Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
end the trench stalemate in WW 1?
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Sunday, 23rd January 2011
I asked this question once about 6-7 years ago and the answers were, in general, interesting and knowledgable, but all left open plenty of room for dispute. With new people here now, I thought it would be ok to ask the question again. No doubt some of the answers will be different and a couple might be more conclusive.
As we all know, the weapons available to those involved in the trench warfare of WW1 seemed to make it impossible for an army to exploit a decisive breakthrough, even if one could be achieved. Consequently belligerents remained virtually static in their positions throughout the conflict. Periodically, one or the other would mount extremely costly attacks that would produce thousands of casualties and gain very little.
Question:
Could you, using modern tactical and historical knowledge, but with only the weapons and materiel available during that conflict, achieve and exploit a breakthrough that could end that static bloodbath? -
Message 2
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Sunday, 23rd January 2011
<<>
Yes most certainly......... stop fighting wars.
Blood and horrific suffering is the name of the particular game of war, wherever and whenever.
What makes you believe the historian would make any more or less of what happened in WW1 if someone could answer your question.?
My father in law fought throuout WW1 up until the battle of the Somme.
His views and experiences of course would have been very different from the political expediency of the time and therefor the historians.
A 'decisive breakthrough' still remains a blood bath.
I have visited the 1st world war battle fields as l expect many here have... the last resting places of unfullfilled young men.. it is all beautifully sanitised and attractive with roses and flowers giving of their wonderful perfume. Not a drop of static blood in sight, perhaps there should be a reminder.
Perhaps if we could re-view and hear the horrors that exploded all around as we stood in these bleak and mourneful places we would feel the pull of the terrible waste, and a desire to make sure such carnage never happened again.
No chance unfortunately........ -
Message 3
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 24th January 2011
I do not think I could do any better than the generals at the time.
I would also suggest that most wars are like WW1, in that they are won through attrition rather than tactical 'breakthroughs'. In other centuries the campaigns may have been more mobile than on the western front, but they were still ultimately won by wearing down one of the parties.
Nobody gets so sad about the casualties of earlier wars, partly because there are no pictures, but partly because the bulk of deaths were of thousands of faceless peasants who starved after those colourful professional armies had stripped the countryside.
It was Britains' good fortune that they had avoided a big land war for a long time before 1914. But because it was a nasty shock for us, it doesn't follow that it was unusually terrible in any objective sense. -
Message 4
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Monday, 24th January 2011
Would having that hindsight be of any help in the long run, if it were possible to use the knowledge of a historian to make a tactical breakthrough?
If for example you introduced the creeping barrage early in the conflict, that would mean the Germans would be able to learn how to deal with it or copy it at an earlier stage than in the real war. Or if you "invent" the tank earlier than in reality, you end up with German versions and German tactics changing to tackle them. Ultimately, you end up with the same overall situation, namely stalemate that is difficult to overcome without the attritional rates.
Fundamentally, the technology of the day meant that rapid movements of men and machinery needed to take advantage on a battle field just did not exist at the time - there was no way an early form of Blitzkrieg with aircraft, artillery, armour, and infantry all working together, would have worked. Much of the technology of the day was just too slow. -
Message 5
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Monday, 24th January 2011
Not just too slow, but too prone to breakdown. WWI Tanks were a huge breakthrough, used properly and in numbers, but they were extremely prone to mechanical failure. Furthermore, the conditions in them were horrendous - diesel fumes everywhere - requiring the crew to wear special breathing apparatus.
