The strongest single motivating force behind the evolution
of Stormtroop tactics was the need to find methods for breaking into, and
through, trench lines. New Stoss, or shock, methods were already appearing in
other units, for the same reason, even as Kalsow and Rohr did their work. Yet
there were other needs, and sources of inspiration, which appear to have had a
bearing on the development of German infantry assault tactics. It has been
remarked, for example, that the methods and equipment of the mountain troops,
or Gebirgsjäger, were a significant influence on both Stormtroops and the
development of new tactics in general. Whilst German sources are generally
inexplicit regarding the early links, there were certainly parallels, as for
example in dress, and the necessity for mountain troops – frequently isolated
in inhospitable terrain – to act on local initiative. Major Alfred Steinitzer’s
Bavarian Schneeschuh Battalion Nr 1 was officially incorporated as early as
November 1914, and it is interesting to note that at an early stage mountain
companies incorporated both rifle and machine gun platoons – thus integrating
different weapons at a lower level of organisation than was usual in the line
infantry. Mountain terrain, which frequently forced advances through passes or
along ski paths, was doubtless instrumental in causing tactical development in
depth, and in encouraging the use of small groups, rather than endorsing the
old linear patterns in which infantry were accustomed to fight.
In any event, units of mountain artillery and mortars were
also formed, and by May 1915 the Alpenkorps was founded. Interestingly, this
would be deployed not only in the high mountains of Italy and the Carpathians,
but at Verdun, in Picardy, and in the Argonne, suggesting a general competence
as assault troops as well as in their specialist role. As US intelligence
observed at the end of the war, ‘the Alpine Corps was considered one of the
best German units’. The 200th Division, formed essentially of Jäger and
ski-trained troops in 1916, was cast in the same mould. Whilst Bavarians bulked
large in the Gebirgsjäger, the role of the Wurttembergers was not
inconsiderable, and immortalised for posterity in the writings of Erwin Rommel.
The Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion under Major Sprosser was raised at Munsingen
in October 1915, and from the start included six companies and six mountain
machine gun platoons. Interestingly, even their first deployment in the High
Vosges was in terrain where it did not prove possible to man a continuous
trench line but necessitated a series of strong points with ‘all round
defence’. Thereafter a good deal of the battalion’s work in Italy and Romania involved
both platoon-level actions and attacks in which the Wurttembergers were able to
pass through enemy positions before attacking the flanks and rear areas. They
thus had a general relevance to the formulation of ‘infiltration’ ideas. Whilst
many of the battalion’s later mountain battles took place in 1917 and were just
one of several sources of inspiration for those compiling tactical doctrine in
the last two years of the war, their impact on the later techniques of Rommel
himself is indisputable.
Raids were similarly an important testing ground for unusual
tactics. Gudmundsson has offered us two excellent examples of German raids that
used innovative methods, and were illustrative of the improvements in minor
tactics and the co-ordination of infantry with other arms. In July 1916 the
229th Reserve Infantry Regiment mounted the Wilhelm raid against the enemy
south west of Lille. Intriguingly, the order to mount the attack, a single-page
letter, stemmed from the commanding general of 50th Reserve Division, but did
not specify an exact objective. Detailed planning was thus left to the
regiment, which also co-ordinated the activities of supporting artillery and
pioneer units. Four officers, twelve NCOs and 48 men formed the raiding force
proper, with an additional group held in reserve. These personnel had
previously been brought together to serve as an ad hoc regimental ‘assault
detachment’, and were reassembled again for raiding missions. Questions of
detail, including weapons and ammunition to be carried, were devolved to the
detachment commander, Leutnant von Werner. The artillery component would
include not only mortars but ten batteries of light and heavy artillery, first
to prepare the ground, then form a ‘box barrage’ around the target area. Interestingly,
the German raid coincided with the execution of a raid by New Zealanders
nearby, and this nearly led to the abandonment of Wilhelm. The 229th carried
on, hoping to take advantage of the confused situation, but found the defenders
resolute and one portion of the attackers proved completely unable to enter the
New Zealander’s line. The Germans lost four dead, two missing and fourteen
wounded, against which they captured two, killed one and wounded three of the
opposition, whilst one New Zealander went missing.
