100 Years Ago - Kaiserschlacht

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-renewal-of-the-battle-3x63c6nlz

april 6, 1918

The renewal of the battle

The Germans began the second phase of the battle in France on Thursday morning by delivering a very formidable attack on the front between the Somme and Montdidier. They renewed their offensive some days earlier than was expected, and within the great salient they have created they are moving their troops and guns about with menacing rapidity. The size of their salient gives them ample elbow-room in the southern half, though they are still cramped and constricted in the north. On the other hand, the very magnitude and shape of the salient makes it vulnerable in the south between Montdidier and the Oise. Orders found on prisoners show that their objective was the main railway line from Amiens to Paris. As they are within three miles of the line at one point, and as they also hold heights which bring it within range of their artillery, it must be assumed that this route is no longer very safe. The principal purpose was to make a converging attack upon Amiens.

British forces south of the Somme joined in confronting Thursday’s attack. It is not quite clear where the French now link up with our right flank, but evidently we still hold the “Roman road” a mile or two south of the river. Our line touched the Somme close by the village of Hamel, which we appear to have lost. The enemy got into the Hamel and Vaire woods, and last night’s British bulletin speaks of “severe and persistent” fighting on Thursday east of Villers-Brettonneux, where we still hold most of the high ground.
The dominating factor was plainly the rain, which is converting the approaches to the battlefield into swamps. A falling barometer tends to the discomfiture of the Germans, but it affects us almost as adversely. We are fighting on a new line, and the change makes a heavy demand on our road transport. Some of our lateral field railways are now in the hands of the foe, and if the Germans find it difficult to maintain the conflict, we have similar difficulties.
There were no attacks yesterday, possibly because part of the ground over which the Germans are operating becomes marshy after heavy rainfall. United States units are now entering the battle-line and by today, the anniversary of the entry of the United States into the war, we may conceivably hear of their participation in the conflict.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-04-05/register/great-work-of-our-pilots-vzk3lxcts

april 5, 1918

Great work of our pilots

From our Special Correspondent: I see in The Times of yesterday that Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Farnham, of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, is reported missing. He is that “well-known battalion commander”, whose capture was conveyed to us by the Germans by a message attached to one of our pigeons which had fallen into German hands.
On another page, Captain J L Trollope, of the Royal Flying Corps, is also reported as missing. A few days before his failure to return this gallant officer performed the extraordinary feat of shooting down six enemy aeroplanes in a single day. I believe that Captain Ball once shot down five, but this achievement of Captain Trollope’s is undoubtedly a record. The details of his exploit are as follows: Captain Trollope was out with a formation when they saw four German fighting aeroplanes trying to interfere with our observing machines. Captain Trollope attacked one of the enemy and fired into it from close range, when the German aeroplane fell to bits in the air. The other three Germans scattered and got away, so, going on, Trollope soon espied two more enemy two-seaters below him, close to the ground. He dived and engaged them one after another, and both went down and crashed. Captain Trollope then climbed up to rejoin his formation, which was engaged with another party of the enemy. He entered the melee, used up what ammunition he had left, and came home for more. Having replenished, Trollope started out again and met a party of three of the enemy trying to cross the battle line. He went for one of them, but his gun jammed, and he had to draw off till his gun got going again. Then he turned and attacked another of the enemy, fired into him at point-blank range, and the enemy went down spinning and then broke into pieces. Turning from his last victim, Captain Trollope then went after the third of the enemy party, caught it up, attacked it, and the German broke into flames in the air. This made five of the enemy shot down in a single day, and Trollope turned for home. But on the way he saw an enemy scout attacking one of our slower machines. He went to the rescue and the enemy went down spinning. It was altogether a most brilliant performance, and that so gallant a man should now be missing will be a matter of universal regret.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-04-04/register/quietest-day-german-losses-vdnv7fl07

