Into the Wire

For God's Sake, Don't Tell Wilson!

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The Five Stellungs

With the end of the Battle of the Frontiers, the First World War settled into a system of static trenches. Both sides had different approaches to their trench fortifications. The British and French generally chose simple fortifications, with the intention of them being merely temporary positions. By contrast, the German fortifications typically had an eye towards permanency, frequently opting to relinquish territory to fall back to a more defensible location with heavier fortifications.

Towards the end of the First Battle of the Somme the German High Command under Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff began construction of a massive line of enhanced fortifications just behind the Western Front. Known to the British as the Hindenburg Line, it stretched from the French town of Lens near the Belgian border south beyond the fortress city of Verdun. It constituted a linked series of what Hindenburg called “semi-permanent” defenses well behind the front line, in some cases up to thirty miles. The Hindenburg Line was a position to which the German army could withdraw strategically and fight in a vastly superior defensive position. In addition to being heavily fortified, the Hindenburg Line also eliminated salients and pockets, thereby straightening the front and reducing its area, helping to concentrated the German defensive position. General Ludendorff ordered that the area between the current front and the Hindenburg Line be reduced to a state of total devestation and further scorched by the laying of mines. This area was to be, in the words of Ludendorff himself, a totally barren land in which their [the Allies] maneuverability was to be critically impaired.” One of the most successful implementations of the strategic withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line was the Nivelle Offensive of 1917.

The Hindenburg Line was separated into five operational areas or “Stellungs”, named from north to south: Wotan, Siegfried, Alberich, Brunhilde, and Kriemhilde. Siegfried was the strongest, running for nearly one hundred miles between Lens and Rheims. Siegfried was completed in just five months by utilizing a force of nearly five hundred thousand German contract laborers and Russian prisoners. It consisted of a network of deep trenches, some nearly fifteen feet deep and twelve feet wide, troop tunnels, and dug-outs interspersed with steel-reinforced concrete bunkers. In front of these was a wall of barbed wire sixty feet wide. A few miles in front of the barbed wire was a lightly defended line of outposts nearly a mile wide designed to fragment, harass, and disorganize advancing enemy soldiers. In between the outposts and the main line of fortification was a killing zone onto which artillery and machine-guns were trained.

As impressive as the fortifications were, and despite the belief of their impregnability by the German High Command, the Hindenburg Line was ultimately breached. The first breach was a temporary breakthrough at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. The British and Canadian forces utilized a combination of novel artillery techniques and an early usage of tanks to effect a puncture of the German line. Later, in late 1918 the Allies effected numerous breakthroughs as part of the Hundred Days Offensive, ultimately defeating the mighty Hindenburg Line.

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"The Accrington Pals is probably the best remembered of the battalions raised in the early months of the First World War in response to Kitchener's call for a volunteer army. Groups of friends from all walks of life in Accrington and its neighbouring towns enlisted together to form a battalion with a distinctively local identity. In its first major action, the battalion suffered devastating losses in the attack on Serre on 1st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. The losses were hard to bear in a community where nearly everyone had a relative or friend who had been killed or wounded. Although the battalion was to fight again, its Pals character had been irretrievably lost." Due to unforeseen circumstances, I will be simply posting this great link. I will have a more in depth post next week.

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Into the Wire Returns May 10

"If any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared, he's a damned liar..." -Harry Patch, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry

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Happy Birthday

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Portuguese soldiers training with Lewis Guns

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1850-1930:

Taken in London by Thomas Frederick Scales at the end of World War I, 1918. Library of New Zealand

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Happy Birthday Pershing.

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With graduate school rapidly approaching, Into the Wire will be going on hiatus for the foreseeable future.  It has been a magnificent experience.  Fifty entries and two fillers.  I have loved writing for it, but it must now take a back seat to my education.  I will update when and if I have the time.  Thank you all for your support.

I leave you with this picture of British soldiers advancing through their own chlorine gas cloud.  It has always resonated with and haunted me.  The simultaneously stark and miasmal atmosphere it projects is so symbolic of the entire experience of the First World War on both sides of the lines.  The sharp figures of the soldiers in the foreground fade gradually into the dismal grey of the background while ever-present throughout the picture is the pall of death and suffering.  To me this picture sums up more than almost any what it was to fight through the trenches in the war that defined the Twentieth and subsequently the Twenty-First Centuries.

