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Course: World history > Unit 6
Lesson 3: Western and Eastern fronts of World War I- Schlieffen Plan and the First Battle of the Marne
- Comparing the Eastern and Western fronts in WWI
- World War I Eastern front
- Battles of Verdun, Somme and the Hindenburg Line
- Closing stages of World War I
- Technology in World War I
- Eastern and Western fronts of World War I
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Comparing the Eastern and Western fronts in WWI
Created by Sal Khan.
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who were the Bolsheviks? (sorry not sure of spelling)(6 votes)
Bolsheviks came from Russia which is why Russia had so many problems to face because they got out of a war just to get in a war again just to get out and sign a treaty to stop them from fighting.(2 votes)
How many trenches were created during world war I?(6 votes)
It is estimated that 24,000 miles of trenches were dug in world war 1! That is a huge number!(10 votes)
In what year did Russia become the first communist country?(4 votes)
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), also called (1925–52) All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Russian Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, or Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov), the major political party of Russia and the Soviet Union from the Russian Revolution of October 1917 to 1991.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union arose from the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP). The Bolsheviks, organized in 1903, were led by Vladimir I. Lenin, and they argued for a tightly disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries who were governed by democratic centralism and were dedicated to achieving the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1917 they formally broke with the right, or Menshevik, wing of the RSDWP. In 1918, when the Bolsheviks became the ruling party of Russia, they changed their organization’s name to the All-Russian Communist Party; it was renamed the All-Union Communist Party in 1925 after the founding of the U.S.S.R. and finally to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952. (http://www.britannica.com/topic/Communist-Party-of-the-Soviet-Union)(6 votes)
- Why did Russia not have a good enough industry to support it's army?(4 votes)
- Czarist Russia possessed an agriculture based economy in which most of the population remained peasants. They were only in the early stages of building up their industry.(5 votes)
how did the soldiers build huge trenches in the middle of the war?(3 votes)
Manpower. According to one source 500 men with shovels can dig a trench about 250 metres long.
If you're asking about the architecture, trenches were built 2 metres deep to provide cover while standing, as well as in zigzag-patterns to avoid enemy fire and poison gas to carry far.
If you're wondering about enemy disruption, yes, that was problematic. Soldiers either dug in darkness, behind the front-line or by digging tunnels.(3 votes)
was taking the Rheinland / Rhone area of France just a tactic to gather french army in that region just a tactic to fall in from north? And why did germany proclaim war with russia and then instead of attacking russia, begin a second war in France first? wasn't that totally stupid ? Maybe the french had not any intentions to get into war...?(0 votes)- The French definitely had intentions of getting into the war. After their humiliation in 1871, they were dedicated to getting Alsace-Lorraine back - they called it the "revanche", or literally revenge. This was actually the primary reason for the Schlieffen Plan - the Germans knew that the French strategy was a general offensive into Alsace-Lorraine, because the French were too proud to do anything else and French military thinking was dedicated to offensive warfare at the time(hence why there was no Maginot Line - the hunkered-down defensive of WW2 was a response to the miserable failure of the general offensive in WW1), so they planned to let the French Army attack, maybe slow them down a bit, and come around the right and punch out Paris.(4 votes)
@0:16why was the Western front so much smaller than the Eastern front? i.e. why does it not extend the whole length of the border between Germany and France, and what is happening down near Italy?(3 votes)
When you look at the map of World War I, look how big Russia is compared to France, despite Russia losing some land in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to Germany (which never too effect because the war ended a year later), Russia was still the largest country at that time. The large land expanse of Russia would play in important role of the Soviets defeating Germany again in World War II. On the Western Front, it was much more different because of its terrain, the Ardennes Forest covered most of the land, along with the Rhine river, and other natural boundaries. Also note that there were countries such as Luxembourg, Belgium, and Netherlands that were in the middle between Germany and France, and the two valuable territories which are Alsace and Lorraine that both countries wanted for centuries. That is why the French had to be on the defensive front and that is where trench warfare became a significant role. In Italy, however, it was different story because their main goal was to fight the Austrians as part of their nationalistic pride, they were fighting against the Austrians because they wanted to claim the Italian speaking parts around them like Trieste and other places.(2 votes)
