" Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

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monk2002uk
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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#61

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 17:11

Michate wrote:So, in essence the logic of the attrition strategy driving the Somme battle can be summed up as:
- "We pound them until their army does not exist any more." - "But we loose as many, or more, men than they do." - "That is correct, but we have a great deal more men."
Michate, it was the equivalent of Ermattungsstrategie. All of the Major Powers recognised that modern war would be protracted. Von Schlieffen and his successor did everything possible to ensure this did not happen, but it was not possible. Von Falkenhayn recognised that a different strategy was needed, hence his attempt to 'bleed the French white'. What is less well known in the English literature is that von Falkenhayn hoped that the attack on Verdun would trigger what happened on the Somme. He failed to acknowledge that the Somme was where the Anglo-French counter-offensive would take place, thinking it would be in Arras.

The Somme battle was designed to relieve the German pressure on Verdun. It was not expected to be a war-winning battle, and therefore every effort was made to exhaust the German forces as much as possible. The long-term goal was to keep going until the German forces, and supporting nation, became exhausted of war before the Entente.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#62

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 17:16

glenn239 wrote:These formations were called, “Australians” and “Canadians”.
No. The New Zealanders (with whom my Grandfather fought) are often grouped in this list too. The troops of all three nations were very effective as assault troops. But Dominion forces were not Army or GHQ assets that were parcelled out to non-Dominion divisions. The Dominion troops fought in their own divisions. Secondly, you have ignored the equivalent records of British divisions, such as the 51st (Highland) Division.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#63

Post by Michate » 11 Jul 2009, 17:18

Although many German divisions were trained to operate according to the principles that you outlined (eg. less dense formations), there are many examples where this did not happen adequately in 1918, and the German infantry suffered accordingly. Even Ludendorff lamented this problem.
Yep, this is of course true, general training standards seem to have been lamentable - partly because of all losses taken in the previous three and a half years, and partially because the German army had become overly large, reaching more or less its natural limit in summer 1917 with more than 5 million in the field army and 8-9 million overall.
Reluctance of officers to adapt to new situations seems also to have been an issue sometimes.
What is less well known in the English literature is that von Falkenhayn hoped that the attack on Verdun would trigger what happened on the Somme. He failed to acknowledge that the Somme was where the Anglo-French counter-offensive would take place, thinking it would be in Arras.
Correct, he was so much convinced of the superiority of the defense over the attack that he hoped that he would achieve a very lopsided rate of casualties. But of course offens-defense relations are much more complex, so he was not really correct here.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#64

Post by Mad Zeppelin » 11 Jul 2009, 17:19

Concour with Michate, he's got the main points. - Assault Battalions were only for position warfare, they played no role in a war of movement other than in the initial assault on the enemy line. All ABn that participated - after the initial assault - were used as normal infantry battalions for normal tasks.
The thing behind 'attack divisions' and 'position divisions' was mobility, the latter were stripped of their horses in order to make the former mobile.
More crippling than the loss of men during 'Michael' was the loss of horses. Artillery regiments that hardly lost any men during the action lost half or more of their precious horses, and came out of 'Michael' in a worse shape than they had been before.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#65

Post by Michate » 11 Jul 2009, 17:22

With regards to the French defense of Reims, General Petain had to intervene personally to get French General Degoutte to distribute his forces in depth. Despite the lessons meted out to the French in Operation Blücher-Yorck and the attack on Mont Kemmel, many French generals were reluctant to change their habit of defending with most men in the front line.
Interesting information - I have read that actually orders for defense in depth had been given by the French high command even by May or at least June 1918.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#66

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 17:39

Michate wrote:...general training standards seem to have been lamentable - partly because of all losses taken in the previous three and a half years, and partially because the German army had become overly large, reaching more or less its natural limit in summer 1917 with more than 5 million in the field army and 8-9 million overall.
Reluctance of officers to adapt to new situations seems also to have been an issue sometimes.
Michate, I really appreciate your comments. You have made several important points. I agree with your point about the reluctance of some officers. Ludwig Renn's book 'Krieg' illustrates this very well. He received training from a specialist Sturmabteilung but his new found skills were dismissed by his officer on returning to his unit again.
But of course offense-defense relations are much more complex, so he was not really correct here.
This was one factor. Von Falkenhayn had a very difficult relationship with his subordinates, and there is evidence that many did not agree, thereby subverting his strategy. Also, von Falkenhayn and his Intelligence experts grossly under-estimated the ability of the French to recuperate, and the ability of the British to succeed on the Somme, alongside the French. This aspect of the British victory was extremely important. Prior to the Somme, the British Army was regarded as naive and incompetent. The Somme heralded the British as a major player, with whom the German High Command had to contend.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#67

