The Stalemate of World War 1

As a Historian, I'm often asked by people why World War 1 continued through years of stalemate.  Why, when the war bogged down into the trenches, and hundreds of thousands were being killed and wounded every month, did the governments of the nations continue to fight?  

(The spent shells of an Artillery Battery.  This is from approximately a days worth of firing)

There is no easy answer to that question.  Every nation had different reasons for fighting the war.  The Germans became involved in the war because of their alliance with Austria-Hungary.  The British became involved due to the German invasion of Belgium.  These two nations had no direct reason to go to war with one another, but they ended up being two of the core belligerents.  

For the Germans, the war was seen as a way to establish itself as the dominant power in Europe.  The German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, very passionately argued for war.  As the war progressed, it became less about dominance and more about simply salvaging the war, and making it all seem worthwhile.  Top German generals took over control of Germany, and fought the remainder of the war to save face.

(The Kaiser was essentially powerless after 1916.)

The United Kingdom started the war to fight against German aggression.  The invasion of Belgium gave the U.K. a Casus belli, and they went to war expecting a short, sharp war.  What they got instead was 4 years of bloody struggle and 800,000 dead.  It was rationalized to the public as a war to defend liberty and freedom. 

France entered the war to honor a treaty it had signed with Russia.  This treaty guaranteed that if Germany declared war on Russia, France would attack Germany.  When the German army proved almost unbeatable in the early days of the war, France lost a massive proportion of its industrial capacity, and massive swaths of territory.  Knowing that if they simply surrendered or tried to broker peace they would suffer a national disgrace, they continued to fight on and on.  

(the typical uniform of a French soldier in World War 1)

So while there was no singular reason as to why the war was fought for 4 years, the definite trend seems to be national pride, and saving face.  When these nations started a horrific conflict, they needed to be able to rationalize it to their people, who often times could only see the terrible loses they were suffering, and not the grand strategic aims of the generals.  

In the Air

When the Wright Brothers first flew over Kitty Hawk, they couldn't have imagined how far the airplane would come in the past 100 years.  In the 11 years moving forward, the airplane had yet to be embraced in any large scale capacity yet.  Planes were not yet large enough to carry more than a few people, and in terms of cargo they were not a cost effective way to move goods.  When the war broke out, few countries had organized air-forces, and even fewer had any idea of what to do with the crazy, dangerous flying contraptions?


Initially, they were used as scouts.  They would fly over enemy trenches and take pictures, and count enemy troops.  While they were flying over, enemy troops would fire on them with their machine guns.  Though these guns were not designed to shoot into the air, the airplanes early in the war were not fast, and could easily be shot down by these guns.  To escape this danger, faster and more powerful planes were built.  With these larger engines, they could carry more than just a single man.

Planes that could carry the weight were fitted with machine guns, and directed to shoot down the enemy observer planes.  These planes eventually came to be called Fighters.   Other, larger planes were fitted with more than 1 engine, and could carry massive payloads of explosives.  These planes were called bombers.  As the war progressed, these planes become more and more specialized.  They grew larger, faster, and more deadly.  

(An F-22 Raptor, the most advanced military aircraft in the world today.  IT is the end of the evolutionary line begun in World War 1)

Announcing!

I've got a Youtube Channel!  I'm creating this channel to showcase specific parts of the war that I feel  benefit from a more visual presentation.  I want my blog to be an educational tool for anyone who wants to learn more about the war, and I feel like this is a great way to help that goal along!

I hope to have my first video up by the end of next week, and to be as consistent as I can after that.  I've gotten a lot of good feedback from people, and I feel like this is a way to take my blog and all of the media associated with it to the next level.  I hope you'll check it out!

https://www.youtube.com

and while we're at it, don't forget my twitter page!

https://twitter.com/100yearghost

Last of The Cavalry Charges, October 31st, 1917.

Cavalry is defined as soldiers who go into battle mounted on horses.   Using bows and arrows, swords, or eventually even guns, Cavalry were intended to attack infantry and break up strong groupings of troops.  Using the power of a horse, a group of cavalry could break up the most concentrated army, and scatter them.


