The year 1915 in the history of the Great War stands out, because, unlike every other year, it doesn’t really stand out. It was the first full year of fighting on the Western front and was very much one of learning lessons. Those lessons were far too often extortionately expensive and of course the price paid was in lives. In this talk historian Dan Hill will explore three major battles which took place in 1915 on the pan flat ground between the far better known Ypres and Arras battlefields, namely Neuve Chappelle, Aubers Ridge and Loos. Each had it’s own problems, in many cases the same ones, but did the British Army emerge from that bloody year as a more professional fighting force? Dan will address that major question and explore the experiences of many of the men who fought and fell across that ‘unfavourable ground’.
Good evening oh there we go um good evening everybody thanks for um having me come along and have a chat to you tonight and the intention provided this works as it’s planned to hopefully that ticks over just now uh is to talk to you about 1915 on the Western Front which is
Um a bit of an ugly duckling of a year in some senses it’s uh it’s wedged between 1914 first battle of EP and the establishment of trench warfare and mons and all of these kind of headline headline fights and then of course 1916 and the S uh and it’s also
Geographically wedged between those as well and I sometimes get the feeling that it gets overlooked now I know a number of you guys on here tonight have got relatives involved so I’m sure that won’t be the case from from your perspective but my intention is not to
Go through Blow by blow of the three major battles that I’ve picked out to discuss this evening rather to give a little bit of an overview and and my interpretation if you like of the battlefield what it looks like why it’s interesting at least from my perspective
And why I think there are certain important lessons that can be learned from it so without further Ado let’s just get in and hopefully this stuff will start ticking over as it should do let’s try here so uh give us a thumbs up if you can see a map on screen just
There so I know excellent okay thank you very much so uh this is the Western Front as we see it really at the start of 1915 uh I’m sure all of you will be aware the Western Front runs for over 400 miles so it’s a sizable area to
Cover um I think what’s quite often overlooked in this is the size that the British expeditionary force holds at the start of 1915 um you can see it right here it’s tiny the BF holds 10% of the entire Western Front um and there’s there’s really we need to set out the stall I
Think quite early here um particularly myself from a British perspective the BF isn’t that big a deal in the early part of the war it’s the French it’s really the French until 1917 they’re the ones doing the line share of the fighting they’re the ones doing the line share of
The dying and of course they’re holding the biggest part of the Western Front by a long way by the time early January 1915 we’re only slightly bigger than the Belgian Army who really are sadly a footnote in Western Front history but certainly shouldn’t be um so let’s have
A quick look a bit further down the line and just zoom in a touch here so this is the northern sector of the Western Front now and perhaps some of the names that appear here will be ones that are more familiar to a British audience and in
Truth when we when I and I guess when other people think of the Western Front this is really the area that we’re talking about this is the area that runs from the the Town of Newport on the English on the coast of the English Channel with the Belgian Army holding
That that very static area of line round era and the EA salent to liil which is the the Crown Jewel if you like of the area that the French have lost to the Germans in 1914 it’s a huge industrial Powerhouse very flat ground outside as we’ll see shortly um this is the Germans
Are really Keen to hang on to this and the Allies are really Keen to take it off them and that’s why the fights that we get in 1915 are going to take place um later in the war Aras is taken over by the Brits and then in 1918 the S and
Even as far down as San or S Quentin towards the bottom of the map is also British so as the war goes on the Brits take on a a larger geographical burden of the Western Front but in 1915 it’s pretty small the area they’re holding uh
This is a zoomed in view here of the area that the three major battles we’re going to cover tonight take part in um and that’s really running from about the Franco Belgian Border in the north so just south of an area called The minees Ridge and plug Street or plug as it’s
Known um running to an area called the labas canal which is around the town of beun um this area is going to be the hot bed of activity of 1915 and for me a fascinating one so uh quick look the three batt tools that I’ve chosen to pick out here
And in truth I could have really picked sixs to cover are going to be new Chappelle running on the 10th to the 12th 13th of March 1915 orber Ridge which takes place on the 9th of May and then loose or loss as it properly called
Running from the 25th to the 27th with a caveat that there’s actually quite a lot of fighting goes on into October it’s quite often rolled in to the Battle of loose but reality it’s the three-day Affair is the uh is the meat of that fight um but before we get there we need
To just understand how we get there in the first place and how the bef gets there and I think this map most people will be familiar with it covers the famous schen plan um I’m not going to dwell on this for long but just to to get the idea across Germany when they
Declare war um well when war is declared I should say in 1914 have already got a plan it’s a 2-year-old plan 1912 count Von schen has come up with this idea he knows that if Germany’s going to fight a war in Continental Europe it absolutely cannot afford to fight the war on both
West and East at the same time so the idea is the Germans are going to must all their strength at the start of the war they’re going to aim westwards they’re going to attack through the weaker area of neutral Belgium swing South knock out the French army in six
Weeks and then at that point they’re going to turn all of their manpower eastwards to take on what they think is the bigger threat in the in the Russians um so everything they want to do is to avoid a war on two fronts which of
Course is the one thing they do not do in 1914 um a very small but important part of that is the bef the British expeditionary Force the Brits of course have guaranteed Belgian neutrality when that’s impeded in 1914 they come out and they plug into the existing French
Structure and fight up at mons the famous uh first action 23rd of August 1914 before commencing a large and long and very tiring Retreat back towards the gate Gates of Paris where eventually the line is stopped at the end of September so the limit of German Advance you see
On the map right here what then happens provided can you see my cursor on screen guys yep what then happens is the bef once the line is stabilized are taken out of the line sent back behind the lines and fed back into the northern sector up here there’s a good reason for
It and that’s because Britain’s over here and supply lines are much shorter so it’s much easier from a logistical point of view to supply the F in this part of the line we of course have the famous first battle of EP which you could argue really is the commencement
Of uh trench warfare in October of 1914 end of October the Battle of gelt particularly the line settles down at that point the Germans we should say here they have captured 90% of Belgium and a big old chunk of northern France and in perspective really if you can
Imagine from a simplistic point of view the Germans say well that’s enough for us for the time being at least this really underpins the mindset of the entire war on the Western Front because the Germans from that point onwards with one notable exception in 1915 switched to a defensive posture and their their
