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DATE: 25 September - 13 October 1915 (2.5 weeks)
LOCATION: Pas de Calais, France
OBJECTIVE: The Allies' first €Big Push€ to break through German defenses, thereby hoping to end the stalemate of trench warfare.
RESULT: Allies liberated the town of Loos which failed to affect course of war.
CASUALTIES: Day 1: British lost l/6 of its forces. More died on 9-25-1915 than during 3 years of Boer War. Day 2: British had 8,200 casualties in3.5 hours; Germans had none. Total: British sustained 60,392casualties of which 20,000 were fatal. Germans lot 20,000 men.
LONE TREE: Northwest of Loos. British soldiers took chips for souvenirs.
HILL 70: Highest point of battlefield; east of Loos. Lieutenant Jack Kipling,* only son of Rudyard Kipling, probably killed here on 27 September whenthe Irish Guards took the hill.
HOHEZOLLERN: Germans retook it and kept it until 1918.
REDOUBT ANALYSIS: This was the first of many big Allied offensive battles to push the Germans back as a prelude to Allied cavalry rushing through and on to victory. The only difference is that the casualties in future military engagements were ten times as high. None was successful.
BRITISH WEAKNESSES & ERRORS:
Lay of the Land: Flat. The Germans were dug in on higher ground.
Soil: Trenches in chalky ground were easily visible by air.
Barbed Wire: Germans used a heavier gauge. Brits used a lightweight concertina wire.
Wire Uprights: Brits deployed single corkscrew stakes; Germans used heavy wooden-cross supports.
British Packs: Too heavy.
Artillery: Brits had insufficient quantity.
Steel Helmets: Brits did not have them yet.
Chlorine Gas: Brits dispensed it in canisters; when the wind shifted direction, the gas floated back into their own trenches.
General John French committed reserve troops on the 26th which was too late to be effective.
Leadership: When many senior British officers were killed, junior officers were not capable or experienced enough to take over command.
Tactics: British leadership ordered the soldiers to advance in 10 neat columns of about 1,000 troops each. The Germans, armed with machine guns, mowed the Tommies down like it was a turkey shoot.
The Film
MY BOY JACK, a televised portrayal made in 2007
My own interest in the Battle of Loos was precipitated by a viewing of this PBS Masterpiece starring David Haig (Rudyard Kipling), Daniel Radcliffe (son John), Carey Mulligan (sister of John), and Kim Cattrall (wife of Rudyard). The film is visually beautiful and finds an effective balance between the actual battle scenes (which were very limited) and fighting the war at home. I was especially moved by Kipling's transformation from a world-renown poet and staunch patriot, to a somewhat humble Father of all the Fallen Young Men. For it was Rudyard Kipling who headed the first British Commission on War Graves and he personally wrote thousands of epithets.
As an fyi, the corpse of his boy Jack was never found.
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