In 1906, Alfred von Schlieffen was replaced by Von Molke who made a few alterations to the original Schlieffen Plan. He thought it was best to avoid invading through Holland and instead concentrate on getting past Belgium and Luxemburg. He believed that Belgium would not be able to resist the German army and the German forces would easily pass through Belgium and into France. He did not consider that France would also receive help from Britain and didn’t count on there being any hold-ups to his plan. He was, however, very wrong.
Germany invaded Luxemburg and Belgium on 2nd August, 1914. Britain had signed a treaty in 1839 with Belgium agreeing to protect it as a neutral country. Therefore, when Belgium refused to let the Germans through to attack France they put up a fight with the help of the British Expeditionary Force and held up Germany in the Battle of Mons. This was not supposed to happen and Schlieffen had not thought about this when creating the Schlieffen Plan.
After just 10 days, Russia’s armed forces had enough men to start advancing. This was far quicker than calculated in the Schlieffen Plan and forced the Germans to withdraw troops from the Schlieffen Plan and send them to defend the eastern border of Germany. This forced the Germans to give up on the idea of advancing around Paris and instead chose to attack from the east of the capital. However, they were left exposed and were met by the French army at the Battle of Marne on the 5th-11th September. This halted the Germans advance and the Schlieffen Plan had failed.
think that the American entry into the war was a very significant factor when it came to the stalemate being broken.
The British Royal Navy used its submarines to stop supplies getting into Germany, just like the German submarines had done to Britain. The British, however, blockaded German ports in order to do this, rather than using unrestricted submarine warfare. Through the blockading of the German ports the Royal navy prevented imports of food, oil, chemicals and weaponry as far as possible.
This method was much more successful than the German use of submarines. It caused serious hunger in Germany from 1916 through til 1918 and in the winter of 1918-1919 the Germans suffered from starvation. There were also bad fuel shortages as all the fuel that Germany did have was being sent to the fronts, for the army to use. A lack of medicine also occurred, and the Germans ran out of anaesthetics towards the end of the war. Lack of supplies led to rapid inflation in Germany, which caused strikes in factories as the workers were unhappy about the conditions in which they worked, and the amount they were paid for doing so. These strikes interrupted the war production (i.e. the production of weapons and chemicals). All these factors led to a huge decline in German morale and eventually revolution in November 1918. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on the 9th November and two days later, the 11th November at 11 o'clock, the war was over.
It was not, however just the normal people of Germany who were being affected. Lack of food meant that the soldiers on the Western front had poor supplies. Poor food supplies put them at a disadvantage as they h ...
... rman own self. Also US troops were arriving all the time which made Germans morale more down.
French and American counter attacks with 18 divisions followed immediately against the western side of the Aisne-Marne salient achieving surprise in the Cambrai style with 346 small Renault tanks and no previous bombardment. And from this attack Germans had no more advances.
Next allied counter-attack, the battle of Amiens, was prepared with great secrecy. And with 430 tanks and ten divisions of Canadian and Australian infantry, the best in Haig's army, and four British and one US division, behind a creeping barrage. 1700 aircraft were assembled but hindered by fog. They helped conceal the noise of assembling tanks at night by flying low over the enem ...
... an overall defensive tactic was used, which made breakthroughs very difficult. Breaking through the opposite trench was made more difficult because of the conditions of the trenches. When trying to get through no-man's land, the men were easy targets for the enemy's shell and machine gun fire. The men's ability to fight was further hampered by the barbed wire and the huge shell craters which they had to run through.
By trying to fight around the trenches, both sides extended their trenches down to Switzerland, which made the stalemate even more apparent, with both armies' spread evenly across the trench system
... nderestimated it, but the Germans used it more to a greater affect against their Allies. After the attacks, which caused heavy casualties both forces made sure, they had an endless supply of machine guns and ammunition. The trenches were also a strong defence as they sheltered troops and kept their territory behind them. During the battle of the Somme the Germans trenches were re-enforced inside with concrete showing that trenches were thought of a defence mechanism.
