Continuing to be gracious host. This is our fifth year producing this series, and your attendance is testimony to its success, said thank you very much. It is my distinct honor to introduce dr. Faulkner, one of the primary historians of the American Experience in world war i. He is a graduate of that other university of kansas that i will not mention, but as the author of two books of the American Experience in world war i, the first call the school of hard knocks about, experience and the second, which was just published called pershings crusaders, a detailed examination of 1917 and 1918, and you are about to get a presentation on some of the challenges they faced when they arrived in france about how to get across that protected area so they could get to the enemy and force a decision. Please join me in welcoming dr. Faulkner. [applause] show less dr. Faulker good afternoon. I would like to thank the Dole Institute for providing me an opportunity to lecture and for their continued support of the series. If anybody in this room gets easily depressed, this is probably not the briefing for you. We are going to talk about some ugly things, ugly aspects of human and military history. Theres three things i want to a today. One is to explain why there is a trench stalemate. Then we will examine the trials and tribulations as the different combatants try to break the stalemate, and lastly, in the process of trying to figure out the devils dilemma, how the combatants inadvertently create modern warfare. In other words, the doctrine we teach today in many ways is the grandchildren of what these people are learning with blood, sweat, toil, and tears from world war i. When you look at the great war, does not have a great reputation. When wolves when most people think about world war i, they think about trench warfare and utter futility. Sending hundreds of thousands of young men, the best and the brightest, to their death to accomplish nothing. There is some truth to this. Theres a bunch of myths that start to arise in world war i, and like all myths, they have elements of truth. These armies of world war i consisted of lions young, virile, patriotic young men who were led to their death by donkeys, and there was some truth to this. Some would say the commander of the british army is about a twowhat bold twowatt bulb. One of the terms that comes out is chateau generalship, that the generals stayed well behind the lines, drinking champagne and bouncing that it was else bouncing mademoiselles on their knees while the soldiers died at the front while the soldiers had no conception of what they were being asked to do, but if we look closer, we will see why it came about. What im asking you to do is to think about these myths and give a little sympathy for the devil. These officers, these generals are confronted with something between 1914 and 1918 that nothing in their previous education, nothing in their experience, nothing in the training has prepared them for, and they have to puzzle it out. One of the biggest things they have to deal with is this in the 50 years between the ending of the American Civil War and the beginning of world war i, what the most fundamental and revolutionary changes of military technology in history. Some would argue that there is more that happens in military technological change in those 50 years that had occurred in the previous three millennia of human existence, and this just gives an example of what is changing. A rifleman was getting all three shots a minute in the American Civil War and if he was lucky, he could hit a human sized target from 400 meters. You get all these new ideas. You take smokeless powder, made it into a new weapon system, the magazine bolt action rifle, some by the time you get to world war i, the infantryman is getting off 15 to 20 shots a minute. But theres more. By the time the civil war, the canon was getting off may one 1, one and a half shots a minute and the range was limited. The shells they were firing were not effective, but by the time you get to world war i, use the you see a massive change. The french come out with the worlds first modern artillery piece. What makes it modern is not only that it is a breach loader, not only that it is firing fixed ammunition now, but most importantly, underneath is arellrr hydraulic recall mechanism. You fire the civil war cannon, it goes rolling back and you have to laboriously moving back into position. Thanks to that french invention, when you fire it, it stays right there. That means the artillerymen were getting off 15 to 20 shots a minute. In other words, a french artillerymen could fire that can and as rapidly as the infantryman could fire the rifle. Last but not least, an american in vince the worlds first true automatic weapon. He uses physics each action has an equal but opposite reaction. You put a big spring on the side of the bold. When it fires, the spring catches the bold, runs it back. When you automate and fire it that way, you create a weapon that is able to fire 500 to 600 rounds a minute. When you take rapidfire modern artillery, that means the battlefield is a much more deadly place than it was. The myth is these silly generals had no idea that all this technological change was going to change warfare. Thats absolute bunk. They absolutely no that this is going to cause problems they absolutely know. If they did not figure it out, a russian has told them this. He writes a very influential book called the future of war, where he says if you look at the amount of development in weapons and the lethality it is going to create and how much now these societies are going to have to feed into war, warfare has fundamentally changed, and it will be devastating to your society. He creates a pocket lifted visions where the soldiers on the new battlefield will build barricades of their dead comrades to hide from the fire. If you are a military guy, he has just given you a very ugly thing to think on. A long, attrition war will destroy you. In fact, the amount of resources you will pour into this in blood, sweat, toil, and tears means ultimately or societies will collapse in revolution. They will not be able to keep doing this. The generals take this to heart. They have seen the effects of this firepower. They have seen it in the russo japanese wars. They have seen it in the balkan wars. They are absolutely aware how deadly the problems going to be. The problem is they do not know what to do about it. And he might be right. Going into world war i, you have a number of assumptions that all the combat and combatants are making. First is that war is inevitable. It is going happen. Theres the argument that once you say it is going to happen, you probably make it inevitable. They absolutely believe it is going to be bloody, but they also have convinced themselves that it is going to be short. The side that mobilizes first, the side that moves first will be the one that achieves victory. While we will have monumental casualties, it will be in a short amount of time and the war will be over. They make their plans around a short war. We will see how that is going to affect them when they get the war they do not anticipate. Of course, the german solution is what Winston Churchill calls the most important Public Document perhaps in human history. This is the germans attempt to make sure that the russian writer is wrong. If we can mobilize before the french armies can get going, we can not the french army out of the war and avoid all that firepower because we will hit them on the flanks and the rear and then turn a deal with the russians. I love the quote from woody allen if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plans. As we all know, this plan goes off the rails in a disastrous fashion in september 1914 with