The First World War Part 1

Europe at the turn of the 20th century was a land mostly made up of imperial states. All of these imperial nations ultimately wanted to further control over others even if it meant at the expense of diplomacy and war. For the ruling class of an empire, it was the sole objective for your empire to have control over as much land as possible and to accrue the most amount of wealth you could from colonies. These are conflicting interests the nations in Europe had in the early 20th century. On top of that, ethnic minorities were treated badly, and this caused tensions throughout all of Europe.

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there are many south Slavic ethnic groups that at this point in time have resentment towards their Austrian monarch, and because of that, a Serbian gentleman by the name of Gavrilo Princep assasinsted the heir to the Austrian throne; archduke Franz Ferdinand. Princep was supposedly working with the Serbian Government, and the Austrian government was understandable angry at this whole situation. The Austrian government sent a list of demands to the Serbian Government only for the Serbs to reject them, thus making the Austro-Hungarian empire declare war on Serbia.

With Austria declaring war on Serbia, this drags the German Empire into the war, because they offered a diplomatic “blank check” to Austria where they would support them unconditionally. Since Austria is invading Serbia; a Slavic nation, Russia joins in on Serbia’s side, and France also joins in with Russia since they are allies, all of the sudden you have a continent at war, and soon it will become global.

The German Empire had to fight a war on two fronts, and how they planned to do it is to first invade France and then invade Russia. In order to get to France, Germany asked if they could march troops through Belgium towards the start of the war, Belgium said no, so Germany proceeded to invade Belgium and commit some atrocities along the way. The Belgian army didn’t just let the Germanys through however, they did slow them down a bit but in the end they fell to Germany and the German army would proceed to move into France. After this invasion Britain would join the war with France.

This is the first significant battle on the Eastern front between Germany and Russia, which resulted in a victory for the Germans thus allowing them to push forward into Russian terriory. This battle was fought in Eastern Prussia (modern day Poland) and it resulted in around 30,000 casualties.

This is the first big battle on the Western front between the French, British, and Germans. This was at first a success for the Germans but soon they would have to retreat in what would result as one of the only battles to occur before trench warfare would happen on the western front.

Trench warfare was a common tactic used in the Western Front during World War I, with soldiers digging deep trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire. These trenches would often be the cause for sickness and disease amongst soldiers and battles fought with trench warfare were often long and hard and saw little no gains even with victory.

This battle being the first of three occurred on Belgian soil and it was fought for the ports on the English Channel which would grant the victor access to the North Sea. This brutal battle involved 420,000 allied troops and 600,000 German troops and despite mass casualties, no significant gains were made..

In October of 1914 the declining Ottoman Empire joined the war. The struggling empire was seeking to regain lost territory in the Balkans and looking to have a bigger influence over the Black Sea. The Ottomans would side with the Germans and Austrians, wishing to challenge Russian and British spheres of influence.

Throughout 1915 the Western front would not move that much, with both sides making very little gains. The Eastern front, however, would favor the Germans in the fight against the Russians. Up until this point, the war had claimed 9 to 11 million lives.

This battle is the first beach landing to occur in the era of modern warfare, and was the landing of the British and French on the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Dardanelles straits, now western Turkey. The British and French were hoping to get a quick victory on the declining Ottoman Empire with the end goal being the capture of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), but they ended up struggling themselves and withdrawing. The total casualties for the allies being 180,000.

The Germans launch a surprise offensive on the French along the backs of the Meuse River on the fort of Verdun. This battle is the single longest battle in the First World War and is responsible for 600,000 casualties alone. It starts off the Germans advancing and attempting to cripple part of the French Army but it it ends up with the French retaking what they lost and leading into the First Battle of The Somme.

The British had the biggest navy in the world, but the Germans wanted to rival it, and so that commenced an arms race of creating Dreadnaughts. These ships had the biggest guns and were the biggest battleships of the time. The Dreadnaughts would only see the limelight of battle one or two times throughout the duration of the war. Later in the war the German Empire would develop their attack submarine better known as U-Boats. These U-Boats get their name from the trajectory of the torpedos they would launch at allied ships. These attacks would result in the U.S. eventually joining the war.

The battle of Jutland is the only big naval battle the Germans and British would engage in with their big dreadnaugts off the coast of Denmark. It was a battle with 250 ships in total (not all of them being dreadnaughts) and 100,000 men. Though there is no clear winner, the British did end up securing the shipping lanes in the North Sea thus putting up trade blockades which would end up impacting the Germans later in the war.