The Battle for Hamel, July 4, 1918, in France was a good example of a combined arms battle that was very well planned, with good preparation, and close working with the different arms. This was a combined arms operation commanded by Australian General Sir John Monash and included Australian and US infantry supported by British tanks. This was a limited attack to capture the town of Hamel. This was to ensure the allies had artillery support for German counter-attacks and counter artillery action. The plan was to have all objectives taken in 90 minutes but they were only taken in 93 minutes. Large numbers of Germans were captured. Monash earned his knighthood as a member of the bath. He was also decorated by the French prime minister. This operation included aircraft dropping ammunition for the first time. Aircraft were used to cover the noise of the approach of tanks. Tanks also carried more vital supplies. This was a clear demonstration of a combined arms battle that could overcome trenches and capture objectives with the cooperation of the different arms. This was the first Australian, US and British operation. In August a much larger combined arms offensive with Canadian and Australian infantry achieved very significant results that started the collapse of German forces.
Hamel didn't "start[] the collapse of German forces". The blockade started the collapse of German forces. The failure of the Ludendorf offensives more or less completed the process. The Hundred Days then took advantage of the state of affairs, setting off all sorts of unearned preening.
General Sir John Monash was a visionary when it came to battlefield tactics. He understood that you needed all parts of your army to work together to minimise casualties and not the infantry alone. The artillery working in tandem with the airforce and tanks supporting the infantry in its advance made a HUGE difference compared to previous infantry battles. We mustn’t forget that this was 1918 and proves that the British/French/Australian/Canadian/Indian/South African and US army commanders WERE learning from experience. The previous awful casualty results of the Somme and early Ypres salient battles weren’t just repeated over and over, the Army was learning from experience and beginning to develop new tactics and strategies that would help them win. The Germans were always better dug in BECAUSE they were fighting a DEFENSIVE War while the Allies were wanting to fight a war of movement. The army of 1918 was not the same army that started out in 1914…..
I am unsure that the rate of fire was 1 round per minute for the flintlock musket. (@ about 13:47 ) I think the difference wasn’t rate of fire but that the effective range went from 40 yards to 200 or 300 yards with the same approximately 3 rounds per minute rate of fire. The invention of the Minnie Ball made the difference.
Not a gun guy. He says the Lewis gun had a "smaller calibre" (17:32) but, as best I can determine, both the Lewis and the Vickers use the .303(inch) British. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.303_British, which appears to translate to 7.7mm, not 7.92mm, though I (too?) may be missing something.
One quick observation, the discrepancy with the unlikeliness of the French Rifle firing ~30-35 rounds per minute with the “fumbling of the magazines,” to the ability of the 75mm French Artillery to fire 30 rounds per minute without pause; I think we can say that your disclaimer about being an artillery officer was accurate lol. Thank you Dr. DePue, i’m only about 1/3 through, but this is very informative and enjoyable.
If you really want to make money invent a new way of killing people. However think of Italy in the Rennaissance. City states at war., mercenary troops everywhere, everyone fighting anyone else for trade and Michaelangelo, Raphael etc, Switzerland, years and years of peace - the Cuckoo Clock. (Misquote from Oscar Wilde - I think)
It wasn’t just English men it was Welsh, Scottish and Irish men too alongside Commonwealth Troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa….. Rolling Barrages weren’t really effectively used until later on in the war. They TRIED it at the Somme and it was largely a complete disaster, as the troops barely survived ‘no man’s land’ let alone continued forward to any trenches beyond the initial ones. There WAS SOME SUCCESS in certain areas but due to the SLAUGHTER at most locations the British army was forced to retreat back to their prior positions as they were the only ones who’d actually taken German trenches so couldn’t hope to hold them without support. The Somme is STILL a huge part of the British consciousness. It was complete unadulterated slaughter on an unprecedented scale never before seen in the British Army. This was something different. On the morning of July 1, 1916 over 100,000 British troops went ‘over the top’ and charged the enemy lines, in what would become the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. By the end of the day, the British troops secured approximately eight square kilometers of ground, along a front that stretched 24km (averaging just 0.33km from the initial line of attack), at a cost of over 57,000 casualties , including over 19,000 fatalities. The battle ended on November 18th 1916, with well over one million casualties and 300,000 fatalities. Although casualties were high for all sides, the battle is most prominently remembered in Britain and the Commonwealth as an example of the ultimate sacrifice made by the men who served throughout the First World War. The Somme casts a long shadow. As for the ‘Pals’ battalions, many were decimated and that meant the loss of 10’s of young men from the same small towns and villages across the UK, they were friends who’s families all knew each other and this made the loss of an entire Pals Battalion completely devastating for the entire community. All of the young men were gone and were never coming home….
Michael Kelly Yes. You are right. Being a flame thrower operator was a job very few men wanted. You were a prime target and if your fuel tank was hit, it would explode and you would certainly be killed.
This presentation needs to acknowledge "The First Day on the Somme" by Martin Middlebrook - it seems to have been taken in parts almost verbatim from that work.
It was weird to hear him talking about fumbling when changing magazines. You didn't change magazines in those types of rifles. The magazines were built into the gun and you refilled it when empty. Non-tube 5- or 3-round magazines can be reloaded very quickly using ammo on stripper clips. And smoothbore muskets had a rate of 3 rounds per minute. Early rifled muskets had a rate of one per minute, which is why smoothbores were favored until the mid 19th century. The change right before the Crimean War and US Civil War was that standardization and new bullet designs brought the rate of fire for rifles was up to 3 per minute and reliability improved. That is why they replaced the smoothbores en masse.
@@junkjunk81 stripper clips are also referred to as chargers the berthier was frances 2nd tier rifle that became their first tier because the lebel was slow to reload.
My decades old question I asked in high school has still not been answered in a sufficient manner; how were the trenches constructed on a modern battlefield? Weren’t they shooting back and forth, under constant artillery fire? How could they just waltz up to each other in an open field and carry on a construction project?
Positions of predicted strategic importance would be fortified with trenches before a battle. Troop movements were constantly being reported by scouts. Lines could be dug hundreds of miles back, giving a dew days advantage to the defenders. I'm not a historian yet, just a guess.
@@kylebutler51 - appreciate your perspective Kyle. I just can’t comprehend that these trenches were constructed in the middle of a battle, or even leading up to a battle. I can see one side deciding to dig in where they saw fit beforehand, but when the other side advanced and realized they were dug in, how could they themselves dig in? I’ve been studying war for 20+ years and this still perplexes me. Perhaps I have been over analyzing this aspect of the war for so long I have confused myself into a mental blockage.
@@natedog1619 ''The trenches were often constructed during nighttime by a group of soldiers called engineers so that the trenches were built before the enemy attacked. During WWI there were 3 main types of trench construction: Sapping: The trench was started by digging a short trench, which then be extended at either end of the trench. Tunneling: The most secret way to build a trench was to make a tunnel and then remove the roof when the tunnel was complete. Tunneling was the safest method, but also the most difficult. Sand-bagging: This was done in areas such as the Flanders area where there were very high water tables or low levels of dirt and clay. These trenches were devised to "appear" underground by raising the levels of sandbags and covering them with dirt and camouflage.'' wwi-trenchwarfare.weebly.com/construction-and-design-of-trenches.html
I see some good thoughts here, which are all valid. I think your question is how the trenches sprang up (or down, if you will) on the field in the middle of a battle. My guess is that one side (often the French/British) went to ground after advancing towards prepared German positions. So they're on the field, face down, with all hell flying over their heads and around them. They want to make themselves as small as possible; they want to get away. But they can't stand up to run, so there's only one option: go into the earth. That's where the entrenching tool comes in. And slowly but surely, little dugouts become foxholes, which then get connected via a small corridor between the holes; these earthworks are then expanded upon by "generations" of inhabitants, until one day you're looking at the trenches we know and love (hate/fear, you get it). That would be my slightly educated guess :)
@@ImperialGit The first trenches were dug pretty much like that from soldier's accounts. then deepened and joined up. The support and reserve lines - about 200 yds apart behind the front line trench would have been dug at night. Wiring was done at night. Screw pickets were invented so you didn't have to hammer stakes in which told the other side what you were doing but it wasnt a very safe way of earning a living. Roland Leighton - Vera Brittain's boyfriend/fiance - was killed near Hebuterne when in charge of a wiring party. Jumping off trenches in fromt ot the main line would be dug at night. 'I found the half dug trenches we fashioned for the fight/We lost a score of men there, young James was killed last night' AP Herbert Beaucourt Revisited - one of the great poems of WW1 about the Royal Naval Division's attack in November 1916, the last major action of the Somme.
