Germany – Page 3 – Great History

The Basics of Trench Warfare

Initially, many trenches of World War 1 were glorified foxholes. But once the war began to set in, these trenches became more complex and became a vast system behind the front lines, including reserve trenches, dugouts and medical areas behind the trenches.

Trench warfare would tend to be very repetitive in nature. A battle would start with a large artillery bombardment from one side against the other. Many of these artillery barrages would cause Shell Shock or, as modern physcologists have called it, PTSD.

A British soldier suffering from Shell Shock

Then waves of troops would come over through an area called No Mans Land, the term for the empty land between the two trenches, which was often ravished by craters, barbed wire and dead trees. The guns from the defending side would open fire, usually massacring the wave. They offending side would then usually send wave after wave until they either gave up or captured the trench. Tens of thousands of lives would be lost, only to gain a few metres of land.

The trenches were often very crudely designed, as many suspected the war would not be long. Many had open mud on the floor, which would mean diseases such as trench foot would be spread. Rats were common place as well. However, the German trenches were considered to be more sturdy, being deeper and wider than the Allied trenches, allowing for better movement and cover. German trenches averaged around 12 feet in depth, whilst British ones averaged around 6 or 7 feet deep.

A drawing of a German Trench from a book

For when artillery fire came, bunkers were dug in, with the German ones being characterised as a lot more homely and comfortable.

By 1915, the true nature of the war began to set in and the trench fixtures became a lot more permanent. Machine gun turrets were set up and, eventually, the German’s began using the new weapon, chlorine gas. Poison gas was a key element of the war, despite it being illegal. Both sides would use this weapon on each other. Many died due to gas attacks and those who survived suffered later in life.

German Soldiers releasing some mustard gas

The Initial Eastern Offensive

The Russian Army had now fully mobilised, a lot earlier than Germany had expected. Now half their army was trapped in trenches in France whilst the other half dealt with the Russians. The Russian troops made an advance into Prussia but were swiftly crushed at Tannenberg, where 90,000 Russian troops were taken prisoner and an entire army was wiped out. Another victory at Masurian Lakes forces the Russians out of the region.

Further south, the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was going bad for Austria-Hungary due to a humiliating loss at the Battle of Cer. An offensive against Russia also fails and the Austro-Hungarians are pushed back, with a siege on Przemysl beginning not long after. The Germans, in an effort to distract the Russian forces, engaged in a series of battles at Lodz in modern day Poland.

Eventually, the Ottoman Empire, a large Middle Eastern Empire spanning Turkey, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and parts of Saudi Arabia, join the fighting on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, by sending some ships into the Black Sea, launching naval bombardments on the naval bases of Odessa and Sevastopol, while engaging with ground units on the Georgian border. Due to the vast length and low density of the line, trench warfare never set in like it did on the western front.

The Schlieffen Plan

Tsar Nicholas ordered the mobilisation of troops on July 29th and Kaiser Wilhelm mobilised theirs on the 30th. Because Russia had such a large army to mobilise on such a large border, Germany believed they had to take out France first. Luckily, they had planned for this.

In 1906, Alfred Von Schliefen had devised a plan in case they needed to invade France. He proposed a plan of going through the Lowlands, of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, before attacking France from it’s northern border, encircling Paris, assuring a swift victory. The front could then be moved to Russia and their large army to focus on that front.

The invasion of Belgium began. Having reassured it’s safety, Britain joins the war against Germany, sending troops down to France. However, the advance slows at the heavily fortified city of Liege. Once the city was captured, the German’s committed brutal war crimes against the civilian population. The Triple Alliance spread propaganda, denouncing the German’s actions in the Belgian cities, making many neutral countries opinions of Germany turn sour.

France began to make a push into the German territory but were pushed back at a heavy cost in the Battle of the Frontiers

The British troops eventually make an advance and fight with German troops at Mons. However, they were vastly outnumbered and had to retreat to the French frontline at the Marne River. It seemed as though the Schlieffen Plan would be a swift success.

However, the German’s needed to secure a naval port. The Allied Armies and the Germans quickly ran to the coast trying to flank one another, forming a full frontline, colliding at the First Battle of Ypres. However, due to some light tinkering from Helmuth von Moltke, the German line was under supplied so could not advance past this point for the meantime. The two lines began to dig in, building a network of trenches across the frontline.

Many believed that the plan itself was flawed and was destined to never work. Others claim that due to Moltke’s meddling, the plan failed. But no matter what you think was the cause for the Schlieffen Plan’s failure, the era of Trench Warfare had begun.

Hitler’s Time in WW1

On 28th of July 1914, Gavrilo Princip, member of the Serbian organisation “The Black Hand” shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife in Bosnia, killing them both. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination, so declared war. Russia had an alliance with Serbia, so declared war on Austria-Hungary. Germany had an alliance with Austria-Hungary, so declared war on Russia, thus bringing both Germany and Hitler into World War 1.

