La Grande Guerre – Part 1
August 5th 1914 – January 9th 1916
The Great War began with the ambitious attempt by the German Army to bypass the primary concentrations of French troops along the border by invading through Belgium – breaking into Northern France and capturing Paris before the French would be able to form an effective resistance. There was to be a time in the Autumnal months when it seemed that they might just accomplish that goal. Marching into Belgium in the early hours of August 6th (a day after the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia). It didn't take long for the British to enter the war, officially in defence of Belgium – it would be some time before their forces were to have a serious impact. The Belgian army quickly withdrew behind the Meuse – assembling around Namur in preparation for the German assault. Between August 16th and 26th 57,000 Belgian soldiers were killed, the Belgian Army had, for all intensive purposes, ceased to be. With the French reluctant to send troops into Belgium itself (having only a few scattered divisions along the Franco-Belgian border – the vast bulk of the army either along the German border or still being rushed Northwards from various parts of the country) there was nothing to stop the Germans rolling through Belgium. Indeed on September 5th Brussels fell, although two weeks later the Germans were fought to a standstill at Ypres – a small town just on the Belgian side of the border. Meanwhile, on September 8th the Ottoman Empire entered the war, tempted by German offers and worried by Anglo-Persian friendship the Turks moved to invade British ruled Egypt, the Russian Caucuses and Persia – a vast new theatre of war had just opened up.
With Belgium beaten the Germans turned their attention Southwards – towards the drive to Paris. First arriving in French territory on September 14th at Sedan, Lille fell on October 1st before the vital French victory at Laon halted the invaders. By mid October it seemed that the advance of the Bosch had run out of steam. Yet it was not to be – instead the battle moved back Northwards towards the Channel Ports. After routing the French at Ypres the Germans moved swiftly to capture Dunkirk on October 21st – capturing Calais 4 day later. It was a military disaster and provoked the French into one of the most important battles of the war for the French psyche.
Marshal Petain, the greatest French commander on the Western Front of the entire war. Led an assault to retake Sedan, initially in hopes of merely directing German troops away from their 'drive to the sea'. However when the Channel ports fell Petain continued his assault and by the end of the month the French flag once again flew over the site of the nation's infamous defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. It was the first piece of French territory recaptured from the German advance of the war. High in prestige whilst all around him famous figures were losing public confidence Petain called upon the politicians in Paris to organise the entire population for a war of national survival.
The Second International had entered the Great War as a formidable internationalist and pacifist opposition to the war fever sweeping the continent. By the end of October the International had all but disbanded. The powerful Social Democratic Parties of Austria and Germany both swiftly dropped their pacifism and rallied behind their governments – in the SPD Karl Liebknecht was the only deputy in the Reichstag to vote against the granting of special war loans to the government (110 SPD deputies had no such qualms). In Britain too the Labour Party, far less radical that the socialist parties of the continent, also supported the government. Only in Russia and France did the left not immediately rally behind the national colours. In Russia the Bolshevik Party, a small illegal group whose leadership was either in exile in the West or detained in Siberia, were vociferous in their opposition to the Imperialist War. In France it was slightly more complicated. At the onset of the conflict both the syndicalists and anarchists of the CGT and a large portion of the SFIO led by Juares had publicly opposed to war. However, with the fall of Belgium, and vital cities like Lille (which contained the second largest concentration of French industry after Paris), Dunkirk (the primary base of the French Channel fleet) and Calais (the closest port to France's ally in Britain) opinion within the left had rapidly changed. The genuine threat of defeat and the presence on the Kaiser's invading army had shocked the majority of the left into at least tacit support for the government. Yet Juares remained a frustrating, not to mention respected, thorn in the side of national unity. But even as he continued to rally against war Juares was becoming ever more alienated from his own party and from public opinion which was strongly in favour of unity in face of the invader.
