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Australia in WWI

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Summary

Australia's involvement in the First World War began when Britain and Germany went to war on 4 August 1914, and both Prime Minister Joseph Cook and Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher, who were in the midst of an election campaign, pledged full support for Britain. The outbreak of war was greeted in Australia, as in many other places, with great enthusiasm.

The first significant Australian action of the war was the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force's (ANMEF) landing on Rabaul on 11 September 1914. The ANMEF took possession of German New Guinea at Toma on 17 September 1914 and of the neighbouring islands of the Bismarck Archipelago in October 1914. On 9 November 1914 the Royal Australian Navy made a major contribution when HMAS Sydney destroyed the German raider SMS Emden.

On 25 April 1915 members of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) landed on Gallipoli in Turkey with troops from New Zealand, Britain, and France. This began a campaign that ended with an evacuation of allied troops beginning in December 1915. The next year Australian forces fought campaigns on the Western Front and in the Middle East.

Throughout 1916 and 1917 losses on the Western Front were heavy and gains were small. In 1918 the Australians reached the peak of their fighting performance in the battle of Hamel on 4 July. From 8 August they then took part in a series of decisive advances until they were relieved in early October. Germany surrendered on 11 November.

The Middle East campaign began in 1916 with Australian troops taking part in the defence of the Suez Canal and the allied re-conquest of the Sinai Desert. In the following year Australian and other allied troops advanced into Palestine and captured Gaza and Jerusalem; by 1918 they had occupied Lebanon and Syria and on 30 October 1918 Turkey sued for peace.

For Australia, the First World War remains the costliest conflict in terms of deaths and casualties. From a population of fewer than five million, 416,809 men enlisted, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner.

History

When Britain declared war against Germany in August 1914, Australia, as a dominion of the British Empire, was automatically also at war. While thousands rushed to volunteer, most of the men accepted into the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914 were sent first to Egypt, not Europe, to meet the threat which a new belligerent, the Ottoman Empire, posed to British interests in the Middle East and the Suez Canal.

After four and a half months of training near Cairo, the Australians departed by ship for the Gallipoli peninsula, along with troops from New Zealand, Britain, and France. On 25 April 1915 the Australians landed at what became known as Anzac Cove, whereupon they established a tenuous foothold on the steep slopes above the beach. During the early days of the campaign the allies tried to break through Turkish lines, while the Turks tried to drive the allied troops off the peninsula. Attempts on both sides ended in failure and the ensuing stalemate continued for the remainder of 1915. In fact, the most successful operation of the campaign was the large-scale evacuation of troops on 19 and 20 December. As a result of a carefully planned deception operation, the Turks were unable to inflict more than a very few casualties on the withdrawing forces.

After Gallipoli the AIF was reorganised and expanded from two to five infantry divisions, all of which were progressively transferred to France, beginning in March 1916. The light horse regiments that had served as additional infantry during the Gallipoli campaign remained in the Middle East. By the time the other AIF divisions arrived in France, the war on the Western Front had long been in a stalemate, with the opposing armies facing each other from trench systems that extended across Belgium and north-east France, all the way from the English Channel to the Swiss border. The development of machine-guns and artillery favoured defensive over offensive operations, and this compounded the impasse that lasted until the final months of the war.

While the fighting continued throughout 1916 and 1917, the Australians and other allied armies repeatedly attacked the German trenches, preceded by massive artillery bombardments intended to cut barbed wire and destroy defences. After these bombardments, waves of attacking infantry would emerge from the trenches into no man's land and advance towards the enemy positions. The surviving Germans, protected by deep and heavily reinforced bunkers, were usually able to repel the attackers with machine-gun fire and artillery support from the rear. These attacks often resulted in limited territorial gains followed, in turn, by German counter-attacks. Although this style of warfare favoured the defensive armies, both sides sustained heavy losses.

In July 1916 Australian troops were introduced to this type of combat at Fromelles, where they suffered 5,533 casualties in 24 hours. By the end of the year about 40,000 Australians had been killed or wounded on the Western Front. In 1917 a further 76,836 Australians became casualties in battles such Bullecourt, Messines, and the four-month campaign around Ypres known as the battle of Passchendaele.

In March 1918 the German army launched a massive Spring Offensive, hoping for a decisive victory before the industrial strength of the United States could be fully mobilised in support of the allies. The Germans initially met with great success, advancing 64 kilometres past the Somme battlefields of 1916, but eventually lost momentum. Between April and November the stalemate of the preceding years began to give way. When the German offensive failed, the allied armies began their own counter-offensive combining infantry, artillery, tanks, and aircraft to great effect, demonstrated in the Australian capture of Hamel on 4 July 1918. Beginning on 8 August, this offensive contributed to further Australian successes at Mont St Quentin and Péronne and to the capture of the Hindenburg Line. In early October, after the fighting at Montbrehain, the Australian divisions withdrew from the front for rest and refitting; they were preparing to return to the fighting when Germany signed the Armistice on 11 November.

The Australians in the Middle East fought a mobile war against the Ottoman Empire in conditions completely different from the mud and stagnation of the Western Front. Mounted troops of the Australian Light Horse and the Imperial Camel Corps endured extreme heat, harsh terrain, and water shortages, yet casualties were comparatively light, with 1,394 Australians killed or wounded in three years of fighting.

The desert campaign began in 1916 when Australian troops took part in the defence of the Suez Canal and the allied action to take back the Sinai Desert. In the following year Australian troops participated in a British push into Palestine that captured Gaza and Jerusalem; by 1918 they had occupied Lebanon and Syria and were riding into Damascus. On 30 October 1918 Turkey sued for peace.

Australians also served at sea and in the air. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN), under the command of the British Royal Navy, made a significant contribution early in the war, when HMAS Sydney destroyed the German raider SMS Emden near the Cocos-Keeling Islands in November 1914. The Great War was the first armed conflict in which aircraft were used; some 3,000 Australian airmen served with the Australian Flying Corps in the Middle East and France, mainly in observation capacities or providing air support for the infantry.

Australian women volunteered for service in auxiliary roles: as cooks, nurses, drivers, interpreters, munitions workers, and farm workers. While the government welcomed the service of nurses into the armed forces, it generally rejected offers from women in other professions to serve overseas. Australian nurses served in Egypt, France, Greece, and India, often in trying conditions or close to the front, where they were exposed to shelling and aerial bombardment as well as outbreaks of disease.

The effects of the war were also felt at home. Families and communities grieved for the loss of so many men, and women increasingly assumed the physical and financial burden of caring for families. Anti-German feeling also emerged with the outbreak of the war, and many Germans living in Australia were sent to internment camps. Censorship and surveillance, regarded by many as an excuse to silence political views that had no effect on the outcome of war, increased as the conflict continued. Social division also grew, reaching a climax in the bitterly contested (and unsuccessful) conscription referendums of 1916 and 1917. When the war ended, thousands of ex-servicemen and servicewomen, many disabled with physical or emotional wounds, had to be re-integrated into a society keen to consign the war to the past and resume normal life.

Sources and further reading:

C.E.W. Bean, , Penguin Books Australia, New York, 1993.

J. Beaumont, Australia's war 1914-1918, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, New South Wales, 1995.

Peter Dennis et al., The Oxford companion to Australian military history, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995.

Essays, articles, and talks

The Australian Flying Corps

"Eulogy of the Unknown Australian Soldier" (audio and transcript)

Articles from Wartime, the Memorial's official magazine:

David Chalk, "The great Harry Murray", Wartime 8 (1999)

Ross McMullin, "Bendigo's original Anzac" Wartime 8 (1999)

Betty Snowden, "Iso Rae in Étaples: another perspective of war", Wartime 8 (1999)

Peter Burness, "Then and now: a camera on the Western Front", Wartime 8 (1999)

Chris Coulthard-Clark, "Anzacs in Iraq", Wartime 14 (2001)

Nola Anderson, "Captured in colour", Wartime 24 (2003)

Peter Burness, "The big guns" Wartime 26 (2004)

Peter Cochrane, "Soldier snaps on the Western Front", Wartime 27 (2004)

Peter Burness, "Inspirational bravery", Wartime 32 (2005)

Andrew Gray, "Courage at Lone Pine", Wartime 34 (2006)

Ross McMullin, "Disaster at Fromelles", Wartime 36 (2006)

Peter Hart, "The real fight for Gallipoli", Wartime 38 (2007)

Articles from the Journal of the Australian War Memorial

From the collection

Find a person

Roll of Honour: details of members of the Australian armed forces who died while on active service

First World War Nominal Roll: details of approximately 324,000 AIF personnel, recorded to assist with their repatriation to Australia from overseas service following the First World War; see the introduction for further details

First World War Embarkation Roll: details of approximately 330,000 AIF personnel, recorded as they embarked from Australia for overseas service during the First World War

Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files: approximately 32,000 individual case files of Australian personnel reported as wounded or missing during the First World War

Exhibitions

External links

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Australia's involvement in the First World War began when Britain and Germany went to war on 4 August 1914, and both Prime Minister Joseph Cook and Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher, who were in the midst of an election campaign, pledged full support for Britain.