It seems that artillery, and even heavy naval bombardment, is never quite as effective as planned. The Confederate artillery (147 guns) preceding Pickett's charge at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 is one example. Heavy naval bombardment of Iwo Jima in 1945 is another.
@@ReaderOfThreads I wasn't disputing that, only that there were often unreasonable expectations placed on artillery's effectiveness. This is especially true when the enemy is in a fortified position. Even in WW II, as was learned on D-Day as well as the Iwo Jima invasion, artillery has its limitations, even the huge shells from naval guns.
@@ChaplainDaveSparks If you want to look at body count then perhaps there is a way to accept that artillery weren't effective. But as a tool to shut down large areas and destroy fortifications then artillery is very effective. Artillery is effective at destroying citys, and denying your enemy tactical positions. Oh and Napoleon was a great general because of his use of artillery.
As the speaker points out artillery is the big killer is serious warfare. The bombardment of Iwo, both air and artillery, was far less than "planned", IIRC. There is a recent Operations Room channel video on UA-cam on this exact subject.
@@ReaderOfThreads The probloem was that it took some time to learn that artillery could not destroy trenches and give the infantry a walkover. It could suppress the enemy and allow the infantry to close. Compare the attacks on 1 July and 14 July (Bazentin Ridge) 1916
Christ, NOT shotguns, shotguns were almost useless in the Trenches. Nothing wrong with the actual weapon, problem was the AMMO. In those days shotgun shells were NOT made of plastic, they were made of PAPER. That meant if you have a pump action with say 5 rounds in the magazine, that was likely ALL the reliable ammunition you had available. 5 rounds. The rest had been damaged to some degree or another as you crossed the shattered hell of No Mans Land, either bent out of shape or damaged physically (because specialist bandoliers were not issued), or, this is North West Europe you are talking about. It rains. A lot, paper ammo in a soldiers pockets in the rain gets wet. There is literally a reason no one else but the AEF used shotguns in the Trenches, because Britain, France and Germany *had* experimented with them and found them wanting due to the ammunition problems. Reading my Great Grandfathers dairies (Royal Welch Fusiliers 1915 - 1919 when he was demobilised) he did mention certain troops were issued with sporting shotguns by Company officers in 1915 and part of 1916, but they were NOT used to kill men, they were used to kill German Carrier Pigeons. Even the AEF worked out very quickly that shotguns were all but useless except in a very few niche situations because of the ammunition issues. While the US was experimenting in brass shelled shotgun ammunition this was only in the Experimental phase in late 1918 and never actually reached the front. It was not really until after WWII that shotgun shells were produced that could be relied on in combat conditions, and even then it was found that the shotgun still only had niche roles. Which is why the only time you see shotguns used in modern forces is as an attachment to the main combat rifle, usually used in CQB to effect ingress into a building. The Trench Sweeper as they called those old shotguns of WWI is a complete and utter myth, in that role the weapon was a complete failure, you were better off giving your shotgunner a bag of bombs (grenades) or giving him a Chauchat. As for the rifles, rifles in those days were NOT reloaded by changing the magazines, hell, many rifles of the time had undetachable internal magazines, or with those that were detachable (such as the British SMLE) were often literally chained to the rifle. The only time you removed your magazine was to clean it. Rifles were reloaded using charger clips, usually 5 rounds in a stripper clip that you placed into a slot in the breech while the bolt was open and thumbed down into the magazine. The stripper clip would then be discarded. It was found with 5 and 10 round magazines that using stripper clips to reload was faster and more efficient than actually changing (and possibly damaging) the magazine. The only weapons in WWI that required magazine changes were the Light Machineguns (Lewis gun) or Automatic rifles (Chauchat and BAR, though the BAR was late to the party), and the few early SMG's that made their way into troops hands in the last months of the war (such as the MP-18). This carried through even into WWII, where precisely NO combat rifles were reloaded by switching magazines, this includes the US M1 Garand, which was reloaded using an 8 round end block clip, and not by changing the magazines. Again, magazine changes were limited to rapid firing weapons, such as SMG's and many Light Machineguns (British Bren for example). Finally the British SMLE was not 5 - 10 round magazine, it was a 10 round magazine. Where the 5 - 10 round comes from is that it was customery to only load 5 rounds into the 10 round magazine, and only top off to the full 10 rounds if the situation suggested you might need rapid fire. Another point of confusion may be the Pattern 14, which DID have a 5 round magazine, but was NOT a Lee Enfield, it was actually heavily based on the Mauser action (rather than the Enfield, Lee being the Magazine designation) and in British use was only used as a sniper weapon or in rear areas. The Americans used a varient of this rifle in 30.06 that became known as the Enfield 1917, and went on to arm 70% of the AEF as Springfield armouries simply could not build enough 1903's to arm the number of soldiers the US was raising. TL:DR, Shotguns were worse than useless in WWI, Slamfiring them down trenches is a myth, and riflemen did not change magazines, they charged them using stripper clips.... EDIT: Apologies, TWO combat rifle were reloaded by magazine changes, the STG 44, and FG 42. The latter was rare, a Paratrooper weapon, the former was the first true Assault Rifle. Even the German and Russian semi autos though were stripper clip loaded.
I've got a question which I don't know if it's legitimate but still, why didn't the British having the superior navy tried an amphibious operation to outflank the germans? was ut too difficult for the time or nobody thought about it?
Hmm, interesting question. I have never really thought about it, so it’s always fun to see something from a different perspective!
Note that I’m not an expert, so this is just my personal interpretation. My guess for why it didn’t happen would be that it was considered too risky,. A couple of points I thought of: 1. Even though the British navy probably was superior to the Germans, it didn’t seem to be incredibly overpowering. Instead the two surface navies seemed to have fought each other to a standstill after the battle of Jutland (although the British were able to maintain the embargo against Germany). So, an amphibious assault on such a scale that would threaten the German positions on the western front would have to be conducted while fending off the remaining German surface- and submarine navies plus the risk of German land based artillery and infantry being moved to the shore. However, I don’t recall reading anything about any massive shoreline fortifications being built by the Germans, but I definitely can’t be sure on that point. 2. British experiences of large-scale amphibious operations. This point also two-folded. a) The enormous problems that occurred during the landings at Gallipoli. As I’ve understood it, they had figured out a lot of the issues with having an amphibious force supplied, but it essentially ended up becoming more trench warfare with a more vulnerable supply line. b) Lack of any other experiences. To my knowledge Gallipoli was the only reference-point the British (or anyone else for that matter) had for operations of this type and on this scale. So what little experience they had seemed to be very negative, and thus I guess it would have been very hard to gain political or military support for large scale troop landings behind the lines.
I think large scale amphibious operations were pretty doomed to fail especially against a first rate power like the Germans untill better communications technology was developed. Just look at Gallipoli. If the British had been entertaining the idea of a seaborne invasion of Germany before Gallipoli they certainly abandoned it after that. Also the British had the greatest navy, but it was also spread out all over the world protecting the British empire and the German high seas fleet was no joke at this time. If the British had attempted it and been defeated by the German navy even to the point of reaching naval parity with the Germans it would have been catastrophic to there war effort because then the Germans could break the blockade.
In fact the Brits (esp. Fisher and Churchill, iirc) gave considerable consideration to a Baltic invasion. What with mines and subs and the opportunity to use the High Seas Fleet against a divided British force (the Kiel Canal would have given that last interior lines) it looks to me like a far worse idea than the Dardanelles, never mind the logistical challenges of supplying such a force. As to shorter flanking maneuvers... where, exactly? And see Anzio. Or think of them as naval versions of A Bridge Too Far. Or larger Dieppe disasters?
@@gandydancer9710 I think you're probably right. Before the war the Navy were seeing the British Army as a missile to be fired by them at the German coast but Henry Wilson's plan for the BEF to go to France was adopted. Probably a good thing, i doubt if a landing in Germany could have been brought off, no specialised ships, German subs etc and even if it had stalemeated trench warfare would have been the result eg Gallipoli and Salonika and the Zeebruge raid didn' go too well although the idea of landings on the Belgian coast was part of the original plan for Third Ypres
The Germans often used their machine guns on fixed sights forcing the enemy to advance through their fire. This was particularly effective on the Somme.
Nobody "forced" any army into Donkey advances, and certainly "fixed sights" didn't have that effect. Nor was sweeping them back and forth like lawn sprinklers (is that what you mean?) a particularly German practice.
@@gandydancer9710 Swinging a Vickers gun from side to side was an excellent way to jam the feed and unless the enemy was coming straight at you unnecessary. Remember 500 rounds per minut all below shoulder height with the sights ay 700 yards. Try walking through that - like walking in front of a hose and hoping not to get wet.
