World War I 1914-18, also known as the Great War, conflict, chiefly in Europe, among most of the great Western powers. It was the largest war the world had yet seen.

Causes

World War I was immediately precipitated by the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a Serbian nationalist in 1914. There were, however, many factors that had led toward war. Prominent causes were the imperialistic, territorial, and economic rivalries that had been intensifying from the late 19th cent., particularly among Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria-Hungary.

Of equal importance was the rampant spirit of nationalism, especially unsettling in the empire of Austria-Hungary and perhaps also in France. Nationalism had brought the unification of Germany by "blood and iron," and France, deprived of Alsace and Lorraine by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, had been left with its own nationalistic cult seeking revenge against Germany. While French nationalists were hostile to Germany, which sought to maintain its gains by militarism and alliances, nationalism was creating violent tensions in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy ; there the large Slavic national groups had grown increasingly restive, and Serbia as well as Russia fanned Slavic hopes for freedom and Pan-Slavism .

Imperialist rivalry had grown more intense with the "new imperialism" of the late 19th and early 20th cent. The great powers had come into conflict over spheres of influence in China and over territories in Africa, and the Eastern Question , created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire, had produced several disturbing controversies. Particularly unsettling was the policy of Germany. It embarked late but aggressively on colonial expansion under Emperor William II , came into conflict with France over Morocco , and seemed to threaten Great Britain by its rapid naval expansion.

These issues, imperialist and nationalist, resulted in a hardening of alliance systems in the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente and in a general armaments race. Nonetheless, a false optimism regarding peace prevailed almost until the onset of the war, an optimism stimulated by the long period during which major wars had been avoided, by the close dynastic ties and cultural intercourse in Europe, and by the advance of industrialization and economic prosperity. Many Europeans counted on the deterrent of war's destructiveness to preserve the peace.

War's Outbreak

The Austrian annexation (1908) of Bosnia and Herzegovina created an international crisis, but war was avoided. The Balkan Wars (1912-13) remained localized but increased Austria's concern for its territorial integrity, while the solidification of the Triple Alliance made Germany more yielding to the demands of Austria, now its one close ally. The assassination (June 28, 1914) of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo set in motion the diplomatic maneuvers that ended in war.

The Austrian military party, headed by Count Berchtold , won over the government to a punitive policy toward Serbia. On July 23, Serbia was given a nearly unacceptable ultimatum. With Russian support assured by Sergei Sazonov , Serbia accepted some of the terms but hedged on others and rejected those infringing upon its sovereignty. Austria-Hungary, supported by Germany, rejected the British proposal of Sir Edward Grey (later Lord Grey of Fallodon ) and declared war (July 28) on Serbia.

Russian mobilization precipitated a German ultimatum (July 31) that, when unanswered, was followed by a German declaration of war on Russia (Aug. 1). Convinced that France was about to attack its western frontier, Germany declared war (Aug. 3) on France and sent troops against France through Belgium and Luxembourg. Germany had hoped for British neutrality, but German violation of Belgian neutrality gave the British government the pretext and popular support necessary for entry into the war. In the following weeks Montenegro and Japan joined the Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia, Serbia, and Belgium) and the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). The war had become general. Whether it might have been avoided or localized and which persons and nations were most responsible for its outbreak are questions still debated by historians.

From the Marne to Verdun

The German strategy, planned by Alfred von Schlieffen, called for an attack on the weak left flank of the French army by a massive German force approaching through Belgium, while maintaining a defensive stance toward Russia, whose army, Schlieffen assumed, would require six weeks to mobilize. By that time, Germany would have captured France and would be ready to meet the forces on the Eastern Front. The Schlieffen plan was weakened from the start when the German commander Helmuth von Moltke detached forces from the all-important German right wing, which was supposed to smash through Belgium, in order to reinforce the left wing in Alsace-Lorraine. Nevertheless, the Germans quickly occupied most of Belgium and advanced on Paris.

In Sept., 1914, the first battle of the Marne (see Marne, battle of the ) took place. For reasons still disputed, a general German retreat was ordered after the battle, and the Germans entrenched themselves behind the Aisne River. The Germans then advanced toward the Channel ports but were stopped in the first battle of Ypres (see Ypres, battles of ); grueling trench warfare ensued along the entire Western Front. Over the next three years the battle line remained virtually stationary. It ran, approximately, from Ostend past Armentières, Douai, Saint-Quentin, Reims, Verdun, and Saint-Mihiel to Lunéville.

Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Russians invaded East Prussia but were decisively defeated (Aug.-Sept., 1914) by the Germans under generals Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and Mackensen at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes (see under Masuria ). The Germans advanced on Warsaw, but farther south a Russian offensive drove back the Austrians. However, by the autumn of 1915 combined Austro-German efforts had driven the Russians out of most of Poland and were holding a line extending from Riga to Chernovtsy (Chernivtsi). The Russians counterattacked in 1916 in a powerful drive directed by General Brusilov , but by the year's end the offensive had collapsed, after costing Russia many thousands of lives. Soon afterward the Russian Revolution eliminated Russia as an effective participant in the war. Although the Austro-Hungarians were unsuccessful in their attacks on Serbia and Montenegro in the first year of the war, these two countries were overrun in 1915 by the Bulgarians (who had joined the Central Powers in Oct., 1915) and by Austro-German forces.

Another blow to the Allied cause was the failure in 1915 of the Gallipoli campaign , an attempt to force Turkey out of the war and to open a supply route to S Russia. The Allies, however, won a diplomatic battle when Italy, after renouncing its partnership in the Triple Alliance and after being promised vast territorial gains, entered the war on the Allied side in May, 1915. Fighting between Austria and Italy along the Isonzo River was inconclusive until late 1917, when the rout of the Italians at Caporetto made Italy a liability rather than an asset to the Allies.

Except for the conquest of most of Germany's overseas colonies by the British and Japanese, the year 1916 opened with a dark outlook for the Allies. The stalemate on the Western Front had not been affected in 1915 by the second battle of Ypres, in which the Germans used poison gas for the first time on the Western Front, nor by the French offensive in Artois—in which a slight advance of the French under Henri Pétain was paid for with heavy losses—nor by the offensive of Marshal Joffre in Champagne, nor by the British advance toward Lens and Loos.

In Feb., 1916, the Germans tried to break the deadlock by mounting a massive assault on Verdun (see Verdun, battle of ). The French, rallying with the cry, "They shall not pass!" held fast despite enormous losses, and in July the British and French took the offensive along the Somme River where tanks were used for the first time by the British. By November they had gained a few thousand yards and lost thousands of men. By December, a French counteroffensive at Verdun had restored the approximate positions of Jan., 1916.

Despite signs of exhaustion on both sides, the war went on, drawing ever more nations into the maelstrom. Portugal and Romania joined the Allies in 1916; Greece, involved in the war by the Allied Salonica campaigns on its soil, declared war on the Central Powers in 1917.

From America's Entry to Allied Victory

The neutrality of the United States had been seriously imperiled after the sinking of the Lusitania (1915). At the end of 1916, Germany, whose surface fleet had been bottled up since the indecisive battle of Jutland (see Jutland, battle of ), announced that it would begin unrestricted submarine warfare in an effort to break British control of the seas. In protest the United States broke off relations with Germany (Feb., 1917), and on Apr. 6 it entered the war. American participation meant that the Allies now had at their command almost unlimited industrial and manpower resources, which were to be decisive in winning the war. It also served from the start to lift Allied morale, and the insistence of President Woodrow Wilson on a "war to make the world safe for democracy" was to weaken the Central Powers by encouraging revolutionary groups at home.

The war on the Western Front continued to be bloody and stalemated. But in the Middle East the British, who had stopped a Turkish drive on the Suez Canal, proceeded to destroy the Ottoman Empire; T. E. Lawrence stirred the Arabs to revolt, Baghdad fell (Mar., 1917), and Field Marshal Allenby took Jerusalem (Dec., 1917). The first troops of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), commanded by General Pershing , landed in France in June, 1917, and were rushed to the Château-Thierry area to help stem a new German offensive.

A unified Allied command in the West was created in Apr., 1918. It was headed by Marshal Foch , but under him the national commanders (Sir Douglas Haig for Britain, King Albert I for Belgium, and General Pershing for the United States) retained considerable authority. The Central Powers, however, had gained new strength through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Mar., 1918) with Russia. The resources of Ukraine seemed at their disposal, enabling them to balance to some extent the effects of the Allied blockade; most important, their forces could now be concentrated on the Western Front.

The critical German counteroffensive, known as the second battle of the Marne, was stopped just short of Paris (July-Aug., 1918). At this point Foch ordered a general counterattack that soon pushed the Germans back to their initial line (the so-called Hindenburg Line). The Allied push continued, with the British advancing in the north and the Americans attacking through the Argonne region of France. While the Germans were thus losing their forces on the Western Front, Bulgaria, invaded by the Allies under General Franchet d'Esperey , capitulated on Sept. 30, and Turkey concluded an armistice on Oct. 30. Austria-Hungary, in the process of disintegration, surrendered on Nov. 4 after the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto .

German resources were exhausted and German morale had collapsed. President Wilson's Fourteen Points were accepted by the new German chancellor, Maximilian, prince of Baden , as the basis of peace negotiations, but it was only after revolution had broken out in Germany that the armistice was at last signed (Nov. 11) at Compiègne. Germany was to evacuate its troops immediately from all territory W of the Rhine, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was declared void. The war ended without a single truly decisive battle having been fought, and Germany lost the war while its troops were still occupying territory from France to Crimea. This paradox became important in subsequent German history, when nationalists and militarists sought to blame the defeat on traitors on the home front rather than on the utter exhaustion of the German war machine and war economy.

Aftermath and Reckoning

World War I and the resulting peace treaties (see Versailles, Treaty of ; Saint-Germain, Treaty of ; Trianon, Treaty of ; Neuilly, Treaty of ; Sèvres, Treaty of ) radically changed the face of Europe and precipitated political, social, and economic changes. By the Treaty of Versailles Germany was forced to acknowledge guilt for the war. Later, prompted by the Bolshevik publication of the secret diplomacy of the czarist Russian government, the warring powers gradually released their own state papers, and the long historical debate on war guilt began. It has with some justice been claimed that the conditions of the peace treaties were partially responsible for World War II . Yet when World War I ended, the immense suffering it had caused gave rise to a general revulsion to any kind of war, and a large part of mankind placed its hopes in the newly created League of Nations .

To calculate the total losses caused by the war is impossible. About 10 million dead and 20 million wounded is a conservative estimate. Starvation and epidemics raised the total in the immediate postwar years. Warfare itself had been revolutionized by the conflict (see air forces ; chemical warfare ; mechanized warfare ; tank ).

Bibliography

There is a tremendous amount of general and specialized literature on World War I. Classic accounts of the war are S. B. Fay, The Origins of the World War (rev. ed. 1930, repr. 1966) and B. E. Schmitt, The Coming of the War, 1914 (1930, repr. 1966). Two short guides to the military history are B. H. Liddell Hart, The Real War (1930, repr. 1963), and H. W. Baldwin, World War I (1962).

World War I (the Great War) (1914–18)

Background

The first war which involved total military mobilization on a global scale, after earlier global confrontations had only led to brief and strictly limited military battles outside Europe. This in itself was the result of vast improvements in communications, which allowed the speedy deployment of troops via railways and ships (to colonial Empires). German unification in 1871 had transformed the traditional European balance of power, which rested on the assumption of a weak and fragmented Germany in the heart of Europe. When Germany began to assert its nationhood through militarism and a self-conscious foreign policy, it became an enthusiastic, if belated, participant in imperialist conquests for colonies. Since Britain, Russia, and France had already created vast colonial Empires, German aspirations for the few remaining unclaimed territories in Africa, Asia, and Oceania heightened tensions and suspicions among the traditional powers of a more general nature. In the effort to claim its ‘place in the sun’, Germany pursued an ambitious programme of naval expansion. The ensuing arms race threatened Britain in particular, which aimed at having a bigger navy than its two closest rivals put together, in order to be able to defend the worldwide trading system upon which its economy and Empire rested more than any other country. As a result, international alliances were formed that left Germany increasingly isolated, e.g. the Anglo-French Entente (1904), and the Anglo-Russian entente of 1907 (Triple Entente).

Causes

Against this background, tensions between Germany and Britain erupted first during the South African War, when Germans supported the Afrikaners, and the Daily Telegraph Affair. A number of international crises heightened the tensions, notably in Morocco (Algeciras and Agadir) and Zabern (Saverne). Last but not least, Europe was destabilized by the fragile multi-ethnic state of Austria-Hungary. Paralysed by its own bankruptcy and the forces of nationalism, its aggressive claims over Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia ultimately produced the immediate cause of the war. After the assassination in Sarajevo, by Serbian nationalists, of the heir to the Austrian throne Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Austria declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.

The conflict spread beyond the Balkans through German assistance to Austria, specifically the German declaration of war against Russia (1 August) and France (3 August). Again, Germany's aggressive stance was the result of a sense of weakness, whereby it did not have the resources to compete for long in the arms race which it had helped to precipitate. Given the international tensions, which had increased since 1900, the German political and military leadership believed that war was inevitable. Thus, the Germans were keen to strike before a relative decline of their military power could take place, and in the hope of dividing the Triple Entente.

