Aubers Ridge, 1915

[Tom A McCluskey]

"Mick, not I. Sotheby's account does not ring true though."

Sorry Robert, you were there?

Aye

Tom McC

[SiegeGunner]

Give us Cpl McDonald's account, then, Tom.

[phil andrade]

Mine explosions in trench warfare....do they engender a murderous and frenzied response ?

That sounds a hyped up question, but I can't help thinking about the notorious episode in the American Civil War at the end of July 1864, when a remarkably successful mining operation killed 276 Confederate troops in a single explosion at Petersburg. The ensuing battle resulted in a massacre of the attacking Northern soldiers who got trapped in the mine crater that their own side had created....strories abounded of the slaughter of men trying to surrender who were being bayoneted and clubbed to death in hand to hand fighting... the resentment of the defenders being vastly amplified by the fact that many of the Northern troops were black.

Were British wounded massacred in a similar fashion in and around those mine craters on July 1st 1916 ? IIRC, they were, according to some accounts that I've read or heard.

This isn't something I'd thought about before...it's just occurred to me.

Perhaps Sotheby's sector of attack was different from where the Aubers mines went up. In any case, I thought it worth posting my thoughts.

Phil (PJA)

[Steven Broomfield]

Just a view from the Indian Corps. The Indian Corps in France (Merewether & Smith) covers it: according to them, part of the problem was that the attacking troops (Dehra Dun Brigade) entered No Man's Land at 5.25 and lined out, preparatory to following the barrage. It also notes that at 5.20 the enemy's wire appeared to have been cut, but "the German parapet was seen to have suffered very slightly".

The attacking troops were unable to approach the enemy parapet prior to the lifting of the barrage due to the number of shorts. At 5.40, the german parapet was lined by the defenders "and an appalling machine-gun and rifle fire was opened on us, the machine-guns firing apparently from ground level".

The survivors, braving "a sleet of bullets" ... "thousands of bullets sweeping through the air just over their heads", found shelter in a ditch in front of the enemy parapet ("over fourand a half feet deep and some ten feet broad", according to the history of the 58th Rifles). By 6.00 the attack was completely stalled, with only some men of the 2/2nd Gurkhas having (it is believed) entered the enemy line.

At this point the German artillery opened up, causing heavy casualties on the Bareilly Brigade in reserve. Several further bombardments of the German line had little effect, and apart from some small local actions, the attack of the Meerut Division was all but over.

According to Merewether and Smith, casualties in the Meerut Division amounted to 69 British officers, 24 Indian officers, 1055 British o.r. and 823 Indian o.r. A further 122 of all ranks became casualties in the Lahore Division.

One thing that strikes me from this account (and it is mentioned by Drake Brockman in his history of the 39th Royal Garwhal Rifles) is that the artillery signally failed to damage the enemy line. Mention of the number of shorts suggests that the 'tubes' (as modern usage has it0 were worn: is this a symptom of the rapid expansion of the british army: worn-out guns not being replaced/refitted due to pressure on equipping new formations?

The mention of the ditch in front of the enemy parapet is interesting, too. If it really were the dimensions given in the 58th Rifles history (by H C Wylly), then crossing it was going to almost impossible anyway.

Just my two penn'orth.

[SiegeGunner]

The mines were in the northern sector, Phil, and Sotheby was apparently in the southern sector. They blew two damned great holes in the German front line and killed about 50 members of the garrison. Stranded between the breaches in their defences was a section of the German front line trench manned by parts of two companies, who held out all day without reinforcement or relief.

[phil andrade]

This business got a bit "personal" by the sound of things, didn't it, Mick ?

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

This awful matter of petrol bombing the wounded - if it's true ( why would Sotheby have lied?) - strikes me as significant.

When I visited the Butte de Vaucquois several years ago, I noticed a memorial in the crater fields to a French company that was supposedly the first unit in the war to suffer attack by flamethrowers This was in the summer of 1915.

Didn't British troops experience this horror at Hooge, also in the summer of 1915 ?

I think that the British had detonated a big mine under the German trenches at Hooge in mid June 1915.

Hooge, Vaucquois : areas of intensive mine warfare; also Aubers, a month or two earlier.....German use of flame, whether reported anecdotally, or officially recorded, common to all three.

