Aubers Ridge, 1915

[phil andrade]

Another comment about the Aubers Ridge casualties ( dare I ?) is that they were, at that time, unique in modern British military annals. Certainly, there had, thereto, been no single day in the war when so many British casualties had been incurred. Le Cateau, supposedly, cost 7,812 - of whom a large proportion were prisoners. And while First Ypres had resulted in 55,000 casualties, this figure was incurred in several weeks, and, likewise, the figure for Second Ypres that was currently raging. The first day at Neuve Chapelle must have cost several thousand, and the day of the Gallipoli landings also. One hundred years earlier, Waterloo had cost little more than half the number of those Aubers casualties. Until September 25th, 1915, the Aubers record of British bloodshed in a single day was unsurpassed. But unlike Waterloo, or Le Cateau, or the first day of Neuve Chapelle and the first day of Loos, the terrible casualty list of Aubers was not attended by one glimmer of success.

Phil (PJA)

[Robert Dunlop]

Aubers Ridge represented, along with the related battles, the intersection between the:

1. Unsurpassed scale of the Great War

2. Unsurpassed scale of British involvement, including the levels of manpower and usage of shells

3. Unsurpassed pressure from the French to do something (related to the first point)

and:

4. The huge problem of trying to escalate manufacturing to unsurpassed levels of demand.

Britain was in the unfortunate position of having the infantry to attempt attacks on behalf of the French but not having the hardware to support them adequately.

Little wonder that the casualties were unsurpassed to that point in time.

As Tom points out, the huge growth in the BEF, even to that point in time, meant that the casualties did not have a significant effect on the BEF as a whole. The casualties did not represent the destruction of Wellington's entire force at Waterloo for example.

Robert

[Tom A McCluskey]

Hi All,

Thanks for your comments so far. I will post more on the objectives of the battle and the artillery issues tomorrow.

Aye

Tom McC

[phil andrade]

Little wonder that the casualties were unsurpassed to that point in time.

Unsurpassed , indeed, and more : they were unrivalled in the British experience.

I wonder how many casualties Haig had expected. By the culminating battles of the Third Ypres offensive, a corps commander (Currie) had predicted casualties to within 5% accuracy. Two and a half years earlier, how far had this facility of analysis and prediction been developed ? I note that prior to the Loos offensive, 1st Army predictions for casualties allowed for 39,000 wounded, which proved a very accurate guess. In this respect, I imagine that Aubers Ridge came as a shock. I regard it as a disastrous episode; perhaps the BEF's nadir on the Western Front.

Edit : Is there information as to how many of the 11,500 Aubers Ridge casualites were posted as killed or missing ?

Phil (PJA)

[salesie]

Another comment about the Aubers Ridge casualties ( dare I ?) is that they were, at that time, unique in modern British military annals. Certainly, there had, thereto, been no single day in the war when so many British casualties had been incurred. Le Cateau, supposedly, cost 7,812 - of whom a large proportion were prisoners. And while First Ypres had resulted in 55,000 casualties, this figure was incurred in several weeks, and, likewise, the figure for Second Ypres that was currently raging. The first day at Neuve Chapelle must have cost several thousand, and the day of the Gallipoli landings also. One hundred years earlier, Waterloo had cost little more than half the number of those Aubers casualties. Until September 25th, 1915, the Aubers record of British bloodshed in a single day was unsurpassed. But unlike Waterloo, or Le Cateau, or the first day of Neuve Chapelle and the first day of Loos, the terrible casualty list of Aubers was not attended by one glimmer of success.

Phil (PJA)

I always thought, Phil, that Wellington’s army at Waterloo suffered some 15,000 dead or wounded (Blucher's some 7,000 extra), but seeing as old-nosey's army wasn't entirely made up of British units then you are perhaps leaving out the non-British casualties in Wellington's army at Waterloo? If so, I would love to see the breakdown that makes you believe that British casualties at Waterloo were half those of the Aubers' action (a genuine request, not an attempt at point scoring).

I have followed this thread with interest, and deliberately kept out of it because I knew little about the detail of the Aubers' action (and have learnt quite a bit from this thread). But this latest post of yours has me puzzled - you always seem to do this with casualty figures i.e. break them down in order to make what I regard as vague, almost whimsical, comparisons and/or points. After all, military success on the Western Front (in a Waterloo sense) was not a hallmark of any individual battle/action of WW1 for any side.

Now, don't get me wrong, I regard casualty figures as significant - Haig himself recognised the significance that available manpower rates would have in deciding the final outcome of the war; and, in a war of attrition, how could casualty rates not be significant?

