Century of Conflict - WWI Study Guide

Walking barrage

A barrage is a particular method of delivering massed artillery fire from a few or many batteries. Individual guns or howitzers are aimed at points, typically 20-30 yards (18-27 m) apart, along one or more lines that can be from a few hundred to several thousand yards long. The lines are usually 100 yards (91 m) apart and fire is lifted from one line to the next and one or several lines may be simultaneously engaged by different firing units. The artillery usually fired at a continuous steady rate, using high explosive or shrapnel shells.

Battlecruiser

A battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and carried similar armarment to battleships, but they generally carried less armour to obtain faster speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they increasingly became used alongside the better-protected battleships.

Ypres

According to local accounts, the first contact for the people of Ypres with the First World War was the arrival of thousands of German troops on 7th October 1914. They began to enter the town from the south-east along the road from Menin through the Menin Gate (Menenpoort) and from the south through the Lille Gate (Rijselpoort). Scouting parties advanced north and west beyond Ypres in the directions of Boesinghe, Vlamertinghe and Elverdinghe

David Beatty

Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO, PC (17 January 1871 - 11 March 1936), was a Royal Navy officer. After serving in the Mahdist War and then the response to the Boxer Rebellion, he commanded the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, a tactically indecisive engagement after which his aggressive approach was contrasted with the caution of his commander Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. He is remembered for his comment at Jutland that "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today", after two of his ships exploded. Later in the war he succeeded Jellicoe as Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, in which capacity he received the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of the War. He then served a lengthy term as First Sea Lord in which capacity he was involved in negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 in which it was agreed that the USA, Britain and Japan should set their navies in a ratio of 5:5:3, with France and Italy maintaining smaller fleets.

First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher

Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot "Jacky" (or "Jackie") Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, was a British admiral known for his efforts at naval reform. He had a huge influence on the Royal Navy in a career spanning more than 60 years, starting in a navy of wooden sailing ships armed with muzzle-loading cannon and ending in one of steel-hulled battle cruisers, submarines and the first aircraft carriers.

John Jellicoe

Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO, SGM (5 December 1859 - 20 November 1935) was a Royal Navy officer. He fought in the Anglo-Egyptian War and the Boxer Rebellion and commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 during World War I. His handling of the fleet at that battle was controversial: he made no serious mistakes and the German High Seas Fleet retreated to port - at a time when defeat would have been catastrophic for Britain - but at the time the British public were disappointed that the Royal Navy had not won a victory on the scale of the Battle of Trafalgar. Jellicoe later served as First Sea Lord, overseeing the expansion of the Naval Staff at the Admiralty and the introduction of convoy, but was removed at the end of 1917. He also served as the Governor-General of New Zealand in the early 1920s.

King Albert

Albert I, reigned as King of the Belgians from 1909 to 1934. This was an eventful period in the History of Belgium, which included the period of World War I (1914-1918), when 90 percent of Belgium was overrun, occupied, and ruled by the German Empire. Other crucial issues included the adoption of the Treaty of Versailles, the ruling of the Belgian Congo as an overseas possession of the Kingdom of Belgium along with the League of Nations mandate of Ruanda-Urundi, the reconstruction of Belgium following the war, and the first five years of the Great Depression (1929-1934). King Albert died in a mountaineering accident in eastern Belgium in 1934, at the age of 58, and he was succeeded by his son Leopold.

Von Kluck

Alexander Heinrich Rudolph von Kluck (20 May 1846 - 19 October 1934) was a German general during World War I. With the outbreak of World War I, Kluck was placed in command of the German First Army. According to the Moltke revisions of the Schlieffen Plan, the First Army was part of the strong right wing and positioned on the outer western edge of the German advance through Belgium and France.

Antony Fokker

Anton Herman Gerard "Anthony" Fokker (6 April 1890 - 23 December 1939) was a Dutch aviation pioneer and an aircraft manufacturer. He is most famous for the fighter aircraft he produced in Germany during the First World War such as the Eindecker monoplanes, the Dr.1 triplane and the D.VII biplane. After the treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to produce airplanes, Fokker moved his business to the Netherlands. There his company was responsible for a variety of successful aircraft including the Fokker trimotor, a successful passenger aircraft of the inter-war years. He died in North America in 1939. Later authors suggest he was personally charismatic but unscrupulous in business and a controversial character.

Bosnia

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie shot dead in their car by Gavrilo Princip on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo. Princip was one of seven members of Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia), a Bosnian Serb terrorist organisation who want independence from Austria-Hungary

Karl Marx

As a university student, Karl Marx (1818-1883) joined a movement known as the Young Hegelians, who strongly criticized the political and cultural establishments of the day. He became a journalist, and the radical nature of his writings would eventually get him expelled by the governments of Germany, France and Belgium. In 1848, Marx and fellow German thinker Friedrich Engels published "The Communist Manifesto," which introduced their concept of socialism as a natural result of the conflicts inherent in the capitalist system. Marx later moved to London, where he would live for the rest of his life. In 1867, he published the first volume of "Capital" (Das Kapital), in which he laid out his vision of capitalism and its inevitable tendencies toward self-destruction, and took part in a growing international workers' movement based on his revolutionary theories.

