Was Australia really that good?

Other Wars World War 1
#21

OMG! This thread has taken a turn! I laughed out loud at “Uhh…Paul Hogan and Hulk Hogan are not the same person, as suggested by the fact that they don’t have the same name!” <–That’s gold there.

Personally, I think they should genetically splice Hulk Hogan, Paul Hogan and Lou Ferigno into a green wrestling ass-kickin’-Aussie. This whole kinda reminds me of the time someone mixed up Clinton’s name and called him Lincoln instead. :wink:

Back on topic…

During the last 100 days of the war, I recently read some German reports that estimated the strength of an attacking Austrailian division at 3 divisions…while accurately estimated the British strength (and even slightly low balled them) and estimated the 4 Canadian divisions at 13 Divisions. And they were never attacking at the same time. In fact, the Germans threw 8 divisions at the Canadians to slow them down and then re-enforced them…making the final ratio of attacker to defender 1 : 4.5 …and the Canadians still won. Typically, you’d want to have a ratio of 4:1 in order to take established defensive position.

Again, this shows that the Canadians and Aussies were both hitting well above their strength…from the German intelligence estimating that each Aussie was worth 3 Brits…and each Canadian at 4.2 Brits. Ok, I’m extrapolating a little bit.

But if you’re in the trenches with a huge green Aussie who’s body slamming every Hun in sight…you’d wish you had at least 3 men to subdue him.

#22

Ummm… remember that the Canadian Divisions for certain (and I think the ANZAC ones too, although I am NOT at all sure on this) were significantly stronger in bayonet strength than the British divisions (from memory a Canadian division was twice the strength of a British one, and an American one bigger still). So just because the Germans rated a Candian division as stronger than a British one should not by itself come as any surprise.

In any case, they were all operating as part of a concerted plan. The Canadian Corps (and to a lesser extent the ANZACs) were held back as specialised assault troops, with the unpleasant and bloody work of holding trenches from day to day being overwhelmingly carried out by the British and French. All the units operated in roles suited to them, and the net result was the destruction of the German army as a cohesive force on the field of battle - something that Lloyd George and various German Politicians were to spend the next 20 years trying to conceal.

#23

Can you elaborate on that, I don’t really understand what you mean?

#24

Yeah, I’m not really sure what you’re talking about there either (my post/non-war history is terrible) but I’m curious too.

That’s an excellent point that the Canadians were using oversized divisions and so that would definitely account for some of the German estimate (and the difference between their estimates of the Canadian force vs. #s of Brit div.) …but certainly not all of their estimate as they sent 170 000 men to defend ground from 55 000.

I think you’re right about the ANZAC divisions being oversized too but a quick google search revealed it to be 1500 men…and if that’s true, the Aussies were clearly the most badass troops, ever. :wink: Bless the net.

I was just thinking, I don’t know much about the Austrailian airforce in WWI. Know anything interesting about that?

And a fun fact about America in WWI: when their first fighter patrols were sent into the sky, they’d forgot something to add to their planes: machineguns.

#25

My emphasis

More like 15,000. 1,500 is barely two battalions.

However, that is divisional strength, which is considerably larger with artillery, support services, etc than the much smaller infantry elements in a division.

Ask, and ye shall receive. :smiley:

Australian Military Aviation and World War One

Although Australian Military aviation can be traced to flights made by a Royal Engineer Balloon Section at the Sydney Agricultural Ground on 7-8 January 1901, it wasn’t till late 1910 that a plan for an Australian Aviation Corps was submitted to the Military Board. Final approval to establish the Australian Flying Corps was promulgated in Military Order No.570 on 22 October 1912, with orders placed for two B.E.2a, two Deperdussin and a Bristol Boxkite to equip the new air arm.

Two pilots, Henry Petre and Eric Harison, and four mechanics - R.H Chester, G.A Fonteneau, C.V. Heath and A.E. Shorland were appointed to create a flying school. 734 acres of grazing land was purchased at Point Cook, Victoria at a cost of over £6,000 ($12,000), and the creation of the Central Flying School was announced on 7 March 1913. The first flying training course commenced on 17 August 1914. The four candidates on the course were Lieutenant R. Williams, Captain T.W. White, Lieutenant G.P. Merz and Lieutenant D.P. Manwell.

