The Great War
Published on 7 Apr 2018In this week’s episode of Out Of The Trenches, Indy talks about Pioneer Battalions, how a Sea Monster allegedly sunk a German submarine and the redeployment of Austro-Hungarian troops after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
April 8, 2018
Pioneers – Legend of the Kraken – Redeployment of Troops I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
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April 6, 2018
Operation Michael Runs Out Of Breath I THE GREAT WAR Week 193
The Great War
Published on 5 Apr 2018Two weeks after the initial success of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael loses pace and direction. The German supply situation is dire and when the troops find cattle and food behind the British positions, there is no way for them to ignore that. At the same time, orders for a new German offensive in Flanders are given and the Germans land additional troops in Finland.
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April 3, 2018
The Neutral Ally – Norway in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 2 Apr 2018Norway declared neutrality when the First World War broke out and as a nation with a large merchant fleet, profited from the war economically.
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HMS Cockchafer: The Epic Voyages, 1915-1949
Thersites the Historian
Published on 12 Feb 2018Recently, I stumbled across the existence of the most oddly named ship that I have ever encountered and I decided to dig into its history. The following is a brief history of a British gunboat which saw action in many of Britain’s most noteworthy military actions during the early 20th Century.
Wikipedia entry on HMS Cockchafer.
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April 1, 2018
German Armored Cars in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 31 Mar 2018The German Tank Museum on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/daspanzermuseum
Germany only fielded 20-40 armored cars in World War 1, mostly on the Eastern Front. Not much about their operational history is known but they did play an important role in the German Civil War and the Weimar Republic.
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March 28, 2018
Backs To The Wall – All Eyes On Amiens I THE GREAT WAR Week 192
The Great War
Published on 27 Mar 2018The German Operation Michael continues this week and after some uncertainty, the Germans put their eyes on Amiens. The city is a vital communications and transport hub for the Entente and so Ferdinand Foch decides to mount a defence in front of the city.
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March 25, 2018
Conscientious Objectors – Water – “Wastage” I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 24 Mar 2018Chair of Wisdom Time!
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March 23, 2018
Kaiserschlacht – German Spring Offensive 1918 I THE GREAT WAR Week 191
The Great War
Published on 22 Mar 2018It was all or nothing for the German Army under General Erich Ludendorff now: They unleashed the biggest offensive of the entire war on the Western Front trying to split the British and French Armies, drive the British off the continent and capture Paris.
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Tank Chats #25 Mark VIII | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 12 Aug 2016In the 25th Tank Chat David Fletcher explores the First World War Mark VIII tank. The Mark VIII tank, also known as The International was a joint project between the British and American forces, following their entry into the war. Once the designs had been refined massive orders were placed in 1918 and then swiftly cancelled with the end of the war. In the end six Mark VIII tanks were built for Britain of which The Tank Museum’s is the sole surviving example.
http://tankmuseum.org/museum-online/vehicles/object-e1949-363
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March 20, 2018
Inside the German A7V WW1 Tank I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 19 Mar 2018The German Tank Museum: http://daspanzermuseum.de/
We visited the German Tank Museum (in Munster, not Münster) and talked to the director Ralf Raths about the German tanks in World War 1. The only one that saw action was the A7V and will find out how it was designed, how up to 23 men fit inside one of these and what the operational history was.
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March 18, 2018
King George V in World War 1 I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
The Great War
Published on 17 Mar 2018He was monarch over the largest empire the world has ever seen. When the war came he saw his duty as the face of determination for his people: King George V.
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March 16, 2018
Allied Unified Command On The Horizon I THE GREAT WAR Week 190
The Great War
Published on 15 Mar 2018While Germany is occupying a territory from the Baltics to the Black Sea and planning its huge spring offensive, the Allies are still trying to get behind the idea of a unified command.
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The Imperial German Army’s final throw of the dice – Operation Michael, March 1918
Victor Davis Hanson summarizes the Central Powers’ brief moment of strength early in 1918:
One hundred years ago this month, all hell broke loose in France. On March 21, 1918, the German army on the Western Front unleashed a series of massive attacks on the exhausted British and French armies.
German General Erich Ludendorff thought he could win World War I with one final blow. He planned to punch holes between the French and British armies. Then he would drive through their trenches to the English Channel, isolating and destroying the British army.
The Germans thought they had no choice but to gamble.
The British naval blockade of Germany after three years had reduced Germany to near famine. More than 200,000 American reinforcement troops were arriving each month in France. (Nearly 2 million would land altogether.) American farms and factories were sending over huge shipments of food and munitions to the Allies.
Yet for a brief moment, the war had suddenly swung in Germany’s favor by March 1918. The German army had just knocked Russia and its new Bolshevik government out of the war. The victory on the Eastern Front freed up nearly 1 million German and Austrian soldiers, who were transferred west.
Germany had refined new rolling artillery barrages. Its dreaded “Stormtroopers” had mastered dispersed advances. The result was a brief window of advantage before the American juggernaut changed the war’s arithmetic.
The Spring Offensive almost worked. Within days, the British army had suffered some 50,000 casualties. Altogether, about a half-million French, British and American troops were killed or wounded during the entire offensive.
But within a month, the Germans were sputtering. They could get neither supplies nor reinforcements to the English Channel. Germany had greedily left 1 million soldiers behind in the east to occupy and annex huge sections of conquered Eastern Europe and western Russia.
The British and French had learned new ways of strategic retreat. By summer of 2018, the Germans were exhausted. In August, the Allies began their own (even bigger) offensive and finally crushed the retreating Germans, ending the war in November 1918.
Click to see full-sized image.
For more information on Operation Michael, sometimes known as “The Kaiser’s Battle”, here’s the Wikipedia entry.
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March 13, 2018
German Tactics For 1918 Spring Offensive I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 12 Mar 2018The German Spring Offensive in 1918, the so called Kaiserschlacht or Operation Michael, was the biggest German offensive of World War 1 and Quartermaster-general Erich Ludendorff prepared his troops for this battle by incorporating everything the German Army had learned in this war until now. Hutier Infiltration Tactics, Georg Bruchmüller’s artillery targeting and more lessons from the Eastern Front mean the Entente was facing a different army than before.
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March 11, 2018
Savage Division – Displaced People – Sexual Relations I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 10 Mar 2018Chair of Wisdom time!
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