(Redirected from First World War)
'World War I', also known as 'The First World War', 'The Great War' and "'The War To End All Wars'," was a
global military conflict which took place primarily in Europe between 1914 and 1918. More than nine million soldiers and civilians died. The conflict had a decisive impact on the history of the 20th century.
The
Entente Powers, led by
France,
Russia, the
United Kingdom, and later
Italy (from 1915) and the
United States (from 1917), defeated the
Central Powers, led by the
Austro-Hungarian,
German,
Bulgarian and
Ottoman Empires. Russia withdrew from the war after the
revolution in 1917.
The fighting that took place along the
Western Front occurred along a system of trenches, breastworks, and fortifications separated by an area known as
no man's land.
[1] These fortifications streched 475 miles (more than 600 kilometres)
and defined the war for many. On the
Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate, though the scale of the conflict was just as large as on the Western Front. The Middle Eastern Front and the Italian Front also saw heavy fighting, while hostilities also occurred at sea, and for the first time, in the air.
The war caused the disintegration of four empires: the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian. Germany lost its
colonial empire and states such as
Czechoslovakia,
Estonia,
Finland,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Poland and
Yugoslavia gained independence. The cost of waging the war set the stage for the breakup of the
British Empire as well and left France devastated for more than a generation.
World War I marked the end of the world order which had existed after the
Napoleonic Wars, and was an important
factor in the outbreak of
World War II.
Causes
Main articles: Causes of World War I
A graphic depiction of the state of international relations in pre-WWI Europe.
On the
28 June 1914,
Gavrilo Princip, a
Bosnian Serb student, killed
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in
Sarajevo. Princip was a member of
Young Bosnia, a group whose aims included the unification of the
South Slavs and independence from Austria-Hungary. The
assassination in Sarajevo set into motion a series of
fast-moving events that eventually escalated into full-scale war. Austria-Hungary demanded action by
Serbia to punish those responsible, and when Austria-Hungary deemed Serbia had not complied, declared war. Major European powers were at war within weeks because of overlapping agreements for
collective defense and the complex nature of international alliances.
Arms race
The naval race between Britain and Germany was intensified by the 1906 launch of
HMS ''Dreadnought'' —a revolutionary craft whose size and power rendered previous battleships obsolete. Britain also maintained a large naval lead in other areas particularly over Germany and Italy.
Paul Kennedy pointed out both nations believed
Alfred Thayer Mahan's thesis of
command of the sea as vital to great nation status; experience with ''
guerre de course'' would prove Mahan false.
David Stevenson described the arms race as "a self-reinforcing cycle of heightened military preparedness." David Herrmann viewed the shipbuilding rivalry as part of a general movement in the direction of war.
Niall Ferguson, however, argued Britain's ability to maintain an overall lead signified this was not a factor in the oncoming conflict.
The cost of the arms race was felt in both Britain and Germany. The total arms spending by the six Great Powers (Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Italy) increased by 50% between 1908 and 1913.
[2]
Plans, distrust and mobilization
Closely related is the thesis adopted by many
political scientists that the mobilization plans of Germany, France and Russia automatically escalated the conflict.
Fritz Fischer emphasized the inherently aggressive nature of the
Schlieffen Plan, which outlined a two-front strategy. Fighting on two fronts meant Germany had to eliminate one opponent quickly, before taking on the other. It called for a strong right
flank attack, to seize Belgium and cripple the
French army by pre-empting its mobilization. After the attack, the
German army would rush east by railroad and quickly destroy the slowly mobilizing Russian forces.
France's
Plan XVII envisioned a quick thrust into the
Ruhr Valley, Germany’s industrial heartland, which would in theory cripple Germany's ability to wage a modern war.
Russia's
Plan XIX foresaw a mobilization of its armies against both Austria-Hungary and Germany.
All three plans created an atmosphere in which speed was one of the determining factors for victory. Elaborate timetables were prepared; once mobilization had begun, there was little possibility of turning back. Diplomatic delays and poor communications exacerbated the problems.
Also, the plans of France, Germany and Russia were all biased toward the offensive, in clear conflict with the improvements of defensive firepower and entrenchment.
[3]
Militarism and autocracy
President Woodrow Wilson of the United States and others blamed the war on
militarism.
[4] Some argued that
aristocrats and military élites had too much power in countries such as Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. War was thus a consequence of their desire for
military power and disdain for
democracy. This theme figured prominently in
anti-German propaganda. Consequently, supporters of this theory called for the abdication of rulers such as
Kaiser Wilhelm II, as well as an end to aristocracy and militarism in general. This platform provided some justification for the American entry into the war when the Russian Empire surrendered in 1917.
Wilson hoped the
League of Nations and
disarmament would secure a lasting peace. He also acknowledged that variations of militarism, in his opinion, existed within the British and French Empires.
There was some validity to this view, as the Allies consisted of Great Britain and France, both democracies, fighting the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Russia, one of the Allied Powers, was an empire until 1917, but it was opposed to the subjugation of
Slavic peoples by Austro-Hungary. Against this backdrop, the view of the war as one of democracy versus dictatorship initially had some validity, but lost credibility as the conflict dragged on.
Balance of Power
Political cartoon depicting the tangled web of European alliances.
One of the goals of the foreign policies of the Great Powers in the pre-war years was to maintain the 'Balance of Power' in Europe. This evolved into an elaborate network of secret and public alliances and agreements. For example, after the war of 1870-71, Britain seemed to favor a strong Germany, as it helped to balance its traditional enemy, France. After Germany began its naval construction plans to rival that of Britain, this stance shifted. France, looking for an ally to balance the threat created by Germany, found it in Russia. Austria-Hungary, facing a threat from Russia, sought support from Germany.
When the Great War broke out, these treaties only partially determined who entered the war on which side. Britain had no treaties with France or Russia, but entered the war on their side. Italy had a treaty with both Austria-Hungary and Germany, yet did not enter the war with them; Italy later sided with the Allies. Perhaps the most significant treaty of all was the initially ''defensive'' pact between Germany and Austria-Hungary, which Germany in 1909 extended by declaring that Germany was bound to stand with Austria-Hungary even if it had started the war.
[2]
Economic imperialism
Vladimir Lenin asserted that
imperialism was responsible for the war. He drew upon the
economic theories of
Karl Marx and English economist
John A. Hobson, who predicted that unlimited competition for expanding markets would lead to a global conflict.
[6] This argument was popular in the wake of the war and assisted in the rise of
Communism. Lenin argued that the banking interests of various capitalist-imperialist powers orchestrated the war.
