The Great War (1914-1918) in real time

Day 1419 of the Great War, June 28th 1918

YouTube (The Run For The Baku Oil Fields)



Western Front

French capture Cutry Plateau.

British troops east of Nieppe Forest advance on a four-mile front, taking three towns from the Germans.

Arab Revolt

Arabs capture Kalaat el Almar (200 miles north of Medina) from Turks.

United States

Second U.S.A. communique in favour of deliverance of all Slavs from German or Austro-Hungarian rule.

Germany: Kaiser Decides to Not “Liquidate” Bolsheviks

The Germans’ relationship with the Bolsheviks was a complicated one. They were glad the Bolsheviks had exited the war, even if it had taken another military campaign to get them to sign the peace treaty. On the other hand, their constant talk of revolution was dangerous, and the Army was worried they had “infected” returning PoWs with their propaganda. They were also worried that a resurgent Bolshevik-governed Russia might prove a threat in the future–and, more to the point, wanted Russia’s resources. The Germans had already pushed beyond the Ukraine into Rostov and elements were pushing into the Kuban beyond. Certain elements in the Army wanted to simply “liquidate” the Bolsheviks, replacing them with a government more amenable to them, as they had done in Ukraine.

The Foreign Office, on the other hand, sharply disagreed. The Bolsheviks had (eventually) signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with them, and reneging on that would severely undermine German credibility in any future negotiations elsewhere. Furthermore, the majority of the anti-Bolshevik opposition (though not all) favored the Allies–this was especially true of the Czech Legion, the dominant threat in the summer of 1918.

Although the Kaiser was certainly sympathetic to the Army’s point of view, having argued that the Bolsheviks should be “beaten to death” in February, on June 28 he sided with the Foreign Office. Despite their disagreements with the Bolsheviks, they were to be reassured that neither the Germans nor the Finns would make any move on Petrograd. Lenin deeply distrusted the Germans, but even so eventually took the gamble that they were telling the truth; on August 10, he would divert Red Army forces that had been covering Petrograd east to fight the Czechs.

State of the War: Mid-1918

The tumult and upheaval of 1917 continued into 1918 as the war approached its climax. The Russians and Romanians had been forced into humiliating peace treaties, and Germany moved all of its reserves to the West in an attempt to win a final military decision there. They had made spectacular gains of the sort not seen in the West since 1914, but the Allies were holding firm and more Americans were arriving every week.

The Eastern Front and the Russian Civil War

Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers dragged on from December into February. In an attempt to further isolate the Bolsheviks, the Central Powers signed a treaty with the newly-formed Ukrainian Government in early February, making territorial concessions in Poland in exchange for food and economic concessions. The next day, Trotsky unilaterally declared an end to the war in the east and pulled out of negotiations. The Germans did not accept this, called off the armistice, and invaded Russia, meeting essentially zero resistance from the non-existent Russian Army. Thirteen days later, the Germans were in Narva, 85 miles of Petrograd, and the Russians signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, exiting the war and giving up their claims to all the land the Central Powers had occupied.

The Germans moved many of their troops that had been in Russia to the Western Front, but not all. Many were still needed to occupy the lands Russia had given up, and the Central Powers’ advance even continued in the Ukraine, ostensibly in support of their new allies in Kiev. The socialists there proved disagreeable to the Germans, however, and they helped install a more friendly government under the self-styled Hetman Skoropadskyi in late April. In May, the Germans took Sevastopol and Rostov. The Russian Black Sea Fleet, quickly running out of safe harbors, variously scuttled itself or surrendered to the Germans in mid-June.

Russia’s exit stranded a variety of volunteer forces in the country. Polish forces were convinced to halt and then, after a brief but determined resistance, surrendered to the Germans. The Czech Legion was determined to make its way out of the country to fight on the Western Front, preferably via Vladivostok, but distrust between the Czechs and the Bolsheviks spiraled into open warfare in May. By the end of June, the Czechs had seized most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad east of the Volga, and had even helped install an rump portion of the Constituent Assembly as an anti-Bolshevik government Samara (the original having been dissolved after less than 24 hours in January).

White resistance also emerged on the Don and in the Kuban early in the year. They quickly suffered many setbacks, as the Bolsheviks crushed the Don Cossacks and sent Alexeyev’s and Kornilov’s Volunteer Army to wander the snows of the steppe. The Bolsheviks thought resistance to their rule was over when Kornilov was killed in an ill-advised attack in April. However, the Bolsheviks were undermined by their own heavy-handedness (and the arrival of the Germans) and by June the Don Cossacks had re-emerged and the Volunteer Army was once again on the offensive.

