The Great War (mod 1914)

The Somme offensive continued without relent after the battle of September 15th. Joffre and Haig agreed to maintain their pressure on the Western Front in view of both the uncertain situation of Russia and the permanent belief that the German Army was about to break. Yet the deteriorating weather and the exhaustion of the British divisions holding the line made clear that a rest was needed. Rain persisted on the following days and, due to some logistical problems suffered by the French army, any further continuation of the offensive had to be delayed until September 25th. During this pause, new troops were used to replace the tired veterans of the frontline. One of this recently arrived forces was the I Corps (Lt. Gen. Monro), which, after a quarter of its strenght became casualties on the fateful July 1st had been recovering from the mauling. Its 10th "Irish" Division was to attack the Quadrilateral Redoubt, which proved unasailable on July 1st and September 15th. At least the British artillery had began to bomb it with some accuracy and continuously from the 17th onwards.

It fell after a brief fight and with a bit of luck on the British side. However, the attackers suffered 1,800 casualties. Ironically, on the other corner of the front, the other two divisions of the I Corps (11th "Northern" and 12th "Eastern") occupied the Starfish Line and the Prue Trench meeting only light opposition, althought they were to face several heavy German counterattacks during the rest of the day, which costed dearly to both sides. Thus by those means (and 4,500 casualties) the Corps gained its start line for the big attack.


The main attack against the central and western part of the front was carried out by twelve divisions (VII and IX Corps and IV Australian Corps, I Canadian Corps). In the two days which preceeded the attack, the British threw approximately 400,000 shells against a front of 18,000 yards protected by rudimentary trenches. Thus, the bombing and the rainy weather, which prevented the Germans from reinforcing their line, helped the IX Corps (Lt. Gen. Maxwell) -another of the Corps which were mauled on July 1st and had remained away from the lines since then- to take Martinpuich and Courcelette suffering only acceptable casualties: 2,600.


Lt. Gen. Cavan (VII Corps), anxious to redeem himself from the failure of September 15th, executed a textbook "bit and hold" attack. He later wrote about the attack: "Our artillery barrage was excellent and we advanced with it, practically in it, and got the objective at the very second it lifted". The attacking divisions (Guards, 3rd and 14th "Light") assaulted the main defences of the second line and, thanks to the creeping barrage and the "bit and hold", managed to take Flers on the second day of the battle and hold it against the enemy counterattacks. The King’s Royal Rifle Corps was notably successful in seizing its objectives, although at heavy cost – an officer with the 21st battalion, Lieutenant Anthony Eden was to be awarded the Military Cross for his heroic actions and inspired leadership when his company assaulted the infamous Musketeer Trench (1).


Lieutenant-General Sir Hubert Hamilton’s II Corps was less successful, and it only advanced a thousand yards into enemy territory while a number of battalions sustained grievous losses in the process. However, the attacks on the left flank were a dreadful show. The 1st Canadian Corps was to attack Thipeval from the south. Here the artillery achieved poor results and the battallions of the 1st Canadian Division found their objectives (Malfosse Trench, Girly Trench, and Jewes Lane) strongly manned with machine guns and riflemen and with the belt of wire almost untouched. In spite of this, the infantry advanced from shell hole to shell hole and took Mouqet Farm. However, by then the Canadians were exhausted and depleted by the huge amount of casualties: 9,600.


Thus, the Canadian Corps was replaced by the Australians. This time, three divisions were to attack Thiepval and its ridge. However, instead of attacking Thiepval frontally, the Australians flanked Thipeval and attempted to take the Schwaben and Zollern Redoubts. The first one, which took a fearful tool and the attacking Divisions on July 1st, was heavily pounded by the most heavy bombardment seen so far and drenched with gas just before zero hour in order to incapacitate some of the dug-out defenders. For two days the guns roared against the redoubt and finally, on September 26th, the 1st Australian Division went over the top. The early objectives were taken with light losses, but it proved hard to progress further. It was not until October 4th when the Germans would be compelled to withdraw to the northeastern corner of the Redoubt. By then the Australian troops had suffered 2,000 casualties and were to be replaced by the untested and unbloodied South African Corps.

