World War I - The Definitive Visual History

["Battle supplies at Neuve Chapelle Joseph Gray\u2019s painting, A Ration Party of the 4th Black Watch at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 1915, shows battle supplies being brought up under cover of darkness. Progress across the war-torn battlefield was hazardous. Sixty thousand men and their included the Gurkhas and Sikhs of two But confusion reigned. On one \ufb02ank AFTER equipment were moved forward at Indian divisions, were able to cross no of the British advance a few German night without alerting the Germans. man\u2019s land and occupy the German machine guns in\ufb02icted heavy casualties The failure of French and British The attack came as a surprise for the line almost without loss. and halted progress. Units lost their armies to achieve a breakthrough Germans. At 7:30am on March 10, way in the devastated terrain. on the Western Front strengthened some 500 guns opened up a ferocious Lost opportunity the case for an alternative strategy. Communications also broke down. attack. The German barbed wire Haig had envisioned that initial success Reports on the situation at the GALLIPOLI was cut and the trench line would be followed by a rapid push front took hours to reach Haig\u2019s The Gallipoli landings 110\u201311 \u276f\u276f in late devastated. In most places, forward, with cavalry eventually headquarters, and orders took further April 1915 were intended to exploit the the British troops, which riding through into open country. hours to travel in the opposite weakness of Turkey and the strength of Allied direction. While the British wasted naval power. But Gallipoli proved no more Circuit board Brown Bakelite time, the Germans brought in reserves effective than offensives on the Western Front cabinet box to block the opening in the line and and also ended in trench warfare. Cloth- reinforce \ufb02anking positions. By insulated German field nightfall, the opportunity was lost. SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES receiver telephone Germany made one effort at a Western Front handset The only equipment for The last stage of the battle followed offensive in April\u2013May 1915, at the Second communication between what was to become a familiar pattern. Battle of Ypres 102\u201305 \u276f\u276f, but otherwise commanders or artillery On March 11, the German commander, stayed on the defensive while achieving major and advancing troops Crown Prince Rupprecht, mounted a successes on the Eastern Front against was the portable field counterattack. The British had moved Russia and Romania 194\u201395 \u276f\u276f. In the telephone. Its main machine guns into advanced positions autumn, the Allies launched major offensives disadvantage was that and it was the turn of the Germans to in the Champagne and Artois sectors, its wire could be severed fall in large numbers. When \ufb01ghting with appalling loss of life. by shell fire. subsided on March 13, losses on the opposing sides were not dissimilar\u2014 99 11,700 British and 8,600 Germans dead, wounded, or taken prisoner. The British had gained less than 1 sq mile (2 sq km) of territory.","STALEMATE 1915 1 WINCHESTER M1897 SHOTGUN (U.S.) 3 TRENCH KNIFE (GERMAN) 2 CARTRIDGE BELT (U.S.) 4 M1917 TRENCH KNIFE (U.S.) 5 M1917 BAYONET (U.S.) Trench Fighting Equipment Trench warfare demanded its own weaponry, as opposing armies fought at very close range. Grenades and mortars were important while nighttime raids on enemy trenches required silent equipment. 1 Winchester M1897 shotgun (U.S.) Known as the magnesium. 12 Webley & Scott MK VI revolver (British) 13 FOLDING 14 WIRE CUTTERS \u201dtrench sweeper,\u201c this model sprayed lead pellets and was In 1915, this became the standard sidearm for British SHOVEL (ITALIAN) (BRITISH) brutally effective in con\ufb01ned spaces. 2 Cartridge belt troops. 13 Folding shovel (Italian) Intended for digging, (U.S.) This was used to hold buckshot pellets for shotguns. shovels were also used as weapons. 14 Wire cutters 3 Trench knife (German) Short, sharp, and quiet, knives (British) These were vital for creating passages through were essential trench weapons. 4 M1917 trench knife barbed wire. 15 M1910 wire cutters (U.S.) These were (U.S.) This model combined a knife and brass knuckles. standard issue to U.S. infantry and cavalry. 16 M1915 hand 5 M1917 bayonet (U.S.) At 17 in (43 cm) in length, this grenade (German) This grenade was quickly mass- bayonet was often too long for con\ufb01ned trench combat. produced. A time delay before exploding allowed the 6 Wooden club (British) Soldiers on all sides created enemy to throw it back. 17 M1915 disk grenade (German) homemade weapons. 7 Nail club (British) The hobnails in This was a \u201cpercussion\u201d grenade, meaning that it exploded this club allowed the wielder to in\ufb02ict serious injury. on impact. 