The first years of the twentieth century were characterised by escalating tensions among the European powers, amid relative peace allowing for developing considerable prosperity and technological development. Nevertheless, there was also competition for military supremacy and for resources from colonies abroad were complicated by entangling alliances, which were supposed to make Europe safer, but ultimately left the populations and leaders of every country’s decisionmakers wary about potential future military aggression that were kept in check in a form of an armed truce. The powers were divided into two blocs, and exacerbating the situation, particularly in eastern Europe, there were regional nationalist desires for self-determination that threatened the viability of the Hapsburg empire. The First World War thus broke out as a result of nationalist ambitions that were represented by a system of alliances with an excessively rigid diplomatic framework. Military strategic plans were made to fit the alliance pattern, and triggering of assaults would lock countries into irreversible patterns, especially since there was an excessive emphasis on military values, especially in Germany and Austria where military leadership authorities were tacitly granted freedom from political control, while Britain considered Germany a threat to the maintenance of peace.
Industrial technology during several decades preceding the war became increasingly scientific and so did military technology. A number of new and destructive weapons developed from the new science and the new industrial technology, including machine guns, tanks, poison gas, submarines, and military aircraft, although they played a secondary role in the war. Heavy artillery, which had been used in the past, experienced spectacular advances in range, accuracy, and explosive force, as the shelling of Paris from forty or fifty miles away demonstrated. However, the higher rates of fire also required unprecedented production amounts. Another extreme development was how the manoeuvrable, rather than fixed, machine gun greatly increased the effectiveness of small arms fire, especially for defence against assaults by infantry troops carrying their equipment over open ground as cohesive units that would advance in formations that were intended to support each other in successive spaced previously scheduled waves, which were synchronised with previously set times for artillery barrages in accordance with fixed schedules due to limited communications abilities that precluded synchronising attacks between these forces on set enemy positions in conformity with the principle of forced concentration.
Another significant development was the use of air power that became vital in terms of mapping enemy defensive positions and looked for troop concentrations that would allow for ground commander to plan their attacks and anticipate enemy ones. Following the initial military uses of monoplane aircraft for reconnaissance and bombing during the Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912, both airplanes as well as fixed balloons that were closely defended by anti-aircraft guns, which were almost entirely used for surveillance and directing artillery toward unseen targets on enemy lines and supply routes. Aircraft then became armed in 1915 with machine guns with triggers that were synchronised with the engine gears to allow them to fire through the front propeller blades.
The Germans took this initiative from the first day of the war during the invasion of Belgium, and also used these Taube monoplanes to scrutinize territory before the army invaded northern and eastern France, which encouraged military authorities to take chances on the basis of this form of intelligence gathering while flying far behind French lines, and were likewise used for reconnaissance in East Prussia. The French likewise used air reconnaissance during the Battle of the Marne, albeit with less skill than the Germans, which contributed to checking the German advance, while a German pilot likewise reported on Allied troop movements during this same battle that contributed to saving German troops.
Air fighting later ended the long-distance reconnaissance flights, and were also followed by long distance bombing raids by bomber aircraft and gas-filled dirigibles fitted with bomb racks, which did not accomplish tactical results as hurried, ill-directed efforts. Aircraft were also deployed as valuable new auxiliary elements to spot artillery locations far behind the front lines, which could then be targeted and silenced by directing artillery fire through wireless telegraph communications. However, neither side acquired any marked advantage, while neither side gained an overwhelming superiority in the air that made elimination of enemy scouts possible, and aviators could not estimate concentrations of resources on the ground. The following great movements were not estimated by aircraft observers: 1. German offensive against Russia in the spring of 1915; the German offensive against Verdun in February 1916; 3. Hindenburg’s withdrawal to new defensive line in the spring of 1917 in the face of the new deadlock; 4. The Austro-Germany offensive against the Italians in 1917; 5. The German offensive on the western front in March 1918. The new warfare conditions made observation difficult, as antiaircraft guns were developed quickly, and flights at ten thousand feet over enemy positions were hazardous, and the compulsion to fly at a high altitude made photographic observations blurred, while observation became impossible at night or poor weather conditions. In addition, apart from causing horror, air raids on civilian targets never attained results that composed any military importance that would affect the war’s progression on land and the sea. However, bomber aircraft proved their effectiveness in the battle of Megiddo in Palestine in September 1918, where they were used with devastating effects on a supply line. The effectiveness of closer cooperation between effective air power and ground forces, as well as strategic long-range assaults, became clearly apparent during the latter stages of the war.
Options were also reduced by military plans and technology, which meant mobilisation plans could not be easily changed, and Austria and Germany’s plans possessed the most dangerous plans since they expected to gain more from war than the other combatants, and believed in the “short war” illusion that would divert attention from internal problems, especially in Austria that had insoluble national divisions. Meanwhile, all of the involved countries were unable to grasp the likely consequences of a general European war. Besides, most leaders in most countries and much of public opinion everywhere in Europe considered war to be a necessary evil, particularly if it meant continuing politics by other means. However, nobody really knew what kind of war they could expect, since no war had affected large areas of Europe since the Napoleonic wars, and the more recent wars between France and Germany, the last violent conflict between industrially advanced nations, had been decided in a few weeks with rapid mobilisation, massive firepower, fast communications through the telegraph, and the support of steam-powered railways that enabled rapidly moving vast numbers of troops and supplies. Industrialisation and the reduction of agriculture had made national economies dependent on imports and international trade, which would influence the abilities of the belligerent nations to endure a prolonged war of attrition, after the war would not be concluded as a result of decisive battles.
