Hell at Anzac: The Turkish Attack of 19 May 1915

Turkish Troops at Gallipoli Early in the Campaign

After the initial Gallipoli landings of 25 April, both attackers and defenders failed to improve their Day-1 positions substantially.  Turkish Minister of War Enver Pasha visited the active sectors and ordered additional troops to the peninsula with specific instructions for a renewed assault against the Anzac sector. 

On 19 May 1915, the German commander of the Ottoman troops at Gallipoli, Field Marshal Liman von Sanders, sent the first wave of his of 42,000 Turkish troops to attack the 12,500 Anzacs then at Anzac Cove. The intention was to drive all Anzac forces on to the beach and kill them there with artillery fire. In places the combatants were only meters apart, but it was one assault for which the Anzacs and their commanders were prepared. British pilots had noticed a build up in the Turkish line, confirming observations by those on the ground, including correspondent Charles Bean, that Turkish firing patterns had changed and that heavier artillery was being used.  Aware that an attack was coming, some of the Anzacs bartered with their mates for positions on the firing line.

Commander of the Ottoman Forces, Liman von Sanders

In the resulting six-hour battle, the Turks were to incur around 10,000 casualties including 3,000 dead as repeated lines of Turkish troops were sent out of their trenches, to be gunned down almost immediately by the Anzac forces. The Anzacs suffered 628 casualties with 160 dead, among them John Simpson Kirkpatrick, who had achieved legendary status among the troops for removing  wounded men from the battlefield on his donkey.

Australian Machine Gun Position

The most successful Ottoman commander of both the Gallipoli Campaign and the later battles of the war, Mustafa Kemal, commanded the 19th Infantry Division in the attack and had been an initial enthusiastic backer of the assault.  In his postwar memoir Arıburnu Muharebeleri Raporu (Arıburnu Battles Report), however, he expressed regrets and was very critical of the preparations and performance of the Turkish forces. He particularly noted:

• Inadequate battlefield reconnaissance and pre-battle positioning in the dark with  incoming reinforcement troops who were completely unfamiliar with the rugged, complex terrain.

• The combination of numerous Anzac machine-gun nests and heavy naval artillery support devastated  the dense Turkish infantry lines.

• Failure to advance by the 5th Turkish Division which exposed his men to intense enfilading fire.

Kemal later wrote: "We buried a university [of Turkey's educated youth] in Gallipoli."

The Day of the Truce: Aussies in Foreground, Turks in Distance

On 20 May, several Australians sought to rescue Turkish wounded from the narrow strip of ground between the opposing forces, an area known as No Man's Land, which was becoming littered with dead bodies. An informal truce was called while both sides collected their dead and wounded. On 24 May, an eight-hour formal break in fighting was agreed for both sides to again collect their dead and wounded. The cease-fire was honored by both sides.  [Article]

Attrition: [The Unavoidable Strategy for] Fighting the First World War

By William Philpott

Little, Brown, 2014

Reviewer, Michael Neiberg

Originally presented in the British Journal for Military History, February 2016

Winning the total war of 1914 to 1918 required the total mobilization of societies. While scholars of the war often treat that statement as axiomatic, William Philpott has given us the best-detailed analysis of that process to date. He identifies attrition as involving five factors: the land battlefield; the maritime battlespace; the home front; the diplomatic front; and the alliance front. In order to win the war, the Allies had to defeat the Central Powers on all five. More importantly, they had to do so over time, husbanding resources, reorienting their societies, and suffering casualties at levels equal to or less than those of their enemies.

Attrition has ever since carried a negative connotation, and well it should. As a strategy it counts on winning a war by killing men at “acceptable” ratios rather than seeking territory or some other carefully defined objective that could produce victory. It is anything but Clausewitzian, as it does not set political goals; killing precedes war aims rather than following logically from them. Attrition could become, as one wag quipped, a way of winning the war by having the last two soldiers of your army bayonet the last two soldiers of the enemy’s army, then toast their success with prune juice. On the more intellectual level, attrition proved that modern warfare had come a long way from the period of the German Wars of Unification. Casualties had become not an unpleasant adjunct of military campaigns, but their  goal. Instead of close, carefully managed battles like Königgratz/Sadowa, World War I featured months long campaigns designed to (as the euphemism went) wear out the enemy’s reserves.

Philpott argues that the generals (if not always the politicians) of the World War I era understood this transformation of war quite well. They recognized in 1914 that winning would require years of bloody, murderous attrition on a number of levels. The gruesomeness of a strategy intended to kill millions failed to appeal to the politicians, for obvious reasons. They often reacted by looking for quick fixes like (in the Allied case) Gallipoli and the Nivelle Offensive or (in the German case)  unrestricted submarine warfare. These fixes, Philpott argues, seemed to promise an alternative to mass murder, but never yielded anything close to victory, as indeed the attritional generals knew all along.

Most scholars have identified Lord Kitchener as the prophet of this type of warfare, building up Great Britain’s New Armies in anticipation of using them in 1916 or 1917. Philpott argues that he was far from alone. Both French General Joseph Joffre and (perhaps more controversially) British Field Marshal Douglas Haig saw attrition as the way to victory, notwithstanding the latter’s hope for breakthroughs on the Somme and at Passchendaele. Philpott thus argues (correctly) that Erich von Falkenhayn’s murderous plan for the battle of Verdun was not the novel approach to war that readers of Alistair Horne’s The Price of Glory have taken it to be. Rather, it was simply another in a long, gruesome line of attritional battles designed to kill men in unprecedented numbers.

