War on two fronts
A war on two fronts is understood to mean the situation of a belligerent country when it wages or has to wage war against several opponents at the same time on two - mostly opposite - sides of its country . Such a war poses considerable logistical problems: troops have to be distributed between the two theaters of war , the supply of raw materials and imported goods is often difficult; a long front line is to be defended.
Germany
The German Reich has found itself in this situation repeatedly. The central location in Europe is often given as the reason for this frequent involvement of Germany in two-front wars . The policies of German statesmen both before the First and Second World Wars did this negligently. In the course of German history, several strategies have been developed to avoid a possible two-front war or to end it victoriously.
Bismarck pursued a political strategy against a two-front war between 1871 and 1890. Since after France's humiliation in the Franco-Prussian War, reconciliation was unlikely and further conflicts seemed likely (French revanchism ), he relied on a complicated system of alliances with all other major European powers with the exception of France, which was to remain internationally isolated.
After Bismarck's dismissal, the German Reich under Wilhelm II pursued an imperialist great power policy. The neglect of the existing alliances and the arms race triggered by the expansion of the Imperial Navy made it possible for France to reverse the situation. By 1907 France had created an alliance system with Great Britain and Russia ( Entente ). The German Empire saw itself encircled with its own alliance system .
First World War
In this situation, the Schlieffen Plan of 1905 was developed as a military strategy for waging a two-front war , which the German Reich tried to implement against France and Russia in 1914 . The plan failed; its implementation extended the First World War , as it required a first strike and an attack on Belgium , whose neutrality was guaranteed by Great Britain , which then entered the war. On the Eastern Front there was an armistice in mid-December 1917 and the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty in March 1918 . The German Reich was able to move about a million soldiers to the Western Front and start the German spring offensive in 1918 .
Second World War
During World War II , Adolf Hitler first tried to avoid a two-front war by trying to beat his opponents (mainly France, Great Britain, Soviet Union and USA ) one after the other. When Germany lost the Battle of Britain after the attack on Poland and the surprisingly quick victory over France , he attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 ( Barbarossa case ), although Great Britain was still undefeated. In doing so, he himself brought about a war on two or more fronts . After the USA entered the war in December 1941 , the Western Allies opened further fronts in Europe besides the Eastern Front in Italy ( landing in Sicily in July 1943 ) and in June 1944 in France ( Operation Overlord ) , thereby accelerating the collapse of the Third Reich considerably.
Austria
In the German-Austrian War (July 1866) the Austrian Empire had to distribute its troops on two fronts (in the south Italy; in the north-west the united Prussian armies).
During the First World War , after the Balkan front against Serbia (Serbia campaign in 1914 ), which triggered this great war, a second front opened up for Austria-Hungary in the first weeks of the war on the Russian border, the Eastern Front ( battle in Galicia ). They were separated by Romania, which was initially neutral. With the declaration of war by Italy in May 1915 which was Alpine front one - apart from the rather low participation of Austria in the Western Front - the third theater of war. After the front against Serbia soon became obsolete with its surrender in October 1915 ( Serbian campaign in 1915 ), Austria-Hungary again mainly fought a two- front war for its territory. Participation was also marginal on the Macedonian Front (Saloniki Front ) , which was rebuilt in the southern Balkans , but Romania entered the war on the side of the Allies in August 1916, which reopened the southeast front as an extension of the eastern front. The acts of war there ended at the end of 1916 with the occupation of a large part of Romania. The war on two fronts in the Carpathians and the Alps (where a major breakthrough was achieved in October 1917 ) could only be ended with the separate peace with Russia in March 1918 . That made little difference to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army in the course of summer and autumn.
Further examples
During the First World War , Bulgaria's entry into the war created the basis for the defeat of Serbia in 1915. As a result, the small Balkan state was attacked not only on the northern front by Austria-Hungary , but also on an eastern front by the new enemy Bulgaria.
In World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom also waged war on two fronts. They fought imperialist Japan in the Pacific War and the Third Reich in Europe. Despite this double burden, they triumphed on both fronts. This is partly due to the fact that the United Kingdom regulated its supplies through colonies . The US was able to draw on its enormous resources and industrial capacity. Last but not least, their war opponents were also involved in a multi-front war: the German Reich on the western and eastern front and at the beginning even in Africa and later in Italy. Japan not only fought in China, but attacked targets across Southeast Asia. In particular, after the USA gained more and more the upper hand both in the air and in the water, this dissipation took revenge.
Also, Israel was after 1948 during the Arab-Israeli wars repeatedly entangled in two- or multi-front war.
In 2006 Israel waged a two-front war against Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south.
