(History of Warfare, 54) Ian F.W. Beckett - 1917 - Beyond The Western Front-Brill (2009) PDF

1917: Beyond the Western Front
History of Warfare
Editors
Kelly DeVries
Loyola College in Maryland
Michael S. Neiberg
University of Southern Mississippi
John France
University of Wales Swansea
Founding editors
Theresa Vann
Paul Chevedden
VOLUME 54
1917: Beyond the Western Front
Edited by
Ian F. W. Beckett
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2009
Cover illustration: German General Headquarters, General Paul von Hindenburg,
Kaiser Wilhelm II, General Erich Ludendorff. ID: HD-SN-99-02150.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
1917 : beyond the Western Front / edited by Ian F. W. Beckett.

p. cm. — (History of warfare)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17139-8 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. World War, 1914–1918. I. Beckett,
I. F. W. (Ian Frederick William) II. Title: Beyond the Western Front. III. Series.
D521.A18 2008
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2008033148
ISSN 1385-7827
ISBN 978 90 04 17139 8
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CONTENTS
List of Contributors .................................................................... vii

Introduction ................................................................................ ix
Ian F. W. Beckett
Planning for the Endgame: The Central Powers,

September 1916–April 1917 .................................................. 1
Lawrence Sondhaus
Generalship and Mass Surrender during the Italian Defeat

at Caporetto ............................................................................ 25
Vanda Wilcox
‘Weary Waiting is Hard Indeed’: The Grand Fleet after

Jutland ..................................................................................... 47
Nick Hewitt
Counting Unrest: Physical Manifestations of Unrest and

Their Relationship to Admiralty Perception .......................... 71
Laura Rowe
Climax in the Baltic: The German Maritime Offensive in

the Gulf of Riga in October 1917 ........................................ 97
Eric Grove
Command, Strategy and the Battle for Palestine, 1917 ............ 113
Matthew Hughes
The Army in India in Mesopotamia from 1916 to 1918:

Tactics, Technology and Logistics Reconsidered ................... 131
Kaushik Roy
War Comes to the Fields: Sacrifice, Localism and Ploughing

Up the English Countryside in 1917 ..................................... 159
Keith Grieves
Index ........................................................................................... 177

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Professor Ian Beckett is Professor of History and Director of the Centre

for the Historical Experience of War at the University of Northampton.
His publications include Territorials: A Century of Service, The Great War,
1914–1918, and Ypres: The First Battle, 1914.
Dr Keith Grieves is Reader in History in the School of Education at

Kingston University. His publications include The Politics of Manpower
and Sussex in the First World War.
Professor Eric Grove is Professor of Naval History and Director of the

Centre for International Security and War Studies at the University of
Salford. His publications include Vanguard to Trident, The Future of Sea
Power, and The Price of Disobedience.
Nick Hewitt is the Historian and Interpretation Officer at the Imperial

War Museum’s HMS Belfast in London.
Dr Matthew Hughes is Reader at Brunel University and, in 2008–9, Major

General Matthew C. Horner Professor of Military Theory at the US
Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. His publications include
Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1917–19, Allenby in Palestine,
and (with Matthew Seligmann) Does Peace lead to War?
Laura Rowe is a postgraduate in the Department of War Studies, King’s

College, University of London.
Dr Kaushik Roy is a Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Civil

War (CSCW) at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. His
publications include From Hydaspes to Kargil: A History of Warfare in India,
and India’s Historic Battles.
Professor Lawrence Sondhaus is Director of the Institute for the Study of

War and Diplomacy at the University of Indianapolis. His publications
viii list of contributors
include The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918, Franz Conrad von

Hötzendorf: Architect of Apocalypse, and Naval Warfare, 1815–1914.
Dr Vanda Wilcox is Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at John Cabot

University, Rome.
INTRODUCTION
Ian F. W. Beckett
When it comes to 1916, popular general histories of the Great War

tend to dwell largely upon Verdun and the Somme as the year’s defin-
ing conflicts. The Western Front, therefore, dominates the popular
historiography though Jutland occasionally makes a token appearance.
Popular accounts of 1917 are rather more balanced since it can hardly
escape notice that the United States finally entered the conflict in April
and Russia left it as a consequence of its two ‘revolutions’ in March and
November. Still, however, the Nivelle offensive and its consequences for
the French army, and the Third Battle of Ypres, popularly known as
Passchendaele, have a significant role to play in popular historiography,
the latter especially so in the case of British accounts.
There is no doubt that, in the case of the British army, 1917 marks
a crucial point on the ‘learning curve’ with respect to the improvement
of operational and tactical performance on the Western Front. Those
two seminal manuals, SS135 Instructions for the Training of Divisions for
Offensive Action and SS143 Instructions for the Training of Platoons for Offensive
Action appeared respectively in December 1916 and February 1917.1
Improvement was certainly evident at Vimy and Arras in April 1917
though, of course, this still did not amount to the ability to breakthrough
to the ‘green fields beyond’.
Similarly, the German concept of ‘defence in depth’ evolved over the
winter of 1916–17, with Grundsätze für die Führung in der Abwehrschlacht im
Stellungskrieg (‘Basic Principles for the Conduct of the Defensive Battle
in Position Warfare’) also appearing in December 1916: it was the
German withdrawal to the newly prepared defensive positions of the
1
Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics on the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack,
1916–18 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); idem, ‘The Extent of Tactical
Reform in the British Army’, in Paddy Griffith, ed., British Fighting Methods in the Great
War (London: Routledge, 1996) pp. 1–22; Chris McCarthy, ‘Queen of the Battlefield:
the Development of Command Organisation and Tactics in British Infantry Battalions
during the Great War’, in Gary Sheffield and Dan Todman, eds., Command and Control
on the Western Front (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2004), pp. 173–94; John Lee, ‘Some Les-
sons of the Somme: the British Infantry in 1917’, in Brian Bond, ed., Look to Your Front
(Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1999), pp. 79–88.
x ian f. w. beckett
Siegfriedstellung (Siegfried position) between February and April 1917 that

did much to unhinge Nivelle’s offensive. While the British succeeded
in taking the Messines ridge on 7 June 1917 through a spectacular
use of underground mines, the successive defensive lines constructed
in Flanders were to blunt the subsequent Passchendaele offensive. 2
The Germans used mustard gas for the first time in the West in July
1917 and Cambrai on 20 November 1917 saw the first extensive use
of tanks by the British, for all their technical limitations. Most of the
British gains were wiped out by the German counter-attack starting
on 30 November, featuring the use of Sturmtruppen (Stormtroop) for-
mations. Yet, in terms of purely military developments, the potency
of the new German methods in attack—not least in terms of artillery
tactics—had already been demonstrated at Riga on the Eastern Front
on 1 September and then in Italy at Caporetto on 24 October. Indeed,
Vanda Wilcox’s essay reminds us that it was not just the French and the
Russian armies that came close to collapse under the strain of war in
the course of 1917 though she emphasises that it was military defeat
rather than panic that caused the temporary collapse of morale. In just
four days, the Italians lost what they had taken 30 months to gain, the
tenth and eleventh battles of the Isonzo having been undertaken in
May and August respectively. In any case, by the autumn of 1917 the
Italians had advanced just 18 miles into Austro-Hungarian territory at
the cost of a million casualties.3
Morale was equally of concern in the Royal Navy as both Laura
Rowe and Nick Hewitt illustrate. Jutland had proved something of
an aberration in terms of the usual pattern of events in the North
Sea though, as Hewitt shows, the popular perception of the lack of
interest on the part of the High Seas Fleet in renewing its challenge
to the Grand Fleet is a misrepresentation. On land, there was always
the prospect of action, whether unwelcome or otherwise, but at sea,
and especially in port, inaction was potentially dangerous. As Hewitt
remarks, the Grand Fleet did what it needed to do in order to maintain
maximum pressure on the High Seas Fleet and, in any case, as Rowe
2
Timothy Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Change in German Tactical Doctrine during
the First World War (Leavenworth, KS, US Army Command and General Staff College,
1981), pp. 1–30; Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the
British and German Armies, 1888–1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 161–97.
3
John Gooch, ‘Italy during the First World War’, in Allan Millet and Williamson
Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness: The First World War (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1988)
pp. 165–67.
introduction xi
suggests, problems of morale within the Royal Navy were apolitical and
the reality far from substantiating the actual concerns felt in the Admi-
ralty. It was long periods of enforced idleness in Helsingfors (Helsinki),
Reval (Tallinn) and Kronstadt that did much to radicalise the Russian
Baltic Fleet, sailors from Kronstadt soon joining in the disturbances
at St Petersburg in March 1917.4 Yet, as Eric Grove recounts in a
reinforcement of Hewitt’s point about the High Seas Fleet, the Baltic
was not in itself a theatre of total passivity, again emphasising that the
German navy retained its determination to conduct active operations.
Similarly, even after the revolution, the Russian Fleet was still quite
capable of contesting German operations in the Baltic. There is a
tendency to assume that amphibious operations during the war were
largely confined to the British and French assault on the Dardanelles
and Gallipoli peninsula in 1915. The Russians, for example, had under-
taken amphibious operations in the Black Sea in 1916 and, of course,
there was a plan to mount an amphibious assault on the Belgian coast
in support of the Passchendaele offensive in 1917.5
One of the justifications of the Passchendaele offensive, of course, was
the supposed threat to Channel shipping posed by German submarines
operating out of Zeebrugge and Ostend: in fact, German destroyers
posed a rather greater danger. Nonetheless, submarines were clearly
of increasing significance in the battle to keep open the sea-lanes once
Germany renewed unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917.
As it happened, the first convoys had actually been utilised for the
protection of the coal trade between Britain and France in February
1917 and for Scandinavian trade in April 1917 before the first official
experimental convoy was run from Gibraltar to Plymouth on 10 May
1917. There was a dramatic increase in the loss of Entente shipping,
rising from 464,599 tons in February to 597,001 tons in March and to
834,549 tons in April. After May, however, matters improved with a
total of 99 homeward bound convoys having reached harbour safely
4
Norman E. Saul, Sailors in Revolt: The Russian Baltic Fleet in 1917 (Lawrence, KS:
Regents Press, 1978), pp. 12–20, 27–36, 45–51, 64–80; Ewan Mawdsley, The Russian
Revolution and the Baltic Fleet: War and Politics, 1917–18 (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp.
3–21.
5
Richard DiNardo, ‘Huns with Web-feet: Operation Albion, 1917’, War in History
12 (2005), pp. 396–417; Andrew Wiest, ‘The Planned Amphibious Assault’, in Peter
Liddle, ed., Passchendaele in Perspective (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 1997), pp. 201–14; Alf
Peacock, ‘The Proposed Landing on the Belgian Coast, 1917’, Gunfire 11/12 (1988),
pp. 2–50, 3–56.
xii ian f. w. beckett
by October with only ten vessels lost. British losses in the last quarter
of 1917 of 235 ships representing 702,779 tons were only just over
half the peak figure of 413 ships representing 1.3 million tons lost in
the second quarter of the year.6 The losses at the time were serious
enough, however, and Keith Grieves demonstrates the significance of
the submarine threat for the transformation of the British countryside
as emphasis was put upon increased agricultural production. Rural
areas had sometimes appeared to escape the full impact of the war,
but as Grieves illustrates, the demands of the war economy could not
be avoided. Nonetheless, sugar became the first commodity rationed
in Britain on 31 December 1917. Food supply was critical to civilian
morale and, indeed, there were food demonstrations in France and riots
in Italy in the course of 1917. Some 10,000 came out on the streets of
Paris in May, rising to 100,000 workers on strike in the Paris region by
June. At least 510 died in food riots in Turin in August.7
Of course, it was not just Britain and its allies that faced potential
starvation since the Allied economic blockade of its continental enemies
would gain materially in strength and effectiveness with the entry of the
United States into the war. Already in April cuts in the bread ration
had sparked major strikes in Berlin and Leipzig and there were food
riots again in July.8 While the United States had remained the leading
neutral prior to 1917, it was Britain and the Royal Navy that had posed
a greater threat to American interests in the intent to impose the block-
ade on the Central Powers. American entry, however, enabled renewed
pressure to be put on Norway and Denmark with the United States
placing an embargo on exports in October 1917. New negotiations with
the Netherlands were not actually concluded until after the armistice
though the Entente had by then seized much of the Dutch merchant
fleet. The strain was telling, however, with food riots in Amsterdam in
July 1917 as so much food produced in the Netherlands itself was being
exported to Germany.9 In the wake of American entry into the war,
6
Ian F. W. Beckett, The Great War, 1914–18 2nd edn. (Harlow: Pearson Longman,
2007), pp. 245–46.
7
Thierry Bonzon and Belinda Davis, ‘Feeding the Cities’, in Jay Winter and J.-L.
Robert, eds., Capital Cities at War: London, Paris, Berlin, 1914–19 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), pp. 305–41.
8
Holger Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary (London: Edward
Arnold, 1997), pp. 361–65, 376–79.
9
Hermann de Jong, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Dutch Economy
during World War I’, in Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison, eds., The Economies
introduction xiii
Panama and Cuba also declared war on Germany on 7 April and, in

the course of the summer and autumn of 1917, Bolivia, Costa Rica,
the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Peru and Uruguay all broke off diplomatic relations. Peru did so after
a Peruvian vessel, the Lorton, was sunk by a German submarine and
unrestricted submarine warfare was also instrumental in bringing Brazil
into the war on 26 October 1917. Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica,
Honduras and Haiti were all subsequently to declare war on Germany
in 1918.10
The centrality of the German decision to resurrect the policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare to the events of 1917 is obvious. Hence,
Lawrence Sondhaus’s careful analysis of German decision-making is
particularly valuable. It was a gamble but one most believed worth
taking. Thus, although 1917 was Germany’s best chance to make a
successful negotiated peace, this was unacceptable to those like Hin-
denburg and Ludendorff who still clutched at the possibility of vic-
tory. Initially cautious in their response to the speech on 6 July by the
leader of the Centre Party, Mathias Erzberger, that the war could not
be won, they utterly repudiated such a notion following the Reichstag
Peace Resolution on 19 July even though the actual resolution was
somewhat ambiguous in not excluding the possibility of other means
than annexation of securing German influence in Europe. At least
there were some successes for the Germans in forcing both Romania
and the Bolsheviks to sign armistices in December 1917, the Germans
having facilitated Lenin’s return to Russia.
The fourth year of the war for the original belligerents and the
growing military, political and social and economic costs was to become
particularly evident in the concerted attempts to counter war-weariness
and remobilise public opinion for yet greater sacrifices in Britain, France
and Germany as characterised by the establishment of the National
of World War One (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 137–68; Hubert
P. Van Tuyll Van Serooskerken, The Netherlands and World War I (Leiden: Brill, 2001),
pp. 58–70, 83–100, 131–43, 177–254; Har Schmidt, ‘Dutch and Danish Agricultural
Exports during the First World War’, Scandinavian Economic History Review 44 (1996),
pp. 161–82.
10
A. O. Saldanha da Gama, ‘The European War and the Brazilian Decision to
enter the War’, International Commission for Military History, Acta 10, pp. 186–90; Olivier
Compagnon, ‘1914–18: The Death Throes of Civilisation: The Elites of Latin America
face the Great War’, in Jenny Macleod and Pierre Purseigle, eds., Uncovered Fields:
Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 279–95.
xiv ian f. w. beckett
War Aims Committee, the Union des Grandes Associations contre la Propagande
Ennemie (‘Union of Associations against Enemy Propaganda’) and the
Vaterlandspartei (‘Fatherland Party’) respectively. It was also paralleled in
Italy with the appearance of the Opere Federate di Assistenza e di Propaganda
Nazionale (‘Federated Society for Assistance and National Propaganda’).11
Negotiated peace had become a metaphor for wider opposition to the
war, the call by the International Socialist Bureau for a new peace
conference in April 1917 being taken up by the Petrograd Soviet in
May with a joint appeal in July for a conference at Stockholm to which
the Russian Provisional Government lent its support. In the event,
the French government withheld passports from the French socialist
delegation and British seamen refused to transport the British socialist
delegation with the result that the initiative effectively foundered.12
While liberal democracies like Britain, France and the United States
enjoyed greater legitimacy in the eyes of their population than more
coercive political systems such as that of Imperial Germany, much still
depended upon the ability and authority of political leaderships. 1917,
therefore, was a time for a display of political nerve. Lloyd George,
who had become British prime minister in December 1916, lost the
Labour leader, Arthur Henderson, as a member of the War Cabinet
as a result of the aborted Stockholm process and, in January 1918,
he would be compelled to define British war aims in response to Lord
Lansdowne’s public demand for peace on 29 November 1917. Lloyd
George had also faced the escalation of war in the air over Britain
with the first strategic bombing raid by conventional Gotha aircraft on
Folkestone on 25 May with the campaign soon extending to London.
The raid on the capital on 13 June by 14 Gothas, causing 162 deaths
and near-panic in the East End—sixteen of the deaths were at the
North Street School in Poplar—was followed by the appearance of 21
Gothas over London in daylight on 7 July. There were riotous assaults
on allegedly German-owned property in the East End and the affair
not only played decisive role in the establishment of the Smuts Com-
mittee—and, therefore, the ultimate creation of the Royal Air Force in
11
John Horne, ‘Introduction’, and ‘Remobilising for Total War: Britain and France,
1917–18’, in John Horne, ed., State, Society and Mobilisation (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), pp. 1–18, 195–211.
12
H. Meynell, ‘The Stockholm Conference of 1917’, International Review of Social
History 5 (1960), pp. 1–25, 203–25.
introduction xv
April 1918—but also persuaded King George V to change his dynastic

name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
It was only on 16 November that Clemenceau succeeded Painlevé
as French prime minister, Briand having previously resigned in March,
and Ribot in September. Clemenceau was to pursue perceived internal
enemies vigorously—French national morale had dipped lowest in May
and June 1917—though his attempted remobilisation of the national
will in his total war speech in November 1917 tended to increase divi-
sions.13 Similarly, it was only in October that Orlando became Italian
prime minister. In Greece, however, an old contender had returned to
the fore, Venizelos returning to Athens with allied support in June fol-
lowing the forced abdication of King Constantine, with Greece formally
declaring war on Germany on 30 June.14
Tisza had been dismissed as Hungarian prime minister in May, his
opposition to an extension of the franchise having exasperated the new
young Emperor Karl, Franz Joseph having died in November 1916.
Karl, of course, had also embarked upon an attempt to find a negoti-
ated peace, acting through the agency of his brother-in-law, Prince Sixte
or Sixtus) of Bourbon-Parma, a French national serving in the Belgian
army, the effort continuing until June 1917.15 German relations with
Austria-Hungary, of course, had become fraught over the prolonged
wrangle as to the future of Poland and, while Lloyd George was to
indicate in his speech on war aims in January 1918 that Italy’s irredentist
claims would not be supported, there was also danger in his recognition
of the need for self-determination within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Indeed, Britain had already recognised the Polish National Commit-
tee in October 1917 and the French had raised a Polish army in July.
13
P. J. Flood, France, 1914–18: Public Opinion and the War Effort (London: Macmillan,
1990), pp. 107–17, 147–65; Jean-Jacques Becker, The Great War and the French People
(Leamington Spa: Berg, 1985), pp. 77–93, 195–204, 217–35, 239–45, 298–301; Leonard
Smith, S. Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, France and the Great War (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 115–16, 131–45.
14
See George B. Leontaritis, Greece and the First World War: From Neutrality to Intervention,
1917–18 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); David Dutton, ‘The Deposition
of King Constantine of Greece, June 1917: An Episode in Anglo-French Diplomacy’,
Canadian Journal of History 12 (1978), pp. 325–45.
15
Gabor Vermes, ‘Leap into the Dark: The Issue of Suffrage in Hungary during
World War I’, in Robert A. Kann, Béla Kiràly and Paula Fichtner, eds., The Habsburg
Empire in World War I (Ithaca, NY: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 29–44; E. P.
Keleher, ‘Emperor Karl and the Sixtus Affair’, Eastern Europe Quarterly 26 (1992), pp.
163–84.
xvi ian f. w. beckett
The recall of the Austrian Reichsrat in May had seen it functioning

largely as a forum for Czech discontent and there were soon ‘Yugoslav’
demands for autonomy. Thus, while Germany might be ‘shackled to a
corpse’, as Sondhaus shows, Austria-Hungary in turn was irretrievably
caught in Germany’s embrace for good or ill.
Bethmann-Hollweg had also been ousted as German Chancellor in
July, to be followed by his successor, Michaelis, in October. Bethmann
had finally fallen as Hindenburg and Ludendorff tightened their grip
on supreme power in the wake of the Reichstag Peace Resolution
while Michaelis had gone following its vote for reform of the Prussian
franchise. He had also failed in an attempt to censure the new Unab-
hängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Independent Social
Democratic Party) or USPD, formed in April 1917, for its alleged role in
fostering a short-lived naval mutiny at Wilhelmshaven in August: Rosa
Luxemburg was arrested in July 1917. Bethmann had been forced to
promise post-war reform of the Prussian franchise in February 1917
and the Kaiser was persuaded to make the same commitment in April,
signing a suffrage bill in July though it had not reached its final stage
by the time the war ended.16
The situation within Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria was
deteriorating but it would still require a substantial breakdown in the
functioning of the state and in the capacity of political leadership to
convert the militancy experienced in most belligerents into actual social
and political collapse as in Russia, where following the Bolshevik coup,
Latvia, Finland and the Ukraine all declared independence before the
end of the year.
The last of the Central Powers—the Ottoman Empire—also faced
increasing difficulties in 1917. As Matthew Hughes relates, the trans-
formation of British military leadership in Palestine with the arrival of
Allenby saw the capture of Jerusalem on 9 December. He also suggests
that the actual management of British strategy in terms of the rela-
tionship between Lloyd George and his generals was rather better than
sometime believed. As Kaushik Roy shows, matters had also greatly
improved in terms of the Indian army’s conduct of the campaign in
Mesopotamia with Maude’s renewed offensive towards Baghdad, which
16
Martin Kitchen, ‘Hindenburg, Ludendorff and the Crisis of German Society,
1916–18’, in Tim Travers and C. Archer, eds., Men at War: Politics, Technology and Innova-
tion in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Precedent, 1982), pp. 21–48.
introduction xvii
resulted in its capture on 11 March 1917. Lessons were learned for the
Indian army’s future operations in the immediate post-war period. The
collapse of Ottoman power raised particularly momentous issues. In July
Arab forces, partly inspired by T. E. Lawrence, had captured Aqaba
before operating in support of Allenby’s offensive. The Arab ‘revolt’,
which had begun in June 1916, had been predicated on allied promises
regarding a future Arab kingdom. These promises had been negated by
the Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France for the division
of the spoils the Middle East even before the revolt began. Then on
2 November 1917 matters were further muddied by the British support
for Zionist aspirations through the Balfour Declaration.17
Elsewhere, 1917 was also the year of decision for China and Siam
(Thailand), China breaking off diplomatic links with Germany on 14
March and declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary on 14
August, and Siam declaring war on Germany and Austria-Hungary
on 22 July 1917. The Chinese had actually offered troops to help take
the German port of Tsingtao in August 1914 and again offered to
supply Britain with rifles and ammunition in November 1915. Chi-
nese assistance would have been accepted but for the intransigence of
the Japanese, who of course had joined the Entente in August 1914
and had been steadily increasing influence within China ever since.
Nonetheless, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had entered contracts to
supply labourers to the British and French armies in 1916, the first
contingent of 96,000 destined for the British rear areas leaving China
in January 1917 and routing through Canada. Their weakness in the
face of Japanese demands had made the Chinese all too aware of the
need to obtain representation at any post-war peace conference and
response to an American note to neutrals in February 1917 inviting
them to sever diplomatic ties with Germany was seen as a means of
securing China’s future interests. American entry into the war posed
the problem of formally aligning the United States with Japan and
the success of the prime minister, General Tuan Chi-jui (Duan Qirui)
in besting the more cautious president, Li Yuan-hung brought the
Chinese into the war. Japanese sensitivities were then assuaged by the
Lansing-Ishii agreement on 2 November 1917 by which Washington
recognised Japan’s ‘special interests in China. Thai awareness of the
17
A useful summary of the tangled politics of the Middle East during the war is
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1989).
xviii ian f. w. beckett
danger of neutrality in the event of an Entente victory equally brought

their entry to the war.18
Bethmann likened the decision to resume unrestricted submarine
warfare to a ‘second decision for war’.19 It certainly resulted in an even
wider global conflict than that unleashed by German decisions in 1914.
Arguably, therefore, 1917 was a decisive year in terms of the eventual
outcome of the war and, while Germany would ultimately be defeated
on the Western Front, it was not anything that occurred in the fields
of France and Flanders during 1917 that ensured that result.
18
F. R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 84–116; Guoqi Xu, China and the Great War
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 81–199, 222–35; D. K. Wyatt,
Thailand: A Short History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 230–32.
19
Beckett, Great War, p. 192.
PLANNING FOR THE ENDGAME:
THE CENTRAL POWERS, SEPTEMBER 1916–APRIL 1917
Lawrence Sondhaus
Between September 1916, when Paul von Hindenburg and Erich

Ludendorff were granted sweeping authority over the war effort of the
Central Powers, and April 1917, when the Germans ( just days after the
United States entered the war) sent Vladimir Lenin home to Russia,
Germany and Austria-Hungary crafted their ultimate plan for victory
in the Great War. Their decisions during these months did much to
shape the course of the remainder of the conflict and, in particular,
the course of the war during 1917, in the fighting beyond the West-
ern Front. To varying degrees the outcomes of the major actions of
1916 (the Somme, Verdun, Jutland, Austria-Hungary’s Tyrol offensive,
and the Russian ‘Brusilov offensive’) influenced their planning for the
endgame, but in the end their own deteriorating relationship with each
other would matter more than anything else. While on the surface the
measures agreed upon by Germany and Austria-Hungary during these
months strengthened their common war effort and solidified their alli-
ance, the consolidation of decision-making authority in German hands
marked the end of the Habsburg empire’s centuries-old status as an
independent great power, accelerating its collapse by causing those who
still believed in the Dual Monarchy to lose hope in its future.
At the start of the war Germany and Austria-Hungary had the
longest-standing formal partnership of any of the great powers, having
been allies, officially, since 1879, but unlike France and Russia their pre-
war relationship did not include a military convention. Their respective
chiefs of the general staff, Helmuth von Moltke and Franz Conrad von
Hötzendorf, got along very well, but Conrad, for example, remained
ignorant of basic elements of the German war plan against France,
such as the violation of Belgian neutrality.1 Following the assassination
of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary pursued a plan for a
1
Holger H. Herwig, ‘Disjointed Allies: Coalition Warfare in Berlin and Vienna,
1914’, Journal of Military History 54 (1990), pp. 274–76; Lawrence Sondhaus, Franz
Conrad von Hötzendorf: Architect of the Apocalypse (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2000),
p. 101.
2 lawrence sondhaus
The Russian Front
0 50 100 miles
0 80 160 km
D
RA
Memel
OG
B A L T I C Vidzy
TR
Tauroggen Vilkomur
PE
Sventziany
R. Niemen
Postavy
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E A S T Olita Molodetchno
DANZIG Angerburg
N P R U S S I A Suvalki
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Augustovo
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R.
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Pultusk Bielsk
POSEN R. V Plock N.Georgievsk Oginski
issu Yasi
la R. B old Canal
ug a Luninetz
Sochaczew Blonie WARSAW Kobrun
R. Warta Pinsk
ra
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R. Bzu
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Kaliseh Bolimow
Piotek Pripet
Skierniewice R.
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P O L A N D
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R. Turija
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Radom
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Lublin Sarny
Josefow Kovel Czartorysk
M
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Kielce Ostrowiec Rojitche
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Krasnik Krasnostav Zatursky

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G
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CRACOW Wielitza la Mosciska
R. Bia
JasloPrzemysl Zalozce
IA Ciezkowice Krasne
R Krosno Zborov Tarnopol
T Gorlice Rymanov Sambor Grodek Brzezany
G.
S
Dukla Sanok Koniuchy

Lipa
I A
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Z. Lipa
A
DUKLA Stryj yj Potutory Trembovla

PASS Lupkow R.
tr
R.S
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Buczacz Husiatyn
ROSTOKI Kalusz Nyiniow
R. Sereth
PASS Bu
USZOK Stanislau Tlumatz Dn g
PASS Horodenka ies
H Delatyn ter
Okna
U
Kolomea BESSARABIA
N Ungvar Sniatyn Toporoutz
G JABLONITZA Kuty
A PASS Czernovitz
R
Bratislava Y
Marmaros Kirlibaba Pr
Vienna Da ut
Sziger Kimpolung
nube
Budapest
Brasov
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Sav
a
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Bucharest Constanza
be
Belgrade nu
Da
Dr
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Mo
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Sarajevo Varna
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Stara Zagora
Vranja
Sofia
Plovdiv
Skopje
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Dr
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Durazzo
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Gallipoli
Map 1.
planning for the endgame 3
short and decisive war to crush Serbia, securing the so-called ‘blank
cheque’ from Germany as insurance in the event that Russia intervened
on Serbia’s behalf, but at the end of July 1914 found itself trapped
in a commitment to support Germany in a continental war in which
its primary duty (at least initially) was to protect the German eastern
flank against Russia for six weeks while the Germans concentrated their
forces in the west for a knockout blow against France. While Conrad
dutifully absorbed punishing losses in Galicia for forty-three days before
ordering his armies to fall back on Cracow, Moltke fell short of tak-
ing Paris. Conrad later remarked that the Germans had lost the war
for the Central Powers in September 1914, by losing the First Battle
of the Marne.2 At the time he did not think the war was lost but also
did not think it still could be won. The Germans waited several days
before informing Conrad of the magnitude of their defeat, or that
Moltke, having succumbed to a nervous breakdown, had been replaced
by Erich von Falkenhayn.3
In contrast to his positive relationship with Moltke, Conrad did not
get along at all with Falkenhayn, who could barely conceal his con-
tempt for Austria-Hungary. Early in the war, long before it deserved
such a description, Falkenhayn dismissed the Dual Monarchy as a
‘cadaver’.4 For his part, Conrad in his wartime interactions with the
Germans often felt exasperated with what he called the ‘high-handed-
ness and impertinence, which has made the north Germans so hated
throughout the world’,5 characteristics personified in Falkenhayn. While
many (if not most) historians of the First World War have depicted the
Dual Monarchy as an unworthy ally of the Second Reich, a drain on
its resources, more trouble than it was worth, and so forth, few have
studied the partnership of the Central Powers from the perspective
of Vienna and Budapest, and thus have failed to understand fully
the tensions that plagued the alliance throughout the war. Indeed, for
2
Conrad, ‘Denkschrift über das Verhmältniss der ö.u. Monarchie zu Deutschland’,
n.d., Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Kriegsarchiv (KA), B/1450: 143.
3
Holger H. Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918
(London: Arnold, 1997), pp. 106–07.
4
On the Conrad-Falkenhayn relationship, see Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn: Politisches
Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994), pp. 196–97,
249–52; Gerald Silberstein, The Troubled Alliance: German-Austrian Relations 1914 to 1917
(Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1970), pp. 117–18, 154, 261–67; and
Sondhaus, Conrad, pp. 167–69, 174–77, 182–83, 188–92.
5
Conrad to Gina Conrad von Hötzendorf, Teschen, 16 November 1916, KA,
B/1450: 357.
4 lawrence sondhaus
good reason a generation ago historian Gary Shanafelt characterized

Germany as Austria-Hungary’s ‘secret enemy’, emphasizing the irony
that the country upon which the Dual Monarchy most depended for its
survival was, by its own wartime actions, the country ultimately most
responsible for the Habsburg empire’s demise.6
After taking over as chief of the General Staff in September 1914,
Falkenhayn rarely departed from his conviction that Germany could
only win the war by winning in the west, and only reluctantly (and
temporarily) redeployed significant forces to other fronts. On its own,
the Austro-Hungarian army could do little other than stand on the
defensive, but with German help its troops fought successfully, albeit with
the frustration of having the resulting victories recorded as ‘German’
victories. For example, German troops under General August von Mack-
ensen spearheaded the breakthrough at Tarnów-Gorlice in the spring
of 1915, which led to the liberation of Austrian Galicia and occupation
of Russian Poland, then were hailed as the conquerors of Serbia in the
fall of 1915, even though in the first campaign two-thirds of the troops
under Mackensen’s overall command were Austro-Hungarian, and in
the second, three-quarters were either Bulgarian or Austro-Hungarian.
To make matters worse, long before the arrangements of September
1916 formally placed the Austro-Hungarian army under the German
High Command, Falkenhayn repeatedly violated command-and-control
arrangements he had made with Conrad, for example, issuing orders to
Mackensen in the campaigns of 1915 as if he were any other German
general commanding only German troops.7
This inter-allied animosity helped shape the outcome of the major
land campaigns of the spring and summer of 1916, in which each
of the Central Powers went its own way. Having seen what could be
accomplished with German help, especially in the crushing of Serbia,
Conrad in December 1915 appealed to Falkenhayn for assistance in
delivering a knockout blow against Italy, which had entered the war on
the side of the Entente the previous May. Falkenhayn rejected the idea
and instead planned to muster German strength for a war of attrition
on the Western Front, attacking the French at Verdun. As Isabel Hull
has explained, Falkenhayn’s ‘cold, self-wasting calculation’ was grounded
6
Gary W. Shanafelt, The Secret Enemy: Austria-Hungary and the German Alliance, 1914–
1918 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1985).
7
Sondhaus, Conrad, pp. 174, 181–82.
in his personal lack of faith in the decisive victory, a faith rooted in the
Prussian-German military culture since the days of Helmuth von Moltke
the Elder and the wars of German unification. It was a faith to which
Conrad also subscribed; he responded to Falkenhayn’s rejection of his
ideas by taking back from Mackensen an Austro-Hungarian army that
had helped conquer Serbia, and using it in January 1916 to conquer
Montenegro and northern Albania. This success, and a quiet Eastern
Front, convinced Conrad that he could redeploy enough troops of his
own from the east to launch an offensive against Italy without German
aid. The plan enjoyed the political support of the Habsburg foreign
minister, Count István Burián, and the Austro-Hungarian council of
ministers, who were looking ahead to the eventuality of a compromise
peace with the Entente, if not yet to a separate peace for the Dual
Monarchy. In any event, they were unanimous in the view that a peace
safeguarding the ‘prestige’ and ‘interests’ of Austria-Hungary would be
possible only after a decisive victory against Italy.8
Conrad’s plan called for an attack out of the Tyrol salient in the
Alps, hooking to the south and east, toward Venice and the Adriatic.
If successful, the Austro-Hungarian offensive would cut off the rest of
the Italian peninsula from the main body of the Italian army, deployed
in the extreme northeast of the country along the Isonzo River, where
in the past year Austro-Hungarian defenders had already rebuffed four
Italian attempts to break through to Trieste. By the standards of the
Western and Eastern fronts it was not a large operation, employing 14
divisions pulled from the Austro-Hungarian lines in Poland and on the
Isonzo, but no one had ever attempted to cross the Alps with an army
of that size. When belatedly informed of Conrad’s intention to attack
without German help, Falkenhayn suggested that the troops would better
serve the cause of the Central Powers at Verdun. Such a proposal only
made Conrad all the more determined to proceed against the Italians.
Even if the campaign turned out to be an indecisive bloodletting, at least
the losses would come in pursuit of Austro-Hungarian, not German,
objectives. The concentration of forces began in February and a mild
winter left Conrad hoping that the offensive could begin in early April,
8
Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial
Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 215–17, 220–22; Manfried
Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers: Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Vienna:
Verlag Styria, 1993), pp. 319–20; Gerhard Artl, Die österreichisch-ungarischen Südtiroloffensive
1916 (Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1983), pp. 49–51.
6 lawrence sondhaus
but heavy spring snows spoiled his plans and postponed the attack until
mid-May, by which time the element of surprise had been lost. Plagued
by infighting among Conrad’s subordinates and compromised by the
need to ensure local victories for XX Corps, commanded by the heir
to the throne, Archduke Karl, the offensive yielded very modest results.
Beforehand the Alpine front had been entirely on the Austro-Hungarian
side of the pre-war border; afterward, three Habsburg corps remained
on Italian soil. Nevertheless, at its deepest point of penetration the
offensive had pushed the Italians back only 25 km, and by the time it
was called off in late June, the greatest secured gain anywhere along
the front was only 20 km. Austro-Hungarian losses (killed, wounded,
sick, missing, and prisoners lost) amounted to 43,000 men, compared
to 76,000 for the Italians.9
The consequences of the Tyrol offensive for the situation on the
Eastern Front proved to be far more significant than the disappointing
outcome of the offensive itself. On 4 June 1916 Russia launched a mas-
sive attack against Austria-Hungary, known to history as the ‘Brusilov
offensive’ after its commander, General Alexei Brusilov. Falkenhayn’s
strategy at Verdun and Conrad’s Tyrol offensive helped motivate the
Russians to strike; they had received pleas from both the French and
the Italians to relieve pressure on their fronts by launching an offensive
in the east.10 Brusilov’s steamroller, consisting of 658,000 men in four
armies, crushed a part of the front under the overall command of
German General Alexander von Linsingen, manned by four Austro-
Hungarian armies and one mixed army consisting of German and
Austro-Hungarian troops. Linsingen’s five armies were numerically
weaker than Brusilov’s four, having been reduced to 620,000 men after
Conrad redeployed several divisions to the Tyrol for the offensive against
Italy.11 The results were disastrous and, for individual units at the very
front, catastrophic. In the first three days of their offensive, Brusilov’s
forces took 200,000 prisoners. In a single day, 5 June, 77 per cent of the
men in the 1st (Vienna) Reserve Regiment (Schützenregiment) were killed.
By 16 June the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army had suffered losses of
9
Artl, Südtiroloffensive, 62–154 passim; Kurt Peball, ‘Führungsfragen der öster-
reichisch-ungarischen Südtiroloffensive im Jahre 1916’, Mitteilungen des österreichischen
Staatsarchivs 31 (1978): 422, 430; Sondhaus, Conrad, pp. 183–87.
10
Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue
University Press, 1976), pp. 195–96; Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), p. 246.
11
Herwig, First World War, p. 208.
57 per cent, most of them killed or wounded, while the Fourth Army
lost 54 per cent, most of them taken prisoner or deserted.12
The disaster prompted a hastily arranged trip by Conrad to Berlin,
where Falkenhayn agreed to send ten German divisions to reinforce the
Eastern Front on the condition that Conrad cancel his offensive against
Italy and transfer four Austro-Hungarian divisions back to the east.
The redeployments slowed, but did not stop, the methodical Russian
advance, which took its toll on the new arrivals before finally grinding
to a halt in late September. By then, Brusilov had pushed the entire
front south of the Pripet Marshes at least 30 km and in some places
80 km westward, to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. In the
end, Austro-Hungarian losses outstripped the total initial strength of the
five armies targeted by the offensive: 370,000 troops killed or wounded
and 380,000 taken prisoner. Added to those captured in earlier action,
these prisoners swelled the total number of Habsburg soldiers in Russian
captivity to a staggering two million. The Central Powers could take
consolation only in the high cost of the victory for the Russians, who
lost a million men in the ‘Brusilov offensive’ and completely exhausted
their supplies.13 Even though Falkenhayn’s strategy of attrition at Verdun
was arguably more ill-conceived than Conrad’s Tyrol offensive and just
as responsible for leaving the Eastern Front dangerously weak, within
Austria-Hungary civilian leaders blamed Conrad for the debacle. By the
end of June 1916 they had lost confidence in their own High Command
to such an extent that they trusted the German generals more than they
trusted Conrad. Foreign Minister Burián, who had supported Conrad
earlier in the year, now called for all future Austro-Hungarian offensives
to be undertaken only after consultation with the Germans.14
But the Germans themselves were in disarray in the summer
of 1916, as none of their own moves seemed to be working. After
receiving command of the High Seas Fleet early in the year, Admiral
12
Rauchensteiner, Der Tod Des Doppeladlers, p. 351; Silberstein, Troubled Alliance, p. 314;
Alon Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War: Captivity on the Eastern Front (Oxford: Berg,
2002), p. 33.
13
Figures from Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 196–97; Herwig, First World
War, pp. 209–11; and Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War, p. 106. On the lack of
relevance of the Brusilov offensive to the outcome of the Tyrol offensive see Rothenberg,
Army of Francis Joseph, p. 195; Artl, Südtiroloffensive, pp. 180–83; Peball, ‘Führungsfragen’,
pp. 426n–427n.
14
Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 356, 363; Rothenberg, Army of Francis
Joseph, p. 198.
8 lawrence sondhaus
Reinhard Scheer had taken the entire fleet out on inconclusive sorties
in February, March, and April, before his sortie of 31 May resulted in
the Battle of Jutland, where the Germans sank more ships than they
lost but, the following day, returned to port, leaving the Grand Fleet
as master of the North Sea and the British blockade of Germany
intact. For the German navy, the celebration of the ‘victory’ at Jut-
land soon gave way to gloom, upon the realization that the battle had
done nothing to alter the strategic situation. In a report to Wilhelm II
written on 4 July, Scheer conceded that further action by the surface
fleet was unlikely to break the blockade or have a decisive effect on
the course of the war. Instead, he advocated a renewal of unrestricted
submarine warfare against allied shipping, a policy that Germany had
pursued for seven months during 1915, but abandoned under pressure
from the United States.15 At this stage the emperor and Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg were not prepared to resume the
unrestricted U-boat campaign, even after Falkenhayn supported Scheer,
characterizing unrestricted submarine warfare as the naval corollary
to the war of attrition on land and ‘an integral part of his Verdun
strategy’. Throughout the spring and into the summer, Falkenhayn
had continued to pour men into the cauldron at Verdun, convinced
against all evidence that the French were suffering far greater losses
than the Germans. Then, 1 July, in an operation that, in the words of
Isabel Hull, ‘shook the German army like no other single event’, the
British launched their offensive at the Somme. Within days Falkenhayn
admitted to Wilhelm II ‘that his optimism was unfounded’.16 Thus, as
the Central Powers faced disappointment on all fronts, Falkenhayn’s
High Command represented one corner of a triangle of competition
and intrigue also involving Conrad’s Austro-Hungarian High Com-
mand and the Hindenburg-Ludendorff headquarters on the German
eastern front. While Falkenhayn’s stature, for the moment, remained
undiminished, on 18 July Hindenburg’s was enhanced by the addition
of command authority over all Austro-Hungarian forces stationed on
the Eastern Front north of Lemberg (L’viv). The heir to the Habsburg
throne, Archduke Karl, received titular command of the front south
of Lemberg, with German General Hans von Seeckt as his chief of
Paul G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute
15
Press, 1994), pp. 328–31; V. E. Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective (Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press, 1995), pp. 250–51.
16
Hull, Absolute Destruction, pp. 221, 224.
staff, an arrangement that made Seeckt the de facto commander of that

sector. With his own government not standing behind him, Conrad
offered no resistance to the humiliating German takeover.17
Meanwhile, the threats facing Austria-Hungary continued to make
the alliance with Germany ever more indispensable. Before Brusilov’s
advance finally lost momentum at the foothills of the Carpathians, Italy
resumed its offensive along the Isonzo River. In the sixth through ninth
battles of the Isonzo (6 August to 4 November) the Italian army secured
Gorizia and came dangerously close to Trieste. At the same time, the
Russian success prompted neutral Romania to join the Entente. On 27
August Romanian troops invaded Transylvania.18 Coming in the midst
of the costly German failure at Verdun, the failure of Falkenhayn to
foresee the Romanian defection to the Entente provided the pretext
for Wilhelm II to replace him with Hindenburg. Because he enjoyed
better relations with Hindenburg and Ludendorff than with Falken-
hayn, Conrad welcomed the move, yet conceded that Falkenhayn was
a scapegoat for broader developments beyond his control.19
Hindenburg assumed the role of chief of the General Staff on 29
August, bringing Ludendorff with him as quartermaster general. Two
days later he announced what came to be known as the ‘Hindenburg
Programme’, a full mobilization of the German home front in support
of the war effort. The programme, in fact developed and supervised by
Ludendorff, set ambitious goals for German war industries, for example
doubling the monthly production of munitions and artillery pieces,
and tripling the monthly production of machine guns. Hindenburg
and Ludendorff also received sweeping authority over the civilian
population. By the end of the year the Reichstag passed legislation
requiring all males aged 17 to 50 to be either in uniform or working
in war-related industries or agriculture. As Martin Kitchen has noted,
the programme had ominous domestic political consequences inasmuch
17
Peter Broucek, ‘Die deutschen Bemühungen um eine Militärkonvention mit Öster-
reich-Ungarn (1915–1918)’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 87
(1979), pp. 448–50; Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, p. 198; Shanafelt, Secret Enemy,
pp. 87–88.
18
Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, p. 197.
19
Afflerbach, Falkenhayn, pp. 448–50, 460–61. A staunch apologist for Falkenhayn,
Afflerbach contends that Verdun had nothing to do with the success of the Brusilov
offensive or Falkenhayn’s subsequent dismissal. He argues that Conrad’s Tyrol offensive
led directly to the Russian offensive and the Romanian declaration of war, a sequence
of events independent of Verdun. See ibid., p. 454.
10 lawrence sondhaus
as the militarization of labour was ‘a serious threat to the working

class’ and, if implemented successfully, a mortal blow to the Social
Democratic Party, the primary internal opponent of Germany’s pre-war
militarism and imperialism. Even though the Reichstag supported the
mobilization of labour by a wide margin, the policy remained contro-
versial and subsequent legislation would leave it riddled with loopholes.
Controversy also dogged Ludendorff’s attempts to exploit the labour
of German-occupied Belgium and the Polish territory held since 1915
by the Central Powers, efforts that foreshadowed Germany’s forced-
labour policies of the Second World War, yet on a very modest scale.
But the ‘war socialism’ of the Hindenburg Programme foreshadowed
National Socialism in more ways than one. Indeed, Hunt Tooley has
noted that the overall scheme had ‘a distinct Stalinist air, but without
outright expropriation of property’.20
It did not take long for the sweeping powers granted to Hindenburg
and Ludendorff within the German context to be extended to the alli-
ance as a whole. There would be no repeat of the spring and summer
of 1916, with German and Austro-Hungarian commanders pursuing
their own plans and offensives without even consulting one another.
During September 1916 the Central Powers (including Bulgaria and the
Ottoman Empire) ratified agreements making Wilhelm II their supreme
allied commander, a concession that gave Hindenburg and Ludendorff
operational control not only over the German army, but over the
Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Turkish armed forces as well. Such
subordination was particularly humiliating for the Habsburg Empire,
which for centuries had been considered one of Europe’s great pow-
ers. A secret annex to the agreement, included at Conrad’s insistence,
obligated the Germans to consult Emperor Franz Joseph on matters
related to the ‘territorial integrity’ of the Dual Monarchy; otherwise,
there was little to protect the country from a de facto German takeover.
By the time the unified command was established, Germany already
was subsidizing the war effort of Austria-Hungary at a rate of 100
million marks per month. In the future, the Germans would demand
a better return on their investment, pressuring the Dual Monarchy to
20
Herwig, First World War, pp. 231, 239–40, 260–61; Martin Kitchen, The Silent
Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff,
1916–1918 (London: Croom Helm, 1976), p. 70; T. Hunt Tooley, ‘The Hindenburg
Program of 1916: A Central Experiment in Wartime Planning’, The Quarterly Journal
of Austrian Economics 2, no. 2 (Summer 1999), p. 57.
increase production as Germany itself had committed to do, under

the Hindenburg Programme. In cases where Austria-Hungary came
up short in producing its own materiel and supplies, Germany filled
the void. Thus, by the end of 1916, Austro-Hungarian troops began
to look like Germans, even if they did not fight like Germans. By the
hundreds of thousands they were issued the new German steel helmets,
and all new uniforms were tailored not in their own pike grey but Ger-
man field grey, from cloth imported from Germany. While the change
in the appearance of the troops was superficial, the symbolism behind
it was powerful indeed.21
Conrad got along better with Hindenburg and Ludendorff than with
Falkenhayn, and could count on them to treat him with respect on a
personal and professional level, but when it came to amassing power
for Germany at the expense of Austria-Hungary, he acknowledged that
they were worse than Falkenhayn. Conrad observed that the German
drive to dominate the alliance accelerated after September 1916 ‘not
only in the military realm . . . but also in the political realm’. Germany
sought to reduce Austria to the level of Bavaria, for its own good,
according to an old friend of Conrad’s from the pre-war years, Baron
Heinrich von Tucher, the Bavarian ambassador in Vienna. After the
initial setbacks against the Russians in the summer and autumn of
1914, Tucher had visited Conrad’s headquarters and suggested that
only ‘a strict regime’ and a ‘close union (Anschluss) with Germany’
would save Austria. He cited the ‘progress’ Bavaria had made ‘since
1866 . . . under Prussian hegemony’. At the time Conrad had rejected the
notion out of hand, especially the comparison of Austria with Bavaria,
but the defeats of the summer of 1916 changed his mind. By that
autumn he conceded a closer ‘alignment’ (Angliederung) with Germany
was a ‘necessity’ and the only means to prevent a seizure of power by
‘the Slavic element’ within the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy.
He saw this Slavic coup foreshadowed in ‘the bearing of the Czech
troops’ (a regiment of which had deserted en masse to the Russians as
early as April 1915), and in the overall anti-Habsburg sentiments of
the Czech population. Conrad only regretted that an ‘alignment’ of
Austria with Germany would mean independence or greater autonomy
21
Broucek, ‘Militärkonvention’, p. 450; Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers,
pp. 364–70; Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, p. 199; Shanafelt, Secret Enemy, p. 88;
Herwig, First World War, pp. 237–38.
for Hungary and require the ‘division of the common [Austro-Hungar-

