Causes of World War I

The causes of World War I are still debated by historians, but all explanations include the following to varying degrees:

• The nationalities problem—10 distinct linguistic and ethnic groups lived within the borders of Austria–Hungary, and all were agitating for either greater autonomy or independence.

• The rise of Germany and the Alliance System—after unification in 1871, Bismarck sought security in the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy); Britain, France, and Russia countered with the Triple Entente. The alliance system was supposed to make war between the major powers too costly; instead, its assurance of military reprisal limited diplomatic options.

• The Anglo-German rivalry—the unification of Germany and its rise as an industrial and military power generated a heated rivalry between Germany and Great Britain.

• The assassination of the Austrian Archduke—the assassination, on June 28, 1914, of the heir to the Hapsburg throne by a young Bosnian patriot brought the nationalities problem to a crisis stage.

• German military planning—Germany was convinced that war with the Triple Entente countries was inevitable. Accordingly, it devised a strategy, known as the Schlieffen Plan, for a two-front war that called for a military thrust westward toward Paris at the first sign of Russian mobilization in the east. The hope was to knock the French out of the war before the Russians could effectively mobilize.

Basic Chronology, 1914–1915

• On July 23, 1914, Austria, at Germany’s urging, moved to crack down on Serbian nationalism.

• On July 28, 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia. Russia began military mobilization as a show of support for Serbia; that mobilization triggered the Schlieffen Plan.

• On August 4, 1914, the German Army invaded Belgium heading for Paris. In the first 16 months of combat, France suffered roughly half of all its war casualties. Two-thirds of a million men were killed.

• Belgian resistance provided time for British troops to join the battle in late August, but they joined a retreat.

• Russian troops mobilized faster than expected and invaded Eastern Prussia. On August 26, 1914, German commander Helmuth von Moltke transferred troops from the Western Front to the Eastern. The victory by the Germans at the Battle of Tannenberg led to the liberation of East Prussia and began a slow steady German advance eastward, but the timetable of the Schlieffen Plan was altered and the Germans were doomed to fight a two-front war.

• On September 6, 1914, French troops met the Germans at the First Battle of Marne.

• October and November 1914 saw a series of local engagements aimed at outflanking the enemy, sometimes known as the Race for the Sea, which extended the front line west until it reached the English Channel.

• The British determination to hold onto the entire French Coast stretched the front north through Flanders. In the First Battle of Ypres in October and November of 1914, the German advance was halted for good, leading to a stalemate and the beginning of trench warfare.

Total War

When the war was declared in 1914, it was met with a joyous enthusiasm all across Europe. Explanations for this reaction include:

• a fascination with militarism that pervaded European culture

• feelings of fraternity or brotherhood that a war effort brought out in people who lived in an increasingly fragmented and divided society

• a sense of Romantic adventurism that cast the war as an alternative to the mundane, working life of industrial Europe

Additionally, there were several shared expectations among Europeans as they went to war:

• Recent experience, such as the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, suggested that the war would be brief; most expected it to last about six weeks.

• Each side was confident of victory.

• Each side expected a war of movement, full of cavalry charges and individual heroism.

The reality was a war of nearly five years of trench warfare and the conversion of entire economies to the war effort. As both sides literally dug in, soldiers fought from a network of trenches up to 30 feet deep and often flooded with water and infested with rats and lice. Military commanders, who commanded from rear-guard positions, continued to launch offensive attacks, ordering soldiers “over the top” to the mercy of the machine guns that lined enemy trenches.

Total war also meant changes on the home front, some of which would have lasting consequences:

• Governments took direct control of industries vital to the war effort.

• Labor unions worked with businesses and the government to relax regulations on working hours and conditions.

• Class lines were blurred as people from all walks of life worked side by side to aid the war effort.

• Women were drawn into the industrial workforce in greater numbers and gained access to jobs that had traditionally been reserved for men.

Basic Chronology, 1916: “The Year of Bloodletting”

In 1916 a war of attrition was fought in trenches in France and Flanders, as each side tried to exhaust the resources of the other.

• In February 1916, French troops led by Marshall Petain repulsed a German offensive at the Battle of Verdun; 700,000 men were killed.

• From July to November 1916, the British attempted an offensive that has come to be known as the Battle of the Somme; by its end, 400,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 German soldiers lay dead.

• On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Several factors triggered the American entry, including the sinking of American vessels by German U-boats and the Zimmerman Note (a diplomatic correspondence of dubious origin, purporting to reveal a deal between Germany and Mexico).

Russian Revolution and Withdrawal

In March of 1917, food shortages and disgust with the huge loss of life exploded into a revolution that forced the tsar’s abdication. The new government, dominated by a coalition of liberal reformers and moderate socialists (sometimes referred to as Mensheviks), opted to continue the war effort.

In November of 1917, a second revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power.

A party of revolutionary Marxists, led by Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, who went by the name of Lenin, the Bolsheviks saw the war as a battle between two segments of the bourgeoisie fighting over the power to exploit the proletariat. Accordingly, the Bolsheviks decided to abandon the war and consolidate their revolutionary gains within Russia. They signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March of 1918, surrendering Poland, the Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic provinces to Germany.

Shortly after the signing of the treaty, Russia was engulfed by civil war. Anti-communist groups, generally called the Whites in contrast to the communist Reds, were led by members of the old tsarist elite intent upon defending their privileges. Both sides received support from foreign governments and for more than three years, from December 1917 to November 1920, the Bolshevik regime was engaged in a life-and-death struggle which it ultimately won.

Germany’s Disintegration and the Peace Settlement

Germany launched one last great offensive in March of 1918 through the Somme toward Paris. The “Allies,” as the French, British, and U.S. coalition came to be known, responded by uniting their troops under a single commander, the French General Ferdinand Foch, for the first time. French troops were reinforced by fresh British conscripts and 600,000 American troops. By July 1918, the tide had turned in the Allies’ favor for good. German forces retreated slowly along the whole Western Front. In early September, the German high command informed its government that peace had to be made at once. On November 9, 1918, the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, abdicated, and two days later representatives of a new German government agreed to terms that amounted to an unconditional surrender.

Peace negotiations began in Paris in January of 1919 and were conducted by the victors; Germany was forced to accept the terms dictated to it. The French delegation was led by Georges Clemenceau, who desired to make sure that Germany could never threaten France again. The U.S. delegation was led by President Woodrow Wilson, who approached the peace talks with bold plans for helping to build a new Europe that could embrace the notions of individual rights and liberty that he believed characterized the United States. Britain was represented by David Lloyd George, who tried to mediate between the vindictive Clemenceau and the idealistic Wilson.

The result was a series of five treaties that have collectively come to be known as the Treaty of Versailles. The overall settlement sometimes referred to as the Peace of Paris, contained much that was unprecedented and much that sowed the seeds of further conflict. Among the more significant aspects of the settlement were the following:

• The Germans were forced to pay $5 billion annually in reparations until 1921, with no guarantee as to the total amount (the final amount was set at $33 billion in 1921).

• New independent nations were set up in eastern Europe as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia were created out of the old Austria–Hungary, while Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were created out of the western part of the old Russian empire.

• Germany, in what came to be known as “the war guilt clause,” was forced to accept full blame for the war.

• Germany was stripped of all its overseas colonies.

• Alsace and Lorraine, taken by Germany during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, were returned to France.

• The Allies were given the right to occupy German territories on the west bank of the Rhine River for 15 years.

• Germany’s armed forces were limited to 100,000 soldiers and saddled with armament limitations.