The Americans that comprised it, then and later, were an odd mixture; rich and poor, playboys and college boys, professional flyers and soldiers-of-fortune. If there was a common denominator it was that mystical influence that France has wielded over young Americans ever since the Marquis de Lafayette sailed to the aid of George Washington’s embattled colonists. Most of the seven founder members had already been serving in France. William Thaw, the first to get a commission, had owned a hydroplane while still at Yale, which made him acceptable as a French bomber pilot. Reputed to have been the first man to fly under a bridge, Thaw had the face, physique and drinking habits of a Hemingway; after being wounded, his arm froze — to the rough mirth of the squadron — permanently in the crooked position. Victor Chapman, a Harvard graduate, had been at the Paris Beaux Arts when the war broke out and promptly joined the Foreign Legion as a private. So did Kiffin Rockwell, the twenty-one-year-old medical student from North Carolina, both of whose grandfathers had been officers in the Confederate Army. Chapman and Rockwell spent nearly a year in the trenches, Rockwell receiving a bad thigh wound in May 1915. James McConnell, another Southerner, and Elliot Cowdin, both came from the American Ambulance Service. Bert Hall, a true Texan soldier-of-fortune, already had a colourful pre-war flying career behind him. In 1912 he had signed on with Sultan Abdul Hamid to fly his own plane ‘free-lance’ against the Bulgarians. But, wisely, he had insisted on being paid in gold, daily. The Sultan’s bounty soon ran out. Joining the Foreign Legion in 1914, and later the French Airforce, Hall became the first to capture a German plane intact, by forcing it to land behind the French lines.
Among the later additions came a namesake, James Hall, who had started off the war as a private in Kitchener’s ‘First Hundred Thousand’. It was in the Lafayette that Hall, a flyer with almost superhuman luck (he once came down intact with an unexploded AA shell sticking out of his engine), founded the literary partnership with another pilot, Charles Nordhoff, that was to produce ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’. Joining the Squadron a few days after its inception was Raoul Lufbery, who, like Bert Hall, had also been a professional flyer before the war. Born in France, his parents had emigrated to the United States, but in 1912 Lufbery had joined forces with a dare-devil French aviator called Marc Pourpe. For two years they toured the Far and Near East, giving exhibitions in an old Blériot and narrowly escaping with their lives from superstitious Chinese villagers. In 1914 Pourpe enlisted and was killed in one of the first air battles. Lufbery became obsessed by the urge to avenge his friend, which evidently pursued him until his own death in May 1918, and he was to be the first American to earn the title of ace.
On arriving at Luxeuil amid the wild beauty of the Vosges mountains, the volunteers who had come from a year in the trenches with the Legion or from the spartan discomfort of the Ambulance Service, thought that life was almost too good to be true. They were quartered in a sumptuous villa next to the Roman baths and messed with their officers (a notable departure from French Army custom) at the best hotel in the town. James McConnell, one of the four out of the first seven who did not survive the war, wrote with foreboding:
I thought of the luxury we were enjoying; our comfortable beds, baths, and motor cars, and then I recalled the ancient custom of giving a man selected for the sacrifice a royal time of it before the appointed day.
But nobody voiced such thoughts; the atmosphere was predominantly gay. Life between sorties was so organised that there was little opportunity to think. Pilots played poker and bridge endlessly and with a furious concentration, while in the background a gramophone wheezed out over and over again a well-worn recording of Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip Van Winkle? and the Squadron’s mascot, a young lion cub called Whiskey, prowled amiably about the mess. When there was a party, it often ended in the complete sacking of the local hotel; which simultaneously shocked and impressed the more orderly French pilots.
