News from the Front - 1st March 2023
The weekly newsletter from from 1914-1918 - The First World War.
News from the Front exists to share great stories and interesting historical aspects of the First World War
One anniversary
1st March 1915 - Britain and France announce naval blockade
Standing in parliament, Britain’s Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, made a statement announcing a formal naval blockade against Germany’s trade with the rest of the world. Placing the blame for the measures he was taking on Germany, he said;
"Germany has declared that the English Channel, the north and west coasts of France, and the waters round the British Isles are a 'war area,' and has officially notified that 'all enemy ships found in that area will be destroyed, and that neutral vessels may be exposed to danger.' This is in effect a claim to torpedo at sight, without regard to the safety of the crew or passengers; any merchant vessel under any flag. As it is not in the power of the German Admiralty to maintain any surface craft in these waters, this attack can only be delivered by submarine agency.”
He then explained how submarine warfare violated the norms for blockade warfare; instead of stopping and inspecting the cargo of merchant vessels to determine if they were carrying contraband goods, the submarines, being vulnerable when on the surface, were designed to sink shipping indiscriminately.
He went on.
“Her opponents [Britain and France] are, therefore, driven to frame retaliatory measures, in order, in their turn, to prevent commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving Germany. These measures will, however, be enforced by the British and French Governments without risk to neutral ships or to neutral or non-combatant life, and in strict observance of the dictates of humanity.”
This began the total blockade of Germany, enforced by patrolling the English Channel and the route to the north of Scotland, with British ships stopping neutral vessels and determining if the goods carried were heading to the Central Powers.
The effect of the blockade were mixed and are confused by other factors. In 1915, German imports had dropped by 55%, with particular problems experienced in raw materials, such as coal, metals and fertilisers, but not all of this was caused by the blockade. The primacy of the war effort robbed from civilian production and distortions in the markets caused many shortages. Foodstuffs were adequate, and were buttressed by neutral countries, such as the Netherlands, but balance of payment difficulties limited the purchases that could be made. Internally, government control of the grain market distorted the meat market as German farmers chose to feed price-controlled grain to their pigs, which was more profitable. By the end of 1916, various foodstuffs were seriously affected and substitute, or Erstatz, goods began to appear to replace missing staples. Whilst it seems that starvation was not an issue experienced as a direct result of the blockade, malnutrition was a problem and probably contributed to increased levels of sickness and deaths caused by sickness in the German population later in the war. The hope that the blockade would bring the German military to its knees never materialised, but the friction and shortages inflicted on the German home front and economy certainly contributed to the eventual collapse of the war effort in 1918.
One news story
Anti-tank gun handed in during gun amnesty to be preserved
The French authorities have decided to preserve an enormous anti-tank rifle that was handed in as a part of an illegal weapons amnesty. The Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 rifle had lain in the attic of a French home in Langres (Haute-Marne, Grand Est) in north western France.
When tanks first appeared on the battlefield, the German army began to respond, exploring weaponry that could counter the threat. Initially developing armoured bullets capable of penetrating the early tank’s armour, these bullets were rendered obsolete as the armour deployed on later tanks became thicker. The Germans planned to develop an anti-tank machine gun, but this would take time and a working weapon was needed as soon as possible; the Tankgewehr 1918 anti-tank rifle, the first purpose-built anti-tank gun, was the interim solution.
The rifle weighed 17kg, was 1.7m long and required two soldiers, a gunner and a spotter, to manoeuvre and fire it. Two or three of the rifles were issued to German regiments, starting with those units most likely to be facing a tank attack. The rifle had some success in slowing down the ascendency of the tank, but was unwieldy and had a slow rate of fire. The recoil of the weapon was considerable, often injuring the user, leading to the joke that the rifle could be fired twice per man, once for each shoulder. During the war around 16,000 of the guns were issued.
Normally weapons that are handed in are destroyed, but in this case the historic nature of the weapon was recognised and a campaign started to preserve the gun. The owner of the gun has the option to retain it, if they register it, but Meaux military museum is interested in displaying it as a part of their collection.
One from the archives
The siege catapult based on a child’s toy
This week’s one from the archives is a photo of a Leach/Gamage trench catapult. As the war descended into the trenches, the need for reliable methods for hurling projectiles into the enemy trenches. The weight of a decent bomb, combined with the distances between the trenches meant that the human arm would not suffice.
An early attempt to reproduce a Roman siege catapult, by the Cambridgeshire Regiment in Ploegstreet Wood, resulted in a 7ft long contraption that weighed more than a quarter of a ton. Sadly the experiment ended up as firewood as it proved unable to throw its projectiles far enough, and worse still, had a tendency to lob bombs straight up in the air; and as we all know, what goes up, must come down.
In the early stages of the war, trench mortars were in the process of being developed and were either unavailable or in short supply. Into this gap stepped Claude Pemberton Leach, an architect (responsible for the Central Hall at Highgate School, in case you’re interested), who decided, presumably harkening back to a misspent childhood, that the answer was a scaled up catapult in the style of the Y-shaped ones that all boys of that era would have been familiar with.
Leach approached Louis Jackson of the War Department, who was sufficiently interested, but advised that it needed stronger elastic to cope with actual bombs. Encouraged, Leach approached the department store Gamages, more famous for their clothing and cycling products, for assistance with the design and manufacture of his invention, and the Leach/Gamage catapult was born
The catapult was operated by a winding mechanism that stretched 12 rubber bands and then, when triggered, released a 2lb bomb about 200 yards. In early 1915, improvements were made to the device, such as redesigning the pouch in which the missile was placed. The radical suggestion that the device should come with operating instructions was also adopted.
The catapult was deployed to the Western Front in 1915 and served throughout the year, until trench mortars were more widely available. What’s that I hear you ask; was it any good? Well, in its favour, it was available and fulfilled a need, it was also silent in operation. Less positively, the rubber used was un-vulcanised and tended to perish quickly in the kind of conditions that existed in the trenches, resulting in variable performance. Finally, the missiles tended to fly rather slowly, giving their recipients time to get under cover. The trench mortar was simply a better weapon all round and, by May 1916, the Leach/Gamage catapult was no longer in active use.
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