Order HERE

That attrition became the route to victory should not blind us to its enormous human and social costs. The soldiers of the war understood full well how they were being used, leading to events like the mutiny on the Chemin des Dames, the Revolution in Russia, and the disillusion of men like Rudolph Binding, whom Philpott  quotes extensively. Attrition also meant that the warring powers had to adapt their  domestic and imperial systems to find the resources they needed in enormous numbers. It further meant that they had to tolerate the moralizing of Woodrow Wilson, the leader of the one country whose resources could tip the balance. Attrition: Fighting the First World War thus stands out as a major contribution, even in this period of renewed scholarly attention to the war. 

MICHAEL NEIBERG, US Army War College

France's Long Road to War: 1870 to 1914

Soon to Become Emperor Napoleon III in the 1850s

Excerpted from France and the Great War, 1914–1918 

By Leonard V. Smith, Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau, and Annette Becker

In The Old Regime and the French Revolution (1856), Alexis de Tocqueville described the French as a people “talented enough at anything, but who excel only at war. They adore chance, force, success, flash and noise, more than true glory. More capable of heroism than virtue, of genius more than good sense, they are suited more to conceiving immense plans than to completing great enterprises.” Up to a point, Tocqueville knew his compatriots well. 

Over the course of the 19th century, France had gone to war many times and, in general, had fared poorly at it. The French had mainly themselves to blame. The century began in a blaze of Napoleonic glory, followed by complete national defeat in 1815. Not that this prevented the French from erecting to Napoleon their greatest military monument, the Arc du Triomphe, an unusual tribute to a defeated commander. Some victories came at mid-century, against the Russians in the Crimean War of 1853–56, and against the Habsburg Monarchy in Italy in 1859. 

Yet these were classic 19-century “limited” wars, in which France ventured and gained relatively little. But the “immense plan” of Emperor Napoleon III (allegedly the illegitimate nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) to install his protégé, Archduke Maximilian (the brother of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph), as emperor of Mexico in 1861 ended in utter failure. France had nothing to show for it but the famous 1867 painting by Edouard Manet of Maximilian’s execution by Mexican patriots.

Le Siège de Paris, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

Worst of all, France provoked a war with Prussia in 1870, over what seemed the relatively minor matter of the succession to the Spanish throne. In fact, Napoleon III wanted to forestall the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership. He had reason for concern, but blundered without allies into a war that invoked the very thing he sought to prevent. The overconfident French army met defeat within two months, and on 18 January 1871, the victors proclaimed the creation of the German Empire. 

To maximize the humiliation of their foe, the Prussians chose to do so in France, in one of the most splendid spaces created by the old monarchy–the Hall of Mirrors at the palace at Versailles. According to the armistice with the new republican government of France signed a few days later, France had to pay a large indemnity and surrender Alsace-Moselle and most of Lorraine, two wealthy provinces now absorbed into the Reich. France could fume and swear one day to get its revenge, but not much else. Worse, a new Great Power had been created at its doorstep, far more dangerous to France than Prussia had ever been. The Third French Republic had to prepare for a new war with Germany virtually from the day of its inception. France would never again feel safe from Germany until the Allies divided Hitler’s Third Reich after World War II.

Proclamation of Prussian King Wilhelm I as German Emperor at Versailles,
Anton von Werner

Yet Tocqueville, who died in 1856, did not live long enough to see the whole picture. Perhaps he was too taken with his idealized version of the young republic in the United States to see his own country clearly anyway. The French economy boomed through most of the nineteenth century, and French literary and artistic life remained the envy of the West. By the end of a century of war, revolution, and social turmoil, the French, in part through a massive investment in institutions such as the education system and the army, had forged one of the most cohesive national communities in the world. France had also become the only republic among the Great Powers of Europe. The Third Republic proved more cautious about going to war than the regime of Napoleon III. The guardians of the republic made alliances, in order to contain a Germany much larger, wealthier, and militarily stronger than itself. 

Those among the French who sought Napoleon’s sort of military glory did so mainly through the vast French global empire. The French military, as we will see, had many problems, in doctrine, funding, and leadership. But the army and navy of France continued to be feared throughout Europe and even the world. Moreover, despite decades of civil–military turmoil, democracy took hold in the French military. Unique among Europeans mobilized in 1914, the French soldier served neither kaiser nor tsar nor king, only himself and his compatriots. Even before the outbreak of the war, he was a citizen-soldier.

France Mobilizes — 1914
The Departure of the Infantrymen (Detail), Albert Herter

But success in the great enterprise of national rehabilitation came at a price. The alliances made by the Republic, in the end, provoked rather than deterred Germany and its ally Austria-Hungary, and thus helped render the diplomatic situation in Europe more perilous. In the crisis of August 1914, France had little room for maneuver, because of diplomatic and military choices made decades earlier. But this did not obscure the fact that Germany and not France chose war in 1914, because of the inflexibility of prewar German military planning. France had war forced upon it more than any other European country except Belgium and perhaps Serbia. German aggression in August 1914 responded to a long-term threat posed by the alliances made by France. But it was aggression all the same.