The Zollern Redoubt was less hard to take. After the customary shelling and of the defences, the 6th Australian Division crossed No Man's Land following the creeping barrage and by nightfall the Redoubt had fallen. However, any further advance was precluded by concealed machine guns, that swept the battlefield so nothing could move on it and had to be silenced one by one by the artillery. Anyway, the Australians readied themselves for the next stage, that is, taking Stuff Redoubt, 500 yards northwest of Zollern. It was a more difficult prospect because it was obscured from observation from the British fronts. However, it was defended only by a lone batallion which was taken by suprise by the attackers. All in all, this lucky advance was achieved at a moderate cost: 1,300 casualties Then took place the attack against Thiepval itself. Surrounded from all sides and with their line of retreat reduced to a tiny gap between Schwaben and Stuff redoubts, the German garrison fought with desesperate valour against the 5th Australian Division. The first wave suffered heavy losses but the attackers moved from shell hole to shell hole, using grenades to bomb their way through the village. Finally, when dark fell, the last German defenders abandoned the village and ran towards their lines. Thiepval had been finally taken, almost three months behind schedule.


On their part of the front, the French Army, under General Nivelle's command, attacked Maurepas with an overawing display of firepower, which, however, did not avoid a huge number of casualties and couldn't secure the seizure of their main objective due to the lack of surprise. Over the following seven days, the Fifth and Ninth French armies kept making small advances at a heavy cost (35,000 killed and wounded). It was obvious that an immense engagement would be needed to push the enemy from such a powerfully built defensive arrangement


Despite their limitations, these operations were the most successful carried so far by the British army on the Somme and the creeping barrage had emerged as the best method to protect the infantry and was used as a matter of course by all divisions. However, the British were still facing the same endless problem. Despite the success achieved along September, id did not meant that the enemy line was broken. The German had not been idle during this time. The inexorable logic of the Western Front meant that while the British were making their advances, the Germans had dug a new defensive line betweeen Grandcourt and Le Sars and had strenghtened their Second line (Le Sars-Fers-Morval) and had built two further lines around Le Sars, Flers and Grandcourt. Worse still, autumn was ending and winter promised its quote of rain and mud. The fine weather was coming to an end.





(1) I couldn't resist! I did my best, but I couldn't!


@Enewald: Slightly lower than Finland conquering the Russian Empire in this timeline

@quaazi: Neutrals... well, USA is neutral now -the question is, how long?

With TR and his moustache in this war, the war should be over in quite a sort them, one would think. Well, I thought so. In due time, you'll discover the charming joke that Teddy play on me.

Here you have an advance.


@trekaddict: Indeed

@c0d5579: Do you really think that the vicepresident will have any role with Teddy in command?

See pic above.

@Zhuge Liang: And worse is to come.

@Nathan Madien: True, very true. I have a soft spot fo the Unsinkable and I can't stand Wilson... And Teddy is an old favorite of mine -San Juan Hill nothwistanding :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

About Harding, I repeat the question: Do you think that Roosevelt is going to allow him to do anything? And, ever more, will Harding even try to do anything knowing Roosevelt's habits?

@Lord Strange: 3... 2... 1...

@Nathan Madien (2): Nah, nah, nah. After this war the blitzkrieg will be renamed as "doing a Teddy"

@c0d5579 (2) For a second I imagined Berlin charing against Teddy...

@Milites: He can shot down the Red Baron just by looking at him.

@El Pip: Curzon is an old fox and Asquith is an old... you know, that word that begins will "fo" and ends with "ol". Too well meant, hardly suited to run a war.

About the Titanic. Reasons not to sink her:

A) I like the ship.
B) Take that, Di Caprio!
C) The Imperator name sounds more boastful than Titanic. Darn, now I think, if the Titanic dosn't go down, the Britannic would not change her name and would be named Gigantic... oh, gosh. About butterflies... funny you mention them...

I'm not going to allow the Titanic to sink. There might be any kind of disaster -some foolish prince marrying a French catholic divorcée, for instance-, but not that one.


Just kidding about the French lady, don't panic!

@Nathan Madien (3): Well, had she been called "Goliath" the pun would have been too obvious!

