Chapter 18: World War I: the Great Tragedy
The Twentieth Century can be divided into two parts. In the first half, two global wars (World War I and World War II) and a severe depression (The Great Depression) resulted in the decline of Western Europe. The second half was defined by the great rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. This period, known as the Cold War, led to the creation of alliance systems and economic unions. Each crisis extended the nature of conflict more fully around the globe.

The course of the twentieth century could not have been imagined in 1900. In fact, many turn-of-the-century observers were convinced that nineteenth century had embodied the ultimate in human progress. Only a few people believed that an international catastrophe was near at hand. The Great War, as it was called at the time, was the most terrible war since the Thirty Year’s War; in terms of human psychological damage, it was perhaps the most damaging war in human history – and it certainly tore the soul out of Europe. It damaged or bankrupted national economies; it not only destroyed four empires (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian) but it shook the authority of the British and French Empires. It gave birth to new nations in Eastern Europe and helped unleash the terrible Russian Revolutions and Civil War. Most of all it undermined European prestige and power and laid the foundation for Decolonization or Europe’s retreat from imperialism and colonialism.

I. Factors that contributed to the Outbreak of the War

 

Nationalism
Nationalism which traces its genesis to the French Revolution, was and is the political and social philosophy in which the welfare of the nation-state as an entity is considered paramount. Despite its short ideological history, it was extremely important in forming the bonds that hold modern nations together. Nationalism is basically a collective state of mind or consciousness in which people believe their primary duty and loyalty is to the nation-state. Nationalism implied national superiority and glorified various national virtues.

Thus love of nation was often (and is often) overemphasized and helped to cause World War I by excessive concern with national self-interest to the exclusion of the rights of other nations. Inherent in nationalism was the idea of self-determination or the idea that peoples with the same ethnic origins, language, and political ideals have the right to form a sovereign state. It was nationalism that allowed the Belgians to gain independence from the Netherlands in 1830 and led to the unification of Italy in 1861 and Germany in 1870.

Balkan Instability
The nationalist aspirations of Balkan peoples led to the demise of the Ottoman Empire in Europe more than any other factor. Greece had won its independence by 1830; Serbia by 1862; Romania in 1877; and Bulgaria in 1878. Meanwhile minority peoples within the Austro-Hungarian Empire – Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – began pressing for the rights of self-determination. This unrest was strongest among the Serbs. And Russia (remember Russians and Serbs are both Slavs) promoted this unrest by sponsoring a movement called Pan-Slavism, which advocated Slav Nationalism for Slavs in the Austrian Empire. The result was the Balkans was called the Powder Keg of Europe.

Between 1912 and 1913 the Balkan states were at war.  In the First Balkan War, the Balkan League defeated the Ottoman Empire which, under the terms of the peace treaty, lost Macedonia and Albania. The Second Balkan War broke out after Serbia, Greece, and Romania quarreled with Bulgaria over the division of their joint conquests in Macedonia. Bulgaria was defeated, and Greece and Serbia divided up most of Macedonia between themselves.

Thus, small Balkan states destabilized South East Europe as Austria grew fearful of Serbia’s growing power, while the losers, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, were drawn closer together. 

Economic Rivalries and the Naval Race
Nationalism manifested itself in economic rivalries and the industrialized nations of Europe competed for international trade and fought tariff “wars” but the strongest rivalry grew between the new German Empire and Great Britain. Germany’s rapid industrial growth was a threat and challenge to the British. In 1870, Great Britain produced almost thirty two percent of the world’s industrial compared to Germany’s thirteen percent. By 1914, with competition from the United States and Germany, Great Britain’s percent had dropped to fourteen percent which was about the same as Germany.

This competition strained relations and in Germany fueled Militarism (or the glorification of the military) – and, to a lesser degree, the other nations of Europe. The German Empire, as a new nation wanted to find her “place in the sun” and aggressively competed with Great Britain. When the new German Empire began building a modern navy to secure her trade routes and protect her growing commerce and colonies, the British responded by increasing their naval construction. And the great (and tragic) naval race was on.

In 1906, the British launched a new super battleship the HMS Dreadnought. This battleship was twice the size, three times better armed and considerably faster than any battleship in the world. It instantly made every battleship in every other navy obsolete. The Germans vowed to build better dreadnoughts. The British built even more and this expensive naval race (which other nations joined) contributed significantly to international tensions.

Colonial Disputes
The Colonial powers not only dominated the non-industrialized nations of the world, they also quarreled in distant parts of the world - and often with hostile consequences. Britain and Russia (playing the Great Game) disputed over Central Asia, Afghanistan and Persia (Iran). Britain and France competed for markets in Siam (Thailand) and in the Nile Valley. Britain and German were rivals for influence in Southwestern Africa and Germany and France in Morocco and West Africa. The Germans were the most aggressive because they had the latest start and in their search for empire, they often antagonized the British and French. In 1905 Germany announced its support for Moroccan independence, which angered France. War was narrowly avoided by an international conference the following year in Algeciras, Spain.

Popular Opinion
Another outlet for aggressive Nationalism was public opinion. Wildly patriotic citizens created public pressure by advocating (wanting) their nation to “look good” and “come in first” in the international arena – like being first to reach the South Pole. This public pressure was reflected in newspapers, books and other publications and the result tempted leaders to please their people with short-lived gains that often did great damage to good relations with other nations leading to long lasting enmity and eventually to a dreadful war.

Entangling Alliances
It was Otto von Bismarck that began the modern system of Alliances. His goal was to make it impossible for France to seek revenge for its defeat in the Franco Prussian War of 1870. In 1879 Bismarck engineered the Dual Alliance with Austria Hungary and in 1881 he engineered the Alliance of the Three Emperors: Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. It not only allied the three most conservative empires, but it also meant Germany would not have to fight a two front war. In 1882, Bismarck also engineered an alliance between Italy, Austria and Germany.

