My topic is military strategies and tactics during the First World War, some of these strategies including the Schlieffen Plan, Plan 17, and Plan 19. Tactics of the war included Creeping Barrage, Machine gun pillboxes, Chlorine gas, tank attacks, tunneling, snipers, flamethrowers, and many many more. These tactics and strategies were used by both the Allies and the Central Powers.
Alfred von Schlieffen
The Schlieffen Plan was a German strategy organized by Germany’s Army chief of Staff, Alfred von Schlieffen. By this time France and Britain signed the Entente Cordial (alliance), and Alfred von Schlieffen argued that if the war happened France and Britain would easily come in and take over Germany. So Schlieffen’s plan was to have 90% of the German army attack France in almost a scythe looking attack. The German’s would the go through Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The rest of the German forces would then hold back the Russian army from the east. The Schlieffen plan ended up unsuccessful when Germany under estimated the swiftness and speed of Britain and how fast they got to France to help protect them.
General Joseph Joffre and Ferdinand Foch devised a plan in 1913 to invade Germany through Lorrain and Ardennes. Both of which were German super cities. The French army performed Plan 17 and with victories at both Lorraine and Ardennes which carried out with the victory against the Germans Schlieffen plan. Plan 19 was a plan devolved by Russian General Yuri Danilov. Danilov said that as soon as the war would began Germany would put almost all of its forces on France (which it did in the Schlieffen plan) So the original plan 19 said that four of Russia's should take over East Prussia. Many of Danilov's colleagues didn't agree with the plan. But in 1912 they carried out plan 19, buhttps://mrbruns.ning.com/profiles/blog/newt it was slightly changed. They only had two armies take over East Prussia and the others would defend Russia from Austro-Hungarian Armies.
Yuri Danilov
The Machine-Gun Pill box tactic was formed during WWI. It was a very simple and innovative idea created by the German's. The pill boxes were just small forts, generally around 30 ft long and 10 ft wide with very thick walls that were protecting the machine gunners who would shoot the machine guns from small windows in the fort. The term pill box was picked up from the British soldiers, the small forts reminded them of the containers that pills came in that the Chemists would give them. Only a short time after the German's came up with the idea, other countries began using this method. Even though the British built very few pillboxes, they built smaller less expensive buildings used for the same purpose. One of the downfalls of these pillboxes were that the machine gunners could get captured a lot easier, because of these huge fort like buildings. In general the infantry hated the machine gunners and if captured, the machine gunners were almost always killed for this reason.
A British Pillbox
A creeping barrage was a tactic that ultimately failed but the idea was right on track. In a creeping barrage a army would bomb the enemy with any and all of their heavy artillery, and then the infantry would follow close behind the bombings so that they would be able to take over the trenches and from there take over. It was first introduced in the Battle of the Somme, when the heavy artillery would bomb the enemy and the infantry would follow only a short distance away. They would have to travel 50 meters per minute which took precise timing on both the infantry and the artillery, or else it would result in the artillery bombing their own soldiers, or the infantry get so far behind the enemy would be able to get re cooperated by the time the infantry would even get there and then the chance of the infantry completely failing would fall into place.
The Chlorine Gas tactic was also introduced in WWI. Chlorine gas was first used by the German's in trench warfare. The first time it was used was against the French at Ypres. At first when the French was attacked by this they just saw a yellow screen of smoke. They thought the German's would follow after the gas soon after. But the didn't, after along time the French started to feel pain in the chests and burning in their throats. Once they realized they've been poisoned some rain away. That is when the German forces were able to get past. The inventor of the chlorine gas was Fritz Haber, a chemist's who's wife disagreed with his work with the chlorine that she eventually committed suicide to show her husband she didn't agree with it.
Fritz Haber
I am very glad I picked this topic. I found many of these tactics impressed me! I would have never thought of anything like this (even though I am a high school student and these are Army Generals) its pretty impressive. I did enjoy researching these topics and I didn't even come close to getting to all of them. THERE ARE SO MANY!
Comments
It is a very interesting topic no doubt! Well done! I look forward to discussing it in class!