Introduction
World War I (or the Great War) is the name given to the conflict that began on the day of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria in 1914. His murder sparked an armed conflict across Europe that would last until the end of World War I.
Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire (known as the Central Powers) competed against the United Kingdom, French, Russian, Italian, Romanian, Canadian, Japanese and the United States (known as the Allied Powers). Due to advances in military technology and the brutality of trench warfare, the death toll in World War I reached an all-time high of over 16 million people, both soldiers and civilians.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
There was already a lot of tension in Europe, especially in southeast Europe, but it wasn't until Sarajevo in Bosnia on June 28th, 1914, that things really started to spiral out of control. At the time, there were already alliances in place between European powers and the Ottoman Empire, as well as with Russia and other countries, but the political instability in the Balkan region, especially in Bosnia, threatened to tear those alliances apart.
On the day of the assassination, Archduke Franz was shot to death, along with his wife Sophie, by a Serb nationalist who wanted to end Austrian rule in Bosnia. Austria-Hungary and many other countries blamed the attack on the Serbian government, hoping to use it as a way to end the issue of Serb nationalism.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Because of Russia's strong support for Serbia, the leaders of the war-making coalition waited until Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II assured them that Germany would back their cause. They feared that if Russia intervened, it would also involve Russia's allies, France and Great Britain.
On July 5, 1914, Kaiser William II secretly declared his support for the war and gave the Dual Monarchy's "blank check" assurance of Germany's support in the event of war. On the same day, the ultimatum was sent to Serbia by the Dual Monarchy. The terms of the ultimatum were so harsh that it was almost impossible for Serbia to accept them.
World War I Begins
Believing that the Austro-Hungarian government was preparing to invade Serbia, the government of Serbia ordered the mobilization of the army and requested the help of Russia. On July 28, 1914, the Austrian Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia.
The fragile peace between the European powers quickly unravelled. In less than a week, the Kingdom of Russia, the Kingdom of Belgium, the French Republic, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Serbia united against the Empire of Germany. World War I began.
The Western Front
World War I began on August 4, 1914. Germany invaded France through neutral Belgium on the west bank and confronted Russia on the east bank. Germany's aggressive military strategy, known as the "Schlieffen Plan" (after its leader, German Field Marshall Alfred von Shlieffen), saw German troops cross the border into Belgium on August 4th, 1914.
On August 15th, 1914, the Germans attacked the strategically important city of Liege in the first battle of the war. The Germans used the largest siege guns in their arsenal to capture the city. As they advanced through Belgium towards France, German troops shot civilians and executed a Belgian priest they accused of instigating civilian resistance.
First Battle of the Marne
The first battle of the Marne was fought between French and British troops from September 6 to 9, 1914. The German army had already made its way into northeastern France, close to 30 miles from Paris. The French and British troops stopped the German advance and made a counterattack, driving them back to the Aisne River. This ended German plans to quickly take over France. Both sides retreated to their trenches, and the war of attrition on the Western Front began.
It lasted for over three years, with some of the longest and costliest battles being Verdun (from February to December 1916) and the Somme (from July to November 1916). The German and French armies suffered almost a million losses in the battle of Verdun alone.
World War I Literature and Art
The Western Front saw a lot of death and destruction, and the struggles of its soldiers long after the war was over. Some of the most famous pieces of art from this time period include Erich Marie Remarque's "All Quiet On the Western Front" and the Canadian doctor and poet, Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae's "In Flanders Field". McCrae's poem was written from the point of view of the soldiers who had died, and it was the inspiration for the use of poppies as a reminder of the war.
German painter Otto Dix, as well as British painters, were among the first to use their experiences as soldiers in the war to create art. Their work captures the pain of trench warfare and explores technology, violence, and landscapes that have been ravaged by the war.
The Eastern Front
At the end of August 1914, German and Austrian troops stopped Russian troops from invading the East Prussian and Polish regions of Germany. Even though Russia's offensive was successful, it forced Germany to transfer two corps from their Western Front to their Eastern Front, which caused them to lose the Battle of Marne.
This, combined with the strong resistance from the French, meant that Russia's massive war machine was able to mobilize quickly in the East, which meant the war would be longer and more difficult than Germany had hoped for with the "Schlieffen Plan".
Russian Revolution
In 1914 and 1916, Russia's military tried a few times on the Eastern Front of World War I, but it couldn't get through German lines. This defeat, combined with the economic crisis and the lack of food and other basics, caused a lot of discontent among the majority of Russians, especially the poor. This discontent was directed against the German-born Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra.
