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Title: The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII)
History of the European War from Official Sources
Author: Various
Editor: Francis J. Reynolds
Allen L. Churchill
Francis T. Miller
Release Date: June 28, 2009 [EBook #29265]
Language: English
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THE STORY OF THE GREAT WAR
History of the European War from Official Sources
Complete Historical Records of Events to Date,
Illustrated with Drawings, Maps, and Photographs
Prefaced by
What the War Means to America
Major General Leonard Wood, U.S.A.
Naval Lessons of the War
Rear Admiral Austin M. Knight, U.S.N.
The World's War
Frederick Palmer
Theatres of the War's Campaigns
Frank H. Simonds
The War Correspondent
Arthur Ruhl
Edited by
Francis J. Reynolds
Former Reference Librarian of Congress
Allen L. Churchill
Associate Editor, The New International Encyclopedia
Francis Trevelyan Miller
Editor in Chieft, Photographic History of the Civil War
P. F. Collier & Son Company
New York
[Illustration: _A great war Zeppelin on a bomb-dropping expedition is
sailing over an enemy city. High above it are the city's defending
aircraft--a biplane and a monoplane--ready to attack the raider with
their machine guns_]
THE STORY OF THE GREAT WAR
NEUVE CHAPELLE · BATTLE
OF YPRES · PRZEMYSL
MAZURIAN LAKES · ITALY
ENTERS WAR · GORIZIA
THE DARDANELLES
VOLUME III
P · F · Collier & Son · New York
Copyright 1916
By P. F. Collier & Son
CONTENTS
PART I.--RUSSIAN AND TURKISH CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER Page
I. Campaign in the Caucasus 9
II. Turkish Advance Against Egypt 15
III. Failure of "Holy War" Propaganda 21
IV. Results of First Six Months of Turkish Campaign 25
V. The Dardanelles--Strategy of the Campaign 27
VI. Fortifications and Strength--First Movements 34
PART II.--JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST
VII. Why Japan Joined the Allies 40
VIII. Military and Naval Situation in the Far East 46
IX. Beginning of Hostilities--Attacks On Tsing-Tau Forts 52
X. Capture of Tsing-Tau 60
PART III.--THE WAR IN AFRICA
XI. Campaign in Togoland and the Cameroons 62
XII. German Southwest Africa--Rebellion in Union of South
Africa 68
PART IV.--THE WESTERN FRONT
XIII. Preparations for an Offensive 79
XIV. Battle of Neuve Chapelle Begins 83
XV. Operations Following Neuve Chapelle 92
XVI. Beginning of Second Battle of Ypres 99
XVII. The Struggle Renewed 106
XVIII. Other Actions on the Western Front 115
XIX. Campaign in Artois Region 121
XX. British Forward Movement--Battle of Festubert 128
XXI. Sir John French Attempts a Surprise 134
XXII. Attacks at La Bassée 140
XXIII. Operations Around Hooge 146
XXIV. Franco-German Operations Along the Front 151
XXV. Campaign in Argonne and Around Arras 158
XXVI. Belgo-German Operations 166
PART V.--NAVAL OPERATIONS
XXVII. The War Zone 170
XXVIII. Attack on the Dardanelles 174
XXIX. German Raiders and Submarines 179
XXX. Italian Participation--Operations in Many Waters 186
XXXI. Story of the Emden 193
XXXII. Summary of the First Year of Naval Warfare 206
XXXIII. Fights of the Submarines 209
XXXIV. Sinking of the Lusitania 222
PART VI.--THE EASTERN FRONT--AUSTRO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
XXXV. The Carpathian Campaign--Review of the Situation 235
XXXVI. Battle of the Passes 241
XXXVII. Battle of Koziowa--Operations in the Bukowina 244
XXXVIII. Fall of Przemysl 249
XXXIX. New Russian Offensive--Austro-German Counteroffensive 258
XL. Campaign in Galicia and Bukowina--Battle of the Dunajec 264
XLI. Russian Retreat 276
XLII. Austro-German Reconquest of Western Galicia 281
XLIII. Campaign in Eastern Galicia and the Bukowina 289
XLIV. Russian Change of Front--Retreat to the San 293
XLV. Battle of the San 297
XLVI. Recapture of Przemysl 301
XLVII. Capture of Lemberg 306
PART VII.--RUSSO-GERMAN CAMPAIGN
XLVIII. Winter Battles of the Mazurian Lakes 313
XLIX. The Russians Out of Germany 317
L. Tightening of the Net--Report of the Booty 319
LI. Battles of Przasnysz--Before Mlawa 324
LII. Fighting Before the Niemen and Bobr--Bombardment of
Ossowetz 329
LIII. Russian Raid on Memel 334
LIV. German Invasion of Courland--Capture of Libau 337
V. Russian Offensive from Kovno--Forest Battles in May
and June 342
LVI. Campaign in Southern Poland--Movement upon Warsaw 345
LVII. Battle of Krasnik--Capture of Przasnysz 348
LVIII. Grand Offensive on the Warsaw Salient 356
LIX. Beginning of the End 361
LX. Warsaw Falls 366
PART VIII.--THE BALKANS
LXI. Diplomacy in the Balkans 369
PART IX.--ITALY ENTERS THE WAR
LXII. Spirit of the Italian People--Crisis of the Government 379
LXIII. The Decision Made--Italian Strategy 382
LXIV. Strength of Italian Army and Navy 388
LXV. First Engagements 392
LXVI. Fighting in the Mountains 402
LXVII. Attacks in Gorizia 408
LXVIII. Fighting in the Alps--Italian Successes 416
LXIX. More Mountain Fighting--Results of First Campaign 419
PART X.--THE DARDANELLES AND TURKEY
LXX. Beginning of Operations 423
LXXI. Preparations for Landing--Composition OF Forces 429
LXXII. Plans of Sir Ian Hamilton--First Landing Made 437
LXXIII. The British in Danger--Bitter Fighting 446
LXXIV. Further Efforts at Landing--Failure to Take Krithia 454
LXXV. Krithia Again Attacked--Heroic Work of "Anzacs" 459
LXXVI. Russo-Turkish Operations 469
PART XI.--THE WAR IN AFRICA
LXXVII. The Cameroons 481
LXXVIII. British Conquest of Southwest Africa 484
LXXIX. Other African Operations 493
PART XII.--WAR IN ARABIA, MESOPOTAMIA, AND EGYPT
LXXX. Mesopotamia and Arabia 497
LXXXI. Syria and Egypt 503
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Zeppelin Attacked by Aeroplanes _Frontispiece_
Opposite Page
Belgians Re-forming for a Fresh Attack 78
Prayer in a French Church Used for a Hospital 158
Great Liner Lusitania 222
Grand Duke Nicholas 270
Triumphal Entry of Austrians into Przemysl 302
Prince Leopold of Bavaria in Warsaw 366
Cloud of Poisonous Gas Released by Italian Troops 414
Stores at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli 462
LIST OF MAPS
Page
Strategic Railway System in Eastern Germany Which Made
Quick Concentration Possible (_Colored Map_) _Front Insert_
Gallipoli 29
Kiao-Chau (Tsing-Tau) 43
German Possessions in Africa 65
Western Battle Line, January 1, 1915 81
Neuve Chapelle, Battle at 88
Ypres, Gas Battle of 113
Fighting in Alsace-Hartmannsweilerkopf 119
Artois, Battles in 126
German Submarine War Zone 172
Emden Landing Party, Cruise of 195
Carpathian Passes and Russian Battle Line 237
Przemysl, Detail Maps of the Forts of 248
Galician Campaign from Tarnow to Przemysl 279
Galician Campaign from Przemysl TO Bessarabia 291
Riga, German Advance on 338
Warsaw, German Attempts to Reach, in 1914 358
Warsaw, Advance and Capture of 367
Coasts of Italy and Austria, Showing the Naval Raid in
May, 1915 395
Austria, Italian Attack on 410
Dardanelles, Pictorial Map of, Showing Where the Allies
Landed 439
German Southwest Africa, Conquest of 491
Mesopotamia--The British Operations from the Persian Gulf 499
Suez Canal, Turkish Attack on 506
PART I--RUSSIAN AND TURKISH CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER I
CAMPAIGN IN THE CAUCASUS
Disquieting as was the British offensive in Mesopotamia, the Turkish
General Staff were not to be drawn by it from considerations of larger
strategy. Acting in agreement with the German and Austrian General
Staffs, plans were rapidly pushed for an aggressive offensive in the
Caucasus, that old-time battling ground of the Russians and the Turks.
Germany was being hotly pressed in France by the armies of Belgium,
France, and England, and feared an offensive on the part of the
Russian army.
Across the great isthmus separating the Caspian and Black Seas run the
Caucasus Mountains. Parallel to this range of towering mountains, the
highest in Europe, runs the frontier line of Russia and Turkey and
Russia and Persia, winding in and out among the Trans-Caucasian
Mountains. About two hundred miles from the Russo-Turkish frontier
stands Tiflis, the rich and ancient capital of Georgia, and one of the
prime objectives of any Turkish offensive. One of the few railroads of
this wild country runs from Tiflis through the Russian fortress of
Kars, forty-five miles from the Turkish frontier, to Sarikamish,
thirty miles nearer. On the Turkish side the fortress of Erzerum
stands opposed to Kars, but suffering in comparison by the lack of
railroad communication with the interior of Turkey.
Despite all these discouraging circumstances, however, the Turkish
General Staff, dominated by the indefatigable and ambitious Enver
Pasha, was not to be deterred. A brilliant and daring plan of
campaign, aiming at the annihilation or capture of the entire Russian
Caucasian army, the seizure of Kars and Tiflis, and the control of the
immensely valuable and important Caspian oil fields, was prepared. The
unwelcome task of carrying this plan to completion and success was
intrusted to Hassan Izzet Pasha, under the general guidance of Enver
Pasha and his staff of German advisers.
The heroic efforts of the Turkish troops, their grim but hopeless
battle against equally brave troops, appalling weather conditions, and
insuperable obstacles, their failure and defeat when on the very verge
of complete success, make an intensely interesting story.
Stationed at Erzerum, Turkey had the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Corps.
In addition, the Thirty-seventh Arab division had been brought up from
Bagdad to strengthen the Eleventh Corps. At Trebizond two divisions of
the First Corps had been brought from Constantinople by sea. These
forces totaled about 140,000 troops. At and about Kars, General
Woronzov, the Russian commander, had between 100,000 and 110,000
troops at his disposal from first to last. But although weaker in
numbers he had the inestimable advantage of operating with a line of
railroad at his back, whereas the Turkish commander had to depend
entirely upon road transit, 500 miles from the nearest railroad.
The conditions absolutely necessary for the success of the Turkish
plan were the holding of the Russian force beyond Sarikamish, and the
accurate timing of the flanking attacks, otherwise the Russian
commander would be able to deal with each force separately and defeat
and perhaps destroy them.
The campaign opened on November 20, 1914. The Russians, advancing
across the frontier from Sarikamish, took Koprikeui, within thirty
miles of Erzerum. There, for some time, they remained while the
Turkish command prepared for their great coup.
About the middle of December, 1914, the Eleventh Corps of the Turkish
army moved out of Erzerum, engaged the Russians at Koprikeui, defeated
them after a short, sharp struggle, and drove them in disorder a dozen
miles to Khorasan. While the Eleventh Corps was thus engaged the
Ninth and Tenth Corps, marching forty miles to the north in terrible
weather, succeeded in crossing the high mountains that guard the
Russian frontier. On Christmas Day they looked down on the town of
Sarikamish and the vital railway that stretched away to the eastward.
At the same time the two divisions of the First Corps, stationed at
Trebizond, making a wider sweep, had, by forced marches through a
blinding blizzard that threatened to make necessary the abandonment of
the artillery, reached the vicinity of Ardahan.
The Tenth Corps had reached and was threatening the railway east of
Sarikamish on the road to Kars. Its defeat was absolutely necessary to
the safety of the Russian army. It was therefore the object of General
Woronzov's first attack. During four days every available man and gun
he could bring up on the railway were thrown against the rapidly
dwindling ranks of the Tenth Corps. The Turks fought bravely, but
weight of numbers and superiority of communications told in the end,
and the Ottoman forces were driven into the mountains to the north.
The defeat and retreat of the Tenth Corps exposed the left flank of
the Ninth, commanded by Iskan Pasha. General Woronzov took full
advantage of the situation. Iskan and his 40,000 troops were soon
fighting a desperate battle against an enveloping movement that
threatened to encompass them.
Of the 40,000 troops of the Ninth Corps, a bare 6,000 struggled out of
the mountains to the vicinity of Sarikamish, where they were rallied
by Iskan Pasha. For six days and nights this heroic band made a
determined attempt to capture the town held by a comparatively weak
Russian garrison. Finally, when, surrounded by overwhelming Russian
forces, it became apparent that no Turkish relief could reach him,
Iskan Pasha and the remnant of his once proud corps surrendered.
Sarikamish was defended against Iskan's 6,000 by a mere handful of
soldiers. Time and time again urged by their German officers, the
Turks hurled themselves against the thin Russian line. It bent but did
not break, as step by step, fighting fiercely all the way, it
retreated before weight of numbers. And when relief did come to the
defenders, and Iskan and his force were compelled to surrender, the
brave little Russian band was completely exhausted.
In their pursuit of the remnants of the Tenth Corps the Russians met
with some of the difficulties that had been the undoing of the Turks.
Furthermore, although the Ninth Corps had been hemmed in so that no
relief could reach it, the Turkish command had by no means lost the
power of effective counteraction. The Eleventh Corps at Khorasan
carried on an energetic campaign against the Russian front, gained a
local and tactically important success, and drove the enemy back as
far as Kara-Urgan, less than twenty miles from Sarikamish. Indeed, so
serious became the threat to the Russian forces that General Woronzov,
much against his wishes, was compelled to call off the pursuit of the
Tenth Corps and strengthen the Sarikamish front with the troops that
had been operating farther to the east.
In the second week of January, 1915, between these forces and the
Eleventh Corps of the Turkish army a fierce battle, lasting several
days, opened. The struggle was of the utmost intensity, at times
developing into a hand-to-hand combat between whole regiments. On
January 14 the Fifty-second Turkish Regiment was put to the bayonet by
the Russians. At Genikoi a regiment of Cossacks charged, during an
engagement with a portion of the Thirty-second Turkish Division, and
killed and wounded more than 300.
It must be remembered in judging the terrible nature of the struggle
that the armies were fighting in difficult country. The battle of
Kara-Urgan, furthermore, was waged in a continual snowstorm. Thousands
of dead and wounded were buried in the rapidly falling snow and no
effort was made to recover them. By the end of this week, January 16,
1915, owing largely to their superior railway communications and the
possibility of reenforcements, the Russians had not only checked the
Turkish offensive, but had decisively defeated the Eleventh Corps.
Pressing their advantage the Russians pursued the beaten Turks toward
Erzerum, but the heavy snows prevented them gaining the full fruits of
their victory.
If the Eleventh Corps had not won a victory it had, however,
accomplished its object in that it had relieved the pressure on the
Tenth and enabled it to make good its escape to the north, where it
proceeded to effect a junction with the First Corps. The experience of
this First Corps had not been a happy one. We left it on Christmas
Day, 1914, overlooking Ardahan. A week later it entered the city and
prepared to carry out its rôle in the general offensive by advancing
upon the Russian right flank at Kars. It met serious opposition,
however, when it attempted to move out of Ardahan, was itself
compelled to retreat, and finally sought safety beyond the ridges to
the west. There, in the valley of the Chorûk, it joined up with the
Tenth Corps. Together they continued their retreat upon Trebizond.
Subsequently they tried a new offensive in the Chorûk valley which was
undecisive, however, and at the end of January, 1914, the situation
had developed into a deadlock.
The Turkish troops in their operation in the Caucasus appeared to have
suffered from the difficulty of keeping open their sea communications
with Constantinople. Lacking railways they relied too much upon
supplies arriving at Trebizond. The Russian fleet in the Black Sea was
active, however, and upset the Turkish calculations. In the first week
of January, 1915, at Sinope a Russian cruiser discovered the Turkish
cruiser _Medjidieh_ convoying a transport. After a short engagement
the _Medjidieh_ was put to flight, and the transport sunk.
On January 6, 1915, the Russian Black Sea fleet ran into the _Breslau_
and the _Hamidieh_ and damaged them both in a running fight. A week
later Russian torpedo boats sank several Turkish supply boats near
Sinope.
While this fighting was taking place in the north, farther to the
south toward the Persian frontier the Russians were attempting a
turning movement against the Turkish right flank. At the same time
that the Russian force in the north crossed the Turkish frontier the
Russian column entered Turkey fifty miles farther southeast. On
November 8, 1914, this force entered the Turkish town of Kara Kilissa.
A week later, making its way southwest for a distance of twenty miles,
it engaged, near the village of Dutukht, a Turkish force composed
largely of Arab troops of the Thirteenth Corps. At the outset the
Russians met with a measure of success, but on November 22, 1914, the
Turks, having been reenforced by troops from Bagdad, began a fierce
offensive. After indecisive fighting in the Alashgird valley the
Turks, about the middle of December, 1914, almost caught the Russians
in a bold enveloping movement north of Dutukht. In order to escape the
Russians were compelled to retreat hurriedly and thus ended their
offensive operation in this section.
Still farther to the south, in Persia, the Turks and Russians also
battled. Not only because of political conditions, but because of the
nature of the country, it was easier for Russia and Turkey to attack
each other through Persia than directly across other frontiers, just
as it was easier for Germany and France to reach each other across
Belgium. At the outbreak of war both Turkey and Russia, recognizing
these circumstances, were occupants of Persian territory. Early in
November two Russian columns marched across the northwest corner of
Persia and into Turkey by the Kotur and Khanesur passes, evidently
with the important city of Van, on the lake of that name, as an
objective. At a point near Dilman, and again at Serai, they drove the
Turkish troops back toward Van, but were checked by reenforcements.
Meanwhile the Turks had a more considerable success to the south.
Apparently taking the Russian higher command completely by surprise,
Turkish troops advanced almost unopposed to Tabriz, the most important
of the cities of northern Persia. Alarmed by this, Russia sent a
strong force which, on January 30, 1915, succeeded in recapturing the
city.
Thus, up to the end of January, 1915, nothing decisive had been
accomplished on the Caucasian front by either Turkey or Russia. The
Battle of Sarikamish, resulting in a Turkish loss estimated by the
Russian authorities at 50,000, while decisive enough locally, seems to
have had no appreciable effect upon the situation as a whole. For
reasons resting very largely in the difficulty of finding the troops
necessary, as well as in the conditions of the country and the
weather, the Russians had been unable to follow up their success.
Indeed, the offensive appears to have continued in the hands of the
Turks.
It is probably the case that Russia was unwilling to detach any
considerable number of troops from her Polish and Galician front,
where important events were brewing. Her General Staff rightly
regarded the Caucasian front as of secondary importance--and like
Austria on her Italian frontier, determined to fight a defensive
campaign.
However that may be, conditions after the first few months of
campaigning settled down into a stalemate. Engagements on a relatively
small scale were reported from time to time, but the balance of
advantage remained fairly even. Both countries had fronts where
victories would bring larger returns and more immediate effect upon
the ultimate outcome of the war.
CHAPTER II
TURKISH ADVANCE AGAINST EGYPT
To the Turk no operation of the war appeared more important than did
the campaign against Egypt. That in the early days of the struggle in
1914 he contented himself with what amounted to little more than a
demonstration designed to hold as many British troops in Egypt as
possible was due primarily to considerations of larger strategy.
Undoubtedly, by his incursion into the Sinai Peninsula and his
half-hearted attempt with a hopelessly small force to cross the Suez
Canal, he learned many lessons invaluable in any future and more
ambitious campaign. Considered as a diversion the early advance upon
the Suez was a success: as a serious military operation, resting on
its own legs, it was a fiasco.
No operation the Turks might have conducted could have been so
unwelcome to the British as was that against Egypt. For weeks in
advance it was discussed by English writers and, while they all,
naturally, agreed that it was foredoomed to failure, there was an
undercurrent of apprehension in official circles. It was realized that
many untried problems and theories would be put to a severe test by
such a campaign, if undertaken in a serious way by a large and
well-equipped force. Of a purely Turkish force, commanded and
organized by Turkish officers, there was no fear, but such wonderful
organizers had the Germans proved themselves to be that the
combination of Teuton brains and Turkish fighting qualities and
endurance was regarded as formidable.
It was realized in England also that any measure of success that might
come to an invading force would have two very serious results. It
would not only threaten, and perhaps sever, the shortest route to the
east and so seriously embarrass the trade, military and naval
efficiency of the Allies, but it would have a grave and perhaps
decisive effect upon Mohammedan malcontents in Egypt and India.
The exact truth of the conditions in India and Egypt will possibly
never be known, so rigorous were the operations of the censorship set
up by the British War Office. One thing is certain, however: in both
countries political conditions were serious before the war and they
could not, by any stretch of optimism, be conceived as improving with
the coming of a great struggle aimed at the only remaining independent
Mohammedan power.
For many months previous to August, 1914, the Indian office in London
had been apprehensive of rebellion in India. In Egypt the circumstance
that at the beginning of the war the British authorities announced
that they would make no use of the native Egyptian army speaks for
itself. It was believed in Constantinople and in Berlin that both
Egypt and India were ripe for a terrible revolt against the rule of
the British Raj: the uprisings of millions of fanatical natives that
would forever sweep British control from these two key places to the
trade of the world and would institute a Turkish suzerainty, backed
and controlled by Berlin. This was thought all the more likely as
thousands of the British regular troops had been withdrawn from India
and Egypt for service in France, being replaced by raw levies from
England and the Colonies.
These, then, were the major considerations that prompted the early
offensive against Egypt. It was based upon sound political and
military strategy. Just how near it came to complete success, just how
much additional worry and effort it added to the burden of Great
Britain and France, only a complete revelation of the progress of
events in all fields will tell.
In the attack upon the canal the Turks operated primarily from their
base at Damascus. As preparations progressed the troops that were to
take part in the actual advance were concentrated between Jerusalem
and Akabah. Under command of Djemel Pasha, Turkish Minister of Marine,
there were gathered some 50,000 troops consisting mostly of first line
troops of the best quality, reenforced by about 10,000 more or less
irregular Arab Bedouins.
During November and early December, 1914, the force was moved forward
by slow and methodical stages, until by December 15 it was awaiting
orders to advance, encamped on the confines of the great desert that
separated it from its objective.
Here it is well that the reader should have a good idea of the
difficulties of the task the Turkish higher command had imposed upon
Djemel Pasha and his troops.
The two chief difficulties to be met by the invaders of the Sinai were
lack of transport facilities and lack of water. Three routes were
possible for the Turkish army, all artificial obstacles being for the
moment ignored; two by land, across the Sinai desert, and the third by
sea, across the Mediterranean. The latter, however, must be ruled out
because the seas were controlled by the Anglo-French fleet. For the
same reason, the northern land route had many disadvantages, because
it could be commanded for a part of its length by warships. However,
it is instructive to examine it in detail.
The whole region crossed by the sea road is desert of the most
difficult and forbidding character. By this road all the great
invasions--the Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and French--have been
made. The road enters the desert at El Arish and from there to El
Kantara on the Suez Canal, the probable point of attack of an army
moving by this route, is 100 miles. Over this whole distance there are
only three places, once an army has left El Arish, where water can be
had. The first is a matter of a day's march, at El Maza, thirty mile
away; the second is at Bir-El-Abd, another day's march; and the third
at Katieh, within striking distance of the canal. Without the
construction of a special railway the transport of a force large
enough to efficiently control the canal by this route seems to be out
of the question.
The southern route, known as the Hadj, or Pilgrim's Road, running from
Akaba to Suez, besides being longer is even worse off in the matter of
water. This was the traditional path of pilgrims traveling from Egypt
to Mecca, and still is much in use for that purpose.
Something like 150 miles separate Akaba and Suez, yet only two
watering places are to be found in the whole distance. The first is
three days' march from the former place, at a point called Nakhl,
where modern cisterns had been built and an adequate supply of water
for a large force probably was obtainable. The next watering place is
another three days' march, at Ayun Mousa, or Well of Moses, within a
short distance of the canal.
But tremendous as were the problems facing a considerable body of men
in attempting to cross the Sinai desert and arrive at the Suez Canal
in condition to fight a strong, fresh and fully prepared foe, they
were not to be compared to the difficulties that would face such an
army when the canal had been reached. We have seen how great an
obstacle a wide river, such as the Vistula, proved to be to an army
when attempting to cross in the face of a prepared enemy. In the case
of the Suez Canal, although there were no strong currents, a force
attempting to cross it had to contend with two added difficulties: The
Suez Canal could not, in the circumstances be turned, as was the
Vistula by the Germans. Furthermore its defensive value was
immeasurably increased by the circumstance that it could and did carry
warships of the largest type which not only had the value of
fortresses mounting the heaviest of guns, but were mobile as well.
And finally, because of the nature of the shores of the canal, it was
possible for an attacking force to cross it at but few points.
The question of crossing the canal or dominating it in any sense was
for the Turks largely a question of bringing to bear a superior force
of artillery--a task that had only to be stated to reveal its
difficulties. No force with smaller or fewer guns would hope to cross
the Suez in the face of the concentration of artillery and naval
gunfire that the British could bring to bear at any threatened point.
The defenders on the western side of the canal had the additional
advantage of railway communication running along the entire canal from
Suez to Port Said, and connecting with interior bases.
There were five points from which, once having conquered the desert
and reached the canal, the invaders could advantageously launch an
attack or attacks upon the canal defenses. The first is just south of
El Kantara, where the old sea road crosses the Suez. Just south of
Ismailia a group of heights on the east bank provides a second
opportunity. The third is found at the point called the Plateau of
Hyena. The fourth is just north of the Bitter Lake, and the fifth is
to the south of the same body of water.
Late in December, 1914, Djemel Pasha began active preparations for an
advance upon the canal. This campaign the Turks later called a
reconnaissance in force and as, of their total strength of 50,000 men,
only 12,000 at the outside and possibly less were used, the limited
term seems justified. Although the southern route was used by the main
force, a small force eluded the watchfulness of the Anglo-French naval
patrol operating along the shore commanding the first day's march of
the northern, or sea road, and ultimately struck at El Kantara.
Furthermore, sometime before one of these two forces--the larger, or
southern--reached the vicinity of the canal, it split and conducted an
independent attack at Suez.
There had been much speculation among military writers all over the
world as to the possibility or probability of the construction by the
Turks of a light railway running a part of the distance across the
Sinai Desert and linking up with the line to Mecca. It was realized
that such a railway would be an enormous help to Djemel Pasha and his
army, especially in the transport of supplies, ammunitions, and
artillery. Indeed, it was held that only by the construction of such a
railway, extending almost to the canal, could the absolutely essential
artillery be brought into action. There was serious doubt of the
ability of the Turks to build such a line. The strength of the German
"stiffening" in the army based upon Damascus was believed to be
slight. Djemel Pasha is said to have seriously opposed any great
number of Teuton officers, especially in the higher commands. Thus the
assistance the Turks could expect from the Germans in the organization
and construction of such a railway would be small. Whether or not the
scheme was feasible at that time it is impossible to say. At any rate
the Turks, for reasons best known to themselves, did not put it to a
test.
The British force in Egypt was well supplied with aeroplanes and kept
the Turkish army under constant observation. With the exception of the
use of the first section of the road, covering a couple of days of
time, there was probably no element of surprise in the Turkish attack
upon the canal. Realizing the limited possibilities of attack from the
east shore, the British, taking their lesson from experience in
France, had constructed an elaborate system of trenches to the east of
the canal at the five points where attacks would possess some
likelihood of successful conclusion.
It was the end of January, 1915, before the Turkish army, marching in
easy stages across the desert reached the vicinity of the canal. Their
German mentors had constructed for them elaborate carriages with the
wheels of enormous width to carry the artillery and the heavy supplies
across the soft sands. Also, in preparation of a crossing of the
canal, the Turks brought a supply of ready-assembled pontoon bridges,
running on wheels and similar to those used by the German army in
Europe, except that they were much lighter.
In the transport of all this material the Turks were dependent upon
camels, suited as are no other animals for work in the desert. In
thousands, they had been collected at Hadj, the cooperation of the
Arab Bedouins being specially valuable in this work. The consideration
of these events in the campaign which begins in February, 1915, will
be found in Volume III of this work.
CHAPTER III
FAILURE OF "HOLY WAR" PROPAGANDA
One of the most interesting of the various phases of the war, so far
as the participation of Turkey was concerned, was the religious
development. Countless pages of learned speculation had been written
for years before the struggle in an attempt to forecast the outcome of
exactly the conditions that had arisen. It must be said at once that
in the first six months of the war reality failed to live up to
prophecy. The cataclysm that was expected by many to involve the
revolt of millions and a vast change in the political color of much of
the earth's surface did not appear. Any change that took place
operated so quietly and on so comparatively small a scale that it was
lost to view beside the greater interest of the struggle on the battle
fields of France and Poland.
It is desirable, however, that the situation be examined. Abbas II,
Khedive of Egypt, had early in the war openly shown his lack of
sympathy with the British in Egypt. By his actions he left no doubt
regarding his attitude. He not only vehemently expressed his adherence
to Constantinople but left Cairo, and journeyed to Turkey, safe from
British official pressure or persuasion. Whereupon the British
Government called upon him to return, threatened him with deposition,
and finally took that extreme step, setting up another in his place on
December 18, 1914.
Furthermore, the day before, Great Britain declared Egypt a British
protectorate independent of Constantinople. In this action Great
Britain relied not upon any legal right to take such action, but
merely upon the right of actual possession. Since Great Britain had
taken over the government of Egypt in 1883, she had acknowledged the
sultan's rights of suzerainty and had countenanced the payment to that
ruler of certain considerable yearly sums from the Egyptian exchequer.
Indeed, Great Britain was in Egypt merely by virtue of an
international understanding and on a definite agreement to release her
control of the country when certain conditions of political and
financial stability had been restored. The other nations had,
willingly, or unwillingly, become resigned to her possession of this
strategically important land. Great Britain a decade before the war,
at the beginning of that rapprochement with France which led up to the
Entente and which had so many fateful consequences for the whole
world, sought to legalize her position in Egypt--at least so far as
the other great north African power was concerned. A bargain was
struck with France by which the English occupation of Egypt for an
indefinite period was recognized in exchange for a free hand in
Morocco. Great Britain could now urge that the coming of war, and
especially the entry of Turkey into the struggle, placed her
administration in Egypt in a position impossible to maintain. In
theory she was, so long as she acknowledged the suzerainty of the
sultan, in the country merely on that ruler's sufferance. She admitted
his ultimate authority and especially the loyalty and duty of the
Egyptian army and khedive to him. Strictly she could make no move to
prevent an armed occupation of the country by the sultan's troops nor
could she call upon the khedive and his cabinet to repudiate
Constantinople's sway. To put an end to this condition of affairs was
the most legitimate reason for England's action.
Although the native Egyptian is in religion allied to the Turk, his
religious fervor was not great enough to induce him to rise against
British control. Among the better educated of the Egyptians and
especially among those who had traveled, there was a strong
"Nationalist" movement. At times, even in the period of peace, this
movement had threatened to make matters extremely unpleasant for the
British rulers. For some years before the war, German and Turkish
agents had been working among these ardent Egyptian patriots,
encouraging and advising them, and when war with Turkey came England
was seriously alarmed. Using the country as a central base for her
Turkish, Persian, and Balkan operations, Great Britain imported
thousands upon thousands of troops into Egypt. Just how many hundreds
of thousands of armed men passed in and out of the country from first
to last only the records of the British war office would show, but it
can be said that England never had a force of less than 90,000 trained
men in Egypt at any one time.
Any chance of effective action that the Egyptian nationalists might
have had was neutralized by the indifference and lack of interest in
the vast body of their countrymen. There were more than 10,000,000
Mohammedans in Egypt, but only a small minority of them, under the
most promising of circumstances, could have been counted upon to pay
the least heed to the call of Constantinople. The Egyptian fellah is
anything but a fighter. Lazy, unlearned, unambitious, he is content to
accept his daily lot, perhaps conscious that the British rule has
brought a certain amount of comparative prosperity even to him.
On the other hand, there were in Egypt something like 600,000 nomads,
a very large proportion of whom could be depended upon to follow the
lead of Constantinople. The males of these wild tribespeople were
remarkable fighters, subject to no control, hating the English sway,
and so independent of roads and transport that they could keep busy an
even larger force of less mobile troops. Their chief weakness was
their lack of cohesion and the impossibility of any concerted action
on their part.
This, then, was the native situation in Egypt. In other parts of the
world, where Great Britain maintained sway over large numbers of
Mohammedans, the situation was equally complicated. With the issue of
a call for a Holy War by the Sheik-ul-Islam, the religious ruler of
the Mohammedan world, many well-informed observers looked for a large
measure of trouble in India. So many were the elements of
dissatisfaction, and even open revolt, in India that it was believed
the Sheik-ul-Islam's call would be the match applied to the powder
magazine.
The attitude of the various Indian potentates was uncertain. Some of
them were known to be only outwardly loyal to the British authority.
The now famous incident at the visit of King George to India, some
years before the war, when one of the richest and most important of
the native princes refused to bend the knee, was indicative of very
widespread dissatisfaction. Innumerable cases of individual and even
concerted violence against British rule immediately preceded the war,
and several of these were openly encouraged by native princes.
So far as definite action was concerned, the opening of the war with
Turkey and the months that immediately followed falsified all these
predictions of disaster to British rule in India. Many of the native
princes were effusive in their professions of loyalty to the British
Empire, and several offered personal service at the front or financial
contributions to the huge cost of the struggle.
Notable, and perhaps decisive, was the open adherence to Britain of
the Agar Khan, the immensely powerful ruler of millions of Indian
Mohammedans. The Agar Khan had spent many of the years previous to the
war in England in daily association with English high society and
official circles. At the outbreak of the war with Turkey, in October,
1914, at the request of the British Government, he visited Egypt, and
it was largely upon his advice that the former khedive was deposed and
the new one elevated to the post. Indeed, at one time there were
strong rumors, afterward energetically denied by the British
Government, that the Agar Khan had advised a Mohammedan repudiation of
the authority of the caliph and the elevation of another to his place
under a British guarantee. In support of this plan it was pointed out
that Great Britain, judged by the number of adherents under her rule,
was the world's greatest Mohammedan power. It was intolerable to many
English people, especially to those of strong imperialistic
tendencies, that the real control, even in theory, of so large and
important a section of the people of the British Empire should be in
Constantinople, safe from the "influence" and "persuasion" of the
British Government. By these people it was held that the sultan's
lineal claim was weak, and that an even better claim to the headship
of the Moslems could be established for any one of several other men
who might have been named. However, the plan was never achieved.
CHAPTER IV
RESULTS OF FIRST SIX MONTHS OF TURKISH CAMPAIGN
What was the situation as a whole, so far as Turkey and her military
actions against the Allies were concerned, as to the outcome of these
various operations in three fields--the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and
Egypt--during the first six months of the war? The military narrative
is recorded in the chapter following. It will be seen that all of them
were inconclusive. Indeed, from what we knew of the circumstances
surrounding them, all we are justified in saying is that none of them
was serious in the sense that they were not intended to have any
decisive effect, directly, upon the progress of the war. Of them all
it might be urged by a military authority that they were subsidiary
operations, dangerous and wasteful in that they withdrew valuable men,
munitions, brains, and energy from the decisive fronts. Their only
justification is that they imposed similar action on the part of both
armies, and so, in just that degree, scattered their forces. For the
Turk it can be urged that at least two of the campaigns were forced
upon him by his German mentors, while the third was imposed upon him
by a British offensive. Furthermore, the Turk was entirely cut off
from his Austro-German allies, and there was no possibility of his
bringing his weight to bear in one of the main fields. From that point
of view it is possible to justify the Turkish offensives as sound
strategy.
Aside from a desire to protect the oil supply in Persia, it is hardly
as easy to justify the British offensive in Mesopotamia. As events
subsequently demonstrated, it was possible for the Turks to throw an
overwhelming number of troops into Bagdad and to the south, and,
furthermore, they were fighting under vastly more advantageous
conditions than were the invaders. Only on the assumption that the
Turks were hopelessly demoralized and disorganized, and that as
fighting men they would belie all their past history, was it possible
to visualize success for the British operations in Mesopotamia.
Turkey had definitely come to grips with England and with Russia. She
had in none of these fields measured swords with France, although she
was equally at war with that country. The exact apportionment of the
actual work to be done by the individual powers of the Entente seems
to have led to considerable disagreement, and resulted at times in
serious delay. Such arrangements depend, of course, upon each
country's idea of its spheres of influence. Obviously, no country, if
it can help it, is going to waste its men or its efforts in a field in
which it has only a minor political or commercial interest. So far as
France was concerned, the Caucasus, Egypt--aside from the possibility
of the closing of the canal--and Mesopotamia were not of enough
importance to justify her in participating in the struggle with the
Turks even were it physically possible. All these remarks, of course,
are subject to modifications imposed by considerations of the larger
strategy of the Entente Powers; but for many months of the war the
agreement of the Entente Powers in the matter of general strategy was
conspicuous by its absence.
With her neighbors in the Balkans Turkey had maintained remarkably
good relations considering the bitterness engendered, not only by
centuries of strife, but by the recent events of the two Balkan wars.
Bulgaria, smarting under the loss of territory through the attack upon
her by Serbia, Greece, and Rumania in the Second Balkan War, was
openly conducting friendly negotiations with Turkey for the
acquisition of valuable territory--a compact that could mean only one
thing. Greece, frightened by the menace of the German power, had
resisted up to the moment all the blandishments of the Entente Powers,
who urged her to active participation in the struggle. Rumania,
largely isolated from the Entente Powers, menaced on the north by
Austro-German forces, on the south by a revengeful Bulgaria, borrowed
heavily from Britain, the universal money bag, but straddled the
fence.
Thus Turkey, which in different circumstances might have been in a
precarious military situation, felt reasonably secure, despite her
isolation. In the early part of the war, however, events moved rapidly
and not exactly to her liking. For they threatened to sweep the whole
Balkans into the whirl of war, and no man could tell exactly how the
various petty states, under the stress of sympathy, military and naval
considerations and dynastic control, would align themselves. With
these events came, too, the first participation of France in the war
against Turkey in the campaign in the Dardanelles, now to be
described.
CHAPTER V
THE DARDANELLES--STRATEGY OF THE CAMPAIGN
The beginning of the bombardments in the Dardanelles opens a
remarkable chapter in military and naval warfare. The desperate
campaign to batter down the fortifications which lead to
Constantinople and the disastrous attempt to conquer the most strongly
barricaded city in the world, probably excited more world-wide
interest or put to the test more theories of warfare than did the
Dardanelles campaign undertaken by Great Britain with the assistance
of France. It was fiercely attacked by military critics almost from
the start. It was, however, a boldly conceived operation, calculated
to have a most important effect upon the war as a whole--certainly
upon the war in the southeast corner of Europe.
The Dardanelles campaign was largely conceived and controlled by the
Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer Churchill, the remarkable and able British
Secretary of the Admiralty. He has been widely condemned for his share
of the operation, but revelations that have been made would appear to
clear him of a great measure of the blame.
What were the considerations that weighed with the British admiralty
in deciding to undertake one of the most difficult operations in the
whole world? Primarily it seems to have had the idea of relieving the
pressure on Russia. The Turkish offensive in the Caucasus had come to
grief about the end of December but a resumption was momentarily
expected and feared. Hindenburg's victory at Tannenberg in East
Prussia had been a terrible blow to Russia and she had no troops to
spare for defense in the Caucasus.
Furthermore, Constantinople, besides being one of the objectives of
the war, was Russia's only warm sea gate into Europe. It must have
been apparent to the Russian military authorities that the existing
supplies of munition and guns of the czar's army would not suffice to
withstand a hard German-Austrian drive. In other words the condition
that resulted in the defeat of the Russian army in Galicia and Poland
in the summer of 1915 were foreseen. Russia called upon England and
France to force the Dardanelles. One can find it easy to condemn the
operation but few can be found who will deny that it was a glorious
failure. One that added luster to the glory of the British army, navy,
and many unmatched pages to the story of their bravery. And no less
credit and glory did it bring to the Turkish armies.
In addition to the question of war supplies there were other reasons
for opening the Dardanelles as soon as possible. Russia's ability to
finance a war of the magnitude of the one there being fought,
especially where large foreign purchases were made, depended very
largely upon the maintenance of foreign commerce. Russia was buying
from all the neutral world as well as from her Entente partners.
England, for instance, was not only making for her millions of
dollars' worth of war supplies, but she was, for the moment, financing
many of Russia's purchases abroad.
[Illustration: Gallipoli.]
In return for all this it was important that Russia should export as
freely as possible. Now one of her most valuable commodities and one
in high demand not only in England, but in other countries, was wheat.
Millions upon millions of bushels of Russian wheat were stored in her
great Black Sea ports waiting to be shipped through Constantinople
when the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were commanded by Entente guns
and ships. Greece, under the leadership of Premier Venizelos was
hesitating on the brink of a plunge into the struggle as an ally of
the Entente and not only agreed to the use of Greek islands but
actually considered a proposal to send a Greek force of not less than
20,000 and possibly as many as 40,000 over to the Dardanelles.
Bulgaria was in that state where a striking victory in the Turkish
peninsula would have swept her off her feet. Italy was at loggerheads
with Austria, her ally, and about to break.
Then from the English point of view there was the possible effect upon
the Mohammedan throughout the British Empire. Possibly not for many
years, if ever, will the world know the truth of the conditions in
India during the war. One thing is certain. In one way and another
there was much disaffection, much open rebellion and much fear of an
even wider spread of revolt. The need for the maintenance and even
strengthening of British prestige must have been constantly before the
British ruler and no other campaign could possibly serve this end so
efficaciously as a successful assault upon Constantinople and the
temporal power of the sultan. It would clinch probably for generations
to come Britain's claim to be the great Mohammedan power of the world
and would destroy the one condition that for years before and at that
time especially had contained the seeds of rebellion against the
British yoke.
In beginning the campaign which Great Britain and France carried on in
the Dardanelles there reappeared a very old problem of war--the
question of Warships versus Forts or land fortifications. It appears
to have been the consensus of opinion among all except the more
extreme exponents of battleships that land fortifications would
possess an undoubted advantage in a contest against purely naval
forces.
This it seems had been the opinion of the American naval authorities
in the Spanish-American War, when the American commander, Admiral
Sampson, was expressly warned not to risk his ships against the shore
defenses of Santiago Harbor. It also appears to have been the opinion
of many British admirals who have placed their views on record.
Indeed, there was in existence the views of several competent naval
authorities as to the possibilities of a purely naval attack upon this
very system of defenses.
It was not by any means the first time that an attempt had been made
to force the Dardanelles. Many such attempts had proved this narrow
neck of water running between high banks to be one of the great
natural defensive spots of the world. The realization of that obvious
and oft-proved fact had made Constantinople through the ages one of
the most fought for and schemed for cities of the whole world.
It is necessary to study these attempts in order to understand clearly
the difficulties which faced the British and French Allies in 1914. Of
the previous attacks that had been made to force a way through the
Dardanelles and so up to the city of Constantinople, that of the
famous Admiral Hornby in 1877 was one of the most interesting as well
as one of the most instructive. Ordered by the British Government to
take his fleet past the forts that lined the approaching banks, he
proceeded to carry out his orders, but wrote a warning in which he
pointed out that, while it might be possible for his fleet to make its
way into the Sea of Marmora, once there it would be helpless if the
land defenses were controlled by the enemy. Out of coal, ammunition,
and food, the ships would be at the mercy of the Turks. "Although the
forts might not prevent a strong fleet passing through the
Dardanelles, they certainly," wrote Admiral Hornby, "could sink armed
and unarmed transports and supply ships." In view of these
considerations, Hornby urged the British Government to provide a land
force of sufficient strength to carry and hold the land defenses. His
superiors, however, did not agree with him, for they told him to go
ahead with a purely naval operation. His ideas were never put to a
real test because the Turks offered no resistance to his passage of
the straits.
The situation in the Great War of 1914 presented Constantinople as the
same perplexing military problem. If we go back another three-quarters
of a century to 1807, the experience of Admiral Duckworth throws some
light on the subject, although conditions had changed radically.
Duckworth, with his sailing ships, ran past the forts in the
Dardanelles and anchored in front of Constantinople. It was hoped that
a threat of bombardment would bring the Turks to their knees, but the
latter refused to be intimidated. In the end, the British admiral ran
out of food and water and was compelled to leave without
accomplishing anything.
The student of the War of 1914 also must consider that during the war
between Italy and Turkey, the Italian General Staff is known to have
worked out an elaborate plan for an attack upon the Dardanelles.
However, at the critical moment, the European powers interfered and
forced upon Italy an agreement that the war should not be extended to
the mainland of Europe. In the Balkan War, the Bulgarians threatened
the lines of Bulair, the narrow neck which connects the Gallipoli
peninsula to the mainland, but never launched the attack.
When in 1914 the British and French determined to press a purely naval
attack upon the Dardanelles, they appear to have been influenced by
two major considerations. At the time there was not ready a sufficient
number of troops to make a land campaign successful and, at the last
moment, King Constantine of Greece repudiated a personal agreement
made by Venizelos, the Greek Premier, with the Allies by which Greece
was to provide at least 20,000 troops to assist the France-British
fleet. Even after the fall of Venizelos it was still determined to
push the naval attack because of the second consideration. In the
opinion of the British admiralty the full power of modern naval guns
of 11-and 12-inch had never been tested and in their opinion they
would suffice to reduce the Dardanelles defenses in a comparatively
short time. Furthermore, the British authorities appear to have relied
largely upon the new 15-inch guns of the _Queen Elizabeth_ and her
sister vessels, then nearing completion in British yards. So
tremendous was the power of these new guns and so great their range
that it was believed the _Queen Elizabeth_ and her sister ships could
stand miles out of range of the heaviest of the Dardanelles guns and
quickly smash them to an unrecognizable mass of ruins.
It was evident that the British naval command held these views even in
spite of the experience of British warships off the coast of Belgium
earlier in the war. For a while in 1914 British monitors and
battleships bombarded almost at will the German troops posted along
the coast running from the Dutch frontier line almost to Nieuport.
Finally, however, the Germans brought up heavy army and naval guns
and, mounting them in concealed spots among the sand dunes, soon drove
off the British naval force.
But Turkish guns were not German guns, Turkish gunners were not German
gunners, and above all, the munition supply of the Turkish army was
not fed by factories able to turn out a quarter of a million shells a
day. Some such considerations as these appear to have convinced the
British higher command that there was a difference in the two tasks.
The command of the Dardanelles forts at the entrance to Constantinople
and the Black Sea is similar, except that it is perhaps more sure as
to the command of the entrance to the Baltic by Copenhagen, the
Mediterranean by Gibraltar, and, in a lesser degree, of the North Sea
by Dover.
The narrow passage of water called the Dardanelles separates the
peninsula of Gallipoli and the Asiatic shore of Turkey. It connects
the Ægean Sea and the Sea of Marmora, which in turn, through the
Bosphorus, connects with the Black Sea. Curiously enough this
tremendously important waterway, the only warm sea outlet of Russia,
had been closed against that country by the action of the very powers
now fighting desperately to smash it open. The Black Sea was a Turkish
lake in the seventeenth century but in the century following the
growth of Russia in that part of Europe made the question of the
control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles one of supreme importance
to her. Thus we find, in the so-called "will" of Peter the Great,
among other injunctions he lays upon his successors, an admonition
never to rest until Constantinople had been wrested from the Turk. But
whether this "will" is authentic or not, Russian policy has steadily
kept that object in view.
The Crimean War was an attempt by France and England to stem the
almost resistless tide of Russian expanse toward the southwest.
Russian control of Constantinople was regarded as the chief danger
that threatened the western powers and, in 1856, by the Treaty of
Paris, not only was the strength of the Russian Black Sea fleet
expressly limited, but the Dardanelles were closed against the
passage of Russia's warships into the Mediterranean. France and
England revived what they called "an ancient rule of the Ottoman
Empire, in virtue of which it has at all times been prohibited for
ships of war of foreign powers to enter the Straits of the Dardanelles
and of the Bosphorus."
Turkey was of no mind to leave the enforcement of this "ancient rule"
to the powers. She began the construction of more elaborate
fortifications commanding both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
German advice, especially after the Franco-Prussian War, was asked and
obtained and Krupp sent some of his gigantic pieces for the defense of
the narrow waters. This German cooperation with the Turks in the
strengthening of those positions through all the years that have
intervened is significant.
CHAPTER VI
FORTIFICATIONS AND STRENGTH--FIRST MOVEMENTS
Let us inspect the fortifications in the Dardanelles at the beginning
of the war in 1914. The Dardanelles, from end to end, have a length of
forty-seven miles. From the town of Gallipoli to the Ægean, however,
the full distance of the narrow section of the waterway, is a matter
of thirty-three miles. At one point the passage is less than 1,400
yards wide and at no point is it more than 7,000. Although there is a
good depth in much of the channel, shallows are to be met with in most
unexpected places. To make navigation even more difficult, there is a
swift and powerful surface current running through the Narrows, on
some occasions at a speed of eight knots an hour. In addition there is
not only a strong undercurrent, but, as well, many cross currents. At
certain seasons of the year the wind and weather make navigation of
large vessels almost impossible.
Both sides of the Dardanelles offered natural positions of enormous
advantage to a defending force. On the Gallipoli side were a tangled
mass of rocks and hills, almost devoid of vegetation except for stubby
yellow bushes. In a few of the little valleys, stray clusters of olive
trees relieved the monotony of the view. Heights rose upon heights and
along the shores of the peninsula nearly perpendicular cliffs made
landings almost out of the question.
This whole peninsula was a difficult country to traverse even in times
of peace. No large maps existed of its intricate paths, there were few
roads, and those that did exist were so commanded by heights and
concealed positions for guns and infantry that the progress of an
attacking force would inevitably be most difficult and costly.
Water was almost nonexistent. Most of the available supply was so
protected that an attacking force would in no case be able to use it
until its task of conquest was complete. As such a force advanced
inland, these difficulties as well as those of the country would
constantly and rapidly increase. From Cape Hellas, at the tip of the
peninsula where a sandy beach made a landing possible, if difficult,
the ground rapidly rose to a height of 140 feet. Hill country then led
to ridges standing 600 feet, while a mile and a half beyond stood 600
feet in the air the commanding peak of Achi Baba, destined to play so
large and so tragic a part in the struggle for the peninsula of
Gallipoli. At the narrowest part of the Narrows, the real key position
to the straits, stood the Kilid Bahr plateau, 700 feet, while to the
northwest, almost 300 feet higher, stood the precipitous eminence of
Sari Bair, a dense mass of trackless ravines and thickets.
Where the peninsula of Gallipoli joined the mainland is, comparatively
speaking, a narrow neck of land. Even this, however, presented
tremendous potential difficulties to any force. A hill almost 500 feet
in height rose in the center and marshes on either side prevented a
turning movement. Furthermore, the difficulties of landing a force in
the face of an enemy strongly intrenched on the heights were not
lessened by the circumstance that the cliffs rose to a height of 300
feet, almost straight from the water's edge. In short nature seems to
have designed the country in every way as a protection against an
armed force seeking to force its way either in or out of the Black
Sea. To just what extent these natural advantages had been utilized by
the Turks it is impossible to say. It is not likely, however, that
they, or their German mentors, had been idle, in view of the
importance the Allies were known to attach to the straits.
In September, 1914, and probably for some time before, the Turks were
known to be busy strengthening the forts. Subsequent events led to the
conclusion that they, or their German advisers, were alive to the
lessons of the early days of the war in France and Belgium and had
made elaborate arrangements for the placing of heavy guns in concealed
positions. In addition they perfected the mobility of even the
heaviest of pieces, so that it became impossible for observation from
the Franco-British ships or from aeroplanes to locate them with any
certitude.
The Turks also seem to have secured a plentiful supply of sea mines,
with which the waters approaching the Dardanelles and the actual
passage of the straits were strewn along the shores. Toward the
Narrows were constructed shore batteries for the launching of
torpedoes, as well as for the launching of floating mines. The strong
current of the straits could be depended upon to carry these latter
engines of destruction among the allied ships of war should they
venture within the narrow, confined waters of the Dardanelles.
This was the condition of affairs, then, on November 3, 1914, when a
joint Anglo-French squadron sailed in close to the tip of the
Gallipoli peninsula and opened a bombardment of the outer defenses of
the Dardanelles. For this and subsequent naval operations against the
Turkish position, England was able to detach from her main theatre of
naval activity--the North Sea--a considerable number of old, but still
extremely powerful, battleships and battle cruisers. These boats, with
the exception of the _Queen Elizabeth_, which later appeared on the
scene, were all built previous to the introduction of the dreadnought
and were to a considerable extent made obsolete by that vessel. At any
rate they could not engage the more modern ships of the German navy
and could not be attached to the grand fleet of England because of
their lack of high speed and the heaviest of guns. For these reasons,
although their loss in any engagement against the Turkish defenses
would not be relished by the British authorities, still such a
disaster would not be decisive in any war. As Winston Churchill
subsequently pointed out, many of them would have, in the ordinary
course of events, but a few more years of life in the British navy, so
rapidly were modern battleships deteriorating under the rapid advance
of naval science.
At the entrance to the straits the Turks had erected two major
positions and several minor ones. On the Asiatic shore stood the Kum
Kale Fort, known as the "New Castle of Asia." There the main battery
consisted of four 10.2-inch guns. A short distance down the coast
stood Yeni Shehr, where a main battery of two 9.2-inch guns and a
short battery of smaller pieces had been erected. On the European
side, opposite Kum Kale, stood Sedd-el-Bahr, with six 10-inch and two
5.9-inch guns. At Cape Hellas, the extreme point of the Gallipoli
Peninsula, was the Erteghrul Battery, mounting two 9.2-inch guns and
some minor pieces.
Each of the attacking warships fired about a score of shells at these
forts and an attempt was made to determine just how much damage had
been done. None of the forts were silenced, however, and it was
finally decided by the commander of the Anglo-French naval force, Vice
Admiral Carden, that conditions were not propitious for pushing home
the attack and the vessels retired out to sea, where they maintained a
tight blockade of the Dardanelles. Then there followed a long period
of naval inactivity, at least so far as the larger vessels were
concerned.
About a month later, however, on December 13, 1914, the commander of a
British submarine accomplished a feat in the Sea of Marmora that not
only aroused his countrymen to enthusiasm but as well won for him the
coveted Victoria Cross, the first instance of the winning of that
decoration by a naval officer since the beginning of the war.
Lieutenant Holbrook was in command of the _B-11_, a 316-ton submarine
launched as far back as 1906. It was in no sense to be compared to the
giant underwater crafts that were being launched and used at the
outbreak of the war, some of them measuring 800 feet. The _B-11_
carried only sixteen men in all--two officers and fourteen men.
Early in the morning of December 13, 1914, she started through the
straits. Evidently her commander had knowledge of the disposition of
the Turkish mine field, for Lieutenant Holbrook successfully navigated
his ship through it, dived under five rows of mines, any one of which
would have blown his frail craft into a thousand pieces, and came up
under the side of the Turkish battleship _Messudiyeh_. The
_Messudiyeh_, in any other navy, would have been retired long before,
but Turkey had none too many ships and probably had been saving her to
fight against the equally ancient vessels of some other minor power.
Launched as far back as 1874, she had been reconstructed and rearmed
in 1901. She was lying in the Sea of Marmora, guarding the very mine
field under which Holbrook had dived his craft.
Holbrook observed the _Messudiyeh_ through the periscope of the
_B-11_, maneuvered for position, dived, came up again and launched his
torpedo. It struck home and the ancient sides of the _Messudiyeh_
gaped wide. Slowly she sank while Holbrook dived to safety. For nine
and a half hours the latter felt his way out of the straits and when
he returned to the fleet his little vessel and its daring crew
received an enthusiastic demonstration from the soldiers of the larger
warships. Besides the Victoria Cross, received by Holbrook himself,
his second in command, Lieutenant Sydney T. Winn, received the
Distinguished Service Order, and each of the fourteen members of the
crew received the Distinguished Service Medal.
On the next day, December 14, 1914, the British submarine _B-9_
attempted to repeat the feat, but the Turks were prepared. When she
came to the surface mines were exploded all around her, and she had
all she could do to make good her escape.
On January 15, 1915, not content that the British should have all the
danger, or the glory, the French submarine, _Saphir_, entered the
straits. Near Nagara Point she struck the bottom in one of those
shallow spots that abound in the Dardanelles, was compelled to come
to the surface in a disabled condition and was quickly shot to pieces
by the Turkish shore batteries.
The movement against the forts in the Dardanelles was now begun. This
campaign, which was begun with so much confidence of ultimate success,
was destined to become one of the greatest repulses that the Allies
had encountered thus far during the war.
PART II--JAPAN AND THE FAR EAST
CHAPTER VII
WHY JAPAN JOINED THE ALLIES
The battle lines of the Great War on land and sea were now beginning
to encircle the earth. While the gigantic armies on the battle grounds
of Europe were engaged in the greatest test of "the survival of the
fittest" that the world had ever witnessed, while the sharp encounters
on the seas were carrying the war around the globe, the outbreaks in
the Far East were bringing the Orient and the Occident--the two
competitive systems of civilization--into a strange alignment. The
Moslem world was dividing against itself as had the Christian world.
The followers of Buddha and the Brahmins were in direct conflict.
It is important, therefore, to consider in this chapter the
development of events in the Far East, which have been only outlined
in the preceding narratives. Of all the powers that joined the
coalition against Germany in August, 1914, none could state a clearer
cause of action than Japan. From the first outbreak of hostilities
there was never any question of whether the "England of the East"
would enter the war, and on which side she would be aligned. Japan
decided promptly and, having decided, acted with characteristic
energy.
For a _casus belli_ the Japanese statesmen had only to hold up to the
eyes of the world the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which had been signed
on August 12, 1905. The object of this agreement was the maintenance
of the general peace in eastern Asia and India, the preservation of
the common interests of all powers in China, by insuring the
independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle of
equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in
China, the maintenance of the territorial rights of the high
contracting parties in the regions of eastern Asia and of India, and
the defense of their special interests in the said regions. If these
rights and interests were jeopardized, Japan and Great Britain agreed
to discuss fully and frankly what measures should be pursued for
defense, and to act in common in case of unprovoked attack or
aggressive action wherever arising on the part of any other power or
powers.
Thus, in those critical days of August, 1914, one of the first acts of
the British Government, when war was declared on Germany, and the
empire was reaching out for every possible means of defense and
aggression, was to ask Japan for assistance under the terms of this
alliance. And Japan did not hesitate--she threw herself vigorously
into the Great War. The Japanese Emperor in his declaration of war
against Germany did not suggest that Japan acted in response to her
ally's direct request for assistance, but the Japanese Foreign
Minister, Baron Kato, in his speech explaining the situation to the
Diet, laid emphasis upon the treaty as the most important factor in
the situation.
"German warships and armed vessels," said the foreign minister, "are
prowling around the seas of eastern Asia, menacing our commerce and
that of our ally, while Kiao-chau was carrying out operations
apparently for the purpose of constituting a base for warlike
operations in eastern Asia. Grave anxiety was thus felt for the
maintenance of peace in the Far East.
"As all are aware," he continued, "the agreement and alliance between
Japan and Great Britain has for its object the consolidation and
maintenance of general peace in eastern Asia, and the maintenance of
the independence and integrity of China, as well as the principle of
equal opportunities for commerce and industry for all nations in that
country, and the maintenance and defense respectively of territorial
rights and special interests of contracting parties in eastern Asia.
Therefore, inasmuch as we are asked by our ally for assistance at a
time when commerce in eastern Asia, which Japan and Great Britain
regard alike as one of their special interests, is subjected to a
constant menace, Japan, who regards that alliance as a guiding
principle of her foreign policy, could not but comply to the respect
to do her part."
The Japanese statesman offered this explanation to his people:
"Germany's possession of a base for powerful activities in one corner
of the Far East was not only a serious obstacle to the maintenance of
a permanent peace, but also threatened the immediate interests of the
Japanese Empire. The Japanese Government, therefore, resolved to
comply with the British request, and, if necessary, to open
hostilities against Germany."
Baron Kato's speech was delivered after Japan had declared war. The
Western world, when it found time to turn its attention from the
absorbing drama already being enacted in Belgium to the minor crisis
in the Far East, was not left long in doubt regarding the intentions
of Great Britain's ally. War was declared on August 24, 1914, nine
days after Japan had dispatched to Germany an ultimatum, which Germany
scornfully ignored.
The text of the ultimatum was as follows: "We consider it highly
important and necessary in the present situation to take measures to
remove the causes of all disturbance of peace in the Far East, and to
safeguard general interests as contemplated in the agreement of
alliance between Japan and Great Britain.
"In order to secure firm and enduring peace in eastern Asia, the
establishment of which is the aim of the agreement, the Japanese
Government sincerely believes it to be its duty to give advice to the
German Government to carry out the following two propositions:
"(1) To withdraw immediately from Japanese and Chinese waters the
German warships and armed vessels of all kinds, and to disarm those
which cannot be withdrawn.
"(2) To deliver on a date not later than September 15 to the Japanese
authorities, without condition or compensation, the entire leased
territory of Kiao-chau, with a view to the eventual restoration of the
same to China.
"The Japanese Government announces at the same time that in the event
of its not receiving by noon on August 23, 1914, an answer from the
German Government signifying unconditional acceptance of the above
advice offered by the Japanese Government, Japan will be compelled
to take such action as it may deem necessary to meet the situation."
[Illustration: Kiao-Chau (Tsing-Tau).]
The intervention of Japan in the war, welcome as it was to Great
Britain, created special problems for that empire. The British in
China, and the people of Australia, New Zealand, and western North
America had long been uneasy regarding the commercial and political
policy of Japan. On the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada
a strong anti-Japanese sentiment had developed. British statesmen were
apprehensive lest the entry of Japan into the war might be used to
alienate American sympathy from the Allies and diminish the zeal of
the Canadian and Australasian colonies for the war.
To meet this situation, the British Government issued a formal
statement which said: "It is understood that the action of Japan shall
not extend to the Pacific Ocean beyond the China Sea, except in so far
as it may be necessary to protect Japanese shipping lines in the
Pacific, nor beyond Asiatic waters westward of the China Seas, nor to
any foreign territory except territory in German occupation on the
continent of eastern Asia." This declaration went far toward allaying
uneasiness, especially in the United States.
The Japanese people accepted the situation calmly. There were few
noisy demonstrations. Germans living in Japan were not molested,
notwithstanding the action of Germany, which immediately after the
ultimatum was issued arrested every Japanese subject in Germany and
seized funds of the Japanese Government deposited in the Deutsche Bank
of Berlin. In Tokyo the chief of police told the people that although
the two Governments had entered into hostilities, the people
individually were not to cultivate hostility. The German Ambassador
remained at the Japanese capital until August 30, 1914. A number of
Germans who decided to stay in Japan were allowed to continue their
regular occupations.
When no answer came from Germany up to the time of the expiration of
Japan's ultimatum, the imperial rescript declaring the existence of a
state of war was issued next day.
The emperor said: "We hereby declare war against Germany and we
command our army and navy to carry on hostilities against that empire
with all their strength, and we also command all our competent
authorities to make every effort in pursuance of their respective
duties to attain the national aim within the limit of the law of
nations.
"Since the outbreak of the present war in Europe, the calamitous
effect of which we view with grave concern, we, on our part, have
entertained hopes of preserving the peace of the Far East by the
maintenance of strict neutrality, but the action of Germany has at
length compelled Great Britain, our ally, to open hostilities against
that country, and Germany is at Kiao-chau, its leased territory in
China, busy with warlike preparations, while her armed vessels,
cruising the seas of eastern Asia, are threatening our commerce and
that of our ally. The peace of the Far East is thus in jeopardy.
"Accordingly, our Government and that of his Britannic Majesty, after
a full and frank communication with each other, agreed to take such
measures as may be necessary for the protection of the general
interests contemplated in the agreement of alliance, and we on our
part, being desirous to attain that object by peaceful means,
commanded our Government to offer, with sincerity, an advice to the
Imperial German Government. By the last day appointed for the purpose,
however, our Government failed to receive an answer accepting their
advice.
"It is with profound regret that we, in spite of our ardent devotion
to the cause of peace, are thus compelled to declare war, especially
at this early period of our reign, and while we are still in mourning
for our lamented mother.
"It is our earnest wish that, by the loyalty and valor of our faithful
subjects, peace may soon be restored and the glory of the empire
enhanced."
CHAPTER VIII
MILITARY AND NAVAL SITUATION IN THE FAR EAST
We now pass to the first fighting ground in the Far East. Unlike the
campaigns in the west, the war in eastern Asia developed along lines
which any observer, possessing the least knowledge of history and
international politics and military strategy, could foresee. From both
military and commercial standpoints none of Germany's possessions in
the Far East could compare in importance with the little tip of the
Shantung Peninsula leased for a term of ninety-nine years from China
in 1898. This concession, about fifteen miles long and ten miles
across, was designated Kiao-chau. In the sixteen years since their
tenure began, the Germans had laid out at Tsing-tau, situated at the
extreme southern end of the peninsula, a city which was rapidly
growing to foremost importance among the ports of the Chinese coast. A
large part of the native population was induced to migrate, hills were
leveled, roads constructed, trees planted, and waterworks and sewers
laid out along the most up-to-date lines.
The Great War found Tsing-tau a modern city, almost European in
appearance, with a magnificent harbor, where natural advantages had
been enhanced by the construction of immense piers and breakwaters.
One line of railway connected the port with Chi-nan, capital of
Shantung Province, and Germany held concessions for the construction
of two new lines. The census of 1913 showed a total population of
58,000, of which Germans, exclusive of the garrison, numbered 2,500.
Non-German Europeans, Americans, and Japanese numbered but 630. The
European quarter was distinctly Teutonic.
The attack on Tsing-tau was a foregone conclusion. As a naval base and
a seat of menace to the commerce of hostile nations, Tsing-tau
occupied an unexcelled situation, almost equidistant from Nagasaki and
Shanghai, in virtually the same latitude as Tokyo, San Francisco, and
Gibraltar. Its defenses were second in strength only to those of Port
Arthur and Hongkong.
Kiao-chau was under the administration of the German admiralty. The
German fleet seized it in 1897 ostensibly to secure reparation for the
murder of two German missionaries in Shantung. The ninety-nine-year
lease subsequently arranged gave Germany the right to fortify the new
concession, and the thoroughness with which this privilege was
exercised was proved by the stout resistance the garrison was able to
make against far superior forces of besiegers. The whole concession
occupied 117 square miles.
Although Kiao-chau was the kaiser's only continental colony in Asia
the outbreak of the war found Germany in possession of several islands
and groups of islands in the Pacific. These included German New
Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Caroline, Pelew Marrana, Solomon
and Marshall Islands and a portion of the Samoan group. But the
strongly fortified port on the Shantung Peninsula was the naval base
for the protection of all these ocean possessions; and the Japanese
statesmen rightly concluded that with Tsing-tau in their grasp the
reduction of the other German colonies would be only a formal task of
seizure. Therefore the 27th of August, 1914, four days after the
declaration of war, saw a Japanese fleet blockading Tsing-tau and
Japanese transports carrying troops for landing expeditions in
cooperation with the warships.
Germany began the concentration of all available forces inside the
Tsing-tau fortifications on August 8, 1914. But she was able to gather
there when the siege began only 5,000 men, a handful compared with the
great force Japan could muster for the reduction of the fortress. The
garrison of peace times was augmented by reservists, who came from
treaty ports along the Chinese coast, from Japan, Siberia, and from
every part of the Far East near enough to enable German veterans to
reach the city before communication was cut off.
The crew of the Austrian cruiser _Kaiserin Elizabeth_, more than 300
men, who had left Tsing-tau by railroad before Austria decided to join
her ally in the Far East as well as in Europe, hurried back in small
groups and in civilian clothes to escape detection. Squads of the
Landsturm, the last reserve, middle-aged men who had left their
families and their business in all parts of China joined the ranks and
went to drilling in preparation for the hard fighting expected as soon
as the invading fleet passed the outer defenses of the harbor.
Altogether the defenders mustered three artillery and infantry
regiments and four troops of cavalry. They had three aeroplanes and a
few machine guns and in the harbor were four small gunboats in
addition to the _Kaiserin Elizabeth_.
Tsing-tau's principal points of defense were Mount Moltke, Mount
Bismarck and Mount Iltis. The rugged slopes of these positions
commanded the plain. Beyond the plain the important outer line of
defense was along the Litsum River, which flows into Kiao-chau Bay and
then through the mountains to the sea, a line about eight miles long
and about ten miles distant from the city. Preparations to oppose a
landing of hostile troops were made at points along the coast of the
leased territory for a distance of twenty miles. At the entrance of
the bay shore batteries and mines made a bombardment by the Japanese
fleet impracticable, except with the support of land forces.
The first line of defense comprised five forts connected by trenches
and barbed wire entanglements. The shore defenses consisted of five
forts, called respectively: "The Kaiser's," armed with two large guns
mounted upon unsheltered platforms and two cannon of medium caliber
sheltered; "August Point," a square closed fort with unsheltered gun
platforms, and two guns of large medium caliber; "Taisichen,"
unsheltered with four large cannon; "Kaiser Northeast," unsheltered
four cannon; "Yunuisan Point," two cannon of medium caliber. The main
line of defense was for both land and sea work; "Fort Moltke" at the
base of the German left wing had a shelter trench and guns of medium
caliber; "Fort Bismarck" had three heavy gun platforms in addition to
a platform for rapid fire guns of large caliber. From this the guns
could be turned in any direction. "Fort Iltis" mounted four heavy guns
of large and medium caliber besides mitrailleuse of large size. Two
heavy guns were mounted in the summit of Mount Iltis.
In command of the German forces was the Governor General of Kiao-chau,
Admiral Meyer-Waldeck, a naval officer of experience and reputation.
The defenses of both land and sea were under his control.
This entrance of Japan into the war introduced a factor fraught with
unknown possibilities. Unlike the other enemies of the Teutonic
alliance, Japan had nothing to fear for her home territory or her
possessions. Secure from attack, she was able to devote all her
energies to the task of driving the Germans out of the Far East. By
this accomplishment she not only fulfilled the terms of her alliance
with Great Britain, but strengthened her own supremacy in that quarter
of the globe.
Tsing-tau, since its occupation by the Germans, had been like a mailed
fist brandished in her face. Since Japan's victory over Russia no
other European power had occupied a position on the Asiatic coast that
offered a threat comparable to this German stronghold. Also, it was
only human that the Japanese remembered how Germany compelled them to
abandon many of their fruits of victory in their last war with China.
The unknown factor of her participation was just how far Japan would
go in aiding her new allies. The military and naval potentialities of
the Island Kingdom when the war started were greater than ever before.
She was twice as strong as when she went to war with Russia. Her navy
was sufficiently formidable to resist, in home waters at least, that
of any other power except England. Her army, twice proved during
recent years against the soldiers of Russia and China, was steadily
increasing its size and equipment. Her predominant position in the Far
East was absolutely assured.
The Japanese army, based to a certain extent upon the German model,
numbered at the outbreak of the war somewhat over 250,000 men of all
ranks. This was its peace strength. Military service was obligatory
upon all able-bodied males between the ages of seventeen and forty.
This law made available each year 550,000 men, but in practice during
times of peace the annual conscription amounted to only 120,000 men
taken by ballot from among the number eligible. The total effective
military strength of the Empire was estimated at a million and a half
trained soldiers.
The army was divided into nineteen divisions, four independent cavalry
brigades, three independent field artillery brigades, six regiments of
heavy field artillery and a communication brigade. Each divisional
unit consisted of two infantry brigades of six battalions each, a
cavalry regiment (three squadrons of 120 men each), a field artillery
regiment (six batteries of six guns), and a battalion of army service
corps. A battalion of mountain guns was attached to certain divisions.
Thus the army on a peace footing consisted of seventy-six infantry
regiments (228 battalions), twenty-seven regiments of cavalry. 150
field batteries, nine mountain batteries, nineteen battalions of
garrison artillery and nineteen battalions of engineers. When the
reserves were summoned to the colors the Japanese system provided for
an indefinite increase in the number of battalions for each regiment.
The Japanese navy had weathered a storm which at one time threatened
to interfere seriously with its steady growth, and the year 1914 found
it at a formidable climax of strength and efficiency. The war with
Russia had left the nation on the verge of bankruptcy and the annual
budgets from 1907 to 1910 contained no appropriations for naval
increases. The lull in naval construction, however, was of short
duration. The wisest statesmen realized, from the time when Japan
first emerged from her Oriental seclusion and eagerly set out to learn
the lessons of western civilization, that their country's insular
situation made a strong navy the first requisite of national
independence. It was the warships of the western world that forced the
Japanese to open their door to the foreigner. Fifteen years after the
Japanese had seen the foreign men-of-war riding dominant in their
harbors, their antiquated collection of war junks had been replaced by
an up-to-date navy, manned and officered by sea fighters trained upon
the best western models. In 1910 the Japanese began to compare their
naval equipment with that of Germany, and from that time their
shipbuilding program was designed to make them secure against the
chance of German aggression, ever present since the leasing of
Kiao-chau.
At the outbreak of the Great War the Japanese navy had nearly doubled
its strength since the close of the war with Russia. It included two
battleships of the dreadnought class, the _Kawachi_ and the _Settsu_,
both over 21,000 tons, with a speed of twenty knots, two dreadnought
battle cruisers of 27,500 tons each and a speed of twenty-seven knots,
the _Kongo_ and the _Hiyei_; two semi-dreadnought battleships, the
_Aki_ and _Satsuma_, between 19,000 and 20,000 tons each and a speed
of twenty and eighteen and a quarter knots, respectively; four
first-class battle cruisers with speeds ranging from twenty to
twenty-three knots and averaging 14,000 tons; six battleships of
slightly heavier displacement and slightly less speed; six first-class
coast defense ships, averaging 13,000 tons and seventeen and a half
knots; nine first-class cruisers ranging from 7,300 to 9,800 tons and
twenty to twenty-one knots; thirteen second-class cruisers, some of
which had a speed of twenty-six knots; seven second-class coast
defense ships; nine gunboats, two first-class destroyers capable of
thirty-five knots an hour; two second-class destroyers with a speed of
thirty-three knots; and forty-six other destroyers of varying speeds;
thirty-one torpedo boats and thirteen submarines, besides auxiliary
craft, hospital ships, dispatch boats, etc.
Although the Japanese air fleet gave a good account of itself during
the operations before Tsing-tau it developed no surprises, and
accomplished no exploits to confirm rumors prevailing before the war
that in Japan naval aviation had reached a special and advanced stage.
The Japanese Flying Corps conducted itself upon lines made familiar by
the British, German and French aviators in Europe.
CHAPTER IX
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES--ATTACKS ON TSING-TAU FORTS
Having reviewed the military and naval situation in the Far East at
the outbreak of war, we come now to the beginning of actual
belligerent operations.
Japan's declaration of war against Germany was dated August 23, 1914.
The morning of the preceding day witnessed the departure from Japanese
war ports of the greatest fleet of warships and transports the Empire
had sent to sea since the Russian War. It comprised the Second
Squadron, embracing battleships, cruisers, destroyers and
hydro-aeroplanes, a dozen in all. The transports carried land forces
numbering 22,980 officers and men and 142 guns to be put ashore as
soon as the landing forces had ground for their advantageous location.
The Japanese troops included the Eighteenth Division, under Lieutenant
General Mitsuomi Kamio, who was Commander in Chief of the expedition;
the Twenty-third Brigade of Infantry (Major General B. Horiuchi); the
Twenty-fourth Brigade of Infantry, commanded by Major General Hanzo
Yamanashi, Chief of Staff, and other divisional troops. The
Twenty-ninth Brigade of Infantry (Major General G. Joholi). Siege
Artillery Corps (Major General Y. Watanebe), the Miyama Heavy
Artillery Regiment, the Yokosuka Heavy Artillery Regiment, the
Shimonosoki Heavy Artillery Battalion, and the Tadanoumi Heavy
Artillery Battalion. Detachments of Engineers and Army Service Corps
from the Sixth and Twelfth Divisions. Two Railway Battalions. Railway
Guard Troops, the Eighth Infantry Regiment. Detachment of the Flying
Corps. Marine Artillery Detachment. Being intended for siege work this
army carried no cavalry, horse artillery or light field artillery.
In command of the fleet was Vice Admiral Hikonojo Kamimura, whose
reputation as one of Japan's war idols was established when his
squadron had defeated three Russian warships, the _Rurik_, _Gromoboi_
and _Rossia_, off the east coast of Korea. Later his squadron had
taken a commanding part in the great battle in the Japan Sea, which
put an end to Russia's naval power in the East. Admiral Kamimura was
sixty-five years old, and had spent the greater part of his life in
naval service. After the final Russian defeat he was rewarded with the
title of Baron and invested with the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun
and the first-class of the Golden Kite.
On September 23, 1914, the Japanese were joined by a British force of
1,369 men under command of Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Walter
Barnardiston, commander of the British forces in North China,
including Wei-hai-wei. Although the British did not arrive until a
month after the forces sailed from Japan, the distance that separated
Laoshan Bay, where the former made their landing on the original
leased territory and thus avoided the breach of neutrality against
China committed by the Japanese, was so much shorter and the landing
place presented so much less difficulty than the Japanese encountered
in their preliminary advance, that the British really arrived on the
scene of actual operations just as the Japanese were finishing their
first engagements in force, on September 28, 1914.
Colonel Barnardiston's command consisted of 910 noncommissioned
officers and men of the Second Battalion South Wales Borderers, and
450 noncommissioned officers and men of the Thirty-sixth Sikhs,
besides nine staff officers.
The bombardment of the Tsing-tau forts began on August 26, 1914, and
on September 1, 1914, the Japanese bluejackets seized several small
islands in Kiao-chau Bay, which the Germans were unable to defend
except by long range fire from their shore batteries, and by mines
with which the harbor had been thickly sown. Mine sweeping therefore
occupied the first activities of the fleet. This operation was
signalized by one of the many acts of patriotism and bravery that
characterized the siege on both sides. One hundred Japanese women who
made their living by diving for pearls in these waters offered to
enter the water and release the mines from their moorings so that they
would be carried away by the tides. Their courageous offer was
declined, not because the Japanese admiral believed it could not be
carried out, but because the Japanese law expressly prohibited the
employment of women in warlike operations. When one of the small boats
that acted as mine sweepers was blown up during the dragging that
followed the women renewed their offer, but again it was declined.
The first landing on the Shantung Peninsula was made September 2,
1914. Ten thousand troops were put ashore; but it was not until
September 25, 1914, that the invaders made their first capture of a
German outpost, Weihsien. The check on the Japanese advance, however,
was due less to the defenders of Tsing-tau than to the torrential
rains, which swelled the streams and for a time effectively barred
further movements. The Japanese artillery was compelled to return to
Lung-chow, their original base on the mainland.
The Japanese leaders proceeded with deliberation and caution. They had
the enemy penned up with no hope of reenforcement, and nothing was to
be gained by haste or the unnecessary waste of men and equipment. On
September 19, 1914, to facilitate the movement of their troops behind
the beleaguered city, they seized the railway connecting Tsing-tau
with the Chinese province of Shantung, and China, prompted by Berlin,
protested against the act as a violation of neutrality. This was the
second Chinese protest, the first having been sent to Tokyo after the
Japanese made their first landing on Chinese territory at Lung-chow.
To the former objection Japan had no answer except to set forth that
the landing was a military necessity and made with no intention of
permanent occupancy. To the second protest, however, she replied
without hesitation that possession of the railway line was justified
since it was owned by Germans. The wide area covered by the Japanese
investment campaign is shown by the fact that by September 13, 1914,
they had established guards at the railway station of Kiao-chau--a
town having the same name as the whole German concession--twenty-two
miles distant from Tsing-tau.
While the Japanese infantry and engineers waited for the floods the
naval airmen were not idle. The first damage inside the city was
inflicted by two seaplanes which dropped bombs upon the railway
station and barracks. Although one of the planes was hit several times
by the German guns, both made a safe return. This raid was the
forerunner of a systematic air campaign, designed as much to strike
terror and discouragement into the hearts of the garrison and the
civil population as to gain any military end by the actual destruction
of defense works. Bombs were dropped also upon ships in the harbor.
Occasionally the Japanese flyers scattered circulars calling upon the
defenders to surrender and pointing out the uselessness of further
resistance.
The first serious losses on either side were naval. On August 28,
1914, two days after the first bombardment a typhoon swept the
Japanese fleet, causing havoc among the little destroyers and sending
one to the bottom. Five days later another destroyer ran aground in
Kiao-chau Bay. A German merchant ship in the harbor was set afire by
the Japanese aerial bombs and destroyed. The greatest naval losses
suffered during the whole engagement were the destruction of the
Austrian cruiser _Kaiserin Elizabeth_ and of the Japanese cruiser
_Takachiho_. The _Kaiserin Elizabeth_ was sunk by the naval
bombardment; but the loss of the _Takachiho_ was due to the German
torpedo boat _S-90_.
It was September 26, 1914, before the floods subsided sufficiently to
permit the Japanese to resume their advance. On that day they drove
the Germans from the high ground between the rivers Pai-sha and
Li-tsun, and next day they pushed forward to a point seven miles
northeast of Tsing-tau, between the Li-tsun and the Chang-tsun. The
following morning found them established within five miles of the
fortress. Their casualties were reported as three killed and twelve
wounded.
These two days saw the heaviest fighting thus far during the siege.
While the land forces were pushing up to the main German forts the
fleet carried on a general bombardment, having by this time moved in
close enough to make gun fire effective and having learned the range.
The Japanese warships were assisted by the British battleship
_Triumph_, which had joined them a short time before with the British
destroyer _Usk_. These British boats remained throughout the
investment, the _Triumph_ was a favorite mark for the German gunners,
but escaped with comparatively slight damage.
By September 30, 1914, the Germans were driven in from their outer
fortifications and Tsing-tau itself was completely surrounded. On that
day the defenders made a desperate attempt to regain some of their
lost positions, but they were repulsed, and the Japanese settled back
for a few days to await the bringing up of their heavy siege guns.
It is said that the failure of this assault, in which the Germans
apparently concentrated all their resources, convinced General Kamio
that the capture of the city would not prove the long, arduous task
that had been expected, and he abandoned forthwith his plans for a
long, slow siege and made preparations to take the place by assault.
At the same time the Japanese commander showed no disposition to
sacrifice his men unnecessarily, and while waiting for their big guns
the Japanese worked like beavers with pick and shovel protecting their
positions and digging saps and zigzag trenches up to the very face of
the German defenses. They labored under a storm of shells but so
little exposed that losses under the bombardment were small compared
with the casualties of the actual assault operations.
For eight days the Germans poured projectiles into the enemy's works;
but for the most part their shooting was a waste of ammunition. Just
why the defenders of Tsing-tau were so prodigal of ammunition at this
time never has been satisfactorily explained. Military correspondents
estimated that during one period of twenty-four hours the forts on the
three hills containing the main defensive positions fired more than
2,000 shells without inflicting any loss whatever.
But by October 8, 1914, the German fire slackened perceptibly. They
had found that they were wasting their resources and that several
positions were almost out of ammunition. The warfare of that period is
described in a letter written by an officer with the British
expeditionary force:
"That night," he said, "we were working in trenches along a river bed
at the bottom of the slope, where the others had been wounded, and
_sans doute_ most darnation close to the enemy. A beginning had been
made on this trench the night before, so there was a little cover. The
two redoubts were about 800 yards on our right and left respectively,
the enemy's trenches about 350 yards to our front.
"Well, for the first hour after getting down we were left severely
alone. Then they started throwing star rockets and sort of Roman
candle things which lit up the place like day, and at the same time
they peppered us with Maxims, pompoms, and rifle fire from all three
places. We had some men hit further back in the communication trench,
but funnily enough none in the forward line.... We were entertained by
a certain amount of shell fire during the rest of the night. Next
night we were due to leave for the forward trenches at dusk to carry
on, having had our usual entertainment in the afternoon from the
Germans, when suddenly they began throwing shrapnel at our trench. For
about half an hour it was all over us, and I'm blest if I know why
nobody was hit. It was the overhead cover, I fancy, that saved us this
time. We came out like a lot of rabbits when it was over and proceeded
to get down below.
"The Japanese artillery was supporting us that night, as we were
working on the enemy's side of the river, within 200 yards of their
advance trenches. Never have I felt a more comforting sensation then
when watching those Japanese shells bursting just over our heads, a
little in advance, the shrapnel from them going slap into the Germans
every time. I must say it was a magnificent sight when the Japanese
guns were going, the German rockets, etc., and their machine guns and
rifles joining in when they could get their heads up. One had to shout
to make oneself heard, and those who saw it from the top of Heinrich
Hill in rear said it was very fine."
During the early days of the siege life in the beleaguered city went
on about as usual. A large part of the civil population had withdrawn
while there was yet time, but enough shops remained open to supply the
needs of those who remained. Cafés continued business and meals were
served without interruption at the German Club throughout the siege,
although toward the end the number of those who gathered at the
club's tables dwindled to a few administrative officers and civilians.
In a proclamation the day before the expiration of the Japanese
ultimatum, Governor Meyer-Waldeck had expressed the spirit of the
little garrison in the following words:
"Never shall we surrender the smallest bit of ground over which the
war flag is flying. From this place, which we with love and success
have endeavored during the last seventeen years to shape into a little
Germany across the seas, we shall not retreat. If the enemy wants
Tsing-tau, he must come and take it."
Few, if any, military men in Tsing-tau doubted the outcome of the
siege; but every resource was prepared for a desperate resistance. The
city did not lack food; and after the surrender it was found that
enough still remained to provision the garrison for more than three
months longer. The supply of running water ceased about the middle of
October. News from the outside world came in until November 5, and
invariably it told of German successes.
"I remember one evening," said the Tsing-tau correspondent of the
Associated Press, and the only foreign press representative in the
city during the siege, "the roar of laughter that went up in the
German Club when the news was read that England had asked Portugal for
assistance. For two or three days it looked, according to the news,
that the British Empire was going to pieces. We heard of revolutions
in India, riots in Alexandria, mutiny and martial law in South Africa
and even disaffection in Sarawak and North Borneo."
When it became clear that the end was drawing near preparations were
made that as few war munitions as possible should fall into the hands
of the enemy. The warships in the harbor that had escaped the
bombardment were blown up. When the big guns in the forts had fired
their last shots the gunners under orders destroyed them. In many
cases this was done because without ammunition the guns were useless.
October 31, 1914, the anniversary of the emperor's birthday, was
selected by the Japanese and English for their final bombardment. From
142 guns now occupying commanding positions came a deluge of shells
that continued for seven days. The gunners by this time had the exact
ranges and wasted no ammunition. The staffs of the two expeditionary
forces gathered on Prince Heinrich Hill to watch the final act of the
passing of German rule in the Far East. The warships ranged in the
harbor joined in, and after an hour or two it became evident that the
German defenses would be swept away by mere weight of metal. Under
cover of this terrific gunfire the Allies' troops drove their saps and
trenches up the very edge of the defense works, where they waited
orders to take the place by storm.
The Germans replied bravely. A great cloud of smoke and dust arose
over the doomed city visible far out at sea. In the city the
noncombatants took refuge in their cellars and helped care for the
wounded. Almost every German position, except the bomb-proof casements
where the guns stood, was hammered to pieces. The electric power
station was destroyed, so that during the last few nights the city was
in darkness.
The last handbills dropped into Tsing-tau by the Japanese aviators
contained the following appeal: "To the honored officers and men in
the fortress: It is against the will of God, as well as the principles
of humanity, to destroy and render useless arms, ships of war, and
merchantmen, and other works and constructions, not in obedience to
the necessity of war, but merely out of spite, lest they fall into the
hands of the enemy. Trusting, as we do, that, as you hold dear the
honor of civilization, you will not be betrayed into such base
conduct, we beg you, however, to announce to us your own view as
mentioned above.
(Signed) "The Besieging Army."
It is needless to say that the enemy's plea was not heeded. By
November 6, 1914, only spasmodic fire from widely scattered positions
answered the Allies' bombardment. That night the Japanese and English
charged across open ground and took the middle fort in the first line
of defense with surprising ease, capturing 200 prisoners. The charge
was led by General Yoshimi Yamada at the head of companies of infantry
and engineers. At one point they surprised a squad of Germans in
charge of a searchlight. To have fired upon them would have betrayed
the advance to the defenders of the adjacent fort; so, the story says,
the Germans were quietly and quickly dispatched by the engineers with
picks and shovels.
CHAPTER X
CAPTURE OF TSING-TAU
Tsing-Tau fell early on the morning of the next day, November 7, 1914.
Encouraged by the unexpected successes of the night, the Japanese
commander gave the order for a final grand assault. Nobody was more
surprised than the Japanese themselves. They had expected a last-ditch
resistance and feared they would have to sacrifice a thousand men
before gaining these positions commanding the city. But the Germans,
their ammunition almost gone, stunned by the continuous rain of shells
and broken by long fighting, had decided that further resistance was
useless.
The Japanese infantry occupied the central positions on the main line
of defense soon after midnight. Just before dawn they captured the
north battery on Shaotan Hill, then the east battery of Tahtungehin
and the Chungchiawa fort on the west. The heaviest loss suffered by
any of the Japanese detachments in the final assault fell upon a
company that was caught by machine-gun fire in an attack upon Redoubt
No. 2. Out of 250 men only 87 escaped. The total Japanese casualties
in the final assault were 450 killed and wounded. The British
casualties were slight.
Daylight found the Japanese and British in possession of every
position commanding the city and nearly 20,000 men were awaiting the
signal to charge the last line of defenses when a white flag appeared
on the Tsing-tau military observatory. Within the next hour flags of
surrender were flying from all the other German forts. So unexpected
was the sudden collapse of the defense that at six o'clock, when the
Governor sent Major von Kayser, his adjutant, with a white flag to
make terms, the signal of surrender was not observed and the
Japanese, far from suspecting the German officer's purpose, opened
fire, killing Von Kayser's trumpeter and shooting his horse under him.
The formal capitulation of Tsing-tau came at 7.50 o'clock on the
evening of November 7, 1914, when both sides signed the Japanese
terms. The Germans surrendered unconditionally, but were accorded the
honors of war. On November 10, 1914, at 10 a. m., Governor
Meyer-Waldeck formally transferred possession to General Kamio, and
German's last foothold in Asia passed from her possession.
News of the fall of Tsing-tau, although not unexpected, caused great
rejoicing throughout Japan and among her allies, and profoundly
stirred the German world.
The German attitude was expressed by an editorial in the Berlin
"Lokalanzeiger," which said: "Never shall we forget the bold deed of
the yellow robbers, or of England that set them on to do it. We know
that we cannot yet settle with Japan for years to come. Perhaps she
will rejoice over her cowardly robbery. Here our mills can grind but
slowly. Even if the years pass, however, we shall certainly not often
speak of it, but as certainly always think of it."
The Japanese and British forces made formal entry into the captured
city on November 16, 1914. The Germans had done all in their power to
destroy supplies, nevertheless the spoils of victory included 100
machine guns, 2,500 rifles, 30 field guns, a small amount of
ammunition, about $6,000 in cash, 15,000 tons of coal, 40 motor cars,
and a large quantity of provisions. Prisoners taken numbered 4,043,
including the governor general and 201 German officers and 3,841
noncommissioned officers and men.
The casualties on both sides, considering the length of the siege and
the intensity of the gunfire in both directions, were remarkably
small. The Japanese had 236 killed and 1,282 wounded, the British had
12 killed and 63 wounded, including two officers. The Germans
estimated their losses in killed and wounded at about 1,000 men. To
the Allies' losses must be added 10 killed and 56 wounded, all
Japanese, by the explosion of German land mines several days after the
surrender.
PART III--THE WAR IN AFRICA
CHAPTER XI
CAMPAIGN IN TOGOLAND AND THE CAMEROONS
The first shots of the Great War had hardly detonated across Europe
when their echoes were heard in Africa. The war fever began to hover
over Germany's colonial possessions in Africa--Togoland, the
Cameroons, German Southwest Africa, and, greatest of all, German East
Africa. Each of these colonies became in turn the scene of armed
invasions and fierce conflicts, as important to the small forces
involved as the great campaigns on the continent across the seas.
When Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, and the
news flashed across the world to the official representatives of the
warring nations in Africa, the British acting governor of the Gold
Coast and the French governor of Dahomey planned a concerted campaign
by land in cooperation with the warships to be found in African
waters.
The first blow was struck on August 8, 1914, in Togoland, a country
about the size of Ireland, lying between French Dahomey and the
British Gold Coast. It is populated by a million Hausas and about 400
whites. At the beginning of the war the military force of Togoland
could not have exceeded 250 whites and 3,000 natives. Hemmed in on
three sides by French and British territory, with a coast line easily
approached by warships, the colony was not in a position to offer much
resistance if attacked.
On August 8, 1914, a British cruiser appeared before Lome, the capital
of Togoland, and the town was surrendered without a shot being fired.
But before the British force landed, the little German army of about
60 Europeans and 400 natives fell back to Atakpame, 100 miles in the
interior.
While this was happening at Lome an expeditionary force composed of
the Gold Coast Regiment, with British officers and commanded by
Captain F. C. Bryant, R. A., crossed the frontier in motor cars on
August 8, or 9, 1914, and a French force entered Togoland from the
other side. A few days later the Allies had possession of all the
southern part of Togoland, and advanced together toward Atakpame to
capture an important German wireless station at Kamina in the same
region.
The only real fighting in this campaign took place on August 25, 1914,
when Captain Bryant and his forces had crossed the Monu River. The
Allies drove the enemy from his intrenchments, seized the wireless
station, and occupied Atakpame. Their losses were two officers and 21
men killed and about 50 wounded.
On August 26, 1914, the Germans surrendered unconditionally, and the
Allies came into possession of three Maxim guns, 1,000 rifles and
320,000 rounds of ammunition. It was stated at the time that the
Germans offered such a feeble resistance because many natives, on whom
they had counted, refused to take up arms against the British.
Togoland having fallen to the Allies, it was arranged between the
officials of Great Britain and France that the colony should be
jointly governed, each to control that part of Togoland nearest her
possessions. In a few months' time normal trade was resumed in the
Allies' colony, and since private property had been respected during
the invasion, there was nothing left to show that the country had
recently been the scene of small but decisive conflicts, far-reaching
in their effects.
The action in the African war drama now shifts to the Cameroons
(German Kamerun Colony), which Germany took possession of in 1884. It
has a seacoast of about 200 miles on the Bight of Biafra. To the
northeast and south are the British Protectorate of Nigeria and French
Equatorial Africa. The country is largely mountainous and is 290,000
square miles in extent. Before the war there were less than 2,000
whites among a population of 2,500,000 negroes, principally of the
Bantu race.
The Cameroons, though surrounded by territory of the Allies, was a
more difficult country to conquer than Togoland, owing to its natural
advantages and the difficulties of communication over great distances.
The first moves of the Allies met with disaster. It was in the African
rainy season and misadventures multiplied as the invading troops
marched through a wild and badly mapped country. It was decided
between the Allies that two French columns should move from French
Congo, while British columns entered at different points on the
frontier of Nigeria.
On August 8, 1914, a detachment of mounted infantry of the West
African Frontier Force left Kano and, marching 400 miles in seventeen
days through West Africa, got in touch with the Germans at Tepe, a
frontier station just inside the Cameroons. In the fierce engagement
that followed the Germans were repulsed, losing five officers and
suffering other casualties.
On August 29, 1914, the river station of Garua was attacked, and here
one of the most disastrous battles of the campaign was fought. On
August 31, 1914, Lieutenant Colonel Maclear, commanding the Royal
Dublin Fusiliers and native troops, left their intrenchments 400 yards
from the German forts and advanced to attack. The German gunners
having perfect range, poured a murderous fire from machine guns on the
British forces. The native troops wavered and fled, leaving British
officers in the trenches, and these in turn were soon forced to fly to
escape complete annihilation. Lieutenant Colonel Maclear was killed,
and of the 31 other officers only 10 escaped, while 40 per cent of the
native troops were lost. The remainder of the British force retreated
into Nigeria in such an exhausted condition that had the Germans
followed up their victory not a man would have escaped.
[Illustration: German Possessions in Africa.]
The second British expedition which entered the Cameroons from a more
westerly point along the Nigerian frontier occupied, after slight
resistance, the German station of Nsanakong a few miles from the
border, where a week later the Germans attacked in force at two
o'clock in the morning. The British resisted stubbornly, but, having
exhausted their ammunition, the garrison tried to cut their way out
with the bayonet. The British lost three officers, while large numbers
of native soldiers were killed or made prisoners. The remainder,
escaping to the bush, after many hardships found their way back to
Nigeria. Another British expedition from Calabar, near the coast,
occupied Archibong, August 29, 1914, while about the same time a
German force took possession of the Nigerian station of Okuri.
The British had failed by land; they were more successful on the sea,
as will be seen in the chapter on Naval Operations. On September 4,
1914, an attempt was made by the Germans to wreck the British gunboat
_Dwarf_, which with the cruiser _Cumberland_ was watching German ships
in the Cameroon estuary. The German merchantman _Nachtigal_ tried
later to ram the same gunboat and wrecked herself with a loss of 36
men. Further attempts to destroy the _Dwarf_ also failed.
The British now taking the offensive cleared the channel for three
miles, where the Germans had sown mines and sunk 10 or 12 steamboats
to obstruct the waterway to Duala, the capital of the Cameroons.
H.M.S. _Challenger_ and five troopships joined the _Dwarf_ and
_Cumberland_ on September 26, 1914, and, moving on Duala, bombarded
the town.
On September 27, 1914, the Germans offered to surrender Duala
unconditionally, and on September 28, 1914, Brigadier General C. M.
Dobell came ashore and took it over. About the same time a battalion
landing at Bonaberi, across the river from Duala, capitulated after
some desultory fighting. The wireless station at Duala was found to
have been wrecked, but the British took several hundred prisoners,
captured 8 merchantmen with valuable cargoes and the German gunboat
_Soden_, which was at once put into commission in the British navy.
While the British were successful around Duala, a French force by sea
from Libreville, French Congo, escorted by their warship _Surpris_,
attacked _Ukoko_ on Corisco Bay, south of the Cameroons, during which
the armed vessels _Khios_ and _Itolo_ were sunk.
The Allies had captured the chief port and controlled the coast, but
the most difficult work lay before them in the mountainous and almost
roadless region still to be conquered. The retreating Germans
occupied a defensive position on a river at Japona, where on October
8, 1914, a French column came up with them, forced a bridge, and
compelled them to continue their retreat.
On October 8, 1914, Colonel E. H. Gorges, commanding a British naval
and military force and four field guns, sailed up the Wuri in launches
and found the enemy intrenched near Jabassi. The British made a
spirited attack, but were driven back by the accurate fire of the
enemy. After a flank attack failed, the order was given to retreat,
and the British returned to Duala.
The Allies reenforced, and with two 6-inch guns resumed the attack on
October 14, 1914, when the German batteries were soon silenced. After
a brisk engagement the infantry occupied Jabassi, taking ten European
prisoners. Minor successes won by the Allies at this time were the
defeat of the Germans at Susa, and the occupation of the region around
Mora, near Lake Chad by a Nigerian Regiment which had entered the
colony from the northeast.
Two columns of Anglo-French troops under Brigadier General Dobell,
with Colonel Mayer commanding the French colonial infantry, followed
the retreating Germans to Edea on the Sanaga River, some fifty miles
from Duala. Part of the road led through a thick forest where snipers
were concealed, who harassed the expedition at every step and were
dislodged with great difficulty.
On October 26, 1914, Edea was taken without resistance, and the enemy
retired to Yaunde, a station far in the interior. Mujuka, a station
about fifty miles from Duala, was occupied by the British a few weeks
later.
Early in November, 1914, General Dobell planned an attack on the
German capital of Buea, and its seaport Victoria. The latter place was
bombarded by the French cruiser _Bruix_ and the yacht _Ivy_; marines
were landed, and after a short and spirited fight it was taken, while
the enemy, who had concentrated on the hills leading to Buea, were
scattered by the Allies' forces advancing from different directions.
The Germans made a determined effort to regain Edea, but were forced
to retire with a loss of 20 Europeans and 54 natives. Meanwhile, in
the hinterland, the French General, Aymerich, with a force of men and
a steamer loaned by the authorities of the Belgian Congo drove the
enemy from the Congo-Ubanghi region, which had been given to Germany
in 1911. After two days of strenuous fighting the German posts of
Numen and Nola were taken, and some officers, guns, and ammunition.
The greatest campaign in December, 1914, was the capture of the entire
northern railway line, with rolling stock, locomotives, two
aeroplanes, and about sixty white men. Mendawi, Baré, and Nkongsamba
were other posts taken at this period.
At the close of the year the Cameroons were not conquered, but the
Germans had been driven into the interior, could not secure supplies,
and it was only a question of time when they must surrender or be
annihilated. The allied forces were constantly harrying their enemy.
The Allies' next movement was an advance in three columns against
Yaunde, where they fought two little battles January 27-28, 1915, and
seized the post of Bersona. Near the coast some important operations
were successful.
CHAPTER XII
GERMAN SOUTHWEST AFRICA--REBELLION IN UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA
German Southwest Africa, to which we will now turn, was in a different
situation at the outbreak of the war from that of the German colonies
of the east and west. Over the frontier was a self-governing dominion,
the Union of South Africa, with an independent parliament made up of a
strange mixture of different parties. The irreconcilables in the Dutch
population who had dreamed of a greater Afrikander Republic, would
they not take this opportunity to side with Germany who promised to
further their ambitions? Great Britain expected some trouble from this
element in the Union, and prepared for the worst, while Germany was
equally active, and there was much intriguing to persuade the Dutch
to cast in their lot with them. In other parts of Africa, Germany had
to fight her battles unaided, but here in the enemy's camp there was
every hope of gaining powerful assistance. Until the situation in the
Union became clear, it was Germany's part to defend her colony in
Southwest Africa, hoping by a brave display of arms to win over the
Dutch, who were bitter against England.
German Southwest Africa enjoys many natural advantages. Her capital is
far in the interior. Between her railway on the south, which almost
reaches the Cape frontier, and her border spreads out the desert of
Kalahari and the arid, waterless plains of northwest Cape Colony. The
branch railways are separated by about 200 miles from German
territory, and on the northern line Kimberley was a little less than
400 miles distant. British forces entering the colony by land must
encounter many difficulties, especially in the desert region, which
the Germans left undefended because they believed it could not be
crossed by troops.
Before the war, according to the official returns, the colony had a
force of 3,500 men, mainly whites; but with reserves and volunteers
from among the population of German blood it has been variously
estimated that an army of from 6,000 to 10,000 men could be gathered
together. The Germans were believed to be strong in artillery, and
were known to have sixty-six batteries of Maxims. There was also a
camel corps 500 strong.