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Le Cateau, St. Quentin, and The Great Retreat

When the British retreated from Mons, I Corps and II Corps were to reconnect at the town of Le Cateau-Cambrésis. Unfortunately, I Corps, under General Sir Douglas Haig never made it to Le Cateau reaching only Landrecies several miles away. It would take days before the two corps reconnected, and this left a gap of miles in between the two forces. The evening of 25th of August, British General Horace Smith-Dorrien realized that his II Corps would be slowly enveloped by the Germans if he were to continue his retreat. As such, he ordered his men to stand their ground and fight. They set up defensive positions near the town of Le Cateau and waited for the attack. However, the lack of Haig's I Corps left their right flank exposed and vulnerable. On the morning of the 26th the Germans assaulted the British positions, beginning the Battle of Le Cateau.

British General Horace Smith-Dorrien

Unlike the previous Battle of Mons where trained and well-equipped British riflemen had been able to inflict withering casualties on the Germans with rapid rifle-fire, Le Cateau proved to be a duel of artillery. The British were able to hold their ground despite massive casualties by rapid-fire artillery which utilized airbursting shrapnel shells. French Cavalry under General Sordet arrived and reinforced the British left-flank and supported their tactical withdrawal. That evening, the Allies withdrew to Saint-Quentin having lost 7,812 casualties and prisoners including entire regiments. In addition to the loss of men, the British also lost nearly 40 field guns, their breech blocks removed and sights disabled to prevent German usage. Despite the loss, the Battle of Le Cateau allowed the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force to continue their withdrawal unharassed for five days and is considered one of the most successful holding actions in British military history.

At this point, the Allies were in full retreat all along their lines. Commander of the French forces, Joseph Joffre needed to hold off the German advance to allow the Allies time to rally and stop the advance. At St. Quentin on the 28th, the French Fifth Army under General Lanrezac turned in preparation for a counter-attack against the Germans. This turn, from facing north to facing west took the majority of the day. On the 29th, the Fifth Army attacked St. Quentin. However, a French officer had been captured prior to the attack and the German commander of the Second Army, Karl von Bülow was already aware of the French plan. The French XVIII Corps assaulted the city. Bülow's forewarning allowed him time to prepare and the French met with little success and heavy casualties. However, on their right the X and III Corps were successfully rallied by Louis Franchet d'Esperey and succeeded in forcing the elite Guard Corps back. Following this assault in the evening, Joffre ordered Lanrezac to resume his withdrawal. These orders were delayed in reaching Lanrezac however, and it wasn't until relatively late in the morning of the 30th that the Fifth Army resumed its retreat. Thankfully the German Second Army neither attacked or pursued the withdrawing French forces. Bülow reported the Battle of St. Quentin a victory to the German High Command, but explained that his troops were too tired to pursue the French. Ultimately the German armies recovered and were able to continue their march towards Paris.

The Allied retreat continued until they reached the Marne River, where they prepared to make their last stand and defend Paris in a massive counter-attack that became known as the Battle of the Marne. There, after the Germans made their southwards turn earlier than dictated in the Schlieffen Plan, the British were able to exploit a gap made by the German 1st Army when their commander Alexander von Kluck pursued the retreating French 6th Army who had, quite accidentally stumbled onto von Kluck's forward guard. The Allied withdrawal from Mons to the Marne became known as the Great Retreat and the subsequent Battle of the Marne marked the end of the Battle of the Frontiers and heralded the beginning of the horrors of trench warfare.   

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The BEF and Mons

When the British declared war on Germany on August 4th 1914, it committed itself to the defense of Belgium and France. Five days later, the British Expeditionary Force began the journey to France. The British Army in 1914 was, in comparison with the armies in Continental Europe, incredibly small. Both the German and French armies were over a million strong. By comparison, the BEF had scarcely 80,000 divided into two corps consisting of two infantry divisions with three brigades each. It was further bolstered by five brigades of cavalry, three brigades of field artillery, one field howitzer brigades, and one heavy artillery batter of four 60-pounder guns.

However, despite the numerical superiority, the average British soldier was among the best trained and most experienced. In particular, the British soldier was trained in rapid-marksmanship and could hit a target the size of a man at a range of 300 yards 15 times per minute with his Lee-Enfield rifle. Their ability to lay out rapid and accurate rifle-fire would be a monumental factor in the majority of all the BEF's engagements throughout 1914. The first action they saw came during the much larger Battle of the Frontiers that took place all along the Franco-Belgian and Franco-German borders. The BEF was tasked with preventing the Germans from outflanking the Allied lines. As such, the BEF was placed on the far left of the Allied line, directly in the path of the massive German right wing push that aimed to encircle the Allies. By the 22nd of August, the BEF had arrived at Mons. To their immediate right was the French Fifth Army under General Charles Lanrezac. The French faced heavy assaults from the German Second and Third armies in the Battle of Charleroi. At Lanrezac's request, the BEF, under Field Marshal Sir John French would hold the line of Mons-Condé Canal for twenty four hours in order to prevent the Germans from threatening the French flank. The BEF made preparations for their task and set about entrenching along the line.

