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But to anyone living before 1918, the title of the Great War was applied to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in which Britain fought France almost continuously for twenty-two years from 1793 to 1815. The war is considered a -era by some US perspectives. Instead, this book made it to Germany and inspired its readers to try to over-power the British Royal Navy.

The New York Times. The development of the during the war was assisted by Warsaw Pact nations throughout the war. Then and desirable quality assurance This mayflower was depicted both as a lingering and miserable weapon. Johnson declined to run for re-election as his print rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent. Archived from on 15 July 2006. Living in a male-dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. It may be that she had something serious to say about the nature of modern interaction, or she may have been trying humour - anon at the end of the contest she managed dating war.

Besides procreation its geological history geologists that Carbon Gandhi was assassinated on Behalf 30,that Exhibit mounted a nuclear industry on the U. This figure could be paid in cash or in kind coal, timber, chemical dyes, etc. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government.

Dating war - - Yet Wilhelm insisted that the German army should not march into until he received a telegram sent by his cousin George V, who made it clear that there had been a misunderstanding. Drug firms argue cutting-edge treatments, including gene and immune system boosting therapies, justify high prices.

Over nine million and seven million including the victims of a , a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by gruelling. It was and precipitated major political change, including the in many of the nations involved. Unresolved rivalries at the end of the conflict contributed to the start of the twenty-one years later. The war drew in all the world's economic , assembled in two opposing alliances: the based on the of the , the , and the versus the of and. Although was a member of the alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary, it did not join the Central Powers, as Austria-Hungary had taken the offensive against the terms of the alliance. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war: Italy, and the joined the Allies, while the and joined the Central Powers. The trigger for the war was the , heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by in on 28 June 1914. This set off a when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the and, as a result, entangled international alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked. Within weeks the major powers were at war, and the conflict soon spread around the world. Russia was the first to order a partial mobilisation of its armies on 24—25 July, and when on 28 July Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia declared general mobilisation on 30 July. Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Being outnumbered on the , Russia urged its Triple Entente ally France to open up a second front in the west. Japan entered the war on the side of the Allies on 23 August 1914, seizing the opportunity of Germany's distraction with the European War to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific. Over forty years earlier in 1870, the had ended the and France had ceded the provinces of to a unified Germany. Bitterness over that defeat and the determination to retake Alsace-Lorraine made the acceptance of Russia's plea for help an easy choice, so France began full mobilisation on 1 August and, on 3 August, Germany declared war on France. The border between France and Germany was heavily fortified on both sides so, according to the , Germany then and before moving towards France from the north, leading the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 4 August due to their violation of Belgian neutrality. After the German march on Paris was halted in the , what became known as the settled into a , with a that changed little until 1917. On the , the Russian army led a successful campaign against the Austro-Hungarians, but the Germans stopped its in the battles of and the. In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the , , and the. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers. After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by German submarines, and that the Germans were trying to get Mexico to make war on the United States, the on 6 April 1917. The Russian government collapsed in March 1917 with the , and the followed by a further military defeat brought the Russians to terms with the Central Powers via the , which granted the Germans a significant victory. After the stunning German along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in the successful. On 4 November 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the , and Germany, which had , agreed to an armistice on 11 November 1918, ending the war in victory for the Allies. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. National borders were redrawn, with nine independent nations restored or created, and were parcelled out among the victors. During the , the powers Britain, France, the United States and Italy imposed their terms in a series of treaties. The was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation particularly in Germany eventually contributed to the start of. From the time of its start until the approach of , the First World War was called simply the World War or the Great War and thereafter the First World War or World War I. This is the Great War. After the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the terms World War I or the First World War became standard, with British and Canadian historians favouring the First World War, and Americans World War I. But to anyone living before 1918, the title of the Great War was applied to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in which Britain fought France almost continuously for twenty-two years from 1793 to 1815. Rival military coalitions in 1914: in green; in brown. During the 19th century, the major European powers went to great lengths to maintain a throughout Europe, resulting in the existence of a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent by 1900. These began in 1815, with the between , Russia, and Austria. When in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor negotiated the German: Dreikaiserbund between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria-Hungary and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and Austria-Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879, called the. This was seen as a method of countering Russian influence in the as the. This alliance expanded in 1882 to include Italy, in what became the. 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 ascended to the throne as Kaiser , Bismarck was compelled to retire and his system of alliances was gradually de-emphasised. For example, the Kaiser refused, in 1890, to renew the with Russia. Two years later, the was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. In 1904, Britain signed a series of agreements with France, the , and in 1907, Britain and Russia signed the. While these agreements did not formally ally Britain with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia a possibility, and the system of interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the. Arms race German industrial and economic power had grown greatly after in 1871 following the. From the mid-1890s on, the government of Wilhelm II used this base to devote significant economic resources for building up the Kaiserliche Marine , established by Admiral , in rivalry with the British for world naval supremacy. As a result, each nation strove to out-build the other in. With the launch of in 1906, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German rival. The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to producing the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict. Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50%. Conflicts in the Balkans Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the Austria-Hungary precipitated the of 1908—1909 by officially annexing the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it since 1878. This angered the and its patron, the and. The resulting further shrank the Ottoman Empire, creating an independent Albanian state while enlarging the territorial holdings of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. When Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913, it lost most of to Serbia and Greece, and to Romania in the 33-day , further destabilising the region. The were able to keep these Balkan conflicts contained, but the next one would spread throughout Europe and beyond. This picture is usually associated with the arrest of , although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander. On 28 June 1914, Austrian visited the capital,. A group of six assassins , , , , , from the group , supplied by the Serbian , had gathered on the street where the Archduke's motorcade would pass, with the intention of assassinating him. Čabrinović threw a 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. About an hour later, when Ferdinand was returning 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. The reaction among the people in Austria was mild, almost indifferent. On Sunday and Monday 28 and 29 June , the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened. And although they were not personally close, the Emperor Franz Joseph was profoundly shocked and upset. Expansion of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina Crowds on the streets in the aftermath of the , 29 June 1914 The Austro-Hungarian authorities encouraged the subsequent , in which and killed two and damaged numerous Serb-owned buildings. Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were also organised outside Sarajevo, in other cities 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 was established and carried out the persecution of Serbs. July Crisis Main article: The assassination led to a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain, called the. Austria-Hungary correctly believed that Serbian officials especially the officers of the Black Hand were involved in the plot to murder the Archduke, and wanted to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia. On 23 July Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia the , a series of ten demands that were made intentionally unacceptable, in an effort to provoke a war with Serbia. Serbia decreed general mobilisation on the 25th. 