True to the Schlieffen Plan, Germany attacked France through Belgium on 3 August 1914. In this way, German troops avoided the fortifications along the Franco-German border, though this also infringed upon a neutral country. It was this violation of Belgian neutrality that finally convinced the British government that it, too, was vitally threatened by a German regime that did not respect the rule of international law. On 4 August, therefore, Britain declared war on Germany, in her own name, and that of the British Empire and her Dominions.

Amongst the Dominions, Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, and New Zealand were happy to ratify the British move, as they crucially depended upon the free-trading system which Britain tried so hard to protect against German expansionism. Only in South Africa did the entry into the war cause considerable political tension. With the memory of the recent South African War, there were strong residual anti-British and pro-German feelings amongst the vociferous Afrikaners. Perhaps more controversial than entry into the war itself was the issue of conscription, which became important from around 1916. It caused relatively little controversy in New Zealand, but split the British Liberal Party. It was passed only after acrimonious political battles in Canada in 1917. It was rejected in two referendums in Australia, and was never introduced in Ireland (even though this was not a Dominion) or South Africa.

The course of the war

The Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary were joined by the Ottoman Empire (1914) and Bulgaria (1915). They faced the Allied Powers consisting of Serbia, Russia, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, the British Empire, Japan (1914), Italy (1915), Romania (1916), Portugal (1916), and Greece (1917). The USA entered the war as an Associate Power of the Allies on 6 April 1917, after the resumption of German submarine warfare (Lusitania). Despite the importance of the naval arms race in the outbreak of the war, only one important naval battle took place (at Jutland, 1916). Instead, fighting took place predominantly (1) on the Western Front (west of Germany); (2) the Eastern Front (east of Germany); (3) in northern Italy; (4) in the Balkans; (5) on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire; (6) in the colonies.1. The Western Front was opened by a rapid German advance which avoided the fortifications at the Franco-German border by invading through Belgium and Luxembourg. The advance was brought to a halt just outside Paris, at the first Battle of the Marne. The Germans retreated slightly, and stabilized their positions around an arch stretching from Ypres in northern Belgium to Soisson (halfway between the Franco-Belgian border and Paris) and Verdun. From late 1914, the conflict developed into a war of attrition. In battles at Passchendaele, Verdun, and the Somme, large-scale offensives achieved little strategic gain, yet resulted in previously unimaginable slaughter. Hundreds of thousands of men were lost as each side sought to pummel the other to exhaustion. Another dimension to the horror was added in 1916, when the Germans introduced chemical warfare.

Despite a final German offensive at the Marne in 1918, this attritional war was eventually lost by the Germans, mainly as a result of two factors. First, the introduction of mechanized warfare by the Allies, especially the use of tanks, made a crucial difference in the Allies' favour. Secondly, in a war which caused such dramatic losses, the Allies' resources of manpower and equipment were greater. The entry of the USA into the war in 1917 added to this imbalance. In summer 1918, most of France was regained from German occupation, with the Germans suffering a heavy defeat resulting from Foch's use of tanks at the battle of Amiens (8 August). 2. On the Eastern Front as the Germans tried in vain to overcome France before Russia mobilized her troops, immediately after the outbreak of the war the Russian army tried to press its advantage and advanced into exposed German territory. Under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the Russians were beaten in the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes (5–15 September 1914), though they remained in parts of Prussia until 1915. After an Austro-Hungarian offensive in the spring and summer of 1915, the Russian advance collapsed, with most of Poland falling into German and Austrian hands. In September 1915, Tsar Nicholas II took personal command of his troops. In summer 1916 a Russian counter-offensive produced victories, but heavy casualties eroded Russian morale. The Russian war effort was thrown into confusion by the Russian Revolutions of 1917, which the German and Austro-Hungarian armies turned to their advantage in a summer offensive, when they reclaimed the Bukovina and almost all of Galicia. Russian troops were at the point of collapse. After a further German offensive the new Bolshevik leaders under Lenin and Trotsky were left with no alternative but to accept the harsh peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk imposed upon them. 3. Italy's entry into the war in 1915 opened up a new military front, but did not bring about the collapse of the Central Powers as had been anticipated by Britain and France (Treaty of London). In eleven battles at the Isonzo River (1915–17), the Italians failed to break through Austro-Hungarian lines. In fact the Italian army suffered twice as many casualties (725,000) as their opponents. The twelfth battle of the Isonzo, known as the Battle of Caporetto, produced a victory for the Austrian army, but the Austrian advance was halted and its troops were finally overcome at the battle of Vittorio Veneto. 4. In the Balkans, the Central Powers overcame Serbia, taking Belgrade in October 1915. Allying themselves with the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, they overcame Romania in 1916, but failed to take Greece. 5.  The Ottoman Empire proved to be more resilient militarily than had been anticipated. At Gallipoli, the troops from Australia, New Zealand, and Britain incurred heavy losses, but failed to make headway against the Turks. Meanwhile, the Mesopotamian campaign was halted with the defeat at Kut al-Amara in 1915. Nevertheless, in 1917 the Empire was in retreat. The Arab Revolt (1916) had freed most of the Arabian penninsula, and the British had successfully taken Baghdad in 1917. In 1918, the country collapsed, with the Russians advancing deep into Armenia, the British taking Kurdistan and, under Allenby, Palestine, and the French taking Lebanon and Syria. 6. The German colonies were protected by relatively few troops, so that Togo, German Oceania, German New Guinea, and its Chinese territory in Qingdao had all surrendered by November 1914. On 9 July 1915, German South-West Africa (now Namibia) surrendered to South African troops under Louis Botha and Smuts, while Cameroon surrendered on 18 February 1916. Of all the colonies, only German East Africa (Tanganyika) held out until the end of the war, surrendering on 14 November 1918, three days after Germany itself.

