Firepower closes off quick decisions
Mass mobilization and the defensive power of machine guns turn offensives into systems of attrition and supply.
Military history
Transformations of the period
The World Wars are not merely larger battles. They link production, transport, intelligence, aviation, armour, naval power, propaganda and political endurance. An army can capture a position and lose the campaign if it cannot replace its cadres, fuel its engines or protect its communications.
Coordination seeks a way out
Artillery, infiltration, aviation and tanks are combined to restore movement, with uneven results depending on terrain and logistics.
Operations become combined arms
Armour, aviation, communications and logistical mobility enable rapid breakthroughs, but long lines and seas impose severe limits.
Production determines endurance
The ability to replace aircraft, tanks, ships, trucks and crews weighs on campaigns as heavily as the commander’s plan.
Explore
Chronological dossier
First World WarFirepower, logistical depth and attrition dominate a front that each side tries to set in motion again.Second World WarA war of coalitions, production and multiple fronts in which combined arms become decisive.Soviet–Japanese Conflict at NomonhanA border conflict in Mongolia where Soviet depth and combined arms break Japanese expansion northward.VerdunThe German concentration opens the right bank but does not take Verdun; reliefs, artillery and the Sacred Way stabilise both banks, then the October and December offensives recapture Douaumont, Vaux and most of the eastern gains.StalingradUrban combat, stretched fronts and a flank offensive turn a conquest into an encirclement.KurskDefences in depth, intelligence and armoured reserves absorb and then turn back the German offensive.Khalkhin GolSoviet–Mongolian forces pin the Japanese bridgehead, outflank it and close it in the steppe.GazalaRommel outflanks the Gazala Line, but his advance becomes a logistical pocket before causing the fall of Tobruk.CaporettoThree coordinated penetrations through Plezzo, the Isonzo valley and the ridges shatter the IV and XXVII Corps, then the pursuit drives the Italian army back to the Piave.Imphal–KohimaJapanese forces besiege Imphal and Kohima, but the British Army supplies its positions by air and regains the initiative.
Military history
Sources
Historical overviewHew Strachan, The First World War
Mobilization, fronts, the economy and the transformation of war, 1914–1918.
Global historyGerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms
Relations among theatres, coalitions, production and strategic decisions, 1939–1945.
Comparative analysisRichard Overy, Why the Allies Won
Production, intelligence, organization and the learning capacity of coalitions.