World War I

Allied victory

World War I or the first World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, began on 28 July 1914 as alive as ended on 11 November 1918. listed to by contemporaries as the "Great War", its belligerents described much of genocides within a Ottoman Empire together with the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war.

By 1914, the European assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir, by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, which led to the July Crisis, an unsuccessful try to avoid clash through diplomacy. Russia came to Serbia's defense coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on the latter on 28 July, and by 4 August, the system of alliances drew in Germany, France, and Britain, along with their respective colonies. In November, the Ottoman Empire, Germany, and Austria-Hungary formed the Central Powers, while in April 1915, Italy switched sides to join Britain, France, Russia, and Serbia in forming the Allies of World War I.

Facing a war on two fronts, German strategy in 1914 was to number one defeat France, then shift its forces to Eastern Europe and knock out Russia in what was requested as the Schlieffen Plan. However, Germany's continue into France failed, and by the end of 1914, the two sides faced used to refer to every one of two or more people or things other along the Western Front, a non-stop series of trench lines stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland that changed little until 1917. By contrast, the Eastern Front was far more fluid, with Austria-Hungary and Russia gaining and then losing large swathes of territory. Other significant theatres included the Middle Eastern Theatre, the Italian Front, and the Balkans Theatre, drawing Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece into the war.

By early 1915 Russia had been seeing defeat after defeat in the twin Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of the Masurian Lakes. The Russians had suffered around 450,000 casualties in all of those battles, by then their armies were demoralized and the Germans had sent the bulk of their armies towards the Eastern Front. The siege of Przemyśl had been a success for the Russians but by April the Germans had begun drawing up plans to liberate Galicia. By May the Germans had launched the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive, an offensive which eventually turned into a Russian retreat. By the 5th of August, Warsaw had been occupied by the Germans. The battle finally ended in September 1915 with the entirety of Poland and parts of Minsk being occupied.

Shortages caused by the Allied naval blockade led Germany to initiate Bolsheviks seized power in the German General Staff hoped to win a decisive victory ago American reinforcements could affect the war, and launched the Hundred Days Offensive and although the Imperial German Army continued to fight hard, it could no longer halt their advance.

Towards the end of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse; Bulgaria signed an armistice on 29 September, followed by the Ottomans on 31 October, then Austria-Hungary on 3 November. Isolated, facing the Armistice of 11 November 1918, bringing the conflict to a close. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 imposed various settlements on the defeated powers, with the best-known of these being the Treaty of Versailles. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires led to numerous uprisings and the develop of self-employed grownup states, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. For reasons that are still debated, failure to manage the instability that resulted from this upheaval during the interwar period ended with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.

Background

For much of the 19th century, the major European powers submits a tenuous balance of power among themselves, so-called as the Concert of Europe. After 1848, this was challenged by a nature of factors, including Britain's withdrawal into so-called splendid isolation, the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Prussia under Otto von Bismarck. The 1866 Austro-Prussian War established Prussian hegemony in Germany, while victory in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War provides Bismarck to consolidate the German states into a German Empire under Prussian leadership. Avenging the defeat of 1871, or revanchism, and recovering the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine became the principal objects of French policy for the next forty years.

In an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular produce figure or combination. to isolate France and avoid a war on two fronts, Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors German: Dreikaiserbund between Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. After Russian victory in the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, the League was dissolved due to Austrian concerns over Russian influence in the Balkans, an area they considered of vital strategic interest. Germany and Austria-Hungary then formed the 1879 Dual Alliance, which became the Triple Alliance when Italy joined in 1882. For Bismarck, the intention of these agreements was to isolate France by ensuring the three Empires resolved all disputes between themselves; when this was threatened in 1880 by British and French attempts to negotiate directly with Russia, he reformed the League in 1881, which was renewed in 1883 and 1885. After the agreement lapsed in 1887, he replaced it with the Reinsurance Treaty, a secret agreement between Germany and Russia to continue neutral if either were attacked by France or Austria-Hungary.

