The events of the summer of 1914 that resulted in the war are described in the previous reading. What follows here is a year-by-year overview of the major events of the war.
1914
German armies smashed into Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Belgium resisted but was conquered within three weeks. The Belgians would spend the next four years under German military occupation. Reeling back under the German assault, French armies and the British Expeditionary Force stubbornly attempted to resist and hold. German forces ravaged northern France, destroying much of the industry (largely coal mines) in the region. The German offensive was blunted somewhat and turned eastward away from the Channel by stiff resistance from the British. In September, the “Miracle of the Marne” occurred when French armies hurriedly called from the south joined the fight along the Marne River to the northwest of Paris. Rushed to the front in Parisian taxicabs, the French forces held. In October the German offensive came to a grinding halt. Paris was saved. The Schlieffen Plan had failed. Along the Western Front, both the Allied and German armies “dug in” facing each other in parallel lines of trenches that eventually would stretch across northern France from Switzerland to the North Sea. The war would become stalemated.
In the East, the Germans (led by General Paul von Hindenburg) had their own “miracle.” At Tannenberg in East Prussia the Germans stopped and turned a Russian invasion.
The Ottoman Empire joined with Germany and Austria in November.
Japan, seeking Germany’s possessions in China and the Pacific, declared war on Germany (August), and joined the Allied side. Japan’s contribution to the war effort was limited to her taking and occupying the German possessions.
1915
In February Germany declared the waters around the British Isles as a War Zone in which it would conduct submarine warfare against all Allied shipping. This was very controversial as submarines could attack undetected and without warning.
In April the Allies attempted an unsuccessful campaign to get control of the Turkish Straits (the Gallipoli Campaign). Their strategy was to take control of the Straits in order to have a secure route for the supply of Russia. British armies (including Australian and New Zealand forces) were landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The expected easy victory did not come as the Turks and Germans, holding the heights above the landing beaches, kept the British pinned down. After months of fruitless attempts to take the heights, the Allied forces were withdrawn. Russia, desperately needing weapons and materiel from Britain and France, would basically from then on be on its own.
In April the secret Treaty of London (Britain, France, Russia, Italy) brought Italy into the war on the Allied side. Italy was promised Austrian territory once the war was won. In May a German U-boat operating off the Irish coast sank the British passenger liner Lusitania, killing some 1200 innocent men, women, and children, including 128 Americans. In response to a stiff note of protest from the United States, Germany, not wanting to risk the US coming into the war, promised to restrict submarine warfare. In October Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, its interests being primarily to gain territory from Greece.
In the spring of 1915 the British began secret correspondence with Sherif Hussein, the most prominent leader of the Arab populations of the Ottoman Empire. The McMahon (Br) – Hussein “understanding” (McMahon Pledge) offered promise of independence if Arabs rose in rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. The British strategy was to undermine and weaken the Ottoman Empire by fomenting and supporting Arab rebellion within it.
1916
During 1916 both sides would attempt to break the military stalemate. It would be a year of hideous slaughter with millions of losses. In February the Germans launched a massive offensive against the French fortifications at Verdun in eastern France. A German victory at Verdun would break the French lines and open the way to Paris. Led by Marshal Henri Petain, the French vowed to fight to the death (“Ils ne passeront pas!” was the battle cry). The battle would last until June and result in 680,000 French and German casualties before the Germans withdrew back to their lines.
In April the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty saw Britain and France agree to divide Arab lands between them, in spite of the McMahon Pledge of 1915 whereby the Arabs were anticipating independence. In June the Arabs, led and advised by the British Colonel T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”), began their rebellion against the Turks.
In late May came “Der Tag.” The German High Seas Fleet, 99 ships strong, steamed into the North Sea to challenge the British navy. In a fierce battle off Jutland (Denmark) the British Grand Fleet of some 149 warships fought the Germans to a draw (May 31- June 1). Both fleets suffered serious losses and withdrew, but, as the Germans would never come out of port again, Jutland became a British victory. Jutland was the only major naval battle of the war.