[7]
Trade barriers
Cordell Hull, American Secretary of State under
Franklin Roosevelt, believed that
trade barriers were the
root cause of both World War I and World War II. In 1944, he helped design the
Bretton Woods Agreements to reduce trade barriers and eliminate what he saw as the cause of the conflicts.
Ethnic and political rivalries
A
Balkan war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was considered inevitable, as Austria-Hungary’s influence waned and the
Pan-Slavic movement grew. The rise of ethnic nationalism coincided with the growth of Serbia, where anti-Austrian sentiment was perhaps most fervent. Austria-Hungary had occupied the former Ottoman province of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had a large Serb population, in 1878. It was
formally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Increasing nationalist sentiment also coincided with the decline of the
Ottoman Empire. Russia supported the Pan-Slavic movement, motivated by ethnic and religious loyalties and a rivalry with Austria dating back to the
Crimean War. Recent events such as the
failed Russian-Austrian treaty and a century-old dream of a
warm water port also motivated St. Petersburg.
[8]
Myriad other geopolitical motivations existed elsewhere as well, for example France's loss of
Alsace and
Lorraine in the
Franco-Prussian War helped create a sentiment of irredentist ''
revanchism'' in that country. France eventually allied itself with Russia, creating the likelihood of a
two-front war for Germany.
July crisis and declarations of war
Declaration of war from the German Empire in 1914
The Austro-Hungarian government used the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand as a pretext to deal with the Serbian question, supported by Germany. On
23 July, an
ultimatum was sent to Serbia with demands so extreme that it was rejected. The Serbians, relying on support from Russia, instead ordered mobilization. In response to this, Austria-Hungary issued a declaration of war on
28 July. Initially, Russia ordered partial mobilization, directed at the Austrian frontier. On
31 July, after the Russian General Staff informed the Czar that partial mobilization was logistically impossible, a full mobilization was ordered. The
Schlieffen Plan, which relied on a quick strike against France, could not afford to allow the Russians to mobilize without launching an attack. Thus, the Germans declared war against Russia on
1 August and on France two days later. Next, Germany violated Belgium's neutrality by the German advance through it to Paris, and this brought the British Empire into the war. With this, five of the six European powers were now involved in the largest continental European conflict since the
Napoleonic Wars.
[9]
Chronology
Opening hostilities
Confusion among the Central Powers
The strategy of the Central Powers suffered from miscommunication. Germany had promised to support Austria-Hungary’s invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Germany, however, envisioned Austria-Hungary directing the majority of its troops against Russia, while Germany dealt with France. This confusion forced the
Austro-Hungarian Army to divide its forces between the Russian and Serbian fronts.
African campaigns
Main articles: African theatre of World War I
Some of the first clashes of the war involved British, French and German colonial forces in Africa. On
7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorate of
Togoland. On
10 August German forces in
South-West Africa attacked
South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the remainder of the war.
Serbian campaign
Main articles: Serbian Campaign (World War I)
The Serbian army fought the
Battle of Cer against the invading Austrians, beginning on
12 August, occupying defensive positions on the south side of the
Drina and
Sava rivers. Over the next two weeks Austrian attacks were thrown back with heavy losses, which marked the first major Allied victory of the war and dashed Austrian hopes of a swift victory. As a result, Austria had to keep sizable forces on the Serbian front, weakening their efforts against Russia. Serbian troops then defeated Austro-Hungarian forces at the
Battle of Kolubara, leading to 240,000 Austro-Hungarian casualties. The Serbian Army lost 170,000 troops.
German forces in Belgium and France
Main articles: Western Front (World War I)
French postcard depicting the arrival of 15th
Sikh Regiment in France during World War I. The post card reads, ''"Gentlemen of India marching to chasten German hooligans"''
Initially, the Germans had great success in the
Battle of the Frontiers (
14 August –
24 August). Russia, however, attacked in
East Prussia and diverted German forces intended for the
Western Front. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First
Battle of Tannenberg (
17 August –
2 September), but this diversion exacerbated problems of insufficient speed of advance from rail-heads not foreseen by the German
General Staff. Originally, the Schlieffen Plan called for the right flank of the German advance to pass to the west of Paris. However, the capacity and low speed of horse-drawn transport hampered the German supply train, allowing French and British forces to finally halt the German advance east of Paris at the
First Battle of the Marne (
5 September –
12 September), thereby denying the Central Powers a quick victory and forcing them to fight a war on two fronts. The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance for an early victory.
Asia and the Pacific
Main articles: Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
New Zealand occupied
German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on
30 August. On
11 September the
Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of
Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of
German New Guinea.
Japan seized Germany’s
Micronesian colonies and after
Battle of Tsingtao, the German coaling port of
Qingdao, in the Chinese
Shandong peninsula. Within a few months, the Allied forces had seized all the German territories in the Pacific.
Early stages
Trench warfare begins
Main articles: Western Front (World War I)
Military tactics in the early part of World War I failed to keep pace with advances in technology. New technology allowed the building of impressive defence systems, which out-of-date tactics could not break through.
Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances;
artillery, vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with
machine guns, made crossing open ground very difficult. The Germans introduced
poison gas; it soon became used by both sides, though it never proved decisive in winning a battle. Its effects were brutal, however, causing slow and painful death, becoming one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaking through entrenched positions without large numbers of casualties. In time, however, technology began also to yield new offensive weapons, such as the
tank, a wartime invention of the British to break the trench warfare stalemate. Both Britain and France were its primary users; the Germans employed captured Allied tanks and some of their own design.
After the
First Battle of the Marne, both
Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking maneuvers, in the so-called '
Race to the Sea'. Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German forces from
Lorraine to Belgium's
Flemish coast. Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended the occupied territories; consequentially, German trenches were generally much better constructed than those of their enemy. Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be 'temporary' before their forces broke through German defenses. Both sides attempted to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances. In April 1915, the Germans used
chlorine gas, for the first time (in violation of the
Hague Convention), opening a 6 kilometer (4 mile) hole in the Allied lines when British and French colonial troops retreated.
Canadian soldiers closed the breach at the
Second Battle of Ypres. At the
Third Battle of Ypres, Canadian forces took the village of
Passchendaele.
On
1 July 1916, the
first day of the
Battle of the Somme, the
British Army endured the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties and 19,240 dead. Most of the casualties occurred in the first hour of the attack. The entire offensive cost the British Army almost half a million dead.
A French assault on German positions. Champagne, France, 1917 .
Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years, though protracted German action at
Verdun throughout 1916 combined the Entente’s failure at the
Somme (summer 1916), brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse. Futile attempts at frontal assault—with a rigid adherence to unimaginative maneuver—came at a high price for both the British and the French ''
poilu'' (infantry) and led to
widespread mutinies, especially during the time of the
Nivelle Offensive in the spring of 1917.
