The Worst Year: The French Army in 1915

In this presentation, Dr Jonathan Krause looks at the casualties suffered by the French Army and asks if this was the worst year of the war for the French. Joffre and Foch are studied as well as Petain and Castelnau.
Recorded as part of the WFA President's Conference series "A World at War 1914-18" - 1915 A Year of Trial and Error.
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[@Digmen1]

Good to see a presenter with a positive style, he has practiced his lecture and puts a lot of expression into it. Very few ums and ahs.

[@Nounismisation]

Agreed!

[@JHamList]

As much as the somme gets talked about, the single greatest loss of life in a single day in WW1 occurred on august 22nd during the Battle of the Frontiers during the opening phase of the war.

[@lukycharms9970]

Apparently they recently found out it’s actually September 25th 1915 at the battle of champagne

[@rhysnichols8608]

Some triggered French historians who don’t like their army having the honour of receiving the most losses on a single day, have revised this notion, apparently the figure is probably closer to 22,000, and the worst day was likely 25th September 1915, however it’s not conclusive, and the figures for 22nd august aren’t fully proven one way or the other

[@Verdun16]

@@rhysnichols8608So you think the French are lying because they are “mad”? People change what the casualties are all the time. They’re just making it more accurate

[@davidtraveller]

Excellent presentation, very informative, thank you.

[@markpower9081]

Excellent talk by Dr. Krause

[@DavidD-hf7qm]

Merci pour ton travail

[@broken1394]

Glad to brushing up on my knowledge of WW1 - it's endlessly fascinating with so much to learn. I always wanted to hear more about Foch and Co. So this was worthwhile. ⚘️

[@jugbywellington1134]

We don't hear enough about the French in WW1. I had the good fortune to find a copy of Alistair Horne's "The Fall of Paris", which concerns the Franco-Prussian War. This, and his "The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916" are both pretty disturbing. The heroism of the French facing flame-throwers for the first time at Verdun is heart-breaking. They fought hard for their country, even though their leadership was often poor (just like ours in the UK).

[@elsupremo3651]

Great talk by Krausewitz! Stole the face right off my head!

[@joncheskin]

The message that I got from the talk was that the Friench suffered 1.3 million casualties in order to learn that they had to continuously attack in order to get anywhere. This only makes sense to me as a strategy if you take into account that the real point was attrition. It proved ultimately to be a winning strategy, but the cost was mind boggling.

[@magr7424]

Highly interesting topic very well presented...

[@colinwolf9730]

Interesting that 1915 is the worst year for the French Army... I would have though 1917 with Nivelle would have been worst. Would be interesting to hear a lecture on Nivelle!

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

The Nivelle offensive was actually not all that bad when compared to some of the other blunders, at least in raw losses. What was so terrible about it was what had been promised and how much that promise fell short of the achieved reality. For the French Army's morale, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. There's a lot of politics tied up in the rise and fall of Nivelle.

[@zeppelinboys]

it's actually a trick question. every year is the worst year in the French Army.

[@IanCross-xj2gj]

Verdun lasted 10 months; Feb-Nov 1916. Battalions were rotated, many took a real mauling. Casualties maybe lower than 1915 , but French Army lost many experienced troops.

[@vincenzo4965]

​@@Ensign_Cthulhunivelle offensive was a massacre like the one in 1915 if not worst,but this time the french soldier mutiny preventing other offensive from happen and for the rest of the year the front was quiet

[@IanCross-xj2gj]

15:00 Interested to learn about the French 75mm Field Gun. Twenty rounds per minute is an astonishing rate of fire.

[@mcsmash4905]

the point about the red trousers is interesting , i mean think about it most people look at them from a perspective of a museum not some random guy wearing blues and reds moving around some distance away from you, ie the real world

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

The most dismal aspects of French military performance need to be brought up whenever people start bashing on Haig.

[@davidchardon1303]

Except Haig did its counter-performance much later that the French ...

[@ArcticTemper]

@@davidchardon1303 with an army a year old, not forty years as France's

[@IanCross-xj2gj]

The Americans initial performance was also poor. They ignored French and British military advice, so made naive tactical errors. The Australian and Canadian forces seemed to do well, maybe due to good leadership and smart tactics.

[@wesgore8016]

great stuff!

[@davidchardon1303]

Was the BEF, really the spearhead of the 100 days offensive ? On the Western Front, the 1 November 1918 : French Army : - 102 infantry divisions, 6 cavalry divisions - 2,659,084 men and 630,440 horses - 5,578 heavy guns and 1,626 trench guns - 50,700 chauchats and 30,664 heavy MG's - 1,272 tanks - 3,609 planes British Army : - 60 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions - 1,721,890 men and 388,00 horses - 2,197 heavy guns and 2,570 trench guns - 20,000 lewis and 4,632 heavy MG's - 611 tanks - 1,678 planes (!!!) American Army : - 31 infantry divisions and no cavalry division - 1,821,449 men and 151,250 horses - 746 trench guns and 406 heavy guns - 18,465 light MG's (most of them being chauchat CSRG 1918 and the rest being BAR's) and 6,239 heavy MG's - 91 tanks (lol) - 2,032 planes

[@harrisonbergeron9746]

"spearhead"

[@zachary8491]

Le nombre de vehicules automobiles serait interessant

[@groovy_bear]

I am not debating these numbers but can you give any reference where to find them ?

