Railroads: Strategic Necessity and Vulnerability for First World War Armies

Restored WWI French Train

The First World War began and ended on rails. The mobilizations of the powers were accomplished with thousands of trains moving troops to their jump-off points. The fighting ended with the Armistice signed in Marshal Foch's private rail coach in a clearing in Compiegne Forest. 

In between, the rail networks were essential for sustaining the fronts during the long period of trench warfare, and for assembling the shells, food and stores for launching the great battles like the Somme. The Miracle of the Marne turned on Joffre's superior use of rail to re-array his forces. Verdun was sustained during the great 1916 assault by a light-rail line paralleling the Voie Sacrée. And when the great rollback of the Western Front occurred in 1918, the Allies staged their battles either to protect their own lines such as at Amiens and St. Mihiel or to attack the German network as in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which successfully closed the strategic Metz-Sedan-Mézières line. 

For all that is written about the tactical excellence of the German Army, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Allied leaders consistently showed a higher appreciation of the importance of railroads for their armies throughout the war.

A Comparable Union Army Train from the Civil War

19th Century Roots

The military use of railways was one of the most influential technological changes in warfare in the second half of the 19th century. Railways made possible rapid movement of large masses of troops and equipment; the correspondingly shortened transit times reduced feeding and billeting requirements; troops and horses arrived in relatively fresh condition; and improved logistical support made possible  the sustainment of mass conscript armies in the field. One of the earliest operational uses of military railways occurred in 1849, when a Russian corps moved from Warsaw to Vienna to protect the city from Hungarian rebels. During the American Civil War, two Union corps—more than 20,000 troops, their equipment, and horses—moved 1,230 miles by rail in just eleven days in September 1864. 

Moltke made a careful study of the lessons of the American Civil War, and in 1870 the Germans made far more effective use of their rail system than the French did of theirs. All the European countries quickly developed dense rail networks, and the general staffs of all nations tirelessly studied how to put this strategic resource to best use, when war came again.

German Troop Depot, Western Front

20th-Century War

From the outbreak of World War I, railroads were the key means of logistical support and it also played a role in what operational mobility was achieved on the Western Front. As the fronts developed both sides developed dense rail network behind their lines. Generally, it is difficult to close down, or even temporarily neutralize a rail network.

While it is relatively easy to destroy signaling and switching equipment, that only slows down but does not stop rail movement. The roadbeds and track are much harder to destroy. The key vulnerabilities in a rail network are its choke points; tunnels, bridges, switching yards, and rail junctions. If a rail network is dense, single choke points generally have little military significance, because the system has ample bypasses and workarounds. For much of the war, planners focused on protecting their lines or, in some cases, driving the opposition away from key lines to prevent interdicting fire.

British Tanks Moving to the Front, 1918

Targeting Railroad Networks

It was not until the Western Front became fluid again in the Spring of  1918 that breaking the enemy's rail network became offensive objectives. The U.S. Meuse-Argonne Offensive, as mentioned above, successfully cut the main German line supplying all its forces along the southern Western Front. However, on the Flanders to Paris stretch of the Western Front the German system had far greater depth, very few if any significant choke points, and it ran straight back to the national base without having to link into seaports. Facing them, the British position in Flanders and the old Somme sector was not robust and had two significant choke points— its two major forward marshaling and switching yards at Amiens and Hazebrouck. Ludendorff's spring offensives failed to secure either of these locations. The British Army survived and was able to resume the offensive in August 1918. We will have more on this particular situation and why it might have constituted one of the great missed opportunities for the German Army in future postings on Roads to the Great War.

Source: Relevance, Fall 2011

A Second Blank Check? When Poincaré Went to St. Petersburg

President Poincaré and Tsar Nicholas II in St. Peterburg

On 20 July 1914 French Presided Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister/ Foreign Minister  René Viviani  arrived in St. Petersburg on the French Battleship France for a state visit and three days of consultation with Tsar Nicholas II and his government.  The visit was aimed at reinforcing the Franco-Russian Alliance amid rising tensions in Europe following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. For over a century historians have disputed what degree of support the French delegation promised Russia in the evolving crisis before the departure. It had to have been made was the principals were together in Russia.  The Austro-Hungarian government  deliberately timed the delivery of the ultimatum to occur at 6:00 p.m. on 23 July 1914, specifically to ensure it happened after Poincaré and Viviani had departed St. Petersburg, limiting their immediate ability to coordinate a response with Russia. The battleship France would not arrive in its homeport, Dunkirk, until the 29th and given the state of communications in those days, there was little communications between the two governments as war broke out, when Austria-Hungary opened fire on Belgrade on 28 July.

The direction and degree to which the discussions conducted in St. Petersburg might have influenced Russian conduct during this period was addressed in a 2010 article published by the  Jervis International Security Forum, “French Foreign Policy in the July Crisis, 1914: A Review Article.” Here are some of the major insights raised by its author, Professor Marc Trachtenberg of UCLA.

Stefan Schmidt’s new book on French foreign policy in the July Crisis is a good case in point.[1] He begins by arguing that the French government—and above all, Raymond Poincare, President of the Republic, and the key French policy maker at the time—took a hard line during the crisis, and in particular in the important meetings held with the Russian leadership in St. Petersburg from July 20 to July 23. In itself this argument is by no means new. Luigi Albertini, in his great work on origins of the war, took much the same line. But given the limited evidence on that episode that was available when he wrote that book, Albertini’s interpretation was necessarily somewhat speculative. “The St. Petersburg conversations,” he wrote, “must have dealt above all with the Austro-Serbian tension and the eventualities that might result from it.”

But that interpretation was by no means universally accepted, and for years there was a certain tendency in the historical literature to play down the role that France had played during the crisis, and especially to minimize the importance of the St. Petersburg talks. France was often portrayed as caught up in events she was scarcely able to control. . . “There is no evidence,” John Keiger [another respected student of the War's origins] said flatly, “that during his visit to Russia Poincare did anything other than reaffirm the Franco-Russian alliance. He did not offer carte blanche in the event of a Balkan war. . . French policy in the crisis, according to Keiger, was “predicated on the notion of restraining Russia to avoid giving Germany a pretext for war.” 