After the declaration of war in August, 1914, Dr. Seitz, the German
Governor, began to carry out his plan of defense. In the second week
of August, 1914, the Germans abandoned Swakopmund and Lüderitz Bay,
their principal stations on the coast, and after destroying the jetty
and tugs in harbor, retired with their military stores to Windhoek,
the inland capital. In the last weeks in August they made short dashes
into British territory, intrenching themselves in some places, and
occasionally engaged in a skirmish with farmers on the frontier.
Thus, when the Union Parliament met September 8, 1914, it was informed
by General Botha, the Premier, that Germany had begun hostilities
against the British colonies. On the following day, as a challenge to
the pro-German party, he moved a resolution to convey to King George
an address, assuring him of the loyal support of the Union. Upon this
General Hertzog moved an amendment to the effect that attacking German
territory in South Africa was against the interests of the Union and
the empire. But the victory was with General Botha's Government when
the questions were voted on. Only 12 of the 104 votes cast were in
favor of Hertzog's amendment.
It was evident that many burghers living in districts on the borders
of German Southwest Africa shared Hertzog's opinion, and were opposed
to taking offensive measures against the German colony as long as the
Union was left in peace. From the time that Hertzog had been dropped
from Botha's cabinet he had posed as a martyr. His adherents believed
that he had been "sacrificed to please the English," and that Botha
was merely a tool in the hands of the British Government.
The spirit of rebellion in the Union did not show itself openly for
some time, but the leaders--Beyers, De Wet, Maritz, and Kemp--were
busy conspiring and stirring up disaffection among the burghers who
had never become reconciled to the Union.
De Wet, because of his world-wide fame during the Boer War, has been
given undue prominence for the part he played in the rebellion. He was
not the head and front of the movement, though his name was one to
conjure with among the disaffected Boers, and he proved to be a
valuable recruiting agent. His operations during the rebellion, as
will be subsequently shown, were generally ineffective in the field,
and terminated ingloriously, before he could work any great harm.
General Beyers, the most dangerous foe the Union had in the rebellion,
was a direct contrast to the rude and unlettered De Wet. He was young
and brave, and had shown himself one of the ablest soldiers the
British had to fight against during the Boer War. He looked the
dashing officer that he was--tall, straight, black bearded, and with
his pleasant manners and easy speech he was just the man to inspire
enthusiasm in others.
Colonel Maritz and Colonel Kemp, the other chief leaders in the
rebellion, had never been as prominent in South African affairs as
Beyers and De Wet. Maritz had shown ability as a leader in the Boer
War, had held various military positions since, and at the beginning
of the European War was in command of the South African border between
the Union and German Southwest Africa, to which he had been appointed
by Beyers, who was commandant general of the citizen forces. General
Smuts, the Minister of Defense, may have suspected some sinister
motives in this appointment, for Maritz had many friends in the German
colony, but for the present he had to keep his suspicions to himself
and await some overt act of offense.
Colonel Kemp, the remaining chief leader, had never done anything to
give him special prominence. He had proved himself an efficient
soldier during the Boer War, and appears to have been in command of a
training camp in the western Transvaal when the rebellion was started.
Under these four leaders, acting independently, or in conjunction with
them, were subleaders, an indefinite number, members of the
Government, and men connected with the church and army, whose part in
the rebellion was to stir up the people.
An interesting character among the somewhat nebulous subleaders in the
rebellion was Van Rensburg, sometimes called "Prophet" Lichtenberg,
from the place where he lived. During the Boer War he had predicted a
remarkable victory for the Boers, which had resulted in the capture of
Lord Methuen, and ever since the burghers of the Union had held him in
reverential awe. When the war with Germany broke out he made various
prophecies. He discovered that the events foretold in the Book of
Revelation would now take place. Germany, he said, had been divinely
ordained to conquer the world and purify it. Any attempt to resist
this divine ordinance would be punished by the righteous anger of an
offended deity. Nor was the "prophet" forgetful of local politics, for
he had another "vision" in which he predicted that Generals Delarey,
Beyers, and De Wet were divinely appointed leaders, who would restore
the old republic. These "prophecies" were spread broadcast throughout
the Union, were eagerly believed by the superstitious burghers, and
served to hearten up the disaffected who had some grudge against the
Government.
A great meeting of the burghers was summoned to meet August 15, 1914,
at Treurfontein. This date had been fixed because Van Rensburg in a
"vision" had seen "a dark cloud, with blood flowing from it, inscribed
with number 15, and General Delarey, the uncrowned king of western
Transvaal, returning home without his hat, followed by a carriage full
of flowers." Eight hundred burghers attended the meeting, but Delarey,
who spoke, had been warned by General Botha, and therefore spoke
calmly, urging the burghers to remain cool and await events. Such was
Delarey's influence over the assembly, who had come expecting to make
a fiery speech, that a resolution expressing confidence in the
Government was passed.
On September 15, 1914, General Christian Beyers resigned his position
of commandant general of the defense force in a letter which was
practically a declaration of war against the British Empire. It
developed that for some weeks he had been organizing rebellion. He was
secretly arranging a scheme of operations in which the German forces
were to take part, while making plans for the Union Government. He
hoped to win over General Delarey, leader of the Boers in the western
Transvaal, but this officer was accidentally killed by the police near
Johannesburg. The patrol out looking for the notorious Jackson gang of
bandits, then in the neighborhood, had orders to examine any motor car
and fire at once, if when summoned to stop their challenge was
ignored. The car bearing Generals Beyers and Delarey had been twice
challenged while passing through the town. The third time a policeman
fired at the wheel to disable the car, and the bullet ricocheted and
killed Delarey.
A thousand armed Boers at this time were encamped at Potchefstroom in
Delarey's district. Colonel Kemp, who had sent in his resignation to
the Union Government, and was working here for Delarey, had won over
their officers, and on parade urged the men to refuse to volunteer for
German Southwest Africa. He also collected in his tent such ammunition
as he could lay his hands upon.
The death of General Delarey disconcerted General Beyers, and his
fellow conspirators, and Colonel Kemp withdrew his resignation from
the Union army. Over the grave of Delarey General Beyers, in the
presence of General Botha, declared that he had no intention of
advising or causing a rebellion, yet the following day, with General
De Wet and others, he was urging the Boers who had come to the funeral
of their dead leader to revolt against active service should the
commandos be called out under the Defense Act.
Botha knew the men who were stirring up rebellion and acted quickly.
He called for volunteers, announcing that he would lead in person the
Union forces against the Germans, and the immediate response he
received was gratifying. The conspirators remained quiet for some
weeks, but General Beyers and De Wet were secretly at work against the
Government of the Union.
On September 26, 1914, Colonel Grant and a small force of African
Rifles and Transvaal Horse Artillery operating at Sandfontein near the
German border were trapped by two German battalions while on their way
to a water hole. From the heights the German guns swept the circular
basin below where the Union force was gathered. The advantage was all
in favor of the Germans. High explosive shells from ten guns wrought
havoc among the South African soldiers, but not until their ammunition
ran out and every man of their gun crews was either killed or wounded
would the little band of Boers and Britons surrender. It developed
later that Lieutenant Colonel S. G. Maritz, a Boer leader commanding
Union forces in the Northwest territory, had turned traitor and
arranged the disaster. It was through General Beyers that he had been
appointed to an important command on the German border.
Maritz who was now ordered by General Smuts, Minister of Defense, to
report to headquarters and give up his command, sent a defiant reply
October 8, 1914. He stated that in addition to his own troops he had
German guns and men, and had signed an agreement with the Governor of
Southwest Africa ceding Walfish Bay (a British possession) and certain
portions of Union territory in return for a guarantee of the
independence of the South African Republic. All his officers and men
who were unwilling to join with him had been sent as prisoners into
German territory.
General Botha replied to the rebel by proclaiming martial law
throughout the Union. General Brits, with the imperial Light Horse,
was sent to capture Maritz, and in an engagement October 15, 1914, at
Ratedraai, near Upington, took seventy rebel prisoners.
On October 22, 1914, Maritz with 1,000 rebels and seventy German
gunners, attacked at dawn the post of Keimos, where there were only
150 loyalists. The little garrison held out until reenforcements
arrived and the battle then turned against Maritz, who offered to
surrender for a free pardon. This being refused, the fight went on,
and Maritz eventually fled wounded into German territory. Two days
later a party of rebels with German gunners were defeated at Kakamas.
General Hertzog, who had represented the pro-German party in the Union
Parliament, gathered a commando and broke out in revolt on October 21,
1914. He issued a manifesto complaining of English oppression, and
announced that he would tolerate it no longer. Three members of the
Union Parliament and a member of the Defense Council, Mr.
Wessel-Wessels, came out in arms. In the western Transvaal and the
northern Free State the rebel leaders had about 10,000 men in separate
groups. Their plan was to join their commandos with a force under
Maritz from German Southwest Africa.
The situation from a military point of view seemed to be serious for
the Union, but Generals Botha and Smuts were active and resourceful
and in a few weeks had 40,000 men in the field. The loyal Boers were
in a difficult position, for now they were asked to fight against
their own kith and kin for the British Empire. In battle the Dutch
generals showed that they were anxious to spare their own kinsmen, and
ordered their men to withhold firing to the last moment, hoping that
the rebels would surrender. The rebels were not allowed time to join
their forces, for General Botha gave them no rest night or day.
On October 27, 1914, General Beyers and his commando operating near
Rustenburg were driven in headlong flight all day long by General
Botha and a force of loyalists. Two days later General Beyers was a
fugitive. His scattered commandos were defeated by Colonel Alberts at
Lichtenburg and again at Zuitpansdrift on November 5, 1914. Meanwhile,
Colonel Kemp, who had been acting with General Beyers, now separated
from his chief, and with a large force started for German Southwest
Africa, pursued by Colonel Alberts. Beyers, trying to get in touch
with De Wet, entered the Orange Free State, closely followed by a
large loyalist force under Colonel Lemmer.
On November 7, 1914, Beyers's commando was attacked by Lemmer near the
Vet River and though Beyers led in person, he was defeated, and, 364
of his men being captured and about 20 killed or wounded, the fugitive
remnant returned to Hoopstad. De Wet, whom General Beyers had been
prevented from joining by the activity of the loyalist forces, had
gathered together in the northern districts of the Orange Free State a
poorly organized body of soldiers, but sufficient in numbers to cause
the South African Government some anxiety. Negotiations between the
Free State leaders and De Wet postponed for a time any military action
by the Government, but the old guerrilla captain was not to be
pacified. There had been a rivalry between him and Botha in the Boer
war, and he seemed anxious to measure strength now with a soldier whom
he considered his inferior.
De Wet's name was a power in the land, especially among the "poor
whites" and the squatter class, who without much intelligence or
education had not prospered under new conditions in the Union. They
were without hope for the future and felt that they were being crowded
out by the more active spirits in the country. They saw in the
rebellion a chance to improve their economic position. There was
little to lose and much might be won. A new Afrikander Republic would
bring back the old days for which they had never ceased to long for.
It was from this class of malcontents that De Wet drew the bulk of his
men. The rest were religious fanatics, disgruntled politicians,
wastrels and adventurers.
We have said previously that De Wet's recruits were poorly organized.
It was a weakness of this brilliant guerrilla fighter that he could
not maintain discipline when handling a large body of men, and the
sort of troops he was working with in the rebellion called for the
sternest kind of authority to make them effective soldiers. He only
enjoyed a month of freedom and covered considerable territory, but he
accomplished very little from a military point of view. He could not
follow the same tactics that he had employed in the Boer war with
equal success now. At home on the back of a horse, it was impossible
for him to slip through the enemy's lines as of old when there were
motor cars to pursue. He began his campaign with an action at Winburg
where he defeated a small loyalist commando under Cronje, and where
one of his sons was killed.
A battle of considerable importance was fought on November 12, 1914,
at Marquard to the east of Winburg. General Botha and his Transvaal
commando by a forced night march had reached Winburg the day before
and getting in touch with De Wet's forces encircled them on the east
and northeast. Colonel Brandt at the same time led his commando from
Winburg within easy reach of De Wet, while General Lukin and Colonel
Brits moving forward from the west completed the hemming in of the
enemy. General Botha's commando attacked De Wet's forces and defeated
them with great loss. If General Lukin and Colonel Brits had not been
delayed in taking up their positions all the rebels would have been
captured. The victory was especially of far-reaching importance
because it discouraged De Wet's hopes and strengthened the loyalist
cause. All of De Wet's stores of food and ammunition were taken, and a
hundred carts, wagons and motor cars, while the prisoners numbered
about 250.
De Wet, with a Boer commando in pursuit, now fled up the Vet River,
then turning south at Boshof, divided his decreasing force into two
divisions. Leading one of these he turned again north, reaching the
Vaal River with only 25 men remaining of the 2,000 he had fought with
at Marquard.
Beaten back by a loyal outpost he succeeded in crossing the Vaal on
November 21, 1914, closely pursued by Commandant Dutoit and a motor
car contingent from Witwatersrand. De Wet's followers had gradually
deserted, and he had only four men with him when he succeeded in
joining a small commando of fugitives gathered at Schweizer Renek. The
heavy rainstorms at this time favored him as he started with this
force to follow Colonel Kemp and join Maritz in German Southwest
Africa, for the motor cars in pursuit could make small progress over
the heavy roads. Crossing Bechuanaland on November 25, 1914, De Wet
was pursued by another loyalist force under Colonel Brits who in two
days captured half of the fugitives.
On December 1, 1914, at a farm at Waterburg, about a hundred miles
from Mafeking, De Wet and his party of 52 men surrendered to Colonel
Jordaan without firing a shot, and the one-time Commander in Chief of
the Orange Free State forces was imprisoned at Johannesburg to await
his trial for high treason.
In the Orange Free State, General Beyers and about seventy men harried
by loyal commandos divided his party, and leading one group made a
dash for the Vaal River pursued by Captain Uys and Cornet Deneker with
a small force. Trapped at daybreak on December 9, 1914, near the Vaal,
Beyers and a few men tried to swim the river to the Transvaal under a
fierce fire. Beyers was seen to fall from his horse, and was heard to
cry for help, but was drowned before anyone could come to the rescue.
General Botha's operations in the northern district of the Orange Free
State were made difficult because of the heavy fogs, but early in
December, 1914, the rebels were in sore straits, 500 being captured
while 200 surrendered to Commandant Kloppers a loyalist, who had been
taken a prisoner and was afterwards released.
General Maritz, Colonel Kemp, and the "Prophet" Litchtenburg had fled
west, and after some fighting at Kurumun, and two minor successes,
surprising two posts at Langklip and Onydas which they were forced to
abandon on the arrival of reenforcements, they retired toward the
German frontier where they were penned in by the Union forces.
On January 24, 1915, the rebels made their last sally, attacking
Colonel Van der Venter at Upington. The rebel force, about 1,200
strong and led by Maritz and Kemp, was easily repulsed. On February 3,
1915, Maritz, having fled to German territory, Colonel Kemp and his
commando of 43 officers and 486 men including the "Prophet"
Lichtenburg surrendered.
[Illustration: These Belgian soldiers are weary and covered with mud
from the trenches, but they are rallying for a fresh resistance to
German attacks.]
PART IV--THE WESTERN FRONT
CHAPTER XIII
PREPARATIONS FOR AN OFFENSIVE
During the greater part of the winter of 1914-15, the fighting along
the western front had been almost constant, but had resulted in little
that either side could justly assert to be a success. The rigors
inevitable in such a mode of warfare had become almost beyond human
endurance, and commanders on both sides looked forward to a more
active campaign.
An immense amount of ammunition had been stored by the French in and
around Perthes in anticipation of a forward movement; and, by the
second week of February, a quarter of a million men of the French army
had been assembled near that place. They were opposite a section of
the German trenches which was about twelve miles long, extending from
Ville-sur-Tourbe in the Argonne to the village of Souain. Early in the
year this section had been held by only two divisions of Rhinelanders.
These two divisions had suffered severely from the heavy gun fire
which the French had directed against them by means of the successful
work of the French aviators. The French infantry also had done
effective work in the short rush which they had been making, gaining
on an average about twelve yards a day. Following the concentration of
French troops, the German commanders brought up reenforcements to the
number of 80,000. Some of these were taken from La Bassée, and others
from a contingent which had been intended for a northern offensive
movement.
Because of the chalk formation of the soil in this section of the
front, the excessive moisture of this season of the year drained
rapidly, leaving exposed an undulating section on which were small
forests of fir trees. The nature of the ground made it an easy matter
to move troops even in winter. General Joffre took advantage of this
fact, and assembled a quarter of a million men against the German
lines in Champagne. This caused the German commanders to mass troops
just in front of Perthes. The concentration continued until there were
220,000 German soldiers packed there in close formation. The French
attacked, and quickly a rain of more than a hundred thousand shells
fell upon the Germans.
The Germans sought to reply by bringing up twenty-two batteries of
heavy guns and sixty-four field batteries; but the French gunners kept
command of the field. In the twenty days' battle--from February 16 to
March 7, 1915--the French won scarcely a mile of ground; but they
found and buried 10,000 German dead. The French staff estimated that
60,000 German soldiers had been put out of action. The German staff
admitted they had lost more men in this action than in the campaign in
East Prussia against the Russians, where fourteen German army corps
were engaged. The French lost less than 10,000 men.
In the last week of February, 1915, it had been learned by General
Joffre that General von Falkenhayn of the German forces had withdrawn
from Neuve Chapelle, and the section north of La Bassée six batteries
of field artillery, six battalions of the Prussian Guard, and two
heavy batteries of the Prussian Guard. These had been withdrawn for
the purpose of checking the supposed French advance at Perthes, as
already narrated. Hence it was known that the English, in command of
Sir Douglas Haig, at Neuve Chapelle, were opposed by a thin line of
German troops who were making a demonstration of force for the purpose
of concealing the weakness of their line.
[Illustration: The Western Battle Line, January 1, 1915.]
The British officers in the region of Neuve Chapelle received complete
instructions on March 8, 1915, in regard to an offensive which they
were to start on the 10th. These instructions were supplemental to a
communication which had been sent on February 19 by the British
commander in chief to Sir Douglas Haig, the commander of the First
Army. Neuve Chapelle was to be the immediate objective of the
prospective engagement. This place is about four miles north of La
Bassée at the junction of main roads, one leading southward to La
Bassée, and another from Bethune on the west to Armentières on the
northeast. It is about eleven miles west of Lille. These roads formed
an irregular diamond-shaped figure with the village at the apex of the
eastern sides, along which the German troops were stationed. The
British held the western sides of this figure.
The land in this part of France is marshy and crossed by dykes; but,
to the eastward, the ground rises slowly to a ridge, on the western
border of which are two spurs. Aubers is at the apex of one; and
Illies at the apex of the other. Both of these villages were held by
the Germans. The ridge extends northeast, beyond the junction of the
spurs, from Fournes to within two miles southwest of Lille. Along the
ridge is the road to Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, all of which are
among the chief manufacturing towns of France. The occupation of the
ridge was a necessary step to the taking of Lille; and Neuve Chapelle
was at the gateway to the ridge. If the Allies could take Lille they
would then be in a position to move against their enemy between that
point and the sea.
The River Des Layes runs behind Neuve Chapelle to the southeast; and,
behind the river, a half mile from the straggling village, is a wood
known as the Bois du Biez. Almost at right angles to the river, on the
west, the main road from Estaires to La Bassée skirts Neuve Chapelle.
There is a triangle of roads north of the village where there were a
few large houses with walls, gardens, and orchards. At this point the
Germans had fortified themselves to flank the approaches to the
village from that section. These trenches were only about a hundred
yards from those of the British. The Germans had machine guns at a
bridge over the river; and they had another post established a little
farther up at the Pietre mill. Farther down the stream, where the road
into the village joins the main road to La Bassée, the Germans had
fortified a group of ruined buildings which was known as Port Arthur.
From there was a great network of trenches which extended
northwestward to the Pietre mill. There were also German troops in
the Bois du Biez, and in the ruined houses along the border of the
wood.
The German trenches were in excellent positions, but were occupied by
only a comparatively few soldiers; it was the German plan to keep
large bodies of troops in reserve, so that they might be sent to any
sector where the need seemed most likely. They have asserted they had
only four battalions in the front line here; but that statement is
denied by the British.
The British plan of attack embraced a heavy bombardment to demoralize
their enemy and prevent reenforcement. This was to be followed by an
infantry attack. It was expected that the Germans would be surprised
to such an extent it would be impossible for them to make much
resistance. Units of the First Army were to make the main attack,
supported by the Second Army. The support included a division of
cavalry. Among the large force of heavy artillery for the opening
bombardment were a number of French guns manned by French
artillerymen.
CHAPTER XIV
BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE BEGINS
Three hundred and fifty guns at short range began a most terrific
bombardment March 10, 1915, at 7.30 a. m. It is said that the
discharges of the artillery was so frequent that it seemed as if some
gigantic machine gun was in action. Shortly after this bombardment
started, the German trenches were covered by a great cloud of smoke
and dust and a pall of green lyddite fumes. The first line of German
trenches, against which the fire was directed, became great shapeless
furrows and craters filled with the dead and dying.
This was the condition all along the line except on the extreme
northern end where the artillery fire was less effective, owing, it
was said, to a lack of proper preparation by the British staff. This
terrific artillery fire was continued for thirty-five minutes; and
then the range was changed from the first line of German trenches to
the village of Neuve Chapelle itself. Thereupon the British infantry
advanced and made prisoners of the few Germans left alive in the first
line. The men found unwounded were so dazed by the onslaught which the
guns had made upon their position that they offered no resistance. The
bombardment had swept away the wire entanglements; and the British had
only the greasy mud with which to contend, when they made their dash
forward.
Where the wire entanglements had been swept away, the Second
Lincolnshire and the Berkshire regiments were the first to reach the
German trenches. These regiments then turned to the right and left,
and thus permitted the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade to go
on toward the village.
In order to understand the infantry attack in detail it is necessary
to know the manner in which the British troops were distributed before
they made their dash at the ruined trenches of the Germans. Two
brigades of the Eighth Division, the Twenty-fifth to the right and the
Twenty-third to the left, were due west of Neuve Chapelle. On a front
a mile and a half long to the south of them was the Meerut Division,
supported by the Lahore Division. The Garhwal Brigade was on the left
and the Dehra Dun Brigade was on its right. In the first attack the
Twenty-third dashed to the northeast corner of the village, the
Twenty-fifth against the village itself; and the Garhwal Brigade
charged on the southwest corner.
The trenches opposite the Twenty-fifth were taken with practically no
fighting. The Germans who had manned them were either killed or too
dazed to offer resistance. As has already been told, the Second Royal
Berkshires and the Second Lincolns took the first line of trenches in
front of them, and opened the middle of their line to permit the
Second Rifle Brigade and the First Irish Rifles to dash on to the
village. The British artillery range was lengthened, thereby
preventing the German supports from interference with the well-defined
plan of the British. Into the wrecked streets of Neuve Chapelle swung
two battalions of the Twenty-fifth Brigade. The few of their enemy who
offered resistance were soon overpowered--being captured or slain.
These men of the Twenty-fifth Brigade found terrible scenes of
destruction. The village had been knocked literally into a rubbish
heap. Even the dead in the village churchyard had been plowed from
their graves by the terrific bombardment.
The Garhwal Brigade captured the first line of trenches on the right,
and the Third Gurkhas, on the southern outskirts of the village, met
the Rifle Brigade. Then it dashed on to the Bois du Biez, passing
another rubbish heap which once had been the hamlet known as Port
Arthur.
The attack on the left, however, resulted less successfully for the
British forces. As indicated above, the preparation for the
bombardment at this part of the line had been inadequate for the
purpose which the general in command had sought to achieve. Thus on
the northeast corner of Neuve Chapelle the German trenches and the
wire entanglements in front of them had been damaged but little. The
British forces on this part of the line included the Second Devons,
the Second West Yorks, the Second Scottish Rifles, and the Second
Middlesex, known as the Twenty-third Brigade. The Scottish Rifles
charged against intact wire entanglements which halted them in the
range of a murderous rifle and machine-gun fire. With daring bravery
the Scots sought to tear down the wire with their hands; but were
forced to fall back and lie in the fire-swept zone until one company
forced its way through an opening and destroyed the barrier. The
regiment, as a result of this mishap to the plans of the commanding
general, lost its commander, Colonel Bliss, and fourteen other
officers.
The Middlesex, on the right, met with the same obstruction and lost
many of its men and officers while waiting for the British artillery
to smash a way through for them. This the artillery did when word had
been carried back telling of the plight of the infantry.
The Twenty-fifth Brigade, to the south, had the good fortune to turn
the flank of the Germans north of Neuve Chapelle. Then the entire
Twenty-third Brigade forced its way to the orchard northeast of the
village, where it met the Twenty-fourth Brigade, which included the
First Worcesters, Second East Lancashires, First Sherwood Foresters,
and the Second Northamptons. The Twenty-fourth Brigade had fought its
way through from the Neuve Chapelle-Armentières road. As soon as this
had been accomplished by the British, their artillery proceeded to
send such a rain of shrapnel fire between the village and the Germans
that a counterattack was quite impossible. This gave the victors an
opportunity to intrench themselves practically at their leisure. The
plans of the British commander had embraced a forward movement when
the troops had reached this point, but they had not included a means
of keeping communication with the various units intact. The telegraph
and telephone wires had been cut by the shot and shell of both sides;
and there was no opportunity to repair them until it was too late to
take advantage of the demoralization of the Germans. Moreover, the
delay of the Twenty-third Brigade had so disarranged the plans of the
British that it is doubtful if they would not have failed in part even
if the means of communication had not been destroyed. Nevertheless,
Sir John French wrote: "I am of the opinion that this delay would not
have occurred had the clearly expressed orders of the general officer
commanding the First Army been more carefully observed."
There was also an additional delay in bringing up the reserves of the
Fourth Corps. Thus it was not until 3.30 p. m. that three brigades of
the Seventh Division, the Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second
Brigades were in their places on the left of the Twenty-fourth
Brigade. Then the left moved southward toward Aubers. At the same time
the Indian Corps, composed of the Garhwal Brigade and the Dehra Dun
Brigade, forced its way through the Bois du Biez toward the ridge.
Strong opposition was met with to such an extent, however, that the
Thirty-ninth Garhwals and the Second Leicesters suffered severe losses
on reaching a German position which had practically escaped the heavy
artillery fire. A German outpost at the bridge held the Dehra Dun
Brigade, which was supported by the Jullundur Brigade of the Lahore
Division, in its attack farther to the south on the line of the River
Des Layes. The First Brigade of the First Corps was rushed forward by
Sir Douglas Haig; but it was dark before these troops arrived. Another
fortified bridge, farther to the left, checked the Twenty-fifth
Brigade; and machine-gun fire stopped the Twenty-fourth Brigade, this
fire being from the German troops at the crossroads northwest of
Pietre village. The Seventh Division was held by the line of the Des
Layes, and the defense of the Pietre mill.
By evening the British had gone forward as far as their artillery fire
had been effective; and it was found necessary for them to stop to
strengthen the new line which they had established. They had won Neuve
Chapelle. They had advanced a mile. They had straightened their line,
but they could go no farther.
On the following day, March 11, 1915, the British artillery was
directed against the Bois du Biez and the trenches in the neighborhood
of Pietre. The Germans, however, had recovered from the surprise of
the great bombardment, and they made several counterattacks. Little
progress was made on that day by either side. On that night, March 11,
the Bavarian and Saxon reserves arrived from Tourcoing, and on the
morning of March 12 the counterattack extended along the British
front. Because of the heavy mist, and the lack of proper
communications, it was impossible for the British artillery to do much
damage. The defense of the bridges across the Des Layes kept the
British forces from the ridges and the capture of Aubers. The best
that the British seemed to be able to do was to prevent the German
counterattack from being successful.
An attempt to use the British cavalry was unsuccessful on March 12.
The Second Cavalry Division, in command of General Hubert Gough, with
a brigade of the North Midland Division, was ordered to support the
infantry offensive, it being believed that the cavalry might penetrate
the German lines. When the Fifth Cavalry Brigade, under command of Sir
Philip Chetwode, arrived in the Rue Bacquerot at 4 p. m., Sir Henry
Rawlinson reported the German positions intact, and the cavalry
retired to Estaires.
[Illustration: The Battle at Neuve Chapelle.]
The attack of the Seventh Division against the Pietre Fort continued
all the day of March 12, as did the attempt to take the Des Layes
bridges from the Germans, who were valiantly defending their second
line of trenches in the Bois du Biez. Probably the fiercest fighting
of that day fell to the lot of the Twentieth Brigade, composed of the
First Grenadiers, the Second Scots Guards, the Second Border Regiment,
and the Second Gordons, with the Sixth Gordons, a Territorial
battalion. This brigade fought valiantly around Pietre Mill. Position
after position was taken by them, but their efforts could not remain
effective without the aid of artillery, which was lacking. The Second
Rifle Brigade carried a section of the German trenches farther south
that afternoon, but an enfilading fire drove the British back to their
former position.
It was evident by the night of March 12 that the British could not
gain command of the ridge and that the Germans could not retake Neuve
Chapelle. Hence Sir John French ordered Sir Douglas Haig to hold and
consolidate the ground which had been taken by the Fourth and Indian
Corps, and suspend further offensive operations for the present. In
his report General French set forth that the three days' fighting had
cost the British 190 officers and 2,337 other ranks killed; 359
officers and 8,174 other ranks wounded, and 23 officers and 1,728
other ranks missing. He claimed German losses of over 12,000.
The British soldiers who had been engaged in the fighting about Neuve
Chapelle spent all of March 13, 1915, in digging trenches in the wet
meadows that border the Des Layes. On the following day the two corps
that had fought so valiantly were sent back to the reserve.
The German commanders, in the meantime, had been preparing for a
vigorous counterattack. They planned to make their greatest effort
fifteen miles north of Neuve Chapelle, at the village of St. Eloi, and
trained a large section of their artillery against a part of the
British front, which was held by the Twenty-seventh Division. The
preparation of the Germans was well concealed on March 14 by the heavy
mist that covered the low country. The bombardment started at 5 p. m.,
the beginning of which was immediately followed by the explosion of
two mines which were under a hillock that was a part of the British
front at the southeast of St. Eloi. The artillery attack was followed
by such an avalanche of German infantry that the British were driven
from their trenches. This German success was followed up by the
enfilading of the British lines to the right and left, with the result
that that entire section of the British front was forced back.
That night a counterattack was prepared. It was made at 2 a. m., on
March 15, by the Eighty-second Brigade, which had the Eightieth
Brigade as its support. The Eighty-second Brigade drove the Germans
from the village and the trenches on the east. The Eightieth Brigade
finished the task of regaining all of the ground that had been lost
except the crater caused by the explosion of the mines. Among the
regiments that made a most enviable record for themselves in this
action were Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the Fourth
Rifle Brigade, the First Leinsters, the Second Cornwalls, and the
Second Royal Irish Fusiliers. The "Princess Pat's," as the Canadian
troops were known in the home land, were the first colonial soldiers
to take part in a battle of such magnitude in this war. Their valor
and their ability as fighting men were causes of great pride to the
British.
Before leaving the Neuve Chapelle engagement and what immediately
followed it, it is well to give a brief survey of the actions along
the line that supported it. To prevent the Germans from taking troops
from various points and massing them against the main British attack,
the British soldiers all along that part of the front found plenty of
work to do in their immediate vicinity. Thus, on March 10, 1915, the
First Corps attacked the Germans from Givenchy, but there had been but
little artillery fire on the part of the British there, and the wire
entanglements stopped them from more than keeping the German troops in
the position which they had held. The Second Corps, on March 12, was
to have advanced at 10 a. m. southwest of Wytschaete. The fog that
prevailed on that day, however, prevented a movement until 4 p. m.
Then the First Wiltshires and the Third Worcesters of the Seventh
Brigade began a movement which had to be abandoned when the weather
thickened and night fell.
The attack on L'Épinette, a hamlet southeast of Armentières, was much
more successful on the same day. The Seventeenth Brigade of the Fourth
Division of the Third Corps advanced at noon, with the Eighteenth
Brigade as its support. It advanced 300 yards on a front a half mile
in length, carrying the village, which it retained in spite of all the
counterattacks.
The work of the artillery was not confined to the main attack, for it
was very effective in shelling the Quesnoy railway station east of
Armentières, where German reenforcements were boarding a train for the
front. The British artillery fire was effective as far as Aubers,
where it demolished a tall church spire.
The work of the aviators, from March 10 to 12 inclusive, deserves
special mention. Owing to the adverse weather conditions, it was
necessary for them to fly as low as from 100 to 150 feet above the
object of their attack in order to be sure of their aim. Nevertheless
they destroyed one of the piers of the bridge over the Lys at Menin.
This bridge carried the railroad over the river. They also wrecked the
railway stations at Douai, Don, and Courtrai. The daring of the
British aviators even took them over Lille, where they dropped bombs
on one of the German headquarters.
To summarize the fighting about Neuve Chapelle, it may be said that
the British had advanced something more than a mile on a three-mile
front, replacing the sag which had existed in their line by a sag in
that of the Germans. The British had not won the ridges which were the
key to Lille, but they had advanced their trenches close to those
ridges. The entire moral effect was a gain for the British; but even
that and the gain in advancing the front had been obtained at a too
great sacrifice of the life of their men. The words of the Germans in
characterizing the tremendous bombardment of the British were: "That
is not war; it is murder."
The belief in the supposed superiority of the German artillery was so
shaken in the minds of the General Staff as a result of the fighting
on the Neuve Chapelle front that they shortly after issued an order to
try a series of experiments on animals with asphyxiating gases.
CHAPTER XV
OPERATIONS FOLLOWING NEUVE CHAPELLE
There was very little activity on the western front after the fighting
at Neuve Chapelle and St. Eloi until the beginning of a renewal of the
campaign between La Bassée and the sea. The importance of success in
this region was appreciated by both sides. The Germans north of the
Lys planned to cross the Comines-Ypres, Yperlee, and Yser Canals,
capture Ypres, take all of the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats, and then
continue west and take Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne. The Allies in
their plan included an advance south of the Lys on two sides of Lille,
the taking of the Aubers Ridge, and the turning from the north the
German salient at La Bassée. This much of the Allies' plan was to be
executed by the British. The work of the French was to drive the
Germans from the vicinity of Lens and threaten La Bassée from the
south and west. The reasons for making these plans are obvious. The
German salient was a source of much danger to the joining of the
British and French armies, and the possibility of the Germans forcing
their way through to Boulogne meant a possibility of a cutting off of
the entire British army and the French and Belgian forces between
Ypres and the sea near Nieuport. However, if La Bassée was isolated
and the Aubers Ridge taken by the British, the chances that the
Germans could retain Lille were materially lessened; and if the
British got Lille they might start to drive their enemy from Belgium.
During the lull in the fighting on land, to which reference has been
made, there was much activity in the air. Reconnaissances and raids
were of almost daily occurrence. A Zeppelin dropped twenty bombs on
Calais, slaying seven workmen at the railroad station on March 18,
1915. Three days later another, or possibly the same Zeppelin, flew
over the town, but this time it was driven away before it could do any
harm. "Taubes" bombarded the railroad junction of St. Omer and made a
similar attack on Estaires on March 23. Four days after another attack
was made on Estaires, and on the same day, March 27, the German airmen
did some damage to Sailly, Calais, and Dunkirk. The next day a "Taube"
made an attack on Calais, Estaires, and Hazebrouck. A Zeppelin closed
the month's warfare in the air for the Germans by making a dash over
Bailleul.
Aviators of the Allies, too, were busy. One of their aerial squadrons
proceeded along the coast on March 16 and attacked the military posts
at Ostend and Knocke. These aviators had as one of their main
objective points the German coast batteries at the latter place. But
the squadron was seen from a German observation balloon at Zeebrugge,
and a flock of "Taubes" made a dash for their enemy's craft. The
Germans were not as skillful airmen, however, and they found it
necessary to retire. Five British aviators made an attack on the
German submarine base at Hoboken, southwest of Antwerp, and destroyed
a submarine and wrecked two others. This raid was made without injury
to the aviators, the only accident being the necessity of one of the
aircraft to descend, which it did, only to find it had landed on Dutch
territory and must be interned. The excellence of the Allies' flying
was not confined to the English. Belgian and French airmen, as well as
British, flew almost constantly over Ostend, Zeebrugge, Roulers,
Aubers, and such other places as German soldiers and their supplies
were in evidence. The Belgian airmen dropped bombs on the aviation
field at Ghistelles on March 27, and on the following day a Zeppelin
hangar was destroyed at Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, near Brussels. On March
30, 1915, ten British and some French aviators flew along the coast
from Nieuport to Zeebrugge and dropped bombs on magazines and
submarine bases. The last day of the month saw the destruction of the
German captive balloon at Zeebrugge and the death of its two
observers. The Belgian aviators on the same day threw bombs on the
aviation field at Handzaeme and the railroad junction at Cortemarck,
and, south of Dixmude, the famous birdman, Garros, fought a successful
duel in the air with a German aviator.
An aviator of the Allies flew over the aerodrome at Lille on April 1,
1915, and dropped a football. The Germans hastened to cover. When the
ball bounced prodigiously as a result of being dropped from such a
height, the Teutons thought it was some new kind of death dealer, and
remained in their places of safety. In fact, they remained there quite
a few minutes after the football had ceased to bounce. When they
finally emerged most cautiously and approached the object of their
terror, they read this inscription on it: "April Fool--Gott strafe
England."
Though the antiaircraft guns, or "Archibalds," as the soldiers called
them, were not especially effective except in keeping the flyers at
such a height that it was not easy for them to make effective
observations, a "Taube" was brought down at Pervyse, and near Ypres
another was damaged on April 8. But on April 12 a German flyer
inflicted some loss on the Allies' lines and escaped without being
even hit. On the following day, presumably emboldened by that success,
German aeroplanes threw flares and smoke balls over the British
trenches east of Ypres, with the result that the soldiers of King
George were subjected to a severe bombardment. All things considered,
however, the Allies had ground for their belief that they more than
held their own in the air.
Afloat the Allies continued to maintain the supremacy which had been
theirs. The French and British battleships held the left of the
Allies' line. Their great guns proved their effectiveness on the
Germans who were advancing from Ostend on Nieuport. They repeatedly
bombarded the position of the kaiser's men at Westende, east of
Nieuport. The Germans had trained one of their mammoth pieces of
artillery against that town presumably because it held the sluices and
locks which regulated the overflowing of the Yser territory. If the
means of flooding the land could not be seized, the next best thing
to do was to wreck them.
The Belgians, in the meantime, assumed the offensive, their left being
protected by the Allied fleet and the French forces in the
neighborhood of Nieuport. These troops captured one of the smaller
forts east of Lombartzyde on March 11, 1915. There was also fighting
at Schoorbakke, north of the Yser loop, where the German trenches were
shelled by French artillery. This was on the eastern border of the
inundated section. After destroying the German front in the graveyard
at Dixmude, the French artillerists battered a German convoy on its
way between Dixmude and Essen on March 17, 1915. By March 23 the east
bank of the Yser held a Belgian division. In fact, from Dixmude to the
sea the Allied troops were advancing.
The Germans, however, advanced south of Dixmude. On April 1, 1915,
they shelled the farms and villages west of the Yser and the Yperlee
Canals, and took the Driegrachten farm. Thereupon the Germans crossed
the canal with three machine guns. Their plan was to proceed along the
border of the inundated district to Furnes. But the French balked the
plan by shelling the farm, and the Belgians finished the work by
driving the Germans back to Mercken on April 6, 1915.
In the meantime, from March 15 to April 17, 1915, the bombardment of
Ypres was continued, destroying most of the remaining buildings there.
Engagements of importance had not as yet started on the British front.
The British had a supply of shrapnel, and the British and French
cannon, as well as the rifle-and machine-gun fire, held the Germans in
check until they had time to perfect their plans for a vigorous
offensive. Nevertheless the British needed a much larger supply of
ammunition before they could start on a determined campaign, which was
so much desired by the troops. One of the German headquarters,
however, was shelled effectively by the British on April 1, 1915, and
on the following day mortars in the trenches did considerable damage
in the Wood of Ploegsteert. A mine blew up a hundred yards of the
trenches that were opposite Quinchy, a village to the south of
Givenchy, on April 3, 1915. To offset this the Germans bombarded the
British line at that point. They also shelled Fleurbaix, which is
three miles southwest of Armentières, on April 5, 1915. The British on
the same day wrecked a new trench mortar south of there. On April 6,
1915, the German artillery began to be more active both north and
south of the Lys, and the British retaliated by shelling the railway
triangle that was near Quinchy. German soldiers were slain and others
wounded when a mine was exploded at Le Touquet, on the north bank of
the Lys. One of the kaiser's ammunition depots was blown up near
Quinchy on April 9, 1915, and his men were driven from their trenches
in front of Givenchy by mortar fire.
The comparative quiet along the front was broken by the fight for the
possession of Hill 60, which became famous because of the rival claims
as to victory. The mound, for it was little more, getting its name on
account of its height--sixty meters--was of importance only because it
screened the German artillery which was shelling Ypres from the bridge
to the west of Zandvoord. British trenches had been driven close to
this hill by the Bedfords, whose sappers tunneled under the mound and
there prepared three mines. At the same time the Germans were
tunneling to plant mines under the Bedfords' trench. In this
underground race the Bedfords won on the night of April 17, 1915, when
they blew three big craters in the hill, killing almost to a man all
of the 150 Germans who were on the little rise of ground. The Bedfords
then dashed forward to the three craters they had opened up and took a
quarter of a mile of the German trenches.
The Germans were apparently unprepared for the attack which followed
the explosion of the British mines, with the result that the British
had to overcome little resistance, and had ample opportunity to
prepare a defense from the bombardment that followed. The next
morning, April 18, 1915, the German infantry in close formation
advanced on the hill. This infantry was composed of Saxons, who
continued on for a bayonet charge in spite of the downpour of lead
that the British rained upon them. But the Bedfords had been
reenforced by the West Kents and about thirty motor machine guns. The
machine guns raked the charging Saxons in front, and shrapnel tore
their flank. Only their dead and dying remained on the hill; but the
German commanders continued to send their men against the British
there, who were subjected to a murderous cross-fire, the hill forming
a salient. As a result of their persistence the German troops managed
to get a foothold on the southern part of the hill by 6 p. m. In the
meantime a battalion of Highlanders and the Duke of Wellington's
regiment had been sent to reenforce the Bedfords and the West Kents.
The Highlanders made a desperate charge, using bayonets and hand
grenades on the Germans who had gained the southern edge of the hill.
The Germans were driven back.
The Duke of Württemberg, the German commander, presumably believing
his troops had not only held what they had taken, but had advanced,
announced that another German victory had been gained in the capture
of Hill 60. Sir John French also sent out a message, but in his report
he set forth that Hill 60 was held by the British. Because there had
been similar conflict in official reports all too frequently, it
seemed as if a tacit agreement was made among the neutrals to
determine who was telling the truth. This resulted in making what was
a comparatively unimportant engagement one of the most celebrated
battles of the war. As soon as Duke Albrecht of Württemberg discovered
his mistake he did what he could to make good his statement by
attempting to take Hill 60 without regard to sacrificing his men. Sir
John French was just as determined to hold the hill. So he moved large
numbers of troops toward the shattered mound, the British artillery
was reenforced, and the hastily constructed sandbag breastworks were
improved with all possible speed.
The Germans then attacked with gas bombs. Projectiles filled with gas
were hurled upon the British from three sides. The East Surrey
Regiment, which defended the hill in the latter part of the battle for
it, suffered severely. Faces and arms became shiny and gray-black.
Membranes in the throats thickened, and lungs seemed to be eaten by
the chlorine poison. Yet the men fought on until exhausted, and then
fell to suffer through a death struggle which continued from
twenty-four hours to three days of suffocating agony.
The German artillery kept up its almost incessant pounding of the
British. In short lulls of the big gun's work the German infantry
hurled itself against the trenches on the hill, using hand grenades
and bombs. The fight continued until the morning of May 5, 1915, when
the wind blew at about four miles an hour from the German trenches.
Then a greenish-yellow fog of poisonous gas was released, and soon
encompassed the hill. The East Surreys, who were holding the hill,
were driven back by the gas, but as soon as the gas passed they
charged the Germans who had followed the gas and had taken possession
of the hill. Notwithstanding the machine-gun fire which the Germans
poured upon them, many of the trenches were retaken by the Surrey
soldiers in their first frenzied rush to regain what they had lost
because of the gas. The battle ended when there was no hill left. The
bombardment and the mines had leveled the mound by distributing it
over the surrounding territory. The British, however, were accorded
the victory, as they had trenches near where the hill was and made
them a part of the base of the salient about Ypres.
That town has been likened to the hub of a wheel whose spokes are the
roads which lead eastward. It is true that one important road went
over the canal at Steenstraate, but practically all of the highways of
consequence went through Ypres. Thus the spokes of the wheel, whose
rim was the outline of the salient, were the roads to Menin,
Gheluvelt, Zonnebeke, Poelcapelle, Langemarck, and Pilkem. And the
railroad to Roulers was also a spoke. Hence all of the supplies for
the troops on the salient must pass through Ypres, which made it most
desirable for the Germans to take the town. It will be remembered that
they had won a place for their artillery early in November, 1914,
which gave them an opportunity to bombard Ypres through the winter. On
February 1, 1915, a portion of the French troops which had held the
salient were withdrawn and their places taken by General Bulfin's
Twenty-eighth Division. Thus, by April 20, 1915, that part of the
Allies' front was held as follows: From the canal to east of
Langemarck was the Forty-fifth Division of the French army, consisting
of colonial infantry. On the French right, to the northeast of
Zonnebeke, was the Canadian division, under the command of General
Alderson, consisting of the Third Brigade, under General Turner, on
the left, and the Second Brigade, under General Currie, on the right.
The Twenty-eighth Division extended from the Canadian right to the
southeast corner of the Polygon Wood. This division comprised the
Eighty-third, Eighty-fourth, and Eighty-fifth Brigades in order from
right to left. The next section of the salient was held by Princess
Patricia's Regiment of the Twenty-seventh Division, which division,
under the command of General Snow, guarded the front to the east of
Veldhoek along the ridge to within a short distance of Hill 60, where
the Fifth Division, under the command of General Morland, held the
line. The greater part of the German troops opposite the salient were
from Württemberg and Saxony.
CHAPTER XVI
BEGINNING OF SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES
What is called the second battle of Ypres began with a bombardment of
the little city on April 20, 1915. The rain of shells continued on
through April 22, 1915, on the evening of which the British artillery
observers reported a strange green vapor moving over the French
trenches. The wind was blowing steadily from the northeast. Soon the
French troops were staggering back from the front, blinded and choking
from the deadly German gas. Many of their comrades had been unable to
leave the spot where they were overtaken by the fumes. Those who fled
in terror rushed madly across the canal, choking the road to
Vlamertinghe. A part of the Zouaves and Turcos ran south toward the
Langemarck road, finally reaching the reserve battalions of the
Canadians. Ere long the Canadians caught the deadly odor also.
But the work of the gas did a much more valuable thing for the German
troops than causing the agonizing death of many hundreds and sending
thousands in headlong flight. It made a four-mile-wide opening in the
front of the Allies. And the Germans were quick to take advantage of
that opening. They followed the gas, and were aided in their advance
by artillery fire. The French were forced back on the canal from
Steenstraate to Boesinghe. The Canadians had not suffered so much from
the gas as the French soldiers, but their flank was too exposed for
them to do much effective work against the onrushing Teutons. The
attempt to rally the Turcos failed. The Third Brigade could not
withstand the attack of four divisions, and was forced inward from a
point south of Poelcappelle until its left rested on the wood east of
St. Julien. There was a gap beyond it, and the Germans were forcing
their way around its flank. Because the entire First Brigade of
Canadians had been held in reserve it could not be brought up in time
to save the situation. Two of the battalions, the Sixteenth and Tenth,
were in the gap by midnight. They charged and recovered the northern
edge, and the guns of the Second London Division, which had been
supporting the French in the wood east of St. Julien. But the British
could not hold all they retook, and were forced to abandon the guns
because the artillery horses were miles away. So parts of the guns
were made useless before the Germans had them again.
Then another counterattack was made by the First and Fourth Ontarios
of General Mercer's First Brigade. The Fourth Ontario captured the
German shelter trenches and held them for two days, when they were
relieved. The Third Canadian Brigade held its position in spite of
being opposed by many times their numbers and almost overcome by the
gas fumes. The Forty-eighth Highlanders, who had had to withstand the
gas, rallied after their retreat and regained their former place in
the front. The Royal Highlanders kept their original position. Yet
there was every indication of a rout. The roads were clogged by the
night supply trains going forward and the rush of men trying to escape
from the deadly gas. The staff officers found it impossible to
straighten out the tangle, and the various regiments had to act almost
as independent bodies. It was not until early the following morning,
April 23, 1915, that the first reenforcements of British soldiers
appeared to fill the breach. These men, for the most part, were from
the Twenty-eighth Division, and had been east of Zonnebeke to the
southeast corner of Polygon Wood. So great was the pressure at the
section where the break had been made in the line that troops were
taken from wherever available, so that the units in the gap varied
from day to day. For the men had to be returned to their original
positions, such as remained available, as soon as possible. This
composite body of troops has been called Geddes's Detachment.
The Germans had captured Lizerne and Het Sase, and Steenstraate was
threatened by them. They bombarded with heavy artillery, located on
the Passchendaele ridge, the front held by the Canadians, the
Twenty-eighth Division, and Geddes's Detachment, on April 23, 1915.
The severest fighting was on that part of the front held by the Third
Brigade of Canadians. Many men had been killed or wounded in this
brigade, and those who survived were ill from the effects of the gas.
Furthermore, no food could be taken to them for twenty-four hours.
Moreover, they were subjected to a fire from three sides, with the
result that they were forced to a new position on a line running
through St. Julien. Finally the Germans forced their way around to the
left of the Third Brigade, establishing their machine guns behind it.
A terrific artillery attack was started by the Germans on the morning
of April 24, 1915, and this was followed by a second rush of gas from
their trenches. It rose in a cloud seven feet high and was making its
attack on the British in two minutes after it started. It was thickest
near the ground, being pumped from cylinders. And it worked with the
same deadly effect. The Third Brigade, receiving its second attack of
this sort before it had recovered from the first, retreated to the
southwest of St. Julien, but soon after regained most of their lost
position. The Second Brigade had to bend its left south. Colonel
Lipsett's Eighth Battalion, however, held fast on the Grafenstafel
ridge, remaining in their position two days in spite of the gas of
which they got a plentiful supply.
By noon of April 24, 1915, the Germans made an attack on the village
of St. Julien and that part of the allied front to the east of the
village. Thereupon the Third Brigade retreated about 700 yards to a
new front south of the village and north of the hamlet of Fortuin. But
what remained of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Battalions was forced
by circumstances to remain in the St. Julien line until late that
night. Colonel Lipsett's Eighth Battalion at Grafenstafel, in spite of
its left being unsupported, held its position which was of great
importance to the British front. For, had that part of the front been
lost, the Germans in an hour could have worked their way back of the
Twenty-eighth Division and the entire eastern sector.
In the meantime the French on the western section of the front made a
counterattack from the canal with partial success; but were unable to
drive the German troops from the sector entirely. The Teutons took
Steenstraate; but their victory there was marred by the fact that the
Belgian artillery smashed the bridge behind them. By this time the
British reenforcements began to arrive in fairly large numbers. The
Thirteenth Brigade of the Fifth Division was placed to the west of
Geddes's Detachment, between the Pilkem road and the canal.
Territorials who had arrived from England only three days before, the
Durham and York Brigades of the Northumbrian Division, supported the
Thirteenth Brigade. The Tenth Brigade of the Fourth Division were
rushed to support the Third Brigade of Canadians who were south of St.
Julien. Other British troops were sent to relieve the tense situation
at Grafenstafel.
An attempt to retake St. Julien was made early on Sunday morning,
April 25, 1915, by General Hull's Tenth Brigade and two battalions of
the Durham and York Brigade. The British worked their way to the few
Canadians who had continued on the former front when the main British
force had been driven back. There they were checked by the German
machine gun fire. The British lost many men here and the efforts to
save the day resulted in such a mixture of fighting units that there
were fifteen battalions under General Hull, as well as the Canadian
artillery.
At Grafenstafel the Eighth Battalion of the Durham Brigade were
bombarded with asphyxiating shells before the German infantry attack.
The fighting on this section of the front was fierce throughout the
afternoon, but finally the British were forced to retire. At
Broodseinde, the extreme eastern point of the allied front, the
Germans made a desperate attempt to take the salient, using
asphyxiating and other bombs again and again on the men of the
Twenty-eighth Division of the British. King George's men, however,
repelled the attacks with severe loss to the Teutons, taking many
prisoners.
The French on the left, beyond the Yperlee Canal, prevented the
advance of the German troops; and, farther to the left, the Belgians
checked three attacks in which asphyxiating gas was used, south of
Dixmude. Thus it may be seen that the Germans had met with no success
worth while, when Sunday, April 25, 1915, closed, so far as the ends
of the salient were concerned; but in the center the British situation
was so critical that the Second Canadian Brigade, reduced to less than
1,000 men, was once more called into action on the following day. On
the same day, April 26, 1915, the Lahore Division of the Indian army
was marched north of Ypres. The point of the salient was pushed in on
that day at Broodseinde, but the German success there was short-lived.
The brigade holding Grafenstafel was attacked fiercely by the Germans.
The Durham Light Infantry was forced from Fortuin behind the Haanabeek
River. The Teutons made several attacks from the St. Julien district
against the section between the Yperlee Canal and the southern part of
the village. By this time Geddes's Detachment was almost exhausted,
they, with the Canadians, having withstood the heaviest fighting at
the beginning of the battle; and most likely saved the Allies a most
disastrous defeat. The detachment could stand no more, and the various
units of which it was composed were returned to their respective
commands.
But the salient was growing smaller as a result of the repeated
hammering of the Germans; and that exposed the allied troops to a more
deadly fire from three sides. It was evident that the Allies must make
a counterattack. General Riddell's Brigade was sent to Fortuin and
with the Lahore Division on its left was told to retake St. Julien and
the woods to the west of the village. Beyond the Yperlee Canal, on the
left, the French made an assault on Lizerne, supported by the Belgian
artillery; while the French colonial soldiers poured on Pilkem from
the sector about Boesinghe. On the right the allied troops were lined
up as follows: the Connaught Rangers, Fifty-seventh Wilde's Rifles,
the Ferozepore Brigade, the 129th Baluchis, the Jullundur Brigade, and
General Riddell's battalions. The Sirhind Brigade was held in reserve.
The German artillerymen apparently knew the distances and topography
of the entire region and poured a leaden hail upon the allied troops.
The Indians and the British in their immediate neighborhood charged in
short rushes, losing many men in the attempt to reach the German
trenches. Before the Germans were in any danger of a hand-to-hand
struggle, they sent one of their gas clouds from their trenches and
the attack was abandoned, the British and Indians getting back to
their trenches as best they could. In this action the British gave
great praise to their comrades from India. Riddell's Brigade was
stopped in its attack on St. Julien by wire entanglements; and, though
the outlaying sections of St. Julien were captured, the brigade was
unable to hold them; and the Germans continued to hold the woods west
of the village. Nevertheless the British front had been pushed forward
from 600 to 700 yards in some places.
By that night, the night of April 26, 1915, the allied front extended
from the north of Zonnebeke to the eastern boundary of the
Grafenstafel ridge; thence southwest along the southern side of the
Haanabeek to a point a half mile east of St. Julien; thence, bending
around that village, it ran to Vamhuele--called the "shell trap"--farm
on the Ypres-Poelcappelle road. Next it proceeded to Boesinghe and
crossed the Yperlee Canal, passing northward of Lizerne after which
were the French and the Belgians.
The work of the allied aviators on April 26, 1915, deserves more than
passing consideration in the record of that day's fighting. They
dropped bombs on the stations of Courtrai, Roubaix, Thielt, and
Staden. They discovered near Langemarck an armored train with the
result that it was shelled and thus forced to return. And they forced
a German aviator to the ground at Roulers.
The Lahore Division with the French on their left attacked the Germans
on April 27, 1915, but they met with little success because of the gas
which the Teutons sent into the ranks of the attacking party. But the
German troops had lost so heavily that they did not seem to be
inclined to follow up their apparent advantage. Incidentally the
Allies needed a rest as well. Hence there was little fighting the next
two days. On April 30, 1915, however, General Putz attacked the
Germans with so much force that they were hurled back an appreciable
distance near Pilkem. Seven machine guns and 200 prisoners were taken,
and the 214th, 215th, and 216th German regiments lost more than 1,000
men. On the same day the London Rifle Brigade, further east, drove
back a German forward movement from St. Julien.
West of the Yperlee Canal, however, it soon became known to the
commanders of the allied forces that the Germans were in such a strong
position that it would be impossible to dislodge their enemy until
much greater preparations had been made. In the meantime the
communications of the Allies were in danger. Hence Sir John French on
May 1, 1915, ordered Sir Herbert Plumer to retreat. The wisdom of this
order, the execution of which contracted the southern portion of the
salient, was seen when the Germans again attempted to force their way
through the allied front by the use of gas. The attempt this time was
made between Zonnebeke, on the Ypres-Roulers railroad, and Boesinghe
on the Yperlee Canal on Sunday, May 2, 1915. Though the British had
been supplied with respirators of a sort, these means of defense were
not as effective as they should have been nor as adequate as what was
provided later. The Germans, however, suffered large losses in this
attack because, as soon as the wall of gas began to approach the
British trenches, the men there fired into it, well knowing from past
experience that the Germans were following the gas. In this manner
many of the Teutons were slain. The Allies adopted other tactics which
were quite as effective. On seeing the gas approaching, the soldiers
in some parts of the line proceeded to execute a flank movement,
thereby getting away from the gas and subjecting the Germans to a
deadly fire from a direction least expected.
Between Fortuin and Zonnebeke and south of St. Julien the allied line
broke, but the supports with two cavalry regiments were rushed from
Potijze, a mile and a half from Ypres on the Zonnebeke Road, and
regained the lost ground. By night the Germans decided to discontinue
their attempt to advance and left their dead and wounded on the field.
CHAPTER XVII
THE STRUGGLE RENEWED
The Germans had only stopped the struggle for a breathing spell. On
the following morning, Monday, May 3, they made an attempt to force
the allied position back again. This attempt was made on the British
left, west of the Bois des Cuisenirs, between Pilkem and St. Julien.
The Germans cut their wire entanglements and, leaving their trenches
and lying down in front of those protecting places, they were ready to
advance; but, before they could start forward, the artillery of their
enemy did such effective work that the Teutons returned to their
trenches, and gave up an attack at that point. But they made an
assault against the northern side of the salient which had by this
time become very narrow. A German bomb wrecked a section of the
British trenches, and the defenders of that part of the line had to go
back of a wood that was a little to the northwest of Grafenstafel,
where they were able to stop the German onrush.
The Belgians were bombarded with asphyxiating gas bombs beyond the
French lines south of Dixmude. The Germans charged the Belgian
trenches only to be cut down by machine-gun fire. That night, the
night of May 3, 1915, an attack was made on the British front; but it
was stopped by the artillery.
Sir Herbert Plumer in the meantime had been executing the order he had
received from Sir John French, and shortened his lines so they were
three miles less in length than before starting the movement. The new
line extended from the French position west of the Ypres-Langemarck
Road and proceeded through "shell-trap" farm to the Haanebeek and the
eastern part of the Frezenberg ridge where it turned south, covering
Bellewaarde Lake and Hooge and bent around Hill 60. This resulted in
leaving to the Germans the Veldhoek, Bosche, and Polygon Woods, and
Fortuin and Zonnebeke. This new front protected all of the roads to
Ypres, and, at the same time, it was not necessary to employ as many
soldiers to hold this line. Moreover the defenders of it could not be
fired upon from three sides as long as they held it. In some places
the British and German trenches had been no more than ten yards apart,
but the difficulty of evacuating the British position was completed in
safety on the night of May 3, 1915. The work included the taking with
them 780 wounded. Sharpshooters were left in the trenches, however,
and they maintained such an appearance of activity and alertness that
the Germans kept on shelling the trenches all of the following day.
The attempt of General Putz to force the Germans back across the
Yperlee Canal on May 4, 1915, was stopped by a combination of machine
guns, asphyxiating gas and fog. Then the French spent the next ten
days in tunneling to Steenstraate. Their tunnels toward their
objective point were through that territory between Boesinghe and
Lizerne. On May 5, 1915 the Germans made a careful advance on the
British front under the cover of fog and a heavy bombardment, to find
only that the British position had been changed. But they intrenched
opposite the new alignment, and brought up their big guns. Then they
used poisonous gas again with the result that the British retreated
and the Teutons followed, in spite of the many men who fell because of
the accurate work of the British artillery. The greater part of this
action took place around Hill 60, and some of the British trenches to
the north of the hill were captured by the Germans. They then
penetrated toward Zillebeke to the supporting line. Up to midnight the
Germans seemed to be victorious; then, however, the British drove them
from the hill only to be driven away in turn by the use of
asphyxiating gas. On the following day the Teutons held Hill 60 and
some of the trenches north of it.
Asphyxiating gas also had been used in an attempt to break the British
front on the left, on both the north and south sides of the
Ypres-Roulers railroad. Though this attack failed, the Teutons were
ready to make as near superhuman efforts as possible because they knew
that the French were getting ready for a decisive action in the Arras
territory, which would have the aid of a British attack south of the
Lys. Hence it was to the advantage of the Germans to force Sir John
French and General Foch to retain most of the British and French
soldiers north of the Lys. On May 8, 1915, they turned their artillery
on that part of the British front that was near Frezenberg. It
destroyed the trenches and killed or wounded hundreds of the
defenders. After three hours of this, the Germans commenced an attack
on that part of the British front between the Ypres-Menin and the
Ypres-Poelcappelle highways, the greatest pressure being brought to
bear along both sides of the Ypres-Roulers railroad.
The British fought bravely, but it was impossible for them to hold out
against the avalanche of lead. First the right of a brigade went to
pieces and then its center and the left of another brigade south of it
were forced back. Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry held
fast. The Second Essex Regiment also made some little success for
their side by annihilating a small detachment of Germans; but that was
more than offset by the breaking of the center of another brigade,
after which the First Suffolks were surrounded and put out of the
fight. Finally the Germans pushed their way on to Frezenberg. Sir
Herbert Plumer realized by the middle of the afternoon that a
counterattack was necessary. He had held two battalions in reserve
along the Ypres-Menin Road. He also had five battalions with him and
reenforcements in the form of a brigade of infantry had arrived at
Vlamertinghe Château, back of Ypres. He sent the First Royal
Warwickshires, the Second Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Second Surreys,
the Third Middlesex, and the First York and Lancaster Regiments into
the break in the line with the result that Frezenberg was retaken.
This victory was short-lived, however; for the German machine-gun fire
was too fierce for the men to withstand. The British retired to a new
front which ran north and south through Verlorenhoek. The Twelfth
London Regiment, on the left, though it lost many men, managed to get
to the original line of trenches. Next the British were menaced from
the north and east. Great bodies of Teutons rushed from the woods
south of the Menin highway, when others rushed down the Poelcappelle
Road and took Wieltje, which is only about two miles from Ypres.
The fighting continued all night, but shortly after midnight the
British charged with the bayonet and retook Wieltje as well as most of
that section to the north of it which they had lost. Early on May 9,
1915, the fighting was continued, and, in the afternoon, the Germans
charged from the woods in a vain attempt to take Ypres after a severe
bombardment of the British trenches. An attacking party of five
hundred was slain north of the town. On the eastern side of the
salient there were five distinct attacks. An attempt to capture the
Château Hooge was made early in the evening, only to result in heaping
the ground with German dead. The day closed with 150 yards of British
trenches in the hands of the Germans; but they had been taken at a
fearful cost to the kaiser's men.
The Germans began the next day, May 10, 1915, by shelling the British
north and south of the Ypres-Menin road. They followed the cannonade
with a cloud of asphyxiating gas. They then started for the opposing
trenches. Many of them, the British allege, wore British uniforms. The
British had by now been equipped with proper respirators and could
withstand a gas attack with comparative ease. When the Germans were in
close range they received a rifle and machine-gun fire that mowed them
down almost instantly. Those who had not been shot fell to the ground
to escape the leaden hail. But escape was not for them. Shrapnel was
poured upon them, and nearly all of the attacking troops perished.
Another gas attack was made between the Ypres-Menin road and the
Ypres-Comines canal. There two batteries of gas cylinders sent forth
their deadly fumes for more than a half hour. The cloud that resulted
became so dense that it was impossible for the British in the opposite
trenches to see anything; so they were withdrawn temporarily; but the
troops to the left and right kept the Germans from following up this
advantage and the trenches were saved to the British. When the gas had
passed away the men returned to their former position. North of the
Menin road, however, the Germans were successful in driving the Fourth
Rifle Brigade and the Third King's Royal Rifles to a new position, the
trenches which the British occupied having been battered by shell fire
to such an extent that some of the occupants were buried alive. Hence
the British here retreated to a new line of trenches west of the
Bellewaarde Wood where the trees had been shelled until they were part
of a hopeless entanglement rather than a forest.
The next day, May 11, 1915, was started by the Germans hurling
hundreds of incendiary shells into the already ruined town of Ypres.
They also fired almost countless high-explosive shells into the
British trenches. The British big guns replied with considerable
effect. One of the German cannon was rendered useless by the fire of
the Thirty-first Heavy Battery, and several howitzers were damaged by
the North Midland Heavy Battery. The German cannonade was especially
effective near the Ypres-St. Julien road. The Teutons, however, did
not confine their work to the artillery, for they made three assaults
on the British trenches south of the Menin road. This part of the line
was held by Scottish regiments, who, though they were forced out of
their trenches, regained them with the aid of other Scots who were
supporting them.
By now it was apparent to the British commanding officers that they
must still further lessen the projection of their salient. So on May
12, 1915, the Twenty-eighth Division was sent to the reserve. It had
experienced continuous fighting since April 22, 1915, and had
suffered severe losses. It had only one lieutenant colonel. Captains
were in command of most of its battalions. The First and Third Cavalry
Divisions took its place. They were under the command of General De
Lisle. From left to right the new line was held as follows: The men of
the Twelfth Brigade, the Eleventh Brigade, and a battalion of the
Tenth Brigade of the Fourth Division guarded the new front to a point
northeast of Verlorenhoek. Next came the First Cavalry which held the
line to the Roulers railroad. From the railroad to Bellewaarde Lake
the Third Division held the line. From the lake to Hill 60 the
Twenty-seventh Division had its position. The British admitted that
this new position was not strong, because it lacked natural
advantages, and the trenches were more or less of hasty construction.
The Germans started a heavy bombardment of the cavalry on May 13,
1915, when the rain was pouring in torrents and a north wind was
adding to the discomforts of the British. The fiercest part of this
attack was on the Third Division. Some idea of the fierceness of the
bombardment can be gained when it is known that in a comparatively
short space of time more than eight hundred shells were hurled on a
part of the British line which was not more than a mile in length. In
places the British were buried alive. In spite of the destructive
fire, the North Somerset Yeomanry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel
Glyn, charged the Germans who were advancing on their trenches under
cover of the bombardment. The charge was effective, and the Teutons
were driven headlong toward their own trenches. But the German
artillery had the range of the Seventh Brigade on the right, and
poured upon it such a fire that it retreated several hundred yards,
leaving the right of the Sixth Brigade exposed. As soon as possible
the British made an attempt to remedy the defect in their line, and
found it necessary to make a counterattack. In this counterattack very
satisfactory results were obtained by the use of the Duke of
Westminster's armored motor cars. The British regained the lost
ground, but they found it impossible to retain it, for the Teuton's
heavy artillery had the range of the position so accurately that no
man could live there. The result of the day's fighting was a farther
pushing back of the line of the British so that it bent backward from
Verlorenhoek and Bellewaarde Lake. In addition to being forced back,
the British suffered a large loss of men, especially officers.
The infantry on the left had been fiercely attacked on this same day;
but it managed to keep from being driven from its position. One of the
defenders of this part of the line was a territorial battalion, the
London Rifle Brigade. There were only 278 men in the battalion at the
beginning of the day, it having suffered severe losses previously. By
night ninety-one more had been lost. Four survivors, under command of
Sergeant Douglas Belcher, and two hussars whom the sergeant had added
to his squad, held that part of the line in the face of repeated
attacks. These plucky men not only made the Germans think the front
was strongly defended there by using quick-firing methods, but they
undoubtedly saved the right of the Fourth Division. Another especially
gallant piece of work on the part of the British was done by the
Second Essex, the reserve battalion of the Twelfth Brigade. With a
bayonet charge they drove the Germans from Shelltrap Farm, which was
between the Langemarck and Poelcappelle highways, and, though it was
held by first one side and then the other, the British had it at the
close of the day in spite of the bombardment it received.
[Illustration: Gas Battle of Ypres.]
The French met with better success on the British left. Under the
command of General Putz they made an attack on Het Sase and
Steenstraate. The sharpshooters of the Zouaves and Algerians took a
trench in front of the latter place and entered the village. They
fought on to the canal by the end of that day, which was May 15, 1915.
More than six hundred Teuton dead were counted after that engagement.
At the same time the Zouaves captured Het Sase with great ease,
because the artillery had rendered its defenders useless for more
fighting. The Germans, however, were not inclined to give up the town
so easily. They bombarded Het Sase that night, using asphyxiating
shells. Nothing daunted, the Zouaves put on their respirators and
drove off with hand grenades and rifle fire the Germans who followed
in the wake of the poisonous shells. On the following day it was
said that the only Germans left alive on the left side of the
Yperlee Canal were either wounded or prisoners. The French had
destroyed three German regiments, taken three redoubts, and captured
four fortified lines and three villages. In this connection it may not
be amiss to note that the French reported that, on May 15, 1915, the
German Marine Fusiliers who were attempting to hold the Yperlee Canal
concluded it was the better part of valor to surrender. Before the
Germans could relinquish their places they were shot down by their
comrades in the rear.
Fighting along the line of the salient continued with more or less
vigor for nearly ten days, but, until May 24, 1915, there were no
engagements that had much out of the ordinary. On that date, however,
the entire front from Bellewaarde Lake to Shelltrap, a line three
miles in length, was bombarded with asphyxiating shells. This was
followed by a gas cloud that was sent against the same extent of
trenches. The wind sent the cloud in a southwesterly direction, so
that the deadly fumes got in their work along nearly five miles of the
front. It is asserted that the cloud was 40 feet in height, and that
the Germans continued to renew the supply of gas for four and a half
hours. It had little effect wherever the British used their
respirators, for they managed to stay in their positions without undue
inconvenience. Those who suffered the most from the gas cloud were the
infantry of the Fourth Division on the left. The cloud which had
followed the asphyxiating shells was in turn followed by a severe
bombardment from three sides--the east, northeast, and north. The
principal attacks were made in the neighborhood of Shelltrap, the
British front along the Roulers railroad, and along the Menin road in
the vicinity of Bellewaarde Lake. In those places the British were
pushed back at least temporarily; but counterattacks were delivered
before nightfall, and the greater part of the lost ground regained.
Thus, to the disappointment of the Germans, their extra effort, with
all the means of warfare at their disposal, had resulted only in
reducing the salient at an enormous cost in lives on both sides, but
the gain had been for the most part temporary.
Before leaving the consideration of the second battle of Ypres it may
be well to estimate what has been gained and lost by both sides. In
the attempt to wear down their opponents one side had inflicted as
much of a blow as the other, to all intents and purposes, for there
had been an almost prodigal waste of human life and ammunition. The
distinct advantage that Germany had gained was in pushing back and
almost flattening out the prow of the British salient, and they had
demonstrated the superiority of their artillery. Britain, on the other
hand, had lost no strategical advantage by the change of her line. The
knowledge that Germany had a superior artillery acted as a stimulant
in making the British provide a better equipment of big guns. But the
British had demonstrated the great superiority of their infantry over
that of Germany. In fact there was comfort to be derived by the
friends of each side as a result of the second battle of Ypres. The
fighting had to stop, as far as being a general engagement was
concerned. There were other parts of the front in western Europe which
were becoming by far too active for either the Germans or the British
to neglect them. Hence it is necessary to leave Ypres and the brave
men who fell there, and consider what was being done elsewhere.
CHAPTER XVIII
OTHER ACTIONS ON THE WESTERN FRONT
During the time in which the foregoing actions had been taking place,
there was activity on the part of the Allies and the Germans in other
sections of the great western front. It is true that not much was
accomplished in Alsace in either April or May; for the fighting in the
plains had been for the most part what may be termed trench warfare.
The most important engagement had been the effort to take and hold
Hartmannsweilerkopf, the spur of the Molkenrain massif, which controls
the union of the Thur and the Ill. The top of this rise of ground, it
will be remembered, had been won by the Germans on January 21, 1915;
but the heights west of it and their slopes were in the possession of
the French, who desired to add the spur to their possessions. For this
purpose the French artillery bombarded it on March 25, 1915, and
continued their work on the following day, March 26, 1915, when the
Chasseurs stormed the height, and, after fighting for six hours,
gained the top and captured 400 prisoners. But the Germans had no
intention of giving their opponents such a hold on the control of the
valley of the Ill, so there were many counterattacks.
While the Germans were attempting to retake the summit, the French
were making desperate efforts to drive the Teutons from the eastern
slopes. The Germans were temporarily successful, but their success was
short-lived, for the French retook the top on April 28, 1915. During
the next month, May, both sides made claims of success; but what each
actually possessed was as follows: The French had the top and all of
the western portion; the Germans possessed the summit ridge, and the
east and northeast portions. But, until the French held the entire
mountain, they could make little use of it in controlling the Ill
Valley.
The fighting in the other part of the Vosges had to do principally
with the valley of the Fecht. The stream runs from Schlucht and
Bramont east, and proceeds past Münster and Metzeral. On its right
bank is the railroad from Colmar to Metzeral. The heights in the upper
part of the valley were held by the Chasseurs Alpins; and they desired
to take both towns. Throughout the month of April the French were
fairly successful on both banks of the river. The spur above Metzeral
to the northwest was taken by them. The ridge between the two valleys
was captured by the French on April 17, 1915. The fighting here was
continued throughout May, 1915.
The next scene of activity was north, where there was a wooded plateau
between the Moselle and the Meuse. Here the Germans had a salient
which was long and quite narrow. The point of this salient was at St.
Mihiel, the other side of the Meuse. This point was well protected by
the artillery at Camp des Romains, which controlled the section for
ten miles in any direction. To the north of the salient there was a
railroad from Etain to Metz. There was another line twenty miles to
the south. This ran from Metz to Thiaucourt by the Rupt de Mad. The
village of Vigneulles was about in the center of the narrow part of
the salient, and on the road to St. Mihiel. There was a better road to
the south through Apremont. A strategic railroad had been built from
Thiaucourt by Vigneulles to St. Mihiel, down the Gap of Spada, which
is an opening between the hills of the Meuse Valley. The plateau of
Les Eparges is north of Vigneulles. The plateau is approximately 1,000
feet above the sea level, and forms the eastern border of the heights
of the Meuse. There was high land on the southern side of the salient,
along which ran the main road from Commercy to Pont-à-Mousson. Within
the salient the land was rough and, to a considerable extent, covered
with wood.
The French did not plan to make an attack on the salient at its apex.
The artillery at Camp des Romains would be too effective. The French
plan was to press in the sides of the salient and finally control the
St. Mihiel communications. The southeastern side of the salient, at
the beginning of April, 1915, extended from St. Mihiel to Camp des
Romains, thence to Bois d'Ailly, Apremont, Boudonville, Regnieville,
and finally to the Moselle, three miles north of Pont-à-Mousson. The
northwestern side was marked by an imaginary line drawn from Etain in
the north past Fresnes, over the Les Eparges Heights, and thence by
Lamorville and Spada to St. Mihiel. The place of most importance, from
a military point of view, was the Les Eparges plateau, which
controlled the greater part of the northern section of the salient.
The taking of this plateau would naturally be the first step in
capturing Vigneulles. But the Germans had converted Les Eparges into
what had the appearance of being an impregnable fort, when they took
it on September 21, 1914. Their trenches lined the slopes, and
everything had been made secure for a possible siege. The French in
February and March, 1915, however, had taken the village of Les
Eparges and a portion of the steep side on the northwest. But of
necessity they made progress slowly, because they were in such an
exposed position whenever they sought the top. They had planned an
assault for April 5, 1915, and, in a heavy rain, with the slope a
great mass of deep mud, the French gained some territory. This they
were unable to hold when the Germans made a counterattack on the
following morning, April 6, 1915. That night the soldiers of the
republic forced their way up with the bayonet, taking 1,500 yards of
trenches, by the morning of April 7, 1915. Thereupon the Germans
brought up reenforcements, which were rendered useless by the French
artillery, which prevented them from going forward to the battle line.
The German artillery used the same tactics, with the result that the
French reenforcements were kept out of the fight. After the cannons
had completed their work, both sides were apparently willing to rest
for the remainder of the day. But on the morning of April 8, 1915, two
regiments of infantry and a battalion of Chasseurs forced their way to
the top, which they took after an hour's hard fighting. That pushed
the Germans back to the eastern slope. Then the battle was fought on
during the remainder of the day, which found the French, at its close,
in possession of all except a little triangle in the eastern section.
[Illustration: The Fighting in Alsace--Hartmannsweilerkopf.]
Some idea of the conditions confronting those who attempted the ascent
may be gained when it is learned that fourteen hours were required by
the hardy French troops to go up to relieve their comrades who gained
the top. This relief was not sent until the following day, April 9,
1915. On that day the Germans in the little triangle were driven off
or slain. One of the sudden and dense fogs of the region appeared
later and made a cover for a German counterattack. The French were at
a disadvantage, but they quickly rallied, and, the fog suddenly
lifting, they employed a bayonet charge with such good effect that the
Germans were driven off with large losses. The importance of this
achievement to the Allies is not likely to be overestimated. The
height of Les Eparges dominated the Woevre district, and its capture
by the French was one of the most heroic feats of the war. The Germans
placed as high a value on the height for military purposes as the
French. They had spent the winter in adding to what nature had made
nearly perfect--the impregnability of the entire sector. They
intrusted its defense, when an attack seemed likely, only to
first-line troops, the Tenth Division of the Fifth Corps from Posen
holding it when the French made their successful attack. To gain the
height it was necessary for the French to climb the slimy sides, which
were swept by machine-gun fire. The Germans knew the exact range of
every square foot of the slopes. There was no place that offered even
a slight shelter for the attacking force. The weather was at its
worst. Yet, in spite of the many difficulties which seemed
insurmountable, the French soldiers had won the most decisive
engagement in this part of the campaign.
It is true the Teutons occupied the lesser spur of Combres; but that
gave them little or no advantage, for no attack could be made from it
without subjecting the attacking party to a leaden hail from St. Remy
and Les Eparges. But the German salient still remained, and the French
continued their pressure on it. They pushed forward in the north to
Etain, and took the hills on the right bank of the Orne, which
hampered their enemy in his use of the Etain-Conflans railroad. They
closed in on the reentrant of the salient to the north--Gussainville;
and they used the same tactics in regard to Lamorville, because it
dominated the Gap of Spada; and to the north of it they exerted a
pressure on the Bois de la Selouse. The engagements on the south of
the salient were fought desperately. The part of the top which falls
away to the Rupt de Mad was held by the French. That section is
covered with a low wood, which develops into presentable forests in
the region toward the Moselle Valley to the east. The Teutons had
taken every advantage of the ground in constructing their
fortifications, and the French found a hard task before them. They
proceeded against their opponents in the Bois d'Ailly, the Forest of
Apremont, the Bois de Mont-Mare, the village of Regnieville, and the
Bois le Pretre. Though each success was not large, the entire effort
was effective in pushing in the southern side of the salient. This
brought the soldiers of the republic to within about four miles of
Thiaucourt, which, with the control of Les Eparges, threatened St.
Mihiel.
The French heavy artillery shelled the southern front of the trenches
at Metz on May 1, 1915. The great desire to take Alsace and Lorraine,
however, was set aside early in the month. The plight of Russia at
this time made it imperative for the Allies to make a great movement
on the western front to prevent as much as possible the pressure on
the czar's line. Hence the campaign which seemed to be planned by the
French was abandoned for a larger opportunity. This was the advance of
the Tenth Army in the Artois over the plain of the Scheldt in the
direction of Douai and Valenciennes, thereby threatening the
communications of the entire Teuton line from Soissons to Lille. Hence
the French started a vigorous movement against Lens, while the British
sought to take Lille.
CHAPTER XIX
CAMPAIGN IN ARTOIS REGION
To understand properly the campaign in the Artois, it is necessary to
have at least a fair knowledge of the geography and the topography of
the territory between La Bassée and Arras.
The valley of the Scarpe is held in on the south by low hills, and on
the north by a low plateau, which descends in long ridges to the
valley of the Lys and the plains about Lens. The greatest altitude in
this section is the ridge known as Notre-Dame de Lorette, running east
and west, and containing numerous ravines. To the south of it, in a
little valley, is the town of Albain St. Nazaire. Carency is opposite
on the next ridge. Next is the Bois de Berthonval in the middle of a
wide depression. Beyond, the land ascends to Mont St. Eloi. The valley
of the Lys is to the north of the Lorette ridge. To the east the land
descends to the long, narrow valley in which is the highway between
Arras and Bethune. La Targette and Souchez are along the way. Again
the land rolls upward to the hills of Vimy with the Lens-Arras highway
beyond them.
The Teutons held a salient in this region at the beginning of May,
1915. The line which bounded this salient ran east of Loos over the
Bethune-Lens road, east of Aix-Noulette, and appeared on the Lorette
plateau considerably to the west of its tallest spur, where was
situated the Chapel of Our Lady; running out to the prow of the
salient, it took in Albain; and then proceeded to Carency; bending
closely, it ran east of the Bois de Berthonval, taking in La Targette
and the Arras-Bethune highway. That part of the German line was called
by the French the "White Works," on account of the chalk with which
the breastworks were constructed. To the southeast of it was a section
known as the Labyrinth. Ecurie was inside the line which finally ran
back east of Arras. The salient was constructed for the guarding of
Lens, which was considered the entrance to the upper valley of the
Scheldt and the lowlands in the direction of Douai and Valenciennes.
Of more importance than Lens itself was the railroad back of this
front, the capture of which would naturally be a source of great
danger to the Germans.
The French had won some ground in the region of the Lorette plateau
early in 1915. The Tenth Army in the Artois received enough additional
men to give it seven corps. More than 1,100 pieces of artillery, of
varying caliber, were taken to this region by the French. The entire
preparation for the campaign was under the personal direction of
General Foch. In the meantime the Germans, becoming aware that their
enemy was becoming more and more active, proceeded to strengthen the
front by the addition of three divisions which were known as
"divisions of assault." The men composing these additions were from
Bavaria, Saxony, and Baden. Even this reenforcement left the Teutons
outnumbered, and with less artillery than their opponents; but they
held a position which was considered more impregnable than any other
on either front. The Germans here had a chain of forts linked together
by an elaborate series of trenches, these latter so arranged that the
taking of one of the series placed its captors within the zone of fire
of several others. Moreover there was an elaborate series of
underground works, including mines and wolf pits, the latter being
covered over with a thin layer of turf and thickly studded with
stakes whose points awaited the charging French.
General Foch was ready on Sunday morning, May 9, 1915, and his
artillery began one of the heaviest bombardments in history. The 1,100
French cannon hurled 300,000 shells on the German fortifications that
day. The reverberations were deafening and terrifying. They startled
the British engaged at the Aubers Ridge. The deluge of projectiles
crashed their way through the supposedly impregnable work of
engineering that the Germans had erected, and buried their mangled
defenders in chaotic ruins. The preliminary work of the artillery was
continued for three hours, accompanied by the plaudits of the French
infantrymen. Then the infantry were sent to take the wrecks of what
had been the pride of the German engineers. They took what was still
in existence at La Targette, and the important crossroads there. They
waged a fierce fight in and around the village of Neuville St. Vaast,
which was stoutly defended by German machine guns. Here there was
house-to-house fighting. The French center, farther north, charged
over the remnants of the White Works, and went on beyond the
Arras-Bethune road. This section of the advance took more than two and
a half miles of trenches in an hour and a half. On the left the French
were unable to maintain such speed, because of the many ravines. They
took the outlying sections of Carency, and worked their way eastward,
cutting the road to Souchez. At the end of the first day the French
had to their credit three lines of German trenches on a five-mile
front, 3,000 prisoners, 10 field guns, and 50 machine guns.
The bombardment was continued all night by the French gunners, while
the men who had taken the trenches did their best to make such repairs
as were necessary for the protection of the victors. On the morning of
the following day, May 10, 1915, the soldiers of the republic had
forced their way into the center of the German position. North of the
plateau of Notre Dame de Lorette a feint attack was made to hold the
German reserves. When the first French line was about to dash forward
to complete their work of the day before, they suddenly received an
order to remain where they were and seek all cover possible. One of
the French aviators had seen a German counterattack getting under way
near the sugar factory at Souchez. Preparatory to the Teuton advance
the German artillery hurled hundreds of high-explosive shells on the
section where the French would have been had they not received the
order to keep under cover. To be exposed under such conditions would
have meant annihilation. Believing their plans for the counterattack
were working favorably, the Germans advanced, only to be mowed down by
the French guns. Then the French infantry charged and gained another
trench line. So eager were the younger French soldiers that some of
those who charged from the south were not content with taking the
trench which was their objective point, but dashed on into a ravine
that extended in the direction of Ablain. There they killed or made
prisoners of the Germans they found. This dash was extremely hazardous
in the face of a possible German counterattack, which luckily for the
French did not occur as the Teutons retired to Souchez in confusion
and were unable to rally for any counterattack. A summary of the day's
fighting includes the taking of all of the German trenches across the
Bethune-Loos road; the attack on the fortified chapel of Notre Dame de
Lorette, and the gaining of the trenches to the south of it, these
connecting with Ablain and Souchez; the capture of the cemetery of
Neuville St. Vaast; and the defeat of the German reserves who were
rushed in motor cars from Lens and Douai. The trenches and approaches
being too narrow and deep to allow freedom of action in using rifle
and bayonet, the rifle is generally slung on the man's back in
bandolier, and the fighting within the trenches is done with short
weapons, especially with hand grenades, hence the new military
expressions "bombing" and "bombing parties," as the squads are called
that are especially detailed for bomb work during the charges.
The fighting continued fiercely throughout May 11, 1915. Late in the
day the French took the lower part of the Arabs' Spur. An unsuccessful
counterattack was made that night from the Spur of the White Way. But
the French were harried by the artillery in Angres and the machine
guns in Ablain, and their discomforts were added to by the work of
the bursting shells which opened the graves of soldiers who had been
slain in previous months.
Carency, surrounded on the east, south and west, and wrecked by the
20,000 shells which had been fired upon it, surrendered on the
afternoon of May 12, 1915. The Germans captured there made a total of
more than 5,000 prisoners taken by the French. Notre Dame de Lorette
with its chapel and fort was also taken this same day, as was Ablain
which was in flames when it was surrendered. Thus all of the highland
to the west of Souchez was held by the French except a few fortins on
eastern ridges.
[Illustration: The Battles in Artois.]
A north wind and a heavy rain added to the discomforts of the soldiers
on May 13, 1915. But physical discomforts were not all that made for
more or less unhappiness. The Germans had little reason to be happy;
but the French had the edge taken from their elation, because of their
victory, by the fact that it seemed as if it must be won again before
it would be of use to them. According to the rules of the war game the
German line had been broken and the French had made for themselves a
right of way; but there were many instances in this war where the
rules were not followed; and this was one of the exceptions. It is
true the German line had been smashed, but it had not fallen back.
Instead the remnants of the line had collected themselves in the
series of independent redoubts which had seemingly been prepared for
just such an emergency. They were so situated that it was well-nigh
impossible to destroy them at long range; but it was impossible to
make any forward movement which would not be enfiladed by them. Hence
it became necessary for the French, if they were to be really
victorious, to reduce each separate redoubt. The most prominent of
these were the sugar factory at Souchez, the cemetery at Ablain, the
White Road on a spur of the Lorette, the eastern portion of Neuville
St. Vaast, and the Labyrinth. The last named was so called because it
was an elaborate system of trenches and redoubts in an angle between
two roads. The White Road surrendered on May 21, 1915. Ablain was
taken on May 29, 1915. The Souchez sugar factory fell on May 31,
1915. Neuville St. Vaast was captured on June 8, 1915. The Labyrinth,
however, remained under German control. Part of it was fifty feet
below the surface of the earth, much of the fighting there being
carried on in underground galleries and by means of mines. It finally
was entirely in the hands of the French on June 19, 1915, after being
taken to a considerable extent foot by foot. The last of the fighting
there was in what was known as the Eulenburg Passage, where the entire
161st German Regiment, consisting of 4,000 men, were slain and a
Bavarian regiment suffered a heavy loss in killed and wounded. The
French took 1,000 prisoners; and only 2,000 of their own men were
unable to answer roll call after the fight, of whom many were only
slightly wounded.
In concluding the account of the battle of the Artois it may be
admitted that the French had won what has been called a brilliant
victory, but it had not been a complete success. They had made an end
of the German salient; and only the last defense of Lens remained. How
much they had reduced the pressure on Russia is problematical; but
there is little doubt they had prevented the Germans from continuing
the offensive on the Ypres front. They estimated the German loss at
60,000; and, by a peculiar coincidence, the Crown Prince of Bavaria,
whose armies they fought, estimated the French loss at the same
figure--60,000. It is known they lost many men in the hand-to-hand
struggles; but their great forward movement was so well protected by
their artillery that the French loss there was comparatively slight.
Some idea can be gained from the fact that one French division killed
2,600 of their enemy and captured 3,000 prisoners with a loss of only
250 slain and 1,250 wounded. But the greatest gain to the French was
probably the fact that the battle of the Artois had proved to the
soldiers of the republic that their artillery was the equal of the
German, which had been the arm in which the Teutons excelled. It also
proved that the Germans could not intrench themselves in any manner
that was impregnable to the French; for they had taken the Labyrinth,
a most complicated series of military engineering feats which were
supposed to be able to withstand any assault. And lastly, and perhaps
of most importance to the French, the belief in the superiority of the
German soldier, as a result of 1870 was shattered in the mind of the
Frenchman.
CHAPTER XX
BRITISH FORWARD MOVEMENT--BATTLE OF FESTUBERT
To aid the French in the Artois, the British made a forward movement
in the Festubert region in May, 1915. Its purpose was to prevent the
Seventh German Corps from sending troops and artillery to reenforce
Lens. Moreover the British, if they succeeded, would take the Aubers
ridge, which they had tried to gain in the battle of Neuve Chapelle.
If they could capture the Aubers ridge, the way would be opened to
Lille and La Bassée. The action began on Sunday morning, May 9, 1915,
in the region between Bois Grenier and Festubert, and was a part of
the forward movement of the British from Armentières to La Bassée.
Part of the First Corps and the Indian Corps marched forward on the
right from the Rue du Bois toward the southern part of the Bois du
Biez, where there had been much fighting before. The principal attack
was made by the Eighth Division on Rouges Bancs, not far from
Fromelles and the Aubers ridge, near where the British had been
stopped in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. At approximately the same
time that General Sir Douglas Haig with the British First Army reached
the slightly elevated plateau in front of Lille, General Foch with a
large body of French troops made a desperate attack on the Germans on
their front from La Bassée to Arras. The French and British had joined
their efforts here, not only to relieve the pressure which was being
exerted on Ypres and to take Lille, which dominated a region rich in
coal, but also for the purpose of keeping the Germans so busy on the
western front that none could be sent to the eastern front and
further embarrass Russia. The artillery of both the British and French
attempted to wreck the German trenches before their infantry should be
sent against their foe. In this effort the British, using principally
shrapnel, made little headway; but their ally, using high-explosive
shells, such as they had been hurling at the Germans for weeks at the
rate of a hundred thousand a day, was successful. Soon the Teutons'
front was screened by clouds of yellow, green, black and white smoke.
But this was not to be a one-sided artillery engagement, and the
Germans soon had their artillery in action. They trained it on their
enemies' trenches, believing from the size of the bombardment that an
assault was soon to be made and that the trenches would be filled with
troops. Their surmise was correct, but the Allies had suspected their
opponents would reason thus, so the French and British infantry were
in covered positions. Of course the Germans did not know how well
their opponents were protected, so they sent thousands of shells
against the allied positions. And again the allied artillerists
replied in kind. This time they caught the German reenforcements, with
the result that many of them were slain before they could reach their
own front. In this work the British shrapnel was more effective than
the French high-explosive shells.
The bombardment was continued vigorously for three-quarters of an
hour. That the allied range finders had been doing accurate work was
evidenced by the appearance of the German trenches when the British
and French fire was turned against the supporting German trenches; but
the Teutons' wire entanglements remained intact. Heretofore the big
guns had been able to sweep such obstructions away. When the infantry
reached the barbed wire, it found the Germans had improved this
particular method of defense by using specially manufactured wire
cable, well barbed, which was from one and one-half to two inches in
diameter. And, to protect their cable entanglements, the Germans had
built parapets in front of the entanglements. Their enemy's charging
infantry coming upon such an obstruction could not cut it, and the
only means of circumventing this new device was for the attacking
force to throw their overcoats on the entanglements and crawl across
the wire in the face of rifle and machine-gun fire.
For a considerable distance along this part of the front the distance
between the German and British trenches was not more than two hundred
yards. At not a few sections the opposing trenches were near enough to
permit the soldiers to converse with their opponents. The trenches for
the most part were built on the marshland with sandbags, those of the
British being khaki-colored, and the German being black and white.
When the inevitable order to charge was given, the British artillery
shifted its range to the German rear and the Eighth Division dashed
over the black and white sandbags behind which the Germans were
crouching. Beyond them was a ridge, in horseshoe formation, which was
the last barrier that lay between the Allies and the plains that led
to Lille. This ridge trails off in a northeasterly direction at Rouges
Bancs. Near the hamlet there was a small wood which had been taken by
the Pathans and Gurkhas before the cannonade started. Among the
regiments that led the attack of the Eighth Division were the
Kensington Battalion of the London Regiment, the First Gloucesters,
the Second Sussex, and the Northamptons. They were supported by the
Liverpool Territorials, the First North Lancashires, the Second King's
Royal Rifles, and the Sussex Territorials. The Germans had large
bodies of reenforcements held at Lille, but they were unavailing; and
the British took the first line of trenches though it required fifteen
and a half hours to do it. Then they went on until they were on the
slope of the ridge. Beyond that, however, it seemed impossible to
proceed, for the Germans had such an array of machine guns trained on
the approach to their second line of trenches that no human being
could live in the face of their deadly fire. The British needed an
equipment with which to bombard their enemy with high-explosive
shells. Such an equipment they did not possess.
The German commander played a clever trick on the British when their
First Army Corps and their Indian Division attempted to make progress
in the triangle to the west of La Bassée. He evacuated his first two
lines of trenches while the artillery was doing what it could to
demolish his parapets; but his men were drawn up in the third line of
trenches waiting for the inevitable advance of the British. This third
line of trenches was protected with armor plate and concrete. Moreover
he had planted a large number of machine guns in the brickfield near
La Bassée. The British dashed forward until they were in range of the
machine guns. Then they suffered such severe losses that they were
forced to retreat, even though they had almost taken the inviting
German trenches. The Highlanders and the Bedfords had made a gallant
charge and felt especially humiliated to have to withdraw when victory
was about to perch on their banners. They believed that a lack of
reenforcements was responsible for their nonsuccess.
The day's fighting ended with the First Army of the British driven
back except in the center. There the Kensington Territorial Battalion
made a remarkable record for itself. In the morning when the British
artillery ceased firing, the Kensington men dashed from their trenches
and captured three lines of the German trenches at the point of the
bayonet. A part of the battalion, in its eagerness to win the day,
went on up the ridge. At the same time one of its companies turned to
the left and another to the right, and with bayonet and bomb drove the
Germans from the trenches for a distance of 200 yards. The Kensingtons
were doing the work that had been set for them to do; but two regular
battalions, one to their left and the other to their right, were not
as able to comply with the orders they had received. The regulars were
stopped by wire entanglements that the artillery had failed to smash,
and, at the same time, they were raked by machine-gun fire. Hence they
were unable to keep up with the Territorials. In fact the regulars
never got up to the Kensington men; but were forced to retire. This
left the Territorials in a most precarious condition. They had gained
such an important point on the German line that a heavy fire was
directed against them. But the British would not give up what they had
taken. Instead of retiring, they sent for reenforcements which were
promised to them. In the meantime the Germans gave up trying to blow
the Kensingtons out of their position and made a counterattack. The
left wing of the plucky Territorial battalion used bombs effectively
to hold their enemy at bay. The right wing at the same time was kept
busy in its attempt to prevent being enveloped. In spite of all the
Germans could do with their artillery and their repeated
counterattacks the West London men maintained their small wedge in the
Teuton front. Finally trench mortars were brought against them. Then
the Kensington battalion, or what was left of it, received the order
to retire. To do that necessitated fighting their way back through the
thickening line of their enemy. Those British Territorials had held
their peculiar position several hours, and had suffered severely in
consequence; but their loss was undoubtedly much larger when retiring
to their former line. They fought the greater part of the afternoon
and well into the evening in endeavoring to get back; and finally a
comparatively few of them succeeded. The last dash to the British
trenches was made over a barren piece of ground which was so flat that
there was no opportunity for concealment. And here the Germans raked
what was left of the battalion with rifle and machine-gun fire.
Ultimately, however, a portion of the brave band returned to the
British trenches. Previous to withdrawing the survivors from the
front, General Sir Henry Rawlinson told them that their gaining the
position which they took and holding it as long as they did had not
only relieved the pressure on Ypres but had aided General Foch's army
to advance between Arras and La Bassée. In conclusion he said: "It was
a feat of arms surpassed by no battalion in this great war."
The Sussex and Northampton troops made a desperate effort to get into
the German trenches on the morning in which this action started, but
they never got nearer than forty yards, being stopped by the deluge of
shrapnel, rifle, and machine-gun fire to which they were subjected.
When they were ordered to return to the British trenches, those who
remained able to make the attempt found it quite as dangerous as
trying to go forward. That afternoon the Black Watch and the First
Cameronians charged where the Sussex and Northamptons had been
repulsed, but the Scotchmen had but little more success. It is true
some of the men from the land of the heather got into the German
trenches; but they did not survive. The determination of the British
was shown when men, who had been wounded in the first charge and been
unable to return to their own line, joined the Scots in their mad rush
to death. Those men had lain under fire twelve hours before making
their dying assault on the German trenches. It had been expected the
Scotchmen would get into the opposing trenches and bomb and bayonet
the Teutons out. Then reenforcements would be sent from the British
line. But the artillery of King George was unable to check the
devastating work of the kaiser's big guns and give the reenforcements
a clear field through which to go to the aid of the attacking force.
The result was that the Germans continued such a leaden hail between
the lines that it was sending soldiers to certain death to order them
to cross the zone of fire. The remnant of the Scottish regiments was
recalled, and it lost as many men on its return as it had in its
desperate struggle to reach the German trenches.
Both the Kensingtons and the Scots found groups of German machine
guns, doing most destructive work, that could have been rendered
useless if the British had had a supply of high-explosive shells.
Under the circumstances there was nothing for Sir Douglas Haig to do
but to order his men all along the line to retire. They obeyed the
order sullenly, and many of them were slain in their attempt to get
back to their own trenches. But their comrades felt they had not died
wholly in vain; for the woeful lack of lyddite shells thus became
known in England and the indignation thus aroused resulted in the
appointment of a minister of munitions who organized the manufacture
of the necessary explosives on a scale heretofore unattempted by the
British. A lesson had been learned, but at a fearful cost to life.
The same lesson was being taught the British public at another section
of the battle front. Its soldiers not only were unable to maintain a
successful artillery fire, but the fact became so impressed on the
German mind that the Teutons in the Ypres and Lille regions felt
assured that their infantry had the British at their mercy. Sir John
French, however, had a clever knowledge of human nature. He began his
efforts to remedy the difficulty by telling the war correspondents his
troubles. They spread the news. Then he secretly collected all of the
available artillery in the Ypres region, together with his limited
supply of shells, and was ready to deal such a blow to the Duke of
Württemberg's army when it marched on Ypres the latter part of May,
1915, that it was necessary for the Germans to get reenforcements
through Belgium. This was a great surprise to the Teutons and cost
them dearly.
CHAPTER XXI
SIR JOHN FRENCH ATTEMPTS A SURPRISE
The operation of this plan of Sir John French had an excellent effect
in the Ypres region, but it had the opposite effect on the British who
were trying to take Lille. Moreover it was necessary for the British
to continue to occupy the attention of the left wing of the German
army, under the command of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, in order to
keep him from using his men against General Foch, who was attempting
to push his way between Arras and Lille. Inasmuch as the British
artillery had proved ineffective because of its lack of enough and the
proper kind of ammunition, Sir John French planned another surprise
for the Germans. This time he selected the weapon which the Teutons
seemed most to fear when it was in the hands of the British--the
bayonet. The salient on the German front at Festubert, between La
Bassée and Neuve Chapelle, was chosen for the proposed military feat.
The territory occupied by the Teutons had the appearance, to the
casual observer, of being lowlands on which were wrecked homes, farms,
and trees. The actual conditions of this section of the country were
much more serious for any body of troops which planned to make an
attack. The ground was moist and muddy, in many places being crossed
by treacherous ditches filled with slimy water. Moreover the exact
range of practically every square foot of it was known to the German
artillerymen, whose guns were on the high ground to the west of the
lowlands. The British were in trenches from seventy to three hundred
yards from those of their enemy. If the men there could dash across
the intervening space and get into the German trenches before being
annihilated by the kaiser's cannon, they would use the bayonet with
deadly effect, and, from past experiences, have reasonable hope of
gaining a victory. It was decided to make such an attempt first on
that part of the line between Richebourg on the left and Festubert on
the right.
The British Seventh Division was sent south to support the attack
which was to have been made on May 12, 1915. On that day it was too
foggy for the aviators to see with any degree of accuracy; so the
movement was delayed. This gave time for the Canadian Division to be
sent south and add their strength to the support. The German trenches,
at this point where the attack was to be made, were occupied by the
Seventh Westphalian Army Corps. This corps had lost many of its men at
Neuve Chapelle; and their places had been taken by youths who had not
reached the development of manhood and whose immaturity and lack of
military training greatly lessened the efficiency of this famous body
of troops.