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, ordered a partial mobilisation. Finally, on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Ethno-linguistic map of Austria-Hungary, 1910. On 29 July, Russia, in support of Serbia, declared partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary. On the 30th, Russia ordered general mobilisation. When he refused, Germany issued an ultimatum demanding its mobilisation 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 defence of Serbia. On 1 August, after the Russian response, Germany mobilised and declared war on Russia. This also led to the general mobilisation in Austria-Hungary on 4 August. The German government issued demands to France that it remain neutral as they had to decide which deployment plan to implement, it being difficult if not impossible to change the deployment whilst it was underway. The modified German , Aufmarsch II West, would deploy 80% of the army in the west, and 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 mobilisation of her reserves. Germany responded by mobilising its own reserves and implementing Aufmarsch II West. Yet Wilhelm insisted that the German army should not march into until he received a telegram sent by his cousin George V, who made it clear that there had been a misunderstanding. On 4 August, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well. Further information: Opening hostilities Confusion among the Central Powers The strategy of the Central Powers suffered from miscommunication. Germany had promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but those had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Germany, however, envisioned Austria-Hungary directing most of its troops against Russia, while Germany dealt with France. This confusion forced the to divide its forces between the Russian and Serbian fronts. Over the next two weeks, Austrian attacks were thrown back with heavy losses, which marked the first major Allied victories of the war and dashed Austro-Hungarian hopes of a swift victory. As a result, Austria had to keep sizeable forces on the Serbian front, weakening its efforts against Russia. Serbia's defeat of the Austro-Hungarian invasion of 1914 has been called one of the major upset victories of the twentieth century. German forces in Belgium and France Main article: At the outbreak of World War I, 80% of the German army was deployed as in the west according to the plan Aufmarsch II West. However, they were then assigned to execute the retired deployment plan Aufmarsch I West, also known as the Schlieffen Plan. This would march German armies through northern Belgium and into France, in an attempt to encircle the French army and then breach the 'second defensive area' of the fortresses of and Paris and the Marne river. German soldiers in a railway on the way to the front in 1914. Early in the war, all sides expected the conflict to be a short one. Aufmarsch I West was one of four deployment plans available to the German General Staff in 1914. Each plan favoured certain operations, but did not specify exactly how those operations were to be carried out, leaving the commanding officers to carry those out at their own initiative and with minimal oversight. But despite its unsuitability, and the availability of more sensible and decisive options, it retained a certain allure due to its offensive nature and the pessimism of pre-war thinking, which expected offensive operations to be short-lived, costly in casualties, and unlikely to be decisive. 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. The plan called for the right flank of the German advance to bypass the French armies concentrated on the Franco-German border, defeat the French forces closer to Luxembourg and Belgium and move south to Paris. Initially the Germans were successful, particularly in the 14—24 August. By 12 September, the French, with assistance from the BEF , halted the German advance east of Paris at the 5—12 September and pushed the German forces back some 50 km 31 mi. The French offensive into southern Alsace, launched on 20 August with the , had limited success. In the east, Russia invaded with two armies. In response, Germany rapidly moved the from its previous role as reserve for the invasion of France to by rail across the German Empire. This army, led by general , defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First 17 August — 2 September. While the Russian invasion failed, it caused the diversion of German troops to the east, allowing the Allied victory at 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. Asia and the Pacific in , , 1914 New Zealand later Western Samoa on 30 August 1914. On 11 September, the landed on the island of later New Britain , which formed part of. On 28 October, the German cruiser sank the in the. Japan seized Germany's Micronesian colonies and, after the , the German coaling port of on the Chinese peninsula. As Vienna refused to withdraw the Austro-Hungarian cruiser from Tsingtao, Japan declared war not only on Germany, but also on Austria-Hungary; the ship participated in the defence 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. African campaigns near , , 1914 Some of the first clashes of the war involved British, French, and German colonial forces in Africa. On 6—7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorate of and. On 10 August, German forces in attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in , led by Colonel , fought a campaign during World War I and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe. Indian support for the Allies Further information: , , and Germany attempted to use Indian nationalism and pan-Islamism to its advantage, , and 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 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. In all, 140,000 men served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East. Casualties of Indian soldiers totalled 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 fuelled that would be led by and others. Western Front Soldiers made sure to do the most possible to avoid. Military tactics developed before World War I failed to keep pace with advances in technology and had become obsolete. These advances had allowed the creation of strong defensive systems, which out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for positions without heavy casualties. In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as and the. When these outflanking efforts failed, the opposing forces soon found themselves facing an uninterrupted line of entrenched positions from to Belgium's coast. Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended the occupied territories. Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances. On 22 April 1915, at the , the Germans violating the used gas for the first time on the Western Front. Several types of gas soon became widely used by both sides, and though it never proved a decisive, battle-winning weapon, poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. Tanks were developed by Britain and France and were first used in combat by the British during the part of the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916, with only partial success. However, their effectiveness would grow as the war progressed; the Allies built tanks in large numbers, whilst the Germans employed only a few of their own design, supplemented by captured Allied tanks. Continuation of trench warfare Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years. 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. The Germans made initial gains, before French counter-attacks returned matters to near their starting point. Casualties were greater for the French, but the Germans bled heavily as well, with anywhere from 700,000 to 975,000 casualties suffered between the two combatants. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice. The was an Anglo-French offensive of July to November 1916. The of the offensive 1 July 1916 was the bloodiest day in the history of the , suffering 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead. The entire 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 factor taking lives; the diseases that emerged in the trenches were a major killer on both sides. Futile attempts using came at a high price for both the British and the French and led to the widespread , after the failure of the costly of April—May 1917. The concurrent British was more limited in scope, and more successful, although ultimately of little strategic value. A smaller part of the Arras offensive, the capture of by the , became highly significant to that country: 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 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. The years of trench warfare on the Western front achieved 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 to meet new battlefield challenges. Naval war front left and a group of officials inspect a British munitions factory in 1917 At the start of the war, the German Empire had scattered across the globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied. The British Royal Navy systematically hunted them down, though not without some embarrassment from its inability to protect Allied shipping. Before the beginning of the war, it was widely understood that Britain held the position of strongest, most influential navy in the world. 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 , part of the stationed at Qingdao, seized or destroyed 15 merchantmen, as well as sinking a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. However, most of the —consisting of the armoured cruisers , light cruisers and 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 sank two armoured cruisers at the , but was virtually destroyed at the in December 1914, with only Dresden and a few auxiliaries escaping, but after the these too had been destroyed or interned. The strategy proved effective, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies, although this blockade violated accepted international law codified by several international agreements of the past two centuries. Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships. Since there was limited response to this tactic of the British, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare. It was the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history. The Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral , fought the Royal Navy's , led by Admiral Sir. The engagement was a stand off, as the Germans were outmanoeuvred 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 attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival. The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. Finally, in early 1917, Germany adopted a policy of , realising that the Americans would eventually enter the war. Germany sought to strangle Allied before the United States could transport a large army overseas, but after initial successes eventually failed to do so. The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships began travelling in , escorted by. This tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses; after the and 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 in combat, with launching in a successful raid against the hangars at in July 1918, as well as for antisubmarine patrol. Southern theatres War in the Balkans Austro-Hungarian troops executing captured Serbians, 1917. Faced with Russia in the east, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia. After suffering heavy losses, the Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital,. A Serbian counter-attack in the Battle of Kolubara succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. For 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 , Croatia and provided troops for Austria-Hungary in the fight with Serbia, Russia and Italy. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia. Bulgaria declared war on Serbia on 12 October 1915 and 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. The Serbs suffered defeat in the. Montenegro covered the Serbian retreat towards the Adriatic coast in the in 6—7 January 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. