Who won the Battle of Loos?
The Germans did, in a defensive sense. On 25 September 1915 Haig's First Army used gas for the first time and broke into the German positions near Loos and Hulluch, but its reserves came up too late. The Germans sealed the breach and pushed the attackers back, and the British lost over 50,000 men for little ground.1
At dawn on 25 September 1915, British soldiers turned the taps on thousands of steel cylinders along their front line in northern France, and a cloud of chlorine and smoke rolled toward the German trenches. It was the British Army's first gas attack and the opening of what the soldiers called the Big Push. Our 25 September page tells the day in brief; this is the full story.2
Loos was the British share of the great Allied offensive of autumn 1915 on the Western Front in World War I, fought beside French attacks in Artois and Champagne, ground already fought over in the Second Battle of Artois and the First Battle of Champagne. It is also a large chapter in the military history of Scotland, because two Scottish New Army divisions led the assault, and in the military histories of Britain and Germany.3
Why did the British attack at Loos?
The battle was fought for allies. In 1915 the Germans and Austrians were driving the Russians back, and the French planned to relieve them by striking at German communications in Artois and Champagne. The main French effort was in Champagne; the attack in the north, under the general direction of General Foch, was subsidiary to it. The British First Army was to attack beside the French Tenth Army, toward the mining town of Lens and its railway junction.4
The British commanders did not like the ground. General Sir Douglas Haig, whose First Army would make the attack, told Sir John French in July that the area between the French left and the canal was not favorable for an attack, and he recommended striking further north instead. The British also knew that they were short of heavy guns and shells and that many of their troops were barely trained.5
Politics overruled them. In August Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, told French that Russia might not hold out much longer and that the British must act with all energy to help France, even at the cost of very heavy losses. The first of the volunteer New Army divisions had reached France that summer, and Loos would be their first great battle.6
How did the British use gas at Loos?
Short of shells, the British turned to gas as a new way to break through, although they had condemned its use by the Germans earlier in the war. Special units of the Royal Engineers were formed to release chlorine from cylinders in the front trenches. Kearsey counts 5,028 cylinders on the front of attack, together with 7,870 smoke candles.7
Everything depended on the wind. Haig waited through the night for the forecasts of his meteorologist, and before dawn on the 25th fixed sunrise, 5:50 a.m., as the moment to open the cylinders, with the infantry to go over forty minutes later, at 6:30. The breeze was weak and uncertain. A Cameron Highlander, Lance Corporal Bernard Budge, wrote to his mother that the cloud rose 50 or 60 feet along the line, "just like clouds in the sky".8
The result was uneven. In places the cloud drifted over the German trenches; elsewhere it lingered in No Man's Land or blew back over the British lines and caught the attacking troops. The National Army Museum counts around 2,600 British gas casualties, very few of them fatal. The Germans had masks: R. A. Giesecke, a chronicler of the 178th Infantry Regiment, wrote that they did their duty, though the effect on the men ranged from a slight sickly feeling to complete stupor.9
How did the Germans defend Loos?
The German line north of Lens belonged to the Sixth Army of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. On the six miles attacked by the British, Kearsey counts just four infantry regiments of the 14th and 117th Divisions and a Jäger battalion, about 11,000 men against roughly 75,000.10
Numbers were not the whole story. The Germans had a strong second line behind the first. They held their front defenses chiefly with machine guns, had withdrawn most of their field guns in time, and relied on counterattacks. The historian of the 9th (Scottish) Division admitted that the German counterattack was admirably organized and carried out with skill and determination.11
For the German command Loos was one front of a wider autumn battle that ran from La Bassée to Champagne, and the crisis there was met by improvisation. From about 1 p.m. on the 25th strong German reserves, among them Guard Reserve troops, were hurried forward to close the breach.12
Further south, a battalion of the 178th Infantry Regiment, resting near Lens, was thrown in the same day. Giesecke wrote that it ran across open fields to save Lens, counterattacked toward Hill 70 and found the Scots it met "twice as numerous as ourselves". By early afternoon the Germans had driven the British from the far side of Hill 70.13
What happened on 25 September 1915?
On the right the 47th (London) Division took the Double Crassier, a great double slag heap, within half an hour and covered the southern flank. As French gunners watched, a soldier of the London Irish kicked a football off the parapet and the men dribbled it toward the German line; Patrick MacGill, a stretcher bearer in the battalion, later found it hanging on the German wire.14
Next to them the 15th (Scottish) Division was in Loos village in a little more than an hour and went on to the summit of Hill 70, the broad rise between Loos and Lens. Sir John French reported that the attack won the very substantial gain of Loos and the western part of Hill 70. But some of the Scots pushed on down the far slope toward Cité Saint-Auguste, a mile beyond the hill, with no reserves behind them, and were caught by machine guns and counterattacks.15
Further north the right of the 1st Division was held up in front of the German trenches, and the delay gave the Germans time to gather local reserves behind their second line. The 7th Division reached the Quarries, and the 9th (Scottish) Division took the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the slag heap of Fosse 8. By nightfall the British held Loos, the western part of Hill 70 and a deep dent in the German front, but the German second line still stood.16
What did the Scottish divisions do at Loos?
