Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Was that necessary?
Today in class we discussed the Battle of Verdun, Germany against France. The Germans plan was to destroy all of the French. The Germans were going to attack Verdun, the most important historical military place. They were going to attack here because the Germans knew how sacred it was to the French and they expected the French to keep sending troops out. The Germans wanted this, they wanted the French to keep resupplying soldiers so that they could destroy them all and "make a mountain of French corpses". The Germans attacked with a great amount of weapons. The two sides started fighting, however the Germans lost the element of surprise fairly quickly. Both sides were suffering from high casualties, yet they kept trying to slaughter one another. Finally the Germans had to retreat because of Russians on the Eastern Front, but the Germans did not gain anything, the fort was still in French hands and they did slaughter all of the French. Both sides suffered about half a million of casualties and wounded men. So my question is, why was this massive bloody battle necessary? Why did it have to happen? It did not change anything for anyone.
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It was not neccesary at all, but no one knew that at the time. Germany had a great idea which was to bleed France of its troops untill there were none left. The problem with this war was that it was almost impossible to plan a succesful offensive because of the new technologies in weapons that allowed for defending ground much easier. The battle of Verdun was a bloody mess with many soldiers killed for what seemed like no reason at all, but I really think that WWI was doomed to last until either side ran out of stuff to throw at each other. It had to happen because it was the only thing to do other than what they have been already doing.
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