The First Battle of the Marne
All the reinforcements sent to von Kluck were now of no avail against the French Sixth Army, which had been fighting against odds since 6th Sept., helped not a little by Pulteney's 3rd Corps on its right flank. Maunoury carried the Ourcq on the 9th, and Pulteney's corps was able to cross the Marne, after stiff fighting at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, at dawn on the following day, when the German retreat became general. The left of the British 2nd Corps had crossed the Marne at Nanteuil, where the bridges were found unbroken and the enemy gone, on the morning of the 9th, but was ordered not to advance too far north until the 1st and 2nd Corps were firmly established on the northern bank. The 1st crossed later in the day at Charly-sur-Marne and Saulchéry, clearing the ground of the enemy and making many captures; but the 3rd Corps had a harder task at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, and, as already mentioned, was not completely established on the other side until the following morning. The first battle of the Marne ended on the night of the 10th with the enemy in full retreat to the north and north-east and the Allies in hot pursuit. By the 12th he had been driven back from the Seine a distance of 65 miles, and the great German plan of a sudden crushing defeat of the Allies in the West had collapsed like a house of cards.
The hopes thus raised among the Allies of a speedy termination of the war in their favour were, on the other hand, equally illusory. Though the Germans lost heavily in officers and men, as well as in guns and other war material, their retreat was no disorderly flight. Many desperate rear-guard actions were fought all along the line, but the enemy retired steadily to prepared positions on the Aisne, where the eyes of all the commanders were to be opened to the possibilities of trench warfare under modern conditions. It needed many hard lessons before the truth was driven home.
When the first battle of the Aisne opened on 13th Sept., the British army already had its outposts on that river, the main body being in positions somewhat to the south, between Soissons and Bourg. Throwing bridges across during the night, the advance was continued on the opposite bank on the following day, though not without heavy British casualties, amounting to between 1500 and 2000, including 3 commanding officers. The 6th Division arrived from England at this stage, and joined its own 3rd Corps on the left. Further advance was stayed by the strength of the enemy's entrenched positions, in which he now determined to make his stand. Here he was backed by an overpowering superiority in artillery which, with fierce counter-attacks on the part of his infantry, gallantly repulsed though they were, caused such severe losses that the British Commander-in-Chief was forced to assume a defensive rôle, while Maunoury, de Castlenau, and Foch each made stupendous efforts to break the enemy's line and renew the war of movement and manœuvre on which their military principles had been based. All, however, ended in the same dreary deadlock of entrenchments.
Failing to shift the enemy from these impregnable positions, Joffre endeavoured to outflank the German right wing, already threatened by Maunoury's advance along the Oise. Two new French armies were formed from the reserves to extend the Allied left—the Seventh, entrusted to de Castlenau, whose Second Army was transferred to Dubail, and the Tenth, the command of which was given to Maud'huy. De Castlenau's Seventh Army, though it failed to turn the enemy's flank—the movement having been anticipated by him—succeeded in extending the pressure of Maunoury's left, which had swung round by the 20th until it ran north from Compiègne to west of Lassigny, and in building the first section of Joffre's great besieging wall which, gradually extending from the Alps to the sea, became the impenetrable barrier between the enemy and his main objectives. The Allies' line was continued by de Castlenau through Roye to Albert, and thence, by Maud'huy's Tenth Army, through Arras to Lens.
Von Moltke had now been superseded in the German Higher Command by Falkenhayn, who promptly countered Joffre's new strategy by similar extensions of the German front, thus beginning the outflanking race destined only to end in stalemate on the coast. While extending their right the Germans made a strenuous effort to regain the initiative by a blow with the army group nominally commanded by the German Crown Prince on Sarrail's flank on the Meuse. It was a blow aimed at Verdun and the whole of the Allied line, which it hoped to break through at this point and so take in the rear. Verdun, however, had been rendered impenetrable by miles of powerfully protected outer defences, and practically the only success which fell to the Crown Prince on this occasion was the capture of the Camp-des-Romains and St. Mihiel on the Meuse, thus creating the remarkable salient east of Verdun which was destined to remain until the Franco-American force flattened it out in the victorious advance of the Allies four years later. The German Crown Prince fared even worse a week later, when he attacked along the main road through the Argonne towards Verdun, only to be flung back. It was after this double failure that the Germans bombarded Rheims and shattered her noble cathedral.
The crucial phase of the struggle in the West had shifted towards the coast as the first battle of the Aisne died down on 28th Sept., and the campaigns began in Artois which led in due course to the fierce struggles for the Labyrinth, the Vimy Ridge, Lens, and Loos. The extension of the French left placed the British army in an anomalous position. Even before Joffre had begun to build his barrier in this direction the British Commander-in-Chief had felt strongly that his proper sphere of action was on the Belgian frontier on the left flank of the French armies, for the two-fold purpose of defending the Channel ports and being in position to concert combined action with the British navy. He suggested this move to the north to Joffre on 29th Sept., pointing out its strategical advantages and the possibility of doing so now that the position of his force on the right bank of the Aisne had been thoroughly well entrenched. Joffre agreed in principle to General French's proposal, but postponed the movement until 3rd Oct.
