Difference between revisions of "World War I"

From Phantis
Jump to navigation Jump to search
 
(→‎Entente’s victory)
Line 35: Line 35:
  
  
−
=== Entente’s victory ===
 
  
−
On August 8, 1918, the [[Battle of Amiens|predicted counter-offensive]] occurred with III Corps Fourth British Army on the left, the First French Army on the right, and the Canadian and Australian Corps spearheading the offensive in the centre. It involved 414 [[tank]]s of the [[Mark I (tank)|Mark IV]] and [[Mark_V_%28tank%29#Mark_V_Series|Mark V]] type, and 120,000 men. The Entente forces advanced as far as twelve kilometres into German held territory in just seven hours. [[Erich Ludendorff]] referred to this day as "the Black Day of the German army".
 
−
 
−
However, after a few days the offensive had slowed down— British Empire units had encountered problems with all but seven tanks. On [[15 August]] 1918, Haig called a halt and began planning an offensive in Albert. This began on [[August 21]]. Some 130,000 United States troops were involved, along with soldiers from [[British Third Army|Third]] and [[British Fourth Army|Fourth]] British Armies. It was an overwhelming success. The [[German Second Army|Second German Army]] was pushed back over a 55km front. The town of [[Bapaume]] was captured on [[August 29]] and by [[September 2]], the Germans were on the [[Hindenburg Line]].
 
−
 
−
The attempt to take the Hindenburg Line (the [[Meuse-Argonne Offensive]]) began [[September 26]], as 260,000 American soldiers went "over the top". All divisions were successful in capturing their initial objectives, except the 79th Infantry Division, [[American Expeditionary Force|AEF]], which met stiff resistance at [[Montfaucon]] and was unable to progress. This failure allowed the Germans to recover and regroup. Montfaucon was captured on [[27 September]]; however, failure to take it the day before proved to be one of the most costly mistakes of the entire campaign.
 
−
 
−
By the start of October it was evident that things were not going according to plan for the Allies. Many tanks were once again breaking down, and those actually operable were rendered useless due to impassable terrain. Regardless of this, Ludendorff had decided by [[October 1]] Germany had two ways out—total annihilation or an armistice. He recommended the latter to senior figures at a summit in [[Spa, Belgium]] on that very same day. Pershing unrelentingly continued to pound the exhausted and bewildered Germans for all of October along the Meuse-Argonne front. The pressure did not let up until the end of the war.
 
−
 
−
Meanwhile, news of Germany's impending defeat had spread throughout the German Armed forces. The threat of mutiny was rife. Naval commander Admiral [[Reinhard Scheer|Scheer]] and Ludendorff decided to launch a last ditch attempt to restore the "valour" of the German navy. Knowing any such action would be vetoed by the government of [[Prince Maximilian of Baden|Max von Baden]], Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Somehow, word of the impending assault reached sailors at [[Kiel]]. Many took unofficial leave, refusing to be part of an offensive which they believed to be nothing more than a suicide bid. It was Ludendorff who took the blame for this—the Kaiser dismissed him on [[26 October]].
 
−
 
−
However, since the end of September 1918, Ludendorff had been concocting a plan of his own. Although he was a traditionalist conservative, he decided to try and incite a political revolution by introducing new reforms that "democratized" Germany; also satisfying the monarchists as the Kaiser's reign would continue unabridged. He believed democratization would show the German people the government was prepared to change, thus reducing the chance of a socialist style revolt as was seen in Russia in 1917. However, some historians believe, by doing so, Ludendorff had an ulterior motive. His reforms would hand more power over to the members of the [[Reichstag (building)|Reichstag]]—particularly the ruling parties, at this time the centre party (under [[Matthias Erzberger]]), the liberals, and the [[social democrats]]. Therefore, with Ludendorff handing more power to these parties they would have the authority to request an armistice. With 5,989,758 Germans casualties ( 1,773,700 killed, 4,216,058 wounded,), they did just that. Soon after, Ludendorff had a dramatic change of heart and began to claim that the very parties to whom he had handed power to had lost Germany the war. These politicians had "stabbed Germany in the back". Prince Max von Baden (SDP) was put in charge. Negotiations for a peace were immediately put into place on his appointment. Also, he was torn between the idea of a [[constitutional monarchy]] or complete [[abolition]]. However, the matter was taken out of his hands by [[Philipp Scheidemann]], who on [[November 9]], 1918, declared Germany a Republic from a balcony atop the Reichstag. Von Baden announced that the Kaiser was to abdicate—before the Kaiser had himself made up his mind. Imperial Germany had died, and a new Germany had been born: the [[Weimar Republic]].
 
