Yay! I have actually really been looking forward to the next blog post. I had so much fun with the last one! Alright, so this is another one of my amazing blogs about the major battles of the first World War.
Let's start with the very first battle. Notably not listed as a major battle but you can't end a war without a beginning so-The Battle of Liege, 1914.
The Battle of Liege ran for twelve days from 5-16 August 1914, and resulted in ironically
heavy losses for the Germans as compared to the drastically heavily outnumbered Belgians. The Battle of Liege signified not only the first battle but also the first land battle of the war. The goal of Germany Second Army:Cross into neutral Belgium to attack France from the north. This goal was known as The Schlieffen Plan. The Second Army's aim was to seize Liege, the best entrance to Belgium. But it wouldn't be easy. Liege was defended by a ring of a dozen forts on high ground that were armed to the teeth and close to each other. Together they made a wall of 400 guns up to 210mm in size.
The Germans attacked during the night of August 5 1914 only to spill gallons of their own and make hardly a sliver of progress, much to the shock of their egos. Instead of throw soon-to-be-dead men against their walls, they called in ofzepplins to bomb the city and citadel. But they weren't finished until they took all the other forts first. They used 17-inch howitzers and the Big Bertha gun, a 420mm siege howitzer, both were previously unheard of weapons. All the forts had fallen by the 16th of August.
The Battle of Marne-The First Battle of Marne was in motion for 6 days starting on the 6th of September through the 12th. Its outcome is what finally stopped the Schlieffen Plan in its bloody tracks.
Having taken Belgium and a part of France was just within reach of Paris, 30 miles. As Paris geared up for siege, the defending armies were bloodied and weary after retreating for 10-12 days until they reached the River Marne. The Germans, drunk from the rewards of victory and cocky, decided to do a pincher attack on the armies. The French government, foreseeing a similar outcome, left Paris for Bordeaux.
In the face of believed loss, Joseph Joffre resolved to launch a counter-offensive strike. The Allies Sixth Army to attack the right flack of the German First Army in the morning of September 6. During their attack, they noticed a 30-mile wide gap in the German lines between the First and Second armies. The Allies saw an opportunity and they promptly seized it. The battle was almost lost, then more French arrived to further the gap between the two Germans. In the end, the Germans retreated.
The Battle of Ypres-The Battle of Ypres was part of the aftermath of the "Race to the Sea".
By October, the Allies were in Nieuport on the North Sea coast and the Germans captured Antwerp, forcing its Belgian defenders back to Nieuport, near Ypres. The British forces also retreated to Ypres after Antwerp fell. The Allies's armies commandeered a long line of trenches that actually left them vulnerable to superior German weaponry.
When it came to the offensive attack, it was the Allies who were arrogant. The new General, Falkenhayn, corrected their beliefs in moments. Despite being on the opposite side, one must admire his military savvy. To stop him, the Belgians had to open sluice gates to create a moat. He then used his forces to force a British force from their posts. Then he attacked the First Corps but was countered by a ferocious British rapid rifle attack. The bullets flew so fast the Germans thought they were being attacked by machine guns. The first battle stopped with a bitter onset of winter weather.
The Battle of Verdun-The longest battle of the whole war, The Battle of Verdun was instigated by a simple letter on Christmas 1915. In the letter, Falkenhayn stated that he believed in unrestricted submarine warfare to starve Britain and then a KO block to France would end it.
Kaiser, who received the letter, decided to do as Falkenhayn said, despite the fact that submarine warfare brought in the risk of bringing the US into the war. As far as the KO target it was... Verdun. Their plan was to bombard the fortress town on February 12 but was delayed to the 21 due to bad weather. It did not take long for the French defenders to be halved by the dauntingly large mass of Germans. The fort commander had been killed and the new one was far more ruthless, his battle cry being, "They shall not pass!"
Falkenhayn actually believed that the change of commanders suited his needs but he did not foresee how effective Petain, the new commander, was a the art of defense. After attacking Pertain's defensive system, the battle finally came to a close with the fall of a nearby fort, phosgene gas and roughly 500,000 casualties on each side in early July.
The Battle of Somme-To this day The Battle of Somme is the biggest massacre in history.
The British planned a ''Big Push" but it was completely destroyed when the Germans came out of their dugouts and took 57,470 lives on the first day. The British gained absolutely no ground and their blood rain upon the ground like the celestial floodgates had broken. It started the first of July and ended on November 19th.
It was April 6, 1917 that the US finally started marching the battlegrounds.
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