Was there much change in the fighting methods employed by the British Army on the western front in the years 1915-1918?
Was there much change in the fighting methods employed by the British Army on the western front in the years 1915-1918? Explain your answer. Matt Elliman l
The traditional interpretation of the first world war and the tactics employed by officers is that of blundering ‘donkeys’ sending thousands of ‘lions’ over the top to their deaths, an example of this is portrayed in the popular black adder sketch. There was some continuity such as in the scale of casualties and trench warfare yet at the same time there was rapid change.
The military tactics employed by the British army at the outbreak of war were traditionalist and backward compared to the advances in weaponry and technology. The common belief of the officers was that the way to win was to attack, charging and outflanking with the cavalry and following up with the infantry. This began to change as the ‘war of movement’ came to a close and trench warfare began. At first the belief was that if large enough numbers of infantry were used in wave after wave of aggressive bayonet charges then there was no way that the enemy could not be overwhelmed. This resulted in heavy casualties in the BEF, (what remained of the original force) and also in the French army. The underlying fault with this tactic was that with the advances made the advantage was with the defender, using trenches, bunkers, barbed wire and machine guns, the defenders (especially the Germans who utilised the machine gun first and on the greater scale) had an upper hand and small numbers could hold off and often annihilate large numbers of attackers.
Despite common belief and idea, the British army adjusted its tactics quickly and by early 1915 it was experimenting with novelties such as aircraft, gas, smoke, trench mortars, Lewis guns and even wireless. Although not to their full extent and nearly all had ‘teething’ problems which would eventually be refined over the next three years. Also more precise calculated bombardments from artillery were coming into use and especially the formulas needed to work out the correct timing and density were glimpsed but not fully grasped and understood. This would need many years of testing, experimenting and refining.
On top of the changes that were occurring in technology there had also been changes in the overall fighting methods, these occurred for various reasons, the introduction of the machine gun, the change in ability in the British army and the change in the size of it. Firstly the majority of the original B.E.F (British expeditionary force) had been killed or wounded. This left the British military without its small professional elite force therefore forcing them to recruit large numbers of civilians, because Britain’s lack of a reservist program or conscription. Due to the short period of time available to train the new recruits they were not up to the usual standard of the B.A especially in areas such as marksman ship and rate of fire, (which had been so high in the original B.E.F that on attacking force of Germans had thought they were under fire from machine guns when it was only a platoon of soldiers with Lee Enfield rifles.) This forced Commanders to drop traditional tactics, and due to the need for high fire power and the subsequent lack of accuracy, to adopt the machine gun, in the form of the Vickers heavy machine gun and later the more effective Lewis light machine gun. Which (the machine gun) had shown its defensive strength against the French when they attacked Lorraine and suffered heavy loses and against the Germans when they stormed the fortresses of Liege during august of 1914. As well as this there was a dramatic increase in the size of the army, half a million men signed up in one month. This lead to commanders having more troops at their disposal so enabling them to try new tactics such as the wave attack advocated by the French general Laffargue.
