From 1914 to 1918, Allied generals and troops fought tirelessly on the sadistic and brutal Western Front. Though many famous historians such as Geoffrey Norman and Dr. Gary Sheffield have a variety of different opinions on the vast topic, one cannot explicitly argue over the countless lives lost at the Battles of Somme and Passchendaele. Many allied generals were ineffective during World War I due to the lack of methodical war tactics such as attrition, and inefficiency in modern-day fighting. Furthermore, allied leaders ultimately overcame many fallacies and fought brilliantly during the Last One Hundred Days, warranting their triumphant victory.
Throughout the majority of the Western Front fighting, allied generals consistently, without
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These men were foolishly ordered by General Sir Douglas Haig to jump out of their trenches, hands by their side, and march into “No Man’s Land.” Unfortunately, the Germans reacted hastily and mowed the men down with machine guns. Withstanding these casualties, Haig went on with his attrition and “attack at all costs” battle tactics for a whole four months until the allies ‘defeated’ the Germans. It was proclaimed a victory as the Germans had 660,000 casualties and the Allies had a lesser total of 623,907. One year after the devastating attacks at Somme, British Expeditionary Force leader General Sir Douglas Haig ordered an attack at Passchendaele or the third battle of Ypres. Haig being the uninventive and obstinate man that he was, decided to yet again use these attrition combat tactics at Passchendaele with great hope for success. After the first couple of days at Passchendaele, the contest started to look very similar to the Somme. To avoid this, Haig implemented the use of the newest weapon created, tanks. Unfortunately, Haig and his team seemed oblivious …show more content…
More than ten years after the Boer Wars came to an end, many could argue that World War I was the first modern fought war in the twentieth century. On the contrary to other field marshals, Sir Douglas Haig’s fighting strategies seemed almost ancient. Historian Geoffrey Norman stated in one of his articles that “...he went so far as to argue that the machine gun was an overrated weapon-especially against the horse.” To think that a man leading one of the biggest fighting forces in the world believed that the cavalry outweighed than the machine gun was quite absurd. Regarding Haig’s views, he had great hopes for the cavalry at the Somme and envisioned that once his infantry created a hole in the enemy's lines, the horses would charge through the middle and clean up the job. Predictably, that did not happen at all, and the inability of allied generals to adapt to modern warfare ended up costing thousands of people their lives. Moreover, the deficient use of technology also worked against the allied troops during the war. World War I was a war filled with new, devastating weapons such as the machine gun, tanks, and airplane bombers. Dr. Gary Sheffield mentions in his review of Haig during the war that “In some ways, the British and other armies might have grasped the potential of technology earlier than they did.”
demonstating his carelessness over casualtiles, Passchendaele proved Currie’s concern for he preservation fo the lives of the men under his command; indeed, Currie’s actons throughout th war stand as strong evidence of his desire, and ability, to win battles only at the least possible cost. A lot of Canadians, veterans and conscripts alike, had little regard for General Currie. Passchendaele convinced many of them that victory was his old consideration.
With careful planning, co-operation, good leadership and courage, Currie managed to bring out the characteristics of a well thought out success at Vimy Ridge in April of 1917 (Dancocks, 1985). Sir Arthur Currie’s responsibility was to command the 1st Canadian Division (Hyatt, 1987). He pushed his troops to undergo rigorous training and to prepare themselves by using a life-size course, with every trench marked by tape and a flag (Dancocks, 1985). Currie designed very accurate maps and he had a small-scale plasticine model built so that it could be studied by all soldiers. Arthur Currie insisted that his division’s knowledge of the enemy was excellent (Dancocks, 1985).
The outbreak of World War One was accompanied by new strategies, innovations, and inventions that developed modern warfare. World War One saw the widespread use of everything from artillery to machine guns and airplanes to submarines. World War One also saw the world’s most powerful navy, Great Britain’s Royal Navy, pitted against the up and coming German Imperial Navy. From Britain’s effective use of the naval blockade to Germany’s terrifying unrestricted submarine warfare, both sides were constantly looking for new strategies to implement.
The First World War witnessed an appalling number of casualties. Due partly to this fact, some historians, developed the perception that commanders on both sides depended on only one disastrous approach to breaking the stalemate. These historians attributed the loss of life to the reliance on soldiers charging across no-man’s land only to be mowed down by enemy machineguns. The accuracy of this, however, is fallacious because both the German’s and Allies developed and used a variety of tactics during the war. The main reason for battlefield success and eventual victory by the Allies came from the transformation of battlefield tactics; nevertheless, moral played a major role by greatly affecting the development of new tactics and the final outcome of the war.
