WORLD WAR I 1914-1916
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY 211 AND 311 BRIEFING
By
CPT LA DARYL D. FRANKLIN, Ph.D., M.S., M.B.A.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MILITARY SCIENCE
AND
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY INSTRUCTOR
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
OUTLINE
• INTRODUCTION
• ESTABLISH SETTING / GEOGRAPHIC ORIENTATION
• PERST
• OCOKA
• PHASES ONE THROUGH THREE
• OUTCOME AND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCES
• KEY EVENTS
• SUMMARY / LESSONS LEARNED
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
Attempting to End the Stalemate,
1914-1916
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•1914-1916 conflict became total and
global!
•Included new tactics & technologies.
•Germans changed strategy to defeat
Russia first, then the Allies.
•Allies debated “peripheral” vs. “central”
strategy and “supply-denial” to Central
Powers.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•After 1914, WWI became war of
position & attrition.
•Br. est. blockade of Ger. in Aug 1914.
•Battles of attrition in 1916 caused
resource shortages in Ger. & Fr.
•Eur. economies became more & more
centralized.
•Pol. & mil. leaders evermore at odds
over resources.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Consuming vision was to penetrate
trenches and fight decisive maneuver
battle in open terrain.
•Effort compromised by increasing
reliance by all sides on massive arty.
prep.
•Further complicated inf.-arty. coord.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•“Massacre of the Innocents,” Nov 1914.
•Ger. forces released after siege of
Antwerp & concentrated against Allied left.
•Ger. used massive arty. prep. & attacked
Allies at Ypres.
•Ger. inf. slaughtered.
•No one deterred by Ypres example.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Neuve Chapelle, Mar 1915.
•First Br. attempt to break Ger. trenches.
•Br. used light field batteries, aerial
recon. data, & short arty. prep.
•Br. advance slowed by Ger.
reinforcements & poor inf.-arty. coord.
•From failure, Br. concluded that arty.
prep. should be longer & heavier.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Ypres, Apr 1915.
•Asphyxiating gasses prohibited by 1899
Hague Conference.
•Still, Ger. used chlorine gas & followed
discharge into Fr. and Canadian
trenches.
•Ger. gained ground but succumbed to
own chlorine gas & Allied resistance.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Gas provided no decisive edge.
•Used throughout war but never
again so well.
•Vagaries of wind & fear of reprisal
limited use.
•Simulated gas used extensively as
battlefield obscurant.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•1915 yielded no decision.
•Massive arty. barrages chewed up
ground & made attack even more
difficult.
•Br. & Fr. in particular groping toward
coordinating operations, strategy, &
command.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Trenches became symbol of new
type of warfare along Western Front.
•Separation from enemy varied from a
few to as many as hundreds of yards.
•Zig-zag trenches connected friendly
lines & provided communication.
•“No-man’s land” in between filled with
barbed wire.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Continuous lines of trenches evolved
into lines of strong points.
•Change necessitated by effects of
firepower.
•First step toward flexible or elastic
defense.
•Trench life for all was grisly.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•WWI spread well beyond the Western
& Eastern Fronts.
•Br. esp. frustrated over deadlock in Fr.
•Entry of Ottoman Emp. into Central
Powers also worrisome.
•Conditions ripe for ops. on periphery of
Eur. & into Middle East.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Example of strategy of the indirect
approach.
•Middle East, 1915-1918.
•Turks attempted invasion of Egypt in Jan
1915.
•Over next 3 yrs. fighting moved north into
Palestine.
•Most significant campaign was Gallipoli.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Gallipoli, 1915.
•Object of Allied amphib. landing on
Gallipoli peninsula was to open LOC
through straits of Dardanelles to Russia.
•Br., Fr., & ANZAC troops landed in Apr at
Cape Helles but soon bogged down.
•Br. attempted to “turn” Turks with landing
north at Suvla Bay in Aug but failed again.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Allies failed at Gallipoli on many
levels.
•Inexperience in amphib. ops., water
shortages, poor fire support, misused
commo., & confused cmndrs.
•No peripheral operation anywhere
proved decisive.
•Became very expensive sideshows.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•After failure of Schlieffen Plan, Ger.
high command undecided on strategy.
•Focus on Western or Eastern Front?
•Rus. Apr 1915 offensive threatened
heart of Austria-Hungary.
•Ger. compelled to focus on Eastern Front,
assist Austrians, & cripple Rus. offensive
capability.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Ger. created Eleventh Army.
•Reassigned some Western Front soldiers
to it.
•Included Col. von Seeckt, who had
experience in better inf.-arty. coord.
•Rus. Third Army in Gorlice-Tarnow
area unprepared for May onslaught.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Rus. high command finally allowed
Third Army to withdraw to San River.