Throughout 1915–17, the British Empire and France suffered more casualties than Germany, due both to the strategic and tactical stances chosen by the sides. At the strategic level, while the Germans only mounted a single main offensive at
Verdun, the Allies made several attempts to break through German lines. At the tactical level, the German defensive doctrine was well suited for trench warfare, with a relatively lightly defended "sacrificial" forward position, and a more powerful main position from which an immediate and powerful counter-offensive could be launched. This combination usually was effective in pushing out attackers at a relatively low cost to the Germans. In absolute terms, of course, the cost in lives of men for both attack and defense was astounding then and remains so now.
Around 800,000 soldiers from the British Empire were on the Western Front at any one time. 1,000 battalions, occupying sectors of the line from the
North Sea to the
Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway. The front contained over 9,600 kilometers (6,000 miles) of trenches. Each battalion held its sector for about a week before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the
Poperinge or
Amiens areas.
In the British-led
Battle of Arras during the 1917 campaign, the only military success was the capture of
Vimy Ridge by
Canadian forces under
Sir Arthur Currie and
Julian Byng. It provided the allies with a great military advantage and had a lasting impact on the war. The
Battle of Vimy Ridge is considered by many historians to be one of the
founding myths of Canada.
Naval war
At the start of the war, the German Empire had
cruisers scattered across the globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping. The British
Royal Navy systematically hunted them down, though not without some embarrassment from its inability to protect allied shipping. For example, the German detached light cruiser Emden, part of the East-Asia squadron stationed at Tsingtao, seized or destroyed 15 merchantmen, as well as sinking a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. However, the bulk of the
German East-Asia squadron—consisting of the armoured cruisers
''Scharnhorst'' and
''Gneisenau'', light cruisers
''Nürnberg'' and
''Leipzig'' and two transport ships—did not have orders to raid shipping and was instead underway to Germany when it encountered elements of the British fleet. The German flotilla, along with
''Dresden'', sank two armoured cruisers at the
Battle of Coronel, but was almost completely destroyed at the
Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, with only ''Dresden'' escaping.
[10]
Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain initiated a naval
blockade of Germany. The strategy proved effective, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies, although this blockade violated generally accepted international law codified by several international agreements of the past two centuries. A blockade of stationed ships within a three mile (5 km) radius was considered legitimate, however Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships. Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.
The 1916
Battle of Jutland (German: ''Skagerrakschlacht'', or "Battle of the Skagerrak") developed into the largest naval battle of the war, the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war. It took place on
31 May–
1 June,
1916, in the
North Sea off
Jutland. The Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral
Reinhard Scheer, squared off against the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, led by Admiral Sir
John Jellicoe. The engagement was a standoff, as the Germans, outmaneuvered by the larger British fleet, managed to escape and inflicted more damage to the British fleet than they received. Strategically, however, the British asserted their control of the sea, and the bulk of the German surface fleet remained confined to port for the duration of the war.
German
U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival. The United States launched a protest, and Germany modified its rules of engagement. After the infamous sinking of the passenger ship
RMS ''Lusitania'' in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships. Finally, in early 1917 Germany adopted a policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare, realizing the Americans would eventually enter the war . Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the U.S. could transport a large army overseas.
The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships entered
convoys escorted by destroyers. This tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, and the accompanying destroyers might sink a submerged submarine with
depth charges. The losses to submarine attacks were reduced significantly, but the convoy system slowed the flow of supplies, as convoys were limited to the speed of the slowest ship. The solution to the delays was a massive program to build new freighters. Troop ships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys.
The First World War also saw the first use of
aircraft carriers in combat, with
HMS ''Furious'' launching
Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the
Zeppelin hangars at
Tondern in July 1918.
Southern theatres
Ottoman Empire
Main articles: Middle Eastern theatre of World War I
The
Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in the war, the secret
Ottoman-German Alliance having been signed in August 1914. It threatened Russia’s
Caucasian territories and Britain’s communications with
India via the
Suez Canal. The British and French opened overseas fronts with the
Gallipoli (1915) and
Mesopotamian campaigns. In Gallipoli, the
Turks successfully repelled the British, French and
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs). In
Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous
Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Imperial forces reorganised and captured
Baghdad in March 1917. Further to the west, in the
Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British setbacks were overcome when
Jerusalem was captured in December 1917. The
Egyptian Expeditionary Force, under Field Marshal
Edmund Allenby, broke the Ottoman forces at the
Battle of Megiddo in September 1918.
Russian armies generally had the best of it in the
Caucasus. ''Vice-Generalissimo''
Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Turkish armed forces, was
ambitious and dreamed of conquering
central Asia. He was, however, a poor commander. He launched an offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus in December 1914 with 100,000 troops; insisting on a frontal attack against mountainous Russian positions in winter, he lost 86% of his force at the
Battle of Sarikamis.
The Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, General
Yudenich, drove the Turks out of most of the southern Caucasus with a string of victories.
In 1917, Russian
Grand Duke Nicholas assumed command of the Caucasus front. Nicholas planned a railway from
Russian Georgia to the conquered territories, so that fresh supplies could be brought up for a new offensive in 1917. However, in March 1917, (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar was overthrown in the
February Revolution and the
Russian Caucasus Army began to fall apart. In this situation, the army corps of
Armenian volunteer units realigned themselves under the command of General
Tovmas Nazarbekian, with
Dro as a civilian commissioner of the
Administration for Western Armenia. The frontline had three main divisions:
Movses Silikyan,
Andranik and
Mikhail Areshian. Another regular unit was under Colonel Korganian. There were Armenian
partisian guerrilla detachments (more than 40,000
[11]) accompanying these main units.
Along the border of Italian Libya and British Egypt, the
Senussi tribe, incited and armed by the Turks, waged a small-scale guerilla war against Allied troops. According to Martin Gilbert's ''The First World War'', the British were forced to dispatch 12,000 troops to deal with the Senussi. Their rebellion was finally crushed in mid-1916.
Italian participation
Main articles: Italian Campaign (World War I)
Italy had been allied with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882 as part of the
Triple Alliance. However, the nation had its own designs on Austrian territory in
Trentino,
Istria and
Dalmatia.
Rome had a secret 1902 pact with France, effectively nullifying its alliance.
[12] At the start of hostilities, Italy refused to commit troops, arguing that the
Triple Alliance was defensive in nature, and that Austria-Hungary was an aggressor. The Austro-Hungarian government began negotiations to secure Italian neutrality, offering the French colony of
Tunisia in return. However, Italy then joined the
Entente in April 1915 and declared war on Austria-Hungary in May. Fifteen months later, it declared war on Germany.
