Other information: 2018

Sunday, October 07, 2018

More WWII Information

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6888th_Central_Postal_Directory_Battalion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Gee_(pilot)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Sharp_(aviator)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAVES

http://soldiers.dodlive.mil/2016/03/sorting-the-mail-blazing-a-trail-african-american-women-in-wwii/

http://www.daytonwalkoffame.citymax.com/earley.html

https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2015/03/10/pictorial-history-of-black-women-in-the-us-navy-during-world-war-ii-and-beyond/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMnZJD63I8

https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/black-women-in-america-black-women-american-women-in-world-war-ii/

https://newsroom.woundedwarriorproject.org/Hidden-Figures-Roll-Call-Brave-Black-Women-In-the-U-S-Military

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Economic News

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

World War One Part 2 (100 Years Later)

The End of the War (1917-1918)

From 1917 to 1918, massive developments existed during World War One. The British blockade in 1917 started to harm the German military. In response, the German General Staff on February 1917 convinced Chancellor Theoblad von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans wanted to starve the British out of the war. German plans estimated that unrestricted submarine warfare would cost Britain a monthly shipping loss of 600,000 tons. The General Staff said that this policy would definitely cause America to go into the conflict. Yet, they believed that the British shipping losses would increase to the point that they would be forced to have peace talks after 5 or 6 months. This would be before American intervention could make an impact. Tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February to July. It peaked at 860,000 tons in April. After July, the newly re-introduced convoy system was effective in reducing the U-boat threat. Britain was safe from starvation. German industrial output fell. The United States ultimately joined WWI far before than what Germany had anticipated. By May 3, 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, the French 2nd Colonial Division (veterans of the Battle of Verdun) refused orders.

They were drunk and without their weapons. The officers didn’t have the means to punish an entire division. Harsh measures were not immediately implemented. The French Army mutinies spread to 54 French divisions and 20,000 men deserted. Yet, there were appeals to patriotism and duty. Mass arrested and trials encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches. Although, the French soldiers refused to participate in further offensive action. Robert Nivelle was removed form command on May 16, 1917. He was replaced by General Philippe Petain, who suspended bloody large scale attacks.

The Central Powers had a victory at the Battle of Caporetto. The Allies went to convene the Rapallo Conference at which they created the Rapallo Conference. They formed the Supreme War Council to co-ordinate planning. Previously, the British and French armies had separate commands. On December, the Central Powers signed an armistice with Russia, thus freeing large numbers of German troops for use in the west. With German reinforcements and new American troops pouring in, the outcome was to be decided on the Western Front. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war, but they held high hopes for success based on a final quick offensive. Furthermore, both sides became increasingly fearful of social unrest and revolution in Europe. Thus, both sides urgently sought a decisive victory. In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria secretly wanted peace negotiations with Clemenceau through his wife’s brother Sixtus in Belgium as an intermediary. He did this without the knowledge of Germany. Italy opposed the proposals. When the negotiations failed, his attempt was revealed to Germany. This caused a diplomatic catastrophe.

The Ottoman Empire conflict during WWI ultimately ended with a massive change in the Middle East politically. The First and Second Battles of Gaza came about in March and April of 1917. German and Ottoman forces stopped the advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which started in August of 1916 at the Battle of Romani. At the end of October, the Sinai and Palestine Campaign resumed. This was when General Edmund Allenby’s XXth Corps, XXI Cops, and Desert Corps won the Battle of Beersheba. Two Ottoman armies were defeated a few weeks later at the Battle of Mughar Ridge and early in December, Jerusalem was capture after another Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Jerusalem. Around this time, Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein was relieved of his duties as the Eighth Army’s commander. He was replaced by Djevad Pasha and a few months later, the commander of the Ottoman Army in Palestine, Erich von Falkenhayn, was replaced by Otto Liman von Sanders. In early 1918, the front line was extended and the Jordan Valley was occupied. This was after the First Transjordan and the Second Transjordan attacks by British Empire forces in March and April of 1918. In March, most of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's British infantry and Yeomanry cavalry were sent to the Western Front as a consequence of the Spring Offensive. They were replaced by Indian Army units. During several months of reorganization and training of the summer, a number of attacks were carried out on sections of the Ottoman front line. These forces pushed the front lien north to more advantageous positions for the Entente in preparation for an attack and to acclimatize the newly arrived Indian Army Infantry. It was not until the middle of September that the integrated force was ready for large scale operations.

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There was the reorganized Egyptian Expeditionary Force. It had another division. It defeated Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September of 1918. 2 days later, the British and Indian infantry (supported by a barrage) broke the Ottoman front line. They captured the headquarters of the Eighth Ottoman Army at Tulkarm. This was a continuous trench lines at Tabsor, Arara, and the Seventh Army (Ottoman Empire) headquarters at Nablus. The Desert Mounted Corps rode in the front line created by the infantry. There were operations by Australian Light Horse, British mounted Yeomanry, Indian Lancers, and New Zealand Mounted Rifle brigades in the Jezreel Valley, they captured Nazareth, Afulah and Beisan, Jenin, along with Haifaon the Mediterranean coast and Daraa east of the Jordan River on the Hejaz railway. Samakh and Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee were captured on the way northwards to Damascus. Meanwhile, Chaytor's Force of Australian light horse, New Zealand mounted rifles, Indian, British West Indies and Jewish infantry captured the crossings of the Jordan River, Es Salt, Amman and at Ziza most of the Fourth Army (Ottoman Empire). The Armistice of Mudros, signed at the end of October, ended hostilities with the Ottoman Empire when fighting was continuing north of Aleppo.

On August 16, 1917, Pope Benedict XV wanted to show a peace proposal. He wanted no annexations, restoration of the Kingdom of Poland, freedom of the seas, no retaliatory economic conflicts, no reparations, no annexations, and other actions. It didn’t work out. During the early part of WWI, the United States wasn’t involved in the war as following a policy of non-intervention. America wanted to avoid conflict and broker a peace. When the German U-boat U-20 sank the British liner RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson said that America is too “proud to fight.” 128 Americans died by the attack. Wilson wanted an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied temporarily. Wilson wouldn't get his wish to immediately end such German attacks. Wilson warned that America wouldn’t tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare in violation of international law. Former President Theodore Roosevelt denounced German acts as "piracy.” Wilson was narrowly re-elected in 1916 after campaigning with the slogan "he kept us out of war.” By January of 1917, Germany continued with unrestricted submarine warfare. It knew that America would enter the war. The German Foreign Minister, in the Zimmermann Telegram, invited Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States. In return, the Germans would finance Mexico's war and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

The United Kingdom intercepted the message and presented it to the US embassy in the UK. From there, it made its way to President Wilson who released the Zimmermann note to the public, and Americans saw it as casus belli. Wilson wanted anti-war people to use WWI as a cause to end all wars by winning this one. He wanted to end militarism in the globe. He wanted America to have voice in the peace conference. After the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram. Wilson called for war on Germany on April 2, 1917. The U.S. Congress declared war 4 days later. The United States never formally was a member of the Allies, but was an associated power. The United had a small army back then. So, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, it drafted 2.8 million men. By the summer of 1918, it was sending 10,000 soldiers to France every day. In 1917, the U.S. Congress granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans to allow them to be drafted to participate in World War I. This was part of the Jones-Shafroth Act. German General Staff assumed that they would be able to defeat the British and French forces before American troops reinforced them. They were proven wrong.

The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join the British Grand Fleet. They sent destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland, and submarines to help guard convoys. Many regiments of U.S. Marines were dispatched to France. The British and French wanted American units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up American units to be used as filler material. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to be used in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, and earned a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Sechault. AEF doctrine called for the use of frontal assaults, which had long since been discarded by British Empire and French commanders due to the large loss of life that resulted.

The German Spring Offensive of 1918 involved Ludendorff creating plans (codenamed Operation Michael). This offensive was on the Western Front. The Spring Offensive wanted to divide the British and French forces with a series of feints and advances. The German leadership wanted the war to end before U.S. forces came about. It started on March 21, 1918 with an attack on British forces near Saint-Quentin. German forces made an unprecedented advance of 37 miles. British and French trenches were penetrated using novel infiltration tactics, also named Hutier tactics after General Oskar von Hutier, by specially trained units called stormtroopers. Previously, attacks had been characterized by long artillery bombardments and massed assaults. In the Spring Offensive of 1918, however, Ludendorff used artillery only briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points. They attacked command and logistics areas and bypassed points of serious resistance. More heavily armed infantry then destroyed these isolated positions. This German success relied greatly on the element of surprise. The German forces were 75 miles from Paris. Many Parisians left. It was so successful that Kaiser Wilhelm II called March 24 a national holiday. Many Germans thought victory was near. The offensive was halted. The Germany didn’t consolidate their gains without tanks or motorized artillery. The problems of re-supply were also exacerbated by increasing distances that now stretched over terrain that was shell-torn and often impassable to traffic. Americans came into the war increasingly.