Eyewitness: A WWI Medic's Baptism of Fire

An AEF Medic on the Job

On 12 September 1918 PVT Emile Calhoun, aidman attached to A Company, 1st Battalion, 353d Infantry, 89th Division, went into battle for the first time. He’d joined the Army on 2 April 1918, embarked for France on 3 June, and his first day in the trenches was 6 August. His training was limited, but there was a war to win and the Germans were being hammered along the Western Front. The 1st American Army launched its first attack with the best divisions it had, and the still-green 89th Division was one of those.

Calhoun recorded:

At about 1am one of the most terrible barrages I have yet witnessed begins. The noise is deafening. They sky as light as day, words of mine can never describe the scene. The barrage last balance of the night. We are nearly frozen, wet to the skin, but too excited to care; at 5:20am we are ordered over the top. Can I ever forget  the sight? Shells going in all directions and the rat-tat-tat of the machine guns.

My first casualty is Samuel D. Farmer of Co G – First Sergeant with a shrapnel wound in right arm; about this time I saw Major O’Donnell’s orderly lying in a ditch so badly shell shocked he could not his rifle but could not tarry long with him as he was not injured; 

At  6:30am PVT Clare F Sparling #2176337 shrapnel wounds in left leg –  pvt Onney M Hudspeth #2185736 found dead – Harry C Wray 1st Lieu Co – Bullet wound thru chest; 

At  6:55am serg George W Baker Co # - machine gun wounds thru left leg; 

At  7:10am pvt Alvin C Berndt Co G #2814858 shrapnel wound in neck; 

At 7:15am serg. Elmer E Bartell #2176222 found dead; 

At 7:20am pct Mearl E Robins Co H. with wounds in right side; 

At 7:25am Owlen J West #2176834 found dead; 

At 8am Taylor B Weaver #2846378 found dead and pvt Samuel C Henrigh #2185290 found dead; 

At 8:10am 1st Lieut Charles A. Show found dead, he had fallen in a shell hole & his clothing was on fire, I dragged him from this & put out the fire before going on. At 8:20am James W West #2176690 found dead; 

At  9:10am Frank W Sharp Co B #2175850 found dead; 

At 11:20am pvt Jacob R Groff Co H #2180687 – found with machine gun hole thru  hip & compound fracture left thigh, he was in bad shape & wanted water, I gave him the last in my canteen. While taking care of him a plane comes over & flies so low above us that I get nervous, but find it to be an Allied plane & no cause for alarm. During the day several hundred German prisoners have passed thru going to the rear. 

Earlier this morning I came upon two dead Germans side by side & near them stood an American soldier looking rather gloomy. I said “Well they certainly got what was coming to them,” his answer was,  “Yes they were my prisoners & I was taking them back when some some of **** American came upon them  & shot them both!” 

It has been a nice day after all the rain & with sun shining most of time. The planes have done wonderful work in having the barrage raised & lowered as we made advances, but in spite of  everything several have been killed by our own guns falling short. … 

The blood is so thick on my hands & dried, I can’t wash it off. [It would be four days before he could wash his hands.] 

At 4pm Corporal Furley E McCloskey Co A #2175602 is killed. He is completely riddled with machine gun bullets & both leg bones sticking up thru his clothing where he has fallen. About this time we dig in on a hill but the Germans shell us so heavily we have to move. …

In about 11 hours of action, PVT Calhoun had treated at least seven wounded, one psychiatric casualty, and  had checked a further eight casualties, only to find they were beyond his help. Calhoun survived the battle, and the war, unwounded. He returned to Kansas City, MO, where he resumed working as an undertaker. He died in 1951.

Sources: AMEDD Historian, Issue #49,  excerpted from “For We’re All Just Back From Hell”: The Diary of Pvt. Emile M. Calhoun. Ed. Michael C. Joseph. Independence MO, Two Trails Publishing, 2000, LINK

Who Was Belle Skinner?

 

Belle Skinner (1866–1928)

Ruth Isabelle (Belle) Skinner was a businesswoman and philanthropist, who in the aftermath of the war helped rebuild the small French town of Hattonchatel. Descendant of a highly successful silk manufacturer in Holyoke, Massachusetts, she became a benefactor in later life and shared her (good) fortune. After being in France during the First World War and seeing with her own eyes the utter destruction of her beloved country, Francophile Skinner felt the urge to help the people so desperately in need. She founded and presided the American Committee of "Villages Libérés," an initiative among American cities in order to adopt French villages and to support them financially in their postwar reconstructions. She convinced her own city Holyoke to adopt Apremont-la-Forêt, where so many Massachusetts men had fought and were killed, and to aid restoration of its waterworks.

American Troops Waiting to Advance in a Badly Damaged Hattonchâtel,
September 1918

Belle herself adopted the village of Hattonchâtel, which was in ruins after the Great War, and she funded about $1 million in its reconstruction, an extremely generous sum for the time. She wanted the village rebuilt like it was before the war and with her help the ancient castle, town hall, local school, library, several monuments and about 20 houses are being reconstructed, and running water and electricity are being furnished. The villagers adopted Belle in their hearts as well, and lovingly called her their village’s godmother. Reconstructions took up to around 1928, the same year Belle died, after contracting pneumonia. Many traces can still be found in the village that remind us of this remarkable woman, decades ahead of her time. Her generosity is well honored in the village, and her story is being passed on over generations—and rightly so!

