Given the progression of European thought during and since the Enlightenment, it seems odd that many Europeans in 1914 actually anticipated a war. After all, one of the Enlightenment ideals was the ideal of optimism: “ that application of reason and natural laws to human behavior would lead to progress resulting in the perfection of human institutions.”
Helmuth von Moltke, the chief of the General Staff during the Franco-Prussian War, wrote in 1880,
Eternal peace is a dream --and not even a beautiful one. War is part of God's world-order. Within it unfold the noblest virtues of men, courage and renunciation, loyalty to duty and readiness for sacrifice--at the hazzard of one's life. Without war the world would sink into a swamp of materialism.
von Moltke was not alone in his assessment. Anther German commander, General Friedrich von Bernhardi, stated that “war is a biological necessity.” This statement fit well with the Social Darwinist belief in “survival of the fittest.”
In 1914, Europe was, in the words of Winston Churchill, “a powder keg where everybody smoked.” Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy of the Triple Alliance faced France, Russia, and Great Britain of the Triple Entente.
Germany faced the worst problem in that it alone faced a two-front war. Once France and Russia allied themselves, any German plan for war had to confront armies on both sides of Germany.
The German General Staff planned for this eventuality from the moment of the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894 took effect. Count Alfred von Schieffen, head of the General Staff, was a Prussian military officer who thought of nothing but war. (Once, when a junior officer commented on the beauty of the Rhine, von Schieffen is said to have replied, “a minor obstacle.”) Unnoticed by most observers, Germany planned the nation’s rail lines with the quick transport of troops in mind. Germany could transport troops from one side of the nation to the other smoothly, efficiently — and quickly.
von Schlieffen composed a war plan that assumed a two-front war, with German forces facing both Russia and France. von Schlieffen’s plan also assumed that Russia would take at least 6 weeks to mobilize its forces. The resulting plan called for a massive attack on France to knock France out of the war; then, all the German troops on the Western Front would be transported to the Russian front to face the Russian army. von Schlieffen consciously devised a march through Belgium and the Netherlands into northern France even though Prussia had signed a treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality in hostilities between Germany and France.
The Schlieffen plan assumed that France would attack Germany to regain the former French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. France had lost these provinces during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. von Schlieffen devised a defensive posture in Alsace and Lorraine while the massive northern advance swung through Belgium, conquered Paris, and then pinned the French army from behind. With typical Prussian attitude toward efficiency, von Schlieffen’s plan calculated troop movements almost to the hour. If the plan worked, the German army would celebrate a victory march in Paris on day 39.
The French, meanwhile, devised their own plan, Plan XVII. Plan XVII had one strategy: offense. The French general who devised the plan, General Ferdinand Foch, relied on a belief in brute force and the French elan, or fighting spirit. French soldiers, motivated by the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War and the memories of great victories under Napoleon, would charge forward, overwhelm the Germans, and win the war. Plan XVII had one goal in mind: the conquest of Alsace and Lorraine.
Germany, Great Britain, and France all had well-trained, well-equipped armies. For that matter, the Russian army was better equipped than the political situation would have allowed, but only because the Russian army was headed by Grand Duke Nicholas, the tsar’s brother.
Industrialization played a great role in all these plans. When Bismarck first began constructing alliances, most nations’ armies numbered roughly 500,000 men, primarily because no nation could equip an army any larger. In the years between 1871 and 1914, chemists devised new explosives (TNT was first used in artillery shells in 1902); industrialists learned how to mass-produce steel (Henry Bessemer developed blast furnaces by the 1870’s) and firearms, including new artillery pieces and machine guns. Industry would also produce new weapons during the war, including poison gas and tanks. By 1913, the average army in Europe exceeded 1 million men, and most countries could mobilize and equip as many as 4 million men.
Greater steel production also led to the massive naval arms races of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The British introduced the dreadnought battleship in 1906. The H.M.S. Dreadnought was more than 500 feet long and carried 10 massive guns (12-inch guns). The Dreadnought was only the first battleship; soon, every navy in Europe was building massive battleships. Germany’s construction of a large navy played a role in the British decision to join France and Russia in the Triple Entente.