The Doullens Conference on November 5, 1917 united the Allied forces more in a Supreme War Council of Allied Forces. Pershing wanted Americans forces to fight independently. Haig, Petain, and Pershing retained tactical control of their respective armies; Foch assumed a coordinating rather than a directing role, and the British, French, and US commands operated largely independently. Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette against the northern English Channel ports. The Allies halted the drive after limited territorial gains by Germany. The German Army to the south then conducted Operations Blücher and Yorck, pushing broadly towards Paris. Germany launched Operation Marne (Second Battle of the Marne) on July 15, in an attempt to encircle Reims. The resulting counter-attack, which started the Hundred Days Offensive, marked the first successful Allied offensive of the war. By July 20, the Germans had retreated across the Marne to their starting lines, having achieved little, and the German Army never regained the initiative. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000, including many highly trained storm troopers.

Meanwhile, Germany was falling apart at home. Anti-war marches became frequent and morale in the army fell. Industrial output was half the 1913 levels. In the late spring of 1918 new nations formed in the South Caucasus. They were the First Republic of Armenia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which declared their independence from the Russian Empire. Two other minor entities were established, the Centrocaspian Dictatorship and South West Caucasian Republic (the former was liquidated by Azerbaijan in the autumn of 1918 and the latter by a joint Armenian-British task force in early 1919). With the withdrawal of the Russian armies from the Caucasus front in the winter of 1917–18, the three major republics braced for an imminent Ottoman advance, which commenced in the early months of 1918. Solidarity was briefly maintained when the Transcaucasian Federative Republic was created in the spring of 1918, but this collapsed in May, when the Georgians asked for and received protection from Germany and the Azerbaijanis concluded a treaty with the Ottoman Empire that was more akin to a military alliance. Armenia was left to fend for itself and struggled for five months against the threat of a full-fledged occupation by the Ottoman Turks before defeating them at the Battle of Sardarabad.

The Allied Victory

The Allied victory started with the Hundred Days Offensive (which was a counteroffensive). It started on August 9, 1918 with the Battle of Amiens. It involved over 400 tanks and 120,000 British, Dominion, and French troops. By the end of the first day, a gap of 24 km or 15 miles long was created in the German lines. The defenders displayed a lowering of morale. It caused Ludendorff to call the day as the “Black Day of the Germany army.” They or the Allied forces advanced as far as 14 miles afterwards. Then, German resistance stiffened and the battle ended on August 12, 1918. The Allies moved their attention elsewhere. Allied leaders realized that to continue to attack after resistance wasted lives. They wanted to turn a line than to try to roll over it. They started to use attacks in quick order to take advantage of successful advances on the flanks, then broke them off when each attack lost its initial impetus. The next phase of the campaign was the Battle of Albert on August 21, 1918. It involved British, Dominion, and French forces. The assault was widened by French and then further British forces in the following days. During the last week of August the Allied pressure along a 110-kilometre (68 mi) front against the enemy was heavy and unrelenting. From German accounts, "Each day was spent in bloody fighting against an ever and again on-storming enemy, and nights passed without sleep in retirements to new lines.” These new advances on September 2 caused the German Supreme Army Command to issue orders to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line in the south. This ceded without a fight the salient seized the previous April. According to Ludendorff, "We had to admit the necessity ... to withdraw the entire front from the Scarpe to the Vesle."

The time of September saw the Allies advance to the Hindenburg Line in the north and center. The Germans continued to fight strong rear guard actions. They launched many counterattacks on lost positions, but only a few succeeded. Towns, villages, heights, and trenches in the screening positions plus outposts of the Hindenburg Line continued to fall to the Allies. The BEF alone took 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September 1918. By September 24, 1918, there was an assault made by both the British and French that came within 2 miles of St. Quentin. The Germans had now retreated to positions along or behind the Hindenburg Line. After four weeks of fighting starting on August 8, 1918, over 100,000 German prisoners were taken. As of “The Black Day of the German Army,” the German High Command knew that the war was lost. He made attempts to reach a satisfactory end. The day after that battle, Ludendorff said, "We cannot win the war any more, but we must not lose it either." On August 11, 1918, he offered his resignation to the Kaiser, who refused it, replying, "I see that we must strike a balance. We have nearly reached the limit of our powers of resistance. The war must be ended." On August 13, at Spa, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, the Chancellor, and Foreign Minister Hintz agreed that the war could not be ended militarily and, on the following day, the German Crown Council decided that victory in the field was now most improbable. Austria and Hungary warned that they could only continue the war until December, and Ludendorff recommended immediate peace negotiations. Prince Rupprecht warned Prince Max of Baden: "Our military situation has deteriorated so rapidly that I no longer believe we can hold out over the winter; it is even possible that a catastrophe will come earlier." On September 10, 1918, Hindenburg urged peace moves to Emperor Charles of Austria, and Germany appealed to the Netherlands for mediation. On September 14, Austria sent a note to all belligerents and neutrals suggesting a meeting for peace talks on neutral soil, and on September 15, 1918, Germany made a peace offer to Belgium. Both peace offers were rejected, and on September 24, 1918, Supreme Army Command informed the leaders in Berlin that armistice talks were inevitable.

The final assault on the Hindenburg Line started with the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This took place on September 26, 1918. It was launched by French and American troops. Next week, co-operating French and American troops broke through in Champagne at the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge. This forced the Germans off the commanding heights. The Allied forces closed towards the Belgian frontier. By October 8, the line was pieced again by British and Dominion troops at the Battle of Cambrai. The German army had to shorten its front. It used the Dutch frontier as an anchor to fight rear-guard actions as it fell back towards Germany. Bulgaria signed a separate armistice on September 29, 1918. Ludendorff had stress and suffered a nervous breakdown. Germany couldn’t create a successful defense. News of the German impending military defeat spread across the German armed forces. Threats of mutiny existed. That is why Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Ludendorff wanted to make one last attempt to restore the “valour” of the German Navy. Ludendorff didn’t inform the government of Prince Maximilian of Baden since he would veto such of an action. Word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Many refused to be part of the naval offensive. They believed that such a course was suicidal. They rebelled and were arrested. Ludendorff took the blame. The Kaiser dismissed him on October 26, 1918.

The Balkans collapsed and Germany was about to lose its main supplies of oil and food. Reserves were used up. Even U.S. troops kept arriving at the rate of 10,000 per day. The Americans supplied more than 80% of Allied oil during the war and there was no shortage. Germany’s military was in decline. Kaiser lost confidence of his people. Germany moved towards surrender. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of a new government as Chancellor of Germany to negotiate with the Allies. Negotiations with President Wilson began immediately. Germany hoped that Wilson would offer better terms than the British or the French. Wilson wanted a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary control over the German military. There was no resistance when the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann on November 9, 1918 declared Germany to be a republic. The Kaiser, kings and other hereditary rulers all were removed from power and Wilhelm fled to exile in the Netherlands. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born as the Weimar Republic.

The collapse of the Central Powers existed quickly. Bulgaria was the first to sign an armistice on September 29, 1918 at Saloniki. By October 30, 1918, The Ottoman Empire capitulated and signed the Armistice of Mudros. On October 24, the Italians began a push that rapidly recovered territory lost after the Battle of Caporetto. This culminated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which marked the end of the Austro-Hungarian Army as an effective fighting force. The offensive also triggered the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the last week of October, declarations of independence were made in Budapest, Prague, and Zagreb. On October 29, 1918, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice, but the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine, and Trieste. On November 3, Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce to ask for an armistice (Armistice of Villa Giusti). The terms, arranged by telegraph with the Allied Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian commander and accepted. The Armistice with Austria was signed in the Villa Giusti near Padua on November 3, 1918. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the following days the Italian Army occupied Innsbruck and all Tyrol with 20,000 to 22,000 soldiers.

By November 11, 1918, at 5:00 am, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 am on 11 November 1918—"the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"—a ceasefire came into effect. During the six hours between the signing of the armistice and its taking effect, opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions, but fighting continued along many areas of the front, as commanders wanted to capture territory before the war ended. The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces. By November 1918, the Allied had many supplies of people and materiel to invade Germany. At the time of the armistice, no Allied force had crossed into the German frontier. The Western Front was still 450 miles from Berlin. The Kaiser’s armies retreated from the battlefield in good order. These factors caused Hindenburg and other senior German leaders to spread the story that their armies had not really been defeated. This resulted in the stab-in-the-back legend, which attributed Germany's defeat not to its inability to continue fighting (even though up to a million soldiers were suffering from the 1918 flu pandemic and unfit to fight), but to the public's failure to respond to its "patriotic calling" and the supposed intentional sabotage of the war effort, particularly by the Jewish people, Socialists, and Bolsheviks. This was a lie of course and anti-Semitism is always evil and wrong. The Allies had much more potential wealth they could spend on the war. One estimate (using 1913 US dollars) is that the Allies spent $58 billion on the war and the Central Powers only $25 billion. Among the Allies, the UK spent $21 billion and the US $17 billion; among the Central Powers Germany spent $20 billion. World War One finally ends.

