World War I

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World War I Clockwise from top: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes Date 28 June 1914 – 11 November 1918 (Armistice Treaty) Treaty of Versailles signed 28 June 1919 Location Europe, Africa and the Middle East (briefly in China and the Pacific Islands) Result Allied victory; end of the German, Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires; foundation of new countries in Europe and the Middle East; transfer of German colonies to other powers; establishment of the League of Nations. Belligerents Allied (Entente) Powers Central Powers Commanders Leaders and commanders Leaders and commanders Casualties and losses Military dead: 5,525,000 Military wounded: 12,831,500 Military missing: 4,121,000 Total: 22,477,500 KIA, WIA or MIA ...further details. Military dead: 4,386,000 Military wounded: 8,388,000 Military missing: 3,629,000 Total: 16,403,000 KIA, WIA or MIA ...further details.

v • d • e Theatres of World War I European Balkans – Gallipoli – Western Front – Macedonian Front – Eastern Front – Italian Front Middle Eastern Caucasus – Mesopotamia – Sinai and Palestine – Persia – Arab Revolt African South-West Africa – West Africa – East Africa – North  Africa Asian and Pacific Other Atlantic Ocean – Mediterranean – Naval – Aerial

World War I (initialized as WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved the majority of the world's great powers,^[1] organized into two opposing military alliances: the Entente Powers and the Central Powers.^[2] Over 70 million military personnel were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history.^[3] In a state of total war, the major combatants fully placed their scientific and industrial capabilities at the service of the war effort. Over 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.^[4]

The proximate cause for the war was the 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary's resulting demands against the Kingdom of Serbia led to the activation of a series of alliances which within weeks saw all of the major European powers at war. As a consequence of the global empires of many European nations, the war soon spread worldwide.

By the war's end, four major imperial powers—Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire—had been militarily and politically defeated, with the latter two ceasing to exist as autonomous countries.^[5] The revolutionized Soviet Union emerged from the Russian Empire, while the map of central Europe was completely redrawn into numerous smaller states.^[6] The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war, the repercussions of Germany's defeat, and the Treaty of Versailles would eventually lead to the beginning of World War II in 1939.^[7]

Background

Main article: Causes of World War I

In the 19th century, the major European powers had gone to great lengths to maintain a "balance of power" throughout Europe, resulting in a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent.^[2] The first of these major alliances formed in 1879, when the German Empire and Austria-Hungary signed treaties creating the Dual Alliance, seen as a method of combating Russian influence in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire continued to weaken.^[2] In 1882, this alliance was expanded to include Italy in what became the Triple Alliance.^[8] European conflict was averted largely due to a carefully planned network of treaties between the German Empire and the remainder of Europe—orchestrated by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck's system of alliances was gradually deconstructed following the coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm II, with treaties between Germany and Russia ending in 1890. Two years later the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. In 1907, the British Empire joined France and Russia, signalling the beginning of the Triple Entente.^[2]

As German industrial power grew, Kaiser Wilhelm II devoted significant economic resources to the Kaiserliche Marine, established by Admiral von Tirpitz, in order to be capable of rivaling the Royal Navy.^[9] As a result, both nations strove to outbuild each other in terms of capital ships. With the launch of HMS DreadnoughtTemplate:WP Ships HMS instances in 1906, the British Empire gained a significant advantage over their German rivals.^[9] The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to the production of the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict.^[10] Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50%.^[11]

In 1909, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina from the Ottoman Empire, greatly angering the Russian Romanov Dynasty and the Kingdom of Serbia, as Bosnia-Herzegovina contained a significant Slavic Serbian population.^[12] Russian political maneuvering in the region destabilized peace accords that were already fracturing in what was known as "the Powder keg of Europe".^[12] In 1913, the First Balkan War was fought between the Balkan League and the fracturing Ottoman Empire. The resulting Treaty of London further shrank the Ottoman Empire, creating an independent Albanian State while enlarging the territorial holdings of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. When Bulgaria attacked both Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913 it lost all of Macedonia to Serbia and Southern Dobruja to Romania in the 33–day Second Balkan War, further destabilizing the region.^[13]

On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian-Serb student and member of Young Bosnia, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo.^[14] Suspecting Serbian involvement in the assassination,^[14] Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands aimed at diplomatically undermining Serbia.^[15] When Serbia acceded to eight of the ten demands levied against it in the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914. The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria-Hungary to eliminate its influence in the Balkans, ordered a partial mobilization one day later.^[8] When the German Empire began to mobilize on 30 July 1914, France—sporting significant animosity over the German conquest of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War—ordered French mobilization on 1 August. Germany declared war on Russia the same day.^[16]

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.

