Battle for Gallipoli: February 1915 - January 1916 By 1915 the Western Front was clearly deadlocked. Allied strategy was under scrutiny, with strong arguments mounted for an offensive through the Balkans or even a landing on Germany's Baltic coast, instead of more costly attacks in France and Belgium. These ideas were initially sidelined, but in early 1915 the Russians found themselves threatened by the Turks in the Caucasus and appealed for some relief. The British decided to mount a naval expedition to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula on the western shore of the Dardanelles, with Constantinople as its objective. By capturing Constantinople, the British hoped to link up with the Russians, knock Turkey out of the war and possibly persuade the Balkan states to join the Allies. The naval attack began on 19 February. Bad weather caused delays and the attack was abandoned after three battleships had been sunk and three others damaged. Military assistance was required, but by the time troops began to land on 25 April, the Turks had had ample time to prepare adequate fortifications and the defending armies were now six times larger than when the campaign began. Against determined opposition, Australian and New Zealand troops won a bridgehead at 'Anzac Cove' on the Aegean side of the peninsula. The British, meanwhile, tried to land at five points around Cape Helles, but established footholds in only three before asking for reinforcements. Thereafter little progress was made, and the Turks took advantage of the British halt to bring as many troops as possible onto the peninsula. This standstill led to a political crisis in London between Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the operation's chief advocate, and Lord Fisher, the First Sea Lord, who had always expressed doubts about it. Fisher demanded that the operation be discontinued and resigned when overruled. The Liberal government was replaced by a coalition and Churchill, though relieved of his former post, remained in the War Council. Amid sweltering and disease-ridden conditions, the deadlock dragged on into the summer. In July the British reinforced the bridgehead at Anzac Cove and in early August landed more troops at Suvla Bay further to the north, to seize the Sari Bair heights and cut Turkish communications. The offensive and the landings both proved ineffectual within days, faced with waves of costly counter-attacks. The War Council remained divided until late 1915 when it was decided to end the campaign. Troops were evacuated in December 1915 and January 1916. Had Gallipoli succeeded, it could have ended Turkey's participation in the war. As it was, the Turks lost some 300,000 men and the Allies around 214,000, achieving only the diversion of Turkish forces from the Russians. Bad leadership, planning and luck, combined with a shortage of shells and inadequate equipment, condemned the Allies to seek a conclusion in the bloody battles of the Western Front. Furthermore, Gallipoli's very public failure contributed to Asquith's replacement as Prime Minister by David Lloyd George in December 1916.
Battle of the Marne: 6-10 September 1914 The First Battle of the Marne marked the end of the German sweep into France and the beginning of the trench warfare that was to characterise World War One. Germany's grand Schlieffen Plan to conquer France entailed a wheeling movement of the northern wing of its armies through central Belgium to enter France near Lille. It would turn west near the English Channel and then south to cut off the French retreat. If the plan succeeded, Germany's armies would simultaneously encircle the French Army from the north and capture Paris. A French offensive in Lorraine prompted German counter-attacks that threw the French back onto a fortified barrier. Their defence strengthened, they could send troops to reinforce their left flank - a redistribution of strength that would prove vital in the Battle of the Marne. The German northern wing was weakened further by the removal of 11 divisions to fight in Belgium and East Prussia. The German 1st Army, under Kluck, then swung north of Paris, rather than south west, as intended. This required them to pass into the valley of the River Marne across the Paris defences, exposing them to a flank attack and a possible counter-envelopment. On 3 September, Joffre ordered a halt to the French retreat and three days later his reinforced left flank began a general offensive. Kluck was forced to halt his advance prematurely in order to support his flank: he was still no further up the Marne Valley than Meaux. On 9 September Bülow learned that the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was advancing into the gap between his 2nd Army and Kluck. He ordered a retreat, obliging Kluck to do the same. The counterattack of the French 5th and 6th Armies and the BEF developed into the First Battle of the Marne, a general counter-attack by the French Army. By 11 September the Germans were in full retreat. This remarkable change in fortunes was caused partially by the exhaustion of many of the German forces: some had marched more than 240km (150 miles), fighting frequently. The German advance was also hampered by demolished bridges and railways, constricting their supply lines, and they had underestimated the resilience of the French. The Germans withdrew northward from the Marne and made a firm defensive stand along the Lower Aisne River. Here the benefits of defence over attack became clear as the Germans repelled successive Allied attacks from the shelter of trenches: the First Battle of the Aisne marked the real beginning of trench warfare on the Western Front. In saving Paris from capture by pushing the Germans back some 72km (45 miles), the First Battle of the Marne was a great strategic victory, as it enabled the French to continue the war. However, the Germans succeeded in capturing a large part of the industrial north east of France, a serious blow. Furthermore, the rest of 1914 bred the geographic and tactical deadlock that would take another three years and countless lives to break.