But I also agree with those who say that an over-focus on casualties is not helpful in increasing our understanding of any individual action in military, and/or geo-political, terms. Perhaps you are letting your self-confessed emotions get out of control again, and are, in you own way, simply echoing Wellington's words after Waterloo i.e. "My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.?

So, I have to ask, what is the precise point you try to make with these comparisons of yours?

Cheers-salesie.

[phil andrade]

You're right about Wellington's army at Waterloo, salesie...about 15,000 Anglo-Dutch casualties : for the purely British contingent the most authoratitive compilation I have gives 1,328 killed in action, 4,624 wounded and 588 missing, for a total of 6,540, which equates to rather more than 55% of the Aubers total. It's just occurred to me that some of those Aubers casualties were Indian, which rather invalidates my arithmetic, doesn't it ? All the same, I wanted to make the point that casualties of 11,619 officers and men being suffered in less than 24 hours was unique in British experience, not only in the Great War up until that time, but in all previous British military history in modern times. That in itself, I beleive, is something worth emphasising if we're to appreciate the impact of that fightng. Compared with the hundreds of thousands of the Somme, Passchendaele and other nightmares that were to come, the Aubers Ridge figure looks small, but it's important to bear in mind how shocking it must have appeared at the time, especially when the attack was such a dismal failure.

I feel myself blushing slightly here when I confess that my interest in the study of this war, and one or two others, orientates largely around the study of the casualty statistics, I cannot in all conscience explain why. I think it's partly because they do have a kind of staggering fascination about them, particularly when they relate to the Great War and the American Civil War - conflicts characterised by evenly matched armies fightng in a closely contested struggle. I would be mortified if this was to be likened to "footbal scores", because that is not how I perceive it at all. The way in which historians have used, or abused, these statistics is in itself a compelling historiographical study. I think Churchill made the most notorious exposition of this when he compiled his statistics in the Blood Test, the crucial chapter in his history of the war, The World Crisis. I've spent a large part of my time trying to make up my mind as to whether he was right ot wrong, and as a result have delved as deeply into the statistics as I can. The fact that these figures are based on human misery and death makes it an unpalatable notion, to think that I refer to them so often. They are, however, the inescapable concomitant of warfare, and as such they need to be properly addressed. It never ceases to amaze me how people of intellect and accomplishment - historians - make outrageous mistakes about the casualty statistics...sixty thousand British soldiers "killed" on the first day of the Somme, the battle of Verdun costing one million "lives". etc. I even met one distinguished military historian who assured me that forty five thousand soldiers were "killed" at Waterloo : I replied " Killed, Blimey ! That means that with the wounded, virtually every man on the battlefield must have been shot ! No wonder Wellington was so upset!" He looked a little abashed, and walked away.

So, forgive me...because the casualty figures are somethimes the only thing that I feel confident in knowing a bit about, I offer them too readily, and perhaps, in an attempt to make a contribution, I distort the thread. I must try and curb this tendency, because it produces more heat than light, as this thread shows.

Phil (PJA)

[PhilB]

Aubers Ridge represented, along with the related battles, the intersection between the:

1. Unsurpassed scale of the Great War

2. Unsurpassed scale of British involvement, including the levels of manpower and usage of shells

3. Unsurpassed pressure from the French to do something (related to the first point)

4. The huge problem of trying to escalate manufacturing to unsurpassed levels of demand.

Robert

All external factors. Maybe another:-

5. Failure of the commanders to realize the limitations of the forces at their command?

[George Armstrong Custer]

5. Failure of the commanders to realize the limitations of the forces at their command?

Your suggestion only has merit if you ignore the constantly ongoing factor of German innovations and responses to any British success, and believe that the process which has been called the BEF's 'learning curve' was in the nature of a steady ascent rather than being more akin to a roller coaster, as setbacks taught them when hitherto successful tactical combinations had been outmoded by German responses. Aubers taught Haig that what had given a limited success at Neuve Chapelle had already passed its sell by date by Aubers. Haig demonstrated his appreciation of this fact in his analysis and diary entry of 11 May 1915. His three main conclusions, set down in the immediate aftermath, were mirrored by those of the Official Historian over twenty years later - ie that the failure at Aubers was overwhelmingly due to the Germans having learned the lessons of strengthening their positions and the deadly positioning of mutually supporting machine guns within these, in combination with ongoing problems with the numbers of guns, shell type, and quantity and quality of shells, available to the Royal Artillery, as well as difficulties with ranging and duration of bombardment and the consequent problems with adequate suppression.

