General state of political alignment during the First World War.

The complex web of prewar treaties and alliances now influenced events as the various countries mobilized for war.

• 29 Jul 1914

• Germany asks Britain to guarantee its neutrality in a European war; Britain refuses to declare neutrality, ironically fearing that to do so would encourage other nations to war.

• Russia partially mobilizes its military in support of fellow slavs. Germany replies that unless mobilization is stopped, she too will mobilize.

• 30 Jul 1914

  • Britain delivers negative replay to Germany regarding neutrality.

• 31 Jul 1914

• Russia and Austria-Hungary both order full mobilization. Turkey follows suit, having suffered losses in the recent Balkan Wars.

• Britain asks France (a Russian ally) and Germany both for a guarantee of Belgian neutrality. France agrees, Germany does not respond.

• 1 Aug 1914

  • France, Germany and Belgium all follow the example of eastern Europe and order full mobilization.

• 2 Aug 1914

  • France enquires nervously and is reassured by Britain that Germany will not be permitted to move on France via the North Sea.

• 3 Aug 1914

• Germany demands passage through Belgium, Belgium appeals for help to Britain. Germany invades France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Russian Poland, declaring war on France and Belgium.

• Britain orders mobilization and issues ultimatum to Germany to withdraw from Belgium.

Britain's desire to remain outside of the conflict was tempered by the spectre of a single powerful nation in Europe dominating Belgium and controlling Britain's routes to and from the Continent. A predominant Germany - with access to the resources of a defeated France and Russia - was too terrible for Britain to contemplate.

Germany had fomented this war; Germany had struck the first blow; Germany had violated neutral countries that were no threat to her. It was necessary, and in the British interest, for Britain to declare war, and at midnight German time (2300hrs British time) on 4 Aug 1914 she did so.²

As a colony of the British Empire, Canada was also automatically at war. Canada went cheerfully and enthusiastically to war, pledging a full division of 25,000 men to the cause on 5 Aug 1914, and in the third week of Aug 1914 32,665 men were assembled at Valcartier.³

While the UK did not realize the extent of German planning with regards to conquered territories in Belgium and France (which, as it turned out, included clearing border territories in Belgium and resettling with Germans), it was apparent that a "victorious Germany, in occupation of the Channel ports and the coastal strip, would pose a threat to Britain that could not be contemplated. Its prevention was not just worth fighting for: it was essential."⁴

Africa and the Pacific

The extent of European overseas colonization was what turned the war in Europe into a true global war, though many of the battles abroad were relatively minor skirmishes.

In Aug 1914, French and British forces invaded the German protectorate of Togoland in West Africa. Shortly thereafter, on 10 Aug, German forces based in the southwest quadrant of the continent attacked attacked South Africa. New Zealand occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on 30 Aug. On 11 Sep, Australia landed forces on Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of German New Guinea. Japan seized Germany’s Micronesian colonies and the German coaling port of Qingdao, in the Chinese Shandong peninsula. In essence, in the span of a few months, Allied forces gained control of all German territory in the Pacific. Sporadic and fierce fighting, however, continued in East Africa for the remainder of the war, as German forces recruited native soldiers and evaded capture.

Europe

In Europe, the Central Powers suffered from communication problems; Germany's promise to support an Austrian invasion of Serbia was not effectively co-ordinated. Austrian assaults on Serbia were turned back at great coast to the attackers. Large numbers of soldiers from both empires were tied down in Eastern Europe facing the Russian threat, and the war was fought in several theatres, though Canadians were active only on the Western Front before the Armistice.

Western Front 1914-1915

The Western Front was the main theatre of war for Canadians between 1914-1918. Warfare on that front consisted of fluid, open warfare in the opening weeks and closing weeks of the war, but is most commonly associated with trench warfare and battles of attrition.

Combatants

The First World War began with a speedy mobilization. Germany had a standing army of 700,000 men with three million more soldiers able to be activated immediately. France, the immediate target, had a standing army of 820,000 (including some 45,000 colonial troops from Africa and largely stationed in France itself). Some 2,750,000 more troops were able to be activated also. France and Germany both had conscription in which able bodied males served for a number of years as regular soldiers, then were released to civilian life with reserve army commitments and subject to recall for full time service during a mobilization.

