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Modern World History – Overview of World War One (1914 – 1918)
World War One was second worst war in history – only World War Two was more devastating. In the four years
that World War One was fought, roughly 16 million people were killed and 20 million more were wounded. In total, 57%
of the people who fought in the war were killed or wounded. The horrors of the war were only compounded by the reality
that it was fought for no good reason and the outcome of the war only set the stage for World War Two, which began 20
years after World War One ended.
One of the main reasons for the outbreak of World War
One was because the major countries of Europe (England, France,
Russia, Germany and Austria) had set up a set of alliances to
protect each other in a case of war. England, France and Russia
formed an alliance called the Allied Powers against Germany and
Austria which were called the Central Powers (because they were
at the center of Europe). These systems of alliances were roughly
equal in strength and were based on the idea of a “balance of
power”. This idea held that the equal power between both sides
would prevent a war because no side could clearly win.
Unfortunately, this idea for preventing war actually became a trap
that pulled all the countries into war. The problem with this
system was that if a war broke out between two countries then the
system of alliances would bring all of the other countries into a
general war across Europe.
The second main reason for the outbreak of World War One was the effect of the idea of nationalism on the
countries of Europe and how that upset the balance of power in the alliance system. Nationalism, which began in the
French Revolution, held that people who speak a common language and share a common culture should live together in
the same country. In the decades before World War One, this idea was turning the small kingdoms of Germany into a
single country and also tearing the Austrian Empire into smaller countries. Germany was formed by the work of Prussian
leader Otto von Bismarck who fought wars against Austria and France to unite the region of Germany into the country of
Germany. However, in defeating France, Bismarck turned France into an enemy that wanted to get revenge on Germany
– France would use World War One as a chance to get revenge. The Austrian Empire was made up of many different
national groups who wanted to break free and create their own countries. The Austrian leader Klemens von Metternich
had tried to prevent this during the nineteenth century. However, over time the government of Austria became weaker
and the desire of the national groups to form their own countries grew stronger. This was especially true for the Serbians,
one of the national groups that lived in southern Austria. South of Austria there was an independent country of Serbia and
many Serbians living inside of Austria wanted to break free of Austria and join Serbia. The Austrian government wanted
to prevent this at all cost.
The spark that caused World War One was a single act of terrorism, the assassination of the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria by a 19 year old Serbian in city of Sarajevo in June 1914. At the time of the assassination, nobody
thought it would result in a war because many people in Austria did not like Franz Ferdinand. However, Austria used this
as an opportunity to crush Serbia so it would no longer be a nationalist threat to Austria. The military conflict between
Austria and Serbia set in motion a division among the countries in Europe into those that supported Austria and those that
supported Serbia. Germany was Austria’s most important supporter. Germany gave Austria its full military support to
defeat Serbia in a war. However, Serbia was supported by Russia, the largest country in Europe, which announced that it
was preparing its army to help defend Serbia. At this point, Russia was supported by its allies of France and England.
This system of alliances meant that a war between Austria and Serbia would result in a war between all of the countries in
Europe. In addition, because both countries were equal in strength and thought that they could win the war, neither side
wanted to back down.
The fighting in World War One began in August 1914 when Germany, surrounded by the alliance of Russia and
France, attacked France. Germany’s goal was to defeat France before Russia would be ready for war. Germany was very
successful in this attack and almost captured the French capital of Paris before the combined French and British army
stopped it at the Battle of the Marne – a brutal six day battle in which more than a million and half soldiers were killed or
wounded. At the end of the battle, the German invasion of France had been stopped, but the French and British were
unable to push the Germans out of France. The war became a stalemate in which both sides were equally matched and
neither side could defeat the other side. However, the leaders on both sides believed that they could win a battlefield
victory and ordered their soldiers to keep fighting. Because neither side could win a clear victory, the constant fighting
meant that both sides became bogged down as the soldiers on both sides dug defensive lines, called trenches, to find
shelter from the brutality of the fighting. These trenches grew to stretch for more than 500 miles along the FrenchGerman border and became known as the Western Front.
The German fought the combined British and French armies on the Western Front for almost four years with
neither side gaining any land – just losing millions of soldiers. For example, in the Battle of Verdun in 1916, the Germans
lost 300,000 soldiers to gain three miles. At the same time, the British lost 600,000 soldiers to gain five miles in the
Battle of the Somme. Both sides used new weapons, like machine guns, airplanes, tanks and poison gas to defeat the
other side. However, these weapons had no effect on the outcome of battles, they only killed and wounded soldiers. The
frontline moved only about 20 miles in four years of fighting.
