Part 8 (1/2)
The British preparatory bombardment, delivered by a force of artillery far greater than any British army had heretofore possessed, began on 24th June, and deluged the German positions with sh.e.l.ls for a week. It was aided by the efforts of the Royal Flying Corps, which, at this time, had a decided superiority over that of the Germans. The British attack on 1st July began in broad daylight, and was delivered princ.i.p.ally by Rawlinson's Fourth Army of five corps, with a subsidiary attack by the Third Army (Allenby) opposite Gommecourt, where one corps only was sent forward. The sectors attacked, beside that at Gommecourt, may be designated: Beaumont-Hamel; River Ancre, including Thiepval; La Boisselle and Contalmaison; Fricourt; River Somme at Montauban. The French attack, designed by Foch and delivered by the French Sixth Army (Fayolle), and Tenth Army (Micheler), was delivered along an 8-mile front, taking in a sector on either side of the Somme from Maricourt, through Frise and Dompierre, to Fay.
Severe as were the British preparatory and final bombardments, they did not succeed in demolis.h.i.+ng the German systems of defences, and had left machine-gun nests intact. The efficacy of the machine-gun was one of the bitterest lessons to be learnt by the flower of the British armies of 1916, and the great losses of 1st July were largely due to the German handling of this weapon. Taking the British and French attack as a whole, it may be said to have failed towards the north and succeeded towards the south. The heaviest rebuff was inflicted on the corps of Allenby's Third Army which operated opposite Gommecourt. From Thiepval, across the Ancre, the Germans had ma.s.sed their best fighting material and the greatest weight of their artillery. The 10th Corps (Morland), which included the famous 36th (Ulster) Division, Highlanders, and North Countrymen, did wonders, and actually penetrated the Thiepval Redoubt but could not hold on to its gains. Hunter-Weston's 8th Corps of picked troops, including the 29th Division from Gallipoli, found the task of a.s.saulting Beaumont-Hamel too strong for them. Farther south there were successes which increased in value towards the Somme. The 13th Corps (Congreve) carried Montauban and Mametz; the 15th Corps (Horne) surrounded Fricourt; the 3rd Corps (Pulteney) forced its way at great cost into La Boisselle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Allied Battlefield on the Somme: map showing approximately by the shaded area the Franco-British gains from 1st July to 18th September, 1916]
The French armies, well handled, and aided by the advantage of finding the Germans less on their guard, made ground on either side of the Somme. Three corps partic.i.p.ated in the a.s.sault--the 20th (Balfourier) from Maricourt to the Somme, where the hardest fighting was at Curlu and Hardicourt; the 1st Corps (Brandelat); and the 35th Corps (Allonier). The last two walked through the Germans, and the French losses were light. As the result of the day's fighting along the whole extent of the front, the British captured 3500, and the French 6000 prisoners; but the casualties of the a.s.sailants were close on 50,000. The second day's fighting, though it emphasized the certainty that no great German defeat had been inflicted, enabled both the French and British commanders to enlarge the ground they had won, and the advantage was further exploited in the few days that followed. By the 5th of July over a front of 6 miles the Germans had been pushed back a mile; the British had captured 6000, the French 8000 prisoners.
This was the first blow in the Somme battle. Its results, compared with those of the German attack at Verdun, do not afford warrant for regarding it as a great victory. It became clear that there was no precedent to follow other than that set by the Germans at Verdun, namely that of systematically reducing the enemy's position. This heavy task was entered on by the British forces with unbroken determination; and the effort relaxed scarcely any of its vigour till 18th Sept., while the last big British attack on the Ancre began on 13th Nov. The princ.i.p.al events in this protracted struggle for positions and fortified strongholds after the opening phase already described were:
14th to 15th July.--British attack German second line, capturing Longueval, Trones Wood, Delville Wood, and 2000 prisoners.
23rd July.--Second phase of Somme battle begun. Pozieres captured 26th July.
16th Aug.--French take Belloy near the Somme; 1300 prisoners.
29th Aug.--Total British captures on Somme to date: 266 officers, 15,203 men, 86 guns.
15th Sept.--British advance (third phase of Somme battle) using tanks for the first time; Martinpuich and High Wood taken. Lesboeufs and Morval captured 25th Sept. Combles and Thiepval captured 26th Sept.
30th Sept.--Thiepval Ridge captured.
10th Oct.--French take Ablaincourt, south of Somme, and 1300 prisoners.
21st to 23rd Oct.--British take 1018 prisoners.
12th Nov.--French take Saillisel.
13th Nov.--Battle of the Ancre (fourth phase of Somme battle). British take 4000 prisoners.
29th Dec.--Sir D. Haig's dispatches relating to Somme battle. During the period 1st July to 18th Nov. were captured 38,000 prisoners, 125 guns, 514 machine-guns. The number of casualties inflicted on the Germans has not been made known. Those of the British amounted to 22,923 officers and 476,553 men. A number of these were, of course, not permanent casualties.