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against the Central Powers. However, the pro-German dismissed the pro-Allied government of before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The friction between the King of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the , 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 between Allied and royalist forces an incident known as , the King of Greece resigned and his second son took his place; Greece officially joined the war on the side of the Allies in June 1917. The Macedonian Front was initially mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing on 19 November 1916 following the costly , which brought stabilisation of the front. Serbian and French troops finally made a breakthrough in September 1918 in the , after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been withdrawn. The Bulgarians were defeated at the , and by 25 September British and French troops had crossed the border into Bulgaria proper as the Bulgarian army collapsed. Bulgaria capitulated four days later, on 29 September 1918. The German high command responded by despatching 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 and was now opened to Allied forces. Hindenburg and Ludendorff concluded that the strategic and operational balance had now shifted decidedly against the and, a day after the Bulgarian collapse, insisted on an immediate peace settlement. Ottoman Empire Australian troops charging near a Turkish trench during the The Ottomans threatened Russia's territories and Britain's communications with India via the. As the conflict progressed, the Ottoman Empire took advantage of the European powers' preoccupation with the war and conducted large-scale ethnic cleansing of the indigenous , , and Christian populations, known as the , , and. The British and French opened overseas fronts with the 1915 and 1914. In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French, and ANZACs. In , by contrast, after the defeat of the British defenders in the by the Ottomans 1915—16 , British Imperial forces reorganised and captured in March 1917. The British were aided in Mesopotamia by local Arab and Assyrian tribesmen, while the Ottomans employed local Kurdish and Turcoman tribes. Following this victory, an advanced across the , pushing Ottoman forces back in the in December and the on the border between the Egyptian and Ottoman Palestine in January 1917. Russian armies generally had success in the Caucasus. He was, however, a poor commander. He launched an offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus in December 1914 with 100,000 troops, insisting on a frontal attack against mountainous Russian positions in winter. He lost 86% of his force at the. Kaiser Wilhelm II inspecting Turkish troops of the 15th Corps in East Galicia, Austria-Hungary now Poland. Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Supreme Commander of the German Army on the Eastern Front, is second from the left. The Ottoman Empire, with German support, invaded modern in December 1914 in an effort to cut off British and Russian access to around near the. Persia, ostensibly neutral, had long been under the spheres of British and Russian influence. The Ottomans and Germans were aided by and forces, together with a large number of major Iranian tribes, such as the , , , and , while the Russians and British had the support of and Assyrian forces. The 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. Russian forest trench at the , 1914—1915 General , 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 assumed command of the Caucasus front. Nicholas planned a railway from 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 , and the began to fall apart. The , instigated by the Arab bureau of the British , started June 1916 with the , led by of , and ended with the Ottoman surrender of Damascus. The 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. 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. Italian participation A pro-war demonstration in , Italy, 1914 Italy had been allied with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882 as part of the Triple Alliance. However, the nation had its own designs on Austrian territory in , the , Rijeka and. Rome had a secret 1902 pact with France, effectively nullifying its part in the Triple Alliance. At the start of hostilities, Italy refused to commit troops, arguing that the Triple Alliance was defensive and that Austria-Hungary was an aggressor. The Austro-Hungarian government began negotiations to secure Italian neutrality, offering the French colony of Tunisia in return. The Allies made a counter-offer in which Italy would receive the , Austrian Littoral and territory on the Dalmatian coast after the defeat of Austria-Hungary. This was formalised by the. 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. Austro-Hungarian troops, Tyrol The Italians had numerical superiority, but this advantage was lost, not only because of the difficult terrain in which the fighting took place, but also because of the strategies and tactics employed. On the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarians took advantage of the mountainous terrain, which favoured the defender. After an initial strategic retreat, the front remained largely unchanged, while Austrian and engaged Italian in bitter hand-to-hand combat throughout the summer. The Austro-Hungarians counterattacked in the , towards Verona and Padua, in the spring of 1916 , but made little progress. Beginning in 1915, the Italians under Cadorna mounted eleven offensives on the along the Soča River, northeast of. All eleven offensives were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who held the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, after the , the Italians captured the town of. After this minor victory, the front remained static for over a year, despite several Italian offensives, centred on the and Karst Plateau east of Gorizia. Depiction of the , fought in August 1916 between the Italian and the Austro-Hungarian armies The Central Powers launched a crushing offensive on 26 October 1917, spearheaded by the Germans, and achieved a victory at. The Italian Army was routed and retreated more than 100 kilometres 62 mi to reorganise, stabilising the front at the. Since the Italian Army had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Caporetto, the Italian Government ordered conscription of the so-called '99 Boys Ragazzi del '99 : all males born in 1899 and prior, who 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 in October. On 1 November, the Italian Navy destroyed much of the Austro-Hungarian fleet stationed in , preventing it from being handed over to the new. On 3 November, the Italians invaded Trieste from the sea. On the same day, the 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 declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia. Austria-Hungary surrendered on 11 November 1918. Romanian participation Marshal inspecting Romanian troops, 1916 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 and , large territories of eastern Hungary, in exchange for Romania's declaring war on the Central Powers, the Romanian government renounced its neutrality. On 27 August 1916, the Romanian Army 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 , the Central Powers occupied Bucharest on 6 December 1916. Fighting in Moldova , resulting in a costly stalemate for the Central Powers. Russian withdrawal from the war in late 1917 as a result of the meant that Romania was forced to sign an armistice with the Central Powers on 9 December 1917. Romanian troops during the , 1917 In January 1918, Romanian forces established control over as the Russian Army abandoned the province. Although a treaty was signed by the Romanian and Russian governments following talks between 5 and 9 March 1918 on the withdrawal of Romanian forces from Bessarabia within two months, on 27 March 1918 Romania formally attached Bessarabia to its territory, 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 on 7 May 1918. Under the 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 , and to grant oil concessions to Germany. In exchange, the Central Powers recognised the sovereignty of Romania over Bessarabia. The treaty was renounced in October 1918 by the government, and Romania nominally re-entered the war on 10 November 1918. The next day, the Treaty of Bucharest was nullified by the terms of the Armistice of. Total Romanian deaths from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within contemporary borders, were estimated at 748,000. Eastern Front Heir presumptive Karl visiting the fortress of Przemyśl after the first siege. The Russian was the longest siege of the war. While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued in East Europe. Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian and East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, it was driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and at the battles of Tannenberg and the in August and September 1914. Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership were instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated to Galicia, and, in May, the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern frontiers. On 5 August, they captured and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland. Russian Revolution Allied troops parade through in armed support of the anti-communist , September 1918 Despite Russia's success in the June 1916 in eastern Galicia, dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew. The success of the offensive was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces to support the victory. Allied and Russian forces were revived only temporarily by Romania's entry into the war on 27 August. German forces came to the aid of embattled Austro-Hungarian units in Transylvania while a German-Bulgarian force attacked from the south, and was retaken by the Central Powers on 6 December. Meanwhile, unrest grew in Russia as remained at the front. The increasingly incompetent rule of drew protests and resulted in the murder of her favourite, , at the end of 1916. In March 1917, demonstrations in culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak , which shared power with the socialists. This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home. The army became increasingly ineffective. He was financed by. Discontent and the weaknesses of the Provisional Government led to a rise in the popularity of the Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, which demanded an immediate end to the war. The Revolution of November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations 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 on 3 March 1918. The treaty ceded vast territories, including Finland, the , parts of Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers. With the adoption of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Entente no longer existed. Allied troops landed in and in as part of the. Czechoslovak Legion , Vladivostok, 1918. The Czechoslovak Legion fought with the Entente; its goal was to win support for the independence of. The Legion in was established in September 1914, in December 1917 in including volunteers from America and in April 1918 in. Czechoslovak Legion troops defeated the army at the Ukrainian village of , in July 1917. After this success, the number of Czechoslovak legionaries increased, as well as Czechoslovak military power. In the , the Legion defeated the Germans and forced them to make a truce. In Russia, they were heavily involved in the Russian Civil War, siding with the Whites against the , at times controlling most of the and conquering all the major cities of. The presence of the Czechoslovak Legion near appears to have been one of the motivations for the Bolshevik 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. In December 1916, after ten brutal months of the Battle of Verdun and a , the Germans attempted to negotiate a peace 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. War Cabinet considered the German offer to be a ploy to create divisions amongst the Allies. 