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JPEriksson (talk | contribs) m Balkans wars of the 90's should not apply to WWI. Princip was a SERBIAN nationalist, nothing else |
m →German forces in Belgium and France: There are no railroads in europe |
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====German forces in Belgium and France====
[[File:German soldiers in a railroad car on the way to the front during early World War I, taken in 1914. Taken from greatwar.nl site.jpg|thumb|German soldiers in a
{{main|Western Front (World War I)}}
The German attack on the Western Front began with an invasion through neutral Belgium. Initially, the Germans had great success in the [[Battle of the Frontiers]] (14 August–24 August). Russia, however, attacked in [[East Prussia]] and diverted German forces intended for the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]]. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First [[Battle of Tannenberg (1914)|Battle of Tannenberg]] (17 August – 2 September), but this diversion exacerbated problems of insufficient speed of advance from rail-heads not foreseen by the German [[General Staff]]. The Schlieffen Plan called for the right flank of the German advance to converge on Paris, but the French, with some assistance from the [[British Expeditionary Force (World War I)|British forces]] finally halted the German advance east of Paris at the [[First Battle of the Marne]] (5 September–12 September). The Central Powers were thereby denied a quick victory and forced to fight a war on two fronts. The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of obtaining an early victory.
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