Why the Western Front attacks failed in WW1?

Question

Why did all of the pre-1918 attacks on the Western Front fail? I'm talking about the battles like Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Verdun and the Somme.

Answer 1

Stupidity. You ought to watch a film by Stanley Kubrick, featuring Kirk Douglas, called 'Paths of Glory' which tells the story quite well. Yes one can argue that technology raced ahead of Man and that masses of men could not over come machine guns & artillery but the truth is that the failure lay with the high command. Mostly the German High Command. It was sheer stupidity cloaked in stubborness. And prejudice played a big part in the slaughter. The arrogant Germans imagined that the French would crumple in fear & panic and though there were incidents particularly in late 1916 into 1917 when French troops mutinied, the sheer fact is that the majority of French fought bravely & well. As did the Brits.

Quite honestly the battles that you cite, in PARTICULAR Loos, Verdun and in particular the batrles (pural) of the Somme were hindered by Grandiose Schemes / Over Planning. Instead of assigning limited objectives & clear goals, the German High Command issued elaborate often conflicting orders and those orders were to be OBEYED. Far too often German Officers who were 'mere' Colonels and Captains, were hog tied by the fear that if they used their own inititive & knowledge to salvage a situation they might face a reprimand or worse court martial and death. For all their stiff necked authority both British and French forces were given greater freedom to react to events as they occurred whereas the Germans were expected to obey a script conjured up by a Field Marshall hundreds of miles away from the battle.
Communications were another bug-a-boo for the Germans who never quite developed the new technology of the radio and their field telegraph & telephone system sucked.
Partially because they were fighting on French soil and could count on a telegraph & telephone system, the Allied forces were better able to coordinate their forces during the insanity of battle. And once agian the French deserve credit for simply being smarter when it came to figuring out how to use technology such as telephones in what were then new novel situations. The British were equally crafty figuring out how to communicate.
The German communication problems combined with a system that did not allow Colonels & Captains to use their own initive was a fatal two three punch.

Do yourself a favor and read Corelli Bennets 'The Swordbearers; Supreme Command during World War One.'

Peace. o o o p p o o p p o o

Answer 2

The attacks in WWI basically failed because of one fact of modern warfare that is as true today as it was then: an army can only advance as far as the effective range of its artillery. The specific terrain of 'No Man's Land' rendered the rapid advance of artillery to follow a breakthrough impossible. Also, as the army would advance further, there was no quick way of communicating with the artillery to give new target coordinates.

Conversely, as the army advanced it was moving closer to the enemy's artillery which could easily move over roads that were not ruined while the enemy's line of communication grew shorter and quicker.

This problem has to some extent been solved by WWII because by then aircraft had advanced to the point where bombers could be used as an effective substitute for artillery and radios were advanced to the point where they could be carried with the advancing army and keep spotters in contact with both the artillery and the airplanes.

Answer 3

there was a piece of black humor during the fighting:

"How long will this war last? 100 years. 5 of fighting and 95 to roll up the barbed wire."

It wasn't till I saw a picture of "The Wire" that I really understood this......you know concertina wire? The barbed wire that comes on an expanding roll? Looks kinda like the Devil's slinky and you see on top chain link fences?

Now, imagine a coil of that wire. Six foot tall. With another coil and then another coil and then another coil alongside it till you have a wall of wire six feet tall and fifty feet deep! and that wall stretches 500 miles, from Switzerland to the English Channel. and once you get through that, there's ANOTHER wall just as big and deep. and behind that are guys in trenches that you can barley see to shoot at, with rifles that shoot a round a second; and a machine gun that shoots 20 rounds a second; and a half dozen mortars firing a 3 pound shell and behind them linked by telephone are a few dozen artillery pieces that fire 50 or 100 pound shells......

it was a miracle and a tribute to the bravery of the boys on both sides that anyone ever made it across and into the other sides trenches.....

Answer 4

I think it was just that offensives developed too slowly - - being dependent on men WALKING. Cavalry were useless in WWI on the Western Front due to obstacles, machine guns and artillery. The trench systems were defenses in depth, so if the men succeeded in taking one trench (usually at great cost), the enemy had already fallen back to another trench. Men can only stand so much. The mobility and speed of advance of fast armored vehicles had to await WWII.

Answer 5

The trenches gave excellent defense that was very difficult to overcome. Also, Germany began using gas (eg Mustard) to slow the Allied advance. It was a very big, long stalemate for much of the war.