18 Grenade P1 (French) Also a percussion 8 Metal club (British) Clubs were useful for dispatching grenade, this model was known as the \u201cpear\u201d or \u201cspoon.\u201c foes during stealthy trench raids. 9 Spiked club (British) 19 Stokes mortar bomb (British) Up to 30 of these bombs Designs such as this one had a leather strap to secure the could be \ufb01red per minute, at a range of 1,200 yd (1,100 m). weapon to the wielder\u2019s wrist. 10 Kommandantur Lille 20 No.1 grenade (British) The streamers on this grenade \ufb02are pistol (German) Flares were shot into the air to send ensured the explosive head landed \ufb01rst. 21 Periscope signals or to illuminate no man\u2019s land. 11 Flare pistol (British) Periscopes were used by all armies to enable safe cartridges (German) Flares were produced using observation of enemy trenches. 100","7 NAIL CLUB TRENCH FIGHTING EQUIPMENT (BRITISH) 10 KOMMANDANTUR LILLE FLARE 6 WOODEN PISTOL (GERMAN) CLUB (BRITISH) 11 FLARE PISTOL CARTRIDGES (GERMAN) 12 WEBLEY & SCOTT MK VI REVOLVER (BRITISH) 16 M1915 9 SPIKED HAND CLUB (BRITISH) GRENADE (GERMAN) 8 METAL CLUB (BRITISH) 15 M1910 WIRE 17 M1915 18 GRENADE P1 (FRENCH) 19 STOKES MORTAR 20 NO.1 GRENADE 21 PERISCOPE CUTTERS (U.S.) DISK GRENADE BOMB (BRITISH) (BRITISH) (BRITISH) (GERMAN) 101","STALEMATE 1915 BEFORE In spring 1915, the Germans were preparing a major offensive against Russia, but the development of a new weapon also tempted them to attack on the Western Front. FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES In November 1914, the Allies had gained the Ypres salient in the First Battle of Ypres \u276e\u276e 60\u201361. Their line of trenches, curving to the east of the Belgian town, was overlooked by German positions on higher ground. The trenches on the left of the salient were held by French territorials and colonial troops, with the British Second Army, including the First Canadian Division, holding the front and right. GERMAN STRATEGY The German forces in the sector were outnumbered by the Allies, because German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn had transferred troops to the Eastern Front for the Gorlice-Tarnow offensive 134\u201335 \u276f\u276f. Falkenhayn\u2019s strategy was to stand on the defensive in the West while attacking in the East. In late 1914, Germany\u2019s scientists had begun developing the poison gas chlorine 104\u201305 \u276f\u276f for military use. The Ypres salient was identi\ufb01ed as a suitable location for an experimental gas attack. POET (1872\u20131918) JOHN MCCRAE Second Ypres The Second Battle of Ypres has a sinister place in the history of warfare as the first battle to feature the use of chlorine gas. Germany\u2019s secret weapon caused initial shock and panic, but Allied troops quickly learned to cope with this new horror of war. Canadian doctor and poet John McCrae T he Germans surprised the Allies deployment of the cylinders, but the killed by the chlorine in their lungs. If enlisted as a \ufb01eld surgeon in the with their chlorine gas attack at Canadian Artillery in 1914. He was in Ypres, even though their information was not taken seriously by they climbed out, they were exposed to charge of a \ufb01eld hospital during the preparations were slow and clumsy. Second Battle of Ypres. The death of a Their plan was for gas released from Allied military intelligence. artillery and machine gun \ufb01re. friend in that battle inspired him to write pressurized cylinders to be blown In Flanders Fields, one of the war\u2019s most across Allied lines by the wind. Some On the afternoon of April 22, with a As the gas rolled toward the rear, famous poems. Published in Britain in 5,700 cylinders, each weighing about December 1915, it was an instant 88 lb (40 kg), were manhandled into breeze at last blowing steadily from troops \ufb02ed in panic, many choking and success with its appeal from the dead to position at the front and then buried the living to \u201cTake up our quarrel with under a layer of earth. behind their lines, Germany\u2019s special with eyes streaming. Meanwhile, the foe.\u201d McCrae died of pneumonia at Boulogne in France in January 1918. The cylinders were in place by early gas troops opened the cylinders. A German troops using respirators as He was buried in the Commonwealth April, but a long wait ensued because War Graves Commission cemetery at the wind was in the wrong direction. yellow-green cloud protection advanced Withereux, just up the coast. During the delay, Allied interrogation of German prisoners and a deserter drifted across no SALIENT A sector of the into a gap 4 miles 102 produced detailed accounts of the man\u2019s land toward battlefield that protrudes (6 km) wide in trenches held by into hostile territory, so that the Allied line. French Zouaves, from it is surrounded by the