The OH's succinct summing up of these problems gives the essential answer as to why Aubers failed, without the need for re-rehearsing here a step by step, blow by blow account of the movements of every unit involved - entirely interesting, often tragic in human terms, and useful in building up a picture of what the troops on the ground experienced though these may be, they are in fact merely the immediate consequence of the main reasons why the operation failed and are extraneous to a lucid analysis of the essential points relating to why Aubers failed and whether that failure was in the nature of a 'disaster' for the BEF. In similar vein, slicing and dicing casualty statistics in relation to their effect on morale, or their supposed utility in determining the outcome of military operations, is an entirely specious exercise in an analysis of why Aubers was a failure for the BEF. And despite what has been rather unworthily suggested to the contrary, every single poster on this thread has acknowledged their recognition of the human cost of combat.

Moving on to the question of whether Aubers was a 'disaster' for the BEF in terms of either morale, fighting ability or tactical or strategic disadvantage, or was more in the nature of a 'severe check', my own view is that the actual hard evidence presented by various posters here is overwhelmingly in favour of the latter conclusion. There was no crisis of morale in the BEF following Aubers. The failure did not leave the BEF in any danger of not being able to hold its line. The BEF was not, as a consequence of the fighting at Aubers in May 1915, significantly debilitated as a fighting force - any suggestion of this is put into perspective by the fact of the battles which the BEF went on to fight later that year at the behest of their French allies and for the succeeding three years, underlined by the more immediate fact that by the end of 1915 British casualties stood at 532,700, but recruiting totalled 2,466,719.

The aftermath of Aubers showed British commanders, such as Haig, willing to learn and adapt from failures brought about, in part, by the consequences of the Germans having learnt and adapted and in part by the logistical, qualitative and tactical shortcomings of their own artillery. That process of learning, adapting and experimenting was perpetual on both sides of the wire dividing no man's land. Equally positive was the effect which the setbacks of 1915 had in forcefully bringing home to the British body politic what their generals had always known - that taking on the main body of the German army in the field was an all or nothing affair in terms of a qualitative and quantative national effort. The BEF suffered a relatively (to date) bloody, but militarily unimportant, setback at Aubers. It, and the British nation, learned the lessons and absorbed the implications of this and moved on to the next stage of the deadly roller coaster of peaks and troughs which it rode in counteraction with the German army and people en route to the dearly bought home run of August - November 1918.

George

[phil andrade]

Perhaps my description of Aubers Ridge as a "disastrous episode" might be apt : the use of the word "episode" being enough to prevent us attributing to it too much strategic and long term significance. It was, by any reckoning, a terrible repulse, and this alone is sufficient to endow it with a disastrous reputation.

Niall Cherry describes it thus :

The attack was a disaster, probably the worst of the war so far. The German defences were too strong. The fire support provided was just not good enough. The Germans did not rate the bombardment very highly. Indeed, they probably had an idea the attack was coming, as on the previous day a large chimney near the front line was demolished to give the artillery a better field of fire.

MOST UNFAVOURABLE GROUND The Battle of Loos 1915, page 21.

Just before writing this, Cherry makes this significant comment

However, the Germans were one step ahead of the game, in that they had absorbed the lessons of Neuve Chapelle far better than the BEF.

Phil (PJA)

[Robert Dunlop]

I respectfully disagree with Niall Cherry's comment. It is not correct to say that the Germans learned more quickly. The British executed what was regarded then as a textbook attack on day one at Neuve Chapelle. The problems with ammunition, however, were already being felt at that time. As I have tried to emphasize, the problems got worse long before they got better. The British were unable to improve on the artillery plan for Neuve Chapelle but not because they were slow learners! They didn't have the resources to implement 'lessons'. Instead, they improvished a series of other tactics to try and make up for the artillery problems. If the British had been offered more guns and better ammunition, then they would have taken them. Furthermore, they would have known how to use these resources and would have continued to improve on their use.

We have seen how the Germans were able to implement lessons learned. Furthermore, they did so in such a way as to keep the British in ignorance of the improvements. But the Germans failed to learn one of the key lessons. They misinterpreted the cause of the British failures, as pointed out earlier in this thread.

Robert

[Steven Broomfield]

The History of the 8th Division makes reference to that formation having acquired two brass mortars of 19th Century vintage. The worn nature of the 'normal' artillery has already been alluded-to.

[phil andrade]

Aubers Ridge, for all its notoriety, was just one part of a monstrous battle that raged with extreme intensity in Artois throughout May and into June. The British appear to have been "arm twisted" by the French into engaging in battle on the most unfavourable terms, and the price paid by Tommy Atkins was appalling.

A veteran of the Artois fighting, who was lucky enough to survive, wrote

In those days even the simplest infantryman had the feeling that his life was being played with - I can find no other word for this insensate squandering of human lives - in a manner that cannot be sharply enough criticised.