Militarily, the Italians had numerical superiority. This advantage, however, was lost, not only because of the difficult terrain in which fighting took place, but also because of the strategies and tactics employed.
Generalissimo Luigi Cadorna insisted on attacking the
Isonzo front. Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, had dreams of breaking into the Slovenian plateau, taking
Ljubljana and threatening
Vienna. It was a
Napoleonic plan, which had no realistic chance of success in an age of barbed wire, machine guns, and indirect artillery fire, combined with hilly and mountainous terrain. Cadorna unleashed eleven offensives (
Battles of the Isonzo) with total disregard for his men's lives. The Italians also went on the offensive to relieve pressure on other Allied fronts. On the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarians took advantage of the
mountainous terrain, which favoured the defender. After an initial strategic retreat, the front remained largely unchanged, while Austrian
Kaiserschützen and
Standschützen and Italian
Alpini engaged in bitter hand-to-hand combat throughout the summer. The Austro-Hungarians counter-attacked in the
Altopiano of Asiago, towards Verona and Padua, in the spring of 1916 (''
Strafexpedition''), but made little progress.
Beginning in 1915, the Italians mounted eleven offensives along the
Soča River, north of
Trieste. These became known collectively as the
Battle of the Isonzo (Soška fronta). All eleven offensives were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who held the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of
Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained static for over a year, despite several Italian offensives. In the autumn of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large numbers of reinforcements, including German
Stormtroopers and the elite
Alpenkorps. The Central Powers launched a crushing offensive on
1917-10-26, spearheaded by the Germans. They achieved a victory at
Caporetto. The Italian army was routed and retreated more than 100 km (60 miles). They were able to reorganise and stabilize the front at the
Piave River. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarians repeatedly failed to break through, in a series of battles on the
Asiago Plateau, finally being decisively defeated in the
Battle of Vittorio Veneto in October of that year. Austria-Hungary surrendered in early November 1918.
War in the Balkans
Main articles: Balkans Campaign (World War I),
Serbian Campaign (World War I),
Macedonian front (World War I)
Faced with Russia, Austria-Hungary could spare only one third of its army to attack Serbia. After suffering heavy losses, the Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital,
Belgrade. Serbian counterattacks, however, succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. For the first ten months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats, however, scored a coup by convincing
Bulgaria to join in attacking Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian provinces of
Slovenia,
Croatia and
Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary, invading Serbia as well as fighting Russia and Italy.
Montenegro allied itself with Serbia.
Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month. The attack began in October, when the Central Powers launched an offensive from the north; four days later the Bulgarians joined the attack from the east. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into
Albania, halting only once, to make a stand against the Bulgarians. The Serbs suffered defeat near modern day
Gnjilane in
Kosovo, forces being evacuated by ship to
Greece.
In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at
Salonica in Greece, to offer assistance and to pressure the government to declare war against the Central Powers. Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-German
King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of
Eleftherios Venizelos, before the allied expeditionary force could arrive.
The Salonica Front proved static; it was joked that Salonica was the largest German
prisoner of war camp of the war. Only at the end of the conflict were the Entente powers able to break through, which was after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been withdrawn. The
Bulgarians suffered their only defeat of the war, at the
battle of Dobro Pole, but days later, they decisively defeated British and
Greek forces at the
battle of Doiran, avoiding occupation. Bulgaria signed an
armistice on
29 September,
1918.
Fighting in India
Although the conflict in India cannot be explicitly said to have been a part of the First World War, it can certainly be said to have been significant in terms of the wider strategic context. The British attempt to subjugate the tribal leaders who had rebelled against their British overlords drew away much needed troops from other theaters, in particular, of course, the Western Front, where the real decisive victory would be made.
The reason why some Indian and Afghani tribes rose up simply came down to years of discontent which erupted, probably not coincidentally, during the First World War. It is likely that the tribal leaders were aware that Britain would not be able to field the required men, in terms of either number or quality. They underestimated, however, the strategic importance placed on India by the British; despite being located far away from the epicenter of the conflict, it provided a bounty of men for the fronts. Its produce was also needed for the British war effort and many trade routes running to other profitable areas of the Empire ran through India. Therefore, although the British were not able to send the men that they wanted, they were able to send enough to resist the revolt of the tribesmen through a gradual but effective counter-guerilla war. The fighting continued into 1919 and in some areas lasted even longer. See also
Third Anglo-Afghan War.
Eastern Front
Initial actions
Main articles: Eastern Front (World War I)
While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued in the East. Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian
Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by
Hindenburg and
Ludendorff at
Tannenberg and the
Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership was instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated into Galicia, and in May the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on
Poland's southern frontiers. On
5 August they captured
Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland. This became known as the "Great Retreat" in Russia and the "Great Advance" in Germany.
Ukrainian oppression
During World War I the western
Ukrainian people were situated between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Ukrainian villages were regularly destroyed in the crossfire. Ukrainians could be found participating on both sides of the conflict (though most sided with
Austria-Hungary with the intention of ending the war on the Eastern Front and creating an independent Ukrainian state). However, Ukrainians in
Galicia who were suspected of being sympathetic to Russian interests were repressed by Austro-Hungarian authorities. Over twenty thousand supporters of Russia were arrested and placed in Austrian concentration camps in
Talerhof,
Styria and in
Terezín fortress (now in the
Czech Republic).
Main articles: Ukraine after the Russian Revolution,
Soviet Union
Map of the West Ukrainian People's Republic
With the collapse of the Russian and Austrian empires following World War I and the
Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukrainian national movement for self-determination emerged again. During 1917–20 several separate Ukrainian states briefly emerged: the
Central Rada, the
Hetmanate, the
Directorate, the
Ukrainian People's Republic and the
West Ukrainian People's Republic. However, with the defeat of the latter in the
Polish-Ukrainian War and the failure of the Polish
Kiev Offensive (1920) of the
Polish-Soviet War, the
Peace of Riga concluded in March 1921 between
Poland and
Bolsheviks left Ukraine divided again. The western part of Galicia had been incorporated into newly organized
Second Polish Republic, incorporating territory claimed or controlled by the ephemeral
Komancza Republic and the
Lemko-Rusyn Republic. The larger, central and eastern part, established as the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in March 1919, later became a constituent republic of the
Soviet Union, when it was formed in December 1922.
Russian Revolution
Main articles: Russian Revolution of 1917
Dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew, despite the success of the June 1916
Brusilov offensive in eastern
Galicia. The success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces to support the victory. Allied and Russian forces revived only temporarily with
Romania's entry into the war on
27 August. German forces came to the aid of embattled Austrian units in
Transylvania and
Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on
6 December. Meanwhile, unrest grew in Russia, as the
Tsar remained at the front.
Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew protests and resulted in the murder of her favourite,
Rasputin, at the end of 1916.
In March 1917, demonstrations in
St Petersburg culminated in the abdication of
Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak
Provisional Government. It shared power with the socialists of the
Petrograd Soviet. This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home. The army became increasingly ineffective.
The war and the government became more and more unpopular. Discontent led to a rise in popularity of the
Bolshevik party, led by
Vladimir Lenin. He promised to pull Russia out of the war and was able to gain power. The
triumph of the Bolsheviks in November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany. At first, the Bolsheviks refused to agree to the harsh German terms. But when Germany resumed the war and marched with impunity across
Ukraine, the new government acceded to the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on
3 March,
1918. It took Russia out of the war and ceded vast territories, including
Finland, the
Baltic provinces, parts of
Poland and
Ukraine to the Central Powers.
The publication by the new Bolshevik government of the secret treaties signed by the Tsar was hailed across the world, either as a great step forward for the respect of the will of the people, or as a dreadful catastrophe which could destabilise the world. The existence of a new
type of government in Russia led to the reinforcement in many countries of
Communist parties.
After the Russians dropped out of the war, the Entente no longer existed. The Allied powers led a small-scale invasion of Russia. The intent was primarily to stop Germany from exploiting Russian resources and, to a lesser extent, to support the Whites in the
Russian Civil War. Troops landed in
Archangel (see
North Russia Campaign) and in
Vladivostok.
1917–1918
Events of 1917 proved decisive in ending the war, although their effects were not fully felt until 1918. The British naval blockade began to have a serious impact on Germany. In response, in February 1917, the
German General Staff convinced
Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war. Tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February to July. It peaked at 860,000 tons in April. After July, the reintroduced
convoy system became extremely effective in neutralizing the
U-boat threat. Britain was safe from starvation and German industrial output fell.
The victory of Austria-Hungary and Germany at the
Battle of Caporetto led the Allied at the
Rapallo Conference to form the
Supreme Allied Council to coordinate planning. Previously, British and French armies had operated under separate commands.
In December, the Central Powers signed an armistice with Russia. This released troops for use in the west. Ironically, German troop transfers could have been greater if their territorial acquisitions had not been so dramatic. With German reinforcements and new American troops pouring in, the final outcome was to be decided on the Western front. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war. But they held high hopes for a quick offensive. Furthermore, the leaders of the Central Powers and the Allies became increasingly fearful of social unrest and revolution in Europe. Thus, both sides urgently sought a decisive victory.
Entry of the United States
President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with Germany on
3 February 1917
The United States originally pursued a policy of
isolationism, avoiding conflict whilst trying to broker a peace. This resulted in increased tensions with Berlin and London. When a German U-boat sank the British liner
''Lusitania'' in 1915, with 128 Americans aboard, the U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson vowed that "America was too proud to fight" and demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. He repeatedly warned that America would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, in violation of international law and American ideas of human rights. Wilson was under pressure from former president
Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German acts as "piracy."
[13] Other factors contributing to the U.S. entry into the war include German sabotage of both
Black Tom in
Jersey City, NJ, and the
Kingsland Explosion in what is now
Lyndhurst, NJ.
In January 1917, after the Navy pressured the Kaiser, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Britain's secret "
Room 40" cryptography group had decrypted the German diplomatic code, and discovered a proposal from Berlin (the famed
Zimmermann Telegram) to Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States. The proposal suggested that Mexico should declare war against the United States and enlist Japan as an ally; this would prevent America from joining the Allies and deploying troops to Europe, which would give the Germans more time for their unrestricted submarine warfare program to strangle Britain's vital war supplies. In return, the Germans would promise Mexico support in reclaiming Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
[14]
After the British revealed the telegram to the Americans,
Woodrow Wilson was still attached to neutrality but released the captured telegram as a way of supporting his proposed plan to arm American merchant ships. After submarines sank seven American merchant ships and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the
U.S. Congress declared on
6 April 1917.
[15]
The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power". America had a small army, but it drafted four million men and by summer 1918 was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. Germany had miscalculated that it would be many more months before they would arrive or that the arrival could be stopped by U-boats.
[16]
The
United States Navy sent a battleship group to
Scapa Flow to join with the
British Grand Fleet,
destroyers to
Queenstown,
Ireland and
submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of
U.S. Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted American units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The Americans rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General
John J. Pershing,
American Expeditionary Force (AEF) commander, refused to break up American units to be used as reinforcements for British Empire and French units (though he did allow
African American combat units to be used by the French). AEF doctrine called for the use of frontal assaults, which had been discarded by that time by British Empire and French commanders because of the large loss of life sustained throughout the war.
[17]
German Spring Offensive of 1918
Main articles: Spring Offensive
For most of World War I, Allied forces were stalled at trenches on the
Western Front
German General
Erich Ludendorff drew up plans (
codenamed Operation Michael) for the 1918 offensive on the Western Front. The Spring Offensive sought to divide the British and French forces with a series of feints and advances. The German leadership hoped to strike a decisive blow before significant U.S. forces arrived. Before the offensive began, Ludendorff left the elite
Eighth Army in Russia and sending over only a small portion of the German forces to the west.
Operation Michael opened on
21 March 1918. British forces were attacked near
Amiens. Ludendorff wanted to split the British and French armies. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometers (40 miles). For the first time since 1914, the maneuver was successful on the battlefield.
British and French trenches were penetrated using novel
infiltration tactics, also named ''Hutier'' tactics, after General
Oskar von Hutier. Attacks had been characterised by long artillery bombardments and massed assaults. However, in the Spring Offensive, the German Army used artillery only briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points. They attacked command and logistics areas and bypassed points of serious resistance. More heavily armed infantry then destroyed these isolated positions. German success relied greatly on the element of surprise.
The front moved to within 120 kilometers (75 mi) of
Paris. Three heavy
Krupp railway guns fired 183 shells on the capital, causing many Parisians to flee. The initial offensive was so successful that Kaiser Wilhelm II declared
24 March a
national holiday. Many Germans thought victory was near. After heavy fighting, however, the offensive was halted. Lacking tanks or
motorised artillery, the Germans were unable to consolidate their gains. The sudden stop was also a result of the four AIF (Australian Imperial Forces) divisions that were "rushed" down, thus doing what no other army had done and stopping the German advance in its tracks. While during that time the first Australian division was hurridly sent north again to stop the second German break through.
American divisions, which Pershing had sought to field as an independent force, were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on
28 March. A supreme command of Allied forces was created at the
Doullens Conference.
