Continuation of the History of WW1 article about
the mobilisation and first battles of the Great War.
Entry of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October-November 1914, threatening Russia's
Caucasian territories and Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez canal.
British action opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamia
campaigns. Initially the Turks were successful in repelling enemy incursion.
But in
Mesopotamia, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915-16), the British reorganized and captured
Baghdad in March 1917. Further to the west in Palestine, initial British failures were overcome
with Jerusalem being captured in December 1917 and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force going on to
break the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo (September 1918).
Enver Pasha, supreme commander of
the Turkish armed forces, was a very ambitious man, with a dream to conquer central Asia. He was
not a practical soldier. He launched an offensive with 100,000 troops against the Russians in the
Caucasus in December of 1914. Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the
mountains in the heart of winter, Enver lost 86% of his force.
A new Russian commander on the
front in the fall of 1915, Grand Duke Nicholas, brought new vigor. A major offensive in 1916 drove
the Turks out of much of present-day Armenia, and tragically provided a context for the deportation
and massacre of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia. With control of part of the southern
Black Sea coast, Nicholas pushed forward the construction of railway lines to bring up supplies.
He was ready for an offensive in the spring of 1917. If it had gone ahead, there was a very good
chance that Turkey would have been knocked out of the war in the summer of 1917. But, because of
the Russian Revolution, Grand Duke Nicholas was recalled and the Russian armies soon fell apart.
Italian participation
Italian soldiers in WW1 trench 1916 |
Italy had been nominally allied to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882, but had her
own designs against Austrian territory in the South Tyrol, Istria and Dalmatia, and a secret 1902
understanding with France effectively nullifying her alliance commitments. Italy refused to join
Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war and joined the Entente by signing the
London Pact in April and declaring war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915 and against
Germany fifteen months later.
In general, the Italians enjoyed numerical superiority, but were poorly equipped. Instead, the
Austro-Hungarian defense took advantage of the mostly mountainous terrain. So, the 1915 Italian
offensives on the Soca (Isonzo) front (the part of the border which was closest to Trieste, a major
Italian objective) were repelled. The Austro-Hungarians counter-attacked from the South Tyrol in
the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but they made little progress. In the summer, the Italians
took back the initiative, capturing the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front
remained practically stable for over one year, despite several Italian offensives.
In the fall of
1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large
reinforcements, including German assault troops. On 26. October they launched a crushing offensive
that resulted in the victory of Kobarid (Caporetto). The Italian army was initially routed, but
after retreating more than 100 km, it was able to reorganize and hold ground at the Battle of the
Piave River. In 1918 the Austrians repeatedly failed to break this Italian line, and surrendered to
the Entente powers in November.
Fall of Serbia
After repelling three Austrian invasions in August-December 1914, Serbia fell to combined German,
Austrian and Bulgarian invasion in October 1915. Serbian troops continued to hold out in Albania
and Greece, where a Franco-British force had landed to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek
government into war against the Central Powers.
Early stages: from romanticism to the trenches
German soldiers at Somme, 1918 |
The perception of war in 1914 was almost romantic, and its declaration was met with great enthusiasm
by many people. The common view was that it would be a short war of maneuver with a few sharp
actions (to "teach the enemy a lesson") and would end with a victorious entry into the capital (the
enemy capital, naturally) then home for a victory parade or two and back to "normal" life. There
were some pessimists (like Lord Kitchener) who predicted the war would be a long haul, but "everyone
knew" the War would be "Over by Christmas...."
It has been proposed that the war established with German youths a militaristic and fascist mindset
that made it possible for the Nazi party to take control of Germany three decades later. In the
aftermath of WWI, post-war depression and nationalist (retributionist) views were a prominent aspect
of German public sentiment; an important cornerstone of what would become Nazi ideology.
Trench warfare begins
After their initial success on the Marne, Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking
maneuvers to try to force the other to retreat, in the so-called Race to the Sea. Britain and
France soon found themselves facing entrenched German positions from Lorraine to Belgium's Flemish
coast. The sides took set positions, the British and French seeking to take the offensive while
Germany sought to defend the territories they had occupied.
One consequence of this was that the
German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy: the Anglo-French trenches
were only intended to be 'temporary' before their forces broke through the German defenses. Neither
side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next four years, though protracted German
action at Verdun (1916) and Allied failure the following spring brought the French army to the
brink of collapse. Futile attempts at more frontal assaults, at terrible cost to the French poilu
infantry, led to mutinies which threatened the integrity of the front line.
Around 800,000 soldiers from Britain and the Empire were on the Western Front at any one time,
1,000 battalions each occupying a sector of the line from Belgium to the Arne and operating a
month-long four stage system, unless an offensive was underway. The front contained over
6,000 miles of trenches.
Each battalion held its sector for around a week before moving back to support
lines and then the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas
(see also the article Life and Death in the Trenches).
German victories in the East
While the Western Front had reached stalemate in the trenches, the war continued to the east. The
Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German
East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were
driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at
Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914.
Russia's less-developed economic
and military organisation soon proved unequal to the combined might of the German and
Austro-Hungarian Empires. In the spring of 1915 the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and in
May the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern fringes, capturing
Warsaw on August 5 and forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Poland.
Russia unsettled
Dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew despite the success of the
June 1916 Brusilov offensive in eastern Galicia against the Austrians, when Russian success was
undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces in support of the victorious
sector commander. Allied fortunes revived only temporarily with Romania's entry into the war on
27. August.
German forces came to the aid of embattled Austrian units in Transylvania, and Bucharest
fell to the Central Powers on 6. December. Meanwhile, internal unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar
remained out of touch at the front, while Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew
protests from all segments of Russian political life, resulting in the murder of Alexandra's
favourite Rasputin by conservative noblemen at the end of 1916.
The Russian Revolution
Lenin during the Russian Revolution |
In March 1917, demonstrations in St. Petersburg culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II
and the appointment of a weak centrist Provisional Government, which shared power with the
socialists of the Petrograd Soviet. This division of power led to confusion and chaos, both on the
front and at home, and the army became progressively less able to effectively resist Germany.
Meanwhile, the war, and the government, became more and more unpopular, and the discontent was
used strategically by the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, in order to gain power.
The triumph of the Bolsheviks in November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations
with Germany. At first, the Bolsheviks refused to agree to the harsh German terms, but when Germany
resumed the war and marched with impunity across Ukraine, the new government acceded to the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk on 3. March 1918, which took Russia out of the war and ceded vast territories
including Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers.
After the Russians initially dropped out of the war, the Allies led a small-scale invasion of
Russia. The invasion was made with intent to punish the Russians for dropping out of World War I
and to support the Czarists in the Russian Revolution. Troops landed in Archangel and in another
city on the Pacific coast of Russia. The bulk of the troops were from Michigan, a northern state
in the United States.
The Allied forces were initially told they were invading to defend supplies
from German troops. In reality, they were defending them from communist Russians. A memorial
commemorating the event is located in White Chapel Cemetery in Troy, Michigan. The force also
included a number of Canadians who were based in Vladivostok. The Canadian force contained an
artillery unit, but they saw minimal combat.
Read in the next article about last battles and end of WW1.
Please see some Banknotes from WW1
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