The First World War Part 3

It is impossible to say precisely how many Armenians died. Part of the problem is uncertainty as to how many were living in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 in the first place. Calculations range from 1.3 million to about 2.1 million. The difficulty of dispa.s.sionate a.n.a.lysis is compounded, rather than helped, by the readiness of Armenians and others to use the word 'genocide'. In terms of scale of loss such a word may be appropriate: estimates approaching a million deaths are probably not wide of the mark. In terms of causation the issue is more complex. The initial violence was not centrally orchestrated, although it was indirectly sanctioned by the pan-Turkish flourishes of Enver and others. Once it had begun, it did, however, provoke the very insurrection that it had antic.i.p.ated. The violence of war against the enemy without enabled, and was even seen to justify, extreme measures against the enemy within. By this stage - late May 1915 - the Turkish leaders.h.i.+p was ready to give shape to the whole, to Turkify Anatolia and to finish with the Armenian problem. It defies probability to suppose that those on the spot did not take the instructions from the council of ministers as carte blanche carte blanche for rape and murder. The hit squads of the Tekilat-i Mahsusa set the pace. This was most certainly not a judicial process, and it did not attempt to distinguish the innocent from the guilty or the combatant from the non-combatant. The American consul in Erzurum, Leslie Davis, reported from Kharput, the princ.i.p.al transit point, in July that 'The Turks have already chosen the most pretty from among the children and young girls. They will serve as slaves, if they do not serve ends that are more vile'. for rape and murder. The hit squads of the Tekilat-i Mahsusa set the pace. This was most certainly not a judicial process, and it did not attempt to distinguish the innocent from the guilty or the combatant from the non-combatant. The American consul in Erzurum, Leslie Davis, reported from Kharput, the princ.i.p.al transit point, in July that 'The Turks have already chosen the most pretty from among the children and young girls. They will serve as slaves, if they do not serve ends that are more vile'.11 He was struck by how few men he could see, and concluded that they had been killed on the road. Many thousands of Armenians also succ.u.mbed to famine and disease. Mortality among the 200,000 to 300,000 who fled to the comparative safety of Russia rose to perhaps 50 per cent, thanks to cholera, dysentery and typhus. The Ottoman Empire, a backward state, unable to supply and transport its own army in the field, was in no state to organise large-scale deportations. The Armenians were put into camps without proper accommodation and adequate food. Syria, whither they were bound, was normally agriculturally self-sufficient, but in 1915 the harvest was poor and insufficient to feed even the Ottoman troops in the area. The situation worsened in the ensuing years of the war, the product of the allied blockade, maladministration, h.o.a.rding and speculation. By the end of 1918 mortality in the coastal towns of Lebanon may have reached 500,000. He was struck by how few men he could see, and concluded that they had been killed on the road. Many thousands of Armenians also succ.u.mbed to famine and disease. Mortality among the 200,000 to 300,000 who fled to the comparative safety of Russia rose to perhaps 50 per cent, thanks to cholera, dysentery and typhus. The Ottoman Empire, a backward state, unable to supply and transport its own army in the field, was in no state to organise large-scale deportations. The Armenians were put into camps without proper accommodation and adequate food. Syria, whither they were bound, was normally agriculturally self-sufficient, but in 1915 the harvest was poor and insufficient to feed even the Ottoman troops in the area. The situation worsened in the ensuing years of the war, the product of the allied blockade, maladministration, h.o.a.rding and speculation. By the end of 1918 mortality in the coastal towns of Lebanon may have reached 500,000.

Moreover, in 1915 eastern Anatolia was not the only area of the Ottoman Empire subject to invasion. Indian Expeditionary Force B had moved beyond Basra in a push up the Tigris towards Baghdad, and in the west the capital itself was under threat as the Entente mounted an attack on the Dardanelles. Suspect peoples were moved from other potential combat zones: the Armenian population in Cilicia, which was canva.s.sed as the target of an Entente amphibious operation, and the Greeks along the Bosphorus were also deported. The Turkish army was engaged in a desperate defensive battle on three fronts. Ostensibly it had the strategic advantage of interior lines. Its enemies were approaching from different points of the circ.u.mference, were a long way from their home bases, and were having to operate on sea lines of communication. The Turks, by contrast, could move troops and supplies along the chords within the circle. But such logic a.s.sumed that the Ottoman Empire had a satisfactory system of internal transport. It did not. The Berlin-to-Baghdad railway was not complete. It had still to cross the Taurus and Ama.n.u.s mountains in southern Anatolia, and the track from Aleppo to Baghdad had barely been begun. The Mesopotamian front was even more isolated than the Caucasian, and insurrection anywhere in the interior could only result in the collapse of the entire system. Desperate situations begat desperate responses.

GALLIPOLI.

As the battle of Sarikamish had reached its crisis, on 1 January 1915, the Russians appealed to the British to launch a diversionary operation against the Turks. Lord Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war, was not optimistic, not least because the small British army, depleted by the fierce fighting at Ypres on the western front in November, was fully committed in France. But he recognised that if such an operation were to be mounted its best choice of target would be the Dardanelles, 'particularly if ... reports could be spread at the same time that Constantinople was threatened'.12 Kitchener had opened a door wide enough for his counterpart at the Admiralty to force entry. Kitchener had opened a door wide enough for his counterpart at the Admiralty to force entry.

Winston Churchill had been chafing at the bit since the war's beginning. Wireless telegraphy had enabled him to intervene in operational matters, not always with the happiest of results, as the fates of Cradock and Troubridge testified. But it had not abated his thirst for battle. To his chagrin, more action had come the army's way than the navy's, and he felt particularly keenly the humiliation the senior service had suffered at the hands of the Turks. Here was an opportunity to right the situation. In its pre-war planning, the navy had considered the possibility of amphibious a.s.saults against Germany on the Baltic coast; to apply these principles to Turkey and the Dardanelles seemed logical not only to him but also to Jackie Fisher, restored in August 1914 as First Sea Lord.

Unable to penetrate inland at Gallipoli, British troops perched on the cliffs close to the sea The scene at Gully Ravine, on the Aegean side of the peninsula in September 1915, is of a military shanty-town

In operational terms the project was guided by a great deal of wishful thinking. When he was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean in 1904, Fisher had concluded that storming the straits was 'mightily hazardous'. In 1906 the army's general staff had studied the problem and the then war minister, Richard Haldane, had reported that 'there would be a grave risk of a reverse, which might have a serious effect on the Mohammedan world'.13 And in 1911 Churchill himself wrote that 'it is no longer possible to force the Dardanelles, and n.o.body should expose a modern fleet to such peril'. And in 1911 Churchill himself wrote that 'it is no longer possible to force the Dardanelles, and n.o.body should expose a modern fleet to such peril'.14 Neither the navy nor the army held the key to success. The navy would depend on a sizeable landing - estimates ran between 75,000 and 100,000 men - to deal with the sh.o.r.e defences and so open up the narrower part of the channel, and the army would be reliant on the navy's big guns to provide it with the fire support it would need to effect a lodgement in the first place. Neither the navy nor the army held the key to success. The navy would depend on a sizeable landing - estimates ran between 75,000 and 100,000 men - to deal with the sh.o.r.e defences and so open up the narrower part of the channel, and the army would be reliant on the navy's big guns to provide it with the fire support it would need to effect a lodgement in the first place.

