The story of the airships - part one.

The story of the airships - part one.

Zeppelin! The legend of the Great War. Giant, slow airships that taken their name from German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin - the man who, after his resignation from the army in 1891, devoted his full attention to airships. In his opinion the airships were the perfect weapon that might counteract the British naval superiority and strike at Britain itself, without being afraid of Royal Navy ships.

 Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin

Today the words „airship / dirigible“ and „zeppelin“ are often considered synonyms and other airship designs are almost forgotten. Certainly there were some other designs in German service, as Parsevals and Schütte-Lanz. Those designs are forgotten today mainly because of the British and French propaganda and newspapers, who called all the German airships as „zeppelins“. Well, we have to admit that „zeppelin“ is much better name to use in the headlines than Schütte-Lanz. And this is worth mentioning here that the very first German name for the airship was Lenkbarer Luftfahrzug – a controlled air train. 

Naval airship L.15, about to land. 

The zeppelin’s road to the active service was not easy – there were many opponents of airships among the German staff officers. Considered slow and vulnerable the airships had to prove their abilities and versatility. 

Today, the same opinion prevails – the airships were just the waste of money, effort and primarily the lives of their crews. But is this a reasoned opinion?

The British had a real problem with the zeppelins and their air raids. There were no effective ways to protect the British from the bombs dropped by airships. The newspapers and propaganda posters were full of the pictures showing the burning zeppelin falling from the sky. Those pictures were very suggestive and they could be a morale-booster, but the British air defense was not as effective as in the propaganda materials. 

 Zeppelin air raid over London - German propaganda postcard.

January 19th, 1915 was the day the idea of strategic air raids was born. On this day four German airships were sent on a mission over England - deep into the enemy territory. There were 4 people killed, 16 wounded and the damages were worth of ca. 1,5 million pounds (in today’s value). 

Certainly we cannot compare this to the German air raids over Britain in the World War II,  but the airships (and later the heavy bombarders) made the British land a part of the battlefield. We cannot overlook how the British morale was influenced by the fact that the German airships were dropping the bombs on London, while the Germans in Berlin were safe and far away from any direct danger.

Air-raid damage to houses in Baytree Road caused by a Zeppelin L31

It was 1915 when the British (and some of the French) newspapers started the propaganda campaign against the airships. The air raids were really effective and still more and more airships were sent over London and the countryside. The press turned „the Zeppelins“ into „the Baby killers“ and the newspapers‘ pages were full of suggestive photographs showing the children with the dud bombs or near the damaged houses. 

No one cared that the reality was a bit different – Wilhelm II, as British royal family relative, was against the air raids on London. This was the reason that during the first air raids the airships were dropping the bombs only around the British capital. Later on, he allowed the bombing of military targets in London, but dropping the bombs on important historical, royal and cultural buildings was strictly forbidden (certainly the airships were dropping bomb from the 10.000 feet, so it was rather impossible to hit only the military targets, but it was still far away from being the real „Baby killers“). (see the note below)

 "The End of the 'Baby-Killer'" - British poster.

 

The air raids over Britain are widely known, but they were just a part of everyday routine for German airships. Reconnaissance missions and long range patrols were also very important, especially on the Eastern Front and over the North Sea. The German Imperial Navy owes most of its successful operations to the airship reconnaissance missions. The airships were active on most theatres of the Great War: Western Front, Eastern Front, North Sea, Balkans and even Africa. 

The rumour is that the service of the airship was not a long one and after a short time they were shot down or destroyed. Well, it’s true that for some of them the very first mission was also the last one – but some zeppelins had a very impressive record, for example L 9 – with 74 reconnaissance missions, 4 air raids, 5683 kgs of bombs dropped or L 13 – with 45 reconnaissance missions, 15 air raids, 20667 kgs of bombs dropped.

Zeppelin attack on Yarmouth - German propaganda postcard.

