World War I
World War I', also known as the First World War and The Great War, was waged primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918. World War I also saw the first use of poison gas, large artillery, armored tanks, and airplanes. It was a "total war" because the governments involved took control over the economy and factories, giving first priority to the goods needed for war. Wage and price controls were imposed, there was rationing of goods for civilians, and free speech was limited. The governments put out propaganda to maximize support for the war and dislike of the enemy.
On one side of the war were the Central Powers: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. The Allies consisted of the British and French Empires, the Tsarist Russian Empire(until 1917), Italy, Japan, Portugal, and after 1917 the United States.
Contents
A Spark Leads to a Fire
Main article: Causes of World War I
On June 28, 1914, teenage Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. This action led to Austria-Hungary giving an ultimatum [1] to Serbia. Serbia agreed to comply with all of the demands, except the ones which violated their sovereignty, and, due to a number of military alliances throughout Europe, a full scale war was soon in progress. Serbia requested support from its ally, Russia, which mobilized its military forces. This mobilization led to Germany invading both Russia and France (which had an existing alliance with Russia), which was a part of Germany's Schlieffen Plan of war on two fronts. En route to France, German forces passed through neutral Belgium. The violation of this neutrality led Britain to declare war on Germany. Italy had an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but refused to join the war.
Alternative theories cite the building of the Berlin-Baghdad railway and the problems it would have created for England. [2]
Great Battles of World War I
World War I consisted mostly of trench warfare. This method of waging war was very slow and messy. Soldiers might wait in their trenches for weeks, only to advance a few feet and wait in a new trench. There were four important battles which were fought before America joined the war.
Gallipoli Campaign
In 1915, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed a daring plan to attack the Dardanelles, a narrow section of ocean south of what is now Turkey, in order to open a supply route to Russia. Unfortunately, he made his plans based of bad intelligence. A preliminary attack was launched in February of 1915, bombarding artillery of the Ottoman Empire. However, in March, a fleet of British and French warships attempted to navigate the Dardanelles and ran into mines at its narrowest point (which is only a mile wide). The British and Churchill, not wanting to admit defeat, diverted British, Australian, New Zealander and French troops from training in Egypt to their campaign in Turkey. Putting together an amphibious Allied force, a plan was put together to land on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli on April 25. Although the Allies greatly outnumbered the Turks, poor counter-intelligence efforts by the Allies allowed the Ottoman Empire to resupply and reinforce the Gallipoli peninsula. Additionally, the Allies did not understand the terrain adequately and suffered from limited knowledge of their enemy. The Turkish soldiers were also very tenacious and very able fighters. However, the bloody-mindedness of the British commanders led to nine months wasted on the peninsula, with 44,000 deaths among over 100,000 casualties.
In 1916, the Battle of Verdun between the French and Germans may have been the most demanding battle in world history. The struggle started when the Germans attacked Verdun, France, a city surrounded by a ring of underground forts. At least 220,000 soldiers died, and at least 480,000 were wounded in this 10-month struggle that accomplished nothing. At the end the front lines were in nearly the same locations as at the beginning.
Also in 1916, and also in France, the British and French armies met at the Somme River and began a massive attack on the Germans in order to distract them from Verdun. This became the Battle of the Somme, and the fighting was even heard across the British channel in England. First the Allies shelled the Germans to weaken them, and then 100,000 British soldiers charged the enemy. But the shelling did not have its intended effect, as the Germans were dug in too deeply to be affected by it. On July 1, 1916, the Germans killed 20,000 of the British soldiers and wounded over 40,000, making it the single worst day in British military history. This battle, which did not succeed in moving trench lines, eventually involved over 2 million men along a 30-mile front. The British and French lost nearly 750,000 men.
For 18 months the British hid 19 huge land mines underneath the German lines southeast of Ypres, Belgium, a location that had already seen battles in 1914 and 1915. The British then detonated those massive mines, and charged the German positions in July 1917. At first the strategy worked, as the Germans were confused and disorganized. But the British did not pursue the Germans as quickly as they should have. Rain began to drench the area in one of the wettest fall seasons there in years. Soon the British forces were stuck in a mountain of mud, and this Allied plan was yet another failure.
The United States Joins the War
For the first three years of World War I, the United States attempted to stay out of the war. The United States had allies and citizens on both sides of the war, and the decision was not to move, but rather to stay neutral. When the Germans used a U-boat to sink the Lusitania in 1915, killing over one thousand people, the Americans were outraged. Later, when Britain implemented a naval blockade of Germany, the Germans announced they would sink any ship entering or leaving Britain. They held true to their word and sunk three ships from America with the U-boats. The Germans had taken ads out in most American newspapers, warning Americans that they travelled on British ships at their own risk. However, only the Des Moines Register ran the ads.[3]America now had many reasons to fight back, but she was still not ready to join the war.