In early November the CGT and SFIO made a deal with the government. The CGT would guarantee an end to all strike action whilst the war was being waged whilst the SFIO would abandon all anti-war sentiment (forcing its membership to follow suite or face expulsion) and join the government. Both the trade unionists and socialists also agreed to back the government in the suppression of anti-war dissidents. The most high profile of whom, Juares, faced arrest on November 5th for 'unpatriotic activities'. The Union Sacree was born – united the entire French political spectrum (barring a now tiny and illegal left wing minority) into a national unity government.
In order to make the new government work Maurras was forced to step down from his position as Prime Minister (although he maintained more influence over policy than incoming incumbent) as it was clear that the Socialists were extremely uncomfortable in joining a government without a Republican Prime Minister. The ALP deputy Emile Driant was therefore appointed as the new PM, appealing to the left due to his Republicanism, the right due to his position as a political Catholic and to the army due to his military background. Maurras publicly described bring the left into the government as ''swallowing the bitterest poison'' but defended the position as necessary for securing France's victory.
Later in November the French finally secured Colmar in Southern Alsace – the only success of the French war plan which had aimed to recapture Alsace-Lorraine at the outset of the war. After Colmar the two armies began to dig a series of trenches and set themselves in for the Winter.
During 1914 the Germans had successfully defeated a Russian invasion of East Prussia before proceeding to capture Lithuania and around 2/3s of the Congress of Poland (although Warsaw remained Russian until March 1915 in spite of repeated German efforts to eject Russian army) by the end of the year. However in Galicia the Russians found more success against the Austro-Hungarian army – seizing Lvov and the Eastern half of Galicia. In the Balkans Serbia and Montenegro were steadfast in their defence against the Austrians – largely defeating the Austrian invasion in 1914 and humiliating the Habsburg military. On December 1st Bulgaria was convinced to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers – quickly making progress into Eastern Serbia. In the Far East Japan joined the Entente on December 3rd, promised a large part of Germany's Far Eastern possessions.
Hostilities on the Western Front restarted in earnest as the French began a large scale offensive on February 10th. There were two objectives – Alsace-Lorraine and the liberation of Lille. With this in mind assaults were launched on Strasbourg and at Hirsons (just South of Lille). The First Battle of Strasbourg proved to be a military disaster, on the first day of operations some 80,000 Frenchmen were killed as human wave tactics failed to break through the strong defensive positions of the German army. By the end of the month the assault was abandoned, this resulted in a German counter offensive that resulted in the recapture of Colmar and Southern Alsace from an exhausted French army. To the North-West, Petain's assault on Hirsons proved to be a different story. Lacking the numbers and impressive defences of Strasbourg, the Germans at Hirsons had to make do with trenches and machine guns. Although enough to inflict terrible casualties on the French – they could not prevent themselves being overwhelmed by the superior French numbers and on March 8th Hirsons was reclaimed. Taking time to rejuvenate and reorganise the offensive was halted just South of Lille through March, beginning again on April 5th.
The battle for Lille lasted for 3 gruesome months. In mid May the French successfully re-entered the city, but faced a large scale counter attack that came within inches of forcing them straight back out again. In order to distract German forces from Lille attacks were launched at Colmar, Southern Belgium and towards the Channel ports. The French achieved great gains as a result of these attacks. By the end of May the Channel ports had been relieved and by the end of June Colmar was back in French hands. The two armies having again worn each other out proceeded to dig in once more. Meanwhile on June 5th, following the Treaty of London, Italy joined the war on the side of the Entente. 10 French divisions were deployed to the Alpine Front in the hopes of distracting German and Austrian forces from other theatres. These troops were to play a leading role in the Trento Campaign of June to September that resulted in the capture of the Alpine region.
The Ottoman Turks proved themselves to be a far greater military threat than anyone had previously feared over the course of their participation in the Great War. In the Sinai they pushed the British to within a few miles of the Suez Canal – shelling shipping with artillery. In the East they occupied around ½ of Persia and brought Tehran under siege. In the Caucuses, by moving through Persia they bypassed the Russian front lines – raiding Yerevan and Tbilisi and permanently establishing themselves in Azerbaijan – benefiting from the riches of the Baku oilfields. The Turks were a genuine threat to the Entente that needed to be stopped.
