Free World War One: A Short History by Norman Stone Page B

British even released gas, but, as Graves describes the effort, it was a fiasco – the sort of British blunder that soldiers remember from the early stages of either world war. Gas was to be released from cylinders. The spanners to unscrew them were the wrong size. The chemistry teachers knew nothing much about poison gas, and hated what they were doing, and the military were not more respectful of bewildered chemistry teachers. The wind was wrong, but since the cylinders were in place, the order was given for the gas to be released, and it blew back on the British. The little town of Loos was captured, but the two reserve divisions were kept too far back, and advanced in a hurry over duck-boards in communications trenches, or along roads that were jammed axle-to-axle with carts, guns and the ineffable cavalry, arriving far too late to do anything further except be slaughtered over the next two days. This at least caused a change in the British command, because Sir John French was discredited and was replaced by Sir Douglas Haig, who had the king’s ear and had performed quite creditably in 1914. The French attack in Champagne was rather more effective, inthat on 25 September a sizeable artillery superiority, and then inefficient German defences, allowed a breakthrough and the capture, even, of 200 guns, a considerable haul. Reserves marched forward to exploit the gap, but then the problems re-asserted themselves – German defenders arriving by train, a new line to be reconnoitred and, a problem subsequently to become very well-known, a battlefield to be crossed that had already been shattered by shelling, with shell-holes sometimes full of rain-water and corpses. The life-blood of France was draining away.
    The life-blood of the Habsburg empire was also draining away, though with hundreds of thousands of captives rather than battle casualties. As 1915 began, the army was strung along the Carpathian mountains, hoping to hold the various passes. However, the fortress of Przemysl had been left behind in the retreat, and it contained 120,000 men, with supplies that would only last until the end of March. If circumstances had been as elsewhere, the place would no doubt have fallen to heavy guns, as Liège and the others did, but the Russian siege army had few. So, fatally, ‘the bulwark on the San’ (as propaganda called it) held out, and Austro-Hungarian prestige seemed to depend on it – if it did collapse, so, too, might military morale, and perhaps various potential enemies might be encouraged to intervene. However, it is an elementary mistake in strategy to become dependent on fortifications: the enemy thereby knows what you will have to do. Now, the Russians knew perfectly well that there would be Austrian relief attempts from the Carpathians; there was even a modest German force, Suüdarmee . From 23 January to the middle of March three of these attacks went ahead, at mountain altitudes, and even the Austrian official historians, whose kindness to Conrad sometimes involves suppression of truth, call it ‘a cruel folly’. Whole units froze to death, shells either became buried in snow orbounced off ice, rifles had to be held over a fire before they would work. Some 800,000 men were sacrificed in these affairs, three quarters of them through sickness, and desertion became a serious problem. There were fears that many Slav troops, Ruthenes (Austrian Ukrainians) or Czechs in particular, would be unreliable, and one historic Prague regiment was even disbanded.
    The Germans on their side were rather more successful. Hindenburg had taken the title ‘Supreme Commander in the East’ (shortened to Oberost ) in November, his forces having doubled in number from the twenty divisions at the start, and there were now tussles between Ludendorff and Falkenhayn, who resented his popularity and thought his plans far too ambitious. However, the Austro-Hungarian emergency did force Falkenhayn to send four newly formed army corps to