World War I

World War I, also known as the Great War, was a major European and global conflict which lasted from 1914 to 1918. It saw the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, fighting and defeated by the "Entente" or "Allied" powers, led by Britain, France, and Russia, later joined by Italy, and many other countries. The United States tried to remain neutral at first, but in April, 1917, it declared war on Germany; it cooperated with the Allies but did not formally join them, and it negotiated peace separately The Central Powers collapsed in November, 1918; Germany accepted an "armistice" which in practice was a surrender.

The conflgration was a "world war" because every continent became involved, with the US the last major country to join in. Most of the fighting took place on the "Western Front" (northern France) and the "Eastern Front" (Poland), with other campaigns in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, Iraq and East Africa. The naval war was fought primarily in the North Sea, the north Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. The conflagration was called the Great War, because of its size and because of the profound impact on peoples and governments. The troubles in the Middle East and the Balkans since the 1990s are echoes of the unfinished business of the Great War. It was the first total war. Every major power used the modern tools of railroads, telegraphs, radio, banking, mass media, medicine, chemistry, naval and aeronautical engineering, and bureaucratic management to channel resources into the war effort. Public opinion proved critical--the winners sustained the morale of their troops and the resolution of civilians; the losers failed in large part because they forfeited the confidence of their soldiers and the support of the homefront.

In 1914 no one dreamed that the war would last over four years, engulf the world, leave seven millions dead, cost two trillion dollars (in 2007 dollars), wipe out the German, Austro- Hungarian, Russian and Turkish, empires, ruin Italy, and leave the United States the dominant power on the globe.

Causes

What caused the Great War? Historians still debate the questions involved. How did the conflict start? Was it a case of small mistakes escalating into a conflict that no one really wanted, or was the war an unavoidable consequence of deep conflicts? Why did it become stalemated? Why could it not be terminated? Most ominous of all, could it happen again? The war began in 1914 between two coalitions. The "Central Powers" comprised the German and Austro- Hungarian Empires, later joined by the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire. The "Allies" included the British, Russian and French Empires, Japan, and Serbia. The powers had vast overseas empires in Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere (including Canada) that were active participants.

In examining this war the "who" and "when" questions are less interesting than the "how" and "why" problems. Since 1870 there had been no large war in Europe, largely because the major countries joined one of the two great alliances. Fear of a small conflict escalating into a large war provided deterrence--until 1914 when the system broke down. Historians and political scientists have debated endlessly why the system of alliances and deterrence collapsed, and how the Great War could have been avoided.

Ethnic nationalism

Nationalism and ethnic tensions between Germans and Slavs were the basic reasons that the war was fought. Religious affiliations (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Muslim) overlapped language to produce closed ethnic communities which were highly motivated to fight their traditional enemies. Typically, each ethnic group dominated a central homeland, which had minorities, and also claimed a larger territory. Some claims were centuries old, others were new; they all overlapped. The incantation "it's ours because we were here first" cast a spell on otherwise peaceful peoples and guaranteed perpetual hostility.

For 800 years the Germans had been moving east in Europe, pushing out the Slavs. Wealth was based on agriculture, so possession of land was decisive. Germany had been unified from Prussia and numerous smaller countries in 1870, and rapidly built a powerful industrial economy with a strong agricultural base. Active imperialism led to the acquisition of numerous colonies in Africa and the Pacific, such as New Guinea. None of the colonies were profitable, but now Germany had a world empire. German’s main rival was Britain, with a smaller home population and a much larger empire, well protected by the world's strongest navy. By 1914 under the leadership of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Germany had a good fleet, but the Royal Navy remained well ahead in sea power. The naval race heightened rivalries between the two powers, but did not itself cause the war.

After 1900 the Slavs--led by huge Russia and little Serbia-- were fighting back. Militant Pan-Slavic ideology demanded that oppressive German, Hungarian and Ottoman rule be overthrown, so that the Slavs could have their own nation states. Trouble flared in the Balkans, where two recent wars had revealed a propensity to use violence as a first remedy. Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) promoted unrest among Serbs in nearby Bosnia-Herzogovina, a multi-ethnic region that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently taken from Turkey and now planned to incorporate. The imperial capital, Vienna, was increasingly nervous that unrest among the various minority groups would lead to the breakup of its empire. The only way to keep control was to aggressively suppress nationalist uprisings and stop outsiders from inciting rebellion. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne, visited Bosnia to legitimize his Empire's claim to that province and upgrade its status. In Sarajevo a team of Bosnian Serbs assassinated him and his wife.

Alliances and Escalation

The Austrian Empire’s response escalated the conflict. The escalation was facilitated by the alliance ntwork the major countries had built. Austria was closly allied to Germany and Italy through the "Triple Alliance" of 1882. Turkey was close to Germany and hostile to Russia. Russia and France were allied since 1894. Russia, acting without French approval, played the role of protector of the smaller Slavic nations, especially Serbia.

