The positional crisis during Rzev and Verdun battles of world wars: general and special

Mizerov Ivan Igorevich

The article addresses the issue of similarities and differences between the two largest positional battles in world history, the Verdun battle of the First World War and the Battle of Rzhev in World War II, attempts to isolate the essential manifestations of a positional crisis that are common at different stages of the development of technology and tactics. A comparative analysis of the characteristics of the Verdun battle and Battle of Rzhev highlights at the tactical, operational and strategic levels factors that in the two very dissimilar theaters of military operations, in different military and political conditions, under the different influence of the personal characteristics of the generals leading the units and formations involved, led to close final results, poured into similar forms. It was proposed to develop the theme of parallelism between the Verdun and Rzhev battles as part of an independent full-scale study of the phenomenon of a positional crisis in its early and new versions.

Keywords:military history; positional crisis; comparative studies; World War I; The Second World War; statistics; Rzhev battle; Battle of Verdun