Transcript The First World War: 1914 - 1918

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The Head of chiefs, Von Schlieffen, realised that Germany had to
fight on two fronts if she went to war with Allies
Russian country was large, poorly organised and slow to mobilise
He didn’t expect the British to join in, they had signed an
aggression pact with Belgium, Kaiser called it, ‘A scrap of
paper’ and wouldn’t oblige
The German left army would keep the main French army
occupied
He planned a outflanking manoeuvre, the right part of the
German army would swing through Belgium and attack Frances
weakly defended Belgium-French boarder
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France had been obliged not to build forts along their boarder with
Belgium as she was an ally, it would be seen as an act of aggression
The right arm would then swing around and down surrounding
Paris, cutting it off from the rest of France
 They would then attack, from behind, the German-French
boarder to relieve the left part of the German
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Von Schlieffen died meaning that the plan changed
The head of chiefs that replaced him preferred a more bolder frontal
attack, this weekend the outflanking army
Belgium refused access through her lands, the Germans invaded, this
lead to Britain declaring war on Germany
The Belgium's put up more resistance than expected, advance held up,
giving Briton the time she needed to send the BEF over
Russia quicker than expected to mobilise and invaded Germany within
a week, 100,000 Germans had to be moved to the Russian front
They sent over the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) roughly 160,000 men
strong, Kaiser called it ‘A contemptible little army’
The German right army turned in before Paris leaving their flank exposed
to the BEF and French 6th and 7th army, the German army was 30 km
from Paris but exhausted
The counter-attack at Marne meant that the offensive ground to a halt,
this is known as a stalemate
Both sides settled down for trench warfare hardly moving more that a
couple of miles until November 1917
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The BEF was, the British Expeditionary Force, sent over to France to aid
her against Germany
It was only 160,000 men strong, this was small compared to the 6.5
million strong invading German army
The BEF was deployed on France’s left flank to fight the outflanking
German army
The BEF made first contact at the river Mons, the BEF did manage to halt
the Germans
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Eventually the Germans overwhelmed them with sheer numbers as they out numbered
the British
The British retreated to Marne where half the army stood and fought to
give the other half a chance of escape, the other half eventually pulled
back
30 km before Paris the German army, thinking that they had gone past
the French capital, turned in exposing their flank
The French 6th and 7th armies with the BEF alongside, counter-attacked
at Marne where the German army was pushed back to the river Mons
where both side dug in for the precursor to Trench Warfare
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The Germans had expected Belgium to allow them
through their lands as Germany was 6 times the size
and had a10 times bigger army than her
The Belgium refused and fought the Germans
invading
They had two strong forts in the north west of Belgium
that would have to be destroyed with heavy siege
artillery
 That meant that the German army was again split on two
fronts
 Further weakening the attacking right flank
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The two forts were bombarded for 10 days before
they surrendered to the Germans
The Belgium Government went into exile in Briton
where they organised Belgium resistance
 Allies counter-attacked on September 1914
 At the battle of Marne the BEF and French 6th and
7th armies pushed back the German army to the
river Mons
 The Germans were pushed back to their staring
positions one week earlier
 The German army held the British back and dug in
 Both sides now raced to outflank the other in a
desperate race
 It was called ‘The Race To The Sea’
 Both sides dug in forming a network of trenches that run
all the way from the Belgian coast to the Swiss Alps
› Both sides settled down for winter as they knew it wouldn’t end
before Christmas
› The Schlieffen plan had failed and Germany was now fighting on
two fronts, France/Russia
› The head of chiefs committed suicide as communications were
slow
› British and French barrages often destroyed the telephone wires
to HQ
› The German army was exhausted and in no state able to attack
› The Head of chiefs was replaced
 He ordered the German army to dig in deep and prepare for a war of
attrition
 A trench is when soldiers dig into the ground and reinforce it with wood, sand
bags and corrugated iron
 Both sides were using the machine gun which was a brilliant defensive
weapon, it could kill 100 men and fight off an attack
