I rom the field aroused high hopes. The first two German lines
hf defence were carried on a wide front, and many prisoners and
fc^jns were captured, while on the fourth day of the battle the
iird German line, which was believed to be the enemy's last
.ystem of defence, was for a time breached near Sainte Marie;
>ut again the solution of the problem of bringing up reserves
it the right time and in good order was not found, while the
memy's reserves, which came up fresh through country which
md not been fought over, arrived in time to fill the breach.
The battle of Champagne ran on into Nov., developing into a
erics of struggles for tactical points of importance, but ended
vith no material change in the position won by the French at
he end of the fourth day of the battle.
So the campaign of 1915 closed on the western front, with the Ulies still asking themselves how it was possible to get through he trench barrier and drive the Germans from France and Jelgium. The great bombardment followed by the assault in nass had failed, and some other method of attack was required. Ere the year closed a new problem had developed in the Near (last, which had its repercussion on the western front. German, Kustrian and Bulgarian forces had overrun Serbia, and the jUlied Governments had decided to send a relief expedition to I Salonika. Part of the troops required for this new enterprise lame from the Dardanelles, but more were needed and these jiad to be supplied from the western front. Five divisions of French troops under the command of General Sarrail were Lrdered off, and were accompanied by the three British divisions lithe III. Army which had been holding the line S. of the Somme, the 2yth, 28th, and 22nd. It was also decided to spare the two jlivisions of Indian infantry which had proved such a timely jeinforcement at the time of the first battle of Ypres, the horrors If another winter of trench warfare in Flanders, and they were tent off to Mesopotamia. This reduction of the British army was made good by the arrival in France before the end of the year of jhe 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divs. and the i6th Irish Div., and If the 2ist, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 36th and 38th New Army Divs., so that the strength of the British army in France and fielgium stood at 36 divisions and 5 cavalry divisions, a combat- [nt strength of about 750,000 men. The Allies on the western [rant had therefore at this time about 3,100,000 men, opposed lo 2,000,000 Germans. These figures gave rise to anxious dis- lussion as to what superiority of numbers was necessary to Insure success under conditions of trench warfare, and whether nd how the Allies could obtain the necessary superiority. I While these discussions were going on important changes took j'lace in the Allied Command. Joffre had hitherto been nom- pally chief of the French General Staff. He was now definitely ppointed commander-in-chief of the armies of the N.E., with I.e Castelnau as his chicf-of-staff. In the British army Sir John 'rench was brought home to command the troops in Great iritain and was succeeded by Sir Douglas Haig, with General Uiggcll as his chief-of-staff, while Sir William Robertson, who ad been chief-of-staff to French, became chief of the Imperial ieneral Staff at the War Office.
Operations in igi6. In Dec. 1915 the first serious attempts
p obtain unity of action between the Allies took place, and a
onference of commanders-in-chief and chiefs-of-staff of the
'.ritish, French, Belgian, and Italian armies, attended also by
spresentatives of the Russian and Japanese armies, was held
t Joffre's headquarters. At this conference it was agreed to
[ttack the enemy as early in 1916 as possible, sufficient time
eing allowed for the training of the New Army divisions that the
Iritish army was receiving, and for the reequipment of the
Kussian armies. These plans, however, never matured, because
Ibe enemy anticipated them, and it is therefore unnecessary to
2fer to them further.
- During Dec. 1915 and Jan. 1016 the Germans developed
jonsiderable activity along the front and made local attacks at Meuport on the North Sea coast, against more than one point i the Ypres salient, at Givenchy on the Vimy Ridge front, on he Somme, and in Feb. on the Alsace front. The majority f these attacks took the form of experiments in various methods
of bombardment which the Germans wished to test in view of a greater effort which they were planning. There had not been wanting signs that the enemy were preparing an attack on the Verdun sector; and considerable anxiety having been expressed as to the adequacy of the French defences on that part of the front, General de Castelnau was sent thither by Joffre, and he ordered certain improvements, but the time was lacking to give full effect to his recommendations (we VERDUN). In fact, the Allied defences at this period of the war were notably inferior to those of the Germans. The Allies had spent the greater part of 1915 either in carrying out the vast preparations necessary for an attack in trench warfare or in attacking, and had little energy or labour left for the elaboration of defences. The Ger- mans on the other hand had been on the defensive throughout the year, and they enjoyed the great advantage of being able to employ upon their entrenchments forced labour from Belgium and the occupied provinces of France, and the large number of prisoners they had captured on the Russian front. Further, they had immediately behind their zone of battle the forests of Alsace and of the Ardennes, which provided them with an almost unlimited amount of timber. The Allies could only find labour either at the expense of the fighting troops or of the munition factories, and the British army was forced to import the greater part of the timber it required. It was not until much later in the war, when elaborate arrangements were made for the provision of native labour, and for the exploitation of the French forests, that conditions became at all equal in these respects.
It was the superior strength of their defences which enabled the Germans, while inferior in numbers on the whole front, to con- centrate sufficient force for a great attack upon one part of that front. That attack opened on a front of nine miles on the banks of the Meuse opposite Verdun on Feb. 21, 5 German divisions attacking 2 French divisions. The enemy at once gained a startling success, penetrating the French defences, and on the fourth day of the battle capturing Fort Douaumont, one of the chief of the outlying works of the fortress of Verdun. This suc- cess was greater than any yet gained by the Allies in attack, though their relative superiority in men on the battle-fronts had been far greater than that of the Germans at the beginning of the battle of Verdun. The Germans won their successes mainly by the skilful handling of their medium and heavy guns, of which they had assembled a great number for the attack. They had before the war made a much closer study of the use of heavy and medium howitzers, both for field and siege warfare, than had either the British or the French, and they had numbers of gun- ners highly trained in their use, while careful experiments in bombardment, carried out before the battle, bore good fruit. It is to these causes that the tactical success won by the Germans in the first days of Verdun may be attributed. At Mons 5 German divisions had attacked 2 divisions of the British II. Corps, but the Germans had not had time to bring up their heavy artillery and at the end of a day's fighting had done little more than drive in the British outposts, while at Verdun, with the help of a mass of heavy guns, 5 German divisions had over- come 2 French divisions and gained such a position as menaced seriously the French fortress. The result was, therefore, a tac- tical victory for the German artillery.
Joffre dealt with the crisis promptly. De Castelnau was sent again to Verdun and arranged with Langle de Gary, who com- manded the group of armies of the Centre, a command which included Verdun, as to the disposal of the reinforcements which were hurrying to the battle-field and as to the methods of defence. Joffre also sent with these reinforcements General Petain, who arrived on Feb. 26 and assumed command in the battle-zone. The German attempts to gain ground beyond Douaumont were repulsed, and the French commander-in-chief had time to look round and survey the whole position. He had at once realized that the enemy was in deadly earnest. " C'est la bataille," was one of his first remarks when he heard of the German attack. He had immediately requested Haig to relieve his X. Army on the Arras front, and had asked Kitchener to hasten the dispatch of British reinforcements to France. Two more New Army divi-
