East+vs.+West+WWI

Eastern and Western forces in WWI

**Trench Warfare**
This is usually what trench warfare looked lik in WWI. Both sides East and West used trench warfare to attacke their enemies but the tactics from both sides differ. Trench warfare has been glorified over the years and it should be associated with needless slaughter. Brave men literally went to their deaths because of narrow-minded commanders with little or not idea of new tactics. Early on, both sides used brute force in place of tactics and caused many casualties on their sides.

Trench warfare occurred when a military revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defense held the advantage. The opposing side would entrench themselves as well and a battle of atrition (a battle where you wear down on your enemies forces) would ensue. In World War I, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire. The area between opposing trench lines, usually known as "no man's land", was fully exposed to artillery and gun fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties

**Poison Gas**
Germany used asphyxiating chlorine gas to kill enemies in WWI. This was a validation of the Hague Treaty of 1899, which prohibited the launching of projectiles containing asphyxiating or poisonous gas. They denied that by saying that they were throwing capsuls and therefore the treaty was not being broken. Eastern forces did not use poison gasses as much as the Germans did. And while being effective at the beginning of the war, the poison gas was limited when troops were given gas masks to wear.

**Casualties**
Casualties from the Eastern Front included: Casualties from the Western Front included:
 * total of 18,500,521 casualties.
 * 44% of forces deployed were casualties
 * 42,243,214 troops deployed
 * 5,691,241 troops killed in action
 * 12,809,280 troops wounded in action
 * Unknown total of troops captured
 * Unknown % of forces deployed were casualties
 * Between 5,603,000 and 7,947,000 casualties
 * Unknown total of troops K.I.A.
 * Unknown total of troops wounded
 * Unknown total of troops deployed
 * Unknown total of troops captured

**Maneuvering**
The Easter Front didn't have a lot of movement during the battle. They had a much more straight forward approach to the war and suffered major casualties for not being flexible enough to adapt and change. And while both forces had different approaches to how their side would fight they both suffered terrible losses. A lot of the lossess on both sides were due to miscommunication and the general's unwilling to use different tactics.

Air Warfare


The control for the skies over these battlefields were calm and had little conflict during the early years of the war. There were a few planes used and they were mostly for recon. But as the war slowly raged on the skies became a dangerous place as forces realized the usefullness of using planes to destroy enemy mortars and positions. At first the pilots armed themselves with all assortment of weapons from pistols and rifle to shotguns and grenades. And as time went on the planes were upgraded. They became more and more complex and diverse with the ability to carry more passengers and machine guns being added under the wings or with the passenger's spot. Both sides had about the same additude towards air warfare at first and then as the war continued tactics started forming for the air and where one or two planes would go out in the earlier parts of the war, nearing the end whole platoons of 50 or more planes would go out and cause havoc over enemy lines.