In just seven months, this war has grown beyond anyone’s expectations or even imaginations.
From the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia, there had now been fronts in France,
Belgium, East Prussia, Poland, the Carpathian Mountains, Serbia, the Caucasus... there was
fighting as far away as Africa, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Far East, and off the
coast of South America, and it was still a stalemate. This week the British and French
tried to break that stalemate, and opened yet another front in the Eastern Mediterranean.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Here’s what we saw before. The Russian army managed to escape disaster in East Prussia,
but at the cost of nearly 100,000 men captured; the Austro-Hungarian Imperial army had failed
in its offensive to beat back the Russians in the Carpathians and free the trapped Austrian
army at Przemysl; the German submarine blockade began with merchant ships now legitimate targets;
and Indian troops mutinied in Singapore; the first large mutiny of the war.
Let’s look at the big picture for a second. Right, stalemate in the west. The British
command was loathe to divert troops from France for other actions at this point, but was willing
to deploy the navy elsewhere, but where might a British naval attack be made that could
make a difference?
There were ideas for an assault on the Belgian coast, with the Royal Navy supporting British
and Belgian forces, but the Admiralty didn’t think light ships could handle the German
coastal artillery and also that it was foolish to risk battleships in confined waters. It
seemed pretty far-fetched to try to attack Austria-Hungary too, since she was virtually
unapproachable. The Adriatic Sea was firmly Austrian and closed to British and French
ships by Austrian submarines and newly built Austrian dreadnoughts.
Serbia could only be supported through Bulgaria, who was pretty hostile and unreachable, or
Greece, who was neutral. Getting Italy to join the war against Austria would be a big
plus in general, but that still wouldn’t either help Serbia or open the Adriatic since
the Italian naval bases were in the Mediterranean. Romania was friendly to the allies, but wouldn’t
risk joining the war unless Russia had a big upper hand on the Eastern Front. It looked
pretty clear that the only other place where Britain could use its naval strength to affect
the European war was in Turkey. Now, the Ottoman Empire did have one front in the Caucasus
against the Russians, but that was too far away and inaccessible to get involved in,
so throughout the winter the British War Council had been considering a naval attack on the
Turkish Dardanelles with the objective of opening a path to the Russian Black Sea ports.
The Dardanelles have been of incredible strategic importance for centuries. This is the passage
that separates Europe from Asia. About 50 km long, it’s narrowest point is only around
one kilometer wide. The straits connect the Mediterranean with the Sea of Marmara, and
at the other end of the Sea of Marmara sits Istanbul, which guards the entrance to the
Bosporus, even narrower than the Dardanelles, which is the gateway to the Black Sea.
In 1915, the European shore of all of this was a narrow strip of Ottoman territory, but
on the Asian side Ottoman territory stretched to the Caucasus, the Red Sea, and the Persian
Gulf. Now, it was a long-standing ambition of Russia to take Istanbul, which would not
only recover the seat of Orthodox Christianity from Islam, but would also secure permanent
access to warm water.
The French and the British had certainly been against giving Russia such a dramatic enlargement
of power in southern Europe, but after six months of this war, they were now prepared
to open a new front there, to bring relief to Russia, but also to break the impasse on
the Western Front, and on February 19th, five British and three French battle cruisers began
to bombard the outer forts of the Dardanelles. This bombardment continued off and on throughout
the week, and by the 25th, the outer forts were in ruins. At the end of the month, Turkish
and German generals met in Istanbul to discuss the future defense of the Dardanelles.
It’s interesting that Austria-Hungary was, for the moment, protected from any invasion
other than a Russian one, which was immensely good news for Emperor Fran z Josef, because
his forces really had their hands full dealing with the Russian bear.
The Austro-Hungarian Winter offensive in the Carpathian Mountains over the past few weeks
had failed, with casualties estimated above 75%, most of them from illness, frostbite,
and hypothermia. General Svetozar Boroevic, an extremely competent leader, had complained
repeatedly that his troops had quite simply not been prepared for the rigors of a mountain
campaign in winter.