The British regular army was small by comparison, 247,432 with a third of that number in India, Ireland, Africa, the Middle East, and small garrisons around the world (including Bermuda and Canada). The Boer War had seen forces sent abroad in greater numbers than ever before; Canada had assisted then and would be necessary in the new conflict, as Britain lacked both the large standing army and large pool of trained reserves that the continental armies relied on. There were some reservists liable to recall, and small numbers of Special Reserve and the Territorial Force - part time, volunteer services.

The Canadian Militia was also tiny, and the mobilization scheme adopted actually excluded the regular infantry of the Permanent Force, Canada's standing army in 1914. Canada had only one regular infantry battalion in 1914, and it was sent to Bermuda to relieve a British garrison there. Two regiments of cavalry and the single regiment of artillery that Canada had serving full time in 1914 were sent with the First Contingent, along with signals and medical personnel from the PF.

Initial Battles

The British Expeditionary Force (BEF, the name of the British field force) moved to France very quickly, and by 9 Aug 1914 was across the Channel and concentrating on the left of the French armies in northern France; on 23 Aug 1914 the BEF moved forward into the corner of Belgium known as Flanders.

Relative Size of Opposing Armies

As Canada mobilized its forces, the BEF went into action at Mons (known to the Flemish as Bergen); French withdrawals to the right forced the BEF to do likewise, and crossed the Marne River on 3 Sep. The German plan called for a sweeping movement far to the west of the French capital, Paris, but French counter-attacks caused the Germans to reorganize and their grand maneuver stopped short of Paris. The Germans were pushed back to the River Aisne, some 40 miles away. What happened next is characterized as the "race to the sea" - successive attempts by both armies to find their enemies' flank, and so the two armies shifted north until the Allies reached the Channel coast at Nieuwpoort in the first week of October. Both armies began to entrench, and a state of siege ensued, both armies burrowing into the ground and eventually occupying long systems of trenches and deadlocked behind barbed wire barricades and concentrations of machine guns and artillery.

That state of siege was still in effect when the 1st Canadian Division went into the trenches on 17 Feb 1915, having been assembled at Valcartier and shipped to the UK to train on Salisbury Plain. The BEF, growing all the time (in Aug 1914 the BEF held 25 miles of front to the French 300; by 1918 those total would be 64 and 260 respectively), held positions of importance in the Ypres Salient. It was here that the Canadian Division first saw action, during the Second Battle of Ypres amid the first German use of poison gas on the Western Front. The Canadian Division performed well under extreme pressure, but by the time the battle was over in the last week of Apr 1915 had lost 50% of its manpower.

However, a second contingent had already been drafted in Oct 1914, and as the battles at St. Julien raged was on the way to Europe. The 2nd Canadian Division went into the trenches in Sep 1915. The year remained a trial for both sides, as they experimented with methods of trench warfare. Like the BEF, the Canadian Expeditionary Force was destined to keep growing also; the Canadian government set a ceiling of 150,000 in Jun 1915, raised it to 250,000 in Oct 1915 and again on 1 Jan 1916 to half a million.⁵

Canada's first offensive operations, at Festubert in May 1915, were not successful. Running into strong German defensive positions wired in strongly and supported by massed machine guns, other problems presented themselves as well. Despite over 100,000 shells being fired, the high explosive shells couldn't cut the German wire. Maps were inaccurate. German weapons were more effective, including grenades and mortars, than the British weapons. The Canadians withdrew and went back into action at Givenchy in Jun 1915, and suffered heavy losses again.

The arrival of a second division heralded also the creation of a Canadian Corps. The Canadians in France rested; the attention of the Allies turned elsewhere, notably the Dardanelles where fighting at Gallipoli had raged since the initial landings in Apr 1915.

