Blood, Fire and Steel, 150 years of European History, the forging of the European Union, WW1; the years of stalemate in the war

THE YEARS OF STALE MATE IN THE WAR

At the end of 1914, it had become clear to the warring nations that none had the power to prevail in breaking the deadlock on the western front. As both groups settled in the dug-in fortifications, the trench lines grew more formidable and became a slaughter house for millions of young men who died trying to breach the lines in desperate assaults that proved ultimately futile.

Troop Inspection, 1916

French troops line up in 1916 for an inspection in a trench strung with barbed wire. Armies in World War I (1914-1918) made extensive use of field fortifications composed of large numbers of parallel and intersecting trenches. This so-called trench warfare was used on both sides throughout the conflict.

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To breach the trench lines, the British devised a mobile vehicle fighting machine called the tank designed to overcome the trench barrier. Some other strategic thinkers notably Winston S. Churchill, Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty also felt that a new front be opened in the Balkans whereby the Allies could begin to reduce the Central powers particularly Turkey. It turned out to be an ill-conceived and badly executed operation with grave political repercussions for the Allied leadership particularly Britain

The campaign opened on February 19^th, 1915 with a naval bombardment on the Gallipoli peninsula with a view ultimately to advancing up the peninsular and seize Constantinople modern day Istanbul capital of Turkey. The naval bombardment however began without infantry support to exploit the opportunities for breakthroughs and was frequently interrupted by spells of bad weather. When British infantry units finally arrived from Egypt, the defenders on the ground were six times as many in number as had been there previously.

 Despite the stiff resistance put up by the local Turkish commander Mustafa Kemal, who later became known as the founder of the modern Turkish nation, the Australian and New Zealand corps won a bridgehead on the famous ANZAC cove north of Kaba Tepe, on the Aegean side of the peninsula, landing some 20,000 men in the first two days of the landings.

The British attempt to expand the bridgehead by landing at five more ports succeeded in only three spots which were in any case strongly contested. A request for reinforcements went unheeded as the Turks flooded the peninsula with reinforcements.

Meanwhile the operation had resulted in a political crisis back home in England as Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord openly disagreed with Winston Churchill the liberal government’s First Lord of the Admiralty. Fisher demanded an end to the operation and Churchill refused.

 Fisher’s subsequent resignation led to the dissolution of the liberal government and the forming of a coalition cabinet which still retained Churchill in the war council of the cabinet.

In July 1915, the British decided to reinforce their position on the peninsula by bringing in five more divisions to the peninsula with the hope of cutting the Turks North-South communications down the peninsula by seizing the Saur Bair heights which commanded the straits from the west. However within a few days both the initial landings and subsequent landings proved ineffectual.

Despite the wrangling in the war council and several reinforcements, it was obvious that the landings were not achieving the desired results. Much later in the year, it was agreed to discontinue the operation and the troops were evacuated under the cover of darkness from Surla Bay and from Anzac cove between December 1915 and January 1916 in the cape Helloes beaches.

 Thus the Dardanelles campaign came to an end at the cost of 214,000 casualties and no apparent result. It however led to the fall of Lord Asquith’s Liberal government and the takeover by Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s Labor government.

THE EGYPTIAN FRONTIERS 1915-JULY 1917

In spite of the Gallipoli evacuation, the British Army in Egypt still totaled over 250,000 men to counter the threat of a Turkish incursion into Egypt from Palestine across the Sinai desert. The threat was momentarily mothballed by the insurrection against the Turks led by Hashemite Emir Husayn Bin Ali in Hejaz and developed by the genius of an English settler by the name of T.E Lawrence.

He stoked the revolt to such a point that the whole Turkish position in Palestine and Arabia was threatened with the Damascus, Amman-Maan-Medina rail line almost severed. Under this condition, Sir Archibald Murray’s men began an advance on Palestine in December 1916. The advance led to the capture of some Turkish positions and outposts on the northeastern edge of the Sinai desert.

However by March 1917 when it looked like they were about to overrun the whole Turkish position in Gaza, they made a strange decision to withdraw. When they finally attempted to retake the position they were repulsed with heavy losses.

In June, the British command was transferred from Murray to Sir Edmund Allenby.  T.E Lawrence unlike Murray captured Aqaba (Al-Aqabah) on July 6^th, 1917 overrunning 1,200 Turks with a handful of Arab fighters.