ian] army’.22 He did not mention the fate of the Habsburg dynasty
in such an arrangement; presumably, future Habsburg kings of a free
Hungary would double as nominal monarchs of an Austria within the
expanded German Reich, a role not unlike that played by the titular
kings of Bavaria, Saxony, or Württemberg. But Conrad’s acceptance
of the ‘necessity’ of German domination came with a distinct lack of
enthusiasm. Later in the autumn of 1916 he indicated to his wife that
he wished he ‘could finally be done with this “shoulder to shoulder”
(Schulter an Schulter)’, mocking the slogan used by both allies since before
the war to refer to their solidarity.23
After his dismissal from the German High Command, Conrad’s
nemesis Falkenhayn made a quick recovery as a field commander. In
the campaign against Romania, he led German and Austro-Hungarian
troops to decisive victories. Mackensen enjoyed similar success at the
head of a Bulgarian-based ‘Danube Army’ that also included German,
Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish troops. By November 1916 they had
occupied almost all of the country. As in the Tarnów-Gorlice break-
through in the spring of 1915 and the subsequent advance against the
Russians, in the Romanian campaign the Austro-Hungarians provided
a greater share of the troops than the Germans (in this case, 46 per
cent, compared to 22 per cent for the Germans and a combined 32
per cent for the Bulgarians and the Turks), but because the Germans
provided the planning and leadership, they received most of the credit
for the success. Dreams of the future exploitation of Romanian wheat
and oil buoyed the spirits of the home front in Austria-Hungary, but
the victory did nothing to revive the prestige of Conrad or the Austro-
Hungarian army.24
Indeed, during the Romanian campaign, Franz Joseph asked the
heir to the throne, Archduke Karl, to suggest alternative candidates
22
Conrad, ‘Denkschrift über das Verhältniss der ö.u. Monarchie zu Deutschland’,
n.d. (‘in Teschen 1916 begonnen’, after September 1916), KA, B/1450: 143. An
annotated index in KA, B/1450: 140 indicates that Conrad recorded reports of
desertions and other problems in Czech and other units in a ‘Cechen-Faszikel I’ and
‘Cechen-Faszikel II’. On the turning point in Conrad’s view of the Germans see also
Shanafelt, Secret Enemy, p. 105. On the ‘Bavaria’ analogy see Broucek, ‘Militärkonven-
tion’, pp. 445, 456.
23
B/1450: 357.
24
Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, pp. 197–98.
for Conrad’s position. Despite his recent harsh words for Conrad
after the Tyrol offensive of May–June 1916, Karl advised the emperor
not to dismiss him, on the grounds that the Germans obviously held
Conrad in high regard. In addition to awarding him several presti-
gious decorations, Wilhelm II had appointed him ceremonial chief of
a Prussian Guards regiment and soon would make him an honorary
Generalfeldmarschall, distinctions otherwise reserved for foreign monarchs.
Furthermore, Conrad seemed to enjoy good relations with Hindenburg
and Ludendorff, who might be upset if he were sacked.25 For his part,
Conrad’s personal correspondence reflected a growing weariness with
the war, combined with an awareness that the renewed aggressiveness
of German policy under Hindenburg and Ludendorff would preclude a
compromise settlement with the Entente. For example, when the Central
Powers recognized an ‘independent’ kingdom of Poland, the first state
created out of any of their conquered territories, Conrad lamented that
it made ‘the possibility of a peace’ even more remote.26
Though he decided not to replace Conrad, Franz Joseph did not
give him a fresh vote of confidence and paid increasingly less attention
to his opinions, especially on non-military matters. In October 1916,
after the assassination of the Austrian minister-president, Count Karl
Stürgkh, Conrad urged the emperor to fill the vacancy with a military
man, a non-partisan figure with strong organizational skills.27 Instead,
the emperor appointed a veteran civilian politician, Austro-Hungarian
finance minister Ernst von Koerber, the first of a succession of weak
ministers to head the Austrian cabinet during the last two years of the
war. There would be no equivalent of Georges Clemenceau (or even
Vittorio Orlando) to rally the home front.
25
Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers, pp. 381–82; Rothenberg, Army of Francis
Joseph, 202; Ferdinand Stöller, Feldmarschall Franz Graf Conrad (Leipzig: Friedrich Brand-
stetter, 1942), p. 20. An article in the Neue Freie Presse, 12 December 1914, clipping in
KA, B/1450: 418, indicates that Conrad’s appointment as ceremonial chief of the 5th
(Spandau) Guards Regiment had occurred by that time.
26
B/1450: 357. Shortly after the proclamation of the kingdom of Poland on 5 Novem-
ber, Ludendorff acknowledged that Conrad had been right to oppose the project. ‘It
became clear to us very soon that General von Conrad had assessed the circumstances
correctly’. German plans to mobilize Polish manpower for the Central Powers proved
unrealistic. See Erich Ludendorff, Meine Kriegserinnerungen, 1914–1918, 5th edn (Berlin:
E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1920), p. 317.
27
Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers, p. 392.
On 17 November Conrad went to Schönbrunn Palace for what

would be his last meeting with Franz Joseph, a briefing on the progress
of the war effort. The eighty-six year old emperor ‘followed my report
with the customary interest but dozed off once and appeared to me to
be much weaker than during my last audience. . . . He was friendly as
always, rising to greet me upon my entry and standing to take leave of
me; coming and going he shook my hand’.28 Franz Joseph’s death four
days later came as a shock to Conrad. Ever since his appointment as
chief of the General Staff in 1906, Conrad privately had criticized the
emperor’s cautious policies, but like so many others he considered the
passing of the old man to be the death knell of Austria-Hungary. He
remarked to his wife that ‘now we will recognize the significance that
the old emperor had for the preservation of the Monarchy’.29
At least initially, the change in monarchs appeared not to endanger
Conrad’s position. On 25 November 1916, Emperor Karl promoted
him to field marshal, a relatively rare honour in modern times (in his
sixty-eight year reign, Franz Joseph had appointed only six men to the
rank, and Conrad was the first non-Habsburg so promoted in forty-nine
years).30 But within days, it became clear that the new emperor planned
to reduce what was left of his authority. On 2 December Karl took
personal command of the armed forces, leaving Conrad, at the age of
sixty-four, directly subordinate to a twenty-nine year old monarch who
actually intended to exercise military authority. After the first of the
year Karl took the dramatic step of moving the army’s headquarters
from Teschen in Moravia (about 80 km west of Cracow) to Baden,
just south of Vienna, a location much more convenient to a reigning
emperor serving as commander in chief. Conrad protested the move
on the grounds that Austro-Hungarian headquarters should not be so
far away from German headquarters at Pless in Silesia, an hour’s drive
from Teschen. This soon became a moot point, as Hindenburg and
28
B/1450: 357.
29
Gina Conrad von Hötzendorf, Mein Leben mit Conrad von Hötzendorf: Sein geistiges
Vermächtnis (Leipzig: Grethlein & Co. Nachf., 1935), p. 156.
30
Ironically, in his two-year reign Charles appointed more field marshals (eight)
than Francis Joseph appointed in sixty-eight years. See Georg Ludwigstorff, ‘Die Feld-
marschälle der k.u.k. Armee im 1. Weltkriege und ihre Orden und Auszeichnungen’,
Mag. Diplomarbeit, University of Vienna, 1989, pp. 12, 34.
Ludendorff, acknowledging the primacy of the Western Front, moved

the headquarters to Spa in Belgium later in 1917.31
The allied blockade was causing serious food shortages in Germany
and Austria-Hungary by the winter of 1916–17, known in Central
Europe as the ‘turnip winter’ after the bulbous taproot that remained
in plentiful supply while bread and other staples grew scarce. Dur-
ing the ‘turnip winter’, the average German citizen was subsisting on
1,200 calories a day.32 Such conditions on the home front (worse yet,
a home front being expected, under the Hindenburg Programme, to
do much more for the war effort) raised the question of how long the
Central Powers could continue the fight, even though their armies were
entrenched on allied soil on all fronts. Barely a month after Jutland,
Admiral Scheer had conceded that the German surface fleet could do
nothing to break the British blockade in the North Sea; when his rec-
ommendation that unrestricted submarine warfare be resumed was not
heeded, he resumed the High Seas Fleet’s regimen of regular sorties,
taking the entire fleet out in August and again in October, and most
of it in November, in each case without encountering the capital ships
of the Grand Fleet.33 Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary’s much smaller
navy faced even greater odds at the mouth of the Adriatic, where the
Italian navy had imposed a blockade, reinforced by significant numbers
of British and French warships. Under these circumstances the U-boat
provided the best hope for the Central Powers to break the enemy
stranglehold on the seas. A campaign of restricted submarine warfare
(during which German U-boats attacked most of their targets while
surfaced, after a warning, using their deck gun rather than torpedoes)
sank over 1.5 million tons of allied shipping over the five months from
September 1916 through January 1917, at a cost of just ten U-boats lost.
Such results reflected the potential of the submarine strategy now that
Germany had many more U-boats in service than in 1915, as the ton-
nage sunk over these five months was roughly double the total claimed
in the seven months of unrestricted submarine warfare during 1915.34
Arguing that the German navy now had the resources to launch a truly
31
Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, p. 202.
32
Robert Asprey, The German High Command at War, Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct
World War I (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991), p. 314.
33
Lawrence Sondhaus, Navies in Modern World History (London: Reaktion Books,
2004), p. 192.
34
Halpern, Naval History of World War I, pp. 335–36.
devastating campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, Hindenburg

and Ludendorff joined the chief of the Admiralstab, Admiral Henning
von Holtzendorff, in prevailing upon the emperor and his chancellor
to unleash the U-boats once again. On 9 January 1917, in a meeting
held at headquarters in Pless, Wilhelm II and Bethmann Hollweg for-
mally approved the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare, effective
1 February. In a second meeting at Pless on 26 January, Emperor Karl
and the commander of the Austro-Hungarian navy, Grand Admiral
Anton Haus, met with Wilhelm II and German naval officials to work
out the details of the Dual Monarchy’s participation in the campaign.
The Austro-Hungarian navy agreed to send its own submarines out of
the Adriatic to prey upon allied convoys between Malta and Salonika,
and disarmed two cruisers to free up more personnel to support the
German U-boats operating out of Cattaro, at the southern tip of
Dalmatia.35
Conrad was not present at the second meeting at Pless, but four
days earlier he had joined a majority of Austro-Hungarian ministers
in endorsing participation in the campaign of unrestricted submarine
warfare. He had favoured the measure as early as August 1916.36 Conrad
understood the decision would bring an end to American neutrality
but, like Hindenburg and Ludendorff, he viewed the Americans as silent
partners of the Entente, already involved in the conflict as providers
of food and supplies, and did not foresee American troops having an
impact on the Western Front before 1918. Conrad and Admiral Haus
thus agreed with the leading German generals and admirals that the
submarine campaign was a gamble worth trying.37 As it turned out,
Haus died on 8 February, after falling ill with pneumonia on the journey
to Pless. Nineteen days later, Emperor Karl—who, unlike his chief of
the General Staff, had not yet lost hope in the future of Austria-Hun-
gary—finally dismissed Conrad, then ordered him (against his wish to
retire) to accept a field command in the Tyrol. They were replaced by
Admiral Maximilian Njegovan and General Arthur Arz von Straussen-
berg, far less commanding personalities for whom it would be far easier
35
Lawrence Sondhaus, The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary: Navalism, Industrial Develop-
ment, and the Politics of Dualism (West Lafayette, IN, 1994), pp. 293–94.
36
According to Oskar Regele, Feldmarschall Conrad: Auftrag und Erfüllung, 1906–1918
(Vienna: Verlag Herold, 1955), pp. 550–51.
37
Conrad to Nowak, Trieste, 18 October 1918, text in Karl Friedrich Nowak,
Der Weg zur Katastrophe, 2nd edn (Berlin: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1926), p. xcv; Gina
Conrad, Mein Leben mit Conrad, p. 159.
to play the role of faithful, subservient ally to the Germans. In contrast,

both Karl and Burián’s successor as foreign minister, Count Ottokar
Czernin, had grave misgivings about unrestricted submarine warfare.38
Privately, Karl also doubted the wisdom of continuing the war at all.
When unrestricted submarine warfare resumed in February 1917,
Germany had 105 U-boats in its fleet and around three dozen deployed
around the British Isles, and the abandonment of seven capital ship
projects (two dreadnoughts and five battle cruisers) ensured that Ger-
man shipyards would be able to build more than enough submarines
to replace future losses. The new campaign claimed 520,410 tons in
February, 564,500 tons in March, and an astounding 860,330 tons
in April, three months during which just nine submarines were lost.
Another 616,320 tons were sunk in May, and 696,725 tons in June.39
In resolving to renew unrestricted submarine warfare, the leaders of
the Central Powers either discounted the danger of the United States
intervening in the war or considered the campaign worth the risk.
The American declaration of war against Germany on 6 April 1917
had no immediate effect on the land war, as the United States was in
no position to deploy significant forces on the Western Front. At sea,
the changing nature of the war made the US navy’s fourteen dread-
noughts practically irrelevant, but American pressure helped sway
Admiral Jellicoe to agree to adopt a convoy system for merchantmen
operating on the high seas, a decision formally taken on 27 April and
implemented in June, after which the toll taken by U-boats would fall
dramatically. Nevertheless, on the first anniversary of the resumption
of unrestricted submarine warfare, the overall shipping tonnage at the
disposal of the Allies would still be decreasing, even with new construc-
tion accelerated and dozens of German ships interned in US ports in
1914 added to the American merchant marine.40 Austria-Hungary’s
contribution to unrestricted submarine warfare consisted primarily of
providing and servicing bases in the Adriatic which enabled dozens of
German U-boats to operate in the Mediterranean, where they recorded
38
Sondhaus, Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, p. 293.
39
Halpern, Naval History of World War I, pp. 338–41; Sondhaus, Naval Policy of
Austria-Hungary, pp. 293–94; Holger H. Herwig, ‘Innovation Ignored: The Submarine
Problem—Germany, Britain, and the United States, 1919–1939’, in Williamson Murray
and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), p. 229; idem, ‘Luxury Fleet’, pp. 197–98.
40
Halpern, Naval History of World War I, pp. 342, 354, 357–60; Herwig, ‘Innovation
Ignored’, p. 229.
a significant share of their kills (for example, just over 250,000 tons of
the record 860,330 tons in April 1917). The Austro-Hungarian navy
only had 27 submarines in commission during the war (compared to
335 for the German navy), and never more than 20 at a time. Even
after the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, they continued
to be deployed primarily against the Entente’s warships attempting to
operate in the Adriatic. In their best month, August 1917, they sank
just 38,800 tons of allied shipping.41
Because the United States had a peacetime standing army of just
175,000 men (which would have been even smaller if not for an increase
authorized by Congress in 1916), it would have to conscript and train
almost all of the troops it sent to Europe. Optimists in the German
camp believed that few, if any, American troopships would get past the
U-boats (ultimately, thanks to the convoy system, only three troopships
were torpedoed and 68 American soldiers lost at sea, while 2,079,880
made it safely to Europe).42 Realists, meanwhile, expected the United
States to be able to deploy significant forces in France by the summer
of 1918, which in the end proved to be the case. Thus American
intervention set the clock ticking for Hindenburg and Ludendorff, as
the Central Powers would have to come up with a way to win the war
within the next 12–15 months. Their spirits had been lifted just three
weeks before the American declaration of war, when revolution forced
Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. The provisional Russian government
of Alexander Kerensky soon disappointed them (and the war-weary
Russian people) by vowing to stay in the war. While this decision was
bound to doom the Kerensky regime sooner or later, the Germans no
longer had the luxury of time to wait for developments to unfold. On
9 April, the Monday following the American declaration of war, they
activated a plan to send Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to history as
Lenin, and other leading Marxist revolutionaries from their wartime
exile in Switzerland home to Russia, where, it was hoped, they would
cause enough trouble to force the country out the war.
While Austria-Hungary was not involved in this plan, the Habsburg
government knew Lenin well, having provided sanctuary for him (along
with Zinoviev, Kamenev, and several other of his close collaborators)
in the immediate pre-war years, playing with fire in retaliation for the
41
Sondhaus, Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, p. 311.
42
Sondhaus, Navies in Modern World History, p. 195.
sanctuary and aid that Imperial Russia provided to various pan-Slav

revolutionary groups seeking to destroy Austria-Hungary. Living in and
around Cracow, the Bolshevik leaders had smuggled their revolution-
ary literature (and at times, revolutionary agents) across the border
into Russian Poland. Stalin visited Lenin there, and also spent time in
Vienna, where Trotsky lived from 1907 (although as an independent
Marxist at the time, not a Bolshevik). They all had to leave Austria-
Hungary in August 1914, or else be interned there for the duration
of the war as enemy aliens.43 Lenin and most of the others settled in
Switzerland, which (after Italy entered the war in May 1915) became
a virtual prison, completely surrounded by the belligerent powers. The
first mention of Lenin in German records dates from November 1914,
and in May 1915, following the initial breakthrough of the Central
Powers at Tarnów-Gorlice, Lenin held his first meeting with Alexan-
der Helphand, a Russian Marxist who, under the alias Parvus, also
served as a German agent.44 Lenin, understandably wanting to avoid
the stigma of appearing to be an agent or puppet of the Germans,
subsequently dealt with Parvus as little as possible, but was desperate
enough to return to Russia that, ultimately, he accepted transportation
home aboard the so-called ‘sealed train’ and tens of millions of marks
in German subsidies for his revolutionary activity. Almost to the very
end, the German High Command had no connection to the Bolsheviks,
as Parvus and other agents communicated with the German Foreign
Ministry. Arthur Zimmerman, infamous for the intercepted telegram
revealing his overture to bring Mexico into the war against the United
States, was responsible for arranging Parvus’s first meeting with Luden-
dorff in mid-March. Ultimately it was Ludendorff who arranged for
the week-long journey for Lenin’s party of 32 exiles, via Germany and
neutral Sweden, to the Finland Station in Petrograd.45
While awaiting the results of their initiatives on the home front, at sea,
and inside Russia, the High Command of the Central Powers resolved
to stand on the defensive during 1917. In February German troops on
the Western Front began their planned withdrawal to the Hindenburg
Line, 160 km of formidable defensive works stretching from Arras to
43
Stefan T. Possony, Lenin: The Compulsive Revolutionary (Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company, 1964), pp. 133–61, provides the most detailed account of Lenin’s years in
Austria.
44
Possony, Lenin, pp. 176, 179.
45
Asprey, German High Command, p. 306; Possony, Lenin, pp. 202–17.
Soissons, built during the winter of 1916–17 across a broad salient in

the front. The strategic retreat had the net result of shortening the
front by 50 km, freeing up several divisions for the reserve or service
elsewhere. Austria-Hungary likewise focused on defending the front in
the Alps and along the Isonzo. Aside from the east, where they stood
ready to exploit a collapse of the Russian army, the Central Powers
were dug in. They would respond to allied attacks, and counterattack
when there was a clear advantage to be gained from it, but aside from
Caporetto in October, Germany and Austria-Hungary would go the
entire year without launching a major offensive.
For the Central Powers, the resumption of unrestricted submarine
warfare, the entry of the United States into the war, and the deliberate
provocation of radical revolution in Russia raised the stakes consider-
ably. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were completely comfortable with
these decisions and, with the backing of Wilhelm II, disregarded or
forced the dismissal of anyone who was not. Three months later the
Reichstag would call for a compromise settlement in the so-called ‘Peace
Resolution’, a measure which, in a true parliamentary system, would
have compelled the government to sue for peace. Instead, Wilhelm II
sacked Bethmann Hollweg, then made sure that the succession of
weak chancellors who followed him remained subservient to the High
Command. Meanwhile, in Austria-Hungary, discomfort with the high-
stakes outlook of 1917 and desire for a compromise peace reached the
highest level, as Emperor Karl, during February, initiated a secret peace
overture to France using as emissary his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus
of Bourbon-Parma, an officer in the Belgian army. In letters dated 24
March and 9 May, Karl proposed peace terms including the restoration
of Belgium and Serbia, and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France,
but the overture came to nothing when the French demanded, on
behalf of Italy, that Austria-Hungary relinquish its ethnically-Italian
territories in the Alps and on the Adriatic.46
Nevertheless, the Sixtus overture was the most serious of its kind made
by either side during the war, reflecting that while Conrad had accepted
the ‘necessity’ of subordination to Germany, and in the process lost hope
in the future of Austria-Hungary regardless of the outcome of the war,
Karl had not. Throughout his two years on the throne, he would be as
46
See Robert A. Kann, Die Sixtus-Affäre und die geheimen Friedensverhandlungen Österreich-
Ungarns im Ersten Weltkrieg (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1966).
determined to preserve Austro-Hungarian freedom of action as Conrad

had been before September 1916. Given the commitments the Dual
Monarchy had made in placing its land and sea forces under overall
German command, he had very little room to manoeuvre, as by the
spring of 1917, Austria-Hungary was bound, for better or worse, closer
than ever to its German ally. On land and at sea, the war effort of the
Central Powers was far more coordinated than ever before, and firmly
under German control. At least on the surface, and thanks mainly to
the demotions of Falkenhayn and Conrad to field commands, the fre-
quent tensions and disagreements of the previous two and a half years
appeared to have been laid to rest. While many German soldiers and
statesmen were critical of their performance, Austro-Hungarian troops
throughout the war had been responsible for holding up at least half
of the Eastern Front, enabling Germany to focus most of its attention
on the west. Meanwhile, in the Adriatic, the Austro-Hungarian navy
served as a classic fleet-in-being, by its mere existence tying down an
allied naval force many times larger, resources that could have been
put to use elsewhere (such as at the Dardanelles, in 1915). But in the
spring of 1917, the renewed expressions of solidarity obscured the fact
that in the future, Austria-Hungary essentially would be fighting for
German war aims. Ironically, with the territory of the Dual Monarchy
completely free of enemy troops and secure on all fronts, and with the
Balkans almost entirely under the domination of the Central Powers,
the very success of the German alliance had left Austria-Hungary
with no compelling reasons of its own to keep on fighting. From the
perspective of Vienna and Budapest, the rationale for the German
alliance all along had been to safeguard the Dual Monarchy against
threats from other great powers, and by early 1917, the partnership
already had served its purpose.
Such feelings, of course, were the product of the overall operational
success of the Central Powers in the first two and a half years of the
war. Indeed, if not for the hunger pangs in so many stomachs, there
would have been hardly a cloud in their sky as of the spring of 1917.
In the wake of their low point of the previous summer, they had settled
on a unified command, had resolved to fully mobilize their civilian
populations behind the war effort, had unleashed a U-boat campaign
that would seriously threaten the war effort of the Western powers, and
had unleashed the Bolsheviks on a Russia already teetering on the brink
of collapse. Awaiting the outcome of these initiatives, they resolved to
stand on the defensive and not squander their armies in risky attacks or
deliberate battles of attrition, as Conrad and Falkenhayn had in 1916.

One did not have to suffer from the sort of hubris that reigned at the
headquarters of Hindenburg and Ludendorff to have some hope for
the future. Indeed, at this stage only the most optimistic observers in
the allied camp would have dared to imagine that, over the next year
and a half, things would go so horribly wrong for the Central Powers:
that the attempt to fully mobilize the civilian population would leave
the home front in Germany as well as Austria-Hungary broken by
worsening food shortages, strikes, and ultimately revolution; that unre-
stricted submarine warfare not only would bring the United States into
the war, but would fail to bring Britain and France to their knees or to
disrupt the transport of over two million American troops to France
by the summer of 1918; or that, thanks to the desperate genius of
Trotsky’s ‘no war, no peace’ stance at Brest-Litovsk, so many German
and Austro-Hungarian troops would advance too far to the east to be
redeployed elsewhere by the time the new Bolshevik government finally,
formally, took Russia out of the war. Few, too, would have imagined
that, in addition to the infusion of American resources and manpower,
the allies in 1917–18 would benefit so decisively from the leading role
the British would play in finally figuring out how best to fight a modern
war on the Western Front and how to check the U-boat threat at sea, at
the same time managing to mobilize the resources of their home front
(and their empire) more effectively than anyone else, while provoking
negative reactions less dramatic than those experienced elsewhere.
So, in conclusion, it was not unreasonable, given what they knew in
the spring of 1917, for the Central Powers to still hope for a victorious
peace. The problem was that a victorious peace meant something very
different for Germany than for Austria-Hungary, and that difference
compelled Emperor Karl to place his highest priority on finding a way
out, an honourable and/or politically acceptable way out, before his
country suffered a fatal internal collapse. Full mobilization of the home
front, as called for under the Hindenburg Programme, made sense for
Germany and, in the abstract, for any great power serious about win-
ning a war, but in fragile, multinational Austria-Hungary such added
pressure on the civilian population only encouraged the existing cen-
trifugal forces. To make matters worse, during 1917 the enemy would
escalate its efforts at undermining Austria-Hungary through nationalist
propaganda, as Mark Cornwall has pointed out.47 A number of political

and intellectual leaders of the Slavic nationalities and Italian minority
had left the empire as early as the summer of 1914, but only in 1917
(and especially after the United States entered the war) did they receive
any serious encouragement that the allies, if victorious, would agree
to completely dismember the Habsburg state. Tragically for Karl, in
April 1918, just after the start of the last German offensive in the west,
Clemenceau would reveal the inconclusive Franco-Austrian exchange
of the previous spring. The resulting ‘Sixtus Affair’ destroyed what was
left of the Dual Monarchy’s credibility as an ally of Germany, and at
the same time dealt a fatal blow to the morale of the Austro-Hungarian
armed forces and home front. Though he had fought hard against it,
Karl remained a prisoner of the same pessimistic conclusion articulated
by Conrad in the autumn of 1916: that it was the Habsburg Empire’s
fate either to be swallowed up by a victorious Germany or dismembered
by the victorious allies. Even before the devastating consequences of
the ‘Sixtus Affair’ being made public, it became increasingly difficult
for the leadership of the Dual Monarchy to dispel the notion that,
win or lose, Austria-Hungary would cease to exist. As the Great War
continued with no end in sight, all parties to the conflict experienced
challenges in maintaining the morale of their troops and of civilians on
the home front. The very real possibility that it would not survive the
war regardless of the outcome made these challenges insurmountable
for Austria-Hungary. And because Germany depended so much on
Austria-Hungary—certainly more than most of its leaders were willing
to admit—Austria-Hungary’s problem was Germany’s problem, alas, a
problem largely of Germany’s own making.
47
See Mark Cornwall, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
2000).
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Map 2.
GENERALSHIP AND MASS SURRENDER DURING
THE ITALIAN DEFEAT AT CAPORETTO
Vanda Wilcox
The Italian defeat at Caporetto in October 1917 has been the subject
of fierce historiographical debate. Analysis of the battle was for many
years highly politicised, as the defeat was attributed variously to a cri-
sis of the Liberal regime or to an attempt at popular revolution.1 In
particular, debate ranged over how effectively Italian troops had fought
to resist the enemy advance. One 1973 textbook explained that the
defeat ‘was effectively accompanied by a sort of strike, by widespread
insubordination, by mass desertion and a general spirit of revolt and
protest’.2 The belief that infantrymen had refused to fight, downing
weapons and surrendering in acts of collective insubordination, was
shared by many contemporaries. Luigi Albertini, editor of the national
newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, reported after a trip to the front on 30
October 1917 that ‘For the most part, the troops did not fight. When
sent forward they discarded their weapons and returned unarmed.’3
The army’s own figures for prisoners lost reveal that huge numbers of
men were captured in individual incidents during the battle itself—often
several hundred at a time.4 However in recent years a broad consensus
has been reached in the historiography that Caporetto was primarily a
military defeat whose causes lie chiefly on the battlefield.5 How, then,
are the incidents of mass surrender to be explained? An examination
1
This view was most vigorously expressed in the 1921 polemic, Curzio Malaparte,
Viva Caporetto! La rivolta dei santi maledetti, Oscar Documenti (Milano: A. Mondadori,
1981).
2
Giancarlo Lehner, Economia, politica e società nella prima guerra mondiale (Florence:
G. D’Anna, 1973), p. 57.
3
Olindo Malagodi, Conversazioni di Guerra 1914–1919, ed. B. Vigezzi (Milano: Ric-
ciardi, 1960), p. 173 Conversation of 30 October 1917.
4
Archivio del Ufficio Storico del Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito (hereafter AUSSME)
F.11.99/2.
5
Piero Pieri, La prima guerra mondiale. Problemi di storia militare (Udine: Gaspari, 1999);
Giorgio Rochat, L’Italia nella prima guerra mondiale: problemi di interpretazione e prospettive di
ricerca, 1. ed., I Nuovi testi; 111 (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1976).
26 vanda wilcox
of the conduct of the opening stage of the battle offers some answers
as to the nature and causes of mass surrender at Caporetto.
Initial Breakthrough
On 24 October 1917 nine divisions of the Austro-Hungarian army,

reinforced by six German divisions, launched a major attack in the
northern sector of the Isonzo front. The bombardment began at 02.00,
under torrential autumn rains, and the infantry assault commenced at
dawn. By midday the Germans were advancing inexorably towards
the town of Caporetto.6
By the time the Commander in Chief of the Italian armies, General
Luigi Cadorna, had begun to understand the scale of the disaster, the
enemy had already taken 20,000 prisoners and advanced over 22 kilo-
metres. Not only were the Italian troops retreating at an extraordinary
pace, but it seemed that insufficient effort was being made to resist the
advance. The official historian to the general staff, Angelo Gatti, wrote
in his diary that evening:
People were speaking of the Italian Sedan. The Chief was talking
about retreating to the Tagliamento. The whole thing is monstrous and
unacceptable.7
This initial catastrophe was only the beginning. Though in some sectors
troops resisted well and even launched small scale successful counter-
attacks, the overall picture was desperate. Cadorna immediately decided
to withdraw the entire army to the line of the Tagliamento river, which
in theory was his line of extreme defence. By 27 October, only three days
after the battle had begun, Cadorna was already contemplating a fur-
ther withdrawal to the line of the Piave. Though they had yet to arrive
there, he did not believe his forces could hold on the Tagliamento.8 The
6
Angelo Gatti, “Fra le cause strategiche di Caporetto,” in Uomini e folle di guerra,
ed. Angelo Gatti (Verona: Mondadori, 1929). Pp. 214–54; pp. 215–6. For detailed
accounts of the battle’s progress see the report of the official government enquiry,
Inchiesta Caporetto, “Relazione della Commissione d’Inchiesta, ‘Dall’Isonzo al Piave
24 ottobre–9 novembre 1917’.” (Rome: Commissione d’Inchiesta institutia dal R.D.
12 gennaio, 1918, 1919), [ hereafter RCI] vol. I, and Corpo di stato maggiore Ufficio
Storico, L’Esercito italiano nella grande guerra, 1915–1918, 7 vols. (Rome: Provveditorato
generale dello stato libreria, 1927), vol. 4, t. 3.
7
Angelo Gatti, Caporetto: Diario di Guerra (Bologna, 1964), p. 268.
8
Ibid., pp. 272–74.
generalship and mass surrender 27
following morning, Supreme Command abandoned its headquarters in

the city of Udine and set off in a disorderly flight to Treviso.
By the time the line began to stabilise on 12 November, the Italians
had retreated over 150 km, leaving some 14,000 squared kilometres
in enemy hands, with over a million Italians now living under enemy
occupation. Losses were phenomenal, of men, material and territory.
Artillery pieces and machine guns were simply abandoned to the enemy,
as were warehouses and depots.9
One of the most convincing analyses of the battle was written by
staff officer General Roberto Bencivenga, who considered the battle
in three separate phases. Stage one was the initial offensive: though
the attack was substantial it was launched over a small section of the
line. Austrian and particularly German tactics were very successful.
Secondly came the ensuing collapse: why did this small-scale local
breakthrough lead to the collapse of the entire front? What caused
panic, mass flight and mass surrender? Finally came the retreat: why
did the collapse of the sector entail such a huge withdrawal and loss
of such a large area of territory? Why could the line not be stabilised
sooner than the Piave?10
Of these three issues the second is perhaps the most controversial
question. The first is an almost exclusively military question revolving
around the two sides’ respective tactics. The question of the retreat
to the Piave raises large scale strategic and political questions about
Cadorna’s conception of the war, as well as revealing structural inade-
quacies in logistics, communications and command structures. This
paper focuses instead on the first 48 hours of the battle, and the
responses of senior Italian officers, in order to understand the central
and controversial issue of how tactical defeat became strategic defeat,
and how it happened so quickly. Not all lost battles lead to serious
strategic disasters like that at Caporetto: the Italians had suffered tacti-
cal defeats before, most notably in the Trentino during the Austrian
9
RCI vol. II, p. 191, pp. 257–59.
10
Roberto Bencivenga, La sorpresa strategica di Caporetto, ed. Giorgio Rochat (Udine:
Gaspari, 1997), p. 14. Broadly the battle can be described as follows: 24 October–
3 November: rout—disorderly mass flight, desertion, huge numbers of prisoners taken;
3–12 November: stabilisation—though still retreating, troops begin to reorganise and
resist, the retreat halts at the River Piave; 12–18 November: renewed attack—reinvigo-
rated efforts to break the new Italian lines; 26 November: battle finally ends.
28 vanda wilcox
offensive of May 1916.11 So what turned a local, limited defeat into

mass flight and surrender? By considering combat motivation and
officers’ decision-making we can seek to understand why so many men
surrendered in the first few days of the battle, and how these surrenders
entailed defeat on such a scale.12
The Italian Generals at Caporetto
The crucial sector of the line was held by II Army under General Luigi
Capello.13 Capello was a man of enormous energy and enthusiasm,
who rarely slept but worked through the night. He was also stubborn,
inflexible, quick-tempered and sometimes arrogant, certain of his own
superior judgement to the point of insubordination.14 All through Sep-
tember and October 1917 Capello had ignored the admittedly half-
hearted directions of his chief, Luigi Cadorna, to prepare his defences
for an imminent attack. Instead he hoped to go on the offensive himself
before the winter snows set in. He had identified his sector as the most
promising part of the whole Italian theatre for achieving a dramatic
strategic breakthrough. It turned out that he was right, though perhaps
not in the manner that he had anticipated.
On 23 October 1917 Capello’s army was made up of 24 Divisions,
an estimated 280,000 men, arranged into nine Army Corps. Of these,
the two hit hardest by the initial attack were IV and XXVII Corps.15
11
The successful Austrian breakthrough of May–June 1916 in the Trentino did not
lead to a major collapse, since Supreme Command was better prepared and responded
more appropriately to the crisis—though of course Italian troops were less war weary.
They suffered a tactical surprise, and consequent initial defeat, but the overall defence
was well organised and able to effectively respond, counter-attacking and using reserves
to limit the Austrian advance. Ibid., p. 14.
12
This paper focuses on the Italian response to the offensive; on the tactics, leader-
ship and planning of the Central Powers in this battle, see Mario Morselli, Caporetto:
Victory or Defeat? (London: Frank Cass, 2001), and Filippo Cappellano, L’imperiale regio
Esercito austro-ungarico sul fronte italiano 1915–1918 (Rovereto: Museo Storico Italiano
della Guerra, 2002).
13
For Capello’s own thoughts on the battle, see Luigi Capello, Caporetto, perché? La
2. armata e gli avvenimenti dell’ottobre 1917 (Turin: Einaudi, 1967).
14
Gatti, “Fra le cause strategiche”, pp. 224–25, Mario Isnenghi and Giorgio Rochat,
La Grande Guerra, 1914–1918 (Milan: La Nuova Italia, 2000), p. 199.
15
The third corps which suffered most in the opening stages of the battle was XXIV
Corps under the command of Enrico Caviglia, who was substantially responsible for
the successful conquest of the Bainsizza plateau in August 1917. He held his corps
together relatively well during the retreat from Caporetto, losing ‘only’ some 15,000
men, but due to a personality clash with Badoglio he did not prosper subsequently.
IV Corps was under the command of Alberto Cavaciocchi, who had

been promoted to corps commander in June 1916 and who had been at
the head of IV Corps for nearly a year by October 1917.16 He shared
Cadorna’s view that no serious attack was intended in the upper Isonzo
but merely a diversionary operation while the main Austro-German
thrust would come in the Trentino. Consequently, like his chief, he had
made only half-hearted defensive preparations throughout October.
But at least he agreed with his commander in chief. XXVII Corps
was commanded by General Pietro Badoglio, who would later run
the army under Mussolini and mastermind the Abyssinian war.17 An
artillery officer by training and widely regarded as an excellent staff
officer, Badoglio was appointed as ( joint) second at Supreme Command
on 10 November 1917. Perhaps because of this rapid elevation after
the defeat, his role in the disaster was downplayed, though his former
superior Capello considered him chiefly to blame for the crumbling
of the extreme left wing.18 Badoglio had very different ideas from both
Capello and Cadorna. He was young, ambitious and popular with his
men, but though an effective small unit commander was out of his
depth directing major operations, getting swamped by detail and los-
ing sight of the bigger picture. The total lack of a shared conception
of the battle between commander in chief and his army and corps
commanders was instrumental in causing the defeat.19
IV Corps lost an astonishing 32,808 men taken prisoner during the
battle. What remained of the corps was formally disbanded on 25
November, but very little remained by that stage. XXVII Corps was
the second most severely affected in terms of losses, with over 23,000
officers and men being taken captive. Perhaps because of Badoglio’s
promotion, the Corps was not disbanded after the defeat, but of the four
divisions making up his command, three were permanently dissolved
and one was temporarily dissolved and only subsequently reconstituted.
16
Corpo di stato maggiore Ufficio Storico, Le Grandi Unità nella Guerra 1915–1919,
2 vols. (Rome, 1926). Cavaciocchi’s own unfinished memoir, to which he devoted the last
years of his life, has only recently been published for the first time: Alberto Cavaciocchi,
Un anno al comando del IV corpo d’armata, ed. Andrea Ungari (Udine: Gaspari, 2006).
17
Pietro Badoglio, “Il Memoriale di Pietro Badoglio su Caporetto,” ed. Gian Luca
Badoglio (Udine: Gaspari, 2000).
18
Capello, Caporetto, perché? By contrast Cavacciochi was blamed immediately and
despite years of struggle never managed to retrieve his reputation. He considered
himself to have been made a scapegoat, comparing his situation to the Dreyfus affair.
Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, p. 245.
19
Isnenghi and Rochat, La Grande Guerra, pp. 371–74.
30 vanda wilcox
Thus while in name Badoglio’s Corps lived on, to all practical purposes
it had ceased to exist.
XXVII Corps was deployed opposite the bridgehead at Tolmino,
controlling the road to Cividale del Friuli, one of the key towns of
the region. But due to a combination of slow responses, poor deci-
sion making and inadequate planning, particularly with regard to the
deployment of his artillery, Badoglio lost his vital position and allowed
the enemy to pass more or less unhindered up the valley of the Isonzo
to take the town of Caporetto.20 From this position the German troops
easily turned the flank of IV Corps, which fought well and resisted
to its utmost but stood no chance once Badoglio had caused it to be
almost encircled. There was nothing left for IV Corps to do but to sur-
render.21 The responsibility of Capello, who not merely countermanded
Cadorna’s defensive provisions but rearranged the responsibilities and
positions of the army corps at his disposal at the last minute, is also
significant.22
In the month after 23 October almost 300,000 prisoners were
taken—around half of all Italians taken prisoner during the entire
conflict.23 It is impossible to be certain how many of these men sur-
rendered willingly and how many were genuinely captured. It suited
German and Austrian purposes, of course, to claim that the Italians
had simply given up without a fight, since it emphasised the weakness
of their opponents and encouraged the idea that the formal surrender
of the nation might follow.
Explaining the Defeat
Attempts to explain the defeat—and to allocate blame—began imme-

diately. A number of aspects needed to be examined: intelligence, plan-
ning and preparation; communications and the command structure; the
strength of the defensive lines; and above all the extent of the resistance
offered by the troops. Many units had been taken prisoner more or
less in their entirety, and though as one might expect the majority of
20
Mario Silvestri, Isonzo 1917 (Milan: BUR, 2001), p. 370.
21
Andrea Ungari, “Introduzione”, in Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, pp. 8–9.
22
Giorgio Rochat, “Caporetto. Le cause della sconfitta,” in Ufficiali e Soldati: l’esercito
italiano dalla prima alla seconda guerra mondiale (Udine: Gaspari, 2000), pp. 55–62.
23
RCI vol. II, p. 191. Around 4.2 million men saw active service, of whom around
600,000—or 1 in 7—were taken prisoner during the war.
prisoners were infantrymen, all types of soldiers including the elite

Alpini and Bersaglieri had been captured.
On 26 October Cadorna expressed his feelings on the performance
of his troops in a letter to his youngest daughter Carla:
yesterday ten regiments surrendered without fighting! Now we are suffer-
ing the consequences of the subversion in our country which has gone
unchecked for many years.24
Cadorna argued strongly from the first that political subversion and
defeatism were the cause of the disaster, since many troops had not
fought but had simply surrendered. He went on to make these senti-
ments disastrously explicit in an ill-advised memorandum to the govern-
ment on 28 October: ‘the inadequate resistance of units of 2nd Army,
cowardly retreating without fighting or ignominiously surrendering to
the enemy, has permitted the Austro-German forces to break our left
wing on the Julian front’.25 Despite government efforts to prevent its
publication, this text become well-known, and the impression it created
both at home and abroad was very poor.
Cadorna was not alone in his assertions of cowardice: just three
days into the battle, on 27 October, the British military attaché Delmé-
Radcliffe blamed ‘the determination of a portion of the troops to leave
the field . . . On the left flank of 2nd Army it was not a question of troops
fighting moderately well, but of their fighting at all.’26 Delmé-Redcliffe
had made a career out of scathing judgements on his hosts’ military
capabilities, and never missed an opportunity to put the boot in. None-
theless in this case, there is concrete evidence to show that incidents of
mass surrender did occur, with little or no resistance being offered.
Mass Surrender
A few examples will illustrate the extent of incidents of mass surrender,

particularly within IV Corps. The 87th Infantry Regiment lost a total
of 69 officers and 1455 men, of whom 12 officers and 780 men were
taken within a few hours at Plezzo, and 19 officers and 255 men at
Monte Rombon, during the course of 24 October. On Monte Nero,
24
Luigi Cadorna and Raffaele Cadorna, Lettere famigliari (Milan, 1967).
25
RCI vol. II, section 588.
26
The National Archives (UK), CAB 24/30.
32 vanda wilcox
559 men of 97th Infantry and 552 of the 98th were isolated from their
officers and captured in large groups. The 223rd and 224th Regiments
who made up the Etna brigade each lost over 2000 men, in a succes-
sion of separate incidents.27 Where such large numbers were taken
in specific locations within a very short space of time, it is clear that
prisoners were captured in sizeable groups.
There is some evidence to support the argument that such surrender
was the result of anti-war feeling or a refusal to fight. Some prisoners
of war wrote home admitting that they had chosen to go over to the
enemy. A few individuals even testified to the Commission of Inquiry
on Caporetto that they had surrendered in the hope of bringing an
early end to the war. They explained that they had ‘saved Italy’ by
helping to hasten peace and end the destruction being caused by the
war.28 Prisoners of longer standing often reacted with disgust when
the men from Caporetto eventually arrived in the camps of Austria,
Hungary and southern Germany.29 Writing home from Mauthausen in
December 1917 one soldier describing the ‘never sufficiently cursed II
Army’ claimed that the prisoners taken at Caporetto had arrived laden
with money, intent on making a new life for themselves:
How shamelessly they presented themselves . . . “We have brought you
peace,” they claimed. “We hope the Germans reach Milan and even
Rome!!!” they said. But now they’re sorry, God knows they’re sorry, and
they bite their fingernails. They tell stories to make your hair stand on end.
One of our captains with his whole company of 250 men surrendered to
two Germans without even firing so much as a shot! Colonels, Generals
surrendered as soon as they set eyes on [the enemy]. Disgusting! As far
as Udine, the Germans advanced with their rifles on their shoulders,
singing, since not a shot was fired against them, and that explains the
speed of their advance.30
But it is not possible to impute ill-intent or defeatism to all acts of sur-
render. Many prisoners felt their capture to be the cause of acute shame
27
AUSSME F.11.99/2.
28
RCI vol. II, pp. 484–86, section 535.
29
The novelist C. E. Gadda, a lieutenant in the 5th Alpini group who was captured
on 25 October, recorded in his diary the bitter accusations and anger with which
prisoners from Caporetto were greeted by their fellow countrymen. Carlo Emilio
Gadda, Taccuino di Caporetto: Diario di guerra e di prigione (ottobre 1917–aprile 1918) (Milan:
Garzanti, 1991).
30
Giovanna Procacci, Soldati e prigionieri italiani nella Grande guerra (Torino: Bollati
Boringhieri, 2000), pp. 511–12.
and humiliation and vigorously protested their ignorance.31 Moreover,

while Italian observers were claiming that the troops had not fought,
reports from the enemy suggested otherwise. When Lt Erwin Rommel
and his Württemberg Battalion captured 50 officers and 2000 men of
the 4th Bersaglieri Brigade, who surrendered to him en-masse, it was
only after fierce resistance. Three times Rommel demanded their sur-
render and each time the Italians refused, continuing their machine-gun
fire and even launching an attack. But after some twenty minutes of
‘very violent firing’ the ‘concealed and very superior positions’ of the
German troops came to bear and the Italian officers finally ordered the
surrender at the fourth time of asking.32 Rommel’s assessment was that
many could have escaped, since ‘clear thinking and vigorous command
were lacking’. But it was certain that whatever other deficiencies there
had been, spirit and determination were not lacking in these troops.
In another testimony from the Austro-Hungarian side, General Alfred
Krauss of the 3rd Edelweiss and 22nd Schützen divisions noted that
‘. . . [the mountain group] certainly conquered the first Italian positions,
but could not entirely break the line. They could not do so until the
columns in the valley bottoms rendered the defence of elevated posi-
tions impossible. Only then did whole brigades fall prisoner.’33 If many
units had no choice but to surrender, it becomes necessary rather to
ask why.
Capture not Surrender: Military Explanations
Most Italian historians now accept that Caporetto was first and fore-
most a battlefield defeat.34 The German troops who had been added
to Otto von Below’s Fourteenth Army had arrived from Riga where
they had applied their new rapid infiltration tactics with great success.
Rommel describes how his troops surprised numerous men sleeping or
unawares, through swift and silent infiltration manoeuvres under cover
31
See for instance the letters of denunciation sent to Italian authorities by resentful
prisoners, keen to report those of their fellows who had willingly deserted. AUSSME,
Grande Guerra, F.11.111/2.
32
Erwin Rommel, Infantry Attacks (London: Greenhill Books, 1990), pp. 202–06.
33
A. Krauss, Die Ursachen Unserer Niederlage. Erinnerungen und Urteile aus dem Weltkriege.
(Munich, 1921) cited in Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, p. 120.
34
See Bruna Bianchi, “La grande guerra nella storiografia italiana dell’ultimo
decennio,” Ricerche Storiche XXI, 3 (1991), pp. 698–745.
34 vanda wilcox
of darkness, fog and heavy rain.35 Many Italian units believed themselves
to be far from the front-lines and were totally unprepared for the sud-
den appearance of the enemy.36 The tactical skill of the German troops
and commanders was matched only by the ineptitude and command
inadequacies of their Italian opposite numbers. The failures of XXVII
and IV Corps on 24 and 25 October constituted the opening phase
of the disaster, as the initial rupture of the defensive line created the
possibility for the subsequent collapses of other units.37
XXVII Corps was deployed opposite the key bridgehead at Tolmino,
protecting a crucial crossing point over the Isonzo and controlling the
road to Cividale del Friuli, one of the region’s major towns. But due to
a combination of slow responses, poor decision making and inadequate
planning, Badoglio lost his vital position and allowed the enemy to
pass more or less unhindered up the valley of the Isonzo to take the
town of Caporetto. From the position German troops could effectively
encircle IV Corps. Many units fought well but stood little chance once
19th Division and Badoglio had given way.
Badoglio had been ordered to maintain the majority of his troops
on the western bank of the river, and keep only pickets and advance
troops on the eastern heights. But ignoring this instruction he had
arranged 22 of his 49 battalions on the eastern side of the Isonzo,
hoping to quickly counterattack after the initial assault.38 These troops
being rapidly lost, he had neither reserve nor solid defence on the
western bank. The first German troops were across the river as early
as 08.00 on 24 October and others crossed lower down shortly after
mid-day.39 The rapidity and audaciousness of the advance, combined
with the thick fog, took the defenders totally by surprise and left many
units almost encircled. Meanwhile as the Austrians began to consolidate
their positions on the western river bank, the excessively high numbers
of Badoglio’s troops stationed on the eastern side were trapped, with
no choice but to surrender.
35
Rommel, Infantry Attacks, pp. 185–89.
36
Ibid., pp. 193–99; RCI vol. II, pp. 138–40.
37
AUSSME, Grande Guerra, F.11.99/4 “Abbozza delle operazioni 24 ottobre 1917”,
28 January 1918. Errors by XXIV and VII Corps, though significant in the widening
scope of the defeat, were a lesser factor in the opening 48 hours.
38
Gatti, “Fra le cause strategiche,” pp. 253–54.
39
RCI vol. II section 144, pp. 113–14.
General Giuseppe Della Noce, head of discipline and military justice

