Smaller European powers picked sides during the war, dominions and colonies contributed soldiers to their mother countries, and powerful non-European powers such as Japan and the United States would later enter the war on the Allied side. The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June set off a chain of events that led to war in early August Introduction Introduction. Canada and the First World War.
Tensions in Europe The major powers in Europe had been preparing for war for years. Key factors in the build-up to war included: Arms races to build bigger and more powerful armies and navies; Growing disputes over trade and land; Dissatisfaction with the balance of power in Europe; Resentment from the legacy of past grievances. Alliances and Treaties Divided Europe Complicated military alliances and treaties between the European powers divided much of Europe.
The assassination was traced to a Serbian extremist group that wanted to increase Serbian power in the Balkans by breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This, he argued, would lead to the defeat of Germany. Despite these warnings, the German Government decided to resume unrestricted submarine attacks on all Allied and neutral shipping within prescribed war zones, reckoning that German submarines would end the war long before the first U. Stunned by the news, President Wilson went before Congress on February 3 to announce that he had severed diplomatic relations with Germany.
However, he refrained from asking for a declaration of war because he doubted that the U. 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 invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering , casualties.
British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia , while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.
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. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, , ending World War I.
At the Paris Peace Conference in , Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such devastating scale. As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II.
World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.
0コメント