The First World War claimed a huge number of lives and played a huge role in the formation of the post -war world. The loser of Germany lost colonies, and the country’s population longed for revenge. The winners rested on his laurels and were in full confidence that this war would be the last in the history of mankind. But only 20 years later, Europe was again on fire, already the Second World War. One of the decisive battles of those who decided the outcome of the First World War is the battle for Verden.
This battle lasted almost during the year – from February to December 1916. The parties paid a huge price. According to the data, Germany lost more than 600 thousand killed. At the same time, the French armed forces lost more than 300 thousand of their soldiers. This battle is considered one of the most bloody for the entire period of the war. At the same time, Germany, as the advancing side, could not get the slightest tactical or strategic success and, it can be confidently argued that it was under Verden that Germany lost every chance of victory. You can learn more about the battle of Verden, for example, here Httphtml, where this battle is painted in the smallest details.
After the successful 1915 and major victories of German weapons on the Eastern Front, where it was possible to push the front to many hundreds of kilometers and inflict serious defeats of the Russian army, the German General Staff hoped to transfer activity to the Western Front. All the prerequisites were for success, because the Russian army has not yet recovered after the defeat in East Prussia in 1914. And even more so after the successes of 1915, the Russian army needed a lot of time to put its armed forces in order. The General Staff of Germany hoped that the Russian army could not help the Allies on the decisive days of battles in the western direction. But, these calculations were erroneous. In the summer of 1916, in the midst of battles near Verden, the Russian army began a major offensive against the Austrian troops. The offensive was so successful that the Germans had again, as at the beginning of the war, to remove units from the western direction to prevent complete defeat. This summer offensive went down in history as the “Brusilov Breakthrough” and played a fairly significant role in the general victory of the allies.
As for the fighting directly near Verden, the German military leaders could not understand that the outdated charters of driving troops in a positional war were not able to lead to success. Defense began to exceed the offensive that a successful breakthrough required new ways to conduct war. Of course, attempts to introduce such a new type of weapons as a tank could help break through the defense. But still, their design and weapons were far from perfection and the use of tanks in limited quantities could not solve the outcome of the battle. This is what caused huge losses that carried the advancing German forces.
Throughout the year, the Germans unsuccessfully tried to break through the defense, but did not achieve much success. Ultimately, the German armed forces were forced to stop all attacks and move to their original positions.