on the general staff, reported to Cadorna on events in XXVII Corps
a few days later:
It’s not true that the soldiers didn’t fight. They fought, and well for the
most part. But they were in such [poor] positions that they couldn’t defend
them: they were on the peaks but not in the valleys and it was easy to
encircle them. It isn’t true that the Spezia Brigade didn’t fight: . . . General
Villani [19th division] from 25 October . . . says “after a heroic resistance
lasting all of yesterday the remains of the brigade has retreated to . . . and
the remains of the Taro Brigade has retired to . . .”. If one speaks of the
remains of a brigade it means that they fought marvellously. Who can
say that the enemy bombardment did not effect an absolute slaughter in
our front lines, of which we know little?40
Della Noce’s logic here is flawed: the brigade could be reduced to
almost nothing by surrender as easily as by slaughter. But he was cor-
rect to point out that the poor defensive positions occupied by several
brigades were essentially untenable.
A number of senior officers were captured with all their staff, leav-
ing their men without any leadership.41 But one of the most striking
aspects of the first few days of the battle is that a number of units were
captured in their entirety: officers and men surrendered together.42 As
one corporal from Bari wrote home from the prisoner of war camp
in Mauthausen, ‘when I was made prisoner it was the fault of my
lieutenant not my own fault, we were taken prisoner in a group of 32
soldiers and corporals with two officers, how can they say that I am a
deserter?’43 Officers often commanded their entire unit to surrender.
For the first time in the war senior officers were also captured: at least
half a dozen generals and over 50 colonels were captured in the month
after 23 October, including divisional and brigade commanders.44
Those officers who surrendered their whole units did so when they felt
they could no longer reasonably fight on. But it seems that sometimes
their judgements were needlessly pessimistic, as a few sample decisions
from IV Corps can perhaps show. In Della Noce’s opinion,
40
Gatti, Diario, pp. 424–26.
41
For example, AUSSME F.11.97/1: Col. Brig. Sacconi of Brigata Sele; F.11.97/2:
Col. Sciarpa of 125th Infantry.
42
AUSSME F.11.99/2.
43
Procacci, Soldati e prigionieri, p. 402.
44
AUSSME F.11.96 Gen. Farisoglio, of 43rd Division, IV Corps, was the first
general captured in the war.
36 vanda wilcox
IV Corps, which was the crucial corps, was not in the best of conditions,
either strategically, tactically or morally. Strategically they were based
around the Rombon and unable to take this key strategic point which
commanded the sector. Tactically, troops were not always optimally situ-
ated. Lines did not hold the peaks but ran half-way up mountains often
ceding territorial superiority to the enemy who could easily bombard the
trenches. . . . A number of cases brought from the Caltanisetta brigade (46
Div) illustrate the frequent exchange of propaganda . . .45
Cavaciocchi himself agreed with this assessment, though bitterly; he had
requested both fresh troops and renewed supplies in the run up to the
battle, and had further proposed that the Corps should withdraw a short
way to more defensible positions.46 This combination of weaknesses was
reflected in the decision-making processes of IV Corps officers.
The logistical headquarters of IV Corps was at Caporetto, and was
the primary objective of the 12th Silesian division, with whom the young
lieutenant Rommel was also advancing. The first enemy patrols entered
Caporetto at around 13.45 on 24 October, less than 12 hours after
the offensive had been launched.47 By the time Cavaciocchi anxiously
ordered the relocation of his headquarters at 15.00 the only orders he
had received from his army commander that day was an instruction
to immediately counterattack.48 As the afternoon wore on, dark with
fog and heavy rain, reliable news was impossible to come by and only
rumours abounded. Shortly after 15.00 Farisoglio, commanding 43rd
Division, was captured with all his staff on one of the roads heading
into the town.49 At 15.30 the engineer officer in Caporetto responsible
for the bridge over the Isonzo ordered his engineers to blow it up.50
Brigadier Colonel Francesco Pisano, commanding the Foggia Brigade,
34th Division, was just outside the town, and heard the explosion:
My immediate fear was that the Eiffel Bridge [in Caporetto] had been
blown up. But that would have been most strange given that protection
of the bridge—which was currently well defended—was vital not only
for the evacuation of precious materiel located along the road to Smast,
but to secure the road for the retreating troops of the Division over what
45
46
Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, pp. 68–80, 88–91.
47
Cesare De Simone, L’Isonzo Mormorava. Fanti e Generali a Caporetto (Milan: Mursia,
1995), pp. 28–29.
48
Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, pp. 152–53.
49
AUSSME F.11.96/2, debriefing 10313, December 1918.
50
De Simone, L’Isonzo Mormorava, p. 29; Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, pp.
142–43.
was now, we believed, the only bridge in the sector. It was essential also
so that we could continue to support the many troops to our north fight-
ing on the Volnik . . . The [divisional] Chief of Staff refused to believe
my suspicions but admitted that he did not know what orders had been
put in place for the bridge . . . I immediately sent to discover whether the
bridge had truly been blown up. Alas there could be no further doubt.
The bridge had been fully destroyed by the engineers, but it was impos-
sible to know who had given the order. There was not even the time
to discover who was responsible for such a terrible, unforgivable error.
Rumours abounded that a lieutenant of the engineers had ordered the
explosion on his own initiative . . . We made every attempt to organise
repairs to the bridge but it was utterly destroyed, and efforts to effect any
kind of crossing failed.51
Thousands of men, including virtually the entire Etna and Genova
brigades, were trapped on the eastern bank of the river and were left
no choice but to surrender.52 This situation was to be repeated many
times both in the opening days of the battle and during the retreat,
as bridges were destroyed prematurely forcing the surrender of many
troops.53 At the very least this incident reveals poor decision making
structures and a lack of clear chains of command.
The prime example of a premature, panicked decision was the fateful
choice to abandon the Saga gorge. Control of the Saga gave control
over the river Isonzo for some distance in both directions. The narrow
point was commanded by the Polovnik peak which was a key defen-
sive pivot, and it was feared that should this mountain be taken, Saga
would be untenable. But so long as it remained in Italian hands, then
the Saga—which protected most of IV Corps—was a strong defen-
sible position. Nonetheless, at around 18.00 on 24 October General
Arrighi, commanding 50th Division, responsible for the sector, decided
to abandon the gorge—although the troops defending the position had
not yet seen any direct action.54 Some men managed to retreat in an
orderly fashion, many more simply surrendered.
The consequences were immediate and catastrophic. The loss of the
river crossings at Saga and Caporetto permitted two major incursions
51
AUSSME F.11.97/1, debriefing 10352, December 1918.
52
AUSSME F.11.99/2, Prigionieri catturati.
53
Most notably the bridge over the Tagliamento at Codroipo on 30 October, which
left many thousands of troops isolated.
54
Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, pp. 112–13. Arrighi’s communications with Corps
command had failed, so his took this decision on his own initiative—despite the orders
sent at 15.00 from IV Corps to maintain the position since it was crucial.
38 vanda wilcox
into the Italian lines, creating a pincer effect: within hours a gap opened
up between IV Corps and the next section of the line and all that
remained of the Corps was trapped between German and Austrian
advances. The decision of the divisional commander is inexplicable
given that his cover from the Polovnik was still in place.55 Even more
inexplicably, it later emerged, Capello’s second in command, Montuori,
had issued the same panicked order to abandon the Saga around two
hours before his subordinate had done so.56 This order had never
arrived, but the divisional general Arrighi had decided precipitately to
do so anyway on his own account. Cavaciocchi questioned ‘the state
of mind of the general, who had taken such a grave decision contrary
to my orders.’57 No reason for the decision has ever really been found,
other than panic on the behalf of both divisional and sector com-
mand.58 Capello described it as ‘premature’ since ‘50th division was in
good condition to defend the straight well, the danger from the enemy
was not immediate . . . a longer resistance would have enabled a calmer
organisation of [other] defences’.59 After the destruction of the bridge at
Caporetto and the surrender of the Saga on 24 October and then the
destruction of the Ternova bridge the following morning, the Italians
no longer controlled any crossings over the Isonzo in this sector.60
Can we then speak of a crisis of morale amongst senior officers?
These examples suggest that panicked, fearful decisions led directly
to the surrender of huge numbers of troops. General Donato Etna,
commanding the left wing of Second Army, claimed that a ‘depressed
mental state which had pervaded the majority of commanders at that
moment, not least because it was so difficult—if not impossible—to
receive and transmit news and orders, due to the lack of functioning
communications and the extreme organisational problems’,61 a statement
which suggests that alarm and uncertainty were widespread amongst
55
Emilio Faldella, Caporetto: le vere cause di una tragedia (Bologna: Capelli, 1967), pp.
53–55. Krauss expressed himself amazed (and delighted!) by the Italian decision to
abandon the Saga.
56
RCI vol. II, pp. 108–10.
57
Cavaciocchi, Un anno al comando, p. 153.
58
Bencivenga, La sorpresa strategica, p. 82.
59
Luigi Capello, Note di Guerra, 2 vols. (Milan, 1920), vol. II, p. 375.
60
Arrighi’s hasty decision to withdraw isolated a substantial number of troops to his
rear; two days later he himself was the victim of the similarly panicked withdrawal of
troops from Monte Maggiore, in what was later described as a ‘precipitate’ decision.
RCI vol. II, pp. 140–43.
61
Ibid., vol. II, pp. 140–41.
Second Army’s officers. Bencivenga described a general ‘paralysis of will’

amongst commanders in these fraught days, adding that ‘all through
this first phase of the battle, we see the Italian commanders passively
submitting to the will of the enemy’.62 Rommel wrote that senior
officers ‘had no intention of fighting although [their] position was far
from hopeless’. Only after surrendering, when they realised how easily
they might have fought on, did Italian officers ‘become pugnacious’.63
Some generals were more concerned with demonstrating their own
blamelessness for the unfolding disaster than intervening to limit it.64
The culture of blame among senior officers was perhaps responsible for
this. Cadorna’s tendency was to sack or even demote any officer who
met with the least setback—he removed no fewer than 217 generals
from their positions in his two and a half years in command, an average
of seven per month. And indeed Cavaciocchi was duly dismissed from
his post at around 16.30 on the afternoon of 25 October.
The Crisis of Morale
Such demoralising management practices applied, however, to all

armies, not just Capello’s Second Army. It is notable that the collapse
of Second Army was not echoed by either Fourth Army to the north
or Third Army to the south. Though both were forced to withdraw in
November 1917 neither witnessed the same levels of disorder, desertion
or surrender. It has been hypothesised that Second Army, and certain
key units, had lower morale than troops elsewhere in the theatre.
Della Noce believed that morale in IV Corps was particularly low,65
and another officer on the general staff claimed that ‘For two years
IV corps has been the refuge of all those who wanted to do nothing,
62
Bencivenga, La sorpresa strategica, p. 85.
63
Rommel, Infantry Attacks, pp. 220–24.
64
Ardengo Soffici, La Ritirata del Friuli: note di un ufficiale della Seconda armata (Florence,
1919), describes a meeting with General Vittorio Magliano of the Jonio Brigade who
was returning to HQ to excuse his conduct and defend his reputation even while his
troops were headed into action—perhaps as much a symptom of the command culture
under Cadorna as of Magliano’s character.
65
“In morale terms, IV corps had been abandoned to its own devices, lacking in
fighting spirit and continually harassed and mistreated . . . soldiers preferred to stay in
the forward line even though it was the most dangerous and had highest risk of death
or wounding since in the two rear lines such heavy burdens of labour and fatigue
duties were imposed by General Boccacci.” Gatti, Diario, pp. 397–98.
40 vanda wilcox
recommended by senators, deputies etc: so it had nothing in terms of

morale.’66
But by autumn 1917 Italian morale was poor in across the army,
not just in Cavaciocchi’s unfortunate IV Corps. Political or ideological
commitment to the war was never widespread, and a lack of propa-
ganda or systematic instruction meant that many soldiers had no idea
what Italy was fighting for. More fundamentally, the idea of Italy was
still relatively weak: national identity and patriotic loyalty were under-
developed.67 Added to these inherent problems, which even concerted
state and army action might have struggled to tackle, were a number
of areas in which culpable neglect had permitted a full-scale morale
crisis to develop. The management of troop rotation and leave was
abysmal. The 223rd Infantry Regiment, part of the Etna Brigade, had
been stationed at an altitude of over 2000 m on Monte Nero above
Caporetto without any relief for over 10 months.68 Perhaps unsurpris-
ingly the Etna Brigade suffered some of the highest losses of any brigade
in the first days of the battle, with 4231 prisoners taken—almost the
entire unit.69 The stresses of coping with the terrain were not to be
underestimated, and the high mountains of the upper Isonzo around
Caporetto presented both military and psychological obstacles.
But it cannot be argued that men surrendered simply because of
tiredness and poor morale. Austrian troops were exhausted and poorly
equipped just as their opponents were.70 Only two months before
Caporetto, the supposedly ‘exhausted and demoralised’ Italian troops
had won a notable success in the 11th battle of the Bainsizza. And
though they might have become more tired after this experience it
could not, surely, have been demoralising: it was probably the greatest
Italian success to date. Meanwhile the rapid recovery, the solidity of
the rest of the army and the battlefield successes of 1918 suggest that
there was substantial resilience, or at least that the morale crisis was
limited in scope and extent.
These arguments, then, support the idea that Caporetto was first and
foremost a military defeat. Giovanna Procacci, in her 1997 survey of the
66
Ibid., p. 448—report from Balsamo Crivelli.
67
See V. Wilcox, ‘Morale and Discipline in the Italian Army, 1915–1918’, Unpub-
lished D.Phil, Oxford, 2006, Ch. 6.
68
RCI vol. II section 424.
69
AUSSME F.11.99/2.
70
Bencivenga, La sorpresa strategica, pp. 10–11.
First World War in Italy, wrote that ‘The reasons for the disaster . . . are
exclusively to be found in grave military errors. . . . There were neither
mutinies nor acts of collective insubordination.’ The assertion that there
was no collective insubordination is of particular significance, since it
reinforces that any incidents of mass surrender came either without
the knowledge or with the consent of officers. She continues, ‘undoubt-
edly the weakness of patriotic sentiment amongst the soldiers helped
to spread the conviction that the war was over and that the disaster
could be turned into a happy return home’.71
This latter idea perhaps better explains the actions of those many
deserters who decided to simply down weapons and head back home
than of those who surrendered or deserted to the enemy in the open-
ing stages of the battle. This distinction deserves to be highlighted.
Cadorna perceived widespread cowardice and a desire to flee from
service; but if these were the key motivations, why did men not simply
desert homewards, towards the comfort of family and friends, rather
than going over to the enemy? During the course of the war, huge
numbers of men deserted internally, returning home or living wild in the
Italian countryside. Over 128,000 men were tried for desertion during
the course of the war, of whom only 1.6 per cent were charged with
going over to the enemy.72 Even allowing for recidivism, this suggests
that a high number of men deserted homewards, usually motivated
by concern for family and loved ones as well as war-weariness and a
desire to evade combat.73 Once the retreat from the Isonzo front was
underway, many thousands of II Army soldiers sought to take this
option, simply casting aside their weapons and heading for home or
else merely wandering off aimlessly in the confusion. The absence of
such conduct in the first 48 hours of the battle suggests that at this
time it was simply not possible: troops were surrounded or outflanked
and had little effective choice.
71
Giovanna Procacci, “L’Italia nella Grande Guerra,” in Storia d’Italia 4: Guerre e
Fascismo 1914–1943, ed. Giovanni Sabattucci and Vittorio Vidotto (Rome: Laterza,
1997), pp. 69–70.
72
Giorgio Mortara, Dati sulla giustizia e disciplina militare (Roma: Provveditore generale
dello stato, 1929), pp. 14–17 A further 5.8% deserted ‘in the presence of the enemy’.
Not all those who deserted to the enemy were charged, of course, but the figure is
still very low.
73
Bruna Bianchi, “Le ragione della diserzione: Soldati e ufficiali di fronte a giudici
e psichiatri (1915–1918),” Storia e problemi contemporanei 10 (1992), pp. 10–12.
42 vanda wilcox
Is it possible that men surrendered willingly out of despair at Ital-

ian prospects? Given the extent of the Italian victory at the Bainsizza,
the most significant since the war had begun this seems implausible.
A significant territorial advance had been achieved, and prospects for
an Italian victory seemed enhanced.74 Nor would Italian troops have
had confidence in their treatment at the hands of Austrian captors:
Austria, struggling to feed its own army and domestic population, had
no food to spare for prisoners. The death rate of Italian prisoners of
war in Austrian hands was appallingly high—over 100,000 during the
war as a whole—and even before Caporetto it was known in Italy
that hunger and disease were wreaking a terrible toll on Italian pris-
oners.75 Willing surrender through certainty of imminent defeat or in
confidence of safety and good treatment cannot have been widespread
calculations.76
Another two issues were much discussed in Italy as possible motives
for surrender at Caporetto. The first was the Papal Peace Note in August
1917. Benedict XV’s use of the phrase ‘useless slaughter’ to describe the
ongoing war had a particular impact in Catholic Italy, and the army
was immediately filled with concern over the Pope’s impact on its men.
In theory Catholicism was almost ubiquitous, and although in practice
many men were not very devout, the Pope’s words were nonetheless
taken very seriously. The second key incident was the speech made in
Parliament on 12 July 1917 by socialist deputy Claudio Treves. In it he
used the memorable and ambiguous phrase ‘not another winter in the
trenches’.77 Was this, as some opponents immediately claimed, deliberate
incitement to revolt? Or was he simply expressing the heartfelt wish and
hope of soldiers and civilians alike? Certainly, after the Russian Revolu-
tion in March 1917 fears of a copycat revolt had been widespread in
Italy as they had been elsewhere. And the food riots in Turin in August
1917 stoked fears that socialist unrest could threaten the stability of the
entire state, as it had in the so-called ‘Red Week’ of July 1914. In this
74
Ufficio Storico, IOH, vol. IV, t. 2, pp. 153–398. Gatti, Diario, pp. 164, 190–91.
75
Procacci, Soldati e prigionieri.
76
Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London: Penguin, 1998) Ch. 13 suggests that
German soldiers surrendering on the Western Front during the last 4 months of the
war may have been influenced either by a general sense that they had already lost the
war, or else by the confidence that they would be well treated if they surrendered.
77
RCI vol. II, sections 514–16, 464–71, on the role of the socialist deputy Treves
and his speech to parliament, 12 July 1917. See also Piero Melograni, Storia Politica
della Grande Guerra (Torino: Mondadori, 1965), p. 374.
climate the apparent incitement to lay down arms was greeted with an
uproar. Military chaplains and junior officers were detailed immediately
to speak to their men and explain that neither the inflammatory senti-
ments of the socialist deputy nor the equally troubling disquiet of the
Pope should be taken as a suggestion of giving up.78
It is likely that discussions of a negotiated peace and a possible
end to the war contributed to the climate of war-weariness and poor
morale which was spreading by late 1917. And those who already
wished for an end to the fighting took comfort and encouragement
from the apparent support of such senior public figures.79 But the
Inquiry Commission, though it was very keen to find an explanation
for the defeat which exonerated both General Staff and the Govern-
ment, determined that neither statement had any decisive bearing on
the events of October and November. It is hard to disagree with this
conclusion, not least since neither issue is much mentioned in any of
the sources on desertion and surrender. Since political and ideologi-
cal motivations for surrender can largely be dismissed, and given that
certainty of defeat or desire to be safe in a prisoner-of-war camp were
unlikely to be widespread sentiments, this leaves forcible surrender,
through encirclement or overwhelming military odds, as one of the
few plausible explanations.80
Aftermath
What can the aftermath of the battle reveal about the nature of the
defeat? One question much discussed is the role of Allied support in
halting the Italian retreat and shoring up the line. The halt on the
Piave has sometimes been attributed substantially to the impact of
these troops, but a closer examination of the timing of events throws
doubt on this interpretation.
General Ferdinand Foch arrived at Italian headquarters on the
morning of 30 October, and Sir William Robertson soon after. The
two men created a rather mixed impression among the Italians. When
78
See Gian Luigi Gatti, Dopo Caporetto. Gli Ufficiali P nella Grande Guerra: propaganda,
assistenza, vigilanza (Gorizia: Libreria Editrice Goriziana, 2000).
79
E.g. Procacci, Soldati e prigionieri, pp. 432–33.
80
Faldella, Caporetto, pp. 82–83. ‘Military events were the cause of the morale
failure . . . without the breaking of the line, the morale crisis would probably not have
come to pass.’
44 vanda wilcox
they came to lunch the following day, Gatti recorded his impressions in
his diary. He described the bluff uncompromising Robertson81 as ‘an
immobile bull-dog’, who spoke almost no French—let alone Italian,
and who ‘drank only the whisky he had brought with him’ during the
meal. More important that his social inadequacies, he did not create
a good military impression either, and Gatti summarised him as ‘an
illiterate buffalo’. Foch, on the other hand, made a better impression,
intelligent and socially ‘brilliant’. The two visiting generals spent the day
carrying out inspections of various sectors of the line before meeting
up with Cadorna again in the evening, agreeing at this stage to send
no more than six divisions. ‘It is up to Italy to defend herself,’ they
told him.82 Clearly they were as unimpressed with the Italians as the
Italians were with them.
Not unreasonably, both generals were awaiting some sort of stabi-
lisation before deciding whether to commit troops to the theatre. If
defeat was inevitable there was no point in sending aid, neither France
nor Britain could afford to risk their troops needlessly.83 At the Rapallo
Conference on 6 November the French and British largely excluded the
Italians from their decision making, even snubbing them on the train
journey the day before. Foch and Robertson demanded the replace-
ment of Cadorna as an absolute pre-requisite for sending their support:
they made it clear that they considered him to be chiefly responsible
for the disaster. Under strong pressure from Lloyd George, who had
always supported the idea of British assistance to Italy, the reluctant
generals eventually agreed to send eight divisions in total, rather than
the six initially proposed, but stressed that the troops would not all be
available until 20 November.84
The first French troops were seen in the war zone on 7 November,
their blue uniforms causing much excitement. A few British artillery
units had been serving on the Isonzo front for some months, but the
newly arriving British troops began to gather at Mantova on 10 Novem-
ber. Not until 21 November however did French and British infantry
begin to actively reinforce the defence and take over sectors of the line.
By this time the line was in fact already fully stabilised. The chaotic
81
David R. Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals (London: Associated University
Presses, 1983), pp. 74–80.
82
83
Ibid., p. 282.
84
Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals, pp. 222–23.
mass rout had ended by 3 November, before the Rapallo Conference.

After Diaz had assumed command on 9 November, few substantial
losses had occurred, and by 12 November the line was officially stable
on the Piave. A report sent to Supreme Command on 16 November
after a day-long inspection of two army corps stated that although the
men ‘still bore the traces of the retreat on their faces’ the troops were
‘well behaved’, ‘solid, responsive to their officers’ will and able to fight
worthily’.85 Indeed, by 20 November many of the formerly disbanded
troops had been successfully integrated into new units. ‘Calm and
confidence have returned’ wrote Gatti.86
The promise of French and British help to come was certainly an
encouraging and reassuring factor after 6 November but it was not, in
fact, foreign troops who halted the retreat. Had the Italians not suc-
ceeded in substantially stabilising the line of their own accord, even
before Rapallo, this aid might not have been forthcoming. The morale
and determination of the troops was not fundamentally and entirely
destroyed, since they managed to recover in two to three weeks. The
many morale boosting measures which helped to improve the Italian
army’s performance in 1918 had not yet been introduced, nor were
they of a type to have an immediate effect. Instead the recovery on
the Piave confirms the idea that the panic and demoralisation was a
temporary result of a particular set of military circumstances. Had the
majority of the troops genuinely sought a revolution or to end the war,
the so-called ‘miracle of the Piave’ could not have happened.
If mass surrender was caused by military defeat, and not vice-versa,
then the Italian defeat is more closely comparable with the French and
British retreat of March 1918 and the event is not so exceptional.87
Given that surrender was primarily caused by defeat rather than panic,
and that the morale crisis was brought to an end within three weeks, the
evidence seems to suggest that the crisis in morale was the consequence
rather than the cause of the defeat. Men fled the battlefield—or sur-
rendered if they could not—because they or their neighbouring units
had been defeated rather than the other way around. The extent of the
defeat was substantially the result of poor decision making by senior
officers. As well as error or ineptitude, this reveals both the unhealthy
85
AUSSME E2:95, Ufficio Situazione, 16/11/1917, com. 38.
86
87
Isnenghi and Rochat, La Grande Guerra, p. 374.
46 vanda wilcox
state of the Italian chain of command and the disaffection and depres-
sion, even defeatism, which were widespread at senior levels. Combat
morale and battlefield outcomes were cyclical; while low morale can
lead to defeat, at Caporetto it was defeat which brought the simmering
disaffection into a full-scale morale crisis.
‘WEARY WAITING IS HARD INDEED’:
THE GRAND FLEET AFTER JUTLAND
Nick Hewitt
Fate is not over generous in giving opportunities, and if you miss one you never
get another . . . the weary waiting is hard indeed. . . . We are never still all day and
manoeuvring about, and all acknowledge that we are advancing in efficiency day by
day . . . until our great day comes to prove that it has not all been wasted effort. The
fly in the ointment is the dread that that day may never come and all our efforts will
have been in vain.1
So wrote Admiral Sir David Beatty, Commander in Chief of the Grand
Fleet, in a long letter to his wife written on the first anniversary of the
Battle of Jutland. Having achieved his ambition of becoming C in C,
perhaps the role that he saw as his destiny, the enemy refused to oblige
by ‘coming out’ and giving battle. Beatty was thus forced to develop
unfamiliar characteristics, above all, patience.
Given the scope of the war at sea during this period it is perhaps wise
to state the parameters of this chapter at the beginning. The first theme
is one of strategy and tactics: how the Grand Fleet, the cutting edge
of the Royal Navy’s sword, learned the lessons from Jutland, absorbed
them, and went on to prosecute the war between June 1916 and the
end of 1917. The Grand Fleet is defined as the capital ships based at
Scapa Flow and Rosyth and supporting elements based at harbours
along the British East Coast. This analysis will look at changes in
strategic command and direction which were made during the period,
plans to break the strategic deadlock in the North Sea, and operations
which actually took place.
The chapter will not bring in operations outside the North Sea theatre
and above all will not examine the introduction of convoy and the long,
complex campaign waged against the German unrestricted submarine
warfare offensive after 1 February 1917, except indirectly when the U-boat
campaign caused or affected other operations.
1
Rear-Admiral W. S. Chalmers, The Life and Letters of David Beatty (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1951), p. 317.
48 nick hewitt
The second theme has little to do with grand strategy, but is arguably
no less important. There sometimes exists a misapprehension that the
Kaiser’s Navy did nothing after Jutland but swing at anchor, its ships
becoming ever more rusty and its men ever more mutinous. This is not
strictly true and this chapter will show that the German fleet remained
a ‘clear and present danger’ in the North Sea and elsewhere, right up to
the end of the war. It is, however, accurate enough to say that Admiral
Scheer and the High Seas Fleet abandoned their dreams of Der Tag
(‘The Day’), that single cataclysmic engagement which would wrest
control of the oceans from the Royal Navy, soon after Jutland.2
Faced with victory, but a victory of the most unconvincing and dissat-
isfying sort, what were the British to do to remain active and confident
as 1916 drew to a close and the war dragged on through 1917? More
importantly, how were the men of the Grand Fleet, arguably the great-
est assembly of largely inactive technology and manpower in the world
at the time, to hold up their heads as their brothers in khaki laid down
their lives by the hundreds of thousand on the Western Front?
Losing the Propaganda War: The Jutland Controversy
The Battle of Jutland was fought between 31 May and 1 June 1916.
It was the only time that fleets of big-gun ‘dreadnought’ battleships,
built at enormous expense between 1906 and 1914, actually came to
blows, and it involved, on both sides, 250 ships and around 100,000
2
Professor Eric Grove pointed out to me that Scheer’s abandonment of the fleet
action as a strategic goal may well have been the result of being stripped of his U-
boats for the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign, as the tactical use of U-boat
‘ambushes’ was an essential part of his plans for reducing British numbers before the
fleets even met. However, according to his own account at least, after Jutland Scheer
became an enthusiastic supporter of the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign
before the decision had been taken to begin it. According to his memoirs (Germany’s High
Seas Fleet in the World War) (London: Cassell, 1920), on 20 June he outlined his views
in a memorandum to the Kaiser as follows: ‘I replied that in view of the situation I
was in favour of the unrestricted U-boat campaign against commerce, in the form of
a blockade of the British coast, that I objected to any milder form, and I suggested
that, if owing to the political situation we could not make use of this, our sharpest
weapon, there was nothing for it but to use the U-boats for military purposes.’ Had
Scheer believed that the High Seas Fleet could still triumph, it seems odd that he did
not argue more strongly for the U-boats to be retained in support of the fleet. I must
therefore on balance ‘stick to my guns’ and conclude that Scheer no longer believed
he could win a fleet action. I am, however, very grateful to Professor Grove for making
me examine the issue in more detail.
‘weary waiting is hard indeed’ 49
men. It was at times a confused and bloody action, at the end of which
the British had lost fourteen ships and 6,094 men killed, the Germans,
eleven ships and 2,551 men.
The battle changed nothing for Germany. The Royal Navy main-
tained its blockade and, in the words of one American newspaper, ‘The
German fleet . . . assaulted its jailor, but is still in jail.’3 However, the
German fleet escaped and Jutland was certainly no Trafalgar. Worse
still, they returned to port first and Admiral Scheer was quick to tell
his side of the story. Newspapers announced a German victory, and on
5 June the Kaiser travelled to Wilhelmshaven to proclaim that: ‘The
English were beaten. The spell of Trafalgar has been broken. You have
started a new chapter in world history.’4
In the meantime the Grand Fleet made for home, burying its dead
on the way. Its homecoming was more subdued. Britain expected
another Trafalgar and was bitterly disappointed when she did not get
it. ‘Great naval disaster! Five British battleships sunk!’ proclaimed the
London newspapers.5
As a consequence of this early failure to win the propaganda battle,
arguments began to rage almost immediately in Britain about who
was to blame for what was viewed as at best a lost opportunity and
at worst, a defeat. The debate focussed on the respective roles played
by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the British Commander-in-Chief, and
Beatty, at the time commander of the Battlecruiser Fleet. The intrica-
cies of this debate, which went on well into the inter war period and
can still raise the hackles of historians today, lie outside the scope of
this chapter, but the essence of it was whether overwhelming victory
had eluded the British as a result of the alleged caution (bordering on
timidity), inflexibility and lack of initiative of Jellicoe, or the alleged
impetuosity, vanity and glory-seeking of Beatty.
Both admirals, to their credit, stayed largely aloof (at least publicly)
from this poisonous internecine conflict whilst there was still a war
to be won, and the battle was mainly fought through the endless and
sometimes vitriolic outpourings of their various friends and support-
ers). Beatty’s wife was less discrete, writing to Dennis Larking, a family
friend and retired naval officer, on 10 July 1916:
3
Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel (London: Pimlico, 2005), p. 663.
4
V. E. Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective (London: Cassell, 2001), p. 275.
5
Massie, Castles of Steel, p. 360.
50 nick hewitt
Now it is all over there seems to be very little to say except to curse Jel-
licoe for not going at them as the B.Cs [battle cruisers] did . . . I hear he
was frightened to death in case he might lose a B. ship. I think the real
truth he was in a deadly funk.6
There is no question that for the Royal Navy in general and the
Grand Fleet in particular ‘The Jutland Controversy’ definitely forms a
backdrop for the period under examination, particularly in relation to
senior command relationships.
The Lessons of Jutland
In the immediate aftermath of the battle, much of the analysis which

took place was focussed on the loss of the three British battlecruisers,
Indefatigable, Queen Mary and Invincible, which blew up and sank in the
course of the action with the loss of nearly all of their ship’s companies.
More than half of the British dead came from these ships alone, and
Jellicoe later wrote that the priorities for improvements were:
The urgent need for arrangements to prevent the flash of cordite charges,
ignited by the explosion of a shell in a turret or in a position between the
turret and the magazine, being communicated to the magazine itself.
Better measures were required to prevent the charges of small guns
from being ignited by bursting shell.
Increased deck armour protection in large ships had been shown
to be desirable in order that shell or fragments might not reach the
magazines . . . the . . . large angle of descent of the projectiles made our
ships very vulnerable in this respect.
Improved arrangements for flooding magazines and drenching exposed
cartridges had to be made.7
Probably the most important results of these deliberations were the
decisions to increase the deck armour of all the Fleet’s capital ships
and to install revolving flashproof scuttles between the magazines and
handling rooms, allowing the doors to be kept shut without affecting
the ships’ rate of fire. Such defensive-mindedness was viewed in some
quarters as distinctly ‘un-British’, the Director of Naval Construction,
6
B. McL. Ranft, ed., The Beatty Papers Volume I (London: Naval Records Society,
1989), p. 369.
7
Admiral Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, The Grand Fleet 1914–1916 Volume II (London:
Cassell, 1919), pp. 418–19.
Eustace Tennyson-d’Eyncourt, arguing that ‘the best defence is superior

power of offence’.8
Further concerns centred on the ineffectiveness of British shells and
the inadequacy of British gunnery and fire control systems, particularly
that of the Battle Cruiser Fleet. To an extent this problem could be
solved by practice, Jellicoe wrote in August 1916: ‘I hope the Battle-
Cruiser Fleet have been able to do some full calibre firing . . . they want
it badly . . .’9
In the matter of shells, Beatty, Jellicoe and their respective Flag
Captains, Frederick Dreyer (a gunnery specialist) and Ernle Chatfield
(a future First Sea Lord) were all united in their condemnation of the
standard British projectile. Dreyer wrote to Jellicoe in July 1916 that:
We have many people engaged trying to make out that our A.P. [armour
piercing] shell filled with lyddite, which burst half way through the plate,
are just as good as the German shell filled with trotyl with delayed action
fuse, which burst . . . well inside our ships. It seems a pity not to be will-
ing to learn.10
Unfortunately the Admiralty did not agree and no serious work was
carried out on the issue of shells until well into 1917.
These major issues were by no means the full extent of the introspec-
tion which characterised the Royal Navy after Jutland. Committees were
also set up to study ‘torpedoes, anti-flame and gas, signals, searchlights,
[and] engineering’.11
So much for equipment. The aftermath of Jutland also saw changes in
how the fleet was used, although not all were by any means dramatic or
revolutionary. Perhaps the most radical, and at the same time the most
discrete, was the full integration of the Admiralty’s wireless intercept
and code breaking team, known colloquially as ‘Room 40’, into Naval
Intelligence. Naval officers had traditionally viewed the civilian ‘boffins’
of Room 40 with some suspicion, and their remit was strictly limited to
providing raw decoded material, with interpretation left to ‘the profes-
sionals’. At the time of Jutland serious errors had come about as a result
of this attitude. The Director of Naval Operations, Captain Thomas
8
Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow Volume III (London: Oxford
University Press, 1966), p. 219.
9
A. Temple-Patterson, ed., The Jellicoe Papers Volume II (London: Naval Records
Society, 1966), p. 43.
10
Ibid., p. 215.
11
Ibid., p. 213.
52 nick hewitt
Jackson, was on record as arguing that ‘those chaps couldn’t possibly

understand all the implications of intercepted signals’, despite their deep,
almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the German Navy.12 In contrast, by
July 1917, Room 40 was preparing comprehensive intelligence reports
based on their own interpretation of signals intelligence.
Probably the greatest tactical lesson learned from Jutland for Jellicoe,
the great centraliser, was to permit a greater degree of flexibility and
initiative to his subordinate commanders, although this went nowhere
near as far as others had been advocating for many years.13 A new
paragraph inserted into Jellicoe’s ‘Grand Fleet Battle Orders’ (GFBOs)
in September 1916 read:
The Commander-in-Chief may make the signal ‘M.P’. This signal is used
when the Commander-in-Chief desires to emphasize the fact that under
existing conditions he finds it very difficult to control the movements of
the whole battlefleet and is a reminder of his desire that the Flag Officers
of battle squadrons shall manoeuvre their squadrons independently whilst
acting in support of the squadron or division to which the fleet flagship
is attached.14
Another significant revision to the GFBOs allowed for greater initiative
when faced by torpedo attack—one significant criticism of Jellicoe at
Jutland was his turning the fleet away when faced by German torpedo
boats, although this was in line with the accepted doctrine of the time.
Broadly, squadron commanders were now allowed to refrain from
turning away unless directly threatened, a sensible arrangement which
allowed elements of the fleet to maintain contact with the enemy:
The rear, and possibly the centre . . ., of the fleet, may be compelled to
give way to torpedo attacks, but this should not deter the van from tak-
ing every advantage of its immunity . . . to keep within effective gun range
of the enemy.15
In October 1916 further major revisions were carried out to reflect the
potentially fatal superiority in night fighting enjoyed by the Germans.
At Jutland, Jellicoe’s intention was to avoid fighting at night, out of fear
of torpedo attack and ‘friendly fire’ incidents. Instead he concentrated
12
13
See Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game (London: John Murray, 2005), for a
fascinating and detailed account of the centralisation debate in the Royal Navy during
the latter half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.
14
Jellicoe Papers, II, p. 48.
15
Ibid., p. 51.
on ensuring his fleet was positioned correctly to bring the Germans

to battle again the following morning. Once again, this was in line
with accepted doctrine and, potentially disastrously, was based on the
assumption that the Germans would do the same. The Grand Fleet
was ordered back into a passive ‘cruising formation’ of four columns,
expecting a peaceful night. Instead its screening destroyers were forced
to fight a series of clumsy skirmishes for which they were very badly
prepared, and in most of which they came off worse.
The changes to GFBOs were, as ever, long and complicated, with
lengthy sub-clauses aimed at preventing Jellicoe’s bête noire, ‘friendly
fire’, but the opening lines give a clear indication of a new, more
aggressive, spirit:
The attack at night.—One or more light cruiser squadrons will be detailed
to locate the enemy after dark if touch has been lost, and they will be
accompanied by destroyer flotillas, which are to attack when the light
cruisers have gained contact with the enemy.16
These and other changes resulting from the lessons of Jutland, were
gradually introduced throughout the period, against a backdrop of
the simmering ‘Jutland Controversy’, the grim isolation of the Grand
Fleet’s base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, and long periods of
almost total inactivity by the Germans, a result of the physical dam-
age done to Scheer’s ships and the psychological damage done to his
belief in his ability to challenge the Royal Navy. Only occasionally did
German action serve as a reminder that the fleet and its leaders were
still at war.
Action and Inaction: The End of 1916
The stalemate of Jutland was followed almost immediately by another

blow, not just to the Fleet but to the whole country. On 5 June 1916
Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, set out for Russia from
Scapa Flow aboard the cruiser HMS Hampshire. On a night described
by one witness as ‘the dirtiest night we had seen at Scapa’, Hampshire
struck a mine and sank in fifteen minutes within sight of land.17 The
16
Ibid., p. 56.
17
J. W. Beardsley, quoted in Malcolm Brown and Patricia Meehan, Scapa Flow
(London: Pan, 2002), p. 103.
54 nick hewitt
appalling weather and inhospitable shore meant that of the 650 men
on board, only twelve survived. Kitchener was not amongst them.
The face of a thousand recruiting posters, seen by many as the living
embodiment of the British army, had died whilst in the care of the
Royal Navy.
Bizarre conspiracy theories abounded and press and public were
not slow to cast blame. Coming so soon after the perceived failure at
Jutland, this was a bitter pill to swallow. Jellicoe, in particular, took
Kitchener’s death very hard, and it may have been a contributing fac-
tor to his declining health and energy during the latter half of 1916.
Soon afterwards he wrote:
I cannot adequately express the sorrow felt by me personally and by the
officers and men of the Grand Fleet generally, that so great a man should
have lost his life while under the care of the fleet.18
These sentiments were shared by the people of Orkney who erected a
memorial by public subscription after the war.
Although it has almost become a cliché to argue that after Jutland,
the German fleet ‘never came out again’, Admiral Scheer attempted
another sortie very shortly afterwards, on 18 August 1916. Essentially
a repeat of his Jutland plan, Scheer’s aim was to once again bombard
the East Coast to provoke a reaction from Beatty’s battlecruisers at
Rosyth. Beatty was to rush south, losing ships to U-boat patrol lines
before being engaged by the full strength of the High Seas Fleet. As
before, the German strategy was to destroy Beatty’s force at minimal
cost in order to achieve the numerical parity they so desperately needed
before engaging Jellicoe.
In contrast to May, when bad weather had prevented aerial reconnais-
sance, Scheer had eight Zeppelin airships on patrol ahead, as well as a
patrol line of twenty four U-boats. Warned well in advance by Room
40, the British were once more at sea several hours before the Germans.
Although these preliminary rounds bore a strong resemblance to the
preparations for Jutland a series of errors and misfortunes prevented
the two fleets meeting.19 Two British light cruisers were torpedoed and
18
Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, The Life of John Rushworth, Earl Jellicoe (London:
Cassell, 1936), pp. 336–37.
19
For this action the British also deployed the Harwich Force of light cruisers and
destroyers. The principal error came about when a German airship sighted this force
and reported it as a group of capital ships. Thinking he had finally caught a detached
sunk by Scheer’s U-boat screen, and a British submarine torpedoed

and damaged the German battleship Westfalen, but neither side had
the temerity to claim any kind of victory after such an inconsequential
skirmish.
As it turned out, the August sortie was to be Jellicoe’s last chance
to take on the Germans at sea. His tiredness, increasing caution and
preoccupation with the submarine menace was becoming more appar-
ent, and is clearly shown by his disproportionate response to the loss
of two light cruisers:
I very much regret our losses on the 19th. The only way of avoiding
them in future when submarines are so numerous will I fear be to screen
all cruisers and light cruisers and I am afraid the number of T.B.Ds
[destroyers] won’t run to it.20
Jellicoe’s anxiety about submarines, exemplified by this concern to in
effect screen his screening forces, led him to bombard the Admiralty
with a series of letters proposing various solutions. This came at a time
when the government was becoming frustrated by the Admiralty’s per-
ceived inertia under Arthur Balfour, the First Lord of the Admiralty,
and Sir Henry Jackson, the First Sea Lord. It was therefore proposed
to promote Jellicoe to First Sea Lord and move him to the Admiralty,
with the U-boat menace his main priority. His transfer was seen as a
way of both changing the mood of the Grand Fleet and sweeping the
corridors of Whitehall with what Andrew Gordon has called ‘a stimulat-
ing sea-breeze’, although he goes on to point out that the inadvisability
of ‘replacing a lacklustre First Sea Lord with an exhausted one’ was
not considered.21
There followed some wrangling, at times ill-tempered, over his
successor. Jackson and Balfour had no doubts in their minds: they
wanted Beatty, on account of his reputation as a ‘fighting admiral’
and his popularity with the public. Jellicoe was adamant that Beatty
was unsuitable on the grounds of age and inexperience, as well as
what he referred to somewhat waspishly as Beatty’s ‘many mistakes’.22
There seems little doubt that the ‘Jutland Controversy’ was starting to
force, Scheer altered course to intercept and thus missed any opportunity for battle. See
Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, III, pp. 235–45, for a detailed account.
20
Jellicoe Papers, II, pp. 46–47.
21
Gordon, The Rules of the Game, p. 519.
22
56 nick hewitt
influence his attitude by this point. Professor A Temple Patterson has

written that ‘Jellicoe became inclined to undervalue Beatty’s abilities’.23
Jellicoe’s preferred candidate was Sir Charles Madden, his Chief of
Staff and brother-in-law, an officer who was only marginally more
experienced than Beatty.
Jackson and Balfour were unmoved. On 28 November 1916 Jellicoe
hauled down his flag, to the sorrow of both officers and men. Surgeon-
Captain Robert Hill, of the flagship HMS Iron Duke, later wrote to him
that he ‘never saw so many men blubbing before as on the day you
left the ship’.24 A few days later Beatty arrived to replace him. He was
greeted, according to most accounts, with little enthusiasm, particularly
on board Iron Duke, as the ‘Jutland Controversy’ began its insidious
assault on fleet cohesion. Indeed Beatty felt so unwelcome on board
Jellicoe’s former flagship that on 16 February 1917 he shifted his flag to
Queen Elizabeth, a ship he had coveted since the outbreak of war. And
so the New Year brought both a new commander and a new flagship.
But was it also to bring a new approach?
Beatty as Commander-in-Chief
During his tenure as Commander-in-Chief David Beatty oversaw a

gradual transition from the rigid and complex system of central control
favoured by Jellicoe to a system which was, at least on paper, more flex-
ible and more suitable to the challenges of modern warfare. As early
as March 1917 he superseded Jellicoe’s Grand Fleet Battle Orders with
the far shorter Grand Fleet Battle Instructions, which placed far greater
emphasis on independent manoeuvring and personal initiative. These
instructions eventually went so far as to state that:
When action is joined, the Flag Officers commanding battle squadrons
and divisions of the battlefleet have full discretionary power to manoeuvre
their squadrons or divisions independently.25
The extent to which Beatty was personally responsible for this change
in doctrine has been a source of some controversy amongst historians.
Andrew Gordon has argued that:
23
Ibid., p. 6.
24
Ibid., p. 192.
25
Beatty Papers, I, p. 459.
Whilst he himself cannot be ranked amongst the most prominent military

brains of the twentieth century, he grasped . . . fundamentals of naval
warfare which had not been taken on board by some of his technically
more proficient or career serving seniors and contemporaries.26
It is, however, perfectly possible to argue that both Jellicoe and Beatty
had learned the same lessons in that tough, uncompromising classroom
off the Danish coast, and that given time Jellicoe might have reached
exactly the same conclusions. The tentative changes he initiated after
the battle support this interpretation. But the fact remains that it fell
to Beatty to initiate major change, even if he was simply part of what
Gordon calls ‘a cumulative revolution’.27
Whatever the extent or otherwise of Beatty’s tactical genius, it was
perhaps his charisma and showmanship which were his most important
leadership characteristics during a trying time for the fleet, when the
enemy steadfastly refused to ‘come out’ and morale was being sapped
by inactivity and boredom, leavened with a steady grim trickle of
casualties caused by mines, U-boats and the weather.
Beatty kept the fleet busy with exercises, antisubmarine sweeps and
manoeuvres at sea, along with sports competitions and regattas in har-
bour. He was usually careful to attend such gatherings, and whenever
possible he would address the men, making stirring speeches about
annihilating the enemy when they finally dared to emerge from port.
In July 1917 he wrote to his wife that:
We are having a regatta, which takes the men’s minds off the serious side
of life & the weary waiting that they do so much of . . . it’s a great thing
as it keeps them fit . . . and unless they are physically and mentally fit we
shall not do ourselves justice when the great day comes, and I cannot
believe that it won’t come.28
Schemes and Dreams: Offensive Proposals for 1917
Beatty has been portrayed, sometimes with justification, as something

of a swashbuckler, but when it came to strategic policy after assuming
command of the Grand Fleet he was forced by circumstances to be
almost as cautious as his predecessor. In July 1917 he wrote to his wife
26
Gordon, Rules of the Game, p. 526.
27
Ibid., p. 529.
28
58 nick hewitt
that ‘the role of the Navy is to keep its head and not be bounced into
attempting impossible things by irresponsible and ignorant cranks.’29
In truth, faced with the complete refusal of the Germans to ‘come
out’ and the increasing inroads made into his light forces to meet the
challenges of the submarine campaign, there was little else he could
do. In July 1917, of more than a hundred destroyers attached to
the Grand Fleet, over half were absent on anti-submarine duties or
refitting.30
However it seems clear that relying on the almost inevitable long-term
success promised by the ‘weary waiting’ of blockade duty remained
frustrating, not just for an aggressive campaigner like Beatty but for
much of the Royal Navy. This frustration was compounded by their
enjoyment of almost complete command of the sea and, increasingly,
the air—it seemed impossible that such domination could exist without
a parallel ability to hit at the enemy. Consequently throughout 1917
a series of proposals for offensive action were explored to break the
deadlock.
One of the more outlandish schemes, submitted to the Admiralty in
September 1917, was breathtaking in both its simplicity and its imprac-
ticality. This was a proposal to close all the river mouths and exits to
the Baltic by scuttling nearly a hundred old warships filled with cement.
As if that was not enough, the heavily fortified islands of Wangeroog
and Heligoland would have to be captured and then held until the
operation was completed. There was also a strong possibility that the
High Seas Fleet would emerge to try to stop the operation, and whilst
a fleet action was desirable, fighting it in German waters was not.
Needless to say the proposal never progressed beyond the plan-
ning stage. Numerous significant objections were raised, including the
difficulty of seizing and holding the islands, the difficulty of placing
blockships accurately under fire, the lack of availability of ships and,
crucially, the fact that the Baltic exits could not be completely blocked
without violating Swedish and Danish neutrality.
Rear-Admiral Roger Keyes, appointed Director of the Admiralty
Plans Division soon afterwards, wrote succinctly in his memoir that ‘I
29
Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, IV, p. 45.
30
Ibid., p. 42.
am not surprised that this suggestion was rejected, for it certainly was
not a feasible operation of war.’31
Resurrected as an alternative to the blockships proposal was one of
the pet projects from the earlier Churchill and Fisher era: to seize and
permanently hold one or more of the Heligoland Bight islands as an
advanced operational base in conjunction with an ambitious policy of
offensive minelaying.
Huge minefields had already been laid in the Dover Straits and more
mines were in the process of being laid across the 250 mile stretch of
water which separated the Orkneys from Norway, vast quantities even-
tually being supplied by the United States. However the depth of the
water made the northern fields an imperfect barrier and in any case
involved conceding the North Sea to the U-boats. The most effective
solution was always seen as mining the approaches to German bases but,
as Winston Churchill wrote later, ‘Attempts to mine in the Heligoland
Bight had been frustrated by the German sweeping operations, closely
supported by the High Seas Fleet.’32
The theory was that by basing a blockading force of old battleships,
light forces and submarines on Borkum or Heligoland, the German
minesweepers could be entirely prevented from operating. The only
way the blockading force could be cleared and sweeping operations
resumed—so went the theory—would be for the Germans to engage
it with the High Seas Fleet, thus bringing on the fleet action which
Beatty and the British so desperately wanted.
It hardly seems necessary to point out that the plan was deeply
flawed. The Bight islands were protected by well sited and concealed
shore batteries. All would be vulnerable to air attack and ‘tip and run’
naval bombardment, and Borkum could in fact be shelled from land.
The mines available could not be laid in shallow water, which meant
that safe channels would always exist. And even if the blockade suc-
ceeded, U-boats could still operate safely from Kiel, entering the North
Sea from the Baltic exits with impunity. Once again, any resulting fleet
action would be fought in German waters. Keyes referred to it as a
‘wildcat scheme’33 and it was, sensibly, shelved once more.
31
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, Naval Memoirs: Scapa Flow to the Dover Straits
(London: Thornton Butterworth Limited, 1935), p. 114.
32
Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1916–1918 Part II (London: Thornton But-
terworth Limited, 1927), p. 371.
33
Keyes, Naval Memoirs: Scapa Flow to the Dover Straits, p. 115.
60 nick hewitt
The arguments about the Bight islands clearly demonstrated that

