barrage. British Expeditionary Force (BEF) infantry regiments were equipped with special
weaponry also, though not to the same degree as the specialised stosstrupp units. 22
The creeping barrage was also used by Entente forces on the Western Front, in
conjunction with, for their first-time deployment, British MK1 Landships which moved ahead
of the infantry. 23 Haig believed a ‘hurricane bombardment’ followed by infantry assault and
a cavalry mop-up would achieve breakthrough. These tactics seem antiquated insofar as
such a mindset had not served him well at Loos 1915. 24 Rawlinson’s idea wa s to use artillery
to ‘tear’ pieces of German defence so that the infantry could invade and hold them. 25 This
tactic was to be instrumental in the BEF victory at Messines Ridge 1917, marking Rawlinson’s
idea as an innovation in British tactical output. 26
German deployment of 168 aircraft during Verdun prompted the French to respond
by grouping scout planes with fighters in squadrons, a certainly modernised element of
tactical conduct. 27 Artillery, though already a key element of warfare in 1914, was in 1916
emphasised greatly. The French devised to have six heavy gun and six heavy howitzer
batteries per army corps by May 1916, compared to five heavy gun and zero heavy howitzer
batteries in 1915. 28 In doing so they closed the important gap between theirs and German
heavy firepower. The Germans were estimated to have expended 100,000 shells a day at
Verdun across the 8-mile front, a considerable quantity for a relatively small lane of attack. 29
22 Keith Jeffery, 1916: A Global History (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 247 23 Jeffery, p. 249-51 24 Alan Clark, The Donkeys (London: Pimlico, 1961) p. 147-148, p. 164 25 Herwig, p. 201 26 Ian Passingham, Pillars of Fire: Messines Ridge, 1917 (Cheltenham: History Press, 2012), ch. 11 27 Strachan, p. 183 28 Bruce I. Gudmundsson, ‘French Artillery in the First World War’, in King of Battle: Artillery in World War 1, Ed. by Sanders Marble (Leiden: BRILL, 2015), p. 62-100 (p. 92) 29 Michael S. Neiberg, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 162
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