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==Origins==
==Origins==
==Causes==
What caused the Great War? Historians still debate the questions involved. How did the conflict start? Was it a case of small mistakes escalating into a conflict that no one really wanted, or was the war an unavoidable consequence of deep conflicts? Why did it become stalemated? Why could it not be terminated? Most ominous of all, could it happen again? The war began in 1914 between two coalitions. The "Central Powers" comprised the German and Austro- Hungarian Empires, later joined by the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire. The "Allies" included the British, Russian and French Empires, Japan, and Serbia.<ref>Italy was originally a Central Power, but remained neutral in 1914 and joined the Allies in 1915.</ref> The powers had vast overseas empires in Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere (including Canada) that were active participants.


The origins of the war can be traced back to the [[unification of Germany]] in [[1871]].  Germany's annexation of the French region of [[Alsace-Lorraine]] in that year, a result of France's defeat in the [[Franco-Prussian War]], led to continuing French resentment against Germany. The German [[chancellor]], [[Otto von Bismarck]], made preventing France from finding an ally into the principal aim of his diplomacy, embarking on a complex policy of maintaining German friendship with both Austria-Hungary and Russia, while also exploiting French and British colonial rivalries.
In examining this war the "who" and "when" questions are less interesting than the "how" and "why" problems.  Since 1870 there had been no large war in Europe, largely because the major countries joined one of the two great alliances. Fear of a small conflict escalating into a large war provided deterrence--until 1914 when the system broke down. Historians and political scientists have debated endlessly why the system of alliances and deterrence collapsed, and how the Great War could have been avoided.


Rivalries between Austria and Russia in the Balkans made this task difficult, however.  The [[Three Emperor's League]] of [[1873]] faltered as a result of the Eastern Crisis of [[1875]]-[[1878]], and Bismarck signed a permanent military alliance with Austria-Hungary in [[1879]], which promised German aid to Austria-Hungary in resisting Russian aggression. This alliance was expanded in [[1882]] into the [[Triple Alliance]] between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, directed against the possibility of French aggression. Despite increasing Austro-Russian antagonism in the Balkans over the course o f the 1880s, Bismarck maintained good relations with Russia throughout his tenure, going so far as  to sign the [[Reinsurance Treaty]] with Russia in [[1887]], which promised Russia German aid in the event of an Austro-Hungarian attack.
===Ethnic nationalism===
Nationalism and ethnic tensions between Germans and Slavs were the basic reasons that the war was fought.  Religious affiliations (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Muslim) overlapped language to produce closed ethnic communities which were highly motivated to fight their traditional enemies. Typically, each ethnic group dominated a central homeland, which had minorities, and also claimed a larger territory. Some claims were centuries old, others were new; they all overlapped. The incantation "it's ours because we were here first" cast a spell on otherwise peaceful peoples and guaranteed perpetual hostility.  


When Bismarck was dismissed by the ambitious new Emperor [[Wilhelm II]] in [[1890]], however, his successors abandoned his policy of maintaining alliances with both Russia and Austria-Hungary, and instead chose not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty. This led Russia into the arms of the French, and a Franco-Russian Alliance was finalized by [[1894]]. Continental Europe was thus divided into two camps, the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy on one side, and the Dual Alliance of Russia and France on the other.
For 800 years the Germans had been moving east in Europe, pushing out the Slavs. Wealth was based on agriculture, so possession of land was decisive.  Germany had been unified from Prussia and numerous smaller countries in 1870, and rapidly built a powerful industrial economy with a strong agricultural base. Active imperialism led to the acquisition of numerous colonies in Africa and the Pacific, such as New Guinea. None of the colonies were profitable, but now Germany had a world empire. German’s main rival was Britain, with a smaller home population and a much larger empire, well protected by the world's strongest navy. By 1914 under the leadership of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Germany had a good fleet, but the Royal Navy remained well ahead in sea power. The naval race heightened rivalries between the two powers, but did not itself cause the war.  