a battle. By the time you have early october 1914, you have two armies glaring at each other. The first thing they are trying to do is find flank of the other folks. Then they can get the momentum back and gamy initiative. Problem is the other guy is thinking the same thing, so you now have nearly an unbroken line of trenches, unbroken line of troops going 400 miles from the north sea in belgium all the way to the swiss border. These opening weeks of the war has been devastating. In fact, the one day, august 22, 1914, the french lose 27,000. Him 1914, the french lose just to put that in perspective, in nearly 17 years of fighting in afghanistan and iraq, the u. S. Military has lost 6997. And they do not have an answer to this. The soldiers, though, have figured out something if you are going to live on this battlefield, you had better dig deep because only by digging into mother earth will you escape the nasty bullets, the nasty shells that are flying. In 1914, this is what the trenches looked like. They are pretty basic. In fact, they are really just scrapes in the ground. At this point in time of the war, all it may take is fresh troops, heavy artillery, and shells to do them out. Thats the problem when you go into the war with a short more short war mentality. You do not plan for industrial mobilization. You do not plan for bringing in reinforcements. This is going to be a come as you are war. By the time the nations of europe slowly but painfully get those mobilization juices flowing, the trenches go from this, something that could easily be pierced, to this. And now you have a problem. These donkeys leading the lions are the first to figure this out. An instructor at the French War College turns to his staff and tells them in fall 1914 guys, i was wrong. Forget what i trained you on. We are all going to have to learn together. Heres the problem this is an actual british trench from 1916. If you were to look it this map as a military professional prior to world war i, you would be lost. Theres new things on this map that were not there before. First of all, the whole map is gridded off. It will allow you to better use the artillery. If you will notice, you have these little red squiggly lines. Those red lines are the german trenches. The way you find out about the german trenches is setting you up for one of the other realities of world war i. In no other human endeavor is necessity more the mother of invention than warfare. If artillery is going to be the big killer, you have to figure out where the enemy changes are and where their concentration is. You take this new toy called the airplane, fly over their lines, and you take pictures. Are you going to adjust your artillery . You fly the aircraft over the lines and have them spot where the artillery needs to fall. Now what we see is this race. The high ground will give them the advantage on the battlefield. You start to see this arms race. Well see this come back time and time again in world war i. The minute you have a cool new weapons system that gives you an advantage. You see this in the development of the aircraft. You see the aircraft at the top. The wings look like a dove. Its improvement that had just flown 13 years before. It is not armed. It gflies over, makes notes, comes back. But now it is my advantage to find that tol and shoot it down. And to keep the germans from doing it. We call this the challenge and response dynamic. In 1915, you get the worlds first fighter plane. As soon as the germans come out with this fighter plane, the allies have to match it. The see how rapidly the development of these Weapons Systems are occurring. Today, we have something called it f35 fighter plane. It has been developed for 30 years. We still cant get it to fly like it is supposed to. The air life of an airplane in world war i is measured in months, not years. Because within a few months, the other guy has come up with something that will go higher, go faster or go further, have more weapons and what you have and now you have got to up your game. Now were going to take this map and look at the devils dilemma that is trench warfare. When you look at the trenches, it is not a single trench. Theyre laid out in depth. You see on the map, we have three lines of trenches. On the somme. Now, just to have some fun, four of those belts are state in barbed wire. Six to 10 yearsards deep. This is German Branch wire. I dug it up from right here. This is kansas. Has anyone seen any pop wire like this . That is german anal retentive barge wire. Barbed wire. You have that barbed wire for one major thing you are not going to stop the attack but you want to hold the attackers in no mans land, the space between your trenches and the enemies trench, as long as you possibly can because that is where you will do the majority of the killing. So, lets look at our problem. We have our three belts of trenches. Well take it step by step by step. The first up is easy. Youve got gett up out of your trenches and cross no mans lando. Simple. Oh, the minute you step out of your trench, how much of you does the enemy see . The fully monty. How much of him do you see . About that much. Weve got an issue now. Something has to happen to keep the enemys head down, to kill them, wanting, make him scared, to give my gaze a hope in hel my guys a hope in hell of a chance. He rethink, bringing machine guns with you. The german maxim gun weights 124 pounds. Then there is all the ammunition and the water. You know you look like crossing no mans land with 124 pound gun . Slow moving target. There is my first dilemma. I have to find a way to keep their heads down. Once i cross no mans land, the fun has just started. Now i have to clear the enemy out of the first line of trenches. Now, corrossing around no mans land you can probably assume you will take some pretty heavy counties. So, i have, at that point of penetration when i jump in the enemies trench, i had better have a lot more guys with me than they have defending. So i have crossed no mans land. I have jumped into the first set of trenches. But now i have got to rinse and repeat. Ive got to break to the next belt of trenches and get to the next after that. Heres the problem. If i am lucky enough to have captured the first set of trenches, im spent. Ive lost too many officers, too many soldiers, i am short on any nation. On ammunition. You cant those guys to continue the attack. Now to break to the subsequent trenches i have to bring up fresh troops and more supplies. Oh, heres the catch. Each one of those excessive waves of troops coming to take out the next belt of trenches has across no mans land. And all of that nastiness in between. Once i capture a trench, i know dang well the germans are going to counterattack. That means i have to bring all of the equipment with me, so when i capture that trench, i can set it up for defense. The battle of the somme, the british soldiers are caring 5585 pounds of gear crossing normans went crossing mono mans target. What you look like . Slow moving target, please insert bullet here. They do it common to him again. If you are successful, you get to the good stuff. You can go to challenge four. I have crossed no mans land, broken into the first set of trenches, i have broken through the subsequent sets of trenches and now i can break out into the open where the germans cannot hide behind the trenches. Through the mud, through the blood, to the green greenfield beyond as the british would say. Simple. Well, lets add a publication here. A competition here a complication here. I love this map. This is a trench map the australian new zealand corps developed in 1917. Each one of those little greenish rectangles is a german infantry company. And what we have here in a spac e that is only three mile deep are