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Message 6
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 24th January 2011
Erik Lindsay:
Could you, using modern tactical and historical knowledge, but with only the weapons and materiel available during that conflict, achieve and exploit a breakthrough that could end that static bloodbath?Β
The campaigns of 1918 would seem to answer that question. Each side developed their own response to the stalemate. The Germans' Kaiserschlachten got as far as they did thanks to their stosstruppen tactics which were, in hindsight, the deep-penetration officer-on-the-ground Blitzkrieg tactics of WW2 but without the massed tank and airplane formations. The British counterattack was founded upon the long-developed phase-lines-of-advance tactic but this time with the infantry hugging close by the artillery barrage. -
Message 7
Posted by Amphion (U3338999) on Tuesday, 25th January 2011
The Campaigns of 1918 were definately a step away from the tactics of the previous years. Ludendorf had issued a decree that all troops must undergo special training in accordance with the new handbook,'The Attack In Trench Warfare.' This was the prelude to the German Offensive of March 1918: (Michael)Units already at the front were combed for their fittest, most experienced and youngest soldiers These were then formed into 'Sturmabteilungen' or storm troopers... less able soldiers were sent to other fronts to replace the more able soldiers sent west... The role of these units was to bypass enemy trench lines, pockets of heavy resistance, and machine-gun posts, and attack the artillery positions. The plan hinged on 'infiltration and speed.' During the opening days of the Battle, confusion in interpretation of orders amongst the British led to gaps appearing in the British lines. The British rearguard fought determinedly, sometimes using cavalry and tanks. Stubbornly, the British Empire troops failed to realise that they had been beaten? The collapse of the German Offensive was down to exhaustion on the part of the German troops, and the fact that they came across British stores, the likes of which they could no longer imagine. also, as happens, many of the supposed 'highly-trained' troops had only been hastily trained??? But the seeds of an idea had been planted.
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Message 8
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 25th January 2011
I think it would have been possible to make a success of Gallipoli.
Firstly, no previous naval actions - particularly the November bombardment which simply served notice upon the Turks that an attempt might be made, and led them to strengthen the defences.
Secondly, the RN Division should not have been expended upon the nugatory Antwerp operation, nor committed to the Western Front, bot trained to undertake assault operations.
Thirdly, the X-lighters would have needed to be developed in time for the initial operation, not as a response to its failure. The assault phase at Suvla, when they were available, went remarkably well.
Not sure if that would have given an overall success, but a number of other things could have contributed - Christie suspension for the tanks, amongst others, reducing the pace of initial recruitments to allow the men to be better trained, not sending the Dartmouth senior cadets to sea in woefully inadequate vessels like Monmouth, so preserving the RNs cadres, sacking Beatty (which would probably have led to Churchill's resignation as First Lord), not recalling Fisher, and imposing convoy earlier could have helped bring forward the "turnip winter" thus undermining German morale and performance. -
Message 9
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Wednesday, 26th January 2011
I'd agree on Gallipoli - very possible, if they had not cocked-up every single aspect of it.
A surprise naval attack could probably have forced the straights.
A properly executed army assault, delivered earlier, could probably have taken the land.
Even a quicker advance at Suvla could almost certainly have cut the Peninsula in half, and cut off the Turks at the front lines. -
Message 10
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 26th January 2011
Re: Message 1.
Erik,
"Could you, using modern tactical and historical knowledge, but with only the weapons and materiel available during that conflict, achieve and exploit a breakthrough that could end that static bloodbath?"
As some contributors in this thread have already announced there was I also think no breakthrough possible, while the opposing parties had nearly the same technology in house and if there was any innovation there was nearly immediately sought for a remedy at the other side.
But, as I suppose Gil (Ur-Lugal) in message 8 is thinking along the same lines, there were perhaps ways out of the stalemate by "strategic" decisions? I had yesterday a quick look to the Serbian and Italian campaign and to the atlas. Had (it is naturally a what-if that has to be worked out in full) the Allies better supported the Serbs in the later Yougoslavian territory for instance in the region of the present Croatia and Slovenia...Rieka (Fiume), Zagreb, Budapest, Vienna...a third front exhausting the Central Powers....gaving the resources to the Serbians and Greeks and some tactical aid...the Allies had a lot more resources from their colonies and dominions than the Central powers ?
I agree it is a what-if that has to be tested on its reality of that moment...
But I hope that you understand what I mean by this single example....