Of the European great powers, only Britain remained aloof from the alliance system. The Germans, who saw the British as their natural allies, assumed that Britain's colonial rivalries with Russia and France would prevent the British from joining the opposing alliance, but hoped to attain a real alliance with Britain. When the British seemed uninterested in leaving their "Glorious Isolation," the Germans, influenced by the naval theories of the American [[Alfred Thayer Mahan]], embarked on a campaign of naval building, which the [[Kaiser]] and his naval minister, [[Alfred von Tirpitz]], hoped would help Germany achieve her "place in the sun" among the world powers, and force the British into an alliance through fear of German naval power. The German naval building campaign, however, was not able to meet its goals, and the British became increasingly alienated from the Germans, whom they increasingly saw as rivals and potential European hegemons. The British also became increasingly insecure in their position of avoiding permanent alliances, as the [[Boer War]] (1899-1902) saw nearly the entire western world arrayed against Britain's campaign of conquest against the Boer republics of [[South Africa]]. As a result, the British abandoned their policy of isolation, first signing an alliance with [[Japan]] in [[1902]] to safeguard British interests in East Asia against Germany and Russia, and then drawing closer to France.  The [[Entente Cordiale]] of [[1904]], which dealt with outstanding colonial questions between France and Britain in North Africa, symbolized the Franco-British ''rapprochement''.  
After 1900 the Slavs--led by huge Russia and little Serbia-- were fighting back. Militant Pan-Slavic ideology demanded that oppressive German, Hungarian and Ottoman rule be overthrown, so that the Slavs could have their own nation states. Trouble flared in the Balkans, where two recent wars had revealed a propensity to use violence as a first remedy. <ref> The term "Slavic" refers to languages, and by extension to the corresponding ethnic groups. The main Slavic languages were Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak, and Bulgarian. Note that the Albanians, Estonians, Finns, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians, Rumanians and Turks who also lived in east Europe did not consider themselves Slavic.</ref>  Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) promoted unrest among Serbs in nearby Bosnia-Herzogovina, a multi-ethnic region that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently taken from Turkey and now planned to incorporate. The imperial capital, Vienna, was increasingly nervous that unrest among the various minority groups would lead to the breakup of its empire. The only way to keep control was to aggressively suppress nationalist uprisings and stop outsiders from inciting rebellion. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne, visited Bosnia to legitimize his Empire's claim to that province and upgrade its status. In Sarajevo a team of Bosnian Serbs assassinated him and his wife.<ref> The assassination was planned in Serbia with the assistance of Serbian mid-level military and government officials, but not the government itself. Bosnia receded into the background in 1914, only to reappear center stage 79 years later. In 1993 the powers issued an ultimatum to Belgrade ordering it to stop helping the Bosnian Serbs, who were engaged in "ethnic cleansing" against Bosnian Muslims</ref>
===Escalation===
The Austrian Empire’s response escalated the conflict. The escalation was facilitated by the alliance ntwork the major countries had built. Austria was closly allied to Germany, and loosely to Turkey and Italy as the "Central Powers"; Italy dropped out. Russia and France were allied, with Russia playing the role of protector of the smaller Slavic nations, especially Serbia.  


The Germans, knowing that Russia, preoccupied with internal revolution and the disastrous [[Russo-Japanese  War]], provoked the [[First Moroccan Crisis]] in [[1905]] in an attempt to prove the Entente hollow and meaningless. Instead, the Crisis strengthened the Entente, as the British supported French ambitions in Morocco at the [[Congress of Algeciras]] in [[1906]]. The Crisis instead served to demonstrate German isolation.  The German position grew even worse the next year, with the Anglo-Russian Entente of [[1907]] settling outstanding conflicts of interest between Russia and Britain in [[Persia]] and Central Asia, and resulting in a general alignment of France, Britain, and Russia as the [[Triple Entente]].
Convinced that now was the time for a showdown, Vienna issued an ultimatum to Belgrade (Serbia). Berlin supported Vienna. Russia, which prided itself as the defender of Slavic peoples generally, and Eastern Orthodox in particular, announced support for Serbia, and France supported its ally Russia. Britain was officially neutral but was unwilling to accept the possibility that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would control the European continent militarily and economically. The United States refused to become involved in any way and insisted on complete neutrality.  


==The July Crisis and Declarations of War==
==The July 1914 Crisis and Declarations of War==
On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated while visiting the city of Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of several  assassins sent by The Black Hand, a pan-Slavic group financed by Serbia. Following the assassination and Germany's giving of a 'blank check' of support to the Austro-Hungarians, a series of demands are issued to Serbia by Austria-Hungary with a strict 48-hour deadline. While the Serbian government offers to meet many of the demands, Prime Minister Nikola Pasic refuses to turn over three men identified by Austrian authorities as being behind the attacks, declaring that to do so "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law." Three days later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war on Serbia.
On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated while visiting the city of Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of several  assassins sent by The Black Hand, a pan-Slavic group financed by Serbia. Following the assassination and Germany's giving of a 'blank check' of support to the Austro-Hungarians, a series of demands are issued to Serbia by Austria-Hungary with a strict 48-hour deadline. While the Serbian government offers to meet many of the demands, Prime Minister Nikola Pasic refuses to turn over three men identified by Austrian authorities as being behind the attacks, declaring that to do so "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law." Three days later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war on Serbia.