The French hoped to do this through a campaign around the Southern mouth of the Marmara that would allow for a swift assault on the Ottoman capital of Istanbul – surely convincing the Turks to quit the war. The site for the French landing was to be Bursa in North-Western Anatolia. The Bursa landings are now infamous as a French army outnumbering the Turks, led by one Kemal Ataturk, three to one was kept on the beeches, bled dry then forced to withdraw in shame. The Bursa Campaign lasted from June 11th until August 23rd – of the 120,000 Frenchmen involved in the fighting just over half either perished or were captured by the Turks. The commanders of the French Eastern Mediterranean Command, who had been granted very substantial resources, were just about to be removed from their posts when they happened upon a miracle. As the Turk rearranged their forces following Bursa – sending more troops to the Balkans to assist the Bulgarians. They briefly left Dardenelles undefended. The French didn't required a second invitation and on September 15th successfully established control at Gallipoli.
It took until November for the French to fight their way Northwards towards Adrianople. By the start of the month they had secured control over Thrace and made an attempt on Istanbul which was rebuffed. Waiting until the end of November to prepare a new attack on the ancient capital of Empires was launched. The French General in command boasted that Turkey would be out the war by Christmas. He was almost right – the French did not finally secure control over the city until January 9th, almost immediately resulting in the Ottoman Empire's surrender. The first of the four Central Powers had been defeated. The quip that the Ottoman Empire would fall by Christmas might have been wrong, but another Empire did come crashing down on Christmas Day 1915.
1915 was, militarily, the worst year of the war for Russia. Over the course of the year they were pushed out of Poland and into Belorussia – losing Warsaw, Minsk and Riga whilst to the South their assaults on Premyzl failed and Lvov was recaptured. Worse still around 15 divisions in all were captured by the Germans who employed tactics of encirclement. But it was on the home front where things went really bad. Since the start of the war the economy had collapsed – unemployment and inflation soared to unheard of levels leaving millions without any source of income and those who still had one in poverty. And this was just the urban areas. Russian agriculture suffered through successive bad harvests in 1914 and 1915 whilst having to deal with the strain of heavy handed conscription in the name of some vague idea of the Russian nation that was largely alien to them. Opposition to the Tsar grew rapidly, especially amongst the urban middle and working classes. Over the course of December spontaneous protests against the war, economic conditions and the Tsar's rule in Petrograd (recently renamed from the Germanic St Petersburg) ballooned as ever greater numbers of people came out onto the streets in solidarity. Fearing that he might lose control in the capital the Tsar deployed troops to disperse the crowds – refusing to fire upon their fellow workers elements of the Cossacks mutinied – executing their officers and joining the protests. These mutinies accelerated the movement as the rebel soldiers had essentially two choices – ensure that the government fall or face execution as traitors, now the most armed element became the most militant. Led by the Cossacks the rebels opened up the prisons, aiming to release political prisoners and moved to besiege the Winter Palace where the Tsar and his family were resident. In desperate terror Tsar Nicholas II fled his capital on December 19th and attempted to order army units into the city. When General Brusilov refused to accept the demands of the Tsar to release troops from the front in order to quell the rebellion Nicholas demanded his arrest. This order too was ignored, faced with the collapse of his authority Nicholas abdicated from the throne on Christmas Day (according to the Western calendar) 1915. In Petrograd two groups quickly moved to establish power. From the working class of the city the Petrograd Soviet was formed (essentially a council of workers' representatives from the capital) and ensured a great deal of authority through Order Number One. Meanwhile, the political caste, liberals, pro-bourgeois forces and elements of the Old Regime coalesced into the Provisional Government headed by Prince Lvov. The Russian Empire was dead, a new Russian Republic had arisen in its place.