On the day after Kiffin Rockwell chalked up the Lafayette’s first victory, orders were received transferring the Squadron to the Verdun front. Verdun was to be its first big test. In bitter scrapping over Douaumont on May 24th, Thaw shot down a Fokker and then went back in the evening for more, but was cornered by three enemy planes. His plane was riddled with bullets, and one cut an artery in his arm, but he managed to land safely in the French lines. For his day’s exploits, he became the first American in the war to be awarded the Légion d’Honneur. That day also, Bert Hall shot down a plane and was wounded. Casualties began to spiral. On June 17th, the day before Immelmann died, Chapman ran into the great Boelcke and was badly shot up. His right aileron control was severed and he himself was wounded in the head, but Chapman somehow made a remarkable landing, holding the severed end of the aileron wire. The next day, a new member, Clyde Balsley, received a hideous wound in the thigh from an explosive bullet, fragments of which perforated his intestines in a dozen places. Rescued from his plane by French first-line troops, he was found by Chapman in a squalid French hospital, burning with fever and suffering from an appalling thirst. He murmured that he was desperate for an orange to suck, as rare a commodity in 1916 France as it was in Britain during World War II. Hearing that Balsley was not expected to live, Chapman literally scoured France for oranges. By June 23rd he had found some, and took off to fly the bag to Balsley in his hospital. On the way he was set upon by five German planes.
With the death of Victor Chapman, the first of the Lafayette to fall and perhaps its most beloved member, a new mood came over the Squadron. Pilots spent longer and longer in the air, searching bitterly and recklessly for a quarry. The inevitable happened. Rockwell wrote to his brother: ‘Prince and I are going to fly ten hours tomorrow, and we’ll do our best to kill one or two Germans for Victor.’ Each fulfilled his promise that day, but on the morrow Rockwell was shot down. A few days after that Norman Prince, the founder of the Lafayette, flying long and late in an attempt to avenge Rockwell, hit a high-tension cable as he came in to land in the dark.
Long after the United States entered the war in 1917, the Lafayette Squadron continued to fly under French colours. When it was finally wound up in February 1918, every single one of its survivors, by a cruel irony, was found medically unfit to join the new American Air Corps! Yet by then it had gained the distinction — shared only with Guynemer’s squadron of the Cigognes — of being entitled to wear the shoulder lanyard of a twice cited unit. Of the thirty-eight Americans who served in the Lafayette, nine had been killed (including four of the original seven) and many wounded. During the first six months of its existence it recorded 156 combats and seventeen confirmed victories; most of these at Verdun, where it fought intermittently from May to September. Though still only partially fledged, the Lafayette’s direct contribution to the Battle of Verdun had been significant; but this was nothing to what, indirectly, its presence there did for the French cause. From the moment of its entry into action as the first all-American unit involved in the war, the Lafayette Squadron became the object of immense publicity throughout the United States. Its activities, perhaps naturally enough, received press coverage out of all proportion to the rest of the war. Letters from its members were widely passed around, and often ended in the columns of the local newspaper. For the first time since the war began, Americans at home began to feel a personal link with one of the great land battles of the Western Front. Through the Lafayette — and perhaps more particularly through the heroism of Victor Chapman at Verdun — there began to develop in the United States an appreciation and sympathy for the poilus themselves such as had never been provoked by any other battle. Verdun seized American imaginations as did the Battle of Britain in 1940; compared to it the titanic clash on the Somme was to arouse little interest. Beyond the immediate challenge of German U-Boat warfare, France’s resolute defence of Verdun probably did as much as anything to pave the way, emotionally, to the United States’ entry into the war in April 1917.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CROWN PRINCE
Anything i
s better than retreat.
FOCH
DURING the months of March, April and May, while at Verdun the Germans were painfully inching forward towards the summits of Le Mort Homme and Côte 304, in the world outside there was little enough the belligerents could find of positive comfort. For the first time in British history, and after a long struggle, Conscription had become law; but in Dublin the ‘Easter Rising’ had set the spark to Ireland, and in Mesopotamia General Townshend had surrendered to the Turks at Kut. The Russians had taken Trebizond from the Turks, but had suffered bloodily in the Narocz marshes after a noble response to Joffre’s plea for a diversionary offensive to relieve Verdun. On the seas, the packet-steamer Sussex had been torpedoed with several Americans aboard, bringing a sharp ultimatum from President Wilson; and both sides were shortly to claim victory in the Battle of Jutland. In Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, Liebknecht had tried to hold an anti-war rally, leading to Germany’s first war-time strikes. In Switzerland, Socialists from all over the world had met to condemn the war and prophesy mutual exhaustion. The war went on. At the other end of the world, Shackleton had reached South Georgia Island after two years’ isolation in Antarctica:
‘Tell me, when was the war over?’ I asked.
