The new years on the Western Front
German bunker at Dodengang near Diksmuide Belgium, December 2018
By January 1 1915, the hopes that the war would end quickly had dissolved into the mud of Belgium and France. The First Battle of Ypres in Belgium had ended the month before, and with it the tactics of open warfare for the next four years. Armies now faced each other for 450 miles across Western Europe, from the English Channel, across Belgium and northern France, all the way to the Swiss border. The Germans had fully moved to the defensive, reinforcing their trenches, building concrete bunkers up and down the line, and clearing positions for deadly machine gun and artillery fire. The Allies dug in as well, but had already begun making plans to attack in 1915 in the desire to evict the Germans from Belgian and French territory. The Allies built few bunkers and did not improve their trenches. Why bother, the Allied commanders thought, when they would be moving to the German positions soon enough? They would find this much easier said than done, and would experience heavy losses during the campaigns in the French Artois, at Loos and in the Champagne.
The hope for a breakout on the Eastern Front at Gallipoli, and for the USA to join the war after the sinking of the Lusitania, would both prove to be disappointing to the Allies. April of 1915 would see the first use of chlorine gas at St. Julien Belgium, with appalling results. Shockingly long casualty lists, British munition shortages, and with no end in sight, the 1915 year of the Great War came to a close.
Monument Le Mort Homme near Verdun France, December 2018
1916 would make the previous year of the war look tame in comparison. On February 21 the Germans launched Unternehmen Gericht (Operation Judgement) and attacked the French at Verdun. With a stated desire to “bleed France white”, German commander Erich von Falkenhayn looked to break both the strength of the French army and the will of the French citizenry to continue with the war. He was nearly successful. Instead, under General Philippe Petain, the French would rally to the defense of Verdun. The battle would cost Von Falkenhayn his job in addition to nearly one million German and French casualties, distributed more or less equally between the two armies. The German and French armies would each have successful offensives in the later years of the war, but the Battle of Verdun was a high water mark for both forces in terms of strength and morale.
Front Line July 1 1916, La Boisselle France, December 2018
On July 1 1916, British forces at the front along the Somme River in France, climbed over the top of their trenches and launched an attack. Wave after wave of young men walked across No-Man’s-Land into withering German artillery and machine gun fire. The bloodiest day in the history of the British Army saw nearly 20,000 soldiers killed, most within the first hour of the attack. By November Britain had suffered half a million casualties. The trauma of The Somme still resonates today throughout the United Kingdom, as well as Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand. Not to be outdone, the French would suffer 200,000 casualties. The Germans took half a millions casualties of their own at the Somme.
Canadian National Vimy Memorial, near Givenchy-en-Gohelle France, April 2018
The slaughter of 1916 would continue into 1917. This year of the war saw dramatic events such as the Russian Revolution and their near total withdrawal from the war, as well as the United States declaring war on Germany. French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre had been replaced by Robert Nivelle by the first of the year. On April 16 Nivelle launched an offensive of his own along the front in Northern France. German forces had already retreated to the fortifications of the Seigfriedstellung (Seigfried Line, or commonly known as the Hindenburg Line) and Nivelle’s offensive was a disaster. The French suffered nearly 200,000 casualties and gained practically nothing. In frustration at the meaningless loss of life, French troops began to mutiny. In May numerous French divisions flatly refused to fight. Nivelle was sacked and replaced by the hero of Verdun, Philippe Petain. “I am waiting for the tanks and the Americans” Petain stated. There would be no more pointless French attacks.
Tyne Cot British Cemetery and Memorial, near Passendale Belgium, April 2018
While Petain worked to end the mutinies, bring his soldiers back under control and rebuild French army morale, the British sought to keep the Germans distracted in Belgium. On June 7 1916 British Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig launched the Battle of Messines. While deemed a strategic success for the British, both armies would each suffer 25,000 casualties at Messines. The next month Haig launched the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres). A heavy bombardment that turned the landscape into a muddy soup, as well as constant rain, created conditions that were truly a hell on Earth. Soldiers that fell into the mud would slowly be sucked under to drown. Any attempt to help a trapped comrade would result in additional soldiers being sucked into the mire. Despite the atrocious conditions, repeated attacks were ordered, but almost no significant ground was gained by British forces. Final casualty counts are disputed, but by November anywhere between half a million and one million soldiers were killed, wounded or missing, with the numbers again being almost equally split between the British and German armies.
