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Race To The Sea
The Race to the Sea (; , ) took place from 17 September to 19 October 1914 during the First World War, after the Battle of the Frontiers () and the German Empire, German advance into France. The invasion had been stopped at the First Battle of the Marne and was followed by the First Battle of the Aisne a Franco-British counter-offensive. The term describes reciprocal attempts by the Franco-British and German armies to envelop the northern flank of the opposing army through the provinces of Picardy, Artois and Flanders, rather than an attempt to advance northwards to the sea. The "race" ended on the North Sea coast of Belgium around 19 October, when the last open area from Diksmuide to the North Sea was occupied by Belgian troops who had retreated after the Siege of Antwerp (1914), Siege of Antwerp (28 September – 10 October). The flanking maneuver, outflanking attempts had resulted in a number of meeting engagement, encounter battles but neither side was able to gain a decisi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main Theatre (warfare), theatres of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Imperial German Army, German Army opened the Western Front by German invasion of Belgium (1914), invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in Third Republic of France, France. The German advance was halted with the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trench warfare, trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this Front (military), front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. It is more than long and wide, covering . It hosts key north European shipping lanes and is a major fishery. The coast is a popular destination for recreation and tourism in bordering countries, and a rich source of energy resources, including wind energy, wind and wave power. The North Sea has featured prominently in geopolitical and military affairs, particularly in Northern Europe, from the Middle Ages to the modern era. It was also important globally through the power northern Europeans projected worldwide during much of the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The North Sea was the centre of the Viking Age, Vikings' rise. The Hanseatic League, the Dutch Golden Age, Dutch Republic, and Kingdom of Great Britain, Brita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Battle Of Artois
The Second Battle of Artois (, ) from 9 May to 18 June 1915, took place on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front during the First World War. A German-held Salient (military), salient from Reims to Amiens had been formed in 1914 which menaced communications between Paris and the unoccupied parts of northern France. A reciprocal French advance eastwards in Artois could cut the rail lines supplying the German armies between Arras and Reims. French operations in Artois, Champagne and Alsace from November–December 1914, led General Joseph Joffre, Generalissimo (Commander in Chief) and head of Grand Quartier Général (1914–1919), Grand Quartier Général (GQG), to continue the offensive in Champagne against the German southern rail supply route and to plan an offensive in Artois against the lines from Germany supplying the German armies in the north. Field Marshal Sir John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (World War I), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrage (artillery)
In Military terminology, military usage, a barrage is massed sustained artillery fire (artillery shell, shelling) aimed at a series of points along a line. In addition to attacking any enemy in the kill zone, a barrage intends to suppressive fire, suppress enemy movements and area denial, deny access across that Barrage (military science), line of barrage. The impact points along the line may be 20 to 30 yards apart, with the total line length of the barrage zone anything from a few hundred to several thousand yards long. Barrages can consist of multiple such lines, usually about 100 yards apart, with the barrage shifting from one line to the next over time, or several lines may be targeted simultaneously. A barrage may involve a few or many artillery battery, artillery batteries, or even (rarely) a single gun. Typically each gun in a barrage, using indirect fire, will fire continuously at a steady rate at its assigned point for an assigned time before moving onto the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infiltration Tactics
In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small independent light infantry forces advancing into enemy rear areas, bypassing enemy frontline strongpoints, possibly isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons. Soldiers take the initiative to identify enemy weak points and choose their own routes, targets, moments and methods of attack; this requires a high degree of skill and training, and can be supplemented by special equipment and weaponry to give them more local combat options. Forms of these infantry tactics were used by skirmishers and irregulars dating back to classical antiquity, but only as a defensive or secondary tactic; decisive battlefield victories were achieved by shock combat tactics with heavy infantry or heavy cavalry, typically charging '' en masse'' against the primary force of the opponent. By the time of early modern warfare, defensive firepower made this tactic increasingly costly. When trench warfare developed to its heigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trench Warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. It became archetypically associated with World War I (1914–1918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front starting in September 1914.. Trench warfare proliferated when a Weapons of World War I, revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility (military), mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. On the Western Front in 1914–1918, both sides constructed elaborate trench, underground, and dugout (shelter), dugout systems opposing each other along a front (military), front, protected from assault by barbed wire. The area between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's land") was fully exposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberste Heeresleitung
