ii THE GREAT RETREAT ANNIVERSARY SUPPLEMENT, NAVY NEWS, MARCH 2008
lit up his battery. Six thousand flashes Le
marina Continued from page i
intervene. The forthcoming offensive
of fire danced along the Western Front Th
would bear his name – Kaiserschlacht,
from Cambrai to St Quentin. tre
the Kaiser’s Battle – but he had neither
“The world seems to come apart st
decided upon it, nor would he direct
at the seams, the earth trembles, the fro
its course.
skies are torn apart, fl itting about, to
By the fourth year of war, the Kaiser
driven insane,” wrote Mimra. “There’s co
was an increasingly distant, irrelevant
hissing, howling, roaring, whistling
figure. Hindenburg – and especially
through the air. Amid these terrible re
Ludendorff – were the Reich’s de
noise a mighty wall of fi re rears m
facto rulers.
up. It rumbles with a dull, piercing of
The tentacles of the Army stretched
sound. Our eyes and ears begin to cl
into every facet of life in Germany:
hurt. We can no longer hear our own ar
newspapers, films, food distribution,
voices. Messages and orders have w
factories. Yet such overarching control
to be bellowed in someone’s ear. w
of everyday life could not disguise the
This is no longer a barrage. This is
fact that as 1918 opened, Germany
pandemonium.” su
was almost on her knees.
The noise of Mimra’s Batterie 4 pi
The Germans were starving. The
was drowned out by the boom of the en
Allied naval blockade was choking
howitzers to the rear. This hellish m
trade. Demonstrations turned to riots.
concert shook every man to the depths m
“Down with the war,” the people
of his soul, until he overcame his fears w
demanded. “We don’t want to starve
and somehow managed to keep going. tri
any longer!”
The gunners pummelled the British ai
Food was just one of the Reich’s
lines with a mixture of high explosive
shortages. She lacked fuel. She lacked
and gas shells. Those Tommies not he
men. She lacked material. She lacked
wiped out by the German barrage br
horses. The nation was bankrupt.
were stunned by the noxious fumes ex
Church bells were melted down and
drifting over the battlefield. be
re-moulded as guns, lead pipes ripped
al
up and turned into bullets.
Richard Tobin grabbed the band
Man and beast proved harder to
sergeant and scurried for a dugout. be
find, beast especially. The horse
There the men sat as the ground shook G
was the backbone of Kaiser’s Army,
as each enemy shell crashed down an
the beast of burden. Every month
with a loud thud. le
20,000 died or were worn out from the
To 32-year-old former clerk David
exertions at the front.
Polley the enemy’s barrage was “little “O
Germany’s manpower situation was
short of terrifying” – especially so th
almost as dire. She had lost 1,200,000
for the two sentries cowering at the ju
men in 1917. Even by raiding the
dugout entrance and the handful of hi
1899 yeargroup – 18 and 19-year-olds
sailors on the firesteps staring out in
– and sending 50,000 wounded back
from the Royal Naval Division’s lines
to the front line, her Army would still
towards the German trenches. R
be almost half a million men short.
“The enemy guns searched almost hi
“We cannot endure a war drawn out
every inch of the ground,” the Irishman w
indefinitely,” Paul von Hindenburg
recalled. When he clambered out of se
warned his front-line commanders.
his bunker he found a world he barely H
“We must be prepared to end the war
● ‘I think some did not care what happened’... British prisoners of war rest on the road to Cambrai
recognised. se
with a great blow. The breakthrough
do
must succeed at all costs. If it fails,
the field marshal protected his protégé,
THE GREAT PLAN
complete. All that men could do they descend on the head of him who is It was ten minutes after fi ve when co
then for sure we’ll be in a right
even from the hawks in Whitehall... had done. Now the Landser waited for responsible,” he wrote home. the thunder of the guns shook Hubert H
pickle.”
for now, at any rate.
