EVENTS IN THE WINTER CAMPAIGN

It is well-nigh impossible to give a connected story of the innumerable and far-flung operations of the winter campaign. It resolves itself into a mere list of dates and a brief description of what happened on those dates. At this short distance of time even the descriptive details are by no means altogether reliable, owing to the contradictory reports that announced them. During the first week in December, 1915, the Germans concentrated strong reenforcements and an immense amount of artillery with the object of striking a blow at the allied line in Flanders and Artois. In Champagne they captured about 800 feet of an advanced trench near Auberive. The French admitted the loss, but claimed that they had reoccupied a large part of the ground originally yielded.

Floods in the Yser region compelled the Germans to abandon many of their advanced trenches, and two of their ammunition depots were blown up. Near Berry-au-Bac they destroyed a French trench with its occupants and blew up some mines that the French had almost completed. Artillery engagements in Artois became more pronounced, especially around Givenchy. On the 8th sixteen British aeroplanes bombed a German stores depot at Miraumont, in the Somme district, and the aerodrome at Hervilly. The attack was carried out in a high westerly wind, which made flying difficult. All machines returned safely after inflicting much damage on both objectives. A British cargo boat having run aground off the Belgian coast, three German hydroaeroplanes attempted to sink her with bombs. Several of the allied aeroplanes, one of them French, set out from the land and drove the German flyers away after an exciting fight. Deep snow in the Vosges Mountains prevented operations beyond artillery action.

On December 16, 1915, in the course of his demand in the Chamber of Deputies that the Chamber grant three months' credit on the budget account, the French Minister of Finance, M. Ribot, said that while the war expenditure at the beginning of the conflict was 1,500,000,000 francs ($300,000,000) a month, it had risen to 2,100,000,000 francs ($420,000,000). "At the beginning of hostilities financial considerations took a secondary place. We did not think the war would last seventeen months, and now no one can foresee when it will end."

Artillery activity of more than usual intensity at a number of points marked the 17th, 18th and 19th of December, 1915. To the east of Ypres French and British batteries bombarded the German trenches from which suffocating gas was directed toward the British line. No infantry attacks followed. By December 22, 1915, the French had gained the summit of Hartmannsweilerkopf, a dominating peak in southern Alsace, overlooking the roads leading to the Rhine. For eight months they had fought for the position, and thousands of lives were sacrificed by the attackers and the defenders. The Germans succeeded in recovering part of the ground next day. The French took 1,300 prisoners in the capture, and the Germans claimed 1,553 prisoners in the recapture. Fighting continued around the spot for months.

Christmas passed with no break in the hostilities and no material change in the situation on the western front. The year 1915 closed, in a military sense, less favorably for the Allies than it began. Only a few square miles had been reconquered in the west at a heavy sacrifice; Italy had made little progress; the Dardanelles expedition had proved a failure; the British had not reached Bagdad nor attained their aim in Greece; while Russia had lost nearly all Galicia, with Poland and Courland as well, and the Serbian army had been practically eliminated. On the other hand, the Allies had maintained supremacy on the seas, had captured all but one of the German colonies, and still held all German sea-borne trade in a vise of steel. Not one of the armies of the Allies other than that of Serbia had been struck down; each of them was hard at work raising new armies and developing the supply of munitions. The spirit of all the warring peoples, without exception, appeared to be that of a grim, unbending determination. Germany, with a large proportion of her able-bodied manhood disposed of and her trade with the outer world cut off, was perhaps in greater straits than a superficial examination of her military successes showed. The care with which the Germans economized their supplies of men, and made the fullest possible use in the field of men who were not physically fit for actual military service, was illustrated by the creation of some new formations called Armierungsbattalionen. These battalions, of which, it was said, no full description would be published before the end of the war, consisted of all sorts of men with slight physical defects, underofficers and noncommissioned officers who were either too old for service or had been invalided. Their duty was to relieve the soldiers of as much work as possible. They were employed in roadmaking and in transporting munitions and supplies in difficult country—for example, in the Vosges Mountains. Most of these men—and there were many thousands of them—wore uniforms, but carried no arms.

