Many soldiers couldn’t cope with all the experiences they faced during the war. Some soldiers ran away due to their experiences, they were afraid of thinking about death. If the soldiers were caught running away they were shot. Some soldiers ran away because they had shell shock. There were some soldiers who feared death a lot; they couldn’t cope with hearing gunshots and seeing people die all the time. These soldiers had shell shock. Shell shock is a psychological condition. The symptoms of shell shock are shaking, shivering and screaming.
There were stretcher parties that searched in the dark for wounded soldiers. First aid was sent down through the communication trenches. Soldiers who were seriously injured were sent to the Casualty Clearing Station. Soldiers were safe there because they were quite far away from the fighting. There were also doctors and nurses there to help them get better. Some soldiers were taken to Base Hospitals by train. After the soldiers recovered they were sent back to fight again. Some soldiers were sent back home to hospitals and nursing homes in ‘Blighty’ (Britain).
- Why was there a stalemate on the Western Front during much of the First World War?
A stalemate is where neither side can advance. This is what happened on the Western Front
during much of the First World War. The stalemate was brought about due to the failure of the Schlieffen Plan. The war plans of countries like Britain, France and Germany all failed. This lead to trenches being created, therefore this stopped the other side from advancing. Old tactics and ways of fighting were used to try and break the stalemate but these also failed. Then new technology was introduced to the war to try and help break the stalemate. But the new technology made it easy to defend the trenches and hard to lose the war, but this made it even harder to advance forward and try to win the war.
The Schlieffen Plan was the Germans plan. Schlieffen, Chief of the German General Staff, created it in 1905. This plan of theirs was to knock France out the war in a few weeks before turning to fight against Russia as Germany feared war on two fronts, Eastern and Western. The Germans believed the Russians would take a few weeks to get ready and so they would knock out France first. They would go through Belgium because it was a neutral country and take on the French army from the back and link up with troops coming from the south, as the French were preparing to attack Alsace-Lorraine.
All the great powers also had plans in case war broke out. Britain was to send a small well trained force across the channel to defend France and Belgium. France was going to do an all out attack on Alsace-Lorraine. Russia was to send its armies over the border into Austria.
The Schlieffen Plan failed because the Russians mobilised more quickly than they had expected so German troops had to be sent to stop the Russians from advancing. The Germans didn’t get through Belgium quick enough as the Belgium army fought back, they blew up railway lines, which stopped the Germans from advancing quick enough. Also the Germans had not taken the British troops into consideration. The small British Expeditionary Force met and held the advancing German troops at Mons on the 23rd of August and Ypres on the 12th of October to the 11th of November. The French and the British troops together drove the Germans across the River Aisne.
Both the Allied and the German war plan had failed. At the Battle of Ypres thousands of soldiers died. Both sides dug trenches to protect themselves and to stop the other side from advancing. During the war, both sides tried old ways of advancing and fighting but could not break the deadlock. It was easy to defend trenches because soldiers were safe in the trenches, which were protected with barbed wire.
Before attacking the enemy, Aircraft Reconnaissance was used to check the enemy positions, and then they would do artillery bombardment. They would throw shells at the enemy’s front-line trenches, sometimes for weeks with the intention of weakening the enemy and cutting the barbed wire. Thereafter they would ‘go over the top,’ and attack the enemy. Once the soldiers came out of the trenches they became easy targets, and they had no protection.
The outcome of throwing shells (artillery bombardment) was that they informed the enemy that they would be coming over the top and so they would be ready for and attack. Due to this thousands of soldiers were left dead. The same tactics were used for years and orders had to be obeyed and so this made it difficult to advance.
There were new weapons that were used in the war but the Generals had failed to make effective use of the new weapons. The new technology didn’t help to break the stalemate. The aircraft was a new weapon in the war but it had little value as an offensive weapon, so instead they were used for reconnaissance over enemy lines. Only sometimes did soldiers drop bombs and use the machine gun from the aircraft at the enemies. Reconnaissance was the most valuable role if the aircraft as they could easily discover enemy movement and could indicate if an offensive was being planned. They could also check whether tunnels were being dug or new pits for artillery were being prepared. Another useful thing of using aircraft for reconnaissance was that they could see how much they had missed the targets and plan changes to hit the targets.
The improvement in technology made it very hard to lose but it made it even harder to win because it was easier to defend trenches and very difficult to advance.