Heavy artillery

As in wars prior, artillery of WW1 was a prerequisite for battlefield success. Artillery proved the number one threat to infantry and tanks alike and came in several light, medium and heavy forms. Additionally, field guns served in the direct line-of-sight role while mortars and howitzers allowed for indirect fire support. Any gun type fired shrapnel or high-explosive rounds at range - the most popular field gun proving to be the 75mm French Model 1897 which brought about use of an integrated recoil mechanism allowing for successive shots without the gun having to be relaid. However, the stalemate that was trench warfare soon limited the benefits of line-of-sight weapons until the breakthroughs later in the war.

Barbed wire

As the world became more industrialized before World War One, mass production of barbwire for cattle farms was underway. The military use of barbwire was quickly adapted, by making the barbs longer and sharper. Millions of kilometers of barbed wire were laid by both sides. In some cases, the barbed wire in front of a trench could be 30 or 40 meters wide. The only time it was safe to lay the wire was at night. Work parties of soldiers would be organized to construct or repair barbed wire in front of the trench. This was a very scary job for the soldiers. They had to be very quiet so that the enemy would not think that they were launching an attack and begin shooting at them. Special construction equipment was developed by the men to limit the noise that occurred during construction.

Conscription

Compulsory enrollment of persons especially for military service

Mort Homme

Cumières-le-Mort-Homme is a ghost commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. Since the end of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, it has been unoccupied (official population: 0) During World War I, the town was destroyed and the land was made uninhabitable to such an extent that a decision was made not to rebuild it. The site of the commune is maintained as a testimony to war and is officially designated as a "village that died for France." It is managed by a municipal council of three members appointed by the prefect of the Meuse department.

Lloyd George

David Lloyd George (1863-1945) was a liberal British statesman who became prime minister during World War I. After earning election to the House of Commons in 1890, he was named chancellor of the exchequer in 1908, and introduced health and unemployment benefits with the National Insurance Act of 1911. Lloyd George became minister of munitions early in World War I, eventually taking over as war minister before becoming prime minister in December 1916. After retiring from the post in 1922, he served as leader of the Liberal Party from 1926 to 1931. Shortly before his death, he was elevated to the peerage as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor.

Douglas Haig

Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, was a British senior officer during the First World War. He commanded the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from 1915 to the end of the war. He was commander during the Battle of the Somme, the battle with one of the highest casualties in British military history, the Third Battle of Ypres, and the Hundred Days Offensive, which led to the armistice in 1918.

Edmund Allenby

Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby GCB, GCMG, GCVO, was an English soldier and British Imperial Governor. He fought in the Second Boer War and also in World War I, in which he led the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in the conquest of Palestine capturing Beersheba, Jaffa, and Jerusalem from October to December 1917.

Sir John French

Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC (28 September 1852 - 22 May 1925), known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British Army officer. Born in Kent to an Anglo-Irish family, he saw brief service as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, before becoming a cavalry officer. He achieved rapid promotion and distinguished himself on the Gordon Relief Expedition. French was a notorious womaniser throughout his life and his career nearly ended when he was cited in the divorce of a brother officer whilst in India in the early 1890s.

Flanders

Flanders is a region in Belgium, the name deriving from a medieval state that encompassed parts of what are now Belgium and Northern France. However, the soldiers in the First World War would often refer to their service on the Western Front as "France", whether it was in France itself or Belgium. The principal town around which the fighting in Flanders revolved was Ypres, and the area around the town of Ypres was also known as the Salient (see below). This region was fought over from October 1914 until practically the end of the war in November 1918.

Russo-Japanese War

Following the Russian refusal to accept Japanese demands for control over Korea, on February 8th 1904 Japan attacked the Russian fleet in Port Arthur and Tchemulpo. The Russian-Japanese war heralded some of the characteristics of the wars in decadence. The first war in the 20th century between two major powers led to an unheard of mobilization of the two countries - involving new levels of human, economic and military resources:

Ardennes Forest

Fought between 21-23 August 1914, the Battle of the Ardennes comprised one of the Battles of the Frontiers conducted during the first month of the war, August 1914.

Franco-Prussian War

Franco-German War, also called Franco-Prussian War, Franco-German War: Prussian troops marching past the Arc de Triomphe (July 19, 1870-May 10, 1871), war in which a coalition of German states led by Prussia defeated France. The war marked the end of French hegemony in continental Europe and resulted in the creation of a unified Germany.

Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia and, from 1896 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. This caused the Central Powers (including Germany and Austria-Hungary) and Serbia's allies to declare war on each other, starting World War I.