Finally, on Saturday night, May 15, 1915, all conditions for the
attack seemed favorable to the British. There was no moon and the sky
was dark, though there was not that inky blackness that occasionally
occurs under similar weather conditions. The Indian Corps stole from
their trenches and began to go forward from Richebourg l'Avoué. But
the Germans were alert, and they illumined the movement with
innumerable flares which made the Indians easy targets for the machine
guns and rifles of the Teutons in that part of the line. So quick was
the work to repel the attack that many of the Indians were slain as
they were climbing out of their own trenches. As a surprise attack at
night, the British were not making much of a success of their plan,
but as a method of gaining ground and keeping their enemy busy on that
particular part of the line the men of their Second Division were
effective. They dashed into the first line of German trenches and
cleared them out with the bayonet and hand grenade. The furor of the
attack took them on into the second line. By dawn the soldiers of the
Second Division had driven a wedge into the German line.
This wedge was widened and driven in harder by Sir Douglas Haig's old
command--the First Corps. This corps had suffered heavy losses at the
first battle of Ypres; but the men who filled the gaps in the line
were hardy young men who made excellent soldiers from the start. Added
to their enthusiasm was a desire to show their ability as fighters,
with the result that the British right wing was so effective that it,
in a great measure, made up for the failure of the Indian troops. The
center and the right, with bomb and bayonet, drove the Germans from
the trenches; and then together they forced their way into the
Teutons' position 600 yards along a front 800 yards in length. Early
the next morning, before daylight on May 16, 1915, the British Seventh
Division forced its way into the German salient at Festubert. In the
meantime the Germans were making hasty preparations for a
counterattack. Sir John French's plan, however, had proved effective.
It would have required a large supply of high-explosive shells to have
made much of an impression on the excellent defenses which the German
soldiers had constructed on this part of the front. The British had no
such supply of ammunition, and, even if they had had it, it is
doubtful if they would have been able to demolish the formidable wire
entanglements. Yet in this night attack with the bayonet the British
troops had accomplished all they could have done if supplied with
proper ammunition. In the desperate charge which they made no wire
entanglement could stop the British soldiers. They threw their
overcoats or blankets over the barbed wire and then climbed across the
obstruction. The Seventh Division took three lines of trenches in this
manner, until it was 12,000 yards back of the original line of its
enemy.
There were now two wedges driven into the German front, and the
British desired to join them and make what might be termed a
countersalient, or a salient running into the original salient of the
Germans. But the space between the two horns of the British force was
a network of trenches. The horns might prod and irritate the Teutons,
but they needed artillery again to rid the German breastworks of
machine guns and demolish the obstructions which would cost too many
lives to take in the same manner in which the British success had been
won in its night attack. Nevertheless the British started in to bomb
their way toward Festubert, and they even gained forty yards in this
hazardous undertaking before they were forced to stop. If they had
seemed to be an irresistible force, they had met what had every
appearance of being an immovable body--and there was a limit to human
endurance.
By May 17, 1915, the British concluded that their most advisable
offensive was to clear the space between their two wedges by cutting
off the Germans who held that part of their line. To do this the
British attempted to cut off the German communication to the north
from La Quinque Rue; but, by that time, the Teutons had received
reenforcements; and they rained such a shower of lead on the attacking
force that the attempt had to be abandoned; but not until many heroic
efforts had been made by the British to succeed in their purpose.
Many Germans were made prisoners at all stages of the fighting. The
British bayonet seemed to strike them with terror, and the bombs were
more potent in scattering them than were the orders of their
commanders to repel the attacking force. Between Richebourg l'Avoué
and Le Quinque Rue is the farm Cour de l'Avoué. In front of this farm
the remains of a battalion of Saxons attempted to surrender. They had
arrived on the line as reenforcements to the Westphalians, and had
been fighting valiantly until their numbers were so decreased that
they were unable to hold out against their foes longer. Whether their
commanding officer ordered them to surrender or a common impulse
dictated their action, they left their position and advanced toward
the British. Not understanding their action, the attacking force fired
upon the Saxons who were sufficiently numerous to give the impression
that they might be leading a counterattack. Thereupon the Saxons
dropped their guns and the firing from the British side ceased, only
to be taken up on the German side by the Westphalians. This was
followed by an attack on the would-be prisoners by the German
artillery until every soldier in the surrendering party was slain.
This action horrified the British, but the Germans considered it a
means of discipline which would have a salutary effect on any who
might prefer the comforts of a prison camp to dying for the
Fatherland.
The British Seventh Division at Festubert continued to work south
along the German trenches. Its bayonets and bombs cleared the way
before it. The plan was for them to continue toward Rue d'Ouvert,
Chapelle St. Roch, and Canteleux. In the meantime the Second Division,
on the left of the Seventh Division, was to fight its way to Rue du
Marais and Violaines. The Indian contingent had received orders to
keep in touch with the Third Division. The Fifty-first Division was
sent to Estaires to act as a support to the First Army. By the night
of May 17, 1915, the British held all of the first line of German
trenches from the south of Festubert to Richebourg l'Avoué. For a part
of that distance the second and third lines of trenches had been taken
and held; and still farther forward the British possessed many
important points. Moreover the British soldiers were so inspired with
their success that they desired to press on in spite of the fact that
the nature of the country was such that they were wet through and
covered with mud. It was not all enthusiasm, however. Mingled with the
desire for victory was a desire for revenge. The British on this part
of the line were enraged by the use of gas at Ypres and the sinking of
the _Lusitania_.
On the night of May 17, 1915, the Fourth Cameron Highlanders, a
Territorial battalion, met with disaster. The men composing this unit
were from Inverness-shire, Skye, and the Outer Islands. Many of them
had been gamekeepers and hence were accustomed to outdoor life and the
handling of guns, all of which aided them in saving the remnant of
their command. They had been ordered to take some cottages, occupied
by German soldiers as a makeshift fortification. The Cameronians on
the way to the attack fell into a ditch which was both deep and wide.
It was necessary for them to swim to get across the ditch in some
places. In the meantime Highlanders were being slain by German shells
and the rifle fire that the men in the cottages rained upon the Scots.
One company was annihilated. Another company lost its way. The rear
end of a German communicating trench was reached by a third company.
Long before midnight this company was almost without ammunition. Two
platoons reenforced it at midnight; but the reenforcements had no
machine guns, which would have given at least temporary relief. Under
the circumstances the only thing for the Territorials to do was to
retreat. The Germans made that quite as perilous a venture as the
advance had been. Only half of those who started for the cottages
returned. Among the slain was the commander, and twelve other officers
were also killed.
The British, in spite of a cold rain, pushed on 1,200 yards north of
the Festubert-La Quinque Rue road; and took a defense 300 yards to the
southeast of the hamlet. Two farms west of the road and south of
Richebourg l'Avoué, the farm du Bois and the farm of the Cour de
l'Avoué, in front of which latter the surrendering Saxons were slain,
had been held by the Germans with numerous machine guns. The British
took both farms by nightfall and found, on counting their prisoners,
that they then had a total of 608 as well as several machine guns.
The Second and Seventh Divisions were withdrawn by Sir Douglas Haig on
the following day, Wednesday, May 19, 1915. The Fifty-first Division
and the Canadians took the places of the men who were sadly in need of
relief from active duty. Lieutenant General Alderson received the
command of both divisions together with the artillery of both the
Second and Seventh Divisions. The cold, wet weather hampered
operations and there was comparatively little activity, though
hostilities by no means altogether ceased. Each side needed a little
rest and time to fill in gaps in their respective lines. Hence it was
not until Sunday, May 23, that any fighting on a large scale took
place. On that day the Seventh Prussian Army Corps made a desperate
effort to break through that part of the British line held by the
Canadians near Festubert. The Prussians used their old tactics with
the result that the British shrapnel, rifle, and machine-gun fire
plowed great holes in their ranks. The Teutons in this instance were
without adequate artillery support, for many of their batteries had
been made useless by the British. From then on to May 25, 1915, there
were several small engagements in which the British made gains. Then
Sir John French concluded to end the activity of his men on this part
of the front. In that connection he made the following statement: "I
had now reasons to consider that the battle which was commenced by the
First Army on May 9 and renewed on the 16th, having attained for the
moment the immediate object I had in view, should not be further
actively proceeded with.
"In the battle of Festubert the enemy was driven from a position which
was strongly intrenched and fortified, and ground was won on a front
of four miles to an average depth of 600 yards."
CHAPTER XXII
ATTACKS AT LA BASSÉE
The British had discovered the futility of attempting to smash through
the German lines without an adequate supply of high-explosive shells
with which to destroy the heavy wire entanglements. Moreover, in
maintaining a curtain of fire between the German lines and potential
reenforcements, it was necessary to increase the artillery arm of the
service. At this time the Germans could fire four shells to one by the
British. Another very essential equipment in which the British were
lacking was machine guns. The German army had developed machine-gun
warfare apparently to its highest power. They not only used it to
increase their volume of fire, but also as a means of saving their
infantry. When, for any reason, it was found expedient to move
infantry, a few machine-gun crews would take the place of the soldiers
with the rifle and maintain a fire which would be almost as effective
in checking the British advance as the infantry had been. The British
had no such number of machine guns. They lacked this necessary part of
their equipment just as they lacked shells, cannon, aircraft, and
other war material which the Germans had developed and accumulated in
large quantities under the supervision of the German General Staff.
The German munition factories had been making and storing enormous
supplies for an army of several millions of men. On the other hand the
British had believed in the excellence of their comparatively small
army to such an extent that it required all of the fighting from the
time their troops landed on the Continent up to Festubert to convince
them that they must make and maintain a military machine at least
equal, if not superior, to the one her foes possessed. It is true the
British needed more men in the ranks, but what was needed more was
large additions to the supply of machine guns, artillery, and
ammunition.
For those reasons the British generals avoided clashes with the
Germans after the battle of Festubert, except when it was necessary to
hold as many of the Germans as possible to the British part of the
western front. This plan was maintained throughout the summer of 1915.
In the meantime the Germans were constructing, beyond their trenches,
the most elaborate series of field fortifications in the history of
warfare. The German staff realized that the time was coming when the
British would again take the offensive. When that time arrived the
Germans would thus be prepared to make every foot of ground gained as
costly as possible to their foes. In fact they had reason for
believing that it would be almost impossible for their opponents to
gain ground where it was held by such seemingly impregnable works.
An attack at La Bassée in the first weeks in June, 1915, started with
the British Second Army making a pretended advance in the Ypres
region. The British in the forest of Ploegsteert drove a mine into the
German lines and blew it up. The explosion followed by a British
charge, which resulted in the taking of a part of the German trenches.
This forest extended northwest of Lille and south of Messines. Under
the ground in this section the sappers had built a city, whose streets
were named for the thoroughfare of London. Thus there was "Regent
Street," "Piccadilly Circus," "Leicester Square," and many others.
There was also a "Kensington Garden," in which grew wild flowers
transplanted from the forest by the soldiers.
The Germans had been driven out of the forest in the fall of 1914 when
they made their dash to reach Calais; but their trenches were only
about 400 yards beyond the eastern edge. The earth here was especially
adaptable for mines, and both sides made many attempts to work
destruction by tunneling forward. In this activity it was soon found
necessary to have men in advanced positions in the tunnels to listen
to the mining operations of their opponents. As soon as such
operations were discovered, a countertunnel was driven in that
direction and a mine exploded, thereby destroying the enemy's tunnel
and burying his sappers. Sometimes, however, the men in the
countertunnel cut through to the other excavation and engaged in a
hand-to-hand conflict beneath the surface of the earth. Then primitive
methods were used. Though mining had taken place on other sections of
the western front, as at Hill 60, it was in this forest area that it
was probably brought to its highest development.
The British mine here, as noted above, on June 6, 1915, blew up the
German trenches, and the British charged into the crater and drove the
Germans out with bayonet and bomb. A similar crater was the result of
the mining at La Bassée. Five mines at the end of tunnels constructed
by the Germans did not go far enough toward the British trenches, and
when the explosions occurred the trenches remained intact.
The sappers, however, had other things to contend with; this was the
case when a tunnel was driven toward the German trenches between Rue
du Bois and Rue d'Ouvert, near the La Bassée Canal. Water was found
below the German intrenchments. The British managed to keep the water
out of the tunnel by using sandbags. Then they planted enough dynamite
to blow up a large part of the German force. The two trench lines were
very close together on this part of the front; and, to prevent
accidents, the British left their trenches near the mine before it was
fired.
On the night of June 6, 1915, the mine tore open the trenches of both
sides, and buried one of the British magazines which was filled with
hand grenades and killed several British bomb throwers. At about the
same moment another supply of British bombs was exploded when it was
struck by a shell from a German howitzer. This occurred at a place on
the line called Duck's Bill, and resulted in the British being without
an adequate supply of hand grenades. The British troops in this action
were the soldiers of a British division and a Canadian brigade. The
latter included the First Ontario Regiment, the Second and Fourth
Canadian Battalions, the Third Toronto Regiment, and the East
Yorkshires.
The Ontario regiment was directed against a fortified part of the
German line which was called Stony Mountain. To the south of Stony
Mountain, about 150 yards, was another fortified position called
Dorchester. This also was to be taken by the Ontario men. If they
succeeded in their work the right flank of the British division would
be protected. But it was Stony Mountain that was of most importance to
the British. Its machine guns and its northern defenses menaced the
route which the British must take to make an advance. In order to
prevent the Germans from giving their undivided attention to the
Canadians, the British division on the left made an advance against
the Teutons north of Stony Mountain. The British artillery had been
shelling this part of the German line day and night many days as a
preparation for this advance. Its projectiles crashed into the brick
fields near La Bassée, and in front of the wrecked village of Quinchy.
The German machine-gun crews were hidden behind the brick stacks which
were square blocks of burned clay upon which the British shells burst
without perceptible effect. The shells that went over the stacks,
however, did much damage. Beyond the brick field to the north were the
ruins of farm buildings which were also hiding places for the Germans
and their machine guns. All the buildings back of the German line had
been turned into fortresses whose underground works were concreted and
connected with their headquarters by telephone. While the British
artillery was attempting to destroy these fortresses it was also
hurling lyddite shells into the trenches.
The German artillery fire greatly exceeded the British in volume.
Nevertheless the British forces were in the more comfortable
position. They had comparatively little to do except wait until they
were needed, which would be when their artillery had completed the
preparation for the inevitable charge. On the other hand the German
soldier had a nerve-racking part to play. He knew from the preparation
that an attack in force was about to be made; but he did not know when
it would occur nor where. Hence it was necessary for him to be
constantly on the alert. Many of the Germans were under arms at all
hours of the day and night. In fact few of them on that part of their
line got any real rest during the week in which the bombardment
continued. The section between the two lines of trenches was
illuminated at night, and the cannonade kept up so that there was no
opportunity for the Germans to repair the havoc made by the British
shells.
The suspense was terminated on the evening of June 15, 1915, by an
additional flight of projectiles from the British guns. Every piece of
British ordnance on that part of the line was worked at top speed. The
Germans, knowing that this immediately preceded an infantry charge,
used their artillery to stop it. But the British charge formed in
their trenches, with the Canadians on their right. In addition to the
shrapnel the Germans made breaks in the lines of their foes by the use
of machine guns, but the breaks were quickly filled. On some parts of
the front the British and Canadians were successful and reached the
trenches. In all the captured trenches extended from Rue du Bois to
Rue d'Ouvert.
In the meantime those Canadians who had been directed against Stony
Mountain and Dorchester were doing heroic work. The First Company of
the Ontario Regiment charged through the débris of the mine explosion,
only to run into the deadly hail sent at them by the machine guns. But
the Canadians were determined to complete their task, and they took
Dorchester and the connecting trench. The fire was too heavy for them
to reach Stony Mountain. A group of bombers made a dash forward, but
were shot down before they could get near enough to use their weapons.
The second and third companies rushed forward, suffering severely from
the deluge of lead, but some of their men got into the German second
line and then began to bomb their way to right and left. The captured
first trench was utilized by the attacking force. From that vantage
the advance was led by a machine gun which was followed by a group of
bomb throwers. In working forward the machine-gun base became lost
when the man who had it was slain. Thereupon a Canadian "lumberjack"
named Vincent became the base, the machine gun being fired from his
back. But the German bomb throwers drove the attacking force out of
the trench. The Germans kept a rain of lead between the Canadians and
the British line of trenches with the result that it was almost
suicide for a man to attempt to return for bombs. Nevertheless many
braved the ordeal. Only one was successful. He, Private Smith of
Southampton, Ontario, seemed to bear a charmed life, for he made the
trip five times. The Third Canadian Battalion was sent forward to
reenforce the Ontario Regiment which had lost most of its officers,
but such a pressure of German forces were brought to bear on the
Canadians that the reenforcements were unavailing, and the Canadians
were forced to relinquish all they had gained, and return to their own
trenches that night.
The retreat was a desperate undertaking; the Germans then had the
Canadians in the open and added heavily to the Canadian's death roll.
On the other side of Stony Mountain the British had met with no better
success than the Canadians. Having started their enemies back, the
Germans massed for a counterattack and drove them back a mile, but not
without a terrific struggle. The battle field was lighted by the
peculiar fireworks used for such purposes and bursting of shells. Jets
of flame shot forth from machine guns and rifles. In many places the
intermittent light disclosed deadly hand-to-hand conflicts. Suddenly
the Germans concentrated their fire on a portion of their lost first
line of trenches, and the trenches of their enemies who held them were
no more. Having the British and Canadians defeated, as they believed,
the Germans proceeded to add to their victory by storming the British
and Canadian trenches. They met with resistance, however, that drove
them back.
At daybreak on June 16, 1915, the artillery on both sides resumed
firing on a large scale. Suddenly, in the afternoon, the British fire
increased preparatory to another charge. This time the British
commander had selected a smaller section for his attack. This was at
Rue d'Ouvert, and the men who had been selected to make the charge
were the Territorials and the Liverpool Irish. They got into the first
line of German trenches which the Teutons shelled to such an extent
that the remnant of the attacking force had to retreat. Then the
Second Gordon Highlanders and other Scotch soldiers made a gallant
charge at the same place, Rue d'Ouvert, on June 18, 1915, but were
forced to retire to their own trenches.
These attacks on this part of the German front resulted in repulses
for those who made them; but, at the same time, they helped the Allies
win victories elsewhere by keeping the German troops on that part of
the line from going to reenforce those who were being hard pressed by
the French. In this manner the British and Canadians, who fought so
valiantly and with so little apparent success at Stony Mountain and
Rue d'Ouvert, were in a measure responsible for the French victories
at Angres, Souchez, and the Labyrinth. The Crown Prince of Bavaria
could not hold out against both the French and British, but he
believed it was more important for him to check the British, because a
victory for them would threaten Lille to a greater extent.
CHAPTER XXIII
OPERATIONS AROUND HOOGE
The next action of importance on the British front occurred at the
Château of Hooge on the Menin road about three miles east of Ypres.
Here had been the headquarters of Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig
at the first battle of Ypres. From the Château Sir John French had
seen the British line break at Gheluvelt, thereby opening the road for
the Germans to Calais. That opening, however, had been closed by the
Worcesters. After the Germans began to use their deadly gas in the
spring of 1915 they again took possession of Hooge, and used the Menin
road for a forward movement which threatened what was left of Ypres.
The Duke of Württemberg was in command of that part of the line
opposed to the British, and his forces extended from near Pilkem in
the north to near Hill 60 in the south, in the form of a crescent. He
made use of the asphyxiating gas cloud and gas bombs so frequently on
this part of the front that the British soldiers became expert in
donning their hoodlike masks and in using respirators. Moreover, the
British were constantly on the alert for the appearance of the poison
gas. So that this method of attack was much less effective. Before the
Germans discovered how well the British had prepared themselves
against the gas, they met with disaster twice when using it. On both
occasions they had followed their gas cloud expecting to find their
foes writhing on the ground in choking agony--an easy prey for an
attack.
But the British had put on their curious-appearing headgear, and were
waiting for the men whom they knew would be following the cloud at a
safe distance. As soon as the Germans were near enough the British
turned loose everything that would hurl a projectile large or small.
By the time the gas cloud had cleared, or, to be more accurate, passed
on to the rear of the British line and spent itself, the only Germans
to be seen were in the piles of dead and wounded in front of the
British most advanced trenches. The first time this occurred did not
teach the Germans its lesson sufficiently well. A second time the
Germans did not follow their gas cloud so closely. The gas-filled
shells, however, the British found more difficult. They did not give
warning of their coming as did the appearance of the comparatively
slow-moving gas cloud. Thus in the first week of May, 1915, Hill 60
was taken by the Germans in a bombardment of asphyxiating shells. The
bombardment had been immediately followed by a charge of bomb throwers
who made an assault on the hill from three sides at once. That forced
the British to retreat to a trench line at the foot of the hill, and
gave the top of the hill to the Germans who immediately set up a
lookout post for their artillery back of the Zandvoord ridge.
This part of the British line was under the command of Sir Herbert
Plumer. His troops occupied themselves from the first week in May to
the middle of August, 1915, in fighting in the Hooge district. Most of
this fighting was important only because it kept the Germans busy on
that section of the line, and prevented them from being able to
reenforce the Crown Prince of Bavaria or adding men to the force that
was driving the Russians eastward.
The men, fresh from the training camps, fought alongside of hardened
veterans and learned much from them. From being what amounted to
auxiliaries in these actions the new troops became hardened to actual
fighting conditions. For this reason the personnel of the British
troops on this part of the line was changed frequently. This was
especially true at Hooge. Princess Patricia's Canadian Regiment
occupied the Château and village of Hooge on May 8, 1915. The
"Princess Pats," as they were known at home, turned over their
quarters to the Ninth Lancers who were followed by the Fifteenth
Hussars and the Second Camerons.
On May 24, 1915, the Germans made a great gas attack. They had placed
along the line from St. Julien to Hooge a great number of gas tanks.
They then started a bombardment with asphyxiating shells. When the
bombardment was well under way the tanks were opened. The ensuing
cloud was five miles long and forty feet high; and it floated over the
British trenches from 3 a. m. to 7 a. m. The cloud was followed by
three columns of infantry, who dashed forward under the protection of
the shells of their artillery. But the Germans made gains in only two
places--at Hooge and to the north of Wieltje. For the most part the
British regained by counterattacks what they lost; but they were
unable to retake the Château of Hooge, though the Ninth Lancers and
the Fifteenth Hussars made a heroic attempt to regain it. Thereupon
the Third Dragoons received orders to attempt to retake the Château of
Hooge. They went into the second line of the British trenches to the
south of the Menin road on May 29, 1915. The Germans bombarded the
trenches with high-explosive shells while from the German trenches a
torrent of small arms fire poured. In spite of the continued hail of
lead, the Dragoons held to their position though their trenches were
wrecked.
Early in the morning of May 31, the British charged and drove their
enemy from the ruins of the Château and its stables. The Germans
turned all of their artillery on that part of the line against Hooge,
and when the bombardment was finished there was only a heap of ruins
left. The British withdrew from the Château, but only for a short
distance.
The bombardment was renewed on June 1; on that day the German infantry
tried to dislodge the Dragoons, but the attempt was unsuccessful.
Again, on June 2, the artillery was used, the German shells being
hurled a part of the time at the rate of twenty a minute. Under the
cover of this terrific bombardment a part of the German infantry
charged from the Bellewaarde Lake region. They got to the Château
before a British battery opened fire on them. Again they entered the
ruins and made a dash out on the opposite side, where they were met by
more machine-gun fire. Three times they tried to escape, but
practically all of them were slain. Other attempts were made by the
Germans that afternoon, but none of them was successful.
The Dragoons were relieved on June 3, 1915, and their places were
taken by a much larger force. It included the Third Worcesters, the
First Wiltshires, the First Northumberland Fusiliers, the First
Lincolnshires, the Royal Fusiliers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and the
Liverpool Scottish, a territorial organization.
The British artillery was concentrated in the neighborhood of Hooge
and started a bombardment on June 16. After a fairly adequate
preparation by cannonade, the infantry charged the German line for a
thousand yards near the Château, and took a part of the second line of
trenches. Again the British bayonet and bomb had won, though in this
attack the greater credit must be given to the bomb. The Germans made
an attempt to retrieve the day by battering the British out of the
trenches they had won. To do this the German artillery used a
plentiful supply of high-explosive shells. They continued the attempt
for twenty-four hours; but all they succeeded in doing was driving the
British back to the first line of German trenches where they waited
for the inevitable attack of the infantry which was repulsed. Finally
the Germans seemed inclined to give up trying to accomplish much on
this part of their front.
In the first week of July, 1915, the British took two hundred yards of
German trenches, eighty prisoners and three trench mortars. The German
commander now turned once more to Hooge. An additional reason for his
renewed interest in that place was the fact that the British
engineers, on July 20, blew up a mine west of the Château, thereby
making a great crater in which the British infantry made themselves
comparatively secure. The crater was one hundred and fifty feet wide
and fifty feet deep.
The Germans made an unsuccessful attempt to take the crater on July
21, 1915; and tried again on July 24. The Duke of Württemberg found
his men making comparatively little progress. It is true that the
British had not made much more. The gas attacks had gained ground
before the British had learned how to avoid the more severe effects of
the poison. The result of experience brought into existence a new
device. It has been called a flame projector, and has been described
as a portable tank which is filled with a highly inflammable coal-tar
product. The contents of the tank were pumped through a nozzle at the
end of which was a lighting arrangement. The flame could be thrown
approximately forty yards.
A large supply of these flame projectors arrived in the German
trenches on July 30, 1915. The action began with the usual bombardment
of high-explosive shells. Other shells filled with the burning liquid
were also used. At the height of the bombardment, the British lines
were flame swept. No preparation had been made for such an attack; and
the only thing that the British could do was to get out of the way of
the flame. Thus they lost their trenches in the crater and at the
Château and village of Hooge. The method of attack so infuriated the
British that they made a desperate counterattack with the result that
they regained most of what they lost with the exception of about five
hundred yards of trenches.
CHAPTER XXIV
FRANCO-GERMAN OPERATIONS ALONG THE FRONT
We have thus far dealt chiefly with the British operations in the
western front, but it must not be assumed that the French, in the
meantime, were idle. On the contrary, their operations, covering the
far greater territory, were proportionally more important than those
of their allies.
During the winter months artillery duels along the entire
Franco-German front were kept up without intercession. These were
varied by assaults on exposed points which were in many cases
repeatedly taken and lost by the opposing forces.
The French staff applied itself with the utmost vigor to the
accumulation of large stacks of munitions and supplies for the
production of active movements when weather conditions should permit.
For the most part, however, the Franco-German operations were
desultory movements occurring in various portions of the long line.
Actions of the first importance began with the attacks in the St.
Mihiel salient in April, 1915.
On the night of February 6, 1915, Germans exploded three mines at La
Boisselle in front of the houses in the village which the French
occupied, but the attempt of the Germans to advance was checked after
a small amount of ground had been gained. The next day a counterattack
carried out by a French company retook this ground, and inflicted a
loss of 200 men. The French seized a wood north of Mesnil-les-Hurles
on the night of February 7. Here the Germans had strongly established
themselves.
During the first part of February, 1915, the Germans made a series of
assaults on the Marie Therese works in the Argonne. Their force
comprised about a brigade; but the French repulsed all attacks. Both
sides suffered severe losses. On the night of February 9, there was an
infantry engagement at La Fontenelle in the Ban de Sapt. Two
battalions of Germans took part in the action and gained some ground
which the French regained by counterattacks on the following day.
Actions in the Vosges continued in spite of heavy snow. The French
carried Hill 937, eight hundred meters northwest of the farm of
Sudelle, in the region north of Hartmannsweilerkopf.
About February 9, 1915, there was considerable activity on the part of
the German artillery in Champagne, especially before Rheims. The city
being again bombarded. There was also a lively cannonade in the region
of Lens, around Albert, between the Avre and Oise, in the neighborhood
of Soissons, and at Verneuil, northeast of Vailly. In Lorraine the
Germans, after having pushed back the French main guard, succeeded in
occupying the height of the Xon beacon and the hamlet of Norroy. The
Germans were repulsed by a counterattack as far as the slopes north of
the beacon.
The French on February 18 made some progress in the region of
Boureuilles on Hill No. 263. They also gained a wood south of the Bois
de Cheppy. At the same time French troops took four hundred meters of
trenches north of Malancourt and about as much south of the Bois de
Forges. The Germans made five unsuccessful counterattacks, near
Bolincourt, to retake the trenches which the French had captured. On
the same day, the French recaptured the village of Norroy. In the
Vosges, the French repulsed two infantry attacks north of Wisembach,
in the region of the Col de Bonhomme, and consolidated their
positions, progressing methodically north and south of the farm of
Sudelle. The bombardment of Rheims was continued during these days. On
the heights of the Meuse, at Les Eparges, three German counterattacks
on the trenches which the French had won on February 17 were stopped
by the French artillery fire.
In the Vosges, between Lusse and Wisembach, in the Bonhomme region,
the Germans, after succeeding in getting a footing on Hill 607, were
dislodged on the morning of February 19, 1915. The French held their
position on the height notwithstanding the violent efforts to dislodge
them. An attack by the Germans on Le Sattel north of the Sudelle farm
was also repulsed.
In the evening of February 19, 1915, the Germans delivered their
fourth counterattack against the trenches which the French took at Les
Eparges, but the French artillery again beat them back. The Germans
were also unsuccessful in a counterattack on Hill 607, at Sattel,
south of the Fecht. They succeeded in gaining a footing on the eastern
spur of Reichsackerkopf.
After having repulsed a sixth counterattack by the Germans at Les
Eparges, the French on February 10, 1915, delivered a fresh attack
which enabled them to enlarge and complete the progress they made on
the day before. They took three machine guns, two trench mortars, and
made two hundred prisoners, among whom were several officers.
They also repulsed a counterattack of the Germans and then took all of
their trenches to the north and east of the wood which had been
captured by the French on the day before. Two other counterattacks
were repulsed, and the French made fresh progress, particularly to the
north of Mesnil, where they captured two machine guns and one hundred
prisoners. The Germans made their seventh unsuccessful counterattack
on Les Eparges on February 21. The French advanced posts fell back on
the main line in Alsace on both banks of the Fecht; but the main line
was strongly held, and the Germans, attacking in serried and deep
formations, suffered heavy losses.
On the Belgian front the French batteries demolished one of the German
heavy guns near Lombaertzyde on February 22, 1915. On the same day the
French artillery dispersed German troops and convoys between the Lys
and the Aisne. The French made progress on the Souain-Beausejour
front, taking a line of trenches and two woods, and repulsed two
particularly violent counterattacks. Many prisoners were taken by the
French in this action. In the Argonne the French artillery and
infantry had the better of the almost continuous fighting. This was
especially true near Fontaine-aux-Charmes and Marie Therese, as well
as at the Bois Bolante.
The bombardment of Rheims continued on February 22, lasting for a
first period of six hours, and a second period of five hours. One
thousand five hundred shells were fired into all quarters of the town.
The cathedral was made a special target and suffered severely. The
interior of the vaulted roof, which had resisted up to this time,
fell. Twenty houses were set on fire and twenty of the civilian
population were killed.
The French captured more trenches in the region of Beausejour and held
their gains of previous fighting, on February 23, 1915. Their
batteries blew up a German ammunition store to the northwest of Verdun
at Drillancourt, in the region of the Bois de Forges, on the same day,
February 23, 1915, and stopped an attempted German attack in Alsace
from the village of Stossweiler.
There was an action of some importance in the Wood of Malancourt, on
February 26, 1915, when the Germans sprayed the French advanced
trenches with burning liquid. The French troops evacuated them, the
soldiers being severely burned before they could escape. A
counterattack was immediately made. This checked the German advance.
On the same day, in the region of Verdun and on the heights of the
Meuse, the French heavy artillery enveloped with its fire the German
artillery, wrecked some guns, exploded about twenty wagons or depots,
annihilated a detachment, and destroyed an entire encampment.
In Champagne the French on the night of February 26, 1915, captured five
hundred meters of German trenches to the north of Mesnil-les-Hurles.
On February 28, 1915, Rheims was again bombarded and still again on
March 2, 1915. About fifty shells fell on the town. In the Argonne, on
March 2, 1915, in the Bagatelle-Marie Therese sector, there was mine
and infantry fighting in an advanced trench which the French
reoccupied after they had been forced to abandon it. At the same time
in the region of Vauquois, the French made some progress and held the
ground captured in spite of the counterattacks of the Germans. The
French also took some prisoners. In the Vosges, at La Chapelotte, they
captured trenches and gained three hundred meters of ground.
The bombardment of Rheims was continued on March 4, 1915, and lasted
all day, a shell falling about every three minutes. While the
bombardment was in progress the Germans captured an advanced trench
from the French to the north of Arras, near Notre Dame de Lorette; but
in the Argonne the French made fresh progress in the region of
Vauquois. On the following day, March 5, however, the French made
successful counterattacks in the region of Notre Dame de Lorette. The
Germans lost the advanced positions which they had taken from the
French and held them for two days. At Hartmannsweilerkopf, in Alsace,
the French captured a trench, a small fort, and two machine guns. They
also repulsed a counterattack opposite Uffholz, and blew up an
ammunition store at Cernay. On the same night, the French drove back
the German advanced posts which were trying to establish themselves on
the Sillakerkopf, a spur east of Hohneck.
The French continued to gain ground, on March 7, to the north of Arras
in the region of Notre Dame de Lorette, where their attacks carried
some German trenches. The German losses were considerable. During this
first week in March, 1915, the French carried successively, to the
west of Münster, the two summits of the Little and the Great
Reichaelerkopf. The Germans made two counterattacks starting from
Mühlbach and Stossweiler; but they were unsuccessful. On the right
bank of the Fecht the French captured Imburg, one kilometer southeast
of Sultzern. This success was completed farther to the north by the
capture of Hill 856 to the south of the Hutes Hutles. Finally, at
Hartmannsweilerkopf the French repelled a counterattack delivered by a
German battalion which suffered heavy losses and left numerous
prisoners in the hands of the French.
On March 8, 1915, the French gained two hundred meters on the ridge
northeast of Mesnil which they added to the gains of the previous
day. Here the French carried a German redoubt, took a revolver gun and
three machine guns, and made some prisoners. The Germans had armored
shelters supplied with revolver guns and very deep subterranean
chambers. In the Argonne, between Four-de-Paris and Bolante, the
French delivered an attack which made them masters of the first line
of German trenches of more than two hundred meters in length.
To the north of Rheims in front of the Bois de Luxembourg, the Germans
attempted, on March 14, to carry one of the French advanced trenches,
but were repulsed. On the same day, between Four-de-Paris and Bolante
in the Argonne, the French gained three hundred meters of trenches,
and took some prisoners. Two counterattacks which the Germans made
were unsuccessful.
In the region of Lombaertzyde on March 15, the French artillery very
effectively bombarded the German works. When the Germans attempted to
recapture the small fort which was taken from them on the night of
March 1 they were repulsed and left fifty dead. The French losses were
small. To the north of Arras, a brilliant attack by the French
infantry enabled them to capture, by a single effort, three lines of
trenches on the spur of Notre Dame de Lorette, and to reach the edge
of the plateau. The French captured one hundred prisoners including
several officers. They also destroyed two machine guns and blew up an
ammunition store. Farther to the south, in the region of
Ecurie-Roclincourt, near the road from Lille, they blew up several
German trenches and prevented their reconstruction. In Champagne the
French made fresh progress. They gained ground in the woods to the
northeast of Souain and to the northwest of Perthes. They also
repulsed two German counterattacks in front of Ridge 196, northeast of
Mesnil, and extended their position in that sector. In the region of
Bagatelle in the Argonne two German counterattacks were repulsed. The
French demolished a blockhouse there, and established themselves on
the site of it. Between Four-de-Paris and Bolante the Germans
attempted two counterattacks which failed. At Vauquois the French
infantry delivered an attack which gave it possession of the western
part of the village. Here they made prisoners. At the Bois-le-Prêtre,
northeast of Pont-à-Mousson, the Germans blew up with a mine four of
the French advanced trenches which were completely destroyed. The
Germans gained a footing there, but the French retook the first two
trenches and a half of the third. Between the Bois-le-Prêtre and
Pont-à-Mousson, in the Haut de Rupt, the Germans made an attack which
was repulsed.
In Champagne, before Hill 196, northeast of Mesnil, on March 19, 1915,
the Germans, after violently bombarding the French position, made an
infantry attack which was repulsed with heavy losses.
In the Woevre, in the Bois Mortmore, on March 20, 1915, the French
artillery destroyed a blockhouse and blew up several ammunition wagons
and stores. At La Boisselle, northeast of Albert, the Germans, after a
violent bombardment, attempted a night attack which was repulsed with
large losses.
The Germans bombarded the Cathedral of Soissons again on March 21,
1915, firing twenty-seven shells and causing severe damage to the
structure. On the same day Rheims was bombarded, fifty shells falling
there.
Near Bagatelle the French, on March 22, blew up three mines; and two
companies of their troops stormed a German trench in which they
maintained their position in spite of a strong counterattack. Five
hundred yards from there, the Germans, after exploding two mines, and
bombarding the French trenches, rushed to an attack on a front of
about two hundred and fifty yards. After some very hot hand-to-hand
fighting the assailants were hurled back in spite of the arrival of
their reenforcements. The French artillery caught them under its fire
as they were falling back, and inflicted very heavy losses.
The French then retreated some fifteen meters at Vauquois on March 23,
1915, when the Germans sprayed one of their trenches with inflammable
liquid.
CHAPTER XXV
CAMPAIGN IN ARGONNE AND AROUND ARRAS
There were some weak places in the French line from Switzerland to the
North Sea; and one of them was that part in the region between the
Forest of the Argonne and Rheims. General Langle de Cary was in
command of the army which held this section. It requires no military
genius to comprehend that the French center and the right wing from
Belfort to Verdun were not safe until the Germans had been forced back
across the Aisne at every place. The French general had made an effort
to drive the Germans under General von Einem from Champagne
Pouilleuse. The preliminary effort had been to stop the Germans from
using the railroad which ran from near the Nort to Varennes through
the Forest of the Argonne and across the upper Aisne to Bazancourt.
[Illustration: Prayer in a French church which the exigencies of war
have converted into a Red Cross hospital.]
After the battle of the Marne, the crown prince's army, severely
handled by the Third French Army under General Sarrail, pushed hastily
toward the north and established itself on a line running
perpendicularly through the Argonne Forest, at about ten or fifteen
kilometers from the road connecting Ste. Ménéhould with Verdun. Almost
immediately there developed a series of fights that lasted during a
whole year and were really among the bloodiest and most murderous
combats of the war. The German army in the Argonne, commanded by the
crown prince, whose headquarters had long been established at Stenay,
consisted of the finest German troops, including, among others, the
famous Sixteenth Corps from Metz, which, with the Fifteenth Corps from
Strassburg, is considered the cream of the Germanic forces. This corps
was commanded by the former governor of Metz, General von Mudra, an
expert in all branches of warfare relating to fortresses and mines.
Specially reenforced by battalions of sharpshooters and a division of
Württembergers, the Twenty-Seventh, accustomed to forest warfare, this
corps made the most violent efforts from the end of September,
1914, to throw the French troops back to the south and seize the road
to Verdun. The crown prince evidently meant to sever this route and
the adjoining highway, leading from Verdun to Ste. Ménéhould. The road
then turns to the south and joins at Revigny, the main line of
Bar-le-Duc to Paris via Chalons, forming, in fact, the only possible
line of communication for the fortress of Verdun. The other line,
running from Verdun to St. Mihiel, was rendered useless after the
Germans had fixed themselves at St. Mihiel in September, 1914.
Up to the first months of 1916 there was only a small local railway
that could be used between Revigny and Ste. Ménéhould by Triaucourt.
Of the two big lines, one was cut by the Germans, and the other was
exposed to the fire of their heavy artillery.
The violence of the German attacks in the Argonne prove that so long
ago as September, 1914, they already dreamt of taking Verdun. Their
aim was to force the French troops against Ste. Ménéhould and invest
the fortress on three sides to bring about its fall.
These Argonne battles were invested with a particular interest and
originality. They were in progress for a whole year, in a thick forest
of almost impenetrable brushwood, split with numerous deep ravines and
abrupt, slippery precipices. The humidity of the forest is excessive,
the waters pouring down from high promontories. The soldiers who
struggled here practically spent two winters in the water.
One can hardly imagine the courage and heroism necessary to bear the
terrible hardships of fighting under such conditions. All the German
soldiers made prisoners by the French describe life in the Argonne as
a hideous nightmare.
From the end of September, 1914, the Germans delivered day and night
attacks, generally lasting ten days. These attacks were made with
forces of three or four battalions up to a division or a division and
a half. In each attack the Germans aimed at a very limited
objective--to capture the first or second line of trenches, to seize
some particular fortified point. That object once attained, the
Germans held on there, consolidated the occupied terrain, fortified
their new positions and prepared for another push forward. It was thus
by a process of nibbling the French trenches bit by bit that the
Germans hoped to attain the Verdun-Ste. Ménéhould line.
The tactics employed in these combats were those suited to forest
fighting; sapping operations methodically and minutely carried out to
bring the German trenches as near as possible to the French; laying
small mines to be exploded at a certain hour. Two or three hours
before an attack the French positions were bombarded by trench mortars
and especially heavy mine throwers.
At the short distances the effect would naturally be to cause
considerable damage; trenches and their parapets were demolished,
shelters, screening reserves, were torn open. At that moment when the
attack is to be launched, the German artillery drops the "fire
curtain" behind the enemy trenches to prevent reenforcements from
arriving. Such are the tactics almost constantly employed by the
Germans.
Despite their most furious efforts during the winter of 1914 and the
spring and summer of 1915, in at least forty different attacks, the
German gains were very insignificant, and if one considers the line
they held after the battle of the Marne and compares it with their
present position, one may gather some idea of how little progress they
have made.
It was in June and July, 1915, that the Germans displayed their main
efforts in the Argonne. Their three great attacks were made with
greater forces than ever before (two or three divisions), but the
results were as profitless as their predecessors. The heroism of the
French barred the way.
At Arras in June, there was almost as much activity as at Ypres.
During the last part of the campaign in the Artois, General d'Urbal
began an advance between Hebuterne and Serre. The former had been held
by the French and the latter by the Germans. The two villages were
each on a small hill and not quite two miles apart. There were two
lines of German trenches in front of the farm of Tout Vent which was
halfway between the villages.
The trenches were held by the Seventeenth Baden Regiment which was
attacked by the French on June 7, 1915. The French troops consisted of
Bretons, Vendeans, and soldiers from Savoy and Dauphiné. The work of
the infantry was preceded by a heavy bombardment to which the German
artillery replied. Then the French charged with a dash that seemed
irresistible.
On the following day, June 8, 1915, the French gained more ground to
the north in spite of the activity of the German artillery. June 9,
1915, saw desperate fighting in the German communicating trenches, and
on June 10, 1915, several hundred yards of trenches to the south were
taken. The Seventeenth Baden Regiment was only a name and a memory
when the fighting ceased; and two German battalions had fared but
little better. Of the five hundred and eighty prisoners taken ten were
officers.
General de Castelnau, on the day before the fighting at Hebuterne,
made a break in the German line east of Forest of l'Aigle which is a
continuation of the Forest of Compiègne but is separated from it by
the Aisne. Within the French lines were the farms of Ecaffaut and
Quennevieres. The Germans held Les Loges and Tout Vent. There was a
German salient opposite Quennevieres with a small fort at the peak of
the salient. Defenses had been built also where the northern and
southern sides of the salient rested on the main line of trenches.
There were two lines of trenches on the arc of the salient with three
lines on a portion of the arc. An indented trench held the chord of
the arc. The Germans had placed several guns in a ravine which ran
down toward Tout Vent. Four companies of the Eighty-sixth Regiment had
held the salient.
On June 5, 1915, the reserve troops were taken from the Tout Vent
ravine for reenforcements. Their places were occupied then by other
German troops. The French artillery bombarded the fort at the peak of
the salient, and all of the trenches and defenses of the Germans in
that neighborhood and the French infantry kept up a rifle and
machine-gun fire which was an aid in preventing the Germans from
repairing the damage done their defenses. The bombardment continued
all day and all night and increased in volume and intensity on the
morning of June 6, 1915. Then it was continued intermittently. A mine
under the fort at the peak of the salient blew up. The Germans who
sought refuge in their dugouts found them unavailing. The shells had
blown the roofs from those places of supposed safety. In many
instances their occupants had been buried in the débris and
suffocated. The French artillery lengthened its range and made a
curtain of fire between the Germans on the front and the German
supports in the rear. Then the French infantry charged. The men had
dispensed with knapsack that they might not be hampered with
unnecessary weight. All had three rations and two hundred and fifty
rounds of ammunition. They were also provided with two hand grenades
and a sack. The last was to be filled with earth. The filled sacks
were sufficient to form breastworks with which any place taken might
be held. With a cheer the French infantry ran across the two hundred
yards between the two lines. The German infantry's nerves had been so
badly shaken by the bombardment that only a scattering fire, badly
directed, greeted the French. It was but the work of minutes to take
the first line of German trenches. The two hundred and fifty survivors
of two German battalions were made prisoners. The German reserves in
the ravine on the Tout Vent farm made a dash to aid their fire line;
but the French artillery shells accounted for them before the reserves
ever reached those whom they would have relieved. Thus in less than an
hour 2,000 Germans were put out of the fight. The French who had been
selected for this work included Bretons, Zouaves, and Chasseurs.
The Zouaves then made a dash for the ravine on the Tout Vent front.
There they came upon a field work equipped with three guns. This work
was protected by wire entanglements. The German artillerymen retreated
to their dugouts, but the Zouaves captured them and their
fortification. At that stage of the fighting the French aviators saw
German reenforcements on their way to take part in the battle. The
aviators signaled to their troops this information. Two German
battalions were being hurried in motor cars from Roye to the east of
the Oise; but before they reached the scene of the fighting the
Germans managed to mass for a counterattack. It was ill-planned and
executed. French shrapnel and machine guns annihilated those making
the counterattack. In the meantime the French sappers were fortifying
with sacks of earth the ends of the salient, so that by night the
French were in a position to hold what they had gained. The
precautions which the French had made were shown to be extremely
timely, for that night the reenforcements from Roye made eight
desperate attacks.
The lack of success throughout the night did not prevent the Germans
from making a reckless attack on the French works at both ends of the
salient on the morning of June 7. The Germans made their advance along
the lines of the communicating trenches. They were greeted with a
shower of hand grenades. By nightfall the Germans seemed to have
wearied of the attacks. The total German loss in killed in this
engagement was three thousand. The French had lost only two hundred
and fifty killed and fifteen hundred wounded. They captured a large
amount of equipage and ammunition, besides twenty machine guns.
The French front south of Pont-à-Mousson, on the Moselle, through the
gap of Nancy to the tops of the Vosges experienced only slight changes
during the spring and summer of 1915. The Germans assumed the
offensive in the region of La Fontenelle, in the Ban-de-Sapt, in April
and June. The French engineers had built a redoubt to the east of La
Fontenelle on Hill 627. The Germans found they could not take it by an
assault; so their sappers went to work to tunnel under it; but they
had to bore through very hard rock and the work was necessarily slow.
The French, learning of the mining operations of their foes, started a
countereffort with the result that there was a succession of fierce
skirmishes under the surface of the earth. Finally the German sappers
were lured into a communicating tunnel which had been mined for the
purpose and they all perished. The greatest activity of the sappers
was between April 6 and April 13, 1915. On the night of the latter
date the officers of the Germans tried to rally their men for further
operations, but their soldiers had had enough and refused to renew
their work.
The Germans, however, did not give up in their attempts to take Hill
627, which they called Ban-de-Sapt, and in an assault they made upon
it on June 22 they took the hill. Thereupon the general in command of
the Thirtieth Bavarian Division made the following announcement:
"I have confidence that the height of Ban-de-Sapt will be transformed
with the least possible delay into an impregnable fortification and
that the efforts of the French to retake it will be bloodily
repulsed."
On the night of July 8 the French began a bombardment which was
followed by an infantry charge which forced its way through five lines
of trenches and gained the redoubt on the top of the hill, in spite of
its corrugated iron and gun-shield defenses to which had been added
logs and tree trunks. At the same time the French made an attack on
the German trenches on the left and surrounded the hill from the
eastward. The Germans on the right flank of the French were kept busy
by another attack. In this battle two battalions of the Fifth Bavarian
Ersatz Brigade were taken from the German ranks either by death or as
prisoners. The French captured eight hundred and eighty-one, of whom
twenty-one were officers, who, for the most part, were men of more
than ordinary education.
The principal work of the French troops at this time was in the valley
of the Fecht and the neighboring mountains. They planned to go down
through the valley to Münster and take the railroad to which the
mountain railroads were tributaries. In connection with this campaign
in the mountains the achievement of a company of French Chasseurs
serves to illustrate the heroic and hardy character of these men. They
were surrounded by German troops on June 14, 1915, but refused to
surrender. Instead they built a square camp which they prepared to
hold as long as one of them remained alive. When their ammunition
began to give out, they rolled rocks down on their enemy and hurled
large stones at the advancing foe. At the same time the French
artillery aided them by raining shells on the Germans, though the
artillery was miles from the scene of action. Thus the Chasseurs were
able to hold their position until they were relieved on June 17,
1915. In the meantime the French proceeded down the valley of the
Fecht and up the mountains overlooking the valley. An assault was made
on the top of Braunkopf and an attack was made on Anlass on June 15
and 16, 1915. The French captured Metzeral on June 19, 1915, the
Germans having set fire to it before being driven out. The soldiers of
the republic then began to bombard Münster with such success that they
destroyed a German ammunition depot there. The Sondernach ridge was
held by the French about the middle of July, 1915, and they continued
to gain ground so that they were near Münster by the end of July,
1915. In these actions the French mountaineers were pitting their
skill against the mountaineers from Bavaria.
By midsummer the lines on both sides of the western front were an
elaborate series of field fortifications. The shallow trenches of the
preceding fall were practically things of the past. And these
fortifications extended from the Vosges to the North Sea. They
naturally varied with the nature of the region in which they were
built. The marshy character of the soil along the Yser and about the
Ypres salient made it impossible to go down very deep. Hence it was
necessary to build up parapets which were easy marks for the
artillery. The Germans had the better places on the higher levels from
Ypres to Armentières; but the British line opposing them showed
remarkable engineering skill. The advances of the Allies had resulted
in making the first line of trenches somewhat temporary in character
in the sections about Festubert, La Bassée, and the Artois; but in
these regions there were strong fortifications in the rear of both
lines. The condition of the ground from Arras to Compiègne was
excellent for fortification purposes. The Teutons had the better
position in the chalky region along the Aisne, though the chalk
formation did not add to the comfort of the men. In the northern part
of Champagne trench life was more bearable. The forests in the
Argonne, the Woevre, and the Vosges made the trenches the best of all
on the western front. The greater part of these so-called trenches,
the like of which had never before been constructed, could not be
taken without a bombardment by heavy artillery. And, in the rear of
each line there was a series of other fortifications quite as
impregnable. This condition was a gradual growth which had developed
as a result of the increasingly new methods of attack. As new means of
taking life were invented, new means of protection came into
existence, until, for the present, the inventive genius of man seemed
to be at a standstill. But all this activity and preparation at the
front meant a greater activity in the rear of the opposing lines.
Fighting men were a necessity; but, under existing conditions of
warfare, they were useless unless they were kept supplied by an army
of artisans and another army of men to transport munitions to the
soldiers on the firing line. In fact it was being forced on the minds
of the commanding officers that the war could be won in the workshop
and laboratory rather than on the battle field.
CHAPTER XXVI
BELGO-GERMAN OPERATIONS
For the most part the activity of the Belgian army in February, 1915,
consisted of a continuous succession of advanced-post encounters, in
which detachments of from thirty to forty soldiers fought with the
Germans on the narrow strips of land which remained inundated, while
the artillery of the contending forces bombarded the trenches and the
machine-gun forts. The intermittent artillery duel continued through
the forepart of February, 1915, and on February 14, 1915, the Germans
bombarded Nieuport, Bains and the Dune trenches, and continued the
bombardment on February 15, 1915, and again on February 20, 1915.
Near Dixmude on February 28, 1915, the Belgian artillery demolished
two of the German trenches, and their infantry occupied a farm on the
right bank of the Yser. One of their aviators dropped bombs on the
harbor station at Ostend.
By the beginning of March, 1915, strips of dry land began to be seen
in the flooded region; and, along these, the Belgians advanced at
Dixmude and the bend of the Yser. They won additional bridgeheads on
the northern bank of the river. By the middle of the month, March,
1915, the Belgians had obtained a strategical point by possessing
Oudstuyvenkerke on the Schoorbakke highway. From there they could
force the Germans back until they were in a position that would
prevent any German action against the Dixmude bridgehead.
On March 18, 1915, the Belgian army continued its progress on the
Yser, and on March 23, 1915, the artillery destroyed several German
observation points. A division of the Belgian army made some progress
on the right bank of the Yser on March 24, 1915; while another was
taking a German trench on the left bank. The almost continuous
artillery fighting was more active in the Nieuport region on March 26,
1915; and farther south a farm north of St. Georges in advance of the
allied lines was taken and held.
But the Belgian army was unable to take any decisive action against
the left wing of the German army during the spring and summer of 1915,
both on account of the wetness of the land and the activity of the
German artillery. Yet it harassed the Germans by so much activity that
the Teutons continued to add to their heavy howitzers and large
caliber naval guns. Nevertheless the Belgian strategy gained for its
little army many advantages of tactical importance. It seemed to be a
part of the plan of the Belgian generals to give their new troops,
which were filling up the previously thinned ranks, a training under
heavy bombardments without risking the lives or liberty of many of
their men. They held the old cobbled roads which remained about the
waters, using an almost innumerable number of trenches for that
purpose.
The Germans sought to obviate this check to their activities by
approaching on rafts on which were machine guns, from which attempts
were made to pour an enfilading fire on the trenches. Thereupon the
Belgian sharpshooters became especially active and exterminated the
machine-gun crews before the Germans could take advantage of the
position they had gained by using the rafts.
Finally the waters subsided and the mud which remained dried. As soon
as the ground became firm enough to support troops the Belgians became
so active that the Germans desired more men, but their soldiers were
also needed in many other sections of the western front, and for the
time being none could be sent against the Belgians. Hence King
Albert's troops continued to make progress.
The Germans made an attack between Nieuport and the sea on May 9,
1915, but were repulsed. To the north of Dixmude the Belgians were
violently attacked during the night of May 10, 1915, by three German
battalions. They were repulsed and suffered large losses.
On the night of May 16, 1915, the Germans threatened with complete
envelopment by the successful attacks of preceding days, evacuated the
positions which they had occupied to the west of the Yser Canal, and
they gained nothing on the eastern bank. The Germans left about two
thousand dead and many rifles when they were forced from the western
bank. On the following night, May 17, 1915, the positions on the
eastern bank were consolidated, and a German counterattack, which was
preceded by a bombardment, was repulsed. The Germans gained a footing
in the trenches to the east of the Yser Canal in an attack made on the
night of May 20, 1915, but they were driven out and lost some of the
ground they had held before making the attack.
The Germans made a violent attack on the edge of the Belgian front at
Nieuport in order to prevent the Belgians from aiding in the defense
of Ypres, but the Belgians defended Nieuport with one army corps and
made an advance on Dixmude with another corps, with the result that
they assisted the Zouaves in taking the German bridgeheads on the
western bank of the canal above Ypres. These bridgeheads were
protected by forts manned by machine guns, and the approaches were
commanded by heavy artillery fire, but defense was destroyed in the
middle of May, 1915.
The Germans concentrated their efforts against the Belgians at one
point between Ypres and Dixmude. They bombarded the trenches, using
bombs filled with poisonous gas. When they believed the Belgians had
been overcome by the gas the German infantry charged. The Belgians,
however, had kept their faces close to the ground, thus escaping most
of the fumes from the shells. When the Germans arrived within easy
range they were greeted with machine-gun fire to such an extent that
the companies leading the charge were slain.
A battalion of Belgian troops on June 14, 1915, gained the east bank
of the Yser south of the Dixmude railroad bridge, and established
themselves there. The Belgians also destroyed a German blockhouse in
the vicinity of the Château of Dixmude. The Belgian troops, south of
St. Georges, captured a German trench, all the defenders of which were
killed or made prisoners on June 22, 1915.
After the canal line was won, and the Belgians were in position to
hold it, they could make little headway eastward. Their advance was
checked by a series of batteries which were concealed in the Forest of
Houthulst. These batteries, containing many guns of large caliber,
continued to shell the Belgian trenches to such an extent that it was
necessary for their inhabitants to keep close to the bomb-proof
chambers with which the trenches were liberally supplied. But the
Belgians kept so many of the German troops occupied that, in this way,
they gave great aid to their allies, and enabled the French and
British to regain much of the territory which was lost in the first
attack which the Germans made with poisonous gas. The remainder of the
summer was occupied with intermittent artillery duels and minor
engagements between the opposing trench lines. In the meantime the
Belgian army was adding to the number of its troops and gathering
munitions for an aggressive movement.
PART V--NAVAL OPERATIONS
CHAPTER XXVII
THE WAR ZONE
The war on the seas, with the long-expected battle between the fleets
of the great nations, developed during the second six months of the
war into a strange series of adventures. The fleets of the British and
the Germans stood like huge phantoms--the first enshrouded in mystery
somewhere in the Irish and North Seas; the second held in leash behind
the Kiel Canal, awaiting the opportune moment to make its escape.
These tense, waiting days were broken by sensational and spectacular
incidents--not so much through the sea fights of great modern warships
as through the adventures of the raiders on the seven seas, the
exploits of the submarines, and the daring attempt of the allied
fleets to batter down the mighty forts in the Dardanelles and bombard
their way toward Constantinople--the coveted stronghold of the Ottoman
Empire. The several phases of these naval operations are described in
special chapters in this volume, therefore We will now confine
ourselves to the general naval developments.
In the spring of 1915 the threat made by Admiral von Tirpitz that
Germany would carry on war against British and allied shipping by
sinking their vessels with submarines, was made effective. The
submersible craft began to appear on all the coasts of the British
Isles. It infested the Irish Sea to such an extent that shipping
between England and Ireland was seriously menaced.
A particularly daring raid took place on the night of February 1,
1915, when a number of submarines tried to scuttle ships lying at
Dover. The attack failed, but drew fire from the guns of the fort
here.[1]
[Footnote 1: See chapter on "Exploits of the Submarines."]
On the 5th of February, 1915, the German Naval Staff announced that
beginning February 18, 1915, the waters around Great Britain would be
considered a "war zone." This was in retaliation for the blockade
maintained against Germany by the British navy. The proclamation read
as follows:
"The waters round Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of
the English Channel, are herewith proclaimed a war region.
"On and after February 18, 1915, every enemy merchant vessel found in
this war region will be destroyed without its always being possible to
warn the crew or passengers of the dangers threatening.
"Neutral ships will also incur danger in the war region, where, in
view of the misuse of the neutral flags ordered by the British
Government and incidents inevitable in sea warfare, attacks intended
for hostile ships may affect neutral ships also.
"The sea passage to the north of the Shetland Islands and the eastern
region of the North Sea in a zone of at least thirty miles along the
Netherlands coast is not menaced by any danger.
(Signed) Berlin, February 4, 1915, Chief of Naval Staff,
VON POHL."
[Illustration: The German Submarine War Zone.]
The effect of this proclamation, which was in truth nothing more than
official sanction for the work that the submarines had been doing for
some weeks, and which they continued to do, was to bring Germany into
diplomatic controversy with neutral countries, particularly the United
States; such controversy is taken up in a different chapter of this
history. In connection with the naval history of the Great War it
suffices to say that such a proclamation constituted a precedent in
naval history. The submarine had heretofore been an untried form of
war craft. The rule had formerly been that a merchantman stopped by an
enemy's warship was subject to search and seizure, and, if it offered
no resistance, was taken to one of the enemy's ports as a prize. If
it offered resistance it might be summarily sunk. But it was
impossible for submarines to take ships into port on account of the
patrols of allied warships; and the limited quarters of submarines
made it impossible to take aboard them the crews of ships which they
sank.
Reference made to the use of neutral flags quoted in the German
proclamation had been induced by the fact that certain of the British
merchant ships, after Germany had begun to send them to the bottom
whenever one of its submarines caught up with them had gone through
the waters where the submarines operated flying the flag of the United
States and other neutral powers in order to deceive the commanders of
the submarines. The latter had little time to do more than take a
brief observation of merchantmen which they sank, and one of the first
things they sought was the nationality of the flag that the intended
victims carried; unless they could be sure of the identity of a ship
through familiarity with the lines of her hull, they ran the risk, in
attacking a ship flying a neutral flag, of sinking a vessel belonging
to a neutral power.
Here was another matter that opened up diplomatic exchanges between
Germany and the United States, and between the United States and
England. It suffices here to give not only the controversy or the
points involved, but the record of events. The first use of the flag
of a neutral country by a ship belonging to one of the belligerents in
the Great War occurred on January 31, 1915, when the Cunard liner
_Orduna_ carried the American flag at her forepeak in journeying from
Liverpool to Queenstown. She again did so on February 1, 1915, when
she left the latter port for New York. And another notable instance
was on February 11, 1915, when the _Lusitania_, another Cunard liner,
arrived at Liverpool flying the American flag in obedience to orders
issued by the British admiralty. It was only the prominence of these
vessels which gave them notoriety in this regard; the same practice
was indulged in by many smaller ships.
"What will happen after the 18th?" was the one important question
asked during February, 1915, by the public of the neutral as well as
belligerent countries.
February 18, 1915, arrived and saw Von Pohl's proclamation go into
effect, and from that date onward the toll of ships sunk, both of
neutral and belligerent countries, grew longer daily.
But before the German submarines could begin the new campaign, those
of the British navy became active, and it was admitted in Berlin on
February 15, 1915, that British submarines had made their way into the
Baltic, through the sound between Sweden and Denmark, where they
attacked the German cruiser _Gazelle_ unsuccessfully.
Nor was the British navy inactive in other ways, though it had been
greatly discredited by the fact that the German submarines were
playing havoc with British shipping right at England's door. A fleet
of two battleships and several cruisers drew up off Westende and
bombarded the German trenches on the 4th of February, 1915.
Only one day after the war-zone proclamation went into effect the
Allies brought out their trump card for the spring of 1915.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ATTACK ON THE DARDANELLES
By the middle of February, 1915, the Allies completed the arrangement
for the naval attack on the Dardanelles. The military part of the
campaign in these regions is treated in the chapter on the "Campaign
in the Dardanelles"; hence we must confine ourselves at present to the
general naval affairs. The naval operations began with the
concentration in the adjacent waters of a powerful fleet consisting of
both French and British ships.
The ships engaged were the _Queen Elizabeth_, with her main battery of
15-inch guns, the _Inflexible_, veteran of the fight off the Falkland
Islands, the _Agamemnon_, _Cornwallis_, _Triumph_, and _Vengeance_. In
addition to these British ships there were the French battleships
_Suffren_, _Gaulois_, and _Bouvet_, and a fleet of destroyers. The
senior British officer was Vice Admiral Sackville Carden, and the
French commander was Admiral Guépratte. A new "mother ship" for a
squadron of seaplanes was also part of the naval force; this was the
ship _Ark Royal_. At eight in the morning on February 19, 1915, this
powerful fleet started "The Great Attempt."
After bombarding the Turkish forts till three in the afternoon without
receiving a single reply from the guns of the forts, the warships
ceased firing and went in closer to the shore, the allied commanders
believing that the forts had not replied because they all had been put
out of action. The fallacy of this belief was discovered when, at the
shortened range, shells began to fall about the ships. None was hit;
when dusk came on they retired.
Stormy weather prevented further action on the part of the warships
for almost a week, but on February 25, 1915, they resumed their
bombardment. The _Irresistible_ and _Albion_ had by then joined the
other British ships, and the _Charlemagne_ had augmented the French
force.
At ten o'clock in the morning of February 25, 1915, the _Queen
Elizabeth_, _Gaulois_, _Irresistible_, and _Agamemnon_ began to fire
on the forts Sedd-el-Bahr, Orkanieh, Kum Kale, and Cape Hellas--the
outer forts--at long range, and drew replies from the Turkish guns. It
was out of all compliance with naval tradition for warships to stand
and engage land fortifications, for lessons learned by naval
authorities from the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese wars had
established precedents which prohibited it. But here the larger
warships were carrying heavier guns than those in the forts. Whereas
the _Queen Elizabeth_ carried 15-inch guns, the largest of the Turkish
guns measured only 10.2 inches.
At 11.30 o'clock in the morning of February 25, 1915, the _Agamemnon_
was hit with a shell which had traveled six miles, but it did not
damage her beyond repair. Meanwhile the _Queen Elizabeth_ had silenced
Cape Hellas, firing from a distance far beyond the range of the forts'
guns. And then, just before noon, and after the larger ship had
silenced the main battery at Cape Hellas, the ships _Vengeance_ and
_Cornwallis_ dashed in at shorter range and destroyed the minor
batteries there. The _Suffren_ and _Charlemagne_ also took part in
this phase of the engagement, and later, in the afternoon, the
_Triumph_ and _Albion_ concentrated fire on Sedd-el-Bahr, silencing
its last guns by five o'clock in the evening.
The larger ships needed the respite during the night of February 25,
1915, while trawlers, which had been brought down from the North Sea
for the purpose, began to sweep the entrance to the forts for mines,
and cleared enough of them out by the morning of the 26th to enable
the _Majestic_--which had by then joined the fleet--and the _Albion_
and _Vengeance_ to steam in between the flanking shores and fire at
the forts on the Asiatic side. It was known by the allied commanders
that they might expect return fire from Fort Dardanos, but this they
did not fear, for they knew that its heaviest gun measured but 5.9
inches. But they had a surprise when concealed batteries near by, the
presence of which had not been suspected, suddenly began to fire.
Believing now that the Turks were abandoning the forts at the
entrance, the allied ships covered the landing of parties of marines.
Long-range firing had by the end of February 26, 1915, enabled the
allied fleets to silence the outer forts and to clear their way to the
straits. They now had to take up the task of destroying the real
defenses of the Dardanelles--the forts at the Narrows, and this was a
harder task, for long-range firing was no longer possible. The guns of
the forts and those of the ships would be meeting on a more equal
basis.
But this was not to be essayed at once, for more rough weather kept
the fleets from using their guns effectively, their trawlers continued
to sweep the waters for mines near the Narrows. By March 3, 1915,
however, the commanders were ready to resume operations. The _Lord
Nelson_ and the _Ocean_ had by then also arrived on the scene, and in
the subsequent operations were hit a number of times by the Turkish
guns; and the _Canopus_, _Swiftsure_, _Prince George_, and _Sapphire_,
though they did not report being hit, were also known to have been
present.
The new "eyes" of the fleets located new and concealed batteries
placed in position by the Turks, and at two o'clock in the afternoon
of February 3, 1915, they ascended to direct the fire of the ships'
guns by signal. The bombardment was kept up till darkness fell, but it
was resumed on the next day.
On March 4, 1915, the _Queen Elizabeth_, so great was the range of her
guns, was able to reach the forts Hamadieh I, Tabia, and Hamadieh II,
firing across the Gallipoli Peninsula. Three times she was hit by
shells from field pieces lying between her and her target, but no
great damage was done to her. While her guns roared out, the
_Suffren_, _Albion_, _Prince George_, _Vengeance_, and _Majestic_ went
inside the straits and had attacked the forts at Soundere, Mount
Dardanos, and Rumili Medjidieh Tabia, and were fired upon by Turkish
guns from the forts and from concealed batteries which struck these
ships, but not a man was killed or a ship put out of action.
March 7, 1915, the _Agamemnon_ and _Lord Nelson_ attacked the forts at
the Narrows, their bombardment being covered by the four French
battleships. All of the ships were struck, but again none of them was
put out of action. After heavy shelling forts Rumili Medjidieh Tabia
and Hamadieh I were silenced.
While these operations were going on, another British fleet,
consisting of battleships and cruisers, on March 5, 1915, began an
attack on Smyrna. For two hours, and in fine, clear weather, Fort Yeni
Kale was damaged after being subjected to heavy bombardment, but it
was not silenced when dusk interrupted the attack.
Little was accomplished for some days afterward. Some of the forts
which had been reported silenced were getting ready to resume firing;
their silence had been due to the fact that the defenders often had to
leave their guns while the gases generated by the firing cleared off,
and they had also thought it wiser to conserve ammunition rather than
fire ineffective shots. Sedd-el-Bahr and Kum Kale were able to resume
firing in a few days, for though the shells of the allied fleets had
damaged the structural parts of these defenses, they had not landed
troops out to occupy them, with the result that the Turks were
enabled to intrench near the ruins and there reset their guns.
On the morning of March 15, 1915, the small British cruiser _Amethyst_
made a dash into the Narrows, which when reported led the British and
French public to believe that the defense had been forced, but, as a
matter of fact, this exploit was a bit of stratagem, being only
designed to draw the fire of concealed batteries.
On March 18, 1915, "The Great Effort" was made to force the defenses
with naval operations, all previous work having been preliminary. The
battleships _Agamemnon_, _Prince George_, _Queen Elizabeth_, _Lord
Nelson_, _Triumph_, and _Inflexible_ steamed right up to the Narrows.
Four of them bombarded Chanak and a battery which lay opposite it, and
the forts at Saghandere, Kephez Point, and Dardanos were kept busy by
the _Triumph_ and the _Prince George_. After the fleet had been at it
for an hour and a half they received the support of the four French
ships which steamed in close and attacked the forts at a shorter
range. When the forts ceased firing the six battleships _Ocean_,
_Swiftsure_, _Majestic_, _Albion_, _Irresistible_, and _Vengeance_
came in and tried to carry the attack further. While the French
squadron maneuvered to allow freedom of action for this newer British
squadron the Turkish guns resumed fire. Then came the first of a
series of disasters. Three shells struck the _Bouvet_, and she soon
began to keel over. When the underwater part of her hull came into
view it was seen that she had been hit underneath, probably by one of
the mines which the Turks had floated toward the crowded ships. She
sank almost immediately, carrying the greater part of her crew down
with her. Only two hours later another mine did damage to the
_Irresistible_, and she left the line, listing heavily. While she
floated and while she was under heavy fire from Turkish guns a
destroyer took off her crew. She sank just before six o'clock. Not
fifteen minutes later the _Ocean_ became the third victim of a
floating mine, and she also went to the bottom. Destroyers rescued
many of her crew from the water. The guns from the forts were also
able to do damage; the _Gaulois_ had been hit again and again, with
the result that she had a hole in her hull and her upper works were
damaged badly. Fire had broken out on the _Inflexible_, and a number
of her officers and crew had been either killed or wounded. The day
ended with the forts still able to return a lively fire to all
attacks, and "The Great Attempt" on the part of the allied fleets had
failed.
On the other end of the passage there had also been some naval
operations, when, on March 28, 1915, the Black Sea Fleet of the
Russian navy had bombarded the forts on the Bosphorous. Smyrna was
again attacked on April 6, 1915. The operations of allied submarines
were the next phases of the attack on the Dardanelles to be reported.
The _E-5_ grounded near Kephez Point on April 17, 1915, but before she
could be captured by the Turks picket boats from the allied fleet
rescued her crew and then destroyed her. It was just two months now
since the naval operations had begun at the Dardanelles; it was seen
then that all attempts to take them by naval operations alone must
fail as did the attack of March 18, 1915.
CHAPTER XXIX
GERMAN RAIDERS AND SUBMARINES
The next important event in the naval history of the war occurred in
far-distant waters. On March 10, 1915, there ended the wonderful
career of the German auxiliary cruiser _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_,
Captain Thierichens, which on that date put in at the American port of
Newport News, Va., for repairs, after making the harbor in spite of
the watch kept on it by British cruisers. She brought with her more
than 500 persons, 200 of them being her own crew, and the remainder
being passengers and crews of French, British, Russian, and American
ships that had been her victims in her roving over 30,000 miles of the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans since leaving Tsing-tau seven months
before.
She had sent eight merchant ships to the bottom, one of them being the
_William P. Frye_, an American vessel carrying wheat, three British
ships, three flying the French flag, and one Russian ship. Their total
tonnage came to 18,245. The fact that she had sunk an American ship on
the high seas opened up still another diplomatic controversy between
Germany and the United States, which cannot be treated here.
When she left Tsing-tau she took as her crew the men from the German
gunboats _Tiger_ and _Luchs_, and had their four 4.1-inch and some of
their one-pounder guns as her armament. Soon afterward she stopped the
British ship _Schargost_ and expected to refill her coal bunkers from
those of the merchantman, but in this she was disappointed, for those
of the latter were almost empty. Her next victim was a French sailing
vessel, _Jean_, and on board this was found a pleasant surprise for
the German raider, for the vessel was laden with coal. Captain
Thierichens had her towed 1,500 miles, to Easter Island, where the
coal was transferred to the bunkers of the _Eitel Friedrich_, and the
crews of her first three victims were put ashore. These marooned men
were burdens to the white inhabitants of the island, for there was not
too much food for the extra forty-eight mouths. Finally, on February
26, 1915, the Swedish ship _Nordic_ saw them signaling from the island
and took them off, landing them at Panama on the day after the _Prinz
Eitel Friedrich_ entered Newport News.
By the beginning of December, 1914, the German raider was in the South
Atlantic, and while there heard wireless messages exchanged between
the ships of the British fleet that took part in the battle off the
Falkland Islands. The bark _Isabella Browne_, flying the Russian flag,
was the next ship overtaken by the _Eitel Friedrich_, on January 26,
1915. She was boarded and all of her provisions and stores were
removed to the German ship; after her crew and their personal effects
were taken aboard the German ship she was dynamited and sank. On that
same morning the French ship _Pierre Loti_ was sighted, and while the
_Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ put an end to her, after first taking off her
crew, the captive crew of the _Isabella Browne_ was sent below, but
was allowed to come on deck to watch the sinking of the French ship.
The American ship _William P. Frye_ was sunk soon afterward, and her
crew, also, was made part of the party on board the raider. After
sinking the French bark _Jacobsen_ the _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ stopped
the _Thalasia_ on February 8, 1915, and let her go on her way, but on
February 18 the British ships _Cindracoe_ and _Mary Ada Scott_ were
sunk. On the 19th the French steamer _Floride_ was overtaken off the
coast of Brazil; all persons aboard her were transferred to the German
ship and most of her provisions were also taken aboard the latter; the
_Floride_, the largest steamer destroyed by the German ship, was set
afire and left to burn. On February 20, 1915, the British ship
_Willerby_ was overtaken and nearly sank the _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_
before being boarded. As the German ship passed across the stern of
the other at a short distance the British captain, knowing that the
end of his own ship was near, decided to take his captor down with
him. He tried to ram the German ship with the stern of his ship, but
failed in the attempt.
On the evening of February 20, 1915, the wireless operator of the
_Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ heard British cruisers "talking" with each
other, one of them being the _Berwick_. The German captain now saw
that his long raiding cruise was up, for though he could replenish his
stores and bunkers from captured ships he could not make the many
repairs which his vessel needed. To put them off at a neutral port or
to let them go in one of the ships he captured would mean that his
position would be reported to British ships within a week. He
therefore decided to end his raiding and put in at Newport News. His
vessel was interned in the American port.
We may now return to the story of the blockade against Germany and the
retaliation she sought. The Allies were now stopping as much shipping
on its way to Germany as they dared without bringing on trouble with
neutral powers. The _Dacia_, formerly a German merchantman, was taken
over, after the outbreak of the war, by an American citizen and sailed
from New Orleans for Rotterdam with a cargo of cotton on February 12,
1915. She was stopped by a French warship and taken to a French port
February 27, 1915, and there held till the matter of the validity of
her transfer of registry could be settled.
On the other hand the German submarine exploits continued and found
among their victims a British warship, along with the many
merchantmen. On March 11, 1915, the British auxiliary cruiser
_Bayano_, while on patrol duty became the victim of a German torpedo
off the Scotch coast. She went down almost immediately, carrying with
her the greater part of her crew.
But not always were the submarines immune. Only the day before the
British destroyer _Ariel_ rammed the German submarine _U-12_ and sent
her to the bottom, after rescuing her crew. She was of an older type,
built in 1911, of submarine, and had played an active part in the
raiding in British waters. On February 21, 1915, she had sunk the
Irish coasting steamer _Downshire_ in the Irish Sea, and her
destruction was particularly welcome in British shipping circles.
Once more an incident in the naval warfare of the Great War was to
involve diplomatic exchanges between the belligerents and the United
States. The African liner _Falaba_, a British ship on her way from
Liverpool to Lisbon, was torpedoed in St. George's Channel on the
afternoon of March 28, 1915. She had as one of her passengers an
American, L. C. Thrasher, who lost his life when the ship sank.
The naval warfare was proceeding like a game of checkers. When on
March 14, 1915, there came the end of still another of the German
raiding cruisers, the _Dresden_. She was a cruiser built in 1907 and
having a displacement of 3,544 tons. Her speed was good--24.5
knots--and her armament of ten 4.1-inch guns and eight 5-pounder guns
made her quite a match for enemy warships of her class and superior as
for merchantmen. She was a sister ship to that other famous raider the
_Emden_. In 1909 she had taken her place among the other foreign
warships in the line in the Hudson River, participating in the
Hudson-Fulton Celebration. In the spring of 1914 she was in the
neighborhood of Central America and rescued a number of foreign
refugees who fled from Mexico, and also took Senor Huerta from Puerto
Mexico.
She was still in that neighborhood when the war broke out, and was
immediately sought after by British and French warships which were
near by. She managed to get away from these pursuers and sank the
British steamers _Hyades_ and _Holmwood_ off the Brazilian coast
during the latter part of August, 1914. She then went south, rounded
the Horn and joined the other ships under command of Admiral Von Spee,
taking part in the battle off Coronel, on November 1, 1914.
She remained with that squadron and took part in a second battle--that
off the Falkland Islands--on December 8, 1914. When Admiral von Spee
saw that he had little chance of winning the battle he gave orders
that the lighter ships should leave the line and seek safety in
flight. The _Dresden_ was one of the ships which escaped, to the
chagrin of the British Admiral. She then turned "raider."
Five days later, on December 13, 1914, she had appeared off Punta
Arenas, in the Straits of Magellan, stopped at that port long enough
to take on some provisions and put to sea again, with British and
Japanese warships on her trail. She was too closely hunted to be able
to sink many ships, but during the week of March 12, 1915, she sank
the British steamer _Conway Castle_, off the coast of Chile, and took
coal and provisions from the two German steamers _Alda_ and _Sierra
Cordoba_.
On March 14, 1915, she was sighted by the British cruisers _Glasgow_,
_Kent_ and _Orama_ near Juan Fernandez Island. What then ensued is in
doubt, owing to conflicting reports made by the senior British officer
and by the captain of the German cruiser. The latter insisted that,
seeing his ship was at the end of her career, he ordered his men to
leave her and then blew her up. The former declared that shots were
exchanged, that she was set afire and was otherwise badly damaged by
the British fire. At any rate, she was destroyed, and all of her men
were saved. It was estimated that the amount of damage she inflicted
on allied trade amounted to $1,250,000.
Thus at the end of March, 1915, only the _Karlsruhe_ and _Kronprinz
Wilhelm_, of the eleven German warships that were detached from the
main German fleet in the North Sea at the outbreak of the war, and of
the few ships which slipped out of various ports as converted
auxiliary cruisers, were still at large on the high seas.
Naval activity in the northern waters of Europe did not abate. The
British admiralty on March 25, 1915, had announced that the German
submarine _U-29_, one of the most improved craft of the type in use,
had been sunk. This loss was admitted by the German admiralty on April
7, 1915. It was a serious loss to the German navy, for its commander
was Otto von Weddigen, he who, in the _U-9_, had sent the _Cressy_,
_Aboukir_ and _Hogue_ to the bottom in September, 1914.
The naval warfare at the Dardanelles proceeded in the same desultory
fashion. A Turkish torpedo boat caught up with the British transport
_Manitou_, and opened fire on her, killing some twenty of the soldiers
on board.
In answer to calls for help from the _Manitou_ the British cruiser
_Minerva_ and some torpedo boats went to the scene and attacked the
Turkish craft on April 7, 1915, driving it ashore off Chios and
destroyed it as it lay beached. But during April, 1915, it seemed as
though there would be another pitched fight between British and German
warships in the North Sea. On April 23, 1915, the German admiralty
announced that "the German High Sea Fleet has recently cruised
repeatedly in the North Sea, advancing into English waters without
meeting the sea forces of Great Britain." The British admiralty had
undoubtedly been aware of this activity on the part of their enemy,
but for reasons of their own did not choose to send British ships to
meet the German fleet, and the expected battle did not take place.
France, on April 26, 1915, was to sustain a severe loss to her navy;
she had up to this time not lost as many ships as her ally, England,
or her enemy, Germany, but her navy was so much smaller than either of
them that the sinking of the _Leon Gambetta_ on that date was a matter
of weight. The _Gambetta_ was an armored cruiser, built in 1904, and
carrying four 7.6-inch guns, sixteen 6.4-inch guns and a number of
smaller caliber. She had a speed of twenty-three knots. While doing
patrol duty in the Strait of Otranto she was made the victim of the
Austrian submarine _U-5_, and sank, carrying with her 552 men.
On April 28, 1915, there occurred another incident which gave rise to
diplomatic exchanges between Germany and the United States. On that
date a German seaplane attacked the American merchantman in broad
daylight in the North Sea, but fortunately for its crew the ship was
not sent to the bottom. The first American ship to be struck by a
torpedo in the war zone established by the German admiralty's
proclamation of February 5, 1915, was the _Gulflight_. This tank
steamer was hit by a torpedo fired by a German submarine off the
Scilly Islands, on the 1st of May, 1915.
But of more importance, because of the number of American lives lost,
the standing of the matter in international law and the prominence of
the vessel, was the sinking of the Cunard liner _Lusitania_, on May 7,
1915. This is fully described in the chapter on submarines, and in the
diplomatic developments discussed in the chapter on the United States
and the War. The _Lusitania_ had left New York for Liverpool on the
1st of May, 1915. She was one of the fastest ships plying between the
Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Larger than any warship afloat at the
time, she was able to make the trip from Liverpool to New York in a
little under five days. On her last crossing she carried 2,160
persons, including passengers and crew, many of the former being
Americans, some of them of great prominence. While off Old Head of
Kinsale, on the southeastern end of Ireland, at about half past two,
on the afternoon of May 7, 1915, with a calm sea and no wind, she was
hit by one or more torpedoes from a German submarine without warning.
Those on board immediately went to the life boats, but it was only
twenty minutes after she had first been hit that she sank, and not
enough of the small craft could be gotten over her side in that time
to rescue all those on board. Out of the 2,160 souls aboard at least
1,398 were lost. Of these 107 were American citizens. Small boats in
the neighborhood of the disaster hurried to the scene and rescued
those whom they could reach in the water and brought them to
Queenstown. The sacks of mail which the liner carried and which went
down with her were the first American mail sacks ever lost at sea as a
result of war. The controversies which this disaster gave rise to
between England, Germany and the United States are given elsewhere.
Against British warships the submarine warfare was also effective
during the month of May, 1915. On the 1st day of that month the old
British destroyer _Recruit_ was sent to the bottom of the North Sea by
a German submarine, but the two German destroyers which had
accompanied the submarine that did this were pursued immediately by
British destroyers and were sunk. On the same day that the _Lusitania_
went down a German mine ended the career of the British destroyer
_Maori_.
CHAPTER XXX
ITALIAN PARTICIPATION--OPERATIONS IN MANY WATERS
The month of May, 1915, saw new characters enter the theatres of naval
warfare. Italy had now entered the war and brought to the naval
strength of the Allies a minor naval unit.
At the time Italy entered the war she possessed six dreadnoughts, the
_Caio Duilio_ and the _Andrea Doria_, completed in 1915, the _Conte di
Cavour_, _Giulio Cesare_, and _Leonardo da Vinci_, completed in 1914,
and the _Dante Alighieri_, completed in 1912. Each of these
dreadnoughts had a speed of 23 knots. The _Dante Alighieri_ displaced
19,400 tons and had a main battery of twelve 12-inch guns, and a
complement of 987 men. Each of the other five had thirteen 12-inch
guns and a complement of 1,000 men. The displacement of vessels of the
1914 type was 22,340 tons; that of the 1915 type 23,025 tons. There
were many lesser craft flying the Italian flag, but these larger ships
were the most important additions to the naval forces of the Allies in
southern waters.
The chief operations of the Italian navy were directed against
Austria. On May 28, 1915, the Italian admiralty announced the damage
inflicted on Austrian maritime strength up to that date. On May 24,
1915, the Austrian torpedo boat _S-20_ approached the canal at Porto
Corsini, but drew a very heavy fire from concealed and unsuspected
batteries which forced her to leave immediately. The Austrian torpedo
boat destroyer _Scharfschütze_, the scout ship _Novara_ and the
destroyer _Ozepel_, all of the Austrian navy, came to the assistance
of the _S-20_ and also received salvos from the Italian land
batteries. But on the same day the Italian destroyer _Turbine_, while
scouting gave chase to an Austrian destroyer and the Austrian cruiser
_Helgoland_. The strength of these Austrian ships was too much for the
_Turbine_ and she put on speed with the intention of escaping from
their fire, but she was severely damaged by Austrian shells, and not
having enough ammunition aboard to give a good account of herself, she
was scuttled by her own crew.
It is now necessary to take up again the story of the German raiding
ships at large on the high seas. As has been told above, after the
_Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ ended her career by putting in at Newport News
the only German ships of the kind remaining at large were the
_Karlsruhe_ and _Kronprinz Wilhelm_. But on the 1st of April, 1915,
the _Macedonia_, a converted liner which since November, 1914, had
been interned at Las Palmas, Canary Islands, succeeded in slipping out
of the harbor laden with provisions and supplies for use of warships
and made her way to South American waters in spite of the fact that
she had run through lines patrolled by British cruisers.
The _Kronprinz Wilhelm's_ career as a raider ended on April 11, 1915,
when, like the _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_, she succeeded in getting past
the British cruisers and slipped into Newport News, Virginia. How this
former Hamburg-American liner had slipped out of the harbor of New
York on the night of August 3, 1914, with her bunkers and even her
cabins filled with coal and provisions, with all lights out and with
canvas covering her port holes has already been told. From that date
until she again put in at an American port she captured numerous
merchant ships, taking 960 prisoners and doing damage amounting to
more than $7,000,000. She kept herself provisioned from her captives,
and it was only the poor condition of her plates and boilers that made
her captain give up raiding when he did. Her movements had been
mysterious during all the time she was at large. She was known to have
reprovisioned the cruiser _Dresden_ and to have taken an almost
stationary position in the South Atlantic in order to act as a
"wireless station" for the squadron of Admiral von Spee. But when the
latter was defeated off the Falkland Islands, she resumed operations
as a raider of commerce. When she came into Newport News more than 60
per cent of her crew were suffering from what was thought to be
beri-beri; she had but twenty-one tons of coal in her bunkers and
almost no ammunition.
The total damage inflicted on the commerce of the Allies by the
_Emden_, _Karlsruhe_, _Kronprinz Wilhelm_, _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_,
_Königsberg_, _Dresden_ and _Leipzig_ amounted, by the end of May,
1915, to $35,000,000. Sixty-seven vessels had been captured and sunk
by them.
In the Dardanelles the naval operations were resumed, to some extent,
during the month of May, 1915. For a number of weeks after the allied
fleet had made the great attempt to force the Dardanelles on March 19,
1915, their commanders attempted no maneuvers with the larger ships,
but the submarines were given work to do. On April 27, 1915, the
British submarine _E-14_, under command of Lieutenant Commander Boyle,
dived and went under the Turkish mine fields, reaching the waters of
the Sea of Marmora. In spite of the fact that Turkish destroyers knew
of its presence and hourly watched for it in the hope of sinking it,
this submarine was able to operate brilliantly for some days, sinking
two Turkish gunboats and a laden transport. Similar exploits were
performed by Lieutenant Commander Nasmith with the British submarine
_E-11_, which even damaged wharves at the Turkish capital.
But when the military operations were getting under way during May,
1915, the larger ships of the fleets were again used. The Germans
realizing that these great ships, moving as they did slowly and
deliberately while they fired on the land forts, would be good targets
for torpedoes, sent some of their newest submarines from the bases in
the North Sea, down along the coasts of France and Spain, through the
passage at Gibraltar and to the Dardanelles. Destroyers accompanying
the allied fleets kept diligent watch for attacks from them. The
_Goeben_, one of the German battle cruisers that had escaped British
and French fleets in the Mediterranean during the first weeks of the
war, and which was now a part of the Turkish navy, was brought to the
scene and aided the Turkish forts in their bombardment of the hostile
warships.
On May 12, 1915, the British battleship _Goliath_, of old design and
displacing some 12,000 tons, was sunk by a torpedo. This ship had been
protecting a part of the French fleet from flank attack inside the
straits, and under the cover of darkness had been approached by a
Turkish destroyer which fired the fatal torpedo. It sank almost
immediately.
The submarines of the German navy which had made the long journey to
participate in the action near the Dardanelles got in their first work
on May 26, 1915, when a torpedo fired by one of them struck the
British battleship _Triumph_ and sent her to the bottom. Of interest
to naval authorities all over the world was the fact that this ship at
the time she was struck had out torpedo nets which were supposed to be
torpedo-proof; but the German missile tore through them and reached
the hull. A hunt was made for the hostile submarine by the British
destroyers, but she was found by the British battleship _Majestic_;
but before the British ship could fire a shot at the German submarine,
the latter fired a torpedo that caught the battleship near her stern
and sank her immediately. Apprehension was now felt for the more
formidable ships such as the _Queen Elizabeth_ and others of her class
which were in those waters; inasmuch as the operations at the
Dardanelles assumed more and more a military rather than a naval
character, the British admiralty thought it wiser to keep the _Queen
Elizabeth_ in safer waters; she was consequently called back to
England. Only old battleships and cruisers were left to cooperate
with the troops operating on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Naval warfare in southern waters was continued against British
warships by the Austrian navy. On June 9, 1915, the Austrian admiralty
announced that a cruiser of the type of the _Liverpool_ had been
struck by a torpedo fired by an Austrian submarine while the former
was off San Giovanni di Medua, near the Albanian coast. Reports of the
incident issued by the Austrian and British naval authorities
differed, the former claiming that the cruiser had sunk, and the
latter that it had remained afloat and had been towed to an Adriatic
port.
Most unique was an engagement between the Italian submarine _Medusa_
and a similar craft flying the Austrian flag on June 17, 1915. This
was the first time that two submarines had ever fought with each
other. On that day the two submarines, the presence of each unknown to
the other, lay submerged, not a great distance apart. The _Medusa_,
after some hours, came up, allowing only her periscope to show; seeing
no enemy about, her commander brought the rest of her out of the
water. She had not emerged many moments before the Austrian vessel
also came up for a look around and the commander of the latter espied
the Italian submarine through his periscope. He immediately ordered a
torpedo fired; it found a mark in the hull of the _Medusa_ and she was
sent to the bottom. One of her officers and four of her men were
rescued by the Austrian submarine and made prisoners.
Italy's navy was not to continue to act as a separate naval unit in
the southern naval theatre of war, for on June 18, 1915, the Minister
of Marine of France announced that the "Anglo-French forces in the
Mediterranean were cooperating with the Italian fleet, whose
participation made possible a more effective patrol of the Adriatic.
Warships of the Allies were engaged in finding and destroying oil
depots from which the enemy's submarines had been replenishing their
supplies." This effective patrol did not, however, prevent an Austrian
submarine from sinking an Italian torpedo boat on June 27, 1915.
In the Baltic Sea the naval activity had at no time during the first
year of the war been great, but during the month of June, 1915, there
was a minor naval engagement at the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, during
which the Germans lost a transport and the Russians an auxiliary
cruiser. In the other northern waters the Germans lost the submarine
_U-14_, which was sunk on June 9, 1915. The crew were brought to
England as prisoners. Three days later the British admiralty admitted
that two torpedo boats, the _No. 10_ and the _No. 12_ had been lost.
The loss of two such small boats did not worry Britain as much as did
the loss of many merchant ships in the war zone right through the
spring and summer of 1915, and to show that British warships were not
immune from submarine attack, in spite of the fact that many of the
underwater craft of Germany were meeting with disaster, the British
cruiser _Roxburgh_ was struck by a torpedo on June 20, 1915, but was
able to get away under her own steam. The rest of the month saw small
losses to nearly all of the fleets engaged in the war, but none of
these were of importance.
The twelfth month of the first year of war was not particularly
eventful in so far as naval history was concerned. On July 1, 1915,
the Germans maneuvered in the Baltic Sea with a small fleet which
accompanied transports bearing men who were to try to land on the
northern shores of Russia. The port of Windau was the point at which
the German bombardment was directed, but Russian torpedo boats and
destroyers fought off the invading German fleet--which must have been
small--and succeeded in chasing the German mine-layer _Albatross_,
making it necessary for her captain to beach her on the Swedish island
of Gothland, where the crew was interned on July 2, 1915. On the same
day a German predreadnought battleship, believed to have been the
_Pommern_, was sunk at the mouth of Danzig Bay by a torpedo from a
British submarine.
In the Adriatic Austria lost a submarine, the _U-11_, through a unique
action. The submersible was sighted on July 1, 1915, by a French
aeroplane. The aviator dropped two bombs which found their mark on the
deck of the submarine and sank her. Austria had, during that month,
made an attempt to capture the Austrian island of Pelagosa, which had
been occupied by the Italians on July 26, 1915. But July 29, 1915, the
fleet of Austrian cruisers and destroyers, which made the attack, was
driven off by unnamed units of the Italian navy. But a loss by the
latter had been incurred on July 7, 1915, when the armored cruiser
_Amalfi_, while scouting in the upper waters of the Adriatic Sea, was
sighted and torpedoed by an Austrian submarine. She sank, but most of
her men were saved. Another Austrian submarine had the same success on
July 17, 1915, when it fired a torpedo at the Italian cruiser
_Giuseppe Garibaldi_, and saw her go down fifteen minutes later. Italy
endeavored to imitate the actions of Germany when, on July 6, 1915,
she proclaimed that the entire Adriatic Sea was a war zone and that
the Strait of Otranto was in a state of blockade. All the ports of
Dalmatia were closed to every kind of commerce.
Near the coasts of Turkey, toward the end of the first year of war,
there was fought the second duel between submarines. This time the
vanquished vessel was the French submarine _Mariotte_, which, on July
26, 1915, was sunk by a torpedo from a German submarine in the waters
right near the entrance to the Dardanelles. Britain ended the first
year of naval warfare by destroying the German cruiser _Königsberg_,
which, since the fall of the year before, had been lying up the Rufiji
River in German East Africa, after having been chased thence by a
British cruiser. It was decided to destroy her in order that she might
not get by the sunken hulls that the British had placed at the mouth
of the river in order to "bottle her up." Consequently, on the morning
of July 4, 1915, after her position had been noted by an aviator, two
British river monitors, _Severn_ and _Mersey_, aided by a cruiser and
minor vessels, began to fire upon the stationary vessel. Their fire
was directed by the aviator who had discovered her, but it was at
first almost ineffective because she lay so well concealed by the
vegetation of the surrounding jungle. She answered their fire and
succeeded in damaging the _Mersey_, but after being bombarded for six
hours she was set on fire. When the British monitors had finished with
her she was a total wreck.
CHAPTER XXXI
STORY OF THE "EMDEN"
We now return to the exploits of the _Emden_, its mysterious
disappearance and the narrative of its heroes--a great epic of the
sea.
When in Volume III the story of the sinking of the German cruiser
_Emden_ was related, mention was made of the escape of the landing
party belonging to that ship from Cocos Island. This party consisted
of fifty men, headed by Captain Mücke, and from the time their ship
went down on November 9, 1914, until they reported for duty again at
Damascus, Syria, in May, 1915, they had a series of adventures as
thrilling as those encountered by the heroes in any of the Renaissance
epics.
Before the _Emden_ met the Australian cruiser _Sydney_, and had been
sunk by the latter, she had picked up three officers from German
steamers which she had met. This proved to be a piece of good fortune,
for extra officers were needed to board and command the prize crews of
captured vessels. The story of the raiding of the _Emden_ has already
been given; but here the story of the landing party is given as told
by Captain Mücke himself on May 10, 1915, at Damascus:
"On November 9, 1914," he said, "I left the _Emden_ in order to
destroy the wireless plant on Cocos Island. I had fifty men, four
machine guns, about thirty rifles. Just as we were about to destroy
the apparatus it reported, 'Careful; _Emden_ near.' The work of
destruction went smoothly. The wireless operators said: 'Thank God.
It's been like being under arrest day and night lately.' Presently the
_Emden_ signaled us, 'Hurry up.' I packed up, but simultaneously the
_Emden's_ siren wailed. I hurried to the bridge and saw the flag
'Anna' go up. That meant 'Weigh anchor.' We ran like mad to our boat,
but already the _Emden's_ pennant was up, the battle flag was raised,
and they began to fire from the starboard."
"The enemy," explained Captain Mücke, "was concealed by the island and
therefore not to be seen, but I saw the shells strike the water. To
follow and catch the _Emden_ was out of the question, as she was going
at twenty knots, and I only four with my steam pinnace. Therefore I
turned back to land, raised the flag, declared German laws of war in
force, seized all arms, set up my machine guns on shore in order to
guard against a hostile landing. Then I ran out again in order to
observe the fight. From the splash of the shells it looked as though
the enemy had 15-centimeter guns, bigger, therefore, than the
_Emden's_. He fired rapidly but poorly. It was the Australian cruiser
_Sydney_."
According to the account of the Englishmen who saw the first part of
the engagement from the shore, the _Emden_ was cut up rapidly. Her
forward smokestack lay across the deck, and was already burning
fiercely aft. Behind the mainmast several shells struck home.
"We saw the high flame," continued Captain Mücke, "whether circular
fighting or a running fight now followed, I don't know, because I
again had to look to my land defenses. Later, I looked on from the
roof of a house. Now the _Emden_ again stood out to sea about 4,000 to
5,000 yards, still burning. As she again turned toward the enemy, the
forward mast was shot away. On the enemy no outward damage was
apparent, but columns of smoke showed where shots had struck home.
Then the _Emden_ took a northerly course, likewise the enemy, and I
had to stand there helpless, gritting my teeth and thinking; 'Damn it;
the _Emden_ is burning and you aren't aboard!'"
[Illustration: The Cruise of the "Emden" Landing Party.]
Captain Mücke, in relating his thrilling adventure, then explained:
"The ships, still fighting, disappeared behind the horizon. I thought
that an unlucky outcome for the _Emden_ was possible, also a landing
by the enemy on the Keeling Island, at least for the purpose of
landing the wounded and taking on provisions. As there were other
ships in the neighborhood, according to the statements of the
Englishmen, I saw myself faced with the certainty of having soon to
surrender because of a lack of ammunition. But for no price did I and
my men want to get into English imprisonment. As I was thinking
about all this, the masts again appeared on the horizon, the _Emden_
steaming easterly, but very much slower. All at once the enemy, at
high speed, shot by, apparently quite close to the _Emden_. A high
white waterspout showed amidst the black smoke of the enemy. That was
a torpedo. I saw how the two opponents withdrew, the distance growing
greater and greater between them; how they separated, till they
disappeared in the darkness. The fight had lasted ten hours.
"I had made up my mind to leave the island as quickly as possible. The
_Emden_ was gone; the danger for us growing. In the harbor I had
noticed a three-master, the schooner _Ayesha_. Mr. Ross, the owner of
the ship and of the island, had warned me that the boat was leaky, but
I found it quite a seaworthy tub. Now provisions for eight weeks, and
water for four, were quickly taken on board. The Englishmen very
kindly showed us the best water and gave us clothing and utensils.
They declared this was their thanks for our 'moderation' and
'generosity.' Then they collected the autographs of our men,
photographed them and gave three cheers as our last boat put off. It
was evening, nearly dark, when we sailed away.
"The _Ayesha_ proved to be a really splendid boat. We had only one
sextant and two chronometers on board, but a chronometer journal was
lacking. Luckily I found an 'Old Indian Ocean Directory' of 1882 on
board; its information went back to the year 1780.
"I had said: 'We are going to East Africa.' Therefore I sailed at
first westward, then northward. There followed the monsoons, but then
also, long periods of dead calm. Only two neutral ports came seriously
under consideration; Batavia and Padang. At Keeling I had cautiously
asked about Tsing-tau, of which I had naturally thought first, and so
quite by chance I learned that it had fallen. Now I decided for
Padang, because I knew I would be more apt to meet the _Emden_ there,
also because there was a German consul there, because my schooner was
unknown there and because I hoped to find German ships there, and
learn some news. 'It'll take you six to eight days to reach Batavia' a
captain had told me at Keeling. Now we needed eighteen days to reach
Padang, the weather was so rottenly still."
The suffering of the crew of the _Emden_ on their perilous voyage is
here told in the captain's words: "We had an excellent cook aboard; he
had deserted from the French Foreign Legion. We had to go sparingly
with our water; each man received but three glasses daily. When it
rained, all possible receptacles were placed on deck and the main sail
was spread over the cabin roof to catch the rain.
"At length as we came in the neighborhood of Padang, on the 26th of
November, 1915, a ship appeared for the first time and looked for our
name. But the name had been painted over, because it was the former
English name. As I thought, 'You're rid of the fellow' the ship came
up again in the evening, and steamed within a hundred yards of us. I
sent all my men below deck, and I promenaded the deck as the solitary
skipper. Through Morse signals the stranger gave her identity. She
proved to be the Hollandish torpedo boat _Lynx_. I asked by signals,
'Why do you follow me?' No answer. The next morning I found myself in
Hollandish waters, so I raised pennant and war flag. Now the _Lynx_
came at top speed past us. As it passed I had my men line up on deck,
and gave a greeting. The greeting was answered. Then, before the
harbor at Padang, I went aboard the _Lynx_ in my well and carefully
preserved uniform and declared my intentions. The commandant opined
that I could run into the harbor, but whether I might come out again
was doubtful.
"Three German ships were in the harbor at Padang," continues Captain
Mücke. "The harbor authorities demanded the certification for pennant
and war flag, also papers to prove that I was the commander of this
warship. For that, I answered, I was only responsible to my superior
officer. Now they advised me most insistently to allow ourselves to be
interned peacefully. They said it wasn't at all pleasant in the
neighborhood. We'd fall into the hands of the Japanese or the English.
As a matter of fact, we again had great luck. On the day before a
Japanese warship had been cruising around here. Naturally, I rejected
all the well-meant and kindly advice, and did this in the presence of
my lieutenants. I demanded provisions, water, sails, tackle, and
clothing. They replied we could take on board everything which we had
formerly had on board, but nothing which would mean an increase in our
naval strength.
"First thing, I wanted to improve our wardrobe, for I had only one
sock, a pair of shoes, and one clean shirt, which had become rather
threadbare. My comrades had even less. But the master of the port
declined to let us have, not only charts, but also clothing and
toothbrushes, on the ground that these would be an increase in
armament. Nobody could come aboard, nobody could leave the ship
without permission. I requested that the consul be allowed to come
aboard. The consul, Herr Schild, as also did the brothers Bäumer, gave
us assistance in the friendliest fashion. From the German steamers
boats could come alongside and talk with us. Finally, we were allowed
to have German papers. They were, to be sure, from August only. From
then until March, 1915, we saw no papers.