Britain remained aloof from the alliance system. Germany, influenced by the naval theories of the American Alfred Thayer Mahan, embarked on a campaign of naval building, which the Kaiser and his naval minister, Alfred von Tirpitz, hoped would help Germany achieve her "place in the sun" among the world powers, and perhaps force the British into an alliance through fear of German naval power. The British responded with an even bigger naval program. The German naval building campaign could not meet its goals, and the British became increasingly alienated from the Germans, whom they increasingly saw as rivals and potential European hegemons. The "Entente Cordiale" of 1904, which dealt with outstanding colonial questions between France and Britain in North Africa, was not a military alliance but it did symbolized Franco-British rapprochement. The Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 settled outstanding conflicts of interest between Russia and Britain. As a result there was a general alignment of France, Britain, and Russia known as the "Triple Entente."

Britain thus was officially neutral but was unwilling to accept the possibility that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would control the European continent militarily and economically. The United States refused to become involved in any way and insisted on complete neutrality.

The July 1914 Crisis and Declarations of War

On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated while visiting the city of Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of several assassins sent by The Black Hand, a pan-Slavic group financed by Serbia. Following the assassination and Germany's giving of a 'blank check' of support to the Austro-Hungarians, a series of demands are issued to Serbia by Austria-Hungary with a strict 48-hour deadline. While the Serbian government offers to meet many of the demands, Prime Minister Nikola Pasic refuses to turn over three men identified by Austrian authorities as being behind the attacks, declaring that to do so "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law." Three days later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war on Serbia.

Preparation for War

Convinced that now was the time for a showdown, Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Germany supported Austria. Russia announced support for Serbia, and France supported its ally Russia. Each nation in Europe (except Britain) had long trained most or all its young men in the army for two or three years, then retained them for long periods in reserves. That meant each country had a small professional army, and a very large recerve army that could be mobilized in a few days. Russia mobilized on July 28, followed in a matter of days or even hours by its rivals and allies. The Central powers had about 7.5 million regulars and reservists; Germany had 4.5 million, Austria 3.0 million; (in addition they were joined by Turkey with 2.9 million and Bulgaria with 1.2 million.) The Allies had larger numbers, Russia 6.0 million; France 4.0 million; Britain and Empire, 1.0 million; and Servia 200 thousand, for a total of 11.0 million at the start. Later the Allies were joined by Italy (5.6 million), amd the United States (4.4 million), as well as smallewr countries. In the course of the war 1914-1917 the Central powers used 23 million different soldiers and the Allies 43 million. In 1914 the long-term numbers did not matter--it only mattered how many combat soldiers could be sent in a few days to defend the border, or better, to invade the neighbor. The Germans, with better organization and better railroads, made the most effective use of their manpower, while the dinosauer-like Russian Empire ran far behind schedule.

Few leaders seem to have feared war in 1914--indeed, the prevailing mood was that the world had become too cultured, too dull and boring. Warfare was the challenge needed to restore "manliness" to its "natural" state of warlike being, after so many years of softening in factories and offices. War seemed better than peace--and peace itself appeared dangerous because everyone feared their enemies were growing stronger year by year. Throughout Europe the public therefore enthusiastically supported going to war--even the supposedly antiwar Socialists went along. All the nations wanted to win, and their generals told them the way to win was take the offensive. The logic comprised two parts: First, armies were more mobile because of elaborate railroad networks, telegraph systems and highly detailed mobilization plans. Second, firepower was much greater because of the vastly bigger armies and because the new industrial technology had created better offensive weapons, especially artillery, against which no one had developed defenses. Therefore the offense could whip the defense, and the first to attack would win. The last great war, between France and Germany in 1870-71 had been decided in a matter of weeks. No one looked back to the drawn-out American Civil War, as a warning.

The Guns of August, 1914

War Plans

All the belligerents had offensive war plans worked out in advance, but Berlin moved first. The challenge, as table 1 shows, was that the Allies could mobilize far more soldiers, and thus more firepower in 1914. The great planner Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen had solved this problem in 1905 by relying on superior mobility. He calculated that Germany's better trained, better organized, better led soldiers could wheel across northern France and capture Paris in a matter of weeks, before the French knew what hit them. The large Russian army supposedly would take months to mobilize; a small force in the east could hold it while the main enemy, France, was defeated. The war could be won in weeks!

