World War I

  by Staff Editor

Table of Contents

- Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
- Outbreak of War

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

On paper, WWI broke out by accident but tensions were so high by the summer of 1914 that the slightest spark would send the world spiraling into all-out war. That spark came on June 28, 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a group of Serbian nationalists.

Austria-Hungary had officially annexed Turkish Bosnia-Herzegovina as a province of the empire in 1908. The Bosnian Serbs living in the area longed to be reunited with their brothers in Serbia but Austria made it clear that it had no plans to relinquish the territory.

It would take a drastic measure for Serbian independence-seekers to get their message across and for the militant nationalist group the Black Hand, opportunity knocked the day Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo.

On June 28, the Archduke and his wife planned a state visit to the Balkans in commemoration of St. Vitus Day, a Serbian holiday. Though his advisors had counseled him to cancel the trip, as anti-Austrian sentiments were high, he insisted on going and making the city off-limits to the Austrian army for the day.

Ferdinand was especially despised because of his policies regarding the Slavs of the empire that was soon to be under his leadership. He supported giving them a greater voice in Austria-Hungary that, while a positive move on the surface, angered some Serbs because they felt that their brothers in the empire would get comfortable with their new voice and never drum up the anger and frustration it would take to fight for total independence.

The day he and his wife were scheduled to visit Sarajevo, seven Black Hand assassins took their place along the motorcade route, ready to make their cause for independence.

Armed with weapons provided by the organization, six of the men did nothing as the car carrying Ferdinand and his wife Sophie passed them by. It was only the seventh man, a student named Gavrilo Princip who got close enough to the royal couple to shoot them both at point blank range when their car took a wrong turn. They were dead within minutes and Princip and his cohorts were promptly sentenced to prison.

In the aftermath of the assassination, accusations began flying. Though no proof has emerged to support the theory, Austria blamed Serbia for masterminding the assassination and issued a stern ultimatum that demanded concessions that all but stripped the Balkan nation of its sovereignty. In doing so, Austria had hoped that Serbia would see the ludicrousness of the deal and wage war on them. Their plan was to wage a local war, quickly defeat the tiny nation and go about their business. They never expected Serbia to turn to Russia, one of its allies in the European alliance spider web, and an Austrian enemy.

In accepting the terms of the concessions and enlisting the help of its Slavic cousin, Serbia was in a position to wage a greater war on Austria. Russia immediately began mobilizing troops and set off the domino effect that turned what was supposed to be a local skirmish into the first big war of the new century.

In light of the Russian deployment of military forces, the other European powers began mobilizing their troops in succession, thanks to the alliances and ententes they had all weaved with each other. These plans for mobilization quickly became plans for war, since stopping and turning around at this point was impossible and would only serve to cause more chaos.

Germany and Austria launched an attack against France, Russia and Serbia. Britain had planned on remaining neutral but ended up joining the fray after German soldiers invaded neutral Belgium. In 1839, Britain and Belgium signed the Treaty of London, in which England pledged to defend Belgium should any other nation assault its neutrality. Since Great Britain had allied itself with Japan earlier on, it wasn’t long before the Asian nation entered the war as well. The alliances further revealed themselves when Turkey entered the war as an ally of Germany and Austria.

Those in charge expected the war to be over by Christmas. Never did they plan on it dragging on for four long, bloody years.

Germany’s plan was to encircle Paris and quickly defeat France within the first few weeks of the war so they could focus their energies on Russia in the east. Their plot did not go according to plan and soon stalemate settled in, leading to the trench warfare that characterized the war. For much of WWI, millions of soldiers from various armies lay entrenched in long lines across Europe, unable to move forward without suffering enormous losses.

Outbreak of War

On August 4, Britain declared war after Germany invaded neutral Belgium. They declared war on Austria-Hungary on August 12.

Though the Central Powers (minus Italy who managed to avoid being dragged into battle thanks to a series of secret alliances with Allied nations) had planned on quickly defeating the French, once the British Expeditionary Force crossed to France to help their Allied brothers, their plans were quickly thwarted as the Allies defeated them within a month at both the Battle of Mons and the Battle of the Marne.

It was here, in both sides’ quest to get to the seaside before the other, that the elaborate trench warfare system that was the marker of WWI developed. With these trenches and new technologies like the machine gun, defending became much easier than attacking and within months of war breaking out, it already began to show signs of stagnation.

The Great War soon became a world war when Japan, who was linked to the Allied forces joined in and the Ottoman Empire entered to help out the Central Powers. Conflicts between these competing powers in Africa and South America further irritated the situation.

Like most wars, the fighting in WWI was not limited only to ground combat. Even before war broke out, there was a massive race to see who could build the biggest battleship. England had by far the biggest fleet, though by the end of 1914, Germany was fast catching up with new, well-equipped battleships.

By 1915, it was becoming clear that this war was going to drag on for much, much longer than expected and governments had to make plans to deal with wartime living, a fact they had never considered.

