World War 1 Tactics And Strategy

as the 20th century began the movie camera brought history to life and world war one was the first in which the action could be seen as it happened early cameras were too bulky to record many critical events but modern graphic techniques now allow these to be recreated such as the world's first tank against tank engagement the exploits of the war's leading balloon buster the daring special forces operation defending a fortified position against a revolutionary new weapon or the brutal effectiveness of air power modern techniques also allow world war one to be seen in color as it really happened this was the war in which many of the weapons which today dominate the battlefield were first developed the machine gun the tank specialized combat aircraft like fighters and strategic bombers and the craft which revolutionized naval warfare the submarine and the aircraft carrier when the war began everyone expected it to be short and fast moving instead the power of the machine gun massive artillery bombardments and barbed wire led to the nightmare of trench warfare for the next three years on the western front millions of men lived a nightmare existence amid squalor and constant danger from enemy bombardment they went over the top in futile mass attacks only to be moaned down in the hundreds of thousands by enemy machine guns attempts were made to break the stalemate one of the most calm planned by the german general staff the historic fortress town of verdon would be assaulted not to achieve a breakthrough but simply to bleed the french army to death the town of verdong had been a crucial defensive position on france's northeastern border for centuries around it was an elaborate and mutually supporting system of fortresses designed to halt any enemy advance the germans calculated that the french could not afford to allow the position to be lost they would pour the elite of their army into what would become an horrific killing ground the fortresses like that at duomo had first been built in the 16th and 17th centuries their walls and underground defenses had been constantly updated to withstand assault or siege by modern weaponry they had massive and heavily armored rotating turrets for heavy artillery and many machine gun nests but the reality was that since 1914 the defenses had been allowed to crumble and the forts were severely undermanned on the 21st of february 1916 after a nine-hour bombardment the german attack began after four days of savage fighting the german assault pioneer sergeant organ kunsan managed to get into dual more to his astonishment he wandered entirely alone through a vast concrete labyrinth he could hear the muffled bangs of fort duomo 155 millimeter gun guided by these he made his way nervously to the main turret the french gun crew was so preoccupied that they didn't notice it until he made them prisoner kunsa then roamed on the realization began to dawn on him that the fort was virtually unmarked in fact its garrison had been reduced to a mere 56 elderly french gunners scarcely able to believe his good fortune concer eventually found the remainder of these in the main dormitory many still in their beds he simply locked them in their room and called his men into the fortress sergeant kuntzer had single-handedly captured verdon's most powerful bastille despite this disaster the french held verdon astonishingly three-quarters of the french army was involved in the fighting during the next nine months more than 750 000 men roughly half of them french and half german were sacrificed in the bloodbath by the fourth winter of the war the allies were hanging on grimly desperately waiting for the arrival of millions of fresh american troops to turn the tide the germans were equally aware of this danger russia's collapse in december 1917 meant that they could bring more than a million men west and general eric ludendorff the commander on the western front was determined to use these to achieve a swift and final victory knowing an attack was imminent the british commander field marshal douglas hague adopted a new defensive system based on depth there would be a forward zone or blue line lightly manned but with strong points to blunt the initial attack then the battle zone or red line where the main fighting would take place and finally the rear zone or brown line where the enemy assault would be held decided that a new attack method was needed to break these defenses storm troops lightly equipped and fast moving units of the most battle-hardened men would slip into the enemy's lines under cover of the bombardment these would use surprise and speed to bypass centers of resistance and break through deep to the enemy's rear at four in the morning of the 21st of march 1980 six thousand german guns opened up on the full depth of the british positions with gas and high explosives just over four hours later the first wave of storm troops leapt out of the trenches and raced forward they slipped through the wire using stick grenades as one of their main weapons another was the deadly belching fire of flamethrowers the german barrage moved forward 100 meters every two to three minutes protecting this human tidal wave but in the end it ran out of impetus and the last great german offensive fizzled out during 1916 the british had come up with a completely different but equally innovative method of breaking the stalemate of the trenches deep underground special teams of miners recruited from the coalfields of wales and northern england had begun to tunnel under the german lines it was back-breaking and claustrophobic work with the ever-present danger of being entombed alive by a collapse and made worse by the knowledge that the germans were listening for the sound