The First World War

[szalay]

German submarine U 118 beached at Hastings in April 19.

[henryf]

Originally Posted by szalay

German submarine U 118 beached at Hastings in April 19.

U-118 was surrendered to the Allies at Harwich on 23 February 1919. It was to be transferred to France, but while in tow from Harwich to Brest, in company with UB-121, in the early hours of 15 April 1919, she broke tow in a storm, and ran aground on the beach at Hastings in Sussex at approximately 00:45, directly in front of the Queens Hotel

[Rendell]

So I realise this is a bit of a cheat but frankly I thought this item should at least be mentioned here.

Has anyone seen the trailer for the new Netflix production of All Quiet on the Western Front?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXeY...annel=ONEMedia

I know it can be difficult to judge a production simply from a two minute trailer but... this looks incredible.

[scoundrel]

Austria-Hungary, even more than Germany, was the great power which decided to start the hostilities in WW1. That doesn't mean it was the only country to blame for the war, far from it. In July 1914 there were a lot of things happening, and tensions were coming to a head which had existed for a very long time. The long standing mutual animosity of Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the spark which detonated the bomb, and it was the AHE which struck the flint. But it could equally have been started in various other ways, because the bomb was waiting.

The Austrians were well aware though that their attack on Serbia would inevitably start a much bigger war. It was never going to happen that Austria would attack Serbia and the Russian Czar would do nothing about it. Without an agreement with Germany, the AHE would have been in a weaker strategic situation and it is very likely that she would have negotiated with Serbia instead of trying to destroy Serbia as a nation. With Germany on board as an ally, the AHE felt much more confident and believed it could handle both Serbia and Russia at the same time. Events went on to prove though that the Austrians were mistaken in this belief.

After detaching forces to invade and (as they thought) overrun Serbia, the AHE army had an army of 950,000 men covering a contact line of about 400 miles with the Russian Empire. Austria's Eastern Front ran roughly from Cracow in the northwest to Czernowitz in the south east, which is now a border town called Chernivtsi, just inside Ukraine and on the border with Romania. It was on the AHE's border with the northern tip of Romania in 1914. See the map below for the AHE/Russian border in August 1914.



Russia had a plan to overrun East Prussia, the German slice of Poland and go all the way to the Oder River, threatening Berlin. That plan backfired pretty badly when the Russians got their arses kicked at Tannenberg and at the Masurian Lakes. It also meant that the Russian strength was divided and the lesser part was detailed to fight the Austrians. They would have to be passive at first simply because there was an offensive going on against Germany. But even so, the lesser part of Russia's army was still 1.2 million men. The Austrians thought they had the better army, but they knew that the Russians outnumbered them and it wasn't going to be an easy fight.

The Austrian plan was to seize the initiative and make the most of their ability to pick the time. The Russians knew this of course and had prepared their defence. Austria had three armies in this campaign, 1st, 3rd and 4th. There was also a couple of detachments, one of which was called "Army Group Kovess" - basically the Austrian peacetime 12th Corps plus units improvised from garrisons and led by 12th Corps commander Hermann von Kovess. There was a similar Gladstone bag full of odds and sods called Army Group Kummer, also taking part. There should have been 2nd Army as well, but poor Austrian logistics meant this was still in transit and still assembling after many weeks into the mobilisation. Meanwhile Russia had four armies of roughly equal size to Austria's three - the Russians deployed 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th Armies to defend their South-Western Front.

Each Austrian army advanced separately in a three pronged advance on a broad front - 1st attacked north towards Lublin, and 4th attacked north east towards Cholm, a city south and east of Lublin. They were trying to achieve an encirclement. That failed, but they did win significant initial success, especially 4th Army, which took over 20,000 Russian prisoners in the opening phase.

3rd Army was was tasked to advance eastwards from Lemberg, the provincial capital of Austrian Galicia, and try to reach a small town called Peremyshliany, inside the Russian territory - essentially a diversionary attack to support the flank of 4th Army. But the Russians under General Ruzsky and General Brusilov had 3rd and 8th Armies respectively. The number of men was not much more than the Austrians, who also had Army Group Kovess here. But the Russians had twice as many guns and much better railways behind them than the Austrians.

The Russian area commander, Nikolai Ivanov, realised quite quickly that the Austrians were extending themselves. His northern front was in full retreat and in danger of collapsing, but the Austrians were exposing their southern flank and he had an opportunity to turn the tables on them. On his orders, Brusilov and Ruzsky counter-invaded and struck 3rd Army head on. But while they were advancing eastwards, Brusilov and Ruzsky were north and west of them, and on 21 August they attacked Tarnopol and Brody, threatening the Austrian rear.

The Austrians turned around and met the Russians in a battle at the banks of a stream called the Gnila Lipa. But they were ill prepared for a defensive battle and no longer held the initiative. Even though reinforcements had been recalled from Serbia when the Russians crossed into Austrian territory a week earlier, the Austrians had 22 divisions, the Russians had 38 division and twice as many guns, plus lots more ammunition. It took them three days, but on 29th August they broke the Austrian line and Lemberg fell a day afterwards.

Faced with this defeat, the Austrians diverted forces from their 1st and 4th Armies to try to stiffen the line further south. They also drew more reinforcements from Serbia, which was shortly to have serious consequences there. But the Russians took advantage of the reduced strength of Austria's two northern armies to counter-attack vigorously, and these two armies were forced to have it on their toes back into Austrian territory as well. The Russians followed them in and continued to attack.

By late September 1914, when their own counter-offensive reached its culmination, they had chased the Austrians out of Galicia all the way to the Carpathian mountains, and had reached Przemyśl, which they besieged. They had advanced over 100 miles into Austrian territory and inflicted a shattering defeat. The Austrians lost at least 100,000 men killed out of their initial 950,000. Another 130,000 were taken prisoner and about 200,000 were wounded, some of whom will have had to take their chance when the advancing Russians caught up with them. I don't think the Russians did anything beastly to the Austrian wounded, we would know by now if they had, but it was still the unkindest cut of all, to be captured in a hospital bed. No matter how we look at it, the AHE had lost over 35% of their army on this front by October 1914. In addition, they had been totally outfought by the Russians, whose Generals on this front were a lot better than the ones who met the Germans further north.

[Rogerbh]

Originally Posted by Rendell

So I realise this is a bit of a cheat but frankly I thought this item should at least be mentioned here.

Has anyone seen the trailer for the new Netflix production of All Quiet on the Western Front?

This movie uses the names from the book - but doesn't follow the book, it starts later, has scenes not in the book, could really be another WWI film if the names were changed.

They just used the book's names for audience recognition purposes.

It was okay, preferred the earlier two film versions and, of course, the book.

[hoss]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

It is arguable that history punished Ludendorff exactly as he deserved - a more lenient and honourable peace, such as Kuhlmann had advocated, would have released the million men occupying eastern European areas and doubled the numbers of men transferred to France in the spring and summer of 1918.

Ludendorff´s military carrer ended in a nervous breakdown and an urgent call for peace negotiations. Once the negotiations started, he had nothing better to do than float the myth that the German Army had been stabbed in the back by the very politicians who had the unenviable task to sue for peace. Together with Hitler he conducted an unsuccessful coup against the German Republic in 1923. Hitler was convicted but Ludendorff was acquitted because of his war merits(!). Ludendorff and his wife founded an anti-semitic pseudo religion that was too radical even for the nazis. A true swine who should have been hanged in 1918!