World War I: A Stalemate Ensues

 

 

 

The Strategic Outlook in 1915

With the beginning of trench warfare, both sides began assessing their options for bringing the war to a successful conclusion. Overseeing German operations, Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn preferred to focus on winning the war on the Western Front as he believed that a separate peace could be obtained with Russia if they were allowed to exit the conflict with some pride. This approach clashed with Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff who wished to deliver a decisive blow in the East. The heroes of Tannenberg they were able to use their fame and political intrigue to influence the German leadership. As a result, the decision was made to focus on the Eastern Front in 1915.
In the Allied camp there was no such conflict. Both the British and French were eager to expel the Germans from the territory they had occupied in 1914. For the latter, it was both a matter of national pride and economic necessity as the occupied territory contained much of France's industry and natural resources. Instead, the challenge faced by the Allies was the matter of where to attack. This choice was largely dictated by the terrain of the Western Front. In the south, the woods, rivers, and mountains precluded conducting a major offensive, while the sodden soil of coastal Flanders quickly turned into a quagmire during shelling. In the center, the highlands along the Aisne and Meuse Rivers too greatly favored the defender.
As a result, the Allies focused their efforts on the chalklands along the Somme River in Artois and to the south in Champagne. These points were located on the edges of the deepest German penetration into France and successful attacks had the potential to cut off the enemy forces. In addition, breakthroughs at these points would sever German rail links east which would compel them to abandon their position in France.


 The Fighting Resumes

While fighting had occurred through the winter, the British renewed the action in earnest on March 10, 1915, when they launched an offensive at Neuve Chapelle. Attacking in an effort to capture Aubers Ridge, British and Indian troops from Field Marshal Sir John French's British Expeditionary Force (BEF) shattered the German lines and had some initial success. The advance soon broke down due to communication and supply issues and ridge was not taken. Subsequent German counterattacks contained the breakthrough and the battle ended on March 13. In the wake of the failure, French blamed the result on a lack of shells for his guns. This precipitated the Shell Crisis of 1915 which brought down Prime Minister H.H. Asquith's Liberal government and forced an overhaul of the munitions industry.

Gas Over Ypres
Though Germany had elected to follow an "east-first" approach, Falkenhayn began planning for an operation against Ypres to begin in April. Intended as a limited offensive, he sought to divert Allied attention from troop movements east, secure a more commanding position in Flanders, as well as to test a new weapon, poison gas. Though tear gas had been used against the Russians in January, the Second Battle of Ypres marked the debut of lethal chlorine gas.

Around 5:00 PM on April 22, chlorine gas was released over a four-mile front. Striking a section line held by French territorial and colonial troops, it quickly killed around 6,000 men and forced the survivors to retreat. Advancing, the Germans made swift gains, but in the growing darkness they failed to exploit the breach. Forming a new defensive line, British and Canadian troops mounted a vigorous defensive over the next several days. While the Germans conducted additional gas attacks, Allied forces were able to implement improvised solutions to counter its effects. Fighting continued until May 25, but the Ypres salient held.


Artois & Champagne

Unlike the Germans, the Allies possessed no secret weapon when they began their next offensive in May. Striking at the German lines in Artois on May 9, the British sought to take Aubers Ridge. A few days later, the French entered the fray to the south in an effort to secure Vimy Ridge. Dubbed the Second Battle of Artois, the British were stopped dead, while the General Philippe Pétain's XXXIII Corps succeeded in reaching the crest of Vimy Ridge. Despite Pétain's success, the French lost the ridge to determined German counterattacks before their reserves could arrive.

Reorganizing during the summer as additional troops became available, the British soon took over the front as far south as the Somme. As troops were shifted, General Joseph Joffre, the overall French commander, sought to renew the offensive in Artois during the fall along with an assault in Champagne. Recognizing the obvious signs of impending attack, the Germans spent the summer strengthening their trench system, ultimately constructing a line of supporting fortifications three miles deep.

Opening the Third Battle of Artois on September 25, British forces attacked at Loos while the French assaulted Souchez. In both cases, the attack was preceded by a gas attack with mixed results. While the British made initial gains, they were soon forced back as communication and supply problems emerged. A second attack the next day was bloodily repulsed. When the fighting subsided three weeks later, over 41,000 British troops had been killed or wounded for the gain of a narrow two-mile deep salient.

To the south, the French Second and Fourth Army attacked along a twenty-mile front in Champagne on September 25. Meeting stiff resistance, Joffre's men gallantly attacked for over a month. Ending in early November, the offensive at no point had gained more than two miles, but the French lost 143,567 killed and wounded. With 1915 coming to a close, the Allies had been bled badly and had showed that they had learned little about attacking trenches while the Germans had become masters at defending them.