Stefan Schmidt’s 2009 book France's Foreign Policy in the July Crisis of 1914: A Contribution to the History of the Outbreak of the First World War [takes a contrary position]. He begins by arguing that the French government—and above all, Raymond Poincaré, President of the Republic, and the key French policy maker at the time—took a hard line during the crisis, and in particular in the important meetings held with the Russian leadership in St. Petersburg from July 20 to July 23. 

Schmidt argues, Russia was in fact given the equivalent of a blank check at the St. Petersburg talks and after. France was not “dragged into” the war. As Maurice Paleologue, the French ambassador to Russia at the time, wrote in a 1936 letter to the historian Pierre Renouvin (published in a relatively obscure journal in 1997), what the French were afraid of at the time was not that they would be “dragged in” by Russia, but rather that France would be “poorly supported by Russia, in the event of a German attack.”

Schmidt shows, first of all, that Poincare had come to understand, shortly his arrival in Russia, how serious the Austro-Serbian dispute was, and how in fact Austria was about to present the Serbs with a sort of ultimatum—a “demarche comminatoire,” to use Poincaré’s own term at the time. This implied that in the St. Petersburg talks, Poincaré and the Russian leaders would have had to talk seriously about what Russia would do in such a case and the degree to which France would support those actions. 

And indeed it seems quite clear that this was exactly what happened. As Paleologue pointed out in his 1936 letter to Renouvin:  “‘war’ was certainly discussed in these talks, but only defensive war." M. Poincare, at the time, by no means concealed the fact that in these conversations he was thinking about the possibility of a conflict. Later on, in the context of the campaign about ‘Poincaré-la-guerre,’ he thought it would be better to give a different version.”  Louis de Robien, in 1914 the attaché in the French embassy in St. Petersburg, made the same point:  by 22 July, he wrote, the French and Russian leaders were “talking openly of a war, which no one had even dreamt of a few days earlier. . ."

What to make of the assurances that Paleologue gave the Russians right after the French leaders left St. Petersburg and news of the Austrian ultimatum was received in that city?  The French ambassador gave the Russians a “formal assurance that France placed herself unreservedly on Russia’s side.” But was Paleologue simply acting on his own? That was Keiger’s view:  “it is clear that Paleologue was acting independently of Paris.”

. . . In fact it seems quite likely, given everything that Schmidt was able to show about Poincaré and especially about the line he took in St. Petersburg, that Paleologue was carrying out what he knew to be the French president’s policy—a policy, to be sure, which he was personally in sympathy with. If Paleologue kept Paris in the dark—and he certainly did not give an adequate account of what he had told the Russians and of what he was learning from them—that was not because he was temperamentally inclined to play the lone cowboy. Schmidt thinks that his aim in doing so was to keep Viviani from pursuing a more moderate policy, not to act independently of Poincaré—and that interpretation seems quite plausible.

So the basic argument Schmidt develops in the first part of the book strikes me as very solid. The French government—and that meant essentially Poincare personally—did take a hard line in the crisis:  Russia, in fact, had effectively been given a blank check. . .

It’s in that context that it makes sense to ask some basic questions about French policy in 1914—about whether the hardline policy pursued by Poincaré was rational in power political terms, about whether it was in some sense natural, given the kind of great power political system that existed at the time, for France to pursue the sort of policy she did. . . 

Albertini, after spending years of his life trying to understand the coming of the First World War, concluded that the “utter lack of political horse-sense” was the “main cause of European disorders and upheavals.” The Schmidt book leaves you with much the same impression. These people in 1914 were not the victims of forces they were unable to control. The tragedy did not come because they were reacting in the only way they reasonably could to the situation in which they found themselves. It came because of decisions they made, decisions that could easily have been different—decisions, in fact, that remain deeply puzzling. 

Fall of 1915 — The Season of Failed Allied Western Front Offensives

In September 1915, French commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre initiated a double offensive on both faces of the German salient into France, north and east of Paris, in an effort to "rupture" the German position. In Artois a joint British-French effort, known in some sources as the Battle of "Artois-Loos" (map, locations 1 [British] & 2 [French]), resulted in limited gains and high losses. British losses of 60,000 killed and wounded around Loos alone stunned observers. The French attack to the south captured the key town of Souchez but failed again at Vimy Ridge.

The accompanying failure—solely a French effort—in Champagne (map, location 3) to sever the main east-west rail line supporting the German front, however, sent greater shock waves through France. The massive national effort made there to provide logistical support, including millions of rounds of heavy artillery shells for a decisive breakthrough, had proved utterly inadequate to the challenge. The advance had moved the front merely four kilometers.

Politicians' faith in Joffre began to wane and they looked to other theatres of war, like the Balkans, for deploying the nation's forces. For the citizenry, victory now seemed barely perceptible, beyond some distant horizon, and would be most assuredly astronomically costly to attain. For the French Army, the Western Front—France—had to be the decisive front, but what new rabbit could they pull out of the hat? The attritional warfare they had inadvertently fallen into was unsustainable. Official figures (probably on the low side) showed 191,000 French casualties in the double fall offensives, including 31,000 killed.

After the Fall of 1915, French Troops Were Stuck in the Champagne Until 1918

The sole remaining option was to look to the British. In the winter of 1915-16 General Joffre would abandon French-only offensive operations and focus exclusively on encouraging and collaborating with his ally. Attacking side-by-side would enable the massing of troops and, more important, the artillery of both armies. Naturally, this had to be in a location adjacent to the British sector. Perhaps, somewhere around the River Somme? Yes, that should work nicely. Thus did the failures of 1915 lead to the "Big Show" of 1916.

