Battle of Loos - Course of The Battle

Course of The Battle

The battle was the British component of the combined Anglo-French offensive known as the Third Battle of Artois. General Douglas Haig, then commander of the British First Army, directed the battle. However, his plans were limited by the shortage of artillery ammunition, which meant the preliminary bombardment, essential for success in the emerging trench warfare, was weak. Prior to the British attack, about 140 tons of chlorine gas was released, with mixed success—for, in places the gas was blown back onto British trenches. Due to the inefficiency of the contemporary gas masks, many soldiers removed them as they could not see through the fogged-up talc eyepieces, or could barely breathe with them on. This led to some British soldiers being affected by their own gas, as it blew back across their lines.

The battle opened on 25 September, with the British able to break through the weaker German defences and capture the town of Loos, mainly due to numerical superiority. However, the inevitable supply and communications problems, combined with the late arrival of reserves, meant that the breakthrough could not be exploited. A further complication, for many British soldiers, was the failure of their artillery to cut the German wire in many places in advance of the attack. Advancing over open fields within range of German machine guns and artillery, British losses were devastating. When the battle resumed the following day, the Germans were prepared and repulsed attempts to continue the advance. The fighting subsided on 28 September, with the British having retreated to their starting positions. Their attacks had cost over 20,000 casualties, including three divisional commanders; George Thesiger, Thompson Capper and Frederick Wing. Following the initial attacks by the British, the Germans made several attempts to recapture the Hohenzollern Redoubt. This was accomplished on 3 October. On 8 October, the Germans attempted to recapture much of the lost ground, by launching a major offensive along the entire line, but abandoned the effort by nightfall, due to heavy losses. This marked the effective end of the battle, although in an attempt to strike before the winter rain set in, the British attempted a final offensive on 13 October, which failed, due to a lack of hand grenades. General Haig thought it might be possible to launch another attack on 7 November, but the combination of heavy rain and accurate German shelling during the second half of October finally persuaded him to abandon the attempt.

Major-General Richard Hilton, at that time a Forward Observation Officer, said of the battle:

A great deal of nonsense has been written about Loos. The real tragedy of that battle was its nearness to complete success. Most of us who reached the crest of Hill 70, and survived, were firmly convinced that we had broken through on that Sunday, 25th September 1915. There seemed to be nothing ahead of us, but an unoccupied and incomplete trench system. The only two things that prevented our advancing into the suburbs of Lens were, firstly, the exhaustion of the 'Jocks' themselves (for they had undergone a bellyfull of marching and fighting that day) and, secondly, the flanking fire of numerous German machine-guns, which swept that bare hill from some factory buildings in Cite St. Auguste to the south of us. All that we needed was more artillery ammunition to blast those clearly-located machine-guns, plus some fresh infantry to take over from the weary and depleted 'Jocks.' But, alas, neither ammunition nor reinforcements were immediately available, and the great opportunity passed.