Cavalry have been present throughout much of the recorded history of warfare.  From Egypt to Rome, Rome to the Renaissance, Cavalry were a vital part of any army.


With the introduction of guns though, the supremacy of Cavalry was disrupted.  Guns allowed infantry to defeat Cavalry at a distance, completely negating the shock value of a charge.  By the time of the Revolutionary War, Cavalry only came into use to chase away defeated enemy armies, and keep them from reforming.   While important, they were no longer the mainstay of an army.


World War 1 saw most industrialized nations still having large squadrons of Cavalry present in there armies.  The idea of the Infantry defeating an army, and having the cavalry sweep away the survivors persisted in the minds of most generals.  The brutal realities of war shattered this idealistic picture.  Machine guns and artillery killed most Cavalrymen before they could be anywhere the front, and horses suffered greatly during this time.  By 1916, most Cavalry squadrons had either been turned into supply train units, or re-deployed using a newer, more modern mode of transportation.  We'll get to that later however.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hhivcs4xg
(This video shows what the Belgian Military went through during the war, and specific mention is payed to the Cavalry.


This is not to say, however that cavalry were not used to some advantage.  In 1917, in Palestine, the English would execute what would be the last large scale Cavalry action in history.

The Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Palestine had been created in Egypt by the British to fight the Ottoman Empire.  Commanded by Edmund Allenby, they met the Ottomans just outside the town of Beersheba.


The town had been surrounded by the EEF, and was being attacked from all sides.  The Ottomans were putting up an effective defense of the town, but due to the constant attacks, a gap soon appeared in their lines.  The Cavalry were ordered into that gap.  Jumping trenches, dodging machine gun fire and shelling, they charged into the heart of the town, and were able to take control.  The Ottoman army was routed, and Cavalry had won the day.


As a closing note, the final Cavalry charge of the War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJUzPatn0eE

Castles of The Sea: An Introduction to Battleships

A quiet morning on the coast of Northern Germany.  Near the city of Kiel, it's May 31st.  You walk on the beach, too old to join the war going on in France.  As you stroll the quiet beach, you look towards the harbor and see a warship leaving, under a column of black smoke.  As you gaze, dozens more follow it out, massive and foreboding.  Ships coming steaming out of the harbor in an unending line, heading over the horizon and disappearing into the cold, brutal North Sea.

(Germany had built the 2nd strongest Navy in the world in the years preceding, the heart of which was called the "High Sea's Fleet")

A similar scene would have played out a few hours later in Scotland, home to the Britsh Grand Fleet. These fleets had been built to fight one another, and today was the day that the theorized battle would take place.  The Battle of Jutland would become the largest naval battle of it's time, with almost 250 ships taking part on either side.  

(The British Grand Fleet)

These ships were the result of an Arms race that had been raging between the UK and Germany for the better part of two decades.  The UK had control of the sea, and Germany wanted it.  

The battleships of World War 1 were direct descendants of the old, sailing ships of old.  Variously called "Dreadnoughts", "Battlewagons", or "Ships of the Line" these massive steel ships were the most expensive and powerful things afloat.  They carried massive guns that could fire explosive shells as far out as 10 miles.  

They were symbols of national pride, and the United Kingdom reigned supreme, with 28 battleships.    Millions of pounds were spent constructing these ships, and the trade that sustained the U.K. flowed behind these steel walls.  These ships were enormously expensive, beautiful to look at, and in the end completely ineffective.  

(The British Flagship, HMS Iron Duke)

They could be brought down by ships less than half their size, and were so valuable to their home nations they were almost never risked in open battle.  A single torpedo could sink a battleship, fired from a submarine or a small boat.  

That great battle that we talked about in the beginning?  The Battle of Jutland was completely indecisive.  As soon as each side realized they were heading straight into the middle of the entirety of the enemy fleet, they attempted to retreat, rather than risk losing their ships.  The Germany Navy would remained trapped in Harbor for the rest of the War, and the prestige of the battleship took a serious blow.  

The Trenches

World War One was not a war of movement.  Machine guns and barbed wire stopped even the most herculien effort to attack the enemy.  Charging machine guns was suicidal in the best circumstances, and as countless battles proved, completely ineffective.  Troops could no longer stand and fight on open ground.