 Because the German supply lines were overstretched, German soldiers didn’t
receive their winter clothing, more died of frostbite than of fighting that winter
of 1914
 The trenches were dug in a dog tooth style to reduce
the effect of artillery [¬]_[¬]_[¬]_[¬]_[¬]
 There would be about 5 lines of barbed wire
 Sand bags would line the top along the entire trench
 There would be a firing step where a lookout would look
from, or when attacking fire from
 Either corrugated iron or wood would reinforce the walls
to stop it collapsing
 These trench systems would stretch for miles and miles
 There was a fighting trench, support trench and a
reserve trench
 The fighting trench saw most of the action
 The support trench would act as a second line of defence should
the enemy break through
 The reserve trench was where HQ was and where the artillery was
placed , only having a skeleton crew to man the trench
 These were all connected by communication trenches
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f
fighting trench
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c
communication trenches
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s
support trench
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c
communication trenches
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r
reserve trench
 There was a stand to at 4-6 am, this was when the enemy was most likely to
attack
 One officer would stay on duty for the next two hours before swapping
with another officer, there was 6 officers taking 2 hour shifts
 The soldiers would have breakfast after the stand to
 Would sit around in their trenches, playing card games, killing lice and rats,
and waiting
 Trench warfare was mostly a waiting game, after a while the morale of the
troops would wear thin, causing some to fake illness or desertion
 From 6-8 there was another stand to before the night shift began for the
officers
 The soldiers would retire to their bunks, cleaning their weapons after a day
soaked in mud and rain
 Trench foot was rife among the soldiers, as every day they would walk
through muddy water that had built up in the trenches
 Lice was another uninvited guest in the trench, they were a constant
problem, the soldier resorted to frying, then eating them as there was
hardly any meat which was rare to eat
› Artillery
 Heavy artillery meant that soldiers out in the open were
likely to be killed
 These were guns that could fire an explosive shell at the
enemy for great distances
 The shell was mainly used to soften enemy trenches,
create holes in barb wire and damage fortresses
› Machine guns
 these were good defensive weapons
 Two of them could stop an entire attack of over 300
hundred men
 It could fire 8 bullets a second, 480 a minute
 These news weapons were cheap to produce and
replace and cut down on the need for manpower
› Over the top
 This is the most common method used in WW1
 There would be a 1-7 day bombardment of enemy
trenches
 This meant that the enemy knew there was going to be
an attack, it was a big alarm bell
 Once the bombardment had stopped, ¾ of the
men in the trenches would run over no-mans-land
and try to overrun the enemy trench
 This method caused many casualties without much
success
 The battle of the Somme is a good example, 41,000 British
servicemen lost their lives on the first day of conflict
 Gas, tanks, artillery barrages
› Both sides ():
 Had large and evenly balanced armies
 Had modern transport, trains, trucks
 Had heavy industry  modern weapons
 Had mainly defensive weapons
 Couldn’t be used on the offensive
 Generals on () at loss to new form of warfare
 Expected war of movement (cavalry)
 Needed develope new tactics  break stalemate
Turkey joined the triple alliance
 She declared war on the triple entente
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 Invaded British held territory in north Africa
 Invaded Southern Russia opening second front
› Reasons for Gallipoli
 Constantinople, Turkish capital, was accessible by
sea
 The allies planned to occupy the capital, force
turkey to surrender and aid the Russians
 Open up another front and attack Austro-Hungary
 The French and British sent an invasion force up the
red sea to invade Constantinople
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The French-English, 18th march 1915, sent a
fleet up Dardanelles
To destroy the Turkish forts on either side of the
river
There was an expeditionary force being sent to
attack Constantinople week later
The Turkish had heavily mined the channel 10
days before, the French lost 4 cruisers
None of the forts were destroyed
The operation was a complete disaster
This gave the Turkish forces a massive morale
boost in the area
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25th April 1915, British Imperial and French forces land
on the Gallipoli peninsular
The aim:
 To knock Turkey out of the war
 To give allied forces control of Dardanelles
 Open a year round supply line to Russia
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What happened
 They landed at cape hells