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European colonies involvement with WWI

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As most of the European colonial powers that held African territories became involved in the First World War as belligerents, large parts of Africa were affected by the war in one way or another. Apart from fighting in Africa and economic exploitation to support the colonial powers' war efforts, voluntary and forced migration of soldiers and war workers to Europe was another aspect of Africa's involvement in the war. Altogether about 440,000 indigenous soldiers, alongside 140,000 settlers of European descent and 268,000 indigenous war workers were shipped over from Africa to Europe between 1914 and 1918. This article will first outline the numbers and origins of African soldiers fighting in the armies of different European powers as well as the ways they were deployed. It then explores Africans' war experience, its impact on colonial societies and European perceptions of African troops in the European theatres of war.

African Contingents in the French Army ↑

France was the country that most extensively made use of African soldiers in European theatres of war. North African soldiers had already served in the Crimean War (1854-1856), in the 1859 Italian War and in the Franco-German War of 1870/71. Several campaigns in the immediate pre-war period had raised African colonial troops' profile. After the first Morocco crisis in 1905/6, army general and radical politician Adolphe Messimy (1869-1935) petitioned for the extension of compulsory military service to Muslim Algerians and a 1912 decree eventually allowed for their forced recruitment if numbers of volunteers fell short of requirements. From 1909 on, colonial officer Charles Mangin (1866-1925) campaigned for a large armée noire (black army) to be recruited in West Africa and trained for deployment in European wars. He argued that demographic development would create an increasing gap between France and Germany's available military manpower and that West Africans were especially suited to be shock troops in an industrialised war because their allegedly less developed nervous system made them immune to the noise of battle. As a result, a 1912 decree allowed for forced recruitment in French West Africa and for the use of these troops outside the colony.

Between 1914 and 1918, the French deployed approximately 450,000 indigenous troops from Africa, including West Africans (so-called Tirailleurs Sénégalais), Algerians (so-called Turcos and Spahis), Tunisians, Moroccans, Malagasies, and Somalis, most of whom saw deployment in Europe. Settlers of European origin provided another 110,000 soldiers from North Africa ( Chasseurs d'Afrique and Zouaves) and some of the 5,700 men in "créole" units from the old Senegalese cities and ports were also of European extraction. On the other hand, a suggestion made by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) in 1918 to hire up to 200,000 Ethiopian mercenaries never materialised. Immediately after World War I French African troops would serve as occupation forces in the German Rhineland (1919 to 1930) as well as in South Eastern Hungary (1919 to 1929) and formed part of the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war (1918 to 1920).

African troops in the French army, whose numbers massively increased in the second half of the war, mainly fought on the Western front and participated in all major battles there. Additionally they were deployed in the 1915 Dardanelles expedition and in the Balkans. After heavy losses in the first battles in 1914, a new doctrine for the deployment of Africans was applied. They no longer fought as independent units, but were "amalgamated" with European troops. Every regiment of the troupes coloniales (colonial troops) which were composed of Europeans, got a West African battalion. North African troops were often amalgamated into so-called régiments mixtes (mixed regiments) together with European settlers from North Africa. This doctrine also aimed at preventing the defection of Muslim soldiers to the Germans, who were using their alliance with the Ottoman Empire to pose as friends of Islam and even to recruit Muslim POWs to the Central Powers' cause. From 1917 on, with increasing numbers of African troops present at the Western Front, some of them were even incorporated into metropolitan units. Their task was most often to serve as shock troops in the first wave of attack.

Casualty figures of French African troops deployed in Europe to be found in official reports, unofficial accounts and in the historiography are rather unclear, ranging for West Africans from 25,000 to 65,000 soldiers killed, for Algerians from 12,000 to 100,000, for Moroccans from 2,500 to 9,000, and for Malagasies from 2,400 to 4,000. Figures in most recent scholarly publications typically confirm none of the extremes. These vague figures and their differing interpretation have led scholars to contradictory conclusions about whether African troops were misused as "cannon fodder." It would be too simplistic to base any judgment of the cannon fodder thesis on global figures of killed and wounded alone, for this neglects the temporal dimension of deployment. West African troops used to be withdrawn from the front and transferred to camps in southern France during the winter months. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of North and West Africans only came to Europe in the second half of the war. Thus, casualty rates should not be compared to overall figures of deployed soldiers, but to average figures. Joe Harris Lunn, analysing annual casualty rates of West Africans, concludes that the probability of a West African soldier being killed during his time at the front was two and a half times higher than that of a French infantryman.

For many, events in 1917 lend credence to the idea that the French army used its troops from the colonies as cannon fodder. On 16 April, General Robert Nivelle (1856-1924) launched an offensive in Champagne with participation of the Second Colonial Corps (including thirty-five West African battalions) under the command of General Mangin. The German counteroffensive cost the French army dearly: almost half of all the deployed West African soldiers died. Because of this Mangin became known as the "butcher" and at the end of April he was relieved of his command. Already before this incident French soldiers interpreted the emergence of African troops as an unmistakable sign that an attack was imminent. Henri Barbusse (1873-1935), for instance, in his novel , described Moroccan soldiers as follows: "They are imposing and even frighten a bit. [...] Of course they are heading for the front line. This is their place, and their arrival means we are about to attack. They are made for attacking."

French propaganda also developed similar themes: "From the very first hour on, African regiments had the privilege to occupy the most dangerous posts, which permitted them to enrich their book of traditions and past glory." A senior officer responsible for West Africans' training in the camp of Fréjus wrote in a letter in January 1918 that African soldiers were "cannon fodder, who should, in order to save whites' lives, be made use of much more intensively." And even Clemenceau, in a speech delivered to the French Senate on 20 February 1918, stated: "We are going to offer civilisation to the Blacks. They will have to pay for that [...] I would prefer that ten Blacks are killed rather than one Frenchman [...]!" Thus it is clear that there was at least the intention to assign colonial troops to especially dangerous tasks as shock troops, despite scholarly controversies on the interpretation of Africans' casualty rates as compared to Europeans'.

Africans in Other European Armies ↑

Unlike the French, the British were reluctant to deploy African troops in Europe. It is true that the British forces in the African and Middle Eastern campaigns included large numbers of African soldiers, and parts of the Indian Colonial Army were used in Europe from as early as autumn 1914 on. From 1916 on a campaign for a "million black army" following the French example was backed by several officers and politicians with colonial backgrounds, including Winston Churchill (1874-1965). But logistical issues, coupled with racist prejudices and opposition from colonial authorities in Africa, resulted in a renunciation of using such troops on European battlefields. Non-white men were also banned from the "South African Overseas Expeditionary Force" that sent about 30,000 soldiers to France. Black and "coloured" men from the Union of South Africa served in Europe in the "South African Native Labour Contingent" (21,000 men), the "Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport" (2,800 men) and the "Cape Coloured Labour Corps" (1,200 men), all of them in unarmed ancillary roles. However, a number of blacks resident in the United Kingdom managed to enlist in metropolitan British forces and some of them were even promoted to officer ranks.

Italy, on the other hand, tried to deploy African colonial troops in Europe which resulted in disaster. In August 1915, some 2,700 soldiers from Libya were shipped to Sicily. However, they did not enter the frontline because many soldiers died from pneumonia immediately after their arrival, and so, the Libyans, who were designated for Alpine warfare, were shipped home again after a short while. The Belgian government repeatedly discussed shipping in several thousand soldiers from the Congo, yet these plans would never materialise. Nevertheless, a small number of Congolese soldiers served on the Western front in metropolitan Belgian troops. The Portuguese didn't deploy any colonial units in Europe either, and the number of soldiers of African descent in the metropolitan Corpo Expedicionário Português that served on the Western Front from 1916 on is unknown. The Germans, as the only colonial power amongst the Central Powers, used plenty of African soldiers of their Schutztruppen in the African theatres of war, but they had never planned to deploy these troops in Europe and would not have been able to do so during World War I for logistical reasons anyway.