Strapl line for the time is well if you want us to leave you got to make us and the job of the Brits and the French in 1915 is to force the Germans to leave and that’s only going to be done by attacks and that’s really why 1915 is so important
So a couple of um subsidiary points to mention here which are important first one this image top left because the Germans have got this defensive mindset they’re looking to they’re looking to stay where they are they’re digging trenches for the long term they’re planning to be there a while and
Therefore they construct strong solid impressive defensive networks that are going to be hard to breach uh another important thing though is in April there is a German offensive attack and that is using gas for for the first time it’s chlorine it’s released by cylinders and it’s going to be
Drifted across no man’s land in the northern part of the E salent it actually is incredibly successful so successful the Germans don’t realize it’s going to be that good and miss the opportunity and things settled back down to trench warfare which brings on another point this strange looking thing
Up in the top right here this is a trench catapult used to fire grenades across snow man’s land it’s really 1915 is a period of evolution and that’s what it’s marked as finding out how to live how to fight and how to eventually kill the enemy in trench warfare in no man’s
Land same thing’s happening in Europe today people are evolving all the time in their trench tactics and habits um and of course in between those two trenches you got this stuff down the bottom this is a classic example of No Man’s Land as it would have looked about
1915 not so torn up we’re not talking passionale here we’re still talking green fields in some cases untended crops and various other things but things will change so one thing we need to point out here this is absolutely true of every battle of the entire Western Front the three things
That you need to crack trench warfare in the first world war the three problems you got to overcome of these three its machine guns its artillery and its barbed wire they are the three things that basically caused the stalemate in 1914 and there’re the the three things
That need to be broken in order for the stalemate to also be broken in 19 18 we know that barbwire holds up men in front of machine guns which is a Bad Thing artillery can Target them from a long distance away artillery can also Target other artillery with counter
Battery fire artillery is also used to break up barb wire so all of these things interconnect and in order to get how to get through this problem these three problems need to be overcome it’s something the Brits won’t manage to do in 1915 so the ground the 1915 battlefields
I know a number of you guys have been here I was thinking of a really elaborate description to make with this drone shot here ear when I was thinking about it in truth I’m not really sure it needs it that is some really flat ground this
Is the ground that people are going to be attacking across at orber Ridge at new Chappelle FES bear later in the year and of course at the Battle of loose it’s absolutely devoid of cover it has got next to no features in it and in many cases it’s a machine gun as parad
So it’s hell to attack and Heaven to defend from that point of view um really quite Stark looking at this um I still find it a fascinating place to go to and I wonder sometimes if the reason it’s not so popular is because it’s not particularly interesting as a landscape in its own
Right but what needs to happen if French Warfare is to be broken well if I boil it down to its absolute most simple um most simple solution they called it and they called it at the time the race to the parapet the parapet being the front edge
Of the enemy’s trench each trench has a paret and the idea is can you get out of your trench get across no man’s land and over the enemy parit before they realize what’s happening react to it and get their machine guns firing if you get across no man’s land with your thousand
Guys your Battalion and you’re in the enemy trench when they start fighting you probably got a good chance of success at least in that line of the trench if you get halfway across sow man’s land and the ger are on their machine guns it’s going to be a very bad
Day and sadly there are far too many of those in 1915 but that in its most basic form is the is the conundrum of how to attack in the first world war what about the guys that are doing the attacking well this I think is uh again another one of the fascinating
Aspects of 1915 particularly so up in the top left here we’ve got the old contemptibles the 1914 regular army and I can add to this reservist as well so pre-war professionals who’ve rejoined on what might be the sometimes call a 5 plus 7 5 years in the Army seven years
In the reserve so when War comes along in 1914 it’s the British regular army the best trained in the world um who are going to be doing the bulk of the fighting in the early months of the war they shoot for their pay they’re professional they’re Hardy they’re rough
Around the edges uh but they are incredibly skillful sadly by 1915 their numbers the original 200 odd th000 are fairly depleted and they need to be bulked up and the guys doing the bulking going to be these guys in the middle of the screen right here my favorite photo of the Great War
This is actually taken my home train station I’ve stood on that platform hundreds of times it is the first Battalion half tier regiment territorials so pre-war territorial soldiers uh the Army Reserve today the TA before that these guys are part-time soldiers who interestingly are all volunteers but double Volunteers in some
Sense because not only have they volunte to um serve in the territorials there’s actually no overseas obligation in the territorials in the first world war you’re not obligated to serve abroad so these guys all volunteer to do that as well they come out and they stiffen the
Numbers of the regulars out on the Western Front and they’re going to be a really valuable addition as are these guys on the far right this is men of the British Indian army who are of course when Britain does declare war in 1914 doesn’t Declare War as a nation declares
War as an Empire so before long we’re going to see Indian troops Australians Canadians men from all over the Empire uh answering the call and coming to the Western Front the Indians incident incidentally are going to be gone by 1915 down to warmer climates in the
Middle East but in the early parts of 1915 they’re going to play a big part in two major attacks and then finally at the end of the year we got these guys at the bottom here these are the famous kitcheners Army these are Kitchener troops who are most usually associated
With 1916 in the battle of the Som there’s actually some involvement in the Battle of loose tragic as it might be um but these are citizen soldiers who also have volunteered uh currently being trained at a fast n rate of knots at the start of the
War okay so the area where these three battles are going to take place is a really confined and fairly um fairly small space it’s probably running from the tip of orbas there to the bottom of loose I’ve not measured it I would guess it’s about 12 to 14
Miles um you have the new Chappelle Battlefield um up in the north here then you’ve got the orbas ridge Battlefield which are actually two pins and they’re going to be both north and south of new Chappelle and slightly overlap the battlefield at the same time and then you’ve got in September through to
October the much bigger and uh and vital Battle of loose or loss as it’s properly called locally uh this area here by the way this is the labas canal so this is up until the Battle of loose this is the bottom the southern part of the bef’s limit