Château de Hattonchâtel in Winter

She selected a village with a remarkable heritage and location. Built on a rocky spur in the 9th century, with a superb view of the Heights of the Meuse and the Woëvre plain, Hattonchâtel, was envied by Richelieu, sacked by Swedes, occupied by Germans, and bombarded by Americans before Belle went to work. On 25 September 1914, Hattonchâtel was captured by German troops of the 6th Army. The village remained in German hands for the next four years. 

For her relentless efforts Belle Skinner was rewarded with the Medal of French Gratitude in 1919 and, two years later, the Legion of Honor from the French government.

Sources:  Coeur de Lorraine; WWI Centennial Commission; Smithsonian

Lonesome Memorials #27: Monument de la Lorraine à la Gloire des États-Unis

 

Click on Images to Enlarge

As war broke out in 1914, Germany was in possession of almost a third of the historical Lorraine (including the Moselle region and Metz). As the fighting unfolded during the 1914 Battle of the Frontiers, it pushed German forces into the still-French parts of the Lorraine. Approximately, 30 percent of the territory of the Meuse and Meurthe-et-Moselle departments were occupied for almost the full-duration of the war. These areas suffered severe physical destruction, heavy military casualties, and intense civilian hardship. Residents suspected of pro-French sympathies faced thousands of prosecutions for anti-German sentiment, heavy censorship, and imprisonment or placement in preventative detention camps.

This unhappy situation ended in September 1918 when General Pershing's First Army forced a general evacuation of the French Lorraine back to approximately the borders of German-held Lorraine. Needless to say, the local citizens were extremely happy with the end of the German occupation and were most appreciative of their American liberators. A commemoration of some sort was in order. This resulted in the Monument de la Lorraine à la Gloire des États-Unis (Lorraine Monument to the Glory of the United States) in the village of Flirey, which is located just south and near the center of the American jump-off line of 12 September 1918. 

The region commissioned the well-known Nancy-born sculptor Alfred Finot to design the monument. Inauguration: The monument was officially dedicated in 1921. The memorial is structured as a large bronze high-relief sculpture full of rich allegory. It features two victorious American soldiers standing proudly under the American star-spangled banner. They stand in front of a Gallic rooster (the national symbol of France) depicted with its wings wide open, symbolizing the shared Franco-American triumph. In the background, a cathedral is etched into the stone, representing the enduring cultural heritage of the liberated region. The inscription at the base translates to: "On September 12, 1918, the first offensive of the United States Army, commanded by General Pershing, sprang from here. It liberated numerous Lorrainese communes..."

Location:  At the wartime strategic intersection of the D904 and D958 roads in Flirey. On the north side of D958 there is a monument to the 163rd French Regiment of Infantry which fought in the village during the war's early years and a Vauthier Borne Marker,  is one of a series of World War I demarcation stones erected throughout France and Belgium to map out the Allied front line as it stood on 18 July 1918.

Financial Facts about the U.S. (and UK) War Bonds

 

By James Patton

Shortly after declaring war in 1917, the Wilson Administration was faced with the reality of having to pay for the massive military build-up that would be required. Both tax increases and monetary expansion were employed, and the public were also asked to buy debt instruments. Ultimately, 58 percent of the cost of the war was financed by these bonds, 22 percent by tax increases and 20 percent by new monetary creation. Statistics show that the money supply expanded by about 70 percent between 1916 and 1920.  However, that’s not the storyline of this article. 

The bonds program was as follows:  

• On 24 April 1917, the Emergency Loan Act authorized $5 billion. $1.9 billion in bonds were issued at 3.5 percent, 30 years maturity, callable at year 15. The interest on up to $30,000 in bonds held was income tax-exempt.

• On 1 October 1917 the Second Liberty Loan Act authorized up to $15 billion. $3.8 billion in bonds were issued at 4 percent, 25 years maturity, callable at year 10.

• On 5 April 1918 the Third Liberty Loan Act authorized another $3 billion. $4.1 billion in bonds were issued at 4.15 percent, 10 year maturity. Limited to $45,000 per holder.

• On 28 September 1918 the Fourth Liberty Loan Act authorized another $6 billion. $6.9 billion in bonds were issued at 4.25 percent, 20 year maturity, callable at year 15. These were redeemable in ounces of gold if held to maturity. 

• On 21 April 1919 the Victory Loan Act authorized a final $4.5 billion at 4.7 percent four year maturity callable at year three. These were redeemable in gold certificates and the interest was income tax-exempt.

All of these bonds were sold directly to the public by banks. In order to stimulate sales Bond Rallies were held, featuring parades, speeches and free performances by movie stars. The Four Minute Man campaign featured short speeches in public assemblies where prominent local persons urged the purchase of bonds. There was an installment purchase plan whereby persons could buy 25-cent War Savings Stamps, affix them to a special book and, when 200 of these stamps had been acquired, the book could be exchanged for a $50 bond. This concept was copied  in the 1950s when retailers used stamps to reward regular customers (e.g. S&H Green Stamps).

