What was a stalemate in world war 1?
The Western Front is the classic example of a stalemate. The reason for the stalemate along the Western Front is technology. The technology (and tactics) behind machine guns and artillery had advanced to the degree that infantry could not advance across open ground without suffering horrendous casualties. In battles around the Belgium city of Ypres over 1.7 million German, French and English troops were killed or injured during the war. As a result of the withering fire from machine guns and artillery preventing attacks through what became known as No-Man’s Land, both sides dug defensive trenches and tried to blast each other out with heavy artillery fire. This state of stalemate lasted from 1914 to 1917. Offensives would often gain a few hundred yards at the cost of tens of thousands, even reaching over 100,000 in some battles, dead. There were two items during the interwar period — the period between WW1 and WW2 — that unlocked the battlefield. First was the development of the tank
