We explain the main battles of the First World War, their characteristics and results, as well as their protagonists.
Trench warfare was a characteristic feature of the First World War.
What was World War I?
World War I was an international conflict that occurred mainly in Europe and it took place over four years, between 1914 and 1918The opposing sides were the Central Powers (led by Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) and the Entente or Allies (France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy and the United States).
The war began shortly after the assassination in June 1914 of Archduchy Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and initially took the form of a war of movement driven by the German advance into France through Belgium. When the German advance was halted on the Western Front, the conflict became primarily a trench war.. Ultimately, the Entente was victorious.
The battles of the First World War introduced some technical and technological innovations.largely due to the development of the Second Industrial Revolution, such as the military use of tanks, planes and submarines or the use of toxic gasesThe total number of fatalities was immense: almost nine million combatants and seven million civilians. In addition, twenty million people were wounded and maimed.
The Battle of Tannenberg (1914)
A few days after the war began in August 1914, as the Germans advanced on the Western Front, Russian General Aleksandr Samsonov attacked East Prussia.
Initial Russian successes prompted German leaders to replace General Maximilian von Prittwitz and send Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff to meet the Russian invasion. By 28 August the Germans had encircled Samsonov’s army.
The battle ended on August 30. The Russian disaster was total: Of 150,000 soldiers, only 10,000 escaped unharmed. The Germans took more than 92,000 prisoners and about thirty thousand were killed. Samsonov, overwhelmed by the defeat, committed suicide.
The Battle of the Marne (1914)
Following the initial successes of the German attack on France through Belgium, The French government fled to Bordeaux and more than 500,000 Parisians left the city, which seemed on the verge of being taken by German troops.
General Joseph Joffre managed to reorganize the French troops and the small British expeditionary force, and on September 6, 1914 He led a counteroffensive along the Marne River that forced the Germans to retreat..
The battle ended on 10 September and German troops continued to retreat over the following days. The human cost was over 200,000 casualties for the French army and a similar number for the Germans.
The Allied victory at the Marne had halted the German attack.The Western Front then remained stable for almost four years. All attempts to break through the front resulted in huge losses of life and only small advances of a few kilometres were achieved.
The Battle of Gallipoli (1915-1916)
At the suggestion of Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, The British devised the Dardanelles campaign. They planned to attack the Ottoman Empirethe Central Powers’ supposedly weakest ally, to distract attention from the Western Front and relieve pressure on the Russians in the Caucasus.
The campaign began with an attack on the Dardanelles in February 1915 and continued with a landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in April. However, After several months, it ended in complete failure for the Entente..
The British, Australians and New Zealanders who participated in the campaign suffered almost a quarter of a million casualties, with almost fifty thousand dead. The French had almost fifty thousand casualties, with five thousand dead. For the Turks, the campaign left a toll of twenty-five hundred thousand casualties, with more than sixty thousand dead.
The Battle of Verdun (1916)
The Battle of Verdun lasted more than nine months and left a high death toll.
On February 21, 1916, German soldiers put into practice the tactic of “war of attrition” devised by General Erich von Falkenhayn and They attacked the fortified city of Verdun. The idea was to concentrate a huge army at Verdun, force the French army to gather all its troops there to defend itself and inflict massive casualties until it was defeated.
After months of fierce fighting, The French resistance, led by Philippe Pétain, prevented the German attack from making significant progress.Pétain had established a system of troop rotation and supplies to reduce the number of French casualties.
The Battle of Verdun ended in a sort of draw on December 18, 1916. It was the longest and one of the most devastating battles of the First World War..
The French managed to halt the German offensive at a cost of over half a million casualties. The Germans mobilized one million soldiers and suffered around 450,000 casualties. It is estimated that Around three hundred thousand men lost their lives at Verdun.
Trench warfare
The mobile warfare of the first months of the war, which saw the rapid advance of German troops and the general mobilization of troops, soon came to an end. Tons of grenades rained down on the masses of infantry and cavalry, and thousands of bursts of machine gun fire decimated the ranks.