The Liberty Bonds were a milestone in American public finance; for the first time the common citizen was making long term investments in government spending. Altogether the bond issues raised about $17 billion from about 20 million investors. Investors were permitted to trade earlier issues for later ones to get more favorable terms, which led to many being converted to the 4th issue bonds redeemable in ounces of gold.  You can learn much more about the Liberty Loan program from this article by the Federal Reserve. LINK 

Most of the debt from the first three Liberty Loan issues was retired between 1921 and 1928 via calls or trade-ups. However, when the 4th Issue was called on 15 April 1934, the Treasury refused to pay off in ounces gold, citing HJR 192 of 5 June 1933 PL 73-10:

 “ … every provision contained in or made with respect to any obligation which purports to give the obligee a right to require payments in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency, or in an amount in money of the United States measured thereby, is declared to be against public policy; and no such provision shall be contained in or made with respect to any obligation hereafter incurred. Every obligation, heretofore or hereafter incurred, whether or not any such provision is contained therein or made with respect thereto, shall be discharged upon payment, dollar for dollar, in any coin or currency which at time of payment is legal tender for public and private debts. Any such provision contained in any law authorizing obligations to be issued by or under authority of the United States, is hereby repealed, but the repeal of any such provision shall not invalidate any other provision or authority contained in such law”. 

The bondholders were paid off in US money, which resulted in a speculative loss to them (nearly $2.9 billion in total) since the value of gold had changed since 1918. This default was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, which quixotically ruled in favor of the investors  (Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330, 354), but no bondholder ever received any compensation for this loss, because the Court also ruled that Executive Order 6102 signed by President Roosevelt on April 5th 1933, prohibited the private ownership of gold, thereby eliminating a market value for gold.  Ergo, the bondholder’s loss was unquantifiable, so due to the increase in the value of an ounce of gold,  to repay in 1918-valued ounces of gold would be an "unjustified enrichment". 

The Liberty Loan Acts were never repealed and have been used to issue additional bonds through the years, most recently after 9/11 for the reconstruction and revitalization of affected parts of New York City.

Let’s compare the U.S. performance to that of the United Kingdom (UK), which borrowed a total of £11.2 billion (equal to about $53 billion). The UK also inflated the money supply  by about 88 percent between 1915 and 1918. The program got off to a shaky start. The first bond issue of £350 million at 3.5 percent was very under-subscribed—about £90 million were sold. In order to avert disaster, the Bank of England had to buy over £300 million by inflating the money supply. 

Beginning in 1927, the UK refinanced all of the bonds with 10 year maturities by converting them to “consols”, which  initially paid 4 percent interest (later reduced) and had no fixed maturity. In a publicity stunt timed with the centennial of WWI, the last £1.9 billion of consols were paid off on March 9 2015, the first redemption in over 60 years. However, this  redemption was financed by selling new bonds with fixed maturities. The Bank of England still owes the U.S. Federal Reserve £866 million on intergovernmental account deficits. If applicable the interest in arrears from 1934, when the Exchequer stopped making payments, would come to over $12 billion. Paradoxically, the UK is also stuck with £2.3 billion of bad debts due from Russia, Italy, and France.  None of these debts are likely to be repaid. LINK 

A Dozen GREAT Great War Newspaper Headlines

Visit No Man's Land with Sapper

No Man's Land

Herman Cyril McNeile (Sapper)

Independently Published, 2023

 

No Man's Land by Lucien Jonas

H. C. McNeile (1888–1937) was a British soldier and author best known for creating the popular gentleman-adventurer character Bulldog Drummond. He began writing short stories from the trenches for the Daily Mail, adopting  the pen name "Sapper" (military slang for an engineer) because serving army officers were not allowed to publish under their own names. His writings on the war are considered highly authentic and were much admired by veterans of the fighting.

His No Man's Land is a novel written in 1917 while he was still on active service. The book delves into the experiences of soldiers during the war, told through the perspective of Clive Draycott, an officer called back to service after a period of leave. It captures the emotions, fears, and everyday realities of soldiers faced with the chaos and brutality of battle, while painting a vivid portrait of the camaraderie and resilience among men during tumultuous times. 

The opening of the novel introduces the lead character, Clive Draycott, and sets the stage for the narrative by exploring the atmosphere before the onset of war. As Draycott prepares for his return to the front lines, he reflects on the changes and fears that grip the society around him, contrasting the carefree attitude of civilians with the heavy burdens of duty and honor that weigh on soldiers. 

Original Cover
Order Here

The narrative unfolds with a mix of personal anecdotes and broader observations on the impact of the war, with poignant moments illustrating the pain endured by both those who go to fight and the loved ones they leave behind. The opening establishes an intimate connection between Draycott and the reader, hinting at the profound journey ahead as he steps into the chaos of "No Man's Land."

Mislearning from War: The Case of U.S. Coastal Artillery

American 12-inch Mortar Railway Mount

Editor's Note: The U.S. entered the war largely unprepared for industrial-scale manufacturing. Consequently, U.S. Coastal Artillery Corps (CAC) units deployed to Europe were primarily equipped with British and French weaponry.  The CAC converted older coastal guns  onto train carriages to move them along European tracks. These larger weapons struck deep targets behind enemy lines, helping cripple German rail nodes and supply dumps. They fought prominently in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. Over 70,000 members of  the CAC in 34 regiments served on the Western Front in France

At the operational and strategic levels, there is the case of drawing a “lesson” that was an entirely erroneous application of wartime experience. The deployment of railway artillery for the coastal defenses of the United States in postwar years constituted a significant expense throughout World War II. Because the Coast Artillery Corps was the only branch of the U.S. Army with experience in indirect fire of heavy artillery before the war, Pershing had assigned it the responsibility for all heavy artillery—during World War I, those guns over five inches in diameter (about 130-mm.). 

