The German army on the Western front 1915

480 Pages·2012·5.64 MB·English

by  Sheldon

To my aunt and godmother
Joan Ede

With love and thanks for a lifetime of kindness.
By the same author:

The German Army on the Somme 1914 – 1916
The German Army at Passchendaele
The German Army on Vimy Ridge 1914 – 1917
The German Army at Cambrai
The German Army at Ypres 1914
The Germans at Beaumont Hamel
The Germans at Thiepval
With Nigel Cave:

The Battle for Vimy Ridge 1917
Le Cateau

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright © Jack Sheldon 2012
9781783032266
The right of Jack Sheldon to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

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Table of Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
CHAPTER 1 - The Winter Battle in Champagne
CHAPTER 2 - Neuve Chapelle
CHAPTER 3 - Gas Attack at Ypres
CHAPTER 4 - The Spring Battles in Artois: Arras, Aubers Ridge and
Festubert
.CHAPTER 5 - The Argonne Forest
CHAPTER 6 - The Autumn Battles in Artois: Arras and Loos
CHAPTER 7 - The Autumn Battle in Champagne
APPENDIX I - German – British Comparison of Ranks
APPENDIX II - 1915: An Outline Chronology
APPENDIX III - Selective Biographical Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
The German Army series concentrates on description and analysis of the way
events unfolded along the Western Front and does not usually pursue
consideration of alternative scenarios. However a broader discussion is essential
in the case of 1915. This was a seminal year on the Western Front and for the
First World War more generally. Despite months of incessant fighting it did not
even begin to determine the outcome of the war, but it certainly defined the way
it would be fought.
The stalemate at Ypres the previous November brought mobile operations to
an end in the west. This forced the German High Command and Falkenhayn in
particular to confront the reality of the long-feared war on two fronts and to
decide on future strategy. Given the constraints of manpower and equipment it
was clear that it would be impossible to maintain large-scale offensives in both
east and west at the same time. Priorities had to be laid down and difficult
choices confronted. In the event, the decision was to attack on the Eastern Front
and to conduct defensive operations along the Western Front. There were only
two, relatively limited, exceptions to this policy. Throughout the year, but more
especially up until August, the reinforced XVI Corps, commanded by General
der Infanterie von Mudra, conducted a permanent offensive, driving in a
southerly direction through the difficult terrain of the Argonne Forest west of
Verdun whilst, in late April and early May, Fourth Army, commanded by
Generaloberst Duke Albrecht of Württemberg, launched a limited attack,
preceded by the first offensive use of chlorine gas, which was designed to
eliminate the Ypres Salient.
Despite their peculiar impersonal dryness and strange couching in the third
person throughout, it is clear from an examination of Falkenhayn’s memoirs that
he appreciated that the greatest threat was posed by the Allies in the west and
that it would be in Germany’s interest to conclude a separate peace with Russia.
As a result of this line of thought, his first inclination was to deploy the extra
forces generated in early 1915 on the Western Front rather than in the east. A
combination of training and equipping new units, coupled with a major
reorganisation of the field army, including substantial reductions in the infantry
reorganisation of the field army, including substantial reductions in the infantry
available in each of the divisions, made it possible to create eight additional
divisions in February 1915 and a further fourteen the following April. All these
extra forces, in fact, went to the east, which throws up two questions: why was
this done; and, was there an alternative? It would appear that by the end of 1914
Falkenhayn had already decided that the ultimate decision would have to be
fought out on the Western Front but that, in the light of the failure the previous
November in Flanders and the relative strength of the two sides, this could not
be achieved by breakthrough and manoeuvre. Instead, it would have to rely on a
policy of attrition, coupled with delaying tactics on the Eastern Front. It could be
said that this was another example of Falkenhayn playing a percentage game,
rather than risking all on decisive, but possibly risky, action.
It is certainly consistent with the way he chose to fight the battles around
Ypres and Flanders the previous autumn. By launching the fresh formations of
Fourth Army east-west, parallel to the coast, he ensured that, if there was no
swift breakthrough and wheeling movement to the south, there would at least be
a defensible line at the end of the offensive. A great captain might well have
preferred to have massed his forces along the line of the Lys, allowed the Allies
to progress along the Belgian coast towards Ostende then to have driven hard
north to the sea, refusing his left flank and so have eliminated the main body of
the BEF. Falkenhayn later described the operations in Flanders as a ‘gamble’,
but he was referring to the rushed deployment of his raw troops, rather than
risking all his chips on one spin of the wheel.
Throughout 1915 the war in the west comprised more or less incessant French
attacks, with the main emphasis placed on the winter battles in Champagne in
February and March and the Anglo-French offensives in Artois and Champagne
in May and June; September and October. On the Eastern Front the inverse was
true, with the forces of Oberbefehlshaber-Ost (Ober-Ost) [Commander in Chief
Eastern Theatre] launching one major offensive after another, which gained
great swathes of territory, but influenced the strategic situation not one jot.
Although the Argonne offensive, which was maintained throughout the year,
was obviously designed to interdict the main railway line to Verdun and thus
prepare the way for an offensive against that salient, it was not until February
1916 that operations intended to give substance to Falkenhayn’s policy of
attrition began. This suggests either that Falkenhayn’s plan was never realistic,
or that he did not stick to it.
Of the two decisions to deploy forces in the east, the despatch of eight
divisions in February is the more difficult to understand. Falkenhayn himself
stressed that the situation of the forces of Austria-Hungry, though extremely