Hindenburg Line - the separate Stellungs

[RodB]

I have conflicting info on the locations of the individual stellungs which made up the Hindenburg Line.

The "Great War Standard History" of 1919 has a diagram with :-

Wotan from east of Lens - west of Cambrai

Siegfried from west of Cambrai to south of St Quentin

Alberich from sth of St Quentin to Rheims

Brunnhilde east and south of Alberich (overlapping and not contiguous with it) from east of Laon to Apremont

David Payne in an article at the Western Fron Association describes the Siegfried Stellung as running from Lens to Rheims.

Which is correct ? I get the impression that there is some misunderstanding here, and that the line was not a single continuous connected line but separate partially overlapping systems. Correct ?

Can anybody point me to an authoritative detailed map ?

thanks

Rod

[sjustice]

'lo Rod,

Peter Oldham's book "The Hindenburg Line" seems to be widely acknowledged as an authoritative work. I'm sure Robert Dunlop posted a map of the Stellungen from that book in a thread here some time ago but I can't find it now.

Kind Regards,

SMJ

[Robert Dunlop]

Rod, the Hindenburg Line was the British term for the series of Stellungen. It was originally applied to that part of the line created before the Germans retreated in Operation Albrecht, after the Battle of the Somme. Even within this sector, the Germans applied different names to various lengths of the lines. At Cambrai, there was the Siegfreid Stellung, Zwischen Stellung, Siegfried II Stellung, Siegfried II Zwischen Stellung, Wotan II Stellung, and Wotan III Stellung. Some of these lines were not finished by November 1917. As the British Army in particular forced its way into various section of the Hindenburg Line, new trench lines were built by the Germans, usually as switch lines to prevent lateral extensions of break-ins as well as lines in parallel to the front line.

It should be noted that the beautifully laid out trenches and barbed wire entanglements of the lines built in response to the Somme could not be reproduced elsewhere. Further, the visible was often designed to deceive the Entente forces, with the hidden bunkers, pillboxes and gunpits being the key to the German defence in depth. These were often linked by underground tunnels.

Here is the map, which comes from the Battleground Europe book mentioned above:

Robert

[RodB]

Thanks Robert and Simon, so Peter Oldham's book is a must-read for me if I want to undrerstand the Hindenburg line, correct ?

Also.. is it a result of oversimplifid history writing by non-military authors that non-military folks like me got the the idea that the Hindenburg Line was a single continuous line running NW - SE, when if fact it was a collection of defensive systems pointing in various directions depending on local topography ?

In fact, was the "Hindenburg Line" a political propaganda invention by writers of the Allied side to somehow simplify the enemy and also somehow simplify the task of defeating him ? It reduces the enemy to one "hiding behind his Hindenburg Line" and reduces his power in the public mind - if Haig could claim to have "broken through" this mythical entity he could be seen as winning the war. My reading seems to indicate that the German army could have sat behind another line for quite a while longer but the pressure to end the war back home became too great.

Also, how could the allies have told 18-year old conscripts that they were in fact attacking a multi-line interlinked series of fortifications miles deep with interlinking fields of machine-gun fire from hidden outposts ? Simpler to let them think that once through this "Line", they had won.

It's starting to look to me like a defensive maze with switch-lines, secondary lines, outposts... and it seems to have been to a great extent improvised - the German army throwing up progressively weaker improvised defenses further and further back as it gave ground.

Seems to me there was no single "breaking through the Hindenburg Line" - it was a costly slog against (increasingly weaker) prepared defenses right to the end. Is this an accurate view ?

I'm not trying to downplay the military feat of the troops that fought their way through these defenses... I am looking purely at how/why what appears to be a system of separate entities got lumped into a single name.

[Robert Dunlop]

Rod, Peter Oldham's book is very useful if you want to understand more about the geography of the German defensive lines between Arras and St Quentin. Bear in mind, however, that the Battleground Europe series are primarily aimed at providing a guide for visiting the modern remnants and reminders of the battlefields. They are not definitive tomes on any of the subject areas.

Your comment about oversimplification is true. It applies to many aspects of the war, and the Hindenburg Line was no exception. The issue is even more complex than just describing the details of the various lines within the Hindenburg Line. These lines were not 'static', in the sense that new lines were created as needed. This was important in the Arras area during the Spring 1917 British offensives. The Hindenburg Line is even more complex than this, however. It was the outward manifestation of an evolving, dynamic defensive strategy. As I mentioned before, the visible was often there to deceive. There are very few English writers who have understand this aspect of the Hindenburg Line. The best is probably Captain Wynne, who wrote 'If Germany Attacks: The Battle in Depth in the West'.

British and French military commanders understood that it was not simply a question of breaking through the last line and then breaking out. Not until the German reserves had been used up. So long as sufficient reserves were available, the entire history of the Great War demonstrated that it was possible to use them to contain cracks, or even breaks, in defensive lines. It was simply a question of making another set of lines at the limits of the any advances. It took time to consolidate a new set of defensive lines but it also took time to punch a hole in solid, well-manned defenses-in-depth.

I cannot speak to the propaganda issues. If I had to guess, I would say that the military planners would have wanted the public to understand that the war was going to be a long one, rather than the idea that once through the line the war would be as good as over. Any sense that the public would relax was not welcome, both from the perspective of recruitment but also maintaining, indeed increasing, the outputs of military hardware, ammunition and supplies. It was helpful to show that the Germans had retreated such a distance after the months of attritional battles on the Somme. No doubt it was also helpful to have the fallback to explain why future small gains associated with significant losses could be explained in the context of really hard defenses.

I respectfully disagree with the notion that the 'Hindenburg Line' was helpful for protecting 18 year old conscripts from reality. Soldiers did come up with their own humourous ways of masking their concerns about things that were very difficult to overcome. The Wipers Times is full of this type of humour, and I have seen examples relating to the Hindenburg Line. The famous song 'Hand out your washing on the Siegfried Line' post-dated the Great War but illustrates what I mean.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

It's starting to look to me like a defensive maze with switch-lines, secondary lines, outposts... and it seems to have been to a great extent improvised - the German army throwing up progressively weaker improvised defenses further and further back as it gave ground.

Seems to me there was no single "breaking through the Hindenburg Line" - it was a costly slog against (increasingly weaker) prepared defenses right to the end. Is this an accurate view ?

Not quite, IMHO. You are right that were was 'no single breaking through'. The French and then the British recognised that ample artillery and supplies gave them the option of mounting mutiple attacks in different places, quickly shifting the points of attack along the German lines. Eventually, and for a variety of reasons, the continuous lines of defense became untenable. Protected by rear guard actions, the German forces in the British and other sectors fell back and tried to re-establish lines of defense again, typically associated with rivers. Thus you will find battles in the last month or so named after the Rivers Selle and Sambre for example. Right up to the end, there were those in the German Army who advocated establishing yet another line of defence behind the lower reaches of the Meuse River.

I'm not trying to downplay the military feat of the troops that fought their way through these defenses... I am looking purely at how/why what appears to be a system of separate entities got lumped into a single name.

Speculation but I think it was a whole lot easier than trying to say 'the series of defensive lines between Arras and St Quentin'.

Robert