Retreat from Antwerp
By this time the critical situation of the Belgian army at Antwerp had become hopeless, and the danger of a German descent on the Channel ports suddenly became acute. Since their retreat towards Antwerp after their evacuation of Brussels on 20th Aug., the Belgians had kept the Germans at bay by vigorous counter-attacks, and threatened their communications by sundry sorties from the fortress. These sorties and counter-attacks, calling for reinforcements at a time when every soldier was needed on the main fighting fronts, infuriated the Germans and led to the reign of terror which included the deliberate destruction of Louvain and similar outrages at Malines, Termonde, and elsewhere.
Having made his position secure on the Aisne, and brought up his heavy guns, the enemy began his bombardment of the outer forts of Antwerp on 28th Sept. By the 3rd of Oct. the Belgians were endangered not only by the besieging army, but also by the ever-lengthening German line which, having now been extended from Lassigny to Lille—only 38 miles from the sea—threatened to isolate the Belgian forces from the Franco-British armies. They accordingly decided that plans must be made at once to withdraw from Antwerp in the direction of Ghent, both to protect the coast-line and gain touch with the Allies. The British troops hurriedly sent to reinforce the Belgians—a brigade of Royal Marines and part of the recently formed Naval Division—had no influence on the fate of the fortress, but helped in protecting the flight of the citizens and in the final retreat of the Belgian army. Some 1500 of the Royal Naval Division were forced across the Dutch frontier and interned, and about 800 were made prisoners. The remnants of the British force, and the bulk of the Belgian army, escaped westward, leaving the Germans on 9th Oct. in possession of the deserted city. A little more and the German commander (von Beseler) might have closed the gap beyond the Scheldt through which this retreat had been made. Luckily for the Allies, too, the German Higher Command failed, as Lord French long afterwards expressed it, to gather the richer harvest which had been put within its grasp by the capture of Antwerp. There was then apparently no insuperable obstacle to an immediate German advance on Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, before the Allied troops could arrive from the main theatres to prevent it. "As on the Marne, so at Antwerp, they were not prepared to seize the psychological moment and to play boldly for the great stake".
General French, who had been given no voice in the Antwerp dispositions, was now in the midst of the British move from the Aisne front to the north, where he was to be reinforced by the 7th Infantry and 3rd Cavalry Divisions, which had been landed on the Belgian coast to defend Zeebrugge and Ostend under Rawlinson's command, and the Indian contingent, which had just arrived at Orleans under Willcocks.
First Battle of Ypres
The two corps under de Castlenau and de Maud'huy were now under the supreme command of General Foch, who had orders to control all the French armies operating in the northern theatre, and was confident that it was still possible to outflank the Germans and bend them back behind the Scheldt. At the end of a fortnight the British army had been successfully transported to the north from the Aisne—after successfully holding the line of that river for twenty-five days against many desperate efforts of the enemy to break through—and had taken up its position on the left of Maud'huy's corps, the Allies' line being extended thence into Flanders by the French 8th Corps (under d'Urbal), which had been called up by Joffre to this end, as well as to help the sorely tried Belgians. Meantime the Germans, besides pressing Maud'huy hard in front of Arras, and forcing his Territorials out of Lille, had driven the retreating Belgian army out of Houthulst Forest to the line of the Yser north of Ypres, whence it took refuge behind the Yser and completed the Allied line to the coast. Rawlinson's 4th Corps, covering the retreat of the Belgian army, had hard fighting most of the way before it succeeded in joining the mainBritish army, the German forces from Antwerp concentrating westwards in ever increasing numbers. By the 15th Capper's 7th Division was east of Ypres, while Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division, a day earlier, had connected up with Gough's 2nd Cavalry Division in front of Kemmel and assisted in the capture of that position, a gain which proved of the utmost importance in the subsequent struggle for Ypres. Allenby's Cavalry Corps had greatly distinguished itself during the two previous days, driving the enemy back all the way in a magnificent sweep to the north and north-east.
A brilliant series of advances by Pulteney's 3rd Corps on 12-15th Oct., leading to the capture of Bailleul and Meteren, and the line Sailly-Nieppe, confirmed French in the belief which he shared with Foch that the enemy had exhausted his strength, and that the time was ripe for a strong offensive eastwards. The advance had scarcely been started, however, before reports arrived of a powerful offensive on the part of the Germans towards Ypres and the Yser. The power and weight of the enemy's opposition on the British front increased each day. Armentières and the Bois Grenier were won by 15th Oct., but the failure of the 4th Corps in its advance on Menin was one of numerous indications that the Germans were being heavily reinforced. By the 21st all General French's worst forebodings were realized by the certainty established that the small German force which had been operating between Ostend and Menin on the 18th had been increased by no fewer than four corps. This discovery, in the British Commander-in-Chief's own words, "came like a veritable bolt from the blue". There was no longer any hope of continuing the offensive on the part of the comparatively weak British line, extended as it was on too long a front. It was a case of holding on now until relief arrived.