The ''Oberste Heeresleitung'' (, "Supreme Army Command", OHL) was the highest echelon of command of the army (''Heer'') of the German Empire. In the latter part of World War I, the Third OHL assumed dictatorial powers and became the ''de facto'' political authority in the Empire. Formation and operation After the formation of the German Empire in 1871, the Prussian Army, Royal Saxon Army, Army of Württemberg and the Bavarian Army were autonomous in peacetime, each kingdom maintaining a separate war ministry and general staff to administer their forces. On the outbreak of war, the Constitution of the German Empire made the German Emperor commander-in-chief of the combined armies (''Oberster Kriegsherr'', "supreme warlord"). The Emperor's role as commander-in-chief was largely ceremonial and authority lay with the Chief of the German General Staff, who issued orders in the Emperor's name. The pre-war Chief of the General Staff was Colonel General Helmuth von Moltke and the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German General Staff
The German General Staff, originally the Prussian General Staff and officially the Great General Staff (), was a full-time body at the head of the Prussian Army and later, the Imperial German Army, German Army, responsible for the continuous study of all aspects of war, and for drawing up and reviewing plans for mobilization or campaign. It existed unofficially from 1806, and was formally established by law in 1814. The first Staff (military), general staff in existence, it was distinguished by the formal selection of its officers by intelligence and Merit system, proven merit rather than patronage or wealth, and by the exhaustive and rigorously structured training which its staff officers undertook. The Prussian General Staff also enjoyed greater freedom from political control than its contemporaries, and this autonomy was enshrined in law on the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. It came to be regarded as the home of Militarism#Germany, G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Battle Of Ypres
The First Battle of Ypres (, , – was a battle of the First World War, fought on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front around Ypres, in West Flanders, Belgium. The battle was part of the First Battle of Flanders, in which German Army (German Empire), German, French Army in World War I, French, Belgian Land Component, Belgian armies and the British Expeditionary Force (World War I), British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fought from Arras in France to Nieuwpoort, Belgium, Nieuwpoort (Nieuport) on the Belgian coast, from 10 October to mid-November. The battles at Ypres began at the end of the Race to the Sea, reciprocal attempts by the German and Franco-British armies to advance past the northern flank of their opponents. North of Ypres, the fighting continued in the Battle of the Yser between the German 4th Army (German Empire), 4th Army, the Belgian army and French marines. The fighting has been divided into five stages, an encounter battle from 19 to 21 October, the B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Yser
The Battle of the Yser (, ) was a battle of the First World War that took place in October 1914 between the towns of Nieuwpoort, Belgium, Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide, along a stretch of the Yser River and the Yperlee Canal, in Belgium. The front line was held by a large Belgian Armed Forces, Belgian force, which halted the German Empire, German advance in a costly defensive battle. The victory at the Yser allowed Belgium to retain a small strip of territory, with Germany German occupation of Belgium during World War I, in control of 95 per cent of Belgian territory, which made Albert I of Belgium, King Albert a Belgian national hero, sustained national pride and provided a venue for commemorations of heroic sacrifice for the next hundred years. Background German invasion of Belgium On 2 August 1914, the Belgian government refused passage through Belgium to German troops and on the night of the Belgian Army order of battle (1914), Belgian General Staff ordered the Third Divis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decisive Victory
A decisive victory is a military victory in battle that definitively resolves the objective being fought over, ending one stage of the conflict and beginning another stage. Until a decisive victory is achieved, conflict over the competing objectives will continue. Definitions The phrases "decisive battle" and "decisive victory" have evolved over time, as the methods and scope of wars themselves changed. More modernly, as armies, wars and theaters of operation expandedso that the gestalt (''i.e.'', a result which is greater than the sum totalsee synergy) of the overall venture was more definitivethe phrase "lost its meaning." The meaning is ephemeral, like the difference between “strategy” and "tactics”. In ''Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory'', Colin Gray defined an ''operational'' decisive victory as "a victory which decides the outcome to a campaign, though not necessarily to the war as a whole".Gray, p. 11. The Battle of Midway is often cited as a decisive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meeting Engagement
In warfare, a meeting engagement, or encounter battle, is a combat Combat (French language, French for ''fight'') is a purposeful violent Conflict (process), conflict between multiple combatants with the intent to harm the opposition. Combat may be armed (using weapons) or unarmed (Hand-to-hand combat, not usin ... action that occurs when a moving force, incompletely deployed for battle, engages an enemy at an unexpected time and place. Description Such encounters normally occur by chance in small unit operations, typically when two moving forces collide unexpectedly. Engagements involving larger units may occur when intelligence, surveillance, or reconnaissance operations have been ineffective. Meeting engagements can also occur when opposing forces are aware of the general presence but not the exact location of each other and both decide to attack immediately. On contact, commanders quickly act to gain the advantage. Speed of action and movement, coupled with both dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