The operational difficulties did not, however, invalidate the powerful attractions of the scheme in terms of grand strategy. It was an undertaking suited to Britain's military capabilities - a large navy and an army ill adapted to the ma.s.s warfare being played out in western Europe. Kitchener was right: for a diversion to have maximum effect, the Gallipoli peninsula was the place. It was home to the Ottoman 1st Army, essentially the empire's strategic reserve, and a landing would prevent those troops' redeployment elsewhere. Moreover, his suggestion that success might open the way to Constantinople with further wide-ranging consequences was not as far-fetched as some of the campaign's critics have contended. Grey, the British foreign secretary, thought military action might provoke a coup d'etat in the Ottoman capital: given the instability of Turkish politics in the years preceding the war, as well as the divisions on the issue of entry to the war itself, this was hardly an unreasonable expectation. British intelligence offered a bribe of 4 million. Offering cash was not in itself misplaced: the Ottoman public debt was evidence of that. The real difficulty was that the Germans had just handed over 5 million.

Moreover, success at Gallipoli might have repercussions in two directions. Both the Central Powers and the Entente were actively competing for allies in the Balkans. Indeed, the possibility that Greece might side with the British in August 1914, and that therefore its army would be available for use against Turkey, was what had first triggered the Gallipoli idea in Churchill's mind. Victory in the region would give substance to British approaches to Bulgaria and possibly Romania. For the first time in the war, therefore, the Western allies would give real succour to the hard-pressed Serbs. To the east, forcing the straits would open a warm-water route to Russia. Both the British and the French were convinced of the latent power of the 'Russian steam-roller'. It seemed to them that Russia had the men to mount the more effective challenge to the Central Powers if only it had the arms with which to equip them. Britain could either provide munitions direct or use its credit in the international market to buy them overseas. Little wonder, then, that many Germans thought the Dardanelles campaign was the most important of the war in 1915. The Foreign Ministry was particularly concerned that its ambitions in the Balkans and Germany's route to the wider world via the Ottoman Empire would be forfeit. But its worries were shared by some members of the army, even if their focus was more Eurocentric: 'It seems to me', Wilhelm Groener wrote in his diary on 9 March 1915, 'not impossible that the Dardanelles question could give the whole war a different direction.'15 Groener was the general staff's head of railways. He thought that, if the allies' supply route to Russia was opened, Romania would join the Entente, and Russia would defeat Austria-Hungary. Groener was the general staff's head of railways. He thought that, if the allies' supply route to Russia was opened, Romania would join the Entente, and Russia would defeat Austria-Hungary.

These ends outstripped the means the Entente had available. The Anglo-French alliance of 1904 was predicated on an acceptance of the two powers' respective spheres of influence in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The Dardanelles expedition threatened to undermine this delicate balance by reestablis.h.i.+ng British predominance in the Mediterranean, especially given French long-term designs on Syria should the Ottoman Empire implode. The French navy shared the view that the scheme was impracticable, but neither the naval minister nor the French government as a whole was disposed to be left behind if the British were going ahead. The real constraint was the att.i.tude of Joffre, who, as commander-in-chief in France itself, argued that he needed every available soldier, French or British, for the western front. Theophile Delca.s.se, the architect of the Entente and the French foreign minister, wanted to delay until troops were available, but Churchill would not. The upshot was that the efforts of the navy and the army were conducted in succession, not in combination.

The Turks had plenty of warning that a naval attack up the narrows might be a possibility, and with German help had done much to improve their defences. 'My first impression', the American amba.s.sador, Henry Morgenthau, recorded of a tour of the defences, 'was that I was in Germany. The officers were practically all Germans and everywhere Germans were building b.u.t.tresses with sacks of sand and in other ways strengthening the emplacements.'16 As British and French wars.h.i.+ps entered the straits, they were vulnerable to mines. Therefore the mines had to be swept first, but minesweepers had to cope with the fire from the batteries and a fast current flowing from the direction of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. The result of these interlocking problems was that naval enthusiasm for the scheme waned, particularly that of Fisher and of the naval commander on the spot, Admiral Sackville Carden. However, Churchill remained determined and on 18 March an attempt was made to 'rush through' the straits using wars.h.i.+ps in daylight. Carden fell sick on the morning of the attack, and his deputy, Admiral John de Robeck, described what happened as a disaster. Three s.h.i.+ps - two British and one French - were sunk by mines. Churchill maintained - as have others - that if the attack had been renewed on the next day it would have succeeded, because the Turks were running low on munitions. They were not. In any case, de Robeck had not abandoned the idea of a naval operation; gales prevented any action over the next five days. What de Robeck did accept was that the navy should operate in conjunction with the army - so that the batteries could be attacked from the landward side. As British and French wars.h.i.+ps entered the straits, they were vulnerable to mines. Therefore the mines had to be swept first, but minesweepers had to cope with the fire from the batteries and a fast current flowing from the direction of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. The result of these interlocking problems was that naval enthusiasm for the scheme waned, particularly that of Fisher and of the naval commander on the spot, Admiral Sackville Carden. However, Churchill remained determined and on 18 March an attempt was made to 'rush through' the straits using wars.h.i.+ps in daylight. Carden fell sick on the morning of the attack, and his deputy, Admiral John de Robeck, described what happened as a disaster. Three s.h.i.+ps - two British and one French - were sunk by mines. Churchill maintained - as have others - that if the attack had been renewed on the next day it would have succeeded, because the Turks were running low on munitions. They were not. In any case, de Robeck had not abandoned the idea of a naval operation; gales prevented any action over the next five days. What de Robeck did accept was that the navy should operate in conjunction with the army - so that the batteries could be attacked from the landward side.

