A Simple Guide To The World War 1

World War One, also known as the First World War, Great War or War of Wars, was fought between 1914 and 1918. It claimed ten million lives and forever changed the political map of Europe. The causes were complex and had been building up for many years. Under the terms of a treaty signed in 1892, if one of the Triple Alliance armies was mobilised, then France and Russia would mobilise their armies too. It wasn't long before all the Great Powers (apart from Italy) had gone to war.

Even with modern history, like the causes of the First World War, historians can disagree. Events had been building for about 30 years before war broke out. In 1871, the states of Germany defeated France in the Franco-Prussian war. The German states united after that to form an empire with a greater ability to develop a strong military force. During the first few years of the twentieth century, an increase in German military strength and their foreign policy worried several nations, including Great Britain, France and Russia.

The balance of power in Europe had become less stable. Two key alliances had been formed - one between Germany, Austria and Italy and another between Great Britain, France and Russia.

The countries had other alliances too, so when a Serbian assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, they wanted justice. They issued several demands to Serbia. Serbia, supported by Russia, only partially accepted Austro-Hungarian demands, so Austria-Hungary broke diplomatic relations with Serbia. When a group of Serbian reserve soldiers crossed into Austro-Hungarian territory, shots were fired and war was declared on Serbia.

Germany had a military plan called the Schlieffen Plan. They planned to invade France via the neutral country of Belgium. When they put this into action, a treaty between Belgium and Great Britain meant that Great Britain declared war on Germany. The German attack was stopped at the River Marne. Both sides dug trenches and the Western Front was established. During the next four years, the exact position of the front changed little until August 1918.

On the Western Front, the First World War was fought from trenches. These trenches stretched from the English Channel right the way across France to Switzerland. That was a distance of 400 miles. Conditions in the trenches was not pleasant for the soldiers. They were often cold and wet, moving around in mud, pestered by rats and fighting disease as well as the enemy. In some places, the trenches were a few tens of metres apart and it was possible to hear the enemy talking and smell what they were cooking!

During the rest of the war, the British Generals prohibited their soldiers from showing any friendliness towards the Germans. The Pope had already suggested there should be a Christmas truce but that was officially rejected by military commanders.

The first two months of the war involved large movements of troops with battles being fought in Belgium and France. During the rest of 1914, the opposing armies dug in. They created systems of trenches close to the front line, often just a few tens of metres apart. Behind the front line trenches were a network of other trenches to allow the soldiers to move around. There were also underground shelters where they could sleep in reasonable safety when they were not on duty at the front. In order to attack the Germans, the troops went over the top - in other words, they climbed out of the trench and advanced across no man's land.

In 1915, there was a stalemate when neither side gained or lost much territory. Britain tried to break this by attempting to open a second front in Turkey at Gallipoli. This failed and cost the lives of tens of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders. During the period of 1916 to 1918, it was a war of attrition. Each side threw huge numbers of soldiers into battle to try to wear down the other armies. The battles of this part of the war lasted months and claimed the lives of millions of men. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Battle of the Somme.

You may have heard about the lost generation of young men who sacrificed their lives during World War One. It can also be used in the sense that lost means disorientated and directionless in life, as that described how many of the young survivors felt after the war. The horrors they had seen and the constant noise and stress deeply affected the minds of many people coming back from the war. The condition of being shell shocked was applied to people who suffered from a nervous breakdown during the war. In extreme cases, the condition lasted many years after the war had finished.

During the First World War, many people were moved to write poems about their experiences. Vera Brittain was a nurse who lost her brother, fiancé and a close friend and Eleanor Farjeon, the author of books for children, were two of them not directly involved in the fighting at the front line.

Some of the best known front line soldiers who were poets are Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Many people regard Wilfred Owen as the greatest of the war poets. Sadly, he was killed just a week before the war ended in 1918. Sassoon survived and died aged 80 in the 1960s.

At the outbreak of the First World War, the German army executed a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, designed to quickly attack France through Belgium before turning southwards to encircle the French army on the German border. Things didn't go to plan for the German army. They were slowed down, but not stopped in the Battle of Mons, by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The Germans were finally stopped at the first battle of the Marne and trench warfare began.

At the start of the war, the British Prime Minister was Herbert Asquith. He believed that the way the war was conducted should be left in the hands of the army generals. After several failed campaigns and huge loss of life, Asquith resigned and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George took over.

Lloyd George was much more active in the direction that the war took. He organised supply ships into convoys so that more food and other supplies could reach the UK from the USA. He also believed that an attack on the Germans in Belgium could lead to the collapse of the German army and he managed to persuade the war council to authorise the Battle of Passchendaele.

During the First World War, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as the tank. Britain and France were its primary users; the Germans employed captured Allied tanks. The first tanks were unreliable and unpleasant to drive. They were more likely to break down than to be destroyed by the enemy.

On November 11th 1918, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railway carriage at Compiègne. In theory, Germany and the Allies were still at war until the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Legally, the war with Germany lasted until 10th January 1920. Several other treaties were signed with the other countries and the geography of Europe changed significantly. Germany had no say in the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. As a result, the people of Germany felt they had not been treated with justice. They had to pay large sums of money to the Allies as compensation. This resentment allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power in the 1930s and was a major factor contributing to the Second World War.