Why was WWI such a stalemate?

Factual Questions
41

The simple answer, which has no doubt already been offered (sorry, haven’t read through the thread and just posting a drive by while waiting for a flight), is logistics and maneuver. Once the German initial offensive ground to a halt (due to logistics and the lack of any way to rapidly maneuver using just ground troops in the face of interlocking fields of defensive fire), both sides were able to build defenses and logistically support them via rail road, without the knockout ability to get behind the lines and really wreak havoc on the other guys backfield and block those logistics from supporting the defense. So, it turned into a huge slugging match, with both sides attempting to either outflank the other (which was impossible on such a relatively narrow front), or batter the other down (which was equally impossible in the face of those interlocking fields of defensive fire) and make a real breakthrough. Both sides had limited offensive successes, but they simply weren’t able to capitalize on those limited tactical successes by punching through the enemies defenses and getting their maneuver units into the enemies backfield and wreaking havoc. IIRC, both sides had cavalry in reserve waiting for that earth shattering breakthrough that would allow them to pour their cavalry through and into the enemies rear, but they just couldn’t sustain an offensive and breakthrough long enough to unleash those elements. Neither side had the concept of tactical air down yet (the air plane was a relatively new thing, and fighters were used either as scouts or anti-figher forces, or as bombers but not in the sorts of concentrated force used tactically to attack the enemies infrastructure and interdict their front), and neither side had a rapid and protected maneuver force that could be used to punch a hole in the enemies front rapidly and get into the enemies rear, cutting off it’s front line defensive forces and forcing it to retreat under fire. Even when the Brits and French DID develop armor later on they didn’t have the concept of concentrated force down, so used them all along a front (thus losing the advantage of concentration), and they didn’t reenforce the breakthroughs they DID manage by having troops go in with the armor or ready and poised to exploit breakthroughs. There was no real concept of combined arms on either side, and coordination was spotty since communications were also in their infancy.

All of this basically contributed to the stalemate. Tactically, I’d say that both sides were pretty even, though the Germans were, IMHO, slightly superior to everyone except maybe the better British forces (most of who were thrown away fairly early on) on the small unit level, at least until their own elite troops were wasted in offensives that went no where. Even so, the Germans were pretty close to victory several times, and the allies were just holding on by their fingernails in a lot of cases…it came down to logistics in the end, as it usually does, with Germany simply running out of everything first and economically collapsing at home, even if their troops were still holding their own in the field.

This is my very History Channel take on things anyway. I took a lot of history classes in college (as electives…wish I had majored in history in retrospect, as I really like the subject), but not a lot on WWI, which I always found a really depressing subject.

-XT

42

Maybe. But it’s probably just as well we never had to test our military in battle.

The American military concentrated on having the best-performing weapon systems. Which sounds like a good idea but the best possible costs a lot (which means the quantity is limited) and requires a lot of care and maintenance (an extreme example would be the F15 Eagle - an amazing plane but at any given moment, a third of them are out of service undergoing routine maintenance and that’s under peacetime conditions).

We’re a rich country and we were able to keep our military up and running. But in the added wear, tear, and confusion of a major war with the Soviets, we might have found our military technology collapsing under its own weight.

43

France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War had more to do with the incompetence of Napoleon III politically, diplomatically and as a military leader than any failing of French doctrine or tactics. 1870 wasn’t 1940, the French integrated weaponry as well (or as badly) as the Prussians did. The Prussians had vastly superior artillery, the French vastly superior small arms. It’s no accident that up through Sedan most French casualties were from artillery fire while most Prussian casualties were from small arms fire. If one excludes the missing and prisoners at Gravelotte the ratio of casualties becomes even more dramatic at 3-1 in favor of the French. Prussia lost 5,237 killed, 14,430 wounded and 493 captured or missing; France 1,146 killed, 6,709 wounded and 4,420 captured or missing.

44

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Maybe. But it’s probably just as well we never had to test our military in battle.
[/QUOTE]

Getting a bit (well, a lot) far afield, but I’d say just the opposite…it’s a good thing they never had to really test their own military in battle trying to push into Western Europe during the Cold War period…because I think they would have had a rude awakening (assuming it stayed conventional…if not, then we’d all be dead now, most likely, so it’s a good thing we never found out).

