Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Attrition

 I love this French video.  It shows the units and the lines on the Western Front of WWI by date.  



You see the German run wild at the beginning.  August 1914.  The British army is Orange and TINY.  But with very good professional soldiers that punch above their wait weight.  

The Allies get outflanked on their left (German right) and have to move.  This keeps happening.

You see the flaw in Moltke's plan when you don't have enough Germans on their far right flank.  The German don't have enough to go to the West of Paris, the jog inward, the French are now on the German's flank and now they have to move.

Pull back to the lines everyone will now inhabit, pretty much, for the next four years.  And this all happened before it got cold in 1914.

No real movement in the line because Verdun.  No real movement because Somme.  Just meat grinding butchery.

Everyone is exhausted when 1918 comes around.  The Germans get a boost when Russia crumbles and tired German units come west.  NOW their is movement.  In the Spring there is a scramble and the Germans are stopped.  The some fresh purple units show up.  Lots of enthusiastic and fresh green Americans to boost the tires Britd and French.  Against the tired and hungry Germans.  The lines push the Germans back in the Summer.  Then Novemeber comes.


Finé

3 comments:

ASM826 said...

This is a really interesting way to think about that war.

One edit, you use the phrase " professional soldiers that punch above their wait." It's not wait, it's weight. The phrase comes from boxing, "punching above your weight" means, for example, you're a middleweight fighter, but you punch as hard as a heavyweight.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Super valid edit. I know how to spell words but sometime my typing fingers don't. Well they spell the word right but it's the wrong one.

Borepatch said...

You might enjoy the Hard Core History series on WWI, "Blueprint for Armageddon"