The Great War – A very brief history

Causes

With the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, following the crushing German victory in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war, a future conflagration in Europe was likely. The great statesman, Otto von Bismarck, had been the midwife at the birth of the German Empire, a nation which would rapidly emerge as the greatest industrial and military power in Europe. Following this humiliation, French revanchism became a national rallying cry and would shape not just French military planning but also a people’s psyche. The long heralded ‘balance of power’on the continent, a concept crucial for the British Empire in maintaining its pre-eminent place in the world, was in a state of turbulent and volatile flux. In the early twentieth century, nationalism, imperialism and militarism bounced around like demented atoms and exponentially increased the likelihood and probable intensity of the next war. Yet, how that war would come was the great unknown.

At the turn of the century, Austria-Hungary was a crumbling and decrepit empire, matched only in decay by that of the Ottoman Turks (a 500 year old power now on its death bed). Both of these wheezing giants edged closer and closer to the new German Empire –Austria-Hungary linked through language, culture and history – but also, much the same as the Ottomans, clinging to the military might of the Germans in their shared fears about the designs and threats of Russia to the east.

Russia, too, faced an uncertain future due to the stirrings of political upheaval by an increasingly agitated proletariat. France longed for war, eager to regain its lost provinces. The French war planning staff, led by Joseph Joffre, had devised a military strategy to suit the French offensive attitude; Plan XVII called for an ‘attack at all costs’ approach, delivering the French army straight into the heart ofAlsace-Lorraine. French tactics were based on two crucial doctrines: one, the élan vital - the fighting spirit of the French soldier (the poilu), fired by patriotic idealism; two, the offensive á outrance - the audacious French soldier moving forward at a rush in order to meet the enemy in close combat and, psychologically speaking, never again to be in a position of national humiliation and defensive desperation. From such planning would emerge the Battle of the Frontiers in 1914, a coordinated invasion of those important lost territories. Across the Channel, it was Great Britain that remained the unknown quantity. The Empire stretched across half of the globe and the Royal Navy maintained its pre-eminent position. Yet, given German ambition, how long could this be maintained?

Germany, led since 1888 by the unstable, jealous and distinctly odd Kaiser Wilhelm II – a man who over compensated for his own personal physical defects with affected militaristic displays of grandeur – was a European newcomer who was late to the ‘Great Game’ of imperialism. Jealous of her European rivals’ foreign possessions, Germany continued to plan for further war. Should a European war erupt, Germany would strike swiftly and with great precision. Since the 1890s, General Count Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of the German Great General Staff, had been perfecting a plan to deliver a rapid defeat of France in the west before turning to face Russia in the east. The Schlieffen Plan would be tinkered with, altered and rewritten several times and outlived its author. It would be unleashed in 1914. It was also one of the greatest failures in military history, ensuring that the complete opposite of its objectives would result – a long, stalemate of a war which would lead to the defeat of Germany.

Alliances were the diplomatic trend in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; designed to ensure parity and a balance of power on the continent, they would, in fact, deliver nothing of the sort. These alliances shifted and fluctuated over time, but by 1914 the delineation was clear. On one side, Germany and Austria-Hungary, to be joined by the Ottomans and other gambling nations along the way, were the ‘Central Powers’. France and Russia (also the self-appointed protector of the Slavic people) allied themselves in a defensive partnership, should either be confronted by the Central Powers. Italy, expected to ally with the Central Powers, played the opportunist’s game. Belgium remained neutral, with a guarantee of such a position granted in the Treaty of London of 1839, signed by all the great powers, including Great Britain. Finally, in one of the most remarkable realignments in modern history, France and Great Britain had agreed an Entente Cordiale in 1904. Although this was little more than an expression of mutual understanding and friendship, in reality it ensured that, for ten years, senior British military figures had been working on the understanding that, should a European conflict emerge, the small regular army of the British Empire would fight alongside France. However, that, by proxy and eventuality, also bound the vast manpower and resources of the British Empire and her Dominions to such a course of action.¹

So, in 1914, as politicians schemed and military chiefs planned, Europe, even if it did not know it, was on the brink. Who would have expected that love would be the trigger?

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, had married the Czech Countess, Sophie Chotek, in 1900. However, although a countess, she was regarded of too ‘low-birth’ for a future Empress. Much to the couple’s grievance, she was forbidden from appearing in public with her husband. The Archduke, in an act of love and defiance, knew that if he were to act in his military capacity, as Inspector General of the Imperial forces, then his wife would be permitted to appear alongside him. So, in 1914, on their wedding anniversary, they travelled to a fractious part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bosnia, to inspect the army in Sarajevo. Little did he know that the drumbeat of war was now underway.

