If you plan a battle, of course you need soldiers and weapons, and a battle plan, but that's
not all you need - you also need time, timing, and water.
I'm Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the allies made small advances in the west, the Balkans, and Macedonia.
There was a munitions strike in Britain, rival factions attempting to lead in post revolutionary
Russia, political machinations from Austria-Hungary, and hundreds of civilian deaths at sea caused
by German U-boats.
On thing I didn't mention last week that still continued was the Toplica Uprising.
It ended, though, the 25th, with order restored by the Central Powers.
Thousands of people, including many civilians, lost their lives.
This was the only popular uprising during the war that happened in an occupied territory.
It was pretty brutally crushed, and the Bulgarians actually set fire to whole villages.
But though the uprising was put down, resistance wasn't.
And the Bulgarian policy had been harsh from the beginning, "...to a certain point it
was based on the presumption that Serbia had been once and for all wiped out of the political
map of Europe...
Bulgaria intended to hold what it got, or... make these lands Bulgarian by any means possible."
And it is true that postwar many Bulgarian officers were charged with war crimes for
their actions in this region.
(Toplice uprising PDF)
The "rebellion" also seemed over in Russia.
On the 24th, the Russian armies declare their loyalty to the provisional government, and
the next day Mikhail Alexeev became army commander in chief.
Because of desertions and to try and fix supply issues, he announced that he would have to
delay the May offensive he'd promised the Allies.
On the 26th, German and Austrian authorities provided railway facilities for Vladimir Lenin
to return to Russia from exile in Switzerland, knowing he will be a major force for civil
unrest and getting Russia out of the war.
You might think that with the situation in Russia, Germany would launch an immediate
offensive on the Eastern Front to capitalize on chaos in the Russian army, but they were
subtler.
A direct attack could in theory provoke patriotism in the Russian troops; why not let them tear
themselves apart internally instead?
This was why they sent Lenin, the political agitator, hoping that he was the virus that
would kill his host.
Also, the spring thaws were preventing any major action in the east for the time being
anyhow.
On the 27th, the Petrograd Soviet, vying for control with the Provisional Government, called
on all people to demand an end to the war.
They issued their famous proclamation, "to the people of the whole world", with passages
like this, "We address ourselves to our brothers from the proletariat of the Austro-German
coalition... from the first days of the war, the attempt was made to convince you that
your weapons... protect European culture from Asiatic despotism...
From now on, this excuse no longer applies; democratic Russia cannot be a threat to liberty
and civilization...
Cast off the yoke of your semi-despotic state order... refuse to be a tool of annexation
and violence... we challenge you to the restoration and consolidation of international unity.
Workers of the world, unite!"
That same day, that same Soviet promised the Polish people complete independence.
There was one big battle that was taking place in the field this week.
General Sir Archibald Murray was in charge of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and though
he'd lost a division to the demands of the Western Front, he still had four divisions
in his Eastern Force under his field commander Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Dobell.
He also had his desert column made up of the ANZAC and Imperial Mounted Divisions.
They had been making pretty successful raids on Ottoman positions near the border, but
the main attack was now on.
The British figured it to be more a case of getting the Turks to turn up and cutting off
their retreat than an actual battle, and this - as was par for the course with the British
- was overly optimistic.
The town of Gaza was the key to the coastal region and an advance to Palestine, but though
the Turks were not really there in large numbers, they were well dug in on the hills and ridges
around Gaza, and they also had thick hedges of cactus, which, as you may guess, were serious
obstacles.
What would eventually be known as the First Battle of Gaza kicked off March 26, 1917,
with pretty ambitious British battle plans.
The cavalry, under Sir Philip Chetwode, would make a sweep around the town to cut the enemy
off, and then two divisions would make a frontal assault.
Thing is, though this plan was ambitious, it worked, at least at first.
The cavalry swept all the way around to the sea, encircling Gaza, and the infantry had
advanced at night and hadn't been noticed.
But dense fog crept in and the guides weren't up to snuff, so there was suddenly delay after
delay, and by the time the 53rd Division attacked Ali Muntar hill, there was serious resistance.
Still, they managed to capture their objectives and establish at least tentative contact with
the cavalry, but by this time the day was almost over and they had not broken the enemy
resistance.
There were also reports of Turkish reinforcements marching in from the south.
Peter Hart says, "The effective use of time is always important in warfare, but in Palestine
it was particularly critical because unless they had secured water within a certain timeframe,
the troops would have to be withdrawn".
Dobell first pulled back his cavalry, which was pretty exposed, but then came a period
of total chaos and a collapse of command.
Both sides actually thought they'd lost the battle, but the Turks had the water advantage
and since Dobell's water situation was growing grave he was forced to order the men to fall
back.
On March 27th his forces surrendered their gains.
It was a British defeat.
Murray, though, did not really write that up in his dispatches to Britain, tripling
the Turkish casualties and writing an optimistic account that it was just a minor setback.
The result of that - in conjunction with taking Baghdad two weeks ago - meant that Prime Minister
Lloyd George saw a real opportunity for success in Palestine and urged swift action, with
Jerusalem being the goal.
A second attempt on Gaza was given the green light.
Thing is, Murray had said previously that he needed five divisions to defend Egypt,
but now he was going to invade Palestine with just four.
It seems, to me at least, that just like in Mesopotamia leading up to the siege of Kut
15 months ago, hubris and optimism were taking the place of common sense.
Murray began his preparations for another attack.
And a side note here- soon, the war in the skies is going to heat up, and I want to mention
something I haven't had time to mention before.
It's something from the period that I found in The Story of the Great War, "Not only
have aeroplanes, since the beginning of the war, become safer, but they have also become
marvelously swifter and more powerful.
As this is being written news comes from Washington that some recently imported very big and powerful
Italian aeroplanes have made successfully a flight from Newport News to the federal
capital - a distance of some 150 miles - at a rate of 135 miles per hour and carrying
ten passengers.
This is typical of the recent development in the science of flying."
That was actually faster than the land speed record of 124 MPH, set in Britain in 1914.
Planes were now faster than cars.
And the week ends, with a British defeat at Gaza, the ending of a rebellion in the Balkans,
and a Russian government saying it will continue the war but the Germans sending Lenin to try
and stop that from happening.
Time and timing are important in war, but not just in battle; also in the endless conduct
of the war.
I haven't read from Louis Barthas' memoir "Poilu" in a while so I want to close
with that today.
He had been doing his time fighting since August 1914 and was still doing so, day after
grim day.
You can see that effect on his morale, and there is no doubt his feelings were shared
by the masses of the warring men.
"All this accursed month of March, the weather was terrible, bitterly cold, with fog, rain
and snow squalls.
But that didn't stop the firefights or violent bombardments... to take and retake a few stretches
of broken down trench line.
It wasn't that the possession of these trenches had any capital importance for one adversary
or the other.
It came from a sense of prestige, of conceit, or glory for the generals responsible, both
French and German.
The sufferings and deaths of hundreds and thousands of soldiers counted for little in
relation to all that."
Amen.
If you want to learn more about Louis Barthas and his diary, check out our bio episode about
him right here.
Our Patreon supporter of the week is Avi Greenbury - thank you for your support on Patreon, we
could not do this show without you.
Don't forget to subscribe, see you next time.
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