The Attrition of Strategy in the First World War

The pursuit of battle did not produce the sort of decisive victory, which could independently shape a strategic outcome. Instead it ended in indecision and exhaustion. Battle itself became the wearing-out process. Trench warfare adopted for good tactical reasons had operational and strategic consequences. It enabled ground to be held with fewer men, so permitting the formation of masses for manoeuvre elsewhere. For France, this use of trench warfare made absolute sense as it prevented any more of the nation's territory and capability being lost to the war effort. After 1918, its army would regularise the lessons it had learnt from that experience,. to stress the need to cover the frontiers and to sustain its defence through la batail