•Ger. broke San line as well.
•Ger. & Aus. debated & agreed to
continue offensive into Russia itself.
•Changed axis of advance from E to NE.
•Rus. withdrew to Bug River & finally 200
miles deep into Russia by late Sep 1915.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Eastern Front remained relatively
static for rest of war.
•Rus. sustained >2 million casualties!
•Central Powers’ advantages included
advanced inf.-arty. coord., better
overall command, & more supplies.
•Ger. began shifting forces westward to
counter Allied buildup.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Allies had no common strategy for
defeating Central Powers.
•Met in Dec 1915 for first & only time
but reached no agreements.
•Br. & Fr. had limited cooperation.
•War of attrition now clearly in view.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Ger. Gen. von Falkenhayn chose
battle of attrition for 1916.
•Object was to attack & weaken Fr. and
force them to breaking point.
•A kind of Ger. offensive a outrance.
•Double-edged sword of attrition
consumed hundreds of thousands of
lives.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Ger. Feb 21 twelve-hour arty. prep.
consumed 1.2 million rounds!
•Ger. attack easily captured critical
Ft. Douaumont through confusion in
Fr. command.
•Cost Fr. thousands of lives to regain it.
•Joffre now placed Gen. Henri Pétain
in command of Verdun.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Pétain reorganized defenses &
reoccupied and rearmed Fr. forts.
•Ger. expanded & renewed offensive
in Apr but Fr. still held them back.
•Ger. replaced Falkenhayn with
Hindenburg in Aug but to no avail.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Fr. launched attacks with limited
objectives & regained some lost
ground.
•Fr. learning lessons about scale & scope
of ops.
•By end of Nov 1916, front lines at
Verdun had barely moved, fighting was
brutal, & combined losses >700,000!
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Roughly concurrent with Verdun.
•Involved massed Br. & Fr. inf.
breakthrough of Ger. lines along
Somme River.
•To be followed by cav. exploitation
toward Cambrai.
•Still dreaming of Napoleonic decisive
battle!
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Br. arty. prep. consumed 1.5 million
rounds!
•First day--Jul 1--was Br. disaster.
•Inf. lost 30,000 in first hour & >57,000
on first day!
•Highest casualty rate ever for Br. army.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Somme ops. ended in Nov 1916
with all forces physically exhausted.
•Attrition in 1916:
•Caused resource shortages for all
belligerents.
•Virtually ended possibility of “purely
military” victory for Germany.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Rus. to launch late summer 1916
offensive to support similar Allied
efforts.
•Tsar Nicholas II personally assumed
command of entire front.
•Tsar also placed Gen. Aleksei Brusilov
in command of Rus. Southwest Front.
•Brusilov focused on inf.-arty. coord.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Massive Jun-Sep offensive gained
some ground but not decisive.
•Rus. casualties for op. ca. 1 million!
•Greatest victory of the war, but:
•Rus. losing offensive capability.
•Rus. people disillusioned & near
revolution.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•Greatest offensive tactical
innovation was artillery “rolling
barrage,” but still provided no
decisive edge.
•Greatest Fr. defensive tactical
innovation was “flexible defense”
learned at Verdun.
•Greatest Ger. defensive tactical
innovation was “elastic defense,”
which they used most in 1917.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•The airplane:
•Most widespread use was in recon.
and counter-recon.
•Br. were most original and focused on
strategic bombing of civilian population,
industries, & LOCs, all deemed enemy
“vital centers.”
•Br. strategic bombing ideas became
core of postwar air power ethos.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•The tank:
•Developed by both Br. & Fr.
•Designed to cross devastated battlefield.
•Fr. esp. wanted to mass tanks for grand
assault.
•Br. used a few at Somme in 1916 &
achieved little.
•Greatest WWI use of tanks in 1917.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
•1914-1916 witnessed multiple
innovations in tactics, technology,
& strategy.
•Millions of casualties yielded no
tolerable decision.
•“True war” yielding to “real war.”
•All belligerents deeply scarred by
losses thus far.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
REFERENCES
Mitchell, Joseph B. Decisive Battles of the Civil War. New
York:G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1955
Parish, Peter J. The American Civil War. New York: Holmes &
Meier Publishers, Inc, 1991.
Stackpole, Edward J. The Fredericksburg Campaign.
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1991
U.S. Military History CD, U.S. Military History. U.S. TRADOC,
Fort Mc Pherson, GA. 2000.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY
THE CIVIL WAR 1861-1865
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY 211 AND 311 BRIEFING
By
CPT LA DARYL D. FRANKLIN, Ph.D., M.S., M.B.A.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MILITARY SCIENCE
AND
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY INSTRUCTOR
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY