Welcome to the video series Site Study: Ypres Salient, my name is Brad Manera.
The difference between the fighting on the Western Front and the fighting at Gallipoli was the level of sophistication and the scale.
The Western Front was the clash of great armies, whereas at Gallipoli the battles were small unit actions by comparison. The actions might involve a few thousand soldiers on both sides, whereas on the Western Front there were battles that involved hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
When comparing the fighting at Gallipoli in 1915 with the battles on the Somme in 1916 or in the Ypres Salient in 1917, weapons had become much more sophisticated and deadly and the means of communication had become moere effective.
Fortunately, medical supplies and treatment also improved greatly.
Comparisons between the two campaigns give us the opportunity to say we learnt from Gallipoli.
The Gallipoli Campaign was one in which almost Napoleonic tactics were still being used. An infantry battalion went into action with a thousand soldiers in a very simplistic way, just thrown at a target as a crowd of soldiers. By 1917 command had devolved so that men at relatively junior level are making decisions, and they've got the tools to do so.
At Gallipoli maybe 1 in 100 soldiers had a map and a compass. By 1917 commanders of 20 soldiers had been issued sophisticated 1 in 20,000 scale maps. They had compasses, binoculars, and the tools that enable them to make informed decisions. Maps were a result of aerial photography.
There was a whole range of tools that are available to men at relatively junior level that were never available to men at that level on Gallipoli in 1915.
At Gallipoli we have examples from the Battle of Lone Pine where the 2nd Battalion, indeed the entire NSW First Brigade suffered massive casualties. They had little training. Some had only been in the army for 8 weeks. All they had time to learn was to lace up a pair of boots and put on a set of webbing, fix their bayonets and how their Lee-Enfield rifles worked.
That was not the case by 1917.
By 1917 officers have realised that inadequately educated soldiers just die on modern battlefields. The soldiers that went into action at Ypres, as opposed to those that fought at Gallipoli, had been to school. They had been taught how battles work. They had been taught small unit tactics. And they knew their weapons intimately.
As coordinated bodies of soldiers they knew how to work with other units and how to coordinate artillery fire. They understood what the air force, and occasionally tanks, could do for them.
Where soldiers going into action in Gallipoli were simply ordered to get out of their trench and charge, by 1917 a similar group of soldiers would have a beter idea of the battle plan and what was expected of them. Their officer would tell them about the whole battlefield, give them an expectation of enemy strength and explain their task within the greater plan.
These bite and hold tactics, developed by General Plumer and modified at small unit level by General Monash, the Australian General, enabled the British and dominion troops to minimise casualties and create gains that they could hold. Warfare with unlimited objectives and a plan as simple as 'Just go and smash a hole through the enemy and keep going' only costs lives and did not achieve anything.
That had been the problem with Gallipoli. The men were given simple orders like 'Dig in' or 'Advance', 'Keep going', or 'Get to the Sari Bair range'. They had little knowlege of what was in front of them, who was beside them and what sort of support they could expect.
By 1917 individual soldiers were well aware of what they're going into and what sort of support they would receive.
The trenches were different as well. At Gallipoli our trenches were rudimentary, they were there to protect soldiers and to provide somewhere to seek a little bit of rest. Behind the trenches was Shrapnel Gully and then it's a short walk to the beach. The Gallipoli trenches are always within sight of the water, it was a very shallow battlefield.
In contrast on the Western Front in places like Ypres, the battlefield was tens of kilometres deep. No Man's Land seperated the fighting trenches, sometimes 3, 4 or 5 lines. Behind the fighting trenches were the support trenches. Beyond the support trenches were artillery positions, medical aid posts, headquaters, communication centres, supply dumps, and beyond that you've got your battalion cookhouses.
And even further back were airfields, battle schools, armouries and rest and recreation centres, so we're talking about a frontline that is tens of kilometres deep. There are railway lines connecting these different parts of the battlefield. Supplies were brought forward on railway lines and then by motor transport. From the rear areas men and materiel moved even closer to the front in horse-drawn wagons and artillery limbers. Eventually supplies reached the fighting trenches carried forward by men in fatigue parties. By contrast at Gallipoli, 1 man with a yoke could lug supplies from the beach to the frontline.
Movement of soldiers was different too.
At Gallipoli men might live in the frontline for weeks and be rotated between the very frontline and the communication or support trenches and then back to the frontline. At the Western Front they were constantly rotated between fighting trenches and support trenches and then from support trenches to rest areas. By this stage commanders knew that healthy soldiers are more effective in battle. Sick soldiers are a significant problem.
The Gallipoli experience was dysentery, running sores and men getting sick on the frontline. On the Western Front they tried to solve those problems by getting the blokes rotated out of the very front trenches every 48 hours so they can get a hot meal and get green vegetables. Soldiers recieved nourishing food. They were issued dry socks so that they can keep their feet in working order.
At last the army was realising that there was no chance an infantryman could be effective if his feet were rotting with tinea and trench foot and his strength sapped by dysentry.