"Hardly had we been towed out of the harbor again after twenty-four
hours, on the evening of the 28th of November, 1914, when a
searchlight flashed before us. I thought, 'Better interned than
prisoner.' I put out all lights and withdrew to the shelter of the
island. But they were Hollanders and didn't do anything to us. Then
for two weeks more we drifted around, lying still for days. The
weather was alternately still, rainy, and blowy. At length a ship, a
freighter, came in sight. It saw us and made a big curve around us. I
made everything hastily 'clear for battle.' Then one of our officers
recognized her for the _Choising_. She showed the German flag. I sent
up light rockets, although it was broad day, and went with all sails
set, that were still setable, toward her. The _Choising_ was a coaster
from Hongkong to Siam. She was at Singapore when the war broke out,
then went to Batavia, was chartered, loaded with coal for the enemy,
and had put into Padang in need, because the coal in the hold had
caught fire. There we had met her.
"Great was our joy now. I had all my men come on deck and line up for
review. The fellows hadn't a rag on. Thus, in nature's garb, we gave
three cheers for the German flag on the _Choising_. The men of the
Choising told us afterward 'We couldn't make out what that meant,
those stark-naked fellows all cheering.' The sea was too high, and we
had to wait two days before we could board the _Choising_ on December
16, 1914. We took very little with us; the schooner was taken in tow.
In the afternoon we sank the _Ayesha_ and were all very sad. The good
old _Ayesha_ had served us faithfully for six weeks. The log showed
that we had made 1,709 sea miles under sail since leaving Keeling. She
wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice
and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the boat, on which I
could practice my old sailing maneuvers. The only trouble was that the
sails would go to pieces every now and then, because they were so old.
"But anyway, she went down quite properly. We had bored a hole in her;
she filled slowly and then all of a sudden disappeared. That was the
saddest day of the whole month. We gave her three cheers, and my next
yacht at Kiel will be named _Ayesha_, that is sure.
"To the captain of the _Choising_ I had said, when I hailed him, 'I do
not know what will happen to the ship. The war situation may make it
necessary for me to strand it.' He did not want to undertake the
responsibility. I proposed that we work together, and I would take the
responsibility. Then we traveled together for three weeks, from Padang
to Hodeida. The _Choising_ was some ninety meters long, and had a
speed of nine miles, though sometimes only four. If she had not
accidentally arrived I had intended to cruise along the west coast of
Sumatra to the region of the northern monsoon. I came about six
degrees north, then over toward Aden to the Arabian coast. In the Red
Sea the northeastern monsoon, which here blows southeast, could bring
us to Djidda. I had heard in Padang that Turkey was still allied with
Germany, so we would be able to get safely through Arabia to Germany.
"I next waited for information through ships, but the _Choising_ did
not know anything definite, either. By way of the _Luchs_, the
_Königsberg_ and _Kormoran_ the reports were uncertain. Besides,
according to newspapers at Aden, the Arabs were said to have fought
with the English; therein there seemed to be offered an opportunity
near at hand to damage the enemy. I therefore sailed with the
_Choising_ in the direction of Aden. Lieutenant Cordts of the
_Choising_ had heard that the Arabian railway already went almost to
Hodeida, near the Perin Strait. The ship's surgeon there, Docounlang,
found confirmation of this in Meyer's Traveling Handbook. This railway
could not have been taken over by the Englishmen, who always dreamt of
it. By doing this they would have further and completely wrought up
the Mohammedans by making more difficult the journey to Mecca. Best of
all, we thought, 'We'll simply step into the express train and whizz
nicely away to the North Sea.' Certainly there would be safe
journeying homeward through Arabia. To be sure, we had maps of the Red
Sea; but it was the shortest way to the foe whether in Aden or in
Germany.
"On the 7th of January, 1915, between nine and ten o'clock in the
evening, we sneaked through the Strait of Perin. It lay swarming full
of Englishmen. We steered along the African coast, close past an
English cable layer. That was my greatest delight--how the Englishmen
will be vexed when they learn that we passed safely by Perin. On the
next evening we saw on the coast a few lights near the water. We
thought that must be the pier of Hodeida. But when we measured the
distance by night, three thousand meters, I began to think that must
be something else. At dawn I made out two masts and four smokestacks;
that was an enemy ship and, what is more, an armored French cruiser. I
therefore ordered the _Choising_ to put to sea, and to return at
night.
"The next day and night the same; then we put out four boats--these we
pulled to shore at sunrise under the eyes of the unsuspecting
Frenchmen. The sea reeds were thick. A few Arabs came close to us;
then there ensued a difficult negotiation with the Arabian coast
guards. For we did not even know whether Hodeida was in English or
French hands. We waved to them, laid aside our arms, and made signs to
them. The Arabs, gathering together, began to rub two fingers
together; that means 'We are friends.' We thought it meant 'We are
going to rub against you and are hostile.' I therefore said:
'Boom-boom' and pointed to the warship. At all events, I set up my
machine guns and made preparations for a skirmish. But, thank God, one
of the Arabs understood the word 'Germans'; that was good.
"Soon a hundred Arabs came and helped us and as we marched into
Hodeida the Turkish soldiers who had been called out against us
saluted us as Allies and friends. To be sure, there was not a trace of
a railway, but we were received very well and they assured us we could
get through by land. Therefore, I gave red-star signals at night,
telling the _Choising_ to sail away, since the enemy was near by.
Inquiries and deliberations concerning a safe journey by land
proceeded. I also heard that in the interior about six days' journey
away, there was healthy highland where our fever invalids could
recuperate. I therefore determined to journey next to Sana. On the
kaiser's birthday we held a great parade in common with the Turkish
troops--all this under the noses of the Frenchmen. On the same day we
marched away from Hodeida to the highland.
"Two months later we again put to sea. The time spent in the highland
of Sana passed in lengthy inquiries and discussions that finally
resulted in our foregoing the journey by land through Arabia, for
religious reasons. But the time was not altogether lost. The men who
were sick with malaria had, for most part, recuperated in the highland
air.
"The Turkish Government placed at our disposal two sambuks (sailing
ships), of about twenty-five tons, fifteen meters long and four wide.
But, in fear of English spies, we sailed from Jebaua, ten miles north
of Hodeida. That was on March 14, 1915. At first we sailed at a
considerable distance apart, so that we would not both be captured if
an English gunboat caught us. Therefore, we always had to sail in
coastal water. That is full of coral reefs, however."
Captain Mücke had charge of the first sambuk. Everything went well for
three days. On the third day the order was given for the sambuks to
keep near together because the pilot of the first one was sailing less
skillfully than the other. Suddenly, in the twilight the men in the
second sambuk felt a shock, then another, and a third. The water
poured into it rapidly. It had run upon the reef of a small island,
where the smaller sambuk had been able to pass on account of its
lighter draft. Soon the stranded boat began to list over, and the
twenty-eight men aboard had to sit on the gunwale.
"We could scarcely move," narrated Lieutenant Gerdts, who commanded
the stranded boat. "The other boat was nowhere in sight. Now it grew
dark. At this stage I began to build a raft of spars and old pieces of
wood that might keep us afloat. But soon the first boat came into
sight again. The commander turned about and sent over his little
canoe; in this and in our own canoe, in which two men could sit at
each trip, we first transferred the sick. Now the Arabs began to help
us. But just then the tropical helmet of our doctor suddenly appeared
above the water in which he was standing up to his ears. Thereupon the
Arabs withdrew: We were Christians, and they did not know that we were
friends. Now the other sambuk was so near that we could have swum to
it in half an hour, but the seas were too high. At each trip a good
swimmer trailed along, hanging to the painter of the canoe. When it
became altogether dark we could not see the boat any more, for over
there they were prevented by the wind from keeping any light burning.
My men asked: 'In what direction shall we swim?' I answered: 'Swim in
the direction of this or that star; that must be about the direction
of the boat.' Finally a torch flared up over there--one of the torches
that was still left from the _Emden_. But we had suffered considerably
through submersion. One sailor cried out: 'Oh, psha! It's all up with
us now, that's a searchlight.' About ten o'clock we were all safe
aboard, but one of our typhus patients wore himself out completely by
exertion and died a week later. On the next morning we went over again
to the wreck in order to seek the weapons that had fallen into the
water. You see, the Arabs dive so well; they fetched up a considerable
lot--both machine guns, all but ten of the rifles, though these were,
to be sure, all full of water. Later they frequently failed to go off
when they were used in firing.
"Now we numbered, together with the Arabs, seventy men on the little
boat. Then we anchored before Konfida and met Sami Bey. He had shown
himself useful, even before, in the service of the Turkish Government,
and had done good service as a guide in the last months of the
adventure. He procured for us a larger boat of fifty-four tons. We
sailed from the 20th of March, 1915, to the 24th, unmolested to Lith.
There Sami Bey announced that three English ships were cruising about
in order to intercept us. I therefore advised traveling a bit
overland. I disliked leaving the sea a second time, but it had to be
done."
Captain Mücke explained that Lith is nothing but desert, and therefore
it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. They marched away
on March 28, 1915, with only a vague suspicion that the English might
have agents here also. They could travel only at night, and when they
slept or camped around a spring, there was only a tent for the sick
men. Two days' march from Jeddah, the Turkish Government having
received word about the crew, sent sixteen good camels.
"Suddenly, on the night of April 1, 1915, things became uneasy," said
Captain Mücke. "I was riding at the head of the column. All our
shooting implements were cleared for action, because there was danger
of an attack from Bedouins, whom the English had bribed. When it began
to grow a bit light I thought: 'We're through for to-day'; for we were
tired--had been riding eighteen hours. Suddenly I saw a line flash up
before me, and shots whizzed over our heads. Down from the camels! We
formed a fighting line. You know how quickly it becomes daylight
there. The whole space around the desert hillock was occupied. Now we
had to take up our guns. We rushed at the enemy. They fled, but
returned again, this time from all sides. Several of the gendarmes
that had been given to us as an escort were wounded; the machine-gun
operator fell, killed by a shot through the heart; another was
wounded. Lieutenant Schmidt was mortally wounded. He received a bullet
in the chest and another in the abdomen.
"Suddenly, they waved white cloths. The sheik, to whom a part of our
camels belonged, went over to them to negotiate, then Sami Bey and
his wife. In the interim we quickly built a sort of wagon barricade, a
circular camp of camel saddles, of rice and coffee sacks, all of which
we filled with sand. We had no shovels, and had to dig with our
bayonets, plates, and hands. The whole barricade had a diameter of
fifty meters. Behind it were dug trenches, which we deepened even
during the skirmish. The camels inside had to lie down, and thus
served very well as cover for the rear of the trenches. Then an inner
wall was constructed, behind which we carried the sick men. In the
very center we buried two jars of water, to guard us against thirst.
In addition we had ten petroleum cans full of water; all told, a
supply for four days. Late in the evening Sami's wife came back from
the futile negotiations, alone. She had unveiled for the first and
only time on this day of the skirmish, had distributed cartridges and
had acted faultlessly.
"Soon we were able to ascertain the number of the enemy. There were
about 300 men; we numbered fifty, with twenty-nine machine guns. In
the night Lieutenant Schmidt died. We had to dig his grave with our
hands and with our bayonets, and to eliminate every trace above it, in
order to protect the body. Rademacher had been buried immediately
after the skirmish with all honors.
"The wounded had a hard time of it. We had lost our medicine chest in
the wreck; we had only little packages of bandages for skirmishes; but
no probing instrument, no scissors, were at hand. On the next day our
men came up with thick tongues, feverish, and crying: 'Water, water!'
But each one received only a little cupful three times each day. If
our water supply became exhausted we would have to sally forth from
our camp and fight our way through. At night we always dragged out the
dead camels that had served as cover and had been shot.
"This continued about three days. On the third day there were new
negotiations. Now the Bedouins demanded arms no longer, but only
money. This time the negotiations took place across the camp wall.
When I declined the Bedouin said, 'Lots of fight.' I said, 'Please go
to it.'
"We had only a little ammunition left, and very little water. Now it
really looked as if we would soon be dispatched. The mood of the men
was pretty dismal. Suddenly, at about ten o'clock in the morning,
there bobbed up in the north two riders on camels, waving white
cloths. Soon afterward there appeared, coming from the same direction,
far back, a long row of camel troops, about a hundred; they drew
rapidly nearer, rode singing toward us, in a picturesque train. They
were the messengers and the troops of the Emir of Mecca.
"Sami Bey's wife, it developed, had in the course of the first
negotiations, dispatched an Arab boy to Jeddah. From that place the
governor had telegraphed to the emir. The latter at once sent camel
troops with his two sons and his personal surgeon; the elder,
Abdullah, conducted the negotiations, and the surgeon acted as
interpreter in French. Now things proceeded in one-two-three order,
and the whole Bedouin band speedily disappeared. From what I learned
later I know definitely that they had been corrupted with bribes by
the English. They knew when and where we would pass, and they had made
all preparations. Now our first act was a rush for water; then we
cleared up our camp, but had to harness our camels ourselves, for the
camel drivers had fled at the very beginning of the skirmish.
"Then, under the safe protection of Turkish troops, we got to Jeddah.
There the authorities and the populace received us very well. From
there we proceeded in nineteen days by sail boat to Elwesh, and under
abundant guard with the Suleiman Pasha, in a five-day caravan
journeyed to El Ula."
"Have I received the Iron Cross?" was the first question Captain Mücke
asked when he got to that place, and old newspapers which he found
there told him that he had. A few days later the party was on train,
riding toward Germany.
CHAPTER XXXII
SUMMARY OF THE FIRST YEAR OF NAVAL WARFARE
The first year of the war came to an end in August, 1915, with the
naval situation much the same as it stood at the end of the first six
months. The navy of practically every belligerent was intact; the
Allies enjoyed the freedom of the seas, but the fact that a German
fleet lay intact in the North Sea, and an Austrian fleet lay intact in
the Adriatic Sea, indicated only the naval supremacy of the Allies,
but not that they had won decisive naval victories.
As there had been no victory there had been no defeat, yet there had
been losses to all concerned. The mine and the submarine had changed
somewhat the methods of naval warfare--the enemies "nibbled" at their
opponents' fleets. Battleships were lost, though the first year of the
Great War had seen no pitched battle between ships of that class.
During the second six months of the war England lost the five old
battleships _Irresistible_, _Ocean_, _Goliath_, _Triumph_, and
_Majestic_; the destroyers _Recruit_ and _Maori_; and the submarine
_E-15_ and another unidentified; and the auxiliary cruisers _Clan
McNaughton_, _Bayano_, and _Princess Irene_. Her ally France had lost,
during the same period, the old battleship _Bouvet_, the cruiser _Leon
Gambetta_, the destroyer _Dague_, and the submarines _Joule_,
_Mariotte_, and one unidentified.
The losses on the other side were confined to the German navy, with
the exception of the Turkish cruiser _Medjidieh_. Germany lost the
battleship _Pommern_; the cruisers _Dresden_ and Königsberg; the
submarines _U-12_, _U-29_, _U-8_, one of the type of the _U-2_, and
another unidentified; two unidentified torpedo boats; and the
auxiliary cruisers _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ (interned), _Holger_,
_Kronprinz Wilhelm_ (interned), and _Macedonia_. Also the destroyer
_G-196_, the mine layer _Albatross_, and the auxiliary cruiser
_Meteor_.
In retaliation for having her flag swept from the seas, Germany's
submarines, during the second six months of the war, had sunk a total
of 153 merchant ships, including those belonging to neutral countries
as well as to her enemies. The total tonnage of these was about
500,000 tons; 1,643 persons died in going down with these ships.
Not of the least importance were the precedents that were established,
or attempted to be established, by Germany in conducting naval warfare
with her submarine craft. In a note delivered to the United States
Government, the German Government declared that British merchant
vessels were not only armed and instructed to resist or even attack
submarines, but often disguised as to nationality. Under such
circumstances it was assumed to be impossible for a submarine
commander to conform to the established custom of visit and search.
Accordingly, vessels of neutral nations were urgently warned not to
enter the submarine war zone. The war zone which she proclaimed about
Great Britain had no precedent in history, and it immediately brought
to her door a number of controversies with neutrals, particularly the
United States. The sinking of liners carrying passengers claiming
citizenship in neutral countries was another precedent, which had the
same effect with regard to diplomatic exchanges.
Predictions that had been made long before the war came were found to
be worthless; there were those who had predicted that Germany in the
event of war with England would give immediate battle with her largest
ships; but twelve months went by without an actual battle between
superdreadnoughts. "Der Tag" had not come. There were those who had
predicted that the British navy would force the German ships out of
their protected harbors. "We shall dig the rats out of their holes,"
said Mr. Winston Churchill, British Secretary of State for the Navy in
the early months of the war. Mr. Churchill was removed from his
position, and twelve months passed by with the German ships still in
their "holes."
Certain lessons had been taught naval authorities of all nations
through the actual use of the modern battleship in war. The first
year showed that the largest ships must have very high speed and long
gun range. To some extent the fact that the fighting ships of nearly
all of the belligerent countries were thus equipped changed battle
tactics.
When the allied fleets had started their bombardment of the Turkish
forts at the Dardanelles they were breaking certain well-defined rules
which had been axiomatic with naval authorities. The greatest of
modern battleships were designed to fight with craft of their like,
but not to take issue with land fortifications. For weeks, while the
fleets succeeded in silencing for a time some of the Turkish forts, it
was thought that this rule no longer held good. But when, after March
19, 1915, the fleets ceased attempting to take the passage without
military cooperation, the worth of the rule was reestablished. The
ease with which the bombarding ships were made victims of hostile
submarines was greatly instrumental in making the rule again an axiom.
The naval supremacy of the allied powers brought them certain
advantages--advantages which they had without winning a decisive
victory. Germany and Austria were cut off from the Western Hemisphere,
and were troubled, in consequence, by shortage in food for their
civilian populations to a greater or lesser degree. This was perhaps a
negative benefit derived by the Allies from their naval supremacy; the
affirmative benefit was that their own communications with the Western
Hemisphere were maintained, enabling them not only to get food for
their civilian populations, but arms and munitions for their armies;
and even financial arrangements, which, if their emissaries could not
pass back and forth freely could not have been made, depended on their
control of the high seas.
They were able to keep the Channel clear of submarines long enough to
permit the passage of the troops, which England from time to time
during the first year of the war sent to the Continent, and permitted
the participation of the troops of the British overseas dominions, the
troops from Canada joining those in France, and the troops from New
Zealand and Australia taking their places in the trenches along the
Suez Canal and on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Thus, to a certain extent,
the advantage of continuous railroad communication which was enjoyed
by the Teutonic allies "inside" the arena of military operations was
offset by the naval communication maintained by the Entente Powers
"outside" the arena of military operations.
CHAPTER XXXIII
FIGHTS OF THE SUBMARINES
When, on the 5th of February, 1915, the German admiralty proclaimed a
"war zone" around the British Isles and announced that it would fight
the sea power of the Allies with submarines, a new era in naval
warfare had opened. In all previous wars, and in the earlier months of
the Great War, submarines were employed as auxiliaries to the larger
naval units. The Germans were the first to use them as separate units.
The idea of sending a fleet of submarines out on to the high seas was
a new one, and had been impossible in the last war in which they had
been used--that between Russia and Japan. But the improvements which
had been made in their design and equipment since then had made an
actual cruising submarine possible, and made possible the new phase of
naval warfare inaugurated by the German admiralty.
While Germany was the last great sea power to adopt the submarine as a
weapon, both England and Germany, in the years immediately preceding
the war, had spent the same amounts of money on this sort of
craft--about $18,000,000--but while the Germans had later given as
much attention to them as to any other sort of naval craft, the
British authorities did not figure on employing the submarine as a
separate offensive tactical unit being sufficiently equipped in large
ships carrying large guns. And being weaker in capital ships Germany
was compelled to rely upon underwater warfare in her campaign of
attrition. Not only were the naval authorities of the rest of the
world uninformed about the improvements that German submarines
carried, but they were fooled even as to the actual number which
Germany had built.
The most modern of the German submarines at the time had a length of
213 feet and a beam of twenty feet, these dimensions giving them
sufficient deck space to mount thereon two rapid-fire guns, one of 3.5
inches and another of 1.4 inches. Their displacement was 900 tons, and
they could make a speed of 18 knots when traveling "light" (above
water), and 12 knots when traveling submerged. These speeds made it
possible for them to overtake all but the fastest merchantmen, though
not fast enough to run away from destroyers, gunboats, and fast
cruisers. Their range of operation was 2,000 miles, and in the early
months of 1915, it was possible for Germany to send two or three of
them from their base in the North Sea to the Mediterranean. Germany
was at the same time experimenting with a larger type, with a
displacement of 1,200 tons and an operating distance of 5,000 miles.
The ordinary submarine in service at the beginning of the war could
remain below the surface for twenty-four hours at least. Reserve
amounts of air for breathing were carried in tanks under pressure, and
in the German type there were also chemical improvements for
regenerating air. Contrary to the opinion of laymen, submerging was
accomplished both by letting water into ballast tanks, and also by
properly deflecting a set of rudders; every submarine had two sets of
rudders, one of which worked in vertical planes and pointed the prow
of the ship either to the left or the right; the other pair worked in
horizontal planes and turned the prow either upward or downward. A
pair of fins on the sides of the hull assisted action in both rising
and diving. The action of water against the fins and rudders when the
ship was in motion was exactly the same as that of the air against the
planes of a kite; to submerge one of the craft it was necessary to
have it in motion and to have its horizontal rudders so placed that
the resistance of the water would drive the ship downward; the reverse
operation drove it upward. And here lay a danger, for if the engines
of a diving submarine stopped she was bound to come to the surface.
Her presence, while moving entirely submerged could be detected by a
peculiar swell which traveled on the water above; if submerged only so
much as to leave the tip of her periscope still showing, the latter
left an easily discernible wake.
The periscope was merely a tube in which there were arranged mirrors
so that anything reflected in the first mirror, the one above the
surface of the water, was again reflected till it showed in a mirror
at the bottom of the tube, within the hull of the vessel, where its
commander could observe it safely. A crew of about twenty-five men was
necessary to operate one of these crafts, and theirs was an unpleasant
duty, first because of the danger that accompanied each submergence of
their vessel; second because of the discomforts aboard. The explosive
engines which drove the craft, whether burning oil or the lighter
refinements such as gasoline, gave off gases that caused headaches and
throbbing across the forehead; and it was almost impossible to heat
the interior of the craft.
Though merchantmen had gone to the bottom as victims of German
submarines before the proclamation of a "war zone" was issued they
were individual cases; the first instance of a merchant ship being
sunk as a result of the new policy of the German admiralty was the
sinking of the British steamer _Cambark_ on the 20th of February,
1915. This ship was bound for Liverpool, from Huelva, Spain. While off
the north coast of Wales, on the morning of the 20th, the periscope of
a hostile submarine was sighted only 200 yards ahead. The engines of
the steamship were immediately reversed, but she had no time to make
off, for a torpedo caught her amidships and she started to sink
immediately. Her crew managed to get off in small boats, but all of
their personal belongings were lost.
The small Irish coasting steamer _Downshire_ was made a victim on the
21st of February, 1915, but instead of sending a torpedo into her
hull, the commander of the _U-12_, the submarine which overhauled her,
resorted to boarding. After trying to elude the submarine by steering
a zigzag course, the _Downshire_ was finally overtaken. The crew was
ordered to take to the small boats, while nineteen men of the
submarine, which had come above water, watched the operations from
the deck. A crew from the submarine took one of the small boats of the
steamship and rowed toward her. They placed a bomb in a vital spot and
set it off, sinking the merchantman. In this way the submarine's
commander had saved a torpedo. A conversation which took place between
the captains of the two craft revealed the methods by which the
submarine commanders were able, not only to steal up on their intended
victims, but to elude being sighted by the patrolling British
warships. Some fishing smacks had been in the vicinity while the
_Downshire_ was sunk, and the British captain asked the German captain
why they had not been attacked. The latter hinted that his plans
worked best if the fishing boats were unmolested. When asked whether
he had hidden behind one these little boats he changed the subject,
but it was learned later that the commanders of the submarines made a
practice of coming to the surface right near fishing boats and bade
them act as screens while they lay in wait for victims. By keeping the
small boats covered with a deck gun or by putting a boarding crew
aboard, it was possible for the commanders of the submarines to keep
their periscopes or the hulls of their vessels behind the sails of the
fishing boats, unobservable to lookouts on larger ships.
By the 23d of February, 1915, the success of German submarines had
been so marked that the insurance rates on merchantmen went up.
Lloyd's underwriters announced that the rate on transatlantic passage
had gone up nearly one per cent. And on the same day it was announced
that the British Government would thereafter regulate steamship
traffic in the Irish Sea. Certain areas of the Irish Sea were closed
to all kinds of traffic; lines of passage were defined and had to be
followed by all merchantmen, and vessels of all descriptions were
ordered to keep away from certain parts of the coast from sunset to
sunrise.
The comparatively small size of the submarines made it possible for
the German admiralty to load them on to trains in sections and
transport them where needed, and in this manner some were sent from
the German ports on the North Sea to Zeebrugge, there assembled and
launched. Others were sent to the Adriatic, arriving at Pola on the
25th of February, 1915. These were intended for use in the
Mediterranean as well as in the Adriatic Sea.
Neutral ships, in order to escape attack by German submarines had to
resort to unusual methods of self-identification. The use of flags
belonging to neutral countries by the merchantmen of belligerent
powers made the usual identification by colors almost impossible, the
German admiralty claiming that the commanders of submarines were
unable to wait long enough, after stopping a vessel, to ascertain
whether she had a right to fly one flag or another. Consequently the
ships belonging to Dutch and American lines had their names painted
with large lettering along their sides. At night, streamers of
electric lights were hung over the sides to illuminate these
letterings; and on the decks of many of the neutral ships their names
and nationalities were painted in large letters so that they might be
identified by aircraft. Owing to such precautions the Dutch steamship
_Prinzes Juliana_ escaped being sunk by a torpedo on the 3d of March,
1915. A submarine ran a parallel course to that followed by the Dutch
ship, but after examining the lettering on her sides the commander of
the German craft saw that she was not legitimate game and turned off.
Not always did the German submarines themselves succeed in escaping
unharmed in their raiding of allied merchantmen. Rewards were offered
in Great Britain for the sinking of German submersibles by the
commanders of British merchantmen. Instructions were issued in the
British shipping periodicals, showing how a submarine might be sunk by
being rammed. It was officially announced on the 5th of March, 1915,
by the British admiralty, that the _U-8_ had been rammed and sunk by a
British warship. The crew of twenty-nine was rescued and brought to
Dover. For the British this was a stroke of good fortune, for while
the _U-8_ was of an earlier type it was a dangerous craft, having a
total displacement of 300 tons, a radius of operation of 1,200 miles,
a speed of 13 knots when traveling "light" and a speed of 8 knots when
submerged. On the same day the French minister of marine announced
that a French warship had come upon a German submarine of the type of
the _U-2_ in the North Sea and that after firing at the hull of the
vessel and hitting it three times it was seen to sink and did not
reappear.
During the last week of February and the first week of March, 1915,
bad weather on the waters surrounding the British Isles hampered the
operations of German submarines to an extent which led the British
public to believe that the submarine warfare on merchantmen had been
abandoned, but they were disillusioned when on the 9th of March, 1915,
three British ships were sunk by the underwater craft. The steamship
_Tangistan_ was torpedoed off Scarborough, the _Blackwood_ off
Hastings and the _Princess Victoria_ near Liverpool. Part of this was
believed to be the work of the _U-16_.
In the three days beginning March 10, 1915, eight ships were made
victims of German submarines in the waters about the British Isles.
Most novel was the experience of a crowd gathered on the shore of one
of the Scilly Islands on March 12, 1915, when two of these eight
ships, the _Indian City_ and the _Headlands_, were torpedoed. At about
eight in the morning the islanders on St. Mary's Island saw a German
submarine overtake the former and sink her. The German vessel then
remained in the adjacent waters to watch for the approach of another
victim, while two patrol boats near by put out and opened fire on her.
The crowd saw the enemies exchange shots at a distance of ten miles
off shore. But neither side put in any effective shots, and the combat
ended when the submarine dived and retired.
The steamship _Headlands_ was then sighted by the commander of the
submarine and he immediately started to pursue her. The steamship
steered a zigzag course, but the submarine got in a position to launch
a torpedo, and at about half past ten in the morning the crowd on the
shore saw steam escaping from her in large quantities. Some time after
they saw a large volume of black smoke and débris fly upward and they
knew that another torpedo had found its mark. She then settled, her
crew and the men from the _Indian City_ reaching St. Mary's in small
boats.
To keep British harbors free from the German submarines the British
admiralty had to set their engineers to work to devise some method of
trapping the underwater craft automatically, for there seemed to be no
sort of patrol which they could not elude. Steel traps, not unlike the
gill nets used by fishermen, were finally hit upon as the best thing
to use against the submarines, and by March 13, 1915, a number of
these were installed at entrances to some of the British harbors. They
were made of malleable iron frames, ten feet square, used in sets of
threes, so arranged that they might hold a submarine by the sides and
have the third of the set buckle against its bottom. They were
suspended by buoys about thirty feet below the surface of the water.
When a submarine entered one of these it was held fast, for the frame
which came up from the bottom caught the propeller and made it
impossible for the submarine to work itself loose. The disadvantage to
the submarine was that, while traveling under water, it traveled
"blind"; the periscopes in use were good only for observation when the
top of them were above water; when submerged the commander of a
submarine had to steer by chart. By the end of March, 1915, a dozen
submarines had been caught in nets of this kind.
By the 18th of March, 1915, three more British ships had been made the
victims of German torpedoes. The _Atlanta_ was sunk off the west coast
of Ireland only a day before the _Fingal_ was sunk off Northumberland.
And the _Leeuwarden_ was sunk by being hit from the deck guns of a
German submarine off the coast of Holland. There was no loss of life
except during the sinking of the _Fingal_, some of whose men were
drowned when she dragged a lifeboat full of men down with her.
By way of variety the Germans attempted to sink a British ship in the
"war zone" with bombs dropped from an airship, the news of which was
brought to England by the crew and captain of the _Blonde_ when they
reached shore on March 18, 1915. This ship had been German originally,
but being in a British port when the war started was taken over and
run by a British crew. Two or three mornings before the men landed
they had noticed a Taube aeroplane circling over their ship at about
500 feet altitude. It then swept downward and took a close look at the
vessel. Two bombs which fell into the water near the ship, were
dropped by the German aviator. The captain of the _Blonde_ ordered
that the rudder of his ship be fastened so that she might drive in a
circle and her engines were set at full speed, with the intention of
making a more difficult target for the airship's bombs. The whistle of
the ship was set going and continued to blow in the hope of attracting
help from other ships. More bombs were near the vessel, but none of
them found its mark. After one more attempt, when only 300 feet above
the ship's deck, the aviator let go with his last supply, but again
being unsuccessful he veered off to the north and allowed the _Blonde_
to escape.
The naval attack on the Dardanelles is told in another chapter, but
the work of the Allies' submarines there included the use of French
submarines, which is not narrated elsewhere. On the 19th of March,
1915, Rear Admiral Guépratte of the French navy reported that one of
his submarines had attempted, without success, to run through the
Dardanelles. The object of the attempt was to sink the Turkish battle
cruiser _Sultan Selim_, formerly the _Goeben_. The submarine submerged
and got as far as Nagara. But she had to travel "blind" and her
captain, being unfamiliar with those waters, struck some rocks near
the shore and immediately brought her to the surface. She became a
target for the land guns of the Turks at once and was sunk, only a few
of her men, who were taken prisoners, escaping death.
On the 19th of March, 1915, the British admiralty reported that the
three British ships, _Hyndford_, _Bluejacket_, and _Glenartney_ had
been torpedoed in the "war zone" without warning, with the loss of
only one man. Beachy Head in the British Channel had been the scene of
most of the operations of German submarines against British ships, and
consequently, when on the 21st of March, 1915, the collier _Cairntorr_
was torpedoed in that region, no unusual comment was made by the
admiralty. Heretofore the scene of the latest attack had been thought
worthy of mention on account of the unusual and unexpected places that
submarines chose for action.
A new phase of the submarines' activities was opened on March 21,
1915, when two Dutch ships _Batavier V_ and _Zaanstroom_ were held up
and captured. The _U-28_ had for some days been hiding near the Maas
Lightship, and had been taking shots with torpedoes at every ship
which came within range. The _Batavier V_ had left the Hook of Holland
on March 18, 1915. At about five o'clock that morning she came near
the Maas Lightship on her way to England, whence she was carrying
provisions and a register of fifty-seven persons, including passengers
and crew; among the former there were a number of women and children.
Suddenly a submarine appeared off her port bow, and her captain was
ordered to stop his ship. This he did readily, for he had been thus
stopped before, only to be allowed to proceed. But this time the
commander of the submarine, the _U-28_, shouted to him through a
megaphone: "I am going to confiscate your ship and take it to
Zeebrugge."
While the two commanders were arguing over the illegality of this, the
_Zaanstroom_ was sighted, and was immediately overtaken by the
submarine. An officer and a sailor from the submarine had been placed
on the _Batavier V_, and this prevented her escaping while the pursuit
of the _Zaanstroom_ was on. A similar detail was now placed on the
latter, and her captain was ordered to follow the _U-28_ which
returned to the _Batavier V_. "Follow me to Zeebrugge" was the order
which the commander of the submarine gave the two ships, and their
captains obeyed. They arrived at Zeebrugge at noon, and were
immediately unloaded. Those of the passengers and crews who were
citizens of neutral countries were sent to Ghent and there released,
while all those aboard, such as Belgians and Frenchmen, were detained.
When possible, the commanders of the German submarines saved their
costly torpedoes and used shell fire instead to sink their victims.
This was done in the case of the steamship _Vosges_, which was sunk on
March 28, 1915. For two hours, while the engines of the steamship were
run at full speed in an attempt to get away from the submarine, she
was under fire from two deck guns on board the submersible. Though the
latter made off at the approach of another vessel, her shells did
enough damage to cause the _Vosges_ to sink a few hours later.
Up to the middle of March, 1915, all the ships which had become
victims of German submarines had been of the slower coasting variety.
There had been numerous unconfirmed reports that the faster
transatlantic ships had been chased, but no credence had been given to
them. On the 27th of March, 1915, however, when the _Arabic_ arrived
at Liverpool it was reported by those on board that she had given a
submarine a lively chase and had gotten away safely. At about nine
o'clock the evening before the submarine was sighted off Holyhead. She
was only 200 yards ahead, and while her commander jockeyed for a
position from which he could successfully launch a torpedo, the
commander of the _Arabic_ gave the order "Full speed ahead." His
passengers lined the rail of the ship to watch the maneuvers. Soon the
steamship had up a speed of 18 knots, which was a bit too fast for the
submarine, and she fell to the rearward. Her chance for launching a
torpedo was gone, but she brought her deck guns into action, firing
two shots which went wild. The _Arabic_ proceeded to port unmolested.
At times even the cost of shell fire was figured by the commanders of
German submarines, and pistol and rifles were used instead. This was
done in the case of the _Delmira_ on the 26th of March, 1915. This
steamship was sunk off Boulogne. Ten minutes were given by the crew of
the submarine to the crew of the steamship for them to get off. The
submarine had come up off the bow of the _Delmira_, and men standing
on the deck of the former had fired shots toward the bridge of the
latter to make her captain bring her to a stop. The latter ordered his
engines started again at full speed, with the intention of ramming the
enemy, but his Chinese stokers refused to obey the order, and his ship
did not move. The crew of the steamship got into their small boats,
and for an hour and a half these were towed by the submarine so that
their row to shore would not be so long. Though torpedoed, the
_Delmira_ did not sink, and was last seen in a burning condition off
the French coast near Cape de la Hogue.
The sinking of the steamship _Falaba_, which is mentioned, though not
narrated in full, in another chapter, was the last act of German
submarines during the month of March, 1915. This ship on the 29th of
March, 1915, was overtaken by a German submarine in St. George's
Channel. She was engaged in the African trade, voyaging between the
African ports and Liverpool. On her last journey she carried a crew of
90 men and some 160 passengers, many of the latter being women and
children. The commander of the submarine brought his craft to the
surface off the bow of the _Falaba_, and gave the captain of the
steamship five minutes in which to put his crew and passengers into
lifeboats. A torpedo was sent against her hull and found the engine
room, causing a tremendous explosion. One hundred and eleven persons
lost their lives because they had not been able to get off in time, or
because they were too near the liner when she went down. This was the
most important merchantman which had been sent to the bottom by a
submarine since the proclamation of February 15, 1915.
The next two victims of this sort of warfare were the steamships
_Flaminian_ and the _Crown of Castile_, one of which was sunk by the
_U-28_, and the other by an unidentified submarine on April 1, 1915.
They went down off the west coast of England with no loss of life,
though the _Crown of Castile_ was torpedoed before her crew could get
off. The _Flaminian_ had tried to get away, but had to stop under fire
from deck guns on the submarine. The shells did not hit her in vital
spots, however, and it was necessary to send a torpedo into her hull
to sink her.
The ease with which submarines had been able to bob up in unexpected
places and to sink British merchantmen, in spite of the patrols
maintained by British warships, caused the captains of merchant
vessels to petition the British Government to be allowed to arm their
vessels on April 1, 1915. This was not granted, because their being
armed would have made the steamship legitimate prey for the
submarines, nor was any attention paid to the demand made by the
British press that the crews and officers of captured German
submarines be treated, not as prisoners of war, but as pirates.
Reprisals on the part of the Germans was feared.
Beachy Head on the 1st of April, 1915, was again the scene of two
successful attacks on merchantmen by submarines. On that day the
French steamship _Emma_, after being torpedoed, went to the bottom
with all of the nineteen men in her crew. The same submarine sank the
British steamer _Seven Seas_, causing the deaths of eleven of her men.
In order to indicate the amount of harm which the submarine warfare
caused British shipping, the admiralty on April 1, 1915, announced
that though five merchantmen had been sent to the bottom and one had
been only partially damaged by submarines during the week ending March
31, 1915, some 1,559 vessels entered and sailed from British ports
during the same period.
Efforts were made to damage the base, from which many of the German
submarines had been putting out at Zeebrugge, with aircraft. On the
1st of April, 1915, the British Government's press bureau announced
that bombs had been dropped, with unknown success, on two German
submarines lying there, and that on the same day a British airman had
flown over Hoboken and had seen submarines in building there.
The steamship _Lockwood_, while off Start Point in Devonshire, was hit
abaft the engine room by a German torpedo on the morning of April 2,
1915, and though she went down almost immediately, her crew was able
to get off in small boats and were picked up by fishing trawlers.
The _U-28_, which had done such effective work for the Germans during
the month of March, 1915, was relieved of duty near the British Isles
during the first week of April by the _U-31_, which sank the Russian
bark _Hermes_ and the British steamship _Olivine_ off the coast of
Wales on April 5, 1915.
The British admiralty decided in April, 1915, to use some other means
besides the employment of torpedo boats and destroyers to keep watch
for German submarines, and innocent-looking fishing trawlers were used
for the purpose. While these could give no fight against a submarine,
it was intended that they would carefully make for land to report
after sighting one of the hostile craft. The Germans, discovering this
strategy, then began to sink trawlers when they found them. On the
morning of April 5, 1915, one of these small craft was sighted and
chased by the _U-20_. After a pursuit of an hour or more the German
ship was near enough for members of her crew to fire on the trawler
with rifles. Her crew got into the small boat and were picked up
later by a steamer. The trawler was sent to the bottom.
The _U-20_ still kept up her raiding. On the 5th of April, 1915, she
overtook the steamer _Northland_, a 2,000-ton ship, and torpedoed her
off Beachy Head. The crew of the steamer were able to escape, although
their ship went down only ten minutes after the submarine caught up
with it.
The use of nets to catch submarines was vindicated, when on the 6th of
April, 1915, one of these vessels became entangled in a steel net near
Dover and was held fast. The loss of the _U-29_, which was commanded
by the famous Otto von Weddigen, who commanded the _U-9_ when she sank
the _Hogue_, _Cressy_, and _Aboukir_ in September, 1914, was confirmed
by a report issued by the German admiralty on April 7, 1915, after
rumors of her loss had circulated throughout England and France for a
number of weeks.
In order to encourage resistance on the part of crews of British
vessels attacked by German submarines, the British Government rewarded
the crew of the steamship _Vosges_. It was announced on April 9, 1915,
that the captain had been given a commission as a lieutenant in the
Royal Naval Reserve and the Distinguished Service Cross; the remaining
officers were given gold watches, and the crew were given $15 per man.
Rumors had reached the outside world that the German submarines were
using hidden spots to store fuel and provisions so that they might go
about their raiding without having to return to German ports for
reprovisioning. Neutral nations, such as the Netherlands and Norway,
found it necessary, to maintain their neutrality, to keep watch for
such action. On the 9th of April, 1915, Norwegian airmen reported to
their Government that such a cache had been discovered by them behind
the cliffs in Bergen Bay. Submarines found there were ordered to
intern or to leave immediately, and chose to do the latter.
Certain acts of the commanders of German submarines seemed to make it
evident that their intention was to sink ships of every description,
no matter where found, in order to make the "war zone" a reality, and
to make it shunned by neutral as well as belligerent ships. Thus the
Dutch steamship _Katwyk_, which lay at anchor seven miles west of the
North Hinder Lightship off the Dutch coast, was sunk. This lightship
was maintained by the Netherlands Government and stood at the mouth of
the River Scheldt, forty-five miles northwest of Flushing. The
_Katwyk_ was stationary there on the night of April 14, 1915, when the
crew felt a great shock and saw that their ship was rapidly taking
water. They managed to reach the lightship in their lifeboats just as
their vessel sank. The same submarine sank the British steamer
_Ptarmigan_ only a few hours later.
Among victims flying the flags of neutral nations the next ship was of
American register. This was the tank steamship _Gulflight_, which was
torpedoed off the Scilly Islands on the 29th of May, 1915. The hole
made in her hull was not large enough to cause her to sink, and she
was able to get to port. But during the excitement of the attack her
captain died of heart failure and two of her crew jumped into the sea
and were drowned. Three days later the French steamship _Europe_ and
the British ship _Fulgent_ were sent to the bottom, probably by the
same submarine.
The month of May, 1915, had opened with greater activity on the part
of German submarines than had been shown for many weeks previous.
Between the 1st and the 3d of that month seven ships were torpedoed,
four of them being British, one Swedish, and two Norwegian. By the 5th
of May, 1915, ten British trawlers had been sunk; some of these were
armed for attack on either German submarines or torpedo boats.
CHAPTER XXXIV
SINKING OF THE "LUSITANIA"
On the 7th of May, 1915, came the most sensational act committed by
German submarines since the war had started--the sinking of the Cunard
liner _Lusitania_. The vessel which did this was one of the _U-39_
class. In her last hours above water the giant liner was nearing
Queenstown on a sunny day in a calm sea. When about five miles off
shore, near Old Head of Kinsale, on the southeastern coast of Ireland,
a few minutes after two o'clock, while many of the passengers were at
lunch and a few of them on deck, there came a violent shock.
[Illustration: The Great liner, "Lusitania," which was torpedoed by a
German submarine, not far from Old Kinsale Head, Ireland, May 7,
1915.]
Five or six persons who had been on deck had noticed, a few moments
before, the wake of something that was moving rapidly toward the ship.
The moving object was a torpedo, which struck the hull to the forward
on the starboard side and passed clean through the ship's engine room.
She began to settle by the bows immediately, and the passengers,
though cool, made rushes for lifebelts and for the small boats. The
list of the boat made the launching of some of these impossible.
The scenes on the decks of the sinking liner were heartrending.
Members of families had become separated and ran wildly about seeking
their relatives. The women and children were put into the
lifeboats--being given preference.
"I was on the deck about two o'clock," narrated one of the survivors,
"the weather was fine and bright and the sea calm. Suddenly I heard a
terrific explosion, followed by another, and the cry went up that the
ship had been torpedoed. She began to list at once, and her angle was
so great that many of the boats on the port side could not be
launched. A lot of people made a rush for the boats, but I went down
to my cabin, took off my coat and vest and donned a lifebelt. On
getting up again I found the decks awash and the boat going down fast
by the head. I slipped down a rope into the sea and was picked up by
one of the lifeboats. Some of the boats, owing to the position of the
vessel, got swamped, and I saw one turn over no less than three times,
but eventually it was righted."
Not all of the women and children got off the liner into the small
boats. "Women and children, under the protection of men, had clustered
in lines on the port side of the ship," reported another survivor. "As
the ship made her plunge down by the head, she finally took an angle
of ninety degrees, and I saw this little army slide down toward the
starboard side, dashing themselves against each other as they went,
until they were engulfed."
Even under the stress of avoiding death the sight of the sinking hull
was one that held the attention of those in the water. One of the
sailors said afterward: "Her great hull rose into the air and neared
the perpendicular. As the form of the vessel rose she seemed to
shorten, and just as a duck dives so she disappeared. She went almost
noiselessly. Fortunately her propellers had stopped, for had these
been going, the vortex of her four screws would have dragged down many
of those whose lives were saved. She seemed to divide the water as
smoothly as a knife would do it."
Twenty minutes after the torpedo had struck the ship she had
disappeared beneath the surface of the sea. "Above the spot where she
had gone down," said one of the men who escaped death, "there was
nothing but a nondescript mass of floating wreckage. Everywhere one
looked there was a sea of waving hands and arms, belonging to the
struggling men and frantic women and children in agonizing efforts to
keep afloat. That was the most horrible memory and sight of all."
Fishing boats and coasting steamers picked up many of the survivors
some hours after the disaster. The frightened people in the small
boats pulled for the shore after picking up as many persons as they
dared without swamping their boats. Some floated about in the waters
for three and four hours, kept up by their lifebelts. Some, who were
good swimmers, managed to keep above water till help came; others
became exhausted and sank.
Probably the best story, covering the entire period from the time the
ship was hit till the survivors were landed at Queenstown, was told by
Dr. Daniel V. Moore, an American physician: "After the explosion,"
said Dr. Moore, "quiet and order were soon accomplished by assurances
from the stewards. I proceeded to the deck promenade for observation,
and saw only that the ship was fast leaning to the starboard. I
hurried toward my cabin below for a lifebelt, and turned back because
of the difficulty in keeping upright. I struggled to D deck and
forward to the first-class cabin, where I saw a Catholic priest.
"I could find no belts, and returned again toward E deck and saw a
stewardess struggling to dislodge a belt. I helped her with hers and
secured one for myself. I then rushed to D deck and noticed one woman
perched on the gunwale, watching a lowering lifeboat ten feet away. I
pushed her down and into the boat, then I jumped in. The stern of the
lifeboat continued to lower, but the bow stuck fast. A stoker cut the
bow ropes with a hatchet, and we dropped in a vertical position.
"A girl whom we had heard sing at a concert was struggling, and I
caught her by the ankle and pulled her in. A man I grasped by the
shoulders and I landed him safe. He was the barber of the first-class
cabin, and a more manly man I never met.
"We pushed away hard to avoid the suck, but our boat was fast filling,
and we bailed fast with one bucket and the women's hats. The man with
the bucket became exhausted, and I relieved him. In a few minutes she
was filled level full. Then a keg floated up, and I pitched it about
ten feet away and followed it. After reaching the keg I turned to see
what had been the fate of our boat. She had capsized. Now a young
steward, Freeman, approached me, clinging to a deck chair. I urged him
to grab the other side of the keg several times. He grew faint, but
harsh speaking roused him. Once he said: 'I am going to go.' But I
ridiculed this, and it gave him strength.
"The good boat _Brock_ and her splendid officers and men took us
aboard.
"At the scene of the catastrophe the surface of the water seemed
dotted with bodies. Only a few of the lifeboats seemed to be doing any
good. The cries of 'My God!' 'Save us!' and 'Help!' gradually grew
weaker from all sides, and finally a low weeping, wailing,
inarticulate sound, mingled with coughing and gargling, made me
heartsick. I saw many men die. Some appeared to be sleepy and worn out
just before they went down."
Officials of the Cunard Line claimed afterward that three submarines
had been engaged in the attack on the liner, but, after all evidence
had been sifted, the claim made by the Germans that only one had been
present was found to be true. The commander of the submarine had
evidently been well informed as to just what route the liner would
take. Trouble with her engines, which developed after she had left New
York, had brought her speed down to 18 knots, a circumstance which was
in favor of the attacking vessel, for it could not have done much
damage with a torpedo had she been going at her highest speed; it
would have given her a chance to cross the path of the torpedo as it
approached. No sign of the submarine was noticed by the lookout or by
any of the passengers on the _Lusitania_ until it was too late to
maneuver her to a position of safety. A few moments before the white
wake of the approaching torpedo was espied, the periscope had been
seen as it came to the surface of the water. From that moment onward
the liner was doomed.
The German admiralty report of the actual sinking of the ship, which
was issued on the 14th of May, 1915, was brief. It read: "A submarine
sighted the steamship _Lusitania_, which showed no flag, May 7, 2.20
Central European time, afternoon, on the southeast coast of Ireland,
in fine, clear weather.
"At 3.10 o'clock one torpedo was fired at the _Lusitania_, which hit
her starboard side below the captain's bridge. The detonation of the
torpedo was followed immediately by a further explosion of extremely
strong effect. The ship quickly listed to starboard and began to sink.
"The second explosion must be traced back to the ignition of
quantities of ammunition inside the ship."
One of the effects of the sinking of the _Lusitania_ was to cut down
the number of passengers sailing to and from America to Europe on
ships flying flags of belligerent nations. Attacks by submarines on
neutral ships did not abate, however, for on the 15th of May, 1915,
the Danish steamer _Martha_ was torpedoed in broad daylight and in
view of crowds ashore off the coast of Aberdeen Bay.
The sinking of ships in the "war zone" continued in spite of rumors
that the German admiralty was expected to discontinue operations of
the submarines against merchantmen on account of the unfriendly
feeling aroused in neutral nations, particularly the United States. On
the 19th of May, 1915, came the news that the British steamship
_Dumcree_ had been torpedoed off a point in the English Channel. A
torpedo fired into her hull failed to sink her immediately, and a
Norwegian ship came to her aid, passing her a cable and attempting to
tow her to port. But the submarine returned, and fearing attack, the
Norwegian ship made off. A second torpedo fired at the _Dumcree_ had
better effect than the first one, and she began to settle. When the
submarine left the scene the Norwegian steamship again returned to the
_Dumcree_ and managed to take off all of her crew and passengers.
Three trawlers, one of them French, were sunk in the same neighborhood
during the next forty-eight hours.
As soon as Italy entered the war an attempt was made by the Teutonic
Powers to establish the same sort of submarine blockade in the
Adriatic which obtained in the waters around Great Britain. This was
evinced when the captain of the Italian steamship _Marsala_ reported
on May 21, 1915, that his ship had been stopped by an Austrian
submarine, but the latter not wishing to disclose its location to the
Italian navy, allowed his ship to proceed unharmed.
The suspicion that the German admiralty maintained bases for their
submarines right on the coasts of Great Britain where the submersible
craft could obtain oil for driving their engines, as well as supplies
of compressed air and of food for the crew, was confirmed on the 14th
of May, 1915, when it was reported that agents of the British
admiralty had discovered caches of the kind at various points in the
Orkney Islands, in the Bay of Biscay, and on the north and west coasts
of Ireland.
In order to damage shipping in the "war zone" by having ships go wrong
through having no guiding lights an attack was made by a German
submarine on the lighthouse at Fastnet, on the southern coast of
Ireland, on the night of May 25, 1915. Shortly after nine in the
evening the submarine was sighted in the waters near the lighthouse by
persons on shore. She was about ten miles from Fastnet, near Barley
Cove. When she came near enough to the lighthouse to use her deck
guns, men on shore opened fire on her with rifles, and she submerged,
not to reappear in that neighborhood again.
But this same submarine managed to do other damage. The American
steamship _Nebraskan_ was in the neighborhood on its way to New York.
The sea was calm and the ship was traveling at 12 knots, when some
time near nine o'clock in the evening a shock was felt aboard. A
second later there came a terrific explosion, and a subsequent
investigation showed that a large hole, 20 feet square, had been torn
in her starboard bow, not far from the water line. When she began to
settle the captain ordered all hands into the small boats. They stayed
near the damaged ship for an hour and saw that she was not going to
sink. When they got aboard again they found that a bulkhead was
keeping out the water sufficiently to allow her to proceed under her
own steam. In crippled condition she made for port, being convoyed
later by two British warships which answered her calls for help.
In spite of the sharp diplomatic representations which were at the
time passing back and forth between Germany and the United States over
the matter of the German submarine warfare, the craft kept up as
active a campaign against merchant ships as they did before the issues
became pointed. On May 28, 1915, there came the news that three more
ships had been sent to the bottom. The _Spennymoor_, a new ship, was
chased and torpedoed off Start Point, near the Orkney Islands. Some of
her crew were drowned when the lifeboat in which they were getting
away capsized, carrying them down. On the same day the large liner
_Argyllshire_ was chased and fired upon by the deck guns of a hostile
submarine, but she managed to get away. Not so fortunate, however, was
the steamship _Cadesby_. While off the Scilly Islands on the afternoon
of May 28, 1915, a German submarine hailed her, firing a shot from a
deck gun across her bows as a signal to halt. Time was given for the
crew and passengers to get into small boats, and when these were at a
distance from the ship the deck guns of the submarine were again
brought into action, and after firing thirty shots into her hull they
sank her. The third victim was the Swedish ship _Roosvall_. She was
stopped and boarded off Malmoe by the crew of a German submarine.
After examining her papers they permitted her to proceed, but later
sent a torpedo into her, sinking her.
A new raider, the _U-24_, made its appearance in the English Channel
during the last week in May, 1915. On the twenty-eighth of the month
this submarine sank the liner _Ethiope_. The captain of the steamship
attempted some clever maneuvering, which did not accomplish its
object. He paid no attention to a shot from the deck guns of the
submarine which passed across his bow. The hostile craft then began to
circle around the liner, while the rudder of the latter was put at a
wide angle in an effort to keep either stern or bow of the ship toward
the submarine, thus making a poor target for a torpedo. But the
commander of the submarine saw through the movement and ordered fire
with his deck guns. After shells had taken away the ship's bridge and
had punctured her hull near the stern the crew and passengers were
ordered into the small boats. They had hardly gotten twenty feet from
their ship when she was rent by a violent explosion and went down.
The transatlantic liner _Megantic_ had better luck, for she managed to
escape a pursuing submarine on May 29, 1915, as she was nearing
Queenstown, Ireland, homeward bound. A notable change in the methods
adopted by the commanders of submarines as a result of orders issued
by the German admiralty in answer to the protests throughout the press
of the neutral nations after the sinking of the _Lusitania_ was the
giving of warning to intended victims. By the end of May, 1915, in
almost every instance where a German submarine stopped and sank a
merchantman the crew was given time to get off their ship and the
submarine did not hesitate to show itself. In fact, warning to stop
was generally given when the submarine's deck was above water and the
gun mounted there had the victim "covered." This was done in the case
of the British steamship _Tullochmoor_, which was torpedoed off Ushant
near the most westerly islands of Brittany, France.
On the 1st of June, 1915, there came the news of the sinking of the
British ship _Dixiana_, near Ushant, by a German submarine which
approached by aid of a clever disguise. The crew managed to get off
the ship in time; when they landed on shore they reported that the
submarine had been seen and on account of sails which she carried was
thought to be an innocent fishing boat. The disguise was penetrated
too late for the _Dixiana_ to make its escape.
The clear and calm weather which came with June, 1915, made greater
activity on the part of German submarines possible. On the 4th of
June, 1915, it was reported by the British admiralty that six more
ships had been made victims, three of them being those of neutral
countries. In the next twenty-four hours the number was increased by
eleven, and eight more were added by the 9th of June, 1915.
On that date Mr. Balfour, Secretary of the British admiralty,
announced that a German submarine had been sunk, though he did not
state what had been the scene of the action. At the same time he
announced that Great Britain would henceforth treat the captured crew
of submarines in the same manner as were treated other war prisoners,
and that the policy of separating these men from the others and of
giving them harsher treatment would be abandoned.
On the 20th of June, 1915, the day's reports of losses due to the
operations of German submarines, issued by the British Government,
contained the news of the sinking of the two British torpedo boats,
the _No. 10_ and the _No. 20_. No details were made public concerning
just how they went down.
On the same day the Italian admiralty announced that a cache
maintained to supply submarines belonging to the Teutonic Powers and
operating in the Mediterranean, had been discovered on a lonely part
of the coast near Kalimno, an island off the southwest coast of Asia
Minor. Ninety-six barrels of benzine and fifteen hundred barrels of
other fuel were found and destroyed. It was believed that this supply
had been shipped as kerosene from Saloniki to Piraeus. How submarines
belonging to Germany had reached the southern theatre of naval warfare
had been a matter of speculation for the outside world. But on the 6th
of June, 1915, Captain Otto Hersing made public the manner in which he
took the _U-51_ on a 3,000 mile trip from Wilhelmshaven on the North
Sea to Constantinople. He was the commander who managed to torpedo the
British battleships _Triumph_ and _Majestic_.
He received his orders to sail on the 25th of April, 1915, and
immediately began to stock his ship with extra amounts of fuel and
provisions, allowing only his first officer and chief engineer to know
the destination of their craft. He traveled on the surface of the
water as soon as he had passed the guard of British warships near the
German coast; traveling "light" allowed him to make six or seven knots
more in speed. As he passed through the "war zone" he kept watch for
merchantmen which might be made victims of his torpedo tubes. His
craft was sighted by a British destroyer, however, off the English
coast and he had to submerge to escape the fire of the destroyer's
guns. He then proceeded cautiously down the coast of France,
encountering no hostile ships. When within one hundred miles of
Gibraltar he was again discovered by British destroyers, but again
managed to escape by submerging his craft.
Passage through the Strait of Gibraltar was made in the early morning
hours, while a mist hung near the surface of the water and permitted
no one at the fort to see the wake of the _U-51's_ periscope. Once
inside the Mediterranean he headed for the south of Greece, escaping
attack from a French destroyer and proceeding through the Ægean Sea to
the Dardanelles. The journey ended on the 25th of May, just one month
after leaving Wilhelmshaven.
The British ships _Triumph_ and _Majestic_ were sighted early in the
morning, but attack upon them was difficult on account of the
destroyers which circled about them; one of the destroyers passed
right over the _U-51_ while she was submerged. Captain Hersing brought
her to the surface soon afterward and let go the torpedo which sank
the _Triumph_. For the next two days the submarine lay submerged, but
came up on the following day and found itself right in the midst of
the allied fleet. This time the _Majestic_ was taken as the target for
a torpedo and she went down. Again submerging his vessel Captain
Hersing kept it down for another day, and when he again came to the
surface he saw that the fleets had moved away. He then returned to
Constantinople.
On the 23d of June, 1915, the British cruiser _Roxborough_, an older
ship, was hit by a torpedo fired by a German submarine in the North
Sea, but the damage inflicted was not enough to prevent her from
making port under her own steam.
The deaths of a number of Americans occurred on the 28th of June,
1915, when the Leyland liner _Armenian_, carrying horses for the
allied armies, was torpedoed by the _U-38_, twenty miles west by north
of Trevose Head in Cornwall. According to the story of the captain of
the vessel, the submarine fired two shots to signal him to stop. When
he put on all speed in an attempt to get away from the raider her guns
opened on his ship with shrapnel, badly riddling it. She had caught
fire and was burning in three places before he signaled that he would
surrender. Thirteen men had meanwhile been killed by the shrapnel.
Some of the lifeboats had also been riddled by the firing from the
submarine's deck guns, making it more difficult for the crew to leave
the ship. The German commander gave him ample time to get his boats
off.
To offset the advantage which the Germans had with their submarines
the British admiralty commissioned ten such craft during the week of
June 28, 1915. These vessels were of American build and design and
were assembled in Canada. During the week mentioned they were manned
by men sent for the purpose from England. Each was manned by four
officers and eighteen men, to take them across the Atlantic. Never
before in history had so many submarines undertaken a voyage as great.
They got under way from Quebec on July 2, 1915, and proceeded in
column two abreast, a big auxiliary cruiser, which acted as their
escort steaming in the center.
The next large liner which had an encounter with the German submarine
_U-39_ was the _Anglo-Californian_. She came into Queenstown on the
morning of July 5, 1915, with nine dead sailors lying on the deck,
nine wounded men in their bunks, and holes in her sides made by shot
and shell. She had withstood attack from a German submarine for four
hours. Her escape from destruction was accomplished through only the
spirit of the captain and his crew, combined with the fact that patrol
vessels came to her aid forcing the submarine to submerge.
A variety in the methods used by the commanders of German submarines
was revealed in the stopping of the Norwegian ship _Vega_ which was
stopped on the 15th of July, while voyaging from Bergen to Newcastle.
The submarine came alongside the steamship at night and the commander
of the submarine supervised the jettisoning of her cargo of 200 tons
of salmon, 800 cases of butter, and 4,000 cases of sardines, which was
done at his command under threat of sinking his victim.
The week of July 15, 1915, was unique in that not one British vessel
was made the victim of a German submarine during that period, though
two Russian vessels had been sunk. Figures compiled by the British
admiralty and issued on the 22d of July, 1915, gave out the following
information concerning the attacks on merchantmen by German submarines
since the German admiralty's proclamation of a "war zone" around Great
Britain went into effect on the 18th of February, 1915.
The official figures were as follows:
Week ending Vessels lost Lives lost
Feb. 25, 1915 11 9
March 4, " 1 None
March 11, " 7 38
March 18, " 6 13
March 25, " 7 2
April 1, " 13 165
April 8, " 8 13
April 15, " 4 None
April 22, " 3 10
April 29, " 3 None
May 6, " 24 5
May 13, " 2 1,260
May 20, " 7 13
May 27, " 7 7
June 3, " 36 21
June 10, " 36 21
June 17, " 19 19
June 24, " 3 1
July 1, " 9 29
July 8, " 15 2
July 15, " 12 13
July 22, " 2 None
235 1,641
The first year of the Great War came to an end with the German
submarines as active in the "war zone" as they had been during any
part of it. On the 28th of July, 1915, the anniversary of the
commencement of the war, there was reported the sinking of nine
vessels. These were the Swedish steamer _Emma_, the three Danish
schooners _Maria_, _Neptunis,_ and _Lena_, the British steamer
_Mangara_, the trawlers _Iceni_ and _Salacia_, the _Westward_ Ho, and
the Swedish bark _Sagnadalen_. No lives were lost with any of these
vessels.
The first year of the war closed with a cloud gathered over the heads
of the members of the German admiralty raised by the irritation the
submarine attacks in the "war zone" had caused. Germany's enemies
protested against the illegality of these attacks; neutral nations
protested because they held that their rights had been overridden. But
the German press showed the feeling of the German public on the
matter--at the end of July, 1915, it was as anxious as ever to have
the attacks continued. Conflicting claims were issued in Germany and
England. In the former country it was claimed that the attacks had
seriously damaged commerce; in the latter it was claimed that the
damage was of little account.
PART VI--THE EASTERN FRONT--AUSTRO-RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER XXXV
THE CARPATHIAN CAMPAIGN--REVIEW OF THE SITUATION
In the beginning of 1915 comparative calm reigned over the
Austro-Russian theatre of war, so far as actual hostilities were
concerned. But it was not altogether the variable climatic conditions
of alternate frost and thaw--the latter converting road and valley
into impassable quagmires--that caused the lull. It was a short winter
pause during which the opposing forces--on one side at least--were
preparing and gathering the requisite momentum for the coming storm.
During January, 1915, the Russian armies were in a decidedly favorable
position. In their own invaded territory of Poland, as we have seen,
they held an advanced position in front of the Vistula, which
circumstance enabled them to utilize that river as a line of
communication, while barring the way to Warsaw against Von Hindenburg.
Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, which they had captured in September,
1914, was still in their hands. Sixty miles away to the west there lay
the great fortress of Przemysl, invested by the Russians under General
Selivanoff, and completely cut off from the outer world since November
12, 1914. At least 150,000 troops and enormous quantities of stores
and munitions were locked up in the town and outlying forts, together
with a population of 50,000 inhabitants, mostly Polish. In addition to
these material advantages, the Russians held all the Carpathian passes
leading from Galicia into the vast plains of Hungary, and a strong
advanced position on the Dunajec in the west, which, besides
threatening Cracow, the capital of Austrian Poland, served also as a
screen to the mountain operations. Finally, to the far east of the
range, they had occupied nearly the whole of the Bukowina right up to
the Rumanian frontier.
Such, briefly, was the situation on the Austro-Russian front when the
second winter campaign opened. For Austria the situation was extremely
critical. Her armies, broken and scattered after a series of
disastrous reverses, could scarcely hope by their own efforts to stem
the threatened invasion of Hungary. General Brussilov, however, made
no serious attempt to pour his troops through the passes into the
plain below; although what was probably a reconnaissance emerged from
the Uzsok Pass and penetrated as far as Munkacs, some thirty miles
south, while on several occasions small bands of Cossacks descended
from the Dukla and Delatyn (Jablonitza) passes to raid Hungarian
villages. General Brussilov evidently regarded it inadvisable to risk
an invasion of the plain, especially as he did not hold control of the
southern exits from the passes, beyond which he would be exposed to
attack from all sides and liable to encounter superior forces. The
main Austrian anxiety for the moment was the precarious position of
Przemysl, to relieve which it was first essential to dislodge
Brussilov or to pierce his line. Again, in the hour of her extremity,
Austria's powerful ally came to the rescue.
[Illustration: The Carpathian Passes and Russian Battle Line.]
Under the command of the Archduke Eugene the Austrian troops--all that
were available--were formed into three separate armies. For
convenience sake we will designate them A, B, and C. Army A, under
General Boehm-Ermolli, was ordered to the section from the Dukla Pass
to the Uzsog. It was charged with the task of cutting a way through to
relieve Przemysl. Army B, under the German General von Linsingen, who
also had some German troops with him, was to assail the next section
eastward, from the Uzsog to the Wyszkow Pass; and Army C, under the
Austrian General von Pflanzer-Baltin, likewise supplied with a good
"stiffening" of German soldiers, was accredited to the far-eastern
section--the Pruth Valley and the Bukowina. These three armies
represented the fighting machine with which Austria hoped to retrieve
the misfortunes of war and recover at the same time her military
prestige and her invaded territories. We have no reliable information
to enable us to estimate the exact strength of these armies, but there
is every reason to believe that it was considerable, having regard to
the urgency of the situation and the bitter experience of the recent
past. Hence the figure of 400,000 men is probably approximately
correct. Somewhere about January 23, 1914, after a period of thaw and
mud the weather settled down to snow and hard frost. Then the machine
began to move. A snow-clad mountain rampart lay spread before; over
200 miles of its length embraced the area of the projected operations.
Here we may leave this army for a while in order to review some of the
political and strategic considerations underlying the campaign, which
is the scope of this chapter.
The Russian occupation of the Bukowina, which was undertaken and
accomplished by a force far too small to oppose any serious
resistance, appears to have been carried out with the definite
political object of favorably impressing Rumania, and to guide her
into the arms of the Allies. From her geographical position Rumania
commands nearly the whole western frontier of the Dual Monarchy. Her
fertile soil supplied the Central Powers with grain, dairy produce,
and oil. Furthermore, Rumania's foreign policy leaned to the side of
Italy, and the general European impression was, after the death of
King Carol, October 10, 1914, that if one of the two countries entered
the war, the other would follow suit. As subsequent events have shown,
however, that expectation was not realized. Rumania, too, had
aspirations in the direction of recovering lost territories, but her
grievance in this respect was equally divided between Russia and
Austria, for, while the one had despoiled her of Bessarabia, the other
had annexed Transylvania (Siebenbürgen). Hence the Russian tentative
conquest and occupation of the Bukowina paved the way for Rumania,
should she decide on intervention. The road was clear for her to step
in and occupy the Bukowina (which Russia was prepared to hand over),
and probably Transylvania as well, which latter the proximity of a
Russian force might--at the time--have enabled her to do. But the bait
failed, no doubt for weighty reasons. Even if Rumania had favored the
Triple Entente, which there is strong ground to presume she would, by
entering the war, have found herself in as perilous a position as
Serbia, with her Black Sea littoral exposed to hostile Turkey and her
whole southern boundary flanked by a neighbor--Bulgaria--whose
intentions were as yet unknown. However, on January 27, 1915, the Bank
of England arranged a $25,000,000 loan to Rumania--an event which
further heightened the probability of her entry into the arena.
We may safely take it for granted that these considerations were not
overlooked by the German staff, in addition to the patent fact that
the Russians were persistently gaining ground against the Austrians.
German officers and men were therefore rushed from the eastern and
western fronts to the south of the Carpathians to form the three
armies we have labeled A, B, and C. The points of attack for which
they were intended have already been stated; but the roundabout manner
in which they traveled to their respective sections is both
interesting and worthy of notice. At this stage a new spirit seemed to
dominate Austro-Hungarian military affairs; we suddenly encounter
greater precision, sounder strategy, and deeper plans: a master mind
appears to have taken matters in hand. It is the cool, calculating,
mathematical composite brain of the German General Staff. As the
formation and dispatching of three great armies can hardly be kept a
secret, especially where hawk-eyed spies abound, a really astute piece
of stage management was resorted to. Wild rumors were set afloat to
the effect that the Austrian Government had decided to undertake a
great offensive--for the third time--against Serbia, and erase her
from the map, with the assistance of four German army corps. The
concentration zone for operations against either Serbia or the Russian
front in the Carpathians was naturally in the central plains of
Hungary. But to cover the real object of Austro-German concentration
active demonstrations were made on the Serb border in the form of
bombardments of Belgrade, and occupation of Danube islands. These
demonstrations made plausible the Teutonic assertion that the
concentration of troops was being carried out with a view to an
invasion of Serbia. So successful was the ruse, and so well had the
secret been kept that on February 1, 1914, a Petrograd "official"
gravely announced to an eagerly listening world: "The statement is
confirmed that the new Austro-German southern army, intended for the
third invasion of Serbia, consists of six Austrian and two German
corps or 400,000 men, under the command of the Archduke Eugene(!)" At
the very time this appeared the new Austro-German "southern" army had
been already, for quite a week, making its presence severely felt in
the eastern and central sections of the Carpathians, and still the
Russian authorities had not recognized the identity of the forces
operating there.
A brief description of the battle ground will enable the reader to
follow more easily the course of the struggle. Imagine that length of
the Carpathian chain which forms the boundary between Galicia and
Hungary as a huge, elongated arch of, roughly, 300 miles. (The whole
of the range stretches as a continuous rampart for a distance of 900
miles, completely shutting in Hungary from the northwest to the east
and south, separating it from Moravia [Mähren], Galicia, the Bukowina,
and Rumania.) Through the curve of this arch run a number of passes.
Beginning as far west as is here necessary, the names of the chief
passes eastward leading from Hungary are: into Galicia--Beskid,
Tarnow, Tilicz, Dukla, Lupkow, Rostoki, Uzsok, Vereczke (or Tucholka),
Beskid[2] (or Volocz), Wyszkow, Jablonitza (or Delatyn); into the
Bukowina--Strol, Kirlibaba, Rodna; into Rumania--Borgo. In parts the
range is 100 miles in width, and from under 2,000 to 8,000 feet high.
The western and central Carpathians are much more accessible than the
eastern, and therefore comprise the main and easiest routes across.
The Hun and Tartar invasions flooded Europe centuries ago by this way,
and the Delatyn is still called the "Magyar route." The passes vary in
height from under a thousand to over four thousand feet. The Dukla and
Uzsok passes were to be the main objective, as through them lay the
straightest roads to Lemberg and Przemysl. The former is crossed by
railway from Tokay to Przemysl, and the latter by rail and road from
Ungvar to Sambor. A railroad also runs through the Vereczke from
Munkacs to Lemberg, and another through Delatyn from Debreczen to
Kolomea. So far as concerned means of communication, matters were
nearly equal, but geographical advantage lay with the Russians, as the
way from Galicia to Hungary is by far an easier one than vice versa.
[Footnote 2: There are two passes named Beskid.]
CHAPTER XXXVI
BATTLE OF THE PASSES
Before proceeding with the opening of the second winter campaign in
the Carpathians, the reader should remember that, as stated in the
beginning of this narrative, a Russian army under General Radko
Dmitrieff (a Bulgarian), held an advanced position on the
Dunajec-Biala line, extending from the Vistula to Zmigrod, northwest
of Dukla. This force was consequently beyond the zone of the
Austro-German offensive, but, as events proved, it had not been
overlooked, for it was here that the heaviest blow was finally to
fall. It is also important to bear in mind that the Russian armies
occupying Galicia and the northern slopes of the Carpathians were not
conducting an isolated campaign on their own account; they formed an
integral part of the far-flung battle line that reached from the
shores of the Baltic down to the Rumanian frontier, a distance of
nearly 800 miles. Dmitrieff's force represented a medial link of the
chain--and the weakest.
Over the slushy roads of the valleys and into the snow-laden passes
the Germanic armies advanced, each of the widely deployed columns with
a definite objective: From Dukla, Lupkow, and Rostoki to relieve
Przemysl; from Uzsok through the valley of the Upper San to Sambor;
through Beskid and Vereczke northward to Stryj, thence westward also
to Sambor; over Wyszkow to Dolina; via Jablonitza to Delatyn; and
across Kirlibaba and Dorna Vatra into the Bukowina. Opposed to them
were the Russian Generals Brussilov, Ivanoff, and Alexieff,
respectively.
Correspondents with the Teutonic troops in these weeks wrote in
wonderment of the scenes of the slowly forward toiling advance into
the mountains which they had seen. On every road leading into Galicia
there was the same picture of a flood rolling steadily on. Everywhere
could be seen the German and Austro-Hungarian troops on the move, men
going into the firing line to fight for days, day after day, with the
shedding of much blood, among the peaks and valleys, under changing
skies.
Here is a word picture of the supply columns winding upward into the
Carpathians to the support of the Teutonic troops furnished by a
German correspondent:
"Truly fantastic is the appearance of one of these modern supply
caravans, stretching in zigzag, with numerous sharp corners and turns,
upward to the heights of the passes and down on the opposite side.
Here we see in stages, one above the other and moving in opposite
directions, the queerest mixture of men, vehicles, machines and
animals, all subordinated to a common military purpose and
organization by military leadership, moving continually and regularly
along. The drivers have been drummed up from all parts of the
monarchy, Serbs, Ruthenians, Poles, Croats, Rumanians, Hungarians,
Slovaks, Austrians, and turbaned Mohammedans from Bosnia. Everyone is
shouting to his animals and cursing in his own language. The whole
mix-up is a traveling exhibition of most variegated characteristic
costumes, for the most part, of course, extremely the worse for wear.
Common to all these are the little wagons adapted to mountain travel,
elastic and tough, which carry only half loads and are drawn by little
ponylike, ambitious horses. In between are great German draft horses,
stamping along with their broad high-wheeled baggage and ammunition
wagons, as though they belonged to a nation of giants.
"Gravely, with a kind of sullen dignity, slow-stepping steers drag at
their yokes heavily laden sledges. They are a powerful white breed,
with broad-spreading horns a yard long. These are followed in endless
rows by carefully stepping pack animals, small and large horses, mules
and donkeys. On the wooden packsaddles on their backs are the
carefully weighed bales of hay or ammunition boxes or other war
materials. Walking gingerly by the edges of the mountain ridges they
avoid pitfalls and rocks and walk round the stiff, distended bodies of
their comrades that have broken down on the way. At times there ambles
along a long row of working animals a colt, curious and restlessly
sniffing. In the midst of this movement of the legs of animals, of
waving arms, of creaking and swaying loaded vehicles of manifold
origin, there climbs upward the weighty iron of an Austrian motor
battery, with an almost incomprehensible inevitableness, flattening
out the broken roads like a steam roller.
"From the first pass the baggage train sinks down into the depths,
again to climb upward on the next ridge, to continue striving upward
ever toward higher passages, slowly pushing forward toward its
objective against the resistance of numberless obstacles.
"The road to the battle field of to-day crosses the battle field of
recent weeks and months. Here there once stood a village, but only the
stone foundations of the hearths are left as traces of the houses that
have been burned down. Sometimes falling shots or the terrors of a
brief battle in the streets have reduced to ruins only a part of a
village. The roofs of houses have been patched with canvas and boards
to some extent, and now serve as quarters for troops or as stables. In
the narrow valleys the level places by the sides of streams have been
utilized for encampments. Here stand in order wagons of a resting
column and the goulash cannons shedding their fragrance far and wide,
or the tireless ovens of a field bakery. Frequently barracks, hospital
buildings, and shelters for men and animals have been built into the
mountain sides. Here and there simple huts have been erected, made of
a few poles and fir twigs. Often they are placed in long rows, which,
when their inmates are warming themselves by the fire at night turn
the dark mountain road into a romantic night encampment, and
everywhere fresh crosses, ornamented at times in a manner suggestive
of the work of children, remind us of our brothers now forever
silenced, who, but a short time before went the same road, withstood
just such weather and such hardships, talked perhaps in these same
huts of the war, and dreamt of peace.
"The saddest spectacle, however, were the lightly wounded, poor
fellows, who might under ordinary conditions have readily walked the
distance from the first aid station to the central gathering point,
but who here on account of the ice or muddy roads require double and
three times the usual time."
CHAPTER XXXVII
BATTLE OF KOZIOWA--OPERATIONS IN THE BUKOWINA
Owing to the topographical conditions under which fighting must be
carried on in the central Carpathians, some weeks might be expected to
elapse before a general engagement developed along the entire front.
Lateral communication or cooperation between the advancing columns was
out of the question; the passes were like so many parallel tunnels,
each of which must first be negotiated before a reunion can take place
at the northern exits.
We will follow the achievements of the three groups in separate order.
Army A, under Boehm-Ermolli, crossed Uzsok and Rostoki, and forced
part of the Russian line back upon Baligrod, but Brussilov held it
fast on Dukla and Lupkow, strongly supported by Dmitrieff on his
right. Here the attack failed with severe losses; the Germanic forces
were thrown back into Hungary, and the Russians commanded the southern
ends of the passes around Dukla. The Uzsok Pass was of small
strategical value to the Austrians now that they had it. It is
extremely vulnerable at every point; steep, narrow, and winding roads
traverse its course nearly 3,000 feet high, with thickly wooded
mountains up to 4,500 feet overlooking the scene from a close circle.
Regarded merely as a short cut to Przemysl and Lemberg, the Uzsok was
a useful possession provided always that the northern debouchment
could be cleared and an exit forced. But the Russians held these
debouchments with a firm grip, and the pass was consequently of no use
to the Austrians. About February 7, 1915, the Russians attempted to
outflank the Austrian position in the Lupkow Pass from the eastern
branch of the Dukla by pushing forward in the direction of Mezo-Laborc
on the Hungarian side. The movement partially succeeded; they took
over 10,000 prisoners, but failed to dislodge the Austrians from the
heights east of the pass. Severe fighting raged round this district
for over a month, the Russians finally capturing Lupkow, as well as
Smolnik at the southern exit of Rostoki. Had the Russians succeeded in
getting between Uzsok and the Austrian line of communication, as was
undoubtedly their aim, the Austrians would have been compelled to
relinquish the pass without even a fight. However, General
Boehm-Ermolli's mission proved a failure.
Army B, under Von Linsingen, succeeded in traversing all the passes in
its appointed section. Crossing by the railway pass of Beskid and the
two roads leading through Vereczke and Wyszkow, they pushed forward in
the direction of Stryj and Lemberg, but never reached their
destination. Barely through the passes, the Germans struck upon Lysa
Gora, over 3,300 feet high. This mountain range is barren of all
vegetation--no sheltering trees or shrubs adorn its slopes. The route
of the Germans crossed Lysa Gora south and in front of the ridge of
Koziowa, where the Russian lines, under General Ivanoff, lay in
waiting. Passing down the bald slopes of Lysa Gora toward the valley
of the Orava River, the advancing German columns presented a
conspicuous target for the Russians on the opposite slopes of Koziowa,
screened by thick forests. Here one of the most desperate battles of
the campaign ensued on February 6, 1915, between Von Linsingen's
Austro-German army and Brussilov's center.
In close formation and with well-drilled precision the Germans
attempted to storm the position at the point of the bayonet. Again and
again they returned to the charge, only to be repulsed with severe
losses. As many as twenty-two furious bayonet charges were made in one
day, February 7. Wherever a footing was gained in the Russian lines,
there a few minutes ferocious hand-to-hand _mêlée_ developed--Saxon
and Slav at death grips--the intruders were expelled or hacked down.
Great masses of Austro-German dead and wounded were strewn over the
lower slopes of Koziowa. For five weeks Von Linsingen hammered at the
Russian front without being able to break through. So long as the
Russians held the heights it was impossible for their enemy to emerge
from the passes. These two, Vereczke and Beskid, so close together,
may literally be described as twin tunnels. Owing to the highland
between them, the two columns moving through could not cooperate; if
one side needed reenforcements from the other, they had to be taken
back over the range into Hungary to the junction where the roads
diverged. It was sound strategy on the Russian side to select Koziowa
as the point from which to check the Germanic advance. For the time
being, with Dukla and Lupkow in their hands and the exits of Uzsok and
Rostoki strongly guarded, the defense of Koziowa held Galicia safe
from reconquest. The attacks against Koziowa continued beyond the
middle of March, 1915. On the 16th of that month the Russians captured
a place called Oravcyk, about four miles westward, from where they
could threaten the German left, which had the effect of keeping Von
Linsingen still closer to his mountain passages. The fighting in this
region represents one of the important phases of the war, for it
prevented the relief of Przemysl; temporarily saved Stryj and Lemberg
for the Russians; enabled them to send reenforcements into the
Bukowina, and, finally, inspired the German General Staff to plan the
great and decisive Galician campaign, which was to achieve the task
wherein Boehm-Ermolli and Von Linsingen had both failed.
Meanwhile, what had Von Pflanzer-Baltin accomplished with Army C--the
third column? His path lay through Jablonitza, Kirlibaba, and Dorna
Vatra; his task was to clear the Russians out of the Bukowina, and
either to force them back across their own frontiers, or to turn the
extreme end of their left flank. We have seen that the Russian
occupation of the Bukowina was more in the nature of a political
experiment than a serious military undertaking, and that their forces
in the province were not strong enough to indulge in great strategical
operations. Hence we may expect the Austrian general's progress to be
less difficult than that of his colleagues in the western and central
Carpathians. To some extent this presumption is correct, for on
February 18, 1915, after launching out from the southern corner of the
Bukowina at Kimpolung and via the Jablonitza Pass down the Pruth
Valley, they captured Czernowitz, and after that Kolomea, whence the
railway runs to Lemberg. Within three days they reached Stanislawow,
another important railway center, defended by a small Russian force,
and a big battle ensued. Altogether, the Germanic troops in the
Bukowina were reported at 50,000 in number, though these were split up
into two columns, one of which was making but slow progress farther
east.
[Illustration: Detail Map of the Forts of Przemysl.]
Russian reenforcements were thrown into the town, and the struggle for
the railway, which lasted a week, appears to have been of a seesaw
nature, for no official reports of the fighting were issued by either
side. Still the Austrians pushed westward in the hope of reaching the
railways which supplied those Russian armies which were barring the
advance through the central passes. The Russians were forced to
withdraw from Stanislawow, and their opponents now held possession of
the line running to Stryj and Przemysl--a serious menace to the
Russian main communications. This meant that Von Pflanzer-Baltin had
succeeded in getting to the rear of the Russians. But assistance came
unexpectedly from the center, whence Ivanoff was able to send
reenforcements to his colleague, General Alexeieff, who was
continually falling back before the Austrians. Furious counterattacks
were delivered by the Russians at Halicz and Jezupol, the
bridgeheads of the southern bank of the Dniester. If the Austrians
could not force a victory at these points, their position in
Stanislawow would be untenable, since the Russians still had a clear
road to pour reenforcements into the fighting area between the
Dniester and the Carpathians. On March 1, 1915, the Austrians were
defeated at Halicz in a pitched battle, and on the 4th the Russians
reentered Stanislawow. According to their official communiqué the
Russians captured nearly 19,000 prisoners, 5 guns, 62 machine guns,
and a quantity of stores and munitions. About March 16 the opposing
forces came again into touch southeast of Stanislawow on the road to
Ottynia, but nothing of importance appears to have happened. To sum up
the results of the Germanic offensive, we must remember what the
objectives were. Of the latter, none was attained. The Russians had
not been expelled from Galicia; Przemysl was no nearer to relief than
before, and Lemberg had not been retaken. With the exception of Dukla
and Lupkow, all the passes were in Austrian hands; but the Russians
dominated the northern debouchments of all of them excepting
Jablonitza.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
FALL OF PRZEMYSL
The town and fortress of Przemysl formally surrendered to the Russian
General Selivanoff on Monday, March 22, 1915. The first investment
began at the early stages of the war in September, 1914. On the 27th
of that month the Russian generalissimo announced that all
communications had been cut off. By October 15, 1914, the Russian
investment had been broken again, and for a matter of three weeks,
while the road was open, more troops, provisions, arms, and munitions
were rushed to the spot. As we have seen, however, the Russians
recovered their lost advantage, for, after the fall of Jaroslav, the
fortress to the north of Przemysl, their troops were hurried up from
east, north, and west, and within a few days the Austrians were sent
back along the whole front. From the region of Przemysl three
railroads cross the Carpathians to Budapest, along all of which the
Russians had pushed vigorously, besides advancing on the west. As
regarded railroad communications, the fate of Przemysl was sealed by
the capture of Chyrow, an important junction about twenty miles south
of the fortress. Przemysl itself was important as a road junction and
as a connecting link with the Uzsok and Lupkow passes. The garrison
prepared to make a stubborn resistance with the object of checking the
Russian pursuit. A week later the Russians had broken up their heavy
artillery and had begun a steady bombardment. By November 12, 1914,
Przemysl was once more completely besieged by General Selivanoff with
not more than 100,000 troops.
Przemysl is one of the oldest towns of Galicia, said to have been
founded in the eighth century. It was once the capital of a large
independent principality. In the fourteenth century Casimir the Great
and other Polish princes endowed it with special civic privileges, and
the town attained a high degree of commercial prosperity. In the
seventeenth century its importance was destroyed by inroads of Tatars,
Cossacks, and Swedes. Przemysl is situated on the River San, and was
considered one of the strongest fortresses of Europe.
The original strategic idea embodied in the purpose of the fortress
was purely defensive; in the event of war with Russia only the line of
the San and Dniester was intended to be held at all costs, while the
whole northeastern portion of Galicia was to be abandoned. With the
fortress of Cracow guarding the west, Przemysl was meant to be the
first defense between the two rivers and to hold the easiest roads to
Hungary through the Dukla, Lupkow, and Uzsok passes. Within the last
ten years, however, the Austrian War Staff altered its plans and
decided upon a vigorous offensive against Russia should occasion
offer, and that Eastern Galicia was not to be sacrificed. Hence a
network of strategic railways was constructed with a view to attacking
the prospective enemy on a wide front extending from the Vistula near
Cracow on the west to the Bug on the east, where the latter flows
into Austrian territory and cuts off a corner of eastern Galicia. The
plan does not appear to have worked successfully, for, before the war
was many days old, the Russians had taken Lemberg, swept across the
Dniester at Halicz, across the San at Jaroslav, just north of
Przemysl, and had already besieged the fortress, which at no time
imposed any serious obstacle in the path of their progress. Perhaps
the only useful purpose that Przemysl served was that it restrained
the Russians from attempting an invasion of Hungary on a big scale, by
holding out for nearly seven months. Not having sufficient siege
artillery at their disposal, the Russians made no attempt to storm the
place. General Selivanoff surrounded the forts with a wide circle of
counterdefenses, which were so strongly fortified that the garrison
would have found it an almost hopeless task to attempt a rush through
the enemy's lines. The Austrian artillery was naturally well
acquainted with the range of every point and position that lay within
reach of their guns; and Selivanoff wisely offered them little
opportunity for effective practice. Considering it too expensive to
attack by the overland route, he worked his way gradually toward the
forts by means of underground operations. To sap a position is slow
work, but much more economical in the expenditure of lives and
munitions. The weakness of Przemysl lay in the fact that its garrison
was far too large for its needs, and that provisions were running
short. In the early part of the campaign the Germanic armies operating
in the San region had drawn freely on Przemysl for supplies, and
before these could be adequately replaced the Russians had again
forged an iron ring around the place. The Russian commander, moreover,
was aware that a coming scarcity threatened the town, and that he had
only to bide his time to starve it into submission. Whilst he was
simply waiting and ever strengthening his lines, the Austrians found
it incumbent on them to assume the offensive. Several desperate
sorties were made by the garrison to break through the wall, only to
end in complete disaster. General Herman von Kusmanek, the commander
in chief of the fortress, organized a special force, composed largely
of Hungarians, for "sortie duty," under the command of a Hungarian,
General von Tamassy. These sorties had been carried out during
November and December, 1914, especially during the latter month, when
the Austro-German armies were pouring across the mountains. So
critical was the Russian position at the time that the relief of
Przemysl was hourly expected. According to an officer of General
Selivanoffs staff, "The Austrians in the fortress were already
conversing with the Austrians on the Carpathians by means of their
searchlights. The guns of Przemysl could be heard by the Austrian
field artillery. The situation was serious, and General Selivanoff
took prompt measures. He brought up fresh troops to the point of
danger and drove the sortie detachments back to the fortress." It is
stated from the Austrian side that one of the sortie detachments had
succeeded in breaking through the Russian lines and marching to a
point fifteen miles beyond the outer lines of the forts. A Russian
official announcement states that during two months of the siege the
Austrian captures amounted only to 4 machine guns and about 60
prisoners, which occurred in an engagement where two Honved regiments
fell on a Russian company which had advanced too far to be reenforced
in time. On their part in repulsing sorties by the garrison,
frequently made by considerable forces, the Russians made prisoners 27
officers and 1,906 soldiers, and captured 7 machine guns, 1,500,000
cartridges, and a large quantity of arms. In two sorties the garrison
in the region of Bircza had more than 2,000 killed and wounded, among
them being many officers. No further sorties were undertaken in that
particular region. During January and February, 1915, very little
fighting took place around Przemysl; sorties were useless as there was
no Austro-German force anywhere near the fortress, and the Russians
were tightening the pressure around it. The only means of
communication with the outer world was by aeroplane, so that, despite
the rigid investment, the Austro-German war staff were kept fully
informed of the straits in which Przemysl found itself. General
Boehm-Ermolli, with Army A, was making desperate efforts to extricate
himself from the Russian grip round Uzsok, Lupkow, and Dukla; he did
not get beyond Baligrod, as the crow flies, thirty miles south of
Przemysl.
On March 13, 1915, the Russians stormed and captured the village of
Malkovise, on the northeast, breaking through the outer line of the
defense. From this position they began to bombard parts of the inner
ring. About the beginning of the third week in March, 1915, a new
spirit of activity appeared to seize the beleaguered garrison: they
commenced a terrific cannonade which, however, elicited no response.
It was but the energy of despair: they were firing to get rid of their
ammunition, hoping at the same time to hit something or somebody. The
end was at hand.
On March 18, 1915, a Petrograd "official" laconically reports that:
"In the Przemysl sector the fortress guns continue to fire more than a
thousand heavy projectiles daily, but our troops besieging the
fortress lose only about ten men every day." It is also on March 18
that General von Kusmanek issued the following manifesto to the
defenders of Przemysl:--"Heroes, I announce to you my last summons.
The honor of our country and our army demands it. I shall lead you to
pierce with your points of steel the iron circles of the enemy, and
then march ever farther onward, sparing no efforts, until we rejoin
our army, which, after heavy fighting, is now near us."
Just before the surrender two Austrian officers escaped from the
fortress in an aeroplane. These reported concerning the last days of
the siege:
"On the 18th of March the last provisions had been dealt out and at
the same time the last attempt at breaking through the line of the
besiegers had been ordered. This was carried out on the night of the
19th of March. It was shattered, however, against the unbreakable
manifold ring of the Russian inclosing lines and against the superior
forces which were brought in time to the threatened points. Our men
were so weakened by their long fasting that it took them fully seven
hours to make the march of seven kilometers, and even in this short
stretch many of them had to lie down from exhaustion, yet they fought
well and were bravely led by their officers.
"In spite of all this," Captain Lehmann, one of the escaped officers,
reported, "the heroic garrison fought on, after their last sortie, for
fully forty-eight hours, against assaults of the Russians which now
set in with terrific violence. The men of the fortress were fully
informed of the situation by an announcement of the commander. They
knew that the provisions were at an end and this very knowledge
spurred them on to make their last sacrifice. Practically all the
nations of the monarchy were represented in the fortress. Tyrolese
Landsturm held the south, Hungarians the west, Ruthenians and Poles
the north, and lower Austrians the east. To this last battle the
troops marched out singing, striving thus to master their weakness. On
this, occasion the above mentioned notice had fallen into the hands of
the Russians and the prospect had thus been opened to them to seize
the fortress with little effort. For two days and nights all the works
of Przemysl were taken under an uninterrupted terrible artillery fire,
including that of modern howitzers of all calibers, up to eighteen
centimeters. Then followed an assault at night on the east front,
which, however, was again bloodily repelled."
Starvation is conducive neither to good feeling nor heroism,
especially when it is superimposed upon an unbroken series of more or
less disastrous experiences. Misfortune and the so-called "tradition
of defeat" had dogged the steps of Austria's troops from the beginning
of the war; unlucky generals--Dankl, Auffenberg, and others--had been
relieved of their commands and replaced by "new blood"--Boehm-Ermolli,
Boroyevitch von Bojna, and Von Pflanzer-Baltin. Of these three, two
had as yet failed in carrying to success the German plans which had
taken the place of those of their own strategists. Hence it is not at
all improbable that the reports of dissensions among the garrison,
which leaked out at the time, were substantially accurate. That
jealousies broke out among the numerous races forming the Austrian
Army--especially between the Slavonic and Germanic elements--is
supported by strong evidence. The sentiments of the Slav subjects of
Austria leaned more toward Russia than the empire of which they formed
a considerable portion, while there was never any love lost between
them and the Magyars. However that may be, the Slav regiments were
reported to have refused obedience to the general's order for the last
sortie, which was eventually undertaken by a force composed of the
Twenty-third Hungarian Honved Division, a regiment of Hussars, and a
Landwehr brigade, altogether about 30,000 men. Everything depended
upon the venture, for not only were all their food supplies used up,
but they had already eaten most of their horses. Instead, therefore,
of making southward to where their comrades were fighting hard to tear
themselves away from the Carpathian passes, the sortie turned toward
the east, in the direction of Mosciska, twenty miles off, which was
supposed to be the Russian supply base. This attempted foraging
expedition--for it was nothing else--can only be defended on the broad
general principle that it is better to do something than nothing as a
last resort. Supplies were essential before any more could be
undertaken to cut a passage through the strong double set of Russian
lines that lay between the Carpathians and Przemysl; but that these
supplies were stored at Mosciska was a pure speculation. Further,
considering that the whole country was in their opponents' hands, a
strength of 30,000 men was insufficient to attempt so hazardous an
adventure. Even if they succeeded in breaking through, their return to
the fortress was not assured. In that case, if they could not get
back, they would have to go forward: eastward lay Lemberg, held by the
Russians; northward was the Russian frontier, and southward stood the
Russian forces holding the passes. Thus, in any case, however
successful the expedition might prove, it meant breaking at least
twice through lines which the enemy had spent months in strengthening
or fortifying. Undeterred by the almost certain possibility of
failure, the expedition of the "forlorn hope" set out across the plain
of the San--and speedily came to grief. They had to pass by the
strongest Russian artillery position, which was stationed in the low
hollow through which the railway runs to Lemberg. Here a terrific hail
of shells burst over their heads; rattle of machine guns and rifle
fire tore great holes in their ranks; the stoutest courage and
bravest hearts were unavailing against an enemy who could not be
reached nor even seen. The number of killed and wounded in that fatal
sortie has not been made public; that it was an enormous figure is
certain. The Russians took 4,000 prisoners of those who survived the
ordeal, and captured the forts on the western side directly after the
struggling remnants had regained their starting place. General von
Kusmanek issued his manifesto in the morning, and by the same night
the sortie ended in disaster. Like the misdirected charge of the Light
Brigade at Balaclava in 1854, it was "brilliant, but it wasn't war."
One more attempt was made on Saturday, March 20, 1915, toward
Oikovice, but it was easily frustrated by the vigilant Russians. On
Sunday and Monday, the 21st and 22d of March, a number of explosions
were heard in and around Przemysl. The Austrians were destroying
everything possible previous to surrendering. Large quantities of
explosives were thrown in the river; all kinds of arms were destroyed
or rendered useless; three bridges were crippled; the few remaining
horses were shot, and a railway bridge over the Wiar, which possessed
no strategic value, was also destroyed. These tactics of destroying
approaches naturally isolated the town more than ever, and made it
exceedingly difficult afterward to convey food supplies to the
starving population.
On Monday morning, March 22, 1915, the Austrian chief of staff
appeared outside the lines of Przemysl under a flag of truce. He was
blindfolded, driven by automobile to Russian headquarters, and ushered
into the presence of General Selivanoff. When the bandage had been
removed from his eyes, the Austrian officer handed over a letter of
capitulation from General von Kusmanek, which ran as follows:
"In consequence of the exhaustion of provisions and stores, and in
compliance with instructions received from my supreme chief, I am
compelled to surrender the Imperial and Royal Fortress of Przemysl to
the Imperial Russian Army."
The Russians took charge without any triumphal display. Some officers
were sent to receive the surrender and take stock of the spoils.
General von Kusmanek himself supplied the inventory, in which were
listed 9 generals, 93 superior officers, 2,500 "Offiziere und Beamten"
(subalterns and officials), and 117,000 rank and file, besides 1,000
pieces of ordnance, mostly useless, and a large quantity of shells and
rifle cartridges.
General Artamoff was appointed military governor and to superintend
the process of dispatching the prisoners into Russian territory, which
was carried out at the rate of 10,000 a day. Extensive arrangements
were set on foot to supply the inhabitants with food, drink, and other
necessaries of life. As the Russians had not bombarded the town, its
natural and artificial beauties had suffered no damage beyond that
which the Austrians had themselves inflicted; only the outskirts and
the fortifications had been injured by fire and explosion.
Thus fell, on March 22, 1915, Przemysl, "by its own momentum like an
overripe fruit," and with a garrison twice as large as would have been
adequate to defend it. To Austria the blow was a severe one, for it
cost her about four army corps; the immediate advantage it brought to
the Russians was the release of Selivanoff's army of 100,000 men, who
were urgently required elsewhere. It was only a week earlier that the
commander in chief of all the Austro-Hungarian armies, the Archduke
Frederick, had granted an interview to an American journalist (Dr. J.
T. Roche), in the course of which he stated: "We have only recently
reached the point where we are really prepared, to carry on a campaign
as it should be carried under modern conditions of warfare. Now that
our organization has been completed and all branches of the service
are working harmoniously, we entertain no doubts as to our ability to
hold the enemy at all points and to drive him back from that section
of Galicia which is still in his possession."
CHAPTER XXXIX
NEW RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE--AUSTRO-GERMAN COUNTEROFFENSIVE
Three days before the fall of Przemysl the Russians abandoned the
defensive and commenced a vigorous attack on the Carpathian front.
Active preparations for the advance had been completed when the
capitulation of the fortress was to be expected any hour. Having so
far held the Germanic armies in check, it was necessary for the
Russians to regain complete control of the Carpathians and the passes
before the snow should begin to melt, especially if they decided on an
invasion of Hungary. On the other hand, before any offensive could be
undertaken against the Germans in Poland, or the Austrians at Cracow,
it was imperative to secure the southern flank in Galicia. They had by
this time partially grasped one particular feature of German strategy,
namely, to parry a blow from one direction by striking in another. A
further consideration may have been the absolute certainty that
Germany would dispatch more reenforcements to the aid of her ally.
Selivanoff's siege army was distributed between Dmitrieff, Brussilov,
and Ivanoff, but they could not be employed to full advantage owing to
the restricted area presented by the Germanic front. Being largely
composed of siege artillery as well as cavalry, a considerable portion
of Selivanoff's army was unsuited for mountain warfare. Cavalry were
converted into infantry, but could not be supplied with the necessary
equipment; they had no bayonets, and most of the fighting was
hand-to-hand.
Great masses of Germanic reserves were concentrating in northern
Hungary, into which the Russians had driven a thin wedge south of
Dukla, where they held an isolated outpost near Bartfeld. To leave
this position undeveloped meant compulsory withdrawal or disaster.
With the continual influx of reenforcements on both sides, the
struggle for the main passes gradually develops into an ever-expanding
and unbroken battle front: all the gaps are being filled up. From
Dukla westward to the Dunajec-Biala line and the Carpathian foothills
a new link is formed by the Fourth Austrian Army, commanded by the
Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, with two and a half army corps and one
German division. In the Central Carpathians a fifth army, under the
command of the Austrian General von Bojna, appears between the forces
of Boehm-Ermolli and those of Von Linsingen. Right away eastward the
purely Austrian army of Von Pflanzer-Baltin was holding the Pruth
Valley. The Germanic chain was complete, with every link welded
together.
When the Russian offensive opened on March 19, 1915, the entire battle
line still rested on the northern side of the Carpathians, and here
the struggle was resumed. The Russian grand attack was directed
between the Lupkow and Uzsok passes, where great forces of the enemy,
concentrated for the purpose of relieving Przemysl, were stationed. In
the western sector, facing Dmitrieff, the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand
held the roads leading from Novy-Sacz and Grybow to Tarnow, covering
Cracow; and from south of the range the two roads diverging from Zboro
to Gorlice and Jaslo were in Russian possession, though the Austrians
held their junction at Zboro, eight miles north of Bartfeld. Of the
actual fighting that took place in this region very few details were
published by the Russian official communiqué. One of these documents,
dated April 18, 1915, announced that on March 23, "our troops had
already begun their principal attack in the direction of Baligrod,
enveloping the enemy positions from the west of the Lupkow Pass and on
the east near the sources of the San. The enemy opposed the most
desperate resistance to the offensive of our troops. They had brought
up every available man on the front from the direction of Bartfeld as
far as the Uzsok Pass, including even German troops and numerous
cavalrymen fighting on foot. The effectives on this front exceeded 300
battalions. Moreover, our troops had to overcome great natural
difficulties at every step. In the course of the day, March 23, 1915,
we captured more than 4,000 prisoners, a gun, and several dozen
machine guns."
