Part V: The First World War in Visual Studio .NET

Making QR Code JIS X 0510 in Visual Studio .NET Part V: The First World War

with two divisions of General Sir Edmund Allenby s Third Army protecting his left flank On the Allied right, General Fayolle s French Sixth Army would advance either side of the river Somme Once the offensive was under way, a breakout force, consisting of the Cavalry Corps and two of Rawlinson s infantry divisions, would form under Lieutenant General Hubert Gough and be known as the Reserve Army This offensive was to be the first major test for Kitchener s New Army divisions Some regular commanders and their staffs so lacked confidence in the ability of these formations to execute such elementary tactical movements as controlled rushes by groups across fire-swept ground that they insisted on their attacking in straight lines at walking pace Also available were ten Commonwealth divisions (five from Australia, four from Canada, one from New Zealand) and a South African brigade

The offensive was planned to commence on 29 June but was postponed until 1 July In places, the Germans had dug trenches on the reverse slopes of the ridge and concealed them, while air reconnaissance revealed that the front and second lines of defence extended to a depth of 450 metres (500 yards) Barbed-wire entanglements were 45 metres (50 yards) deep, sometimes shaped so that attacks were channelled into killing grounds swept by concealed machine guns Hundreds of fortified machine gun posts existed, some of them inside reinforced concrete blockhouses And huge dugouts lay some 9 metres (30 feet) or more beneath the surface, complete with running water, ventilation, electric lighting, and emergency rations The attackers were told that the prolonged preliminary bombardment, audible in England, would cut the enemy s wire, smash his strongpoints, destroy his communications, neutralise his artillery, and reduce his will to fight On reaching the enemy trenches, it was unlikely that they would find anyone alive As the bombardment lifted, officers whistles shrilled and the first British and French assault waves clambered out of their trenches Across no-man s land (the area between the opposing trench networks), the Germans came tumbling up from their deep dugouts into fresh air and daylight, glad to be free from their claustrophobic subterranean prisons and anxious to hit back The bombardment had failed

17: Hangin On the Old Barbed Wire : The Western Front, 1914 1917

The Easter Uprising, 1916

Tens of thousands of Irishmen served in the British Army and, whether their persuasion was for Home Rule (meaning Irish, not British, government) or not, they were prepared to wait for the war to end before pursuing the issues of their domestic politics further But at Easter 1916, a group of Nationalists staged an armed rebellion in Dublin Although the government put down the rising without undue difficulty, hanging the ringleaders was a mistake as it made martyrs of them Discipline in the Irish regiments was not affected, but the incident left Irish soldiers unsettled in their minds as to what the future might bring (for more on what came to pass, see 20)

On the right, the French broke through the enemy s first line with a series of disciplined rushes On their immediate left two New Army divisions of XIII Corps, the 18th and the 30th, achieved the only British success of the day They did it by ignoring their fatuous instructions to walk in extended lines and by using their initiative: The 18th had only 180 metres (200 yards) of no-man s land to cross and they covered it at a run, arriving before the enemy had time to get their act together The 30th had twice that distance to cover, but found that the wire had been sufficiently cut for them to press home their attack However, even these gains cost XIII Corps some 6000 casualties Elsewhere, the story of the battle was one of supreme courage rewarded with terrible failure Rifle and machine gun fire cut down each stolidly advancing wave of attackers as they appeared The German artillery s defensive barrages created impenetrable walls of blast and flying steel Inexperienced groups crossed the enemy s front-line trenches without clearing the deep dugouts, so they were shot down from behind when the defenders surfaced, or were cut off, surrounded, and forced to surrender Wherever some small success was achieved, it was quickly eliminated by counter-attacks By 10 am the action was all over Along 30 kilometres (20 miles) of front noman s land was strewn thick with khaki forms, sprawled among the thick growth of scarlet poppies or caught in the enemy s wire entanglements Of them, no fewer than 19,240 were dead Survivors crawled or limped back to their own lines or waited patiently for darkness in whatever cover shell holes provided