DETAILED PREPARATIONS
Nature to conspire with him against Schütze (rifl eman) Karl Brunotte Gough out of his bed in his quarters in co
the English. waited for the 6,000 guns of the Nesle, a good dozen miles behind the kn
THE FIFTH ARMY
TOUGH BUT GRIM
‘DAY OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE’
It rained continuously on Tuesday German artillery to roar. This would front. He dashed across the hallway
March 19, but that night the clouds be Brunotte’s Feuertaufe, his baptism to his offi ce, grabbed the phone and M
parted and the stars looked down upon of fi re. “Would we be mown down by
A MOST GALLANT SOLDIER
‘QUALITY NOT QUANTITY’
Across the mud, craters and barbed
demanded information. Which part of al
wire of No Man’s Land: 76 assault
the Western Front. machine-guns or have to fi ght man his front was being bombarded? The
CALM AND VERY CONFIDENT
divisions waited to unleash the
The following morning the British against man? Would I be wounded?” response was blunt, frightening. All fo
General Sir Hubert Gough shared Paul
Kaiser’s Battle, supported by more
lines were obscured by a dense fog he wondered. “I was certainly not of it. di
von Hindenburg’s manpower concerns
In the bulge at Flesquières, CPO
than 6,500 field guns and howitzers
which the weak March sun struggled keen to be hit by a large splinter in the He issued what orders he could. ha
– he too lacked men.
Richard Tobin and his Hood Battalion
and 1,000 aircraft.
to burn through. chest or belly or to lose a limb. I would But the battle was already out of his be
Gough’s Fifth Army would bear the
brunt of the German onslaught – not
comrades took shelter in a wood
They would fall not merely upon
At Ludendorff’s headquarters, prefer to die a ‘hero’s death’.” hands. The fate of the British Army,
behind the front line.
Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army, but also
Leutnant Dr Schmaus, the German The night was cold, silent. Behind the Allies, perhaps the Empire, rested str
that he knew it yet – and its position
The men, the senior rating recalled,
its northerly neighbour, Julian Byng’s
Army’s senior meteorologist, the German lines, the roads were with Tommy. And Jack. so
was unenviable.
were “tough, grim, determined”.
Third Army.
presented his forecast. deserted. No crack of rifle fire from the lin
The Fifth Army had been given a
Tough, grim, determined and few in
They would crush the Flesquières
Ludendorff’s guns needed wind British trenches pierced the silence, no Fighter pilot Rudolf Stark was at his bu
‘quiet sector’ of the front stretching
number – “quality not quantity,” a
salient, trapping any Britons holding
coming from the right direction at the sporadic roar of the enemy’s artillery. airfield by first light alongside his To
for 28 miles through the Picardy
battalion joker observed grimly.
the line. They would smash their way
right strength for their gas shells to Coloured flares raced through the comrades. Their aircraft sat on the th
countryside, the southernmost end of
The Steadies – the men took their
west and south-west beyond Albert
paralyse the defenders, but Schmaus’ Picardy heavens, briefly bathing Le Cateau grass in long rows, ready ba
the British line on the Western Front.
The trenches had been allowed to
nickname from the battalion motto,
and the old battlefi eld of the Somme
forecast was far from encouraging. this man-made desert in light before to start.
Steady Hood – were held in reserve,
and on to Amiens. They would drive a
Again Erich Ludendorff gambled fading. The 21-year-old Bavarian had gone gu
stagnate, fall into disrepair. In some
but that did not save them from the
wedge between the British and French
with the fate of his nation. At mid-day The Stosstruppen snatched what to war as a cavalryman with the feared H
places they were even non-existent.
terror of the Materialschlacht – the
Armies and destroy one, or the other,
that Wednesday, the order went out little sleep they could in their cramped Uhlans, before transferring to the air an
There were few observation posts, few
battle of matériel.
or perhaps both in the process. Such
to every army group, to every army, jump-off positions, clutching their force, first as an artillery observer, ta
communications trenches linking the
front with the rear, and telephone lines
Tuesday March 12 was the worst
was the plan.
to every corps, division, regiment battle packs – a cartridge belt, bags now as a fighter pilot.
day yet. The entire Flesquières salient
The ordinary German soldier never
earmarked for the Kaiser’s Battle: of hand-grenades, gas masks, steel He had been awake since long of
ran along the ground, not beneath it.
was plastered by the enemy’s guns
saw the bigger picture, he only saw
tomorrow Germany would strike. helmet and rifl e. Those awake did not before dawn. The dull growl of the St
The parlous state of Fifth Army’s
– perhaps as many as 200,000 shells
the minutiae of preparations for the
“Now it could no longer be stopped,” talk, lost in thoughts of home. guns had woken him and the constant to
front was perhaps unsurprising.
fell on the bulge. The Germans hurled
attack. And he was impressed.
