Part 11

The progress of German arms in 1915 had decided Bulgaria to throw in her lot with the Central Powers. Her price--fixed by secret treaty with Germany in July of that year--was the whole of Macedonia possessed by Serbia, and other valuable slices of territory. It was not until 12th Oct. that formal war was declared by Bulgaria against Serbia, five days after the fresh invasion of Serbia had begun under Mackensen's leadership, with two Austro-German armies, one under General Koevess, advancing west of Belgrade in a wide flanking movement along the old roads over the Save and the Drina, and the other, under General von Gallwitz, advancing east of Belgrade against the main Serbian forces. Against this new Mackensen 'drive', with fully-equipped forces larger than the whole Serbian army, organized with all the Teutonic thoroughness which marked the same leader's Galician triumph, the Serbians had no chance, though they fought, as ever, with stoic resistance, and exacted a price for every inch of ceded territory. While they were thus stubbornly retreating, Bulgaria threw in two of her armies on the Eastern front, thus threatening, with the advancing Austro-German forces, to enclose them in a wide loop. The tragedy of it was that Serbia's allies were powerless to save her; and that Greece, who by the terms of her treaty with Serbia should have gone to her assistance as soon as Bulgaria attacked her, declined through King Constantine to do so, notwithstanding the insistent advice of his Prime Minister, M. Venizelos. Convinced, like King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, that Germany was winning the war, King Constantine maintained to the end an attitude which, though he chose to call it neutral, was never friendly towards the Allies. Russia had her hands too full to go to Serbia's aid, and though a Franco-British attempt was made as the net closed round the encircled Serbians, it was too late to save the situation.

The story of the Serbian disaster of 1915, when the fall of Monastir on 2nd Dec. robbed the Serbians of their last stronghold, is that of a desperate flight across the frontier and over the mountains of Albania and Montenegro to the Adriatic. Thanks to the Serbians' heroic efforts, the Austro-German armies had not been able to close the net tight, and though the Bulgarians followed hard on their heels, they could not quite complete their victory. All told, however, the Serbians lost some 50,000 men, killed, wounded, captured, or starved, in the retreat, together with their guns and equipment. Their aged monarch shared the retreat and succeeded in reaching Brindisi.

Meanwhile the Franco-British force, which, as already related, arrived too late to prevent this final act of the Serbian tragedy, had established a strong base at Salonika, notwithstanding Greek protests on the grounds of neutrality. It was not until 14th Oct. that the combined force, under the leadership of General Sarrail--the British column being commanded by General Mahon--began to move up the Vardar valley, the British advancing on the right towards Lake Doiran, and the French towards Strumnitza. Both forces were soon in touch with the Bulgarians, and fought a number of minor engagements in their forlorn hope of effecting a junction with the hard-pressed Serbians. Besides being too late, however, the Franco-British forces were not strong enough to effect their purpose, and when the remnants of the Serbian army had been forced across the frontier towards the Adriatic, they were themselves attacked by powerful Bulgarian columns. The object of his expedition having been eliminated, General Sarrail prepared for retreat to his base. The Bulgarians did their best to harry his retirement. They launched a determined attack, which he repulsed with heavy loss; and then endeavoured to isolate the two columns by an assault on the British force at Lake Doiran. Though some 1300 casualties were sustained in defeating this attack, the British, acting as flank-guard to the French, enabled the retreat to be made jointly. By 13th Dec. the Allied troops, having administered a severe check to the pursuing Bulgarians two days previously, were across the Greek frontier in good order, and in due course had entrenched themselves about Salonika.

With the fall of Serbia came the collapse of Montenegro, in circumstances considerably less heroic than those which marked the Serbian retreat. The key position of Mont Lovtchen was abandoned to the Austrians with little if any show of resistance, and Cettinje, the capital, similarly entered by the invaders. King Nicholas of Montenegro sought refuge in Paris; Prince Mirko of Montenegro in Vienna.

The Serbian soldiers who survived the great retreat, numbering some 100,000 in all, were met on the Adriatic coast by units of the Italian fleet and transferred to Corfu--to recoup and refit for the later campaigns which were to lead to the recovery of their country.

_Italy, 1915_

Italy, whose warships were thus instrumental in salving the Serbian army, had thrown in her lot with the Allies by declaring war against Austria-Hungary on 23rd May, 1915. Austria had refused to offer adequate 'compensation' for her disturbance of the Balkans; and, moreover, the time had obviously arrived to complete Italian unity. A few weeks previously Italy had signed the Treaty of London, under which the Allies agreed to satisfy most of her territorial ambitions when the time came to share the spoils of victory an agreement which led to some of the most difficult problems in the final peace settlement. To Italy's honour be it added that she joined forces with the Allies when their prospects were none too bright, when they were able to report little or no progress either on the Western front or in Gallipoli, and Austro-German arms, on the other hand, were beginning to carry all before them in Mackensen's great drive in Galicia.