Um from really middle of 1916 on was the Brits take on a new section of ground including this section here which is where loose is going to be fought so let’s have a look at the first of those battles and I do stress these will be a fairly quick um run through
Because there’s uh quite a lot to cover and I’m not going to go Battalion by Battalion rather try and give a flavor of the battlefield as a whole um new Chappelle of course is known really as an Indian army attack it’s actually about 50/50 troops about
50% British of the fourth core and about 50% Indian of the Indian Corp so this is the area of the battlefield it’s going to be fought over and it’s a very small area actually Nel as a battlefield is relatively tiny it’s probably two miles from these two positions here the
Key position of the moted Grange German strong point and Port Arthur which for those of you guys that know the battlefields will recognize this little spot down here here which is the new Chappelle Indian Memorial interestingly though the battlefield takes a bit of a dog leg
Here it’s almost a right angle um and the intention here and this is where we can look at the British intentions for 1915 and whether they’re a bit pie in the sky sometimes there are multiple intentions first of all capture new Chappelle Village well that’s realistic
So the village we see in the middle of the screen capture it the next is to capture the bu which is a wooded area that you can see a bit further up the screen there really important part of the ground that needs to be captured beyond that an offscreen is something
Called The oras Ridge um this is going to be the subject of both this and the following attack just a a point on the oras ridge here I don’t know if anybody’s ever been there but you could walk across the orbus ridge you can walk over the other side you could turn
Around see a completely flat piece of ground and not realize that there was anything even resembling a ridge there it’s very very low but as we saw on that previous drone shot any elevation in 1915 is going to be useful and that’s the the kind of key to the orbus
Attack so they going to be two prongs to this attack uh it’s going to be fourth core uh going to be attacking basically through the village and then you’ve got the Indian core who are going to be attacking um at a right angle around this area called Port Arthur and the
Idea is they’re going to snip off this section of Western Front you can see the German lines as they stood and the British lines as they stand at that time and ideally they’re going to launch what is euphemistically I think perhaps known in the in 1915 as an Into the Blue
Attack this is a very general British Doctrine which says break through the Enemy Lines do what you can kind of open a gap in the Enemy Lines and something good will happen so there are these kind of General looks at what might be possible but Into the Blue is a concept
That’s get through the Enemy Lines first and then something good will happen so how about the ground um again fascinating area of ground I’m just going to run this drone shot here and we can we can kind of talk through the area this is looking from about the British
Front line just before the battle starts new Chappelle Village you can just about see the church Spire Behind These trees in the middle ground on the right hand side and then directly ahead of us is that bu be so as we overfly here we’re kind of
On the uh we we got the moted gra that um key a strong point off to our left and we’ve got new spel Village kind of slightly to our right uh B in the distance what actually happens is the Brits get out of their trenches and they
Manage to attack and capture the German front line fairly easily it should be said the Germans at this point have not really developed a what we sometimes refer to as a defense in depth it’s elastic and we’ll come back to that but it’s not deep it’s only really one
Heavily loaded Frontline trench and once that falls the Germans have to pull back to some other barrier and in this case they’re going to be really pulling back almost to the B to the B of ba in the distance so they’ll learn from this in between these two battles but actually
Their significant success less so on the Indian core front but more on the uh more on the fourth core front where eighth division do very well in this sector just moving on to give you an idea you can see this blue line marked on the map here this is approximately
The location that is captured during the fight so limited around the Indian coref front partly that’s because of some stubborn German defenses just uh north of Port Arthur um partly it’s because of confusion so the the way that this battle really rolls out you can kind of
Sum up in the following ways initial success so Germans do pretty well at the start uh no they don’t the British do pretty well at the start the Germans struggle to certain exent partly because there’s an effective bombardment it’s not a big bombardment and by 1918 standards it’s going to be minuscule
Almost not worth registering this is about 90 guns firing thousands of rounds over a few hours but what they do is they manage to effectively Target the German front line and the wire in front of it more importantly and they create gaps which can then be assaulted so the
Bombardment is effective there’s also numerous instances of individual bravery which unlock different sectors of the western front and this is something we see a lot particularly in 1915 sometimes the difference between success and failure is quite simply one man it’s it’s really incredible um new Chappelle is captured albeit not all of
It the moted gra the area on the map there that holds out pretty strongly um stubborn defensive positions the B ba is never captured and actually puts down some quite heavy fire on the advancing Brits and eventually checks their attack Communications though is the big problem the communications breakdown quick and
Communications particularly wired Communications break down very quick in an area that’s filled with artillery shells artillery shells are fantastic at breaking Communications cables and actually the the lack of exploitation on that first day why the Brits don’t end up in the BBA or even on the orus ridge
Is really down to communication and it’s a bit of a unique situation um in comparison to battles from 50 or 100 years before because previously you’ve got generals that can see every every Soldier on their Battlefield they can send Runners out and communicate them and simply with trench warfare you just
Can’t do that and that doesn’t really get solved until about 1918 um in addition to that the Germans uh the the famous uh the famous comment here three things certain in life uh which is life death and German counterattacks very true on the Western Front if any any attacks ever come in
Against the Germans they’re going to throw a Counterattack back that’s their Doctrine they’ll sometimes recoil bit like like a box are being punched they’ll bounce back onto the ropes but they’re they’re going to come forward again and the reason they’re going to do that is because they know if the Brits
Have captured a German trench amongst other things just from a practical point of view trenches only have a fire step dug into one side of them the fire step is the thing you stand on to shoot over they’re sevenet deep apart from that and the fire steps only dug towards the
Brits so when the Brits capture a German trench you can’t actually defend out of it it’s basically impossible to defend out of unless you what they call reverse a trench and dig a ditch into the other side so you can step up on the thing that takes time so the Germans typically
Will wait until you get to your furthest point of Advance you’re tired you’re exhausted you’re low on ammunition you got loads of wounded and then they’re going to launch their Counterattack and they do that here at new Chappelle interestingly it’s not super successful it doesn’t actually dislodge the Brits
