World War 1 The Road to War : simplebooklet.com

Copyright © heritagewalks.london 2019 75 West Street, Harrow on the Hill, London HA1 3EL info@walkingthepast.co.uk First published in the UK in 2012 Text and images copyright © Michael Strachan Michael Strachan has asserted his rights to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. (The cover illustration shows the Sarajevo assassination taken from an Italian newspaper illustration)..

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CONTENTS The Great War - an overview (3) Europe in 1914 (map) (5) The Road to War 1 European Rivalries 1 Serbian Nationalism 2 Conflicts over Alliances 3 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand 3 The ‘Blank Check’ Assurance 4 The German Spirit of 1914 4 The Entente Cordiale 6 The Naval Arms race 8 Assassination at Sarajevo 10 Kaiser Wilhelm II 12 First French Attacks 13 Invasion of Belgium 15 Battle of Tannenberg 20 Next in the series Back button ( )2

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THE GREAT WAR - an overview ‘The war to end all wars’ - began in July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. There were two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary).! These alliances expanded as Italy, Japan and the United States joined the Allies, and the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers.! For decades an intense rivalry exis-ted between the trading empires of Europe, making a conﬂict likely. A major ﬂashpoint was the area known as the Balkans where Turkey (Ottoman Empire) had ruled for hundreds of years. Serbia was one of the most aggressive of the smal-ler countries that had won inde-pendence from Turkey and now looked to expand its inﬂuence. However, the immediate cause of the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Aus-tria-Hungary, on 28 June 1914 by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary subsequently delivered its own ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, all the major powers had lined up according to the terms of their alli-ances and, when their colonies joined in, the conﬂict spread around the world. The violent and unprovoked German attack through neutral Bel-gium in 1914 and the massacres of innocent civilians by units of ( )3

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the German Army in that campaign were a foretaste of what was to come in the Second World War. More than 70! million military per-so nne l, inc lud ing 60 mi lli on Europeans, were mobilised and more than 9! million combatants were killed, largely because of tech-nological advancements like the machine gun and howitzer and the use of barbed wire. These devel-opments increased the killing power of armies when either side resorted to massed infantry attacks over open ground. It was not until the development of tanks and preci-sion artillery barrages that the trench deadlock was ﬁnally broken by the British Army under Sir Douglas Haig.! After the war there were dramatic political changes and revolu-tions that led to the removal of old monarchies and the estab-lishment of new totalitarian governments across Europe. In the Soviet Union the Bolsheviks took power and the effects of com-munist rule persist to this day. In Germany the widespread refusal to accept the Versailles Treaty contributed to the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party. World War 2 was an inevitable con-sequence. To listen to this introduction and overview just click this link ( )4

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The Road to War The First World War began in the summer of 1914, shortly after the assassination of Austria’s Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, and ended in 1918. The Great War left more than 20 million soldiers dead and 21 million more wounded, which can be attributed to the mechan-isation of trench warfare and the number of countries involved. European Rivalries The French had fought a disastrous war against Prussia in 1870 and had been heavily defeated and forced to pay a huge war indemnity, as well as losing most of Alsace and parts of Lorraine, to the newly-formed Ger-man Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I. This left a lasting resent-ment in France. By the outset of War the German Empire was ruled by an unstable autocrat Wilhelm II. By the early 1900s, the British and French Empires were the world’s most powerful, colonising regions like India, modern-day Vietnam and West and North Africa. The expan-sion of these empires resulted in increased tensions among other, often envious, European countries. Colonies were heavily and sometimes brutally exploited and dis-satisfaction and resentment was commonplace. In addition Britain and Germany, along with other naval powers, had been engaged in a deadly naval arms race. 1Cartoon view of Emperor Wil-helm II’s ambitions

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European tensions increased, leading to the creation of the two opposing alliances – the Allied Powers Britain and France and Russia and the Central Powers Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. (See map on page (5) above). Serbian Nationalism Nationalism was one of many political forces at play in the time leading up to World War I, with Serbian nationalism in particular, playing a key role. In the Balkans, Slavic Serbs sought independ-ence from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, and in 1878, they tried to gain control of Bosnia and Herzegovina to form a uni-fied Serbian state. With the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Serbi-an nationalism continued to rise, leading to the assassination of the Archduke of Austria in 1914 by a Bosnian Serb starting the Great War. 2The three emperors: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mehmed V, Franz Joseph.

