First World War. com - A Multimedia History of World War One. Selected Highlights. Read a single page summary of the origins of the First World War - the tangled secret alliances, the royal feuds, the personalities and the seemingly inevitable series of events in June and July 1. Assassin's Target: Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Browse a collection of some 2. Europe during World War One, including Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. British King George V and Emperor Franz Josef of Austria- Hungary. Biographical Study - Kaiser Wilhelm IIRead a collection of telegrams exchanged between German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Russian Tsar Nicholas II in the four days leading up to war, from 2. July to 1 August 1. The Doomed Tsar - Nicholas II of Russia. World War One. Tragic War And Futile Peace: World War I. Edited By: Robert Guisepi. 2001. World War I (The Great War) from its beginning to the Armistice including. Read how Adolf Hitler's experience in the German infantry during the Great War helped shape his subsequent character, from initial eager enlistment in the 1. Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment to bitter anger and frustration following German defeat in 1. Who's Who: Adolf Hitler. Read how each side made use of observation balloons during wartime, principally on the Western Front, as a means of spying on the opposing enemies lines, and of the often short lifespan of those servicemen who were courageous enough to occupy them. The Balloon Buster: Willy Coppens. World War 1 Propaganda![]()
World War IFacts, information and articles about World War I, aka The Great War. World War I Facts. Dates. July 2. 8, 1. November 1. 1, 1. Location. Europe, Mideast, Africa, Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, North Sea, Baltic Sea. Generals/Commanders. Allied Powers / Entente. President Raymond Poincare. Tsar Nicholas II. King Victor Emmanuel III. Chief of General Staff Constantin Prezan. Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos. President Woodrow Wilson. Central Powers. Kaiser Wilhelm II. Emperor Franz Josef I. Minister of War Enver Pasha. Tsar Ferdinand IOutcome. Allied Victory. Casualties. Allied Powers casualties: 2. Central Powers casualties: 3. Results. End of Austro- Hungarian, Ottoman & Russian empires. Harsh surrender terms forced on Germany major cause of WWII. Redrawing of borders in Europe & Mideast. World War I Articles. Explore articles from the History Net archives about World War I» See all World War I Articles. World War I summary: The war fought between July 2. November 1. 1, 1. Great War, the War to End War, and (in the United States) the European War. Only when the world went to war again in the 1. First World War. Its casualty totals were unprecedented, soaring into the millions. World War I is known for the extensive system of trenches from which men of both sides fought. Lethal new technologies were unleashed, and for the first time a major war was fought not only on land and on sea but below the sea and in the skies as well. The two sides were known as the Allies or Entente—consisting primarily of France, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and later the United States—and the Central Powers, primarily comprised of Austria- Hungary (the Habsburg Empire), Germany, and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). A number of smaller nations aligned themselves with one side or the other. In the Pacific Japan, seeing a chance to seize German colonies, threw in with the Allies. The Allies were the victors, as the entry of the United States into the war in 1. Central Powers could not hope to match. The war resulted in a dramatically changed geo- political landscape, including the destruction of three empires: Austro- Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian. New borders were drawn at its conclusion and resentments, especially on the part of Germany, left festering in Europe. Ironically, decisions made after the fighting ceased led the War to End War to be a significant cause of the Second World War. As John Keegan wrote in The First World War (Alfred A. Knopf, 1. 99. 9), “The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict … the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms, had prudence or common goodwill found a voice.”Casualties in World War IIn terms of sheer numbers of lives lost or disrupted, the Great War was the most destructive war in history until it was overshadowed by its offspring, the Second World War: an estimated 1. Estimates of civilian casualties are harder to make; they died from shells, bombs, disease, hunger, and accidents such as explosions in munitions factories; in some cases, they were executed as spies or as “object lessons.” Additionally, as Neil M. Heyman in World War I (Greenwood Press, 1. Not physically hurt but scarred nonetheless were 5 million widowed women, 9 million orphaned children, and 1. None of this takes into account the deaths in the Russian Civil War or the Third Balkan War, both of which directly resulted from World War I, nor the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1. The highest national military casualty totals—killed, wounded, and missing/taken prisoner—in round numbers (sources disagree on casualty totals), were: Russia: 9,1. Germany: 7,1. 