Three Sons for the Kaiser: A German Family’s Sacrifice in the First World War

By Hazel Strouts

Pen and Sword Military, 2025

Reviewed by David F. Beer

Some Typical German Families During the War

Initially I expected this book to be a rather prosaic family history. I soon found how wrong I was. After a page or two of reading it was hard to put Three Sons for the Kaiser down. Hazel Strouts has written a fact-filled and historical account that is both emotionally gripping and presented in a natural and very readable style.It is also crammed with documented information about the WW1 German submarine service, especially in the Baltic, plus intimate insights into the German soldier’s experience at the Marne, on the Somme, and at Verdun.

The author, who now lives in England, is the great-granddaughter of a remarkable German naval figure, Philipp Gereke. Philipp served in the Imperial Navy, was a friend of Prince Heinrich and of the Kaiser, and might well have become an admiral had he not enjoyed alcohol so much. He and his wife raised three fine boys and later a capable daughter. Philipp’s career plus his family life makes for a fascinating story in themselves; however, the book’s focus is the lives and combat deaths of his three sons, Hermann, Georg, and Waldemar.

Like well-raised and privileged German boys, the three brothers become patriotically involved in Germany’s initial war efforts, although Georg, the artistic one, is the last to volunteer. All become officers: Herman, like his father, in the navy and the others in the army. They never forget their parents, and family ties remain strong through visits and mail. This family closeness makes the eventual fates of each son all the more moving. Only Herman manages to get married and have children before his U-boat is blown up by a British submarine on 11 May 1918. He is the grandfather of our author, through his daughter Ursula.

The youngest son, Waldemar, is the first to die. He was based near Gommecourt and on New Year’s Eve1 914, went to a country church with many others “to mark the end of the first year of the war which was supposed to have been over long before Christmas” (p. 146). After the service they were all leaving when a shell exploded, “and a shower of iron shrapnel sprayed those exiting the church. Carnage. Suddenly there were eighty men dead or dying on the church steps, on the pavement and in the street” (p. 146). One of them was Waldemar. He was buried nearby until the late 1970s, when his remains were moved to a vast military cemetery in Neuville-St- Vaast where he now lies with 44,829 of his comrades (p 147).

The middle brother, Georg, was killed in late May 1916, while leading his men in an advance at Verdun. His father wrote in the chronicle he kept that

Georg wrote his last letter on the 18th May, and on the 20th he fell. He fell while leading his company in an assault to take Toter Mann. Machine gun bullets had so ripped his body apart that it was difficult to recognize our brave son. Now he rests near Verdun, unburied and in an unknown place. Do not cry or mourn, all of you who knew and loved our Sunday child. He found himself alongside the best of comrades. Ah, you dear, dear boy (p. 184).

 

Order HERE

Three generations later, our author of this excellent book read and studied testimonies, logbooks, letters, archive material, and more—and traveled to places where these brothers fought and where their lives ended. The book she has written is a tribute to them and to the parents who raised them. It is also a reminder to us of the humanity and decency of those we might have once considered enemies.

David F. Beer

Remembering a Veteran: Capt. Fred Zinn, French Foreign Legion & U.S. Army Air Service

Fred Zinn in His French and American Uniforms

By James Patton

Recently The Military Times ran a feature article by Jon Guttman about how, on 7  October 1918, Cpl. Ralyn Hill, an Illinois National Guardsman in the 33rd Division, heroically rescued an injured pilot from a crash-landed plane on the German side of the Meuse River. The identity of the pilot (who died from his injuries) was not recorded at the time; it was later determined that he was 2nd Lieut. Wellford MacFadden, Jr. of the 103rd Pursuit Squadron, U.S. Army Air Service. Guttman’s story was picked up by several feeds, including NewsBreak and even Google News. If you‘re not familiar with the story, it’s well worth the read. HERE. 

However, there’s another story worth telling, that of the person responsible for making the identification of MacFadden’s burial site. Friedrich Wilhelm “Fred" Zinn (1892–1960)—his name is very German, but he was born in Galesburg, Michigan. After he graduated from the University of Michigan, his family sent him on the “Grand Tour” of Europe.  So it was that he was in Paris when war was declared, and on that day he was one of 43 Americans who impulsively joined the Légion étrangère. Serving as an infantry soldier, it is claimed that he was the first American to capture a prisoner of war. He was wounded twice, the second time on 1 February 1916

On 14 February he (and several other prominent Americans) were transferred into the Aéronautique Militaire. After a brief visit to Michigan, he went through training and was first assigned to Escadrille F-14 as an Observer/Gunner, riding in a Nieuport 12. Later he was transferred to Escadrille SOP-24, where he flew in the back seat of a Sopwith 1A.2 Strutter. Since he was an American, he is listed as a member of the Lafayette Flying Corps (not an official French unit). Although he was never assigned to the Lafayette Escadrille N-124, as they were a fighter squadron, he is known to have performed reconnaissance missions for them. Zinn was promoted several times while in French service, so had booked extensive combat zone patrol experience before the U.S. even entered the war. 

He was a pioneer in the development of aerial photography techniques, especially for low level spotting of German troop locations and alerting the French forces opposing them. In October 1917, he was one of the first batch of Americans serving with the Aéronautique Militaire to be transferred to U.S. service. Reportedly,  he was personally selected by Lieut. Col. "Billy" Mitchell (1879–1936), then CO of the new US Army Air Service. Zinn was commissioned as a Captain and assigned to Mitchell’s staff at GHQ Chaumont, where he established the first aviation reconnaissance and photographic interpretation programs. As the G2, he also headed up the personnel section, which included the assignment of replacement air crew. 

In November 1918, although he was one of a handful of Americans who had actually served for the entire war, he didn’t see his work as done. There were nearly 200 air crew lost in combat who had no known grave, and he proposed to lead a team of Army volunteers to go out and find them. The Army said "yes," so while most soldiers went home to triumphal parades, he went to Berlin to talk with former enemies like Ernst Udet, and comb through the German records, seeking the fate of the missing Americans.

With a staff of four, by the end of 1919, Zinn had tracked down the remains or personal effects of 194 missing men. Only then did he close up and return home to work for the family business, which was milling grain for Kellogg’s cereals. 

