Germany’s Western Front: 1915: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War

5. The Western Front from the Middle of April to the Beginning of August

5  The Western Front from the Middle of April to the Beginning of August Operations to the Start of the Spring Battle at the Beginning of May The OHL and the Western Army in April During the early months of 1915 the German forces on the Western Front had been involved in heavy defensive engagements,which culminated in the winter battle in the Champagne. Despite the commitment of their strongest forces and the bitter month-long fighting, the French did not manage to break through the front lines of Third Army. The British attempt to overrun Sixth Army at Neuve Chapelle also failed, with heavy casualties, as did a French encircling attack against the St. Mihiel Salient. So with the soldiers encouraged by a sense of superiority and a regained confidence by virtue of the recently won defensive battles over the enemy’s Western forces—despite their smaller numbers—in the middle of April the German Western Front stood firm. According to Falkenhayn, in the OHL the conviction was beginning to take hold “that in the foreseeable future the enemy in the west would not be able to force a decision even if newly formed German forces on the Western Front would have to be committed in the east in order to break the Russian offensive power.”1 This realization encouraged the OHL to decide on 13 April to temporarily forgo the implementation of the offensive plans on the Western Front in favour of temporarily shifting the emphasis of the war effort to the Galician Theatre. 1 Falkenhayn, Die Oberste Heeresleitung 1914–1916, 56. During the end of March and beginning of April the Intelligence Assessment Section of the OHL reported that it anticipated that the Allied forces in the West would increase during the summer months. Regarding the disposition of British forces, it was expected that the first“Kitchener army” would appear at the front “during April at the earliest” and that the second and third of these armies would not appear “before summer.” The commitment of at least four of the Kitchener armies, with six divisions each, was anticipated.With the addition of Canadian and Indian units, thirty-five or thirtysix British divisions were expected to be assembled in France over the course of the summer. In the French army, the 1915 class had been engaged at the front since the middle of March. Those of the 1916 class, approximately 180,000 men, were to be called up at the beginning of April, while those of the 1917 class were to be drafted in April and May. At the same time, previously exempt or unfit members of a number of age groups were to report for further examinations. In a report dated 24 March the Intelligence Assessment Section of the OHL summarized its findings :“With these measures the French military administration ruthlessly presses even the last halfway able man into service with a weapon.” The formation of three new army corps—XXXI to XXXIII—seemed to bear this out.A strengthening of the Belgian Army over the next months was not expected. Major German offensive actions in the West had to be discontinued, but the OHL was not ready to give the enemy the upper hand by entirely limiting itself to defensive operations. Lively activity on the front lines combined with offensive raids “were intended to hide the troop transfers to Galicia.”2 These offensive operations were contemplated in Flanders as well as by Armee Abteilungen Strantz and Gaede. Fourth Army was finally to execute the longplanned gas attack, the commencement of which especially interested the Chief of the General Staff, who wished to determine the effectiveness of this new weapon. Fourth Army’s Gas Attack at Ypres Prior to the Great War, only the French had planned to utilize gas as a weapon. In their army, a 26 mm rifle grenade loaded with an ethyl bromo-acetone charge, which caused a suffocating effect, had been introduced as a weapon for attacking fortified positions.3 At this time, Germany was not preparing to wage a war in which gas would be used as a weapon. 156 part ii: spring and summer 2 Ibid., 72. 3 These grenades, weighing about half a pound and fired from a specially designed rifle, were known as “cartouches suffocantes” and were introduced during the first months of the war. At the beginning of the war, foreign newspapers repeatedly reported—incidentally without...