page_title: Western Front (World War I)
section_title: Hindenburg line
hierarchical_section_title: Western Front (World War I) / 1916 / Hindenburg line
caption_attribution_description: The caption reads, "The Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. Three trench lines and communications are here shown, with acres of wire entanglements in the left foreground protecting first-line positions." The general line of the front line trench passes across the centre of the picture, from left background to right foreground. The camera is facing NNE. See http://penhey.name/omiwxb262Div5%28p%29.htm for an interpretation of this photograph.
context_page_description: The Western Front was the main theatre of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, which changed little except during early 1917 and in 1918.
  Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties during attacks and counter-attacks and no significant advances were made. Among the most costly of these offensives were the Battle of Verdun, in 1916, with a combined 700,000 casualties, the Battle of the Somme, also in 1916, with more than a million casualties, and the Battle of Passchendaele, in 1917, with 487,000 casualties.
context_section_description: In August 1916 the German leadership along the western front had changed as Falkenhayn resigned and was replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff. The new leaders soon recognised that the battles of Verdun and the Somme had depleted the offensive capabilities of the German Army. They decided that the German Army in the west would go over to the strategic defensive for most of 1917, while the Central powers would attack elsewhere.
  During the Somme battle and through the winter months, the Germans created a fortification behind the Noyon Salient that would be called the Hindenburg Line, using the defensive principles elaborated since the defensive battles of 1915, including the use of Eingreif divisions. This was intended to shorten the German front, freeing 10 divisions for other duties. This line of fortifications ran from Arras south to St Quentin and shortened the front by about 50 kilometres (30 mi). British long-range reconnaissance aircraft first spotted the construction of the Hindenburg Line in November 1916.
caption: The Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt seen from the air
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