[@ilnigromante666]

I am reading a article of his about the 2nd Battle of Artois.

[@joeyj6808]

Truly curious how the Entente generals escaped the noose in 1918. I would have hoped the Bolsheviks were showing the way! Yes, I know, counterfactuals accomplish nothing...but it's engaging to think it through.

[@joshmarks3954]

Thanks for the information. Any chance of a presentation on the impact of Sir John Monash and the contribution in the 100 days offensive with the AIF?

[@kentamitchell]

Monash and Currie were the best generals in the BEF.

[@joshmarks3954]

@@kentamitchell Yep, Chauvel is up there too. All the best

[@Doc_Tar]

There is a logic to the French charging into no man's land, being annihilated by plunging German artillery fire, and that's scary.

[@Rowlph8888]

The Germans also did it, as did the Brits

[@zeppelinboys]

some good info here

[@Digmen1]

But, its a shame that once again we do nto get to see all of the slides

[@Nounismisation]

More agreement.

[@StormReefProductions]

They could use 2 cameras, fixed positions, one on slides and one on presenter. Edit both into split screen when needed.

[@hankw69]

'A radish will not stand in the way of victory!' Marshal Foch

[@Conn30Mtenor]

All the warnings were there- the Russo-Japanese war for example of what kind of war the Great War would become. The tragedy for France is that none paid attention to the lessons offered.

[@mcsmash4905]

it might be worth considering that the japanese still attacked russian positions in close collumns and then beat the russians away at the point of the bayonet , the war simply solidified the french and german thinking

[@rhysnichols8608]

Japanese attack methods favoured fanatical mass infantry columns doing bayonet charges, they took huge losses but still won the battles. This if anything confirmed the French doctrine as being reasonable. Firepower had got even more powerful between 1905 and 1914, and maybe the Japanese National character was more open to suicidal attacks than the French, given they saw the emperor as a living god and had a history of sacrifice being the ultimate honour. The French were a bit more tame than that…..which isn’t an insult, because I certainly wouldn’t want to partake in such horrible styles of combat

[@rhysnichols8608]

The French arguably had the WORST doctrine and tactics at the start of the war due to learning the wrong lessons from 1870 and having them confirmed by the Japanese victory in 1905 against Russia, they also were historically the main power on the continent so their national psyche was a bit fanatical, partly assuming with enough vigour and cries of ‘vive la France!!’ They could overcome almost any obstacle. When this proved to be mostly ineffective they did learn quickly, as this lecture shows they implemented new tactics and seemed to try to learn from their mistakes as fast as possible , and became much more competent the following year, perhaps ironically the British were the tactically superior force in 1914 on a man to man level, being far better in camouflage, rifle drills, small unit combat and even the French admitted they soldiered on a higher level in many areas, but by the time of 1916, the French had massively upgraded their tactics, and the British with their massively enlarged volunteer army seemed to regress, the Somme was almost a repeat of the early French offensives, with infantry tactics similar to the French of 1914, which again led to horrendous losses with little gain, the French sector of the Somme offensive performed better, and some British units (notably the Ulster’s) used assault tactics where trench raiders were already in no mans land and jumped into the enemy lines as soon as the bombardment lifted, then they were followed by the main waves, but mostly the British seemed to revert to very basic and outdated methods of advance with mass formations walking with very basic and steric artillery fixed to a timetable. By this time the French, Russians and Germans had all developed far more sophisticated assault methods, with the Russians intelligently pausing and resuming the barrage randomly, tricking Austro Hungarian defenders into leaving their bunkers thinking the attack was coming, observers would assess the damage, adjust fire, and start the shelling again catching many defenders in the open, this would repeat about 8 times throughout the day before the attack finally launched at 6pm, by this time the defenders were so reluctant to leave their dug outs that Russian shock troops were already blocking the dug out exits with machine guns and took huge numbers of prisoners. The assault troops were as close as possible to the enemy lines and sprung into action the second the barrage ended. The Germans had a similar method, and they also bypassed strong points and surrounded them, their doctrine was too keep moving and keep advancing causing as much chaos and confusion in the enemy lines as possible, on the ground commanders had a lot of freedom to make decisions and the main infantry waves would follow the storm troopers to mop up the bypassed strong points. Enemy artillery would be suppressed with gas shells and the german bombardment would be short and very intense, designed to discombobulate the defenders, smoke and a lot of suppressive fire was used to pin down defenders while the enemy trench would be penetrated at a few small points, then the assault troops would push THROUGH the trenches laterally and down communication trenches into the enemy system using lots of grenades to blow anything blocking their way to smithereens, rather than attacking the enemy front head on along a wide sector, they would infiltrate the enemy lines at a small point and bypass or get behind them, while the main German troops would be distracted and engaging enemy machine gun nests and the bulk of the infantry. Reserves would be sent where the attack SUCCEEDED not where it STALLED, to ensure momentum and speed and PRESSURE were kept up to maximum affect. This was learned over 3 years of horrible warfare, and worked very well until logistics and lack of supplies slowed it down to the point the British and French could hold them. The French as this great lecture shows also made some early and fairly sound tactical progress, it’s a shame the British had to go through the Somme to learn these lessons, after which they too upgraded their tactics and adopted the creeping barrage, tanks, better artillery coordination, trench raiding parties etc. All armies to varying degrees learned from each other, they got taught harsh lessons from the enemy then learned from it and pioneered new ideas and vice versa. The French however did NOT ‘invent’ storm troop doctrine, in reality all armies came up with it and copied each other. The Germans however took it to the furthest degree and were the first to build a doctrine around it and had designed specialist units for the job, taking lessons they learned from the French and Russians as well as their own success. The first storm companies were formed in spring 1915, made up mostly of pioneer and jager units, taking lessons off the French assault doctrine, Russian shock battalions and their own German experience. No one invented it on their own, they all copied each other, but the Germans arguably did it the best and took it the furthest.

