An unimagined tragedy

The First World War started in 1914 and ended in 1918. It would be a war fought unlike any before. Industrialization and new technology had changed warfare in many ways. Most of the main combatants in the First World War were entering a new, deadlier battleground.

War plans

Every country thought it was well prepared for the First World War. In some countries, generals had planned for years for a war like this. Most military leaders understood that warfare had changed because of advances in industry and technology. Railroads, for example, were a game-changer that would make everything happen faster.

The most important plan at the beginning of the war was the Schlieffen Plan. It was a German plan first proposed in 1891 to defeat both Russia and France. But fighting both opponents at once, on two sides of Germany, was risky. Planners knew that France had more modern railways and could get an army to Germany before Russia. Russia was larger and less industrialized than France.

The Germans set up a plan to quickly invade France and knock them out of the war first. The Germans would then turn around and fight Russia. The only problem was the Germans wanted to go through Belgium to get to France. Britain had already promised to protect Belgium against invaders. Germany went ahead with its plan, hoping the British wouldn’t come.

The Schlieffen Plan went into operation almost immediately when the war began. The conflict started following the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He was killed on June 28, 1914, by Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary claimed Princip was acting on behalf of Serbia and declared war. Russia entered the war on Serbia’s side. Germany had to join their Austro-Hungarian allies in the war against Russia. Just as the Schlieffen Plan predicted, France came in on the side of their Russian allies.

Trenches on the Western Front

The first big battles of the war were fought in the west. The German army invaded Belgium and France. Unfortunately for the Germans, Britain did enter the war. British forces joined the French, forming the alliance known as the Triple Entente.¹ The Germans stuck to their plan. Along the Western Front, armies were pushed back towards Paris, the French capital. The efforts, however, turned out to be too slow. By September 5, the French were pushing back. They staged a counterattack known as the Battle of the Marne.

As the Germans retreated, the nature of the conflict began to change. Germany was on the attack, but defenders had a big advantage. Modern weapons, especially machine guns, could put out vast amounts of bullets very quickly. One form of defense arose in response to this as defenders dug into the ground, creating trenches. Slowly the whole battlefront in the west became a series of trenches leading from Switzerland to the sea.

The war beyond the Western Front

While the Western Front was becoming a series of trenches, the Russian Empire got its armies to the front lines. At first, the huge Russian armies were pretty effective against the Austro-Hungarian forces. Together with their allies in Serbia, they defeated the Austro-Hungarians in several small battles. However, the two Russian armies facing the Germans had issues. They were divided, in part because of bad communications. At the end of August 1914, one Russian army was surrounded by German forces at Tannenberg and forced to surrender. Still, the Russians remained in the war.

Meanwhile, new countries joined the war. Two of the most important were the Ottoman Empire and Italy. The Ottomans entered the war on the German and Austro-Hungarian side. Together, they formed the Central Powers. The Ottomans wanted to take back land lost to Russia in previous wars. However, their first attacks on Russia were not successful. Italy, similarly, entered the war hoping to win back land from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their first attacks were unsuccessful, too.

Already, the war was extended far beyond Europe. Japan entered the conflict on the side of its ally, Great Britain, within the first week of the war. Their modern navy quickly conquered German colonies in China and the Pacific. In Africa, German colonies were also under attack. British and French forces conquered German Togo and Cameroon in West Africa. British South African forces occupied German South-West Africa in 1915. The German armies in East Africa held out until the end of the war.

Attempting to break the stalemate

By the middle of 1915, the war was stuck with neither side advancing. Along the Western Front, a series of small attacks ended in terrible failure. The armies settled down in exhaustion. One strategy was to make the attacks even bigger, but the result was just more casualties.

There were also attempts to start a naval battle to shift the balance of the war. The German fleet sailed out to challenge the British Home Fleet at the end of May 1916. The resulting battle didn’t solve anything.

Another strategy for breaking the stalemate was to knock one opponent out of the war. The British, for example, thought they could break down the Ottoman Empire. They moved to take the capital, Constantinople. Today, the city is known as Istanbul. The British sent a force to land along the coast near Constantinople. This attack also failed. It left 250,000 casualties on either side.

Both sides also tried to damage each other through economic means. The British fleet tried to stop any goods from going into Germany. It largely succeeded, but very slowly. Meanwhile, the Germans tried to use U-boats (submarines) to strangle the British economy. This strategy was effective for a while, but U-boats lost their advantage as the war dragged on.

Russia and the Americans

Eventually, the Central Powers did manage to knock out Russia. Russian armies had suffered several losses. The Russian economy was struggling because of the war. This led to the Russian Revolution. After the communist Bolsheviks took power of Russia’s government, Russia exited the war.

This should have transformed the conflict to the benefit of Germany and its allies. However, just as the Russians were leaving, the United States was entering the conflict. The U.S. entered the war for two important reasons. First, Germany was taking part in unrestricted submarine warfare, which was affecting American shipping. Second, Germany had reached out to Mexico to create an alliance.

American troops began to arrive in the summer of 1917. Their presence boosted morale in their exhausted allies.

By late 1918, things were looking bad for the Central Powers. Their armies were in retreat almost everywhere.
Britain and local allies pushed the Ottoman forces out of Mesopotamia and Arabia in September. The Austro-
Hungarians were defeated by the Italians in an important battle in June. Also, some of the Austro-Hungarians’ subject peoples were declaring independence. They included Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Poles. German soldiers held on as best they could. However, they faced terrible economic conditions at home. In late October, parts of the German navy began to revolt. Then, a new government came to power, determined to end the war. On November 11, an armistice was signed. An armistice is an agreement to stop fighting on both sides. It was a deal between the victorious Triple Entente and their allies on the one hand, and Germany on the other.

Conclusions

The First World War was a terrible four-year war of mud and death. Everyone hoped it would be “the war to end all wars,” but unfortunately it was not.

1 By treaty, the Franco-Russian-British Triple Entente had existed since 1907. The British entry into the war meant that it was actually in operation.