Italy was in no position to throw her whole weight into the struggle in 1915. Though her war strength was reckoned at a million men, her army was ill-equipped with guns, especially with modern heavy artillery and machine-guns, and her industrial resources were wholly inadequate to make good the deficiency. The mountainous frontier which she had to defend, too, gave every advantage to the Austrians. She succeeded in seizing three of the passes, the Stelvio, Tonale, and Guidriari, on the east side of the Trentino, and in blocking others on the west side, as the opening moves of her campaign, the object being to secure her flank in the subsequent offensive operations which aimed at Trieste by an advance across the Isonzo. Though these operations succeeded in pinning to the Italian front considerable forces of Austro-Hungarian troops which might have been thrown into the Russian furnace, the Italian effort fell far short of its objectives. General Cadorna, the Italian Commander-in-Chief, won a number of small successes in deploying his Third Army on the right bank of the Isonzo during June and July, securing the bridge-heads at Caporetto--the scene of Italian disaster two years later--Plava, Gradisca, and Monfalcone, thus holding the western bank of the river from Tolmino down to the sea. But the Italians were now faced with powerful defences, buttressed by the Carso Plateau in the south, which could only be carried at that time at prohibitive cost. All attempts to capture these strongholds broke down, and though a footing was gained on the Carso, and slight gains were constantly reported from the Trentino, the operations along the Italian front settled down before the year was out to the give-and-take fighting which characterized the siege operations in the West.

_Western Front in 1915_

On the Western front neither France nor Great Britain was ready in 1915 to undertake any advance comparable with the great offensives of the Central Powers in the East. Russia in her agony complained that France was not doing enough, but all the Allies' efforts this year were crippled by their inability to supply the wholly unprecedented demands for munitions of war. Great Britain was still struggling months behind to catch up a foe who had been preparing for years. Mr. Lloyd George subsequently related how, in the month of May, 1915, when the Germans were turning out 250,000 shells a day, most of them high-explosives, Great Britain was producing a mere 2500 a day in high-explosives, and 13,000 in shrapnel. The French, accustomed to supplying the demands of armies on a Continental scale, had naturally done considerably better than this, but even their most strenuous efforts were inadequate to cope with the enormous output of the German arsenals. Mr. Lloyd George retired from the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in order to assume control of the newly created Ministry of Munitions, which in due course more than made good all these defects. That, however, was not in 1915. Up to the end of that year, according to Lord French, "the scanty supply of munitions of war paralysed all our power of initiative, and at critical times menaced our defence with irretrievable disaster".

At the end of the first long winter of dreary trench warfare the British Commander-in-Chief deemed it necessary to undertake an offensive in order to prevent the _moral_ of his army from deteriorating. Hence the battle of Neuve Chapelle, which, begun on 10th March, was fought with a small reserve of ammunition accumulated for the purpose, and had to be broken off after three days' struggle through lack of further supplies. The troops chosen for the main assault were Rawlinson's Fourth Army Corps, with the Indian Corps on the right. Following the preliminary bombardment, they quickly overran Neuve Chapelle itself and made 1000 yards progress on a 3-mile front. But to left and right the attacks were held up, and two further days' fighting failed to add to the gains--purchased at the excessive cost of 562 officers and 12,239 men. The total German losses, including 1680 officers and men as prisoners, were estimated as rather higher than this, but the net result, though ranking as a British victory, was admittedly disappointing.

Earlier in the year Lord French had endeavoured to convince Joffre that the proper role for the British army to fulfil was an advance on the extreme north in co-operation with the British navy. Joffre was unsympathetic, though he held out hopes of co-operating in such an advance with the French army at a later date. His plan for the 1915 campaign was to break through the German line from the south at Rheims, and from the west at Arras. To do this he must mass as many French corps as possible behind these points, meanwhile keeping the enemy busy elsewhere in order to prevent him from reinforcing the threatened positions. This general strategic idea, as Lord French has pointed out, was the foundation of all the Allied efforts in the West throughout 1915. It led to numerous local successes along many parts of the line, but no real advance was made towards the main objectives. These were not defined until the combined offensive was launched in September.