The threat was twofold. Not only were the Germans massing in tremendous strength in the north; they were also seriously threatening the British right. Maud'huy, round Arras, was fighting a battle which, like that which the British were waging round Ypres, was one of the landmarks of the war. He sent word on the 16th that the enemy was intent on driving in a wedge between Ypres and La Bassée—a threat which, had it matured, would have finally separated the Allies, and compelled the British either to surrender or be driven into the sea. Faced by this double threat, General French decided to risk the possible disaster on his right, and concentrate against the German tide in the north, which otherwise must gain the seaboard, with possibly fatal consequences to the whole British campaign.
Fortunately the First Army under Haig had already been ordered in the direction best calculated to meet the new situation, though there was no longer any hope of its original orders—to turn the enemy's flank and drive him back to Ghent—being carried out. In this first phase of the battle of Ypres, which lasted until the night of 26th Oct., the northern portion of the British line, notwithstanding the enemy's immense reinforcements, progressed slowly but surely, and took heavy toll in killed, wounded, and prisoners. A certain amount of ground was lost to the south, between Zonnebeke and La Bassée—the commanders of both the 2nd and 3rd Corps being anxious about their positions on more than one occasion—but at no point was any serious break made in the line. Maud'huy at the same time was gallantly keeping the enemy in check in the Arras region, though he could not drive him from Lens and the Vimy Ridge; while on the left the French and Belgians were withstanding repeated assaults on the swaying front between Dixmude and the sea. The line held, and was now more or less firmly established.
The second phase of the battle of Ypres consisted in the repeated attempts of the Germans to break through this line at all costs. It began on 27th Oct., and lasted through five of the most momentous days in the history of the British army. On this day the French 9th Corps, which had been sent by Joffre to the assistance of the sorely tried British troops, took over the trenches in the northern part of the British salient. Capper's 7th Division, exhausted by incessant fighting and fearful losses, was temporarily attached to Haig's 1st Corps in the centre, and took over the ground south of the Ypres-Menin road. Byng's 3rd Cavalry Division was at the same time placed under Allenby. The 4th Corps was thus temporarily broken up, Rawlinson being sent home to supervise the preparation of the 8th Division for France.
The British line was further reduced in numbers during the opening days of this new phase of the battle by the repeated but unavailing attempt of the enemy to advance, the Germans meantime mounting up reserves of reinforcements for a decisive blow until, by the 30th, they outnumbered the battle-worn British by two to one. Then came the onslaught in full, almost overpowering strength. "October 31st and November 1st", afterwards wrote the British Commander-in-Chief in his story of1914, "will remain for ever memorable in the history of our country, for during those two days, no more than one thin and straggling line of tired-out British soldiers stood between the Empire and its practical ruin as an independent first-class Power." The storm centre of the Britishbattle-line was the Wytschaete-Messines ridge, where Allenby's Cavalry Corps and Shaw's 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division withstood for forty-eight hours the supreme efforts of two and a half German army corps to dislodge them. The honours of those heroic days were shared by the French 9th Corps and the British 1st Corps (with the 7th Division attached) in their continued defence of the Ypres salient; and the British 2nd Corps, which held a long line on the right in difficult country, and, though forced to give up Neuve Chapelle on the 28th, withstood repeated attacks by superior numbers until the Indian Corps took over their positions.
Map showing lines of the Allied Armies in Northern France at the end of October and beginning of November 1914Map showing lines of the Allied Armies in Northern France at the end of October and beginning of November, 19141, Yser line, defended by Franco-Belgian forces.2, Ypres to La Bassée line, guarded chiefly by British troops.3, French lines to a point above Verdun.4, French lines adjacent to the Alsace-Lorraine frontier.
1, Yser line, defended by Franco-Belgian forces.
2, Ypres to La Bassée line, guarded chiefly by British troops.
3, French lines to a point above Verdun.
4, French lines adjacent to the Alsace-Lorraine frontier.
The culminating phase of the battle began on the 29th, when overwhelming masses of the enemy stormed the centre of the Ypres salient, held by Haig's 1st Corps and the 7th Division, and forced our troops back on Gheluvelt. The ground was recovered before nightfall, but fighting of the fiercest character continued all round and beyond the salient, the critical sector of the 31st extending from Gheluvelt to Messines, on the south, where the 1st Cavalry Division was heavily pressed, and the London Scottish received their costly baptism of fire. The Germans got into Messines that day, but were hurled out again, and the line in this sector was completely restored by nightfall. The climax of the crisis had been reached shortly after midday in the Gheluvelt area, when the 1st Corps, after doing more than could be expected of any men in their prolonged stand against the heaviest odds, was at last broken, part of the 1st Divisionfalling back rapidly along the Ypres-Menin road, with the Germans at their heels. "I felt", afterwards wrote General French, who was not more than a mile or so away at the time, "as if the last barrier between the Germans and the Channel seaboard was broken down", and he spent the worst half-hour his life had ever known. The situation was saved by Brigadier-General FitzClarence, V.C., commanding the 1st Guards Brigade of the 1st Division, who, on his own initiative, and in the nick of time, ordered the 2nd Worcesters to counter-attack. The Worcesters, who were in reserve to the 2nd Division, rushed up to fill the gap, and, saving the South Wales Borderers, drove the Germans out of Gheluvelt and re-established the line, which was completely restored before dark. FitzClarence was killed only a week or two later in the same part of the field.