The landings on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April 1915 were therefore not seen as the cue for the navy to hand over the attack to the army. The army relied on s.h.i.+p-based artillery support, but the navy confronted considerable technical difficulties in providing it. The maps it was using were inaccurate; the ground itself steep and intersected; and observation of fire inadequate. There were too few aeroplanes in the theatre, and the orders to the navy's sh.o.r.e-based observers specifically instructed them to direct fire at targets a safe distance from allied soldiers. Despite all this, naval gunfire could be enormously effective. But the Turks learnt to neutralise it by attacking at night or at first light, when observation was difficult, or by keeping their trenches close in to the allied positions to maximise the risk to the British from 'friendly fire'. On 25 May German submarines sank HMS Triumph Triumph and on 27 May HMS and on 27 May HMS Majestic. Majestic. All capital s.h.i.+ps were withdrawn to port, and only destroyers with 4-inch guns remained to support land operations. The navy's major contribution thereafter was also submarine - sinking the Turkish merchant vessels supporting the troops on the peninsula; the Turks lost half their merchant fleet in the campaign. All capital s.h.i.+ps were withdrawn to port, and only destroyers with 4-inch guns remained to support land operations. The navy's major contribution thereafter was also submarine - sinking the Turkish merchant vessels supporting the troops on the peninsula; the Turks lost half their merchant fleet in the campaign.

Sir Ian Hamilton, the British general given charge of the British, French and imperial forces, was a sixty-two-year-old protege of Kitchener, who had seen extensive service in colonial wars. He later attributed his failure to insufficient manpower and material. The impression was created that his small force was taking on the might of the Turkish army in its own backyard. But Hamilton did not complain about the manpower situation at the time, and he would not really have been justified if he had.

The Dardanelles area was commanded by Liman von Sanders. He ex-pected a landing at Bulair across the neck of the peninsula. But Hamilton had rejected this option precisely because the aim was to open the pa.s.sage for the s.h.i.+ps, and Bulair was both a long way from the Dardanelles batteries and a difficult place for the navy to give fire support. He therefore chose to put his main forces ash.o.r.e along the tip of Cape h.e.l.les. The French mounted a diversionary attack on k.u.m Kale on the Asiatic side of the straits. Further north, on the Aegean side of the peninsula, the Australian and New Zealander Army Corps went ash.o.r.e behind Hamilton's immediate target, the Kilid Bahr range. Originally slated for Europe, they had stopped in Egypt for training when the war with Turkey was declared. There they earned a reputation for mayhem and indiscipline, mingled with combativeness and high morale, which was to last throughout the war.

A British field battery falls back from Ctesiphon to Kut, November 1915. Its 18-pounder gun, with a calibre of 83 8 mm, was much more powerful than its French or German equivalents, but in 1914 it had no high explosive sh.e.l.l, being supplied only with shrapnel

Gallipoli has been defined as the moment when Australia came of age as a nation. This was largely the work of C. E. W Bean, who managed to get himself accepted as Australia's war correspondent, rather than as the representative of an individual newspaper. Bean was born in Britain and was educated at the same English public school, Clifton, as Douglas Haig. In being a first-generation Australian he was little different from most of the Anzac soldiers on whom he reported. They fought not for Australia or New Zealand but for the 'old country', with which they still had strong ties of kins.h.i.+p and sentiment. Moreover, most of them were city-dwellers, not the bronzed 'diggers' from the outback of popular legend. Nor were they necessarily more natural soldiers than any other troops in this war. Morale came close to collapse on 25 April. The landings at Z beach were poorly managed, with too many troops cl.u.s.tering towards the north, in what became known as Anzac Cove. The result was congestion and administrative chaos. Moreover, here the Turkish reaction was vigorous and swift. Disregarding Liman von Sanders's orders to wait until he could be sure about the direction of the main attack, Mustafa Kemal committed his whole division to holding the high ground above the beaches. 'I knew - I don't know how, but one guessed from the way those guns were firing at all of ours, that the troops were being very severely tried', Bean wrote in his diary of that afternoon's fighting. 'It was sickening to hear it.'17 Many unwounded An zacs were making their way back to the beaches, and both the corps' divisional commanders favoured re-embarkation. They were overruled, not least because the navy said evacuation was impossible. There were tensions, too, at lower levels of command. A New Zealand lieutenant-colonel, William Malone of the Wellington Battalion, thought that the Australian commanding officer commanding the unit alongside his should have been court-martialled and that his men were 'a source of weakness'. When the Australians were relieved on 28 April, he wrote: 'It was an enormous relief to see the last of them. I believe they are spasmodically brave and probably the best of them had been killed or wounded. They have been, I think, badly handled and trained. Officers in most cases no good.' Many unwounded An zacs were making their way back to the beaches, and both the corps' divisional commanders favoured re-embarkation. They were overruled, not least because the navy said evacuation was impossible. There were tensions, too, at lower levels of command. A New Zealand lieutenant-colonel, William Malone of the Wellington Battalion, thought that the Australian commanding officer commanding the unit alongside his should have been court-martialled and that his men were 'a source of weakness'. When the Australians were relieved on 28 April, he wrote: 'It was an enormous relief to see the last of them. I believe they are spasmodically brave and probably the best of them had been killed or wounded. They have been, I think, badly handled and trained. Officers in most cases no good.'18 The problems at Anzac Cove were not reproduced at most of the main beaches at h.e.l.les. Against their expectations, the British got ash.o.r.e with comparative ease, except at V beach. The Turks were in disarray, held back by Liman von Sanders's orders. But the failure to exploit the opportunity with a rapid follow-up to the landings condemned the allied advance to a stalemate comparable with that which had now established itself on the western front. Successive attacks on Krithia, a village on the forward slopes of the high ground of Achi Baba which dominated the peninsula, failed. As the Turks built up their defences, so trench warfare a.s.serted itself. The differences from the western front were the products of the terrain and the climate. The narrow and steep foothold on the sh.o.r.e meant that the positions had little depth, and that the only relief was to go for a swim in the sea. But the heat that made that an attractive option also brought flies and then disease, particularly dysentery; water supplies were a constant headache. Only 30 per cent of British casualties in the campaign were sustained in battle.

