How Aubers Ridge Toppled the British Government

0:00Every day, excessive delays and denials from big insurers keep patients from accessing the care they need. And when care is urgent, these delays can be disastrous. These practices cost billions in wasteful spending, driving up costs for American families. But while big insurers put up barriers, America's hospitals and health systems are in your corner. Navigating endless reviews and appeals to get you the care you need when you need it most. It's time to curb these harmful practices and put the focus back on patients. Brought to you by the Coalition to Strength in America's Health Care. Welcome back to the show. It's, uh, it is fantastic to have you with us for another deep dive. Yeah, really glad you could join us today. Because today, we are looking at a scenario that, um, well, it almost defies belief. And I really want you to put yourself in this headspace for a minute. Right. Imagine a major military offensive where absolutely no ground is gained, like zero tactical advantage. A complete, unmitigated failure on the battlefield. Exactly. And yet somehow this localized disaster manages to send shock waves across the English

1:02channel and literally shake the very foundations of the British government back home. Yeah, it's wild. How does a muddy field in France bring down politicians in London, right? Right. It is one of those cascading chain reactions in history that you can, uh, you can hardly believe actually happened. It really is a local tactical failure that just snowballs into a full blown national political crisis. So our mission for you today is to unpack exactly how that happened by looking at the Battle of Obers, which is also known as the Battle of Obers Ridge. This was an infamous British offensive on the Western front during World War One, taking place on May 9th, 1915. And, uh, our source material for this deep dive is a really comprehensive Wikipedia article. Covers everything. It does. It details the battle, the prelude, the specific military tactics used by both sides. And, of course, that monumental aftermath we just teased to really understand the sheer scale of what went wrong here. We first have to set the stage because this battle, it didn't just happen in a vacuum.

2:05No, it was part of something much bigger. Exactly. It was the initial British contribution to a much larger combined Franco-British offensive known as the second battle of our twa, right? The French commander in chief at the time, Joseph Joffrey, was planning this massive push. He had the French 10th Army tasked with attacking the German 6th Army north of Eris. And their immediate goal was to capture the heights at Notre Dame, Delaret, and Vimy Ridge. Yes. But Joffrey needed help to actually pull this off. Right. He essentially goes to Sir John French, who is the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, and asks if the British can support this massive French offensive. Basically, trying to widen the gap in the German defenses. Yeah. And French agrees. The British First Army was positioned further north along the line, so they decided to launch their supporting attack in the southern half of their front. Near a village called Leventy. Exactly. Yeah. And the ultimate prize they were eyeing for this specific operation was Aubur's Ridge. Which honestly, calling it a Ridge might give you the wrong impression.

3:08Yeah, it definitely sounds grander than it is. Right. If you're picturing steep cliffs or rocky drop-offs, forget it. We're talking about an area just two to three kilometers away from the British lines that was only slightly elevated above the surrounding landscape. I mean, in any normal context, it is barely even a hill. Yeah. But you have to picture the terrain in this specific part of France. It was incredibly flat and notoriously poorly drained. Basically a swamp. It is essentially a miserable, water-logged, expansive mud. So in an environment like that, even a slight elevation gives you a massive tactical advantage. For artillery observation, just keeping your own troops dry. Right. Precisely. The elevation, Aubur's Ridge, contained the villages of Aubur's, Fremel, and Lemais Niel. And what makes this upcoming battle even more grim to think about is that the British had just fought over this exact same area two months prior. Right. During the Battle of Newf's Chapelle. Yeah. They knew the mud. They knew the misery. And that previous battle is the key to everything that follows.

4:10It dictated exactly how the Germans prepared for this new attack. Right. But before we get to the German defenses, we really should look at the British Battle Plan. Because they brought some incredibly modern, multi-domain tactics to the table for Auburs. They really did. Which brings us to the subterranean warfare. Yeah. This is fascinating. The British deployed the 173rd tunneling company. And the source notes this was only the second time specialist Royal Engineer tunneling companies were used in this specific way. They literally tunneled right under no man's land. You know, that deadly stretch of empty ground between the two opposing armies. Right. They planted explosive mines directly beneath the German defenses. And these mines were set to be blown at zero hour. The exact moment the infantry attack began. Exactly. I mean, imagine the claustrophobia and the sheer nerve it takes to dig silently underground. In the freezing mud, knowing the enemy is right above your head. It's terrifying. It really is. And while those engineers were working in the dark below the earth, the British were also

5:13taking to the sky above. Right. The air support. It's a huge component of this plan. It's so easy to forget how new aviation was in early 1915, but they were deeply involved. Three squadrons of the first wing royal flying corps were attached to the first army for this operation. And they were busy before the battle even started. Yeah. For four straight days leading up to the attack, these squadrons flew continuous defensive patrols. Just acting as a shield in the sky. Right. Their entire job was to deter enemy reconnaissance planes from seeing the troop build-ups. Then during the battle itself, their mission shifted. They were tasked with artillery observation, literally spotting where the shells were landing and signaling back. Exactly. Yeah. As well as bombing German rear areas, railway junctions and bridges further afield. They were actively trying to blind the German command and choke off their supply lines. So on paper, it is a brilliant concept. You've got tunnels detonating below, airplanes bombing above and infantry charging the middle.

