Western Front (World War I) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Western Front
Part of World War I
For most of World War I, Allied and German Forces were stalled in trench warfare along the Western Front. This picture shows a sentry of A Company, 11th Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment in a trench during the Battle of the Somme.
Date 1914 – 1918 Location Belgium and northeastern France Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Belgium British Empire Australia Canada India  Newfoundland New Zealand South Africa  France and French Overseas Empire  Portugal  United States	German Empire  Austria-Hungary
Commanders and leaders
No unified command until 1918, then Ferdinand Foch	Moltke → Falkenhayn → Hindenburg and Ludendorff → Hindenburg and Groener
Casualties and losses
~4,800,000	Unknown

At the beginning of World War I in 1914, the German army started the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium. They gained military control of many important industrial regions in France. Their quick advance was stopped by the Battle of the Marne. Both sides then dug defensive trenches. The trenches eventually reached from the North Sea to the Swiss border with France. During the years between 1915 and 1917, many offensives were started from these trenches. Both sides used large numbers of artillery and thousands of infantry in these offensives. However, a combination of entrenchments, machine gun nests, barbed wire, and artillery stopped these advances. No major breakthroughs happened. New military technology, like poison gas, aircraft, and tanks were developed to try and get through these lines of trenches.

The deadlock is mostly due to both sides not allowing a single piece of land to give some kind of advantage to the enemy, even if there was little advantage. As the war continued and more blood was lost on both sides, the soldiers grew more and more tired of war and had begun to make large promises to the government. To keep the war effort going, they begun to say that they would kill soldiers who did not attack, saying that they were betraying the Army if they did not fight.

Images for kids

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  Map of the Western Front and the Race to the Sea, 1914

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  Map of the Western Front, 1915–16

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  Ruins of Carency after it was recaptured by France

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  German soldier on the Western Front in 1916

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  French soldiers observing enemy movements

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  British infantry advance near Ginchy. Photo by Ernest Brooks.

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  The Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt seen from the air

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  Map of the Western Front, 1917

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  British Army on the Western Front (August 1917)

See also

In Spanish: Frente occidental (Primera Guerra Mundial) para niños