And were the airship bomb raids effective? There are many opinions that they couldn‘t change anything, but the statistics are proving them wrong:

• There were 118 airships in German military service during the Great War, 40 of them were shot down or destroyed.
• 14 – 15 thousand soldiers were taking care of British air defense, with search lights, cannons, and aircrafts. All those men and that equipment couldn’t be used on the front line just because of the airships. This means that one man from the airship crew required thirty-three British soldiers engaged against him – one of the highest ratios in the Great War.
• The casualties’ ratio of Zeppelin crews was 11% (79 men) in the Army, 26,3% (389 men) in the Navy.
• The newspapers were full of photos and drawings showing the shot down airships. The pilots who managed to shot down the zeppelin were national heroes. However it was not so easy to shot down the airships: there were nine zeppelins shot down by airplanes in 1916, six in 1917 and only three in 1918!

 British propaganda poster.

The final statistics for German airships were: 231 bomb air raids, 1189 air reconnaissance missions, 197 tons of bombs dropped, 557 people killed and 1358 wounded. We may compare this to the German airplane raids over Britain: 22 raids with Gotha airplanes (85 tons of bombs dropped, 61 airplanes shot down), 11 raids with Zeppelin R V (27 tons of bombs dropped, 2 airplanes shot down).

A curious detail is that Manfred von Richthofen wasn’t the only „flying baron“ of the Great War.  There was another one among the airship crews - Horst Julius Ludwig Otto freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels, „the Zeppelin baron“, one of the two airship commanders awarded with the „Blue Max“. He started his military career as wachoffizier on board of L3 and then, as a 25-years-old Lieutenant, he became a commander of L6 in November 1914. Then he was a commander of two giant airships L30 and L54. Zeppelin baron’s skills made him very famous - Buttlar-Brandenfels always managed to fly back home with his airship, even if it was damaged by the storm or AA fire. 

 Horst Julius Ludwig Otto freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels

Note: Paradoxically the French airplanes that dropped their bombs on Karlsruhe (15th and 22nd June 1915) deserved this nickname much more than the German airships. During the first air raid on Karlsruhe – the city proclaimed as the „open town“ – the bombs were dropped during one of the church holidays, when the streets were full of worshippers (the casualties were 112 dead and 300 wounded). The second air raid was even worse – one of the main targets was the former railway station, the place where the circus was playing. The direct hit caused the death of 120 people, mostly the children...(JD)

Book review - Simon Jones - Underground Warfare 1914 1918

Simon Jones - Underground Warfare 1914-1918

Underground mine and explosion - this was one of the most feared words in the trenches of the Great War. The troops were more or less aware of the dangers they met – enemy bullets, artillery fire, bayonet, weather and disasters. All this was a daily routine on the front  - but being buried alive by the underground explosion that came without any warning? This was something really horrible, especially that soldiers were trying to hide in their dug-outs, looking for some moments of quiet and relaxation from the hell above. Underground warfare made those shelters as dangerous as staying out of the trenches during the artillery fire.

A tunnel, leading to the Christchurch cavern beneath Arras, France

This is not surprising that the information „there are the miners underground“ was one of the most feared ones – as most of the troops could only imagine how close the enemy miners were and they could only guess if the explosives were ready to detonate.

Sometimes they could see the spectaculars explosions made by their own miners – like the volcanos they were erupting along the enemy lines, spreading death and destruction.

One of the preserved tunnels (Wikipedia)

„Underground Warfare 1914-1918“ is a detailed study about the underground warfare in the Great War. The book is full of personal memoirs and reminiscences, which help him to tell us the story of this not so known part of the conflict. The war is not divided in two parts – the troops „over the top“ and the miners „underground“. Jones managed to describe the connections between both of them; he shows us how the development of the underground warfare was depending on the general situation on the front. As an addition, we can often read what the troops were thinking about the miners and their works.