enemy Fortunately for across France\u2019s North on three sides. the Allies, their African colonies, and superiority in numbers Algerian ri\ufb02emen. Those in the prevented the Germans from fully frontline had little chance of escape. If exploiting their breakthrough. Allied they stayed in the trenches, they were reserves were brought up to block the","SECOND YPRES AFTER In spring 1915, all combatants experienced shortages of shells and artillery as factories struggled to increase their output. FRENCH MUNITIONS FACTORY, OCTOBER 1915 SHELL SHORTAGE In Britain, a political crisis, known as the \u201cshell scandal,\u201d was precipitated when senior commanders told journalists they were short of shells. Along with the failure of the Gallipoli landings 110\u2013113 \u276f\u276f, this provoked the formation of a coalition government in late May 1915, with David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. ALLIES DEVELOP POISON GAS Germany\u2019s use of poison further harmed its reputation, especially in the United States. While denouncing German immorality, the Allies set about developing their own chemical weapons. The British made a \ufb01rst attempt to use chlorine gas released from cylinders at the Battle of Loos 142\u201343 \u276f\u276f in September 1915. The British, French, and Germans made extensive use of gas-filled artillery shells. gap and launch counterattacks. ordered to retreat. On May 1, it was The Canadians at Ypres withdrawals in any case. In continued A Canadian Scottish battalion led the turn of the British Dorset Canadian troops received a baptism by fire at Second \ufb01ghting through May, the Germans a frontal assault on a position Regiment, which was attacked Ypres. This painting, The Second Battle of Ypres, by the advanced to within 2 miles (3 km) of known as Kitchener\u2019s Wood. with chlorine at a position official war artist Richard Jack, shows hard-pressed Ypres, where a new front line was It succeeded in taking it, known as Hill 60. The men Canadians repelling a German assault. stabilized on May 25. The battle but at the expense of 75 stood on the \ufb01re steps of their was then deemed to have ended. percent casualties. trenches in a fog of chlorine, German troops continued to have the shooting blindly at advancing upper hand, and gained ground Anglo-French offensive Fog of chlorine German infantry, stopping piecemeal. The town of Ypres was As the \ufb01ghting at Ypres continued, an Allied troops quckly found only when disabled by reduced to rubble by German shelling. Allied offensive was launched farther that an improvised answer poisoned lungs. By south. On May 9, after a \ufb01ve-day to the worst effects of then it was clear that 6 out of 10 Canadians who preliminary bombardment by 1,200 chlorine was a wet pad the Germans had fought at the Second Battle guns, the French Ninth Army attacked placed over the mouth\u2014 increased the horror of Ypres were killed, wounded, in Artois, between Arras and Lens. The at \ufb01rst usually soaked of the war without or taken prisoner. British First Army, under General in urine, which \ufb01nding a solution Douglas Haig, mounted a supporting neutralized the poison. to the trench As the size of the salient shrank, Allied attack toward Aubers Ridge, in the Thus prepared, stalemate. troops became dangerously crowded, same sector as the earlier Battle of Canadian troops making a tempting target for German Neuve Chapelle. French General subjected to gassing German gas mask artillery. Commander of the British Philippe P\u00e9tain, commanding a corps, on April 24 did not In preparation for the use Second Army, General Sir Horace made a breakthrough to the crest of panic, and the of chlorine gas, the Smith-Dorrien, advocated some tactical Vimy Ridge, but was then driven back German assault ran Germans issued their own withdrawals to improve the defensive by counterattacking German reserves. into \ufb01erce resistance. troops with primitive position. Annoyed by this suggestion, A renewal of the offensive on May 15 But the line broke masks and respirators. British commander-in-chief Field enabled the British to take the village where the gas attack Despite taking this Marshal Sir John French used it as a of Festubert\u2014an insigni\ufb01cant gain was densest, and at precaution, some German pretext to replace Smith-Dorrien with for heavy losses. By June, exhaustion the end of the day the soldiers were victims of poison General Herbert Plumer\u2014who dictated a general subsidence of Canadians were gas at Second Ypres. promptly made the necessary tactical \ufb01ghting on the Western Front. 