During the Great War 1914-1918, much of the fighting was done in the vicinity of trenches; it was attrition warfare where the opposition was slowly worn down to reach victory. It was extremely laborious to break the deadlock of trench warfare as there were bad attack strategies and exceptional defense techniques, the great military revolution in firepower was not met with inventions that encouraged mobility. The main cause of trench warfare was the failure of the Schlieffen Plan.
General Schlieffen’s plan was designed for a quick war however it was war by timetable that did not work out leading to the building of trenches. The Germans were instructed to walk through Belgium and the Belgium army put up a surprisingly strong fight against the Germans which held them for 2 weeks already delaying the plan. The attack in Belgium induced the British Expeditionary Force to get involved, giving the Germans a nasty shock. Also, the assumption that the Russians would take 6 weeks to mobilize was wrong as they only took 2 weeks. The German soldiers were not following the timetable well but got to Paris where they fought with the French who had arrived by taxi! Neither country would allow each other to gain land so at the Battle of the Marne, so they both dug trenches from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier which changed very little throughout the war. Events such as Belgium’s efforts and the Russian’s mobilization defeated the weak war timetable thus resulting in trench warfare as neither side wanted land to be gained.
The Term Paper on World War Forces Germans German
America Vs. The Soviets: Who Really America Vs. The Soviets: Who Really Won The War World War two officially started in September 3 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The Western Democracies of Britain and France allied and declared war on Germany when Poland was attacked. This was the immediate cause of the war. Britain and France formed an appeasement policy with Hitler not to take over any more ...
The gaining of land was uncommon and difficult as the high command’s attack strategies were undeveloped and ineffectual leaving the soldiers in the trenches for even longer. The Allies’ highly ranked officers instructed their soldiers to walk across no man’s land carrying heavy packs with trench repair equipment to build new trenches, armed with only a bayonet. Not only did the soldiers have to walk, they had to walk over in groups to appear civilized and orderly! The preposterous idea ended up in millions of dead men as the opposition used machine guns and killed them even as they emerged, as they were in group it was even easier to kill them as they were all packed together and not spread out. The heavy packs and trench repair equipment proved to be useless as it only slowed them down more and they could not get past the barbed wire. The barbed wire was incredibly tangled up as they were bombed by artillery beforehand, another bad strategy from the high command. In their hopes of cutting up the wire and making it more loose, the artillery bombardment in reality made it worse as it merely threw up the wire making it even more tangled than before. Soldiers are often referred to as “lions lead by donkeys” which seems entirely appropriate as they have the bravery to follow nonsensical orders. These weak attack and counter-attack strategies were seen during one of the major battles at the Western Front: the Battle of Verdun. The French won as they had higher ground however it was mainly an artillery battle as approximately 40 million artillery shells were utilized, leaving behind devastating shell craters. The high command’s inefficient attack strategies such as walking across in groups and carrying unnecessary equipment were factors in the difficulty to break trench warfare as they lead to the same results: thousands of dead men and no land gained.
The Term Paper on Peloponnesian War – A Strategy Comparison
“Just before the Peloponnesian War began, Pericles of Athens and King Archidamus of Sparta provided net assessments of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the two sides. Evaluate their projections.” A study of the strategies and projections of King Archidamus of Sparta as compared to those of Pericles of Athens reveal Archidamus’ understanding of the “superiority of land power as a basis ...
Thousands of men also survived however as the defense systems are very effective, however this prolonged the war even more. The designs of the trenches were very impressive as they had deep dugouts underground to avoid the artillery bombardments and a zig zag design. The zig zag shape is useful because if one person from the opposition gets in they can fire directly down the trench line with a machine gun and kill a lot of men. The invention of machine guns was also very helpful as their speed shot down hundreds of men trying to get across No Man’s Land. Planes were also used as defensive tactics as they reported back observations about the enemies’ trenches as well as navy. An example of a defensive and offensive tactic is during the Battle of the Somme when the tank was first introduced as it shielded the soldiers but helped attack the enemy trenches. These few defensive approaches were very practical and useful, it was much easier to defend than attack although it made breaking the stalemate much more troublesome.
Through the failure of the Schlieffen plan, trench warfare was developed and maintained for numerous years. The factors of the elongated war were bad attack techniques which we kept the same such as walking and carrying heavy equipment which did not match the great defense of the trench designs and technology such as the machine gun, plane and tanks. I think that a war of attrition is a result of evenly matched technology but the ability to make new strategies is proven to be challenging but during the first World War it did not take much to improve their offense plans. However, the lack of logical strategy may be due to the lack of experience and sentimental thoughts. At the end of the Great War it became evident that war was a horrible and depressing event that altered everything but unfortunately repeated to a greater level in World War II.