Revision as of 00:10, 12 July 2007

World War I, also known as the Great War, was a major European and global conflict which lasted from 1914 to 1918. It saw the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, fighting and defeated by the "Entente" or "Allied" powers, led by Britain, France, and Russia, later joined by Italy, and many other countries. The United States tried to remain neutral at first, but in April, 1917, it declared war on Germany; it cooperated with the Allies but did not formally join them, and it negotiated peace separately The Central Powers collapsed in November, 1918; Germany accepted an "armistice" which in practice was a surrender.

The conflgration was a "world war" because every continent became involved, with the US the last major country to join in. Most of the fighting took place on the "Western Front" (northern France) and the "Eastern Front" (Poland), with other campaigns in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, Iraq and East Africa. The naval war was fought primarily in the North Sea, the north Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. The conflagration was called the Great War, because of its size and because of the profound impact on peoples and governments. The troubles in the Middle East and the Balkans since the 1990s are echoes of the unfinished business of the Great War. It was the first total war. Every major power used the modern tools of railroads, telegraphs, radio, banking, mass media, medicine, chemistry, naval and aeronautical engineering, and bureaucratic management to channel resources into the war effort. Public opinion proved critical--the winners sustained the morale of their troops and the resolution of civilians; the losers failed in large part because they forfeited the confidence of their soldiers and the support of the homefront.

In 1914 no one dreamed that the war would last over four years, engulf the world, leave seven millions dead, cost two trillion dollars (in 2007 dollars), wipe out the German, Austro- Hungarian, Russian and Turkish, empires, ruin Italy, and leave the United States the dominant power on the globe.[1]


Origins

Causes

What caused the Great War? Historians still debate the questions involved. How did the conflict start? Was it a case of small mistakes escalating into a conflict that no one really wanted, or was the war an unavoidable consequence of deep conflicts? Why did it become stalemated? Why could it not be terminated? Most ominous of all, could it happen again? The war began in 1914 between two coalitions. The "Central Powers" comprised the German and Austro- Hungarian Empires, later joined by the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire. The "Allies" included the British, Russian and French Empires, Japan, and Serbia.[2] The powers had vast overseas empires in Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere (including Canada) that were active participants.

In examining this war the "who" and "when" questions are less interesting than the "how" and "why" problems. Since 1870 there had been no large war in Europe, largely because the major countries joined one of the two great alliances. Fear of a small conflict escalating into a large war provided deterrence--until 1914 when the system broke down. Historians and political scientists have debated endlessly why the system of alliances and deterrence collapsed, and how the Great War could have been avoided.

Ethnic nationalism

Nationalism and ethnic tensions between Germans and Slavs were the basic reasons that the war was fought. Religious affiliations (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Muslim) overlapped language to produce closed ethnic communities which were highly motivated to fight their traditional enemies. Typically, each ethnic group dominated a central homeland, which had minorities, and also claimed a larger territory. Some claims were centuries old, others were new; they all overlapped. The incantation "it's ours because we were here first" cast a spell on otherwise peaceful peoples and guaranteed perpetual hostility.

For 800 years the Germans had been moving east in Europe, pushing out the Slavs. Wealth was based on agriculture, so possession of land was decisive. Germany had been unified from Prussia and numerous smaller countries in 1870, and rapidly built a powerful industrial economy with a strong agricultural base. Active imperialism led to the acquisition of numerous colonies in Africa and the Pacific, such as New Guinea. None of the colonies were profitable, but now Germany had a world empire. German’s main rival was Britain, with a smaller home population and a much larger empire, well protected by the world's strongest navy. By 1914 under the leadership of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Germany had a good fleet, but the Royal Navy remained well ahead in sea power. The naval race heightened rivalries between the two powers, but did not itself cause the war.

