1914-1918

World War I officially began with Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia in late July of 1914.  The declaration was a response to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the streets of Sarajevo by a Serbian terrorist.1 While this act sparked the powder keg, years of diplomatic maneuvering, colonialism, empire building and arms races had filled it to the brim with explosives. France had spent the last forty years seeking imperial strength and a way to avenge their catastrophic loss at the hands of Prussia in 1870. Germany, in its race to become a great power, alienated Britain and sought an alliance with Austria, believing this alliance could guard it against complete destruction in a two front war. All the while Russia continued in its traditional search for a path to the Mediterranean while making alliances with France and Balkan Slavic nationalists. In the midst of this power game were two waning empires, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, plagued by nationalistic minorities and other powers hoping to benefit from their collapse.2

The alliance or the Entente of France, Russia, and Great Britain was pitted against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and eventually the Ottoman Empire. Austria’s declaration against Serbia brought Russian mobilization. Russia’s mobilization and its alliance with France forced Germany to either abandon its ally or implement the Schlieffen Plan, a swift attack through Belgium to capture Paris and then redirect all forces against Russia. While Britain was not required to enter the conflict, the German violation of Belgian neutrality gave reason enough to join the Allies.3           

The war ended up being separated into two fronts. On the Eastern Front, Serbia and Russia, which were later joined by Romania, battled against Austro-Hungarian and German forces, which were joined by the Ottoman Empire in 1914. On the Western Front, France and Britain waged war against Germany and were joined by Italy in 1915, Romania in 1916 to the south, and finally the United States in 1917. On neither front did the war go as its planners had designed. Mobile warfare was soon replaced by trench warfare as armies unsuccessfully attempted to outflank each other. As a result, the frontlines stagnated. These maneuvers formed a line of trenches that on the Western Front stretched from the North Sea to neutral Switzerland. 4

Trenches turned the war into a struggle of overtaking fortifications, now guarded by barbed wire and deadly machine guns. Artillery went from its initial use as an infantry support to a weapon of mass devastation, intended to soften up enemy fortifications with days of bombardment. Poisonous gas was also introduced for the same purpose. The cavalry of the past was made useless by the technological advance in weaponry, and its nearest replacement, the tank, made its first appearance on the battlefield.5 WWI also introduced air warfare on a large scale. Both zeppelins and airplanes began their life as scout vehicles, but as time went on found use as fighters and bombers.6 On the seas, Germany’s surface fleet was ineffective, but its submarine fleet inflicted massive damage on Entente shipping, a necessity after Britain enforced a trade blockade of Germany that prevented all supplies from the sea. Yet Germany was able to operate at sea, and Germany’s practice of unrestricted submarine warfare was successful.  In consequence, however, the Germany navy sunk a number of American ships, agitating the United States further and increasing the prospect of the Americans entering the war.7

Due to the failure of any side to quickly achieve victory and massive material needs required to wage war, each belligerent committed civil, economic and human power to the war effort, a condition known as ‘Total War’.   Millions of men were conscripted to fight while women were conscripted to take over the manufacturing needs of every country. Countries accumulated massive debt while funding the conflict and bordered on bankruptcy. Patriotism became a requirement, and state propaganda ruled the media. Dissent in any form was quashed for fear that any break in the nations resolve might mean disaster.8

The war also had severe unintended consequences for the political landscape. Socialists blamed the war on the excesses of capitalism and demanded an end to the conflict. In Russia the Czar’s rule collapsed and soldiers mutinied. Many embraced the radical and violent mantras of the Bolshevik communist party being organized by Vladimir Lenin, who seized upon the chaos to take over the new republican government, which in turn initiated a civil war between communists and an alliance of monarchists and republicans. The other states watched in horror as Russia imploded and was taken over by the Bolsheviks who withdrew from the war, allowing Germany and Austria-Hungary to redirect all their strength against the Western Front.9 As a result of serious failures and a political revolution in the Ottoman Empire, the Pan-Islamist Young Turks took over the government. The Young Turks’ fervent nationalism and push for territorial consolidation led to a breaking up of the empire and the deportation and mass murder of over 600,000 ethnic Armenians in Turkey and in the Caucasus.10

The war was also fought globally. Britain and its ally Japan used the war to seize German colonies in the Far East. In the Middle East the British sponsored Arab revolts against Ottoman rule.11 Empire also played a significant role, with forces from India, Algeria, and British Commonwealth nations like Canada, New Zealand and Australia joining the fight against Germany and Austria in Europe and elsewhere.12 Occupied nations also played a role. Belgian refugees played a large part in trying to free their occupied country. Nationalist Poles, Czechs and Slovaks defected and joined forces with the British and French against their own regents hoping to achieve independence.13

In April of 1917 the United States officially entered the war on the side of Britain and France. Although it would take considerable effort to get trained American soldiers on the ground, they were welcomed and needed. By spring of 1918 things on the Allied side seemed dire. For four years German and Austrian troops had traded territory with France and Britain costing millions of lives and dotting the landscape with craters, mines, barbed wire and mud. Both sides were near exhaustion when the German military, now in complete control of all civilian matters, launched its final offensive. While they nearly reached Paris, the Allies in the west held their position with the help of fresh and eager American troops. The bloodletting of four years cost Germany dearly, and their army had reached the point of complete demographic failure. The German military leadership saw advantage in reaching out to the idealistic American president Woodrow Wilson in hopes of securing a just peace. They informed a civilian government formed in Weimar, Germany, that the fight was over.14

Germany surrendered in a railway car in Northern France on November 10, 1918, and a ceasefire was called for November 11, 1918.15 On that date combat officially ended and the alliance of Britain and France was victorious. In order to guarantee the continued peace, both Germany and Austria were forced to end their monarchies and open themselves to democratic governance. Ethnic minorities like the Czechs, Poles, and Slavs of the Balkans used the peace to achieve their own national independence, and out of the settlement the map of Europe was completely redrawn. While Wilson had hoped to prevent punitive terms, he was unsuccessful. The cost of victory made Britain and France bitter, and they took revenge in the final treaty. The blame and debt for the war was laid on Germany. Germany would pay substantial reparations, have an insignificant standing army, and accept territorial adjustments that included the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France and loss of all its colonies. This peace was taken harshly by the German people who had never seen a foreign soldier on their soil before the capitulation of the army and Weimar government.16

Austria-Hungary was also dismantled with its minority populations receiving their territorial desires. The Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire were seized by Britain and France and the beleaguered remnant of the Armenian people fled into the mountains where they established their own state.17 The end of fighting was short lived and the new menace in Europe, the Soviet Union, tried to expand its epochal revolution into the Caucasus and Western Europe, causing chaos and frustration for the new democracies just formed out of the war.18 Even more damaging were the economic consequences of the peace, which bankrupted the major powers and created new states with their own governmental inhibitors to open trade. The First World War had irreparably changed Europe, and by involving the United States and their colonies, the world as a whole.19