The First World War: A Complete History by Martin Gilbert

Author:Martin Gilbert
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: World War I, Military, 20th Century, Modern, History
ISBN: 9780795337239
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Published: 2004-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

17

War, desertion, mutiny

APRIL–JULY 1917

Far away from the battlefields, and with America’s impact still to be felt, two of Germany’s three partners, Austria and Bulgaria, were beginning to try to find some way of discussing peace with the Allies. Working through diplomats in Switzerland, on 12 April 1917 there was an initiative in which they tried to find out what terms would be acceptable. But the mood of the Allies was uncompromising: America’s decision to enter the war seemed to open up the prospect of a decisive swing in the Allied favour. Five days later, an ominous foretaste of what was to become a storm took place on the Aisne, when seventeen French soldiers deserted their trench shortly before an attack was due to begin.

On the flank of the Aisne, General Mangin made a four-mile penetration of the German line, but when the battle was called off on April 20, Nivelle admitted that there could be no breakthrough. In the air, the Germans had also maintained ascendancy on the Western Front: on April 21, Baron Richthofen celebrated his eightieth aerial victory. On the following day, in what had so recently been an integral part of the Tsarist dominions, German troops entered Helsinki.

***

On April 23, on the Western Front, in an attempt to relieve the growing German pressure on the French, and lessen the potentially disastrous impact of the French mutinies, which were spreading, British troops were again in action east of Arras, at Monchy-le-Preux. Haig had been reluctant to restart an offensive he had called off eight days earlier at the request of three of his generals, but the French were insistent. Among those killed on the first day of the renewed offensive was a friend of Vera Brittain, Geoffrey. Another of her close friends, Victor, had been blinded near Arras two weeks earlier, after having been shot through the head. As often happened during the war, a letter from a soldier who had been killed reached its destination after his death. Three days before he was killed Geoffrey had written of how he hoped he would not fail at the critical moment, that he was ‘a horrible coward’, and that for his school’s sake he so wanted to do well. Geoffrey’s letter ended: ‘If destiny is willing I will write later.’

Vera Brittain subsequently commented: ‘Well, I thought, destiny was not willing, and I shall not see that graceful, generous handwriting on an envelope any more.’ Her Geoffrey had been killed by a sniper while trying to get in touch with the battalion on his left, some hours before the start of the attack. ‘Shot through the chest, he died speechless, gazing intently at his orderly. The place where he lay was carefully marked, but when the action was over his body had disappeared and was never afterwards found.’ Vera Brittain’s brother Edward, who had recovered from his wound on the Somme, wrote from the Western Front: ‘Dear child, there is no more to say; we have lost almost all there was to lose and what have we gained? Truly as you say has patriotism worn very very threadbare.

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