Trench Warfare on the Western Front (1914-18) Flashcards
When did Britain declare war on Germany?
- 4th August 1914
What role was Kitchener given on 5th August 1914? How effective was he in his role?
- Secretary of State for War
- He wasn’t an effective administrator or cabinet minister
What were 2 advantages of Kitchener’s leadership?
- He became a symbol of national unity
- He was the only one that predicted that the war would last 3 or 4 years
What did Kitchener’s predictions about the length of the war lead him to do? How successful was he?
- Start a large recruitment drive
- 761,000 recruits signed up in August and September 1914
- The average number of volunteers per month until June 1915 was 125,000
What were 3 reasons why men signed up?
- Pals battalions
- Social pressure (from employers, women and peers)
- Lure of travel and excitement, particularly when compared to the monotonous jobs many held
What were pals battalions? How popular were they?
- The idea that men who signed up together in the same area would serve together
- By 1st October, 50 pals regiments had either already been formed, or were in the process of being formed
Other than a shortage of troops, what other issues did the army face with its personnel?
- Shortage of officers
- The high command was inexperienced
Why was there a shortages of officers, and by how much? What was wrong with this estimate?
- Just for the infantry battalions raised in 1914-15 alone, Kitchener needed 30,000 more officers
- (That was without taking officer deaths into account, or even other branches of the army.)
What were 3 ways that the shortage of officers was dealt with?
- Courses as Sandhurst and Woolwich were shortened
- Retired officers were brought back into service
- Temporary commissions were given to suitable men, such as from the OTC
Who was the BEF lead by at the start of the war?
- Sir John French
- The First Army Corps was lead by Sir Douglas Haig
What 2 issues were there with the British high command?
- Most of the commanders had little practice at their level of command
- Senior commanders had not been prepared well for modern war
Give one example of how the British Army had failed to adapt to modern methods of warfare.
- Firepower was shown to be hugely important during the Russo-Japanese War
- However, since the Japanese beat the Russians with costly bayonet charges, the Staff College thought that this was what had led the Japanese to victory
- Therefore their only strategy going into WW1 was to always go on the offensive
What 3 munition problems did the British army have in 1914?
- Each battalion had only 2 machine guns
- The stock of munitions was insufficient
- Only 6000 rifles and 30,000 rounds of shells were being produced monthly
What 2 factors exacerbated the munition problems?
- The War Office mostly gave orders either to government ordnance factories or long-established contractors
- The large recruitment drive had also included too many skilled engineers
What was the German plan of attack fro France, its name, and when was it made? What advantage would it give Germany?
- The Schlieffen Plan
- 1905
- Part of the German army would tie down the French in Alsace-Lorraine
- Most of the army would attack in the west, through Belgium
- This would allow them to encircle Paris
- The Germans would theoretically be able to avoid strong French defences in the east, such as the fortress at Verdun
What did the Schlieffen plan rely on?
- Movement; roads and railways
What ended the movement that the Germans had been relying on?
- Their plan relied on the 1st Army Corps marching at least 15 miles a day for three weeks
- This caused the troops to move too far ahead of their supplies, which included food
- This forced them to slow down
How big was the BEF when it was initially deployed, and where was it deployed to?
- 120,000
- Mons, a Belgian town
When was the Battle of Mons?
- 23rd August 1914
What happened at Mons? Give 3 details.
- The German 1st Army attacked the 2nd Army Corps
- British troops had planned to go on the offensive, but quickly switched to defending
- They stopped the German advance, but needed to retreat
What did the retreat from Mons lead to?
- It led to British troops ‘digging in’ to a defensive position
When was the First Battle of the Marne?
- 6th September 1914
What caused the First Battle of the Marne?
- The Germans stopped approaching Paris from the west, and instead moved east
- The French commander, General Joffre, decided to launch a flank counterattack
What did the German retreat from the First Battle of the Marne lead to?
- They dug in
- They realised the utility of trenches, barbed wire and machine guns in stopping attackers
What happened after the Battle of the Marne? Which battle did this lead to?
- Both sides tried to outflank each other, leading to a ‘race’ to the sea
- The First Battle of Ypres
What happened in the First Battle of Ypres?
- The Germans tried pushing the British out of Ypres, a Belgian town
- The Allies managed to keep Ypres, but at the cost of more than 100,000 British and French casualties
What had happened by the winter of 1914?
