You know how this works
Hey ya’ll.
Before starting the post below, here’s a quick update on the blog.
I’ve written a lot lately on the first and second world wars. And that’s because I’m writing a book about them. The book also gets into Korea, Vietnam, and the Global War on Terrorism.
It’s a book about the experiences of people who lived through those conflicts. I’m reading as many war memoirs as I can get my hands on and picking out the best stories from each.
Even though it’s a book about war, it’s an anti-war book. I’m a pretty antiwar guy, so it’s a natural book for me to write. My hope is that these stories remind people how awful war can be and maybe persuades them to think twice about who they vote for.
It just so happens that a lot of what I’ve written and researched for the book makes for really good blog posts. So, moving forward, pretty much every Dive post is going to be focused on warfare.
I’ll periodically post updates on the book and let you know a predicted publish date. Until then, enjoy more stories from the wars of the 20th and 21 centuries.
The Flammenwerfer
Philip Gibbs was a British war correspondent during World War One. In 1920, he published a famous book called Now It Can Be Told. As the title suggests, at one point, it couldn't be told.
The "it" Gibbs is referring to is the reality of warfare on the WWI Western Front. During the war, he traveled with troops across several battlefields and wrote about the Soldier experience. But censorship laws of the time kept Gibbs from reporting on certain facts of the conflict. Gibbs writes:
My duty, then, was that of a chronicler, not arguing why things should have happened so nor giving reasons why they should not happen so, but describing faithfully many of the things I saw, and narrating the facts as I found them, as far as the censorship would allow. After early, hostile days it allowed nearly all but criticism, protest, and of the figures of loss.1
Today, citizens frown on their governments censoring the press. Most democratic nations of the 21st century pride themselves as free speech guardians. But, this was not always the case. Early 20th Century British politicians were so open about their desire to silence the press that they put laws on the books giving themselves the power to do so.
Passed on August 8th, 1914, the Defense of the Realm Act (DORA) gave the British government the ability to "control communications, the nation's ports, and to subject civilians to the rule of military courts." They used it to prevent anyone from criticizing the government or the war effort. Citing the act, journalists reporting from the frontline were threatened with arrest and even execution.
The purpose of DORA is spelled out in the act itself:
No person shall by word of mouth or in writing spread reports likely to cause disaffection or alarm among any of His Majesty’s forces or among the civilian population.
In other words, British authorities wanted to control national morale by controlling information flow. They wanted to keep the horror stories of the War secret. They believed that if Soldiers, or their families back home, knew the worst of what was happening on the front, the war would lose support, troops might refuse to fight, and prospective recruits would be scared out of enlisting.
If you read stories like the British' first encounter with the "Flammenwerfer", you might find yourself agreeing with the politicians.
When the Germans introduced the flamethrower into combat, the British and French troops literally didn't know what they were up against. It was a new technology only recently invented and, prior to the summer of 1915 when the Germans used it at the battle of Hooge, was an unknown factor.
The account below from Philip Gibbs gives some insight into German flamethrower tactics. As another precursor to ground raids (artillery barrages typically preceded assaults), the Germans sent in the Flammenwerfer troops to attempt to clear the trenches. Once artillery fire ceased, Germans climbed out of their trench and journeyed across No Man's Land—while the British and French were still behind cover—until they were within range (15-20 yards) from the opposing trench. Then, they'd douse the enemy in the fuel before igniting.
It was no easy task for the German Soldier. The early Flammenwerfer was bulky and required two people to maneuver. It was essentially a large gas canister on wheels with a pressurized hose and nozzle attached. It was heavy and limited at a distance.
However, in its early employment, before the French or British had a chance to develop countermeasures, it was extremely effective at terrorizing Allied forces into vacating their trench. Gibbs writes:
On the morning of July 30th there was a strange lull of silence after a heavy bout of shells and mortars. Men of the K. R. R. (Kings Royal Rifles) raised their heads above broken parapets and crawled out of shell-holes and looked about. There were many dead bodies lying around, and wounded men were wailing. The unwounded, startled by the silence, became aware of some moisture falling on them; thick, oily drops of liquid. “What in hell’s name—?” said a subaltern. One man smelled his clothes, which reeked of something like paraffin. Coming across from the German trenches were men hunched up under some heavy weights. They were carrying cylinders with nozles like hose-pipes. Suddenly there was a rushing noise like an escape of air from some blast-furnace. Long tongues of flame licked across to the broken ground where the King’s Royal Rifles lay. Some of them were set on fire, their clothes burning on them, making them living torches, and in a second or two cinders. It was a new horror of war—the Flammenwerfer. Some of the men leaped to their feet, cursing, and fired repeatedly at the Germans carrying the flaming jets. Here and there the shots were true. A man hunched under a cylinder exploded like a fat moth caught in a candle-flame. But that advancing line of fire after the long bombardment was too much for the rank and file, whose clothes were smoking and whose bodies were scorched. In something like a panic they fell back, abandoning the cratered ground in which their dead lay.2
Another account from French Soldier Louis Barthas tells of similar horror:
But what is this? Has Hell opened up under our feet? Are we right at the rim of a furious volcano? The trench is filled with flames, with sparks, with bitter smoke, the air is unbreathable. I hear hissing, crackling, and alas, yes, the cries of pain. Sergeant Vergès has scorched eyes. At my feet two miserable creatures are rolling on the ground, their clothes, their hands, their faces on fire, like human torches. And in the trench everything is on fire—blankets, tent cloths, sandbags. The Germans had just fired some sort of incendiary liquid on us. What’s more, a pack of signal fuses has just ignited, and that’s what’s causing the most noise, the most sparks, the most smoke. My two arms protecting my face, I flee from this Hell, my senses completely overturned. I rejoin my squad. They tell me that my eyes stared vacantly, wildly, and that I spoke incoherently, but that didn’t last, and I quickly got out of it.3
Gibbs, P. (2016) Now It Can Be Told (WWI Centenary Series). [edition unavailable]. Read Books Ltd. Available at: https://ereader.perlego.com/1/book/954555/12?element_plgo_uid=ch12__4&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=share-with-location&utm_source=perlego
Gibbs, Philip. Now It Can Be Told (WWI Centenary Series). [Edition missing]. 2016. Reprint, Read Books Ltd., 2016. https://ereader.perlego.com/1/book/954555/42?element_plgo_uid=ch42__18&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=share-with-location&utm_source=perlego
Barthas, Louis. (2014) 2014. Poilu. [Edition missing]. Yale University Press (Ignition). https://ereader.perlego.com/1/book/2450692/15?element_plgo_uid=ch15__127&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=share-with-location&utm_source=perlego