African Soldiers' War Experience and Its Impact on African Societies ↑

The massive recruitment of men in North and West Africa for overseas deployment presented enormous problems. Numbers of volunteers fell short of the French army's requirements by far and military authorities soon resorted to forced recruitment. This practice faced countless forms of opposition. In West Africa, local elites would usually try to hand over their servants to the recruiting officers in order to spare their own sons. Other forms of resistance included incidental cases of self-mutilation and fleeing into the bush or to Liberia, Gambia, Portuguese Guinea and to the Gold Coast, as well as armed rebellions against the colonial administration. A revolt in Bélédougou in 1915 undoubtedly stemmed from discontent over recruitment. During the great revolt in West Volta in 1915-16 and numerous rebellions in the north of Dahomey between 1916 and 1917 recruitment was at the very least a major trigger. In Algeria, opposition occurred as well. In the autumn of 1914, potential recruits and their families protested against conscription in various locations. Resistance to recruitment culminated in the winter of 1916-17 in a major uprising in the South Constantinois. In Tunisia there were a few minor revolts in 1915 and 1916.

In September 1917, the Governor-General of French West Africa, Joost Van Vollenhoven (1877-1918), ordered a temporary stop to recruitment because of his concerns over the disruption of economic life. However, in spite of this, in January 1918 the French government again raised the issue of recruiting more troops in Africa. Clemenceau demanded that both French West Africa and Algeria send another 50,000 men to the Western front. The government entrusted the organisation of the recruitment in West Africa to Blaise Diagne (1872-1934). Shortly before the war, he had become the first black African elected to the French parliament and now in an unprecedented move was endowed with powers equivalent to a Governor-General. Diagne promoted military service as a means to obtain political and legal rights after the war - something that would never materialize. By September 1918, he had recruited 63,000 new soldiers in West Africa, exceeding by far the expectations of the government in Paris. The end of the war spared these soldiers from actually having to fight at the front.

Even during World War I, and certainly ever since, observers raised questions about the impact on the colonial system of recruitment and the deployment of African troops in Europe. European fears that Africans would be revolutionised by this experience and use their newly gained confidence and military skills to turn weapons against their colonial masters were countered by the official French prophesy that service in the French army would boost Africans' assimilation and loyalty to France and returned veterans would become agents of French civilisation in Africa. The war experience arguably had a tremendous social and cultural impact on Africans. Many veterans, especially those of servile origin, would not return to their villages after the war, but rather chose to live in the colonial cities where there were better opportunities to profit from newly gained technical skills.

Three key sources for the study of African war experiences are Mohammed Ben Chérif's (1879-1921) autobiographical novel Ahmed Ben Mostapha. Goumier, Bakary Diallo's (1892-1978) memoirs entitled Force-bonté, and an extensive oral history study conducted by Joe Harris Lunn in the 1980s. Ahmed Ben Mostapha was the first novel by an Algerian author to appear in French in 1920. Ben Chérif had served as a cavalry officer and become a German prisoner of war in October 1914. The hero of this first person narrative is an Algerian officer fighting in the First World War and eventually dying in a German prisoners' camp. In this novel, Ben Chérif stressed the need for modernization of the Muslim community which was stagnating due to the adoration of its glorious past. His hero admires French culture, but at the same time is proud of being of nomadic descent.

Bakary Diallo's memoirs were published in 1926 as the first book in French authored by a Black African. Diallo had obviously strongly adhered to French colonial ideologies. He first describes himself and his comrades as being on the same level as French children who then gradually reached the higher stages of French civilisation thanks to military service, until they were completely assimilated and started even to dream in French. Diallo's war experience, however, differed from that of most of his comrades in several respects. He had volunteered for the French army as early as 1911, so he did not experience the forced conscription between 1914 and 1917 that traumatised West African populations. Diallo's front experience was not representative either as he was only there for a relatively short time. Already on 3 November 1914, he was wounded and afterwards promoted. He earned a distinction for bravery and was even granted French citizenship in 1920. After the war, he would remain in France until 1928.

Thanks to Lunn's oral history study, we are also informed about the war experience of a larger group of West Africans. Lunn interviewed eighty-five Senegalese veterans (about half of the veterans still living at that time) in 1982/83. His book shows that important cultural changes in Franco-Senegalese relations took place in the years from 1914 to 1918. Some West Africans would no longer perceive the French as almighty "devils" as many of them had done before. This would promote their self-confidence in the post-war period. The veterans' understanding of their European experience, however, obviously was not uniform. Some of the veterans interviewed by Lunn believed that the war did not have any notable impact on their country while others emphasized an alleged causality between their war service and post-war change or even Senegal's independence four decades later on.

African ego-documents analysed in existing studies largely represent hindsight perspectives. This makes it difficult to reconstruct African soldiers' perceptions of Europe and the Europeans at the time. We can only speculate that they followed similar patterns as the Indian soldiers' (for which research has analysed extensive amounts of letters) whose confrontation with Europe and Europeans show a variety of responses and coping mechanisms: some were able to assimilate European mores and habits with their cultural background, some rejected their own customs and habits and formed an unconditional admiration for the European social, economic and gender order, while another group tried to defend their cultural identity and meet their religious duties and traditional roles as men and warriors. European perceptions of African soldiers, on the other hand, can be reconstructed more easily.

European Perceptions ↑

The presence of hundreds of thousands of African soldiers on European soil was also a crucial event for Europeans and attracted widespread attention. European images of African soldiers evolved in different ways on both sides of the Western front. In Germany, representation developed along the lines of racist pre-war imagery, even reaching the extremes of representing colonial soldiers as beasts. In summer 1915, the German Foreign Office put into circulation a pamphlet entitled Employment, Contrary to International Law, of Colored Troops in the European Theatre of War by England and France, in which many atrocities were attributed to colonial soldiers such as poking out the eyes and cutting off the ears, noses and heads of wounded and captured German soldiers. In German propaganda, colonial troops were labelled with all sorts of racist expressions that negated their quality as regular military forces. Even the liberal sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) complained that "an army of niggers, Ghurkhas and all the barbarians of the world" were at Germany's borders.

Another recurrent theme in German propaganda against the deployment of African troops in Europe was its alleged impact on the future of the colonial system and the supremacy of the "white race." If African soldiers were trained in the handling of modern arms, if they were brought to Europe and saw the "white" nations fighting against each other, and if they were even allowed to participate in these battles and experience the vulnerability of the white man, then they would lose their respect once and forever. After the war, they would turn their weapons against their own masters and destroy colonial rule. However, German propaganda against the use of African troops in Europe would climax only after 1918, when the presence of colonial soldiers in the French zone of occupation triggered a highly racist campaign against the " Black horror on the Rhine."

The stories of atrocities circulated by the German propaganda apparently also reached the front which did nothing to improve the morale of the troops. Statements in soldiers' letters like, "you can't really consider a nigger [...] as a comrade" bear witness to their contempt for Africans as illegitimate opponents. Thus, it was generally believed the Africans took no prisoners and when German units captured a new sector of the front, the question was often anxiously put as to whether there were any black soldiers among the opponents. A German army report of 1918 stated that a column "quickly abandoned the front line without a shot having been fired and without the enemy appearing at the cry of 'The French are attacking, the blacks are coming.'"

Entente propaganda countered German propaganda within the patterns of pre-World War argumentation, albeit with some modifications. In the first months of the war, representations of colonial troops in the French press did not differ much from German propaganda images. Two weeks after the outbreak of the war, the Dépêche Coloniale portrayed African soldiers as démons noirs (black demons) who would carry over the Rhine, with their bayonets, the revenge of civilization against modern barbarism. Beginning in 1915/16, officials propagated a modified image of infantile and devoted savages. African soldiers were depicted as belonging to races jeunes (young races) and as absolutely obedient to the white masters because of the latter's intellectual supremacy. Therefore, they were a danger neither to white supremacy in the colonial world, nor to the French metropolitan population.