  
 
==End of the war==
 
==End of the war==

Revision as of 13:46, December 28, 2005

World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, the War of the Nations and the War to End All Wars, was a world conflict lasting from 1914 to 1919, with the fighting lasting until 1918. The label World War I or First World War did not come into general use until after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and until then it was known as the Great War or the World War. The war was fought by the Allied Powers on one side, and the Central Powers on the other. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers or involved so many in the field of battle. By its end, the war had become the bloodiest war in recorded history.

More than 9 million died on the war's battlefields, and nearly that many more on the home fronts because of food shortages and genocide committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conflicts (e.g. the Armenian genocide). In World War I about 5% of the casualties (directly caused by the war) were civilian - in World War II, this figure was 50%.

World War I proved to be the decisive break with the old world order. Four empires were shattered: the German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, and the Russian. Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs, who had roots of power back to the days of the Crusades, all fell during the war. The French Empire survived with little change; the British Empire saw the semi-independence of Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

Some historians have argued that upheaval of war led to the rise of Communism in Russia, , Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany. In the east, the demise of the Ottoman Empire paved the way for a modern democratic successor state, Turkey. In Central Europe, new states such as Czechoslovakia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Yugoslavia were born and Austria, Hungary and Poland were re-created.


Causes

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student. He was part of a group of fifteen assassins, acting with support from the Black Hand, a secret society founded by pan-Serbian nationalists, with links to the Serbian military. The assassination sparked little initial concern in Europe. The Archduke himself was not popular, least of all in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While there were riots in Sarajevo following the Archduke's death, these were largely aimed at the Serbian minority. Though this assassination has been linked as the direct trigger for World War I, the war's real origins lie further back, in the complex web of alliances and counterbalances that developed between the various European powers after the defeat of France and formation of the German state under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck in 1871.


Outbreak of war

Austria–Hungary was created in the Ausgleich of 1867 after Austria was defeated by Prussia. As agreed in 1867, the Habsburgs were the Emperors of the Austrian Empire. With the formation of the Dual Monarchy, Franz Josef became leader of a nation with sixteen ethnic groups and five major religions speaking no fewer than nine languages.

In large measure because of the vast disparities that existed within the Empire, Austrians and Hungarians always viewed growing Slavic nationalism with deep suspicion and concern. Thus the Austro-Hungarian government grew worried with the near-doubling in size of neighbouring Serbia's territory as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Serbia, for its part, made no qualms about the fact that it viewed all of Southern Austria–Hungary as part of a future Great South Slavic Union. This view had also garnered considerable support in Russia. Many in the Austrian leadership, not least Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph and Conrad von Hötzendorf, worried that Serbian nationalist agitation in the southern provinces of the Empire would lead to further unrest among the Austro-Hungarian Empire's other disparate ethnic groups. The Austro-Hungarian government worried that a nationalist Russia would back Serbia to annex Slavic areas of Austria–Hungary. The feeling was that it was better to destroy Serbia before they were given the opportunity to launch a campaign.

After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip and nearly a month of debate the government of Austria–Hungary sent a 10-point ultimatum to Serbia (July 23, 1914) — the so called July Ultimatum — to be unconditionally accepted within 48 hours. The ultimatum was the first of a series of diplomatic events known as the July Crisis which set off a chain reaction and a general war in Europe.

The Serbian government agreed to all but one of the demands in the ultimatum, noting that participation in its judicial proceedings by a foreign power would violate its constitution. Austria–Hungary nonetheless broke off diplomatic relations (July 25) and declared war (July 28) through a telegram sent to the Serbian government.

The Russian government, which had pledged in 1909 to uphold Serbian independence in return for Serbia's acceptance of the Bosnia annexation, mobilised its military reserves on July 30 following a breakdown in crucial telegram communications between Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas II, who was under pressure by his military staff to prepare for war. Germany demanded (July 31) that Russia stand down its forces, but the Russian government persisted, as demobilization would have made it impossible to re-activate its military schedule in the short term. Germany declared war against Russia on August 1 and, two days later, against the latter's ally France.