One problem was that the wheel had to revolve through neutral Belgium, and Britain and Germany had both guaranteed Belgian neutrality. No one knew whether or not London would enter the war if Belgium was invaded, but Berlin decided to take the risk to gain a quick victory. Citing the "necessity of warfare" the Germans used a modified Schlieffen plan and invaded Belgium on August 3; Britain promptly declared war. Russia mobilized faster than expected and launched an offensive; Germany thereupon pulled troops out of the wheel to rush them to the east. The Germans became overextended--the radius was too great for their wheel, so supply problems mounted and the high command was too far from the front lines to keep track of fast-breaking developments. The Belgian army was easily crushed, but to the astonishment and dismay of the Germans, Belgian civilians systematically destroyed their own railroad system. Blowing up trestles, bridges and signalling gear, the Belgians ruined the very railroads the Germans had planned to use to rush their armies into France. The Germans were outraged at what they considered war crimes, and systematically shot civilians suspected of being involved. They burned cities and committeed what the rest of the world considered atrocities--but which the Germans insisted was allowable in combatting guerrilla warfare. In the first Battle of the Marne, outside Paris, the French lines held. A widening gap between the First and Second German armies, caused by poor communication, invited a French counterattack, which forced the Germans to pull back. The Schlieffen Plan had failed.

Long term advantages

It is unlikely the Schlieffen Plan would have won the war in any case, for the French were good on the defense and had an easier time the further into their country the enemy advanced. Soon all the battle lines in the west solidified into a stalemate 475 miles long between Switzerland and the English Channel--the Western Front. The Central Powers had the advantages of controlling a compact mass of land in the center of Europe. They had an excellent railroad system and their internal lines of communication made logistics relatively easier. At one point they moved 8 divisions from the Western to the Eastern front in less than a week. Their industrial and agricultural base was good, but not as deep as the Allies. Cut off by the British naval blockade from imports from overseas neutrals such at the United States and Argentina, the Central Powers were unable o substitute overseas labor for their own. That is, as they pulled men out of the fields they lost food they could not replace. In terms of military technology, the two sides were about equal. Planners of the Central powers in Berlin and Vienna (and later Constantinople [Turkey] and Sofia [Bulgaria]) found it relatively easy to coordinate strategy. On the other hand, the empires and armies of the Central Powers comprised so many ethnic groups with their own political agendas that political instability was a fatal weakness.

The Allies had more people, a larger industrial and agricultural base, and a world-wide network of colonies. However the Allies were geographically disconnected so it was impossible for them to rush divisions between the Eastern and Western fronts. Russia was alone in the East, and having an inefficient--indeed, incompetent government, it proved unable to stand up to the concentrated power of the German army. Logistics posed serious problems; with American entry the challenge of moving men and supplies three thousand miles across a submarine- ridden ocean became daunting. Politically, the British and French were democratic, so their governments were more attuned to public opinion and in turn could count on more enthusiastic public support. One key advantage was that they had superior sea power which bottled up the fleets of the Central Powers, captured their merchant ships, and blockaded their ports. London aggressively used its navy to make sure the neutral nations (the United States, Scandinavia, Holland and Latin America) would not ship food or munitions to Germany. The Allies, jealous of their national pride, failed to coordinate their land or sea strategies until 1918.

1915

Peace efforts fail

Before entering the war in 1917, the United States tried repeatedly to arrange some sort of compromise peace, but Germany was unwilling. At a deeper level, the Germans were jealous of the magnificent world-wide British Empire. Germans considered themselves the world leader in many areas--science, technology, music, military arts--but suffered from an inferiority complex. As the war dragged on Berlin expanded its war aims to include permanent control over most of eastern Europe. When Russia collapsed in the winter of 1917-18, Germany's goals seemed within its grasp. As long as there was a chance of winning and making its gains permanent, Berlin refused to consider any sort of compromise peace. The Allies by 1916 might have accepted a compromise peace, but the demand for revenge was strong and Italy rejected all peace talk unless it was awarded the South Tyrol region of Austria. Therefore no compromise settlement was possible.

Basic Bibliography

See World War I, Bibliography for full listing of major books

• American Heritage History of WWI. 1964. heavily illustrated
• Cawood, Ian, and David Mckinnon-Bell. The First World War. (2001), 174pp online edition
• Coffman, Edward M. The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (1998)
• Cruttwell, C. R. M. F. A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 (1934), general military history
• Esposito, Vincent J. The West Point Atlas of American Wars: 1900-1918 (1997) despite the title covers entire war; online maps from this atlas
• Evans, David. Teach yourself— the First World War. (2004)
• Falls, Cyril. The Great War (1960), general military history
• Halpern, Paul G. A Naval History of World War I(1995)
• Henig, Ruth The Origins of the First World War (2002) 76pp online edition
• Joll, James. The Origins of the First World War. (3rd ed 2006).
• Keegan, John. The First World War (1999). general military history by leading scholar
• Kennett, Lee. First Air War, 1914-1918 (1999). 288 pp.
• Strachan, Hew, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, a collection of chapters from various scholars
• Strachan, Hew. The First World War (2004): a 385pp version of his multivolume history
• Taylor, A. J. P. The First World War: An Illustrated History, 1963
• Tucker, Spencer, ed. The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and Military History (5 vol 2005), online at eBook.com, the most detailed reference source; articles by specialists cover all aspects of the war
• Winter, J. M. The Experience of World War I (2nd ed 2005), topical essays; well illustrated

External links

• The July Crisis
• Black Hand