Unlike France, Germany, Britain, and Russia, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire faced massive problems in 1914. First, the empire was an ethnic hodgepodge of nationalities controlled by the Austrians and Hungarians, and most of the mix was Slavic. The Slavs resented the Hapsburg rule of their nationalities. Even worse, Austria-Hungary’s worst enemy, Serbia, was Slavic, and the Russians had pledged to aid their Slavic “brothers” in the event of a war. Secondly, Austria-Hungary was far behind in industrialization; the army had only enough arms and ammunition to fight a short war. Lastly, Austria-Hungary’s army proved a great disappointment when the Slavic conscripts fought poorly under Austrian and Hungarian leadership. One German would later quip in the war, “we are shackled to a corpse.”
The stage was set, and the powder keg was primed. Europe needed only a match.
World War
In 1914, Austria-Hungary and Serbia had already exchanged harsh words over nationalist activities in Slavic areas of the empire. The Austrians believed, and not without reason, that Serbia was aiding the terrorists.
On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, traveled to the Bosnian town of Sarajevo with his wife Sophie. When their motorcade passed through Sarajevo, a terrorist from the nationalist group The Black Hand threw a bomb at their car but missed. Later, when Franz Ferdinand and Sophie went to hospital to visit the wounded, Gavrilo Princip, another member of the group, jumped on the running board of their car and shot Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, killing both.
Austria immediately blamed Serbia for the attack. The Serbian prime minister knew of the possibility of an attack and had ordered the assassins arrested, but his orders were not enforced.
Austria sent a 10-point ultimatum to the Serbian government and gave 48 hours for it to capitulate. The demands included:
1. To suppress any publication which incites to hatred and contempt of the [Austrian] Monarchy;
2. To dissolve immediately the society styled Narodna Odbrana [National Defence], and to proceed in the same manner against the other societies which engage in propaganda against [Austria];
To eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia, both as regards the teaching body and the methods of instruction, all that serves or might serve to foment propaganda against Austria-Hungary;
To remove from the military service and the administration in general all officers guilty of propaganda against Austria-Hungary, names of which were to be provided by the Austro-Hungarian government;
To accept the collaboration in Serbia of organs of the Austro-Hungarian government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the territorial integrity of the monarchy;
To take judicial proceedings against the accessories to the plot of June 28th who are on Serbian territory, with the help and direction of organs delegated by the Austro-Hungarian government;
To immediately arrest two named persons implicated by the preliminary investigation undertaken by Austria-Hungary;
To prevent by effective measures the cooperation of [Serbia] in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier;
To furnish Austria-Hungary with explanations regarding statements from high Serbian officials both in Serbia and abroad, who have expressed hostility towards Austria-Hungary; and
To notify Austria-Hungary without delay of the execution of the[se] measures.
(Source: wikipedia.org)
The Serbians agreed to most of the demands but refused to allow the Austrians to participate in the judicial proceedings. The Serbians had already received Russian assurances they would have Russian help if Austria-Hungary invaded. The Austrians had received assurances from Germany they would have German help if war came. The Russian received assurances from France that the French would help in the event of war. On 28 July 1914, a month after the assassination, Austria-Hungary began bombarding the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
The Russians immediately began mobilization of their army. Kaiser Wilhelm II tried to persuade his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II, to stand down, but Nicholas refused. On 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia; Germany then declared war on France 2 days later. On 3 August — only 2 days after declaring war on Russia and the same day it declared war on France — Germany invaded Belgium as the Schlieffen Plan dictated. Once Germany violated Belgium’s neutrality, Britain declared war on Germany.
There’s a big question: Why was France attacked? Simply put, when the German government asked the generals to devise a plan to support Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, the General Staff replied that changing the rail schedules would wreck the Army’s defense of the empire. There was no flexibility in the German war plan: France had to fall before the troops could go elsewhere.