of digging and sinking counter tunnels down which raiding parties would tiptoe sometimes they would break in on the british miners and desperate battles in the dark would ensue some of the tunnel systems stretched for hundreds of yards underground with elaborate dead ends and false connections once the main tunnels were under the selected sections of the enemy line they were packed with explosives an average of 21 tons of amatol per mine the greatest use of mines came on the 7th of june 1917 at the beginning of the british assault on the machine white sheet ridge a total of 23 mines had been dug under the crucial german position of which 19 were to be used the germans had pulled back from the others the firing wires were connected up and the assault troops moved into position in no man's land after six months of preparation the firing teams checked their watches and prayed a lot then at 3 am the plungers were driven home and more than 400 tons of explosive ripped two miles of the german front apart killing thousands of defenders sadly the initial breakthrough was not fully exploited a more long-lasting british attempt to break the trench stalemate was the tank by mid-1916 armor caterpillar tracks and the internal combustion engine had been brought together to form the first landships capable of crossing trenches and supporting infantry these were either the female and only with machine guns or the male with two six pounder guns in the side sponsons these first tanks had a speed of about four miles an hour and a crew of eight the british tanks were first used piecemeal in september 1916 during the battle of the somme they achieved some local successes but it was not until the battle of comrade in november 1917 when 376 tanks were used that their true potential was shown holes were punched in the german line and by nightfall more than five miles had been gained but the unreliability of these early tanks meant that the breakthrough could not be followed up nevertheless the germans were so impressed by the british successes that they urgently developed their own tank a 33-ton monster with a crew of 18 named the a7v armed with a 57 millimeter cannon and six machine guns it was totally underpowered and unwieldy and could only manage three miles an hour but it was rushed into service to counter the british threat and the first tank against tank confrontation soon followed this came during the great german offensive in march 1980 when the storm troops tore through the british lines and penetrated more than 40 miles the second assault in april kept up the momentum and the possibility of breaking through to paris suddenly seemed feasible on the early morning of the 24th of april ludendorff's forward units were less than 10 miles from amion probing towards a village of v.a britoner one and a half miles southwest of the village a section of british tax one male and two females was waiting in support of dug-in infantry as the crews peered through the mist they saw an extraordinary sight one of the few operational german a7vs lumbered into view the british started up and moved forward to engage it the world's first armored duel was underway the ironclad monsters ponderously closed the range inside the tanks the conditions were a poor there was no proper suspension then the unsilenced engines roared and belched fumes finally the leading british tank the male opened fire with its six-pounder gun but missed unscathed the a7v trundled on its crew desperately trying to see where the fire was coming from finally they spotted the enemy halted and opened fire no effect at first but then it began to find its range and struck both british females neither was disabled but unable to make any impression with their machine guns they halted and began to pull back while the german was concentrating on its mates the british male continued to advance and close the range its crew desperately trying to hold the a7v in their sights as they were thrown around in the unsprung attack at last they got within effective range and opened fire again after a ranging shot the a7v was hit its crew decided that the british fire was getting a bit too accurate and began to withdraw thus ending the world's first tank vs tank battle the tank had revolutionized the battlefield and the french were quick to see the need to add speed and mobility they developed the seven tonne renault ft-17 with a two-man crew and a machine gun or 37 millimeter cannon in the world's first traversing turret the american forces which had begun arriving in france in summer 1917 soon replaced their french helmets with the british version but enthusiastically adopted the small french tactic they practiced with it before the cameras for publicity several hundred were brought forward in support when the americans began their first major action as an independent force this was september 1918 in the mers argonne area of northeastern france there the americans faced a daunting challenge their trenches lay at the foot of the slopes running up to the argonne forest they would have to attack uphill against an experienced enemy which had had plenty of time to build elaborate defensive positions behind the barbed wire and trenches of the german front line lay a series of machine gun nests which had been carefully camouflaged in the wooded terrain german reinforcements could be rushed to these to blunt any breakthroughs from them the german defenders could bring withering fire to bear on advancing troops the americans had practiced hard using tanks to support their infantry but these frequently came to grief since the renaults were only lightly armored and they could only get across a gap of six feet despite these problems the us troops were able to break through after three weeks