*Throughout the 19th Century, Europe, although increasingly powerful and militarised, managed to avoid major wars between its countries for 99 years after the defeat of Napoleon.  Partly Europe’s energy was focused outwards, for this was the great era of imperialism, when Europe conquered almost the entire world.  Unfortunately, Germany and Italy got into the race for colonies late, and did not get many compared to Britain or France, and were jealous as a result.

*In the process of conquering the world, Europe developed its old traditions of militarism, a glorification of the military and a focus on military power.  This was useful during the period of colonisation, but with Africa and Asia divided among the nations of Europe, the armies began to grow restless, and a generation grew up weeping like Alexander because there were no more worlds left to conquer.

*Europe also experienced a wave of nationalism in the 19th Century.  Nationalism came in two forms. In established countries, it was a great pride in one’s country and its traditions, sometimes to the point of chauvinism and arrogance towards other lands.  Other nations—that is, ethnic groups with common languages and cultures but not a common government—wanted to be able to become states as well as nations.  This was a serious problem in some of Europe’s empires, which contained peoples from several of these ethnic nations.  The worst of these was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which encompassed about a dozen different ethnic groups, of whom only two (the Germans and the Hungarians) had much power.

*Finally, Europe had kept the peace for so long through what was called the balance of power.  This was a series of alliances so that each country, if attacked, would be defended by several others.  With each country having a series of these alliances, any attack on anyone was liable to draw most of Europe into a war, so no-one dared attack his neighbour.

*The balance of power was upset, however, by the actions of one rash man.  Gavrilo Princip was a student in Sarajevo, capital of the province of Bosnia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, one of many uneasy ethnic areas that wanted independence.  Princip learned that the heir to the throne of Austria was coming to town on a state visit.  This was Archduke Franz Ferdinand who, with his wife whom he dearly loved, rode through town in an open car.  Princip and some fellow nationalists plotted to kill the Archduke who, as luck would have it, ran into Princip while taking a shortcut through a back street in Sarajevo.  Princip shot the Archduke’s wife, Sofia, who died instantly, then shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand near the heart.

*Austria accused not Bosnia, but neighbouring Serbia of arranging the assassination.  Serbia was an independent country that shared historical and ethnic ties with Bosnia, and wanted to see Bosnia leave Austria and be added to Serbia so all these Slavic peoples could be in one nation-state together.  After making demands Serbia could not meet, Austria declared war on Serbia in July, 1914.  Then all the alliances began to operate.

*Russia was a Slavic nation like Serbia, and prepared to move troops against Austria.  Germany, in turn, began to mobilise her troops.

*Germany had long had a plan for a war in Europe.  It was called the Schlieffen Plan after Count Alfred von Schlieffen who devised it.  In this plan, Germany would attack France and defeat her quickly.  Before Russia could move (because it was assumed Russia would take a long time to get ready) Germany would have beaten France and could then attack Russia.  The problem was, Germany could not just do half of it and attack Russia, so, when Russia began to threaten Germany’s ally Austria-Hungary, Germany declared war on Russia’s ally, France, and invaded.

*When the Germans invaded France, they did so through the small country of Belgium.  Great Britain, an ally of France and Russia anyway, but reluctantly so, had also promised years ago to protect Belgium from any invaders.  Furthermore, when the invasion began, rumours, mostly false, began to spread that the Germans were treating the Belgians terribly.  Although they were not the kindest of occupiers, the most unbelievable claims (such as the roasting and eating of Belgian babies) were unbelievable because they were, in fact, untrue.  Nonetheless, they were viscerally very moving.  Consequently, when the Germans invaded Belgium, the British had to come to the aid of France.

*The Ottoman Empire also joined the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, who became known as the Central Powers, opposed to the Allied powers of France, Britain, Russia, and a few others.  Italy was supposed to ally with Germany and Austria, but decided to sit back and see who was going to win.  When things started looking good for the Allies, Italy switched sides.

*At the time this was seen as a great adventure.  This generation that had thought it had no great task before itself suddenly rushed into the streets to dance and cheer and celebrate.  Their time had come when they could fight for the glory of their country, as their ancestors had done.  Thousands of young men volunteered for the armies of their nations, and Europe went to war cheering.