The allies' forward bases were on the islands of Imbros and Lemnos, and those further back in Egypt and Malta. On the hospital s.h.i.+ps the nurses were women. One, a New Zealander called Lottie LeGallais, wrote in September, 'it was dreadful, and what with fleas and crawlers my skin at present is nearly raw, but we all scratch - scratch - except the men patients poor devils, they are used to them'. In November a transport was torpedoed, and LeGallais reported on the fate of the nurses. 'Fox they say her back was broken, another nurse both legs; Rattray had two nurses keeping her up for hours, they were holding on to spars & with hands crossed these girls kept Rattray up until she became mental & died of exhaustion.'19 The respect that built up between the allies and the Turks should not be exaggerated. There were armistices to collect the dead. But snipers when captured were regularly shot out of hand, as were other prisoners. One French officer, Jean Giraudoux, wrote on 13 June 1915, 'The Australians ma.s.sacre all the Turks: the Australian's national enemy, one of them said to me, is the Turk'.20 Nor could British prisoners necessarily expect any better treatment. Some Ottoman soldiers, uprooted from inner Anatolia, thought they were off to fight Greece, a traditional enemy, but others were like Hasan Ethem, who wrote to tell his mother that he had prayed: 'My G.o.d, all that heroic soldiers want is to introduce thy name to the French and English. Please accept this honourable desire of ours and make our bayonets sharper so that we may destroy our enemy! ... You have already destroyed a great number of them so destroy some more.' Nor could British prisoners necessarily expect any better treatment. Some Ottoman soldiers, uprooted from inner Anatolia, thought they were off to fight Greece, a traditional enemy, but others were like Hasan Ethem, who wrote to tell his mother that he had prayed: 'My G.o.d, all that heroic soldiers want is to introduce thy name to the French and English. Please accept this honourable desire of ours and make our bayonets sharper so that we may destroy our enemy! ... You have already destroyed a great number of them so destroy some more.'21 On 6 August Hamilton tried to relaunch the campaign with a thrust from the Anzac positions designed to secure the high ground of the Sari Bair ridge. Only Chunuk Bair was captured, by Malone's Wellington Battalion, but it could not hold the forward slope and Malone himself was killed by friendly naval fire. Simultaneously a landing to the north at Suvla Bay was designed to support the attack on Sari Bair by capturing the high ground adjacent to it, and by establis.h.i.+ng a new port for the navy to use. When the Anzac attacks miscarried, Hamilton presented the Suvla thrust as the princ.i.p.al one and found a scapegoat for his setback in its dilatory corps commander, Sir Frederick Stopford.

The idea of evacuation had been bruited before the Suvla landings; after their failure it grew in force. 'Raining tonight', Bean wrote in his journal on 26 August. 'I think our hards.h.i.+ps will really begin with the winter - though I must say that, by the way in which the Tommies, who come here from elsewhere compare their lot as enviable, I am not sure that we haven't been greater heroes than we were inclined to think of ourselves.'22 The story of the evacuation at the end of 1915 is traditionally told as one of excellent staff work and successful deception, an effort to salvage some relic of self-respect from defeat. But, for all the difficulties of disengaging from an enemy in the field, the key point remains that it was hardly in the Turks' interests to prolong the allies' departure or to incur further losses needlessly. The Turks had 86,692 dead; the French suffered 10,000 more than the Australians, whose deaths totalled 8,709, a low number by the horrific standards of this war; the French dead were less than half those of the British. New Zealand's losses were smaller still, 2,721. The story of the evacuation at the end of 1915 is traditionally told as one of excellent staff work and successful deception, an effort to salvage some relic of self-respect from defeat. But, for all the difficulties of disengaging from an enemy in the field, the key point remains that it was hardly in the Turks' interests to prolong the allies' departure or to incur further losses needlessly. The Turks had 86,692 dead; the French suffered 10,000 more than the Australians, whose deaths totalled 8,709, a low number by the horrific standards of this war; the French dead were less than half those of the British. New Zealand's losses were smaller still, 2,721.

It was not only Australian and New Zealand national ident.i.ty that was forged at Gallipoli, it was also Turkey's. This was a major victory, less for the Ottoman Empire than for the ethnically and geographically more defined state that emerged from the First World War. Moreover, although many of the architects of the defensive battle were German, it produced a Turkish hero who became the founder of that state, Mustafa Kemal. It was he who was accorded the credit for rallying the Turks at Anzac on 25 April, and it was he whose men had checked Malone's New Zealanders at Chunuk Bair on 8 August.

MESOPOTAMIA.

In Entente counsels what militated against evacuation from Gallipoli was not the effects within Turkey but the wider political ramifications within the Muslim world. In Mesopotamia, too, the British forces had overreached themselves. Easy victories at the outset had spurred on the ambitions of Sir John Nixon, the commander on the spot. Grandiose notions of a converging movement linking with the Russians coming down through Persia and Azerbaijan did not help. But the real difficulty was that Nixon was not subject to firm direction. In London, the general staff at the War Office was cautious, anxious not to overcommit itself so far from the main theatre of operations in Europe. But the campaign was less the responsibility of the War Office and more that of the Government of India: it provided the bulk of the troops. Indian official opinion was divided. On the one hand, it was attracted to control of Mesopotamia in order to secure India. Moreover, a major victory against the Turks would settle Muslim sentiment in the subcontinent, an argument which grew in force as the setbacks on the Gallipoli peninsula mounted. On the other, this argument cut two ways: another setback in the war against the Turks would be disastrous for British prestige in the Islamic world.

Ambition overrode caution. The British general staff estimates of 60,000 troops being sent to reinforce the Ottoman 6th Army were grossly exaggerated, even after the Turks had cleared the threat to the Dardanelles. The Turks had about 17,000 men in Mesopotamia at the outset of the war. By the winter of 1915 - 16, the 6th Army mustered 25,000 men. It had no heavy artillery and it was four to six weeks' march from Constantinople. In March 1915 Nixon enjoyed at least a two-to-one superiority, and he was authorised to occupy the whole province of Basra up as far as Kut al-Amara, a town on a bend of the Tigris, and at its confluence with the Shatt al-Hai. With Kut secured by the end of September, Nixon now pressed for an advance on Baghdad itself. His forward divisional commander, Sir Charles Townshend, had become a national hero in 1895, when he was besieged in Chitral on the North-West Frontier of India. Townshend was reluctant to go on. He had reached the limit of his logistical capabilities. His medical arrangements were inadequate and the navigation of the Tigris down to Basra was impeded by low water. But most important of all he was doubtful of the quality of his Indian troops.

In July 1914 the government of India said it could provide two divisions and one cavalry brigade for use outside India. In the event Nixon's command was one of four expeditionary forces it sent overseas. India enlisted over a million men during the course of the war, but in so extending itself it strained both its infrastructure and its recruiting base. When Townshend reached Ctesiphon (or Selman Pak) on 22 November 1915 his units were one-third below their establishment. The Turks fought a successful defensive action. However, Townshend's decision to fall back on Kut was a reflection of his waning confidence rather than of any Turkish superiority. At Ctesiphon almost half his British officers were sick or wounded, and the lack of officers had two direct consequences for his force, as well as for its relief when it found itself besieged in Kut. First, staff work collapsed. Townshend himself failed to form a proper estimate of his food position or of how long he could hold out. Back at Basra, a divisional staff could not be formed for the three brigades that arrived in January 1916. Second, junior leaders.h.i.+p declined and morale with it. Townshend was reluctant to breach religious scruples regarding diet for fear of worsening the spirit of his troops, but he could not prevent 147 of them deserting during the course of the siege. Rather than fight his way out, he waited for relief which did not arrive. The winter rains now raised the water level of the Tigris, so aiding navigation but rendering operations along its banks extraordinarily difficult: 'the entire surface of the land', Abdul Rauf Khan, serving with an Indian field ambulance, wrote, 'becomes a quagmire in which the slush is knee deep'.23 The relieving force could not envelop the Turks in its path: it was tied on one flank to the river that provided its transport, and it lacked the manpower to stretch out into the slush to get round the other. Four attempts resulted in 23,000 casualties, almost twice the strength of the Kut garrison. The relieving force could not envelop the Turks in its path: it was tied on one flank to the river that provided its transport, and it lacked the manpower to stretch out into the slush to get round the other. Four attempts resulted in 23,000 casualties, almost twice the strength of the Kut garrison.