Franz Joseph

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I, was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. From 1 May 1850 until 24 August 1866 he was President of the German Confederation.

Franz Von Hipper

Franz Ritter von Hipper (13 September 1863 - 25 May 1932) was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht SMY Hohenzollern. Hipper commanded several cruisers in the reconnaissance forces before being appointed commander of the I Scouting Group in October 1913. He held this position until 1918, when he succeeded Admiral Reinhard Scheer as commander of the High Seas Fleet. He is most famous for commanding the German battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group during World War I, particularly at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May - 1 June 1916. During the war, Hipper led the German battlecruisers on several raids of the English coast, for which he was vilified in the English press as a "baby killer." His squadron clashed with the British battlecruiser squadron at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, where the armored cruiser Blücher was lost. At the Battle of Jutland, Hipper's flagship Lützow was sunk, though his ships succeeded in sinking three British battlecruisers. After the end of the war in 1918, Franz von Hipper retired from the Imperial Navy with a full pension. He initially lived under an alias and moved frequently to avoid radical revolutionaries during the German Revolution of 1918-1919. After the revolution settled, he moved to Altona outside Hamburg. Unlike his superior, Reinhard Scheer, he never published a memoir of his service during the war. Hipper died on 25 May 1932. The Kriegsmarine commemorated Hipper with the launching of the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in 1938.

Gavrilo Princip

Gavrilo Princip, was a Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated by several members of the Serbian military, leading Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum. This was used as pretext for Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, which then led to World War I.

Erich Ludendorff

General Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) was a top German military commander in the latter stages of World War I. Educated in the cadet corps, Ludendorff was named chief of staff to the Eighth Army after the outbreak of war and earned renown for the victory at the Battle of Tannenberg. He became the nominal deputy to chief of the general staff Paul von Hindenburg and overhauled the army's tactical doctrines, but resigned in October 1918 after the failure of the Ludendorff Offensive. In his later years, he served in Parliament as a member of the National Socialist Party and wrote "Der Totale Krieg" (The Nation at War).

Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau, was a French statesman who led the nation in the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in politics during the Third Republic. Clemenceau served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. In favor of a total victory over the German Empire, he militated for the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the France Peace Conference of 1919. Nicknamed "Père la Victoire" (Father Victory) or "Le Tigre" (The Tiger), he took a harsh position against defeated Germany, though not quite as much as President Poincaré, and won agreement on Germany's payment of large sums for reparations.

Georges Guynemer

Georges Guynemer (24 December 1894 - 11 September 1917 missing) was a top fighter ace for France during World War I, and a French national hero at the time of his death. Guynemer was lionized by the French press and became a national hero. The French government encouraged the publicity to boost morale and take the people's minds off the terrible losses in the trenches. Guynemer was embarrassed by the attention, but his shyness only increased the public's appetite to know everything about him. This was quite different later in 1918 with the French top ace René Fonck, who despite having 75 confirmed victories, had bad publicity for his arrogance and shameless self-promotion. Guynemer's death was a profound shock to France; nevertheless, he remained an icon for the duration of the war. Only 22 at his death, he continued to inspire the nation with his advice, "Until one has given all, one has given nothing."

The Crown Prince

German Crown Prince Wilhelm, full name Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst, was the last Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire.

HMS Dreadnought

HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a paradigm shift in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of ships named after her. The generation of ships she made obsolete became known as "pre-dreadnoughts". She was the sixth ship of that name in the Royal Navy.

Moltke

Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke, also known as Moltke the Younger, was a nephew of Field Marshal Count Moltke and served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914. The two are often differentiated as Moltke the Elder and Moltke the Younger.

U-boats

In 1917, Germany announces the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic as German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sighted in war-zone waters. The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping.

Reserves

In August 1914, in addition to the 247,500 currently-serving troops of the regular army, there were two forms of reserves for men below commissioned rank. The Army Reserve was 145,350 strong and the Special Reserve had another 64,000 men

Jutland

Involving some 250 ships and 100,000 men, this battle off Denmark's North Sea coast was the only major naval surface engagement of World War I. The battle began in the afternoon of May 31, 1916, with gunfire between the German and British scouting forces. When the main warships met, British Admiral John Jellicoe maneuvered his boats to take advantage of the fading daylight, scoring dozens of direct hits that eventually forced German Admiral Reinhard Scheer into retreat. Both sides claimed victory in this indecisive battle, though Britain retained control of the North Sea.

Lord Kitchener

Kitchener was a British military leader and statesman who, as secretary of state for war in the first years of World War One, organized armies on an unprecedented scale. He was also depicted on the most famous British army recruitment poster ever produced.

Baron Von Richthofen

Manfred von Richthofen (1892-1918) earned widespread fame as a World War I ace fighter pilot. After starting the war as a German cavalry officer on the Eastern Front, Richthofen served in the infantry before seeking his pilot's license. He transferred to the Imperial Air Service in 1915, and the following year began to distinguish himself in battle. The leader of a squadron known as the Flying Circus, Richthofen developed a formidable reputation in his bright red Fokker triplane. He was credited with 80 kills before being shot down, his legend as the fearsome Red Baron enduring well after his death.