In the Jacobsbrunnen raid of November 1917 the 7th Bavarian
Landwehr were pitted against newly committed American troops in a quiet sector
of Lorraine. This time there was even more artillery support, from no less than
17 batteries, and the raiders numbered well over 200 troops, drawn from not
only the Bavarian Landwehr but other supporting elements including the
divisional assault unit. Short salvoes of artillery fire covered the move
forward in the darkness, and then the Pioneers broke through the obstacle zone
with bangalore torpedoes. The raiders then broke into the enemy trenches,
bombing and fighting their way along, killing a number of the Americans and
capturing eleven in exchange for relatively modest losses of their own.
Yet these were but two of literally hundreds of missions
mounted, and were in fact comparatively late essays in an art which was by now
virtually perfected. Arguably, the developmental influence of raiding goes back
much further. In many instances there was little to distinguish early ‘raids’
from rather more innocuous-sounding ‘patrols’, and both had begun before the
end of 1914. Quite a few of the first missions were relatively crude affairs,
and were often on a tiny scale, mounted for limited objectives, perhaps to be a
‘nuisance’ to an already jittery enemy, or to determine his strength and
dispositions. One British Tommy later spoke of the fear, early in the war, of
German bogeymen, on the loose late at night, with massive ‘truncheons’ (trench
clubs) who would attempt to strike at a victim’s head before pulling him bodily
from the trench. In the roughest sense, such ventures were certainly
experimental. Just one of these diminutive and potentially deadly nocturnal
scuffles was mounted by a small group drawn from 36th Fusilier Regiment against
the French, in the summer of 1915, and was later recorded first hand by its
Leutnant commander:
It rained in torrents the whole night. Better patrol
weather one couldn’t have hoped for. At three in the morning I was roused by
the Unteroffizer of the watch. At 3.30 we were underway. Everything had been
prepared the day before. Each of us had seen the terrain through the
binoculars. We were seven altogether, myself, a Vizfeldwebel, an Unteroffizier,
and four men. We wanted to penetrate a sap by daybreak, cutting off a post, or
at least to ascertain the number of the regiment dug in opposite. At exactly
3.30 we left our trenches. Every man had already checked his pistol and hand
grenades … Pitch black. 300 metres to go to the sap. Carefully traversing our
own entanglement we listened for a moment – on the other side everything is
quiet, no rifle shot, only now and then, further off, the odd Very pistol
flare. The Frenchmen suspected nothing, as we came on such a foul night,
although our frequent patrols should have made them vigilant. So step by step
forwards. Fusilier ‘F’ and me to the front, left and right a man as protection,
the rest tightly behind. Feeling the way from shell hole to shell hole, through
great bomb craters and climbing over trees felled by gun fire, trying anxiously
to avoid any crack from the wood underfoot. Now and then we lie down for a
moment and strain our ears. Suddenly, to our right front, a flare goes up. We
lie fixed to the spot. Are we noticed? – Everything stays quiet. The rain
continues unabated. Our luck. 4.45 finds us by the sap. It becomes gradually
lighter. With one of the men I crept cautiously closer. Nothing stirred. The
sap is unoccupied. But why did no one come to the sap? After the discovery of
our last patrol the French had built a wall of ‘Spanish Riders’ [wooden
obstacles with spikes] and barbed wire across the sap. With our single pair of
wire cutters we could not do much. But we didn’t want to have got soaked for
nothing …
So it was, by whispers and signs, the seven raiders deployed
in ambush, clutching their pistols and daggers. Before long, steps were heard
and an enemy officer in kepi and grey raincoat came walking down the trench.
