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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| BATTLES | |
| Battle of Tannenberg | |
| 23-30 August 1914 | |
| General: | |
| Easy win for Germany à encircles Russian 2nd army + forced retreat | |
| Russian army had little impact on German Army à led to greater offensives on France | |
| Russia: | |
| 150,000 – 191,000 men | |
| 30,000 – 78,000 casualties + 92,000 captured | |
| 1/3 soldiers had no rifle | |
| Undeveloped railway system | |
| 50% of soldiers had no boots | |
| Only 20% trained | |
| Germany: | |
| 150,000 – 160,000 men: 12,000 – 13,000 casualties | |
| 808,000 active soldiers 2-3 years formal military training | |
| 100% initial 3.5 mil soldiers at least 2yrs training | |
| Outcome: | |
| GERMAN VICTORY | |
| Battle of Mons | |
| August 23 | |
| General: | |
| First major battle for the British | |
| BEF fought bravely – but were outnumbered and forced to retreat | |
| Outcome: | |
| GERMAN VICTORY | |
| Battle of the Marne | |
| September 1914 | |
| General: | |
| Unexpected strong Belgium defence: Germany moves line of forces away from coast to meet French at Lorraine | |
| Allies fall back to Marne for counterattack à manages to withhold German advance “miracle on the Marne” | |
| Aim: | |
| German army capture Paris | |
| France: | |
| defends at Lorraine | |
| Britian in war due to treaty broken by Germany | |
| 1,082,000 men | |
| à263,000 casualties | |
| Germany: | |
| army invade through Belgium hooking around to encircle Paris | |
| triggers neutral treaty | |
| 900,000 men | |
| à 250,000 casualties | |
| Armies ‘dig in’ construct defensive trench system | |
| Barbed wire | |
| Machine gun post (defensive) | |
| Outcome: | |
| ALLIED VICTORY | |
| Had to fall back to the Marne River for a counter-offensive | |
| Won the counter offensive | |
| Led to ‘Race to the Sea’: to capture the channel | |
| First Battle of Ypres – Battle to the Sea | |
| 19-22 October 1914 | |
| General: | |
| By end of 1914 stalemate had been reached, both sides suffered losses | |
| 1,000,000 deaths in 10 weeks | |
| Beginning of Trench Warfare | |
| Trench system stretched from Swiss alps to English Channel | |
| Germany: | |
| charge North to the coast to capture ports to stop BEF (British Expeditionary Force) | |
| German deaths: 100,000 | |
| Allies: | |
| Franco-British forces moved to block German forces à armies race to outflank each other first to the sea | |
| British captures coastal ports securing the English Channel supply lines | |
| Britain deaths- 50,000 men | |
| Outcome: | |
| STALEMATE | |
| 1915 – stalemate solidifies à both side attempt to ‘Break the Stalemate’ | |
| Battle of Verdun | |
| (German Offensive) | |
| 21 February 1916 | |
| General: | |
| Verdun – 150 miles from Paris | |
| “The heart and soul of France was ripped out at Verdun”!!!!!!! | |
| Known as “The Meat Grinder” and “The Furnace” | |
| Germany: | |
| German problem “how to inflict heavy damage on the enemy at critical points at a relatively small cost to ourselves?” – General Enrich von Falkenhayn | |
| Aim: | |
| break the stalemate, crush French moral, inflict heavy losses | |
| “Bleed the French White” – General Erich von Falkenhayn | |
| Loss of blood turns body white – wear out the enemy | |
| Kill more French than they kill Germany | |
| Relentless waves of infantry à relentless artillery barrages (largest ever) | |
| 1200 artillery guns | |
| 40-60 mil shells (2 mil shells first day) | |
| Verdun – chosen as target to draw continuous defenders | |
| Casualties: | |
| 350,000 | |
| France: | |
| Verdun: Culturally and historically important to French à must defend | |
| Pre-1914 France prioritised ‘style’ over ‘substance’ | |
| Always be on the offensive à loss of thousands of lives quickly | |
| Changed to strategy of defence à commits to defending Verdun to the death – under General Phillipe Petain | |
| Casualties: | |
| 400,000 | |
| Evidence: | |
| “We had no communication with the rear for three days and nights because of the bombardment” | |
| soldier’s letter June 1916 | |
| “This is not war, it’s a massacre” | |
| soldier’s letter June 1916 | |
| “the shells are raining down everywhere” | |
| soldier’s letter July 1916 | |
| “One sees some who don’t have legs, others without any heads who have been left for several weeks on the ground…” | |
| soldiers’ letter July 1916 | |
| “It’s an unending Hell.” | |
| Soldiers letter June 1916 | |
| Outcome: | |
| France holds the city | |
| an enormous loss of life for both the French and German armies | |
| Battle of the Somme | |
| (British Offensive) | |
| July 1916 | |
| July 1916 | |
| Britain: | |
| France pleaded the British to launch offensive to reveal the French at Verdun | |
| Douglas Haig – launched attack at the Somme River | |
| Known as “The Donkey who led Lions” – ordered the brave soldiers on the front lines from the rear trenches far from the action | |
| Men from the same companies and sport team enlisted together à already bonded moral would better | |
| Tactic: | |
| “big push” à German line obliterated and fresh British soldiers would pour in and cut of German army | |