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Conﬂicts over Alliances In the age of imperialism prior to World War I, countries through-out Europe had created defensive alliances. The Triple Entente al-liance, between France, Britain and Russia, formed in 1907 led to serious friction with Germany which felt it was a threat to its power and existence. This, led to the formation of the two sides of the Allied and Central Powers. By the start of the war, Italy and the United States entered on the side of the Allied Powers, which con-sisted of Russia, France and Great Britain. The opposing Central Powers, consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Em-pire and Bulgaria. The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. The Archduke had traveled to Sarajevo to inspect imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Otto-man territories acquired by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Ferdinand was traveling in an open car and Princip fired into it, shooting Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Follow-ing the assassination, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, which was rejected and led Austria-Hungary to declare war against Serbia, with German support. Russia then came to Serbia’s defence, therefore initiating the First World War. 3

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The ‘Blank Check’ Assurance The alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary at the start of World War I is known as the ‘blank check’ assurance. In July 1914, during a meeting between members of the Austrian Foreign Min-istry, the Ambassador to Berlin, the German Emperor and the German Chancellor, Germany offered Austria-Hungary uncondi-tional support in the wake of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. This ‘blank check’ gave Austro-Hungarian leaders the confidence to embark on war against Serbia. Germany failed to withdraw this offer when given the opportunity and thus is seen by many histori-ans as largely responsible for the continuation and escalation of World War I. The German Spirit of 1914 In Germany there was widespread public support for the war. The German govern-ment believed that its support of Austria-Hungary was a way to secure its place as a leading power united behind a powerful monarchy. It was supported by all political parties as can be seen in the medal shown opposite. The success Germans saw in the opening battles fuelled this febrile national-istic attitude. However, Germany was eco-nomically ill-prepared to fight a long war, which took a dramatic and demoralising toll on its people and later set the stage for the rise of the Third Reich, less than two decades later. For more about the causes of the First World War and the state of Britain at its outset click on the IWM YouTube video below: 4Medal struck to com-memorate the unan-imous decision to go to war by all the polit-ical parties in the Reichstag, later referred to as the Burgfrieden (“party truce").

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The Entente Cordiale For centuries England and France fought against each other and competed for overseas possessions and European domination. The Entente Cordiale consisted a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic which improved Anglo-French rela-tions. It settled many problems of colonial demarcation and replaced the political arrangements that had existed since the end of the Napo-leonic Wars in 1815 with a more formal agreement. Discussions between the military in both coun-tries followed and led to the creation of the British Expeditionary Force and its supply train. John Bull (England) walks away with Marianne (France) while the Kaiser sneers but has his weapon ready to use. This Punch cartoon shows na-tional (and outdated) attitudes to the portrayal of the agreement. The roots of this agreement lay in the British loss of confidence after the Second Boer War, and a growing fear that the country was isolated in the face of a potentially aggressive Germany. The French republican statesman Léon Gambetta and the then Prince of Wales, Albert 6Leon Gambetta

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Edward, had met at the Château de Breteuil in 1881 to discuss an alli-ance against Germany. By 1904 French foreign minister Théophile Delcassé, and Lord Lans-downe, the British Foreign Secretary, were able to negotiate an agreement on colonial matters such as ‘sphere of interest’, and Lord Lansdowne and Paul Cambon, the French Ambas-sador to the UK, signed the resulting convention now known as the ‘En-tente Cordiale’. For more about this famous Treaty follow the YouTube link below:deo. 7The Prince of Wales