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 17:47

Michate wrote: I have read that actually orders for defense in depth had been given by the French high command even by May or at least June 1918.
Michate, you are quite right. But issuing orders did not mean they were followed out. I have accounts from French GQG that showed how they had to chase up and insist that the new defensive approach was followed, including a personal visit from Pétain.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#68

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 17:52

Mad Zeppelin wrote:More crippling than the loss of men during 'Michael' was the loss of horses. Artillery regiments that hardly lost any men during the action lost half or more of their precious horses, and came out of 'Michael' in a worse shape than they had been before.
Excellent point. Only this morning I was reading about the huge delays in getting enough supplies in place before the launch of Operation Georgette. Not only were the horse transports a problem, but trains and rolling stock was short, leading to a 50% reduction in predicted logistic supply rates.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#69

Post by Michate » 11 Jul 2009, 18:02

Hello monk,
thanks for the interesting comments, I generally concur with what you say with the one exception of regarding the Somme a British victory (why not a French too?), I simply see it as a draw, as basically any of the Western Front battles in the 1915-17 period. IMHO that the Entente had the longer steam in 1918 was hardly the result of any of these battles but just reflected the different weight of the powers as such - a central to Balkan European block against most of the rest of the world.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#70

Post by The_Enigma » 11 Jul 2009, 18:06

glenn239 wrote: Your answer ran to 345 words in length, and nowhere did you deny that if either of these criteria had been gained, you’d have cited them as proof of a British victory.
Am glad you appear to be able to use a tool to count the number of words i typed, i was well aware how much i did. But if bothered to read what i typed instead of simply counting the words you would have noticed i cited your dictums of victory as the reason why a British operation was not a strategic victory.
= stalemate.
I find your your obsession with statistics leading you to conclude the outcomes of battles to be very odd. If the losses are equal the battle was a stalemate, if they are in favour one side then obviously the won. It seems a very poor and ineffective way to analyse what happened and conclude.

Ill provide you with an example, please do read these and hopefully respond to them:

From an actual battle fought, British losses amounted to just over 4,000 men whereas the German losses amounted to just over 3,000 men. In an additional battle allied losses mounted to over 11,000 men dead and wounded whereas German, and friends, losses mounted to just under 7,000 men dead or wounded. Who won these battle?

Edit: Michate and Monk, very intresting and informative posts. :)
Last edited by The_Enigma on 11 Jul 2009, 18:21, edited 1 time in total.

monk2002uk
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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#71

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 18:19

Michate wrote:... regarding the Somme a British victory (why not a French too?), I simply see it as a draw, as basically any of the Western Front battles in the 1915-17 period.
Apologies for leaving out the French contribution. It was very significant and I have studied their involvement in some detail. I don't normally make this mistake.

It all depends on the definition of victory :wink: FWIIW, I think it is significant that the Anglo-French forces were able to keep pushing the German defenses back during the Battle of the Somme, and it is noteworthy that the French were able to recapture all of the German gains at Verdun by the end of 1916. I respect your point about 1915-17 though.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#72

Post by monk2002uk » 11 Jul 2009, 18:40

Michate wrote:IMHO that the Entente had the longer steam in 1918 was hardly the result of any of these battles but just reflected the different weight of the powers as such - a central to Balkan European block against most of the rest of the world.
Yes, ultimately your point is correct. People can argue the toss about this battle or that battle, but the Great War illustrated the tragedy of Total War - der Volkskrieg. In reality, no-one 'won'.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#73

Post by Michate » 11 Jul 2009, 18:43

I find your your obsession with statistics leading you to conclude the outcomes of battles to be very odd. If the losses are equal the battle was a stalemate, if they are in favour one side then obviously the won. It seems a very poor and ineffective way to analyse what happened and conclude.
Well, at least casualty statistics provide some kind of objective metric to judge on the actual outcome of battle (the fact that some are better prepared to accept losses than others does not change this).
Another would be terrain captured or lost (of course taking into account the value of that terrain, but I at least have difficulties to see the partiicular value of, let's say Thiepval, or even Bapaume).
I am open for suggestions of aletrnative kinds of objective metrics.