The German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent an encrypted telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico which sought to induce Mexico to declare war on the United States. British intelligence intercepted and deciphered the telegram, however, and gave it to the United States to help the British cause. President Woodrow Wilson made the contents of the telegram public. The telegram called for Mexico to ally with Germany and go to war with the U.S. It promised that Germany would fund the war and help Mexico regain Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Zimmermann admitted publicly he sent it; the Mexicans ignored the proposal but American pubic opinion was outraged.
German U-boats now began sinking American ships on sight. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson spoke in favor of declaring war on Germany in an address to the joint houses of Congress. Congress then formally declared war on April 6, 1917.[4]
The Army was expanded by a factor of 100 to 4 million soldiers (all men), and a major expeditionary force was sent to Europe called the American Expeditionary Forces, under command of General John J. Pershing. Officially the U.S. did not join the Allies and there was no treaty or formal agreement with Britain or France, so Perhaps was practically independent. He was also largely independent of Washington, and allowed to make his own strategic and command decisions.
Russia
As the United States was entering the war on the side of the Allies, Russia suffered two successive internal Revolutions which would later caused it to withdraw from the side of the Allies and leave the war altogether. The February Revolution overthrew the centuries-old monarchy of the Tsar; the October Revolution installed the communist Bolshevik Party under V.I. Lenin. The lack of success against the German and Austrian Empires, and the hyperinflation caused by unsustainable military spending by the Russian government led to much internal discontent and economic chaos.
Losses and hardship of the war had weakened Russian Czar Nicholas II. He abdicated the throne in March 1917 in favor of a provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky. Hopes for a democratic revolution still existed at this time. But in October 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and the Communist Party, which was never strong enough to challenge the Czar, overthrew the fledgling provisional government. The Communists later executed every member of the Czar's family including the children.
Lenin became the founder of the Soviet state. He was both a writer and a revolutionary, a rare combination. He was the brother of the "bomb thrower" Alexander Ulyanov who was hanged for his involvement in terrorist activity and an assassination attempt on Czar Alexander III in 1887. An atheist, he became a Marxist in 1889. He obtained a law degree shortly afterwards, and by 1895 was a subversive who was arrested and sent to the Tsarist gulag along the Lena River in frigid Siberia where he adopted the name Lenin after the place of his internment. Once he served his time he left for Zurich, where he developed his ideas further and became a leader of the Bolsheviks. He was returned to Russia by the Germans in the wake of chaos during the Kerensky regime with the hope to led the Bolsheviks to power and negotiate a peace settlement with the Germans. After the Treaty of Versailles failed to recognize the settlement between Germany and the Soviet Union in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, he then ruled the Soviet Union and imposed a system of Marxism-Leninism (communism) that remained in force there until the Stalin's rise to power.
The Western Front
The exit of Russia allowed Germany to shift a majority of their troops from the eastern front to the western front. This gave them a final chance to try and break the Allies before the Americans arrived. Known as Operation Michael, the German offensive began in March of 1918.
The Germans launched five major campaigns in a four month period in 1918 on the Western Front. The Germans had technology and lots of energy. They had elite storm-troopers with automatic rifles, light machine guns, flame-throwers and artillery fire. They used poisonous mustard gas lavishly. They easily defeated the British Fifth Army. The Germans were advancing and taking property.
But fresh American troops entered the scene. In the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918, the Allies started winning. Nine American divisions fought in this battle about 75 miles northeast of Paris. The Germans started this battle on another one of their offensives, but the Americans valiantly turned the tables and enabled the Allies to win it. Casualties were enormous for everyone, including the Americans. Former President Teddy Roosevelt’s son Quentin was killed in this battle.
American Capt. Jesse Woolridge, 38th Inf., 3rd Division described the battle as follows: “It’s God’s truth that one Company of American soldiers beat and routed a full regiment of picked shock troops of the German Army ... At ten o’clock ... the Germans were carrying back wounded and dead [from] the river bank and we in our exhaustion let them do it - they carried back all but six hundred which we counted later and fifty-two machine guns... We had started with 251 men and 5 lieutenants...I had left 51 men and 2 second lieutenants."
The War Ends
As the Americans and the Allies advanced toward Germany, the Ottoman Turks and Bulgarians surrendered. There was a revolution in Austria-Hungary that overthrew its government, and Germany would not recognize that new government. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his throne in Germany on November 1918, and the Germans formed a new republic. Members of the German republic signed an armistice (agreement to stop fighting) on November 11, 1918. The "war to end all wars", was over.
