for four years when the allies have
mounted attacks on the Western Front
they've been huge offensives tried to
batter their way through big chunks of
the German defenses but not anymore now
the Allies have adopted a new strategy
[Music]
i'm indy neidell welcome to the great
war last week saw the black day of the
German army
August 8th when the Battle of Omni n
kicked off and the Allies smashed
through the German lines by the end of
the week though the Germans had managed
to slow the tide the Allies were also
successful at alamode awara on the
Palestine front and Baku defended itself
from Ottomans after British forces
arrived here's what followed the Battle
of omean
ended on the 12th C British planes could
still not destroy the Somme bridges and
the Allied advance turned into a crawl
when they reached the old defences where
the reinforced Germans had more cover by
the 11th the Germans were launching
counter-offensives the British had
brought up their heavy guns sure but it
would take time to locate the new German
positions and the Germans now had more
divisions in the lines than the Allies
did and from 342 battle tanks on the 8th
the Allies could only field
85 on the 10th and just 35 on the 11th
the offensive was over for 4 days of
fighting the Allies took 44 thousand
casualties the Germans might have lost
as many as 70,000 casualties and lost 28
thousand eight hundred and seventy-three
prisoners
thing is they actually lost more
territory and more men in the Second
Battle of the Marne last month but this
coming on the heels of that is a big
morale crusher OHL German High Command
was most concerned about the number of
soldiers not just surrendering but doing
so in large numbers without even really
fighting also and a big also the Allied
air superiority meant they could conceal
preparations for attacks they didn't
need any preliminary artillery barrages
and they seemed to be able to prepare
attacks quicker than the Germans could
apparently German quartermaster general
Erich Ludendorff offered chief of staff
paul von hindenburg his resignation but
still even on the 10th he rejected
strategic planner fritz von los Berg's
advice to pull back to the Hindenburg
Line which would shorten the German
defenses and they'd be a ton stronger
he ordered not a foot of soil to be
abandoned without determined straw
funny isn't it remember when Erich von
Falkenhayn was running the show a couple
years ago and had that same philosophy
at Verdun and then hindenburg and
ludendorff took over and thought that's
not such a great idea well here we are
back there again
Ludendorff told the new Foreign Minister
Paula phone hit set on the 13th that the
only hope was to wear down the Allies
with defensive fighting so it would kind
of make a lot more sense had he moved to
shorter a better defensive line
Ferdinand Fache and overall command of
the Allies was actually afraid the
Germans might retreat all the way to the
Antwerp
no more Strasbourg line that was only
half the length of the current German
lines imagine how much easier that would
be to defend hence had told the crown
Council that time was not on their side
and the Kaiser and the High Command
agreed but they thought they needed the
perfect time to come to some sort of
understanding with the Allies and would
wait until after the next success on the
Western Front but since they didn't have
any offensive plans for the Western
Front they basically decided to not
decide yet they then told
austro-hungarian chief of staff ours von
Strasburg that now was not the time to
begin negotiations but the Allies were
doing something new instead of hammering
on one place again and again they were
doing a bunch of small offensives in
quick succession all over the front just
this week the French captured Lhasa in a
massive and the British crossed the
river anchor the TF wall would there
were of course hitches with how to
proceed with this plan of multiple
attacks Rawlinson had always invest the
battle as limited and on the 11th he
persuaded Haig to halt it portion
contrast wanted Haig to resume as early
as August 15
but Currie induced Rawlinson to prevail
on Haig again to desist on the 14th Haig
told Fache he was ending the offensive
Fache flatly disagreed but partly
because the French first Army was
running out of ammunition
Fache gave way think that through for a
second okay
it's complicated but think it through
for a second when have we seen Sir
Douglas Haig listen to people and quit
while he was ahead like like never
that's a new one actually when Hagen
told Rawlinson that farsh wanted him to
push on Rawlinson showed Hague a message
from Arthur curry that said such a push
would be really costly and then told
Hague the men had done enough he ended
