World War 1
World War 2
March 5, 2023
Dating, How to
March 6, 2023The Great War, World War 1
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until it had assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would back its cause.
The authorities of Austria-Hungary feared that a Russian incursion would involve France, Russia’s ally, and possibly also Great Britain.
On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm provided Austria-Hungary with a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check,” guaranteeing Germany’s support in the event of war.
The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then gave Serbia an ultimatum with terms so severe that acceptance was nearly impossible.
First World War Starts
The Serbian government, convinced that Austria-Hungary was preparing for war, mobilised the Serbian army and requested assistance from Russia.
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, and the fragile truce between Europe’s big nations swiftly disintegrated.
Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and Serbia lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I commenced
The loss put a stop to Germany’s ambitions for a swift win in France.
The Western Front was the scene of a horrific battle of attrition that lasted for more than three years.
The battles at Verdun (February to December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme were the most protracted and costly of this campaign (July-November 1916).
At the Battle of Verdun alone, German and French armies lost close to one million men.
World War I Literature and Art
The violence on the battlefields of the Western Front and the hardships its men endured for years after the war ended inspired works of literature such as “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque and “In Flanders Fields” by Canadian medic Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.
In the final poem, McCrae writes from the fallen soldiers’ perspective.
The poem, which was published in 1915, inspired the adoption of the poppy as a symbol of memory.
Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash, and David Bomberg used their experiences as soldiers in World War 1 to create works of art that captured the agony of trench warfare and explored the themes of technology, violence, and devastated landscapes
The Russian Revolution of 1917, led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, overthrew the czarist regime and ended Russia’s participation in World War I.
Early in December 1917, Russia and the Central Powers agreed an armistice, releasing German forces to face the surviving Allies on the Western Front.hyunm
The United States enters World War
At the commencement of World War I in 1914, the United States maintained its policy of neutrality, as advocated by President Woodrow Wilson, while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European nations on both sides of the battle.
Yet, maintaining neutrality became increasingly impossible in the face of unrestrained German submarine warfare against neutral ships, particularly those carrying passengers.
In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sank a number of commercial and passenger ships, including some American vessels.
In May 1915, widespread outrage over the sinking by a German U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania, carrying hundreds of American passengers from New York to Liverpool, England, helped shift the tide of American public opinion against Germany.
In February 1917, the United States Congress enacted a $250 million arms appropriations package to prepare the country for war.
The following month, Germany sank four additional U.S. cargo ships, and on April 2, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
World War I Aircraft
World War I was the first significant conflict to utilise the power of aircraft.
Though not as influential as the British Royal Navy or Nazi U-boats, the use of aeroplanes in World War I foreshadowed their subsequent crucial position in global military conflicts.
Aviation was a relatively new field before the outbreak of World War I; the Wright brothers’ first continuous flight occurred only eleven years prior, in 1903.
Initially, aircraft were largely employed for reconnaissance tasks.
During the First Battle of the Marne, information relayed by pilots enabled the allies to exploit weak points in the German lines, so facilitating the Allies’ expulsion of Germany from France.
The first machine guns were successfully mounted on aircraft in the United States in June 1912, but they were flawed; a mistimed bullet could easily destroy the plane’s propeller.
The French aircraft Morane-Saulnier L provided a solution: the propeller was protected with deflector wedges to avoid bullet strikes.
The French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service, and the Imperial Russian Air Service utilised the Morane-Saulnier Type L.
The British Bristol Type 22 was a widely utilised reconnaissance and combat aircraft.
In 1915, the Netherlands designer Anthony Fokker enhanced the French deflector system.
To prevent collisions, his “interrupter” timed the firing of the weapons with the propeller of the plane.
During World War I, Fokker’s most popular aircraft was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, but he produced over 40 different types of aircraft for the Germans.
In 1915, the Allies launched the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first bomber with two engines.
As aviation technology advanced, long-range heavy bombers like as the 1917-introduced German Gotha G.V. were utilised to attack cities such as London
The Second Battle of the Marne swung the tide of the war dramatically in favour of the Allies, who were able to retake a large portion of France and Belgium in the following months.