On September 9, 1914 the Septemberprogramm, a plan which detailed Germany's specific war aims and the conditions that Germany sought to force upon the Allied Powers, was outlined by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg.

African campaigns

Main article: 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 article: 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 its efforts against Russia.

German forces in Belgium and France

Main article: Western Front (World War I)

The German attack on the Western Front began with an invasion through neutral Belgium. 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. The Schlieffen Plan called for the right flank of the German advance to converge on Paris, but the French, with some assistance from the British forces finally halted the German advance east of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (5 September–12 September). The Central Powers were thereby denied a quick victory and forced 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 of obtaining an early victory.

Asia and the Pacific

Main article: 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 the 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 article: Western Front (World War I)

Military tactics before World War I had failed to keep pace with advances in technology. These changes resulted in the building of impressive defence systems, which out-of-date tactics could not break through for most of the war. 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, causing slow and painful death, and poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as the tank. Britain and France were its primary users; the Germans employed captured Allied tanks and small numbers 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; consequently, 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 six kilometre (four 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 and ANZAC troops took the village of Passchendaele.

The British Army endured the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties and 19,240 dead on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Most of the casualties occurred in the first hour of the attack. The entire Somme offensive cost the British Army almost half a million men.^[17]

Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916, combined with the Entente's failure at the Somme, brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse. Futile attempts at frontal assault, a rigid adherence to an ineffectual method, came at a high price for both the British and the French poilu (infantry) and led to widespread mutinies, especially during the Nivelle Offensive.

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.

Ludendorff wrote on the fighting in 1917, "The 25th of August concluded the second phase of the Flanders battle. It had cost us heavily…. The costly August battles in Flanders and at Verdun imposed a heavy strain on the Western troops. In spite of all the concrete protection they seemed more or less powerless under the enormous weight of the enemy’s artillery. At some points they no longer displayed the firmness which I, in common with the local commanders, had hoped for. The enemy managed to adapt himself to our method of employing counter attacks… I myself was being put to a terrible strain. The state of affairs in the West appeared to prevent the execution of our plans elsewhere. Our wastage had been so high as to cause grave misgivings, and had exceeded all expectation."

On the battle of the Menin Road Ridge Ludendorff wrote: "Another terrific assault was made on our lines on the 20 September…. The enemy’s onslaught on the 20th was successful, which proved the superiority of the attack over the defence. Its strength did not consist in the tanks; we found them inconvenient, but put them out of action all the same. The power of the attack lay in the artillery, and in the fact that ours did not do enough damage to the hostile infantry as they were assembling, and above all, at the actual time of the assault."^[18]

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 kilometres (5,965 mi) 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 1917 Battle of Arras the only significant British military success was the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie and Julian Byng. The assaulting troops were able for the first time to overrun, rapidly reinforce and hold the ridge defending the coal-rich Douai plain.^[19][20]

Naval war

Main article: Naval Warfare of World War I

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 SMS 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 and a few auxiliaries escaping, but at the Battle of Más a Tierra these too were destroyed or interned.^[21]

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.^[22] Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships.^[23] Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.^[24]

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.^[25] The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival.^[26] The United States launched a protest, and Germany modified its rules of engagement. After the notorious sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond the protection of the "cruiser rules" which demanded warning and placing crews in "a place of safety" (a standard which lifeboats did not meet).^[27] Finally, in early 1917 Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, realizing the Americans would eventually enter the war.^[28] 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, which significantly lessened losses; after the introduction of hydrophone and depth charges, accompanying destroyers might actually attack a submerged submarine with some hope of success. The convoy system slowed the flow of supplies, since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled. 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.^[29][30] The U-boats had sunk almost 5,000 Allied ships, at a cost of 178 submarines.^[31]

World War I 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, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol.^[32]

Continued at World War I, part 2

See also

• European Civil War
• List of people associated with World War I
• List of wars
• List of wars by death toll
• World War One - Medal Abbreviations