So if you were his boss, Austrian army Chief of Staff Conrad von Hotzendorf, what would
you do now? Well, it doesn’t really matter what you would do because here’s what Conrad
did: he changed generals and started a new offensive. Yep, this week was the beginning
of the Second Carpathian Winter Offensive of 1915.
General Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli was transferred over from the German front and a new army
was created for him. It was initially composed of around 60,000 exhausted Third Army troops
who’d just fought the first offensive, but bolstered by six and a half divisions of infantry.
The Hapsburg VII Corps was also transferred up from the Balkan Theater. Once again, they
were going to all try to push the Russians out of the Dukla and Uzhok Passes and take
the rail centers of Lisko, Sanok, and Sambir, but there was a difference this time.
Before, the front had been enormous in length, but now the main offensive was along a smaller
front less than 20 kilometers long. And it was going to be a heavy frontal assault, which
Conrad thought necessary in large part because of the enormous political pressure to
Liberate Przemysl Fortress and it’s garrison- over 100,000 strong- from the Russian siege;
a garrison that was now desperately short of food.
So... the attack was planned for February 25th, but the enormous supply chain, combined
with deteriorating weather, destroyed most of the roadways leading to the front. Since
there was a shortage of military labor crews, it was nearly impossible to keep the few that
remained open. As an added bonus, disease was now spreading through the ranks, in addition
to the usual frostbite. Nevertheless, the Second Offensive, though delayed a few days,
went forward at the end of the month.
But while that offensive was just getting started, further north we were seeing the
aftermath of another offensive; a German one.
See, the Russian counter offensive had stopped the German progress a few days ago but this
week heavy fighting continued throughout Northern Poland. On the 24th, the Germans took Przasnysz
with 10,000 prisoners, but the next day in the same town, the Russians took nearly 3,000
German prisoners and by the 26th, the Germans were pulling out. The Russians re-took it
the next day, taking another 5,000 prisoners. On the last day of the month, German General
Paul von Hindenburg officially called off the German offensive.
And if we turn out attention further west we see the Germans playing defense, as the
French Champagne Offensive, which was now over two months old, continued.
This week on the Western Front there was also action in the sky, but you could see that
the war in the air was still “learning to walk”. Two Zeppelins wrecked off the Danish
Coast, a German plane dropped bombs on Essex with zero damage, but on the 22nd a Zeppelin
successfully bombed Calais.
Also this week Rheims was bombarded heavily, the cathedral vault broken, and the week ended
with a general upswing for the Allies as the British advanced near La Bassee and the French
near Mesnil. There was also heavy bombing of the German rear in Champagne.
And further notes from around the world: on the 21st the Russians pushed the Turks back
across the Ichkalen river in Armenia. The following day in German Southwest Africa,
Garub was occupied by Union forces. They also occupied Nonidas and Goanikas the day after
that. And in the first week of the German blockade, seven British merchant ships were
sunk by submarines.
So we find ourselves once again at the end of the week with the British and the French
about to open yet another front in the eastern Mediterranean, the Russians pushed out of
East Prussia but making a bold stand in Northern Poland, the British French winning minor gains
in the west, and the Austrians launching another winter offensive against Russia in the Carpathian Mountains
If there was one army that had arguably performed worse than that of Austria-Hungary so far
this war, it was the Ottoman Imperial Army. Destroyed at Sarikamis, beaten back in Suez
and the Persian Gulf; there were many allied leaders who believed that the Turks were easy
pickings, and after beating them the Allied breakthrough that seemed unattainable in Western
Europe would happen in the Southeast. But there were no easy pickings in this war; there
was only high-tech, mechanized, anonymous death in the tens of thousands, and a new
front would only add new names to the list of the fallen. Names that would number in
the millions.
If you want to know more about how the Ottomans were defeated in the Caucasian mountains,
click here to check out our episode from January 1. If you want a view behind the scenes and
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