savage fighting and force the germans to abandon their defensive line in the wide open spaces of the eastern front warfare had been much more fluid in august 1914 son nicholas ii and his generals planned to send the russian first army across the border of east prussia in the north advancing along the railway line towards the capital koenigsberg and drawing the german defenders towards it four days later the second army would move into the heavily wooded area near tannenberg in the south it would then strike north to capture kerningsburg and cut off the main german army the russians surprised the germans by how quickly they were able to mobilize and the appearance of hard riding cossack cavalry struck terror into the local prussian population first army crossed the east prussian border within two weeks of the outbreak of war it had a hundred and fifty thousand men and alone outnumbered all the german forces in east prussia the opposing armies clashed indecisively near the town of gumbine where upon the german commander max von pitfitz fell back in panic begging for permission to evacuate east prussia and the russian general pavel renincamp advanced a few miles and then stopped unfortunately he hated alexander samsonoff the commander of second army and had no intention of doing anything to support his advice the german high command had now called 67 year old paul von hindenburg out of retirement to replace von pritvins with the highly able eric ludendorff as his chief of staff they spotted the opportunity which the excellent german railway system now gave them to use their much smaller army to beat each of the russians in turn one army corps was urgently sent by rail round to the russian's left flank this went unnoticed by the enemy which was unaware that it faced any serious opposition most of the remaining two corps were then ordered to march southwest as fast as they could to take up a position on the right of the advancing russian second army once again all evidence of a major enemy move was ignored by second army while the remaining german division spread out as a covering force to harass the first army once ren and kampf decided to get moving again the germans proved that a little very mobile artillery and cavalry could imitate a much larger force in the south the germans watched as the russian second army lost cohesion amid the forests and lakes they then went in for the queue thrusting forward through the town of nedenberg the corps which had moved secretly by train sliced through the russian line of advance cutting off much of secondary then the other core which had moved southwest completed the encirclement confused and terrified by this sudden and unexpected assault the russians broke and fled general samson off went into the woods alone and shot himself while more than three hundred thousand of his men were killed or wounded and ninety thousand taken prisoner it was one of the most complete defeats in military history when world war one began manned flight was only 11 years old aircraft were rickety and unreliable used only for observation their crews used handheld pistols or machine guns to drive off the enemy but then a dutch engineer named anthony focker working for the germans found a way of interrupting the fire of a machine gun so it could fire forward through the propeller his ein decker or single winger became the world's first specialized fighter and for six months ruled supreme over the western front the allies rushed to develop their own fighters and for the next three years a succession of ever more powerful machines fought duels to the death the most successful pilots became superstars aces like manfred von richthofen the red baron the frenchman george guinema britain's albert ball and america's eddie rickenbacker one of the few to survive this revolutionary new form of warfare saw the development of new tactics top pilots worked out how to outwit and kill their opponents one of the earliest was the turn invented by one of germany's first aces max immelman in which a head-on diving approach could be used to stall turn in behind an unwary opponent barrage balloons were widely used all along the western front for observation and artillery spotting shooting them down was one of the most dangerous missions faced by early pilots as they were closely defended by anti-aircraft guns and enemy fighters one of the most successful famous and short-lived balloon busters was a 21 year old american lieutenant frank luke luke only reached a front line squadron in august 1918 and was determined to become famous as a fighter pilot he saw the dangerous job of balloon busting as his quickest way to get to grips with the enemy and volunteered on the 12th of september just two weeks before u.s troops began the mers argonne offensive luke went on his first balloon hunt he shot down one that day and eight more over the next four days within a fortnight he had 14 confirmed kills during this devastating aerial rampage he had also shot down five enemy fighters making him america's leading ace but luke was now becoming dangerously punched drunk by his success and felt that nothing could stop him on the 29th of september he took off and flew over his airfield dropping a note saying watch the three hun balloons on the murs he wanted an audience for his neck spectacular and us troops watched as the first balloon burst into flames and the tiny plane moved on to the next frank luke was true to his word the third balloon also went down but he never got back to base to bask in his glory as night fell there was no sign of it only after the war was it established that his lone aircraft had been jumped by eight [ __ ] and forced to land after destroying two he died from the wounds he had received in the air the