@@Dav1Gv Did you personally attempt this and experience jamming? Swinging machine guns side to side, not aimed fire, was doctrine. In fact employing machine guns at high angles to create areas of plunging fire became doctrine. You might want to look into the ratio of shots fired to inflicted casualties. It's very high. Much higher than one would expect had machine guns normally been fired at particular targets. Naturally, if particular targets were available that could change. But normally they weren't.
@@gandydancer9710 Didn't know about swinging being doctrine. On both sides? I agree about high angle fire, 100 Company (I think, haven't checked my sources) fired 1,000,000 rounds in a day in the fighting around Flers in 1916 to stop German reinforcements coming up - doubt if they hit anything, that weight of fire probably meant no one went into the beaten zone. I think that was the first use but it became common after that.
"Why it was so traumatic for Europe, for England, for France, for Germany in particular..." - no mention of Russia...again... unbelievable how it just continues!
The talk is about trench warfare. While there were trenches in the east trench warfare never developed to the same extent. 'On the east there was too much ground and too few soldiers. On the west there were too many soldiers and not enough ground' (may not have got this quote absolutely right but the message is correct. No one who knows anything about the war would argue that it wasw not traumatic for Russia as well. Pity the Tsar ignored the Durnovo memorandum. Not much sympathy for him and his wife but I do feel sorry for the children who were not responsible but who paid with their lives.
Initially the ones they took over from the French. Then I suppose they dug their own though, German offensives being a thing of the pasr, I suppose they might have been somewhat lackadaisical about it.
@@lizardywizard - those trench melee weapons were primarily made during the long periods of downtime between offenses. They were made to be backup weapons in case your primary firearm was rendered useless during a firefight. Some of those melee weapons were certainly used, and a lot of times it did in fact come down to hand to hand combat.
@@natedog1619 rifle / bayonet was supposed to be your hand to hand weapon hence they devised their own. No Uzi with never ending clip in real life sadly.
A first rate talk. One criticism, like many Yanks you said English when you meant British. Remember that Scotland and Ireland were represented and, as I live in Wales, the Welsh. The 38th (Welsh) Division took Mametz Wood and the Dragon Memorial, funds for which were raised by the South Wales Branch of the Western Front Association is the second most visited memorial on the battlefield. Perhaps to give a slightly more balanced view you might have included the following: Captain von Hentig of the General Staff of the Guard Reserve Division said: “The Somme was the muddy grave of the German field army, and of the faith in the infallibility of the German leadership, dug by British industry and its shells. ..The German Supreme Command, which entered the war with enormous superiority, was defeated by the superior techniques of its opponents. It had fallen behind in the application of destructive forces, and was compelled to throw division after division without protection against them into the cauldron of the battle of annihilation.” In 1917 Field Marshall Hindenburg said that “We must save the men from a second Somme battle” when he was arguing that Germany must start unrestricted U-boat warfare - which probably caused Germany’s final defeat." I would argue that the Somme was a British victory albeit a horribly expensive one. Another comment, no army really worked out how to attack in WW1, certainly no one achieved a breakthrough. Even in 1918 stormtroop tactics didn't work against well prepared and manned defences. Gavin Davies
@@gandydancer9710 The Canadians and Anzacs certainly weren't English - the word i really objected to. British perhaps for the Indian Army as India was part of the Emprire but they certainly deserve full credit as Indians. Incidentally I was once asked after a talk about WW1 what happened to the Hindu dead in the trenches? Those who died in base hospitals were cremated but no one I've asked knows what happened at the front line. Were they just buriied? Comments welcomed/
It is the pre-war developments in weapons technology that created conditions to which the only answer was to dig in and dig in deep. A 1914 British infantry battalion (which only had two machine guns) when defending from a static position could in an emergency situation fire around 10,200 rounds in a single minute out to a range of 500-600 yards. It couldn’t sustain anything like that rate of fire of course, but that made a head-on attack almost impossible. Other countries had lower but not too dissimilar abilities. So they all dug in and from then on the Western Front was siege warfare where every attack had to be head-on because there were no flanks to get round any more, the line ended at the sea in the north and the Swiss border in the south..
@@tlw4237 And that is, of course a fact that all too many people like to forget. I hear all too often this cry of 'Oh why did the stupid generals not try the flank?' to which when you reply that there WAS no flank they bluster and claim the Generals were still stupid. Another of my favourites is 'Oh they should have known how to use their tanks better.' How? In September 1916 46 tanks were used on the Somme, they were probably the ONLY tanks in the world at the time. No one knew what a tank should look like in 1916 any more than they knew how to use them. Unlike modern Armchair Generals they did not have 100 years of modern warfare to look back on with 20:20 hindsight. They were in the first truly modern Industrial War and the old way of war they had been trained to fight was utterly useless. They had to write the new book of modern combined arms warfare from the start. Unfortunately that meant a LOT of experimenting with new tactics, new weapons, new methods of doing things, and in warfare, experimentation has a price in blood. Foch once said it takes 15,000 casualties to train a Major General (Divisional Commander). Think about that, a French Division of the time was 18,000 strong. Its rifle strength was 12 Battallions, about 12,000 men. While there *were* stupid Generals, most were not in fact stupid, but they were fighting a type of war no one expected, all sides had entered expecting a short war (so Industry was set up for that), and in those four years those 'stupid' Generals essentially created Modern Combined Arms Warfare. Richard S Faulkner has two very fine lectures on this subject. ua-cam.com/video/Cs-18CyxOX0/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/semNFMk4P2c/v-deo.html The First one, Crossing No Mans Land: The Birth of Combined Arms Warfare is the better quality of the two. The Second, An ecstacy of Fumbling concentrates pretty much entirely on a single year, 1915, but brings up many of the same points.
@@alganhar1 On the criticism by the ignorant of the 1916 use of tanks... Yes, tanks were a new concept. They were also thoroughly dangerous for their crews. Even driving a few miles from the tank park to the front could result in incapacitated crew. No seats, an uncovered engine in the middle of the tank that gassed the crew and burned them if they fell against it...not exactly a Challenger II or Abrams. A “fast tank” like the Whippet could just about sustain a speed a reasonably fit jogger could probably keep up with. And tanks were, of course, massively underpowered and prone to breaking down. And in the case of the A7 provided additional entertainment for its CO poisoned, sweating and vomiting occupants by falling over if it tried to drive along a slope, such as the edge of a shell-hole. More generally, I think a problem people have with WW1 is understanding the scale of things. A frequent complaint is that generals were miles behind the line at headquarters when they “should have been on the front line to see what was going on”. Quite what use a view of half a mile of mostly mud would be in a battle fought on a front of 25 miles they can never explain other than by moral outrage that modern generals mostly ceased leading from the front in the 17th century. There are good reasons for that, of course. Even in ancient times a Roman general who led his combined-arms force by standing in the front rank, gladius in hand, would have been regarded at best as both mad and incompetent. Generals belong where they can get plan and command. Which means at a central communications hub. Which in 1914-18 meant where the barely adequate telephone systems could have a focal point. Radio was primitive and unreliable, while semaphore flags and carrier pigeons were still in use by front line troops. Even tanks carried a couple of pigeons. A lot of the uneducated criticism is like complaining telecoms companies in the 1960s and 70s were all useless and dreadful. Land lines? Phones you couldn’t put in your pocket and use for email? Why couldn’t they have provided iPhones to their customers? What do you mean, the technology of the time wasn’t up to that? That’s no excuse!
@@alganhar1 I've NEVER heard anyone suggest that the Donkeys were stupid because they didn't attack the flanks. They were stupid because they insisted on attacking at all on the Western Front when they should have stood on the defensive there and let the blockade do its work rather than waste great gouts of blood "training" more Major General Donkeys.
You don't 'aim' a Vickers, you 'lay' it like a small artillery piece. Having laid and set the range you sit back, lift the safety with your first fingers and press down with your thumbs 30 seconds later it's 'the whole nine yards' (250 rounds)
7.92 Mauser is absolutely not used by militaries today lol. And also, while I realize he's giving an overview, he should at least mention that one of the big reasons the maxim was so popular was that its internals were easily exchanged for different calibers so while the Germans used 7.92x57mm, Russian maxims used 7.62x54R (which is still in use), British maxims used .303 British (7.7x56R), etc.
A little superficial, TBH..... Just to take one particular example, the whole matter of Verdun and the supposed "Ausblutung" theory.... I don't think it's at all clear that this was the strategy in Verdun, or whether this was the justification in hindsight....he maybe hints at something like this, but then goes on to reaffirm the theory of attrition warfare as if it was gospel...
