Between July and November 1916, the Battle of the Somme raged on the Western Front. The Allies lost 620,000 men, and the Germans lost 450,000 men in a battle that gained the Allies a mere eight miles of ground. It would be a further two years, and millions more casualties before the stalemate in the First World War ended in a victory for the Allies.
Thousands of deaths for just a few miles, as both sides slowly inched towards the bitter end. This was the real significance of the grim and deadly war of attrition that cost so many men's lives in the First World War. Read on to learn more about the meaning, examples, statistics, and significance of the war of attrition during the First World War.
Fig. 1 A British soldier in an occupied German trench during the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.
War of Attrition Meaning
A war of attrition is a type of military strategy that one or both sides in a war can follow.
The strategy of attrition warfare means that you try to wear down your enemy to the point of defeat by continuously attacking their forces and equipment until they become exhausted and cannot continue.
Did you know? The word attrition comes from the Latin 'atterere'. This Latin verb means 'to rub against' - hence the idea of grinding down your opposition until they can't continue.
What are the characteristics of attrition warfare?
- Attrition warfare is not focused on major strategic victories or taking cities/military bases. Instead, it focuses on continual small victories.
- Attrition warfare can look like ambushes, raids, and small attacks.
- Attrition warfare reduces the enemy's military, financial, and human resources.
Attrition Warfare
The military strategy of continuously wearing down an enemy through continuous losses in personnel and resources until their will to fight collapses.
War of Attrition WW1
How did the war of attrition develop, and what did it look like in World War One?
Stalemate begins
Germany initially planned a short war due to their strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan. This strategy relied on them defeating France within six weeks before turning their attention to Russia. This way, they would avoid fighting a war on 'both fronts', i.e., on the Western Front against France and the Eastern Front against Russia.
However, the Schlieffen Plan failed when the German forces were defeated and forced to retreat at the Battle of Marne in September 1914.
Within a few weeks of the Battle of the Marne, both sides on the Western Front had built a maze of defensive trenches stretching from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. These were known as the 'front lines'. So began attrition warfare in World War One.
Stalemate continues
These front lines remained in place until spring 1918, when the war became mobile.
Both sides quickly determined they could achieve small successes by going 'over the top' of the trenches into no man's land. From there, with effective machine gun fire covering them, they were able to capture enemy trenches. However, as soon as a small gain was made, the defenders gained the advantage and would counter-attack. Moreover, the attackers would lose contact with their supply and transport lines, whereas the defenders' supply lines remained intact. Therefore, these small gains were often lost again quickly and failed to transform into lasting change.
This led to a situation where both sides would achieve limited gains but then suffer a defeat elsewhere. Neither side could work out how to transform a small gain into a bigger tactical victory. This led to many years' worth of attrition warfare.
Whose fault was the war of attrition?
Future British Prime Ministers David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill believed that the strategy of attrition was the fault of the generals, who were too thoughtless to come up with strategic alternatives. This has led to the persistent perception that the war of attrition on the Western Front was a waste of lives caused by foolish, old-fashioned generals who didn't know any better.
However, historian Jonathan Boff challenges this way of thinking. He argues that the war of attrition on the Western Front was inevitable because of the nature of the powers fighting the war. He argues,
This was an existential conflict between two highly committed and powerful alliance blocs, wielding an unprecedented number of the most lethal weapons yet devised.1
Thus, Boff argues, any war between these huge powers would likely continue for a very long time. Hence attrition was always going to be the strategy for World War One.
War of Attrition WW1 Examples
1916 was known as the 'Year of Attrition' on the Western Front. It witnessed some of the longest and bloodiest battles in the history of the world. Here are two key examples of these battles of attrition in 1916.
Verdun
In February 1916, the Germans attacked the strategic French territory at Verdun. They hoped that if they gained this territory and provoked counter-attacks, they would use mass German artillery to defeat these anticipated French counter-attacks.
The architect of this plan was the German Chief of Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn. He hoped to 'bleed the French white' to make the war mobile once more.
However, General von Falkenhayn massively overestimated the German ability to inflict disproportionate losses on the French. Both sides found themselves in a nine-month-long battle that wore them down. The Germans sustained 330,000 casualties, and the French suffered 370,000 casualties.
Fig. 2 French troops sheltering in a trench at Verdun (1916).
The British then launched their own strategic plan to relieve the pressure on the French army at Verdun. This became the Battle of the Somme.
Somme
General Douglas Haig, who commanded the British army, decided to launch a seven-day bombardment of the German enemy lines. He expected that this would take out all of the German guns and defences, enabling his infantry to advance so easily that all they had to do was walk over the top and straight into the German trenches.