In March 1915, the British government enacted the Defense of the Realm Act (DORA) that granted it emergency wartime powers, such as the power to censor the press, take over property and control workers’ jobs, pay and conditions. By October, there were so many men at war that women began to take on men’s jobs for the first time ever. As the war trudged on, never edging closer to an end, Italy changed sides and fought with the Allied forces.

In the war at sea, Britain adopted the strategy of using its superior fleet to block German ports, causing a near famine and resulting in riots across Germany. In response, the Germans concentrated their efforts on submarine warfare. On May 7, they sunk the Lusitania, a luxury passenger liner off the coast of Ireland, killing nearly 1,200 passengers, including over 100 Americans. Since the ship was traveling from the United States and Germany feared the attack would bring on retaliation by the well-equipped and Allied-friendly (but still neutral) American military, they quickly withdrew.

Aside from land and sea fighting, WWI also saw the introduction of attacks from the skies, thanks to the great German Zeppelin airships that first showered London with bombs with its surprise attack of May 31, 1915.

In 1916, Britain instituted a draft in order to build up their army, which was slowly perishing in the trenches. All men between the ages of 18 and 41 were required to serve their country and this led to more than 4.5 million Britons serving in WWI, along with over three million troops from the British Empire.

In February, Germany initiated a massive offensive at Verdun in France, intending to “bleed France white.” Over the next 10 months, more than a million men were killed. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme alone, nearly 60, 000 Britons were either killed or injured.

No one had claimed victory over the seas by 1916, causing Britain and Germany to come to heads on May 31 in the North Sea at Jutland. Though the Germans initially made a dent to Great Britain’s navy, Britain came back with its Grand Fleet, catching the Germans off guard and causing significant damage. Although England lost more men and ships in the battle, more damage was done to the German fleet and in turn, it spent the rest of the war in German ports. This meant that Britain had control over the seas, allowing imperial troops and supplies to reach Europe with greater ease.

In 1916, daylight savings time was also introduced to allow for more summertime daylight hours so that factories and munitions works could have more time to produce the supplies needed for battle.

By 1917, the tides of war began to shift.

In February, the German army planned to retreat to the pre-prepared Hindenburg Line.

Two subsequent revolutions in Russia changed their political landscape and took them out of the war. In February, a people’s revolt forced the Russian Tzar Nicholas II to abdicate and a second revolution in October brought Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik regime to power. A ceasefire was declared in December of 1917 and a peace treaty was signed in early 1918.

The retreat of the Russians was largely due to German advancements in the east and their absence in the war now meant that Germany could focus more of its efforts on the Western front. Their attempt to convince Mexico to invade the United States prompted the U.S. to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917. This came as a godsend for the battered Allied forces for the appearance of the U.S. on the battle lines meant new troops and supplies.

With this new help from the U.S., the Allies were able to make a major push forward. The British gained much ground, despite severe casualties at the hands of German mustard gas. They managed to trudge on with the use of tanks but a German offensive late in the year saw them lose much of the territory they had gained.

Outside of Europe, Allied forces were making substantial headway. By mid-1917, the Allies were in control of both Baghdad and Jerusalem – much to the chagrin of the Ottoman Empire. By October of 1918, the Ottoman Empire had withdrawn from the war and signed a peace agreement.

By March 1917, women were seeing the action of war with the Women’s Army Auxiliary, where women were placed on the front lines in a support capacity. Few, if any, ever got to see active battle but they provided needed assistance to the men in the trenches and on the front lines. In April 1918 the junior service was established with the founding of the Royal Air Force.

British anti-German sentiment had reached such extreme proportions in England that King George V renounced all German titles belonging to him and his family and, in an effort to appear more British, changed his family’s last name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor (the name of his castle).

In 1918, German forces, now freed from the duty of defending the Eastern front with the withdrawal of Russia, went after the Allies. Despite some minor headway in the beginning, they became increasingly unable to penetrate Allied lines, delineating that the end of the war was near.

Allied counter-offensives were successful in forcing the Germans back behind the Hindenburg Line and liberating much of France and Belgium. The end finally came on November 11 at 11 a.m. when an armistice was signed between Germany and the Allied forces in the French forest at Compiegne.

World War I had significant ramifications around the world. In Britain, it allowed women over the age of 30 to vote for the first time in history, a precedent that was followed by many countries thereafter. The end of the war is commemorated every November 11 in many countries and the Treaty of Versailles that was signed in June of 1919 officially ending the war has been deemed by some to be the catalyst that set the stage for WWII.

The fighting was finally over but not without a price. The war that started for many complicated reasons left legions of dead in its wake and showed the world atrocities it had never seen before. Sadly, the “War to end all wars” didn’t accomplish what it set out to do. Little did the battle-weary citizens of post-WWI know another, even greater war was looming around the corner and in just over two decades, they’d have to go through it all over again.