Well, he notes this and further mentions how Falkenhyn mentioned it in his memoirs as a possible attempt to explain and defend what actually happened in Verdun. Did we listen to the same lecture or is it you that is superficial?
Looking at the bigger strategic picture surrounding Verdun, it seems fairly clear this was an attempt to push for an attrition battle under favourable conditions for the Germans. This however proved to be a miscalculation. Falkenhayn was aware that Germany could not win a protracted war for its lack of resources.
There was an instance on this channel when the speaker said that that was said by a French officer about the British army in the Crimean war, but the Wikipedia article on the phrase credits it to Ludendorf, iirc. Maybe someone ought to fix that. This channel fairly consistently depreciates that description, but I remain unconvinced of the competence of WWI Generals. Or any Generals, their seeming so often blowhards and careerist and petty beyond belief.
Germany didn't have more machine guns per unit - this is a common error. Both the British and German armies had 2 machine guns per battalion (obviously as the Germans had a much bigger army they had more guns) but probably the Germans used theirs more effectively.
@@gandydancer9710 Fair comment. I trained on the Vickers and the fields of fire at Newfoundland Park, for example, would make any machine gunner believe the god of war was really on his side. Also, of course, the Allies were attacking more. When the Germans counter attacked if we had got our machine guns up much the same happened to them. There's an account of this by the war correspondent Phillip Gibbs.
"Schliefenplan" ie in german is like the ee in the english words, "feet and bee". The way he says it in german it would mean they wanted to decorate something with a bow of to sand somethhing down... Also the first gas attack as far as i remember reading was tried by the french, but it failed. (teargas) And while the title of the video is "trench warfare during WW1" i am missing any mention of the italian front. 11 Battles of the isonzo with immense casualties but almost no territorial gains, and the extreme terrain they had to endure was even deadlier than on the western front.
I thought the first gas attack was by the Germans on the Eastern Front but it went unnoticed because the cold weather meant it wasn't very effective. The fighting on the Italian Front in the mountains, eg by Lake Garda, was very very unpleasant as well - and what about Gallipli, Salonika, Palestine (although more movement there) and Africa (again, movement)
@@Dav1Gv I canbe mistaken, but from what i remember it wasn't the low temperatures but the wind blowing in the wrong direction that messed up the germans first try. (But the first ones in WW1 were the french, but "only" with teargas, which quickly escalated into deadly gasses by all sides) Gallipolli i guess counts as trench warfare too, but Palestine and aAfrica i think weren't much trenchwarfare.
@@nirfz Certainly could have been wind - it didn't help our effort at Loos. Didn't know about the FRench, do you know where it was? Later in t he war lachrymatory gasses were used to get men to remove gas masks so they could be hit with lethal ones (and tear gas is no fun at all even in a training situation.
@@Dav1Gv I don't remember where it was, but here it is mentioned: ua-cam.com/video/OrHFEPu_ANI/v-deo.html Yes, sadly it spiraled into disgusting heights with those chemical agents. I have my tiny little training experience with teargas and irritant gas from my conscription service... I was in a room full of teargas in 99'. It was part of the testing if our NBC masks were tight enough. We did pushups and squats ect. with the masks on. And a filter change which my instructor almost screwed up on me. He failed to screw in the filter 3 times while i had to hold my breath. Before the 4th attempt he told me: "When it doesn't work this time, you run out of the room!." 4th time was the charme and right before i completely run out of breath. And afterwards when cleaning hands ect. you could clearly see those who had not paid attention to what the instructors told us about cleaning and the order of cleaning. (They had red eyes, running noses ect.) The irritant gas story was worse for me: While guarding an entrance in complete darkness (only moonlight), and in the process of being relieved by a comrade, somethig flew in the ditch where we were positioned. It was a irritant gas grenade. While i reached for my mask, my "buddy" got up, used my back as a springboard and leapt away. Usually you hold your breath when realizing there's something you shouldn't breath in and put on the mask. But when someone steps on your back, you can't hold your breath. So i took a lung full of the irritant smoke before i could put on my mask. My other buddy a few meters away in a bush (the side where wind was comming from, so he didn't even need his mask,) completely lost it watching us. He laughed so loud... I had an aching throat for 2 days but nothing else bothering my body. Oh and the grenade had been thrown by one of our officers who probably was bored and wanted to give us some action...
A fine lecture but seems a little curious to me having an American describing what was going on before the Doughboys arrived for their learning experiences. Whatever the case, these brave men deserve our lasting respect and thanks. Lectures like this help ensure that this is the case.
Why is it curious that an American is giving the lecture, he's qualified to do so... Doesn't matter if he's from Brazil, Japan or Myanmar to me... As long as that person knows his history.
Why do many of these "professional" WWI Historians mispronounce names they should know? Prononounced like schleeeefen, NOT SchlY-fin. UGH. (I've lived in Germany for several years, so don't give me some piss poor excuse) When I did my student teaching with a History teacher who had been teaching for 30+ years, I had to use all my tact to tell him the words he was mispronouncing: Thames River, Versailles, Marseillaise...etc. I hear mispronunciations in audiobooks all the time also.
@@Herintruththelies The response you responded to does not appear on the page for me. Is it just me? There is definitely a UA-cam "bug" currently disappearing replies.
How can someone call himself an historian when he cannot even properly pronounce the names of the people who drove the events about which he is supposedly an authority. It is Alfred von Schl-EE-fen. An undergrad should know that.
I know there were WWI vets that fought in WWII. And there were a lot of WWII vets that fought in Vietnam…. But a WWI vet fighting in Vietnam is kind of a stretch.
Interesting lecture… I see the comments section full of the self-appointed, nit picking, armchair experts picking tiny holes in odd facts. Get a life !
If you give talks, and I do, you're expected to get your facts right. It's not nitpicking to point errors out, it's how we learn and it's particularly important to shoot down simplistic, out of date views eg 'lions led by donkeys' which have now been exploded or are explainable or due to other factors, eg the British Army which attacked on 1July was undertrained and poorly equipped - a bit like the Union Armies in the ACW - and no country expected WW1 to turn out like it did so a long and bloody learning curve resulted .
@@Dav1Gv Not getting your nits in a row destroys credibility pretty quickly. Perhaps Dr. Depue will read to comments to crowd-source his errors and do better in the future. If not the consequences will be on him, and deserved.
A strong presentation but INCREDIBLY weakened by the constant referral to the British as “the Brits”. British lecturers do not refer to us “the Yanks” in a single presentation. Shame!
I’m a Yank, when we say Brit it is NOT meant as derogatory, my friend! It may be in some cases, but this presenter did not mean it that way. Best wishes from across the pond.
The Battle for Hamel, July 4, 1918, in France was a good example of a combined arms battle that was very well planned, with good preparation, and close working with the different arms. This was a combined arms operation commanded by Australian General Sir John Monash and included Australian and US infantry supported by British tanks. This was a limited attack to capture the town of Hamel. This was to ensure the allies had artillery support for German counter-attacks and counter artillery action. The plan was to have all objectives taken in 90 minutes but they were only taken in 93 minutes. Large numbers of Germans were captured. Monash earned his knighthood as a member of the bath. He was also decorated by the French prime minister. This operation included aircraft dropping ammunition for the first time. Aircraft were used to cover the noise of the approach of tanks. Tanks also carried more vital supplies. This was a clear demonstration of a combined arms battle that could overcome trenches and capture objectives with the cooperation of the different arms. This was the first Australian, US and British operation. In August a much larger combined arms offensive with Canadian and Australian infantry achieved very significant results that started the collapse of German forces.
Hamel didn't "start[] the collapse of German forces". The blockade started the collapse of German forces. The failure of the Ludendorf offensives more or less completed the process. The Hundred Days then took advantage of the state of affairs, setting off all sorts of unearned preening.
General Sir John Monash was a visionary when it came to battlefield tactics. He understood that you needed all parts of your army to work together to minimise casualties and not the infantry alone. The artillery working in tandem with the airforce and tanks supporting the infantry in its advance made a HUGE difference compared to previous infantry battles. We mustn’t forget that this was 1918 and proves that the British/French/Australian/Canadian/Indian/South African and US army commanders WERE learning from experience. The previous awful casualty results of the Somme and early Ypres salient battles weren’t just repeated over and over, the Army was learning from experience and beginning to develop new tactics and strategies that would help them win. The Germans were always better dug in BECAUSE they were fighting a DEFENSIVE War while the Allies were wanting to fight a war of movement. The army of 1918 was not the same army that started out in 1914…..
Great speaker, both in his analysis and his speaking skills.