This propaganda was also produced to calm the French population's reservations about the African troops' presence in France. Large parts of the French population seem to have shared the image of Africans as bloodthirsty savages. When the first West African units arrived in France, large crowds welcomed them shouting, " Bravo les tirailleurs sénégalais! Couper têtes aux allemands!" ("Well done, Senegalese tirailleurs! Chop the Germans' heads!") This image also stirred a latent popular opposition to stationing African soldiers in Southern France. The French military administration also promoted the image of primitive savages. For instance, African soldiers were given boots from the French arsenals that were far too big for them, as their feet were supposed to have enormous dimensions because of permanent barefoot walking. As late as in 1917, there was a proposal that West African soldiers should fight barefoot because, with French boots, "those agile apes are losing one of their best infantry qualities, namely their elasticity in marching."

Civilians' encounters with African soldiers, both in France during the war and in the French zone of occupation in Germany after the war, were manifold. French writer and painter Lucie Cousturier (1876-1925), who had gotten to know a number of injured West African soldiers while she nursed them during and after the war, wrote in her 1920 book Des Inconnus chez moi about the original mood among the civilian population in Southern France:

In April-May 1916, we credited our future friends with many acts of horror. All the peasants indulged with us. There is no crime they were not accused of. After the devastation of the forest, the ugliness of their barracks, of their camps and of their hospitals, they were accused of drunkenness, theft, rape, and of causing epidemics. - "What is to become of us?" moaned the farmers' wives [...]. We will not dare let our young daughters walk the paths among these savages. We will not dare go out ourselves to cut the grass or gather wood. Just imagine! If we got caught by these gorillas.

However, there were also numerous friendly encounters between African soldiers and French civilians and love and sex across the colour line were by no means unheard of. The same is true for the relationship between German civilians and Africans troops during the Rhineland occupation.

But how did European Entente soldiers perceive their African comrades? The letters and memoirs of French and British soldiers show an ambivalent attitude. Most soldiers were curious about these "exotic" soldiers and some even sympathised with them. At the same time, evidence also shows that African soldiers were not considered to be equal comrades, but rather auxiliaries for especially dangerous tasks. Louis Barthas (1879-1952), cooper, trade unionist and socialist, described an Algerian division he encountered at Narbonne as "magnifique" (magnificent), but also felt sorry for them. Second lieutenant Roland Leighton (1895-1915) in a letter also referred to North African troops: "They all look very Negroid, but are well built men and march well." At the same time, ideas about Africans' alleged brutality lingered on. Thus, in Le Feu Barbusse, who had spent eleven months at the front, referred to the Moroccan soldiers as "devils" who are used to "poking the bayonet in the enemy's belly." Furthermore, some French soldiers were also concerned about the alleged use of African troops against (mainly female) workers on strike and about the sexual threat raised by the proximity of colonial men to French women.

African military participation on European battlefields between 1914 and 1918 was a crucial experience both for Africans and Europeans. Never before had so many Africans temporarily migrated to Europe in such a short period of time. The experience of forced recruitment, traveling to Europe, and fighting in a war very few could have imagined left deep marks not only on surviving and returning veterans, but also on African societies in general. However, the presence of hundreds of thousands of Africans in Europe also had important effects upon Europeans. Despite reinforcing discourses of colonial racism, it also created cultural encounters of a different sort. The question of whether the deployment of African troops in Europe tightened or loosened colonial bonds that would attract historians' interest for decades to come thus has no simple answer. Many veterans after the war would (as the French war propaganda had predicted) be closer to the colonial administration and serve as middlemen between the colonizers and the colonized. On the other hand, although the great uprising against colonial rule that had been predicted by the German war propaganda as a result of colonial soldiers' experience of war in Europe would not materialize, wartime recruitment had triggered several local rebellions and participation in the war effort had raised Africans' expectations of political reform as a reward.

Christian Koller, Universität Zürich

Section Editors: Melvin E. Page; Richard Fogarty

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Colonial Military Participation in Europe (Africa)

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This article analyzes the deployment of about half a million African soldiers in Europe, where most of them fought in the French army. It first outlines the numbers and origins of African soldiers as well as the ways they were deployed in Europe.

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Information about Great Britain in WWI

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Overview: Britain and World War One, 1901 - 1918

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Information about France in WWI

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Before a change in policy could be imposed, however, a new crisis in the Balkans threatened a general war. The assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina) on June 28, 1914, inaugurated five weeks of feverish negotiations, in which France's role has been much debated. Some historians have accused Poincaré and his supporters of a willingness to go to the brink of war rather than seek a negotiated settlement or use restraint on the Serbs and Russians; Poincaré's state visit to St. Petersburg at the height of the crisis has been seen as an occasion for a French promise of full support to Russia. A more judicious view is that many French statesmen had long seen the possibility and even the likelihood of a general war, and they suspected that the German government desired such a war; the Poincaré group believed that under these circumstances France could not risk the loss of its allies. French support of the Serbs and the Russians, according to this view, was thus inspired by a calculated judgment regarding French security.

Germany's declaration of war against France on August 3 produced a spontaneous outburst of patriotic sentiment. Trade-union and socialist leaders, some of whom had been on a governmental list of dangerous subversives to be arrested in case of war, rallied to the colours. A national union cabinet was formed. Parliament, after voting war credits, went into an extended recess, handing over the conduct of the war to the cabinet and the high command. During the initial months the high command made most of the crucial decisions; the cabinet accorded almost unlimited freedom of action to the commander in chief, General Joseph Joffre, assuming that the war would last only a few weeks and that civilian interference would only prolong hostilities.

H. Roger-Viollet

Joffre's war plans for an immediate advance across the frontier into the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were suspended when German forces struck through Belgium and threatened late in August to envelop Paris. Joffre managed to blunt the German attack and force the Germans to more defensible positions. The rival armies dug into trench positions that remained largely static until 1918. Meanwhile, the French high command continued to believe that the fate of France would be decided on the Western Front. In 1916 a powerful German artillery attack on the French fortress positions surrounding Verdun lasted from February to June and resulted in 380,000 French casualties (162,000 dead) and 330,000 German casualties (143,000 dead). For the French, the hero of Verdun was the sector commander, General Philippe Pétain.

Joffre was by now under heavy criticism in Paris. Both the cabinet and the Chamber were determined to assert greater control over the war effort, so that the high command's authority was steadily whittled away. Joffre was finally replaced in late 1916 by General Robert Nivelle. All through 1917, rival factions in the Chamber debated the conduct of the war, backing different generals and threatening cabinet crises. Worse still, morale among the troops reached a dangerous low point in 1917, culminating in serious mutinies that affected 54 French divisions. Pétain, who replaced Nivelle in May, managed to achieve stability by a judicious combination of severity and concessions.

Nevertheless, by autumn 1917 there was widespread defeatism in France and much talk of a "white peace." The Radical leader Caillaux was prepared to try for negotiations with the Germans; but his chance never came. When the cabinet of Premier Paul Painlevé was overthrown in November 1917, President Poincaré recalled Clemenceau to the premiership. Clemenceau stood for a fight to the finish. At age 76 he still had enormous energy and doggedness, and he infused a new spirit into the country. In March 1918, when the Germans launched a last major offensive in the West, Clemenceau replaced the cautious and pessimistic Pétain with a more attack-minded general, Ferdinand Foch, and persuaded the British as well to accept him as supreme commander. The German drive was checked. On November 11 an armistice was signed in Foch's railway car near Compiègne.

The victory was won at enormous cost for France. Of the 8 million Frenchmen mobilized, 1.3 million had been killed and almost 1 million crippled. Large parts of northeastern France, the nation's most advanced industrial and agricultural area, were devastated. Industrial production had fallen to 60 percent of the prewar level; economic growth had been set back by a decade. The enormous cost of the war seriously undermined the franc and foreshadowed many years of currency fluctuation. Even deeper, though largely hidden, were the psychological lesions caused by the strain of protracted warfare and by the sentiment that France could not again endure such a test.

Great Victory Parade Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Clemenceau, as the principal French negotiator, declared that his goal was to ensure the nation's security against renewed German aggression. He sought, therefore, to reduce Germany's power in every possible fashion and to surround Germany with strong barrier nations. He knew, however, that France could not dictate the peace terms and that he would have to compromise with the Americans and British, to whom he looked for aid in case of German resurgence. His stubborn advocacy of French demands irritated France's wartime allies; but his willingness to compromise in the end alienated many Frenchmen, who charged him with sacrificing the nation's security. The critics-who included Poincaré and Foch-were particularly outraged when Clemenceau abandoned his initial demand that Germany give up all territory west of the Rhine and that the Saar basin be annexed to France. These and other concessions led many right-wing deputies to oppose the Treaty of Versailles when it was presented for ratification in the autumn of 1919. Joining the opposition were the Socialists, who argued that the treaty was too harsh and that democratic Germany should not be punished for the sins of the kaiser. A majority of the Chamber, however, reluctantly ratified Versailles and vowed to assure its enforcement to the letter.

