Why did a stalemate develop on the western front?

Question

This is about the first world war. I've absolutely no idea. :| i didn't get what the stalemate was at first. Please help me with some causes?

I'd be really greatful x

Answer 1

There were 3 main reasons.



Firstly, by the end of 1914 both sides had constructed continuous lines of trench systems running all the way from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border.This effectively meant that neither side had any open flanks,and it was therefore impossible for either to open up the war by getting round behind the enemy.

As the months went by, the trench systems became more and more fortified, with multiple lines of trenches, deep belts of barbed wire entanglements in front, and well sited machine guns and artillery that turned the approach across no man's land into a giant killing zone.

Successful frontal attacks on such deep defences were impossible to achieve, so for nearly 4 years the front lines hardly moved.



Secondly, advances in weaponry gave troops defending such positions a huge advantage in battle.Bolt action magazine loaded rifles, belt fed machine guns, and rapid firing breech loading artillery meant that troops behind the cover of their trench systems could, quite literally, slaughter troops which had to advance on foot, in the open, across no man's land.All it was really necessary to do was for the defending troops to load and fire, the sheer volume of bullets and shells they could deliver in the space of a few minutes making even aiming unnecessary.

This increase in military firepower made the frontal attacks that the continuous trench lines forced the generals into making highly unlikely to succeed, again contributing to a lack of breakthroughs and a stalemate lasting for nearly 4 years.



Finally, the size of armies had expanded massively compared to even 50 years before. For example, during the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War, Prussia and the other German states it was allied with put an army of 250,000 men into the field. In August 1914 some 4 million Germans were involved in the initial attack on France and Belgium.



Other armies were of comparable size, so there was no problem manning the entire trench system with troops.Further, even heavy casualties sustained on a regular basis in no way diminished the capability of the armies on both sides from keeping the necessary numbers of troops in the trenches to defend them effectively.

Thus, with neither side likely to run out of men any time soon,even attrition was unlikely to break the deadlock.With aged army commanders comfortably ensconced in chateaux and country estates miles behind the front, with no idea and less conscience about the reality of the type of warfare they were conducting, there was again little chance of the stalemate being broken.



So, for the reasons mentioned above - extensive defensive trench systems, modern weapons,and armies numbering in the millions - a stalemate quickly developed on the Western Front from the end of 1914.

Answer 2

The reason for the stalemate was a lack of mobility, on both sides.

The Germans knew that if they were to have any chance of pushing the French back to and beyond Paris they had to in the first stages of the conflict keep up a constant battle momentum, this was also part of the Schliemann plan. But the plan was modified by Moltke, who reduced the number of troops fielded on the Western front by the Germans, and the French finally stopped the advancing Germans at Marne, there were simply not enough German troops to keep up momentum to satisfy total victory. Had the Schlieffen plane not been modified by Moltke, and had it been pushed through in accidence with Schlieffen, then there would probably have been total German victory.The battle of Marne went into"stalemate", and the rest we know. However the Germans did break- out in 1918 and pushed the British back to the sea and were threatening Paris but their momentum slowed because German troops had stumbled on allied food dumps in which they had a greater interest in, than soldiering. They were tired of war, shortly after a truce was called.The German army was never beaten in the field.The treaty of Versailles would be the start and recipe for WW2.The reason for Moltke revising the Schlieffen plan was that he believed that there was a need to reinforce the Eastern front, thereby troops were taken from the Western battle groups prior to the German invasion of Belgium.

Answer 3

Density of force. Don't believe the talk about modern technology being the reason for stalemate - such technologies were just as universally applied on the Eastern Front, yet there offensives frequently gained vast swaths of territory.

But the Western front was a tiny area with good (for the time) transport infrastructure, the antithesis of the Eastern Front; any attack by one side could be met by the other simply entraining his reserves & delivering them to the area of the attack within a matter of hours, hence offensive operations tended to end up as head-on engagements in which neither force had the superiority to decide the action decisively. Conversely, a surprise massing of men & guns in the East could achieve the necessary level of force to breach the enemy lines fter which it might take weeks of marching men overland to make good this imbalance, by which time large sectors of that front might be cut off or in general disarray.



But go with the machine guns & QF artillery story if this is for shool. It isn't technically true but it is what they want to hear; and that after all is what you need to know...

Answer 4

Due to the advances of trench warfare and defensive weapons such as barb wire, machine guns and artillery, they outweighed the offensive capabilities of the WW1 armies. Until tanks came towards the end of the war victories were considered by taking several feet of ground. The primary reason the war finally ended was total exhaustion of the German people after fighting Britain, France, and then the fresh troops of the US, just wore them down.