I am unsure that the rate of fire was 1 round per minute for the flintlock musket. (@ about 13:47 ) I think the difference wasn’t rate of fire but that the effective range went from 40 yards to 200 or 300 yards with the same approximately 3 rounds per minute rate of fire. The invention of the Minnie Ball made the difference.
Not a gun guy. He says the Lewis gun had a "smaller calibre" (17:32) but, as best I can determine, both the Lewis and the Vickers use the .303(inch) British. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.303_British, which appears to translate to 7.7mm, not 7.92mm, though I (too?) may be missing something.
@@gandydancer9710 The Vickers in the 50s was certainly .303 (I trained on them) and so far as I know this applies to WW1 as well.
One quick observation, the discrepancy with the unlikeliness of the French Rifle firing ~30-35 rounds per minute with the “fumbling of the magazines,” to the ability of the 75mm French Artillery to fire 30 rounds per minute without pause; I think we can say that your disclaimer about being an artillery officer was accurate lol.
Thank you Dr. DePue, i’m only about 1/3 through, but this is very informative and enjoyable.
Such a wonderful speaker
Very interesting lecture on weapons. Used from one era war to another. All that energy devoted to killing.
Literally thinking the same thing
Lots of energy has always been devoted to killing.
If you really want to make money invent a new way of killing people. However think of Italy in the Rennaissance. City states at war., mercenary troops everywhere, everyone fighting anyone else for trade and Michaelangelo, Raphael etc, Switzerland, years and years of peace - the Cuckoo Clock. (Misquote from Oscar Wilde - I think)
I love people I meet with and interact with everyday. Then I read about the 20th century and I hate and fear humanity.
The Boer War had some lessons that were not learned.Paths to Glory, 1958 movie has some scenes that seem to be realistic
It wasn’t just English men it was Welsh, Scottish and Irish men too alongside Commonwealth Troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa….. Rolling Barrages weren’t really effectively used until later on in the war. They TRIED it at the Somme and it was largely a complete disaster, as the troops barely survived ‘no man’s land’ let alone continued forward to any trenches beyond the initial ones. There WAS SOME SUCCESS in certain areas but due to the SLAUGHTER at most locations the British army was forced to retreat back to their prior positions as they were the only ones who’d actually taken German trenches so couldn’t hope to hold them without support. The Somme is STILL a huge part of the British consciousness. It was complete unadulterated slaughter on an unprecedented scale never before seen in the British Army. This was something different. On the morning of July 1, 1916 over 100,000 British troops went ‘over the top’ and charged the enemy lines, in what would become the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. By the end of the day, the British troops secured approximately eight square kilometers of ground, along a front that stretched 24km (averaging just 0.33km from the initial line of attack), at a cost of over 57,000 casualties , including over 19,000 fatalities. The battle ended on November 18th 1916, with well over one million casualties and 300,000 fatalities. Although casualties were high for all sides, the battle is most prominently remembered in Britain and the Commonwealth as an example of the ultimate sacrifice made by the men who served throughout the First World War. The Somme casts a long shadow. As for the ‘Pals’ battalions, many were decimated and that meant the loss of 10’s of young men from the same small towns and villages across the UK, they were friends who’s families all knew each other and this made the loss of an entire Pals Battalion completely devastating for the entire community. All of the young men were gone and were never coming home….
Well said
A flamethrower is a terrifying weapon from the operating end too. Espescially those early german ones
Michael Kelly Yes. You are right. Being a flame thrower operator was a job very few men wanted. You were a prime target and if your fuel tank was hit, it would explode and you would certainly be killed.
@@DoubleMrE that last part actually isn't true, it's just a myth. There are no credible reports of it ever actually happening.
@@sam8404 Lovely. I'd hate for a guy who's after me with a flamethrower to get killed by his own weapon.
This presentation needs to acknowledge "The First Day on the Somme" by Martin Middlebrook - it seems to have been taken in parts almost verbatim from that work.
Listening to him bungle the description and capabilities of the Lebel and the Bertier was painful.
It was weird to hear him talking about fumbling when changing magazines. You didn't change magazines in those types of rifles. The magazines were built into the gun and you refilled it when empty. Non-tube 5- or 3-round magazines can be reloaded very quickly using ammo on stripper clips.
And smoothbore muskets had a rate of 3 rounds per minute. Early rifled muskets had a rate of one per minute, which is why smoothbores were favored until the mid 19th century. The change right before the Crimean War and US Civil War was that standardization and new bullet designs brought the rate of fire for rifles was up to 3 per minute and reliability improved. That is why they replaced the smoothbores en masse.
@@junkjunk81 stripper clips are also referred to as chargers the berthier was frances 2nd tier rifle that became their first tier because the lebel was slow to reload.
@@junkjunk81 the British Enfield rifles had a 10-round magazine
Exzellent Report.
My decades old question I asked in high school has still not been answered in a sufficient manner; how were the trenches constructed on a modern battlefield? Weren’t they shooting back and forth, under constant artillery fire? How could they just waltz up to each other in an open field and carry on a construction project?
Positions of predicted strategic importance would be fortified with trenches before a battle. Troop movements were constantly being reported by scouts. Lines could be dug hundreds of miles back, giving a dew days advantage to the defenders. I'm not a historian yet, just a guess.
@@kylebutler51 - appreciate your perspective Kyle. I just can’t comprehend that these trenches were constructed in the middle of a battle, or even leading up to a battle. I can see one side deciding to dig in where they saw fit beforehand, but when the other side advanced and realized they were dug in, how could they themselves dig in? I’ve been studying war for 20+ years and this still perplexes me. Perhaps I have been over analyzing this aspect of the war for so long I have confused myself into a mental blockage.
@@natedog1619 ''The trenches were often constructed during nighttime by a group of soldiers called engineers so that the trenches were built before the enemy attacked. During WWI there were 3 main types of trench construction:
Sapping: The trench was started by digging a short trench, which then be extended at either end of the trench.
Tunneling: The most secret way to build a trench was to make a tunnel and then remove the roof when the tunnel was complete. Tunneling was the safest method, but also the most difficult.
Sand-bagging: This was done in areas such as the Flanders area where there were very high water tables or low levels of dirt and clay. These trenches were devised to "appear" underground by raising the levels of sandbags and covering them with dirt and camouflage.''
wwi-trenchwarfare.weebly.com/construction-and-design-of-trenches.html
I see some good thoughts here, which are all valid. I think your question is how the trenches sprang up (or down, if you will) on the field in the middle of a battle.
My guess is that one side (often the French/British) went to ground after advancing towards prepared German positions. So they're on the field, face down, with all hell flying over their heads and around them. They want to make themselves as small as possible; they want to get away. But they can't stand up to run, so there's only one option: go into the earth. That's where the entrenching tool comes in. And slowly but surely, little dugouts become foxholes, which then get connected via a small corridor between the holes; these earthworks are then expanded upon by "generations" of inhabitants, until one day you're looking at the trenches we know and love (hate/fear, you get it). That would be my slightly educated guess :)
@@ImperialGit The first trenches were dug pretty much like that from soldier's accounts. then deepened and joined up. The support and reserve lines - about 200 yds apart behind the front line trench would have been dug at night. Wiring was done at night. Screw pickets were invented so you didn't have to hammer stakes in which told the other side what you were doing but it wasnt a very safe way of earning a living. Roland Leighton - Vera Brittain's boyfriend/fiance - was killed near Hebuterne when in charge of a wiring party. Jumping off trenches in fromt ot the main line would be dug at night. 'I found the half dug trenches we fashioned for the fight/We lost a score of men there, young James was killed last night' AP Herbert Beaucourt Revisited - one of the great poems of WW1 about the Royal Naval Division's attack in November 1916, the last major action of the Somme.
It seems that artillery, and even heavy naval bombardment, is never quite as effective as planned. The Confederate artillery (147 guns) preceding Pickett's charge at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 is one example. Heavy naval bombardment of Iwo Jima in 1945 is another.
Artillery was extremely effective in WW1. To compare the artillery of WW1 with the ones Americans had in their civil war is not a very good example.
@@ReaderOfThreads I wasn't disputing that, only that there were often unreasonable expectations placed on artillery's effectiveness. This is especially true when the enemy is in a fortified position. Even in WW II, as was learned on D-Day as well as the Iwo Jima invasion, artillery has its limitations, even the huge shells from naval guns.
@@ChaplainDaveSparks If you want to look at body count then perhaps there is a way to accept that artillery weren't effective. But as a tool to shut down large areas and destroy fortifications then artillery is very effective. Artillery is effective at destroying citys, and denying your enemy tactical positions.
Oh and Napoleon was a great general because of his use of artillery.
As the speaker points out artillery is the big killer is serious warfare.
The bombardment of Iwo, both air and artillery, was far less than "planned", IIRC.
