World War I on the Western Front
Overview
World War I Erupts
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot dead in Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. This event led to a diplomatic crisis and the outbreak of World War I.
Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Hungary from 1896 until his death, as well as heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia. This caused the Central Powers—including Germany and Austria-Hungary—and Serbia’s allies—Russia, and later England and France—to declare war on each other, starting World War I.
Learning Objectives
- Examine how the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused the outbreak of World War I.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Archduke Franz Ferdinand: heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary whose assassination started World War I
Austria-Hungary: multi-ethnic, multi-lingual state in central Europe comprising a territory that included present-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia, parts of Romania, Poland, and the Balkans
Serbia: small, independent country comprised of Slavic-speaking peoples
Sarajevo: major city in present-day Bosnia famous as the site of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife
Black Hand: a clandestine, Serbian-based society that used terrorist tactics to achieve political goals; famous for its role in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Gavrilo Princip: nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist and member of the Black Hand who assassinated Franz Ferdinand and his wife
July Ultimatum: Austria-Hungary’s list of demands placed on Serbia during July 1914 that was designed to humiliate Serbia in the name of preserving peace
July Crisis: breaking of diplomatic ties between Austria-Hungary and Serbia
Central Powers: one of the major combatant sides of World War I that included primarily Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire
Allies: the major combatant side of World War I that initially was led by England, France, and Russia, which later changed to England, France, and the United States in 1918.
Background
Franz Ferdinand was born in Graz, Austria as the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria and his second wife, Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. In 1875, when he was only 11 years old, his cousin Duke Francis V of Modena died, naming Franz Ferdinand his heir. Franz Ferdinand thus became one of the wealthiest men in Austria.
In 1889, Franz Ferdinand’s life changed dramatically. His cousin Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide at his hunting lodge in Mayerling. This left Franz Ferdinand’s father, Karl Ludwig, first in line to the throne. Ludwig then died of typhoid fever in 1896. The death of his father meant that Franz Ferdinand, grandson of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, was now the direct heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary.
Emperor Franz Joseph was displeased by the fact that his brash grandson was now his immediate heir and successor. To him, Franz Ferdinand was an arrogant and indulged man who had spent his adulthood traveling, hunting large game, and pursuing women who were not of royal stock. One of his pursuits led Franz Ferdinand to fall in love with a lady-in-waiting, Sophie Chotek. Alleging that he was deeply in love, Franz Ferdinand refused to marry anyone else. He was only granted the right to marry the commoner when he agreed to certain stipulations that would limit Sophie’s rights as a duchess and erase royal privileges for their children.
The relationship between Franz Ferdinand and his grandfather remained stormy. Still, despite his personal misgivings and dislike of his grandson, Emperor Franz Joseph conceded that he must train and treat his grandson as heir to the throne. In June 1914, he had Franz Ferdinand accept an invitation to inspect troops in Sarajevo. As a concession, the emperor allowed Sophie to travel with her husband. Little did the emperor suspect how radically that trip would shape the future of Europe.
The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, arrived in Sarajevo. A large city located in the southern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now present-day Bosnia), it offered a stark comparison to the mainly German city of Vienna. Sarajevo was a city comprised of Bosnians, Serbs, and other minorities. Many of the minorities wished to break free of the Germanic Austro-Hungarian crown and form independent states like their neighbor: the tiny Slavic country of Serbia. This sentiment was well-known by Emperor Franz Joseph who sought to strengthen the power and presence of the crown in the southern parts of his kingdom. As such, Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s visit was conducted largely as a show of power and presence. Little did the royals know that an underground, secret Serbian organization named the Black Hand was exhaustively planning the assassination of the heir to the throne.
In Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were welcomed by the governor and a motorcade. But not long after their welcome, a grenade hurled overhead, landing under the car behind their open carriage. A dozen men in the cars behind the archduke were injured. The rest of the motorcade arrived at city hall, shaken, but determined to carry-forth with the Archduke’s parade. Blood from the injured men remained on the Archduke’s uniform as he snapped at the city mayor, “Is this how you greet your guests?”
