activities - schudio
TRANSCRIPT
Activities
Read this presentation carefully. Then, have a go at answering the questions on some of the slides and
on the worksheet linked to this PowerPoint presentation. It has the same title!
This work is to be done during the week beginning 27th April, 2020 and completed before the following
week. If you have any problems, please contact a member of the history department using the email
addresses on the slide at the end of the presentation
Trench WarfareWhy was the war on the Western Front fought in
trenches?
Learning Objectives
• By the end of this lesson you will:
• Know what Germany’s plans were at the start of the war
• Begin to understand the factors that contributed to the failure of their plans
• Be able to explain why the soldiers on both sides ended up living and fighting in trenches
WW1 shocked and surprised many people. Soldiers were shocked, their generals were
shocked and the people ‘back home’ were shocked! But why?
The answer to this question lies in people’s expectations and the fact that WW1 ended up
being a very different kind of war
Wars of Movement• In previous conflicts, wars had been fought by
armies of professional soldiers
• They often marched long distances, fighting battles along the way, in an effort to capture important objectives
• They fought each other across large, open battlefields or laid siege to fortifications or towns
• After one or two battles, it was often clear which side was the ‘winner’
• Many people expected this war to be similar, and that it would be ‘over by Christmas!’
War on the Western Front• In the early stages of the war there was a good deal
of movement as both sides mobilised their forces and attacked one another
• A small number of battles were fought as they tried to outmanoeuvre each other and achieve a decisive victory
• But very quickly, things changed. Neither side was able to achieve a swift victory and a stalemate ensued, i.e.
• A situation where neither side was able to deliver a decisive blow!
War on the Western Front
• Most of the fighting took place in trenches
• The opposing sides literally dug themselves into the ground and created vast systems of interconnected trenches
• For the best part of four years, they stayed in the same place, fighting over the same area of land in Belgium and Northern France
• It became a war of attrition with both sides using vast amounts of resources to try and wear down their enemy and force them into submission
• So, shock number one was that the war was not going to be ‘over by Christmas!’
Why did it end up like this?
• “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”
• A well known expression adapted from a phrase written in a poem by Robert Burns
• It basically means that even the most carefully thought out plans can often go wrong
• This was certainly true of the plan the Germans had at the start of the war
• It was called the Schlieffen Plan and named after Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen who devised it in 1905
Background to The Schlieffen Plan
• Years earlier, in 1894, Russia and France had made a military alliance [The Franco-Russian Alliance]
• If war broke out in the future, Germany could end up having to defend itself against France and Russia at the same time
• They would be fighting against two different enemies, attacking from two different directions
• They would be fighting a war on two fronts and having to split their forces in order to do so
• An almost impossible situation and one the Germans simply had to prevent!
The Schlieffen Plan
• The plan was devised to make sure this potentially disastrous situation never happened
• In the event of a war, they expected France to be ready to fight sooner than the Russians
• France was also smaller than Russia, and had a smaller army, making her easier to defeat
• So what did the plan involve?
Alfred Von Schlieffen - German Army Chief of Staff, was given instructions to devise a strategy that would be able to counter a joint attack. In December, 1905, he began circulating what later became known as the Schlieffen Plan. Schlieffen argued that if war took place it was vital that France was speedily defeated. If this happened, Britain and Russia would be unwilling to carry on
fighting. Schlieffen calculated that it would take Russia six weeks to organize its large army for an attack on Germany.
Therefore, it was vitally important to force France to surrender before Russia was ready to use all its forces.
Schlieffen's plan involved using 90% of Germany's armed forces to attack France. Fearing the French forts on the border with Germany, Schlieffen suggested a scythe-like attack through
Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The rest of the German Army would be sent to defensive positions in the east to slow down the
expected Russian advance.
The Schlieffen Plan
• The plan involved attacking France first, avoiding the French fortifications along the border with Germany and catching the French off guard by attacking through neutral Belgium
• Marching on Paris, capturing the capital city and defeating the French forces in about 6 weeks, before the Russians were ready to attack
• Moving victorious and battle hardened troops from France across to Germany’s eastern border to deal with the attack by the Russians…..
• BUT, the plan failed!
This is a photograph of one of the original maps used by the General Staff of the German Armed Forces in 1905 when they were drawing up the details of their strategic plan
This is a clearer interpretation of the plan,taken from a modern history text book
Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?