There is a recent Operations Room channel video on UA-cam on this exact subject.
@@ReaderOfThreads The probloem was that it took some time to learn that artillery could not destroy trenches and give the infantry a walkover. It could suppress the enemy and allow the infantry to close. Compare the attacks on 1 July and 14 July (Bazentin Ridge) 1916
Very informative!
It was french colonials who faced gas attack on the western front first but the germans had tested it before this on the Russians
Christ, NOT shotguns, shotguns were almost useless in the Trenches. Nothing wrong with the actual weapon, problem was the AMMO. In those days shotgun shells were NOT made of plastic, they were made of PAPER. That meant if you have a pump action with say 5 rounds in the magazine, that was likely ALL the reliable ammunition you had available. 5 rounds. The rest had been damaged to some degree or another as you crossed the shattered hell of No Mans Land, either bent out of shape or damaged physically (because specialist bandoliers were not issued), or, this is North West Europe you are talking about. It rains. A lot, paper ammo in a soldiers pockets in the rain gets wet.
There is literally a reason no one else but the AEF used shotguns in the Trenches, because Britain, France and Germany *had* experimented with them and found them wanting due to the ammunition problems. Reading my Great Grandfathers dairies (Royal Welch Fusiliers 1915 - 1919 when he was demobilised) he did mention certain troops were issued with sporting shotguns by Company officers in 1915 and part of 1916, but they were NOT used to kill men, they were used to kill German Carrier Pigeons. Even the AEF worked out very quickly that shotguns were all but useless except in a very few niche situations because of the ammunition issues. While the US was experimenting in brass shelled shotgun ammunition this was only in the Experimental phase in late 1918 and never actually reached the front.
It was not really until after WWII that shotgun shells were produced that could be relied on in combat conditions, and even then it was found that the shotgun still only had niche roles. Which is why the only time you see shotguns used in modern forces is as an attachment to the main combat rifle, usually used in CQB to effect ingress into a building. The Trench Sweeper as they called those old shotguns of WWI is a complete and utter myth, in that role the weapon was a complete failure, you were better off giving your shotgunner a bag of bombs (grenades) or giving him a Chauchat.
As for the rifles, rifles in those days were NOT reloaded by changing the magazines, hell, many rifles of the time had undetachable internal magazines, or with those that were detachable (such as the British SMLE) were often literally chained to the rifle. The only time you removed your magazine was to clean it. Rifles were reloaded using charger clips, usually 5 rounds in a stripper clip that you placed into a slot in the breech while the bolt was open and thumbed down into the magazine. The stripper clip would then be discarded. It was found with 5 and 10 round magazines that using stripper clips to reload was faster and more efficient than actually changing (and possibly damaging) the magazine. The only weapons in WWI that required magazine changes were the Light Machineguns (Lewis gun) or Automatic rifles (Chauchat and BAR, though the BAR was late to the party), and the few early SMG's that made their way into troops hands in the last months of the war (such as the MP-18).
This carried through even into WWII, where precisely NO combat rifles were reloaded by switching magazines, this includes the US M1 Garand, which was reloaded using an 8 round end block clip, and not by changing the magazines. Again, magazine changes were limited to rapid firing weapons, such as SMG's and many Light Machineguns (British Bren for example).
Finally the British SMLE was not 5 - 10 round magazine, it was a 10 round magazine. Where the 5 - 10 round comes from is that it was customery to only load 5 rounds into the 10 round magazine, and only top off to the full 10 rounds if the situation suggested you might need rapid fire. Another point of confusion may be the Pattern 14, which DID have a 5 round magazine, but was NOT a Lee Enfield, it was actually heavily based on the Mauser action (rather than the Enfield, Lee being the Magazine designation) and in British use was only used as a sniper weapon or in rear areas. The Americans used a varient of this rifle in 30.06 that became known as the Enfield 1917, and went on to arm 70% of the AEF as Springfield armouries simply could not build enough 1903's to arm the number of soldiers the US was raising.
TL:DR, Shotguns were worse than useless in WWI, Slamfiring them down trenches is a myth, and riflemen did not change magazines, they charged them using stripper clips....
EDIT: Apologies, TWO combat rifle were reloaded by magazine changes, the STG 44, and FG 42. The latter was rare, a Paratrooper weapon, the former was the first true Assault Rifle. Even the German and Russian semi autos though were stripper clip loaded.
I've got a question which I don't know if it's legitimate but still, why didn't the British having the superior navy tried an amphibious operation to outflank the germans? was ut too difficult for the time or nobody thought about it?
Hmm, interesting question. I have never really thought about it, so it’s always fun to see something from a different perspective!
Note that I’m not an expert, so this is just my personal interpretation.
My guess for why it didn’t happen would be that it was considered too risky,. A couple of points I thought of:
1. Even though the British navy probably was superior to the Germans, it didn’t seem to be incredibly overpowering. Instead the two surface navies seemed to have fought each other to a standstill after the battle of Jutland (although the British were able to maintain the embargo against Germany). So, an amphibious assault on such a scale that would threaten the German positions on the western front would have to be conducted while fending off the remaining German surface- and submarine navies plus the risk of German land based artillery and infantry being moved to the shore. However, I don’t recall reading anything about any massive shoreline fortifications being built by the Germans, but I definitely can’t be sure on that point.
2. British experiences of large-scale amphibious operations. This point also two-folded.
a) The enormous problems that occurred during the landings at Gallipoli. As I’ve understood it, they had figured out a lot of the issues with having an amphibious force supplied, but it essentially ended up becoming more trench warfare with a more vulnerable supply line.
b) Lack of any other experiences. To my knowledge Gallipoli was the only reference-point the British (or anyone else for that matter) had for operations of this type and on this scale. So what little experience they had seemed to be very negative, and thus I guess it would have been very hard to gain political or military support for large scale troop landings behind the lines.
I think large scale amphibious operations were pretty doomed to fail especially against a first rate power like the Germans untill better communications technology was developed. Just look at Gallipoli. If the British had been entertaining the idea of a seaborne invasion of Germany before Gallipoli they certainly abandoned it after that. Also the British had the greatest navy, but it was also spread out all over the world protecting the British empire and the German high seas fleet was no joke at this time. If the British had attempted it and been defeated by the German navy even to the point of reaching naval parity with the Germans it would have been catastrophic to there war effort because then the Germans could break the blockade.
In fact the Brits (esp. Fisher and Churchill, iirc) gave considerable consideration to a Baltic invasion.
What with mines and subs and the opportunity to use the High Seas Fleet against a divided British force (the Kiel Canal would have given that last interior lines) it looks to me like a far worse idea than the Dardanelles, never mind the logistical challenges of supplying such a force.
As to shorter flanking maneuvers... where, exactly? And see Anzio. Or think of them as naval versions of A Bridge Too Far. Or larger Dieppe disasters?
@@gandydancer9710 I think you're probably right. Before the war the Navy were seeing the British Army as a missile to be fired by them at the German coast but Henry Wilson's plan for the BEF to go to France was adopted. Probably a good thing, i doubt if a landing in Germany could have been brought off, no specialised ships, German subs etc and even if it had stalemeated trench warfare would have been the result eg Gallipoli and Salonika and the Zeebruge raid didn' go too well although the idea of landings on the Belgian coast was part of the original plan for Third Ypres
Should have added 'at the start of the war', During the war both sides got more guns per battalion.
I thought this was supposed to be about trench warfare, this is just a brief summary of ww1 in general
The Germans often used their machine guns on fixed sights forcing the enemy to advance through their fire. This was particularly effective on the Somme.
Please explain that.
Nobody "forced" any army into Donkey advances, and certainly "fixed sights" didn't have that effect.
Nor was sweeping them back and forth like lawn sprinklers (is that what you mean?) a particularly German practice.
@@gandydancer9710 Swinging a Vickers gun from side to side was an excellent way to jam the feed and unless the enemy was coming straight at you unnecessary. Remember 500 rounds per minut all below shoulder height with the sights ay 700 yards. Try walking through that - like walking in front of a hose and hoping not to get wet.
@@Dav1Gv Did you personally attempt this and experience jamming?
Swinging machine guns side to side, not aimed fire, was doctrine.
In fact employing machine guns at high angles to create areas of plunging fire became doctrine.
You might want to look into the ratio of shots fired to inflicted casualties. It's very high.
Much higher than one would expect had machine guns normally been fired at particular targets.
Naturally, if particular targets were available that could change. But normally they weren't.