Is anyone missing in all this? Italy, of course; Italy waffled on its commitment to Germany and Austria-Hungary by insisting its involvement was required only if Austria-Hungary or Germany were invaded, not if they invaded someone else. The Italians immediately began negotiating with both sides to see which would give it the better deal. The Italians eventually joined the Triple Entente in 1915. Given the Italians’ performance against Ethiopia, the Entente didn’t even bother changing the name.
Furthermore, no one expected a long war. The Germans were so confident of a quick victory that Wilhelm II remarked, “Paris for lunch, St. Petersburg for dinner.”
Germany’s success against France relied on a quick victory in Belgium, but the Belgian army managed to hold up the Germans long enough for the British to land an army on the Continent. Also, the Russians mobilized faster than the Germans had expected, forcing General Staff commander Helmuth von Moltke (the nephew of the elder von Moltke) to transfer some troops from the Western Front to defend Prussia.
The Belgians wouldn’t be Germany’s worst problem in the west. von Moltke the Younger lacked the decisiveness of his uncle and von Schlieffen. von Moltke modified the Schlieffen plan by weakening the northern wing, robbing it of needed reserves. Other problems would result after the French enacted Plan XVII.
As von Schlieffen had expected, the French attacked in Alsace and Lorraine while ignoring the northern border with Belgium. (The French army assumed the Germans would honor Belgium’s neutrality.) The French were caught by surprise when roughly 1 million German troops began marching through Belgium.
Plan XVII’s elan and frontal charges ran into a German grinder of machine guns, rifles and modern artillery. The French armies were hammered and driven back into French territory. At this point, von Moltke threw the Schlieffen plan to the wind by allowing his general in Alsace-Lorraine to go on the offensive. This action exposed the German army to a counterattack — which the French quickly did.
French General Joseph Joffre recovered quickly from Plan XVII and ordered a counterattack on the German troops. The southern German commanders had to ask for help from the northern arm, forcing the arm to swing north of Paris rather than south. As a result, Paris was spared from capture. The forces met at the Marne River, where they fought the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914. The southern German wing was forced to withdraw, but the Allies were too slow to follow them. The Germans dug in in northern France and began building a line of trenches from Switzerland to the North Sea. The Allies responded with a series of trenches of their own. The 2 sides fought another major battle at the Belgian city of Ypres after which the war stalemated in the West. Neither side attempted another offensive in 1914.
Both sides lost large numbers of troops. France and Britain lost roughly 263,000 troops in the First Battle of the Marne, while the Germans lost 250,000. The Germans were stopped, but at a terrible price.
The Germans were tied down in France, leaving only one army to guard Prussia in the East. The Austrians were on their own. The Austrian-Hungarian army tried to invade Serbia, where all the nonsense had begun in the first place. The Serbs had little equipment for their small army, but they proved to be tenacious fighters. The Austria-Hungarian forces invaded 3 times; each time, the Serbs beat them back. By 15 December, the Serbs could say, “On the whole territory of the Serbian government there remains not one free enemy soldier.” The news was just as bad when the Austro-Hungarian forces tried to attack the Russians. The “corpse” was proving a major burden.
The Russians mobilized far faster than the Germans had anticipated and began an invasion of East Prussia. The German commander panicked and tried to convince the General Staff to abandon Prussia; he was sacked instead and replaced with the “dream team” of General Paul von Hindenburg and Major General Erich Ludendorff.
Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived to find that while the Russians were certainly in Prussia, their two armies were not coordinating their attacks; furthermore, the Russians were using radio to broadcast, and, assuming the Germans couldn’t understand Russian, they were broadcasting battle plans in the clear. Furthermore, it seemed the Russian commanders found numerous prostitutes in Prussia. It took a while for the Russians to realize the “prostitutes” were all wearing government-issue underwear. By that time, the damage was done.
The Germans caught one of the Russian armies at the village of Tannenberg on 26 August 1914, encircled it, and wiped it out; the Russians lost an entire army, including 120,000 men captured. The Russian general committed suicide rather than face the tsar. In September, the Germans pushed the Russians out of Prussia in the Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
The Austrians tried to attack Russia through Poland but lost over 350,000 men in the process. The Russians counterattacked and drove the Austrians back to the Carpathian Mountains.