However, this strategy was ineffective. Two-thirds of the 1.5 million shells the British fired were shrapnel, which was good out in the open but had little impact on concrete dugouts. Moreover, approximately 30% of the shells failed to explode.
At 7:30am on 1 July 1916, Douglas Haig ordered his men over the top. Instead of walking into the German trenches, they walked straight into a barrage of German machine-gun fire. Britain suffered over 57,000 casualties on that one day.
However, because Verdun was still under so much pressure, the British decided to continue the plan to launch several attacks at the Somme. They made a few gains but also suffered from German counter-attacks. The planned 'Big Push' became a slow struggle of attrition that ground both sides down.
Finally, on 18 November 1916, Haig called off the offensive. The British had suffered 420,000 casualties and the French 200,000 casualties for an advance of 8 miles. The Germans had lost 450,000 men.
In Delville Wood, the South African Brigade of 3157 men launched an attack on 14 July 1916. Six days later, only 750 survived. Other troops were drafted in, and the battle raged on until September. It was such a bloody area that the Allies subsequently nicknamed the area 'Devil's Wood'.
Fig. 3 Women working in a munitions factory in Britain. The war of attrition wasn't just fought in the trenches, it was also fought on the home front. One of the key reasons the Allies won the war was that they were better at motivating women to join the munitions factories, creating more military resources for the Allies than for the Central Powers.
War of Attrition Facts
This list of critical facts gives a summary set of statistics for the war of attrition in WWI.
- The Battle of Verdun cost the French 161,000 dead, 101,000 missing, and 216,000 wounded.
- The Battle of Verdun cost the Germans 142,000 killed and 187,000 wounded.
- On the Eastern Front, in an attack designed to relieve the pressure on Verdun, the Russians lost 100,000 casualties. There were 600,000 Austrian casualties and 350,000 German casualties.
- The British suffered over 57,000 casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme alone.
- In the Battle of the Somme, the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000, and the Germans 500,000 for a meagre total of eight miles.
- If you count the miles of the 'front line' from the Belgian coast to Switzerland, the trenches were 400 miles long. However, if you include the support and supply trenches on both sides, there were thousands of miles of trenches.
- The total number of military and civilian casualties in WWI was 40 million, including 15 to 20 million deaths.
- The total number of military personnel deaths in WWI was 11 million. The Allies (also known as the Triple Entente) lost 6 million men, and the Central Powers lost 4 million. About two-thirds of these deaths occurred due to battle rather than disease.
War of Attrition Significance WW1
Attrition is usually seen as a negative military strategy because it is so costly in terms of casualties. It also tends to favour the side with more financial and human resources. For this reason, military theorists such as Sun Tzu tend to be critical of attrition. The First World War has gone down in memory as a tragic waste of life by generals who favoured attrition over other military tactics.2
Fig. 4 A field of poppies. The poppy is the symbol of the millions of casualties lost in the First World War.
However, Professor William Philpott presents the military strategy of attrition as a deliberate and successful military strategy employed by the allies, which succeeded in wearing the Germans down to the bitter end. He writes,
Attrition, the cumulative exhaustion of the enemy's fighting capacity, had done its work. The enemy soldiers [...] were still brave but outnumbered and exhausted [...] Over four years the Allied blockade had deprived Germany and her allies of food, industrial raw materials and manufactured goods.3
From this perspective, attrition was the means of Allied success rather than a tragic and pointless mistake that led millions of men to their deaths in pointless battles. However, it remains debated by historians from both camps.
War of Attrition - Key takeaways
- Attrition is a military strategy of continuously wearing down an enemy through continuous losses in personnel and resources until their will to fight collapses.
- The characteristics of attrition in the First World War were 400 miles of trenches which became known as the 'front line'. It was only in 1918 that the war became mobile.
- 1916 was known as 'The Year of Attrition' on the Western Front.
- Two examples of attrition warfare are the bloody battles of Verdun and the Somme in 1916.
- Attrition warfare has gone down in memory as a tragic waste of life in WWI. However, some historians think it was a successful military strategy since it enabled the Allies to win the war.
References
- Jonathan Boff, 'Fighting the First World War: Stalemate and attrition', British Library World War One, Published 6 November 2018, [accessed 23 September 2022], https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/fighting-the-first-world-war-stalemate-and-attrition.
- Michiko Phifer, A Handbook of Military Strategy and Tactics, (2012), p.31.
- William Philpott, Attrition: Fighting the First World War, (2014), Prologue.
Explanations 
Exams 
Magazine 