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France - France - World War I: Before a change in policy could be imposed, however, a new crisis in the Balkans threatened a general war. The assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina) on June 28, 1914, inaugurated five weeks of feverish negotiations, in which France's role has been much debated.

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Information about Russia in WWI

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

From December 31, 1893, Russia had a defensive alliance with France. In 1904 France and Great Britain put an end to their overseas rivalries. This Entente Cordiale was followed on September 13, 1907, by an agreement between Great Britain and Russia delimiting their mutual spheres of interest in Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. Thus the Triple Entente was born. By entering World War I, Russia kept the word given to its allies and partners.

Despite some reforms in the preceding decade, the Russian army in 1914 was ill-equipped to fight a major war, and neither the political nor the military leadership was up to the standard required. Nevertheless the army fought bravely, and both soldiers and junior officers showed remarkable qualities. The Russian invasion of East Prussia in August 1914 was defeated by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff at Tannenberg, but it required the Germans to send reinforcements from the Western Front and so saved France from defeat and made possible the victory of the Marne. The campaigns of 1915 and 1916 brought terrible casualties to the Russian forces, which at times did not even have sufficient rifles. But as late as July 1916 the Russian army was capable of making a successful offensive under Gen. Aleksey Brusilov in Volhynia and Bukovina.

The Russian people did not respond to the war with real enthusiasm. The government could not overcome its traditional distrust of any public initiative, even in the organization of medical supplies or munitions for the forces. In the Fourth Duma a majority of the centre and moderate right formed a Progressive bloc and proposed the formation of a national coalition government "possessing the confidence of the country" and a program of reforms which could be carried out even in wartime. The emperor rejected the proposal and prorogued the Duma, on September 16, 1915. Eleven days earlier the emperor decided to assume personal command of the armies in the field.

The result was that in Petrograd (as the capital had been renamed at the beginning of the war, in place of its old German-sounding name) the empress was in fact in command. She herself was under the influence of the adventurer and self-styled "holy man" Grigory Rasputin, whose hold over her was due to his ability to arrest the bleeding of the hemophilic tsarevich, Alexis. Thus to the massive casualties at the front, the retreat of the armies, and the growing economic hardships was added the knowledge, widespread in the capital and among the upper classes, that the government of the country was in the hands of incompetents. Rumours of treason in high places were widely believed, though the historical evidence does not suggest that they were true. On the night of December 29-30, 1916, Rasputin was murdered, but the system was beyond salvation. There was in fact no hand at the helm, and the ship was drifting onto the rocks.

The collapse came suddenly on March 8, 1917, planned by no one. A number of factories in Petrograd were on strike, and many of their workers were on the streets, as were the women in shopping queues and other women celebrating the international socialist anniversary of Women's Day. These crowds turned into demonstrations, and the demonstrations took over large areas of the capital. The workers came out in the streets with political slogans: "Down with Autocracy!" and "Down with War!" Two days later the emperor ordered the military governor to fire on the demonstrators, but the soldiers refused to use their rifles, and unit after unit went over to the workers. The police and gendarmes did shoot, and street fighting took place. Meanwhile the Duma, which had been prorogued, refused to disperse. A Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was elected, like that of 1905.

On March 14 the Duma, which had previously set up a standing committee, formed a provisional government, headed by Georgy Yevgenyevich, Prince Lvov, and mainly composed of leaders of the Kadet and Octobrist parties. On the next day a deputation visited the emperor at his headquarters in Pskov and accepted his abdication on behalf of himself and his son. When his brother, Grand Duke Michael, refused the throne, the Romanov dynasty came to an end. Nicholas was subsequently detained at Tsarskoye Selo.

The former emperor and his family were to be sent to England, but the Petrograd Soviet objected, and they were instead removed to Tobolsk, in western Siberia. In April 1918 they were taken to Yekaterinburg in the Urals. As the Russian Civil War raged around them, White Russian forces approached the area and local Bolshevik authorities were ordered to prevent a rescue. In the early hours of July 17, 1918, Nicholas, the tsarina Alexandra, and their five children were all murdered in the cellar of the house where they had been confined. Grand Duke Michael, the only other serious claimant to the throne, had been assassinated by members of the revolutionary secret police four days earlier.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Michael Ray.

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From December 31, 1893, Russia had a defensive alliance with France. In 1904 France and Great Britain put an end to their overseas rivalries. This Entente Cordiale was followed on September 13, 1907, by an agreement between Great Britain and Russia delimiting their mutual spheres of interest in Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.

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information about the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire

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World War I - Collapse of Austria-Hungary, Meuse-Argonne battles

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After the Austrian armies were defeated the Austria-Hungary empire collapsed. The last Hapsburg emperor, Charles I, renounced the right to participate in affairs of government, and Austria became a republic. The Allies’ final series of attacks against the whole German position on the Western Front w…

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Information about Germany in WWI

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During the first days of World War I, many Germans experienced a sense of bonding that had eluded them since the founding of the empire. Differences of class, religion, and politics seemed to disappear as Germans flocked to their city centres to show their enthusiastic support for the impending conflict. Overwhelmingly, the parties, including the Social Democrats, voted for war credits. The euphoria of the early days masked Germany's dangerous situation. The Triple Entente commanded the seas, had more than twice the population of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and had access to the world's natural resources through their empires and close contact with the United States. Germany was immediately blockaded and had to rely on its own resources and those of Austria-Hungary and contiguous nonbelligerents such as The Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland. The Central Powers did have interior lines of transit, which was valuable in a two-front war. They also had a unified command structure-in contrast to the Triple Entente powers, whose rivalries resulted in three different wars being fought simultaneously with little coordination.

General Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German general staff from 1891 to 1906, had recognized Germany's vulnerability in a two-front war and seen the best hope in an overwhelming attack against France through Belgium. If all went according to plan, France's eastern industrial region would be occupied in six to eight weeks and Paris itself surrounded. The slow-moving Russians would occupy Prussia's eastern rural provinces, facing only a modest-sized German military force. After France's capitulation following the occupation of its capital, whole armies would move to the Eastern Front to drive the Russians out. Schlieffen died in 1913, and the plan was put in motion by General Helmuth von Moltke. As often happens in history, the plans of men may go awry in ironic ways. The western armies of Germany did, indeed, move through neutral Belgium but were stopped at the Battle of the Marne (September 1914) in northern France. Meanwhile, General Paul von Hindenburg was reactivated at age 67 and sent with Major General Erich Ludendorff to halt the Russian advance into East Prussia. There the Germans unexpectedly defeated two large Russian armies at the Battle of Tannenberg (August 1914).

The fighting on the Western Front turned into a war of attrition as the two sides built opposing trenches from the Swiss border to the English Channel. For three and a half years neither side moved more than 30 miles despite titanic battles at Verdun, the Somme, and Ypres. In the east the outmanned German forces, with the help of the Austrians, inflicted a series of costly military defeats on Russia, but, given the vastness of its territory and population, the Central Powers were unable to knock Russia out of the war until after the seizure of power by Lenin in the October Revolution of 1917. In 1916 Ludendorff and Hindenburg became joint heads of all German land forces and recognized, as had their predecessor Erich von Falkenhayn, that the war would be won or lost on the Western Front. With Italy (1915) and Romania (1916) entering the war on the side of the Triple Entente, the Central Powers faced an almost impossible situation in a war of attrition. The two generals became de facto rulers of Germany and sought the mobilization of the whole society for total war. More than 11 million men, some 18 percent of the population, were in uniform, of whom almost two million were ultimately killed. Germany was unable to feed itself, and after the severe winter of 1916-17 malnutrition and even starvation were not uncommon.

On the diplomatic front the elites ruling Germany planned for vast annexations of Russian, Belgian, and French territory as well as for an African empire. The war costs were to be paid by the defeated powers of the Triple Entente. At no time during the war did the German government engage in serious negotiations to restore the sovereignty of Belgium or to return to the status quo before the start of the conflict. Nor were the Triple Entente and its allies very interested in a negotiated peace, but their situation was not as desperate as Germany's. In fact, every belligerent government found it safer to demand ever-greater efforts from its people than to admit that their earlier sacrifices had been in vain. As the stakes grew higher and the game more dangerous, no player felt able to leave the table.