| Plan: | |
| 1st – 7th July bombardment of German trenches (24km front) | |
| 7th à 100,000 British men would advance and capture German trenches | |
| British men would “fan out” and cut off Germans + supply lines | |
| Failure: | |
| Shells mass produced by women in the Homefront à 50% of shells were duds (1/3 of shells fired were duds) | |
| German lines well-constructed à deep bunkers, concrete enforced, comfortable | |
| Bad leadership à General Haig didn’t change strategy after initial failure | |
| Ignorant and stubborn | |
| English aristocrat “weak mentality’ | |
| Not on front lines | |
| Troop inexperience à hadn’t seen battle, not prepared (2-3 months training) | |
| Casualties: | |
| Casualties on the first day à 2nd biggest loss of all time | |
| British: 57,470 | |
| German: 10,000 – 12,000 | |
| State of armies/home fronts by 1917 | |
| Germany: | |
| Strained resource supply due to British naval blockade (since 1914) | |
| Blockade led to widespread hunger à (Turnip Winter of 1916-17) | |
| Raw material shortage used in industrial and military production (total war) | |
| Germany intensified submarine warfare to break blockade (RMS Lusitania sunk) | |
| 1914: 20 U-boats à 1917 140 U-boats + destroyed 30% world’s merchant ships | |
| Britain: | |
| Steady resource supply due to empire | |
| Dependent on overseas food supplies à threatened by U-boat | |
| Heavy losses on western front à conscription introduced in 1916 | |
| Labour shortages and strike occurred on the Homefront | |
| France: | |
| Severely depleted resources à most of the war fought on French soil | |
| Moral severely low à mutinies in 1917 | |
| Occupation in industrial region (coal, mining) reduced output | |
| Relied heavily on British and American support | |
| Battle of Passchendaele | |
| (Allies Offensive) | |
| 31 July – 10 November 1917: | |
| Britain: | |
| General Haig used artillery despite heavy rain à artillery + rain = thick mud craters. | |
| Germany: | |
| In 1914, Germany had 20 U boats. By 1917 it has 140, 30% of the merchant ships. | |
| Aim: | |
| Aim: break through German lines capture ports: Ostend and Zeebrugge | |
| Help stop the German blockade on Britain (U-Boats sinking nearly 20% of British merchant fleets) | |
| Tactics: | |
| Large scale offensive à 10-day bombardment | |
| ‘Bite and Hold’ à 1500m bites (advancements) hold ground for reinforcements | |
| Conditions: | |
| Known for mud à “The endless rain competed with the guns – and the rain won” | |
| 70,000 men died in muddy wastes, 170,000 wounded | |
| Casualties: | |
| Total: 568,250 | |
| British: 300,000 | |
| French: 2,250 | |
| German: 260,000 | |
| Evidence: JW Palmer - Bombardier | |
| “It was mud, mud everywhere” | |
| “Every shell hole was a sea of filthy oozing mud” | |
| “See men keep on sinking into the slime, dying in the slime” | |
| “On the Somme [Haig] has sent the flower of British youth to death or mutilation; at Passchendaele he had tipped the survivors into the slough of despond” – John Keegan (English military historian) | |
| Outcome: | |
| 3 miles of territory gained | |
| Ports weren’t captured | |
| 4.25 mil shells used | |
| Heavy losses | |
| Problems for attacking: | |
| Concrete machine guns | |
| Extremely deep/ thick mud due to intense fighting | |
| 10m trenches | |
| Entanglement in barbed wire, aircraft | |
| Advanced machinery | |
| Review: weapons = stalemate | |
| Eastern front: | |
| Russia: | |
| 1/3 Russia had no rifle - training system was underdeveloped | |
| 50% of soldier has boots | |
| Only 20% of the Russian army was trained | |
| Germany: In 1914 this army had 808,000 active soldiers. | |
| 3.5 million men = trained - 2-3 years of military training | |
| Russia’s ineffectiveness of the eastern front: | |
| Russia’s defeat on the Eastern Front led to a further stalemate. | |
| Russian army = little impact on the German army leading to greater offensive on France. | |
| Spring Offensive | |
| Kaiserclact Spring Offensive Failure | |
| When & Where: | |
| Started March 21st 1918 in Northern France – on the western front | |
| Came within 70KM of Marne | |
| After Russia leaves but before USA enters fully | |
| Plan: | |
| Germans wanted to attack quickly and break the British and French lines before American soldiers arrived – Hoped allies ask for peace. | |
| How did they attack? | |
| Used special troops [Stormtroopers who moved fast and sneaked through weak spots in enemy lines | |
| Used a quick, heavy artillery attack to surprise enemy | |
| After Stormtroopers got through, regular soldiers followed | |
| What happened? | |
| The attack caught the British by surprise, and the Germans made big gains at first | |
| Why did it fail? | |
| Germans didn’t have clear plan about what to do after breaking the lines | |
| Their soldiers moved too fast and got TOO far ahead, no supplies could reach them | |
| Poor planning – Lack of clear objectives, Overestimation of stormtrooper effectiveness, underestimation of Allied troops | |
| Logistical changes – Supply – Inability to exploit initial success | |