You’re at war. You’re a general. You launch an offensive that does serious damage to the
enemy and reaches the point where it may decide the war; all you need is for your army’s
other generals to attack your other enemy and prevent him from reinforcing the enemy
you’re crushing. But what happens when that diversion doesn’t divert? Let’s find out.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the German flying ace Max Immelmann died, the Germans used deadly new phosgene
gas at Verdun but couldn’t break through, the Russians were swarming all over Bukovina,
but their forces far to the north were not attacking the Germans to prevent them from
sending help to the Austrians.
The Russian 9th Army stood, as the week began, on a line that ran from Kolomea, down through
Kuty and then to the Romanian border, threatening the Hungarian mountain passes.
The Brusilov Offensive, named after General Alexei Brusilov, had forced the Austrians
back over the past three weeks and taken hundreds of thousands of prisoners. The Austro-Hungarian
High Command issued this proclamation, “Every man in the army must be aware that he is fighting
here to decide the campaign, and to decide the fate of the fatherland.”
It’s pretty dramatic, but also no longer entirely accurate. The Austrian 7th Army alone
had lost 133,000 men, 40,000 of those taken prisoner, but the Russians were pretty close
to their limit as well, and they were now faced with the job of pursuing Austrian forces
through a broad network of valleys toward the Carpathians. Still, though, the Russian
9th Army took Kolomea June 29th, causing another 40,000 AH casualties and taking 10,000 more
prisoners, even though it was clear to Russian General Platon Letschitski that he didn’t
have the men to force the Carpathian passes.
But the Russians did have enough men to possibly destroy the remaining might of the Austrian
army, if only that army was not reinforced by Germany. In order to prevent that, Generals
Evert and Kuropatkin in the far north were to attack the Germans to keep them busy. They
had 90 divisions - 750,000 more men than the Germans, and two thirds of the total Russian
artillery, but for two weeks they had delayed their attacks and a frustrated Brusilov saw
his chance slipping away. Their attack was now planned for July 3rd.
German Army Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn had acted quickly to save some Austrian bacon.
He had sent four divisions to help the defense of Kovel, but he had had it with Austrian
failures in the field and his end game was to take over control of the whole Eastern
Front. He demanded that Alexander von Linsingen be placed in command of the Austrian 1st and
4th armies. He had also proposed, two weeks ago, that August von Mackensen, who had devastated
the Russians last year, be in charge of the front from the Pripet to the Dniester. Austrian
Chief of Staff Conrad von Hotzendorf refused this, but saw few alternatives to coming under
German control.
Linsingen’s forces had prevented the Russians from taking Kovel, but his counter offensives
over the past two weeks had been generally unsuccessful, thought they had frustrated
Brusilov for the moment, and Brusilov had ordered most of his units to dig in and prepare
to renew the Offensive July 3rd.
There was another offensive that was just about to begin as well, at the Somme River.
On June 24th, came the beginning of preliminary artillery barrage at the Somme, along an 18km
front. 1,500 guns and howitzers fired 1,732,873 shells. Many were duds, and many others just
churned up the surface instead of damaging the deep German dugouts, though this still
raised Allied morale considerably. But there were ominous reports from attempted British
trench raids during lulls in the barrage. “Raids attempted all along the Corps front
were unsuccessful, in some sectors owing to intense machine gun and rifle fire” (Gilbert)
The offensive itself was to begin the 29th, but heavy rains and a late realization that
the barrage might not have been terribly effective caused a two-day postponement. But the final
reports at the end of the week were positive. Visually the effects were impressive. Slowly
the German reserves, which had been pretty depleted by the Battle of Verdun, began to
move north to the Somme, and battery by battery, the German guns began to leave Verdun and
also head north, though June 24th marked the farthest the Germans had advanced in the four
months of fighting at Verdun.
And further southeast Austria was pulling back from its furthest advance against Italy.
Though in the Trentino on June 28th, the Austrians bombarded the Italians with hydrocyanide,
seriously injuring or killing 6,000 sleeping Italians. The next day the gas blew back on
the Austrians, causing 1,000 casualties. But this week the Italians retook both Asiago
and Arserio, both had been burned and ransacked before. The Austrian lines on the Asiago Plateau
were now well within the 1866 border, which flew in the face of Italian Chief of Staff
Luigi Cadorna’s claims that the enemy would never set foot on sacred Italian soil. The
Italians had taken just under 150,000 casualties in the offensive, about 50,000 more than the
Austrians, and the Trentino salient stuck out and looked really insecure.
The Italian press backed Cadorna - the generalissimo - and called him a genius once the balance
of battle had shifted to the Italians’ favor, though one of Cadorna’s deputies had this
to say, “Why was Cadorna allowed to celebrate this grievous episode of the war and boast
about it as something glorious?” But the PR machine ignored all the oversights and
all the errors that had allowed the Austrians to take so much ground so quickly, and the
Italian people were pretty desperate for some good news.
For Conrad von Hotzendorf, the Austrian gains made were nothing compared with his disaster
against the Russians. He had underestimated the men he’d need for the Italian offensive
anyhow, he didn’t imagine how much difference a Russian attack could make, he didn’t use
General Borojevic von Bojna and his army to make a diversion on the Isonzo, and because
of all of this his prestige in Vienna and Budapest was now at a new low.
And here’s a note to round out the week.
On June 28th there was a three-day protest in Germany. 55,000 German workers took part.
Karl Liebknecht, the one anti-war member of the Reichstag was expelled from the Reichstag
and sentenced to two years hard labor for urging soldiers not to fight. Later it would
be increased to four years.
So the week ends, with artillery at the Somme, poison gas in Trentino, tens of thousands
of Austrian prisoners in Galicia, and protests on the German home front.
I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the documentary The Civil War by Ken Burns, but
he illustrates a lot of the American Civil War with letters from the front, so I’m
gonna do that too. Here’s a letter I found in Peter Hart’s, “The Great War” written
by Captain Charles May on June 30th, 1916, one day before the men went over the top at
the Somme:
“I must not allow myself to dwell on the personal... but I do not want to die. Not
that I mind for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I
may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water. My one consolation
is the happiness that has been ours. Also my conscience is clear that I have tried to
make life a joy to you... But it is the thought that we may be cut off from one another which
is so terrible and that our babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her
knowing me. It is difficult to face. And I know your life without me would be a dull
blank... (But) to you will be left the greatest charge in all the world: the upbringing of
our baby. God bless that child, she is the hope of life to me. My darling, au revoir.
It may well be that you will only have to read these lines as ones of passing interest.
On the other hand, they may well be my last message to you. If they are, know through
all your life that I loved you and the baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet
things were just all the world to me. I pray God I may do my duty, for I know, whatever
that may entail, you would not have it otherwise.”
Charles May, wife of Bessie and father of Pauline, was killed the following day.
If you want to find out more about Douglas Haig, the mastermind of the British offensive
and also called the Butcher of the Somme, click right here to watch our bio episode
about him.
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