1918 would see the final year of the Great War, but it would prove to be just as horrific as the previous years. With Russia out of the war, the German Empire could focus their army on the Western Front. They had no time to lose as thousands of American soldiers were pouring into France each day. On March 21 the Germans launched the Kaiserschlacht offensive and broke through Allied lines in Belgium and France. Within a week they had attacked to a depth of 40 miles and by May German forces were back on the Marne and threatening Paris just as they had done in 1914. Philippe Petain’s defensive strategy stopped the German advance in July and, having advanced past their own ability to supply their forces, the Germans had to fall back. The Kaiserschlacht was over and Germany had suffered nearly 700,000 casualties.
Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, Romagne-Sous-Montfaucon France, December 2018
On August 8 1918 the Allies, now under the unified command of French Field Marshall Ferdinand Foch, began the Hundred Days Offensive with the Battle of Amiens in France. German General Erich Ludendorff would later refer to this day as the as the Schwarzer Tag des Deutschen Heeres (Black Day of the German Army). Morale had crumbled among German troops and they were surrendering in massive numbers. The Germans suffered 30,000 casualties on that day alone. German soldiers called reserve troops moving up for battle “strike breakers”. German commanders, trying to rally their retreating troops, were told “You’re prolonging the war!” In September German allies were dropping out of the conflict. Bulgarian, Turkish, and Austria-Hungarian armies stopped fighting. With Americans now on the battle lines, the Allies were out of their trenches and fighting the Germans in open country. Each day more German soldiers would surrender and the Allies would gain more ground. October riots within Germany convinced the high command that no more was possible. The possibility of winning the war was gone and on November 6 a delegation set out from Berlin to negotiate with Ferdinand Foch and the Allies at Compiegne France. The Armistice took effect five days later.
Foch Monument at the Glade of the Armistice, near Compiegne France, April 2018
January 1 1919 saw the first New Year’s Day on the Western Front without battle in four years. But the war was not officially over. The Paris Peace Conference opened on January 18. It was not lost on the Germans that this date was the anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 as well as the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. The “Big Four” major powers of France, Britain, Italy, and the United States dominated the conference and worked together to unilaterally draft the Treaty of Versailles. In addition to the loss of colonial territories, the reduction of its military force, the levy of reparations and new national borders, the treaty placed the full blame for the war on the “aggression of Germany”. While US President Woodrow Wilson and the American delegation did not believe it was fair to lay the blame for the war solely on the German Empire, they were unsuccessful in getting the language of the treaty changed. The treaty was signed by representatives of Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Italy and Japan on June 28 1919, precisely five years to the day after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Great War was now officially over.
The 1918 “Alsace-Lorraine” Monument depicting a German eagle impaled by a sword, near Compiegne France, April 2018
German popular resentment of the Treaty of Versailles, the humiliation of their defeat, costly reparations, the embittered memoirs of Ludendorff and other German military commanders, along with economic depression, and political instability, are all considered to have contributed to the resulting Nazi political success that began in 1925. Some believed, like economist and British delegate to the Paris Peace Conference John Maynard Keynes, that the conditions of the treaty were far too harsh and would end up being counter-productive to peace and the word economy. French Field Marshall Foch felt the opposite. Foch believed the treaty to be far too lenient on Germany. At the signing of the treaty he declared “This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”
The Second World War began on September 1 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, twenty years and 65 days after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
Postscript: This is probably the last of the big text posts. From this point on I will be sharing the sites of the Western Front as they are today, 100 years after the end of the Great War. I have seen some pretty amazing things around Belgium and France and I look forward to sharing the images of these sites with you.
Additionally, if you are interested in a great book about the Paris Peace Conference I would highly recommend Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan.