The wars of the late nineteenth century sharply contrasted with the Napoleonic wars and those of the centuries before in one major way. Early wars seemed to drag on for a long time since no nation had the ability to deliver a knockout blow. That changed in the nineteenth century and the wars, for the most part, seemed shorter and less costly. This played a large part in the decisions of European nations to go to war in 1914. Most governments believed that the war would be over by the end of the year, but although their military forces were more destructive than before, nobody could land the knockout blow, and therefore it became a long war of attrition in which offensive efforts inevitably led to costlier amounts of casualties than defensive ones, and replacing manpower with increasingly larger amounts of new enlistments to replace earlier losses. Civilians also became a target of war during the British naval blockade of Germany and its allies, which eliminated German sea commerce in the first few weeks of the conflict. How the war would be waged on land remained to be seen, with unprecedented amounts of military power that were unprecedented in history. General staffs expected that the most rapid mobilisation of enormous amounts of troops and material would lead to seizing the initiative, to be followed by disrupting other belligerent’s disposition through vigorous attacks by forcing the enemy to conform to the more rapid earlier initiatives, according to a well articulated plan to be executed immediately and effectively. War planning consequently broadened the conflict from a regional to a continental affair.
The German general staff led by Alfred von Schlieffen had a long-standing plan developed for war against the alliance of Russia and France. The plan recognised that Germany could not endure a two front war, so it called for nearly the entire German army dealing a knockout blow against France through invading Belgium and Luxemburg, which would then lead to entering Paris from the north and west, destroy the French military communications, and then press toward the eastern French frontier where the remaining disorganised French military were to be completely overwhelmed. German troops would then be transported toward Russia on a superior railway network, while it was expected the Russians would take a longer length of time to mobilise. The plan’s success depended on it being implemented immediately while this plan could not be modified, and therefore military necessity superseded political caution or restraint, and also exposed the previously unseen weakness in the Schlieffen Plan – it did not allow any time at all for diplomatic negotiations that could avert the outbreak of war, and showed how the violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, in order to circumvent the direct route into France that was blocked by large French fortresses along the German-French frontier. This would prove to be a diplomatic catastrophe by drawing Britain into the war, as well as enlisting sympathy worldwide, leading Germany to being accused of perpetrating an international crime, as well as how badly military and political planning were coordinated in the German government.
The Russian autocracy had lost prestige as a result of losing the Russian-Japanese war in 1905 and the ensuing revolution, and sought to re-establish its authority to defend Serbia in keeping with the tradition of protecting Slavs against foreign domination in the Balkans, regardless of not having a formal mutual defence agreement, and being ill-prepared for modern warfare in terms of its railway transportation, military material and lack of effective leadership. However, Russia nevertheless possessed large manpower reserves. Germany was threatened on two sides after general mobilisation was ordered in Russia, which was interpreted as an armed provocation. The German general staff under general von Moltke believed that they could not afford to delay taking military action before the Russians would be able to complete their mobilisation, and France was to be attacked immediately for a rapid defeat, while there was not any alternative plan to prevent a war of attrition.
The German government issued a twelve-hour ultimatum to Russia to halt mobilisation that was regarded as an act of war. After not having a received any reply, Germany mobilised rapidly as according to previously formulated detail planning with a great deal of available railway stock, and declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914 as a preventive measure. German armies initially moved forward to Luxemburg on 1 August, and France mobilised on the same day. The German government then issued an ultimatum to Belgium on 2 August to allow passage for its armies through Belgium for their main offensive on France, mendaciously claiming that French planned to invade Belgium, and it was therefore necessary for the Germans to make a pre-emptive strike. The Belgian government refused to concede to this demand, and would maintain its neutrality by force if necessary. Germany declared war on France on 3 August, while Italy declared that its Triple Alliance allies were acting aggressively, and therefore was not required to participate. German armies moved at separate points into Belgium and Luxemburg on 4 August to activate its single master plan to defeat France as rapidly as possible, before launching an effective offensive against Russia that could rely on armed assistance from France. Moreover, the most efficient railways and roads from Berlin to Paris ran through Belgium, while the Vosges protected more than half of the French frontier south of Luxemburg, Belfort defended the narrow gap between them and Switzerland, and the wider thirty mile gap between the northern slopes of the Vosges and Luxemburg was too narrow for deploying Germany’s strength, in addition to French defensive fortifications at Verdun, Toul and Nancy further barred advances whereas French dispositions presumed an attack on Lorraine. Great Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August, immediately upon its invasion of Belgium, which was met with stubborn resistance against overwhelming forces, and French national sentiment was uniformly opposed to German military aggression. The competing alliances thus chose to risk a European war in the environment of international anarchy to which they contributed to maintain all of their conflicting goals, apart from Italy that also entered the war to pursue its own national interests.
Germany declared war on France on 3 August, and then issued an ultimatum to the Belgian government to allow German troops to pass through their borders on the way to France as part of the Schlieffen Plan according to its schedule that was amended by von Schlieffen as a matter of military necessity to crush France before the slow mobilising Russians could reach Germany. Belgium was determined to remain neutral and refused, and therefore German forces invaded Belgium on their way through a vulnerable entrance into the most vital part of France that was not strongly fortified, and thereby outflanking the French defensive fortresses. Great Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 for violating the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg that were guaranteed by treaty on 19 April 1839, which Britain sought to maintain in the vital interest of precluding launching an attack from across the English Channel. This invasion completely destroyed the system of alliances that Bismarck had erected to prevent an alliance aimed against Germany. Since Great Britain was allied to France and Russia, they set forth the military planning that had begun in 1905 to contribute to maintaining the European balance of power when it remained concerned about the rise of German naval power, and German predominance on the continent.
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914 with the full support of the German military authorities, expecting a localised war to weaken Serbia while preserving Austria-Hungary’s great power status. Activating the European alliance systems due to Austria-Hungary’s aggression resulted in the intervention of Russia, France and Great Britain on the side of Serbia, and Germany on the side of Austria. Although Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, it did not join in the war immediately since it declared that terms of the alliance did not apply since Austria and Germany were the aggressors, and therefore could repudiate its obligations on the ground that the clause in their treaty provided for common action in defence only, and not cooperation in a war of aggression. Besides, it was militarily unprepared in terms of finances and material preconditions. Moreover, it would have been self-destructive for Italy in its geographical position to enter a war that would allow its lengthy exposed coastlines to be attacked by the British and French navies, which had complete control of the Mediterranean Sea, and therefore the Italian coastline and commerce could not be adequately defended. Both the French and British fleets were far more powerful than the Italian navy, and had complete control of the Mediterranean Sea from the beginning of hostilities. Joining the Central Powers in any joint offensive actions would lead to the immediate paralysis of its commerce and Tripoli. Besides, its participation in the Triple Alliance carried the term that it was not bound to fight Britain. As the alliance systems were activated for war, the battles between Serbia and Austria then rapidly became a relatively minor aspect, while major combat centered in northern France in the west, and over a wide swathe of territory lying between Germany, Austria and Russia in the east.