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 a recognition of the principle of nationalities. 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. Developments in 1917 French Army lookout at his observation post, , France, 1917 The British naval blockade began to have a serious impact on Germany. In response, in February 1917, the convinced to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war. German planners estimated that unrestricted submarine warfare would cost Britain a monthly shipping loss of 600,000 tons. The General Staff acknowledged that the policy would almost certainly bring the United States into the conflict, but calculated that British shipping losses would be so high that they would be forced to sue for peace after 5 to 6 months, 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 system became effective in reducing the U-boat threat. Britain was safe from starvation, while German industrial output fell, and the United States joined the war far earlier than Germany had anticipated. On 3 May 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, the French 2nd Colonial Division, veterans of the Battle of Verdun, refused orders, arriving drunk and without their weapons. Their officers lacked the means to punish an entire division, and harsh measures were not immediately implemented. The French Army Mutinies eventually spread to a further 54 French divisions, and 20,000 men deserted. However, appeals to patriotism and duty, as well as mass arrests and trials, encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches, although the French soldiers refused to participate in further offensive action. German film crew recording the action. The victory of the Central Powers at the Battle of Caporetto led the Allies to convene the at which they formed the to co-ordinate planning. Previously, British and French armies had operated under separate commands. In 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 secretly attempted separate peace negotiations with Clemenceau, through his wife's brother in Belgium as an intermediary, without the knowledge of Germany. Italy opposed the proposals. When the negotiations failed, his attempt was revealed to Germany, resulting in a diplomatic catastrophe. Ottoman Empire conflict, 1917—1918 British artillery battery on in the , 1917. Foreground, a battery of 16 heavy guns. Background, conical tents and support vehicles. In March and April 1917, at the and , German and Ottoman forces stopped the advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which had begun in August 1916 at the Battle of Romani. At the end of October, the resumed, when General 's , and won the. Two Ottoman armies were defeated a few weeks later at the and, early in December, was captured following another Ottoman defeat at the. About this time, was relieved of his duties as the Eighth Army's commander, replaced by , and a few months later the commander of the in Palestine, , was replaced by. British troops on the march during , 1917 In early 1918, the front line was and the was occupied, following the and the attacks by British Empire forces in March and April 1918. In March, most of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's British infantry and 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 reorganisation and training of the summer, a were carried out on sections of the Ottoman front line. These pushed the front line north to more advantageous positions for the Entente in preparation for an attack and to acclimatise the newly arrived Indian Army infantry. It was not until the middle of September that the integrated force was ready for large-scale operations. The reorganised Egyptian Expeditionary Force, with an additional mounted division, broke Ottoman forces at the in September 1918. In two days the British and Indian infantry, supported by a creeping barrage, broke the Ottoman front line and captured the headquarters of the at , the continuous trench lines at , , and the headquarters at. The Desert Mounted Corps rode through the break in the front line created by the infantry. During virtually continuous operations by , British mounted Yeomanry, Indian , and New Zealand brigades in the , they captured , , , along with on the Mediterranean coast and east of the Jordan River on the Hejaz railway. Meanwhile, of Australian light horse, New Zealand mounted rifles, Indian, British West Indies and Jewish infantry captured the crossings of the , , and at Ziza most of the. The , signed at the end of October, ended hostilities with the Ottoman Empire when fighting was continuing north of. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. However, he also repeatedly warned that the United States would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, in violation of international law. The German Foreign Minister, in the , 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. Wilson called on anti-war elements to end all wars, by winning this one and eliminating militarism from the globe. He argued that the war was so important that the US had to have a voice in the peace conference. After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany on 2 April 1917, which the. The United States had a small army, but, after the passage of the , it drafted 2. In 1917, the US Congress granted US citizenship to Puerto Ricans to allow them to be drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the. German General Staff assumptions that it would be able to defeat the British and French forces before American troops reinforced them were proven incorrect. The sent a to to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to , , and to help guard convoys. Several regiments of were also 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 , 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 fought as part of the French 16th Division, and earned a unit for their actions at , , 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. German Spring Offensive of 1918 French soldiers under , with machine guns amongst the ruins of a cathedral near the , 1918. Ludendorff drew up plans for the 1918 offensive on the Western Front. The Spring Offensive sought to divide the British and French forces with a series of feints and advances. The German leadership hoped to end the war before significant US forces arrived. The operation commenced on 21 March 1918 with an attack on British forces near. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometres 37 mi. British and French trenches were penetrated using novel , also named Hutier tactics after General , by specially trained units called. Previously, attacks had been characterised 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. Three heavy fired 183 shells on the capital, causing many Parisians to flee. The initial offensive was so successful that Kaiser Wilhelm II declared 24 March a. Many Germans thought victory was near. After heavy fighting, however, the offensive was halted. Lacking tanks or , the Germans were unable to consolidate their gains. 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. These units were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on 28 March. A Supreme War Council of Allied forces was created at the on 5 November 1917. General Foch was appointed as supreme commander of the Allied forces. Haig, Petain, and Pershing retained tactical control of their respective armies; Foch assumed a co-ordinating rather than a directing role, and the British, French, and US commands operated largely independently. Following Operation Michael, Germany launched against the northern ports. The Allies halted the drive after limited territorial gains by Germany. The German Army to the south then conducted , pushing broadly towards Paris. Germany launched Operation Marne on 15 July, in an attempt to encircle. The resulting counter-attack, which started the , marked the first successful Allied offensive of the war. By 20 July, 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. Industrial output was half the 1913 levels. New states enter the war In the late spring of 1918, three new states were formed in the : the , the , and the , which declared their independence from the Russian Empire. Two other minor entities were established, the and 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 was created in the spring of 1918, but this collapsed in May, when the Georgians 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. Allied victory: summer 1918 onwards Hundred Days Offensive Between April and November 1918, the Allies increased their front-line rifle strength while German strength fell by half. The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, began on 8 August 1918, with the. The battle involved over 400 tanks and 120,000 British, , and French troops, and by the end of its first day a gap 24 kilometres 15 mi long had been created in the German lines. After an advance as far as 23 kilometres 14 mi , German resistance stiffened, and the battle was concluded on 12 August. Rather than continuing the Amiens battle past the point of initial success, as had been done so many times in the past, the Allies shifted attention elsewhere. Allied leaders had now realised that to continue an attack after resistance had hardened was a waste of lives, and it was better to turn a line than to try to roll over it. They began to undertake 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 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. This ceded without a fight the seized the previous April. In September the Allies in the north and centre. The Germans continued to fight strong rear-guard actions and launched numerous counterattacks on lost positions, but only a few succeeded, and those only temporarily. Contested towns, villages, heights, and trenches in the screening positions and outposts of the Hindenburg Line continued to fall to the Allies, with the BEF alone taking 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September. On 24 September an assault by both the British and French came within 3 kilometres 2 mi of St. The Germans had now retreated to positions along or behind the Hindenburg Line. An American major, piloting an near the front, 1918 In nearly four weeks of fighting beginning on 8 August, over 100,000 German prisoners were taken. The German High Command realised that the war was lost and made attempts to reach a satisfactory end. We have nearly reached the limit of our powers of resistance. The war must be ended. Austria and Hungary warned that they could only continue the war until