Finland’s independence from Russia was universally recognized at the beginning of the year, but it was soon wracked by its own internal divisions. The Finnish socialists, who had narrowly lost last October’s elections, seized control of much of the populated heart of Finland in late January. The remaining Whites attempted to fight off the Reds and appeal for foreign aid; the Swedes refused to intervene beyond the Ålands, but the Germans were more than happy to gain a grateful ally just outside Petrograd. The Germans landed at Hanko in early April, and within a month the Reds were defeated, their leadership having fled to Russia.

Romania took advantage of the Russian collapse to seize Bessarabia (modern-day Moldova); however, shortly after Brest-Litovsk, they too were forced to sign a harsh peace, giving up the Dobruja and major economic concessions. Most of the country would remain under German occupation until the end of the war.

The Western Front

Using the troops freed up by the effective end of the war in the East, Hindenburg & Ludendorff decided on a series of massive offensives in the West that they hoped would break the Allies. The first, Operation Michael, struck back into the ground fought over during the Battle of the Somme and then abandoned by the Germans in early 1917. Although it essentially broke the British Fifth Army and came very close to taking the key rail center of Amiens, it did not result in a great strategic victory for the Germans, instead extending their lines in an awkward direction.

Less than three weeks later, the Germans attacked again in Flanders, in Operation Georgette. Breaking through demoralized Portuguese forces, it took key positions to the south of Ypres and forced Plumer to abandon the ground gained at extremely high cost at Passchendaele the previous fall. However, Ypres remained in Allied hands, as did the approaches to the Channel ports.

The German attacks forced the Allies to finally agree to a unified command; French General Foch was made the generalissimo of the Allied armies, with overall control of the dispensation of their reserves. The Germans hoped these would be moved south and away from Flanders by an attack on the Aisne, which they launched in late May. The attack broke through French lines much more easily than expected, due to a lack of defense-in-depth, and the Germans were on the Marne within days. Paris was once again under threat, and had for several months been under shell from German long-range guns as well. The Germans shifted their attack yet again, striking near Noyon in early June with Operation Gneisenau, but this time the French were prepared and were able to halt the German advance within a few days.

The Americans had begun to arrive in force, and launched their first attack of the war in late May, taking the town of Cantigny in an attack planned by Lt. Col. George C. Marshall. This was soon overshadowed by events on the Marne, where American troops were quickly thrown into action to stop the German advance. In June, the US Marines fought a three-week battle to retake Belleau Wood, at the cost of over half of their men in casualties. Also entering action in the spring of 1918 was the 369th US Infantry Regiment, now commonly known as the Harlem Hellfighters; due to American racism, they were placed under French command.

Italy and the Balkans

To support the Germans’ large-scale efforts on the Western Front, the Austrians launched their own offensive against Italy in mid-June. Divided between attacks on the Asiago plateau and across the Piave, the Austrians quickly ran into determined resistance from an Italian foe that had had months to prepare, had been reinforced by the French and British, and under the command of a new general, Diaz, who was determined not to make the same mistakes Cadorna had made. The Austrians gained a few bridgeheads at great cost, but had immense difficulties in supplying them under attack from Allied airplanes and artillery. After little over a week, the Austrians called off the offensive and retreated behind the Piave, having lost over 100,000 men for no gain.

The front around Salonika remained relatively quiet in 1918, as both sides turned their attention to the Western Front. The Greeks gained their first notable victory of the war in late May, capturing the Skra di Legen. French general Franchet d’Esperey assumed overall command here in early June, having been forced to take the fall for the French defeat on the Aisne.

The Middle East

The British attempted two forays across the Jordan towards Amman, while their Hashemite allies attempted attacks further south; all were defeated. The crisis on the Western Front and the start of summer forced the Allies to call off major operations in Palestine.

In the Caucasus, in February the Turks began to reoccupy the territory they had lost to the Russians, followed by the lands they were awarded in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The newly-independent Transcaucasian Federation, however, did not recognize the treaty, and after a miscommunication regarding the terms of a Turkish ultimatum, went to war with Turkey in April. The Turkish advance into Armenia was stopped at Sardarabad in late May, but Georgia remained under threat. Transcaucasia was also wracked by internal divisions; ethnic violence between Azeris and Armenians broke out in Baku in late March (with some help from the Bolsheviks). In late May, Georgia declared independence and accepted protection from the Germans; this led to an embarrassing episode where the Turks attacked a German unit in Georgia. The Turks were thus forced to halt their advance, but they still had their aim set to the east, occupying Tabriz and aiming for Baku.

