Two months ago, Frenchman Roland Garros became the first pilot to be able to shoot through
his propeller and aim his machine gun by simply aiming his plane. Now, Garros had been a famous
pilot before the war after becoming the first person to fly non-stop across the Mediterranean,
but another pilot gained fame this week. Yep, this week Britain had its first wartime aviation hero.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the big news was the Austro-German recapture of the fortress of Przemysl, a big
symbol of Austro-Hungarian pride that had fallen to the Russians in March. The Russians
were now in full retreat from Galicia, fighting on their own territory. At Gallipoli the British
and French forces failed yet again to take Achi Baba, but the British were on the move
in Mesopotamia, while back home London was bombed by Zeppelin.
That was the first successful zeppelin bombing raid on London of the war, though it wouldn’t
be the last, but this week there was zeppelin action on the mainland.
On June 6th, three zeppelins took off from Belgium for another raid on Britain. One had
technical difficulties and had to land soon after take off; the other two were forced
to turn back from England by fog. Now, near Ghent, British Flight Sub-Lieutenant Rex Warneford
spotted one of them and managed to avoid its fire and fly above it. He dropped three bombs
on the zeppelin and the third exploded and destroyed it. All of the zeppelin’s crewmembers
but one died, but that one, Alfred Muhler, survived the 2.5 kilometer fall. As for Warneford,
the explosion caused his plane to flip over and he lost a lot of fuel flying upside down
before finally righting himself and gliding to a halt in a field behind German lines.
But he had some fuel in a reserve tank and after around half an hour managed to restart
the plane and fly off just as some German cavalry were approaching, Warneford calling
out “give my regards to the Kaiser” as he flew away.
When he got home he became a huge darling in the press, and the King himself wrote Warneford
a personal telegram to give him the Victoria Cross. The King also write a telegram to the
Admiralty, saying that the VC should be given as soon as possible, since the government
knew what the public didn’t- pilots had a short shelf life. Indeed, ten days later
Rex Warneford’s plane went into a spin and the tail broke off. He did not survive the crash.
While his death was a big thing, a whole lot of other deaths that were not so well reported
were leaving armies in dire need of replacements.
Many of these would come from colonies. On June 9th, for example, Canada announced it
would raise another 35,000 soldiers, and The British Dardanelles committee met on June
7th and decided to send a major influx of new troops to Gallipoli. Once Gallipoli had
reached a successful conclusion, all of the troops would head to the western front and
defeat the Germans. That was the idea. So three brand new divisions from Lord Kitchener’s
“new army” would be sent. However, General Sir Ian Hamilton’s forces had suffered such
great losses at Gallipoli that this would merely restore the balance, so two further
divisions were to be sent. There was no real discussion of the lack of proper training
and leadership of these divisions, nor mention of the crippling lack of artillery shells.
Still just blind optimism.
I imagine it was hard for the Russians to feel optimism at this point,, though, after
a steady month of losses in Galicia and the Carpathians, but this week actually ended
well for them.
Although on June 6th, the Austro-Hungarian and German forces crossed the Dniester at
Zurawno andv continued to advance east of Przemysl, on the 9th the Russians had pushed
them back to the right back of the Dniester and on the 11th to 16,000 Austrian prisoners
at Zurawno.
Actually, this week was a week of gains everywhere for the Allies.
The French were still fighting the Second Battle of Artois, a campaign that was over
a month old now. This week the French advanced in “the labyrinth”, which was a network
of over 5 square kilometers of trenches, dugouts, and tunnels south of Neuville st. Vaast on
both sides of the Arras-Lens road. Now, the labyrinth really was a maze, with blank walls
and points where defenders could even appear behind attackers. Further south near Hébuterne,
the French also advanced a kilometer along a 2 km front.
Now, the French and British attacks of the last month had caused the Germans to break
off their own offensive, the Second Battle of Ypres, which was the only German offensive
on the western front so far this year, actually. This was a bigger deal than it might seem
on the surface of things. See, Ypres was the last corner of Belgium that had not fallen
to the Germans. The French border was like 15 km to the south, the French port of Dunkirk
was 30 km west. Dunkirk was a half hours drive from Calais, and Calais was within sight of
Dover in England itself. If Ypres fell, then it was fairly good odds the Germans could
occupy these places in weeks, but also it would mean the fall of Belgium, and Britain
had gone to war in the first place to save Belgium. Other than the huge new military
advantage the Germans would have, think of what effect it would have on countries like
Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania, who were thinking about joining the war and which
side to join. So Ypres had to be held, and held it was.
And indeed, the Italians had joined the war, on the side of the Allies two weeks ago, and
things were also going well for them this week.
On the 5th, the Italian fleet bombarded lighthouse and stations of the islands of the Dalmatian
archipelago and on the 9th occupied Monfalcone. The thing about Italy is that it’s important
to remember that the Italian declaration of war was based on the sagging fortunes of the
Austro-Hungarian army over the winter, which led Italy to believe it would be able to take
a chunk of disputed territory from Austria without too much resistance, right? But the
Italian timing turned out to be really awful, since Austria-Hungary was now enjoying a massive
influx of German support and making huge gains driving the Russians back out of Galicia.
This allowed Austria to focus on the Italian front in a way that would not have been possible
even a month ago, and if you look at the Austrian defenses on that front at this point, they
were pretty formidable.
In the Trent and Alpine mountain fronts they had blasted trenches and gun emplacements
from the rock and protected them with barbed wire. Because of the vertical nature of the
terrain, these were pretty much impregnable. They had done loads of work behind the lines
beefing up both road and rail communication so there would be none of the bizarre railroad
problems they had in their initial campaign into Serbia last August. Along the Isonzo
River, the defenses may not have been quite as complete as further north, but they made
their lines on the hills and the ridges alongside the river, and where the river ran through
Gorizia there were mountains overlooking it that were heavily fortified and as the Isonzo
ran to the sea it passed the Carso Plateau, which rose 1,000 feet and had Monte San Michele
looking down on it from the top. The Austrian defenses were going to be seriously tough
nuts for the Italians to crack.
And so we come to the end of the week. The French pushing back the Germans in the west,
the Russians playing give and take in the east but ending the week with a huge take
of prisoners. The Italians on the move and throughout the British Empire a call for more
and more troops.
You knew that was going to happen, though. That the armies everywhere would demand more
and more men. This war was less than a year old and was being fought on a scale larger
than any other in history, and it was going to need men. But you needed heroes, too, especially
of the everyman variety, because you had to convince your native sons to join up, to fight,
and to die when they often weren’t certain what they were dying for.
Rex Warneford was one such hero. The son of a railway engineer, born in India, educated
in England, and even spending time in Australia, he was a real everyman British hero. For about
two weeks. That’s how long he was a hero before the war claimed his life. Thousands
of mourners attended his funeral on June 21, 1915, and after all of the hundreds of thousands
of nameless dead soldiers in every nation, at least for a day one of them was called
hero by name, but as you well know, his death didn’t change anything other than convincing
more men to go and join the slaughter.
And it was no surprise that a lot of the heroes of The Great War were pilots. The aces of
the skies were far away from the butchery on the ground and had an image close to those
of knights in the sky. How the war of sky changed throughout the war? You can
find that out right here in our special episode about Aerial Warfare.
Our Patreon Supporter of the week is Jonathan Childers. If you want to see us outside the
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