6:14It sounds unstoppable. Okay. Because despite all of that innovative planning, the Germans were not just sitting around waiting to be attacked. Car from it. They had spent the last two months turning the earth itself into a meat grinder. Yeah. The lessons of that previous battle at New Shapel completely shifted German military doctrine in this sector. Right. They learned a very hard lesson two months earlier. They realized a single line of breast works was nowhere near enough to stop a determined attack. Let's pause and define that for a second because breast works as a term that gets thrown around a lot in World War I history. It does. Why build a breast work instead of digging a trench? It goes back to that poorly drained terrain we mentioned. If you try to dig a traditional trench in Leventy, you hit the water table almost immediately. Right. You're essentially digging a canal. Exactly. And your soldiers will drown or freeze in the water. So instead of digging down into the earth, you have to build walls up above the ground. Using sandbags, timber, earth, that kind of thing.

7:16Right. Those built up walls are breast works. And the Germans realized their old breast works were too flimsy. Yeah. This is a terrifying aha moment for anyone studying military adaptation. They didn't just rebuild the walls. They engineered an impenetrable fortress. Absolutely. To start, the barbed wire entanglements sitting out in No Man's Land weren't just repaired. The wire was doubled. And in some places, trebled. And as for the breast works themselves, the old ones used to be about five feet deep. The Germans expanded them to a massive 15 to 20 feet broad. We are talking about muddy walls as thick as a house. They also added something called a parados. What's that? It's a thick bank of earth built up behind the trench line. That protects the soldiers from the shrapnel of shells exploding to their rear. Wow. But the machine gun placement is the detail that absolutely chills me. Oh, yeah. Just pointing them forward to shoot at the charting British, the source details how each battalion had two machine guns and placed right at ground level.

8:18Yes. Explicitly set to sweep No Man's Land from the flanks. Wait, so if your British soldier charging forward, the fire isn't just coming at your face. It's crossing your path from the sides. Exactly. It creates an interlocking field of crossfire. There is literally no way to hide. If you drop to the ground, the bullets are skimming just above the mud. And that nightmare was just their first line of defense. Moving about 200 yards behind that massive front breastwork, the Germans built a completely new structure called the Vongraben. Which translates to a living trench, essentially. Exactly that. This wasn't a fighting position. It was a survival bunker. It featured deep dugouts underneath the earth that could comfortably accommodate 20 to 30 man each. Wow. And the Vongraben was connected to the front line by solidly built communication trenches that were fully equipped with concrete shelters. So the front line changed completely. Right. Because of this, the front line essentially became nothing more than a line of century posts.

9:18The main garrison lived safely 200 yards back in the Vongraben, completely shielded from the initial bombardment. Ready to rush forward through those concrete communication trenches the moment an attack started. Exactly. So even if the British somehow survived the double barbed wire, the flanking machine guns, and managed to climb over a 20 foot broad wall of earth, they would immediately hit a fully rested heavily protected second wave of infantry pouring out of the communication trenches. Unbelievable. And it's even deeper than that. About 700 to a thousand yards back from the front line, the Germans constructed the Stutzpunklini. Hold on, how far back are we talking now? Because it sounds like they are building an entire underground city out there. Over half a mile behind the front lines, the Stutzpunklini was a line of dedicated, reinforced concrete machine gunposts spaced out evenly, about a thousand yards apart as strategic locations. The text specifically names places like Loch Terrell, Firm Dubois, and Firm Cordeveway.

10:19These were designed as absolute rallying points. So a fallback position? Yes. If the British managed to overrun the front lines and the Vongraben, the surviving German infantry would fall back to these concrete bunkers and hold the line. Effectively trapping the British in a new, deeper, crossfire. Exactly. It is defense in depth taken to its absolute extreme. And we haven't even mentioned the German artillery yet. Right. The German command placed most of their field artillery. These are batteries of four guns each alongside heavier artillery batteries between 2,500 and 4,000 yards back. Sitting securely up on Auburn's rigid self. And just to show you how thoroughly they planned for worst-case scenarios. The Germans had already built a second line of gun positions even further back than that. Wow. If the British miraculously broke through the bunkers, the German artillery could simply hitch up their guns, retreat to pre-dug positions, and immediately start supporting a counter-attack. And every single German battalion frontage, which was held by about 280 men, had support

11:20companies waiting 2,000 yards back, and reserve companies another 2,000 to 4,000 yards behind them. The strategic depth meant the British were essentially attacking a brick wall with a hammer. But behind that brick wall were five more brick walls, each thicker than the last. Here's where it gets really interesting, and frankly incredibly tragic. Because against this absolute masterclass and defensive engineering, the British attack completely utterly fell apart. The source material refers to it as an unmitigated disaster, and the failures were entirely systemic. It wasn't just one lucky break for the Germans. No, it wasn't one unlucky break for the British either. It was a cascading failure of intelligence, logistics, and firepower, all overlapping at once. Well, let's start with the intelligence failure. How could the British not know about these defenses? That's the big question. The records show they either didn't have the reconnaissance information about these massive concrete reinforced German upgrades, or they had the intel sitting on a desk somewhere

12:21and simply didn't give it enough weight. Yeah. They were ordering tens of thousands of men to attack a fortress they seemingly didn't know existed. And because they lacked that intelligence, they lost the element of surprise entirely. Right. The opening bombardment, the massive artillery barrage that is supposed to blow apart the barbed wire and smash the breastworks, so the infantry can actually run across no man's land, it failed on almost every level. It just wasn't enough. No where near powerful enough to break the troubled wire. It barely scratched the 20 foot broad breastworks, and crucially, it completely failed to knock out those flanking machine guns and placed it ground level. And the logistics behind the British lines were just as disastrous. The trench layout and the traffic flow systems were so poorly organized that when the attack started and things immediately went wrong, it caused a catastrophic bottleneck. A total gridlock. Yes. They couldn't efficiently move fresh reinforcements forward through the narrow communication trenches. And even more devastatingly, they couldn't evacuate the massive influx of casualties backward.

13:26It was essentially a traffic jam of human suffering. What really sealed their fate, however, was a severe and fatal problem with their ammunition. This is a huge factor. The British artillery was in terrible condition. The guns themselves were heavily overused. Right. When an artillery barrel gets worn down from firing too many shells, it loses its rifling and becomes wildly inaccurate. It just sprays everywhere. Exactly. It doesn't take matters worse. It wasn't just the gun barrels causing issues. The ammunition itself was failing due to poor, rushed manufacturing back in the factories. So you have worn out guns firing defective shells at fortifications that are four times thicker than you thought they were. It is a recipe for a massacre. And as soon as the infantry charged, the battlefield quickly dissolved into thick smoke, mud, and total chaos. It became impossible for the artillery spotters to tell where the British troops even were. The artillery support became a physical impossibility. Because if the British gunners fired, they were just as likely to drop those defective shells on their own men who were pinned down in the mud of No Man's Land.

14:29The result of all these compounding systemic failures is a disparity in casualties that is just staggering to read. It really is. We are talking about a 10-to-1 casualty ratio. On May 9, alone, the British official historian James Edmonds recorded 11,619 British casualties. Over 11,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in a matter of hours. And looking at the other side of No Man's Land, the German regiments defending that specific sector infantry regiments 55 and 57 recorded roughly 900 casualties total. 11,900 to 900, it is a slaughter. But within that horrifying statistic, the source material gives us these profound, deeply human flashes of individual heroism. These moments really stand out. There is this incredibly vivid detail of the Royal Munster fuseliers. Right before the battle, perhaps knowing the absolute hell they were about to walk into, the entire battalion received absolution from their chaplain, Father Francis Gleason.

15:32You can just picture that scene. Hundreds of men kneeling in the muddy claustrophobic trenches. The quiet tension in the air before the whistles blow. The psychological weight those men were carrying is unimaginable. They had to know, looking at the wire and the defenses, that the odds were entirely against them. And despite the tactical failure of the overarching plan, the individual bravery shown that day was astounding. The source lists four specific men who earned the Victoria Cross. Which is the absolute highest award for gallantry in the British armed forces. Yes. Four men earned it on that single day obbers. David Finley and John Ripley from the Black Watch Royal Highlanders, Charles Sharp of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, and James Upton of the Sherwood Foresters. What's fascinating here is that despite that incredible courage, despite the tunneling engineers under the earth, the air support flying overhead and the men earning Victoria Cross is in the mud, the attack achieved absolutely nothing strategically. Nothing at all. Not a single inch of ground was one. And as for the whole reason they attacked in the first place to support Joffrey and the