In June the Russians launched the Brusilov Offensive, a massive assault against the Germans and Austrians. Russian armies were so poorly equipped that only the front line troops had weapons. As men fell in front, those behind would pick up and use their weapons. Russia suffered over a million casualties as the offensive failed. The Russian army, now broken and demoralized, would face a new German offensive that would push the Eastern Front back deep into Russia.
On the Western Front, June saw the Allies attempt to break the German lines along the Somme River. Following a week-long artillery bombardment of the German lines, the British went “over the top” in a massive assault across “no man’s land.” The Battle of the Somme would last until November and result in over a million casualties; the British suffered 70,000 men lost on the opening day of the battle alone. (Total losses: British 400,000; French 200,000; German 450,000) The German lines held.
The stalemate would continue as the seemingly endless war of attrition exhausted the belligerents’ manpower and morale. Germany, suffering under the British blockade, began to face food and materiel shortages. Only on the Russian front was there any movement as Russian armies retreated before the German advance. The Allies, fearing the defeat of Russia, desperately looked to the US for future salvation. In the US Woodrow Wilson won re-election as President in 1916, campaigning on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” The future did not look good for the British and French.
1917
In January, 1917, Germany, desperate to break the stalemate on the Western Front, determined to resume unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping (Allied and neutral) in the war zone around Britain. Knowing that the US might come into the war on the Allied side if its ships were attacked, the German leadership decided it would still be worth the risk. Britain, dependent upon its Empire and the US for its well-being, could be defeated before the US could be fully mobilized. In an effort to distract the US, Germany attempted to provoke war between the US and Mexico. Berlin dispatched a secret communiqué (the Zimmermann Telegram - Arthur Zimmermann being the German Foreign Minister) to Mexico, suggesting that Mexico go to war against the US. In return Germany, once victorious in Europe, would see to it that Mexico would receive Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico and other American territory taken by the US from Mexico in the 1848 war. The British, having tapped the cables and deciphered the German diplomatic codes, intercepted the text of the telegram and turned it over to the American government. Both the American and Mexican governments thought the German proposal was absurd. But, when the text was later released to American newspapers, American public opinion was outraged and the Zimmermann Telegram became a factor in the US declaring war on Germany in April, 1917.
In February Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Over the next few months American shipping would be attacked and sunk. American lives were in harm’s way and US neutrality was being violated. Wilson continued to warn Berlin that the US would act. In response to the first attack, the US broke diplomatic relations with Germany.
In March revolution broke out in Russia. Russian armies were in retreat. The Russian economy and transportation systems had broken down under the strain of the war. There were food shortages in the major cities. The “March Revolution” saw the end of the Romanov monarchy. Czar Nicholas II abdicated. A Provisional Government of moderate socialists came to power promising to establish constitutional government and make reforms to benefit the Russian people. The Provisional Government made a fateful – and fatal – decision. Under intense pressure from the Allied governments, Russia would remain in the war. This decision would fan the flames of continued revolution. There emerged new opposition to the Provisional Government. Led by Vladimir Lenin, the radical Bolsheviks (Communists) began organizing their own revolution. Their public promise to the Russian people was “Land, Bread, and Peace.” The Provisional Government now faced a severe test. Could it survive continued war and continued revolutionary opposition within?
In early April the US declared war on Germany. The US then began the monumental task of creating and supplying a military force capable of making a difference in Europe. While a handful of American volunteers rushed off to join the Allied armies in France, it would take the better part of a year before the US could become fully involved in the war. In that time the Germans would almost win it. The German submarine campaign was having its desired impact upon Britain. By October the Germans had sunk over eight million tons of Allied shipping causing severe shortages of food and other resources in Britain. Yet German submarine losses were heavy and the British had adopted the convoy method of providing naval protection for groups of merchant ships. By 1918 Allied shipyards were producing more ships than the Germans could sink. The land war, however, remained as dismal as ever. An Allied offensive at Ypres (July - November) cost the British some 400,000 losses.
In early November the Bolsheviks launched a well-planned coup d’état that overthrew the Russian Provisional Government. Lenin proclaimed the victory of the Russian proletariat and that Russia would be the vanguard of a major international working class revolution. The new Soviet government made a truce with Germany. It also published the texts of the secret treaties that the Allies had made during the war. The Communists then set to work to transform Russia into a socialist society according to Marxist-Leninist principles. The resulting program of harsh radical reforms called “War Communism” led to armed opposition, and Russia found itself engaged in civil war.
Also in November the British government proclaimed the Balfour Declaration wherein Britain would seek the postwar establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine (land believed by the Arabs to be promised to them by the McMahon Pledge). In December combined British and Arab forces took Jerusalem as the Turks retreated north into Syria.
1918
In January US President Wilson announced his Fourteen Points upon which the future peace should be built. He called for a “peace without victory” based on open treaties, disarmament, freedom of the seas, fair adjustment of all colonial claims, free trade, national self-determination, and an international “association of nations.”
As the US prepared for war, Russia withdrew. In January the Soviet government entered into peace negotiations with the Germans. The resulting Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March) was highly favorable to Germany. Russia was compelled to recognize the independence of Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine. Victorious in the east, Germany hurried its armies back to the west.
In late March the Germans launched a major offensive along the Western front. Breaking through the Allied lines, the Germans pushed towards Paris. While German artillery would come close enough to shell the French capital, the Allied lines were reestablished and held. The Americans at last were arriving.
Led by General John Pershing, over a million American soldiers would be landed in France in the next several months. There would be some two million US troops in France by the time of the armistice in November. Well-equipped and well-armed, fresh and highly idealistic, the Americans turned the tide of battle. The Germans found themselves on the defensive and were pushed back to the north. The fighting was bitter and the names of hard-fought battles at Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, along the Marne, St. Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne front would become part of US military history.
The Central Powers collapsed. In September and October, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria both sued for peace, and in October the Austrian-Hungarian Empire began to break up. The last Habsburg Emperor, Charles I (in power since 1916), abdicated in November, ending over 600 years of Habsburg rule in Austria. New states of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and (what would later be named) Yugoslavia proclaimed their independence. Of the Central Powers only Germany remained at war.
By October it was evident that the Germans were beaten. In retreat and desperate to prevent an Allied invasion of Germany, the German generals at the front appealed to Berlin to seek an armistice. Negotiating through the Swiss, the Allies and Germans agreed to a truce in November. The armistice went into effect at eleven minutes after 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. Along the Western Front, all fighting stopped. The war was over.
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Total battlefield deaths suffered by all belligerents, 1914 - 1918 - over 10 million
Total battlefield wounded suffered by all belligerents, 1914 - 1918 - over 20 million
Dead, wounded, and prisoner figures for the major belligerents *
Dead Wounded Taken Prisoner
Britain 947, 000 2, 122, 000 192, 000
France 1, 385, 000 3, 044, 000 446, 000
Russia 1, 700, 000 4, 950, 000 2, 500, 000
Italy 460, 000 947, 000 530, 000
US 115, 000 206, 000 4, 500
Germany 1, 808, 000 4, 247, 000 618, 000
Austria-Hungary 1, 200, 000 3, 620, 000 2, 200, 000
Ottoman Empire 325, 000 400, 000 unknown
*statistical source: Langer, William L. An Encyclopedia of World History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1968.
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Sources for World War One: A Chronological Overview
Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Knopf, 1999.
Langer, William, ed. An Encyclopedia of World History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: Norton, 1996.
Palmer, Robert et al. A History of the Modern World. New York: McGraw Hill, 2002.