The new tactics employed by the Germans which allowed them to achieve rapid movement, and break out of the static trench warfare of previous attacks.

Storm Troops Artillery barrage Artillery statistics An assessment of the barrage

The German tactics for their March offensive would be a major contributor to their early success on the 21st March. A large part of the infantry would be employed as “Stosstruppen”, or Storm Troops. These small units were specially trained for the first infantry assault phase when their aim was deep and rapid penetration of the British line, following close up behind the creeping barrage, the “Feuerwalz”.  They would by-pass strong points leaving these to be taken out later by the following assault forces, (Battle Groups). This rapid movement, coming after years of near static trench warfare would cause confusion in the British line, especially as some British units would come under fire from the rear by German units who had gone round them. A feeling for this envelopment can be gained by reading the report of the days action written by the C.O. of the 2nd York & Lancs.  The 6th Division would be attacked by a specialized Jager Battalion, the 195th, on the 21st March.

These Storm Troop tactics had been developed over a long period of time, a good book on the subject is “Storm troop Tactics, Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918” by Bruce I. Gudmundsson.  The Germans had studied the tactics of the Boers against the British in the Boer War, and were impressed with the effectiveness of small units working independently, and their accurate use of rifle fire. Prior to the turn of the century the received wisdom was that units should advance in ‘close order’, each Officer or NCO commanding a large number of men, so limiting the area over which they operated by the ability for his voice to be heard to control them. The new move was towards ‘skirmish line’ advance with small units and individuals operating independently.  In WW1 when trench warfare had set in, the strength tended to lie with the defender; defence was in depth, there was great reliance on barbed wire, machine-guns were sited with interlocking arcs of fire, artillery was ‘registered’ on its targets and the problem for the attacker was how to cross No Man’s Land. Having got over, how did the attacker then take and hold the enemy trench and move on to the next trench line.  These were the problems that a Captain Rohr would address in his development of Storm Troop tactics.

Rohr would develop Assault Detachments using grenades and flame-throwers to clear trenches, and the infantry would also change the way in which it operated with the artillery. Under the new regimen the Artillery would deliver an initial barrage, but would then have a more limited involvement; “Unable to smother the entire enemy position with shells, Captain Rohr and other German infantry commanders had to use artillery as a complement to rather than as a substitute for other arms.  By the end of the war it had become generally recognized in the German Army that artillery fire tended more to keep heads down than to tear them off. Accuracy and timeliness of fire, as well as the ability of the infantry to exploit its effects, came to be seen as more important than volume or duration of fire.” [Gudmundsson]

The IWM Official History quotes some of the extracts from German training pamphlets which give an idea of the flexibility they expected from the ‘Storm Troop’ tactics, they read very differently from our preconceptions of the ‘static’ trench warfare of WW1.

“The tactical break-through is not an objective in itself; its raison d’etre is to give the opportunity to apply the strongest form of attack, envelopment.”

“The objective of the first day must be at least the enemy’s artillery; the objective of the second day depends on what is achieved on the first; there must be no rigid adherence to plans made beforehand.” [my italics, J Dillon]

“The reserves must be put in where the attack is progressing, not where it is held up.”

“The infantry must first see what it can do for itself, and must not call for artillery support directly it is held up.”

A Captain Hermann Geyer of the Operations Section of the German General Staff had been detailed to write a new operations manual incorporating the new tactics, the following is an extract [taken from Gudmundsson’s book];

“The attack even more so than the defense, demands strict leadership, careful and thorough direction for the cooperation of all arms within the fighting units and between neighbouring units, especially clear designation of the goals of an attack. On the other hand, each attack offers opportunities for self-designated activity and mission-oriented action, even down to the level of the individual soldier.”

As Gudmundsson expressed it; “... the belief that a subordinate commander should follow not so much the express orders of his superior but rather regulate his actions according to what his superior is trying to accomplish.” This mindset would allow the Germans to quickly move through the defense, bypassing strong points if necessary and causing confusion to the British when some would find themselves being fired on by Germans in their rear.

Where in previous attacks in the war both sides had been careful to see that advancing units kept contact with those units to the right and left of them, to protect their flanks, this had necessarily slowed their advance and limited their objectives.  In the new Storm Troop approach this limitation was removed.  Units would advance without concern for their flanks.  This rapid forward movement and subsequent confusion within the British infantry units was exacerbated by the British defensive plan of Forward Zone and Battle Zone defences. 

The German infantry divisions had changed during the period from 1914 to 1917, at the start they had been primarily a unit of riflemen, armed with rifles and bayonets supported by separate artillery formations and with few machine guns in the division.  By 1917/18 they had become a division which incorporated many more mortars, field artillery and machine gun units as well as the assault/storm troops. As Gudmundsson describes it in his book; “By the end of 1917, all pretense that any infantry unit was uniformly armed with rifle and bayonet had been dropped.  Every infantry unit down to the platoon was a combined arms force, capable of supporting its maneuver with its own fire. ... The regimental and battalion commanders could bring their units to the battlefield, but the control of the actual fighting had devolved to the lieutenants and the sergeants.”