End of the war

Although there were virtually no foreign troops on their respective territories in autumn 1918 Austria-Hungary disintegrated, while Germany's collapse was only staved off by its military surrender. Bulgaria signed an armistice on 30 September, the Ottoman Empire on 30 October, Austria-Hungary on 3 November, and the German Empire on 11 November. This was followed by the Paris Peace Conference, in which peace terms were dictated to the defeated countries. The Central Powers lost the war due to inferior numbers and equipment on the battlefield. Especially with the entry of the USA and the defeat of Russia in 1917/18, it emerged as a confrontation between, mainly, parliamentary democracies on the one hand, and autocratic regimes on the other. For instance, in Austria-Hungary, Parliament had been suspended for the first three years of the war, while Germany had become a virtual military dictatorship 1916–18. Ultimately, the war proved that democratic systems were much better able to raise resources than authoritarian ones in which large parts of the population would have had no stake and for which they will not allow themselves to be mobilized fully.

Consequences

Apart from the immeasurable economic damage, the cost of the war was a severe blow especially to the British Empire, which bore almost 30 per cent of the total cost (Germany bore 20 per cent, France 15 per cent, and the USA 14 per cent). It was the human cost, however, which had such tremendous effects on the minds and culture of generations to come. This was at least as prominent among the non-European participants in the Dominions as in Europe, whose sufferings were, perhaps, disproportionately high in relation to their population or their interest in the war. With a population of under eight million people, Canada contributed a total of over 600,000 men, of whom 60,000 were killed. New Zealand sent over 100,000 people out of a population of around one million people, 16,781 of whom were killed. Of around five million Australians, 330,000 fought in Europe, of whom almost 60,000 died. In total, around sixty-five million soldiers participated in the war. Of these, around twenty-one million were wounded. It resulted in almost ten million dead (including around one million missing), among them 1.8 million Germans, 1.7 million from the Russian Empire, 1.4 million French, 1.2 million from Austria-Hungary, 950,000 from the British Empire, 460,000 from Italy, and 115,000 from the USA. Relative to the size of the population, the biggest losses were suffered by Serbia, whose number of dead represented almost 6 per cent of the population, followed by France (3.4 per cent), Romania (3.3 per cent), and Germany (3 per cent).

World War I, major conflict involving most of the nations of the world (1914–18), and sometimes called the Great War. It was an outgrowth of European territorial problems and nationalism, but the U.S. was finally brought to take an active part (April 6, 1917), the immediate cause being the unrestricted German submarine warfare upon Atlantic shipping. On the side of the British, French, Belgian, and other Allied forces, opposing Germany and the Central Powers, the American Expeditionary Force from October 23, 1917, until the Armistice (Nov. 11, 1918) participated in many battles on the western front, including such critical engagements as the battles of Cantigny, Château‐Thierry, Belleau Wood, Saint‐Mihiel, the Marne, and the Argonne offensive. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, and a separate treaty of peace was signed by the U.S. and Germany at Berlin (Aug. 25, 1921).

The many works of American literature that deal with the war and its aftermath include Anderson and Stallings's What Price Glory?, E.E. Cummings's The Enormous Room, Dos Passos's Three Soldiers, Faulkner's Soldiers' Pay and A Fable, and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.