Wars and ConflictsΜύ permalink
WW1 Trench Raids
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by pc1973 (U13716600) on Wednesday, 9th September 2009
The practice of sneaking over no mans land at night to throw a few grenades and maybe take a prisoner or two.
Do you think they were worth it? from what iv'e read they cost a lot of causalties for minimal gain, what great benefit are you going to get from a prisoner anyway. Unless your lucky enough to get a senior officer, you are not going to learn much (apart from perhaps the state of the enemies moral).
Perhaps they did it to keep the troops active although I heard as the war went on they become less frequent. -
Message 2
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Wednesday, 9th September 2009
With raids and patrols, the idea was to maintain domination of no-man's land, and keep up a spirit of aggression. Often grabbing a prisoner was simply a way of finding out what regiment was opposite you. Such things could yield clues as to whether a big attack was imminent.
Ironically the regiments that were most aggressive and had most casualties often had the highest morale. There's nothing more demoralising than sitting around waiting to picked off by a sniper or hit by a shell.
The top brass were also keen to maintain aggression because where this didn't happen there tended to be spontaneous truces of one kind or another (the Christmas Truces of 1914 were not the only time this happened). See Tony Ashworth's book "Trench Warfare 1914-1918: the live and let live system". -
Message 3
Posted by agentpumpkin (U14028934) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
They were still frequently trench raiding up till the Battle of Amiens in 1918. The Canadians especially were frequently at it.
I think it was a useful and valid tactic, despite the high cost. Not only was information on the enemy vital but many modern infantry fire team tactics evolved from it. -
Message 4
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Correct me if I'm wrong but I recall reading in a now-forgotten book that one such trench raid gave the Germans incredible intelligence about one of the the upcoming attacks at Ypres. Apparently, some sergeant had the plans on him. Why he had them, or why he had them in the trenches, the book didn't say.
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Message 5
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Just how dangerous were trench raids (for the attackers)? I was under the impression a typical scenario would be: smoke barrage fired to provide cover, raiding party charges across, grabs isolated enemy soldier from forward listening sap, and legs it back as quick as possible. Obviously it didn't always go to plan, but it sounds like reasonable risk-management to me. Better than walking towards machine guns, anyway...
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Message 6
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Friday, 11th September 2009
I've always thought that the raids were a way of 'softening up' the German lines ahead of a big push. Part of a larger strategy of keeping up pressure on the Germans until they cracked.
One of the best things I ever heard about the tactic was that junior officers all got sent a leaflet asking them if "they had been sufficiently offensive today"? -
Message 7
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Friday, 11th September 2009
A two word response must have been oh-so-tempting!
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Message 8
Posted by agentpumpkin (U14028934) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Certainly they were used ahead of a big push... but both sides used it as a means of gathering inteligence and keeping the pressure on the enemy.
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Message 9
Posted by Darrenatwork (U11744656) on Friday, 25th September 2009
For all sorts of details about the British army in WW1 look no futher than Richard Holmes's Tommy. It covers trench raiding and was done for the reasons stated by other posters
Getting information about the enemy and dominating No Man's Land. IIRC they usually did more than rush up, chuck a few grenades and retire or capture a sentry in a forward sap. Hand to hand fighting (with all sorts of improvised weapons: spiked knuckle dusters for example) was common in the front line trenches during raids. -
Message 10
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Saturday, 3rd October 2009
I think people would be surprised at how much hand to hand fighting went on.
Having read the Manchester pals accounts ,as my husbands grandfather was in this outfit,it quite graphically describes the hand to hand fighting in the action in which he was killed ,Heninel nr Arass, on 23/04/1917. -
Message 11
Posted by hambi22 (U2309395) on Monday, 5th October 2009
Hello,
I have just read the book The Infanterie atack's written by Erwin Rommel.
He describes one such night's raid.
Twenty men's crawled quietly into the enemies trench, they overcame the few guards and then captured 9 solders without any loss. -
Message 12
Posted by pc1973 (U13716600) on Tuesday, 6th October 2009
I understand the typical raiding party was 1 Officer and about 30 Other Ranks.
I have read both accounts of raids that were very successful as posted above but also the flip side were casualties had been sustained without any gain.
That was the original reason I asked the question and it does seem the overall response the view is that they were a good and effective way of fighting trench warfare.
Thanks for all the input.
Paul. -
Message 13
Posted by Amphion (U3338999) on Wednesday, 14th October 2009
I dont want to get shot at?
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Message 14
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Thursday, 15th October 2009
from what iv'e read they cost a lot of causalties for minimal gain
Μύ
...as opposed to all the other initiatives in WWI which cost virtually no lives for huge gains...