Zinn Manning the Observer/Gunner Post

As said above, Zinn’s story intersects with Ralyn HiIl's story because it was Zinn’s team that found 2nd Lieut. MacFadden, buried two miles west of Brieulles in a French concentration cemetery. He had likely been first buried elsewhere, probably in a village or church cemetery. If MacFadden was the pilot that Hill rescued, it seems unlikely that he was shot down near Brieulles, which was not in the 33rd Division’s sector at the time.

The German records showed that there were no allied planes claimed by German pilots in that sector on that day. Since Hill’s story says that the SPAD crashed behind the German position on the east bank of the Meuse River, it seems likely that MacFadden had decided to strafe the German positions and was hit by well-aimed return fire.

Zinn joined the Officer’s Reserve Corps after it was formed in 1920. When WWII broke out, he went to Washington to meet with the new Chief of the Air Corps, then-Maj. Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold (1886–1950), whose staff was preparing the first comprehensive Air Corps Field Manual. Zinn wanted to designate a bureau to gather and preserve information about missing air crew. In spite of push-back and disinterest, with some effort he was able to establish the Missing Air Crew Reporting System (MACRS)—which was subsequently approved by the Chief of Staff, General George Marshall (1880–1959).

In 1942, Zinn was offered an active duty rank of Colonel, as were many senior business executives, but he only wanted to be in charge of the MACRS. The Army Air Force would not guarantee him that role, nor had they yet even implemented the plan, so Zinn went to a fellow Foreign Legionnaire who knew the right people, and Zinn got into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). 

At the age of 50, he went through OSS training. Using an employment cover story provided by his friends at the W.K Kellogg Foundation, Zinn became a "spook." His clandestine job was coordinating searches for missing air crew in enemy-held territory. He often worked in the field, personally overseeing the recovery of hundreds of missing men (dead or alive). On occasion he also performed counterintelligence duties for the OSS.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Honored Upon His Return

He came home just before the end of the war. Later, he was elected to represent Calhoun County in the Michigan House of Representatives. His biographer, the history and science fiction writer Blaine Pardoe  says: ”Fred never drew attention to himself, yet he stands out as one of Michigan’s most decorated and illustrious WWI aviators and veterans.” 

Source: Pardoe, Blaine. Lost Eagles: One Man's Mission to Find Missing Airmen in Two World Wars, Univ. of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 2010.

When the German Army Helped Preserve a Renaissance Masterpiece

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This triptych, commonly known as  both the Passion of the Christ and the Calvary of Hattonchâtel, by Ligier Richier (1500?–1567) is located in the village's Église collégiale de Saint-Maur (St Martin). Generally thought to have been carved in 1523, it is an early work of Ligier Richier, considered one of the most significant French sculptors of the Renaissance. Because of the emotional intensity and anatomical precision of his work, Richier is sometimes compared to Michelangelo. 

The 2.6 meter by 1.6 meter sculpture shows three episodes from the Passion: Christ carrying the cross, His crucifixion, and Christ's dead body in the arms of his mother. The base of the altar piece reads: XPS: Passus est nobis relinquens exemplum Vt sequamini vestigia: For he (Christ) suffered for us. Leaving us an example, that we may follow in his footsteps.

Present-Day Église at Hattonchâtel

Hattonchâtel is a hilltop village in the canton of Vigneulles, which was located in the heart of what came to be known as the St. Mihiel Salient during the Great War. It was occupied by the German Army from the war's start until September 1918. Early in the war, the Église was struck by either a bomb or artillery shell. This triggered great anxiety over Richier's masterpiece. The details of what happened subsequently are unclear, but at some point the German authorities allowed the removal of the piece and its temporary relocation to the city of Metz, which was safely in the rear. It was placed in the local chapel of the Knights Templar for the duration and later returned to its original location, where it can be viewed today.

After creating the Passion, Richier spent the next 30 years creating marvelous works of art—primarily religious—for sites throughout the Lorraine. Late in his life, however, he was persecuted for his Protestant beliefs and had to flee to Switzerland, where he passed away in 1567.

Lonesome Memorials #23 — Parsons, West Virginia

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Parsons  is a small town (population 1,327) in Tucker County, West Virginia. It takes the service of its veterans seriously.  The Tucker County Veterans Memorial Park is located near the strategic intersection of First and Main Streets in Parsons. It's hard to track down when the park was completed or the WWI plaque dedicated. I suspect, but can't certify, that the WWI plaque is America's most recent specifically dedicated to America's First World War veterans before the National Memorial in Washington.

A similar panel is mounted alongside the WWI marker (located on the far left of the complex) for the WWII veterans.  Continuing to the right are matching panels for women who have served, and Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf, and Iraqi Freedom veterans. A centerpiece with an embossed American flag honors all the nation's veterans.

The good people of Parsons are not yet done. An additional veteran's memorial is planned for the lawn of the Municipal Building.

Photos by Devery Becker Jones and Craig Doda

Historians Paul Kennedy and Fritz Fischer on the Lasting Significance of WWI War Planning

1909

The strategic planning of the Great Powers prior to 1914 has been a topic of continual fascination to historians for both military and non-military reasons. On the one hand, there has been the natural interest of the military writer in the operational, tactical and logistical contents of these plans and in the extent to which they anticipated the testing strategical conditions of the First World War itself. On the other hand, an equally intense concern has been shown by the student of politics in the broader, non-technical aspects of military planning: how far, for example, did the plans of the various General Staffs preempt their government's freedom of action and, to that extent, encroach upon the decision-making domain of the civilians? How far did they reflect the prevailing "unspoken assumptions" upon a country's foreign policy, the protection of national interests, and the nature of international relations and political morality? How far, indeed, were they actually responsible for the outbreak of that catastrophic conflict in the summer of 1914? It is precisely because this topic has always possessed both a military and a political aspect (frequently hard to disentangle) that it has attracted so large an amount of historical attention.

