The First World War
A stalemate developed on the Western Front for four main reasons, one
being that the Schlieffen plan failed, another reason was that the
French were unable to defeat the Germans completely at the Battle of
the Marne, another reasons was the "race to the Channel" and the last
reason was that defending positions was far easier than attacking.
The Schlieffen Plan failed for a number of reasons, one being that
Moltke, the German commander, had altered the balance of the forces so
that the right wing had only three times as many troops as the left
wing and since the right wing was smaller it advanced more slowly than
had been planned. Another reason was that there was more resistance
from the Belgian army and then from British and French forces than had
been expected and this slowed down the right wing and allowed the
British and French forces to retreat and then counter-attack.
Also, the Russians surprised the Germans by attacking in the east;
Moltke then weakened the right wing more by sending troops to fight
the Russians. Another reason was that troops marched more than 30km
every day, and, by early September were exhausted. German
communication lines became extended and ground to a halt, roads were
clogged with refugees and telephone lines (due to sabotage) were out
and so Moltke and his staff were stuck in Luxembourg, not knowing what
was going on with his army.
The Schlieffen plan was failing miserably and the German troops morale
was just as miserable but still, the German army advanced until they
were just 40km from Paris. Blocking their way, however, assembled by
the River Marne were the British and French troops.
The reasons why the French were unable to defeat the Germans
completely at the Battle of the Marne were numerous; one of the
reasons was that no matter how ill spirited the German armies were,
they were still large and well prepared. The French and British troops
however had almost been "thrown" together and in comparison to the
criticized for this, he stood by his decision stating that he knew the Russians would force the army into the cold harsh, Russian winter, such as the case of Napoleon. Even though Schlieffen came up with this wonderful and well thought out plan, his successor, General von Moltke, changed the plans entirely.
Even though German high commanders have received much praise, they relied on the ability of senior German generals. Many commanders lacked ideas for victory and often were indecisive which led to unwillingness of using modern technology and resources to conduct a successful war effort. Commanders had little understanding on what was really needed; many only thought more men would successfully defeat the allied forces, along with an increase in firepower all which strained the troubled home nation. Not only did the war effort rely on the efficiency of the army and armed forces, but it also relied on the homefront. The German homefront felt the brunt of the war and the British naval blockade was not helping.
With the German failure at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 and the subsequent Allied counterattacks, the "Race to the Sea" began. This so called race ended at the North Sea coast after each army. attempted to outflank the other by moving north and west. This area of Flanders, described by one historian as having the dreariest. landscape in Western Europe, contained the last gap through which either side could launch a decisive thrust.
World War I, also known as the Great War, lasted from the summer of 1914 until the late fall of 1918. The war was fought between the Allies, which consisted mainly of the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and the Central Powers, which consisted mainly of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (Alliances - Entente and Central Powers). In total, it is estimated that twelve million civilians and nine million combatants died during this horrific and devastating war (DeGroot 1). When the war first began in 1914, many people thought that it would be a war of movement that would quickly be over. However, that changed when the Germans, who were trying to reach and capture the city of Paris in France, were forced to retreat during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (Ellis 10). German General von Falkenhayn, who felt that his troops must at all cost hold onto the parts of France and Belgium that they had overtaken, ordered his men to dig in and form defensive trench lines (Ellis 10). The Allies could not break through the enemies lines and were forced to create trenches of their own (Ellis 10). This was only the beginning of trench warfare. A war of movement had quickly come to a standstill on the Western Front. A massive trench line, 475 miles long, quickly spread and extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier (Ellis 10). With neither side budging, soldiers were forced to live in the most miserable of conditions. Simply put, life in the trenches was a living hell. A lieutenant of the 2nd Scottish rifles wrote, “No one who was not there can fully appreciate the excruciating agonies and misery through which the men had to go [through] in those da...
People did not expect the war to develop in the way it did. In 1914
At first, the French won many decisive battles with the aid of its allies against the British Empire. Both countries, however, were relatively equal in size and power at the time, but that would soon change. The British began to turn the tide as they made significant leadership changes in government and amassed their army, particularly their navy, to counter the Allied forces.3 With the new change of leadership, Britain began to pour more effort and money into this war.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Tactics during the early stages of the war led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and a huge loss in moral by the Allies. Originally the Allies employed Napoleonic Era tactics that relied heavily on infantry lining up shoulder to shoulder and advancing across open fields. The French further claimed that if they attacked with superior moral they could overcome any foe. Due to the widespread utilization of machine guns and long-range rifles, these tactics resulted in enormous casualties. The French and British, as well, continued to funnel soldiers into failed offensives, even if the battle resulted in little or no gain, which further led to a decline in moral. With thousands of soldiers’ dead, the armies could not continue to fight with these tactics or the armies would cease to exist or soldiers would refuse to continue to fight.