With no way to move forward without being shredded by the enemy, and obviously unwilling to retreat, troops began to dig foxholes. These were lengthened and deepened, and eventually developed into a ditch that numerous men could lay in.  As the war dragged on, eventually they became so deep and permanent that they were called trenches, and soldiers spent almost all there time in one.

So how was this war going to be fought?  If soldiers spent all there time in a trench, how did they fight?  The answer lies in the 100 or so yards between trenches.  This area was known as No-Mans land, because no man could survive there.  It was pitted with craters from high-explosives, and laced with barbed wire. 

(This Photograph shows a fairly normal system of trenches.  The trenches in the top left are British, and the trenches to the right are German.  The space in-between is No-Mans Land.)

Soldiers were ordered "over the top" into No-Mans land to attempt to take over enemy trenches.  Going over the top meant that you were directly exposed to the other trench, and it's here that the terrible power of modern technology made itself felt.  

Machine guns, Poison gas, and barbed wire were all lethal weapons.  These weapons had never been used in war before, and their effects were unknown.  So to the Generals sitting many miles away from the front, who had been trained in methods that were written before these weapons existed, it seemed only logical to order frontal assaults on trenches. 

What were they trying to accomplish?  The Germans were trying to keep control of the large parts of France they had taken.  The British and French were trying to re-take their land.  For these reasons, the German trenches were built to be more permanent, and geared towards defense.  The Allied trenches tended to be simply dug out of the mud, and were not intended to be permanent.  

(A German trench on the Eastern Front.  Notice how much more coordination and planning went into it's construction, compared to the Allied trench above.)

So, to recap!  The Trenches were a product of the massive firepower of the machine gun.  No amount of soldiers could survive charging machine guns, so digging in was the only option for survival.  Because no side had developed any sort of ability to break through these defenses, the war stagnated.  

The War Begins

100 Years ago, Europe was a stick of dynamite in a match factory.  The elements for a massive, catastrophic war were all in place and constantly rubbing elbows, ready at an instant to strike out at each other.  The fact that World War I was preceded by one of the longest periods of relative peace in European history did nothing to moderate the violence.

To put things in perspective, the major political and military powers in Europe were standing toe to toe like massive boxers, weighing in for a fight.  In the middle of the continent were the Central Powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.  Germany had only recently become a unified nation, as well as Italy.  Austria-Hungary was a once proud empire that had fallen from grace, and was desperate to retain as much of its glory and poise as it could.

In the other corner of the ring, you had the Triple Entente powers of the United Kingdom, Imperial Russia, and Republican France.  These three nations had come together to limit the growth of a unified Germany.  The alliance was one that was tenuous at best, but with the massive land armies of the French and Russians, and the venerable Royal Navy commanding the world's oceans, they were not a power to be trifled with.

So what was the bell that rang in the war?  What match hit struck the fuse?  To quote Otto Von Bismarck, famous German state maker, it was "some damn, fool thing in the Balkans."  The Austria-Hungarians had annexed Bosnia Herzegovina, a former territory of Serbia.  When the Austrian Monarch to be visited the Serbian Capital of Sarajevo, he was assassinated.

(Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in the background, was shot and killed in Sarajevo, sparking World War I)

The powers of Europe fell like dominos into conflict.  Russia had an alliance with Serbia, so when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, the Russians joined into the conflict.  The Austrian alliance with Germany brought Germany into the conflict as well.  Not long after, the French also joined into the fray, due to their alliance with the Russians.  The British wavered in supporting their duties as a Triple Entente member, but Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium crystallized the British entry into the war.

Germany was faced by the two largest armies in the world to its east and west. The Russians, bear- like in their movements, were expected to take a long time to mobilize and call up their army.  The French were expected to be more ready for the fight and the swifter enemy.  The German plan called to defeat France quickly, so all attention could be turned to the Russian bear.  The Germans dashed through Belgium and the Netherlands and entered France.  The invasion reached the outskirts of Paris before it was stopped.  The war stagnated.  Instead of being thrown out of France, the Germans began digging a line of trenches, stretching across the entire border.  And so the war settled into a stalemate.