The third phase of the battle of Ypres lasted from 1st Nov. to the 10th. Its most dangerous hours were at the very beginning, when both Messines and Wytschaete were lost, and only the timely arrival of the French 16th Corps, which partially restored the situation, and the devoted bravery of Allenby's Cavalry Corps, staved off this new threat of disaster. It is impossible here to follow all the confused operations in the remainder of this phase, in which fighting continued with varying intensity, and mingled success, all along the line from La Bassée to the sea.
The outstanding feature of the fourth and final phase, which extended from 11th Nov. to the 21st, was the succession of heavy assaults by the pick of the Prussian Guard, ordered by the Kaiser personally to carry the Ypres salient at all hazards. It failed, but not before the Germans had pierced the front along the Menin road in the first clash of arms on the morning of the 11th, a battalion of Royal Fusiliers being practically wiped out in gallantly disputing their passage. Haig met the situation "with the same grim determination, steadfast courage, and skilful forethought"—the words are those of Lord French—"which had characterized his handling of the operations throughout". The line was re-established, but only after fearful losses on both sides. The 1st (Guards) Brigade mustered at night only 4 officers and 300 men.
The French and Belgians were also attacked all along their line between Ypres and the sea—where British monitors swept the coast with shells for 6 miles inland—but the enemy was held off, save at Dixmude, which he captured and held. Between Dixmude, which had been stubbornly defended by Admiral Ronarc'h and his French marines, and Nieuport the sluices of the Yser had been opened by the Belgians, and the low-lying country across which the Germans were striving to force a way so flooded as to render all their efforts futile.
It was during this final effort of the Germans to reach the Channel ports in 1914 that Lord Roberts arrived at the front to visit the Indian Corps, who had withstood some heavy assaults on the old line of the Second Army, between Armentières and La Bassée. Lord Roberts had scarcely fulfilled his mission, inspiring the troops with his presence at a critical time, when he was taken suddenly ill on 13th Oct. and died on the following day.
North of Armentières the British 3rd Corps under Pulteney, which held the line thence towards Messines, had its share of fighting on the left bank of the Lys, and though its deeds in maintaining its positions were overshadowed by the epic struggles in the salient, its minor battles played their part in the victory of First Ypres. The great battle died down with the failure of the supreme effort of the Prussian Guard. Rains and floods and mud combined to call a halt in the struggle for the Channel ports, and the Western front was now established for the winter. There were occasionally attacks by the Germans at Ypres and Festubert, and more than one attempt on their part to cross the flooded Yser on rafts; but all to no purpose; and before the end of the year (20th Dec.) a five days' battle between the Indian troops and the Germans round Givenchy left matters much as they were before, the British positions, with the aid of British troops, being held. The French also broke the monotony of trench warfare with encouraging advances in Alsace, towards Noyon, in the Argonne, and elsewhere, but no vital changes took place in the general situation.
Eastern Front, 1914
Foiled in their grandiose plans in the West, the Germans were forced to rest content with their valuable territorial gains in France and Belgium, and remain on the defensive there while they turned to the more threatening situation on the Eastern front. As already noted, the Germans had under-estimated the rapidity of the Russian mobilization. They had not anticipated an offensive on that front until they could spare as many reserves as necessary from the West, and the forces left to guard their vulnerable frontier of East Prussia were as inadequate to stay the unexpected advance which the Grand Duke Nicholas, who was in supreme command of the Russian armies, ordered under Generals Rennenkampf and Samsonoff, as were the Belgians to prevent the march of the Germans across their territory. By 25th Aug. the Russian armies, whose advance had begun as early asthe 7th, had pushed so far ahead that all East Prussia seemed in danger of falling into their hands. General von François, commanding the German troops, had been driven into Königsberg, the cradle of the Prussian monarchy; Gumbinnen, Justerberg, Allenstein, Soldau, had all been captured; and the hopes of a flight to Berlin before the Russian 'steam-roller'—too often raised in the early stages of the war—seemed not unlikely to be realized.
Germany's hour of danger, however, produced the man who was destined to play a ruling part in the remaining phases of the struggle—Paul von Hindenburg, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, then on the retired list. Hindenburg knew the topography of East Prussia by heart, and had commanded army corps in manœuvres along that frontier for many years. Appointed at this critical moment to supersede General von François, he collected 160,000 men from every available source, and by means of Germany's unequalled strategic railway system had concentrated them in a favourable position between Allenstein and Soldau for delivering the blow which would cut the communications of the southern army under Samsonoff, and smash it piecemeal in the treacherous marshes of the Masurian Lakes, the tracks through which, though well known to Hindenburg, were a veritable tangle to the Russians.
Tempted by their initial triumphs, the Russians had themselves courted disaster by placing themselves in precarious positions. Samsonoff's southern army had not only lost touch with the northern force under Rennenkampf, which had occupied Insterberg on the 23rd on its march on Königsberg, but had also failed to secure either Allenstein or Soldau. Hindenburg was quick to seize every advantage, and his lethal thrust on the 26th, when he retook Soldau and outflanked the Russian left, was followed by a similar enveloping movement on their right before they realized what had happened. Masses of German guns came up and completed the move. Too late the Russians fled along the only road left open to them—by way of Ortelsberg and Johannisberg, across a narrow slip of land between the marshes. Save for little more than one corps, which succeeded in escaping along this route before it was closed, practically the whole of Samsonoff's army was wiped out in this decisive battle of Tannenberg, as the victors named it. Samsonoff himself was killed by a shell on 31st Aug. Altogether the Russians lost in killed and wounded some 30,000; no fewer than 90,000 were taken prisoners.