as long as the German fleet remained in existence and stronger than
any British force which could be permanently maintained in the Bight,
the British could not effectively prevent U-boat operations. The debate
therefore moved to alternative means of neutralising the High Seas
Fleet, if it continued to refuse action.
The first years of the war had seen the Royal Navy take a series
of tentative steps towards the development of naval air power. These
included experiments with airships, the transportation of fixed wing
aircraft on larger warships, and the construction or conversion of first
seaplane carriers and then primitive but recognisable aircraft carriers.
Initially these developments were aimed at breaking the reconnaissance
stranglehold of the German Zeppelins on the North Sea, although in
fact only one ship-borne aircraft actually shot down a Zeppelin in the
air.34
The advent of torpedo carrying aircraft meant that by 1917 British
minds were already beginning to turn towards the possibility of using air
power more offensively. Beatty, in particular, enthusiastically embraced
the new technology, seeing air power as:
One of the few ways in which offensive action against the German Fleet
is possible [and] one of the few ways in which our command of the sea
can be turned to active account against the enemy.35
In June 1917 he was bemoaning the fleet’s lack of ‘efficient and fast
seaplane carriers’36 and drafting lengthy instructions encouraging the
aggressive use of aircraft. By August he was proposing an ambitious plan
to neutralise the fighting strength of the High Seas Fleet using a mass
attack of 121 torpedo carrying aircraft from the carriers supported by
land based flying boats carrying bombs. When this plan was rejected,
mainly on the grounds that the torpedo aircraft were not capable
enough, Beatty backed down, only to return to the fray in October:
A sustained air offensive on the scale proposed would impose upon the
enemy the necessity for active measures of defence . . . affording opportuni-
ties which have hitherto been denied to us.37
34
A Sopwith Pup operating from HMS Yarmouth and flown by Flight Sub-Lieutenant
B. A. Smart, shot down Zeppelin L23 on 23 August 1917.
35
36
Ibid., p. 439.
37
Ibid., p. 239.
Ever cautious, the Admiralty continued to reject Beatty’s proposals,

citing unavailability of ships and the short range and limited hitting
power of aerial torpedoes. No operation on the scale he proposed took
place before the war ended.
Ever since 1914 ideas had circulated for offensive operations in the
Baltic, as a bold means of taking the war into German waters and
forcing the German fleet to fight. In 1914 Fisher had even suggested
relocating most of the fleet to the Baltic in one grand strategic stroke.
The strategy was not without merit, as the threat to Germany’s exposed
northern coast and the flow of vital supplies from Sweden would almost
certainly have forced the High Seas Fleet to come out and fight. Vic-
tory would have freed the Royal Navy from the burden of protecting
supply lines to the Western front, and ultimately shortened the war.
The official historian, Julian Corbett, wrote that:
From a naval point of view the reasons for speedily crushing the Ger-
man Navy, even by a direct attack . . . were as weighty as ever. It cannot
be too strongly or too often emphasised that in every plan which the
Admiralty had to consider there was always upon them the dead weight
of having to protect the army’s lines of supply and the home ends of
our trade terminals.38
Fisher had worked out detailed plans, even commissioning new specialist
ships to do the job, including the fast, shallow draught ‘light battlecruis-
ers’ Courageous, Glorious and Furious and shallow draught monitors like
HMS Marshal Ney for coastal bombardment. However the light battlec-
ruisers were poorly armoured and mechanically unreliable. Within the
fleet they were soon christened ‘Helpless’ ‘Hopeless’ and ‘Useless’.
Moreover, the Baltic strategy was without doubt an extraordinarily
high risk proposal which had few supporters. On 25 January 1916
Jellicoe had killed off one version, writing to Arthur Balfour, the First
Lord, that:
I have long arrived at the conclusion that it would be suicidal to divide
our main fleet with a view to sending ships into the Baltic.39
However in 1917 the precarious political situation in Russia had given
the plans further impetus. In October 1917 the Russian Prime Minister,
38
Julian S. Corbett, Naval Operations Volume II (London: Longmans, Green and
Co, 1921), p. 129.
39
Jellicoe Papers, I, p. 203.
62 nick hewitt
Kerensky, almost begged Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambas-

sador, to take action, prompting Buchanan to telegraph London that
the ‘appearance of British Fleet in Baltic would at once effect radical
change in situation’.40
Faced with such desperation, and with vocal public support for an
ally facing catastrophe, Jellicoe initiated a serious examination of the
possibility of entering the Baltic, but the Plans Division of the Admiralty
concluded that whilst going in might just be practical, staying there for
any meaningful length of time was surely not, as the Germans could
seal the Baltic approaches and trap the force with ease. It could then be
whittled down using submarines, aircraft and destroyers, or destroyed
in a fleet action. It fell to the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Eric
Geddes, to finally kill the Baltic Plan stone dead in the House of Com-
mons on 1 November, calling it ‘an act of madness’ which no responsible
officer could support.41 Historians to this day continue to argue about
whether he was right.
‘Bloody Scapa’
Dear Mum, I cannot tell you where I am. I don’t know where I am. But
where I am there is miles and miles of bugger all, love, Ted.42
While Beatty schemed and dreamed and did his best to maintain both
his own morale and that of the fleet, his men had to get on with the
business of living, or rather existing, in the isolated world of ‘Bloody
Scapa’. One Grand Fleet veteran wrote that ‘the atmosphere was always
one of boredom and frustration’.43 Another remembered:
There was always trouble. Men got bored waiting for the great day which
never came. There was a fight almost every day on some mess deck, and
a stampede of men to get to see it.44
9 July 1917 saw a break in the monotonous routine, although of an
unwelcome nature, when the dreadnought battleship HMS Vanguard
blew up and sank in the night. More than seven hundred men were
40
41
Ibid., p. 245.
42
Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, p. 228. This undated letter was actually written
during the Second World War but using it, with apologies, proved irresistible!
43
Andrew Barrie, quoted in Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, p. 115.
44
Sidney Hunt, quoted in Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, p. 117.
killed, almost certainly as a result of the spontaneous combustion of

cordite charges in the ship’s magazines. Percy Ingleby, a naval airman
at the seaplane base across the Flow at Houghton left a dramatic
account of the disaster:
I was looking across at the fleet when I observed that one of the ships
appeared to lose its true outline and quiver. It then appeared to lift up in
the middle and from this point there rose a vast column of orange-brown
and slate grey smoke. This immediately burst into a flickering pillar of
fire which cast a crimson glow over the whole anchorage . . . this spectacle
lasted four or five more seconds, then the silence was shattered by the
sound of a terrific explosion. This ship was about five miles distant but
the shock wave, which had taken about eleven seconds to reach me, was
heavy enough to momentarily stop my breath.45
Beatty was shocked, writing two days later that it was:
An overwhelming blow and fairly stuns one to think about. One expects
these things when in the heat of battle but when lying peacefully at anchor
it is very much more terrible.46
For the men on the cruisers and destroyers, periodic relief from boredom
was provided by convoy escort duty or antisubmarine work, usually
welcomed despite the discomfort and risks associated with taking to
the North Sea in such small ships:
Endless days and nights at sea, on patrol or escort duties—sea sick—every-
thing sticky and wet. The smell of oil fuel and fear of floating mines at
night, made it hell at times.47
Sometimes the smaller ships succumbed to the weather, or were des-
patched by a mine or submarine. Conditions in the North Sea often
meant no survivors, a terribly lonely way to die. One of the worst
tragedies took place in January 1918 when the destroyers Opal and
Narborough struck the Orkney coast during an ill-advised attempt to make
landfall in a full gale and blizzard conditions. Only one man survived
out of 180 on board, and he had to cling to a narrow ledge in the full
force of the storm for 36 hours before he was rescued.
Action was rare, although the cruisers and destroyers had the best
opportunities to see it. In March 1917 the cruiser HMS Achilles engaged
45
Percy Ingleby, quoted in Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, 109.
46
47
T. H. Kinman, quoted in Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, p. 117.
64 nick hewitt
and sank a German raider trying to break out into the Atlantic. G. J.
Plenty, a wireless operator in Achilles, remembered returning to Scapa
to be welcomed by the bands of the anchored fleet:
One band was playing “Any Old Iron”, the Achilles being an old four
funnelled cruiser. Without hesitation our own band struck up “And the
Green Grass Grew All Around My Boys”, referring of course to the fact
that the other ships never went to sea.48
Beatty was delighted at this success, writing to his wife that it was ‘a
splendid thing getting her’.49
Recreational facilities on Scapa were limited, for all Beatty’s good
intentions. Orkney’s tiny towns were not capable of sustaining thousands
of thirsty sailors and were mostly off-limits. Instead, primitive amenities
were constructed on the small island of Flotta, where according to one
veteran ‘there wasn’t even a tree’.50
The YMCA building, now a rather bleak ruin, was the centre of
Flotta social activity: ‘a miserable canteen that sold only tea and bis-
cuits. What the hell good was that for thirsty young sailors?’51 Every
year it hosted the Grand Fleet Boxing Championship, when upwards
of 10,000 sailors would gather in and around it. Football matches were
played in deep snow and gales, nevertheless Grand Fleet veteran Frank
Bowman recalled that ‘Most of the big ships were able to run ten or
twelve football teams . . . forming a small league in each battleship.’52
Midshipman N. K. Calder of the fledgling Royal Australian Navy was
serving on board the battleship Royal Sovereign. He recalled one occasion
in 1917 when ‘the football team went ashore to play the Resolution and
we were beaten 44 to 0’ but he has not, sadly, recorded any excuse for
such a dismal performance.53 In such conditions the officers’ golf and
tennis facilities must have been challenging, although the golf course
was apparently good enough for Jellicoe to be a regular visitor when
he was Commander in Chief.
The end of 1917 saw new arrivals in the Flow. The United States
had entered the war in April, primarily as a result of the increasing
ferocity of the unrestricted U-boat offensive which had begun in Febru-
48
G. J. Plenty, quoted in Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, p. 118.
49
50
Brown and Meehan, Scapa Flow, p. 87.
51
Ibid., p. 89.
52
Ibid., pp. 85–86.
53
http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Scapa_Diary/Index.html
ary. The US government saw political advantages in joining the Grand

Fleet and so on 7 December 1917, a date which would one day loom
large in US naval history, an American battle squadron under Admiral
Hugh Rodman dropped anchor in Scapa. The Americans were placed
under British operational control, becoming the Grand Fleet’s Sixth
Battle Squadron. They found conditions hard. Rodman wrote of the
North Sea that: ‘it seems to be almost continually blowing . . . in addi-
tion there is a great deal of snow, hail, sleet and rain, coupled with
fog and mist.’54
By and large the Americans were welcomed, although their contribu-
tion was initially limited by their poor gunnery. As the year drew to a
close they joined their British allies in celebrating a dreary Christmas
in ‘Bloody Scapa’.
Microhumiliations
As far as action was concerned, 1917 was characterised by a series of

minor irritations for the Grand Fleet, when German light forces suc-
ceeded in tweaking the lion’s tale. It cannot be overemphasised that
these small engagements made no difference whatsoever to the strategic
balance of power in the North Sea. Nevertheless they irritated press
and public and added to the frustrations of Beatty and the Admiralty,
who found it hard to explain why German light forces were able to
operate with such apparent impunity. Raids by destroyers on British
forces in the Channel were a regular irritant, but a series of actions
at the end of the year were singled out for particular attention by the
newspapers.
The introduction of the convoy system as the best defence against
attack by U-boats, which were slow and vulnerable to counterattack by
escort, had inevitably increased the vulnerability of shipping to attacks
by surface ships, which were faster and capable of dealing with escorts
on their own terms. This was graphically demonstrated on 17 October
1917 when a Scandinavian convoy was attacked by the fast German
minelaying cruisers Bremse and Brummer.
The convoy consisted of twelve merchant ships escorted by two armed
trawlers and the destroyers Mary Rose and Strongbow, an adequate defence
54
66 nick hewitt
against the anticipated U-boat threat. Despite the Admiralty being aware
that the Germans were at sea, no-one had seen fit to warn the convoy
and the result was a massacre. Mary Rose and Strongbow were both sunk
with great loss of life, and the German cruisers then stalked and sank
nine of the merchant ships before returning home unscathed.
A Board of Inquiry blamed the commanding officer of Mary Rose
for his ‘ill advised’ decision to attack the enemy, although it is hard to
understand how he could protect the convoy by avoiding action. The
press response was characteristically disproportionate, the Daily News
shrieking on 23 October that:
It would be false to say that the country feels the same confidence in
the administration of the Navy that it does in the capacity and spirit of
the Navy itself.55
The following can perhaps restore perspective. The First Sea Lord,
Sir Eric Geddes, reported in the Commons on 1 November that more
than 4,500 ships had been convoyed to Scandinavia without loss prior
to the incident. And Sir Henry Newbolt, the Official Historian, wrote
that ‘it hardly caused a disturbance in the timetable of Scandinavian
trade’.56
Before the inquiry into the Mary Rose convoy had even convened,
another action had taken place, which history has perhaps rather flat-
teringly christened the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight. Once again
this action was connected to attempts to blockade German U-boats
through mining.
By 1917 the British minefields at the entrances to the German bases
in the River Jade extended as much as 150 miles out into the North
Sea. To simplify, this had occurred because each time German mine-
sweepers cleared a swept channel, the British would lay a new line of
mines at the end to block it. As a consequence the German sweepers
were being forced to operate a long way from home. Well within reach
of the British, they had to be provided with a strong covering force.
On 17 November, a British force including the light battlecruisers
Courageous and Glorious engaged the German minesweepers and their
escorts, which turned for home and drew the British into a long stern
chase. Joined by the battlecruiser Repulse the British were confident of
inflicting a decisive blow, until they were themselves surprised by two
55
Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, I, p. 293.
56
Ibid., p. 298.
German screening battleships. Before any serious losses were incurred

both sides broke off the engagement.
This rather feeble anticlimax was the last big ship action of the First
World War. One German auxiliary minesweeper was sunk. Beatty,
predictably, was less than impressed, criticising the senior British officer
on the spot for making ‘an error of judgement in the handling of his
forces’ by not trying sufficiently hard to place himself between the
Germans and their base.57 Beatty was right to be displeased, but again,
perspective is helpful. Captain Walter Cowan, commanding 1st Light
Cruiser Squadron in HMS Royalist, wrote on 23 November that the
action ‘wasn’t bad but it was very disappointing in results’.58
The vulnerability of the Scandinavian convoys was graphically illus-
trated once more before the year ended. On 12 December four modern
German destroyers intercepted a small convoy of six merchant ships,
escorted by the destroyers Pellew and Partridge and four armed trawlers.
More signalling problems meant that the covering force of armoured
cruisers was not present and all the ships of the convoy were sunk apart
from Pellew which escaped, damaged, into a rain squall.
Once again the press reaction bordered on hysterical considering the
small scale of the loss, reflecting both public frustration with German
impertinence and a complete lack of understanding of the realities of
war in the North Sea. The Daily News wrote of a ‘a disaster which will
create indignation as well as deep concern in the public mind’. The
Daily Mail called it a ‘humiliating reverse’.59
A Court of Enquiry into the Partridge convoy and a subsequent con-
ference on the conduct of the Scandinavian convoys led to a number
of key changes. The overall number of convoy sailings was decreased,
to reduce the number of warships required for escorts and screening
forces, and the size of each screening forces was greatly increased—ini-
tially to include a full battle squadron.
This disproportionate ‘knee-jerk’ response could possibly have led to
a far more serious reverse. Despatching isolated squadrons of battleships
into the North Sea was exactly the sort of dispersion of force which
57
Ibid., p. 308.
58
Paul G. Halpern, ed., The Keyes Papers Volume 1, 1914–1918 (London: Naval
Records Society, 1972), p. 418. Interestingly Cowan goes on to comment with far
more passion on Beatty’s positive approach to after action analysis, which he scath-
ingly compares with ‘the Jutland trash where yet that hasn’t been done & everyone
concerned is still an angel and hero of perfection’.
59
68 nick hewitt
Beatty was so anxious to avoid, and if such a force had been caught by
a German sortie in fleet strength, disaster could have resulted. Beatty
called the decision ‘a grave strategical risk’60 but, arguably more by
good luck than good judgement, no disaster happened.
Farewell to Jellicoe
As the Partridge convoy brought 1917 to a melancholy conclusion, so

in Whitehall Sir John Jellicoe’s tenure at the Admiralty ended with a
whimper. Brought in to tame the U-boats, he had resisted the introduc-
tion of convoy and made few friends in high places. As early as April
1917 Beatty was writing that ‘Jellicoe is not strong in his dealings with
the submarine menace’.61 By the end of the year he was exhausted,
possibly in poor health, and facing criticism from public, press and
government.
On Christmas Eve the man once described by Churchill as ‘The
only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon’ was
summarily dismissed by Eric Geddes at the behest of David Lloyd
George. The pretext was his unwillingness to contemplate the dismissal
of Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon at Dover, a personal friend and
Jellicoe’s eventual biographer, but the establishment wanted change,
and it seems likely that if it had not been Dover it would have been
something else. Jellicoe’s own view was that:
Lord Northcliffe was pressing the Prime Minister to get rid of me, the
Prime Minister was pressing Geddes, the latter wanted to avoid trouble
and tried to get away from the Admiralty, but failing this carried out the
desire of Northcliffe.62
Bacon, for his part, retaliated in his biography of Jellicoe, describing
Lloyd George as ‘man totally ignorant of sea conditions’ and ‘a Dicta-
tor Prime Minister imbued with a false idea of his own capacity and
technical knowledge’.63 The end of 1917 was thus the end of an era
for the Royal Navy.
60
Ibid., p. 315.
61
Beatty Papers, II, p. 417.
62
63
Bacon, Life of John Rushworth, Earl Jellicoe, pp. 370–71.
Conclusions
So what was achieved in 1917? On the face of it nothing at all. No

great battles were fought. The U-boats ravaged their way through much
of the year, while the Grand Fleet swung at anchor. High Command
schemed and dreamed, while the men played football and started fights.
Actions which were fought were small and indecisive.
Yet in truth the Grand Fleet did all it had to. The ships and men
stayed sharp, putting in sea time, training, sweeping the North Sea
and practising, practising, practising. Throughout 1917 the onus was
on the enemy to take the initiative, but when they did it took the form
of commerce raiding. Resorting to a Mahanian ‘guerre de course’
can often indicate a power that has given up any thoughts of strategic
mastery, and the German surface sorties were flea bites, making no
impact whatsoever on the British blockade. The submarine campaign
was of course a different story, but even this formidable weapon was
intended to enforce a counter blockade on Britain. It did not, in the
words of one writer, make meat and butter cheaper in Berlin.64 Ger-
man government statisticians estimated 260,000 deaths as a result of
blockade in 1917, and 294,000 in 1918.65
For the Grand Fleet 1918 was to bring more of the same, although
the improving operational effectiveness of the Americans made this
formidable weapon yet more quantitively and qualitively superior to its
opponent. The German surface fleet languished at anchor, apart from
a brief, well planned but ultimately unsuccessful sortie in April 1918.
Idleness and poor food eroded morale: the German sailors existed
mainly on a diet of dried turnips and a concoction of water, fat and
vinegar known as ‘drahtverhau’, or barbed wire entanglement.
[This] vastly increased the men’s hunger and heightened their resentment
of their officers, [who persisted] in living in high style [clamouring] loudly
for a continuation of the war.66
In October 1918, faced with the prospect of a final ‘death ride’ into the
North Sea, the crews mutinied. On 21 November 1918 they steamed
64
65
The figures were calculated by the Reichsamt des Inneren (Interior Ministry) by
comparing mortality rates with official pre-war figures.
66
Richard Stumpf and Daniel Horn, eds., War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German
Navy: The World War I Diary of Seaman Richard Stumpf (New Brunswick: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press, 1967), p. 11.
70 nick hewitt
their ships to surrender and internment under the guns of the Grand
Fleet at Scapa Flow, where on 21 June 1919 they were humiliatingly
scuttled. ‘Weary waiting’ had delivered a victory comparable with
Trafalgar in scale and importance, if not in drama.
Perhaps we should let Beatty end this chapter, as we let him begin
it, with an address to the fleet delivered on 24 November 1918:
I thank you for maintaining cheerfulness through the long weary years of
war, for having maintained an efficiency which has created a prestige in the
minds of the enemy, and has brought about his downfall . . . the war . . . has
been won by seapower. You are the representatives of seapower . . . on you
lies the great burden, and to you is due great credit.67
Cheerfulness. Efficiency. Prestige. Ultimately, these were enough to
deliver a Trafalgar for the twentieth century.
67
Beatty Papers, II, p. 570.
COUNTING UNREST:
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF UNREST AND THEIR
RELATIONSHIP TO ADMIRALTY PERCEPTION
Laura Rowe
By mid-1917 the Board of Admiralty had received a number of worry-

ing reports about unrest amongst the men, as a result of which they
launched a number of enquiries to investigate the extent of the problem.
The conclusions Their Lordships drew were ambiguous in a number
of respects. However, the general consensus they chose to take was one
of genuine concern at what they saw as the deeply infectious ‘disease’ of
trade unionism, which they believed was being ‘spread’ by hostilities
only ratings (HOs) and reservists, and which would, they felt, undermine
the very foundations of service discipline. Trade union methods of
representation of grievances were the antithesis of those of the Royal
Navy, where combination of any kind was illegal. The extent of the
Admiralty’s fear should not be overstated; they certainly did not think
the fleet was on the verge of disloyalty reminiscent of recent events
in, for example, the French army; however, the rhetoric surrounding
discussion of this issue, both from the Board and from senior officers
afloat, indicates a genuine and substantial concern, which clearly tapped
into a pre-war seam of apprehension. This paper examines whether
the Board of Admiralty’s fears were borne out by the offences being
committed against the Naval Discipline Act (NDA) or King’s Regula-
tions and Admiralty Instructions. If unrest was as prevalent as the
Admiralty believed, one would have expected this to be reflected in
offences listed in the book of Courts Martial Returns and in the few
remaining transcripts of courts martial proceedings.
Statistical Analysis
There are, however, a number of limitations with this system of assess-

ment. Most importantly the Courts Martial Returns represent only a
small proportion of the offences punished. The majority of offences
committed by ratings were summarily punished—records of which,
sadly, do not survive. Officers above the rank of midshipman, of course,
72 laura rowe
could only be punished by court martial, although in wartime officers

could be tried by a Disciplinary Court according to the terms of Article
57A of the Naval Discipline Act which states: ‘Where any officer borne
on the books of any of His Majesty’s ships in commission is in time of
war alleged to have been guilty of a disciplinary offence, that is to say,
a breach of section seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-
three, twenty-seven, or forty-three of this Act, the officer having power
to order such a court-martial may, if he considers that the offence is
of such a character as not to necessitate trial by court-martial, order
a disciplinary court constituted as hereinafter mentioned.’ Needless to
say ‘hereinafter mentioned’ went on for pages.
The offences tried by courts martial represent, in theory at least, the
most serious breaches of naval law—either by virtue of the offence itself
or of the recalcitrant nature of the offender. Restrictions were placed
on the severity of punishment it was possible to award summarily,
according to Article 56 of the NDA as amended in 1917. Hence, if it
was desirable for the potential punishment to include penal servitude,
or imprisonment for a period in excess of three months, the case had
to go before a court martial. Despite such restrictions it should be
remembered that the death penalty and dismissal with disgrace from the
service could, theoretically, be awarded as a summary punishment.
In respect of the ratings who faced court martial, the figures still
present a number of difficulties. There is the dilemma of how to treat
men facing multiple charges. From the evidence in the Courts Martial
Returns we can only speculate as to whether one alleged offence was
dependent on another: for example, there is no way of knowing for
certain whether the intoxicated condition of the able seaman directly
led to his assault on the lieutenant or not; nor is the offence of smug-
gling liquor aboard automatically linked to a charge of drunkenness.
From the surviving records it cannot be determined which offences
are linked, and it is for this reason that I have chosen to treat each
offence as being independent. This also presents us with problems in
the case of categories like ‘sexual offences’: the figures for this offence
are skewed in a number of respects. Importantly, charges like sodomy
are generally, although not always, brought against two people—thus
effectively doubling the numbers of people charged for one incident.
Many of the sexual offences listed were committed by a limited num-
ber of men. In one case a single officer was charged with ten different
sexual offences and it is hard to make adjustments for the propensity
for a man to commit multiple cases of certain classes of offence. Most
counting unrest 73
offences of a sexual nature were tried by courts martial, rather than

summarily. However, this may not distort the figures as much as one
might initially think: there are a significant number of sources to sug-
gest that ratings found to be committing these types of offences were
often dealt with unofficially by their messmates, or by the messmates
of those against whom the offence was committed. Similar difficulties
can be found in the case of mutiny. There were 41 charges of mutiny
convicted by courts martial during the war. However, these refer to
only four incidents.
For the purpose of this statistical analysis it has been necessary to
award each offence a category. From the evidence available, it has, on
occasion, been extremely difficult to determine into which of these
categories an offence should be placed. Into what class, for instance,
should one place ‘being in a room with a Boy, 1st Class, with the lights
off and the door closed’? Equally, what is ‘Guilty of scandalous action
in derogation of God’s Honour and corruption of good manners’?
Thus, we can see that the use of Courts Martial Returns presents us
with significant problems. Nonetheless, were the Admiralty’s fears to
have been well-founded, one would still expect to have been able to see
this reflected in the figures for these most serious of offences.
The first thing to be noted from the Courts Martial Returns is the
numerical insignificance of the charges. From a force which by 1918
numbered over 640,000 men (not including the mercantile marine)
only 2,323 men (or 0.4%) faced a total of 4,112 charges between the
beginning of 1914 and the end of 1918—82% of which resulted in
conviction. One other striking feature of the Courts Martial Returns
is the tiny number of murders and attempted murders. There was
only one conviction for murder and two for attempted murder in the
entire period. Temporary Engineering Sub-Lieutenant Robert Porteous,
RNR, was convicted of both murder and attempted murder, although
he was declared insane and ordered to be detained in the Royal Naval
Hospital until a more suitable arrangement could be made. The other
man convicted of attempted murder was an active service petty offi-
cer. Of course, unlike in the army, naval men did not routinely carry
personal arms which helps partially to explain these figures; however
that there were only three such cases in four years is indicative of an
organisation which faced no serious levels of unrest. There is some
very limited anecdotal evidence of unpopular Masters-at-Arms (ships’
policemen) ‘falling’ mysteriously overboard—but this was certainly not
endemic!
74 laura rowe
Because of the different regulations governing the trial and punish-

ment of officers and men, I have chosen to examine the figures for
ratings, officers tried by court martial, and officers tried by Disciplinary
Court separately.
Ratings
Between 1914 and 1918 a total of 2,116 charges were brought against
lower deck men, of which 85% were upheld, from a total of just
over 584,000 men who served during the war. Lists of the categories
of offences tried by court martial and of the offences for which men
were convicted can be found at figures 1 & 2. In keeping with service
stereotypes, drinking, disobedience and sexual offences feature within
the top eight. If we were to concentrate on those offences which might
best indicate the presence of unrest: violence against superior officers;
contempt and insubordination; threatening language and behaviour;
desertion; absent without leave; overstaying/not returning from leave;
disobedience; neglect of duty; refusal of duty; desertion of post; absence
from place of duty; improperly leaving ship; and, of course, mutiny we
discover that combined these offences come to only 1,104 convictions,
with the greatest single charge, violence against a superior, account-
ing for 451 of them. At the other end of the scale there were only six
convictions on the very serious charge of refusal of duty. What we can
see from these selected offences, however, is a perceptible peak for the
year 1917 (see figure 3(a)). Bearing in the mind there was no significant
change in the overall size of the service between 1916 & 1918 this
increase, however numerically small, must be seen as significant from
the Admiralty’s perspective, coming as it did at a period of other, more
general concerns: mutinies were ripping through other fighting forces,
revolution was engulfing Russia, and industrial unrest was becoming a
significant factor in British politics.
If the Admiralty’s fears about the disease-spreading quality of the
HOs were grounded, this should be evident in the proportion of
offences committed by men from each type of service; however, the
Courts Martial Returns do not tell us which of the men facing trial had
entered for hostilities only and so it cannot be established if offences
were being committed by a disproportionate number of HO ratings.
The Returns merely differentiate between the active service (which
would include HOs), reservists, marines, and mercantile marines (with
counting unrest 75
a handful of others thrown in). What we can compare are the figures
for reservists (the Admiralty’s other disease-vector). By 1918, 10% of
the RN was composed of reservists—yet they committed 15% of the
offences convicted by court martial. This discrepancy is not statisti-
cally significant, and we cannot infer from it, as the Admiralty feared,
that reservists were firebrand trade unionists or revolutionary socialists
causing unrest in the midst of the RN. The small differential may be
easily accounted for by the numbers who suddenly found that actions
considered to be legitimate and normal (particularly in regard to the
representation of grievances) in their respective pre-war professions,
had become infringements of the NDA.
Officers (Court Martial)
When we look at officers convicted at court martial the picture changes

somewhat. Between 1914 & 1918 1,262 charges were tried by court
martial of which 76% led to conviction. Over 55,300 officers were
borne on the RN’s books by the end of 1918, of which only 6% were
reservists. However, throughout the course of the war 48% of the officers
convicted of an offence at court martial were members of the reserves:
the most common offence was overwhelmingly drinking, accounting for
31% of all convictions. In fact the most striking feature of the officers
who were convicted by a court martial was the gross over-representa-
tion of the reservists (see figures 4 & 5). Using the same selection of
charge types selected for the lower decks as unrest-indicators it can be
seen that the number of convictions increased slightly from 1914 to
1916, before rising sharply in 1917 and remaining at roughly the same
level in 1918 (see figure 3(b)). However, since the maximum number of
convictions for these offences in any one year was 109 this would hardly
indicate a deep under lying problem for the Admiralty. The continued
increase in the number of these offences committed by reservists until
1918 is, of course, in part to be expected because of the increasing
numbers of reservists in the service. However, why this figure should
double between 1917 & 1918, whilst at the same time the number of
convictions against Active Service officers halved, is of more interest and
could suggest that as the conflict drew to an end the desire to return
to their peacetime jobs might have weakened the reservists’ ties with
the RN now that the national emergency had apparently passed. The
figures for Active Service officers doubled between 1916 & 1917, before
76 laura rowe
falling sharply away in 1918. The fact that this does not correlate with
the peak amongst the reservists is also interesting, and could be seen as
a reflection of the reduced time spent training by new officers before
going to sea. Whatever the cause, with a peak of just 57 convictions
for our unrest-indicators, it can be concluded that the RN faced no
significant unrest amongst its regular officer’s corps.
Officers (Disciplinary Court)
We can see similar patterns emerging from the Disciplinary Courts.

There were 622 convictions between 1914 and 1918, of which 35%
were for drinking. Once again the reservists were disproportionately
represented (see figures 6 & 7): despite making up only 6% of the service
they constituted 82% of convictions. Using our unrest-indicators (see
figure 3(c)) we again see a peak in 1917 of 115 convictions in total—of
which 94 were against reservists. The disproportionate appearance of
reservist on the charge sheet for officers is not unexpected—less familiar
with the rigours of naval discipline than their active service counterparts
who had entered at thirteen years of age, the increased frequency with
which they transgressed the disciplinary code is hardly surprising. One
of the most striking figures is that for reservist skippers convicted of
a drinking offence at a Disciplinary Court. Many of these men would
have been skippers of trawlers in civilian life, and they frequently treated
their naval crews in the same, more familiar fashion, as they had done
their civilian predecessors. In the RN, however, sharing a drink with
your crew was a disciplinary offence.
Quality not Quantity?
It would seem then that the fears of Their Lordships were hardly borne
out by any huge upsurge in either collective or individual insubordina-
tion in any of its manifestations. This leads one to question whether
it was the substance rather than the quantity of the offences which
generated such concern in the Admiralty. With this in mind one must
turn to that most evocative of manifestations of unrest—mutiny!
To the lay mind, the phrase ‘naval mutiny’ generally conjures an air
of romance and heroism. One pictures gallant members of the lower
orders fighting to throw off the shackles of their oppressors. The reality,
of course, is not so picturesque. ‘Mutiny’ is an imprecise word, even in
counting unrest 77
its legal definition; yet it is a very highly charged one—so highly charged
in fact that it is a natural inclination during most incidents of ‘mutiny’
for all sides to play it down—frequently substituting such euphemisms
as ‘incident’ or ‘outbreak’. The Manual of Naval Law and Court Martial
Procedure from 1912 defines ‘mutiny’ thus: ‘The offence of “mutiny” is
not defined in any statute, but it implies collective insubordination, or
combination on the part of two or more persons, subject to military
or naval law, to resist the lawful authority of superior military or naval
officers, whether by violence or passive resistance; or to induce others
to resist such lawful authority.’1 In effect this meant that any contraven-
tion of Article 11 of Kings Regulations and Admiralty Instructions,
could, potentially, be classified as mutiny, depending on the judgement
of individual captains.2
In 1969 Cornelius Lammers published a paper in the Administrative
Science Quarterly which set out to determine whether ‘organisational con-
flicts’ (i.e. strikes and mutinies) could be analysed in terms of ‘a single
theoretical framework’. He regarded both strikes and mutinies as protest
movements which may fall into one of three types: ‘promotion of inter-
est’, ‘secession’, and ‘seizure of power’. He suggested that strikes and
mutinies form a sub-class of protest movements ‘because they have in
common several components that are relevant from the point of view
of a sociological theory of organizations’, namely ‘(1) the context of
the conflicts [are] formal organisations; (2) the participants [are] lower-
level members who come into conflict with higher-level decision makers;
(3) the strategies used [such as] suspending usual tasks and/or taking vio-
lent action; and (4) the goals at which the strategies are aimed [are] attain-
ing certain advantages or preventing disadvantages’.3 He hypothesised
1
J. E. R. Stephens, C. E. Gifford & F. Harrison Smith, Manual of Naval Law and
Court Martial Procedure (London: Stephens & Sons, 1912), pp. 137–39.
2
Article 11 of King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, 1913, reads:
‘Combinations.—All combinations of persons belonging to the Fleet formed for the
purpose of bringing about alterations in the existing Regulations or customs of His
Majesty’s Naval Service, whether affecting their interests individually or collectively,
are prohibited as being contrary to the traditions and practice of the Service and
injurious to its welfare and discipline. Every person is fully authorised individually to
make known to his superior any proper cause of complaint, but individuals are not to
combine either by the appointment of committees of in any other manner to obtain
signatures to memorials, petitions or applications, not are they collectively to sign any
such documents.’
3
Cornelius Lammers, ‘Strikes and Mutinies: A Comparative Study of Organiza-
tional Conflicts between Rulers and Ruled’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4
(1969), pp. 558–72 (p. 559).
78 laura rowe
that the social conditions conducive to strikes in industry are the same
as those that heightened the chances of mutiny in military units, but
that mutiny was a comparatively infrequent occurrence in part because
of the threat of heavy retributions against mutineers, but predominantly
because sailors consider the ‘strong [military] taboo on mutiny’ to be
‘legitimate’. Most sailors, he argues regard work stoppages as being
incompatible with military discipline and as therefore threatening to
undermine the running of their ship. However, mutiny may be provoked
when acute suffering or grievances combine with either a general belief
that no serious punishments will follow a collective action; or ‘when
basic commitments to the goals and means of the organisation are so
weak that the taboo on mutiny is no longer considered legitimate.’ Ties
of loyalty to the organisation may also be severed by long periods of
inactivity or by the inadequacies of officers, which has the additional
side effect of shutting off a vital safety value.4
In Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century, Christopher Bell and Bruce
Elleman have utilised the framework outlined by Lammers to investigate
a selection of naval mutinies.5 They conclude that sailors’ grievances are
often linked to broader social or political problems affecting the society
from which they come. Bell suggests that ‘ships’ crews represent a cross-
section of the nation and tend to reflect the social and political values
within it. Conflict within a navy may therefore be either partially or
predominantly a spill-over from a state’s social, economic, or political
ills.’6 However, they suggest that mutinies usually stem from relatively
minor causes relating to the conditions of service. Mutinies can take
one of two forms: ‘ship specific’; or ‘fleet- or navy-wide’. The former
developing as a result of particular circumstances on a specific ship,
the latter caused by more widespread problems, sometimes, though not
always, generated by more systemic problems such as poor officer-man
relations.7 In such cases the complaint may not be with their direct
superiors, but rather with the higher naval command. Bell classifies the
various types of naval mutiny along the Lammers’ model as follows:8
4
Ibid., pp. 565–66.
5
Christopher Bell & Bruce Elleman, Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth-Century: An Inter-
national Perspective (London: Cass, 2003)—see chapter 13.
6
Christopher M. Bell & Bruce A. Elleman, ‘Naval Mutinies in the Twentieth
Century and Beyond’ in Bell and Elleman, Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth-Century, pp.
264–76 (pp. 264–65).
7
Ibid., pp. 264–65.
8
Ibid., pp. 264–76 (p. 266) Table 1—‘Types of Naval Mutinies’.
counting unrest 79
Type of Mutiny Goals Characteristics

Naval (or Promotion Sailors seek to improve or Grievances relate solely to naval
of Interest) mutinies maintain their position with issues, and may be relatively minor
respect to income or other and mundane.
working conditions. Grievances may be extended
throughout the entire navy, but
are more commonly confined to a
single ship or squadron.
Usually resolved quickly and easily.
Usually passive.
Political mutinies Sailors seek either: Demands go beyond what a ship’s

(a) to improve conditions within captain or even the naval high
the navy by exerting pressure on command can concede.
political authorities rather than Demands may be unrelated or only
(or in addition to) their superior indirectly related to conditions of
officers; or service in the navy.
(b) to effect changes of a political
(but non-revolutionary) nature.
Seizure of Power Sailors seek either: Are most likely to occur in

Or (a) to produce far-reaching or authoritarian, corrupt or weak
Secession mutinies revolutionary changes in the states.
composition or nature of the Are most likely to involve violence
government; or and the outright seizure of ship(s).
(b) to escape from the authority
of a government entirely
It is through the use of these definitions and frameworks that I will

explore the mutinies in the Royal Navy during the First World War.
Throughout the war itself 41 officers and ratings were charged with
mutiny (of whom twenty-nine were active service men, eight were mer-
cantile marines and four were reservists) of which twenty-eight of the
active service men were found guilty, all eight mercantile marines were
convicted, and all four reservists acquitted. These relate to incidents
on HMS Teutonic, Jonquil, Fantome, and Amphitrite. The courts martial
proceedings relating to HMS Teutonic and HMS Amphitrite survive, and it
is from these that conclusions as to the type and nature of the mutinies
can be drawn. I will also examine the case of HMS Leviathan where the
mutiny was re-classified by the Admiralty an ‘outbreak’ and no charges
were brought by court martial despite 150 of her complement breaking
out of the ship, taking with them the ship’s piano.
80 laura rowe
The earliest of the mutinies took place on HMS Teutonic (a White

Star steamship, launched in 1889 and used as an armed merchant
cruiser). On the 28th March, 1916, whilst anchored in Liverpool, 178
mercantile ratings refused to turn to. The mutineers were assembled on
the upper deck and addressed by the Senior Naval Officer, Liverpool,
Rear Admiral Stileman. Accompanied by a 200-strong armed guard
Stileman informed the mutineers, as had the captain before him, that
what might have been termed a ‘strike’ in the mercantile service quali-
fied as ‘mutiny’ under the Naval Discipline Act. He pledged to put their
grievances before the Board of Admiralty personally and then asked
them to return to work; eight refused and were imprisoned. During
their subsequent trial the eight offered the following statement in their
defence:
In pleading guilty to the first charge may we also plead for special con-
sideration on the grounds of ignorance of our refusal of duty.
We have been for years firemen and trimmers of the Mercantile Marine
and unfortunately we have been in the habit of settling any grievance or
dispute in the same lamentable manner as we have done on this occa-
sion, with one vast difference, that we have overlooked the fact of our
own signing under Naval discipline. It is equally unfortunate that usually
when signing any articles as Mercantile Marine firemen and trimmers,
the general individual (through force of habit) does not attach enough
importance to such articles, and we state that such habitual carelessness
was present in this case, but that now, on realising our own unenvyable
[sic] position and being very penitent and extremely sorry for the method
adopted we beg for leniency in judgement of our offence.9
They were not granted leniency. Their Lordships, not perhaps unrea-
sonably, thought that two reminders during the mutiny that they were
under the NDA and that they were committing mutiny should really
have been sufficient. Each received two years’ hard labour and was
dismissed from the service: a seemingly heavy price to pay for a com-
plaint over no more than food and pay.
This incident falls clearly into the ‘protest movement’ type of mutiny.
The goals related solely to naval issues and were pursued using the ‘stop-
page of work’ tactic, complicated only by the mutineers’ non-typical
relationship to the service in which they were employed. It is here that
the Lammers’ model falls short: it makes no allowance for differences
9
The National Archives (hereafter TNA), ADM 156/19, Report written by Benson,
28 March, 1916.
counting unrest 81
in the relationships with the governing military body between career

servicemen and those temporarily drafted. They were not career service-
men, but mercantile men co-opted for the duration, and hence were
bound less tightly by professional and personal loyalty to, and pride in,
the Royal Navy as an institution, thereby weakening the normative type
attachment between the sailor and his employer, and thus the normal
taboo on mutiny was not something they would have felt applied to
them. They regarded the incident as a strike, not because they were
attempting to downplay it, but because they genuinely regarded it as
nothing more. They had merely undertaken a normal, legitimate, form
of protest movement—sadly for them, the naval authorities did not
share their view as to its legitimacy.
The second of our case studies chronologically is HMS Amphitrite
(an 1895 pre-Dreadnought Cruiser, which had been converted to a
minelayer in 1917). At 1.15 pm on the 23rd September 1917, whilst
she was stationed in Portsmouth, 58 Able and Ordinary Seamen
refused to obey the pipe for both watches to fall in. At the subsequent
court of enquiry twenty-two of those men were examined. The court
found that the collective insubordination was carried out as a personal
protest against the general behaviour of Amphitrite’s captain (Edmund
Clifton Carver), the longer hours worked, the irregular hours at which
the men got their tea, and the dirty conditions of the mess deck. Just
as Admiral Colville, the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, had con-
cluded in his initial investigation, so too did the Court of Enquiry:
the blame for the whole incident lay firmly at the feet of Captain
Carver. In their submission to the Admiralty outlining the results of
the Court of Enquiry, Captains Skipwith and Garforth, firmly stated
that: ‘We are of opinion that the cause of this protest was Captain
Carver’s tactless and overbearing method of dealing with the Officers
and men and that he is most seriously to blame and should be held
responsible for the whole series of events which culminated in this most
serious offence against Naval discipline.’10 The accompanying letter by
Admiral Colville was even more direct: ‘Captain Carver is solely and
entirely to blame for the lamentable state of affairs on board that ship;
he has most thoroughly maintained his service reputation [ by which
he meant Carver’s reputation as an appalling leader], and I submit to
their Lordships that he should be instantly relieved of his command
10
TNA, ADM 156/34, Findings of the Court of Enquiry, 25 September, 1917.
82 laura rowe
and never employed again in any position where he commands officers

and men. If he is left any longer in this ship, there will probably be
more serious trouble.’11
That Colville was prepared to recommend this course of action, even
though he recognised the potential effect on discipline in allowing the
men to achieve the objective they so obviously desired, is indicative of
the exceptional circumstances surrounding the case. Once again this
is an incident which clearly falls in the ‘protest movement’ mould of
mutiny. It was limited in scope and arose from a belief, with which the
Admiralty grudgingly agreed, that there was no alternative method
for the men to bring forward their grievances. Indeed the Board of
Admiralty was in a large degree sympathetic to the men, but felt that
this show of insubordination could not go unpunished in view of the
recent concessions granted to the lower decks, events on the Teutonic
and the recent mutiny in Germany. Of the eight men selected, for no
reason other than their seniority, to stand trial at court martial, six were
sentenced to 2 years’ hard labour, and two to 18 months’. These were
formally reduced by the Admiralty to 16 and 12 months respectively.
It was also decided that the sentences would be suspended after 8 and
6 months, but that this suspension would not be announced until the
time for suspension arrived: the Second Sea Lord commented ‘Any form
of mutiny must be sternly repressed. The sentences are not severe, and
to reduce them at the present moment would be inopportune and tend
to weaken authority.’12 As for Captain Carver, the mutiny on Amphitrite
sounded the death knell of a career which ought, by all accounts, to
have ended quite some time before. The First Sea Lord adjudged that
since no formal charges could be formed against Carver, despite the
unanimous conclusion of everyone concerned that he was solely and
entirely to blame:
An expression of their Lordship’s opinion on the cause of the dissatisfac-
tion in the ship, coupled with the fact that they do not intend to employ
this officer again, should be inserted in the Court Martial Return in
the form of a memorandum placed under the sentences on the men
convicted of mutiny.
I [the First Sea Lord ] have thoroughly considered the point as to
whether this course would be subversive to discipline, but since true
11
TNA, ADM 156/157, Letter from Admiral Colville to the Admiralty, 26 Sep-
tember, 1917.
12
TNA, ADM 156/157.
counting unrest 83
discipline is founded on justice, and since equal justice has not so far
been meted out to the captain of the Amphitrite and the men who were
convicted, such a public expression of their Lordships’ opinion will go
some way towards redressing the balance.13
The mutiny on Amphitrite cannot be said to have been the result of
long periods of inactivity—as a minelayer she was frequently engaged;
however, she clearly suffered as a result of the mismanagement of
officers, and the consequent injustices in treatment. Hence the First Sea
Lord (who would not normally have become involved in such matters),
was anxious to see that injustice was not present in the judgement of
the case.
The last incident for investigation has not been recorded as a
mutiny—but it was investigated as such and was only re-christened after
the investigations were completed. That the papers were stored in The
National Archives is symptomatic of their importance. This ‘outbreak’
took place on board HMS Leviathan (an 1898 pre-Dreadnought Cruiser)
at Birkenhead on 6th October 1918. Between the afternoon of Sunday,
6th and the morning of Tuesday, 8th over 150 men (and one piano)
broke ship. Even more unusual was that the ship took on the role of a
hostel with men popping back to sleep, wash and change, before once
again leaving the ship along with even more men than before. No
action was taken by the ship’s authorities until the Monday morning
to prevent this stream of unauthorised entrance and egress. There had
been a significant period of discontent amongst the stokers because
of the unhealthy and even dangerous condition of the engine room,
and it was the stokers who were at the fore throughout this ‘outbreak’;
however, the trigger for this mass ship-breaking was the tactlessly can-
celled leave on the Sunday, when the ship’s captain, Captain Evans,
managed to tell the crew that he would not permit them to go ashore
because he could not trust them. Twenty-nine men had already over-
stayed leave and he was afraid that if he lost any more the ship would
not be able to sail.
What ensued was, if we are to believe the report of the Court of
Enquiry, a spontaneous decision to leave en masse. Every one of the
men examined responded that they had only left because everyone else
had, there had been no ring leaders, it was pure coincidence that they
had all independently decided to leave at precisely the same moment,
13
TNA, ADM 156/157.
84 laura rowe
no outside agitators had been involved (although a couple of men made

claims to the contrary), and no one had any idea how the piano had
made it down the gangway onto the quay. They all agreed that their
only real grievances were Captain Evans’ assertion that they could not
be trusted and the subsequent stoppage of leave.14 The vast majority
of the mutineers were young men, most of whom had only served a
comparatively short period of time, and some of whom were enlisted
for the period of hostilities only. The Court felt that a great number
of the men failed to realise the gravity of their misconduct. Some of
the older seamen interviewed suggested that the relatively young age of
the crew had been a factor in the incident since there were not enough
‘staid’ men to ‘keep the young chaps steady’.15 This, these senior hands
felt, was compounded by the industrial strikes taking place ashore. The
Court concluded that that the action taken by Captain Evans to deal
with the incident had been inadequate. The incident, it felt, had shown
a ‘lamentable lack of cohesion between Officers and Men, . . . With the
exception of the Fleet Surgeon who volunteered for the work and Mr
Hambley, Mate, the officers were not called upon to explain to the men
how rash and improper was their conduct.’ Although the Court was
at pains to stress that ‘throughout the outbreak no manifestation of ill
feeling or disrespect towards the Officers or Petty Officers was shown and
no damage was done or rioting took place on board or ashore.’16
Rear Admiral Stileman, Senior Naval Officer, Liverpool, agreed with
the findings of the Court—the general tone of discipline throughout the
ship was, in his words, ‘slipshod and slack’,17 the captain was tactless,
and a lamentable lack of initiative was shown by failing to restrain the
men earlier. He suggested, however, that the incident should be dealt
with summarily and that the ship should proceed to sea as it had been
destined to do. The Second and Fourth Sea Lords in their assessment
of the case agreed that much of the blame should be borne by Cap-
tain Evans and the commander for their handling of the situation,
but believed Evans should not be removed from his position for fear it
gave the ship’s company the feeling it had only to mutiny in order to
14
TNA, ADM 156/89, Minutes of Evidence taken by Senior Naval Officer, Liver-
pool.
15
TNA, ADM 156/89, Evidence of Seaman Dawson, who had served 25 years.
16
TNA, ADM 156/89, Findings of the Court of Enquiry into alleged mutiny on
Leviathan, 11 October 1918.
17
TNA, ADM 156/89, Findings of Rear Admiral Stileman, Senior Naval Officer,
Liverpool, 11 October, 1918.
counting unrest 85
gain advantage. The Second Sea Lord also opposed the paying off of
the ship since it ‘would in a sense be a confession that the Admiralty
regards the outbreak in a more serious light than is really the case, and
would moreover result in the crew returning for a time to the more
comfortable life of the Barracks and escaping from the somewhat
severe conditions of the service on which the ship is employed; they
would thus in a sense obtain a reward for their bad behaviour.’18 It
was on his recommendation that the word ‘outbreak’ be substituted for
‘mutiny’. In so doing he was demonstrating another facet of mutiny
as discerned by Lammers: namely desire of all involved to downplay
the significance of events. It is clear that this incident conforms to the
‘protest movement’ style of mutiny against unhealthy conditions aboard
and a tactless captain, although it had no specific goals beyond the
registration of displeasure.
The Admiralty had been faced with three, not insignificant ‘protest
movement’-style mutinies during hostilities—to say nothing of the
mutinies which followed the armistice. No evidence has been found as
to the nature of the other mutinies, but that no papers survive in The
National Archives is probably indicative of their relative unimportance.
Mutinies and mutineers were numerically insignificant, but the seri-
ousness of mutinies cannot be judged by the number of participants:
Invergordon was relatively moderate; Potemkin sought to spark a national
revolution whilst acting in virtual isolation. In many ways it is hard to
draw any broad conclusions from these instances. It is almost impos-
sible to generalise as to when grievances will become serious enough
to spark a mutiny since the conditions which are sufficient in one ship
will not be enough in another.
Following Bell’s theory, were these mutinies, which were triggered by
particular circumstances, in reality a reflection of broader social and
political problems affecting British society? Largely, this was indeed the
case, because at their heart was the issue of the relationship between
employer and employee. The rights of the employee, and not simply
the responsibilities of the employer, were taking centre stage in civilian
industrial relations, alongside the recognition of the power of collective
action. The RN faced a crisis of identities; a conflict between notions
of service and self. Whilst being careful not to overstate the impor-
tance of naval collective action it was symptomatic of the difficulties
18
TNA, ADM 156/89.
86 laura rowe
of representing grievances. In none of the mutinies or ‘outbreaks’

discussed was there any alternative, legitimate means for the grievances
to be aired; and in this respect they do represent a deep blow to naval
methods of the maintenance of discipline. This was a continuation of
the dialogue ashore about the rights of workers. When the Admiralty
saw concessions being granted ashore it is small wonder that action on
board which mimicked civilian methods of agitation would have been
a cause of concern; hence in their investigations they were anxious to
establish whether each incident had been provoked by outside agitation.
However, no evidence was discovered which might have substantiated
this. Indeed none of these incidents were concerned with Admiralty
policy, none suggested any general breakdown in officer-man relations;
and none were even supported by the entire ships’ complements. All
were apolitical and were not a reaction to the war. Despite a multitude
of reasons which explain how and why the Board developed such deep-
seated concerns about the morale and discipline of the lower decks;
it would appear evident that their concerns were not substantiated by
the types of offences being tried by court martial, the number of these
offences, or indeed by their substance.
Figure 1. Ratings Convicted by Courts Martial, 1914–1918