The British II Corps was on the left flank took up positions along the canal while I Corps was positioned at a near right-angle away from the canal, along the Mons-Beaumont road in order to protect the British right flank should the Germans succeed in dislodging the French at Charleroi. The area that the battle would center around was a small loop in the canal which formed a small salient that protruded towards the village Nimy and proved difficult for the British to defend. The British would face the German First Army under Alexander von Kluck. The First Army consisted of four active and three reserve corps, though only the active corps would see battle at Mons. Such as it was, the Germans had nearly twice the number of men that the British did. It was said that the German offensive capacity was so great that they had ten men for every meter of the front.

The first contact came on the 21st. A British bicycle reconnaissance squadron came upon a German unit near the village of Obourg during which the British Private John Parr was killed, becoming the first British fatality of the war. The next day, the 4th Dragoon Guards spotted German cavalry units outside Casteau and gave chase. After several miles the Germans turned and opened fire on their pursuers. Corporal Edward Thomas is reported to have been the first British soldier to fire a shot in the war, while Captain Hornby was the first to kill with a sword. The Battle itself began officially the next morning.

At dawn on the 23rd, German artillery opened up on the British positions. Throughout the day the German offensive actions would focus primarily on the salient formed by the loop in the canal. At 09:00 the first infantry assault touched off as the Germans attempted to force their way across the bridges across the canal. However, the Germans assaulted in close formation, also known as “parade ground” formation, which made them nearly impossible to miss for the well-trained British marksmen. The Germans suffered massive casualties at the hands of British rifle-fire, machine guns, and artillery. It was said that the British were able to fire so rapidly with their Lee-Enfields throughout the entire engagement, that the Germans thought that they faced batteries of machine guns. In fact, the British were equipped with merely twenty-four machine guns in total, only two per battalion.

The Germans were quick to realize their error, and advanced again, in open formation. The more spread-out Germans proved much more difficult for the British to inflict the same sort of casualties on and as a result, the out-numbered British were soon fighting desperately to defend the crossings over the canal. In particular, the British Royal Fusiliers faced some of the days heaviest fighting at the Nimy and Ghin bridges. Two of the Fusiliers were the first to earn the Victoria Cross during the First World War. Lieutenant Maurice Dease earned his VC when he took command of his section's machine gun after every other member had been killed or wounded, despite being wounded several times himself. It wasn't until he was wounded for a fifth time that he was taken off the line and evacuated to an aid station where he died. The other was awarded to Private Sidney Godley who operated the battalion's other machine gun throughout the day, remaining behind and covering the Fusiliers' eventual withdrawal and only surrendered after dismantling his gun and throwing the pieces into the canal to prevent their capture.

Lieutenant Maurice Dease

To the right of the Fusiliers, the Middlesex Regiment and the 1st Battalion's Gordon Highlanders were under similarly heavy assault. Both suffered massive casualties but when they were reinforced by the Royal Irish Regiment and aided by divisional artillery support, they were able to hold their bridges. However, the Germans shortly thereafter expanded their assaults and attack all along the British lines. The Germans were able to advance under cover thanks largely to fir plantations along the north bank. In particular, the British 1st Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment and the 2nd Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers were hard hit but managed to repulse the German attacks throughout the day.

German Infantry (on the horizon) advance against British soldiers in makeshift fighting positions called "scrapes" 

Despite these valiant efforts, it soon became clear to the British that their positions were indefensible. Though inflicting disproportionate casualties against their German attackers, the British had taken heavy casualties in numerous battalions. The German IX Corps had started crossing the canal to their east in force. At 15:00, the British 3rd Division was ordered to withdraw from the canal to positions south of Mons. By that evening, II Corps had established new positions in a line from Montræul through Boussu, Wasmes, Paturages, to Frameries. However, by this point the Germans were swarming across the canal in large numbers, and the French Fifth was retreating. At 02:00 on the 24th, II Corps was ordered to retreat into France to the southwest to positions along the Valenciennes to Maubeuge road.

As such, the British defenders were caught largely off-guard by the order to retreat and had to fight numerous rear-guard actions against their pursuers. Along their left, the British 14th and 15th Brigades of the 5th Division were aided by the 2nd Cavalry Brigade along with elements from the artillery due to heavy German assaults, but were successfully withdrawn after four hours of intense fighting. This retreat became known as the Great Retreat, and would last well until the Allies were able to rally and halt the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne.

