In GCSE History students will look at World War One, including the events which took place during war itself. This is the first of eight quizzes on that topic and it looks in particular at the battles on the Western Front in 1914 and 1915.
1914 saw the end of the type of moving warfare begun by the Germans in their invasion of Belgium in August. By the end of the year trench warfare had begun, with the trench line extending from the Channel coast to the Swiss frontier. Thus the battles of 1915 on the Western Front were attempts by both sides to break out of this.
Learn more about the battles which took place on the Western Front in 1914 and 1915 in this quiz.
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The Germans had expected limited Belgian resistance, so a 12 day delay helped the British army to begin to land in France, and the French troops to deploy forward
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Moltke was disgraced by the failure of the Schlieffen Plan
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The French commander-in-chief led huge forces, greatly in excess of the British army
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This town lay close to the Channel coast. The Germans tried repeatedly to reach the sea, in an attempt to prevent more British reinforcements from getting to the front
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Britain - unlike all of the other powers involved in the fighting - had no conscription so her contribution was much smaller, at least in 1914 and 1915. The Kaiser referred to it contemptuously as "a contemptible little army"
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Even after more than a year of war both high commands could only imagine a war of attrition as a way out of the trenches and towards victory
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Both sides tried to deploy increasingly deadly weapons of war in the hope that this might break the deadlock
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French was considered to have failed, and to be lacking in fresh ideas. However, none of his possible replacements had any new ideas either
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The new air force could attack from the air, and provide useful information about enemy troop deployments to assist - for example - the Royal Artillery
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Newspapers like the "Daily Mail" complained that the troops at the front were being let down by the political leadership at home - particularly through the failure to produce sufficient munitions
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