103","STALEMATE 1915 Chemical Warfare \u201c Men were caught by fumes and in German gas shell dreadful agony, coughing and Gas shells contained a liquid that vomiting, rolling on the ground\u2026\u201d vaporized when the shell burst. Markings indicated the mix of SECOND LIEUTENANT ERNEST SHEPHARD, DORSET REGIMENT, WITNESS OF A GAS ATTACK, MAY 1, 1915 chemicals inside\u2014for the Germans, green indicated chlorine; yellow, mustard gas; and blue, diphenylchlorarsine, a vomiting agent. T he development of the chemical small tear gas projectiles were probably entrenched troops, the German high from cylinders\u2014a way around the industry in the 19th century used by the French army in the early command accepted a proposal from shell shortage\u2014and experimented with raised the possibility of using months of the war, allowing the Carl Duisberg, head of the German \ufb01nding the required density its products for military purposes. Germans to claim later that France chemical giant Bayer, to explore the of gas for optimal effect. In an attempt to prevent this from had initiated chemical warfare. Like mass production of poison gases for happening, in 1899 the major powers Germany\u2019s own use of irritant gas in use in battle. The gas program was criticized signed the Hague Convention, which, 1914, however, this was small-scale by some senior German commanders, among other restrictions, banned and ineffectual. Developing chemical weapons notably Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. the use of gas shells. He argued that it was morally The decision to develop gas as a Some of Germany\u2019s most distinguished distasteful, would blacken Germany\u2019s It was widely assumed that the major weapon was taken by Germany scientists, including Fritz Haber, head reputation, and would lead the Allies Convention did not cover irritant tear in the autumn of 1914. Worried by of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in to develop their own gas weapons. gas, which by 1914 was being used by the shortage of high-explosive shells Berlin, were involved in the project. Haber insisted that killing a man with French police for riot control. Some and their ineffectiveness against Haber suggested releasing chlorine gas gas was morally no different from Gas attack German special gas troops, known to other soldiers as Stinktruppe, release chlorine gas. The cylinders containing the gas were unstable, leading to many injuries among the soldiers deploying them. 104","CHEMICAL WARFARE killing him with explosives, and that Masks for all Nothing offered a complete defense TIMELINE the Allies would never be able to An Allied soldier wears a box respirator, with its against mustard gas, introduced by match Germany\u2019s chemical industry, one-piece rubberized mask and goggles, while his the Germans at Passchendaele in 1917, \u25a0 1899 The Hague Convention, signed by the the most advanced in the world. horse has cover for its nose and mouth. Later horse because it affected the skin as well as major powers, bans the military use of gas masks included protection for the eyes. the lungs and eyes. Foul in its effects\u2014 projectiles diffusing \u201casphyxiating and On April 22, 1915, chlorine from blistering skin, causing temporary deleterious gases.\u201d Haber\u2019s gas cylinders, supervised by the invented a special mortar known as a or permanent blindness and painful scientist in person, enveloped a section Livens Projector that hurled an entire internal damage\u2014it was utterly \u25a0 August\u2013October 1914 The French and of the Allied line at Ypres, killing large gas cylinder into enemy positions. disabling but rarely deadly. It lingered Germans make limited and largely unnoticed numbers of soldiers and driving the on the battle\ufb01eld as an oily deposit, use of tear gas on the Western Front. rest into panicked retreat. Two Masks, bags, and respirators creating no-go areas for weeks. It took weaknesses of gas as a weapon quickly the Allies a year to develop their own \u25a0 October 1914 Germans investigate chemical became apparent. Firstly, the cylinders Countermeasures to protect the troops mustard gas, which they employed weapons as a way of attacking troops. could be used only when the wind was improved as the use of gas became liberally in the \ufb01nal stages of the war. standard. Chlorine was initially \u25a0 December 1914 Fritz Haber heads the 88,500 The estimated rendered nonlethal by a simple damp 190,000 The number chemical section of the Prussian War Ministry. number of pad over the mouth and nose, ideally of tons of deaths caused by poison gas in steeped in bicarbonate of soda. The chemicals estimated to have been \u25a0 January 1915 Attacking the Russians at the World War I, including around introduction of \u201csmoke helmets\u201d\u2014 manufactured for military use in Battle of Bolimov in Poland, the Germans fire 56,000 Russians killed by gas. hoods of chemically impregnated World War I, including 94,000 tons 18,000 shells \ufb02annel\u2014soon offered even better of chlorine and 37,000 tons of