Joseph Joffre

Marshal Joseph Jacques, was a French general who served as Commander-in-Chief of French forces on the Western Front from the start of World War I until the end of 1916. He is best known for regrouping the retreating allied armies to defeat the Germans at the strategically decisive First Battle of the Marne in September 1914.

Mobilization

Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, in order to describe the preparation of the Russian army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and techniques have continuously changed since then. The opposite of mobilization is demobilization.

Czar Nicholas

Nicholas II was the last tsar of Russia under Romanov rule. His poor handling of Bloody Sunday and Russia's role in World War I led to his abdication and execution.

Austria-Hungary

On July 28, 1914, one month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, effectively beginning the First World War.

Lusitania

On May 7, 1915, less than a year after World War I (1914-18) erupted across Europe, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner en route from New York to Liverpool, England. Of the more than 1,900 passengers and crew members on board, more than 1,100 perished, including more than 120 Americans. Nearly two years would pass before the United States formally entered World War I, but the sinking of the Lusitania played a significant role in turning public opinion against Germany, both in the United States and abroad.

Otto Von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), born on April 1, 1815 at Schönhausen, is considered the founder of the German Empire. For nearly three decades he shaped the fortunes of Germany, from 1862 to 1873 as prime minister of Prussia and from 1871 to 1890 as Germany's first Chancellor

Hindenburg

Paul Von Hindenburg (1847-1934) was a German World War I military commander and president. He fought in the Austro-Prussian War and in the Franco-German War, and retired as a general in 1911. Recalled to duty at the start of World War I, Hindenburg shared power with Erich Ludendorff as commander of the Eighth Army and then as chief of the General Staff. A national hero for his early victories, Hindenburg later drew the United States into battle with his use of submarine warfare. After retiring again in 1919, he became president of the Weimar Republic in 1925, and died shortly after naming Adolf Hitler the German chancellor.

BEF

The British Expeditionary Force or BEF was the British Army sent to the Western Front during the First World War. Planning for a British Expeditionary Force began with the Haldane reforms of the British Army carried out by the Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane following the Second Boer War (1899-1902).

Colonel

President Woodrow Wilson's closest confidant during the four years of the First World War

SMS Emden

SMS Emden ("His Majesty's Ship Emden")[a] was the second and final member of the Dresden class of light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Dockyard) in Danzig in 1906. Her hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, Dresden. Like the preceding Königsberg-class cruisers, Emden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two torpedo tubes.

Mines and sappers

Sappers: One who excavated trenches under defensive musket or artillery fire to advance a besieging army's position in relation to the works of an attacked fortification, which was referred to as sapping the enemy fortifications. Miners: An additional term applied to sappers of the British Indian Army was 'miner'. The native engineer corps were referred to as 'sappers and miners', as for example, the Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners. The term arose from a task done by sappers to further the battle after saps were dug. The saps permitted cannon to be brought into firing range of the besieged fort and its cannon, but often the cannon themselves were unable to breach the fort walls.

Sarajevo

Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with an estimated population of 369,534.

Serbia

The Serbian Campaign of World War I was fought from late July 1914, when Austria-Hungary invaded the Kingdom of Serbia at the outset of World War I, until the war's conclusion in November 1918. The front ranged from the Danube to southern Macedonia and back north again, involving forces from almost all the combatants of the war.

Winston Churchill

Statesman, historian, and biographer (1874-1965), whose five years of war leadership (1940-45) secured him a central place in modern British history. Churchill is widely considered the greatest political figure in 20th-century Britain. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. It was an open secret that he would have preferred the Nobel Peace Prize. Churchill's career was anything but predictable: he supported the Zionist movement in Palestine (1921-22), during the Abdication crisis (1926) he was loyal to Edward VIII, and during the 1945 election campaign he tried to brand Labour as a totalitarian party.

Belleau Wood

The Battle of Belleau Wood (1-26 June 1918) occurred during the German 1918 Spring Offensive in World War I, near the Marne River in France. The battle was fought between the U.S. Second (under the command of Major General Omar Bundy) and Third divisions along with French and British forces against an assortment of German units including elements from the 237th, 10th, 197th, 87th, and 28th divisions.[2] The battle has become a key component of the lore of the United States Marine Corps.

Cambrai

The Battle of Cambrai (called the Battle of Cambrai, 1917 by the Battlefield Nomenclature Committee; also sometimes referred to as the First Battle of Cambrai) was a British offensive and German counter-offensive battle in the First World War. Cambrai, in the Nord département, was an important supply point for the German Siegfried Stellung (known to the British as the Hindenburg Line) and capture of the town and the nearby Bourlon Ridge would threaten the rear of the German line to the north.

