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Attempts to Break Stalemate

 

            How did the Allies attempt to break the Stalemate .
            
             Stalemate on the Western Front at the end of 1914 brought the First World War to a standstill. The failure of the Schlieffen Plan resulted in Germany being badly damaged. It not only had to now fight a battle on two fronts and deploy 100,000 men to fight against Russia, it was caught on up in the "race to the sea." This involved Germany and both France and Britain charging towards west to the sea. On the way, they built in trenches to keep the land they had captured, while trying to outflank one another. It was due to the building of trenches, which mainly caused Stalemate.
             The nature of trench warfare was soon acknowledged by the Allies; if either side were to win, they would have to resort to new, and advanced tactics and weaponry, uphold team morale, and ship in large numbers of troops, unfazed by the realities of war and its brutality. Allies also came to believe that innovative ideas would also be needed not just on the Western Front, but also more importantly, on the Home Front.
             Trench Warfare was completely new idea to both soldiers and generals. They were first constructed as simple shelters but as time went on they turned to more complex defensive systems. Conditions in the trenches were appalling; they ranged from smelly and dusty pit holes in the summer to knee-deep water and mud filled ditches in the winter. Although mainly problems were physical e.g. plagues of rats and lice, and trench foot, the most significant enemy to a soldier in the trenches was boredom. This occurred as soldiers did not spend all their time fighting on the front line, they had to repair kit and do sentry duty. This though, did not take long resulting in soldiers having nothing to do for the rest of the day. Many tried to keep boredom away by writing diaries, and trying to go to sleep. But with the constant noise of other soldiers and the threat of bombardment by the enemy resulted in these ideas not working most of the time.


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