a diversion of their own, the Second Battle of Verdun, August 20th,
and it too was a success, and by the end of the month had brought the French lines nearly
back to where they had been in February 1916 when the First Battle of Verdun began.
The Italians launched the 11th Battle of the Isonzo River August 18th, and made great progress
for a few days, even threatening to completely break through the Austro-Hungarian lines,
but though the battle went on until mid September, they could not quite do it, and took 150,000
casualties, causing morale to drop alarmingly.
And the Great Fire of Salonika made 80,000 people homeless, destroyed British regional
Headquarters, and most alarmingly, the supply of quinine used to treat the rampant malaria
on that battlefront.
September rolled in, and with it, the fall of Riga to the Germans and their new Hutier
storm tactics.
They were now poised to make a drive toward Petrograd.
Petrograd itself is in ever worse turmoil.
In fact, General Kornilov sends his men there and attempt a coup, but the Kerensky government
arms the workers and the Bolshevik Red Guards- some 40,000 men- though Kornilov’s coup
is over before it really begins, as Kornilov’s army basically got demoralized and quit.
There are now tens of thousands of anti-government Bolshevik supporters bearing arms in Petrograd.
Bolshevik leaders are released from prison, where they’ve been since the violence of
the July Days, and the situation in Russia is ever more volatile.
There were several celebrity war deaths in September.
Romanian heroine Ekaterina Teodoroiu met her fate, as did French flying ace Georges Guynemer
and German ace Werner Voss.
One number of deaths was decreasing, though, that of men on ships being sunk by German
submarines.
The Allies were now using the convoy system, and shipping losses sank to the point where
it was not possible for German subs to drive any enemy out of the war.
On the Italian front, there was an attempt from traitors within the Austro-Hungarian
army to hand victory to the Italians, but it was foiled by mismanagement and incompetence
within the Italian army command structure.
The Second phase of the Battle of Passchendaele began September 20th.
This time, the action was directed by Herbert Plumer, and his tactic to try and defeat the
mighty Hindenburg Line of German defense, was- much like the French at the Second battle
of Verdun- to only make offensives for limited gains, and then dig in and consolidate them
before they even triggered a counterattack.
Aided by an unusually dry period of weather, his assaults did indeed make cracks in the
defenses, scaring the heck out of German Quartermaster Ludendorff, who feared Germany might even
have to abandon the Belgian coast if they continued.
And continue they did, as October began.
At Broodseinde on October 4th, Plumer’s forces, led by the two ANZAC- Australian and
New Zealand- army corps, had even more success than the September attacks.
After that, though, with the weather turning to the fall rains and mud, British leaders
began advising Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig to dig in for winter.
He not only refused, but stepped up the frequency of the attacks.
The Canadians would join the ANZACS in leading the fight, though the mud ruined those attacks
for the rest of the month, as the land became once again impossible to fight in and the
casualties climbed well into the hundreds of thousands for the battle.
The endless mud and fighting was just as bad for German morale as it was for the Allies.
The Germans had some big success, though, in the Northeast with their amphibious offensive
Operation Albion to take the islands in the Gulf of Riga.
By its end, the Russian army had basically stopped fighting.
And Leon Trotsky was preaching revolution in Petrograd where it was total chaos by the
end of the month.
Food, electricity, everything was hard to come by, robbery, rape, and murder were rampant,
and Lenin had come back from his exile in Finland to plot the final downfall of the
Kerensky government.
Toward the end of October, the French scored another big victory at the 4 day Battle of
Malmaison, advancing 10km and inflicting three times the casualties on the Germans they themselves
took.
But this paled in comparison to the Central Powers offensive in Italy- the Battle of Caporetto-
that began October 24th and routed the Italian army.
By the end of the month, they were in full retreat, having given up dozens and dozens
of kilometers of territory.
They had also lost over 150,000 men taken prisoner.
It was a disaster of the absolute first magnitude.
And that’s where we stand as November begins.
With the Italian front in disarray and the Allies worried Italy might be forced from
the war.
The British were still bogged down at Passchendaele, though on the last day of October they advanced
in Palestine as they took Beersheba amid legendary charges of mounted infantry.
The French have had some good recent success, which they really needed after the disaster
in the field in the spring and the army mutiny in the summer, and the Germans are miserable
in the mud in the west, but ruthlessly effective in the northeast, even as their enemy’s
army and even nation crumble and fall apart.
November begins with great uncertainty- Britain and France might potentially lose two allies,
Russia and Italy, and could they then fight all four Central Powers mostly on their own
until the Americans arrive in force?
Their own hopeful moments at Passchendaele have now long passed.
It was a dark time indeed.
What am I saying?
Every month of every year of this war is a dark time indeed.