Tuesday, November 18, 2008
This Day in the History of Generals Finally Seeing the Bleeding Obvious
On this day in 1916, General Douglas Haig finally called off the first Battle of the Somme in Picardy, France after five months of futile battle which included the first use of tanks. The Allied gain of just 125 square miles claimed 420,000 British and 195,000 French casualties. German losses were over 450,000. That's 1.065 million or about one per 400 square feet of the land won. What a monumental waste.
Labels: Somme, WWI history
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Third Battle of Ypres
Even as late as the Summer of 1917, there were generals of the Allied Armies who still believed in the 'one more push' way to victory. This battle, July 11 to November 10, 1917, would lay that failed strategy to rest. Here are a series of photos showing the effects of heavy bombardment during this time.
The casualties of the battle--dead, wounded, captured and missing--exceeded 850,000, with the bulk of them to the soldiers of the British Empire (500,000) with only 350,000 to the Germans. 'Only.'
Passchendaele was a tiny village west of Ypres. These two aerial photos show you its fate.
The land was flat, low and swampy to begin with, and, with the churned up earth from the bombardments and digging of trench and dugout, it became a sea of mud after the heavy Summer rains. Almost all of WWI was unmitigated suffering, but Passchendaele was concentrated, unmitigated suffering.
Siegfried Sasson wrote about the battle thus:
I died in Hell
(they called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight
and I was hobbling back; and then a shell
burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell
into the bottomless mud, and lost the light
(they called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight
and I was hobbling back; and then a shell
burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell
into the bottomless mud, and lost the light
Labels: Passchendaele, WWI history
Thursday, June 19, 2008
This Day in the History of Duplicitous Name Changes
On this day in 1917, King George V ordered members of the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames. They took the name Windsor, because Saxe-Coburg-Gotha sounded pretty German. because, well, it was.
Labels: Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; Windsor, WWI history
Monday, April 21, 2008
This Day in the History of Heroic Flier's Deaths
On this day in 1918, Freiherr Manfred von Richthofen, the German ace known as the "Red Baron," was killed in action during World War I. He shot down 80 Allied planes. That confirmed number is probably lower than the real number. There still is controversy whether it was ground fire or the machine gun fire from a Canadian pilot, Roy Brown, that got him. I think ground fire. What I really want to know is where was Richtofen's wingman, Hermann Göring?
Many historians put the death to target fixation by Richtofen. Could have been. It was a single .303 in under the arm and out through the chest which quickly killed him. He was still able to land his plane before he died.
Labels: WWI history
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
This Day in the History of Success at First
On this day in 1918, German forces, under Erich von Ludendorff, forced the British off Passchendaele Ridge, an area the Brits had captured in November, 1917 at the mere cost of half a million killed or badly wounded (on both sides). In addition to Passchendaele Ridge, the Germans gained control of Messines Ridge, the scene of another, at the time important, Allied victory in June, 1917, which only cost 300,000 casualties, give or take.
It's impossible to be too cynical regarding how WWI was fought.
It's impossible to be too cynical regarding how WWI was fought.Labels: WWI history
Sunday, April 06, 2008
This Day in the History of Going Over There
On this day in 1917, the U.S. Congress passed a declaration of war against Germany, and the U.S. entered, finally, WWI.
Labels: WWI history
Friday, March 21, 2008
This Day in the History of Too Little, Too Late
On this day in 1918, the Germans begin the Second Battle of the Somme, their last big push of the Great War, fueled with the veteran troops released from the Eastern Front due to Russia's withdrawal from the war. They do well, but can't reach Paris.
This is an aerial photo of the trench systems near the Somme months earlier. You can see why it was so hard to get past the front-- there were second and third trenches and then reserve trenches past that. The crenelation in the trenches themselves are so the area through which the steel splinters from a shell explosion could travel was limited.
Labels: WWI history
Monday, March 03, 2008
This Day in the History of Russia Bailing From a Hard Fight
On this day in 1918, Germany, Austria and Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russian participation in World War I. This freed the German troops on the Eastern Front to transfer to the Western Front and join their comrades in one final push towards Paris. They failed and the presence of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers on the Western Front might have played a small roll in stopping the last major Hun assault of WWI.
Labels: WWI history
Thursday, September 06, 2007
This Day in the History of Advancement in Armament
On this day in 1915, the first military armored vehicle called a tank, was produced in England by the Landships Committee co-founded by Winston Churchill. It was called Little Willie although it weighed 14 tons. It had no cannon or turret, riveted armor and crawled at a very slow 2 mph. But it is identifiably a tank. From small acorns great oaks grow.
Labels: WWI history
Monday, August 06, 2007
This Day in WWI History
On this day in 1918, the Second Battle of the Marne ended in a German defeat at the cost of just under 300,000 dead and wounded to both sides. It was the beginning of the end for the Germans on the Western Front and they were never again on offense in a big way to the end of the war 4 months later.
Labels: WWI history
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
This Day in the History of Devastating Military Incompetence
On this day in 1917, the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Ypres) begins in Belgium, Brits and Colonials versus German troops, and continues until November 10. Nearly 750,000 soldiers on both sides died or were seriously wounded for the gain of mere meters of territory on the Western Front. The tactics in WWI (similarly to the American Civil War) had not evolved in light of technological changes (the machine gun and quick loading, large caliber artillery) yet the generals kept up massed charges until millions had died on the battlefield. Verdun was a heroic slaughter; the Somme a sad waste; Passchendaele was just a crime.
Labels: WWI history