What it does do though in enough with enough force is it dissuades them from continuing the forward motion so it checks the British Advance the British in turn check the German advance and the Brits in a sense settle down and say right we’ve actually captured a good bit
Of ground here in addition we need to mention lack of reinforcements the reinforcements for new Chappelle are kept a couple of Miles back when Communications break down very difficult to get the reinforcement brought up they kept back to keep him out shellfire and to keep an element of surprise by the
Way but they’re too far back and by the time they’re needed it’s too late and they get thrown into the wrong place at the wrong time the addition to that and both and this one relates of course to reinforcements is the lack of supplies men at the front being short on
Ammunition well it’s the reinforcements that are bringing those up and if they can’t do that we can’t push forward so there’s a couple of reasons for that and then finally the story of 1915 lack of shells I won’t say any more about it but we’ll come back to it hardly any shells
In the British Army in 1914 or in 1915 and of those hardly any of them go bang when you want them to either so it’s a it’s a pretty depressing State of Affairs as far as the Gunners go but new Chapelle is you could I think argue not
A bad first attempt and it is the first formal British over-the-top assault um offensive assault of the Great War so the battlefield today I just find fascinating I just want to do a quick spin around here of the new Chappelle Indian Memorial um really really stunning location it’s on those
Crossroads Port Arthur sometimes referred to as lab bomb Crossroads British casualties for the battle about 12,800 which include about 4,000 Indian casualties German casualties less than that 8,500 this um Memorial here is is a real stunner you can actually see Nelle just going out screen on the left there and
The famous bder ba in the distance one interesting thing if you guys have been to visit this one is it’s actually covered in battle damage and that battle damage is from 1940 from when garan’s panzas come rolling through here there’s actually a pitched fight in and around this Cemetery so it’s scattered with
With battle damage from 1940 but new Chappelle comes to an end and the next thing that’s going to happen here is the assault on orber Ridge um Now spoiler alert this does not go well um but it’s worth considering because actually there are Lessons Learned in a very broad sense but there
Are many of the same mistakes made and they’re important when it comes to understanding the Battle of loose afterwards so in short this is going to be single day two pronged assault from either side of new Chappelle with the idea being to capture that orus Ridge in part to support French assaults which
Are going on in two key places further to the South one’s called vimi Ridge and the other is nraam dorett or the lorett spur um both of which are fascinating fights in their own in their own right um the main reason for this attack or
One of the main ones is to threaten Le here and it’s hoped that by threatening Le German troops who are fighting hard on the lorett spur and at vimi Ridge are going to be have to be redeployed to defend Lil so to free up a bit of uh a
Bit of movement space for the French now it’s not going to work out that way and for a couple of reasons there are going to be two assaults one’s around the famous 1916 Fel Battlefield and the second is going to be at a place called reborg lavu sometimes better known as the rud
Du let’s have a look at them in turn so the northern one this is the Fel Battlefield with a map overlaid over the satellite image to show you the general area the idea here is to punch through an area outside the village of Fel and around an area known as locally as Rouge
Bon or Rouge banks sometimes and that’s identified by this curving Road in the distance for those of you that know froml this is really the limit of exploitation for the 1916 battle there’s also a key part here that’s forming this part of the line is going to be really
Important it’s known in 1916 incidentally not at this point but the the line still exist as the Sugar Loaf and it’s a Salient that sticks out into no man’s land and allows importantly enade or sideways fire to be dropped on the attacking troops um the intention here as I say is
To punch through get through from El Village and eventually up to the orbus Ridge and then following that we’ve got down in the South the other if you like the sister attack to this and this is to take place I’ll just try and um identify
The area VI this road here this is the main road with new Chappelle under this map sitting just here so if you remember that right hand turn in the road that’s just about here the line has moved forward slightly because it’s been captured in the March attack but this is
The the famous um Indian Memorial just here the road that runs along it that many people will give the name of the battle to is this one right here this is called the rud very famous road to troops in 1915 and running off that is a much smaller track here this is called
The cinder track this is going to be very famous for 1915 it’s also going to be the site of a battle called the B’s head in 1916 17 um important to note here two farms and this whole landscape is studded with Farms of course when the bef get there
In 19 in 1914 1915 these Farms are actually quite often a really good opportunity for defense so what the Germans are doing is they’re taking the Farms behind their own lines and they’re going to reinforce and they’re going to place machine guns in the upper stories and turn them into mini fortresses if
You know water you can imagine hugar and leant being the the Bastion for for Wellington’s defensive lines well this is the same except they’re behind the front line so they’re going to be firing over their own Frontline troops heads but interestingly and importantly they can easily hit the Brits as they Advance
This is going to be vital to the story of or Rich so back to the north briefly and I’ll just run this drone shot so you can have a look at the the battlefield as I say this is absolutely nailed on the Australian battlefield of 1916 in fact this is the Australian
Memorial Park today the attack came in from the bottom left and was going across to this you remember the road with that distinct turn in it this is Rouge bong here so the German line is in around this area and the Brits just simply get annihilated trying to get
Across it there’s honestly there’s no good thing that you can say about the northern part of the orb Ridge attack apart from there some Brave Lads doing the attack in very weak bombardment terrible wire cutting which leaves only a couple of gaps in the enemy wire and of course enemy machine
Guns are just going to be trained directly at those gaps lots of enemy wire is another one sometimes as far as 25 to 30 feet thick and we’re not talking agricultural Farmers field Barb wires today we’re talking really aggressive coils and coils and coils of the stuff um as a result of these
Basically horrific casualties that are Stained on going across these fields casualty evacuation chain so the uh the medical side of things they’re just overwhelmed you know they’ve planned for bad attacks the worst they’ve seen so far is New Chappelle nobody expects 50 60 70% casualties to battalions and
They’re just ripped to pieces and very lucky guys are the first ones that that get back into the medical evacuation chain maybe get wounded straight away but some of the other guys you know it’s just it’s a death sentence because they just get swamped um the real problems here are
Lack of surprise which is partly an issue at new Chappelle the other thing is having a weak bombardment is a is a double-edged sword having any bombardment is a double-edged sword it’s of course going to give the game away that something’s happening in that sector but if it’s strong enough you can