Western Front 1916

Allied war strategy for 1916 was largely formulated at Chantilly where a conference held between 6-8 Dec 1915 decided that simultaneous offensives were to be mounted by the Russians in the East, the Italians (now fighting with the Allies) in the Alps and the Anglo-French on the Western Front. The new British Commander in Chief, General Sir Douglas Haig, favoured his offensive in Flanders — close to BEF supply routes and positioned to drive the Germans from the North Sea coast of Belgium, from whence their U-boats were operating. However, as junior partner in the alliance, the British had to follow French direction and in Feb 1916 the decision was made to mount a combined offensive where the French and British armies met - at the Somme River in Picardy. The year 1916 would be a costly one for all the combatants on the Western Front.

Concerted action began for the Canadians at Mount Sorrel in Jun 1916, where the Corps performed well. Their actions were overshadowed by the worst single day in centuries-long history of the British Army. The Battle of the Somme is best known for those appalling casualties on the first day, 1 Jul 1916, in which 20,000 men were killed and 40,000 more were wounded. In fact, the battle would last into Nov 1916, and Canadians - though not involved on the first day - would come to play an increasingly significant role as the battle progressed. Plans for the planned British-French joint offensive were still being formed when the Germans initiated the battle at Verdun on 21 Feb 1916. French capacity to carry out an offensive on the Somme dissipated as the battle raged on, and the Somme offensive now became a British attempt to relieve pressure on the overburdened French.

For the majority of divisions, the first day of the Somme was a terrible bloodletting. The Newfoundland Regiment, serving with the British 29th Division, was engaged at Beaumont-Hamel. According to Middlebrook, 752 Newfoundlanders left their second line trenches, deciding not to take the congested communications trenches to the front line, and were mostly mowed down before making it past their own barbed wire. In the end, 255 men were killed, 386 wounded, and 91 went missing, in only 40 minutes. The Canadian Corps itself did not see action at the Somme until Sep 1916, and using tanks and artillery managed to make impressive gains at Courcelette. The Corps was rewarded for its success by additional missions. The battle raged on until 18 Nov 1916. Officially known as the Battle of Albert, 419,654 British soldiers had become casualties, along with nearly 200,000 French. The Canadians - now numbering four divisions - lost over 24,000 men. The Germans lost 670,000 soldiers.
 

Western Front 1917

Manpower in the Allied armies was becoming problematic; the United Kingdom introduced conscription in 1916, and as a result of the Somme, Canada too was falling short of enlistments. The problem would be exacerbated after the costly victory at Vimy in Apr 1917. Under a new commander - Sir Arthur Currie, the Canadian Corps returned to Ypres in the autumn. The battle at Hill 70 followed, while The Newfoundland Regiment, rebuilt after the Somme, was nearly wiped out in such a counter-attack at Monchy-le-Preux.

By Oct 1917, the war situation was still bleak; the Germans and Austro-Hungarians were preparing war-winning offensives in both Italy and on the Eastern Front, and in the west, the Americans were still not mobilized despite their declaration of war. The French had recovered from their mutinies of the summer but little was expected from them. And objectives set in Jul for the British armies still fighting in the Ypres area were still in German hands. This was Passchendaele, officially, the Third Battle of Ypres. And once again,the Canadians were called in to do what the British could not.

Western Front 1918

The final year of the war saw the Allies stretched to the limit; the Russian Revolution and capitulation on the Eastern Front freed up large amounts of German troops for the west. The collapse of Italian forces at Caporetto meant that French and British divisions had to be bled from the Western Front in order to hold the line in Italy. The United States declared war on the Central Powers in 1917, but as was the case with Canada, mobilization took time and large numbers of combat troops didn't arrive until mid-1918. The Germans sought to press their advantage in the meantime by massive offensives in Mar 1918.

German General Erich Ludendorff's plans (Operation MICHAEL) for a 1918 general offensive along the Western Front were executed in Mar, aimed at dividing the British and French armies in a series of feints and advances and striking a decisive blow before the United States had a chance to deploy significant forces on the Western Front.