Perhaps mine warfare did provoke an especially vicious form of retaliatory activity; maybe my citation of the Petersburg mine episode 51 years earlier is pertinent.

There is an iconic picture of French and German soldiers fighting hand to hand in a mine crater...I'd always associated it with Verdun, perhaps its Vaucquois : anyway, it certainly resembles an equally famous picture of Confederate and Union troops fighitng in the Crater at Petersburg, an incident that was notorious for the massacre that ensued.

A passsage or two from Sotheby's letter to his mum, May 11 1915 :

One big German in a helmet stood waist high above the parapet firing and raving at us. I think we got him........It was awful. I was also afraid that they would chuck bombs at us lying there, they did later at the wounded, petrol bombs.....Those who penetrated into the rampart on our left held on for about ten minutes and then were stripped of their equipment by the Germans, shot and thrown over the parapet.

To do justice to the comments made by Tom Rutherford, and GAC, I must highlight the following

passage from the letter

Next time the Germans will get it. Given a chance with wire down and at close quarters, they will be slaughtered, and I feel quite mad at it, and long for a decent smash at them.

And so, it appears, he was still thirsting for a fight. He gives an accurate rendition of the battalion's losses, exactly so for the officers, and only about five per cent in excess for all ranks.

Of course, as Mick says, this episode occurred in a different stretch of the German line from where the mine(s) was/ were detonated, so maybe I attribute too much to "mine outrage" in this account, but I wanted to share my thoughts.

Phil (PJA)

[SiegeGunner]

This business got a bit "personal" by the sound of things, didn't it, Mick ?

Not quite sure how you mean that, Phil, but the men in the cut-off section of German trench were clearly in dire straits and did whatever was necessary to secure their own survival and play their part in defending and recapturing their positions. We can only presume that they had a good supply of ammunition and grenades, or husbanded what they had wisely. As there is only mention of rifle fire, they evidently did not have any machine guns.

[SiegeGunner]

Phil,

'Sharing your thoughts' seems to consist of conjuring up shocking images from another conflict and other places/times in the Great War to somehow lend credibility to the rather vague claims in Sotheby's letter to his mother. If he was out in no-man's land, how did he know what went on inside the German positions, on the other side of their high and wide breastwork? And if the Germans knew that there were able-bodied enemy soldiers lying doggo in no-man's land within bombing range and did not throw grenades at them during the action, why would they later throw petrol bombs at the wounded, after they had won the day?

Killing the men who penetrated into their positions makes sense (that was after all their job), but throwing their bodies out over the breastwork does not, as they would only 'come back to haunt them' in the days that followed. Likewise, throwing bombs at men in cover close to their parapet, believing them to still be 'active' makes sense, but deliberately throwing petrol bombs at men they knew to be wounded, after the action was over, does not. They were not to know whether their enemy would come again and exact terrible revenge, or simply turn his guns on them. Troops do not generally commit calculated atrocities in view of their enemy and then hang around to reap the consequences.

However, Tom tells us that he has other accounts of the same or similar incidents, so we must wait for those.

As for the paragraph beginning "Next time the Germans will get it", it sounds like the bravado of a man who has had a lucky escape and perhaps feels that he did not do as much on the day as he might have done.

I am in any case not sure why you are trying to divert the discussion away from the reasons for the massive defeat and the fate of the thousands of men killed in 'fair fighting' in order to concentrate on some isolated incidents at one point along the attack frontage - and particularly as they (assuming they did in fact happen) clearly have nothing to do with your theory of 'mine outrage'.

[phil andrade]

Not quite sure how you mean that, Phil,

Close quarters combat with bayonets and trench clubs : hand to hand fighting; this was reported in those passages you posted from the German point of view...plus Sotheby's mention of the German who was standing up raving at them....fighting of a more personal nature than the long distance massacre by artillery and machine gun fire that predominated in the Great War: that's what I mean.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

I am in any case not sure why you are trying to divert the discussion away from the reasons for the massive defeat and the fate of the thousands of men killed in 'fair fighting' in order to concentrate on some isolated incidents at one point along the attack frontage - and particularly as they (assuming they did in fact happen) clearly have nothing to do with your theory of 'mine outrage'.