Additional Black Regiments,
Including the Harlem Hellfighters
Before the start of World War I, there were four all-Black regiments in the United States military: the 24th and 25th Infantry, as well as the 9th and 10th Cavalry.
The four regiments consisted of distinguished troops who fought in the Spanish-American and American-Indian Wars and served in American territories.
Yet, they were not deployed overseas during World War I.
It was unimaginable to the U.S. military for blacks to serve alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe.
Instead, the first African-American troops sent overseas served in segregated labour battalions, were limited to menial tasks in the Army and Navy, and were completely excluded from the Marines.
The majority of their responsibilities consisted of unloading ships, transferring items from train terminals, bases, and ports, digging trenches, cooking, doing maintenance, removing barbed wire and broken equipment, and burying soldiers.
Treaty of Versaille
At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Allied leaders expressed a desire to construct a post-war society that would protect against future hostilities of comparable scope.
Some optimistic participants even began to refer to World War I as “the War to End All Wars.”
The 28 June 1919 Treaty of Versailles, however, would not attain this noble objective.
Afflicted with war guilt, enormous reparations, and exclusion from the League of Nations, Germany felt duped into signing the treaty, having believed that any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as stated by President Wilson in his famous January 1918 Fourteen Points speech.
As the years passed, Germany’s disdain of the Versailles Treaty and its architects grew into a simmering bitterness that, twenty years later, would be cited as one of the reasons of World War II
Signed in 1925, the Geneva Convention agreements continue to ban the use of chemical and biological agents in comba
G.I.T.C
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Before the outbreak of World War I, tensions had been mounting throughout Europe, notably in the problematic Balkan region in southeast Europe.
Many alliances including European powers, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (especially in Bosnia, Serbia, and Herzegovina) posed a threat to their survival.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914, by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. This event was the spark that started World War I.
Princip and other nationalists fought to end the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The killing of Franz Ferdinand triggered a fast rising chain of events: Austria-Hungary, along with many other countries, blamed the Serbian government for the crime and sought to use it as reason for resolving the issue of Serbian nationalism for good
This is the Western front
According to the Schlieffen Plan (called for its architect, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany entered World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and facing Russia in the east.
German troops crossed the border into Belgium on August 4, 1914.
In the first combat of World War I, on August 15, the Germans attacked the heavily fortified city of Liege with the most potent weapons in their arsenal: massive siege cannons.
As they moved through Belgium towards France, the Germans left death and ruin in their wake, killing civilians and murdering a Belgian priest suspected of instigating civilian resistance.
First Engagement at the Marne
At the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces engaged the invading German army, which had by then advanced to within 30 miles of Paris in northeastern France.
The Allies halted the German assault and launched a successful counteroffensive, forcing the enemy to retreat north of the Aisne River
This is the Eastern Front
In late August 1914, on the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded German-held East Prussia and Poland, but were halted by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg.
Despite this win, Russia’s attack compelled Germany to transfer two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, which contributed to Germany’s defeat in the Battle of the Marne.
The ability of Russia’s enormous war machine to mobilise relatively rapidly in the east, combined with the fierce Allied opposition in France, insured a longer, more arduous fight rather than the fast victory Germany had intended to achieve under the Schlieffen Plan.
Russian Revolution
From 1914 through 1916, Russia’s army attempted to break through German defences on the Eastern Front of World War I, but failed.
The majority of Russia’s people, particularly the impoverished workers and peasants, were more dissatisfied as a result of military defeat, economic instability, and a lack of food and other necessities.
This heightened animosity was directed towards the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra
Gallipoli Campaign
Europe having effectively entered a state of stalemate in World War I, the Allies strove to achieve victory against the Ottoman Empire, which had joined the Central Powers in late 1914.
In April 1915, after a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea), Allied forces headed by the United Kingdom launched a massive land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula
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The invasion was also a terrible failure, and in January 1916, after incurring 250,000 losses, Allied forces withdrew completely from the peninsula’s coastlines.