On March 24, 1915, the battle was in full progress: "Especially severe
is the fighting for the crest of the mountain south of Jasliska and to
the west of the Lupkow Pass. The forests which cover these mountains
offer special facilities for the construction of strong
fortifications." March 25: "The woods in the Lupkow region are a
perfect entanglement of barbed wire ... surrounded by several layers
of trenches, strengthened by deep ditches and palisades. On this day
our troops carried by assault a very important Austrian position on
the great crest of the Beskid Mountains." The Russian captures for the
day amounted to 100 officers, 5,600 men, and a number of machine guns.
Advancing from Jasliska the Russians seriously threatened the
Austro-German position in the Laborcza Valley, to which strong
reenforcements were sent on March 25. With terrific violence the
battle raged till far into the night of the 27th, the Russians forcing
their way to within seven miles of the Hungarian frontier.
In eight days they had taken nearly 10,000 prisoners. By the night of
March 28, 1915, the entire line of sixty miles from Dukla to Uzsok was
ablaze--the storm was spreading eastward. Like huge ant hills the
mountains swarmed with gray and bluish specks--each a human
being--some to the waist in snow, stabbing and hacking at each other
ferociously with bayonet, sword, or lance, others pouring deadly fire
from rifle, revolver, machine gun, and heavy artillery. Over rocks
slippery with blood, through cruel barbed-wire entanglements and into
crowded trenches the human masses dash and scramble. Here, with heavy
toll, they advanced; there, and with costlier sacrifice, they were
driven back. Fiery Magyars, mechanical Teutons and stolid muzhiks
mixed together in an indescribable hellbroth of combative fury and
destructive passion. Screaming shells and spattered shrapnel rent the
rocks and tore men in pieces by the thousand. Round the Lupkow Pass
the Russians steadily carved their way forward, and at the close of
the day, March 29, 1915, they had taken 76 officers, 5,384 men, 1
trench mortar, and 21 machine guns. Along the Baligrod-Cisna road the
fighting proceeded, up to March 30, by day and night.
Gradually the Russians pushed toward Dvernik and Ustrzyki south of
Lutoviska, threatening the Austrian position in the Uzsok and lines of
communications to the south. German reserves were hurried up from the
base at Ungvar, but could not prevent the capture of 80 Austrian
officers, over 5,000 men, 14 machine guns, and 4 pieces of cannon.
Ivanoff had been careful to hold his portion of Selivanoff's army in
reserve; their presence turned the scale.
On the day and night of March 31, 1915, the Russians stormed and
carried the Austrian positions 4,000 feet high up on the Poloniny
range during a heavy snowstorm. So deep was the snow in places that
movement was impossible; the trampling of the charging battalions
rushing down over the slopes dislodged avalanches of snow,
overwhelming both attackers and defenders. By April 1, 1915, the
Russians approached Volosate, only twelve miles from the rear of the
Uzsok Pass, from which they were now separated by a low ridge. Holding
full possession of the Poloniny range farther west, they commanded the
road from Dvernik to Vetlina. From the north other Russian columns
captured Michova on the Smolnik-Cisna railroad, crossed the
Carpathians, and penetrated into the Virava Valley. Occupying the
entire loop of the Sanok-Homona railway north and south of Lupkow, and
Mezo-Laborcz toward Dukla, the Russians now threatened the Austrian
mountain positions between Lupkow and the Vetlina-Zboj road from the
western flank as well. Violent winter storms raged across the
Carpathians on April 2 and 3, 1915; nature spread a great white pall
over the scenes of carnage. While the elements were battling, the
weary human fighting machine rested and bound its wounds. But not for
long. Scarcely had the last howls of the blizzard faded away when the
machine was again set in motion.
South of Dukla and Lupkow and north of Uzsok fighting was resumed with
intense vigor. Painfully digging through the snowdrifts the Austrians
retired from the Smolnik-Kalnica line, now no longer tenable. Storm
hampered the pursuing enemy, who captured the Cisna railway station on
April 4, 1915, with all its rolling stock and large stores of
munitions.
On April 6, 1915, a Russian communiqué announced that "during the
period from March 20 to April 3, 1915, we took prisoners in the
Carpathians, on the front from Baligrod to Uzsok, 378 officers, 11
doctors, and 33,155 men. We captured 17 guns and 101 machine guns. Of
these captives 117 officers, 16,928 men, 8 guns, and 59 machine guns
were taken on a front of fifteen versts (10 miles)."
The Russians again advanced along their whole front on April 4, 1915;
forcing their way along the Rostoki stream, they carried the village
of Rostoki Gorne with the bayonet and penetrated the snow-bound
Rostoki Pass. Their first line arrived at a Hungarian village called
Orosz-Russka, five miles from Nagy Polena, at the foot of the pass.
The Austrians attempted to drive them back, but they held their
ground.
While fortune was steadily following the efforts of the czar's troops
in the Lupkow-Uzsok sector, the German War Staff were preparing their
plans for the great decisive blow that was soon to be struck. South of
the Carpathians, barely thirty miles away, formidable reenforcements
were collecting; they arrived from the East Prussian front, from
Poland, and even from the west, where they had faced the French and
British. There were also new formations fresh from Germany. General
von der Marwitz arrived in the Laborcza Valley with a whole German
army corps. These gigantic preparations were not unknown to the
Russians; they, also, strained every nerve to throw all available
reenforcements behind and into the battle line, strengthening every
position _except one_. South of the Lupkow the Germanic forces opened
their counteroffensive on April 6, 1915. Official reports on the first
day's fighting differ somewhat. The Russians admit a slight German
advance, but assert that they were able to withstand all further
attacks. The Germans, on the other hand, claim great successes and the
capture of 6,000 Russian prisoners.
The Germanic armies in this case, however, certainly did advance, for
the Russians withdrew from the Virava Valley, which they had entered
four days earlier. The first object of the counteroffensive was to
save the Austrians who were holding the frontier south of Lupkow from
being enveloped and cut off. But on April 9, 1915, the Russians again
moved forward, and recovered part of the Virava Valley. By this day
the whole mountain crest from Dukla to Uzsok, a distance of over
seventy miles, had been conquered by the Russians. By the same night
they had repulsed a counterattack near the Rostoki and captured a
battalion of Austrian infantry. The Russian report sums up thus: "We
seized Height 909 (909 meters=3,030 feet) with the result that the
enemy was repulsed along the entire length of the principal chain of
the Carpathians in the region of our offensive."
For the next three days Brussilov attempted to work his way to the
rear of the Uzsok position with his right wing from the Laborcz and
Ung valleys, while simultaneously continuing his frontal attacks
against Boehm-Ermolli and Von Bojna. Cutting through snow sometimes
more than six feet deep, the Russians approached at several points
within a distance of three miles from the Uzsok Valley. But the
Austrians still held the Opolonek mountain group in force. Severe
fighting then developed northwest of the Uzsok on the slopes between
Bukoviec and Beniova; the Russians captured the village of Wysocko
Nizne to the northeast, which commands the only roads connecting the
Munkacz-Stryj and the Uzsok-Turka lines. Though both sides claimed
local successes, they appear to have fought each other to a deadlock,
for very little fighting occurred in this zone after April 14, 1915.
Henceforth Brussilov directed his main efforts to the Virava and
Cisna-Rostoki sector. From here and Volosate, where there had been
continuous fighting since the early days of April, the Russians strove
desperately for possession of the Uzsok. They were ow only two or
three days' march from the Hungarian plains.
Between April 17 and 20, 1915, a vigorous Austrian counterattack
failed to check the Russian advance. Between Telepovce and Zuella, two
villages south of the Lupkow, the Russians noiselessly approached the
Austrian barbed-wire entanglements, broke through, and after a brief
bayonet encounter gained possession of two heights and captured the
village of Nagy Polena, a little farther to the east. During the night
of April 16-17, 1915, the Russians took prisoners 24 officers, 1,116
men, and 3 machine guns.
On April 18, 1915, the Austrians directed several fierce attacks
against the heights south of Telepovce, but were compelled to evacuate
the approaches to their positions. Here, also, an Austrian battalion
was cut off and forced to surrender. Meanwhile the fighting was
gradually decreasing in intensity; the great Carpathian campaign had
reached the end of another chapter. The Austro-German offensive had
failed in its purpose. From Uzsok eastward there had been but little
fighting after the Russian recapture of Stanislawow.
CHAPTER XL
CAMPAIGN IN GALICIA AND BUKOWINA--BATTLE OF THE DUNAJEC
While the struggle for the passes was raging in the central
Carpathians an interesting campaign was being conducted in Eastern
Galicia and the Bukowina between Von Pflanzer-Baltin and Lechitsky.
There we left the Russians in possession of Stanislawow, which they
had reoccupied on March 4, 1915. Two days before, an Austrian
detachment of infantry and two divisions of cavalry attempted a raid
into Russian territory near the Bessarabian frontier. Within
forty-eight hours they were hurled back. Beyond local skirmishes and
maneuvering for positions, nothing of importance happened from March 4
till the 15th, when the Russians attacked the main Austrian forces
southeast of Czernowitz. Crossing the River Pruth opposite
Ludihorecza, which lies about 600 feet high, and where the Czernowitz
waterworks are situated, the Russians occupied the place and
threatened the Austrian position in the town, around which pressed
laborers were digging trenches night and day for the defenders. Along
the line between Sadagora and Old Zuczka the Russians had been settled
for over six months. The Austrians attacked this position on March 21,
1915, with the aid of reenforcements and compelled the Russians to
evacuate Sadagora. While falling back in the south the Russians
endeavored to advance in the north, from the direction of Czerniavka,
and outflank the Austrians. Violent fighting raged for several days,
especially northeast from Czernowitz to beyond Rarancze, with the
result that the Russians were compelled to withdraw toward Bojan, near
their own frontier, on March 27. Three days later some Hungarian
Honved battalions, who had penetrated into Russian territory near
Szylowce, were surrounded by Cossacks and severely handled. Besides
many killed and wounded the Austrians lost over 1,000 prisoners, and
by April 2, 1915, the Russians had thrown the remainder back across
their borders. On April 10, 1915, the Russians withdrew from Bojan,
but returned on the 14th. Here, at the close of April, they
concentrated large reenforcements and recovered most of the ground
they had lost since the middle of March.
Some twenty miles northwest of Czernowitz, sheltered in a loop of the
Dniester, lies an important fortified town called Zaleszczyki. It had a
population of over 76,000, and is a station on the branch line
connecting Czortkow junction with the Kolomca-Czernowitz railway. From
the dense forests east of the town an Austrian column commanded by Count
von Bissingen had attempted during the night of March 22-23, 1915, to
turn the adjacent Russian positions, held by Cossacks and Siberian
fusiliers. A furious fight developed, and the Austro-Hungarian column,
which included some of the finest troops, was repulsed with heavy loss.
Two other attempts were made here, on April 10 and 17, 1915. On the
latter date a detachment of Tyrolese sharpshooters were trapped in the
wire entanglements and annihilated.
One more battle on a big scale remains to be chronicled from the far
eastern sector; it may also serve to illustrate the wide divergence
that not infrequently exists between official communiqués recording
the same event. Early in April, 1915, a Russian force threw a bridge
across the Dniester near the village of Filipkowu and moved along the
road running from Uscie Biskupie via Okna and Kuczurmik on to
Czernowitz, the intention being to turn the Austrian positions south
of Zaleszczyki from the rear. We will let the rival communiqués
relate what happened:
_Austrian Version_
Annihilated two battalions of Russian infantry belonging to the
Alexander Regiment; took 1,400 prisoners, and drove Russians back
beyond the Dniester.
_Russian Version_
Annihilated two battalions of the Honveds; captured 21 officers, over
1,000 rank and file, and 8 machine guns.
The curtain was about to rise for the next act, wherein will be played
one of the most terrific reversals of fortune ever produced in
military history.
For quite a month it had been an open secret that considerable masses
of German troops were being transported to the Carpathian front. What
was not known, however, was the magnitude or the plan of these
preparations. Never was a greater concentration of men and machinery
more silently and more speedily accomplished. All along the south of
the range, on the great Hungarian plains, there assembled a gigantic
host of numerous nationalities. But it was away to the west, in that
narrow bottle neck where the Dunajec flows from the Polish frontier
down to the Tarnow Pass, that the mighty thunderbolt had been forged.
Thousands of heavy guns were here planted in position, and millions of
shells conveyed thither under cover of night. Countless trains carried
war materials, tents, pontoons, cattle, provisions, etc. Finally the
troops arrived--from the different fronts where they could be spared,
and new levies from Germany and Austria-Hungary. Smoothly and silently
men and machines dropped into their respective places: All was ready;
not a detail had been overlooked; German organization had done its
part. The commander was Von Mackensen, nominally Commander of the
Eleventh German Army, but in reality supreme director of the whole
campaign.
During April, 1915, a number of changes had taken place among the
commanding officers of the Austro-German armies; the new dispositions
of groups along the battle line differ considerably from those which
obtained during the fighting for the passes. The line was now
enormously strengthened, and more compact. This applies only to the
Germanic side; there is little change on the Russian. At this stage
the Russian front on the west of Galicia extended from Opatovie on the
Polish frontier along the Dunajec, Biala, and Ropa Rivers by Tarnow,
Ciezkovice, and Gorlice down to Zboro in Hungary; from here it runs
eastward past Sztropko, Krasnilbrod, Virava, and Nagy Polena to the
Uzsok Pass, a distance of about 120 miles. Ewarts commanded the army
on the Nida; the Dunajec-Biala line was still held by Dmitrieff,
Commander in Chief of the Eighth Russian Army; Brussilov still
commanded the main army of the Carpathians, and Lechitsky in the
Bukowina in the place of Alexeieff, who had succeeded General Russky
in the northern group. The whole southern group, from the Nida to the
Sereth inclusive, was under the supreme command of General Ivanoff.
Facing Dmitrieff on the Dunajec front stood now the Fourth
Austro-Hungarian Army under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, about five
army corps, including a German cavalry division under General von
Besser; then the Ninth and Fourteenth Austrian Army Corps; to their
right, several Tyrolese regiments; the Sixth Austro-Hungarian Army
Corps of General Arz von Straussenburg, with the Prussian Guards on
his left and Bavarian troops under Von Emmich on his right; the
Eleventh German Army Corps under Von Mackensen; the Third
Austro-Hungarian Army under General Boroyevitch von Bojna; the Tenth
Army Corps under General Martiny. This formidable combination now
confronted the Dunajec-Biala positions, which Dmitrieff had held
without exertion for four months. Only a mile or two away he still
inspected his trenches and conducted his minor operations, totally
unconscious of the brewing storm specially directed against him. The
Laborza district was held by the Archduke Joseph with the Seventh Army
Corps; on his left stood a German corps under Von Marwitz, and on his
right the Tenth Army Corps, north of Bartfeld, with some additional
forces in between. Around the Lupkow and Uzsok passes the Second
Austro-Hungarian Army under Boehm-Ermolli was stationed where it had
been since February, 1915. Next, on the right, the Austro-Hungarian
army corps under Von Goglia; in the Uzsok lay an army under Von
Szurmay, nearly all Magyars, of whom the chief commander was Von
Linsingen. Farther eastward stood a Prussian corps, embodying a
division of Prussian Guards and other regiments commanded by General
Bothmer, a Bavarian, who had been reenforced with a Hungarian division
under Bartheldy; then followed the corps of Generals Hofmann and
Fleischman, composed of all Austrian nationalities, intrenched in the
mountain valleys. More German troops held the next sector, and,
finally, came Von Pflanzer-Baltin's army groups in the Bukowina and
Eastern Galicia. Against this huge iron ring of at least twenty-four
Germanic corps (about 2,000,000 men) and a great store of reserves,
the Russians could not muster more than about fourteen of their own
corps. As has already been pointed out, the greatest disparity of
strength existed on the Dunajec line, where Dmitrieff stood opposed to
about half of the enemy's entire force with only five corps of Russian
troops. The Austro-German forces, moreover, were infinitely better
equipped with munitions and heavy artillery. The lack of big guns was
undoubtedly the reason why the Russians had not attempted an invasion
of Hungary. Hence they stuck to the mountain passes where their
opponents were unable to carry their artillery, although they were
amply supplied with the same. It is true that the Russians could have
produced an equal--or even greater--number of men, but they had not
the arms and accouterments.
Speaking from safe knowledge after the event, it is possible to
indicate with moderate accuracy at least one of the ingenious
stratagems adopted by the Germans to disguise their tremendous
preparations against the Dunajec line. For months the fighting in this
region had never been severe. When, therefore, local attacks and
counterattacks on a small scale started on the Biala, as far back as
April 4, 1915, Dmitrieff and his staff regarded this activity on the
Austrians part as merely a continuation of the sporadic assaults they
had grown accustomed to. Besides holding his own, Dmitrieff had on
several occasions been able to assist Brussilov on his left. Until the
big German drive commenced they had only been opposed to three
Austro-German army corps and a Prussian division; now there were
twelve corps on their front, supplied with enormous resources of
artillery, shells, and cavalry. Most serious of all, Dmitrieff had
neglected to construct second and third lines to which he could retire
in an emergency. Of the rivers that lay behind him--the Wisloka, the
Wistok, and the San--the first would be useful to cover Brussilov's
position at the western passes, but beyond that he could not retreat
without imperiling the whole Carpathian right flank. It was on this
very calculation that the German plan--simple but effective--was
based. The Russian grip on the Carpathians could only be released
either by forcing a clear road through any pass into Galicia, or by
turning one of the extreme flanks. Had the Austrians succeeded in
breaking through as far as Jaslo, Dmitrieff would have been cut off
and Brussilov forced to withdraw--followed by the whole line. The same
result would follow if a thrust from the Bukowina succeeded in
recapturing Lemberg. Both methods had been attempted, and both had
failed. Germany's overwhelming superiority in artillery could not be
effectively displayed in mountain warfare, but Dmitrieff's position on
the Dunajec offered an easy avenue of approach.
At the eleventh hour Dmitrieff grasped the situation and applied to
Ivanoff for reenforcements. Owing to some blunder the appeal never
reached the Russian chief, and Dmitrieff had to do the best he could.
Nothing now could save his small force from those grim lines of gaping
muzzles turned against his positions. The overture began on April 28,
1915, with an advance on the Upper Biala toward Gorlice, by Von
Mackensen's right. Here some minor attacks had been previously made,
and the gradually increasing pressure did not at first reveal the
intent or magnitude of the movement behind it. Meanwhile the German
troops about Ciezkovice and Senkova--respectively northwest and
southeast of Gorlice--were moving by night nearer to the battle line.
The Russian front line extended from Ciezkovice in a southeasterly
direction. Hence it soon became clear that Gorlice itself was to be
the main objective of the attack. A Russian official announcement of
May 2, 1915, boldly states:
"During the nights of April 30 to May 1 strong Austrian forces opened
an offensive in the region of Ciezkovice. Our fire forced the enemy to
intrench 600 paces in front of our trenches." Furthermore, the Germans
at the same time had directed artillery fire and bayonet attacks
against various points on the Rava, Pilica, Nida, and the Dunajec.
These, however, were merely movements aiming at diversion, meant to
mask the intentions of the main attack and to mislead the Russians. On
the evening of May 1, 1915, the German batteries began experimenting
against the Russian positions. This was kept up all night while the
engineers attempted to destroy the first line of the Russian wire
entanglements. During the same night the Austrians dragged several
heavy howitzers across the road from Gladyszow to Malastow, and got
them into position without the knowledge of the Russians. In the
morning of May 2, 1915, the great batteries began to roar against the
Russian line--a fire such as had perhaps never been witnessed before.
A spectator thus describes the scene: "In one part the whole area was
covered with shells till trenches and men were leveled out of
existence." It was reported that 700,000 shells had been fired in the
space of four hours, for which period this preliminary bombardment
lasted. The Russian line was turned into a spluttering chaos of earth,
stones, trees, and human bodies. The German and Austrian batteries
then proceeded to extend the range, and poured a hurricane of shells
behind the enemy's front line. This has the effect of doubly isolating
that line, by which the survivors of the first bombardment cannot
retreat, neither can reenforcements be sent to them, for no living
being could pass through the fire curtain. Now is the time for the
attacker's infantry to charge. Along the greater part of the
Ciezkovice-Walastow line this stage was reached by ten o'clock in the
morning of May 2, 1915.
[Illustration: Grand Duke Nicholas.]
A German writer tells us that "in this part of the front infantry
fighting has given place for the time being to the action of our heavy
artillery, which is subjecting to a terrible fire the positions of the
enemy. These positions had been carefully reconnoitered during the
lull in the fighting which prevailed during the last few months. Only
after all cover is destroyed, the enemy's infantry killed or forced
to retire, we take up the attack against the positions; the _élan_ of
our first attack now usually leads to a favorable result."
At Ciezkovice the Germans pushed bridges across the Biala under cover
of a furious cannonade. Troops were thrown over, and after a very
short struggle the village was taken. The huge oil tanks soon were in
flames and Ciezkovice a heap of smoldering ruins. The Russian defense
crumpled up like smoke; their position blown out of existence. Their
guns were toys compared with those of the Germans and Austrians. North
of Ciezkovice the Prussian Guard and other German troops under General
von François fell upon the Russians and forced them to retire toward
the Olpiny-Biecz line. The ground of the Russian positions on Mount
Viatrovka and Mount Pustki in front of Biecz had been "prepared" by
21-centimeter (7-inch) Krupp howitzers and the giant Austrian
30.5-centimeter (10-inch) howitzers from the Skoda-Werke at Pilsen.
The shells of the latter weigh nearly half a ton, and their impact is
so terrific that they throw the earth up 100 feet high. Whatever had
remained of the town of Gorlice in the shape of buildings or human
beings was meanwhile being wiped out by a merciless spray of shells.
Being the center of an important oil district, Gorlice possessed oil
wells, great refineries, and a sulphuric-acid factory. As the flames
spread from building to building, streets pouring with burning oil,
huge columns of fire stretching heavenward from the oil wells in full
blaze, and, over all, the pitiless hail of iron and explosives pouring
upon them, the horror of the situation in which the soldiers and
civilians found themselves may be faintly imagined. Gorlice was an
inferno in a few hours. When the German infantry dashed into the town
they found the Russians still in possession. Fighting hand to hand,
contesting every step, the Russians were slowly driven out.
We have mentioned that German troops were moving on Senkova, southeast
of Gorlice, by night. During the last two days of April the Bavarians
captured the Russian position in the Senkova valley. A further move
was made here during the night of May 1-2, 1915, preparatory to
dislodging the Russians from the ground they still held. At seven
o'clock in the morning the big howitzers started to "prepare" that
ground. By ten o'clock it was deemed that every living thing had
perished, when the "fire curtain" was drawn behind the Russian
position. Infantry were then thrown forward--some Bavarian regiments.
To their intense astonishment they were received with a most murderous
fire from Russian rifles, and machine guns. The first attack failed
and many were killed, few getting beyond the wire entanglements.
Cautiously other troops advanced to the battered Russian trenches cut
off from the rear by the artillery screen behind. Yet here again they
met with strenuous resistance in the Zamczysko group of hills. The
Austrian artillery shelled the heights, and the Bavarians finally took
possession. The Tenth Austrian Army Corps had meanwhile conquered the
Magora of Malastow and the majority of the heights in the Ostra Gora
group. On Sunday, May 2, 1915, the Austro-German armies pierced the
Dunajec-Biala line in several places, and by nightfall the Russians
were retreating to their last hope--the line of the Wisloka. The
operations round Gorlice on that day resulted in breaking the Russian
defenses to a depth of over two miles on a front of ten or eleven
miles. Mr. Stanley Washburn wrote from the battle field at the time:
"The Germans had shot their last bolt, a bolt forged from every
resource in men and munitions that they could muster after months of
preparation." Of the Russian army he said, "it was outclassed in
everything except bravery, and neither the German nor any other army
can claim superiority in that respect."
With the center literally cut away, the keystone of the Russian line
had been pulled out, and nothing remained but to retire. Ten miles
north of Ciezkovice lies the triangle formed by the confluence of the
Dunajec and Biala rivers and the Zakliczyn-Gromnik road. Within this
triangle, commanding the banks of both rivers up to the Cracow-Tarnow
line, the Russians held the three hills marked 402, 419, and 269 which
figures express their height in meters.
During February and March, 1915, the Austrians attempted to dislodge
the enemy, but without success. It was now necessary to take those
positions before advance could be made against Tarnow, and the Fourth
Austro-Hungarian Army, commanded by the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand,
undertook the task. At six A. M. on May 2 the Austrian artillery
opened fire against Hill 419 from Mount Val (also within the
triangle), and the opposite bank of the Dunajec. After three hours'
bombardment some regiments of Tyrolese fusiliers, who had crossed the
valley between Mt. Val and 419 and had taken up positions at the foot
of the latter, about 400 yards from the Russian trenches, were ordered
to charge. Dashing up the open, steep slope the fusiliers were
suddenly enfiladed from their right by a spray of machine gun and
rifle fire, killing many and driving back the survivors. Next day Hill
419 was again fiercely shelled, this time with deadly effectiveness;
but even then the Russians still clung to their battered ground.
The Austrians now charged the trenches on Hill 412, whence the
fusiliers had been ambushed the previous day. A desperate hand-to-hand
encounter, in which they had to force their way step by step, finally
gave the position to the attackers. The few Russians still left on 419
could not hold out after the loss of 412. They retired northward on to
Height 269, but subsequently followed the general retreat of the line.
Still farther north, almost at the right flank of Dmitrieff's line,
the Austrians effected a crossing of the Dunajec opposite Otfinow,
thus breaking the connection between the West Galician Army of
Dmitrieff, and the neighboring Russian Army on the Nida--the left wing
of the northern groups commanded by Alexeieff.
Just below Tarnow, however, the Russians still held out; losing the
three hills had not quite broken their defense on the Biala. The right
wing of Von Mackensen's army, which had smashed the Russian front
around Gorlice, rapidly moved east in an almost straight line to reach
the Dukla Pass and cut off the retreat of the Russian troops stationed
south of the range between Zboro and Nagy Polena, in northwest
Hungary. The left wing, on the other hand, advanced in a northeasterly
direction, ever widening the breach made in the enemy's domain. This
clever move brought the Germans to the rear of Tarnow and onto the
lines of communications of the Russians holding it. It also prevented
reenforcements from reaching the truncated end of Dmitrieff's
right--or what had been his right--wing. By pushing on to Dembica and
Rzeszow, along which route assistance could otherwise have been sent
to the Russians, Von Mackensen opened a wide triangle into Western
Galicia, by drawing an almost horizontal line from Gorlice to Radymno,
between Jaroslav and Przemysl, and from there perpendicular down to
the Uzsok Pass.
From Uzsok to the Lupkow westward stood the Second Austro-Hungarian
Army under Boehm-Ermolli on the north of the Carpathians. To his left,
southwest of the Magora of Malastow, and adjoining the formidable
Germanic array facing the Dunajec-Biala line lay the Third
Austro-Hungarian Army under General Boroyevitch von Bojna. These two
armies, it will be remembered, took part in the first offensive in
January, and had been there ever since. Both of these armies now began
to advance into the triangle, and the brilliant simplicity of Von
Mackensen's geometrical strategy becomes clear. Let one imagine
Galicia as a big stone jar with a narrow neck lying on the table
before him, neck pointing toward the left hand, and he will obtain an
approximately accurate idea of the topographical conditions. That side
of the jar resting on the table represents the Carpathian range, solid
indeed, but with numerous openings: these are the passes. The upper
side of the jar represents the Russian frontier, across which the
invaders had swarmed in and taken possession of the whole inside,
lining themselves right along the mouths of the passes at the bottom
and across the neck upwards.
For months the Austrians vainly endeavored to force an entrance
through the thickest walls--from the lower edge, and from the base or
bottom of the jar (the Bukowina), apparently overlooking the rather
obvious proposition that the cork was the softest part and _that_ was
Dmitrieff's Dunajec-Biala line. Here at least no mountain range stood
in the way. It may also be regarded as a mathematical axiom that,
given sufficient artillery power, the strongest defense the wit of man
could devise can be smashed. What Mackensen did, therefore, was to
blow a hole through the cork, push in a pair of scissors up to the
rivet, meanwhile opening the blades to an angle of about forty-five
degrees. From the lower or southern shoulder of the jar the Third
Austro-Hungarian Army pushes forward inside, supported on its right by
Boehm-Ermolli, who had been just inside a long time, but could get no
farther. They began to shepherd the Russian troops around and in the
western passes toward the lower double-edged blade of Von Mackensen's
terrible scissors. The Russian retreat to the Wisloka was a serious
disaster for Dmitrieff; he had been caught napping, and had to pay
dearly in men and guns for not having created a row of alternative
positions. His force had been a cover for Brussilov's operations on
both sides of the western passes as well as for the whole Russian line
in the Carpathians. Now that Von Mackensen had pried the lid off,
Brussilov's men in the south encountered enormous difficulties in
extricating themselves from the Carpathian foothills, suddenly
transformed from comparative strongholds into death-traps and no
longer tenable. They suffered severely, especially the Forty-eighth
Division.
Besides the menace from the northwest of Von Mackensen's swiftly
approaching right, a third blade was gradually growing on the deadly
scissors, in the shape of Boehm-Ermolli's and Von Bojna's forces,
threatening to grind them between two relentless jaws of steel. It is
Sunday, the second day of May, 1915; to all intents and purposes the
battle of the Dunajec, as such, was over, and the initial aim of the
Germanic offensive has been attained. The Russian line was pierced and
its defense shattered. Von Mackensen's "Phalanx" was advancing two
mighty tentacles guided by a master mind, remorselessly probing for
the enemy's strongest points. Its formation comprised, in the
northeastern tentacle, the Sixth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps and the
Prussian Guards; in the southern, the Bavarians under Von Emmich and
the Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army corps under General Martiny.
On May 3, 1915, Dmitrieff's troops were falling back farther every
hour, continuously fighting rear-guard actions and compelling the
pursuers to conquer every foot of ground. There was a powerful reason
for this stubborn retirement: it was to gain time for Brussilov to get
his men out of their perilous positions and to join the main line
again with Dmitrieff's receding ranks. If this could be effected, the
fatal gap between them--made by Von Mackensen's battering-ram--would
be repaired, and they could once more present a united front to the
enemy. It was mentioned a little farther back that the Austrians had
pierced the Dunajec line at Otfinow, north of Tarnow, by which was cut
in two the hitherto unbroken Russian battle front, from the Baltic to
the Rumanian frontier (900 miles); the "scissors" at Gorlice had made
it three; if Boehm-Ermolli's drive from the Uzsok upward along the
"triangle line" to Jaroslav succeeds, there will be four separate
pieces of Russian front. But from Tarnow southward to Tuchow, a small
twenty-mile salient on the Biala, the Russians are still in possession
on May 4, 1915, defying the Fourth Austro-Hungarian Army.
CHAPTER XLI
RUSSIAN RETREAT
It is a matter for speculation whether the numerous successes achieved
by the Russians against the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and the
Carpathians during the first seven months of the war had begotten a
spirit of overconfidence among the Russian commanders, or whether it
was not in their power to have made more effective preparations than
they had done. We have seen that Dmitrieff had not provided himself
with those necessary safety exits which were now so badly needed. As
no artificially prepared defenses were at hand, natural ones had to be
found. The first defense was irretrievably lost; the second line was a
vague, undefined terrain extending across the hills between Biala in
the west and the River Wisloka in the east. Between Tuchow and Olpiny,
the Mountain Dobrotyn formed one of the chief defensive positions,
being 1,800 feet high and thickly covered with woods.
Southward, the Lipie Mountain, about 1,400 feet, formed another strong
point. Just below Biecz, close to the road and railroad leading to
Gorlice, a mountain of 1,225 feet, called Wilczak, is the strategical
key to the valley of the lower Ropa. Between Biecz and Bednarka, the
line of defense followed the heights of the Kobylanka, Tatarovka, Lysa
Gora, and of the Rekaw; hence to the east, as the last defense of the
Jaslo-Zmigrod road, lay the intrenched positions on the Ostra Gora,
well within Brussilov's sector. Southward of the Gorlice-Zmigrod line
lay the mountain group of the Valkova, nearly 2,800 feet high, the
last defense of the line of retreat for the Russian forces from Zboro.
The Wisloka was the third line of defense, only a river, and without
intrenchments. From Dembica to Zmigrod it runs roughly parallel with
the Dunajec-Biala line; its winding course separates it in places from
fifteen to thirty-five miles from the latter river. Strong hopes were
entertained that the Russians would be able to stem the Germanic
torrent by a firm stand on the Wisloka.
A fierce battle raged on the third and fourth of May, 1915, for the
possession of the wooded hills between the Biala and the Wisloka. The
Prussian Guard stormed Lipie Mountain and captured it on the third; on
the fourth they took Olpiny, Szczerzyny and the neighboring hills at
the point of the bayonet.
The Thirty-ninth Hungarian Division, now incorporated in the Eleventh
German Army under the direct command of Von Mackensen himself, had
advanced from Grybow via Gorlice on the Biecz railway line, and were
making a strong attack on the Russian positions on Wilczak Mountain
with a tremendous concentration of artillery. It seems the Russians
simply refused to be blown out of their trenches, for it required
seven separate attacks to drive them out. That accomplished, the fate
of Biecz was decided and the road to Jaslo--the "key" to the Wisloka
line of defense--was practically open to General Arz von
Straussenburg. Lying at the head of the main roads leading into
Hungary through the Tilicz, Dukla, and Lupkow passes, Jaslo is the
most important railway junction in the whole region between Tarnow and
Przemysl. It was at Jaslo that Dmitrieff had held his headquarters for
four months.
Just south of him, barely fifteen miles away, General von Emmich and
General Martiny, with the "Bayonet Bavarians" and the Tenth
Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, went pounding and slashing a passage
along the Bednarka-Zmigrod road and the auxiliary road from Malastow
to Krempna. They were striving hard to reach the western passes before
Brussilov had time to withdraw. He began that operation on the fourth.
On the same night Von Emmich and Martiny reached Krempna, and the last
line of retreat for the Russians around Zboro was imperiled. They have
yet to cross the range from Hungary back into Galicia. So subtly
potent and effective was the pressure on a flank that the whole
line--be it hundreds of miles long--is more or less influenced
thereby, as witness:
On the same night, May 4, 1915, the retreat spread like a contagion to
the entire west Galician front, compelling the Russians to evacuate
northern Hungary up to the Lupkow Pass; in that pass itself
preparations are afoot to abandon the hard-earned position. It is not
fear, nor the precaution of cowardice that prompted this wholesale
removal of fighting men: the inexorable laws of geometry demanded it.
The enemy was at Krempna; as the crow flies the distance from Krempna
to the northern debouchment of Lupkow is eighty miles; yet Lupkow was
threatened, for the "line" or "front" is pierced--the vital artery of
the defense is severed. The strength of a chain is precisely that of
its weakest link.
[Illustration: Galician Campaign from Tarnow to Przemysl.]
The course of events become complex; fighting, advancing and
retreating occurred over a widespread area. Apparently disconnected
movements by the Austro-Germans or the Russians fall into their proper
places in accordance with the general scheme or objective either side
may have in view. It is necessary to follow the scattered operations
separately. We will therefore return now to the Tarnow-Tucho sector,
where we left a small Russian force holding the last remnant of the
Dunajec-Biala front. Tarnow had been the supply base for that front,
and great stores of provisions and munitions still remained in the
town. These the Russians succeeded in removing entirely. The main
forces had already withdrawn in perfect order and fallen back beyond
the Wisloka. During the night of May 4-5, 1915, two regiments of the
Ninth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps crossed the Biala near Tuchow and
moved northward in the direction of the road leading from Tarnow to
Pilzno, along which the remainder of the garrison would have to pass
in order to retreat. On the hills west of Pilzno the Russians still
held a position to protect that road. By the morning of the sixth
everything had gone eastward, and the Austrians had surrounded the
town.
The small cavalry detachment that had been left behind as rear guard
cut through the Austrian lines and rejoined the main forces on the
Wisloka. The Austrians had been bombarding Tarnow for months with
their heaviest artillery, destroying parts of the cathedral and the
famous old town hall in the process.
On May 7 the Russians withdrew from the Pilzno district, and the
Dunajec-Biala Russian front had ceased to exist. From the hour that
the Austro-Germans had broken through the line at Ciezkovice, on May
2, 1915, the Russian retreat on the Wisloka had begun. Yielding to the
terrible pressure the line had increasingly lost its shape as the
various component parts fell back, though it gradually resumed the
form of a front on the Wisloka banks, where most determined fighting
continued for five days.
The Russians lost much of their artillery; they had to reverse the
customary military practice of an army in retreat. If the retreating
army is well equipped with artillery and munitions, its guns cover the
retreat and are sacrificed to save the men. During their retreat the
Russians had often to sacrifice men in order to save their guns for a
coming greater battle at some more important strategic point. Many
prisoners fell to the Germanic armies; according to their own official
reports they took 30,000 in the fighting of May 2-4, 1915. What the
Austro-German side lost in that time was not made public.
CHAPTER XLII
AUSTRO-GERMAN RECONQUEST OF WESTERN GALICIA
By the time the retreating Russians had reached the Wisloka they had
to some extent recovered from the first shock of surprise, and were
better able to attempt a determined stand against the overwhelming
onrush of the Austro-Germanic troops. Ivanoff hurriedly sent
reenforcements for Dmitrieff and Ewarts which included the Caucasian
Corps of General Irmanoff from the Bzura front. The heavy German guns
belched forth with terrible effect, and the Russians could not reply
at the same weight or distance. Bayonets against artillery means
giving odds away, but the attempt was made. With a savage fury that
seems to belong only to Slavs and Mohammedans--fatalists--the Russians
hurled themselves against the powerful batteries and got to close
quarters with the enemy. For nearly twenty minutes a wild, surging sea
of clashing steel--bayonets, swords, lances and Circassian
daggers--wielded by fiery mountaineers and steady, cool,
well-disciplined Teutons, roared and flowed around the big guns, which
towered over the lashing waves like islands in a stormy ocean. A
railway collision would seem mild compared with the impact of 18,000
desperate armed men against a much greater number of equally desperate
and equally brave, highly-trained fighters. But machinery, numbers and
skillful tactics will overcome mere physical courage. The Russian
avalanche was thrown back with terrific slaughter; the Caucasian Corps
alone lost over 10,000 men, for which, it is estimated, they killed
and wounded quite as many. More remarkable still was the fact that
they captured a big battery and carried off 7,000 prisoners. For five
days the storm raged backward and forward across the river; during the
more violent bombardments the Russians left their trenches to be
battered out of shape and withdrew into their shelter dugouts; when
the enemy infantry advanced to take possession, the Russians had
returned to face the charge. Whereas cool, machinelike precision
marks the German soldier in battle as on the parade ground, an
imperturbable obstinacy and total disregard of mortal danger
characterizes the Russian.
During the night of May 6-7, 1915, the Austrians sent two regiments
across the Wisloka, north and south of Brzostek, about midway between
Pilzno and Jaslo, under cover of artillery posted on a 400-foot hill
near Przeczyca on the opposite bank, _i.e._, the left. Austrian
engineers constructed a bridge across the river, and on the morning of
May 7 the Austrian advance guard were in possession of the hills north
of the town. Infantry were then thrown across to storm Brzostek. Here,
again, they met with resolute opposition from the Russian rear guards
covering the retreat of the main armies, which had already fallen back
from the Wisloka. Desperate bayonet fighting ensued in the streets,
each of which had to be cleared separately to dislodge the
Russians--the civilians meanwhile looking out of their windows
watching the animated scenes below. Hungarian troops in overwhelming
masses poured across the river and finally captured the town. Once
more on the backward move, the Russians established themselves along
the western and southern fringe of the forests by Januszkovice, only
eight miles away, and prepared to make another stand. More fighting
occurred here, and during May 7 and 8, 1915, the Russians fell back
farther toward Frysztak, on the river Wistok.
We left Von Emmich and General Martiny with the Bavarians and the
Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps on their arrival at Krempna on the
night of the 4th, during which time the Russians were making desperate
efforts to evacuate northern Hungary and the western passes. The main
forces of Von Mackensen's "phalanx" were meanwhile pushing on toward
Jaslo, still in Russian possession. On the hills west of the Wisloka
the Russian rear guards had intrenched themselves and held their
positions till nightfall on May 5, 1915, all with the object of
delaying the Germanic advance sufficiently for their comrades to clear
the passes. Then they fell back again and made a stand near Tarnoviec,
about six or seven miles east of Jaslo, where they dominated an
important strategic position. Between them and Jaslo two railways ran
along the valley of the River Jasliska, forming a serious obstacle to
Von Mackensen's advance so long as the Russians could hold it. It was
imperative that they should be cleared out, but the task of carrying
it through was a difficult one. The undertaking fell to the Hungarian
troops of the Thirty-ninth Honved Division, who advanced to the attack
again and again only to be driven back each time by the Russian fire
from the heights. Big howitzers were called into play and soon
demolished the positions.
The Russians retired east of the Wistok, followed by Von Mackensen's
Austro-Hungarian corps, while the Prussian Guards moved on toward
Frysztak, where the Russian troops from the Tarnow sector had taken up
positions after the retreat from Brzostek.
On May 7, 1915, the Prussian Guards had passed over the railway at
Krosno, and at night fell upon the Russian lines east of the Wistok.
Particularly fierce encounters took place near Odrzykon and Korczina,
ten to fourteen miles southeast of Frysztak. A little farther westward
Von Mackensen delivered his main attack against the railway crossing
at Jaslo, which fell on the same day, May 7. The Russians retreated in
confusion with Von Mackensen close upon their heels. The whole defense
on the Wisloka collapsed, and nothing apparently could now save the
Dukla and those troops struggling through to escape from the net that
was gradually being tightened around them. Meanwhile, General Ewarts's
Army of the Nida, which formed the connecting link between the Russian
northern and southern armies, had fallen back above Tarnow to the
River Czarna in order to keep in touch and conformity with Dmitrieff's
shrinking line, which was now actually broken by the Wisloka failure.
The Russian position was extremely critical, for it seemed that the
German general would roll up the two halves and thereby inflict a
crushing and decisive defeat. General Ivanoff appears to have
recognized Von Mackensen's intentions in time to devise measures to
counteract the peril and save his left (Brussilov's army) from
disaster. By pushing forward strong columns from Sanok on the Upper
San to impose a temporary check upon the advancing tide, he gained a
brief respite for the troops entangled in the passes. To that sector
we will now turn to review the course of events.
On May 4, 1915, the Russians began to evacuate the positions they held
south of the range when Von Mackensen's extreme right approached
Krempna. Forging along at high speed the Germans and Austrians
occupied the towns of Dukla and Tylava, and arrived at Rymanow--still
farther east--on the following day. The town of Dukla lies some
fifteen miles due north of the Galician debouchment of the pass of
that name, and Rymanow is about another fifteen miles east of that.
Hence the German strategic plan was to draw a barrier line across the
north of the Carpathians and hem the Russians in between that barrier
and the Austro-Hungarian armies of Boehm-Ermolli and Von Bojna. It
must distinctly be borne in mind that these two forces are also north
of the passes: that of Von Bojna being stationed at the elbow where
the Germanic line turned from the Carpathians almost due north along
the Dunajec-Biala front, or across the neck of our hypothetical jar.
The Dukla and Lupkow passes were still in Russian hands; these were
the only two that the Germanic offensives of January, February, and
March, 1915, had failed to capture; all the others, from Rostoki
eastward, were held by the Austrians and Germans. It was through the
Dukla and Lupkow that the Russians obtained their foothold in northern
Hungary, and it was the only way open to them now to get back again.
Around the Laborcza district stood the Seventh Austro-Hungarian Army
Corps under the command of the Archduke Joseph, who now began to
harass them, aided by the German "Beskid Corps" under General von
Marwitz. This was the only section in the range where the Russians
held both sides. Boehm-Ermolli had forced the Rostoki and Uzsok, but
hitherto had been unable to get very far from their northern
exits--not beyond Baligrod. During the fighting on the Dunajec these
three armies merely marked time; it was their object to keep the
Russians in Hungary and in the two passes until Von Mackensen had
thrown the right of his "phalanx" across their only avenue of escape.
That time was now rapidly approaching, and Von Bojna was gradually
squeezing Brussilov from the west, while Boehm-Ermolli was following
from the east and south. It appears that the commanders of the Twelfth
Russian Army Corps and the Third Russian Army, which stood on
Hungarian soil from Zboro to Nagy Polena, did not grasp the full
significance to them of the Dunajec catastrophe.
Germanic troops were building a wall against their exits before they
had seriously thought of withdrawing. Escape was impossible for many
of them; some had managed to get across the Dukla in time, while those
left behind would either have to surrender or fight their way through
the lines across their path in the north. At the same time they would
have Von Bojna and Boehm-Ermolli on their tracks. To make matters
worse, they were also being pressed severely from the Hungarian plains
by the troops which hitherto stood inactive. The Second
Austro-Hungarian Army (Boehm-Ermolli) was fighting on both sides of
the range. Through Rostoki they attempted to separate the Russians
around Zboro from those situated farther east at Nagy Polena. We have
stated elsewhere that the Forty-eighth Division was severely handled.
They were surrounded in the Dukla by an overwhelming superior force,
but General Korniloff, the commander, with a desperate effort and no
little skill, succeeded in hacking his way through the enemy's lines
and bringing a large portion of his force safely out of the trap. Inch
by inch the Russian rear guards retreated, fighting tooth and nail to
hold the pass while their comrades escaped. No less brave were the
repeated charges made by the Austrians--clambering over rocks, around
narrow pathways hanging high in the air, dizzy precipices and mountain
torrents underneath. On Varentyzow Mountain, especially, a fierce
hand-to-hand battle was fought between Hungarians and Cossacks, the
latter finally withdrawing in perfect order. To conduct a successful
retreat in the face of disaster is a no less difficult military
achievement than the gaining of a decisive victory, and Brussilov's
retreat from the passes deserves to rank as a masterly example of
skillful tactics.
On May 8, 1915, the Third Russian Army and the Forty-eighth Division
had reunited with Brussilov's main army in the neighborhood of Sanok,
twenty miles north of the Lupkow. When the commanders of a retreating
army lose their heads the rank and file will inevitably become
demoralized and panic-stricken. The retreat became a rout, and the
possibility of making a stand, and to some extent retrieving the lost
fortune of war, was extremely remote. A deeper motive than the mere
reconquering of Galicia lay behind Von Mackensen's plan--he aimed at
nothing less than the complete overthrow and destruction of the
Russian armies. It was a gigantic effort of the Germanic powers to
eliminate at least one of their most dangerous enemies. Once that was
accomplished it would release some millions of troops whose services
were needed in the western theatre of war. The original plan had
fallen through of crushing Russia quickly at the beginning of the war,
before she would have had time to get ready, and then to turn against
France in full force. The Austro-German Galician campaign was planned
and undertaken with that specific object, and now, although defeated
and in full retreat, the Russian troops still formed an army in being,
and not a fugitive, defenseless rabble. So long as an army is not
captured or annihilated, it can be reorganized and again put in the
field. It is on this consideration that so much importance attaches to
the handling of an army in retreat. The Russians did not, of course,
run away; on the contrary, they fought desperately and stubbornly
throughout the retreat, for their pursuers did not average more than
six miles per day--a fact which testifies to the steady and orderly
character of the Russian retirement. They suffered from the
consequences of inadequate preparation and lack of foresight on the
part of their leaders.
The Russian troops on the Lower Wisloka held their positions longest,
but they also fell back about May 8, 1915, and for the next two days
engaged the enemy near some villages southwest of Sanok. Here a strong
force had collected, which not only offered a powerful resistance, but
even attempted a counterattack against their pursuers. Over a front of
145 miles, extending from Szczucin near the Vistula north of Tarnow,
down almost to the Uzsok Pass, a fierce battle progressed between May
8 and 10, 1915. In the region of Frysztak, where the Russian line was
weakest, the main German offensive was developing its strongest
attack. Reenforcements were on the way, but could not arrive in time.
For the moment disaster was averted by an aggressive Russian
counteroffensive halfway between Krosno and Sanok, from the
Besko-Jacmierz front, by which move sufficient time was gained to
enable the main forces to retreat. The Russian defense in the Vistok
Valley collapsed on May 10, 1915; the German center had almost arrived
within striking distance of the important railway line from Tarnow via
Dembica and Rzeszow to Jaroslav north of Przemysl. At Sanok the
battered remnants of the Russian troops who had escaped from the
passes maintained themselves with the greatest difficulty. Heavy
German artillery followed the Bavarians to Rymanow, five miles from
the Russian line at Besko, and were now playing fiercely upon the
positions west of Sanok. The Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps as well
as the Seventh were making their presence felt from the southwest
against Odrzechova and from the south, whence Von Marwitz with the
German Beskid Corps was rapidly advancing. To the southeast,
Boehm-Ermolli was battering the Baligrod-Lutoviska front, almost in
the same position he occupied at the end of January in the first
attempt to relieve Przemysl.
The battle was practically over by the night of May 10, 1915; the
Russians could hold out no longer against the ever-increasing flood of
Austrians and Germans pouring across every road and pathway against
their doomed line. Blasted and scorched by artillery, machine-gun and
rifle fire; standing against incessant bayonet and cavalry charges;
harassed by the Austrians from the south, the Russians were indeed in
sore straits. Yet they had fought well; in the losing game they were
playing they were exhausting their enemies as well as themselves in
men and munitions--factors which are bound to tell in a long,
drawn-out war. Above all, they still remained an army: they had not
yet found their Sedan. No alternative lay before them--or rather
behind them--other than retreat to the next possible line of
defense--toward Przemysl.
Between May 11-12, 1915, the Germanic troops occupied the districts of
Sendziszow, Rzeszow, Dynow, Sanok, Lisko, Lancut, and Dubiecko.
Przevorsk was deserted by the Russians on the 13th. The Seventh
Russian Railway Battalion, under Captain Ratloff, brought up the rear
of the retreat to the Dembica-Jaroslav line. From Rzeszow onward this
battalion were employed in destroying stations, plants, tunnels,
culverts, rolling stock, and railway bridges, to hamper as much as
possible the German advance. It took the Austro-Hungarian engineers
between two and three weeks to repair the road and put it into
sufficient working order to transport their heavy siege artillery.
With uninterrupted labor and the most strenuous exertions they could
only reconstruct about four miles per day. Repairs and renovations
other than those of the railway system were necessary. The wounded had
to be sent back to hospital, and fresh troops had to be brought up to
fill the gaps torn in the Austro-German ranks during all the severe
fighting since May 2, 1915. It is not known exactly what the series of
victories cost the Germanic armies in casualties, but it is known that
their successes were dearly bought. One fairly competent authority
places the loss at between 120,000 to 130,000. From May 2 to May 12,
1915, the forces of Von Mackensen, the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, and
Boroyevitch von Boyna claim to have captured 103,500 men, 69 guns, and
255 machine guns. A retreating army must inevitably lose many of their
number as prisoners, besides their wounded must also be abandoned.
Furthermore, the Russian line of retreat led through rough and
mountainous country, where large bodies of troops could not be kept in
touch with each other. Thus it frequently happened that isolated
detachments were captured _en bloc_ without being able to offer any
resistance. In the neighborhood of Sanok and the watering places of
Rymanow and Ivonicz some of the biggest Russian base hospitals were
situated. These, of course, could not have been evacuated in time, and
the patients consequently swelled the number of prisoners. Most of the
guns captured by the Austro-Germans were those of the Russian troops
whose retreat from northern Hungary and the passes had been
intercepted.
They often sacrificed large bodies of troops to save their guns. The
lack of artillery was the main cause of their defeat; what little they
could save from the wreck was therefore husbanded with jealous care.
The German staff accurately calculated on the preponderance of heavy
artillery, and that Russia would be compelled to bow low before the
superior blast of cannon fire. Though it involved the sacrifice of
many miles of territory, it was now the Russian object to draw the
enemy's line out to the fullest extent. After the retreat from the
Wistok the Russian Generalissimo, Grand Duke Nicholas, was concerned
only to save the most for his country at the greatest expense to her
enemies. It meant continual retreat on a gigantic scale. Przemysl,
captured ten weeks ago, lay behind Ivanoff's line, and Lemberg was but
sixty miles beyond. Two hundred miles northward the Germans were
hammering at the gates of Warsaw. A retreat such as the grand duke
contemplated might involve the loss of all three of these places, but
it would stretch the Germanic lines enormously and enable the Allies
in the west to strike with better effect. No territorial
considerations must stand in the way against the safety of the Russian
armies. It was the same policy that had crippled Napoleon in 1812.
CHAPTER XLIII
CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN GALICIA AND THE BUKOWINA
In order to keep the narrative abreast of the steadily advancing
Austro-German line, we must change occasionally from one sector to
another to watch the progress of operations over the huge battle
field. In accordance with the details laid down in the great strategic
plan, each of the different Germanic forces had a distinct task to
perform. Turning then to eastern Galicia and the Bukowina, we find
that on May 1, 1915, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies were
facing each other along almost the same front where we left them in
the middle of March. That front extended to the north of Nadvorna and
Kolomea, by Ottynia across to Niczviska on the Dniester, and from
there eastward along the river toward Chotin on the Russian frontier
of Bessarabia.
By the beginning of May, 1915, the spring floods had subsided, when
operations became again possible. General Lechitsky, on the Russian
side, probably aimed at recovering the Pruth Valley, while the
Austrian commander, General von Pflanzer-Baltin, directed his efforts
to establishing himself on the northern bank of the Dniester. He would
then be able to advance in line with the Germanic front that was
pressing on from the west, and northward from the Carpathian range
between Uzsok and the Jablonitza passes; otherwise his force would lag
behind in the great drive, a mere stationary pivot. At that time he
held about sixty miles of the Odessa-Stanislau railroad (which runs
through the valley via Czernovice and Kolomea) with the Russians only
twenty miles north of the line. If that position could be taken the
Austrians would have the South Russian line of communications in their
hands, for it was along this line that supplies and reenforcements
were being transported to Ivanoff's front on the Wisloka from the
military centers at Kiev and Sebastopol. Thus the railway was of
tremendous importance to both belligerents. What it meant to the
Austrians has been stated; to the Russians its possession offered the
only opportunity for a counteroffensive in the east that could
possibly affect the course of the main operations on the Wisloka, San,
and later the Przemysl lines. But however successful such a
counteroffensive might prove, it could not have exerted any immediate
influence on the western front. With the Transylvania Carpathians
protecting the Austro-German eastern flank, there would still be
little hope of checking the enemy's advance on Lemberg even if
Lechitsky succeeded in reconquering the whole of the Bukowina and that
part of eastern Galicia south of the Dniester. Every strategic
consideration, therefore, pointed to the Dniester line as the key to
the situation for the Austrian side, and Von Pflanzer-Baltin decided
to stake all on the attempt.
[Illustration: Galician Campaign from Przemysl to Bessarabia.]
On May, 6, 1915, the machine was set in motion by a violent
bombardment. By the 8th the Austrians captured the bridgehead of
Zaleszczyki; on the 9th the Russians drove them out again, capturing
500 men, 3 big guns, 1 field gun, and a number of machine guns. On May
10 the Russians took the initiative and attacked a front of about
forty miles, along the entire Dniester line from west of Niczviska to
Uscie Biskupic, crossed into the Bukowina and advanced to within five
miles of Czernowitz from the east. A little stream and a village both
named Onut are situated southwest of Uscie Biskupic. Here a detachment
of Don Cossacks distinguished themselves on May 10, 1915. Advancing
toward the Austrian wire entanglements in face of a terrific
fusillade, they cut a passage through in front of the Austrian's
fortified positions. Before the latter realized what was happening the
Cossacks were on top of them, and in a few minutes a ferocious bayonet
struggle had cleared out three lines of trenches. Russian cavalry
poured in after them, hacking the Austrian's rear, and compelling them
to evacuate the entire district. The Cossacks charged into the
hurriedly retreating masses--on horse and on foot, with saber, lance,
and bayonet, capturing 4,000 prisoners, a battery of machine guns,
several caissons and searchlight apparati.
The entire northern bank of the Dniester was in Russian possession by
the night of May 10, 1915; several desperate counterattacks attempted
by the Austrians on the 11th completely failed to recover the lost
ground. Two days later a Russian official reported: "In this operation
the Austrian units which led the offensive were repulsed near
Chocimierz with heavy losses. Our artillery annihilated two entire
battalions and a third surrendered. Near Horodenka the enemy gave way
about seven o'clock in the evening of the same day and began a
disorderly retreat. We again captured several thousand prisoners,
guns, and some fifty ammunition caissons." Being a junction of six
roads and a railway station on the curved line from Kolomea to
Zaleszczyki, Horodenka is considered to be the most important
strategic point along the Dniester-Czernowitz front. It was
undoubtedly a severe blow to the Austrians.
During the night of May 11, 1915, and the next day they evacuated a
front of about eighty-eight miles, and retired south of the Pruth.
General Mishtchenko led his Cossacks on the Austrian trail, taking
several towns on their way to Nadvorna, which they captured after a
fierce fight. From here they took possession of part of the railway
line from Delatyn to Kolomea, and completely severed the connection
between Von Pflanzer-Baltin's forces and those of Von Linsingen lying
along the north of the range. Larger bodies of Russian troops were on
the way to Kolomea; on May 13, 1915, they stormed and carried some
strongly fortified Austrian positions eight miles north of the town,
in front of which the Austrians had placed reenforcements and all
their last reserves. By dint of great efforts they held their position
here, but from May 9 to May 14, 1915, the Russians drove them back
elsewhere on a front of over sixty miles for a distance of about
twenty miles, also capturing some 20,000 prisoners with many guns and
valuable stores of munitions. About the middle of May matters quieted
down in the eastern sector; the only fighting of importance consisted
of severe artillery combats around Czernowitz and Kolomea. The issue
of the conflict hung in the west with Von Mackensen's armies; fighting
in the Bukowina at this stage became an unnecessary expenditure of
strength and energy. The fate of eastern Galicia was being decided 140
miles away, on the banks of the River San, to which region we will now
direct the reader's attention.
CHAPTER XLIV
RUSSIAN CHANGE OF FRONT--RETREAT TO THE SAN
After the Russian troops retreated from the Lower Wisloka northward
toward the confluence of that river with the Vistula they held the two
important bridgeheads of Sandomierz and Rozvadov.
On May 14, 1915, Ivanoff's right was being forced toward the Vistula
in the vicinity of Opatow. This right wing was the army under General
Ewarts, which since December, 1914, had been stationed in strongly
fortified positions on the Nida in Russian Poland. The front extended
across the frontier into western Galicia and joined on to the right
wing of Dmitrieff's Dunajec-Biala front, which was shattered between
Otfinow and Gorlice. The retreat of Dmitrieff's army was in an
easterly direction along Tarnow, Pilzno, Dembica, Rzeszow, and Lancut
to Przevorsk on the San; from the region of Gorlice and Ciezkovice
along Biecz, Jaslo, Frysztak, Krosno to Dynow, Dubiecko, and Sanok,
the latter also on the San. The troops that Brussilov extricated from
the passes and those with which he held the northern part of the
western Carpathians against Boehm-Ermolli were now likewise
concentrated on the San. A glance at the map will show that the
Russian front on the San from Przevorsk down to Sanok forms a shield
between the Germanic advance and the two towns of Jaroslav and
Przemysl. It will also be observed that General Ewarts's forces about
Rozvadov are on the west side of the San, that is to say, nearer
toward the advancing Austrians under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand.
The retreat in Galicia necessitated modifications in the Russian front
in Poland on the way to Warsaw. The line south of the Pilica had to be
withdrawn and positions on the Nida abandoned to conform with the
retreating line in Galicia. New positions were taken up along Radom
and across the Kamienna River. The pivot or hinge from which the line
was drawn back was the town of Ivanlodz, about fifty-five miles
southwest of Warsaw. North of Ivanlodz the front remained unaltered.
While this line shifting was in progress (in Poland) the German troops
hung closely to the heels of the retiring Russians, evidently
mistaking the motive behind the change of position. Mr. Stanley
Washburn thus summarizes the results of these retreating battles:
"Regarding the movement as a whole, suffice it to say that in the two
weeks following the change of line one (Russian) army inflicted upon
the enemy a loss of nearly 30,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners.
The Russian losses were comparatively trifling." The Austro-German
forces were following up leisurely the retreating Russian corps, not
expecting any serious fighting to occur until the lines behind the
Kamienna were reached.
Instead of that, however, on May 15, 1915, the Russian commander
suddenly halted the main body of his troops in front of his fortified
positions on a line extending from Brody by Opatow toward Klimontow.
Between May 15-17, 1915, a battle developed on this front, which is
the more notable as it is one of the few in this war fought in the
open without trenches. To quote Mr. Washburn: "In any other war it
would have been called a good-sized action, as from first to last more
than 100,000 men and perhaps 350 to 400 guns were engaged."
The Austro-Germans came on in four groups. The Third German Landwehr
was moving from the southwest by Wierzbnik against Ilza, slightly to
the north of Lubienia. Next to it, coming from the direction of
Kielce, was the German Division of General Bredow, supported by the
Eighty-fourth Austrian Regiment. This body was advancing against
Ostroviec, the terminus of a railway which runs from the district of
Lodz to the southeast by Tomaszow and Opoczno, and crosses the
Ivangorod-Olkusz line halfway between Kielce and Radom. Farther to the
south three Austro-Hungarian divisions were also advancing--namely,
the Twenty-fifth Austrian Division against Lagow, and the Fourth
Austrian Landwehr Division, supported by the Forty-first Honved
Division, against Ivaniska; they moved along roads converging on
Opatow. The Twenty-fifth Austrian Division, commanded by the Archduke
Peter Ferdinand, was composed of crack regiments, the Fourth Hoch and
Deutschmeisters of Vienna, and the Twenty-fifth, Seventeenth, and
Tenth Jäger battalions. The Russians were outnumbered about 40 per
cent. The supposedly demoralized Russians were not expected to give
any battle short of their fortified line, to which they were thought
to be retiring in hot haste. The Russian general selected the
Austrians on whom to spring his first surprise, but commenced by
making a feint against the German corps, driving in their advanced
guards by vigorous attacks which caused the whole force to halt and
begin deployment for an engagement.
This occurred on May 15, 1915. On the same day, with all his available
strength, he swung furiously with Opatow as an axis from both north
and south, catching in bayonet charge the Twenty-fifth Division on the
road between Lagow and Opatow. Simultaneously another portion of his
command swept up on the Fourth Division coming from Ivaniska to
Opatow. "In the meantime a strong force of Cossacks had ridden round
the Austrians and actually hit their line of communications at the
exact time that the infantry fell on the main column with a bayonet
charge, delivered with an impetuosity and fury that simply crumpled up
the entire Austrian formation. The Fourth Division was meeting a
similar fate farther south, and the two were thrown together in a
helpless mass, losing between 3,000 and 4,000 casualties and nearly
3,000 in prisoners, besides a large number of machine guns and the
bulk of their baggage. The remainder, supported by the Forty-first
Honved Division, which had been hurried up, managed to squeeze
themselves out of their predicament by falling back on Uszachow, and
the whole retired to Lagow, beyond which the Russians were not
permitted to pursue them, lest they should break the symmetry of their
own line." It is admitted by the Austrians themselves that their
losses were very severe in this battle. An Austrian source at the time
stated that on May 16, 1915, not a single officer and only twenty-six
men were left of the entire Fourth Company, First Battalion of the
Tenth Austrian Infantry Regiment. By the 17th of May the Austrians had
withdrawn more than twelve miles from the scene of the disaster.
During the following night, May 25, 1915, an Austrian division was
moving from the line of advance of General Bredow's troops along the
Lagow-Opatow road where it is separated by a spur of the Lysa Gora,
the highest mountain group in Russian Poland. The Russians, elated
over their recent victory, crossed the mountains by a forced march,
and fell on the right flank of the German formation, while other
troops opened a general frontal attack against it. Bredow was
compelled to fall back in haste in the direction of Bodzentyn and to
call for assistance from the adjoining Fourth German Landwehr
Division. The sudden withdrawal of that division had the effect of
weakening the German line southwest of Radom near the Radom-Kielce and
the Konsk-Ostroviec railway crossings. The opportunity of thinning the
enemy's line in that sector was too good to be lost, for a Russian
communiqué of May 17, 1915, states that "near Gielniow, Ruski-Brod,
and Suchedniov our sudden counterattacks inflicted severe losses on
the enemy's advance guards." Having thus checked the German advance
for the time being, the Russians ceased from further troubling to
await developments on the San.
CHAPTER XLV
BATTLE OF THE SAN
When the Austro-German armies reached the line of the San on May 14,
1915, the battle for mid-Galicia was over, and a fresh chapter of the
campaign opened with the battle of the San, which might more fittingly
be described as the battle for Przemysl. The position of Ivanoff's
right has been shown; his right center lay west of the Lower San; the
center east of the river covered Przemysl; his left center extended
along the Upper Dniester, while his left, under Lechitsky, was keeping
Von Pflanzer-Baltin employed. Von Mackensen's "phalanx" was slowly
coming into action again, directing its course toward the Russian
center. The "phalanx" was compelled to travel slowly, for it carried
about 2,000 pieces of artillery with ample munitions, and the
railroads had been wrecked by the retreating Russians. What has been
described by military writers as "Von Mackensen's phalanx" was a
concentration of troops along the lines on which the strongest
resistance was expected or where the quickest advance was intended. No
special group of forces appear to have been set apart for that
purpose; there was very little shifting about or regrouping necessary
during the campaign, and so well was the plan arranged that the
concentrations occurred almost automatically wherever and whenever
they were most needed. The infantry marched in successive lines or
echelons, about forty yards apart, while in the ranks the men were
allowed about four feet elbow room apiece. For frontal attacks this
might be considered fairly close formation, but Von Mackensen
calculated more upon the disintegrating effect of his artillery to
first demoralize the enemy and wreck his position, after which the
infantry came into play to complete the destruction. Without an
overwhelming supply of artillery the "phalanx" plan would have been
unworkable--machine guns would exact too heavy a sacrifice of life.
Ivanoff's chief object for the moment was to hold the enemy in check
long enough to allow Przemysl to be cleared of ammunitions and
supplies, and to withdraw the troops in possession of the place.
Already, on May 14, 1915, the German troops of Von Mackensen's army
had occupied Jaroslav, only twenty-two miles north of the fortress.
Ivanoff had concentrated his strongest forces on the line between
Sieniava, north of Przevorsk, and Sambor, thirty miles southeast of
Przemysl. Here he had deployed the three armies which had held the
entire front from the Biala to Uzsok in the beginning of May, 1915,
nearly twice as long as the line they were now guarding. These were to
fight a holding battle on the center while he adopted a series of
vigorous counterthrusts on his right and left wings. By the retirement
of the center Ewarts had been compelled to fall back from the Nida to
the Vistula with Woyrsch's Austrian army against him. When Ewarts
dropped behind Kielce in Russian Poland, Woyrsch seized the junction
of the branch line to Ostroviecs in front of the Russian line. Ivanoff
decided to venture a counterattack which would at the same time
relieve the pressure on his center and also check the move on Josefov,
dangerously near to the Warsaw-Ivangorod-Lublin line. The result of
this plan was the brilliant surprise attack on the Austrians and
Germans previously described. Along the San the troops just south of
Ewarts delivered a fierce attack and drove the Archduke Ferdinand back
to Tarnobrzeg on the Vistula. Ivanoff next drew as many reenforcements
from that flank to strengthen his center as was compatible with
safety. What had happened meanwhile on Ivanoff's extreme left--in
eastern Galicia and the Bukowina--has already been stated. These
counterattacks may be regarded as merely efforts to gain time, but the
hour of another great battle was at hand.
The battle of the San, one of the greatest of the war, opened on May
15, 1915. Jaroslav was in German hands; the Fourth Austro-Hungarian
Army (Archduke Joseph Ferdinand) reached the western side of the San
on the 14th; by the 16th the Austro-German armies held almost the
entire left bank of the river from Rudnik to Jaroslav, about forty
miles. They crossed at several points on the same day and enlarged
their hold on the right bank between Jaroslav and Lezachow near
Sieniava, which they captured. A German division arrived at
Lubaczovka, due north of Jaroslav, and half of the Germanic circle
around Przemysl was now drawn. The German plan was an advance in force
from the Sieniava-Jaroslav front against the Przemysl-Lemberg railway,
the most vulnerable point of the Russian line of retreat from the
fortress. Fifteen bridges were accordingly erected over the San in
that sector between May 20-24, 1915, across which the German battering
ram was to advance on Przemysl. South of the town mounted patrols came
into touch with Russian cavalry; four Austro-Hungarian and one German
army corps were standing prepared between Dobromil and Sambor; Sambor
was occupied by them. The Russians held the left bank close to the
river from Sieniava to Jaroslav, and northward of the former and to
the west as far as Tarnobrzeg. From Jaroslav their front ran in almost
a straight line for thirty miles southeastward to the outer and
northern forts around Przemysl, described nearly a complete circle
around the western and southern forts to Mosciska on the east, thence
south to Sambor, and from Sambor to Stryj. From Stryj; eastward to the
Bukowina the line remained unaltered. In that region Lechitsky and Von
Pflanzer-Baltin had been conducting a campaign all by themselves; they
were now resting, waiting, watching.
While great Germanic preparations for the capture of Przemysl were
proceeding north of the town, the battle opened on Saturday, May 15,
1915, in the south, against the Russian front between Novemiasto and
Sambor. Here the Austro-German troops were thrown against Hussakow and
Krukenice to hack their way through trenches and barbed-wire
entanglements in order to reach the Przemysl-Lemberg railway and
thereby complete the circle. "At the cost of enormous sacrifices the
enemy succeeded in capturing the trenches of our two battalions."
But on May 17, 1915, these trenches near Hussakow were recaptured by
the Russians. The Austrians returned to the charge, however, and by
May 19 were within six miles of Mosciska. By May 21 they had overcome
the main Russian defenses to the east of Przemysl and were threatening
the garrison's line--their only line--of retreat to Grodek, for other
Germanic forces were advancing upon Mosciska from the north.
On May 21, 1915, the Russians opened a sudden counteroffensive along
the whole line in a desperate effort to save, not the fortress, but
the garrison. The Austrians had destroyed most of the forts before
they surrendered the town on March 22; and forts cannot be built or
reconstructed in a few weeks. Besides, the Austrians knew the ground
too well. Von Mackensen's "phalanx" was meanwhile advancing against
the Jaroslav-Przemysl front with Von Bojna's corps on his right;
Boehm-Ermolli deserted the passes which had so long occupied him and
was now pressing against the south of the town while Von Marwitz on
his right attempted to seize the railway between Sambor and Dobromil.
Von Linsingen was forging ahead toward Stryj and the Dniester; he had
finally worked through the ill-fated Koziova positions, and was now
able to rest his right upon Halicz. From there his connection with Von
Pflanzer-Baltin had been broken by Lechitsky, and was not repaired
till June 6, 1915.
The Russian counteroffensive was a homeopathic remedy, on the
principle of "like curing like:" an enveloping movement against being
enveloped themselves at Przemysl; but the case was hopeless. Yet they
met with some successes of a temporary nature. Between the Vistula and
the San they captured some towns and villages; they also got very
close to Radava, north of Jaroslav, and forced the Austro-German
troops to fall back on to the left bank of the river on a
considerable line of front north of Sieniava, where they captured many
prisoners and guns.
The counteroffensive reached its zenith on May 27, 1915, when
Irmanow's Caucasian Corps stormed Sieniava and captured something like
7,000 men, six big guns, and six pieces of field artillery. Von
Mackensen resumed the offensive on May 24, by advancing due east of
Jaroslav, capturing Drohojow, Ostrov, Vysocko, Makovisko and Vietlin
all in one day. Radymno was occupied by the Austro-Hungarians under
General Arz von Straussenburg, still further narrowing the circle and
compelling the Russians to fall beyond the San. On the twenty-fifth
the Austrians followed them over, captured the bridgehead of Zagrody,
the village of Nienovice and the Heights of Horodysko, while Von
Mackensen's troops farther north captured Height 241. South of the
village of Naklo, between Przemysl and Mosciska, a hill 650 feet high
was violently attacked; it commanded the only line of retreat from the
fortress still left open. To the south of the town the Russian
counteroffensive tried to outflank the Austrian troops which had
approached close to the fortress and the railroad to Lemberg. With the
assistance of strong reenforcements the Russians were able to check
the advance here and make 2,200 prisoners, besides capturing
ammunitions and machine guns.
CHAPTER XLVI
RECAPTURE OF PRZEMYSL
The counteroffensive ended--of necessity--on May 24, 1915. The
Russians could still offer an effective resistance between Krukienice
and Mosciska, but the pressure of continuous attack against their
positions around Hussakow grew fiercer every hour. The enemy was
knocking at the outer ring of the forts; from the west the heaviest
cannons were pouring shot and shell with such violence that the fall
of Przemysl could no longer be prevented. Most of the troops had
already been withdrawn, as well as the supplies and munitions; only a
small garrison remained behind to man the guns of the forts to the
last moment; the little avenue to safety on the east was still open.
On May 30, 1915, the Austrian batteries began their deadly work on the
Grodek line near Medyka. The exit was under fire; since May 17,
Przemysl had been invested from three sides, and the fourth was all
but closed. From the northern side, guarded by the Bavarians under
General Kneusel, twenty-one centimeter Krupp howitzers bombarded the
Russian positions round Korienice and Mackovice, drawing ever nearer
the forts commanding the road and railway to Radymno. The Tenth
Austro-Hungarian Army Corps, approaching from Krasiczyn, endeavored to
rush some of the outer works, but paid heavily for the venture. They
settled down before the forts of Pralkovice, Lipnik, Helicha and
Grochovce, and those round Tatarovka mountain. General Artamoff, the
Russian commander of Przemysl, had laboriously reconstructed some of
the old Austrian forts and equipped them with Russian 12-centimeter
howitzers. As the Austrians had brought only their 15-centimeter
howitzers, they were obliged to wait until their 30.5 batteries
arrived before they could undertake any serious attack.
These batteries came on the scene about May 25, 1915, it took five
days' preparation, and the final bombardment began on the 30th. It was
an ironical circumstance that the Austrians and Germans were in
numerous places sheltering themselves behind the very earthworks which
the Russians had constructed when they were besieging the place two
months earlier. There had been no time to destroy them on the retreat.
The northern sector of the outer ring of forts fell on May 30, 1915,
when the Bavarians captured the Russian positions near Orzechovce. A
terrific bombardment was directed against the entire northern and
northwestern front; great columns of infantry were pushed forward to
finish the cannons' work--still the Russians hung on, ever bent on
doing all possible damage to the enemy.
[Illustration: The triumphal entry of the Austrian uhlans and
artillery into Przemysl. Their horses are decorated with sprays of
leaves]
During the night of May 30-31, 1915, the enemy succeeded in
approaching within 200 paces, and at some points even in gaining a
footing in the precincts of Fort No. 7, around which raged an
obstinate battle that lasted until two in the afternoon of the 31st,
when he was repulsed after suffering enormous losses. The remnants of
the enemy who had entered Fort No. 7, numbering 23 officers and 600
men, were taken prisoners.
Since the 20th of May, 1915, the clearing of the road had been going
on; Von Mackensen battering the western forts and the river line as
far as Jaroslav, and Boehm-Ermolli struggling to force the southern
corner to get within range of the Lemberg railway. On his right, Von
Marwitz had become stuck in the marshes of the Dniester between
Droholycz and Komarno. The Bavarians on the north again let fly their
big guns against the forts round Dunkoviczki on May 31, 1915. At four
in the afternoon they ceased fire; the forts and defenses were
crumpled up into a shapeless mass of wreckage. Now Prussian, Bavarian
and Austrian regiments rushed forward to storm what was left. They
still found some Russians there, severely mauled by the bombardment;
but they could no longer present a front. They retreated behind the
ring. The Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army Corps now made another attempt
on Pralkovice and Lipnik. Von Mackensen's men captured two trenches
near Fort No. 11--"they had to pay a heavy price in blood for every
yard of their advance." Heavy batteries are also spitting fire against
Forts Nos. 10 and 12. When the curtain of night fell over the scene of
carnage and destruction, two breaches had been made in the outer ring
of the forts.
June 2, 1915, dawned--a bright, warm summer's day; the sun rose and
smiled as impassively over the Galician mountains, and valleys, and
plains as it had smiled through countless ages before the genius of
man had invented even the division of time. From all sides of the
doomed fortress eager, determined men were advancing; Fort No. 10 was
captured at noon by the Twenty-second Bavarian Infantry Regiment;
later in the day the Prussian Grenadier Guards took possession of Fort
No. 12; during the night the besieger's troops marched into the
village of Zuravica, within the outer ring. Austrian troops had broken
through from the southwest and also penetrated the inner circle.
June 3, 1915, dawned and again the sun smiles over Galicia and sees
the same iron belt of machinelike men still nearer the fortress; but
the haggard defenders, where are they? Gone! Flown! They have vanished
during the night. Austrians and Bavarians march into the town early in
the morning. The only enemies they meet are the dead.
Przemysl has fallen again--fallen before twenty times as powerful a
blow as that which struck it down seventy-two days earlier.
Before proceeding with the progress of Von Mackensen and his mighty
"phalanx," let us briefly trace the progress of Von Linsingen, whom we
left on the road to Stryj and the Dniester, or rather, attempting to
force that road. While the forts of Przemysl were being smashed in the
north, Von Linsingen was pounding and demolishing the Russian
positions between Uliczna and Bolechov. Heavy mortars and howitzers
were at the same time being placed into position in front of the
Russian trenches between Holobutow and Stryj.
On May 31, 1915, they began to roar, and before long the trenches were
completely pulverized--the very trenches that thousands of Germans and
Austrians had died in in vain attempts to carry by assault. The
Thirty-eighth Hungarian Honved Division were sent to finish the work
of clearance and take possession of Stryj. The entire Russian line
withdrew to the Dniester, step by step, ever fighting their favorite
rear guard actions, killing and capturing thousands of their enemies.
They retired behind the Dniester, but maintained their hold on any
useful strategical position south of the river, so far as was possible
without imperiling the continuity of their line.
We must also consider two more Austro-German sectors in order to bring
the combatants stationed there into line with the Germanic
advance--the Uzsok Pass and the Bukowina-_cum_-Eastern Galicia
sectors. In the former the army of Von Szurmay stood beside that of
Von Linsingen opposite the Ninth Russian Army. Von Szurmay led his
men out of the pass and advanced northward on May 12, after the fall
of Sanok had forced the Russians away from their positions in the
vicinity of it. Their line of retreat was threatened by the Austrian
approach to Sambor.
On May 16, 1915, Von Szurmay moved across the upper Stryj near Turka
and passed along secondary roads in the direction of the oil districts
of Schodnica, Drohobycz and Boryslav, arriving on May 16-17, 1915. Von
Linsingen's troops had started their advance on the same day as those
of Von Szurmay, when the Russians round Koziowa had to retire for the
purpose of keeping in touch with their line: the same pressure that
Sambor exerted on the Uzsok. Here again the Russians adopted
rear-guard tactics and considerable fighting occurred during their
retreat to Stryj and Bolechow, both of which were eventually captured
by Von Linsingen.
In Eastern Galicia and the Bukowina matters had come almost to a
standstill between Lechitsky and Von Pflanzer-Baltin about the middle
of May, 1915. When the former had cut the latter's connection with the
main line, the brigade of General von Blum and other adjoining German
troops on the extreme right of Von Linsingen tried hard to relieve the
pressure of Lechitsky on the Austrian forces. Not till after the fall
of Przemysl was the connection restored, when the Russians had to fall
back from Kalusz and Nadvorna; on June 9 they evacuated Obertzn,
Horodenka, Kocman and Sniatyn. Lechitsky was also compelled to
withdraw from the Bukowina between Zaleszczyki, Onut, and Czernowitz,
where the Austrians were moving along the Dniester in the north, the
Pruth in the south, and over the hills in the center against the
village of Szubraniec. Here the Russians once more inflicted severe
losses on the Austrians, but being in danger from a flanking movement
by the Forty-second Croatian Infantry through the Dniester forests,
they retired from the Bukowina on to Russian territory on June 12,
1915.
CHAPTER XLVII
CAPTURE OF LEMBERG
The capture of Przemysl and of Stryj terminates the second stage of
the Austro-German offensive in Galicia. The third stage may be
described as the battle for Lemberg, or Lwow. Lemberg is the ancient
capital of Galicia, and formerly bore the name of Lwow. The Austrians
many years ago had changed it to "Lemberg." When the Russians captured
the town on September 3, 1914, they had given it back the old Slavonic
name, which, however, was destined soon to be transformed back again
into the more pronounceable appellation of "Lemberg."
It is estimated that between April 28, 1915, and the recapture of
Przemysl the Russian forces in Galicia had been diminished by at least
a quarter of a million casualties. The heaviest losses occurred among
Dmitrieffs troops in the first days of May, 1915, but in the battles
on the San, at the close of the month, the forces of Von Mackensen's
"phalanx" were also greatly reduced. Along the entire Galician front,
it is computed that quite 600,000 Austro-German troops were put out of
action.
While the fight for Przemysl was in full swing an important event of
the war occurred--Italy joined the enemies of Austria on May 3, 1915;
the Dual Monarchy had now to defend her western frontier as well.
Dankl and Von Bojna were transferred to the Italian front with a
considerable portion of their Galician troops. A general
redistribution of units was effected among the Austrian and German
armies. The army of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand was held along the
lower San as far as Sieniava. Von Mackensen was advancing east of
Jaroslav along the railway toward Rawa-Ruska. Boehm-Ermolli was
fighting on the road to Lemberg from Mosciska. An army under Count
Bothmer was operating near the Dniester marshes, beyond which, farther
south, a group of armies under Von Linsingen (mainly German) had
forced the passage of the Dniester at Zuravno, and was trying to
advance on Lemberg and catch Ivanoff's main forces on the flank. This
last movement, if successful, would be the most effective method of
crushing the retreating Russian armies: being thus outflanked, some of
their lines of retreat would be cut and a dissolution of a large
portion of the retiring forces could hardly have been avoided.
However, all attempts in this direction failed. The Russians gradually
rolled up their line on the Dniester from west to east, keeping step
with the retreat of the armies which were facing west. With strong
reenforcements from Kiev and Odessa Brussilov commanded the Dniester
front under the direction of General Ivanoff. If only the ponderous
advance of Von Mackensen could have been arrested, Brussilov would
have had little difficulty in sweeping Von Linsingen back to the
Carpathian barrier. A somewhat similar condition existed in the north,
where the Austrians were at the mercy of Ivanoff's strong right wing.
The archduke's front was smashed at Rudnik early in June, 1915; his
forces were driven back a day's march and lost 4,000 men in prisoners,
besides many guns. The Second, Third and Fourth Tyrolese regiments
were almost annihilated. German troops were hurried to the rescue.
Boehm-Ermolli also got into serious difficulties at Mosciska, where
the Russians held him up for a week with a furious battle. Ivanoff was
scoring points against all his individual opponents excepting only Von
Mackensen. The "phalanx," always kept up to full strength by a
continuous influx of reserves and provided with millions of
high-explosive shells, not only pursued its irresistible course
eastward, but had to turn now right, now left, to help Austrian and
German commanders out of trouble. Heavy howitzers lumbered along the
way to Rawa-Ruska--not to Lemberg, but to the north of it, on the
flank of the Russian army still holding the Lower San. This army had
therefore to retire northward to the river line of the Tanev stream,
cautiously followed by the archduke's forces. The "phalanx" had again
saved them from disaster. Similarly, at Mosciska, when Boehm-Ermolli
tried to storm the Russian position by mass attacks, his infantry was
driven back with such terrible punishment that they could not be
induced to make another advance. There was nothing to be done here,
but wait till Von Mackensen turned the flank of the Russian position
for them, which he did in one of the most stubborn conflicts of the
war--the battle of the Lubaczovka, a tributary of the San between
Rawa-Ruska and Lemberg. Never were the fighting abilities of Slav and
Teuton more severely tested. For over a week the struggle raged; a
half million men were brought up in groups and flung against the
Russian front. Shell, shrapnel, bullets and asphyxiating bombs finally
wore down the Russian resistance.
Incapacitated by physical exhaustion and outnumbered by three to one,
the Russian infantry gave way on June 13, 1915. The "phalanx" drove
into their ranks and advanced rapidly in a northerly direction on its
great flanking movement. But the Russian spirit was not broken, for at
this critical moment General Polodchenko rode out with three regiments
of cavalry--the Don Cossacks, the Chernigov Hussars, and the Kimburn
Dragoons. They dashed into the unbroken lines of the triumphant German
infantry like a living hurricane, sabered the enemy, and put thousands
on the run. Swerving aside, they next charged deep into the German
rear, mauled the reserves into confusion, hacked their way out again
and captured several machine guns. The most remarkable feature about
this extraordinary exploit was the fact that the losses sustained by
the cavalry amounted only to 200 killed and wounded. The effect on the
"phalanx," however, was such that no more attacks were made that day,
and the Russians were able to retire to the hills near Rawa-Ruska.
Ivanoff was now compelled to draw reenforcements from other parts of
the line to strengthen his front at Rawa-Ruska. This meant weakening
Ewarts's against the archduke and Brussilov against Boehm-Ermolli. The
downfall of the Dunajec-Biala front had been attributed by the Russian
War Staff to overconfidence or neglect on the part of General
Dmitrieff, who was subsequently relieved of his command and replaced
by General Lesch. At an official inquiry Dmitrieff was exonerated and
reinstated on the reasonable ground that, whatever precautions of
defense he might have taken, they would have proved ineffective
against the preponderance of the German artillery.
After the battle of Lubaczow the Russian line drew back about twenty
miles. For the defense of Lemberg the front ran in a concave form from
along the River Tanev, five miles from Rawa-Ruska, down to Grodek and
Kolodruby; then eastward behind the Dniester to Zuravno and Halicz.
The marshes of the Dniester, then swollen by heavy rains, formed a
good natural defense; the intrenchments on the hills north of Grodek
to Rawa-Ruska protected the approaches to Lemberg from that direction.
The weakest spot lay around Janov, fifteen miles north of Grodek,
where the level ground would permit the easy transport of heavy
artillery. This position had been fortified with trenches and wire
entanglements. Here also were concentrated the troops withdrawn from
other parts of the line, and four armored trains with quick-firing
guns from the depot at Rovno. General Ivanoff had no intention of
making any decisive stand against the "phalanx"; neither did he think
of risking his armies in a battle for Lemberg. That town was certainly
of great military and political importance--worth a dozen
Przemysls--and worth fighting for. But for that he would need
artillery in enormous quantity. Von Mackensen carried 2,500 guns with
him, as well as siege trains of heavy howitzers. Ivanoff possessed
none of these, and could therefore hope only to fight rear-guard
actions while retiring before Von Mackensen. In any other part of the
Galician line except the center he had little to fear. We left Von
Linsingen forcing the Dniester at Zuravno. He got the bulk of his army
across, the main advance commanded by Von Bothmer, who captured the
northern heights and penetrated the forests near the Stryj-Tarnopol
railway. They were less than fifty miles from Lemberg.
The "retreating" Brussilov suddenly turned round and fell on Von
Bothmer's advance. The fight lasted three days, with the result that
the Austro-Germans were obliged to fall back across the Dniester,
leaving behind 2,000 killed and wounded, besides 17 guns, 78 machine
guns, 348 officers and 15,430 men as prisoners, June 8-10, 1915.
On June 11, 1915, however, the Germans renewed the attack on Zuravno,
recaptured the town, and on June 12 were five miles north of it. By
June 13 they had made ten miles, when Brussilov lashed out again.
Within two days the Germans were back on the Dniester. Von Mackensen
had meanwhile concentrated a new series of heavy batteries around
Jaroslav and formed a new "phalanx" (with reenforcements) west of the
San between Piskorovice and Radymno. Another attempt was preparing to
break through Ivanoff's right wing.
A violent bombardment began on June 12, 1915, and Austro-Hungarian
troops crossed the river and occupied both Sieniava and Piskorovice.
Next day the advance spread along the whole line, extending from
Tarnoviec on the Zlota to the Radymno-Javorov road, pressing north and
eastward against the Russian front. Pivoting on Sieniava, Von
Mackensen swung his right toward Mosciska, which Von Marwitz captured
on June 14, 1915. The same night the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand's
entire army was slowly wheeling from the San toward the Tanev, facing
due north.
On June 16, 1915, the left of this line was already inside the borders
of Russian Poland, and its right wing along the entire Tanev front. By
June 16 numerous towns and villages were taken by the Germans. The
Wolff Telegraphic Bureau announced that Von Mackensen's army had
captured 40,000 men and 69 machine guns, which undoubtedly referred to
all the Galician groups, for on June 12, 1915, Von Mackensen had
"replaced" the Archduke Frederick as generalissimo of the
Austro-Hungarian armies. The "phalanx" was pressing against
Rawa-Ruska, Magierow, and Janov; Boehm-Ermolli against Grodek, part of
which he captured by a midnight assault on June 16. In five weeks the
Russian line or front in Galicia had shrunk from 300 miles to about
100. Before Dunajec, when it was united with the northern groups, it
had represented the longest battle line in the history of the world.
The Russians began to evacuate Lemberg about June 17, 1915, the day
Von Mackensen's right entered Javorov. On the 19th his advance guard
was approaching Rawa-Ruska. Boehm-Ermolli was meanwhile undergoing
severe punishment near Komarno, where an Austrian advance force
endeavored to get through the Grodek Lakes. The Russian artillery
drove them back; for three days there were furious bayonet and cavalry
charges and counter-charges; despite the most terrific bombardments
the Austrian attacks were broken by the desperate Russians. On this
occasion, at least, the Russians were well supplied with shells
hurriedly sent by rail from Kiev, which enabled them to repulse the
Austrians on the lakes. Boehm-Ermolli is said to have lost half of his
effectives in his attempt to penetrate through Grodek and Dornfeld,
fifteen miles south of Lemberg.
Von Mackensen again came to the rescue by making a great turning
movement in the district of Zolkiev, about sixteen miles north of
Lemberg, and attacking the Russian positions about Janov, forcing the
Russians over the hills and the Rawa-Ruska railway to Zolkiev. His
left wing, resting on Lubaczov, swung northward in a wheeling movement
to envelop Rawa-Ruska. But the Russians intercepted the move;
ferocious encounters and Cossack charges threw the Germans back to
their pivot with heavy losses on both sides. Von Mackensen's center,
however, was too strong, and Ivanoff desired no pitched battle--the
only way to check its advance. He therefore fell back between
Rawa-Ruska and Lemberg, yielding the former to Von Mackensen and the
latter to Boehm-Ermolli, who was able to lead his battered troops into
the town on June 22, 1915, without further resistance. Brussilov now
had to withdraw from the Dniester. As at Przemysl, the Russian
garrison departed with all stores and baggage before the victors
arrived. Lemberg had been in Russian possession for 293 days.
A German attack near Rawa-Ruska was repulsed by the Russians on June
25, 1915. For two days the "phalanx" rested to replenish its stock of
shells; when these had arrived along the Przemysl line, Von Mackensen
turned northward in the direction of Kholm on the Lublin-Brest-Litovsk
railway. On his left marched the Austro-Hungarian army of the Archduke
Joseph Ferdinand. These two armies drop out of the Galician campaign
at this stage and become part of the great German offensive against
the Polish salient. The gigantic enveloping movement had failed in the
south; it was now to be attempted against the Russian line in front
of Warsaw, conducted by Von Hindenburg and Von Gallwitz in the
northern sector, and by Von Mackensen, assisted by General Woyrsch and
Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, in the southern. These operations are
described in the pages following.
More than three-fourths of Galicia had now been reconquered, and it
was left to the Austrians and the Germans to complete the conquest.
The campaign was one of the greatest operations of the war. An English
military writer thus describes the achievement: "Only a most
magnificent army organization and a most careful preparation,
extending to infinite detail, could execute a plan of such magnitude
at the speed at which it was done by the Austrian and German armies in
May, 1915."
Not yet, however, were the Russian armies destroyed; to the German War
Staff it was not now a question of taking or retaking territory, but
of striking a final and decisive blow at the vitals of Russia. The
continuous series of reverses suffered by Boehm-Ermolli and Von
Linsingen exerted an important effect on the end of the Galician
campaign: it frustrated the plan of eliminating the Russian forces.
The battle lines in France and Flanders could wait a while till the
Russian power was annihilated.
After the fall of Lemberg, Ivanoff withdrew the main body of his
troops toward the river line of the Bug, Boehm-Ermolli following up
behind. Again that unfortunate general was roughly handled--another of
his divisions was annihilated southeast of Lemberg in a rear-guard
action. Von Linsingen directed his efforts against the Gnila Lipa and
Halicz, while Von Pflanzer-Baltin still operated on the Dniester. For
many months the Russians and Austrians faced each other in eastern
Galicia; they were still skirmishing at the end of the year. Both
Russia and Austria had more important matters on hand elsewhere: the
former against Germany in the north, and the latter with her new
enemy--Italy. Galicia became a side issue.
The Galician campaign will rank as one of the most instructive
episodes in military history, an example of unparalleled calculation,
scientific strategy, and admirable heroism, involving, it is computed,
the terrible sacrifice of at least a million human lives.
PART VII--RUSSO-GERMAN CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER XLVIII
WINTER BATTLES OF THE MAZURIAN LAKES
The battle known in the German official accounts as the "Winter Battle
in Mazurian Land" is sometimes described as the "Nine Days' Battle."
In this sense it is to be considered as beginning on the 7th of
February, 1915, and ending on the 16th, when the German Great
Headquarters reported that the Tenth Russian Army, consisting of at
least eleven infantry and several cavalry divisions, had been driven
out of its strongly fortified positions to the east of the Mazurian
Lake district, forced across the border, and, having been almost
completely surrounded, had been crushingly defeated. In fact, however,
fighting continued as part of the same action until the 21st of
February, 1915, when the pursuit of the defeated army ended.
The forces engaged in this titanic conflict were the Russian Tenth Army,
consisting, according to the Russian version, of four corps, under
General Baron Sievers, and the German East Prussian armies, under
General von Eichhorn, operating on the north on the line
Insterburg-Lötzen, and General von Bülow on the line Lötzen-Johannisburg
to the south of Von Eichhorn. Sources favorable to the Allies represent
the strength of General Sievers's army as 120,000 men. They assert that
the total German force consisted of nine corps, over 300,000 men. These
are said to have included the Twenty-first Corps, which had been with
the Crown Prince of Bavaria in the west; three reserve corps, also from
the west; the Thirty-eighth and Fortieth Corps, new formations, from
the interior of Germany; the equivalent of three corps from other
sections of the eastern front; and a reserve corps of the Guard. The
German official description of the battle credits the Russians with
having had in this sector of the battle front in East Prussia at the
beginning of February six to eight army corps, or about 200,000 men.
For months the heavy fighting in the east had centered on other
sections of the immense battle line, running from the Baltic to the
Carpathians. The second general Russian offensive, the great forward
thrust of the Grand Duke Nicholas toward Cracow in the direction of
Berlin, aimed through the center of the German defense, had been met,
and the German counterthrust toward Warsaw had come to a standstill in
the mud of Poland and before the stone-wall defensive of the Russians
on the Bsura and the Rawka. Attacks launched by the Russians against
the East Prussian frontier, centering at Lyck, in January, 1915,
seemed to forebode a fresh Russian offensive intended to sweep back
the German armies in this section whose position on the Russian right
wing was a continual threat to the communications of the Russian
commander in chief.
The Germans, disposing of comparatively weak forces, estimated at
three army corps, were compelled to yield a strip of East Prussian
territory, and had fallen back to positions of considerable natural
strength formed by the chain of Mazurian Lakes and the line of the
Angerapp River. They reported their forces standing on the defensive
here as 50 per cent Landwehr, 25 per cent Landsturm, and only 25 per
cent other troops not of the reserve. Repeated attempts of the
Russians to gain possession of these fortified positions had, however,
broken down. They had been directed especially against the bridgehead
of Darkehmen and the right wing of the German forces in the Paprodtk
Hills. Wading up to their shoulders in icy water, the hardy troops of
the Third Siberian Corps had attempted in vain to cross the Nietlitz
Swamp, between the lakes to the east of Lyck.
At the beginning of February, 1915, finally Von Hindenburg had been
able to obtain fresh German forces and to put them in position for an
encircling movement against the Russians lying just to the east of the
lakes, from near Tilsit to Johannisburg. With the greatest secrecy the
reenforcements, hidden from observation by their fortified positions,
and the border forces maintaining the defense, were gathered behind
the two German wings. The Russians apparently gained an inkling of the
big move that was impending about the time the advance against their
wings was under way. The first news of the opening of the battle came
to the public in a Russian official announcement of the 9th of
February, 1915, to the effect that on the 7th the Germans had
undertaken the offensive with considerable force in the
Goldap-Johannisburg sector. The northern group of Germans began its
movement somewhat later from the direction of Tilsit.
Extensive preparations had been made by the German leaders to meet the
difficulties of a winter campaign under unfavorable weather
conditions. Thousands of sleighs and hundreds of thousands of sleigh
runners (on which to drag cannon and wagons), held in readiness, were
a part of these preparations for a rapid advance. Deep snow covered
the plain, and the lakes were thickly covered with ice. On the 5th of
February, 1915, a fresh snowstorm set in, accompanied by an icy wind,
which heaped the snow in deep drifts and made tremendously difficult
travel on the roads and railways, completely shutting off motor
traffic.
The Germans on the south, in order to come into contact with the main
Russian forces, had to cross the Johannisburg Forest and the Pisseck
River, which flows out of the southernmost of the chain of lakes. The
attacking columns made their way through the snow-clad forests with
all possible speed, forcing their way through barriers of felled trees
and driving the Russians from the river crossings.
Throughout the 8th of February, 1915, the marching columns moved
through whirling snow clouds, the Germans driving their men forward
relentlessly, so that, in spite of the drifted snow which filled the
roads, certain troops covered on this day a distance of forty
kilometers. The Germans under General von Falck took Snopken by
storm; those under General von Litzmann crossed the Pisseck near
Wrobeln. The immediate objectives of these columns were Johannisburg
and Biala, where strong Russian forces were posted.
On the 9th the southern column, under Von Litzmann, was attacked on
its right flank by Russians coming from Kolna, to the south of them.
The German troops repelled the attack, taking 2,500 prisoners, eight
cannon, and twelve machine guns. General Saleck took Johannisburg, and
Biala was cleared of the Russians. The advance of these southern
columns continued rapidly toward Lyck.
The German left wing at the same time fell overwhelmingly on the
northern end of the Russian line. On the 9th they took the fortified
Russian positions stretching from Spullen to the Schorell Forest and
nearly to the Russian border. They had here hard work to force their
way through wire entanglements of great strength. Having noticed signs
of a retreat on the part of their opponents, these German forces had
on the preceding day begun the attack without waiting for the whole of
their artillery to come up. The Russians retreated toward the
southeast.
Swinging forward toward the Russian border, the German left wing now
exerted itself to the utmost to execute the sweeping encircling movement
for which the strategy of Von Hindenburg had become famous. The Russian
right wing had been turned and was being pressed continually toward the
southeast. The German troops rushed forward in forced marches, ignoring
the difficulties which nature put in their way. By the 10th of February
these columns reached the Pillkallen-Wladislawow line, and by the 11th
the main highway from Gumbinnen to Wilkowyszki. The right wing, up to
the capture of Stallupoehnen, had taken some 4,000 prisoners, four
machine guns, and eleven ammunition wagons. The center of this army, at
the capture of Eydtkuhnen, Wirballen, and Kibarty, took 10,000
prisoners, six cannon, eight machine guns, numerous baggage wagons,
including eighty field kitchens, three military trains and other rolling
stock, a large number of gift packages intended for the Russian troops,
and, of chief interest to the fighting men, a whole day's provisions.
On the afternoon of February 10 some one and a half Russian divisions
had come to a halt in these three neighboring villages: Eydtkuhnen,
Kibarty, and Wirballen. Although it was known that the Germans were
approaching, it was apparently regarded by the Russians as impossible
that pursuers would be able to come up with them in the raging
snowstorm. So certain were they of their security that no outposts
were put on guard. Only thus could it happen that the Germans, who had
not allowed the forces of nature to stop their advance, arrived right
at the Russian position on the same day, though with infantry alone
and merely a few guns, everything else having been left behind, stuck
in the snowdrifts.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE RUSSIANS OUT OF GERMANY
It was evening when the Germans made their surprise attack on
Eydtkuhnen and midnight when they fell upon Wirballen. On the roadway
stood two Russian batteries with twelve guns and a considerable number
of ammunition wagons. The German infantry approached without firing a
shot until they were within fifty yards. Then all the horses were shot
down and the guns and ammunition seized. The men of the battery fled.
In both these towns there was street fighting in the night, lit up by
burning houses which had been fired by the Russians in their retreat.
One of the captured trains was the hospital train of the czar. This
was utilized as headquarters for the night by the staff of General von
Lauenstein.
By the 12th of February, 1915, the German troops of the left wing,
sweeping down from the north and pressing the Russians back from
village to village, were entirely on Russian soil. Wizwiny, Kalwarja,
and Mariampol were occupied on this day. The number of guns taken by
these troops had been increased by seventeen, according to German
reports. The German Headquarters Staff declared that by this time the
Russian Seventy-third and Fifty-sixth Divisions had been as good as
annihilated, and the Twenty-seventh division nearly destroyed. The
Russians lying before the Angerapp line and the defenses of Lötzen had
in the meantime also begun to retreat toward the east. German troops,
consisting chiefly of reserves of the Landwehr and Landsturm which up
to this time had been held back within the German fortified line, now
advanced to attack the yielding army, whose long marching column could
be observed by the German flyers. While General von Eichhorn's troops,
coming from the neighborhood of Tilsit and making their way through
snow and ice, were advancing upon Suwalki and Sejny, and the German
right wing was fighting its way through Grajewo, toward Augustowo, the
center of the troops of General von Bülow for several days fought the
Russians in furious battle in the vicinity of Lyck. From all sides the
Germans were closing in. To protect the withdrawal of this main army
to Suwalki and Augustowo, the Russians endeavored by all means to hold
the narrows of the lakes before Lyck, where they were favored by the
nature of the ground and aided by strong defensive works, for the most
part well provided with wire entanglements. The best of the Russian
troops, Siberian regiments, here fought with great energy under a
determined leadership, and the Russians, in fact, at some places took
the offensive. By the 12th of February, 1915, however, the Germans had
taken these positions and the Russians had withdrawn to the narrow
passages among the lakes before Lyck. The battles around this town
were carried on under the eye of the German Emperor. The German
soldiers were still occupied in hunting through the houses for
scattered Russians as the emperor stepped from his motor car. He was
received with hurrahs, and the soldiers surrounded him, singing
"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles." The emperor, standing amid the
blackened ruins of burned homes, delivered a short address to the
soldiers gathered about him, giving special recognition to Infantry
Regiment No. 33, an East Prussian unit which had especially
distinguished itself and suffered great losses. On the same day the
Germans advanced beyond Lyck, and by the 15th of February no Russian
remained on German soil.