Caporetto

The Battle of Caporetto (also known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Kobarid or the Battle of Karfreit as it was known by the Central Powers), took place from 24 October to 19 November 1917, near the town of Kobarid (now in north-western Slovenia, then part of the Austrian Littoral), on the Austro-Italian front of World War I. The battle was named after the Italian name of the town (also known as Karfreit in German). Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, were able to break into the Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by Oskar von Hutier. The use of poison gas by the Germans also played a key role in the collapse of the Italian Second Army.[9]

Dogger Bank

The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915, during the First World War, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet. Decoded radio intercepts had given the British advance knowledge that a German raiding squadron was heading for Dogger Bank, so they dispatched their own naval forces to intercept it. The British found the Germans at the expected time and place; surprised, the smaller and slower German squadron fled for home.

Lemberg

The Battle of Galicia, also known as the Battle of Lemberg, was a major battle between Russia and Austria-Hungary during the early stages of World War I in 1914. In the course of the battle, the Austro-Hungarian armies were severely defeated and forced out of Galicia, while the Russians captured Lemberg and, for approximately nine months, ruled Eastern Galicia.

Liege

The Battle of Liège, was the opening engagement of the German invasion of Belgium and the first battle of World War I. The attack on the city began on 5 August 1914 and lasted until 16 August when the last fort surrendered. The length of the siege of Liège may have delayed the German invasion of France by 4-5 days. Railways needed by the German armies in eastern Belgium were closed for the duration of the siege and German troops did not appear in strength before Namur until 20 August.

Mons

The Battle of Mons was the first major action of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the First World War. It was a subsidiary action of the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the Allies clashed with Germany on the French borders. At Mons, the British Army attempted to hold the line of the Mons-Condé Canal against the advancing German 1st Army. Although the British fought well and inflicted disproportionate casualties on the numerically superior Germans, they were eventually forced to retreat due both to the greater strength of the Germans and the sudden retreat of the French Fifth Army, which exposed the British right flank. Though initially planned as a simple tactical withdrawal and executed in good order, the British retreat from Mons lasted for two weeks and took the BEF to the outskirts of Paris before it counter-attacked in concert with the French, at the Battle of the Marne.

Tannenberg Forest

The Battle of Tannenberg was fought between Russia and Germany from 26 August to 30 August 1914, during the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (First Masurian Lakes) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915. The battle is particularly notable for fast rail movements by the Germans, enabling them to concentrate against each of the two Russian armies in turn, and also for the failure of the Russians to encode their radio messages. It brought high prestige to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his rising staff-officer Erich Ludendorff.

Verdun

The Battle of Verdun, fought from 21 February - 18 December 1916, was one of the largest battles of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. The battle took place on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France. The German 5th Army attacked the defences of the Région Fortifiée de Verdun (RFV) and those of the Second Army garrisons on the right bank of the Meuse, intending to rapidly capture the Côtes de Meuse (Meuse Heights), from which Verdun could be overlooked and bombarded with observed artillery fire. The German strategy aimed to provoke the French to attack to drive the Germans off the heights. The Germans made important gains early in the battle but the French quickly contained the German advance and were able to recapture much of the lost territory towards the end of the year, despite the demands of the Battle of the Somme (1 July - 18 November) in Picardy to the north-west.

Falkland Islands

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a British naval victory over the Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 during the First World War in the South Atlantic. The British, after a defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sent a large force to track down and destroy the victorious German cruiser squadron.

Frontiers

The Battle of the Frontiers was a series of battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium shortly after the outbreak of World War I.

Somme River

The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was one of the largest battles of the First World War. Fought between July 1 and November 1, 1918 near the Somme River in France, it was also one of the bloodiest military battles in history. On the first day alone, the British suffered more than 57,000 casualties, and by the end of the campaign the Allies and Central Powers would lose more than 1.5 million men.

Blockade

The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. It was a prolonged naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers during and after World War I in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. It is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war.

The Dardanelles

The Dardanelles, formerly known as Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart, the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately 40°13′N 26°26′E. The strait is 61 kilometres (38 mi) long but only 1.2 to 6 kilometres (0.75 to 3.73 mi) wide, averaging 55 metres (180 ft) deep with a maximum depth of 103 metres (338 ft). Water flows in both directions along the strait, from the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean via a surface current and in the opposite direction via an undercurrent.

Easter Rebellion

The Easter Rising also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans to end British rule in Ireland and establish an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was heavily engaged in World War I. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798.

First Balkan War

The First Balkan War (Bulgarian: Балканска война, Greek, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, comprised actions of the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success. As a result of the war, the allies captured and partitioned almost all remaining European territories of the Ottoman Empire. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albanian state. Despite its success, Bulgaria was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia, which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War.

