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Attrition: The Great War on the Western Front - 1916
Focusing on 1916, this work examines the actions of the principal commanders as they sought for a way to win the war and opted for the deadly notion of attrition: the notion that it was only possible to win by killing a vast quantity of soldiers. It points at the failure of high command to to realize that until new offensive technology was invented to overcome the current bias of defensive technology, the death toll could only rise.
347 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
About the author
Robin Neillands
46 books19 followersRobin Hunter Neillands was a British writer known for his works on travel and military history. A former Royal Marine who served in Cyprus and the Middle East, he later became a prolific author, publishing under multiple pen names. His military histories, often featuring firsthand accounts from veterans, challenged revisionist narratives, particularly regarding Bernard Montgomery, the Dieppe Raid, and the Allied bombing campaign in World War II. Neillands also authored numerous travel books inspired by his extensive journeys across Europe. His works, both popular and scholarly, earned him a nomination for the Royal United Services Institute’s Military Literature Award.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 22, 2019
Nineteen-sixteen was the year the strategies of the French, German, and English generals changed from breakthrough to attrition. The entrenched positions on the Western Front, protected by barbed wire, interlocking machine gun positions, and pre-registered artillery, could not be penetrated in depth and then held by conventional assault. “While the means to cause casualties had vastly increased, the means to reduce them had yet to be thought of. This applied in particular to the attack, because the armies, all the armies, were fighting a twentieth-century war with nineteenth-century tactics - even though the new technology had made those tactics either obsolescent or positively dangerous.”
Eventually, new weapons such as the tank, and new tactics that combined infantry, artillery, aviation, and armor, along with the arrival of the Americans, would be enough to crack the German line, but that was still two years away in 1916, two years of bitter struggles and deaths on an unprecedented scale.
This book focuses primarily on Verdun and the Somme. The description of the battle of Verdun, the first great campaign of the year, which lasted from February to December, does not start until approximately 40% into the book, but that initial space is not wasted. The author spends it explaining how the war had reached this point, looking at each nation’s pre-war planning and strategy, the political constraints the generals were under, the experiences of 1914-1915, the evolving technology, and the state of the respective alliances. It is very well written, and in fact is perhaps the best brief introduction to the First World War that I have read. So much of the war seems inexplicable to us today, just mindless slaughter, but there were reasons it came to this, and the book does a fine job explaining them.
One of the author’s previous books was The Great War Generals on the Western Front, 1914-1918, which is notable for its sympathetic views toward men who are usually depicted as red-tabbed butchers. His opinion of Haig, for instance, is generous, up to a point. For instance
On the other hand, he also notes that Haig had serious limitations that resulted in the unnecessary loss of many British lives. “In all but slaughter, the Battle of the Somme was over by early October, and to continue past that point was madness indeed, but this side of Haig's character, his stubbornness combined with a seemingly incurable optimism, is one that even his supporters find difficult to defend.”
This is a good example of how this book proceeds. The author, Robin Neillands, tries to look at all aspects of tactics and personalities, but does not shy away from giving his own opinions. He will not give cover to incompetence by saying that no one can judge unless they were there at the time. As a result, it is very clear where he stands. He respects Pétain and Crown Prince Wilhelm, commander of the German 5th Army. He has a very low opinion of Joffre, whose imperturbable demeanor simply masked a complete lack of imagination and a rigid determination to press on in spite of casualties. “When evidence reached Joffre's ears that the men were complaining, that untenable positions were being given up or that attacks were not being pressed home with their former élan, his answer was not to question Nivelle or his own methods, but to call for courts martial and firing squads.” He considers Nivelle to have been promoted far beyond his level of competence, with disastrous results. More surprisingly, his opinion of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander of the 4th Army at the Somme, is very mixed; he showed great skill in marshaling resources but overlooked some basic facts of the battlefield, giving up important advantages.
Verdun was a slaughterhouse, but it was always intended to be one. General Von Falkenhayn intended from the start to draw the French into fighting to the last man for Verdun, which for historical and emotional reasons they could never give up. In the end, however, the maelstrom engulfed his troops as much as it did the French and it became slaughter for its own sake, detached from logic or purpose. “Now and again, the history of war throws up a battle that transcends reason. The soldiers fight because they cannot stop fighting, because too much has been committed to give up now. Too much blood has been shed, so much courage and will has been committed, that to admit defeat would be unthinkable.”
Both sides hurled men into the furnace, and the French were prepared to pay any price to drive the Germans back. “The capture of Douaumont took less than four hours and cost the 24th Brandenburg Regiment just 32 men killed and 40 wounded. It was later estimated that French losses resulting from the fall of Douaumont, or incurred in its recapture many months later, amounted to around 100,000 men.” The battle was so long and so intense that estimates of the casualties vary by up to 100%, but the most commonly accepted numbers are 377,000 French and 337, 000 German – more than 700,000 total.
Haig did not want to attack on the Somme. He recognized that the terrain was better suited for defense, and it was not in a strategically important part of the Western Front.