Type of Service
Category of Charge Marine Active Mercantile Other Reservist Grand
Service Marine Total
Violence (Against 45 333 7 0 66 451
Superior)
Theft 31 124 3 1 15 174
Disobedience 10 141 3 0 19 173
Sexual Offence 12 143 2 1 14 172
Contempt/ 3 84 2 0 24 113
Insubordination/
Insulting an Officer
Desertion 9 64 1 0 26 100
Drinking Offence 9 54 1 0 9 73
Threatening language/ 6 38 0 0 12 56
behaviour
AWOL 4 39 1 0 7 51
Violence (Other) 5 30 2 0 10 47
Improperly Leaving Ship 1 29 0 0 16 46
OTHER 2 34 0 0 5 41
Mutinous Assembly 0 28 8 0 0 36
counting unrest 87
Figure 1 (cont.)
Type of Service
Category of Charge Marine Active Mercantile Other Reservist Grand
Neglect of Duty 0 24 0 0 4 28
Fraud 1 21 0 0 2 24
Uncleanness (STD) 1 21 0 0 1 23
Censorship Offence 1 21 0 0 1 23
Absent from Place 1 17 1 0 2 21
of Duty
Deserting Post 4 7 0 0 10 21
Inappropriate/Improper 2 12 3 1 0 18
Behaviour/Language
Disorder/Provoking a 0 5 8 0 1 14
Quarrel
Hazarding/Stranding/ 0 3 2 0 8 13
Damaging Ship
Lying 1 10 0 0 1 12
Being in Improper Place 5 5 0 0 1 11
Possession of Weapon 1 4 0 0 4 9
Breaking & Entering 3 4 0 0 0 7
Gambling 1 5 0 0 0 6
Smuggling/Avoiding 0 5 0 0 1 6
Paying
Duty
Refusal of Duty 0 6 0 0 0 6
Complicity 0 3 0 0 0 3
Asleep on Watch 0 3 0 0 0 3
(NOT in Presence/
vicinity of enemy)
Manslaughter 1 1 0 0 1 3
Striking 0 3 0 0 0 3
Over Staying/Not 0 1 0 0 1 2
Returning
From Leave
Attempted Murder 0 1 0 0 0 1
Forgery 0 1 0 0 0 1
(in presence/
vicinity of enemy)
Grand Total 159 1324 44 4 261 1792
88 laura rowe
Figure 2. Percentage of each category of charge committed by Ratings of each service

type, 1914–1918
Type of Service
Category of Marine Active Mercantile Other Reservist Grand
Charge Service Marine Total
Violence (Against 9.98% 73.84% 1.55% 0.00% 14.63% 100.00%
Superior)
Theft 17.82% 71.26% 1.72% 0.57% 8.62% 100.00%
Disobedience 5.78% 81.50% 1.73% 0.00% 10.98% 100.00%
Sexual Offence 6.98% 83.14% 1.16% 0.58% 8.14% 100.00%
Contempt/ 2.65% 74.34% 1.77% 0.00% 21.24% 100.00%
Insubordination/
Insulting an
Officer
Desertion 9.00% 64.00% 1.00% 0.00% 26.00% 100.00%
Drinking Offence 12.33% 73.97% 1.37% 0.00% 12.33% 100.00%
Threatening 10.71% 67.86% 0.00% 0.00% 21.43% 100.00%
language/
behaviour
AWOL 7.84% 76.47% 1.96% 0.00% 13.73% 100.00%
Violence (Other) 10.64% 63.83% 4.26% 0.00% 21.28% 100.00%
Improperly Leaving 2.17% 63.04% 0.00% 0.00% 34.78% 100.00%
Ship
OTHER 4.88% 82.93% 0.00% 0.00% 12.20% 100.00%
Mutinous Assembly 0.00% 77.78% 22.22% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Neglect of Duty 0.00% 85.71% 0.00% 0.00% 14.29% 100.00%
Fraud 4.17% 87.50% 0.00% 0.00% 8.33% 100.00%
Uncleanness (STD) 4.35% 91.30% 0.00% 0.00% 4.35% 100.00%
Censorship Offence 4.35% 91.30% 0.00% 0.00% 4.35% 100.00%
Absent from Place 4.76% 80.95% 4.76% 0.00% 9.52% 100.00%
of Duty
Deserting Post 19.05% 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 47.62% 100.00%
Inappropriate/ 11.11% 66.67% 16.67% 5.56% 0.00% 100.00%
Improper
Behaviour/
Language
Disorder/Provoking 0.00% 35.71% 57.14% 0.00% 7.14% 100.00%
a Quarrel
Hazarding/ 0.00% 23.08% 15.38% 0.00% 61.54% 100.00%
Stranding/
Damaging Ship
Lying 8.33% 83.33% 0.00% 0.00% 8.33% 100.00%
Being in Improper 45.45% 45.45% 0.00% 0.00% 9.09% 100.00%
Place
counting unrest 89
Figure 2 (cont.)
Type of Service
Category of Marine Active Mercantile Other Reservist Grand
Charge Service Marine Total
Possession of 11.11% 44.44% 0.00% 0.00% 44.44% 100.00%
Weapon
Breaking & 42.86% 57.14% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Entering
Gambling 16.67% 83.33% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Smuggling/ 0.00% 83.33% 0.00% 0.00% 16.67% 100.00%
Avoiding Paying
Duty
Refusal of Duty 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Complicity 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Asleep on Watch 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
(NOT in
Presence/vicinity
of enemy)
Manslaughter 33.33% 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 33.33% 100.00%
Striking 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Over Staying/Not 0.00% 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 100.00%
Returning From
Leave
Attempted Murder 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Forgery 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Asleep on Watch (in 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 100.00%
presence/vicinity
of enemy)
Grand Total 8.87% 73.88% 2.46% 0.22% 14.56% 100.00%
90 laura rowe
Figure 3(a). Ratings convicted of ‘unrest-indicators’* at Court Martial

350
Marine
300 Active Service
Mercantile Marine
250
Number of Offenses
Other
200 Reservist
Total Number of Convictions
150
100
50
0
1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
Date
Figure 3(b). Officers convicted of ‘unrest-indicators’ at Court Martial

120
Marine
Active Service
100
Mercantile Marine
Number of Convictions
80 Other
Reservist
60 Total Number of Convictions
40
20
0
1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
Date
Figure 3(c). Officers convicted of ‘unrest-indicators’ at Disciplinary Court

140
Marine
120 Active Service
Mercantile Marine
Number of Convictions
100
Other
80 Reservist
Total Number of Convictions
60
40
20
0
1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
Date
* ‘Unrest-Indicators’ are convictions for the following offences: violence against

superior officers; contempt and insubordination; threatening language and behaviour;
desertion; absent without leave; overstaying/not returning from leave; disobedience;
neglect of duty; refusal of duty; desertion of post; absence from place of duty; improp-
erly leaving ship; and mutiny.
counting unrest 91
Figure 4. Officers Convicted by Courts Martial, 1914–1918
Type of Service
Charge Marine Active Mercantile Other Reservist Grand


Hazarding/ 0 32 0 0 36 68
Stranding/
Damaging Ship
Theft 1 31 0 1 32 65
AWOL 1 25 0 0 26 52
Fraud 0 16 0 0 33 49
Inappropriate/ 0 20 0 0 16 36
Improper
Behaviour/
Language
Improperly Leaving 0 11 0 0 22 33
Ship
Contempt/ 0 10 0 0 20 30
Insubordination/
Insulting an
Officer
OTHER 2 13 0 0 7 22
Sexual Offence 1 18 0 0 2 21
Disorder/Provoking 1 7 0 0 6 14
a Quarrel
Lying 0 4 0 0 7 11
of Duty
Threatening 0 4 0 0 4 8
language/
behaviour
Borrowing Money 0 7 0 0 0 7
from the Ranks
Being in Improper 0 2 0 0 3 5
Place
Desertion 0 2 0 0 3 5
92 laura rowe
Figure 4 (cont.)
Type of Service

Superior)
Smuggling/ 0 4 0 0 0 4
Avoiding Paying
Duty
(NOT in
presence or
vicinity/enemy)
Forgery 0 1 0 0 2 3
Returning From
Leave
Enquiry into Loss 0 2 0 0 0 2
of Ship
Refusal of Duty 0 0 0 0 2 2
Breaking & 0 1 0 0 0 1
Entering
Attempted Murder 0 0 0 0 1 1
Mu d r r e 0 0 0 0 1 1
Grand Total 10 492 1 3 458 964
counting unrest 93
Figure 5. Percentage of each category of charge committed by Officers of each service

type, 1914–1918 (Court Martial)
Type of Service
Neglect of Duty 0.00% 50.53% 0.00% 0.00% 49.47% 100.00%
Disobedience 0.00% 45.21% 0.00% 0.00% 54.79% 100.00%
Hazarding/ 0.00% 47.06% 0.00% 0.00% 52.94% 100.00%
Stranding/
Damaging Ship
Theft 1.54% 47.69% 0.00% 1.54% 49.23% 100.00%
AWOL 1.92% 48.08% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 100.00%
Fraud 0.00% 32.65% 0.00% 0.00% 67.35% 100.00%
Inappropriate/ 0.00% 55.56% 0.00% 0.00% 44.44% 100.00%
Improper
Behaviour/
Language
Ship
Contempt/ 0.00% 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 66.67% 100.00%
Insubordination/
Insulting an
Officer
OTHER 9.09% 59.09% 0.00% 0.00% 31.82% 100.00%
Sexual Offence 4.76% 85.71% 0.00% 0.00% 9.52% 100.00%
Violence (Other) 0.00% 14.29% 0.00% 0.00% 85.71% 100.00%
Disorder/Provoking 7.14% 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 42.86% 100.00%
a Quarrel
Lying 0.00% 36.36% 0.00% 0.00% 63.64% 100.00%
Absent from Place 0.00% 70.00% 0.00% 0.00% 30.00% 100.00%
of Duty
Threatening 0.00% 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 100.00%
language/
behaviour
Borrowing Money 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
from the Ranks
Deserting Post 0.00% 50.00% 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 100.00%
Being in Improper 0.00% 40.00% 0.00% 0.00% 60.00% 100.00%
Place
Desertion 0.00% 40.00% 0.00% 0.00% 60.00% 100.00%
94 laura rowe
Figure 5 (cont.)
Type of Service
Superior)
Smuggling/ 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Avoiding Paying
Duty
Asleep on Watch 0.00% 25.00% 25.00% 0.00% 50.00% 100.00%
(NOT in
presence/vicinity
of enemy)
Forgery 0.00% 33.33% 0.00% 0.00% 66.67% 100.00%
Over Staying/Not 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Returning From
Leave
Enquiry into Loss 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
of Ship
Refusal of Duty 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Breaking & 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00%
Entering
Attempted Murder 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Gambling 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Murder 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Grand Total 1.04% 51.04% 0.10% 0.31% 47.51% 100.00%
counting unrest 95
Figure 6. Officers Convicted by Disciplinary Court, 1914–1918

Type of Service
AWOL 0 17 11 0 64 92
Improperly Leaving 1 5 5 0 40 51
Ship
Contempt/ 0 6 2 0 38 46
Insubordination/
Insulting an
Officer
Inappropriate/ 0 2 1 0 18 21
Improper
Behaviour/
Language
of Duty
Disorder/Provoking 0 2 4 0 8 14
a Quarrel
Threatening 0 0 3 0 8 11
language/
behaviour
Smuggling/ 0 1 0 0 9 10
Avoiding Paying
Duty
OTHER 0 2 1 0 4 7
Returning From
Leave
Lying 1 0 0 0 5 6
Borrowing Money 0 0 0 0 3 3
from the Ranks
Breaking & Entering 0 2 0 0 1 3
Superior)
Possession of 0 0 1 0 1 2
Weapon
Desertion 0 0 0 0 2 2
Fraud 0 0 0 0 2 2
Theft 0 0 0 0 1 1
Grand Total 2 67 40 0 513 622
96 laura rowe
Figure 7. Percentage of each category of charge committed by Officers of each service

type, 1914–1918 (Disciplinary Court)
Type of Service
AWOL 0.00% 18.48% 11.96% 0.00% 69.57% 100.00%
Disobedience 0.00% 3.57% 1.19% 0.00% 95.24% 100.00%
Ship
Contempt/ 0.00% 13.04% 4.35% 0.00% 82.61% 100.00%
Insubordination/
Insulting an Officer
Violence (Other) 0.00% 8.70% 8.70% 0.00% 82.61% 100.00%
Inappropriate/ 0.00% 9.52% 4.76% 0.00% 85.71% 100.00%
Improper Behaviour/
Language
Absent from Place of 0.00% 17.65% 5.88% 0.00% 76.47% 100.00%
Duty
Disorder/Provoking a 0.00% 14.29% 28.57% 0.00% 57.14% 100.00%
Quarrel
Threatening language/ 0.00% 0.00% 27.27% 0.00% 72.73% 100.00%
behaviour
Smuggling/Avoiding 0.00% 10.00% 0.00% 0.00% 90.00% 100.00%
Paying Duty
Neglect of Duty 0.00% 22.22% 0.00% 0.00% 77.78% 100.00%
OTHER 0.00% 28.57% 14.29% 0.00% 57.14% 100.00%
Over Staying/Not 0.00% 33.33% 33.33% 0.00% 33.33% 100.00%
Returning From
Leave
Lying 16.67% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 83.33% 100.00%
Borrowing Money from 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
the Ranks
Breaking & Entering 0.00% 66.67% 0.00% 0.00% 33.33% 100.00%
Deserting Post 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Superior)
Possession of Weapon 0.00% 0.00% 50.00% 0.00% 50.00% 100.00%
Desertion 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Fraud 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Gambling 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Theft 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 100.00%
Grand Total 0.32% 10.77% 6.43% 0.00% 82.48% 100.00%
CLIMAX IN THE BALTIC:
THE GERMAN MARITIME OFFENSIVE IN THE
GULF OF RIGA IN OCTOBER 1917
Eric Grove
On 17 October 1917, only three weeks before the Bolsheviks seized

power in Petrograd on 7 November, an engagement occurred in the
Gulf of Riga between the German dreadnought battleships Konig and
Kronprinz and three Russian capital ships of the previous generation,
the pre-dreadnought battleships Slava and Grazhdanin and the armoured
cruiser Bayan. This was the largest clash of major units in the Baltic
of the entire First World War and its context was perhaps the most
successful amphibious operation of that conflict, ‘Operation Albion’,
the German capture of the islands of Osel, Dago and Moon.
This was the culmination of just over three years of maritime warfare
in a theatre that is usually forgotten, except for the recovery of Ger-
man codes from the grounded German light cruiser Magdeburg when
she was scuttled as she was set upon by the Russian cruisers Pallada
and Bogatyr on 26 August 1914. These were passed to the British to
give the Admiralty’s code breakers great assistance. Shortly after this
debacle the Germans had tried a major sortie with a powerful force
of pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers (including the ill fated near battle
cruiser Blücher) but the Russian cruisers encountered fled to the Gulf
of Finland which was defended by formidable minefields.
The mine reigned supreme in the Baltic and the Russians used this
underwater weapon aggressively as well as defensively, laying fields off
the German coast as far west as Rugen and in the Gulf of Bothnia
until ice prevented further operation after mid February 1915. These
claimed a notable victim in November 1914 in the shape of the Ger-
man armoured cruiser Friedrich Karl; many smaller vessels were also
sunk. Submarines also scored successes, a U-boat sinking the Russian
armoured cruiser Pallada in October 1914.
In 1915 the Russians established a ‘Forward Position’ minefield fur-
ther west in the mouth of the Gulf of Finland between Hango and
the island of Dago. This increased the importance of the Gulf of Riga
as the ‘Forward Position’ drove any advancing German forces into the
98 eric grove
Cap e
Ta c h k o n a
Wo r m s
K e r te l
Dagerort D A G Ö Hapsal
H e l te r n a a Moon
17. Sound
Cap e Kassar Bajan
Point To f f r i G ra z h d a n i n
White
Wiek Slava
11 / 1 2 O c t .
III. Soela Sound Schildau
1917 IV. B . S . Cap e
B.S. Pa m e ro r t MOON
Ta g g a We rd e r
ts
l is
Cyc
Bay 42. Orrisar
I.D. Wo i
Cap e 107.
Ca p e Ninnast
Hundsort Div. 17
17. 138. O E S E L Oct
Kielkond
Pa p e n s h o l m Pu t l a
255. König
131. Arensburg K ro n p r i n z
Abro
11 / 1 2 O c t .
1917
Ky n ö
be
2 BBs
or
Sw 1917
16 Oct
Gulf
Cap e
Ze re l
Irbe S t ra i t
Runö
of
Cap e
Domesnäs
Riga
Courland
Windau OPERATION “ALBION”

Kilometers
0 10 20 30 40 50
0 10 20 30
Nautical Miles
Map 3.
climax in the baltic 99
Gulf. The Gulf also became more important as the Germans began
advancing along its southern shore as part of the German priority in
1915 to make the eastern front the decisive theatre. The Russians built
up a major naval base south of Worms Island in Moon Sound, mined
the Irbe Strait to block the southern entry into the Gulf and dredged
Moon Sound so that major units of the fleet could enter it from the
north behind the protection of the Forward Position.
The British had passed two ‘E’ class submarines into the Baltic in
1914 and these took part in a campaign in 1915 that began again in
May and consisted of minelaying sorties by both sides and attempts
to intercept them. The Germans also carried out a carrier strike on
a factory on the coast of the Gulf of Riga with seaplanes from the
captured British merchantman Glyndwr (the Welsh hero after whom the
ship was named would no doubt have been pleased to strike a blow
against an Entente that contained England.). The seaplane carrier was
mined and badly damaged as she withdrew. Despite such reverses the
Imperial Navy supported the German army as it advanced eastwards
towards Riga. In July 1915 a force of Russian cruisers tried to ambush
a similar but weaker German force. The operation resulted in the loss
of the German minelayer Albatross but it failed in its aim of a more
decisive success. E-9 torpedoed the German armoured cruiser Prinz
Adalbert as she sailed up in support, but the damage was not fatal.
As the German advance neared Riga its Gulf became the forefront
of operations. The Russians reinforced their defences with the pre-
dreadnought Slava, a seaplane carrier and lighter forces. In July and
August in a reflection of their more general Eastern Front priority, the
Germans sent capital ships east, first a squadron of six pre-dreadnoughts
under Vizeadmiral Ehrhard Schmidt and then major units of the High
Sea Fleet eight dreadnoughts and three battle cruisers commanded by
Konteradmiral Hipper. Schmidt was in charge of the operation. The
intention was to penetrate the Gulf of Riga, mine its eastern entrance
and, it was hoped, draw out the main Russian fleet from behind its
minefields. There were two attempts to force the western entrance into
the Gulf, the Irben Strait. In the second, two dreadnoughts Posen and
Nassau were used which ‘succeeded in keeping the Slava at a distance’.1
1
P. Halpern, A Naval History of World War One (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press,
1994), p. 197. The general account of operations in the Baltic before and after this
engagement relies on this vital and unique source.
100 eric grove
Two German destroyers V-99 and V-100 (ironically, powered by engines

ordered by the Russians) penetrated the Gulf to attack Slava but their
efforts were worsted by the battleship’s net defences. One was sunk
by Russian destroyers. As German minesweepers swept passages into
the Gulf, the two dreadnoughts hit Slava three times and forced her
to retreat.
The Germans finally moved into the Gulf, Posen and the cruiser
Augsburg sinking a hapless Russian gunboat, while the Germans lost a
torpedo boat to a mine. The Germans felt vulnerable to underwater
threats and retreated without blocking Moon Sound with their own
mines. Their fears were partially justified when E-1 torpedoed the
battle cruiser Moltke. The damage was not too serious but Hipper was
happy to return to the Jade and it would be over two years before the
High Seas Fleet returned. Riga itself remained in Russian hands. The
unwillingness of the Army to take the city advised against taking too
many naval risks at this stage.2
That summer the British reinforced their Baltic submarine flotilla to a
total of five boats and the damage inflicted on the vital trade (especially
in iron ore) between Sweden and Germany caused Sweden to organise
convoys and the Germans to organise covering patrols to maintain the
flow of shipping. E-8 also sank the German armoured cruiser Prinz
Adalbert. In 1916 the British decided to send still more submarines;
four small flotilla defence boats of the ‘C’ class passed, not without dif-
ficulty to Petrograd from Archangel by canal and river. The Germans
neutralised the submarine threat by introducing convoys in April 1916,
although the convoys provided targets for raids by powerful Russian
surface action groups of cruisers and destroyers. These had little effect
beyond the sinking of a German armed merchant cruiser escort. The
mine was still a the dominant weapon, as the Germans found to their
cost when the Tenth Torpedo Boat Flotilla lost seven of its eleven boats
on an ill judged foray into mouth of the Gulf of Finland.
1917 was dominated by the political changes in Russia. Although
the new regime created by the March Revolution remained in the war
much of the Russian Navy had different ideas. The primary casualties to
radical unrest were units of the main battlefleet, the four dreadnoughts
and two newest pre-dreadnoughts, based largely in static inactivity at
Helsingfors (Helsinki) behind the minefields and ice. The Russian fleet
2
Ibid., p. 198.
commander Vice Admiral A. J. Nepenin was murdered. The older

major Russian units, based further forward and more actively engaged
in the war so far were more politically reliable.
The High Seas Fleet was also suffering the results of inactivity follow-
ing the withdrawal of its U-boats in October 1916 to engage in opera-
tions against merchant shipping. Scheer’s strategy of disproportionate
attrition depended on submarine support and he could not engage in
any more dangerous forays without them.3 Inactivity fostered morale
problems in German as well as Russian ships. There were cases of
sabotage and refusals to eat or work. The Naval High Command, only
too aware of events in Russia, tried to appease the sailors by setting
up messing committees to handle complaints in major units. The well
intentioned measure backfired as the committees immediately created a
five man central committee to co-ordinate the campaign of dissension
and protest.4 A messing committee member Max Reichpietsch went to
Berlin to confer with the anti-war Independent Socialist Party (USPD)
that had broken away from the mainstream Social Democrats in April.
Reichpietsch was a keen agitator and on his return to the Fleet he
recruited subscribers to socialist newspapers as well as signing no less
than 4,000 sailors as supporters of the USPD.
At the beginning of August the commanding officers of the battleship
Prinzregent Luitpold were unwise enough to replace a promised cinema
show with an exercise march. The ship’s company demonstrated in
protest and eleven of the protestors were arrested. The following day,
led by Stoker Albin Kobis 400 men (about 40 per cent of the ship’s
company) went ashore for a protest meeting in a near-by hostelry. Ger-
man marines did the traditional duty of such personnel in the world’s
navies by getting the errant sailors back on board, apparently through
persuasion rather than force. The men of the flagship Friedrich Der Grosse
staged a sympathy strike and Scheer, rather rattled by the co-ordinated
action came down hard on the mutineers and agitators. Both Reich-
pietsch and Kobis were shot, seventy five sailors were imprisoned and
hundreds more disciplined less severely. Scheer and his staff needed
some action to prevent further trouble and they grasped the opportunity
3
Ibid., p. 333. Jutland had little or nothing to do with it.
4
A. H. Ganz, ‘Albion—The Baltic Islands Operation’, Military Affairs, Vol. XLII,
(1978), p. 93.
102 eric grove
of action in the Baltic with both hands as ‘a welcome diversion from

the monotony of war in the North Sea’.5
Operations to occupy the islands at the entrance to the Gulf of
Riga had long been under consideration but now the time seemed
finally ripe. As Russian resistance faltered, Riga was finally attacked
but a further advance directly on Petrograd seemed ruled out because
of swampy terrain and the need to send troops to Italy (where they
smashed the Italians at Caporetto). Nevertheless it was now held to
be desirable to maintain pressure on this axis of potential advance by
taking the islands ‘to carry out the further weakening of Russia and to
provide a better basis for a further offensive against Petersburg in the
year 1918, if required . . .’6
War games held on 12 September demonstrated the operational need
for heavy units for bombardment duties and to protect the landings
from the Russian fleet, whose inactivity could not be taken for granted.
The Operations Group of the Admiralstab also saw the potential of
such an operation ‘in bringing Russia close to chaotic civil war’.7 Time
was of the essence given the inability of minesweepers to operate in
heavy weather and the staff created to supervise ‘Operation Albion’
made their plans as their train trundled east to Libau. Wisely the old
Gulf of Riga hand Vizeadmiral Schmidt, now of the First Battle
Squadron and the senior subordinate flag officer in the High Seas Fleet,
was put in command of the naval forces involved the specially created
Flottenverband fur Sondernunternehmungen (Sonderverband for short). Schmidt
was subordinate to Hutier’s Eighth Army that had overall control of
the operation. The land force was provided by Generalleutnant von
Kathen’s XXIII Reserve Army Corps that had played the major role in
defeating the last Russian offensive in 1917. A force of almost 25,000
men was put together at Libau based around the highly experienced
and battle hardened 42nd (Alsace Lorraine) Infantry Division. This
was reinforced with another infantry regiment, two independent storm
troop companies, a five battalion bicycle infantry brigade (an unlikely
formation which was, however, to play a crucial role) a cavalry regiment,
5
Scheer, quoted ibid.
6
Ganz, ibid.
7
Ibid.
two independent machine gun units and artillery support comprising

some forty guns, both field and heavy.8
A fleet of transports was hastily improvised by the Imperial Navy
to carry all these men, their equipment and supplies for a month. A
mixed bag of seventeen merchantmen was assembled, some former
Allied prizes. Ships that had been cannibalised for their equipment
had to be made seaworthy again and modifications had to be made to
facilitate their use as landing transports. The embarkation and disem-
barkation of horses, vehicles and guns was a particular problem but
a solution offered itself in the use of towed commercial horse barges
(‘Pferdeboote’) with folding sterns that were taken up from trade to make
what were, for the time, excellent landing craft. The infantry landed
in normal open boats.
The fighting component of the Sonderverband was an impressive force.
Schmidt flew his flag in the battlecruiser Moltke, making a return to the
Baltic. He had two whole battle squadrons of dreadnoughts, the most
powerful in the High Seas Fleet, the Third (Bayern, Konig, Grosser Kurfurst,
Kronprinz and Markgraf commanded by Vizeadmiral Paul Behnke) and
the Fourth (Friedrich Der Grosse, Kaiser, Konig Albert, Kaiserin and Prinzregent
Luitpold commanded by the hero of the Goeben affair Vizeadmiral Wil-
helm Souchon). There were also nine cruisers, a hundred destroyers
and torpedo boats, ninety five mine countermeasures vessels (North Sea
minesweepers reinforcing the regular Baltic units), sixty anti-submarine
vessels and six U-boats, a total fleet of about 300. Given fears about
the British submarine threat of particular importance was the Rosen-
berg Flotilla that grouped torpedo boats and anti-submarine trawlers
into a specialised force. There were also six airships and about ninety
aeroplanes and seaplanes provided by both services to reconnoitre,
bomb and spot for the guns.
Command responsibilities were clearly specified, a necessity for joint
amphibious operations. Schmidt was to direct the transport and land-
ing of the troops who were under his orders until the actual landing.
They then passed to the control of XXIII Corps to whose requests
8
R. Foley, ‘Osel and Moon Islands: Operation Albion, September 1917, The Ger-
man Invasion of the Baltic Islands’ in T. Lovering, Amphibious Assault: Manoeuvre From
the Sea (Seafarer, Woodbridge, 2007), p. 26. This, together with Halpern and Ganz, is
the third main source for this paper. The sources do not entirely correspond in detail.
I have, however, done my best to reconcile the three accounts which with their different
emphases cover the Albion relatively comprehensively.
104 eric grove
for support, and those from Army HQ , Schmidt had to respond ‘with
all means available’.9
To defend the islands the Russians had a naval force whose main
anchorage was in the north east corner of the Gulf between Moon
and the mainland. It was commanded by Rear Admiral Bakhirev flying
his flag in the armoured cruiser Bayan. He had two pre-dreadnoughts
Slava and Grazhdanin (as Tsessarevitch had been renamed after the fall of
the Tsar), another armoured cruiser, 26 destroyers (of which a dozen
were capable modern boats), three of the British C-class submarines
and a mixed bag of gunboats, torpedo boats, mine warfare vessels
and patrol craft. Morale was remarkably high considering the political
situation. The situation was less favourable ashore on Osel, the largest
island where the 425 Infantry Division was down to only about two
thirds strength, less than 10,000 men.
The German plan was to mount a diversionary attack on the Sworbe
peninsula in the south west of the island. The bicycle troops, 1,650
in all, were to be landed at Pamerort to the east of the main land-
ings with two major objectives, to drive south to capture the capital
Arensburg in a coup de main and to move rapidly eastwards along
the coast to capture the Orisar side of the causeway connecting Osel
to Moon Island. The main forces were to come ashore in Tagga Bay
on the north western side of the island. An assault force of two regi-
ments reinforced by storm troops was to be landed by torpedo boats to
break the Russian defences and to seize the high ground to protect the
main landings. Once the main forces were ashore they would advance
in a south eastern direction towards Arensburg and Putla, while sup-
plies were built up at the beach head. These included 45,000 rounds
of artillery ammunition, 110,000 grenades and five million rounds of
small arms ammunition.
The original D-day for ‘Operation Albion’ was 26 September but
the cyclists did not reach Libau until 1 October and the precursor
minesweeping operations took longer than expected in the bad weather.
The extra time was used to train the troops in the novel art of landing
operations. On meteorological advice it was decided that D-day would
be 12 October and after two days’ embarkation the invasion armada
set sail on the 11th from Libau and Danzig. The U-boats, before going
on to provide a forward reconnaissance patrol, had laid light markers to
9
Foley, ibid.
direct the ships into the swept channels. Nevertheless, to provide extra
security, minesweepers still led the way followed by the torpedo boats of
the assault force. Then came the impressive battle squadrons that had
overtaken the slow transports The latter now followed some distance
behind in columns, heavily screened by cruisers, torpedo boats and other
vessels, with sperrbrechers (vessels given extra buoyancy to survive mine
explosions) ahead providing a last ditch anti-mine defence.
Despite the continued bad weather which prevented effective mine-
sweeping except at the slow speeds Schmidt decided to press on regard-
less and his force arrived at 0300 at Point White, seven miles north
of Tagga Bay, the planned anchorage and meeting point marked by
minelaying submarine UC-49. The arrival was only one hour behind
schedule. The battleships Friedrich Der Grosse and Konig Albert had already
been detached under Souchon to make their demonstration against the
12-in batteries on Sworbe. At first light they opened fire with their 11-
in guns. German torpedo boats also bombarded the Russian seaplane
station at Kielkond.
Off the main landing beach Konig, Grosser Kurfurst, Kronprinz and
Markgraf directed their 12-in guns against the 5.9 in battery on Cape
Ninnast covering the entrance to Tagga Bay from the east. On the other
side Kaiser, Kaiserin and Prinzregent Luitpold took on the battery at Cape
Hundsort. Grosser Kurfurst struck a mine but the damage was contained.
The Russian batteries were quickly silenced, their log protection being
no match for the German 12-in shells.
Even before the gun battle began the initial assault force had begun
to land. One of the ships carrying it, the little Corsika was mined and
the troops on board were rescued by escorting torpedo boats with no
loss. Resistance stiffened after initial Russian surprise but by 0800 the
assault force was ashore. The transports had been ordered in an hour
and a quarter before and they took up their assigned anchorages marked
by buoys. Their contents were disembarked into the boats that were
towed ashore in threes by motor barges and launches. The best land-
ing spots on the beach were marked and German engineers (from the
9th Pioneer Replacement Battalion) built improvised landing piers that
made disembarkation easier. By the evening all the infantry allocated to
the main landings were safely ashore but as yet few guns; nevertheless
the beachhead had been fully secure.
As the main landings went in the cyclists were going ashore at Pam-
erort. The Russian battery on the other side of Soela Sound at Cape
Taffri hit a torpedo boat but it was soon silenced by the 15-in guns of
106 eric grove
the damaged Bayern and the 5.9-in shells of the cruiser Emden. Bayern
was mined, however and the damage proved to be quite serious. She
had to put back into Tagga bay and then limped slowly back to Kiel.
The storm troops and sailors landed by the Rosenberg Flotilla to take
out a supposed battery at Pamerort found that no such battery existed
and the cyclists were safely landed. They commandeered horses and
wagons moved quickly inland in what can only be described as a ‘bicycle
blitzkrieg’. The battalion group sent on the Arensburg axis was unable
to take the town but it did succeed in its secondary objective of cutting
the Arensburg-Orrisar Road. At Orrisar itself, four companies of the
4th Cyclist Battalion led by Hauptmann von Winterfeld, having rapidly
moved the fifty kilometres from Pamerort, tried to cross the causeway on
the 13th and got to within about thirty metres of Moon before being
repulsed by the Russians counterattacking from the smaller island.
The main thrust south from Tagga took place on three axes. The
combat team built around the 255th Reserve Regiment advanced on
Hasik, seven km northeast of Arensburg while on its left the 65th
Brigade made up of troops from the 17th and 138th Infantry Regi-
ment was to advance on Putla 20 km from the island’s capital. The
aim was to cut the Russians’ retreat but the poor roads compounded
by wet weather made movement laborious. Neither group had reached
its objectives by nightfall on the 13th and the Russians, who were not
putting up much of a resistance began to slip through the German’
fingers. A fourth group based around the 131st Regiment was sent to
cut off the Russians in the Sworbe Peninsula. This formation was more
successful in containing the Russian 425th Regiment.
The German naval forces were carrying out an advance of their own
through Soela Sound into the Kassar Vick the stretch of water between
Dago and Osel that led into Moon Sound. The aim was to cut off the
Russian forces in the Sound. The waters were very tricky and even the
smaller German vessels being suffered damage as they touched bottom.
On the day of the landings Russian destroyers had forced a retreat by
German minesweepers into Soela Sound. The German battleships drew
far too much water to give effective support and on the afternoon of
the 12th the armoured cruiser Admiral Makarov effectively used its 8-in
and 6-in guns to support nine destroyers and a gunboat to block an
advance of the German flotillas. The Germans were forced to retreat
through Soela Sound at nightfall.
The German Navy as well as Army suffered from poor weather on
the 13th when a combination of fog and Russian destroyers frustrated
a plan to use the modern cruiser Emden from entering the Sound to
support lighter forces. That night, however, a Russian plan to block the
sound miscarried when the designated blockship ran aground and the
ship’s soviet of the netlayer Pripyat pressed into service as a minelayer
refused to proceed with the operation. On the 14th the Germans were
able to sweep a channel to bring up the battleship Kaiser to the entrance
to the sound. She brought the Russian forces in the Kassar Wick under
the fire of her 12-in guns. A German naval landing party was also put
ashore at Cape Toffri on Dago to safeguard entry into the sound.
German light forces under Kommodore Heinrich then steamed
through into the Kassar Wick. The Russian destroyer Grom was disabled
by Kaiser’s fire and abandoned. Attempts by the Russians to take her
under tow failed. A German destroyer now tried to capture her and
although Grom sank the Germans were able to retrieve a valuable chart.
By mid afternoon the Germans were in command of the Kassar Wick
and the Rosenberg Flotilla was able to advance along the southern shore
to Orrisar where Winterfeld’s cycle troops were being pressed hard.
The retreating Russians of 107th Infantry Division on Osel were
making no attempt to defend Arensburg but were attempting to retreat
to Moon via the causeway. Their way was blocked by Winterfeld’s bat-
talion of cyclists now reinforced by one of the stormtroop companies.
The Russians had artillery support and made the main attack on the
night of the 13th–14th with fierce fighting for some hours. The Russians
on Moon joined in and, assailed from both sides as well as being short
of ammunition, Winterfeld was forced to withdraw from the end of the
causeway. He and his troops were able to hold off yet another Russian
counterattack on the morning of the 14th and he received reinforce-
ments from the 5th Bicycle Battalion which allowed him to block the
Arensburg road and cover the causeway with machine guns.
The Rosenberg Flotilla now appeared both to supply Winterfeld’s
men with food and ammunition and to provide naval gunfire support;
even the smallest torpedo boat had the fire power of two field guns.
The flotilla engaged the batteries on Moon Island and added its fire to
the machine guns preventing a retreat over the causeway. It retreated at
nightfall but by then relief was coming on the landward side. Late on
the 13th a German reconnaissance aircraft had reported Winterfeld’s
exposed position and the units of the 42nd Division was ordered to
move at once as best they could to assist the cyclists at Orrisar. After a
difficult march through driving rain on muddy roads the 65th Brigade
arrived at 1900 on the evening of the 14th. The end of the causeway
108 eric grove
was recaptured. The 255th Brigade, with further to go, arrived at

Orrisar at midnight. The Russians were effectively assailed both front
and rear and after quite a hard fight on the morning of the 15th the
Russian divisional commander surrendered.
The German naval forces had not felt secure enough to stay in the
Kassar Wick over the night of the 14th–15th and the Russians had
another attempt at mining in the darkness, having replaced the Primyat’s
crew with more aggressive men from the torpedo boats and destroyers.
Together with three motor minelayers, Primyat laid mines north of Cape
Pawasterort half way across the Wick. When the Germans moved back
in on 15 October they led with their powerful destroyers rather than
torpedo boats. B-98 had her bows blown off and her sister B-112 went
aground trying to find a way round the new minefield. The Russians
now reinforced the Admitral Makarov that had stood guard the previous
day with the pre-dreadnought Slava.
The Russian Navy had put much effort into obtaining the greatest
gunnery value from their older ships. Slava had had her four 12-in guns
increased in elevation to thirty degrees and the range of both these and
her ten 6–in could be could be increased still further by heeling the
ship. The Admiral Makarov could also be heeled to improve the range
of her recently enhanced armament of three 8-in and twelve 6-in
guns. These ships still stood in the way of a German entry into Moon
Sound by the northern route. The only answer to these ships was the
German battlefleet but, because of the shallows, the capital ships cold
not advance further east than Soela sound.
The only alternative was send battleships across the Gulf of Riga
itself by forcing the Irbe Strait. This was defended by minefields covered
by the 12-in battery at Cape Zerel. Little damage had been inflicted by
both an air attack on 30 September that had blown up a magazine or
the initial demonstration by Friedrich der Grosse and Konig Albert. The guns
made minesweeping difficult and the situation was rather similar to that
faced by the British in the Dardanelles over two years before. With the
situation around Arensberg still in doubt on the 14th Schmidt ordered
an advance through the strait to support the army. Three battleships,
Konig Albert, Friedrich der Grosse and Kaiserin carried out a long range
bombardment as the 131st Regiment advanced overland. Supported
by the battleships and their own artillery the German troops forced the
425th Russian Infantry Regiment to lay down their arms in the early
evening. Most of the gun battery crews deserted but the rest blew up
the guns and their ammunition.
The German mine countermeasures ships were now able to sweep

a path for the heavier units. The battery had not been silenced when
the German ships had withdrawn on the 14th but on the following
day it remained silent. Minesweeping was made impossible, however,
because of a new threat. This came from the pre-dreadnought Grazh-
danin escorted by four destroyers that had been sent to destroy the
Zerel battery. The Russian group bombarded the abandoned battery
and was able to evacuate those Russians from the peninsula who had
not fallen into German hands.
The Germans now were able to bring powerful forces into the Gulf
to take on the Russian forces in Moon Sound. Vizeadmiral Behnke
had under command the battleships Konig and Kronprinz, the light
cruisers Kolberg and Strassburg, the minesweeper depot ship Indianola,
destroyers and other flotilla craft including two sperrbrechers which
led the way. The German squadron was attacked by the small British
submarine C-27. The little boat suffered a range of problems includ-
ing grounding and a fouled propeller but was eventually able to get
off two torpedoes which hit Indianola and forced her to be towed to
Arensburg. Further advance towards Moon Sound depended on the
depot ship’s minesweepers.
The Russians moved Slava and Grazhdanin to reinforce the armoured
cruiser Bayan guarding the southern entrance to the Sound. Together
with the battery on Moi the two pre-dreadnought used their 12-in guns
to hold off the Germans from a further advance when they tried again
on the 17th. Slava outranged the German dreadnoughts, much to their
disgust, and it took until 1000 for the minesweepers to secure a path
for the two German battleships to advance to effective range. Konig hit
Slava and she was soon on fire and listing; Kronprinz hit Grazhdanin and
Bayan, albeit less seriously. Rear Admiral Bakhirev ordered a retirement
through the Sound but Slava was too badly damaged. She was drawing
too much water to cross even the dredged shallows. So the last survivor
of the ill fated ‘Borodino’ class, the rest of which had been lost at Tsu-
Shima twelve years before, had to be scuttled. Her crew was taken off
but the scuttling charges proved ineffective and the brave old ship had
to be torpedoed by the destroyer Turkmenetz-Stavropolski; the wreck lasted
until 1937 when it was scrapped by the Estonians.10
10
Ibid.
110 eric grove
Although the Russians tried to block the Sound with blockships and
more mines the Germans ashore could now press their attack on Moon
Island. On the night of the 17th–18th the Rosenberg Flotilla was to
land the 138th Regiment on the small island of Kleinast which gave
access to northwestern Moon by a sand bar while, covered by gunfire
both from ashore and afloat, the 255th Regiment and 18th Storm
Troop company would attack across the causeway in the morning.
On the night of the 17th–18th attempts were made by the navy to cut
off Moon Island from the mainland but these had to be abandoned
when the torpedo boat S-64 struck a mine. Things went better ashore,
however. German reconnaissance showed the Russians not to be in
such strength as had been feared and the 135th Regiment, covered
by Rosenberg’s guns and a smoke screen went ashore on Moon itself.
The Storm Troops assaulted the causeway at 0200 and almost made
it across before being stopped by Russian machine guns. The Russians
were dismayed by an assault from two directions and retreated aban-
doning both guns and an armoured car. On the 18th the causeway
was repaired to take guns and vehicles and the Germans advanced
pursuing the retreating Russians with cavalry and cyclists in the lead.
Eventually all on the island, 5,000 in all had surrendered, including a
‘Death Battalion’ of volunteers.
Although naval support hade been a vital factor in this success the
Admiral Makarov and her supporting destroyers continued to create prob-
lems for the Germans in the Kassar Wick on the 18th; the destroyer
B111 lost her bow to a mine. Russian warships and boom defences
also kept a stopper on Moon Sound for a while but the Germans were
able to get as far north as Schildau Island on the 19th. On that day
Admiral Bakhirev ordered the rest of his units to withdraw and take
refuge behind the Gulf of Finland minefields.
The Germans were well on their way to capturing Dago by this
stage, the 17th Regiment with supporting artillery having landed
through the Toffri beachhead on the 18th. Some of the Russian gar-
rison were however evacuated by sea. On the 20th the battleship Konig
towed by mine countermeasures vessels arrived at Kuwast roadstead
to the east of Moon, the former Russian fleet anchorage. The only
allied opposition in the Gulf now was in the shape of the two British
C-class submarines. C-32 attacked the netlayer Eskimo but was badly
damaged by her escorts. She had to be run ashore and destroyed by
her own crew. On the 19th the main units of the German fleet had
been ordered to cease operations against the Russians and withdraw
as soon as possible. As she left the Gulf of Riga on 29 October the

battleship Markgraf struck a mine and was damaged. By 2 November
the last unit of the High Seas Fleet had departed.
So ended what Edmonds, the British Official Historian, called ‘a
model enterprise of its kind’.11 It can justly lay claim to being the most
successful amphibious operation of the entire war. Even though the
quality of the Russian troops ashore was doubtful, the Germans did
their best to keep a demoralised enemy off balance by rapid manoeuvre.
The synergy of Winterfeld’s cyclists and Rosenberg’s torpedo boats was
particularly telling. Kerensky’s Navy, with only one exception, fought
remarkably well but ‘Operation Albion’ saw the only occasion where a
German battleship sank a Russian. The presence of the High Sea Fleet
battleships was not the ‘overkill’ that some have argued but a necessary
precaution given the defensive forces available to the Russians.12 As one
of the German Army officers involved put it; ‘one cannot dispense with
battleships so long as the enemy uses them. It is impossible to conduct
a naval war with torpedo boats and submarines alone when the enemy
can effectively bring to bear the fire of long range guns.’13
How far the ‘Albion’ further demoralised the Russians before the
revolution on 7 November is hard to estimate although the unhinging
of the Russian ‘Forward Position’ defending the approaches to Petrograd
cannot have helped Russian assessments of the utility of continuing
the war. Certainly, possession of the islands allowed the Germans to
advance to Reval in Estonia in 1918 and to give assistance to the Finns
in their struggle against the Reds. Most of all, however, the story of
‘Operation Albion’ is a valuable counter to attempts to view the war
at sea in 1914–18 as merely a matter of the North Sea culminating
in Jutland and the failure of the Dardanelles. Amphibious operations
were possible in this period in the right conditions and with the right
preparations. Most importantly of all, the story of ‘Albion’ is yet more
evidence of the fact that German High Seas Fleet did not spend all the
period after Jutland swinging supinely at anchor awaiting revolution.
11
Quoted Foley, ‘Osel and Moon Islands’, p. 34.
12
See discussion in Halpern, Naval History, p. 220.
13
General Tschischwitz, quoted ibid.
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Map 4.
COMMAND, STRATEGY AND THE BATTLE FOR
PALESTINE, 1917
Matthew Hughes*
This chapter examines the interchange between and within British

command and grand strategy during the Palestine campaign of 1917,
a significant military operation that drew off hundreds of thousands of
Entente and Central alliance soldiers, one which lasted till the war’s end,
and one which led to the formation after the war of the modern Middle
East. Command and leadership are often confused, and this analysis
is primarily interested in the former, defined here as the management
and coordination of military force, rather than the personal inspiration
and motivation qualities associated with leadership.1 Command can be
exercised at all levels of war, from politicians and senior generals at the
level of grand strategy down to the operational and tactical activities
on the battlefield. This examination focuses on the highest reaches of
British command in 1917, exploring the relationship between senior
politicians (notably Prime Minister David Lloyd George), the senior
military-political liaison officer in the form of the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff (CIGS) (General Sir William Robertson) and the Palestine
theatre commander (General Sir Edmund Allenby). How the British
command ‘system’—if we can call it that—operated during the Great
War helped to determine the outcome of the war. Command was
shaped by British grand strategy, defined here as the art and science
of employing the armed forces of a nation to secure the objectives of
national policy by the application of force, or the threat of force, a
definition that suggests some overlap between command and strategy,
a point worth bearing in mind in the discussion that follows.2
The Prime Minister and the CIGS did not agree on strategy, often
described as a clash between Lloyd George’s ‘eastern’ versus Robertson’s
* The author acknowledges the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military
Archives for permission to quote from material held in the Centre.
1
For a fuller discussion of these terms, see G. D. Sheffield, ed., Leadership and Com-
mand: The Anglo-American Experience since 1861 (London: Brassey’s, 2002), pp. 1–16.
2
For a concise discussion of strategy, see the entry in J. W. Chambers, ed., The Oxford
Companion to American Military History (Oxford: OUP, 1999), pp. 683–695.
114 matthew hughes
‘western’ strategy.3 Put simply, Robertson and the military high com-
mand wanted to concentrate efforts on the main war front in France
(westerners) while politicians such as Lloyd George sought victory by
reinforcing outlying war zones such as Palestine (easterners), avoiding
battle in the main theatre of war—the latter approach a British strategy
characterised by the military thinker Basil Liddell Hart after the war as
the ‘indirect approach’ or the ‘British way in warfare’. However, to heap
policy-makers into one or other category miscasts the people involved.
The ‘westerner’ Robertson was also an ‘easterner’ inasmuch as he was
keenly aware of the need to protect the British Empire’s eastern pos-
sessions and the route to India; Lloyd George was a ‘westerner’ in that
as far as he understood military questions, he realised that Germany
had to be defeated on the Western Front. The dispute revolved around
how best to manage Britain’s finite and dwindling resources. The Prime
Minister wanted to preserve British power for use during and after the
fighting. What he wanted was to shift the burden of the fighting onto
the shoulders of others such as the French, or Americans, and in doing
so save Britain’s power as represented by her armed forces—another
traditional British strategy. Robertson felt that strategy should be kept
out of the hands of military amateurs like Lloyd George. It was not so
much ‘easterners’ and ‘westerners,’ as ‘long-term’ versus ‘short-term’
strategies; it was not that Lloyd George thought that he could win the
war in Palestine, more that he became convinced that the generals would
lose it in France with costly offensives such as the battles of the Somme
(1916) and Passchendaele (1917). Robertson’s fear was that in pursuance
of his ‘long-term’ strategy Lloyd George would lose the war.
While Robertson was aware of the worrying implications of Russia’s
collapse for the British Empire in the East,4 he saw little military value
in pursuing campaigns such as the one in Palestine. He viewed them
as a waste of time, energy and resources, and was content to deal with
3
For a detailed discussion of this issue, see the two volumes by D. French: British
Strategy and War Aims, 1914–16 (Oxford: OUP, 1986) and The Strategy of the Lloyd George
Coalition, 1916–18 (Oxford: OUP, 1995); also the two volumes by D. Woodward: Lloyd
George and the Generals (London and Toronto: University of Delaware Press, 1983) and
Field Marshal Sir William Robertson: Chief of the Imperial General Staff in the Great War
(Westport CT: Praeger, 1998).
4
See, for instance, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives (hereafter LHCMA),
Robertson papers, 4/6/1, ‘Military Effect of Russia Seceding from the Entente,’
9 May 1917 and 4/6/3, ‘The Present Military Situation in Russia and its Effect on
our Future Plans,’ 29 July 1917.
command, strategy and the battle for palestine, 1917 115
military threats such as the Central powers’ push towards Baku on the
Caspian Sea with small specialist military missions.5 In his autobiogra-
phy, published in 1921, Robertson complained that at least 20 per cent
of the time of the General Staff in 1917 was spent assessing peripheral
operations.6 Lloyd George, who himself had no military experience,
viewed the Palestine campaign as a way of preventing costly offensives
in France.7 He was also keenly aware of the need to provide Britain
with territorial bargaining counters for any post-war peace settlement,
and the war in Palestine and the Levant could supply these.
The Palestine Campaign, June–December 1917
In his War Memoirs (1938) Lloyd George remarked how before Allenby
left for Egypt in June 1917:
I told him in the presence of Sir William Robertson that he was to ask
us for such reinforcements and supplies as he found necessary, and we
would do our best to provide them. ‘If you do not ask it will be your
fault. If you do ask and do not get what you need it will be ours.’ I said
the Cabinet expected ‘Jerusalem before Christmas.’8
This quotation’s emphatic tone gives the impression that Lloyd George
was in charge of his generals, and that his plans for the Palestine cam-
paign were well thought-out and only needed implementation. Quite
the opposite: civil-military relations in late 1917 were tense, and the
differences between Lloyd George and Robertson reflected a lack of
focused strategy by Britain, a situation that impeded Allenby’s command
in Palestine. Allenby had not been the first choice for the Palestine post.
The South African general, Jan Smuts, was offered the command in
Palestine over Allenby, but turned it down precisely because he knew
that the military and the War Office were not fully behind the operation,
5
Such as ‘Dunsterforce’, whose adventures are told by its commander in L. Dun-
sterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce (London: Edward Arnold, 1920). ‘Dunsterforce’
went through Persia and ultimately to Baku; for Trans-Caspia, Britain sent a force
under General Malleson. See, D. Fromkin, A Peace To End All Peace: Creating The Modern
Middle East 1914–1922 (London: Penguin, 1991), pp. 360–362.
6
W. Robertson, From Private to Field Marshal (London: Constable, 1921), p. 319.
7
Lloyd George spent a short period in the militia, 1881–82. See, J. Grigg, The Young
Lloyd George (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 44.
8
D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs (London: Odhams, 1938), II, pp. 1089–90.
116 matthew hughes
preferring to keep attention on the main fighting in France.9 Because

of Allenby’s perceived failure with Third Army at the battle of Arras
in April 1917, he did not have Smuts’ option, and he was angry at
being moved from France to Palestine in June 1917.10
In his memoirs, Robertson wrote how ‘the advance into Palestine had
for its main object the thwarting of hostile designs against Mesopota-
mia, and not the capture of Jerusalem’.11 This parochial operational
view can be contrasted with a speech given by the Prime Minister to
Parliament on 20 December 1917 following Jerusalem’s capture (on
9 December):
The British Empire owes a great deal to side-shows. During the Seven
Years’ War . . . the events which are best remembered by every Englishman
are not the great battles on the continent of Europe, but Plassey and the
Heights of Abraham; and I have no doubt at all that, when the history
of 1917 comes to be written, and comes to be read ages hence, these
events in Mesopotamia and Palestine will hold a much more conspicu-
ous place in the minds and the memories of people than many an event
which looms much larger for the moment in our sight.12
Lloyd George was considering wider political and imperial factors.
Regarding the former, he saw the propaganda value to be had for
home-front morale by successes in peripheral war zones. For a national
war-effort a feat such as Jerusalem’s capture was a propaganda triumph.
Lloyd George certainly made the most of the taking of Jerusalem,
announcing its fall first in the House of Commons, with the whole
affair ‘carefully stage-managed’.13 One London local paper recorded
how ‘By the capture of Jerusalem, General Allenby has made his
Palestine campaign historic. More than military significance attaches
9
B. Gardner, Allenby (London: Cassell, 1965), p. 111; and M. Thomson, David Lloyd
George: The Official Biography (London: Hutchinson, 1948), p. 272. Smuts’ correspondence
re the appointment can be found in W. K. Hancock and J. van der Poel, eds., Selections
from the Smuts Papers (Cambridge: CUP, 1966) III, letters 741, 745, 757, 762.
10
LHCMA, Allenby papers, 6/8/68, McMahon to Wavell, 18 October 1936.
Gardner, Allenby, p. 113 describes Allenby as being ‘desolate’ on hearing the news that
he was to go to Egypt.
11
Robertson, From Private to Field Marshal, pp. 306–07.
12
P. Guinn, British Strategy and Politics 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), ft.
p. 283 (from Hansard, col. 2211, 20 December 1917 where Lloyd George expands on
the value of the Palestine campaign). Robertson saw little or no benefit in Jerusalem’s
capture saying, ‘the military effect would be of no value to us’ (from LHCMA, Robert-
son papers, I/16/7/2c, ‘Future Military Policy,’ 9 October 1917).
13
J. Newell, ‘Learning the Hard Way: Allenby in Egypt and Palestine 1917–19,’
Journal of Strategic Studies 14/3 (1991), p. 372.
to the surrender into British hands of a city held in reverence by all

