Erik Sass is deal the events of the war just 100 long time after they materialise . This is the 244th installation in the series .
JULY 23-25, 1916: BATTLE OF POZIERES, ROMANIA AGREES TO JOIN ALLIES
Impressed by the winner of the surprise nighttime attack opening the Battle of Bazentin Ridge , British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig and his subordinate , British Fourth Army commander Henry Rawlinson , decided to employ the same tactics in a invigorated assault all along the northern one-half of the Somme field of honor .
However they ignore many other important lessons of Bazentin Ridge , specially the crucial theatrical role toy by the devastating multi - twenty-four hours bombardment preceding the attack , which obliterated the trenches of the German second defensive strain ( aided by the absence of the deep dugouts found in the German first parentage , the cause of so much brokenheartedness on the first day of the Somme ) . driven to assail again before the Germans had a luck to strengthen their defense , Haig and Rawlinson did n’t bequeath enough time for aerial reconnaissance to represent out German defenses , do the British onslaught that much less effective this sentence ; indeed in their haste they just ignored an wholly new enemy trench grok before the settlement of Bazentin le Petit . moreover , the British went ahead despite the refusal of their French ally to commit to a coordinated blast by the Sixth Army in the due south , leaving the British correct flank exposed . Finally , last - moment changes and miscommunication meant various British division would attack at different times , forfeiting the element of surprise and tolerate the Germans to ruffle troops to tone local defenses .
While the Modern fire unfolded all along the British sphere of the Somme , some of the savage fight centered on the village of Pozières ( now a village in name only , like slews of other settlement reduced to rubble across the Somme battlefield ; see below ) , assigned to the Reserve Army under General Hubert Gough . A stronghold in the original German 2nd justificative line , the capture of Pozières would allow the British to threaten German control of the Thiepval Ridge , a fundamental justificative location between the village of Thiepval and the hamlet of Courcellete further east . But first they would have to get there .
After a relatively brief three - hr - foresightful final bombardment start at 7 p.m. on the evening of July 22 , the first attack by British troops on German locating near Delville Wood ( the scene of acute on-going fighting since the blast on Bazentin Ridge ) and the hamlet of Guillemont , west of Combles , met with fleeting success before German bombardments and infantry riposte - attacks pressure them out of the captured positions . Here the British attackers give a heavy toll for the failure of their own artillery to silence the German guns .
crashing as they were , these conflict would prove mere sideshow compare to the tone-beginning by the Reserve Army ’s Australian 1st Division on Pozières , which afford with an intense barrage of the German oceanic abyss abide by by the now - standard “ pussyfoot barrage , ” with the guns bit by bit increase their compass to lay down a protective wall of fire in front of the advancing infantry . An Australian warfare correspondent , C.E.W. Bean , recall surreal prospect amid the final round of blast :
Paul Maze , a Frenchman do as an translator with the British Army , painted a similar ikon of the final moments before the flak on Pozières :
As soon as the British guns shifted their elevation to lie down the creeping barrage , the Australian foot heave into no - man’s - land . Maze described the scenes that followed :
Here , at least , the British bombardment had succeeded in smash the first and 2d German trenches , and the brave Australians quick pour over the wreck earthwork of the first enemy trench into Pozières itself ( below , a capture German deep at Pozières ) .
Sydney Morning Herald
The situation was chaotic to say the least , as the Australians fought German defender hold craters and ruins amid pitch black dark , elucidate only by bursting shells and the burn remnants of houses . Maze remembered :
The succeeder of the British weapon in demolish the first and 2nd German trenches had the unintended issue of leave the attackers disoriented and defenceless , accord to Bean , who take that many Australian troops fundamentally wandered into Pozières by mistake :
Even bad , German artillery will intact by the inaccurate propaedeutic onslaught now turn on the easy aim take Pozières , raking the small town and its attack in an attempt contract off the Australians and keep reinforcements and supplies from come forward . Maze report the assaulter ’ ( now turned defenders ) dazed reaction as dawn broke over field of honor on the cockcrow of July 23 :
As the scant remains of the village were pulverized beyond realization ( below , the site of the village after the engagement ) , the Australians assay tax shelter in shell hole and in haste dug trench , while valorous ration political party ran the gantlet of German artillery to fetch supplies across the devastation of the of late catch no - man’s - land .
WW1 Cemeteries
The ferocity of the continuous German battery made it almost insufferable for novel troop to reach Pozières , leaving the outnumbered Australians clinging to their firmly - won gains in the case of the inevitable German counter - attack , which finally arrived on the morning of July 25 , 1916 , and left Australian 1st Division a wear - out shell of its ego . By now the British artillery managed to hit their German counterparts with enough suppressing fire to allow the 1st Division to be relieved by the Australian 2nd Division , but further advancement beyond Pozières rise impossible for the time being . Another hebdomad of preparation was needed before the next major attack , on Pozières Ridge , in former August .
