Creeping Barrage

Before an infantry advance during the First World War, it was a common strategy to bombard enemy defences with all available heavy artillery. It was believed that preliminary bombardment would enable soldiers to capture enemy trenches. On the Western Front this strategy was largely unsuccessful and so in 1916 both sides began to use what became known as a creeping barrage.

First used at the Battle of the Somme, a creeping barrage involved artillery fire moving forward in stages just ahead of the advancing infantry. By the autumn the Allied forces developed a system where the barrage moved forward at 50 metres per minute. To work, the strategy required precise timing by both the heavy artillery and the infantry. Failure to do this would result in the artillery killing their own soldiers.

On 14th April 1918 C. S. Lewis and the the Somerset Light Infantry was ordered to counter-attack at Riez du Vinage. At 6pm, the heavy artillery opened fire on the German-held village. At 6.30pm a creeping barrage began. The plan was that the men would follow behind the exploding shells, at the rate of 50 metres per minute. Sergeant Arthur Cook later pointed out: "One of the most extraordinary advertisements of look out we're coming I have witnessed in this war, in full view of the enemy; how they must have chuckled with glee." According to Cook, the "barrage moved too quick, leaving the enemy free to open up a devastating machine-gun fire on the target they had been waiting for."

Although creeping barrage was sometimes successful when the commander had limited objectives, it failed to provide the means to end the stalemate on the Western Front.

 

 

 

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