The Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War Two in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad. The battle took place between August 1942 and February 1943. It was the largest battle on the Eastern front and is among one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. The heavy losses inflicted on the German Army making the Battle of Stalingrad a turning point in the war. Three reasons that led up to this turning point was the failure of Operation Barbarossa, the first major victory of World War Two for the Russians, and how weak the German Army had become.
Haig only intention was to breakthrough to get the German trenches and defeat the army once and for all. The battle took more than 1,000,000 lives and as it was the bloodiest battle throughout the history, it is said that more than 20,000 soldiers died in the first hour and more than 60,000 casualties on the first day. The soldiers that took part in this insidious war were as young as 14 and had no training and they did not know that they’ll die so young. The Somme ended in bloodshed and the human cost was very high, 420,000 British soldiers and 200,000 French soldiers had died for their country, almost as many as the Germans added together. This insidious war The Somme was the most tragic moment for Britain and British history.
It soon became apparent that it would be just as hard a task to take the beaches, as it is to get to the beach. On a particularly hard section some landing craft overturned, each carrying up to 30 troops and each having 40 pounds of supplies. Needless to say many drowned because of being so heavy. (Morison 55) On Omaha Beach the Germans had beefed up their defenses prior to the landing because Hitler still believed that there could be an invasion from that point even thought the information he had gotten said otherwise. (Morison 34) The Germans had a total of 3,700 obstacles on Omaha beach, more than any other beach during the invasion.
As the German offensives began to run out of power, Foch began to plan the Allied counterattack. This was to begin with a series of attacks designed to eliminate the salients in preparation for a final campaign in 1919. If the initial attacks went well, then Foch hoped to launch a major offensive that he hoped would push the Germans back off French soil. Even if that succeeded, there was every chance that the Germans might choose to defend their own borders, leaving the final campaign still to be fought. Phase One – Clearing the Salients The Hundred Days began with a French counter-attack.
Despite the Nazi efforts to win the battle, by late January the Nazi were out of fuel and had to abandon their tanks. This led to the victory of the Allies. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest battle fought during World War II. The losses were astonishing ending in over 89.000 for the Allies and about 100,000 for the Nazi (Cole, 1965). b.
Operation Citadel. The Battle of Kursk, also known as Operation Citadel (German: Unternehmen Zitadelle) in summer 1943. The operation is regarded as the last German major offensive in the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front) in the Soviet Union in July and August It was both the largest series of armoured clashes, including the Battle of Prokhorovka, and the most expensive single day of aerial warfare in history. The battle was the final strategic offensive the Germans were able to mount in the east, and the decisive Soviet victory gave the Red Army the strategic initiative for the rest of the war. On July 12th the German Wehrmacht's Fourth Panzer Army clashed with the Soviet Red Army's 5th Guards Tank Army near the town of Prokhorovka, what resulted as one of the largest tank battles in military history.
The Germans transferred all of the soldiers in the Eastern Front over to the Western front to fight the British and the French. The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser's Battle), was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914. The Germans had realized that their only remaining chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the overwhelming human and matériel resources of the United States could be deployed. They also had the temporary advantage in numbers afforded by nearly 50 divisions freed by the Russian surrender (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). However, the strategic goals of the operation were lacking.
It claimed 100,000 German casualties, killed wounded or captured, 81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured and 19,000 killed, 1,400 British casualties and 200 killed. This was a massive amount of people to be killed in one horrible battle in the world's history. The Germans led by Hitler went westward, they captured 120 American GI's near Malmedy, they herded the prisoners into a field and shot them with machine guns and pistols. (Danzer et. al.
These series of attacks that singlehandedly changed the course of the war by planting seeds of unrest into the minds the American public are known today as the Tet Offensive. Since the 1940’s, General Vo Nguyen Giap was the Commanding General of the North Vietnam Army. Giap served under Ho Chi Minh and was one of the main forces in the victory at Dien Bien Phu, which drove the French forces out of Vietnam in 1954. During the battle of Dien Bien Phu, General Giap is quoted stating that he was, “…willing to lose ten men for every one enemy soldier killed” (Bui Tin 2002, 67). This statement by itself is a clear indicator that General Giap was willing to do anything to defeat the French and win the war.
Tet Offensive essay To What extent was the Tet Offensive the turning point of the second indochinese war? The Tet Offensive was by far one of the most boldest moves made by the NVA and NLF forces to brake the stalemate of the second indochinese war. Commencing on the 31st of January, 1968, the Lunar New Year, nearly 70,000 communist soldiers launched a surprise offensive on more than 100 cities and towns throughout the south, including Saigon and the Mekong Delta. In spite of the devastating impact, the communist were eventually driven back by combined US and ARVN forces. The offensive, which had lasted for just over a month, had resulted in the death of an estimated 45,000 communist forces, evidently making the offensive a ‘military defeat’ for the north.