This was written not by a British soldier, nor a Frenchman, but by a German called Max Hein.

A good indication of how dreadful this fighting must have been for the Germans, too. That they were able to sustain such effective defense in the West at the same time as making a huge attack in the East is something indeed.

Phil (PJA)

[PhilB]

Is it known exactly what instructions French gave Haig for the carrying out of the Aubers battle?

[George Armstrong Custer]

Why not check it out for yourself, Phil, then come back and give us your analysis of what you find. We can then take it from there.

George

[Cliff. Hobson]

Quote :-

In front of the parapets the open ground was thickly strewn with dead and wounded of the East Lancashire and Sherwood Foresters. The wounded were in a desperate plight, for the heavy firing which continued until nightfall on May 9th made it impossible for any help to reach them, and even after dark the work of the rescue parties was difficult. The enemy were on the alert against any renewal of the attack and bursts of fire continued intermittently throughout the hours of darkness. Many of the wounded were brought in before dawn but the daylight of May 10th showed many more were still lying out between the trenches, signalling pitifully for help. Volunteers made their way out from the trenches and dragged back such as they could reach. Corporal E. Frazier and Private J. Williams showed the utmost bravery, going out again and again into the open under heavy fire. Between them they brought eleven wounded men into safety. Later in the day Corporal E. Frazier and Private J. Williams worked forward again across the open to reconnoitre and abandoned saphead into which they thought some of the wounded might have made their way. They found the saphead packed with wounded, who had dragged themselves in there for safety. With the aid of Lance-Corporal H. Johnston and others they succeeded in getting back to safety no fewer than 80 disabled men. (e)

An account by a man I knew, Bill Setchell 1st Bn., Sherwood Foresters

"Well here we are here is what I call a brief outline of my service, first into the trenches on March the 5th in 1915, at Neuve Chappel 10 days later the battle of Neuve Chappel, over the top with the Indian Troops next to them, we run among the Prussian Guard but only advanced about 1/2 a mile with terrible casualties. Out and in the line further on the front through April we had 400 fresh men to fill the gaps up. In May 1915, a battle worse than last, at Aubers near La Bassee, we never entered the German front line. *General Cole was killed and here is where I came in, I hid in a shell hole with another Tommy 20 yards from the Germans 1 day and 1 night, posted as missing, I did not find the Battalion for 2 weeks and wished I never had, me and my chum slept anywhere at night and strolled the lanes and ruined hamlets by day given plenty of food by the Gunners and Transport men. Found once more others had been in the same plight, or should I say delight."

[Tom A McCluskey]

Hi All,

For any interested parties, I don’t think a summing up can be done before the facts are laid out and people can draw their own conclusions. Further to this, I don’t think this battle has been covered in great detail. So I’ll press on.

1915 Artillery

The best place to start with this is the OH 1915, Volume, page 55. This describes the artillery types, amounts, and problems that were faced.

Heavy Artillery

Although as early as September 1914 the British War Office appointed a committee of experts to discuss the provision of heavy artillery, by June 1915 the total number in the B.E.F., in France, excluding the nearly worthless 4.7 inch guns* was 15-inch howitzer, three; 9.2-inch howitzer, fourteen; 8-inch howitzer, four; 6-inch howitzer (old), forty; 6-inch guns, eight; and divisional 60-pdrs., thirty-six;** total 105. By October 1918, the total was 2,200.

* The 4.7 inch Q.F. gun (on travelling carriage), firing a 45-lb shell, was obsolete (see “1914,” Vol. II page 164 footnote), having been replaced by the 60-pdr. Its shooting had always been irregular and its shells unreliable, but the thin driving bands of the American-made shells used in 1915 made it even less dependable. Nevertheless, by going in to short range, the batteries managed to render important service.

** Only 37 out of 96 ordered for 1st July 1915 had been delivered.

Field Artillery

As regards the lighter forms of Artillery the B.E.F. was sufficiently provided, although at first old 15-pdrs. and Horse Artillery 13-pdrs. had to be used in the Territorial divisions instead of 18-pdrs., and the old 5-inch howitzer instead of the 4.5. But the deliveries for the new divisions fell behind the contracted times. Thus on 1st July 1915 only 803 of the 2,148 18-pdrs. had been delivered, and 165 out of 530 4.5-inch howitzers.

