The Western Front was one of the main theatres of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The German advance was halted with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified 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.
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme offensive, was a major battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history.
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising 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 starting in September 1914.
Attrition warfare is a military strategy consisting of belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel, materiel, and morale. The word attrition comes from the Latin root atterere, meaning "to rub against", similar to the "grinding down" of the opponent's forces in attrition warfare.
Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces at the moment of action. The United States Department of Defense, for example, says that those declared KIA did not need to have fired their weapons, but only to have been killed due to hostile attack. KIAs include those killed by friendly fire in the midst of combat, but not from incidents such as accidental vehicle crashes, murder or other non-hostile events or terrorism. KIA can be applied both to front-line combat troops and to naval, air and support troops.
A salient, also known as a bulge, is a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory. The salient is surrounded by the enemy on multiple sides, making the troops occupying the salient vulnerable. The opponent's front line that borders a salient is referred to as a re-entrant – that is, an angle pointing inwards. A deep salient is vulnerable to being "pinched off" through the base, and this will result in a pocket in which the forces in the salient become isolated and without a supply line. On the other hand, a breakout of the forces within the salient through its tip can threaten the rear areas of the opposing forces outside it, leaving them open to an attack from behind.
The First Battle of Ypres was a battle of the First World War, fought on the Western Front around Ypres, in West Flanders, Belgium. The battle was part of the First Battle of Flanders, in which German, French, Belgian armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fought from Arras in France to 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 (16–31 October), between the German 4th Army, the Belgian army and French marines.
The Battle of Mukden, one of the largest land battles to be fought before World War I and the last and the most decisive major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War, was fought from 20 February to 10 March 1905 between Japan and Russia near Mukden in Manchuria. The city is now called Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province in China.
In France, the Chemin des Dames is part of the route départementale D18 and runs east and west in the Aisne department, between in the west, the Route Nationale 2, and in the east, the D1044 at Corbeny. It is some 30 kilometres (19 mi) long and runs along a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Aisne and Ailette.
The Battles of Rzhev were a series of Red Army offensives against the Wehrmacht between 8 January 1942 and 31 March 1943, on the Eastern Front of World War II. The battles took place in the northeast of Smolensk Oblast and the south of Tver Oblast, in and around the salient surrounding Rzhev. Due to the high losses suffered by the Soviet Army, the campaign became known by veterans and historians as the "Rzhev Meat Grinder".
The 1st Army was a field army-level command in the ground forces of Austria-Hungary during World War I. The army fought in Galicia and Russian Poland in 1914–15 before being briefly dissolved in the summer of 1916. Shortly afterwards, it was reformed and sent to fight in the Romanian Campaign for the next two years. The 1st Army was demobilized in April 1918 due to its heavy losses, following Romania's surrender.
The Royal Dublin Fusiliers was an infantry regiment of the British Army created in 1881 and disbanded in 1922. It was one of eight 'Irish' regiments of the army which were raised and garrisoned in Ireland, with the regiment's home depot being located in Naas. The regiment was created via the amalgamation of the Royal Bombay Fusiliers and Royal Madras Fusiliers, two army regiments stationed in India, with militia units from Dublin and Kildare as part of the Childers Reforms. Both battalions of the regiment served in the Second Boer War.
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle took place in the First World War in the Artois region of France. The attack was intended to cause a rupture in the German lines, which would then be exploited with a rush to the Aubers Ridge and possibly Lille. A French assault at Vimy Ridge on the Artois plateau was also planned to threaten the road, rail and canal junctions at La Bassée from the south as the British attacked from the north. The British attackers broke through German defences in a salient at the village of Neuve-Chapelle but the success could not be exploited.
World War I or the First World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest wars in history, it resulted in an estimated 9 million soldiers dead and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from numerous causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of troops and civilians during the war was a major factor in spreading the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
In military usage, a barrage is massed sustained artillery fire (shelling) aimed at a series of points along a line. In addition to attacking any enemy in the kill zone, a barrage intends to suppress enemy movements and deny access across that line of barrage. The impact points along the line may be 20–30 yards/(18-27)meters apart, with the total line length of the barrage zone anything from a few hundred to several thousand yards/meters long. Barrages can consist of multiple such lines, usually about 100 yards/(91)meters apart, with the barrage shifting from one line to the next over time, or several lines may be targeted simultaneously.
The 185th Infantry Brigade was an infantry brigade formation of the British Army raised during the Second World War that participated in the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, fighting in the Normandy Campaign and the subsequent campaign in North-West Europe with the 3rd British Infantry Division.
The Battle of Mount Song, also known as the Battle of Ramou (拉孟の戦い), in 1944 was part of a larger campaign in southwest China during the Second World War. Chinese Nationalist forces aimed to retake the Burma Road.
The 302nd Infantry Division, initially formed as the 302nd Static Infantry Division, was a German Army infantry division in World War II.
The 197th Infantry Division was a Wehrmacht division in World War II. It was activated on 1 December 1939.
The Fallschirmjäger were the paratrooper branch of the German Luftwaffe before and during World War II. They were the first paratroopers to be committed in large-scale airborne operations. Throughout World War II, the commander of the branch was Kurt Student, as he was the 2nd most senior officer in the luftwaffe.
