essay plan

Assess the reasons for the stalemate on the Western Front 1914-1917 – Essay Plan

Intro

• Broke out July 1914 – expected to be a short war – especially by Germany 
• War plans had been made before the war had broken out and did not fully give room for new technology etc

• Prolonged by the unexpected stalemate - Ended 1918 
• Stalemate brought on by technology and the leadership that came with it, trench warfare, failure of Schlieffen plan and nationalism.

Trench warfare

• Germany moved a large percentage of their force to defend the East from Russia - Britain and France claimed victory in the Marne - Germany was pushed back to the river Aisne
• Due to lack of reserves, exhaustion and huge loss of life, both sides took a defensive stance- beginning trench warfare
• By winter 1914 both sides were dug in 
• A series of trenches led to the north series as both sides tried to outflank each other = race to the sea - decided the locations of the 440-mile-long trench system known as the western front
• example = Hindenburg line – Germany was on the brink of defeat so retreated to a highly secure fortified line
• continued the stalemate – incredibly difficult to breakthrough – barbed wire, concrete emplacements and firing positions 
• soldiers lived in awful conditions - in winter had to use artillery in mist and fog + move through knee deep mud - made in very difficult to launch effective attacks
• no mans land had deep mud and barbed wire - difficult for men and horses to charge quickly 

Technology 

• Affected the initial course of the war 
• Believed that they had to fight a war of attrition - by killing enough enemy soldiers and destroying enough of their resources to force them to surrender
• Machine guns and rapid firing artillery all gave made defence easier and attacking harder - the new weapons were designed for defence - better use of planes and tanks would make movement and attack possible again
• Cambrai Nov 17- showed how tanks could be used to good effect (backed up by infantry) - used by haig to attack hindenburg line - lack of reserves led to failure
• Generals used offensive techniques of the past - Verdun - both sides shared equally in the loss of 700,000 men before realising either could advance 
• British offensive at the somme - 20,000 dead on the first day

Schliefen Plan

• prepared Germany for two front attack against France and Russia - preached ‘attack is the best defence’ 
• changed by moltke - weakened the his right wing in France - led to disaster for Germany - by moving through/ attacking Belgium they brought Britain into the war
• The Schliefen plan was working - Belgian army defeated and BEF retreated at the battle of Mons
• Changed at the battle of the Marne - Germany retreated to claim better defence at the Rive Aisne
• The schleifen plan had not did not prepare the german commanders for france fighting back 
• Fast Mobilisation of Russia - twice as fast - 100,000 Germans moved to defend east Prussia
• Battle of the marne Sep 1914- signalled the end of a war of movement - settled into trenches 

Generals 

• the generals were not used to fighting this type of war - they needed to stop fighting a war of attrition and except the immutability of stalemate
• ‘Westerners’ - Haig and Joffre - concentrate all effort into France and Belgium and eventually Germany would crack
• Example - the Somme July 1st  - flawed plan -assumed British artillery could destroy German wire - didn’t have to ammunition or guns to achieve this 
• Cambrai - Haig tried to use tanks - 13 out of 49 tanks didn’t make it to the field - 11 stalled in no mans land - France and britain combined had more casualties than Germans 
• ^ should never have been launched - didn’t have the reserves - could have been a very significant breakthrough 

Nationalism 

• the stalemate could not be broken by negotiated pace treaty 
• The Pope and the international socialist conference petitioned for peace
• ^ as did the Riechstag in July 1917 
• its was nations against each other not just armies
• each nation was fuelled by the possibility of absolute victory to consolidate their suffering 
• Russia showed that war weariness could lead to revolution