The outbreak of the conflict is often attributed to the alliances established over the previous decades — Germany-Austria-Italy vs France-Russia; Britain and Serbia being aligned with the latter. In fact, none of the alliances were activated in the initial outbreak, though Russian general mobilization and Germany's declaration of war against France were motivated by fear of the opposing alliance being brought into play.

Britain declared war against Germany on August 4. This was ostensibly provoked by Germany's invasion of Belgium on August 4 1914, whose independence Britain had guaranteed to uphold in the Treaty of London of 1839, and which stood astride the planned German route for invasion of Russia's ally France. Unofficially, it was already generally accepted in government that Britain could not remain neutral, since without the co-operation of France and Russia its colonies in Africa and India would be under threat, while German occupation of the French Atlantic ports would be an even larger threat to British trade as a whole.

Greece and World War I

After repelling three Austrian invasions in August-December 1914, Serbia fell to combined German, Austrian and Bulgarian invasion in October 1915. The Serbian army retreated into Albania and Greece. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek government into war against the Central Powers. Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos fell before the allied expeditionary force even arrived, and the pro-German king, Constantine, prevented Greek entry into the war though a portion of his realm was under Bulagarian occupation.

The First World War caused a great divide in Greek politics pitting the adherents of Venizelos' Liberal Party against the conservative Popular Party followers. King Constantine I ended any pretense of being a monarch above politics, siding decisively with the anti-war faction. Finally, officers loyal to Venizelos established the "National Defence" government in Salonica, inviting Venizelos to take power. Greece was split in two with rival governments and the Allies finally took action forcing the King into exile. Through victories at the Battle of Skra, the Greeks and the Allies were able to make a breakthrough in the Macedonian front, leading to Bulgaria's signing an armistice on September 29, 1918.



End of the war

File:NYTimes-Page1-11-11-1918.jpg
Front page of the New York Times on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918

Bulgaria was the first of the Central Powers to sign an armistice (29 September, 1918). Germany requested a ceasefire on 3 October 1918. When Wilhelm II ordered the German High Seas Fleet to sortie against the Entente's navies, they mutinied in Wilhelmshaven starting 29 October 1918. On 30 October the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On November 3 Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce to the Italian Commander to ask an Armistice and terms of peace. The terms having been arranged by telegraph with the Entente Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian Commander, and were accepted. The Armistice with Austria was granted to take effect at three o'clock on the afternoon of November 4. Austria and Hungary had signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy.

Following the outbreak of the German Revolution, a Republic was proclaimed on 9 November, marking the end of the monarchy, but not of the German Empire, as the Republic still called itself offcially "Deutsches Reich". The Kaiser fled the next day to the Netherlands, which granted him political asylum. (See Weimar Republic for details).

On 11 November, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne in France. At 1100 hours that day, a ceasefire came into effect and the opposing armies began to withdraw from their positions. George Lawrence Price is traditionally regarded as the last soldier killed in the Great War. German sources usually claim nine German sailors, that were fired upon and shot by British guards in their lifeboats after having successfully scuttled the Kaiser's fleet at Scapa Flow as the last soldiers being killed in action during WWI. This is based on the assumption, that the War was not officially ended before the signature of the Peace Treaty and that the ships according to the German view (and the Armistice terms) had not been surrendered, but were still German war ships, though guarded in a British anchorage.

The state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months until it was finally ended by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 with Germany and the following treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and The Ottoman Empire signed at St. Germain, Trianon, Neuilly and Sèvres. However, the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife and a final peace treaty was signed by the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey, at Lausanne on 24 July 1923.

Many war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versaille treaty was signed, 1919; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the Armistice of 1918; however, the formal ending of all hostilities was not until 1923.

For data on military and civilian deaths by nationality, see World War I casualties.

Social effects

File:WilsonVersailles.jpg
Woodrow Wilson and the American peace commissioners during the negotiations on the Treaty of Versailles.