*The Great War, as it was called at the time, was characterised by the use of new technology.  The most important were machine guns, poison gas, U-boats, and, to a much lesser extent, aircraft.

*Machine guns made it difficult for armies to attack one another.  Instead, troops pinned down by machine gun fire dug personal foxholes, then connected these foxholes with ditches that they expanded into trenches.  These in turn they made deeper and better and more extensive, with communications trenches connected them, bombproof shelters off the side of them, and twists and turns designed to isolate any invading enemy soldiers.  The trenches eventually stretched for hundreds of miles across the French countryside, which was completely cratered by shells until it looked like the surface of the moon.

*The war, at least in the West, devolved into a stalemate, with two vast armies sitting in trenches facing each other across no-man’s-land, and occasionally attacking one another and being mowed down by machine guns.  Millions of men were killed, almost an entire generation in all the European nations that took part in the War.

*Verdun (a fortified city since Roman times and part of France since 1648) was the site of intense fighting, as it was a key point in the French line of defence.  The Battle of Verdun was actually a campaign lasting from 21 February to 18 December, 1916, in which 542,000 French soldiers were killed or wounded and the Germans took 434,000 casualties. 976,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing after the campaign, yet only a few yards of land changed hands.  It became a symbol of French determination—a French general said 'Ils ne passeront pas' (they shall not pass) and they did not.  This convinced the French that they could beat the Germans through the use of defensive fortifications.

*The most terrible battle the British faced with at the Somme, 1 July-18 November 1916.  On the first day, the British lost 57,740 casualties (including 19,240 dead)--the most men lost by the British army in any single day.  Over the course of the campaign, the British Empire lost 420,000 killed and wounded, the French lost 195,000, and Germany had 650,000 casualties (including Adolph Hitler, who was wounded in the leg). Although the Allies only captured a few miles of ground, they did force the Germans to withdraw some troops from Verdun, contributing to the French victory there.  It was also the battlefield where tanks were first used.

*The British Empire provided troops from all its colonies.  ANZAC fought the Battle of Gallipoli from 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916.  It was an attempt to capture the Dardanelles from the Ottoman Empire in order to open a supply line between Russia and the other Allies.  It was a disaster:  both sides lost over half the men involved—220,000 ANZAC casualties, 300,000 Turkish casualties.  However, Australians and New Zealanders view it as a moment of great national heroism, as do the Turks.  Kemal Atatürk, who would create the Republic of Turkey, fought there.

*The Royal Navy and the German High Seas Fleet (both of which did little during the war beyond submarine and anti-submarine warfare) also fought the Battle of Jutland, perhaps the largest naval battle in history, and the last major battle between battleships.  250 British and German ships fought off the coast of Denmark on 31 May – 1 June 1916.  Although the British lost more men and ships, they Germans ultimately retreated (although the British could probably have destroyed them during the retreat), defeated partly because the British had a larger fleet and (despite several mistakes) several tactical successes, but partly because the British had an unbeatable reputation.  Both sides claimed victory, and neither navy engaged in a major fleet action again during the war.

*The East, being too large for proper trench warfare was a more mobile front, but just as bad.  The Russians had so few supplies that the army sent three out of four into battle unarmed, telling them to pick up weapons from the dead.  The decisive battle is often considered to be Tannenberg in 1914.  The Russians split their army, hoping to trap and destroy the German army, but the Germans distracted one Russian army and defeated the other, so that the first had to retreat.

*Despite victories in the East, the war was going badly for the Central Powers—it was bleeding them dry and starving their people to death.  By 1917 Germany had a plan, however:
1.  Take Russia out of the War
2.  Take Britain out of the War
3.  Capture Paris

*To knock out Russia, the Germans found an exiled Communist agitator named Vladimir Lenin and snuck him into Moscow.  With German money and support, he organised the people, who were opposed to the war and the harsh rule of Tsar Nicholas II Romanov.  The Russian Revolution succeeded in 1917, and soon the Communists, led by the Bolshevik faction, came to power.  They killed the entire Romanov family, including Jimmy the Spaniel.  More importantly, from Germany’s point of view, Lenin and the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics negotiated a separate peace through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918.

*Germany also blockaded Britain with U-boats, preventing food being imported from the rest of the Empire.  They also bombed Britain with zeppelins.  This nearly starved Britain, so that some politicians there considered ending the War. 