It is rather an ironical commentary on "our present advanced state of culture," as Carlyle put it, that the birthday of the Man of Sorrows—the period of "peace on earth and good will toward all men"—was celebrated even amid the raucous crash and murderous turmoil of the battle field. Preparations had long been in the making for the event. In the homes of France, Germany, and Great Britain millions and millions of parcels were carefully packed full of little luxuries, comforts, tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes, and addressed to some loved one "at the front." Newspapers collected subscriptions and busy societies were also formed for the same purpose, so that there was hardly a single combatant who did not receive some token of remembrance from home.

On the occasion of the New Year the kaiser addressed the following order to his army and navy:

"Comrades:—One year of severe fighting has elapsed. Whenever a superior number of enemies tried to rush our lines they failed before your loyalty and bravery. Every place where I sent you into battle you gained glorious victories. Thankfully we remember to-day above all our brethren who joyfully gave their blood in order to gain security for our beloved ones at home and imperishable glory for the Fatherland. What they began we shall accomplish with God's gracious help.

"In impotent madness our enemies from west and east, from north and south, still strive to deprive us of all that makes life worth living. The hope of conquering us in fair fighting they have buried long ago. On the weight of their masses, on the starvation of our entire people, on the influence of their campaign of calumny, which is as mischievous as malicious, they believe they can still reckon. Their plans will not succeed. Their hopes will be miserably disappointed in the presence of the spirit of determination which imperturbably unites the army and those at home.

"With a will to do one's duty for the Fatherland to the last breath, and a determination to secure victory, we enter the new year with God for the protection of the Fatherland and for Germany's greatness."

About the same time Count Zeppelin delivered a speech at DÜsseldorf. The local newspapers reported him as saying: "Speaking for myself and expressing the view of your Imperial Master, the war will not last two years. The next few months will see German arms march rapidly from triumph to triumph, and the final destruction of our enemies will be swift and sudden. Our Zeppelin fleets will play an important part in future operations and will demonstrate more than ever their power as a factor in modern warfare." The opening of the year 1916 found Great Britain in the throes of a momentous controversy over the question of adopting conscription. In the west the Franco-British armies hugged the belief that their lines were impregnable to attack. An offensive on the part of the Germans was certainly expected, but where and when it would materialize none could foretell, though the French command had a shrewd suspicion. It was purely a matter of deduction that the Germans, having so far failed to break a passage through the circle of steel that encompassed them on the east and the west, would be forced to concentrate their hopes on an offensive on the western front. They had carefully taken into consideration the Battle of Champagne. They admitted that the French had opened a breach in their line, and they would probably argue that the imperfect results of the operations were due only to the inability of their enemies to exploit the first advantage that they had gained. They appear to have decided to copy the French example, but to apply to it the German touch of thoroughness. The French, they might argue, fired so many shells on a front of so many miles and destroyed our trenches; we will fire so many more shells on a narrower front, so that we can be certain there will be no obstacle to the advance of our infantry. The French had not enough men to carry their initial success to its conclusion, consequently we will mass a very large number of men behind the attack. With this object undoubtedly in view, the Germans indulged in a succession of feints up and down the whole frontier, feeling and probing the line at all points. This procedure cost them thousands of men, but it probably did not deceive the strategists on the other side. All that remained indeterminable to the French Staff was the precise date and locality.

A general survey of the front for the first days of January, 1916, reveals activity all round. In Belgium there was artillery fighting over the front of the Yser and along the front at Yperlee, and a similar duel between Germans and Belgians near Mercken. In front of the British first-line trenches the Germans sprang mines, but did not trouble to take possession of the craters. The British sprang some mines near La Poisselu and bombarded the German trenches north of Fromelles and east of Ypres, the Germans responding vigorously.