three german divisions. Lets say for the sake of argument, the strength of 14,000 men. Satandard military doctrine is that the attacker needs a three to one advantage to overcome the defense. So, now im from lancet. If you were to take and put this into perspective and that three mile by four mile ares would be every man woman and child and lansin. Defending that area. And to win, the attackers going to have to kill, capture or wound or make these guys go away if im going to break through here. Now at a three to one advantage, hmm, it would require every man, woman and child in kansas city, kansas, to breakthrough. On a three mile by four mile front. Here is the deal. That technology that have been developed as giving most of the advantage to the defender. Its really a five to one advantage you need to breakthrough. So, that means to take out every man, woman and child in lansing and leavenworth i need the entire population of kansas city, kansas, and every man woman and child in Douglas County to make it through. Hmm. But is still got a get back to just crossing no mans land. If the good people of Douglas County in kansas city want to live to get on the other side, than they really want to kill as many people, defenders in this trenches, as they possibly can. And the first thing they turn to is artillery. 70 of the wars caches will because by shell fire. Now we have got to figure out how to best use the artillery to get what we need. To suppress the enemy, to keep them down in the hole or kill them to give my attackers hope. And what you see here is the allies trying to figure this out. I paced off the area here. It is six yards across. And if you look at this, these are the pounds of shell that are falling within every yard of trench. This is a world war i artillery shell. It weighs right around 15 pounds. This is an average shell. When the british finally get success on the 14th of july, the magic number they come up with is 660 pounds of shell falling for every yard of trench. You sort of see that there is a lot of shells just falling within this area. But youll notice that even though they figure that out, they are still going back and forth. Ooh. How many guys are shocked by this quote . Yeah, Ferdinand Foch, he is a good guy, is probably telling the truth. What youre seeing here is figure it out. He had to invent a whole new signs of artillery during the great war. Theyre inventing it as they go. The same tactics, the same procedures the u. S. Army uses today were figured out in 19141918. The problem with 660 shells is that is a lot of people back home doing a lot of production. The politicians are telling the generals, you guys figure it out. Our society is under immense pressure. At the end of the day, he might be right. Im not sure how much we can push people before they crack. I cant keep giving you 660 pounds of shell per yard of trench. What foch is telling you is the truth, that in this revolutionary period of warfare, these generals have to figure out the new realities. Something they have not been prepared for and sadly when you figure it out, it is costing human lives to do it. But theres a second problem. When you start firing 660 pounds of shell per yard of trench, youre literally changing the face of the earth. I love these pictures. Little farmhouses on the somme. That is what that looks like in june of 1916. And that is what the same farm looks like less than three months later. You see the same thing with a little town of passchendaele. You believe you have to do this to allow your infantry to attack but you are creating huge amounts of problems. Just for the attackers crossing no mans land, its slowing down their movement forward. But the biggest problem is even if you are successful now and capturing the first set of trenches, may be even the second and third set of trench you have so changed the surface of the earth you have created an impassable zone. So you have made it damn near impossible to go to the fourth phase even if you wanted to, because i will have to bring my artillery across this. Im going to have to bring fresh troops and fresh supplies. And to get them across this shell torn ground means i will have to have engineers working and digging and working and digging. And the amount of time it takes to clear the path to fix this, the germans have dropped that and dug in somewhere else. Hmm. We also have another problem. While Weapons Technology has continued to grow at a fast pace, other technology, specifically signal technology has stagnated. This is what you can use. The most modern piece of equipment that most combat soldiers have for commandandcontrol is the telephone. One of the reasons you have guys trying to direct the battle behind the lines is because that is where the telephone lines come to. If you try to go on the front line, youre not controlling and commanding anyone. The problem with that landline is anything can break it. You have wireless telegraphy. But that weighs 2000 pounds and is not going across no mans land anytime soon. And, because you cannot quickly communicate with the soldiers at the front, not only is command control a problem, but your use of the big stick, artillery, is a problem. This is another one of those battle maps in april of 1917. All of those little lines are where the artillery is going to fall. Barrage. Creepy my infantry guys, unlike today, cannot pick up the phone and call and get fire. You have to preplan every artillery bombardment. And you make the best you can out of this. Im going to put all the slide on the map. Im going to drop the artillery right here. Then at a preset time, preagreed upon time, it will move on. And the hope is your infantry will stay right behind the creeping barrage right until they jump in the trench and take out the germans. But you saw what that terrain looks like. And the problem here, since i do not have responsive communications, is the artillery guys are going to adhere to this plan at this time. Im doing this and im going to stop, move 15 meters on, and do it again. And if the infantry is stopped, the barrage keeps going and is never coming back. But as the allies are figuring this out and inventing this new science of artillery, theyre learning how to use this thing as a hammer. And they can. The germans are under a british blockade. They have limited access to supplies. The british and the french can rely upon a huge world standing on par and, by the way, the good people of the United States keep building shells. Over the course of the battle of verdun, even though it is a disaster on the first day for the british army, by the time those battles close in december of 1916, the allies have slowly and painfully learned how to use artillery as a hammer. I dont like this red square. It offends me, make it go away and everything in it. You will notice here that the casual rates between the british and the french and the germans at the battle of the somme, despite the disaster on the first day, by the time the battle ends are almost equal. Part of that is the germans have to learn, too. Their doctrine is flawed. Theyve got to figure it out as they go along. The original german doctrine is if you lose a trench, you counterattack and take it back. Now, after you do that a few times, the allies figure that out. Lets see, the germans are going to counterattack now. Once you figure that out, you do things like, ok we capture the trench. How about laying artillery in front of the trenches for any counterattacks . Now we have seen that switch. The german doctrine is not working. So they change it, too. So in late 1916, they change their doctrine. They give up parts of france to go to better terrain. When youre in some but he also is backyard you can do that. And they create an elastic defense in depth. You take and use terrain, you go on the backside of the hill. The allied artillery is not as effective. You do not rely on huge amount of trenches seen by aircraft. You go with concrete pillboxes. Machine guns with interlocking fields of fire. So when the allies attack, your observation post, pick them up, drop the artillery. They get to the top of the hill and you start bringing in as much fire as you can. The minute the allies go on the other side of the hill, the officers and their chateaus, have no idea where they are. They are getting lost, their officers are getting lost. They are short on supplies and then and only then do the germans launched a counterattack. Right when the allies think they figured it out, the germans change the game. World war i is also bring in lots of hightech. I have to find something to give the guys advantages they are trying to break through the trenches. And we have a couple of technologies they are going to play with. Technologies that with some development we still see in the military today. One of the first ones is, youre going to start to give the infantry more firepower. That is what they look like in 1914 with a bright red britches. The heaviest weapon that they have is the rifle. This is the same platoon by 1917. Not only are the uniforms different, but you have a lot fewer men. Youve figured out if youre going to survive, you are going to give the soldiers on more training because you will have to rely on them and their leaders to use their own initiative. To make it easier for those Junior Officers to command them, you make them smaller. As you make the smaller, you give them a lot more weapons. Interestingly, this infantry platoon looks a lot like my sons infantry platoon in alaska. Private. Infantry this would look familiar to him. Weve got some other hightech. In 1915, the germans come up with the idea of using poison gas as a way of crossing no mans land in breaking through. In fact who will later get a nobel prize for his work on hydrogen, would be the one who comes up with this. Its a brutally simple idea. If you are coughing, if you are dying or running away, youre not shooting at my infantry as they are attacking. When the germans first use this on the 22nd of april 1915, it works. They actually knock a hole in the allied lines. So, as we know, the germans step to paris and end the war. Well, theres some problems. Poison gas works, but when youre talking about using gas you are now relying on the weather. And the germans have to postpone this attack time and time again to get just the right weather conditions. The problem with germany is it is all ready short of manpower. They cannot afford to have a lot of guys waiting for an attack that might not come. By the time the weather conditions are right and you use poison gas, the reserves of the german army air mark for that had earmarked for that offensive have been moved somewhere else. Theres also a human problem here. Think about how you try to explain this to the german soldier. Hey, hans, we got a cool new weapon. We call it human raid. Were going to release it from capsules and it is going to float across no mans land with a big green cloud of chlorine. All you have got to do is follow the bouncing green cloud. Now, if youre the german soldier, you know you say, nein, what are you crazy . Show me this stuff works. Im coming, dragging their feet and by the time they have actually realize how big a success they have had, the allies have counterattacked and closed it off. Now the problem with gas is the cats out the bag. And within days, not within weeks, not within months, within days of the first use of poison gas you get the first gas mask. Pretty freaking basic. All that is, is a cotton wadding pad that has a bicarbonate soda solution. You keep it wet. You wear it over your nose and mouth. You have some steam punk. Glasses. You come up with it and begin in the trenches within the first five days. Now, what really shocked me and i have studied war for a while now, it has made me a deep dark cynic. Military history will make you a cynical person. You look at the amount of thought that is going into the Weapons Technology, it will depress you. Find a cure for cancer. Screw that. Find a way to kill off half the population of europe. Sign us up. Minute chlorine gas does not work, they go that was a good idea. No, we come up with a better gas. They come up with phosgene. The biggest killer gas of world war i. It is colorless and odorless. A faint smell. It kills because the soldiers do not have an Immediate Response to it like chlorine. Youre in it and getting a lethal dose without knowing. You die a couple of days later. Now thats horrible, but the generals go, thats nice, but what have you done for me lately . I want the guys to crash now. I need immediate results. Withon as you come out gas, youor another come out with a new gas. In 1917, you come up with the worst gas mustard gas. It is a blister agent. When he gets on your skin, it raises huge, nasty pusfilled blisters. Your eyes, nose, mouth, your armpits. Other places. When you get muster and other places, you do not feel like playing soldier anymore. If you breathe that mustard gas in, now those blisters are on your lungs. And what happens as over time those continue to grow, they pop, they fill your lungs with fluid and you drown. But the minute that you come out with that, the allies come out with a new gas mask. The americans will make their masks based upon this and it will protect you against mustard. Unlike a modern gas mask, it is not airtight, ok . So there is still going to be some of that mustard gas to get in. To giveit work, just you an idea how how nasty this is, you have to use this clilp to keep your nose closed, and you have to breathe in and out of this tube. Now, anybody been a snorkeler here . I hate snorkeling. After a couple minutes my jaw starts to hurt. Mustard is persistent. You will have the snorkel between your teeth for three or four hours. It will severely restrict your vision. But at least keep you from dying. Until the end of the war, now that you have a defense against the gas, it becomes more of a harassment, a way of neutralizing some of the advantages of one side or the other, but not something that is going to kill a lot of guys. That will change when the americans come in. We suffer a number of casualties from gas because we are horribly trained. Troops that know how to use the gas mask do not do too bad. We tried poison gas. That has not fix the problem. In september, 1916, we come up with something really cool. I was a tanker. I like to ride around on tanks. This was my great great granddad. Idea. Is a Pretty Simple mobile protected firepower. Im going to take something that can cross through all of that shell torn ground. It is going to be able to crash that nasty barbed wire. Its got Armor Protection so the shells cant get in. And it will have machine guns and cannons to destroy the german strong points and the german machine guns. Heres the problem. You know how you get a tank in 1916 . Yeah. Neither did they. But they look around the world and come up with some ideas. In the United States there something called the hope agricultural tractor being used farms around lawrence. Pulling plows and other things. Its on a caterpillar tractor. There is things you need to go across nasty mud. The brits take this tractor and they bolt on armor. Now a hope agricultural tractor is designed to do a lot of things, pushing machine gun is probably not one of them. The first day this tank is used in september of 1916, you start the attack with 49 tanks. And that is a most of the entire number of tanks in the world at that time. And 17 of them do not even make it to the front. They break down before they get there. So, you only