WW1

1916

In this year of the first world war the western front would see the heaviest losses they would see through out the whole war with many battles taking place to break the deadlock of trench warfare and one of the most famous battles was the battle of the Somme.

In 1916 on the western front the Somme was a region of France that was heavily entrenched and mined up with thick mud and heavy rain as winter fell upon them but the Chief of Command to Britian ordered a full assault over the no man's land to take German positions in the opposing trench. But the Chief high command had made a huge mistake in this battle because they believed that the thousands of artillery shells they fored had decimated the German trenches how wrong they were as the Reichswur hunkered down to avoid being hit and they had heard of a potential incoming attack very soon and they had gathered many men and machinery to the battlefield.

However there were now a knew monster on the western front... Tanks these massive hunks of metal machinery that could easily flatten barbed wire and machine gun pill boxes and when the whistles blew early in the morning thousands of British Soldiers crossed the no man's land and were beaten down by German artillery and machine guns with 60,000 casualties in just the first day of the offensive because of chief military mistakes made before hand. However the French forces just south of the British forces in the north also done an assault to do a diversion attack however they suffered much less resistance and done much better in terms of moving inwards. The Belgian forces remained in the stalemate.

To the most eastern point near Alsace Lorraine a major French city called Verdun was under heavy assault by the German army and with French reserves running out it caused the cry for help to do something to divert the attention away from Verdun which previously explained the Somme had happened and the Russians who were kicked out of Austria Hungary were flung an assault at the German and Austro Hungarian lines known as the Brusilov offensive which went rather successful as they pushed through again but because their supplies ran out they were stuck again in a stalemate but was quickly turning back again but millions of troops were now retreating further into eastern Europe.

Back to Verdun the Germans had piled hundreds of thousands of men to take the forts surrounding the city and take the City whole after. But luckily none of that ever happened after the French forces were able to hold out against the Germans and the Kaiser seeing no more opportunities left to take chances he left the city alone one of the key major French victories and one of the first major German defeats.

The Ottomans had retreated further back in the north east because the Russians had launched an attack on them which went very successful. The Ottomans were also falling back in The Suez canal as the british Egyptian army took hold and entered the Arabian peninsula and promised the oppressed Arab tribes independence from the Ottoman empire. Another humiliation of the old empire for the Kaiser to see once again in infamy and embarrassment.

Meanwhile in Italy the South Tyrol region was under heavy assault but reminded the Italians of the strong hate they had for the Austrians after being oppressed many decades in the 1800's and they attempted to out flanc each other like in the western front and came to a standstill in the Adriatic sea.

We would see both one if the largest and the only naval battle of WW1 the battle of Jutland where a new powerful and the most modern warship of the time was the new all powerful Dreadnought battleship thousand if shells and guns that could hold many of men for days on end overseas. The battle was an accidental encounter overseas just to break the British blockade over in the North sea. The battle ended rather shortly and was an inconclusive battle but the British royal navy did suffer more damage to the warships so it leans more towards a German victory.

Another offensive to be taken hold was in the Gallipoli straight to the Black sea so they could help the Russians against the German counterattack but the British, French, Australian and New Zealand forces were bogged down in Ottoman machine gun fire and the ally navy could pass through because the sea bed was filled with mines that would sink the ships with ease and Ottoman defences were to stiff to hold up against the Ottoman forces and they swiftly retreated back to the Mediterranean where it was the first major Ottoman victory the Kaiser was impressed enough to be happy.