The Aftermath

After World War I was over, new changes occurred in the world. Four empires ended. Their names were the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. Many nations maintained their independence. New nations were established. Many dynasties fell like the Romanovs, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, and the Ottomans. Socialist revolutionary spirit flourished in the world like the red flag of social revolution flying in Glasgow, Scotland. Worker councils existed in the cities of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Belgium and Serbia was damaged. About 1.4 French soldiers were killed alone. Germany and Russia suffered huge casualties too. The formal end of World War One came on the date of June 28, 1919 when both sides signed the Treaty of Versailles in Germany. The U.S. Senate didn’t ratify the treaty although there was public support for it. America formally ended its involvement in World War until July 2, 1921 via the Knox-Porter Resolution. It was signed by President Warren G. Harding. The British ended involved in the war via the Termination of the Present War Act of 1918. After the Treaty of Versailles, treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were signed. However, the negotiation of the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife, and a final peace treaty between the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey was not signed until July 24, 1923, at Lausanne. Under the final Treaty of Lausanne, the Allied forces left Constantinople on August 23, 1923.

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After World War One, the Paris Peace Conference existed from January 18, 1919 to 1920. It was controlled by America, England, France, Italy, and Japan. They consisted of Allied heads of state, diplomats, military personnel, and policy experts. These nations feared the growth of the communist movement in Russia. Many angry citizens also wanted revenge on the Central Powers. It organized peace treaties on the Central Powers officially ending the war. The conference was built upon Wilson’s 14 points agenda. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points was a peace proposal that desire a truce which was based on open diplomacy, freedom, and the right of self-determination of peoples. The problem was that the leaders of the Paris Peace Conference refused to give true self-determination among Middle Eastern and African including Asian peoples globally. The Paris Peace Conference made the Peace of Paris. This policy made the Central Powers, especially Germany, to accept responsibility for the war. It forced Germany to pay huge reparations. Austria-Hungary was partitioned into nations like Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia had ethnic divisions. Transylvania was shifted from Hungary to Greater Romania. The details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, 3.3 million Hungarians came under foreign rule. Although the Hungarians made up 54% of the population of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary, only 32% of its territory was left to Hungary. Between 1920 and 1924, 354,000 Hungarians fled former Hungarian territories attached to Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The Peace of Paris also forced Germany to give up its colonies, decrease its army, stop manufacturing offensive weapons, and give a large amount of free coal each year to both Belgium and France. France recovered Alsace and Lorraine. Germany soon experienced a massive recession as a result of the economic burdens from the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles was one key part of the Peace of Paris.

The Russian Empire was over. So, after the war, new nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were created. The Ottoman Empire ended. Turkey evolved into a Republic. The Treaty of Sevres of 1920 ended in failure. So, the Turkish nationalists used their war of independence to form the modern Turkish nation along with the event of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne taking place too. Poland was a new nation after WWI in more than a century. Serbians, Croats, and Slovenes lived in Yugoslavia. The British Empire experienced more people calling for independence. Nationalism spread. Australia and New Zealand had soldiers who fought in the Battle of Gallipoli. They expressed themselves as Australians and New Zealanders not as subjects to the Crown. Anzac Day, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, celebrates this defining moment. The war increased a lot of Canadians promoting their sense of independence too. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were individual signatories of the Treaty of Versailles. The Conclusion of World War I saw the beginnings of the roots of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the roots of the establishment of the modern state of Israel too. The Middle East had many power dynamics. The Ottoman Empire stabilized the region for a time.

The Ottoman Empire was soon gone and conflicting people debated nationhood. European powers and Arabic monarchs divided areas of the region heavily. Chaim Weizmann lobbied to support the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promoted the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A total of more than 1,172,000 Jewish soldiers served in the Allied and Central Power forces in World War I, including 275,000 in Austria-Hungary and 450,000 in Tsarist Russia. The Russian Revolution was bloody and Western forces wanted to end it and restore a puppet state in contrary to the Communist movement. So, a Russian Civil War started. More than 2,000 pogroms existed in Ukraine alone. Almost 200,000 Jewish civilians were murdered. Mustafa Kemal led Turkish nationalists. Greece fought against the Turkish nationalists after World War I. Thousands of Greek people died during this period as a product of the evil Greek genocide. The League of Nations was an organization created after WWI whose purpose was to maintain peace via negotiation or collective security. It was part of Wilson's vision to disarm, to solve problems, and to monitor labor conditions internationally. Germany and Russia were banned from joining the League of Nations because Germany was punished after WWI (and Russia embraced Soviet Communism).

The Ottoman Empire and Germany relinquished their colonies in the forms of mandates. Mandates were precisely colonialism in a different form. Many peoples of color were angry at this and continued to fight for independence. Pan-African activists continued to fight against colonialism and racism as well. Chinese nationalists (like Sun Yatsen using his party of Guomindang to mobilize change. Later, he passed away in 1925 and Chicang Kai-Shek took over the nationalist movement. He led troops to take over cities, but his followers murdered Communists which was one cause of ultimately the Chinese civil war. As a result of that war, China would be Communist) and people of Ireland fought for independence. Ireland became a free state by 1921. Ireland would ultimately have independence by 1949 officially as the Republic of Ireland.

Fights against the evils of colonialism existed in Africa (where Igbo women fought via a tax protest against Britain in 1929. These heroic black women fought for their human rights), India (where British forces shot into crowds of protesters at Amirstar in 1919), Indonesia (where political leaders were jailed by the Dutch), Vietnam, etc. Many people suffered health problems as a result of the war too. Many people were injured and disabled. Famine, disease, and starvation would spread across Europe. Millions died in the Russian famine of 1921. In 1914 alone, louse-borne epidemic typhus killed 200,000 human beings in Serbia. From 1918 to 1922, Russia had about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus. In 1923, 13 million Russians contracted malaria, a sharp increase from the pre-war years. In addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the 1918 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people.

Conclusion

As we approach the 100th year anniversary of the end of World War One, we witness new information and great insights of that very violent conflict. World War I or the Great War impacted the world society in a myriad of ways. Advanced technologies like tanks and complex airplanes plus machine guns were utilized in a huge fashion. It first involved the European continent since European powers desired to gather as much power of the world as possible via imperialism including colonialism. This came after the Boxer Rebellion where Boxers from China were defeated by Western Powers by 1901. Also, WWI existed in the midst of nationalist movements including the Communist Russian Revolution of 1917 too. 70 million military personnel were mobilized. The war started in many situations. First, England and France wanted to contain the expansion of Germany (with the growth of its army and navy). Also, the Ottoman Empire was weakening. The Serbian nationalist Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in a means to gain Serbian independence. Princip was allied with the Secret society called the Black Hand. Alliances among France and England plus the alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary were in full display. So, war existed as a result of competing alliances fighting for control of geopolitical power. World War One transpired globally too with battles in Asia, Africa, and in other locations. Supporters and opponents of the war were abundant during that time period.

The Armenian genocide, the Greek genocide, and the Assyrian genocide all occurred during World War I. Chemical warfare was committed by both sides during the war (which was a war crime) too. The majority of the war existed in a stalemate among the Allies and the Central Powers in part because of trench warfare (which caused both sides to fight and being slaughtered from across the battlefield especially in places like Verdun). American involvement, the weakening of the Ottoman Empire, and various military tactics contributed to the Allied victory. The war ended in 1918, but the issues of autonomy and nationhood wouldn’t be resolved so readily. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (headed by Britain, France, the United States, and Italy or the Big Four) involved the Allied forces to place sanctions on Germany. It refused to give people of color (especially black people and Asian people) true national independence. Ho Chi Minh back then wanted Vietnam to have independence from France, but the Paris Peace Conference refused to do so. The subsequent League of Nations couldn’t enforce treaties, it lacked great strength, and it was rejected by the U.S. Congress. Soon, economic depression, international tensions, anger, and the growth of fascism contributed to the beginning of World War II. World War One was an international war that saw the modernization of how we live in the Earth. It was a war that saw monarchies fall and new national realities develop. It was an important epoch of world history indeed.

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Appendix A: African Americans and World War I

African Americans have had a huge role to play during the events of World War One. It was a time of great changes in the African American community. It was a very dangerous time where violence and massive lynchings harmed the lives of black people. This war saw the beginning of the First Great Migration (from 1916 to 1930), which was about the huge travel of about 1.6 African Americans from the South into the North and Midwest, especially in the large urban centers like New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Detroit, etc. Black cultural traditions traveled nationwide. African Americans came up to went into the North for many reasons. Many black people wanted to escape Jim Crow tyranny where innocent black men, women, and children were abused, lynched, murdered, raped, and tortured. Some were sharecroppers and wanted greater economic opportunities in the North and the Midwest. Some wanted to see adventure and escape massive poverty or economic exploitation. Yet, the more things change, the more that they stay the same. In the North and the Midwest, segregation was heavily banned. Yet, black Americans still experienced de facto segregation (or segregation by an unwritten, discriminatory policy not by law), poverty, economic exploitation, racial tensions including white racism, and substandard housing.

Black people continued to fight back though. Black people formed organizations, worked in civil rights groups, and used networks to help black people in America too. The Chicago Defender and other African American newspapers told the truth and inspired change. The NAACP was in existence. Black people always fought for jobs, housing, and other resources. The Harlem Renaissance, which was a superb cultural movement, was filled with excellent forms of music, literature, and art. That is why the Harlem Renaissance was established in part by the Great Migration. WWI was claimed by some to promote “democracy.” Yet, the truth is that democracy and justice wasn’t completely shown to African Americans back then or even today.

