4 - 1916: Impasse

Summary

The French, with some British assistance, tried to blast their way through the Western Front by enormous offensives in the spring and autumn. In 1916 the major powers sought to increase their production of armaments, before they made additional attempts to break this stalemate. Germany was the most successful in this endeavour. Britain entered the war with a munitions-industry designed almost exclusively for the use of the navy. The transformation of Britain into a major military, as against naval, power, was looked on with consternation by the decision-makers in Berlin. This especially troubled the German Commander-in-Chief, Falkenhayn. Falkenhayn always intended to capture Verdun but wrote a post-war justification for the nature of the battle into his paper. The battles in 1916 were some of the largest seen in the melancholy tale of men at war. The British alone at the River Somme threw some 15 million shells at the Germans.