 

Paul M. Kennedy

Norwich, CT, 1978

From the Editor's Introduction to The War Plans of the Great Powers

1914

Despite the experiences of the Second World War and all its global consequences, the First World War has never lost its place in the historical consciousness of the combatant nations, who still regard it as forming the deepest caesura in their recent history. When, therefore, the defeat of Germany in 1945 caused most of that government's past records to fall into the hands of the Allies, who soon made them free for scholarship, it was natural that historians should turn again to the question of Germany's aims and role in the origins of the First World War. . . 

The First World War represents the high point of the age of imperialism, during which technical and economic developments led to increased rivalries between the European great powers, and also the United States and Japan. In particular, those nations conscious of having come 'too late' on to the world scene inevitably found themselves challenging the established countries and their overseas empires, and this in turn led to repeated fissures and reformations in the existing alliance systems and to a "destabilization" of the precarious European and global equilibrium, eventually culminating in a general war. 

The populations of all those countries, influenced to a greater or lesser extent by social-Darwinistic assumptions, came to expect that in such a turbulent world a conflict was unavoidable and should, moreover, be prepared for. Such preparations, especially in the military and strategic domain, are [still important to study]. They show the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the technical aspects of warfare, but even more they reveal how the majority of states were obliged to refashion the organization of their military leadership by creating a permanent General Staff. The model which was cited on so many occasions, for example, in the British Army reforms and creation of an Imperial General Staff following the Boer War, was that of the immensely successful Prussian General Staff in the 1866-70 period—although, ironically enough, that "model" had lost a considerable amount of its effectiveness by 1911–12, that is, even before the First World War broke out. . .

The operations plans, which the respective general staffs had to prepare, could be more or less binding, more or less flexible (as certainly was true of the much-debated Schlieffen Plan), and could therefore restrict the freedom of action of the political decision makers or leave them relatively untouched. In most of the states concerned—Russia and Austria-Hungary were the exceptions—the political and military leaders also had to grapple with the question of how far the navy or the army was to be considered as the more decisive and thus more important arm: in the German case, for example, the fleet appeared to be the more prominent for some years, but after 1912–13 the army recovered its traditional primacy since it could be seen that the chief theatre in any future conflict was likely to be on land; whereas in England the army (British Expeditionary Force) and the new General Staff began to gain ground after 1905 and by August 1911 had achieved a position in the national strategy which displaced the navy, the more especially since the Admiralty's ideas about the deployment of the fleet were neither coherent nor convincing. This was, in the history of British strategy, a quite epoch-making change of course, even if not fully realized at the time.

Closely connected with these controversies was the problem of waging war in coalition with one's allies, for it was hardly likely that a nation would find itself fighting alone against two or more enemies in view of the formal (or sometimes only moral) bonds and obligations of the various alliance partners in pre-1914 Europe. The difficulties which arose here, it is clear, could not be satisfactorily solved by either of the alliance blocs before the war or at the outbreak of the conflict itself.

[There is a continuing debate over] the problem of "militarism," whether in the more general question of the militarization of a society, or in the specific area of the relationship between the political and military leadership in a state. If this ambiguity about the relations between statesmen and the military existed [with all the combatants], it nevertheless becomes clear that the different cultural, social and constitutional circumstances of the various states led to quite diverse consequences. 

Whereas in France and Britain the political leadership retained its preponderance, despite the rising importance of the armed forces and their staffs, in Germany (and similarly in the fellow-empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary) the authority of the civilians was circumscribed both by the sheer weight of the military in social life and by the constitutional structure: for example, because the monarch was the de facto, and not merely the de jure, commander-in-chief; because the government was dependent upon him, and not upon Parliament; and because he possessed the power to decide over peace and war. What still remains questionable, however, is the notion. . . that there was so great a distinction between the political and military leaders of the Wilhelmine Reich: for there appears to me to have existed a co-operation between both elements in preparing for a conflict, and also in the decision for war, which was justified by their commonly expressed reference to the necessity of strengthening Germany's position in Europe and in the world. This was the unified aim of both and is not simply to be attributed to the military argument that "victory is still possible at present, in a few years' time it will have gone."

Fritz Fischer

Hamburg, December 1978

From the Forward of The War Plans of the Great Powers

Grasping Verdun — An Orderly Overview of the War's Most Chaotic Battle

On 21 February 1916 the longest and, arguably, the most famous battle of the Great War began, the Battle of Verdun. One hundred and ten years on, I thought a broad overview of the battle was the best introduction for our readers. This is adapted from a pamphlet of the National Association of the Battle of Verdun. They describe the 1916 battle in four phases.

On the Front Line at Verdun, Fort Vaux/Tavennes Tunnel Sector

Phase I: 21 February–1 March : Opening Attack

On 21 February, at 0715 hrs the Germans opened fire on the two banks of the Meuse, over a front of 40 kilometers. Simultaneously, Verdun proper was systematically bombarded, the first shells falling on the cathedral grounds. Fire was kept up for nine hours, the 1200+ German artillery pieces included a high proportion able to fire heavy caliber shells. The infantry attack was launched at 1615 hrs just before dusk, from the Haumont-Ornes Woods. The first strong resistance they met was from Chasseurs deployed in Bois des Caures commanded by Lt. Col. Emile Driant, who became the first hero of the battle. Over the next few days the terrain and villages between the Bois des Caures and Fort Douaumont were systematically conquered. The fort, which was almost abandoned, fell without resistance on 25 February. General Henri-Philippe Pétain took command over the army of Verdun the same day. To better organize the defenses, he implemented a rotational system for the defending troops and improved the only supply route to the City, the Bar-le-Duc–Verdun road, which came to be known to posterity as the Voie Sacrée or Sacred Way.

Illustration for German home front consumption of the capture of
Verdun's Fort Douaumont on 25 February 1916

Phase II 2 March–15 April : The Assault Intensifies and Broadens

The German Vth Army expanded their attack to the left (west) bank of the Meuse. The fighting in Bois des Courbeaux and on the slopes of Mort-Homme (Dead Man's Hill) were particularly fierce. On the right bank, mainly the village of Vaux and the forest of the Caillette were contested during this period. The gains of the Germans remained limited. General Pétain declared to his troops, "Courage. . . we will get them!"