The offensive began on 21 Mar 1918 with an attack against British forces near the rail junction at Amiens. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 40 miles and were able to effectively maneuver en masse for the first time since 1914.

Like the Canadians at Vimy the year before, the Germans organized their infantry into small groups and used small scale infiltrations (called Hutier tactics after General Oskar von Hutier). Artillery was used sparingly in comparison to the large offensives of the early war years. These small infiltrations by "stormtroops" were followed up by attacks by more heavily armed German troops.

With the front line extended to within 75 miles of Paris, super-heavy Krupp railway guns were able to shell the French capital, causing a panic among the civil population. Kaiser Wilhelm II declared 24 Mar 24 a national holiday, taken by the success of the offensive.

The celebration was premature; the Germans lacked tanks and motorized artillery and the British and French had learned to give ground on the defence, forcing the Germans to attack over extended areas vulnerable to counter-attack. By the end of Mar, American forces began to deploy to French and British formations. A supreme commander for all allied forces was created, with the BEF (and, consequently, the CEF) subordinated to French Marshal Ferdinand Foch.

Following Operation MICHAEL was Operation GEORGETTE, an attack against the Channel ports. The offensive was more easily stopped with less material loss to the Allies. Other offensives, Operation BLüCHER and YORCK were aimed at Paris and Operation MARNE was launced on 15 Jul in an attempt to encircle Rheims. Allied counter-attacks drove the Germans back to their starting positions by 20 Jul. The spring offensives in the end had gained little, with 270,000 German casualties in Mar and Apr 1918 alone.

Internal dissent in Germany - which would later be incorrectly blamed for their defeat, especially by the Nazis in the 1930s - became rife in Germany, with anti-war protests becoming common, industrial production sagging, food rationing dropping to subsistence levels, and morale in the Army faltering.

The Last 100 Days

The Hundred Days Offensive was the final act of the Allies on the Western Front, covering the period 8 Aug 1918 to 11 Nov 1918.

The German offensives on the Western Front had petered out by Jul 1918; while the Germans had advanced to the Marne River, they failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough. French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied supreme commander, ordered a counter-offensive which became the Second Battle of the Marne forcing a German withdrawal to the north. The Allies then embarked on new offensives, and Field Marshal Haig agreed to attack east of Amiens and southwest of the 1916 battlefields of the Somme. The region was chosen for a number of reasons. As in 1916, the Somme area marked the boundary between the BEF and the French armies, in this case defined by the Amiens-Roye road. Picardy provided good terrain for tanks, which was not the case in Flanders. Finally, the German defences of the Second Army were relatively weak, having been subjected to continual raids by the Australians in a process termed Peaceful Penetration.

The Battle of Amiens opened on 8 Aug 1918 with an attack by 10 divisions and more than 500 tanks, breaking the German lines and opening a 15 mile wide gap. German losses were 17,000 men and 330 guns captured, with total losses estimated to be 30,000 on 8 Aug alone. The Allies suffered roughly 6,500 killed, wounded and missing. By 10 Aug 1918, the advance had slowed as Allied units outran the range of friendly artillery and the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line. The offensive was called off on 15 Aug 1918.

The Second Battle of the Somme opened on 21 Aug 1918, aimed at Albert and eventually achieving a deep breakthrough, as German forces were driven back 35 miles. Albert fell on 22 Aug, Bapaume on the 29th, and Péronne on the 31st.

The battle for the Hindenburg Line followed, as the Germans withdrew to this series of fortifications by 2 Sep 1918, entrenching from Cerny on the Aisne River to Arras. German salients west of the line were reduced in separate battles; at Havrincourt and St Mihiel on 12 Sep 1918, Epehy and Canal du Nord on 18 Sep 1918.

On 26 Sep 1918 a general offensive across much of the Western Front began. The Hindenburg line was broken by Allied troops within hours of the start of the assault.

The final period, known to the Canadian Corps as the Pursuit to Mons, was part of a general pursuit all along the front throughout Oct 1918. The Germans surrendered in Nov, with the Armistice declared to take effect on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1100hrs, 11 Nov 1918.

