quality of soldiers (WW1)

• Examples of how the nature of the war (tactics) were determined by QS?

  • larger armies= battering ram tactics
  • professional BEF forces successful at start est 50-80,000 eg helpful in Mons 1914 and slowing German advance
  • nationalism= allowed for higher casualty figures like the French attacks at Alsace and Lorraine 1914
  • 1915 onwards quantity favoured over quality so tactics were frontal assaults
  • by end of war soldiers capable of more complex tactics eg combined arms, step by step
  • Somme 1916 and 3rd Ypres 1917 had huge casualties vs combined arms and step by step (tactics depend on skill)
• How many men did Germany and France have at their disposal?

  3.5 million
• How many soldiers died on the first day of the Somme (1916) alone?


  60000 in the British army on the first day