Things really took off in 1917 with the Russian Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks, which put an end to czarist rule and ended Russia's involvement in the war. In early December 1917, Germany and the Central Powers agreed to an armistice, which allowed German troops to fight against the other Allied countries on the Western Front.
America Enters World War I
When the First World War broke out in 1914, America stayed out of the war, following the neutrality policy favoured by Woodrow Wilson, while continuing to trade and ship with European nations on both sides. However, neutrality became increasingly difficult as Germany continued to attack neutral shipping, including passenger ships. Germany declared the British Isles a war zone in November 1914, and several merchant and passenger vessels were sunk by German submarines.
In May 1915, protests erupted over the sinking of the U-boat, the liner “Lusitania,” which had carried hundreds of Americans on board. Germany sank four more American merchant ships in the following month. On April 2, 1916, Wilson appeared before the House of Representatives and called for war to be declared against Germany. The following month, Congress passed an arms appropriations bill, amounting to $250 million, to prepare the United States for war.
Gallipoli Campaign
With the war in Europe deadlocked, the Allied forces sought to strike at the Ottoman Empire, which had entered the war on the Central Powers' side at the end of 1914. After an unsuccessful assault on the strait connecting Marmara and Aegean, Allied forces, led by Britain, invaded Gallipoli on April 1, 1915. The invasion also failed. Allied forces retreated from Gallipoli in January 1916 after 250,000 men were killed.
Did you know that at the time of his resignation from his command at the end of the Gallipoli Campaign in 1916, the young Winston went on to receive a commission as an officer in an Infantry Battalion in France? At the time, the young Winston was the first Lord of the British Admiralty.
The British-led armies also took on the Ottoman in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and Austrian and Italian armies fought a series of battles in northern Italy, including 12 battles on the Isonzo River, which is right on the Italian-Turkish border.
Battle of the Isonzo
The first battle of the Isonzo was fought at the end of the spring of 1915, shortly after Italy joined the war as an ally of the Allied Powers. In the twelfth battle of the iosonzo (also known as the Battle of Caporetto ( October 1917)), German reinforcements secured a decisive victory for the Austro-Hungarian army.
After the battle of Caporetto, Italian allies responded by sending more troops to the Isonzo. British, French, and later American troops entered the area, and the Allies began to regain control of the Italian front.
World War I at Sea
In the years leading up to the First World War, Britain's Royal Navy was the strongest of any nation's fleet, but Germany's Imperial Navy had made significant progress in narrowing the gap between them. Germany also had a fleet of deadly U-boats at its disposal.
Following the battle of Dogger Bank in January of the following year, where the British attacked German ships on the open sea, the German Navy chose not to engage in a major engagement with Britain's mighty Royal Navy for over a year. Instead, they relied heavily on their U-boats to carry out their naval strategy.
In May 1916, the largest naval engagement of the war, the battle of Jutland, left Britain's naval supremacy on the north sea undefended and Germany would not attempt to break an allied naval blockade again for the rest of the war.
World War I Planes
In World War I, planes were used for the first time in a major conflict. They were not as powerful as the Royal Navy or German U-boats, but their use in World War I showed that planes would play a major role in future military conflicts around the world.
Aviation was still in its infancy at the start of World War I. The Wright brothers had their first sustained flight only eleven years earlier, in 1903. Initially, aircraft were mainly used for exploratory flights. During the first battle of the Marne in France, information transmitted by pilots enabled the Allied forces to exploit weak points in German lines, aiding the Allied push to drive Germany out of France.
In the United States, the first machine guns were mounted on aircraft in June 1912. However, they were not perfect; if a bullet was fired at the wrong time, it could easily destroy the plane’s propeller. A French plane, the Morane-Sulnier L, offered a solution: the propeller was protected by deflector wedges, which prevented bullets from striking it. The French, Royal Flying Corps (now part of the Army), Royal Navy Air Service, and Imperial Russian Air Service all used this type of plane. Another popular model was the British Bristol Type 22, which was used for both reconnaissance and as a fighter.
Fokker, a Dutch inventor, developed a deflector system based on the French one in 1915. Fokker's "interrupter" synchronized the guns' firing with the plane's propeller to prevent collisions. Although Fokker's most well-known plane during World War I was his single-seater, "Eindecker", Fokker designed and built more than 40 types of aircraft for Germany.