Battle of Verdun: 21 February 1916 - July 1916 One of the costliest battles of World War One, Verdun exemplified the 'war of attrition' pursued by both sides and which cost so many lives. By the winter of 1915-16, German General Erich von Falkenhayn was convinced that the war could only be won in the west. He decided on a massive attack on a French position 'for the retention of which the French Command would be compelled to throw in every man they have'. Once the French army had bled to death, Britain would be fighting alone on the Western Front and could be brought down by Germany's submarine blockade. Falkenhayn targeted the town of Verdun and its surrounding forts. They threatened German lines of communication and lay within a French salient (a bulge in the line), restricting their defenders. Verdun was a Gallic fortress before Roman times and later a key asset in wars against Prussia, and Falkenhayn knew that the French would throw as many men as necessary into its defence. He realised that this would enable him to inflict the maximum possible casualties. He massed artillery to the north and east of Verdun to pre-empt the infantry advance with intensive artillery bombardment. Although French intelligence had warned of his plans, these warnings were ignored by the French Command. Consequently, Verdun was utterly unprepared for the initial bombardment on the morning of 21 February 1916. German infantry attacks followed that afternoon and met little resistance for the first four days. On 25 February the Germans occupied Fort Douaumont. French reinforcements arrived and, under the leadership of General Pétain, they managed to slow the German advance with a series of counter-attacks. Over March and April the hills and ridges north of Verdun exchanged hands, always under heavy bombardment. Meanwhile, Pétain organised repeated counter-attacks to slow the German advance. He also ensured that the Bar-le-Duc road into Verdun - the only one to survive German shelling - remained open. It became known as La Voie Sacrée ('the Sacred Way') because it continued to carry vital supplies and reinforcements into the Verdun front despite constant artillery attack. German gains continued in June, but slowly. They attacked the heights along the Meuse and took Fort Vaux on 7 June. On 23 June they almost reached the Belleville heights, the last stronghold before Verdun itself. Pétain was preparing to evacuate the east bank of the Meuse when the Allies' offensive on the Somme River was launched on 1 July, partly to relieve the French. The Germans could no longer afford to commit new troops to Verdun and, at a cost of some 400,000 French casualties and a similar number of Germans, the attack was called off. Germany had failed to bleed France to death and from October to the end of the year, French offensives regained the forts and territory they had lost earlier. Falkenhayn was replaced by Hindenburg as Chief of General Staff and Pétain became a hero, eventually replacing General Nivelle as French commander-in-chief.
Battle of the Somme: 1 July - 13 November 1916 Intended to be a decisive breakthrough, the Battle of the Somme instead became a byword for futile and indiscriminate slaughter, with General Haig's tactics remaining controversial even today. The British planned to attack on a 24km (15 mile) front between Serre, north of the Ancre, and Curlu, north of the Somme. Five French divisions would attack an 13km (eight mile) front south of the Somme, between Curlu and Peronne. To ensure a rapid advance, Allied artillery pounded German lines for a week before the attack, firing 1.6 million shells. British commanders were so confident they ordered their troops to walk slowly towards the German lines. Once they had been seized, cavalry units would pour through to pursue the fleeing Germans. However, unconcealed preparations for the assault and the week-long bombardment gave the Germans clear warning. Happy to remain on French soil, German trenches were heavily fortified and, furthermore, many of the British shells failed to explode. When the bombardment began, the Germans simply moved underground and waited. Around 7.30am on 1 July, whistles blew to signal the start of the attack. With the shelling over, the Germans left their bunkers and set up their positions. As the 11 British divisions walked towards the German lines, the machine guns started and the slaughter began. Although a few units managed to reach German trenches, they could not exploit their gains and were driven back. By the end of the day, the British had suffered 60,000 casualties, of whom 20,000 were dead: their largest single loss. Sixty per cent of all officers involved on the first day were killed. It was a baptism of fire for Britain's new volunteer armies. Many 'Pals' Battalions, comprising men from the same town, had enlisted together to serve together. They suffered catastrophic losses: whole units died together and for weeks after the initial assault, local newspapers would be filled with lists of dead, wounded and missing. The French advance was considerably more successful. They had more guns and faced weaker defences, yet were unable to exploit their gains without British backup and had to fall back to earlier positions. With the 'decisive breakthrough' now a decisive failure, Haig accepted that advances would be more limited and concentrated on the southern sector. The British took the German positions there on 14 July, but once more could not follow through. The next two months saw bloody stalemate, with the Allies gaining little ground. On 15 September Haig renewed the offensive, using tanks for the first time. However, lightly armed, small in number and often subject to mechanical failure, they made little impact. Torrential rains in October turned the battlegrounds into a muddy quagmire and in mid- November the battle ended, with the Allies having advanced only 8km (five miles). The British suffered around 420,000 casualties, the French 195,000 and the Germans around 650,000. Only in the sense of relieving the French at Verdun can the British have claimed any measure of success.