The British also attempted a night attack near Frelinghien, northeast of ArmentiÈres, which failed in its purpose. German troops cracked a mine at Hulluch and captured a French trench at Hartmannsweilerkopf with 200 prisoners. The French heavy artillery in Champagne directed a strong fire against some huts occupied by Germans in the forest of Malmaison. A German attack with hand grenades in the vicinity of the Tahure road did little harm. Between the Arve and the Oise artillery exchanges were in continual progress; between Soissons and Rheims a series of mine explosions; and in the Vosges the French artillery roared in the vicinity of MÜhlbach. A German long-range gun fired about ten shots at Nancy and its environments, killing two civilians and wounding seven others.

In the north, again, we find the German artillery making a big demonstration on the front east of Ypres and northeast of Loos; the British destroying the outskirts of Andechy in the region of Roye. French and Belgian guns batter the Germans stationed to the east of St. George and shell other groups about Boesinghe and Steenstraete. South of the Somme the German first-line trenches near Dompierre are receiving artillery attention, and a supply train south of Chaulnes is shattered. In Champagne the Tahure skirmish goes on, while in the Vosges an artillery duel of great intensity rends the air in the Hirzstein sector.

Along the Yser front the Belgians are shelled in the rear of their lines, and a German barracks is being bombarded. On the southern part of the British front bomb attacks are being carried out. With all this sporadic and disconnected expenditure of life, energy and ammunition little damage is done, and the losses and gains on either side are equally unimportant. The Germans are tapping against the wall, looking for weak spots. By the 5th, however, when General Joffre's New Year's message appears, in which he tells his armies that the enemy is weakening, that enemy suddenly grows more active and energetic. German artillery fire increased in violence throughout Flanders, Artois, Champagne, and the Vosges. They launched infantry attacks against the French between Hill 193 and the Butte de Tahure. North of Arras the French bombarded German troops in the suburbs of Roye; in the Vosges they shelled German works in the region of Balschwiller, and demolished some trenches and a munitions depot northwest of Altkirch.

British aeroplanes dropped bombs on the aerodrome at Douai, and a German aviator dropped a few on Boulogne. The German War Office statement briefly announced that "fighting with artillery and mines at several points on the Franco-Belgian front is reported." The next few days are almost a blank; hardly anything leaks out; but things are happening all the same.

To the south of Hartmannsweilerkopf, after a series of fruitless attacks, followed by a severe bombardment, the Germans succeeded in recovering the trenches which they had lost to the French on December 31, 1915. Besides that, they also captured 20 officers, 1,083 chasseurs, and 15 machine guns. This move compelled the French troops occupying the summit of Hirzstein to evacuate their position. Artillery incessantly thundered in Flanders, Champagne, Artois, the Vosges, and on the British lines at Hulluch and ArmentiÈres. By January 10, 1916, it looked as though the Germans intended to retrieve the misfortunes of Champagne. An assault by the kaiser's troops under General von Einem was made on a five-mile front east of Tahure, with the center about at Maisons de Champagne Farm, close to the Butte de Mesnil. At this point the French had held well to the ground won during the previous September. On the 9th the German artillery opened fire with great violence, using suffocating shells, and this was followed by four concentric infantry attacks on that front during the day and night. The French fire checked the offensive, but at two points the Germans managed to reach the first French lines. The battle raged for three days, during which the Germans took a French observation post, several hundred yards of trenches, 423 prisoners, seven machine guns, and eight mine throwers. The French counterattack broke down, though it was claimed that they had recovered the ground.

At Massiges the Germans attacked on almost as large a scale as the French had done the previous autumn. The German bombardment increased steadily in intensity, and during the last twelve hours 400,000 shells were stated to have fallen on the eight-mile front from La Courtine to the western slopes of the "Hand" of Massiges. The infantry were thrown forward on the 10th. The first attack was launched on the hill forming the western finger of Massiges, whence the French fire broke their ranks and drove them back. Foiled in this direction, the next attack was delivered against the five-mile front. Some 40,000 men took part in the charge. But the powerful French "seventy-fives" tore ghastly lanes in their ranks, and few lived to reach the wire entanglements. Crawling through the holes made by the bombardment, they captured 300 yards of trenches. A portion of this the French regained. The British lost four aeroplanes on January 12-13, 1916. Two German aviators accounted for one each, and the other two were brought down by gunfire.