Christendom.’ It went on to note what the Germans had to say in their
press: ‘This is doubtless a success for the English, though more moral
than military . . . the conqueror of the city, of course, gains a halo.’14
These comments show the wider value of successes such as Allenby’s
in Palestine. The boost to national morale resulting from the occupa-
tion of Palestine was considerable, especially as in December 1917 the
long-term outlook for Britain was bleak.
In late 1917, it looked as if the war would continue beyond 1918
into 1919, or even 1920. For the Entente, 1917 was very much the
year of ‘strain’ with Russia’s collapse, Italy’s defeat at the battle of
Caporetto, mutinies in the French army following the Nivelle offensive,
unrestricted submarine warfare, and no sign of the early arrival of
American troops. Talking to Sir Maurice Hankey, the cabinet secre-
tary, in October 1917, Lloyd George outlined his worries saying that
Britain should save herself for ‘the great and terrible effort in 1919’.15
In a letter to Lord Murray in July 1917, Lord Esher wrote how ‘Both
in England and France, men are old and weary. Even those young in
years are too travelled-stained to make any show.’16 What would 1918
bring?17 There were severe industrial disputes in Britain in the spring
and summer of 1917 and this, coupled with the rise of Bolshevism in
Russia, caused alarm within the British establishment.18
Therefore, Britain’s prosecution of the war was crucial. With the
capture of Messines Ridge in June 1917, the stage was set for Gen-
eral Douglas Haig’s offensive towards Passchendaele. Lloyd George
14
Islington Daily Gazette & North London Tribune, 12 December 1917, Islington Local
History Collection, Islington Central Library, London.
15
Churchill Archives Centre (hereafter CAC), Hankey papers, 8/2, 15 October
1917, ‘Note by Sir Maurice Hankey of a Conversation between the Prime Minister
and Himself,’ p. 8 (there is a copy of this in the National Archives (hereafter TNA),
CAB 1/42). The War Cabinet on 30 October 1917 (meeting 259A) discussed whether
to make the main allied effort in 1918 or 1919. Wilson (‘Memorandum by CIGS on
Possibility of War Continuing to 1919,’ 19 March 1918) was emphatic (p. 2) that the
war would go on into 1919 (TNA, CAB 25/73).
16
CAC, Esher papers, journal 2/20, letter to Lord Murray, 28 July 1917.
17
F. Maurice, ‘The Campaigns in Palestine and Egypt 1914–18 in Relation to the
General Strategy of the War,’ The Army Quarterly 18 (April–July 1929), p. 22 describes
how Lloyd George wanted Palestine as a bargaining counter in a war which would
go on until 1919.
18
J. Turner, British Politics and the Great War (New Haven CT: Yale UP, 1992), pp. 5–7
and Guinn, British Strategy, pp. 235, 242. See British Library (hereafter BL), Balfour
papers, Add. Mss. 49719, Esher to CIGS, 20 June 1917 for the revolutionary threat
to Britain.
118 matthew hughes
was very bitter about the casualties incurred at Third Ypres, and the
Prime Minister’s anger was reflected in his relationship with Robertson.
In 1932, talking to the military thinker Liddell Hart, Lloyd George
remarked: ‘Haig utterly stupid. That was the man we made an earl.
And I gave £100,000 to.’19 The Prime Minister felt that Robertson
blindly backed Haig: ‘Robertson never attempted to guide strategy
of [the] war. Merely backed Haig and would have backed a succes-
sor similarly.’20 It is true that Robertson did agree with Haig, but a
more balanced assessment is that Robertson ‘believed that he had no
choice but to support Haig. If he did not, he feared that the civilians
would exploit the disunity within the high command to redirect higher
strategy.’21 Lloyd George’s enthusiasm for Allenby to push on stood
in marked contrast to the CIGS’s pessimism. Robertson remarked to
Haig how Lloyd George was ‘very keen on capturing Jerusalem and
this of course I . . . had to fight and I intend continuing to do so . . . But
it is very disturbing all the same to have these hankerings after other
plans and mistrust in present ones.’22
This civil-military dispute made Allenby’s job harder, and it was an
unnecessary distraction at a pivotal time for Britain in the First World
War. When the eastern expert Sir Mark Sykes returned to London in
mid-September 1917, he recalled how ‘the War Cabinet still had not
agreed on how far Allenby should go in Palestine’.23 During the meeting
of the Cabinet Committee on War Policy of 3 October 1917, Smuts
pointed out that the current instructions to Allenby ‘did not mean the
conquest of Palestine which indicated that we had not settled a policy
at present for knocking out the Turks’.24 As Allenby was to begin the
19
LHCMA, Liddell Hart papers, 11/1932/42, ‘Talk with Lloyd George—Generals
in WW1,’ 24 September 1932. Thomson, Lloyd George, p. 272 says that Lloyd George
‘never forgave Haig for Passchendaele.’
20
in WW1,’ 24 September 1932.
21
D. Woodward, ed., The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson
(London: Army Records Society, 1989), p. 194.
22
LHCMA, Robertson papers, 7/7/40, Robertson to Haig, 21 July 1917. D. Wood-
ward, ‘Britain’s “Brasshats” and the Question of a Compromise Peace 1916–18,’ Military
Affairs (1971), p. 67 points to the new low in civil-military relations by late 1917.
23
M. Adelson, Mark Sykes: Portrait of an Amateur (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975),
p. 241.
24
TNA, CAB 27/7–8, 18th meeting of the Cabinet Committee on War Policy, 3
October 1917, p. 2. Further copies can be found in the British Library Oriental and
India Office Collection (hereafter OIOC), Curzon papers, Mss Eur F112/136 and
TNA, CAB 27/6.
third battle of Gaza by assaulting Beersheba in southern Palestine at

the end of October 1917, it is apparent his assault was not part of a
clear central strategic framework.
Neither can clarity in the direction of war strategy be found in the
international conferences Britain held with her allies. The two confer-
ences of 25–26 July and 7–8 August 1917 succeeded in allowing one
division (the 10th Irish) to be moved from Salonika to Palestine.25 Yet
this was a hard-won victory for Lloyd George, and not until the London
conference in August was it finally agreed actually to move the division
to Egypt. As Hankey pointed out: ‘The whole morning was spent in
discussing and wrangling over a ridiculous question of moving one divi-
sion from Salonika to Egypt,’ the whole affair being ‘very futile.’26 Alli-
ance warfare complicated war strategy as Britain and France struggled
to co-ordinate the campaigns in Salonika and Palestine. Britain had
no intention of allowing France a role of any importance in Palestine
in military terms, knowing that France would use her assistance as a
bargaining counter after the war. France, likewise, did not want Britain
to land at Alexandretta, behind the Turkish lines, as she considered this
area to be in her imperial zone. The Zionist, Chaim Weizmann, in
June 1917, told W. Ormsby Gore that ‘the French policy in Greece was
partly dictated by the desire to prevent our reinforcing the Palestinian
front so as to prevent Britain gaining a footing in Palestine’.27 France
preferred for the British troops to remain at Salonika where they did
little and suffered badly from malaria.
The Cabinet Committee on War Policy, one of the many committees
spawned by the War Cabinet, and which held twenty-one meetings in
1917, illustrates many of the damaging effects of the civil-military dis-
pute in late-1917 on war strategy.28 Reading the minutes is to discover
25
Minutes of the proceedings in OIOC, Curzon papers (Allied Conference IC series),
Mss Eur F112/152 (copies also in TNA, CAB 28/2). See Hankey, Supreme Command,
II, pp. 689–90 for the August conference.
26
CAC, Hankey papers, diaries, 1/3 vol. 2, 25–26 July 1917.
27
Hull University Brynmor Jones Library, Sykes papers, DDSY(2)/12/8, report by
Gore, 10 June 1917, p. 3.
28
Of the 21 meetings, numbers 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 and 21 dealt with Palestine.
Various WP papers and reports were produced by the committee and copies can be
found in TNA, CAB 27/7–8 (also in OIOC, Curzon papers, Mss Eur F112/135–136
and Bodleian Library Oxford, Milner papers V/B/360). There are no minutes for the
19th meeting as Hankey had a cold (see S. Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets (London:
Collins, 1970), I, p. 440) although Robertson gives his side of what happened in TNA,
WO 106/721 (with Robertson saying not to attack in the Middle East).
120 matthew hughes
a depressing catalogue of prevarication and indecision: ‘a talking shop,

seldom sticking to its agenda and almost never reaching positive con-
clusions which could be passed by the secretariat to the appropriate
department for action’.29 The final meeting on 11 October 1917—pos-
sibly misdated and held on the 9th30—saw Lord Milner replying to
advice given by Major-General Lynden-Bell in the previous meeting.
Lynden-Bell, the ex-Chief of General Staff of the Egyptian Expedition-
ary Force (EEF) in Palestine, was seen as Robertson’s representative,
and the following comment by Milner captures some of the spirit of
civil-military relations:
LORD MILNER said he was quite undiscouraged by General Lynden
Bell’s evidence [against attacking Turkey]. If Sir Douglas Haig had
approached his problem in the same spirit, he could have made an even
stronger case against doing no more. In fact, the military made no pro-
posals. They waited for the War Cabinet to make proposals, and then
they overthrew them.31
Lloyd George backed Milner by pointing out that Lynden-Bell ‘when
asked if the whole resources of the British Empire were put at his
disposal could he smash the Turks, he had replied in the negative’.32
These deliberations were inconclusive, and the debate over whether to
attack Turkey through Palestine carried on well into 1918.
In an attempt to give himself military credibility, Lloyd George used
Lord French, the former Commander-in-Chief of the army in France,
to prepare a report that was submitted on 20 October 1917.33 General
Sir Henry Wilson also helped with this report that was critical of, firstly,
Haig, and, then, Robertson. In French’s report Robertson’s negative
attitude to the Palestine campaign received the retort:
To my mind the idea of staking the remainder of our resources on one
desperate blow after another on the Western Front has become much
29
S. Bidwell and D. Graham, Coalitions, Politicians & Generals: Some Aspects of Command
in Two World Wars (London: Brassey’s, 1993), p. 87.
30
See Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals (ft. p. 218) and Woodward, Military
Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson (ft. p. 324).
31
TNA, CAB 27/6, 21st meeting of CCWP, 11 October 1917, p. 4.
32
Ibid.
33
TNA, CAB 27/8, WP60, ‘The Present State of the War, the Future Prospects,
and Future Action to be taken. Memorandum prepared by Lord French in accordance
with the request of the War Cabinet’ (WC247b, conclusion 7). See also TNA, CAB
23/13/247(a), 10 October 1917, pp. 2–3 and 255(a), 23 October 1917, pp. 5–6 for
WC views.
more of a ‘gamble’ than anything else we have undertaken in this war.

This method has been given a very long and patient trial under the most
favourable conditions.34
Lord French continued that in his opinion an offensive in Palestine:
‘offered such favourable chances and possibilities as should have induced
the General Staff to bring it up for discussion by the War Cabinet at a
time when it would have been possible to consider it’.35 So what French
saw as a feasible military operation was now impracticable due to the
lateness of any attack. This, said French, meant that the possibility
that Turkey could have been knocked out of the war by the spring of
1918 would now not be realised. Because the Palestine campaign had
been delayed by those such as Robertson, French felt that ‘it would be
impossible to look for any decisive action by an army operating in that
theatre [Palestine] before the winter of 1918’.36 If French is correct,
the military had succeeded in its task of keeping the focus of the war
in France, thwarting Lloyd George’s strategical insight.
There were, however, serious flaws in Lloyd George’s plans for a vic-
tory in Palestine. Robertson and the General Staff had good reason to
be sceptical about any Palestine offensive. The Turkish leadership was
becoming increasingly uninterested in Palestine, preferring to pursue
expansionist aims in the Caucasus. The Turks looked to link up with
fellow ‘Turanian/Turkic’ speakers in Asia, and the loss to them of part
of Syria or Palestine would have been bearable. More than this, in what
fashion would the occupation of, say, Damascus defeat Turkey? The
one operation that might have removed the Ottoman Empire from the
war was the assault at Dardanelles/Gallipoli in 1915. Short of Allenby
marching the EEF across the Anatolian heartland and threatening
Istanbul, Turkey was going to stay in the war.
That a drive to Aleppo—some 350 miles from Jerusalem—would
not endanger the core of Ottoman economic and political activity
which was based around Istanbul was pointed out in papers by British
military representatives within the Supreme War Council (SWC): ‘The
loss of DAMASCUS or ALEPPO would have a serious moral effect on
the Turks, but neither of these places nor MOSUL are, strategically
34
TNA, CAB 27/8, report by French, p. 16.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid., p. 23.
122 matthew hughes
speaking, of very great importance to the cause of the Central Powers.’

They went on to observe that:
In Palestine no definite or adequate objective offers itself. Even if it were
possible to seize ALEPPO it would not be worthwhile to use up any
considerable resources for the importance of the place has dwindled
to comparatively small proportions in consequence of the new lines of
communication now available for the Turkish Army by the Black Sea
to Caucasia.37
The accuracy of these military reports was borne out in September–
October 1918 when the Ottomans sued for peace. They did so following
the surrender of Bulgaria, which cut Turkey’s land link to Germany, who
herself was retreating in France. Turkey was well aware of her reliance
on Germany as the strongest power in her alliance. In September–
October 1918, following the battle of Megiddo in Palestine, the EEF
did advance to Aleppo, but this was not what caused the Turks to sur-
render on 30 October 1918. The Allied army at Salonika had attacked
on 15 September, and the Central powers’ front quickly collapsed. This
was more threatening to Istanbul than Allenby’s attack in Palestine. In
turn, the Central powers’ collapse in Salonika and Palestine related
very much to the retreat of the German army in France from August
1918. The fairest conclusion would be that both Robertson and Lloyd
George were ‘right’. They had, however, different conceptions of the
war. The CIGS saw the military dimension and the need to fight
the ‘amateurs’, as represented by those like the Prime Minister. This
stood in contrast to Lloyd George and his far wider political brief to
deal with the morale of the home front; to give Britain something to
bargain with after the war to help keep the empire intact; to keep a
British army in being; and to keep his own coalition government in
power.38
With Jerusalem’s capture Lloyd George did get his Christmas pres-
ent for the nation, and he was acutely aware not only of its value for
home-front morale, but of the negative attitude of the War Office to
37
TNA, CAB 25/78, ‘Probable Enemy Action in the Balkans and Turkey,’ Brig-Gen
H. Waters, GS, 22 July 1918, p. 3 and TNA, CAB 25/84, ‘Proposed Joint Note,’ from
British Military Representatives, 31 July 1918, p. 5.
38
As B. Busch put it, ‘The soldiers looked at maps of France; the amateurs looked
at maps of the world.’ B. Busch, Britain, India and the Arabs (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1971), p. 115.
‘this historic triumph’.39 But if a case can be made for Lloyd George’s
pursuit of the Palestine campaign up to December 1917, his contin-
ued attempts—one might even say obsession—to force through more
action in Palestine after December 1917 are harder to comprehend.
The General Staff repeatedly told Lloyd George that, after Russia’s
collapse, a German offensive in the West was impending. If the Pal-
estine campaign was not going to force Turkey out of the war, and if
there were no more major cities for Allenby to capture which had the
sentimental attachment of Jerusalem, Robertson’s purely military argu-
ments make sense. Cities such as Beirut, Damascus, Homs, Hama or
Aleppo had none of the religious significance of Jerusalem. Jerusalem
was a different matter in an era where people had a far more detailed
grasp of the Bible, and Allenby’s capture of Jerusalem was very much
portrayed as a reversal of the defeat of 1187 when Saladin recaptured
the city from the Crusaders.
Military Duplicity, Command and Strategy
Following a conversation with Lloyd George after the war, Liddell Hart
noted that: ‘L[loyd] G[eorge] remarked that he had never known poli-
ticians tell a deliberate lie. “They colour, exaggerate, but they avoid a
lie because of the heavy risk of being tripped up.” G[eneral] S[taff ]
told L. G. palpable lies.’40 Did the military lie to Lloyd George in an
attempt to scupper his war strategy, and did this have an effect on
Allenby’s command in Palestine?
It was an assessment given by Allenby to the War Cabinet on 10
October 1917 that was the most egregious example of a military report
designed to limit the Palestine offensive. David Woodward has described
it as ‘one of the most absurd appreciations ever presented to a British
government’.41 The request came in an assessment that Allenby made to
Robertson on 9 October 1917, which the CIGS passed on to the War
Cabinet the following day, and it was part of Allenby’s calculation of
39
Lloyd George, War Memoirs, II, p. 1092.
40
in WW1, LH’s impressions of LG,’ 24 September 1932.
41
Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals, p. 206. For Allenby’s report see Bodle-
ian Library Oxford, Milner papers, V/B/360, WP 52, Robertson to Secretary War
Cabinet, 10 October 1917 enclosing GOC-in-C GHQ Egypt to CIGS War Office,
9 October 1917.
124 matthew hughes
what he would require to maintain his Palestine campaign. Allenby had

in his expeditionary force in Palestine seven infantry and three cavalry
divisions. In his 9 October report Allenby pointed out that he would
need a total of twenty-three divisions to capture Jerusalem and hold
southern Palestine. Allenby was asking for an extra thirteen infantry
divisions. Thus, a total force of twenty-three divisions was being asked
for, numbering some 200,000 fighting men, an impracticable request to
say the least. As Allenby went on in November-December 1917 at the
third battle of Gaza to capture and hold Jerusalem with his existing
ten divisions, one sees the incongruity of his assessment and request,
and the War Cabinet in December 1917 was not slow to point out to
Robertson the curious nature of Allenby’s October report.42
Woodward describes Robertson’s actions as ‘cooking’ the figures to
force Lloyd George to act cautiously, and that Robertson did so by
sending Allenby a secret ‘R’ telegram to get him to make this inflated
estimate of twenty-three divisions. However, if Allenby’s October report
were part of a collusion or ‘plot’ why, on 9 October, did Robertson
assess Allenby’s divisional requirements as an extra five divisions, leav-
ing Allenby’s more inflated estimate of the same day looking rather
forlorn?43 Robertson was, it seems, simply reacting to a genuine report
by Allenby. While Robertson needed little prompting to do this—and
Allenby’s divisional assessment supported his own view that a Palestine
offensive was problematic—this did not mean that he was acting in bad
faith. The fairest conclusion is that Allenby genuinely misread Turkish
capabilities and intentions. Allenby had supposedly failed at the battle
of Arras, and he could not sustain another defeat and keep command;
this led him to act methodically and cautiously.
British intelligence vis-à-vis the Turks was faulty and this helped
to exaggerate a possible Turkish offensive in Palestine. The fear of a
potential Turkish attack in Palestine, coupled with the need to garrison
occupied areas, was the foundation for Allenby’s request for twenty-three
42
See, for instance, Robertson defending the military to the War Cabinet in TNA,
WO 106/727, CIGS to War Cabinet, 14 December 1917. See also Cabinet minutes
in TNA CAB 23/4/296(5), 12 December 1917. Robertson also brings up the subject
of the Cabinet’s annoyance in W. Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen (London: Cassell,
1926), II, p. 184.
43
LHCMA, Robertson papers, 4/5/8, ‘Occupation of Jaffa-Jerusalem Line,’
9 October 1917. Robertson’s letter to Hankey accompanying his report (I/16/7/1)
gives the impression that Robertson had little idea of Allenby’s coming assessment (see
also Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen, II, p. 184).
divisions. The water problem surrounding the impending third battle

of Gaza compounded Allenby’s concerns. The third battle of Gaza
relied for success on Allenby’s Australian mounted infantry capturing
Beersheba’s wells intact. Luckily, as the German demolition officer
stationed in Beersheba was on leave, only two of the town’s seventeen
wells were blown up as the Australians charged in on 31 October 1917,
but Allenby’s fear was of his troops being left out on a limb because
of the lack of water.44
The Turks were, indeed, planning an offensive in Palestine. The Turks
were putting together a force, usually called Yilderim, meaning ‘thun-
derbolt’ or ‘lightning’ after the Ottoman ruler, Bayezid (c. 1354–1403);
for the Germans it was Heeresgruppe F.45 While British intelligence reports
indicated that up to four German divisions were destined for Palestine,
the reality was that the Yilderim force contained only three German
infantry battalions. This nucleus was added to an existing German force
of artillery and technical units called ‘Pasha I’, itself reinforced by four
further battalions, but none of these German units arrived in time for
the third battle of Gaza.46 In reality, the force was more nominal than
real. Indeed, by late 1917 no small specialist force, however compe-
tent, was going to be able to make up for the general deficiencies of
the Ottoman armed forces. The Turkish pledge of nine divisions for
Yilderim indicated that it was a force to be taken seriously. However,
of these nine divisions only two (the 19th and 24th) arrived in time to
take part in the third battle of Gaza. The 20th Division arrived at the
front before Jerusalem’s fall, and two divisions were broken up en route.
As for the remaining four divisions, they arrived fitfully and in a much
depleted condition.47 The state of the Turkish railway system, coupled
with national war-weariness, made any Turkish division that arrived
44
P. Dalbiac, History of the 60th Division (London: George Allen, 1927), p. 123 for
the officer being on leave. The Australian film ‘The Lighthorsemen’ (1987) has an
Australian Light Horse trooper dramatically saving the wells.
45
See, TNA, CAB 45/80, authors N-Y, H. Pirie-Gordon to Becke, 4 April [no
year].
46
‘Notes on Foreign War Books,’ The Army Quarterly ( July 1939), p. 357. For Yilderim
order of battle, see C. Falls and G. Macmunn, Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine
(London: HMSO, 1928 and 1930), II, pp. 42–43, appendices 4, 5, 6 (hereafter Official
History).
47
For order of arrival see Official History, II, p. 24. See also C. C. R. Murphy, ‘The
Turkish Army in the Great War,’ RUSI Journal (February 1920), p. 103 and Hussein
Husni Amir Bey, Yilderim (trans. Capt. G. O. de R. Channer) (Turkish General Staff,
n.p., copy in Australian War Memorial, Heyes papers, AWM 45[5/1]).
126 matthew hughes
in Palestine very much a paper formation.48 The British misread the

capabilities and intentions of the Ottomans. Turkish troops released
by Russia’s collapse were used in a gradual drive on Baku; they were
not sent to Palestine. Baku did not fall until September 1918, and the
Yilderim force was not the threat it seemed. This was the background
to the accusation that the ‘generals’ misled Lloyd George. As to
Allenby’s complicity in any military ‘plot’ to trick Lloyd George, the
evidence shows Allenby to have been honest in his dealings. He made
his twenty-three division request fairly soon after arriving in Palestine,
and this estimate should be viewed within the context of a new com-
mander getting to grips with his new force. To emphasise Allenby’s
twenty-three division request is to ignore the fact that commanders of
armies usually ask for more than is absolutely necessary. Allenby was
not unique in trying to get as many men as possible to deal with the
vagaries of war.
The charge that Robertson was lying was a very serious one. Lord
Derby, the Secretary of State for War, writing to Lloyd George, felt
the accusation ‘almost beyond belief ’, as Robertson was essentially
‘honest’.49 Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, was perhaps closest
to the truth when he wrote to Andrew Bonar Law that as the military
were not behind a Palestine campaign little would happen. This was
not to say they acted in a deceitful fashion, more that they were simply
lack-lustre in their attitude to an eastern offensive.50 The problem with
the Palestine campaign in late 1917 was more profound. British war
strategy was in turmoil in late 1917, and this was not due to the General
Staff acting in bad faith. In a comparison to Winston Churchill and
the Second World War, Malcolm Thomson in his biography of Lloyd
George gets some way towards the truth writing that: ‘Lloyd George
never possessed such authority [as Churchill]; and in consequence the
year 1917 was a period of frustration for him as regards its military
operations.’51 The difficulty for Lloyd George was that he did not possess
the authority to direct matters as he might have wished. His solution
48
For an overview of Turkey’s railways see W. Stanley, ‘Review of Turkish Asiatic
Railways to 1918: Some Political-Military Considerations,’ The Journal of Transport
History (November 1966, published 1970), pp. 189–203.
49
House of Lords Record Office, Lloyd George papers, F/14/4/83, Derby to PM,
11 December 1917.
50
BL, Balfour papers, Add. Mss. 49693, Balfour to B. Law, 10 September 1917.
51
Thomson, Lloyd George, p. 270.
was to replace Robertson as CIGS in February 1918, a move quickly

overtaken by the Ludendorff offensives the following month.
Allenby’s Command
As for Allenby in Palestine, he got on with his task of preparing his

army for battle, building up his force with the reinforcements sent by
Lloyd George. When Allenby arrived in Egypt on 27 June 1917—assum-
ing command the following day—EEF morale had collapsed. Under
the uninspiring leadership of General Sir Archibald Murray, the force
had been defeated, twice, at the town of Gaza in the spring of 1917.
While capable of building the communication infrastructure needed
to take the EEF across the Sinai, Murray lacked the verve to move
from logistics to operational success. The two defeats at Gaza, while
partly the result of determined Turkish defence, were, in the main, the
product of Murray’s inability to control operations. This lack of grip
seeped into the fabric of the EEF and Allenby first job was to rebuild
it into a force capable of successfully taking the offensive. He moved
his headquarters to Khan Yunis, just behind the front line at Gaza,
and embarked on a series of tours of EEF front-line troops. The tough
Australian and New Zealand mounted troops that formed a mobile
core to the EEF soon noticed the change in atmosphere.52 Trooper L.
Pollock, an Australian light horseman, remembered how under Mur-
ray he and his comrades were ‘fed up—we considered we hadn’t had
the leadership we were due for and it seemed to be one blunder after
another. Then the arrival of Allenby, morale rose.’53 Allenby’s impact
resonated through the EEF. Richard Meinertzhagen, an EEF staff
officer, recorded how the force was finally awakening from its ‘lethargic
sleep’ under Murray, while Storrs noted that under Allenby the EEF
was advancing with ‘exhilaration into new hope’.54 With the weight of
the Western Front lifted from his shoulders, Allenby rose to meet the
challenges of his new post. Unlike Murray, Allenby was not an office
general and, physically fit, was willing and able to travel over bumpy
52
Allenby’s Australian and New Zealand ‘cavalry’ were usually classified as ‘mounted’
rather than ‘cavalry’ troops because they were not armed with the sword or the
lance.
53
Trooper L. Pollock, Imperial War Museum, Sound Archive, 4220.
54
Rhodes House Library Oxford, Meinertzhagen diaries, 15 July 1917; R. Storrs,
Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs (New York: Arno, 1972), p. 270.
128 matthew hughes
tracks in the stifling heat to visit units in the desert. Allenby’s experience
of field command of everything from a troop in southern Africa in the
1880s to an army in France gave him the standing to talk to rankers and
lift their spirits. His physical and psychological presence lifted morale
and, like Generals Sir Bernard Montgomery and Sir William Slim in
the Second World War, he convinced the men that they now had the
leadership and resources to win the impending battle.55
Independent command in Palestine away from the intrigues of
the Western Front and the coterie surrounding Haig’s headquarters
drew out Allenby’s best qualities and emphasised a more human side
to his personality.56 Allenby’s mix of martinet, motivation and tol-
eration infused new life into the EEF, transforming it into a fighting
force capable of taking the offensive. His first battle, the third battle
of Gaza, opened in October 1917 with the objective of capturing
Jerusalem, successfully achieved in December 1917. Notwithstanding
the differences over grand strategy, Allenby was successful, but as the
accounts above illustrate, his achievement was as much in the realm
of personal leadership as it was in that of command. When Allenby
arrived in Palestine in June 1917, he accepted as his plan for battle at
third Gaza one worked out by Murray’s staff and presented to him on
his arrival. Thus, it was Allenby’s staff officers who provided the basic
command structure, one which he then drove forward to victory. What
Allenby provided was good leadership and effective management of a
pre-existing command system.
Conclusion
Had Lloyd George and his generals worked together more effectively
in 1917, Britain could have better co-ordinated Western Front and
peripheral campaigns, and Allenby would have had a clearer mandate
for his command in Palestine. Robertson and the General Staff did push
their case robustly, and were often were very narrow in their analysis of
what constituted war strategy, but the argument that Lloyd George was
the victim of military duplicity seems overstated. Arguably, the prime
55
Matthew Hughes, Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1917–1919 (London:
Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 14–17.
56
This is a point made by Cyril Falls in his entry for Allenby in the 1949 Dictionary
of National Biography. Allenby’s entry for the New DNB (Oxford: OUP, 2004) (edited by
Brian Harrison) has been comprehensively revised by this author.
minister’s pursuit of a Palestine campaign, at least after December 1917,

was asking too much of over-stretched armed forces already heavily
committed to the Western Front. In the end, and notwithstanding the
aforementioned differences, Lloyd George and his generals did present
a formidable team that ultimately won the war, and one that stands up
well to comparison with the command structures and grand strategies
of the other protagonists in the First World War.
BLACK RUSSIA
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AREA ‘C’
AREA OF RUSSIAN CONTROL
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AREA OF ITALIAN CONTROL s CILICIA
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Map 5.
THE ARMY IN INDIA IN MESOPOTAMIA FROM 1916 TO 1918:
TACTICS, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS
RECONSIDERED
Kaushik Roy
The Great War or the First World War was the world’s first ‘Total
War’. The roles of the non-European armies in the extra-European
theatres are generally neglected in the standard works on First World
War. The focus of the historians is mainly on France and on the Brit-
ish and German armies and the battles they fought such as Verdun,
Somme, and Cambrai. Since the fate of the war was mostly decided
on the Western Front, historians probably have reason to focus on the
carnage in France. However, a large number of extra-European soldiers
fought outside Europe and the experience of war affected their military
organizations, and finally their host societies. Cultural and political
changes in those societies in the long run were inevitable. Hence, for a
holistic understanding of the dynamics and impact of the First World
War, it is important for us to look beyond West Europe.
The main focus of academic military history since the last decade
has been on war and society approach which highlights the impact
of social changes on military organizations. And in recent times, the
fashion is to go for cultural studies of the military.1 All these approaches
have undoubtedly enriched military history but the combat capacities
of the militaries have been relegated to the background. Nevertheless,
Carl von Clausewitz rightly says that armies in the final count exist
for combat.2 Hence, in this paper, the limelight is turned on analyzing
the Army in India’s combat capacity during the First World War in a
particular theatre of war, i.e. Mesopotamia (now Iraq).
In 1914, the Army in India, which was preparing mostly for a pos-
sible war in Afghanistan and an extensive counter-insurgency operation
1
For the changing contours of colonial India’s military historiography see, Kaushik
Roy, ‘Introduction: Armies, Warfare, and Society in Colonial India’, in K. Roy, ed.,
War and Society in Colonial India: 1807–1945 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006),
pp. 1–52.
2
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and tr. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (1984,
reprint, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 95.
132 kaushik roy
in South Asia, was sent to fight the Great War. Its presence in France
during 1914–15 was marginal. Though the Indian Army was deployed
at various places such as Egypt, East Africa, Persia and Aden, Meso-
potamia, as evident from table 1, was its primary theatre. Three inter-
related aspects which generate military power: hardware, tactics and
supply, are considered in this essay. Instead of a chronological narrative
of the Mesopotamian expedition, a thematic analysis is undertaken.
The army is studied as an institution. The objective of the article is
to assess what the shortcomings of the Army in India were, its reac-
tion from the institutional point of view and how far it was able to
overcome the limitations.
The Military Establishment in British-India
The Army in India comprised the British units stationed in the sub-
continent and the Indian Army. The latter included the Indian units
which were composed of Indian soldiers but commanded by the British
officers. On 1 August 1914, the combat strength of the Indian Army
was 155,423 men. The strength of an Indian infantry battalion varied
between 600 and 912 men. Theoretically, the officer cadre comprised
of 14 British officers and 16 Indian officers. The latter were known as
Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers (hereafter VCOs). In practice, every
infantry battalion had only 12 British officers.3 The highest ranking
British officer in each battalion was either a colonel or a lieutenant-
colonel.
In the Indian Army there were two types of cavalry regiment: irregu-
lar (also known as siladari unit) and regular. The sanctioned strength
of each cavalry regiment (both regular and irregular) was 14 British
officers and 620 sowars (cavalrymen). There were 3 regular cavalry regi-
ments and 36 siladari regiments. The siladari system was a legacy of the
pre-colonial Indian military system. In the siladari regiment, the sowars
provided for their own horses, clothing, and other accoutrements. The
3
Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men
(1974, reprint, Dehra Dun: EBD Educational Pvt. Ltd., 1988), p. 413; Lieut.-Col.
Gautam Sharma, Indian Army through the Ages (Bombay: Allied, 1979), p. 247.
the army in india in mesopotamia from 1916 to 1918 133
government issued only the firearms.4 Mostly, the landed gentry and
their retainers joined the irregular cavalry regiment.
The establishment of the Army in India at the outbreak of World
War I was 263,555 all ranks.5 In 1914, the Army in India had 118
Indian infantry regiments. The 95 infantry regiments and the 12 pio-
neer regiments had one battalion each. Only 11 infantry regiments
(especially the Gurkha regiments) had 2 battalions each. In addition,
the Raj mobilised 22,479 soldiers (7,673 cavalry, 10,298 infantry and
the rest sappers and transport corps) of the princely states. They were
designated as Imperial Service Troops.6 India had a field army of nine
divisions and eight cavalry brigades. Out of them, seven divisions and
five cavalry brigades were equipped for conducting war along the North
West Frontier. None of the units were equipped for fighting a modern
war. The field army lacked adequate amount of transport units and
had poor telephone equipment.7 By late November 1914, the total
number of troops sent overseas from India amounted to two cavalry
divisions and two infantry divisions with all their respective ancillary
services and establishments to France, two divisions to Mesopotamia,
the equivalent of a division to Egypt, and more than a brigade to East
Africa.8 Each division had three brigades of four battalions each. The
strength of a division amounted to about 13,000 men.9
Some scholars have delved into the Indian Army’s performance and
the British effort in Mesopotamia. Edwin Latter asserts that most of
the Indian recruits sent to Mesopotamia were partly trained.10 A. J.
Barker emphasizes the logistical difficulties and terrain which troubled
the Indian units. There is no grazing area available for the draught
animals. Most of Mesopotamia is flat with few trees. Besides the rivers,
4
S. D. Pradhan, ‘Organisation of the Indian Army on the eve of the Outbreak
of the First World War’, Journal of the United Service Institution of India (hereafter JUSII ),
vol. 102, no. 426 ( Jan.–March 1972), pp. 61–68.
5
Lieut.-Col. B. N. Majumdar, History of the Army Service Corps: 1914–39 Volume III
(New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1976), p. 5.
6
The Army in India and its Evolution including An Account of the establishment of the Royal
Air Force in India (1924, reprint, Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1985), pp. 99, 131, 156.
7
Majumdar, Army Service Corps, III, p. 6.
8
Field-Marshal Birdwood, Khaki and Gown: An Autobiography (London/Melbourne:
Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1941), pp. 238–39.
9
F. W. Perry, The Commonwealth Armies: Manpower and Organisation in Two World Wars
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), p. 86.
10
Edwin Latter, ‘The Indian Army in Mesopotamia 1914–18’, Journal of the Society
for Army Historical Research, Part II, LXXII, no. 291 (Autumn 1994), p. 160.
134 kaushik roy
there were virtually no landmarks. Dust, mud, mirage and climate

caused lot of trouble for the troops.11 The tide of war in Mesopotamia
turned in favour of the Allies from 1917. Field-Marshal Lord Carver in
his study of the twentieth century British Army argues that from 1917
onwards due to increasing British pressure in Palestine, the Turkish
strength in Mesopotamia declined.12 Writing in 1919, Edmund Can-
dler claimed that the decline in Turkish strength in Palestine was due
to their increasing concentration in the Caucasus region.13 This might
be true but the Army in India also experienced internal changes. For
example, the logistical infrastructure, claims Ron Wilcox, registered
improvement from 1917.14 Since the wider strategic issues are not the
concerns of this essay, the following sections along with some other
themes will analyze the issues raised by Latter, Barker and Wilcox.
Finally, in order to understand the transformation of the institutional
format of the Army in India between 1916–18, it is necessary to focus
on the two years preceding 1916.
Technical and Tactical Evolution of the Army in India
During the war, the Army in India was not in a state of stasis. The
organisation noted its limitations and attempted to evolve new measures
for increasing its combat effectiveness. The initiative for changes and
upgradation came not only from the high command and generals but
also from the mid level officers. Select engagements will be analyzed
to assess the tactical proficiency and resultant combat effectiveness of
the Indian units.
The army in Mesopotamia was mainly composed of Indian units.15
The Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force left India on October 1914.
In November 1914, the 16th Infantry Brigade (part of the 6th Indian
Division) was sent to capture Basra and protect the Anglo-Persian oil
11
A. J. Barker, The Bastard War: The Mesopotamian Campaign of 1914–1918 (New York:
Dial Press, 1967), pp. 28, 38.
12
Field-Marshal Lord Carver, Britain’s Army in the Twentieth Century (1998, reprint,
London: Pan, 1999), p. 108.
13
Edmund Candler, The Long Road to Baghdad Volume II (London/New York: Cassell
& Co. Ltd., 1919), pp. 278–86.
14
Ron Wilcox, Battles on the Tigris: The Mesopotamian Campaign of the First World War
(Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword, 2006), pp. 220–23.
15
India’s Services in the War, 2 vols., Volume I, General (1922, reprint, Delhi: Low
Price Publications, 1993), pp. 23, 25–26.
installations from the Turks in Mesopotamia.16 As regards the opera-

tional aspect, the Mesopotamian campaign could be divided into five
phases. The first phase involved landing at Fao and then occupation of
Basra and Kurna. When the Turks attempted to recapture Basra, they
were defeated at Shaiba. The second phase involved expulsion of the
Turks from Persian Arabistan and occupation of Amara on the Tigris
and Nasiriya on the Euphrates. In the third phase, Kut-el-Amara was
captured, and then the army advanced to Ctesiphon. However, units
of the British-Indian Army under Major-General C. V. F. Townshend
were forced to retreat to Kut. The fourth phase involved the unsuc-
cessful attempt to relieve the besieged army at Kut.17 And the last
phase saw the regeneration of the Army in India and eventual defeat
of the Turks.
When the British-Indian units descended upon Mesopotamia, the
Turks had 17,000 infantry, 380 cavalry, 44 field guns and three machine
guns.18 The Turkish shellfire and rifle fire were inaccurate when the Brit-
ish-Indian troops captured Basra.19 At Nasiriya, the Turks made strong
defensive preparations by building entrenchments and embankments on
both sides of the river. In July 1915, the 67th Punjabis as part of the
12th Division (which was composed of the 12th and 13th Brigades) took
part in the Nasiriya operation. At the tactical level, British captains led
bayonet charges by the Indian troops against the Turks who occasionally
broke and fled.20 Occasionally, Turkish rifle and shell fire were able to
resist the infantry charges launched by the Army in India’s units. In
course of time, sophisticated combined arms tactics evolved. We will
focus on the disaster at Kut, the failed efforts of the relief column and
subsequent innovations in the Army in India’s units.
Between 7 and 8 December 1915, Townshend’s force suffered 18
casualties. On 9 December 1915, the Turks started heavy bombardment
16
Philip Warner, Auchinleck: The Lonely Soldier (1981, reprint, London: Cassell, 2001),
p. 24.
17
Mesopotamia Commission Report, London, HMSO, 1917, Cd 8610, Appendix I,
Vincent-Bingley Report, p. 134.
18
Brigadier-General F. J. Moberly, History of the Great War based on Official Documents:
The Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914–18, Volume I (London: HMSO, 1923), Appendix
VI, p. 353.
19
Barker, Bastard War, p. 29.
20
Lieut.-Col. Geoffrey Betham and Major H. V. R. Geary, The Golden Galley: The
Story of the Second Punjab Regiment, 1761–1947 (n.d., reprint, New Delhi: Allied, 1975),
pp. 40–41.
136 kaushik roy
from north, west and southeast since dawn.21 On the same day at 10.00,
Townshend was alarmed and reported that the Turks were ‘heavily
bombarding us from north and west and southeast since daylight’.22
The Turks carried out desultory attacks against Townshend’s troops
all day. It resulted in forced retirement of his bridgehead detachment.
In response, Townshend blew up the bridge during the night of 9–10
December. Townshend further reported on the absence of the enemy’s
mounted brigade. He assumed that probably it had gone downstream
on some mission.23
The signalling arrangements for the British and Indian troops were
in disarray. On 9 December it was debated within the Mesopotamian
high command if it was safe to send an aeroplane to Kut to bring back
Major Booth whose service was urgently required to organize signalling
arrangements for the corps on Tigris line. On 9 December 1915, Major-
General F. J. Aylmer was appointed Corps Commander Tigris Line.24
On the same day Aylmer received the following instruction from General
Headquarter (hereafter GHQ ): ‘The main objective of your operations
is the defeat of the enemy on the Tigris line and the relief of General
Townshend’s force at Kut. Your sphere of operations will extend from
Ezra’s Tomb inclusive up the Tigris to Kut and beyond as circumstances
permit.’25 In order to boost the flagging spirit of Townshend, Aylmer
sent a telegram on 10 December at 6 AM: ‘Have assumed command
on Tigris line. Have outmost confidence in defender of Chitral and his
gallant troops to keep the flag flying till we can relieve them. Heartiest
congratulations on brilliant deeds to yourself and your command.’26
Townshend had gained fame in withstanding successfully the Siege of
Chitral in India’s North West Frontier. The British military authori-
ties fondly believed that history would repeat itself. On 14 December,
Townshend asked for air reconnaissance to be carried out in order to
ascertain the strength and position of the Turkish troops.27
21
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, General Staff (Operations), 9 December to 31
December 1915, Basra, 9 Dec. 1915, vol. I, pp. 1–2, No. WWI/521/H, National
Archives of India (henceforth NAI), New Delhi.
22
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, p. 1.
23
24
25
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, vol. I, Appendix I (18–9) no. 1008–126–0, GHQ ,
IEF D 8 Dec. 1915.
26
27
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, Telegram from GOC Kut, 69–3–G of 14 Dec,
Telegram to General Townshend (14 Dec. 1915), p. 6.
On 15 December 1915, the high command in Mesopotamia surmised