Germany was the most prepared for war, since the German general staff had the long tradition of Prussian militarism that carried over into the German Empire, under whose peculiar constitution military leaders had enormous influence with only minor accountability to civilian authorities, they made themselves responsible for launching aggression, and encouraging the Austrian-Hungarians to likewise take armed action. When war broke out other nations required from between one to three weeks to mobilise their forces, while Germany was able to take the offensive immediately. In a short war, which was all that anyone expected in August 1914, Germany’s modern industries, great production of coal and steel, dense, well-integrated rail network, and military preparedness would have given it the advantage. Its chief disadvantage, and Bismarck’s nightmare, was the necessity of fighting on two fronts, even though its shorter supply lines and efficient transport system minimized that handicap in the short run. Moreover, Austria-Hungary, less modern and less efficient than Germany, bore the brunt of the fighting on the eastern front in the war’s opening stages while applying the advantages of military planning and preparedness.
Germany’s strategy to win the war was formulated in 1905 by Count von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. This was a gamble that was concentrated on first administering a knockout blow to France, and then turning east to deal with the Russians. The basis of the plan was that, like a revolving door, the weight of the French army would be drawn into the Rhineland by deliberately weakening the German forces there, while the main German thrust would come through Belgium, rather than staging direct attacks on French frontier fortresses that were considered to impervious to direct attacks, as well as crossing difficult frontier terrain, and were therefore to be bypassed as a solution to this problem, regardless of this flagrant injustice. The thrust was then then to be launched toward the west of Paris, and then block the French army against the Swiss frontier in a sole attempt to crush France rapidly. This was the essence of German strategy, since the Germany economy was not adjusted to a long war, and it was hoped that a rapid decisive defeat of France, as had been achieved in 1871, could prevent Britain from maintaining the war effort. Although Britain controlled the sea lanes, it had only a small professional army and there was no system of compulsory military service. It could therefore provide only marginal assistance to France at the war’s outset. Germany thus aimed at a six-week long war, as was successfully concluded in 1866 in its war against Austria.
The French High Command had expected Germany to launch a massive blow at the outset of the war to achieve a rapid decisive victory, and was aware that it could launch an offensive through Belgium. This was not known for certain, and therefore based its initial concentration on the eastern frontier, attacking from Alsace-Lorraine, following the precedent of 1870, and also making plans to meet an offensive through Belgium. However, the French could not foresee the number of troops Germany would send through Belgium, and the extraordinary mobility of German troops due to the unexpected use of motor transport. Moreover, the Belgian resistance, composing one-tenth the size of the German forces, was nevertheless stronger than had been anticipated, composing of volunteers who had enlisted for seven years of service and were experienced in colonial warfare, and allowed the French additional time to mobilise their armies, while Belgian resistance derailed the Schlieffen Plan that was based on predetermined railway timetables. The German general staff had also not made any immediate provisions to reduce the Belgian fortresses at Liège, which led to deranging the advance movement. This interrupted the invasion of France when every day was of value to France that would organize a successful counterattack, while the French army was still mobilizing on its northern front. Its incursions into the hilly and wooded terrain in Alsace and Lorraine that was advantageous to the defensive forces did not relieve the German offensive pressure that was concentrated in Belgium, and upset French defensive plans along the French-German frontier.
Like the German General Staff, the French General Staff also relied on a single war plan against Germany, known as Plan XVII, developed by General Joseph Joffre as the supreme commander of the French army in 1913. This involved deploying a high concentration of French troops on the German frontier, with only a small force on the southwestern Belgian border, and attack directly into Alsace and Lorraine from bases ranging from Verdun to Belfort, and then proceeding into the Ruhr valley, Germany’s industrial heartland. In view of respecting Belgian neutrality, Joffre would only engage German forces in Belgium upon a German invasion of the country. Following Germany declaring war on France on 3 August and launching the invasion through Belgium toward France on the following day, Joffre launched Plan XVII on 7 August into Alsace and advanced for thirty-five kilometres, before facing a German counterattack two days later, which pushed the French forces back on the next day. A second French assault toward Mulhouse was launched on 14 August, which was taken five days later, only to withdraw twenty kilometres on 26 August in view of the defeats on other front sectors in reaction to the German advances. The Lorraine front was consolidated into static positional trench warfare by 6 September following various earlier flanking movements attempts. Earlier mobility characterised by infantry troops charging over open territory then ended all along the western front, resulting in fighting defensively. Plan XVII thus proved to have failed by the time of the first battle of the Marne, where the initial Schlieffen Plan breakthroughs were blunted, having failed to subdue France within forty-two days according to a predetermined schedule to achieve a rapid victory, without either side having an immediate contingency plan after having had expected to inflict a rapid and decisive defeat.
The German strategy of deploying eighty percent of their army through Belgium and northern France nearly succeeded. The Germans began the invasion of Belgium on 3 August, captured Brussels on 20 August, and by the early days of September, the German forces reached as far as the Marne River and were within forty miles of Paris with a large area of northern France under their control through applying rapid troop movements and artillery superiority. However, the French were able to muster an army outside of Paris, and staged a counteroffensive on the Marne River on 5 September, which countered the German advance. Moreover, the German general staff did not send all their forces through Belgium and were held up at Ypres on 31 October, and Mons after having overextended their reach too fast and too far, and support could not be sustained. The French and British forces then stopped the Germans at the First Battle of the Marne and launched a strong counterattack along this river, to the northeast of Paris. After a week of heavy fighting from 5 to 12 September, the German forces gradually retired to take a new stand on the Aisne River. This initial campaign to overcome France completely in a rapid thrust at the Marne was thus parried there, before it was then permanently blocked at the Yser and Ypres Rivers.
