B. Indecisive offensives on the Western Front
The war on the Western Front was a new kind of warfare. The best word that describes the Western Front from December 1914 to 1918 is ‘stalemate’ which means that how hard they try; neither player can make a winning move. This warfare brought loads of changes. One of them is the importance of infantry. Before the war, the theory was that an attack on the enemy would be led by a cavalry charge. The infantry’s job was to follow cavalry but after new trenches, the cavalry charge was replaced by the infantry charge. Also the first poison gas was used in April 1912 by Germans and British invaded tanks.
The Battle of Verdun is the longest battle of the First World War (21st Ferbruary-18th December). It’s one of the most important battles in the Western Front. It was fought between France and Germany. The German Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, believed that although a breakthrough might no longer be possible, the French could still be defeated if they suffered enough casualties. He planned to attack a position from which the French could not retreat, for both strategic reasons and reasons of national pride. The town of Verdun-sur-Meuse was chosen to "bleed white" the French: the town, surrounded by a ring of forts, was an important stronghold that projected into the German lines and guarded the direct route to Paris. German attacks were very strong but they needed to transfer troops for the Battle of the Somme so French counter attacked.
The Battle of the Somme is the most important event in the World War 1 for British history. It’s one of the bloodiest battles in the human history. The battle was planned as a French attack to Germans with British support. The idea came from the French Commander in Chief, Joseph Joffre and was accepted by General Sir Douglas Haig, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) commander. At first French army was mainly going to fight but the German attack to Verdun changed the plan and Britain navy took control. With winter setting in, Haig called off the attack. Britain lost loads of men and Haig was criticized by his soldiers and people but he believed that the key objectives were achieved. Verdun was saved and the best troops of Germany were killed or wounded.
C. Stalemate and Trenches
‘Stalemate’ is the situation when neither side is able to achieve victory. The reason of this situation in the Western Front was simple. Defending is easier than attacking.
On both sides of the fighting, commanders were not used to dealing with the huge numbers of men in the field. Millions of soldiers were engaged in the opening phases of the war, and commanders could not control them effectively. Most commanders also believed that the war would be over by Christmas 1914, and had not prepared for a long war. This meant that no army, or country, prepared the necessary stockpiles of weapons or ammunition. In fact, armies on both sides started to run out of ammunition after the first month of the war. As well, generals on both sides did not have a true understanding of the new weapons that began to dominate the battlefield. The power of improved artillery and the machine gun as defensive weapons were greatly underestimated. It took the loss of hundreds of thousands of men before the generals fully understood the effect of this new type of defensive warfare. And with the arrival of winter, on the Western Front, the situation grew quiet all along the entire front line. Each side needed to get over the shock of the first few weeks and re-supply its forces with food, ammunition and winter clothing.
Soldiers on the Western Front went through enormous range of experiences and living in trenches is one of them. By 1915, trenches developed into complex defensive systems. Soldiers guard or repaired trenches or just tried to sleep in the trenches. They changed their line trenches by time. They were living with corpses, rats and lice. They sometimes didn’t see enemies and they sometimes were the subject to non-stop bombardments. Every soldier respected their general and they were well disciplined.
2. WAR AT SEA
The main aim was to control the seas to stop supplies getting to enemy.
A. the Battle of Jutland and its results
The only major sea battle was Jutland. Germans had the best exchanges but British navy was too large. Germany lost 11 ships when British lost 14. Both sides kind of won the battle. Germany caused more damage than it received but couldn’t remove blockade back.
B. British Blockade of Germany
This was the key factor in the defeat of Germany. They didn’t have food supplies. Loads of people lost their will to fight. Food shortages in Germany itself had pushed many civilians to the brink of starvation. Farmers were short of laborers to bring in the harvest as young men had been drafted into the military. By 1918, Germany was producing only 50% of the milk it had done before the war. By the winter of 1917, the supply of potatoes had run out and the only real alternative was turnips. This is why the winter of 1916 to 1917 is known as the "Turnip Winter". Turnips were used as animal foodstuff and the thought of eating them repelled many as they were the food of cows, pigs etc. Lack of food had seriously weakened the ability of people to fight off disease. Flu had a terrible impact on Germans as the people had little bodily strength to fight the illness. It is thought that nearly 750,000 died of a combination of flu and starvation - this figure included mainly civilians but it also included soldiers who had survived the horror of war, returned to Germany and had died of the disease.