This Triple Alliance meant that Germany had two strong allies. This alliance was mutually beneficial for all three signatories: Austria felt she would have a free hand in the Balkans; Italy would gain allies against France; and Germany would gain important allies against France. But Bismarck’s plans were foiled when Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck in 1890 and foolishly let the German alliance with the Russian Empire expire. Moreover Italy’s minor war with the Ottoman Empire in 1911 to annex Tripoli in North Africa stained relations with Berlin and eventually caused Italy to back out of the Triple Alliance as World War I began and eventually join the allies. The members of the Triple Alliance came to be called the Central Powers. As their friendship with the Ottoman Empire grew, the Central Powers came to be the protectors of the status quo in Europe.

The Triple Entente was the other great alliance which was formed in response to the Triple Alliance. It was the diplomatic triumph of the British King Edward VII (1901-1910). This son of Queen Victoria was worried about German aggressiveness and alliances. So Edward worked hard to prepare his country for war by supporting the Naval Race and engineering an agreement or defensive alliance with France (the Entente Cordiale) in 1904 and then Russia in 1907. These agreements grew into the Triple Entente, which became a military alliance in the summer of 1914.

II. War Plans

After 1910 and the Balkan Wars both the Central Powers and the Triple Entente began to plan in earnest for an eventual war. Both sides expected to win a quick victory and drew up complicated plans. Both sides were overconfident and created horrific battle plans that were inflexible both in tactics (arranging of troops for battle) and timing (adhering to preset schedules); that is, rigidly incapable of changing or adapting when assumed conditions were not met. The code word for both sides was CHARGE!

The French military strategy revolved around Plan XVII, which made extensive use of the belief in the mystical élan vital assumed to be instilled within every Frenchman - a fighting spirit capable of turning back any enemy by its sheer power.  It (stupidly) assumed the average French soldier to be more than a match for its German counterpart and the plan’s principal objective was the recapture of the territory of Alsace and Lorraine, which had been lost in the Franco Prussian War of 1871. The plan did not anticipate the German invasion of France and in the blindness of revenge did not foresee the terribly high casualty rate that would result. The German plan was better thought out and was the creation of Count Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913).

Since the German General Staff feared a two front war (Russia did not have the best trained or equipped army in Europe – but it was the largest), the Schlieffen Plan sought to avoid the two front war by a lightening blow that would knock France out of the war in six weeks (reminiscent of the Franco Prussian War of 1870). The Schlieffen Plan called for an overwhelming assault aimed at Paris, pivoting through neutral Belgium (attacking where the French were not) and seizing Paris from behind; after which the Germans could deal with the Russians who would be slower to mobilize. The plan was brilliant and, although it failed to attain its objective in 1914, the same basic plan worked brilliantly in May of 1940.

III. The Great War
In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina which caused enormous indignation in Italy, Russia and especially Serbia. The new territory became a hotbed of unrest and terrorist acts. The spark that set off the Great War was the assassination of Francis Ferdinand (heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne) in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on June 28, 1914 by Gavrilo Princip who was a member of a radical Serbian liberation society called Unification or Death. (The group’s unofficial name was the Black Hand) They were determined to unite all Serbians under Austrian control especially by assassination.

Here are two accounts of the assassination; the first by one of the conspirators: The road was shaped like the letter V, making a sharp turn at the bridge over the River Nilgacka. Francis Ferdinand's car could go fast enough until it reached this spot but here it was forced to slow down for the turn. Here Princip had taken his stand. As the car came abreast he stepped forward from the curb, drew his automatic pistol from his coat and fired two shots. The first struck the wife of the Archduke, the Archduchess Sofia, in the abdomen. She was an expectant mother. She died instantly. The second bullet struck the Archduke close to the heart. He uttered only one word, 'Sofia' -- a call to his stricken wife. Then his head fell back and he collapsed. He died almost instantly. The officers seized Princip. They beat him over the head with the flat of their swords. They knocked him down, they kicked him, scraped the skin from his neck with the edges of their swords, tortured him, all but killed him.

The second account is by Count Franz von Harrach who rode on the running board of the royal car while serving as a bodyguard for the Archduke. His account begins immediately after Princip fires his two shots:  "As the car quickly reversed, a thin stream of blood spurted from His Highness's mouth onto my right check. As I was pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the blood away from his mouth, the Duchess cried out to him, 'In Heaven's name, what has happened to you?' At that she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car, with her face between his knees. I had no idea that she too was hit and thought she had simply fainted with fright. Then I heard His Imperial Highness say, 'Sopherl, Sopherl, don't die. Stay alive for the children!' At that, I seized the Archduke by the collar of his uniform, to stop his head dropping forward and asked him if he was in great pain. He answered me quite distinctly, 'It's nothing!' His face began to twist somewhat but he went on repeating, six or seven times, ever more faintly as he gradually lost consciousness, 'It's nothing!' Then, after a short pause, there was a violent choking sound caused by the bleeding. It was stopped as we reached the Konak."

The assassination began the great tragedy. For the Serbians, Austria was the principal barrier to Slavic unity which explains why Francis Ferdinand was marked for assassination. Austrian leaders blamed Serbia and wanted to teach the Serbs a lesson. So they sent them an ultimatum (or humiliating demands) that they knew would be completely unacceptable. Kaiser Wilhelm meanwhile (about to leave on vacation aboard his yacht) gave Austria a “blank check” or his promise to back Austria even if war broke out with Russia. The Serbians accepted all the terms of the ultimatum except one, which allowed Austrian officials to take part in any investigations connected with the assassination. On July 28, Austria found Serbia’s reply unacceptable and declared war. At this point the entangling alliances took over and the drift to war could not be stopped. On July 29, Russia mobilized its troops to defend its Serbian ally against Austria.

Then the Tsar, Nicholas II, reluctantly ordered mobilization against Germany on the advice of his military commanders who had convinced him that if he waited, the delay would be costly and might even lead to defeat, if Germany entered the war. On July 31, Germany sent an ultimatum to Russia demanding that Russia cease its mobilization immediately. Germany also sent an ultimatum to France, demanding to know their intentions. The Russians replied “impossible” and the French did not answer. So on August 1, the German government declared war on Russia and France started to mobilize.