After 1900 the Slavs--led by huge Russia and little Serbia-- were fighting back. Militant Pan-Slavic ideology demanded that oppressive German, Hungarian and Ottoman rule be overthrown, so that the Slavs could have their own nation states. Trouble flared in the Balkans, where two recent wars had revealed a propensity to use violence as a first remedy. [3] Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) promoted unrest among Serbs in nearby Bosnia-Herzogovina, a multi-ethnic region that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently taken from Turkey and now planned to incorporate. The imperial capital, Vienna, was increasingly nervous that unrest among the various minority groups would lead to the breakup of its empire. The only way to keep control was to aggressively suppress nationalist uprisings and stop outsiders from inciting rebellion. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne, visited Bosnia to legitimize his Empire's claim to that province and upgrade its status. In Sarajevo a team of Bosnian Serbs assassinated him and his wife.[4]

Escalation

The Austrian Empire’s response escalated the conflict. The escalation was facilitated by the alliance ntwork the major countries had built. Austria was closly allied to Germany, and loosely to Turkey and Italy as the "Central Powers"; Italy dropped out. Russia and France were allied, with Russia playing the role of protector of the smaller Slavic nations, especially Serbia.

Convinced that now was the time for a showdown, Vienna issued an ultimatum to Belgrade (Serbia). Berlin supported Vienna. Russia, which prided itself as the defender of Slavic peoples generally, and Eastern Orthodox in particular, announced support for Serbia, and France supported its ally Russia. Britain was officially neutral but was unwilling to accept the possibility that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire would control the European continent militarily and economically. The United States refused to become involved in any way and insisted on complete neutrality.

The July 1914 Crisis and Declarations of War

On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated while visiting the city of Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of several assassins sent by The Black Hand, a pan-Slavic group financed by Serbia. Following the assassination and Germany's giving of a 'blank check' of support to the Austro-Hungarians, a series of demands are issued to Serbia by Austria-Hungary with a strict 48-hour deadline. While the Serbian government offers to meet many of the demands, Prime Minister Nikola Pasic refuses to turn over three men identified by Austrian authorities as being behind the attacks, declaring that to do so "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law." Three days later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war on Serbia.

Opening Campaigns

1915

1916

1917

1918

The Peace Settlement

Basic Bibliography

See World War I, Bibliography for full listing of major books

  • American Heritage History of WWI. 1964. heavily illustrated
  • Cawood, Ian, and David Mckinnon-Bell. The First World War. (2001), 174pp online edition
  • Coffman, Edward M. The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (1998)
  • Cruttwell, C. R. M. F. A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 (1934), general military history
  • Esposito, Vincent J. The West Point Atlas of American Wars: 1900-1918 (1997) despite the title covers entire war; online maps from this atlas
  • Evans, David. Teach yourself— the First World War. (2004)
  • Falls, Cyril. The Great War (1960), general military history
  • Halpern, Paul G. A Naval History of World War I(1995)
  • Henig, Ruth The Origins of the First World War (2002) 76pp online edition
  • Joll, James. The Origins of the First World War. (3rd ed 2006).
  • Keegan, John. The First World War (1999). general military history by leading scholar
  • Kennett, Lee. First Air War, 1914-1918 (1999). 288 pp.
  • Strachan, Hew, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, a collection of chapters from various scholars
  • Strachan, Hew. The First World War (2004): a 385pp version of his multivolume history
  • Taylor, A. J. P. The First World War: An Illustrated History, 1963
  • Tucker, Spencer, ed. The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and Military History (5 vol 2005), online at eBook.com, the most detailed reference source; articles by specialists cover all aspects of the war
  • Winter, J. M. The Experience of World War I (2nd ed 2005), topical essays; well illustrated

External links

  1. ↑ The British Empire survived the war, although it had to give virtually complete autonomy to Canada, Australia. New Zealand and South Africa. The French, Belgian and Italian Empires also survived. The US "Empire" shrank, as Congress made a commitment to give the Philippines its eventual independence, and to integrate Puerto Rico by granting full citizenship.
  2. ↑ Italy was originally a Central Power, but remained neutral in 1914 and joined the Allies in 1915.
  3. ↑ The term "Slavic" refers to languages, and by extension to the corresponding ethnic groups. The main Slavic languages were Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak, and Bulgarian. Note that the Albanians, Estonians, Finns, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians, Rumanians and Turks who also lived in east Europe did not consider themselves Slavic.
  4. ↑ The assassination was planned in Serbia with the assistance of Serbian mid-level military and government officials, but not the government itself. Bosnia receded into the background in 1914, only to reappear center stage 79 years later. In 1993 the powers issued an ultimatum to Belgrade ordering it to stop helping the Bosnian Serbs, who were engaged in "ethnic cleansing" against Bosnian Muslims
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