portant battles of WW1

There were many battles fought in the First World War, some more important than others. The three battles that I will talk about are: The first battle of the Marne, the battle of Verdun and lastly the battle of the Somme.

The first battle of the Marne
This battle was fought from the 5th of September to the 12th of September in 1914.
The Germans wanted a quick battle on the western front as they had hoped to take control over Paris quickly in order to focus all their military power on the eastern front.

As the Germans were defeated their hopes for a quick victory in the West was crushed. Consequently Germany had to fight a long and costly war on two fronts.

This battle is very important due to the fact that if Germany had won, it is very possible that the whole outcome of the war would have changed drastically in favour to Germany. This may have meant a victory of the First World War for Germany and her allies.




The battle of Verdun
The battle of Verdun is one of the longest and one of the most devastating battle in the history of warfare.

 It was fought between the German and French armies from 21st February to the 18th of December in 1916.
 It is estimated that over seven hundred thousand soldiers died in the battle of Verdun.
After the failure of the Schlieffen plan, Germany wanted to drain the French army of resources and men by a large offensive on the western front.

Germany believed that her ultimate enemy was Great Britain and that she could only be defeated if France was defeated. German strategy at the battle of Verdun was to weaken France militarily and economically to its limit, this would in turn cause Great Britain to feel isolated and ultimately be forced to seek peace.
In order to achieve this Germany would strike a blow at an important location for France which would lead to withdrawal (with its disastrous effects on morale) or resistance, in which case German bombings would bleed France of her resources.




The battle of the Somme
The battle of the Somme lasted from July 1st 1916 to November the same year.
As France fought against Germany in the battle of Verdun and suffered great losses, the British wanted to aid France.  In order to do this, the British attacked the Germans from the north of Verdun, thus forcing Germany to relocate some of her men from the Verdun battlefield, thus relieving the French armies in Verdun.

This marked the first great offensive in the First World War by the British. This was an important battle seeing that it forced Germany to relocate some of her men from the battle of Verdun, if not then Germany’s chances of winning the war would have gone up significantly.

This offensive failed miserably seeing all the casualties that followed for no significant gain of territory.