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| | Therefore one powerful group of three nations (Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary), known as the Triple Alliance, stood against another powerful group of three nations (Britain, France and Russia), known as the Triple Entente. It was like one football team standing on a field opposite another football team, with both teams fully suited up. It doesn’t take much for someone to shout, “let’s play,” and the battle will begin. | | Therefore one powerful group of three nations (Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary), known as the Triple Alliance, stood against another powerful group of three nations (Britain, France and Russia), known as the Triple Entente. It was like one football team standing on a field opposite another football team, with both teams fully suited up. It doesn’t take much for someone to shout, “let’s play,” and the battle will begin. |
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| − | == World War I Begins ==
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| − | Within ten years of the formation of those alliances, something did ignite a war. And what a devastating war it was. Never before in the history of the world was a war fought in such a deadly manner. With Christians on both sides, one might wonder how this could have happened. But this was long past the feudal times when fighting stopped on every Christian holiday. By 1914, leaders in both Germany on one side and Britain on the other had embraced concepts of survival-of-the-fittest, and many educated people felt that war was an essential part of the improvement of the human race. Let the stronger race win, according to this theory.
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| − | === What Ignited the War ===
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| − | The Balkans in Eastern Europe was where the war began. The Ottoman empire had declined, leaving a power vacuum that European nations tried to fill. The Slavs in Serbia, with Russian support, wanted to unite all the Slavs in the Balkans. Austria-Hungary, which has a very small Slavic population, opposed this. Instead, Austria-Hungary wanted to control the Balkans rather than Russia.
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| − | In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia (and Herzogovina), a region adjacent to its southeast (and east of Italy across the Adriatic Sea). But Bosnia was mostly Slavic while Austria was not, and this greatly angered the Slavic Serbia, which wanted to take Bosnia back. Why did Austria act at this particular time? Because there was a rebellion by the Committee of Union and Progress (the so-called “Young Turks”) that overthrew the Ottoman government at that time, and the foreign minister Baron Aloys von Aerenthal saw a rare opportunity to act. Russia, which was Austria’s main adversary, was weakened by its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and by an internal revolution in 1905.
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| − | In January 1909, the chief of staff of the Austrian army approached his German counterpart and asked what Germany would do if Austria next invaded Serbia and caused Russia to intervene on behalf of Serbia. Despite the original defensive nature of the Austria-German alliance, the Germany army officer said Germany would back Austria and Germany would also invade France because it was Russia’s ally. This happened in the summer of 1914, as the struggle in the Balkans exploded into the First World War.
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| − | The War ignited on June 28, 1914, when the heir to the Austrian throne (Archduke Franz Ferdinand) was visiting the Bosnian capital city of Sarajevo along with his wife Sophie. It was an official visit, not a vacation, and crowds gathered to greet the couple. But a 19-year-old member of a youthful Bosnian resistance movement devoted to self-rule, Gavrilo Princip, shot the couple to death as they rode in an open automobile through the streets of Sarajevo. The killer was part of a large conspiracy and a bit earlier that day another member of the conspiracy had thrown a hand grenade at the Archduke. Princip was quickly captured and imprisoned, where he died of pneumonia a few years later.
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| − | Austria was obviously furious about the assassination and, with Germany’s support, demanded that Serbia end all resistance to Austria. Serbia agreed to some of the demands and offered to submit other demands to arbitration (decision) by an impartial international panel. But Austria would not wait and on July 28, 1914, it declared war against Serbia. Russian responded by mobilizing its army towards Austria and Germany.
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| − | This triggered the alliances. Germany responded to Russia’s mobilization of troops by declaring war on Russia four days later (on August 1st) and then Germany declared war on France another two days later (on August 3rd). Germany decided to invade and defeat France first before it had to fight Russia, and thereby avoid fighting a war on two fronts at the same time. This was the Schlieffen Plan to avoid a two-front war.
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| − | But Belgium, which was neutral, would not allow Germany to pass through its borders to invade France. So Germany invaded and defeated Belgium. Britain had a relationship with Belgium and Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914.
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| − | In a mere week a small dispute between Austria and Serbia over an assassination escalated into a world war between Britain, France and Russia (Allied Powers) and Germany and Austria-Hungary (Central Powers). Italy left the German side when it invaded the neutral Belgium, and Italy eventually joined the Allied Powers along with Japan. The Ottoman empire and Bulgaria eventually joined the Central Powers.
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| − | === Initial Stages of the War ===
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| − | The fighting in the “Great War,” as it was called then (it is now called World War I), was savage and brutal. Army casualties totaled more than 37 million people, and there were another 10 million in civilian deaths. For weeks armies would be in trenches opposite each other, spending day after day trying to kill their opponents in the opposite trench. This was known as trench warfare. Movement of ten or twenty feet in advance of a trench was a big success. Barbed wire marked off an area known as “no man’s land” between the two trenches, where any visitor would be shot on sight. Also, a deadly flu virus spread among the soldiers and infected the world, killing a huge number.
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| − | At the end of the war the peace agreement caused another great war to occur (World War II). So this World War I was bad news all around. In terms of military strategy, it is not terribly interesting either. The first year and a half (1914-15) is known as “Entrenchment”. The next year, 1916, is known as “Continued Stalemate”. Get the idea? The following year, 1917, is known for the entrance by the United States and the withdrawal by Russia due to its communist revolution. In 1918 more nations withdrew, and the major remaining nations of Britain, France, Germany and the United States ended the war with an armistice in November of that year.
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| − | In detail, the first year of the war finished with terrible casualties but no knock-out punches. France won a key initial Battle of the Marne, and that forced Germany to fight on two fronts after all. But while the Allied Powers were holding their own on the Western Front, Russia was losing on the Eastern Front. Russia was not as industrialized as the West and its military was inferior, but Russians were tenacious in battle.
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| − | === The Colonies ===
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| − | Britain drew upon its colonies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand to supply a failed Gallipoli campaign, which attempted to forge a supply line to Russia by capturing the Dardanelles. Instead, these three colonies suffered heavy losses that left them bitter about Britain, and desirous of independence from the British empire.
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| − | However, Britain was successful in enlisting troops from the colonies of Egypt, India, Australia and New Zealand to defeat the weakened Ottomans. An Arab revolt against the Turks (German allies) was led by a British soldier named T. E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence, known as “Lawrence of Arabia.” His guerrilla warfare campaign against the Turks kept large numbers of troops tied up trying to suppress it, and it helped the British capture Aqaba and Damascus. Meanwhile, the Indian Mohandas Gandhi encouraged support of the British in the war as a way of building good will towards the Indian cause for independence. French colonies also lent support.
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| − | The German colonies could not help the Germans, because these colonies were captured by Allied Powers.
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| − | [[Category:World History lectures]]
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| − | {{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 10}}
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