information sent back by the observation balloons was increasingly used not only to direct artillery bombardments but to plan bombing attacks on enemy lines and supply routes the first bombing attempts were extremely basic the observer simply dropped a missile over the edge but soon aircraft were being fitted with wing racks on which increasingly powerful bombs were attached aiming was still crude with the crew relying on eye and an estimate of how much offset to allow but this new form of warfare soon began to prove how effective it could be one of the most dramatic examples came during the battle of megiddo in palestine in september 1980 raf bombers dominated the battlefield flying constant missions to harass the turkish troops who were allied to the germans in one incident an entire supply column was caught in a narrow defile and utterly destroyed as one raf officer described pilot after pilot flying in perfect order dropped his bombs and then raked the poor turks with machine gun fire everywhere they were mercilessly pursued and caught in the unfolding slaughter the carnage was an eerie prophecy of the effect of air power almost a century later during the gulf wars by the time of the last great allied offensives on the western front in september and october 1918 the role of tactical air power and the effectiveness of close cooperation with ground forces was fully understood so too is the potential of this new weapon for long-range strategic assault on the 13th of june 1970 14 german gote bombers took off to bomb london each carried a ton of bombs and 162 civilians were killed this raid opened a new chapter in warfare for the first time non-combatants many miles from the front were directly in the firing line by the end of the war the british had developed their own strategic bomber force and were preparing to mount sustained campaigns against german cities the strategic bomber was now seen as one of the crucial factors in warfare as prime minister stanley baldwin said in the 1930s the bomber will always get through another crucial weapon which had a revolutionary effect on warfare was the submarine armed with the torpedo an invention which had already frightened naval commanders the world over the submarine soon proved that it could threaten any battlefield but it was not the threat to battle fleets which was to prove critical the german u-boats soon showed that they had the potential to win the war by cutting britain's vital trade links only the danger that indiscriminate sinking of neutral ships might bring the united states into the war held the kaiser back from launching an all-out attack until 1917. for much of the war the germans found it easy to prey on merchant shipping because most ships sailed alone and unescorted u-boats didn't even have to use valuable torpedoes to destroy their prey the british eventually introduced convoys and developed methods of locating submerged u-boats using sound detectors towed behind warships this was backed up with depth charges launched from fast moving escorts but the u-boat threat continued and the british admiralty decided that the only way of stopping the wasps must be to block up the wasps nest by 1917 the main u-boat base was at bruges in occupied belgium eight miles from the sea but connected to the ports of ostend and zebra by canals it was too far from the sea for there to be any chance of a landing to capture it the u-boats were housed in concrete shelters which provided excellent protection against naval or air bombardment so british admiral roger keys commander of the dover patrol decided that the best way to stop them was to block the points where the canals went out into the sea both the ports were heavily protected with artillery and troops and the entrance at zebruga was also guarded by a mile-long mole this was heavily fortified with a 20 foot high wall on the seawood side and would need to be seized before block ships could reach the harbour mouth keys decided that this could be achieved by birthing a shallow draft ship alongside it carrying a landing party of elite troops 700 men of the royal marines he selected the cruiser hms vindictive for the task and she was fitted with extra armor and guns a new upper deck was built with 18 landing ramps which would be lowered on top of the sea wall the volunteer naval crew practiced raising and lowering these the mole had arches halfway and it was planned to blow these using an obsolete explosive packed submarine so that reinforcements could not get along it what the attackers did not know was that a german destroyer had moored on the inside of the mold the previous night more or less exactly alongside where the vindictive was aiming to land admiral keys aboard the destroyer hms warwick led the task force out of dover harbour on the evening of the 22nd of april the weather for the crossing was calm for the previous week monitors with their massive 15-inch guns had been bombarding the german coastal guns and strong points night fell and german searchlights probed the darkness as the town behind them was lit up by the british ship then at 23 30 hours coastal patrol boats surged in and released their smoke floats the wind was blowing from the northwest wafting the smoke directly towards the mole and the port realizing that something was going on the germans opened a furious fire but their view was increasingly obscured by the smoke screen from the criss-crossing small boats behind the protective cover of smoke hms vindictive with two escorts also packed with troops should she be sunk moved into position the cruiser's captain ordered full speed ahead and the three assault ships raced into the smokescreen on the mold german sailors strained to see their enemy then with only 250 yards to go the