Artillery Ammunition

As the campaign progressed the supply of ammunition rather than guns was the real difficulty, as will be pointed out from time to time in the narrative. And it was the manufacture of the fuzes, not of the actual shell—which it was easy to produce—that caused delay. By the end of May less than half the contract delivery of No. 80 fuze for the 18-pdr. had been made (870,000 instead of 1,770,000), and those for other natures of gun were equally behindhand. The difficulty in the provision of fuzes continued right on through 1916. Thus during the twelve weeks ending 29th January 1916, 10 million shells were delivered, but only 3 ½ million complete rounds could be sent overseas. Eight months later, in August 1916, there were 25 million 18-pdr. shell lying in stock awaiting fuzes. Throughout 1915 it may be said the resources in ammunition were totally inadequate for sustained operations, as Sir John French was compelled from time to time to remind the War Office. To show the actual increase in production the case of the 18-pdr. will be taken—other types increased in much the like production:-

July 1914 production – 3,000 rounds per month.

Sept 1914 production – 10,000 rounds per month.

Nov 1914 production – 45,000 rounds per month.

Jan 1915 production – 93,000 rounds per month.

March 1915 production – 174,000 rounds per month.

April 1915 production – 225,000 rounds per month.

But as the number of divisions and guns also rose, the actual receipts in France for the four weeks ending 28th April, though 200,000, amounted only to 10.6 per gun per day. For the 4.5-inch howitzers the figure was but 8.2;*

*In February 1915 the British Commander-in-Chief in France limited the expenditure of 18-pdr. shell (no H.E. available) to 10 rounds per gun per day and the 4.5-inch howitzer to 8. In April the allotment was reduced to 3 rounds (no H.E.) for the 18-pdr. and 4.5-inch howitzer. (See Chapter XI.)

The production of ammunition had been complicated by the need for an increased supply of high-explosive shell. At the outbreak of the war the 18-pdr. fired shrapnel only, the 4.5-inch howitzer was allotted 70 per cent shrapnel and 30 per cent H.E. The experimental H.E. ammunition for the 18-pdr. issued in October 1914 proved so effective that a proportion of 50 per cent of it was requested by Sir John French. To convert the machinery which was making shrapnel to the manufacture of H.E. ammunition was out of the question; for such a step would have reduced the supply of the former without producing any of the new shell for at least ten weeks. As it was, the introduction of a new type of shell delayed the delivery of the H.E. ammunition already contracted for. By May 1915, of the 481,000 rounds of 18-pdr. H.E. ordered only 52,000 had been received, and of the 220,000 rounds of 4.5-inch only 73,772. It turned out as the result of experience that G.H.Q. France considered the effect of small H.E. shell had been over-estimated and that it was inadequate to demolish deep and elaborate field entrenchments, for which heavy artillery was necessary. On 19th of April 1915 G.H.Q. requested that the proportion of H.E. for the 13-pdr. and 18-pdr. guns should be lowered from 50 to 30 per cent. This view it maintained and in the preliminary bombardment at the battle of the Somme 24th June to 1st July 1916, inclusive, the British 18-pdr. fired 1,022,296 rounds, of which only 247,766 were H.E. When, 18 months afterwards, on the 10th January 1918, the scale of weekly requirements of 18-pdr. shell was fixed by the Ministry of Munitions, the quantities were:- shrapnel, 391,000 and H.E. 252,000 (including 17,000 chemical and 20,000 smoke shell): that is about 33 per cent were pure H.E.

The campaign against the military authorities in England towards the later part of May 1915,* in which they were accused of starving the Army in France of H.E. ammunition was based on a misapprehension. What the B.E.F. lacked was heavy guns firing H.E. shell not H.E. for the field artillery which can accomplish little against material objects. There were at the time in France 1,263 field guns and howitzers but only, as before stated, 105 heavy guns and howitzers.

*The leading article in the Daily Mail, entitled the “Tragedy of the Shells”, is dated 21st May.

The strain on munition supply at this period was increased by the opening of military operations against the Dardanelles. The output of ammunition was comparatively so meagre that it was not sufficient for France, and of necessity operations in both theatres were starved. In summing up the situation on 12th June Sir John French wrote that the general result of the shortage of artillery ammunition had been (1) to cause anxiety during the operations on the Aisne in September 1914; (2) to make this anxiety acute during the later phases of the first battle of Ypres; (3) to necessitate during the winter of 1914-15 the exercise of an economy [“per diem”] that made it difficult to maintain a satisfactory moral [sic] amongst the infantry in the trenches; and (4) to limit the scope of our offensive efforts during the spring of the year, to make them spasmodic , and to separate them by considerable intervals of time.

The trouble lay not in the lack of material or machinery, but in the failure to organize labour. Had it been possible to execute all contracts made there would have been at the end of May 1915, not 10 but 43 rounds a day for the 18-pdr., and 288 heavy guns and howitzers instead of 105.

