Combined Arms
The Western Front had been in a stalemate since the Autumn of 1914. But by late 1917, at the Battle of Caporetto, mobility returned. The German Army defeated the Italians using strategies developed over time. They would also use them the following year in the Ludendorff Offensive, although less successfully. On the other side, the Allies combined their infantry, artillery, aircraft, tanks, and cavalry too, allowing them to win the First World War with their Hundred Days’ Offensive in the summer of 1918.
- The armies of 1914 relied on massed infantry and artillery support, with the cavalry arm aimed to exploit any advantage using their speed and power. This was very much a nineteenth-century way of warfare.
- In 1916, battles were fought with huge artillery barrages preceding massed infantry attacks. The Battle of the Somme was a good example of this.
- By 1918, attacks by the British Army could take place at night because of better training and artillery supported the infantry periodically, so the enemy could not know when zero hour took place. This proved that strategies and tactics evolved throughout the war. Gary Sheffield judged the army as ‘a highly effective battle-winning, all arms force’. However, a caveat to this is that not all the army contributed to this. There remained officers who preferred the pre-war fighting style they had been trained on, albeit with a few changes.
The following is evidence of the British Army’s evolution and one of the reasons why the Hundred Days’ Offensive was successful.
- There was a variety of artillery techniques used, adapting to the needs of the battle. Ammunition was varied too, high explosives, shrapnel, and smoke. Furthermore, it supported infantry attacks much more closely.
- Aerial spotting developed to help artillery locate their targets and pinpoint enemy weaknesses.
- Some historians argue that the First World War saw a ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’. This rare occurrence changed the way nations fight battles, so important that it continues today. What changed was how artillery could now fire at targets without having to see them. This is called indirect fire. Aircraft would spot targets, relay it back to the artillery arm of the army, and then they would triangulate the position for the individual units.
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