Group+2+-+Essay+2

Although most Europeans, at the time, predicted that WWI would be over in a few short months, the fighting quickly degenerated into a long, protracted war of attrition. Why did this occur? Identify and explain the forces at play and how they interacted with each other

World War I became a war of attrition between nations due to the unprecedented magnitude of this new kind of war. The mentality of the overall war was to eliminate more of the enemies men of their own rather than backing down when it was clear that they were in a stalemate. New technologies and ruthless strategies of fighting were introduced. Many soldiers had never been trained to survive the horrors of trenches. Machine guns created an enormous difference in trench warfare, for the first time weapons benefited the defender as opposed to the attacker, this caused mass casualties but no ground gained. Vast armies were dependent on supplies that would often travel by sea, risking getting cut off by the blockades of opposing nations. When Germany began losing supplies to the stronger British navy, Germany developed the submarine, which rapidly decreased the amount of supplies that could get to the British forces. New technology, such as machine guns, in confined battlefields, such as trenches, combined with commanders unwilling to back down caused World War I to become a drawn out war of attrition which benefitted the defender. Body paragraph 1: Technologies Body Paragraph 2: Supplies and blockades Body Paragraph 3: Mentality going into war: overconfidence in self and underestimating opposing forces
 * 1)  There was a lot of new technology that was introduced
 *  The development of the submarine
 *  Britain's battleships
 * 1)  Supplies play major part
 * 2)  Trench warfare, no one willing to give up, caused massive casualties
 * 3)  As time passed on the number of allies also increased
 *  35 nations were involved in the world and it was
 * 1)  Defense has more strength then offense MACHINE GUNS