It was precisely this outcome that the British hoped to prevent; an attack north from Baghdad to Kirkuk briefly occupied the city, but failed to divert the Turks from the Caucasus. They also created the so-called “Dunsterforce” to help organize resistance to the Turkish advance, but by the end of June it had yet to make an appearance beyond northern Persia.

Africa

Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces continued to pillage though Portuguese Mozambique, splitting up to cover more ground. On one occasion in late May one of his columns was nearly trapped by the British, but they managed to escape despite losing their whole baggage train. At the end of June, his forces were approaching the major port city of Quelimane.

The War at Sea

The High Seas Fleet sortied one final time in April an attempt to attack a Norway-bound convoy (that was not actually sailing that day). The British missed the signs that the Germans had sortied, and left their ports too late to catch them, although a British submarine was able to inflict serious damage on a German battlecruiser.

German unrestricted submarine warfare continued, although convoys had diminished its effectiveness. They had managed to sink two American troop transports: one, the Tuscania, bound for France, and the other, the President Lincoln, on its return voyage. This author’s great-great-uncle was killed in the latter sinking. The British attempted to stop the submarines at their source by attacking the German-occupied ports at Zeebrugge and Ostend in April; although highly celebrated, the attacks ultimately failed to block the passage of U-boats for more than a few days.

The main Allied success in the first half of 1918 came in the Adriatic, where Italian fast torpedo boats managed to sink an Austrian dreadnought, the Szent István, in early June. Another creative Italian endeavor, an attempt to crawl into the Austrian harbor at Pola with a “naval tank,” failed.

Aerial operations: France

Another air-raid on Paris.

Aerial operations: New life

The Airco DH6 was originally designed as a military trainer in 1916. The design was crude, being purposely easy to manufacture and repair and having little in the way of refinement or streamlining. In terms of flying it was designed to be safe but deliberately unstable so that the pilot had to keep alert. By the end of 1917 it started to be phased out as a trainer and replaced by the Avro 504K, though many examples continued to serve as trainers and in other roles until the end of the war.

One of these new roles deserves mention. At the end of June 1918, the Air Ministry agreed to transfer 192 DH6s in 32 flights to the Admiralty for anti u-boat patrols in Home Waters (these were organised for administrative purposes into new Squadrons – including 244, 250, 251, 254, 255, 256, 258 and 260). The DH6 was not ideal for this purpose as they could not carry an observer as well as bombs. On the other hand they were easy to fly by pilots of all abilities, so those not good enough for the front could be used for this purpose.

At the same time it was these aircraft or nothing and the Admiralty was confident that the deterrent value of aircraft was sufficient. Experience had shown that most u-boat commanders tended to stay submerged when aircraft were above and that they also avoided areas that were heavily patrolled. The crude sighting equipment was unlikely to allow u-boat commanders to identify specific aircraft types while submerged.

The inherent instability of the trainer however proved tiring for pilots carrying out long patrols over the sea. A number of modifications including 10 inches of back-stagger to the top wing and narrower elevators and rudder were made to make the aircraft more stable.

The set up was pretty crude with rudimentary accommodation for most of the pilots. They were also chronically understaffed in both pilots and ground staff. Bombing was also hampered by a lack of armourers and storage facilities causing many bombs to fail to explode.

Nevertheless the units soldiered on providing a significant part of the anti-submarine patrol cover for the rest of the war. In the end the Admiralty view was proved to be correct. Shipping losses in areas patrolled by aircraft tended to be lower and when poor weather limited flying, shipping losses rose.

Naval operations: ship losses

DICTATOR (United Kingdom) The schooner was scuttled in the Atlantic Ocean by SM U-151 ( Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew survived and were taken as prisoners of war.

ELBJORG (Norway) The sailing vessel was sunk in the North Sea off the Tongue Lightship ( United Kingdom) (57°50′N 8°42′E) by SM UC-59 ( Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew survived.

POCHARD (United Kingdom) The trawler struck a mine laid by UC 58 (Kurt Schwarz) and sank in the North Sea 40 nautical miles (74 km) north east of the Spurn Lightship ( United Kingdom). Her crew survived.

QUEEN (United Kingdom) The cargo ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean 130 nautical miles (240 km) north of Cape Villano, Spain (44°25′N 10°25′W) by SM U-53 ( Kaiserliche Marine) with the loss of twenty crew.

SUNNIVA (United Kingdom) The cargo ship was torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) east of Sunderland, County Durham by SM UC-17 ( Kaiserliche Marine) with the loss of two of her crew.