Food companies which used to make ammunition during world war 2
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At the turn of the twentieth century railways dominated land transport. Motor vehicles had yet to seriously threaten the railways, except for local traffic, while aviation was at an embryonic stage. Consequently the main belligerent nations of Europe built their plans for mobilising and supporting their armies in war primarily around railways. Each nation had developed very sophisticated schedules for concentrating troops and equipment at key depots and then despatching the forces rapidly to designated positions on their frontiers.
Nowhere was the planning more developed than in Germany and France. Germany's 'Schlieffen Plan' provided for concentrating forces by rail rapidly along both the eastern and western boundaries. It was expected that the Russian Army would be slow to mobilise, so the strategy was to sweep rapidly through Belgium and Luxembourg, invade northern France and encircle around the north and west of Paris. Following a French surrender, expected within six weeks, the forces could then face the Russians.
In the event, strong Belgian resistance, including extensive demolition of railway infrastructure, delayed the advance and the use of the network to supply German forces. Even a month after the occupation of Belgium, barely 15 per cent of the railway network was operating despite 26,000 workers being drafted in.
The rapidly advancing German troops far outran their supply lines once they entered France. They were soon up to 80 miles ahead of their nearest railhead, and horse-drawn transport could not adequately bridge the gap. The increasingly exhausted German troops were short of food and ammunition, and also faced stiffening resistance as the French used their well-developed rail network around Paris to assemble a new army to protect the capital. Meanwhile British forces were rushed across the Channel and deployed with the French and Belgian forces. The German advance ground to a halt. This theme - of the momentum of an initially successful advance faltering as supply lines were outrun, while defending forces were rapidly concentrated to fill the breech - was to be replayed many times during the next four years.
The Entente and the Central Powers agreed upon one expectation at the outset: that there would be a rapid, offensive war which would be over quickly. They were wrong. By Christmas 1914, defensive lines of trenches stretched from the Channel coast to the Swiss border.