Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2014/Op-ed
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A Race Among the Ruins |
- By TomStar81
On 22 November 1914, a milestone event occurred with the completion of the First Battle of Ypres. That battle, which had been the culmination of upwards of two months of strategic and logistical chess between the Allied and Central Powers at the time, inadvertently settled the issue of where the battle for control of Western Europe would be fought.
After the outbreak of World War I in July of 1914 both the Allied and Central Powers fell back upon well rehearsed battle plans that would allow their respective sides to end the war quickly. Initially, the German Empire looked to the Schlieffen Plan as the script for the execution of it's military operations in the Western Theatre, however the French had deviated from the intended German script by introducing their own production for the Western Theatre: Plan XVII. This plan - which was actually closer to a concept or idea then an intended and rehearsed course of action - allowed the French Third Republic to flex their military might in stopping the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne. In so doing, the French had fulfilled one of the many commandments of military combat operations, in this case the proverbial commandment that "No Battle Plan Survives the First Enemy Contact".
With their invasion plans now ruined and the Allies in a state of confusion - and in places on the front in retreat - a race developed between the Allied and Central Powers that would see enemy forces repeatedly clash in a dash to the north and northwest/northeast parts of Europe as both sides attempted to flank the other. This so called "Race to the Sea" ended indecisively as neither side was able to successfully outflank the other and thus gain a needed tactical advantage.
In a last ditch attempt to regain some mobility and push for a decisive battle, the Allied and Central Powers fought the Battle of the Yser and the First Battle of Ypres, respectively, however neither battle provided the much needed decisive victory that would have tipped the front in their favor. With the conclusion of the First Battle of Ypres on 22 November, the logistically depleted Allied and Central forces armies - which had weathered weeks of battle along a massive front filled with confused reports and poor intelligence on their respective enemies plans of action and/or force composition - turned what had up till that point been a mobile campaign into a massive battle of attrition. Thus was born the Western Front, a much documented area of study for World War I historians. Out of all the theatres and fronts of operation during the course of World War I, this front stands out for its noted use of trench warfare, which would turn the military forces on the Western Front into gigantic "Armies in Being" for most of the war, as the inability of either side to force the other off their lines coupled with the need to maintain a military force to meet the enemy force in the trenches across from them would render most of the military personnel assigned to this front nothing more than a force used to tie down personnel that would otherwise have been recycled on more needed fronts during the war.
The prolonged trench warfare campaign that followed would be highly influential not just for the veterans who served in the Western Front, but for the world as well. Efforts to break the siege on this front resulted in the use of chemical warfare, as well as new and exotic mobile weapons that were intended to allow their respective force a chance to gain the decisive victory that had evaded them during the race. Survivors from the conflict would later look back on the events of the Western Front with variable emotions. Accounts from the men in the trench lines would spawn famous quotes and literary pieces, such as All Quiet on the Western Front. Determined not to make the same mistakes they had with the trenches in any future war, both France and Germany would construct more permanent trench lines for their forces following World War I, of which the surviving parts of the Maginot Line are perhaps the most well known internationally.
While surviving bunkers and emplaced defenses along the French Maginot and German Siegfried Lines allow us some feel for the trench warfare fought in Western Europe, the true extent of the size of the Western Front and the combat that took place in the trench lines cannot be fully understood by us today as a result of changing combat strategies and tactics. Despite this evolution away from trench warfare there is perhaps one place that a modern human could use as a rough comparison to gain a better understanding of the significance of the First Battle of Ypres, and that would be in modern day Korea. Following the 1951 repulsion of the Chinese expeditionary force in North Korea, the UN and DKPR military forces engaged each other along a static front that eventually evolved into what we know as the Korean Demilitarized Zone, which extends the entire length of the peninsula and serves as the de facto border between the two forces. With such a prominent visual aid to use for reference in our time, it is not hard to see how harsh the conditions were those stationed on or assigned to the Western Front of World War I.
As we move throughout the official centennial of the four years during which World War I was fought, we have the opportunity to present the community with quality material covering the major milestones of the conflict. Our World War I task force, and the editors working with the Great War Centennial special project, could use your help to make sure that when World War I's major milestone dates reach their official 100th anniversary they will be eligible for main page appearances. For a war that so fundamentally altered the world at the time, it seems altogether right and proper that we endeavour to cover it as best we can.
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