News.com.au
For the Australians allow holding Pozières , it seemed like they had land on the Sun Myung Moon . Bean described the off-the-wall landscape painting leave behind by grim shell :
And still the living nightmare continue with futile attack and furious counterplay elsewhere on the Somme front . Fred Ball , a British soldier in the Liverpool “ Pals , ” remembered approach the frontline to take part in one such assault on night of July 29 , 1916 :
After hearing a wounded man shriek “ Mother of God , ” Ball was jar into the sort of cosmic reflection that many Man doubtless experienced during the First World War , although relatively few were as frank about their conclusions :
The experience was little different for soldier on the other side of the conflict , as average German marcher endure the unremitting brat of Allied bombardments , gas pedal attacks , and mass infantry rape twenty-four hours after day , week after week , often with no hope of stand-in ( the six new partition hit by chief of the ecumenical staff Erich von Falkenhayn were barely sufficient to hold the crinkle at the Somme , in addition to spelling the end of the Verdun offense ) .
Friedrich Steinbrecher , a soldier in the German Army , report rushing to the front with his building block to help repel a French plan of attack during the first week of August 1916 :
Steinbrecher next witnessed one of the horrifying sights that had become all too common during the First World War :
ROMANIA AGREES TO JOIN ALLIES
The First World War , likened by many to a colossus or natural phenomenon growing out of control , continue to suck in more countries as sentence proceed on , let in Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Portugal in March 1916 ( the latter resulting from Portugal ’s confiscation of German ship , which provoked a German declaration of warfare ) . In August 1916 the list would spring up to let in Romania , which conjoin the Allies following a preliminary agreement signal in at confederative military headquarters in Chantilly , France , on July 23 , 1916 .
Romania had long been a secret phallus of the Triple Alliance with Germany , Austria - Hungary , and Italy , but like Italy its reasons for fall in ( in Romania ’s pillow slip , protection against Russia ) had ceased to count , following a rapprochement with Russia in the final year before the war . Even more importantly , public opinion was strongly against Austria - Hungary , where the Hungarian Magyar blue blood forcefully suppress the Dual Monarchy ’s three million cultural Roumanian citizen . Again like Italy and Serbia , the Romanians dreamed of liberating their heathenish kinsmen and forming a Greater Romania , and the German - born King Ferdinand ( despite being a member of the same extended Hohenzollern family as Kaiser Wilhelm II ) responded to the will of his people .
The final determination to insert the warfare on the side of the Allies was made by Prime Minister Bratianu , who ended two year of vacillation in July 1916 , powerfully influenced by Russia ’s success in the Brusilov Offensive , as well as Germany ’s loser in Verdun and the major Allied pushing at the Somme – all of which seemed to suggest that the state of war might end in the nigh futurity , leave Romania out in the common cold when it make out to separate up the spoils .
In the military normal signed at Chantilly on July 23 , Romania and the Allies tentatively agreed to a plan that would divide the Rumanian part equally between an attack on Hungary and a thrust to the south against Bulgaria , with the Gallic and British advocate the latter alternative in hopes of forcing Bulgaria to off some pressure from their own troops at Salonika in northern Greece . They could also benefit ( at least theoretically ) from Romania ’s massive supplies of grain and oil .
In mid - August the military conventionalism of July 23 would be scrapped in favour of an all - out onset on Hungary , which had always been the focal point of Romanian ambitions anyway . However the change in direction proved arguable , as the Allies had egregiously overestimated Romania ’s fighting power .
Although Romania had 800,000 flock on paper , it only had enough equipment for around 550,000 of them , and officer and ordinary soldiers alike were inexperienced in trench war , unlike their foes . Meanwhile to make up for the equipment shortages the Allies call to provide additional weapons and ammo – but the only possible itinerary for delivering these to the isolated country lay through Russia , which had logistical and supply problems of its own . In short , the stage was set for utter disaster in the second half of 1916 .
RASPUTIN OUSTS ANOTHER FOE
Elsewhere July 23 brought another reversal for the Allies , but this one took office far away from any battlefield – in Petrograd , to be specific , where the malignant holy man Rasputin scored yet another victory in his unrelenting campaign of court intrigue , aided by his all - of import ally , the Tsarina Alexandra .
This give Rasputin all the leverage he needed to dispose of Sazonov , despite the fact that he enjoyed the strong support of the Western Allies , France and Britain , who worried that his successor , Rasputin ’s ally Prime Minister Boris Stürmer , had lilliputian experience in foreign affairs and would n’t be an enthusiastic advocate for continuing the state of war against Germany and Austria - Hungary . Even worse , members of the Russian Parliament understandably fear that Stürmer , who proceed as Prime Minister and was also serving as Interior Minister , was cumulate dictatorial power – and rumors had long pass around of his pro - German sympathies ( evidently not dispelled by his German name ) . It was all too easygoing to connect the dots with the alleged German understanding of Alexandra and Rasputin to draw a picture of a treasonous pro - German confederacy seizing restraint of the Russian authorities .
There was no question Gallic and British diplomatist catch the removal of Sazonov and assignment of Stürmer as a fresh catastrophe for the Allied case . Thus the French ambassador , Maurice Paleologue , wrote his finis in his diary on July 23 , 1916 :
On August 3 , Paleologue commiserated with Sazonov , who confided :
See theprevious installmentorall entries .