18-pounder H.E. Against German Parapets at Aubers

The 18-pdr HE round was found to be no use against the German parapet at the Battle of Aubers Ridge, as this extract reports. OH 1915, Vol. II, page 26:

Although howitzer ammunition was very short, and to make up for it 18-pdr. H.E. shell—which had little effect on thick parapets—was largely used, the results of the 40-minute bombardment were thought to be more effective than in the morning [this is the bombardment prior to 1 Division’s attack in the afternoon], particularly on the right, where in several places the German breastwork was seen to be partially demolished. The gaps through the wire were certainly increased, and in places no longer formed an obstacle.

Here is the allocation of equipments in the 7th & 8th Division's area from OH 1915, Vol. II, page 32:

Allocation of Guns and Howitzers to Divisional Areas (IV Corps 7 & 8 Divisions)

By 2.30 a.m., on the 9th May, all troops were in their assigned positions , their orderly assembly by night being a remarkable piece of work on the part of the Brigade staffs. The bombardment, simultaneous with that on the front of I. And Indian Corps further south, was carried out by No. 2 Group H.A.R. (Br.-General H. C. C. Uniacke) and the 7th and 8th Division artilleries of the IV. Corps,* to which the VII. Siege Brigade was attached—a total of 190 guns and howitzers, under command of Br.-General E. A. Holland of the 8th Division artillery. No. 2 Group H.A.R.** was detailed to demolish certain strong points and farms beyond the range of fire of the divisional batteries, and for counter-battery work in the sector of Ligny le Grand—Aubers—Fromelles.*** The wire on the front of assault was to be cut by seventy-two 18-pdr. guns, the bombardment of the German position itself was to be carried out by the twelve 6-inch howitzers of the VII. Siege Brigade and eighteen 4.5-inch howitzers. Seven R.H.A. (13-pdr.) batteries were to form belts of fire behind the enemy position and sweep the communication trenches so as to isolate the Germans holding the front position.

*The Artillery Advisor of the IV. Corps was Br.-General A. H. Hussey. See footnote, page 17.

** No. 2 Group H.A.R. consisted of: —

R.M.A. (two 15-inch howitzers);

½ 12th Siege Battery (two 9.2-inch guns);

½ 13th Siege Battery (two 9.2-inch guns);

III. Heavy Brigade (ten 4.7-inch guns);

VIII, Heavy Brigade (ten 4.7-inch guns);

1st West Riding Heavy Battery (four 4.7-inch guns);

1st Highland Heavy Battery (four 4.7-inch guns);

Armoured Trains “Churchill” manned by personnel of the Navy) and “Deguise” (manned by Belgian artillerymen), with two 6-inch guns, 4.7-inch guns, and one 4-inch gun.

*** The German artillery supporting the defence consisted of 12 field batteries of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division about Aubers, Fromelles and Le Maisnil, and four Bavarian heavy batteries about Herlies and Fournes.

For the purpose of control during the bombardment, this artillery was divided into three main groups, * but as soon as the 7th Division moved forward and required independent artillery support for its attack on Aubers and Leclercq Farm, this control was to be modified and certain batteries were to revert to the 7th Division artillery command (Br.-General J.F.N. Birch).**

*A Group (Lieut-Colonel E.W. Alexander, V.C.): XXII. Bde. R.F.A. and XIV Bde. R.H.A.

B Group (Lieut-Colonel A.H.S. Goff): XXXIII. Bde. R.F.A. and XLV Bde. R.F.A.

C Group (Lieut-Colonel H. Rouse): I. Bde. R.H.A., V. Bde. R.F.A. and I West Riding Bde. R.F.A. (T)

The XXXV. Brigade and XXXVII (How.) Brigade R.F.A., VII. Siege Brigade and No.5 Mountain Battery were not grouped.

**One 6-inch howitzer battery; two 4.5-inch howitzer batteries; one brigade R.H.A. and two brigades of R.F.A.

The bombardment began at 5 a.m., and whilst it was in progress reports were received from the front line that a quantity of shell, including 4.7 inch employed for counter-battery work, was falling short of the enemy defences. This being due to wear and tear of the of the gun barrels and to faulty ammunition, could not be remedied, and consequently much of the fire failed to reach the German position and its defenders.* During the final ten minutes the rate of fire was intense,** and during this period the front companies of the leading battalions moved out across the breastworks and formed up ready for the assault in No Man’s Land, which, on the extreme right, was 330 yards wide, but for the greater part of the front averaged only a hundred yards. Bayonets now began to show above enemy parapet, giving indication that the defenders were fully on the alert.

*As soon as the 4.7-inch shell left the muzzle, the copper driving bands stripped, and the shell turned end over and fell anywhere, even 500 yards behind the British support trench.

** The total expenditure of ammunition during the day (9th May) by the two divisions was as follows: —

7th Division per gun.

