Germany gave Austria unconditional support in its actions, again fully aware of the likely consequences. Germany sought to break up the French-Russian alliance and was fully prepared to take the risk that this would bring about a major war.
Some in the German elite welcomed the prospect of beginning an expansionist war of conquest. The response of Russia, France and later Britain were reactive and defensive. The best that can be said of German and Austrian leaders in the July crisis is that they took criminal risks with world peace. In my opinion, it is the political and diplomatic decision-makers in Germany and Austria-Hungary who must carry the burden of responsibility for expanding a localised Balkan conflict into a European and, eventually, global war.
Germany, suffering from something of a "younger child" complex in the family of European empires, saw an opportunity to reconfigure the balance of power in their favour via an aggressive war of conquest. On 5 July it issued the "blank cheque" of unconditional support to the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire trying to reassert its dominance over the rebellious Serbia , despite the likelihood of this sparking war with Russia, an ally of France and Great Britain.
However, Austria-Hungary's actions should not be ignored. The ultimatum it issued to Serbia on 23 July was composed in such a way that its possibility of being accepted was near impossible. The largest share of responsibility lies with the German government. Germany's rulers made possible a Balkan war by urging Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia, well understanding that such a conflict might escalate.
Without German backing it is unlikely that Austria-Hungary would have acted so drastically. They also started wider European hostilities by sending ultimata to Russia and France, and by declaring war when those ultimata were rejected - indeed fabricating a pretext that French aircraft had bombed Nuremberg.
Finally, they violated international treaties by invading Luxemburg and Belgium knowing that the latter violation was virtually certain to bring in Britain.
This is neither to deny that there were mitigating circumstances nor to contend that German responsibility was sole.
Serbia subjected Austria-Hungary to extraordinary provocation and two sides were needed for armed conflict. Although the Central Powers took the initiative, the Russian government, with French encouragement, was willing to respond. In contrast, while Britain might have helped avert hostilities by clarifying its position earlier, this responsibility - even disregarding the domestic political obstacles to an alternative course - was passive rather than active. The World War One Centenary.
Image source, Alamy. Here 10 leading historians give their opinion. Sir Max Hastings - military historian. Image source, Getty Images. Wilson left open the possibility of negotiating with Germany if its submarines refrained from attacking U. Nevertheless, throughout February and March , German submarines targeted and sank several U. On February 26, Wilson asked Congress for the authority to arm U. While the measure would probably have passed in a vote, several anti-war Senators led a successful filibuster that consumed the remainder of the congressional session.
As a result of this setback, President Wilson decided to arm U. In return for this assistance, Germany asked for Mexican support in the war. Initially, the British had not shared the news of the Zimmermann Telegram with U.
The British finally forwarded the intercepted telegram to President Wilson on February This first conflict between industrialised, major nations saw ten million soldiers dead and at least 21 million mutilated. Not only did the war dramatically change the shape of society at the time, its impact continues to resonate through the 21st century. As The Guardian notes, the war led to the carving up of the Middle East into a formulation we would now recognise and that led to continuous conflict and fighting in the region.
The Great War changed the present as it would unalterably change the future, but how it broke out remains a point of contention even after all these years of peaceful co-existence between the warring powers. The simplest answer is that the immediate cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary. His death at the hands of Gavrilo Princip — a Serbian nationalist with ties to the secretive military group known as the Black Hand — propelled the major European military powers towards war.
The events that led up to the assassination are significantly more complicated, but most scholars agree that the gradual emergence of a group of alliances between major powers was partly to blame for the descent into war.
By , those alliances resulted in the six major powers of Europe coalescing into two broad groups: Britain, France and Russia formed the Triple Entente, while Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy comprised the Triple Alliance.
As these countries came to each other's aid after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, their declarations of war produced a domino effect.
CNN lists these key developments:. As the war progressed, further acts of aggression drew other countries, including the United States, into the conflict. Many others, including Australia, India and most African colonies, fought at the behest of their imperial rulers.
But even the alliance theory is now considered overly simplistic by many historians. War came to Europe not by accident, but by design, argues military historian Gary Sheffield.
The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland May left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.
World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions.
During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France. The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from.
The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane. Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.
On April 1, , the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army. With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.
On July 15, , German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces joined by 85, American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force in the Second Battle of the Marne.
The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later. The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars , and served in the American territories.
But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I. Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.
Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.
Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in , the 92nd and 93rd Divisions. Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September The 93rd Division, however, had more success.
With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing , commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army.
Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4.
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