The book takes us through the evolution of the underground warfare, starting with old concepts from the 18th century and the necessary change of those ideas in the face of the new type of the conflicts. The chapters are:

1 - Military Mining before 1914

2 - Mining Operations 1914 - early 1915

3 - French Mining Sectors: Carency, Oise, Les Eparges and Vauquois

4 - British Mining Operations 1915 - early 1916

5 - Hohenzollern and St Eloi 1916

6 - The Somme 1916

7 - Vimy, Arras and Messines 1917

8 - Miners and Technology

9 - Tunnels and the Infantry Attack

10 - Underground Accommodation and Communications

11 – Conclusion

 One of the British tunnels (Guardian)

Jones is trying to answer some important questions – were there any attempts to move the troops under the enemy lines? Were the underground dug-outs the best solution to survive the hard times at the front line? Why underground warfare was not as effective as it was expected to be?

 One of the drawings from the book.

Just the few examples but I hope you would learn from this book as I did. The book is also full of diagrams, maps and instructions helping us to understand the underground warfare, the conditions the miners met underground and their equipment and techniques. There are also a few photographs in the book.

This book is really worth reading, highly recommended.
(JD)

The Front Among Rocks and Ice - The Great War in the Dolomites, part two.

The Front Among Rocks and Ice - The Great War in the Dolomites, part two.

  

This is the continuation of the previous posts related to the Italian Front of the Great War. This time there are some additional facts here.

The number of casualties on the Italian Front, especially the Dolomites, is not known. The international committees spent years on trying to find it out, but no agreement was reached so far.  The number of the soldiers who died in the Dolomites vary between 150.000 and 180.000. Most probably the higher number is the right one.

Austro-Hungarian troops on the way through the glaciers of Marmolada.

Those numbers include the deaths caused by all possible reasons, not only the battle casualties. After the war the commanding officers from the Italian front, both Italian and Austro-Hungarian ones,  were reporting that the losses in the combat were only 1/3 of the total number of casualties. The extreme conditions of the Dolomites - weather, frost, snow, avalanches, hunger, diseases, exhaustion - have caused 2/3 of the total losses.  

Italian Strada delle 52 Gallerie (The Road of Tunnels)

An avalanche was one of the most feared dangers. They were frequentative, dangerous and really deadly – 60.000 deaths are reported as the victims of the avalanches. Those reports are shocking: only during one night, 12/13 December 1916, more than 6.000 Austro-Hungarians were dead because of the avalanches. In the following three days the total losses on both sides – caused by the avalanche – were as high as 10.000.
One day a chaplain was conducting a drumhead service for more than 150 Austro-Hungarian soldiers. The avalanche came without the warning and all of them were buried under the snow. Other soldiers were trying to rescue the victims – despite the fact that this area was under the Italian fire. But no single shot was fired at the Austro-Hungarians during this hopeless rescue mission.

Avalanche! - a painting from the WW1 era.

There were several days when the temperature reached -40 C. The hand grenades were the only weapon still working in such low temperatures. A skirmish where both sides were using only the hand grenades was just the mere routine. 

 An everyday logistics and transport of the wounded was another challenge.

On the other side the Italian front was one of the few places the soldiers really loved to be. This may seems ridiculous, but the mountain landscape was so beautiful, than even with all this harsh conditions, death, cold, dangers, they wanted to be there. One of the soldiers wrote:

"We were informed that the very next day we would be released from our positions, and almost no one was pleased. (...) When we were going up to the snowy pass of Fanes, it was a dark, silent night. This silence was a strange, not common feeling and seemed to wrap around the long line of the marching men, all with the heavy rucksacks on their backs, tiredly climbing up the rock. This was the feeling I never felt again in my life, even if being released from the first line again."

 

On the roof of the world...

There are many evidences like this one, telling us that the mountain landscape of the Dolomites, even during the merciless war, was extremely beautiful.  And many of the soldiers were showing their love for the mountains - despite the extreme harsh conditions and the death that was everywhere.
(JD)