 

World War I: Opening Campaigns

 

The Schlieffen Plan

 

With the outbreak of World War I, the armies of Europe began mobilizing and moving towards the front according to elaborate timetables. In Germany, the army prepared to execute a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan. Devised by Count Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905, the plan was a response to Germany's likely need to fight a two-front war against France and Russia. In the wake of their easy victory over the French in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Germany viewed France as less of a threat than its large neighbor to the east. As a result, Schlieffen decided to mass the bulk of Germany's military strength against France with the goal of scoring a quick victory before the Russians could fully mobilize their forces. With France defeated, Germany would be free to focus their attention to the east.
Anticipating that France would attack across the border into Alsace and Lorraine, which had been lost during the earlier conflict, the Germans intended to violate the neutrality of Luxembourg and Belgium to assault the French from the north in a massive battle of encirclement. German troops were to defend along the border while the right wing of the army swung through Belgium and past Paris in an effort to destroy the French army. In 1906, the plan was altered slightly by Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who weakened the critical right wing to reinforce Alsace, Lorraine, and the Eastern Front.

The Rape of Belgium

 

After quickly occupying Luxembourg, German troops crossed into Belgium on August 4 after King Albert I's government refused to grant them free passage through the country. Possessing a small army, the Belgians relied on the fortresses of Liege and Namur to halt the Germans. Heavily fortified, the Germans met stiff resistance at Liege and were forced to bring up heavy siege guns to reduce its defenses. Surrendering on August 16, the fighting delayed the Schlieffen Plan's precise timetable and allowed the British and French to begin forming defenses to oppose the German advance.
While the Germans moved on to reduce Namur (August 20-23), Albert's small army retreated into the defenses at Antwerp. Occupying the country, the Germans, paranoid about guerilla warfare, executed thousands of innocent Belgians as well as burned several towns and cultural treasures such as the library at Louvain. Dubbed the "rape of Belgium," these actions were needless and served to blacken Germany's and Kaiser Wilhelm II's reputation abroad.

The Battle of the Frontiers

 

While the Germans were moving into Belgium, the French began to execute Plan XVII which, as their adversaries predicted, called for a massive thrust into the lost territories of Alsace and Lorraine. Guided by General Joseph Joffre, the French army pushed the VII Corps into Alsace on August 7 with orders to take Mulhouse and Colmar, while the main attack came in Lorraine a week later. Slowly falling back, the Germans inflicted heavy casualties on the French before halting the drive. Having held, Crown Prince Rupprecht, commanding the Sixth and Seventh German Armies, repeatedly petitioned for permission to go on the counter-offensive. This was granted on August 20, even though it contravened the Schlieffen Plan. Attacking, Rupprecht drove back the French Second Army, forcing the entire French line to fall back to the Moselle before being stopped on August 27.

Battles of Charleroi & Mons

 

As events were unfolding to the south, General Charles Lanrezac, commanding the Fifth Army on the French left flank became concerned about German progress in Belgium. Allowed by Joffre to shift forces north on August 15, Lanrezac formed a line behind the Sambre River. By the 20th, his line extended from Namur west to Charleroi with a cavalry corps linking his men to Field Marshal Sir John French's newly arrived, 70,000-man British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Though outnumbered, Lanrezac was ordered to attack across the Sambre by Joffre. Before he could do this, General Karl von Bülow's Second Army launched an assault across the river on August 21. Lasting three days, the Battle of Charleroi saw Lanrezac's men driven back. To his right, French forces attacked into the Ardennes but were defeated on August 21-23.
As the French were being driven back, the British established a strong position along the Mons-Condé Canal. Unlike the other armies in the conflict, the BEF consisted entirely of professional soldiers who had plied their trade in colonial wars around the empire. On August 22, cavalry patrols detected the advance of General Alexander von Kluck's First Army. Required to keep pace with the Second Army, Kluck attacked the British position on August 23. Fighting from prepared positions and delivering rapid, accurate rifle fire, the British inflicted heavy losses on the Germans. Holding until evening, French was forced to pull back when the French cavalry departed leaving his right flank vulnerable. Though a defeat, the British bought time for the French and Belgians to form a new defensive line.

World War 1 Summary of Events

Summary of Events

 

 

The Start of the War

World War I began on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This seemingly small conflict between two countries spread rapidly: soon, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, and France were all drawn into the war, largely because they were involved in treaties that obligated them to defend certain other nations. Western and eastern fronts quickly opened along the borders of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The Western and Eastern Fronts

The first month of combat consisted of bold attacks and rapid troop movements on both fronts. In the west, Germany attacked first Belgium and then France. In the east, Russia attacked both Germany and Austria-Hungary. In the south, Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia. Following the Battle of the Marne (September 5–9, 1914), the western front became entrenched in central France and remained that way for the rest of the war. The fronts in the east also gradually locked into place.