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Third Artois and Loos

The Third Battle of Artois was a combined British and French offensive action on the Western Front. It was designed to complement the Champagne offensive which was Joffre's last effort to exploit the Allies numerical superiority over Germany in 1915. The ultimate goal of the offensive was the capture of the German supply depots at Attigny and Douai and thereby force a withdrawal. The British action at Loos was one of the major British actions on the Western Front of that year. The Battle of Loos kicked off on the 25th September 1915.

The British First Army, under General Douglas Haig, were able to push through the weak German lines and captured the town of Loos. However, a lack of supplies and reinforcements limited the British ability to effectively exploit their success. The success had come at a high cost. British artillery had been woefully insufficient as they had been stricken with a shortage of ammunition. This in turn, led to the failure of the artillery to effectively cut the German wire. As a result, many British soldiers were cut down while advancing over open fields by German machine guns and artillery. A further complication was a result of the British usage of chlorine gas. Loos was the first time the British had utilized poison gas. Poor calculations led to the release of 140 tons of chlorine without favorable wind patterns. As such, much of the gas was blown back onto the British who had equipped with ineffective gas masks and had been poorly trained in their usage. As a result, many soldiers, blinded by fogged talc eyepieces removed their masks. Others removed them because they had difficulty breathing with them on.

The next day, the Germans were prepared to receive the British assault and repulsed numerous attempts to press the attack forward. On the 28th, the British had withdrawn to their starting lines by German counter-attacks, having lost nearly 20,000 casualties and three divisional commanders; George Thesiger, Frederick Wing, and Thompson Capper. On October 3rd the Germans succeeded in retaking the Hohenzollern Redoubt, taken during the initial assault. On the 8th, they launched their own offensive along the entire line. However, the British succeeded in repelling the attack and the Germans ended the offensive that night due to heavy casualties. The British attempted one last attack but it failed to achieve any results due largely to a lack of hand grenades. Haig wished to resume the offensive in November, but heavy rain and German artillery forced him to abandon the plan.

Haig and the British Field Marshal John French had been against the operation initially. They cited a lack of proper artillery ammunition, heavy guns, and reserve troops. However, British minister of war, Lord Horatio Kitchener pressured them into agreeing to the action. The battle saw the first large-scale deployment of “Kitchener's Army” troops; volunteer army units that had been recruited after Kitchener realized the increasingly protracted nature of the conflict.

British Gas clouds (left) drifts toward the Hohenzollern Redoubt (right) in front of British Trenches (foreground)

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Under the weather. Will return shortly.

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Moreuil Wood and the Last Great Cavalry Charge

 The situation facing the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in early 1918 was dire. The Bolsheviks had withdrawn Russia from the war, and in so doing had closed the Eastern Front. The United States had yet to establish a sufficient presence on the Western Front and the French were badly beleaguered and had suffered heavy casualties. As such, they had reorganized many divisions, closing down some to fully man others. The British themselves were still reeling from three failed offensives aimed at a breakthrough, suffering 890,000 casualties while inflicting similar German losses. However, the German army was being reinvigorated. With the closure of the Eastern Front coupled with victories in Italy, Germany found many divisions free to be redeployed to the Western Front. These men were experienced, battle-hardened, fully reinforced and well equipped. The stage was set for one last German offensive before the fully industrial might of the United States could relieve the battered Allies.

On March 21st, 1918 the Germans attacked. The British had recently taken over a stretch of nearly 40km of poorly constructed French trenches and were quickly forced to withdraw under the onslaught of the German assault. Two days later, the Germans broke through to the village of Ham. The British 3rd Cavalry Division, supplemented by two hundred men from the Canadian Cavalry Brigade were ordered to advance to the village of Bouchoir nearly 40 miles west of Ham. Along the way they engaged Germans at Gugny, La Neuville-en-Beine, Villeselve, and Beaumont-en-Beine. Three days later the Allies were forced to withdraw again when the Germans again broke through. At this point, the German advance had pushed nearly 45km into the Allied territory and began to feel the strain on its supply lines. Erik von Ludendorff, architect of the offensive, diverted objectives and the assault again lost momentum. This slowing of the pace allowed the Allies time to rally and reinforce, and when the German attack renewed on the 30th the Allies were able to meet it in kind.