*Germany’s strategy was to blockade Britain with U-boats backfired.  In 1915, a German U-Boat fired upon the Lusitania, a British passenger ship carrying several Americans (and, illegally and unknown at the time, a supply of weapons) and sank it.  1,200 passengers, including 128 Americans, died.  Many Americans wanted to go to war, but Wilson refused.

*In 1917, the British intercepted and decoded a German telegram from Arthur Zimmerman, the foreign secretary, making an offer to Mexico.  If Mexico would help Germany and attack the United States, Germany would return to Mexico all the land that Polk took from them during the Mexican War.  Wilson and America were angry about the Zimmerman note, but still Wilson counselled peace.

*In March, the Germans sank three more American ships, and even Wilson, who had campaigned for office with the slogan ‘he kept us out of war’ felt compelled to ask for a declaration of war, which he got, although there was some dissent.  One of the pacifists who voted against the war resolution was Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman in Congress.  She was not re-elected the next time around, and would only return to Congress in 1941, when she would vote against going to war with Japan.

*At Wilson’s behest, America went to war, but not for conquest or power or prestige, but to defeat the tyrants who began the war, and make the world safe for Democracy.  This Great War, Wilson said, would be the last war—it was a war to end war.

*To get Americans past the blockade, all ships began travelling in convoys—a group of unarmed troop ships or merchant ships surrounded by destroyers, torpedo boats, and other ships built to fight submarines, but some people feared that this came too late.

*With Russia out of the war, troops from the Eastern Front were moved to the West and thrown into an all-out attack on Paris, led by storm-troopers carrying sacks of grenades, submachine guns, flamethrowers, and other weapons meant for shock tactics.  The French Army, worn out after Verdun and years of war, suffered massive mutinies and many units--sometimes whole divisions—would not fight back. 

*In 1918 it looked as if Paris would fall and the Central Powers would win.

*At this point, the American Expeditionary Force arrived.  The General of the Armies, ‘Black Jack’ John Pershing, said ‘Lafayette, we are here.’

*The AEF was not especially well-trained or well-equipped, and the Americans were not significantly better soldiers than their enemies.  However, they were ready to fight, not worn out by three years of war and bitterness.

*Re-enforced by the AEF, the Allies stopped the attack on Paris.  The AEF was involved in three major battles:  Château-Thierry, the first major battle for Americans, Belleau Wood, where the US Marine Corps fought so hard and lost so many men that afterwards the French government gave the land to the United States, and along the Marne River, where the Germans were stopped for good.

*The allies counter-attacked along the Meuse River and in the Argonne Forest.  This offensive began on 26 September, 1918, and would be the last of the War.

*The Meuse-Argonne is famous for its heroism among the eager American troops.  The most decorated soldier of the war was Sergeant Alvin York, a backwoodsman from Fentress County, Tennessee.  His family’s farm was poor, and he had to supplement their diet by hunting, and became a crack shot.  A devout Christian after changing his ways following the death of a friend in a bar fight, he opposed the war and did not want to go, but was not drafted and not let out as a conscientious objector.  On 8 October, 1918, his patrol was ordered to destroy a machine gun nest.  Unable to do so, most of the unit hid, but York, the sharpshooter, picked off 25 machine-gunners at 50 or 60 yards, and then captured 132 other Germans.  He received, among other decorations, the Medal of Honor.

*In another instance, one American battalion of the 77th division was ordered to take a German position and hold it with two other units.  This battalion moved into the Argonne Forest and took its objective on 2 October, 1918, but the units with it did not, and by the 3rd, the battalion was trapped.  Their communication lines were cut, and no-one knew where they were.  Allied artillery even began to bombard them.  The only way they had to communicate with headquarters with was the battalion’s carrier pigeons.  Many of those they sent were shot down by the Germans, until they were down to the last pigeon, Cher Ami, who was also shot, but survived to fly home to stop the Allied bombardment.  Most of the battalion was killed, but it never surrendered and was rescued after six days on 8 October.  More important, it distracted the Germans long enough for the allies to push farther through the German lines in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.  Many of the men involved received the Medal of Honor, and Cher Ami received the French Croix de Guerre.

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