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The Naval Arms Race The British Royal Navy dominated the globe in the 19th century. However after 1890, Germany attempted to challenge Britain's su-premacy. The resulting naval race heightened tensions between the two nations. In 1897, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz became German Naval Secretary of State and began transformation of the Imperial German Navy from a small, coastal defence force to a fleet that was meant to challenge British naval power. He wanted to dramatic-ally expand the German fleet in the early 20th century to protect the homeland and its colonies, German commerce, and to exert power worldwide. In 1890, to protect its new fleet, Germany traded Heligo-land off the German North Sea coast for the island of Zanzibar in Africa. In 1898, Tirpitz started a programme of warship construction – the Risikoflotte (Risk Fleet), so called because, although still smaller than the British fleet, it would be too large for Britain to risk taking it on. The British, however, were always well ahead in the race. The British Dreadnought battleship of 1907 was so advanced in terms of speed and firepower that all other warships were immediately made obsolete. Germany copied it but was never able to surpass it in quality or numbers. Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Board of Admiralty, is credited as the father of Dreadnought. 8Admiral von Turpitz

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Shortly after he assumed office, he ordered design studies for a battleship armed solely with 12 in (305 mm) guns and a speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). He convened a "Committee on Designs" to examine the alternatives and to assist in the detailed design work. The result was HMS Dread-nought (shown below). Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary armament of smal-ler guns. She was also the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion. Her launch sparked a naval arms race 9Admiral ‘Jackie’ FisherHMS Dreadnought

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The Assassination at Sarajevo ‘The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. Princip was one six assassins also containing Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Vaso Čubrilović, Nedeljko Čab-rinović, Cvjetko Popović and Trifko Grabež (one Bosniak and five Serbs consecutively) coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society. The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria- Hungary's South Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Yugoslavia. The conspirators' motives were consistent with the movement that later became known as Young Bosnia. For more about the Assassination click the YouTube video link above. 10Gavrilo Princip

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The assassination led directly to World War I when Austria-Hungary subsequently issued an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia, which was partially rejected. Austria-Hun-gary then declared war on Serbia, triggering actions leading to war between most Eu-ropean states.’ 11The Black hand

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Kaiser Wilhelm II In November 9, 1918, with the German people in open revolt, Kaiser Wilhelm’s generals told him it was all over.''He said nothing, just looked - looked from one to the other, with an expression first of amazement, then piteous appeal, and then - just a curious won-dering vagueness," one of his officers recalled. "He said nothing, and we took him - just as if he were a little child - and sent him to Holland,” where died in 1941 in exile in Doorn. His birth was difficult and he grew up with a painful disability, made worse by appalling treatment and his cruel up-bringing. He developed a narcissistic, aggressive, needy personality, forever demanding attention, lurching from one extreme position to another. His only consistent motivation was hatred for the country of his grandmother Victoria. "The English," he promised with grim satisfac-tion, would be "brought low some day”. The German constitution made him the channel for all major decisions pro-ceeded and, without the guidance of the strong and experienced Chancellor Bis-mark, his powers during the later stages of the war were usurped by Generals Hindenberg and Ludendorf. He was not a Hitler, but his deranged behaviour cre-ated the conditions in which extreme politics thrived and his Generals could direct the war as they saw fit and without accepting the blame for Germany’s defeat. 12

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First French Attacks The excellent video linked below explains much about the failure of French and German plans at the outset of the war. Behind the extraordinary French Plan XVII lay a philosophy, ‘Attaque à out-rance’ (Attack to excess) which dominated in many armies of the period and led to the catastrophic failure in morale in the French Army later in the war. (Some would argue that France never re-covered from the first huge casualties, its effects lasting through to the opening of World War 2.) ‘This philosophy was a response to the increasing weight of de-fensive firepower that armies in the nineteenth century could draw upon, as a result of several technological innovations, notably breech-loading rifled guns, machine guns, and light field artillery firing high-explosive shells. It held that the victor would be the side with the strongest will, courage, and dash/energy (élan), and that every attack must therefore be pushed to the limit. 13

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The lethality of artillery, combined with the lack of mobility of in-fantry, as well as the subsequent development of trench warfare, rendered this tactic extremely costly and usually ineffective.’ Despite warnings about the need for camouflage and less rigid infantry tactics the French armies marched with military bands into battle and charged with fixed bayonets and colourful uniforms into the jaws of death. 14