On the morning of the 30th, the Germans had occupied the Moreuil Woods overlooking the Arve River and had taken control of the Amiens-Paris railway. British Major General J.E.B. Seely, commander of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade received orders to cross the Arve River and harass the Germans and delay their advance as much as possible. By 9:30, Seely and the CCB had reached the Moreuil Woods, having taken fire from the Germans within. Seely issued orders to two sections of the CCB: the Royal Canadian Dragoons (RCD) and Lord Strathcona's Horse (LSH). The Dragoons were to protect Moreuil village, while LSH was to occupy the southeast portion of the wood and disrupt the Germans there. While these two units were thusly occupied, the remaining CCB units were to sweep through the woods from the northwest corner eastwards where it would reconnect with LSH. The initial attack was driven back by German machine gun fire and the CCB dismounted and pressed forward again with bayonets fixed. They succeeded in driving the German defenders to the center of the woods, despite fierce hand-to-hand fighting that broke out between the Canadians and the German 101st Grenadiers.

Conditions in the woods muddled the engagement, and split the assault into separate engagements. As the CCB swept east, they were funneled by German machine guns. Simultaneously, elements of the RCD were forced into the woods by German counterattacks. However, by this time the British 3rd Cavalry had reinforced the Canadians and were supporting them around the woods. Many of these British units were ordered to dismount prior to engagements. At the same time, units from LSH were reformed into scouting teams of ten men each and sent to reconnoiter the German positions. Commander of C Squadron of LSH, Lieutenant Gordon Flowerdew sent his force to take the northeast corner of the woods and report back. On the way there, they ambushed a German force that was looting from a French wagon after which they dismounted and entered the woods under fire. When Flowerdew reached his men, he assessed the situation and determined his that his men would cut of the German retreat while the rest of LSH would drive the Germans from the woods.

Lieutenant Gordon Flowerdew

By this time, elements of the Royal Flying Corps had arrived and began supporting the Allies by strafing the German positions and dropping bombs. The Cavalry that approached the southwest corner encountered heavy resistance and took heavy casualties and were forced to halt. At this point, Flowerdew and his men reached the northeast corner and summited the high-ground and encountered nearly 300 men from the 101st Grenadiers withdrawing. Flowerdew shouted “It's a charge boys, it's a charge!” and his men assaulted the withdrawing Germans. Both sides suffered heavily during the charge and Flowerdew was killed. Only 51 men from his unit had survived the charge. By 11am the Germans only held the southern-most point of the woods as British reinforcements poured in. Seely ordered the British artillery support to cease firing and his men to drive the remaining Germans away. Ultimately, the Allies suffered 305 casualties taking the woods, but by the end of the day it was taken. However, the next morning a German counterattack recaptured the majority of the wood.

Once again, the Canadians assaulted the woods, in three waves. Engaging in heavy hand-to-hand combat the Canadians were able to once again drive the Germans out of the Moreuil Wood. By 3pm that day they were relieved by fresh divisions. The Battle of Moreuil Wood was over and had aided in halting the German offensive. Eventually the Germans would once again wrest control of the woods from the Allies, but lost it permanently in August to the French and Canadians. The Germans had suffered nearly 250,000 casualties in their offensive and were unable to recuperate from the loss. The Allies had lost nearly 240,000 but were being reinforced and had halted the Germans. Flowerdew was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his valiance in the charge, nicknamed the Last Great Cavalry Charge, against the Germans. It was one of twenty that were awarded during the German and subsequent Allied offensive.

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The Collapse of a Dual-Monarchy

As 1918 came to close, it was becoming increasingly clear that Germany could not sustain its war effort. The intervention of the United States brought with it troops and supplies. American involvement was a shot in the arm for the Allied war effort, while Germany was feeling the strangle-hold of the British blockade. Its last gambit had failed, and the u-boats had failed to break through and its people were starving. Its ally, Austria-Hungary had throughout the course of the war become essentially a military satellite state, and the last two military successes, the Romanian Offensive and the Caporetto Offensive, had been coordinated and assisted by Germany. When the Armistice was signed in November the defeat was final and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had already collapsed. It is somewhat ironic that the nation who had essentially begun the conflict would be utterly dissolved before its conclusion.

The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary existed for a mere 51 years. It had been created as a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 which saw the Hapsburgs agreeing to share power with the Hungarian government. It divided the previous territories that had comprised the Austrian Empire between Vienna and Budapest, the respective capitals. When the war began, Austro-Hungarian forces had pushed into Serbia, but had to be quickly withdrawn in an effort to defend against Russian incursions in the east. It was readily apparent after the first months of the war that the Austrian High Command had failed to make plans for a protracted conflict. They had expected another short war as had happened twice before in the Balkans. In many respects, the First World War began as a third Balkan War. When in 1917, conflict on the Eastern front ceased, Austro-Hungary withdrew its forces. However, by 1918 the economic and political situations in Austro-Hungary had deteriorated beyond repair. On October 28th, while Austro-Hungary was engaged along the Italian Front, the Czechoslovakians and the Southern Slavs declared their independence. On October 31st, Hungary officially dissolved the union with Austria and effectively ended the Austro-Hungarian state.

