WWI
World War I, or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history that lasted from 1914 to 1918. It was fought between two coalitions, the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting occurred throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died due to military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died due to genocide, while the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war.
The first decade of the 20th century saw increasing diplomatic tension between the great European powers. This reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914, when a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible and declared war on 28 July. Russia came to Serbia's defense, and by 4 August, defensive alliances had drawn in Germany, France, and Britain, with the Ottoman Empire joining the war in November.
German strategy in 1914, known as the Schlieffen Plan, was first to defeat France and bypass their fortifications by moving through Belgium, then attack Russia. However, this maneuver failed due to heavy French and Belgian resistance and British reinforcements. By the end of 1914, the Western Front consisted of a continuous line of trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland. The Eastern Front was more fluid, but neither side could gain a decisive advantage, despite a series of costly offensives. Fighting expanded onto secondary fronts as Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Italy, and others entered the war between 1915 and 1916.
The United States entered the war on the side of the Allies in April 1917, while the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian October Revolution and made peace with the Central Powers in early 1918. Freed from the Eastern Front, Germany launched an offensive in the West on March 1918, hoping to achieve a decisive victory before American troops arrived in significant numbers. The failure left the German Imperial Army exhausted and demoralized, and when the Allies took the offensive in August 1918, German forces could not stop the advance.
Between 29 September and 3 November 1918, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary agreed to armistices with the Allies, leaving Germany isolated. Facing revolution at home and with his army on the verge of mutiny, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November. Three days later, the Armistice of 11 November 1918 brought the fighting to a close, while the Paris Peace Conference imposed various settlements on the defeated powers, the best-known being the Treaty of Versailles. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires resulted in the creation of new independent states, including Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Failure to manage the instability that resulted from this upheaval during the interwar period, as well as hyperinflation in Germany and Austria due to crippling war debts, contributed to the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.
Names
The term world war was first coined in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel. He claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word" in The Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914.
The term First World War had been used by Lt-Col. Charles à Court Repington, as a title for his memoirs (published in 1920); he had noted his discussion on the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in his diary entry of 10 September 1918.
Before World War II, the events of 1914–1918 were generally known as the Great War or simply the World War. In August 1914, The Independent magazine wrote, "This is the Great War. It names itself". In October 1914, the Canadian magazine Maclean's similarly wrote, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War." Contemporary Europeans also referred to it as "the war to end all wars," and it was also described as "the war to end all wars" due to their perception of its unparalleled scale, devastation, and loss of life.
See also In Flanders Fields and/or Connecting the dots
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:WWI ]
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