Halting the advance at Ypres led to a deadlock before Germany had to turn the effort to the east and help protect its eastern flank, in addition to reinforcing the defence of Austria, which likewise led to another deadlock as Russia’s resistance could not be broken after failing to crush France, and before the first Russian armies had been mobilised with unexpected rapidity, which were expected to be unable to mobilize before staging an offensive for months, after the preliminary mobilization orders were given on 25 July, before Germany’s declaration of war on 1 August. Hence, the Battle of the Marne decisively broke the German offensive, saved Paris, and wrecked the entire strategy of the German general staff that unconditionally required rapidly knocking France out of the war within six weeks, prior to shifting eastward to defeat Russia. Being compelled to retreat and accepting maintaining a prolonged occupation of nearly all of Belgium, Luxemburg and northeastern France marked the total collapse of the German offensive in the west, as well as forcing the combatants’ governments to marshal all possible industrial and human means to sustain the war effort. Apart from the strong resistance of the Allies on the Marne, several German tactical errors accounted for the failure of the Germans to carry out their original strategy. Immediately before the war began, the German high command switched several divisions from the Belgian front to Lorraine to counter an expected French offensive. They sent all their forces through the relatively narrow gap between the fortress of Liège and the Ardennes hills, incurring additional casualties and losing time in dealing with the Belgians. The unexpectedly early arrival of the British between 7 and 17 August took the Germans by surprise.
Instead of continuing on to the English Channel coast to cut off new reinforcements, they headed directly for Paris but were pushed eastward by the defending French and British, making encirclement impossible. The German armies failed to envelop the French. The French reacted to the innermost of three advancing German armies, whereas the outermost German army led by General Alexander von Kluck, the commander of the German First Army, did not conform to the original plan by responding to the pressure applied from French forces, and therefore edged to the left instead of swinging wide to the right. Kluck chose to attack the exposed flank of the retreating French army, and therefore wheeled in front of Paris instead of going behind it, which unexpectedly brought his forces against the British Expeditionary Force who were prepared for a defensive battle at Mons, and then compromised the entire Schlieffen Plan by cutting east of Paris. This movement created a gap between the advancing German columns, and exposed his troops to counterattack from the more flexible French and British forces, including the newly created French Sixth Army. Moltke, believing the western front situation was settled by the end of August, also weakened the German attacks by withdrawing a number of divisions for use on the eastern front to cope with the perilous looking situation there developing against the Russian invasion that had begun on 17 August 1914, when Russia suddenly invaded East Prussia, which compelled the German general staff to employ troops to meet this threat that were much needed at a critical stage of the campaign against France. The German flank was exposed ten days after Kluck’s manoeuvre east of Paris, which would be a focal point from which the French could launch a counterattack.
The momentum of the German advance was expended on rapidity, and consequently lost the consolidation of force, while the Russian invasion of East Prussia diverted reserves that could have been deployed on the Marne. As a result, the German general staff did not have necessary reserves in the west to fill gaps between the armies in the west. Another result of the unexpectedly rapid Russian mobilization was the Austrians’ inability to hold the Russian armies on their frontiers, which also defeated the German plan to rapidly overwhelm France. The 1.5 million German troops launched through Belgium were thus insufficient to get to the west of Paris, which was partially due to Belgian resistance slowing the German advance that had taken eighteen days rather than the anticipated six on the assumption that Belgium would surrender, as opposition lasted until late August. This situation also allowed for the French and British forces to have been given a longer respite to prepare their defence, as the French also proceeded along the French-German frontier in a counteroffensive against Alsace-Lorraine that was halted at Saarburg on 18 August, and ultimately failed to recover “the lost provinces.”
The Battle of the Marne marked the farthest German advance of the entire war. After the German retreat to the Aisne, the two opposing armies settled in for trench warfare on an unprecedented scale. The two sides dug trenches meant to protect soldiers in defensive positions for short amounts of time. The war of movement gave way to positional warfare after the Germans withdrew across the Marne, instead of advancing with the original plan. Hence, the Battle of the Marne broke the entire German strategic conception for the initial advance. The deadlock on the western front that had begun on 15 November was to remain largely unchanged until March 1917. The lines that became stabilised between Reims and the Alps remained more firmly entrenched in a more prolonged test of enduring strength, and did not alter by approximately six miles at any point from September 1914 until September 1914, in contrast to the kinetic outflanking attempts on the northern sectors of the western front, beginning with the close of the autumn campaign that had begun on the Marne, and then neither side having any further definite plan of attack thereafter, resulting in prolonged unforeseen trench warfare from consolidated positions.
The first battle of the Marne forced the Germans to abandon their initial war plan, and with the battle fought to a draw after competing for advantages all along Belgium and western France. However, with the armies stalemated across from each other, they eventually grew longer, more complex, and more permanent, and over time, the maze of trenches stretched along the entire French border, from the Belgian coast on the English Channel from the Jura mountains on the Swiss border, where Swiss troops protected their neutrality while sheltered from stray bullets and shrapnel in wooden bunkers at this border. This meant the unforeseen end of the initial mobility and an emerging deadlock that was nearly impossible to break for four years without massive attacks involving enormous expenditures of artillery and attrition of troops on the ground, and being subject to surveillance from aircraft that could make it impossible to carry out significant strategic movements without detection.
