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| I. Introduction World War I, military conflict, from 1914 to 1918, that began as a local European war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and eventually became a global war involving 32 nations. Twenty-eight of these nations, known as the Allies and the Associated Powers, and including Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States, opposed the coalition known as the Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The immediate cause of the war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was the 1914 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir-presumptive to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones, by a Serb nationalist. II. Causes of the War The spirit of intense nationalism that permeated Europe throughout the 19th and into the 20th century produced tensions in certain areas, particularly among the ethnic groups within the empire of Austria-Hungary and in the Balkan nations, where Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire vied for influence. At the same time, political and economic rivalries among the European powers led to military expansion and to the formation of two hostile military alliances: the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia. On a Europe thus heavily armed and torn by national rivalries, the assassination of the Austrian archduke had a catastrophic effect. The Austro-Hungarian government blamed the Serbian government for the assassination, and in July it declared war against Serbia. Within a matter of days, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain were drawn into the war by treaty obligations. III. 1914-1915: Entrenchment Military operations began on three major European fronts: the western, or Franco-Belgian; the eastern, or Russian; and the southern, or Serbian. The Germans planned to defeat France quickly in the west, while an Austro-German army was to hold the Russians in check. A swift German incursion into Belgium in August 1914 overwhelmed the Belgian Army and forced the Allied line to retreat. The fall of Paris, the French capital, seemed imminent until the French, in the First Battle of the Marne (September 6-9), pushed the Germans back to the Aisne River in northern France. The French failed to dislodge the Germans from the Aisne, and the two sides then raced to the North Sea, aiming to capture the channel ports. By the end of 1914 both sides had established entrenched lines on the western front extending from Switzerland to the North Sea. These lines remained almost stationary for the next three years. Until nearly the end of the war the fighting on this front consisted largely of trench warfare, in which each side laid siege to the other's trenches and tried from time to time to break through the lines. On the eastern front, a German army decisively defeated a Russian invasion of East Prussia at the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. Other Russian armies advanced into Austria, but by September 1915 the Germans and Austrians had driven the Russians back. The Russians lost so many soldiers and supplies that they were subsequently unable to play any decisive role in the war. On the southern front, Bulgaria declared war on Serbia in 1915. To counter, Allied troops advanced into Serbia, but Bulgarian troops defeated both the Serbs and the Allied troops, and a strong Austro-German offensive then conquered all of Serbia. Turkey joined the Central Powers in 1914 and invaded the Russian Caucasus region. In response, Allied troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. Strong resistance by Turkish troops and poor Allied leadership resulted in the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. After Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary in 1915, a static front developed between these two powers along the Isonzo River in southeastern Europe. IV. 1916: Continued Stalemate In February 1916 the Germans attacked the French in the Battle of Verdun. Although the Germans had some successes, they failed to capture Verdun. That summer and fall the Allies attempted a massive offensive along the Somme River (see Somme, Battles of the). Both sides paid a tremendous cost in lives but failed to break through enemy lines. Meanwhile, the British and German fleets met in the naval Battle of Jutland on May 31 and June 1. Although the British losses were greater than Germany's, the German fleet returned to port and did not fight again during the war. In November the French regained the losses suffered in the Battle of Verdun. On the eastern front, several disastrous offensives by the Russians resulted in the loss of approximately 1 million soldiers by September 1916, leaving the army in a demoralized state. On the southern front, the Allies claimed that King Constantine I of Greece favored the Central Powers. The Allies then established a rival Greek government in September at Salonika. The new government declared war on Germany and Bulgaria. The war also progressed in the Middle East. Arabs, with British aid, revolted against Turkish rule in what is now Saudi Arabia, and the British advanced into the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine from Egypt. V. 1917: U.S. Entrance—Russian Withdrawal Beginning in 1916, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson attempted to mediate a peace between the belligerents. However, in early 1917 Germany announced that it would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping to Britain. The United States, which had already expressed its opposition to unrestricted submarine warfare, declared war on Germany in April. The submarines were initially successful, but by convoying merchant vessels with warships and using depth charges, Britain rendered the submarines less and less effective as the war continued. On the western front, Allied attempts to break German lines near Arras, France, in April and May, and at the Battle of Ieper in June, caused appalling casualties but did not result in a breakthrough. In March an uprising against the Russian imperial government resulted in the establishment of a provisional Russian government that continued the war. However, the Bolshevik Party seized power in November and offered the German government an armistice. Fighting ceased on the eastern front in December. In Italy, the latter part of the year was marked by a determined Austro-German offensive that pushed the Italians back to the Piave River in the northeast of the country. Meanwhile the Allies forced King Constantine of Greece to abdicate in June. A new government under his son Alexander declared war on the Central Powers. The year also witnessed the beginning of the brilliant leadership of British Colonel T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, in leading the Arab revolt against Turkey. VI. 1918: The Final Year On the Balkan front, 1918 proved disastrous for the Central Powers. In September about 700,000 Allied troops began a large-scale offensive in Serbia. By the end of the month the Bulgarians had concluded an armistice, and Romania, which had previously been conquered by the Germans, had reentered the war on the Allied side. In November the Allies routed the Austrians in Italy. The defeat precipitated revolts in Austria-Hungary among the Czechs and Slovaks, the South Slavs, and the Hungarians. The government at Vienna concluded an armistice in November. The Allies also brought the campaigning in Palestine to a successful conclusion. British forces routed the Turkish Army, and an armistice was concluded in October. At the beginning of 1918 the Germans realized that their last hope was to force a decision on the western front. German efforts to break through the Allied lines in April, May, and June made initial gains, but they were eventually repulsed. In early August the Allies began the offensive that resulted in German capitulation. By the beginning of November the Germans were in rapid retreat on the entire western front. The German fleet mutinied, an uprising took place in Bavaria, and Emperor William II abdicated, fleeing to the Netherlands. On November 11, an armistice was signed between the new German republic and the Allies. Following the armistice, the German fleet, with the exception of the submarines, was interned at the Orkney Islands with German crews aboard. The Treaty of Versailles (1919), which ended the war, provided that interned German warships become the property of the Allies. In reprisal against these terms, the Germans scuttled their ships in 1919. VII. The War in the Air Aircraft were used in World War I for observation and bombing. Raids conducted by dirigibles and airplanes on enemy centers behind the battlefront caused much loss of life and property damage, but they accomplished little of military value. Beginning in mid-1915, aerial combats between planes or groups of planes were common. The Germans had early superiority, but in 1916 supremacy passed to the British. After the United States entered the war, Allied supremacy became overwhelming. VIII. Summary of the War Casualties in the land forces amounted to more than 37 million. were caused indirectly by the war. The aggregate direct war costs of all the belligerents amounted to about $186 billion. Despite worldwide hopes that the settlements arrived at after the war would restore world peace on a permanent basis, World War I actually provided the basis for an even more devastating conflict, World War II (1939-1945). Although most of the Allies were determined to exact from the Central Powers the entire cost of the war, and to distribute among themselves territories and possessions of the defeated nations, the peace treaties that emerged were on the whole inadequately enforced by the victorious powers. This eventually led to the resurgence of militarism and aggressive nationalism in Germany and to social disorder throughout much of Europe. Click below for the full length article from Encarta, the #1 multimedia encyclopedia. I. INTRODUCTION II. CAUSES OF THE WAR III. MILITARY OPERATIONS IV. SUMMARY OF THE WAR Multimedia Recommended Items Search for educational products about World War I at SmarterKids.com. Search barnesandnoble.com for books about World War I. Latest Updates JULY 98 Unconventional Arms: The Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons Sidebars SIDEBAR Global Consequences of World War I SIDEBAR Industrial Warfare in the Modern Era HISTORIC DOCUMENTS “The Policy of the Big Stick” Selected Web Links 1914-18 War - Art of the First World War The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century The Great War Series |
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