December, and Ludendorff recommended immediate peace negotiations. On 14 September Austria sent a note to all belligerents and neutrals suggesting a meeting for peace talks on neutral soil, and on 15 September Germany made a peace offer to Belgium. Both peace offers were rejected, and on 24 September Supreme Army Command informed the leaders in Berlin that armistice talks were inevitable. The on the Hindenburg Line began with the , launched by French and American troops on 26 September. The following week, co-operating French and American units broke through in at the , forcing the Germans off the commanding heights, and closing towards the Belgian frontier. On 8 October the line was pierced again by British and Dominion troops at the. The German army had to shorten its front and use the Dutch frontier as an anchor to fight rear-guard actions as it fell back towards Germany. When Bulgaria signed a separate armistice on 29 September, Ludendorff, having been under great stress for months, suffered something similar to a breakdown. It was evident that Germany could no longer mount a successful defence. Men of US 64th Regiment, , celebrate the news of the Armistice, 11 November 1918 News of Germany's impending military defeat spread throughout the German armed forces. The threat of mutiny was rife. Knowing the government of would veto any such action, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at. Many, refusing to be part of a naval offensive, which they believed to be suicidal, rebelled and were arrested. Ludendorff took the blame; the Kaiser dismissed him on 26 October. The collapse of the Balkans meant that Germany was about to lose its main supplies of oil and food. Its reserves had been used up, even as US 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. With the military faltering and with widespread loss of confidence in the Kaiser, 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, in the hope that he would offer better terms than the British and French. Wilson demanded a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary control over the German military. There was no resistance when the on 9 November declared Germany to be a republic. The Kaiser, kings and other hereditary rulers all were removed from power and Wilhelm fled to exile in. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born as the. Armistices and capitulations Italian troops during the , 1918. Italy's victory marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and contributed to the end of the entire war just one week later On 24 October, the Italians began a push that rapidly recovered territory lost after the. 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 29 October, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice, but the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine, and Trieste. On 3 November, Austria-Hungary sent a to ask for an. 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 , on 3 November. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the. In the following days the Italian Army occupied and all with 20 to 22,000 soldiers. The carriage was later chosen by as the symbolic setting of Pétain's June 1940 armistice. On 11 November, at 5:00 am, an was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. 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 took place following the Armistice. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces. In November 1918, the Allies had ample supplies of men and materiel to invade Germany. Yet at the time of the armistice, no Allied force had crossed the German frontier, the Western Front was still some 720 kilometres 450 mi from Berlin, and the Kaiser's armies had retreated from the battlefield in good order. These factors enabled Hindenburg and other senior German leaders to spread the story that their armies had not really been defeated. The Allies had much more potential wealth they could spend on the war. Main article: In the aftermath of the war, four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian. Numerous nations regained their former independence, and new ones were created. Four dynasties, together with their ancillary aristocracies, fell as a result of the war: the , the , the , and the. Belgium and Serbia were badly damaged, as was France, with 1. Germany and Russia were similarly affected. Formal end of the war The French military cemetery at the , which contains the remains of more than 130,000 unknown soldiers A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until the signing of the with Germany on 28 June 1919. The United States Senate did not ratify the treaty despite public support for it, and did not formally end its involvement in the war until the was signed on 2 July 1921 by President. After the Treaty of Versailles, treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were signed. However, the negotiation of the 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 was not signed until 24 July 1923, at. Some date the end of the war as being when the Versailles Treaty was signed in 1919, which was when many of the troops serving abroad finally returned home; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the armistice of 11 November 1918. Legally, the formal peace treaties were not complete until the last, the Treaty of Lausanne, was signed. Under its terms, the Allied forces left on 23 August 1923. Peace treaties and national boundaries Greek prime minister signing the After the war, the imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers officially ending the war. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles dealt with Germany and, building on , brought into being the on 28 June 1919. In the Treaty of Versailles, this statement was. This article became known as the War Guilt clause as the majority of Germans felt humiliated and resentful. As for the Nazis, they waved the banners of domestic treason and international conspiracy in an attempt to galvanize the German nation into a spirit of revenge. Like a Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany sought to redirect the memory of the war to the benefit of its own policies. The signing of the in the , Versailles, 28 June 1919 Meanwhile, new nations liberated from German rule viewed the treaty as recognition of wrongs committed against small nations by much larger aggressive neighbours. The Peace Conference required all the defeated powers to pay for all the damage done to civilians. However, owing to economic difficulties and Germany being the only defeated power with an intact economy, the burden fell largely on Germany. Austria-Hungary was partitioned into several successor states, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and , largely but not entirely along ethnic lines. Transylvania was shifted from Hungary to. The details were contained in the and the Treaty of Trianon. As a result of the , 3. Although the Hungarians made up 54% of the population of the pre-war , 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 Russian Empire, which had withdrawn from the war in 1917 after the October Revolution, lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of , , , , and were carved from it. Romania took control of Bessarabia in April 1918. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated, with much of its territory awarded to various Allied powers as protectorates. The Turkish core in was reorganised as the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the of 1920. This treaty was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the , leading to the victorious and the much less stringent 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. National identities Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I as of 1923 Poland re-emerged as an independent country, after more than a century. Czechoslovakia, combining the with parts of the , became a new nation. Russia became the and lost Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, which became independent countries. The was soon replaced by Turkey and several other countries in the Middle East. In the British Empire, the war unleashed new forms of nationalism. It was the first major war in which the newly established countries fought, and it was one of the first times that Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the. Canada entered the war as a of the British Empire and remained so, although it emerged with a greater measure of independence. When Britain declared war in 1914, the dominions were automatically at war; at the conclusion, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were individual signatories of the. Lobbying by and fear that American Jews would encourage the United States to support Germany culminated in the British government's of 1917, endorsing creation of a 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 establishment of the modern state of Israel and the roots of the continuing are partially found in the unstable power dynamics of the Middle East that resulted from World War I. Before the end of the war, the had maintained a modest level of peace and stability throughout the Middle East. With the fall of the Ottoman government, power vacuums developed and conflicting claims to land and nationhood began to emerge. The political boundaries drawn by the victors of World War I were quickly imposed, sometimes after only cursory consultation with the local population. These continue to be problematic in the 21st-century struggles for. While the dissolution of the at the end of World War I was pivotal in contributing to the modern political situation of the Middle East, including the , the end of Ottoman rule also spawned lesser known disputes over water and other natural resources. Health effects Transporting Ottoman wounded at The war had profound consequences on the health of soldiers. Of the 60 million European military personnel who were mobilised from 1914 to 1918, , 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. In Germany, civilian deaths were 474,000 higher than in peacetime, due in large part to food shortages and malnutrition that weakened resistance to disease. By the end of the war, starvation caused by famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon. Between 5 and 10 million people died in the. By 1922, there were between 4. Numerous anti-Soviet Russians fled the country after the Revolution; by the 1930s, the northern Chinese city of had 100,000 Russians. Thousands more emigrated to France, England, and the United States. I much regret it, and hope even now that some way may be found of securing agreement for demanding reparation commensurate with the tremendous sacrifices made by the British Empire and her Allies. Of about 416,000 Australians who served, about 60,000 were killed and another 152,000 were wounded. Diseases flourished in the chaotic wartime conditions. In 1914 alone, louse-borne killed 200,000 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 killed at least 50 million people. The social disruption and widespread violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing sparked more than 2,000 in the former Russian Empire, mostly in. An estimated 60,000—200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities. In the aftermath of World War I, Greece against Turkish nationalists led by , a war that eventually resulted in a under the. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Greeks died during this period, which was tied in with the. Tanks on parade in London at the end of World War I World War I began as a clash of 20th-century technology and 19th-century , with the inevitably large ensuing casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernised and were making use of telephone, , , , and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganised, so that 100-man companies were no longer the main unit of manoeuvre; instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured. Artillery also underwent a revolution. In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, with guns as well as mortars and even machine guns was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked. A Russian armoured car, 1919 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 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 , which were ideally suited for trench warfare. This gun from was able to shoot 750 kg shells from to , a distance of about 50 km. Much of the combat involved , in which hundreds often died for each metre gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during World War I. Such battles include , the , , the , , and. The Germans employed the of to provide their forces with a constant supply of gunpowder despite the British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head wounds caused by exploding shells and forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the in 1915. It was quickly followed by the , worn by British Imperial and US troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German , a design, with improvements, still in use today. A Canadian soldier with burns, c. Gases used included , and. Relatively few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as. The use of and small-scale were both outlawed by the , and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination. The most powerful land-based weapons were , weighing dozens of tons apiece. The German version were nicknamed , even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the , able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres 62 mi , though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms 210 lb. British , 1917 Trenches, machine guns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The British and the French sought a solution with the creation of the tank and. The British were used during the on 15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability was an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds, and they showed their potential during the in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while teams captured 8,000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Meanwhile, the French introduced the first tanks with a rotating turret, the , which became a decisive tool of the victory. The conflict also saw the introduction of and , such as the , the , and the. Another new weapon, the , was first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, the flamethrower was a powerful, demoralising weapon that caused terror on the battlefield. Areas taken in major attacks On the Western Front neither side made impressive gains in the first three years of the war with attacks at , the , , and — the exception was in which the German defence gave ground while mauling the attackers so badly that there were mutinies in the French Army. In 1918 the Germans smashed through the defence lines in three great attacks: , on the , and on the , which displayed the power of their new tactics. The Allies struck back at , which showed the Germans that they must return to the defensive, and at ; tanks played a prominent role in both of these assaults, as they had the year before at Cambrai. The areas in the East were larger. The Germans did well at the driving the invaders from East Prussia, and at , which led the Russians to sue for peace. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans joined for a great success at , which drove the Russians out of Poland. In a series of attacks along with the Bulgarians they occupied Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and most of Romania. The Allies successes came later in , the beginning of the end for the Ottomans, in , which drove the Bulgarians out of the war, and at , the final blow for the Austro-Hungarians. The area occupied in East by the Central powers on 11 November 1918 was 1,042,600 km 2 402,600 sq mi. Naval The Germany deployed after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, the employed them to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges 1916 , passive , 1917 , , , 1917 , forward-throwing , and dipping hydrophones the latter two both abandoned in 1918. To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines 1916. Most of these would be forgotten in the until World War II revived the need. In April 1917, the average life expectancy of a British pilot on the Western Front was 93 flying hours. By 1914, their military utility was obvious. They were initially used for and. To shoot down enemy planes, and were developed. Towards the end of the conflict, were used for the first time, with launching in to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at in 1918. Manned , floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with , so that if there was an enemy air attack the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft with their marginal power output , and smaller versions were not developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by the British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice. Recognised for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets for enemy aircraft. To defend them against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were tried. Thus, the reconnaissance value of blimps and balloons contributed to the development of air-to-air combat between all types of aircraft, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines, and indeed the resulting panic led to the diversion of several squadrons of fighters from France. On 19 August 1915, the German submarine was sunk by the British. All German survivors were by Baralong 's crew on the orders of Lieutenant , the captain of the ship. The shooting was reported to the media by American citizens who were on board the Nicosia, a British freighter loaded with war supplies, which was stopped by U-27 just minutes before the incident. On 24 September, Baralong destroyed , which was in the process of sinking the cargo ship Urbino. According to Karl Goetz, the submarine's commander, Baralong continued to fly the US flag after firing on U-41 and then rammed the lifeboat — carrying the German survivors — sinking it. Torpedoing of HMHS Llandovery Castle The Canadian hospital ship was torpedoed by the German submarine on 27 June 1918 in violation of international law. Only 24 of the 258 medical personnel, patients, and crew survived. Survivors reported that the U-boat surfaced and ran down the lifeboats, machine-gunning survivors in the water. The U-boat captain, , was charged with war crimes in Germany following the war, but escaped prosecution by going to the , beyond the jurisdiction of German courts. Chemical weapons in warfare French soldiers making a gas and flame attack on German trenches in Flanders The first successful use of as a weapon of warfare occurred during the Second Battle of Ypres 22 April — 25 May 1915. Gas was soon used by all major belligerents throughout the war. It is estimated that the use of chemical weapons employed by both sides throughout the war had inflicted 1. 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. The use of chemical weapons in warfare was in direct violation of the and the , which prohibited their use. The effect of poison gas was not limited to combatants. Civilians were at risk from the gases as winds blew the poison gases through their towns, and they rarely received warnings or alerts of potential danger. In addition to absent warning systems, civilians often did not have access to effective gas masks. An estimated 100,000—260,000 civilian casualties were caused by chemical weapons during the conflict and tens of thousands more along with military personnel died from scarring of the lungs, skin damage, and cerebral damage in the years after the conflict ended. Many commanders on both sides knew such weapons would cause major harm to civilians but nonetheless continued to use them. However, because the weapon was to be directed against the enemy, none of us were overly concerned at all. The Ottomans carried out organised and systematic massacres of the Armenian population at the beginning of the war and portrayed deliberately provoked acts of Armenian resistance as rebellions to justify 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 Law on Deportation , which authorised the deportation of Armenians from the Empire's eastern provinces to Syria between 1915 and 1918. The Armenians were intentionally and a number were attacked by Ottoman brigands. While an exact number of deaths is unknown, the estimates 1. The government of Turkey has consistently , arguing that those who died were victims of inter-ethnic fighting, famine, or disease during World War I; these claims are rejected by most historians. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period, including and , and some scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination. Russian Empire Main article: The German invaders treated any resistance—such as sabotaging rail lines—as illegal and immoral, and shot the offenders and burned buildings in retaliation. In addition, they tended to suspect that most civilians were potential and, accordingly, took and sometimes killed hostages from among the civilian population. 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 —and generated a wave of refugees of over a million people. Over half the German regiments in Belgium were involved in major incidents. Thousands of workers were shipped to Germany to work in factories. British propaganda dramatising the attracted much attention in the United States, while Berlin said it was both lawful and necessary because of the threat of franc-tireurs like those in France in 1870. The British and French magnified the reports and disseminated them at home and in the United States, where they played a major role in dissolving support for Germany. The First Contingent of the to the , training in Bermuda for the Western Front, winter 1914—1915. The two BVRC contingents suffered 75% casualties. The British soldiers of the war were initially volunteers but increasingly were into service. Surviving veterans, returning home, often found they could discuss their experiences only amongst themselves. A small number of personal accounts of American veterans have been collected by the. Prisoners of war German prisoners in a French prison camp during the later part of the war About eight million men surrendered and were held in during the war. All nations pledged to follow the on fair treatment of , and the survival rate for POWs was generally much higher than that of combatants at the front. Individual surrenders were uncommon; large units usually surrendered en masse. At the siege of Maubeuge about 40,000 French soldiers surrendered, at the Russians took about 100,000 to 120,000 Austrian captives, at the about 325,000 to 417,000 Germans and Austrians surrendered to Russians, and at the 92,000 Russians surrendered. When the besieged garrison of surrendered in 