During the start of WWI, most black people and most Americans in general opposed the war. Some felt that it wasn’t their problem. Many black people back then felt that the war was contradictory to claim to advance democracy but America denied black people basic human rights at home. It is not a secret that President Woodrow Wilson (who was a stone cold racist) back then didn’t want true equality and justice for humanity regardless of skin color. The American government passed the anti-liberty laws of the June 1917 Espionage Act and the May 1918 Sedition Act that curtailed dissent in American society. The socialist Eugene Debs was heavily persecuted because of his anti-war views. People have every right to dissent and to express intellectual diversity. Some African Americans opposed the war because of being against war in general out of moral reasons (when anti-war activism and pacifism were common back then). One person said the following quotation and it's from Arthur Shaw of New York: “…If America truly understands the functions of democracy and justice; she must now that she must begin to promote democracy and justice at home first of all.” A. Philip Randolph and Chandler were editors of the socialist newspaper called, “The Messenger.” Both of them publicly encouraged African Americans to resist military service because of the massive racial oppression harming black people. They were monitored by federal intelligence agencies too. Over one million African Americans followed draft calls. By the time of the armistice with Germany in November 1918, over 350,000 African Americans had served with the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. Charles Broadnax was in the service too as a black man from Virginia. The NAACP created “Soldiers Troubles” to document the experiences of black soldiers during World War One and to confront racial injustice.

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Two major combat divisions for African Americans were the 92nd Division (which was made up of draftees and officers) and the 93rd Division (which was made up of mostly National Guard units from New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, and Massachusetts). Many black people were discriminated against in service and restricted from serving in high ranking positions. Black women served as Red Cross members, nurses, and other jobs. There was the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) which held rallies and gave support to the black troops. Black women also worked in America while many men went into the battlefields of Europe. Black women in Mobile, Alabama heroically walked off the job in fighting for better working conditions and rights. Emmett Scott (or the former secretary to Booker T. Washington) was a special assistant to the Secretary of War in charge of matters related to African Americans during the war. WEB DuBois ironically supported WWI, because he believed that it could cause black people to experience democracy and justice at home as a catalyst. The 93rd Division’s 369th Infantry Regiment was a famous fighting unit (made up of mostly African Americans and some Puerto Rican Americans) from New York. They were nicknamed the “Harlem Hellfighters.” They were the first African American regiment to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. Before them, any African American had to enlist in French or Canadian armies to fight in WWI.

The 369th were powerful and courageous in combat. Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts were the first American soldiers to receive the French Croix de Guerre (War Cross). Henry Johnson was a former Albany, New York rail station porter. The regiment served for 191 days (in the trenches) and ceded no ground to German forces. They worked with the French Army by April 8, 1918. In France, the 369th was treated as if they were no different from any other French unit. The French did not show hatred towards them and did not racially segregate the 369th. The 369th finally felt what it was like to be treated equally. The French accepted the all-black 369th Regiment with open arms and welcomed them to their country. The French were less concerned with race than the Americans, due to manpower shortages. They fought in the Second Battle of the Marne. The 369th was the first American regiment to reach the Rhine River in Germany following the armistice and returned to the United States national heroes. The 92nd Division suffered racist treatment. Many of them were court-martialed on bogus charges. Many African American troops interacted with North and West African soldiers who served in the French military. This expanded black African Diasporic belonging. Black Americans came into France to escape Jim Crow. France didn’t have Jim Crow and many black people were treated better in France, but France still had racism and colonialism. WEB DuBois and his friend William Monroe Trotter of the Equal Rights League wanted to fight European colonialism while they were in the Versailles peace conferences.

The leader of those conferences refused to give equal rights to people of color. From May 1918 to November 1918, the 371st and 372nd African American Regiments were integrated under the 157th Red Hand Division commanded by the French General Mariano Goybet. They earned glory in the decisive final offensive in the Champagne region of France. The two Regiments were decorated by the French Croix de Guerre for their gallantry in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Corporal Freddie Stowers of the 371st Infantry Regiment was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor as the only African American to be so honored for his actions in World War I. Stowers died in helping his men fight the Germans in battle. African American regiments in World War I were usually accompanied by bands. The most famous was the band of the 369th Infantry, led by James Reese Europe, a prominent musician whose syncopated style animated the dancing of Vernon and Irene Castle, creating a craze for social dancing. 171 African Americans were awarded the French Legion of Honor. In response to protests of discrimination and mistreatment from the black community, several hundred African American men received officers' training in Des Moines, Iowa.

By October 1917, over six hundred African Americans were commissioned as captains and first and second lieutenants. The NAACP also fought against voter suppression. Many people in America used to permit grandfather clauses to deprive black people the right to vote. The grandfather clause meant that a man could only vote if his grandfather had voted. This harmed many black people since many black citizens' grandfathers were slaves and slaves couldn't vote during the 19th century. Poll taxes, literacy tests, violence, voting fraud, and intimidation were used by racists to harm voting rights. The NAACP successfully fought against this in court to an extent. By 1915, the Supreme Court ruled that grandfather clauses in Maryland and Oklahoma constitutions were null and void (since they violated the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution). The case was Guinn v. United States. Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, and other leaders fought against lynching too.

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On February 17, 1919, the 369th Infantry Regiment marched up Fifth Avenue and into Harlem before 250,000 people. They were at Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street to 145th and Lenox (in NYC). Pvt. Henry Johnson was so moved by the outpouring that he stood up waving the bouquet of flowers that he was handed during the February parade. It would take another 77 years for Henry Johnson (who knew hand to hand combat) to receive an official Purple Heart from his own government. Eugene Bullard was one of the greatest black soldiers of World War I. He was the first African American military pilot. He flew for France. He was born in Columbus, Georgia and his ancestors came from Haiti from the days of the Haitian Revolution. Aileen Cole Stewart was a famous black nurse during WWI too. The aftermath of World War I saw an increase of anti-black race riots or pogroms, the growth of the Black Nationalist Garvey movement, and the growth of jazz. Racial discrimination didn’t end after World War I. During the summer and fall of 1919, anti-black race riots erupted in twenty-six cities across America. The lynching of blacks also increased from fifty-eight in 1918 to seventy-seven in 1919. At least ten of those victims were war veterans, and some were lynched while in uniform. Yet, more black Americans continued in the fight for black liberation and social justice. Civil rights group grew and black people organized more in economic institutions, religious groups, and other positive groups for social change. We honor the heroic black people who stood up for our freedom that we are still fighting for today in 2018.

The the person on the right is the evil Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, who was involved in the oppression of the Armenian people.

Appendix B: Genocides

Many war crimes existed during World War One. On August 19, 1915, the German submarine U-27 was sunk by the British Q-ship HMS Baralong. All German survivors were summarily executed by Baralong’s crew on the orders of Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert or the captain of the ship. The shooting was reported to the media by American citizens. These American citizens were on the board the Nicosia. That ship was a British freighter loaded with war supplies, which was stopped by U-27 just minutes before the incident. On September 24, 1915, Baralong destroyed U-41, which was in the process of sinking the cargo ship Urbino. According to Karl Goetz, the submarine’s commander, Baralong continued to fly the U.S. flag after firing on U-41 and then rammed the lifeboat (carrying the German survivors) sinking it. The German submarine SM U-86 destroyed the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle on June 27, 1918 in violation of international law. Only 24 of the 258 medical personnel, patients, and crew survived. The U-boat captain Helmut Patzig was charged with war crimes in Germany. This happened in 1919. He escaped prosecution by going to the Free City of Danzig beyond the jurisdiction of German courts. One chemical weapon usage occurred during the Second Battle of Ypres (from April 22, 1915 to May 25, 1915). Gas was soon used by all major belligerents in the war. Both sides used chemical weapons causing 1.3 million casualties. For example, the British had over 180,000 chemical weapons casualties during the war, and up to one-third of American casualties were caused by them.

The Russian Army reportedly suffered roughly 500,000 chemical weapon casualties in World War I. These actions are in violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare that prohibited their use. Some poison gas came into cities. From 100,000-260,000 civilian casualties came about by chemical weapons during WWI. Many people had skin and lung damage as a product of chemical warfare. British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig wrote in his diary, "My officers and I were aware that such weapons would cause harm to women and children living in nearby towns, as strong winds were common in the battlefront. However, because the weapon was to be directed against the enemy, none of us were overly concerned at all." That is really an evil comment. During WWI, there was the genocide of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population. Many Armenians were murdered, deported, mass executed, or walked to death by force in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. The people who carried out the Armenian genocide were Ottoman Turks. The Ottomans did this evil and exploited Armenian resistance to evil as a justification of further extermination.

In early 1915, a number of Armenians volunteered to join the Russian forces and the Ottoman government used this as a pretext to issue the Tehcir Law (or Law on Deportation), which authorized the deportation of Armenians from the Empire's eastern provinces to Syria between 1915 and 1918. The Armenians were intentionally marched to death and a number were attacked by Ottoman brigands. While an exact number of deaths is unknown, the International Association of Genocide Scholars estimates 1.5 million human beings. The Turkey government today denied the genocide, but most historians acknowledge the existence of the Armenian genocide. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Greeks. Some scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination. Many pogroms accompanied the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War. 60,000–200,000 civilian Jewish people were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement in present-day Ukraine). Many German invaders murdered French and Belgium civilians. The German army executed over 6,500 French and Belgian civilians between August and November 1914, usually in near-random large-scale shootings of civilians ordered by junior German officers. The German Army destroyed 15,000–20,000 buildings—most famously the university library at Louvain—and generated a wave of refugees of over a million people. Over half of the German regiments in Belgium were involved in major incidents. 8 million men surrendered and were held in POW camps throughout the war. The Ottoman Empire often treated POWs badly. Many prisoners were starved to death in Russia. The International Red Cross tried to help POWs.