Kind regards and with esteem for your many interesting questions during the "lifetime" of these messageboards,
Paul. -
Message 11
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 26th January 2011
Paul :
Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to do (incidentally, the point of sacking Beatty would have been to induce Churchill to resign as 1st Lord. Perhaps he learned from being there in 1914-15, but for many in the Navy, "Winston's back" was a dire warning rather than a cause for rejoicing). -
Message 12
Posted by GrandFalconRailroad (U14802912) on Friday, 11th March 2011
Can I suggest, given that the German High Seas Fleet was in effect bottled up post-Jutland, that we made an effort to invade Germany via Northern Holland or Southern Denmark?
Perhaps controversial but given that we "invaded" Norwegian neutrality on a flimsy context in 1940 then the same kind of action, just might, have rendered the "British Hook" as a stroke of genius - a massive fleet to the Northern Flank as a barrier from the Germans turning South from the Baltic, then the invasion force being landed on the flat beaches along the Northern coast of Holland or Eastern coast of Denmark.
Might I also suggest the provision of HM Forces being moved via the Mid-East into Russia where they could have been used in the East perhaps? -
Message 13
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Friday, 11th March 2011
In reply to GrandFalconRailroad:
Can I suggest, given that the German High Seas Fleet was in effect bottled up post-Jutland, that we made an effort to invade Germany via Northern Holland or Southern Denmark?Β
Under the conditions that the Netherlands and Denmark had agreed to such an undertaking to let the British Forces through their country. Otherwise this had been the same like Germany did by invading Belgium, neglecting these countries neutrality.
Might I also suggest the provision of HM Forces being moved via the Mid-East into Russia where they could have been used in the East perhaps? Β
On how many frontlines the British had to fight then? Too much as it seems. -
Message 14
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 11th March 2011
GFRR,
Given the chronic ineffectivity of other invasions such as the Dardanelles or Mesopotamia, I'm highly skeptical any invasion of the Netherlands or Denmark would have worked. The Germans would simply have counterinvaded with larger forces which were much closer to their own bases of supply.
Also, you have no idea of the logistics of supporting such attempts - look at what it took to launch the aforesaid Dardanelles and Mesopotamia campaigns. Just imagine what it would have taken to send troops to Russia via the Mid-East; even the Russians and Turks were hard-pressed to keep armies there. -
Message 15
Posted by GrandFalconRailroad (U14802912) on Friday, 11th March 2011
Hi all,
Just two ideas I thought I don't mind them being shot down -
I guess the only other idea I can think of, which I'm guessing would also be "shot down" so to speak would be this - round up every aircraft that you can, which can carry a useful load, load them with "gas bombs" and then fly over the assembly areas for the German armies and bomb the h*ll out of them, return to the Allied lines ASAP to defeat the German return raids, then as soon as you can send in the ground troops.
I can't say that anything else than mass murder but given the previous goings on in the war.................... -
Message 16
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Friday, 11th March 2011
I still incline to the view that offering the right combination of later pre- or semi-dreadnoughts and a few turtleback TBDs "on loan" to the Turks in return for commandeering Reshadieh, Osman I, and the Talisman class might have kept them out of the war, and persuaded them to grant merchant ships access to the Black Sea, and the resultant strengthening of the Russian armies might have had a beneficial effect.
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Message 17
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Monday, 14th March 2011
In reply to GrandFalconRailroad
... round up every aircraft that you can, which can carry a useful load, load them with "gas bombs" and then fly over the assembly areas for the German armies and bomb the h*ll out of them, return to the Allied lines ...Β
There is just one thing, youΒ΄d to make sure that the wind doesnΒ΄t turned and gassed the British instead. Such things happened by launched gas assaults by the Germans, then suddenly the wind turned and the gas went (back) towards the Germans. -
Message 18
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Monday, 14th March 2011
I suppose that, as the preparations for an "aerial Port Arthur" on the HSF were well advanced by the end of hostilities, in the aftermath of such an attack, if successful, an assault could have been launched on the German North Sea coast - sort of "Riddle of the sands" in reverse. Luckily, it proved unneccessary.
Anyone think that Fisher's Baltic Scheme was a worthwhile idea? I don't.
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