The German officer jumped down into the trench to seize the unfortunate by the
throat and press his dagger to his chest, but the enemy struggled, grappling
with him in the wet. Another German attempted to secure him, but in the fracas
both headgear and dagger fell into the mud on the floor of the trench, and
shrieks from the French officer drew his men running:
Then clearly I saw on the coat collar the number 102,
white on black. Already some Frenchmen had arrived; the first without a helmet,
half dressed, shoots without taking aim … with all my strength I punched my Frenchman
in the face and he lets me go.
So ended this ‘raid’ with the Fusiliers scrambling back into
the darkness, with two pieces of information: that the sap was blocked, and the
French regiment was the 102nd.
To be valuable learning tools for new minor tactical
methods, the gleanings of raids had to be examined, distilled, and circulated.
Probably one raid more than any other fulfilled this purpose, and, remarkably,
documentation of its planning, execution and results was not only prepared for
German eyes, but promptly fell into Allied hands, so that within four months
the enemy too had learned many of its lessons. This raid was the attack of 11
April 1916 on ‘the Spion’ near La Boiselle, mounted by a fifty-man detachment
of 110th Reserve Infantry Regiment and four Pioneers, the attackers being
commanded by Hauptmann Wagener. Of these, roughly two-thirds were to climb from
the Blaue Stellung to creep up on the enemy, whilst the remainder formed a
support group. The key to the success of the mission was to be a diversionary
attack and the close co-operation of machine guns and artillery, as the
planning document, written by Wagener himself, explained:
For 25 minutes before the commencement of the raid the
artillery will prepare for the assault by shelling the enemy’s trenches between
Besenhecke and the Windmühle, and also the Weisse Steinmauer. During the raid
the artillery will control by its fire all the enemy’s trenches likely to be a
source of danger to the enterprise. In order to draw the fire of the enemy’s
artillery away from the spot to be raided a feint attack against the enemy’s
position just north of la Boiselle Cemetery will start 15 minutes before the
artillery opens fire. In order that the registration of the objective by the
heavy artillery and Minenwerfer shall not be apparent, on the morning of the
day before the raid … a feint bombardment of target sectors 76 to 79 will be
carried out, combined with a mine explosion, with the object of misleading the
enemy … The machine gun officer will arrange that, during the whole time of the
raid the enemy’s rear trenches in target sectors 76 to 81 are kept under a
constant fire, with a view to causing him all possible loss.
Further mortar and artillery work included extensive wire
cutting, and a heavy Albrecht mortar firing into the enemy trenches nearby.
The raiders themselves were to go ‘in attack order without
greatcoat or cap, belts to be worn without pouches, gas masks to be slung and
tucked into the tunic’. Of those to penetrate the enemy defences, half would be
armed with pistols, half with rifles. Those ‘supporting’ would mainly carry
rifles, and all parties would take grenades. Perhaps fearful of suffering
friendly fire, Wagener’s team would all be identified by a ‘triangle of white
linen sewn on the breast and back’. Their key objective was to take as many
prisoners as possible, and as many rifles, machine guns, packs etc. as could be
carried back. On the command of Leutnant Stradtmann, or the ‘charge’ signal by
a bugler kept by the Captain for the purpose, the raiding party was to retire
to the dugout from which they started. Prudently, Wagener called upon Assistant
Surgeon Wisser to set up a dressing station near the jumping-off point.
Despite adverse circumstances, including spirited resistance
and wafting gas that caused problems for the attackers, the raid was a huge
success. Following the bombardments and distractions Leutnant Stradtmann’s
party was first into the British trenches and swiftly secured three prisoners.