Appendix C: New Technologies

One large legacy of World War One is its advanced weapons and technological devices. Some 19th century tactics clashed with 20th century technology. The modernization of the telephone, wireless communication, armored cars, tanks, and aircraft flourished. From cannons in 1914 to machines guns in 1917, technology evolved. Field telephones and aircraft were used in the war. Germany was far ahead of the Allies in using heavy indirect fire. The German Army employed 150 mm (6 in) and 210 mm (8 in) howitzers in 1914, when typical French and British guns were only 75 mm (3 in) and 105 mm (4 in). The British had a 6-inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. The Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm (12 in) and 420 mm (17 in) guns and, even at the beginning of the war, had inventories of various calibres of Minenwerfer, which were ideally suited for trench warfare. Gas masks were used to protect themselves from chemical attacks. WWI also saw the introduction of light automatic weapons and submarine guns, like the Lewis Gun, the Browning automatic rifle, and the Bergmann MP18. The German army used the new weapon of the flamethrower. German U-boats, blimps, and other water naval vehicles were commonplace. Fixed wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya on October 23, 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year. Balloons were used for reconnaissance. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed. Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins as well. Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in 1918.

By Timothy

World War One (100 Years Later)

Files of soldiers with rifles slung follow close behind a tank, there is a dead body in the foreground

World War One

The conflict of World War One resulted in huge, prodigious changes in the world. It evolved from battles among some European nations into a global configuration. WWI lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. Before the war, imperialism, colonialism, and forms of pernicious oppressions globally existed. Africa was dominated heavily by the UK, France, Germany, etc. They promoted the evil Berlin Conference of the 1880’s which promoted European imperialism explicitly. Even the Czars of Russia had imperialism in Central Asia including Siberia. European empires competed against each other for the resources of Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, etc. Many peoples of color were victims of genocide, colonial abuse, and the vicious deprivation of human rights in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania, etc. During the early 20th century, Germany increased its military and political power. Germany’s army, navy, and infrastructure increased its strength. England and France didn’t like this, because they wanted a monopoly of geopolitical power over Germany. More developments existed in the world too. Subsequently, nationalist movements had expanded worldwide. Nationalism is the movement that takes pride in one’s nation or ethnic identity nationally.

Nationalism ran in contrary to empire since empires want to dominate large nationalities into one centralized power. Serbians wanted independence from the Austro-Hungary Kingdom. Serbians are heavily Slavic like the Russians are too. Chinese nationalists wanted Europeans to stop ruling over them, which caused the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers were the name of the Chinese nationalists. America and other European nations united to end the Boxer Rebellion back in 1901. It started in 1899. In Africa, people fought for independence too. A Serbian nationalist named Princep murdered King Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in 1914. Afterwards, World War I transpired immediately. France and England allied with Russia as the Allied Powers against the Central Powers (made up of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire). Italy, Japan and the United States joined the Allies, while the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers. The beginning of the war resulted in a stalemate. Gas attacks, trench warfare, and tanks consumed the atmosphere throughout the battlefield. Americans came to fight in the war late because of isolationist feelings. The war cost the lives of millions of human beings, the growth of nationalist movements, the creation of revolutions, and a new society globally. The League of Nations was created after WWI, but it didn’t resolve longstanding issues related to reparations, border disputes, and socio-economic tensions. So, World War I was a new war which was one important prelude to World War II and a crucial back drop of the long story of world history.

Prelude

By the 19th century, Europe changed. Major European powers formed alliances to establish a balance of power. There were complex groups of political and military alliances all over the European continent by 1900. This reality evolved from the Holy Alliance of 1815. This was when Prussia, Russia, and Austria united in an alliance. Germany grew by the late 1800’s. It united with Prussia in 1871. Later, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck on October 1873 negotiated the League of Three Emperors (called Dreikaiserbund in German) between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany. The agreement didn’t work, because Austria-Hungary and Russia didn’t agree over Balkan policy. This left Germany and Austria-Hungary to form an alliance by 1879 called the Dual Alliance. Some viewed this clique as countering Russian influence in the Balkans (as tons of Slavic peoples lived in the Balkans back then and today) as the Ottoman Empire continued to get weaker in power. This alliance grew in 1882 to include Italy in evolving into the Triple Alliance. Bismarck had especially worked to hold Russia at Germany's side in an effort 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, in 1890, to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. Two years later, the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. The UK signed agreements with France via the Entente Cordiale by 1904. In 1907, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention.

These agreements didn’t create Britain to be an ally with France or Russia. What it did do was it made British forces to enter into any future conflict involving France or Russia. These agreements in term are called the Triple Entente. During this time, there was a massive arms race. German economic power and industry massively increased after the unification and foundation of the Empire in 1871. This came after the Franco-Prussian War where Germany defeated France. Wilhelm II built up the Germany Navy which was established by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz in rivalry with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy. The UK then built capital ships. They launched the HMS Dreadnought in 1906 to expand the British Empire’s influence in completion against Germany. The arms race existed throughout Europe. The major powers developed their industrial based resources. Weapons and equipment agitated many nations to prepare for war. Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of European power increased by 50%. A pan-European war would soon come about.

There were conflicts in the Balkans too. The Austria-Hungary was involved in the Bosnian crisis of 1908-1909. They annexed the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It occupied the lands since 1878. The Kingdom of Serbia was angered by this action including the Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russian Empire. Russian political maneuvering in the region destabilized the peace accords. The Balkans in that time was very contentious. The First Balkan War was created in 1912 and 1913. It was fought between the Balkan League and the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of London resulted from the war. The treaty decreased the size of the Ottoman Empire further and an independent Albanian state rose up. The territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece increased. When Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on June 16, 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. The Great Powers were able to keep these Balkan conflicts contained, but the next one would spread throughout Europe and beyond.

The spark that ultimately caused World War I would be the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. His assassination was a product of a conspiracy. Archduke Ferdinand was visiting the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. There was a group of six assassins in the area. Their names were Cvjetko Popović, Gavrilo Princip, Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Trifko Grabež, and Vaso Čubrilović. They were from the Yugolavist group Mlada Bosna. They gathered on the street where the Archduke’s motorcade would pass. They wanted to assassinate him. They were supplied with weapons from the Serbian Black Hand, which was a secret military society. Čabrinović threw a grenade at the car, but missed. Some nearby were injured by the blast, but Ferdinand's convoy carried on. The other assassins failed to act as the cars drove past them. One hour later, Ferdinand returned from a visit at the Sarajevo Hospital with those wounded in the assassination attempt, the convoy took a wrong turn into a street where, by coincidence, Princip stood. With a pistol, Princip shot and killed Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. The reaction among the people in Austria was mild, almost indifferent. As historian Zbyněk Zeman later wrote, "the event almost failed to make any impression whatsoever. On Sunday and Monday (June 28 and 29), the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened." The political effect was huge. It was similar to the aftermath of 9/11 politically. The heir was murdered including his wife. Vienna changed overnight.

Emperor Franz Joseph was shocked and upset at this assassination. Later, Austro-Hungarian authorities promoted anti-Serbian riots in Sarajevo. The Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks killed 2 Bosnian Serbs and damaged many Serb-owned buildings. There were more violent acts against ethnic Serbs outside of Sarajevo (in cities in the in Austro-Hungarian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia). Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned and extradited approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. A further 460 Serbs were sentenced to death. A predominantly Bosniak special militia, known as the Schutzkorps, was established and carried out the persecution of Serbs. That was evil and unjustified.

Later, the July Crisis came about. This related to diplomatic talks about Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, and Britain. They rightfully believed that the Black Hand was involved in the plot to murder the Archduke. They wanted to end Serbian interference in Bosnia. Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia on July 23, 1914 the July Ultimatum. This was about 10 demands that were made intentionally unacceptable as a means to provoke a war with Serbia. Serbia decreed general mobilization on July 24th. Serbia accepted all of the terms of the ultimatum except for article six, which demanded that Austrian delegates be allowed in Serbia for the purpose of participation in the investigation into the assassination. Following this, Austria broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia and, the next day, Austria ordered a partial mobilization. Finally, on July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. By July 29, 1914, Russia supported Serbia. They executed partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary. General mobilization was ordered by Russia on July 30th. German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg waited until the 31st for an appropriate response, when Germany declared a "state of danger of war.” Kaiser Wilhelm II asked his cousin, Tsar Nicolas II, to suspend the Russian general mobilization. When he refused, Germany issued an ultimatum demanding its mobilization be stopped, and a commitment not to support Serbia. Another was sent to France, asking her not to support Russia if it were to come to the defense of Serbia. On August 1, after the Russian response, Germany mobilized and declared war on Russia. This also led to the general mobilization in Austria-Hungary on August 4, 1914.