Diverting the discussion is not my intention. When I read these posts, and refer to books to learn more, sometimes a thought strikes me, and I want to discuss it.

Regarding the precise figure of 1,551 German casualties for this action, another thought strikes me.

Might it be that the source alludes to German statistics for the Fromelles fighting of mid July 1916, which, IIRC, were in the order of 1,500 ? Perhaps the author applied the wrong set of figures : I note than one German account refers to Aubers Ridge as the Battle of Fromelles, and maybe this lead to confusion : same sector, wrong year.

As you say, it does seem unlikely that the supporting units would have taken higher casualties than the 6BRD which bore the brunt.

Forgive my diversion

Phil (PJA)

[Tom A McCluskey]

Factors Concerning British Casualties

“Casualties are not the only measure of success or failure in an action they are not even an important one except in rare circumstances.”

Have I got this right? Are you are saying you don’t want to talk about the casualties of Aubers Ridge, or they are not an important consideration to commanders?

Forgive the metaphor. There have been episodes of dealing with the Titanic and no iceberg. This time it is beginning to look like the Titanic, the iceberg, but the losses not mentioned. Maybe I’ve got this wrong, but the Titanic episode is a tragedy because of the casualties, and because the ship was supposed to be unsinkable? Surely the fate of the ship and the casualties are inextricably linked. Likewise, could the Aubers Ridge battle, and its associated casualites, be considered the same too? When looking at the Performance Indicators of this battle, many regular soldiers were lost for nothing gained. There is no success here. None of the objectives set were achieved. It is a politician’s and journalist’s manoeuvre to find success where there isn’t any.

I don’t think you would find many military men, or politicians, that would sign up to casualties not being an issue. Casualties are very much an issue and a concern. It is a fact that casualties have created quite a problem for a couple of operational commanders – and politicians (at the strategic command level) – and a couple were soon to find out after this battle. Once the press provide an ‘all-informed net’ various people at the operational and strategic level need to start ruffling through their files for their P45, for the bad news is coming for being so profligate with the British people’s menfolk. As that is how it will be portrayed in the press.

Anyway, putting all of the personal tragedy and emotion aside, casualties are also a problem for the tactical commander, as they are the measure of the combat effectiveness of a unit. All tactical commanders need to be aware of how much Combat Power its units, brigades, and divisions, can bring to any future engagement. A much-reduced division does less. Their reduced form is a planning consideration, because a non-combat effective division cannot even be used as a reserve division and will take time (another consideration) to recuperate. Concerning terminology, Fighting Power consists of intangibles such as morale and fatigue, and tangibles such as battle-winning equipment states. During the war, a combination of these qualities was measured as Fighting Value. And it was assessed, and it was important, as the attachment below illustrates (1918, courtesy of the PRO):

The other piece illustrates that effect of heavy casualties put constraints on the commander on how much ground they can effectively hold. It is also apparent that the supply of replacements is a concern too. There have been a couple of general comments making out that a high casualty rate - with nothing gained - is worth it if the Army learns something. I can assure you that I have never seen this in any First World War Army planning assumption. This is an after-the-event cold comfort within the absolute definition of the term. The third piece shows the consideration carried out to whether the predicted cost is worth the gain.

The 8th Division casualties are considerable. The OH refers to the casualties of this battle as ‘very severe losses’ (page 39). What has to be taken into consideration is that the fighting element is not 12000. That is each of the 3 infantry brigades at their establishment. A front-line battalion at its establishment in May 1915 would be a very rare thing indeed. Plus with the 120-ish men of the transport removed, it leaves the bayonet strength at about 600. Many battalions were less than this. May 1915, on the Western Front, was the costliest month of the year. Battalions were quite literally bleeding men at the Second Ypres and in the region around the Aubers Ridge. Replacements would definitely be a concern.

Anyway, except for a graph of reported combat deaths. I am done on casualties.

Hope this is of interest

Aye

Tom McC

[Tom A McCluskey]

Here is the second illustration.

Aye

Tom McC

[Tom A McCluskey]

And last of all, the third.