Nationalism was rife in the Balkans and was a continuing source of political strife and occasional war. The people of Bosnia-Herzegovina were a mix of Bosnians, Slavs and Croats. A Serbian minority itched to break away and join their homeland.

On 28 June, after already surviving one assassination attempt that day from the Serbian nationalist ‘Black Hand’ secret society, the Archduke’s car took a wrong turning. The driver struggled to operate the unfamiliar gears of the car. At that moment, a young student and member of the ‘Black Hand’, Gavrilo Princip, stepped out of a café to which he had fled following the failed earlier attempt on theArchduke’s life. Given this chance twist in history, Princip raised his pistol and shot dead Franz Ferdinand, Sophie and her unborn child as they sat alongside each other in the rear of the car.

These bullets would lead to the death of millions.

Austria-Hungary, supported by her ally Germany, quickly sought redress. Assuming a Serbian Government plot, they presented her with a list of demands. Nearly frustrating her revenge tainted ambitions, Serbia accepted all but one of the demands – the one failure enough for Austria-Hungary to declare war.

Russia, acting in its paternalistic role to the Slav peoples, mobilized in defence of Serbia. Initially this was a bluff to scare Austria-Hungary but the gamble was checked by the poker playing Germany, which issued an ultimatum to Russia to cease mobilization. Russia refused and on 1 August Germany declared war.

Here was the chance.

The Schlieffen Plan was dusted off and, without any need for a reason, Germany also declared war on France. France, not the least bit concerned by the turn of events, countered with her great plan for national redemption – Plan XVII would now play out its inevitable failures. When the Schlieffen Plan required the German Army to pass through neutral Belgium, in order to by-pass French forces and circle behind Paris in one great pincer movement, the Treaty of London (much to the incredulity of German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, who could not believe that the British would go to war for ‘a scrap of paper’) was triggered and British troops were destined for the European mainland for the first time in ninety-nine years and not since the defeat of Napoleon. Other nations would be drawn in, some would drop out, Empires would collapse and all would never be quite the same again.

On 3 August 1914, the British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, stood with a friend in the Foreign Office, looking out on to the streets of London below. Dusk was edging in and the street lamps were being lit. Grey, with an apt melancholy and sense of sharp foreboding, uttered his now much remembered phrase: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.’

The world was now at war.

The War

1914

On 7 August the first elements of the relatively small British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived on the European mainland. Alongside French forces, it first made contact with the German army at Mons in Belgium; then followed the Allied retreat to the Marne. Yet, the German advance had been successfully checked and the Schlieffen Plan was in tatters. Both sides now tried to outflank each other and thus followed the “race to the sea”, eventually ending in a series of trench systems spreading from the Swiss border to northern France and Belgium. As both sides began to adapt to the new reality of a defensive and stalemated conflict on the Western Front, the war went global.

In an almost perverse reverse of the Schlieffen Plan, Germany enjoyed early great success on the Eastern Front at the Battle of Tannenberg, which very nearly knocked Russia out of the war completely. War spread to the African colonies and to South America, whilst Japan allied with the Entente (eying German possessions in the region and with long standing territorial ambitions in China) and Turkey joined the Central Powers. The war would not “be over by Christmas”, although the festive season was celebrated across a number of sections of the Western Front, as soldiers from both sides left their trenches and met in No Man’s Land during an unofficial truce.

1915

Immediate victory had been denied to Germany and initially 1915 did not look promising for her. Italy, in a reversal of pre-war alliances, entered the war on the Allied side. The German Navy was now blockaded in port and thus could offer little help to German colonies and Japan was already overrunning German possessions in the east. Furthermore, the Central Powers were geographically cut off from their ally Turkey. Russia besieged Austria-Hungary but events soon shifted in Germany’s favour. In February, Russia endured heavy fighting in The Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes and retreated out of Prussia. Considerable German advances occurred in the east through April and May, which turned into a rout of Russian forces in the summer. This eventually enabled the Central Powers to overrun Serbia and geographically link up with Turkey and, a new ally, Bulgaria. By September, momentum was with the German led powers.

This was underlined by events on the Western Front. British involvement in the battles of Neuve Chapelle (March), Second Ypres (April-May) and Loos (September-October) were all indecisive and frustrating affairs, which did little beyond underline the difficulty both sides now faced in undertaking any offensive strategy. Heavily fortified defences, barbed wire, heavy artillery, machine guns and gas were the hallmarks of such warfare.