I’ve never heard a stat that says the F-15 had an average of 1/3 out of service at any given time, but consider Soviet technology. In theory, a lot of it was pretty rugged…but, even leaving aside the amount of variability in quality control (ranging from pretty good to horrible), most of it was not exactly ergonomic…and crew survivability wasn’t exactly a Soviet goal. Their tanks especially were death traps, and they were uncomfortable as hell for the crews. Again, comfort wasn’t exactly a Soviet hallmark, but the thing is, if you had to fight in one of their tanks for hours or days or weeks at a time it wore on you. I’ve actually been in a T-72 and driven around in one, and I’m not exactly a big, hulking guy…and I’d go nuts in one of those things if I was stuck in it for more than an hour or two. Their other combat vehicles were much the same. Horrible on the troops, basically death traps (there is one personnel carrier who’s name current escapes me…BMP?..that actually has the gas tank as the loading door in the rear of the vehicle! What a horrible design flaw in a vehicle that’s supposed to take troops into battle).

I think that the Soviets only real hope of pushing into Western Europe was a brief window of opportunity after the fall of Germany, when they had tactical numerical superiority in theater, had the logistics still from their big push into Germany and taking Berlin, had the veteran army that was there, and at least a slight tactical superiority in ground technology weapons (certainly they had numerical superiority to the other Western Allies, especially after the US started pulling troops out for the possible campaign in the Pacific against Japan) in which they might have done something. Even there, though, they took truly horrific losses bulling their way into Germany and finally into Berlin…losses that, IIRC, came close to what the US lost in total during WWII just pushing into Germany and into Berlin (hundreds of thousands of causalities)…which should tell you something right there.

I think it would have been the other way around. I don’t think the Soviets could have possibly sustained and supported their massive army into Western Europe, nor dealt with the kinds of logistical tactical attacks the other Western Allies had perfected against the Germans in their war in the west. The Germans were never able to attack Soviet Logistics the way the other Western Allies were able to lock in and disrupt German logistics, nor did the Germans, after, say, 1943, really have the same level of ability to use their air force tactically against Soviet ground forces…while this was something the other Western Allies did on an almost continuous basis.

US tanks weren’t as good as the German tanks (though they were getting better by the end of the war), so we didn’t go head to head with the Germans. Instead, we used tactical air to attack and disrupt German formations, then used our faster tanks to flank them, or punch holes in their lines and get around behind them. We fought completely different than the Soviets did, and we were as effective on the Western Front as they were on the Eastern…with hugely better kill ratios.

I’m just glad we never found out, because in hindsight we (the West) collectively managed to wait out the Soviets and see them collapse without the huge numbers of dead it would have caused had the US/Western Europe gone head to head with the Soviets/Warsaw Pact. It’s telling, though, that the Soviets didn’t launch an offensive into Western Europe, even when they COULD have done so. What I think it tells is that the Soviets weren’t nearly as confident of victory with what they faced as some folks are when this subject comes up.

-XT

45

Also, let’s remember the Schlieffen Plan. The German strategy was to execute a huge “right hook” through Belgium and northern France and end the war quickly. This was more or less what worked in WWII. In WWI, it didn’t, one big reason being that the Germans panicked about Russia and didn’t commit as many troops to the initial offensive as they should have. This doesn’t explain the later stalemate of the Western Front, but it does help explain why WWI was not the Franco-Prussian War II.

46

I’m certainly not claiming my idea is a fact. But I think it’s based on some reality. We tended to ignore the difference between the way weapons working on the test range and the way they would work in battle. We were able to do this because we never had to use them in a serious battle. If we had, we might have been unpleasantly surprised.

This is sort of my point. The Germans had some individually great tanks like the Tigers. We had the Shermans - nowhere near as good as a Tiger one-on-one but we had a lot more of them. And we figured out to beat their Tigers with our Shermans.

But in a hypothetical WWIII, we might have been the ones with the Tigers and the Soviets might have been the ones with the Shermans.

47

No, the German plan in WWII was not a replay of the Schlieffen Plan.

Both plans started with a German advance into Belgium to avoid the heavily fortified German-French border. The Germans assumed (correctly) that the French would respond by also advancing into Belgium to meet the German advance.