containing xylyl 80 The percentage of gas- protection. Chlorine and phosgene phosgene. About 99,000 tons were bromide, a toxic tear induced deaths caused by worked by attacking the lungs. This produced by Germany. gas, but it fails to work phosgene, by far the deadliest effect was negated when troops were in cold conditions. of the gases used in World War I. issued with box respirators, which Soldiers hated poison gas. It was not \ufb01ltered the air, making it breathable. an effective killer, but it was useful \u25a0 April 1915 The blowing in the right direction\u2014a When attached to a rubberized as a means of spreading panic. Germans use chlorine serious problem for the Germans on headpiece, as in the British Small Box gas against the British the Western Front, where the Respirator (SBR), this became the The bell that warned of a gas and French at the prevailing wind was against them. ultimate in antigas protection. attack was followed by a desperate Second Battle of Ypres. Secondly, improvised but fairly fumbling to put on masks. A effective gas masks appeared within \u25a0 May 1915 Germany days of the \ufb01rst chlorine attack. man caught without his mask\u2014 uses poison gas or not issued one, as was against Russian Nonetheless, the Allies perceived frequently the case in the soldiers, causing a high EARLY GAS MASK poison gas as an essential new Russian army\u2014experienced death rate among unprotected troops. weapon and were soon manufacturing their own gas terror. In retrospect, most \u25a0 September 1915 The British make their first in large quantities. The leading military commanders judged use of poison gas at the Battle of Loos, French scientist Victor Grignard that the use of poison gas had releasing chlorine gas from canisters. competed with the German made life worse for all troops, chemists to develop a deadlier to no decisive effect. \u25a0 October 1915 The Germans make the first gas, phosgene. Often used in documented use of phosgene, mixed with combination with chlorine and chlorine, against French troops in Champagne. tear gas, phosgene and its derivative diphosgene came into \u25a0 February 1916 The Battle of Verdun begins. widespread use in 1916. Both sides make wide use of phosgene shells. By this time, shells \ufb01red by \u25a0 April 1916 The small box respirator is mortars and artillery guns introduced for British troops. replaced cylinders as the normal delivery system, \u25a0 June 1916 The Germans fire large numbers reducing dependence on of diphosgene shells at the Battle of Verdun. wind direction. The British \u25a0 September 1917 The Germans deploy British gas hood mustard gas for the first time at the Third From summer 1915, British Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). troops wore gas hoods known as smoke helmets. This \u25a0 November 1917 The Allies use a stock of PH Helmet has a double layer of German mustard gas shells, captured at cloth impregnated with antigas Cambrai, against the Germans. chemicals, glass eyepieces, and a one-way valve mouthpiece. \u25a0 April 1918 The United States begins development of a new chemical weapon, \u201c I wish people\u2026 could see a case of mustard lewisite, but it is not ready by the war\u2019s end. gas\u2014the poor things burned and blistered with blind eyes.\u201d \u25a0 September\u2013October 1918 The Allies deploy mustard gas in successful offensives against the Hindenburg Line, the German defense system in northern France. \u25a0 1919 The Treaty of Versailles bans Germany from possessing chemical weapons. \u25a0 June 1925 The Geneva Protocol bans the use of chemical or biological weapons; it is signed by some, but not all, major powers. The United States fails to adhere to it. \u25a0 1939\u201345 Despite both sides in World War II processing and developing poison gases and nerve gases, chemical weapons are used only by the Japanese against the Chinese. VERA BRITTAIN, NURSE AT \u00c9TAPLES IN 1918, IN HER MEMOIR A TESTAMENT OF YOUTH 105","STALEMATE 1915 Italy Enters the War In May 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary in a bid to gain territory. This fateful decision committed the Italians to a conflict in which half a million of their soldiers would die, beginning at the Isonzo Front in June 1915. BEFORE I taly aspired to the status of a Supporting the troops Italy expanding its borders major European power, despite The front page of the French newspaper to include South Tyrol and Since 1882, Italy had been a member an inadequate level of economic Le Petit Journal, published on June 6, 1915, Trentino, Trieste, and part of the of the Triple Alliance with Germany development. It had territorial depicts Italian crowds cheering as their Dalmatian coast. They also proposed and Austria-Hungary. At the outbreak ambitions in the Mediterranean, the troops depart for war. an Italian