that there was apparently no immediate threat to Nasiriya down Euphra-
tes. So, it was decided that the brigade of Meerut Division earmarked
for Nasiriya would be sent up to Amara to hasten concentration on
the Tigris line. If necessary, a brigade of the Lahore Division would
be diverted to Nasiriya later. The Meerut and Lahore divisions had
experience of trench warfare in France. The GHQ agreed to this plan
and informed the Tigris Corps that units of 3rd and 7th divisions were
about to arrive and therefore it would be necessary to organize brigades
on arrival. After the necessary regrouping they would be sent up.28
As the units of the Army in India tried to rush towards Kut to
save Townshend’s force, the Turks conducted several delaying actions.
Two divisional size actions (involving three infantry brigades from two
divisions) should be analyzed to assess the military effectiveness of the
Army of India’s units in Mesopotamia. On 4 January 1916, the 35th
Brigade under Brigadier-General Rice (14th Division) moved forward
from Ali Gharbi. The 19th Composite Brigade (1st Seaforth Highland-
ers, 72nd and 77th howitzer batteries, Section 104 Heavy Battery and
125th Rifles) followed Rice from a distance of half a mile. The rate of
march of the 19th Brigade was quite slow. It took seven hours to cover
between 8 to 9 miles. This was because after every 200 to 300 yards,
roads had to be made through the irrigation ditches.29
On 7 January 1916, they were ordered to march north and attack
the left flank of the Turkish position. The 19th, 21st (these two bri-
gades belonged to 7th Division) and 35th Brigades advanced towards
the Turks. After having advanced 500 yards, it was observed that the
Turkish covering patrol at a distance of about 800 yards from them
was retreating and the Turkish soldiers were taking position inside their
trenches. The 1st Seaforth Highlanders attacked frontally and came
to a standstill about 350 yards from the enemy’s trenches. There was
a gap of about 700 to 800 yards between B, D and A, C companies.
Further, A and C companies located on the right flank of the battal-
ion got mixed up with 125th Rifles. Meanwhile, the Turks started to
advance on the flanks of the battalion. When dusk came, the battalion
was entrenched on a frontage of about 1,200 yards. The total casualties
28
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, Telegram from GHQ 1008–176–0 of 15 Dec.
1915.
29
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXV, Force D, pp. 3–4, WWI/1459/H, NAI.
138 kaushik roy
of the 1st Seaforth Highlanders were 20 officers and 314 other ranks.
The attack failed because the advancing troops found themselves in
the Turkish crossfire. Further, many firing positions of the Turks were
invisible due to mirage. To sum up, blundering forward towards a
setting sun, inadequate reconnaissance, unsophisticated frontal attack
against prepared positions of the enemy, absence of artillery support
and inadequate cohesion among the brigades sounded the death knell
of this attack. However, on 9 January 1916, the Turks evacuated their
position and retired. The 19th Brigade advanced and bivouacked at
Shaik Saad.30
On 12 January 1916, a detachment advanced from Shaikh Saad
with the 21st Brigade on the left, the 19th Composite Brigade at the
centre and the 35th Brigade on the right. Next day at 13.00, as the
units were crossing the Wadi Creek in knee deep water, they came
under Turkish artillery fire. The 21st Brigade was heavily engaged on
the left. The 125th Rifles and the 92nd Punjabis of the 19th Brigade
attacked in an extended formation. The 35th Brigade on the right was
ordered to advance towards the river bank where the enemy was retir-
ing. However, night fell before the retreating Turks could be pursued
effectively. In the action during the day, the cavalry on the right flank
of the 19th Infantry Brigade remained a mute spectator. The artil-
lery gave support to the 21st Brigade but not to the 19th Brigade. In
fact, the covering batteries failed to open up on the Turks who retired
before the 19th Brigade. Inadequate infantry-artillery cooperation
and lackadaisical infantry-cavalry cooperation were the shortcomings
exhibited by the detachment (comprising three brigades) as a whole.
In this action, the casualties of the 1st Seaforth Highlanders were 1
officer and 35 other ranks.31
Let us analyse the platoon level actions of a particular brigade in
the environs of Orah. On 19 January 1916, at Orah, the 1st Battalion
of the Manchester Regiment was attached to the 7th Indian Brigade.
The other units comprising the brigade were the 1st Battalion of the
1st Gurkha Regiment, 1st Battalion of the 9th Gurkha Regiment and
the 93rd Burma Infantry Regiment. The brigade advanced along the
south bank of river Tigris. The brigade was ordered to attack an Arab
village and clear the ground on the right bank immediately opposite
30
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXV, pp. 5–6.
31
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXV, p. 7.
the Turkish position on the left bank of the river so that the position
could be enfiladed next day. The attack on the village was carried out
successfully by the Gurkhas and the 93rd Regiment. At about 15.30, it
was found that 2 Turkish battalions were advancing towards the British
side of the river directly opposite the Turkish position. The Number
4 Company of the 1st Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and a
Gurkha company were ordered to drive out the Turks. The Number
4 Company advanced with Number 16 Platoon led by Lieutenant
Wilkins and supported by Number 14 and 15 platoons. The Number
13 platoon was echeloned to the right to protect that flank. The Turks
opened rifle fire and shrapnel shells from a distance of about 900 yards.
There was no cover in the ground for the advancing troops. However,
the saving grace was that the Turk’s shooting was bad. The advancing
troops started firing when they reached within 500 yards of the Turkish
position. But, soon it was dark and the Turks started retreating from
the riverbank. The Number 4 Company in this encounter suffered 11
casualties.32
As early as mid 1915, the GHQ was concerned about inadequate
artillery in the hands of the Army in India’s units. The operation at
Qurna started with the advance of the 6th Division along the Tigris.
On 31 May 1915, at 5 AM, bombardment on the Turks’ forward posi-
tion on the line of Birbek Creek begun. The Royal Garrison Artillery
bombarded with 2 5-inch guns and 2 4-inch guns. At Fort Nahairat,
which was about 1,200 yards in front of Fort Qurna, 4 5-inch howit-
zers of the Royal Field Artillery were deployed. Later during the day,
a 5-inch gun bombarded Bahran from opposite Norfolk Hill for 45
minutes. The counter-battery fire was directed against 4 Turkish guns
firing from entrenchments. The action ceased at 11.40 AM. In addi-
tion to the above mentioned guns sited on land, two 5-inch and two
4-inch guns deployed on the river barges were also used. Since, the
surrounding countryside was flooded, it was assumed that the guns on
barges would be more mobile than guns on wheels. However, the guns
on the barges were unable to obtain a quick rate of fire.33
After analysing the action at Qurna between 31 May and 1 June
1915, GHQ India concluded that the heavy batteries of the Indian
32
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXV, pp. 1–2.
33
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXIV, Appendix I, p. 10, WWI/1459/H,
NAI.
140 kaushik roy
units were handicapped by the obsolete guns (4-inch and 5-inch) with
which they were equipped. The weight of a 4-inch shell was only 25
pounds. So, it was not considered as a heavy gun. Most of the guns were
without recoil buffers. Hence, the equipment suffered and the rate of
firing was also low. The GHQ India argued that actual effect and moral
effect of the artillery on the enemy was to a great extent dependent on
the rate of firing. Firing 100 shells at a particular target in 30 minutes
was considered more effective than throwing 150 shells in 60 minutes
regardless of the material damage done. Hence, concluded GHQ , a
large number of quick firing 18-pounder guns were required.34
The situation did not improve in the next year. During the siege
of Kut it was revealed that while the Turks’ 5-centimetre guns fired
rapidly and accurately at 7,500 yards, the Army in India’s units 5-inch
guns were very old and ineffective beyond 6,000 yards.35 Most of the
guns of the Indian units were breech loading mountain guns which
fired a 10 pound shell to a maximum range of 6,000 yards.36 The best
portion of artillery available with the Army in India was already sent
to France in 1914.37
Several officers concerned themselves about the issue of raising fire-
power of the Indian units. In 1916, Captain F. A. G. Roughton of the
113th Infantry Regiment noted in the Indian Army’s service journal
that though there were no regulations on the subject of establishing
a brigade of machine guns, in Mesopotamia a sort of experiment
for brigading the machine guns was carried out. However, no occa-
sion arose to test this in action. The following technique was adopted
for employing brigaded machine guns. On receiving instructions to
bring the guns into action, the Brigade Machine Gun Officer would
instruct the Section Officers of the firing point and ride forward to
reconnoiter the position. The Brigade Range Takers would then join
the Brigade Officer. The Section Officers would indicate the line of
advance to their sections. The Section Officers would then contact the
Brigade Officer about the target, range and fire direction points. Then,
the Section Officers would return to their sections, bring up the guns
34
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXIV, Force D, Jan. 1916, Details of Ammunition
expended during the Operations at Qurna on 31 May and 1 June 1915, p. 12.
35
Candler, Long Road to Baghdad, I, p. 216.
36
Charles Chenevix-Trench, The Indian Army and the King’s Enemies: 1900–47 (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1988), p. 29.
37
Mesopotamia Commission Report, p. 37.
to the firing point and get prepared to open fire. The Section Officers
would divide the target into sections for themselves. Several methods
of fire were worked out: Concentrated Fire and Traversing Fire. The
former meant that the fire of every gun in the brigade was directed
at the point ordered. And the latter denoted that each gun was to fire
along the whole length of the target. During Traversing Fire, in each
gun section, the left hand gun was to fire from left to right and the
right hand gun from right to left. Another method of firing was ‘By
Sections Concentrate’. This meant that the guns of each section were
to fire at the centre point of their own section of target. For passing
orders when the guns were firing, it was suggested that signals be used.
Each method of fire was to be represented by a letter of the semaphore
alphabet and increase or decrease of range by dashes of the Morse
code. Each dash represented 25 yards; a blue flag represented increase
and a white one represented decrease. Roughton argued that all these
would require a great deal of practice and a drill for brigaded machine
guns ought to be worked out.38
In 1916, Captain T. Moss of the 30th Punjabis argued that recent
warfare had proved the importance of machine guns, a weapon
which was previously despised and ignored. He further stated that
the firepower of the regiment ought to be increased by having eight
Maxim guns per regiment. More and more infantry soldiers ought to
be trained in machine guns firing. At that time, training for machine
guns was given only in the Musketry School. Hence, the number of
officers and non-commissioned officers trained in manning machine
guns remained limited. The training facilities, concluded Moss, required
to be expanded.39 In 1917, Lewis Guns were introduced in the Indian
battalions in Mesopotamia. The organization of the platoon was as fol-
lows: one section of bombers, one section of Lewis gunners, one of rifle
grenadiers and one of riflemen. Separate machine gun battalions were
also raised.40 During October 1917, each Gurkha battalion was given
8 Lewis Machine Guns.41 By February 1917, 2-inch trench howitzers
38
Capt. F. A. G. Roughton, ‘An Improvised Drill for Brigaded Machine Guns’,
JUSII, XLV, no. 203 (April 1916), pp. 193–4, 196–7.
39
Capt. T. Moss, ‘Musketry Notes suggested by the War’, JUSII, XLV, no. 202
( Jan. 1916), p. 97.
40
Lieut.-Col. W. L. Hailes, War Services of the 9th Jat Regiment: 1803–1937 (1938,
reprint, Uckfield, East Sussex: The Naval & Military Press Limited, 2004), p. 124.
41
Col. L. W. Shakespear, History of the 2nd King Edward’s Own Goorkhas (The Sirmoor
Rifle Regiment), Volume II, 1911–21 (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1924), p. 156.
142 kaushik roy
were introduced among the units.42 This gave them an advantage against
the Turks entrenched within their trenches.
Besides hardware, leadership was another component of combat
effectiveness of the units. Officers constitute the brain of the army. For
efficient tactical handling of the troops in the battlefield, good officers
are necessary. By 1916, the Indian Army faced a shortage of British
officers. At that point in war due to rapid expansion and massive casual-
ties, most of the armies were suffering from officer shortage. However,
the problem was probably more acute in the Indian Army due to its
unique structure and organization. Latter writes that the Indian troops
relied a lot on the British officers. Heavy casualties among the British
officer cadre attached to the Indian units made the Indian soldiers
helpless on the battlefield.43
This is not a racial explanation but an issue connected with the struc-
tural framework of the Indian Army. Most of the recruits were either
illiterate or semiliterate and came primarily from rural backgrounds.
This was due to the Martial Race ideology which was prevalent in
the high command of the Indian Army. The Martial Race ideologues
believed that only illiterate peasants ought to be recruited, as they would
not be politically disloyal to the Raj.44 They had no understanding of
the tools and technology used by a modern industrial society. Hence,
the Indian soldiers felt utterly at loss in the midst of a modern industrial
warfare. One must note that the campaign in Mesopotamia was not
as capital intensive as the war in France. Hence, the above explana-
tion holds especially true for the Indian soldiers deployed in France
between 1914–15 and to an extent on the Indian soldiers stationed in
Mesopotamia.
Again, the Western soldiers probably to an extent were motivated by
the desire to save their motherland and their empire from the central
powers, who in their eyes to borrow a modern terminology constituted
the ‘axis of evil’. But, India was not threatened either by the Turks or
their allies, the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians. To a great extent,
the Indian soldiers were mercenaries. However, pecuniary motives can-
not entirely explain why Indian soldiers braved their lives. An example
42
Historical Record of the 4th Battalion 16th Punjab Regiment (n.d., reprint, East Sussex:
The Naval and Military Press Ltd., 2005), p. 112.
43
Latter, ‘The Indian Army in Mesopotamia’, p. 160.
44
David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860 –1940 (Houndmills,
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994), p. 27.
can be cited to show that the martial ethos propagated among the
recruits was indeed absorbed by them—a company of Rajputs while
deployed in the Suez area during the First World War ran away from
their post. By this action, they put the Rajput izzat (honour of the com-
munity) at stake. They were beaten up with slippers by the VCOs and
were ostracised from their community and socially excommunicated.
These men were not allowed to join the mess till they retrieved their
honour by exhibiting bravery in the battlefield.45
Regimental loyalty was an important constituent that held the Indian
troops together in the midst of a firefight. One crucial determinant
of regimental solidarity was the ties of loyalty that bound the British
officers with the Indian soldiers. A British officer had to spend lot of
time in a regiment to acquire the sepoys and sowars’ affection.46 Once
the old officers fell to the enemy’s bullet, the new British officers in the
regiment could not automatically evoke loyalty and affection from the
Indian soldiery. The new British officers who replaced the ‘old timers’
had also their own problems. Most of the volunteer Europeans who
were appointed as officers in the Indian Army suffered from several
inadequacies. Their military training while receiving commissions
remained inadequate. And, most of the newly commissioned officers
were quite old. Secondly, there was the language problem. Since most
of these European gentlemen came from Burma and federated Malay
States (now Malaysia), where Hindustani was not spoken, most of the
newly commissioned officers had no knowledge of Hindustani, the lingua
franca of the Indian Army. At best, some officers had only a smattering
of Hindustani. However, it was absolutely necessary that the British
officers must know Hindustani extremely well in order to communicate
effectively with their Indian soldiers during the heat of battle.47
When the British officers became casualties or proved inefficient, the
VCOs could not replace them because most of the VCOs were illiterate
as they had been promoted from the ranks and were too old to perform
strenuous duties.48 The highest ranking VCO was the subedar-major in
the infantry battalion and resaldar-major in the cavalry regiment. The
45
Edmund Candler, The Sepoy (London: John Murray, 1919), pp. 132–34.
46
Chenevix-Trench, Indian Army, pp. 15–16.
47
Major B. P. Ellwood, ‘The Provision of a Reserve of Officers for the Indian Army
for Future Campaigns’, JUSII, XLV, no. 203 (April 1916), pp. 181–82, 192.
48
Lieut.-Col. Gautam Sharma, Nationalization of the Indian Army: 1885–1947 (New
Delhi: allied, 1996), pp. 1, 11.
144 kaushik roy
position of a subedar-major aged above 50 years was below the fresh

British ensign of 19 years age. At best the subedar and the subedar-
major could command a company (between 80 to 100 men) and his
subordinate the jemadar could handle a platoon (30 men). The urban
middle class could have provided adequate number of commissioned
officers for the Indian regiments. But, the university educated Indian
youth from the urban educated middle class were not allowed to join
the army because they were considered politically disloyal by the colo-
nial establishment.49
Nevertheless, thanks to better hardware and intensive training, the
Army in India’s tactical effectiveness increased with the passage of
time.50 In April 1916, Lieutenant-General F. S. Maude was appointed
as commander of the Tigris Corps. By September, Maude had 150,000
men and decided to go into the offensive. Initially, his offensives were
not that successful,51 but the swing of the pendulum towards the Allied
side started from 1917 onwards. Let us have a snapshot of a successful
action conducted by Maude’s troops.
On 23 April, 2,000 Turks with nine guns reached Duhaba on the
left bank of Tigris. The rest of the XIII Turkish Corps was stationed
17 miles in the rear. Maude’s plan as described in his own words
follows:
The infantry was to attack Duhaba, whilst the cavalry moving wide to the
north was assigned the mission of intercepting any Turkish forces mov-
ing up in support. Our right came in contact with the Turks soon after
daybreak. As the pressure from our left began to be felt, the Turks gave
way, crossed the river and retired up the left bank. Then, they presented
targets to our artillery and machine gun fire. Several Lancashire battalions
attacked them. About 100 Turks died and 150 taken prisoner.52
49
Anirudh Deshpande, British Military Policy in India, 1900–45: Colonial Constraints and
Declining Power (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005), pp. 87–122.
50
Despatch by Lieut.-Gen. F. S. Maude on the Operations of the Mesopotamian
Expeditionary Force, 1 April-30 Sept. 1917, p. 8, L/MIL/17/15/111, India Office
Records (henceforth IOR), British Library, London.
51
Field Marshal Lord Carver, The National Army Museum Book of the Turkish Front
1914–18: The Campaigns at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia and in Palestine (2003, reprint, London:
Pan, 2004), pp. 159–61.
52
Despatch by Maude, p. 4.
Frontal attack by the infantry supported by artillery and machine guns

and wide enveloping maneuver by cavalry completed the discomfiture
of the Turks.
In late February 1918, the 50th Brigade of the 15th Indian Division
was concentrated at Madhij. On 22 February, the division marched
to Ramadi and then to Khan Abu Rayat up the Aleppo Road. On 8
March the Turks evacuated the town of Hit and Broad Wadi. In early
March 1918, as the Turks retreated from Hit and Salahyieh towards
Khan Baghdadi, their movement was greatly harassed by the aircraft.53
On 25 March, the 9th Jat Regiment attached to 50th Brigade marched
towards Khan Baghdadi. The objective was to pin the enemy in that
position which would enable the 7th Cavalry Brigade to outflank the
Turks from the west, take their position in the rear and cut their com-
munication along the Aleppo Road.54
On 26 March 1918, an action was fought at Khan Baghdadi. At
the break of dawn, the 42nd and 50th Indian infantry brigades made
a frontal attack. The attack was launched at 17.30 under heavy cover-
ing fire from machine guns and artillery. Lack of artillery cover to the
advancing infantry was a thing of the past. Simultaneously, General
Cassels with his 11th Cavalry Brigade and armoured cars moved
round the Turkish 50th Division’s flank and cut the latter’s line of
retreat to the Euphrates. At night, the Turks failed to break through
Cassels’ cordon and on the morning of 27 March started to surrender
in large numbers. General Brooking commanding the 15th Division
had a pursuit force of infantry and machine guns ready in Ford vans.
He launched this force accompanied by cavalry and armoured cars
along the Aleppo Road. The final outcome was complete destruction
of the Turkish 50th Division. This action proves that the Indian units
had learnt to launch sophisticated tactical operations. Throughout the
course of the battle, aerial reconnaissance was used to guide the cavalry
and armoured cars over un-reconnoitred ground and to report on the
progress of infantry attacks.55
53
Candler, Road to Baghdad, II, p. 259.
54
Hailes, War Services of the 9th Jat Regiment, pp. 125–26.
55
Lieut.-Col. J. E. Shearer, ‘The Final Phase of the Mesopotamian Campaign—12th
March 1917 to the Armistice, Part III’, JUSII, LXVIII, no. 290 ( Jan. 1938), pp. 78–9;
Hailes, War Services of the 9th Jat Regiment, pp. 127–28.
146 kaushik roy
The Logistics of Defeat and Victory
When Allah had made Hell he found it was not bad enough: so He made Iraq and
added flies—Arab proverb56
The term logistics can be defined as all the activities connected with
supplying, sustaining, and moving the armies in a particular theatre. In
this essay, logistics covers not only all the activities associated with sup-
plying the military units with stores, food, equipment and ammunition
but also protecting the military personnel from the ravages of disease. In
Mesopotamia logistics was mostly dependent on riverine transport.
From the start, the Indian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia
suffered because water management was bad. The contingents sent
from India met at Bahrein on 21 October 1914. Here, the troops were
trained in rowing and disembarking in the boats that were carried
on the ships. The halt was uncomfortable due to heat and shortage
of drinking water.57 Control over the ports was necessary in order to
induct reinforcements (military manpower and animals for logistical
purposes) from the subcontinent. The port of Basra was the key to
Mesopotamia. However, it had no quays and other facilities for disem-
barking troops and materials and for storing guns and supplies. This
port was restricted to vessels drawing not more than 16 feet of water.
Shipping had to be unloaded in the mid stream into a large number
of small country crafts which had to pass through innumerable small
channels that lay between the swamps and palm groves.58 This meant
that neither big ships could be sent to Basra nor could a large number
of relatively smaller ships be unloaded simultaneously at Basra port.
So, quick induction of large number of human, animal and material
reinforcements into the Mesopotamian theatre from outside during an
emergency was not possible.
On 6 November 1914, the units of Army in India under Brigadier-
General W. S. Delamain captured Fao port. On 15 November 1914,
Delamain defeated and dispersed the Turkish troops at Saihan.59 After
disembarking the troops in southern Mesopotamia, the British generals
56
Col. R. Evans, A Brief Outline of the Campaign in Mesopotamia: 1914–18 (1926,
reprint, London: Sifton Praed & Co., 1935), p. 6.
57
58
Evans, Campaign in Mesopotamia, p. 7.
59
The Operations of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force 1914–15–16–17–18,
Force D, WWI/1438/H, NAI.
became dependent on river transport as roads were few. The terrain

between Baghdad, Southern Arabistan, the head of the Persian Gulf
and the river Euphrates is one of flat plain of alluvial clay. Baghdad
is little more than 100 feet above sea level and about 500 miles from
the Persian Gulf. Between the capital and the sea lies one vast area of
desert. At places, this desert is crisscrossed with rivers which are fed
by melting snow from far off mountains. Often the rivers spilled over
and create marshes. Except the palm grooves along the riverbanks,
the whole region is barren—treeless, stone less and waterless. In many
regions deep irrigation channels obstructed the movement of wheeled
transport. Moreover, a few hours of rain turned the whole region into
a quagmire of greasy mud. During floods large areas of the desert
get covered with sheets of water or is transformed into an impassable
morass. South of the line Kut-Kufa, the inhabitants had constructed
bunds (earthworks) in order to check the flow of floodwater.60 These
bunds further blocked the movement of wheeled transport.
In the arid semi-desert region, it was not possible to maintain a large
number of animals for supplying the troops advancing into central
Mesopotamia. So, the troops could not operate far beyond the rivers.
Hence, control over the rivers and the network of associated canals along
with the villages situated on the riverbanks was absolutely necessary.
Between Basra and the interior, the principal arteries of water commu-
nication were as follows: the Shatt-al-Arab—formed by the confluence
of the Tigris and the Euphrates and navigable as far as Nahr Umbar
by vessels upto 20 feet draught; the Tigris, the Euphrates and to a lesser
extent the Karun. Along the Tigris, steamers sailed upto Baghdad but
navigation was difficult. This was because the channel was altered by
floods during May and June and perpetually shifting sandbanks. Dur-
ing floods, vessels drawing 5 feet of water were able to reach Baghdad.
But, during the dry season, navigation was limited to vessels of 3 feet
draught. The riverine journey took more than 5 days. The Euphrates
due to extreme shallowness of the channel along the Hammar Lake
had little utility as far as navigation was concerned. The Karun was
navigable along a narrow tortuous channel for vessels drawing only 2
feet of water (5 feet during the flood season).61
60
61
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Basra and Qurna were captured on 22 November and 9 December

1914 respectively. Topographical and hydrographical information of the
area of operations around Qurna, Basra, Nasiriya and Hawize were
inadequate. The effect and extent of the high floods were not fully
known. Till 30 September 1915, the floods had been unprecedented
and most of the military operations were amphibious in nature.62
The disaster at Kut to a great extent was due to logistical failure.
Nikolas Gardner in a powerful article puts the blame for logistical failure
on the dietary habits of the Indian soldiers. He argues that the refusal
of the sepoys (except Gurkhas) to consume horsemeat until the final
stage of the siege (14 April 1916) resulted in the depletion of the
garrison’s food supply faster. Further, lack of meat weakened the sepoys
and made them unfit to launch counter-attacks against the Turks.63 It
is unfair to expect that the Hindu and Sikh sepoys would change their
dietary culture in accordance with the exigencies of fluctuating military
situation. Rather, the British military authorities should have taken care
of the cultural sensibilities of the different communities from which the
sepoys were recruited. The failure at Kut as discussed below was due
to a complex amalgam of managerial failures on part of the British
military staff and harsh physical environment.
Early in 1915, news was received of a Turkish concentration for
an attack on Basra and the oil pipe was threatened along the Karun
River. The threatened attack of the Turks and the unrest among the
Arabs necessitated further reinforcements. Hence, another brigade
was sent from India which arrived on 7 February 1915.64 Lieutenant-
General Sir John Nixon was commander of II Indian Corps. He was
a cavalry soldier, a polo player, a pig sticker and had a reputation for
dash. However, his failing was that he never took administrative and
logistical aspects of campaigns into account while planning operations.
Here, lied the seeds for the subsequent disaster at Kut. Nixon was fired
by the thought of capturing Baghdad. As a step towards that objective,
he decided to capture Amara which would result in cutting off Turkish
communications with Northern Arabistan and the oilfield area. How-
ever, at that time, the climate was becoming hotter and the force was
62
Majumder, Army Service Corps, III, p. 26; Operations of the Mesopotamia Expe-
ditionary Force, Force D.
63
Nikolas Gardner, ‘Sepoys and the Siege of Kut-al-Amara, December 1915–April
1916’, War in History, 11, no. 3 (2004), pp. 307–26.
64
short of transport, tents, medical equipment and supplies. Nixon’s force

entered the desert area without adequate communication facilities.65
On 27 May 1915, Nixon telegraphed that six powerful tugs be sent
to him as quickly as possible with a draught not exceeding three feet
and each capable of towing two large flats. He also asked for twelve
10–12 knot motor launches. Nixon wanted these crafts at the earliest
because between 15 July and 15 October the rivers would be very shal-
low. The Government of India (hereafter GoI) searched everywhere
in India for tugs of the type demanded but failed to find any. On 20
June, GoI informed Nixon that they would ask the India Office to try
and obtain them from England.66
Nixon lacked adequate number of river crafts to send the transport
animals up as the troops moved deeper into Mesopotamia. While the
naval guns and field guns were mounted on river steamers, the mountain
guns and machine guns were put on rafts. On 23 June 1915, Nixon
ordered Major-General G. F. Gorringe to open the waterway from the
Hammar Lake to the Euphrates and to secure the occupation of Suq
ash Shuyuk and Nasiriya. Beyond Kubaish, the water route presented
difficulties. The steamers had to move through a tortuous channel in the
shallow Hammar Lake. At the end of June, the channel was five feet
deep. By the middle of July, the depth had been reduced to three feet.
Then, the rafts had to be dragged through mud and water. The Turks
used gunboats to prevent the Indian Expeditionary Force from using the
rivers. The naval flotilla assembled at Qurna under Captain W. Nunn
(of the Royal Engineers) consisted of two sloops, two armed launches,
three stern wheeler river steamers, and two boats with a 4.7-inch gun
in each. One of the stern wheeler river steamer named Shushan was
armed with a 12-pounder, one 3-pounder and a Maxim machine
gun. However, two sloops and one armed launch could not go beyond
Kubaish due to shallowness of the river. Another stern wheeler river
steamer named Mahsoudi was armed with a 3-pounder and a Maxim,
while the other stern wheeler river steamer Muzaffari had only a Maxim
machine gun. The troops were accommodated in the river steamers
named Lynch, Mejidieh, and Malamir, on each of whose foredecks were
mounted two 18-pounders. The tugs Shuhrur, Shirin, T-1 and T-4 and
three launches also accompanied the force. They, and the river steamers
65
Evans, Campaign in Mesopotamia, pp. 31–32.
66
Moberly, Campaign in Mesopotamia, p. 268.
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towed six mountain and two machine gun rafts and other boats full of
ammunition and stores. On 27 June 1915, the convoy reached Akaika
channel and the troops were landed to occupy the surrounding villages.
On 28 June the sappers and the miners, with explosives destroyed the
dam which the Turks had constructed to obstruct the British-Indian
units from using the waterway. The channel was then widened to an
average depth of 4–5 feet.67 This partly solved Nixon’s problem.
The 6th Division occupied Ali-al-Gharbi. In September 1915, the
transfer of troops from the Euphrates to the Tigris was slow and difficult
because of the low water level.68 The high command in Mesopotamia
had inadequate number of river crafts. The situation was further wors-
ened on account of loss of such crafts. The two ships Firefly and Comet
were lost during Townshend’s retirement to Kut.69
On 13 December 1915, Townshend warned that his casualties were
roughly 150 to 200 per day and soon gun ammunition would run out.
Moreover, morale of troops was very low.70 In January 1916, while the
Indian troops made preparation to withstand a siege in Kut, the weather
turned bad. Besides high wind and heavy squalls of rain, the river
was flooded and the surrounding area became marshy.71 The Siege of
Kut by the Turks lasted for 143 days. The garrison of Kut of whom
2,756 were British and 6,000 Indian soldiers plus non-combatant fol-
lowers of the regiments under Townshend surrendered on 29 April
1916. This was because they had consumed all their provisions and
the relieving force was unable to arrive on time due to floods on both
bank of river Tigris. As early as 2 March, the barley meal ration of
an Indian soldier was reduced from one pound to three-quarter of a
pound. The net result was loss of morale and physical exhaustion of
the soldiers. Floods hampered all operations and movement of the
relief column.72
The high command was intent on rushing reinforcements (both infan-
try as well as sappers and miners) from late 1915 so that Townshend’s
force at Kut could be relieved. On 9 December 1915, the Number
67
Moberly, Campaign in Mesopotamia, pp. 275–78; Operations of the Mesopotamian
Expeditionary Force, Force D.
68
69
70
71
72
Operations of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, Force D; Candler, Long
Road to Baghdad, I, pp. 211, 224.
13 Company Sappers and Miners (belonging to the Meerut Division)

were ordered by GHQ to be sent from Basra. This unit was bound to
arrive at Amara on 13 December. Besides the available sapper officers,
the GHQ and Commander-in-Chief of Mesopotamia theatre agreed
that more Royal Engineers were required in order to construct bridges
for use upstream. General Douglas was informed of the intention to
march units of 35th Brigade to Ali Gharbi and was asked to collect
materials for bridging.73 The First Artillery Brigade which arrived at
Basra was ordered to go to Amara. However, inadequate transportation
was a major problem.74
Let us take a micro-perspective of the transportation of troops.
In December 1915, the 28th Punjabis and East Kents on arrival at
Amara, immediately sent the ships back to Basra.75 On 11 December
1915, the 37th Dogras was transshipped from Basra in tightly packed
lighters which were towed by a steam powered launch. The second line
of transport of the 35th Brigade included country sailing boats towed
by steamers. On 22 December 1915, the 41st Dogras arrived at Basra
in a river paddle steamer and two barges.76 The 1st Battalion of the
Manchester Regiment arrived at Basra on 8 January 1916. This unit
was trans-shipped to two barges and proceeded up the Shatt-al-Arab
river towed by the tug Shurhur. On 11 January, this unit reached Qurna.
On 17 January, it reached Ali Gharbi and Shaikh Saad was reached
next day. On 19 January, this unit disembarked at Orah.77 However,
all these attempts proved too less and too slow.
Throughout the Mesopotamian campaign, the total casualties
amounted to 92,501. Of them, 12,087 died of disease.78 In 1914, the
force from India (which roughly amounted to a division) was equipped
for a frontier expedition and its medical equipment was even below
that scale.79 A medical organisation which was insufficient for a division,
73
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, pp. 1–2.
74
War Diary of the Tigris Corps, Telegram to General Townshend, 14 Dec. 1915,
p. 5.
75
76
The Gallant Dogras: An Illustrated History of the Dogra Regiment (New Delhi: Lancer
in association with Dogra Regimental Centre, 2005), pp. 48–49.
77
78
Carver, Britain’s Army in the Twentieth Century, p. 108.
79
152 kaushik roy
catered to the II Indian Corps. In mid 1915, due to shortage of veg-

etables, the Indian soldiers suffered from scurvy.80
On 3 June 1915, when the Indian troops occupied Amara, the
weather was hot and sultry.81 By the middle of June the heat in Meso-
potamia had become so great as to affect seriously the health of the
troops. Convalescing in this trying climate was difficult. Between May
and October, the temperature rose to 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Away
from the sea, the heat was dry, but south of Amara the weather was
damp and muggy. Slowly, it started becoming cooler and by December
it was quite cold. Plague, smallpox, malaria, sandfly fever, dysentery
and Baghdad boils were endemic. Cholera, typhus, scurvy and heat
stroke became epidemic. Insects like mosquitoes and sandflies which
were carriers of infection spread sickness.82 To give an example, on
24 June 1915, the 1st Battalion of the 4th Hampshire Regiment could
only muster 16 officers and 289 privates who were medically fit. This
unit was used in operations around river Euphrates. Owing to sickness
among the troops and also because of the fact that a great number of
the medical corps had become invalid, on 18 June 1915, Nixon wrote
to the GoI for more medical personnel.83
Again, the position selected by Townshend for making a stand against
the Turkish Army was unhygienic. A British medical officer described
Kut in the following words:
Kut-al-Amara is a small town on the left bank of the Tigris consisting of
a dense collection of houses and huts built more or less promiscuously.
The town contained about 650 houses, including 200 shops, several cafes
and a few wool-presses. The better class houses are built of burnt brick,
but the majority of the habitations are larger or smaller mud huts. The
main part of the town and most of the well-constructed houses stand near
the bank of the river. . . . There is no drainage system to the town. . . . This
town was the most insanitary place we occupied in Mesopotamia.84
A look form below will highlight the problems faced by the troops in the
battlefields. On 1 January 1916, the 1st Battalion Seaforth Highland-
ers (26 officers and 887 other ranks) arrived at Ali Gharbi on the river
80
81
82
Evans, Campaign in Mesopotamia, pp. 6–7.
83
Moberly, Campaign in Mesopotamia, p. 269.
84
Mesopotamia Commission Report, Appendix III, Account of the Medical Arrangements,
Etc, during the Siege of Kut-Al-Amara by Col. P. Hehir, p. 169.
steamer Julnar. The next day, the unit remained in the camp and given
one blanket and one waterproof sheet for each man. Each officer’s kit
was limited to 30 pounds. The reduced scale of baggage was due to
inadequate transport facilities. On 3 January around 20–30, it began
to rain and poured all night. The personnel found that lying on the
ground with only one blanket was very uncomfortable. This battalion
along with the 125th Rifles, 28th Punjabis and the 92nd Punjabis formed
the 19th Brigade. The baggage and surplus stores of the brigade were
carried in the river steamers Blosse Lynch and Julnar.85 On 14 January
1916, after crossing Wadi Creek, as the units bivouacked, Lieutenant-
Colonel W.M. Thomson (the commanding officer of the 1st Seaforth
Highlanders) noted:
More rain during the night making the ground ankle-deep in mud.
This, together with bitter cold wind made us all very miserable indeed,
especially having no cover except our greatcoats with us; the ration carts
having been unable to trace the battalion for two days. . . . During the
recent operations the medical arrangements for receiving wounded were
distressingly bad; in fact no arrangements were made that one could see,
wounded lay out on the river bank the whole night with no covering, and
only one or two medical officers to attend to about 3,000 wounded. . . .
Some wounded died behind our line of exposure and starvation.86
In January 1916, the 7th Hariana Lancers was deployed at Orah but
the ambulance carts remained at Basra.87 The situation improved
by late 1917. Not only the quality and quantity of rations registered
improvement but the Indian regiments also started receiving ice.88 The
latter commodity was unthinkable for an Indian regiment deployed
inside India.
The Arab light cavalry’s hit and run tactics dislocated the Army in
India’s logistical chain in Mesopotamia. Lieutenant-Colonel E. deV.
Wintle who commanded 12th Cavalry noted on 31 January 1916:
One of the characteristics of the fighting in Mesopotamia is that hostile
bodies of Arabs appear suddenly from all directions—their object being
to envelop the force; transport of all kinds must therefore march on a
broad front and be protected on all sides by as strong a force as pos-
sible. The question therefore arises as to what is to be done with 1st line
85
86
87
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXIV, p. 7.
88
Shakespear, Sirmoor Rifle Regiment, II, p. 153.
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transport of a body of cavalry moving quickly. It has been found that 1st
line transport mules when led by a mounted man, are absolutely unable
to keep up with their unit marching at 6 miles per hour. I am of opinion
that troop reserve ammunition and entrenching tools must as formerly
be carried on horses and not on mules; water, stretchers, and signalling
equipment being pushed up afterwards on mules.89
Hence, cavalry protection was provided for the transport echelons. One
troop of cavalry escorted every 100 regimental mules.90 This in turn
raised the demand of cavalry and draught animals for bringing supplies
from the river barges to the troops moving away from the river.
Till January 1916, 1,050 camels and 487 Persian mules were brought
for service to Mesopotamia. However, it was found that compared to
the Indian camels, those camels were undersized and weedy. Very few
of them could carry more than 4 maunds of load each. Some officers
demanded large numbers of North African mules or light draught
horses. It was found that Indian draught mules were suitable for the
conditions in Mesopotamia.91 During the course of the war, India
sent 45,577 mules and ponies, 44,288 horses, 4,986 dairy cattle, 4,649
draught bullocks and 3,026 camels to Mesopotamia.92 However, many
animals died during the voyage.93
Grass constituted the best fodder for the horses. Since grass did not
grow in abundance in Mesopotamia, they were fed bhoosa only and salt
rations for the animals could not be provided every night. Hence, many
animals fell ill.94 Captain D. O. W. Lamb of the 10th DCO Lancers
pointed out that in the absence of fresh fodder, it was better to provide
oats rather than grain or bhoosa.95 But, the problem persisted as to
how to get those commodities in adequate amount to Mesopotamia.
During December 1915, the cavalry brigade at Orah got only half
the amount of required fodder. The net result was that the condition
and staying power of the horses declined, at a time when cavalry was
required for reconnaissance of Turkish defensive positions and Turk-
89
90
91
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXII, 31 Jan. 1916, p. 11, WWI/1458/H,
NAI.
92
India’s Contribution to the Great War (Calcutta: Supdt. of Govt. Printing, 1923), p. 95.
93
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXII, p. 11.
94
95
Capt. D. O. W. Lamb, ‘Oats’, JUSII, XLV, no. 202 ( Jan. 1916), pp. 83–6.
ish troop movements and for escorting supply columns.96 By August

1917, a road connecting Khan Jadidah and Daudieh with Baquba
was constructed.97 The completion of Shaikh Sa’ad-Sinn light railway
somewhat reduced the Army in India’s dependence on waterways and
animals for sustaining military operations.98 With time, railway trans-
portation improved due to import of locomotives. In January 1918,
there were 144 locomotives (88 meter gauge, 31 4’–8.5” and 25 2’–6”
gauge respectively) in Mesopotamia.99
Besides inadequate medical, transport facilities and animals, lack
of trained manpower was another problem area for the Indian Army.
Captain T. Moss had noted that the number of men for the firing line
of an Indian regiment had been greatly depleted due to the calls made
on companies to supply men for signalling, machine guns, transport
etc. Hence, an increase in establishment had to be made to obtain full
fighting value of the regiment. The minimum strength for a company
going into action ought to be 100 men. He had argued that the number
of regimental signallers would have to be increased for easing com-
munication facilities with other units during the battle.100
The Indian Army lacked a huge reserve for replacing large wastage.
The sanctioned establishment of Indian Army’s reserve was 35,717 and
its actual strength was 33,712.101 General Sir Beauchamp Duff (Com-
mander-in-Chief in India, 1914–16) had commented: ‘Our difficulties
in India throughout have been that the direction of the campaign in
Mesopotamia has rested in London, and that we never could foreseen
the advances that might be ordered or the additional troops that might
be allotted to the Tigris campaign. Working in semi darkness we have
produced recruits which I do not claim as satisfactory, but of which,
when all the circumstances are known, India has reason to be proud
rather than ashamed.’102
96
Notes from War Diaries, Part LXXXI, p. 7.
97
Shakespear, Sirmoor Rifle Regiment, II, p. 153.
98
Operations of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, Force D.
99
Mesopotamia Transport Commission, Appendix E(1), p. 71, LMIL/7/18588,
IOR.
100
Capt. T. Moss, ‘Infantry Establishment Indian Army’, JUSII, XL, no. 202 ( Jan.
1916), pp. 87–88, 96.
101
102
Mesopotamia Commission Report, Appendix II, Memorandum on the Report of the
Vincent-Bingley Commission, by General Beauchamp Duff, p. 168.
156 kaushik roy
A. J. Barker, a historian of the Mesopotamian campaign blames lack

of foresight on part of the planners to send more river craft which
would have ensured proper supply and mobility of the units. Barker
continues that the GoI responsible for Indian Expeditionary Force D
did nothing. The GoI continued to think in terms of the North West
Frontier, pack transport and screw guns.103 It is indeed a harsh judge-
ment on the GoI. To give an example about the GoI’s effort to supply
the Indian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia, the production of
shells for the quick firing 13 and 18-pounder guns rose from 100,208
between 1 August 1914 to 31 March 1915 to 170,681 between 1 April
to 31 March 1916. Between 1 April 1916 and 31 March 1917, produc-
tion was 204,035 which further increased to 227,939 between 1 April
1917 to 31 March 1918.104
Conclusion
The nature of combat in Mesopotamia was different from that which

took place in the Western Front. Heavy density of troops and concen-
trated heavy artillery fire along the static trench lines that characterised
operations in the Flanders were absent in Mesopotamia. In Mesopota-
mia, trench warfare occurred but abundant space existed for turning
operations, cavalry raids etc. To an extent, the ‘face of battle’ in Meso-
potamia was probably somewhat similar to the ‘face of battle’ in the
Russian steppe theatre. Credit had to be given to the Turkish units for
conducting effective delaying actions against the Army of India’s units
which tried to relieve Kut during the early months of 1916. Inadequate
coordination between the various branches was a weakness of the Army
of India’s units. This limitation was somewhat rectified later on. From
1917 onwards, the quality and quantity of hardware at the disposal
of Army of India’s units rose. Towards the end of the Mesopotamian
campaign, the Army in India’s units learnt to cooperate with aircraft.
This was put to good use during the Third Afghan War (1919) and
the Waziristan campaign of 1921–22.105
103
Barker, Bastard War, pp. 32, 39.
104
India’s Contribution to the Great War, p. 112.
105
In the 1916 Mohmand Campaign aeroplanes were used. Brian Robson, Crisis on
the Frontier: The Third Afghan War and the Campaign in Waziristan 1919–20 (Staplehurst:
Spellmount, 2004), p. 258.
Logistics remained the ‘Achilles heel’ of the Mesopotamian campaign.