Animated maps

• An animated map "Europe plunges into war"
• An animated map of Europe at the end of the war

Notes

References

See also: List of World War I books

External links

• A multimedia history of World War I
• World War I rare Photograph album
• The Heritage of the Great War, Netherlands
• The War to End All Wars on BBC
• World War 1 Atlas A day-by-day map of the First World War
• WWI Service Questionnaires at Gettysburg College
• Collection of World War I Color Photographs
• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and the First World War
• World War I : Soldiers Remembered Presented by the Washington State Library and Washington State Archives
• The World War I Document Archive Wiki
• US World War I links
• Maps of Great War

v • d • e World War I European theatre: (Balkans · Western Front · Eastern Front · Italian Front) Middle Eastern theatre: (Caucasus · Mesopotamia · Sinai and Palestine · Gallipoli · Persia) African theatre: (South-West · West · East · North) Asian and Pacific theatre: (Siege of Tsingtao) Atlantic Ocean · Mediterranean Major participants (People) Entente Powers Russian Empire · French Empire: France, Vietnam · British Empire: United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa · Italy · Romania · United States · Serbia · Portugal · China · Japan · Belgium · Montenegro · Greece · Armenia · Brazil Central Powers Germany · Austria–Hungary · Ottoman Empire · Bulgaria Timeline Pre-conflicts Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) · Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912) · First Balkan War (1912–1913) · Second Balkan War (1913) Prelude Origins · Sarajevo assassination · July Ultimatum 1914 Battle of the Frontiers · First Battle of the Marne · Battle of Tannenberg · Battle of Galicia · Battle of the Masurian Lakes · Battle of Kolubara · Battle of Sarıkamış 1915 Second Battle of Ypres · Battle of Gallipoli · Battles of the Isonzo · Great Retreat · Conquest of Serbia · Siege of Kut 1916 Erzerum Offensive · Battle of Verdun · Lake Naroch Offensive · Battle of Asiago · Battle of Jutland · Battle of the Somme · Brusilov Offensive · Conquest of Romania 1917 Capture of Baghdad · Second Battle of Arras · Kerensky Offensive · Third Battle of Ypres · Battle of Caporetto · Battle of Cambrai 1918 Armistice of Erzincan · Treaty of Brest-Litovsk · Spring Offensive · Hundred Days Offensive · Meuse-Argonne Offensive · Battle of Vittorio Veneto · Armistice with Germany · Armistice with Ottoman Empire Other conflicts Maritz Rebellion (1914–1915) · Indo-German Conspiracy (1914–1919) · Easter Rising (1916) · Russian Revolution (1917) · Finnish Civil War (1918) Post-conflicts Russian Civil War (1917–1921) · Armenian–Azerbaijani War (1918–1920) · Georgian–Armenian War (1918) · German Revolution (1918–1919) · Hungarian-Romanian War (1918–1919) · Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919) · Estonian War of Independence (1918–1920) · Latvian War of Independence (1918–1920) · Lithuanian Wars of Independence (1918–1920) · Ukrainian War of Independence (1917–1921) · Polish–Soviet War (1919–1921) · Polish–Lithuanian War (1920) · Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) · Turkish War of Independence including the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1923) · Invasion of Georgia (1921) · Irish Civil War (1922–1923) Aspects Warfare Military engagements · Naval warfare · Air warfare · Cryptography · Poison gas · Railways · Technology · Trench warfare · Total war · Surviving veterans Civilian impact / atrocities Casualties · Spanish flu · Rape of Belgium · Ottoman People: (Armenian Genocide · Assyrian Genocide · Pontic Greek Genocide) · Female roles · Literature Agreements / Treaties Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire · Sykes-Picot • St.-Jean-de-Maurienne • French-Armenian • Damascus • Paris Peace Conference · Treaty of Brest-Litovsk · Treaty of Lausanne · Treaty of London · Treaty of Neuilly · Treaty of St. Germain · Treaty of Sèvres · Treaty of Trianon · Treaty of Versailles Consequences Aftermath · "Fourteen Points" · League of Nations Category · Portal World War I from Wiktionary WWI Textbooks from Wikibooks WWI Quotations from Wikiquote WWI Source texts from Wikisource WWI Images & media from Commons WWI News stories from Wikinews

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