The Prussian Prime Minister, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, who is also Imperial Chancellor, opened the new session of the Prussian Diet on January 13, 1916. In reading the speech from the throne, he said: "As our enemies forced the war upon us, they must also bear the guilt of the responsibility if the nations of Europe continue to inflict wounds upon one another."

By the 13th the German offensive in Champagne had collapsed. Operations in the west resumed for the time a normal state of activity, in which artillery duels were the main features. In the middle of January the British opened fire on the French town of Lille, near the Belgian border and inside the German lines. According to German authority, the damage done was negligible. Little of import happened till January 23, 1916, when two squadrons of French aeroplanes, comprising twenty-four machines, bombarded the railway station and barracks at Metz. They dropped 130 shells. The aeros were escorted by two protecting squadrons, the pilots of which during the trip engaged in ten combats with giant Fokkers and aviatiks. The French machines were severely cannonaded along the whole of their course, but returned undamaged, except one only, which was obliged to make a landing southeast of Metz. On the 24th the Germans made another strong feint, this time in Belgium, that had all the appearance of the expected attack in force. They began by bombarding the French lines near Nieuport, but the infantry charge that was to have followed was smothered in the German trenches, before the men could make a start. Another German attack north of Arras was held up by French rifle fire. The chief result of the offensive seems to have been the destruction of Nieuport cathedral.

Toward the end of January, 1916, activity became more and more intensified all along the western front in every sector except that in which the Germans were preparing for the big coup—Verdun. It will be simpler to review the disconnected operations by following them separately in the different districts where they occurred. It will be observed that in practically every case the Germans assumed the offensive. In Alsace the French batteries exploded a German munitions depot on the outskirts of Orbey, southeast of Bonhomme. In the region of Sondernach, south of MÜnster, the Germans captured and occupied a French listening post, from which they were expelled by counterattacks. On February 13, 1916, they attempted an infantry attack, which was halted by French artillery fire. The Germans gained 300 feet of trenches on the 14th. The French took the ground back again, but were unable to hold it. On the 18th the Germans, after the usual artillery preparation, directed an infantry attack against the French position to the north of Largitson, where they penetrated into the trenches and remained there for some hours until a counterattack expelled them. In Lorraine, constant artillery duels raged in the sectors of Reillon and the forest of Parroy. In the Argonne, French mine operations destroyed the German trenches over a short distance near Hill 285, northeast of La Chalade. On February 12, 1916, the French shattered some enemy mine works. Increased artillery firing at many points in Flanders and northern France first gave the Allies the impression that the Germans were planning a new offensive on a large scale against their left wing, in an attempt to blast a passage through to Calais and Dunkirk. By February 7, 1916, the Allies were thoroughly awake to the possibility of a big blow impending somewhere in the west. The sweep through Serbia had released several hundred thousand men for service elsewhere. For a month the Germans had been hammering and probing at Loos, Givenchy, ArmentiÈres, and other points with the evident object of finding a weak spot. Along the Neuville-Givenchy road especially the Germans made no fewer than twenty-five determined attacks between the 1st and 17th of February, 1916. Their later attacks developed more to the north, near LiÈvin, where heavy trench fighting occurred, with no important results either way.

At the beginning of February, 1916, the 525-mile battle front in the west was held on one side by about 1,250,000 Germans—an average of 2,500 to the mile—as against quite 2,000,000 French, about 1,000,000 British, and 50,000 Belgians. But this superiority in numbers on the allied side was neutralized by the strength of the German defense works plus artillery. None of the Allies' undertakings had, so far, been carried out to its logical—or intended—conclusion. Whether this was due to weakness, infirmity of purpose or lack of coordination, remains to be told some future day. By the middle of the month it became apparent, from their expenditure of men and munitions, that the German General Staff were determined to make up for their past losses and to recapture at least some of the ground taken from them by the Allies. It seems hardly credible that all these fierce attacks were mere feints to withdraw attention from their objective—Verdun. They had no reason to fear a French offensive in the immediate future. For one thing the condition of the ground was still too unfavorable. The French at this stage occupied practically the entire semicircle from Hill 70 to the town of Thelus, excepting a portion between Givenchy and Petit Vimy. Hill 140, the predominant feature in the district, was almost all in French hands. The line between La Folie and the junction of the Neuville-St. Vaast road covered the Labyrinth, which the French had won in the summer of 1915, and it was here that the main force of the German attacks was launched. The French positions on the heights commanded every other position that the Germans could possibly take within the semicircle, and naturally gave the former an immense advantage for their next offensive.

