What was the big news this week? The big news this week was simple. 100 years ago this week
Portugal joined the war.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the charge of the Dorset Yeomanry broke the Senussi defenses on the Libyan front,
in the West more and more men were pouring into Verdun as the bloody fighting finished
its second week, the Russians were still advancing in Anatolia, the Austrians had taken the Albanian
capital, and Germany declared that every ship of any kind that belonged to an enemy and
had a gun would be sunk without warning. Here’s what followed.
As you may have guessed, more death and destruction at Verdun followed.
On March 6, in a snowstorm, the Germans launched an attack on Mort-Homme, on the left bank
of the Meuse and the preliminary artillery barrage to kick off the attack was as intense
as the one on Feb 21st that began the entire Battle of Verdun. But on the French side,
General de Bazelaire now had four divisions in line on the left bank and a fifth in reserve.
It was the most coherent defense system yet seen at Verdun, but still, the initial German
attacks made some depressingly easy successes. One of the French divisions, the 67th, had
no real experience of being shelled. Telephone lines were all cut within half an hour and
their morale just plummeted. And then the German infantry attacked. The 77th Brigade
crossed the Meuse at Brabant, and General von Zwehl had even brought up an armored train
whose guns would support his infantry. The French spotted this, though, and concentrated
fire forced it to retire, but the damage had been done; the Germans were now established
on the Left Bank, behind the French first line. Another blow for the French was this,
French gunners from the Bois Bourrus had rained enormous shellfire on the advancing Germans,
but in the swampy ground many of the fuses failed to catch and explode. Soon, General
Riemann (Riemen’s) 22nd Reserve Division raced up the Left bank to join von Zwehl’s
men and hit the French with a pincer movement at Regneville. Regneville fell, as did Forges,
and the Germans moved into the Bois de Corbeaux, the only woods near Mort-Homme.
By the end of the second day, more than 3,000 men of the demoralized French 67th Division
had surrendered to the Germans and de Bazelaire issued orders that the commander at Forges
would be court-martialed and that artillery and machine guns would be turned on any units
that retreated further. He could well see what the German intentions were; Mort-Homme
was to be captured from the northeast, via the Bois de Corbeaux, which the Germans had
entirely taken by the afternoon of the 7th. The French must retake the Bois, no matter
the cost, and at dawn on the 8th came the attack.
The French counter attack was led by Lieutenant-Colonel Macker, brandishing a cane and smoking a cigar
at the head of his troops. At a steady walking pace, his regiment crossed the 400 meters
to the Bois, and as German machine guns tore holes in the formation, the French closed
ranks. At 100 meters they fixed bayonets and charged. The Germans were totally stunned
by this and fell back and by 7:20 nearly the whole Bois de Corbeaux was again in French hands.
Things weren’t going so well for the Germans in the frontal attack on Mort-Homme either.
French artillery had anticipated an attack there for days, and the wall of gunfire they
laid down was impossible for the Germans to overcome. General Philippe Petain’s defense
used the flat trajectory 75mm guns, which weren’t much use against trenches, to fire
on no mans land whenever the Germans advanced. They were of great use there. The Germans
were now struggling with the challenges of moving their big guns across the blasted landscape
in winter weather, and the French artillery by this time was an equal and opposite force.
As for the hero Macker, on the 10th his men had pushed another German force out of another
wood near the Bois de Carbeaux, but when Macker went to congratulate a battalion commander,
both men were shot dead by a German machine gun. At just that moment, the Germans counter
attacked and with the death of their leader, the French troops lost heart. The Germans
retook Bois de Carbeaux, but- fortunately for the French- their losses were now so high
that they could advance no further.
It wasn’t just the Germans who could advance no further. Let’s turn our attention to
the Middle East where the British relief forces were again trying to break the siege at Kut
and rescue Charles Townshend’s trapped British and Indian forces.
By March 7th, the relief force was so near Kut they could see its minarets, and by the
8th, the 91st day of the siege, General Sir Fenton Aylmer’s forces had reached the second
Ottoman line at Es-Sinn, just 13 kilometers from Kut. After an all-night march, the British
forces advanced in three columns against the Dujaila redoubt and bombarded the Ottomans
with heavy artillery. But the British could not break them, and all day long the attacks
kept up and all day long the story was the same- the fortifications were too strong and
the defenders too numerous- and by the end of the day the lack of water- which the British
had to bring all the way from their main camp, made continuing attacks impossible, and even
though they could see the flashes of their besieged comrades firing into the rear of
the Ottoman lines from Kut, they returned to their main camp, 35 kilometers away downriver,
after suffering 3,500 casualties. General Aylmer would lose his command because of his
failure to break the siege, but he had attacked even with terrible odds partly because he
was ordered to, but partly because the spring floods were coming. Aylmer would be replaced
by Lieutenant-General Sir George Gorringe.
Oddly enough, inside Kut, Townshend had realized that he had a lot more food than he had first
thought. And his men also realized that they could eat their horses, though many Indian
troops refused to for religious reasons. Still, by March and by the newest failure of relief,
and really more and more as the month rolled on, there was a serious decline in morale.
“Up to this time men were moderately cheerful and in fair spirits. One saw, however, how
deeply they were disappointed each time the relief failed. From this time onwards there
was a rapid lowering of stamina, vitality, physical condition, and health... men at fatigues,
such as trench-digging, after ten minutes work had to rest a while and go at it again,
men on sentry would drop down... There were instances of Indians returning from trench
duty in the evening seemingly with nothing the matter, who laid down and were found dead
in the morning- death due to starvation asthenia. Men in such a low state of vitality can stand
little in the shape of illness- an attack of diarrhea often ended fatally- all recuperative
power had gone.” (Peter Hart)
But if Kut was looking good for the Ottomans, elsewhere in Ottoman territory things weren’t
going quite so well.
On the 4th, the Russians landed at Atine, east of Trabzon, on the 7th, they captured
Rize, and at the end of the week drove the Turks beyond the river Kalopotamos.
The Russians were even advancing in Persia this week capturing Cola and occupying Sennah.
But the big news story was diplomatic.
On March 9, 1916, the German Empire declared war on Portugal. You could’ve sort of seen
this coming. Last week Portugal seized 38 German and Austro-Hungarian ships in Portuguese
ports at British request. Portugal had been neutral, but Britain was Portugal’s main
trading partner, and Germany had just loosened restraints on who their U-Boats would target,
and this jeopardized Portuguese trade, so it all fell together.
And here are a couple of notes to round out the week.
On March 8th came an announcement from Tokyo: three warships captured by the Japanese from
Russia in their last war were purchased back by the Tsar. In Africa, Lieutenant-General
Jan Smuts advances on Kilimanjaro, and- by virtue of his feats at Gallipoli- Mustafa
Kemal was promoted to General in the Ottoman army, given the title Pasha, and sent to the
Caucasus front, at the age of just 35.
And that was the week; heavy action at Verdun, the British failing again on the Tigris, and
the Russians advancing in Anatolia and Persia.
Oh, and Portugal joined the war. There had actually been skirmishes between German and
Portuguese colonial troops in Africa in 1914 but war was never declared back then, but
it is now, and within days Portugal and Austria-Hungary would also declare war on each other. So Portugal
now begins organizing men who will be sent to the nearby Western Front where thousands
of them will die. That’s not a spoiler. That’s just stating the obvious, because
week after week after week for over 200 weeks, thousands of men will die. That’s Modern
War.
If you want to find out more about the skirmishes between Portuguese and German troops in Africa,
click here for our episode.
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