@@gandydancer9710 Didn't know about swinging being doctrine. On both sides? I agree about high angle fire, 100 Company (I think, haven't checked my sources) fired 1,000,000 rounds in a day in the fighting around Flers in 1916 to stop German reinforcements coming up - doubt if they hit anything, that weight of fire probably meant no one went into the beaten zone. I think that was the first use but it became common after that.
"Why it was so traumatic for Europe, for England, for France, for Germany in particular..." - no mention of Russia...again...
unbelievable how it just continues!
The talk is about trench warfare. While there were trenches in the east trench warfare never developed to the same extent. 'On the east there was too much ground and too few soldiers. On the west there were too many soldiers and not enough ground' (may not have got this quote absolutely right but the message is correct. No one who knows anything about the war would argue that it wasw not traumatic for Russia as well. Pity the Tsar ignored the Durnovo memorandum. Not much sympathy for him and his wife but I do feel sorry for the children who were not responsible but who paid with their lives.
This the first war in which we killed each other rather than disease do to vaccines. Oh and "War is cruel you cannot refine" William Tecumseh Sherman
Which trenches where the Yanks in during 1918
Initially the ones they took over from the French. Then I suppose they dug their own though, German offensives being a thing of the pasr, I suppose they might have been somewhat lackadaisical about it.
when it comes down to it.. it's hand to hand with clubs and knives and axes. never enough ammo for your fancy guns....
Units ran out of grenades. Not aware of many units running out of bullets. That was a feature of colonial seiges not ww1.
@@tamlandipper29 the horrific home made trench fighting tools made by both sides would suggest otherwise
@@lizardywizard - those trench melee weapons were primarily made during the long periods of downtime between offenses. They were made to be backup weapons in case your primary firearm was rendered useless during a firefight. Some of those melee weapons were certainly used, and a lot of times it did in fact come down to hand to hand combat.
@@natedog1619 rifle / bayonet was supposed to be your hand to hand weapon hence they devised their own. No Uzi with never ending clip in real life sadly.
@@lizardywizard - just saying, there were rarely a shortage of rifle ammunition
A first rate talk. One criticism, like many Yanks you said English when you meant British. Remember that Scotland and Ireland were represented and, as I live in Wales, the Welsh. The 38th (Welsh) Division took Mametz Wood and the Dragon Memorial, funds for which were raised by the South Wales Branch of the Western Front Association is the second most visited memorial on the battlefield. Perhaps to give a slightly more balanced view you might have included the following:
Captain von Hentig of the General Staff of the Guard Reserve Division said: “The Somme was the muddy grave of the German field army, and of the faith in the infallibility of the German leadership, dug by British industry and its shells. ..The German Supreme Command, which entered the war with enormous superiority, was defeated by the superior techniques of its opponents. It had fallen behind in the application of destructive forces, and was compelled to throw division after division without protection against them into the cauldron of the battle of annihilation.”
In 1917 Field Marshall Hindenburg said that “We must save the men from a second Somme battle” when he was arguing that Germany must start unrestricted U-boat warfare - which probably caused Germany’s final defeat."
I would argue that the Somme was a British victory albeit a horribly expensive one. Another comment, no army really worked out how to attack in WW1, certainly no one achieved a breakthrough. Even in 1918 stormtroop tactics didn't work against well prepared and manned defences. Gavin Davies
Not much the English did on their own. The Welsh were very brave soldiers
Pot, meet kettle. Canadian and Anzac and Indian troops (etc?) were "British"?
@@gandydancer9710 The Canadians and Anzacs certainly weren't English - the word i really objected to. British perhaps for the Indian Army as India was part of the Emprire but they certainly deserve full credit as Indians. Incidentally I was once asked after a talk about WW1 what happened to the Hindu dead in the trenches? Those who died in base hospitals were cremated but no one I've asked knows what happened at the front line. Were they just buriied? Comments welcomed/
To be honest, this is mainly a review of various weaponry. Nes pas?
It is the pre-war developments in weapons technology that created conditions to which the only answer was to dig in and dig in deep.
A 1914 British infantry battalion (which only had two machine guns) when defending from a static position could in an emergency situation fire around 10,200 rounds in a single minute out to a range of 500-600 yards. It couldn’t sustain anything like that rate of fire of course, but that made a head-on attack almost impossible. Other countries had lower but not too dissimilar abilities.
So they all dug in and from then on the Western Front was siege warfare where every attack had to be head-on because there were no flanks to get round any more, the line ended at the sea in the north and the Swiss border in the south..
@@tlw4237 And that is, of course a fact that all too many people like to forget. I hear all too often this cry of 'Oh why did the stupid generals not try the flank?' to which when you reply that there WAS no flank they bluster and claim the Generals were still stupid. Another of my favourites is 'Oh they should have known how to use their tanks better.' How? In September 1916 46 tanks were used on the Somme, they were probably the ONLY tanks in the world at the time. No one knew what a tank should look like in 1916 any more than they knew how to use them. Unlike modern Armchair Generals they did not have 100 years of modern warfare to look back on with 20:20 hindsight. They were in the first truly modern Industrial War and the old way of war they had been trained to fight was utterly useless. They had to write the new book of modern combined arms warfare from the start.
Unfortunately that meant a LOT of experimenting with new tactics, new weapons, new methods of doing things, and in warfare, experimentation has a price in blood. Foch once said it takes 15,000 casualties to train a Major General (Divisional Commander). Think about that, a French Division of the time was 18,000 strong. Its rifle strength was 12 Battallions, about 12,000 men. While there *were* stupid Generals, most were not in fact stupid, but they were fighting a type of war no one expected, all sides had entered expecting a short war (so Industry was set up for that), and in those four years those 'stupid' Generals essentially created Modern Combined Arms Warfare. Richard S Faulkner has two very fine lectures on this subject.
ua-cam.com/video/Cs-18CyxOX0/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/semNFMk4P2c/v-deo.html
The First one, Crossing No Mans Land: The Birth of Combined Arms Warfare is the better quality of the two. The Second, An ecstacy of Fumbling concentrates pretty much entirely on a single year, 1915, but brings up many of the same points.
@@alganhar1 On the criticism by the ignorant of the 1916 use of tanks...
Yes, tanks were a new concept. They were also thoroughly dangerous for their crews. Even driving a few miles from the tank park to the front could result in incapacitated crew. No seats, an uncovered engine in the middle of the tank that gassed the crew and burned them if they fell against it...not exactly a Challenger II or Abrams.
A “fast tank” like the Whippet could just about sustain a speed a reasonably fit jogger could probably keep up with. And tanks were, of course, massively underpowered and prone to breaking down. And in the case of the A7 provided additional entertainment for its CO poisoned, sweating and vomiting occupants by falling over if it tried to drive along a slope, such as the edge of a shell-hole.
More generally, I think a problem people have with WW1 is understanding the scale of things. A frequent complaint is that generals were miles behind the line at headquarters when they “should have been on the front line to see what was going on”. Quite what use a view of half a mile of mostly mud would be in a battle fought on a front of 25 miles they can never explain other than by moral outrage that modern generals mostly ceased leading from the front in the 17th century. There are good reasons for that, of course. Even in ancient times a Roman general who led his combined-arms force by standing in the front rank, gladius in hand, would have been regarded at best as both mad and incompetent.
Generals belong where they can get plan and command. Which means at a central communications hub. Which in 1914-18 meant where the barely adequate telephone systems could have a focal point. Radio was primitive and unreliable, while semaphore flags and carrier pigeons were still in use by front line troops. Even tanks carried a couple of pigeons.
A lot of the uneducated criticism is like complaining telecoms companies in the 1960s and 70s were all useless and dreadful. Land lines? Phones you couldn’t put in your pocket and use for email? Why couldn’t they have provided iPhones to their customers? What do you mean, the technology of the time wasn’t up to that? That’s no excuse!
Correct French reads "n'est-ce pas"
@@alganhar1 I've NEVER heard anyone suggest that the Donkeys were stupid because they didn't attack the flanks. They were stupid because they insisted on attacking at all on the Western Front when they should have stood on the defensive there and let the blockade do its work rather than waste great gouts of blood "training" more Major General Donkeys.
Taking time to aim is also taking time to be a target.
You don't 'aim' a Vickers, you 'lay' it like a small artillery piece. Having laid and set the range you sit back, lift the safety with your first fingers and press down with your thumbs 30 seconds later it's 'the whole nine yards' (250 rounds)
😮😮😮 1:36:09 1:36:09 1:36:09
32:18
"Gas Warfare"
7.92 Mauser is absolutely not used by militaries today lol. And also, while I realize he's giving an overview, he should at least mention that one of the big reasons the maxim was so popular was that its internals were easily exchanged for different calibers so while the Germans used 7.92x57mm, Russian maxims used 7.62x54R (which is still in use), British maxims used .303 British (7.7x56R), etc.
