Thursday 29 March 2018

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/250-000-rounds-from-the-air-jgpscptz6


250,000 rounds from the air

Telegraphic dispatch from General Headquarters, France, March 28, 9.50pm: On the 27th inst low-flying was again carried out by large bodies of our aeroplanes, while our infantry machines continued reporting the position of our battle line. Over 30 tons of bombs were dropped, and a quarter of a million rounds of ammunition fired from a height that ensured accuracy on different targets. Severe casualties are known to have been inflicted on the enemy, and the bringing up of his troops and ammunition was delayed. Twenty-four German machines were brought down in air fighting, and seven others were driven down out of control. Two hostile observation balloons were also destroyed. Nineteen of our machines are at present missing, but a proportion of these are believed to have landed on our side of the line. Very heavy fire directed against our machines from the ground accounted for the greater portion of our casualties. During the night the bombing of Bapaume, Bray, and Peronne was continued with the utmost vigour. Over a thousand bombs were dropped, and thousands of rounds of ammunition were fired at targets which were plentiful and easy to see in the moonlight. Our pilots saw their bombs bursting in the middle of columns of troops and transport and on encampments. Four of the aeroplanes are missing. On the 27th inst the Sablon station at Metz was bombed. Well over a ton of bombs were dropped; good bursts were seen on the sidings and beside the railway. On the 28th instant our machines carried out a successful raid on the station at Luxemburg. Twenty-one heavy bombs were dropped, and several were seen to burst on the objectives. All our machines returned from both raids.
● Poison gas factory bombed French Air report, March 23-26: Our infantry aeroplanes, bombing and chasing crews, photographers and observers, distinguished themselves by their courage and endurance, both by day and night. Descending sometimes to a height of 60ft from the ground, our pilots attacked enemy contingents with their machine-guns and fired thousands of cartridges. On the night of March 23-24 one of our squadrons dropped 31 tons of explosives on the Badische Anilin factory of Ludwigshafen, the chief German factory for the production of poison gas.







https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-03-28/register/the-fighting-goes-in-our-favour-qp3vzlz8m

The fighting goes in our favour

At Auchonvillers the Germans at one time got into our positions, and had held them long enough to bring in 11 machine-guns and put themselves in positions of defence. Nonetheless, we re-attacked with great dash, and recaptured the positions and took the machine-guns and some prisoners, among them certain officers who insist on wearing nice new yellow gloves, and generally bearing themselves in a thoroughly Prussian offensive way. Give-and-take fighting has been in progress in the area of Aveluy Wood and Mesnil, but at neither place in the end did the Germans win any ground. In the northern area the German shelling has been fairly heavy and sustained, especially heavy on places south of the river from gun positions on the north side.
The nights nowadays are almost busier than the days, both sides doing much bombing, the Germans choosing towns with civilian populations rather than points of military importance, doubtless from a desire to cause panic among the French. The civilians, however, are being methodically evacuated from the most dangerous areas. The enemy has been bombing Amiens ruthlessly. One bomb missed the Cathedral by a very narrow margin. I have passed through Amiens twice today and seen most of the damage, and can testify to the completely reckless way in which bombs were dropped in all parts of the town. The fine weather continues, and even if it is in favour of the Germans from the military standpoint, one is glad of it for the sake of the refugees, who are passing in considerable numbers along the roads, offering the usual pathetic spectacles of aged men and girls wheeling all their possessions on perambulators, wheelbarrows, or handcarts, and invalid women borne on improvised stretchers of shutters or planks. Many of the poor family parties are accompanied by cows, donkeys, and goats, and all, it seems, by dogs, while the children carry cages with canaries in them. For their sake it is impossible not to rejoice that the weather is fair.
In spite of some geographical gains on the enemy’s part, it has by no means been a day to reduce our confidence. Where we have fallen back, it has been done chiefly without any pressure. Where there has been fighting we have had the best of it in the majority of cases.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-03-27/register/the-forcing-of-the-somme-lv8jx7qv0