Hindenburg, whose Chief of Staff was General von Ludendorff—already distinguished in the war as the leader in the assault on Liége—at once became a national hero throughout Germany. The Central Powers, however, had little further cause for rejoicing on the Eastern front in 1914, once Hindenburg had been enticed to the Niemen by the rapid retreat of Rennenkampf after the Tannenbergdébâcle. The Grand Duke Nicholas had sent General Ruzsky from Galicia to retrieve the situation, and the new leader made as good use of the Niemen River—a formidable obstacle to cross with its width of some 200 yards—as Hindenburg had done of the Masurian Lakes. The operations, which ended in the failure of the Germans to cross the river, and their heavy defeat at Augustovo after a sanguinary nineteen days' battle beginning on 1st Oct., restored confidence to the Russian army.
General Ruzsky had already made his mark in the opening campaign in Galicia, where the Austro-Hungarian armies, after invading Russian Poland at the opening of the war, were driven back in a series of mighty battles which left the Russians in possession of Lemberg and all Eastern Galicia. Brussiloff was meantime sweeping on towards the Carpathian passes, while Ivanoff, commanding the Russians in Poland, forced back the invading armies under Dankl and the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand beyond the Vistula and Cracow. Przemysl alone held out in Galicia, and this was invested by the Russians towards the end of September, when the Germans, far to the north on the Niemen, were rapidly losing the advantage and prestige they had won at Tannenberg. Hence Germany's increasing need for help from the Western front.
In order to check the Russian advance on the key position of Cracow, Hindenburg was now called from the East Prussian front to take over the supreme command of the unified German and Austro-Hungarian armies in a crushing blow at the Russian centre in Poland. Hindenburg's advance on Warsaw was planned by his Chief of Staff, Ludendorff, to keep pace with a parallel advance of the Austro-German armies in the south, intended to raise the siege of Przemysl and turn the Russians out of Lemberg. The combined forces of the Central Powers amounted to some two million men, outnumbering the Russians by at least half a million, and outgunning them completely. It speaks volumes not only for the fighting spirit of the Russian armies at this period of the war, but also for the strategy inspired by the Grand Duke Nicholas, that in both the first and second battles of Warsaw the combined Austro-German armies were both outfought and outmanœuvred. "The Grand Duke Nicholas", to quote from Lord French's tribute to his leadership some years later, "proved that he possessed that highest of military gifts—the power of renunciation,of 'cutting down', of sacrificing the less essential for the more."
Foreseeing the danger of Hindenburg's march on Warsaw, the Grand Duke promptly recalled the first great Russian advance on Cracow, and the armies concerned were safely withdrawn behind the Vistula and the San before the enemy could cut the main line from Warsaw to Kiev. Ivanoff's army in Galicia conformed to the general movement. While thus suggesting the abandonment of Poland and a general retirement on Brest-Litovsk, the Grand Duke placed a field army in defence of Warsaw, assisted by Japanese heavy artillery, and prepared a great counter-offensive from the north-west, under cover of the guns of Novo Georgievsk.
Hindenburg's main blow was delivered at Josefov, higher up the Vistula, with the intention of taking Warsaw in the rear. Ruzsky had been brought down to take command at Josefov, and here repeated the disaster which he had recently inflicted on the Germans at Augustovo. This time he lured the enemy across the river before falling on him in difficult country, and cut him to pieces. Rennenkampf was equally successful with the counter-attack from Novo Georgievsk, striking so hard that the German left centre was forced back from the Vistula with heavy losses. With both flanks turned—for Ruzsky had followed up his victory by himself crossing the river at Novo Alexandriev, and driving the Germans back first to Radowa (15th Oct.) and then to Kielce (3rd Nov.)—Hindenburg had no alternative but to seek safety within the German frontier, and prepare another counter-stroke. The only success of the first advance on Warsaw was achieved by the Austrians under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand and Generals Woyrsch and Dankl, who succeeded in temporarily relieving Przemysl and recovering Jaroslav. Hindenburg's retreat, however, compelled them to withdraw in conformity to that movement. Przemysl was again invested, the Austrians again fell back in Galicia, and the Russian advance on Cracow was renewed, the Grand Duke Nicholas having set his heart on reaching that convenient gateway both to Berlin and Vienna before the end of the year.
The second Russian advance on Cracow commenced with the second German advance on Warsaw, and both operations naturally reacted on each other. The Russians were at the very gates of Cracow by 5th Dec., but were then checked by an Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive which threatened both their flanks. The loss of the Dukla Pass (12th Dec.) forced a general retreat on this front, and was followed by the loss in turn of the Lupkow and Uszok Passes. By 20th Dec., however, the Russians, who had fallen back behind the River Nida, turned on their pursuers and drove them north again until they were once more in possession of the Carpathian passes.
