AHC: No/Minimal trench warfare in WW1

Was trench warfare inevitable?


  • Total voters
    78
In a way the "cult of the offense" guided the war for decisive battle, to the extent the Germans implemented what we call the Schlieffen Plan it was clearly meant to create a strategic fair accompli.
it was obvious that France was forced to attack, its only goal was to retake A-L, it would attack no matter what.
Not sure that it was obvious for the French to attack. Still, thanks to Plan XVII that it was they were going to do if a war with Germany started.
In 1914 I do not think anyone was presuming the war would be a long grinding total war, they still thought this was a chess match, thus I voted "no" despite the implausibility of it all, it was still possible.
Agree on this for the Central Powers: by clever moving Germany was going to knock France out the war before turning on Russia. For the Triple Entente it was more of brute force: hold out until the Russian bear was in a position to give the Germans such a whack that they would call uncle. In other words, once hit hard the other side was going to crack very quickly......
 
Not sure that it was obvious for the French to attack. Still, thanks to Plan XVII that it was they were going to do if a war with Germany started.

Agree on this for the Central Powers: by clever moving Germany was going to knock France out the war before turning on Russia. For the Triple Entente it was more of brute force: hold out until the Russian bear was in a position to give the Germans such a whack that they would call uncle. In other words, once hit hard the other side was going to crack very quickly......

Well if you are France and do not invade A-L, or any part of Germany, how do you win back A-L? For France it was only a successful invasion of Germany that got her the war aims she sought. Thus her offensive doctrine made sense, it pushed the strategic down to the tactical to preclude any change. I suppose France could go to the defense and let the Russians knock Germany out of the war, but would the Bear bleed so France can have her lost dirt back? I think France was locked into an offensive war by default of her alliance with Russia, her only addition was to divide German forces and threaten Germany from her rear to give Russia greater freedom to attack. It is why the French neglected heavier artillery and downplayed the machinegun, they were forcing the war into the box they fit themselves into, a war of swiftly executed bold attack, French elan would restore France, no need to bother with reality.
 
No, I see what you meant, and you've elaborated it nicely. In the conventional space, one sees in Europe in 1914 many of the same preoccupations that came into nuclear strategy in the early to mid Cold War, in a way: the need to have all this tremendously complicated, interlocking machinery awaiting a go command that might be given at any moment, the need to get it all in place and the troops disembarking the trains as quickly as possible to keep the other side from getting the jump in terms of mobilization, etc., etc. Perversely, the added fortifications in the west prove that the enemy is readier there and makes a sudden frontal assault even more necessary.

It raises some interesting questions. The rush to mass slaughter would have been lessened if the generals on one or both sides had understood that there was actually plenty of time because trench lines were pretty static, but then, if they'd understood that, there would have been no cult of the offensive, and hence no rush to war, and possibly this diplomatic crisis would have been resolved the same way a half-dozen others were before it.

But you're also right about how selective our own history can be. The Marne is only, what, a couple days walk from Paris. In hindsight it's obvious that the advance that getting that far was the lucky part and the subsequent retreat and entrenchment was the typical part, but maybe if the Germans had been just a little bit luckier, the "Great War" would have confirmed the theory of the offensive instead of shattered it. But then I guess "if only we'd been just a little bit luckier" can stand in for the entire history of German aggression in the 20th century.

Indeed the strategic standoff we fondly call the Cold War is this writ large, the forces stand at the brink to deter war or win it, no real middle. If any of the Generals had viewed the West as the stalemate the trenches insured then I think diplomacy would have reigned. I am at a loss for how Moltke seriously took this gamble, it is all or nothing with national survival as the stakes, to call it folly is generous. But then we have equal measures of such folly all around. The game played by the Great Powers often shades to a bit of luck here or there, thus we have grist for our imagining. Given how near the thing came to putting France in a similar position as 1871 I must applaud the Germans and Moltke. But there are no true prizes for second place. This war made such high order gambling and use of war as statecraft unpalatable yet also was the war to end peace in our century. Perhaps a bit more luck and the thing would have ended in 1914, the terms would have been easier to swallow than the millions dead to get us nothing but the bitter interlude to millions more dead.
 
WI think France was locked into an offensive war by default of her alliance with Russia, her only addition was to divide German forces and threaten Germany from her rear to give Russia greater freedom to attack. It is why the French neglected heavier artillery and downplayed the machinegun, they were forcing the war into the box they fit themselves into, a war of swiftly executed bold attack, French elan would restore France, no need to bother with reality.
You are right up to a point. Yes, France had strategic reasons for attacking, but their tactics were flawed. Most countries thought that the Russo-Japanese War demonstrated that the man with the bayonet would always get through. They were wrong, hence the chewing up at the start of WW1. If the French had figured out trenches are difficult to break through then they may have considered heavier artillery and more attention to machine guns.

That is not to say that Plan XVII would have been a success or the Schlieffen Plan could have foiled. However, it could have meant that they were not booted out of/retreated from Germany in 1914. and it could have meant being less chewed up when trench warfare started.
 
Top