First World War: Newly arrived and green, the Americans still proved a force to be reckoned with

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-06-02/register/first-world-war-newly-arrived-and-green-the-americans-still-proved-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with-5xxl9qrzf

While arguments raged as to how the US could help win the war, troops bound for France first had to face the feared German U-boats

Allan Mallinson

A painting of the Zeebrugge Raid by John de Lacy, depicting the landing at the Mole by HMS Vindictive

“I am going to get the men to France if they have to swim,” he had promised, and the US army’s chief of staff, General Peyton C March, would balk at nothing in his determination to strengthen the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). Troopships sailed into the Atlantic filled to overflowing, with three men, sleeping in shifts, sharing the same bunk, tiers of which reached the overhead (ceiling). Under March’s leadership, from May until the armistice in November, the War Department dispatched more than a million and a half men to France.
Getting them there was one thing, however; getting General “Black Jack” Pershing, the AEF’s commander-in-chief, to commit them to battle was another. Even as the great German offensive looked set to continue, and with more than half a million Americans already in France, he was adamant that he would not integrate trained battalions within British brigades, insisting instead on building them steadily into separate US brigades, divisions and corps. Field Marshal Douglas Haig railed against him in his diary: “I thought Pershing was very obstinate, and stupid. He did not seem to realise the urgency of the situation . . . [He] hankers after a ‘great self-contained American Army’.” As the AEF had no commanders of divisions and corps, nor staffs, Haig believed it “ridiculous to think such an Army could function alone in less than two years’ time!”

It had, after all, taken that long for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to expand into something of the same. The difference was that the BEF had done so while doing a great deal of fighting, in the course of which a very large number of men, and, crucially, experienced officers, had been killed.
At a meeting of the Supreme War Council at Abbeville in France on May 1, 1918, attended by Georges Clémenceau and David Lloyd George (as well as the Italian prime minister, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, who had sent several divisions and aircraft to fight under French command), General Ferdinand Foch angrily demanded to know if “you are willing to risk our being driven back to the Loire?”
Pershing, fearing that the French and British might be fought to exhaustion by the end of 1918, and that a great American army would then be needed to win the war in 1919, replied: “Yes, I am willing to take the risk.” He was not willing “to fritter away our resources in this manner”.

Although Foch was generalissimo, this did not give him the power to direct how individual units and formations were to be used. His authority was to “co-ordinate the action of the allied armies on the Western Front”. Lloyd George tried one final time, asking: “Can’t you see that the war will be lost unless we get this support?” Pershing was adamant. “Gentleman,” he replied forcefully, “I have thought this programme over very deliberately and will not be coerced.”
While the arguments went on as to how best the Americans could help to win the war, getting them to France looked increasingly as if it would be with demoralising or even debilitating losses at sea.

