The last remains of summer ended this morning and it has remained a grey cold day, an appropriate mood for the next two DVD episodes of the Great War. These featured the position of the warring nations as the third winter approached in 1916. For the first time there was talk of negotiating a peace. Foremost was the position of the Russian people where the estimated losses were over four million dead or injured and another two million taken prisoner. There was little patriotism and considerable unrest at home which was suppressed by the traditional ruthless methods of the Tsar and the Russian aristocracy.
It is also estimated that one in twenty five of the French nation had been killed, wounded or was missing and everywhere there were women wearing black. 17 year olds were being conscripted into the front line. In England the names and photos of 15000 dead officers were presented in the pages of the London Times, and although there were some calls for an honourable settlement the majority were for pressing on for outright victory. This led to Lloyd George taking over with his concept that victory was only possible if everyone participated and made great effort as well as sacrifice. There had been two terrible blows to morale in addition to the failure to penetrate German defences on the Western front. The first was the consistent loss of shipping to the submarine which was being built larger and stronger and where only a quarter of the new vessels destroyed, thus increasing the fleet by fifty percent. Thus contrasted to the building of new ships in the UK where the increase was only one third of losses.
Then the worst development of all, the German Navy came out of its protected safe harbours and took on the British fleet which had not suffered a battle loss over four centuries, but now faced major losses before the German returned to port. Although the German Fleet had retreated, what happened felt like a defeat in Britain.
For the central European axis, it was the Austrians, who had initiated the conflict, that suffered temporary defeats by the Russians, and where commitment among the mixed races of the Austrian Hungarian empire varied, and the death of Franz Joseph undermined the position of Germany who had broadly held their positions on the Western front, and with Winter approaching had created a second major defensive position designed to withstand any new allied offensive. The American President and the Pope called upon the belligerents to state their terms for peace.
However in France and in Germany as in the Britain new leaders were of no mind to compromise especially when Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare making no distinction about the nationality of any vessels supplying the allies. This alienated American public opinion into moving away from neutrality towards supporting the allies. The German command also decided to move the Western front back to the newly created defensive position. In France the command also went back to its original 1914 strategy of launching an all out early spring offensive in 1917 to smash through the German lines, in a situation where the blockade was having its accumulated effect on the condition and moral of the German people. In the British Empire the creation of an even larger fighting force was underway, after Lord Kitchener of Khartoum was lost at sea on his way to a meeting in Russia, and the only reason the British PM was not involved was his need to be in Ireland where a revolt was ruthlessly put down in an attempt to re-establish stability. The force required the conscription of single men and then married men, and these preparations were matched by a drive to increase productivity in the mines, in shipping and in war materials. To reduce the need for more tonnage every piece of garden and land was converted to the production of food. The biggest problem was the strengthening of the depleted army where although several million men were available to be called up, the majority were required in reserved occupations, especially the coal mines where whole labour forces such as the Durham miners had previously enlisted.
It was in Russia that they main problem lay and as a consequence of revolution the Tsar abdicated, so that Russian troops which had come by sea via Marseilles to join the Western front took a vote to decide if they would join the offensive. It is estimated that 14 million men formed up along the various fronts of the allied offensive against some 9 million of the German Austrian axis. Thus the seen was set for what was to be another year of carnage without resolution.
To compare individual troubles and feelings against these statistics and the individual suffering with the misery of loss, deprivations of food shortage and everything else shortage, and the hardship of long hours of unsatisfying work, would be a perverse, and yet I have known aspects of such feelings and experience in my life, and which makes the reality of the Great War that much more difficult to bear, especially as I lack the ability to create reminders and warnings which will be value to others. I am disturbed by the experience as I have been about other matters and this has led top restlessness and a lack of sleep so after staying up until two am and trying to sleep I got up, made myself a milky coffee, narrowly won some games of stage two computer chess and write hoping to become tired and achieve a few hours of sleep sufficient to undertaken some good work tomorrow.
Earlier I watched Newcastle on Satanta push the manager of Spurs closer to the changing room door and also rejoiced at being able to do so out of the cold night air and what was not a memorable game of football although there were good goals, and the array of new players suggests this could be a good season. But the overwhelming feeling is of harsh winter of much discontent.
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