The Schlieffen Plan was that the Germans would race out past the French advance and then when it was west of the French army, it would turn south, outflank the French left, and then come in behind the French army. It was an unrealistic plan because it required the Germans to be able to outrun the French. The German army was able to move faster than the French but not that much faster - for the plan to work they would have had to move at least twice as fast. As it was, the French were able to move units into the path of the German advance before it could reach its goals.

The 1940 Plan Yellow also started with a German advance into Belgium, followed by a French advance to meet the Germans. But this plan didn’t try to outflank the French on the west. This plan was for the Germans to break through a weak spot on the front line that was east of the main French army. (This weak spot was the Ardennes Forest which the French assumed the Germans would be unable to move troops through so they left it lightly defended.) The Germans were able to break through and this let them outflank the French right and come in behind the French Army. The French were able to react in time because the Germans were moving across a much shorter distance with this plan than they would have had to with the Schlieffen Plan.

48

Little Nemo, I’m sorry but I don’t understand the difference.

49

From what I understand about the Franco-Prussian war (from a recent BBC History podcast about military logistics) is the Prussians (specifically von Moltke) were far better in using trains to bring men and supplies to the front. They had spent an enormous amount of time studying the best way to do this. The French hadn’t and lost. But the French did learn and improved their supply situation for the next war. When they formed an alliance with Czarist Russia, one thing they insisted on was the Russians use the money they loaned them to improve their transportation system to bring its army to fight the Germans as quickly as possible (also one reason why the war wasn’t called off once cooler heads began to prevail after the saber rattling when Franz Ferdinand was murdered-the plans were too intricate to simply stop once they were put into motion.

I remember seeing military historian John Keegan on a C Span interview and he said Germany went into the trenches because a visiting staff officer suggested they start digging. It wasn’t an elaborately planned out thing…because virtually everyone on both sides thought it would be over by Christmas 1914

50

WWI: Germans attempt to outflank the French left, but fail due to lack of realism and most especially lack of troops
WWII: Germans break through French centre, at weak spot in the Ardennes

51

Schleifin’s (sp) dying words, “Keep the Western flank strong!”

52

To restate ground that’s already been covered, that state of technology was such that armies could not move faster than defensive fortifications could be placed in front of them. Artillery and machine guns were powerful enough to stop an advance and force the attackers to dig in, thus giving the defenders time to prepare defenses and bring up reinforcements.

Starting in WWII, mechanized formations that can outflank anti-tank defenses can survive artillery and machine gun fire and move so fast that the defenders can’t prepare defenses in time and don’t know where to send reinforcements.

53

In 1914 the Germans tried to get behind the French Army by racing around the long way on the west. In 1940, the Germans got behind the French Army by cutting through the short way on the east.

I could make this a lot clearer if I could post pictures.

54

Maps might demonstrate it better; in WW1 the Schlieffen plan was to wheel to the right with the left flank of the German armies circling behind Paris. The final plan for WW2 was to breakthrough the Ardennes and wheel left, heading for the coast and trapping the French and British forces in Belgium.

55

Just missed the edit window and hiding my inability to know right from left; the Schlieffen plan wheeled left, the WW2 plan to the right.

56

Strategically, pretty much everyone but the British (Lord Kitchener in particular) figured it would be a short war and planned accordingly. The Germans seized the initiative in the first month of the war, and I consider the Schlieffen Plan a more coherent strategy than the French Plan 17. The French had an almost pathological need to go on the offensive as early as possible, in part to retake Alsace-Lorraine, but also for reasons of national pride. But the plan itself was rather nebulous. Once they had advanced on Alsace-Lorraine, they would either try to sweep north behind the German main blow which they were certain would be through Belgium (though once the war started they seemed curiously dismissive of reports of the huge German forces moving into Belgium), or push on towards the Rhine, or whatever other targets presented themselves. The critical error in the plan was that the French badly underestimated the number of divisions the Germans had mobilized; it wasn’t till after they were defeated in the Battle of the Frontiers that they realized that many of the German corps were matched with an additional reserve corps designated with the same corps number. The French disdained using reserve troops and possibly assumed the Germans felt the same way.

