Previous Next

The Stalemates in Europe

By 1916, all of the initial fronts of the war had reached stalemates, with both sides embedded in trenches and neither side gaining or losing much ground. All the while, soldiers were dying in massive numbers, simply for the sake of maintaining the status quo. The conflict was becoming a war of attrition, a gruesome contest to see which country could afford to lose the most soldiers. It was made all the more horrible by the fact that Britain, France, and Germany relied heavily upon their colonies to bolster their supplies of fighting men. Of the major participants, only Russia and later the United States relied solely upon their own populations to fight the war.

Modern Weapons and the War of Attrition

The primary reason that World War I became a war of attrition was the use of modern weapons. Machine guns made it easy to cut down large numbers of men quickly if they came out into the open to fight. Once opposing armies became entrenched, long-range artillery, aerial bombs, and poison gas were used to try to force the other side to abandon its shelters and retreat.

Developments in Eastern Europe

While stalemates persisted in France and South Tyrol, the situation changed in eastern Europe, where several other nations joined the war. First was Romania, which had remained neutral for the first two years of the war but on August 18, 1916, signed a secret pact with the Allied Powers granting it the right to seize the territories of Transylvania, Bukovina, and Banat in exchange for entering the war on the Allied side. Shortly thereafter, on August 27, Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary and quickly moved forces across the border into Transylvania (then a part of Austria-Hungary).

The situation soon became more complicated when Bulgaria declared war on Romania on September 1. Bulgaria promptly followed up on its declaration: on September 5, Bulgarian forces, reinforced by German and Austrian troops, attacked the Romanians at the fortress of Tutracaia and succeeded in capturing 25,000 prisoners of war. The struggle continued for several months, but on December 6, 1916, German troops captured Bucharest.

Several months later, on June 27, 1917, Greece entered the war on the side of the Allied Powers, following the abdication of Greece’s pro-German king, Constantine I. Though Greece had been neutral through most of the war, it was surrounded by conflicts on all sides. While the king supported Germany, the government and a large portion of the population were sympathetic to the Allied Powers.

The Battle of Messines Ridge

Finally, in the summer of 1917, the British made the first small steps toward breaking the stalemate on the western front. At 3:10 a.m. on June 7, 1917, a series of simultaneous explosions ripped with amazing force through Messines Ridge in northern France—a fortified position along the front, where German forces had been entrenched for a long time. More than 10,000 German soldiers died instantly; those who survived were severely stunned and had no idea what had happened. Around them were craters of more than 400 feet in diameter. Before the Germans could regain their senses, the British army was upon them. Some 7,300 Germans were taken prisoner, while the rest retreated in shock.

Previous page The War of Attrition in Europe page 1 Next page The War of Attrition in Europe page 3

Popular pages: World War I (1914–1919)

Take a Study Break