Ludendorff and Hindenburg adopted an all-or-nothing policy in regard to victory. They created an independent state of Poland in 1916, which prevented serious negotiations with Russia for a separate peace. They adopted submarine warfare in 1917, despite the knowledge that it would bring the United States into the war, because it offered a slim hope of quick victory if Triple Entente ships carrying men and supplies could be prevented from reaching France. Ludendorff also mounted a major offensive in April 1918, ignoring Woodrow Wilson's proposal of Fourteen Points for a future peace and failing to offer any peace terms of his own. When asked what would happen if the offensive failed, he replied, "Then, Germany will be destroyed."

In 1917 the Reichstag, following the lead of the Centre Party, passed a peace resolution that called for Germany to refrain from any annexations. Social Democrats and Progressives rallied to support the resolution. The military and civilian leadership ignored the resolution and enforced a draconian peace on Russia and Romania in 1917-18. When the major battle in the west was brewing in April 1918, there were more than a million soldiers in the east to enforce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia.

Clearly, the military, agrarian, and industrial elites who ruled Germany considered themselves involved in two wars simultaneously, one against the Triple Entente and the other against the aspirations of the German people for full political emancipation. The latter conflict dictated victory at all costs on the military front. Defeat or a compromise peace on the battlefield would inevitably lead to democratization, because it would lead to a loss of legitimacy for the elite that had demanded so many sacrifices from the many millions of workers, farmers, and artisans while denying them effective political power. In November 1914 Alfred Hugenberg, a major industrialist and subsequent ally of Adolf Hitler, told German entrepreneurs,

The consequences of the war will be unfavourable to employers and industry in many ways. One will probably have to count on a very increased sense of power on the part of the workers and labour unions, which will find expression in increased demands on the employer for legislation. It would, therefore, be well advised in order to avoid internal difficulties to distract the attention of the people and to give fantasies concerning the extension of German territory room to play.

William II felt compelled to promise an eventual end to the restrictive Prussian franchise in his Easter message of 1917. Shortly thereafter the Fatherland Party was established with enormous support from the elites. Its program included a commitment to fight for an unequivocal German victory, including annexations, and maintenance of the Prusso-German political system.

The Ludendorff offensive of April 1918 made great breakthroughs in the west. But the effects of four years of attrition were apparent. The military did not have the reserves to take advantage of the initial gains. With almost a million fresh American troops in France, the Allies launched a counterattack that quickly gave them the initiative. Slowly the German forces began retreating. On August 8 the German army suffered a severe defeat in northern France, and not long thereafter William II installed a new, more liberal government in Berlin, headed by Maximilian, Prinz von Baden. The new ministers were informed that the war was virtually lost, and they were advised to seek an immediate armistice. Before the negotiations were successful, revolution broke out in the German navy on November 3, 1918, and spread to the military and urban workers. The government of Max von Baden resigned, and William II was forced to flee to The Netherlands on November 9, 1918. The Social Democrats declared a republic and took power at this appalling moment of defeat, while the former military and civilian leaders sought to escape responsibility for the calamity. A civilian, Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party, signed the armistice, which took effect November 11, 1918.
Kenneth Barkin James J. Sheehan

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Germany - Germany - World War I: During the first days of World War I, many Germans experienced a sense of bonding that had eluded them since the founding of the empire. Differences of class, religion, and politics seemed to disappear as Germans flocked to their city centres to show their enthusiastic support for the impending conflict.

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Information about Italy

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Italy's involvement in World War I is often neglected with the Western and Eastern Fronts being the focal points of remembrance, but for the Italians, their involvement in WWI caused significant loss and human suffering. Italy joined the war in April 1915 and by the end of the war, it is estimated that 600,000 Italians were dead in combat and more than a million were wounded or crippled. The Italian government spent more on the war than it had in the previous 50 years. The war debt, food shortages, bad harvests and significant inflationary increases effectively bankrupted the country, with an estimated half a million civilians dying. In addition, the territorial gains were small in comparison to the monetary cost of the war - the debt contracted to pay for the war's expenses was finally paid back in the 1970s.

Leading up to WWI, Italy had formed an alliance with the Central Powers of the German Empire and the Empire of the Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance. Italy should have joined on the side of the Central Powers when war broke out in August 1914 but instead declared neutrality. The Italian government had become convinced that support of the Central Powers would not gain Italy the territories she wanted as they were Austrian possessions - Italy's old adversary. Instead, over the course of the months that followed, Italy's leaders considered how to gain the greatest benefit from participation in the war. In 1915, Italy signed the secret Treaty of London and came into the war on the side of the Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia). By its terms, Italy would receive control over territory on its border with Austria-Hungary stretching from Trentino through the South Tyrol to Trieste as well as other areas. The Triple Entente countries saw a way of weakening the Central Powers by opening up a new front and thus splitting them still further with a Western, Eastern and now Southern Front. The success of this depended on Italy making military progress into Austro-Hungary in the south, but this did not transpire.

Italy had only become a unified nation in 1859, and so, like Russia, was not yet a fully industrialized power and was still largely an agricultural country, with a weak economy. It lacked both the large military and industrial base of her enemies and was certainly not prepared for large-scale warfare. The new front was along Italy's northern border which was 400 miles long, mostly in the mountainous Italian Alps and along the Isonzo river. Despite being numerically superior, the Italian army were poorly equipped, lacked strategic leadership and were unable to move equipment and supply lines quickly. In addition to which, the Austrians owned the higher ground and so consequently, after several quick Italian successes on the Isonzo front, combat settled into stalemate. As in the Western Front, it became trench warfare with the Italian army repeatedly attacking Austria, making little or no progress and suffering heavy losses. However, unlike the Western Front, the main difference was the fact that the trenches had to be dug in the Alpine rocks and glaciers instead of in the mud and often up to 3,000 m of altitude.

Between 1915 and 1917, Italian troops only advanced 10 miles inside Austrian territory, having launched eleven offences in Isonzo with heavy losses on both sides. The frequency of offensives for which the Italian soldiers partook, one every three months, was higher than demanded by the armies on the Western Front and had a significant effect on morale. During this stalement, in 1916 the Austro-Hungarian army counter-attacked in the Battle of Asiago in Trentino, which also failed. In late October 1917, Germany intervened to help Austro-Hungary, by moving seven divisions from the Eastern Front when Russia withdrew from the war. This resulted in a victory over the Italians in the Battle of Caporetto (otherwise known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo). When the battle had run its course, 11,000 Italians were dead, more than a quarter-million had been taken prisoner and Italy had retreated well behind their original lines. Caporetto was an unmitigated disaster and the whole Italian front along the Isonzo disintegrated, sparking a crisis in Italy. With the Central Powers now threatening Italy's territory, the Government changed tactics and implemented more defensive military strategies, replaced the Chief-of-Staff, improved soldier morale and Allied troops arrived (mainly British and French) to reinforce the front.

In the spring of 1918, Germany pulled out its troops for use in its upcoming Spring Offensive on the Western Front and due to increased civil unrest in Austro-Hungary, the Italian and Allied troops attacked on 24th October 1918. The Austro-Hungarian army finally broke, and the Allies drove deep into Austria, becoming the first troops to cross the pre-war boundaries. Once the line was broken, the advance was so fast that the Allied supply lines took two days to reach the troops at the front pushing into enemy territory. Austria asked for an armistice which was signed on 4th November 1918, a week before the general armistice. It is an often over-looked part of WWI history that the British fought alongside the Italians but in the mountains around Asiago in northern Italy, there are 712 British soldiers who now lie in cemetries.

After the war ended, at the Paris Peace Conference that led to the Versailles Treaty, the Italian government struggled against the other Allied leaders, the Big Three (Britain, France and the US), to gain all that they believed had been promised to them. Although Italy did receive control of most of the European requests, they failed to gain their colonial ambitions and felt they did not get what they had been promised. This engendered resentment towards the Allied countries, especially as Italians felt they had paid a high price, in terms of men and money, fighting for the Allies. These resentments helped drive the success of Benito Mussolini and his fascist movement - four years after the war, Mussolini and his blackshirts gained power.

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Italy's involvement in World War I is often neglected with the Western and Eastern Fronts being the focal points of remembrance, but for the Italians, their involvement in WWI caused significant loss and human suffering.