On 8 February 1915 the Government of India sought the assistance of the Australian Government to supply trained airmen, aircraft and transport for service in Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Australian Government replied that men and transport would be provided, but aircraft they could not. The unit (known as the Mesopotamian Half-Flight) was under the command of Petre and comprised White, Merz and Lieutenant W.H. Treloar and 41 other ranks. The Mesopotanian campaign culminated in the tragic siege of Kut and the subsequent ignominious surrender of the garrison included nine mechanics of the First Half-Flight.

Four Australian Flying Corps (AFC) squadrons also joined the British during World War I. No 1 Squadron flew against the Turks and Germans in the Middle East, while Squadrons 2, 3 and 4 served on the Western Front between September 1917 and November 1918. A variety of aircraft were flown, including Sopwith Camels and Snipes, RE8s, SE5 and DH5s. The Australian airmen engaged in photographic reconnaissance, artillery spotting and strafing and bombing raids on enemy troops and positions, and German aircraft. Additional Australian units were based in the United Kingdom. Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8 Squadrons were established to train aircrew for service in the four front line squadrons of the AFC.

The only Victoria Cross (VC) awarded to an AFC member was to Lieutenant F.H. McNamara of 1SQN for his heroism on 20 March 1917. However, the leading scorer of the AFC was 24 year old Captain A.H. Cobby from No 4 Squadron, who was credited with 29 aerial victories and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross [DFC] (with two bars) and a Mention in Dispatches (MID).

During World War I Australian airmen also served with distinction with Royal Flying Corps/Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force Units in Europe and the Middle East. Richard Williams commanded a Royal Air Force Wing and S.J. Goble flew operationally with the Royal Naval Air Service and commanded a squadron in France. When the Royal Australian Air Force was established on 31 March 1921, these men played prominent roles, Williams reaching the rank of Air Marshal and Goble the rank of Air Vice-Marshal.

But it was not only the new Service which was to benefit from the experience of World War I. Many of the pioneers of civil aviation (Charles Kingsford-Smith, Ross and Keith Smith and Hudson Fysh for example) gained their basic flying experience in the skies over France and the Middle East. Between 16 November-12 December 1919 Captain Henry Wrigley and Sergeant Arthur Murphy flew a BE2E from Point Cook to Darwin to meet Ross and Keith Smith. This was the first transcontinental flight.
http://www.raaf.gov.au/raafzone/html/history/wwI.html

#26

Two aspects to that - the “stab in the back” myth and the more pernicious “lions led by donkeys” myth. They’re essentially parts of the same myth - that the German army was significantly better than the Allied forces, and only collapsed in the end due to political events at home.
The behaviour on the part of the German Generals is understandable, but what is not understandable is that they were allowed to get away with it. Lloyd George for his part massively did-down the achievement of the BEF as a way to get at Haig, it’s commander. Haig’s achievement was immense, particularly since prior to him the largest army ever commanded by a British general in battle was by Wellington at Waterloo. Yet Lloyd George intensely disliked him (to the extent of starving him of reinforcements during the German offensive of spring 1918 to limit his freedom of action - thus nearly losing the Allies the war to satisfy a personal dislike) and his memoirs are essentially devoted to slandering the achievements of the BEF in general and Haig in particular.

#27

Well, no insult meant to the other forces, but on its own, the German Army was the most powerful army in the world back then. Neither the British, the French, the Italians or the Russians would have been able to defeat them on their own.
If it hadn’t been for the incompetence and lack of boldness of a single general in 1914/15, Paris would have been captured in those two years, most probably leading to the surrender of the French and the retreat of the British.
United, however, the Allied were able to slowly grind down the German army and eventually force them to surrender, though it was the US with its huge resources that broke the German army’s back in 1917.

Without trying to downplay the sacrifice that the Allied soldier gave on the battlefield, but how well does it speak for the individual armies’ fighting power if it took no less than 30 nation’s armies to defeat the armies of 4 (naval blockaded and/or landlocked) nations, and that only after 4 years of complete warfare?

