World war 1

World war 1

World War 1 (28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918) is also known as THE GREAT WAR, THE WAR TO END ALL WARS and GLOBAL WAR.

It is called as Great War because a lot of people died in that war.

CASUALTIES:

·        Approximately 17 Million people died in that war

·        11 Million were combatants.

·        6 million were civilians.

·        Also 20 million wounded in that war.

So this is one of the deadliest conflicts that human history has ever known.

THE BELLIGERENTS:

Another reason of why it is called one of the greatest wars because many countries were at war for the first time.

There were two groups in the war: ALLIED POWERS and CENTERAL POWERS

RUSSIA, FRANCE, BRITAIN, USA (1917-18) and JAPAN were the part of ALLIED POWERS.

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE, GERMANY and OTTOMAN EMPIRE were the parts of CENTERAL POWERS.

CAUSES OF THE WAR:-

There were generally four main causes of the war:-

1.     MILITARISM: Many countries built a large number of armies, weapons like machine guns, tanks, large naval ships. All these gave rise to a culture of militarism.

Britain and Germany were the leaders in that militarism. In these countries there was a huge race to make huge armies, new weapons etc. Entire industrial complexes were used for the purpose of military. The purpose of some companies was just to empower the enemies.

This militarism spread to other countries also like France, Russia but they were really behind at that time.

2.     ALLIANCE SYSTEM: It is considered as one of the most important cause. Europe in 19^th century had a large no. of alliances and many countries had alliances with each other; some of them were also secret alliance.

Two main alliance system of that time:

(i)                TRIPLE ALLAINCE (1882): Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy made the triple alliance.

(ii)             TRIPLE ENTENTE (1907): France, Britain and Russia made the triple entente.

3.     IMPERIALISM: All the Europeans powers wanted to make colonies and they made large colonies in Asia and Africa. They had a scramble in Africa. They sold and used them to entice other countries.

For example: India sent 13 lakh soldiers in WW1 (at that time it was really a very big number).

4.     NATIONALISM: Europe was swept by a nationalistic wave in 19^th century.

Germany, Italy, Baltic States were swept by nationalistic fervor. Everyone wanted their own country. They wanted to become independents from old empires and old kings.

Along with Nationalism there was a belief that Wars led to Glory.

5.     SOME OTHER CAUSES: (i) Russia wanted to have control and influence over Straits of Dardanelles as to Russia to connect to the rest of the world, this area is very important.

This was controlled by Ottoman Empire

(ii) Illusions of wars: Because of the huge industrial technological progress in 19^th century people thought that any war would be over in a few months.

(iii) War was glorified, it was considered as inevitable and a necessity for nations to grow and develop.

(iv)Many nationalistic movements were also going on that time in Serbia, Bosnia etc.

6. IMMEDIATE CAUSE: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were assassinated by Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo prince and other members of ‘Black Hand’ in SARAJEVO on 28June 1914.

He was the Son of the King’s brother. He was going to be the new ruler of Austria-Hungary.

It was said that Black Hand organisation was supported by Serbians and they planned this assassination.

EVENTS LEADING TO WAR –JULY CRISIS:

Austria-Hungary sent humiliating terms to Serbia. They blamed the Serbia for the assassination and Serbia went to Russia for help. Russia mobilized (its army) in support of Slavic Serbia.

Here you have to understand Russia didn’t started the army they mobilized their army.

On the other hand Austria-Hungary had a treaty with Germany and Germany gave A-H empire a ‘blank cheque’ (do whatever you want we are in your support).

And A-H and Germany declared war on Serbia.
Because of this Russia declared war on Germany and because Russia and France had a treaty France declared war on Germany.

German army went via Belgium (neutral country) to France to prevent them from French army to come to them.

As soon as they entered Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany (because Belgium and Britain had a treaty i.e. Treaty of London 1839).

Germany got initial success in France and great success against Russian armies on the Eastern Front.

Ottoman Empire attacked Russia, tried to capture Suez canal (as it was the connecting link between British islands and India).

THE TRENCHES: 

Trenches are the deep pit in which soldier live,eat, fighting wars.

Health conditions and sanitation was very poor. France and Germany frontier was entirely covered by Trenches. It was of around 600 Km.

In these trenches many soldiers died due to health issues. Whenever they had to capture a small area, they had to lost many soldiers for that.

There was a very famous battle called Battle of Somme in which 80,000 soldiers of allied army died on a single day.

GLOBAL WAR:  Why it is called global war?

Because there was fighting all over the world.

Fighting in multiple colonies of Africa: Togo, Tanzania, Cameroon.

Micronesian and Chinese colonies of Germany were attacked by Japan (Japan attacked because Japan and UK also had a treaty).

Ottoman ships bombarded black sea ports of Russia (Sevastopol and Odessa).

There was a very famous campaign GALLIPOLI. In this campaign many soldiers died (there were also Trenches like France, but here they died because of heat).

Naval War: Germany U boats attacked allied ships. Later they started attacking civilian ships and that became a big reason for USA to get involved in the world war.

ROLE OF INDIANS IN WORLD WAR:

·        1.3 million Indians served under the British Army.

·        They served mainly in Middle East (Mesopotamia), Egypy.

·        Around 50,000 soldiers died fighting for the British.

·        For that British built the memorial called India Gate in New Delhi