History of the World War, Volume 1 (of 7) : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest warMarch, Francis A., Jr.
History
History of the World War, Volume 1 (of 7) : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest war
March, Francis A., Jr.
World War, 1914-1918
The first battle of the Marne was almost wholly open warfare; so also
were the battles of the Masurian Lakes, Allenstein, and Dunajec in the
eastern theater of war, and most of the warfare on the Italian front
between the Piave River and Gorizia.
In this variety of battle, airplanes and observation balloons play
a prominent part. Once the enemy is driven out of its trenches, the
message is flashed by wireless to the artillery and slaughter at long
range begins. If there have been no intrenchments, as was the case in
the first battle of the Marne, massed artillery send a plunging fire
into the columns moving in open order and prepare the way for machine
gunners and infantry to finish the rout.
In previous wars, cavalry played a heroic rôle in open warfare; only
rarely has it been possible to use cavalry in the Great War. The
Germans sent a screen of Uhlans before its advancing hordes into
Belgium and Northern France in 1914. The Uhlans also were in the van in
the Russian invasion, but with these exceptions, German cavalry was a
negligible factor.
British and French cavalry were active in pursuit of the fleeing
Teutons when the Hindenburg line was smashed in September of 1918.
Outside of that brief episode, the cavalry did comparatively nothing
so far as the Allies were concerned. It was the practice on both sides
to dismount cavalry and convert it into some form of trench service.
Trench mortar companies, bombing squads, and other specialty groups
were organized from among the cavalrymen. Of course the fighting in the
open stretches of Mesopotamia, South Africa and Russia involved the use
of great bodies of cavalry. The trend of modern warfare, however, is
to equip the cavalryman with grenades and bayonets, in addition to his
ordinary gear, and to make of him practically a mounted infantryman.
Trench warfare occupied most of the time and made nine-tenths of the
discomforts of the soldiers of both armies. If proof of the adaptive
capacity of the human animal were needed, it is afforded by the
manner in which the men burrowed in vermin-infested earth and lived
there under conditions of Arctic cold, frequently enduring long
deprivations of food, fuel, and suitable clothing. During the early
stages of the war, before men became accustomed to the rigors of the
trenches, many thousands died as a direct result of the exposure. Many
thousand of others were incapacitated for life by “trench feet,” a
group of maladies covering the consequences of exposure to cold and
water which in those early days flowed in rivulets through most of
the trenches. The trenches at Gallipoli had their own special brand
of maladies. Heatstroke and a malarial infection were among these
disabling agencies. Trench fever, a malady beginning with a headache
and sometimes ending in partial paralysis and death, was another common
factor in the mortality records.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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