What followed is, perhaps, among the strangest coincidences in modern history. Miscommunication among aides and drivers resulted in Franz Ferdinand’s chauffer, a stranger in Sarajevo, becoming lost in the city streets. He turned right at the Latin Bridge, onto Franz Joseph Street. Realizing his mistake, he stopped the car right outside of Schiller’s Delicatessen, which unintentionally stalled it. In a peculiar twist of events, Gavrilo Princip, a young Serb nationalist and assassination-conspirator of the Black Hand, was standing right out front of the deli. He ran to Franz Ferdinand’s stalled-out limousine and shot the archduke and his wife at point-blank range, killing them both. Before he could commit suicide, Princip was seized and taken into custody.
The Black Hand’s attempt to assassinate the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne succeeded, albeit in the strangest of ways. But little did the clandestine group suspect that soon all of Europe would be engulfed in a “war to end all wars.”
Choosing Sides: Europe Divided
The murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his wife produced widespread shock across Europe, and there was initially much sympathy for the Austrian position. Within two days of the assassination, Austria-Hungary and Germany advised Serbia that it should open an investigation, but Secretary General to the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Slavko Gruic, replied “Nothing had been done so far and the matter did not concern the Serbian Government.” An angry exchange followed between the Austrian and Serbian governments.
Behind the scenes, a special friendship and bond existed between Austria-Hungary and its stronger, more militaristic neighbor, Germany. Unofficially, Germany offered military and diplomatic advice to their Austrian cousins. And assured Austria that they would ally with them in the event a war erupted between Austria and Serbia.
After conducting a criminal investigation, Austria-Hungary issued a formal letter to the government of Serbia. The letter contained specific demands aimed at preventing the publication of propaganda that advocated the violent destruction of Austria-Hungary, removing the people behind this propaganda from the Serbian Military, arresting the people on Serbian soil who were involved in the assassination plot, and preventing the clandestine shipment of arms and explosives from Serbia to Austria-Hungary. Serbia agreed to most of the demands but would not accept that clause that suggested the government was involved in the assassination plot of Franz Ferdinand.
This letter became known as the July Ultimatum, and Austria-Hungary stated that if Serbia did not accept all of the demands in total within 48 hours it would recall its ambassador from Serbia. But much as Germany privately advised and built an alliance with Austria, Russia privately came to the aid of its smaller, Slavic nation, Serbia. And this Russian aid emboldened the Serbs.
The situation quickly escalated from a small conflict in the Balkans, to a looming war that would pit Austria-Hungary and Germany against Serbia and Russia. After receiving private assurance of Russian military support, Serbia mobilized its army. Austria-Hungary responded to Serbian mobilization by breaking diplomatic relations. This diplomatic crisis is known as the July Crisis.
By the end of July, Serbian reserve troops crossed onto the Austro-Hungarian side of the river at Temes-Kubin and Austro-Hungarian soldiers fired into the air to warn them off. The report of this incident was initially sketchy and reported to Emperor Franz-Joseph as “a considerable skirmish.” Austria-Hungary then declared war and mobilized the portion of its army that would face the already mobilized Serbian Army on July 28, 1914. This moment marked the start of World War I.
Moreover, under the Secret Treaty of 1892 France was obliged to mobilize its army because its ally, Russia, had also mobilized. No longer an isolated conflict in the Balkans, a war erupted that pulled in most of Europe to its battlefields within days. With the crossing of German troops into initially neutral Belgium, England joined the war on the side of France, Russia, and Serbia. Thus, the two sides of the war became the Central Powers (predominately Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) and the Allies (Russia, Serbia, France, England, and in 1918, the United States). Because most of the combatant nations also had colonial territories around the world, troops from across the globe were sent to fight in Europe’s war over the next four-and- half-years. And European troops would discover themselves fighting a war in places as remote as German East Africa.
Impact
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand did not cause World War I. Indeed, the middle-aged heir to the throne was disliked by many of his own inner circle, and even his grandfather, Emperor Franz Joseph, reportedly did not mourn the loss as personal, so much as the symbolic loss for Austria. Many historians cite the turning of the twentieth century in Europe as a moment filled with tension. Tension between increasingly powerful European nations. The root causes of World War I were hyper-nationalism, hyper-militarism, colonial rivalries, the rivalry between England and Germany as the dominant European power, and the alliances between European nations. All of these played vital roles in creating a war-mongering climate in Europe.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand acted as a final blow in a long series of tensions between European nations. It marked the tipping point that caused war to finally erupt. Although few heads of state, or military leaders predicted a long war. Perhaps only British Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, had the foresight to see what the European war would become in 1914 when he wrote, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
The Western Front: England, France, and Germany: 1914-1917
The Western Front was a four-hundred-mile line of fortifications that stretched from the northern border of Belgium and the Netherlands to the northern border of Switzerland. This territory became the primary center of action for the Allies and Central Powers in World War I. The Western Front is often emphasized in studies of World War I because of the extensive combat between German troops and those of the French and British. Beginning in 1918, the United States also fought on the Western Front. It was the Western Front battles that turned the war’s tide in favor of the Allies in 1918.