CHAPTER L
TIGHTENING OF THE NET--REPORT OF THE BOOTY
The Russian right, retiring to avoid envelopment, sought the natural
line of retreat along the railway to Kovno. In executing this movement
it turned toward the northeast, and exceeding in speed of movement the
corps to the south of it, the Twentieth, under the command of General
Bulgakov, the latter was left out of the line. In consequence its
right wing was turned and it was pressed down toward the south with
the enemy on three sides of it. It speedily became a broken force in
the forest north of Suwalki. The Russians endeavored to reach the
protection of their great fortress of Grodno. It was the task of the
German division coming down from the north in forced marches to cut
off this way of escape and prevent the Russians coming out of the
forest toward the southeast.
The march of these German troops carried them through great woodlands,
amid frozen lakes, when suddenly a thaw set in. The sleighs which had
been used had to be abandoned and wagons requisitioned on the spot
wherever possible.
An officer with these troops relates that infantrymen were sent
forward on wagons, and on the night following the 15th of February
took Sopozkin, to the east of Augustowo, on the line of the Russian
retreat, capturing the baggage of an entire Russian army corps. "The
morning," he writes, "presented to us a unique picture. Hundreds of
vehicles, baggage carts, machine guns, ammunition, provision and
ambulance wagons stood in a vast disorder in the market place of the
town and in the street. In between were hundreds of horses, some
harnessed, some loose, dead Russians, dead horses, bellowing cattle,
and sounding over it all the words of command of our troops
endeavoring to create order in this mad mix-up, and to take care of
the rich booty. Many an interesting find did we make--'mementos' which
the Russians had taken with them from Prussia and which now were to
find their way back."
A German commander tells how, in their efforts to cut off the Russian
retreat, the artillery were compelled to cross many brooks running
through deep gullies, so that it was necessary frequently to lower
guns and wagons by means of ropes on one side and pull them up on the
other.
One of the German leaders, describing this encircling movement to the
southeast from the north in which he played a part, says: "The roads
and the weather were beyond all description--twelve to fifteen degrees
Reaumur, with a cutting wind and driving snow, with nothing to eat, as
the field kitchens on these roads could not follow. During pauses in
the march one could but lean against the wall of a miserable house or
lie down in the burned-out ruins, without straw to lie on and no
covering. Men and horses sank to their hips in the snow, and so we
worked our way forward, usually only about two kilometers an hour.
Wagons and horses that upset had to be shoveled out of the drifts. It
was a terrible sight, but we got through. We had to go on without
regard for anything, and the example of the higher officers did much."
Two Russian corps from the southern wing of the army retreating by the
Suwalki-Sejny causeway and by the Ossowetz Railway, according to
accounts from Russian sources, made their way out of the trap under
heavy rear-guard fighting.
The escaped portions of the Russian army crossed the Bobr toward
Grodno. From the direction of this Russian stronghold a desperate
effort was made to relieve the four corps which were endeavoring to
escape toward the fortress from the forest southeast of Augustowo into
which they had been pressed by the Germans from the west and north. On
the 21st of February came the final act in the great drama. The German
troops pushed forward at their best speed from all directions toward
the forest. The help that had been intended for them came too late.
Concerning the captures of this day, the German Great Headquarters
reported: "On the 21st of February the remnants of the Tenth Army laid
down their arms in the forest of Augustowo after all attempts of the
Russian commander of this army, General Sievers, to cut a way out for
the encircled four divisions by means of those parts of his army which
remained to him after escaping over the Bobr to Grodno failed with
extremely heavy losses."
Summarizing the results of the entire battle in an announcement of the
22d of February, the German Great Headquarters said: "The pursuit
after the winter battle in Mazurian Land is ended. In cleaning up the
forests to the northwest of Grodno, and in the battles reported during
the last few days in the region of the Bobr and the Narew, there have
been captured to date one commanding general, two division commanders,
four other generals, and in the neighborhood of 40,000 men,
seventy-five cannon, a quantity of machine guns, whose number is not
yet determined, and much other war material.
"The total booty of the winter battle in Mazurian Land, therefore, up
to to-day rises to seven generals, more than 100,000 men, more than
150 cannon, and material of all sorts, inclusive of machine guns,
which cannot yet be approximately estimated. Heavy guns and ammunition
were in many cases buried by the enemy or sunk in the lakes; thus
eight heavy guns were yesterday dug out or hauled out of the water
near Lötzen and Lake Widmin.
"The Tenth Russian Army of General Baron Sievers may, therefore, now
be considered as completely annihilated."
This summary was corrected in a later announcement, which stated that
the number of guns taken as booty in the pursuit after the winter
battle in Mazurian Land had risen to 300, including eighteen heavy
guns. This was published on the 23d of February. In an announcement of
the 26th of February the Great Headquarters amplified its account of
the victory with this statement:
"In the Russian official report the extent of the disaster in the
winter battle of Mazurian Land is either concealed or an attempt is
made to obscure it. It is unnecessary to go further into these
denials. As evidence of the extent of the defeat, the following list
of the positions held by the captured generals, however, may serve:
"Of the Twentieth Army Corps: the commanding general, the commander of
the artillery, the commander of the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth
Infantry Divisions, and of the First Brigade of Infantry of the
Twenty-ninth Infantry Division. The commander of this latter division
succumbed to his wounds soon after being made prisoner.
"Of the Third Army Corps: the commander of the Twenty-seventh Infantry
Division and the commander of the artillery and of the Second Infantry
Brigade of this division.
"Of the Fifty-third Reserve Division: the division commander and the
commander of the First Infantry Brigade.
"Of the First Siberian Cossack Division: a brigade commander."
This brought the total of Russian generals captured up to eleven.
This account of one of the greatest battles of the European War is
necessarily based to a large extent on reports of the Germans, owing
to the fact that material from this source is virtually the only
official account available of the operation as a whole. The Russian
General Staff has contented itself with the following announcement,
made public on February 21, 1915:
"When the Germans, after a series of extraordinary obstinate and
persistent attacks which caused them heavy losses, had recognized the
impossibility of pressing in our front on the left bank of the
Vistula, they turned at the end of January to the execution of a new
plan. After the creation of several new corps in the interior of the
country, and the bringing up of troops from their west front, the
Germans threw important forces into East Prussia. The transportation
of troops was made easier by the extraordinarily developed net of
railways which Germany has at its disposal.
"The task of the new troops sent to East Prussia was to defeat our
Tenth Army, which held strongly constructed positions along the
Angerapp. To assure the success of the undertaking the Germans brought
a portion of their forces from the Bzura and Rawka fronts to the right
bank of the Vistula. A movement of the Germans in East Prussia already
became noticeable on the 4th of February, 1915. But the extent of this
movement could only be recognized a few days later. As our leaders,
because of the lack of railroad lines, could not collect the necessary
forces on the East Prussian front with the necessary speed to meet the
hostile attack adequately, they decided to take back the
above-mentioned army of East Prussia to the border. In this movement
of the right wing the Tenth Army, which was pressed by heavy hostile
forces and threatened with being surrounded from the right, was forced
to make a rapid change of alignment in the direction of Kovno. In this
rapid movement a corps was separated from the rest of the army. The
other corps which continued the battle obstinately without
interruption, slowly drew back in the prescribed direction, bravely
repelling the enemy and inflicting upon him heavy losses. Our troops
overcame unbelievable difficulties, which were caused by the snow
which filled all roads. As the streets were impassable, automobiles
could not run. Trains were delayed and frequently failed to arrive at
their destination. Our corps which formed the left wing of the Tenth
Army held the enemy, while drawing back step for step for nine days on
a stretch of territory which ordinarily is covered in four days. On
the 19th of February these corps withdrawing by way of Augustowo left
the battle field and took the position assigned to them. Further
battles developed in the region before Ossowetz, on the roads from
Lomza to Jedwabno and to the north of Radislow, also halfway between
Plozk and Plonsk. These battles were in places very intense."
An English authority says: "The chief Russian loss was in General
Bulgakov's Twentieth Corps, which the German staff asserted they had
completely destroyed. But during the fortnight which ended on Saturday
the 20th, at least half of that corps and more than two-thirds of its
guns safely made their way through the Augustowo and Suwalki woods to
the position which had been prepared for the Russian defense. The
total Russian losses may have been 80 guns and 30,000 men; they were
no more. The two southern corps, in spite of their stubborn action at
Lyck, crossed the woods between Augustowo and Ossowetz without serious
disaster."
CHAPTER LI
BATTLES OF PRZASNYSZ--BEFORE MLAWA
The shattering of the Tenth Russian Army in the "winter battle" of the
Mazurian Lakes was part of a greater conflict which in February, 1915,
extended far down the armies on the right flank of the great Russian
battle line which ran from the Baltic to the Dniester. A "new gigantic
plan" of the Slavs was involved. As interpreted by the German General
Staff it meant that while the extreme northern wing of the Russian
armies was to sweep westward through the projecting section of
Germany, East Prussia, along the Baltic another Russian army was to
advance in force from the south against the corner formed by West
Prussia and the Vistula. With vast masses of cavalry in the van, it
was to break through the boundary between Mlawa and Thorn, and pushing
northward, come into the rear of those German forces which were facing
eastward against the attack aimed at East Prussia from the northeast.
For operations in this section the Russians had favorable railway
connections. Two railways terminating at Ostrolenka permitted the
rapid unloading of large masses of troops at this point, and the line
Warsaw-Mlawa-Soldau led straight into the territory aimed at by such
an invasion. It seemed easily credible that the Russian commander in
chief did, as reported, give orders that Mlawa should be taken be the
cost what it might.
The northern Russian armies based upon the fortresses of Kovno and
Grodno on the Niemen had not fully started on their part of this great,
well-planned undertaking when the German counteroffensive was suddenly
launched with tremendous strength from the Tilsit-Insterburg-Mazurian
Lakes line. The disaster which followed, and which banished all hope of
an advance of the Russians on this wing, has been described on a
preceding page. While the Germans, using to the best advantage their net
of railroads for the swift accumulation of troops, had gathered large
forces on the Mazurian Lakes line, they had at the same time
strengthened the troops standing on the southern boundary of West and
East Prussia. An artillery officer, General von Gallwitz, was placed in
command of this army with orders to protect the right flank of the
German armies attacking in Mazurian Land, and to prevent the expected
Russian attempt at invasion in his own sector of the front.
While the "winter battle" was raging to the east of him, Von Gallwitz
in the characteristic German fashion of defense by a strong offensive
moved forward up the right bank of the Vistula to Plozk. A cavalry
division and regiments of the Guard at Sierpe and Racionz, February
12-18, 1915, won well-earned laurels for themselves by driving an
enemy of superior strength before them. At Dobrin, according to German
report, they took 2,500 prisoners.
General von Gallwitz's plan, however, was of more ambitious scope. It
was his intention, by encircling the Russians in the territory before
him from both wings, to sweep clear of enemies the entire stretch of
country in the Polish triangle between the Vistula and the Orczy
rivers. The right wing of his troops that had come down the bank of
the Vistula was to swing to the eastward in behind the Russians.
German troops which had arrived at Willenberg inside of the East
Prussian boundary, one of the German concentration points on the line
of railroad lying behind their front, on the other hand, received
orders to descend the valley of the Orczy and to come in behind the
Russian right flank from the east. These troops, making a wide detour,
swept past Przasnysz on the east, and swinging round to the south of
the city attacked the Russians holding the place from this direction.
The Germans had understood that only small Russian forces were in the
city. Anticipating the German movement, however, a Russian division,
as the Germans learned later, had hastened to Przasnysz. The Russians
also had collected large forces on the Narew, and were hurrying them
toward Przasnysz on roads covering a wide front. Two full Russian
corps from this line were flung upon the German left wing.
The forces of Von Gallwitz which had carried out the encircling
movement from the east and south of Przasnysz now found themselves
caught between two Russian armies. However, they were unwilling to
relinquish the booty which they had planned to seize. A part of the
German forces was disposed in a half circle as a defense against the
Russians coming up from the south, and a division of reserves,
February 24, stormed Przasnysz. The German Great Headquarters
announced that the Germans captured 10,000 prisoners, including 57
officers, and took 36 cannon, 14 machine guns, and much war material
of various sorts. However, the Russian troops were now pressing
forward from the south with irresistible force. The Germans, in
consequence, slowly fell back, fighting under great difficulties, and
moving northward toward their defensive lines, carrying with them
their prisoners and booty.
The Russian General Staff on the first of March, 1915, devoted an
explicit account to the fighting about Przasnysz which differs but
slightly from the narrative by the German Great Headquarters which has in
general been followed in the preceding description. Both sides apparently
considered the operation of special importance, and as reflecting credit
upon their respective troops. The Russian story emphasizes the attacks
made by their force on the line Lyssakowo-Chainovo simultaneously from
north and south, that is, both in the flank and in the rear of the
Germans to the west of Przasnysz. They represent their troops in the city
as having consisted of only a brigade of infantry and some insignificant
cavalry units. On the 25th of February, when the Germans had established
themselves in the town, the Russians, according to their account, were
pressing their enemies hard upon a long front from Krasnoseltz through
Vengerzinovo, Kolatschkowo to Voliaverlowska.
On the evening of this day they drove the Germans into positions close
to the city. The Thirty-sixth German Reserve Division on the same
evening is said to have met serious disaster after a determined
resistance at the crossings of the Anetz. On the evening of the next
day the Russians began to reenter Przasnysz, but did not completely
occupy the town until the night after the 27th. "The Germans," the
Russian account continues, "hereupon began a disorderly retreat,
endeavoring to withdraw in the direction of Mlawa-Chorgele. Regardless
of the exhaustion consequent upon the marching they had undergone and
four days of battle, our troops energetically took up the pursuit of
the enemy. On the 28th of February they inflicted serious losses upon
his rear guard. In these battles we seized a large amount of booty.
The total number of prisoners amounts to at least 10,000." The
Russians maintain that they had defeated no less than two German army
corps and thrown them back to the border.
On the 12th of March, 1915, the German Great Headquarters protested
against this version of the affair, and pointed to the fact that
within a few days their troops were again threatening Przasnysz, and
that since giving up the city they had captured on the battle fields
between the Vistula and the Orczy no less than 11,460 Russians.
The city of Przasnysz itself suffered heavily in these attacks and
counterattacks. For days and nights it had lain under bombardment and
repeatedly fierce, hand-to-hand combats had been fought in its
streets. Most of the houses of the place were left mere heaps of
smoking ruins.
From the German point of view this offensive just north of the Vistula
which included the temporary capture of Przasnysz was a success,
especially in this, that it had prevented the big Russian forward
movement against the West Prussian boundary which the impending great
Russian offensive had foreboded. It had been impossible for the
Russians seriously to endanger the German flank in this section, while
the Germans had struck to the east in the "winter battle," and had
definitely spoiled the Russian appetite for invasion from the
Kovno-Grodno line.
As though determined to avenge their defeat to the east of the lakes,
the Russians now continued to direct a series of fierce attacks in the
direction of Mlawa, intending apparently to break through the German
line of defense between Soldau and Neidenburg. It was said that the
Russians believed General von Hindenburg in person to be in charge of
the German forces in this sector. In consequence the German troops for
the most part were forced to stand upon the defensive. In the
beginning of March the Russian attacks increased steadily in violence.
They broke against the German positions to the east and south of
Mlawa, according to German reports, with enormous losses. At Demsk, to
the east of Mlawa, long rows of white stones mark common graves of
masses of Russians who perished before the German barbed-wire
entanglements. The Germans point to these as dumb witnesses of the
disaster that overtook forty-eight Russian companies that assaulted
ten German ones. The cold weather at this time had made possible the
swampy regions in which the Orczy rises, and had enabled the Russians
to approach close to the German line of defense.
The Russian attack at this point in the night of the 7th of March,
1915, was typical of the fighting on this line in these weeks. After a
thousand shells from the Russian heavy guns had descended upon and
behind Demsk, a seemingly ceaseless series of infantry attacks set in.
They were carried close up to the lines of wire of the German defense.
Enough light, however, was shed by the searchlights and light balls
shot from pistols to enable the Germans to direct a destructive
infantry and machine-gun fire on the approaching lines. Those of the
Russians who did not fall, fled to the next depression in the ground.
There they were held by the beams of the searchlights until daybreak.
Then they surrendered to the German patrols. Of another attack a few
kilometers farther to the north, at Kapusnik, the Germans reported
that after the enemy had penetrated into their trenches and had been
driven out in a desperate bayonet fight, they buried 906 Russians and
164 Germans.
On the 8th of March, 1915, General von Gallwitz again tried an
offensive with fresh forces which he had gathered. It was thwarted,
however, on the 12th, to the north of Przasnysz. The Germans estimated
the Russian forces which here were brought, up for the counterattack
at some ten army corps and seven cavalry divisions. The Russians in
advancing this time, instead of directing their thrust at Mlawa,
pushed northeastward of Przasnysz along the rivers Orczy and Omulew.
In this sector the Germans counted from the 13th to the 23d of March
forty-six serious assaults, twenty-five in the daytime and twenty-one
at night. With special fury the battles raged in the neighborhood of
Jednorozez. This attempt to break into Prussia was also unsuccessful,
and in the last week of March the Russian attacks slackened, quiet
ensuing for the weeks following Easter.
For six weeks the armies had struggled back and forth in this bloody
angle, fighting in cold and wet, amid snow and icy rains. The Germans
asserted that in these six weeks the troops of General von Gallwitz
had captured 43,000 Russians and slain some 25,000. They estimated the
total losses of the enemy in this sector during the period at 100,000.
Countless graves scattered about the land, and the ruins of cities and
villages were left to keep awake the memory of some of the fiercest
fighting of the war in the east.
CHAPTER LII
FIGHTING BEFORE THE NIEMEN AND BOBR--BOMBARDMENT OF OSSOWETZ
The winter battles of the Mazurian Lakes had forced the armies at the
northern end of the Russian right flank back into their great
fortresses Kovno and Grodno, and behind the line of the Niemen and the
Bobr. A great forest region lies to the east and north of Grodno, and
between the Niemen and the cities of Augustowo and Suwalki which the
Germans, after their successful offensive, used as bases for their
operations. A strip of country including these forests, and running
parallel to the Niemen was a sort of no-man's land in the spring of
1915. Movements of troops in the heavily wooded country were difficult
to observe, and the conditions lent themselves to surprise attacks.
This resulted in a warfare of alternate thrusts by Russians and
Germans aimed now at this point, now at that, in the disputed
territory. Several actions during the spring stand out beyond the rest
in importance, both because of the numbers engaged and their effects.
In what follows will be described a typical offensive movement in this
district undertaken by the Russians, and the way it was met by the
Germans.
A new Russian Tenth Army had been organized by the end of February,
1915, with Grodno for its base. General Sievers, his chief of staff,
and the general in command of the Third Russian Army Corps had been
demoted from their commands, and three new army corps (Two, Three, and
Fifteen) had been brought to Grodno. The ranks of the remaining corps
that had suffered in the "winter battle" had been filled up with fresh
recruits. Hardly had the German pursuit in the forest of Augustowo
come to an end when the freshly strengthened Russians moved forward
from their defensive lines in a counterattack. The Germans had been
engaged in the task of gathering and carting away their enormous booty
which lay scattered about the forest. They now drew back from in front
of the Russian fortified lines to prepare positions close to
Augustowo, and on a line running roughly north and south from this
place, with the forest in front of them.
The Third Russian Army Corps advanced from Simno toward Lozdsisjo,
their Second Army Corps from Grodno by way of Kopiewo and Sejny toward
Krasnopol and other Russian corps advanced through the forest of
Augustowo. Here they soon struck strong German resistance, and for
several days vainly attacked German fortified positions.
On the 9th of March, 1915, a German offensive began against the
Russian Third Corps which held the right wing of the advancing army.
When this corps suddenly found itself threatened in the flank from the
north and in danger of being surrounded it hastily began to retreat
toward the east and southeast, leaving several hundred prisoners and
several machine guns in the hands of the Germans. This withdrawal
exposed the right flank of the adjoining Second Army Corps, which by
this time, March 9, 1915, had reached Berzniki and Giby. The German
attack was now continued against this corps. It was cold weather, the
thermometer was considerably below the freezing point, and the roads
were slippery with ice, so that dozens of horses fell, completely
exhausted, and the infantry could march only two or three kilometers
an hour.
On March 9 and 10, 1915, the battle flamed up at Sejny and Berzniki,
the Russian corps, which had developed its front toward the west,
being forced to swing about and face the north, whence the Germans
were driving down upon it. At Berzniki two Russian regiments made up
entirely of young troops were, according to the German account,
completely annihilated, and the commanders of the regiments captured.
It seemed as though the leader of the Russian armies saw approaching a
repetition of the encircling movements that had proved fatal to the
Russians in the Mazurian "winter battle," for on the 10th of March he
gave orders for the withdrawal of his entire army. The German airmen
on this day reported the Russian columns on the march through the
forest in full retreat toward Grodno all along the line from Giby to
Sztabiz, far to the south.
On the 11th of March, 1915, the German troops vigorously pushed the
pursuit. They occupied Makarze, Froncki, and Giby. On the same night a
German cavalry division took Kopciovo by assault. At this place alone
they counted 300 dead Russians, and more than 5,000 prisoners, 12
machine guns, and 3 cannon, fell into the hands of the Germans.
The threatened envelopment of this Russian army was typical of the
method employed by the leaders under Von Hindenburg in local
operations, as it was of German method in general when applied to
operations extending over the entire field of action. It could be
applied with special success where the German information service was
superior to that of the Russians, as it usually was, and the movements
of German troops were facilitated by good railway connections. In the
Augustowo forests, however, rapidity of movement had to be achieved by
the legs of the German soldiers to a large extent, and on this they
prided themselves not a little. The operation just described was
regarded by the German Great Headquarters as being of great
significance, valuable for its moral effect in establishing in the
German troops a sense of superiority, and confidence in their
leadership, and for its infliction of material losses of considerable
moment on the Russians.
The Russians likewise claimed advantages from their forward thrust
from Grodno. As represented by the Russian General Staff the
withdrawal of the Germans from a front close to the line of the
fortress in the first place was not a voluntary one, as it is pictured
in the German account, but was forced by the strong pressure exerted
by the Russian attacks following upon their retreat after the "winter
battle." Thus they report the complete defeat of two German army
corps, resulting in the seizure by the Russians of Height 100.3, which
they described as dominating the entire region of the operations
before Grodno. "In this battle," says the Russian report of March 5,
1915, "we took 1,000 prisoners and six cannon and a machine gun.
Height 100.3 was defended by the Twenty-first Corps, the best of them
all which lost during the battle 12,000 to 15,000 soldiers, as can be
estimated from the dead left behind. After the shattering of the
German counterattack at Height 100.3 the operations of the enemy
became entirely passive. We, on the other hand, took village after
village, and everywhere made prisoners."
The fortress of Ossowetz on the Bobr River proved inconquerable by the
42-centimeter mortars which had worked such terrific effects on the
forts of Belgium and France. It was continually under German artillery
fire through the months of February and March, 1915, without suffering
appreciable damage. The great mortars were brought up within range of
the fortress with much difficulty, owing to the fact that the place is
almost completely surrounded by swamps. The Germans apparently had
counted seriously at first on making a breach in the Russian defensive
lines at this place. After persistent attempts to make an impression
on the fortress with their heaviest guns they were obliged, however,
to content themselves with keeping the garrison in check so as to
forestall offensive moves.
A German artillery officer who took part in the bombardment relates
that the chief obstacle to the pressing home of an attack were several
heavily armored batteries which lay concealed outside the visible
works of the fortress itself in the broad strip of swampland
surrounding it. These were built deep into the ground, protected by
thick earthworks, and very effectively screened from observation. They
were a constant menace and apparently could not be destroyed by the
German fire. Even though the main fort itself had been destroyed they
would have prevented the approach of the enemy's troops, for they
commanded the only causeway leading through the swamps to the fortress
and would have blown to pieces any infantry that ventured to push
along this road.
Furthermore, even the intense cold did not make the swamp passable
except by the roadway because warm springs here and there prevented
the ice from freezing sufficiently strong to bear the troops. The
German gunners noted too that their shots fell practically without
effect, plunging quietly into the mud to a great depth so that they
did not even throw up earth or mud.
The result was that the 42-centimeter monsters were hastily withdrawn
after a few trial shots and the bombardment was continued with a
battery of 28-centimeter coast defense guns, an Austrian motor
battery, a 30.5-centimeter mortar and some other heavy batteries. The
fire rose to considerable intensity in the last days of February and
the first days of March.
On the 3d of March the Russians in their official report dwelt on the
fierceness of the bombardment and its ineffectiveness. On the 16th
they reported that the Germans were pushing several of their batteries
up into closer range, as they had recognized the uselessness of
shooting from a greater distance and on the 18th they stated that the
fire was falling off. On the 22d, finally, they reported that
beginning with the 21st the Germans had been withdrawing their heavy
batteries. They added that a 42-centimeter mortar had been damaged by
the Russian fire, and that "not a single shot of these mortars has
reached the fortress, not a redoubt has been penetrated. The
superiority of the artillery fire evidently rests with us. The German
attack was not only far removed from placing the fortifications of
Ossowetz in a critical position, it did not even succeed in driving
our infantry out of the field works."
On the 27th of March there was a resumption of the bombardment on a
small scale and another effort began on April 11 with some heavy guns,
ending in an attempted advance which was repulsed without difficulty
by the Russians.
CHAPTER LIII
RUSSIAN RAID ON MEMEL
An event in which no great number of troops were concerned, but which
is of importance, because of the feeling which it aroused in Germany
and because it was the first of a series of operations in what was
practically a new theatre of the war was the Russian invasion of the
very northernmost tip of East Prussia. On Thursday, the 18th of March,
1915, the Russians coming simultaneously from the north and the east
across the border of Courland, moved on the Prussian city of Memel in
several columns. Their troops included seven battalions of militia
with six or eight guns of an old model, several squadrons of mounted
men, two companies of marines, a battalion of a reserve regiment, and
border defense troops from Riga and Libau, a total of some 6,000 to
10,000 men. The German Landsturm troops at the Prussian boundary fell
back on Memel, not being in sufficient force to resist the advance.
They were finally driven through the city and across the narrow strip
of water known as the Kurische Haff to the dunes along the shore of
the Baltic. The Russians burned down numerous buildings along the
roads on which they approached, according to the German report,
inflicting heavy damage on fifteen villages. A considerable number of
the inhabitants, including women and children, were removed to Russia,
and a number of civilians were killed. The troops entered the city on
the evening of March 18 and took the mayor and three other men of the
town as hostages. Apparently the Russian commander made some efforts
to restrain his men, but plundering of stores and dwellings
nevertheless occurred. On the 20th of March, 1915, the city was for a
time cleared of Russian troops, but on Sunday, the 21st, other
soldiers entered the town from the north. These were met by German
patrols, which were followed by stronger German forces that had come
up from the south to drive back the invaders. Street fighting
followed, and the Russians were finally thrown out, losing about 150
dead.
The Russians were pursued on March 22 and 23, 1915, and in passing
through Polangen, close to the shore of the Baltic, came under the
fire of German cruisers. They lost some 500 prisoners, 3 guns, 3
machine guns, and ammunition wagons. With the German troops which
cleared the Russians out of Memel was the son of the emperor, Prince
Joachim of Prussia.
Concerning this raid the following official announcement was made by
the Germans on March 18, 1915: "Russian militia troops have gained a
cheap success in the northernmost corner of East Prussia in the
direction of Memel. They have plundered and burned villages and farms.
As a penalty, we have ordered the cities occupied by us in Russian
territory to pay considerable sums in damages. For every village or
farm burned down by these hordes on German soil three villages or
farms of the territory occupied by us in Russia will be given over to
the flames. Each act of damage in Memel will be answered by the
burning of Russian Government buildings in Suwalki and other capitals
of governments."
To this the following Russian official reply was made on March 21,
1915: "The official communiqué of the German Great Headquarters of the
18th of March concerning the movement of Russian troops against Memel
contains a threat of reprisals to be exacted on Russian villages and
cities held by the enemy on account of the losses which might be
suffered by the population in the neighborhood of Memel. The Russian
General Staff gives public notice that Memel was openly defended by
hostile troops, and that battle was offered in the streets. Since the
civil population took part in this fight our troops were compelled to
reply with corresponding measures. If, therefore, the German troops
should carry out their threat against the peaceful inhabitants of the
Russian territory which they hold, such acts should be considered not
as reprisals but as independent acts. Responsibility for this, as well
as for the consequences, would rest upon the Germans."
The move against Memel was apparently part of a Russian operation
which was intended also to strike at the city of Tilsit. The German
Great Headquarters reported that for operations intended to seize the
northern regions of East Prussia a so-called Riga-Shavli army group
had been formed under the command of General Apuchtin. While portions
of these troops were active in Memel on March 18, 1915, the fourteen
German Landsturm companies holding Tauroggen, just to the north of the
East Prussian boundary, were attacked by superior forces and
practically surrounded. They fought their way through to Langszargen
with some difficulty, and were being pressed back on the road to
Tilsit when on March 23 German reenforcements came up and General von
Pappritz, leading the Germans, went over to the offensive.
A heavy thaw made movement of troops anywhere except on the main roads
extremely difficult. Guns were left stuck in the mud, and the infantry
waded to the knee in water, and sometimes to the waist. It is reported
that one of the horses of the artillery literally was drowned on the
road. Germans attacked Tauroggen, where the enemy had intrenched
himself, under an artillery fire directed from the church tower of the
place. On the 28th the town was taken, after a difficult crossing of
the Jura River in front of it, on the ice. The Germans then exulted in
the fact that not a Russian was left on German soil.
CHAPTER LIV
GERMAN INVASION OF COURLAND--CAPTURE OF LIBAU
On the 20th of April, 1915, an announcement was made by the German
Great Headquarters which took the Russians and the world in general
more or less by surprise. It gave the first glimpse to the public of a
group of operations which caused no little speculation in the minds of
strategists. It read:
"The advance troops of our forces operating in northwestern Russia
yesterday reached on a broad front the railway running from Dunaburg
(Dvinsk) to Libau. Thus far the Russian troops present in that region,
including also the remnants of those which took part in the raid
against Memel, have attempted no serious resistance anywhere. Fighting
is now in progress near Shavli."
The advance into Courland here announced had been made by the German
troops at high speed. The forces were under the command of General von
Lauenstein. They had begun to move early on the 27th of April, in
three columns. One of these crossed the Niemen at Schmalleningken,
forming the right wing of the troops engaged in the movement. The
columns of the left wing broke out of East Prussia at its northernmost
point, and moved along the dunes of the Baltic. On the second day of
the forward march it was learned by the leaders of the advancing
troops that the Russians had hastily left their position at Skawdwile,
on the main road from Tilsit to Mitau, to escape being surrounded on
their left flank, and had withdrawn to Shavli by way of Heilmy. On the
third day the German right column crossed the Windawski Canal under
the enemy's fire, and on the afternoon of the 30th of April this
column entered Shavli, which had been set on fire by the Russians.
[Illustration: German Advance on Riga.]
The Germans had now crossed at several points the Libau-Dunaburg
railway. They were in Telsche and Trischki. Their cavalry pushed ahead
at full speed with orders to destroy the railways wherever it found
them. On the road to Mitau they captured Russian machine guns,
ammunition wagons, and baggage, and broke up the railway tracks to the
southwest and northwest of Shavli. The Russians who had been taken by
surprise by this movement had apparently only weak forces in Courland,
and these had retired while reenforcements were being rushed up by
railway. The German infantry, upon the receipt of reports that the
Russians were moving up by rail from Kovno on their right flank, was
ordered to stop its advance and prepare to hold the Dubissa line,
taking up a front running a little east of south. Cavalry moving
forward in the center of the German advance on the 3d of May, 1915,
got within two kilometers of Mitau, going beyond Grünhof and capturing
2,000 Russians. At Skaisgiry on the day before 1,000 prisoners had
been taken, and Janischki and Shagory had been occupied far beyond the
Libau-Dunaburg railway. By this time Russian reenforcements were
arriving at Mitau in huge numbers. The German cavalry ultimately fell
back after indicting all possible damage to the communications in
their reach.
The Germans prided themselves a good deal on the marching of their
troops in this swift advance. They pointed out that the roads were in
extremely bad condition, the bridges for the most destroyed, and the
population to a large extent hostile. A military correspondent figured
that for a daily march of fifty kilometers, such as was frequently
made in Courland, 62,000 steps of an average of eighty centimeters
were required. This for a day's march of from nine to ten hours gives
an average of five to six kilometers per hour, some 6,000 to 7,000
steps. That makes in the neighborhood of 100 steps per minute, which
the correspondent regarded as a considerable accomplishment when
allowance is made for the fact that this was kept up hour after hour
in full marching equipment.
The column coming from Memel, directed along the Baltic shores, had
been steadily moving on Libau. In preparation for the land attack
German naval vessels on the 29th of April had bombarded the forts
defending the town. On the 6th of May the Russians themselves blew up
one of the forts on the eastern front. The shore batteries were soon
after silenced by German fire. The German troops advancing from the
land side took the forts on the south almost without opposition.
Russian troops which had been unloaded at Mitau and sent forward
toward the southwest were unable to come up in time to offer any
obstacles to the German advance, and on the 8th of May, at six o'clock
in the morning, the German soldiers marched into Libau, where they
took about 1,500 prisoners, twelve guns, and a number of machine guns.
The Germans immediately turned the metal-working plants of the city to
their uses in the manufacture of chains, barbed wire, etc. They also
found here a large supply of tools for intrenching work. Most of the
Russians of the city had fled. One motive for the German advance into
Courland advanced by their enemies was that it was an attempt to
include a rich section of country in foraging operations, and it is a
fact that the German authorities gave expression to their satisfaction
at seizing a region that was of considerable economic value. It is
apparent, however, in regarding these operations in the retrospect
that they had no small bearing on the German plan of campaign as a
whole. It was at the time that the inroad into Courland was started
that the signal was about to be given for the great onslaught far to
the south on the Dunajec, as described in the account of the
Austro-Russian campaign. As the vast campaign along the whole eastern
front developed, it became more and more apparent that the position of
the German troops in Courland placed them advantageously for taking
the Russian line of defenses, of which the fortress of Kovno
represented the northern end in the flank in this carrying out of an
important part of the vast encircling movement which took all Poland
in its grasp. They were a constant threat to the all-important
Vilna-Petrograd Railway.
In hostile and neutral countries the Courland invasion provoked
comment indicating astonishment at the resources of the Teutonic
powers in being able to extend their lines while already fully engaged
on an enormous front.
The Russians, awakening from their first astonishment, made vigorous
attempts to obtain permanent possession of the Dubissa line. Along
this line the German troops were for a time forced to yield ground and
to go into the defensive and to resist heavy Russian attacks. Shavli
was given up under Russian pressure. By May 14, all the territory east
of the Dubissa and Windau (Vindowa) was reported free of Germans.
Especially noteworthy among the struggles for the Dubissa was the
fight at Rossiennie, a town which was of special importance because of
its command of the roads centering in it. On the 22d of May, 1915, an
attack was delivered against this place by the First Caucasian Rifle
Brigade with artillery and assisted by the Fifteenth Cavalry Division.
On the 23d the German cavalry which had resisted their crossing the
river drew back, and the Russians here crossed the Dubissa,
approaching Rossiennie from the north. The Germans during the night
moved the greater part of their troops around the western wing of
their opponents and placed them in position for attack.
At daybreak heavy artillery fire was poured upon the Russians from the
German position to the north of Rossiennie, while at the same time the
German infantry fell upon the Russian flank and rolled it up, with the
result that the Russians were compelled to recross the Dubissa. In the
crossing numerous wounded were drowned in the river. The Germans took
2,500 prisoners and fifteen machine guns. Similar counterattacks were
delivered by the Germans on the River Wenta. Then, on the 5th of June,
1915, a general offensive was entered upon by the whole German line on
orders from the General Staff, which carried it beyond the Dubissa,
and after heavy fighting finally secured for the Germans the Windawski
Canal, which they had had to relinquish before. Their troops now
slowly pushed their way back toward Shavli until the city came within
reach of their heavy guns, and took Kuze, twelve kilometers to the
northwest of Shavli on the railway. On the 14th of June, 1915, this
series of operations came to a temporary halt. German official reports
pointed to the fact that among 14,000 prisoners which they had taken
there were only a few officers, and that with these not a single
cannon was captured. They regarded it as showing that the Russians
were getting very cautious in the use of their artillery and were
short of officers.
CHAPTER LV
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE FROM KOVNO--FOREST BATTLES IN MAY AND JUNE
Offensives on a large scale such as that which had been prevented by
the "Winter Battle of the Mazurian Lakes" were not attempted by the
Russians on their northern wing after the short counterattack that had
pushed their lines into the Mlawa angle in the corner of the Vistula
and the Prussian boundary beyond Przasnysz, to the east of Thorn. They
virtually remained in their strongly fortified positions along the
Narew, the Bobr, and the Niemen, except for the sending out of
occasional attacking columns against the German lines lying opposite
to them.
These forward thrusts were made especially from the fortresses Grodno
and Kovno, and the fortified place Olita. We have already dealt with
one such operation which came to grief in the forest of Augustowo in
March. The German invasion of Courland had taken place, and the
extension of the German lines to the north invited a thrust at their
communications when, in the middle of May, the Russians attempted to
break through the German lines with columns starting from the great
forest to the west of Kovno. Here German troops under General
Litzmann, acting under the command of General von Eichhorn, stood on
guard. When Litzmann received information that the Russians were
advancing in force he was obliged hastily to gather such troops as he
could find to stem the Russian attack. Troop units from a large
variety of different organizations were freshly grouped practically on
the battle field. At Szaki and Gryszkabuda, on May 17-20, they struck
the Russians with such force that the Slavs were driven back into the
forests.
The German general now decided to clear this territory of his enemies,
as it had given them a constant opportunity for the preparation of
moves which could not be readily observed, because of the protection
of the thick woods. Again he executed the favorite maneuver of Von
Hindenburg's armies. He gathered as heavy a weight of troops as
possible on his left wing and pushed them forward in an extended
encircling movement. From the south a strong column from Mariampol and
the line of the Szsczupa moved upon the fortified position of the
Russians and the southern corner of the great forest, meeting with
strong resistance at Dumbowa Ruda. The troops moving down from the
northern part of the woods swung to their right to cut off the
Russians from their retreat toward Kovno. By the time the operations
had reached this stage it was the second week in June, 1915, and in
the great pine forests extending for miles there was an oppressive
heat with perfect absence of breeze. Three Russian positions lying in
the river valleys in the forest were encircled one after another from
the north and had to be given up.
The Russians recognized the danger of the concentric attack directed
at them and fought with great bravery. They strove to keep open the
road of their retreat toward Kovno as long as possible. However, the
ring of the German troops closed swiftly. At Koslowa Ruda, in the
southern part of the forest, they found at night a sleeping army;
something like 3,000 Russians had lain down exhausted in order on the
next day to find the last opening through which to make their escape.
They were now saved the trouble and were led away prisoners. The great
forest was cleared of Russians. The German move had served to insure
the safety of the lines connecting the troops in Courland with their
bases to the south of the Niemen.
In an official announcement of the 18th of March, 1915, the German
Government sketched the line held in the east by the German troops
northward of the front covered by joint German and Austrian forces. It
read: "The line occupied by us in the east runs from the Pilica,
along the Rawka and Bzura to the Vistula. North of the Vistula the
line of our troops is continued from the region to the east of Plozkz
by way of Zurominek-Stupsk (both south of Mlawa). From there it runs
in an easterly direction through the region to the north of
Przasnysz--south of Mystinez, south of Kolno--to the north of Lomza,
and strikes the Bobr at Mocarce. From here it follows the line of the
Bobr to northwest of Ossowetz, which is under our fire, and runs by
way of the region to east of Augustowo, by Krasnopol, Mariempol,
Pilwiszki, Szaki, along the border through Tauroggen to the northwest.
This is from beginning to end entirely on hostile soil." This long
line, it appears, was under the supreme command of Von Hindenburg,
while Von Mackensen had charge of the great drive to the south.
The statement here quoted was issued as reassurance to Germans who had
been made nervous by reports of a Russian invasion of East Prussia,
and was connected with the Russian raid on Memel.
Until June there was practically no change in this great line, except
that on its northern end it was swung outward into Russian territory
to include a large part of Courland, the River Dubissa roughly forming
the dividing line until the front swung eastward toward Libau, in the
line of the Libau-Dunaburg Railway.
The tasks of both German and Russian troops were similar.
Comparatively weak German forces held the front in the region of the
Niemen, the Bobr, and the Narew, safeguarding such Russian territory
as had been seized by the Germans, and protecting East Prussia against
invasion. Opposed to them lay considerable Russian forces whose task
it was, supported by the fortresses of the Narew and the Niemen,
especially Grodno, to protect the flank and rear of the Russians
standing in Warsaw and southward in the bend of the Vistula, with the
Warsaw-Vilna Railway behind them, while great decisions were fought
for in the Carpathians and Galicia.
In Poland, between the lower and the upper courses of the Vistula, the
Germans about the middle of February, 1915, having occupied the
Rawka-Sucha ridge of upland, had developed fortified positions along
the rivers Bzura, Rawka, Pilica, and Nida. The bad weather of the
winter and early spring, which had turned the roads of Poland into
pathless morasses, made against extensive operations, and the
momentous undertakings carried out on the wings of the eastern front
led the German General Staff to refrain from important movements in
this section, where the Russians had strongly fortified themselves for
the protection of Warsaw. It was not until the Teutonic allies had
gone over to the offensive in the Carpathians and in western Galicia,
and the Russians had withdrawn to the Polish hills of Lysa-Gora early
in May, that, favored by improved weather conditions, operations in
this part of Poland again took on larger scope. Especially along the
Bzura the German attacks again became violent in an effort to hold the
Russian forces in the district to the west of Warsaw while thrusting
at their wings from the south and north. However, fighting was not of
great consequence in this middle sector until the middle of June,
1915.
CHAPTER LVI
CAMPAIGN IN SOUTHERN POLAND--MOVEMENT UPON WARSAW
By the 1st of July, 1915, the stupendous enveloping campaign of the
Teuton armies on the eastern front had advanced to a point where the
Allies were forced to recognize the imminence of a catastrophe, which
could be averted only by the most decisive action of the Russian
armies.
Far in the north, on the extreme right wing of the Russians, the army
of General von Bülow was hammering at the defenses of the Dubissa
line. Off and on fighting was taking place in the neighborhood of
Shavli. Russian counterattacks, reported from day to day through June,
with difficulty had held in check this army, which evidently was
aiming at the Warsaw-Petrograd Railway on the sector between Vilna
and Dvinsk. On the right flank of these forces operated the troops of
General von Eichhorn, with the line of the Niemen for their objective.
Next to these on the south, aiming at the Bobr River and the Upper
Narew, were the forces of General von Scholtz, and on their right the
army of Von Gallwitz, based on Mlawa with Przasnysz in front of it.
Below the line of the Vistula, before the Bzura and down to the middle
course of the Pilica, operated the Ninth German Army, commanded, at
least in the later stages of the Warsaw campaign, by Prince Leopold of
Bavaria. The whole group of northern and central armies was acting
under the general direction of Field Marshal von Hindenburg.
The armies to the south of this group, cooperating in the drive under
Field Marshal von Mackensen which had gained the Teutons Przemysl and
Lemberg, had as their left flank the forces of Generals von Woyrsch
and Kövess between the Pilica and the Vistula mouth of the San. The
troops of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand were pushing forward on the right
of these, and the army directly under Mackensen himself came next in
line to the eastward, joining up with the armies still operating in
Galicia at the extreme right of the great German battle line.
The chief danger to the Russians at this stage still threatened from
the south, where the archduke and Mackensen had pushed forward
irresistibly in their advance to the east of the Vistula toward the
railway running from Warsaw through Ivangorod, Lublin, Cholm, and
Kovell to Kiev and Moscow.
The advance of these Austro-German armies, which had operated in the
neighborhood of Lemberg, was extremely rapid in the last days of June,
1915. In four days they covered from thirty to forty miles in pursuit
of the Russians. By the 1st of July, having swept out of Galicia,
their right, under Mackensen, entered the upper valley of the Wieprz,
a marshy country which presented considerable difficulty to the
advance of troops where a tributary of the Wieprz, the Por, afforded
the Russians a natural line of defense. Drasnik, on the Wyznica, which
here extended the Russian defensive line westward, was occupied by the
archduke's forces on Mackensen's left on the 1st of July, 1915.
The drive of the Austro-German armies through Galicia has been dealt
with in the account of the Austro-Russian campaign. As we carry
forward the account of the activities of the greatest part of the
forces concerned in that series of operations from the point where
they crossed over the boundary between Galicia and Poland out of
Austrian territory, it will be well to glance backward a moment to
enumerate here briefly the gains of these armies on Polish soil up to
the 1st of July.
On June 16, 1915, the Teutonic allies forced the Russians to fall back
upon Tarnograd from north of Siemandria, thus pushing this section of
the front across the boundary into Poland about to the line of the
Tanev. Tarnograd itself was occupied by the Teutons on the 17th, and
on the 18th the Russians retreated behind the Tanev. There was little
change in this particular sector during the fighting which was crowned
for the Austro-Germans by the capture of Lemberg on June 22, 1915.
Further to the east, however, to the south of the Pilica and west of
the Vistula, Von Woyrsch was exerting pressure, and on the 20th of
June Berlin announced the capture of several Russian advance posts by
these troops. By the 24th the Slavs had begun to retreat before Von
Woyrsch in the forest region south of the Ilza on the left bank of the
Vistula; thus rear guards had been thrown across the Kamienna, and
Sandomir was occupied by the Austro-Hungarians. On the 25th the
fighting developed on the line Zarvichost-Sienno-Ilza, to which the
Russians had fallen back.
Defeats of the Russian rear guards on June 29, 1915, to the northeast
and west of Tomaszow, where Teutonic forces had now also crossed into
Poland, caused the Slavs to begin the relinquishment of the Tanev
forest district and the lower San. Tomaszow itself was occupied by the
pursuing troops. By the 30th the Teutonic allies had swept forward
beyond the Tanev region to Franpol, Zamoez, and Komarovo, and on the
same evening they threw the Russians out of their strong defenses on
the Zavichost-Ozarow-Sienno line, west of the Vistula. The pursuit was
pushed energetically on both sides of the Kamienna. The important
bridgehead on the Vistula, Josefovo, was taken on the 1st of July.
The Russians between the Bug and the Vistula were now offering strong
resistance with large forces on the line Turobin-Krasnik-Josefovo, the
rivers Por and Wyznica forming roughly their defensive front, as
previously pointed out.
In its daily bulletins of July 1, 1915, the German Great Headquarters
made this announcement for the eastern theatre of war (from the Baltic
to the Pilica): "The booty for June is: Two colors, 25,595 prisoners,
including 121 officers, seven cannon, six mine throwers, fifty-two
machine guns, one aeroplane, also a large amount of war material." For
the southeastern theatre of war (from the Pilica to Bukowina) the
headquarters announced: "The total booty for June of the allied troops
fighting under the command of General von Linsingen, Field Marshal von
Mackensen, and General von Worysch is 409 officers, 140,650 men, 80
cannon, 268 machine guns." The Austro-Hungarian General Staff on the
same day reported: "The total booty for June of the troops fighting
under Austro-Hungarian command in the northeast is 521 officers,
194,000 men, 93 cannon, 364 machine guns, 78 ammunition wagons, 100
field railway carriages, etc."
CHAPTER LVII
BATTLE OF KRASNIK--CAPTURE OF PRZASNYSZ
On July 2, 1915, the forces of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand which had
passed through Krasnik, on the Lublin road, struck serious resistance
from the Russian army of General Loesche which held strong positions
across the highway, just to the north of the town, and was now
evidently determined to stop once for all the Teuton advance toward
the railway at its back, connecting Warsaw with Kiev, through Lublin
and Cholm.
On July 3, 1915, the Austrian report, however, announced that 4,800
prisoners and three machine guns had been taken in the neighborhood of
Krasnik and along the Por stream, and the next day they reported that
they had occupied the heights which run along to the north of the
city, having pierced the enemy's main position on both sides of
Studzianki, and taken more than 1,000 prisoners, three machine guns
and three cannon.
The Russian front was turned to such an extent that they had to fall
back some three miles on the Lublin road. The Austrians on the 5th of
July summed up their enemy's losses as twenty-nine officers, 8,000
men, six cannon, five ammunition wagons, and six machine guns. As the
result of this Austrian advance the adjoining enemy forces to the
eastward along the Wieprz River had been obliged to fall back beyond
Tarnograd, and by the 6th of July Vienna summarized the Austrian
captures in these battles as having grown to forty-one officers,
11,500 men.
The Austrians, however, could make no further headway. On July 5,
1915, they were heavily attacked, being forced back to their
intrenched lines on a ridge of hills to the north of Krasnik. The
Russians now reported that they had taken 15,000 prisoners and a large
number of machine guns. Two thousand bodies were reported by the
Russians to have been found before their front. More prisoners were
taken by the Russians on the 7th and it was only on the afternoon of
July 9 that the Austrians were able to stem the tide. The total loss
of the Austrians in this action was given by their opponents as 15,000
men.
The Austrian explanation of their retirement in front of Krasnik
issued on July 11, 1915, pointed out that the relative subsidence of
activity of the Teutonic allies was due to the fact that the goal set
for the Lemberg campaign had now been attained. This, they explained,
was the taking of the city and the securing of strong defensive
positions to the east and north. The ridge to the northward of Krasnik
was a natural choice for this purpose on the north, while the line of
the Zlota Lipa and Bug rivers served the purpose toward the east (see
Austro-Russian campaign). The Austrian explanation pointed out further
that some of their troops had rushed beyond the positions originally
selected to meet heavy reenforcements brought up by the Russians from
Lublin, and that these had to withdraw to the ridge, where they were
successfully resisting all attacks.
The battle of Krasnik was regarded by the Russians as an effective
victory, for it seemed to have halted the advance on Lublin. The army
of Von Mackensen had now also come to a stop about halfway between
Zamosc and Krasnostav, an artillery duel on July 7, 1915, being the
last activity noted on the front of this army for some time.
Their comparative quiet in the region between the Vistula and the Bug
where the main advance of the Teutonic forces on the south had been
under way with great vigor for several weeks until the check at
Krasnik was not interrupted until July 16, 1915. Day after day the
Teutonic headquarters reported "nothing of importance" in this
quarter. When the quiet was finally broken it appeared that it had
been the lull before the storm. Before taking up again the activities
on this section of the front, it will be necessary to take a glance
toward the northern half of the great arc that enveloped the Warsaw
salient on two sides.
In these early days of July, 1915, considerable uncertainty prevailed
among those who were watching the progress of the campaign in Poland
as to where the heaviest blow of the Teutons would fall, whether from
the south or the north. The decisive stroke came with lightning
suddenness. A tremendous attack was launched in the direction of the
Narew by the army of General von Gallwitz.
A laconic announcement of the German General Staff on July 14, 1915,
bore momentous news, although its modest wording scarcely betrayed the
facts. It read: "Between the Niemen and the Vistula, in the region of
Walwarga, southwest of Kolno, near Przasnysz and south of Mlawa, our
troops have achieved some local successes." The Russian report
referring to the beginning of the same action was equally
noncommittal, though possibly more misleading. This states:
"Considerable enemy forces between the Orczy and the Lidynja adopted
the offensive and the Russians declining a decisive engagement
retreated during the night of the 13th to the second line of their
positions."
On July 15, 1915, the Germans announced that the city of Przasnysz,
for which such hot battles had been fought in February, and which had
since been strongly fortified by the Russians, had been occupied by
them. The German summary of this action given out a few days later
stated that three Russian defensive lines lying one behind the other
northwest and northeast of Przasnysz had been pierced and taken, the
troops at once rushing forward to Dzielin and Lipa, respectively west
and east of the town. Under attack from these two points the Russians
after yielding Przasnysz, on the 14th, retired to their defensive line
Ciechanow-Krasnosielc which had been prepared long beforehand. On the
15th the German troops pressing closer upon the retiring Slavs stormed
this line and broke through it to the south of Zielona on a breadth of
seven kilometers, forcing the Russians again to retire. General von
Gallwitz's troops in this assault were supported by the forces of
General von Scholtz, on their left, who were pressing the Russians
from the direction of Kolno. On July 16, 1915, the Russians were
retreating on the whole front between the Pissa and the Vistula,
toward the Narew.
The German summary of the fighting during these days reported the
capture by the army of General von Gallwitz of eighty-eight officers,
17,500 men, thirteen cannon (including one heavy gun), forty machine
guns, and seven mine throwers; and by the army of General von Scholtz
of 2,500 prisoners and eight machine guns.
This great attack in the north, to which may be ascribed the final
breaking of the lines that had so long protected Warsaw, had been
carefully planned and undoubtedly was timed in coordination with the
movements of Mackensen's armies on the south, striking the Russians
just when Mackensen and the Archduke Josef, having had time for
recuperation and preparation for another push forward after the check
administered at Krasnik, were in readiness to inflict a heavy blow on
their side of the Warsaw salient. When it began the German lines all
along the front burst into fresh activity. It was the signal for a
simultaneous assault along nearly a thousand miles of battle front.
In the Mlawa sector to the north of Przasnysz the Russians had
developed an exceedingly strong system of fortified positions between
their advance lines and the Narew fortresses. For miles, to a depth of
from fifteen to twenty kilometers, there ran some three or four and at
certain points even five systems of trenches, one behind the other.
Hundreds of thousands of thick tree trunks had been worked into these
defensive works and millions of sand bags piled up as breastwork.
Bombproof dugouts had been constructed deep in the ground. Everywhere
there were strong wire entanglements before the front, sometimes sunk
below the level of the earth, arranged in from two to three rows.
Projecting bastions and thoroughly protected observation posts gave
these systems of trenches the character of permanent fortifications.
The country in this region is hilly, with here and there steep
declivities and peaks of considerable elevation. The Russians had cut
down whole stretches of forest in order to afford them a free field
for their fire and an opportunity to observe the advance of their
opponents. Enveloping tactics on the part of the Germans were here
quite excluded as the two lines ran uninterruptedly close to one
another. Przasnysz which had become a heap of ruins had been converted
virtually into a fortress by strong defensive works built while the
Germans and Russians lay opposite each other in front of it throughout
the spring. The country round about had been drenched with much German
and Russian blood.
General von Gallwitz, to capture a place with the least possible loss,
decided to break through the Russian defenses at two points at both
sides of the town sufficiently close to each other so that the
intervening lines would be immediately affected. His attacks were
therefore directed at the first line Russian positions, which formed
projecting angles to the northwest and northeast of Przasnysz so that
instead of taking the city directly from the front he would seize it
as with a gigantic pair of pincers from both sides and behind. The
plan succeeded to the full. The Russian lines were broken on both
sides of the city and the German troops, rushing through, met behind
it, forcing the Russian defenders hastily to evacuate the place to
avoid being caught within the circle.
Strong infantry forces were collected opposite the points of attack,
and enormous masses of artillery were placed in position with
abundance of ammunition in readiness. The preparations had been made
with all possible secrecy and even when the German batteries had begun
gradually to get their range by testing shots no serious assault seems
to have been expected by the Russians. On the morning of the attack
they were just to inaugurate service on a small passenger railway line
they had constructed behind their front.
On the morning of July 13, 1915, soon after sunrise, a tremendous
cannonade was let loose from guns of all calibers. Although the
weather was rainy and not well fitted for observation the German guns
seem to have found their marks with great accuracy. When the German
infantry stormed the first line of works which had been shattered by
the artillery fire they met with comparatively little resistance and
their losses were small. The bombardment apparently had done its work
thoroughly. The German infantry rushes were started in successive
intervals of a quarter of an hour, line following line. Swarms of
unarmed Russians could be seen coming out of the trenches seeking to
save themselves from the terrible effect of the shell fire by
surrendering. During the course of the forenoon the sun came out and
illuminated a scene of terrific destruction. The Russian positions on
the heights northwest of Przasnysz had been completely leveled. In
their impetuous forward rush the German troops did not give the enemy
time to make a stand in his second line of trenches and overrunning
this, by night began to enter the third Russian defensive line.
Przasnysz was flanked in the course of twenty-four hours and could no
longer be held. A fine rain was falling as the German columns marched
through the deserted, smoke-blackened city, a melancholy setting for a
victory.
On July 14, 1915, the German troops had broken through on both sides
of the city, met to the south of it and forming a mighty battering
ram, on the next day, forced the next Russian line, the last, to the
north of the Narew. This ran through Wysogrod-Ciechanow-Zielona to
Kranosiele. The Russians here made a desperate defense and the German
advance pushed forward but slowly. The effect of the German artillery
fire seems not to have been as striking as on the first day of battle.
The German report of the attack on this line points out that the
regiment of the Guard holding the right wing of a division which was
to attack the heights to the south and southeast of Zielona was
impatient to go forward, and was allowed to advance before the
reserves which were to be held in readiness to support the move had
come up.
However, confident of the accuracy with which the "black brothers"
(shells from the big guns) struck the enemy's trenches, the riflemen
leapt forward through fields of grain as soon as they saw that a gust
of their shells had struck in front of them. By means of signs which
been agreed upon they then signaled their new positions and the guns
laid their fire another hundred meters farther forward. The
infantrymen then stormed ahead into the newly made shell craters. Thus
they went forward again and again. Neither Russian fire nor the double
barbed wire entanglements were able to check their assaults.
As the German shouts rolled forth the Russians ran. A neighboring
division consisting of young men who had enlisted in the course of the
war, in a brilliant charge took a bastion at Klosnowo. The effect of
this first penetration of the Russian main position made itself felt
in the course of the afternoon and night along the whole front.
Further German forces were thrown into the breach and strove to widen
it.
The Russians at many points resisted obstinately, but under the
pressure from the front and in the flank they were finally unable to
hold their ground. The German account speaks with admiration of the
ride to death of a Russian cavalry brigade which attacked the German
infantry southeast of Opinozura without achieving any results.
Cossacks and Hussars were mowed down in an instant.
The German advance taking several intermediate places did not halt
until it stood before the fortification of the Narew line itself. As a
result of this stroke the German troops had advanced some forty to
fifty kilometers into hostile territory on a breadth of a hundred and
twenty kilometers and had captured some 10,000 prisoners and much war
material. By the 18th of July, 1915, German trains were running as far
as Ciechanow.
Advances were likewise made by the Germans to the right of the attack
on the Przasnysz positions on both sides of the Mlawa-Ciechanow
Railway, rolling up the Russian positions as far as Plonsk. On the
left progress had also been made and heavy fighting done, but the
German great headquarters pointed out that in times to come history
will assign the important place to the central feature of this great
offensive by General von Gallwitz, that is the enveloping attack at
Przasnysz and the ramming thrust at Zielona.
The report issued by the Russian General Staff on July 19, 1915,
admitted that to the west of Omulev their troops had withdrawn to the
Narew bridgeheads on the 17th. The points of some of the German
columns on this day, in fact, came within the range of the artillery
of the fortress of Novo-Georgievsk and the army of General von Scholtz
reached the line of the Bobr and the Narew between Osowice and
Ostrolenka. The action at Przasnysz had been decisive. It resulted
ultimately in the relinquishing by the Russians of the lines of the
Rawka and Bzura which had been so stubbornly held against the Germans
in the long defense of Warsaw. The troops directly charged here with
defending the capital fell back to the Blonie lines about fifteen
miles from the city.
CHAPTER LVIII
GRAND OFFENSIVE ON THE WARSAW SALIENT
The great stroke at Przasnysz was the most dramatic feature of a grand
offensive all around the German lines that were endeavoring to close
in upon the Russian armies. On July 16, 1915, the Archduke Joseph
struck hard at the Russians on the Krasnik-Lublin road in an endeavor
to carry the fortified positions at Wilkolaz. His men, however, were
thrown back after ten furious assaults. Krasnostav, on the road to
Cholm, was attacked on the same day by the army of General von
Mackensen, and after a series of desperate rear-guard actions had been
fought by the Russians was swept over by the German Allies. By the
close of the day the Germans had taken twenty-eight officers, 6,380
men, and nine machine guns.
The Germans, prepared in the recent pause in the fighting, by the
bringing up of their artillery on the long lines of communication
which now stretched behind them, with troops reenforced by such fresh
forces as they could muster, were hurling themselves upon the Russian
defensive positions everywhere along the line. Thus, on the forenoon
of July 17, 1915, the army of General von Woyrsch, whose objective was
the mighty fortress Ivangorod, operating just to the west of the upper
Vistula, broke through the Russian wire entanglements and stormed the
enemy's trenches on a stretch of 2,000 meters. The breach was widened
in desperate hand-to-hand combat. The Teutons by evening inflicted a
heavy defeat on the Moscow Grenadier Corps at this point and the
Russians were forced to retreat behind the Ilzanka to the south of
Swolen. Some 2,000 men were taken prisoners by the Germans in this
battle and five machine guns were captured.
Far in the northeast in Courland the army of General von Bülow, on
July 17, 1915, defeated Russian forces that had been rushed up at
Alt-Auz, taking 3,620 prisoners, six cannon and three machine guns,
and pursuing the Slavs in an easterly direction. Desperate fighting
was also taking place to the northeast of Kurschany.
Notes of anxiety mixed with consoling speculations had begun to appear
in the press of the allied countries when the vast German offensive
had thus become plainly revealed and had demonstrated its driving
force. A Petrograd dispatch to the London "Morning Post" on the 15th
of July, 1915, said of the German plan that it was to catch the
Russian armies like a nut between nut crackers, that the two fronts
moving up from north and south were intended to meet on another and
grind everything between them to powder. The area between the
attacking forces was some eighty miles in extent, north to south, by
120 miles west to east. The writer offered the consolation that this
space was well fortified, the kernel of the nut "sound and healthy,
being formed of the Russian armies, inspired not merely with the
righteousness of their cause, but the fullest confidence in themselves
and absolute devotion to the proved genius of their commander in
chief."
The dispatch pointed out that it was all sheer frontal fighting, that
the Germans had been twelve months trying frontal attacks against
Warsaw on a comparatively narrow front and in vain. What chance had
they, he added, "of success by dividing their forces against the
united strength of Russia." This sort of argument is typical of the
endeavor to sustain the hopes of Russia's friends during these days.
Doubts, however, began to creep in more strongly as to the possibility
of holding Warsaw.
In Berlin the announcement of the Teutonic victories that began with
the successful assault at Przasnysz was received with general
rejoicing, and the appearance of flags all over the city. The Russian
retreat toward the Narew River in particular was regarded by the
military critics as threatening momentarily to crumble up the right
flank of the positions of the Russians before the capital of Poland.
[Illustration: German Attempts to reach Warsaw in 1914.]
Cholm and Lublin on the southern line of communication of the Russian
armies were now in imminent danger. On July 19, 1915, came the
announcement that the troops under Field Marshal von Mackensen, which
had pierced the Russian line in the region of Pilaskowice and
Krasnostav, had increased their successes, and that the Russians were
making the most desperate effort to prevent complete defeat. All day
the battle had swayed in a fierce struggle for mastery. The Russians
threw a fresh division of the Guards into the fight, but this too had
to yield to the overwhelming force of the Teuton onslaught. Farther to
the east as far as the neighborhood of Grabowiec, Austro-Hungarian and
German troops forced the crossing of the Wolica, and near Sokal in
Galicia Austro-Hungarian troops crossed the Bug. (See Austro-Russian
Campaign.) In consequence of these Teuton successes the Russians on
the night of the 18th to the 19th of July retreated along the whole
front between the Vistula and the Bug--practically the last line of
defense, for the Warsaw-Kiev railway had been broken down. The German
troops and the corps under the command of Field Marshal von Arz alone
from the 15th to the 18th of July, 1915, took 16,250 prisoners and 23
machine guns.
It was announced by the Germans that according to written orders
captured during this action the Russian leaders had resolved to hold
the positions here conquered by the Germans to the utmost, regardless
of losses.
The same day that brought the report of this Russian retreat on the
south brought the news that in the adjoining sector to the west of the
Upper Vistula the army of General von Woyrsch had met resistance from
the Russians behind the Ilzanka after the Russian defeat on July 13,
1915, that, however, Silesian Landwehr on the 18th had captured the
Russian defenses at Ciepilovo by storm, and that the Russian line at
Kasonow and Barenow was beginning to yield. The army of General von
Gallwitz had now taken up positions along the whole Narew line from
southwest of Ostrolenka to Novo Georgievsk. The Russians, however, as
already indicated, were still holding fortified places and bridgeheads
on the right bank of the river. In this sector the number of prisoners
taken by the Germans had risen to 101 officers and 28,760 men.
In the sector next adjoining, passing onward around the enveloping
lines, that lying between the Pissa and the Szkwa, the Russians
likewise had retreated until they stood directly on the Narew. Here
the Slavs had been favored by forests and swampy land which made
pursuit difficult.
At the extreme left end of the German line a magnificent success had
been achieved in the occupation of Tukkum and Windau. This capture
brought the Germans to within fifty miles of Riga, seat of the
governor general of the Baltic provinces. They were, however, destined
not to make any substantial progress in the direction of that city for
many months to come.
Blow fell upon blow. The question "Can Warsaw be held?" began to
receive doubtful answers in the allied capitals. The colossal
coordinate movement of the Teutonic forces in these July days had
received so little check from the Russian resistance that the British
press had begun to discount the fall of the Polish capital. Shortness
of ammunition and artillery was ascribed as the cause of Russia's
failure to make a successful stand against the onrushing Teutons.
On July 20, 1915, Berlin announced the capture of those fortifications of
Ostrolenka lying on the northwest bank of the Narew River. This was one
of the strong places designed to protect the Warsaw-Grodno-Petrograd
railway. The threatened fall was highly significant. To the south of the
Vistula the Teuton troops had advanced to the Blonie-Grojec lines. Blonie
is some seventeen miles west of Warsaw and Grojec twenty-six miles south
of the city.
Farther eastward and to the south troops of the army of General von
Woyrsch had completely turned the enemy out of the Ilzanka positions,
having repulsed the counterattacks of the Russian reserves which had
been quickly brought up, and captured more than 5,000 prisoners. Von
Woyrsch's cavalry had now reached the railway line from Radom to the
great fortress of Ivangorod, the objective point of this army, and
Radom itself had been seized.
CHAPTER LIX
BEGINNING OF THE END
So uncertain had grown the positions of Lublin on the southern railway
line leading to Warsaw that the Russian commander in chief had issued
an order that in case of a retreat the male population of the town was
to attach itself to the retiring troops.
On July 21, 1915, the Russians throughout the empire were reported to
be joining in prayer. "Yesterday evening," telegraphed the London
"Daily Mail's" Petrograd correspondent on the 21st, "the bells in all
the churches throughout Russia clanged a call to prayer for a
twenty-four hours' continual service of intercession for victory.
"To-day, in spite of the heat, the churches were packed. Hour after
hour the people stand wedged together while the priests and choirs
chant interminable litanies. Outside the Kamian Cathedral here an
open-air Mass is being celebrated in the presence of an enormous
crowd."
The chronicle of the closing days of July, 1915, is an unbroken
narrative of forward movements of German armies on all parts of the
great semicircle. The movement now, however, was slow. The Russians
were fighting desperately, and the Germans had to win their way inch
by inch. By the 21st the Russians were withdrawing in Courland to the
east of the line Popeljany-Kurtschany, and the last Russian trenches
westward of Shavly had been taken by assault. To the north of Novgorod
the capture of Russian positions had yielded 2,000 prisoners and two
machine guns to the Germans on the 20th.
Farther south on the Narew a strong work of the fortress Rozan
defending an important crossing was stormed by the Germans, and
desperate fighting was going on at Pultusk and near Georgievsk.
Already the Russians were beginning to yield their positions to the
west of Grojec, which meant that the Teuton armies were about to push
into the opening between Warsaw and Ivangorod and divide the Russian
forces. The armies of Von Woyrsch on July 20, 1915, seized a
projecting bridgehead to the south of Ivangorod, and captured the
lines that had been held by the Russians near Wladislavow.
In the positions defending the railway between Cholm and Lublin,
Russian resistance was once more marked, and was checking the progress
of the armies of Von Mackensen and Archduke Joseph Ferdinand.
By noon of July 21, 1915, the Silesian troops of Von Woyrsch had
stormed the bridgehead on the Vistula between Lagow and Lugawa-Wola,
with the result that Ivangorod was now inclosed from the south, while
to northwest of the fortress Austro-Hungarian troops were fighting on
the west bank of the Vistula. Austro-Hungarian troops too were
battling their way close up to the fortress directly from the west.
Line after line was giving way before the Teutons. The Russian retreat
over the bridge at Novo Alexandria to the south of Ivangorod was
carried on under the fire of German artillery. Numerous villages set
afire by the Russians were now sending great clouds of smoke into the
sky over all this region.
The troops of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, after a stubborn
resistance on the part of the Russians, seized enemy positions on July
21, 1915, near Chodel and Borzechow, advancing another step toward
Lublin. Eight thousand Russian prisoners, 15 machine guns, and 4
ammunition wagons were taken.
By the 23d of July, 1915, the Teutonic troops were close up to the
encircling forts of Ivangorod and stood on the Vistula all the way
between the fortress and the mouth of the Pilica. On the 24th the
Teutons announced a victory over the Fifth Russian Army by General von
Bülow at Shavli. The report read: "After ten days of continuous
fighting, marching, and pursuit, the German troops yesterday succeeded
in bringing the Russians to a stand in the regions of Rozalin and
Szadow and in defeating them and scattering their forces. The booty
since the beginning of this operation on the 14th of July consists of
27,000 prisoners, 25 cannon, 40 machine guns, more than 100 loaded
ammunition wagons with their draft animals, numerous baggage wagons
and other material."
This day brought the announcement also of the capture of the
fortresses of Rozan and Pultusk on the Narew, after violent charges by
troops of General von Gallwitz. The crossing of the Narew between
these places was now in German hands, and strong forces were advancing
on the southern shore. The Russians had been resisting obstinately in
this quarter, and the Germans had made their way only by the most
heroic efforts. German headquarters announced at this time that in the
battles between the Niemen and the Vistula covering the ten days since
July 14, 1915, more than 41,000 prisoners, 14 cannon, and 19 machine
guns had been captured. The German troops now also attained the
Vistula to the north of the Pilica. In their summing up of results
since the 14th of July the Teutons recounted further on this day, the
24th, that some 50,000 prisoners had been taken by the armies of
General von Woyrsch and Field Marshal von Mackensen during the period.
The army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand had been making rapid progress.
On July 24, 1915, under the attacks of these troops the Russians
retreated on a front of forty kilometers, between the Vistula and the
Bistritza, from eight to ten kilometers northward to prepared lines,
their attempts to halt in intermediate positions being frustrated by
the onrush of the victorious Teutonic forces in pursuit.
By July 25, 1915, the Narew had been crossed by the Germans along its
whole front, southward from Ostrolenka to Pultusk, and by the 26th they
had gained the farther side of the Narew above Ostrolenka likewise. The
troops moving southeast from Pultusk now approached the Bug, getting
toward the rear of Novo Georgievsk and Warsaw, and threatening to close
the Russians' line of escape, the Warsaw-Bielostok railway.
On July 26, 1915, the Russians made a determined counteroffensive from
the line of Goworowo-Wyszkow-Serock in an effort to remove the threat
to the rear of Warsaw. This, however, had little success, the Russians
losing 3,319 men to the Germans in prisoners.
To the south of Warsaw the Germans had seized the villages of Ustanov,
Lbiska, and Jazarzew, which brought them nearly to the Vistula, just
below the capital.
The great attacks of the Germans on the troops defending Warsaw were
being hampered to some extent by the laying waste of the country by
the retiring Russians. Difficulty in moving heavy artillery on roads
had also interfered with their progress, but on the morning of July
28, 1915, Von Woyrsch crossed to the eastern shore of the Vistula
between the mouth of the Pilica and Kozienice at several places, and
was threatening the Warsaw-Ivangorod railway.
Novo Georgievsk was steadily being inclosed. The Russian
counterthrusts in the neighborhood of Warsaw both on the north and the
south of the city were repelled by night and day. To the south near
Gora-Kalvaria a desperate attempt of the Russians to push forward
toward the west on the night from July 27th to the 28th, 1915, was
shattered.
The armies of Field Marshal von Mackensen, breaking through Russian
positions to the west of the Wieprz, captured thousands of prisoners
and many guns, and once more thrust back the Russian front between the
Vistula and the Bug. On the evening of the 29th they attained the
Warsaw-Kiev railway at Biskupice, about halfway between Lublin and
Cholm, thus crowning their efforts to get astride their important line
of communications. The Russians were destroying everything of value in
the country as they retired, even burning grain in the fields.
On the afternoon of July 30, 1915, Lublin at last was occupied by the
army of the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, and on the 31st the Germans of
Von Mackensen passed through Cholm. Thus the Teutonic armies were now
across the important railway from Warsaw and Ivangorod to Kiev, on a
broad front, running all the way down to the Vistula at Novo
Alexandria. In Courland the Germans continued to push forward, so that
on the 12th of August they were enabled to seize the important railway
center Mistan.
Hope in Russia died hard. Press correspondents up to July 29, 1915,
still spoke of the possibility of the Russians standing a siege in
their principal fortress on the Warsaw salient. On the 29th, however,
reports came from Petrograd that the fortresses of the Warsaw defense
were to be abandoned and the capital of Poland given up to the army.
The correspondent of the New York "Times" on July 29, 1915, in a
special cable summed up the situation in an announcement that the fate
of Europe hung on the decision that Russia might make on the question:
"Shall Russia settle down to a war of position in her vast
fortifications around Warsaw, or shall she continue to barter space
against time, withdrawing from the line of the Vistula and points on
it of both strategic and political importance, in order to gain the
time which Germany has already stored in the form of inexhaustible gun
munitions?" The reply was the evacuation of Warsaw.
The decisive blow to Russia's hopes came with the crossing of the
Vistula about twenty miles north of Ivangorod on July 28, 1915,
already noted. It showed that Warsaw was being rapidly surrounded. The
Russian communiqué of the 30th of July told of the crossing over of
the Teutons on both sides of the Radomka, a tributary of the Vistula,
to the right bank of the Vistula on pontoons, and of attempts to throw
bridges across the great rivers. Von Woyrsch's troops that had crossed
over were irresistibly pursuing still farther east on the 30th,
defeating troops hastily brought up to stop their advance. By August 1
two entire German army corps reached the right bank of the Vistula.
Ivangorod, now threatened from all directions, could evidently not be
held much longer.
The fortress surrendered on August 4, 1915, after a violent
bombardment of the outer forts had taken place, beginning on the first
of the month. Austro-Hungarian troops under General von Koevess
especially distinguished themselves in the attack on the west front.
CHAPTER LX
WARSAW FALLS
The retreat from Warsaw began during the night of August 3 and 4,
1915. Already the city had been stripped as far as possible, to judge
by reports from Petrograd, of metals, such as church bells and
machinery that might possibly be of use to the Germans. A portion of
the civilian population left the city. The Blonie line just to the
west of the capital was given up under pressure from the Teutons on
the 3d. While the retreat was taking place the Russians gave all
possible support to their forces defending the Narew lines, so far as
they still were maintained.
Desperate charges were hurled by the Russians against the Germans
moving forward all along the front Lowza-Ostrow-Wyszkow. The bravery
of the Russians, especially in their counterattacks on both sides of
the road from Rozan to Ostrow on the 4th of August, won the admiration
of the Germans.
The correspondent of the London "Times" reports that on August 4,
1915, there was probably not over one Russian corps on the west side
of the Vistula. "Half of that crossed south of Warsaw before 6 p. m.,"
he writes, "and probably the last division left about midnight, and at
3 a. m. on August 5 the bridges were blown up. The Germans arrived at
6 a. m." The formal entry of the Polish capital was made by Prince
Leopold of Bavaria as Commander in Chief of the army which took the
city.
[Illustration: The central figure is Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who
led the victorious Teutons into Warsaw, August 6, 1915. The Prince
with his staff are posed before Warsaw's magnificent cathedral.]
The formal announcement issued by the German Great Headquarters on the
5th of August read: "The army of Prince Leopold of Bavaria pierced and
took yesterday and last night the outer and inner lines of forts of
Warsaw in which Russian rear guards still offered stubborn resistance.
The city was occupied to-day by our troops."
[Illustration: Advance and Capture of Warsaw.]
In the capture of Warsaw seven huge armies had been employed. The
German northern army, operating against the double-track line which
runs from Warsaw to Petrograd, 1,000 miles in the northeast, via
Bielostok and Grodno; the army operating in the Suwalki district,
threatening the same line farther west; the army aimed at the Narew
based on Mearva; the army directly aimed at Warsaw, north of the
Vistula; the (Ninth) army directly aimed at Warsaw, south of the
Vistula; ten or twelve Austrian army corps attempting to reach the
single-and double-track railway from Ivangorod to Brest-Litovsk and
Moscow, and the line from Warsaw to Kiev via Lublin and Cholm, which
is for the most part a single track, and, finally, the army of Von
Linsingen, operating on the Lipa east of Lemberg.
The campaign for Warsaw had been fought along a front of 1,000 miles,
extending from the Baltic to the frontier of Rumania. An estimate
which lays claim to being based upon authoritative figures placed the
number of men engaged in almost daily conflict on this long line at
between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000. The attacks upon the sides of the
lines on which the defense of Warsaw depended had been the most
furious in the course of the war on the eastern front. The losses on
both sides undoubtedly were enormous, though they can be ascertained
only with difficulty, if at all.
The following summary of captures was issued by the German Great
Headquarters on August 1, 1915: "Captured in July between the Baltic
and the Pilica, 95,023 Russians; 41 guns, including two heavy ones; 4
mine throwers; 230 machine guns. Taken in July in the southeastern
theatre of war (apparently between Pilica and the Rumanian frontier):
323 officers; 75,719 men; 10 guns; 126 machine guns."
PART VIII--THE BALKANS
CHAPTER LXI
DIPLOMACY IN THE BALKANS
In discussing the causes of the Great War in Vol. I we have already
shown how important a part the little Balkan States played in the long
chain of events leading up to the final catastrophe. When two mighty
lords come to blows over the right of way through the fields of their
peasant neighbors, it is only natural that the peasants themselves
should be deeply concerned. While it is not likely that any of them
would feel especially friendly toward either of the belligerents, it
might, however, be to their advantage to take a hand in the struggle
on the side of the victor. But until each thought he had picked the
winner he would hold aloof.
This was, in fact, the situation of all the Balkan States when the
Great War began, with the exception, of course, of Serbia, which had
been directly attacked. Rumania, Bulgaria, and Greece very hastily
announced their complete neutrality to each other as well as to the
world at large, though Greece was in the very awkward position of
having signed a defensive treaty with Serbia.
Though the Balkan situation has always been considered very
complicated, certain broad facts may be laid down which will serve as
a key to a fair understanding of the motives behind each of the
various moves being made on the Balkan chess board.
First of all, it must be realized that popular sentiment plays a much
smaller part in Balkan politics than it does in such countries as
England, France and our own country. Though each is more or less
democratic in form, none of these governments is really controlled by
its people in matters requiring such quick decisions as war. At the
head of each of the Balkan States is a monarch surrounded by a
governing clique who have full authority in military matters. Each of
these cliques has only one aim in mind: How shall it increase the area
of its territory, or at least save itself from losing any of what it
already controls?
Rumania, being of Latin blood, has no natural affinity with either of
the big fighting powers that concern her: Austria or Russia. In her
case, therefore, sympathy may be entirely eliminated. She does,
however, covet a piece of Austrian territory, Transylvania, in which
there is a substantial Rumanian population which has always been
rather badly treated by Austria.
Bulgaria, like Russia, is Slavic. Added to that, Bulgaria owes her
freedom to Russian arms. Because of these two reasons there is a very
strong sentiment among the people in favor of Russia. Russian
political intrigues during the past thirty years have done a great
deal, however, in undermining this kindly feeling among the more
intelligent Bulgarians. And then Russia's ambition to possess herself
of the Bosphorus as an outlet into the Mediterranean is directly
contrary to the ambitions of the governing clique of Bulgaria, which
also has its eyes on Constantinople.
Toward the Austrians the Bulgarians feel nothing but dislike:
"Schwabs," they call them contemptuously. Moreover, Austria's
contemplated pathway to Saloniki would cut down through Macedonia,
another territory coveted by Bulgaria. Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria,
however, is a German by birth and training.
Greece, like Rumania, is also racially isolated. She fears Russia for
the same reason that Bulgaria does; Greece is determined that
Constantinople shall one day be hers. And she fears Austria because
Austria's pathway would even take Saloniki from her. And finally she
fears Italy because Italy has ambitions in Asia Minor and Albania. All
the belligerents seem to be treading on the toes of Greece.
It will be seen, therefore, that the diplomatic game was an especially
delicate one in the Balkans. Being comparatively weak, these small
states cannot fight alone for themselves. Their selfish ambitions, or
of their governing cliques rather, make a combination impossible.
Their only chance is to bargain with the winner at the right moment.
During the first half year of the war there was very little for the
Balkan diplomats to do but lie low and watch; watch for the first
signs of weakening of either the Allies or the Teutons. To be sure,
Turkey threw in her lot with the Teutons during this period, but
German control of the Turkish machinery of government and the army
appears to have been so strong that it seems doubtful whether Turkish
initiative was much of a factor in the move.
One of the first moves by the Teutonic Powers through Austria-Hungary
was the attempted invasion of Serbia, by which they hoped to eliminate
her from the field and also to swing the other Balkan States,
especially Bulgaria, over to their side. And had Austria succeeded in
penetrating the peninsula through Serbia, there can hardly be any
doubt that the effect would have been immediate.
But the invasion by Austria, attempted three times, was an abject
failure. At the end of five months a whole Austrian army corps had
been annihilated by the Serbians and the rest of the huge invading
armies had been driven back across the Danube and Save. Following
close upon this came the extraordinary success of the Russians in
Bukowina and in the Carpathians, which placed Hungary in immediate
danger of being invaded. The cause of the Allies began to look
promising and the machinery of Balkan diplomacy began slowly to
revolve.
Meanwhile the principal efforts of the Entente statesmen had been
directed toward effecting a reconciliation between Bulgaria and the
other Balkan States which, she maintained, had robbed her of
Macedonia. Indeed, it may well be said that the Treaty of Bucharest,
whereby the Macedonian Bulgars were largely handed over to Serbia, and
Greece was, and continued to be, the main stumblingblock in the path
of the Allies to bring Bulgaria around to a union with Serbia and
Greece and Rumania, for Rumania had also picked Bulgaria's pockets
while she was down, by taking a strip of territory at the mouth of
the Danube. In this she had not even had the excuse of reclaiming her
own people, for here were none but pure Bulgarians.
In January, 1915, Rumania began to show signs of shaping a definite
policy that might later lead her to taking sides. Her King, Carol, a
Hohenzollern by blood, had died shortly after the war and his nephew,
Ferdinand, ascended the throne on October 11, 1914. Possibly he may
have had something to do with the change. At any rate, though Rumania
had previously accepted financial assistance from Austria, in January
she received a loan of several millions from Great Britain, most of
which was spent on the army, then partly mobilized.
At the same time negotiations of a tentative nature were opened by the
Foreign Office with Russia offering to throw the Rumanian troops into
the conflict on the side of the Allies for a certain consideration.
This consideration was that she receive Bukowina, part of the province
of Banat, and certain sections of Bessarabia populated by Rumanians.
The Allies considered these demands extortionate, and the negotiations
were protracted. When the Austrians and Germans, later in the spring,
succeeded in driving the Russians out of the Carpathians, Rumania
hastily dropped these negotiations and seated herself more firmly on
top of the fence. And so, under the guidance of Bratiano, her prime
minister, she has continued throughout the whole year, listening to
proposals, first from one side, then from the other, but always
carefully maintaining her neutral position.
Bulgaria had, at about the same time, accepted a loan from Germany.
Attempts were made at the time to explain away the political
significance of the transaction by representing the advance as an
installment of a loan the terms of which had been arranged before the
beginning of the war, but the essential fact was that the cash came
from Germany at a time when she was herself calling in all the gold of
her people into the Imperial treasury.
Bulgaria now plainly let it be understood under what conditions she
would join a union of the Balkan neutrals against the Teutonic Powers.
Her premier, Radoslavov, head of the Bulgarian Liberal Party, whose
policy has always been anti-Russian, is one of the most astute
politicians in the Balkans, and this description is equally true of
King Ferdinand as a monarch. These two stated definitely Bulgaria's
price; that part of Macedonia which was to have been allowed to her by
the agreement which bound her to Serbia and Greece during the first
Balkan War; the Valley of the Struma, including the port of Kavalla,
that part of Thrace which she herself had taken from Turkey, and the
southern Dobruja, the whole of the territory Rumania had filched from
her while her back was turned during the two Balkan wars.
The Entente Powers held council with the other Balkan States, each of
which had taken its share of booty from Bulgaria. In order to persuade
them to consent to Bulgaria's terms, they suggested certain
compensations for the concessions they were asked to make. To Serbia,
which, in spite of her very precarious situation at the time, was very
averse to returning any part of her Macedonian territory, they pointed
out that she could find compensation in adding to her territory
Bosnia, Herzegovina and the other Slav provinces of Austria, where the
population was truly Serb. To Rumania, which was already willing to
meet Bulgaria half way, they promised Transylvania and Bukowina. To
Greece, which had done less and gained more than any of the other
states during the two Balkan Wars and so could afford to be generous,
they held out the prospect of gaining a considerable area in Asia
Minor, thickly populated by Greeks.
These changes naturally all depended on the complete defeat of the
Teutonic Powers, but Bulgaria demanded that at least some, and
especially Serbian Macedonia, should be handed over to her at once.
This latter demand brought about strong opposition. The other Balkan
States considered that, granting even that all these concessions were
to be promised to Bulgaria, she should not expect their fulfillment
until she had earned them by helping to defeat the Teutonic Powers.
Venizelos, the premier of Greece, and probably the most broad-minded
statesman in the Balkans, stated that, on the part of Greece,
concessions to Bulgaria were possible, though, as developed later, in
this he did not have the backing of the King and the rest of the
governing clique. In February no progress in the negotiations had been
made, though a special French Commission, headed by General Pau,
visited all the Balkan capitals and tried to bring about a mutual
agreement.
At about that time another important military event occurred,
especially affecting the Balkans; the warships of the Entente began
bombarding the forts in the Dardanelles and it seemed that
Constantinople was presently to fall into their hands. Not long after
Venizelos stated, in an interview, that he was privy to this action
and proposed to send 50,000 Greek soldiers to assist the Allies by a
land attack on the Turks.
The Greek General Staff, however, immediately declined to support
Venizelos. Such a campaign, it declared, was impossible unless Greece
first had strong guarantees that Bulgaria would not take the
opportunity to invade Greek Macedonia and fall on the flank of the
Greek army operating against the Turks. Venizelos thereupon approached
Bulgaria and was told that Bulgaria would remain neutral if Greece
would cede most of her Macedonian conquests, which would include
Kavalla, Drama, and Serres, which stretch so provokingly eastward
along the coast and hold Bulgaria back from the sea.
Venizelos attempted to compromise, and here he was caught between two
obstacles. Bulgaria absolutely refused to recede one inch from her
demand; and, on the other hand, the Greek governing clique suddenly
refused to consider any proposal that would mean the cession of any
territory at all to the hated Bulgars. What probably stiffened the
opposition of the other members of the Greek Government to the Turkish
campaign was the growing suspicion on their part that the Allies were
also negotiating with Italy for her support. Now it was obvious that
if Italy was to fight in the Near East, she meant to demand a good
price. And this looked bad for Greece. Greece and Italy had already
nearly come to blows over their clashing interests in southern
Albania, yet even this was a small matter compared to rivalry in the
Ægean and Asia Minor. What deepened these suspicions was the fact
that the Allies refused to indicate definitely just what territory
Greece was to have in return for her support against the Turks. Their
promise of "liberal compensation" was not at all definite enough. Only
Venizelos was satisfied with this promise; he was in favor of trusting
implicitly to Anglo-French gratitude.
To bring this deadlock to a conclusion King Constantine called a Royal
Council, and by this body the matter was thoroughly discussed during
the first few days of March. The Council, together with the king,
decided against supporting the Allies actively on such terms. On the
morning of March 6 Venizelos called at the British legation in Athens
to say that the opposition of the king made it impossible to fulfill
his promise. That night he resigned.
The fall of Venizelos was, naturally, a heavy blow to the Allies. He
was succeeded by Gounaris, an ex-Minister of Finance, who announced
his policy as one of strict neutrality. Venizelos was so deeply
mortified that he declared that he would withdraw permanently from
public life, and then left Greece.
April, 1915, opened with an occurrence that seemed to throw a strong
light on the attitude of Bulgaria. On the night of the second day of
the month a large force of Bulgar Comitajis made a raid over the
southeastern frontier of Serbia, and, after attacking successfully the
Serbian outposts and blockhouses, in an attempt to cut the railroad,
by which Serbia was getting war supplies from the Allies, they were
repelled by the Serbians, though only after severe fighting.
Serbia and Greece both protested loudly, but Bulgaria affirmed that
she had had nothing to do with the matter.
As has developed since, Bulgaria had by this time definitely decided
to strike for the Teutonic allies when the right moment should come.
Already back in January, 1912, a secret treaty had been negotiated
between Bulgaria and Germany. This was signed a little later by Prince
Bülow and M. Rizoff at Rome. There were more reasons than one for
keeping this secret. For within the Bulgarian Parliament there was a
strong opposition to the German policy of Ferdinand and Radoslavov,
led by Malinoff, chief of the Democratic party, and Stambulovski,
chief of the Agrarian party, an opposition so bitter and determined
that the king had good reason to fear an open revolution should he
openly declare himself for the Germans.
On May 29, 1915, the Allies again sent a note to Bulgaria, making
proposals which comprised the results of their efforts to obtain
concessions from the other Balkan States. On June 15 Radoslavov sent a
reply, asking for further information, obviously drawn up in order to
gain time.
Meanwhile, on June 11, Venizelos had again appeared in Athens, where
he received a warm welcome from the populace, with whom he was the
prime favorite. Within a few days he resumed the leadership of the
Greek Liberal party and, at a general election, which was held shortly
after, he showed a popular majority support of 120 seats in the
Popular Assembly, notwithstanding a determined opposition made by his
opponents. Before the Balkan wars the Greek Parliament had consisted
of 180 members, but by according representation to the districts in
Macedonia annexed after the wars the number was brought up to 316.
Venizelos and his policy in favor of the Allies were emphatically
indorsed by the Greek suffrage. Naturally this expression of the
people's voice was a smart blow at the king and his councillors. On
the other hand, they were encouraged by an unfavorable turn that was
now taking place in the military operations of the Allies.
The attack on the Dardanelles by the warships had been a decided
failure. Nor were the operations of the British troops on the
peninsula of Gallipoli meeting with any real success. The Austrians
and the Germans had driven the Russians back from the Carpathians and
had retaken Przemysl and Lemberg. In fact, the situation of the
Austro-German armies had now become so favorable that it was possible
for the Teutonic allies to make proposals to the Balkan States with a
fair chance of being listened to.
During July, 1915, Serbia was approached by Germany with an offer of a
separate peace, but Serbia would not even consider the terms.
On July 8 Austria delivered a note to Rumania, through the Austrian
Minister in Bucharest, Count Czernin, which contained two sets of
proposals. One was contingent upon the continued but "friendly"
neutrality of Rumania, the other on her active participation in the
war on the side of Austria-Hungary.
In the first proposal Rumania was promised all of Bukowina south of
the Seret River, better treatment of the Rumanian population of
Austrian territory, the establishment of a Rumanian university in
Brasso, large admissions of Rumanians into the public service of
Hungary, and greater liberty of administration to the Rumanian
churches in Austria.
The second proposal specified that Rumania should put five army corps
and two cavalry divisions at the disposal of the Austro-Hungarian
General Staff to operate against the Russians. In return Rumania
should receive all of Bukowina up to the Pruth River, territory along
the north bank of the Danube up to the Iron Gate, complete autonomy
for the Rumanians in Transylvania and all of Bessarabia that the
Rumanian troops should assist in conquering from the Russians.
Just a week after this note was received in the Rumanian capital,
Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg, whose wife was a sister of the Queen of
Rumania, arrived in Bucharest and tried to induce King Ferdinand to
come to terms with Austria, or at least to allow the transportation of
war munitions through the country to the Turks, who were then running
short of ammunition. The king refused this concession. How important
it would have been, had it been granted, may be judged from the many
efforts the Germans had made to smuggle material down to Turkey. In
one case the baggage of a German courier traveling to Constantinople
had been X-rayed and rifle ammunition had been found. Again, cases of
beer had been opened and found to contain artillery shells.
Rumania, however, could not yet make up her mind which was going to be
the winner. She accepted neither of the Austrian proposals, and
protracted making any definite answer as long as possible.
There was another reason why Rumania wished to continue her neutrality
until the following winter, at least. The harvesting of her great
wheat crops would begin soon, and this wheat could, as had been done
the previous year, be sold to the Germans and Austrians at big prices,
the blockade of the British fleet having already produced a pressing
shortage in foodstuffs. And then, her conscience being uneasy
regarding her robbery of territory from Bulgaria, she must also be
quite certain how Bulgaria was going to turn.
Having failed at Bucharest, the German agent, Prince
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, moved on to Sofia. At that moment King Ferdinand
of Bulgaria was endeavoring to get Turkey to sign a treaty, for which
negotiations had been going on secretly for some months, by which
Bulgaria was to obtain all the Turkish land on the west side of the
Maritza River, and so free the Bulgarian railroad to Dedeagatch from
Turkish interference. On July 23 this treaty was finally signed, and
Bulgaria acquired a full right of way along the line.
Bulgaria was now frankly asking bids for her support from both sides.
In an interview which the Premier, Radoslavov, granted to the
correspondent of a Budapest newspaper on August 3, 1915, and who
remarked to the premier that it was at least strange for a nation to
carry on such negotiations simultaneously with two groups of powers,
he replied:
"It is these negotiations which give us the chance to make a decision.
Our country seeks only her own advantages and wishes to realize her
rights. We have decided to gain these in any case. The only question
is: How can we achieve this with the least sacrifices? As regards the
internal situation of Bulgaria, I may proudly say that our conditions
have improved, and that everybody in the country looks forward to the
great national undertaking we are about to embark on with immense joy
and enthusiasm."
PART IX--ITALY ENTERS THE WAR
CHAPTER LXII
SPIRIT OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE--CRISIS OF THE GOVERNMENT
The crystallization of popular opinion in favor of intervention kept
pace with the trend of diplomatic negotiations. Italy, especially the
northern provinces, was a great beehive, humming with patriotic
fervor. Evenings in almost any northern town might be seen companies
of young men in civilian dress marching in companies and maneuvering
with military precision. At first the organizers of these "training
walks," as they were called, maintained reticence regarding their
purpose. The youths, they said, were merely undergoing voluntary
training to be ready "in case they should be needed." But the purpose
of these volunteer drills was unmistakable. At times, when the drill
grounds were rather isolated, the marchers would burst into patriotic
songs--the hymn of the Garibaldians, or, perhaps "Trieste of My
Heart." Soon the neutralists began to organize counterpreparations.
Encounters between bands of the rival factions became increasingly
frequent, in fact daily occurrences. From jeers they passed to
scuffles, in which missiles and clubs were the weapons. As a rule
these encounters took place far enough from the city limits to avoid
interference by the police, and only vague reports of them reached the
main body of home-loving citizens.
Milan was the center of these demonstrations. During April, 1915, the
Socialists proclaimed a "general strike," which left a large part of
the working population idle to attend gatherings addressed by the
neutralist orator. These meetings generally wound up with a parade,
and perhaps a hostile demonstration in front of the office of some
interventionist newspaper, or cheers outside the German Consulate. The
next day the Piazza would be thronged with a gathering of
interventionists wearing the national colors entwined with the flag of
Trieste, and, perhaps, with the "honorable red shirt" of the
Garibaldians. During the period just before the entrance of Italy into
the war these rival processions were held on different days by order
of the police, who ruthlessly broke up any attempt to interfere with
assemblies entitled to the right of way. As the war party began to
gain, their opponents adopted the custom of attacking the demonstrants
after they had disbanded.
As it was, a mob attacked the Milan branch of the Siemens-Schuckert
works, the great Berlin electrical machinery factory, battered in the
main entrance, and exchanged shots with some young German employees
left in charge. The timely arrival of the armed police stopped this
riot, and removed the Germans to safe quarters.
At this juncture, or before, the influence of the "Garibaldi" movement
became widely apparent. Early in the war the Garibaldians had launched
a movement to recognize the aid received from France by Italy during
her War of Independence. A special corps of Garibaldi volunteers was
enrolled in France, and its valiant service in the Alsace campaign,
where one of the members of the Garibaldi family fell, had a telling
effect in Italy. Volunteers for this corps at once sprang up from all
parts of the country.
On May 10, 1915, Germans and Austrians throughout Italy were advised
by their consulates to leave the country. The exodus proceeded
rapidly, and during the next ten days nearly all the citizens of the
two Central Powers who were able to leave had taken refuge in
Switzerland. Italy seemed ripe for war; but still the Government
delayed. There was now no doubt of the popular mind; but events
outside the country were not encouraging. Perhaps the weightiest of
these deterring factors was news of the Russian retirement in the
north and information reaching the Italian Minister of War that the
Entente Allies were short of ammunition.
Then came the crisis in the Government. Baron Sonnino's denunciation of
the Alliance caused a change in the attitude of the Austro-Hungarian
Foreign Office. Prince von Bülow and the Austrian Ambassador, Baron von
Macchio, were authorized to conclude a new agreement on the basis of
further Austrian concessions. Sonnino refused to accept the new terms and
the German and Austrian representatives played their last trump. Baron
von Macchio telegraphed to Vienna accusing the Italian Foreign Minister
of concealing information of the Austrian concessions both from the king
and the majority of the cabinet. The concessions were printed and
circulated widely among the people. Signor Giolitti, Salandra's
predecessor, and at one time all but dictator of Italy, hurried to Rome
and rallied his followers. The neutralists hailed him as the man to save
Italy from a ruinous war.
Parliament was to meet on May 20, 1915. It was clear that the
supporters of Giolitti, in majority both in the Senate and the Chamber
of Deputies, could, if they chose, overthrow the Government. Popular
anxiety was intense.
On the evening of May 13, 1915, came the announcement that the
Salandra ministry had resigned. If there had been any doubt of the
state of things throughout Italy up to that point, this news cleared
the situation. The whole country burst into a flame of indignation.
The next day Italy learned for the first time that the Triple Alliance
had been denounced early in the month.
It became clear that whatever the fate of Salandra and his cabinet,
his foreign policy was bound to be continued.
On May 15, 1915, announcement that the king had declined to accept
Salandra's resignation caused a great popular outburst of joy. In Rome
an immense gathering called to protest against the Giolittians and
German influence was transformed into a demonstration of triumph; more
than 150,000 persons took part in a procession a mile long that moved
from the Piazza del Popolo to the Quirinal.
The next morning, May 16, 1915, there was nobody in Rome who doubted
what Italy would do. That day Giolitti left Rome, and his departure
marked the end of his active influence during the opening months of
the war. His party crumpled.
When Parliament met on May 20, 1915, Salandra received an overwhelming
vote of confidence in the passage of a bill conferring extraordinary
powers upon the Government in the event of war. Miles north of Rome,
word came to the Austrian commanders, working feverishly to strengthen
their forts in the fastnesses of the Alps, to brace themselves for the
assault.
CHAPTER LXIII
THE DECISION MADE--ITALIAN STRATEGIC PLAN
On the night of May 24, 1915, little groups of the Alpini, Italy's
famous mountain troops, moved silently. They passed from San Giorgio,
Cividale and Palmanova on the eastern frontier, from Paluzza and San
Stefano and Pieve on the north, from Agordo, Feltre and Asiago, from
Brentino and Malcesine toward Lake Garda, from Garganano the western
shore of the lake and from other positions all along the mountain
frontier up to the Stelvio Pass.
Marching silently and in single file, by three o'clock in the morning
of May 25, 1915, one detachment reached a deep trench. "Our
frontiers," said their officers. "We advance to make new ones." Then
began a long, steep climb up narrow mountain paths, through snow lying
in patches knee-deep, and through a storm of sleet and rain that broke
along the Trentino boundary before dawn. As dawn broke they hurled
themselves upon an Austrian shelter trench excavated the autumn before
on the plateau. It was empty. The enemy had retired only a few hours
before. The camp-fire ashes were still warm. As the sun began to throw
the long shadows of the Alpine peaks to the west Austrian guns
crashed out their first salute from the rocky fortresses beyond. Italy
and Austria-Hungary were at war.
To comprehend the task before the Italian army it is necessary to
examine the Italian-Austrian frontier. Austria's problem was one only
of defense. Her warning had been ample and when war was declared she
was prepared to the last detail. Being the challenged party hers was
the choice of weapons, and she had equipped herself with an almost
impregnable line of fortifications. The grievance was Italy's, and
hers the duty of assault. Every advantage of position lay with
Austria.
The strategic plan of the Italian generals was determined by hard
geographical facts. The Italo-Austrian frontier is about 480 miles
long, divided naturally into three sections. On the west the Austrian
province of Trentino indents Italian territory like a wedge; next
comes the great wall of the Dolomites and the Carnic and Julian Alps;
then, on the east, a boundary line running north and south between the
main Alpine chain and the Adriatic Sea. Steep mountain heights
dominated by Austrian troops guarded the first two parts of this
frontier. Only on the eastern border, from Pontebba to the Adriatic
was Italian offensive on a large scale at all feasible; but before
offensive operations could be started here it was necessary for the
Italians to close the open gates to the north.
Here in the north lay Italy's problem at the opening of the war; and
here her armies confronted an almost impossible task. In a word, they
had to fight uphill. A salient, such as that formed by the Trentino,
may offer dangers for the side that holds it--an example of which is
the Russian position in Poland at the opening of the war; but the
Trentino situation was quite unlike that in Poland. The sides of the
Trentino were buttressed with mountains. The most tempting avenue of
invasion was the valley of the Adige River. An enemy advancing by this
route would find himself confronted with the strongly fortified town
of Trent, which long resisted attacks from Venice in the Middle Ages.
Having forced his way past Trent the enemy would be in a wilderness of
lateral valleys with the main ridge of the Alpine chain, at the
Brenner, still before him.
On the western side of the Trentino is the lofty Stelvio Pass, leading
from the Upper Adige to the valley of Adda. This pass is 9,000 feet
high and its narrow defiles were easily defended. To the south lies
the pass of Tonale over which runs the road from Noce to the Oglio,
but this offers similar difficulties. The road pass of Cornelle, close
to Lake Garda, is too narrow for any considerable force. On the
eastern side of the salient conditions for invasion are still worse.