For Nixon the siege of Kut was a means to other ends: the British forward base for its advance into Mesopotamia and the pivot of a ma.s.sive allied envelopment involving the Russians swinging through Persia. It similarly acquired a dual significance for the Turks and Germans. In October 1915 the septuage narian German general Colmar von der Goltz was given the command of the 6th Army. His mission, Enver told him, was 'to prepare an independent war against India'.24 Von der Goltz's primary objective was not to re-establish Ottoman control of lower Mesopotamia but to keep the route open through Persia and Afghanistan. He was to carry the holy war to the heart of the British Empire. It was a task which revealed the dependence of the Turkish - German alliance on achieving pragmatic congruities despite divergent aims. Berlin promoted Persia's independence; Constantinople sought its subjugation. The capture of Kut provided a short-term priority which glossed over the differences in long-term strategy. Von der Goltz's primary objective was not to re-establish Ottoman control of lower Mesopotamia but to keep the route open through Persia and Afghanistan. He was to carry the holy war to the heart of the British Empire. It was a task which revealed the dependence of the Turkish - German alliance on achieving pragmatic congruities despite divergent aims. Berlin promoted Persia's independence; Constantinople sought its subjugation. The capture of Kut provided a short-term priority which glossed over the differences in long-term strategy.

Kut fell on 29 April 1916. Townshend and 13,000 men went into a captivity from which very few of them returned. Townshend was an exception, living in comfort overlooking the Bosphorus for the remainder of the war. Britain's humiliation in the Middle East and Central Asia was complete. Its worst fear, that of resurgent Islam in the empire, seemed to be about to be realised. 'For me', von der Goltz had written home, '... the hallmark of the twentieth century must be the revolution of the coloured races against the colonial imperialism of Europe.'25 In 1916 the novelist John Buchan produced In 1916 the novelist John Buchan produced Greenmantle, Greenmantle, one of the best-known of what he called his 'shockers'. In some ways its plot seems far-fetched and unconvincing; in reality it was very close to the truth. At the time Buchan was working for the War Propaganda Bureau, the press arm of the British Foreign Office. In his novel, the hero, Richard Hannay, is briefed by Sir Walter Bullivant: 'There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched gra.s.ses wait the spark. And the wind is blowing towards the Indian border.... We have laughed at the Holy War, the Jehad that old von der Goltz prophesied. But I believe that stupid old man with the big spectacles was right. There is a Jehad preparing.' one of the best-known of what he called his 'shockers'. In some ways its plot seems far-fetched and unconvincing; in reality it was very close to the truth. At the time Buchan was working for the War Propaganda Bureau, the press arm of the British Foreign Office. In his novel, the hero, Richard Hannay, is briefed by Sir Walter Bullivant: 'There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched gra.s.ses wait the spark. And the wind is blowing towards the Indian border.... We have laughed at the Holy War, the Jehad that old von der Goltz prophesied. But I believe that stupid old man with the big spectacles was right. There is a Jehad preparing.'26 Buchan's novel concerns spies and skulduggery. So did German methods and British counters. Fiction and fact were closely intertwined. A German expedition crossed Persia to reach Kabul, in a bid to persuade the Emir to raise an army for the invasion of India. German consuls in the United States bought arms for s.h.i.+pment to Indian revolutionaries. Their agents penetrated nationalist movements throughout North Africa and Central Asia, and their propaganda was disseminated from locations in Constantinople and neutral Bern. And yet there was no holy war. The Muslim soldiers of India remained loyal to the British. Moreover, the defeats at Gallipoli and Kut overshadowed a far more significant albeit limited victory, the successful defence of the Suez Ca.n.a.l against Turkish attack in February 1915 and July 1916. The key waterway linking the British Empire to the east with that in the west was held, and the threat of revolution in Egypt was contained. Germany's global strategy was checked.

Charles Townshend goes into captivity at Kut Unlike his men, few of whom survived prison, he spent the rest of the war in what he described as 'a sort of country vicarage' on an island in the sea of Marmara One explanation for the Central Powers' failure was that ideologies were on the cusp. The force of religion, on which holy war relied, was declining, while that of nationalism was not yet as developed or as powerful outside Europe as it was within. The Young Turks played both cards, as did the Germans, but in doing so they sent a message that was contradictory. Islam was universal in its appeal, while nationalism was particular. Moreover, the nationalism of the Young Turks translated into imperialism when carried beyond the frontiers of Anatolia. It therefore conflicted with the message of genuine independence that the Germans wished to convey. But Wilhelmine Germany was tied to the coat-tails of Turkey. It could never become a force to undermine overseas imperialism when it itself lacked the military clout to translate promises into deeds. The British, as well as the French and Russians, were right to take the danger seriously. In doing so, they warded it off - at least for the time being.

5.

SHACKLED TO A CORPSE.

EAST PRUSSIA.

The religion of Muscovite imperialism is primitive and medieval, literally half barbaric. Its peasant and national culture belong overwhelmingly to the same inferior category - if they are not wholly and purely Asiatic ... Not only the perceptions of law, but also all morality and all social feeling belong to a backward west and central Asian type, not a European one ... Therefore France's and Britain's alliance with Russia against Germany and Austria-Hungary is an alliance not only against Germany and Austria-Hungary, but also against the inseparable joint life interests of all Europe.1 These words, published in 1915, are those not of a German but of a Swede, not of a conservative but of a socialist. However, in 1914 they were sentiments which both rallied Germans of all political persuasions and convinced them that they were in the vanguard of civilisation. Socialists and trade unionists might feel beleaguered in Germany, but they knew that they would suffer far more under the heel of tsarist autocracy. The defence of what they had gained for the working cla.s.s, both politically and materially, now required them to protect the nation. When the German Socialist Party met on 3 August 1914 to discuss its stance on the war, the time for prevarication was past. Germany was already at war with Russia and France. It resolved to vote in the Reichstag in favour of war credits. It hoped that, by opting for collusion rather than confrontation with the Reich, it would secure const.i.tutional reform, but its decision was unconditional.