Aye

Tom McC

[Tom A McCluskey]

Please find below a graph of reported combat deaths on the Western Front from Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914-1920. As can be seen, May 1915 is an expensive month and it would still be a few months before the first of the New Armies arrived in France - and got themsleves competent. Losing lots of men in one large lump means that the training pipline has its work cut out to provide sufficient trained-manpower. Losing more men than predicted (a large spike) leads to a problem supplying suitable and sufficient replacements, as the training pipeline will tend to run at almost a constant (granted, with some capacity for replacements at the Base).

Aye

Tom McC

[Steven Broomfield]

Coming back to the original question, Tom's mention (above) of the 8th Division reminds me of what might be a contributory factor to the failure of their attack. The Divisional History (Boraston & Cax) points out that one battalion (2nd East Lancs, 24th Brigade), once they left the British line (having suffered heavy casualties in that alone) had to make a change of direction to their left due to the angle the German line took. They were followed by the 1st Notts & Derby, who had to turn half right.

The East Lancs were taken in enfilade fire from the German line, with predicatble consequences.

The attack of the Notts & Derby "got close up to the German wire, only to find much of it was sunk beneath the ground level and that our guns had failed to make any appreciable gap." Sunk beneath the ground level?

It then tells us a lot about the nature of the fighting that Brigadier general Lowry Cole (25th Brigade) was mortally wounded on the german parapet, where he had ventured to try and find out what was happening.

Another comment in the history is perhaps relevant: "What in fact had happened was the the German garrisons on both flanks of the advance, protected by paraets 15 and even 20 feet thick which our artillery had for the most part been unable to breach and well-provided with bomb-proof shelters capable of keeping out all but the heaviest shell, had realised that their own fronts were not seriously threatened. They had thereupon turned their whole attention to containing those of our troops who had broken into the german line and preventing reinforcements from reaching them."

It is to this that the authors attribute the ejection of the 2nd Rifle Brigade and 1st Royal Irish Rifles from their lodgement in the outskirts of Rouge Bancs and subsequent loss even of a hold in the German line.

The history of the Kensingtons (13th London - 25th brigade) also comments on the narrowness of the front: their B Company (the left hand company of the left hand battalion) had the task of forming a defensive flank. This was difficult due, according to the authors (Bailey & Hollier) to the narrow frontage of the assault.

So (and sorry if this has been mentioned before), the frontage of the assault seems to have been an issue for the 8th Division - too cramped and no diversion of the Germans on the flanks. Add to that barbed wire below ground level and we have the recipe for disaster.

[phil andrade]

Many thanks for your help here, Tom, I was struggling to articulate my views about the importance of the casualties, and felt very much out of my depth. Your graph makes very clear how heavy the loss of life was in May 1915. Presumably the reported combat deaths do not take into account the missing, whose number would significantly increase the total of fatalities.

If, as I suspect might be the case, the Germans were able to inflict ten or more casualties for every one they suffered at Aubers, then the battle stands out as particularly dire for the British. Whatever went wrong there, the effects of the failure were vastly amplified in terms of casualties. To exemplify this, it's worth comparing the notorious failure of the Anglo-Australian attack there in mid July 1916, which cost 7,000 casualties compared with 1,500 German - bad enough, but nothing like as lop sided as Aubers Ridge.

I wonder if the Germans learnt faster, or were better able to communicate lessons and implement changes more quickly than the British at this point in the war. How was their "learning curve" in the early summer of 1915 ?

The contrast with Neuve Chapelle is so striking that Aubers Ridge seems grotesque.

Phil (PJA(

[SiegeGunner]

It then tells us a lot about the nature of the fighting that Brigadier general Lowry Cole (25th Brigade) was mortally wounded on the german parapet, where he had ventured to try and find out what was happening.

I stand to be corrected, but I believe Lowry Cole was killed on the British parapet.

[Steven Broomfield]

Well spotted, Mr Gunner. You're quite right. I shall now go and commit ritual self-humiliation.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Hi Tom (McC),

Just a couple of comments, as I’ll leave it to Tom R to respond to the points which you are directing at him.

I think that the human costs of any combat have been unequivocally acknowledged by all posters here. Where I’m struggling is to understand why you think casualties incurred during the action at Aubers should figure as a decisive factor in an analysis of its failure to achieve its goals? You had earlier explicitly linked casualties with morale. Do you have evidence that casualties at Aubers caused a loss of morale in the attacking troops which was a decisive factor in the failure of the operation?