The German government issued demands to France in desiring it to be neutral as they had to decide which deployment plan to create. It would be difficult to change the deployment whilst underway. There was the modified German Schlieffen Plan, Aufmarsch II West. It would deploy 80% of the army in the west. Aufmarsch I Ost and Aufmarsch II Ost would deploy 60% in the west and 40% in the east as this was the maximum that the East Prussian railway infrastructure could carry. The French did not respond, but sent a mixed message by ordering their troops to withdraw 10 km (6 mi) from the border to avoid any incidents, and at the same time ordered the mobilization of her reserves. Germany responded by mobilizing its own reserves and implementing Aufmarsch II West. On August 1, 1914, August Wilhelm ordered General Moltke to "march the whole of the … army to the East" after he had been wrongly informed that the British would remain neutral as long as France was not attacked. The General convinced the Kaiser that improvising the redeployment of a million men was unthinkable and that making it possible for the French to attack the Germans "in the rear" might prove disastrous. Yet Wilhelm insisted that the German army should not march into Luxembourg until he received a telegram sent by his cousin George V, who made it clear that there had been a misunderstanding. Eventually the Kaiser told Moltke, "Now you can do what you want." Germany attacked Luxembourg on August 2 and on August 3, 1914, Germany declared war on France. On August 4, 1914, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well. Britain declared war on Germany at 19:00 UTC on August 4, 1914 (effective from 11 pm). This was following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.

The Start

The beginning of the World War I started with miscommunication. The Central Powers had to communicate with its ally Germany. Germany promised to support Austria-Hungary’s invasion of Serbia. The problem was that the interpretations of what that meant differed. There were previously tested deployment plans. They were replaced in early 1914. They have never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Germany wanted Austria-Hungary to direct most of its troops against Russia, while Germany dealt with France. The confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian Army to divide its forces between the Russian and Serbian fronts. On August 12, 1914, Austria invaded and fought the Serbian army at the Battle of Cer and Battle of Kolubara. Over the next 2 weeks, Austrian attacks were thrown back because of heavy losses. This was the first major Allied victories of World War One. It dashed Austro-Hungarian hopes of a swift victory. After this, Austria had to keep sizable forces on the Serbian font, which weakening its efforts against Russia. Serbia’s defeat of the Austro-Hungarian invasion of 1914 has been one of the major upsets victories of the twentieth century. German forces started to come into Belgium and France.

During the start of World War I, 80% of the German army was deployed as seven field armies in the west. This was according to the plan called Aufmarsch II West. Yet, they were then assigned to execute the retired deployment plan of Aufmarsch I West. This was also known as the Schlieffen Plan. This plan would be about marching German armies through northern Belgium and into France. The Germans wanted to encircle the French army and then breach the second defensive area of the fortresses of Verdun and Paris including at the Marne River. Aufmarsch I West was one of the four deployment plans available to the General Staff in 1914. Each plan favored certain operations, but they didn’t specify exactly how those operations were to be carried out (at their initiative and with minimal oversight).

Aufmarsch I West was created for a one front war with France. Both Russia and Britain were expected to help France. Italian or Austro-Hungarian troops weren’t available for operations against France. The plan was offensive. Accordingly, the Aufmarsch II West deployment was changed for the offensive of 1914, despite its unrealistic goals and the insufficient forces Germany had available for decisive success. Moltke took Schlieffen's plan and modified the deployment of forces on the western front by reducing the right wing, the one to advance through Belgium, from 85% to 70%. In the end, the Schlieffen plan was so radically modified by Moltke, that it could be more properly called the Moltke Plan. This plan wanted to go to the right flank of the German advance to bypass the French armies which were found on the Franco-German border. They wanted to defeat the French forces closer to Luxembourg and Belgium, so they could move south to Paris. The Germans were successful at first, especially at the Battle of the Frontiers (from August 12-24, 1914).

By September 12, 1914, the French (with assistance from the BEF or the British Expeditionary Force) halted the German advance east of Paris. This was found at the First Battle of the Marne which occurred from September 5-12, 1914. They pushed the German forces back some 31 miles. The French offensive into southern Alsace was launched on August 20 in the Battle of Mulhouse. It had limited success. Russia invaded with 2 armies in the east. The Germans responded. They used their 8th Field Army from its previous role as reserve for the invasion of France. They used that army to go into East Prussia by rail across the German Empire. This German army was led by Paul von Hindenburg. They defeated Russia in many battles known as the First Battle of Tannenburg from August 2 to September 2, 1914. The Russian invasion failed. It caused a diversion of German troops to the east. The Allied victory came about in the First Battle of the Marne. This meant Germany failed to achieve its objective of avoiding a long, two-front war. However, the German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and effectively halved France's supply of coal. It had also killed or permanently crippled 230,000 more French and British troops than it itself had lost. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of a more decisive outcome.

Conflict existed in Asia too. New Zealand occupied German Samoa (or later Western Samoa) on August 30, 1914. By September 11, 1914, the Australian Naval and military Expeditionary force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which was part of German New Guinea. On October 28, the German cruiser SMS Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in the Battle of Penang. Japan seized Germany's Micronesian colonies and, after the Siege of Tsingtao, the German coaling port of Qingdao on the Chinese Shandong peninsula. As Vienna refused to withdraw the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth from Tsingtao, Japan declared war not only on Germany, but also on Austria-Hungary; the ship participated in the defense of Tsingtao where it was sunk in November 1914. Within a few months, the Allied forces had seized all the German territories in the Pacific; only isolated commerce raiders and a few holdouts in New Guinea remained. Some of the first clashes of WWI involved British, French, and German colonial forces in Africa. From August 6-7, 1914, French and British troops invaded the German protectorate of Togoland and Kamerun. On August 10, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa. Plus, sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa, led by Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, fought a guerrilla warfare campaign during World War I and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe.

Germany attempted to use Indian nationalism and pan-Islamism to its advantage, instigating uprisings in India, and sending a mission that urged Afghanistan to join the war on the side of Central powers. However, contrary to British fears of a revolt in India, the outbreak of the war saw an unprecedented outpouring of loyalty and goodwill towards Britain. Indian political leaders from the Indian National Congress and other groups were eager to support the British war effort, since they believed that strong support for the war effort would further the cause of Indian Home Rule. The Indian Army in fact outnumbered the British Army at the beginning of the war; about 1.3 million Indian soldiers and laborers served in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while the central government and the princely states sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. In all, 140,000 men served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East. Casualties of Indian soldiers totaled 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded during World War I. The suffering engendered by the war, as well as the failure of the British government to grant self-government to India after the end of hostilities, bred disillusionment and fueled the campaign for full independence that would be led by Mohandas K. Gandhi and others.

World War I was truly a global war.

The Western Front

The Western Front was a famous part of the war. There were military tactics developed before WWI that failed to keep pace with advances in technology and had become obsolete. These new advances made the strong defensive systems to be better than old school military tactics. There was barbed wire. This was a significance hindrance to stop many infantry advances. New artillery was more lethal than weapons used in the 1870’s. There were machine guns making crossing open ground extremely difficult. Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. Later, other technology had gas warfare and the tank. Just after the First Battle of the Marne (like September 5-12, 1914), the Entente and German forces attempting maneuvering to the north. They wanted to outflank each other. These actions were called, “Race to the Sea.” These outflanking efforts failed. The opposing forces found themselves found themselves at a line of entrenched positions from Lorraine to Belgium’s coast. Britain and France wanted to take the offensive. Germany wanted to defend the occupied territories. German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy. Anglo-French trenches were created only to be temporary before the Allied forces broke through the German defenses. Both sides wanted to break the war stalemate with new scientific and technological advances.

The Germans violated the Hague Convention and used chlorine gas for the first time on the Western Front (during the April 22, 1915 Second Battle of Ypres). Both sides used gas and it wasn’t a battle winning weapon. Poison gas was heavily dangerous and destructive. Tanks were created by the British and French. They were first used in combat by the British during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette or part of the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916. There was only partial success in that battle. Yet, the tank was very effective as the war progressed. The Allied forces created large tanks. The German armies only employed a few of them. From 1915 to 1917, the war was a stalemate without a decisive blow. There was the continuation of trench warfare. Throughout 1915–17, the British Empire and France suffered more casualties than Germany, because of both the strategic and tactical stances chosen by the sides. Strategically, while the Germans only mounted one major offensive, the Allies made several attempts to break through the German lines.

On February of 1916, the Germans attacked the French defensive positions at Verdun. It lasted until December of 1916. The battle had initial German gains before the French counter-attacks returned matters to near their starting point. France had more casualties. Many Germans died as well from 700,000 to 975,000 people. Verdun was a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice. The Battle of Somme was an Anglo-French offensive from July to November of 1916. The start of the offensive on July 1, 1916 saw the British Army suffer the bloodiest day in its history. They suffered 57,470 casualties including 19,240 dead on the first day alone. The whole Somme offensive cost the British Army some 420,000 casualties. The French suffered another estimated 200,000 casualties and the Germans an estimated 500,000. Gun fire wasn’t the only way that soldiers died. There were diseases that killed people on both sides of the war. Many had infections. Illnesses like trench foot, shell shock, blindness, burns (from mustard gas), trench fever, body lice, and the flu harmed people. There was protracted action at Verdun all over 1916. There was massive bloodshed at the Somme. Many French soldiers were near collapse.