 

 

The Ottoman Empire

 

Late in 1914, the Ottoman Empire was brought into the fray as well, after Germany tricked Russia into thinking that Turkey had attacked it. As a result, much of 1915 was dominated by Allied actions against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean. First, Britain and France launched a failed attack on the Dardanelles. This campaign was followed by the British invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Britain also launched a separate campaign against the Turks in Mesopotamia. Although the British had some successes in Mesopotamia, the Gallipoli campaign and the attacks on the Dardanelles resulted in British defeats.

Trench Warfare

The middle part of the war, 1916 and 1917, was dominated by continued trench warfare in both the east and the west. Soldiers fought from dug-in positions, striking at each other with machine guns, heavy artillery, and chemical weapons. Though soldiers died by the millions in brutal conditions, neither side had any substantive success or gained any advantage.

The United States’ Entrance and Russia’s Exit

Despite the stalemate on both fronts in Europe, two important developments in the war occurred in 1917. In early April, the United States, angered by attacks upon its ships in the Atlantic, declared war on Germany. Then, in November, the Bolshevik Revolution prompted Russia to pull out of the war.

The End of the War and Armistice

Although both sides launched renewed offensives in 1918 in an all-or-nothing effort to win the war, both efforts failed. The fighting between exhausted, demoralized troops continued to plod along until the Germans lost a number of individual battles and very gradually began to fall back. A deadly outbreak of influenza, meanwhile, took heavy tolls on soldiers of both sides. Eventually, the governments of both Germany and Austria-Hungary began to lose control as both countries experienced multiple mutinies from within their military structures.The war ended in the late fall of 1918, after the member countries of the Central Powers signed armistice agreements one by one. Germany was the last, signing its armistice on November 11, 1918. As a result of these agreements, Austria-Hungary was broken up into several smaller countries. Germany, under the Treaty of Versailles, was severely punished with hefty economic reparations, territorial losses, and strict limits on its rights to develop militarily.

Germany After the War

Many historians, in hindsight, believe that the Allies were excessive in their punishment of Germany and that the harsh Treaty of Versailles actually planted the seeds of World War II, rather than foster peace. The treaty’s declaration that Germany was entirely to blame for the war was a blatant untruth that humiliated the German people. Furthermore, the treaty imposed steep war reparations payments on Germany, meant to force the country to bear the financial burden of the war. Although Germany ended up paying only a small percentage of the reparations it was supposed to make, it was already stretched financially thin by the war, and the additional economic burden caused enormous resentment. Ultimately, extremist groups, such as the Nazi Party, were able to exploit this humiliation and resentment and take political control of the country in the decades following.

 

 

 

The Global Effect of World War I

 

Effect of World War I

 

 

 



A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or another a result of World War I, including the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, World War II, the Holocaust, and the development of the atomic bomb. The Great Depression, the Cold War, and the collapse of European colonialism can also be traced, at least indirectly, to the First World War.

World War I killed more people--more than 9 million soldiers, sailors, and flyers and another 5 million civilians--involved more countries--28--and cost more money--$186 billion in direct costs and another $151 billion in indirect costs--than any previous war in history. It was the first war to use airplanes, tanks, long range artillery, submarines, and poison gas. It left at least 7 million men permanently disabled.

World War I probably had more far-reaching consequences than any other proceeding war. Politically, it resulted in the downfall of four monarchies--in Russia in 1917, in Austria-Hungary and Germany in 1918, and in Turkey in 1922. It contributed to the Bolshevik rise to power in Russia in 1917 and the triumph of fascism in Italy in 1922. It ignited colonial revolts in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia.

Economically, the war severely disrupted the European economies and allowed the United States to become the world's leading creditor and industrial power. The war also brought vast social consequences, including the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey and an influenza epidemic that killed over 25 million people worldwide.

Few events better reveal the utter unpredictability of the future. At the dawn of the 20th century, most Europeans looked forward to a future of peace and prosperity. Europe had not fought a major war for 100 years. But a belief in human progress was shattered by World War I, a war few wanted or expected. At any point during the five weeks leading up to the outbreak of fighting the conflict might have been averted. World War I was a product of miscalculation, misunderstanding, and miscommunication.

No one expected a war of the magnitude or duration of World War I. At first the armies relied on outdated methods of communication, such as carrier pigeons. The great powers mobilized more than a million horses. But by the time the conflict was over, tanks, submarines, airplane-dropped bombs, machine guns, and poison gas had transformed the nature of modern warfare. In 1918, the Germans fired shells containing both tear gas and lethal chlorine. The tear gas forced the British to remove their gas masks; the chlorine then scarred their faces and killed them.

In a single day at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, 100,000 British troops plodded across no man's land into steady machine-gun fire from German trenches a few yards away. Some 60,000 were killed or wounded. At the end of the battle, 419,654 British men were killed, missing, or wounded.

Four years of war killed a million troops from the British Empire, 1.5 million troops from the Hapsburg Empire, 1.7 million French troops, 1.7 million Russians, and 2 million German troops. The war left a legacy of bitterness that contributed to World War II twenty-one years later