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 passchend