War of attrition

When the plans for a short war failed in the autumn of 1914 and the front froze in trenches, the outcome came to depend on manpower, industrial output and the endurance of whole societies. The Germans spoke of battles of materiel (Materialschlacht), in which artillery and masses of ammunition were to grind the enemy down; Verdun and the Somme in 1916 and Flanders in 1917 became their symbols. Erich von Falkenhayn claimed after the war that at Verdun he had meant to bleed the French army white; historians disagree whether that was his aim from the start.

Attrition also had an economic side: the naval blockade, shortages of food and raw materials, the submarine war. In the end it was the Central Powers that lost, as by 1918 they could no longer replace their losses or supply their armies and civilians.