Your graph of monthly casualty figures throughout the war is interesting. As is your mention of ‘spikes’. What the graph shows to me is that between August and November 1918, there is a greater average rate of casualties being sustained by the British armies than the comparable periods between July and November 1916 and July and November 1917. In other words, during the ‘Hundred Days’ of August – November 1918 (96 days), a period when the British armies won a succession of victories on a scale unprecedented in its history, the average daily casualty rate was in the order of 3,645. Whereas on the Somme between July and November 1916 (141 days) the average daily casualty rate was 2,950. And at Third Ypres between July and November 1917 (105 days) the average daily casualty rate was 2,121. In other words, what your graph shows, inter alia, is that the price in terms of casualties of the British armies’ greatest successes in 1918 was markedly higher than what are widely (and wrongly) regarded as defeats, or at best stalemates, on the Somme and at Third Ypres in 1916 and 1917. How does the idea of the significance of casualties in determining the outcome of military operations square with these facts? If what you are implying about the reluctance of commanders or politicians to sustain casualties in terms of the 21st century were applicable to the Great War, then the German army would not have been beaten in 1918 simply because the casualties it took to do so would have been unacceptable to the BEF’s commanders, the politicians and the British public. Given that this was manifestly not the case, where does this leave your argument that Aubers in 1915 was somehow a special case, where the casualties either had a decisive effect on morale during the action itself, or rendered the BEF in any significant measure hors de combat in terms of morale or fighting potential in its aftermath?

George

[phil andrade]

You don't appear to have looked properly at the graph, George. You will see that Tom's graph shows a vastly bigger number of deaths in July 1916 than in any of the months of 1918, and,September 1916 significantly exceeds the same month in 1918, as does October 1917 cost more British lives than October 1918. You confuese casualties with deaths : many more of the 1918 casualties were gassed or slightly wounded, and lived to tell the tale. You also cite the 1918 casualties for the Western Front as a whole, while the figures you cite for the Somme and Third Ypres are just for those particular sectors.

Phil (PJA)

[SiegeGunner]

Close quarters combat with bayonets and trench clubs : hand to hand fighting; this was reported in those passages you posted from the German point of view...plus Sotheby's mention of the German who was standing up raving at them....fighting of a more personal nature than the long distance massacre by artillery and machine gun fire that predominated in the Great War: that's what I mean.

The Germans in the cut-off section of trench were surrounded on all sides by people who were trying to kill them, Phil. I expect they took that personally and did everything they could to prevent it.

[Tom A McCluskey]

Phil,

Here are the wounded on the Western Front. Again, from: Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914-1920

Aye

Tom McC

[George Armstrong Custer]

You don't appear to have looked properly at the graph, George. You will see that Tom's graph shows a vastly bigger number of deaths in July 1916 than in any of the months of 1918, and,September 1916 significantly exceeds the same month in 1918, as does October 1917 cost more British lives than October 1918. You confuese casualties with deaths : many more of the 1918 casualties were gassed or slightly wounded, and lived to tell the tale. You also cite the 1918 casualties for the Western Front as a whole, while the figures you cite for the Somme and Third Ypres are just for those particular sectors.

Phil (PJA)

The figures I cite are daily averages for three periods of roughly four months each. Tom's graph gives columns for individual monthly totals, which you choose to reference in that context. I hardly think, then, that I've 'misunderstood' the graph.

Nor, I think, is a diversion into nitpicking about the composition of those figures (gassed, slightly wounded. POW's etc) relevant to the context in which the issue of casualties has been introduced here as being supposedly central to a military analysis of what happened at Aubers. That is to say, the suggestions which have been put forward here that casualties incurred during the operation either had a debilitating effect on morale, which was a decisive factor in the failure of that operation, and/or rendered the morale of the BEF significantly reduced in its aftermath.

And following from the significantly high casualties during the BEF's achievement of its greatest victories in 1918 compared to those of the supposedly uniquely high cost of the attritional and rather longer battles of 1916/17, seen by many as defeats or at best inconclusive, the question remains: how does your idea of the significance of casualties in determining the outcome of military operations square with the figures given?

George

[Tom A McCluskey]

Phil,

This last one is the Missing and Prisoners of War. As above they are Western Front and from: Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914-1920

Aye

Tom McC