One of the decisions taken -or, better said, a decision which was not even considered- by the War Comitte gathered on October 1st was to have dire consequences to the last stage of the battle of the Somme. It was caused by a quarrell between Lord Curzon -who insisted that any available troops should be sent to Palestine and Mesopotamia, as he claimed that after taking Baghdad and Jerusalem, the EEF and the MEF were closer than ever to kick Turkey out of the war- and Lord Robertson and the Westeners -that is, those who regarded full military commitment to the Western Front as the only means of defeating the Central Powers.

The War Comitte agreed with Curzon, as doing anything else would be "unsound and potentially useless". Lloyd George disagreed, of course, but could not provide any feasible alternative. Anyway, this led to a small sideshow between him and Curzon. When peace was restored, the War Committe made a fateful mistake. Distracted by so many quarrells, the Comitte largely ignored the next issue to be debated: General Haig asking to keep pressuring the Germans with the Somme campaign.

In fact, Haig's statement was nothing more than an urge to follow with the offensive, with no justification for the foreshadowed action apart from forecasting of improbable achievements. To this reassumption of the battle, only the War Comitte could give its authorisation or deny it. However, nothing of the sort proved to be the case (1). Oddily, the War Comitte remained strangely silent. Thus, by saying nothing to Haig's message, the War Comitte had done a momentous thing. It had opened the way to the dismal last weeks of the Somme Campaign.


However, if the offensive was to be resumed, new reinforcements were needed. Once of the new corps selected to replace the battered units was Lieutenant-General Jan Smuts’ South African Corps. Smuts, the former South African War Minister, had been selected for the job by the Prime Minister himself, General Louis Botha, as having a regular British officer commanding the South Africans would be unacceptable to the Afrikaners, which were already quite unsupportive of the South African presence in France and of the war generally. Since it was announced that a large South African formation would fight on the Western Front, Barry Hertzog, leader of the National Party (NP) and a former close ally of Botha, had campaigned in opposition to any Afrikaner involvement in the war against Germany. This was despite the South African Corps’ composition, which was largely trooped by British South Africans and Afrikaners were therefore in the minority in the Corps.

As the troops approached the front line, the ground conditions deteriorated. Just moving required great energy and it was inevitable that everyone would get covered in mud. The communications trenches were in such an awful state, severely damaged by shellfire for the most part, that the rain had turned them into running streams. In No Man's Land the barbed wire lay as thickly as before, with the gruesome addition of decomposing bodies and skeletons draped over it, a common vision since July 1st. Even the Germans lines were battered out of recognition. What had once appeared from the air as four deep rings of defences were now reduced, apparently, to a vast number of shell holes, covered also with water and mud. (2)


The bad weather of October made any kind of renewal of the operations absolutely impossible. Heavy rain turned the churned battlefield into a quagmire, grounded the air observers and the artillery greatly hampered in their work. Rain and mist persisted during the first week of October, disrupting Rawlinson and Gough's plans and the operations were postponed over and over again. Meanwhile the French army kept raiding the enemy positions with little result and many casualties, specially among the XVI Corps d'Armée (General George Broulard) but, as one of the main supporters of this strategy, General Paul Mireau, stated, it was "pour encourager l'autres". His regiment commanders, among them the brilliant Coronel Dax (CO of the 701èr Régiment d'Infanterie), thought otherwise. Mireau, a veteran of Verdun, was a pupil of Général de Brigade Géraud Réveilhac, who had been promoted and send to Africa to cover him from a incident which took place in February 1915, when after three attempts to take a strong German position failed, showing sovereign contempt of the life of his men, he ordered artillery to shell a French trench, to force his troops to attack. However, the artillery commander refused to obey without a written order. When, some weeks later, he ordered his troops to relaunch an attack pretending the percentage of acceptable losses had not been reached for that day, Réveilhac's superiors decided that it was better for him to be "promoted" (3). In no time, Broulard and Mireau were to follow Réveilhac's path of glory, too.


During the second week of October, bad weather, this time alternating between rain and hard frosts, spread over the battlefield as the British army attacked on October 7th and 12th. Even Haig and Gough had to admit that operations "were not going according to the plans". It was then when the South African Corps arrived to the Somme battleflield. By then, as the Official History was to admit later, by the middle of October conditions were se bad as to make mere existence a severe trial of body and spirit. Operations in this part of the front, it seemed evident, would have to be suspended. But Haig refused to draw this conclusion. On October 15th the Australian Corps would attack Beaumont Hamel on both flanks -like the failed attack on Guillemont on July 1st-, while the South African Corps would take St. Pierre Divion and the XIII Corps would do the same with Serre.

