Total War: 19161917

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Chapter 14

• Total War 1916-1917

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Battle of Verdun

• A major engagement of World War I
• Fought between German and French forces from
  February to December 1916
• On February 21 the Germans launched an attack on
  the French town and fortress of Verdun
• Verdun occupied a vital position on the heights
  above the Meuse River at the eastern extremity of
  the trench line in France.

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SEE THE FOLLOWING ANIMATION BATTLES http//www.p
bs.org/greatwar/maps/maps_verdun.html
http//www.pbs.org/greatwar/maps/maps_somme.html
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Battle of Verdun

• By the end of the year the French occupied
  substantially the positions from which they had
  been routed in February
• The losses on both sides were high, the French,
  nearly 350,000 casualties
• Germans to 330,000
• The battle itself was totally indecisive, gaining
  no strategic advantage to either side.

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Battle of the Somme

• Two important series of battles fought by the
  British and the French against German forces
  during World War I, in the Somme River area in
  France
• The First Battle of the Somme was fought from
  July to November 1916
• The main purpose of the five-month Allied
  offensive was to relieve the German pressure on
  Verdun by a large-scale attack against the
  strongly fortified German positions along the
  Somme River
• Allies were successful, because the Germans
  abandoned the Verdun offensive on July 16, 1916,
  and by the end of November had retreated from the
  Somme River to a previously prepared line of
  fortification and trenches, known as the
  Hindenburg Line
• Allied troops sustained about 600,000 casualties,
  two thirds of them British, and the Germans about
  450,000
• The battle is renowned for the first use, by the
  British, of the modern tank

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Blockade of the Central Powers

• During World War I the Central Powers were
  blockaded by the navies of the Allies
• Although the blockade was not altogether
  successful in the Baltic Sea, it cut Germany off
  from the Atlantic Ocean almost entirely
• Germany failed in its attempt to break the
  blockade by the use of submarines
• Its declaration of a submarine blockade against
  Great Britain was regarded as invalid on the
  ground that the German submarine fleet alone was
  not strong enough to maintain such a blockade
  effectively
• Neutral countries asserted that it was a paper
  blockade and that Germany, therefore, had no
  lawful right to sink or seize neutral ships
  headed for British ports
• German sinking of American ships despite repeated
  protests led to the U.S. entry into World War I