april 4, 1918

“Quietest day”: German losses

It has been the quietest day on the British front since the battle began.
The reference in the German communiqué to casualties, and the remarks of Hindenburg, are a confession of the severity of the German losses. The German military authorities are not accustomed to apologize to the people for the blood-cost of war. How severe those losses were, every day brings new evidence, both in the statements of prisoners and in captured documents. We have data in regard to some 15 divisions, which show the following. In the 1st Division the average strength of companies was reduced to 40 men. The 5th Division lost 50 per cent of its strength. In the 6th Division one company lost 40 per cent. The losses of the whole of the 20th Division were about 50 per cent. In the 12th Division the 62nd Reserve Infantry Regiment lost 800 men in fighting on the Arras-Cambrai road. In the 26th Reserve Division one company was entirely wiped out. The 4th Division lost between 40 and 50 per cent in the first day’s fighting alone. Of the 50th Division, one company of the 229th Regiment of Reserve Infantry was reduced from 159 to 63 men on March 28, and the remnant was subsequently annihilated. The 88th Division lost 30 per cent of its strength on the first day and 40 per cent of the remainder by March 29. The 119th Division was reduced to 40 per cent, and the 208th Division to 30 per cent.

In addition, we know that at Arras one regiment lost 24 officers, while, most striking of all, perhaps, are detailed figures of the 1st Battalion of the 140th Regiment of the 4th Division as given in a captured memorandum, which shows that after the first day’s fighting the first company had left two officers, four non-commissioned officers, and 35 men; the second company no officers, one non-commissioned officer, and 16 men; the third company one officer, six NCOs, and 26 men; and a fourth company, no officers, four NCOs, and 17 men — a total for the battalion of three officers, 15 NCOs, and 94 men.
From these fragments it is not possible to make accurate statements of the whole losses, but if you reckon the losses at between three and four thousand in each of the 80 divisions, you arrive at some conjectural total of infantry losses alone.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-04-03/register/a-lull-in-the-battle-hrhp7m9hz

april 3, 1918

A lull in the battle

All the bulletins show that yesterday marked a very definite lull in the great battle in France, though it may be doubted whether the pause will be of long duration. Throughout their advance the enemy relied chiefly upon their field guns and machine-guns, and after the short opening bombardment their heavier artillery played a comparatively small part. On the eve of their attack the Germans adopted in some areas a curious and unusual device. They brought up numbers of field guns under cover of darkness, and left them in the open at comparatively short range. The crews of the guns vanished from sight into dugouts, and only reappeared at the moment fired for the preliminary bombardment, when they manned such of their weapons as had not been destroyed by our fire. This method was in keeping with the principle of the reckless sacrifice of men and material on which the whole offensive has been based. Our Special Correspondent, in the dispatch we publish today, says that the Germans are now getting their guns forward all along the line, though “not as fast as might have been expected”. Unfortunately they continue to be favoured by the weather, which is again improving. They are pouring shells into Arras, where even before the battle hardly a building had escaped injury. We must also expect a bombardment of Amiens when their heavier guns are brought nearer the centre.

Meanwhile the Allied line holds firm, although the enemy are feeling our strength at various points. The massing of reinforcements in the south is a necessary reply to the growing strength of the French troops. So far as can be judged, our Allies are how holding very nearly half the battle front.
The equilibrium now established must not blind us to the fact that, though the enemy did not accomplish their full purpose, they obtained a very substantial preliminary success, which is only partially minimized by their heavy losses. They have wrested from the Allies most of the territory won in the last twenty months, and they are established on a line with menacing possibilities. It is clear enough that there is much deadly work immediately ahead, and jubilation may well be postponed until the trial of strength is over.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-04-02/register/americans-in-the-battle-stc8c69qj

Americans in the battle

April 2 1918

As a result of communications between the Prime Minister and President Wilson, and of consultations in France in which General Pershing and General Bliss, the Permanent Military Representative of America with the Supreme War Council, participated, important decisions have been come to by which the large forces of trained men in the American Army can be brought to the assistance of the Allies in the present struggle.
The Government of our great Western Ally is not only sending large numbers of American battalions to Europe during the coming critical months, but has agreed to such of its regiments as cannot be used in divisions of their own being brigaded with French and British units so long as the necessity lasts. By this means troops which are not yet sufficiently trained to fight as divisions and army corps will form part of the seasoned divisions until such time as they have completed their training and General Pershing wishes to withdraw them in order to build up the American Army. Arrangements for the transportation of these additional forces are now being completed.