The main underlying problem was that there was little attacking while modern weapons proved to be much more effective in defence than in attack, which led to a war of mutual attrition while both sides remained stuck in deadlock. While neither side could force a decisive victory, concluding a truce and returning to the status quo seemed intolerable as the war had demanded enormous human and material sacrifices. Entrenched soldiers exchanged volleys of rifle and artillery fire from the relatively same positions. As the initial war of movement greatly slowed, the casualties rose to incredibly unprecedented numbers that were caused by advances in weapons technology, which precluded advances due to technological advances in new weaponry, particularly new forms of artillery firing more rapidly, over longer distances and with greater firepower, as well as new forms of small arms, including new types of more powerful rifles and mobile machine guns. A lack of advances in communication technology undermined synchronising efforts between artillery and infantry in the face of “a no man’s land” between the trenches of dug in soldiers, in which German troops initiated innovating new tactics to react to these circumstances. New tactics were developed to seize control of enemy trenches that did not involve sending soldiers in charges to break the other’s lines inevitably led to very heavy casualties, when even barbed wire made could contribute to fending off infantry advances, which included light mobile mortar artillery and “elastic defence” to abandon front lines set up at separate parallel trenches, before counterattacking broken front lines. Logistics also stymied resupplying troops, and shifting them to separate positions due to insufficient amounts of motorized vehicles, apart from using railways with railheads being long distances away from the front lines. Meanwhile, some sectors saw little fighting throughout the war when troops on both sides concluded tacit truces and were largely inactive.
The western front was otherwise bogged down in trench warfare by the spring of 1915 that could not be broken during the previous French winter offensives. Following a German offensive at Ypres in April, British and French military authorities planned a new offensive in the Artois region on 9 May toward Vimy Ridge, which overlooked the Douais Plain, with support by advancing at Aubers Ridge toward La Bassé at a time when German troops in this sector were shifted to the eastern front. French troops engaging in this offensive were ultimately stalled against successful German resistance. British forces later advancing toward Festubert on 15 May did not acquire any significant gains. A French advance on Vimy Ridge from 16 to 18 June likewise made insignificant progress. There was increasing pressure on the Allies in the face of further setbacks while the Russians required material assistance and the Italian offensives against the Austrians had failed, and the Gallipoli offensive in Turkey was proving to be unsuccessful. A greater renewed offensive was then planned by French and British military authorities to be staged in the Artois region to break into the Douais Plain by drawing German reserves, with a separate thrust into the Champagne region. This new assault began with a British assault near Loos on 25 September, where the British first used chlorine gas, and ultimately faltered under robust German defences, while a simultaneous French advance on Artois was likewise blunted during unsuccessful attempts in the Champagne region, until these efforts were called off on 14 October. Subsequent Allied offensives would require far greater amounts of materiel to be applied against effective German defensive tactics that included the uses of reverse slopes, barbed wire obstacles and staging counterattacks.
There was more movement on the eastern front over wider areas that in the west, where Germany’s primary mission was initially to dispose of France, as Austria’s mission was to parry the Russian thrust in the east. The Russians took the offensive and overran Austrian Galicia in the first six weeks on the Austro-Russian frontier, while French offensives were staged in the west, before being stopped at the Carpathian Mountains. Russia also invaded East Prussia and made an extensive advance before being turned back at Tannenberg by a revitalised German army under generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff, in which Samsonov’s army was destroyed and Rennenkampf’s army was driven out of East Prussia. As early as December 1914, the Russian commander in chief informed his allies that he could no longer resume the offensive for lack of military supplies. Russia’s great distances and inadequate rail network hampered the movement of troops and supplies, while separation from its western allies rendered negligible any hoped for assistance from them.
The High Command of the Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria fatally underestimated the speed and force of the initial Russian thrust westward, while the two best Austrian corps were initially deployed in Alsace, and three or four other corps had been sent south to deal with Serbia, which were defeated at the outset of hostilities at the Jedar, while the Russians were crossing the frontier into Galicia, a week before the battle of Tannenberg. The Russians mobilised their troops much more rapidly than had been expected, and were ready in three weeks, rather than the six or seven weeks that the Germans predicted they would need. Russian advances also compelled Germany to draw troops from the western front to protect the eastern frontiers of both Germany and Austria, which also weakened Germany’s efforts against France, where Germany was forced to go onto the defensive after having lost the initiative at the Marne. While the Germans definitely failed to execute their original plan to destroy the French armies before the Russians could intervene, they were threatened with the ruin of Austria and the invasion of Silesia while defending the western positions.
Unbeknownst to the German general staff, Russia was prepared for war, and planned to advance toward Berlin upon the outbreak of war, beginning with staging attacks toward Brandeburg and into East Prussia, Silesia. As the Russians moved into eastern Germany, General Hindenburg and General Ludendorff then had a plan for stopping the Russians on the basis of trivial intelligence that would lead to defeating two Russian armies advancing into East Prussia. The two Russian commanders, General Rennenkampf and General Samsonov would not cooperate since they were not on speaking terms, and were further undermined by a primitive supply network. The Russians also did not have enough code books, so their radio operators had to send their messages that were not encrypted, and were could therefore transmissions were easily intercepted. The Germans were therefore able to listen in, as well as take advantage of natural obstacles that precluded the two Russian armies from consolidating their resources.
The Germans then drew General Samsonov into four days of battle near Tannenberg, which ended in the Russian defeat on 30 August. The significance of this battle was comparable to the Battle of the Marne, since this ruined the original French-Russian strategic conception, and also gave Germany necessary time to consolidate its hold in France and renew its offensive in Flanders. Hindenburg and Ludendorff then closed in on General Rennenkampf at the Battle of Masurian Lakes on 15 September, and forced the Russians to retreat out of German territory. In contrast to the German successes, the Austrians proved to be completely unprepared for modern warfare. They were practically cleared out of Serbia by 24 August, they were defeated in Galicia, and most of Austrian Poland fell into Russian control, having only made advances on the southern thrust of the initial 1914 offensive. Massive German support had to be called on to stop the Russian offensive that led to a Russian retreat before a standstill on the eastern front, whereas Austria-Hungary lost nearly half of its effectiveness. Whereas the Battle of the Marne deprived Germany of any chance to achieve a rapid decision on the western front, the complete defeat of two Russian armies at Tannenberg likewise deprived the allies of any similar chance for a rapid victory over Germany due to the diversion of two army corps to the eastern front, when all available German troops were needed to be deployed against France at a critical time.
