World War I

The plan was to invade France through Belgium & Holland to come around the French Maginot line set up after the Franco-Prussian war. They were to invade France to the north with a bulk of their troops whilst leaving some at Alsace-Lorraine to stop French attacks. It was planned to defeat the French in sex weeks before the Russians had mobilised their troops which had been calculated to be at least six weeks due to Russia’s poor transport & the huge size of their country. The plan was changed in 1914 by General Moltke, he attacked only though Belgium & strengthened the force in Alsace-Lorraine. It was believed that Britain wouldn’t enter the war and even if they did they wouldn’t cause any problems. The entire plan was designed to take Paris quickly, then deal with the Russians to the east. They really hoped this would work or they would be facing a war on two fronts.

A stalemate means that neither side could break through the enemy lines. Firstly, the failure of the Schlieffen plan was a reason for the stalemate developing. It failed because of five main reasons, firstly the Belgians held up the Germans with their forts & hard resistance. Secondly, the British (under the command of Sir John French) entered the war early because they were given extra time for preparation by the Belgian resistance. Thirdly, because of the unexpected speed of the Russian mobilisation, General Moltke sent one hundred thousand of his troops to face them Russians to the east, this evened out the troops between the two sides to the west. Lastly, because of the Belgian resistance the French were also give extra preparation time. The allies stopped the German advance at the battle of the Marne & stopped their assault through France. Because of this, the Germans dug trenches as a defensive precaution but then both sides dug trenches from The English Channel to Switzerland, in the race to the sea.

Secondly, trenches were a big reason of the stalemate forming, this is because it was so hard to break through the enemies lines. This was because the trench warfare was so equally balanced, e.g. both sides used the same defences like barbed wire, machine gun nests & artillery. Barbed wire would stop troops from getting in to the trenches, machine gun nests would cut down enemy troops advancing across no-mans land & artillery was used to bombard enemy trenches & stop advancing troops. Because of these any advancements tried would easily fail. For example in the Battle Of The Somme, British artillery bombarded the German lines expecting the Germans to be all dead when british troops arrived. This failed because of the concrete bunkers of deep dugouts hid & protected the Germans under the ground protecting them from the artillery. When the British troops walked across no-man ‘ s land, the Germans quickly got up & took their positions in the trenches & cut down the British troops. If the Germans hadn ‘ t had the deep bunkers & dugouts then they most probably would have all been blown up.