The desolation of no man's land reflected the war's destruction The battle of Cambrai was not the first time German troops had seen tanks in battle It was however the first time tanks were mobilized en masse Cambrai showed the true potential of these battlefield tanks for the first time The British had developed the tanks to fill a specific need on the battlefield They needed these armored war machines to help break the deadlock that had grown on the western front THE TRENCHES OF WORLD WAR By 1915 the Germans of the Central powers and the British and French of the Allies had fought themselves into a stalemate Both sides underestimated the power of modern automatic weapons Machine guns rapid firing artillery and magazine fed rifles had already seen battle in the Boer War 1899 1902 and
the Russo Japanese War 1904 05 But nobody predicted just how lethal and destructive the weapons could be Military officers on both sides attempted to combat these modern weapons using freshly outdated military tactics At the war's start military officials employed the same tactics they had used successfully in wars of the past They held that the key to success was to attack first So officers sent masses of infantry charging forward But foot charges were no match for automatic weapons nor were strategies that called for mass formations However officers continued using their obsolete strategies even after they were proven ineffective Soldiers were still sent to charge the enemy with rifle and bayonet only to be mowed down by enemy fire One British officer observed The French officers advance about 20 yards 18 m ahead of their men as calmly as though on parade but so far I have not seen one of them get more than 50 yards 46 m without being knocked over On the battlefield there was nowhere to take cover Advancing men were exposed and vulnerable targets for the enemy who were able to take aim from the protection of their trenches Continued use of these strategies resulted in a deadlock on the western front It prompted both sides to dig into the ground for protection Armies carved vast trenches into the landscape They used the trenches as shelter and defense against enemy fire In total a maze of approximately 25 000 miles 40 000 km of trenches was constructed They stretched 470 miles 760
North Sea HOLLAND n Intwerp Nieuwpoort THE UNITED KINGDOM BELGIUM BRUSSELS a Calais Ypres Armentières ille iege Rhine River Arras Vimy Cambrai n Mons English Channel euge River Meuse Yep Albert Le Cateau Quentin Amiens LUXEMBOURG GERMANY Soissons Compiegne Aisne R Ver Reims Chateau ois Chantilly Thierry Seine Ri Verdun ver Metz larne River Saint Mihiel PARIS FRANCE Nancy Sait Meurthe River pinal WESTERN FRONT BATTLEFIELDS 1914 1918 CITIES Moselle River Mulhouse Belfort Pfetterhouse L CAPITAL CITIES RIVERS SWITZERLAND The western front
along the western front from the English Channel to the Swiss border Once their positions were in place the lines moved little at most ten miles 16 km in either direction over the next three and a half years BREAKING THE DEADLOCK Breaking the deadlock required innovation The Germans and the French and British had arranged secure defenses for themselves Their trench systems grew elaborate and wide They arranged barbed wire in no man's land to hold back BATTLEFIELD BRAVERY attacking soldiers They built fortifications When the Great War began the French army for their weapons which protected their trusted that its troops could overcome any gunmen as they fired on the enemy These obstacle using spirit and bravery The troops quickly learned however that battlefield bravery defenses were particular to trench warfare did not matter when they were faced with And they were difficult to beat with the automatic weapons Future French president Charles de Gaulle experienced this firsthand weapons of the past Both sides would have during the war As he described it to work to create new weapons and refine with affected calm the officers let old ones to suit the needs of the trenches themselves be killed standing upright some obstinate platoons stuck their bayonets in British colonel Ernest Dunlop their rifles bugles sounded the charge Swinton saw the unique problem trenches but all to no purpose In an instant it had become clear that not all the courage in the presented He recognized that the British world could withstand this fire needed a weapon designed specifically