The Germans were no more successful in their second advance on Warsaw than the Russians had been in their march on Cracow. Hindenburg's urgent call for reinforcements, which had helped to relieve the pressure on the Western front in those critical days round Ypres, enabled him to attack all along the line on 18th Nov. The main assault was delivered by von Mackensen on the line held by Ruzsky from Gombin, on the Vistula, to Uniejov, on the Warta. Ruzsky's retreat to the Bzura in face of Mackensen's terrific onrush was one of the brilliant episodes of the war. It continued, with an increasing bulge, until Mackensen, on 23rd Nov., burst right through this and split it in halves. The halves held, and began to close up, with two German army corps all but bottled up within. But for some blunder in timing, for which Rennenkampf was held responsible, their only way of escape would have been cut off. As it was, after three days of desperate fighting, the German corps fought their way out—but only in remnants.
The Russians themselves had suffered heavy losses and were running short of ammunition, and when Hindenburg retaliated by blow upon blow in every sector, the Grand Duke Nicholas shortened his front, evacuated Lodz, and defended Warsaw from behind the Rawka and the Bzura. Here he sustained repeated onslaughts for nearly three weeks, the fiercest fighting taking place between the 19th Dec. and Christmas Eve against Bolimov and Sochaczew. In the end the Germans failed to hack a way through to Warsaw, just as they had failed a few weeks previously in their efforts to break through to Ypres and the Channel ports on the Western front. They were still 35 miles from the Polish capital at the close of 1914.
Opening Campaign in Serbia
In the meantime the Austro-Hungarian armies, which had somewhat atoned for their earlier failures by their successes in the recent advance which had temporarily relieved Przemysl, were making little headway in their campaign against Serbia. That heroic little nation, though sadly depleted in her manhood by two years of Balkan warfare, was more than a match for her mightier neighbours in the opening stages of the European War. Austria's first punitive expedition, heralded by the bombardment of Belgrade on 29th July, was easily checked, the main invading forces being withdrawn to meet the new situation on the Russian front. Serbia and Montenegro thereupon invaded Bosnia, and an unproductivecampaign of withdrawals and advances led, towards the end of October, when Turkey threw in her lot with the Central Powers, to an Austrian invasion of Serbia in earnest. At first the Austrians, an army corps strong, and advancing in three columns, carried all before them. Valjevo fell on 29th Nov., and Belgrade ten days later. In withdrawing, however, the Serbians, ably led by the Crown Prince, Marshal Putnik, and General Mishitch, were falling back towards their bases and new supplies of ammunition; and in the battle of Rudnik, or 'Battle of the Ridges', which followed, turned on their pursuers and practically destroyed them. The battle lasted three days, at the end of which the remnants of the Austrian army corps, with the victorious Serbians hard on their heels, were in full flight to the frontier, leaving behind them 15,000 prisoners and 19 guns. All told their casualties amounted to some 80,000 and the bulk of their guns before the survivors were back in their own country, across the Danube, the Drina, and the Save.
First Months of the War at Sea
At sea the first months of the war had seen the Germans very discreetly sheltering in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, leaving it to submarines, mine-layers, raiders, and a few commerce-destroyers to do as much damage as possible and reduce the disparity between its own force and that of the Allied fleets.
The first naval action of any importance took place in the Bight of Heligoland, on 23rd Aug., when a force of destroyers, led by Commander Tyrwhitt in the new light cruiserArethusa, with another light cruiser, theFearless, and a flotilla of submarines under Commodore Keyes, served as a lure to draw out the Germans. They drew first a German force of destroyers and two cruisers (AriadneandStrasburg) from Heligoland. TheArethusagreatly distinguished herself in the general engagement which followed, but, though she played the main part in driving the Germans back, she was so badly cut up that she had to be taken in tow at the end of the action. This was not until the Germans, deceived into the belief that the British ships were unsupported, sent out their heavier cruisers, theMainz,Köln, andAurora, just in time for Beatty's battle-cruisers, which arrived at the critical moment, led by theLion, to settle the issue by sinking the three enemy cruisers above mentioned, besides a number of their destroyers. No British units were lost. Apart from this engagement the war in home waters for the next few months resolved itself into such isolated incidents as the sinking of the three old sister cruisersAboukir,Hogue, andCressyby the German submarine commanded by Otto Weddigen (22nd Sept.); the destruction of four German destroyers by the British light cruiserUndaunted, supported by destroyers, on 17th Oct.; and raids by fast German cruisers on Yarmouth (3rd Nov.), on Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools (16th Dec.), the first of which led to the loss of the German cruiserYorckwhile crossing the minefield at Wilhelmshaven.
The scattered units of the German navy in other seas were gradually bottled up or destroyed. The DreadnoughtGoeben, and the light cruiserBreslau, which were in the Mediterranean on the outbreak of hostilities, succeeded in evading the British fleet and reached the Dardanelles, where they played no small part in persuading the pro-German Turks, a few months later, openly to side with the Central Powers. Other German warships caught by the war in more distant waters included the light cruiserEmden, on the China station. TheEmdendisappeared for six weeks and then turned up in the Bay of Bengal, bombarding Madras on 22nd Sept., and capturing some twenty British steamers in the same month. On 28th Oct. she sank a Russian cruiser in Penang Roads, as well as a French destroyer, but twelve days later (9th Nov.) ended her eventful cruise off Cocos (Keeling) Islands, where she called to destroy the cable and wireless station. The telegraphists on the island sent out a warning message which reached theSydney, a British cruiser of the Australian squadron then escorting Australian and New Zealand troops to the war. Within three hours theSydneyarrived on the scene, and having the range of theEmdenwith 6-inch guns to 4.1-inch guns, forced the German cruiser ashore. After losing 7 officers and 104 men theEmden, burning and half-sunk, surrendered.
