World War - 1 Facts

World War I

Involved more than 25 nations.

The main participant were -         

Central Powers / Triple Alliance	Allied Powers / Triple Entente
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey	France, Britain, Russia, Italy, United States of America

The German Empire was established in 1871. Kaiser Wilhelm, the ruler of Germany was very ambitious and wanted to make Germany a world power and thus entered into alliance with Austria-Hungary & Turkey. These three powers together came to be known as Triple Alliance or Central powers. On the other hand, French hated Germany & Britain was also alarmed at the increasing military powers of Germany, so in 1904 they joined hands and 3 years later in 1907, Russia also joined them and these three powers came to be known as Triple Entente or Allied Powers.

World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the crown prince of Austria-Hungary in Serbia. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Austria-Hungary was supported by Germany and Serbia had the support of Russia backed by France. Britain did not join the war immediately but when Germany invaded neutral Belgium, Britain too joined the war on the side of allies. Since most of the nations had mutual defence alliance at that time, the war propagated and more & more nations got involved.

Germany was facing enemies on the both sides east as well as west. According to Schlieffen Plan, Germany decided to tackle the enemy at the West Front first with a massive attack on France and then concentrating on Eastern side to tackle Russia. But Germany had underestimated Russia. Russia very quickly mobilized army before Germany could get free from Western Front and thus forcing Germany to fight at both Eastern & Western Fronts simultaneously. But Russians were badly trained and ill-equipped.

Second Stage of the War – In 1915, the Ottoman Empire in Turkey was losing ground, so Turkey decided to attack Russia which was welcomed by Germany. Russians called help from Britain and France. Winston Churchill believed that winning the war in trenches was difficult and that Germany could be defeated only after crushing its weaker allies like Turkey first.

The German submarine called U-Boats weren't like todays submarines. They operated on the surface using regular engines, submerging occasionally to attack under battery power. Since it was difficult for underwater boat to stop and search suspicious ships, it destroyed many innocent merchant ships without giving any warning! The allies were able to overcome the menace of U boats only by convoy system, whereby they one hundred ships would sail together in a convoy that was protected by escort ships that used increasingly sophisticated equipment to locate the U-boats underwater.

Zeppelins were huge air ships used by Germany for bombarding in Britain. Normally they would leave their base at the dusk and bombard cities by observing the street and house lights. After bombarding at night, they would return their base before dawn. Zeppelins used hydrogen for lift and small engines to propel and could attain speed of 140 km/h. The Britain aircraft for long could not chase them. Later they developed new aircrafts with more powerful engines and deadly weapons to check these Zeppelins' menace.

For long America remained 'neutral'. The battles on the Western Front had no real winners. In 1917, Germany decided to win the war at sea and declared her submarines would sink all the ships in the Atlantic War zone whether they were allied or 'neutral'. Previously in 1915, Germany U Boat had already sunk the ship RMS Lusitania. On-board were 128 Americans and this outraged Americans, who broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. Later American President Woodrow Wilson learnt that Germany had offered to help Mexico regain their portions of South West that it had lost to the United States in 1840's if it joined Central Powers. To add to this German Submarines sank seven American ships. And on April 6^th 1917, America declared war on Germany.

In 1917, the third year of the war, the French Army had faced the bulk of destruction and discontent was high among army over the poor food, no home leaves and no rest. Some 30,000 men decided to leave and discipline received a serious blow. Situation was saved by addressing to the needs. The life of civilians was no better. Their lives were more controlled. Heavy taxation, rationing of food, factories taken over for arms production, longer working hours, censored news was done in Britain. In France, Germany and Russia, conscription came into force that all men between the age of 18 and 47 were compulsorily required to serve in army.

The fourteen points principle was proposed by American President Woodrow Wilson as a basis for ending the World War I and for keeping peace thereafter. First five were of broad international concern, next eight relating to territorial issues and the last 14^th point related to League of Nations. Allied nation dropped the pamphlets from plane on Germany and Germany agreed to these set of points as a basis for peace. Armistice was reached in 1918 and negotiations started for peace. The outcome was the Treaty of Versailles which held Germany responsible for the war and Germany had to part with much regions. It was forced to pay massive amount of damage caused by the conflict. Germany was actually not involved in the process of negotiations but was only asked to sign the Treaty which sowed the seeds for the next world war. The League of Nations was formed as per the principles, but the United States which had brought out the idea never joined it. Neither was League of any use as it could not avoid forthcoming conflicts of Italy, Japan & Germany.