News from the Front - 8th 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
10th March 1915 – The Battle of Neuve Chapelle
“We are embarking on a serious offensive with the object of breaking the German line. There is no idea of merely taking a trench here or a trench there. My object is to surprise the Germans and push forward to the Aubers Ridge with as little delay as possible, and exploit the success thus gained by pushing forward mounted troops as quickly as possible…”
This summary of the plan for the battle of Neuve Chappelle was written by General Douglas Haig, commanding the British First Army, five days before the battle. The offensive was prompted by the French, as a part of their strategy to push the Germans back from the huge salient they had occupied, but was to be a wholly British operation. The attack was Britain’s first large-scale offensive and was spearheaded by Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Rawlinson's IV Corps, comprising 7th and 8th Divisions, and General Sir James Willcock's Indian Corps, made from 3rd (Lahore) and 7th (Meerut) Divisions. The village of Neuve Chapelle was relatively lightly defended and, once taken, it was just a short mile to the Aubers Ridge, which, although only marginally higher than the surrounding countryside, would allow the allies to overlook the whole area.
The British artillery barrage opened fire at 7.30am in the morning and over the next 35 minutes rained intense shellfire down on the German front line before switching to bombard the village behind. When the initial barrage lifted, the British advanced and found that the German front line had largely been destroyed and made good progress in the centre, taking the village during the morning. However, the left and right flanks, at Moated Grange and Port Arthur, failed to take the first line of trenches and the centre was ordered to dig in while these extremities were made safe. Moated Grange was taken later in the afternoon, but problems remained on the right. Overnight, the Germans hastily strengthened their weak second line, hastily extending a trench between three redoubts in reinforced ruined buildings.
By nightfall, the village of Neuve Chapelle was in British hands and the next day a German counter-attack was repulsed, but over the next few days, British attempts to break through the second line and exploit their initial success failed.
The battle showed that trench defences could be overcome, but also how hard it was to bring reserves forward over broken ground, and how hard it was for commanders to control an evolving situation when relying largely on runners to relay reports and orders over poor terrain. Poor communications, in the days before portable radio, meant that artillery and reserves couldn’t be used to dynamically support the troops when they met resistance and, while awaiting further orders, the troops had to wait in position.
Perhaps the most telling lesson was on the German side, where their rapid reinforcement successfully contained the offensive before the situation got out of hand. This was a pattern that would be repeated over and over throughout the war. Even so, the initial phase was a stunning success, despite the loss of 11-12 thousand men killed, wounded or missing on each side, and encouraged Haig that a breakthrough could be possible in the future.
One news story
Long Island MG-08 Machine Gun stolen
A story in the news recently made me think about trophies of war. A German MG-08 machine gun was stolen from the Suffolk County Detachment of the Marine Corps in Bay Shore, Long Island, New York. The gun, a war trophy from the Great War, was taken from the roof of the building, a club house for Marine Corps veterans. Understandably the veterans are pretty upset, especially as they’d moved it onto the roof to prevent it from getting stolen.
Individual soldiers often collected trophies from the actions they were involved in. Pickelhaube helmets were particularly sought after, being the iconic piece of German kit. But soldiers would take pretty much anything that took their fancy; a case in point being a portion of wallpaper in the Imperial War Museum’s collection “Taken from wall of Bosche Dug Out near Estrées, 6.2.17.” It seems the wallpaper was taken back to show how salubrious the German dugouts could be.
Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, was a keen souvenir collector, taking various parts from aircraft that he downed to decorate the walls of his squadron’s mess, and Private John "Barney" Hines of the Australian 45th Battalion was known as the “Souvenir King” for his looting during the Battle of Polygon Wood in September 1917.
However, beyond the petty pilfering of private soldiers, the belligerent nations themselves engaged in large-scale trophy gathering. New York’s Madison Avenue hosted a huge display of captured guns and a pyramid of 85,000 German helmets as a part of a campaign to encourage US citizens to take out war bonds.
In the UK over 3500 German artillery guns were presented to towns and museums all over the country to commemorate the victory over Germany. Sadly, many of these guns were lost over the years, but many still exist around the country. Of course, being artillery pieces, they’re considerably harder to steal than the Marine Corps machine gun.
One from the archives
Machine gun range cards
This week’s “one from the archives” is actually two from the archive. These are examples of range cards for machine guns taken from the US Army War College book “Notes on the use of Machine Guns in Trench Warfare and on the training of Machine Gun units compiled from foreign reports” published in 1917.
Intended as “pre-registered” range points for the machine gun crew, the range card allowed machine gun teams to respond to threats from specific locations without having to estimate the range, allowed crews to rapidly switch targets without recalculating their ranges and, crucially, allowed the range knowledge to be communicated between different crews if one was relieved by another.
The first card is a defensive card.
The thick line (marked Red House) is the main orienting line, the reference point against which angles to other targets are made. Each target is unambiguously as possible and the lines are of differing lengths depending on the range to the target and annotated with the range in yards. Finally, the position (Emplacement No. 6) is marked, showing where the measurements have been taken from.
The second card is intended for guns supporting an offensive action and is focussed on the objective of the attack with easily recognisable intermediate points that may be encountered as the troops advance. The right hand column documents the ranges to the targets, while the left hand column shows the reverse ranges from the objectives. I’m a bit hazy about why the gunner was instructed to cross out the ranges on the right hand side, but am assuming it was to mark the advance of the troops undertaking he attack; if you can confirm that, let me know!
One request
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