It was very hard to lose, as it was easy to defend trenches because of many reasons. Firstly both sides knew when an attack was going to come because before either side attacked they first did artillery bombardment. This was a sign that the enemy were about to ‘go over the top’ and so they had time to get weapons such as the machine gun ready to shoot at the enemy. Secondly the design of the trenches increased the safety of the soldiers and made it easier for them to defend the trenches. The front-line trench was designed with a fire-step and an ammunition box, as well as a duckboard. The fire-step allowed the soldier to get high enough to be able to shoot at the enemy and the duckboard was where the soldier stood. The ammunition shelf had extra ammunition in it for the soldier to use when he ran out of ammunition. The trenches were protected with barbed wire, which made it even harder for the enemy to be able to get into the trench. Finally the new weapons made it more easier to defend trenches. The new howitzers could fire shells over 13 kilometres and the water-cooled machine guns could fire 600 bullets a minute. This is why it was very hard to lose the war but easy to defend the trenches.
As it was easy to defend trenches, this made it very difficult to advance. Flying was risky because the aeroplanes were not fully equipped for an attack. Mostly weapons were not carried on aeroplanes because they were used for reconnaissance. It was also hard to communicate. The aeroplanes were only basic; they never had any navigation or radio. To communicate sign language had to be used. When reconnaissance was used both sides knew that an attack would be launched. It was also difficult to advance because before the soldiers could get to the enemy’s trenches they had to cross No Man’s Land. No Man’s Land was very difficult to cross because by artillery bombardment it became full of shell holes and unexploded shells. Once the soldiers got out of the trenches they became easy targets. The machine gun would kill hundreds of soldiers when they came out. Horses would get stuck in the mud. The new technology that was used didn’t serve the traditional battle tactics. The gas attacks that were used before the soldiers went over the top made it hard for them to cross No Man’s Land. Sometimes the winds changed direction and so instead of the gas going towards the enemy it came back to their own trenches causing them to cough, blister, become blind and even kill them. Soldiers had to wear gas masks; this restricted their mobility, vision and made it harder for them to breath. Tanks were also used in the war. They were very slow with a maximum speed of 6 m/ph and broke down a lot. Tanks had to go through the mud to get to the enemy’s trenches and kept getting stuck in it. The enemy to defend themselves from the tanks formed anti-tank ditches. So the tanks were also an ineffective weapon.
All of these factors were the reasons why there was a stalemate on the Western Front for much of the First World War.
- Why did Haig decide to fight the Battle of the Somme in 1916?
Sir John French was the British the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) between 1914 and 1915. His orders were to support the French army fight against the German army. Sir John French planned a series of diversionary attacks. These were designed to draw the Germans away. The British army that was led by Sir John French clashed with the German army in quite a few different places in 1915. In March they clashed in Neuve Chapelle (Battle of Neuve Chapelle), in April the clashed in Ypres (Battle of Ypres), in May they clashed in Arras and Aubers (Battle of Arras and Aubers) and in September they clashed in Loos (Battle of Loos).
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was an example of how the British attacks against the Germans failed. A diversionary attack was planned to take place on the 10th of March 1915. The BEF attacked the German units and they had broken through their lines, but once they had broke through they didn’t know what to do next. Reinforcements never arrived and so due to all of this the Germans were able to block gaps and so neither side gained benefit from this battle.
Sir Douglas Haig was appointed as the new commander of the BEF on the 10th of December 1915. Neither side had made any real progress in breaking the stalemate on the Western Front. The British began to question how well the army was being led and so they appointed Sir General Haig as the commander. General Haig had a difficult job to do. He had to come up with attacks for the new way of fighting, trench warfare. No one knew how to cope with this way of fighting and so Haig relied on old military ideas and tactics.
Sir General Haig decided to fight the Battle of the Somme because he had three objectives:
- To relieve the French from the German attack at Verdun.
- To inflict as many losses to the Germans as possible.
- To be in a position where they can advance and win the war in 1917.
These were the three main objectives that Haig had for fighting the Battle of the Somme. He had other reasons as well. Some of these reasons were that all their previous attacks had failed such as the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. Haig heard that the morale of the German army was low and that they were outnumbered and so he believed that they could be defeated. Another reason that he had was that the British had invented some new weapons and so he wanted a chance to be able to use them. An example of a new weapon that the British developed was the tank.
This is why Haig decided to fight the Battle of the Somme.
- Explain why the Battle of the Somme failed to achieve British objectives.
The British had three main objectives that they hoped to achieve from the Battle of the Somme. The first objective they had was to relieve the French army from the Germans in the Battle of Verdun. Their second objective was to inflict as many losses to the Germans as they could. This would then help then be able to achieve their third objective of progressing to a position where the British would be able to win the war in 1917.
They were going there to get training so that they could fight for the British. This army consisted of men who had left their ordinary jobs and volunteered to become soldiers for as long as the war lasted. General Joffre (French commander) and General Haig agreed to use this new army for a combined British and French attack on the Germans around the River Somme. The attack would start early June or July. So they both began to equip and train 100,000 men.