CAC Mobile Long Range Artillery

In addition to towed artillery, this included the huge siege guns 12 inches and over. Because these pieces were so heavy that French roads would not support their movement, they were mounted and moved on modified or specially designed railway flatcars. Impressed with their effectiveness as siege artillery, the men of the Coast Artillery Corps came back from their war experiences enthusiastically advocating the railroad gun as a coast artillery weapon in the United States.

35th CAC, 80th Div. Loading a 14" Gun on the Argonne Front

Partly because Congress increasingly saw the coast artillery fortifications as anachronistic in the emerging age of the airplane, it was reluctant to appropriate funds for manning and maintaining the seacoast forts after the war. The chief of the Coast Artillery was, however, successful in persuading Congress to appropriate funds for railway artillery by asserting that it would enhance and supplement the forts and expand their ability to defend the coastal cities. Superficially, railroad guns for the Coast Artillery sounded like a good idea—even some diehards in the corps could see that the fortifications would become increasingly vulnerable to bombardment from the air. Railroad guns, it was envisioned, would be able to range up and down the coasts at will, shelling a hostile fleet at any point. 

Railway Mounted 8-inch Gun of the Post-WWI Period

In practice, it was an impossible concept. The weight of the railroad artillery meant that most railroad arteries could not carry them without special reinforcement. The guns could not fire from any random point on the line but had to have special reinforced concrete hardstands on railroad spurs. In effect, they were only a little more mobile than the fortifications, with all the same vulnerabilities to attack from air or sea. In the process of deploying, manning, and maintaining railway coast artillery, the United States squandered millions of scarce dollars during the interwar period, all to field a weapon that was unable to perform its mission of destroying enemy warships and was obsolete before it was built.

Source:  Learning Lessons in the American Expeditionary Forces, Kenneth E. Hamburger, United States Army Center of Military History; WWIVet.com

Goodbye Nivelle! Welcome Pétain!

French Troops Pinned Down on the Chemin des Dames

The Nivelle Offensive on the Chemin des Dames failed in April and May 1917 because unrealistic promises of a rapid 48-hour breakthrough collided with poor tactical planning, bad weather, and deep German defensive preparations. General Robert Nivelle had promised to halt his "steamroller" operation if it did not succeed with 48 hours. Instead, he continued pushing his forces to attack for weeks, losing  30,000 killed, 100,000 wounded, and 4,000 captured. He had to go.  In the article, Brigadier General Robert Doughty tells the story of his replacement of  General Nivelle by General Philippe Pétain. More details on what Nivelle's "Winning Formula" was can be found HERE. 

One of the first casualties of the offensive was Nivelle's position as commander of French forces on the north and northeastern front. Aware of threats against his remaining in command, Nivelle visited Pétain on 27 April and offered him a position as his chief of staff. He made the offer even though he did not like Pétain personally and considered him too pessimistic and negative. Obviously, he thought having Pétain close to him would help deflect personal attacks. Pétain had already been informed, however, by a representative from the Ministry of War on 24 April that if Nivelle were relieved, he would be Nivelle's replacement. So he declined Nivelle's offer without warning the besieged general of his imminent relief. 

A few days later Pétain was summoned to Paris to meet with Painlevé and then Ribot, who told him formally that he would become chief of the General Staff and shortly thereafter succeed Nivelle as commander of the Armies of the North and Northeast. With the offensive formally ended but with its remnants still stirring, the government was unwilling to relieve Nivelle and thereby acknowledge publicly the  failure of the offensive; political leaders also were reluctant to infuriate the British by not supporting  their Arras offensive.

Nivelle

Pétain became chief of the General Staff on 29 April, and on 1 May he arrived in Paris and began carving out a larger role for himself. First, he sought to limit what Nivelle could do by limiting the size and scope of a new attack being planned for the Reserve Army Group. With the support of the minister of war, he canceled the most difficult part of this operation, the attack on Brimont. Next, on 4 May, he attended a meeting with the British to address their fears that the French, under his hand, would adopt a defensive strategy and do nothing but await the arrival of American forces. By the end of the meeting, the British and French had agreed that they would no longer seek a “rupture” of the enemy's front but instead would focus their efforts on destroying the enemy's forces and preserving their own. With limited objectives and incessant attacks, particularly with artillery, the two allies could weaken German forces and ultimately prevail. In essence, the two allies had accepted Pétain's method, which relied on attrition of the enemy, not rupturing German lines.

Getting rid of Nivelle proved to be complicated. On 11 May, the French government asked him to resign but he refused. He told a liaison officer, “They want my hide...But neither my dignity, my conscience, nor my sense of what I owe my country permits me to play their game.” On the morning of 15 May, Poincaré and Painlevé met with Nivelle, but he remained adamant.