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This will talk about the Ottoman Empire in WWI

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On 31 July 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ordered the full mobilisation of the Russian Army in response to Germany's obvious preparations for war in the east. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Minister for War, reacted by ordering the full mobilisation of the Ottoman Army. On 2 August he signed a secret treaty with the German Ambassador. Although this was essentially a defensive military alliance, calling on each party to come to the other's aid against an attack by Russia, it revealed Enver Pasha's view as to who was the Ottoman Empire's most important friend - and who was its most bitter enemy.

While Enver was the de facto leader of the pro-war faction in the 'Young Turk' government, he was opposed by the Prime Minister, Sait Halim, who was convinced that the empire's best option was to remain neutral. He was outraged that Enver had overstepped his remit as Minister for War by signing the secret defence treaty with Germany. But in the political battle that followed, Sait was outmaneuvered. Enver gained the crucial support of Cemal Pasha, the Minister of Marine (responsible for the Ottoman Navy), and Talât Pasha, the Minister of the Interior (responsible for the paramilitary Jandarma - a 40,000-strong force modelled on the French gendarmerie).

Also in Enver's favour was pro-German sentiment in the Ottoman Army, at least among its officers. This reflected the close professional contact between the Ottoman and German officer corps. Since the first German military mission to the Ottoman Army after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, German officers had often been attached to the army in an advisory or training role and some of the best Ottoman officers had attended staff colleges in Germany. Ottoman officers admired the German Army's professionalism and traditions, and, like many foreign observers at the time, were convinced that it was the best in the world.

By the same token, the Royal Navy was clearly the world's pre-eminent naval power, and a British military mission was helping modernise and develop the Ottoman Navy. Unfortunately for the British, the navy was the junior service in the Ottoman military hierarchy. To make matters worse, on 5 August, a day after declaring war on Germany, the British government decided to requisition two Ottoman battleships nearing completion in British shipyards for wartime service with the Royal Navy. The decision aroused anger across the Ottoman Empire, as the ships had already been paid for by public subscription.

A few days later the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau appeared off the Dardanelles, after evading the French and British fleets in a daring dash through the Mediterranean. They requested passage through the straits to Constantinople. After delicate negotiations - and over Sait's objections - they were allowed to proceed. A week later the two warships - complete with their German crews - were officially 'transferred' to the Ottoman Navy and renamed the Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli. The British refused to recognise the transfer unless the German crews were removed, and the Royal Navy blockaded the entrance of the Dardanelles to enforce this demand.

This rapid escalation in tension quickly led to the withdrawal of the British mission to the Ottoman Navy. In late August, General Liman von Sanders, head of the German military mission to the Ottoman Empire, was appointed commander of the Ottoman First Army (whose remit included the Gallipoli Peninsula). Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, the German naval commander of the Goeben and Breslau, was appointed by Cemal Pasha to command the Ottoman Navy. Although the Ottoman Empire was still ostensibly neutral at this point, Cemal then appointed German Vice-Admiral Guido von Usedom as 'Inspector-General of Coastal Defences and Mines'. Von Usedom's job was to help the Ottoman Army strengthen the coastal defences along both the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. He arrived in Constantinople on 19 August with a specialist military team of 500 German officers and men. These actions did not go unnoticed in the Allied capitals.

The pro-war faction in the Ottoman government knew that the Germans wanted to bring the empire into the war as quickly as possible. Through such blatant manipulation of the military mission arrangements in favour of Germany, Enver, Cemal and their supporters were clearly signalling where their sympathies lay. By provoking an increasingly belligerent response from the Allied powers, they made it harder for Sait to argue the case for continued neutrality.

But as the weeks dragged by, Enver grew impatient. On 25 October 1914, without consulting any of his ministerial colleagues, he ordered Admiral Souchon to take the Ottoman fleet, including the German-crewed ships, into the Black Sea to attack the Russians. The fleet carried out surprise raids on Theodosia, Novorossisk, Odessa and Sevastopol, sinking a Russian minelayer, a gunboat and 14 civilian ships. On 2 November, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. France and the British Empire, Russia's wartime allies, followed suit on the 5th. Enver Pasha had succeeded in bringing the Ottoman Empire into the First World War on the side of the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Whether he would be as successful in achieving his principle war aim - pan-Turkic expansion into Central Asia at Russia′s expense - was another question.

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On 31 July 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ordered the full mobilisation of the Russian Army in response to Germany's obvious preparations for war in the east. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Minister for War, reacted by ordering the full mobilisation of the Ottoman Army. On 2 August he signed a secret treaty with the German Ambassador.

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The United States in WWI

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The United States in World War I (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Compilation of popular songs from the period of the First World War; performed by Nat Star and His Band and the ‘Four Happy Tommies', GB, 1919

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Compilation of popular songs from the period of the First World War; performed by Nat Star and His Band and the 'Four Happy Tommies', GB, 1919

REEL 1: Pack Up Your Troubles/Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy/Good-bye-ee/Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire/Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier/Marching Through Georgia/Soldiers of the King. REEL 2: Hello Hello Who's Your Lady Friend?/Tipperary/She's a Lassie from Lancashire/Knees Up Mother Brown/Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty/Mademoiselle from Armentieres/Wee Deoch an Doris. REEL 3: Here We Are Again/Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers/I Love My Wife/A Broken Doll/When This Lousy War is Over/There's A Long Long Trail. REEL 4: I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside/Whiter Than the Whitewash on the Wall/Who Were You with Last Night?/21 Today/When There Isn't a Girl About/We're Here Because We're Here (Auld Lang Syne)/Another Little Drink/Oh! It's a Lovely War/Old Soldiers Never Die. REEL 5: Where Are the Lads of the Village Tonight?/As I Stood in My Sentry Box/They Didn't Believe Me/Never Mind/Fred Karno's Army When We've Wound Up the Watch on the Rhine/We Were Only Playing Soldiers/Keep the Home Fires Burning. REEL 6: Over There/What a Rotten Song/How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?/And He'd Say Oo-la-la, Wee Wee/And When I Die/Till We Meet Again.

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Compilation of popular songs from the period of the First World War; performed by Nat Star and His Band and the 'Four Happy Tommies', GB, 1919 REEL 1: Pack Up Your Troubles/Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy/Good-bye-ee/Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire/Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier/Marching Through Georgia/Soldiers of the King.

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This photograph shows an infantryman on sentry duty, whilst some of his comrades snatch a few moments of sleep behind him. They are in what was previously a German trench at Ovillers-la-Boisselle on the Somme, July 1916.

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The immediate cause of the outbreak of the First World War was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, on 28 June 1914

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The immediate trigger that led to the start of the Great War (or First World War as it was subsequently known) was, relatively, innocuous enough - another assassination in the volatile Balkans.
However what followed quickly resolved itself into a direct causal sequence of mobilisations & declarations of war by all the major European countries in turn - like a line of toppling dominoes.

To those Britons living through it, it must've been like watching a car crash approaching in slow motion : Something you couldn't take your eyes off - a disaster driving forward engulfing all the innocent bystanders as it headed your way.

Assassination of the Archduke

The immediate cause of the outbreak of the First World War was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, on 28 June 1914. The assassination took place in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, a province in the Balkans that had been annexed by Austria-Hungary. The Archduke was visiting Sarajevo with his wife inspecting troops.

The nineteen-year-old student. Gavrilo Princip, who shot the Archduke, was a Serbian but he was not an agent of the Serbian government, who knew nothing about the plot.

Nevertheless, it was the Serbian government that Austria-Hungary blamed. Austria-Hungary wanted military revenge but was conscious that Russia might not stand idly by if the Austro-Hungarian army invaded Serbia. The Russians would see an invasion of Serbia as a potential first step to an invasion of Russia itself. Count Berchtold, the foreign minister of Austria-Hungary therefore questioned their ally, Germany, as to what their reaction would be.

The Kaiser's attitude to the Austria-Hungary/Serbia situation was that the Austro-Hungarians should not delay in teaching the Serbs a lesson. He said:

'The Serbs must be disposed of, and that right soon.'

On 4 July, the German ambassador in Vienna told a senior Austrian official that Germany would support Austria-Hungary through

'thick and thin' ... adding ... 'The earlier Austria attacks the better.'

The next day, the Kaiser told the Austrian ambassador to Germany that if war between Austria-Hungary and Russia become unavoidable, Austria-Hungary could rely on German support.

