In the next four years, millions died during a series of failed attempts to push the enemy from the relative safety of its disease and vermin-infested trenches. As a result, Germany was forced to fight a war on multiple fronts-the very thing the Schlieffen Plan was designed to prevent. The German failure was a result of underestimating Belgium and French resistance, assuming Britain would not send its army to defend France, and underestimating the speed of Russian mobilization. When both sides reached the English Channel, and with nowhere else to maneuver, a deadlock ensued. Behind the trenches was a vast network of miles of secondary trenches. In front of these networks lay a vast no-man’s-land where millions of rounds of ammunition and artillery shells killed every living thing. The race was a draw, and the Western Front was transformed into nearly five hundred miles of frontline trenches after neither side was able to outflank and get around the trenches the other was constructing. In what has been dubbed “The Race to the Sea,” both sides sought to maneuver their forces north before the other could counter. As a result, whichever side could maneuver around the other’s trenches would hold the upper hand. In an era before modern tanks and aircraft, neither side could overrun the other’s trenches with infantry and cavalry charges. Behind these trenches, the Germans rallied and were able to halt the British and French counterattack.Įach side attempted to go around the other’s trenches while rapidly constructing its own line of defensive fortifications, complete with artillery and machine-gun nests. The French stalled the German offensive at the Battle of the Marne and forced the Germans to fall back behind a line of defensive trenches forty miles east of the Marne River. In the next week, a million troops on each side clashed, dug defensive trenches, and attempted to outflank the other’s lines of defense. Both sides formed defensive trenches that neither were able to surmount, marking the transition to a war of attrition. By this time, French troops had been transferred from the southern border with Germany and mounted a fierce resistance in the Battle of the Marne A major turning point in World War I, British and French troops stopped the German offensive in a week of heavy fighting in early September 1914. In general, this action was a fighting retreat, and by September 5, the Germans had reached France’s Marne River. The French hoped to cross into Southern Germany while the German Schlieffen Plan was based on a quick offensive through Belgium and Northern France.īritain’s relatively small land army rushed to eastern France and joined the French in their defense against the German army. This map shows the French and German battle plans. Due to Belgian resistance and the redeployment of forces, Germany did not secure its hold on Belgium until August 20. The Russian defeat temporarily neutralized the threat to Germany in the east, although this success came at the cost of reducing the number of German forces in the west. At the Battle of Tannenberg in late August, Russian troops were surrounded, and over 70,000 were killed or wounded before the remaining 90,000 surrendered. The German high command placed General Paul von Hindenburg in charge of the defense of Germany’s Eastern Front and shifted some of the troops planned to participate in the invasion of France to the east. On the Eastern Front, Russian forces mobilized much faster than anticipated and threatened East Prussia. The resistance delayed the German advance and allowed France to begin redeploying its troops. They initially encountered much stronger resistance than they had expected, and some of the German commanders responded by ordering cities burned to the ground. Following the strategy laid out by the Schlieffen Plan, German troops entered Belgium on August 3, 1914. After prevailing over France, German commanders planned to transfer these troops to counter the threat posed by the Russian army in east. had been developed in advance by German military commanders and proposed a way to win a quick and limited war in France by attacking through Belgium rather than the well-defended border between Germany and France. However, most of Europe’s leading empires had multiple contingency plans for various offensive and defensive strategies. This plan was drafted long before World War I, a fact that has been cited as proof of German bellicosity. The Schlieffen Plan A strategic German offensive based on attacking France through Belgium rather than their shared border. The War in Europe and the Russian Revolution
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