13 September marked the abandonment of the Schlieffen plan. In the
aftermath of the battle which brought about an horrendous loss of life
8 and
an enormous expenditure in munitions, both sides ‘dug in’; the Germans to
halt their retreat and re-group, and the Allies to prevent another lightening
attack on France. As a consequence, four years of pitiless ‘trench warfare’
ensued, a ‘gunner’s gourmet’, for the sniper, the rifleman, the machine
gunner, mortar man and the bone-breaking, bunker-busting artillery. These
trenches were to eventually stretch 450 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss
border, and each day the two sides bombarded one another mercilessly. And
at the beginning of the conflict, through the winter of 1914 when if it wasn’t
raining it was snowing, near the small Belgian town of Messines which lay at
the top of a 7-mile ridge running up from Flanders, all this was watched by a
25-year-old German messenger-runner named Adolf Hitler.
The German defeat ended any hopes of a quick victory in the West. As a
result, she was forced into a long and costly war on two fronts, especially so as
Russia mobilized much more quickly than anticipated and threatened east
Prussia. Neither the military nor industry was sufficiently prepared for such a
circumstance. Wars at the time were mobile, relatively short-lived affairs,
usually lasting a matter of weeks or a few months, in which the consumption
of the vital resources of men, munitions and equipment was ‘manageable’.
There had never been a ‘world war’ before. Germany therefore, despite her
military traditions and after only four or five weeks of conflict, found herself
in unknown territory and her military’s demands rose to an unforeseen
degree. By the beginning of November 1914, the ammunition required by
the German armed forces consumed an unprecedented 20,000 metric tonnes
of sodium nitrate per month, a level at which—without access to her usual
South American sources—her chemical industries were utterly incapable of
sustaining.
13.3 Away from the Front
To many at the time it seemed that Germany—and the Allies—had ‘sleepwalked’ into the first world war, although the British public soon came to
believe that the war was necessary. The German General Staff had made no
provision at all for a protracted engagement, tacitly assuming that their needs
would be served by industry in war as in peace. The general feeling on both
sides of the conflict was that … ‘It’ll all be all over by Christmas! …’
9 In the
event of course it wasn’t, and whereas the allies were initially largely immune
from issues of resource procurement, the (completely illegal) blockade of
244
D. Sheppard
aftermath of the battle which brought about an horrendous loss of life
8 and
an enormous expenditure in munitions, both sides ‘dug in’; the Germans to
halt their retreat and re-group, and the Allies to prevent another lightening
attack on France. As a consequence, four years of pitiless ‘trench warfare’
ensued, a ‘gunner’s gourmet’, for the sniper, the rifleman, the machine
gunner, mortar man and the bone-breaking, bunker-busting artillery. These
trenches were to eventually stretch 450 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss
border, and each day the two sides bombarded one another mercilessly. And
at the beginning of the conflict, through the winter of 1914 when if it wasn’t
raining it was snowing, near the small Belgian town of Messines which lay at
the top of a 7-mile ridge running up from Flanders, all this was watched by a
25-year-old German messenger-runner named Adolf Hitler.
The German defeat ended any hopes of a quick victory in the West. As a
result, she was forced into a long and costly war on two fronts, especially so as
Russia mobilized much more quickly than anticipated and threatened east
Prussia. Neither the military nor industry was sufficiently prepared for such a
circumstance. Wars at the time were mobile, relatively short-lived affairs,
usually lasting a matter of weeks or a few months, in which the consumption
of the vital resources of men, munitions and equipment was ‘manageable’.
There had never been a ‘world war’ before. Germany therefore, despite her
military traditions and after only four or five weeks of conflict, found herself
in unknown territory and her military’s demands rose to an unforeseen
degree. By the beginning of November 1914, the ammunition required by
the German armed forces consumed an unprecedented 20,000 metric tonnes
of sodium nitrate per month, a level at which—without access to her usual
South American sources—her chemical industries were utterly incapable of
sustaining.
13.3 Away from the Front
To many at the time it seemed that Germany—and the Allies—had ‘sleepwalked’ into the first world war, although the British public soon came to
believe that the war was necessary. The German General Staff had made no
provision at all for a protracted engagement, tacitly assuming that their needs
would be served by industry in war as in peace. The general feeling on both
sides of the conflict was that … ‘It’ll all be all over by Christmas! …’
9 In the
event of course it wasn’t, and whereas the allies were initially largely immune
from issues of resource procurement, the (completely illegal) blockade of
244
D. Sheppard