Joined by the others they then overcame a small group of the enemy, even though
they were armed with ‘hand grenades and rifles with bayonets fixed’. Next they
encountered a damaged machine gun emplacement where Reservist Nadolny attempted
to dig out the weapon. Meanwhile, a few more enemy troops come up a
communication trench, but were bayoneted by three Germans. Further along the
trench, dead enemies were found in a dugout, but Dumas’s patrol was set upon by
British troops who engaged them in a melee with rifles, grenades and pistols,
but the enemy were seen off or captured. As a fight appeared to be developing
on the left, a few reinforcements and the regimental adjutant, wearing full
breathing apparatus, entered the fray. On the right, Freund’s patrol did well,
capturing some more of the British and bayoneting others: ‘A few Englishmen
attempted to get away, but were shot dead’. Others ran into the box barrage
around the target sector, and were forced pell mell back into the raiders. The
entire party was back in the German lines within approximately twenty minutes
of leaving it. The final tally of enemy captured included 24 fit and five
wounded ‘Englishmen’ mainly of the Royal Irish Rifles, and a selection of
equipment. Many others were obviously killed, whilst the Germans had a few
minor wounds, the worst of which was a man cut across the forehead with a
grenade fragment who was immediately able to rejoin his unit after treatment.
The action formed the basis of no less than three reports at
various levels. A number of significant conclusions were drawn, including the
value of gas as a discomfort and distraction, though the difficulty, if not
impossibility, of conducting a complete raid in gas masks was noted. Prior
shelling was also seen as extremely useful, not because it had any chance of
annihilating the enemy, but because it tended to cause the enemy to spread out
into ‘isolated groups’ whose morale would suffer further if any of their number
were killed or injured. In the case of the Spion raid it was noted that the
supporting batteries and mortars fired about 6,000 rounds, ranging from small
field-gun rounds right up to 21cm shells. Whilst reports of the planning and action
made a useful template for further raids, widening distribution did nothing for
secrecy. Wagener himself appears to have distributed forty copies of one of his
reports, and within a few weeks the British had not only Wagener’s words
translated but a copy of the fire plan and ‘deductions’ drawn – virtually
everything was being studied on the other side of the line by August 1916.
Arguably, both sides had learned from this model raid, and the German
perpetrators had gained, at best, four months’ headway in digesting the
lessons. It was also true that the Canadians were already using many similar
methods, and information regarding these had already been circulated to British
and other Empire formations prior to this date. As in so many fields, the
tactical advance was incremental, and learning from the opposition was crucial.
It cannot be doubted that the very notion of the
Stormtrooper had a propaganda value: a power to raise uncertainty in the hearts
of the enemy, and give a fillip to those fighting by their sides. The celebrity
of the few could, however, be a double-edged weapon, as was recorded by German
Medical Officer Stefan Westmann:
The men of the storm battalions were treated like
football stars. They lived in comfortable quarters, they travelled to the
‘playing ground’ in buses, they did their jobs and disappeared again, and left
the poor foot sloggers to dig in, to deal with the counter-attacks and endure
the avenging artillery fire of the enemy. They were so well trained and had
developed such a high standard of team work … They moved like snakes over the
ground, camouflaged and making use of every bit of cover, so that they did not
offer any targets for artillery fire.
It has been said that Stormtroop units suffered
disproportionately high casualties, due to the difficulty of the tasks they
were given and the single-minded determination with which they were carried
out. Conversely, it has been suggested that Stormtroop units actually suffered
lower casualties because of their new tactics, and because they were specially
chosen as fit men who were withdrawn between operations. Curiously, both of
these statements may be correct, with heavy casualties for limited periods
being balanced out by periods of training. The statistical information as
available at this time appears inconclusive. Rohr’s battalion, numbered 5th
‘Royal Prussian’ Sturmbataillon, after it was attached to 5th Army, is known to
have suffered 621 fatalities during the period of its existence. Not all dates
of death are known, but 74 died in 1915, 156 in 1916, 118 in 1917, and 1918 was
easily the worst year, with 187 or more fatalities. The most senior member to
die was Hauptmann Siegfried Hoffmann of the first Sturmkompagnie, on 30 March
1918, one of twenty officers killed or who had died with the battalion.
Interestingly, eight of Rohr’s command died in accidents, and of these, six
(roughly one per cent of all fatalities) happened on the Übungsplatz, or
training ground. This and the fact that one of these, Leutnant Heinrich
Hermanns, was even an officer, speak volumes about rigorous training and the
use of live munitions.