After the Battle of the Marne, in which the French managed to stop the German advance, The armies had to hide and dig trench systems increasingly complex to survive enemy fire. From the North Sea to Switzerland, Thousands of kilometers of trenches faced millions of men on the Western FrontCovered in mud and infested with rats, the trenches became the soldiers’ homes.
The repeated attempts by the military to break through the front led to real massacres, such as those that took place during the battles of Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele. The industrial powers strove to find new weapons that would allow the front to be broken through: the Germans began chemical warfare in 1915 and the British in 1917 the massive use of tanks, while aviation began to be used systematically as a weapon of war.
Chemical warfare
The military use of toxic gases made the use of gas masks necessary.
The use of toxic substances in war had been banned by the Hague Conference in 1899. However, when the fronts of the First World War stabilised, the Germans, who had a highly developed chemical industry, They thought of this type of weapons as a solution to end trench warfare..
At five o’clock in the afternoon on April 22, 1915, on the Ypres front in Belgium, German troops took advantage of the favorable wind, opened bottles of chlorine and a toxic cloud headed towards the French lines.. The surprise and panic were total. After successive attacks, the Germans managed to advance sixteen kilometres in a few days.
The chemical and armament industries of both sides began producing new gases (phosgene, xylene bromide, arsenic, hydrocyanic acid, mustard gas). The repertoire of toxic substances was expanded.
Gases were first released in artillery shells to prevent troops from being suffocated by sudden wind changes. Armies developed defence and alarm systems. The soldiers had to provide themselves with gas masks..
The Battle of the Somme (1916)
Following the offensive of German General Erich von Falkenhayn at Verdun, the previously planned Franco-British attack became a major maneuver to relieve the position of the fortified city of Verdun.
On the first day of the attack, July 1, 1916, The British Army suffered 58,000 casualtiesincluding almost 20,000 dead. It was the worst massacre suffered by this army in its entire history.
After several months of fighting, The first snowfalls in November precipitated the end of the offensiveIn exchange for mere advances of no more than 12 kilometres, the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000 and the Germans around half a million.
The naval battle of Jutland (1916)
Faced with British naval superiority, the German fleet avoided combat for a long time and remained in its ports, subject to the British blockade. However, the rise to command of the fleet of Admiral Reinhard Scheer, more aggressive than his predecessor, led to the German fleet entering the North Sea for the first time.
The Battle of Jutland, off the coast of Denmark, lasted two days.on May 31 and June 1, 1916. Technically there was no winnerThe British lost 14 ships, with 6,100 dead, and the Germans lost 11 ships, with 2,500 dead.
Despite the relatively favorable outcome for Germany, The German fleet never challenged the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet again. for the rest of the conflict, thus allowing the Germans to continue to dominate the North Sea. From then on, the Germans placed all their hopes in submarine warfare.
Unrestricted submarine warfare (1917)
The Germans promoted submarine warfare in response to the British naval blockade.
When the conflict began, submarines had not yet been used as weapons of war. British superiority at sea forced the German fleet to try this new type of warfare.
The British naval blockade and its impact on the hunger of the German population caused Germany’s military commanders will rely on submarine warfare as the best means of retaliation. However, on May 7, 1915, A German submarine sank the British ocean liner RMS Lusitaniawhich killed 1,200 crew and passengers, including 128 American citizens. The US government, which was a neutral country at the time, protested strongly and the German chancellor chose to moderate the attacks.
The German military did not agree with the Chancellor’s moderation and called for unrestricted submarine warfare. Finally, On February 1, 1917, Germany declared total submarine warfare.The first few months were very damaging to ships bound for England and France, with around 540,000 tons sunk in February, almost 600,000 in March and 875,000 in April.
However, the end result was completely contrary to what the Germans had hoped for. From April onwards, the British organised convoy systems (some warships escorted merchant ships) and significantly reduced losses. In addition, The submarine war seriously damaged producers and exporters…