[@davidpnewton]

"You don't get commanders like this every generation or even every century." Every generation I'll agree with. Every century he's wrong. Century before Foch? Wellington. Century before Wellington? Marlborough. Both every bit as decorated as Foch. Both as good or better than Foch at coalition warfare. Wellington was certainly a better battlefield general than Foch. That's just the UK. Other countries produced brilliant commanders as well. Eugene of Savoy for example.

[@AlexG-xl1cc]

Big difference: those were all only national commanders, not leaders of a coalition as massive as the Allies. That was his point.

[@davidpnewton]

@@AlexG-xl1cc "those were only national commanders". Erm wrong. Wellington led the UK's forces, the Hanoverian forces of the King's German Legion (given the personal union between the UK and Hanover that doesn't count as a true international ally though), Portuguese forces and Spanish forces from 1812 onwards. He had been in command of Portuguese forces since 1809. During the Waterloo campaign he led UK, Dutch, Hanoverian, Nassau and Brunswick forces. Marlborough also routinely led multi-national forces. Consider the Battle of Blenheim where he commanded English, Scottish, Hessian, Danish, Prussian and Dutch forces. Alternatively think about the Battle of Malplaquet where he commanded UK, Dutch and Danish forces. The same is also true of Eugene of Savoy. The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-national collection of states in any case, so he defaulted to coalition warfare. For another example of a brilliant exponent of coalition warfare see Dwight D Eisenhower.

[@macrolophuscaliginosus1610]

How suitable that in the comment section of a video which accuses historians of whitewashing the French out of ww1 you are naming Wellington as THE commander of the 1800's instead of Napoleon.

[@davidpnewton]

@@macrolophuscaliginosus1610 well you obviously didn't read my comment properly either. I was referring specifically to the UK when talking about Wellington and Marlborough. However if you do want to directly compare Wellington and Napoleon I'm certainly game. Who won when they fought each other? Wellington. Who never lost a battle where he was in command? Wellington. Who had to persude his allies to cooperate rather than threatening them with invasion? Wellington. Looks like Wellington rather has the better of things there. So yes I would call him the top overall commander of that entire era and not just the top UK commander of the period.

[@davidchardon1303]

@@davidpnewton You are a living joke. How suitable your comment is on a video accusing historains to whitewash no British from history while you're talking as Wellington won alone against Napoleon in 1815 or against the French in general in Spain. pure cringe.

[@Nounismisation]

Why the snide asides about the Brits?

[@Digmen1]

Well he is correct the British army in 1915 was small and the size of its front small. He is being a bit tongue in cheek to explain why he is studying the French army!

[@Nounismisation]

@@Digmen1 A small army will have a small front. But, that isn't what his snide remarks were about.

[@krausewitz6786]

It is more my response to studying France in the UK. British scholars act as if the BEF/British Army are the centre of the universe, when in comparison their efforts are tiny in relation to what the French and Germans are doing up until the Somme. So, it is about re-jigging the perspectives, scope and scale that most Anglophones carry with them when thinking about 1915. Plus, yeah, it's a bit of friendly ribbing to my British colleagues!

[@AlexG-xl1cc]

I do agree its a perspective issue but the real reason is simply a language barrier. English speaking historians study English documents.

[@19Edurne]

Well, my guess is it's a kind of response to the majority of British literature and documentaries about the Western Front in the past almost ignoring or dismissing French troups and concentrating almost exclusively on the BEF and the Germans. When you look at older BBC documentaries, the French army is just mentioned as an aside, except for Verdun. You would think the main army there was British and that they won the war almost all by themselves. Only recently did it began to change a little. So I get where it comes from.

[@DavidD-hf7qm]

Pertinent , but speak french my friend

[@caratacus6204]

Should have left the French to it.