After waiting two day, Germany declared war on France on August 3 and, on the same day, invaded Belgium according to the Schlieffen plan. By invading France through Belgium the Germans hoped to surprise the French army and drive through to Paris within six weeks. The Belgian government which had refused German’s request to pass through her territory, then called the signatories of the Treaty of 1839 to demand her neutrality. This invasion of Belgium forced the hand of Great Britain who by the Treaty of 1839 was pledged to defend Belgium’s independence. So on August 4, Great Britain sent an ultimatum to Germany demanding they withdraw from Belgium. Germany refused and Great Britain immediately declared war.

The War Unfolds

 

It is very important to understand that both sides expected a quick victory and volunteers marched off with great enthusiasm. Germans sang Gott mitt uns (God with us) and the Russians sang For God and the Tsar - but no one foresaw the terrible price that would be paid in blood and suffering. Many intellectuals and city dwellers met the news with joy, also expecting a quick victory. People danced in the streets and threw flowers at departing troops. The philosopher Bertrand Russell observed that the average Englishman positively wanted war, and the French writer Alain- Fournier noted, this war is fine and just and great. Nevertheless, most ordinary people (farmers, factory workers and the poor) reacted in shock and fear. Their vision would prove to be the more accurate one.

The war opened on the Western Front, which was fought mostly in France and was a battle between attacking German troops against French, British and Belgian defenders. The second or Eastern Front developed in Russian Poland and East Prussia, where German armies battled Russian forces – and in Galicia where the Germans tried to support the weaker Austrian-Hungarian army. In 1915 Italy entered the war on the allied side and a third or Italian Front developed between the Italians and the Austrians.

The war was also fought at sea. The superior British Grand Fleet bottled up the large German surface navy in the Baltic Sea for most of the war, but German submarines (U-boats) did great damage to allied shipping trying to reach Britain. Early in the war the Germans promised not to torpedo ships without warning, but in 1917 (after the British hid guns on even merchant ships because these early submarines surfaced before firing their torpedoes) they adopted a policy of not warning ships about to be torpedoed which was called Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and which brought the United States into the war.

In August German forces drove the allies back through Belgium and France, but were halted by the French at the Marne River in September of 1914 and the western front soon turned into long, bloody line of trenches running from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Neither side could gain ground and technological advancements gave defenders a tremendous advantage, but generals on both sides foolishly continued to employ traditional infantry charges.

Glorious adventure gave way to senseless carnage as soldiers marched straight into a “no man’s land” of land mines, hand grenades, pot marked countryside with machines guns, artillery, barbed wire and poison gas. Ordinary life in the trenches was as miserable as combat itself. Mud, lice, rats, disease and the smell of dead bodies all combined to make the trench experience maddeningly terrible. Eloquent descriptions of trench warfare can be found in literary works such as Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Robert Graves autobiographical Goodbye to All That, and the work of Britain’s so-called war poets such as the Wilfed Owen poem Dulce et Deorum who asserts that the Roman poet Horace's nationalistic line that "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country" to be the "Old Lie"

 "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur virum
nec parcit inbellis iuventae
poplitibus timidove tergo."
 

Meanwhile the Russians mobilized faster than expected and attacked East Prussia. Germans generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, however, won a brilliant victory at Tannenburg and in one battle almost knocked Russia out of the war. As the war in the east wore one, it just got worse for the Russia. The Austrians overran Serbia and the Russians lost millions of men killed and captured as well as losing thousands of square miles of territory. Moreover, when Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire joined the war on the side of the Central Powers, Russia was just that much more isolated.

In 1915, the Western Front continued in bloody stalemate with both sides attacking, sustaining heavy casualties and trying to land a fatal blow. On the Eastern Front, the Germans and Austrians pushed the Russians out of Poland but could not knock Russia out of the War. 1915 also saw the introduction of poison gas (Chlorine Gas) and airplanes as military weapons.

In 1916 each side tried to launch a major attack on the Western Front. In February, the Germans began a massive offensive at Verdun. Using poison gas and flamethrowers and huge artillery barrages, the Germans initially took much ground, but by July the French had stabilized their lines and pushed the Germans back. The casualties were staggering: French losses were 161,000 dead, 101,000 missing and 216,000 wounded. German losses were 142,000 killed and 187,000 wounded.

In July of 1916, the British launched an offensive at the Somme River. The German high command called the Somme the bloody graveyard of the German army. In her book Unquiet Souls, Angela Lambert describes the indescribable, “At exactly 7:30 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the first wave of troops went over the top. For hundreds of yards they marched steadily into the line of German fire, mostly uphill and across rough ground, carrying 60 pound packs on their backs, falling wounded and dying, getting caught on the barbed wire, dying there, and being followed remorselessly by another an another wave of Gadarene (demon possessed) soldiers. In the first hour thirty thousand infantrymen were killed or wounded. On the first day there were 57,470 British casualties, of whom 19,249 died. Of those 993 were officers. This was almost the same number of deaths as the 22,000 in the two and one half year Boer War...The British losses on this single day easily exceeded the combined totals in the Crimean War, the Boer War and the Korean War...When the Battle of the Somme ended, 140 days later, they (the British) were still four miles short of Bapaume. They had advanced in all six miles. The British suffered over 400,000 casualties. The total loss for all combatant armies was over one million, three hundred thousand men. The best of the British troops, officers as well as men, were the first to die on the Somme. The bravest, the most selfless, those most committed to their comrades and their country, ran most eagerly into the attack, and were consequently the first to be killed.”

The Battle of Verdun was the longest battle of the war and the Somme was the bloodiest. Thus, by 1916 staggering stagnation and slaughter on the Western Front had turned into a nightmare for both sides. In desperation to break the blockade strangling the German economy, 1916 also saw the German navy challenge the Grand Fleet. The Battle of Jutland, fought on May 31, was a numerical victory for the Germans who lost two major warships to the British five, but the British won strategically by forcing the Germans back to their bases in the Baltic. The German fleet never again dared to challenge the British during the war.

