In 1915 artillery ammunition of every calibre was in very short supply in all the armies; the consumption of ammunition in the first weeks of the war had exceeded the wildest pre-war estimate. Many batteries were taken out of the line simply because there was no ammunition for the guns, and an artillery piece without ammunition is no more than a bulky, heavy, useless piece of metal. The probable consumption of artillery ammunition in the British Army had been calculated on the basis of previous colonial wars; in practice these calculations proved wildly out of line with the artillery war now developing along the Western Front.
Nor was this all. The first weeks of campaigning in France revealed this underestimate, but the means to replace front-line ammunition as it was fed to the guns was limited; UK stocks were slender, and the British arms factories were not big enough, or numerous enough, to produce more.
William Robertson, then Quartermaster General (QMG) of the BEF, confirms this point in his memoirs:
Shortly after our arrival on the Aisne the enemy brought up more heavy artillery from Maubeuge and the period of trench warfare destined to last for nearly four years set in. With it arose demands for heavy artillery on our side, more gun ammunition, more machineguns, bombs [grenades], barbed wire and other artillery and engineering stores, none of which could be even approximately met, so defective had been our wartime preparations.
When first sent out the Expeditionary Force had only two machine guns per battalion, about 150 in all, while of 490 pieces of artillery only 24 were of medium type, the rest being light field guns or field howitzers. There was no heavy artillery. The twenty-four 'medium' guns were supplemented on the Aisne by 16 6-inch howitzers of an inferior kind and some rather old guns of 4.7in. calibre.
As regards artillery ammunition, no one, either before the war or in the early part of it, dreamt that the demand would reach the colossal figure it eventually did reach. At any rate no adequate provision was made to reach it. (6)
These facts and this general picture of the situation should be borne in mind as we consider the actions of the BEF on the Aisne.
Field Marshal French's orders for the Aisne battle were issued to corps commanders at 1945 hours on 12 September. After crossing the river, the three corps should make an advance of some eight kilometres (five miles) from the north bank to the foot of the Chemin des Dames escarpment that occupied the high ground between the valleys of the Aisne and the Ailette. The advance to the escarpment from the river would not be easy; various spurs run down towards the Aisne from the heights and the entire country between the ridge and the river, a mixture of fields, woods and copses, was completely overlooked from German positions on the heights of the Chemin des Dames.
On the left of the BEF line, Pulteney's III Corps, reinforced from 16 September by the newly arrived 6th Division, had established a bridgehead across the Aisne by 0300 hours on the morning of 13 September. Brigadier A. G. Hunter-Weston's 11th Infantry Brigade, crossing at Venizel, just east of Soissons, took the German outposts on the heights beyond the river at the point of the bayonet, the defenders falling back to their main position some hundreds of metres to the rear. This was useful, but did not put the BEF on or anywhere near the crest of the Chemin des Dames.
On the right of the BEF attack, the Cavalry Division ran into stiff opposition from German riflemen positioned in houses along the north bank of the Aisne Canal, south of the river, and was not able to cross until the infantry of the 1st Division came up in sup port. At Vailly the advance of the 3rd Division of II Corps was checked by German heavy artillery firing from positions behind the Chemin des Dames, and when the divisional artillery opened fire in support it was promptly subjected to heavy counter-battery fire and forced to withdraw out of range. On the III Corps front, the 1st Royal West Kents of the 4th Division met resistance from German infantry at Missy but managed to force a passage over the bridge, which the divisional cyclists had seized soon after midnight.