Military Technology and Tactics

The opening months of the First World War were a dichotomy of 20th Century technology and 19th Century tactics. Infantry units were still organized with the company as the main unit of maneuver. Cavalry, while not completely ineffective given the right conditions for their employment, were retained for breakthroughs that never seemed to come. Artillery in some cases in 1914 was still deploying forward with the infantry firing directly over open sights as a matter of course.

Technology progressed by 1918 to the point that a Canadian force on the battlefield resembled very closely what the Germans would utilize so effectively in 1939; combined arms forces using such technologies as tanks, armoured cars, aircraft in a tactical role, the scientific application of indirect artillery fire, and at the most basic level, small sections of men under the independent control of junior NCOs. It would be a long process of change, however, as the armies of all nations groped their way forward to breaking the deadlock imposed by mud, machine guns and barbed wire, with the summer of 1916 and the bloodbath of the Somme providing the turning point.

Aftermath

The failure of the Great War to produce its expected results - lasting peace, an ongoing prosperity, and the ever-widening acceptance of democracy - has caused that struggle to be viewed negatively...The war has certainly shown that, with the application of industrialization to the business of battle, armed conflict had become - even more than in the past - a cruelly destructive transaction...But this is not all that should be said. Offsetting, if only in a measure, warranted revulsion against this war...are three elements.

 

First, particularly in Britain (and Canada), war helped to generate, if haltingly, notions of a more equal and a more benign society. Women received the vote, the working week was reduced...and people thrown out of work acquired some entitlement to unemployment benefits.

 

Second, the war advanced the notion that identifiable nationalities were entitled to self-government and self-determination...

 

But it is the third aspect that most requires emphasis. Manifestly, in August 1914 the status quo of western Europe was about to vanish. Either the liberal democracies would engage in a terrible episode of bloodletting in order to preserve their independence, or they would avoid bloodshed by permitting the autocracy and militarism of the Kaiser's Germany to overwhelm them.

 

The menace presented to these values by militant, expansionist kaiserism may not have equaled the horrors presented twenty-five years later by aggressive Nazism. But it constituted horror enough: the reversal of so much that had been achieved towards human betterment in the centuries just past, and the desolation of hopes for yet further advancement. Correspondingly, the Great War's vindication of liberal ideals and democratic forms, and its severe rebuff to rampant authoritarianism, was a mighty accomplishment. ⁶

Notes

1. Corrigan, Gordon. Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the First World War (Cassell, London, UK, 2003) ISBN 0304366595 pp.29-30
2. Ibid, p.38
3. Granatstein, Jack. Canada's Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace. (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, ON, 2002). pp. 55-56
4. Corrigan, Ibid, p.39
5. Granatstein, Ibid, pp.72-73
6. Prior, Robin and Trevor Wilson. The First World War (Cassell & Co., London, UK, 2000) pp.211-213

Further Reading

General Accounts - Political and Social (may also include military subjects)

• Keegan, John. The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (Jonathon Cape, Ltd 1976) 352pp Not about Canadians, but perhaps the best history ever written dealing with how men (and horses) behave in battle. An example of serious British historical research at its finest.
• Morton, Desmond. When Your Number's Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War (Random House of Canada, Toronto, ON 1993) Most complete description yet of Canadian soldiers, their morale, training, tactics and equipment, in the First World War.

General Accounts - Military

• Dancocks, D.G. Welcome to Flanders Fields: The First Canadian Battle of the Great War: Ypres 1915 (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto ON 1988) 292pp ISBN 0771025459
  :Account of the raising of the First Contingent and their first action at Second Ypres.
• Duguid, Colonel A. Fortescue Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War 1914-1919 (Minister of National Defence, 1938)

Vimy Ridge

• Berton, Pierre. Vimy (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto ON 1986) 336pp ISBN 0771013396 Interesting and stirring mix of social history and battle reportage.
• Greenhous, B. Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917 (Department of National Defence, Directorate of History, Ottawa, ON 1992) 149pp. ISBN 0660144018