• A number of miscalculations on the part of the German High Command contributed to its failure
• Their forces couldn’t move as fast as they wanted because road and rail networks in Belgium and France weren’t good enough
• The Belgians refused to allow the Germans to pass through their country and when the Germans invaded anyway, the Belgians fought back more aggressively than expected
• They expected the British to stay out of the fighting but instead, we sent an army of professional soldiers to help defend Belgium [The Battle of Mons]
Activity
Watch these two AV clips. The first explains how Britain declared war on Germany and the second is
about the Battle of Mons
How Britain declared war on Germanyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UqDytzrk4U&li
st=PLcvEcrsF_9zLyW7lup-9zc2B2CyElzF6Q
The Battle of Monshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTZap6ouiyk
Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?• The Russians were able to mobilise their forces faster
than the Germans expected so they were forced to transfer soldiers from France to the Eastern Front much sooner than anticipated, weakening their forces in France
• The French fought more fiercely than expected, going to extraordinary lengths, e.g. sending soldiers to the front in taxis, to defend their country!
• The British army [The British Expeditionary Force] was far better trained than the Germans expected
• Together, these British and French soldiers, halted the German advance in its tracks at the Battle of the Marne [often referred to as the Miracle of the Marne], after the Germans made a decisive mistake!
Activity
Watch the following AV clip and then answer the yellow box question underneath. It explains why the
Battle of the Marne was so significant.
Why the Battle of the Marne was so significanthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1gqXlkJpXU
What fatal mistake did German commanders make leading up to the Battle of the Marne?
The Race to the Sea
• The Schlieffen Plan was, by now, dead in the water, and the swift victory hoped for by both sides was looking increasingly unlikely
• So bad was the defeat that it looked like two entire German armies might be destroyed!
• The man in overall command, von Moltke, had a nervous breakdown and his subordinates ordered a retreat!
• Failure at the Marne forced the Germans eastwards approximately 40 miles to the line of the river Aisne
• However, the counter-offensive launched by British and French forces at the Battle of the Aisne was repelled by the Germans, who had dug themselves into strong defensive positions
The Race to the Sea“The Race to the Sea was the last mobile phase of the war on the Western Front until the German Spring Offensive in 1918. It arose when the Allied advance after the First Battle of the Marne was halted by well-fortified German defences at the Battle of the Aisne. Each side tried to break the ensuing stalemate by outflanking the other to the north in the direction of the Channel. As each attempt was repelled, trenches were dug by the defending side. By the beginning of November, opposing lines of trenches snaked upwards all the way to the Belgian port of Nieuport. Blocked to the north, the new German Chief of Staff switched to the southern flank and probed repeatedly for a breakthrough. The process continued and more trenches were dug. By the end of November, trench lines extended for 400 unbroken miles (644 km), from the Channel to the Swiss border.”
Read the description of this phase of the conflict
On the following slide you can see a bigger version of the map that illustrates, and helps you to visualise, what was taking place
Shock Number One• By Christmas 1914, the war was most certainly not over;
neither side had defeated the other!
• More than 2 million soldiers were now involved
• The weather was getting colder and wetter
• The ground was growing increasingly muddy and impossible to move across
• Both sides had begun to dig trenches
• To protect themselves from enemy fire and
• To secure ground they had already taken
More and more shocks• People were also shocked by the shear scale of the
battles…..
• …..and the numbers of soldiers killed or wounded. Technology had changed and this led to new weapons of war never seen before and to old ones that had been made much more devastating
• They were also shocked by the conditions soldiers were experiencing in the trenches and you will be learning more about this in a future lesson
Activity
Have a go at answering the questions about the early stages of the war on
the following slides
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Using what you have learnt from this shortpresentation, briefly describe what theSchlieffen Plan involved and explain why itwas so important for the Germans that itworked
1 When the war started in September 1914, both sides thought it would be over very
quickly. How long did people expect it to last?
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2 What did the Germans want to avoid at all costs at the start of the war?
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3 Briefly explain what the Allies [Britain, France and Russia] did to make sure their
plan failed
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4 Why does the term STALEMATE mean?
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5 What is a WAR OF ATTRITION?
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6 Why did both sides end up ‘digging themselves into the ground’?
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Activity
Have a go at answering the questions on the worksheet linked to this
PowerPoint presentation. It has the same title: Trench Warfare
Links
• Here is a link to a short video about the Battle of Mons
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTZap6ouiyk
• This clip explains how Britain declared war on Germany
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UqDytzrk4U&list=PLcvEcrsF_9zLyW7lup-9zc2B2CyElzF6Q
• This clip explains why the Battle of the Marne was so significant
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1gqXlkJpXU