Get away with it but a weak bombardment is a lose lose because not only you’re giving away the elements of prize but you’re actually not doing any damage so this is what happen at orber Ridge in the north shells again terrible the shell Scandal famous shell Scandal of
1915 will come about as a result of this battle basically not many shells they’re not getting produced quickly enough at home and those that do are really poor quality the fuses particularly something like 25 to 30% of shells don’t go off when they hit the ground that’s a
Terrible terrible thing at the time and again Communications basically it’s figured out that as soon as a battle starts in 1915 that the whole thing evolves into a mess um we’re going to see more about that at the Battle of loose in short the attack of the north is a
Disaster so let’s um have a look at the South here this is a view along the famous Cinder track so we’re looking from the British front lines here two battalions assault in this area there’s actually multiple waves but the two that stick in my mind is going to be the the
Royal monster fusers and uh the sanport Battalion of the uh of the suies as well they’re going to be attacking left and right of this track as we go and I’ll just run the Drone so you can get a look we are looking directly down that track
Then so slightly to the right you’ll see a little clump of trees that is the site of firm C davu which is one of those reinforced Farms to the left of that um not really anything marking it today in the left side of the track was the other
Farm um which is firm du both of those are studed with machine guns they’ve not been effectively targeted by British artillery the German front line incidentally is about where this field boundary is in front of us so running left right in front of us here the idea
Is to storm through that go on capture those Farms push on Beyond those and eventually get over to the orbus ridge which is at about 10:00 as we look at it at the moment but four or five four miles off it’s a disaster probably not a single man makes
It beyond the German front line there may be a pocket here and there that make it the Northampton to attack from the the right hand side of our screen possibly get into the second lines but in essence men are cut down before they even go over the top there’s thick wire
Here poor wire cutting weak bombardment poor planning and those fortified Farms are just ripping in over the over the heads of their own Frontline troops to hit the guys in the fields number of the sank ports Lads uh they’re going to actually talk about being stuck in this
Little patch of field directly in front of us for hours and hours on end on that day and uh you know it’s it’s a horrific loss uh there’s a lack of learning basically from the issues that are found at new Chappelle um and you know these lessons aren’t free either British casualties
This is about in terms of Great War battles from a British point of view it’s about the biggest disparity you’ll see of any battle on the Western Front we lose 11,600 men killed wounded and missing compared to German losses a little under a tenth of that 1
1550 you don’t get a worse day in the office than that in the first world war in the Western Front um and you know these are 11,600 individual lives which I think is something that is easy to to lose sight of when you’re talking about such big
Numbers this man here I think is fascinating I’ll just give you a quick Cy of him this is Man by the name of Tony or Anthony Wilding he’s New Zealander he is Believe It or Not nine times Wimbledon champion he’s the David Beckham of his era and he’s almost
Unknown today he is a fantastic doubles player wins Wimbledon a couple of times singles as well um he’s an outstanding tennis player he’s a bit of a daredevil too he famously is is due to go to a tennis cor Tournament down in Cornwall one time on his motorbike and he’s
Famously seen with his motorbike his tennis racket strapped to the back of it on his way down to the tennis tournament he finds that there’s a motorbike race going from lanzen to Jon a grz decides to cancel the tennis tournament and wins the bike race all the way through the
United Kingdom with a tennis racket stuck to the back of his to the back of his bike he’s a fantastic character he’s tragically killed with the raw Marines fighting at orb Ridge um unusually using an armored car which is another story for another day um and then the other
Image on the right here this is the lore Memorial to the missing and Cemetery so large number of those that are killed in 1915 are going to end up on the lore Memorial in short orb Ridge is an utter utter disaster but it doesn’t mean the Brits
Won’t try again and they’re going to be trying in September this time over these battlefields here this is of course the Battle of loose or loss now it looks something like this this is the the area of the battlefield as we see it today um for anybody ever
Visiting the battlefield you can see importantly a couple of key areas so if you want to understand the northern and southern boundaries which are about six miles apart these are the two things you need to look at one uh and if anybody’s ever been to France here you’ll know
These as you cross from Cal and you drive down the auto route theong the same one that takes you to the south of France on the left hand side about 50 miles into your journey you’ll see a couple of really big clear pyramids in the distance a pair of them twin
Pyramids that’s these two things they’re called the double cier uh they’re actually slag heaps from the mining that goes on in this very flat area pre-war so this is the cier marks the southern boundary of the loose Battlefield then up in the top harder to see here this is
The labas canal marks the northern boundary effectively the northern boundary in between that is this area that’s going to be attacked starting in the north what’s known as the Scottish attack so the ninth and 15th division including James your relative here who’s going to be attacking uh very famous
Very deadly place called The hensol and redout in the center we have an attack which is going to be really really problematic because of these two Villages this is going to be between the Villages of L and ULU both of which are a stride a road Left Right running Road
Here that you can see this is a really important Road as far as the battle goes and then down in the South you’re going to have um two divisions in this area attacking loose Village itself now this is going to be an interesting part of
The fight and we’ll come on to that just now so this is the double cier at the top the southern part of the loose Battlefield boundary I just going to run the drone over here because on the opening day of the battle of loose this is about the most
Successful part of the entire Battlefield the London Irish are famously going to attack across this ground directly as we’re going now there’s loads of stories in the Great War of people kicking footballs about in no man’s land very rarely happens but it does happen here London Irish famously
Kick a football over the top and they’re going to advance into the enemy trenches which are actually slightly to the left of the double crash so you can see loose Village just in the distance there on the left they’re going to get into the village in the south on that first day
That’s utterly shocking but very very impressive now it’s not all successful here though the south is the most successful in the center there’s mixed success really and what we find in this area here so the bulk of the battlefield some troops are going to get into Hulu Village which is
Here some troops are going to get even up to this road here the Germans really struggle to react to this first level of attack and they’re actually going to going to sway back quite far this is where the idea of an elastic defense comes in they’re going to bend but not
Break and this is the the story really of the the German defense of 1915 um they’re going to overnight they’re going to going to react to these attacks and they’re actually going to reoccupy a number of the positions they lost on the previous day but in the
South enil Fire from the houses on the edge of lost Village and the edge of Village are going to create a beaten Zone which is a Cross Lane of machine gun fires not even aimed at individuals but rather just filling an imaginary box of air with lead knowing that for
Soldier a to get from to get to his objective he’s got to walk through it um it’s that deadly um in the north things go differently it’s it’s definitely the toughest nut to crack on the opening day um 9th and 15th austral uh Australian been talking about Australians all week
Uh Scottish divisions are incredibly incredibly good in the Great War um Scottish divisions are amongst the the best divisions of the entire uh bef they get into the front edge of the hones all and Ral and they actually get into a fight and almost capture and retain it
Unfortunately a couple of things go wrong here one is there’s diff pretty poor wire cutting which is problematic in itself the second is gas has been used on the opening day of the battle of loose gas has been used in the center and the North and partly in the South but not
Exclusively what the problem here is that the gas used in the center has been used really in conditions it probably shouldn’t have been launched in because the general idea was that gas is going to sweep ahead and kill or incapacitate with chlorine German troops holding these lines here in reality what happens
Is that morning the wind shifts and because this is dependent on the Wind to drift it across enemy land this actually is going to go northwards so the central part of the line is going to gas the northern part of the British line it’s it’s quite often said that gas blows
Back into the trenches it really doesn’t it kind of the central guys gas the guys in the north more predominantly so it doesn’t necessarily it’s not going the wrong way it’s uh not completely it’s it’s drifting northwards um and that’s going to cause hell for the lads
Attacking the hens on and Redal they’re going to end up grabbing the front edge of it there’s going to be some really really bitter fighting on it we maybe come back to this when we hit the next map in a moment I just want to go to the
The second day very briefly um this is I think I don’t I should say I don’t subscribe to the lines led by donkey’s idea in the Great War doesn’t doesn’t ring true with me um there are certainly some idiotic idiotic decisions made but they’re never made with with malice in
Mind um with I think one exception in 1915 and that’s this one it’s the second day of the Battle of loose um the fight is going on in loose Village and and actually is reasonably successful in the north up towards a place called Hill 70 in the center though there’s a tragic
Decision made now to put this into context on the opening day of the battle of loose in the center those troops have attacked in between Lucen and ULU and got caught in that beaten Zone and been smashed to bits those guys are regular army pre-war professionals with tons of
Experience on the second day the reserves that are kept back behind the lines have been brought forward they’re going to launch an absolute carbon copy attack of that first day on the second day except on the second day they’re going to be brand new troops kitcheners
Troops that have never been in a trench let alone on the Western Front they certainly haven’t been in action they’ve marched basically direct from the coast having arrived the first two divisions of kiter troops about 20,000 guys they’re going to be thrown straight into this attack in the middle of the battle
Of loose on the second day with no no of surprise now no gas to help them no experience a 20 minute artillery bombardment which is next to useless and they’ve never even seen the ground that they’re attacking across and surprise surprise they get absolutely massacred um the Germans even dubb this
Are as the field of corpses now there’s lots of things where you get that kind of name in The Great War but there are literal accounts of Germans saying we just stopped firing couldn’t do it anymore that’s how deadly and you’ve seen how pan flat that ground is so sending two completely ill-prepared
Unexperienced but Brave as hell divisions over the top and they just get to cut to Pieces um that’s the the tragic thing I think about the uh the second day of loose and then as I say in the South there is fighting fibu British Army Doctrine fighting in builtup areas it’s
A new T new thing for the British to do um comes with its own problems but it does have some success moving on to day three here I’m only going to pick out one story here because it’s a it’s a fascinating and tragic one in the same sense don’t know
If anybody recognizes this chap on the left here um this is a young man by the name of uh leftenant John Kipling son of the famous writer rard he is going to be going into attack on the third day of the battle of loose very much like the
Two divisions we just discussed except this time he’s going to be attacking with the second Battalion of the Irish guards their job is to attack not far from the field of corpses actually and to try and capture an area to the north of loose Village called the chalk pit uh
John and his men are going to go into the attack that day John’s just 19 maybe eight uh just 18 I should say um he’s leading as a platoon on that day and he probably shouldn’t be there his father has had to pull strings to get him into
The army in the first place his eyesight is shockingly bad um his father gets him into the Irish guards and this is his very first time in action and he’s attacking across these very fields here uh Records tell us that this is the last place um the Irish guards actually do
Quite well and they make it to the edge of chalk pit wood which is what we’re looking at right here um Beyond which is a chalk pit which is the Quarry that’s been there since before the war and as the Irish guards disappear into this front hedge line here you can just see
The building in the background they start taking fire from the building that was there at the time called p14 Beast which is a a mine head and the structure around a Min head and John Kipling along with a number of Irish guards disappear on this very spot and tragically are never seen
Again really the Battle of loose of course will go on um particularly around the henen red out here so this is the the attack on the hoenen made by men of the 46th North Midland division um amongst those men to be doing the attacking and it’s a really bitter fight
That goes on much longer into October 3rd and 12th of October 13th of October see additional fights should mention here the hoen and redou has broken two of the Prime British divisions in the early days of the battle of loose the ninth and the 15th divisions two Hardy
Scottish Battalion divisions um the 46th North Midlands territorials are going to be sent in after them to try and do exactly the same thing they’re also going to get broken and and sadly get a really bad reputation for not failing to capture what is in reality probably an uncapturable um
Objective I know we’ve got somebody here with a a relative Who’s involved in that attack so there are troops also of the leers and the Lincoln that are going to go over the top that day and I mentioned the leers particularly is just a little personal history here I was um involved
In doing some archaeological work as a a historian around the henz and redout back in 2015 and in digging to try and find the tunnel system under there with a with an organization that does that professionally we actually found the body of a soldier who was killed um in
195 and still had all his kit and equipment on it he was um a man of the first first fifth leerer regiment so a territorial still with his boots on still with uh ammunition and grenades on his body um had clearly been killed in the attack on the hens all in 1915 we
Could even narrow it down because there was a very short period of time in the Great War where two different types of gas masks are used at the same time the p and the pH Hood which are really unique gas masks and he was carrying both of them which gives us a really
Precise date so he’s killed around the 12th or 13th of October 1915 the attack on the horn on rid out and this coin I’m holding in my hand in the photograph was found in his pocket dated 1914 the hens zand sadly will not be
Taken but parts of it will it’s a it’s a tremendous fight and really deserves to be it its own story on a different day now just moving towards the end here um to sum up the Battle of loose in 19 1915 there are problems which really should have been seen before
Reinforcements again same problem as new Chappelle and orbus ridge keeping the reinforcements to back particularly reinforcing failure so throwing troops into the area where um on the second day 21st and 24th they’ve go in they’ve already failed there could have easily easily fed them in south at loose where
There’s much better chance of breakthrough unfortunately that’s a classic British thing in the first world war is to is to throw troops at the bad bits not the good uh artillery it’s clear is not enough the numbers Aren’t Enough the guns aren’t enough and uh really the bombardments need to be far
More substantial we’ll see that the following year at the S uh Communications is an everpresent problem everybody knows it’s a problem by the by the Battle of loose but actually nobody can really figure out how to get round it the Battle of loose is six miles six miles wide and thousands of
Yards deep it’s it’s really tricky to solve this problem and it’s going to remain a problem for a long time and then finally a fairly unique one to loose is rigid command structure and this is a bit of a Victorian throwback because typically at loose it’s um the
Most senior officers on the battlefield are going to be leftenant Colonels so Battalion commanders and they’re really the guys that been given all the information and typically they’re not going to really disseminate disseminate that information down below about the level of captain now what you find with troops
Going over the top in areas where you got terrible amounts of machine gun fire and particularly in 1915 officers who look distinctly different to their soldiers they’re wearing cuff ranks they’re carrying sticks and revolvers they’re easily identifiable offices are going to get picked off really quick and
Then when you’re left with second left tenants and sergeants and corporals to direct the attack well unfortunately you haven’t told them where they’ve got to go so there needs to be a more flexible command structure with devolved command throughout all of the ranks and that’s a big lesson from loose in
1915 I’m just going to run this uh drone shot here this is a place called St Mary’s Advanced dressing station it’s it’s a really powerful one for me personally and I highly recommend a visit two reasons actually one of them is that this grave right here is the
Chap that I was part of the team that discovered in 2015 he’s an unknown leer regiment Soldier um and he was buried in 2018 that’s why you see the slightly newer headstone there in terms of style and the second one which I think is uh is really interesting as well is that this
Grave here um this is in fact the grave of leftenant John Kipling of the Irish guards now John’s father rard and his mother Carrie who are both seen in this smaller picture down here they were devastated by John’s loss in fact there a great film about it my boy Jack um
Interestingly John Kipling never known as Jack if you’d called him jack he wouldn’t even turn around no idea who you’re talking about my boy Jack comes from the poem that rajar Kipling writes about Jack tar a ta a sailor missing in 1915 um John’s body is actually
Discovered in the 1920s and he’s buried as an unknown soldier um it’s only in 1992 after some work is done it’s realized that John Kipling is actually buried in s Mary’s Advanced dressing station I think what’s really tantalizing about this story is that Raj yard and carry seen here by the way at
The loose Memorial place called dud Corner they spend years and years searching for John’s body and every time rajad who becomes a a big player in the first Imperial Warg Graves commission before it comes the commor Warg Graves commission goes to the battlefields he’s looking to try and find Graves of Irish
Guards and he’s always spending time searching the loose battlefields he dies without ever knowing that John’s body’s been discovered as does his wife as does John’s sister so there is no more Kipling family um but interestingly we know that rogard actually comes to St Murray’s ads in the 1920s and he TS the
Cemetery and as was his practice at the time he would go to Every Irish guard’s grave he could see so I think there’s a very high chance he actually stood at this grave at the time that it was an unknown leftenant of the Irish guards and there weren’t many unknown Li
Tenants missing in that area of the Irish guards I wonder if he wondered at that time whether he was standing at John’s grave um today of course we know that he was so just to round up the casualties at the Battle of loose um British if you include the October fighting and the
Subsequent attack to the north with the second division about 59,000 big big casualties um about 25 to 30% of those guys are going to be killed in action it’s fairly typical in the Great War German casualties about 26,000 what the Brits show is that it is
Possible to achieve a break in in the Great War but it’s very hard to achieve a breakthrough um this is a really a really important difference and it’s actually going to change to a switch in tactics to what we sometimes refer to as bite and hold which is going to be a key
Part of the coming Battle of the s in 1916 so to round off then a couple of Lessons Learned here I’ll just w through them very quick artillery artillery is not good enough there’s not enough shells they’re not good enough at wire cutting the shell quality is is too low
Aerial reconnaissance really important particularly in targeting dugin enemy machine guns and pinpointing those for the artillery this is going to be really become an art by 1917 but using aeral reconnaissance to to highlight and identify key enemy strong points going to be a really big deal light fighting
Order is debuted at at um the Battle of loose for the first time so that’s men not taking their great coats and packs and things into battle seems pretty obvious to us today but light fighting order is used with Reserve waves then bringing up um more slowly heavy kit and
Things like tools for reversing trenches uh gas does have potential as do a number of new weapons but it’s not it’s a bit of a one-trick Pony um and it certainly shouldn’t be used alone um it still needs to be in tandem with an artillery bombardment uh the pigeon there Old
Speckled Jim this is a Communications issue Communications you need multiple sources of communications methods all across the battlefield you need Runners running multiple routes in different directions you need landlines to send messages back you need homing pigeons to run messages back in different ways you need semi for all of these because
Communication breaks down so quick once the once the bullets start flying um and the cemetery there Doug corner um it’s just a reminder for me really that you know courage is is quite often not enough um as tragic as that is because there’s a damn lot of courage in
1915 really all of those lessons are not going to come together until 1918 and probably the August of that year when the Battle of am or even July the Battle of L where all arms Warfare is going to come about and eventually all branches of the British military can work