 Soldiers from Austrailia landed at Anzac coast
 Land both sides to prevent retreat and rienforcements
from Turkey
 Landed further north than planned
 Raced for high ground, Turkish win
 British forces pushed back to landings
 Turkish victory, demoralised the British troops
› The British had been fought to stand still by the
defending Turkish army
› Both sides dug trenches that were hastily built
and offered little or no protection
› `When there was thunderstorm on the 6th of july
that lasted 3 days
 Trenches were flooded, drowning the men
 Corpses off no-mans-land now came into the
trench poisoning the water
 Both sides suffered many losses after each battle,
the allies eventually were forced to retreat
 As Bulgaria had entered the war on the central
powers side
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Channel too heavily mined for ships to pass
through, lose 4 cruisers 6 troop transports
Landed at Gallipoli instead, closest that
they can get to Constantinople
Stalemate with Turkish troops
Turkish push back the battle weary troops
Mass evacuation
Total disaster as it give confidence boost to
Turkish forces in north Africa
4 months of campaigning, little gained
 Krithia main capture target, unachieved,
heavy losses, trench warfare
 New landing Suvla Bay
 Sending troops to seize heights to over
look Hells bay
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 To force Turkish retreat, splitting of forces
 But the commander held his troops on the
beach giving Turkish time to prepare trenches
 The British were pushed back
› Germany was attacking Verdun as they saw
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that it was a symbol of French resistance
The Germans intended to bleed France dry
BEF and French 4th and 5th army ordered to
attack Somme to relieve the pressure at Verdun
The French knew if they lost Verdun that they
would probably lose the war
The army was close to mutinying because of
recent defeats and trench warfare
The allies hastily planned the invasion of the
some and didn’t plan for many failures
› The bombardment lasted two whole days
 It was one of the most veracious bombardments of
the whole war
 British commanders and officers boosted how they
would walk into the trenches after the bombardment
› Bombardment failure
 The bombardment failed to create holes in the
German barbed wire
 Had failed to destroy and kill the German soldiers and
positions
 20,000 British service men died on the first day of
combat
 450,000 would be the total figure of dead after the
attack was called off
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The failure of the artillery bombardment highlighted the
weaknesses of barrages
 No amount of shells could kill a German soldier dug deep into the
ground
 A different weapon would have to be invented to break the
deadlock
 The amount of losses was devastating and massively brought BEF
morale to an all time low
 Press censorship was at a loss, they showed clips of the
devastation back on the home front
 The propaganda branch turned this disaster to their advantage at
saying how evil and menacing the German soldiers were
 How they could thousands of men and not even bat an eyelid
 How these vermin needed to be rid of from this world
 This encouraged more people to help out with the war
Passchendaele or otherwise know as the
battle of Ypres's is another example of
massive loss of life
 265,000 British servicemen lost their lives in
the space of, July – mid-November, 4
months
 The attack became quickly bogged
down with a gain of only 7 km
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› The invention of the Tank in 1915 and it’s use in 1917
was a massive new development on the battlefield
› The Mark I wasn’t successful
› the Mark V was very successful and lead the allied
counter-attack after the Ludendorff spring offensive
› Over the top was a successful failure
 Massive loss of life caused by over the top meant that
both nations avoided it later in the war
 When USA joined, they used tactics the British had used
in 1914 and refused to allow the British to teach them
the knew methods
 This caused more losses to USA than Briton in the last
year of the war
Sir Donald Douglas Haig was in charge of
the BEF
 He was the planner behind the somme
and Ypres's
 He was the face behind Britons
campaign for recruitment
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 The most famous one was ‘Your country needs
you’ and ‘Briton Needs you, don’t let her
down’
In the pre-war armament plan by the Germans, they built
up there fleet so that it could rival Briton’s
 They also invented the U-boat
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 An underwater vessel designed to sink ships from underneath the
waves with torpedoes
 The British public afraid of this new threat as they were an island
with her navy as her main army
 Requested 10 new dreadnoughts be built
 This greatly improved the power of the navy and morale of the
home front
 When war broke out the German navy did bombard some British