He was attached to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 and was a runner on the Western Front in East Belgium. He was awarded an Iron Cross (2nd class) for his bravery, one of the highest awards given to soldiers in the German Army, similar to the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honour.

Hitler in a dugout in the war. He is furthest left.

During the Battle of the Somme in 1916, he suffered an injury from an artillery shell which wounded his left thigh. He was sent to hospital and returned in March 1917.

In September 1918, Hitler claimed that in a battle was unarmed and a rifle was pointed at him by Private Henry Tandey, one of the most highly decorated privates of the war, having gained a Victoria cross for his bravery at the fifth Battle of Ypres. He held his gun on Hitler but then told him to go. Hitler told this tale to Former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain when he visited his house in Bavaria, saying “That man came so near to killing me that I thought I should never see Germany again,”. When first hearing this Tandey denied all claims but later on he says he remembers doing something like this and if it was Hitler he should’ve pulled the trigger, saying, “If only I had known what he would turn out to be […] When I saw all the people and women and children he had killed and wounded I was sorry to God I let him go.” when an interviewer went to his house in Coventry. The paper wrote “Nothing Henry did that night could ease his sickening sense of guilt. […] It was a stigma that Tandey lived with until his death […] He could have stopped this. He could have changed the course of history.” Tandey passed away in 1977 at his home in Coventry.

This is a painting at Hitler’s home in Bavaria which he showed to Prime Minister Chamberlain. Hitler claimed that the injured man being carried at the front of the line is him and the man carrying him is Tandey.

A month after he was nearly killed, Hitler was partially blinded by a mustard gas attack and was sent to hospital. It was during this time when he learnt of Germany’s defeat. Hitler said that when he learnt this he had a second wave of blindness. Hitler and many others believed that Germany had been stabbed in the back from the home front and Hitler blamed it on the Jews and Marxists. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles didn’t help matters, making the German people hate the countries that made them sign the Treaty even more than they already did.

Hitler’s Early Life

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn on the 20th of April 1889, to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl, who was Alois’ second cousin and was young enough to be his daughter. He was born in a region of Austria-Hungary, now Austria, that considered themselves to be German, making him a German Nationalist.

Hitler as a baby. Proof that even the most unassuming of people can be truly despicable at heart

His father, being an Austrian politician, did not agree with the boy’s political views. He was the 4th child out of six, but he was the first to not die in infancy. As such, his mother spoiled him rotten. His father was not the same however and beat the young Hitler when he did wrong, while his mother protected him from this.

When he was 4 years old, he was spotted struggling in a river by another boy around the same age. The boy ended up diving in to save the young Hitler, who was eventually pulled to shore alive. This is Hitler’s first, and certainly not last, close call with death.

He was a very outgoing, confident young man who liked playing war games with his friends and had high grades at school. He enjoyed reading, specifically books about cowboys and Indians. That was until 1900 when his younger brother, Edmund, passed away from measles. Adolf was very close to Edmund, and his death affected the young boy deeply. He could sometimes be spotted by his neighbours lying on the top of the cemetery wall where his brother was buried, while his grades began to decline.

He became a depressed and detached person who often argued with his father and the teachers at his school. He instead spent his spare time reading and drawing, the latter of which he was very talented at.

His father passed away of a lung haemorrhage on the 3rd of January 1903 and he only just passed his final term of school but didn’t sit his final exam and instead dropped out. The 16-year-old was now unemployed and spent most of his time at the opera with his only friend, August Kubisek, who noted he was passionate about many topics, thought he was superior to others his age, had a short temper and was an incredible speaker.

One of Hitler’s paintings. Despite his very objective talent, he was rejected from the school

When he was 18, he said a very sad goodbye with his mother and moved to Vienna to take the entrance exam for art school. Not liking Hitler’s more traditionalist style, he was rejected from the school. He had to return home because his mother was very sick with breast cancer, and she passed away at the age of 47. The family doctor for the Hitlers said he had never seen someone so overwhelmed with grief as Adolf was.

Having nowhere to go since his parents were dead, he ended up becoming homeless and spent his early twenties in and out of homeless shelters, making just enough money to get by, selling his paintings of Vienna’s sights. It is believed he was first exposed to his racist ideologies while in Vienna. The Mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, was anti-Semitic and the idea of German Nationalism was widespread in the area that Hitler lived in.

In May 1913, Hitler was given the final part of his father’s land and was conscripted for the Austrian Armed Forces. After an assessment of his health in Salzburg, he was deemed unfit for service and let go, moving to Munich. Later in life, he said he didn’t want to anyway, because the mix of races in the Austrian army would lead to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In July of that year, World War 1 began.