At the same time the Germans were fighting the British and the French on the Western Front, the Germans were
also fighting the Russian army on the Eastern Front. Russia had the largest army in Europe, but it was badly equipped
(some soldiers did not have guns or boots) and was badly led (Russian officers treated their soldiers worse than animals).
In contrast, while having fewer soldiers, the German army was well equipped and led.
This is shown by the four-day Battle of Tannenburg in which greatly outnumbered
German army killed more than 30,000 Russians and took 95,000 soldiers prisoner. On
the Eastern Front, the Germans were able to easily defeat the Russians in every battle.
However, they were unable to win the war because Russia could draft more men into its
army – the Russians would draft 15 million men into its army, of which 5 million were
lost in battle. As a result, the Germans found themselves fighting on two fronts
(Western and Eastern), stuck in a war in which they could not be defeated, but they also
could not win.
Beyond Europe, the colonies of the world-wide European empires fought against
each other. The Allies and Germany fought battles in Africa, the Middle East and even
China. The British and the French also recruited soldiers from their empires to fight on
the Western Front.
The reason both the Allies and Central Powers could fight for so many years,
despite losing so many soldiers, was because they had strong “home fronts”. The “home
front” was the factories and farms that produced all of the equipment and food to keep
the armies fighting. All across Europe, as the men joined the army to fight in the war, women went to work in factories to
make weapons or on farms to grow food. The horrific reality of war between industrialized nations was that battlefield
victories could not determine the outcome of the war. This is because as long as the home fronts of nations could produce
more men and equipment to fight the war a country could continue to fight, no matter how many men were killed and
equipment was destroyed. The importance of the work done by women on farms and in factories to support the war effort
is shown by the fact that was called a “front” meaning that it was just as important as the “fighting fronts”, like the
Western Front. World War One was called a “total war” because both sides could use their home fronts to support their
armies and the only way to defeat a country was for destroy with willingness of the home fronts to support the war effort.
Both sides tried to hurt the other side’s home front. The British navy blockaded Germany, with prevented the country
from be resupplied with food and war materials and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Germans from
starvation. The Germans used submarines to sink ships carrying food and supplied to England and using planes to bomb
British cities.
The first country to break under the stress of “total war” was Russia in the spring of 1917. This began when
women in the capital city, St. Petersburg, began protesting the food shortages and demanding that the government give
them food to feed their children. When the government refused, this turned into a revolution as soldiers refused to follow
the orders of the Emperor or Czar of Russia. After this, Russia fell into civil war, which was finally won by a communist
group called the Bolsheviks. The Germans signed a peace treaty with the communist Bolsheviks with the plan to use the
full German army to win the war against France. However, at this point, the United States joined the Allied side and the
American army was sent to France to fight the Germans. The United States entered the war because of German
aggression toward America, including sinking ships that carried Americans, and in the words of President Woodrow
Wilson, “to make the world safe for democracy”.
Once America joined the war against Germany, it was clear that Germany would eventually lose the war.
Germany and Austria were exhausted from the war – their populations were starving, they had run out of young men to
put in the army and could not build more weapons. In the fall of 1918, the Austria Empire simply broke apart into smaller
nationalistic countries. All that was left was a small country of Austria. At the same time, the German home front,
exhausted from supporting the German Army and starving as the result of the British blockade, rebelled against the
government and the German emperor was forced to step down. A new democratic German government came to power
and agreed to a cease- fire with the Allies, known as the Armistice. After the Armistice both sides prepared to negotiate a
peace treaty to end the war.
The leaders of the Allies met in Paris to write the peace treaty to end the war. America wanted a peace treaty that
would not punish Germany and would create a League of
Nations, and international organization to prevent future wars.
However, both the British and the French were angry because
they felt that Germany started the war in which they had lost a
generation of young men. In the end, the British and French got
their way and the peace treaty, called the Treaty of Versailles,
forced Germany to take responsibility for the war and to pay $33
billion for the damages caused by the war. The Germans were
angered by the treaty and the reality that they had also lost a
generation of young men for nothing. Many Germans blamed
the new democratic government for the treaty and began to
support radial leaders like Adolf Hitler who promised to end the
Treaty of Versailles and get revenge on France and Britain – this
would be a major cause of World War Two.