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Y315: The Changing Nature of Warfare 1792–1945

Depth study: The Western Front and the First World War 1914–1918 — trench deadlock, offensives and tactical change

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on trench deadlock, Verdun, recruitment and public support, the first day of the Somme, the Nivelle offensive, British tactical change, stormtroop tactics and Amiens in August 1918.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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How did the British state sustain public support and find the men it needed?

Who and when

How did the British army's tactics change between 1916 and 1918?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why did the Western Front settle into trench warfare by the end of 1914?

    Model answer

    After the German advance was halted on the Marne, both sides tried to outflank each other until the line reached the sea, leaving no open flank and forcing armies with enormous firepower to dig in.

  2. 2

    Explain Falkenhayn's intention at Verdun in 1916.

    Model answer

    He aimed to draw the French army into defending a position of great national prestige and to bleed it white by artillery, winning by attrition rather than by capturing ground.

  3. 3

    How did the British state sustain public support and find the men it needed?

    Model answer

    Emergency powers allowed censorship of the press while official correspondents and a propaganda organisation shaped the news, and when voluntary recruiting could no longer replace losses conscription was introduced in January 1916.

  4. 4

    Why did the British attack of 1 July 1916 fail so badly, and at what cost?

    Model answer

    The shells were spread over too wide a front, too many were shrapnel rather than high explosive, a large proportion failed to explode and deep German dugouts and much of the wire survived, so the attack cost around 57,000 casualties including some 19,000 killed, the heaviest British loss of any single day.

  5. 5

    What were the consequences of the Nivelle offensive of April 1917?

    Model answer

    It promised a breakthrough in forty-eight hours, failed at heavy cost, and provoked widespread indiscipline in the French army, after which Pétain restored order by improving conditions and avoiding large offensives.

  6. 6

    How did the British army's tactics change between 1916 and 1918?

    Model answer

    Artillery learned to locate targets by sound-ranging, flash-spotting and aerial photography and to fire accurately without registration, while infantry reorganised into platoons combining rifles, bombs, rifle grenades and light machine guns.

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