Champagne

The First Battle of Champagne was fought from 20 December 1914 - 17 March 1915 in World War I in the Champagne region of France. The battle was fought by the French Fourth Army and the German 3rd Army. It was the first offensive by the Allies against the Germans since mobile warfare had ended after the Race to the Sea from 17 September - 19 October and the defensive battles in Flanders of the Battle of the Yser and the First Battle of Ypres from 19 October - 22 November 1914.

The Massacre of the Innocents

The First Battle of Ypres (19 October - 22 November) was a First World War battle fought around Ypres, in western Belgium during October and November 1914. The battle took place as part of the First Battle of Flanders (French: Première Bataille des Flandres German: Erste Flandernschlacht), in which German, French, Belgian and British armies fought from Arras in France to Nieuport on the Belgian coast, from 10 October to mid-November. The battles at Ypres began at the end of the Race to the Sea which involved attempts by the German and Franco-British armies to advance past the northern flank of their opponents.

Masurian Lakes

The First Battle of the Masurian Lakes was a German offensive in the Eastern Front during the early stages of World War I. It pushed the Russian First Army back across its entire front, eventually ejecting it from Germany. Further progress was hampered by the arrival of the Russian Tenth Army on the Germans' left flank.

Argonne Valley

The Forest of Argonne is a long strip of rocky mountain and wild woodland in north-eastern France. Forest of Argonne in a valley near Chatel Chéhéry, France, where Sgt. Alvin C. York fought in World War I. In 1792 Charles François Dumouriez outmaneuvered the invading forces of the Duke of Brunswick in the forest before the Battle of Valmy. The forest was also the site of military action during World War I, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Several United States Army soldiers earned the Medal of Honor there, including Colonel Nelson Miles Holderman, Major Charles White Whittlesey, and Sergeant Alvin C. York - most of them part of the "Lost Battalion". The World War I Montfaucon American Monument consists of a large granite Doric column, surmounted by a statue symbolic of Liberty. The monument is located twenty miles northwest of Verdun. It is not far from the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial.[1]

French 75 mm gun

The French 75 mm field gun was a quick-firing field artillery piece adopted in March 1898. Its official French designation was: Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897. It was commonly known as the French 75, simply the 75 and Soixante-Quinze (French for 75, literally "sixty-fifteen"). Initially, the French 75 had been designed as an anti-personnel weapon system for delivering large volumes of time-fused shrapnel shells on enemy troops advancing in the open. After 1915 and the onset of trench warfare, other types of battlefield missions demanding impact-detonated high-explosive shells prevailed. By 1918 the 75s became the main agents of delivery for toxic gas shells. The 75s also became widely used as truck mounted anti-aircraft artillery. They were also the main armament of the Saint-Chamond tank in 1918.

Gallipoli

The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace (or East Thrace), the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east.

Imperial Germany

The German Empire was the historical German nation state[9] that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in November 1918, when Germany became a federal republic.

Brussels

The German juggernaut smashed its way into Belgium on August 5, initially targeting Belgium's line of defensive fortresses. The Belgian army was forced to retreat and by August 20 the Germans entered Brussels on its way to France. The Belgians elected not to defend the city and the Germans marched through unhindered.

Grand Fleet

The Grand Fleet was the main fleet of the British Royal Navy during the First World War. It was formed in August 1914 from the First Fleet and elements of the Second Fleet of the Home Fleets and it included 35-40 state-of-the-art capital ships. It was initially commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. He was succeeded by Admiral Sir David Beatty in 1916. The Grand Fleet was based first on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands and later at Rosyth on the Firth of Forth and took part in the biggest fleet action during the war - the Battle of Jutland. In April 1919 the Grand Fleet was disbanded, with much of its strength forming a new Atlantic Fleet.

Hindenburg Line

The Hindenburg Line (an Allied term for the German Siegfriedstellung, or Siegfried Position) was a German defensive position of World War I, built during the winter of 1916-1917 on the Western Front, from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. In 1916, the Brusilov Offensive had inflicted huge losses on the Austro-Hungarian armies in Russia and forced the German eastern armies to take over more of the Eastern Front. The declaration of war by Romania had placed additional strain on the German war economy and army. The German offensive at the Battle of Verdun had been a costly failure and Anglo-French attacks on the Western Front had inflicted serious losses on the German army, during the French counter-offensive at Verdun and the joint offensive on the Somme. Construction of the Hindenburg Line had begun in September 1916 and was intended to counter an anticipated increase in the power of Anglo-French attacks in 1917.

Alsace-Lorraine

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle department of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east of the Vosges Mountains. The Lorraine section was in the upper Moselle valley to the north of the Vosges.

Bulgaria

The Kingdom of Bulgaria participated in World War I on the side of the Central Powers from 14 October 1915, when the country declared war on Serbia, until 30 September 1918, when the Armistice of Thessalonica was signed and came into effect. In the aftermath of the Balkan wars, Bulgaria found itself isolated on the international scene, surrounded by hostile neighbors and deprived of the support of the Great Powers. Anti-Bulgarian sentiments were especially strong in France and Russia, whose political circles blamed the country for the dissolution of the Balkan League. This and the failure of Bulgarian foreign policy turned revanchism in a focal point for the country's external relations.