coastal towns, but they were sunk by British BB’s
 The British navy emplaced and long range blockade of German
ports, this starved Germany
 The German fleet tried to break the Blockade on the 8th may 1916
 The British lost 16 ships to Germany’s 11, but the German fleet fled
to port where they remained for the rest of the war
 The Germans would send squadrons of ships to
raid British coastal towns of supply routes
 The British countered this by decoding the
German communications and sending their
own squadrons against
 Most of the German raids were successful as
the British ships would turn up to late or be
overpowered by the might of the heavy guns
 When the British was successful it would be
because of surprise or they had sent a BB
 The British intercepted a radio transmission from the Germans of
a big raid about to take place
 The British sent 3 squadrons and 1 force
 Against Germany’s 2 scouting groups and two flotillas of
torpedo boats (combined)
 The British found the German raiding fleet exactly where they
thought they would be
 The German fleet was surprised
 The admiral in charge ordered a organised withdrawal
 The British ships were faster than the Germans and soon they
engaged fire
 The rear German cruiser was disabled and slowed to a stop
 The British capital ship was badly damaged, after a signal mix
up the British fleet broke off the attack and attacked the
disabled German cruiser
 This gave the rest of the German fleet time to escape to port,
they had taken some heavy damage that took many months
to repair
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Germans lanched ¾ of thier fleet in an attempt
the lift the blockade
Briton lanched her entire navy (homeland
defence fleet) to counter the German threat
The commanding officer of the German fleet
engaged the British fleet
The German Commanding officer called off
the attack as he feared that the British main
fleet was lying in wait in a trap
The Germans lost 11 ships to the British 16, both
fleets retreated back to port where they
remained for the rest of the war
› The u-boats were becoming an increasing
threat to Britain’s merchant fleet
› which was starting to decline as metal was in
short supply, all metal was put into planes
› The U-boats had declared unrestricted
warfare
 Any boat suspected of taking supplies to Briton
was sunk
› At one point in the war it was said that Briton
only had 6 weeks supply left
› In 1916 the American cruise liner Luistania was sunk
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by a German U-boat
Although USA didn’t declare war, Germany
cancelled unrestricted warfare
In return USA didn’t declare ware on Germany
To counter the threat of U-boats, Winston Churchill
lord of the admiralty, introduced convoy systems
Convoy
 Merchant ships would travel together in groups
 These convoys would be protected by escort vessels
 The escort vessels were equipped with the latest anti uboat equipment, sonar, hydrophone and depth
charges
› Germany was negotiating with Mexico to
declare war on USA
› The UK found out and made sure Woodrow
Wilson was notified
› USA declared war in 1917 and sent over
1,000,000 men until wars end
 The resent hostilities shown by Germany
through Mexico gave USA reason to declare
war on Germany
› Ludendorff and Hindenburg realised with the US
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entry, Germany would be outnumbered
With Russia Defeated, 1 million men were
transferred to the eastern front where they were
used in the spring offensive
Or otherwise known as the Ludendorff Offensive,
this was Germany’s last gamble
The Bombardment started in spring with more
that 100,000 cannons firing along 118 miles of
frontline
This was the most ferocious barrage of the entire
war
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After the German spring offensive the Allies counter
attacked in November
They broke through the German lines and
continuously attacked only stopping to eat and sleep
The Germans were pushed all the back to Mons
The Ludendorff line was captured which the Germans
thought to be impregnable
Although the german army was still in captured
French and Belgium terriotory the Government
opened peace terms with the allies
The Kaiser had fled to sweden where he lived for the
rest of his life
The soldiers and workers at Wilhelm went
on strike refusing to take orders
 Many other revolutions occurred and the
army refused to suppress
 The Kaiser fled to Sweden and the
democrats took over
 They negotiated peace with the allies
hoping to gain an advantageous point
in the treaty
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The German economy was crippled
The German army was on the verge of defeat
Austro-Hungary and Turkey had surrendered
The British blockade was causing starvation in
Germany
Poverty was gripping Germany as she had
spent all her reserves of gold on the war
Germany had agreed a ceasefire with the
allies
The Allies threatened that if Germany did not
accept the peace treaty then they would
open fire and continue the attack