the british army on the western front 1916 PDF
Preview the british army on the western front 1916
MAJORBRUCEI GUDMUNDSSON,USMCR (retired),isanhistorian whospecializesintactical innovation,thewaythat militaryorganizationsrespond toradicalchange.Theauthor offourmajorbooksand severalhundredarticles, hehastaughtattheMarine CorpsCommandandStaff College,theRoyalMilitary AcademyatSandhurstand OxfordUniversity. Battle Orders • 29 The British ArlllY on the Western Front 1916 Bruce I Gudmundsson Consultant Editor Dr Duncan Anderson • Series editors Marcus Cowperand Nikolai Bogdanovic FirstpublishedinGreatBritainin2007byOspreyPublishing MidlandHouse,WestWay,Botley,OxfordOX2OPH,UnitedKingdom 443ParkAvenueSouth,NewYork,NY10016,USA Email:[email protected] ©2007OspreyPublishingLtd. Allrightsreserved.Apartfromanyfairdealingforthepurposeofprivatestudy, research,criticismorreview,aspermittedundertheCopyright,DesignsandPatents Act,1988,nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem, ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,electrical,chemical,mechanical, optical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise,withoutthepriorwrittenpermission ofthecopyrightowner.EnquiriesshouldbeaddressedtothePublishers. ISBN978184603 III3 EditorialbylIiosPublishing,Oxford,UK(www.iliospublishing.com) PagelayoutbyBoundford.com,Huntingdon.UK IndexbyGlynSutcliffe TypesetinGillSansandStoneSerif OriginatedbyUnitedGraphics,Singapore PrintedinChinathroughBookbuilders 07 08 09 10 II 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I AC1PcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. ForacatalogueofallbookspublishedbyOspreyMilitaryandAviationpleasecontact: OspreyDirectUK,P.O.Box140,Wellingborough,Northants,NN82FA,UK E-mail:[email protected] OspreyDirectUSA,c/oRandomHouseDistributionCenter,400HahnRd, Westminster,MD21157USA E-mail:[email protected] www.ospreypublishing.com Keyto militarysymbols xxxx xxx xx X III II I D D D D D D D Army Corps Division Brigade Regiment Battalion Company/squadron/ battery [gJ 0 8 G Q LSJ [ill Infantry Cavalry Artillery Engineer Cyclist Signal Ordnance G OJ EJ bd 00 Machinegun Mortar Headquarters Supply Transport Keyto unitidentification ~ ~ Unit Parent f identifier unit EJ [I] Commander (+)withaddedelements(-)lesselements Maintenance Water 9.2in.howitzer 6in.gun Contents Introduction 4 Mission 7 Growth ofthe Expeditionary Force Doctrine and training I I Mobilization Unit organization 14 Armies •Armycorps •Corpstroops,armytroops and GHQtroops Infantrydivisions •Cavalrydivisions and brigades •Infantrybrigadesand battalions Pioneerbattalions•Artillerybrigadesandgroups•The Royal Engineers TheArmyServiceCorps •The Royal FlyingCorps Command, control, communications and intelligence 71 Intelligence Weapons and equipment 73 Tactics 76 Combatoperations •Festubert•Loos •TheSomme Lessons learned 91 Chronology 92 Further reading 94 Index 95 3 Introduction The end ofthe first yearofWorldWar Ifound the British Empire andits allies inadifficultposition. Onthe EasternFront, the Germanshadinflictedaseries of stinging defeats upon the Russians. In the course of doing this, they had eliminated the danger to their own territories in the east, greatly reduced the pressure ontheAustria-Hungarianpositionin the CarpathianMountains, and conquered nearly all of Russian Poland. In the Mediterranean, the Anglo Frenchlandingsonbothsidesofthe Dardanelleshadresultedinthe samesort oftrenchwarfarethathadearliersetinontheWesternFront.AlongtheAlpine 1915had beenagoodyearfor theCentral Powers.Inadditionto maintainingtheirposition in France, theyconquered mostofRussian Poland,asubstantial portionof Baltic littoralandall ofSerbia. This French posteradvertises an exhibition heldto raise money forthe reliefofSerbian refugees. 4 I (LibraryofCongress) Europeatwar, I July 1916 200 c:==JCentralPowers c:==JAlliedPowers c:==:::JNeutralcountries p E ATLANTIC o C E A N SEA o M E D T £" 11 11 ) l. MOROCCO FRENCHNORTHAFRICA \.., i\ MALTA S £" A i border of Austria-Hungary, the long-awaited entry of theItalianArmyintothefrayhaddonelittletotipthe balance infavour ofthe anti-German alliance. Onthe Western Front itself, the many small-scale offensives carried out byAllied forces had failed to achieve their primary objective - tying down so many Germans in the west that they would be powerless to take the offensive on other fronts. Indeed, as the first year of the war came to a close, the Germans were laying the groundwork for the offensive that would, quite literally, drive the field armies ofSerbiainto the sea. Asominousasitwas, thedarkcloudthathungover the BritishEmpirewasnotwithoutasilverlining.The Royal Navy controlled the great oceans, giving the Allied nations full access to the resources oftheworld outside of Europe while denying them to the Central Powers. The British Army was still expanding, and so new divisions were made available to the Expeditionary Force at an unprecedented rate. (At the startof1916, thesewouldbe