From Lyn Macdonald’s ‘To the Last Man’ there are a number of extracts where soldiers describe their surprise at finding how they have been surrounded by the German Storm Troop tactic.  One example from Corporal Gale, in 14th Division; “We got a brew going but, damn it, we hadn’t been in the dugout for more than about ten minutes when the Captain popped his head in the dugout door. He said, ‘You can all come up. You won’t want your rifles.’ He said it quite calm, like. Anyway, we came walking up the dugout steps, and there was all these Jerries round us!  Of course, we realized what had happened. This was a mopping up party coming.  They’d never attempted a frontal attack. That was the strategy, you see; they went through on the right and left.  Our whole battalion was caught. A Company was back in Essigny-le-Grand.  They were just cooking their breakfast for the Company, because they hadn’t had a chance to have any, and Jerry walked in just as they were starting to dish up breakfast for the troops.  Fried bacon and bread.”

Artillery Barrage

As well as the innovation of the Storm Troops the artillery plan of Oberst Georg Bruchmuller was an essential element in the attack.  Bruchmuller’s plan was for a barrage of only 5 hours, starting at 04:40 on the 21st, but it would be one hell of a bombardment, almost half of the entire German Western front artillery would be used in this one barrage on the 50 mile front. Telephone wires on the British side buried 6 feet down would almost all be cut by the barrage.

The guns needed for the planned concentration of fire needed to be moved into position without alerting the British, the required ammunition had to be positioned and the artillery targets selected.  Normally for artillery bombardments there is a period of “target registration” where the guns fire at the target, note the fall of shot and then make the necessary corrections for the later bombardment. The Germans could not do this as it would have given away their attacking intentions to the British, as well as the position of their guns.  Because of this the German bombardment would come from guns moved into position at the last moment, and with no prior “registration” they would have to fire “from the map”.  They were assisted in this because the British were occupying ground previously held by the Germans, consequently the Germans knew the map reference of every little ground feature, road junction, village cross-road etc. in the British lines, right back to the rear areas.

Bruchmuller had been an essential architect in the German attack on Riga in the east in September 1917, he had planned the artillery bombardment that allowed the troops to cross the Dvina, he was an exponent of the ‘rolling barrage’ and stressed that the key to its success was the closeness with which the infantry followed the barrage, they should be 50 meters or less behind the curtain of exploding shells. General Max Hoffmann wrote of Bruchmuller that; “.. an attack that had previously been prepared by artillery under Bruchmuller’s command was [considered by the troops] a sure thing, and they advanced with sure confidence in the success of any undertaking that had been prepared by Bruchmuller and his staff.”

Artillery statistics

It is interesting to compare statistics between the British artillery barrage prior to their 1st July 1916 offensive on the Somme, and the Bruchmuller plan for 21st March 1918.

1916 1918 Duration 7 days 5 hours number of guns 1,437 6,473 number of shells 1,500,000 1,160,000

Some of the shells contained phosgene gas, against which the British gas mask did not provide good protection. The Germans did not use the very effective mustard gas as this did not dissipate in the air, and so would affect the attacking German troops.  The photo to the right is take from “The War Budget”, and shows a British soldier wearing a Gas Hood.  It does not take much to imagine the discomfort of trying to fight while wearing one.

In the Doullens meeting on 2nd March the Commanders discussed the expectation that there would be gas to contend with; “It is necessary to ensure that all measures to meet a hostile gas attack are complete in every detail, and that the strictest anti-gas discipline is maintained.  In this connection it is of the first importance that all ranks should have entire confidence in the Box Respirator, which gives complete protection against all gases used by the enemy. [That is at variance with their meeting on 16 February where they said; Reports indicate that the surprise attack will be preceded by a bombardment of artillery positions with shell containing new gas, which will force masks off and so render troops liable to effects of a lethal gas.]  Troops should be trained to wear their Box Respirators for long periods, and to carry out in them the duties which they will be required to perform in battle, i.e., moving over rough ground both by day and night, shooting, giving orders, gun laying, etc.”

The following is Martin Middlebrook’s assessment of the effect of the barrage;

“What the Germans had achieved with the bombardment was the blowing-away of much of the British front-line barbed wire, the blowing-in of many of the front-line trenches, the partial destruction of trenches farther back, the neutralisation for several hours of part of the British artillery, and some confusion in the rear areas. There were also large numbers of British infantrymen and gunners who, while not actually wounded by the shelling, were stupefied by it and also suffering from the effects of gas.  These men were in poor shape to face the German infantry attack.”