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate how the Western Front became the primary center of combat in World War I.
- Explore the development of “modern warfare” techniques, including trench warfare, and modern weapons.
- Examine why some historians argue that “the war was won and lost on the Western Front.”
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Western Front: four hundred miles of trenches established by the Allies and Germany from the border of northern Belgium to northern Switzerland, predominately in France and Belgium
Race to the Sea: the frantic building of trenches by the Allies and Germans in 1914 to Belgium’s coast
First Battle of the Marne: decisive 1914 battle that resulted in the development of trench warfare
trench warfare: stagnant form of warfare in which firepower exceeds mobile ability
No Man’s Land: area between opposing enemy trenches, typically characterized as open field covered with barbed wire
Schlieffen Plan: German offensive strategy in 1914 used to try and defeat France on the Western Front by first invading them from the north through neutral Belgium
Battle of Verdun: major 1916 battle between the French and Germans on the Western Front
Battle of the Somme: major 1916 battle between predominately the British and Germans on the Western Front
War of Attrition: a form of combat in which the end goal is to wear down the enemy to the point of collapse through patience and the destruction of their men
Stalemate: a battle in which there is no clear victor
Total War: a form of warfare in which the international rules of warfare, particularly those applying to the treatment of civilians, POWs, and use of technology, are increasingly ignored in favor of “no rules” of warfare
Meuse-Argonne Offensive: campaign led by the French and Americans in Fall 1918 against the Germans on the Western Front
Alvin C. York: most decorated American soldier of World War I
Poison Gas: typically chlorine, phosgene, or mustard gas that was used extensively on the Western Front as an irritant that would attack the skin, eyes, lungs, or some combination thereof
Background
In July 1914, most of Europe had chosen sides in World War I. Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and to a lesser extent, Bulgaria, comprised the Central Powers. The Allies consisted of England, France, Russia, and smaller states such as Serbia. Each European country also recruited colonial troops from Africa, India, and other parts of their empires to fight on the Western Front.
Fatally, the mentality of each European nation was initial excitement and the expectation of a short war. Heads of state touted their military developments and the belief that they could “lick” the enemy within six months. None of the combatant nations had developed defensive strategies. On the contrary, each nation developed offensive plans. A dance of offensive and counter-offensive maneuvers ensued throughout Belgium and France. When it became clear that the war would not end in six months, both sides developed trench warfare, and they “dug in” for a long and costly war.
The Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan was Germany’s offensive strategy for defeating France in August 1914. Germany’s military strategists planned to deploy troops using the modernized railways, and thought they would quickly defeat the Allies on the Western Front before turning their attention to helping Austria-Hungary defeat the Russians on the Eastern Front. This strategy was meant to ideally prevent Germany from fighting a two-front war: one in the east and one in the west. To achieve this, German troops would march through the northern half of neutral Belgium, then encircle French troops from the north. Thus, France would be defeated before England could come to their aid. Although a respectable plan on paper, it proved harder to successfully enact.
Germany attacked their neighbor, Luxembourg, on August 2; on August 3 it declared war on France. On August 4, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well. Britain declared war on Germany on the same day following an “unsatisfactory reply” to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.
In the end, Germany failed to avoid a long, two-front war, but it had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and effectively halved France’s supply of coal. It had also killed or permanently crippled 230,000 more French and British troops than it itself had lost. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of a more decisive outcome.
Early Battles
Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium but were forced back with the First Battle of the Marne.
First Battle of the Marne
The German Army came within 43 miles of Paris; however, at the First Battle of the Marne (September 6 – 12) French and British troops were able to force a German retreat by exploiting a gap that appeared between the German 1st and 2nd Armies. This ended the German advance into France. The German Army retreated north of the Aisne River, establishing the beginnings of a static western front that would last for the next three years.
Following this German retreat, the opposing forces made reciprocal outflanking maneuvers known as the Race for the Sea and quickly extended their trench systems from the Swiss frontier to the North Sea. The territory occupied by Germany held 64% of French pig-iron production, 24% of its steel manufacturing, and 40% of the coal industry, dealing a serious blow to French industry.