"A general who wears down 180,000 of the enemy by expending 400,000 men...has something to answer for." This idea from military historian C.E.W Bean is the main line of argument from traditionalist historians. They represent General Douglas Haig, British Commander-in-Chief of the BEF from 1915 to the end of the war in 1918, in a critical, damning light: a hopelessly incompetent general with a willingness to sacrifice the men of Britain for a few metres of muddy ground. On the converse of this interpretation is a revisionist perspective of Haig as a caring ‘architect of victory’, bringing long-term achievements with his perceptive strategies. With an examination of these two seemingly polemic perspectives and primary evidence, judgement, albeit a complex and multifaceted one, can be reached on both these smaller debates and of Douglas Haig’s role in World War One: villain or vanquisher?
World War Warfare was one of the greatest examples of technological advancement and strategic challenge, with the introduction of inventions such as the aircraft and the tank the battlefield transformed from attrition as scene in the early years of the war to decisive by the end of the war.
war went on, was that of encouraging at least some degree L&LL. At the same time they stoically maintained a toecap-to-toecap confrontation with the German Army whilst periodically energetically pursuing the High Command’s policy of continuous offensive action. This meant that when the German High Command in 1918 finally felt obliged by external factors to take the great gamble of their last great offensive on the Western Front, the German Army suffered increasingly unsustainable levels of attrition to their armies. Secondly, by thus steadfastly holding the Germans and their allies at bay in the trenches, the trench fighters enabled the twin pressures of the Allied land and sea blockade, and the failure of German State’s domestic production, to squeeze the fighting heart out the German nation and its autocratic rulers.
“Twentieth Century: Military The First World War 1914-18.” Dartford Town Archive. 13 April 2003 <http://www.dartfordarchive.org.uk/20th_century/military_ww1.shtml>.
Keegan chooses the three well documented campaigns of Agincourt in 1415, Waterloo in 1815, and Somme in 1916 to answer the question of his thesis: To find out how men who are faced with the threat of single-missile and multiple-missile weapons control their fears, fix their wounds, and face their death. In his words he is seeking “to catch a glimpse of the face of battle.”
The Art of War is a treatise written in Ancient China that discusses the most and least effective military strategies for successful warfare according to Sun Tzu, a military general whose existence is still debated to this day. While not every military commander in the history of warfare has read it, the strategies provided can be used as a way to assess said commanders and the effectiveness of their campaigns. In Sun Tzu 's own words, “The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat:--let such a one be dismissed!”1 This paper will discuss various iconic battles throughout history and how closely the leading commanders of each army followed the advice of Sun Tzu. Despite the fact that Sun Tzu lived hundreds of years before many of these battles took place, the
By December 1914 the First World War had reached a dilemma on the western front that neither the triple entente nor the triple alliance had expected. The war had reached a stalemate, a state where both sides are so evenly balanced that neither can breakthrough against the enemy. The advances in Technology played a big role in creating the stalemate through strong defensive weaponry such as Machine Guns and Artillery, this caused ‘trench warfare’ (BOOK 48). Trench war is when troops from both sides are protected from the enemy’s firepower through trenches. Many advances in technology also attempted to break the stalemate throughout the war with tanks, gas and aircraft, these however failed. Eventually the stalemate was broken through a combination of improved technology, new strategies and the blockading of the German ports.
Warfare was in a state of transition. Older commanders and generals in the French and British militaries were very cavalry and infantry focused. These commanders believed that cavalry, infantry, and artillery would assure victory in any circumstance, against any foe. They clung to the static tactics of the bygone World War I era. World War I had been fought primarily on French soil, and the military as well as the government never wanted that to happen again, therefore they wanted to reinforce their main border against any future German. Little did they know that only twenty two years later they would be bested by German forces in a way that would shock the world. This research will be analyzing many important assumptions, oversights,...
So while it does not offer support to Keegan's opinion of Haig, the message of the cartoon is the opinion of the cartoonist and not necessarily the opinion of the general public. Source F is not as disparaging of Haig as sources D, G and J, but it is still critical of his actions. Livesey, a modern historian, believes that it was Haig's 'inability to recognise defeat', that led to him continuing his attacks at the Somme and Passchendaele, resulting in millions of casualties. As this source was published in 1989, it can be argued that Livesey had access to lots of information about Haig, and therefore that his conclusions of Haig are more reliable than those of, for example, Lloyd George who was biased in that he disliked Haig. Source F does not support Keegan's opinion of Haig, but is not as critical of Haig's character as other sources are.
This battle was the third and final general offensive from the British army. They attack the German lines to take Morval, Gaudecourt and other nearby places. The British attacks were paired with the French attacks on rancourt and Fregicourt. These attacks were strategically planned to encircle Combles and an attack on the Somme in support of the
World War I is known as a war that occurred on extremely cruel terms; there were not many restrictions on what and when certain weapons could be used. Unfortunately, the Industrial Age brought with it many new ways to kill; the soldiers of World War I came in contact with many new weapons that they had never seen in combat.