joinedbythedozens of divisions made available by the withdrawal of British Empire forces from the Dardanelles.) Newly forged weapons were beginning to emerge from British factories, while the enormous industrial and agricultural capacity of North America was being harnessed to provide those weapons with the horses, mules and tractors they needed to be useful on the battlefield. What was even more important, the truly gargantuan quantities of ammunition needed by SirJohn French (1852-1925) these weapons were about to become available, to the point where the very who hadtaken command ofthe definitions ofsuchthings as 'shellrationing' and 'intensebombardment'were Expeditionary Forceatthevery beginningto change. startofthewar,was relieved ofthat Closertothefront, theExpeditionaryForceitselfwasinnovatingatafurious position on 19 December 1915. pace.Weapons, techniquesandconceptsthathadbarelybeenimaginedbefore (LibraryofCongress) the outbreakofthe war- such things as poison gas, undergroundwarfare and aerial combat - were becoming part of its daily reality. The advent of trench mortars, hand grenades, rifle grenades, and light machine guns held out the promise of a near future in which infantry units would wield unprecedented firepower. At the same time, the hundreds of heavy artillery batteries being formedfor serviceinFranceandFlandersgavehopetothosewhobelievedthat the only road to victory was one paved with howitzer shells. The innovation that mattered most, however, was not yet on the horizon. That was the creation of the institutions, techniques and attitudes needed to translate the enormous vitality, ingenuity and firepower placed at the disposition of the ExpeditionaryForce into unqualifiedbattlefield success. 6 Mission AtthestartofthesecondyearofWorldWarI, theExpeditionaryForcehadtwo great tasks to accomplish. The first was to finish the job of converting itself into alarge, powerful and thoroughlymodern army- one that could help the FrenchArmyto strike adecisive, war-winningblowagainst the German forces in the west. The second was to prevent any of the other Allied powers whetherRussia, Italy,Serbia, orevenFrance- from concludingaseparatepeace with Germany. Unfortunately, these two tasks were very much at odds with each other. The first required the careful husbanding of forces, as well as a gargantuan effortto build up the infrastructure ofschools, depots, rest camps, bakeries, butcheries, workshops, warehouses, hospitals, railways, aerodromes, ammunitiondumpsandheadquartersneededtokeepsuchanarmyinfighting trim. The second required aggressive offensive enterprises, attacks on a scale large enough to create the possibility of a substantial penetration of the German front line. These were necessary, not merely to tie down the largest possible number of German divisions, but also to prove to the governments and people of Allied countries that the British Empire was as willing as they were to sacrifice its sons for the sake ofthe common cause. Neithertheexpansionofthe ExpeditionaryForcenorthe offensiveslaunched in support ofthe French and Russian armies were, however, ends in themselves. SirDouglas Haig(1861-1928),who had commandedthe FirstArmyfor In the minds of Allied strategists, both served the larger purpose of setting the mostof 1915,tookcommand of stage for a series oflarge-scale offensives that would, at the very least, drive the the entire Expeditionary Forceon GermansoutofmuchoftheFrenchandBelgianterritorythattheyhadconquered 19 December 1915.(Libraryof in 1914. As the French Army had already exhausted every significant source of Congress) military manpower, both French and British leaders agreed that the Expeditionary Force would provide the lion'sshareoftheforces takingpartintheseoffensives. With this in mind, the Expeditionary Force began to assemble apowerfuloperationalreservebehindthe WesternFront. Consistingofrecentlyformeddivisions that had just crossed the English Channel, divisions transferred from the Middle East, and divisions withdrawn from front-line service, this reserve was to givetheBritishleadershiptheabilitytolaunchitsfirst offensive at some point in the spring or summer of 1916. Untilthattime, it servedthe secondarypurpose of allowing new divisions to complete their training and exhaustedones to rest. On 21 February 1916, the German offensive in the vicinity of Verdun put a halt to British plans for a massive spring offensive. Instead of building up their strength for the great push, the divisions of the operational reserve were sent forward to take responsibility for defensive positions that had previously been held by French formations. At the same time, the British leadership began planning a verydifferentsortofoffensive- onedesignedtorelieve pressure on the hard-pressed FrenchArmy rather than drive the Germans outofa substantialpiece ofFrench territory. This offensive, which began on 1July 1916, wasthe famous battle ofthe Somme. 7
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