One major factor in the dissolution was the involvement of the United States and its support of the nationalists within the Austro-Hungarian state. In 1917, one of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points was that the nationalities within the empire would be presented with the “freest opportunity to autonomous development” and Karl I, emperor of Austria and King of Hungary agreed and allowed each national group to practice self-government within a confederation. However, by this point, nationalist leaders resented and distrusted the Viennese government and were insistent on independence. In mid-October 1918, Karl I granted freedom to the Polish areas of Galicia and Lodemeria with the understanding that they would join the other Poles in Germany and Russia in forming a Polish state. The remaining Austrian regions, typically called Cisleithania, were divided into their own nationalist sections which were to be governed by national councils. Despite these efforts, the United States responded that they were determined to see the cause of independence through for the Czechs, Slovaks, and the Southern Slavs. Further, the American Secretary of State Robert Lansig informed Vienna that the US could no longer deal on the basis of the Fourteen Points. By this point, a provisional Czechoslovakian government had already joined the Allied powers. Lansig's contact was a death knell for the Empire. The National Councils that had been set up were already acting as provisional governments for future nations. With Hungary separating at the end of October, Austria was left with nothing but the German Alpine and Danubian provinces. Karl I, on November 11th, issued a proclamation releasing Austrians from their oath of loyalty, their right to determine the form of the state and officially renounced his right to participate in government affairs. On November 13th, he similarly released Hungarians. However, Karl I did not abdicate, but opted to remain on his throne should either Austrians or Hungarians recall him. In 1921, he attempted to regain the Hungarian throne. However this attempt collapsed and he was removed along with his family to the island of Madeira where he died the next year.

Karl I; Charles I of Austria; Charles IV of Hungary

Austrian and Hungarian republics were created at the war's end, their territories set by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Treaty of Trianon respectively. The new Republic of German Austria lost nearly 60% of its former territory to new nationalities. Further, it was forbidden to unite with Germany without specific approval from the newly formed League of Nations. Similarly, the new Hungarian Democratic Republic lost nearly 72% of its pre-war territory and 64% of its population.

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Room 40 and Zimmermann's Telegram

In early 1917, Germany was feeling the strangle of the British blockades. They needed to break the blockades and restore the supply train to German ports. Plans were made in 1916 to resume the use of unrestricted submarine warfare. The German High Command was aware that if they were to resume the sinking of vessels sailing from the United States it was likely that the US would enter into the war on the side of the Allies. However, it was assumed that it would take a considerable amount of time for American troops to be supplied, trained, and transported to the Western Front, by which time Germany could have knocked out France and forced England to peace talks. However, should the timetable be incorrect, the Germans wanted an insurance policy.

Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff

On January 16th, the codebreakers in the British Admiralty in Room 40 received an intercepted communication transmitted over US diplomatic lines. German telegraph lines to the Americas had been severed at the beginning of the war and its stations in neutral countries shut down. As such it was forced to use British and American lines instead. German transmissions were generally sent along American lines which were kept open with the permission of American President Woodrow Wilson . He had given the German diplomats use of the lines as a way of keeping diplomatic channels open with the hope ending the war. The Germans took advantage of this privilege believing it offered them some degree of safety, as the British government couldn't exploit any intercepted information without revealing that they were spying on American diplomatic traffic.

Arthur Zimmermann

The intercepted message on January 16th was sent from the Berlin office of the German Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador in Washington, Johann von Bernstaff. It was passed along quickly to the codebreakers who partially decoded it. The Germans had used their cipher 0075, which Room 40 had only partially decoded.

Earlier in the war, in 1914 the SMS Madgeburg had run aground in heavy fog while trying to evade Russian vessels. A majority of her codebooks and ciphers were destroyed, but many were retained for communication with rescuers. With the Russians closing in, Korvettenkapitän Richard Habenicht ordered her to be scuttled. With most of the Madgeburg's crew rescued by friendly ships, the vessels trying to free her were driven off when Russian ships came close and began firing. In the confusion, many of the scuttling charges went off, killing fifteen men. Fifty six men as well as the captain were captured by the Russians, and the Madgeburg was seized. Inside, the Russians found two codebooks and later a cipher key that had been thrown overboard. After this the Madgeburg was completely destroyed and the codebooks and cipher were turned over to the British Admiralty and Rear Admiral Henry Oliver who was the Director of Naval Intelligence.