Russia struggled to regroup in 1915 as the Central Powers seized Galicia and much of Southern Poland. But from June to September of 1916, Russia launched its most successful offensive of the war as it gained much lost ground back in the Brusilov Offensive. This was the greatest Russian victory of the war (perhaps the greatest allied victory) and broke the back of the Austro-Hungarian army but it was won at terrible cost of human life: over half a million killed on both sides. The early success of the Brusilov Offensive convinced Romania to enter the war on the allied side. But allied efforts were in vain as Germany came to the aid of Austria-Hungary and decisively defeated the Russians and Romanians setting the stage for the Tsar’s abdication in February, 1917. 

Global War

To many subject peoples in European colonies, World War I was an unpopular “European” War. Nevertheless, the war touched them profoundly and World War I became the most global war since the Seven Year’s War (1756-1763). It was logical: Europeans had carried their animosities to their colonies; Europeans, especially smaller Britain, needed more troops to replace those being killed; and lastly, imperialism was not yet dead, as Japan and Britain would demonstrate. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Great Britain’s mostly independent dominions, declared war on the Central Powers and took an active part in European and Middle Eastern combat. France and Britain also mobilized native troops in Africa. Although most of them played a support role, some fought against German troops in Africa. The French also brought African troops to the Western Front and Britain used Indian Sepoys, Sikhs, and Nepalese Gurkhas.

Japanese Imperialism
Japan declared war on the Central Powers on August 15, 1914 and claimed that she desired “to secure a firm and enduring peace in Eastern Asia.”  But this was a cover up for Japan’s imperialistic ambitions and Japan quickly seized German possessions in China including Qingdao, the German port in Shandong Province. Then Japan seized the German held Marshall Islands, the Mariana Islands, Palau and the Caroline Islands. (Australian and New Zealand forces seized the other German possessions in the Pacific, including German Samoa.)

 In January of 1915, the Japanese tried to take advantage of European preoccupation with the war and presented the Chinese government with Twenty-one Secret Demands. The terms of this ultimatum, if accepted, would have reduced China to a Japanese protectorate giving the Japanese economic and political dominion in China; especially in Manchuria. The Chinese wisely leaked the “secret demands” to Great Britain; and the British and the United States forced Japan to back down. Japan did gain some minor concessions over China but that was more than balanced by Japanese loss of prestige and trust in Great Britain and the United States.

Africa
German colonies in Africa also became immediate targets for the English and French and Germany lost them along with Pacific Island possessions. The allies began an attack on German colonies in Africa immediately as the war began. Togoland fell quickly in 1914; but the other three Germany colonies, Cameroons, German Southwest Africa and especially German East Africa or Tanganyika resisted fiercely and with great skill. Many South African, Belgian, British and French troops forced Cameroons and Southwest Africa to surrender by 1916, but German forces in Tanganyika did not surrender until after the war had concluded.  As sad note is that disease killed more soldiers in these African campaigns than bullets of bombs as much of the fighting took place in deserts, jungles and swamps.

Gallipoli
The most extensive military operation outside Europe took place at the Dardanelles. The idea was the brainchild of Winston Churchill who was the First Lord of the British Admiralty. His idea was to open a warm water supply line to Russia by taking conquering the Ottoman controlled straits that connected the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. The naval campaign was a disaster and then, to make matters worse, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand forces were dragged into a disastrous land battle at Gallipoli. The dominion forces were trapped pinned down by the Turks who occupied high cliffs and the slaughter was so bad that the dead, wounded and captured on the allied side approached 50%. It took nine months and 250,000 casualties before the British admitted defeat.  The disaster forced Churchill to resign as First Sea Lord, while a Turkish officer Mustapha Kemal had his career boosted at Gallipoli and went to play a crucial role in Post World War I Turkey.

Southwest Asia
The Ottoman Empire's decision to join the German alliance would also spell the end of the Turks' hold over Arab regions. In spite of their victory at Gallipoli and some early successes in Mesopotamia (Iraq), by 1916 the Ottoman Empire was slowly contracting, as they were defeated in the Caucasus by the Russians and gradually overwhelmed by invading British armies. The British advance was a pincer movement: one army invaded Mesopotamia and the other invaded Palestine from Egypt. Both campaigns received much help from Arabs who were resentful of the Ottoman Turks. 

Ibn Ali Hussain (Sherif of Mecca and King of the Hejaz, 1856-1931) and T. E. Lawrence (who was trained as an archeologist but worked for British Intelligence) led an Arabic freedom movement against the Ottoman Empire. Hussain and Lawrence persuaded Arab princes to rise up against their Ottoman masters. By 1917 and 1918, the British, in conjunction with their Arab allies, were able to dismantle what was left of the Ottoman’s Middle Eastern empire. 

The British also promised a Middle Eastern homeland to the Jews in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Hussain and other Arab princes considered the Balfour Declaration a breach of the promises made during the war and, along with the Mandate System (which we shall discuss) caused much resentment of Great Britain and France in the Arab World. This promise would also lead to the establishment of a Jewish state in 1947.

Russia Collapses: Two Revolutions
We saw that the Brusilov Offensive of early 1916 which was initially successful ended in bloody defeat by the end of the year. As German troops surged forward, Russian armies began to collapse. By February of 1917, not only was the army decimated but the country was in complete chaos. The government could not deal with the food shortages, street demonstrations, strikes and mutinies in the army and the navy. The Czar Nicholas II, who had foolishly stayed with the army instead of leading the government in Saint Petersburg, became convinced that he had to step down from the throne and abdicate. This February Revolution was unanticipated and caught the country by surprise.

A Provisional Government was led by a moderate socialist, Alexander Kerensky (1881-1970), but there were really two political powers in Russia: the Provisional Government and the powerful Petrograd Soviet. Soviets were revolutionary councils which first appeared during the Revolution of 1905. However in 1917, Soviets appeared all over Russia; and the most powerful was the Petrograd Soviet. (Saint Petersburg had been renamed Petrograd or Peter’s City at the outbreak of the war) The Provisional Government was at first very popular, dismantling the secret police, repealing restrictions on a free press and speech; and abolishing laws of discrimination against minority groups. But the government’s determination to honor Russia’s obligations to the allies and pursue the war allowed the Petrograd Soviet to gain political power by calling for an end to the war that had caused so much suffering.