The defeat of the German plan to overwhelm France in 1914 and the Russian advances on the eastern front brought about a complete change in the military situation, as Germany could no longer take the offensive with any probability of delivering a decisive blow, having lost momentum and then the initiative. The opposing forces in France were nearly too equal for either side to establishing a winning superiority at any point of attack, while the Russian first acquired superiority in the east, which drained Germany’s resources, including Austria-Hungary requiring support from Germany in the fighting against Russia, and therefore German forces could no longer be concentrated against France. Another aggravating factor for Germany was Britain marshalling naval resources to secure control of the seas, which deprived Germany’s ability to engage in overseas commercial activities, in addition to mostly confining the movements German surface warships to the North Sea, while Germany mainly preserved its naval resources by keeping them in harbour.
Germany being weaker in capital ships used submarines operating for the first time as separate fleet units, rather than being employed as larger naval unit auxiliaries, to try cutting Britain off from its supplies, and thereby beginning a new phase of naval warfare in a campaign of attrition at sea, with the first naval engagement taking place at Heligoland Bight where three heavy German cruisers were sunk on 28 August 1914, and then applying its advantage of twenty-nine British battleships to Germany’s nineteen. The British naval blockade led to Germany depending on deploying submarines. laying sea mines, and launching relatively minor surface vessel naval raids to attempt to reduce the disparity of force on the high seas while concentrating on reducing the allies’ economic resources, including stating hit and run shelling raids on the British coastline at Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough during the winter of 1914, rather than relying on their naval strength. This strategy was abandoned when it became apparent that the British could exceed at shipbuilding, which then shifted toward destroying British commercial subsistence by turning the sea into a “no man’s land” that would not be crossed by allied or neutral ships, rather than securing sea surfaces that the British commanded. Britain therefore necessarily adopted a defensive stance when there was a paucity of tangible targets on which offensives could be targeted, while German harbour defences at Wilhelmshaven and Kiel made them difficult to penetrate. Sowing sea mines and submarines made sustained naval bombardment of land fortifications a dangerous practice, in addition to the presence of mobile batteries on shore could not be inevitably destroyed, or could be easily repaired or replaced.
The fighting on land during this time on both the eastern and western fronts soon resulted in deadlocks, following the earlier movements. The Russians had fallen back at the Blonie line, eighteen miles west of Warsaw, and the entrenched strength of Bzura-Opoczno line became apparent, correspondingly to the Arras-Nieuport line for the western Allies. Inconclusive fighting on the eastern front followed during the winter of 1914-15. Following a short-lived new Russian offensive in February 1916, the Germans and Austrians used their superior artillery developments to their advantage and mounted a new offensive, capturing nearly all of Poland and reversing Russian gains in Galicia, and there was no longer any new attempt to stage a new invasion of Prussia. Another separate consequence was the considerable concentration of resources on the eastern front allowed France and Britain roughly fifteen months to develop sufficient military strength to prepare for the next German western offensive, with Britain having the advantages of manpower and material resources being supplied by the colonies providing support, and therefore being better able to sustain a prolonged war effort than Germany could be. In contrast, the disparate German colonies in Asia and Africa were taken over individually when they could not receive protection from Germany or one another, and could only rely on its own resources at the outbreak of the war.
The next considerable movement was the Russians launching offensives from March to December 1916 in which they achieved limited successes against the Austrians in Galicia, but failed in their ultimate objective. Russian pressure in the east ultimately became effective by November 1914, and forced German to abandon campaigning in the west, before renewing the offensive against Russia that began in late April 1915 and halted the Russian offensives, leaving Russia to mainly bear the brunt of the war during 1915 as Germany sought to drive Russia out of the war, before planning the next major offensive in the west at Verdun in 1916, which was followed by a western allied counterattack on the Somme to relieve the offensive pressure at Verdun. As the danger to Germany and its allies from the east was temporarily halted, the next western offensive was planned, without following the earlier lines of the Schlieffen plan to achieve a rapid victory that had depended on enveloping the Allies from their left flank by pressing the French army against the borders of Lorraine, and crushing a British force that had increased over tenfold. Germany was therefore reduced to the defensive, and therefore future offensives were merely to serve the long-term purposes of prolonging its defence, anticipating and preventing Allied attacks, and securing an advantageous peace settlement out of the defeat of the earlier attempts to drive the Germans out of the earlier territorial conquests. The new war aim became demonstrating impregnable eastern and western fronts from which the Allies could not compel them to evacuate, as well as forcing them to concede to other peace terms, by precluding Allied offensives while improving and strengthening their own positions to thereby keep the Allies at a distance from which they could not make an impression on the heart of Germany’s economic and military situation.
Neither Austria nor Serbia had sufficient strength to penetrate far into the other’s territory in the Balkans. After indecisive fighting in the fall and winter of 1914-15, their positions stabilised along the lines of the prewar frontier, while Austria devoted its main resources to the Russian front and Serbia recuperated. Meanwhile, diplomats from both alliances attempted to entice Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania into the war with lavish promises of territorial acquisition. Bulgaria was the first to succumb to the blandishments of the Central Powers in September 1915, following the German victories over Russia, which began retreating and abandoning Poland, leaving the Germans to enter Warsaw on 5 August, and the continued failures of the British attempts to seize the Dardanelles, and the elimination of Serbia as a factor in the war, where the Austrians and Germans entered Belgrade on 9 October. Nevertheless, the Austrian invasion of Serbia proved to be an abject failure, as three attempts led to an entire Austrian army corps being annihilated, and the remaining invading armies were driven back across the Danube and Save rivers. On the other hand, a combined offensive by the Bulgarians in the east and an Austro-German force in the north soon overran the entire peninsula north of Greece. Following early advances in Bukovina and the Carpathians, Russia persuaded Romania, which had been allied since 1883 with Austria and Germany, to enter on the side of the allies on 27 August 1916.