Ground conditions in the whole St. Pierre Divion-Grandcourt were bad because the ground was already fought-over and was partially flooded. Continuous shelling and heavy rains turned areas into a sea of mud and water-filled shell-craters. The trees were reduced to blunted trunks, the branches and leaves torn away, and the bodies of men buried after previous actions were often uncovered by the rain or later shelling. This was the area where the South Africans attacked.


As the Allied forces moved forwad, leaving high ground and entered into the lower areas covered with water and mud, the attack began to loose momentum. On the south, the South Africans "sank up to their waists" in mud and so lost the protection of the barrage. One unit declared the ground "impassable to infantry with their war equipment" and added that "it would have been difficult for a man in running costume under peace conditions" to traverse it. They were met by heavy machine-gun fire and the attack collapsed. No ground was gained and the attackers suffered 1,000 casualties. On the north, the attack against Beaumont le Hamel failed for the same reasons: uncut wire, boggy ground and loss of barrage. Fortunately for the British, the attack against Serre fared better. The ground was firmer and the rain lighter, to the should could follow the barrage, close behind it. As a result, the German first line were captured without trouble, and, by the end of the day, the German third line was in British hands.

Despite the attrocious conditions, the attack was renewed on the following day, October 16th. It quickly captured the advanced defences of the village at light cost. The German garrison fled but ran straight in to the path of the other assault battalions and the village was taking. The result was that for once, the number of prisoners taken (1,380) exceeded the Allied casualties (587). Against Beaumont le Hamel and St. Pierre Divion the attacks were a complete failure and no ground was gained. In fact, the South Africans found the ground so bad -almost flooded according to the reports-, that the assaulting battalions had been stopped by the mud, not by the Germans machine guns, that made a carnage of the defenceless troops. Still, for the next three days the attacks against Beaumont le Hamel and St. Pierre Divion were repeated over and over again. The push towards Beaumont le Hamel could penetrate the German third line but once again the attack met with fierce enemy resistance and failed. Meanwhile the South African Corps managed to take St.Pierre Divion and, along with the Australians, captured Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre, Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Freyberg winning the Victoria Cross in the process (4).


Rain and mist was kept causing troubles, and when the South African infantry attacked from the north-west, reaching Princes Street, were halted and then driven back by a counter-attack. Worse still, that night the British artillery fired on the Germans who were east of Delville Wood. However, something went wrong, as Capt Richard Medlicott, MC (5), CO B Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st South Africa Infantry Regiment, despatched the following irate message to those directing this fire: 'Will you please get our artillery to lengthen range? Firing from south-west. They are breaching our front line and causing us considerable casualties'. The 1st South African Infantry Regiment pushed northwards and managed to effect a junction with the 3rd South Africa Division. However, the attack was stopped in the outskirts of Grandcourt when the German artillery fired on the attackers from three sides. The bombardment endured for seven-and-a-half hours. At times the incidence of explosions was seven per second. On that day, in an area less than one square mile, 20 000 shells fell.

Finally, Haig awoke to the dreadful news when a GHQ staff officer, Lord Gort (6) informed his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Launcelot Kiggell, of the awful conditions of the frontline ("living on cold food and standing up to their knees in mud and water", so it was hardly a surprise that just being at the trenches left the men exhausted even without need of an attack). When Kigell visited the frontline, he reportedly broke down and said: "Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?" (7).

Despite the limited experience of Smuts and his staff, and the skill and breavery shown by the South Africans and even if it was expected that losses were to be heavy, as they were (the whole Corps suffered 4,311 killed, wounded and missing in action during his 6 days at the front), when the news of the dreadful battles "in the mud" of October arrived to South Africa, Hertzog strengthened his verbal sallies against the government. Botha feared that intercommunity relations in South Africa were nearing breaking point, and he urged Haig to halt the South African Corps’ operations. Agreeing with reluctance, Haig ordered that the Corps was withdrawn to the rear. For a while, there would be no South African operations in France. Then, Botha received an unexpected gift from heaven. His government narrowly survived the storm, which demonstrated the problems of maintaining a large mixed South African contingent on the Western Front.