Map to illustrate the Battle of the Falkland IsMap to illustrate the BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND IS.Map illustrating approximately—from Admiral Sturdee's Dispatch—the Battle of the Falkland Islands from start to finish. The map must not be regarded as showing the proper scale of distances, &c.
Map illustrating approximately—from Admiral Sturdee's Dispatch—the Battle of the Falkland Islands from start to finish. The map must not be regarded as showing the proper scale of distances, &c.
More dangerous than theEmdenwas the German cruiser squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee, which concentrated in the South Pacific from Kiao-Chau and elsewhere. The squadron consisted of the twin cruisersScharnhorstandGneisenau, each of 11,400 tons, 22 knots speed, and an armament which included eight 8.2-inch guns; and three smaller cruisers,Dresden,Nürnberg, andLeipzig, each of 3500 tons, and carrying ten 4.1-inch guns. On 1st Nov. von Spee fell in with the weak British squadron under Admiral Cradock, who had been sent in August to protect the South Pacific trade, and was expecting reinforcements to cope with the German concentration. Cradock's squadron consisted of old ships like the cruisersGood HopeandMonmouth; the light cruiserGlasgow, and the armed linerOtranto; the pre-Dreadnought battleshipCanopus, which had been left behind for repairs, being some twelve hours away.Outsteamed and outranged—though theGood Hope(14,000 tons) had two 9·2-inch guns on board—with the setting sun silhouetting their surfaces against the sky, they were no match for the Germans, who made the most of the added advantage which their inshore position gave them, obscuring their outlines when, as the light began to fail, they drew nearer to Cradock's ships and opened fire. TheGood Hope'stwo 9.2-inch guns could not find their target in the fading light, and were soon put out of action by von Spee's flagship, theScharnhorst, whose eight 8.2-inch guns, like those of theGneisenau, which meantime was engaged in a similar duel with theMonmouth, now had the British at their mercy. The 6-inch guns of Cradock's ships, almost awash in the rolling seas, were useless. At 7.50 p.m. theGood Hopeblew up, but not before Cradock had ordered theGlasgowto get away with all speed and warn theCanopus. The uselessOtrantohad been ordered away before the battle opened. TheMonmouth, after being silenced and set on fire by the 8.2-inch guns of theGneisenau, was finally sunk by theNürnberg. No survivors were picked up by the Germans, either from theGood Hopeor theMonmouth. With Cradock perished in this naval disaster off Coronel some 1500 officers and men.
Meanwhile theGlasgow, making full use of her 25-knot speed, had warned the slow oldCanopus, and together they made their way back to the Falkland Islands to await developments. Four days later Lord Fisher, who had just succeeded Prince Louis of Battenberg as First Lord of the Admiralty (20th Oct.), dispatched Admiral Sturdee with a squadron bent on avenging Cradock, and protecting the valuable base and coaling-station of the Falklands. Sturdee's squadron included the two first battle-cruisers built—theInvincibleandInflexible, each of 17,250 tonnage, with a speed of 27 knots, and eight 12-inch guns, besides sixteen 4-inch guns and five torpedo tubes. There were also four lighter cruisers—Carnarvon,Kent,Cornwall, andBristol; and to these were added theCanopuswhen Sturdee reached the Falklands on 7th December. TheGlasgowhad already been picked up in the South Atlantic. The superiority both in number and weight of guns was now overwhelmingly on the side of the British.
Von Spee, who claimed to have suffered little loss in his victory off Coronel, had returned in the meanwhile to Valparaiso to refit, leaving again for the Falklands on 15th Nov. His programme apparently was to do as much damage as possible to the British base and coaling-station at Port Stanley; account for theCanopusandGlasgow, which he expected to find defending the port; and thence make for South Africa in support of the rebellion there. Only some twenty-four hours before he approached Port Stanley Admiral Sturdee had arrived, and the news sent by the signallers on the island at 8 a.m., that the unsuspecting enemy was approaching, found the crews grimy from coaling, but alert and ready. Von Spee sent theGneisenauandNürnbergahead to shell the wireless station, but a salvo of 12-inch shells from theCanopusin the harbour at 9.20 a.m. caused them to change their course. It was not, however, until 9.45 a.m., when theInvincibleandInflexibleput out to sea with theGlasgowandKent, that the presence of the battle-cruisers was revealed to them. It was then too late to escape. The German ships were no match for the British battle-cruisers either in speed or gun-power. With the conditions of Coronel thus reversed, Von Spee, abandoning the attempt to run as hopeless, decided to die fighting, and met his death as gallantly as Cradock had done some five short weeks before. Both theScharnhorstand her sister theGneisenau, battered by the two British battle-cruisers, who were later joined by theCarnarvon, until they were mere helpless hulks, fought to the last before they capsized, the first at 4.15 p.m., the second just after six. Boats were ordered out to save survivors, and some 200 Germans were picked up from these and other ships that were sunk. TheLeipzig, pursued by theGlasgowandCornwall, kept up a running fight for three hours, and then, hammered to pieces, hauled her flag, but afterwards sank. TheNürnberg, after a longer chase, suffered a similar fate at the hands of theKent, sinking an hour after surrendering. Only theDresdenescaped, seeking refuge at Juan Fernandez, but three months later she was called to account there by theKentandGlasgow(14th March, 1915), when, after a five minutes' action, she was blown up by her commander.