In Artois the Germans exploded several mines on January 26, 1916, in the neighborhood of the road from La Folie, northeast of Neuville-St. Vaast, and occupied the craters made. Violent cannonading kept up in the whole of this sector. By the 28th the Germans had captured three successive lines of French trenches and held them against eight counterattacks. After exploding mines the Germans made an attack on both sides of the road between Vimy and Neuville and stormed French positions between 500 and 600 yards long. They captured fifty-three men, a machine gun, and three mine throwers. On the 28th they directed infantry attacks against various points and gained more trenches. Following up their advantage the Germans stormed and captured the village of Frise, on the south bank of the Somme.

While this struggle was in progress, a terrific fight was raging north of Arras. The real objective of the attack appears to have been an advance south of Frise in the direction of Dompierre, but this effort met with little success. The French at once set to work to recover the only ground that was of any real importance. The troops in the section opened a series of counterattacks, and in a very short time the French grenadiers had gained the upper hand again. The capture of Frise brought the Germans into a cul-de-sac, for their advance was still barred by the Somme Canal, behind which there lay a deep marsh. Maneuvers were quite impossible here, hence the village could not serve as a base for any further operations. The German gains were nevertheless considerable, for they took about 3,800 yards of trenches and nearly 1,300 prisoners, including several British. Spirited mine fighting marked the first three days of February, 1916. In the neighborhood of the road from Lille the French artillery fire caused explosions among the German batteries in the region of Vimy. Between February 8-9, 1916, the German infantry stormed the first-line French positions over a stretch of more than 800 yards, capturing 100 prisoners and five machine guns. Small sections of these trenches were retaken and held.

The German report stated that the French "were unable to reconquer any part of their lost positions." Five German attacks were made on Hill 140 on February 11, 1916, all but one being repulsed by the intense fire of the French artillery and infantry. Stubborn fighting, accompanied by heavy losses, raged about the 14th, by which time the French had regained a few more trenches. The steady underground advance of the French sappers drove the Germans back upon their last bastion, commanding the central plain.

The French trenches gradually crept up the slopes of the hill until the German commander, the Bavarian Crown Prince, realized that the next assault was likely to be irresistible and to involve the abandonment of Lille, Lens, Douai, and the entire front at this point. A mine explosion west of Hill 140 made a crater fifty yards across. A steeplechase dash across the open from both sides—French and Germans met in the crater—a fierce struggle for its possession followed, and the French won the hole. A furious bombardment from a score of quick-firing mortars hidden behind La Folie Hill battered the earth out of shape, and when the Germans occupied the terrain where the French trenches had been, the "seventy-fives" played such havoc among them that they were forced to relinquish their hold. To the south of Frise the Germans were preparing an attack, but were prevented from carrying it out by French and British barrier fires.

On the British front the artillery was hardly less active than in Artois. On one section, according to a German report, the British fired 1,700 shrapnel shells, 700 high explosive shells, and about the same number of bombs within twenty-four hours. On January 27, 1916, the Germans attempted an infantry attack on a salient northeast of Loos, but were held back. A British night attack on the German trenches near Messines, Flanders, was likewise repulsed. In the morning of February 12, 1916, the Germans broke into the British trenches near Pilkellen, but were pushed out by bombing parties. There was much mining activity about Hulluch and north of the Ypres-Comines Canal. At the latter place some desperate underground fighting occurred between sappers. On the 14th the Germans were again engaged in serious operations in the La BassÉe region, where they exploded seven mines on the British front.