Battle of Tannenberg: 26-30 August 1914 Allied with France and Britain, Grand Duke Nicholas, the Russian commander, agreed to help relieve the French, under attack from Germany, with an offensive in East Prussia. This required mobility and nimbleness; unfortunately the Russians had neither. Two Russian armies invaded German East Prussia in August 1914. Rennenkampf's First Army was to converge with the Samsonov's Second Army to give a two-to-one numerical superiority over the German 8th Army, which they would attack from the east and south respectively, some 80km (50 miles) apart. The plan began well at Gumbinnen on 20 August, when Rennenkampf's First Army defeated eight divisions of the German 8th Army on its eastern front. By this time Samsonov's forces had crossed the southern frontier of East Prussia to threaten the German rear, defended by only three divisions. Faced with imminent attack, Prittwitz, commander of the 8th Army, approved Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman's idea to attack Samsonov's left flank, aided by another three divisions moved by rail from the Gumbinnen front. However, on 23 August Prittwitz was replaced by General von Hindenburg whose chief of staff, Ludendorff, immediately confirmed Hoffmann's plan to strike at Samsonov's left flank. The Germans then got lucky when they intercepted an uncoded Russian message indicating that Rennenkampf was in no hurry to advance. Developing Hoffman's original plan, Ludendorff concentrated six divisions against Samsonov's left flank and took a calculated risk to withdraw the rest of the German troops from Gumbinnen and move them to face Samsonov's right flank, leaving only a cavalry screen against Rennenkampf. This move was helped by the lack of communication between the two Russian commanders, who disliked each other. Samsonov's forces were spread out along a 60 mile front and advancing gradually against the Germans when, on 26 August, Ludendorff ordered an attack on Samsonov's left wing near Usdau. There, German artillery forced a Russian retreat, whereupon they were pursued toward Neidenburg, in the rear of the Russian centre. A Russian counter-attack from Soldau enabled two Russian army corps to escape south east before the German pursuit continued. By nightfall on 29 August the Russian centre, amounting to three army corps, was surrounded by Germans and stuck in a forest with no means of escape. The Russians disintegrated and were taken prisoner by the thousands. Faced with total defeat, Samsonov shot himself. By the end of the month, the Germans had taken 92,000 prisoners and annihilated half of the Russian 2nd Army. Rennenkampf's army had not moved at all during this battle, vindicating Ludendorff's calculated risk. After being reinforced, the Germans turned on Rennenkampf's slowly advancing Army, attacking it in the first half of September and driving it from East Prussia. It was a crushing defeat for the Russians. In total, they lost around 250,000 men - an entire army - as well as vast amounts of military equipment. The wafer-thin silver lining was that the Russian action had diverted the Germans from their attack on France and allowed the French to counterattack at the Marne.
Battle of Jutland: 31 May and 1 June 1916 The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle fought by the British Navy's Grand Fleet against the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only fullscale clash of battleships in the war. It was only the third-ever fleet action between steel battleships, following the smaller but more decisive battles of the Yellow Sea (1904) and Tsushima (1905) during the Russo-Japanese War. The Grand Fleet was commanded by British Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the High Seas Fleet by German Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer. The High Seas Fleet's intention was to lure out, trap and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the German naval force was insufficient to successfully engage the entire British fleet. This formed part of a larger strategy to break the British blockade of Germany and to allow German mercantile shipping to operate. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy pursued a strategy to engage and destroy the High Seas Fleet, or keep the German force contained and away from Britain's own shipping lanes. The German plan was to use Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper's fast scouting group of five modern battlecruisers to lure Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's battlecruiser squadrons into the path of the main German fleet. Submarines were stationed in advance across the likely routes of the British ships. However, the British learned from signal intercepts that a major fleet operation was likely, so on 30 May Jellicoe sailed with the Grand Fleet to rendezvous with Beatty, passing over the locations of the German submarine picket lines while they were unprepared. The German plan had been delayed, causing further problems for their submarines which had reached the limit of their endurance at sea. On the afternoon of 31 May, Beatty encountered Hipper's battlecruiser force long before the Germans had expected. In a running battle, Hipper successfully drew the British vanguard into the path of the High Seas Fleet. By the time Beatty sighted the larger force and turned back towards the British main fleet, he had lost two battlecruisers from a force of six battlecruisers and four battleships, against the five ships commanded by Hipper. The battleships, commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas, were the last to turn and formed a rearguard as Beatty withdrew, now drawing the German fleet in pursuit towards the main British positions. Between 18:30, when the sun was lowering on the western horizon, backlighting the German forces, and nightfall at about 20:30, the two fleets totalling 250 ships between them directly engaged twice. Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk, with great loss of life. After sunset, and throughout the night, Jellicoe manoeuvred to cut the Germans off from their base, hoping to continue the battle the next morning, but under the cover of darkness Scheer broke through the British light forces forming the rearguard of the Grand Fleet and returned to port. [3] Both sides claimed victory. The British lost more ships and twice as many sailors, and the British press criticised the Grand Fleet's failure to force a decisive outcome, but Scheer's plan of destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet also failed. The Germans' "fleet in being" continued to pose a threat, requiring the British to keep their battleships concentrated in the North Sea, but the battle confirmed the German policy of avoiding all fleet-to-fleet contact.