On the 23 July 1914, Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to Serbia. It contained demands that Serbia was bound to reject. Austria-Hungary knew this and mobilised. In Fact, Serbia accepted most of the demands but, by this time, Austria-Hungary was determined on war. On 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

August 1st - Domino 2 : Russia

The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria-Hungary to eliminate its influence in the Balkans, and in support of its long-time Serb protege, ordered a partial mobilisation one day later, 29 July. Germany mobilised on 30 July, and Russia responded by declaring a full mobilisation that same day. Germany then imposed an ultimatum on Russia, through its ambassador in Berlin, to demobilise within 12 hours or face war. Russia responded by offering to negotiate the terms of a demobilisation. However, Germany refused to negotiate, declaring war against Russia on 1 August 1914.

August 2nd/3rd - Domino 3 : Luxembourg and France

Aware of the alliance between France and Germany and concerned about a war on two fronts (East & West), the German government, simultaneously with its mobilisation against Russia, issued demands that France remain neutral. The French cabinet resisted military pressure to commence immediate mobilisation, and ordered its troops to withdraw 10 km (6 mi) from the border to avoid any incident. Germany attacked Luxembourg on 2 August, and on 3rd August declared war on France.

August 4th - Domino 4 : Belgium

On 4 August, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well.

August 4th - Domino 5 : Britain
Thus in short succession 5 major European powers found themselves at war. A war the like of which the world had never seen before. Millions of men had been mobilised and armed with the latest weaponry made to kill on an industrialsed scale.
Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral (a treaty that theoretically all the Europeans powers ,including Germany, were bound to uphold)

The many tensions and events that led up to the European powder keg that exploded with the Archdukes assasination were extremely complex. We've listed some of the most pertinant here.

1. Population Instability

The truth was that there were many countries and population groups unhappy with existing conditions.

Austria-Hungary was an empire in decline, with many unhappy inhabitants who wanted freedom, and the same was true in the Ottoman (or Turkish) empire.

The German and Russian rulers were also concerned about the dissatisfaction of their ethnic minorities. All three empires were faced by demands for more democracy, or, in Russia's case, for any democracy at all.

By European standards, Russia was a backward country, especially as far as government was concerned. The wealthy still had all the power, and the state was run by a dictatorial emperor or Tsar, answerable to no one.

2. Territorial Ambitions in Europe

Germany had become a strong, inventive, industrialised country with an efficient and disciplined workforce. Growth and expansion, especially to the east became a popular cry. If they were going to expand eastwards, Russia was going to he the loser.

In Italy, there were those who wanted to take territory from Austria-Hungary and to control the Adriatic Sea.

3. Previous Grievances & Suspicions

4. Naval & Empire Rivalries

Both Britain and France had to cope with the jealousies of others, especially Germany. This German jealousy found expression, both in quarrels with France over territories not yet part of anyone's empire, and in the passing of the Second Naval Law in 1900, which led to a race between Germany and Britain to build bigger and better battleships. The Kaiser, had summoned Admiral von Tirpitz in 1897 and told him:

'The Trident must be in our fist.'

5. The Clash of Personalities

Tsar King and Kaiser

Add to these various instabilities the characters of the leading rulers, whether royal or parliamentary, and it is easier to see why the atmosphere became suddenly explosive. For example, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, a grandson of Queen Victoria, suffered from a withered arm and a massive inferiority complex. He was by all accounts coarse and abrasive. His uncle, King Edward VII, treated him with jovial contempt whilst his cousin Tsar Alexander III disliked his 'aggressive amiability' and distrusted him.

Of more significance was Wilhelm's falling out with the British. As Britain's expansion in southern Africa frustrated German ambitions, Wilhelm gave encouragement to the Transvaal Boers and suggested that Germany should declare a protectorate over the Transvaal and send troops. It was at this point that the Kaiser realised that Germany could not take on Britain at sea, and began the expansion of the German navy. Wilhelm's aggressive approach was matched in Britain.

6. Powerful War Machines

This may be seen as a symptom of the other issues but the fact remains that in the last twenty years of the 19th century the naval and military expenditure of the major powers had doubled and, in the first decade of the 20th century, it doubled again.

Coupled with militaristic nature of Prussian society and the fact that rulers of 3 of the countries were autocrats - not accountable to their people - it meant that these powerful war machines could be used on a whim. The German military comanders were particularly belligerent, after all - armies like wars. That's what they are created for.

7. Chaos in the Balkans

Between October 1912 and July 1913 two Balkan wars were fought between Turkey, Montenegro, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. All laying claim to or defending territory. It was chaos, with everyone becoming more mobilised and ready for war.

8. System of Alliances

In the 19th century, the major European powers had gone to great lengths to maintain a balance of power throughout Europe, resulting in the existence of a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent by 1900.

It all started in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Then, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria-Hungary and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and Austria-Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879, called the Dual Alliance. This was seen as a method of countering Russian influence in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire continued to weaken.In 1882, this alliance was expanded to include Italy in what became the Triple Alliance.

Bismarck had especially worked to hold Russia at Germany's side to avoid a two-front war with France and Russia. However when Wilhelm II ascended to the throne as German Emperor (Kaiser), Bismarck was compelled to retire and his system of alliances was gradually de-emphasised.
Thus an intricate web of alliances was in place by 1914 so that pulling on one of the strands would radiate out to affect all the countries ensnared by the web.
In 1892, the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. In 1904, Britain signed a series of agreements with France, the Entente Cordiale, and in 1907, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention. While these agreements did not formally ally Britain with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia a possibility, and the system of interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the Triple Entente.

Events of 1914

June 28

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, are assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

June 29

Secretary of the Austro-Hungarian Legation at Belgrade sends despatch to Vienna accusing Serbian complicity in the assassination.

July 20

Austria-Hungary sends troops to the Serbian frontier.

July 25

Serbia orders mobilisation of troops. Russia arranges for troops to be stationed on Russo-Austrian frontier.

July 28

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

July 29

Great Britain warns Germany that it cannot remain neutral. Austrians bombard Serbian capital Belgrade. German patrols cross the French border.

August 1

French military mobilisation ordered. Germany declares war on Russia. Italy announces neutrality. Belgium announces neutrality.

August 3

Germany declares war on France. Great Britain gives order for troops to mobilise.

August 4

Germany declares war on Belgium. United States declares neutrality. Great Britain gives Austria-Hungary ultimatum to stand down from hostilities. When Austria-Hungary doesn't comply a state of war is declared at 11.00pm

August 6

Royal Navy cruiser HMS Amphion is sunk by German mines in the North Sea, causing the death of 150 men and the first British casualties of war.

August 7

First members of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) land in France.

August 11

'Your King and Country Need You' slogan is published, calling for the first 100,000 men to enlist for Kitchener's New Army. The call is answered within two weeks.

August 13

The first squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps arrive in France.

August 20

Brussels is evacuated as Germans occupy the city.

August 25

The Royal Flying Corps claim their first 'kill' as three aircraft from 2nd Squadron force down a German reconnaissance plane.

August 26

The Battle of Le Cateau. BEF suffers 7,812 casualties and is forced to retreat.

Sept 6

The First Battle of Marne checks German advance at the cost of 13,000 British, 250,000 French and 250,000 German casualties.

Oct 16

The British Indian Expeditionary Force sails from Bombay to the Persian Gulf in preparation for the defense of Mesopotamia.

Oct 19

First Battle of Ypres.

Oct 29

Turkey enters the war.

Nov 22

Trenches are established along the entire Western Front.

Nov 23

The British enter Basra, securing oil supplies in the Middle East needed to supply most of the Royal Navy.

Dec 8

The Battle of the Falkland Islands. A Royal navy task force sinks three German cruisers that were victorious at the Battle of Coronel in Nov. Only the SMS Dresden escapes.

Dec 16

The German First High Sea fleet bombards Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough, killing 137 civilians and proving that the British mainland is susceptible to attack.

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The Domino Effect - How Europe fell into World War I - guernseydonkey.com

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The immediate trigger that led to the start of the Great War (or First World War as it was subsequently known) was, relatively, innocuous enough - another assassination in the volatile Balkans. However what followed quickly resolved itself into a direct causal sequence of mobilisations & declarations of war by all the major European countries in turn - like a line of toppling dominoes.

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Treaty of Versailles

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Lusitania, British ocean liner, the sinking of which by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915, contributed indirectly to the entry of the United States into World War I