Battles and Course of the War
Review
1914: War of Movement
Schlieffen Plan
•Lasted a very short time
Key battles in 1914:
•Battle of the Marne: Put an end to the SchlieffenPlan and led to trench warfare.
•Battle of Tannenberg: Huge German defeat overthe Russians on the Eastern Front.
•95,000 Russians troops were captured,another 30,000 killed or wounded, and only10,000 managed to escape, mostly byretreating.
Trench Warfare
Stalemate
No movement for either side.
•What WWI was known for.
Attrition
World War I is remembered as a “war ofattrition.”
What is “attrition?”
Read excerpt in graphic organizer and comeup with your own definition
Key Battles of 1916
The Battle of Verdun, 1916
February 21, 1916 - December 18, 1916.
Germans used attrition strategy in order to:
1.Capture the French city of Verdun and
2.To kill a great deal of French soldiers and kill theFrench will to fight.
The Germans weren’t looking to win some great anddramatic victory.
At the end there were 400,000 injured soldiers and300,000 deaths.
About 30,000 deaths during each month of the 10month battle.
Was declared a French tactical victory.
Fort at Verdun pre-battle
Fort at Verdun post-battle
Why does Verdun represent the ultimatebattle of the “war of attrition?”
The Battle of the Somme
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The Somme
Started with a six-day bombardment (1.7 million shellsshot), but there were some problems:
Allied bombardment didn’t hit German artillery anddidn’t destroy barbed wire, only moved it around.
German troops were deeply dug in and thebombardment did not reach them.
British lost 20,000 people in the first day.
It was the single worst day in deaths and casualtiesin British military history.
1.1 million soldiers injured, 300,000 deaths in the six-month battle.
The next morning (July 2nd) we gunners surveyed thedreadful scene in front of us. It became clear that theGermans always had a commanding view of No Man’sLand. (The British) attack had been brutally repulsed.Hundreds of dead were strung out like wreckage washedup to a high water-mark. Quite as many died on theenemy wire as on the ground, like fish caught in the net.They hung there in grotesque postures. Some looked as ifthey were praying; they had died on their knees and thewire had prevented their fall. Machine gun fire had doneits terrible work.
- George Coppard, machine gunner at the Battle of theSomme.
A Soldier’s Perspective
Somme: Debut of the Tank
Somme and Verdun Summary
Both battles lasted months.
Tons of casualties.
Very little land actually won or lost.
Why Was the War so Long andBloody?
It was a war of attrition.
Attrition: A military strategy in which a side wins a warby wearing down its enemy to the point of collapse.
So, a war will usually be won by the side with moreresources (men, weapons, food, etc.).
In WWI, both the Allies and Central Powers foundthemselves in constant defensive positions in trenches. Foryears the only way the commanders thought they coulddefeat the enemy was to repeatedly attack head on in orderto wear down their opponents until surrender.
Why did WWI become a war of attrition?
Take a moment and think about this.
Record some of your thoughts
Do you agree with this definition?
•Attrition is a gradual process of wearing down,weakening, or destroying something.
1) Industrial Revolution
Larger Population
More soldiers for reinforcements and total war.
•Total war means the whole population was involved in productionof materials for the war.
Industrial Production
New Technology (but only up to a certain point).
Artillery, machine guns, and poison gas made it easy to kill anddefend.
2) Military Problems
Communication problems
Bad Leadership
Generals did not adapt to new technologies.
They continually used old battle tactics with the newweapons = mass death and little progress towards victory.
Technology
New technology was good for defense and killing, not forattacking.
3) Evenly Matched Sides
Even though the Central Powers wereoutnumbered, Germany’s industrial andmilitary strength kept the Central Powerspretty matched against the Allies until theU.S. entered the war.
Complete Graphic Organizer
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