Ludendorff wrote. “Everything must rattle of the furniture and window fly
For more than a year, the line here
gas not high-explosive at Flesquières,
He watched road building
run its course. Richard Tobin could not sleep. He panes in his billet had kept him m
had been quiet by the standards of the
mustard gas. It lingered in every
detachments prepare the way over
“Higher commanders and troops carved a ‘bed’ for himself in a bend awake. th
Western Front. But the signs as 1917
trench, every crater, every dug-out,
the cratered landscape for men and
had all done their duty. The rest was somewhere in Havrincourt Wood. Now, however, Stark and his fellow Ro
drew to a close were disquieting.
every bunker, for days.
artillery. He watched traffic officers
in the hands of fate.” When the wind was in the right fliers could do nothing. A dense mist an
Almost nightly German raiding
parties stormed across No Man’s Land,
For the lucky ones, the gas “reduced
direct the flow of troops and matériel
Fate weighed heavily upon direction he could make out the noise cloaked the land.
the voice to a whisper,” recalled Tobin.
to the forward positions. He studied
Erich Ludendorff, a religious, nay of German troops marching or moving A
grabbed a couple of Tommies, then
“We were a whispering army.”
maps of enemy strongpoints compiled
superstitious man. up to the front line.
THE HURRICANE
m
hauled them back for interrogation.
To those less fortunate, it spelled
after months of intelligence work. He
He consulted the book of the “A quietness I knew so well falls St
Orders from above were
blisters, blindness, a lingering death
watched the stockpile of ammunition
Brüdergemeinde – the Church of the over fronts just before an attack,” he
A WELL-OILED MACHINE
pe
unrealistic. Fortify. Fortify. Fortify.
as lungs blistered and bled.
at depots grow ever higher.
Moravian Brethren. The omens were recalled. Tonight, such a quietness ha
Gough reckoned he would have to
Despite gas masks, despite the
Each unit had a dedicated ‘air raid
promising. came over the Hoods.
STORM TROOPS TO THE FRONT
ba
dig an extra 300 miles of trenches
– with the accompanying barbed wire,
alarms, despite the training, some
warden’, ensuring that everything
“Tomorrow is the day of the Chosen “We were grim. We were
2,000 men fell victim to this pungent
being massed for the assault was
People,” he told a colleague over determined,” said the senior
By mid-morning, the German gunners
co
communications trenches, dugouts – to
yellow gas even before the day of the
hidden from the prying eyes of Allied
lunch. “Don’t you think we can look rating. “Behind us lay the Somme
had perfected their hellish art.
sm
defend his front as he and his masters
Germans’ main assault.
air power.
to the offensive with confidence?” battlefields, every yard soaked with
The men stood in their shirt sleeves,
ho
required.
And that day was not far off now,
By day, the soldiers waited in their
British blood.”
sweat running down their faces, their
pr
Fifth Army’s plight worsened as
Hubert Gough reasoned. Unable to
dugouts and trenches, in the shadows
THE FINAL HOURS
It was ground Tobin and his
arms and dripping on to the mud.
id
January drew to a close when it was
address every man in his army directly,
of walls of villages which once
comrades were loathe to abandon. If
“Shell after shell is rammed into
pr
ordered to take over yet more of the
Gough summoned his divisional
peppered the Picardy landscape, or in
A GREEK TRAGEDY
they had to fall back, they would do
the breach, salvo after salvo is fi red,
ha
French line; its eight divisions now
commanders and urged them to impart
the cellars of homes which no longer
so “foot by foot, inch by inch, fighting
and you don’t need to give orders any
w
defended 42 miles of trenches.
his words and rally the men who
stood. Only at night did they emerge
‘THE HAMMER NOT THE ANVIL’
and killing.”
more, they’re in such good spirits, and
bu
Length of front and lack of men
would bear the brunt of the imminent
from their hideouts. put up such a rate of rapid fi re, that not
co
troubled David Lloyd George less
than the man at the head of Fifth
assault.
Gunner Leutnant Herbert Sulzbach After dark on Wednesday March 20, THE GUNS BELLOW a single word of command is needed,”
Army. The British premier had his
Hubert Gough was not a great orator.
and his men bivouacked next to a the order was handed to 86 Füsilier Herbert Sulzbach observed. T
doubts about Gough. He was “a most
His orders of the day were invariably
hedge on the edge of the village of Regiment Königin. The news quickly THE WORLD COMES APART For five hours, the guns roared.
gallant” soldier. But he was also one
rather terse. Today, however, he turned
Hauteville, near St Quentin. fi ltered down to the men in the The crescendo reached its peak
who did not enjoy the trust of his men.
to Abraham Lincoln for inspiration.