begin the attack with 32 tanks. You see what happens from there. Good idea, and it shows the potential to go, these tanks are worth investing in. Good idea, but the technology is still not there yet. So by the time you get to august of 1918, you get the battle of amiens, the black day of the german army. Where the british army cracks through the german lines. We still have this problem. You start with 453 tanks, but you see what happens. By the end of the first day of battle, you are down to 155 tanks. The day after that, 85 tanks. Can anybody tell me what you think will happen by the fourth twelfth of august . Youre not going to have any tanks. This is a good idea, and you are developing these concepts of combined warfare. The battle of amiens, the british are combining airpower and also aircraft going deep to interdict their flow of supplies, combined with artillery, combined with tanks, combined with infantry together. They are seeing the way. In fact, the combined arms we use today in the u. S. Army are not a whole heck of a lot different. But the technology is still not developed enough to make it reliable. Now, if you are the germans, you have got a problem. Youve been fighting a two front war. In 1917, it is going to be a break year for them. On the plus side, the russians the go off and revolution. By early 1918, they remove themselves from the war. Thus freeing you from a twofront war. The problem is the germans do some goofy things that require men to get there illgotten gains in the ukraine. On the down side, in april of 1917, the United States enters the war. Germany is on the ropes, their economy is on the ropes. People at home are beginning to feel the effects of starvation because of the british blockade. While the allies are building tanks and more and more artillery pieces and shells, the germans cant match it. They cannot match you tank for tank. Most of the tanks the german army uses are captured from the british and the french. They cannot fight the war the allies are fighting. They know if they do not find a solution to this war quickly, in early 1918, they are going to lose it. The americans are coming and the americans are coming big. The red line is the german rifles on the western front in april 1919. The blue line is the allied rifle strength. And they are going to roll the dice and 1918 to see if they can win the war. The you will notice their manpower advantage is still not that great. Now, the germans have also gone through those same changes at the lower level you saw with the french platoon. This is what a german platoon looks like in 1914. They do not even have their own machine guns. This is that same battalion by 1917. So, now i am giving the Battalion Commander and the Company Commanders a lot more weapons, because i am expecting them to do a lot more stuff on their own. The germans are going to take this one step further because they have to. If i cant match the allies in technology, and i cant match in output of shells, the only solution the germans have is to try to do things better. So, by 1918, they have both new artillery tactics to get the most effectiveness out of the shell, but they also develop a new tactic. Well call them stormtroop tactics. Not those guys in star wars and the white uniforms they cannot hit anything. These guys are specialized troops. Youre going to take these infantrymen and not do mass attacks like you saw at the somme and verdun, you will give these guys specialty training and heavy weapons and you are going to send them out. What i want you to do is go around the strong points of the enemy, infiltrate to the allied lines, take out the machine guns from the rear. Then i want you to keep driving deep, i want these little groups of soldiers, highly trained specialist soldiers, they go deep against the enemy command post. I want you to go deep against the artillery. Because if you can take out the enemys artillery and their command post, you are going to break the ability of the allies to do that technical magic that they have been doing with their artillery. And youre even going to reorganize them. Again, you saw what the Infantry Battalion looks like in 1917. This is what that stormtrooper battalion looks like. You are specializing the units and you were giving them an unprecedented amount of Light Weapons so they can accomplish the mission. Exercise their own initiative. But here the germans are stuck. If you are going to get these specially trained soldiers, who can exercise initiative and have the smarts to take advantage of opportunities that rise and fall on the that a field, here is the special soldier you are looking for. They need to be young, they need to be in very good shape, and they need to be smarter than the average bear. The problem is by 1918, those guys are dead. So, the germans pull out some tricks. They get these types of soldiers in the specialized units, what they do is go through all of the other regular infantry divisions and say, heres our good guys. Im taking all of these and leaving you with these. All beat up guys. And theyre going to use the stormtroopers in the ludendorff offensive 21 march 1918. They attacked the british on the somme front and push the british back to where they started the battle in july of 1916. But the problem is when you have these elite troops, it is the same problem we have today, that elite specialist troops are fragile. Any Storm Troopers are taking inordinately high cash of these. These german pushes are running out of steam because the guys are moving basically on their feet like infantry. There is no mechanization like you see with the allied armies. When the attack does not work on the somme, they shifted to another location, and they will have some breakthroughs but then it runs out of steam. And every time they do this, those troops are being attrited one after the other. By the summer of 1918, who are you left with . Me. Im thinking about going home. Im just saying. In the process, we have seen all of this backandforth, the changing technology, the change of techniques and doctrine in the process of this ugly, bloody alliesentation the modernly create warfare as we see it today. And i love this analogy. There was once an argument that said if you were to take the british infantry Battalion Commander from the battle of waterloo, 1815, put them in a time machine and move him to june of 1914, before world war i begins, give them a quick class on technology. He understands the battlefield. The infantry still basically work the way the infantry did in his time and until are still working the same artillery were, calvary still works the way the calvary worked. 