World War I

The First World War began with the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914. A month previous the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. Aided by the Serbian Government, Austria-Hungary sought retribution on the small Balkan kingdom but first needed to secure the support of her ally Germany before striking. That delay gave the nations of Europe an opportunity to react and organise and by the first days of August, Austria-Hungary and Germany found themselves at war with France, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, and Serbia.

The German plan for the war was the Schlieffen Plan, which called for an attack into Belgian that would wheel south and capture Paris, with the French forces pinned between this advancing force and another force marching west from Alsace-Lorraine. Victory would have to be swift in order to swing the German Army to the east in order to defeat Russia. As it turned out, the Schlieffen Plan was flawed to begin with and the kind of advance necessary through Belgium and northern France was not possible. Stalemate soon descended in France and trench warfare began in the fall-winter of 1914. The frontlines would not change much until the great offensives of 1918. In 1916 the great and useless battles of the Somme and Verdun raged and led to the senseless deaths of countless numbers despite the lack of any breakthrough or great advance. In the last year of the war, the Germans would try one last effort to force the surrender of the Allies and though they made gains unseen for years, the offensive petered out. With fresh and green American forces in France, the Allies counter-attacked and managed to break the German Army and send it back into Belgium.

In the east, the Russian Army invaded East Prussia and in a much-celebrated battle the Germans defeated the Russians at the Battle of Tannenberg. But in the south the Russians had some success against the Austrians who were pushed deeped into Galacia and Hungary. With German support, however, the front would be stabilised and later pushed deep into Russian territory. The Russian Revolution of 1917 effectively ended the war for the Russians, and peace was signed in 1918 when the Central Powers had advanced deep into the Ukraine and to within miles of the Russian capital, Petrograd.

In the Balkans, the initial Austrian attack was repulsed by the rugged Serbians, but with the aid of the Germans and Bulgarians, the Serbs were broken in 1915. Also in that year, the Allies attempted a disastrous attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula with the intent of capturing Constantinople and knocking the Ottomans out of the war. Under the able leadership of Kemal Ataturk, the Turks held and the Allies retreated. The Allies instead landed a great force in Salonika and this beachhead in the enemy-controlled Balkans remained unchanged until the last year of the war when the Allies were finally able to advance.

Italy joined the war in 1915 and invaded Austria-Hungary. Despite fighting on two other fronts, the Austrians were able to hold in the mountains of northern Italy and along the Isonzo River, where many battles took place without result. The Austrians and Germans managed to smash the Italians but with the aid of the French and British the Allies pushed the Austrians back in 1918.

The Ottoman Empire joined the war in October 1914 and her two major fronts were located in the Trans-Caucasian region of southern Russia and in the Middle East. In the Caucasus, the Ottomans and Russians tangled in the freezing mountain ranges without any great result until 1916 when the Russians finally broke through. In the Middle East, the Ottomans managed to repulse the initial British assault into Iraq but were unable to cross the Suez Canal in Egypt. By the end of the war, the British under Allenby were advancing up the Levantine coast and under T.E. Lawrence up the Arabian peninsula into Mesopotamia. The Ottomans sued for peace.

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VUCAS 0009	1914: Nach Paris Hot Seller   In August 1914 many French people were proud to fight for Freedom, against autocracy and pangermanism. Germans and French were confident of victory, the former would soon see themselves in Paris and the latter in Berlin, all of them knew the price of duty. The vast majority of soldiers mobilized in August 1914 thought that the conflict would be swift and that they would return home for the harvest at the latest. It was with fervor and conviction that all of them took the "flower with the gun"... (vollständige Beschreibung)	152,00 EUR	Kaufen