withdrawn, after suffering no fewer than 6000 casualties. All told, the British losses in the battle of Loos amounted to 50,000 men and 2000 officers, including three divisional commanders—Major-General Sir Thompson Capper (7th Division), Major-General G. H. Thesiger (9th Division), and Major-General F. D. V. Wing (12th Division)—each of whom was killed. A series of costly counter-attacks on the enemy's part failed to make much impression on the new British line, and mounted up the German casualties until they were estimated at many more than those of the British. The battle died down; the gains were consolidated; but the murderous struggle at close quarters for the Hohenzollern Redoubt and its adjoining entrenchments continued for weeks and months, an outstanding feature of which was the attempt of the 46th (North Midland Territorial) Division to carry the redoubt by storm on 13th Oct. The Midlanders' task was handicapped, like so many British operations at this period, by inadequate artillery preparation, and though they fought like veterans they could only win the western side of the stronghold at a cost of 4000 casualties.
The advance of the 10th French Army on the right of the British was held up in front of Souchez on the opening day of the combined offensive, but made better progress on 26th Sept., when d'Urbal's troops made themselves masters not only of long-contested Souchez, but also of Thelus, La Folie Farm, and most of the Givenchy Wood. But the Vimy heights, notwithstanding that some progress was made along their slopes, still barred the road to Lens from the south. On the 28th the French 9th Corps, at the British Commander-in-Chief's request, took over the defence of Loos, and the British line was rearranged.
The main French effort in 1915, as already pointed out, was in Champagne, where a solid week's bombardment paved the way for the great advance on 25th Sept. Inspired by Joffre's stirring Order of the Day, "Remember the Marne: Conquer or Die!", the French troops carried all before them on the greater part of the front. General Marchand's Colonial Division broke clean through 2 miles of the main German defences, Marchand himself falling severely wounded at the head of his men. The greatest advance was made on Marchand's right, from Navarin Farm to the Butte de Tahure, where an advance of 2½ miles was made before the day closed. But the troops in the centre were robbed of decisive victory by a double check on the wings. On the right the two German strongholds at the Butte de Mesnil and the Main de Massiges—comparable with the Hohenzollern Redoubt in their strength—held out stubbornly until, after days and nights of ceaseless combat, both fell into the attackers' hands. On the extreme left the assailants could make practically no headway.
Thenceforward the French advance made little progress towards the main objectives, though a breach was made in the enemy's second line in a fresh attack on the 29th; and a third advance (6th Oct.) won the village and Butte de Tahure. On 20th Oct. the Germans recovered the Butte de Tahure, and in other counter-attacks prevented the French from developing their first initial advance into the greater victory which Joffre had hoped for it. The battle had yielded an impressive list of captures—the total number of German prisoners being over 23,000 before the end of September, and the captured guns 80—but the Allies' long line had not materially altered before the autumn offensive gave place to another winter of tedious siege warfare.
The year closed with the appointment of Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of all the French forces, General de Castlenau taking over the immediate command of the French troops in France; and the resignation of Sir John French—now created a Viscount of the United Kingdom, and appointed to the Home Command—after more than sixteen months of severe and incessant strain at the front. Lord French was succeeded by General Sir Douglas Haig, who had been singled out for promotion by his brilliant achievements since the British army first landed in France.
The Naval War in 1915
Throughout 1915 the operations at sea contained no movements so striking as some of those which marked the opening months of the war. The careers of all the scattered German cruisers were over, the last of them, the Königsberg, being finally destroyed in the Rufigi River, German East Africa, by the shallow-draught monitors Severn and Mersey, sent out for the purpose from Great Britain. The German High Seas Fleet remained in harbour, waiting for Lord Jellicoe to be tempted or goaded into some imprudent disposition of his forces. Hence the sudden raids on the British East Coast, begun in the closing months of 1914. They repeated them once too often, on 24th Jan., 1915, when the raiders, consisting of 4 battle-cruisers, 6 light cruisers, and a force of destroyers, were encountered off the Dogger Bank by the British battle-cruiser squadron under Admiral Beatty, consisting of the Lion, Tiger, and Princess Royal, as well as the New Zealand and Indomitable, and the light cruisers Southampton, Nottingham, Birmingham, and Lowestoft, together with the Arethusa, Aurora, and Undaunted. Outmatched by the 13.5-inch guns of Beatty's 'Cat' Squadron
of battle-cruisers, the Germans made for home. In the hot chase which followed, the Blücher, last in line of the German battle-cruisers, was hit repeatedly, fell behind, and was eventually sunk by a torpedo from the destroyer Meteor. Her survivors were picked up by the Arethusa. Beatty's flagship, the Lion, which was leading the pursuit, was partly disabled by a chance shot and had to be towed home, Beatty himself following the chase at some distance in a destroyer. Before he could pick up his place in the pursuit he met his three battle-cruisers returning, these having broken off the action owing to the increasing risk of straying into an enemy mine-field or of falling foul of the mines which the retreating Germans were strewing in their path. Two other German battle-cruisers had been set on fire by the British shells, the Seydlitz and the Derfflinger, but, with the rest of the German ships, they made good their escape. Taught by this experience, the Germans made no further naval raids on the East Coast.
In the following month (4th Feb.) Vice-Admiral von Pohl, Chief of the German Admiralty Staff, proclaimed a submarine blockade of the whole of the British Isles, declaring all the waters round Great Britain and Ireland a military area in which Allied merchant-ships were to be destroyed and neutral ships would incur danger of running the same risk. If the Germans thought they could scare British shipping away by these means, they were soon undeceived. They took heavy toll of peaceful shipping from the first, and shocked the rest of the world by the lengths to which they were prepared to go in developing this ruthless policy, but all their efforts failed to paralyse British trade as they anticipated. The crowning tragedy of this submarine campaign was the sinking of the Cunard liner Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland on 7th May, 1915, with its loss of upwards of 1000 non-combatants, including over 100 Americans. It was one of the German crimes against humanity in general and Americans in particular which brought the United States into the war on the side of the Allies in 1917.
1916 on the European Fronts