43,0. Austria- Hungary: 7,0. France, 6,1. 61,0. Britain & Commonwealth: 3,1. Italy: 2,1. 97,0. Turkey (Ottoman Empire): 9. Romania: 5. 36,0. Serbia: 3. 31,0. 00. USA: 3. 23,0. 00. Bulgaria: 2. 67,0. For more information, click to see the Casualties of World War I. Causes of World War IPrime Minister of Germany Otto von Bismarck had prophesied that when war again came to Europe it would be over “some damn foolish thing in the Balkans.” Indeed, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Habsburg throne of Austria- Hungary, and his wife, Sophie, by a Serbian nationalist on June 2. The outbreak of war between European nations was the result of several factors: Concern over other countries’ military expansion, leading to an arms race and entangling alliances. Fear of losing economic and/or diplomatic status. Long- standing ethnic differences and rising nationalism in the Balkans. French resentment of territorial losses in the 1. Franco- Prussian War. The influence exerted by military leaders. Following their 1. Franco- Prussian War, the German states unified into a single nation. Its leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II, eldest grandson of Britain’s Queen Victoria, envisioned an Imperial Navy that could rival Great Britain’s large and renowned fleet. This would increase German influence in the world and likely allow the country to expand its colonial holdings. Britain, fearful of losing its dominance of the seas, accelerated its naval design and construction to stay ahead of the Kaiser’s ship- building program. Russia was rebuilding and modernizing its large army and had begun a program of industrialization. Germany and Austria- Hungary saw the threat posed by Russia’s large population and, hence, its ability to raise a massive army. They formed an alliance for self- protection against the Russian bear. France, still stinging over the loss of Alsace and part of Lorraine in the Franco- Prussian war, made an agreement allying itself with Russia in any war with Germany or Austria- Hungary. Britain, after finding itself friendless during the Second Boer War in South Africa (1. France and worked to improve relations with the United States of America. Russia, with many ethnic groups inside its vast expanse, made an alliance with Serbia in the Balkans. The old Ottoman Empire was crumbling; “The Sick Man of Europe” was the phrase used to describe the once- powerful state. As its ability to exert control over its holdings in the Balkans weakened, ethnic and regional groups broke away and formed new states. Rising nationalism led to the First and Second Balkan Wars, 1. As a result of those wars, Serbia increased its size and began pushing for a union of all South Slavic peoples. Serbian nationalism led 1. Gavrilo Princip to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Habsburg throne of Austria- Hungary, and his wife, Sophie. Austria- Hungary, urged on by Germany, sent a list of demands to Serbia in response; the demands were such that Serbia was certain to reject them. When it did, the Habsburg Empire declared war on Serbia on July 2. Russia came in on the side of the Serbs, Germany on the side of the Habsburgs, and the entangling alliances between the nations of Europe pulled one after another into the war. Although diplomats throughout Europe strove to settle matters without warfare right up to the time the shooting started, the influence military leaders enjoyed in many nations won out—along with desires to capture new lands or reclaim old ones. Combat in the First World War. German military planners were ready when the declarations of war began flying across Europe. They intended to hold off the Russians in the east, swiftly knock France out of the war through a maneuver known as the Schliefffen Plan, then throw their full force, along with Austria- Hungary, against the Russians. The Schliefffen Plan, named for General Count Alfred von Schlieffen who created it in 1. Low Countries (Luxembourg and Belgium) in order to bypass to the north the strong fortifications along the French border. After a rapid conquest of the Low Countries, the German advance would continue into northern France, swing around Paris to the west and capture the French capital. It almost worked, but German commander in chief General Helmuth von Moltke decided to send his forces east of Paris to engage and defeat the weakened French army head- on. In doing so he exposed his right flank to counterattack by the French and a British Expeditionary Force, resulting in the First Battle of the Marne, September 6–1. Despite casualties in the hundreds of thousands, the battle was a stalemate, but it stopped the German drive on Paris. Both sides began digging a network of trenches.
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