#28

The German soldiers were at their breaking point of human endurance long before they were near Paris…

And one could just as easily state that had the French not stupidly attacked into German eviscerating some of their best formations, they may have stopped the German Army farther East…and the German Armies were not defeated by 30 nations at Verdun…

#29

So you say the German soldiers were at their breaking point already in 1914? How would that work out?

And one could just as easily state that had the French not stupidly attacked into German eviscerating some of their best formations, they may have stopped the German Army farther East…and the German Armies were not defeated by 30 nations at Verdun…

True, but as critical as Verdun was, it wasn’t the entire war. And in the end, the economies and manpower of the 30 nations defeated the 4 nations, not the superiority on the battlefield.

Also, the numerical superiority of the Allies comes into play at Verdun, too, as British army and their international sub-units at the Somme were the ones that stopped the German reinforcements from getting to Verdun in the first place, so you could say that the 30 nations came into play at Verdun, too.

#30

Poor morale among German soldiers and the mass surrenders of the German troops in 1918 were also a big problem for the German army. The soldiers who surrendered were also difficult to replace.

#31

My understanding was that the defeat of the Russians actually gave them quite the morale boost. But I’m not arguing whether Germany could have still won after 1917 (it couldn’t).

Different question: Where was Austria fighting all along? Balkans and Italy? Was there an Austria-Hungarian Navy, and if yes, how successful was it?

#32

Uhhh… that’s utter bollocks. It was summer 1918 (indeed late summer - after the defeat of the German offensive) before any significant numbers of US troops were committed to the Western Front. Prior to that they were making less of a commitment to it than Belgium.

Not a lot - at that particular point in history the weapons of defence were significantly stronger than those of attack.
Germany kicked off the war with an attack launched as a strategic surprise - and were stopped dead when the effects of that surprise petered out. It then took a significant amount of time for the Allies to mobilise (the first significant battle fought by the British was the Somme, almost two years after they declared war - the New Army simply wasn’t remotely battle-ready before then) while Germany, fighting a planned war from a baseline of peacetime conscription, was at the same level of readiness in 1914.
To comprehensively destroy an enemy armed forces (and we’re not talking about an army here - but several Army Groups plus a fleet and air service) inside two years without a significant numerical superiority and at a time when the weapons of defence were so superior to those of attack is an astounding achievement.

Not really - that’s just a refinement of the Dolchstoßlegende, implying that the German armies were undefeated and let down by the home front. Yes, the Allied material and industrial superiority made their eventual victory assured in a pure war of attrition - but that wasn’t the case with WW1. The German army was ground down by Allied victories on the field of battle, to the point where it eventually collapsed.
A good example of this is the capture of the Hindenberg line in 1918. The allied forces (principally British & Imperial) blew through it in a matter of days - but were convinced that the defences were so strong that had the Germans of 1916 been manning it they could have died of old age holding it.

And? All that does is demonstrate stupidity on the part of the Germans for attacking a group of nations stronger than they are!

#33

Did I say troops only? The resources, that means both weapons industry, food and monetary resources were what I was talking about.

To comprehensively destroy an enemy armed forces (and we’re not talking about an army here - but several Army Groups plus a fleet and air service) inside two years without a significant numerical superiority and at a time when the weapons of defence were so superior to those of attack is an astounding achievement.

You’re really trying to tell me that the Allied nations had no numerical superiority to the Central Powers?
And again, it was 4 years, it almost sounds like in your mind, WW1 started with the Somme?

Not really - that’s just a refinement of the Dolchstoßlegende, implying that the German armies were undefeated and let down by the home front. Yes, the Allied material and industrial superiority made their eventual victory assured in a pure war of attrition - but that wasn’t the case with WW1. The German army was ground down by Allied victories on the field of battle, to the point where it eventually collapsed.

WW1 was very much a war of attrition. Whenever I read any German soldier’s memories (including fiction like “All Quiet on the Western Front”) you read about their frustration that they don’t have enough food and their artillery being overused, with the barrels growing more and more inaccurate and unreliable, as they couldn’t get replaced.
I don’t know how this sounds to you, but to me that sounds very much like the results of attrition.