The timing was singularly unfortunate, since it was then that the Russian Brusilov offensive launched in June 1916 aimed at attempting to induce the collapse of Austria-Hungary. Almost the whole of Romania was overrun by the Central Powers in November and December, and Bucharest was occupied on 6 December. Greece was drawn between rival foreign and domestic factions. The Allies could not shift Greece from its position of neutrality, but a French and British expeditionary force landed at Salonika in a belated attempt to succor the Serbs. After months of internal strife amounting to civil war in 1917, the Allies finally forced King Constantine to abdicate and installed a government that dutifully declared war on the Central Powers.
The Ottoman empire joined the Central Powers in accordance with a secret treaty between Turkey and Germany, signed on 2 August 1914. The area of conflict broadened while the Ottoman Empire joined Germany, seeing an opportunity to expand their influence in the Balkans. Turkey began its war effort by bombarding Russian port of Odessa on the night of 29 October, while shielded German shipping from the Entente powers, and closed the Dardanelles Straights to British shipping. Russian and Turkish armies then engaged in the Caucasus mountains in the prolonged battle of Sarikamish from 22 December 1914 to 17 January 1915. Turkish authorities hoped to regain lost territory in this difficult terrain, and did not necessarily divert Russian forces to have an effect on the military situation on the eastern front. Turkish forces also confronted British and Indian troops who advanced through Mesopotamia and clashed with them in Egypt from 26 January 1915, where they crossed into the Sinai Peninsula to disrupt British commerce passing through the Suez Canal. Turkey also supported German led revolts in Iran against Britain. Turkey’s offensive in the Caucasus had stalled in December 1914, but there was concern about its resumption, as Hindenburg’s victory at Tannenberg in East Prussia landed a terrible blow to Russia that was left without any troops to be spared for defensive purposes in the Caucasus.
Although the Turkish offensives did not lead to achieving decisive results, the British had to keep large numbers of troops in the Near East to protect the Suez Canal, which proved to be a more effective diversion from British troops to be deployed to the Dardanelles. Turkey closed the Dardanelles and Bosporus to Allied shipping, and began constructing elaborate fortifications and placing mobile heavy guns in concealed positions commanding the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles that greatly reinforced their defences. This meant immediately cutting off western supplies to Russia, except by the expensive and unsatisfactory routes to the icebound Arctic port of Archangel, Vladivostok was 5000 miles away from the fronts, and the Baltic was closed by the German navy, which precluded Russia receiving military supplies through this direction. Hence, only the Black Sea could serve as an artery to keep Russia’s war effort alive. An assault on the Dardanelles would divert a certain number of Turkish troops from the Caucasus front where the Russians were fighting the Turks since mid-December 1914, and also enable Russia to export in addition to opening a free outlet for Russia’s huge stores of grain, while supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia freely and inexpensively through the Black Sea, as well as potentially bringing in the neutral Balkan states, particularly Bulgaria and Romania, into the war on the side of the Entente in view of envisaging acquiring postwar benefits. Another strategic matter of importance was how the key to the Near East was thought to be the Dardanelles, on which the British and French authorities decided in January 1915 to attempt a naval assault. It was presumed that an allied fleet could threaten Constantinople, and thereby potentially eliminate Turkey from the war, which would obviate any serious danger of Ottoman attacks on Egypt, Persia and India. Another advantage could be depriving Germany from any control over the Baghdad railway. In addition, the Russian armies could be largely withdrawn and send to reinforce the front line in Poland.
The British deployed an expeditionary force to Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 to stage in order to capture Constantinople, primarily to relieve pressure on Russia, and thereby resupply the Russians through the Black Sea and take Turkey out of the war while forcing a passage through the Dardanelles Straights. In practice, this attempt was one of the world’s most difficult operations that resolved itself into a costly attack by inferior forces on land following a seaborne assault against an almost impregnable position of defence in depth, in which the difficulties of an invasion launched from the sea had never been more strikingly demonstrated. The Allies were only able to establish narrow footholds, in the face of the Turks holding positions that were defended by masses of artillery and machine guns, and elaborate systems of trenches, on which British and French naval guns appeared to have minimal effect. The Turks were also able to use land routes on both shores from which reserves could arrive quickly, and the entry of Bulgaria into the war on 14 October 1915 further opened the way for the deployment of German troops and heavy artillery reinforcements to this front, leading to the Allies ultimately withdrawing by January 1916. Meanwhile, Constantinople was Russia’s only war sea outlet to Europe, and opening this sea passage was vital for maintaining sufficient supplies of weapons and ammunition to withstand reinforced German and Austrian drives on the eastern front, along with sustaining international commercial purchases of goods from the allies and neutral countries, in addition to exporting Russian commodities. This operation resulted in failure and 250,000 casualties as Turkey’s resistance was underestimated, and also discouraged similar attempts against better defended land targets. Following seizing Bassra in Mesopotamia and making advances during 1915 toward the strategic city of Kut, the advance of the overextended British forces were stalled at Tichon on 22 November. Diplomatic correspondence with the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, would lead to marshalling local support against the Ottoman empire, beginning with an Arab revolt that began on 10 June 1916 that led to seizing Mecca and the port of Jedha. British forces in the Near East under General Allenby, supported by desert Arabs led by the romantic figure T. E. Lawrence who later made gains in the Middle East from October 1916 and during 1917 that led to seizing control over the Sinai Peninsula, and further advances were made in Mesopotamia, where Baghdad fell to British control on 11 March and then Aqaba on 6 July. As Ottoman resources dwindled, fighting for Jerusalem developed from 17 November, and then continued after the surrender on 11 December until 30 December 1917, to secure the final objective of the Southern Palestine offensive. Russian forces were also able to overrun most of northeastern Anatolia by the spring of 1917, but these gains were reversed with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a result of the Russian revolution of October 1917. Turkish forces remained pressing into Russia in attempting to unite all Turkish peoples, while facing losses in the Middle East, especially after British forces destroyed Ottoman defences in Palestine in the Battle of Megiddo on 19 September 1918. Further Allied advances ultimately led to the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, which allowed for Allied troops to occupy strategic points, and triggered the partition of the empire
The Austrians were less successful at fighting the Russians, as they were practically cleared out of Serbia by 24 August, they were defeated in Galicia, and most of Austrian Poland fell into Russian hands. Massive German support had to be called on to stop the Russian offensive that led to a Russian retreat before a standstill on the eastern front, whereas Austria-Hungary lost nearly half of its effectiveness. Whereas the Battle of the Marne deprived Germany of any chance to achieve a rapid decision on the western front, the defeat at Tannenberg likewise deprived the Allies of any similar chance for a rapid victory over Germany due to the diversion of two army corps to the eastern front, when all available German troops were needed to be deployed against France at a critical time.