C. Submarine Warfare (U-Boat)
U-boat is the Anglicization of the German word. The primary targets of the U-boat campaigns in both world wars were the merchant convoys bringing supplies from Canada and the United States to Europe. In the First World War, response to the British blockade, Germans sank a British ship supplying Britain but this caused more than just shortages in Britain. It also brought America into the war. On May 7, 1915 the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine, the U-20. The Lusitania sank after a subsequent massive internal explosion blew out its starboard bow. Over 100 American citizens were killed on the Lusitania. That’s why two years after America joined the war.
3. EASTERN FRONT AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
The Eastern Front was the place of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two places strongly influenced each other. The length of the front in the East was much longer than in the West but the war on East was not big as the West.
Russian Revolution broke out in 1917 and their communist government made peace with Germany. Russians got out of the war.
A. The Battle of Tannenberg-1914
The WWI Battle of Tannenberg took place on August 26-30, 1914. The battle was fought between the German and Russian armies, close to the village of Tannenberg, which is located in northeastern Poland. The Russian army was defeated by the Germans and subsequently German-controlled territory was never invaded by Russia for the remainder of the war. The Russian army incurred major losses, with 30,000 casualties and 92,000 soldiers captured by the Germans. The Germans suffered 13,000 casualties and the battle forced them to redirect their soldiers from the French battlefront.
B. Reasons for Russian failures in the East
Russian soldiers were all peasants. They fought bravely but they stood little chance against the German army. Their aristocrat leaders treated them so badly and there was no support from the industries at home. After some time revolution occurred and Russians retreated from war.
C. Revolution in Russia-1917
Russia had been ruled for many years by Tsar Nicholas 2, who was an autocrat. The people were divided in three classes; peasant, the middle class and the aristocracy. Loads of people were very poor and the rich people weren’t helping them. The first revolution broke out in St Petersburg in March 1917. After these revolutions, communism, an ideology that seeks to establish a future classless, stateless social organization, based upon common ownership of the means of production, was born. After Russia, this idea spread to the world.
D. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk-1908
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, at Brest, formerly "Brest-Litovsk", between Russia and the Central Powers, marking Russia's exit from World War I. The treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year but is significant as a chief contributor, although unintentionally, to the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
4. AMERICAN ENTRANCE INTO THE WAR
After Germany took burned Lusitania, America got in the war.
A. Causes of America’s entrance
America tried hard to stay out of the war but throughout the war, they lent money, sold arms, food and weapons to alliances. Germany’s industry was going very bad because of the war so USA took control of trade in Europe. They produced new materials. Historians call this the second industrial revolution. Because America got into the war after European countries, their resources were not drained like Europe’s. The United States was unprepared for its entrance into the First World War. In April 1917, the American Army numbered only 300,000 including all the National Guard units that could be federalized for national service. The Army's arsenal of war supplies was non-existent. When the European continent erupted in conflict in 1914, President Wilson declared America's neutrality. He proposed an even-handed approach towards all the belligerents that was to be maintained in both "thought and deed." The President steadfastly maintained his hope of a peaceful solution to the conflict despite the protestations of those (including former president Roosevelt) convinced that events in Europe would inevitably draw America into the war. In 1916, Wilson campaigned for reelection on a peace platform with the slogan "He kept us out of war." Events in Europe altered Wilson's outlook. Germany's campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, the loss of American lives on the high seas, the sinking of the Lusitania and other ships and the prospect that Germany would not change her policies compelled a reluctant Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war in April 1917. Things were not going well for the Allies at the time. The Allies looked to America for salvation with the expectation that the industrial strength of the United States would replenish the supply of war material necessary for victory. In most cases these expectations were unrealistic. For example, the US built no more than 800 airplanes prior to 1917, and yet the French premier called on the US to immediately produce 2,000 airplanes per month. Additionally, the Allies expected the United States to provide an unlimited supply of manpower they could absorb into their beleaguered divisions. But USA said that they would fight under their own flag and own leadership. After that with the war over, Americans wished to forget Europe's troubles and return to "the good old days." Congress rejected Wilson's call for participation in the League of Nations. The nation turned inward again. This complacency remained unchallenged until Hitler's grab for European domination some 20 years later.
B. Its effects on the Western Front
Despite of their national pride, they really changed the war and gave a good fight in the western front. With Britain and France, they won the war against Germany.
C. German Surrender
The First World War lasted for four years and three months. It began on August 4, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918. It involved sixty sovereign states, overthrew four Empires (German Empire, Hapsburg Empire, Turkish Empire, Russian Empire), gave birth to seven new nations, took ten million combatant lives (another 30 million were wounded), and cost about £ 35,000 million.
REFERENCES
GSCE Modern World History, Ben Walsh