Conscription of able bodied men to the age of 41 was introduced in
Britain on 1 April 1916,106 but never in India due to political reasons.
The real problem for the Indian Army was not unavailability of man-
power but absence of trained manpower reserve. India had huge demo-
graphic resources; around 360 million. The problem lay in inadequate
training facilities and equipment for training the recruits. Rather than
manpower, inadequate transport facilities proved to be disastrous for
the Army in India during the initial period of the campaign in Meso-
potamia. Unlike France, in Mesopotamia, rivers and riverine transport
played a crucial role in sustaining the units which advanced along the
arid plains. By late 1917, though logistical difficulties were not entirely
solved, the supply situation was at least partly ameliorated. The Army
in India’s performance in Mesopotamia shows that it was not a hide
bound institution. In the final analysis it can be said that the Army in
India registered quite a moderate learning curve.
106
Nigel Hamilton, The Full Monty: Montgomery of Alamein, 1887–1942 Volume I
(London: Allen Lane, 2001), p. 85.
158
Table 1. Casualties suffered by the Army in India in Overseas Theatres during World War I
Theatre Numbers Casualties
Despatched
Killed Wounded Missing Prisoners Probably
Prisoners
Mesopotamia 302,199 15,652 31,187 1,444 5,512
(including 7,812
Indian officers)
Egypt 104,419 3,513 8,001 501 28
kaushik roy
France 86,382 4,944 16,297 1,127 538

East Africa 34,511 2,460 1,986 43 21
Persian Gulf 24,451 368 210 3 28
Aden 17,573 455 566 22 16
Gallipoli and Salonika 9,717 1,618 3,669 101 3
Total 579,252 29,010 61,916 3,241 6,146 1,223
Source: India’s Services in the War, 2 vols. combined, vol. 1, General (1922, reprint, Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1993), p. 23; India’s Contribution
to the Great War (Calcutta: Supdt. of Govt. Printing, 1923), p. 97.
WAR COMES TO THE FIELDS:
SACRIFICE, LOCALISM AND PLOUGHING UP
THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE IN 1917
Keith Grieves
In 1917 the British home front faced a test of endurance and its most
obvious expression throughout the year was the ‘food question’. It was
a year in which ‘good corn day[s], wind and sun’ were assiduously
counted’.1 Amid long term political and cultural debates on agricul-
tural decline and the emptying of the countryside, the British govern-
ment was suddenly forced to acknowledge that dependence on distant
lands for cheap staple food was an inappropriate assumption in total
war. In particular, the sinking of ‘wheat ships’ during the unrestricted
U-boat campaign unleashed in February 1917 raised the spectre of the
calamitous undoing of the soldier’s sacrifice as food scarcity threatened
prospects for victory. Until the harvest and beyond the crisis condi-
tions of ‘food security’ led to an unforeseen addition to the essential
war industries. On 11 February 1917 the Prime Minister, David Lloyd
George, told Lord Riddell, ‘The nation knows that food, ships, coal
and transport are vital, and that we have now reached the point when
these industries can be no further depleted.’2 In March 1917 the War
Emergency Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society of England
pondered the effects of the U-Boat campaign and asked its member-
ship, ‘Do those who live tucked away in quiet corners of England fully
realize that one of the most potent ways of combating this danger and
thus avoiding disaster is by producing all the food possible here—now
and at once?’3
1
G. Phizackerley, ed., The Diaries of Maria Gyte of Sheldon Derbyshire, 1913–1920
(Cromford: Scarthin Books, 1999), p. 45: entry for 21 September 1917.
2
Lord Riddell, War Diary 1914–1918 (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933),
p. 239. See also House of Lords Record Office (hereafter HLRO), Lloyd George Mss,
F/15/8/3, Prothero to Lloyd George, 1 January 1917; The Times 27 January 1917;
Jay Winter and J.-L. Robert, eds., Capital Cities at War. Paris, London, Berlin 1914–1919
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 322; Keith Grieves The Politics of
Manpower, 1914–1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), p. 96.
3
The Times 29 March 1917; C. Dakers, The Countryside at War 1914–18 (London:
Constable, 1987), p. 14.
160 keith grieves
War had come to the fields. Throughout the spring months Board
of Agriculture reports described unsatisfactory sowing conditions in
Britain, especially in the west where re-sowing was necessary. Food
producers, especially skilled ploughmen, became essential war work-
ers, as the nation was implored to ‘Eat within your tether’ and ‘Spare
at the brink and not at the bottom’. As gun and shell output required
National Organisation in 1915, so ‘All hands to the plough’ suddenly
had a similar resonance in the lexicon of ‘all-out’ war. As debates
on citizenship were intertwined with the raising of Kitchener’s New
Armies in 1914–15, so the emergence of an agricultural army in 1917
drew attention to the ever widening implications of total war. The
conditions necessary for the eventual decisive blow became endurance,
social cohesion and the management of privation in civilian societies
on the home fronts. As a precondition of victory, the new importance
of sowing and harvesting positioned the tractor, alongside the tank, as
mechanical expressions and eventual icons of ‘late’ remobilisation. The
strategic importance of food production in 1917 was accompanied by
the clamour of exhortation, for example, ‘making effort and sacrifices
commensurate with the interests at stake’.4
It was the relationship between exemplary activity and regulation in
the broader context of voluntarism and compulsion in food production
which will be the focus of this essay, with particular emphasis on man-
aging agricultural labour. In April 1917 the draft Corn Production Bill
announced the government’s statutory framework for increasing home
agricultural output in 1917. But by the time that it was enacted much
had been done that arose from direction tempered with co-operation
and precept matched by example, especially in translating national
interest into local action. For example, in 1917 the food crisis became a
‘reasonable excuse’, within the education acts, to release children under
12 years from elementary schools for agricultural work, until a letter
to magistrates from the Home Office in conjunction with the boards
of Agriculture and Education, dated 17 August 1917, deprecated the
numerous local instances of children being kept away from school for
employment on farms.5
4
The Times 29 March 1917; Trevor Wilson, The Myriad Faces of War (Oxford: Polity
Press, 1988), p. 514.
5
The Times 21 March 1918; Pamela Horn, Rural Life in England in the First World War
(Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1984), pp. 175–77.
war comes to the fields 161
Avner Offer has persuasively highlighted why data on the world’s

supply of wheat as a vital source of energy and protein was of such
unexpected interest to Britain in the fourth year of the war. As a free
trading naval power, and of all the larger grain producing powers,
‘only Britain retrenched so completely’ in the decades after 1880. He
added, ‘The Low Countries, Britain and Germany made up the chief
wheat-deficit region of the world. This region also provided the main
setting for the Anglo-German war of 1914.’6 In 1914 70–80 per cent
of wheat consumption in Britain was imported yearly, but pre-war
naval plans assumed that sea lanes would remain protected, the cost of
a price guarantee for home production could be avoided and Canada
and Australia would supply Europe in continuous ‘superabundance’.7
Instead, in April 1917 Lord Devonport, Food Controller, issued a grave
warning, ‘We must eat less.’8 Merchant shipping was acknowledged
as a ‘wasting security’ and home food production became the most
decisive factor to sustain national security until the next harvest. The
loss of 2.5 million tons of British shipping in the months of January
to July 1917 marked a reduction by ten per cent of the merchant fleet,
with construction in the same period at 0.5 million tons. In April 1917
sinkings peaked at 881,027 tons of unescorted merchant shipping, but
losses exceeded 500,000 tons each month until September 1917. In
May 1917 an experimental convoy was organised by the Admiralty
and in June the Atlantic Convoy Committee instigated plans to cover
the most vital shipping routes.9
Consequently, in 1917 the threatened scarcity of staple foods on the
home front was a challenge to National Organisation. At the outbreak
of war the British Isles produced on average 15.5 million quintals of
wheat and imported 58.8 million quintals. In 1915 record yields of
20.1 million quintals fell to 16.5 in 1916, significantly below pre war
average yields. In the Food Production Department of the Board of
6
Avner Offer, The First World War. An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1991), pp. 84, 86; John Turner, British Politics and the Great War. Coalition and Conflict
1915 –1918 (London: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 172; L. M. Barnett, British Food
Policy during the First World War (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 60–61.
7
David Lloyd George, War Memoirs 2 vols. (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson,
1936), I, p. 756.
8
Quoted in Richard van Emden and S. Humphries, All Quiet on the Home Front. An Oral
History of Life in Britain during the First World War (London: Headline, 2004), p. 194.
9
S. Roskill, Hankey. Man of Secrets. Vol. 1, 1877–1918 (London: Collins, 1970),
p. 339; R. H. Rew, Food Supplies in Peace and War (London: 1920), passim.
162 keith grieves
Agriculture Sir John Wilson projected world wheat yields for 1917
of 27 per cent below yields for 1916 and 16 per cent below average
yields for the five years 1911–15, using data from the International
Agricultural Institute in Rome. On the assumption that average wheat
consumption in Britain could be reduced in 1917 from 75 to 66 mil-
lion quintals and home production maintained at 16 million quintals,
significant increases in wheat, barley, oats and potato production at
home would be necessitated, until sufficient wheat imports from India
and Australia were secured to meet import requirements of 50 million
quintals. These harvest projections focused on the issues of produc-
tion, supply and consumption arising by October 1917 in advance of
autumn sowing and the implementation of ambitious plans for three
million additional acres for wheat growing in Britain in 1918. Schemes
for ‘bread economy’ included reducing the quantity of wheat in the
quarter loaf, whose maximum price was nine pence in January 1917,
but had risen to one shilling in London two months later. ‘Food security’
and the avoidance of protest in British cities was discussed and starkly
tabulated within the global context. Table 1 provides a summarising
statement from August 1917 as the purchasing season got underway
in the northern hemisphere.
Table 1. Present prospects for gross yield of this year’s harvest [1917]
compared to the average yield of five years ending July 191310
Importing countries [harvest projections]

Britain Equal
France Much below
Italy Somewhat below
Spain 108 per cent
Tunis Equal
Egypt Equal
Switzerland Somewhat above
Holland Somewhat below
Denmark Equal
Japan 109 per cent
10
The National Archives (hereafter TNA) CO 323/766, ‘The World’s Supply of
Wheat’, Part II, 22 August 1917, Prospect of the Harvest of 1917, Sir J. Wilson, Food
Production Department, Board of Agriculture, for the Colonial Office, with minute
dated 16 August 1917. There are 10 quintals (hundredweight) to the ton. See also TNA,
CAB 23/2, WC 97, ‘The Food Question’, W. S. G. Adams, 15 March 1917; Peter
Dewey, British Agriculture in the First World War (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 206.
Table 1 (cont.)
Importing countries [harvest projections]

Austria-Hungary Much below
Germany Much below
Belgium Much below
Exporting countries
India 108 per cent—a record crop
Romania Much below
Russia considerably below
US 95 per cent
Canada About equal
Argentine Much above
Australia Much above
New Zealand Above
The principal importers were Britain, France and Italy. The crops
in Romania and Russia were noted as poor, with barely any export
potential. Production in the USA, Canada and Australia were noted
as drained of manpower. The British Empire Producers’ Association,
chaired by Lord Milner, was formed in 1916 to develop and mobilise
imperial agricultural resources. But the prospect of a coherent plan
involving India, Australia, Canada and Egypt remained aspirational
in February 1917.11
Hitherto, globally and locally, the presumption of ‘business as usual’
reflected the widespread expectation that the world’s food production
would not be damaged by a continental war. Furthermore, that in Eng-
land the ‘country round’ would remain a reassuring antidote to war. In
the first two years of the war life in the countryside was set apart from
urban ‘nerve’ centres and military camps, which were in closer eco-
nomic and psychological proximity to the fighting fronts. For example,
in 1915 the Rector of Great Leigh in Essex drew solace from walking
past ‘peaceful rural operations, cutting hedges, breaking clods, spreading
manure. Not a sign that a soldier had ever been in the district.’12 Amid
the timeless continuities of the seasons, Robert Saunders, headmaster
of Fletching National School in Sussex, noted on hearing the sound of
11
The Times, 2 February 1917.
12
J. Munson, ed., Echoes of the Great War. The Diary of The Reverend Andrew Clark
1914–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 74: entry for 17 July 1915.
164 keith grieves
guns in June 1915, ‘forcing you to remember we are at War & taking
your attention from Country sights and sounds’.13 Early in the war the
‘otherness’ of the English countryside in a European war also found
expression in the removal of unsightly recruiting posters from trees
in the belief that their display was more appropriate on the London
underground. More generally, Alun Howkins has concluded that the
impact of war on rural communities was ‘initially muted’, especially
where the social equilibrium of rural districts was maintained.14 After
the introduction of British summer time in 1916, ‘natural time’ was
maintained on some farms in preference to ‘artificial time’. Similarly,
local resistance to the employment of prisoner labour and women
endured until the onset of food scarcity.
Memories of diminishing food supplies in the countryside in 1917
have remained an enduring part of rural folklore deep into the twen-
tieth century. Free hedgerow provisioning re-emerged including the
hunting of birds mesmerised by torchlight. Joe Risby remembered
‘rabbit pie, rabbit soup, rabbit dumplings, every part of the rabbit
was used’.15 In 2002 Ruth Armstrong lived in the village of Tilshead
in Wiltshire, where as an eleven year old in 1917, she remembered,
‘my mother going out and picking dandelion leaves and washing them
and making sandwiches with them. It tasted like lettuce. Another thing,
my mother, my grandmother, my little brother and me used to go out
into the fields and pick the greens off the turnips and swedes. You had
to pick a lot because they shrunk so. We took them home and cooked
them with potatoes and mashed it up with margarine. That was our
Sunday dinner.’16 In May 1917 Robert Saunders drew the conclusion
‘unless we grow something we will have to eat less and less’. His cottage
garden contained 15 rows of potatoes, six rows of carrots, three rows
each of beetroot and shallots and one row each of long pod beans,
Windsor beans, dwarf beans and dwarf peas. He also grew gooseberry,
raspberry and blackcurrant bushes and once more bread was made by
his wife in the cottage oven.17 In a letter to The Times Dr Shipley won-
13
Imperial War Museum (hereafter IWM), Saunders Mss, 79/15/1, 29 April 1917.
See also M. Bunce, Countryside Ideals: Anglo-American Images of Landscape (London: Rout-
ledge, 1991), p. 23.
14
A. Howkins, Reshaping Rural England. A Social History 1850–1925 (London: Rout-
ledge, 1991), p. 25.
15
Van Emden and Humphries, All Quiet on the Home Front, p. 201.
16
Ibid., p. 191.
17
IWM, Saunders Mss, 79/15/1, 4 May 1918 and 25 March 1917.
dered whether starch might be obtained from underground stems of

bracken-fern as bread substitute, but was warned that labour intensive
extraction and transport made the suggestion untenable.18 Instead, early
in 1917, ‘Speeding up on the farm’ became an irresistible social duty,
which took pragmatic form as ‘husbandmen’ steeped in the pre-modern
country round were exhorted by representatives of the farming com-
munity in their districts to contemplate the new benefits of manures,
motor tractors and machinery.
After becoming Prime Minister and overcoming prevarication, Lloyd
George appointed Arthur Lee, a munitions ‘leading hustler’, Director
General of the newly created Food Production Department within
the Board of Agriculture in January 1917. Nominally a Conservative
and unloved by influential landowners and the farmer’s interest, in
the Party, Lee was without ministerial rank. To some extent Rowland
Prothero, his departmental head, who was a scholar of English farm-
ing practices, formerly land agent to the Duke of Bedford and a less
iconoclastic temporary minister, afforded him protection from a tradi-
tional landlordism, intent on sustaining mixed farming practices and
the capital value of grassland to which they had moved over decades of
declining rent, diminishing land values and uncompetitive cereal crops,
especially in the west and south of England. In 1917 the Food Produc-
tion Department’s energising and co-ordinating function mirrored the
organisational precedent of numerous new branches of the Ministry of
Munitions in June 1915. Two years after the onset of National Organi-
sation, ‘men of push and go’ and ad hoc local administrative practices
were remobilised in the fiercely contested terrain of food production.
In short, the Food Production Department was established to imple-
ment a national priority whereby labour, machinery and supplies were
deployed ‘for farming land to the best advantage’.19
John Grigg has argued that this ‘feat was achieved by a judicious
blend of direction and persuasion’.20 The urgent blending of national
compulsory powers and local voluntary effort and mediation, informed
by full knowledge of growing conditions, was necessary for the numer-
ous questions of labour, machinery and supplies. Extensive powers
under the Cultivation of Lands Order 1917 (DORA) were delegated to
18
The Times, 20 February 1917.
19
TNA, MAF 39/12, ‘Formation and Cessation of Food Production Department’,
1 January 1917. See also Dewey, British Agriculture, pp. 93, 96.
20
John Grigg, Lloyd George: War Leader, 1916–1918 (London: Penguin, 2002), p. 133.
166 keith grieves
county war agricultural executive committees. The significance of these

committees as repositories of patriotic social action was emphasised by
the government’s expectation that membership was the most important
duty of all for self selected local elites, who remained available for war
work on the home front. In the local distribution of machinery, seeds,
feedstuff and fertiliser persuasion and advice accompanied regulation
and control in the absence of a political consensus on the purpose,
content and potential consequences of the Corn Production Bill.
In January 1917 the Ministry of Munitions established an Agricul-
tural Machinery branch and took control of output and labour sup-
ply in concert with an advisory committee, which comprised experts
from the trade. The advisory committee for ‘Field munitions’ included
E. C. Ransome of Ipswich and R. H. Fowler of Leeds.21 Arthur Lee’s
celebrated telegraph order for 10,000 tractors from Henry Ford, who
built a new factory at Detroit for the purpose, was a quintessential new
ministerial intervention dependent on government purchasing power,
import controls and advocacy of innovative use at local and county
levels.22 The Fordson tractor was also assembled at Trafford Park, using
parts shipped across the Atlantic. By mid-March the Food Production
Department had acquired 250 tractors and appealed for voluntary
drivers. Mechanical solutions to the ‘food question’ were feted in spe-
cific localities. In Buckinghamshire an experiment demonstrated the
practicality of motor ploughing by night, using acetylene headlights.
In five days and three nights 42 acres were ploughed, compared with
twelve days by tractor and 56 days by horse plough.23 At the same
time the Sale of Horses Order ensured that land cultivation was the
first claim on heavy draught horses through licensing, which did not
extend to ponies or cobs, in addition to the temporary loan of draught
horses from military transport units. By September 1917 mechanised
government binders were visible on the most isolated of corn-growing
landscapes.24 Moreover, county councils had purchased tractors, which
21
Dewey, British Agriculture, p. 149.
22
Grigg, Lloyd George, p. 133; A. Clark, ed., ‘A Good Innings’: The Private Papers of Viscount
Lee of Fareham (London: John Murray, 1974), p. 167; Lloyd George, War Memoirs, I,
p. 774; Peter Dewey, ‘Agricultural Labour Supply in England and Wales during the
First World War’, Economic History Review 18 (1975), pp. 108–09.
23
The Times, 6 March 1917.
24
Phizackerley, Diaries of Maria Gyte, p. 144: entry for 8 September 1917. See also
A. Howkins, Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside since 1900 (London:
Routledge, 2003), p. 32, plate 3.
were lent to farmers at three pounds per day. It was not coincidental that
the Chequers Estate Bill was drafted by the end of 1917. Arthur Lee
intended that Chequers be given to the nation as an inspiring country
residence for Prime Ministers, sufficiently endowed to be maintained
as an estate comprising model experimental farms where innovatory
practice would be maintained.25
The county war agricultural executive committees exhorted farmers
to employ prisoners, ‘village women’ and the Women’s Land Army
as substitute labour. In August 1917 120,000 women from all sources
worked on the land. They included those who responded to the Women’s
Labour Department of the Board of Agriculture appeal for women
aged 18–30 years to leave office jobs to older women, and accept the
hardships which accompanied working on the land. Similarly, a mixture
of directives and exhortations accompanied the department’s plans for
Sunday working for spring sowing, which despite Episcopal objections
took the form of clerical dispensation from seven consecutive Sunday
church services in many districts. At Burpham vicarage, near Arundel,
the Rev. Toogood noted, ‘I have received papers asking the clergy to
point out the great need of trying to produce all possible food, especially
potatoes, for if the war should last into autumn there may be a very real
scarcity.’26 In these instances the urgently redefined national interest of
food production was mediated locally, so that a more consensual tillage
campaign might overcome farmer’s resistance. John Turner’s summation
remained apposite many months after food production had become a
new strategic priority, ‘the politics of food and the agricultural interest
dominated parliamentary calculations in the middle of 1917’.27 Simi-
larly, local opinion mattered when confronted by the spectacle of a 22
acre field of autumn sown wheat being requisitioned by the War Office
as a site for the construction of military huts. This instance provoked
outrage, because the construction of a ‘Wheat field camp’ discounted
the effects of the underlying precept; ‘more wheat will be destroyed than
the whole county could save in more than a year by strict compliance
with rationing orders’.28 This visible contradiction to ‘bread economy’
arose from the military presupposition that it had first call on scarce
25
The Times, 5 October 1917.
26
West Sussex Record Office (hereafter WSRO), PAR 21/7/1, Burpham Quarterly
Paper, No. 60, January 1917, C. Toogood.
27
Turner, British Politics, p. 214.
28
The Times, 16 March 1917. See also Horn, Rural Life, p. 75.
168 keith grieves
resources, but in 1917 the War Office acted unilaterally on matters of

labour supply at its peril.
The poetic imagery of a ‘county enlistment championship’ in 1914,
as men went to war in defence of sub-national places as well as for
King and Country, was echoed in the executive deliberations of county
war agricultural committees in 1917. Ailwyn Fellowes, Chairman of
the Norfolk War Agricultural Committee, observed, ‘The point is, what
assistance shall be sent her so that this other national call, the call for
food, not wheat alone, may be as well met by the county as was the
earlier demand for men [for the army].’29 The deployment of soldiers
to meet ‘the special need of Norfolk’ in February 1917 drew immediate
demands for military labour from Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Essex
and other important wheat growing counties to meet county quotas
for breaking up grasslands in the national interest. In this process the
voluntary implementation of cultivation orders determined by county
war agricultural committees, and negotiated with landowners and farm-
ers, was the essential tool of intervention as the Board of Agriculture
conceded that decisions for ploughing up grassland should be settled
on the spot.
In August 1917 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, the irascible anti-war but
conservative ‘south country’ squire, reflected on ‘the idea of compel-
ling people to plough up their meadows’. He noted, ‘A party from the
agricultural war committee, with Lord Goschen at its head who is at
the head of it for Sussex, called on me a month ago to know whether
I would be willing to plough up my land here & I had no difficulty in
persuading him that it would be a stupidity to attempt growing any kind
of crop on such poor land, and they ended by suggesting that I should
try it on 20 acres out of 500 & by way of giving a good example. That
was all, nor have I since heard anything more of it.’30 Blunt doubted
the government’s competence in agricultural policy. He provided
no indication that the use of his meadows should be determined by
any other authority than his custodianship of the lands arising from
an unbroken 300 year stewardship by one family. His experience of
Wealden clay as three horse plough land affirmed his authority on land
use near Horsham, but Blunt also conceded the necessity for exemplary
behaviour in his locality. In the form of inspection visits and specific
29
The Times, 17 and 19 February 1917. See also Dakers, Countryside at War, p. 147.
30
WSRO, Blunt Mss, 64, W. S. Blunt to Lady Anne Blunt, 18 August 1917.
local agreements voluntary endeavour, with the threat of compulsion,

persisted long into 1917. Blunt was not alone in arguing that owners
and their tenants should retain the inalienable rights of property owners
and respond to the crisis of food production in ways that they could
best determine for themselves.
In Lloyd George’s War Memoirs the objections of landlordism feature
strongly as a source of recrimination and hostility towards the emer-
gence of ‘National Organisation’ in agriculture, alongside all other
sources of resistance to the interventionist ‘Man Who Won The War’.
In particular, the Unionist landowner Walter Long was depicted as
the pre-eminent ‘passive resister’ in the Cabinet, ‘so strongly did he
disapprove of any control over the owners and occupiers of land’.31
Walter Long advised his tenants that productive grassland should not be
ploughed on his Wiltshire estate. Moreover, dairy stock was such a vital
capital asset that tillage programmes were obstructed until the outcome
of the Corn Production Bill was known.32 As ‘King of Lancashire’
and Secretary of State for War, Lord Derby shared Long’s hostility to
ploughing orders. Their discontented positioning within Lloyd George’s
coalition government highlighted the challenge of rebalancing the war
effort, embracing sectional interests and privileging agricultural produc-
tion in a wider definition of the warfare state at the highest executive
level. A persistent ideological gulf focused on the extent to which the
state’s requirements in war could incorporate the management of land
and its output was not quickly resolved, even in the context of ‘wheat
ship’ sinkings. However, there were incremental shifts over many months
towards new understandings of ‘all-out’ war, so that such contemporary
phrasing conveyed much more meaning than the military focus on con-
tinuing the third Battle of Ypres beyond August 1917. Indeed, villages
and counties began to be incorporated into a truly national narrative
of Britain at war, now with material as well as symbolic meaning. In
December 1917 the food production programme for 1918 was agreed
by the War Cabinet, without the debates which persisted into the late
spring sowing period in 1917.
At each incremental step towards harvesting cereal crops in 1917
disputes were reconciled on the appropriate deployment of fit men
of military age. In February 1917 the idea of a ‘Land Army’ was
31
Lloyd George, War Memoirs, I, pp. 769, 767.
32
Clark, Good Innings, p. 168; Turner, British Politics, p. 215.
170 keith grieves
largely a misnomer. However, the phrase captured the urgency of the

situation and conveyed a pressing equivalence to the raising of Lord
Kitchener’s New Armies in 1915. But the importance of the new
agricultural army on the home front, with skilled ploughmen as non-
commissioned officers, was vigorously contested by the War Office. Its
projections for the supply of recruits for the British armies in France
in 1917 assumed that agriculturalists were not ‘indispensable’ to the
war effort. The persistence of the ‘large army first’ principle in 1917
ensured the continuing relevance of the recruiting poster directed at
Irish ploughmen in May 1915. It asked, ‘Can You any longer resist
the Call?’ A vision of St. Patrick and the ruins of Reims Cathedral
demanded the departure of agriculturalists from the land to vanquish
the foe on the ‘only’ field of battle.33 Food production would be left to
others or to another day. Apparently, ploughmen remained subordinate
to the imperative of a large continental army.
Instead, the militarisation of the agricultural output was the subject of
constant inter-departmental strife throughout the sowing and harvesting
months in 1917 and hinged upon the issue of whether skilled ploughmen
of age for military service should be exempt, alongside aeronautical
engineers, shipyard workers and coal miners. One of the most significant
developments in the history of British man-power planning in the Great
War focused on the adequate supply of agricultural labour in 1917.
In particular, on 28 June 1917 Lord Milner, War Cabinet arbiter of
manpower par excellence, announced in the House of Lords a significant
variation to the military demand for men. He summarised that in the
spring months 40,000 soldiers were released from home forces for late
sowing and 12,000 men were additionally lent for the hay harvest.
These men were described as being on leave in late April, which was
extended into early May. By June 1917 men could only be recruited
for military service with the consent of agricultural committees. The
January quota of 30,000 agriculturalists for military service remained
unfulfilled, tempered by the reverse flow of 5,000 soldiers who could
handle horses to the fields. Lord Milner announced that for the months
July to September 1917, 70–80,000 men under military orders would
be provided for harvesting.34 This calculation included approximately
33
IWM, PST 13637, ‘Can You Any Longer Resist the Call?’ [poster].
34
TNA, CAB 23/3, WC 169, 26 June 1917; WC 170, 27 June 1917; HLRO, Bonar
Law Mss, 81/1/22, Milner to Bonar Law, 28 June 1916; Liverpool Record Office, 920
DER (17) 27/1, Derby to Lloyd George, 6 July 1917.
6,000 prisoners of war who were returned from the Western Front.
Critically, the belated acknowledgement that harvesting had become
a national duty, commensurate with military service, finally halted the
flow of agricultural labourers to the fields of France and Flanders.35
No longer would skilled food producers be subordinate to the military
requirement for 940,000 men for the Western Front in 1917.
Consequently, the Home Army, deployed to defend the east coast
from invasion or raid in depth, supplied military labour for spring cul-
tivation programmes despite the fiercest objections of the War Office.
Two quotas of 15,000 men were deployed in wheat growing counties
in February 1917. The exemption of farm labourers from military
service gathered momentum and the highly contentious process of
returning skilled ploughmen from the Western Front was authorised
by the War Cabinet, but not undertaken expeditiously in the British
armies in France.36 By December 1917 only 1,500 skilled ploughmen
had returned from military service to their farms, despite numerous
Cabinet discussions of this issue and clear instructions that this process
be hastened in time for harvesting in 1917. ‘Farm soldiers’ were also
deployed from the Home Army in agricultural companies, such as
mobile reaper-binder units. They were beyond the control of any one
farmer or landowner and methodically provided where skilled resident
harvesters were scarce. Furthermore, at the Porton Down experimental
station, founded in 1915 as a field trials site for chemical warfare, Royal
Engineers were deployed from biological warfare capacity-building to
cultivate land. An official photograph bore testimony to ploughing-up
land at the station to meet a threat as great in total war as chemical
warfare.37
In these urgent months new definitions of national preparedness to
secure food security, through the breaking up of grasslands, involved
richly textured debates in land use. National imperatives encountered
sources of local knowledge, always with the possibility that the Land
Question, revisited in 1913–14, would re-emerge. For example, some
voices persisted in deviating from the warfare state’s expectation that
35
Turner, British Politics, p. 175; N. Mansfield, English Farmworkers and Local Patriotism,
1900 –1930 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 15–17; Horn, Rural Life, p. 102; Howkins,
Death of Rural England, pp. 30–31.
36
TNA, CAB 23/3, WC 170, 27 June 1917.
37
IWM, PD-CRO-23, The Royal Engineers Experimental Station at Porton Down
during the First World War [official photograph].
172 keith grieves
all would cry ‘God speed the plough’.38 The mobilisation of all food
producers, including allotment holders and gardeners, was accompanied
by the question of how knowledgeable and influential agriculturalists
would represent the needs of their localities to the state and vice-versa.
Further, what would be the effects of emergency schemes for the break-
ing up of permanent pasture as a critical moment in the history of
British agriculture? In 1917 the work of county war agricultural execu-
tive committees presaged the systematic planning for vast increases in
wheat growing area in 1918, to reach its highest recorded extent since
1882. In 1917 farms were repositioned in a militarised landscape. Lord
Selborne was well placed to acknowledge the continuing effects of a
submarine peril. In 1915–16 he was successively President of the Board
of Agriculture and First Lord of the Admiralty. On becoming President
of the Central Land Association, in succession to Walter Long, in July
1917, he urged the necessity for all-out food production in the expec-
tation that a guarantee of stable income would be provided. Earlier,
without relish for centralising bureaucratic solutions, Lord Selborne
explained to the Farmers Club that where poor management of farm
land was suspected by the Board of Agriculture it ‘did not mean that
the estate would be managed by a clerk sitting in London, but by a
man of proved competency to manage an estate in the county in ques-
tion’.39 These encounters of endurance and survival between localities
and nation on the land question were mediated by the intermingling
of voluntarism and compulsion, the militarisation of civilian assets in
uniformed service and the demise of distinctions between forward and
rearward areas of the war effort.
Amid the problems of food supply, the renewal of English agriculture
and the restoration of prosperous conditions for village life after the
war, the countryside also became the scenic focus of debates on the
role of rural quietude for convalescent soldiers in 1917. In a different
sense the war came to the fields as schemes developed for convalescing
neurasthenic patients, which utilised the countryside as a recuperative
sanctuary. The solace of fresh air, good food and light outdoor work
in secluded estate villages took form in 1917 as the Country Host
Institution. Its founder, Dr Thomas Lumsden, encouraged landowners
to remobilise their traditional function as generous hosts for the ‘nerve
38
The Times, 9 November 1917.
39
Ibid., 5 June 1917 and 21 July 1917.
wrecked’ casualty of the battlefield recovering from war neuroses. He

noted, ‘I earnestly hope all concerned will help us raise from our English
gardens a harvest of health, as well as flowers and fruit.’40 In gardens
and parkland palliative places of self-repair were constructed for nerve-
shattered men. This initiative drew heavily on the rural imagery of
defending home as cottages, gardens and fields. Aristocratic and gentry
patronage was remobilised to meet the needs of war worn soldiers, even
if the Duke of Marlborough drew attention to the impact of high taxa-
tion on estate finances and the limits of country house hospitality.41 In
August 1917 the Duke of Sutherland concluded negotiations with the
Scottish Board of Agriculture for a farm near Lairg to become 20–25
small-holdings for men returning from the war.
Initiatives by the British Red Cross Society also located care, work
and accommodation for ‘war-shaken’ men in the countryside who were
unable to cope with the stress of town life. These initiatives used the
countryside as a sheltering ‘bridge’ to useful work and self-sufficiency.
The moral codes and charitable largesse of the estate village had a
continuing utility in the care of the wounded, as if a tranquil organic
landscape in close proximity to nature might facilitate recovery from
machine-age war. How grimly ironic therefore to note in the same year
substantial advances in the mechanisation of English farming practice
and the emergence of ‘farm soldiers’ as the fields became another site
of uniformed total war work. By 1917 the economic conditions for
scenic timeless England, underpinned by stable food prices were more
propitious. However, barely mechanised ‘south country’ representations
of going ‘afoot’ in pre-industrial, picturesque and sparsely populated
England remained necessary ingredients for understanding war aims.
For example the images presented in the golden remembrancer volume
The Old Country. A Book of Love and Praise of England published in 1917
by the YMCA.42
The same interplay of social integration, economic dependence, sce-
nic living and aristocratic munificence was apparent in the Shrivenham
Settlement Scheme in Berkshire. Lady Barrington’s scheme provided,
to use the full name of the charity, Village Homes (and employment)
40
Ibid., 20 May 1919.
41
Ibid., 31 August 1917.
42
E. Rhys, ed., (1917) The Old Country: A Book of Love and Praise of England (London:
1917); A. Howkins, A., ‘The Discovery of Rural England’, in R. Colls and P. Dodd,
eds., Englishness: Politics and Culture 1880 –1920 (London: 1986), p. 80.
174 keith grieves
for Disabled Sailors and Soldiers. She noted, ‘for the severely wounded,
the cheerful cottages with bright outlook over the bowling green, cricket
and recreation ground must appear as havens of rest after the pain-
ful experiences and awful sights of those months or years of service
at the Front’.43 The Village homes were semi-detached cottages with
large gardens, planted with fruit trees, with a carpentry bench in each
shed. They clustered around the village green, where men might watch
games in semi-retirement amid the beauty aesthetic of medieval ‘Merrie
England’. This model response to bringing the disabled soldier home
enjoined other counties to do likewise. Lady Barrington energetically
remobilised voluntary effort using comforting village imagery for the
protection of disabled men, whose future prospects would not be deter-
mined by the norms of labour supply and demand. The metaphor of
an estate, or ‘close’ village was supposed to keep modernity at bay, as
a site of solace and sanctuary and without myriad social encounters
in factory conditions.
Yet the countryside had such a dearth of adult male labour that it
was repopulated in 1917 by numerous quasi-military organisations of
men and women. Their appearance in the countryside, clad in corduroy
trousers, wielding industrial tools and organised along Fordist lines was
shocking; rural quietude was supposed to provide curative processes in
idealised villages.44 More generally, the land beckoned to discharged
soldiers and sailors. In a return on the aspirations of men in the British
armies in France on demobilisation 17,000 of 97,000 returns at the front
wanted a life on the land in Britain or the Dominions; ‘They wanted
to dig their own trenches, but on small holdings.’45 The Rev. Andrew
Clark recorded a conversation with a civil servant in Felstead, Essex,
‘He said that the soldiers met on leave all say that when the war is over
they will seek some very quiet occupation, such as minding pigs.’46
In the years 1914–16 visitors to English villages from urban war
centres sometimes wondered if the ‘country round’ had changed at all.
43
C. Barrington, Through Eighty Years (1855–1935) (London: John Murray, 1936),
p. 215.
44
Stuart Sillars, Art and Survival in First World War Britain (London: Macmillan, 1987),
pp. 138, 144.
45
E. B. Strutt, L. Scott, and G. H. Roberts, British Agriculture The Nation’s Opportunity.
Being the Minority Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Sailors and Soldiers
on the Land (London: 1917), pp. 8, 41.
46
Munson, Echoes, p. 189; Philip Gibbs, Since Then (London: William Heinemann,
1931, 3rd edn.), p. 242.
When advocates of ‘all out’ war demanded National Organisation in

1915 the countryside was peripheral. On receiving the freedom of the
City of London, in the presence of fellow members of the Gardener’s
Company, Rowland Prothero asserted the new realisation of 1917; a
‘man who wielded a spade or drove a plough played just as essential
a part in winning the war as the man who shouldered a rifle’.47 As
inducements to break up old grasslands were contemplated in 1917,
interest was reawakened in the relationship of farming and national
defence in war. In short, on the relationship between ploughing and
eventual victory, facilitated by stable prices for cereals, recognising the
indispensable role of farmers and agricultural labourers, and symbolised
by the wearing of purple ribbons as a sign of economy and frugality.
Throughout 1917 the language of voluntarism, obligation, exemplary
action and local variation often forestalled compulsion ‘from above’.
Explanatory and sometimes discursive modes accompanied appeals
for local action as the government and individual landowners debated
where competence lay in this most ‘civilianised’ of all war industries.
In yet another sector of the war economy a hesitant and always incre-
mental transition to the fuller mobilisation of manpower and material
resources ensued.
Yet again essential war work was redefined as ‘farm soldiers’ became
the latest expression of the constantly evolving manpower question.
Unforeseen labour and output priorities placed emphasis on the con-
tribution of land workers to the war effort in ways unimaginable two
years before and provided further demonstrations of the attachments
to locality and place that persisted deep into a machine age war. Amid
a world struggle for food production in a globalising war, signified by
the plotting of convoy routes at the Admiralty after May 1917, war
came to the fields. Expressions of localism, voluntarism, timeless conti-
nuities and customary practices intermingled with macro political and
economic planning for food security as a precondition of peace and
prosperity. The adaptive, tentative and consensual efforts to instigate
changes in ploughing policy and practice were necessary in a contested
terrain. Deep into the war oppositional notions of the warlike and
tranquil, modern and traditional, democratic and inegalitarian, artificial
and natural positioned the rural, the field worker and the seasons as
the ‘other’, separate from, and antidotal to, the remorseless attritional
47
The Times, 4 July 1917.
176 keith grieves
and industrialised machine killing of the Great War. However, in 1917

tractors and agricultural implements became accoutrements of national
defence and ‘farm soldiers’ were deployed as adaptable labour in total
war. In the third and fourth years of the war preparation for the ‘end
game’ had brought a truly mobilised home front into being.
INDEX
Albertini, Luigi 25 Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz 1,

Allenby, Edward xvi–xvii, 113, 3–14, 16, 20–23
115–18, 121–28 Constantine, King xv
Armstrong, Ruth 164 Cowan, Walter 67
Arras ix, 19, 116 Czernin, Ottokar 17
Arz von Straussenberg, Arthur 16
Athens xv Dago 97, 106–07, 110
Aylmer, F. J. 136 Dardanelles xi, 21, 108, 111, 121
Delmain, W. S. 146
Bacon, Reginald 68 Della Noce, Giuseppe 35
Badoglio, Pietro 29–30, 34 Delmé-Redcliffe, Brigadier 31
Baghdad xvi, 147–48 Derby, Lord 126, 169
Bakhirev, Rear Admiral 109–10 Devonport, Lord 161
Baku 115, 126 Diaz, Armando 45
Balfour, Arthur xvii, 55–56, 61, 126 Douglas, General 151
Barrington, Lady 173–74 Dreyer, Frederick 51
Basra 134–35, 146, 151, 153 Duff, Beauchamp 155
Beatty, David 47, 49, 51, 54–58,
60–65, 67–68, 70 Erzberger, Mathias xiii
Behnke, Paul 103, 109 Esher, Lord 117
Below, Otto von 33 Etna, Donato 38
Benedict XV, Pope 42 Evans, Captain 83–84
Berlin xii, 7, 69
Bethmann-Hollweg, Theobald von xvi, Falkenhayn, Erich von 3–9, 11–12,
xviii, 8, 16, 20 21–22
Blunt, W. S. 168–69 Fellowes, Ailwyn 168
Bonar Law, Andrew 126 Fisher, John 61
Booth, Major 136 Foch, Ferdinand 43–44
Brooking, General 145 Fowler, R. H. 166
Brusilov, Alexei 1, 6–7, 9 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke 1
Buchanan, George 62 Franz Joseph, Emperor xv, 10, 12–14
Budapest 3, 21 French, John 120–21
Burián, István 5, 7, 17
Gallipoli xi, 121
Cadorna, Luigi 26–31, 35, 39, 41, 44 Garforth, Captain 81
Calder, N. K. 64 Gatti, Angelo 26, 44–45
Cambrai x, 131 Gaza 119, 124–25, 127–28
Capello, Luigi 28–30, 38–39 Geddes, Eric 62, 66, 68
Caporetto x, 20, 25–46 George V, King xv
Carver, Clifford 81–82 Gorringe, G. F. 149
Cavaciocchi, Alberto 29, 36, 39–40 Goschen, Lord 168
Chatfield, Ernle 51
Churchill, Winston 68, 126 Haig, Douglas 117–18, 120, 128
Clark, Andrew 174 Hankey, Maurice 117, 119
Clausewitz, Karl von 131 Haus, Anton 16
Clemenceau, Georges xv, 13, 23 Heinrich, Commodore 107
Colvile, Stanley 81–82 Heligoland 59, 66
178 index
Helphand, Alexander 19 Maude, F. S. xvi, 144

Helsingfors xi, 100 Megiddo 122
Henderson, Arthur xiv Meinertzhagen, Richard 127
Hill, Robert 56 Messines x, 117
Hindenburg, Paul von xvi, 1, 8–11, Michaelis, Georg xvi
13–16, 18–20, 22 Milner, Alfred 120, 163, 170
Holtzendorff, Henning von 16 Moltke, Helmuth von 1, 3
Hutier, Oskar von 102 Montuori, General 38
Moon 97, 99–100, 104, 106–07,
Ingleby, Percy 63 109–10
Ishii, Kikujiro xvii Moss, T. 141, 155
Isonzo x, 5, 9, 20 Murray,
Archibald 127–28
Jackson, Lord 117
Henry 55–56
Thomas 51–52 Nasiriya 135, 137, 149
Jellicoe, John 17, 49–57, 61, 64, 68 Nepenin, A. J. 101
Jerusalem xvi, 116, 121–25, 128 Nicholas II, Tsar 18
Jutland ix–x, 1, 8, 15, 47–56, 111 Nivelle, Robert ix–x, 117
Nixon, John 148–50
Karl, Emperor xv, 6, 8, 12–14, 16–17, Njegovan, Maximilian 16
20, 22–23 Northcliffe, Lord 68
Kathen, General von 102 Nunn, W. 149
Kerensky, Alexander 18, 62, 111
Keyes, Roger 58 Orah 138–39, 154
Kitchener, Herbert 53–54, 170 Orlando, Vittorio xv, 13
Kobis, Albin 101 Ormsby Gore, W. 119
Koerber, Ernst von 13 Osel 97, 104, 106
Krauss, Alfred 33
Kut 135–36, 140, 147–48, 150, 152, Passchendaele ix–xi, 117
156 Petrograd xiv, 19, 97, 111
Piave 26–27, 45
Lamb, D. O. W. 154 Pisano, Francesco 36
Lansdowne, Lord xiv Plenty, G. J. 64
Lansing, Robert xvii Pless 14, 16
Larking, Dennis 49 Porteous, Robert 73
Lawrence, T. E. xvii Prothero, Roland 165, 175
Lee, Arthur 165, 167
Lenin, Vladmir xiii, 1, 18–19 Ransome, E. C. 166
Libau 102, 104 Rapallo 44–45
Linsingen, Alexander von 6 Reichpietsch, Max 101
Li Yuan-hung xvii Reval xi, 111
Lloyd George, David xiv–xvi, 44, 68, Rice, Brigadier-General 137
113–24, 126–29, 159, 165, 169 Riddell, Lord 159
London xiv, 118–19, 155 Riga x, 33, 97, 99–111
Long, Walter 169, 172 Risby, Joe 164
Ludendorff, Erich xvi, 1, 8–11, 13, Robertson, William 43–44, 113–16,
15–16, 18–19, 22, 127 118, 120–24, 126–27
Lumsden, Thomas 172 Rodman, Hugh 65
Luxemburg, Rosa xvi Rommel, Erwin 33, 36, 39
Lynden-Bell, Major General 120 Rosyth 47, 54
Roughton, F. A. G. 140–41
Mackensen, August von 4–5, 12
Madden, Charles 56 Salonika 119, 122
Marlborough, Duke of 173 Saunders, Robert 163–64
index 179
Scapa Flow 47, 53, 62–65, 70 Treves, Claudio 42

Scheer, Reinhard 8, 15, 48–49, 53–55, Trieste 5, 9
101 Trotsky, Leon 19, 22
Schmidt, Ehrhard 99, 102–05 Tuan Chi-jui xvii
Seeckt, Hans von 8–9 Tucher, Heinrich von 11
Selborne, Lord 172 Turin xii, 42
Shipley, Dr 164–65 Tyrol 1, 5–7, 13, 16
Sixtus, Prince xv, 20, 23
Skipwith, Captain 81 Venizelos, Eleutherios xv
Smuts, Jan xiv, 115–16 Verdun ix, 1, 4–6, 8–9, 131
Somme ix, 1, 8, 131 Vienna 3, 11, 14, 19, 21
Souchon, Wilhelm 103
Stileman, Rear Admiral 80, 84 Weizmann, Chaim 119
Storrs, Reginald 127 Wilhelm II, Kaiser xvi, 8–10, 13, 16,
Stürgkh, Karl 13 20, 48–49
Sutherland, Duke of 173 Wilkins, Lieutenant 139
Sykes, Mark xvii, 118 Wilson,
Henry 120
Tarnów-Gorlice 4, 12, 19 John 162
Tennyson-d’Eyncourt, Eustace 51 Winterfeld, Captain von 106–07, 111
Thomson, W. M. 153 Wintle, E. de V. 153
Tisza, Count xv
Toogood, Rev. 167 Ypres ix, 118, 169
Townshend, Charles 135–37, 150, 152
Trentino 27, 29 Zimmerman, Arthur 19
History of Warfare
History of Warfare presents the latest research on all aspects of military history. Publications in the series
will examine technology, strategy, logistics, and economic and social developments related to warfare in
Europe, Asia, and the Middle East from ancient times until the early nineteenth century. The series will
accept monographs, collections of essays, conference proceedings, and translation of military texts.
1. Hoeven, M. van der (ed.). Exercise of Arms. Warfare in the Netherlands, 1568-
1648. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10727 4
2. Raudzens, G. (ed.). Technology, Disease and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth
Centuries. Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories. 2001.
ISBN 90 04 11745 8
3. Lenihan P. (ed.). Conquest and Resistance. War in Seventeenth-Century Ireland.
2001. ISBN 90 04 11743 1
4. Nicholson, H. Love, War and the Grail. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12014 9
5. Birkenmeier, J.W. The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180.
2002. ISBN 90 04 11710 5
6. Murdoch, S. (ed.). Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648. 2001.
ISBN 90 04 12086 6
7. Tuyll van Serooskerken, H.P. van. The Netherlands and World War I. Espionage,
Diplomacy and Survival. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12243 5
8. DeVries, K. A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology.
2002. ISBN 90 04 12227 3
9. Cuneo, P. (ed.). Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles. Art and Warfare in Early Modern
Europe. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11588 9
10. Kunzle, D. From Criminal to Courtier. The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 1550-
1672. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12369 5
11. Trim, D.J.B. (ed.). The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Profes-
sionalism. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12095 5
12. Willliams, A. The Knight and the Blast Furnace. A History of the Metallurgy
of Armour in the Middle Ages & the Early Modern Period. 2003.
ISBN 90 04 12498 5
13. Kagay, D.J. & L.J.A. Villalon (eds.). Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon. Medieval
Warfare in Societies Around the Mediterranean. 2002.
ISBN 90 04 12553 1
14. Lohr, E. & M. Poe (eds.). The Military and Society in Russia: 1450-1917. 2002.
ISBN 90 04 12273 7
15. Murdoch, S. & A. Mackillop (eds.). Fighting for Identity. Scottish Military Expe-
rience c. 1550-1900. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12823 9
16. Hacker, B.C. World Military History Bibliography. Premodern and Non-
western Military Institutions and Warfare. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12997 9
17. Mackillop, A. & S. Murdoch (eds.). Military Governors and Imperial Frontiers c.
1600-1800. A Study of Scotland and Empires. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12970 7
18. Satterfield, G. Princes, Posts and Partisans. The Army of Louis XIV and Parti-
san Warfare in the Netherlands (1673-1678). 2003. ISBN 90 04 13176 0
20. Macleod, J. & P. Purseigle (eds.). Uncovered Fields. Perspectives in First World
War Studies. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13264 3
21. Worthington, D. Scots in the Habsburg Service, 1618-1648. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 13575 8
22. Griffin, M. Regulating Religion and Morality in the King’s Armies, 1639-1646.
2004. ISBN 90 04 13170 1
23. Sicking, L. Neptune and the Netherlands. State, Economy, and War at Sea in the
Renaissance. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13850 1
24. Glozier, M. Scottish Soldiers in France in the Reign of the Sun King. Nursery for
Men of Honour. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13865 X
25. Villalon, L.J.A. & D.J. Kagay (eds.). The Hundred Years War. A Wider Focus.
2005. ISBN 90 04 13969 9
26. DeVries, K. A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Tech-
nology, Update 2004. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14040 9
27. Hacker, B.C. World Military History Annotated Bibliography. Premodern and
Nonwestern Military Institutions (Works Published before 1967). 2005.
ISBN 90 04 14071 9
28. Walton, S.A. (ed.). Instrumental in War. Science, Research, and Instru-
ments. Between Knowledge and the World. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14281 9
29. Steinberg, J.W., B.W. Menning, D. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye,
D. Wolff & S. Yokote (eds.). The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective.
World War Zero, Volume I. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14284 3
30. Purseigle, P. (ed.). Warfare and Belligerence. Perspectives in First World War
Studies. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14352 1
31. Waldman, J. Hafted Weapons in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. The Evolu-
tion of European Staff Weapons between 1200 and 1650. 2005.
ISBN 90 04 14409 9
32. Speelman, P.J. (ed.). War, Society and Enlightenment. The Works of General
Lloyd. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14410 2
33. Wright, D.C. From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh-Century China. Sung’s
Foreign Relations with Kitan Liao. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14456 0
34. Trim, D.J.B. & M.C. Fissel (eds.). Amphibious Warfare 1000-1700. Com-
merce, State Formation and European Expansion. 2006.
ISBN 90 04 13244 9
35. Kennedy, H. (ed.). Muslim Military Architecture in Greater Syria. From the
Coming of Islam to the Ottoman Period. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14713 6
36. Haldon, J.F. (ed.). General Issues in the Study of Medieval Logistics. Sources, Pro-
blems and Methodologies. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14769 1
37. Christie, N. & M. Yazigi (eds.). Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities. Warfare in the
Middle Ages. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15024 2
38. Shaw, C. (ed.). Italy and the European Powers. The Impact of War, 1500–1530.
2006. ISBN-13 978 90 04 15163 5, ISBN-10 90 04 15163 X
39. Biggs, D. Three Armies in Britain. The Irish Campaign of Richard II and the
Usurpation of Henry IV, 1397-99. 2006. ISBN-13 978 90 04 15215 1,
ISBN-10 90 04 15215 6
40. Wolff, D., Marks, S.G., Menning, B.W., Schimmelpenninck van der Oye,
D., Steinberg, J.W. & S. Yokote (eds.). The Russo-Japanese War in Global Per-
spective. World War Zero, Volume II. 2007. ISBN-13 978 90 04 15416 2,
ISBN-10 90 04 15416 7
41. Ostwald, J. Vauban under Siege. Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in
the War of the Spanish Succession. 2007. ISBN-13 978 90 04 15489 6,
ISBN-10 90 04 15489 2
42. MCCullough, R.L. Coercion, Conversion and Counterinsurgency in Louis XIV’s
France. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15661 6
43. Røksund, A. The Jeune École. The Strategy of the Weak. 2007.
ISBN 978 90 04 15723 1
44. Hosler, J.D. Henry II. A Medieval Soldier at War, 1147-1189. 2007.
ISBN 978 90 04 15724 8
45. Hoyos, D. Truceless War. Carthage’s Fight for Survival, 241 to 237 BC. 2007.
ISBN 978 90 04 16076 7
46. DeVries, K. A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technolo-
gy, Update 2003-2006. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16445 1
47. France, J. (ed.). Mercenaries and Paid Men. The Mercenary Identity in the Middle
Ages. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16447 5
48. Meyer, J. (ed.). British Popular Culture and the First World War. 2008.
ISBN 978 90 04 16658 5
49. Jones, H., J. O’Brien & C. Schmidt-Supprian (eds.). Untold War. New Perspec-
tives in First World War Studies. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16659 2
50. Burgtorf, J. The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars. History, Organization,
and Personnel (1099/1120-1310). 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16660 8
51. Villalon, A.L.J. & D.J. Kagay (eds.). The Hundred Years War (Part II). Different
Vistas. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16821 3
52. González de León, F. The Road to Rocroi. Class, Culture and Command in the
Spanish Army of Flanders, 1567-1659. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17082 7
53. Lawrence, D.R. The Complete Soldier. Military Books and Military Culture in
Early Stuart England, 1603-1645. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17079 7
54. Beckett, I.F.W. 1917: Beyond the Western Front. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17139 8
ISSN 1385–7827

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1917: Beyond the Western Front

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1917 : beyond the Western Front / edited by Ian F. W. Beckett.

Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by

printed in the netherlands

List of Contributors .................................................................... vii

Planning for the Endgame: The Central Powers,

Generalship and Mass Surrender during the Italian Defeat

‘Weary Waiting is Hard Indeed’: The Grand Fleet after

Counting Unrest: Physical Manifestations of Unrest and

Climax in the Baltic: The German Maritime Offensive in

The Army in India in Mesopotamia from 1916 to 1918:

War Comes to the Fields: Sacrifice, Localism and Ploughing

Index ........................................................................................... 177

Professor Ian Beckett is Professor of History and Director of the Centre

Dr Keith Grieves is Reader in History in the School of Education at

Professor Eric Grove is Professor of Naval History and Director of the

Nick Hewitt is the Historian and Interpretation Officer at the Imperial

Dr Matthew Hughes is Reader at Brunel University and, in 2008–9, Major

Laura Rowe is a postgraduate in the Department of War Studies, King’s

Dr Kaushik Roy is a Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Civil

Professor Lawrence Sondhaus is Director of the Institute for the Study of

include The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918, Franz Conrad von

Dr Vanda Wilcox is Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at John Cabot

When it comes to 1916, popular general histories of the Great War

Siegfriedstellung (Siegfried position) between February and April 1917 that

Panama and Cuba also declared war on Germany on 7 April and, in

April 1918—but also persuaded King George V to change his dynastic

The recall of the Austrian Reichsrat in May had seen it functioning

danger of neutrality in the event of an Entente victory equally brought

Between September 1916, when Paul von Hindenburg and Erich

The Russian Front

Allenstein Lyck Drusskeniki

Lowiez Brest-Litovsk MOSCOW

Opocznow N. Alexandria Rafalovka

Cholm Svidnila Kolki

Krasnik Krasnostav Zatursky

Dembica Siemiawa Rawa-Ruska Kozun

Dukla Sanok Koniuchy

DUKLA Stryj yj Potutory Trembovla

Uskub Shtip Constantinopole

good reason a generation ago historian Gary Shanafelt characterized

staff, an arrangement that made Seeckt the de facto commander of that

as the militarization of labour was ‘a serious threat to the working

increase production as Germany itself had committed to do, under

for Hungary and require the ‘division of the common [Austro-Hungar-

On 17 November Conrad went to Schönbrunn Palace for what

Ludendorff, acknowledging the primacy of the Western Front, moved

devastating campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, Hindenburg

to play the role of faithful, subservient ally to the Germans. In contrast,

sanctuary and aid that Imperial Russia provided to various pan-Slav

Soissons, built during the winter of 1916–17 across a broad salient in

determined to preserve Austro-Hungarian freedom of action as Conrad

deliberate battles of attrition, as Conrad and Falkenhayn had in 1916.

propaganda, as Mark Cornwall has pointed out.47 A number of political

ADA Pi Cividale nz Lom

On 24 October 1917 nine divisions of the Austro-Hungarian army,

following morning, Supreme Command abandoned its headquarters in

offensive of May 1916.11 So what turned a local, limited defeat into

The Italian Generals at Caporetto