One of the most distinguishing impacts of the war was that the reality of totality set in. Many consider World War I to have been the first modern war, a total war where the civilian population were deliberately endangered as a direct tactic of war, which has continued in all subsequent wars. While civilians have always died or even been targeted in wars, World War I made civilian casualties accepted and commonplace (from, for example, aerial bombardment). All aspects of the societies fighting were affected by the conflict, often causing profound social change, even if the countries were not in the war zone.

One of the most dramatic effects was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire. In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. New taxes were levied, and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort, many of which have lasted to this day.

At the same time, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratized governments such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. Here, however, the long term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments.

Families were altered by the departure of many men. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers, at least in many of the Entente powers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost laborers sent to war. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.

From the first year, there had been spontaneous armistices (such as the 1914 Christmas truce), uprisings and mutinies (such as in France in May 1917) on both sides. The pointlessness of many (suicide) actions had caused a loss of respect for the leaders. In several places, shots were fired for form only, aimed to miss, also at executions for desertion. The longlasting proximity of the trenches often created feelings of comradery across the lines. The impotence of military leaders who were not adapted to modern warfare and the breakdown of the three empires and subsequent redrawing of borders after the war created a leadership-void that gave an extra impulse to new ideologies, including bolshevism (in Russia), socialism (in the trenches) and nazism (after the war).

At the outbreak of the war, it was a widely held belief that the war would usher in a new age of humanity. In reality, the war failed to deliver on both sides. For combatants and non-combatants alike, the war had been justified for reasons future generations simply would not be able to understand without seeing the war in the context of the "spirit of 1914". Instead of feeling jubilation, the victors entered a period of mourning. For the defeated, the post-war world was an even greater disappointment, for the Treaty of Versailles was a bitter pill to swallow after the armistice. Since the German public had been under the impression that the war was a defensive measure all along, the harsh terms of the agreement did little to discredit this theory.

The severity of the treaty helped to raise suspicions about the Weimar Republic. Germany's new democratic government became associated with the treaty in the public eye. At the same time, the nature of Germany's defeat became another topic of controversy. Accounts from soldiers at the front, as well as the statements made by influencial figures such as Ludendorff, seemed to confirm the theory that Germany had not really lost the war. It was proposed that Germany had been betrayed from within. The "Dolchstoßlegende" (literally dagger push legend) suggested that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by those not committed to the cause. Jews and communists quickly became targets of accusation.

The popularity of the Dolchstoßlegende helped to garner support for the movement for National Socialism. It has also been proposed that the experience of the war established with German youths a militaristic and fascist mindset that made it possible for the Nazi party to take control of Germany two decades later. In the aftermath of WWI, post-war depression and nationalist (retributionist) views were a prominent aspect of German public sentiment; an important cornerstone of what would become Nazi ideology.


Casualties

Main article: World War I casualties (more detailed)

The total death toll (military and civilian) of World War I was at least 16 million, of which about 9 million were military and about 7 million civilian. The Entente Powers lost more than 5 million soldiers and the Central Powers more than 3 million. See World War I casualties for more details.


References

Overviews

Causes and Diplomacy

Specialty Topics

New Weapons: Air, Tank, Gas, Submarine

Intelligence

  • Beesly, Patrick. Room 40. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982. Covers the breaking of German codes by RN intelligence, including the Turkish bribe, Zimmermann telegram, and failure at Jutland.
  • Kahn, David. The Codebreakers. Scribners, 1996. Covers the breaking of Russian codes and the victory at Tannenberg.
  • Tuchman, Barbara W. The Zimmermann Telegram (1966)

USA & Canada at War

Europe: Economic and Social

Cultural, Literary, Artistic, Memorial

Popular Books & Films

  • Keegan, John. The First World War (1999)
  • Taylor, A. J. P. The First World War: An Illustrated History, Hamish Hamilton, 1963.
  • Editors of American Heritage. History of WWI. Simon & Schuster, 1964. popular
  • The Great War, television documentary by the BBC.
  • Aces: A Story of the First Air War, written by George Pearson, historical advice by Brereton Greenhous and Philip Markham, NFB, 1993. Argues aircraft created trench stalemate

Notes

  • Template:Fnb Gilpin, p200; Knutsen, p6-7; Tammem, p51-52; Rasler & Thompson, p4.

External links

Retrieved from "http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php?title=World_War_I&oldid=7988"