![]() Russia lagged behind western Europe, especially Germany, in this regard due to its immense size and sluggish industrial progress. ![]() Other nations, Russia included, also began developing mobilization plans which included railway timetables. The employment of trains to move its army convinced the Germans to expand their rail network and integrate railway timetables into their mobilization plans. In fact, Prussia had made extensive use of the railroad in 18 during the Wars of German Unification. However, railroads had already in military use since the American Civil War and factored into pre-war plans. Thus, armies had much more room to move about on the battlefield.Īrmies still moved on foot in 1914, although the internal combustion engine was being gradually introduced to provide faster and more efficient transportation for infantry. In 1914, it was also sparsely populated and agrarian in nature. Relative to France, western Russia is an area of open plains and gradually undulating hills. On the eastern front, geography also influenced tactics. Soldiers on both sides dug themselves into the earth and relied on the protection of dirt, lumber and concrete to shield them from enemy artillery. The geography of northern France often impeded mobility and led, in part, to the development of trench warfare. In the west, opposing armies, largely French, British and German, maneuvered in areas occupied by towns, cities and forests. Most of the western front fighting took place in France while eastern battles were contested largely on Russian soil. The struggle in Europe occurred on two primary fronts, east and west. It was also a war punctuated by numerous huge battles which proved to be strategically inconclusive. Like all wars, WWI left millions of people dead, maimed, orphaned and homeless. This titanic conflict, which involved over 35 countries and four continents, brought about mayhem and slaughter on a prodigious scale and was the first industrialized war of the twentieth century. World War I, the so-called “war to end all wars,” began one hundred years ago this summer. Image courtesy of University of Virginia The Legacy of Tannenberg
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