Trench Warfare
After the German march on Paris was halted at the First Battle of the Marne, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. The Western Front settled into a war of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917.
Trench warfare is a style of combat in which combatant nations have excellent firepower, but poor mobility. While trench warfare was not new in World War I, it quickly became associated with World War I because of its prolonged use by both Germany, and the Allies, on the Western Front. Both sides of the war would dig long networks of trenches that sometimes extended as deep as twelve-fifteen feet underground. Trenches were fortified (strengthened) by use of boards and sandbags. Both sides also employed the use of barbed wire rows in front of their trenches.
In between the two sides was a massive, usually open field called No Man's Land that was extremely dangerous to cross because of mines, barbed wire, snipers, artillery, and machine gun fire. And yet for nearly four years, this form of combat was the definitive form of warfare on the Western Front. Attacks involved sending hundreds of men, sometimes thousands, charging across No Man’s Land to dislodge or defeat the enemy who was in the opposing trench system. This tactic frequently resulted in massive losses of life, such as half a million men in a month, as well as stalemated battles in which neither side had a clear victory.
Throughout 1915 – 17, the British Empire and France suffered more casualties than Germany because of the strategic and tactical stances chosen by the sides; while the Germans only mounted one major offensive, the Allies made several attempts to break through the German lines.
Daily Life inside a Trench
In accounts of the trench warfare of World War I, the daily life of the men is over overshadowed by the sweeping battles of the Western Front. But one of the primary challenges of the war was combatting the daily struggles of living inside a trench. Indeed, many soldiers could not escape these horrors and succumbed to shell shock, which is a form of PTSD.
On both sides of the war, soldiers were confronted with the challenges of fighting a war on a poor diet. Rations for the British were notoriously bad and became worse as the war waged on. Tinned beef and biscuits were the mainstay for most troops. At best, soldiers could hope to receive a package from home with something to supplement their diets. As a result of poor diet, combined with exhaustion, many troops also contracted diseases and experienced malnutrition. Harold Mayhall of the Durham Light Infantry, recalled with horror, his diet on the Western Front:
Oh, that’s a sore point: rations were very poor. The rations when you went up in the trenches and you couldn’t get rations up! You’d try to brew tea and you couldn’t, it was always cold and probably the water was all tasted of petrol because it came up in petrol tins – which were never cleaned out properly – and the tea was half petrol and cold. The food, they were supposed to give you some bacon, well you were lucky if you got a piece of bacon it was all cold and greasy. I mean you couldn’t get any. If you were out of the line they’d cook some bacon and you could, they’d let you have – you’d get a piece of bread and dip it in, that was that, or you could have a tiny bit of bacon without dipping your bread in, that was all you got. And the cooks, probably if a man was a chartered accountant they’d make him a cook or something like that because it was always square pegs in round holes, you know. They couldn’t cook; we used to say they couldn’t boil water without spoiling it or something. The food was terrible.
In addition to poor diet, soldiers had to deal with pests. Their presence ranged from annoyances, such as snakes and spiders, to outright dangerous. For instance, lice and fleas infested soldiers; one American soldier reported that the average soldier had a quart of lice on his person. And typhus, a disease carried by lice, ravaged soldiers on all fronts in World War I. But the most dangerous, and famous, of the pests to plague soldiers were the notorious trench rats. They not only carried fleas and lice that would infect the soldiers; they also carried diseases, and did not hesitate to chew on anything inside the trench, including a human face. James Harvey, an English soldier, gave an account of this issue:
Rats were common, very common, you didn’t dare leave a bit of food about or else there’d be swarms of rats round you. And all the time you didn’t attack them, they didn’t attack you. But on one occasion where we got a bayonet and stuck one; needless to say we got out of that place quick! There were thousands of rats, must’ve been thousands, the number I couldn’t count them – didn’t stop to count ’em! Didn’t matter what part of the line you was in, you’d got these rats. One of our men who was asleep, and had his forehead all bitten by them. Oh yes, he had to go into hospital special for it.
Given the poor living conditions, continual presence of disease, and the looming threat of death, it is unsurprising that many soldiers suffered from shell shock. But many more suffered from wounds, injury, and mysterious fevers, as they fought to stay alive another day on the Western Front.