Although all the Aisne bridges had been destroyed and the morning was wet and miserable, both wings- III Corps on the left, I Corps on the right- followed by II Corps in the centre, managed to get across without undue difficulty, some units using rafts and small boats, others clambering over the remains of demolished bridges, repairing the gaps with rafters and floorboards from nearby houses, but this still left the leading units some miles from the foot of the Chemin des Dames ridge. Once they were across the river, though, the ranging Germany artillery fire did little damage. The British troops were advancing on a broad front and in open order or 'artillery formation', whereby even heavy shelling had little effect. On 13 September, Hauptmann Walter Bloem watched the advance of Haig's corps from the Aisne:
From the bushes bordering the river sprang up a second line of skirmishers, with at least ten paces from man to man: the second line pushed nearer and now a third line, two hundred lines behind that and then a fourth wave. Our artillery fired like mad, but all the shells could hit were single men, all in vain; a sixth line appeared, a seventh, all with good distance and intervals between the men. We were filled with admiration.
The whole plain was now dotted with khaki figures, coming ever nearer, the attack directed on the corps on our right. Now our infantry fire met our attackers but wave after wave flooded forward and disappeared from our view behind the woods. (7)
By dawn on 14 September, GHQ were aware that a number of narrow bridgeheads had been established across the river- but it was also becoming evident that the BEF advance on 13 September had not been made without cost. The 6th Division had a bloody baptism, losing 1,500 men in its first engagement. Other units of III Corps crossing the river at Venizel were greeted with heavy fire from German 8-inch and 5.9-inch guns hidden behind the heights to the north. British heavy batteries engaged these guns but German counter-battery fire soon forced the British guns to with draw; German guns outranged all the British guns except the 6o-pounders. German artillery was therefore able to dominate the battlefield and bring the entire Aisne front under effective artillery fire.
The fact that the German retreat had ended on the Aisne had yet to dawn on General Joffre. His Special Instruction No. 23, issued on 12 September, was based on a belief that the enemy was still retreating. Confidtnt in this belief, Joffre had already ordered an 'energetic pursuit' by the BEF between Athies, east of Laon, and the River Oise, while General Maunoury's Sixth Army matched their advance west of the Oise. This order required the Sixth Army to send the bulk of its forces to the west of the Oise, so outflanking the Germans, but to remain in close contact with the BEF as it moved north between Bourg and Soissons; meanwhile the Fifth Army, also keeping in close touch with the BEF on the left, would cross the Aisne east of Craonne.
Field Marshal French followed this GQG instruction to the letter, ordering his forces, now clinging on between the Aisne and the Chemin des Dames, to press on to the line Laon-Fresnes, 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of Laon- and some 24 kilometres (15 miles) north of the river. This required an advance of up to 20 kilometres, up and over the German defences on the Chemin des Dames, which now became the next objective for Haig's I Corps.
The British divisions came up to support those advance guards already across the river in three widely dispersed bridgeheads; there was, for example, a five-mile gap between the 3rd Infantry Brigade and the 8th and 9th Brigades on the north bank, and four infantry brigades and two cavalry brigades were still on the south bank, striving to cross the river.
Such a major advance could never have been easy, but the Germans were now being reinforced. Von Falkenhayn was creating yet another new army, the Seventh, composed of units culled from Alsace and Antwerp. He intended to place it on the far west of the German, line so outflanking Maunoury's Sixth Army. Some of these units, notably the VII Reserve Corps, were diverted to the Aisne front, arriving there just in time to stop the German line being outflanked by Haig's I Corps; the following day the German XV Corps stopped a similar outflanking movement by one of Maunoury's corps.
/> General von Bulow, commander of the Second Army on the Aisne, had been placed in command of the German First and Seventh Armies and had formed a continuous line, east to west for some 48 kilometres (30 miles) above the Aisne, from west of Soissons to beyond Craonne, from which he intended to advance on the Allies below. The Battle of the Aisne was not simply one in which the Franco-British forces assaulted the Germans in prepared positions; this was partly an 'encounter battle', in which the Germans were fully determined not only to stem the Allied advance to the Chemin des Dames but also to drive their opponents back across the river.
The Official History's account of the fighting on 14 September, the second day of the Aisne battle, records a day of 'thick weather, fog, fighting at dose-quarters and heavy casualties ... a day of great confusion'. (8) A study of events would reveal those comments to be an understatement; it would be more accurate to say that chaos reigned during the BEF attack.