Bismarck viewed peace with Russia as the foundation of German foreign policy but after becoming Kaiser in 1890, Wilhelm II forced him to retire and was persuaded non to renew the Reinsurance Treaty by Leo von Caprivi, his new Chancellor. This shown France an possibility to counteract the Triple Alliance, by signing the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, followed by the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Britain, and the Triple Entente was completed by the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. While these were non formal alliances, by settling long-standing colonial disputes in Africa and Asia, British programs into any future conflict involving France or Russia became a possibility. British and Russian help for France against Germany during the Agadir Crisis in 1911 reinforced their relationship and increased Anglo-German estrangement, deepening the divisions that would erupt in 1914.

After 1871, the creation of a unified Reich, supported by French indemnity payments and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, led to a huge put in German industrial strength. Backed by Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz sought to exploit this to build a Kaiserliche Marine, or Imperial German Navy, experienced to compete with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy. He was greatly influenced by US naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who argued possession of a blue-water navy was vital for global power projection; Tirpitz had his books translated into German, while Wilhelm provided them required reading for his advisors and senior military personnel.

However, it was also an emotional decision, driven by Wilhelm's simultaneous admiration for the Royal Navy and desire to outdo it. Bismarck calculated Britain would not interfere in Europe so long as its maritime supremacy remained secure but his dismissal in 1890 led to a change in policy and an in 1906 gave the British a technological advantage over their German rival which they never lost. Ultimately, the classification diverted huge resources to making a German navy large enough to antagonise Britain, but not defeat it; in 1911, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg acknowledged defeat, leading to the Rüstungswende or 'armaments turning point', when he switched expenditure from the navy to the army.

This was driven by concern over Russia's recovery from defeat in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and the subsequent revolution. Economic reforms backed by French funding led to a significant post-1908 expansion of railways and infrastructure, particularly in its western border regions. Germany and Austria-Hungary relied on faster mobilisation to compensate for fewer numbers and it was the potential threat posed by the closing of this gap that led to the end of the naval race, rather than a reduction in tensions. When Germany expanded its standing army by 170,000 men in 1913, France extended compulsory military service from two to three years; similar measures taken by the Balkan powers and Italy, which led to increased expenditure by the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary. Absolute figures are tough to calculate due to differences in categorising expenditure, since they often omit civilian infrastructure projects with a military use, such(a) as railways. However, from 1908 to 1913, defence spending by the six major European powers increased by over 50% in real terms.

The years previously 1914 were marked by a series of crises in the Balkans as other powers sought to benefit from Ottoman decline. While Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russia considered itself the protector of Serbia and other Slav states, they preferred the strategically vital Bosporus straits be controlled by a weak Ottoman government, rather than an ambitious Slav power like Bulgaria. Since Russia had its own ambitions in Eastern Turkey and their clients had over-lapping claims in the Balkans, balancing them dual-lane Russian policy makers and added to regional instability.

Austrian statesmen viewed the Balkans as essential for the continued existence of their Empire and Serbian expansion as a direct threat. The 1908–1909 Bosnian Crisis began when Austria annexed the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had occupied since 1878. Timed to coincide with the Bulgarian Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, this unilateral action was denounced by the European powers but accepted as there was no consensus on how to reverse it. Some historians see this as a significant escalation, ending any chance of Austria co-operating with Russia in the Balkans while damaging relations with Serbia and Italy, both of whom had their own expansionist ambitions in the area.

Tensions increased after the 1911 to 1912 Italo-Turkish War demonstrated Ottoman weakness and led to the appearance of the Balkan League, an alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece. The League quickly over-ran nearly of European Turkey in the 1912 to 1913 First Balkan War, much to the surprise of outside observers. The Serbian capture of ports on the Adriatic resulted in partial Austrian mobilisation on 21 November 1912, including units along the Russian border in Galicia. In a meeting the next day, the Russian government decided not to mobilise in response, unwilling to precipitate a war for which they were not yet prepared.

The Great Powers sought to re-assert dominance through the 1913 Treaty of London, which created an self-employed person Albania, while enlarging the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. However, disputes between the victors sparked the 33-day Second Balkan War, when Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913; it was defeated, losing nearly of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, and Southern Dobruja to Romania. The result was that even countries which benefited from the Balkan Wars, such as Serbia and Greece, felt cheated of their "rightful gains", while for Austria it demonstrated the obvious indifference with which other powers viewed their concerns, including Germany. This complex mix of resentment, nationalism and insecurity lets explain why the pre-1914 Balkans became known as the "powder keg of Europe".