99 years in the past. But if you were take an infantry Battalion Commander could them 1914, put himrom machine, and put him three years in the future, he would be lost. The pieces parts no longer work the way they did four years ago. If you would take that infantry baton commander in moving to the persian gulf war he understands the battlefield. The planes are moving faster, the tankers are filled with sand, but the pieces parts work the way the pieces parts work. Ok, thank you for your attention. We have covered a lot of area. Any questions . [applause] richard thank you. We have got to wait for the mic. I have two questions. When you talk about how the germans reorganized their command structure and whatever during the end of the war, the physicians dropped out. Was that true . Even in 1914, in battle are the stretcher bearers. By 1917, they are larger. They are only in the kaisers headquarters. They were already gone. When you said the second battle of the somme, they push them back to where they were three years earlier, how far was it in meters or yards . Prof. Faulkner somewhere along the line of 30 miles. Its a monument to break through. It force of the allies to make their own changes. The most important is about commandandcontrol. Prior to the shock of the german breakthrough, the french did their thing, the british and the belgians and the americans did their thing. So Ferdinand Foch i keep addressing in the lecture, we need a supreme allied commander to orchestrate everything. And foch is the man. Since france is still computing the majority of the troops and suffering that greatest cast is, is a frenchman that will lead it. Good question. Yes, sir . What aircraft did the United States contribute . Did the United States have any advanced aircraft . Prof. Faulkner no. [laughs] prof. Faulkner the United States is a basket case going into world war i. We were ranked 17th in the world behind romania and portugal when the war broke out. When we entered the war in april, we had something around 50 odd pilots and 40 operational aircraft. Most of them will spend the war as training planes. The americans will make a big deal about creating the liberty engine. And we will put in the british dh4 fuselage and the pilots will call it flaming coffins. So, we are not quite the aeronautic masters we are today. The spat. Because we are so woefully prepared unprepared for the war, the majority of our artillery, all of our tanks, the majority of our machine guns and aircraft come from the allies. So, rickenbacker starts with a newport and goes to a spat. That is where he won his medal of honor, as do most of our fighter pilots. It is like a really, a lot of players, like patton even hitler, can you explain what they are doing at this time . Prof. Faulkner sure. This is a hard lesson and it leaves an indelible mark on everyone who participates in it. George patton will command the first tank brigade of the American Expeditionary force. He will see action in september, early september, 1918. Will then command a brigade going into the battle on the 26th of september and will be severely wounded in the first day of fighting. Then will spend the rest of the war recuperating. He will play around with tanks. Dwight d. Eisenhower will spend the war at camp colt pennsylvania as the guy training tank crewman in the states. Rommel will basically be one of those stormtrooper guys. He will win the highest german declaration fighting against the italians in november of 1917. Basically doing that infiltration tactics. He learns the same thing, that once you get the enemy on the the spear up. And so, he is a captain commanding a battalion which will grow to a regiment. A lot of people that will go on to see greatness later on will take away from this. On the other side you get bernard law montgomery, the british highest ranking commander in world war ii, will fight through the somme, be wounded. He sees the ugliness of the trenches, and that convinces monty. The fully monty. That teaches them to be very, very cautious. And, before you attack, you do that set piece where all the artillery is in place, Everything Else is in place to minimize casualties. Yeah, so, different lessons. Good question, thank you. Yes, maam. You mentioned that after the landscape was changed by all of the shelling the need for engineers. Did engineering there was a bridge under that tank in the picture did engineering grow up or come of age in the First World War . Prof. Faulkner not as much. This is old combat engineering. Here is the shovel, here is your pick, go fill in the holes. So, the most important engineer work for the allies is actually done building the little railroads and the connector and the roads behind the lies to lines just to keep the supplies going. In fact, during the battle of verdun in 1916, there something called the sacred way, the one road were all the french reinforcement and supplies comes through. And to keep that road going, the french detail, i believe Something Like ill make this up. A huge number, tens of thousands of men just to keep it going every day. So, that type of engineer work is important. When they come across a no mans land like that, the technology has not developed to the point where it is helping them out. That will come in world war ii. Yes, maam. Im sorry. I will go here first. I was just wondering, did all of the combatants use conscription. Prof. Faulkner absolutely. The british start without it and quickly find out by late 1915, they are not getting enough volunteers. Especially when you get the huge number of casualties. When we go into the war of april 1917, within two weeks, wilsons already decided we are going to do conscription. Break with tradition and raise a vast majority, 75 of our troops from draftees. And when you think about having to feed this maw, they all come to this. And that is the other problem when you plan on a short war. You conscript everybody. But then when you figure out it is a long war, all the major combatants have to come to the same conclusion. In the winter of 1915, you see a scramble where you do a releasing skilled workers in the ranks so they can go back to the factories to make the shells. And its a delicate balance. This is mass total war. In a mass total war, it requires a mobilization of every element of society, you have got to balance agriculture with industry production with administration, things like doctors at the home front with the guys at the front. And everybody scribbles to scrambles figure this out. I imagine it would be a morale problem, too. Prof. Faulkner how so . Well, if theyre drafted, they are not volunteering. To go over the top and all this sort of thing. Prof. Faulkner if you look at especially france and germany prior to world war i, military. Service of become part of the civil expectation. You were really not going to be a full citizen, not considered a full man until you have done your time in the service. The brits will do the same thing. This becomes your patriotic duty. And the vast majority of the soldiers accept that. That is one of the reasons they keep going. And in the armies that crack like the Russians Army and the italian army comes close to it, it is when you have failed to bring the guys in but take care of their needs, the expectations of a society that things start to rot. Its amazing that war nations dont break. If they have to have the episode, though, of firing squads . Prof. Faulkner yes, in fact in april 1917, 50 of the divisions in the french army undergo what the french call collective indiscipline. What we call mutiny. I showed you that change in german doctrine. In verdun, the french believe they have got the answer and they figured out how to use the artillery and the german change the rules. In 1917, the french commander is basically promising the politicians and the soldiers that his offensive is going to break to the lines and end the war. When the french try their same old tricks against the new doctrine, the french soldiers lose massive amounts of men and basically lose heart. But, even after they lose heart, the agreement of the soldier is we are not going to attack but we are also not going to let the germans take any more of france. It is that delicate ballet. But youre right, morale is going to be an issue. Good question, thank you. Yes, maam . You mentioned the that they had a lot of employed miners digging miles and miles of tunnels under the trenches and laying explosive charges in the enemy trenches and engaging them with flamethrowers, underneath the trenches. Prof. Faulkner absolute. An fact, there is a place in france, just to the northwest of verdun, which is on a commanding hill. And whoever commanded the hill could use the artillery. And between 1915 and at times the americans captured in 1918, there is this constant war. The hill is not not much larger than the dole center. The french were coming from the one side, dig it