General Foch was appointed as supreme commander of the allied forces. Haig, Petain and Pershing retained tactical control of their respective armies.
Following Operation Michael, Germany launched
Operation Georgette against the northern
English channel ports. The Allies halted the drive with limited territorial gains for Germany. The German Army to the south then conducted
Operations Blücher and Yorck, broadly towards Paris. Operation Marne was launched on
15 July, attempting to encircle
Reims and beginning the
Second Battle of the Marne. The resulting Allied counterattack marked their first successful offensive of the war. By
20 July, the Germans were back at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines, having achieved nothing. Following this last phase of the war in the West, the German Army never again regained the initiative. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000, including many highly trained stormtroopers.
Meanwhile, Germany was falling apart at home.
Anti-war marches become frequent and morale in the army fell. Industrial output was 53% of 1913 levels.
New states under war zone
In 1918, the internationally recognized
Democratic Republic of Armenia and
Democratic Republic of Georgia bordering the Ottoman Empire, and the not recognized
Centrocaspian Dictatorship and
South West Caucasian Republic were established.
In 1918, the
Dashnaks of
Armenian national liberation movement declared the
Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA) through the
Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians (unified form of
Armenian National Councils) after the dissolution of
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.
Tovmas Nazarbekian become the first Commander-in-chief of DRA. Enver Pasha ordered the creation of a new army to be named the
Army of Islam. He ordered the Army of Islam into DRA, with the goal of taking
Baku on the
Caspian Sea. This new offensive was strongly opposed by the
Germans. In early May, 1918, the Ottoman army attacked the newly declared DRA. Although the Armenians managed to inflict one defeat on the Ottomans at the
Battle of Sardarapat, the Ottoman army won a later battle and scattered the Armenian army. The Republic of Armenia was forced to sign the
Treaty of Batum in June, 1918.
Allied victory: summer and autumn 1918
Main articles: Hundred Days Offensive,
Weimar Republic
The Allied counteroffensive, known as the
Hundred Days Offensive, began on
8 August 1918. The
Battle of Amiens developed with III Corps
Fourth British Army on the left, the
First French Army on the right, and the
Australian and
Canadian Corps spearheading the offensive in the centre. It involved 414
tanks of the
Mark IV and
Mark V type, and 120,000 men. They advanced 12 kilometers (7 miles) into German-held territory in just seven hours.
Erich Ludendorff referred to this day as the "Black Day of the German army".
Supply problems caused the offensive to lose momentum. British units had encountered problems when all but seven tanks and trucks ran out of fuel. On
15 August General Haig called a halt and began planning a new offensive in
Albert. The
Second Battle of the Somme began on
21 August. The
Third and
Fourth British Armies and the American
II Corps pushed the
Second German Army back over a 55 kilometer (34 mile) front. By
2 September, the Germans were back to the
Hindenburg Line, their starting point in 1914.
The Allied
attack on the Hindenburg Line began on
26 September. 260,000 American soldiers went "over the top". All initial objectives were captured; the
U.S. 79th Infantry Division, which met stiff resistance at
Montfaucon, took an extra day to capture its objective. The U.S. Army stalled because of supply problems because its inexperienced headquarters had to cope with large units and a difficult landscape.
At the same time, French units broke through in Champagne and closed on the Belgian frontier. The most significant advance came from Commonwealth units, as they entered Belgium (liberation of Ghent). The German army had to shorten its front and use the Dutch frontier as an anchor to fight rear-guard actions. This probably saved the army from disintegration but was devastating for morale.
By October, it was evident that Germany could no longer mount a successful defence. They were increasingly outnumbered, with few new recruits. Rations were cut. Ludendorff decided, on
1 October, that Germany had two ways out — total annihilation or an armistice. He recommended the latter at a summit of senior German officials. Allied pressure did not let up.
Meanwhile, news of Germany’s impending military defeat spread throughout the German armed forces. The threat of
mutiny was rife. Admiral
Reinhard Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last attempt to restore the "valor" of the German Navy. Knowing the government of
Max von Baden would veto any such action, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at
Kiel. Many rebelled and were arrested, refusing to be part of a naval offensive which they believed to be suicidal. Ludendorff took the blame—the Kaiser dismissed him on
26 October. The collapse of the Balkans meant that Germany was about to lose its main supplies of oil and food. The reserves had been used up, but the Americans kept arriving at the rate of 10,000 per day.
[18]
With power coming into the hands of new men in Berlin, further fighting became impossible. With 6 million German casualties, Germany moved toward peace.
Prince Max von Baden took charge of a new government. Negotiations with President Wilson began immediately, in the vain hope that better terms would be offered than with the British and French. Instead Wilson demanded the abdication of the Kaiser. There was no resistance when the
social democrat Philipp Scheidemann on
9 November declared Germany to be a republic. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born: the
Weimar Republic.
[19]
End of war
The collapse of the Central Powers came swiftly. Bulgaria was the first to sign an armistice on
September 29,
1918 at
Saloniki.
[20]On
October 30, the
Ottoman Empire capitulated at
Mudros.
[20]
On
October 24 the Italians began a push which rapidly recovered territory lost after the
Battle of Caporetto. This culminated in the
Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which marked the end of the Austro-Hungarian Army as an effective fighting force. The offensive also triggered the disintegration of Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the last week of October declarations of independence were made in Budapest, Prague and Zagreb. On
October 29, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice. But the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine and Trieste. On
November 3 Austria-Hungary sent a
flag of truce to ask for an
Armistice. The terms, arranged by telegraph with the Allied Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian Commander and accepted. The
Armistice with Austria was signed in the Villa Giusti, near
Padua, on
November 3. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the
Habsburg monarchy.
Following the outbreak of the
German Revolution, a republic was proclaimed on
9 November. The
Kaiser fled to the Netherlands. On
November 11 an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at
Compiègne. At 11 a.m. on
November 11,
1918 — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month — a ceasefire came into effect. Opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions. Canadian
George Lawrence Price is traditionally regarded as the last soldier killed in the Great War: he was shot by a German sniper and died at 10:58.
[22]
A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until signing of the
Treaty of Versailles with Germany on
June 28,
1919. Later treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were signed. However, the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife (the
Turkish Independence War) and a final peace treaty was signed between the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the
Republic of Turkey, at
Lausanne on
July 24,
1923.
Some
war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versailles treaty was signed in 1919; by contrast, most commemorations of the wars end concentrate on the armistice of
November 11,
1918. Legally the last formal peace treaties were not signed until the Treaty of Lausanne. Under its terms, the Allied forces abandoned Constantinople on the 23rd of August, 1923.