The defeat of the German plan to overwhelm France in 1914 and the Russian advances on the eastern front brought about a complete change in the military situation, as Germany could no longer take the offensive with any probability of delivering a decisive blow. The opposing forces in France were nearly too equal for either side to establishing a winning superiority at any point of attack, while the Russian first acquired superiority in the east, which drained Germany’s resources, including Austria-Hungary needing to be strengthened with German troops against Russia, and therefore Germany forces could no longer be concentrated against France. Another aggravating factor for Germany was Britain marshaling naval resources to secure control of the seas, which deprived Germany’s ability to engage in overseas commercial activities.
The British naval blockade led to Germany depending on deploying submarines. laying sea mines, and launching relatively minor surface vessel naval raids to attempt to reduce the disparity of force on the high seas while concentrating on reducing the allies’ economic resources, rather than their naval strength. This strategy was abandoned when it became apparent that the British could exceed at shipbuilding, which then shifted toward destroying British commercial subsistence by turning the sea into a “no man’s land” that would not be crossed by allied or neutral ships, rather than securing sea surfaces that the British commanded. Britain therefore necessarily adopted a defensive stance when there was a paucity of tangible targets on which offensives could be targeted, while German harbour defences at Wilhelmshaven and Kiel made them difficult to penetrate. Sowing sea mines and submarines made sustained naval bombardment of land fortifications a dangerous practice, in addition to the presence of mobile batteries on shore could not be inevitably destroyed, or could be easily repaired or replaced.
The Russians retreated almost to Warsaw by the end of 1914. The fighting on the eastern front during the winter of 1914-15was inconclusive. Following a short-lived new Russian offensive in February 1916, the Germans and Austrians used their superior artillery developments to their advantage and mounted a new offensive, capturing nearly all of Poland and reversing Russian gains in Galicia, and there was no longer any new attempt to stage a new invasion of Prussia. Another separate consequence was the considerable concentration of resources on the eastern front allowed France and Britain roughly fifteen months to develop sufficient military strength to prepare for the next German western offensive, with Britain having the advantages of manpower and material resources being supplied by the colonies providing support, and therefore being better able to sustain a prolonged war effort than Germany could be.
The Russians launched offensives from March to December 1916 in which they achieved limited successes against the Austrians in Galicia, but failed in their ultimate objective. Russian pressure in the east ultimately became effective by November 1914, and forced German to abandon campaigning in the west, before renewing the offensive against Russia in late April 1915 that halted the Russian offensives, leaving Russia to mainly bear the brunt of the war during 1915 as Germany sought to drive Russia out of the war, before planning the next major offensive in the west against the great defensive fortress at Verdun in 1916 that was in an isolated position, and force French forces to reinforce its defensive line at this point on the western front, and force them to sacrifice manpower for this purpose.
As the danger to Germany and its allies from the east was temporarily halted, the next western offensive was planned, without following the earlier lines of the Schlieffen plan to achieve a rapid victory that had depended on enveloping the Allies from their left flank by pressing the French army against the borders of Lorraine, and crushing a British force that had increased over tenfold. Germany was therefore reduced to the defensive, and therefore future offensives were merely to serve the long-term purposes of prolonging its defence, anticipating and preventing Allied attacks, and securing an advantageous peace settlement out of the defeat of the earlier attempts to drive the Germans out of the earlier territorial conquests. The new war aim became demonstrating impregnable eastern and western fronts from which the Allies could not compel them to evacuate, as well as forcing them to concede to other peace terms, by precluding Allied offensives while improving and strengthening their own positions to thereby keep the Allies at a distance from which they could not make an impression on the heart of Germany’s economic and military situation. The next theatre of the war in Europe was in Italy. Having decided in favour of an ambiguous neutrality, Italy then pursued negotiation efforts throughout the winter of 1914-15 to acquire advantages for making contributions to the war effort. The initial stance was this war undertaken by Austria was aggressive in nature, and therefore did conform to the purely defensive character of the Triple Alliance. Moreover, Italian popular opinion supported the Entente allies, while negotiations with Austria-Hungary over peacefully ceding territories to Italy. The Central Powers were handicapped in the bargaining by Austrian resentment of Italian claims on Austrian and Turkish territory, including the important harbour of Trieste that was predominantly Italian in population and sentiment and also Austria-Hungary’s only seaport serving as an outlet to the Adriatic Sea, the Istrian Peninsula, northern Dalmatia and territory in Albania, which would compose complete control of the Adriatic Sea. The Western Allies had no compunctions in the matter, and in the secret Treaty of London on 26 April 1915, granted Italy lavish promises of territorial acquisition in considerable part at the expense of the Balkan states, in return for joining the Allied war effort within a month, promising the Italians territory carrying the frontier up to the Brenner Pass in the north, the port of Trieste, which was Austria-Hungary’s third largest city, much of Dalmatia, a protectorate over central Albania, the Dodecanese Island, a “just share” of the Mediterranean coast of Turkey around Adalia, and “equitable compensation” in Africa if the French and British increased their possessions on the continent at Germany’s expense. It would later prove to be difficult to coordinate these claims with those of Serbia, and possibly Greece in the event of its expected adherence to the Entente cause, but Italy’s terms appeared to be worth the risk in exchange for potential future benefits.
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