When the February Revolution broke out, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (better known by his alias Lenin) (1870-1924) was exiled in Switzerland. Lenin grew up in Simbirsk (modern Ulyanov) on the Volga River about 500 miles east of Moscow. [It is ironic that Simbirsk is also the birthplace of Alexander Kerensky] Lenin came from a wealthy middle class family but his life changed in 1887 when his older brother was arrested and hanged for attempting to assassinate the Tsar. After a short career as a lawyer, Lenin became a devout Marxist but he differed from Marx in one key area of thought. Marx believed that the Revolution of the Proletariat would occur naturally but Lenin believed that the industrial working class was incapable of creating the Revolution. Thus the Proletariat needed a well-organized and highly disciplined leadership so that the real revolution of the workers could take place.

Lenin spent much of his life in exile and, during World War I, he was living in Switzerland. In February 1917, the German High Command transported Lenin (and other Russian radicals) to Russia in a sealed train hoping that he would stir up trouble and end Russia’s participation in the war. Lenin became the head of the Bolsheviks, the radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Although his Bolsheviks were a small group among many groups of revolutionaries, he eventually gained control of the Petrograd Soviet as he continually attacked the Provisional Government continuing the war, for its inability to feed the people and failing to undertake meaningful land reform. In April, Lenin called for all authority to be transferred to the soviets and reiterated all opposition to the war. His slogans, All Power to the Soviets and Peace, Land and Bread were particularly effective. In September, he convinced the moderates of the Soviet and organize an armed insurrection. On October 24, with the help of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), he organized a bloodless revolution, the October Revolution, as armed workers, soldiers and sailors stormed the Winter Palace and forced the Provisional Government to flee.

Thus Lenin and his Bolsheviks were bringing to fruition the revolution of the proletariat that Marx and Engels had prophesied. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk giving the Germans much territory, but ending Russian effort in the war. The treaty was harsh but allowed Lenin and Trotsky (founder of the Soviet Army) to deal with internal problems (royalists, counter revolutionaries and bourgeoisie). But it is important to note that the civil war which broke out between the Bolsheviks and more conservative forces led to a civil war of staggering proportions and loss of life.

Italian Collapse
Italy had joined the war in 1915 on the side of the allies who promised Italy parts of Austria that were Italian in ethnicity;  but Italy’s effort proved to be of little help in relieving pressure on the Eastern or Western fronts. In October 1917, the Germans and Austrians won a huge victory and at Caporetto in the Alps and (for all practical purposes) knocked Italy out of the war. These twin successes against Russia and Italy released a million German soldiers to launch a 1918 offensive on the western front. And Germany was poised to end the war on her terms.

American Intervention
However, Germany and the Central Powers were running a race against time because in 1917, the United States had entered the war. In 1914, the American public firmly opposed any involvement in the war and President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) had pledged neutrality. Wilson won reelection in 1916 on the slogan He kept us out of war. But in spite of that fact that many Americans were isolationist and wanted no part in European affairs, there many factors which were drawing the United States closer to the European conflict

The first was economic. Sales to Europe had brought the United States out of a severe recession and the American economy had become dependent of arms sales, especially to Great Britain. Moreover, American banks had made loans to Britain and France and the thought of an allied defeat brought shudders to American business interests.

Second was the Zimmerman Note. Alfred Zimmerman was the German Foreign Secretary and on January 16, 1917, he sent a telegram to the German ambassador to Mexico for the purpose of approaching the Mexican Government and proposing a German alliance with Mexico. The heart of the alliance specified that, if Germany should go to war with the United States, Mexico would attack the United States as well and be rewarded by financial assistance and the restoration of her former territories of Texas New Mexico and Arizona. Mexico declined the offer but the British intercepted the Zimmerman Telegram and leaked the information to the United States. American outrage cost Germany an enormous amount of good will in the United States.

But the third (official) reason for the Americans joining the war was German resumption of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. Early in the war the Germans had agreed to warn belligerent ships that they would be torpedoed. Then as the British blockade began to strangle the German economy, the Germans began the policy of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. This meant that ships were given no warning and often neutral ships carrying war material were sunk. Then on May 7, 1915 a German U-boat sunk the Luistania off the Irish coast with a loss of 1,198 lives including 128 Americans. Even though the ship was a legitimate target because it was carrying munitions in a war zone, American public opinion was outraged. So Germany withdrew its policy of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare.

But by 1917 the crippling British blockade drove the Germans to renew Unrestricted Submarine Warfare; it was the final straw for President Wilson.  So on April 6, 1917 Wilson asked the Congress to declare War in order to make the World Safe for Democracy. It is important to note that many in congress disagreed, especially Senator George Norris who argued for neutrality and declared I feel that we are putting the dollar sign on the American Flag. Congress did declare war and not a moment too soon for the allied powers. By the time the American Army began to arrive in France, both sides were exhausted and almost bankrupt.

The Final Chapter
It is crucial to understand that the American intervention into the war tipped the balance in favor of the Allied Powers. Had America not entered the war, it is doubtful that the allies would have won the war. Except for the American Army, morale was dreadfully low among the civilian populations and in military forces of both the Allied and Central Powers armies. Rebellions and mutinies, such as a French army mutiny in 1917 or the German naval mutiny in Kiel in late 1918, were representative of the frustration and anguish of the common people. The French mutiny was on an enormous scale with over 50,000 soldiers involved. French security was so tight that the Germans were unaware of the mutiny, the exploitation of which could have achieved a major German victory.

With the German victory at Caporetto in October 1917, and the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in March 1918, the Germans took an all-out final gamble and launched a great offensive on the Western Front in the spring of 1918, but it stalled as more and more American troops arrived at the battlefields. The Americans led by John J. Pershing helped the French and British drive the Germans back towards the German border. By the summer of 1918, the end was in sight.