Together to create a um I think is remarkable um series of victories in 19 18 last couple of bits the battlefield today um one of my favorite locations to go to as I say it’s not super glamorous for every person that goes to e or every
10 that go to e or the S probably one goes to these middle grounds um but it really repays a visit amongst other things the iron Harvest there is incredible because these grounds have not been trampled over for the last century so you still see every year when
The plowers go through the field you still see these these signs of the Great War come back and uh I I find it amazing and uh we’ll happily spend days and days and days wandering through these battlefields understanding the ground um and finally I’ll finish with a plug for uh Mr shart
Smith here uh because I’m very pleased to be taking a tour here actually this coming year and uh between 10th 14th of October we’re going to be heading out to these very battlefields we’ve been covering today looking at battles like the assault on the kimchi brick Stacks
In February 1915 xoni and tunneling in the Great War which itself is a fascinating story and then exploring the Battle of new Chappelle orbz Ridge loss and the henzen r doubt in detail so I’ll be uh looking forward to Leading a group from classic Battlefield tours over that
Very ground and hopefully some of you guys if you found this intriguing enough will be willing to come along and join us as well you’d be very very welcome so that brings me to the end of this hopefully timing wise I got that about right James um happy to take any
Questions and thanks for your time well thank you very much Stan for a most excellent talk it’s quite interesting that although my grandfather fought in the Battle of L he was captured in the German offensive of 1918 in gishi so they hadn’t moved all that much in in whatever it was three
Years yeah absolutely absolutely it’ be interesting to know where he went in between because I’d imagine would have been down south and then north of there but in Mesopotamia oh of course yeah but yeah in terms of the battlefield absolutely I’d imagine he’s he’s going
To be captured I guess in April at the Battle of the lease which R through that area it was April yeah yeah so um I mean the tragic thing about that is all this ground that these Lads have fought and and been killed fighting over in the
Hundreds of yards or the tens of meters in 1915 and 16 is lost in a day April 1918 that’s tragic yeah yeah um if you all want to demute yourselves and ask away any questions don’t be shy yes can you hear me it’s Richard Gunner here hi Richard
Yes hi um uh my my grandfather uh was uh very severely injured in the hullock quarz now the hullock quarz um uh he was severely injured he he would he’ previously been in the um in the South African wars come back from those and then he was in his mid-30s
When he was called up in 1915 with the Queen’s own Royal W kins and um I I understand that the there was a lot of Shilling going on and there was a a big fall of of Stone on top of him and I believe it took place
At the H coris I don’t know is this the chalk pip that I talking about or you were talking about well excellent excellent question it’s actually not there there are a couple of them so the chalk pit um if you can still see me on screen here is
Just about here so this area um this area around here p quaries is actually up in the northern oh not far from the hor on R out in the northern section of the Battlefield if you were to go on and Google today um that quarry that you’re describing is actually a commonwealth
Wargrave Cemetery it’s got a cemetery sitting in the base of that quarry now and it’s called quar Cemetery that’s the same place so um that’s I would imagine is because it’s used during the battle as a as an aid post it’s got a bit of
Cover in it so it’s actually up in this general area here so if you if you gole quar Cemetery I would imagine you’ll find that that’s the exact spot he’s going to be occupying all right thank you very much indeed no problem hi it’s it’s St I think that’s where the queen mother’s
Brother is buried that’s right yeah Fergus b f yeah absolutely yeah cheers he’s killed um I think on the third day of the battle same day that John Kipling goes missing yeah um in interestingly and most famously of course when the queen mother gets married I think in the
20s yeah she um as a as a sign of respect to her brother lays her her wedding bouquet at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior which is a tradition that’s continued to this day thank you any more questions for D no jnan have you got anything say think I’ve answered them all then
James you you got to De mute yourself Jonathan I just trying to work out exactly where loss or lose is is it on the outskirts of Le or is that um my Michelin map is inac right yes interesting so you’ve got two so you’ve got um I have to remember the
Exact name so one’s called L on goel and the other one is called loss on trying to remember so we’re looking this one loss on goel so there are two um what they’re both loss on something what you looking at here this one is is
Not on the outskirts of Lil it’s on the outskirts of laws LNS oh law ah we yeah so I’m trying to think of the yeah um yeah so so it’s on the outskirt found yeah I found it yeah yeah so if you find that you’ve got um the
Main motorways running just off screen in this direction here that famous football team who have smashed the the French league open even though a tiny little town this year right yeah so if you find that it’s actually La when it’s grown is kind of kind of overgrown part of the the lost I
I would have attacked the wrong place if I were that ch Dan I got a question for you did did the the Allies capture the two slag heaps with the obviously with good observation yeah um they do so they they actually capture the northern Edge so
Where we’re looking at here can you see this very thin black line yeah that’s actually the shape of the double cier at the time it’s much lower it’s really a low shelf rather than these two very prominent heaps um and they the the foot of here is the is literally the southern
Edge of the loose Battlefield and they capture the northern edge of it here and it does have observation qualities there are a couple of other slag keeps around here there’s one up in this area fa8 um but they yes they do capture it um actually they they use it to look onto
This area here which is called Hill 70 um incidentally whilst I’m thinking about it there’s actually a new a new Passage of History going to be written in at the moment and the reason is that the uh I’m trying to think of the name of the canal the canal D is currently
Being extended through the loose Battlefield and they anticipate that the Comm War Graves commission are going to find 4,000 bodies when they dig the canal dor um and they’ve actually purchased this whole area of the back of loose Village to create a new cemeter to
Bury these guys in so in the next 10 years they’re expecting to find another 4,000 on the battlefield interesting good St what they going to find yeah yeah absolutely good anybody else got any questions no well Dan thank you so much for most excellent talk um I thoroughly
Enjoyed it I’ve learned a lot about uh the Battle of lose um very much looking forward to your your um tour in um later on in the year and I’ll be certainly going because I I really want to look over where my grandfather fought at the
Battle of lose and I hope other people will join us as well pleasure thank you very much thanks for having me along I hope you you found it interesting it’s uh even if you don’t go with us in October please do go at some point because it really is a
Stunning part of the the battlefield that um that really is worth a visit but thanks again guys have a have a great thank you James cheers take care goodbye all M Js