Would Germany winning the Battle of Verdun have impacted the outcome of the First World War?

Not everywhere on the Western Front was nice dry flat plains. Much of it was forested heavily, or mountainous, or too wet.

The areas that were relatively flat and dry, like the Somme and Champagne, were the best defended areas. The defenses at the Somme in 1916 were not just strong forward, but also stretched many miles into the rear. The British could never breakthrough in the decisive battle imagined by GHQ.

>but the French still needed a British attack to survive

A British attack?
Reminder that half the troops at the Somme were French (and of you dont count ANZACs and Canucks, there were less Brits than French in that battle)
And don't forget that it was the first time in two years of wars that the British army got significantaly involved in the fighting

You're really pathetic when you try to dismiss the effort of the country that did the most for the allies in WW1 senpai

The British blockade won the war for the allies.

The british army was a volunteer force til 1916 so it did not have the numbers to make a large attack

ANZAC's and Canada were interchangeably British during WWI in military terms. It only makes sense to count them in British totals.

But yes, Frances contribution is misunderstood in the English speaking world.

t. Colonial.

>The British blockade won the war for the allies.

Partially.

The British army was also by far the world's best army in 1918 though, which hastened the end of the war.

>The British army was also by far the world's best army in 1918 though

Pfffffttttttt
The only moment the British army was superior to the French one was during the few months of munitinies in 1917
And anyway the German one was far superior in quality than both for the entire war, 1918 included
Brits really overstimate their deeds, in WW1 like in WW2

I suggest you look up the battle of Armiens,where the british(empire) army blew a hole in the german line Ludendorf couldnt plug, so he threw in the towel, and Kaiser Bill took a one way trip of Dutchland

Strange how the heroic and manly french couldnt do that.

Bullshit. The German army was a mess in 1918. It's equipment was deteriorating and it was forced to deal with terrible morale problems. Separating your army into an small elite of shocktroops and a mass of poorly trained and motivated second line troops is not indicative of a good army. During the 100 days the only reliable units were the machine gunners.

In contrast, Britain was the only army to demonstrate mastery of combined arms tactics during the 100 days. Overwhelming firepower, tanks and aeroplanes, and modern infantry tactics all worked together to absolutely crush the German defenders every time they attacked. Read some of the history of the 100 days. British units fought through tens of miles of deep German defensive lines consistently.

Verdun was in the middle of the war, all of the trench/defensive lines where pretty well in place by this time. Even if the Germans had taken the town and the French could just fall back and fortify a new line.

Another note, If falkenhayn's plan was to bleed out the French it wasn't really too well founded as I'm pretty sure that Germany was not in a position to bleed anyone out. Succeeding at Verdun means that the Germans would have had to either knocked out or weakened Russia enough so the Brusilov Offensive would not force them to divert troops to the east.

Germany's best chance of winning in the West was to not fuck up the First Battle Battle of the Marne by diverting troops east. They should have committed those troops and kept up momentum. Perhaps they could have had France out in the first year.

>tl;dr
Verdun was a needless bloodbath that really had no strategic value

They never had the density of troops to win 1st Marne even if they hadn't transferred the two corps eastward.

The fatal problem was Belgian resistance.

Perhaps if they had not outrun their logistics, or abandoned the Schlieffen Plan alltogether it would have worked out better. Avoiding the First Battle of the Marne, even if it pushed back Germany's timetable or stopped the advance all together, would have been better than suffering a decisive defeat. This is assuming that Russia wouldn't royally fuck them in the east that is.

My interest in The Great War is pretty new so my knowledge may be sketchy.

Should Germany use their fortifications on the French border rather than try and go on the offensive, they can defeat Russia with even less time. Then, with the French bleeding from lack of offensive capability added with a much, much larger German army and no Britain cause lack of Schlieffen plan, the French would get slapped again like 1871 and the world would go on.

Yea that sounds the most probable. I wasn't even thinking of winning in the east first. I was just thinking how Germany could have won given their position just before the prelude the the First Marne. But if germany could have exploited Russia's weakness after Tannenberg I could see Russia tapping out within the year, maybe by 1915.

You should look at this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_Front

It's the land front that won the war. It pushed bulgaria out the war which caused Ludendorff to forming at the mouth as it made the under belly of the central powers opened. With that Austria was forced to surrender and thus Germany as had an exposed belly. Combined with the naval blockade that was going on for years Germany had no chance of recovering. A world undone by G. Meyer has an interesting take on it and would recommend it.

Kinda was too late for that. War at this time was ran by time tables and train tracks. France had lot more train tracks and infrastructure than Russia so it would be easier and fast to transport large army westward compared to eastward. The plan was already set to move west and Helmuth von Moltke the Younger was asked by the Kaiser if the army could be moved east. He said no as the logistics and timetables to move millions of men not according to long thought out plan was impossible.

Napoleon's invasion of Russia was also in the high commands minds. Napoleon dived deep into Russia and yet they did not surrender. Winter came and destroyed his army and the Germans were kine on not repeating this. Which would mean to take they time in Russia for logistic reasons and they did not want to do that in a two front war. So they only real option was to hope on a quick war is the west.

*faster and *keen

Ditto.

It doesn't square with the Schlieffen Plan which was based around quick victory not attrition, or the historical engagements made in Austria and France leading up to WWI.