‘The war is not over,’ he answered. ‘Millions are being killed. Europe is mad. The world is mad.’
At Verdun, the three months represented the period when the least progress was made by either side, for the highest cost. We have already seen how, on the Left Bank, with a fearful expenditure of lives, the German all-out offensive had bought possession of two hills of secondary importance. On the Right Bank the fighting surged back and forth within a small area, well named the ‘Deadly Quadrilateral’, at the southerly approaches to Fort Douaumont. In a series of sharp, local attacks, the initiative lay alternatively with either side. During most of April, von Zwehl’s VII Reserve Corps found itself preoccupied in a see-saw battle for one small feature, the stone quarries at Haudromont. Over the whole period, the front on the Right Bank never shifted as much as 1,000 yards; for the Germans, a bitter contrast to the five miles they had advanced in the first four days of the offensive. Meanwhile, never for a second was there any lifting in the murderous artillery blanket laid down by the cannon of the opposing sides, now nearly 4,000 strong.
Have so many ever died for so little gain? Between April 1st and May 1st, the casualty totals had mounted from 81,607 Germans and 89,000 French to 120,000 and 133,000 respectively; by the end of the month, French losses alone had reached approximately 185,000 (roughly equal to the overall German losses in the Battle of Stalingrad).
As the casualty lists mounted, so signs of strain began to appear within the higher commands on both sides, almost simultaneously. At the end of March, the Crown Prince and his Chief-of-Staff, von Knobelsdorf, were still dedicated to the capture of Verdun, come what may; equally, Falkenhayn was still true (in his indecisive fashion) to his aim of bleeding the French Army to death at Verdun, regardless of whether or not the city fell in the process. But gradually a change in positions becomes apparent.
On February 29th, it will be recalled that Falkenhayn had agreed to a spreading of the offensive, to ‘clear’ the Left Bank, and had allocated some of his jealously guarded reserves for the purpose. Now, after the Fifth Army’s first abortive assaults on the Mort Homme, Falkenhayn wrote on March 30th to the Crown Prince, noting that ‘the employment of four fresh divisions… had led to no successes’, and asking for information as to his future intent and expectations. A reply framed by Knobelsdorf on the following day, still full of optimism, declared that the offensive had already forced the French to bring ‘by far and away the largest part of their reserves to Verdun’. (Falkenhayn wrote caustically in the margin: ‘unfortunately not!’) Because of their losses at Verdun, continued Knobelsdorf, the French were capable of carrying out local attacks, but no major operation. (Falkenhayn: ‘Wrong; because there are also fourteen British divisions available!’) Summing up, Knobelsdorf said, ‘I therefore incline unreservedly towards the view that the fate of the French Army will be decided at Verdun.’ He urged a continuation of the offensive, recommending that the thrust be resumed on the Right Bank as well, with the object of pushing for ward to the line Ouvrage de Thiaumont — Fleury — Fort Souville — Fort Tavannes. But, said Knobelsdorf, the new attacks would demand the ‘same replacements as before’. (Falkenhayn’s marginal note: ‘That is impossible!’)
Four days later, the Fifth Army leaders received a cold and curiously revealing reply from Falkenhayn. Their appreciation of March 31st was, he said, ‘not correct in certain essential points’. He criticised them for being ‘too optimistic as to what is and what is not possible to us’, and also for under-estimating the enemy’s ability to launch a major offensive.1 He went on to chide the Fifth Army:
The hypothesis that we are in a position to keep up a constant supply of fresh and highly-trained troops to replace those exhausted in battle, and also of the necessary supplies and ammunition, is erroneous. Even with the best will in the world, we could not do it.