Admiral Henning von HoltzendorffALAMY

In January 1917, when the Kaiser had worried that unrestricted submarine warfare would bring America into the conflict, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, chief of the Imperial German naval staff, had laid his reputation on the line: “I guarantee on my word as a naval officer that no American will set foot on the Continent!” Although by May 1918 Holtzendorff had had to eat his words (in August he would be replaced by Admiral Reinhard Scheer, with promotion to Grossadmiral in compensation), his U-boats were an undoubted menace.
Operating out of Ostend and Zeebrugge in Belgium, and from the specially constructed U-boat base on Heligoland in the German Bight, they had easy access to the Channel. Almost as soon as war began, the Royal Navy had instigated countermeasures in the narrower waters, including the Dover barrage, a belt of minefields and submarine nets between the Belgian coast and Dover, guarded by the Dover Patrol. In late 1917 this had been shifted farther south, and searchlights installed, to cover the 22 miles between Folkestone and Cap Gris-Nez, so that by May 1918 the Channel was effectively closed to U-boats entering from the north.
The problem remained of the exit into the Atlantic via the Shetland-Norway gap. At the Allied Naval Conference in September 1917 it was agreed to close this gap with mines, despite the technological and logistic challenge of mining water 900ft (270m) deep. The component parts of 100,000 of the newly developed Mark 6 “antenna” mine, effective at the assumed maximum submarine depth of 200ft, were to be manufactured in the US and assembled in Scotland.
The Mark 6, a 34in (86cm) diameter steel sphere with a buoyancy chamber and 300lb (140kg) of TNT was highly sophisticated. The mine was connected to its 800lb anchor box by a steel mooring cable coiled on a reel. Its depth below surface was controlled by allowing the cable to unwind as it was dropped from the minelayer, until, on reaching the bottom, a sensor locked the reel so it would pull the buoyant mine below the surface, whereupon a float extended the antenna above the mine.
Ten rows of mines were laid at a depth of 80ft to be detonated by U-boats on the surface, while submerged craft were targeted by four rows of mines at 160ft, and another four rows at 240ft. Each mine had two safety devices to render it inert on detaching from its mooring cable. The first was an open switch in the detonation circuit that was closed by hydrostatic pressure 25ft below the surface. The second was a spring that pushed the detonator away from the explosive charge into the buoyancy chamber unless compressed by hydrostatic pressure.
Each mine contained a battery with a two-year life connected to a detonating circuit that could be initiated by any one of five parallel fuses, four of which were conventional horns in the mine’s upper hemisphere. Each horn contained a glass ampule of electrolyte to connect an open circuit if broken by bending the soft metal horn. The fifth and wholly innovative fuse was a long copper wire antenna with a float extending above the mine. A ship’s steel hull that touched the antenna would form a battery, the seawater acting as an electrolyte to complete a circuit, with an insulated copper plate on the mine’s surface actuating a detonating relay. The mines had five spring-loaded safety switches in the detonating circuit that were held open by salt pellets taking 20 minutes to dissolve in seawater after the mine was laid overboard.
Laying began in June 1918 by the US navy with Royal Navy support and cover, and by November about 56,000 mines had been laid. Within a month they had claimed the first U-boat. After the war the Admiralty calculated that 23 U-boats were lost to the Northern Barrage, and that it had also been a significant deterrent. The mines further demoralised the German surface fleet too, whose mutiny in October would be a significant factor in the call for an armistice. The cost of the mines was $80 million (about $1.3 billion at today’s prices), the American way of war.
In addition to the minefields, the convoy system introduced in May 1917 was paying dividends. Not only did the escorts provide a strong deterrent to attack, with the improvement of depth charges and development of special equipment such as hydrophones, the convoys became an active means of destroying submerged craft. Aircraft were also an increasing deterrent to surface passage by U-boats, especially when in early 1918 the Germans shifted their attacks to coastal waters in an attempt to sink vessels after the convoys had dispersed to their intended ports of call.
Nevertheless, with the German High Seas Fleet effectively blockaded at Wilhelmshaven, the Kaiserliche Marine had no choice but to continue the submarine offensive. In May Scheer sent six of the new long-range U-boats to operate in American coastal waters. By the end of the war these had sunk nearly 100 ships, but they were mostly sailing vessels or small steamers, with no effect on General March’s transportation plans.
However, the Admiralty was not satisfied with largely passive measures. The justification for Haig’s Third Ypres offensive, Passchendaele, the previous year had been in part the prospect of taking Ostend and Zeebrugge and clearing out the nest of Holtzendorff’s vipers.
After the failure of the offensive to get anywhere near the ports, and the Kaiserliche Marine’s concentration on attacking in coastal waters, in January the First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, was relieved — sacked — for what was perceived as growing defeatism. His successor, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, instructed Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, the new commander of the Dover Patrol, to undertake more vigorous operations in the Channel. Keyes, one of the few senior naval officers to come out of the Dardanelles Campaign with any credit, needed no urging. The most spectacular demonstration of the new offensive spirit came in April with the Zeebrugge Raid. The aim was to block the entrance to the Bruges (Brugge) ship-canal in Zeebrugge harbour, and to Ostend harbour about 15 miles down the coast, as well as inflicting as much damage as possible on both ports.
Devised and led by Keyes, the operation involved about 75 ships and began with superb symbolic timing at one minute past midnight on St George’s Day (April 23). A force of Royal Marines was to mount a diversionary attack on the mile-long Zeebrugge Mole, destroying the gun batteries, a seaplane station and defences, to draw the Germans’ attention from the main object, the blocking of the ship canal. The action was pure Nelson. The little force was carried to the Mole by the old cruiser Vindictive and two River Mersey passenger ferries, the Daffodil and Iris II. Daffodil’s task was to push Vindictive hard-up against the Mole, then to pull alongside the Mole and disembark her Marines.
The Germans, if not actually expecting the attack, were alert nonetheless, and Vindictive came under fire as she approached, with many casualties among the storming party. A smokescreen had been laid by motor launches to cover her approach, but the wind changed direction half an hour before she arrived and the smoke had dispersed. Daffodil managed to push Vindictive against the Mole, but she could not then disengage, and her Marines had to disembark via the cruiser. Iris II was unable to land her Marines directly on the Mole either and tried to get alongside Vindictive, but was only able to get a few men off before having to pull away.
At a quarter past midnight the viaduct connecting the Mole to the shore was severed by the submarine HMS C3 to prevent the Germans from counterattacking. C3’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Richard Sandford, son of the Archdeacon of Exeter, ran his boat packed with high explosive between the iron pillars of the bridge, had the crew taken off by motorboats, then set the fuses. He was just able to get away before the explosion.
Meanwhile, three concrete-filled blockships were scuttled in the narrow access channel, but not in the intended positions. They would only obstruct the canal for a few days, because the Germans removed two piers on the western bank of the canal and dredged a channel through the silt near the sterns of the blockships, which allowed them to get two U-boats past the block ships at each high tide. The attempt to block the harbour at Ostend failed when the blockships grounded too far out. Keyes would make a second attempt in poor weather on May 9, with Vindictive as the main blockship this time, but she too settled in the wrong position and the entrance remained open.