The Central Powers then began to crumble. Bulgaria capitulated on September 30; the Ottoman Empire on October 30; Austria-Hungary on November 4; and finally Germany agreed to an armistice (or agreement to stop fighting) on November 11, 1918. 

IV. Some Observations
World War I introduced the concept of Total War or the ideology that war was no longer just the arena of professional armies but the arena of entire nations and their populations. Germans used Dirigibles (huge blimps) to bomb Paris and London (= much terror but few casualties). U-boats and the British naval blockade tried to starve entire populations to pressure their governments to end the war. And no one seemed to notice that a half million Germans starved to death. Incompetent generals ordered their men to charge into deadly machine gun fire; and chivalry died a hard death in No-Man’s Land choked by chlorine gas and barbed wire while airplanes rained death from the sky. This madness even extended to the high seas where torpedoed ships often sank with heavy loss of life and survivors of U-boats were summarily executed by the British. Winston Churchill summed it up best when he said of World War I, War, which used to be cruel and magnificent, has now become cruel and squalid.

Technology
Moreover the technology and weapons devised by industrialized societies were more destructive than in any previous wars on the globe. Airplanes, submarines, flame throwers and tanks were used for the first time. Enormous artillery, machine guns, poison gas, and barbed wire fences turned the battlefields into a nightmare. A line of trenches ran from the Swiss border to the English Channel. A bloody battle would move the line slightly; then the advance would be halted and new trenches dug. Millions of men lived in these cold, wet, and rat infested ditches. Some soldiers would be buried alive when enemy artillery shelled them; some would dig their way out, some....

Weakening of Imperialism
Gallipoli in particular had long term consequences for the British Empire. The British used mostly New Zealand, Canadian and Australian soldiers in the fruitless assaults against the Ottoman positions. And they suffered most of the casualties. In Australia April 25, 1915 became known as ANZAC Day (ANZAC = Australian New Zealand Army Corps) and remains one of Australia’s most important days of war remembrance. In the long run, Gallipoli weakened the Dominions’ ties to Great Britain. But more importantly, in India and in African colonies which had helped the British and French war efforts, there grew expectations of independence or, at least, home rule.

Genocide
Although genocide was nothing new in World History, between 1915 and 1917, before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks carried out the twentieth century’s first genocide, the Armenian Genocide or Holocaust, which was a forced mass evacuation sparked by an Ottoman Government dominated by the Young Turks, which caused the deaths of between one and two million Armenians. Between 1914 and 1920, Turkish forces also massacred or relocated thousands of Christian peoples in Northern Mesopotamia.

The Home Front
One of the factors that made World War I so different than all previous wars was the enormous scope of the conflict. This applied not only to the size of the armies themselves, but the demands that the war placed on every aspect of society. Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891), hero of the Franco-Prussian War, predicted the long misery of the Great War when he said that future wars would not end in a single battle but until the will of the people was broken. The Home Front thus meant that victory would depend on how effectively each country mobilized its entire economy, citizenry and resources for the war effort.

Conscription
As we noted, World War I was total war. Governments increased dramatically in size and influence and required their populations to mobilize their resources as completely as possible into order to win the war. The most immediate and noticeable way in which the home front was affected was conscription, or the draft. By the end of the war more than seventy million men had been drafted.

Economic Mobilization
Entire nations and their economies had to give their all to the war effort. Laissez-faire capitalism was replaced by government direction as wartime production required enormous amounts of raw material: iron, steel, oil, rubber, cloth and much more. Planning boards and governments reorganized entire industries, set production quotas and determined what would be produced – and consumed. Work hours were lengthened and price controls introduced so that uniforms, weapons, tanks, aircraft, ships and other wartime necessities could be mass produced. Agriculture was stepped up as well. And in order to keep the war front supplied, strategic materials such as lumber or rifles, and consumer goods were rationed.

Restrictions on Civil Liberties
Even in democratic countries, like Britain, France and the United States, the war brought about a certain restriction in civil liberties. All countries imposed censorship on the press, the mass media and even the mails. Those suspected of espionage or treason could be arrested, tried and sentenced without due process. In most countries, all political parties agreed to unite behind the war effort and refrain from criticism of the government. Even pessimism or an insufficient display of patriotism could bring a person under suspicion. For example, Joseph Caillaux, a former prime minister of France, spent two years in prison awaiting trial because he dared to suggest that it would be in the best interests of France to reach a compromise peace with Germany.

Propaganda
Propaganda was used by governments to maintain the spirit on the home front and counter threats to national unity by trying to convince the public that military defeat would mean the destruction of everything worth living for. So they did their utmost to discredit and dehumanize the enemy. Posters, pamphlets and “scientific studies” depicted the enemy as subhuman savages who engaged in vile atrocities. Germans depicted Russians as semi-Asiatic barbarians and the French referred to Germans as Huns. A British newspaper suggested that the Germans turned corpses into fertilizer and Germans issued posters suggesting that black American soldiers would rape German women. These obviously made up lies often caused people to become skeptical and cynical, thus creating the opposite effect intended.

V. Women and the War Effort
The war affected women profoundly. It has been observed that men marched off to war and women marched off to work. This caused many women to enjoy greater economic advantages in the process of supporting total war. They cut their hair (easier to do heavy work) and left homes and domestic work for the war effort. In Great Britain such women were called the Women’s Land Army. With so many men serving in the military and with so many men being killed or seriously wounded, women had to fill in on farms or drive trucks and buses. Women now worked in the post office, as police officers and even workers in war manufacturing plants.

Munitions work often exposed women (and often older children) to dangerous conditions. The first was from accidental explosions. Although many women died in these accidents, government censors hid or downplayed many of these deaths making it hard to know how many women actually perished. The other danger came from working with TNT which turned human skin bright yellow which caused these victims to be called Canary Girls or Canaries. In addition, TNT poisoning caused anemia (low red blood cell count) and liver disorders. The standard remedy (which rarely worked) was rest, good food, and plenty of fresh milk.