The Germans themselves, though content to leave to the Allies most of the attacking in the West in 1915, maintained a sufficiently active offensive-defensive. While the French in Alsace were making a fresh advance on Mulhouse at the beginning of the year, they counter-attacked at Soissons, after bombarding the cathedral on 9th Jan. It was only after a week's desperate fighting and heavy French losses--including a bridge-head on the Aisne--that they were checked. In Champagne the French managed to capture Perthes (8th Jan.), and strove valiantly but vainly to wipe out the St. Mihiel salient. The most ambitious effort of the opening months of the year was the British offensive at Neuve Chapelle, which, as already pointed out, failed largely through lack of ammunition. In his report on that battle the British Commander-in-Chief referred to the pressing need of "an almost unlimited supply of ammunition"; and the lack of it was the real explanation of the Allied failure in 1915.

Germany knew well enough how matters stood in this respect, and added ruthlessly to the handicap which their own superior supplies gave them by suddenly attacking with chlorine gas--the first use of poison-gas in the war. This was on 22nd April, following a grim struggle south-east of Ypres for Hill 60, the flattened remains of which, after five days' incessant fighting, remained in British possession. Having been careful beforehand to accuse the French of using poison-gas near Verdun on the 14th--a charge without justification--the Germans launched it in dense volumes from pipes previously laid down for the purpose north-east of Ypres. The attack was preceded by a heavy bombardment, the gas-clouds following at 5 p.m. on the 22nd. The Allied line was held at this point by French Colonial and Territorial troops, with the Canadian Division on their right. All unprotected as they were against this diabolical form of warfare, the French troops, gasping for breath, broke and fled. Many fell asphyxiated. With a gap in the Allied line 5 miles wide, the Canadians suddenly found their flank left in the air. Less affected by the gas than the French, they were chiefly instrumental in saving the situation by a valiant resistance until reinforcements could be sent to fill the gap.

The gap was evidently wider than the Germans either anticipated or realized; otherwise the disaster might have been irretrievable. As it was, the situation remained precarious until the 27th, when a counter-attack in conjunction with the French recovered some of the ground, and a large portion of the sorely tried Canadian Division was relieved by the Lahore Indian Division. Altogether seven British divisions were involved in this hard-fought battle, the net result of which was to bring the Germans 2 miles nearer to Ypres on a 5-mile front, and to give the Allies a worse line to hold. Eight batteries of French field-guns were lost and four British guns of position. These last were recaptured by the Canadians, but the enemy had already destroyed them. In all the Allied casualties amounted to nearly 25,000. The Germans estimated theirs at 16,000. In his report on the gas-attack Sir John French declared that protest against this form of warfare would probably be useless, and Lord Kitchener intimated in the House of Lords on 18th May that retaliation might be inevitable. Respirators more or less effective were supplied to the troops, and the use of poison-gas, followed by liquid-fire--another German innovation--became permanent additions to the horrors of modern warfare.

Before the new battle round Ypres died down--it lasted, indeed, until the end of May--the storm centre shifted to the southern end of the British line, where it joined hands with the French left. Here General French began the battle of Festubert, undertaken to relieve the intense pressure on the troops at Ypres, but also serving as part of Joffre's general plan of attack in the direction of Lens and Lille. British and French alike were launched against the German lines on 9th May, the British taking the offensive between Rougebanc and Givenchy, and the French between Neuville St. Vaast and Notre Dame de Lorette. The renewed struggle for Ypres, however, had drawn heavily on the scanty British reserves of ammunition, and the preliminary bombardment of forty minutes proved wholly inadequate to crush the resistance offered by the enemy's numerous fortified posts when the First Army advanced to the attack. This disastrous engagement, in which the greatest bravery was displayed against overwhelming odds, cost over 12,000 casualties. It achieved nothing in the field, but the lessons which it taught led to the formation of the Coalition Government, with Mr. Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. The second stage of the battle of Festubert, which began at midnight on 15th May, was more successful, the enemy's front-line trenches being captured on a front of 3000 yards; but the losses incurred in winning and holding the positions were disproportionately high.

[Illustration: The Ypres Salient before and after the Second Battle of Ypres, 22nd April-13th May, 1915]

The French effort began more auspiciously as a result of the longer and more intense bombardment which preceded their attack on the 9th, but the series of minor successes which they won round Souchez, after weeks of incessant fighting, made little real impression on the defences of Lens. The truth was that Germany had so expanded her war-material factories that, with the aid of the Austrians, she could turn out sufficient shells and guns for her main offensive on the Eastern front, and at the same time overweight the Allies in the West.