Aftermath
Austria-Hungary was dismantled, mostly along ethnic lines. The Ottoman Empire was also dismantled. For the first time in over 1000 years Palestine was not under Muslim control, as Britain assumed control of the area as a colony. Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles accepting full responsibility for the war and had to pay for the entire cost of the war. This led Germany into economic collapse and sowed the seeds for anyone who could get them out of this collapse and restore their pride to be view as almost a savior. Italy felt they were shortchanged in their portion of the spoils and led to a bitterness that would cause them to side with Germany in the years ahead. The initial causes of the war, alliances and imperialism, were not dealt with. Only 20 years after the Treaty of Versailles, World War II would start.
Chronology of World War I
| June 28 | In Sarajevo, Serbia, Austria-Hungary Archduke Franz Ferdinand is murdered, and somebody is responsible. |
| July 28 | War is declared on Serbia by Austria-Hungary |
| August 1 | War is declared on Russia by Germany |
| August 3 | War on France is declared by Germany; Italy remains neutral |
| August 4 | Belgium is invaded by Germany; War is declared on Germany by Britain |
| August 5-6 | War is declared on Russia by Austria-Hungary; War is declared on Germany by Serbia |
| August 12 | Serbia is invaded by Austria-Hungary |
| August 17 | East Prussia is invaded by Russia |
| August 23 | War is declared on Germany by Japan |
| August 26-29 | Russia is defeated by Germany at Tannenburg, East Prussia |
| September 6-10 | Battle of the Marne, France- Germany is defeated by France |
| October 19-November 22 | First Battle of Ypres, Belgium; Germany is stopped by Britain |
| October 29 | Attacking the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Turkey enters the war. |
| November 5 | War is declared on Turkey by Britain and France |
| November 11-25 | Russia is defeated by Germany in Lodz, Poland |
| February 23 | Off coast of Britain, first German submarine attacks occur |
| April 22-May 25 | Britain holds Germany at Second Battle of Ypres; poison gas is first used by Germans |
| April 25 | Allies land at Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey |
| May 7 | ''Lusitania'' is sunk by German U-boat |
| May 23 | The Allies are joined by Italy |
| August 5 | Warsaw, Poland is captured by Germans |
| August 6 | British land at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli Peninsula |
| August 20 | War is declared on Turkey by Italy |
| September 25 | Western Front (Artois, Champagne, and Loos in France) is attacked by Allies |
| December 8 | Evacuation of Gallipoli is begun by Allies |
| February 21 | In France, the Battle of Verdun begins by Germany attacking France |
| March 9 | War is declared on Portugal by Germany |
| May 31 | North Sea, Battle of Jutland |
| July 1 | Battle of Somme, France begins |
| August 28 | War is declared on Romania by Germany |
| September 2-3 | Britain shoots down first Zeppelin German airships |
| September 15 | Tanks used for the first time in war by Britain |
| November 18 | Battle of Somme ends- Britain and France hold the Somme River |
| December 18 | France defeats Germany, Battle of Verdun ends |
| January | Palestine is entered by Britain |
| February | Germany declares unrestricted U-boat warfare and sinks five American ships |
| March 12 | Russian Revolution begins |
| April 6 | War is declared on Germany by the United States |
| April 9 | Battle of Arras, France |
| April 10 | Vimy Ridge, France is captured by Canadians |
| April 16-May 9 | French attack on Second Battle of Aisne River, France |
| May 25 | In Britain, daylight bombing raids begin |
| June 7 | Messines Ridge, Belgium is attacked by British |
| July 31-November 6 | British against Germans- third Battle of Ypres |
| November 6-7 | Passchendaele is captured by Canadians, ending Battle of Ypres; Bolshevik revolution begins in Russia |
| November 20 | British use large number of tanks to win Battle of Cambrai |
| December 9 | Jerusalem in Middle East is captured by British; Romania and Central Powers make Armistice (a cease-fire before signing a peace treaty) |
| December 15 | Armistice between Russia and Central Powers |
| January 18 | Fourteen-point Peace Plan is proposed by President Woodrow Wilson |
| April 9 | Germans begin attack in northern France |
| May 27-30 | Allied line on the Marne River is broken by Germans |
| August 8 | Germans are routed by Allies at Battle of Amiens |
| September 26 | Final Allied attack begins |
| October 1 | Damascus, Syria is captured by British |
| October 30 | Italy defeats Austria-Hungary at Battle of Vittorio Veneto; Armistice is signed by Turkey |
| November 3 | Armistice is signed by Austria-Hungary |
| November 9 | Revolution in Berlin, Germany; throne is given up by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany becomes a republic |
| November 11 | Armistice is signed by Germany; War on Western Front ends |
Further reading
- War By Time-Table: How the First World War Began, A.J.P. Taylor, New York: American Heritage, 1969.
- 1914 - 1918: The History of the First World War, David L. Stevenson, Penguin Press, 2004
References
- ↑ http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/mmontgomery/world_history/world_war1/ultimatum.htm
- ↑ http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA138432
- ↑ Morgan, Hal. More Rumor. New York: Paradox Press, 1987.
- ↑ http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/usofficialawardeclaration.htm