President Wilson has shown the greatest anxiety to do everything possible to assist the Allies, and has left nothing undone which could contribute thereto. This decision, however, of vital importance as it will be to the maintenance of the Allied strength in the next few months, will in no way diminish the need for further measures for the raising of fresh troops at home. It is announced at once because the Prime Minister feels that the singleness of purpose with which the United States have made this indispensable contribution towards the triumph of the Allied cause should be clearly recognized by the British people.
The new Military Service Bill will, of course, be the first business of the Parliamentary Session. It is accepted that the new age-limit will be 50, and that the Bill will deal drastically with all existing exemptions. Sir Auckland Geddes is said to be devising a new order of calling men to the Colours which will take account both of physical fitness and of occupational value. If the Government are provident, they will take larger powers for the future than they can usefully employ at once.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-03-31/register/general-fochs-position-psb0hvlz8

march 31, 1918

General Foch’s position

In an official statement the Prime Minister has announced “a most important decision” taken by the Allies. “The incalculable advantage of fighting as one Army”, which the Germans have always possessed, has been countered, since the great battle began, by the closest possible union of the Allied Commands, and the action of the latter is now co-ordinated by the single brain of General Foch, who is the French Chief of Staff and President of the Versailles Board. The Commanders-in-Chief of both nations, we are told, gave the new arrangement their “cordial cooperation”. Indeed the case for it is overwhelming under the conditions of the moment. We feel bound to say that the public will be well advised to accept the statement as meaning precisely what it says.

General Foch, as we understand the position, neither possesses nor desires the title of “Generalissimo”. His function is described by the Government as that of co-ordinating the action of the Allied Armies. The distinction may seem to be more verbal than real, but it is sufficiently plain to those who have followed the events of the last few months. The truth is that, under the stress of three years and a half of war, the Allies on the Western front have gradually come to a form of military union, less perfect in the nature of things than the German, but the best in the circumstances and welded in the fire of a great emergency.
We can assure our splendid Allies that no voice of any consequence will protest in this country because the choice for so great a task has fallen on a Frenchman. The special circumstances of the moment rule out any other course. The British Army, with a determination and self-sacrifice to which no words can do justice, has borne the whole brunt of the first and greatest German onslaught. It has “gone all out” to bar the way to Arras and Amiens. But the issue of this titanic struggle turns every day to a greater extent on the speed and weight of the French Armies gathering on our right. lt is their co-ordination with our own clear task which most demands a master-mind just now. We are certain that Sir Douglas Haig and Sir Henry Wilson, whose own spheres of action remain unimpaired, are the first to support the wisdom of a decision in which both have had a hand.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-03-30/register/the-thrust-towards-amiens-xcwbm67tr

march 31, 1918

The thrust towards Amiens

The fluctuations in the battle front notified yesterday were on the whole in favour of the Germans, and it is necessary to note the cumulative effect of their daily small advances. In the earlier stages of the offensive the principal progress was made in the centre, and at one time the enemy’s line clearly emphasized the thrust towards Amiens. More recently efforts have been made by the Germans to gain ground on the flanks of the battle, in order to correct the tendency towards a long, narrow, and possibly dangerous salient. They struck simultaneously at Montdidier and Arras, and were successful at Montdidier, though their left flank is now considerably exposed, a fact of which the French are taking advantage. In the centre they are slowly creeping a little nearer to Amiens, and south of the Somme they were yesterday within 11 miles of the city. The flower of the Crown Prince’s Army has been drawn into the furnace between the Somme and the Oise, and the battle has attracted German reserves from every part of the Western front.

The heavy fighting on Thursday before Albert was not repeated yesterday. We are a little farther away from Albert, but on the whole the position immediately north of the Somme is hardly altered at all. The lull in this sector will probably be brief. The Germans are massing more troops between Albert and Bray and bringing up guns as fast as the weather will permit. Signs indicate that their celebration of Easter will take the form of a powerful thrust at Amiens by the shortest possible route.
It is in the area below the Somme that the fluctuations have been greatest. We have lost another village or two, which is no great matter, but the enemy are a mile nearer Amiens than they have been in this offensive. Yet they have a tangle of streams and marshes still before them, and there are excellent defensive positions between our present line and the coveted city.
On Thursday the powerful French reinforcements made a successful attack upon the enemy’s positions west of Montdidier. Our Allies are fighting hard all the way from Montdidier to Pont l’Eveque, and if they can only increase their pressure upon this very vulnerable part of the enemy’s front they may materially affect the enemy’s thrust at Amiens.