Throughout the summer the line, though never quiescent, and often breaking out in furious bombardments, minor attacks and counter-attacks, and raids on both sides, remained little altered. The hardest fighting of all was round the war-scarred salient of Ypres, still held, as in the first gas-attack, by the Second Army, to which some of 'Kitchener's Men' were now attached. It fell to this advance-guard of the New Army to bear the brunt of the first attack on the British with liquid-fire, the Germans, who had already used this new device of the _flammenwerfer_ against the French, employing it in another desperate assault on the British lines round Hooge. The New Army units fought with almost incredible gallantry, but were blinded by the unexpected, burning sheets of flame, and while they were still blind the enemy charged and took the first-line trenches on a front of some 500 yards. The losses were avenged on 9th Aug., when the 6th Division recovered all the captured positions, and 400 yards of German trench into the bargain.

With the arrival of the reinforcing British divisions of the New Army, General French was able to take over some 17 miles of additional front, the British line thus extending over about 50 miles, with the Belgians on the left holding the remaining 18 miles to the sea. This still left the French army 500 miles to hold, from the British right to the Alps.

The summer of 1915 passed away without any great offensive on either side. The Germans, now at the flood-tide of their sweeping advance against Russia, were content to continue their vigorous offensive-defensive in the West. Besides the fighting already referred to, there was incessant warfare in the Argonne Forest, where the German Crown Prince was noisily active throughout the summer, threatening Verdun, but making no serious advance. The French continued the deadly trench-to-trench warfare in the Souchez area and the 'Labyrinth' region nearer Arras, and steadily tightened their hold on the reconquered corner of Alsace, consolidating their positions on the Hartmannsweilerkopf, which had been the scene of continuous fighting in the renewed advance towards Mulhouse. For the most part, however, the French, like the British, were now storing up reserves of ammunition and completing their dispositions for the joint offensive planned for the autumn, when the main objects of Joffre's general strategic idea for 1915 were for the first time clearly defined, though unattained.

A great Allied offensive in the West had become increasingly necessary in view of the prestige gained by the Central Powers, not only by their tremendous advance into Russia, but also by the Allies' disastrous campaign in Gallipoli, where the failure of the Suvla Bay landing--subsequently dealt with in our account of the operations against Turkey--had just given the enemy additional cause for rejoicing. Joffre's plan of attack, designed "to drive the Germans out of France", was not ripe for execution until towards the end of September. Even then, though General French had for months been gradually accumulating troops and ammunition for the blow--the British army now numbering nearly a million men--full strength in both respects was still only half developed.

There were two main assaults in the combined offensive, launched on 25th Sept., 1915, the chief of which was in the French centre in Champagne, where de Castlenau, Joffre's right-hand man, attacked with Langle de Cary's Fourth Army on a 16-mile front between Auberive and Massiges, the object being to force the Germans back on the Aisne, and, if possible, cut off the army of the German Crown Prince in the Argonne. Second in importance was the Franco-British advance on the same day in Artois, General French's object being to push through between Lens and La Bassee on the north, while Generals Foch and d'Urbal, on his right, stormed the Vimy heights and attacked Lens from the south. Secondary operations were carried out at various other points in order to distract the enemy's attention, feint attacks being made by Sir Herbert Plumer with the 5th Corps--part of the Second Army--east of Ypres, where Bellewarde was temporarily taken; as well as by those units of the First Army occupying the line north of the Bethune-La Bassee Canal. Similar demonstrations were made at Bois Grenier, and along the slopes of the Aubers Ridge, where British and Indian troops alike fought heroically for ground which, though captured in the first onrush, could not be held under the powerful fire concentrated against them.

_Battle of Loos_

[Illustration: Map showing approximately the battle-lines of the First Army under Sir Douglas Haig at daybreak and at nightfall on 25th September, 1915]

The main British attack was delivered by the First Army under Sir Douglas Haig along a front extending from La Bassee Canal in the north to the mining village of Grenay on the south, and is conveniently named the battle of Loos. The task of the 4th Corps (Rawlinson), with the 47th (London Territorial) Division on the right, the 15th (New Army) Division in the centre, and the 1st Division on the left, was to carry, as its first objective, Loos and the heights between Lens and Hulluch. The 1st Corps (Hubert Gough), with the 7th Division on its right, the 9th (New Army) Division in the centre, and the 2nd Division (Horne) on the left extended to the canal, was to link up with the Fourth Army at Hulluch, taking in its stride the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the formidable German fortresses in the Quarries and Fosse 8. Had this general plan succeeded, and the Tenth French Army on the British right advanced in line with it, a great gap would have been made in the German positions in Artois, which, with a similar success from the mightier French blow in Champagne, would at least have brought relief to the hard-pressed Russians in the East, if it did not achieve all that Joffre had hoped for it. As it was, the Allied victory, both in Artois and Champagne, fell far short of its aims, and, save for insubstantial advances, was fruitful chiefly in bloody experience.