"We Shall Bleed France White": The Battle of Verdun
In February 1916 the Germans attacked the French defensive positions near the symbolic and ancient French village of Verdun. The attack’s goal was simple in the eyes of the German commander, Erich von Falkenhayn. “We shall bleed France white.” In short, the goal was to kill or critically wound as many French soldiers as possible, thereby forcing France to surrender. After their surrender, the Germans could sue the British for peace. Although the Battle of Verdun became the longest, and one of the costliest battles of World War I in terms of human life, the Germans came very close to achieving this goal. Lasting for ten months (until December 1916), the battle saw initial German gains before French counterattacks returned them near their starting point. Casualties were greater for the French, but the Germans bled heavily as well. Between the two sides, the Battle of Verdun inflicted nearly one million casualties in ten months. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice. The outcome of the battle was a stalemate. Critically though, the Battle of Verdun (and also the Battle of the Somme) helped alter the mentality of the war. Having suffered such intense, high casualties, both sides of the war increasingly disregarded the rules of warfare prescribed under international law. The two major battles would transform World War I from a war theoretically governed by agreed-upon rules of war, into a total war 1917.
Relieving Pressure: The Battle of the Somme
News of the horrible French casualties at Verdun prompted the British to launch an attack against the Germans to try and relieve pressure on their French allies. After months of planning, the British began their attack in June 1916.
From June 24 – June 30, 1916, the British bombarded the German trenches and defensive position near the Somme River in northeastern France. British artillery and aerial bombardment hammered No Man’s Land with the goal of destroying barbed wire and obliterating the German trench network.
Convinced that the week-long bombardment had been largely successful, the British then strategized an attack that would charge over No Man’s Land and defeat the surviving German troops in their trenches. The decision proved one of the most underestimated and costliest mistakes of World War I. For although the bombardment had looked successful, the barbed wire had become badly mangled in No Man’s Land, rather than destroyed. Twisted and bent into virtual soldier traps, the barbed wire formed a nearly impassable network of obstacles.
Worse for the British, they had underestimated German engineering. During the weeklong bombardment, the Germans had simply gone deep into their trenches, some twelve to fifteen feet underground. The result was that most of the German army had survived the British bombardment, unbeknownst to their enemy. When the British infantry attacked, the Germans were ready and waiting.
The British, unaware of the follies of their bombardment, launched an infantry attack on the German defensive position early in the morning of July 1, 1916. Quickly, troops were ensnared in the endless barbed wire rows. As they worked to free themselves, the German machine gunners opened fire. In a matter of a few hours, No Man’s Land was transformed into a slaughterhouse. In one day alone, the British suffered 57,470 casualties with 19,240 dead; including many officers.
A young lieutenant in the British army named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien experienced the Battle of the Somme firsthand. He wrote of how at night; he would go with medics to help retrieve bodies from the battlefield. Horrified, he recalled seeing the mangled bodies of comrades who seemingly peered up him through the mud with shocked and ghostly expressions. Decades later, his memories inspired the eerie “Dead Marshes” in his famous book The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The scene depicts heroes Frodo and Sam traversing a swamp with their guide, Gollum, while ghoulish corpses leeringly peered and reached up through the mud and water toward the travelers.
The successive weeks and months proved horrible for both sides. Infantry attacks, artillery bombardments, horrific weather, and failed charges resulted in massive casualties. The entire Somme offensive cost the British Army some 420,000 casualties. Their French allies suffered another estimated 200,000. The Germans suffered an estimated 500,000. In only five months, Europe had suffered over one million casualties (mostly young men) in a single battle. World War I was indeed, tearing Europe apart.
New Weaponry
Both sides tried to break the trench stalemate using scientific and technological advances. Machine guns, tanks, airplanes such as the biplane and triplane, Zeppelins, grenades, artillery, and personal weapons were employed on the Western Front.
The Use of Poison Gasses on the Western Front
The French Army was the first to use gas on the battlefield. They deployed tear gas, a skill and eye irritant, against the invading German Army in August 1914. Very quickly, the idea of using gas as a weapon took hold.
An English war poet, second lieutenant Wilfred Owen wrote several poems depicting the horrors of battle on the Western Front. One of his most famous, “Dulce et decorum est” is an ironic title, which translated as “It is sweet and fitting to die for ones country.” Among the most poignant points expressed in the poem is the horrific experience of a poison gas attack:
“Gas! GAS! Quick Boy—an ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone was still yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.”