The battle was fought there because that is where the French and British armies joined up, and the original plan was for a massive joint offensive. After Verdun began pulling the French army into its vortex, their contribution diminished, but still, on 1 July they provided fourteen divisions to go along with Britain’s sixteen.
It was, of course, a catastrophe, four months of bitter fighting and enormous casualties for very little gain, and all of that would be lost again in three days during the German offensive in March 1918. By the end of July 1st, the first day of the battle, Britain had lost 19,240 men killed and 57,470 wounded, missing, or captured. It would continue on beyond all reason, partly because Joffre wanted a general rather than a limited offensive, to prevent the Germans from pulling troops out to support Verdun. Haig’s initial plan was for a breakthrough into the open country behind German lines, where his cavalry could sweep through and roll up the enemy flanks. Once it became obvious that the British were going to have to pay a bitter price for every yard gained, it became, like Verdun, a battle of endless attrition.
It was barely a war anymore; it was organized madness. By any reasonable analysis, both sides should have recognized that the costs vastly exceeded any expected benefits, and indeed the Americans made multiple attempts to bring the warring parties to a peace conference. By this time, however, each of the countries had lost so much that they felt that anything short of total victory would dishonor their dead and make the fighting to have been pointless, as if it were not pointless enough already.
And so it ground on and on, for two more bloody years. The allies finally got their victory, but with results that virtually guaranteed another war. “And so the war was fought with new weapons and old ideas and the result was a slaughter exceeding that of any previous war. In just four years, about 9,300,000 soldiers died on the battlefields of the Great War; 3,600,000 from the nations comprising the Central Powers and 5,700,000 from the nations of the Entente.”
For anyone who has ever wondered how the First World War devolved into the endless slaughter that it did, this book is an excellent introduction to the battles, the leaders, and the key decisions.
Eventually, new weapons such as the tank, and new tactics that combined infantry, artillery, aviation, and armor, along with the arrival of the Americans, would be enough to crack the German line, but that was still two years away in 1916, two years of bitter struggles and deaths on an unprecedented scale.
This book focuses primarily on Verdun and the Somme. The description of the battle of Verdun, the first great campaign of the year, which lasted from February to December, does not start until approximately 40% into the book, but that initial space is not wasted. The author spends it explaining how the war had reached this point, looking at each nation’s pre-war planning and strategy, the political constraints the generals were under, the experiences of 1914-1915, the evolving technology, and the state of the respective alliances. It is very well written, and in fact is perhaps the best brief introduction to the First World War that I have read. So much of the war seems inexplicable to us today, just mindless slaughter, but there were reasons it came to this, and the book does a fine job explaining them.
One of the author’s previous books was The Great War Generals on the Western Front, 1914-1918, which is notable for its sympathetic views toward men who are usually depicted as red-tabbed butchers. His opinion of Haig, for instance, is generous, up to a point. For instance
Alexander the Great would have found it difficult to succeed in forcing a breach in the German line in 1914-1915, and the defeats Haig's armies suffered in 1916 and 1917 - those notorious disasters on the Somme and at Passchendaele - should not obscure the fact that it was Haig who commanded the British armies that spearheaded the Allied victory in 1918 and showed the other armies how this war should be fought; even General Foch admitted that.
On the other hand, he also notes that Haig had serious limitations that resulted in the unnecessary loss of many British lives. “In all but slaughter, the Battle of the Somme was over by early October, and to continue past that point was madness indeed, but this side of Haig's character, his stubbornness combined with a seemingly incurable optimism, is one that even his supporters find difficult to defend.”
This is a good example of how this book proceeds. The author, Robin Neillands, tries to look at all aspects of tactics and personalities, but does not shy away from giving his own opinions. He will not give cover to incompetence by saying that no one can judge unless they were there at the time. As a result, it is very clear where he stands. He respects Pétain and Crown Prince Wilhelm, commander of the German 5th Army. He has a very low opinion of Joffre, whose imperturbable demeanor simply masked a complete lack of imagination and a rigid determination to press on in spite of casualties. “When evidence reached Joffre's ears that the men were complaining, that untenable positions were being given up or that attacks were not being pressed home with their former élan, his answer was not to question Nivelle or his own methods, but to call for courts martial and firing squads.” He considers Nivelle to have been promoted far beyond his level of competence, with disastrous results. More surprisingly, his opinion of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander of the 4th Army at the Somme, is very mixed; he showed great skill in marshaling resources but overlooked some basic facts of the battlefield, giving up important advantages.
Verdun was a slaughterhouse, but it was always intended to be one. General Von Falkenhayn intended from the start to draw the French into fighting to the last man for Verdun, which for historical and emotional reasons they could never give up. In the end, however, the maelstrom engulfed his troops as much as it did the French and it became slaughter for its own sake, detached from logic or purpose. “Now and again, the history of war throws up a battle that transcends reason. The soldiers fight because they cannot stop fighting, because too much has been committed to give up now. Too much blood has been shed, so much courage and will has been committed, that to admit defeat would be unthinkable.”