The plight of peasants in East Prussia justified the socialists' stance. Although the Russian cavalry proved inept in its reconnaissance, in mid-August its leading formations pushed into German territory. One of its officers, Vladimir Littauer, later admitted, 'The scene on the German side of the border was ... frightening. For miles, farms, haystacks, and barns were burning ... Like every army under the sun, we looted and destroyed, and later hated to admit it.'2 On 23 August Max Hoffmann, chief of operations with the German 8th Army, wrote in his diary: 'There has never been such a war as this, and never will be again - waged with such b.e.s.t.i.a.l fury'. On 23 August Max Hoffmann, chief of operations with the German 8th Army, wrote in his diary: 'There has never been such a war as this, and never will be again - waged with such b.e.s.t.i.a.l fury'.3 On the same day refugees arrived in Berlin with reports 'of heads being cut off, children being burned, women raped'. On the same day refugees arrived in Berlin with reports 'of heads being cut off, children being burned, women raped'.4 As in the case of atrocities in Belgium, rumour and then propaganda ran ahead of reality, but the reports from East Prussia rested on less secure foundations. After the war the Germans' official history claimed that within four weeks the Russians had killed 1,620 civilians, but in 1915 they themselves had put the figure as no higher than 101. Moreover, there is no evidence that, in this invasion, unlike those of Belgium and Serbia, the high command deliberately used terror in a pre-emptive strike against civilian resistance. 'The wish of the Tsar of all the Russias', the commander of the Russian 1st Army, Paul Rennenkampf, instructed, 'is to take care of the peaceful inhabitants'. As in the case of atrocities in Belgium, rumour and then propaganda ran ahead of reality, but the reports from East Prussia rested on less secure foundations. After the war the Germans' official history claimed that within four weeks the Russians had killed 1,620 civilians, but in 1915 they themselves had put the figure as no higher than 101. Moreover, there is no evidence that, in this invasion, unlike those of Belgium and Serbia, the high command deliberately used terror in a pre-emptive strike against civilian resistance. 'The wish of the Tsar of all the Russias', the commander of the Russian 1st Army, Paul Rennenkampf, instructed, 'is to take care of the peaceful inhabitants'. 5 5 However, the supply arrangements of the Russians had been neglected before the war and collapsed as soon as they started their advance. They subsisted by plundering, and what they could not take with them they destroyed. As elsewhere, mobile warfare generated its own horrors. However, the supply arrangements of the Russians had been neglected before the war and collapsed as soon as they started their advance. They subsisted by plundering, and what they could not take with them they destroyed. As elsewhere, mobile warfare generated its own horrors.

Call-up was more widely opposed in Russia than in any other country whose army was mobilised in 1914 Peasants worried about what would happen to their families and the land in their absence None the less, 96 per cent reported for duty

The Bosnian crisis of 1908-9 had convinced the Russians that the Austrians would not go to war without German support. But this belief did not resolve the issue of how to deploy their forces. When the Russians had first allied themselves with France, in 1890, they antic.i.p.ated that the Germans would strike east first, before turning west. The French alliance would therefore guard Russia's back while it dealt with Austria-Hungary. Russia's defeat at the hands of j.a.pan in 1904-5 and the subsequent revolution had two effects. First, it encouraged Russia to concentrate its forces in the heart of the country, so that it could confront threats in Asia as well as in Europe: Poland, Russia's westernmost territory and vulnerable to envelopment by Germany from the north and by Austria-Hungary from the south, was abandoned. Second, Russian weakness permitted the German general staff to plan on striking France before it turned east to face Russia. The result was that the boot was now on the other foot: France needed Russia to hit Germany from the east as soon as possible so as to relieve the pressure in the west.

In 1911 the French general staff had asked the Russian army to attack the German army by the fifteenth day of mobilisation. The request was problematic. Russia had insufficient railway track in relation to its vast size to complete its mobilisation so quickly, especially given its abandonment of Poland. Moreover, the war plan it had adopted in 1910, although it was certainly weighted towards Germany rather than Austria-Hungary, was primarily defensive in orientation. Between 1910 and 1914 Russia increased the number of trains it could send westward from 250 a day to 360, but by the fifteenth day of the war only half the infantry was mobilised and no more than twenty-seven out of 114 divisions were concentrated. In 1912 the chief of staff of the Kiev military district, M. V Alekseyev, pointed out that the army of Austria-Hungary in Galicia was more beatable than that of Germany, and that Poland provided the opportunity to attack across the upper reaches of the Vistula against its flank and rear. But that a.s.sumed that the French would bear the strain against Germany. The result was compromise. The 1912 Russian war plan had two variants, Case A for Austria-Hungary using three armies (but in the event four) and Case G for Germany employing two armies. In 1914 both were implemented. Two more armies were kept in reserve, and in due course they gave rise to a third variant. Successes to the south against Austria-Hungary in Galicia and to the north against Germany in East Prussia would secure the flanks of Russia's Polish salient. A thrust from Poland to Posen would open the most direct route to Berlin. This second stage was what would give unity to Case A and Case G, and it exerted a powerful pull on the Tsar's lanky uncle, Grand Duke Nikolay, when he a.s.sumed the command of the armies on the outbreak of the war.

Geography intended the Russo-German frontier for defensive warfare, not offensive, and both sides had worked on that a.s.sumption. Russian defensive planning had deliberately left the area south of East Prussia devoid of roads and railways. But this was the way that the Russian 2nd Army now had to come as it aimed to envelop the German 8th Army and cut it off from its line of retreat across the lower Vistula. The Masurian lakes, which screened the central and south-eastern section of the frontier for over 100 km, separated the 2nd Army from its partner, the 1st Army, which was intended to fix the Germans frontally between the lakes and the fortified city of Konigsberg (today's Kaliningrad). As the 2nd Army advanced, its front extended to left and right - the left reaching deep into Germany and towards the Vistula, egged on by the aspirations of Grand Duke Nikolay's third variant, and the right bidding to make contact with the 1st Army. The latter fought the Germans in defensive positions at Gumbinnen on the River Angerapp on 20 August, but Rennenkampf then paused to consolidate and resupply. The German 8th Army was free to break contact; by 23 August only a single cavalry division faced the Russian 1st Army.

The Germans prepared positions to strengthen the natural defences which the Masurian lakes gave East Prussia But their victories here were the product of manoeuvre

As he was fighting the battle of Gumbinnen, the commander of the German 8th Army, Maximilian Prittwitz und Gaffron, received an aerial reconnaissance report saying that elements of the Russian 2nd Army were in Mlawa. Prittwitz's first reaction was panic. At 7 p.m. on the 20th he ordered the 8th Army to fall back on the Vistula. His response was ill calculated. The Russians were already closer to the Vistula than he was; he could not save the situation by retreat. Moreover, the territory that he proposed to give up was German; it ill behoved the much-vaunted German army to abandon its own citizens to Russian occupation. Prittwitz's superior, the chief of the general staff, Moltke, had told him: 'When the Russians come, not defence only, but offensive, offensive, offensive'.6 These instructions were not as absurd as the raw balance of forces suggested. The Germans had 158 battalions of infantry, 78 squadrons of cavalry and 774 guns to face a Russian force of 354 battalions, 331 squadrons and 1,428 guns. In addition, thanks to Manchuria, the Russian army had the advantage in recent combat experience: this was the first time the German army had been to war for over forty years. But East Prussia was where the German general staff had learnt its craft in staff rides and manoeuvres. It knew the ground, and Schlieffen had taught it that in a defensive battle the Masurian lakes provided the opportunity for operations on interior lines. In other words, the lakes would separate the Russians, while the railway network would allow the Germans to redeploy behind the lakes along the short chord from north-east to south-west. Max Hoffmann and Colonel Grunert, the 8th Army's quartermaster, set out to persuade Prittwitz that, 'it was necessary to stop the advance of the Warsaw [2nd] Army, and that the best way of doing this would be through an offensive thrust against the left wing of that army'.7 I Corps on the left wing of the German front at Gumbinnen should move by train to the right wing of XX Corps, which faced the Russian 2nd Army's left; the other two corps at Gumbinnen should march directly westwards to the 2nd Army's right wing. Prittwitz was won over, but his conversion was too late to save his career. Moltke's headquarters at Koblenz had taken soundings with all Prittwitz's corps commanders, none of whom favoured the retreat to the Vistula. Moltke therefore dismissed Prittwitz and his chief of staff. In their stead he appointed a retired veteran of the 1866 war against Austria, Paul von Hindenburg, now aged sixty-seven, and, as Hindenburg's chief of staff, Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff had been Moltke's chief of operations, but had lost his job when his outspoken advocacy of full conscription had upset conservative sensibilities. He was bourgeois and careerist, and his allegiance was less to the Kaiser than to his own ambition. In Hoffmann's estimation, 'He is the right man for this business - ruthless and hard'. I Corps on the left wing of the German front at Gumbinnen should move by train to the right wing of XX Corps, which faced the Russian 2nd Army's left; the other two corps at Gumbinnen should march directly westwards to the 2nd Army's right wing. Prittwitz was won over, but his conversion was too late to save his career. Moltke's headquarters at Koblenz had taken soundings with all Prittwitz's corps commanders, none of whom favoured the retreat to the Vistula. Moltke therefore dismissed Prittwitz and his chief of staff. In their stead he appointed a retired veteran of the 1866 war against Austria, Paul von Hindenburg, now aged sixty-seven, and, as Hindenburg's chief of staff, Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff had been Moltke's chief of operations, but had lost his job when his outspoken advocacy of full conscription had upset conservative sensibilities. He was bourgeois and careerist, and his allegiance was less to the Kaiser than to his own ambition. In Hoffmann's estimation, 'He is the right man for this business - ruthless and hard'.8 Ludendorff's capacity for self-promotion had already secured him the credit for the fall of Liege. His own contribution had been the flamboyant seizure of the undefended citadel rather than of the forts that ringed it: the latter had ensured that Liege had held out five times longer than the forty-eight hours Ludendorff had predicted. Now luck favoured him once more. He inherited a manoeuvre which others had planned but which would bestow on Hindenburg and himself the victors' laurels.

Not the least of Hindenburg's functions - both now and throughout the war - was to settle the nerves of his anxious subordinate. Ludendorff was worried that Rennenkampf would resume his advance, and therefore delayed the departure of the two marching corps for a day. The effect was to lead the Russian 2nd Army on, broadening its front and deepening the sack into which it was plunging. General Aleksandr Samsonov, its commander, deprived of direct communication with Rennenkampf, and so unaware of his slowness, was buoyed by antic.i.p.ation of success. On the evening of 26 August he invited the allies' military attaches to dinner 'and as we started sent back Postovski to get his sword, remarking that he was now in an enemy's country and must be armed.... There was a dramatic incident in the middle of the meal. An officer brought in a telegram ... and said that the GOC 1st Corps wished to speak on the telephone with the Army Commander or the Chief of Staff. General Postovski put on his pince-nez, read the telegram, and he and General Samsonov buckled on their swords, said good-bye to the Commandant, and left at once.'9 Samsonov's supper had been disturbed by reports of the arrival of the German I Corps on his left flank. Its commander had refused to obey Ludendorff's order that he go into action on the morning of the 26th, so adding to the chief of staff's vexation but deepening the envelopment when he did at last advance on the morning of the 27th. On Samsonov's right flank the two German corps entered the battle at the same time as he was sitting down to dinner.

As we at the head of the column came out of the dreadful wood, a shower of infantry fire suddenly hailed down on us. Lieutenant-Colonel Schulz stopped a bullet in the temple and fell like a board, but he soon came to, swore frightfully and asked for a cigarette. Meanwhile we had brought up artillery from the wood, and the Russian rabble, leaving behind a number of rifles and packs, beat a hasty retreat, back into the darkness from which it had emerged. It was now fortunately midnight, pitch dark ... The greater part of the marching column was still stretched along the narrow road through the wood. In a word, there was no alternative than to fall out where we were . . . So we dozed in half-sleep till first light. Finally it cleared and it became apparent that the enemy was in full flight towards Ortelsburg.10 Although the Russians acknowledged that the situation was changing rapidly on the 27th, Samsonov continued to underestimate the strength of the Germans facing him and to order movements calculated to worsen the predicament of the 2nd Army rather than extricate it. On 29 August, with his army losing cohesion in the woods and with his command collapsing through lack of intelligence and inadequate communications, Samsonov confronted the reality. He went off into the forest and shot himself. By 31 August the Germans had taken 92,000 prisoners and nearly 400 guns; 50,000 Russians were dead or wounded.

The Russian feeling of inferiority when confronted by German troops, as opposed to Austro-Hungarian, persisted for the rest of the war. The Germans vengefully named their victory after the village of Tannenberg, where the Teutonic Knights had been defeated by the Poles in 1410. The symbolism of the battle was more important than its strategic effect. Victory where the Germans had not expected it (in the east) was used to cover over its absence where it was actually most needed (in the west). Hindenburg and Ludendorff were elevated as national heroes. The long-term political effects in a const.i.tution as ill-developed as that of Germany were enormous: these men became to the domestic politics of Wilhelmine Germany what Napoleon Bonaparte was to Revolutionary France. And their success convinced them that the war would be won on the eastern front. It was twice the length of that in the west, and its force-to-s.p.a.ce ratio made for lower troop densities, so creating more opportunities for manoeuvre. Hindenburg and Ludendorff saw Tannenberg as confirmation that Schlieffen's teaching was right. The answer to the tactical imponderables of the modern battlefield was envelopment. What had been achieved at Tannenberg through pragmatism and an awareness of contingencies became enshrined as dogma.