Perhaps more than any other form of technological warfare, poison gas became the iconic weapon employed on the Western Front. As well as the most feared. Although banned by international law, both the Germans and the Allies would use various poison gases, including tear, chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas, which was the most-deadly. Some of the gasses simply irritated exposed skin and eyes; others attacked mucus membranes. The most-feared, mustard gas, attacked both skin and the lungs. Importantly, mustard gas also lingered in low lying areas of the battlefield for several days after it was deployed and was difficult to see. This combination made it particularly dangerous for advancing troops.
On April 22, 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used chlorine gas for the first time on the Western Front. After a two-day bombardment, the Germans released a cloud of 171 tons of chlorine gas onto the battlefield. Though primarily a powerful irritant, it can asphyxiate in high concentrations or prolonged exposure. The gas crept across no man’s land and drifted into the French trenches. The green-yellow cloud killed some defenders and those in the rear fled in panic, creating an undefended 3.7 mile gap in the Allied line. The Germans were unprepared for the level of their success and lacked sufficient reserves to exploit the opening; this resulted in Canadian troops on the right drawing back their left flank and repelling the German advance.
The success of this chlorine gas attack would not be repeated, as the Allies countered by introducing gas masks and other countermeasures. The British retaliated, developing their own chlorine gas and using it at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. Fickle winds and inexperience led to more British casualties from the gas than German fatalities. French, British, and German forces all escalated the use of gas attacks throughout the rest of the war.
Tanks and Airplanes
Tanks were developed by Britain and France, and they were first used in combat by the British during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on September 15, 1916, but only with partial success. Unlike later counterparts used in World War II, the tanks of World War I were clumsy, enormous, and difficult to maneuver effectively. However, their effectiveness would grow as the war progressed; the Allies built tanks in large numbers, whilst the Germans employed only a few of their own design supplemented by captured Allied tanks.
For the first time in human history, a major conflict was fought in the air. And far more romantic than the war on land was the war in the air. The Germans employed the use of Zeppelins—rigid airships—that could silently fly over major targets such as London and drop bombs on the city under the cover of darkness. All sides of the war employed the use of airplanes. Famously, the English developed the olive-green Sopwith Camel biplane for use on the Western Front in 1917. Far more famous though was the German DR.1 Fokker triplane piloted by aerial ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen. The highest-scoring ace of World War I, the “Red Baron” has been immortalized as the rival pilot of Charles M. Schultz’s comic strip beagle Snoopy.
Biplanes and triplanes became a common feature, and often a welcome sight, for troops on the Western Front. As the war evolved into a total war in 1917, fighting increased in severity and scope. For the final two years of the war, planes were regularly employed with mixed success.
The Western Front: America enters the War:1917-1918
Background
The role of the United States in World War I is constantly being evaluated by historians. On the one hand, as a neutral nation from 1914 until 1917 it provided aid in the form of material goods and food stuffs to both the Allies and Germany. It also acted as the main monitor of prisoner of war camps from 1914 until 1917 for both the Allies and Germany because according to the rules of international warfare established by the Hague Convention of 1907, neutral nations must monitor POWs and POW camps. Yet, the United States was far from entirely neutral even before its official entry into the war. President Woodrow Wilson, a confirmed Anglophile, privately sided and supported England’s cause in the war. However, he knew that the American public did not necessarily share his support. In fact, many Americans were German American and resisted the idea of fighting against Germany. Still, more Americans were outraged that England had the audacity to seize American naval vessels at sea and strip them of cargo bound for Germany or Austria-Hungary. But as tension on the high seas mounted between Germany and England, hostility toward Germany increased within the United States.
American and the RMS Lusitania
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. Things started to change with the development of the British blockade of Germany, and Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Although the Germans had put notices in many famous American newspapers warning Americans not to sail on any British ship, Americans did not heed the warning.
When the German U-boat U-20 sank the British liner RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, 128 Americans were killed. In response, President Woodrow Wilson insisted that “America is too proud to fight” but demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied, and Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. Wilson was re-elected in 1916 under the banner, “He kept us out of the war.”
The Zimmermann Telegram
In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, realizing it would mean American entry. The German Foreign Minister, in the Zimmermann Telegram, invited Mexico to join the war as Germany’s ally against the United States. In return, the Germans would finance Mexico’s war and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The United Kingdom intercepted the message and presented it to the U.S. embassy in the UK. From there it made its way to President Wilson, who released it to the public.