If judging merely from - more or less unprovable - strategic effects, one too easily falls prey to attributing anything as a success to the final victor of a war. By that kind of reasoning we could, to give an extreme example, regard the Barbarossa border battle in summer 1941 as a Soviet victory, after all they finally won the war, and one might claim the losses the Germans suffered were particularly crippling (though they were moderate comared to those of the Soviets). Or one might call Cannae a Roman victory, because Romans won 2. Punic War.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#74

Post by The_Enigma » 11 Jul 2009, 21:37

Well, at least casualty statistics provide some kind of objective metric to judge on the actual outcome of battle (the fact that some are better prepared to accept losses than others does not change this).
Another would be terrain captured or lost (of course taking into account the value of that terrain, but I at least have difficulties to see the partiicular value of, let's say Thiepval, or even Bapaume).
I am open for suggestions of aletrnative kinds of objective metrics.
The point is on there own statistics do not provide answers, statistics have to be placed in context. Casualties alone do not provide the answer - this never changes, for example look at the losses the Soviet Union recieved during the Second World War when compared to their main foe - Germany and the losses they recieved. Also look at the United States losses compared to the North Vietmanese and the outcome to that war; the Americans were undefeated (essentially) on the battlefield, lost no ground, they inflicted huge losses on the north however it was more of a morale or political defeat.

From my study of the Second World War, and also from my brief flirtations with the First World War, its the operational and strategic effects of the battles that decide the bigger picture - tactically, which is what everyone seems to be focusing on, usually tend not to mean that much on the big picture. Terrible to say i know considering the numbers of people killed and wounded. However i am always open to new intrepedations and information i.e. i have already learnt from this thread that the stormtroopers appear to be a myth.
If judging merely from - more or less unprovable - strategic effects, one too easily falls prey to attributing anything as a success to the final victor of a war. By that kind of reasoning we could, to give an extreme example, regard the Barbarossa border battle in summer 1941 as a Soviet victory, after all they finally won the war, and one might claim the losses the Germans suffered were particularly crippling (though they were moderate comared to those of the Soviets). Or one might call Cannae a Roman victory, because Romans won 2. Punic War.
I wouldnt make that much of a jump but Barbarossa does prove wrong the theroy that massive gains, massive casualties inflicted does automatically equal victory. Strategic effects doesnt mean they have to be war winning effects, it can mean a shift in power/regaining the initative for example etc

For the Somme the course of this battle apparently effected the course of Verdun in favour of the French and leading to German defeat there.

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Re: " Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme..."

#75

Post by Attrition » 11 Jul 2009, 22:53

Michate wrote:
1918 shows how far Germany had fallen behind. It's attack technique was far more dependent on excellent and self-sacrificing infantry than that of its opponents. As usual, even when a Great War army was forced back it wasn't encircled or routed (perhaps Brusilov 1916 is the only example of this occurring) and let's not forget that the British were fighting Lloyd-George as well as the Stormtroops.
[1] Nope, it was dependant on heavy concentrations of secretly deployed artillery firing LOTs of shells (3.1 million shells on 21 March in support of operation Michael and an additional 1.3 million across the rest of the front), to destroy the enemy communication system, blind and suppress his artillery and morally shake his infantry.
Infantry force was of course heavy, too, but that was due to the specific requirement to attack simultaneously along a rather broad front - the aim behind that was that the enemy should not have enough reserves available to fill the gap after the breakthrough.
All this "Stosstruppen" balleyhoo is mainly made for high school kids turned armchair generals. You won't find much of it when reading the more serious literature or contemporaneous manuals and pamphlets. Infantry certainly should adapt its attack technique to the emerging battlefield situation - attack in less dense formations formated more in depth than width ("Lichte Haufen" = Stosstrupps) and integrate modern "troop" weapons (light machineguns and mortars), once they arrived in numbers. Allied infantry did the same, of course. The density of the infantry divisions in the attack should actually be slightly less than that of Allied infantry divisions in attacks (2.5-3 km as compared to 1.5 km).
The most obvious difference to Allied technique was that the Germans urged their troops as far as possible, insetad of stopping and contining at another time and space, as the Allies frequently did. [2] This was mainly due to the difference of the strategic situation both sides found themselves in - the Germans knew they had only a limited number of chances before the Americans arrived in force.
[3] And of course there was a large plethora of technical and logistical and air forces around, more or less of the same character as those of the enemy.
[4]Infantry was of course demanded to accept taking heavy losses, but that applied to all armies on the Western front (you can compare losses for both sides during 1918, they were roughly similar for both sides during the period of German attacks and Allied attacks).