out, and blow it up and the germans would do the same. By the time the war was over, it was a nice little town. You can go there today, it is nothing but the crater. At the first day of the battle of the somme, the british do the same thing, lay mines. They blow up. But then it is a race. Can the other guy recapture the crater before you can attack . By the way, there was still one of those mines that did not go off on the battle. It is still there and they do not know where it is. A Lightning Strike set off another one in the 1960s. Be careful around the somme. If the frontline trenches are gone, then it makes your crossing no mans land and capturing the first trench that much easier. But thank you, good observation. Hi, thanks for a great lecture. I have a question about the effect on civilian societies in america from world war i. In europe, you started to see women working outside of the home. That was something that has continued. America was further away from the theater of war. This is Something Like that happening an american civilian society . Prof. Faulkner oh, absolutely. And you see this and all the european societies but probably more in the french, the british and the american than you do in the central powers for cultural reasons. In fact, when you are building all of those shells a lot of the people that were building them in england are women. And the problem is it is a chemical explosive. And it is toxic. Yellow. Your skin in fact, they called them turns the because it skin yellow. Both in britain and the United States, women serving in industry will ultimately lead to the right to vote. An fact, Woodrow Wilson will come out as a strong proponent for giving women the right to vote because of the work that they do. And they will get it in 1920, a year and a half after the war. So what is changing society as it is changing the battlefront itself. Thank you. Can you give me a definition of combined arms . Prof. Faulkner silly me. Combined arms as you are basically trying to get the best out of every one of the you have. That so, by the time at the battle of amiens, you had the air service, the aircraft, artillery, the infantry, the engineers, and what you are trying to do is maximize the effectiveness of each of those while overcoming their weaknesses. For example, the tanks would go through, break down the wire, suppress the emplacements, machine guns, the infantry would be right behind them. So the minute the tanks break through, they are now consolidating the trench. The artillery has paved the way for all this going on. What you are going to do is create a massive nasty stew for the enemy. We still do the same thing today. We provide air power and artillery and tanks and infantry and special ops altogether to create that dilemma for the enemy. Did that clarify . [inaudible] is that why we do not have trench warfare in world war ii . Prof. Faulkner we do have trench warfare if you look at stalingrad the trenches become in many ways the city itself. Were horrified by world war i because its attritional war. World war ii is mobile. Morere going to lose a lot people, but it is something psychological. When youre only taking a couple of yards and losing several thousand men, it is futile. When youre taking several tens are 20s of miles a day and losing the same amount of guys, somehow at least you feel like you are accomplishing something. Mechanized infantry is allowing you to go through defenses and keep the enemy off balance so they cannot dig in and get those advantages. Good question, thank you. I have a really good question. I was just joking. Has trench warfare been used before world war i . Is it the first time . Prof. Faulkner oh, no, trench warfare is as old as warfare. That was a really bad question. Faulkner no, no, that is a good one. When was trench warfare first used in warfare . Prof. Faulkner if you go to a place in britain called maiden fort. It is almost as old as warfare. If you are up on a hill, and you are dug in and the other guy comes up the hill, you have gone got an advantage. If you look at modern trench warfare in the American Civil War, especially in 1864 and 1865, you start to see the glimmers of what you will see in world war i. In the atlanta campaign, sherman versus johnson, in the summer of 1864 massive amounts of fortifications around atlanta and outside of petersburg, virginia, the same thing. You are starting to see the same dynamic, and it is just as deadly if you are attacking relatively in the civil war, your hope of breaking those trenches is pretty dim. But it is lacking the explosive power of artillery and the amount of firepower that you will see in world war i. It was that extra little bit of nastiness. Good question. That is a good question. Subsequent to the war, with these staggering casualties on all sides, what did that due to government policies, to do something about trying to reestablish a population . Or were there active Government Programs for that . We lost millions and millions of people here. Prof. Faulkner and this is going to be felt especially by the french. The french will lose 1. 3 million men in the war. Percentagewise, they are only lagging behind the serbians as a percentage of their population loss. France already had a declining population before the war even started. What you not only lose that number of men but also when you have an army of pushing 6 million during the war, those guys are not making sweet, sweet love. By the time you get to the 1930s, you have the french call the hollow years. Politiciane french only threat to French Security is fornication. We need more of it. And the population of france actually does not return to its pre1914 rate until the 1960s because of that bubble. It gets so bad that when the war ends, the french are actively trying to convince the american soldiers to stay. [laughter] faulkner stay, meet fifi, settle down and have a good life. And some of the soldiers do it. And some of the totalitarian regimes that will rise, be it mussolini, the japanese, be it hitlers germany or stalins russia will all push for, you know, go forth and multiple, be fruitful because they see that as a critical wartime necessity. The democracies not so much. What they will do for the french, for example, will have a big influence on world war two. Going into world war i the french soldier was conscripted for three years. So they could match the relative number of the germans. After the war, we need those french guys to be meeting fifi. In 1930, they lower at the amount of time the soldiers spend in the ranks from three years to one year. Time foryou take out holidays, you let them go back home and bring in the crops, for example, of that one year you have that french soldier in the critical period of 1930, 165 days you have that soldier for training. Any military guys here . You cant do much with a soldier in 165 days. You can barely teach them to march and maybe a little bit of shooting. By the time you get to 1940, the german soldiers are better trained than the french conscripts and it all goes back to that population policy. Good question. Good question. Ive bored the rest of you. Good. [laughter] how much training did, we lost a lot of casualties in that last month of the war. How much training did the National Guard prof. Faulkner there is a great book on that. [laughter] prof. Faulkner you know, the United States, its almost a National Tragedy what happens. And it is a shame that what we do. We go into this war and we are still that army of 1914, the guys with the red britches, that is thrown into 1917 and 1980s 1918, and while the allies and germans have learned, we have not caught up. We are trying to learn everything they have painfully done in three years in a short amount of time. And both due to lack of