That same day the Council of Ministers demoted him to being an army group commander, and Pétain succeeded him as commander of the Armies of the North and Northeast. Since there was no vacant position for an army group commander, Nivelle was put on leave for three months. Pétain later refused to allow Nivelle to take command of an army group, and he eventually was reassigned as commander of French forces in North Africa. Pétain took command of the Armies of the North and Northeast, a month after the beginning of the Nivelle offensive and three days before General John J. Pershing received orders naming him commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Pétain's first task was to repair the damage done by Nivelle and his second was to welcome the arrival of the U.S. Army. 

Pétain

To strengthen the confidence and capability of the army, Pétain began by reassuring French soldiers that their lives would not be wasted in useless attacks. In essence, he renounced costly offensives but he did not renounce offensives. On 19 May, four days after being named commander of the northern and northeastern fronts, he published his Directive No. 1 which stated explicitly that the situation on the Western Front ruled  out, “for the moment,” a “rupture” of the front followed by “strategic exploitation." The French, he said, had to deal with the “actual war” and not some false model detached from reality. Obviously with the failed Nivelle offensive in mind, he explained that a huge attack aimed at distant objectives would lose the benefit of surprise because of its size and would be costlier for the attacker than the defender. 

He preferred limited offensives that could be launched with minimum preparation and could surprise the enemy. Such attacks would rely as much as possible on the artillery and avoid unnecessary exposure of the infantry. Instead of trying to end the war quickly, the French had to launch operations, he said, that, while avoiding casualties in the infantry, would inflict as many casualties as possible on the enemy. Such operations could occur anywhere along the front and thereby could “fix the enemy and take away his freedom of action.” When the situation changed, meaning when it was time to do something else, Pétain would issue, he said, new directives for the ensuing operations.

Meanwhile, Pétain did not halt all attacks, and he maintained pressure on some of the same points Nivelle had attacked. He did not know how the war would end, but he expected his limited offensives to bleed the Germans considerably and ultimately to compel them to seek peace. As Pétain's critics noted at the time, this could take a long time, for years. Some soldiers saw no reason to be optimistic about the outcome. 

Source: Over the Top, May 2017

The Official Report On the Lost Battalion Incident

HEADQUARTERS 77TH DIVISION

France.

April 15, 1919

 

General Order Number 30:

      I desire to publish to the command an official recognition of the valor and extraordinary heroism in action of the officers and enlisted men of the following organizations:

Companies A, B, C, E, G, H       308th Infantry

Company K                               307th Infantry

Companies C, D         306th Machine Gun Btln.

Some of the Lost Battalion Survivors Near the Site

      These organizations, or detachments therefrom, comprised the approximate force of 550 men under command of Major Charles W. Whittlesey, which was cut off from the remainder of the 77th Division and surrounded by a superior number of the enemy near Charlevaux, in the Forest d'Argonne, from the morning of 3 October 1918, to the night of 7 October 1918.

      Without food for more than 100 hours, harassed continuously by machine gun, rifle, trench mortar and grenade fire, Major Whittlesey's command, with undaunted spirit and magnificent courage, successfully met and repulsed daily violent attacks by the enemy. They held the position which had been reached by supreme efforts, under orders received for an advance, until communication was re-established with friendly troops.

      When relief finally came, approximately 194 officers and men were able to walk out of the position. Officers and men killed numbered 107.

      On the fourth day a written proposition to surrender received from the Germans was treated with the contempt which it deserved.

      The officers and men of these organizations during these five days of isolation continually gave unquestionable proof of extraordinary heroism and demonstrated the high standard and ideals of the United States Army.

Robert Alexander, Major General, US Army

Commanding

______________________________

Visit our other articles covering the Lost Battalion HERE.

Where Did Trotsky Come From?

Trotsky's gifts—his brilliance as an orator, author, theoretician, and strategist—would prove decisive for the unfolding of what history calls the October Revolution, as well as the civil war to follow. However, his deficiencies at winning personal loyalty and building political alliances would eventually lead to his marginalization in the post-Lenin Soviet state, his exile, and eventual death. MH

Leon Trotsky

Born Lev Bronshtein in November 1879 in the village of Yanovka in the Ukraine, Leon Trotsky, the son of a prosperous Jewish farmer, became involved in politics from a young age. Arrested in 1898, Trotsky was exiled to Siberia, where he married and had two daughters, both of whom predeceased him. In 1902, he escaped exile using a forged passport bearing the name Trotsky, the name, he later claimed, of a prison guard he had met in Odessa. He made his way to London, where he made the acquaintance of  Vladimir Lenin and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Following the split of the RSDLP, Trotsky's loyalty floated between the two factions, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, often repudiating any party ties and holding a stance of non-allegiance. He opposed Lenin on many issues, a stance that was later held against him.

Following the outbreak of disturbances throughout Russia in 1905, Leon Trotsky arrived in St. Petersburg and there joined its council of workers, or "Soviet,"  becoming its chair until its forced break-up by tsarist troops in December. Trotsky, along with other leaders, was arrested and again sentenced to exile in Siberia, but en route he escaped and again made his way to London before settling in Vienna, where he founded and wrote a newspaper for Russia's workers, Pravda (Truth), earning the nickname "The Pen," (Пиро—Piro) for his writing. 