Soldiers' experiences
The soldiers of the war were initially volunteers but increasingly were
conscripted into service. Books such as ''
All Quiet on the Western Front'' detail the mundane time and intense horror of soldiers that fought the war but had no control of the experience they existed in.
William Henry Lamin's experience as a front line soldier is detailed in his letters posted in real time plus 90 years in a blog
[1], as if it were a technology available at the time.
Prisoners of war
This photograph shows an emaciated Indian army soldier who survived the
Siege of Kut.
About 8 million men surrendered and were held in POW camps during the war. All nations pledged to follow the
Hague Convention on fair treatment of
prisoners of war. In general, a POW's rate of survival was much higher than their peers at the front.
[23] Individual surrenders were uncommon. Large units usually surrendered en mass. At the
Battle of Tannenberg 92,000 Russians surrendered. When the besieged garrison of
Kaunas surrendered in 1915, 20,000 Russians became prisoners. Over half of Russian losses were prisoners (as a proportion of those captured, wounded or killed); for Austria 32%, for Italy 26%, for France 12%, for Germany 9%; for Britain 7%. Prisoners from the Allied armies totalled about 1.4 million (not including Russia, which lost between 2.5 and 3.5 million men as prisoners.) From the Central Powers about 3.3 million men became prisoners.
[24]
Germany held 2.5 million prisoners; Russia held 2.9 million and Britain and France held about 720,000. Most were captured just prior to the Armistice. The U.S. held 48,000. The most dangerous moment was the act of surrender, when helpless soldiers were sometimes gunned down. Once prisoners reached a camp, in general, conditions were satisfactory (and much better than in World War II), thanks in part to the efforts of the
International Red Cross and inspections by neutral nations. Conditions were terrible in Russia, starvation was common for prisoners and civilians alike; about 15-20% of the prisoners in Russia died. In Germany food was in short supply, but only 5% died.
[25].
The Ottoman Empire often treated POWs poorly. Some 11,800 British Empire soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the
Siege of Kut, in
Mesopotamia, in April 1916; 4,250 died in captivity.
[26] Although many were in very bad condition when captured, Ottoman officers forced them to march 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) to
Anatolia. A survivor said: "we were driven along like beasts, to drop out was to die."
[27] The survivors were then forced to build a railway through the
Taurus Mountains.
The most curious case occurred in Russia, where the prisoners from the
Czech Legion of the Austro-Hungarian army, were released in 1917. They re-armed themselves and briefly became a military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War.
War crimes
Armenian Genocide
Main articles: Armenian Genocide
The
ethnic cleansing of
Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is widely considered
genocide. The Turks accused the
(Christian) Armenians of preparing to ally themselves with Russia and saw the entire Armenian population as an
enemy. The exact
number of deaths is unknown. Most estimates are between 800,000 and 1.5 million
[28]. Turkish governments have consistently
rejected charges of genocide, often arguing that those who died were simply caught up in the fighting or that killings of Armenians were justified by their individual or collective
treason. These claims have often been labeled as
historical revisionism by western scholars.
Rape of Belgium
Main articles: Rape of Belgium
In Belgium, German troops, in fear of French and Belgian guerrilla fighters, or ''
francs-tireurs'', massacred townspeople in
Andenne (211 dead),
Tamines (384 dead), and
Dinant (612 dead). The victims included women and children. On
25 August 1914, the Germans set fire to the town of
Leuven, burned the library containing about 230,000 books, killed 209 civilians and forced 42,000 to evacuate. These actions brought worldwide condemnation.
[29].
Economics and manpower issues
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased for three Allies (Britain, Italy, and U.S.), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands and in the main three Central Powers. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire reached 30 to 40%. In Austria, for example, most of the pigs were slaughtered and, at war's end, there was no meat.
All nations had increases in the government’s share of GDP, surpassing fifty percent in both Germany and France and nearly reaching fifty percent in Britain. To pay for purchases in the United States, Britain cashed in its massive investments in American railroads and then began borrowing heavily on
Wall Street. President Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but with war imminent with Germany, he allowed a massive increase in
U.S. government lending to the Allies. After 1919, the U.S. demanded repayment of these loans, which, in part, were funded by German reparations, which, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and the loans were never repaid.
One of the most dramatic effects was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the
Dominions of the British Empire. In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. New taxes were levied and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the
war effort; many of which have lasted to this day.
At the same time, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratised governments such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. Here, however, the long-term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments.
Families were altered by the departure of many men. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost laborers sent to war. This aided the struggle for
voting rights for women.
As the war slowly turned into a
war of attrition,
conscription was implemented in some countries. This issue was particularly explosive in Canada and Australia. In the former it opened a political gap between French-Canadians — who claimed their true loyalty was to Canada and not the British Empire — and the
English-speaking majority who saw the war as a duty to both Britain and Canada. Prime Minister
Sir Robert Borden pushed through a
Military Service Act that caused the
Conscription Crisis of 1917. In Australia, a sustained pro-conscription campaign by Prime Minister
Billy Hughes, caused a split in the
Australian Labor Party and Hughes formed the
Nationalist Party of Australia in 1917 to pursue the matter. Nevertheless, the
labour movement, the
Catholic Church and
Irish nationalist expatriates successfully opposed Hughes' push to introduce conscription, which was
rejected in two plebiscites.
In Britain, rationing was finally imposed in early 1918 and was limited to meat, sugar and fats (butter and
oleo) but not bread. The new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918 trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million. Work stoppages and strikes became frequent in 1917-18 as the unions expressed grievances regarding prices, alcohol control, pay disputes, fatigue from overtime and working on Sundays and inadequate housing. Conscription put into uniform nearly every physically fit man, six million out of ten million eligible in Britain. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives and 1,700,000 were wounded. Most deaths were to young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers. [Havighurst p 134–5]
Britain turned to her colonies for help in obtaining essential war materials whose supply had become difficult from traditional sources. Geologists, such as
Albert Ernest Kitson, were called upon to find new resources of precious minerals in the African colonies. Kitson discovered important new deposits of
Manganese, used in munitions production, in the
Gold Coast.
[30].
Technology
The First World War began as a clash of 20th century
technology and 19th century
tactics, with inevitably large casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernised and were making use of
wireless communication,
armoured cars,
tanks and
strategical aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganised, so that 100-man companies were no longer the main unit of maneuver. Instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured. Artillery also under went a revolution.
In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917,
indirect fire with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was responsible for the majority of casualties.
Counter-battery artillery missions became commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging enemy artillery.
