WORLD WAR ONE
Causes
The alliance between Germany and Austria was natural. Both spoke the same language, German, and had a similar culture. In previous centuries, they had both been part of the same empire - the Holy Roman Empire.
Austria was in political trouble in the south-east of Europe - the Balkans. She needed the might of Germany to back her up if trouble got worse. Italy had joined these countries as she feared their power on her northern border. Germany was mainland Europe's most powerful country - so from Italy's point of view, being an ally of Germany was an obvious move.
Each member of the Triple Alliance leaded by German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Turk-Ottoman Empire, promised to help the others if they were attacked by another country.
The Triple Entente leaded by the British Empire, France and Russian Empire, was less structured than the Triple Alliance.
France had a huge army but a poor navy. Britain had the world's most powerful navy and a small army. France and Britain joining together in an understanding was natural.
The inclusion of Russia seemed odd because it was located so far from France and Britain. However, Russia's royal family, the Romanovs, was related to the British Royal Family. Russia also had a huge army and with France on the west of Europe and Russia on the east, the 'message' sent to Germany was that she was confronted by two huge armies on either side of its borders.
By 1900, Britain owned a quarter of the world. Countries such as Canada, India, South Africa, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand were owned by Britain as part of the British Empire. The Empire was seen as the status symbol of a country that was the most powerful in the world.
Germany clearly believed that a sign of a great power was possession of overseas colonies. The main Germany's target was Africa.
Germany colonized territories in southern Africa, now Namibia, and it did create much anger in London as Germany's new territories were near South Africa with its huge diamond and gold reserves. In reality, Germany's African colonies were of little economic importance but it gave her the opportunity to demonstrate to the German people that she had Great Power status even if this did make relations with Britain more fragile than was perhaps necessary for the economic returns Germany got from her colonies.
A second issue that caused much friction between the two countries was Germany's desire to increase the size of its navy. Britain accepted that Germany needed a large army. But Germany had a very small coastline and Britain could not accept that Germany needed a large navy.
Britain concluded that Germany's desire to increase the size of her navy was to threaten Britain's naval might in the North Sea. As a result, a naval race took place. Both countries spent vast sums of money building new warships and the cost soared when Britain launched a new type of battleship - the Dreadnought. Germany immediately responded by building her equivalent. Such a move did little to improve relations between Britain and Germany. All it did was to increase tension between the two nations.
With Europe so divided, it only needed one incident to spark off a potential disaster. This incident occurred at Sarajevo in July 1914.
The Incident and the War's declaration
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian-Serb student and member of Young Bosnia, a revolutionary active movement before World War I, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian successor's throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
This began a period of diplomatic maneuvering between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain called the July Crisis. Wanting to end Serbian interference in Bosnia conclusively, Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands which were intentionally unacceptable, made with the intention of deliberately initiating a war with Serbia.
When Serbia acceded to only eight of the ten demands levied against it in the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.
The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria–Hungary to eliminate its influence in the Balkans, and in support of its longtime Serb protégés, ordered a partial mobilization one day later.
When the German Empire began to mobilize on 30 July 1914, France, sporting a significant animosity over the German conquest of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War, ordered French mobilization on 1 August.
Germany declared war to Russia on the same day.
The United Kingdom declared war on Germany, on 4 August 1914, following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.
The World War I
The World War I, also known as The Great War, was a world-wide conflict occurrence between August, 1914 and November, 11, 1918.
The war occurred between the Triple Entente, leaded by the British Empire, France and Russian Empire, up to 1917, and U.S.A., in 1917.They defeated the Central Powers, also known as the Triple Alliance, leaded by German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Turk-Ottoman Empire, who caused the collapse of four empires and changed in a radical form the geopolitical map of the Europe and the Middle East.
At the beginning of the war, in 1914, Italy was allied of the Central Powers in the Triple Alliance but, considering that the alliance had a defensive character, Italy had not been preventively consulted on the declaration of war. The Italian government affirmed not to feel the alliance entailed and that, therefore, Italy remain neutral. The alliance with Germany remains purely formal.
In the event the Triple Alliance was essentially meaningless, for Italy subsequently negotiated a secret treaty with France, under which Italy would remain neutral if Germany attack France - which in the event transpired.
