The Western Front: Schlieffen Plan Alfred Von Schlieffen
The Western Front: Schlieffen Plan Alfred Von Schlieffen
The Western Front: Schlieffen Plan Alfred Von Schlieffen
On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the
first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city
of Liege, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege
cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and
destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France,
shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting
civilian resistance.
The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both
sides dug into trenches, and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish
war of attrition that would last more than three years.
READ MORE: 10 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of Verdun
Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of
remembrance.
Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis,
Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in
World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and
exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by
war.
Despite that victory, Russia’s assault had forced Germany to move two corps
from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the
Battle of the Marne.
Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s
huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer,
more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win
under the Schlieffen Plan.
Russian Revolution
From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World War
I’s Eastern Front, but was unable to break through German lines.
Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity
of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of
Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants.
This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar
Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.