Hauteville was normally home to trenches. X-Day, March 21. H-Hour, LITTLE SHORT OF TERRIFYING shortly after 9am. “What we did not
And, crucially, he was “rather out of
“We accepted this war for one
700 people. In mid-March 1918, there 9.40am. “At last, we leave behind believe was possible now occurs,” Th
his depth”.
object, a worthy object, and the war
were 15,000 German soldiers billeted the narrow trenches, the endless It was still long before dawn, yet the wrote Robert Mimra. “The hurricane te
Gough was – and remains – a rather
will end when that object is attained.
in and around the village. monotony of trench warfare with its darkness of night seem to give way to becomes even more ferocious.” For 30 G
divisive figure. Some troops would
Under God, I hope it will never end
Sulzbach was struck by the morale standing guard, digging in, hacking a slight half-light as Herbert Sulzbach minutes, a hail of high explosives the in
fight and die for ‘Goughie’, many
until that time.”
of the infantry marching through away, having to seek cover and crouch roused his gun crew at 4am. The men like of which the world had never seen ou
would fight and die because of him.
At his headquarters the small
Hauteville to their jump-off positions. down!” one soldier enthused. hung around their battery, gas masks fell upon the British lines. aw
He was the British Army’s youngest
intelligence pieces – an offi cer
They waved and smiled. Their “Finally revenge for four years slung around their necks. In Leutnant Hermann Wedekind’s Th
general. He was also one of its hardest
captured here, Alsatian deserters there,
regimental bands struck up the folk of suffering and teeth-grinding Battery commander Robert Mimra trench, something strange, uplifting ai
taskmasters – although for all his
the crew of a downed German aircraft
songs. Muss i denn, muss i denn zum endurance! At last we’ll be the hammer went over the target co-ordinates – occured. The battalion commander ca
energy and drive, the work of his staff
– slowly completed the jigsaw.
Städtle hinaus – Must I leave, must I and no longer the anvil!” British guns at Neuville – yet again began to sing. Deutschland, ha
was usually slapdash. His manner
By March 19, Hubert Gough was
leave this little town... Junior officer Rudolf Binding with his gunlayers. By 4.30am, Batterie Deutschland über Alles... His m
was abrasive, often intolerant, and
in no doubt. The German guns would
It was all terribly inspiring, but stared westwards over a land “laid 4 stood ready to fire, its barrels trained men joined in. The strains of w
his record on the Somme and in
open up the following day. And on
Sulzbach felt a shiver run down waste, where there are neither roads, at Neuville, its men with the firing Deutschlandlied echoed along the G
Flanders was far
the twenty-fi rst, the fi rst day
his spine as he watched these trees nor villages”. cords in their hand, ready trench.
from impressive
of spring, the infantry would
infantrymen. Binding and his comrades to pull the moment their “It was the first time I had heard
All of which
come. “Everyone is calm
“Which of these good men had been “packed in commander gave the of our men singing the national
mattered
and very confi dent,” he
– and which of us, for that position” for ten days, word. anthem since the autumn of 1914,”
little, for
assured his wife. “All is
matter, is going to come waiting for the order 4.39am. One minute Wedekind remembered.
‘Goughie’
ready.”
home from this battle?” he to strike. to go. “The spirit now wasn’t
enjoyed
Hubert Gough’s
asked himself. “It will be a drama Mimra raised his the same, but I think the
the
confidence might have
By the time Herbert like a Greek tragedy, right hand and battalion commander sang
patronage
evaporated had he
Sulzbach and his with a fate hanging stared at his watch. to take our soldiers’ minds
of Douglas
known the might arrayed
comrades moved into over it, shaped and 4.40am. Mimra off the coming battle.”
Haig – and
against him.
Hauteville, preparations created by man dropped his arm. There was no singing
● ●
◆ for the Kaiser’s Battle were alone, and ready to Four flashes of fire among the Hanoverians of
MMarch Offensive.indd 2arch Offensive.indd 2 118/2/08 10:44:128/2/08 10:44:12
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