Both sides hurled men into the furnace, and the French were prepared to pay any price to drive the Germans back. “The capture of Douaumont took less than four hours and cost the 24th Brandenburg Regiment just 32 men killed and 40 wounded. It was later estimated that French losses resulting from the fall of Douaumont, or incurred in its recapture many months later, amounted to around 100,000 men.” The battle was so long and so intense that estimates of the casualties vary by up to 100%, but the most commonly accepted numbers are 377,000 French and 337, 000 German – more than 700,000 total.
Haig did not want to attack on the Somme. He recognized that the terrain was better suited for defense, and it was not in a strategically important part of the Western Front.
No tactical or strategic gain was made on the Somme front that was worth the cost in lives. Even had the British and French achieved their breakthrough on the Somme, the Germans had plenty of room to manoeuvre and, unlike the French at Verdun, no national interest in staying where they were. During the winter of 1916-17 the Germans simply withdrew to the Hindenburg Line, east of the Somme battlefield, and it all had to be done again.
The battle was fought there because that is where the French and British armies joined up, and the original plan was for a massive joint offensive. After Verdun began pulling the French army into its vortex, their contribution diminished, but still, on 1 July they provided fourteen divisions to go along with Britain’s sixteen.
It was, of course, a catastrophe, four months of bitter fighting and enormous casualties for very little gain, and all of that would be lost again in three days during the German offensive in March 1918. By the end of July 1st, the first day of the battle, Britain had lost 19,240 men killed and 57,470 wounded, missing, or captured. It would continue on beyond all reason, partly because Joffre wanted a general rather than a limited offensive, to prevent the Germans from pulling troops out to support Verdun. Haig’s initial plan was for a breakthrough into the open country behind German lines, where his cavalry could sweep through and roll up the enemy flanks. Once it became obvious that the British were going to have to pay a bitter price for every yard gained, it became, like Verdun, a battle of endless attrition.
Total casualties on the Somme, killed, wounded and missing, come to some 1,300,000 men, British, French and German. The British share in this total includes the losses incurred by the Empire and Commonwealth troops, from Australia, Canada, India, South Africa and New Zealand, and amounts to some 400,000 men. The French lost 200,000 men on the Somme, to add to the more serious losses of Verdun. German losses on the Somme came to more than 600,000 men.
It was barely a war anymore; it was organized madness. By any reasonable analysis, both sides should have recognized that the costs vastly exceeded any expected benefits, and indeed the Americans made multiple attempts to bring the warring parties to a peace conference. By this time, however, each of the countries had lost so much that they felt that anything short of total victory would dishonor their dead and make the fighting to have been pointless, as if it were not pointless enough already.
And so it ground on and on, for two more bloody years. The allies finally got their victory, but with results that virtually guaranteed another war. “And so the war was fought with new weapons and old ideas and the result was a slaughter exceeding that of any previous war. In just four years, about 9,300,000 soldiers died on the battlefields of the Great War; 3,600,000 from the nations comprising the Central Powers and 5,700,000 from the nations of the Entente.”
For anyone who has ever wondered how the First World War devolved into the endless slaughter that it did, this book is an excellent introduction to the battles, the leaders, and the key decisions.
March 1, 2014
An intelligent look at how the pattern of the Great War changed in 1916 from attempting to find a breakthrough to simply trying to wear down the opposing armies by attrition.
Neillands doesn't subscribe to some of the established views of the people and tactics involved which makes for a refreshing perspective. Yet he doesn't shy away from the appalling casualty figure or the horrors of trying to fight a war with 20th century weapons and 19th century tactics.
Neillands doesn't subscribe to some of the established views of the people and tactics involved which makes for a refreshing perspective. Yet he doesn't shy away from the appalling casualty figure or the horrors of trying to fight a war with 20th century weapons and 19th century tactics.
October 2, 2023
Magisterial…
Superb, engrossing, almost unputdownable, and ironically attritional in its composition. A thoroughly enjoyable and informative read. The battles of 1916 were fought in an attritional manner; Verdun was orchestrated that way; The Somme was fought that way when explained later on by Haig as a means to justify the scale of loss. As Neillands explains all we’re culpable from the politicians to the Generals, who eventually paid the price for their folly by being sent into ignominy. For me the best of Neillands books on the First World War. A highly recommended study and a must read for any student of the Great War. 5 stars.
Superb, engrossing, almost unputdownable, and ironically attritional in its composition. A thoroughly enjoyable and informative read. The battles of 1916 were fought in an attritional manner; Verdun was orchestrated that way; The Somme was fought that way when explained later on by Haig as a means to justify the scale of loss. As Neillands explains all we’re culpable from the politicians to the Generals, who eventually paid the price for their folly by being sent into ignominy. For me the best of Neillands books on the First World War. A highly recommended study and a must read for any student of the Great War. 5 stars.
March 18, 2020
Very interesting book, but not for a novice reader. Very dry in places but gets into British tactics.
December 26, 2013
Well-written account of a critical year in the Great War
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews