"The horrors of the Trenches are undescribeable to the common man, the mustard guns, the dirt, the raw stench of the men who have died, the whal of Machine gun bullets, the roar of Tanks, it was literally Hell on Earth"
Feldwebelleutnan Adolf Hitler, after returning home from the war. July 8th, 1920
Chapter 2: 1914-1919
World War I
"Deutschland Deutschland, Uber Alles, Uber Alles in der Welt!"
The Assassination
The Archduke, a photo taken shortly before his assassination
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student and member of the Black Hand, a Bosnian-Serb terrorist organization, succsesfully assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This began a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain called the July Crisis. Wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia, Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands intentionally made unacceptable in order to provoke Serbia to decline, get a war seem more legitmate to the powers of the world., When Serbia surprisingly agreed to eight of the ten demands, Austria-Hungary declared war on 28 July 1914. Strachan argues, "Whether an equivocal and early response by Serbia would have made any difference to Austria-Hungary's behaviour must be doubtful. Franz Ferdinand was not the sort of personality who commanded popularity, and his demise did not cast the empire into deepest mourning".
The Early Stages, 1914-1915
The First actions of the First World War would take place in Africa and Serbia, the German colonies of Togoland and Kamerun where quickly and swiftly invaded by British and Franco forces, Togoland fell quickly in August of 1914, Kamerun fought valiently, but would fall two years later, the other two German colonies, Sudwestafrika and East Africa, would be a much harder time for the Entenate, Sudwestafrika would put up a staunch resistence for 3 years, before falling to the Entenate in January of 1917, while East Africa, who's forces were commanded by one General Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, would surprisingly fight back British and Belgian invasions with much strength, most of German East Africa remained in the hands of German forces all the way to the end of the war. Serbia meanwhile, the initial Austro-Hungarian invasions would be initally turned back, as Serbia would surprisingly beat back the invasion forces of Austria and Bulgaria, until 1916, when Belgrade fell..
At the outbreak of the First World War, the Imperial German army (consisting in the West of seven field armies) carried out a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan. This plan detailed German armies would march through neutral Belgium and into France, before turning southwards to encircle the French army in a pinzer attack on the German border, the Schlieffen Plan stated that Germany must try to defeat France as quickly as possible (as had happened in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71). Germany wanted free escort through Belgium to invade France. Neutral Belgium rejected this idea, King Albert I stating "I rule a nation, not a road" so the Germans were forced to invade through Belgium instead. France also wanted to move their troops into Belgium, The Belgian Army had fought valiently, but was forced to retreat to Antwerp where they were forced to surrender when all hope of help was gone.
German troops in France.
The plan called for the right flank of the German advance to bypass the French armies (which were concentrated on the Franco-German border, leaving the Belgian border without significant French forces) and move south to Paris. Initially the Germans were successful, particularly in the Battle of the Frontiers (August 14th to August 24th). By September 12th however., the French, with assistance from the newly arrived British forces (who had declared war on Germany upon her invasion of Belgium), halted the German advance east of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 5th to the 12th), and pushed the German forces back some 50 km. The last days of this battle signified the end of mobile warfare in the west
In the east, the Russian Empire would invade with two seperate armies, surprising the German staff who had not expected the Russians to mobilize so quickly, there strategy counting on a slow mobilization by the Russians.. A field army, the 8th, was rapidly moved from its previous role as reserve for the invasion of France, to East Prussia by rail across the German Empire. This army, led by general Paul von Hindenburg defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September). But the failed Russian invasion, causing the fresh German troops to move to the east, allowed the tactical Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne. The Central Powers were denied a quick victory in France and forced to fight a war on two fronts. The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of early victory.
In the Pacific, the British Dominion of New Zealand occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on 30 August 1914. On 11 September, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of colony of German New Guinea. On 28 October, the cruiser SMS Emden sunk the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in the Battle of Penang. the Empire of Japan seized Germany's Micronesian colonies which lay North of New Guinea and, after the Siege of Tsingtao, and Germany's Sphere of Influence in China also fell soon, meaning all of Germany's colonies in the Pacific were occupied at this point. they were surrounded by Entenate forces, and undefendable, meaning they fell easily with no problem for British and Japanese forces.
Australian Men signing up for the Army in Melbourne
Military tactics before World War I had failed to keep pace with advances in technology. These advances allowed for impressive defence systems, which the out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances. Artillery, vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground extremely difficult. The Germans were the first nation to ever use lethal poisonous gases on a large scale; it soon became used by both the Entenate and the Central Powers, though it never proved decisive in winning a battle for all 5 years of the war. Its effects were brutal, causing agonizing slow and painful death, and poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the entire First World War
After the First Battle of the Marne (September 5th through the 12th, 1914), both Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking manoeuvres, in the so-called "Race to the Sea". Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German forces from French Lorraine to Belgium's coast. Britain and France sought to take the offensive agaist the Germans while Germany defended the occupied territories. Consequently, German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy; Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be "temporary" before their forces broke through German defences. which was a fault that the Entenate never recovered from
Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances developed during the last 20 or so years.. On April 22nd 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans (violating the Hague Convention) used chlorine gases for the first time on the Western Front. Algerian troops retreated when gassed and a six-kilometre hole opened in the Entenate lines, which the Germans quickly exploited, taking Kitcheners' Wood, before Canadian soldiers closed the breach. Tanks would be first used in combat by the British during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the wider Somme offensive in France) on September 15th 1916 with only partial success; the French introduced the revolving turret of the Renault FT in late 1917; the Germans employed captured Allied tanks and eventually large numbers of their own design last in the war.
Neither alliance proved able to deliver a decisive blow agaist the other side for the next two some odd years. Around 1.4 million soldiers from the British and Dominion's (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc) armies were on the Western Front at any one time. A thousand battalions, occupying sectors of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway for the Entenate.. The front contained over 9,600 kilometres (5,965 mi) of trenches. Each battalion held its sector for about a week to 11 days before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas.
In the 1917 Battle of Arras, the only significant British military success was the capture of the Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie and Julian Byng. The assaulting troops could – for the first time – overrun, rapidly reinforce, and hold the ridge defending the coal-rich Douai plain.
A Group of British troops.
While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued furiously in East Europe. Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of Austro-Hungarian Galicia and the German province East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful at first, it was driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia's very much less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership was instrumental in the upcoming events that would unfold for the Bear. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated to Galicia, and, in May, the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern frontiers. On August 5th, joint German-Austro-Hungarian armies captured the long time Polish capital of Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland as a whole, soon setting up a puppet government in Poland.
Eastern Front, 1916-1917
Despite the success of the June 1916 Brusilov Offensive in eastern Galicia, dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew among the Populace of Russia. The offensive's success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces to support the victory. Allied and Russian forces were revived only temporarily by Romania's entry into the First World War on the side of the Entenate in August. German forces came to the aid of embattled Austro-Hungarian units in Transylvania, and Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on December 6th. Meanwhile, unrest grew in Russia, as Tsar Nicholas II remained at the front. Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule at the homefront drew protests and resulted in the murder of her favourite, Rasputin, near the end of 1916.
In March 1917, demonstrations in Petrograd culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak Republican Provisional Government, which shared power with the Petrograd Soviet communists. This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home. The army became increasingly ineffective.
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Communist rebellion
Discontent and the weaknesses of the Provisional Government led to a rise in the popularity of the Bolshevik Communist Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, which demanded an immediate end to the war agaist the Central Powers. The successful armed uprising by the Bolsheviks of November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany. At first, the Bolsheviks refused the German terms, but when German troops began marching across the Ukraine unopposed by Russian forces, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918. The treaty ceded vast territories previously ruled by Russa to German control, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, parts of Poland and the Ukraine, all of which soon gained German and Austrian puppet governments, while the Caucauses (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbajian) fell under Ottoman control.
Meanwhile.............
The Americans had been giving the Entenate loans for the duration of the War, however the Americans were a neutral party, isolationist and wanting not get involved in a European conflict. through German U-Boats had been agitating America, and threatend to bring her into the conflict, if it had not been for the intervention of a intervention. the Mexican Civil War had been raging for a while, the rebels led by Pancho Villa agaist the American backed Republican government, any chance the Americans had of entering World War I vanished when the Mexican rebels fell into a border clash with US troops, this period of war, known as the Mexican Intervention, would last until 1919, with the collapse of the Rebels, who had captured Mexico City
The Nearing of the End, 1918-1919
German gains from the Treaty of Brest-Litsvok.
The Treaty of Brest-Litsvok signaled the end of the Eastern Front of World War I as Russia collapsed in Civil War, this allowed the Central Powers to turned there full attention back to
The Western Front. by late 1917, Serbia had completely fallen to Bulgarian and Austrian forces, the Ottomans had made gains in Arabia and the Caucauses, setting up a sphere of influence in what is
Georgia, Azerbajian and Armenia. however despite this for the much of 1917 and 1918 the war in the West remained a stalemate as it had since 1914. both sides began working on ways to change the tide
of the War. both sides began experimenting with many strategies, many were tried, many failed. in the later months of 1918, German General Alfred von Manstein began working on a theory called
"Mass Tank Warfare" in which massed tank corps would lead infantry man to smash through trench lines and break the tide of the war and push it in Germany's favor. Tanks were largely experimential
at this time, through improving, the main strategy for tanks was them to serve the roles of the former calvary on horse. however the German General Staff, willing to try anything. attempted
Manstein's proposal, setting up "Panzerkorps" to set up the strategy, first tested out in the Third Battle of the Marnes (November 29th to December 5th, 1918) the strategy was a huge succsess,
As Unprepared Entenate Forces were unready for the Panzerkorps storm attack on them, the tide of Trench Warfare was finally broken in late 1918, as 1919 came, the Germans began pushing deeper into
French territory, the Germans pulled together a string of victories together, before reaching Paris in the Spring of 1919, The ensuing Battle of Paris (April 26th to May 1st, 1919) would turn out to be the
last battle of the war. a German victory, after almost 5 years of constant warfare, the European powers signed a Armistice, and for the first time since 1914, the guns fell silent in Europe...
Next Time,
Chapter 3: The Turbulent Twenties, 1920-1929.