18-pdrs. shrapnel - 170

18-pdrs. H.E. – 39

4.5-inch Howitzer – Nil

6-inch Howitzer – Nil

8th Division per gun.

18-pdrs. shrapnel - 273

18-pdrs. H.E. – 14

4.5-inch Howitzer – 108 (Lyddite)

6-inch Howitzer – 22 (Shrapnel) and 147 (Light Lyddite)

The 24th and 25th Brigade Brigades were to move forward side by side, one south and the other north of the Sailly—Fromelles road. Opposite the 24th Brigade the German front was a pronounced salient and it was decided that the assault should be delivered only against the two sides on the right by the 2/Northamptonshire (Major C.R.S. Mowatt) , on the left by the 2/East Lancashire (Major H. Maclear), with a distance of about three hundred yards between the two. As the wire-cutting guns were 2,000 yards back, two guns of the 104th Battery, XXII. Brigade R.F.A., had been brought up during the night into specially prepared emplacements in the front line breastwork, within 350 yards of the enemy’s line. One of these guns, that on the right, breached several gaps of five to six yards in the German wire and breastwork, using H.E. shell; but the other, owing to weakness of the floor of the emplacement, was not able to shoot with accuracy.

Ammunition Shortage limiting the Continuation of the Battle

In the early hours of the 10th the reports of the very severe losses, ten thousand officers and men,* sustained the previous day and of the limited amount of ammunition remaining reached First Army headquarters. General Haig at once decided that he must have further information and directed his corps commanders to meet him at I. Corps headquarters at 9 a.m. At the conference it transpired that the amount of ammunition available for the use of the First Army was not sufficient to continue two attacks which might last for several days;**

*The reports sent in gave the losses of the three divisions engaged as 145 officers and 9,400 men. As worked out later, the divisional totals were as follows:—

1st Division – Officers 160, Other ranks 3,808; (took part in the attack on the 9th May 1915)

2nd Division – Officers -, Other ranks 20;

7th Division – Officers 1, Other ranks 24;

8th Division – Officers 192, Other ranks 4,490; (took part in the attack on the 9th May)

Meerut Division – Officers 94, Other ranks 2,535; (took part in the attack on the 9th May)

Lahore Division – Officers 7, Other ranks 115;

47th Division – Officers 2, Other ranks 77;

49th Division – Officers 2, Other ranks 92;

TOTAL: Officers 458 and Other ranks 11,161.

**It was on the previous day, 9th May, that Lord Kitchener asked for 20,000 rounds 18-pdr. and 2,000 rounds 4.5-inch howitzer ammunition to be despatched from France to the Dardanelles (See “1915” Vol. I. Page 331). At that time there was no 18-pdr. H.E. or 4.5-inch howitzer lyddite at the base, so shrapnel was sent. On the 17th May, the nearest day for which there was a complete return, the rounds of H.E. remaining on the L. of C. were:—

18-pdr., 3,014;

4.5-inch, 800;

5-inch, 2,138;

4.7-inch, 2,810;

60-pdr., 1,065;

6-inch., 140.

Here is a start on the artillery and there is more to come. It is clear that the British had many problems in this area. Some of which are listed below:

1. A lack of destruction of German positions, materiel, and men. The British guns and howitzers were (inaccurately) trying to engage too many targets. This would be compunded by targets, at distance, using equipments that were inadequately registered.

2. Inefficiency in the munitions industry.

3. Not enough fuzes. Therefore, not enough shells.

4. Not enough howitzers and guns. There were not enough 6-inch howitzers to destroy Germans trenches. Expedients such as using 18-pounders with High Explosive shells were only producing local effects and were insufficient in destructive force.

5. A lack of quality control.

6. Worn ordnance/equipments

7. Obsolete equipments (guns & howitzers)

8. Accuracy of fire (registering and worn barrels were an issue, made worse by the change in weather and flat ground)

9. Insufficient counter-battery fire.

10. Prematures

11. Shells not detonating.

Hope this is of interest or use to some of you.

Aye

Tom McC

[PhilB]

Thanks, Tom, for your informative and helpful input.

[phil andrade]

Yes, Tom, let me second the other Phil's comments : you've done some hard work here.... much appreciated. I knew very little about Aubers ten days ago; now I've learnt one or two things that have whet my appetite, and you are the principal contributor to this.

Phil (PJA)

[George Armstrong Custer]

I don’t think a summing up can be done before the facts are laid out and people can draw their own conclusions.