Click on Map to Enlarge

Phase III: 15 April–12 July : Intense Attrition

The enemy continued his advance step-by-step with local actions that were murderous for both sides. On the left bank, Hill 304, Mort-Homme, and the village of Cumières were sites of desperate struggles. General Pétain was replaced by General Nivelle on 15 May.

On the right bank, the attempt of General Mangin to take back the Fort Douaumont was a bloody failure (22 May), whereas the Fort Vaux surrendered to the Germans on 7 June after a week's siege. On 23 June, Nivelle, anticipating a German attack issued an Order of the Day which ended with the now-famous line: "Ils ne passeront pas!" (They shall not pass!") Later, 60,000 Germans were sent to the assault at an increasingly narrow front on the right bank to seize the ruins of Thiaumont and Fleury which were subsequently taken and recaptured several times. At the fortification known as Froideterre, last obstacle before Verdun, the defenders managed to hold. On 11 and 12 July a maximum effort of the German troops pushed to what was their extreme advance: the ravine of the Poudrière (a powder magazine south of Fleury village) and the scarp of Fort Souville.

French Version of the Fighting on Mort Homme

Phase IV: 12 July–15 December: The Stabilization and [Partial] Liberation

Terribly violent combat followed on the two banks until August. From then on the German attacks were more and more diverted from Verdun by the vast French–British attack at the Somme. In Verdun, another offensive led by General Mangin managed to recapture Thiaumont and Douaumont along with 6,000 prisoners by 24 October. Fort Vaux was reoccupied a week later. By 15 December the offensive freed Louvement and Bezonvaux villages and 11,000 more German soldiers surrendered. The line was now pushed back 5 km from the Germans' extreme advance of July.

National Cemetery and Ossuary at Verdun Today

Aftermath: 

The result in terms of human lives of the battle of Verdun was appalling—by the most conservative estimate, 377,000 French and 337,000 Germans were killed, wounded, or disappeared. It is only in September and October 1918 that the whole of the territory lost after 21 February 1916 was reconquered thanks to the great commitment of the American troops.

First American to Die in the Great War?—Remembering Edward Mandell Stone, French Foreign Legion

The First American to die in the First World War was Harvard graduate, Edward Mandell Stone (1888–1915).  He completed his work for the A.B. degree in 1907, and during his senior year studied in the law school. He did not finish his studies there but in 1909 served in the Legation at Buenos Aires as a volunteer private secretary to the Hon. Charles H. Sherrill, United States Minister to the Argentine Republic. Returning to this country he entered the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in January 1910, taking courses in history and political science, and the next autumn resumed his course in the law school.  

He had been living in France for some time before the outbreak of the war and become deeply interested in this country and fond of its people. When Germany attacked France in August 1914, he enlisted at once as a private in the Foreign Legion, 2nd Regiment, Battalion C. In October he was sent to the trenches at the front with a machine gun section and served at or near Craonne until wounded there by shrapnel on 15 February 1915 while on guard duty. He was taken to the Military Hospital at Romilly, where he died of his wounds on 27 February 1915. He is buried in the Romilly-sur-Seine, Community Cemetery.

Newspaper Announcement and Photo of Stone's Grave in France

His former classmate, Rudolph Altrocchi '08, wrote his obituary in the Harvard Crimson: 

We do much talking around the Yard about the war, taking sides (usually the same side) with earnest eloquence; but here was a fellow, happy, rich, strong, with a promising life before him, who did not hesitate to volunteer under a foreign banner and sacrifice his life for the cause he thought (and most of us think) right.

Source:  American War Memorials Overseas; Harvard Law School; Poynter50

Ten Float Planes Over El Afule—The Naval Air Raid That Stopped a Railway

Wing Commander Charles Rumney Samson's Favorite Floatplane,
Short 8372, Over Port Said

By I.M. Burns

Excerpted from Floatplanes Over The Desert

On 25 August 1916, Commander Charles Samson led ten floatplanes from three Royal Naval Air Service carriers in a coordinated strike against the Ottoman railway junction at El Afule, deep in the interior of Palestine. The raid was part of a sustained campaign by the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron to disrupt Turkish supply lines during the Sinai and Palestine campaigns of the First World War.

The plan was ambitious. Three seaplane carriers—Ben-my-Chree, Raven, and Anne—would launch their entire complement of Short and Sopwith float planes in a single formation. Each ship had a designated target within the El Afule complex: rolling stock in the station sidings, buildings and stores, and the main line south of the junction. The float planes would attack at staggered altitudes between 700 and 1,700 feet to avoid collisions.

Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss approved the operation immediately. The French Navy, pleased with recent work by Samson's squadron, provided destroyer escorts. The two slower carriers sailed on the morning of 24 August 1916, with Ben-my-Chree following in the afternoon. They assembled off Haifa before dawn.

Ben-my-Chree nearly missed the rendezvous. At 03:30 she ran onto an uncharted sandbar off Athlit, close to a known Turkish coastal battery. Flight Sub-Lieutenant George Dacre, aboard for the raid, recorded the moment with characteristic humour: "I was rudely awakened before dawn by my camp bed giving way and discovered that the cause was the ship had properly run into Syria in the dark and we were hard aground." After an hour of reversing engines, the carrier worked herself free and continued north.

Samson was first off at 05:30, his Short float plane's fin painted red for identification. The remaining Shorts formed up behind him in starboard quarter-line. The faster Sopwiths launched up to 25 minutes later, joining the formation as it headed inland. Once the bombs were dropped, the Sopwiths were to watch for enemy aeroplanes.

Target—El Afule Rail Junction

The flight took the formation up the valley between the Carmel and Nazareth ranges. Heavily loaded with bombs, Lewis guns, ammunition drums, and cameras, the float planes could barely climb. Turkish troops in camps around Tabaun opened fire as the formation passed through the valley, the machines bouncing in the turbulent air. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Guy Smith recalled: 'So intense was this attack upon us that I could hear the crackle of the guns above the roar of my motor.'

