Into Battle - Chapter 2!

The second chapter of this exceptionally readable book starts dramatically, with the French Army holding against the German Army onslaught! The costly lack of understanding of the developing industrial nature of warfare is best demonstrated in the early German advances at the Marne (1914) with French guns taking an awful toll – “mowing them down like a field of wheat”. The giving up of French territory in exchange for a higher German body-count is posed as a worthwhile tactic, with a Frenchman at the front line emphasising “We can rebuild a country; we cannot so easily rebuild a race”. It also posed a problem for the German Army, for whom a decisive victory on the Western Front was all-important & all-too impossible given their early losses.

Opening Moves; First Battle of the Marne

The stage was set. This war was to be a bloody one, with history at times relegating the staggering French & German losses early in the war to secondary importance. Not so in the opening of this chapter. The battle of the Marne is accurately portrayed as a significant halt of & drain on the German Army in the early goings, stopping them from reaching Paris.

The author gives a stellar introduction to the French Commander in Chief (CiC) General Joseph Joffre (as mentioned in the chapter, his contribution are often forgotten by history). In contrast to the German CiC General Von Moltke; who suffered a nervous breakdown trying to organise & rally the huge conscript army with archaic tactics, Joffre quickly noticed the onset of total or attritional warfare. Joffre cut many of the older French commanders loose, especially those who were unwilling or unaware of the dramatic changes.

French CiC General Joseph Joffre

I found fascinating the fact that military planning leading up to WWI focused on annihilation of the enemy in an open battlefield. Swift mobilisation, massing troops using trains as transports, finding the enemy, encircling the enemy & finally annihilating the enemy was taught all over Europe as the most potentially successful grand war strategy. This was to prove a flawed strategy, given the preparedness of the belligerents for total war. The chapter does make mention of the fact that the generals on all sides were aware of plan B, should the swift victory so hoped for not come to pass. And Plan B was exactly what happened.

Again plenty of references are made in this chapter to the advent of sophisticated weaponry the likes of which the world had not seen, leading to the demise of decisive tactical skill being the primary reason for victory. More powerful explosives, high-explosive shells, the breech-loaded rifle, the advent of the machine gun, rows upon rows of barbed wire, mines & the pervasive trenches, between which men were sent on suicidal attacks over open ground against all that sophisticated & deadly weaponry. It doesn’t even make mention of other weapons of mass destruction such as poison gas & underground high-explosives.

Vickers Machine Gun Manned by two men wearing Gas Masks

As alluded to in Chapter one, the lack of Russian military skill, especially when compared with that of exceptional German eastern front command (led by two future giants of Germany – Ludendorff & Paul Von Hindenburg – future chancellor), led to a halting of an initially dangerous attack through East Prussia. The lay of the land also helped to make Russian logistics (already a farce) even more difficult. This, given that most of the German Army was attempting to enact the already-dead-in-the-water Schlieffen plan in the west, & Austro-Hungarian (AH) soldiers were failing to achieve victories in Serbia or against the Russian Army’s perhaps softer southern underbelly, gave them a much needed respite.

The other interesting fact at this time was that opportunistic Italian neutrality (despite being a member of the Triple alliance) led AH to keep troops in reserve for the eventuality of a western (southern!) front of their own, which of course did eventually come to pass.

The second half of the chapter focuses more on the economic & social effect of the British blockade, which not only was huge advantageous for the armies of the Entente, but a massive strain on American-British relations, neutral country shipping & local business, many of which had a huge market in Germany & the rest of Europe which was now instantly restricted. Britain’s own maritime merchant fleet ended up bearing the brunt of the blockade, as it was the British Empire which still “ruled the waves”.

The financial effects of the blockade were widespread and were accompanied by immense diplomatic difficulties for the British, especially in convincing their neutral American cousins that it was a necessary measure.

The war at sea in the early goings shifted between classical British dominance above the waterline and innovative German dominance below it. The British had the most powerful navy in the world; the Germans had to adapt quickly to even the playing field. They employed two relatively new technologies, namely laying mines in British coastal waters & the introduction of a substantial fleet of deadly submarines. These proved to be a significant nuisance on sailing around the British Isles & the North Sea. However, the indiscriminate use of both techniques helped to lead America into the war on the side of Britain & France (especially following the sinking of the Cruise ship the Lusitania), and lacked the decisive firepower to open the commercial links to the Central Powers. The German navy, with 22 modern dreadnought-class warships, did not see extensive action in the war, and ended up just a very pretty chess piece left in the starting square. 

Sinking of the Lusitania