The German leaders didn’t fear the small British army and they didn’t really expect the British to come to the aid of the Belgians. Even if this did happen the Germans planned to capture the ports on the Channel – Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne – as they swept south. This would prevent the British army getting across France in large numbers.
Then much to the Germans surprise the Russians became organised very quickly. They thought the Russians would take at least six weeks to get their army together, so the Germans intended to ignore them to begin with. If the plan worked France would be conquered and the British would be unable to land, which would allow the German army to transfer to the Eastern Front to deal with the Russians.
However Germany was not the only army with a plan. The British planned to send a small yet well-trained army (the British Expeditionary Force) over the Channel, which would help to defend the French and Belgians. Even though the Schlieffen Plan was supposed to be a secret the British expected the Germans to invade through Belgium. Once war was declared the British Expeditionary Force would quickly cross to France, take the West flank alongside the French, and then halt any advance of the Germans.
The Germans would then be exposed to the east and the west; the Russians, French and British would so greatly outnumber the Germans that they would surrender.
Neither side showed any sign of giving up and they were strong enough to resist counter attack. Yet the War of Movement had been replaced by a stalemate. On the western Front more than two million soldiers were now involved in the War. Both sides began to make more permanent trenches to protect themselves from enemy gunfire.
By Christmas 1914 a long line of trenches stretched from the English Channel to the Swiss border. These trenches became ‘home’ for the soldiers of both sides for the next three years. Despite increasing numbers of casualties neither army would move more than ten miles forwards or backwards until 1918.
Recruitment posters from Britain and the Great War text book.
The posters on the previous page encouraged young men to sign up to the war effort, the majority of men considered it to be their patriotic duty and 750,000 men joined up in one month. The posters were used as propaganda; there were also pamphlets, newspaper reports and advertisements. These only showed the positive side of the war. The popular feeling was that the war would be over by Christmas, and that the soldiers should feel proud to have been part of it.
Men were considered cowards if they did not enlist. From these posters you can see that men would be ashamed to tell their children if they had not been involved in the war, they also felt that it was their duty to protect the women at home. These posters did not show the reality, new soldiers or the families had no idea of the horrors that awaited them on the western front, and the posters gave the idea that war was an adventure. The posters were not only aimed at young men but their families as the government needed to show that the war was worthwhile.
These sources are useful; as they show us what social pressures the men were put under.
Extracts from communications by The British Commander In Chief, Douglas Haig, in 1916.
The above source shows the contrast between what the war was really like and what knowledge the troops had of what was going on around them. Haig’s memorandum to the War Office informs the government of what was happening and whether or not Britain was winning. Then in the letter to the troops Haig tells another story, this time it is a positive one. He would have written this to keep the morale of the troops high.