With code 0075 partially broken the British were able to decipher enough of the message to ascertain its intent. It revealed a proposed alliance between Germany and Mexico and that Germany was to resume unrestricted submarine warfare on the 1st of February. Germany would supply Mexico with “generous financial support” if Mexico would declare war on the United States, thereby occupying American attention and allowing Germany to defeat the Allies in Europe. In return, Mexico would be given her “lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” Further, it requested Mexican assistance in enlisting Japan into a similar agreement. It finished by informing Mexico that Germany's renewed submarine efforts would force England to peace within a few months.

This information presented the British with a political conundrum. They wanted to utilize the information to stir public sentiment in the United States against Germany. However, they needed a way that would let them inform the American government without alerting them to the British spying on American diplomatic traffic, and further, they had to explain how they were able to decipher the text without admitting that they had broken the German's code. They solved their first problem when a British agent in Mexico bribed an employee of the Mexican telegraph office for a copy of the telegram, which had been forwarded from Washington to Mexico via commercial lines. It had been encoded with the German cipher 13040, and the British had captured the complete copy of this cipher in Mesopotamia and it had been completely decoded by mid-February. When this was done, and the information of the telegram was relayed, the British lied, saying they had stolen a deciphered copy. Eventually the US was informed that they had broken the code, but the American government played along with the ruse. The German government, unable to accept that their codes could have been broken, sent von Eckardt to find who stolen the telegram. On February 23rd, the US Ambassador, Walter Page met with the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour and was given the ciphertext, the deciphered German version and the English translation. Page then relayed the information to Woodrow Wilson back in the US.

Prior to American involvement in the war, American General John J. Pershing had been leading the American effort against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Villa had perpetrated multiple incursions and raids in the United States, the deadliest of which was against the New Mexican town of Columbus, which escalated into a full-scale battle between his forces and Pershing's. In light of this conflict, American public sentiment was anti-Mexican as well as anti-German. When the telegram's details were made public, there was outrage. However, at the same time there was a sizeable amount of anti-British sentiment at play and it was particularly notable in the Irish American and German American population. First and foremost Americans generally wished to avoid involvement in what they saw as just another European conflict. However, by February 1st, after Germany had resumed their practice of unrestricted submarine warfare, anti-German sentiment was rapidly overtaking the American people. With the publishing of the Zimmermann Telegram, these feelings were inflamed. The Telegram would, in part, help push the United States towards involvement in the First World War.

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Early Tank Usage and Operation GY

The Western Front after 1914 was plagued by stalemates. Despite technological advances of recoilless artillery, machine-guns and aircraft, neither side was able to effect a sufficient breakthrough. Heavy artillery bombardments were designed to soften up stationary defenses but ultimately the enemy's defenses were sufficient to withstand the punishment or sufficient reinforcements could be brought up to push back the enemy. Aircraft suffered similar difficulties in dislodging defenders, and machine-guns were proving an invaluable asset and a daunting obstacle.

When the war began, both sides had gone into the conflict expecting a war of mobility. Initially that is how the war developed. The German Schlieffen Plan and the French Plan XVII both called for a massive sweeping push through enemy territory. As such, both sides retained mounted cavalry units. However, recent conflicts and confrontations during the early stages of the First World War had shown their ineffectiveness against massed infantry, artillery, and machine-guns. Following the Allied success at the Battle of the Marne and the subsequent trench warfare, both the Central and Allied Powers retained cavalry units to exploit what they saw as an inevitable breakthrough. Attempts to use cavalry to exploit the deadlock revealed their ineffectiveness in an inescapable way and within six weeks horses were essentially gone from the Western Front. However, the horse would still play vital roles in other theaters of war, such as the middle and far East.

The problem of stalemate still remained, but in 1915, British development began on the prototype of first armored fighting vehicle named “Little Willie”. By December, it's successor “Mother” was ready for combat and was put through trials in January 1916. Mother's trials were so successful that an order placed 100 into production. Half were designated “male” and were equipped 6-pounder guns mounted in sponsons on the sides of the tank and the other “female” half were equipped with machine-guns. Code-named “water tanks”, they first saw combat at the Somme Offensive in September 1916. Deployed at the Flers-Coucelette. The “tanks” were poorly suited to the conditions of the battlefield. The ground was churned by artillery fire and muddied by rain. Many broke down or were trapped in the terrain. Many were also taken out by concentrated enemy fire.

