Why Did the Stalemate on the Western Front Occur?

Alex Lines

Why was there a stalemate on the western front for so long? This is a common question, discussed many times among many people. In total, between Germany, Britain and France, deaths amounted to 4,039,871, and 10,442,270 more were wounded during the whole war, and most of these casualties were caused in the stalemate on the western front. In truth, there are several reasons why the stalemate occurred.

In my opinion, the most important reason for the stalemate was the strategies used during the war. With a lack of imagination from the generals added to the defensive stance of the Germans meant that the stalemate lasted a very long time. The overall offensive tactics involved mainly an artillery bombardment, infantry climbing out of the trenches to eliminate the enemy, then a support attack of cavalry. However, though this tactic may have worked in the past, the addition of the new weapon, the machine gun, destroyed any real chance of this orthodox attack from succeeding. The generals of the First World War started off (and carried on throughout most of the war) with the idea of massed infantry charges with bayonets fixed to their rifles, so with the ability to fire 600 rounds per minute, this weapon was excellent for wiping out large numbers of infantry and cavalry units, thus making it an excellent weapon of defence. However, the generals of the allied armies underestimate the effectiveness of the machine gun, so they didn’t really change their tactics that much, so yet more British and French soldiers were killed in attacks. An example of this was the Battle of the Somme. General Douglas Haig ordered an eight-day bombardment of the German trenches. The bombardment, however, failed to destroy the barbed wire protecting the enemy trenches, or the concrete bunkers protecting the Germans. Haig then sent 750,000 men ‘over the top’ towards the German trenches. The Germans then climbed out of their bunkers and started firing their machine guns, and Kitchener’s Army lost a third of its number. Haig was not discouraged by these heavy losses on the first day, and ordered continuous attacks. Each attack was believed to be the one to break the Germans, and each attack resulted in more dead men. There were breakthroughs, but reinforcements were too slow to exploit these occasions. After about 4 months, Haig called off the offensive. In total, the British had received about 420,000 casualties, the French received nearly 200,000, and the Germans were estimated to have taken around 500,000 casualties. The amount of land the Allies had gained measured 12 kilometres at its deepest point. I feel Haig should have called off the attack long before this since it should have been obvious that the plan wasn’t succeeding, but he kept on insisting that the next attack would break the Germans. The Germans’ defensive strategy also resulted in the stalemate, as I have already stated. Having to fight a war on two fronts was going to be difficult for the Germans, who were already outnumbered by the Allies. Past theories of attack said that the attackers were always going to lose fewer men than those who were defending. However, the trench warfare during the First World War contradicted this, since the attackers had to move towards good defensive positions under heavy fire from the defenders, made even heavier with the addition of machine guns. The Germans, under the command of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, also built the ‘Hindenburg Line’, a fortified line of trenches, and comfortable compared to the British and French trenches. This line was more or less straight, making it impossible to do anything except charge it at the front. This made it even harder to attack, and added the possibility of losing even more men, but still the Allies kept attacking. This was represented in the failure of the Nivelle Offensive. Another strategy both sides used was that of attrition. This was to kill as many of the enemy as possible instead of taking land. The Germans used this strategy in the Battle of Verdun. However, though they were demoralised, the French killed nearly as many Germans as the Germans killed the French.

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Another important reason for the stalemate (but no the most important) was the type of weapons used in the First World War. The Allies concentrated on attacking, but the weapons used were more effective at defending, which gave the Germans the advantage. The Machine Gun could wipe out large masses of infantry. Artillery fire caused explosions, which also wiped out a large number of troops. The artillery also created huge craters, which made crossing no-man’s land nearly impossible. Artillery fire accounted for a huge majority of casualties in the First World War (58%), so it was obviously very effective. However, the Allied generals felt that artillery should be used for offensives. It may have started off effective, but the Germans soon built deep bunkers, which protected them from most physical damage from the shells. Another effective defensive weapon was barbed wire, which both sides used. This caused attacking men to be trapped, and easy targets for enemy fire. Thus it prevented a lot of men from attacking the trenches. Artillery fire was used in an attempt to destroy the wire, but more often than not it threw the wire up, and it came down often in a worse tangle than before. Not only did this fail to work, but it also warned the defenders of an attack. These weapons meant that it was very hard to get a successful attack through to the trenches, and these breakthroughs were usually crushed before reinforcements came in time. There were some weapons created in an attempt to cause a massive breakthrough, but they weren’t really effective. Gas was used for the first time in the First World War, but this was countered with the invention of gas masks. Underground mining was used to blow up trenches, but though effective, it took too long to lay mines, and the explosions only destroyed a small part of a trench. So, the weapons developed did very little to break the stalemate. Instead they only encouraged the stalemate because of their effective defensive use.

