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You probably mean a 'stalemate', a situation where no party was able to move or defeat the other. The reason for that was the role of the newly developed artillery an most of all, of the machine gun in battle.

Infantry tactics had hardly developed since the 19th century and were totally unable to cope with the destructive power of these new guns. The only answer was to dig in, and the fortified trenches proved very hard to conquer. Mass infantry attacks on enemy trenches only led - thanks to the machine gun - to massive loss of life on the side of the attackers.

So both sides mostly just stayed dug in and the western front line hardly changed for years, while both sides spent millions of tons of ammunition pinning the other party down.

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8y ago

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