In 1916, the Allied Air Force introduced the two-engine, "Handley-Page" O/400 bomber, the world's first two-seater bomber. As aircraft technology advanced, Germany developed long-range, high-speed bombers, such as the "Gotha" G.V., which was introduced in 1917, to attack cities such as London. These bombers were much faster and more manoeuvrable than Germany's earlier Zeppelin attacks.
By the end of the war, the Allied forces were making five times more planes than Germany. The Royal Air Force was formed by the British on April 1st, 1918. This was the first time an air force was created as a separate branch of the military, separate from the Navy or the Army.
The Second Battle of Marne
On July 15th, 1918, Germany launched what would turn out to be its last offensive in the war. Allied forces, including 85,000 Americans and some B.E.F. troops, fought back hard to repel the German offensive. But three days later, Germany called off its offensive in Flanders, which was supposed to be Germany's best chance of winning the war. The tide of the war turned in the Allied's favour, and they were able to take back a lot of French and Belgian territory over the next few months.
The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments
By the start of World War I, the 24th, 25th, and 10th all-black regiments were in the United States Army. These four regiments were made up of famous soldiers who had served in the Spanish American War and the American Indian Wars and had served in the territories of the United States. However, they were not sent overseas to fight in the Great War.
The idea of African Americans fighting alongside white soldiers on the front lines of Europe was anathema to the United States military. The first African Americans who were sent overseas instead served in separate labour battalions. They were limited to menial jobs in the Army or Navy and were completely shut out of the Marine Corps. Most of their jobs were to unload ships, transport materials from train depots, bases, and ports, dig trenches, cook and maintain the camps, remove barbed wire, repair inoperative equipment, and bury soldiers.
Facing black community and civil rights protests over quotas and treatment of black soldiers in the war, the Army formed two Black combat divisions in 1917: the 92nd Infantry Division and the 93rd Infantry Division. The two divisions were trained separately and poorly in the United States and had different results in the war.
The 92nd Infantry Division was heavily criticized for its performance in the campaign of September 1918, at the Battle of the Meuse. The 93rd Infantry Division, however, was more successful.
As France's troops dwindled, they asked for help from America, and Gen. John Pershing, the commander of the U.S. Expeditionary Forces, responded by sending regiments from the 93 Division. This was because France had already fought alongside African American soldiers from their French Colonial army in Senegalese. The 93 Division's 369th, nicknamed "the Harlem Hellfighters," fought so bravely that they spent 191 days at the front, more than any other AEF regiment, and were awarded the Croix de Guerre for their bravery. Over 350,000 African Americans served in World War I.
Toward Armistice
By the autumn of the same year, the central powers were falling apart on every front. The Turks had won the battle of Gallipoli but were later defeated by invading troops and an Arab rebellion destroyed the economy and destroyed the country, leading the Turks to sign a peace treaty with the allies at the end of October.
On November 4, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed from the inside due to the rise of nationalistic movements among its various peoples. Facing a lack of resources on the field of battle, dissatisfaction on the home front and the abandonment of its allies by Germany, Austria-Hungary agreed to the armistice of November 11,
Treaty of Versailles
The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 declared that Allied leaders wanted to create a new world that would protect itself from future conflicts of this magnitude. Some hoped that World War I would be the war to end all wars. However, the treaty that was signed in Versailles on June 28th, 1919, did not accomplish this goal.
Germany felt that it had been tricked into signing this treaty, owing to its war guilt, massive reparations, and denials of entry into the League of Nations. Germany believed that any peace it signed would be a "peace without victory," as President Wilson put it in his famous 14th point speech of January 1918. As time went on, Germany's hatred of the treaty and its writers grew into a seething volcano of resentment that would be responsible for World War II twenty years later.
World War I Casualties
World War I killed more than 9 million people; more than 21 million were injured; and nearly 10 million civilian deaths occurred. Germany and France were the two countries that suffered the most, sending roughly 80% of their male population aged 15 to 49 to fight in the war.
World War I also led to the decline of four great imperial families: Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, and Turkey.
Legacy of World War I
World War I was a huge social shock, with millions of women joining the workforce to replace the men who went off to fight and those who didn't. It was the first global war, and it also led to one of the world's most dangerous pandemics - the Spanish flu of 1918 killed an estimated 20-50 million people. It's also known as the first modern war, since a lot of the modern weapons - like machine guns, tanks, planes, and radio communications - were used on a huge scale during the war.
The use of chemical weapons, like mustard gas or phosgene, was so dangerous that the public and military were against it. But the Geneva Convention agreements, which were signed in 1925, banned chemical and biological weapons and they're still used today.