Another reasonably vital cause of the stalemate was the industry of the two sides. The war of attrition could not have been continued if it were not for all the shells made by industry, nor could the attacks have continued if it were not for the conscription for soldiers to replace the dead. Both sides were evenly matched when it came to industry so that bombardments were kept up. Both sides introduced conscription, so that an army never ran out of men to replace those that had died. This meant offensives could continue, resulting in even more deaths, and morale of both sides decreasing. If it weren’t for the mass industrialisation of both sides, then the shells for artillery would have run out, and generals would have had to look for new methods for attacking, any of which may have broken the stalemate. There would have been no bombardment to start off attacks, and so the defenders would not have been warned, and so the attackers could have crept across no-man’s land, and surprised the defenders, almost ensuring several breakthroughs, and therefore shortening the war.

One other factor that contributed towards the stalemate, but didn’t really affect it, was the geographical factor. The Allies were usually attacking ground that was difficult to attack. The side with more height usually had the advantage, as attackers could charge downhill, or defenders could shoot downhill at the attackers who would be using up a lot of energy. A well-placed machine gum could wipe out a whole platoon. And also, the bombardments and artillery wrecked no-man’s land, thus making it extremely difficult to cross. The places where offensives took place also where sometimes very badly chosen geographically. The Battle of Passchendale was under sea level, and when it was bombarded, it flooded. It was literally a marsh, and many men drowned in it when they went over the top. One officer was said to have burst into tears when he saw what he had made his men attack through. The trenches on the western front were also compressed into a very small front compared to the eastern front, and this made outflanking attacks impossible.

So, in conclusion, I feel the most important reason for the stalemate on the western front was poor strategy and tactics. If the generals had been more unorthodox at the beginning of the war, then the stalemate wouldn’t have lasted for so long. However, the other reasons are also very important factors. If the machine gun hadn’t been used, then the Germans wouldn’t have such an effective defence weapon. This either means that the Germans wouldn’t have been able to adopt the defensive strategy, so that it would have been a war of movement, or that the Allies would have overrun the German trenches a lot sooner. Having new weapons like the machine gun were good against old-fashioned generals that had been led to believe in old-fashioned ways of war. The weapons of the First World War limited the strategy of the generals a lot, and this meant that plans were pretty inflexible. If the two sides hadn’t been so equal in industrialisation, then the generals would have had to change their strategy due to a lack of shells for artillery. This means that bombardment would have had to have been left out, so that there was a greater chance of attacking with surprise on their side. If conscription hadn’t been introduced to armies, then the war of attrition wouldn’t have been able to continue at Verdun or indeed anywhere else, because the armies would simply have run out of soldiers. This would mean that which ever side ran out of men first would have to surrender. The side that ran out first would probably be Germany’s side, since that it was only Germany and Austria-Hungary fighting together, whereas the Allies had Russia, France, Great Britain, and all of Great Britain’s colonies fighting together. If it weren’t for the compressed front in which the stalemate took place, then there would have been the possibility of flank attacks. The compressed front, however, limited the generals’ strategy. The geography of no-man’s land also affected tactics. The attackers usually had real problems crossing no-man’s land, and this was where geography affected the weapons used. Machine guns, given high ground, could hold off a lot of men for a very long time. It could be said that weapons affected geography as well, because the artillery and mines created craters that could be used either as obstacles or cover. Communication also affected tactics. The breakthroughs that were made weren’t capitalised because of bad communication, so reinforcements usually arrived too late. So, all in all, I believe that the main reason for the stalemate is the lack of imagination on the generals’ part, but really the other reasons are almost as important.