Why The Allies Couldn't Overcome German Trenches in Spring 1917 (WW1 Documentary)

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The Allied 1917 Spring Offensive masterminded by French general Robert Nivelle was supposed to end the stalemate on the Western Front and bring a decisive breakthrough. But the German Army also knew they couldn't win the war on the offensive and thus prepared a new type of defensive system: The Hindenburg Line and it would be tested in the Battles of Arras (Vimy Ridge, Bullecourt) and Chemins des Dames (Aisne).

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» SOURCES
Cook, Tim, “Storm Troops: Combat Effectiveness and the Canadian Corps in 1917” in Dennis, Jeffrey & Grey, Peter (eds), 1917: Tactics, Training and Technology: the 2007 Chief of Army's Military History Conference, (Canberra : Australian History Military Publications, 2007)

Coombes, David, Bloody Bullecourt, (Barnsley : Pen & Sword Military, 2016)

Doughty, Robert T, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War, (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2005)

Doughty, Robert A, “How did France Weather the Troubles of 1917?” in Dennis, Jeffrey & Grey, Peter (eds), 1917: Tactics, Training and Technology: the 2007 Chief of Army's Military History Conference, (Canberra : Australian History Military Publications, 2007)

Farr, Don, A Battle Too Far: Arras 1917, (Warwick ; Helion & Company, 2018)

Foley, Robert T, “The Other Side of the Wire: The German Army in 1917” in Dennis, Jeffrey & Grey, Peter (eds), 1917: Tactics, Training and Technology: the 2007 Chief of Army's Military History Conference, (Canberra : Australian History Military Publications, 2007)

Lupfer, Timothy T, “The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War” Leavenworth Papers, No. 4, Combat Studies Institute
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, (Fort Leavenworth, KS : 1981)

Nicholls, Jonathan, Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras 1917, (London : Leo Cooper, 1990)


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