The Russian plan was to mobilize and invade East Prussia as quickly as possible, taking pressure off the French, and hopefully driving all the way to Berlin. They did get two armies into action pretty quickly, but their logistics, communication, and organization was atrocious, and they got whipped by a force less than half their size. On the bright side, they did manage to spook the Germans into shifting some forces away from the western front to defend East Prussia, which would prove very helpful later.

Tactically the Germans were very well prepared, as Germans always are, with plenty of field and machine guns to go around, and heavy artillery at the divisional level. They brought several heavy siege mortars along with them to Belgium to take out the fortresses along the Meuse, and managed to get past them with a minimum of delay.

The French did not enter the war with much modern heavy artillery, instead relying on their 75 mm field gun. When they were able to surprise or flank the enemy, those guns were devastating. They were rather ambivalent towards the use of machine guns early on, as they considered them defensive weapons and had convinced themselves that vigorous assaults and élan would carry the day. In a typically French move, they insisted on keeping their bright red pantaloons as part of their uniforms, rather than adopting something less conspicuous. They eventually switched to a light blue uniform.

The Russian war minister hadn’t bothered expanding production capacity for munitions before the war and they suffered constant shortages, but figured that their mass would make up for any shortages. They were too reliant on cavalry, an increasingly obsolete branch of every nation’s armed forces.

Once the initial moves failed to achieve decisive victory, the aforementioned modern weapons and lack of mobility and communications led to the long stalemate.

57

I should also point out that despite their military skill, one critical weakness of the Germans was in diplomacy. While the attack through Belgium may have been the best strategy for defeating France, it had the disadvantage of drawing the British in against them, and Belgian distrust led them to resist the invasion rather than standing aside. Another blow was Japan’s neutrality, which allowed the Russians to shift forces from the east. The Kaiser was a very antagonizing figure. Their main successes were drawing the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria into the war.

58

True, but while cavalry quickly became useless on the Western Front, the breadth of the Eastern Front meant they were still useful if used as mounted rifles, using the horse only to provide superior mobility but fighting dismounted. Cavalry remained useful during the Russian Civil War, and the Soviet Union used a large number of cavalry divisions to good effect during WW2. With the poor state of roads, the frequent bad weather, and large stretches of swamps and heavy woodlands cavalry could often be more mobile than armor in the East. As can be seen here with the disintegration of any sort of solid front line the Soviet XI Cavalry Corps from the north and I Guards Cavalry from the south were threatening to cut off a substantial part of German Army Group Center’s only supply line running through Vyazma.

A bit off topic, but the map is from Earl F. Ziemke and Magna E. Bauer’s Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East which is available to be viewed online or download for free as a pdf from the United States Army Center of Military History here which despite being slightly dated (written in 1985) remains along with the companion volume Stalingrad to Berlin one of the best books on the topic.

59

Agreeing with what has already been covered, I think it is important to emphasise that except in isolated cases, neither side could intellectually or politically accept that the war would last longer than another 12 months. This meant that they kept trying 3 month and 6 month plans to break the deadlock, rather than investing in long term changes of strategy.

The epitome of this is story of the Hindenburg line. The Germans throughout 1915 and 1916 were more invested than the British and French in permanent fortifications, but after 1st Somme they constructed a series of well-built fortified areas behind their lines, and retreated to them. This is the sort of strategy that says “I know we are not about to win, so instead of trying to win now, I’ll do something smart to help our eventual victory”.

This longer-term strategy almost worked (the French army was broken and in mutiny) - the difference between one 14 month plan, and 20 3 month plans. Unfortunately the Germans decided that they were winning, and invested in another short-term offensive, which led to the Hindenburg line being breached in the counter-offensive, and possibly back to stalemate if the US supply of troops and equipment hadn’t begun to tip the balance so much.

60

Sure, they could still be used as scouts and screens, and as mounted rifles, in bad terrain, and pursuing a routed enemy. The Soviets maintained several cavalry corps during WW2, but they also had the good sense to supplement them with tank or assault gun regiments. The main problem I see with cavalry units in WWI is that they tended to be staffed by the most brash and impetuous soldiers, the kind of soldiers who seek out fights to win medals, but since they were no longer effective in shock attacks against defended positions it was mostly a waste of good troops.