Western Front

The Western Front in Europe was the largest and costliest front in the Great War. It opened in 1914 when Germany invaded France and Belgium, following a plan conceived by Alfred von Schleiffen based on Robert E. Lee's 1862 invasion of Pennsylvania. For the next three years, German troops battled British, French, and Belgian forces on a mostly stationary front, though the Germans did take Verdun in 1916. Poison gas, barrels, and many generations of aeroplanes all saw their first action in Europe, and often in the world, on the Western Front.

The stalemate of the Western Front ended in 1917 when the French army mutinied and France was forced to surrender.

In the Second Great War, the Western Front refers mostly to a British invasion of the Netherlands and Germany launched in 1941. The British thrust was halted in front of Hamburg in 1942, and in 1943, German forces expelled their British counterparts from Germany and pushed them back across the Netherlands. (In 1941, the British attempted to turn the Germans' northern flank on this front by launching an invasion of hitherto neutral Norway. This move failed, and had the effect of driving Norway into the Central Powers camp.)

Two other fronts were also opened in the West at this time: a French invasion of southern Germany, and an Anglo-French invasion of central Germany.