major battles of ww1

• The First World War is characterized by a war that is quite static rather than one that relied on lots of movement of the armies
• The British army had some incredible successes during World War 1
• Knowing the dates of major battles can help you relate a particular source to a particular battle
• Battles of Ypres


  • Occurred in Belgium between 1914 and 1918
  • Last major Belgian city not controlled by the Germans
  • Center of an important road and rail network
  • Germans occupied the trenches on higher ground surrounding the city on three sides
• First Battle of Ypres (1914)


  1. British, French and Belgians stopped repeated attempts by Germans to take the city

  2. Both sides then dug their trenches
• Second Battle of Ypres (April 1915)


  1. Second huge German effort to take Ypres

  2. Failed

  3. Marked the first widespread use of poison gas in World War One
• Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, 1917)


  1. Huge British and Allied effort to push the Germans back

  2. British had dug tunnels under German positions and laid enormous mines

  3. Heavy mud and weather prevented real success

  4. Tens of thousands killed in the fighting
• Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916)


  1. Supposed to be a huge breakthrough winning the war on the very first day

  2. British army lost 19,240 men killed and nearly 50,000 wounded on 1st July 1916

  3. British had suffered around 420,000 men killed, wounded and captured by November

  4. Germans had lost around 440,000

  5. Extraordinary pressure on the medical services
• Battle of Arras (April-May 1917)


  1. Unusual terrain with large networks of tunnels and an underground hospital

  2. Extensive use of airplanes to spy on Germans and attack them

  3. British pilots had a life expectancy of around 18 hours
• Battle of Cambrai (November-December 1917)


  1. British used 378 tanks to break through German lines

  2. Tanks broke through but couldn't hold on to the captured ground

  3. New tactics of short artillery bombardment, breakthrough with tanks backed by aircraft and rapid support from infantry would be used in 1918 to push the Germans back
• World War 1 is remembered for static trench warfare but there were instances of mobile warfare
• Powerful defensive weapons made it difficult to attack enemy trenches, so both sides developed new technologies like aircraft, gas and tanks
• The battles around Ypres were characterized by muddy conditions and heavy casualties
• The Battle of the Somme saw the deadliest day in British military history
• The Battle of Arras saw the use of vast underground hospitals to treat the wounded
• The Battle of Cambrai saw the first use of tanks in large numbers, but ultimately failed to break the deadlock
• Lessons learned during the Battle of Cambrai helped the British to break through in 1918