The divisional and brigade commanders were unable to 'grip' the battle owing to the chronic lack of field communications, compounded here by fog and a wide dispersal of forces. In such a situation the outcome depended on battalion COs, company officers and NCOs, and the guts and tenacity of private soldiers. Those British divisions not yet across the river came across and attempted to advance through the bridgeheads established the previous day, but found the enemy alert and waiting, their heavy artillery ranged to the inch, fully determined to drive the British back across the river.
This they never managed to do, but, as at Waterloo ninety-nine years previously, this second day of fighting on the Aisne was a close-run thing. This was another Inkerman, says the Official History, (9) a 'soldiers' battle', with dose-quarter fighting, the combatants advancing in small parties controlled by the company officers, fighting from behind cover, advancing or retreating in short rushes, contesting every piece of ground hard, often out of touch with the units on their flanks.
Various accounts emerge from the confusion. A party from the 1st Battalion, The Cameron Highlanders, fifty strong, hung on grimly to the ground they had taken, fighting until their ammuni tion was almost exhausted and then falling back behind the crest of the ridge; here they were attacked by a great number of the enemy and overwhelmed in one final fight in which many of the Camerons were killed and most of the survivors wounded. The rst Coldstream Guards in the same brigade managed to get through a thick wood and acmss the road bed of the Chemin des Dames, Lieutenant Colonel J. Ponsonby lining his men up along the steep banks to repel the inevitable counter-attack.
They were then subjected to a heavy and accurate artillery bombardment - the German guns knowing their positions to the inch - and suffered severely until Colonel Ponsonby rounded up every man still able to move and led them forward to the village of Cerny, well behind the German front line, where they took up a position and opened fire on enemy troops debouching up the steep slopes from the Ailette valley. Here the Coldstreamers hung on until late in the afternoon, beating off counter-attacks with rifle and machine-gun fire.
Every available unit was fed into the line to hold these slender gains across the river and on the heights until, in the 1st Division, only two companies of infantry remained in divisional reserve. At dusk it was necessary to pull the advance units, including Ponsonby's Guardsmen, back to the main line, giving up the hard won ground they had held all day. This day on the Aisne was not a battle of infantry against artillery, as at Mons and Le Cateau. German infantry, backed by plenty of artillery, were engaged here in force, and the day became one of attack and counter-attack along the entire BEF front; 14 September was the hardest day's battle for the BEF as a whole since the force landed in France a month before.
The Official History (10) records that the results of 14 September were 'disappointing' and that the positions the BEF held on the north bank of the Aisne were 'not secure'. They had also been costly; casualties that day in Haig's corps alone came to around 3,500 men, killed, wounded or missing. The rst Cameron High landers lost 600 men that day, almost 80 per cent of the battalion, and six other battalions in Haig's corps - including Colonel Ponsonby's 1st Coldstream Guards - lost more than 300 men apiece. Casualties were fewer in the 4th and 5th Divisions but the 3rd Division lost over 1,000 men.
As a result, the Allied advance beyond the River Aisne was checked and General von Bulow, now the overall commander of all three German armies on the Aisne front- the First, Second and Seventh - had every reason to be pleased. Had it not been for the pressure exerted by this strong BEF attack, he might well have succeeded in driving the Franco-British armies back across the Aisne but, suspecting that the strong British attack indicated the existence of BEF reserves, he was content to hold his ground and take a heavy toll of the attackers.
By 15 September the BEF's gains north of the river were restricted to those three bridgeheads, one across the river bend between Bucy and Missy, another in a loop around Vailly, and a deeper one established by Haig's corps, running from Soupir in the west up to the Chemin des Dames at Cerny. This last advance marked the only part of the Allied advance that had so far reached the top of the escarpment. These bridgeheads did not form a con tinuous line; they were footholds on the north bank of the Aisne, and the Germans, pivoting on their strong positions along the Chemin de Dames, were able to fend off further attacks here as the Allies attempted to outflank the defenders and the trench lines were gradually pushed north.