Smith's observer, Lieutenant Millard, was making notes and sketching, oblivious to the fire around them. Smith threw a biscuit at him to get his attention. "He immediately developed a pronounced peeve, indicating that his sketch had been spoiled. At any rate, I attracted his attention to the situation, and he forgot his grievance and got busy with the machine gun."

Emerging from the defile, the formation attacked. Raven's flight broke away first, swooping on a train steaming south from the station. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Paine's bombs damaged the track and set the last coach alight. Smith made four passes on the train, dropping bombs that demolished carriages and tore holes in the track. Between his runs, Flight Lieutenant Clemson attacked at 300 feet, his observer machine-gunning the locomotive crew.

Over El Afule itself, Turkish anti-aircraft fire was heavy. The defenses had been strengthened considerably since Samson's solo raid on 15 August. But within 15 minutes, the squadron had dropped one 112-lb, six 65-lb, 15 16-lb, and eight incendiary bombs. Station buildings burned, a locomotive and 14 carriages were destroyed or damaged, and stores were consumed by fire.

All ten machines returned safely between 06:32 and 07:10, most with bullet holes but no serious damage. Two Shorts launched again to assess the damage. They found fires still burning and reported that 'the permanent way south of the junction was completely wrecked. Rails uprooted, embankment destroyed.' Samson concluded in his report that 'the junction and south-going line will not be in operation for some time.'

Ben-my-Chee in the Suez Canal

On the return voyage, Ben-my-Chree intercepted two dhows running supplies to Turkish front-line troops. The crew of one vessel, brought aboard as prisoners, confirmed that Samson's earlier raid on 15 August had shut down rail traffic for five days.

The success was marred by the loss of Dacre. Sent to bomb a camp near Bureir that afternoon, he failed to return. His Sopwith's engine had quit at 3,000 feet, 12 miles inland. Forced to land on the floats, he recalled: "I got to within a few feet, pulling her back and back to do a pancake landing. I seemed to be actually travelling very slow just before I touched, but when I did hit Turkey she went over on to her nose like a flash."

A Damaged Short Float Plane 

Arab villagers seized him, threatening to cut his throat. Women beat him with sticks and threw mud in his face. A Turkish NCO arrived just in time, driving off the mob with a whip. Dacre spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner at Afion Kara Hissar. An American Embassy report in October confirmed his capture. He returned to the Royal Air Force after the war, retiring as an Air Commodore in 1944.

The El Afule raid demonstrated what coordinated naval air power could achieve against infrastructure far from the coast. Intelligence reports later confirmed that the damage was sufficient to halt traffic for several days, disrupting Ottoman supply lines during a critical phase of the campaign.

This article is adapted from Float Planes Over The Desert, available from Little Gully Publishing. Dedicated to preserving the stories of the past, Little Gully offers firsthand accounts, new histories and quality reissues. Visit littlegully.com to explore more and order your copy.

Chasing the U-Boat: The U.S. Navy Initiates Anti-Submarine Warfare, May–June 1917

U.S. Navy Four-Stacker Destroyer with a Convoy

Despite internal Navy opposition to sending destroyers to Europe, the Navy did so, and by June 1917 over 30 U.S. destroyers were operating in the Western Approaches to Great Britain and the Bay of Biscay off France against German U-boats. As of 21 May, the British had (finally) adopted the convoy system as the best means to combat U-boat attacks rather than fruitlessly patrolling in open waters. U.S. destroyers were immediately integrated into the British convoy system. In the first weeks, although there were several encounters with U-boats, real and imagined, the U.S. destroyers mostly rescued survivors from ships sunk by U-boats that were not protected by convoy.

On 21 May 1917, Ericsson (DD-56) launched a torpedo at a surfaced U-boat that was shelling a Norwegian and a Russian sailing vessel, the first torpedo fired by the U.S. Navy at an enemy in the war. The torpedo missed. The U-boat dived and sank the two sailing vessels with torpedoes of its own, leaving Ericsson to rescue survivors.

On 4 June 1917, Chief Boatswain’s Mate Olaf Gullickson, commanding the Naval Armed Guard on board the U.S. steamship Norlina, opened fire on U-88, just as Norlina was hit by a torpedo. Despite two hits, U-88 survived. (The U-boat’s skipper was Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger, who as skipper of U-20 had sunk the British liner Lusitania in May 1915. U-88 would hit a mine and be lost with all hands, including Schwieger, in September 1917.) For his quick action, Gullickson would be awarded the Navy Cross, the first of the war.

On 16 June 1917, O’Brien (DD-51) depth-charged and slightly damaged a German submarine. The British were so thrilled (thanks to intercepting and reading German codes) that Vice Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, commander-in-chief of the Western Approaches, put the O’Brien’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Charles A. Blakely, in for the British Distinguished Service Order (Blakely was also awarded a U.S. Distinguished Service Medal for the same action) and Ensign Henry N. Fallon for a British Distinguished Service Cross (not a bad haul for a near-miss.) Fallon would later receive a Navy Cross for action with another U-boat in September 1917.

Troop ships of the first American convoy in 1917.
The ships are the Henderson, Antilles, Momus, and Lenape

On 14 June 1917, the first American Expeditionary Force (AEF) convoy, with 14,000 troops (Army and Marines), departed from New York City in four groups bound for St. Nazaire, France, under the overall command of Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves. Each group consisted of three or four troopships (including Dekalb—formerly the commandeered German liner/auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, which had been interned in Norfolk in March 1915 following seven months as a commerce raider in which she sank, among others, the U.S. schooner William P. Frye in January 1915, the first U.S.-flagged ship sunk in the war). Each of the groups was also escorted by an armored cruiser (Seattle—CA-11), protected cruiser (Charleston— CA-19—and St . Louis—CA-20), or a scout cruiser (Birmingham—CS-2), and three destroyers each. The oilers Kanawha (AO-1) and Maumee (AO-2) provided underway refueling (which had been done only for the first time on 28 May) for the escorting destroyers. Group 3 also included the armed collier Cyclops (AC-4), which would become famous for disappearing without a trace in the “Bermuda Triangle” in March 1918.