Bit ironic, then, isn't it Tom, that it was you yourself who posted the entire text of the Official Historian's summing up of the reasons for the failure at Aubers way back on post #77? This was in response to Tom R's even earlier paraphrasing of the OH's summary in the context of why Aubers failed. Interesting though the detail of the OH's material preceding his summing up is, it's not likely to lead to a radically different conclusion to that summing up which he published it in support of - as your own note at the end of your last quote indicates, "It is clear that the British had many problems in this area" [artillery]. Indeed they did, which is exactly the conclusion which the OH's summary quoted in full by you some pages ago comes to. As did Haig's assessment of change being required in the use of artillery in the immediate aftermath of Aubers. To which both Haig at the time, and the OH in his summary twenty years later, added the lessons learned by the Germans after Neuve Chapelle so far as strengthening their positions was concerned.

I summarised Haig and the OH's conclusions in my own analysis of the salient factors as to why Aubers failed and what the scale of the impact of that failure was on the BEF in terms of morale, fighting ability etc. Are you moving towards debating the validity of those conclusions? I'd be interested if you were. If not, then it would seem a rather pointless exercise to simply post pages from the OH which are merely supportive of and working towards the summary of the OH which you've already posted without criticism of its conclusions. This may be of interest to those who don't have a copy of the OH, or can't be bothered to order one through interlibrary loan, but analytical debate of the essentials would rather get lost if we all started to post pages of verbatim transcriptions from the published and unpublished sources upon which we've based our own conclusions.

Judicious direct quoting of key points is one thing, but what needs to be opened up in a debate on a question such as why Aubers was a 'disaster' is interpretation of these through the identification of the essential and the synthesis of that into context, leading to a conclusion of ones own, in ones own words. The alternative would be for us all merely to introduce endless pages of extracts from the books or documents we've read, rather than illustrating with key quotes, or paraphrasing, the conclusions we draw from them. This is a personal approach of my own which I am sure you will disagree with and will naturally feel free to disregard, but I did at least want to indicate an alternative approach - particularly as you yourself had already posted some time ago the, entirely relevant, OH's summary of the essential reasons for failure at Aubers.

George

[Tom A McCluskey]

Phil & Phil,

Thanks very much. I'll carry on with other research bits, so you can get the complete picture.

Aye

Tom McC

[SiegeGunner]

An amazing recitation of detail, Tom, but to what end I am not sure.

[Tom A McCluskey]

Mick,

You'll find out at the end. I would like to meet my stated obligation made at post 159. If you have any information relating to British artillery and logistics at Aubers Ridge, please feel free to contribute - because I would be interested.

Aye

Tom McC

[SiegeGunner]

The Germans were evidently impressed by the British artillery effort and their accounts contain no negative observations on its quality or quantity.

“On 8 May the enemy became more active than usual. He appeared to be systematically shelling selected targets in the rear area and registering ranges, and his heavy artillery bombarded the trenches in Sector III. The Artillery Commander gained the impression that an attack was imminent and reported accordingly to Division.”

“Sector III was swept by light fire from field artillery from 5.15am, and at 5.50am an intense bombardment by artillery of all calibres was directed at our trenches in Sector III a-e, accompanied by heavy shrapnel fire on the ground between the front line and Fromelles. The shelling continued at this intensity for about an hour and, as later became clear, sufficed to destroy our wire in numerous places.”

“… the British heavy artillery had laid down a concentrated and very effective barrage. The raised breastworks were badly knocked about and were breached at several points. The wire was destroyed over a distance of about 100m, and many of the garrison were killed, among them the company commander …”

“Here too, on the right flank of Sector f, the enemy artillery preparation had been very thorough and the trenches occupied by the right flank platoon of 8/RIR16 were completely obliterated.”

“It was doubtful, in view of the enemy artillery barrage on the ridge line Maisnil-Fromelles-Aubers, which was continuing with unabated ferocity, whether a counter-attack would be possible in daylight.”

“The attack was scheduled for 9.00pm, but due to the continuing heavy artillery fire and the need to reconnoitre the situation in the front line in darkness, it was 3.00am before the attack actually went in.”

“… having destroyed our breastworks and wire with exceptionally heavy artillery fire …”

“… he had drawn up … powerful artillery forces in front of Laventie.”

[phil andrade]

Your passage refutes Cherry's comment that the Germans were not impressed by the British artillery preparation, Mick.

Interesting remark made in one of the German observations that a counter atttack was not going to be "possible in daylight". An indication of the aggressive nature of German defensive combat - thinking about counter attacks at every available opportunity - or do I misninterpret or over simplify ?

At Neuve Chapelle - according to British accounts - the German counter attack was heavily punished. Is this true ? And, if so, did the Germans modify their counter attack methods at Aubers Ridge ?

Phil (PJA)

[PhilB]

No mention of a high % of duds, Mick?