Due to the complexity of this question, it must be broken down before an attempt at answering it can be made. Following this, it will be easier to understand the exact context in which this article will consider this question. By asking Why was there stalemate on the Western front' two questions are actually being asked. Firstly, why did a stalemate start and secondly why did the stalemate continue between 1914 and 1918. The second issue within the question is the section that specifically refers to stalemate between German and France'. It is debatable whether this refers to conflict between German and French armies or German and French territories. Since British and Belgian forces had a significant impact to conflict on the …show more content…
Both sides rushed north in a race to the sea'. If one army got there first it could take control of crucial channel ports and also move to encircle the armies of its rival. Incidentally, neither army moved south as both French and German borders were intact and heavily fortified all the way to the Swiss border. As both sides moved north at an even pace and neither wanted to lose any ground, a line of deeply dug trenches appeared all the way the way through Belgium and Northern France. These trenches were extremely well designed defensive positions and were almost impenetrable by conventional means. The beginning of the war was now over, deadlock had been established and the long bloody middle was about to begin. It would be this trench warfare that would be the key factor behind the failure for either side to advance over the coming years. In explaining how stalemate on the Western front started, the information has been fairly factual, not opinionated and containing no obvious argument. This is because the evidence was fairly factual and linear; there was only one way things could have happened. When the reasons for continuing stalemate are now examined, quite the opposite will occur as many factors contributed to this and it is arguable as to which were more important than others. The most obvious factor in stopping an advance through a line of trenches, are the trenches themselves. These were ditches dug with
could not assault these positions due to foliage and inability to see the trench lines the enemy had
Sadly, their weapons did not have the ability to cut all the wire and destroy deep German trenches or knock out all enemy guns. It also could not provide a useful bombardment for the infantry attack. On July 1, the artillery drifted away from the German front trenches and left the infantry unattended. Nobody was
World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.
Trench warfare was adopted to maintain an area of land, to prevent the enemy from capturing that land. The importance of this investigation was to show the significance of trench warfare during the First World War and how effective it was on how it had prevented many full on, front lined, assaults. World War I could have had a great impact in history with the amount of war casualties, which would have been historically shocking, but instead it created the stalemate, which prevented such numbers of deaths from happening.
The main theatre of fighting in World War One was on the Western Front. The
19) In what year did the German forces on the Western Front agree to ending the fighting?
The Western Front was a series of trenches the Germans built that span through 700 Kilometres of land. These trenches ran from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. Many battles were fought in this piece of land but in the end they reached a stalemate.
The First World War was a huge event which ended abruptly; going from huge German advances after March 1918 to Germany asking for peace later that year: they were forced from a hard hitting offensive to defeat for various reasons:
This was to be a joint operation between British, French and American forces. Though it was not the actual boundaries, the Meuse River and the Argonne Forrest restricted much of the U.S. 1st Army’s maneuverability between them. This area was comprised of a very dense and thick vegetation with few roads for heavy equipment and supplies to flow forth once the offensive began; therefore this was to be used to the Allied Powers advantage. The Germans would be attacked all along the front from British, French, and American forces simultaneously.
The Battle of the Somme epitomizes the harsh realities of trench warfare for the Allies and represents the negligent battle planning and technological advancements that are associated with the stalemate of World War One. Trench warfare was common across the Western Front, with similar strategies being employed by both opposing sides. Sir Douglas Haig, one of the British coordinators for the Somme offensive is blamed with an offensive strategy destined for failure. The British offensive, an utter failure, resulted in a stalemate, which was common throughout World War One. The British development of the tank, while it eventually ended the horrendous stalemate, was ineffectively used during the Somme.
To explain the main features of trench warfare we must look at all the points the trench design, the modern technology etc. Trenches were designed in a specific way. They were built in a zigzag fashion to accommodate for bombs destroying them. If a bomb did hit them then only a corner of the
A Stalemate on the Western Front A stalemate formed on the Western Front due to four main reasons, one
When most people talk about World War I, they typically only talk about the Western front. The Eastern front was entirely different compared to the Western front but equally as ghastly. Nonetheless, the one thing both fronts had in common was the vitality of the German army, which was the only country that fought a two-front war, as it had to fight in the West against the Entrance powers of France and Great Britain and in the East against the Russia. Germany had to bear the brunt of the fighting on both fronts as Austria-Hungry proved incapable of resisting Russian offensives without German support. The support of the Entrance and Central powers’ home fronts were essential to the war efforts and came in multiple forms such as economic assistance or social acceptance. For instance, the West proved to be an effective adversary against the Central Powers as the Entrance Powers’ approach to economic warfare disheartened the Central Powers’ armies and helped undermined their ability to wage total war. Total war demanded total mobilization of all a nation's resources, but what the most important resources were, differed between the two fronts. For example, vast munitions industries had to be built to provide supplies for the stalled armies on the Western front but in the East, providing transportation and the mobility of such transportation was the most significant challenge. While both fronts faced their own unique challenges, overcoming such challenges was key to military
Launched on 31 July 1917, the British & Canadian offensive in Flanders had aimed to drive the Germans away from the essential Channel Ports and to eliminate U-Boat bases on the coast. But unceasing rain and shellfire reduced the battlefield to a vast bog of bodies, water-filled shell craters, and mud in which the attack ground to a
The influence of various theories and concepts on the conduct World War I has generated a range of studies in an attempt to understand how and why World War I was fought. Specifically, Clausewitz’s theories on warfare have come under a considerable amount of scrutiny with regards to their influence on World War I. This scrutiny has led to the ascertation that the protracted and bloody stalemate of World War I was largely due to a stubborn reliance on Clausewitz’s theories. The question that this paper attempts to address is weather the cause of the bloody and protracted