While enjoying a brief spell in Blighty, the recently prometed Major Richard Medlicott, MC, wrote an indignant letter to the Cape Times, which was followed by another one by his second in command, Captain Henrik Krueger, which was directed to the Afrikaans language daily broadsheet newspaper Die Burger. In it, he simply stated:

"To forget our loyalty to the Empire in this hour of trial would be scandalous and shameful, and would blacken South Africa in the eyes of the whole world. Of this South Africans were incapable, they would say. Our ancestors endured some of the greatest sacrifices that could be demanded of a people, and kept with them their ideals, founded on Christianity, and never in their darkest days had they sought to gain their ends by treasonable means. The path of treason is an unknown path to Afrikaaners and English alike".

Krueger was an Afrikaaner, not a "rooinek" like Medlicott. Against him Hertzog had no words. (8)

Thus the Battle of the Somme came to its end. It had costed to the British and Commonwealth troops a fearsome amount of casualties (British and Commonwealth: 145,000 killed and wounded; French: 65,000 killed and wounded; German: 175,000 killed and wounded) since early July, the Somme had gained a terryfing reputation equal to the one won by Verdun.

On 6th December, the French government, disappointed with the progress of the Allied offensive, removed Joffre from command of the French Army and promoted him to the ceremonial rank of Maréchal de France. His replacement was the commander of Ninth Army, General Robert Nivelle. Changes in management were not restricted to the French, however.







(1) Odd as it may appear, in OTL, the War Cabinet did not answered to Haig's October petition to renew the Somme offensive, which resulted in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge, Battle of Le Transloy, Battle of the Ancre Heights, and Battle of the Ancre. In my opinion, what happened was that Haig asked to go on, the War Cabinet did not bother to answer to him because it considered that Haig's proposal was utter bollocks, so no authorisation was given. Yet Haig went ahead and the operations took place, anyway and the Cabinet made no objection, no comment whatsoever. What came through the minds of the British cabinet as they knew of the result of the ghastly battles of October and November is beyond my imagination. I've added the Lloyd George-Curzon quarrell just as some kind of botched cover.
(2) In case the readers are wondering if I've turned the Somme into Passchendaele, I've just made use of the depictions of the battles of late October and November 1916 in the Somme. It was not like the 3rd Ypres, but you can't deny the similitaries. Just look at the pics...
(3) In one of those puzzling moments that make me wonder about the sanity of some people, Réveillhac was made Grand Officier of the Légion d'honneur. Call me a traditionalist, but I always thought that one should be awarded for killing the enemy, not your own troops. Finally, let me remind you all that Broulard, Mireau and Dax are taken from Kubrick's Paths of Glory. Réveillhac is not. He was a REAL officer Just in case...
(4) The same place but a month in advance as the OTL event.
(5) And future Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), as well as being awarded the Order of Danils (5th Class) by the King of Montenegro. He had won the Military Cross (MC) for his services in the South West African Campaign of 1914-1915, whilst serving with the 10th Infantry Regiment (Witwatersrand Rifles).
(6) Yes! That one!
(7) Yup, you've guessed it. I've exaggerated a bit the dreadful battles of October and November to avoid getting Passchendaelized in the future.
(8) Krueger is a fictional character. I hope you may forgive this dirty Deus ex machina to keep Hertzog at bay. I was tempted to make use of DORA and get him court-martialled, but I felt that this would play in his favour. I'm not going to make a marthyr of him.





@quaazi: Do you think that any one would dare to fire at Teddy's? He would bit the bullet and throw it back at the gunman.

@Enewald: Not openly.

@c0d5579: Erm... what? Teddy dying? That's unheard of!

I plan to have good old Teddy living longer -and to avoid his elder son giving daddy bad news- and to shorten Harding's life expectancy... Now you mention it...

@Nathan Madien: That would have been too much, even for me. But I must admit that I was tempted to do it!!!!

@Kurty: Do you realize that the notes are almost as long as the whole chapter. Old chap, you need a doctor.