World War I: The chronicles

The Warfare in Europe that Attracted many 

The period between 1914 and 1918 marked the 1^st World War, also known as, ‘The Great War’ for being one of the bloodiest events in universal history. It left around 15 million victims both military and civilians. What were the causes of this unprecedented world event? To understand the origin of the conflict, we must go back several years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Happenings

The European political atmosphere was troubled due to the prevailing nationalism in each country. Everyone wanted to increase their power to dominate the world. This is why the African and Asian colonies became so important. Great Britain, France, and Germany ruled the world due to their colonial policy and they were not willing to give up on them because of their resources. Consequently, a strong arms competition arose. If they wanted to be part of the great world powers, they had to have an arsenal that matched the circumstances. Notably, they were also fighting to gain dominance in the international arms trade. This period is known as ‘Armed Peace’ meaning, although there were no wars, all the countries were getting armed in silence. As we will see later, all the arms competition caused the war to become the bloodiest and most devastating warfare ever known.

Formation of Alliances

In turn, the relations between France and Germany were getting strained in the 1870s. France had lost the territories of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. Later, the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the desire to isolate France, created the League of Three Emperors along with the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. However, this union was dissolved in 1878 due to the confrontation between Russia and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans. As such, the latter consolidated their alliance with Germany which Italy later joined forming the Triple Alliance on the other hand.

The relations between Germany and Russia cooled down and France took the opportunity to become involved with the Russian tsar in 1894. In 1904, England joined France and in 1907 they joined Russia establishing the La Triple Entente. Militarization was evident and mistrust reigned in the environment with the creation of these two great sides. Let us not forget that on one hand, we had the triple alliance formed by Germany, Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and on the other, the Triple Entente with Great Britain, France, and Russia.

Declaration of Wars in Europe

The definitive trigger was the murder of Archduke Francisco Fernando, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during his visit to Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the attack and on July 28, knowing that she had the support of Germany, she declared war on Serbia. Russia’s support for Serbia was never in doubt and on August 1^st, Germany declared war on Russia. On August 2^nd, German troops crossed the Luxembourg border thus declaring war on France. On August 3rd the war was inevitable and the British Foreign Minister spoke these words, “The lights go out now all over Europe it may happen that we never see the lights again.” On August 4^th, Great Britain declared war on Germany. By not respecting the neutrality of Belgium, Russia tried passing its troops through this country. Consequently on August 10^th, the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacked Russia. The attack made Britain and France declare war on each other on August 12^th. On August 23^rd, Japan which had signed an alliance with Great Britain in 1902 declared war on Germany, and on August 25^th Austria declared war on Japan. Italy despite being part of the Triple Alliance remained neutral until 1915. By September 1914, all of Europe was at war. All countries took up arms with Germany having 1,913,850 men on the front, Austria-Hungary with 160,000, Russia with 2,000,000, but poorly armed. England’s strong point was its naval fleet and the indigenous soldiers of its colonies. The countries began a war that they believed would last for a few weeks, but it lasted for 4 years, 3 months, and 14 days. This was a war with several battles that are explained in detail in the next post.