In Egypt and Mesopotamia, British-led forces also fought the Ottoman Turks, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops engaged in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, which formed the frontier between the two countries.
Conflict of the Isonzo
The First Battle of the Isonzo occurred in late spring of 1915, shortly after Italy joined the war on the side of the Allies
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In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, popularly known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), Austria-Hungary won a decisive victory with the assistance of German reinforcements.
Following Caporetto, Italy’s allies intensified their help.
The Allies began to retake the Italian Front after British, French, and later American soldiers landed in the region.
First World War at Sea
In the years preceding World War I, the Royal Navy’s superiority was unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made significant progress towards reducing the gap.
Germany’s naval might was bolstered by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank, in which the British launched a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea in January 1915, the German navy chose not to engage Britain’s strong Royal Navy in a major fight for more than a year, instead relying heavily on its U-boats.
The largest naval combat of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916), preserved British naval superiority in the North Sea, and Germany never again attempted to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the conflict.
Their speed and mobility proved to be significantly more lethal than previous Zeppelin raids by Germany.
By the end of the war, the Allies produced five times as many aircraft as the Germans. The Brits established the Royal Air Force, or RAF, on April 1, 1918, making it the first air force to be a separate military branch
independent of the navy or army. The Second Battle of Marne With the ceasefire with Russia,
Germany was allowed to increase its strength on the Western Front, and Allied troops fought to withstand another German attack until promised reinforcements from the United States could arrive.
German troops started their final offensive of the war on July 15, 1918, attacking French forces (supported by 85,000 American troops and a portion of the British Expeditionary Army) in the Second Battle of the Marne.
The Allies successfully repelled the Nazi attack and, three days later, launched their own counteroffensive.
After suffering heavy losses, Germany was had to abandon a planned onslaught further north, in the Flanders region spanning France and Belgium, which had represented its greatest chance for victory
In 1917, in response to complaints from the Black community and civil rights organisations regarding its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military established the 92nd and 93rd Divisions as Black fighting formations.
Individually and insufficiently trained in the United States, the divisions fared differently during the conflict.
In September 1918, the 92nd was criticised for its performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign.
Nonetheless, the 93rd Division was more successful. General John Pershing, commander of the American
Expeditionary Forces, dispatched regiments from the 93rd Division to France, as France had experience fighting with Black soldiers in the Senegalese French Colonial army.
The 369 regiment of the 93rd Division, known as the Harlem Hellfighters, fought so valiantly, spending 191 days on the front lines, longer than any other AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Cross de Guerre.
More than 350,000 African-American soldiers served in various roles during World War I.
Nearing Armistice
By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were losing ground on every front. Late in October 1918, despite the Turkish triumph at Gallipoli, further setbacks by invading armies and an Arab rebellion that decimated the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, the Turks signed a peace pact with the Allies.
On November 4, Austria-Hungary, which was disintegrating internally due to increasing nationalist movements among its heterogeneous people, signed an armistice.
On November 11, 1918, Germany was eventually compelled to seek an armistice due to depleting resources on the battlefield, unrest on the home front, and the surrender of its allies, bringing an end to World War I.
Victims of World War I
More than 9 million men were killed in World War One, while an additional 21 million were wounded. The amount of civilian casualties is close to 10 million.
The two countries most hit were Germany and France, which each sent approximately 80% of their male population between the ages of 15 and 49 into conflict.
Four venerable imperial dynasties—Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey—fell as a result of the political turmoil that surrounded World War I.
Legacy of World War I During World War I, millions of women entered the labour to replace men who went to war or did not return. This resulted in immense societal upheaval.
The first global war contributed to the development of one of the world’s deadliest pandemics, the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, which is estimated to have killed between 20 and 50 million people.
The First World War is sometimes known as “the first modern conflict.”
During World War I, numerous technology now associated with military conflict, like machine guns, tanks, aerial combat, and radio communications, were introduced on a vast scale.
During World War I, the devastating consequences of chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene on soldiers and civilians aroused public and military opposition to their ongoing deployment.
iliasro
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