A little superficial, TBH.....
Just to take one particular example, the whole matter of Verdun and the supposed "Ausblutung" theory....
I don't think it's at all clear that this was the strategy in Verdun, or whether this was the justification in hindsight....he maybe hints at something like this, but then goes on to reaffirm the theory of attrition warfare as if it was gospel...
Well, he notes this and further mentions how Falkenhyn mentioned it in his memoirs as a possible attempt to explain and defend what actually happened in Verdun. Did we listen to the same lecture or is it you that is superficial?
Looking at the bigger strategic picture surrounding Verdun, it seems fairly clear this was an attempt to push for an attrition battle under favourable conditions for the Germans. This however proved to be a miscalculation. Falkenhayn was aware that Germany could not win a protracted war for its lack of resources.
Wasn't this the war in which was know by Lions led by Donkeys?
There was an instance on this channel when the speaker said that that was said by a French officer about the British army in the Crimean war, but the Wikipedia article on the phrase credits it to Ludendorf, iirc. Maybe someone ought to fix that.
This channel fairly consistently depreciates that description, but I remain unconvinced of the competence of WWI Generals. Or any Generals, their seeming so often blowhards and careerist and petty beyond belief.
Germany didn't have more machine guns per unit - this is a common error. Both the British and German armies had 2 machine guns per battalion (obviously as the Germans had a much bigger army they had more guns) but probably the Germans used theirs more effectively.
Maybe because the Germans were generally on the defense on ground chosen for better fields of fire?
@@gandydancer9710 Fair comment. I trained on the Vickers and the fields of fire at Newfoundland Park, for example, would make any machine gunner believe the god of war was really on his side. Also, of course, the Allies were attacking more. When the Germans counter attacked if we had got our machine guns up much the same happened to them. There's an account of this by the war correspondent Phillip Gibbs.
"Schliefenplan" ie in german is like the ee in the english words, "feet and bee". The way he says it in german it would mean they wanted to decorate something with a bow of to sand somethhing down... Also the first gas attack as far as i remember reading was tried by the french, but it failed. (teargas) And while the title of the video is "trench warfare during WW1" i am missing any mention of the italian front. 11 Battles of the isonzo with immense casualties but almost no territorial gains, and the extreme terrain they had to endure was even deadlier than on the western front.
Also on the eastern front. The battle escapes me. It fizzled out but it was months before ypres
I thought the first gas attack was by the Germans on the Eastern Front but it went unnoticed because the cold weather meant it wasn't very effective. The fighting on the Italian Front in the mountains, eg by Lake Garda, was very very unpleasant as well - and what about Gallipli, Salonika, Palestine (although more movement there) and Africa (again, movement)
@@Dav1Gv I canbe mistaken, but from what i remember it wasn't the low temperatures but the wind blowing in the wrong direction that messed up the germans first try.
(But the first ones in WW1 were the french, but "only" with teargas, which quickly escalated into deadly gasses by all sides)
Gallipolli i guess counts as trench warfare too, but Palestine and aAfrica i think weren't much trenchwarfare.
@@nirfz Certainly could have been wind - it didn't help our effort at Loos. Didn't know about the FRench, do you know where it was? Later in t he war lachrymatory gasses were used to get men to remove gas masks so they could be hit with lethal ones (and tear gas is no fun at all even in a training situation.
@@Dav1Gv I don't remember where it was, but here it is mentioned: ua-cam.com/video/OrHFEPu_ANI/v-deo.html
Yes, sadly it spiraled into disgusting heights with those chemical agents.
I have my tiny little training experience with teargas and irritant gas from my conscription service... I was in a room full of teargas in 99'. It was part of the testing if our NBC masks were tight enough. We did pushups and squats ect. with the masks on. And a filter change which my instructor almost screwed up on me. He failed to screw in the filter 3 times while i had to hold my breath. Before the 4th attempt he told me: "When it doesn't work this time, you run out of the room!."
4th time was the charme and right before i completely run out of breath.
And afterwards when cleaning hands ect. you could clearly see those who had not paid attention to what the instructors told us about cleaning and the order of cleaning. (They had red eyes, running noses ect.)
The irritant gas story was worse for me: While guarding an entrance in complete darkness (only moonlight), and in the process of being relieved by a comrade, somethig flew in the ditch where we were positioned. It was a irritant gas grenade. While i reached for my mask, my "buddy" got up, used my back as a springboard and leapt away. Usually you hold your breath when realizing there's something you shouldn't breath in and put on the mask. But when someone steps on your back, you can't hold your breath. So i took a lung full of the irritant smoke before i could put on my mask. My other buddy a few meters away in a bush (the side where wind was comming from, so he didn't even need his mask,) completely lost it watching us. He laughed so loud...
I had an aching throat for 2 days but nothing else bothering my body.
Oh and the grenade had been thrown by one of our officers who probably was bored and wanted to give us some action...
A fine lecture but seems a little curious to me having an American describing what was going on before the Doughboys arrived for their learning experiences. Whatever the case, these brave men deserve our lasting respect and thanks. Lectures like this help ensure that this is the case.
Why is it curious that an American is giving the lecture, he's qualified to do so... Doesn't matter if he's from Brazil, Japan or Myanmar to me... As long as that person knows his history.
Winchester 1897, you know it's bad when the Germans complain about your weapon.
One of the best books I've read on WW1 was "I will Hold". Highly recommend for anyone who is interested in the US Marines in France.
Thank you
What is up with the censorship? Afraid we might be upset by some bad words when talking about mass killing?
Bad words is the least obnoxious trigger for YT(Google) censorship.
See Hunter Biden's laptop.
Make America Great Again!
Lee Kevin Martinez Jeffrey Thompson Scott
Why do many of these "professional" WWI Historians mispronounce names they should know? Prononounced like schleeeefen, NOT SchlY-fin. UGH. (I've lived in Germany for several years, so don't give me some piss poor excuse)
When I did my student teaching with a History teacher who had been teaching for 30+ years, I had to use all my tact to tell him the words he was mispronouncing: Thames River, Versailles, Marseillaise...etc.
I hear mispronunciations in audiobooks all the time also.
We should deeply care why?
Obviously most information is gleaned from written sources.
Because they're historians not linguists.
I am a Forgotten Weapons fan. There is NO WAY the Lebel could fire 38 rounds a minute.
@Leonardo's Truth Wow. What a weird reply.
@@Herintruththelies The response you responded to does not appear on the page for me.
Is it just me? There is definitely a UA-cam "bug" currently disappearing replies.
Johnson Sharon Lewis Barbara Clark Ronald
How can someone call himself an historian when he cannot even properly pronounce the names of the people who drove the events about which he is supposedly an authority. It is Alfred von Schl-EE-fen. An undergrad should know that.
My dad was both a WW1 and Vietnam veteran. He used knives.
How is that possible?
I know there were WWI vets that fought in WWII. And there were a lot of WWII vets that fought in Vietnam…. But a WWI vet fighting in Vietnam is kind of a stretch.
@@jiveassturkey8849 he was young in one. Old in the other. He used two knives. They were identical.
He also was instrumental in the Tulsa prostitute wars of 1959
Interesting lecture… I see the comments section full of the self-appointed, nit picking, armchair experts picking tiny holes in odd facts. Get a life !
Not everyone is as fond of ignorance as you are.
If you give talks, and I do, you're expected to get your facts right. It's not nitpicking to point errors out, it's how we learn and it's particularly important to shoot down simplistic, out of date views eg 'lions led by donkeys' which have now been exploded or are explainable or due to other factors, eg the British Army which attacked on 1July was undertrained and poorly equipped - a bit like the Union Armies in the ACW - and no country expected WW1 to turn out like it did so a long and bloody learning curve resulted .
@@Dav1Gv "Lions led by Donkeys" is true, not "exploded".
@@Dav1Gv Not getting your nits in a row destroys credibility pretty quickly. Perhaps Dr. Depue will read to comments to crowd-source his errors and do better in the future. If not the consequences will be on him, and deserved.
@@gandydancer9710 Very doubtful. What's your source?
A strong presentation but INCREDIBLY weakened by the constant referral to the British as “the Brits”. British lecturers do not refer to us “the Yanks” in a single presentation. Shame!
I’m a Yank, when we say Brit it is NOT meant as derogatory, my friend! It may be in some cases, but this presenter did not mean it that way. Best wishes from across the pond.
You're just taking offense over nothing.
@@sam8404 no, am not taking offence. Just saying the presenter makes it difficult to respect him.
Cry more.
@@jeffersonwright9275 Cry harder. Maybe that'll make us respect YOU more.
Or maybe not.