In 1914 Italy declared that Germany's war against France was an 'aggressive' one and so entitled Italy to claim neutrality. A year later, in 1915, Italy did enter the First World War, as an ally of Britain, France and Russia.
Germany's plan, the Schlieffen Plan, was to defeat the French quickly and then shift from defense to offense against Russia on the Eastern Front.
On the Western Front the small improvised trenches of the first few months rapidly grew deeper and more complex, gradually becoming vast areas of interlocking defensive works. The land war quickly became dominated by the muddy, bloody stalemate of Trench Warfare, a form of war in which both opposing armies had static lines of defense. The war of movement quickly turned into a war of position.
Attack followed others counterattack after counterattack. Neither side advanced much, but both sides suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. German and Allied armies produced essentially a matched pair of trench lines from the Swiss border in the south to the North Sea coast of Belgium.
Trench warfare prevailed on the Western Front, from September 1914 until the Germans launched their "Spring Offensive", Operation Michael, in March 1918.
Britain introduced the first tanks to the war, while Renault enhanced the concept by adding a turret. The use in large quantity of these light tanks by Jean-Baptiste Estienne can be considered a decisive evolution in World War I's strategies.
The diplomatic pressures of Great-Britain and France had made to firm in April 26, 1915, a private pact against the Austrian ally, called Pact of London, which Italy will enter on war in one month, in exchange of some territorial conquests that it got to the end of the war: the Trenton, Tirol, Trieste, Garza, Istria (with exception of the city of Fiume), part of the Dalmatia, a protectorate on Albania, some islands of the Dodecanese and some territories of the Turkish Empire, beyond an expansion of the African colonies, to the costs of Germany (Italy already have in Africa the Libyan, the Somalia and the Eritrea).
In 1917, Russia abandoned the war in reason of the beginning of the Socialist Revolution and the U.S. had entered the war. It only participated on the war as supplying, but when seeing its investments in danger had entered militarily on conflict.
From now on, the situation started to change, with the entrance in scene of new ways, as the combat-car and military aviation, and with the arrival to the European theater of operations the North American forces and the adjusted substitution of commanders for others with new vision of the war and new tactics and strategies.
They are launched, from both sides, great offensives that cause deep alterations in the drawing of the front, finishing for placing the German troops in the defensive and leading finally to its defeat. It is truth that Germany still acquires some breath when the revolution began in the Russian Empire and the Bolsheviks government, commanded for Lenin, readily signs the peace without conditions, thus annulling to the front east, but this circumstance will not be enough to prevent the defeat.
In March 1918 Germany launched the last major offensive on the Western Front. By May Germany had reached the Marne again, as in September 1914, and was again close to Paris. In the Second Battle of the Marne, however, the Allies were able to defend and then shift to offense due in part to the fatigue of the Germans and the arrival of more Americans.
The Germans were ultimately pushed back toward the German border. Other Central Power strongholds in Europe had fallen, and in early October, when a new government assumed power in Germany, it asked for an armistice.
The Armistice of Compiegne ends the war, and it was signed in 1918, at 11th hour of 11th day of the 11th month.
German Occupations
About 32 countries took part in World War I, however, some only in name. The seemingly disproportionate number of Allied nations is misleading.
On 28 July, the conflict opened with the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, followed by the German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg and France, and a Russian attack against Germany.
The Eastern Front used to be a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other.
After the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917. In the East, the Russian army successfully fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces but was forced back by the German army. Additional fronts opened after the Ottoman Empire joined the war in 1914, Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Romania in 1916.
The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, and Russia left the war after the October Revolution later that year. In 1918, with German offensive along the western front, United States forces entered the trenches and the Allies drove back the German armies in a series of successful offensives. Germany agreed to a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day.
Timeline of World War I
Austria-Hungary:- Declared War to Serbia in July 28, 1914;
- Declared War to Russia in August 5, 1914;
- Declared War to Belgium in August 28, 1914.
- Declared War to Serbia in October 14, 1915;
- Declared War to Romania in September 1, 1916.
- Declared War to Russia in August 1, 1914;
- Declared War to France in August 3, 1914;
- Declared War to Belgium in August 4, 1914.
- Declared War to Romania in August 30, 1916;
- Broke relations with U.S.A. on April 23, 1917.
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