"The First World War"

 "The First World War"

The single event that more than any other can be said to have shaped the world we live in is the First World War. The Second World War grew out of the First. It was not a “given” that a second great war would occur, but there was sufficient unfinished business from 1914–18 to make it likely. The global spread of the First World War was such that almost no part was left untouched, either directly or indirectly.
The resources of great empires were mobilized to fight a total war. Soldiers came from tropical North Queensland and West Africa to fight for Britain and France against Germany in Belgium. Labourers from South Africa, China and Vietnam were sent to work on the Western Front. Men from the far reaches of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires battled each other in the Carpathians.
The war continues to affect us. In Britain, opinion is sharply polarized between those who see the war as a monstrous tragedy which should never have happened, and those who agree it was a tragedy but say that it was not of Britain’s making and Britain had no choice but to get involved. From a French or German perspective it can be seen as the second round in a Franco-German war that began in 1870 and only ended in 1945. An American might view it as the moment when the USA finally stepped onto the world stage; an Australian, New Zealander or Canadian as the time when their nations began to emerge from under the protective wing of the mother country. Citizens of states such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Latvia can look back to 1914–18 as the beginning of, in some cases an extremely prolonged, process of achieving national self determination. The powder keg that is the modern Middle East has its origins in British and French meddling in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. German Nazism, Italian Fascism and Soviet Communism were all by-products of the First World War.
The generals of the war still excite passionate debates, with individuals lined up for and against. Haig and Pétain remain controversial figures, although for very different reasons; and historians still debate the merits of Conrad, Foch, French, Pershing,Brusilov, Kemel, Joffre, Currie and Monash as commanders. But increasingly the ordinary soldier has taken centre stage. And we should not forget the civilians – women, older men, and children – whose support for the war was critical. As historians are increasingly realizing, home front and battle front were closely intertwined.

GARY SHEFFIELD, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM March 2014
OPPOSITE: Soldiers from 2nd Special Regiment at the Guet Post in the frontline trenches in front of La Pompelle in 1916.
BELOW: Canadian troops guard German prisoners as they use a stretcher and a light railway truck to transport wounded soldiers to get medical attention, Vimy Ridge, April 1917.

The Origin of the war

The events that plunged Europe into war in 1914 moved with speed. On 28 June, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by a young Serb, Gavrilo Princip. A month later, Austria declared war on Serbia, which Vienna blamed for the murder, and by 5 August the major states of Europe were at war. The immediate trigger for the First World War was thus rivalry between states in the Balkans. Russia backed Serbia, the latter state posing as the protector of the Serbs in the polyglot Habsburg Empire. Austria risked war with Russia to preserve its infl uence in the Balkans, having received on 5 July a promise of support from its ally Germany. Russia, alarmed by the threat to its security and prestige, mobilized its forces, followed by Germany and then France, Russia’s ally since 1892. The German attack on Belgium on 4 August brought Britain into the war. In retrospect, the war seemed to many to be almost accidental, with states slipping into an unwanted conflict.

However, there were wider issues at play. The German defeat of Napoleon III’s France in 1870- 71 had destroyed the existing international balance of power. But Germany, despite its ever increasing economic power, chose, under the leadership of the “Iron Chancellor”, Otto von Bismarck, to live within the new situation it had created, and to avoid threatening its neighbours, while keeping France isolated. All this changedwhen the young and mentally unbalanced Kaiser Wilhelm II came to the throne in 1888.

In 1890 Wilhelm dismissed Bismarck, and the system of treaties that the Chancellor had carefully constructed to protect Germany began to unravel. Wilhelm’s bellicose Weltpolitik (world policy) led to diplomatic encirclement, having thoroughly frightened Britain, France and Russia. The British government abandoned its policy of non-alignment and established an Entente – although not a formal alliance – with France and Russia in 1904.

By 1914, Germany had backed itself into a corner. Many historians agree Germany took advantage of the situation in the Balkans to attempt to break up the Entente, even at the risk of a major war. Others argue that Germany actually desired and planned for war. Russia, defeated by the Japanese in 1904–05, was rapidly rebuilding its military strength, and some of the German élite favoured a war to prevent it from re-emerging as a rival. At the very least, the ambitious programme of annexations and the creation of de facto economic colonies across Europe that was drawn up by Germany shortly after the Russo-Japanese War began indicates that it was willing to take advantage of the opportunity to undertake aggressive expansionism. Likewise, there was nothing accidental about Austria-Hungary’s decision to crush Serbia, regardless of the risks of wider war. The Austrians, excluded over the previouscentury from spheres of infl uence in Germany and Italy, believed that they could not afford to be marginalized in the Balkans. Striking a blow against nationalism, a force that threatened to rot the multi-national Habsburg Empire from within, was also highly attractive.

There were, of course, other factors in the outbreak of the First World War. Although arms races do not in themselves cause wars, military competition before 1914 added to the sense of impending crisis. The Anglo-German naval rivalry was particularly dangerous. Britain’s primary defence force was the Royal Navy, and the German fl eet-building programme initiated under Admiral Tirpitz posed a direct threat to the security of the British homeland and the British Empire. In response, the British drew closer to France and Russia, and in 1906 launched HMS Dreadnought. This revolutionary new battleship, the brainchild of Admiral Sir John “Jacky” Fisher, was superior to anything else afl oat. It forced the Germans to respond, ratcheting the naval race to a new more dangerous level. Domestic politics were also signifi cant.
Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, has been accused of failing to deter Germany by not sending strong enough signals concerning British intentions; yet his hand was weakened by the unwillingness of many of his Liberal colleagues in the Cabinet to contemplate war.

In France, Germany’s decision to seize the province of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 caused lasting resentment. In Germany, the rise of the Social Democrats alarmed the Imperial government and may have contributed to a desire for a popular war. Above all, a pan European current of militarism, and a general belief in Social Darwinism – the idea that the survival of the fi ttest applied to nations and peoples – led to a febrile atmosphere in which resorting to war to settle disputes came to be seen as natural and acceptable. For all that, when article 231 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles (that ended the war in the West) blamed Germany and its allies for the outbreak of the war, it encapsulated an essential truth.

SOURCE: ALL ABOUT HISTORY MAGAZINE.