three british ships emerged and the germans opened a withering fire in the few moments that it took to reach the mold the two most senior royal marines and two naval officers were killed the german destroyer had also joined in the fire and a heavy swell was making it hard for vindictive to get close to the mold the german defenders were now firing at point-blank range and the royal marines crowded on the deck of vindictive were being slaughtered at this critical moment the commander of one of the cruisers escorts the converted ferry daffodil saw the difficulty she was in and nudged his bows against vindictive side and pushed her alongside the mold at last the landing ramps went down and the royal marines could start to fight their way ashore one officer seeing a platoon of men crouched close to a ramp ordered them ashore but no one moved they were all dead cut down by a single machine gun but despite the german fire the boarding parties on vindictive began to get ashore the men on her two escorts were unable to disembark because of the height of the sea wall so those from daffodil clambered aboard vindictive so as to use her landing wraps as the landing parties came over the top of the wall they were met by a storm of bullets which cut down many of them an attempt was made to rush the tip of the mold but every single man in the attack became a casualty the germans were firing from well-fortified positions and it seemed almost impossible to winkle them out from the four top of vindictive a section of royal marines was manning lewis guns to provide covering fire one by one the men were cut down until only sergeant norman finch remained despite his wounds he continued to fire on the german positions and was one of the 11 victoria crosses awarded that day the most ever during a single action gradually however the desperate gallantry of the marines seemed to be having some effect the fire from some of the german positions was slowing and they were so preoccupied with fighting off the assault that they would be unable to turn on the block ships which would go in behind them while this desperate struggle continued another threat to the marines became apparent one which could abort the whole mission a battalion of german infantry on bicycles was seen approaching the mole if they got onto it the marines would be overwhelmed the submarine c3 appeared in the nick of time and headed towards the arches of the mole without a shot being fired directly at her the commander rammed the submarine into position before the germans on the mole had realized exactly what was going on the seven men of the crew leapt into a skiff but most were wounded by heavy fire before they could escape to the waiting motor launch twelve minutes later the submarine exploded blowing a 30-yard hole in the mold any german hope of reinforcing their troops was now at an end with the germans on the mold fully tied down it was time for the crucial block ships to move in three elderly cruisers thetis intrepid and the fijiani had each been packed with 1500 tons of concrete and equipped with scuttling charges manned by volunteer crews they now slipped in behind the mole and headed for the entrance seeing this new threat the germans in the port itself concentrated their fire on the three ships thetis was hit particularly severely and began to fill with water so her commander had to scuttle her outside the entrance despite point-blank german fire the other two ships succeeded in entering the canal and were successfully scuttled launches were standing by to rescue the crews of the block ships and these now moved in under heavy fire as they moved off with the survivors klaxon sounded to signal the end of the operation and the royal marines on the mole began to fall back to hms vindictive amazingly the cruiser was able to get away from the mole and limped back to england her part of the raid had been a triumphant success but a success which had been bought at a very high price of the 1300 royal navy and royal marine volunteers who took part in the action over 600 were killed or wounded sadly the two block ships which had been intended to close the entrance at our stand were unable to reach it and had to be scuttled a mile outside it but a month later the vindictive this time loaded with concrete as a block ship managed to complete the job but the dawn of zebruga showed that two of the three block ships were well in the entrance sunk across the main channel the sheer audacity of the raid was a welcome boost for the morale of the british public at a time when the successes of the german storm troops on the western front looked to be close to breaking through the allied line the zebra raid with its intricate coordination of landing forces with the block ships and the submarine used to isolate the mole was the biggest special operation of world war one keyes the man who conceived it was to go on to plan similar assaults when he became director of combined operations in 1940 in this as in so many other ways world war one foreshadowed many of the developments which were to be exploited in the second world war and even more spectacularly it pioneered many of the weapons which have revolutionized today's battlefield you

Channel: RealTimeWWI

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Rating: 4.738039 out of 5

Keywords: RealTimeWWI, WWI, somme, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, Chemin, des, dames, Haig, Nivelle, Paton, Foch, Petain, Dugout-Militaria, German, French, Anzac, Doughboy, Tommies, Poilus, USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New, Zeland, United States (Country), United Kingdom (Country), Germany (Country), Europe, England

Id: p-dsOLjZIrs

Length: 50min 26sec (3026 seconds)

Published: Sat May 26 2012