With no enemy fleet at sea the task of the British navy was reduced to guarding British commerce from submarines and raiders, keeping watch and ward in the North Sea, and conveying troops to and from the widely scattered theatres of war. Every month added to Britain's commitments in various parts of the globe. All hope of an early peace had vanished by the end of 1914.
Mobilizing the Empire
Happily for the British Empire, Lord Kitchener had from the first anticipated a long-drawn struggle. His call for volunteers "for three years, or the duration of the war", showed how clearly he realized the gravity of the situation. One of his first demands had been for another half-million men to go on with, and history has recorded how nobly the young manhood of thenation responded to his call. All the Dominions and Overseas possessions rallied to the Motherland with equal enthusiasm. We have shown how Indian troops—fighting for the first time on European soil—had already stepped into the breach on the Western front. The Canadians, nearest at hand, were the first of the Dominions to follow suit, but Australia and New Zealand, before their campaigns in Egypt and Gallipoli—and subsequently in France and Flanders—had already occupied Samoa, the Bismarck Archipelago, and other German islands in the Pacific.
South Africa, 1914
South Africa, on the outbreak of hostilities, had offered to carry the war into the German territory of South-West Africa, but General Botha had first to crush a revolt of Colonel Maritz's force; and this was succeeded by a more formidable rising in the Orange River Colony under De Wet, and in the Transvaal under Beyers. The response to Botha's call to arms proved the striking loyalty of the rest of the Union, and with the force thus mustered the South African Prime Minister completely defeated the rebels before the end of November. De Wet was captured, and Beyers was drowned in attempting to escape. The colonial campaign which followed will be dealt with subsequently.
1915 on the European Fronts
The Russian Campaign.—The heaviest burden of the war on the main fronts was now borne by Russia. Having failed to force a decision in the West, Germany looked to the Eastern front for compensating triumphs, confident that she could maintain her defensive positions against the Franco-British armies until such time as, with Austria-Hungary's help, she had brought Russia to her knees. It was also necessary to overawe Roumania and any other hesitating Balkan state that might be disposed to throw in its lot with Russia and her allies. Russia herself was provoking this reversal of German strategy by her renewed advances both on the Carpathian and East Prussian fronts. Hindenburg made two attacks on Warsaw early in the year (February and March), one by way of the Narew and the other by that of the Niemen, but both failed, thanks chiefly to the indomitable spirit of the Russian infantrymen, ill-equipped though they were. It was not until Mackensen's great 'drive' began on the southern flank in Galicia that Germany's new strategy revealed itself. Russia had then reached the culminating point in her military career. Besides holding up the German offensive in Poland, she had made herself mistress of all East Galicia, Przemysl having fallen to General Selivanoff on 22nd March after an investment of five months, thus releasing 100,000 men to reinforce the armies under Ivanoff, Dmitrieff, and Brussiloff—then battling for the passes which led through the Carpathians into the Plain of Hungary. Przemysl alone yielded 126,000 Austrian prisoners, including the commander, General von Kusmanek, and 1000 guns. Between that period and the middle of April, when the Russians claimed possession of all the Carpathian heights along a front of 70 miles from south of the Dukla Pass to north of the Uszok Pass, another 70,000 Austrian prisoners were taken.
It was a dazzling, but an illusory triumph. The Russians had been deliberately led by the Austrians—under instructions from the German Higher Command—into their hazardous Carpathian adventure as part of the secret preparations for Mackensen's mighty blow elsewhere. Von Falkenhayn, then Chief of Staff, afterwards gave the credit for the plan to the German General Head-quarters. Germany, with all her factories turning out munitions of war far in excess of anything that the Allies could then muster, had been accumulating guns and ammunition for this purpose for months past, together with poison-gas and liquid fire, and a total force of some 2,000,000 well-armed men. Russia, on the other hand, though she might oppose this force with fully as many men, was coming to the end of her resources, and her troops were ill-equipped to meet the massed guns of the artillery brought against them when the German phalanx, after minor thrusts to left and right to cloak the real designs of the German Higher Command, began its overpowering advance on 1st May against the Dunajec lines, where Dmitrieff's Russian army believed itself securely entrenched. Mackensen's guns, opening up a way for the strongest army yet mustered under one general, blew the Dunajec lines to fragments. The Russian infantry clung to their positions to the last moment, but their rifles, often empty, were useless against high-explosive shells, or the waves of poison-gas which preceded the advance of Mackensen's shock troops.