There were the futile attempts using front assault at the high price for the British and the French. Many French Army Mutinies existed. This came after the failure of the costly Nivelle Offensive of April to May 1917. The concurrent British Battle of Arras was more limited in scope and more successful. It was less of a strategic value though. One smaller part of the Arras offensive involved the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps. This was very important to Canada as the idea that Canada's national identity was born out of the battle is an opinion widely held in military and general histories of Canada. The last large-scale offensive of this period was a British attack (with French support) at Passchendaele (July–November 1917). This offensive opened with great promise for the Allies, before bogging down in the October mud. Casualties, though disputed, were roughly equal, at some 200,000–400,000 per side. These years of trench warfare in the West saw no major exchanges of territory and, as a result, are often thought of as static and unchanging. However, throughout this period, British, French, and German tactics constantly evolved to meet new battlefield challenges.

Naval Battles

WWI had many naval battles. From the start of the war, the German Empire has cruisers. They existed globally. Some of them attacked Allied merchant ships. The British Royal Navy hunted them down. They had difficulty in protecting Allied shipping. Britain once had the most powerful, influential navy in the world. The publishing of the book The Influence of Sea Power upon History by Alfred Thayer Mahan in 1890 was intended to encourage the United States to increase their naval power. Instead, this book made it to Germany and inspired its readers to try to over-power the British Royal Navy. For example, the German detached light cruiser SMS Emden, part of the East Asia Squadron stationed at Qingdao, seized or destroyed 15 merchantmen, as well as sinking a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. However, most of the German East-Asia squadron—consisting of the armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, light cruisers Nürnberg and Leipzig and two transport ships—did not have orders to raid shipping and was instead underway to Germany when it met British warships. The German flotilla and Dresden sank 2 armored cruisers at the Battle of Coronel. Many of these same ships were virtually destroyed at the Battle of Falkland Islands in December of 1914. Only Dresden and a few auxiliaries escaped. After the Battle of Mas a Tierra, these too had been destroyed or interned. Early in World War I, Britain started to execute a naval blockade of Germany. It was an effective strategy. The reason was that it cut off vital military and civilian supplies. This blockade violated international law and it was codified by several international agreements of the past two centuries. Britain mined international waters to prevent any chips from entering entire sections of the ocean. This caused danger to even neutral ships. There was a limited response to the tactic of the British. Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.

The Battle of Jutland took place in May/June 1916. It was the largest naval battle of WWI. It was the only full scale clash of battleships during the war and one the largest in history. The Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, fought the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, led by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The engagement was a standoff, as the Germans were outmaneuvered by the larger British fleet, but managed to escape and inflicted more damage to the British fleet than they received. Strategically, however, the British asserted their control of the sea, and the bulk of the German surface fleet remained confined to port for the duration of the war. German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hop of survival.

The United States launched a protest. Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships. The British placed them beyond the protection of the “cruiser rules” which demanded warning and movement of crews to “a place of safety” (a standard that lifeboats didn’t meet). In early 1917, Germany had a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. They realized that Americans would eventually enter the war. Germany wanted to strangle Allied sea lanes before the United States could transport a large army overseas, but after an initial success eventually failed to do so. The U-boat threat lessened in 1917 when merchant ships started to travel in convoys, escorted by destroyers. This made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses. After the hydrodophone and depth charges were introduced, accompanying destroyers could attack a submerged submarine with some hope of success. Convoys slowed the flow of supplies, since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled. The solution to the delays was an extensive program of building new freighters. Troopships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys. The U-boats had sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at a cost of 199 submarines. World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol.

The Eastern Front

The Western front of WWI had a stalemate. The war continued in Eastern Europe. There were initial Russian plans for invasions of Austrian Galicia and East Prussia simultaneously. Russia’s initial advance into Galicia was successful initially. They were driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes in August and September of 1914. Russia’s less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership were instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russian had retreated to Galicia. By May, the Central Powers had a breakthrough on Poland’s southern frontiers. By August 5, 1915, the Central Powers captured Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland.

Soon, the Russian Revolution came about. Russia won the June 1916 Brusilov Offensive in eastern Galicia. Many Russians opposed the Russian government’s conduct of the war. Other generals refused to support the victory. Allied and Russian forces were revived only temporally by Romania’s entry into the war by August 27. German forces came to the aid of the embattled Austro-Hungarian units in Transylvania while a German-Bulgarian force attacked from the south. Bucharest was retaken by the Central Powers on December 6, 1916. Unrest grew in Russia as the Tsar remained on the front. There was the bad rule of Empress Alexandra. Protests existed in Russia and there was the murder of her friend Rasputin at the end of 1916. By March of 1917, demonstrations in Petrograd culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of the Provisional Government. It shared power with the Petrograd Soviet socialists. This was the start of the Russian Revolution. This new arrangement caused confusion and chaos at the front and at home. The army was increasingly ineffective. After the Tsar’s abdication, Vladimir Lenin was ushered by train from Switzerland into Russia on April 16, 1917. He was financed by Jacob Schiff according to some scholars since the Russian Empire was notoriously anti-Semitic and issued pogroms against Jewish people. The truth is that Jacob Schiff allied with the moderate democratic-socialist Kerensky as he didn’t support Lenin or the Bolsheviks. There was discontent and problems in the Provisional government. This caused the popular rise of the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin. Lenin wanted the war to end.

The Revolution of November 1917 was followed by an armistice in December. Russia negotiated with Germany. At first, the Bolsheviks refused the German terms, but when German troops began marching across Ukraine unopposed, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. The treaty ceded vast territories, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, parts of Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers. Despite this enormous apparent German success, the manpower required for German occupation of former Russian territory may have contributed to the failure of the Spring Offensive and secured relatively little food or other materiel for the Central Powers war effort. The Entente no longer existed after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was adopted. The Allied powers led a small scale invasion of Russia to try to stop Germany from exploiting Russian resources. Also, it was done in a lesser extent to support the Whites (or the conservative, pro-Czar types) instead of the Reds (or the Communists) in the Russian Civil War. Allied troops landed in Arkhangelsk and in Vladivostok as part of the North Russia Intervention.

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The Czechoslovak Legion fought with the Entente. They wanted to have the independence of Czechoslovakia. The Legion of Russia was created in September 1914. By December 1917, one Legion was in France (including volunteers from America), and in April of 1918 in Italy. Czechoslovak Legion troops defeated the Austro-Hungarian army at the Ukrainian village of Zborov in July of 1917. After that success, the number of Czechoslovak legionnaires increased, as well as Czechoslovak military power. During the Battle of Bakhamuch, the Legion defeated the Germans and forced them to make a truce. In Russia, they were involved in the Russian Civil War. They sided with the Whites against the Bolsheviks. At times, they controlled most of the Trans-Siberian railway and conquered the major cities of Siberia. The presence of the Czechoslovak Legion near Yekaterinburg appears to have been one of the motivations for the Bolshevik execution of the Tsar and his family in July 1918. Legionaries arrived less than a week afterwards and captured the city. Because Russia's European ports were not safe, the corps was evacuated by a long detour via the port of Vladivostok. The last transport was the American ship Heffron in September 1920.

There were Central Powers peace overtures too. 10 months about the brutal Battle of Verdun in December 1916 and a successful offensive against Romania, the Germans attempted to negotiate a pace with the Allies. Soon after, the US President, Woodrow Wilson, attempted to intervene as a peacemaker, asking in a note for both sides to state their demands. George’s War Cabinet considered the German offer to be a ploy to create divisions amongst the Allies. After initial outrage and much deliberation, they took Wilson's note as a separate effort, signaling that the United States was on the verge of entering the war against Germany following the "submarine outrages." While the Allies debated a response to Wilson's offer, the Germans chose to rebuff it in favor of "a direct exchange of views." Learning of the German response, the Allied governments were free to make clear demands in their response of 14 January. They sought restoration of damages, the evacuation of occupied territories, reparations for France, Russia and Romania, and recognition of the principle of nationalities. This included the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Romanians, Czecho-Slovaks, and the creation of a "free and united Poland.” On the question of security, the Allies sought guarantees that would prevent or limit future wars, complete with sanctions, as a condition of any peace settlement. The negotiations failed and the Entente powers rejected the German offer on the grounds that Germany had not put forward any specific proposals.

Southern Theaters

There were Southern theaters in World War I too taking place in the Balkans, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia plus other places. Faced with Russia, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia. The Austrians had heavy losses. Later, the Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital or Belgrade. There was a Serbian counter attack in the Battle of Kolubara that succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. During the first ten months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats, however, scored a coup by persuading Bulgaria to join the attack on Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary, in the fight with Serbia, Russia, and Italy. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia. On October 12, 1915, Bulgaria declared war on Serbia. Bulgaria joined in the attack by the Austro-Hungarian army under Mackensen's army of 250,000 that was already underway. Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month, as the Central Powers, now including Bulgaria, sent in 600,000 troops total. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into northern Albania. The Serbs suffered defeat in the Battle of Kosovo. Montenegro covered the Serbian retreat towards the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac in January 6-7, 1916, but ultimately the Austrians also conquered Montenegro. The surviving Serbian soldiers were evacuated by ship to Greece. After conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria.