Krupp Works

The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their production of steel, artillery, ammunition, and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. It was important to weapons development and production in both world wars. The choices of the Krupp family and firm during the Nazi era, including support of Hitler and use of forced labour, are part of the legacy. In 1999 the Krupp firm merged with Thyssen AG to form ThyssenKrupp AG, a large industrial conglomerate.

Turkish Empire

The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, Ottoman Turkey or Turkey, was an empire founded in 1299 by Oghuz Turks under Osman I in northwestern Anatolia. After conquests in the Balkans by Murad I between 1362 and 1389, the Ottoman sultanate was transformed into a transcontinental empire and claimant to the caliphate. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror.

Race to the Sea

The Race to the Sea took place from about 17 September - 19 October 1914, after the Battle of the Frontiers (7 August-13 September) and the German advance into France, which had been stopped at the First Battle of the Marne (5-12 September) and was followed by the First Battle of the Aisne (13 September - 28 September), a Franco-British counter-offensive.[Note 1] The term described reciprocal attempts by the Franco-British and German armies to envelop the northern flank of the opposing army through Picardy, Artois and Flanders, rather than an attempt to advance northwards to the sea. The "race" ended on the North Sea coast of Belgium around 19 October, when the last open area from Dixmude to the North Sea was occupied by Belgian troops, who had been withdrawn from the Siege of Antwerp (28 September - 10 October). The outflanking attempts had resulted in a number of encounter battles but neither side was able to gain a decisive victory.[Note 2]

The Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan was the operational plan for a designated attack on France once Russia, in response to international tension, had started to mobilise her forces near the German border. The execution of the Schlieffen Plan led to Britain declaring war on Germany on August 4th, 1914.

Second Balkan War

The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 (O.S.)/29 June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked, entering Bulgaria. With Bulgaria also having previously engaged in territorial disputes with Romania, this war provoked Romanian intervention against Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire also took advantage of the situation to regain some lost territories from the previous war. When Romanian troops approached the capital Sofia, Bulgaria asked for an armistice, resulting in the Treaty of Bucharest, in which Bulgaria had to cede portions of its First Balkan War gains to Serbia, Greece and Romania. In the Treaty of Constantinople, it lost Edirne to the Ottomans.

Antwerp

The Siege of Antwerp was an engagement between the German and the Belgian, British and French armies around the fortified city of Antwerp during World War I. German troops besieged a garrison of Belgian fortress troops, the Belgian field army and the British Royal Naval Division in the Antwerp area, after the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914. The city, which was ringed by forts known as the National redoubt, was besieged to the south and east by German forces. The Belgian forces in Antwerp conducted three sorties in late September and early October, which interrupted German plans to send troops to France, where reinforcements were needed to counter the French armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

Namur

The Siege of Namur (French: Siège de Namur) was a battle between Belgian and German forces around the fortified city of Namur during World War I. Namur was defended by a ring of modern fortresses, known as the Fortified Position of Namur and guarded by the Belgian 4th Division.

Marne River

The World War I First Battle of the Marne featured the first use of radio intercepts and automotive transport of troops in wartime. After French commander in chief Joseph Joffre ordered an offensive in September 1914, General Michel-Joseph Maunoury's French Sixth Army opened a gap between Germany's First and Second Armies. Maunoury exploited the gap with help from the French Fifth Army and British Expeditionary Force, while Ferdinand Foch's Ninth Army thwarted the advances of the German Second and Third Armies. By Sept. 10, the Germans embarked on a retreat that ended north of the Aisne River, beginning a phase of the war that would be marked by trench warfare.

Plan 17

The chief aim of Plan XVII, devised by Ferdinand Foch in the wake of the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War, and taken up by French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre in 1913, was the recapture of the territory of Alsace and Lorraine.

Tanks

The development of tanks in World War I was a response to the stalemate that trench warfare had created on the Western Front. Although vehicles that incorporated the basic principles of the tank (armour, firepower, and all-terrain mobility) had been projected in the decade or so before the War, it was the heavy casualties sustained in the first few months of hostilities that stimulated development. Research took place in both Great Britain and France, with Germany only belatedly following the Allies' lead.

Boer War

The first Boer War of 1880-1881 has also been named the Transvaal Rebellion, as the Boers of the Transvaal revolted against the British annexation of 1877. Most scholars prefer to call the war of 1899-1902 the South African War, thereby acknowledging that all South Africans, white and black, were affected by the war and that many were participants.

Machine guns

The machine gun, which so came to dominate and even to personify the battlefields of World War One, was a fairly primitive device when general war began in August 1914. Machine guns of all armies were largely of the heavy variety and decidedly ill-suited to portability for use by rapidly advancing infantry troops. Each weighed somewhere in the 30kg-60kg range - often without their mountings, carriages and supplies.