With this caveat, he endorsed the Fifth Army proposal for resuming the offensive on the Right Bank. Then, in a remarkable display of vacillation, he proceeded to pour cold water on Knobelsdorf’s assertion that ‘the fate of the French Army will be decided at Verdun’, though this had been the very foundation of his own Memorandum of less than four months earlier. As soon as it becomes clear that the new attacks would not achieve their objectives within a reasonable period, then we must abandon them and ‘seek a decision elsewhere’, said Falkenhayn half-heartedly, adding:
Our chances of ending the war quickly would certainly be greatly increased if the battle were won; but if we failed to win it, even after what had already been achieved, our victory would merely be postponed and not rendered impossible, especially if we resolved in good time not to persist with our useless efforts at Verdun, but to take the initiative of attack elsewhere.
To an Army Commander, plunged up to the hilt by his superior in the most desperate battle of the war, this last can have provided little of encouragement or inspiration. Nevertheless, says the Crown Prince, ‘I agreed absolutely with his proposal that the question as to whether the offensive should be continued or broken off should be settled by the result of the partial attack on the East [Right] Bank.’ It was the last time he and Falkenhayn would be in such agreement.
Now it is clear that Falkenhayn was already beginning to lose interest in the ‘bleeding white’ experiment. On April 6th, unbeknown to the Hohenzollern Crown Prince, he was asking Crown Prince Rupprecht whether his Sixth Army might not be able to carry out a swift blow at Arras, against the British Army, whose anticipated (by Falkenhayn) relief attack had not yet materialised. This latest change of mind must have thoroughly exasperated Rupprecht. On March 21st, a despatch from Falkenhayn admitted that Rupprecht had been right about the British not being able to take the offensive, and at the same time it ordered the withdrawal of three of his divisions for the general reserve. Ten days later, Falkenhayn was on the telephone himself, expressing the fear that the British were after all about to attempt a relief operation, ‘and probably a landing attempt’. It was hardly surprising that on April 17th Rupprecht — irritated and not keen to be involved in another of Falkenhayn’s half-measure offensives that he deplored — coolly declined his invitation to attack the British, pointing to the strong reinforcements now in the line. Reluctantly, Falkenhayn was forced to switch his gaze back to Verdun.
Meanwhile, a blow that would add still further to Falkenhayn’s disillusion was about to fall from a totally different direction. The ‘second pillar’ of his Memorandum had been the launching of unrestricted submarine warfare, to cut off supplies bound for the French front. Initially, the new campaign had shown great promise, but the sinking of the Sussex provoked an unexpectedly violent reaction from President Wilson. This alarmed the Kaiser and his Chancellor, Falkenhayn’s arch-enemy,1 ‘the Good Theobold’ Bethmann H
ollweg, who from the beginning had opposed unleashing the U-boats. In a walk around the garden of GHQ on April 30th, Falkenhayn, with that sure touch of his, managed to reassure his master, who then declared to Bethmann: ‘Now you have the choice between America and Verdun!’ But the next day a conversation with Gerard, the American Ambassador, convinced the Kaiser that the United States would indeed sever diplomatic relations if the sinkings continued, and, abruptly changing his mind, he promised an immediate ban on unrestricted submarine warfare. Piqued, Falkenhayn tendered his resignation to the Kaiser, but it was rejected.
* * *
Following Falkenhayn’s letter of April 4th, the Fifth Army energetically began preparations for its offensive towards Fort Souville on the Right Bank. But April passed, and then May, without it materialising. Three factors combined to cause repeated postponement; firstly, bad weather throughout most of April impeded the digging of jumping-off trenches; secondly, the French — under a new local commander on the Right Bank — had taken to launching a series of costly, but annoying, counter-attacks; but thirdly, and most important, the attack along the Left Bank had fallen far behind schedule, and before those deadly flanking batteries could be mastered there was little prospect of an advance on the Right Bank. Instead, General von Mudra, the commander on the Right Bank, recommended a system of local advances on a small scale. However, after the spirited French defence of April 9th-11th, even von Mudra admitted that this new technique was not likely to succeed. A sharp row flared between himself and Knobelsdorf, with von Mudra — one of the ablest German Corps Commanders—expressing pessimism as to the whole future of the Verdun offensive. On April 21st, he was sent back to his corps in the Argonne by Knobelsdorf, but before departing he gave vent to his doubts in a memo to the Crown Prince.
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