By February 15, 1916, the British first-line trenches on a 600 to 800 yards' front fell to the Germans in assaults on the Ypres salient, carried by a bayonet charge after artillery preparation. Most of the defenders were killed and forty prisoners taken. The assaults extended over a front of more than two miles. The trench now captured by the Germans had frequently changed hands during the past twelve months, and for that reason was facetiously called "the international trench." The brunt of the fighting here fell upon the Canadians, who were withdrawn from the trench owing to the furious bombardment, and sheltered in the second-line trench. The German infantry consequently met with no opposition at the former, but when they approached the latter the Canadians opened a murderous fire with rifles and machine guns, dropping their enemies in hundreds. A few, however, managed to reach the trenches, when the Canadians sprang out and charged with bayonets, rushed the Germans back to and across the first-line trenches again, which were then reoccupied. It was the Canadian First Division that had blocked the German path to Calais in the spring of 1915 almost at the same point.

Activity on the west front on the 18th was largely confined to the Ypres district. British troops attempted to recapture their positions to the south of Ypres, simultaneously bombarding the German trenches to the north of the Comines Canal. By February 20, 1916, as a result of the continuous fighting north of Ypres, the British had lost on the Yser Canal what the German official report described as a position 350 meters long, and the British statement as "an unimportant advanced post." The Germans took some prisoners and repelled several day and night attacks by the British to recover the ground.

In Champagne, uninterrupted artillery actions continued apparently without much advantage to either side. The German works north of Souain were particularly visited. On February 5, 1916, the French bombarded the German works on the plateau of Navarin, wrecking trenches and blowing up several munition depots. Some reservoirs of suffocating gas were also demolished, releasing the poisonous fumes, which the wind blew back across the German lines. On the 13th the French were able to report a further success northeast of the Butte du Mesnil, where they took some 300 yards of German trenches. A counterattack by night was also repulsed, the Germans losing sixty-five prisoners. They succeeded, though, in penetrating a small salient of the French line between the road from Navarin and that of the St. Souplet. They also captured, on the 12th, some sections of advanced trenches between Tahure and Somme-Py, gaining more than 700 yards of front.

In the Vosges a similar series of local engagements occupied the combatants. Artillery exchanges played the chief part in the operations. Three big shells from a German long-range gun fell in the fortress town of Belfort and its environs on February 8, 1916. The French replied by bombarding the German cantonments at Stosswier, northwest of MÜnster, Hirtzbach, south of Altkirch, and the military establishments at Dornach, near MÜhlhausen. On the 11th ten more heavy shells fell about Belfort. North of Wissembach, east of St. DiÉ, a German infantry charge met with a withering fire and was stopped before it reached the first line.

While all the fighting just described was in progress, matters were comparatively on a peace footing in the Argonne Forest. The French and Germans engaged in mine operations, smashing up inconsiderable pieces of each other's trenches and mine works. But it was here that affairs of great historic import, perhaps the mightiest event of the war, were in the making.

In an interview given to the editor of the "Secolo" of Milan, at the end of January, 1916, Mr. Lloyd-George, the British Minister of Munitions, said: "We woke up slowly to it, but I am now perfectly satisfied with what we are doing. We have now 2,500 factories, employing 1,500,000 men and 250,000 women. By spring we shall have turned out an immense amount of munitions. We shall have for the first time in the war more than the enemy. Our superiority in men and munitions will be unquestioned, and I think that the war for us is just beginning. We have 3,000,000 men under arms; by spring we shall have a million more.... Our victory must be a real and final victory. You must not think of a deadlock. One must crack the nut before one gets at the kernel. It may take a long time, but you must hear the crack. The pressure on the enemy is becoming greater. They are spreading their frontier temporarily, but becoming weaker in a military sense. Make no mistake about it; Great Britain is determined to fight this war to a finish. We may make mistakes, but we do not give in. It was the obstinacy of Great Britain that wore down Napoleon after twenty years of warfare. Her allies broke away one by one, but Great Britain kept on. Our allies on this occasion are just as solid and determined as we are."[Back to Contents]