The First World War Stalemate
Uploaded by angelttt on Oct 31, 2011
This essay discusses one chapter of John Keegan’s book about WWI.
I Introduction
The First World War, according to many historians, accomplished little or nothing except to create the circumstances that made the second conflict possible. It was a brutal, senseless war whose most memorable feature was the trench warfare that rolled back and forth across Europe for years, often ending with thousands of lives lost and no objectives gained. It was a vicious waste of lives, materiel and time.
This paper examines the chapter entitled “Stalemate” from the book. The term refers to 1915, in which the Allies made little or no progress; the Western Front took shape; and the losses were appalling. I’d suggest that in addition to examining the trench warfare, we can also consider the question of whether or not the First World War was a modern war, on the last old-fashioned one. While many people see it as directly connected to the Second World War and its technological advances, I see it as being the last great struggle of the non-technological ages.
II Discussion
The word “stalemate” can be applied to the entire war, because it seems to have ground to a halt on more than one occasion. For months at a time, the two sides started at each other across no-man’s land, and no one gained the advantage. The chapter describes the network of trenches in detail. All sides, of course, dug these extensive lines of trenches, not only marking the front, but also extending far to the rear. Men and supplies could be brought up to the front in relative safety, shuffling along below the surface of the earth. Troops took shelter in the trenches, and had to climb ladders to go “over the top” to attack the enemy.
Trench warfare has become so closely identified with the First World War that we tend to overlook the fact that it is a method that was used in several conflicts in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, including (something that is often overlooked) the American Civil War. In the latter part of the that conflict, trenches were dug by both Confederate and Union troops in Maryland, and they took shelter in them for a period of over ten months. (This is from Ken Burn’s film “The Civil War,” but I don’t have a reference. I...