IGCSE History: World War I – Stalemates

IGCSE History: World War I – Stalemate

The Stalemate:

A deadlock is where two opposing armies are locked in continual stalemate and are unable to move.
The Trench System:

Pros:

Protected and sheltered soldiers.
Easily defended.
Easily built and maintained.
Allowed soldiers to shelter for winter.
Allowed the use of artillery pieces.
Allowed soldiers a chance to rest.
Allowed the chance to test new weapons (machine guns and gas).
Cons:

Immobile and stationary.
Prolonged confrontation. This caused problems such as:
Trench foot.
Dysentery.
Shell shock.
And other diseases.
Cost millions of lives to defend trenches.
Life in the Trenches:

Food was not often short but it lacked variety.
Loose food rations (such as tea) were often kept in sandbags which were exposed to the weather.
The condition of these rations deteriorated dramatically after rain or snow.
Water was mixed with chloride of lime to kill germs but it tasted horrible after this.
Corpses and vermin were scattered throughout the trenches.
Lice were everywhere.

Rats and flies bred in manure and rotting corpses.
Diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and dysentery were rampant.
Weather conditions were foul, especially during winter and summer when they had to deal with the extremes of weather, e.g., snow in winter, heat in summer.
Often the trenches were flooded with rainwater, leaving soldiers to stand within the water. This caused trench foot after long periods of time.
Enemy snipers, enemy artillery shelling, and poisonous gas claimed many victims at this time.
Soldiers were unable to sleep regularly.
Thousands of men were casualties of frequent raids and battles.

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Many soldiers died from infected wounds; wounds that could usually have been easily treated.
Shell shock was a mental illness that caused soldiers to lose the will to fight after prolonged exposure to enemy fire.
It was not recognized as such then, and victims were often shot for cowardice.
346 soldiers from the British were shot for cowardice.
Of course, some really were cowards.
Why was there stalemate for three years?

Trench system persisted.
Infantry could not attack through barbed wire.
Cavalry charges were hindered by the terrain of no man’s land as well as the barbed wire.
Failure of new weapons.
Gas masks negated the dangers presented by most types of poisonous gases.
Early tanks were slow and unwieldy and would often break down.
Artillery was inaccurate and often churned up no man’s land to such a degree that infantry and cavalry charges became impossible.
Artillery pieces could not remove barbed wire:
Explosions only picked these up and threw them around, creating an even greater tangle than before.
Flamethrowers were unreliable and others blew up during use.
The machine gun was overly successful. They accounted for heavy casualties on both sides.
The commanders did not know how to fight such battles.
Commanders believed that using large numbers was the only way to defeat the enemy:
By killing enemy soldiers, they thought they could win the war.
Thus, attrition was born.
They thought that the only way to achieve a breakthrough was to penetrate enemy lines and gain access to open country.
This would allow them to maneuver again.
They thought that the only way to penetrate enemy lines was to start a massive artillery bombardment of a chosen sector and follow it up with a massive infantry assault:
This battle plan did not change at all even though it only kept failing.
As commanders changed, they kept trying to achieve a breakthrough; it became a challenge for them, and they kept using the same tactics based upon the policy of attrition.
They knew not just how much death and misery their tactics were causing the soldiers on the battlefield.
They thought that they needed to prove that their tactic was a good one.
Each time they launched an attack, the only change was adding more artillery shells and more troops.
To them, no alternative appeared to exist.
Maintaining fixed positions only generated boredom and eventually despair.