Destroyers from North America escorted the ships for the first leg before breaking off to return home. They were replaced by American destroyers based in Queenstown, Ireland, which met the convoy mid-ocean to guide them through the final "danger zone" near the French coast. As each group approached the Western Approaches/Bay of Biscay, additional U.S. destroyers operating out of Queenstown augmented the escorts. Although there were several reported torpedo attacks (which were probably imaginary), none of the ships was hit by U-boats. The first group dropped anchor in the Loire River off Saint-Nazaire on 26 June 1917.

U-58's Crew Abandoning Ship

The U.S. Navy would not sink its first German U-boat in World War I until 17 November 1917. The USS Fanning and USS Nicholson forced the German submarine U-58 to the surface with depth charges off Milford Haven, Wales, before it was sunk. The crew of U-58 surrendered and was taken as prisoners.

Note:  This article focuses on the Navy's early response to the U-boat threat.  For details on convoy operations, see our earlier article HERE. 

Source: U.S. Naval History & Heritage Command

Italy Goes to War and Discovers It's Going to Be a Long Grind

General Luigi Cadorna

Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna, having learnt of the Treaty of London, accepted the orders but declared that the army would not be ready before one month. This notwithstanding, morale was high; the general was convinced that within a month his army would have reached Trieste; upon being asked by Francesco Saverio Nitti in the summer of 1915 on the army's winter equipment, Prime Minister Salandra answered: "Do you believe that the war will last beyond winter?"

Both of them did not seem to have taken into consideration the several communications that were already in circulation regarding the new war. The military attaché in Berlin, Luigi Bongiovanni, had written for instance several reports on the conditions of this conflict and on how, after a few weeks of fighting, the struggle would be transformed into one based on positional warfare that would be intense, stationary, with the excavation of trenches and battlefronts that would be difficult to move.

The preparation of the Italian army envisaged both an offensive plan as well as a plan to contain the enemy across an area that covered from the Stelvio Pass (the border between Lombardy and Alto Adige) up to the eastern zone of the plains of Friuli for a total of some 600 kilometers. The front was divided in five segments: the westernmost segment was largely of a defensive nature whereas the other four segments, from Cadore right up to the zone of Cervignano del Friuli, were offensive.

Italy's Soldiery Was Highly Enthusiastic at the Start

On its part for several weeks Austria-Hungary had already understood what would happen. Military propaganda had already started to depict Italy as a State that was treacherous and that could be expected to undertake any kind of dishonorable action. On 20 May the Emperor ordered a state of alert and nominated Archduke Eugene as commander of the new front in the south-east. Three days later Vittorio Emanuele III sent to the Italian ambassador in Vienna the declaration of war. This declaration said that on the next day, 24 May 1915, the Italian army would start military operations along the border.

When fighting began, Cadorna had under his command some 400,000 soldiers in the plains of Veneto and Friuli. Besides the First Army which had largely defensive duties, the other armies and the Zona Carnia already had received orders to advance beyond the border.

Early Attack on the Italian Front

The Austro-Hungarian Army could rely instead only on 50/70,000 soldiers, that went up to 110,000 during the next weeks. Its troops reflected the heterogeneous nature of the empire where only one fourth could speak German and included among their ranks even two percent who were Italians. But these differences were overcome by a strong anti-Italian sentiment (especially among the Austrians and the Slavs), as was pointed out by the German Field Marshal Hindenburg: "[the Habsburg troops] fought against the Russians with their heads but attacked the Italians with all their heart." 

In the zone of Medio and Basso Isonzo, the initial objective was to isolate Gorizia and to reach Monfalcone in the south and the basin of Caporetto in the north. Although the Austro-Hungarian army left several kilometers without any resistance and placed its defenses on the first elevations, the Italian troops advanced with a lot of prudence. They crossed the border at Cervignano del Friuli and took two days to reach the right bank of Isonzo which was impossible to cross because of heavy rains. After the night of 4 June, the troops were again slowed by the marshes that had been prepared by the Austrians who in the meantime had organized their own defense on the Karst behind Monfalcone, which the Italians reached on 9 June.

While the Messina Battalion entered this port, further north the Second Army launched its first attack on Mount Calvario, on the outskirts of Gorizia. All the hills that surround this city on the river Isonzo had already been prepared for its defense and so this action failed. Instead in the Natisone Valleys the inexperience and the lack of preparations led to several rather simple mistakes: on reaching Caporetto on 25 May, the military commanders decided to conquer the mountains Nero and Mrzli so as to surround the village of Tolmino from the north. For some unknown reason, however, the advance was stopped toward the end of May, and it was only on 6 June that the 3rd Reggimento Alpini conquered Mount Nero.

Inevitably, Though, It Came to Trench Warfare

From this it was obvious that what should have been a war based on an offensive strategy revealed itself instead as a hazardous and badly organized advance. The poor quality of the equipment and of communications between divisions was already giving rise to problems. Besides, the morale of the troops already began to sway from the first moments when they found out that the population of Friuli and of the Isonzo region had welcomed their arrival with a lot of suspicion (although propaganda had convinced them of the contrary). In the first month Italy lost about 15,000 men and already on 10 June 1915 Cadorna informed his family (and also Salandra at a later stage) that even on the Italian front a battle based on trench warfare was looming that would not be concluded in a short time.

Forty-two months later the war of choice by Italy had joined voluntarily would lead to victory, but at a stupendous price. The Great War cost Italy approximately 600,000 to 650,000 military deaths, over 950,000 wounded, and a total direct financial cost of over $12 billion (1914–1918 USD). Postwar inflation, political instability, and the rise of Fascism followed the Armistice.

Source:  Itinerary Della Grande Guerra