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Invasion of Belgium Germany invaded neutral Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan, in an attempt to capture Paris quickly. This technically caused the British to enter the war, bound by the 1839 agreement to protect Belgium in the event of war. Germany demanded that her armies be given free passage through Belgian territory, but this was refused by the brave members of The Belgian government on 3 August. The next day German troops invaded Belgium crossing the frontier at dawn. Liège fell on the 7th August. The British recruitment poster shown be-low is typical of the period in focusing on atrocities. Mass killings, including the murder of women and children, were seen by the German High Command as a legitimate response on the part of the German Army to any act of armed resistance by Belgian civilians. Whether such guerilla attacks were real or imagined – and modern scholarship has revealed they were mostly imagined - the effect was to give German troops a licence to pillage and kill with impunity, which they did with a vengeance. Thousands of Belgian civilians, however, were murdered, towns and villages razed to the ground and other violations of interna-tional law, such as forcing civilians to act as human shields, also occurred. The worst incidents included the destruction of the town of Dinant (including the deliberate massacre of 674 of its residents), Tamines (383 executed) and Leuven (248 ex-ecuted) where the University Library was burned. In addi-15Albert I King and Commander of the Belgian Army 1914

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Battle of Tannenberg Germany, following the Schlieffen Plan, had concentrated its forces the west, against France. In the East on August 26, 1914, the Ger-man 8th Army, under the leadership of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, struck the advancing Russian 2nd Army, led by General Aleksandr Samsonov, in East Prussia. The Russian 1st Army, under General Pavel Rennenkampf, advanced to the north-east ern corner of East Prussia, while Samsonov’s 2nd Army made its way southwest to join with Rennenkampf’s men and pin the out-numbered G e r man 8 t h Ar m y between them. Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German general staff, chose to re-place the previous unsuccessful leader, Maximilian von Prittwitz, with Hindenburg, a retired general of great stature, and Ludendorff, who had just led the German capture of the important Belgian fortress of Liege. They immediately authorized an aggressive counter-action against the Russians, previously planned by a senior staff officer in the region, Col-onel Max Hoffmann. Separated by the great Masurian Lakes, the two Russian armies lost communication with each other. Ludendorff was nervous and delayed the start of the German attack by one 17General Hindenberg in 1914General Ludendorff

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day but Hindenburg calmed him down. On August 26, after inter-cepting wireless messages from both Samsonov and Rennen-kampf, the Germans took Samsonov’s army by surprise near the village of Tannenberg, near the Masurian Lakes. The delay in starting the attack had given Samsonov’s forces more time to advance deeper into the trap formed by the German divisions, whose strength Sam-sonov had always underestimated. After three days of battering by German artil-lery, Samsonov’s began to retreat; but German forces cut off their escape and a massive slaughter followed. In the first hours of August 30, con-fronting the reality of his army’s complete collapse, Samsonov went into the forest, away from his staff, and shot himself. It was one of the greatest defeats in military history – in total, over 50,000 Russian soldiers were killed and some 92,000 taken as pris-oners at Tanneberg – named thus by the Germans in vengeful remembrance of the village, where in 1410 the Poles had defeated the Teutonic Knights. Fresh from the victory at Tannenberg, the German 8th Army marched north and routed the Russian 1st Army at the Battle of Masurian Lakes. 18General Aleksandr SamsonovColonel Max Hoffmann

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The Russian army again retreated in disarray, losing tens of thou-sands as prisoners of war. This series of battles convinced the German Army and its High Command that the German Army could defeat larger forces through superior tactics and training. The Battle of Tannenberg was undoubtedly a huge German tri-umph on the Eastern Front, but the Russians had, never-the-less, engaged two complete German Corps sent from the West. These German armies were therefore unable to aid their comrades at the Battle of the Marne in early September on the Western Front, where German forces advancing towards Paris were decisively de-feated by British and French troops in a crucial victory for the Al-lies. The Russian Army was off balance until the Spring of 1915 and some would argue that it never fully recovered from these catastrophic defeats. The loss of morale in the Russian 19 If you have enjoyed this digital guide...

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World War 1 The Road to War

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