- Both sides dug in defensively, creating trenches from the Channel coast to the French border with Switzerland
How were trenches developed as stalemate was established on the Western Front?
- They were made deeper
- Infrastructure was added, such as artillery posts and telegraph and telephone liens
How were trench systems laid out?
- Fire trenches (where soldiers shot the enemy from) were the furthest ahead
- Parallel to them ran firstly the support trench, then the reserve trench
- Perpendicular to these were communication trenches
- Between the 2 sides’ trenches was open ground known as No Man’s Land, and on each side in front of the trenches there were miles of barbed wire
How were trenches designed, and why?
- They were not straight, as by staggering them, this ensured any explosives or rifle fire would be contained in that part of the trench
Give 5 details of the conditions soldiers faced on the Western Front.
- Sanitation was extremely basic
- Rats fed on corpses and army rations
- Lice
- Trench foot
- Shell-shock was not treated sympathetically
How did soldiers fight?
- Rifles were used to fire from trenches
- For hand-to-hand combat, bayonets and grenades were used
What was the issue with the use of rifles in trench warfare?
- Officers could no longer dictate where fire should be directed, and so the order to open fire was given everytime
What tactic was used by British troops? Explain how it worked.
- ‘Wave and flow’
- A company (roughly 500 men) would advance, each man 2 or 3 yards from the next
- This first wave would hold the Germans in the front trench, until the next wave arrived
- The second wave would push through and capture the next trench
- This would continue
What were 2 advantages of using the ‘wave and flow’ strategy?
- The advance would be steady, which was needed due to the barbed wire on the ground, and all the equipment troops would carry
- Fronts could be miles-wide
How useful were machine guns when compared to rifles? Give 4 details.
- Machine guns had greater killing power
- Rifles required a high degree of skill, while machine guns just needed to be moved in an arc
- Tests before WW1 showed that 1 machine gun was worth 50 or more rifles against infantry approaching across open ground
- Machine guns could be placed in dugouts or pillboxes, which were hard to destroy
What did the immense killing power of machine guns change about warfare?
- Cavalry became useless
- Attacks by infantry across open ground became extremely costly
What machine gun were the British using at the start of the war? Give details about it.
- The Vickers machine-gun
- It needed a minimum of 3 men to operate it
- Fired 500 rounds per minute
What new machine gun was introduced in 1915, and in what ways did it differ from the Vickers machine gun?
- Lewis machine gun
- Could be operated by one man
- This meant that it could be used during attacks as well
What evidence is there that the army recognised the value of machine guns?
- In 1914 the ratio of rifles to machine guns in infantry units was 12:1
- By 1917 it was 2:1
How effective was artillery?
- It caused 70% of casualties
What 2 methods were used to improve the accuracy of artillery?
- Flash-spotting: judging distance from the flash of an exploding shell
- Aeroplanes could note where shells landed and give back information
What did improved artillery accuracy allow the army to do?
- Create a ‘creeping barrage’; artillery would land in front of advancing infantry
- This would destroy opposition, and sections of barbed wire and trenches
Using an example, evaluate how useful was the creeping barrage was.
- At the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the barrage stopped too early
- This alerted the Germans of when British troops were coming, so they were ready
- The barrage had also failed to deal with the barbed wire
How much of a success was the Battle of the Somme for the British?
- On the first day alone they lost 60,000 troops
- This was the worst day for the British Army in history
Who first used gas on the Western front, and when? Which type of gas was this?
- Germans
- The Second Battle of Ypres, April 1915
- Chlorine gas
When did the British first use gas?
- Battle of Loos, September 1915
How did the use of gas develop?
- Phosgene gas was first used by the Germans in December 1915
- It was six times more toxic than chlorine
- In July 1917, the Germans were the first to use mustard gas
How did defence against gas attacks improve?
- Gas masks went from being made of fabric to respirator masks that had goggles and a canister filter
Were gas attacks effective? Give a figure.
- It caused relatively few deaths
- For example, only 8000 British Empire troops were killed by gas
What happened at the Battle of Loos?
- British units that managed to break through couldn’t advance further as French mishandled sending the reserves
What happened to French after the Battle of Loos?
- Haig and French accused each other of mishandling the reserves
- French resigned
- Haig replaced French in December 1915
What else contributed to French’s resignation?
- Shell scandal
- ??
When was fuse 106 widely available? Which battle was it used in effectively?
- 1917
- Battle of Arras
Tanks and Battle of Cambrai- AND AMIENS
How these led to movement again