time and lack of resources, we do not have enough machine guns, we do not have enough artillery, most of the artilleryman will never see the cannons they are going to use until they pick it up from the french. Same thing with the machine guns. The american soldiers are going into battle horribly. In october, 1918, the battle of argonne is the bloodiest month in American History. In the second week, we lose 6000 dead. Compare that to 17 years of fighting in iraq and afghanistan. Thosee start losing all guys, we are really not prepared for bringing in their replacements. One of the greatest, saddest things i have ever read about American History is you have a number of soldiers showing up on the front lines in the fall of 1918 that were drafted, spent a couple weeks in camp and were on the front lines a couple weeks a month later. There were details teaching them how to load their rifles as they were going into battle. Thats a crime. They got a little bit better than that now. Its amazing they didnt start to crack on the face of that. [inaudible] dr. Faulker i would go to tom hansen for that answer, but we have some similar problems. You have that rapid transition from peacetime to wartime. Dr. Hansen has written a book on this that i highly recommend, though it is probably not as bad as what some of the accounts have made it out to be, but we have always had that problem. The National Security statement we have today is really only a product of that mid1950s to the present. If you look at american wars prior to that, we are never really prepared for what we are facing. I and case of world war ii, we are learning these lessons, we are going up against guys that have been that have been doing it for a while. [inaudible] it seems to me that it met with a modicum of success, but it seems to me after that, not knowing what had really passed on am i right . Faulkner do you go for a small offensive or limit your objective, grabbed a piece of terrain and hold it, or do you go for the breakthrough . What will happen around hill 60 in that same neighborhood is that type of precisely prepared set piece battle. You have the time, you bring up the forces, you studied the enemy. You dig those tunnels underneath the enemy line to blow them up before you assault, but the idea is you will only go and hold. As long as you can do that, the problem of what you do with the artillery now that you have captured it does not become an issue. Where the offenses really start to break down in world war i is after you have had that success, first of all, realizing you have had a success and being able to do something behind it, and if you have broken through, you have to keep that artillery. But if you are only doing set piece battle, it is a lot easier. The downside to that is the allied army would reach berlin now if they just kept those attacks, limited attacks. Good question. You describe the efforts of the british entrenched and efforts of the germans over four years to try to come up with some solution and breakthrough, and the british entrenched have their tanks and planes. British have their gas. Line multiple structures. The question is, in your opinion, who did the battle better job of doctrinal development, and which side came closest to developing the method that would be most successful in world war ii . Dr. Faulker we love the germans. We are guilty of this at fort leavenworth, but the germans sort of have a propensity for war. You have not really fought war until youve fought the germans. And a lot of that has to do with geography, but i think we overstate that. The germans are really good at some of the tactical stuff, but when it comes to making strategy, they are a basket case, and the disasters you will see in world war ii are presaged by the disasters Strategic Decisions they make in world war i, and i think we also overemphasized the german tactical acumen. What they do have is an official army system for capturing honestly and openly the mistakes made trying to systematically put systems in place, but at the same time, the allies know the advantages they have and are playing them as best they can and a lot of the Storm Trooper tactics you see are also being done by the british and french on a smaller scale, so they are all making these integrations. These innovations. Germans tend to get better credit for it. What the germans will do, though, in the 1920s and 1930s is ask ugly questions. While the british and french say we won, lets not do it again, german geography and the fact that they live in an ugly neighborhood convinces them they had better continue to study this. They do probably the most open and honest investigation of the war. The first thing he says is tell me what happened honestly, openly. Let reputations be crushed if need be because this is too important. Tell me what happened. Tell me why it happened, which is also important, and once you tell me what happened honestly, tell me why it happened, honestly, then and only then can we get to the important thing, which is what we are going to do about it. The british are a little bit more hesitant of damaging reputations, so their history of world war i tends to be more skewed. The french are about the same, but the french have the germans close by, so they have to take war seriously. The british are often criticized for being too defensive. The number one takeaway the army has for world war i is firepower kills, firepower kills, firepower kills. Going into world war ii, it is designed to do just that, and they are often maligned for it. The problem is the french are absolutely right. The number one killer in world war i is artillery. The number one killer in world war ii is artillery. The problem is the germans get moving much quicker than the french can respond. By the time the french are trying to learn these lessons , it is too late. The mechanization has given the germans the advantage. Anyone else . Good. Thank you very much for your attention. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] interested in American History tv . Visit our website, cspan. Org history. You can view our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs, and watch college lectures, museum tours, archival films, and more. American history tv at cspan. Org history. This week on q a, they were shoving and jostling. Him. A little bit behind it intensified, it looked like he was going to fall to the ground. He was a 74yearold man. I did what anybody would do when you see a 74yearold man about to fall the ground, i grabbed him by the arm. To make sure he was not going to follow the ground but also i was fearful of being separated from them and being left behind. So when i took his arm, that is when it turned out me. Somebody pulled my hair, somebody slammed me from the other direction. Discussing a violent protest following a scheduled lecture by a british scientist. Watch sunday night year ofe in our 22nd the texas book festival. It was founded in 1995 by then First Lady Laura Bush and a Pretty Amazing group of volunteers that decided we needed to have a book festival in austin, texas to celebrate Texas Authors in literacy, and to support our texas libraries during that libraries. Since those early years, the book festival has exploded. It very quickly became a national, premier destination for the biggest books of the year. Joint book tv for the texas book festival live from austin november 4 and fifth on cspan two. Lectures in history, university of california san diego professor Louise Alvarez that luis alvarez who teaches a class about the 1943 zoot suit riots in los angeles. He describes Race Relations in the world war ii era and how those who wore the issues came to symbolize a challenge to gender and racial identities. His class is about an hour and 20 minutes