Page 248 - Il 1916 Evoluzione geopolitica, tattica e tecnica di un conflitto sempre più esteso - Atti 6-7 dicembre 2016

248 il 1916. EvoluzionE gEopolitica, tattica E tEcnica di un conflitto sEmprE più EstEso

ward, especially for the assault on the second Position, the attacking infantry,
had they been successful in taking the entire first Position, would then have to
wait for their artillery to move forward before they could advance on the sec-
ond position. If artillery batteries were moved forward in advance, they could
not open fire until the first position had been taken, or they would be seen by
the defending artillery’s observers. The time it took the assailants to regroup
was generally sufficient for the defending troops to plan and mount a counter
attack. In this case, the attacking troops, decimated after the battle for the first
position, were unable to hold the trench and it was retaken and put back into
operation by the defenders. If the counter attack was unsuccessful, the second
position was expanded to become the first, the third became the second, and
behind that a new third position was constructed. Although the battle was still
concentrated around the first position, the deployment of the reserves and the
resulting elasticity in combat methods were quite different from the beginnings
of static warfare in the autumn of 1914. The infantry fire fight over a dis-
43
tance, practised so intensively before the war, now became obsolete with the
44
close proximity of static warfare and was replaced by machine gun fire and an
increase in heavy guns. It made no sense tactically for the first line of the first
position to be so heavily manned, as it was usually lost, at least temporarily,
during a major offensive and was always the main artillery target. This meant
that losses were considerable, even before the troops were involved in battle.
The troops in the first line trench were almost always overrun by the attacking
infantry and were lost as far as the battle was concerned. It would have been
more effective to transfer men to the second and third positions, but this would
have meant accepting in advance that areas of ground would be lost, at least
temporarily. This could not be reconciled with the doctrine, still valid, that every
metre of ground was to be held.
Apart from numbers, the battle depended largely on two factors: whether the
artillery observers recognised the moment that their assailant’s opening artillery
barrage had been moved ahead and informed the troops that they could open
fire, and whether the trench troops could leave their dugouts fast enough to
45
reach the parapets before the enemy infantry arrived. 46

43 Pitreich, August von, Die Entwicklung unseres Kampfverfahrens vom Kriegsbeginn bis zur
Gegenwart. In: Militärwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen 1935, issues 1-10, Wien 1935, p. 506.
44 Ibid. p.508.
45 Ibid. p. 508.
46 Keegan, John, Das Antlitz des Krieges. Die Schlachten von Azincourt 1415, Waterloo 1815