Constantly improved and reinforced, this German defence line on the Chemin des Dames became impregnable and remained so for much of the war; the Chemin des Dames became a German bastion of the Western Front and the fighting there a byword for slaughter. As the Allied attacks revealed any weaknesses in the German line, more men were brought up, more wire, guns and dugouts employed to strengthen it; the more the Allies attacked, the stronger the German line became. Breaching that line would not have been easy at any time, but the main reason for this Allied failure to push through on the Aisne in September 1914- when a breach was possible - was excessive caution on the part of the Allied army commanders.
During the advance from the Marne, Field Marshal French became obsessed with keeping the BEF in line with the French Sixth and Fifth Armies on his flanks, writing in his memoirs: 'My intention to close at all speed with the enemy had to be tempered by consideration for the French Armies on my flank, both of which were opposed by much larger forces.' (11) French returns to this point again and again; his actions may have been prompted by a desire to show Kitchener that he intended to do what he had been ordered to do at the meeting in Paris- keep in line with the French- or by understandable fears of a German counter-attack.
Whatever the reason, the effect was to slow the Allied advance. This was not entirely French's fault. The Fifth and Sixth Army commanders also seemed reluctant to keep up the pressure on the enemy, so the three armies acted like men in a three-legged race and the overall pace became that of the slowest. As a result the Germans were given the chance to find and prepare their strong position on the Aisne with the results described above- stalemate, heavy casualties and the start of trench warfare.
Not everyone was dismayed at the present situation or this slow advance. Henry Wilson, for one, remained optimistic, convinced that the war was in its final stages and victory in sight. He wrote in his diary on 9 September: 'Berthelot asked me when I thought we should cross into Germany, and I replied that unless we made some serious blunder, we ought to be in Elsenborn in 4 weeks. He thought 3 weeks.' (12) A few days later, in a letter to his wife, Wilson remarks: 'If we drive in the force in front of us, we won't have any more trouble until we get to the Meuse.' (13)
Henry Wilson's powers of divination were clearly in decline at this time, for the Allied pursuit had actually stopped. After some probing attacks up the southern spurs running off the Aisne crest, Field Marshal French ordered his men to dig in and hold their positions against German counter-attacks and the ever increasing shellfire; the situation on the Aisne was deadlocked.
&nb
sp; That done, French fell silent. No operational orders were issued to his command for two whole weeks, from 16 September to 1 October, the period during which 'trench warfare' with all its attendant horrors began to create the fortified complex of the Western Front.
The official account of the Aisne battle concludes that the BEF frontal assault on the Aisne was a very remarkable feat of arms, and draws particular attention to the actions of Haig's I Corps, not least for its considerable tenacity in retaining its ground against shellfire and counter-attacks. II and III Corps actually got somewhat farther forward, even to the lip of the escarpment, but dared not put their heads over the top. Most of the German casualties were caused during their counter-attacks; when they chose to sit tight there was little the Allies could do to harm them. With the Germans holding the high ground and their positions getting stronger every day, it soon became clear that the Allied armies could not break through on the Aisne.
Joffre therefore opted for that series of left-hand attacks which provoked counter-entrenching moves by the enemy and has since become known in Great War history as the 'Race to the Sea'. This move to the north and west began in early October and went on until the BEF and the German Fourth Army collided frontally at Ypres in November.
By the time this race began the French and their British allies were already facing the Germans across a line of trenches that ran north for over 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Scissons to Béthune and La Bassée in the mining country between Arras and Ypres. Though it led to other problems, the development of the trench system disproves one of the popular myths about the Great War generals, that they used only frontal attacks and never attempted to outflank the enemy line. The trench system on the Western Front was created by weeks of flanking attacks, each halted by a rapid enemy movement opposing any progress round the end of their line.
The Old Contemptibles Page 25