_Russian Campaign, 1916_
During the winter of 1915-6 the Russian armies were reorganized by General Alexieff under the nominal command of the Tsar. The Grand Duke Nicholas, as already stated, went to the Caucasus in 1915, and while Viceroy there the successful advance of General Yudenitch to Erzerum (captured 16th Feb.) was made. The Russian armies of the north were placed under General Kuropatkin (Riga to Dvinsk) and General Everts (Vilna to the Pripet), and the commands embraced respectively the Twelfth, Fifth, and First; and the Second, Tenth, Fourth, and Third Armies. In the southern group of armies, commanded by General Ivanoff till April, and by General Brussiloff afterwards, were included the Eighth Army (Kaledin) in the Rovno sector, Eleventh Army of Volhynia (Sakharoff), Seventh Army of Eastern Galicia (Scherbatcheff), and Ninth Army of the Dniester (Lechitsky). Facing the northern group of armies were German forces directed nominally by General Hindenburg, actually by General Ludendorff. The local commanders were von Below and von Scholtz (Riga to Dvinsk), von Eichhorn (Lake Narotch), von Fabeck and von Woyrsch with an Austrian army corps. A force under the nominal command of Prince Leopold of Bavaria connected these German armies with those which faced General Brussiloff (successor to Ivanoff). The Volhynian sector (Third Austro-Hungarian Army) was under von Brlog; Rovno sector (Fourth Army) under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, stiffened by a reserve under von Linsingen. Farther south were General Boehm-Ermolli's army (Second), and the two armies of Bothmer and Pflanzer-Baltin. The Russians, who had been recruiting far larger numbers than they could feed or employ, were much more numerous. The Germans were well entrenched and superior in artillery.
The German effort in 1916 was diverted to the West. The Russians, who were now better supplied in guns and ammunition than heretofore, seized the opportunity to take and keep the initiative in the East. They began before the end of 1915 with an offensive in Galicia on the Styr and Strypa, and continued their attacks through January; while in February there was severe fighting on the Dniester, in the Bukovina, and in Volhynia. The first full-dress attack was made, however, in the northern sector, where General Everts began the battle of Lake Narotch on 18th March. Fighting here was renewed eight times before 14th April, and the Russian gain on the Vilna road did not warrant the heavy losses (12,000), which were increased by a German counter-attack on 28th April.
The important part of the Russian campaign took place in the southern group of armies commanded by Brussiloff, who used his superiority of numbers against the Austrian generals and their very mixed troops with brilliant effect. On 4th June the Russian armies from the Pripet to the Bukovina were set in motion simultaneously against the long unequally guarded Austrian front, seeking the weak places. Generals Kaledin and Sakharoff, in the sectors nearest the Pripet, engaged the armies of von Brlog and the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand; and the Russian columns, though held up in the marshes supporting von Brlog near Kolki, swept through the archduke's defences like paper. They marched swiftly forward over rolling country to the Styr, driving the Austro-Hungarian levies before them. By 16th June the leading Russian columns were 12 miles from Vladimir Volhynok. North of this apex Kolki and Svidniki, on the Stokhod, were captured; south of the so-called Lutsk salient thus created Sakharoff captured Dubno, and was outside Brody on the 16th. In twelve days this most damaging attack captured 70,000 men, 83 guns, and created a salient which, at its greatest depth, was 50 miles from the 80-foot base from which it had been started.
Von Linsingen's reserves were sent in, and Ludendorff took matters in hand.
General Scherbatcheff had simultaneously attacked von Bothmer from Kozlov to the Dniester. The Russian general reached Bucacz (8th June) and crossed the Strypa. He also captured 17,000 prisoners and 30 guns, but von Bothmer, athwart a good line of railway, could not be enveloped, and fell back sullenly and without disaster.
General Lechitsky, in the most southerly sector, struck with fury at Pflanzer-Baltin, and cut through his centre on the hills between the Dniester and the Pruth while turning his flank at the Dniester bridge-heads at Zaleszczyki and Biskupie. The net result was the wreck of Pflanzer-Baltin's army, which was forced to retreat across the Pruth to the Carpathians. Lechitsky captured 39,000 men; and Brussiloff's great attack had succeeded triumphantly on both wings. It had made less headway in the centre. There were two lines of subsequent pressure or advance open to him, one, the more northerly, towards Kovel; the other, with, as object, the further destruction of the southern Austro-Hungarian armies, towards Halicz.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Map ill.u.s.trating the extent of Russian Recovery in the Summer Campaign of 1916]
Ludendorff, however, had by this time formed his plans for the restoration of equilibrium; and Linsingen, with his reserves, was employed to make amplification of the Russian success at the most northerly portion of the salient impracticable. Linsingen struck at the Stokhod River crossings.
Brussiloff countered by bringing up a fresh army under General Lesch with the object of outflanking Linsingen in his turn; and another army, under General Rogoza, was ordered to occupy General Woyrsch's attention farther north. These manoeuvres had considerable success, Lesch and Rogoza capturing 17,000 men. But though in these and subsequent engagements the largest numbers of captures fell to the Russians, and though in the extreme south they were again able to advance to the Carpathian pa.s.ses, no disaster on the largest scale was inflicted. The Germans were able to withdraw their allies and to allow the Russian attack to wear itself out.
Nevertheless, the Russian victories were of immense service to the Allies, and by the autumn of 1916 it seemed that the prospects of the Central Empires were darker than at any period of the war. The Russian advance, in its resolution and generals.h.i.+p, need not shrink from a comparison with that with which Foch ended the war two years later. By the middle of September, Generals Kaledin, Lesch, Sakharoff, Scherbatcheff, with Bezobrazoff and Lechitsky in the south, had captured 370,000 prisoners, 450 guns, and an amount of supplies as great as that which fell into Ludendorff's hands at St. Quentin in 1918.
_Balkan Campaign, 1916_