The aim of the Zeebrugge Raid was to block the entrance to the Bruges (Brugge) ship-canal in Zeebrugge harbour, and to Ostend harbourGETTY IMAGES

Casualties at Zeebrugge were heavy for the numbers engaged: more than 200 killed and missing, and 400 wounded. Not surprisingly, although in strict terms a failure, the operation was promoted as a victory, with the award of eight Victoria Crosses, including Sandford of the C3, and numerous other decorations for gallantry. The 4th Battalion Royal Marines were deemed to have acted collectively with such valour that two of the VCs were awarded by ballot under rule 13 of the Victoria Cross Warrant, the last time that awards were made by this procedure.
Ludendorff was not to be distracted by pinpricks. Besides, he had no faith that the Kaiserliche Marine would now achieve anything worthwhile. This was the ultimate reason for his great Kaiserschlacht offensive. On May 27 he renewed the attack, but this time in the direction of Paris: Operation Blücher, named after the Duke of Wellington’s great Prussian partner in scourging the French at Waterloo. On a 24-mile front astride the old Aisne battlefield, in the early hours of the morning, 4,000 guns began yet another Feuerwaltz bombardment — HE, gas and smoke. In the French sector, along the Chemin des Dames, the Germans broke through to a depth of 12 miles, annihilating four divisions. In just six hours, between Soissons and Rheims, the Germans reached the Aisne, destroying another four French divisions and four British. By the end of the next day a 40-mile-wide, 15-mile-deep salient had been driven into the Allied line, and on the fourth day Ludendorff’s men reached the Marne near Château-Thierry.

General “Black Jack” PershingGETTY IMAGES

Elsewhere the Germans were not having it all their own way. On May 28 the first entire American brigade would go into attack, at Cantigny on the Somme. The French army provided air cover and additional artillery support — a preliminary bombardment and then a creeping barrage — plus a dozen tanks and the new flamethrower, which proved effective. The Americans took the village and 100 prisoners, although not without loss. However, it was as great a symbolic success as a tactical one, and Pershing gave the order that no inch of Cantigny was to be surrendered. In the next three days the Germans made no fewer than seven counterattacks, with poison gas; but the Americans held, despite mounting casualties, more than 1,000 by the time they were relieved, including 200 killed. The brigade commander, 50-year-old Iowan Colonel Hanson E Ely, recalled how: “They could only stagger back, hollow-eyed with sunken cheeks, and if one stopped for a moment he would fall asleep.”
Cantigny gave warning, to the Germans and Allies alike, that the Americans, although recently arrived and still green to Western Front fighting, were not to be taken lightly. It also gave force to Pershing’s argument for an independent US army command. At the meeting of the Supreme War Council at Versailles on June 1 Pershing revealed that the planned strength of the AEF in 1919 was now 100 divisions. Although it was not discussed, such a figure would then place Pershing in the driving seat, perhaps even as generalissimo. It would also place President Wilson in an almost unassailable position from which to dictate terms of peace.
For the time being, though, Haig fumed in his diary: “The ignorance of the Americans in all things connected with an Army [was] appalling.”