Canadian Army

The military history of Canada during World War I began on August 4, 1914, when Britain entered the First World War (1914-1918) by declaring war on Germany. The British declaration of war automatically brought Canada into the war, because of Canada's legal status as a British dominion which left foreign policy decisions in the hands of the UK parliament.[1] However, the Canadian government had the freedom to determine the country's level of involvement in the war.[1][2] On August 5, 1914, the Governor General declared a war between Canada and Germany. The Militia was not mobilized and instead an independent Canadian Expeditionary Force was raised.[3] Canada's sacrifices and contributions to the war changed its history and enabled it to become more independent, while opening a deep rift between the French and English speaking populations. For the first time in its history, Canadian forces fought as a distinct unit, first under a British commander but ultimately under a Canadian-born commander.[4] The highpoints of Canadian military achievement during the First World War came during the Somme, Vimy, and Passchendaele battles and what later became known as "Canada's Hundred Days".[5] Canada's total casualties stood at the end of the war at 67,000 killed and 250,000 wounded, out of an expeditionary force of 620,000 people mobilized (39% of mobilized were casualties).[6]

Mustard gas

The most widely reported and, perhaps, the most effective gas of the First World War was mustard gas. It was a vesicant that was introduced by Germany in July 1917 prior to the Third Battle of Ypres. The Germans marked their shells yellow for mustard gas and green for chlorine and phosgene; hence they called the new gas Yellow Cross. Mustard gas is not a particularly effective killing agent (though in high enough doses it is fatal) but can be used to harass and disable the enemy and pollute the battlefield. Delivered in artillery shells, mustard gas was heavier than air, and it settled to the ground as an oily liquid resembling sherry. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several days, weeks, or even months, depending on the weather conditions.

Pals Battalions

The pals battalions of World War I were specially constituted battalions of the British Army comprising men who had enlisted together in local recruiting drives, with the promise that they would be able to serve alongside their friends, neighbours and colleagues ("pals"), rather than being arbitrarily allocated to battalions.[1] At the outbreak of World War I, Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, believed that overwhelming manpower was the key to winning the war and he set about looking for ways to encourage men of all classes to join. This concept stood in direct contrast to centuries of British military tradition, in which the Army had always relied on professional (rather than conscript) soldiers, and had drawn its members from either the gentry (for officers) or lower classes (for enlisted men). General Sir Henry Rawlinson suggested that men would be more inclined to enlist in the Army if they knew that they were going to serve alongside their friends and colleagues. He appealed to London stockbrokers to raise a battalion of men from workers in the City of London to set an example. 1,600 men enlisted in this 10th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, the so-called "Stockbrokers' Battalion", within a week in late August 1914.

Magazine rifles

The single-shot, bigger-bore rifle was the subject of extensive research and development in the latter portion of the nineteenth century, with the result that the major powers introduced new models that were small-bore, bolt-action weapons capable of firing multiple rounds from a spring-loaded clip inserted into a rifle magazine.

Trench construction

There were two main ways to dig a trench. There was entrenchment, which was the faster method, allowing many soldiers equipped with shovels and picks to dig a large portion of trench at once. However, this left the diggers exposed to all of the dangers that the trenches were supposed to protect against. So entrenchment had to take place either in a rear area where diggers were not as vulnerable, or at night. British guidelines for trench construction inform us that it took 450 men approximately 6 hours to dig 275 yards of a front-line trench (approx. 7 feet deep, 6 feet wide) a night. The other option was sapping, where a trench was extended by digging at the end face. It was a much safer route, but took more time, as only one or two men could fit in the area to dig.

T.E. Lawrence

Thomas Edward Lawrence CB DSO, was a British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat. He was renowned for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916-18. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia—a title used for the 1962 film based on his First World War activities.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Wilhelm II (1859-1941), the German kaiser (emperor) and king of Prussia from 1888 to 1918, was one of the most recognizable public figures of World War I (1914-18). He gained a reputation as a swaggering militarist through his speeches and ill-advised newspaper interviews.

Zeppelins

Zeppelin was embraced by both the Germans and the Allies during World War I, the Germans made far more extensive use of the rigid, hydrogen-filled airships. The concept of "strategic bombing"—targeted airstrikes on a particular location—didn't exist before the conflict. The advent of aerial warfare changed that, and also robbed the British of the protection afforded by the English Channel. The zeppelin allowed Germany to bring the war to the English homeland. Kind of. Zeppelins were also used for surveillance. Both sides used them to spot submarines, which were nearly invisible to ships but relatively easily seen from the air. And airships were exceptionally useful for fleet maneuvers, carrying radios that could convey information to commanders on the ground. They also provided a measure of aerial protection for convoys. No less important was their tremendous cargo capacity. Zeppelins could carry men and munitions great distances, something that was not possible with the fixed-wing aircraft of the day.