The forcing of the Somme

The battle continues to rage along the entire front, where, on the whole, the Germans still make headway and we fall back. This day’s German advance is nowhere of great depth. We have evidence that, in spite of the splendid weather, which assists his mobility, the enemy infantry is getting beyond his guns, and his artillery is now unable to play anything like the part in the battle which it bore in the earliest stages. He continues, however, throwing in new troops with the same rapidity, and the number of men he has put into the battle must be enormous.
At the opening of the battle it is probable that the Germans had some 85 divisions in reserve. Thirty-three of these are known to have been put into the battle on the first day, and approximately 10 each on both succeeding days, so that, by the end of the third day, the reserve had been reduced from 85 to not more than 31 or 32 divisions. How much of that great reserve is left now it is impossible to say exactly. This is an obviously hopeful feature of the situation. On the other hand, we now have new reserves available, and the French have continued their most valuable assistance. In addition there is extraordinary work being done by our Air Force. The losses of machines and pilots inflicted on the enemy have been prodigious, and must hamper him badly, while the continual embarrassment which our flying men are causing by bombing and by low-flying over his troops is of enormous value. All these are factors which reduce the ultimate importance of the enemy’s immediate territorial gains.
Here, writing from the spot and finding words incapable of expressing all one wants to say, one has an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps you people at home will think that a correspondent talks too much of the valour of our men when that valour ends always in withdrawal. Yet history, I believe, when all is known, will be amazed at what British troops have done here in the last five days. I have yet to hear of a unit which has not borne itself bravely, or to hear an officer speak in terms other than those of the utmost admiration of his men. The mere physical strain has been enormous, but men come out of the line clinging to the last to the one definite notion that their business is to go on fighting and kill Germans.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-03-26/register/the-latest-phase-76hfrnn0k


The latest phase

Two broad impressions emerge from the fragmentary news arriving from the titanic struggle in France. The first is that the enemy continue to make steady progress, though their advance is uneven. The second is that our gallant troops are making the most stubborn resistance and are exacting a heavy toll, while in the southern portion of the long battlefield French forces are rapidly moving in to their assistance. The task of explaining the situation, so far as it is known in this country, is difficult, because we are bound to describe it mainly in terms of ground which, at the present stage of the battle is largely misleading, for the real object of the enemy is not so much to capture particular areas as to destroy our forces. In this at all events they are not succeeding, nor are they likely to do so, for on balance their losses have so far been considerably heavier than our own. We are still justified in saying that, considering the magnitude of the battle, our losses up till now remain relatively light in proportion to the number of troops engaged. The fact is that the enemy broke through our prepared defensive positions, but they have not broken through the living wall which still confronts them. Our armies have not been cut asunder, and, though there has been a long withdrawal, our retiring line remains intact and continuous.
It is when we reach the old battlefield of the Somme — by which we mean all the ground taken by us north of the river up to November 30, 1916 — that we find the chief German progress. More than half of that great battlefield has passed out of our possession. The enemy are pushing in a south-westerly direction, and are thus drawing dangerously near to the coveted Thiepval plateau. Sailly and Combles and Guillemont have gone, together with many another spot hallowed in our military annals, including possibly Delville Wood.
The immediate problem now is whether our forces can establish themselves afresh on the 1916 line. Time is the vital factor, for the Germans are staking everything on a rapid “knock-out blow”. They have had the best of weather so far, but there are welcome signs of a break. We note with satisfaction, but without surprise, the fortitude with which the whole country is facing a very grave situation.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-03-23/register/the-great-attack-zsq8d9jg2


The great attack

Half a million Germans attacked the British Army on Thursday morning on a front of sixty miles, and so began the greatest and most critical battle of the war. If Germany fails to achieve her purpose now, as we believe she will, her doom is sealed in spite of all her glittering successes in Eastern Europe. The British Army, already tried in a hundred fierce conflicts, is battling today for the safety and the liberty of these islands and of Western civilization. Upon our own brave soldiers this supreme struggle has been thrust, and we believe with the Prime Minister, who spoke some straight and burning words to a deputation of miners on Thursday afternoon, that every nerve will be strained in this country to back them in their gallant stand.
The opening phases of the conflict have been fierce beyond precedent. No fewer than forty German divisions took part in the opening attack, and it is clear that the losses on both sides are proportionately heavy. Further fighting of “the most severe nature” is anticipated. The enemy are hailing it already as a duel to the death; but our men are inspired by the same unconquerable spirit which barred the road at Ypres.
The enemy are striking in the West because they believe that this time they can win a victory to end the war. On any other assumption the offensive is sheer folly. Our own conviction is that they have made a gross miscalculation of the Allied defensive strength, and that they have no more chance of a military triumph than they have ever had since the Marne. The other explanation is that Germany cannot afford to wait any longer while three undefeated armies confront her in the West, and another gigantic army from across the Atlantic is being transported to Europe. Her own people are on very short commons, and they cannot expect much food from Russia until next year.
Germany has committed herself to the greatest gamble in history. We believe that she will fail. All the grain of the Ukraine, all the iron of the Donetz basin, all the oil in Batum and Ploesti, will bring no consolation to the underfed civil population of Germany if their last legions are shattered to pieces against the unbreakable wall in the West. They will know then, if they never knew before, that, come what may, they can never hope to win.

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