The reality was that the ma.s.s army, with all its supply needs and its artillery, relied on an effective network of roads and railways to sustain its advance. 'The Germans', a Russian guards officer recalled, 'had a line for every army corps and sometimes even for a division . . . Roughly, the Russian army had one line to supply an army of three or four army corps . . . The result was that the jamming of traffic affected the supply of the army, paralysed the evacuation of the wounded and interfered with the bringing up of the reserves.' 11 11 But once the German army operated beyond its own frontier, it was subject to the same constraints as the Russian. That was precisely the reason why Schlieffen had forsaken his predecessors' predilection for a war in the east and devoted greater attention to Germany's western front. But once the German army operated beyond its own frontier, it was subject to the same constraints as the Russian. That was precisely the reason why Schlieffen had forsaken his predecessors' predilection for a war in the east and devoted greater attention to Germany's western front.

Tannenberg was a defensive victory. Following up speedily at the battle of the Masurian lakes, the 8th Army drove Rennenkampf back behind the Russian frontier. East Prussia was secure. But the Germans had not given the Austrians the aid they wanted: they had repulsed a Russian invasion but they had not drawn the bulk of the Russian forces away from the Austro-Hungarian front - nor, despite the scale of Samsonov's defeat, had they squashed Grand Duke Nikolay's plan to use Poland as the launching pad for an invasion of Silesia. At the beginning of September Conrad called for the implementation of the Siedlitz manoeuvre, the envelopment of Russian Poland from north and south. This held a double appeal for Hindenburg and Ludendorff: it would conform to their Schlieffenesque concept of operations and it would ward off the fresh threat to German territory. But the allies were now out of step. Conrad had summoned up a scheme to which his own army could not possibly contribute. It was retreating in disorder. By mid-September what he needed was direct a.s.sistance, not some ambitious plan hatched on the map and designed to wrap up the eastern front at a stroke.

Then the pressure on the Austro-Hungarian armies eased. n.o.body stopped to ask what the Russians were doing. The two allies were able to effect a joint advance towards the Vistula. On 9 October Przemysl was relieved. But the success was deceptive. Grand Duke Nikolay was ma.s.sing three armies behind the Vistula, ready for his own advance into Poland. He planned not only to provide direct aid to France, but also to consolidate and broaden the Russian victory in Galicia. He, too, hoped to achieve a ma.s.sive envelopment, and the Germans were walking into the trap. 'On 11 October', wrote August von Mackensen, whose corps was closing in on Warsaw, 'the earlier appreciation of the overall operational situation changed utterly. A Russian order captured on the battlefield at Grojec ... revealed the views of the supreme Russian command and the deployment of their forces on the entire Vistula front.'12 The Germans fell back, blaming the Austrians rather than their own intelligence failures, and Przemysl was besieged once more. However, they had escaped the Russian envelopment, and transport difficulties again hampered the Russian pursuit. The Germans fell back, blaming the Austrians rather than their own intelligence failures, and Przemysl was besieged once more. However, they had escaped the Russian envelopment, and transport difficulties again hampered the Russian pursuit.

EASTERN FRONT V. WESTERN FRONT.

On 30 October Ludendorff travelled to Berlin to meet Erich von Falkenhayn. Nominally Falkenhayn was still minister of war, but since Moltke's disgrace on the Marne he had also been de facto chief of the general staff. Falkenhayn enjoyed the favour of the Kaiser, a factor of crucial importance in the months ahead. He was good-looking, young by the standards of German generals (he was fifty-three), and his career had followed a very different trajectory from those of the general staff officers over whom he now presided. While they were being schooled by Schlieffen, he was serving in China. His overseas service had left him with a strong impression of Britain's maritime and imperial power. Here for him was the hub of the Entente, and therefore the centre of gravity for German strategy. However, the fact that he was not fully part of that enclosed world of operational planning, of staff rides and map exercises, also meant that he had something to prove. His initial response in the aftermath of the Marne had been to seek envelopment through manoeuvre with all the zeal of a true pupil of Schlieffen. Each effort to do so had been thwarted by the French and British armies as they, too, cobbled together forces to extend their left flank northwards and so block German efforts to get into their rear. When Ludendorff and Falkenhayn met, the final stage of this process was being fought out in a vicious and protracted battle at Ypres, the ancient Flemish city whose fortifications guarded the Channel ports.

Falkenhayn, fourth from right, directs the German 9th Army in its invasion of Romania, autumn 1916 The scale and speed of his victory gave the lie to those who questioned his grasp of operations

Six new corps were forming in Germany and Ludendorff appeared to accept Falkenhayn's wish to put them into the Ypres sector. But Falkenhayn, too, seemed to collude in Ludendorff's aspiration to fight envelopment battles in the east. The Schlieffen legacy created mutual misapprehension: at the strategic level it led Ludendorff to acknowledge the priority of the western front over the eastern; at the operational level it led Falkenhayn to realise that great victories were more likely in the east. The eastern front was twice the length of the western, and its armies were more thinly spread over terrain which was less urbanised. The opportunities for manoeuvre were therefore greater. Following the meeting, on 1 November Hindenburg was appointed commander-in-chief of all German troops on the eastern front, with Ludendorff as his chief of staff. The task of OberOst, as the new command was called, was twofold. It was to mount a local counterattack in Poland while Falkenhayn got on with fighting at Ypres, and it was to provide a counterweight to the Austrian high command. Conrad von Hotzendorff blamed the failure in Poland on Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and had made an absurd request for thirty German divisions for the eastern front. The gap between imagination and reality in Conrad's thought now meant that Falkenhayn was not alone in wanting to find a mechanism to curb him. Even Franz Josef wanted him to go.

The formation of OberOst empowered rather than appeased Falkenhayn's critics within Germany. Within two days, on 3 November, the mutual misapprehension between Falkenhayn and Ludendorff had flared into an open hostility which was to deepen over the next eighteen months and divide strategic counsels in Germany. Ludendorff elevated OberOst's limited mission into a ma.s.sive envelopment battle. It culminated in desperate winter fighting round od in Poland. He wanted more troops. But on 4 November Falkenhayn, now publicly appointed chief of the general staff, renewed the attack at Ypres. It failed, with a total German casualty bill of 80,000. Falkenhayn's response was not to redirect his strategic goals to where the Germans were able to achieve operational solutions. Instead he suggested that Germany abandon any hope of overall success. It was absurd for two conservative monarchies to be fighting each other in a war which could only benefit their real long-term rival, Britain. Germany should therefore seek a separate peace with Russi