At2:15, Sal refers to Russia's "standing" army. What does this mean?(2 votes)
A standing army is a professional army, usually consisting of full-time soldiers.(4 votes)
- How did Russia prevail for such a long period of time it was not industrialized?(2 votes)
Though Russia was behind European countries in terms of technology and government structure, it still had a huge population and resources to back that up. Plus, they usually picked on even less industrialized countries like the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and China.(3 votes)
the Austria hungary started the war and why were they not active when the germans were fighting 2 countries at once. why ??(2 votes)- Austria-Hungary fought a multi-front war just like Germany. The Austro-Hungarians primarily fought in the Balkans, Italy, and Galicia. Also, they also sent a small force in France and Belgium. However, Germans usually assisted, or even led Austro-Hungarian forces on their campaigns. The ethnic diversity and poor high command made the Austro-Hungarian vulnerable.(3 votes)
0:16Video transcript
The Eastern and Western
fronts, even though they were fronts of the same
war, were very different in character. And a lot of it came out of
the fact of who was fighting it and especially how big
the actual fronts were. So the Western Front,
which was generally this region right over here,
was a much smaller front than the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front
was essentially this entire region
right over there. And because of
that, trench warfare did not become as major of a
factor on the Eastern Front. In fact, was fairly useless
on the Eastern Front. If you imagine trying to
dig a bunch of trenches. So if you're trying to
dig a bunch of trenches, trenches are huge advantage
for the defending army as long as you can block off
the entire region with trenches. So over here, you can't
go around the trenches, you essentially, if you
want to make some ground, an attacking army has
to cross the trenches. And because you have
now machine guns and the defending
soldiers could essentially sit behind the trenches,
they could essentially mow down the attacking
army very easily. And that's what caused the
Western Front, especially after the Schlieffen
Plan was not able to be executed on
as quickly as possible, it turned into just a stalemate. So you just had a stalemate,
a hugely defensive stalemate. Because both parties had
their trenches, it was very, it was hugely advantageous
for the defending side. On the Eastern Front,
you had this huge front. It was very hard. You couldn't have. They didn't have enough
people to dig trenches across this entire front. And so you could imagine if
you tried to dig a trench, but you weren't able to
cover the entire front, then the attacking army doesn't
have to storm your trench. They don't have to
do that anymore. They could just go
around your trench. And because trench warfare
was not as significant of a factor on the, or wasn't
as anywhere near as much of a factor on
the Eastern Front, it was a much more fluid front. You had offensives
and counter-offensives between the Germans,
Austrians on one side and the Russians on the other. Now the other factor-- and
this was mainly with Russia as a variable-- the
other factor was just what was going on in Russia. So Russia had several
things going for it. The main thing is,
it had a huge army. It had a huge standing
army, even before the war. And it was able to
amass even more. So it had a huge army. But what was going
against it-- and this is why it eventually had to get
into a very unfavorable treaty with the Central Powers
near the end of the war-- is it had huge
internal problems. And I'm not just talking
about the military. I was talking about, I'm
talking about the entire empire. And it arguably was due to
the war, due to the economic and the human cost of the war. But as we enter
into 1917, you first have the February Revolution. Tsar Nicholas II has to
abdicate the throne because of the riots that
are going on, because of the unhappiness,
the unease with people literally going hungry. People, obviously, the morale
of the troops going down. And then on top of that,
the Russian military, even though it had a huge army
in the beginning of the war, the Russian industry wasn't
ready to fully supply that army in as good of a way
as, say, the German army was. And on top of that, it had
communication problems. And even in the beginning
phases of the Eastern Front, it even had issues in terms of
coordinating its actual armies. And so what we'll
see, and we'll cover this in much more depth
in a future video, but what we'll see
is, Western Front. Schlieffen Plan not executed
as fast as possible. Ends up in a stalemate. This did allow the Germans
to bring some of their troops back to the Eastern Front
to fight the Russians. This goes back and
forth as we'll see. But once you enter
into 1917, you have a revolution in Russia. First, you have the
February Revolution. Tsar Nicholas II
has to abdicate. And then later that year,
you have the Bolsheviks overthrow the
interim government. And you now have
Communist Russia. The Bolsheviks were
in no mood to continue to fight the Germans. The military was in
no mood to continue to fight the Germans and
the and Austria-Hungary. And so they, essentially,
get into a treaty with them and kind of take
themselves out of the war. So we'll cover that in
a little bit more detail in a future video.