Given that different units had very different service, exact
comparisons are difficult, but we do know that many German infantry battalions
suffered more than a thousand fatalities during the war. The Colbergsches
Grenadier-Regiment Nr 9, for example, lost 454 officers and 4660 men, which
suggests that each of its three battalions had in excess of 1200 fatalities.
Two Majors were killed with the regiment. The Bremen infantry regiment Nr 75,
similarly, had over 1000 dead per battalion, and this was probably not
untypical. On the other side of the line, 2nd Battalion of the Manchesters,
with long service on the Western Front, had a comparable 1,165 war dead.
Perhaps surprisingly, 11th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment (or
‘Accrington Pals’), a unit often held up as particularly inexperienced, and
which was ‘slaughtered’ on the first day of the Somme, had 729 killed or
missing over the duration of the war, of whom 24 were officers. Moreover, some
of the ‘missing’ turned up in German prisoner of war camps, and one or two,
including one officer, actually died in German captivity.
Another stereotype that may require challenging is that
after the initial raising of the first Sturmbataillon, all storm or shock
troops were young, fit men. Again, the figures we have are no more than
fragmentary, but what we do know shows that, even if this was generally true,
there were definite exceptions to the rule. Sturmtruppe Picht fighting in
Romania in late October and early November 1916 suffered 95 casualties, of all
descriptions, including ‘lightly wounded’. Of these 95 men, no less than 44%
were aged over 25, and 15% were over 30. In Sturmkompanie 4 a number of men
were certainly veterans, to put it kindly. Landsturm other rank Adolf Ruhr was
almost 41 when he got hit; Feldwebel Waldemar Verch had the bad luck to be
wounded on his 40th birthday. Another man, Albert Broze, was 39. It is also
worth observing that, generally speaking, ‘veteran’ troops were less likely to
get hurt than callow novices, so the likelihood is that rather than being the
older members of the unit, the casualties were, on average, younger.
It is also the case that the efforts of the Stormtroop
battalions as innovators and trainers were not carried out in isolation.
Training in specialist weapons continued elsewhere, as did officer schools,
whose syllabuses stressed leading under the new conditions of war. It also
needs to be remembered that the Prussian Guard had a Lehr, or instructional,
unit even before the start of the war. Intensive retraining of company and
battalion commanders was commenced in October 1916, and ‘leadership’ courses
for more senior officers were established within both the Army Groups of Prince
Rupprecht and the Crown Prince. In the winter of 1917 to 1918 there was finally
an opportunity to give huge bodies of men additional training in new tactical
methods, as the Russians collapsed and divisions were transferred to the West.
This massive effort was a partial success as the early breakthroughs would
demonstrate, and personal accounts from some divisions show a very thorough
training regime. The 1st Bavarian Division, for example, spent January 1918
training in the Champagne. Next they moved on to Eighteenth Army at Vervins
where they were taught or refreshed on discipline, advancing, terrain skills
and machine guns. After this there were exercises which included such advanced
matters as working with other divisions, and manoeuvre with tanks and aircraft.
This was model practice, but very far from all the German
army would be ‘Stormtroop trained’ and able for offensive action. Large numbers
of men were too old to be really fit, some of the Landsturm for example being
over fifty, and some new recruits had merely grasped the rudiments. Some
otherwise useful men were debilitated by wounds or gas. Supplies of new
equipment were not inexhaustible. The result was a grading of different
divisions as to their suitability for offensive action, and whilst some were
Angriff (‘attack’, or ‘assault’), others were merely Stellungs, troops capable
of holding a position. At best, the work of the ‘recruit depots’ just behind
the line and that of the Storm battalions was incomplete. Having spent part of
1917 in training other troops, notably infantry gun battery crews, Rohr’s own
battalion was itself recommitted to the fray in the great offensives of early
1918. It fought first as two half battalions, and later as a single unit,
before returning to training again and working with both the Guard cavalry and
Austrian units. Finally, and perhaps fittingly, the last duty of
Sturmbataillone Rohr was to act as the Army Headquarters Guard unit, probably
being regarded by now as the most reliable battalion in the German army.