Middle and upper class women often reported that the war was a liberating experience, freeing them from older attitudes that had limited them and their opportunities both in the workplace and in their personal lives. It female self-esteem because they knew that they were an important component in the war effort.

Working class women, however, who were used to working for wages, found the war far less liberating. Life for them was still a struggle to survive: work hard often under strict supervision in the day and care for their families in the evening. Many wartime governments promised equal pay for equal work but rarely or only partly followed through. In Britain more than a million women who had never before worked outside the home took jobs. In the Krupp factories in Germany, women made up 38% of the workforce. Even France, which had always been highly resistant to the notion of giving women equal rights, granted minimum wage rights to female textile workers, who were needed to produce uniforms and other cloth goods.

When the war ended, many nations were surprised when women did not want to lose the gains they had made in personal freedom, equality in the workplace and new areas of employment. And in the years following the war women did received the right to vote in many countries as a symbol thank you for the contributions women had made to the total war effort. There is no doubt that female participation in the war effort led Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and a number of European countries including Germany and Russia (France and Italy excepted) to extend suffrage to women in the years after the First World War.

VI. The Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles
To summarize the Paris Peace Conference is one sentence is easy: As the conference began, many people on both sides hoped for a just and fair settlement but what actually happened left a bitter legacy that laid the foundations of World War II – and the Cold War. The Allied powers began on a stern note. They did not allow the Central Powers to participate and threatened to renew the war if the terms they laid down were not accepted. Moreover, the British blockade of Germany remained in effect during the conference putting more pressure on Germany to agree to the Allied terms. It is important to note that the Soviet Union was not invited to participate.

After the war, peace terms were decided at the Paris Peace Conference, which lasted from 1919 to 1920. All decision making was dominated by the Big Four: Woodrow Wilson (U.S.), David Lloyd George (U.K.), George Clemenceau (France) and Vittorio Orlando (Italy). (Modern textbooks seem to omit Orlando making it the Big Three) The victors drew up five treaties: one for each defeated nation: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire.

The Paris Peace Conference was characterized by clash between American idealism and European thirst for revenge. When he arrived from America, Wilson’s sincere desire was to make the World Safe for Democracy and to prevent Warfare against Mankind by eliminating the possibility of future wars with a just and lasting peace. These goals were reflected in his Fourteen Points which called for an end to secret treaties, freedom of the seas, free trade, arms reduction, decolonization, the rearrangement of European borders according to the “self-determination” of national groups and the establishment of an international dispute-resolution body called the League of Nations. 

It is important to remember that it was Wilson’s views that had prompted the Central Powers to accept Wilson’s fourteen points as a foundation for post war peace.

By contrast, Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Orlando were not interested in future peace; rather they wanted revenge and were determined to make Germany pay for the war. France in particular (which had never forgotten the humiliation of her defeat in the Franco Prussian War of 1871) wanted Germany to suffer and be made so weak that she could never threaten France again. Italy wanted Austrian land and German colonies and all three of these leaders vigorously opposed Wilson.

Very important to understand: George, Clemenceau and Orlando won the big points at Versailles and Wilson won only minor points.

Nevertheless, the treaties that resulted were the product of bitter negotiation and compromise. But Wilson got his cherished dream for world peace: the League of Nations. Ironically however, Wilson offended the Republican leaders in Congress (not even inviting one Republican Senator or Congressman to the Conference) and so America (led by a Republican controlled Senate) never joined the League and signed a separate peace treaty with Germany.

The dubious fruits of the Paris Peace Conference

The Treaty of Versailles
The Paris Peace Conference was settled by numerous treaties with the losers but the harshest was the Treaty of Versailles forced on Germany. First, Germany had to accept full blame for the war. Second, Germany lost 13% of its territory or about 25,000 square miles. Third, Alsace and Lorraine were given to France and part of Poland was created out of German land. The allies also were allowed to occupy the resource-rich Saar Basin until 1935. Germany’s Rhineland was to be occupied till 1935 as a demilitarized zone. Fourth, All of Germany’s overseas colonies were given to allied powers. Like the Middle East, German colonies in Africa were also placed under the Mandate System causing great cynicism and resentment in Germany. Fifth, Germany was forced to almost completely disarm and was allowed a token army of 100,000 soldiers with no military aircraft, large battleships, submarines or heavy artillery. Lastly and most harshly – and against Wilson’s advice, Germany was forced to agree to pay for the full cost of the war, about 32 billion 1919 dollars which would not be repaid until 1961.

As already noted, to heap insult upon injury, the Germans had not been allowed to participate at the peace talks and were required to accept the entire treaty - as the victors wrote it. The Germans, of course, did not believe that they were the only nation responsible for the war and bitterly resented being forced to admit the charge. They had lost territories which contained badly needed natural resources and they were facing – what to them – seemed an astronomical reparations bill. The German Prime Minister, Philipp Scheidmann (1865-1939), called the treaty an imprisonment of the German people and asked, “What hand would not wither that binds itself and us in these fetters.” Nevertheless, the Social Democrats and the Catholic Center Party formed the backbone of the Weimar government that ruled Germany until Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.

The League of Nations
Wilson’s one big victory was the creation of the League of Nations. The league was not designed to be an international government but a body of sovereign states which agreed to follow common policies and consult on matters of common interest. The League of Nation was historic because it was the first international security organization whose principal function was to avoid future destructive wars and ensure peace among all nations. Every signatory of the Paris Peace Treaties was obliged to join the League of Nations. Even without United States’ participation, it seemed like a promising start with twenty six of the original members being non-European countries.

BUT the League was doomed for two major reasons: First) Even though it was to be a peace keeping force, it had no power to enforce its decisions on its members except by means of economic sanctions. Second) The League relied on Collective Security or a security arrangement, in which each member in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace. Moreover, the exclusion of Germany and Russia foreshadowed the future ineffectiveness of the league.

The Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria
The Ottoman Empire was likewise stripped of all its possession but Great Britain, France and Italy were unwilling to apply self-determination to the newly freed peoples.  They wanted to create new colonies but since the United States objected, Southwestern Asia (the Middle East) was placed under temporary French and British control or trusteeship, according to a Mandate System, under which the League of Nations would help supervise these areas, which were to be prepared for eventual independence. Syria and Lebanon became French Mandates; Iraq, Jordan and Palestine became British Mandates.