The plan that the British and French had made could not go ahead as the Germans launched an attack on the French army on February 17th 1916. They sent many troops over the top to attack the French army. This attack happened at Verdun. It lasted for five months. The French had got many casualties in this battle, but so did the Germans. The British had to bring their planned attack forward to relieve the pressure that the French were under by the Germans so they began a major attack by the River Somme, hoping that this would make the Germans soldiers withdraw from Verdun.
The British started a weeklong artillery bombardment at the end of June. The British had hoped that by this bombardment they would be able to cut the barbed wire surrounding the German trenches, destroy their artillery and kill all their troops. They threw shells over at the German lines continuously, for a whole week. They also shot shrapnel pellets, which were small round lumps made of lead at the barbed wire that was in front of German lines. They believed theses pellets would cut the barbed wire. The British believed this week long bombardment would completely wipe out the Germans enabling them to advance, they thought that nobody could survive an attack like this.
The Germans, before the British attack began used reconnaissance. This helped to make them aware of what the British were going to do. They saw newly built roads and railway lines, and they watched thousands of soldiers arrived with guns, ammunitions and supplies. After they saw all this, they knew what to expect and so when the attack happened on June the 24th the Germans quickly retreated to their strongly built bunkers, which were about 12metres deep. The soldiers in their bunkers were very safe as nothing could reach it.
The British continues for a whole week and then they stopped on the 1st of July. General Haig thought the bombardment had knocked out most of the German front-line if not all of it. What they did not know was that they had been shelling empty trenches for a whole week. Sir General Rawlinson, second in commander to Haig, told the soldiers to walk with their rifles, shoulder to shoulder. The British told the soldiers that not even a rat would be able to survive the weeklong attack. Haig didn’t like Rawlinson’s idea but didn’t want to argue because he had just been appointed. Rawlinson believed that the wave principle would work. One wave would go to the German line, if that line failed then another wave would go out, if that failed then another and it would continue until they would win.
After the Germans realised that artillery bombardment would not be used and that the British were coming, they began to take their positions. They waited for the British to come and when they were close enough they began to fire their machine guns. Haig believed the machine gun was an overrated weapon, he believed that the machine gun was not the way to win but it was determination that helped to bring victory.
On the first day of the battle 40,000 British troops were wounded and 20,000 were killed. Most of these casualties happened in the first hour of the attack. Even though the Generals had witnessed what happened on the first day, which was to become the worst day in the history of the British army, they still did not stop the British from sending more troops over the top.
The British were desperate to use anything that might help them to break the stalemate and advance forward. This led to the tank, the new weapon developed by the British, being unveiled on the 15th of September. There were only 49 tanks that were used. These broke down and got stuck in the mud, but when they did get to the German front-line they caused panic among them. But there were too few of them to cause too much panic among the Germans. So overall the tanks did not cause much of a difference in the Battle of the Somme.
The Battle of Somme lasted for another 119 days after the arrival of the tank. It ended on the 18th of November 1916 when Sir General Haig called a halt to the attack. The area was covered in snow and so they couldn’t fight, therefore he called a halt to the attack. The total number of British casualties for the Battle of the Somme was 420,000 and there were also 195,000 French casualties as well. After all of these casualties they only manages to gain 8 kilometres.
There were a few reasons why the Battle of the Somme failed to meet the British Objectives. The first reason is during the weeklong artillery bombardment the Germans were all safe in the bunkers. The British were shelling empty trenches. The second reason was that Haig under estimated the machine gun and this caused the deaths of many soldiers in the battle. The soldiers when advancing towards the German line travelled walking with their rifles in their hands, walking shoulder to shoulder. This made them easy targets for the Germans, therefore making it easy fir them to kill them. Another reason why the Battle of the Somme failed to meet the British objectives was that the army that fought for the British was a completely inexperienced army, they were a group of men who volunteered to fight. This was another factor that lead to failure of meeting the objectives. There were a few more reasons. These were that even after Haig and the other Generals saw the failure of the first wave of soldiers, they sent another wave, and after seeing them fail as well they sent another wave. They carried on with the same tactics throughout the whole battle. There was also a lack of communication between Generals and soldiers. The Generals were too far behind the front-line. The final reason was that even after the weeklong artillery bombardment the barbed wire had not been cut properly. In some places it was cut, in others it wasn’t, and in other places the wire was made even worse getting soldiers stuck in it. The shells that were thrown at the German trenches during the bombardment were not very accurate, one shell in three failed to explode. The mud was churned up by this making it very difficult for them to cross no-mans land. All of these factors contributed to explain why the battle of the Somme failed to meet British objectives.