The railway from Venice to Innsbruck crosses the Valsugana at Tezze,
but the Brenta valley through which it runs is a difficult road to
Trent. Summed up, the salient of the Trentino was an ideal position
for those who held it, both offensive and defensive. The few breaches
by which invasion could come were a source of strength rather than
weakness, because they compelled attack from the Italian plain to be
made on divergent lines from different bases.
The second part of the frontier is the ramparts of the Dolomite and
Carnic ranges through which an important offensive was possible for
neither belligerent. The main pass, at Ampezzo, 5,000 feet high, makes
a sharp detour toward the west to circumvent the mass of Cristallo,
and here the road is a narrow defile commanded by a hundred points of
danger. The adjacent passes of Misurina and the Monte Croce are no
better, and the defiles to the east contain little more than bridle
paths. The lowest pass, which leads from the valley of the Fella by
Pontebba to the upper streams of the Drave and carries the railway
from Venice to Vienna is only 2,615 feet high at its greatest
elevation. Although this is the easiest of the great routes through
the mountain barrier, it is still narrow and difficult. A modern army
given the advantages of time and preparation should be able to close
and hold it with ease.
Although the maps show few natural difficulties on the third section
of the frontier to compare with those farther west, it is not the
obvious avenue of attack a hasty survey would seem to suggest. It is
only twenty miles wide and behind it is the line of the River Isonzo
with hills along its eastern bank. The upper part of this stream,
above Salcana, is a ravine; then comes six miles of comparatively
level ground in front of Gorizia; then the hills begin again and
sweep round to the seacoast by Monfalcone. What this front lacks in
natural defenses had been amply supplied before the war opened by
Austria with artillery and men. Toward this narrow twenty-mile
stretch, and especially toward the plain before Gorizia, tended, in a
sense, however, all the operations of the Italian strategists. The
engagements fought during the first of the Italo-Austrian struggle all
had their bearing upon the great offensive launched later against
Gorizia.
But the natural lay of the land was by no means the only consideration
with which the rival generals had to deal. In respect to lateral
communications Italy had the advantage. Behind her invading armies
stretched an elaborate system of railways through her northern
provinces. Austria had a railway running through the whole curve of
the frontier, but owing to the difficulty of breaking through from the
hill valleys this system had few feeders. This lack of branch lines
meant that Austria had to concentrate any offensive at certain
definite places--Trent, Tarvis, and Gorizia. Italy aimed at these
points and one more, Franzensfeste, the junction of the Pusterthal
line with the railway from Innsbruck to Trent. If she could take this
point she could cut Austria's communications in the whole Trentino
salient. But Franzensfeste was the most difficult of any of these
local points for Italy to reach, for south and east of it lay the
bristling system of the Dolomites.
The successive revelations of Italian strategy during the first months
of the war brought few surprises. Austria had her hands full in the
Carpathians just then and was unable to take advantage of the
opportunities for swift offensive which her frontier positions
offered. It was a foregone conclusion that the first advance would
come from the Italian side and the direction of that movement was not
long in doubt. Its objective was Trieste, the Austrian peninsula, and
the hills of Styria which sweep to Vienna. There lay the country where
modern armies could maneuver. At the same time the whole northern
boundary must be watched to prevent Austrian forces from the Trentino
cutting the communications of the invader and attacking him in the
rear. Therefore General Cadorna, the Italian commander in chief,
resolved to attack at all the salient points. Such a plan led to a
series of movements--toward Trent, across the Dolomite passes against
the Pusterthal railway, at the Pontebba Pass, and across the Julian
Alps to threaten the line between Tarvis and Gorizia. Meanwhile the
main Italian army was to strike at the Isonzo and the road to Trieste.
The same conditions which made the Austrian frontier lines easy to
defend also would have given the Central Power a big advantage in
offensive operations, but for excellent reasons the Austrian staff did
not attack. In the first place, Austria lacked men. The Teutonic war
councils concluded that Austro-Hungarian troops were of more value in
the great drive then in progress against the Russians than they would
have been in offensive operations against the cities of the northern
Italian plains. Had the Austrians debouched from their mountain
strongholds and forced the Italians to concentrate against them in
Italian territory, as they undoubtedly could have done, the benefits
of such an enterprise from the standpoint of the alliance powers would
have been small in proportion to the risks. Only a combined drive by
both Austria and Germany, it is believed, could have gained any
telling advantage in northern Italy; and Italy, it must be remembered,
had not declared war on Germany. Ensconced in their mountain
fastnesses, the Austrians believed they could maintain a successful
defensive indefinitely. Then, after the Italian armies had exhausted
themselves beating against the mountain barrier, an opportunity might
arise for Austrian reprisals. At the time few believed that Italy
would long be able to maintain her attitude of neutrality regarding
Germany--an opinion, by the way, which was not supported by the
developments of the first year of the war.
The Austrians had months in which to prepare, and they had made good
use of their time. The natural difficulties confronting an Italian
assault had been enormously increased by trenches of steel and
concrete. The Austrian engineers had connected their elaborate systems
of wire entanglements with high-power electric stations, and dug mines
at all vulnerable points. Heavy guns had been moved, at great
expenditure of labor, to the frontier forts and rails laid on which to
move them from place to place. The broken nature of the ground
afforded ideal opportunities for the concealment of artillery
positions. It is safe to say that nowhere in the whole theatre of the
Great War was there a line better adapted by nature and equipped by
man for purposes of defensive warfare. The Austrian Archduke Eugene,
who was in charge of the Italian operations, revealed his plan of
campaign during the first few days after the beginning of hostilities.
His aim was to risk nothing until Field Marshal von Mackensen had
finished his operations in Galicia, where Austria's best troops were
fighting with their German allies. To meet the Italians he had only
the Landsturm and a few reserve divisions, but these were considered
enough. The archduke resolved to hold the crests of the passes along
the Trentino frontier and the line of the Carnic Alps, withdrawing his
outposts before the enemy's advance. On the Isonzo he would abandon
the country west of the river line and make his stand on a fortified
line to the east which touched the Isonzo only at Gorizia, where the
Austrians held the bridgehead on the western bank.
It has been pointed out in preceding pages that not a little of
Italy's delay in entering the war, and of the tortuous diplomatic
negotiations which for several months kept the outside in doubt as to
her ultimate intentions, was due to the state of military
unpreparedness confronting the country in the summer of 1914. But by
May, 1915, the country had had nine months in which to get ready.
Moreover, she had been able to profit by the lessons of the war. When
Italy started to get ready there was no waste motion, although the
task to be accomplished entailed enormous labor and expense.
CHAPTER LXIV
STRENGTH OF ITALIAN ARMY AND NAVY
At the head of the Italian army and navy was the king, Victor
Emmanuel, a monarch whose gallantry and simplicity had made him a
popular idol. Popularity with the people meant also popularity with
the army. The chief of the General Staff was General Count Luigi
Cadorna. At the outbreak of the war General Cadorna was sixty-five
years old. As a young man he had seen service under his father,
Rafaele Cadorna, who, in September 1870, led an army into papal
territory and blew in the Porta Pia. He had been a corps commander at
Genoa. In 1914 he had succeeded General Pollio as chief of the General
Staff.
Cadorna was the Von Hindenburg of Italy. As the German commander had
studied the bogs of East Prussia, so he had devoted a large part of
his life to becoming familiar with the broken line of Italy's northern
frontier. He was known throughout Europe for his writings on military
science.
The beginning of the war found the Italian navy far better equipped
than the army. For the task of holding Austria in the Adriatic, which
Italy now took over from France, she possessed four dreadnoughts and
two more almost ready. She possessed also ten battleships of the
predreadnought class and a number of older vessels. Compared with
those of Great Britain and Germany, her armored cruisers were slow,
none of them being capable of a speed exceeding twenty-two knots; but
she had twenty submarines, forty destroyers and a large number of
torpedo boats. Compared with the Austro-Hungarian fleet, the Italian
navy showed on paper a distinct superiority. Its admiral in chief, the
Duke of the Abruzzi, ranked among the most brilliant men of his time,
not only as a naval man, but as a scientist, explorer, and man of
affairs. He was first cousin of the king.
By May, 1915, General Cadorna virtually had remade the Italian army.
Nine months earlier Italy's military forces were anything but
prepared. There was a shortage in every kind of munitions, stores, and
equipment. This was plainly evidenced when General Porro had refused
an offer of the portfolio of Minister of War in the spring of 1914
because he was unable to obtain a pledge for the adoption of a program
of re-equipment that demanded a great expenditure of money. The late
Government had not made good the expenditure of material caused by the
Lybian War, and great quantities of stores had been allowed to
deteriorate until they were almost valueless. There was a certain
number of guns of medium caliber, but no heavy artillery of the modern
type which the Teutonic allies soon showed they possessed in
abundance. Of machine guns Italy had a lower proportion than any other
of the great powers. All this had been realized, but the money to
repair these deficiencies was not forthcoming until the Italian
statesmen knew that they were on the brink of war.
Filling the gaps in the army, raising it from a peace to a war
footing, was an easier matter. The Italian military law provided
automatically for this increase. Every Italian citizen able to bear
arms is liable to military service. Recruits are called in the year
during which they become twenty years old, although volunteers are
accepted as young as eighteen. The last Italian census, in 1911, gave
Italy a population of 34,686,683 and the levy lists of that year
totaled 487,570. By the close of the year 1914, when the mobilization
began, it is reasonable to suppose that the population had grown to
something like thirty-six or thirty-seven million, with a
corresponding increase in the number available for military service.
The peace strength of the army was 14,000 officers and 271,000 men.
Mobilization added to each of the twelve corps a division of Mobile
Militia bringing its strength up to 37,000 men and 134 guns. The
army's war strength was about 700,000 in the first line--from the two
classes of the regular army--and 320,000 in the Mobile Militia with a
reserve of more than 2,000,000 in the Territorial Militia. The force
of trained men that Italy put into the field at the beginning of
hostilities, therefore, numbered something over 1,000,000 men. The
reservoir of the Territorial Militia contained twice as many more
untrained men who for some reason or other were exempt from military
service in times of peace, although physically fit to be soldiers.
This class was designed primarily for garrison duty, guarding railways
and bridges, but in war time was liable to any service. When the
mobilization began the men of this class immediately went into
training. Each of the twelve army corps consisted of two divisions of
line infantry, a regiment of Bersaglieri (light infantry corresponding
to the French Chasseurs and the German Jaegers), a regiment of
cavalry, a section of Carabinieri (military police), thirty-six field
guns and from two to three heavy howitzer batteries. In addition there
was the ammunition column, telegraph and engineer parks, ambulance and
supply sections, reserve store and supply sections, and a section of
field bakery.
The famous Alpine troops ("Alpini") and the mountain artillery were
not within the organization of the twelve permanent army corps. These
numbered seventy-eight companies, each of 256 officers and men on a
war footing. The rest of the Italian infantry units at normal war
strength were as follows: Company, 255 officers and men; Battalion,
1,043 officers and men; Regiment, 3,194 officers and men. Five of the
cavalry regiments contained six squadrons, the rest five. The war
strength of a squadron was 142 officers and men.
The infantry were armed with a magazine rifle of very small caliber,
.256-inch. The magazine held six rounds and was loaded with a clip.
The length of this piece was 4 feet 2-3/4 inches, with bayonet 5 feet
2-1/2 inches. It weighed without bayonet 8 pounds 6 ounces, and was
sighted up to 2,200 yards. The outbreak of the war found a process of
rearmament going on in the artillery. Italy at that time had no
adequate siege train and her heaviest mobile weapons were
210-millimeter howitzers and 149-millimeter guns. While the details of
the final artillery equipment were not made public by the War
Department, events showed that the Italians were well supplied with
modern guns of both medium and heavy caliber. The mountain artillery,
of which there were thirty-nine batteries, was especially efficient,
not only in guns, but in men and transport animals. It was said that
the Italian artillery mules could drag a gun wherever there was room
for its emplacement.
Italy was one of the first countries to use aeroplanes in war, and her
aviation corps had had experience in Tripoli. Although handicapped by
lack of money, the Italian military aviators were well abreast of
their opponents, at least in the theoretical and mechanical
development of the science. During the winter of 1914 a considerable
increase was made in the personnel of the corps and in the number of
machines.
There is reason to believe that at the beginning of the war the
Italian soldier was not highly regarded by Austrian and German
military authorities. As a whole the army's reputation had been
injured by the Adowa disaster and by the slowness of the campaign in
Tripoli. But the developments of actual warfare in the spring and
summer of 1915 proved that Italian apologists were correct in their
claim that in the former war the army was handicapped by political
causes. Physically the Italian troops were equal to any in Europe. The
Alpini were perhaps the best mountain soldiers in the world. The
Italian soldier is not impressive as to stature, but he is tough and
enduring. He is cheerful and obedient under discipline and hardship,
and the relations between officers and men were such as to produce the
best results in a hard campaign.
All these qualities were requisite for the difficult task to which
General Cadorna now turned his first line troops, numbering about
700,000 men. To oppose this advance the Austrians mustered on the
frontier about half that number. General von Hofer was chief of staff
under Archduke Eugene and General Dankl was in command in the Tyrol.
Two reasons have been advanced to explain the succession of small
victories with which the Italians opened their campaign. The first,
already mentioned, is that it was part of the Austrian plan to yield
their outpost positions with slight resistance and protect their
numerically inferior forces in the main strongholds of the mountains.
The other is that the archduke and his generals made the mistake of
underestimating the enemy. For centuries Italy had supplied the
Austrian Court with its poets and musicians, until in the Dual
Monarchy the Italians were regarded as an effete race, fit only for
the politer pursuits of art, literature and song. Italy's successful
War of Independence in the latter half of the nineteenth century had
not altogether destroyed this impression. This idea, it may be said,
was not shared by the Germans, whose military men had made a closer
study of world conditions and had learned to respect the virility of
the men of modern Italy.
CHAPTER LXV
FIRST ENGAGEMENTS
Owing to the nature of the scene of hostilities the first days of the
Austro-Italian campaign brought a series of engagements between small
groups of combatants. Artillery played a large part, and here the
Austrians, with their big guns already in carefully studied positions,
had a decided advantage. Viewed as a whole only does the campaign at
this stage take on an importance and dignity that ranks with the great
battles on other fronts of the Great War. Never before had two great
powers fought in territory so absolutely ill adapted to the movement
of large bodies of troops. For the same reason the story attains a
picturesqueness absent from the dreary plains of Galicia and Poland
and Flanders. Austrians, Hungarians and Italians fought in a land
known throughout the world to tourists for its grandeur of scenery,
its towering, snow-clad peaks, and idyllic lakes and valleys. It was
warfare where the best soldier was the man most able to surmount the
natural difficulties and take advantage of the natural protection of
the ground. The official statements of the Italian and Austrian war
offices told of feats of mountaineering, and of hand-to-hand
struggles, of dripping bayonets and of combatants locked in last
embrace with hands clutching each other's throats.
On both sides of the boundary were thousands of men who had spent
their lives exploring the trackless mountainsides, climbing with ropes
and ice axes and staves. Both nations had encouraged the formation of
Alpine clubs.
Soon after midnight on May 23, 1915, the Alpini and Bersaglieri of the
Italian army, supported by a few battalions of first line troops and
gendarmes, crossed the mountain frontier. Soon the peaks resounded
with the popping of rifle fire and the louder detonations of the
Austrian mountain guns. Along the whole Trentino front that night a
hundred skirmishes drove back the Austrian outpost. Only a few
thousand men in all were engaged. The Italian cyclist sharpshooters
advanced swiftly up the steep mountain roads until greeted by musketry
fire. Then they sought shelter, pushing forward from rock to rock and
from tree to tree. Often the light infantry and Alpini foot soldiers
were able to skirt the enemy's posts and catch them in the rear.
By May 26, 1915, all Italy was thrilled by the news that all the lower
passes of the Dolomites were won and breaches made at Tonale Pass
along the northwest and in the Carnic and Julian Alps along the
northeast front. Among the points occupied were the Montozzo Pass,
9,585 feet high, Ponte Caffaro, running into southwestern Trentino,
the ridge of Monte Baldo, extending northward fifteen miles toward
Arco and Roverto in southern Trentino, some of the heights looking
westward toward Trento, all the valleys in the labyrinth of the
Dolomites, and several footholds in the Alps of Carinthia. The eastern
army was well inside Austrian territory, its left at Caporetto on the
Isonzo just under Monte Nero, its center looking down on Gorizia from
the heights between Indria and the Isonzo, and its right between
Cormons and Terzo. Losses on both sides were surprisingly small
considering the extent of territory covered by the fighting. The
Austrians, after slight resistance, withdrew into their fortresses and
waited behind their guns, grimly conscious that the real struggle was
still before them.
Then, through the holes pierced by the mountain troops, the Italian
engineers began to move forward their artillery and building
emplacements and constructing trenches. Skirmishing on the mountain
frontier continued until the end of May, 1915. By that time Italian
forces attacking Trentino had crossed the Lessini Mountains north of
Verona, captured the Austrian town of Ala on the Adige, and penetrated
nearly ten miles into Austrian territory. They held high ground on the
south commanding the forts of Roverto, and had begun to bring up their
heavy guns against this important stronghold. Roverto is one of a
number of strongly fortified places girdling Trent and commanding the
converging routes to this center of the Austrian defensive. Other
lesser fortresses in this girdle are Laredo on the Chiese, Levico on
the Brenta, and Riva at the head of Lake Garda. Upon these the
Italians closed in, and there they consolidated their positions
awaiting the support of the first-line troops advancing in heavy
detachments, and of their artillery.
While Italy struck the first blow on land, the first offensive
operation of the Italo-Austrian conflict by sea came from Austria.
This was an extensive raid on Italy's Adriatic coast. Its object was
to delay the Italian concentration by attacking vital points on the
littoral railway from Brindisi to the north.
[Illustration: The Coasts of Italy and Austria, Showing the Naval Raid
May, 1915.]
The Austrian fleet began its attack early on the morning of Monday,
May 24, 1915. The ships engaged were a squadron from Pola, consisting
of two battleships, four cruisers, and eighteen destroyers, strongly
supported by aircraft. The assault extended from Brindisi to Venice,
and covered a large extent of coast territory hard to defend. At
Venice the Austrian air raiders dropped bombs into the arsenal and the
oil tanks and balloon sheds on the Lido. The priceless relics of art
and architecture, all that remained to recall the city's proud
position as ruler of the Adriatic, were uninjured, but the attack from
the air caused an outcry from the nations of the Entente almost equal
to that which rang through the world when the Germans shelled the
cathedral at Rheims and destroyed Louvain. The Austrians replied that
the attack was a serious military operation, and by no means the
wanton outrage their enemies had tried to make it appear.
The Austrian naval raid lasted barely two hours, but in that time the
cruiser _Novara_ and several destroyers attacked Porto Corsini, north
of Ravenna, in a vain effort to destroy the Italian torpedo base; the
cruiser _St. Georg_ shelled the railway station and bridges at Rimini;
the battleship _Zrinyi_ attacked Sinigaglia, and wrecked the railway
station and bridge; south of Ancona the battleship _Radetzky_
destroyed a bridge over the River Potenza. In the south the cruisers
_Helgoland_ and _Admiral Spaun_ with destroyers shelled a railway
bridge and station and several signal stations in the neighborhood of
Manfredonia and Viesti, and caused some damage in small coast towns.
The raid was well planned and swiftly executed, and it accomplished
much of its purpose. The Italian fleet was taken by surprise, and the
marauders were back in safety at Pola by six o'clock in the morning,
unharmed.
While Italian Alpine troops were driving in the Austrian outposts on
the frontiers of Trentino and the Tyrol, General Cadorna advanced his
main infantry force, the Third Army, across the Friuli Plain through
Udine, Palmanova, and St. Georgio toward the Isonzo. Here the covering
troops on May 24 and 25 had captured nearly all the small towns and
villages between the frontier and the river from Caporetto in the
north just below Monte Nero to Belvedere in the south on the Gulf of
Trieste. Cadorna feared lest his opponent, General von Hofer, would
launch his main attack from Gorizia against the Italian city of
Palmanova, fourteen miles to the west. But Von Hofer, so it developed,
had a subtler plan of campaign than a direct attack through Gorizia.
What he did was to place a strong force on the mountain of Korada
between the Isonzo and the Judrio. This height commanded the middle
course of the Isonzo, and it had been transformed into a network of
permanent trenches, protected by strong wire entanglements.
The Austrian general believed that by the time the Italians could
bring up their heavy artillery and begin to smash the entanglements
with their field guns, supports could be pushed across the river.
Realizing that Korada must be captured, if at all, by dash and
surprise, the Italian brigadier in charge of the attack gathered a
herd of fierce bulls, which are numerous in that part of Venetia, and
penned them in a hollow out of sight of the enemy, while his artillery
began to bombard the hostile trenches. When the animals were wrought
to a frenzy of rage and fear by the noise of the guns, they were let
loose and driven up the mountain against the Austrian positions. Their
charge broke through many strands of the wire entanglements, and
before the last of them fell dead under the Austrian rifle fire,
Italian troops with fixed bayonets had crowded through the gaps in the
wires and captured the position.
By the end of May, 1915, the Third Army had reached the Isonzo River,
but had not crossed. Its advance was slow and cautious. Operations
were hampered by the heavy rains, which caused the river to overflow
its banks and added greatly to the difficulties put in the path of the
advancing army by the Austrians, who, as they withdrew, left not a
bridge behind them.
Grado, a fishing town of about 5,000 inhabitants, but important on
account of its strategic situation, was occupied by the Italians with
no great difficulty. Grado lies at the head of the Adriatic, and is
twelve miles from Trieste and sixty from Pola. The waters of the
lagoons in this neighborhood were valuable to the Italians as a safe
shelter for submarines and other small war-craft, and as a base for a
prospective attack later upon Pola itself. The inhabitants, most of
whom preserved their Italian traits and sympathies, although the town
had been under Austrian rule since 1809, hailed the conquerors
enthusiastically. Cannon and military carriages were decorated with
flowers. Thousands of Italian flags appeared as if by magic. The
entering troops were greeted with shouts of "All our lives we have
been waiting for this moment when we can cry 'Viva Italia!'" The
possession of Grado gave the Third Army virtual control of the mouth
of the Isonzo, but the main Austrian position of defense at Gorizia
remained apparently unweakened.
Scenes like those at Grado were witnessed at Ala, the first Austrian
town of any size and the first railroad center captured by the
Italians in the Trentino. Ala was occupied May 27, 1915. Three days
before this the Italian light infantry had massed behind the boundary
line, and when they began their advance along the main highway their
first act was to pull down the yellow and black pole that marked the
frontier.
The next day, May 28, 1915, the commanding general with his chief of
staff and two guards motored to the spot, cut a passage-way through
the barricade, and, encountering no opposition, kept on until they
reached Ala, seven miles beyond.
The Italian troops were ordered to advance next day, May 29, 1915, and
as they marched into the town, officers shouted: "Open your windows.
Long live Italy!" The Mayor of Ala called out his townsmen and set
them at work removing the barricades on the main road.
In the midst of these rejoicings the sharp rattle of musketry was
heard, and the Italians rushed to cover. A reconnoitering party
reported that the Austrians were intrenched in a large villa beyond a
stream outside the town. The Italian troops began an attack upon this
position, and a skirmish party sought to take a position in a house on
a near-by hill commanding the villa held by the enemy. Although the
way to this house was exposed to the Austrian fire, the Italian
officer decided to risk an attempt to reach it. But as he raised his
sword to signal an advance, a young girl ran to his side and told him
of a path sheltered from the Austrian fire. This girl, Signorina
Abriani, whose name will go down in Italian history as one of the
first heroines of the war, guided the detachment safely. The Austrians
holding the villa were strongly intrenched, and they held out against
superior forces until late in the afternoon, when four shells crashed
into the building, bringing it down about their ears. The Italians had
brought up a battery on the opposite side of the Adige River and
opened fire at long range. The Austrians made good their retreat,
leaving all their ammunition and three dead. Later fifty-seven
Austrians were taken prisoners.
That night the Italian general took the precautions, usual on entering
a newly occupied town, of ordering that all the windows in town be
kept open and illuminated, and kept patrols about the town. The mayor
was reconfirmed, and his first act was to announce to the citizens
that "the royal military authorities, knowing the needs of the
inhabitants, have with affectionate solicitude and great generosity
placed 5,000 rations of bread and 2,000 of rice at the disposal of the
poor." Thus Ala became Italian.
The incidents of these first advances into Austrian territory were
reported in detail in Italy, and are set down here as typical of
events that accompanied the irruption of Italian troops over the
border into the country which once had been Italian and where, despite
more than a century of Austrian occupation, a large proportion of the
inhabitants in spirit was Italian still. Such reports spread through
Italy naturally increased enthusiasm for the restoration of the
"unredeemed" provinces.
Although, as a rule, the Austrians retired before the first Italian
advance into Trentino, they did not depart until they had left every
possible obstacle. Roads were barricaded, bridges destroyed, and mines
were laid, cleverly concealed on hillsides where it was intended their
explosion would overwhelm the Italians under masses of rock and earth.
But this was just what the Alpini and Bersaglieri had been trained to
anticipate. According to the official Italian accounts, their scouting
was so excellent that the wires connecting these mines with Austrian
hiding places were discovered and cut, and hardly a mine was exploded.
All this took place while the Austrians were drawing in their outposts
and consolidating their forces in the great strongholds where later
they held the Italians in absolute check. The Italians advanced
cautiously in small groups, and the Austrians abandoned the frontier
villages soon enough to avoid serious encounters, but not a minute
sooner.
In the Alps in these days of May, 1915, the Great War was fought much
as wars have been fought in times we are accustomed to regard as the
age of true romance. The Italian King visited the Alpine troops and
surprised his men and redoubled their devotion by showing his skill as
a mountain climber. "You forget," he told an officer who remonstrated
with him as he was about to scale a particularly difficult position to
examine a gun "chamois hunting is my favorite sport."
If certain portions of the Italian population seemed lukewarm toward
the war during the period of diplomatic negotiations, there was no
doubt of the temper of the nation after hostilities actually began.
The chord of national feeling was struck by King Victor Emmanuel in an
order issued upon taking supreme command of the army and navy.
"Soldiers on land and sea," said the order, "the solemn hour of the
nation's claims has struck. Following the example of my grandfather, I
take to-day supreme command of Italy's forces on land and sea, with
the assurance of victory which your bravery, self-abnegation, and
discipline will obtain.
"The enemy you are preparing to fight is hardened to war and worthy of
you. Favored by the nature of the ground and skillful works, he will
resist tenaciously, but your unsubdued ardor will surely vanquish him.
"Soldiers, to you has come the glory of unfurling Italy's colors on
the sacred lands which nature has given as the frontiers of our
country. To you has come the glory of finally accomplishing the work
undertaken with so much heroism by our fathers."
The stormy scenes which followed the resignation of the Salandra
cabinet gave way to a confident calm. From his seclusion in the
Vatican the pope addressed a letter to Cardinal Vannutelli, breathing
a spirit of resignation and faith, but carefully refraining from any
expression of partisanship in the great struggle.
"The hour which we are traversing is painful," he said, "but our
prayers will go out more frequently and more fervently than ever to
those who have in their hands the fate of nations." The pope recalled
that in his first Encyclical issued at the beginning of the war he
exhorted the belligerent nations to make peace, but his voice was
unheeded and the war continued "until the terrible conflagration has
extended to our beloved Italy. While our hearts bleed at the sight of
so much misery," he wrote, "we have not neglected to continue our work
for relief and the diminution of the deplorable consequences of war. I
wish that the echo of our voice might reach to all our children
affected by the great scourge of war, and persuade all of them of our
participation in their troubles and sorrows. There is little of the
grief of the child that is not reflected in the soul of the father."
The greatest enthusiasm, naturally, was manifested in the cities of
the north nearest the scene of war. The Master Workers' Guild of Milan
voted unanimously to give up one day's pay each month to be devoted to
the relief of the families of men at the front. Many business houses
carried soldiers' names on their payrolls and remitted their wages to
their families.
In all cities within range of the enemy's aircraft precautions were
taken to guard public buildings, and especially the famous objects
which for centuries had made Italy the Mecca of lovers of art. In
Venice the bronze horses of St. Mark's were taken down from their
pedestals and hidden in the subterranean caverns of the cathedral. The
gilded statue of the Virgin surmounting the celebrated white marble
cathedral at Milan was covered with cloth, so that it might not serve
as a guide to Austrian raiders. The stained glass windows of the
edifice were removed as a precaution against possible bombardment.
After the first Austrian sea and air raid along the Adriatic coast
orders were issued that lights should be darkened in all Adriatic
ports. This order was extended also to certain inland cities, such as
Milan, Bologna, Verona, Brescia, and Udine. A special watch for
aeroplanes was kept at Bologna on account of the location there of an
important factory for the manufacture of explosives. Watches were set
on the crests of the Appenines ready to notify Rome of approaching
danger from the air.
The attitude of Germany toward Italy at this period of the war is best
indicated by the speech delivered at the session of the Reichstag by
Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor. He imputed the
Italian declaration of war to a combination of mob dictation, bad
faith on the part of the cabinet of Premier Salandra, and, to a
certain degree, to the money of the powers of the Entente. The greater
part of the Italian people, the chancellor asserted, and a majority in
the Italian Parliament had not wanted war, and were even kept in
ignorance of the extent of the concessions which Austria-Hungary was
willing to make for the sake of peace. The Salandra cabinet, he
declared, long before the Triple Alliance had ceased to exist,
aligned itself with the Triple Entente and "unchained the mob spirit
and intimidated the advocates of peace."
On the eve of leaving Rome, Prince von Bülow gave out a statement in
which he declared that Italy was led into the war by a "noisy
minority," and that even if in the end she obtained what she asked she
would not get much more than what Austria already had offered. "It
should be understood," he explained, "that it was impossible to
deprive the central empires of Trieste, their only outlet to the
Adriatic in the Mediterranean."
Turkey regarded the entrance of Italy into the war on the side of the
Entente with apparent equanimity. "We will not declare war on Italy,"
announced Talaat Bey, the Turkish Minister of the Interior. "We can
wait. What can Italy do to us?"
CHAPTER LXVI
FIGHTING IN THE MOUNTAINS
While the world hears little about strategic plans that fail to work
out, it is believed that the Austrians in May, 1915, had in mind to
let the enemy obtain a good start in his advance against Trieste.
Then, when the Italian operations were well under way, and the two
railroads from Venice were choked with their supplies, the Austrians
probably intended to launch a swift attack upon Verona and the rich
cities of Lombardy, thus cutting off the chief centers of Italian
industry. At the same time, they undoubtedly meant to send an invading
army through the passes of the Carnic and Julian Alps from their base
at Tarvis, and by a sudden swoop southward take the Italian forces on
the Isonzo in the flank. At least this is what the Italian staff
believed was their plan, and they arranged their own forces
accordingly.
This was the reason for the extensive Italian drive during the third
week of May, 1915, at all the mountain passes of the long frontier.
For almost any of these passes might prove to be the gateway of
invasion, whereas, once captured, they could be held by a few
battalions. But behind each force that occupied the passes won in the
first Italian dash was a large reserve ready to lend support wherever
the enemy tried to break through. The Italians were not kept long in
suspense as to where this thrust from the north first would come.
On May 29, 1915, under cover of a heavy fog, the Austrians
concentrated a strong force from Villach, brought them to Mauthen, and
from that point launched five successive attacks in an effort to win
back the pass of Monte Croce in the Carnic Alps. The Alpini met the
attacks with musketry and machine-gun fire, then, after the last
attempt had failed, leaped from their trenches and drove the Austrians
down the valley.
Thus began the battle of Monte Croce, an engagement described in the
official bulletins of both countries in a way that gave the world its
first intimation of the peculiar features of this mountain warfare.
Each side had large reserves, and the struggle for the pass continued
day and night, the Italians pushing over the neighboring passes and
gathering their strength for a counterattack when the Austrians were
exhausted.
On June 8, 1915, the Italians stormed Freikofel, a height commanding
the Plocken Plateau, and took the Pass of Valentina and the Pass of
Oregione, 7,500 feet high, and overlooking the wooded valley of Gail.
The Alpini won Oregione by climbing through ice and snow over Paralba
Mountain and fighting their way downward. Undaunted, General Dankl
called up a fresh corps.
On the night of June 14, 1915, the Austrians made a supreme effort to
break through the Italian line and put into effect his plan of pouring
an army through the Carnic Alps to attack the flank of the main
Italian army. Although 100,000 men were engaged in this battle, the
ground permitted no massed movements. For miles the saddle of
Oregione, the snow-clad sides of Paralba, and every smaller peak and
ravine extending to Monte Croce and Freikofel were speckled with
fighting men. After the two sides came to grips, the big guns held
their fire, and it was man to man and bayonet against bayonet. At one
point only did the Austrian thrust reach Italian soil. For a short
time the Austrians were on Paralba at an elevation of 8,840 feet, but
threatened both in the flank and in the rear they were forced to
retreat and take refuge in their prepared positions on Steinwand, a
huge limestone mountain overlooking the Gail Valley.
The strategic idea of General Cadorna is more easily understood when
one studies the railway map of the Austrian territory north of the
Carnic border. Here their railway line through the Drave Valley passed
closer to the boundary line than did the Italian system on the south,
and they could bring up fresh troops with more speed. In the Gail
Valley they had a wide region in which they could mass hidden from the
enemy, and they had a good road up the mountains from Mauthen, while
the Italians had to depend upon rough tracks through the valley.
Although Cadorna had the hard task of keeping the doorway to Venice
closed while he attacked the enemy on both flanks, he accomplished his
purpose.
The Italian army operating in the province of Cadore won its next
success in an attack upon the village of Cortina, situated in a
salient of the frontier, 4,000 feet high, amid some of the most
beautiful scenery in the world. Cortina was taken on May 30. The
Austrians had barricaded the famous road winding up through the
Dolomites, and dug elaborate trenches; but the Italians, by superhuman
efforts, moved up their mountain guns, while the Alpini scrambled over
the mountains by the glaciers of Serapis and the tarns of Croda da
Lago, and descended into Cortina on either side. Then, holding the
enemy on the east, they advanced into the Tyrol westward to Falzarego.
In this region they had an experience which illustrated the foresight
of the Austrians in preparing for the attack they believed would come.
Some years before an Austrian had built a hotel in a deep ravine shut
in by walls of limestone and very difficult of approach. Tourists had
commented upon the lack of practicability of the man who placed a
hostelry in so inaccessible a spot. But when the war came it developed
that the hotel builder probably had a subsidy from the Government. For
sandbags, machine guns, and quick-firers quickly converted the hotel
into an excellent fort, which dominated the famous ravine. Thanks to
the hardiness and ingenuity of their picked Alpine troops, the
Italians, after a week of hard fighting, cleared the mountains above
the ravine and dropped upon the hotel fort.
By June 9, 1915, the Italians had won the Falzarego Pass. At times the
fighting raged on summits 10,000 feet high, where the thin air
exhausted the combatants far quicker than their physical exertions. In
the last battle of this engagement the Italians obtained a footing
upon a point of great strategical importance three miles beyond the
pass on the Sasso d'Istria, close to where the Dolomite road bends
southward through the ravine and penetrated the mountains in two
tunnels.
This victory gave the Austrians cause for anxiety regarding the
western defenses of Tyrol, for by a double flanking movement along the
Cordevole River and the Dolomite road the Italians in Cadore had
extended like two arms around one of the principal systems of defense.
General Dankl hurried reenforcements to the Cadore front to check the
thrust up the Cordevole Valley. At the end of this valley was the
focal point of the system of railways that carried food and munitions
to both the Trentino forces and those in southern Tyrol. If the
Italians had succeeded in cutting the railway at this point the enemy
would have had great difficulty in maintaining his armies on the
Trentino and Tyrol fronts. The Italian effort was not pushed to
success; but it at least had the effect of discouraging any plans
General Dankl might have formed of invading the plains of northern
Italy at the foot of the frontier mountains.
Only twenty miles south of the Austrian outposts was the important
city of Verona, famed for its memories of Romeo and Juliet. Nearer
still was Brescia with the fertile lands of Lombardy surrounding it.
But by his maneuvers at the opening of the war, General Cadorna
effectively protected Italian territory and forced the enemy to devote
all his attention to resisting the attacks of active light infantry
and mountain artillery. The great 12-inch Skoda howitzers, upon which
Austria depended to batter down the defenses of these Italian cities,
were needed elsewhere, behind the Julian and Carnic Alps, and
especially in the corner of the frontier near Predil Pass, by which
Napoleon invaded Italy, and on the Isonzo front between Tolmino and
the Adriatic.
Thus with his infantry, Cadorna overcame the artillery handicap under
which Italy labored during all the first months of the war. The Skoda
gun was reputed to be the best in the world. It had proved its worth
in Belgium and Russia, and the fact that the Austrians were able to
lend guns to their ally proved their wealth of big-gun power. Now,
even after ten months of war, when thousands of the great howitzers
were busy in Galicia and along the Danube, the Skoda works could still
produce an armament superior to that of Italy. Much of the
effectiveness of the Skoda gun lay in the fact that it could be
separated into two parts for easier transportation. In addition to
these 12-inch mortars, Austria had a 6-inch steel Skoda, designed in
the summer of 1914, for use in the Carpathians and well adapted to
fighting in the Alps. Due in part to their realization of this
superiority of Austria in big guns, the Italians remained neutral for
ten months, but meanwhile they had created a new armament for their
own armies at full speed. For the attack on the Austrian infantry in
the field they adapted the French 75-millimeter quick-firer, and for
siege work they manufactured 6-and 12-inch howitzers. But it takes
time to build heavy artillery, and at this time every armament firm in
the world was pushed to its full capacity, while the Italians, being
without coal fields, were handicapped in the development of armament
resources at home. For political reasons also General Cadorna would
not risk sacrificing his men to overcome this artillery handicap. His
problem was to conserve his forces as much as possible in readiness
for a defensive campaign against combined Teutonic armies, winning
what small victories he could, and meanwhile keeping down his casualty
lists, while fighting heavy howitzers with light mountain guns and
3-inch quick-firers.
After the Italians had established their hold upon the frontier points
there was an apparent relaxation of effort while the infantry of the
line waited for the heavy siege artillery to issue from the armament
factories and come into action. This movement of artillery was slow,
especially on the Isonzo front where engineering operations were
delayed by the summer floods caused by the melting snows from the
mountain tops. To transport heavy pieces of ordnance across the floods
the Italian engineers had to build strong bridges, often under heavy
fire from the enemy, who, even after their retirement from the east
bank of the river, continually harassed the Italian advance guard
holding the bridgeheads. The Austrians aided the work of the mountain
floods by breaking down the high embankment used to carry off the snow
water, and thereby inundated the plain. Working under a plunging fire
from the enemy's batteries on the foothills, the Italian sappers built
light pontoon bridges over the floods upon which the first Italian
contingent crossed at night and occupied the first line of Austrian
trenches near the river.
This much the Italians accomplished by the first week in June, 1915;
but there they were forced to pause for the reasons already described.
Active hostilities during the first part of June on the Isonzo front
centered around Monfalcone, a seaport just below the dominating Carso
headlands. Taken from Venice by the Austrians during the Napoleonic
era, Monfalcone had become the third most important port in the
empire. In its yards warships were being constructed.
On June 9, 1915, the Italians made their swift stroke in a
southwesterly direction from their Isonzo line. The port was bombarded
on June 7, 1915, by a light Italian cruiser squadron, and the Castle
of Duino, standing at the sea edge near Trieste and defended by three
artillery batteries, was shattered and set afire apparently to prepare
for the operations against Monfalcone from the southwestern side of
the Gulf of Panzano. Archduke Eugene hastily collected a strong force
above Duino ready to resist an attempt by the Italians to land, but
the attempt never was made. It developed that the bombardment of Duino
was a feint.
The real movement against Monfalcone was launched from another quarter
straight across the Isonzo. The Bersaglieri cyclist corps and
grenadiers broke through the Austrian line at the river, and since the
Austrians had neglected to prepare a reserve line, the Italians
advanced by a swift, running fight through the villages around the
Isonzo delta. Near the historic town of Aquileia, now a mere hamlet,
the Italians forced a passage of the river at the point of the bayonet
and flowed in two streams around the enemy's positions, depending for
their rapid movements upon their cyclists with machine guns and their
fast-marching light infantry. The Austrians set fire to the pine-clad
mountain slopes, but were unable to stem the rush of the Italians who,
under the flare of the forest fires, broke into the open town of
Monfalcone after storming the promontory of Rocca.
Here, however, the Italian advance guard was in a dangerous position,
for the Austrian batteries posted on the limestone bluffs rising 1,000
feet on the northern side of the town still dominated the streets
occupied by the Italians near the water's edge. The situation was
critical, not only because the troops in the lower town were in danger
of annihilation if they held their ground, but because the Italians
were anxious to save the town from bombardment, and preserve the
warships under construction in the shipyards. So a brigade of light
troops scaled the limestone cliffs dragging their mobile 3-inch guns,
and forced the Austrians to retire, taking their heavy howitzers with
them. Monfalcone now rested securely in Italian possession. The
Italians in all this engagement lost only about 100 killed and
wounded, while the enemy's casualties were estimated at 2,000. The
loss stung the Austro-Hungarian Government deeply.
CHAPTER LXVII
ATTACKS IN GORIZIA
After the Italian success in June, 1915, certain readjustments were
manifest in the Austrian forces in the Italian theatre. Although there
was no declaration of war between Italy and Germany, it was reported
that German officers were sent to aid the Austrians, and that the
forces of Archduke Eugene were progressively strengthened from this
time on. German soldiers who joined the Austrian detachments were
supposed to have volunteered in an irregular individual manner. In
this manner Germany preserved the appearance of neutrality.
The latter part of June, 1915, found Austria occupied with the siege
of Lemberg, and the archduke, apparently, was content to hold his own
on the Italian front until a decision had been obtained in the more
important operations against the Russians. Satisfied with their
initial successes, General Cadorna on land and the Duke of Abruzzi at
sea settled down to a slow, patient chess play, not unlike that worked
out by General Joffre in France. Cadorna issued a statement to the
Italian people in which he warned them that the preliminary successes
which, he said, had made good the strategical defects of their
frontier, would be followed by a long stage of gradual approaches
against the enemy's second line.
The attrition of the Austro-Hungarian forces would be carried on by
long-range artillery and sappers and local trench warfare with hand
grenades. The Italian commander in chief resolutely refused to divert
any part of his forces to the Dardanelles. Possible danger to Italian
dominion in Tripoli, pointed out by the leaders of the Entente Powers,
did not change his purpose to maintain a single concentrated front and
not diffuse his efforts. The war with Austria, he believed, would be
won or lost on the Italian frontier. His theory as to the best way to
meet advances by the Teutonic allies in new fields was to increase
pressure on their home frontiers where their interests were most
vital. The Italian army in the field was increased to a million men,
and, after the fall of Lemberg, Austria gradually moved more and more
troops to the Alpine passes and the Isonzo, until by August she had
600,000 men facing the Italians, double the number arrayed on this
front when Italy declared war. Had the Russians been able to hold out
longer in Galicia, there is little doubt that Cadorna would have had
something to show for the month of July besides a few local victories
which did not vitally affect the main campaign.
[Illustration: Italian Attack on Austria.]
On June 9, 1915, the capture of Gradisca completed the Italian control
of the lower Isonzo, and Cadorna prepared for a general attack on
all the strongholds guarding Trieste. Of these the most important were
the Carso tableland on the south, Gorizia barring the river-valley of
the Vipacco between the Carso and the foothills of the Julian Alps,
the fortified system of heights north of Gorizia surrounding the town
of Tolmino, and the great intrenched camp of Tarvis above Tolmino
extending to Malborghetto and the other Alps of Carinthia. These
fortified points had to be attacked generally or not at all. Any
attempt to mass an army against any one of them would have spelled
disaster, for the Italians would have been flanked by Austrian forces
from the north or south. A properly defined advance against Trieste
called for a simultaneous thrust at Tolmino and the Tarvis fortress
commanding the road to Vienna. The Austrians had been strengthening
Tarvis ever since 1859, after Napoleon III overthrew the Austrians in
the battles that freed Lombardy. The Austrian fortresses were again
strengthened after the siege of Port Arthur had demonstrated the power
of high-explosive shells, and again in 1910 when the Teutonic allies
made their great discovery that their new giant howitzers laughed at
modern defense works of steel and concrete. In remodeling her Alpine
strongholds Austria selected positions on the plateau for systems of
earthworks containing mobile siege guns.
The key to this immensely strong Austrian line of defense was the
railway town of Plava on the eastern bank of the Isonzo under the
wooded heights of the Ternovane Forest. Plava was in a salient
occupying about the middle of the Austrian line.
Here, on the night of June 17, 1915, the Italians began their general
offensive by an attack from Mount Korada on the opposite side of the
river. Under cover of darkness the Italian sappers built a pontoon
bridge, and the Bersaglieri crossed and carried the town and the
surrounding heights at the point of the bayonet. The Austrians
realized the importance of the position and quickly returned to a
violent counterattack. The Italians threw all their available men into
the gap, and a great battle raged on the edge of the highlands east of
the river. The Austrians had the advantage of position, for their
forces could be massed in the woodland out of sight of the Italian
aviators. But, on the other hand, the Italian batteries on Mount
Korada were able to pour a plunging fire into the lower tableland; and
due mainly to the aid of their artillery the Italian troops drove back
the enemy and maintained the ground won by the first dash.
General Cadorna was now in a position to begin a direct attack upon
Gorizia. He assailed the Hill of Podgora, forming the barbican of the
city's system of defenses and advanced a reconnoitering force toward
Mount Fortin. Meanwhile he massed 500 pieces of artillery on the
heights commanding the city. But the defenses of Gorizia had been well
planned, and they proved their completeness by a long resistance
covering a period that brought successive reports that the fortress
had fallen. All these reports proved false. South of the city the
Austrian intrenchments covered a front of more than ten miles, from
the Mount of San Gabriele below Plava to Mount San Michele on the
Carso tableland. The trenches were built in the most modern style, of
concrete more than a yard thick covered with steel armor, against
which ordinary shrapnel had no more effect than so much hail, and even
high-explosive shells of medium power did little damage. The Italian
weapons of attack were hand grenades and short knives, in the use of
which the infantry were expert. Four army corps operating under the
Duke of Aosta between Gorizia and the sea were beaten back by the
Austrians with heavy losses. This victory so encouraged the archduke
and chief lieutenant, General Boroevics, that they decided upon a
counteroffensive in force. Therefore, as soon as the Italian attack
slackened, the main Austrian army advanced across the Carso Plateau.
The series of battles that now followed were the first engagements of
any size between the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians in the open
field. They began June 22, 1915, and lasted until the close of July,
with a short let-up at the end of the first week in July. The theatre
included the whole Carso front, the Vipacco Valley, and the southern
part of the Ternovane Forest. After his first repulse General
Boroevics brought up fresh corps and renewed the attack, but in the
end he was driven back to his main line with shattered forces.
In the Carso tableland the Austrians had as nearly perfect a position
of natural defense as a general could choose. On the east of the
Isonzo plain the broken, rocky wall rises in places to 1,000 feet,
seamed with gullies and ravines, and bristling with forest growth
which afforded ideal cover. The action of the rain has pitted the
limestone with funnel-shaped holes which form natural redoubts for
machine guns; and there are larger depressions and caves where heavier
pieces of artillery may be placed in excellent shelter.
But while the Italians were unable to capture this position, when
General Boroevics took his troops out of their defenses and sent them
charging across the open ground, he found that the enemy had made good
use of his precarious hold on the edges of the tableland. Although
they occupied barely more than the rim of the plateau, with the
flooded Isonzo a third of a mile broad beneath them, the Italians had
strengthened their positions with sandbag intrenchments and hauled up
a few pieces of light artillery.
The chief support of the infantry holding these sandbag defenses was
the heavy guns across the river, which searched out the Austrian
columns whenever they left cover. In weight of artillery the Italians
had the advantage, for most of the Austrian 12-inch howitzers were
busy in the Alps, and they had to depend mainly upon 6-inch pieces.
By the second week in July, 1915, the Austrians relaxed their efforts,
and the Italians began a slow advance, working up the hills
overlooking Gorizia by a variety of methods. In the places,
comparatively few, where there was cultivated ground, they practiced
the siege method of sapping forward, but generally their advance was
over bare rock, where trenches could be excavated only by the use of
dynamite, and when a charge was made the troops had to carry sandbags
to build temporary cover from machine-gun fire. This method of
warfare, in fact, was general throughout the whole mountain front,
where the hard rock carried a mere veneer of earth, and sandbags had
to serve for defense until the engineers could blast trenches and
galleries in the flintlike face of the slopes.
The repulse of the Austrian counterattack in the middle of July, 1915,
ended the first phase of the battle of Gorizia. On July 18th, 19th and
20th, General Cadorna delivered a fierce assault aided by knowledge
gained in the first stage of the battle, which, for the Italians, was
little more than a reconnaissance in force. For three days and nights
he drove the troops of his combined Second and Third Armies against
the enemy's lines all along the Isonzo. His system was to attack by
day and then at night resist the enemy's counterassaults on his newly
won positions. The Italians retained all the ground they won during
these days of terrific fighting, and captured 3,500 prisoners.
By the 20th of July their confidence had increased to such an extent
that they determined upon a night assault. But next morning Cadorna
received word from his aeroplane scouts and his spies that the enemy
was massing for a supreme effort. The Italian advance was stayed and
every man was set at work helping the engineers strengthen the
trenches.
On July 21, 1915, there came a complete lull. The next day the
Austrians opened their attack with a concentrated bombardment. During
the period of Italian advance the railways had been piling up the
Austrian shells and German gunners had been sent by the Crown Prince
of Bavaria to help serve the heavy howitzers rushed to the Carso from
the Julian Alps and the Tyrol and Trentino salients. With the design
to cut the Italian line of communication, the main Austrian infantry
attack was delivered toward Gradisca where the Italians had
constructed their principal bridges across the Isonzo. The infantry
massed behind the neighboring hills and under cover of a tremendous
artillery bombardment advanced in close formation. The first line of
Italian troops seemed about to be swept away when the gunners on the
heights across the river got the range and poured into the advancing
Austrians a massed fire from all their 500 pieces. General Boroevics's
advance was pounded to pieces; the Italians brought up reenforcements
and charged and captured the lines from which the Austrians had
delivered their assault, taking 2,000 prisoners.
[Illustration: A cloud of poisonous gas released by Italian troops
from tanks concealed in the thicket.]
On July 23, 1915, the archduke ordered another attack upon the Italian
positions near the sea on the edge of the Carso tableland. This was
really an effort to recapture Monfalcone; but it failed, although the
Italians did not dare risk pursuit over the rough ground. Later two
Austrian divisions, advancing from San Michele and San Martino against
Sagrado were repulsed with heavy losses.
By July 25, 1915, the Italians were able to attack and capture some of
the intrenchments on the slopes of San Martino and to storm Sei Busi.
This hill of Sei Busi witnessed some of the most sanguinary fighting
of the whole series of engagements. On a single day it was won, lost
and won again by the Italians, both sides bringing up strong
reenforcements and concentrating against the summit all the artillery
within range. Over the crest of San Michele which dominated a large
part of the tableland the battle surged for many days.
On July 27, 1915, the Italians, attacking with bombs and bayonets were
able to occupy the summit, but could not establish themselves there in
the face of the enemy's bombardment. The lower slopes they were able
to hold behind their sandbag intrenchments, but the crest, swept by
the enemy's heavy artillery and offering no shelter, was absolutely
untenable. In all this fighting artillery played the major rôle. The
Italians charged that Archduke Eugene, realizing that any infantry
advance against this terrific gunfire was a certain sacrifice of men,
placed in his van regiments of men from the Italian-speaking provinces
and from Old Serbia and Croatia. In this position these troops were
exposed to fire from their own batteries with the knowledge that any
attempt at treachery meant annihilation by their own guns in the rear.
No figures as to the number of men from the "unredeemed" provinces
forced to fight against their kinsmen on the frontier are obtainable.
Italian writers, however, maintain that during the first months of the
war Austrian infantrymen of Latin and Slav origin were sacrificed by
the hundred thousand around Gorizia and Trento.
Like other great drives of the Allies on the French front, the Italian
offensive on the chain of forts guarding Gorizia failed to break the
enemy's resistance. The fighting, however, seasoned the untried troops
of General Cadorna and won them praise even from the veterans of
General Boroevics and from Boroevics himself. "I cannot refrain from
saying," declared the Austrian General in an interview published in a
Hungarian newspaper, "that the bravery of the Italian regiments was
almost incredible, for even if certain regiments lost all their
officers, this did not deter them from advancing with the greatest
contempt for death."
CHAPTER LXVIII
FIGHTING IN THE ALPS--ITALIAN SUCCESSES
Leaving the situation on the Isonzo where it rested at the close of
July, 1915, in a condition virtually of stalemate, we return to the
still more picturesque struggle in the Alps. While the Italian Third
Army in massed assault was making its unsuccessful fight for
possession of Gorizia with Trieste as its ultimate objective, warfare
was in progress in a hundred places in the Julian, Carnic, Dolomite,
Trentino and Tyrolean mountains. Although along this part of the
frontier the Italians inflicted no vital harm upon the enemy during
the first two months of the war, they were successful in a multitude
of minor enterprises, each of which furnishes its stirring tale of
hand-to-hand fighting, individual heroism and novel expedients in a
country singularly adapted to some of the methods of primeval warfare.
Being on the defensive, the Austrians frequently made use of the
primitive ambush of mountain tribes. Loose, heavy bowlders were lashed
to the edge of a precipice and masked with pine branches. Then when
the enemy passed along the mountain path beneath, the wires holding
the rocks in place were cut, releasing a deadly avalanche upon the
advancing foe.
Any description of the fighting on this Alpine front becomes by
necessity a catalogue of apparently isolated operations, for the
nature of the ground negatived any great battle in force such as that
along the Isonzo River. In the Julian Alps the Italian mountaineers
gained a lucky success early in June. General Rohr, the Austrian
commander, had set two companies to guard a rampart of rock between
Tolmino and Monte Nero. The position was so strong that a few hundred
men with Maxims and quick-firers could have held it against an army
corps. Its strength, in fact, was so apparent that the Austrians took
their duties too lightly. Leaving only a few sentries on watch, both
companies enjoyed plenty of sleep at night. But one night the Italian
Alpinists climbed silently over the mountain, killed the enemy's
sentries with knives before they could make an outcry and coming upon
the two companies from the rear captured them with scarcely a
struggle.
The peak of Monte Nero, a stump-shaped mountain 7,370 feet high at the
headwaters of the Isonzo, proved important to the Italians, for it
gave them a fire-control station from which 12-inch shells were
dropped into the forts of Tolmino and the southern forts of Tarvis.
North of Monte Nero, where the boundary turns to the west, is the
important pass of Predil, the gateway to Tarvis, guarded on the
southeast by the fortress of Flitsch and on the west by Malborghetto.
These two positions were the strongest points in a great ring of
fortified heights protecting the pass and the highway and railroad
running through an angle of the Julian Alps into the heart of Austria.
The forts of Malborghetto projected into Italian territory and its
chief works, Fort Hensel, a great white oblong of armored concrete,
was visible miles away in the Italian mountains. Against this system
of fortifications the Italians brought their heaviest howitzers and
demonstrated, as satisfactorily as the Germans had shown months
earlier at Liege, that the strongest forts were no match for modern
artillery. Fort Hensel and the other permanent forts were shattered
and the ground around them was pitted with great craters from
explosions of the 12-inch shells.
The final ruin of Fort Hensel was accomplished by a shell which
penetrated through the thickest of its steel and concrete layers and
exploded in its ammunition magazine. This bombardment of Malborghetto
necessitated firing mortar shells at a high angle completely over
mountains which hid the target from the Italian gunners. The work of
destruction was slow owing to the fact that mists often curtained the
mountain tops and forced the gunners to cease operations, because to
fire while the observers were unable to watch every shot and telephone
the results would have been only a waste of ammunition.
But the Austrians already knew that their forts were no match for
12-inch howitzers, once these great guns could get into position, and
they had prepared another method of defense which they put into use as
soon as the forts were destroyed. Batteries of Skodas, hidden in a
stretch of pasture land below the summit of the mountain, were brought
up and placed in pits concealed by tufts of grass and brush from
reconnoitering airmen, while at a safe distance dummy guns were
displayed to draw the Italians' fire. Thus one of the greatest
artillery duels of the whole front continued day after day, neither
side being able to see the enemy and relying for information upon
observers posted on mountain tops and in aeroplanes. These 12-inch
guns were not intended for such work. They had been laboriously hauled
to their lofty emplacements five and six thousand feet above sea level
to destroy 6-inch batteries, as these 6-inch guns had been brought up
to overpower the lighter 3-inch mountain guns, some of which the
Italians worked from peaks as high as 10,000 feet. When both sides got
these monster howitzers into position the natural sequence was a
deadlock. The most the infantry could do was to drive the enemy's
troops from summits valuable as observation points in the service of
the heavy artillery.
Thus the official reports issued by the Austrian and Italian staff
headquarters reiterated the names of peaks hitherto unknown to the
traveler and tourist mountaineer, peaks which became of immense
importance now, not so much on account of their height as because they
commanded the best views of the surrounding territory. One of these
was Freikofel. The Alpini captured it early in the war with scarcely a
struggle and then for weeks the Austrians sacrificed regiments and
even brigades in vain attempts to recover it.
The loss of Freikofel by the Austrians was followed, on June 24, 1915,
by the loss of Cresta Verde, and then in the first week of July the
Italians captured the important observation peak of Zellenkofel. This
mountain was held by the Austrians with a force of only forty men, but
in view of its extraordinary position this squad was considered
sufficient. The slopes below them were swept by a battery of their
mountain guns, in telephonic communication with the more distant
howitzer battery upon which it could call for assistance if necessity
arose, and a large infantry reserve was stationed in the wooded valley
below. But one night twenty-nine Alpini crept up the almost sheer
precipice a thousand feet high that separated them from the Austrian
defenders. They carried ropes and a machine gun and just as the moon
rose they attained the summit, set up their Maxim and opened fire.
Every man in the observation station was shot down.
Then followed a desperate fight with the Austrian mountain battery on
the reverse slope. But thanks to their machine gun the Italians were
able to break up the enemy's charge and as day broke they captured the
Austrians' guns and drove the men who served them down the mountain.
When the Austrian reserves arrived the Italians had intrenched
themselves on the southern slope and were able to make use of the
captured guns. The attacks of the reserves were repulsed and the
Italians held the mountain.
CHAPTER LXIX
MORE MOUNTAIN FIGHTING--RESULTS OF FIRST CAMPAIGN
At the western end of the rugged battle front, the Italian mountain
troops, after the first advance, were less successful than the troops
of Cadorna in the Carnic and Julian Alps. Here the fighting
mountaineers of Tyrol redeemed their reputation by a daring stroke.
The scene of this brilliant operation was close above the Tonale Pass,
the site of one of the greatest glaciers in Europe. From Presanella to
Care the ice extends in a gleaming crescent for more than twenty
miles. Its broadest part stretches for six miles to Monte Adamello,
11,640 feet high. The paths over or by these glaciers had been seized
and fortified by the Italians and their line along this front lay
mostly within Italian territory. In mid-July a force of Tyroleans
found a new track through the ice and before the Italians, engrossed
with operations elsewhere, knew what they were doing they had
penetrated several miles into Italian lands. The Italians met the
invaders at the famous Garibaldi Hut owned by the Italian Alpine Club
just beneath Mount Adamello and checked the advance, although the
Austrians retained some of the peaks commanding the Hut.
Just north of the Adamello group of peaks in the upper part of the
Giudicari Valley extending to Lake Garda the Italians took one of the
northern passes by surprise and advanced toward the forts defending
Riva and Arco. Eventually they won all the country south of the Ledro
Valley with a series of fierce artillery duels. A similar advance was
made east of Lake Garda and down the Lagarina Valley. The forward
movement was signalized by engineering feats comparable, in their
mastery of the human hand over the forces of nature, only to the
building of the Pyramids. The great siege guns weighing many tons were
hoisted to the top of cloud-piercing summits solely by man power.
Every bit of ammunition and supplies had to be brought up by the same
laborious method. At Col di Lana the Austrians had an intricate series
of works excavated deep in the solid rock. High explosive shells and
hand bombs were useless against this defense, but Colonel Garibaldi, a
grandson of the great Italian Liberator, found a way to drive the
Austrians out of their position. He mustered a corps of engineers who
had helped drill the great railway tunnels on the Swiss frontier and
under his direction they tunneled right through the mountain into the
Austrian galleries on the reverse slope. When the fumes of the last
charge of blasting dynamite cleared away a detachment of bomb
carriers leaped through the jagged hole, drove the enemy from their
galleries, and, constantly fed by supporting troops, cleared their way
up and down the mountain.
The first of August, 1915, found the Italians holding the Austrian
outpost positions they had taken during June and July; but the
Austrian main defenses from one end of the frontier to the other, a
distance of more than 300 miles, were virtually intact. It must be
borne in mind, however, that the Italian General Staff at this period
of the war never contemplated any general offensive except on the
Isonzo River. Although their attack along the Isonzo did not attain
its object of reducing the main defenses of Trieste and Gorizia,
proved too hard a nut to crack, the Italians here won a series of
minor victories against great odds and, to the Italian mind at least,
demonstrated the valor of the army and the effectiveness of the new
artillery which boded well for the future.
It has been pointed out that in these operations General Cadorna had
to consider other things besides the immediate problems facing his
troops. The Italo-Austrian warfare was but a small factor in the great
plan of the Entente allies, who as the war progressed, realized more
and more the importance of cooperative action. All that happened in
Galicia, Poland, Lithuania and Courland had a direct influence upon
Cadorna's plans. Russian reverses and the failure of all attempts by
the French and British to break the German line in France and Belgium
made the Italian commander cautious. The series of Teutonic victories
made it possible that at any time he might have to face an
overwhelming host of Austrians and Germans equipped with artillery
which he could not hope to equal and backed by an apparently limitless
supply of ammunition. For political reasons, also, he could not risk,
even in the hope of reaching Trieste, sacrificing his men in an
offensive costing anything like the quantities of human material being
used up each day in other theatres. His preponderance of troops at the
opening of operations in May was gradually reduced. But the enemy's
positions and his superior artillery offset the Italian's greater
numbers. On the whole it may be said that the Italians accomplished
quite as much as any of their allies. They penetrated farther into the
Alps and the rugged tableland west of Trieste than the British and
French with their colonials did into the hills of Gallipoli or into
the ridge of the Lille region, and the length of their thrusts was
greater than the French advances in Artois and Champagne.
The Italians were more successful in concealing the extent of their
losses than most of the other belligerents. A conservative estimate
places their total casualty list between the last week in May and the
first of August, 1915, at 25,000. The Austrians in the same period on
the same front lost about 15,000 dead, 50,000 wounded and 15,000
prisoners. The slight Italian losses compared with their enemy's is
remarkable in view of the fact that they were almost constantly on the
offensive. By far the greater portion of the casualties were suffered
in the east, during the two assaults on the defenses of Gorizia.
Measuring the territory gained during these two months and comparing
it with the concessions offered by Austria as the price of Italy's
neutrality--on this basis the Italians had no cause to regret their
decision. On the Venetian Plain by the lower Isonzo a few thousand men
in two days with comparatively small loss conquered all the territory
which the Italian nation had been offered for keeping out of war. This
conquered territory, however, was far less than the prize the Italian
King and his Cabinet set before the eyes of the people when they
declared war.
PART X--THE DARDANELLES AND TURKEY
CHAPTER LXX
BEGINNING OF OPERATIONS
During the month of January, 1915, the British and French naval
authorities came to a decision to attempt a naval attack upon the
Dardanelles. It was decided, too, to lose no time in the matter, but
to push the campaign with all speed. Undoubtedly, behind this decision
there were many political factors of a grave kind because, on the face
of it, there were many reasons why the attack should have been delayed
until fine weather. Once having come to a decision, no time was lost.
The Island of Tenedos was seized, and under an agreement with
Venizelos, the Greek Premier, the island of Lemnos was occupied. In
the latter the large harbor of Mudros offered an ideal naval and
military base for operations against the Dardanelles, overcoming one
of the chief original handicaps of the allied command, distance of
base from scene of operations. Lemnos was less than fifty miles from
the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, while Tenedos was but twenty-two
miles away, lying close to the Turkish coast. At these two depots a
considerable Anglo-French naval squadron was rapidly collected. They
came from all parts of the world.
The elimination of the German commerce raiders from the high seas, and
the obvious intentions of the main German and Austrian fleets to avoid
a general action against overwhelming odds, freed a large number of
allied, and especially British, warships of secondary fighting value.
By the middle of February, 1915, the rendezvous was complete. Besides
the ships belonging to the British and French Mediterranean fleets,
there had arrived, fresh from the battle of the Falkland Islands, the
_Inflexible_, a dreadnought battle cruiser. The _Queen Elizabeth_,
too, arrived, the newest and strongest of the ships of the whole
British navy. It is evident that great reliance had been placed on the
enormous gun power of this vessel, it being hoped that her great
15-inch pieces would blow the Dardanelles defenses to pieces, somewhat
in the way the gigantic German land guns had blown the Belgian forts
into fragments. In no other way is it possible to explain the risking
of this capital ship in the highly dangerous operations in the Ægean
sea.
In addition to the _Queen Elizabeth_ and the _Inflexible_, the British
force included the _Agamemnon_, the _Irresistible_, the _Vengeance_,
the _Triumph_, the _Albion_, the _Lord Nelson_, the _Ocean_ and the
_Majestic_. The French ships numbered the _Charlemagne_, the
_Gaulois_, the _Suffern_, and the _Bouvet_.
Early in the morning of February 19, 1915, these vessels, under the
supreme command of Vice Admiral Sackville Carden, and with Rear
Admiral Guépratte in command of the French division, arrived off the
Gallipoli Peninsula. At 8 a. m. they opened an intense bombardment of
the several forts. At first they battered away at the Turks at long
range but finally, about the middle of the afternoon, the _Vengeance_,
_Cornwallis_ and _Triumph_ of the British forces, and the _Suffern_,
_Gaulois_ and _Bouvet_ of the French fleet, closed in upon the Turkish
forts which were still replying. It was not until darkness that all
the land batteries had been apparently silenced.
At this time, and throughout the various attempts to reduce the
Dardanelles forts by naval bombardment, there was considerable
difficulty in making the demolition permanent. On the following
morning a detachment of the Naval Flying Corps made a reconnaissance
and discovered that the damage was not as great as had been hoped.
Accordingly, preparations were made to give the Turks another dose of
the 12-inch guns. Before this could be done bad weather intervened.
On February 25, 1915, there was a further bombardment and by five
o'clock in the evening all the forts again had been silenced. Mine
sweeping operations were then begun. For this work English-Scotch
trawlers from the North Sea had been brought down and the crews of
these little unprotected boats added many pages of heroism to the book
of great deeds of the Dardanelles operations.
The following day a division of the battleship fleet entered the
straits for a distance of four miles, the mine sweepers having cleared
the channel for that distance. The _Albion_, _Vengeance_ and
_Majestic_ opened fire with their 12-inch guns on Fort Dardanos, a
battery mounting nothing but 5.9-inch guns, situated on the Asiatic
shore some distance below the Narrows. Fort Dardanos bravely replied,
however, until put out of action, as did several concealed batteries,
the presence of which the British and French had not suspected.
With the completion of this operation the allied command believed they
had not only permanently silenced the forts guarding the entrance to
the Dardanelles but had, as well, made both sides of the straits then
too warm for the Turkish troops. Accordingly forces of marines were
landed to complete the work of demolition. They were successful except
at Kum Kale where the Turks proved to have maintained a large force.
The British landing party was driven back to its boats in a hurry
after suffering a score of casualties.
The apparent success of these naval operations raised high hopes in
Great Britain and in the other allied countries. The British
Government, which had established a censorship for all news that might
tend to depress the British public, saw no reason for interfering to
prevent the publication of news that might tend unduly in the other
direction. The newspapers and the so-called military experts gave the
public what they evidently wanted. The attack upon the Dardanelles,
according to the majority of these, was practically over. A few voices
of warning were raised, but they were immediately silenced as
"croakers" and "pessimists" and even "pro-Germans." Absurd reports of
consternation and panic in Constantinople were sent broadcast
throughout Great Britain, and thence to the whole world. Thousands of
Turks, in abject fear, were pictured as spending most of their days
and nights on the housetops of the sacred city, anxiously awaiting the
first glimpse of the victorious allied fleet sailing up the Golden
Horn. Hundreds of thousands were said to be fleeing into Asia Minor
and preparations were being made by the sultan and his government to
follow suit.
Meanwhile, nothing of the kind was happening, either in Gallipoli or
in Constantinople. The German and Turkish authorities, confident in
their ability to hold the straits against all the forces that could be
brought against it, were quietly perfecting their plans. Bad weather
again interrupted the Allies' operations, and it was not until March
1, 1915, that the _Triumph_, _Ocean_ and _Albion_ again entered the
straits, and bombarded Fort Dardanos (once more active), and the
concealed shore batteries. The same night the mine sweepers, under the
protection of destroyers, cleared an additional five miles of the
channel, and the waters were safe up to within a mile and a half of
the entrance to the Narrows.
About the same time the two French squadrons bombarded the Bulair
lines, where the Gallipoli Peninsula connects with the mainland, in an
attempt to interrupt the Turks' supply of troops and ammunition.
On the following day, March 2, 1915, the _Canopus_, _Swiftsure_ and
_Cornwallis_ drew close into Fort Dardanos and opened fire. By so
doing they got within range of the Turkish batteries in the pine woods
just below the Kilid Bahr plateau and all three boats were hit.
For the next few days the bombardment of various Turkish positions and
batteries was continued. On the afternoon of March 4, 1915, a large
landing party was put ashore at Kum Kale and Sedd-el-Bahr to complete
the demolition of the works. That on the Asiatic shore again had a
hard time and was driven off by a Turkish force after doing only small
damage. The force on the European side also found that the Turks had
quickly returned to the tip of the peninsula as soon as the fire of
the warships had ceased.
On the following day there occurred at Smyrna an incident that is hard
to explain. Even British experts have not made any attempt to solve
the puzzle. Vice Admiral Peirse with a British and French fleet,
appeared off the city and opened a bombardment. The Turkish command
did not reply and, after doing considerable damage, Peirse and his
ships sailed away. He made no attempt to land, indeed he is not
believed to have had a force for that purpose with him. The only
reasonable explanation of the bombardment is that it was in the nature
of a diversion intended to keep as many troops as possible from
Gallipoli.
In the Dardanelles the operations were rapidly coming to a head. The
Anglo-French command believed the time had now arrived for an attack
in force upon the forts at the Narrows, the real defenses of the
straits. Accordingly, on March 6, 1915, the _Albion_, _Prince George_,
the _Vengeance_, the _Majestic_ and the _Suffern_ steamed well up the
straits and opened a direct fire on the big forts. It was not upon the
work of these ships, however, that great hopes rested. A new
experiment was being tried from the Gulf of Saros on the other side of
the Peninsula of Gallipoli, at the same time. With their long range
guns the _Queen Elizabeth_, the _Agamemnon_, and the _Ocean_ stood
well out and, by indirect fire, threw shell after shell over the
heights of the peninsula into the land works. All the while circling
aeroplanes, under the constant fire of the Turkish antiaircraft guns,
watched and corrected the firing, while a captive balloon, sent up
from the _Agamemnon_, did additional and valuable service in this
respect.
It was found that, because of the angle of fire of the big naval guns,
it was not possible to score any hits from the Gulf of Saros on the
Turkish forts on the European side of the straits and the attempt was
soon abandoned. Modern big gun ammunition was too expensive to be
lightly thrown away. Furthermore, the life of one of the big guns of
these battleships is strictly limited, especially if full charges are
being used. Ultimately, the three battleships in the Gulf shifted
their fire to the forts near Chanak, on the Asiatic side, where the
works were on low ground, almost at sea level.
It was confidently hoped that, by means of this indirect fire, it
would be possible to put the 14-inch guns of these forts out of
action, without giving them a chance to reply. The idea of trying to
force a way past these great guns, exposing the relatively frail sides
of precious battleships to their direct fire, was not relished by the
allied command.
But if the Turks could not reply to the fire of the three battleships
in the Gulf of Saros with their 14-inch guns, they could and did do
effective work with smaller guns concealed on the heights of the
peninsula overlooking the gulf, and the _Queen Elizabeth_ was hit
three times.
On the following day, March 7, the attack was renewed. The four French
battleships, the _Charlemagne_, _Gaulois_, the _Bouvet_ and the
_Suffern_ took the post of greatest danger inside the straits and
finally again silenced the Dardanos fort. The _Agamemnon_ and the
_Lord Nelson_, behind them, made a long range attack upon the forts
fringing the Narrows. Three of the allied battleships, the _Gaulois_,
the _Agamemnon_ and the _Lord Nelson_ were hit by Turkish shells but,
as an offset, it was believed that the great forts at Chanak, as well
as the works at Dardanos, had been permanently silenced.
This confidence, as we shall see later on, was not justified. Inside
the great forts, it is true, the Turks and their German officers were
suffering terribly from the bombardment. That they stood it in some
cases for periods of seven hours at a stretch, and continued firing
effectively for the whole of that time, is testimony to their courage
and devotion to duty. As the great shells of the _Queen Elizabeth_
landed in the forts they did frightful havoc. The shrapnel shells
contained something like 12,000 separate bullets and it is on record
that one of these shells wounded or killed no less than 250 Turkish
soldiers. As the high explosive shells struck the works and exploded
they threw up tons of earth and cement a hundred feet in the air,
plainly visible to the allied observers on the warships in the
straits.
But this was not the worst that the defenders had to endure. The
exploding shells gave off poisonous gases that filled the underground
passages of the redoubts. The heroic Turks worked under such
conditions as long as it was humanly possible, but eventually their
German officers were compelled to withdraw their men from each fort in
turn to allow the gases to clear away. These circumstances undoubtedly
account for the fact that almost every one of the forts was reported
permanently silenced, only to resume action a few days later, much to
the surprise and consternation of the allied command.
Furthermore, there is abundant evidence that the Turks were
economizing ammunition, especially big gun shells. They had made up
their minds that there would be a direct naval attack upon the forts
sooner or later, and their instructions were to reserve their fire
"until they saw the whites of the enemy's eyes," so to speak.
From March 6 to March 18, 1915, there was a lull in activity at the
straits. Momentous events were transpiring in London and at the island
of Lemnos, and upon the outcome of these events depended the future
course of the operations at the Dardanelles. While the individual
ships of his fleet conducted minor bombardments intended to harass the
Turks, Vice Admiral Carden, pleading ill health, had been allowed to
relinquish the command of the allied fleet, and Vice Admiral John de
Robeck, newly promoted to his rank, succeeded him. Almost immediately
the latter steamed away to Mudros to engage in a fateful conference.
CHAPTER LXXI
PREPARATIONS FOR LANDING--COMPOSITION OF FORCES
It had evidently been the intention of the Allies to force the Narrows
by naval power, and then follow up the success by an occupation of
Gallipoli by a land force. For this purpose the troops solicited of
Venizelos, the Greek Premier, were undoubtedly to be used, but sole
reliance was not to be placed upon them. For one thing, the Allies
had no intention of allowing Greece to assume too great an importance
in the campaign against Constantinople, well knowing that the Greek
people had large ambitions in that part of the world--ambitions that
clashed with those of more important powers.
In early March, 1915, the French were busy concentrating an
expeditionary force in North Africa, under the command of General
d'Amade. By March 15 the French force had been gathered together at
Bizerta, in the Ægean Sea. At the same time the British Government had
been undertaking a similar concentration, and by the third week in
March a force estimated at about 120,000 men had arrived in transports
at Mudros in the island of Lemnos. This English force consisted of the
Twenty-ninth Division, the Royal Naval Division, a special force
formed by Winston Churchill, British Secretary to the Admiralty, and
used in the attempt to relieve Antwerp, the Australian and New Zealand
divisions originally brought to Egypt, a Territorial division, and
some Indian forces.
These troops, with the comparatively small French force under General
d'Amade, were placed under the command of one of the most popular of
British officers--General Sir Ian Hamilton.
Sir Ian Hamilton and his staff were hurried from London by special
trains and a fast cruiser steaming upward of 30 knots an hour. By the
time he reached Mudros the French troops had also arrived from
Bizerta.
The island of Lemnos presented a strange and picturesque spectacle
when all these troops, drawn from so many distant parts of the world,
were gathered in the sheltering bay. The blue and red of the
Frenchmen's uniforms, the khaki of the British, the native costumes of
the Indian and North African troops contrasted strangely. Mixing
freely with them and driving hard bargains, were the native Greek
tradesmen. All over the little town thousands of temporary huts and
shops and tents sprang up for the supply of the needs of the troops.
Out in the harbor hundreds of ships of every description were moored.
There were battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, submarines,
transports, supply boats, barges, picket boats, and dozens of Greek
trading vessels. Into all this mess and chaos came the British
commander.
Then followed a long conference with General d'Amade, Admiral de
Robeck, and Admiral Guépratte. There does not seem to be any reason
for doubting that the plan was to launch a land attack upon the
Gallipoli defenses immediately. But General Hamilton demurred. He
inspected the loading of the transports, and refused to give the order
for an attack until grave defects had been remedied. Of this period he
wrote subsequently:
"I knew that nothing but a thorough and systematic scheme for flinging
the whole of the troops under my command very rapidly ashore could be
expected to meet with success."
The slightest delay in landing, Sir Ian Hamilton realized, would prove
terribly costly, if not absolutely fatal. He and his troops were
embarking on a campaign opening with a feat of arms for which there
was no precedent in history. He did not intend that there should be
the slightest chance of failure if forethought and intelligent
preparation could prevent it.
The prime obstacle to an immediate descent of the allied land forces
upon Gallipoli Sir Ian Hamilton found to be the manner in which the
British transports had been loaded. The only consideration that seems
to have been present in the minds of the military authorities who
superintended the work was the question of getting the material and
men aboard the ships. The supplies, artillery, and ammunitions had all
been loaded without any consideration as to which was to come off the
boats first. Material absolutely necessary for the protection of the
troops once they had landed on hostile shores, and vital in any
attempt to press home the advantage thus gained, was buried under
tents, hut parts, cooking material, etc.
"I cannot go ahead with a transport fleet in this condition," said
General Hamilton in substance to his French and English colleagues.
"The whole fleet must return to Egypt and be reloaded."
"But time," urged Admiral de Robeck. "It will take weeks of valuable
time."
"Better lose time than run straight to certain disaster," declared
General Hamilton.
And back to Alexandria went the whole fleet of transports, with the
exception of a few vessels carrying the Australian Infantry Brigade,
which, by some miracle, had been properly loaded.
When General Hamilton and his soldiers sailed out of Mudros Harbor,
bound for Alexandria, Admiral de Robeck came to a momentous and
historic decision. Acting either on his own responsibility or under
orders or advice of some superior authority, he decided not to wait
for the troops, but to make a determined attack upon the Narrows with
his whole fleet. By sheer weight of guns he would try to run past the
great forts that lined the 1,500-yard channel, pounding his way
through on the theory that "what will not bend must break."
March 18, 1915, was an ideal day for such an heroic attempt. The
sailors of the allied fleet were called to quarters as the morning
sun, in a perfect sky, arose over the towering hills that lined the
straits. Briefly the officers addressed the men, told them of the work
ahead, spoke of the glory that awaited them if successful, and ordered
each man to his post.
The reader, in order to gain some definite idea of the defenses that
were to be attacked, should take up a map showing the Dardanelles. He
will find, about ten miles from the entrance, a narrow channel where
the shores of Asia and Europe almost touch. There, at the narrowest
point of the channel, the Turks had built their chief defenses. On the
south slope of the Kalid Bahr were three powerful works. The Rumeli
Medjidieh Battery mounted two 11-inch, four 9.4-inch, and five
3.4-inch guns. The Hamidieh II Battery had two 14-inch, while the
Namazieh Battery had one 11-inch, one 10.2-inch, eleven 9.4-inch,
three 8.2-inch, and three 5.9-inch guns.
On the Asiatic side of the Narrows, near Chanak, was a system of
redoubts of equal strength. The Hamidieh I Battery, south of Chanak,
consisted of two 14-inch and seven 9.4-inch guns, while the Hamidieh
III Battery possessed two 14-inch, one 9.4-inch, one 8.2-inch, and
four 5.9-inch guns.
Besides all these formidable defenses there were many minor positions
on the very edge of the Narrows. In fact the whole channel, and the
way of the allied fleet to the Sea of Marmora, lay through rows upon
rows of high-power guns.
The disastrous naval attack upon the big forts at the Narrows,
resulting, as it did, in the loss of three battleships and the
disabling of others, convinced the British and French naval
authorities that it was hopeless to expect success along that line,
except at a price that they could ill afford to pay, and that would
have a terribly depressing effect upon public opinion at home.
Admiral de Robeck and his British "bulldogs" were called off to await
the coming of Sir Ian Hamilton and his mixed expeditionary force. This
force, while the 12-and 15-inch guns of the Anglo-French fleet had
been vainly battering the Dardanelles forts, had returned to
Alexandria, and, under the careful supervision of Sir Ian Hamilton and
General d'Amade, had been reshipped aboard the great transport fleet.
At this point there appears to have arisen a serious misunderstanding
between Great Britain and France as to the exact number of troops to
be supplied by each. Although the true facts have not yet come to
light, it is believed that General Joffre emphatically refused to
detach any of the French troops from the western front. The force that
France eventually contributed to the allied army at the Dardanelles
consisted of units not at that time in view for service in northern
France. These numbered a small detachment of Fusiliers Marines, a
section of the Armée Coloniale, and the Foreign Legion, a force made
up of volunteers from all over the world, enlisted for service
anywhere, and generally assigned to a post of unusual danger.
Great Britain was, therefore, under the necessity of providing the
bulk of the troops.
The British authorities did not make the mistake of throwing raw
troops into the initial struggle at the Dardanelles. The backbone of
the force supplied to General Sir Ian Hamilton was the Twenty-ninth
Division of Regulars, made up largely of the hardiest of England's
youth--the north countrymen. It comprised the Eighty-sixth Brigade of
Infantry--Second Royal Fusiliers, First Lancashire Fusiliers, First
Royal Munster Fusiliers, and the First Royal Dublin Fusiliers; the
Eighty-seventh Brigade--Second South Wales Borderers, First King's Own
Scottish Borderers, First Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and First
Border Regiment; the Eighty-eighth Brigade--Second Hampshires, Fourth
Worcesters, First Essex, and the Fifth Royal Scots, the latter a
Territorial battalion. Attached to this force of infantry was a
squadron of the Surrey Yeomanry and two batteries of the Fourth
Mountain Brigade, a Highland artillery unit.
To the command of these regular troops, Major General Hunter-Weston
was appointed. This officer had been through much of the early
fighting in the western theatre, originally commanding the Eleventh
Brigade of the Third Corps of General French's army. His appointment
to the Dardanelles was in the nature of a promotion, it being
recognized that his dash and energy would be useful in the style of
warfare that would govern the battle for the straits.
In addition to the regular troops brought out from England, there was
the Naval Division. This force had seen a bit of action in the attempt
to save Antwerp. It consisted of two Naval Brigades and a Royal Marine
Brigade.
Also there was a Territorial Division, known as the East Lancashires,
under the command of Major General Douglas. Immediately upon the
outbreak of war this division had volunteered for foreign service and
had been shipped to Egypt, where it had had six months' training. It
comprised the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Lancashire Fusiliers,
the Fourth and Fifth East Lancashires, the Ninth and Tenth
Manchesters, the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Manchesters.
These troops, with the inclusion of the Australian and New Zealand
forces brought to Egypt at the beginning of the war, under the command
of Lieutenant General Birdwood, and a considerable number of Indian
troops, made up the force at the disposal of Sir Ian Hamilton. They
numbered in all, with the French troops, about 120,000 men.
What had the Turkish authorities to set against this army, supported
by the great fleet of battleships and unlimited number of transports
and subsidiary vessels? Estimates of the potential strength of the
Turkish army available for service in and about the Gallipoli
Peninsula at this time vary widely. There were those, for instance,
who claimed that, if necessary, the Turks could command at least
600,000 troops for the defense of the straits, and that any attempt to
capture the positions with the force supplied to Sir Ian Hamilton was
doomed to failure. On the other hand were those who claimed that the
Turks were short of equipment and ammunition, and had no means of
replenishment; that they had no heart in the fight; that they were
already in revolt against their German taskmasters; that the Suez and
Caucasus defeats had undermined their morale and depleted their
numbers, and that the Turkish high command had decided that it was
useless to attempt to defend the position. Fortunately, between these
two extremists there was a happy mean, and the best evidence points to
the conclusion that, for the defense of the Dardanelles, from first to
last, the Turks depended upon about 200,000 men with reenforcements
brought up from time to time to refill the ranks. Probably when the
great landing took place only a small proportion of the Turkish troops
were in Gallipoli.
These troops were under the command of the German General Liman von
Sanders, although, from time to time in the operations, the
picturesque figure of Enver Pasha appeared. Admiral Usedom, a high
German naval expert, was placed in command of the purely naval
defenses of the straits.
Unfortunately for the allied force the attack upon the Dardanelles
lacked the important--and perhaps indispensable--element of surprise.
By their early naval attack upon the outer fort, by the gathering of
the army at Mudros and its subsequent return to Alexandria, and,
finally, by the ill-fated naval attack upon the Narrows' defenses, the
Allies had given the Turks ample warning of their intentions. During
the many weeks that intervened between the first naval attack upon the
outer forts and the approach of Sir Ian Hamilton's army, the Turks,
under the supervision of their German mentors, and borrowing largely
of the lessons of the trench campaign in Flanders and France, made of
the Peninsula of Gallipoli a network of positions which it proved
possible, to borrow an expression used of the German concrete trenches
in France, "for a caretaker and his wife to hold." This elaborate
system of trenches and redoubts was dominated by the three great
heights. Every foot of the sides of these major positions had been
prepared with barbed wire, monster pits, mines, concealed machine-gun
batteries, and the almost endless variety of traps evolved out of six
months' experience with the new style of warfare.
Along the many miles of coast of the Peninsula of Gallipoli there were
but few places where, even under the most advantageous of conditions,
it was possible to effect a landing in the face of a strongly
intrenched enemy. The steep slopes of the hills rose from the very
water's edge. Even in cases where there was a low, sandy beach, the
nature of the country in the immediate vicinity made it impossible to
deploy and maneuver any considerable number of troops.
Furthermore the Turks, well aware of the limited possibilities at the
disposal of the allied force, had made terrifically strong defensive
positions of the few beaches where successful landings were at all
possible. Row upon row of barbed wire had been run along the shores
and even out into the sea. Mines had been constructed that could be
depended upon to blow the intrepid first landing parties to pieces.
The ground had been thoroughly studied and machine-gun batteries
placed so that every inch of the beaches could be raked with a
devastating fire. And finally the ranges for all the great guns in the
hills beyond had been accurately measured so that the ships and the
troops would be literally buried under an avalanche of shells.
CHAPTER LXXII
PLANS OF SIR IAN HAMILTON--FIRST LANDING MADE
The broad outlines of the problem that faced Sir Ian Hamilton and his
force were comparatively simple. The assault upon the Gallipoli
Peninsula resolved itself into rush attacks upon two major heights,
leading up to a grand assault upon the key position to the Narrows.
These three positions formed an irregular triangle. The first was Achi
Baba, situated within three and a half miles of the tip of the
peninsula. The second was Sari Bair, about eight miles due north of
the Narrows. By either taking or isolating these two positions the
Allies would be in a position for a grand attack upon the third and
most important height, the plateau of Kilid Bahr, or Pasha Dagh. This
position not only commanded the Narrows and the adjacent channel but
it contained two of the great forts that successfully withstood the
grand fleet attack. It was, in the minds of the allied command, the
key to the whole situation. With Kilid Bahr in their hands, they
believed the way to Constantinople would be open and the elimination
of the Turk as a factor in the war and the settlement of the Balkan
question or questions in a manner favorable to the allied powers would
necessarily follow.
The operations as planned by Sir Ian Hamilton, then, consisted of a
number of landings--as many as possible so as to conceal the real
objectives of the allied troops and to disperse the Turkish force--and
an attempt to rush the position of Achi Baba, and to isolate the
position of Sari Bair by advancing through the low country that lay
between that position and Kilid Bahr.
On April 7, 1915, Sir Ian Hamilton, with his staff, returned to Mudros
and held a conference with the naval commands. By the 20th his plans
had been perfected and the great landing was fixed to take place on
Sunday, April 25, 1915. During the previous week the Allies had been
making feints along the shore of the Gulf of Saros in an attempt to
give an element of surprise to the real attack.
As Sir Ian Hamilton subsequently wrote, the question of weather was
one of vital importance to the success of the landing. If, after a
number of the troops had been thrown upon the beaches, bad weather had
intervened, prevented further landings and perhaps driven the fleet
and auxiliary vessels to Mudros Harbor, the unfortunate troops ashore
would have been wiped out.
Sunday, April 25, 1915, however, was a perfect day. The low mist of
the early morning hid the great fleet until it was close to the shore
of the peninsula. As the day progressed the mist disappeared, the blue
sky presented an unbroken expanse, while no wind disturbed the placid
sea. In a setting such as this was enacted one of the greatest battles
of all history.
At the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula were five small beaches. They
were subsequently named by the Allies, for identification purposes,
Beaches S, V, W, X, and Y. Against these points was to be flung the
Twenty-ninth Division, supported by some of the naval division. These
troops, once having gained the shore and held it against the enemy
counterattacks, were to push on in all haste by the road that led to
the village of Krithia, northwest of Achi Baba, turn east before
reaching that place, and carry Achi Baba with a rush.
At the same time the Australian and New Zealand troops were to effect
a landing at Gaba Tepe, about twelve miles up the Ægean coast of the
peninsula and about three and a half miles south of Sari Bair. Running
southeast from near Gaba Tepe was a good road connecting with the town
of Maidos, on the Dardanelles, above the Narrows. The whole way lay
through low country and, once in command of this road, the allied
troops would not only sever direct communications between Sari Bair
and Kilid Bahr but would be in a position to attack the defenses of
the latter on the flank.
[Illustration: Pictorial Map of the Dardanelles, Showing Where the
Allies Landed.]
Meantime the French were to make a landing at Kum Kale on the Asiatic
side of the straits. There is some doubt as to the real purpose of
this landing. After the French had reembarked--"driven off with
terrible losses," according to the Turkish official account--it was
claimed that the landing was merely a diversion. Certainly nothing
more than that could be claimed for a feint made by a portion of the
Naval Division farther up the Gulf of Saros.
These, then, were the plans of Sir Ian Hamilton: four landing
operations in widely separated points, two of serious importance and
the other two, probably, intended only to draw the troops and energy
of the defenders. How they prospered, what measure of success they
obtained, how the Turks, fighting with the valor which has made them
famous through ages, how the British Colonial and French troops
accomplished almost unbelievable deeds of heroism and skill, make one
of the most fascinating stories in the annals of warfare.
While these operations were timed to occur simultaneously, they will
appear more clear to the reader if they are taken separately and each
followed to its conclusion from the opening day. In this way we will
tell the story, first, of the Australian-New Zealand landing northeast
of Gaba Tepe; then of the landings on the five beaches at the tip of
the peninsula; and, finally, of the French landing on the Asiatic
shore and the naval brigade demonstration at Bulair.
By one o'clock on the morning of Sunday, April 25, 1915, the allied
expeditionary force had arrived within five miles of the Gallipoli
shore. Under cover of darkness the final dispositions were made and
the ships maneuvered so that the timing of the several landings would
be accurately synchronized. Shortly after one o'clock the landing
boats were lowered from the transports.
Strung in lines of four and five the boats were slowly towed toward
shore by steam pinnaces. Not a sound was heard but the panting of the
engines of the little boats. The speed was accurately calculated to
bring the parties close in shore with the first break of the dawn.
Accompanying the Australian and New Zealand troops, were a number of
destroyers. Just as they reached the shallow water in front of the
cliffs of Gaba Tepe, a Turkish lookout spied them in the hazy light of
the morning. Instantly he gave the alarm and a flaring searchlight
flashed its rays on the little flotilla.
The need for silence had disappeared. With a cheer the British troops
leaped from their boats into the shoal water and splashed their way
ashore. While many of them were still in their boats, however, the
Turks opened fired. The whole ground had been carefully prepared and
from every cover on the shore and the cliffs beyond a deadly fire was
poured upon the Colonial troops.
Without faltering, however, the Australian and New Zealand troops,
supported by a squadron of battleships and destroyers, came on
straight at the strongly intrenched Turks. The first of the
Australians to reach the shore were the Third Brigade under Colonel
Sinclair Maglagan. With a rush they charged the first Turkish lines,
bayoneted the defenders, and scrambled up the steep cliffs that rise a
hundred feet in the air.
Fortunately for the British troops, as these and subsequent events
proved, there had been a slight miscalculation in the landing, and the
men had actually gone ashore a mile and a half northeast of Gaba Tepe,
instead of at that point. Gaba Tepe is so rugged and uninviting that
it was believed that the Turks would not trouble to intrench it.
Actually the Turks appeared to have intrenched and prepared every inch
of the coast. But at Sari Bair, where the Australian and New Zealand
troops actually landed, the character of the ground, although not so
advantageous at first, afforded much more protection once the men were
ashore. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his graphic account of the operations,
subsequently said:
"Owing to the tows having failed to maintain their exact direction,
the actual point of disembarkation was rather more than a mile north
of that which I had selected, and was more closely overhung by steeper
cliffs. Although this accident increased the initial difficulty of
driving the enemy off the heights inland, it has since proved itself
to have been a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as the actual base of
the force of occupation had been much better defiladed from shell
fire.
"The beach on which the landing was actually effected is a very narrow
strip of sand about 1,000 yards in length, bounded on the north and
the south by two small promontories. At its southern extremity, a
deep ravine with exceedingly deep, scrub-clad sides, runs inland in a
northeasterly direction. Near the northern end of the beach a small
but steep gully runs up into the hills at right angles to the shore.
Between the ravine and the gully the whole of the beach is baked by
the seaward face of the spur which forms the northwestern side of the
ravine. From the top of the spur the ground falls almost sheer, except
near the southern limit of the beach where gentler slopes give access
to the mouth of the ravine behind. Farther inland lie in a tangled
knot the under-features of Sari Bair separated by deep ravines which
take a most confusing diversity of direction. Sharp spurs, covered
with dense scrub and falling away in many places in precipitous sandy
cliffs, radiate from the principal mass of the mountain, from which
they run northwest, west, southwest and south to the coast."
As fresh British troops came ashore they cast aside their heavy packs
and followed their comrades across the forty feet of open beach and
into the scrub that covered the side of the cliffs. Halfway up the
Turks had prepared a second position. Attacking it in open formation
the Third Brigade succeeded in clearing it within fifteen minutes of
the time they came ashore, despite the desperate and brave defense of
the Turks.
Meanwhile some of the landing boats, subjected to the terrible fire of
the Turkish guns, were having a bad time. The towing ropes of three of
them were cut by the fire and the boats drifted helplessly about under
the withering rain of bullets that rapidly wiped out their cargoes of
men. But despite these mishaps the First and Second Brigades were
hurried ashore to support the Third. Soon, in the face of terrible
difficulties including the narrowness of the beach, there were between
3,000 and 4,000 allied troops ashore.
By this time the Turks, by means of the mobile carriages prepared for
them by the Germans, had maneuvered some heavy artillery into position
on the heights inland. Also some of their warships, moored in the
Narrows, began throwing heavy shells across the peninsula into the
allied fleet standing close inshore. So dangerous and accurate became
this fire that the transports had to be ordered out to sea and this
delayed the operations seriously.
At Gaba Tepe and on the heights to the north of the beach the Turks
posted guns and enfiladed the Narrows beach. Thus the troops, as they
landed, had to make their way through a rain of shrapnel, machine gun
and rifle fire that wiped out hundreds. Despite the success of the
Australian Brigades in clearing the beach and the face of the cliff,
the Turkish fire never seemed to slacken.
Because of the nature of the country there could be no central control
over the advance fighting and no continued communications between the
several forces making their way to the top of the cliffs. The battle
resolved itself into a series of fights between small parties, or even
individual soldiers, whose one object was to kill as many of the enemy
as possible and make their way as far inland as possible in the first
rush.
By two o'clock about twelve British regiments had been landed and the
ground gained consolidated and prepared against counterattack.
Thousands of Turkish troops were by this time pouring along the road
from Maidos and by the middle of the afternoon it was calculated that
there were fully 20,000 of them before the Australian and New Zealand
troops. The latter, in the meantime, had been further reenforced by
two batteries of Indian Mountain Artillery. The pressure of the
constantly increasing Turkish force compelled General Birdwood, who
came ashore about this time, to contract his lines and to reach a
decision that, at that time at least and until the arrival of more
troops, no further advance could be made. The Gaba Tepe landing had
not been the surprise that was expected and the Turks had proved to be
in unexpected strength.
About three o'clock the Turkish counterattacks began. Absolutely
regardless of human life, they threw themselves in dense masses
against the Second and Third Brigades. The British battleships, the
_Queen_, the _London_, the _Prince of Wales_, the _Triumph_ and the
_Majestic_, posted close inshore, poured a devastating fire on the
advancing Turkish troops as they came into the open.
About five o'clock the Turks, after repeated assaults upon the British
lines, massed for a final attempt to drive the invaders into the sea.
On and on they came, concentrating on the hard-pressed Third Brigade
as the weak spot in the British defense. Fighting gamely against heavy
odds, this Australian Brigade which had borne the brunt of the landing
attack and which had been almost continually counterattacked all
afternoon, gave way slowly, selling every inch of ground dearly.
Hundreds of the brave Turkish troops were mown down by the machine
guns which the Australians had by this time brought ashore. At
nightfall, however, General Birdwood, as a consequence of the
persistence of the enemy, had to contract his lines further.
As night settled on the battle field on the ridge above Gaba Tepe and
Sari Bair, and the two forces rested from sheer exhaustion, the
British troops, who once were well inland toward Maidos, their
objective, were barely hanging onto the ridge overlooking the shore of
the Gulf of Saros. All their water and food and munitions and
reenforcements had to be brought ashore across the exposed beach,
while the landing of the necessary artillery in the face of the
Turkish fire was a feat to appal the bravest. But though their hold on
their position was precarious it was tenacious and, in the end,
effective. If they had not won all they expected to win they had at
least won a foothold in the face of terrific difficulties.
While the Australians and New Zealanders were fighting desperately
beyond Gaba Tepe, the other forces of the allied army were
accomplishing similar deeds of heroism at the tip of the peninsula.
Coming down the coast of the peninsula from Gaba Tepe, about three
miles from the extreme southwestern tip, was what was known as Beach
Y. It was almost due west of the important town of Krithia, and the
landing was intended primarily to protect the left flank of the
British landing forces from attack by the considerable forces believed
to be concentrated there.
The actual landing seems to have been somewhat of a surprise to the
Turks. Indeed, subsequent events showed that they were correct in
their estimate that a landing at the so-called Beach Y would be a
mistake. A narrow strip of sandy beach led to the cliffs, two hundred
feet high, that were believed to be almost unscalable. It is easy to
be wise after the event, but military writers subsequently declared
that if the Turks had been prepared to defend the position, the force
that landed at Beach Y would have been wiped out in the preliminary
attempt to establish a footing.
The force assigned to this point of attack consisted of the First
King's Own Scottish Borderers, and the Plymouth Battalion of the Royal
Naval Division, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Koe. The
latter was under orders, if the landing proved successful, to work his
way south to effect a junction with the force landing at Beach X, some
two miles away.
About five o'clock, Koe's force appeared off Beach Y, on the
transports _Braemar Castle_ and _Southland_, and escorted by the
battleship _Goliath_, and the cruisers _Amethyst_ and _Sapphire_. The
Turks had posted a large force at Beach Y 2, between Beach Y and Beach
X, but half of the Scottish Borderers were ashore before the Turkish
command had realized what was happening. As a result Colonel Koe's
force was partly established on the cliffs before the Turks had begun
to arrive.
But if the initial stages were unexpectedly easy for this force,
difficulties soon developed. Once on the heights, Colonel Koe ordered
an advance to link up with the force at Beach X. The British troops
had not gone far when they ran into the Turkish troops from Beach Y.
So large was this force and so determined an opposition did it offer
to the British troops that Colonel Koe soon decided it would be
impossible, with the two battalions at his disposal, to accomplish the
task assigned him.
Early in the afternoon the little British force was dismayed by the
approach on its left flank of a large force of Turks from Krithia,
which threatened to cut it off from the landing beach. Reluctantly
Colonel Koe, just before he received a fatal wound, gave the order to
intrench.
CHAPTER LXXIII
THE BRITISH IN DANGER--BITTER FIGHTING
The British troops were now in a critical position. There was a
peculiar spoonlike formation of the ground at the end of the Gallipoli
Peninsula. From the high cliffs along the shore the ground fell away.
Thus it was impossible for the supporting warships lying offshore to
give any effective aid to the little British force once it had left
the shore and the edge of the heights. The Turks realized to the full
their advantage and attacked the Borderers and the marines with fury.
Frequent attacks were launched against the dwindling line of the
British force. Guns of large caliber were rapidly brought up from
Krithia, while the Turks showed extraordinary daring and cleverness in
bomb attacks upon the hastily dug trenches of the enemy.
All night long the Turks attacked. By morning the remnants of the
British force were in desperate straits. Sir Ian Hamilton subsequently
declared that the losses at this time had been "deplorable." Many of
the officers, in addition to Lieutenant Colonel Koe, had been killed
or wounded, while 50 per cent of the Borderers had been put out of
action. They were no longer able to defend properly their trenches.
Food, water, and ammunition were running short. A consultation of the
remaining officers was held. The question of trying to hold out until
reenforcements arrived was considered, but ultimately it was decided
to retreat to the shore and to reembark.
At seven o'clock on Monday morning the order was given. The attending
fleet had been strengthened by the arrival of the cruisers _Talbot_
and _Dublin_, and, supported by the _Goliath_, the _Amethyst_, and the
_Sapphire_, they began a terrific bombardment of the tops of the
cliffs. Protected by this screen of fire, the few remaining British
troops were able to get away in their boats without molestation save
for a long distance bombardment by the Turkish artillery.
The landing at Beach X was more successful. The Eighty-seventh
Brigade, under the command of Brigadier General Marshall, was assigned
to this part of the field. It was to work its way as far as possible
inland and link up with the troops coming ashore at Beach W. At Beach
X the Turks were well prepared. They had constructed bomb-proof
shelters and trenches on the heights and were well led by German
officers.
Before the actual landing the supporting battleships, led by the
_Swiftsure_ and the _Implacable_, bombarded the Turkish positions for
almost an hour with their heaviest guns. The ground was thoroughly
swept by the great 12-inch and smaller guns of the warships. Finally,
just before the actual landing, the _Implacable_ steamed within 500
yards of the shore, dropped her anchor and smothered the near cliffs
and the foreshore with her fire.