1914 ended with an unusual occurrence. On the Western Front, German and British troops heard each other singing Christmas carols on Christmas Day. The troops actually left their trenches, met in “no man’s land,” and exchanged Christmas greetings, even visiting each other’s trenches and playing soccer. The high commands were shocked — and never gave their troops another Christmas off.
1915
The Russians opened 1915 with a spring offensive against the Austrians. The Germans responded with a massive assault using troops from the Western Front (remember the railroads?), forcing the Russians back over 100 miles. Warsaw fell to the Germans in August 1915. By the end of the offensive, the Russians had lost nearly 2 million men.
The Bulgarians joined the Central Powers in September and immediately attacked the Serbs. The Bulgarians did what the Austro-Hungarian army could not do: defeat the Serbs. The Serbian army had to retreat to Albania.
1915 also saw major action in the West. The British finally had a large army to field (over 3 million men) and wondered where to put it. The two sides fought again at Ypres in April. This time, the Germans tried a new weapon: poison gas. Even though the gas worked — a huge hole opened in the Allied lines — the German commanders didn’t trust it and failed to follow through on its success. The British lost 60,000 men in the battle, the Germans, 35-40,000.
Italy entered the fray in May 1915 — on the Allied side. Italy immediately attacked the Austro-Hungarian forces in the direction of Trieste. Although the Austro-Hugarian troops fared poorly against the Russians, they fought fiercely against the Italians, repeatedly beating the Italians in 11 offensives in one area alone.
The Ottoman Empire had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in 1914 in an attempt to win Russian territory. The British, persuaded by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, attempted to land forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula in an attempt to capture Constantinople and open the way to supply Russia through the Black Sea. The campaign was a dismal failure, resulting in nearly 500,000 casualties between the two sides. The loss of many New Zealand and Australian troops would have large consequences for the British Empire. Churchill resigned from the Admiralty, joined the army, and fought in the war until appointed Minister of Munitions in 1917.
The British invaded Mesopotamia in 1915, advancing nearly to Baghdad. Unfortunately, disease and lack of supplies doomed the effort, and the Turks captured the British survivors in April 1916.
1915 ended as it started: stalemate in the West, Austro-Hungarian failures in the East. Only the entry of Italy gave the Central Powers any hope — the Austro-Hungarian imperial army finally had a suitable opponent.
1916
1916 saw some of the bloodiest fighting in the West. The Germans transferred massive numbers of troops from the East to the West (remember the railroads?) to attack the French in a battle of attrition. The French town of Verdun was chosen for the assault. In February 1916, the Germans began the Battle of Verdun. The Battle lasted through December. The French lost 362,000 men; the Germans, 336,000.
During the battle for Verdun, the British attempted to relieve the French by attacking the Germans at the Somme River. The British began the assault in late June with a bombardment of over 1.7 million artillery rounds in 8 days (remember the industrialization?). The Germans, however, had an extensive defensive system in place and survived the bombardment in good condition. When the British advanced, confident that nothing could survive such a blasting, the Germans emerged from their bombproof bunkers and began mowing down the British soldiers. The British lost nearly 60,000 casualties in the first day. By the end of the battle in November, the British had lost 415,000 men; the French, 200,000; and the Germans never reported their losses. The Battle of the Somme saw the introduction of tanks to modern warfare (Churchill had promoted its development in his time at the Admiralty).
While all this bloodletting was happening in the West, the Germans were reeling in the East. The Russians had found a capable commander: General Alexei Brusilov, commander of the Southwest Army Group. Brusilov launched an offensive on 4 June that surprised the German and Austrian forces. As the Austrians lost territory, the Germans had to retreat to prevent being attacked from the rear. Brusilov relentlessly continued the attack until September, during which the Austrians lost over 600,000 men and the Germans over 150,000. However, Brusilov’s campaign cost the Russians over 1 million casualties, demoralized the army, and indirectly led to the Russian Revolution of 1917.