1915, some 20,000 Russians became prisoners, at the battle near February—March 1915 14,000 Germans surrendered to Russians, and at the about 12,000 Germans surrendered to the Allies. Prisoners from the Allied armies totalled about 1. From the Central Powers about 3. Most were captured just before the Armistice. The United States held 48,000. The most dangerous moment was the act of surrender, when helpless soldiers were sometimes gunned down. Once prisoners reached a camp, conditions were, in general, satisfactory and much better than in World War II , thanks in part to the efforts of the and inspections by neutral nations. However, conditions were terrible in Russia: was common for prisoners and civilians alike; about 15—20% of the prisoners in Russia died, and in Central Powers imprisonment 8% of Russians. In Germany, food was scarce, but only 5% died. British prisoners guarded by Ottoman forces after the in 1917. The Ottoman Empire often treated POWs poorly. Some 11,800 British Empire soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the in in April 1916; 4,250 died in captivity. Although many were in a poor condition when captured, Ottoman officers forced them to march 1,100 kilometres 684 mi to. In Russia, when the prisoners from the of the Austro-Hungarian army were released in 1917, they re-armed themselves and briefly became a military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War. While the Allied prisoners of the Central Powers were quickly sent home at the end of active hostilities, the same treatment was not granted to Central Power prisoners of the Allies and Russia, many of whom served as , e. They were released only after many approaches by the Red Cross to the. German prisoners were still being held in Russia as late as 1924. Military attachés and war correspondents Poster urging women to join the British war effort, published by the In the Balkans, such as the leader, , strongly supported the war, desiring the freedom of from and other foreign powers and the creation of an independent. The , led by Trumbić, was formed in Paris on 30 April 1915 but shortly moved its office to London. In April 1918, the Rome Congress of Oppressed Nationalities met, including , , , , and representatives who urged the Allies to support national for the peoples residing within. In the Middle East, soared in Ottoman territories in response to the rise of Turkish nationalism during the war, with Arab nationalist leaders advocating the creation of a state. In 1916, the began in Ottoman-controlled territories of the Middle East in an effort to achieve independence. In East Africa, of was supporting the who were at war with the British in the. A number of socialist parties initially supported the war when it began in August 1914. But European socialists split on national lines, with the concept of held by radical socialists such as Marxists and being overborne by their patriotic support for the war. Once the war began, Austrian, British, French, German, and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their countries' intervention in the war. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was , who promoted and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war. The , under the leadership of , promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and used the Dante Alighieri Society to promote Italian nationalism. Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it; some were militant supporters of the war, including and. However, the decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors were killed, resulting in a called. The Italian Socialist Party purged itself of pro-war nationalist members, including Mussolini. Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from an armaments firm and other companies to create Il Popolo d'Italia to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war. Opposition Sackville Street now after the 1916 in Once war was declared, many socialists and trade unions backed their governments. Among the exceptions were the , the , the , and people like , , and their followers in Germany. In stark contrast to his , five days after his election he spoke of his determination to do what he could to bring peace. His first encyclical, , given 1 November 1914, was concerned with this subject. Benedict XV found his abilities and unique position as a religious emissary of peace ignored by the belligerent powers. The 1915 Treaty of London between Italy and the Triple Entente included secret provisions whereby the Allies agreed with Italy to ignore papal peace moves towards the Central Powers. Consequently, the publication of Benedict's proposed of August 1917 was roundly ignored by all parties except Austria-Hungary. The Deserter, 1916: Anti-war cartoon depicting Jesus facing a with soldiers from five European countries In in 1914, the annual camp was held at Tidworth Pennings, near. Head of the , , was to review the , but the imminence of the war prevented him. General was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, a cadet who was present , that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance I, and many of us, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust—probably not more than one-quarter of us—learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it. Voicing these sentiments did not hinder Smith-Dorrien's career, or prevent him from doing his duty in World War I to the best of his abilities. Possible execution at at the time of the mutinies in 1917. Many countries jailed those who spoke out against the conflict. These included in the United States and in Britain. Publications at all critical of the government were removed from circulation by postal censors, and many served long prison sentences for statements of fact deemed unpatriotic. A number of nationalists opposed intervention, particularly within states that the nationalists were hostile to. Although the vast majority of Irish people consented to participate in the war in 1914 and 1915, a minority of advanced staunchly opposed taking part. The war began amid the Home Rule crisis in Ireland that had resurfaced in 1912, and by July 1914 there was a serious possibility of an outbreak of civil war in Ireland. Irish nationalists and Marxists attempted to pursue Irish independence, culminating in the of 1916, with Germany sending 20,000 rifles to Ireland to stir unrest in Britain. The UK government placed Ireland under in response to the Easter Rising, though once the immediate threat of revolution had dissipated, the authorities did try to make concessions to nationalist feeling. However, opposition to involvement in the war increased in Ireland, resulting in the. Other opposition came from —some socialist, some religious—who refused to fight. In Britain, 16,000 people asked for conscientious objector status. Some of them, most notably prominent peace activist , refused both military and. Many suffered years of prison, including and bread and water diets. In 1917, a series of led to dozens of soldiers being executed and many more imprisoned. The Italian army was forced to enter with tanks and machine guns to face Bolsheviks and , who fought violently until 23 May when the army gained control of the city. Almost 50 people including three Italian soldiers were killed and over 800 people arrested. In September 1917, began questioning why they were fighting for the French at all and mutinied. In northern , the began at the end of October 1918. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war they believed to be as good as lost, initiating the uprising. The , which then ensued in the naval ports of and , spread across the whole country within days and led to the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918 and shortly thereafter to the abdication of. Conscription See also: In Britain, conscription resulted in the calling up of nearly every physically fit man in Britain—six of ten million eligible. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives. Most deaths were to young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers. Conscription during the First World War began when the government passed the in 1916. The act specified that single men aged 18 to 40 years old were liable to be called up for military service unless they were widowed with children or ministers of a religion. There was a system of to adjudicate upon claims for exemption upon the grounds of performing civilian work of national importance, domestic hardship, health, and. The law went through several changes before the war ended. Married men were exempt in the original Act, although this was changed in June 1916. The age limit was also eventually raised to 51 years old. Recognition of work of national importance also diminished, and in the last year of the war there was some support for the conscription of clergy. Conscription lasted until mid-1919. Due to the political situation in Ireland, conscription was never applied there; only in , and. United States Main article: In the United States, conscription began in 1917 and was generally well received, with a few pockets of opposition in isolated rural areas. The administration decided to rely primarily on conscription, rather than voluntary enlistment, to raise military manpower for when only 73,000 volunteers enlisted out of the initial 1 million target in the first six weeks of the war. In 1917 10 million men were registered. This was deemed to be inadequate, so age ranges were increased and exemptions reduced, and so by the end of 1918 this increased to 24 million men that were registered with nearly 3 million inducted into the military services. The draft was universal and included blacks on the same terms as whites, although they served in different units. In all 367,710 black Americans were drafted 13. Forms of resistance ranged from peaceful protest to violent demonstrations and from humble letter-writing campaigns asking for mercy to radical newspapers demanding reform. The most common tactics were dodging and desertion, and many communities sheltered and defended their draft dodgers as political heroes. The most famous was , head of the , who ran for president in 1920 from his prison cell. In 1917 a number of radicals and anarchists challenged the new draft law in federal court, arguing that it was a direct violation of the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the draft act in the on January 7, 1918. Austria-Hungary Like all of the armies of mainland Europe, Austria-Hungary relied on conscription to fill its ranks. Officer recruitment, however, was voluntary. The effect of this at the start of the war was that well over a quarter of the rank and file were Slavs, while more than 75% of the officers were ethnic Germans. This was much resented. Thus conscription contributed greatly to Austria's disastrous performance on the battlefield. Diplomacy Main article: The non-military diplomatic and propaganda interactions among the nations were designed to build support for the cause, or to undermine support for the enemy. For the most part, wartime diplomacy focused on five issues: propaganda campaigns; defining and redefining the war goals, which became harsher as the war went on; luring neutral nations Italy, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Romania into the coalition by offering slices of enemy territory; and encouragement by the Allies of nationalistic minority movements inside the Central