[5]Which all worked fairly well at instances as the 21 March and especially 27 May 1918, and not so well at Mars (partly because preparation was missing, the attack depended on rapid shifitng of heavy arillery from Michael northward) or 15 July 1918, when the French, east of Reims, based on excellent knowledge of the attack very well applied defense in depth techniques so that the German artillery preparation lacked in effect. Then they could shift reserves to the Western side of that city, where the Germans initially had made better progress, but were in a very difficult situation after crossing the Marne in a confined bridgehead.

[6]As to routed, during the Michael operation the Allies lost more than 90,000 PoWs in 10 days. BTW, a good part of the Russian army was routed in 1915 following the German-Austrian breakthrough at Gorlice-Tarnow.

[7]But no, forget it, this is all rubbish, actually each British defeat can be completely attributed to 1. weather and 2. D.L. George :roll: Perhaps Ludendorff's esoteric beliefs were not as unsound as the might appear to the uninitiated early 21 century observer :lol:
The Germans had divided their army into first- and second-class segments and used the best bit which obtained operational successes rather than the strategic decision which was the only thing which could save Germany. Later the British with the French and Americans used a vastly more mechanical and integrated weapons system to ease a less efficient yet more homogeneous infantry force through some of the strongest defences in the world. The losses the Germans inflicted were some of the highest in the war yet it was the German army which disintegrated. I suggest that the beginning of this can be found in the 1916 battle.
[8]Anyone had better and less good divisions, in particular the Germans and the French, because they had to scrape to the bottom of their manpower reserves, creating divisions from overaged Landwehr men. The Brits were spared this, because they always held but a small (if relatively densely covered) sector of the Front. Plus they had been spared the early slaughter in 1914-15. Nevertheless they had their "shocktroops" too, mainly from the dominions, which were heavily used in attacks.

The German decision to further strengthen the division between mobile and less mobile divisions is of course debatable. However it was absolutely indispensable if any attack was to be tried at all. The shortage of motor vehicles combined with the extreme shortness of horses simply did not allow to make more than a limited part of the army mobile. In simple words, there were simply to few horses available to move all guns and all carriages.

The Germans lacked mainly in two areas. One was the often mentioned absence of tanks, which meant of course a critical combined arms weakness. For example tanks allowed the Allied articles to skip any preparation against enemy infantry and just concentrate on moving barrage and counterbattery. The Germans did not have that option.

[8a]And the mentioned lack of mobility meant that any offensive, even after succesfully breaking through enemy lines, would run out of steam before objectives in operational depth could be reached, and that there would be larger intervals between large scale attacks - moving Ludendorff's battering ram took time.

[9]BTW, the "strongest defense in the world" is just a myth - read what German commanders had to say about the "Siegfried" line in spring 1917, and again in 1918. Nevertheless, and despite the preparedness of part of the German forces to surrender more easily, the Allied advance was at snail's pace at high losses, [10]until the Germans decided to retreat to the Antwerp-Meuse line. Except an Austrian token force, they had no Allies to bolster them after defeats, like the French did with Gough's army, or later the Americans did with the French at the Marne.
[1] Your comment is a circumlocutory version of mine plus some unarranted inference!
[2] No it wasn't, it was to consolidate and demolish the German counter-attack.
[3] Motor transport? Tanks? Sound ranging? Artillery technique? Intelligence?
[4] Open warfare was more lethal than trench warfare.
[5] 28th March?
[6] Heavy defeats certainly but by frontal attack. Were there great encirclements?
[7] The Germans achieved the sort of operational successes that Falky predicted. They needed a strategic decision which was beyond their power in late 1915 just as it turned out to be during their temporary superiority in numbers in early 1918.
[8] One reason for all this manpower scraping was the battering that the Germans got before 1918, particularly when the British joined in in 1916 with the mass army it raised after 1914. The Dominion divisions were by no means mediocre but then their structure was unchanged compared with the reduced infantry in British divisions in early 1918. Since the Canadian Corps sat out the Kaiserschlacht it stands to reason that it would be a significant part of the British counter-offensives.
[8a] Not a breakthrough then.
[9] What did they compare it with?
[10] Just like that? Decided? Come off it!

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