world war I (WWI or WW1),
also known as the First World War, was a global
war centered in Europe
that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. From the time of
its occurrence until the approach of World War II in
1939, it was called simply the World War or the Great War, and
thereafter the First World War or World War I.[5][6][7] In
America it was initially called the European War.[8]
More than 9 million combatants were
killed: a scale of death impacted by industrial
advancements, geographic stalemate and reliance on human wave attacks.
It was the fifth-deadliest conflict in
world history, paving the way for major political changes, including
revolutions in many of the nations involved.[9]
The war drew in all the world's economic great powers,[10]
which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies
(based on the Triple Entente of
the United Kingdom, France
and the Russian Empire)
and the Central Powers of
Germany
and Austria-Hungary.
Although Italy
had also been a member of the Triple
Alliance alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary, it
did not join the Central Powers, as Austria-Hungary had taken the offensive
against the terms of the alliance.[11]
These alliances were both reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the
war: Italy, Japan
and the United States
joined the Allies, and the Ottoman Empire
and Bulgaria
the Central Powers. Ultimately, more than 70 million military personnel,
including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in
history.[12][13]
Although a resurgence
of imperialism was an underlying cause, the immediate
trigger for war was the 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav
nationalist Gavrilo
Princip in Sarajevo.
This set off a diplomatic crisis
when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia,[14][15]
and international alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked.
Within weeks, the major powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around
the world.
On 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians fired the first shots
in preparation for the invasion of Serbia.[16][17] As
Russia mobilized, Germany invaded neutral Belgium
and Luxembourg
before moving towards France, leading Britain to declare war on Germany. After
the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, what became known as the Western
Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line
that would change little until 1917. Meanwhile, on the Eastern
Front, the Russian army was successful against the
Austro-Hungarians, but was stopped in its invasion
of East Prussia by the Germans. In November 1914, the
Ottoman Empire joined the war, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and
the Sinai. Italy and Bulgaria went to war in 1915 and Romania in
1916.
The war approached a resolution after the Russian Tsar's
government collapsed
in March 1917 and a
subsequent revolution in November brought the Russians to
terms with the Central Powers. After a 1918 German offensive along the western
front, the Allies drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives
and American forces began entering the trenches. Germany, which had its
own trouble with revolutionaries, agreed to an armistice on
11 November 1918, ending the war in victory for the Allies.
By the end of the war, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian
and Ottoman
empires—ceased to exist. The successor states of the former two lost
substantial
territory, while the latter two were dismantled. The map of Europe was redrawn,
with several independent nations
restored or created. The League
of Nations formed with the aim of preventing any
repetition of such an appalling conflict. This aim failed, with weakened
states, renewed European nationalism and the humiliation of Germany
contributing to the rise of fascism and the conditions for World War II.
Names
In Canada, Maclean's
Magazine in October 1914 said, "Some wars name themselves. This is
the Great War."[18] A
history of the origins and early months of the war published in New York in
late 1914 was titled The World War.[19]
During the Interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking
countries.
The term "First World War" was first used in
September 1914 by the German philosopher Ernst
Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt
that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become
the first world war in the full sense of the word."[20] The First World War was also the
title of a 1920 history by the officer and journalist Charles
à Court Repington.[21]
After the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the terms World War I or the First World War became standard,
with British and Canadian historians favouring the First World War, and Americans World War I.
Background
In the 19th Century, the major European powers had gone
to great lengths to maintain a balance of power throughout Europe,
resulting in the existence of a complex network of political and military
alliances throughout the continent by 1900.[11]
These had started in 1815, with the Holy
Alliance between Prussia,
Russia, and Austria. Then, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
negotiated the League
of the Three Emperors (German: Dreikaiserbund) between the monarchs
of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria-Hungary
and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and
Austria-Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879, called the Dual
Alliance. This was seen as a method of countering Russian influence in the Balkans as
the Ottoman Empire
continued to weaken.[11] In
1882, this alliance was expanded to include Italy in what became the Triple
Alliance.[22]
Bismarck had especially worked to hold Russia at Germany's side to avoid a
two-front war with France and Russia. When Wilhelm
II ascended to the throne as German
Emperor (Kaiser),
Bismarck was compelled to retire and his system of alliances was gradually de-emphasized.
For example, the Kaiser refused to renew the Reinsurance
Treaty with Russia in 1890. Two years later, the Franco-Russian
Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the
Triple Alliance. In 1904, Britain signed a series of agreements with France,
the Entente Cordiale,
and in 1907, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian
Convention. While these agreements did not formally
ally Britain with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future
conflict involving France or Russia a possibility, and the system of
interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the Triple Entente.
Ethno-linguistic
map of Austria-Hungary, 1910
German industrial and economic power had grown greatly
after unification
and the foundation of the Empire in 1871. From the
mid-1890s on, the government of Wilhelm II used this base to devote significant
economic resources for building up the Kaiserliche
Marine (Imperial
German Navy), established by Admiral Alfred
von Tirpitz, in rivalry with the British Royal Navy
for world naval supremacy.[23] As
a result, each nation strove to out-build the other in terms of capital ships.
With the launch of HMS Dreadnought in
1906, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German
rival.[23]
The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of
Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to producing
the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict.[24]
Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased
by 50%.[25]
Austria-Hungary precipitated the Bosnian crisis of
1908–1909 by officially annexing the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which
it had occupied since 1878. This angered the Kingdom of Serbia
and its patron, the Pan-Slavic
and Orthodox Russian Empire.[26]
Russian political maneuvering in the region destabilized peace accords, which
were already fracturing in what was known as "the powder
keg of Europe".[26] In
1912 and 1913, the First Balkan War
was fought between the Balkan League
and the fracturing Ottoman Empire. The resulting Treaty
of London further shrank the Ottoman Empire, creating
an independent Albanian State while enlarging the territorial holdings of
Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. When Bulgaria attacked both Serbia
and Greece on 16 June 1913, it lost most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece and Southern Dobruja to
Romania in the 33-day Second Balkan War,
further destabilizing the region.
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo
Princip, a Bosnian Serb
student and member of Young Bosnia,
assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria,
in Sarajevo,
Bosnia.[28]
This began a month of diplomatic maneuvering between Austria-Hungary, Germany,
Russia, France, and Britain called the July Crisis.
Believing correctly that Serbian officials (especially the officers of the Black
Hand) were involved in the plot, and wanting to
finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia,[29]
Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia the July
Ultimatum, a series of ten demands intentionally made
unacceptable, intending to provoke a war with Serbia.[30]
When Serbia agreed to only eight of the ten demands, Austria-Hungary declared
war on 28 July 1914. Strachan
argues, "Whether an equivocal and early response by Serbia would have made
any difference to Austria-Hungary's behavior must be doubtful. Franz Ferdinand
was not the sort of personality who commanded popularity, and his demise did
not cast the empire into deepest mourning".[31]
The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria-Hungary to
eliminate its influence in the Balkans, and in support of its longtime Serb
protégé, ordered a partial mobilization one day later.[22]
Germany mobilized on 30 July. Germany's war plan, the Schlieffen Plan,
relied on a quick, massive invasion of France to eliminate the threat on the
West, before turning east against Russia. Simultaneously with its mobilization
against Russia, therefore, the German government issued demands that France
remain neutral. The French cabinet resisted military pressure to commence
immediate mobilization, and ordered its troops to withdraw 10 km
(6 mi) from the border to avoid any incident. France only mobilized on the
evening of 2 August, when Germany invaded Belgium and attacked French troops.
Germany declared war on Russia on the same day.[32] Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August
1914, following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum
that Belgium must be kept neutral.
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