Germany was far ahead of the Allies in utilizing heavy indirect fire. It employed 150 and 210
mm howitzers in 1914 when the typical French and British guns were only 75 and 105 mm. The British had a 6
inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy that it had to be assembled for firing. Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm and 420 mm guns, and already by the beginning of the war had inventories of various calibers of ''
Minenwerfer'' that were ideally suited for trench warfare.
[31]
Much of the combat involved
trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each yard gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include
Ypres,
Marne,
Cambrai,
Somme,
Verdun, and
Gallipoli. The
Haber process of
nitrogen fixation was employed to provide the German forces with a constant supply of gunpowder, in the face of British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head-wounds caused by exploding shells and
shrapnel forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel
helmet. The French, who introduced the
Adrian helmet in 1915, led this effort. It was quickly followed by the
Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the German ''
Stahlhelm'', the distinctive steel helmet, which the design, with improvements, is still in use today.
There was
chemical warfare and
aerial bombardment, both of which were outlawed by the 1907
Hague Convention. Both were of limited tactical effectiveness.
The widespread use of chemical warfare, was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included
chlorine,
mustard gas and
phosgene. Only a small proportion of total war casualties were caused by gas. Effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as
gas masks.
The most powerful land based weapons were
railway guns weighing hundreds of tons apiece. These were nicknamed
Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the
Paris Gun that was able to bombard Paris from a distance of over 100 km, though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms (210 lb). While the Allies had railway guns, German models severely out-ranged and out-classed them.
Fixed-wing aircraft were
first used militarily during the First World War. They were initially used for
reconnaissance and
ground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and
fighter aircraft were developed.
Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used
Zeppelins as well.
Towards the end of the conflict,
aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with
HMS ''Furious'' launching
Sopwith Camels in a raid against the Zepplin hangars at
Tondern in 1918.
German
U-boats or (
submarines), were deployed after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, they were employed by the
Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy to deprive the
British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchantmen and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of
depth charges (1916),
hydrophones (passive
sonar, 1917),
blimps,
hunter-killer submarines (HMS ''R 1'', 1917),
ahead-throwing weapons, and dipping hydrophones (both abandoned in 1918). To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the
interwar period until World War II revived the need.
Trenches, the
machine gun, air reconnaissance, barbed wire and modern artillery with
fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The infantry was armed mostly with magazine fed
bolt-action rifles, but the machine gun, with the ability to fire hundreds of
rounds per minute, blunted most infantry attacks. The British sought a solution with the creation of the tank and
mechanised warfare. The
first tanks were used during the
Battle of the Somme on
15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability became an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the
Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while
combined arms teams captured 8000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Light
automatic weapons also were introduced, such as the
Lewis Gun and
Browning automatic rifle.
Manned
observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with
parachutes. In the event of an enemy air attack, the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too bulky to be used by pilots of aircraft and smaller versions would not be developed until the end of the war. Recognised for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets of enemy aircraft. To defend against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft. Blimps and balloons contributed to air-to-air combat among aircraft because of their reconnaissance value. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines.
Another new weapon sprayed jets of burning fuel:
flamethrowers. First used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, they were a powerful, demoralizing weapon and caused terror on the battlefield. It was a dangerous weapon to wield, as its heavy weight made operators vulnerable targets.
Opposition to the war
Main articles: Opposition to World War I
The
trade union and
socialist movements had long voiced their opposition to a war, which they argued, meant only that workers would kill other workers in the interest of
capitalism. Once war was declared, however, the vast majority of socialists and trade unions backed their governments. The exceptions were the
Bolsheviks and the
Italian Socialist Party, and individuals such as
Karl Liebknecht,
Rosa Luxemburg and their followers in Germany. There were also small anti-war groups in Britain and France. Other opposition came from
conscientious objectors - some socialist, some religious - who refused to fight. In Britain 16,000 people asked for conscientious objector status. Many suffered years of prison, including
solitary confinement and bread and water diets. Even after the war, in Britain many job advertisements were marked "No conscientious objectors need apply". Many countries jailed those who spoke out against the conflict. These included
Eugene Debs in the United States and
Bertrand Russell in Britain.
Aftermath
Main articles: Aftermath of World War I
No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically — four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the Russian. Four defunct dynasties, the
Hohenzollerns, the
Habsburg,
Romanovs and the
Ottomans together with all their ancillary aristocracies, all fell after the war. Belgium was badly damaged, as was France with 1.4 million soldiers dead, not counting other casualties. Germany and Russia were similarly affected. The war had profound economic consequences. In addition, a
major influenza epidemic that started in
Western Europe in the latter months of the war, killed millions in Europe and then spread around the world. Overall, the
Spanish flu killed at least 50 million people.
[32][33]
Peace treaties
After the war, the Allies imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The 1919
Versailles Treaty ended the war with Germany. Germany was kept under blockade until it signed the treaty, which declared that Germany was responsible for the war. The treaty required Germany to pay enormous
war reparations, which it did by borrowing from the United States, until the reparations were suspended in 1931. The "Guilt Thesis" became a controversial explanation of events in Britain and the United States. The Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements, especially the
Nazis, exploited. (See
Dolchstosslegende). The treaty contributed to one of the worst economic collapses in history of Germany, sparking runaway inflation.
The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the
Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. The treaty, however, was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the
Turkish republican movement. This led to the
Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to the 1923
Treaty of Lausanne.
Austria-Hungary was also partitioned, largely along ethnic lines. The details were contained in the
Treaty of Saint-Germain and the
Treaty of Trianon.
New national identities
Poland reemerged as an independent country, after more than a century.
Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia were entirely new nations. Russia became the
Soviet Union and lost
Finland,
Estonia,
Lithuania and
Latvia, which became independent countries. The Ottoman Empire was soon replaced by
Turkey and several other countries in the Middle East.
Some people think that the Allies opened the way to more colonization with their policy, because with it the Allies could colonise territories owned by the
Ottoman Empire and
Austro-Hungarian Empire, by making them independent.
Postwar colonization in the Ottoman Empire led to many future problems still unresolved today. Conflict between mostly Jewish colonists and the indigenous, mostly Muslim, population intensified, probably exacerbated by the Holocaust, which stimulated Jewish migration and encouraged the new immigrants to fight for survival, a homeland, or both. However, any new homeland for immigrants would cause hardships for the indigenous population, especially if the former displaced the latter.
The United Nations partitioned Palestine in 1947 with Jewish approval but without Arab and Muslim approval. After the creation of the state of Israel a series of wars broke out between Israel and its neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, in addition to unrest from the indigenous Palestinian population and terrorist activity by Palestinians and others reaching to Iran and beyond. Lasting peace in the Near East is an elusive goal even almost a century later.
In the British Empire, the war unleashed
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