THE ITALIAN FRONT 1915-1916

As the war progressed in 1915, the United Kingdom, France and Russia signed a secret document in which they induced Italy to join the war on the side of the Allies by dumping her obligations under the Triple Alliance on account of territorial gains at the expense of Austro-Hungary. The Italian- populated province of Trenton and Trieste alongside the South Tyrol, Gorizia, Istria and Northern Dalmatia were thus offered to Italy.

Accordingly, Italy declared war on Austro-Hungary on May 23^rd, 1915. The Italian offensive opened under the command of General Luigi Cadorna on the Province of Venetia across the lower valley of the Isonzo (Soca) River. He risked an Austrian descent on his rear from the Trenton which bordered Venetia to the northwest and on his left flank from the Cornice Alps (to the north). He was cautious about his advance.

The advances eastward beginning in late May was soon slowed down largely because of the floodwaters of the Isonzo River and tied down; both sides soon resorted to trench warfare. Cardona’s intent on moving forward led him to repeatedly make frontal attacks on the Austro-Hungarian positions in the battles which came to be known as the battles of the Isonzo.

A series of attack spanning 23^rd July, 18^th August, October 18^th, and November 4-10 ending December 2^nd cost the lives of over 280,000 men without any tactical or strategic achievement. The Austrians in facing the Italians showed a determination of spirit which was not seen when they faced the Russians.

After the Battle of Caporetto

In October 1917 Austro-Hungarian and German forces launched a massive attack on the Italian front. Exhausted by long months of bloody offensives and counterattacks, the Italians were defeated at Caporetto (now Kobarid, Slovenia) and retreated to the Piave River, where, with British and American help, they later stopped the advance of the enemy. Shown here are civilians who were forced to leave their villages after the battle.

In mid-May 1916, the Austrians decided to launch an offensive of their own into the province of Asia go in western Venetia. Though the Italians were able to avert an Austrian break through into the rear of the Isonzo from Venetia, their counter offensive of mid-July 1916, won them back one third of the territory overrun by the Austrians north and sixth battle of Isonzo southwest of Asia go.

The (August 6-17) offensive however did win Goriza for the Italians. On August 28, Italy declared war on Germany. The next three months saw the Italians making three more attempts on Austrian lines on the Isonzo with no tangible effect. On the whole, in 1916 Italy suffered over 500,000 casualties, over twice the number suffered by the Austrians without breaking out of the Isonzo area.

SERBIA AND THE SALONIKA EXPEDITIONS 1915-1917

Austria had made three attempts to invade Serbia since the war began and each had been repulsed. However by 1915, the Central Powers decided it was time to close the case of Serbia in the war to enable them make tangible progress in conjunction with the Turks across the Balkans.

In August, Germany got militarily involved and sent units to Austria’s southern front followed by a treaty concluded on September 15^th, in which the Central Powers offered Bulgaria territorial concession in order to join them in the attack on Serbia. Germany and Austria struck the Serbian positions on October 6^th, while the Bulgarians unmoved by Russian threats attacked eastern Serbia on October 11^th and Serbian Macedonia in October 1914.

The spate of events shocked the Allies who decided to help Serbia through neutral Greece’s Macedonian port of Salonika relying on the pro-Allied Greek premier Eleutherious Venizelos. French troops coming in from Gallipoli got to Salonika on October 5^th, but on that same day, the Greek Prime Minister was removed from office.

The Allied advanced up the Vader into Serbian Macedonia but were prevented from linking up with the Serbs by virtue of the westward advance of the Bulgarians which cut them off from the junction with the Serbs.

The Allies were subsequently merely occupying Salonika by mid-December 1916, as they retreated from the Greek frontier. In order to avoid being surrounded and cut off, the Serbian army embarked on a retreat in winter westward over the Albanian mountains while the Allies took refuge on the Island of Corfu.

In the spring of 1916, the Allies in Salonika were reinforced with troops from Serbia, France, Britain and Russia and the Salonika bridgehead was expanded to Edessa and Eastward to Kiki’s. The Bulgarians on the other hand overran Fort Rupel (Kilda on the Struma) in Greece in mid-August, and subsequently invaded the Florin a region of Greek Macedonia to the west of the Allies’ wing in Vodena.

An Allied counter offensive took Monastiv from the Bulgarians in November 1916, and tried to make more progress from March to May 1917, but failed. Over 500,000 Allied soldiers were tied down in Salonika without upsetting the Central Powers in any significant way.

THE WESTERN FRONT 1916