It's time someone did some research on the generals in WWI. How amny times did they need to be told, or hear, or see, or figure out that IT ISN'T WORKING before they tried something else.
Difficult job though it was, I have never understood why they spent over 3 years just trying the same old stuff all over again. The fact the Haig and co were decorated is disgraceful - they should have been court martialed.
Perhaps it's lucky that the Lusitania was sunk, otherwise we'd still be trying massive artillery bombardments followed by an infantry charge. -
Message 15
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Monday, 19th October 2009
Actually 1507George, most modern historians will tell you that the Haig of popular imagination was actually a much better General than he has traditionally been given credit for. Yes, the image we have of World War One is largely based on the Somme, where lines of soldiers walked in to machine fire armed only with footballs, but the reality was very different. Trench warfare was not new, but a continuous front was, and the British Generals used all sorts of innovations to break it: airplanes, tanks, creeping barrages, 'worm' formations, quick and heavy bombardments, mines, and heavy concentrations of machine guns on the front-line amongst others. They certainly weren't the crazy armchair Melchett characters.
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Message 16
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Tuesday, 20th October 2009
Some clever people had thought of tanks before the war started (or concepts for vehicles similar to tanks).
Yet it was Sept 1916 before they were tried on the battlefield at the Somme.
What had been happening in the two or more years previously?
Same old, same old.
Firing artillery bombardments ploughed the ground up, and made it harder going for the infantry. Was this thought through before Passcendaele? No. In fact the mud was so bad that even tanks were bogged down.
The British Official History reckoned that it helped to end the war quicker, which was to Haig's credit. Most objective observers reckoned it was a needless slaughter. -
Message 17
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Tuesday, 20th October 2009
I'm no great Haig fan, but it should be recognised that the attack on the Somme was not so much a tactical choice of the British as it was imposed on them by the French, desperate to draw German resources away from Verdun, where they were suffering their own horrendous war of attrition.
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Message 18
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Tuesday, 20th October 2009
"Most objective observers"
Care to name one?
LW -
Message 19
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Thursday, 22nd October 2009
David Lloyd George
Basil Liddell Hart
JM Bourne -
Message 20
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Thursday, 22nd October 2009
Not many objective observers would call Lloyd George objective!
The French Army Mutinied in 1917 - one of the reasons that the British had to keep pressure on the Germans, to avoid total collapse of the front, if they attacked. -
Message 21
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
I think Lloyd George was fairly objective. He did try to score political points from the Western Front carnage, but his observations are unfettered.
I know the French Army mutinied in 1917. That was after 4 years of trying the same old stuff. I'm surprised that the British (or more of them) hadn't mutinied by then. -
Message 22
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
Well the French could always do a strike properly. Some of the British actually waited until the war was over to mutiny.
I still find it amazing that the Germans never discovered the French mutiny - had they done so, history could have been *very* different. -
Message 23
Posted by LeamBull (U3889658) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
1507George, I think you'd better read up a bit more on the development of the tank. Wonders were done to have a working tank by September 1916.
You also quote JM Bourne in connection with your needless slaughter line. If you have ever read any of John's work, you must have been reading it upside down or back to front or something, because your statement is as far from the truth as it is possible to be.
And Lloyd George objective? You have got to be winding us up. -
Message 24
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Tuesday, 27th October 2009
George
Whe you wrote "observers", I thought you meant people commenting at the time of the battle.
Lloyd George was acutely aware that he was to blame for the conduct of the war. Siegfried Sassoon's famous Declaration specified that he waqs protesting the political, not the military, conduct of the war.
Further, the Welsh Wizard did not withhold troops from the BEF in the winter of '17/'18 to keep them out of Haig's murderous clutches, he did it because he was terrified of a Bolshevik-style uprising that would hang him from a lamp post on Parliament Street.
Neither of these facts fit with his personal view of himself as the people's champion and when the well-mannered Haig was well-mannered enough to die, he took full advantage to traduce his memory and ride on the tide of anti-war sentiment to popular acclaim. His memoirs are even more unreliable than Churchill's.
Much as I admire both of them as Liberal politicians. Honest.
Cheers
LW -
Message 25
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Saturday, 7th November 2009
I thought that the first tanks were deployed at Cambrai in 1917.Am I mistaken in this?
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Message 26
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 7th November 2009
vera
The first tanks were deployed on the Somme, the year before, but initially in small numbers, although better tactics developed.
Cambrai was the first battle where they were used in large numbers in a co-ordinated way as the cutting edge of the assault, which was the way it had originally been intended they would be used.
LW
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