The two Scottish New Army divisions carried the heaviest load of the first day. The 9th (Scottish) Division was the first of the volunteer divisions raised in 1914, and Loos was its first great battle. Ian Hay, an officer in its ranks, described Fosse 8 as "a mighty waste-heap, such as you may behold anywhere along the railway" between Glasgow and Edinburgh.17
In the 15th Division Piper Daniel Laidlaw of the 7th King's Own Scottish Borderers saw his company shaken by gas, climbed onto the parapet and marched up and down playing his pipes until the men went over; he kept playing until he was wounded and won the Victoria Cross. On Hill 70 the next day Lieutenant Colonel Angus Douglas-Hamilton of the 6th Camerons led about fifty survivors forward a fourth time and was killed at their head, also earning the VC.18
The 9th Division lost its own commander. On 27 September, as the Germans pressed on Fosse 8 and the Hohenzollern Redoubt, Major General George Thesiger went forward to see for himself and was killed there at the crisis of the fighting.19
Why were the reserves too late at Loos?
The general reserve was the XI Corps, with the Guards Division and the new 21st and 24th Divisions, and French kept it under his own hand, partly in case the French delay on his right opened a gap. On the night before the battle the two New Army divisions stood between Beuvry and Noeux-les-Mines, about five miles from the old front line at the nearest point, and the Guards were near Lillers. Haig himself had no reserves under his control except a cavalry division.20
When they were released is itself disputed. French's despatch says he placed the 21st and 24th Divisions at Haig's disposal at 9:30 a.m. on the 25th; the official history says that at 9:30 he only ordered them forward, that they came under Haig's orders around midday, and that Haig protested against the despatch's version.21
That was too late. Kearsey writes that at 6 p.m. the battalions had still not reached their deployment positions and that their orders to attack did not reach the brigades until after 2 a.m. By then the German second line was held more strongly than the first had been at dawn, and the chance of a breakthrough had passed.22
On 26 September the two divisions attacked between Hulluch and Hill 70 in daylight, against uncut wire. A German regimental history quoted in the British official history says the English came on "in whole hosts and with great dash" and that none got through the wire. Among the dead was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Romer of the 8th Buffs, who, in his sixties, was the oldest battalion commander killed in the war, according to Peter Hodgkinson. The attack broke, and the survivors fell back.23
How did the Battle of Loos end?
The Guards Division came up to steady the line. On 27 September, in its attack toward Chalk Pit Wood, Second Lieutenant John Kipling of the 2nd Irish Guards, the eighteen-year-old son of Rudyard Kipling, was reported wounded and missing.24
The same day the Germans retook Fosse 8, and the Hohenzollern Redoubt became the scene of long bombing fights. Budge, whose battalion charged again with the Guards behind it, called it "absolute Hell upon earth".25
The Germans counterattacked on 8 October and were repulsed. On 13 October, after a two-hour bombardment, fresh attacks went in against Fosse 8, the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Hulluch, the 46th (North Midland) Division leading at the redoubt. They gained little, and the offensive died away into the trench fighting of the winter.26
How many soldiers died at the Battle of Loos?
The National Army Museum puts British casualties at over 50,000. The official history counts 2,013 officers and 48,367 other ranks for the main attack from 25 September to 16 October, about 61,700 with the subsidiary attacks, and reckons that some 800 officers and 15,000 men were killed or went missing for good. Gonville and Caius College gives 61,000 casualties, nearly 8,000 of them killed outright. The official history estimates German losses opposite the British at about 26,000, from Reichsarchiv and casualty-list figures, not counting the fighting from 13 October; the museum calls British losses almost double the German.27
The cost fell hard on leaders. Peter Hodgkinson counts 29 battalion commanders killed at Loos, 11 of them on the opening day. When the 9th Division came out of the line, its historian wrote, only four of its twelve infantry battalion commanders remained.28
Who won the Battle of Loos?
The Germans held. By the close of the battle the British had pushed their line forward up to about 3,200 yards on a front of some 8,000 yards and taken around 3,000 prisoners, but the breakthrough the Allies had hoped for never came. The National Army Museum's verdict is that Loos showed it was possible to break into the German positions, but not easy to turn such a local success into a breakthrough.29
The handling of the reserves became the great controversy of Loos, and it cost Sir John French his command. He left France on 19 December 1915, and Haig succeeded him as commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force.30
Why does the Battle of Loos matter?
Loos taught hard lessons: a much heavier bombardment with more ammunition was needed, reserves had to be close at hand, and communications had to be better. Chlorine proved unpredictable, and the grenades and supply arrangements of 1915 were found wanting. The New Army volunteers had shown great courage and how little training many of them had.31
It also left a long shadow at home. Rudyard Kipling and his wife searched hospitals and appealed for news of their son. In 1992 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission identified a grave at St Mary's Advanced Dressing Station Cemetery, Haisnes, as John Kipling's, though the identification has been disputed. Read on with the Battle of the Somme and the battles of Ypres.32
Where was the Battle of Loos fought?
The battle was fought in the coal-mining basin of the Pas-de-Calais, south of the La Bassée Canal and north of Lens, around the village of Loos, now Loos-en-Gohelle. It was a world of slag heaps, pit heads, chimney stacks and miners' cottages, and every slag heap, or fosse, could become a fortress.33