16:36French 10th Army fighting 15 miles to the south. Yeah. It's highly doubt the battle of obbers had even the slightest positive effect on that main French offensive. So what does this all mean? We have over 11,000 casualties for zero gain. Usually a localized defeat like this stays a military matter buried in reports and official histories. But this is the exact moment where the story jumps from the blood soaked mud of France straight into the civilian halls of power in London. This is where the political shock waves begin to tear through Britain. Shortly after the utter failure at Auburn's Ridge, a war correspondent working for the Times newspaper named Colonel Charles a court-repington said a highly sensitive telegram back to London. And Repington wasn't just observing from afar or guessing about what went wrong with the artillery. He was writing this dispatch using information supplied directly by the British commander himself, Sir John French, which is wild to think about. The commander of the entire military force is essentially bypassing his own government

17:37and leaking the root cause of his army's failure directly to a journalist. Exactly. And that specific leak leads to a headline in the Times on May 14, 1915 that literally changed history. I'll quote it exactly as it appeared for need for shells British attacks checked limited supply the cause a lesson from France. If we connect this to the bigger picture, you can begin to see how explosive this was for the British public. The highest level of the military is openly pointing the finger at the politicians and the factory owners back home, broadcasting to the entire nation. Your sons are dying in the mud because you aren't manufacturing the right equipment. This single article sparked directly by the artillery failures at the Battle of Auburns precipitated a massive national scandal that became known as the shell crisis of 1915. The public outrage was immediate and ferocious. People were reading over their morning tea that their army was being slaughtered because of faulty manufacturing and a lack of ammunition.

18:39It is incredible to trace the line. A local tactical failure caused by bad shells and worn out gun barrels fundamentally rocked the British government. It really did. It brought down the ruling liberal government of Prime Minister HH Asquith and forced the immediate creation of a new coalition government. Just from this one battle. Yes. It solved the problem they had to create a brand new Ministry of Munitions headed by David Lloyd George. The failure to take a tiny elevated ridge in France literally reshaped how the entire British Empire ran its war economy. It perfectly illustrates the brutal reality of industrialized war. The frontline trenches and the civilian home front are inextricably linked. You really are. The soldiers can only fight with the tools the factories produce. When the factories failed to deliver quality ammunition, the soldiers die in staggering numbers. And when the public finds out the government's fall. It is a really heavy realization just to recap the intense journey we have been on with you today. Yeah, we've covered a lot. We started with a high stakes multi domain battle plan featuring subterranean tunneling

19:42engineers and some of the earliest military air support in history. We explored a German defensive masterclass that turned the high water table into an excuse to build a fortress of 20 foot broad earthworks and interlocking machine gunfire. A literal underground city. We broke down the tragic compounding failures of British intelligence, logistics and faulty artillery that led to a horrifying 10 to 1 casualty ratio. And finally, we saw how that localized disaster at offers leaked into the civilian press and caused a political earthquake back in London, birthing the shell crisis of 1915. It is a tremendous amount of historical gravity to take in. It perfectly encapsulates the incredibly steep brutal learning curve that all armies faced in 1915. Absolutely. They were applying 19th century tactics to 20th century killing machines. And the cost was paid in human lives. It really was. And as we wrap up our time with you today, we want to leave you with one final provocative

20:42thought. Okay. We have spent this entire deep dive focused intensely on the battle of offers where the British suffered those 11,000 plus casualties in a matter of days for absolutely no ground gained. But remember how we set the stage at the very beginning. Obers was just one small supporting piece of the broader second battle of our toa. It was essentially the opening act for the massive French offensive ordered by Jean-Fri. Exactly. And according to the statistics provided by the official history editor Hans von Haften, the broader operations of that overarching second battle of our toa resulted in roughly 102,500 French casualties, 32,000 British casualties, and over 73,000 German casualties. This raises an important question. It certainly does. We want you to consider the sheer almost incomprehensible scale of this conflict as a whole. Yeah. If a quote-unquote small piece of the puzzle like Aubrey favors, a localized battle that lasted just days and gained absolutely nothing could cause a nationwide political crisis

21:44over ammunition. Right. What does that staggering total of over 200,000 casualties across the whole our toa offensive tell us? What does that say about the terrifying new reality of industrial warfare that the world had just blindly entered into? It represents a scale of mass destruction and logistical consumption that neither the systems of government nor the human mind were truly equipped to process at the time. Something to ponder is you go about the rest of your day. We want to thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive. Thanks for listening. Questioning the history you think you know and keep exploring. We will catch you next time. Every day excessive delays and denials from big insurers keep patients from accessing the care they need. And when care is urgent, these delays can be disastrous. These practices cost billions in wasteful spending, driving up costs for American families. But while big insurers put up barriers, America's hospitals and health systems are in your corner. Navigating endless reviews and appeals to get you the care you need when you need it most. You need to curb these harmful practices and put the focus back on patients.

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