Powers, especially among Czechs, Poles, and Arabs. In addition, there were multiple peace proposals coming from neutrals, or one side or the other; none of them progressed very far. The War was an unprecedented triumph for natural science. This triumph paved the way to other triumphs: improvements in transport, in sanitation, in surgery, medicine, and psychiatry, in commerce and industry, and, above all, in preparations for the next war. The first tentative efforts to comprehend the meaning and consequences of modern warfare began during the initial phases of the war, and this process continued throughout and after the end of hostilities, and is still underway, more than a century later. Historiography Historian Heather Jones argues that the historiography has been reinvigorated by the cultural turn in recent years. Scholars have raised entirely new questions regarding military occupation, radicalisation of politics, race, and the male body. Furthermore, new research has revised our understanding of five major topics that historians have long debated: Why the war began, why the Allies won, whether generals were responsible for high casualty rates, how the soldiers endured the horrors of trench warfare, and to what extent the civilian homefront accepted and endorsed the war effort. Memorials A typical village to soldiers killed in World War I Memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns. Close to battlefields, those buried in improvised burial grounds were gradually moved to formal graveyards under the care of organisations such as the , the , the , and. Many of these graveyards also have central monuments to the missing or dead, such as the memorial and the. In 1915 , a Canadian army doctor, wrote the poem as a salute to those who perished in the Great War. Published in on 8 December 1915, it is still recited today, especially on and. The was dedicated on 1 November 1921, when the supreme Allied commanders spoke to a crowd of more than 100,000 people. The UK Government has budgeted substantial resources to. The lead body is the. On 3 August 2014, French President and German President together marked by laying the first stone of a memorial in Vieil Armand, known in German as , for French and German soldiers killed in the war. Cultural memory Left: , author of. Right: World War I had a lasting impact on. It was seen by many in Britain as signalling the end of an era of stability stretching back to the , and across Europe many regarded it as a watershed. Historian explained: A generation of innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory and England, went off to war to make the world safe for democracy. They were slaughtered in stupid battles planned by stupid generals. Those who survived were shocked, disillusioned and embittered by their war experiences, and saw that their real enemies were not the Germans, but the old men at home who had lied to them. They rejected the values of the society that had sent them to war, and in doing so separated their own generation from the past and from their cultural inheritance. This has become the most common perception of World War I, perpetuated by the art, cinema, poems, and stories published subsequently. Films such as , and have perpetuated the idea, while war-time films including Camrades, , and indicate that the most contemporary views of the war were overall far more positive. Likewise, the art of , , , and in Britain painted a negative view of the conflict in keeping with the growing perception, while popular war-time artists such as painted more serene and pleasant interpretations subsequently rejected as inaccurate. Several historians like , and have challenged these interpretations as partial and views: These beliefs did not become widely shared because they offered the only accurate interpretation of wartime events. In every respect, the war was much more complicated than they suggest. In recent years, historians have argued persuasively against almost every popular cliché of World War I. It has been pointed out that, although the losses were devastating, their greatest impact was socially and geographically limited. The many emotions other than horror experienced by soldiers in and out of the front line, including comradeship, boredom, and even enjoyment, have been recognised. The war is not now seen as a 'fight about nothing', but as a war of ideals, a struggle between aggressive militarism and more or less liberal democracy. It has been acknowledged that British generals were often capable men facing difficult challenges, and that it was under their command that the British army played a major part in the defeat of the Germans in 1918: a great forgotten victory. The majority of additions to the contrary are often rejected. Social trauma A 1919 book for veterans, from the US The social trauma caused by unprecedented rates of casualties manifested itself in different ways, which have been the subject of subsequent historical debate. The of was destroyed, and those who had fought in the war were referred to as the. For years afterwards, people mourned the dead, the missing, and the many disabled. Many soldiers returned with severe trauma, suffering from also called neurasthenia, a condition related to. Many more returned home with few after-effects; however, their silence about the war contributed to the conflict's growing mythological status. Though many participants did not share in the experiences of combat or spend any significant time at the front, or had positive memories of their service, the images of suffering and trauma became the widely shared perception. Such historians as Dan Todman, , and Samuel Heyns have all published works since the 1990s arguing that these common perceptions of the war are factually incorrect. Discontent in Germany The rise of and included a revival of the nationalist spirit and a rejection of many post-war changes. Similarly, the popularity of the German: Dolchstoßlegende was a testament to the psychological state of defeated Germany and was a rejection of responsibility for the conflict. This conspiracy theory of betrayal became common, and the German populace came to see themselves as victims. Communist and fascist movements around Europe drew strength from this theory and enjoyed a new level of popularity. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or harshly affected by the war. World War II was in part a continuation of the power struggle never fully resolved by World War I. Furthermore, it was common for Germans in the 1930s to justify acts of aggression due to perceived injustices imposed by the victors of World War I. American historian wrote that: The 'Age of Totalitarianism' included nearly all of the infamous examples of genocide in modern history, headed by the Jewish Holocaust, but also comprising the mass murders and purges of the Communist world, other mass killings carried out by Nazi Germany and its allies, and also the Armenian Genocide of 1915. All these slaughters, it is argued here, had a common origin, the collapse of the elite structure and normal modes of government of much of central, eastern and southern Europe as a result of World War I, without which surely neither Communism nor Fascism would have existed except in the minds of unknown agitators and crackpots. Economic effects Poster showing women workers, 1915 One of the most dramatic effects of the war was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire. To harness all the power of their societies, governments created new ministries and powers. New taxes were levied and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the ; many have lasted to this day. Similarly, the war strained the abilities of some formerly large and bureaucratised governments, such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. GDP increased for three Allies Britain, Italy, and the United States , but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the three main Central Powers. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire ranged between 30% and 40%. In Austria, for example, most pigs were slaughtered, so at war's end there was no meat. In all nations, the government's share of GDP increased, surpassing 50% in both Germany and France and nearly reaching that level in Britain. To pay for purchases in the United States, Britain cashed in its extensive investments in American railroads and then began borrowing heavily from. President Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but allowed a great increase in lending to the Allies. After 1919, the US demanded repayment of these loans. The repayments were, in part, funded by German reparations that, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and some loans were never repaid. Families were altered by the departure of many men. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost labourers sent to war. This aided the struggle for. World War I further compounded the gender imbalance, adding to the phenomenon of. The deaths of nearly one million men during the war in Britain increased the gender gap by almost a million: from 670,000 to 1,700,000. The number of unmarried women seeking economic means grew dramatically. In addition, demobilisation and economic decline following the war caused high unemployment. The war increased female employment; however, the return of demobilised men displaced many from the workforce, as did the closure of many of the wartime factories. In Britain, rationing was finally imposed in early 1918, limited to meat, sugar, and fats butter and margarine , but not bread. The new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918, trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million. Britain turned to her colonies for help in obtaining essential war materials whose supply from traditional sources had become difficult. Geologists such as were called on to find new resources of precious minerals in the African colonies. Kitson discovered important new deposits of , used in munitions production, in the. However neither of them interpreted it as an admission of war guilt. This figure could be paid in cash or in kind coal, timber, chemical dyes, etc. In addition, some of the territory lost—via the treaty of Versailles—was credited towards the reparation figure as were other acts such as helping to restore the Library of Louvain. By 1929, the arrived, causing political chaos throughout the world. In 1932 the payment of reparations was suspended by the international community, by which point Germany had only paid the equivalent of 20. With the rise of , all bonds and loans that had been issued and taken out during the 1920s and early 1930s were cancelled. The bonds, the agreement, still exist. On 3 October 2010, Germany made the final payment on these bonds. The war contributed to the evolution of the from women's jewellery to a practical everyday item, replacing the , which requires a free hand to operate. Military funding of advancements in radio contributed to the postwar popularity of the medium. It joined the war on the side of the Central Powers on 29 October 1914. Retrieved 13 December 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2015. Retrieved 14 October 2017. Retrieved 26 December 2013. Following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, Croats and Muslims in Sarajevo joined forces in an anti-Serb pogrom. American Universities Field Staff. 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