Wilson asked Congress for “a war to end all wars” that would “make the world safe for democracy” and eliminate militarism from the globe. He argued that the war was important and that the U.S. thus must have a voice in the peace conference. After the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by German submarines and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on April 6, 1917.
The American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
The United States initially had a small army, but after the passage of the Selective Service Act 2.8 million men were drafted. By summer 1918 America was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day.
The British and French wanted American units to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not waste scarce shipping on supplies. General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up American units to be used as filler material. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to be used in French divisions.
The Harlem Hell Fighters fought as part of the French 16th Division and earned a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at the Battles of Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Sechault. AEF doctrine called for the use of frontal assaults, which had long since been discarded by British Empire and French commanders due to the large loss of life that resulted.
Final Battles of WWI
The Hundred Days Offensive—the Allies’ series of decisive victories on the Western Front—began on August 8, 1918 with the Battle of Amiens. The battle involved over 400 tanks and 120,000 British, Dominion, and French troops. After an advance as far as 14 miles, German resistance stiffened, and the battle was concluded on August 12.
In nearly four weeks of fighting that began on August 8, over 100,000 German prisoners were taken. The German High Command realized that the war was lost and made attempts to reach a satisfactory end. The day after that battle, Ludendorff said: “We cannot win the war anymore, but we must not lose it either.”
The final assault on the Hindenburg Line began with the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, launched by French and American troops on September 27. This offensive attack would prove a turning point, as it resulted in the devastation of German morale.
On October 8, 1918, a gangly, red-haired man from Pall Mall, Tennessee became the most decorated American soldier of the war during one event of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. Corporal (later Sergeant) Alvin C. York, who had initially been a conscientious objector—someone who does not believe fighting in a war is right, led his unit up a hill north of the Chatel-Chéhéry village in northern France. Ordered to assault and capture the position, York and thirteen of his men charged the hill. Using a technique he learned hunting turkeys in Tennessee, York attacked the German soldier at the rear of the advancing line, before attacking the ones at the front. At the end of the day, he had captured 132 German soldiers and destroyed twenty-five machine gun nests. When York returned to camp that night with his columns of German prisoners, his superior officer remarked, “Well York, I see you captured the whole damned German Army.” Modestly, York replied, “No Sir, I’ve caught 132.” York’s actions earned him the Medal of Honor, the French Medal of Honor, and numerous other awards.
With the military faltering and widespread loss of confidence in the Kaiser, Germany moved towards surrender. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of a new German government to negotiate with the Allies. Maximilian immediately began negotiations with President Wilson in the hope that he would offer better terms than the British and French. On November 9, 1918, Germany was declared a republic. The Kaiser, kings, and other hereditary rulers were removed from power and Wilhelm fled to exile in the Netherlands. The new Germany, known as the Weimar Republic, would emerge as a democratic state fraught with social and political challenges and turmoil.
Soon after the Weimar Republic was enacted, the Germans signed the Armistice of Compiègne, which ended the fighting on the Western Front. It went into effect at 11 a.m. Paris time on November 11, 1918 (“the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”); this marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not formally a surrender. Although the armistice ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty: the Treaty of Versailles.
Legacy
The Western Front proved the decisive front in the outcome of World War I. Some historians claim “the war was won and lost on the Western Front.” However, the Western Front must not overshadow the scope, scale, and losses endured around the world as World War I raged. Many historians argue that Germany could have potentially won the war had the German Army not been scattered across various parts of the world and instead had been solely focused on the Western Front. On the other hand, some historians argue that Germany was doomed to defeat from the moment it went to war because it lacked the industrial, agricultural, and human resources to be successful.
The legacies of Germany’s loss in World War I were felt immediately as the new Weimar Republic struggled to stay afloat. Hyperinflation, violence, and political instability rocked the new country. Meanwhile, England, France, and Belgium struggled to repair and compensate for their countries’ unbearable losses (financial, physical, and human). Only the United States would emerge financially triumphant after World War I. And that triumph would come crashing to a complete collapse in 1929 with the arrival of the Great Depression.
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." Poetry Foundation.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est
Boundless World History
"Events of World War I"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/events-of-world-war-i/
"The Coming of War"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-coming-of-war/
"The End of World War I"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-end-of-world-war-i/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/