Sister Claire Evelyn Trestrail was the eldest of five being born on the 10th of December, 1877 in Clare, South Australia. Trestrail served in the First World War as a nurse following in her mother’s footsteps who was a trained nurse, Acting Matron of King Edward Hospital in Perth and also had involvement within the Red Cross and the Saint John’s Ambulance Services. Trestrail’s younger siblings also had involvement within the First World War with her two younger brothers; John Henry and Amarald Glen, serving in the royal Flying Corps and respectively, 1 Machine Battalion. Amarald was also presented with a Military Medal for Gallantry at Villaret. Sister Ella also served as a nurse, got married, but tragically returned as an amputee. It was only her youngest sister Amy who did not serve during the war.
The stalemate on the Western front had developed by December 1914 because of the new advances in defensive weaponry where both sides had developed lethal weaponry like the machine guns and artillery, which subsequently led to trench warfare. The Machine Gun was a very dominant weapon in the First World War. It could kill hundreds of men a minute due to its rapid firing rate of 600 bullets a minute. However the machine guns that were used in the First World War weighed between 30kg – 60kg, would require a four to six operators and could heat up extremely quickly; clearly not very effective as a offensive weapon (Duffy, Michael. "Machine Guns.") Machine Guns were only effective for defense as they were extremely heavy, required a lot of ammunition a needed to be fixed into the ground. This made it severely difficult to attack and move with machine guns. Artillery was even deadlier as a defensive weapon and was one of the most important weapons of the First World War as it was the cause of the majority of human losses. The artillery ranged from field artillery to heavy and long range artillery that could fire long distances and would trap the enemies in their trenches. The Trench Mortar was also a very effective weapon in the war, which was a “tube” that would fire at a vertical angle (higher than 45 degrees) and could therefore be fired within the safety of the trench, unlike artillery. All these new advances in technology made trenches almost impossible to attack yet also kept each side trapped in their trenches.
The French placed their defense in old, outdated tactics of static warfare. Gone were the days of two sides slugging it out against prepared reinforced defense structures. Closely integrating concentrated armor, infantry, and closely supported by aviation assets all combined to crush France in a matter of only six weeks. France was simply not prepared for this new age of warfare.
The U.S. in 1910 was a society where racial segregation was the norm. The Jim Crow laws of segregation were enacted between 1876 and 1965 in America segregating many if not all, public places for whites and blacks. African Americans were treated inferiorly and with no respect. World War I erupted in 1914, sending millions of soldiers from America to Europe. African Americans were sent along side Caucasians to fight in World War I due to there not being enough white soldiers in the military. Many African Americans felt as if they needed to prove their loyalty, respect and earn equality in America by battling in this war. African American soldiers being sent to the war wanted to prove their worthy of citizenship to America. WWI allowed a unique and significant opportunity for African Americans.
During World War One, the role of airplanes and how they were used changed greatly. At first planes were only used for sport, but people started realize that not only could airplanes be useful but they could even influence an outcome of the war greatly. Soon the war was filled with blimps, planes, and tethered balloons. By the end of the war, planes became a symbol of fear, but they were not always treated with such respect. In the time leading up to the war, the general feeling about planes was, they were a sneaky, unfair tactic that should not be used in warfare.
In the History of the world, human race, there have been many wars between different societies, Cultures, and Countries. Massive blood shed in many of these wars did not stop the coming of new conflicts of interest, peaking to battle. World War Two, one of the biggest war of history brought several countries to battle against each other (1939-1945). The catalyst of this war was one man whom discriminated against other cultures for no reason but to exterminate the Jewish race, known as Adolf Hitler.
Many historical events took place in the 20th century that will be remembered forever, but the one occurrence that everyone knows of and will forever be remembered was World War Two. World War Two, the greatest tragedy that has ever happened on the face of the earth, the genocide of Jewish people, a complete nightmare. When people think of WW2, many of the time the image of “those poor Jewish people” comes to mind. Many ask themselves how this could have happened. It just doesn’t make sense to them. Did people around the world at the time of WW2 have these kinds of deliberations? If they did have this kind of reflection then how did six million people perish? During the time leading up to the outbreak of World War II, the Western Press consistently carried numerous reports of the German's anti-Jewish policies and their purposeful victimization of the Jews living in Nazi Germany as well as the annexed territories. The general public cannot claim that they did not know what was going on, that they were uninformed. Whether or not they chose to believe it however, is a completely different story. The public were indeed outraged in many of the cases but the governments of the major European democracies felt that it was not for them to intervene for they felt that the Jewish problem classified as an internal affair within a sovereign state. The attempt to discover what exactly the people around the world did to save the Jewish race is not going to be an easy task but it is going to be a worthwhile one which should uncover a lot of unknown facts to many people.
World War 1 World War 1 was called “The Great War”, “The war to end all wars”, and “The first modern war”. It has many causes and a few repercussions and I will describe them in detail. The most widely known reason for the start of World War 1 was the assassination of the Arch Duke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in the Serbian capital of Sarajevo. The ArchDuke was there to talk to the Serbian leaders about peace on the Balkan Peninsula. After a Serbian was arrested for the assassination, Austria-Hungary pulled out of the peace talks and declared war on Serbia.