A good example of this is the capture of the Hindenberg line in 1918. The allied forces (principally British & Imperial) blew through it in a matter of days - but were convinced that the defences were so strong that had the Germans of 1916 been manning it they could have died of old age holding it.

It’s actually a really good example. Doesn’t this again imply that the Allied forces had ground down the German army?

And? All that does is demonstrate stupidity on the part of the Germans for attacking a group of nations stronger than they are!

I’m not trying to defend the foreign policy of Wilhelm II. I’m talking about the military ability.

#34

Because they were exhausted from hundreds of miles of relentless marching and fighting in an abnormally hot Autumn. Not to mention that the battle for Belgium also disrupted their planning and sapped their power…

True, but as critical as Verdun was, it wasn’t the entire war. And in the end, the economies and manpower of the 30 nations defeated the 4 nations, not the superiority on the battlefield.

Most of the “30 nations” barely provided anything of note…the War was essentially three (the Allies) versus two (the Central Powers), until the Americans entered fairly late in the War. Germany bore the brunt of the fighting because the Austro-Hungarians were a hopeless lot of a multi-ethnic state with divided loyalties and the Italians never posed a serious threat to either German or the AH empire…

Also, the numerical superiority of the Allies comes into play at Verdun, too, as British army and their international sub-units at the Somme were the ones that stopped the German reinforcements from getting to Verdun in the first place, so you could say that the 30 nations came into play at Verdun, too.

But the German manpower surpassed that of the French as did the birthrate of both nations. And the vaunted German military superiority was unable to overcome a like number of French troops, and the German Army initially outnumbered the French garrisons IIRC…

#35

Not too mention that many German soldiers advancing in the final offensive simply decided to stop so they could eat and loot…

#36

The British were heavily engaged in the fighting long before the Somme. British casualties of course were higher in 1916 than in previous years but they were still significantly engaged earlier on.

#37

The Germans did not attack Britain initially though going through Belgium seems like a bad idea. Perhaps Kaiser Wilhelm did not think the British would declare war since he was a grandson of Queen Victoria. Surely the British wouldn’t fight one of their own.

#38

The British contribution is an odd one. Yes, the New Army was committed to battle as early as Loos in late 1915. It was essentially their only significant action prior to the Somme 9 months later, and it should be remembered that the BEF at the time of Loos was still pretty small - only about 20 divisions. By the end of the battle of the Somme, the British had over 50 divisions deployed in that sector alone.
So yes, as far as I’m concerned, WW1 started on the Somme for the British Army.

Variable. In Storms of Steel is the only one of those that I’ve read, and he only makes passing references to shortages (mainly of food). Having said that, Junger was a junior officer and their job in any army is to be incurably optimistic…

#39

A long time ago when I was a history undergraduate I did an original research paper (which I am smugly pleased to report got first class honours from an eminent scholar on modern German history :)) on food shortages in Germany in WWI and how they contributed to Germany’s defeat.

I’m rusty on detail some 35 years later but, even allowing for the military being given food priority, the shortage of food was a constant and increasing problem which sapped civilian and military energy and adversely affected morale in the later years of the war.

Civilian food riots were an increasing problem in Germany in the last year of the war, accentuated by the realisation that the rich were still being fed well while the rest of the population weren’t. These deprivations were replicated to some extent in the armed forces.

The primary cause was simply that Germany lacked the ability to produce what it needed. I can’t recall the figures but there was a steady decline in food production during the war and in the calories and range of foods available to both civilians and the military.

One of the reasons, which Germany could not overcome by alternative measures, was that in rural Germany women usually worked the farms with the men. That was much less so in Britain, where women were more able to replace male labour taken into the armed forces so that Britain was better able to maintain its food production.

#40

So you don’t count the First Battle of Ypres (1914) into WW1? IIRC, the BEF played an important role in its victory, no matter how small in comparison to the later forces.

I don’t think it would be fair to say that the British involvement only really started in 1916.