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Added "stalemate" section
Alternative theories cite the building of the Berlin-Baghdad railway and the problems it would have created for England. <ref>http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA138432</ref>
Alternative theories cite the building of the Berlin-Baghdad railway and the problems it would have created for England. <ref>http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA138432</ref>
== Stalemate ==
Weapons technology made huge advancements in the time between the U.S. Civil war and the beginning of World War I. [[Rifles]], the standard weapon of the infantry, were vastly improved in terms of accuracy and rate of fire. Even more importantly, the [[machine gun]] was invented. Because of these formidable new weapons, many military commanders expected the war to end quickly. However, these advancements changed the way wars were to be fought. World War I was characterized by huge battles in which hundreds of thousands of men died often for little or no territorial gain. Commanders resorted to sending men "over the top" of the trenches, where they were typically cut down en mass by enemy machine guns. Both sides quickly learned that mass infantry attacks were pointless, and the war settled into a stalemate. The two sides dug elaborate trench systems stretching from the Swiss border all the way to the North sea, a distance of over 2,000 miles<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8303210.stm</ref>
The quandary facing strategists through most of the war was how to reinstate mobility. The sheer size of the Eastern front made trench warfare unfeasible, creating a fluidity there that generals sought for the Western Front as well.
=== Gas ===
The Germans took the first step on January 3rd 1915 when, in contravention of the Hague Convention of 1899, which outlawed the use of poisons in war, they employed gas warfare at Bolimov, on the Eastern Front. This attack was largely ineffective, however. The Germans had used xylyl bromide, a non-lethal, but lachrymatory (tear-producing) gas, but it froze in the sub-zero temperatures. But, by April of that year, the Germans had an abundance of lethal [[chlorine]] gas. Chlorine is a vesicant, a substance that overstimulates fluid production in the lungs, drowning the victim.
The first effective gas attack, using chlorine, was launched by the Germans at Ypres on April 22, 1915. Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans viewed gas attacks as an experiment, so the attack was conducted on a relatively small scale. After the usual artillery bombardment, that preceded almost every battle, the greenish-yellow gas began drifting into the Allied trenches, which were occupied by French and Canadian troops. Many were killed almost immediately, and the French troops panicked, fleeing the their trenches, opening up a four-mile wide gap in the lines. However, tenacious resistance by the remaining troops prevented the Germans from making any great gains, as well as the lazy winds which did not move the gas cloud fast enough to stay ahead of the advancing Germans. The attack was still somewhat successful, as it did flatten the curve of the Ypres salient, and the potential gains were enormous, if only the Germans had launched a larger attack.
The Germans launched another gas attack on 24th, forcing the Allied line into a three-mile retreat. But the Germans had made a major mistake: the inaugural gas attack on the 22nd was too small-scale, and the success it had would not be repeated, for the Allies were now prepared. The gas was quickly recognized as chlorine and a Canadian Lieutenant, remembering that chlorine is water-soluble, ordered men to cover their faces with wet cloths, which greatly diminished the effectiveness of the gas. The Allies quickly developed gas masks and their own gas, phosgene. The Germans then responded with mustard gas, a vicious vesicant that blisters the skin and lungs.
=== Overcoming the wire ===
Gas had restored mobility to a certain extent, but there was still the problem of wire barriers. Cutting barbed wire was a serious tactical problem. In Gallipoli, Allied forces had attempted to destroy wire with artillery bombardments, but shells only exploded upon hitting the ground, which usually only served to create further entanglements. The French produced a solution in 1915, with a new kind of fuse called the Fusée Instantée Allongée (elongated instantaneous fuse), containing a brass tape that unwound during flight. Once unwound, it freed the hammer, and when the shell hit the ground, this triggered the detonator, setting off the primer and exploding the shell. British inventors made some changes to improve its safety, reliability and suitability for mass production, resulting in the Type 106 percussion fuse. The final product was a shell that exploded on impact with all but the softest ground. The explosion produced no crater, dispersed high-velocity steel splinters over the ground, which were lethal at 800 metres. Hence the infantry called them "ground shrapnel" or "daisy cutters". This new fuse bode well for a solution to the wire problem.
=== Tanks ===
With wire resolved, there still remained the problem of what lay behind it: machine guns and rifles, manned by entrenched soldiers. It was necessary to get men past the wire to enemy trenches without costly frontal assaults. This would be possible by protecting the attacker with a mobile bulletproof shield, as such a shield would be too heavy to carry. To accomplish this, the Allies introduced the ‘tank,’ as it was code-named, in 1916. The intention was to restore power to the offensive by combining firepower, protection and movement. The first two were often stressed to the detriment of the third; the tank’s average speed was five miles per hour. They were used sparingly at the Somme and had little effect until used en masse the following year.
The first major tank deployment was at Cambrai in November 1917, when the Allies launched a 318-tank attack on German trenches. Since the wire posed no threat to the tanks, the customary artillery bombardment to attempt to remove it was unnecessary, and it ensured surprise. The tanks penetrated three German lines, advancing eight miles. The attack was an unmitigated success, although the enormous success was also a drawback: the Allied tank columns advanced so rapidly that they outdistanced supporting infantry and cavalry, and were forced to halt their advance.
But the greatest success for the tank had yet to come. On August 8, 1918 at Amiens, four hundred sixty-two tanks were deployed, along with three corps of the British Fourth Army went into action, and penetrated fifteen miles, as far as the German divisional headquarters. In all, one hundred ten square miles of German-held territory was lost that day, causing that day to became known as ‘the black day of Germany.’ The German losses from that day were never published, but some historians have out the casualties as high as seventy-five thousand, as well as thirteen thousand prisoners taken, and over three hundred guns captured as well This day could be said to have been the turning point in the war. After the ‘black day,’ Erich Von Ludendorff, First Quartermaster General to Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg, wrote the following:
"Everything I had feared, and of which I had so often given warning, had here, in one place become reality… The 8th of August put the decline of our fighting power beyond all doubt… The war must be ended."<ref>'''The Conduct of War''' by J.F.C. Fuller, p. 176-177.
However, tanks did not immeditately revolutionize warfare. Historian Ernest Swinton described the role of the tank as “purely auxiliary to the infantry, and are intended to sweep away the obstructions that have hitherto stopped the advance of our infantry beyond the Germans’ first line and cannot with certainty be disposed of by shell fire.” Tanks were certainly an effective weapon in breaking trench lines, but were not independently decisive. Swinton’s description was mostly accurate, except for the part about destruction by artillery. While the tanks were heavily armoured, they were exceedingly slow, and moving over rough terrain slowed them further, making them easy targets for artillery. Indeed, many tanks were destroyed before generals realized that they could only be truly effective if working in cooperation with infantry and artillery.
There was one area in which tanks could be said to be the most important, that being psychological warfare. German officers recorded that their troops “felt powerless to stop the tanks,” and while this is not entirely true, the tank was a formidable-looking machine. Historian J.F.C. Fuller notes that the tank was “a psychological, more so than a material weapon.”
=== Great Battles of World War I ===
=== Great Battles of World War I ===