Subsequent investigation proved that in this affair of Gallipoli, as
in Flanders and elsewhere, the British suffered from their lack of
foresight in the provision of proper shells. The battleships used
shrapnel, which, it was afterward discovered, did little damage to the
deep, protected trenches prepared by the Turks under the supervision
of the German officers. If the British had had instead the
high-explosive shells that were necessary for the work, the story of
the Gallipoli landings under the wing of the great fleet of
battleships might have made different reading.
After about a quarter of an hour's final bombardment by the
_Implacable_, two companies and a machine-gun section of the First
Royal Fusiliers were thrown ashore at Beach X. Under cover of the
battleships, the landing was safely accomplished and the Fusiliers
advanced almost 1,000 yards without much opposition. Hill 114 on their
right, where the Turks proved to be firmly intrenched, then proved a
serious obstacle to the advance. While the Royal Fusiliers were
considering the best method of attacking this position, a Turkish
battery, in position near the town of Krithia, opened fire and tore
holes in the left wing of the British force. At the same time they
were heavily counterattacked by a Turkish force coming from the east.
Gradually the Royal Fusiliers were compelled to give ground. Two
battalions of the Eighty-seventh Division were sent ashore and with
these reenforcements the British again advanced, this time clearing
Hill 114 of the enemy. There they joined hands with the First
Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and although all day long the
Turks tried to break the union of the two forces, they did not succeed
in doing so.
However, General Marshall's force was hard pressed. Once more the
unceasing Turkish counterattacks drove them back to the very edge of
the heights overlooking Beach X, where only the intense bombardment of
the protecting warships saved them. General Marshall was wounded, but
refused to relinquish his command, and a very large proportion of the
total force was either killed or wounded in the day's fighting. When
night fell the British troops held only half a mile of territory
around their original landing place, with their right wing resting on
Hill 114, linked up with the force from Beach W.
Here at Beach W, a mile and a half down the coast, midway between
Tekke Burna and Hellas Burna, was being enacted a feat of arms which,
in the opinion of competent military men, is fit to rank with the
great military accomplishments of all time. In speaking of it
subsequently Sir Ian Hamilton made use of the following terms:
"So strong, in fact, were the defenses of Beach W that the Turks may
well have considered them impregnable, and it is my firm conviction
that no finer feat of arms has ever been achieved by the British
soldier--or any other soldier--than the storming of these trenches
from open boats on the morning of April 25."
At Beach W the Turks, fully foreseeing a landing, had prepared as at
no other point. The beach is in a wide bay and leads into a gully
flanked on one side by the hills extending to Cape Tekke and, on the
other side by the steep cliffs extending to Cape Hellas.
Every inch of the ground had been prepared against attack. Sea and
land mines had been profusely laid, wire entanglements had been placed
along the shore and stretching out into the water. Deep trenches had
been dug on the heights and on the sides of the slopes while strong
redoubts had been built at two dominating positions. Every bush and
cover contained a sniper while larger covers concealed machine guns
trained to sweep the beach and the slopes leading to the Turkish
trenches.
As a defensive position Beach W was almost ideal. It had two weak
points, however, which in the end turned the scales and made success
possible for the attacking force. At either end of the bay were small
rock positions from which it was possible to enfilade the elaborate
system of defenses.
The landing party at Beach W consisted of the First Battalion
Lancashire Fusiliers, under command of Major Bishop. "It was," wrote
Sir Ian Hamilton, "to the complete lack of the sense of danger or of
fear of this daring battalion that we owed our astonishing success."
After a preliminary bombardment by the supporting warships the men of
the First Battalion, in thirty-two cutters drawn by eight picket
boats, approached the shore. The Turks made no move until the men were
in shallow water and were leaping out of the boats. Then they opened
fire with a murderous torrent from artillery, machine guns, and
rifles. The first line of the First Battalion went down to a man. The
second never faltered, but came on bravely into the fire, striving
desperately to cut the wire entanglements. So quickly did they fall
that observers on the warships wondered why they were "resting" on the
bullet swept shore instead of running to cover.
Rapidly the men from Lancashire worked. Finally a remnant of the
battalion forced its way through the last line of wire and ran for
shelter on the bush covered slopes. Almost at the same moment,
detachments that had landed on the rocks at Cape Tekke and under Cape
Hellas began to have an important effect upon the struggle. At the
latter point, the Eighty-eighth Brigade, under Brigadier General Hare,
clambered up the steep side of the cliffs, searched out the machine
gun positions of the enemy and swept the ground clear with the
bayonet. This and the work of the force at Cape Tekke eased the
Turkish fire on the beach and, on the slopes of the Cape Tekke side of
the ravine, the few remaining officers of the First Battalion were
able to re-form the remnants of their force and advance upon Hill 114.
About nine o'clock reenforcements were landed, this time not on the
exposed beach but under Cape Tekke, the heights of which were by now
largely in the hands of the British troops. With the help of these
fresh troops, three lines of Turkish trenches were carried. Brigadier
General Hare was seriously wounded and his place was filled by Colonel
Wolley-Dod, who was sent ashore with orders to organize a further
advance at all speed. At this point the attacking force ran up against
the Turkish redoubt at Hill 138.
The afternoon opened with an intense naval bombardment of the ground
around Hill 138 and of that redoubt itself. At two o'clock the Fourth
Battalion of the Worcesters was ordered to take the position by
assault. Under Lieutenant Colonel D. E. Cayley, they advanced a
considerable distance under rifle fire and charged up the heights with
a cheer. The Turks fought bravely against a stronger force, but by
four o'clock Hill 138 was in the hands of the Worcesters.
Less than a mile down the coast, almost to the old fort and village of
Sedd-el-Bahr, was what was known as V Beach. There a landing in great
force was attempted. Largely because of the scale of the operations,
but also because of the difficulties and the accidents of warfare,
this landing was made with great losses.
The beach and the shore in the immediate vicinity form a most regular
amphitheatre of a radius of about 400 feet. The beach is about 10
yards wide and 350 to 400 feet long and it runs into a slightly
concaved, grassy slope that rises gently to a height of a hundred
feet. Little or no real cover was to be found on this slope and the
defenders were able to sweep it from all angles with a devastating
rain of all kinds of shells. Just at the edge of the strip of sand,
however, was a continuous escarpment about four feet high, which
afforded a cover in which troops once ashore might be re-formed. As a
result of the early naval bombardment of the tip of the peninsula,
much of the village of Sedd-el-Bahr and the fort and the barracks had
been reduced to ruins. The ruins afforded, however, excellent cover
for the Turkish troops and proved a serious obstacle to the advance of
the British when they reached the shore.
In addition to the natural disadvantages under which the attacking
party had to work, the Turks had constructed two lines of barbed wire
obstacles--one at the edge of the beach and the second two-thirds of
the way up to the top of the ridge. These two lines of barbed wire
were more stoutly constructed than were any others with which the
British had to contend. Just beyond the second obstacle the Turks had
built their first line of trenches and beyond the ground was scored
with innumerable covers for the defenders.
The force assigned to the attack upon V Beach was composed of the
Dublin Fusiliers, the Munster Fusiliers, half a battalion of the
Hampshire Regiment, the West Riding Field Company and a few minor
units. The action opened with a short range bombardment of the enemy's
trenches and such parts of the fort, the village and the barracks as
were still standing and believed to be affording cover for riflemen
and machine-gun batteries. Then three companies of the Dublin
Fusiliers were towed ashore. At this point one of the great
experiments of the Gallipoli landings was put to the test, and,
despite the cleverness of its conception, it did not meet with great
success.
A large transport vessel, the _River Clyde_, had been loaded with
about 2,000 troops. She had been reconstructed inside and great doors
had been cut in one of her sides. The troops were ready on long
platforms for instant disembarkation. The ships were to be run ashore,
as close as possible to the beach, lighters were to be floated in
between her and the shore, the side doors were to be flung open, and
the troops were to rush ashore and carry the slopes by sheer momentum.
In the front of the vessel, protected by sandbags, was a battery of
machine guns which, it was hoped, would be especially effective in
protecting the landing force from counterattacks.
As at the other landings, the Turks gave no sign of life until the
collier had been beached and the other landing force had almost
reached the shore in its tows. Indeed, so long did they hesitate in
opening fire that at one time the watchers on the warships thought the
landing was going to be unopposed. They were soon disabused of such an
idea, however, as the first of the towboats grounded on the sandy
beach, the Turks opened fire from a dozen different positions. Many of
the Dublin Fusiliers were killed before they were able to get out of
their boats. A few scrambled ashore and reached the shelter of the
escarpment that rimmed the beach. The Turks concentrated their fire on
the boats and their crews. None of them were able to get away, and
almost instantly their crews were killed and the boats wrecked.
Meantime the _River Clyde_, had been run ashore. Unfortunately, the
operation was not carried out as expeditiously as it was hoped it
would be, and the Turks soon became aware of the intentions of the
British. They poured a punishing fire on the naval party attempting to
get the lighters into position between the ship and the shore. The
heavy tide that at this point sweeps around the point of land also
seriously interfered with the work. Finally however, by deeds of
heroism that received subsequent official acknowledgment, the lighters
were got into position and the doors of the _River Clyde_ flung open.
At a trot a company of the Munster Fusiliers led the way. It was
almost impossible to live for even a short time in the fire that the
Turks concentrated upon the lighters, and hardly a man reached the
shore. Nothing daunted, a second company of the same battalion
followed. As they dropped in scores the lighters began to drift and
dozens of the men, in attempting to swim ashore in their heavy kits,
were drowned.
Despite the storm of fire, volunteers once more swung the lighters
into position. The third company of the Munsters were ordered to
attempt to reach the beach. By this time the Turks had been able to
concentrate shrapnel fire on the _River Clyde_ and her human freight,
and the third company suffered even more casualties than had the first
two.
There is a limit to human sacrifice, and Brigadier General Napier, in
command of the troops, called a halt in the attempt to land. A little
later, it was resumed, with General Napier and Captain Costeker and a
detachment of the Hampshire Regiment heroically leading the way. When
they had reached the lighters the moorings again gave way and they
drifted into deep water. In the torrent of bullets that was being
poured down upon them by the Turks it was impossible to do anything
but lie flat on the exposed decks and wait for the lighters to be
swung into position again. Scores of them were killed, including both
Brigadier General Napier and Captain Costeker.
With this major disaster, all attempts to make further landings were
abandoned for the day. A few hundred British troops had succeeded in
reaching the escarpment on the shore and there they huddled, not
daring to lift their heads above the four-foot natural cover.
Fortunately for them, the machine-gun battery on the _River Clyde_
raked the slope, kept the fire of the Turkish defenders down and
prevented any counterattacks, which might have ended disastrously for
the British troops. The troops still on board the _River Clyde_,
numbering about 1,000 were effectively protected from the fire of the
Turks, suffering few casualties, although shrapnel tore four great
holes in the side of the collier.
Matters had not gone any better at other sections of the beach. Half a
company of the Dublins landed east of Sedd-el-Bahr for the purpose of
flanking the Turkish defenses, failed to accomplish its purpose and
lost all except twenty-five of its men. In the afternoon the landing
at V Beach was definitely accepted as a failure and plans made for the
diversion of the troops not yet landed to one of the other beaches. It
was first thought that Y Beach would be the best point, but it was
decided that it would be too late to effect the issue there and the
troops were finally diverted to W Beach, where, despite the heavy
cost, the Lancashire landing had led to some real results.
As nightfall approached there was a momentary thrill of hopefulness
among those who remained on V Beach because of the fact that some of
the Worcestershire and Lancashire Fusiliers succeeded in working their
way across country from W Beach and threatened to make untenable the
Turkish positions. The few hundred men on V Beach and the thousand or
more cooped up in the _River Clyde_ could hear the fight coming closer
and closer and, cheered by their officers, their spirits rose. But the
men from W Beach were stopped finally by the frequent lines of
barbed-wire obstructions that had been stretched by the Turk at right
angles to the shore, between the two beaches, in preparation for just
such an eventuality as this.
Night came, but with it not much relief from the constant vigilance of
the Turks. There was in the perfect sky not a cloud to screen the
moon's rays. A successful attempt was made, however, to land the
infantry from the _River Clyde_, and subsequently the force then
ashore, numbering close upon 1,500 men, tried to clear the ruins of
the fort and the outskirts of the village. All these efforts were in
vain, however, and finally the troops returned to the protection of
the escarpment along the shore. From there the task of removing the
wounded to the protection of the _River Clyde_ was proceeded with
under a heavy fire.
In comparison with the sanguinary affairs at the four other beaches,
the landing at S Beach was a minor affair, costing only about fifty
casualties. This beach was located at the extreme eastern end of Morto
Bay, close by Eski Hissarlik Point, and the work was delegated to the
Second South Wales Borderers under Lieutenant Colonel Casson. The
chief difficulty of this landing was found in the powerful current
which delayed it for several hours beyond the appointed time. However,
the men were finally got ashore and easily drove out the small Turkish
force that had been posted in the neighborhood.
CHAPTER LXXIV
FURTHER EFFORTS AT LANDING--FAILURE TO TAKE KRITHIA
Meanwhile the French were carrying on a disastrous operation at Kum
Kale, on the Asiatic shore, directly south of S Beach. About 2,800 men
had been landed after a preliminary bombardment by the French fleet.
Before they reembarked next morning they had lost more than a quarter
of their effectives. After landing they stormed the ruined castle of
Kum Kale and then drove inland with the object of clearing the village
of Yeni Shehr. The Turks were in force, however, at that point and
held the French midway between Kum Kale and Yeni Shehr. Finally it
became apparent that further advance was impossible without
reenforcements and the French intrenched for the night. All through
the darkness the Turks launched a counterattack upon the landing force
and morning found the French preparing to reembark. Under the guns of
the French warships this was accomplished without any great further
loss.
Thus of the seven landings that had been attempted by the allied
forces two, that at Kum Kale and that at Y Beach, had been definitely
abandoned. Of the remaining five only two had been successful in
linking up--that at Beach X and that at Beach W. Farther up the Gulf
of Saros, near the lines known by the name of Bulair, a force of the
Royal Naval Reserve made a demonstration but did not effect a landing.
The Australians and the New Zealanders on the cliffs above Gaba Tepe
were fighting desperately against the constant Turkish counterattacks,
but, assisted by the fleet under Admiral Thursby, successfully
resisted all attempts to drive them into the sea. Already the little
cove in which the landing had been made had been christened "Anzac
Cove," "Anzac," of course, was formed by taking the first letters of
the official designation of the colonial forces--Australian and New
Zealand Army Corps. The spirits of the men were high, despite the
awful experience they had gone through, and they frequently exchanged
cheery messages with the gunners of the warships who were pounding
away at the Turkish positions, although not accomplishing any great
damage in their blind firing.
It had been intended to organize an immediate resumption of the
advance from Anzac Cove with daybreak of April 26. But the Turks were
constantly bringing up reenforcements. Watchers on the warships could
see them creeping over the crest of Sari Bair and although the naval
guns were turned on them, their loss was comparatively small because
of their open formation and their cleverness in making use of every
bit of cover.
During the early morning the Anzacs had hauled heavy field guns up the
face of the steep cliffs and had, in many other ways, strengthened
their positions. This was all the more necessary as it became apparent
that the Turks were massing for a great attack shortly after nine
o'clock. About noon the battle reached its height. The Turks attacked
bravely and although they suffered great losses, never wavered.
Despite their efforts, however, the Anzacs held fast. By this time
reenforcements were beginning to arrive and a more permanent character
was given to the trenches. An attempt was made to organize for an
advance as headquarters were constantly impressing upon the individual
commands the necessity of making good as much ground as possible
before the Turks were able to bring into action their undoubted
superiority in forces.
The constant attacks of the Turks, however, made any real attempt at
advance impossible, although a little ground was gained on the 26th by
counterattacks. It soon became apparent, too, that, although the
operation at Anzac Cove was part and parcel of the general attack, it
had, through its inability to make progress, become a separate affair
and had been so conducted for the rest of the campaign--or at least
until a much greater advance had been made in all quarters.
At the tip of the peninsula the chief events of the second day of the
landing, April 26, 1915, occurred at V Beach, where the _River Clyde_
had been run ashore. About 1,500 men were left, composed of the
survivors of the Dublins and the Munsters and two companies of the
Hampshires, under cover of the escarpment on the beach. There Colonel
Doughty-Wylie and Captain Walford rallied them on the morning of the
26th and covered by a heavy bombardment by the warships set out to
clear the village. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting followed and the
casualties were appalling. Most of the houses contained squads of
riflemen and the more important machine guns. Each had to be carried
separately. By noon, however, the town had been cleared. Captain
Walford had fallen, bravely leading his troops in a way that earned
him the Victoria Cross.
Colonel Doughty-Wylie called a halt and collected the survivors of the
attack. Under cover of some empty houses he rallied them, re-formed
them as best he could, called upon them for one last effort and
walked out into the open at the head of his troops for the assault
upon the old Castle, and Hill 141.
Carrying a light cane, the figure of Colonel Doughty-Wylie was a
conspicuous one. Yet he survived almost to the end and to victory. He
reached the slope leading up to Hill 141, urging his men forward. He
was in the lead when a bullet killed him instantly. Fired by his
splendid example which earned him a posthumous Victoria Cross, the
Dublins, Munsters, and Hampshires swept on and carried the summit. By
two o'clock the commanding position was in the hands of the British.
At the same time the Lancashire Landing force had linked up with the
landing at V Beach. Also, the French Expeditionary force, after its
hard experience at Kum Kale, was successfully landed at V Beach.
Additional troops were landed at S Beach to prevent the South Wales
Borderers being wiped out in their isolation.
On the morning of April 27, 1915, Sir Ian Hamilton looked over the
positions. He found that, although he had several beaches securely in
his grasp, he lacked room in which to maneuver. Also his force was
beginning to suffer from lack of water. Accordingly he decided that an
immediate advance was necessary.
Sir Ian Hamilton set his men the task of clearing the comparatively
low ground at the tip of the peninsula--a distance of about two miles
from the extreme southwestern point of the land. He drew a straight
line from the position held by the South Wales Borderers near the
ruined De Tott's Battery to Y Beach. After some hard fighting this was
accomplished with the exception of the extreme left wing, which got
only as far as Y 2 Beach, where the Turks were in force.
On the following day, April 27th, despite the fact that his forces
were almost exhausted, Sir Ian Hamilton called upon them for a supreme
effort. He intended, he said, to capture the Village of Krithia and,
from that point, carry Achi Baba, the first main objective in the
campaign to open the Narrows.
The advance was ordered for eight o'clock in the morning. The
Twenty-ninth Division, under Major General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston,
was to move on Krithia, the French force was to move along the right
flank of the Twenty-ninth to the Kereves Dere, which ran from the base
of Achi Baba, and there await the capture of Krithia and the assault
upon the main height.
The leading units of the Twenty-ninth Division advanced almost without
opposition for a couple of miles, but was then heavily attacked by the
enemy. Despite all further attempts the British troops were able to
make no further advance at this point and intrenched for the night. A
little to the right, other units eventually got within three-quarters
of a mile of Krithia, but finally were compelled to fall back in line
with the force on its left. Still farther to the right the
Eighty-eighth Brigade had been brought to a halt and found itself
running short of ammunition.
The Eighty-sixth Brigade, which had been held in reserve, came into
action shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon. It was ordered to
move through the Eighty-eighth Brigade and carry Krithia. A few units
got within sight of Krithia, but the main body of the Eighty-sixth
Brigade was unable to force a way beyond the line reached by the
Eighty-eighth.
The French, meanwhile, were having an equally hard time. At one time
they were within a mile of Krithia, but ultimately they, in company
with the whole allied line, had to give way before strong Turkish
counterattacks. Masses of Turkish troops advanced against the British
center and right and against the whole line of the French and drove
them back with the bayonet. An almost successful attempt was made to
pierce the allied line at the point where the French linked up with
the British. The French gave way and uncovered the right flank of the
Eighty-eighth Brigade. The Fourth Worcesters suffered cruelly and had
it not been for the reenforcements of the Eighty-sixth Brigade a
serious situation might have ensued.
In speaking of this critical moment Sir Ian Hamilton subsequently
wrote:
"The men were exhausted and the few guns landed at the time were
unable to afford them adequate artillery support. The small amount of
transports available did not suffice to maintain the supply of
munitions, and cartridges were running short despite all efforts to
push them up from the landing places."
The situation was now becoming serious and it became apparent that
Krithia could not be carried. Accordingly, the allied forces were
ordered to dig in as rapidly as possible and hold their ground at all
costs. Thus ended the Battle of the Landings, extending over three
days. The results obtained fell far short of expectations. Krithia and
Achi Baba had not been carried, the Australians and New Zealanders had
been unable to advance along the road to Maidos and, indeed, were
hanging on to a thin strip of shore by their very teeth. It became
more apparent with each new attempt that the difficulties before the
attackers in the Gallipoli Peninsula were far beyond anything that had
been conceived.
In speaking of his failure to reach Krithia, Sir Ian Hamilton said:
"Had it been possible to push in reenforcements in men, artillery and
munitions during the day, April 27, Krithia should have fallen, and
much subsequent fighting for its capture would have been avoided.
"Two days later this would have been feasible, but I had to reckon
with the certainty that the enemy would, in that same time, have
received proportionately greater support. I was faced by the usual
choice of evils, and although the result was not what I had hoped, I
have no reason to believe that hesitation and delay would better have
answered my purpose."
CHAPTER LXXV
KRITHIA AGAIN ATTACKED--HEROIC WORK OF "ANZACS"
On April 28, 1915, Sir Ian Hamilton decided to send reenforcements in
force to Anzac Cove. Despite the constant landing of fresh troops
there the Australians and New Zealanders, because of their heavy
losses and the increasing pressure of the Turkish attacks, had been
almost continually in the firing line. They had been able to enjoy
little or no rest or sleep, and things began to look serious.
Accordingly four battalions of the Royal Naval Division were sent to
General Birdwood. On the following day two more naval battalions were
landed and as well a company of the Motor Maxim Section.
These fresh units moved into the Anzac trenches and held them against
renewed Turkish attacks. Meanwhile the Australian and New Zealand
battalions were being reorganized behind the line and after three and
a half days' rest took their places again in the front-line trenches.
From the evening of the 27th of April until May 1 there was
comparative quiet on what might be called the Krithia front, at the
tip of the peninsula. Fresh forces were landed by the French and the
English, the latter bringing into line the Twenty-ninth Indian
Infantry Brigade. Heavy artillery was brought ashore and moved up to
positions inland, and the whole organization of the allied force was
re-formed and strengthened.
At 10 p. m. on the evening of May 1 opened what is known as the first
battle of Krithia. It was elaborately organized by the German staff of
the Turkish forces and took the allied troops by surprise. Indeed, the
first line of the attacking force, creeping up on its hands and knees,
got into the trenches of the Eighty-sixth Brigade and bayoneting most
of the defenders opened up what Sir Ian Hamilton subsequently
described as "an ugly gap." Thanks to the fine conduct of some
territorial units, however, the Turks were not able to press home this
temporary advantage and the hole was soon closed.
Along the rest of the British front the attack of the Turks was not
serious. Instead they concentrated on the left of the French line,
held by a Senegalese brigade. After several attacks the African troops
began to give way. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the two
companies of the Worcesters moved across from the British right and
saved the day. Some hours later, the extreme French right was hard
pressed, and it was necessary to bring up a battalion of the Royal
Naval Division from the reserves to strengthen it.
The following morning, the allied troops moved out of their trenches
in a counterattack. It at first met with great success. As Sir Ian
Hamilton wrote in his dispatch to London: "Had it not been for those
inventions of the devil--machine guns and barbed wire--which suit the
Turkish character and tactics to perfection, we should not have
stopped short of the crest of Achi Baba."
By 7.30 in the morning the British left had advanced more than 500
yards, while the center and the right and the French left had also
registered promising advances. The rest of the French line, however,
was held up by strong Turkish forces posted along the Kereves Dere and
the more advanced sections of the British left came under heavy
cross-fire. In the end it was necessary to relinquish all the ground
gained and to retire to the original trenches.
Although the Turks made night attacks against the French line on May 2
and 3, 1915, and in the end inflicted such heavy losses that it was
necessary to shorten the line held by General d'Amade's troops, it was
not until May 6, 1915, that heavy fighting occurred again along the
whole line. On May 5 the Lancashire Fusilier Brigade of the East
Lancashire Territorial Division, which had been training in Egypt,
arrived and was placed in reserve, behind the British left.
At this time it was calculated that the British total losses, killed,
wounded and missing since the initial operations of the landing, had
been just short of 14,000 men. This of course did not include the sick
who must have numbered 10,000 or the French losses, which were not
revealed. These were heavy and serious and more than counterbalanced
the reenforcements that had arrived.
Sir Ian Hamilton decided to make a fresh attempt against Krithia and
Achi Baba on May 6, 1915. This battle was important because it marked
the turning point in the character of the campaign carried on by the
allied troops in Gallipoli. Although an advance was registered none of
the main positions of the Ottoman troops were carried or even reached,
and it became apparent that the task of reducing the Dardanelles was
not one likely to be solved by rush frontal attacks. Rather, as in
other fields of the world war, the problem became one of siege
tactics, and from the date of the end of this second battle of Krithia
the operations in Gallipoli resolved themselves into variations of the
methods that were being forced upon the troops of all the belligerent
countries in Europe.
For his grand attack upon Krithia and Achi Baba, Sir Ian Hamilton
brought down from Anzac Cove the Second Australian Infantry Brigade
and the New Zealand Brigade. With two brigades of the Royal Naval
Reserve he formed them into a reserve division. The Twenty-ninth
Division held the British line, and was ordered forward about 11 a. m.
of May 6, 1915, with orders to go as far as Krithia if possible, but
at all events to seize as much of the ground around that point as
possible. At the same time the French corps were to attempt to wrest
from the Turks the crest above the Kereves Dere.
The advance was extremely slow. At the end of two hours the
Twenty-ninth Division had progressed less than three hundred yards and
had not yet come into touch with any of the main Turkish positions.
Three hours more of desperate fighting showed many fluctuations but no
more progress. Finally they were ordered to intrench where they were
for the night.
The French had succeeded in reaching the crest aimed at, but found it
by no means a comfortable position. They could not go forward and they
dared not go back. Yet they were subject to a raking fire that cost
them hundreds of casualties. Time and time again the Senegalese troops
were sent against the Turkish trenches and machine gun positions, but
each time they were beaten back with cruel losses. To make matters
even worse, the French could not, in the heavy fire maintained by the
Turks, intrench until after nightfall, and they had to spend hours in
the exposed position.
[Illustration: Embarking the stores at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, two days
before the British and French forces evacuated their positions at this
part of the peninsula and removed the troops to Salonica.]
The following morning May 7, 1915, the allied warships opened a
furious bombardment of the ground around Krithia. Every few feet of
the difficult country was searched out by the destroying lyddite of
the Allies' shells, until it seemed that not a living creature could
have survived. But when the Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade moved out
to the attack a few minutes later it soon became apparent that the
naval bombardment had by no means exterminated or demoralized the
Turks.
The British troops were greeted by a perfect hurricane of fire from
rifles and machine guns. Hundreds of the men went down and, brave as
the remainder were, they were compelled to abandon the attempt to
cross the open ground that lay between the British front and Krithia.
Some progress was made on the right, however, where a clump of fir
trees which had been holding up the advance for some time was finally
carried by the Fifth Royal Scots. Early in the afternoon the Turks
recaptured the firs and such of the ground they had lost and shortly
after four o'clock when Sir Ian Hamilton relieved the situation, the
British were in the position of being absolutely "stuck." The British
commander decided to make another desperate attempt, however, and
called upon the French for cooperation. The whole allied line advanced
to the attack just as evening was closing in but the Turks by this
time had brought up some additional batteries and poured in on the
French and the British a smothering fire of deadly shrapnel. So heavy
was the punishment of the French that the line literally melted away
and General d'Amade was compelled to throw his last reserve into the
front line. At nightfall the allied attack subsided.
During the night, word came to Sir Ian Hamilton that heavy Turkish
reenforcements were on their way and he decided to make one last
attempt to carry Krithia and Achi Baba before they arrived in the
morning. Accordingly, the Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade which had been
particularly roughly handled was withdrawn from the line, and their
places taken by the New Zealand Brigade. After another naval
bombardment the New Zealanders were ordered forward shortly after 10
a. m. of May 8, 1915. By 1.30 they were two hundred yards closer to
Krithia than any allied troops had been up to that time. There,
however, they were heavily checked. Other units were unable to
advance, and the French sent word that they were unable to go any
farther unless the British line could move.
There was a long pause. Finally word was passed along the line that
the final desperate effort was to be made--namely to carry Krithia and
Achi Baba by a combined bayonet attack. Every man in the line was
ordered to fix bayonets and not to stop short of the objectives. At
5.30 in the afternoon came the order to advance, after a bombardment
by the fleet. Almost immediately all central control was lost, and
each unit was fighting desperately for itself in the hills and gullies
of that difficult, almost uncharted, country. Not for many hours
afterward, indeed, in some cases not for days, was it possible to
piece the story together.
The New Zealand troops got well past the Turkish machine guns without
discovering them, with the consequence that their supports were mown
down by a hail of fire from unexpected quarters. Nevertheless, they
got within a few yards of the Turkish trenches and proceeded to dig
themselves in. The Second Australian Infantry Brigade actually won
about 400 yards of ground and stuck to it with a tenacity warmly
praised by Sir Ian Hamilton. To the left the Eighty-seventh Brigade
had suffered terribly from machine-gun fire while the French had been
severely handled. The French troops were steady enough, but the
Senegalese broke in. At one point General d'Amade rallied the troops
in person.
Nightfall came and still Krithia and Achi Baba were far away. Thus
ended the second battle of Krithia, the supreme attempt of the allied
troops to carry the Turkish positions by a maneuver battle. Some
little ground had been gained, but the losses had been all out of
proportion to the advantage wrested from the brave and tenacious
Ottoman troops. The only consolation found in the situation by the
higher commands was in the assurance that the enemy had suffered
equally heavy losses, but as they were largely on the defensive this
statement is open to a very large measure of doubt.
While all this fighting was going on at the tip of the peninsula, the
Anzacs, or that part of them left on the cliffs overlooking the cove,
were having a hard time to maintain their positions. The Turks were
aware of the withdrawal of the two brigades to assist in the second
battle of Krithia, and they made a heavy demonstration to prevent the
departure of any further troops. To understand how vital a matter this
was one has only to read the dispatches of the period. Indeed, it has
often since been pointed out by military writers that, had the troops
landed from first to last at Anzac Cove been available at the tip of
the peninsula, Krithia and Achi Baba would undoubtedly have been
carried in the early days of the fighting, thus altering the whole
course of the campaign. This dispersal of forces would appear to have
been one of the major blunders of the Dardanelles campaign.
For five days, beginning May 6, 1915, the Anzacs were in almost
constant action. The fortunes fluctuated, gains were made by both
forces, but in the end, aside from heavy losses by both, there was
practically no change in the relative positions. The allied troops
still held a strip of land on the top of the cliffs, of a radius of
about 1,100 yards. As illustrating the intense character of the combat
at this period, it was calculated that during one bombardment no less
than 1,400 Turkish shells fell on this small strip of land in one
hour.
It has been said that the task of the Anzacs at this period was to
keep open this door to the vitals of the Turkish army and to hold as
many of the Turks as possible, and thus relieve the pressure on the
Krithia front. It can be said with equal force that the task of the
Turks arrayed against them was to hold as many of the Anzacs on this
front as possible. Judged from these angles, both Turks and Britons
were successful.
In the following week both the British and the French received
substantial reenforcements. On May 14 General d'Amade, in command of
the French forces at the Dardanelles, was relieved by General Gouraud,
who, at the age of 47, was the youngest officer of his rank in the
French army. He had enjoyed conspicuous success in northern France,
and had been nicknamed by his soldiers, the "Lion of the Argonne." It
was believed that his experience in the country of the Argonne and the
style of fighting that had developed there would make him especially
valuable to Sir Ian Hamilton, who, of course, had had no previous
experience with the new style of warfare.
On May 18, 1915, began the second battle of Anzac. Elaborate
preparations were made by General Liman von Sanders, the German
commander in chief of the Ottoman forces. Fully 30,000 troops are said
to have been gathered for the attack upon the Colonial troops. The
latter were fully prepared, warned of the concentration by the
observers on the warships and the aerial scouts.
About midnight of that day the attack began. After a preliminary
bombardment of the British positions, successive infantry attacks in
massed formation were launched against the trenches. For six hours the
battle waged, but the Anzacs' positions were not shaken. In the end
the ground in front of the trenches was literally covered with the
dead and wounded. An actual observer wrote of the scene:
"The ground presents an extraordinary sight when viewed through the
trench periscopes. Two hundred yards away, and even closer in some
places, are the Turkish trenches, and between them and our lines the
dead lie in hundreds. There are groups of twenty or thirty massed
together, as if for mutual protection, some lying on their faces, some
killed in the act of firing; others hung up in the barbed wire. In one
place a small group actually reached our parapet, and now lie dead on
it, shot at point-blank range or bayoneted. Hundreds of others lie
just outside their own trenches, where they were caught by rifle or
shrapnel when trying to regain them. Hundreds of wounded must have
perished between the lines."
There was a lull after this terrible slaughter, during which the Turks
made unsuccessful overtures to obtain an armistice to bury their dead.
On May 20, 1915, toward evening, the Turks again attacked,
concentrating on Quinn's Point, a strong Anzac redoubt at the outer
edge of the Australian trenches. No results were obtained and finally,
out of sheer necessity for reasons of health, an opportunity was given
the Turks to bury their slain.
There was some additional fighting on this line during the remaining
days of May, but nothing of real importance occurred. It was
calculated, at the end of the month, that the total British losses,
killed, wounded and missing and not including sick, was just short of
40,000 men. The figures for the sick were not given out, but reports
made later make it tolerably certain that they must have numbered
between 30,000 and 35,000 additional. The intensity of the struggle at
the Dardanelles will be realized when it is pointed out that the total
British casualties in the three years of the South African War were
only 38,156.
During the last two weeks of May the British and French troops on the
Krithia fronts made elaborate preparations for an attack upon the
Turkish lines. Miners had been brought out from England and France,
and mining and sapping had been conducted on a large scale. On June 4,
1915, Sir Ian Hamilton ordered the attack. It was preceded by the
usual heavy naval and artillery bombardment. Finally, at noon, the
mines were exploded, and the troops advanced along the whole line with
fixed bayonets.
It is calculated that the British had no less than 24,000 men on a
front of less than 4,000 yards. Their attack was delivered with
tremendous power and was brilliantly successful. At one point,
however, where the French line linked up with the British, the Turks
discovered a weak spot. By noon about a third of a mile had been
gained over a front of four miles, but soon afterward the French began
to weaken and subsequently were compelled to retreat. This exposed the
right wing of the British, which was enfiladed by the Turkish riflemen
and machine gun batteries and suffered terrible losses. The
Collingwood battalion of the Royal Naval Reserve, according to Sir Ian
Hamilton, having gone forward in support when the right wing was hard
pressed, was practically wiped out.
The attack slackened in the afternoon and nightfall found almost all
the gains of the morning lost to the heavy Turkish counterattacks. So
exhausted were the British and French troops that it was impossible to
renew the battle on the following day.
On June 21, 1915, the French force fought probably its most successful
action since the landing. About noon of that day, the Second Division
stormed two lines of Turkish trenches and captured what had been
called the "Haricot" redoubt, a strong Turkish position which had
twice changed hands. On the right, the First Division was unable to
make corresponding progress until General Gouraud made a last
inspiring appeal. Before night the whole of the Turkish first line
trenches above Kereves Dere were in the hands of the French troops.
The cost had been terrible, no less than 2,500 soldiers of the
Republic falling in the assault. More important still, General Gouraud
was so seriously injured that he had to return to France. On the way
his right arm was amputated. He was succeeded in command of the French
Expeditionary force by General Bailloud.
A week of comparative inaction was followed by an action on the
British right, which became known as the battle of the Gully Ravine.
This was a successful attempt to capture the ground originally
included in Sir Ian Hamilton's instructions for the second day of the
Battle of the Landings, near Beach Y, where the Turks had maintained
themselves in force, on June 28, by a strong British force, including
the overworked Twenty-ninth Division, which at this time had but few
of the officers who commanded at the landing on April 25, 1915, the
156th Brigade of the Lowland Division, and the Indian Brigade. Several
of the Turkish trenches could be easily enfiladed from the sea and
H.M.S. _Talbot_, guarded by a ring of destroyers against the German
submarines which had given effective evidence of their presence in the
Gulf of Saros, did terrible execution and played a large part in the
success of the British attack.
By nightfall, five lines of Turkish trenches along the coast had been
captured, 200 prisoners had been taken and several guns and much
ammunition had fallen to the British troops. The Turks made
counterattacks on the two succeeding nights but never regained the
ground they had lost.
While this was going on, Enver Pasha directed in person a determined
attack upon the troops at Anzac Cove. On the night of June 29, 1915,
after artillery preparation, two unsuccessful attempts were made by
the Ottoman troops to carry the British lines.
On July 4, 1915, the Turks launched another attack, starting from the
neighborhood of Achi Baba, against the whole allied front,
concentrating on the point where the French and British lines joined
up. They had a momentary success when they penetrated into one of the
British trenches, but in the end they were driven out.
On July 12, 1915, Sir Ian Hamilton ordered an attack which won about
400 yards in the direction of Achi Baba, but at heavy loss to one of
the Territorial Brigades, which broke through a couple of the Turkish
trench lines, but was unable to establish a connection with the French
on their right. Finally some local points and a few trenches were
carried, but as the Turks had something like fifty miles of trenches
in Gallipoli, it became apparent that at this rate the allied troops
would be wiped out long before they came within sight of the Narrows.
CHAPTER LXXVI
RUSSO-TURKISH OPERATIONS
The Russo-Turkish campaign which had developed in Transcaucasia, the
Caucasus and Persia at the beginning of 1915, proved to be little more
than a futile dissipation of energy for the best part of a year. To
Russia it was more of an inconvenience than otherwise, while for the
Turks it was the only point besides Egypt where their geographical
position permitted them to strike a blow against the enemies of
Germany. Her two nearest neighbors--Greece and Bulgaria--were both
neutral at the time. The most interesting feature of this campaign is
the fact that it largely influenced the allied operations at the
Dardanelles.
On August, 1915, Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador in
Petrograd, published the following statement in an interview which
appeared in the Russian press: "When Turkey declared war Russia turned
to Great Britain with a request that she would divert a portion of the
Turkish troops from the Caucasus by means of a counterdemonstration
at some other point. The operations at the Dardanelles were undertaken
with a double object--on the one hand, of reducing the pressure of the
Turks in the Caucasus, and, on the other, of opening the straits and
so making it possible for Russia to export her grain and receive
foreign products of which she stands in need."
The Turkish offensive in the Caucasus, as we found in Volume II, began
in the middle of December, 1914, and reached its farthest point toward
the end of the year. Although it was subsequently broken by Russia,
its renewal was expected when the weather became more favorable. That
it was not renewed during the summer of 1915, and that Tiflis was in
consequence relieved from further menace, was due entirely to the
British attack on the Dardanelles, to which all available Turkish
troops were immediately dispatched. Russia had her hands full enough
at the time to maintain her long front of 900 miles--from the Baltic
through the Polish salient and through the Carpathian line of Galicia.
She could therefore ill afford to spare any considerable part of her
forces for an extended Transcaucasian campaign.
Turkey's first plan of action in the Great War appears to have been an
attempt to recover Ardahan and Kars, both of which places, as well as
Batum, had been taken from Turkey and handed over to Russia by the
Treaty of Berlin in 1878. To forestall any such aspirations Russian
troops had entered Asia Minor on November 4, 1914, and advanced for
seventeen miles along the road to Erzerum in Armenia, and on November
8 they successfully resisted an attack by the Turks, armed with heavy
German artillery, at Kuprikeui, from which place several mountain
paths lead to Erzerum. Further attacks had also been made by the Turks
during the rest of the month and in December likewise in the Euphrates
Valley without any notable result, until they had reached Ardahan and
Sarikamish in an attempt to regain Kars.
In a three days' battle with the Russians, January 1-4, 1915, they
were driven back with enormous losses, the whole of one Turkish army
corps (the Ninth) surrendering. (See Volume II, Turkey in the War.)
The Turks did not get within thirty miles of Kars. In numerical
strength the Turks were estimated at three to one against the
Russians. Fighting in the deep snow at altitudes of 8,000 to 10,000
feet in a severe winter is an enormously difficult undertaking for the
attacking side, and it is evident that the Turkish forces suffered
terrible hardships in their attempt to retain a footing on Russian
territory.
At the end of January and the beginning of February furious fighting
raged in the neighborhood of Sarikamish, when the Russians inflicted
another defeat on the Turks. During a blinding snowstorm the former
had crossed a mountain and, after heavy fighting, captured the
commanding general and the staff of the Thirtieth Turkish Division and
a large quantity of war material. The roaring of the wind was so great
that the Russian approach could not be heard, while the thickly
blowing snow rendered the troops invisible.
At the same time the Russian squadron bombarded the Turkish barracks
at Trebizond and Rizah from the Black Sea, also sinking some Turkish
sailing vessels used as transports. Under the superintendence of
German engineers the Turks hurriedly set about constructing a branch
railroad from Angora to Sivas, Asia Minor, intended to replace the
Trebizond water route as a line of communication for the Turkish
troops on the Caucasus front. Meanwhile another Russian column pushed
out from Julfa along the Tabriz road to force battle upon the Turkish
army invading the Persian province of Azerbaijan. The Turks advanced
northward from Tabriz to Marand, where a stubborn battle was fought.
They were commanded by Djevet Pasha, who was considered one of their
best tacticians and most aggressive fighters, but after a series of
unsuccessful frontal onslaughts his army broke in disorder, abandoning
cannon, colors (standards), and all their dead and wounded. To the
Russians the victory was more of political than military value, for it
dealt a severe blow at Turkish and German influence in Persia.
On February 8, 1915, the Turkish cruiser _Midirli_ (formerly the
German warship _Breslau_) fired upon the Russian port of Jalta on the
Crimean Peninsula, opposite Balaklava. The Russian fleet retaliated
by again bombarding Trebizond on the other side of the Black Sea.
About February 20-21, 1915, several small engagements were fought in
the vicinity of Chorokh, as a result of which the Turks were driven
beyond the river.
On February 22, 1915, news came from Petrograd to the effect that the
Turks had indulged in cruel atrocities during their occupation of
Ardanuten in Transcaucasia, near the Armenian frontier. The Tiflis
correspondent of the "Russkoye Slovo" (the "Russian Word") stated that
at first the Turks confined themselves to pillage and killed only
fifteen civilians, but that after December 30, 1914, when news of the
Russian occupation of Ardaham was received, the local Mussulmans had
organized a systematic massacre. A hundred and fifty Armenians were
led out into the streets and killed.
Fifty Armenians were removed from prisons, stripped naked, and
compelled to leap into the abyss of Jenemdere, the "Devil's Gap,"
until one victim carried a Turk with him, when the remainder were
shot. At Tamvot 250 Armenians were massacred and the women carried
into captivity. The Turks did not permit the burial of the corpses,
which were left to be devoured by dogs till the arrival of the
Russians. Again, it was reported from Urumiah, northwestern Persia,
that prior to the evacuation of towns between Julfa and Tabriz the
Turks and Kurds, who were retiring before the Russian advance,
plundered and burned the villages and put to death some of the
inhabitants. At Salnac, Pagaduk, and Sarna orders were said to have
been given by the Turkish commissioner for the destruction of the
towns. All the Armenian inhabitants of Antvat were collected and,
according to this message, 600 males were put to death, and the women,
after being compelled to embrace the Islamic faith, were divided into
parties and sent to various interior towns.
On March 19, 1915, the Armenian Red Cross fund in London issued some
details supplied by an Armenian doctor named Derderian, who testified
that the whole plain of Alashgerd was virtually covered with the
bodies of men, women, and children. When the Russian forces had
retreated from this district the Kurds fell upon the helpless people
and shut them up in mosques. The men were killed and the women were
carried away to the mountains. The Armenian Red Cross fund stated that
there were 120,000 destitute Armenians in the Caucasus at that time.
As war in itself is not far removed from being a wholesale, organized
atrocity on a large scale, it is always advisable to accept such
accusations with extreme reserve and to consider the probability of
their having been perpetrated. In the case of Turk and Kurd _versus_
Armenian, however--and unfortunately--there is little reason to doubt
even the most gruesome stories that could possibly be written. It is a
feud as old as the hills, and no historic battle field of the world
was ever so liberally drenched with human blood as the soil of
Armenia.
Having expelled the Turks from the Transcaucasian region toward the
end of February, 1915, the Russians again moved forward on the Asiatic
front, sweeping aside, destroying and capturing detachments of Turks
that opposed their advance.
By March 1, 1915, the Russians were approaching Oltichai along one of
the main highroads toward Erzerum from the west. Another column
advancing from the east encountered some Turks in the mountain passes
south of Alashkort. These they defeated, capturing two guns. On
February 28, 1915, the Russian troops operating in the coast region
occupied the port of Khopa on the Black Sea, eighteen miles southwest
of Batum. This port was of great military value to the Turks.
On March 3, 1915, the Russian Army of the Caucasus, driving the
Turkish forces before it, had reached the River Khopachas, the estuary
of the Chorokh in Armenia. This move severed the route of Turkish
reenforcements and supplies from Constantinople to the Caucasian
frontier through Khlopa, Turkish Armenia, thereby isolating a big
portion of Turkish territory. From Batum Russian troops advanced near
the Turkish border, the Turks opposing them step by step. Russian
warships from the Black Sea sprayed their shells over the shore and
cleared a fifteen-mile strip of coast of Turkish barracks and troops,
successively cutting off several lines of their communications by sea
until, after a three days' battle, the last route was effectively
closed. A number of Turkish coasting vessels, laden with ammunition
and supplies, were also sunk.
According to an official Russian report issued on March 3, 1915, the
number of Turkish prisoners who had passed through Pyatigorsk on their
way to the interior of Russia (since Turkey entered the war) up to
February 13, 1915, amounted to 527 officers and 49,000 men.
During February, 1915, the Turks had been nibbling at Egypt through
the Sinai Peninsula. On the 25th of that month the allied squadrons
had begun heavy firing on the Dardanelles. This decided the supreme
Turkish war council early in March to recall most of the troops from
Egypt and the Caucasus to defend the straits. By March 16, 1915, the
Turks had lost so many important points in the Chorokh region that
they completely abandoned to the Russians what positions they still
held on the river.
On March 20, 1915, Petrograd announced that the Russian advance to the
sea had deprived the enemy of all means of operating in the
Transchorokh region or of transporting troops and munitions to
Erzerum, and that the Turks had been put to flight near Olti. The road
between Archava and Khopa, to the eastward, was strongly defended by
the Turks in a series of stubbornly contested battles. The Russian
advance created a panic throughout the Chorokh Valley; the inhabitants
fled to the mountains, abandoning farms and villages. The mountain
heights in the district of Ardanuch, however, were strongly fortified
and still in Turkish possession. These fortifications had been built
under German supervision, and the defense thereof was conducted by a
German officer.
Hostilities were resumed in Persia during the last week in March,
1915, and on the 25th the Russians defeated the Turks in a violent,
sanguinary battle at Atkutur, north of Bilman in northwestern Persia.
The Turks were stated to have lost 12,000 in killed, wounded, and
prisoners, as well as many guns. Preceding the Russian occupation of
Salmac Plains in Azerbaijan province, northwest of Urumiah, hundreds
of native Christians were rounded up by the Turks in the village of
Haftdewan and massacred. Many of them were dragged out from the homes
of friendly Mohammedans, who tried to hide them. The Russians on
entering the village found 720 bodies, mostly naked and mutilated. The
recovery of bodies from wells, pools, and ditches, and their interment
kept 300 men busy for three days. The wailing of women intensified the
horror of the scene. Surviving widows who were able to identify the
bodies of their husbands insisted upon digging graves and burying the
bodies. "Some of the victims had been shot. In other cases they were
bound to ladders, and their heads, protruding through, were hacked
off. Eyes were gouged out and limbs chopped off."
Messages from Urumiah confirmed earlier reports that more than 800
persons had already been killed in the neighborhood, and that more
than 2,000 had died of disease.
A dispatch from Tiflis, Transcaucasia, dated April 24, 1915, stated
that refugees who had reached the Russian line reported that the
massacre of Armenians was being continued on an even greater scale.
All the inhabitants of ten villages near Van were stated to have been
killed. On being advised of massacres at Erzerum, Berjan, and Zeitun,
and of the conditions at Van, the Katolikos, head of the Armenian
Church at Etchmiadzin, near Erivan, cabled to President Wilson an
appeal to the people of the United States to act on behalf of the
Armenians.
The village governments or relief committees had managed to issue
eight pounds of flour to each refugee in six weeks. A journey through
Salmac three weeks after the outrages revealed unmistakable signs of
the slaughter. Pools of blood still marked the "execution" places in
Haftdewan. The caps of thirty-six victims lay where a mud wall had
been toppled over them. A young Armenian named Hackatur related the
story of his escape from a well in which the bodies of the dead had
been crammed. He had fallen with the others and was flung into the
well, but he managed to wriggle through the bodies lying on top of
him, and escaped at nightfall.
At the end of April, 1915, after a slight lull, fresh activity broke
out again in various regions of the Caucasian front. The campaign had
almost come to a standstill owing to typhus. On the average, 150 men
succumbed daily. The epidemic raged for a while under indescribably
awful conditions. Every available doctor was hurried out, and several
of them died of the disease. The Russians had cleared the Kurds out of
the Alashkart valley and were now pushing forward in the direction of
Olti. The fight for the valley centered on the possession of
Klichgjaduk Pass, which would have been extremely useful to the Turks,
could they have held it securely for a few days to enable them to
complete a junction with their separated forces. The Russians "lay
low" in strongly protected positions. The Turks came on, first
obviously for reconnaissance, and were easily repulsed without the
Russians making much display of force. Whatever may be said of the
Turkish soldier, he is at all times a brave and self-reliant fighter.
They advanced to make the real attack, supported by some mountain
guns. But the Russian artillery continued to lie silent, and the
Turkish attack developed with misplaced confidence and swept boldly up
to the line of the Russian wire entanglements. Only sixty yards
separated the combatants when, suddenly, a perfect tornado of fire
rattled out from the Russian intrenchments. Maxims, mountain guns and
rifles poured a deadly shower of shells and bullets into the closely
packed thousands of Turks. With extraordinary courage the Osmanli
still rushed into the trap, uttering fierce shouts of "Allahoo Akbar!"
The Russians then broke from cover and some terrible bayonet work
completed the task of securing the pass for the Russians.
By May 10, 1915, the Turks had been driven back to the southwest,
leaving a large quantity of tents and munitions behind them. Farther
south, from Sarikamish, a number of insignificant conflicts were kept
up. Turkish stragglers formed partnerships with local professionals
and organized companies of banditti; the Russians were kept busy
clearing out the villages where these bands had established their
headquarters, driving them into the hills. To the southeast, the
pursuit of Halil Bey's defeated army continued during the first week
in May. The battle had begun at Hantahta, near Urumiah, on April 29,
1915. Both sides lost heavily. In the beginning the Russians had held
the Turks at bay, but the latter received reenforcements and on April
30, 1915, the Russians had to withdraw from Dilman. They intrenched
themselves at Magonzhio, the first village on the way to Khori, whence
they battered the Turks with their heavy artillery until the arrival
of Russian reenforcements.
On May 14, 1915, it was announced from Washington that replies were
being prepared at the State Department to a flood of communications
from various parts of the country urging that steps be taken to
protect Christians in Armenia and other regions under Turkish control.
Assurance was given that the Department was doing all in its power to
aid the Armenians. Mr. Morgenthau, our Ambassador at Constantinople,
was instructed to make representations to the Turkish Government. It
was at his request that Turkish regular troops were sent to Urumiah,
Persia, to keep order.
The Russian consul at that place reported on May 15, 1915, that 6,000
Armenians had been massacred at Van, which has been the scene of so
many similar outrages during the last twenty years. On May 23, 1915, a
detachment of Russian soldiers occupied the town of Van, in Asiatic
Turkey, thus bringing the eagerly expected relief to the Armenians,
who were besieged by the Turks--besieged in their own country by their
own countrymen. Upon the arrival of the Russians the Turks retreated
in the direction of Bitlis.
The Russian successes in the Van region included the occupation of
Baslan; in the capture of Van itself they took twenty-six guns, a
great quantity of war materials and provisions, as well as the
Government Treasury. A considerable part of the town was destroyed by
fire. All the foreigners residing there were reported as safe. By June
6, 1915, the Russians had the whole Van region and part of the Sanjak
of Mush in their hands. They had practically annihilated Halil Bey's
original corps and cleared the Turkish troops out for many miles
around. A Turkish offensive in the Province of Azerbaijan ended in a
complete breakdown. On their right wing the Russians occupied Turkish
territory between the old frontier and the line of the rivers Chorokh
and Tortun and the mountain range of Tchakhir Baba. A violent
counterattack made by the Turks at Zinatcher was repulsed. In the
course of an engagement in the valley of Oltichai 200 Cossacks charged
on horseback to the trenches, where they dismounted. Leaving their
well-trained horses to look after themselves, the Cossacks dashed into
the Turks and put them to the sword. Two days later a Turkish official
report from Constantinople via wireless to Berlin and London very
briefly announced: "On the Caucasian front we occupied enemy positions
in the district of Olti, on the Russian border of Transcaucasia."
The operations in the Dardanelles apparently had but little effect on
Turkish activity in the Caucasus, for by June 19, 1915, they had
replaced the Ninth Army Corps which had been captured by the Russians
at Sarikamish, and had also restored and supplied with ammunition the
Tenth and Eleventh Corps, which were seriously reduced in numbers by
fighting and disease. The main Turkish concentration was taking place
about this time against Olti, Melo, and Kiskin, outside of which line
the First and Sixth Corps and the remainder of Halil Bey's army were
drawn up. Here the Turks undertook some cautious offensive maneuvers,
besides attempting to prevent the Russians from outflanking Erzerum.
Some of the Kurdish leaders who were responsible for the Armenian
massacres in the Van district voluntarily surrendered to the Russians
and were deported to the interior with their dependents.
On June 20, 1915, in a battle near Olti, fifty-five miles west of
Kars, 200 Russians were killed and prisoners and war materials were
taken. By June 24, 1915, the Russians had occupied Gob, a town
twenty-five miles north of Lake Van. A general movement of Russian
troops toward Bitlis, where the armies of two Turkish commanders were
concentrated, pointed to a favorable situation in the Caucasus from
the Russian standpoint. Gob and Bitlis are connected by several
comparatively good roads. But matters now began to quiet down
somewhat--activities on both sides decreased. Russian sentiment had
grown strong in North and Central Persia, a fact accentuated by the
spirit displayed among the Moslem sects. Various isolated mountain
tribes met the Russians with declarations of allegiance--obviously the
safest policy to adopt with a powerful conqueror. Disease and famine
stalked through the smoldering district of Van; only one doctor was
available for 40,000 people--a large number of them in dire need of
medical assistance.
In the first week of July, 1915, lively fighting was reported to have
occurred north and south of Lake Van and south of Olti. A Turk force
of 30,000 men, concentrated to the east of Bitlis, were being hard
pressed by the Russians. Organized massacre of Armenians in Bitlis was
regarded as an indication that the Turks intended to retreat from that
point. They had also distributed 40,000 rifles among Kurds in the Mush
Valley for use against Armenians.
Up to July 6, 1915, there had been only an artillery duel in the coast
region, and a Russian motor boat sank a Turkish sailing vessel. South
of the Kara Dagh range a Russian detachment encountered a regiment of
Turkish infantry with artillery, machine guns, and two squadrons of
cavalry. The Turks were again reported as coming off second best with
considerable damage inflicted upon them. A Turkish offensive west of
Ahlavat also failed.
After the Russians penetrated to Mush (eighty-three miles south of
Erzerum), and Plian, Halil Bey, commander of the Turkish forces in the
Caucasus, reorganized his army, bringing its strength up to 90,000,
including six divisions of infantry, one of cavalry, and a large body
of Kurds. General Eudenitch, the Russian commander, thus found himself
confronted with the alternative of hastily attempting to concentrate
his forces in the face of a strong Turkish army, or to retreat and
thus expose a large Armenian population to Turk and Kurdish revenge.
The main Russian army withdrew along the right bank of the Euphrates,
the Turks occupying the left bank, July 22-25, 1915, being held in
partial check by rear-guard actions.
On August 1, 1915, Halil Bey's forces came into contact with a
considerable body of Russians at Palantchen, on the left bank of the
Euphrates, twelve miles southwest of Kara Kilissa. The Russians had
taken positions on a line extending from the northeast to the
southwest from Darabi, six miles north of Kara Kilissa, to Djamschato,
six miles southwest of the important Akhtunski Pass, covering the
roads to Erivan, in Transcaucasia. In opposing this front the Turks
exposed their communications, then 150 miles long, to attack from the
direction of Sarikamish. The violent and picturesque fighting that
developed during the first week of August will be described in the
next volume.
The Turkish and Persian borders had meanwhile settled down to
comparative quiet. Up to this stage the Russian commander had made no
attempt to advance to Erzerum, though there were strong grounds for
belief that the defenses of that fortress were by no means so strong
as had been supposed or represented.
Russia was waiting her time in this theatre of war: her object was
merely to hold the gate. She had just suffered severe reverses in
Galicia and the Carpathians, and was now fighting desperately to avoid
the great enveloping movement engineered by all the skill and weight
of Von Hindenburg and Von Mackensen on her own territory of Poland and
Russia itself.
PART XI--THE WAR IN AFRICA
CHAPTER LXXVII
THE CAMEROONS
The war in Africa smoldered and flamed during the second period from
February to August, 1915. The fight for the colonial possessions
became a struggle for existence.
During the spring of 1915 the fighting in the Cameroons was generally
favorable to the allied arms. In April the advance of the French and
British troops forced the Germans to transfer their seat of Government
from Buea to Yaunde. In this month, Colonel Mayer's French column
succeeded in pushing its way over the River Kele, while about the same
time a British detachment seized a bridge across Ngwa.
On May 11, 1915, the station of Escha was taken. The Germans who
occupied a strong position at Njoke were driven out, and the place was
occupied by the British on May 29, 1915.
In the hinterland, along the Sanga River, the French columns had met
with continued success in harrying and driving out the enemy. The
Germans displayed great bravery, and offered stubborn resistance, but
were forced to fall back on fortified Monso. Here they held out for
some days, when they were forced to capitulate, and considerable
stores of guns and ammunition fell to the victors.
The French troops continued their successful drive by taking Assobam
and Besam on June 25, 1915, and then occupied the important post of
Lomji, in the capture of which, the Belgian soldiers furnished
invaluable assistance, proving themselves to be skillful and fearless
fighters.
What especially contributed to make the Allies' successes easier in
this section of the war area was the revolt of the natives against
their German masters. The Germans during their retreat had burned
villages and destroyed a vast amount of property which so enraged the
natives that many deserted. Having a perfect knowledge of the country
it was easy for them to escape capture. It was stated that many hung
around the German flanks and took revenge on their former masters by
hindering their retreat and by occasionally sniping the German
officers.
The natives of the Cameroons were not generally trusted by the
Germans, and were forbidden to fish in the streams of the country,
lest they should furnish information to the enemy.
Countercharges of British cruelty were brought at this time by certain
German missionaries of the Basle Mission, on the Sanga River. It was
claimed that British troops promised to reward natives for delivering
Germans into their hands, and for killing them. A number of Germans,
it was stated, had been cut to pieces, while others had been tortured
and delivered to the British. It was charged against the French
military authorities that German prisoners had been deported to French
Dahomey where they were forced to labor under black overseers. These
charges were denied by the accused in each instance.
During April and May, 1915, there was sharp fighting on the Nigeria
frontier. The large native town of Gurin, just inside British
territory, was attacked by a German force from Garua in April. The
contingent numbered sixteen Europeans, and about 350 natives. It was
equipped with some large guns and Maxims. For the defense of the town
there was only a small garrison of forty native troops commanded by
Lieutenant Pawle. For seven hours the garrison held off the enemy,
when he was forced to retire. During the struggle Lieutenant Pawle,
the gallant commander of the garrison, was killed. The news of this
engagement was carried by native soldiers who escaped from Gurin, to
Colonel F. G. Cunliffe at Yola, who immediately set off with a
detachment of the African Frontier Force, arriving on the scene of the
siege the day following. After being joined by a body of French
troops, he moved on to capture Garua where the British had met with
disastrous defeat in August, 1914.
Since that time the four forts of the town had been greatly
strengthened and every preparation was now made for a stout
resistance. The British and French having intrenched themselves, the
British guns began a vigorous bombardment of the forts. During the
night sapping and mining went on steadily, enabling the British to
move their trenches gradually nearer their objective.
The siege lasted from May 31 to June 10, 1915, when the forts
surrendered. The allied troops entered Garua on June 11, taking over
thirty-seven German, and 270 native prisoners, while great quantities
of arms, ammunition and stores became their prizes. It was said that
the garrisons of the forts might have held out much longer if they had
not lost their nerve and become panic-stricken, which caused many
desertions. It was a remarkable feature of this spirited struggle that
the Allies did not lose a man.
Leaving Garua, the British and French troops now moved on Ngaundere,
capital of the Adamawa District, which was taken with insignificant
losses to the Allies on July 29, 1915. The retiring Germans were
closely pursued to Tangere, which stands on a plateau nearly 4,000
feet high. This place was captured by the allied forces July 12, and
attempts made by the Germans to regain it eleven days later were
repulsed.
Early in August, 1915, the British captured Gaschaka and Koncha, when
the heavy rains suspended for the time any further military
operations. Meanwhile the French force had been working its way toward
Yaunde, occupying the station of Dume on the way. The arrival of
French troops at this town seems to have surprised and dismayed the
Germans, who hastily abandoned several fortified places and destroyed
their transport. They continued, however, to hold the hill above Dume
for some time, but were driven out by a French detachment after a
short struggle. From Dume a French column was dispatched against
Abong-Mbong.
At the beginning of the fall of 1915, the Germans still held Yaunde,
and a district in the center of the country, but the Cameroons could
no longer be considered a German possession.
CHAPTER LXXVIII
BRITISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHWEST AFRICA
Our attention is now drawn to Southwest Africa. In the first week of
February, 1915, the Germans made a determined effort to break through
the encircling armies that were closing in on them. Kakamas on the
Orange, where a British garrison was stationed to protect Schuit
Drift, was fiercely attacked on February 5 by about 600 Germans, well
equipped with Maxims and machine guns. They were beaten off after a
short engagement with a loss of nine men killed, twenty-two wounded,
and fifteen taken prisoners. On the Union side the casualties were one
killed, and two wounded.
On February 22, 1915, General Botha's army being ready, he moved out
of Swakopmund, and on the following day occupied the stations of
Nonidas and Goanikontes, meeting with only slight resistance. Nearly a
month was now spent in preparing for the advance on the capital,
Windhoek. Careful reconnoitering of the enemy's positions was made,
and an advanced base was established.
On the night of March 19, 1915, two mounted brigades left the post at
Husab to clear the railway line. General Botha accompanied the first
brigade, which was commanded by Colonel Brits, their object being
Riet, an important place south of the railway, where it was known that
the enemy was strongly prepared. Riet was of utmost importance to the
Union force for it commanded the highway to Windhoek. It was planned
that while Colonel Brits's brigade attacked Riet the Bloemhof
Commando was to execute a flank movement and seizing Schwarze Kopje to
endeavor to cut off the enemy's retreat.
At daybreak on March 20, 1915, the brigade reached the German
position. The right rested on the Swakop stream; the left on the
foothills of Langer Heinrichberg, while the artillery was effectively
placed so as to command the river and highway. Assisted by the guns of
the Transvaal Horse Artillery a frontal attack was made, and the
fighting became general. With varying fortunes it continued until the
evening when the Germans were finally driven out and dispersed.
The second brigade commanded by Colonel Celliers had been directed to
cut the railway line between Jakalswater and Sphinx. He was to attack
the former place after blocking the way, in case any reenforcements
should be sent by the enemy from Windhoek. Celliers succeeded in
cutting the railway and seized a train containing supplies for the
Germans, but his attack on Jakalswater was a failure, and the enemy
made forty-three of his men prisoners.
General Botha was so confident of the ultimate success of his
campaign, that he was not disposed to imperil his chances by any hasty
operations, and so his progress toward Windhoek was at first
necessarily slow. The nature of the country afforded the enemy many
natural advantages and unfortunately the Union forces were not
provided with aeroplanes, which would have proved invaluable in
scouting.
Pforto, a station on the line where the Germans occupied a strong
position, was surrounded by a column led by Colonel Alberts. The enemy
had two large guns and a number of Maxims. A charge by the Union force
and the effective work of their battery soon silenced the enemy's
artillery. The Germans had lost twenty killed, of whom three were
officers, when they surrendered unconditionally. There were 210
prisoners taken, four guns and a large quantity of ammunition.
General Botha was engaged in April and May, 1915, clearing the railway
system of the enemy. To prevent any flank attacks it was necessary to
hold the two main lines, which run from Swakopmund north to
Grootfontein, Tsumeb, and to Windhoek. This line being cleared for
fifty miles, Colonel Skinner and the Kimberley Regiment were stationed
at Trekopje, which became the Union railhead.
On April 26, 1915, about 700 Germans and a dozen guns vigorously
assailed this encampment and for four hours the fight raged with
varying consequences. The Germans under a withering fire from their
batteries tried to surround the Union trenches to enfilade them, but
were forced to retire, when they had got within 150 feet of their
objective, leaving twenty-five killed and wounded behind them. The
Union force lost eleven men, of whom three were officers, and forty
wounded.
Meanwhile, the southern army was actively engaged. Sir Duncan
Mackenzie's column had dispersed the Germans and taken some booty from
one or two places near Lüderitz Bay, and had seized many miles of
railway. On February 22, 1915, his advance guard occupied Garub, a
station seventy miles inland. Here a company of Union scouts pushed
after the retiring Germans, and in a skirmish with mounted men
protecting a troop train their leader was wounded. They were forced to
retire, leaving one of their comrades a prisoner in the hands of the
enemy. The British camp at Garub was also attacked by a hostile
aeroplane which dropped hand grenades and shells, but there were no
casualties.
Aus, an important station fifteen miles from Garub, was next occupied
by Mackenzie. The place was evacuated without a struggle, but it
showed that much work had been done to fortify it, and that the enemy
had intended to resist. Owing to the rapid movements of the British
force the Germans had abandoned everything, though several mines
exploded when the town was occupied.
Turning now to the movements of General Smut's army in the south.
Colonel Van der Venter, who commanded an important section of the
army, crossed the Orange River and occupied a group of stations,
including Nabas, Velloor, Ukamas, Jerusalem, and Heirachabis.
On the last day of March, 1915, Van der Venter's force was engaged in
several skirmishes in which one man was killed and two wounded, while
six of the enemy were killed and twenty-eight taken prisoners. At this
price the stations of Platbeen and Geitsaud which yielded a great
quantity of supplies and horses and live-stock were occupied.
On April 30, 1915, Van der Venter occupied Warmbad, the railway
terminus, without opposition and pushing forward along the line his
men entered Kabus, a station sixty-five miles to the north, two days
later.
General Smut met Van der Venter at Kalkfontein on April 11, 1915,
where plans were laid to drive the Germans from Karas Mountains where
they occupied some strong positions. The enemy was attacked in three
columns, advancing from different points. Finding themselves
threatened on all sides, the Germans made no resistance and abandoned
everything.
On April 17, 1915, Van der Venter entered Seeheim, the Germans fleeing
in such hot haste that they could not stop to destroy the bridge over
the Great Fish River. Colonel Berrange's force which had set out from
Kimberley was now in touch with Van der Venter's column. At Hasnur
near Rietfontein, Berrange took an intrenched position with slight
losses and after frequent skirmishes and hard fighting joined Van der
Venter's forces near Keetmanshoop, which surrendered to the combined
forces April 20, 1915.
Sir Duncan Mackenzie's column left at Aus now struck out to the
northeast with his mounted men and occupied the towns of Bethany and
Berseba without meeting resistance and April 24, 1915, reached
Aritetis on the railway, seventy miles north of Keetmanshoop, General
Mackenzie could now act in conjunction with Van der Venter against the
Germans retreating from Seeheim and Keetmanshoop. At Kabus, twenty
miles north, in an indecisive engagement with the enemy, the Union
forces lost twenty-two men taken prisoners, while the Germans
numbering about 600, continued their retreat, their objective being
Gibeon, where they hoped to entrain for the capital, Windhoek. General
Mackenzie therefore sent a small party to destroy the railway to the
north of Gibeon, while the Ninth Brigade was to engage the enemy. This
body was defeated by the Germans with severe loss. They took some
seventy prisoners and forced the Ninth Brigade to fall back on the
main body.
On the morning of April 28, 1915, Mackenzie led his whole force
against the Germans in a dashing attack that drove them from the
field, and his cavalry continued to pursue them over twenty miles of
country. The rocky and irregular character of the ground in this
neighborhood made it difficult for cavalry operations, and the Germans
made good their escape. The British lost three officers and twenty men
killed; the wounded numbered fifty-five, of whom eight were officers.
Among the killed was Major J. H. Watt of the Natal Light Horse. The
British captured from the enemy seven officers, and about 200 men.
They also released seventy of their own soldiers who had been made
prisoners by the Germans on the previous day.
The booty that fell to the victors included field guns and Maxims,
transport wagons, and large numbers of live stock. It was at Gibeon,
where this battle was fought, that Sir George Farrar was killed in a
railroad accident on May 18, 1915. His important services in the
Commissariat Department during the invasion of the colony had
contributed to making the successes of the Union forces possible. His
career had been full of adventure. He was sentenced to death for the
part he had taken in the Jamieson raid, and had fought against the
Boers in 1899-02.
While General Mackenzie was successfully operating around Gibeon,
General Botha's troops were active in the north; but nothing of
importance occurred until May 1, 1915, when Kubas was hurriedly
evacuated by the Germans and occupied by General Brits. Here, it was
discovered that the Germans had made elaborate preparations for
resistance, but--became panic-stricken by the sudden and unexpected
arrival of Union forces. Miles of intrenchments surrounded the place,
and a hundred contact mines were discovered and removed. From this
point Colonel Brits continued his advance, and encountered the enemy
at Otyimbigue, sixty-one miles from the capital of Windhoek. After a
spirited skirmish the place was taken, the Germans losing twenty-eight
men as prisoners. Continuing their victorious advance the Union forces
captured Karibib, an important railroad junction, and Johann
Albrechtshöhe and Wilhelmstal were next occupied.
With General Botha threatening the capital from the west, and all the
colony south of Gibeon in British hands, the greatest difficulties in
the way of the invaders had been successfully overcome, and the end
seemed to be near.
On May 10, 1915, General Botha was informed that Windhoek, the
capital, was prepared to surrender. He set out at once for the town in
a motor car accompanied by a small escort, and arranged with the
Burgomaster of Windhoek the terms of capitulation.
On May 12, 1915, General Myburgh and a detachment of Union forces
entered the town which contained at the time about 3,000 Europeans and
some 12,000 natives.
Before the courthouse, in the presence of the town officials, and
Union officers and men, a proclamation by General Botha in Dutch,
English, and German was read, which placed the conquered districts
under martial law, and which further expressed the hope that there
would be no attempts to resist the Union forces as they must prove
futile. The great wireless station at the capital, which kept the
colony in touch with Berlin, was found to be uninjured, and with its
capture the Germans lost their last wireless station outside of
Europe. Thousands of cases of ammunition and parts of guns were among
the prizes taken, while on the railway a number of locomotives and
quantities of rolling stock were seized.
It now became the immediate business of General Botha's army to deal
with those German straggling forces which remained still under arms in
the north. In a few days following the occupation of the capital,
Colonel Mentz found part of the enemy at Seeis, and without losing a
man took 252 prisoners and a great quantity of booty. General Botha
meanwhile occupied Omaruru, a station on the railway, and in the same
week took possession of Kalkfield which was strongly intrenched, but
which the Germans were compelled to abandon owing to Botha's adroit
flanking movements. The Germans declining to make a stand, Botha's
army swept victoriously onward.
In the last week in June, 1915, all the districts around Waterberg
were cleared of the enemy. Leaving Okaputu in the evening of June 30,
1915, General Manie Botha with the Fifth Brigade got in touch with the
Germans at dawn the next day near Osib, after a forced march of
forty-two miles in sixteen hours. The Germans were driven off, and
before nightfall Otavi was occupied. Here a good supply of water was
found and as the country around is arid and like a desert, the loss of
the town was a serious one to the enemy.
General Lukin with another brigade had set out from Omarasa at the
same time as Manie Botha, and between them came General Botha and the
Headquarters Staff.
The fight at Otavi was the last stand of importance made by the
Germans. They had shown great bravery, but supplies were failing, they
had been driven into the most inhospitable part of the colony, the
natives were not always friendly, and during the first days of July,
1915, they made preparations to surrender.
The Union troops under General Myburgh, having left the railway,
encountered a body of Germans sixteen miles south of Tsumeb and in the
skirmish that followed lost one man and took eighty-six prisoners.
At Tsumeb, which Myburgh entered on July 8, 1915, some 600 more
prisoners were taken, while he was able to release a number of Union
comrades who had been left behind by the Germans in their hurried
retreat. Colonel Brits had by this time reached the German port of
Namutoni, where he took 150 prisoners, and released some Union
captives, the last that remained in German hands.
Dr. Seitz, the Governor of German Southwest Africa, now opened
communications with General Botha concerning a surrender, and received
the Union officer's terms in the form of an ultimatum. Botha stated
that he and his troops stood ready to fight, if need be, another
battle, but his terms were accepted before the time limit he had fixed
expired.
[Illustration: Conquest of German Southwest Africa by Union Troops
under General Botha.]
At two o'clock in the morning of July 9, 1915, at a spot called Kilometre
500, General Botha, Dr. Seitz the Governor, and Colonel Francke,
commander of the German troops in Southwest Africa, signed the terms of
capitulation. All the Germans surrendered unconditionally. Officers were
released on parole, and were free to live where they pleased in the
country. The regular troops were permitted to retain their rifles, but no
ammunition, and were interned for the remainder of the war in charge of
one of their officers. The Landwehr and Landsturm of the reserve forces
were permitted to retain their horses, but no arms, and were released on
parole, and could return to their homes.
The formal surrender of the prisoners was held at Otavi, July 11,
1915, where General Lukin who was in charge of the details took over
204 officers, and 3,293 of other ranks; thirty-seven field guns and
twenty-two machine guns. By the conquest of German Southwest Africa
322,450 square miles of territory, 113,670 more miles than all
Germany, came under the British flag.
The suppression of the rebellion at home, and the invasion and
conquest of this large territory had been accomplished by the Union
forces with comparatively small loss of life considering the great
number of engagements that were fought in a most difficult country for
military operations. The best estimate gives 1,612 for both campaigns.
The killed numbered 406, of whom ninety-six were killed in action by
the Germans and ninety-eight by the rebels, fifty-eight died of
wounds, and 153 by disease, accident, and other causes, and 606 were
taken prisoners. The losses to the rebels were 190 killed and between
300 and 350 wounded. The Germans lost 103 killed, and 195 wounded.
Before the surrender the Union forces held 890 German prisoners in
Southwest Africa.
While it is true that the Union troops greatly outnumbered the
Germans, General Botha's conquest of the colony was none the less a
brilliant military achievement. The most dangerous foe that the Union
soldiers encountered was not the Germans, but the deadly climate; the
stretches of burning desert veld from eighty to a hundred miles wide,
that had to be crossed in a heat that rose at times to 120° Fahrenheit
in the shadow of the tents. All the supplies, the provisions for the
men, and much of the water for their consumption had to be brought
from Cape Town. The care taken in the commissariat department, and
especially in the water supply, in a country where the enemy had
polluted the wells, accounted for the general good health of the
invading army. That 30,000 men should have been able to fight in such
a difficult country for five months at a cost of less than 2,000
casualties was an experience rare in military annals, and reflects
lasting credit on General Botha who planned the entire invasion.
The Germans, outmatched and outnumbered, avoided engagements whenever
possible, but offered a stubborn resistance and fought with great
bravery when there was no alternative. Once the Union forces were
ready to advance, their rapid movements and forced marches took the
Germans by surprise in the midst of their preparations, and baffled
and bewildered them. Cut off entirely from help from the outside, and
running short of ammunition which could not be replaced, their
struggle could only result in one conclusion.
CHAPTER LXXIX
OTHER AFRICAN OPERATIONS
The fighting along the African coast during this period was minor but
picturesque. On February 26, 1915, the British military authorities
announced that the coast of German East Africa would be blockaded on
February 28, four days being allowed for the departure of neutral
vessels. Some minor successes, chiefly naval, were obtained by the
British during the month of March, when they occupied Shirati on Lake
Victoria Nyanza and established there a base for armed steamers.
It was here on March 6, 1915, that the _Muanza_, the only German
armed steamer that remained on the lake, was destroyed by the British
steamer _Winifred_.
In April, 1915, Major General Tighe, who had won distinction in the
Indian Service, was appointed to command the British troops in German
East Africa. During this month there was some desultory fighting along
the edges of Kilmanjaro, and repeated but ineffectual attempts were
made to cut the Uganda Railway line; otherwise there were no hostile
movements worthy of note in this region.
On March 9, 1915, a German column, marching along the Maru River to
invade the Karungu district on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria
Nyanza, was defeated and scattered, after a short engagement, by a
force of British troops under Colonel Hickson.
Along the region between the Uganda Railroad and the German frontier
there were frequent skirmishes during May between British patrols and
German troops, in which the losses were trifling on either side. The
German forces had been operating for some time from the fortified port
of Bukoba, and it was important to the future movements of the British
that the place should be destroyed. On June 20 an expedition was
dispatched by steamer from the British port at Kisumu, 240 miles away
on the eastern shore; at the same time it was planned that British
troops on the Kagora River were to cross the thirty miles that divided
them from the German fortified port.
On June 25, 1915, Brigadier General J. A. Stewart, commanding
detachments of the First Loyal North Lancashires, King's African
Rifles, and the Twenty-fifth Royal Fusiliers reached Bukoba. The port
was attacked by land and water. The British were in superior numbers,
having only about 400 against them, but the Germans fought intrepidly,
and their Arab allies showed great bravery. The British success was
not easily won. The Germans lost most of their artillery and there
were heavy casualties. The wireless station was ruined, boats in the
harbor were sunk or captured, and the destruction wrought by the
British on the port was complete.
The capture of Bukoba was important to the British, for as a direct
result the Uganda borders were kept clear of the enemy for the greater
part of the summer of 1915.
The German town of Sphynxhaven on the eastern shore of Lake Nyassa was
attacked on May 30, 1915, by a British naval force under Lieutenant
Commander Dennistoun, supported by field artillery and a landing party
of King's African Rifles. During the sharp, short engagement that
followed the place was bombarded from the water, the enemy was driven
out, and great quantities of rifles, ammunition, and military stores
fell to the British.
The climatic conditions in the low-lying Nyassaland and Uganda borders
in the summertime caused the British soldiers more suffering and
deaths than their enemies. Insect pests like the tsetse fly swarm
around Lake Victoria Nyanza, while different fevers of peculiarly
malignant varieties lie in wait to attack the European. There is the
terrible sleeping sickness that spares neither white nor black race.
The great lake cannot be bathed in without danger for its abounds in
crocodiles and hippopotami.
Guerrilla warfare was kept up during most of the summer of 1915 along
the northeastern borders of Rhodesia and in Nyassaland. On June 28 the
Germans were driven off when they attacked in two bands on the Saisa
River, near Abercorn. A month later, having gathered 2,000 men, they
besieged the place for six days, when British reenforcements arriving
they were driven off. During these skirmishes and engagements the
Belgian troops were of great service to the British in defending the
frontier between Lake Mweru and Lake Tanganyika, and especially the
western shore of the latter lake.
It was in this summer of 1915, during the early days of July, that the
German cruiser, the _Königsberg_, met her end. Late in October of 1914
she was in shelter at a point some distance up the Rufiji River, where
the water was so shallow that a ship of ordinary draft could not
approach. When the British discovered the location of the cruiser they
sank a collier across the mouth of the river to prevent the German
boat from reaching the sea. The _Königsberg_, surrounded by forests
and thick jungle growth, was exactly located by British aircraft. On
July 4, 1914, Vice Admiral King Hall, commander in chief of the Cape
station, entered the river with the monitors _Severn_ and _Mersey_ and
opened fire.
The crew of the _Königsberg_ had been active in fortifying their
position during the time the cruiser had been sheltering in the river.
They had established shore batteries with German thoroughness that
commanded all the turnings of the river, and there were observation
towers from which they could get the range of any vessel attacking.
The British could not get a clear view of the enemy because of the
dense jungle, but their aeroplanes were of great service in directing
the action of the guns. There was never any doubt of what the ultimate
fate of the _Königsberg_ would be.
On July 4, 1915, the British bombarded the cruiser for six hours, when
she was seen to be on fire. The attack for some reason was not renewed
until July 11, 1915, when the cruiser was found to be completely
destroyed, whether as the result of the British shells or because she
was blown up by her own crew was not discovered at the time. The
annals of naval warfare offer no more curious story than this of the
German cruiser, which lay for so many months helpless in a jungle
river, surrounded by steaming swamps, while far beyond lay the
longed-for open sea.
PART XII--WAR IN ARABIA, MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPT
CHAPTER LXXX
MESOPOTAMIA AND ARABIA
The flames of war were sweeping across Mesopotamia and Arabia. In the
last days of January, 1915, Lord Hardinge, Viceroy and Governor
General of India, made a tour of the conquered territory around the
Persian Gulf, and at Basra was received by the native community with
an address of welcome, which expressed the hope of permanent British
occupation.
Owing to the overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates in February and
March, when the surrounding country is flooded, there was little
fighting in those regions. But on March 3 the enemy appeared near
Ahwaz, on the Karun River, where the British had a small garrison to
protect the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's pipe line.
A contingent sent out from the town to discover the strength of the
Turkish force, located them at Ghadir. The enemy was found to be about
12,000 strong, having been joined by a body of tribesmen from Arabia
and Persia. As the British troops only numbered 1,000 men, there was
imminent danger of them being cut off, and a hurried retreat was
ordered. The Turks seemed determined that their enemy should not
escape them, and used every effort to prevent a successful retreat.
There was much hand-to-hand fighting before the British could struggle
back to Ahwaz. As the Turks did not continue to attack it was to be
supposed that they had lost heavily. The Anglo-Indian force had lost
about 200. The colonel of the Seventh Rajputs was wounded, and four
of their white officers were killed.
On this day, March 3, 1915, a body of British cavalry reconnoitering
toward Nakaila, about twenty-five miles northwest of Basra, was
attacked while on their way back to camp by some 1,500 mounted Turks.
The British pretending to retire, maneuvered to lure them on to a
position where they had concealed infantry with machine guns and
artillery. The Turks, quite unsuspecting a ruse came on, were met by a
withering fire from the guns that sent them shattered and broken
flying back to Nakaila. In this little fight the British had four
officers killed and several severely wounded.
Reenforcements had been sent from India in anticipation of the end of
the flood season, and Ahwaz and Kurna were greatly strengthened.
Lieutenant General Sir J. E. Nixon, K. C. B., accompanied the new
troops, and on his arrival took command of the entire force of between
30,000 and 40,000 men.
The Turks, who had also been largely reenforced with soldiers probably
from Bagdad, on April 11 attacked the three British positions at
Kurna-Ahwaz and Shaiba, the last a fort protecting Basra. Kurna was
bombarded for two days, with small result. A bridge across the Tigris
was partly destroyed, but they inflicted no casualties. Guns from the
shore and those in H.M.S. _Odin_ did effective work in scattering such
of the enemy as appeared in boats. At Ahwaz large bodies of hostile
cavalry could be seen against the sky line surrounding the British
positions, but they did not attack.
[Illustration: Mesopotamia--The British Operations from the Persian
Gulf.]
The main object of the Turks was evidently to capture Basra, their
attempts on Kurna and Ahwaz being merely feints to keep the British
occupied while they struck a real blow at Shaiba. On April 12, 1915,
an action began that lasted three days--one of the most notable fights
in the history of this campaign. The attacking force was estimated at
between 18,000 and 22,000 men. Perhaps 11,000 were regular infantry
and cavalry from Bagdad, and 12,000 irregular levies of Kurds and
Arabs. The Turkish infantry after some irregular artillery fire,
commanded by German officers, advanced in the early morning of the
12th toward the south-southwest, and west of the British lines. For
three hours they were pressing forward, and then when the artillery
fire fell off began to dig themselves in. An attack from the south was
made in the afternoon, but was beaten off by the British before making
much progress. The Turks were busy during the night of the 12th
keeping up a spirited fire from rifles and machine guns, and by
morning were found to have occupied some houses on a rising ground to
the north of the British position. An Anglo-Indian force easily
dislodged them from this place, and a counterattack made by the Turks
from the west was repulsed with a loss to them of several hundred
prisoners. The British also captured eighteen officers and two guns.
The British had repulsed all attacks, but the most difficult part of
their task now lay before them, for the Turks were strongly intrenched
near Basra some four miles from the British lines. On April 14, 1915,
the Anglo-Indian force moved from camp toward Zobeir to the south, and
driving off the Turks from their advanced position found themselves in
front of their main lines. Some 15,000 Turkish soldiers and six big
guns occupied well-concealed trenches in a tamarisk wood. The
Anglo-Indian troops began their advance toward the enemy at 11.30 in
the morning, and continued for five hours across a bare plain under a
fierce sun and a pitiless heat. Not an enemy could be sighted, but a
continuous fire, too accurate to be pleasant to the advancing host,
came from the concealed trenches. At about 4.30 p. m. the 117th
Mahrattas and Dorsets had led the way into the trenches, and, the
whole line uniting in a great charge, the Turks were driven out at the
point of the bayonet and dispersed. The Anglo-Indian troops however
had purchased their victory dearly. There were some 700 casualties.
Lieutenant Colonel H. L. Rosher of the Dorsets, Lieutenant Colonel T.
A. Britten of the 110th Mahrattas, and Major J. C. M. Wheeler of the
Seventh Lancers were among the seventeen British officers killed.
The routed Turks had fled toward Nakaila, and were vigorously pursued
by the victors. They tried to escape by land and water. A dozen boat
loads of fugitives were overhauled or sunk. The Turks lost about
2,500, of whom 700 were prisoners in British hands. Great quantities
of stores, ammunition and guns were also captured. The region around
Basra was now cleared of Turkish soldiers for a distance of fifty
miles.
On April 17 the Anglo-Indian cavalry occupied Nakaila. The rout of the
Turks was complete, and it was said that in their retreat they were
attacked by their former allies the Arabs, who turned on them as soon
as the tide of battle went against them.
During the greater part of the month of May the British were occupied
in clearing the territory of the Turks that remained. At Kurna and
Ahwaz and their neighborhood the enemy had gathered in sufficient
numbers to give some trouble. A British contingent was dispatched to
drive them out of the Ahwaz locality, but the Kharked River was in
flood, and severe sand storms hindered progress, so that before the
Turkish camp could be reached the enemy had vacated Persian soil and
fallen back to Amara.
General Gorringe, who commanded the British troops, now set about
punishing those tribes which had been assisting the enemy. Some
surrendered and gave up a number of rifles and arms. Others were
disposed to show resistance, but the British easily defeated them,
cleared out their strongholds, and destroyed some of their property.
On May 31, 1915, the Turks had become threatening in the vicinity of
Kurna, and a British expedition consisting of soldiers and sailors set
out at 1.30 a. m. to attack them. By wading and in boats the British
surprised the enemy's position, two miles from the town, and soon
silenced his guns by superior artillery work. The heights were won by
midday, and the Turks took to flight, leaving three guns and about 250
prisoners behind them. They retreated to Amara as the force from Ahwaz
had done. Their flight was so precipitate, that tents were left
standing, as they took to mahalas and steamers on the river to escape.
The British naval flotilla carrying General Townshend and Sir Percy
Cox, Chief British Resident of the Gulf, was in pursuit of the fleeing
Turks. Their gunboat _Marmaris_ was sunk, and the transport _Masul_
captured. Two lighters containing field guns, mines, and military
stores were also taken, and about 300 prisoners.
Amara, the important business town on the Tigris about sixty miles
from Kurna to which the Turks had fled, surrendered to the British
June 3, 1915, its garrison of 1,000 becoming prisoners of war. In the
town and vicinity 80 officers and some 2,000 men were also captured,
and large quantities of ammunition, 13 guns, 12 steel barges, and 4
river steamers.
The whole of the country between Amara and the sea was now in British
hands, and the Turkish forces in Mesopotamia had been partly destroyed
and so demoralized that it was unlikely that they would soon take the
offensive again.
In the last weeks of July, 1915, they again became troublesome. On
July 24 the British, under General Gorringe, advanced to attack
Nasiriyeh. The town was shelled by gunboats, and after a prolonged
struggle the enemy retired, and the British occupied the place on the
following day. They had captured during the fight 1,000 prisoners and
13 guns, while the dead Turks numbered about 500. The British
casualties were between 300 and 400. During this engagement the
fiercest foe the British had to contend against was the excessive
heat, which registered as high as 113, and caused great suffering and
some deaths.
Along the Euphrates, between Sukh-es-Sheyukh and Nasiriyeh, operations
now began that lasted for twenty days. The country around here is
peculiarly difficult for military movements, presenting a network of
marshes and canals. The Turks occupied intrenched positions at the
entrance of Kut-el-Hai Channel on the main line of communication
between the Tigris and Bagdad. A British force was dispatched from
Kurna to attack these positions. The expedition was supported by
extemporized gunboats, and took the waterway of the Euphrates and
Hamar Lake. Their progress was fiercely opposed by the Turks, who
hovered about their flanks. The river had overflowed it banks, and
inundated the neighboring country so that marching was difficult. It
was necessary to drag boats over the land in some places along the
advance. But the British troops were successful when reaching their
objective. One regiment outflanked the enemy's gun position on the
right bank, and during the engagement the Turks lost 7 officers and 83
regular troops and Arabs. The British casualties were 109. There were
25 killed.
CHAPTER LXXXI
SYRIA AND EGYPT
After the declaration of war against Turkey, the allied war vessels
were concentrated in the Levant and Red Sea to watch the coasts of
southern Asia Minor, Syria, and Turkish Arabia. On the Syrian coast
there was only one point where a naval force could effectively attack
communications between Constantinople and the Turkish forces. This was
the little town of Alexandretta, and the shore north to Payaz, a small
village. The Turks, if they wished to reenforce their Syrian army must
move their men, guns, and stores up a mountainous road over the Amanus
from Baghche to Radju, or risk great losses by the coast route between
Payaz and Alexandretta. The Turks took this chance, and were
successful, for there was no allied warship in the Gulf of
Alexandretta to oppose their progress. On December 17, 1914, H.M.S.
_Doris_, a protected cruiser, appeared off Alexandretta and destroyed
four bridges on the road and railway between that town and Payaz. The
captain of the _Doris_ sent an ultimatum to the Turkish commandant of
Alexandretta demanding the surrender of the town, failing which he
threatened bombardment of the place. To this the Turks paid no
attention. A second ultimatum brought forth a telegraphic message from
Djemal Pasha at Damascus, threatening to execute allied subjects
interned in that city if any Ottoman noncombatants were killed at
Alexandretta by the British guns. The captain of the _Doris_ promptly
replied that Djemal Pasha would be held responsible for the execution
of allied subjects, if he dared to carry out what he proposed. Thanks
to the influence brought to bear on the Porte by the American Embassy
at Constantinople, the Ottoman military authorities in Syria became
more reasonable, and finally agreed to blow up the two railway engines
at Alexandretta themselves, much of the war material having been
removed from the town while negotiations were pending.
During the first three months of 1915 there was only one fight of any
importance on the coast of the Gulf of Alexandretta. On February 6 a
landing party from H.M.S. _Philomel_ was subjected to heavy fire from
a concealed trench where eighty Turks were located. Six of the British
and New Zealanders who formed the crew of the _Philomel_ were wounded,
three mortally. The cruiser promptly avenged their death by steaming
in and opening a point-blank fire on the trenches with her 4.7-inch
guns. More than fifty of the Turks were killed or badly wounded, the
high-explosive shells shattering some to pieces. After this salutary
lesson the Turks at Alexandretta did not seek any further encounters
with the sailors of allied war vessels.
The British cruisers were late in arriving in the Gulf of
Alexandretta, and had lost some opportunities to injure the enemy by
their delay, but now they did valiant duty in preventing the Turks
from sending any number of men or stores to Aleppo for the Caucasus,
Mesopotamia, or the Egyptian border by the coast route, which would
greatly have facilitated their movements. They were forced, owing to
the vigilance of British warships, to send their troops and munitions
over the Giaur Dagh by the pass called the Syrian Gates, between
Cilicia and northern Syria, a rough, mountainous region, with bad
roads, that made progress extremely difficult.
At the beginning of the allied operations against the Dardanelles, the
observation of the Syrian coast was taken over entirely by the French
fleet.
On April 19, 1915, the Turkish intrenchments at El Arish were
bombarded by the French battleship _St. Louis_. The Turks had some
fifteen or twenty field guns, and replied vigorously, but only one
shell hit the battleship, which did no damage. The Turks suffered some
losses. In the early part of May the big camp at Gaza, where numbers
of Ottoman soldiers were gathered to be reviewed by Djemal Pasha, was
shelled by the _St. Louis_, when some fifty Turks were killed by
French shrapnel, and perhaps as many more wounded.
On April 29, 1915, the cruiser _D'Entrecasteaux_ worked effectively on
the Cilician coast, shelling the trenches at Taruss, while her
hydroplane, dropping a bomb on the railway tracks, blew up trucks
laden with high explosives and wrecked the railway station. On May 10
the Turks at El Arish were again shelled by the guns of the _Jeanne
D'Arc_.
On Ascension Day, Alexandretta was the scene of some spirited work, in
which the cruiser _D'Estrées_ played the leading part. M. de la
Passadière, her commander, demanded of the Kaimakam that the German
flag should be hauled down that was flying over the German Consulate.
The Turkish commander sent no reply, and it was pretended that he was
ill or absent. M. de la Passadière having fixed a time limit when the
flag must be hauled down, cleared his decks for action and trained the
ship's guns on the consulate building. At the expiration of the time
limit he opened fire, and the consulate was reduced to ruins. The only
casualties were three Turkish soldiers, who, in spite of warning, had
remained near the building.
The captain of the _D'Estrées_ on May 14, 1915, destroyed a petrol
depot which might be used to supply hostile submarines, and which
contained over 1,000 cases. A few days earlier a much larger depot
containing some 20,000 cases at Makri on the southern coast of Cilicia
had been destroyed by the cruiser _Jeanne D'Arc_.
[Illustration: The Turkish Attack on the Suez Canal.]
Budrum on the southwest coast of Asia Minor in the Gulf of
Halicarnassus was bombarded for a serious act of Turkish treachery.
The captain of the _Dupleix_ had sent two boat crews to parley with
the authorities, when they were fired upon by armed Turkish civilians
and some soldiers. About twenty French soldiers were killed or
captured as a result of this treacherous act, concerning which the
Ottoman authorities published a communiqué in which they described the
incident as the repulse of a landing force. The French losses were
quickly avenged, for the _Dupleix_ at once began a bombardment of
the Moslem quarter of the town, and continued firing for three hours
during which great damage was done.
Armed Turkish inhabitants perpetrated a similar outrage on boat
parties on May 18, 1915, at Banias, near Latakia; a tug and a boat
belonging to the _D'Estrées_ were fired on from roofs and landing
places while chasing a merchantman belonging to the enemy that was
seeking refuge in the port. As a punishment for the treachery of the
civilians, who had posed as peaceable inhabitants until the French
boats came into port, part of the town was destroyed by the shells of
the _D'Estrées_.
In February, 1915, toward the close of the month, in the Red Sea, the
French armored cruiser _Desaix_ landed a reconnoitering party near
Akaba, and found the Turks occupying a neighboring village. After
receiving reenforcements from the cruiser, the French sailors drove
out the fifty or sixty Turks hiding among the houses of the village,
killing and wounding a dozen of them, their only casualty being one
man, who was slightly wounded. The Red Sea was now patrolled by
vessels of the Indian Marine, which were frequently successful in
making captures, and in removing mines from the Gulf of Akaba.
On March 21, 1915, H.M.S. _Dufferin_ at Mutweilah on coast of Midian,
where an old Turkish fort is located, was the victim of the white-flag
trick. Through this treacherous act one British sailor was killed, and
an officer and nine other men were wounded. In the middle of May,
H.M.S. _Northbrook_ captured a dhow, having on board six German
officers belonging to the merchant marine, and ten men who were trying
to reach one of the Turkish Red Sea ports to the north. In these
waters and in the Levant there were many incidents of this character,
insignificant in themselves, but important in the aggregate, since
they kept the enemy worried, and created a wholesome fear of allied
vigilance.
In the last week of January, 1915, the three Turkish columns advancing
on Egypt, the northern marching toward Kantara, the central and main
advance headed for Ismailia, and the southern, whose objective was
Suez, had been located, and were under surveillance of allied
aeroplanes. By January 26 advanced guards of the central and southern
columns were discovered near the canal. The central column was at Moia
Harab, and some thousand men were also discovered at Wadi Um Muksheib.
The southern column was found to be located at Bir Mabeiuk. On this
same date British troops engaged the northern Turkish column a few
miles east of El Kantara, losing in the skirmish five men and one
officer. It was now evident to the British that the Turks were about
to begin the main attack on the canal. Consequently the Auckland and
Canterbury Battalions were dispatched to Ismailia; the Otago and
Wellington Battalions were sent to El Kubri, and the New Zealand
Infantry Brigade was sent up by rail from Cairo.
While this was transpiring on land, H.M.S. _Ocean_, _Swiftsure_,
_Clio_, and _Minerva_ joined the French warship _D'Entrecasteaux_ and
H.M.S. _Hardinge_ and two torpedo boats already stationed in the
canal. For three or four days following there were numerous skirmishes
between enemy outposts and British patrols, the most effective work
being wrought by allied aeroplanes and hydroplanes, which dropped
bombs on the Turks as they swept over them and killed many camels and
men. Lieutenant Patridge of the Indian Army Reserve of Officers and a
French pilot lost their machine outside the British lines through the
engine breaking down, and on returning to camp at night were shot and
killed by a British picket.
On February 1, 1915, Djemel Pasha's main force occupied Katayib el
Kheil, some low hills east of the southern end of Lake Timsah. The
Turkish commander had every reason to feel satisfied with the progress
he made in bringing his army across the desert in good condition, and
with only the loss of a few deserters from among the irregulars. As
many Tripolitan, Algerian, and Indian pilgrims had been forced to join
the army by the persuasion of the leaders of the irregular troops, the
Turkish force had increased in numbers.
Djemel Pasha's plan was to attack the canal with the main force, made
up of the Twenty-fifth Division, and all, or part of the Twenty-third
Division, which were to force their way between Serapeum and Tussum,
while his right wing by a feint attack was to hold the British force
at the Ismailia Ferry bridgehead. El Kantara was to be attacked by the
northern column, while at the same time to prevent reenforcements from
arriving, a demonstration was to be made at Ferdan. The southern
column was directed to carry out the same tactics at Kubri, near Suez,
which, as was subsequently shown, they did most ineffectually.
In the morning of February 2, 1915, an Indian reconnoitering force met
the Turks about four miles east of the Ismailia Ferry. In the
desultory action that followed, the British troops tried ineffectually
to draw the Turks within range of their main position, and a violent
sand storm arising in the afternoon, the engagement ended. The Turks
retired and intrenched themselves about 2-1/2 miles southeast of the
Ferry post. On this same afternoon the Twenty-fifth Division of the
Turkish army had arrived at a point within four or five miles of the
canal. Their scouts were already established on the eastern bank,
which is backed by trees, brushwood, and sand hills, affording
excellent cover for infantry. A narrow sandy beach, not more than 9
feet wide extends along the foot of the eastern bank. The Turkish
advance was made after night had set in, the Twenty-fifth Division,
with pontoon companies and engineers of the Fourth and Fifth Army
Corps, being first to reach the canal. They brought with them some
twenty pontoons, and five or six rafts constructed out of kerosene
cans fastened in wooden frames.
The first comers were followed by a part of the Seventy-fifth
Regiment, old fighters from Tripoli and the Balkans; "Holy Warriors"
as the Arabs called them. About 3 a. m. they had gained the openings
along the canal bank, the most northerly of which being within a few
hundred yards of the Tussum bridgehead. The remainder of the
Seventy-fifth Regiment covered them from the left. Toward Serapeum,
some distance south, the Seventy-fourth Regiment was stationed.
The night was dark and thickly clouded, and from the silence on the
western bank of the canal the Turks must have believed it to be
unoccupied. That they were entirely confident of success was shown in
a letter afterward found on a dead Turkish officer and dated February
2. After describing the hard march across the desert, he concluded,
"And to-morrow we shall be across the canal on our way to Cairo!"
The Turks crowded on the narrow strip of beach or in the gaps in the
banks, and suffered heavily from the fire of this mountain battery. A
number of their boats which left the shore were sunk. The Sixty-second
Punjabis left their cover under a withering fire, and pluckily charged
down the bank to repel the Turkish attempts to make a landing. Toward
Tussum, farther south, a field battery belonging to the East
Lancashire Division, supported by New Zealanders of the Canterbury
Battalion, opened a rattling fire, to which the Turks immediately
replied with machine guns and rifles. The small torpedo boat _O-43_
with its crew of thirteen now took part in the fray by dashing up the
canal and landing a few men at a point south of Tussum.
At the first gray light of dawn the action became general, and fresh
forces entered the conflict. The Turks on the eastern bank who had
occupied the day line of the Tussum post now advanced, protected by
artillery, against the bridgehead, while the Serapeum post was
assailed by another body of troops. On the canal and Lake Timsah the
allied warships opened fire, and continued it for some time. From the
slopes of Katayib el Kheil three batteries of Turkish field guns
replied, doing considerable damage to every visible target. But they
had not taken careful observations of the British positions, and the
carefully masked Territorial battery between Tussum and Serapeum was
not discovered. This battery, aided by the New Zealanders, almost
silenced the Turkish fire from the eastern bank, and enabled them to
attend to the reserves of the enemy now seen advancing on the desert
to the east. Four of the Territorial gunners were wounded by the
Turkish batteries. A pontoon which the Turks had pushed across the
canal in the dark was sunk, but until daybreak those who had
engineered this work managed to keep afloat, and continued sniping
with some damage to British artillery horses until they were rounded
up and taken prisoners by some Indian cavalry.
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