With the outbreak of war in 1914, Trotsky, as a Russian, was forced to leave Austria. He lived in Paris until, expelled for his anti-war writings, he emigrated to Spain and then New York, arriving in January 1917. During the two months he spent in America he found himself fascinated by the nation's dynamism, as it was distilled into its most concentrated form in New York City, although he was quite disappointed in the quality of the socialist leadership he observed firsthand. 

Trotsky Returns

After the February Revolution, Trotsky returned (with some difficulty, as he was arrested and roughly handled by the Royal Navy) to a "free" Russia and Petrograd (as St. Petersburg had been known since 1914) in May 1917 and became, in effect, Lenin's second-in-command for the Bolsheviks. Stalin had arrived in Petrograd at the end of the February Revolution, and Lenin followed in April. Now the three most influential Communists were together in Russia's capital plotting revolution. It would be Trotsky alone, however, who would plan and command the final ascendence of the Bolsheviks. “Insurrection,” he would say, “is not an art, it is an engine. Technical experts are required to start it, and they alone could stop it.”  

Leon Trotsky was the "technical expert" of Russia's October Revolution.

Source: Historyinanhour.com; The Technique of Revolution, Curzio Malaparte, 1931; Over the Top, November 2017

 

Eyewitness: Our General Visits the Front at Cantigny

Capt. Charles Evans, 6th Field Artillery

[The general is this account is Brigadier General Charles P. Summerall, who was the commander of the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, of the 1st Division at the time. He was later promoted to major general and commanded the First Division and V Corps. From 1926 to 1930 he was the Army Chief of Staff.  The witness is Lt. Henry C. Evans of the 6th Field Artillery under General Summerall's command at the time, who would go on to become a general himself in the Second World War.]

From Lt. Charles Evans

Summerall used to visit us nearly every day and we were scared to death of him. The first unit in the regiment that would see him coming on his inspection tour would telephone all the rest of the batteries merely saying on the phone “Sitting Bull on the Warpath” and that was notice to get ready for inspection. These inspections were stiff enough so that shoes had to be shined, men shaved and no cigarette butts or match sticks within a hundred yards of the battery position. Summerall was very strict and fired officers out of the regiment right and left. Colonel [Charles] Pulis had been relieved from duty a few days before I arrived at the regiment. Eventually Colonel Scott was relieved. We also had relieved Lieutenant Colonel Neal, Major Starkey, Captain Haines,  Captain Huston, Captain Donnell and innumerable lieutenants. Captain Larabee who commanded A Battery was so scared of being relieved and so violent in his criticism of Summerall that he transferred to General Headquarters (GHQ). He later got sick of that and came up to the front with another unit. . .

Major General Charles P. Summerall [left] Later in the War, When
He Commanded V Corps

On May 27 the attack on Cantigny took place.  We fired a rolling barrage for some hours as the Infantry went forward. Prior to the attack early in the morning of the 27th, each battery adjusted its barrage. This adjustment was done with a time schedule, each battery having about five minutes to fire four shots on its initial barrage line. We would watch the battery on our left and when they completed we would fire ourselves to see if it connected properly with the Battery on the left.

For the next three days we caught the devil as the Germans counterattacked many times and drenched the whole countryside with gas and high explosive shells. 

About this time we were ordered to build a reserve position in the rear and started digging gun emplacements and dugouts about a mile back. Practically every day General Summerall would make an inspection of each battery and was strict all of the time about the looks of the men and the cleanliness of the gun position. He also questioned all men on duty and we had to keep the men thoroughly posted all of the time on their duties and try to have the most intelligent men on duty when the general came around.

One day General Summerall and Colonel Crane were at the battery position. As they completed their inspection the following conversation took place between General Summerall and Colonel Crane:

Summerall: “Crane, now that the Trench Mortar Battery is under your command I expect them to obey my orders in every detail.”

Crane: “Yes, sir.”

Summerall: “As you know, I have ordered them to do all of their work at night time and keep hidden in the day as they are in a defensive position and I do not want their position known to the enemy.”

Crane: “Yes, sir.”

Summerall: “Crane, I would like to inspect the Trench Mortar Battery. Let’s go over there.”

I could see from Colonel Crane’s face that he did not know anything about the Trench Mortar Battery or where it was. I had seen it go into position the night before and was about to suggest that I lead them to the place when Crane said: “General Summerall, you have given them orders to keep hidden in the day time. I think it would be bad discipline for us to inspect the position during the day.” General Summerall said: “Quite right, Crane, quite right. I will be back at dusk.”

As soon as Summerall was out of earshot Crane turned to me and said “Where in the devil is that Trench Mortar Battery. I never heard of it before.” The order concerning the Trench Mortar Battery had come to Crane’s headquarters and Charlie Baird, Crane’s adjutant, had probably forgotten to show it to him. 

The 6th Field Artillery on the March

[Later, during the Argonne Offensive]  We marched all night and pulled into a wood near Nixeville early the next morning. General Summerall [now the division commander] came by the next morning and as his car stopped made the remark to another general in the car with him “I see this is part of my old brigade so we do not have to inspect them as I know they are all right.” While he was our brigade commander we were scared to death of him and he was very hard-boiled but as soon as he was promoted to a larger command he got very hard-boiled with everyone else except his old brigade and nothing was too good for us after that.

Source:  Over There with the AEF: The World War I Memoirs of Captain Henry C. Evans 1st Division, American Expeditionary Forces