I don’t know about their rifles, but the German Krupp artillery was vastly more modern than the French artillery, which had bronze barrels! The French had a brief advantage, but they outran their supply lines near Saarbrucken and were driven back pretty mercilessly after the full Prussian force arrived.
It was a stalemate due to many advantages being with the defender. Meaning the odds were stacked against the attacker.
There was little hope of surprise in WW1. In the past if a trench stalemate had happened, one side could have built up a large force and broke through the enemy’s lines. But in WW1 for the first time you had large scale use of recon aircraft, making it very difficult to secretly build up a large force.
Communications. Radios were huge unreliable things in WW1. That’s fine if you’re static on the defence, but makes moving them forward while on the attack very difficult. Also telephones, great for coordinating a defence, but harder taking them with you on the attack.
Artillery was extremely effective in WW1 exposed men. Shrapnel shells could shred troops out in the open with ease. But shrapnel shells are useless against a dug in enemy. Also, artillery was difficult to move during WW1.
Machineguns are a very effective weapon, but during WW1 they were large and heavy. That makes them difficult to bring along on the attack. The weight is less of a problem if you’re on the defence.
Also there was the widespread use of barbedwire and mines, both great for the defence.
All these defensive advantages made things very hard for the attacker. It took new technology and tactics to finally break the stalemate in 1918
One big issue was that the technology of the day made defense much stronger than offense. But due to the strategic factors neither side could afford to rest on its defense: the German economy would eventually collapse due to the blockade and French morale would eventually collapse due to the ongoing occupation of so much French territory. So both sides felt they had to keep going on the offense, even as the results were disaster after disaster.
Agreed. Artillery was actually probably counter-productive. Its results were marginal against the defending force but it alerted them where the attack was coming and it tore up the terrain and prevented any follow-through if the attack showed some success.
Look at the Brusilov Offensive. Russia was limited in its artillery and Brusilov’s plan wasn’t considered a major offensive so he was only given minimal artillery support. As a result, there was no preparatory bombardment of the Austrian lines before the attack. The result of this was the Russian offensive caught the Austrians by surprise and with no reinforcements in place. The Russians broke through the Austrian lines and were actually on the move.
But what happened? Moscow rewarded Brusilov for his unexpected success by sending him all the artillery resources it had denied him before. And with this artillery, Brusilov abandoned the tactics that had been successful and returned to the traditional mass artillery bombardments that weren’t working and his offensive ground to a halt.
The biggest result of the Brusilov Offensive was on the Germans who noticed its success and decided to intentionally begin using the tactics that the Russians had used by happenstance.
For that matter, they didn’t learn from the siege of Port Arthur or Mukden in the Russo-Japanese War. I read the cavalry article from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica recently, and it was pretty revealing. The article dismissed the experiences of the American Civil War as the result of poorly trained amateur armies, while the stalemates of the Russo-Japanese War were due to mountainous terrain making cavalry near useless. The author assured his audience that in the flatlands of Europe, cavalry would be able to carry out its Napoleonesque role of attacking flanks and retreating infantry. Therefore the stalemates of other wars could not happen in an European conflict.
Plus a lot of those bombardments were spread out instead of focusing on specific strong points. And even when the artillery fire was more concentrated at certain points of the field, it was almost always aimed at the trenches themselves. The railways and supply depots that helped funnel men and munitions to the defense often were barely touched. That’s one reason WW2 was a far more mobile conflict; air bombardment had reached the point where the supply routes were just as vulnerable as the front line soldiers.
It was stalemated because Canadians were being hampered by incompetent British leadership. Left to our own devices, we’d’a wrapped it up by 1916, tops.
I think improved radio communication was also a major factor in the difference between the two world wars. By WWII, it was possible to direct units on the battlefield during the battle. This meant that generals could direct large operations in real time.
The Prussian Krupp artillery certainly was greatly superior to the French artillery in 1870, but in rifles the French Chassepot needle gun was vastly superior to the German Dreyse needle gun, having over twice an effective range. The French also used the Mitrailleuse, a progenitor of the machine gun. When properly used the combination of the two could be devastating; for example at Gravelotte the French inflicted almost twice the casualties they received even though strategically it was a loss for them. The Prussian Guards Corps suffered 8,000 casualties out of a strength of 18,000 in this single day of battle.
“the machine gun is a much-overrated weapon…two per battalion is more than sufficient”.
With military thinking like that it is no wonder causalties were in the millions.
The Japanese didn’t learn anything from the Russo-Japanese war, and concluded that since they “won” the war with massed infantry attacks, massed infantry attacks were the way to go. Since they weren’t seriously involved in WW1, the Japanese entered WW2 with the world’s best naval and air forces and an army from 1900.
Another big problem for Japan was not understanding the concept of military development. They had one of the best navies and air forces in the world in 1940. Their problem was they essentially still had the same navy and air force in 1945. But the American navy and air force of 1945 was completely different from the American navy and air force of 1940.
The same thing happened in Germany and Italy. The Axis countries didn’t understand that it wasn’t enough to start the war with the best equipment. You had to keep working at it during the war to maintain that lead.
I wager a Mark IV tank with a fascine could get out of that.
And the German allowance was just the same - two.
I’ve read that before. Did the lines go right down to the beach or cliff along the Channel? And what was it like 'way at the other end - did the trenchlines just end abruptly, or run into a mountain, or was the Swiss border itself fortified and they just sort of met in an armed-to-the-teeth triangle?
The wikipedia race to the seaarticle has a good picture of the channel end of the line in 1914. The wire goes right along the beach, but you can’t see whether there were any trenches on the beach itself (I’d wager not as a few MG’s on solid ground could cover the beach wire pretty damn well).
I think in the mountainous areas the line was more a series of strongpoints than a continuous trench line due to the rocky terrain. Switzerland mobilisedin 1914 and had a large portion of it’s army watching the end of the Western Front through to the end of the war.
BarryB essentially covered it - the defenders had substantial advantages in any attack, notably in transportation to bring up reserves and supplies. There wasn’t enough mobility for attackers, and what possibilities they had were wasted (i.e. not massing tanks early on for a big breakthrough).
None of the combatants had a real fallback plan for when the initial war of movement ended.
This is true and partly false. The French had good technical weaponry, but failed to integrate it as a well-trained weapon system (i.e., a smart user, a good weapon, and the right skills). The Prussians not only had weaponry advantages, they knew how to use them.
Truth be told, the technology you fight a war with is usually a lot less important than how you use that technology. The French kept running a generation behind in that regard - always trying to fight the last war with the newest weapons. German armies (until WW2) fought this war with reasonably up-to-date weapons.
America tends to run behind in the arms race until the Cold War, when (with the exception of the AK-47 and some MIGs) we took and held the lead in both technology and integration.
Very interesting - thanks.
As a friend of mine summed it up: you had a 19th century style war, fought with 20th century technology. What did you expect to happen?