This greatly disappointed these states who had been promised freedom in exchange for helping the British during the war. The British moreover compounded their colonialist blunders by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain agreed in principle to the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. However, the declaration delayed the question indefinitely but, nevertheless, bitterly antagonized the Palestinian and Arab populations.

The Allies occupied Istanbul and the Ottoman government collapsed. Then a failed Greek invasion of Western Anatolia provoked a spirit of Turkish nationalism and brought to power the young general and hero of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal, who drove the Greeks out of Anatolia and won a new and more favorable peace treaty, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Kemal (who came to be called Ataturk or Father of the Turks) abolished the sultanate and made Turkey a republic. As part of the settlement, thousands of Turks living in southeastern Europe were expelled and sent to live in the Ottoman Empire. Likewise, large numbers of Greeks living in the Ottoman Empire were forced to move to Greece. Although, the population was overwhelming Muslim, Kemal’s Turkey was a Westward looking secular state.

Bulgaria accepted Allied terms and lost only small portions of her territory because the Allies thought that any major territorial changes in Bulgarian sovereignty would destabilize the entire Balkan Peninsula.

Italy
Italy had suffered greatly during the war (650 million dead soldiers and as many civilians) and was on the brink of bankruptcy. Nevertheless, Italy received some Austrian territory, but not all that was promised, causing much disillusionment, especially because some of the territory they had been promised was given to the newly formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Italian disillusionment and socialist agitation would lead to the rise of Benito Mussolini.

Austria and Hungary
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved as well as the union between Austria and Hungary. Both Austria and Hungary now became small second-class nations. Over three million disillusioned German-speaking Austrians were now forced to live outside the Austrian Republic. And to rub more salt into the wound, the Allies prohibited Austria and Germany from entering into any kind of political union. The Magyars retained their kingdom but were particularly embittered as they too lost so many ethnic Hungarians to newly formed nations.

Nine New European Nations
Mainly out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but also out of lands lost by Germany and Russia, the new countries of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were created. This was done in accordance with Wilson’s principle of self-determination. But this process was not always fair or uniform. These nine new Eastern European nations were – with few exceptions – inexperienced in self-government, plagued by nationalist tensions and forced to struggle with weak economies.  

One third of Poland’s population, for example, did not speak Polish, being mostly German or Russian. Czechoslovakia was a multi-ethnic state whose population consisted of Czechs (51%), Slovaks (16%), Germans (22%), Hungarians (5%) and Russians (4%). Many of the Germans and Slovaks in particular felt oppressed and ignored. Moreover, Germans and Austrians not only lost territory containing ethnic Germans but were also denied the right to form one nation. Yugoslavia (which was supposed to be a united Serbian state) was 87% Slavic (Croats, Slovenes, Serbs) but with significant German, Albanian and Hungarian minorities; religiously, the country was 90% Christian but almost 10% Muslim. And these ethnic and religious stresses coupled with an agrarian, non-industrial economy caused much unrest.

The Long Term Consequences of World War I

Everybody Lost
The German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires all had fallen. The victors had all suffered terrible losses of men and prestige. Over ten million soldiers and seven million civilians died as a result of the war. The British Empire and all allied colonial powers were shaken. Germany, Great Britain and France suffered an entire generation of War Widows. To quote Angela Lambert in Unquiet Souls, “Their loss (the dead killed at the Somme) was a blow which it seemed the country would never recover from and never forget.” Moreover, Japan and Italy, although on the winning side, felt cheated. The United States had become a World Power, but retreated from world affairs. The national economies of most Allied Powers (the United States the big exception) and all the Central Powers were seriously damaged. The direct costs of the war exceeded 180 billion dollars with indirect costs adding another 150 billion.

Global Instability: Russia was in shambles. After a terrible civil war (Whites vs. Reds and a million dead) the Tsarist regime and representative government were replaced by the Soviet Union. In Eastern Europe, the nine new nations were created -with few exceptions - were inexperienced and weak. Nationalist tensions with many were high, like Czechoslovakia. Many suffered from economic difficulties. The mandated states of the Middle East felt betrayed and the League of Nations would prove to be useless. China entered the allied side late, but received no support from its fellow victors and had to make concessions to Japan while the government struggled to control the warlords.

Social and political Transformation: Although WW I did not cause this tend, it helped accelerate it. Even before the war, the political power, social influence and economic clout of the traditional aristocracy had been vanishing, while that of the middle and lower classes had been rising.

Women’s Suffrage: Mostly due to the economic role they played during the war, when they proved they could do “man’s work” women gained a great deal of respect, not just in the workplace, but in the public sphere overall. Perhaps the most important result of this was that, in most Western nations, women gained the vote during or just after WWI.  This happened in Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Russia, Britain, and the United States; only Italy and France resisted this trend and did not given women the vote until the 1940s.

German Resentment: Germany was economically and politically wrecked. The Kaiser had abdicated and fled. A new government was formed at Weimar making Germany a democratic republic with a president and chancellor. The Paris Peace Conference produced a flawed peace. It was a crucial part of the 1871 + 1919 = Adolf Hitler formula. The allies’ greed and revenge set into motion such humiliation and suffering that when Hitler promised to erase the shame of Versailles, Germans gave him their loyalty.

Decline in European Economic and Global Power: Although the nations of Europe were still able to maintain the appearance of great powers, they had been badly drained by WWI. Even the victors’ economies were in distress, and those of the losers were in shambles. The victors would find it increasingly difficult to maintain control of their colonial empires.

Sense of uncertainly and Anxiety in European Culture: Even before WWI, the prevailing faith in progress that had characterized Europe’s cultural and intellectual life during most of the nineteenth century had been waning. The destruction, suffering and despair caused by the WAR, not to mention the economic meltdown, only made this sense of uncertainty and anxiety worse, bring it to the forefront of European culture.