In an attempt to open up another front in the war and end the inertia which had developed in the west, Allied forces attempted an assault on Turkey in the Dardanelles campaign. Despite a nine-month attempt, little was achieved beyond more lost men and on Boxing Day the withdrawal began. This war would have to be won, somehow, on the Western Front. Sir Douglas Haig, the newly appointed Commander of the BEF, would be the man tasked with achieving it for the British.

1916

For many, this was the most vivid and illustrative year of the nature of the war. In February, Germany unleashed a breath taking offensive at the ancient medieval fortified city of Verdun. Using a massive artillery bombardment and strategic attrition, the grim aim was to bleed France white by drawing her forces into defending the position at all costs, knocking her out of the war and thus leaving Britain vulnerable. It became one vast and horrific mincer of men.

Partially in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the French at Verdun, the French and British undertook an offensive on the Somme; 1 July becoming a day synonymous with British military failure. Verdun and the Somme would trudge on until both campaigns were finally put out of their misery in December and November respectively.

At sea, the only major surface naval battle of the war took place when the British and German High Seas Fleets engaged at Jutland in May. Technically, in man power and numbers of ships lost, the Germans triumphed but the German Fleet was so badly damaged that it returned to port and its commanders were so shaken that it was never to re-emerge – thus most regard this as a British victory.

Elsewhere, Lawrence of Arabia led theArab revolt, the Brusilov Offensive by Russia critically wounded Austria-Hungary, Hindenburg and Ludendorff succeeded Falkenhayn and Lloyd George became British Prime Minister.

1916 was a brutal year and no victory, for either side, was anything like near.

1917

A year of change and upheaval. On the Western Front, Germany carried out a strategic withdrawal to the heavily fortified defensive positions of the Hindenburg line, whilst Allied assaults were carried out at Arras and Ypres in the spring and summer. At Third Ypres (Passchendaele) another large scale attritional attack was carried out, with results depressingly similar to the Somme. Given the horrific weather conditions, much of the fighting was undertaken in an obliterated landscape dominated by glutinous mud, presenting the imagery that most people associate with the war as a whole. However, by the year’s end, many new methods were being utilised by the Allies, most noticeably with the mass use of tanks at Cambrai.

Russia, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution, agreed an armistice with Germany, whilst the French army became mutinous following the very disappointing Nivelle Offensive. It was the necessity to relieve the pressure on the French forces that forced Haig’s hand to carry out the ill fated Ypres offensive.

In the Middle East, British forces enjoyed major success and, in general, outside of Europe the Allied forces were seizing the initiative. Following the German decision to carry out unrestricted submarine warfare and with the release of the Zimmerman telegram (a German offer of an alliance with Mexico in the event of war with the USA) to an incredulous American public, the USA entered the war on the Allied side in April. Although it would take months forAmerican forces to arrive in any significant numbers, the potential increase in manpower and resources for the Allies would force Germany to take a gamble for victory in 1918. In a long overdue move, the Allied forces established a co-ordinating policy body, eventually leading to Ferdinand Foch being appointed as overall Supremo. This, combined with the desperation of Germany to end the war as swiftly as possible, meant that the conditions necessary for an Allied victory were finally emerging.

1918

With Russia agreeing terms with Germany in March, German forces were released from the Eastern Front and thus available for a massive assault in the west. Operation Michael, The Kaiser’s Offensive, was Germany’s last gamble to win the war before the USA’s military strength could be felt in the theatre. From spring through to early summer this assault was a success, at least in terms of ground gained. In a foreshadowing of the tactics of the Second World War, German storm troopers moved at pace and thrust the Allies back all along the Western Front – mobile warfare had returned. German troops pushed as far as the outskirts of Paris. But the Germans outran their supply lines and Allied counter offensives from July pushed the German Army into a full retreat. On 8 August (the famous Black Day of the German Army), following Haig’s Amiens offensive, the Germans were forced back toward the Hindenburg Line. In late September, the Allies moved through the Hindenburg fortifications and in late October the Germans began to sue for peace. The Allies kept pushing and much of Belgium and France were finally liberated from German occupation.

By early November the Austrians had capitulated, the German home front was gripped by revolutionary fervour and widespread hunger (the Allied blockade having been a major success) and her navy was in mutiny. On 9 November the Kaiser abdicated and left Germany and, with British forces back in Mons where they had begun in 1914, an Armistice was agreed for 1100 on 11 November.

The guns fell silent.

1919

In January the Paris peace negotiations began. On 28 June, five years to the day since Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, the Treaty of Versailles was signed between the Allies and Germany, thus officially ending the war.

The total number of military and civilian casualties topped 35 million, with over 15 million of these dead.

Twenty years later, war would ravage the world again.