by asking Hague are you commanding the
British Army or is Marshall Fache Hague
then reminded Fache that his powers of
command over the Allied forces were wide
but not infinite
I spoke to Fache quite straightly and
let him understand that I was
responsible to my government and fellow
citizens for the handling of the British
forces Hague had happily discovered
though that the appointment of Ferdinand
Fache to overall command kept British
Prime Minister David Lloyd George off
his own back this was not though keeping
Lloyd George from messing with military
affairs for example on the 12th American
commander John Pershing went to Hague's
headquarters with a complaint Lloyd
George had been trying to use the
British ambassador to get hold of the US
War Department through the State
Department to fix it so the five US
divisions now training with the British
Army would remain with them for field
actions this did not work but it did not
help the already strained relations
between Haig and Lloyd George thing is
while that sort of back dealing could
obviously mess up the relations between
generals it didn't no such thing to
Pershing and Haig who got on great and
always spoke directly and openly to each
other so Haig told Pershing that since
the British trained and equipped those
five divisions they should get some
return on their investment
Pershing agreed and said he just wanted
them when the current fighting was over
as it turned out the 33rd 78th and 80th
divisions were sent to the American 1st
army but the 27th and 30th actually
remained and fought with the British
Army for the rest of the war but the
Allies were moving troops all over there
was news from the Allied expeditionary
force to Vladivostok this week Japanese
general Otani commanding the expedition
arrived at the 16th also the arrival of
American troops begins at the end of the
week diplomatic relations between the US
and the Russian Bolshevik government
were severed this week as well if you're
wondering what was going on
in Soviet Russia itself here's a quote
about that from Martin Gilbert that
month the struggle for power in Moscow
reached a climax when social
revolutionaries who wanted the war with
Germany renewed wounded lenin and
murdered two of his closest colleagues
the Bolshevik response was to carry out
reprisals on a massive scale Stalin sent
to the Volga city of Tsar ittsan
conducted a ferocious red terror
systematic mass terror against the
bourgeoisie and its agents was how
Stalin himself described it in a
telegram to Moscow later in his honor
the city was to bear the name of
Stalingrad but the terror was not
forgotten it must have been seriously
depressing to live in Russia this month
but even further south the people in the
Caucasus were taking a hit in morale by
now the British troops that were going
to arrive in Baku had arrived in Baku
and it was not 30,000 of them it was
part of a single brigade three
battalions a field battery three armored
cars under major-general Lionel
Dunstable the people of Baku thought
that the mighty British army was coming
to defend them from the Ottomans
but the British only sent this force to
help organize the local defenses so the
people of Baku suddenly woke up to their
rather dire situation and with that I'll
end the week with a few advances still
in the West even though the Germans
stopped last week's big one new arrivals
in Vladivostok and hard times in Moscow
and on the Volga also this week the
British recognized Czechoslovakia as an
allied nation and that nation declares
war on Germany and here's an interesting
side note from Martin Gilbert that I had
nowhere else to put Winston Churchill
who represented Britain on the inter
allied munitions Council wrote that
though the Germans had a far larger
supply of mustard gas in 1918 the Allies
were catching up daily also although the
accidentally burned or blistered at the
factories exceeded a hundred percent of
the staff every three months volunteers
were never lacking interesting how it is
with Haig and Ludendorff Ludendorff now
demanding exactly what he was horrified
of when falcon hang was doing
two years ago Hague listening to his
subordinates taking their advice it's
like we've come around in a circle and
the new Allied strategy is working so
far even though it's only been a short
while and it has Ludendorff freaked out
that's for sure and the one thing he
must absolutely do over the next few
weeks to avoid mistakes to avoid defeat
is remain cool if you'd like to learn
more about Sir Douglas Haig the British
commander who is sometimes called the
butcher of the Somme you can click right
here for a bio special about him our
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