WW 1

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Germany made vast encircling movement through Belgium to enter Paris

Underestimated speed of the British mobilization

Quickly sent troops to France

Slide 13

The Schlieffen Plan’s Destructive Nature

Sept 6-10, 1914

Battle of Marne

Stopped the Germans but French troops were exhausted

Both sides dug trenches for shelter

STALEMATE

Slide 14

The Trenches

Trenches dug from English Channel to Switzerland

6,250 miles

6 to 8 feet deep

Immobilized both sides for 4 years

Slide 15

The Trenches

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Slide 18

Life in the Trenches

Elaborate systems of defense

barbed wire

Concrete machine gun nests

Mortar batteries

Troops lived in holes underground

Slide 19

Life in the Trenches

Boredom

Soldiers read to pass the time

Sarah Bernhardt came out to the front to read poetry to the soldiers

Slide 20

“Death is everywhere”

“We all had on us the stench of dead bodies.” Death numbed the soldier’s minds.

Shell shock

Psychological devastation

Slide 21

“Death is everywhere”

Mustard gas

Carried by the wind

Burned out soldier’s lungs

Deadly in the trenches where it would sit at the bottom

Slide 22

Life in the Trenches

Trench warfare baffled military leaders

Attempt a breakthrough

Then return to a war of movement

Millions of young men sacrificed attempting the breakthrough

Slide 23

Battle of Verdun

10 months

700,000 men killed

Slide 24

Battle of Verdun

10 months

700,000 men killed

Slide 25

The changes of war

New weapons crippled the “frozen front”

Poison gas (mustard gas)

Hand grenades

Flame throwers

Tanks

Airplanes

Tanks

Subs

Slide 26