The Schlieffen Plan had failed in the West through key mistakes made by the Germans and the decisive reaction of the French army, that stopped the former in their tracks and managed to push them back from the gates of Paris. Most of the German war effort was now based in the Eastern Front against the forces of the Russian Empire. 1915 was also the year in which the WWI truly acquired its “world war” status, with the active participation of the Middle East and Africa and with more nations joining the war on both sides. Contrary to popular belief, the “ War of Movement” that dominated the battlefields of 1914 was even deadlier than the war in the trenches, with 1914 having the obscure honour of owning the highest rate of casualties in the war. In 1915, the war entered a new phase: Trench Warfare.
With many indecisive battles and great casualties, the German attempt for a breakthrough aimed to take Flanders and the Allied ports of the English Channel, culminated in the First Battle of Ypres, with both sides sustaining heavy losses, that ended in a stalemate. The French counterattack pushed the Germans back to the River Aisne, and then both armies tried to outflank and encircle each other in what was known as the “ Race of the Sea”. Naturally, the number of British soldiers stationed in France would rapidly increase. The French victory during the First Battle of the Marne proved decisive in stopping Germany’s furious advance and in giving the British time to properly prepare their BEF (British Expeditionary Force), since English soldiers fighting in France by 1914 was minimal, less than 100.000 men, in comparison to the 2 M French soldiers and 1.7 M Germans. The French, despite their greater numbers, seemed helpless to stop the German onslaught, who had lunged deep into French territory and was now threatening Paris itself.įrench soldiers in the First Battle of the Marne The Germans didn’t waste time and quickly advanced into Luxembourg, Belgium and France in August 1914, putting in motion the Schlieffen Plan that sought for the rapid destruction of British and French forces on the West before turning against the Russian juggernaut to the East. France, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, Belgium, Montenegro and Serbia on the “ Entente”, and the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire on the “ Central Powers” (More countries would join either side in later years). The complex cobweb of political alliances between nations provoked a huge, fast and unprecedented escalation, with two opposed alliances being formed.
1914: The Schlieffen Plan and the War of Movement.Īfter the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was also the presumptive heir of the Imperial crown, by the hand of a Serbian nationalist, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia. To understand the sheer amount of death and destruction that devastated Verdun an abridged explanation of the evolution of the war from 1914 to February 1916 is in order.
1ST BATTLE OF VERDUN FULL
This town, of only 22.000 inhabitants, was about to witness first hand the full power and devastation of the war in a battle that ended up being one of the deadliest and longest battles of the warįrom bayonet charges to phosgene gas and from artillery barrages to flamethrowers, the Battle of Verdun became a symbol of French resistance against the German war machine and an icon for the unprecedented destruction, implementation of new technologies and battle doctrines and the birth of a new type of warfare.
The 21st of February, 1916, marks the date in which one of the greatest battles of World War I commenced in the French city of Verdun.
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