By 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece, to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against the Central Powers. Yet, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The friction between the King of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the National Schism, which effectively divided Greece between regions still loyal to the king and the new provisional government of Venizelos in Salonica. After intense negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Allied and royalist forces (an incident known as Noemvriana), the King of Greece resigned and his second son Alexander took his place; Greece then officially joined the war on the side of the Allies.

In the beginning, the Macedonian Front was mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on November 19, 1916 following the costly Monastir Offensive, which brought stabilization of the front. There was a breakthrough made by Serbian and French troops on September 1918. This was after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops have been withdrawn. The Bulgarians were defeated at the Battle of Dobro Pole and by September 25, 1918 British and French troops had crossed the border into Bulgaria proper as the Bulgarian army collapsed. Bulgaria capitulated four days later, on September 29, 1918. The German high command responded by dispatching troops to hold the line, but these forces were far too weak to reestablish a front.

The disappearance of the Macedonian Front meant that the road to Budapest and Vienna was now opened to Allied forces. Hindenburg and Ludendorff concluded that the strategic and operational balance had now shifted decidedly against the Central Powers and, a day after the Bulgarian collapse, insisted on an immediate peace settlement. The Ottoman Empire had a serious role in World War I. The Ottomans threatened Russia’s Caucasian territories and Britain’s communications with India via the Suez Canal. As the conflict progressed, the Ottoman Empire took advantage of the European powers’ preoccupation with the war. They conducted a large scale ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Christian populations, which was known as the Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide, and the Assyrian Genocide. The British and the French opened overseas front with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns (1914). In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French, Australian, and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs). In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the defeat of the British defenders in the Siege of Kut by the Ottomans (1915–16), British Imperial forces reorganized and captured Baghdad in March 1917.

The British were aided in Mesopotamia by local Arabic and Assyrian tribesmen, while the Ottomans employed local Kurdish and Turcoman tribes. Further to the west, the Suez Canal was defended from Ottoman attacks in 1915 and 1916. In August, a German and Ottoman force was defeated at the Battle of Romani by the ANZAC Mounted Division and the 52nd (Lowland) infantry Division. Following the victory, an Egyptian Expeditionary Force came across the Sinai Peninsula. They pushed Ottoman forces back in the Battle of Magdhaba in December and the Battle of Rafa on the border between the Egyptian Sinai and Ottoman Palestine in January 1917. Russian armies typically had successes in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha or the supreme commander of the Ottoman armed forces was ambitious. He wanted to conquer central Asia and areas that had lost to Russia previously. He was a poor commander. He launched an offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914 with 100,000 troops. He wanted a frontal attack against mountainous Russian positions in winter. He lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamish.

The Ottoman Empire had German support. It invaded Persia or modern day Iran in December of 1914. The empire wanted to cut off British and Russian access to petroleum reservoirs around Baku near the Caspian Sea. Persia, ostensibly neutral, had long been under the spheres of British and Russian influence. The Ottomans and Germans were aided by Kurdish and Azeri forces, together with a large number of major Iranian tribes, such as the Qashqai, Tangistanis, Luristanis, and Khamseh, while the Russians and British had the support of Armenian and Assyrian forces. The Persian Campaign was to last until 1918 and end in failure for the Ottomans and their allies. However the Russian withdrawal from the war in 1917 led to Armenian and Assyrian forces, who had hitherto inflicted a series of defeats upon the forces of the Ottomans and their allies, being cut off from supply lines, outnumbered, outgunned and isolated, forcing them to fight and flee towards British lines in northern Mesopotamia. General Yudenich, the Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, drove the Turks out of most of the southern Caucasus with a string of victories. In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed command of the Caucasus front. Nicholas planned a railway from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories, so that fresh supplies could be brought up for a new offensive in 1917. However, in March 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar abdicated in the course of the February Revolution and the Russian Caucasus Army began to fall apart.

The Arabic revolt was instigated by the Arab Bureau of the British Foreign Office. It started on June 1916 with the Battle of Mecca. It was led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca and ended with the Ottoman surrender of Damascus. Fakhri Pasha, the Ottoman commander of Medina, resisted for more than two and half years during the Siege of Medina before surrendering. The Senussi tribe, along the border of Italian Libya and British Egypt, incited and armed by the Turks, waged a small-scale guerrilla war against Allied troops. The British were forced to dispatch 12,000 troops to oppose them in the Senussi Campaign. Their rebellion was finally crushed in mid-1916. Total Allied casualties on the Ottoman fronts amounted 650,000 men. Total Ottoman casualties were 725,000 (325,000 dead and 400,000 wounded).

Italy had heavy involvement in WWI too. Italy was allied with German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882 as part of the Triple Alliance. Yet, the nation had its own designs on Austrian territory in Trentino, the Austrian Littoral, Fiume (Rijeka) and Dalmatia. Rome had a secret 1902 pact with France. This ended its part of the Triple Alliance. From the beginning, Italy refused to commit troops. It said that the Triple Alliance was defensive and that Austria-Hungary was the aggressor. The Austro-Hungarian government started negotiations to secure Italian neutrality. It offered the French colony of Tunisia in return. The Allies made a counteroffer in which Italy would receive the Southern Tyrol, Austrian Littoral and territory on the Dalmatian coast after the defeat of Austria-Hungary. This was formalized by the Treaty of London.

Further encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915, Italy joined the Triple Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May. Fifteen months later, Italy declared war on Germany. This was formalized by the Treaty of London. Further encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915, Italy joined the Triple Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23. Fifteen months later, Italy declared war on Germany. The Italians had a large number of troops. Yet, Italy had a difficult terrain. Field Marshal Luigi Cardorna was a believer in frontal assault. He wanted to break into the Slovenian plateau min taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. Austro-Hungary fought the Italians. The Austro-Hungarians counterattacked in the Altopiano of Asiago, towards Verona and Padua, in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but made little progress. Beginning in 1915, the Italians under Cadorna mounted eleven offensives on the Isonzo front along the Isonzo (Soča) River, northeast of Trieste. All eleven offensives were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who held the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, after the Battle of Doberdò, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained static for over a year, despite several Italian offensives, centered on the Banjšice and Karst Plateau east of Gorizia.

On October 26, 1917, the Central Powers executed a crushing offensive. It was led by the Germany. They had a victory at Caporetto (Kobarid). The Italian army was routed and retreated more than 62 miles to reorganize. It stabilized the front at the Piave River. The Italian Army had experienced heavy losses in the Battle of Caporetto and the Italian government called to arms. The 99 Boys (or the Ragazzi del 99). That group included all men born 1899 and prior, and so were 18 years old or older. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarians failed to break through in a series of battles on the Piave and were finally decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in October of that year. On November 1, the Italian Navy destroyed much of the Austro-Hungarian fleet stationed in Pula, preventing it from being handed over to the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. On November 3, the Italians invaded Trieste from the sea. On the same day, the Armistice of Villa Giusti was signed. By mid-November 1918, the Italian military occupied the entire former Austrian Littoral and had seized control of the portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the London Pact. By the end of hostilities in November 1918, Admiral Enrico Millo declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia. Austria-Hungary surrendered on November 11, 1918.

Romania had been allied with the Central Powers since 1882. When the war began, however, it declared its neutrality, arguing that because Austria-Hungary had itself declared war on Serbia, Romania was under no obligation to join the war. When the Entente Powers promised Romania Transylvania and Banat, large territories of eastern Hungary, in exchange for Romania's declaring war on the Central Powers, the Romanian government renounced its neutrality. On August 27, 1916, the Romanian Army launched an attack against Austria-Hungary, with limited Russian support. The Romanian offensive was initially successful, against the Austro-Hungarian troops in Transylvania, but a counterattack by the forces of the Central Powers drove them back. As a result of the Battle of Bucharest, the Central Powers occupied Bucharest on December 6, 1916. Fighting in Moldova continued in 1917, resulting in a costly stalemate for the Central Powers. Russian withdrawal from the war in late 1917 as a result of the October Revolution meant that Romania was forced to sign an armistice with the Central Powers on December 9, 1917.

In January 1918, Romanian forces established control over Bessarabiaas the Russian Army abandoned the province. Although a treaty was signed by the Romanian and the Bolshevik Russian governments following talks between March 5 and 9, 1918 on the withdrawal of Romanian forces from Bessarabia within two months, on March 27, 1918 Romania attached Bessarabia to its territory, formally based on a resolution passed by the local assembly of that territory on its unification with Romania. Romania officially made peace with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Bucharest on May 7, 1918. Under that treaty, Romania was obliged to end the war with the Central Powers and make small territorial concessions to Austria-Hungary, ceding control of some passes in the Carpathian Mountains, and to grant oil concessions to Germany. In exchange, the Central Powers recognized the sovereignty of Romania over Bessarabia. The treaty was renounced in October 1918 by the Alexandru Marghiloman government, and Romania nominally re-entered the war onNovember 10, 1918. The next day, the Treaty of Bucharest was nullified by the terms of the Armistice of Compiègne. Total Romanian deaths from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within contemporary borders, were estimated at 748,000.

By Timothy

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World War One Part 2 (100 Years Later)

World War One (100 Years Later)

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