Colonel JFC Fuller

The next deployment of tanks came at the Arras in April 1917. Sixty Mark I and II tanks were deployed in support of the Allied offensive there. They met with better success, six tanks captured a heavily fortified village with very little Allied losses. This success helped cement the tank as a useful weapon system. In July, the British organized the Tank Corps and deployed it to the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele. The tanks met with limited local successes, but failed to prove a decisive breakthrough and the offensive broke down.

The British General Staff approved the plan to deploy these new weapons en mass at a new operation in the Cambrai sector. The initial plan as designed by the Chief of Staff for, Colonel JFC Fuller the Tank Corps called for the tanks to charge through the enemy line and assault the enemy gun-line. His plans were expanded and named Operation GY by General Sir Julian Byng, commander of the British Third Army. The ultimate goal of the operation was the capture of the town of Cambrai by way of smashing through the German defenders and capturing Bourlon Wood and subsequently the town itself.

The conditions of the area around Cambrai were much more conducive to the use of tanks. The ground had not been extensively shelled, was made of resilient chalk, and was relatively flat and had been what first attracted Fuller to the area. However, German defenses were well established. The lines that would have to be breached were reinforced with dugouts, machine-guns, and the first trench and subsequent support trenches had been widened to nearly 4 meters. In response, the tanks used would carry bundles of brushwood called fascines that would enable them to cross these wider trenches with relative ease.

The plan of battle had the tanks acting in support and supported immediately by infantry. Cooperation between the Tank Corps and the infantry divisions it would be supporting was paramount. As such, the tanks and and infantry trained together extensively prior to the battle. They would be split between the III (four infantry divisions) and IV corps (two infantry divisions), and would be utterly committed to the battle. 476 tanks were deployed to the battle, alotting between 64 and 72 tanks per infantry division. The vanguard tanks chosen were the new Mark IV tanks which had been reinforced with superior armor and a more reliable and quieter engine and transmission.

At night on 19th November, heavy aircraft overflights and sustained machine-gun fire masked the deployment of the tanks to the front lines. Besides the first usage of tanks on a large scale, the Battle of Cambrai was innovative in two aspects. The covering of the noise made by the movement of the tanks allowed for their usage without the Germans realizing it before the tanks were upon them. Further, and perhaps more importantly, the innovative use of artillery had never been seen before. Prior to this conflict artillery would saturate the enemy front-lines with heavy volumes of fire in an attempt to pin or destroy the enemy defenders and enemy artillery, yet ultimately merely alerting them to the impending infantry assault. The method that the artillery was sighted in was by observing the shell-fall and making adjustments accordingly. However, prior to the assault at Cambrai, British observers both on the ground and in the air, relayed coordinates to the artillery batteries and they in turn applied ballistic formulae to “silently” range their guns. This method had first been developed by the commander of the British Artillery 9th Division, Brigadier-General Henry Tudor. At Cambrai there would be only a short sharp bombardment aimed at keeping the enemy's heads down and guns silent while the tanks and infantry approached under cover of smoke shells. Following this, the infantry and tanks would then advance under the cover of a creeping-barrage. All-told, the British utilized nearly 1000 guns. These guns opened fire just after 9:00 am on 20th November.

A Mark IV British tank advances on German lines

The artillery bombardment succeeded. The Germans were suppressed and when they broke free they were met with the silhouettes of British infantry and tanks bearing down on them. The British quickly seized the front trenches and captured what prisoners they could and repelled desperate German counter-attacks. The far right flank saw the 12th Division succeeding in capturing Bonavis and Lateau wood which allowed cavalry to pass through. Next to them was the 20th who advanced to the St. Quentin Canal. There they captured a bridge at Masniéres, but it collapsed under the weight of a Mark VI crossing. Further along the line, the 6th Division met with similar success and captured Marcoing, but the 5th Cavalry Division could not advance much further. In the center of the line, the 51st Highland Division met with considerably less success. They captured their fist objectives, but fierce resistance from intact German anti-tank batteries slowed their advance and the 51st failed to take the village on the first day. On their left, the 62nd Division pushed 8km past Havrincourt, and the 36th reached Baupme-Cambrai Road.

The first day of fighting alone had seen spectacular Allied success. They had pushed the Germans into a salient nearly 10km long and 8km deep. The speed and low cost of this success, when compared with the stereotypically slow and exceedingly costly advances that had characterized the Western Front prior to this was stunning. The British had achieved similar gains at Passchendaele in three months and at the cost of 250,000 casualties. At Cambrai, it took 12 hours and cost only 4,000 casualties. However, these gains were not to last. The Germans recovered quickly, counter-attacking and slowing the advance the next day. On 30th November the Germans succeeded in recapturing a majority of these losses.