protectorate over Albania, of war, it declared neutrality. Balkans, and Africa, as well as around recognition of Italian control of the its northeastern border, where a entry into the war, but the Dodecanese islands, colonies ITALY\u2019S STANCE substantial number of Italians lived Austro-Hungarians were reluctant in Africa, and a share in a future Italy\u2019s alliance with Austria-Hungary and under Austro-Hungarian rule. to comply. They grudgingly carve-up of the Ottoman Empire. Germany had always been unpopular in agreed to offer it the Trentino This was enough to persuade Salandra Italy, since most Italians regarded Austria- When war broke out in August region in March 1915, but this was Hungary as their traditional enemy. 1914, the Italian prime minister, too little too late. Antonio Salandra, saw the con\ufb02ict War with Turkey in 1911\u201312 had as an opportunity to ful\ufb01ll these The Treaty of London revealed the weakness of Italy\u2019s armed forces aspirations. He adopted an attitude that and put a heavy strain on the economy. In he dubbed sacro egoismo (\u201csacred By spring 1915, the Italian government self-interest\u201d), which meant offering was leaning heavily toward the Allies, 1914, anti-war sentiment was strong. to join the side that promised Italy the who were promising Italy substantial best deal. Germany urged Austria- territory in enemy countries if it Hungary to cede some disputed entered the war on their side. Allied territory to Italy in exchange for Italian negotiators held out the prospect of Italian Alpine regiment Italy\u2019s elite mountain warfare troops, the Alpini, are photographed on a glacier in the Alps in 1915. The Alpine battalions played an important role in the war\u2014most of the Austrian front followed the course of the high mountains between Italy and Austria.","ITALY ENTERS THE WAR and his foreign minister, Giorgio Distinctive headgear AFTER Sonnino, to sign the Treaty of The Italian Bersaglieri Corps was London with the Allies on April 26. a highly regarded light infantry The deadlock on the Italian front formation. Their wide-brimmed lasted for almost two and a half years, Under the terms of the treaty, hats were decorated with until it was ended by a victory for the which remained secret, Italy had black capercaillie feathers. Central Powers at Caporetto (now to declare war on the Central Kobarid in Slovenia). Powers within a month. This Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign was mountain peaks, except in Trentino, was not easily done. In early relieving the pressure on Austro- where the mountain barrier was GAINS AND LOSSES May, neutralists in the Italian Hungarian forces \ufb01ghting the Russians traversed by a number of passes. Austria-Hungary\u2019s position was strengthened parliament voted Salandra on the Eastern Front. Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna by the defeat of Serbia 140\u201341 \u276f\u276f in the out of of\ufb01ce, but King Victor chose to concentrate his forces at the winter of 1915\u201316. This allowed the Emmanuel III, who was The Isonzo Campaign eastern end of the border, where the Austro-Hungarians to mount an initially pro-war, reinstated him. Isonzo valley offered a corridor into successful offensive at Asiago in Trentino Italian nationalists, including Defending their 370 mile (600 km) Austro-Hungarian territory. in May 1916, although without decisive results. the prominent poet Gabriele border with Italy would have been The Italians achieved a limited victory at d\u2019Annunzio, mounted a passionate dif\ufb01cult for the Austro-Hungarian army The Isonzo was no easy option for Gorizia (the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo) in propaganda campaign in favor had it not been for the terrain. Most of the Italians, however, for the Austro- August 1916 after Austria-Hungary diverted of joining the war. the frontier consisted of impassable Hungarian forces occupied defensive troops to respond to the Russian Brusilov positions\u2014some blasted out of rock offensive 174\u201375 \u276f\u276f. On May 23, Italy declared war with dynamite\u2014on the ridges, blocking on Austria-Hungary. Despite Italy\u2019s progress from the coastal plain and at DEFEAT AT CAPORETTO promise in the Treaty of London, its the northern end of the valley. The Italians renewed their Isonzo Campaign declaration of war on Germany did not in spring 1917, advancing to within 9 miles follow until 1916. Austria-Hungary Cadorna opened the First Battle (15 km) of Trieste in June. They reached the was faced with the task of sustaining of the Isonzo with an offensive on Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo in a war on three fronts\u2014against Russia, June 23. The Italian armies were short September 1917. In October, a joint German Serbia, and Italy\u2014which could have of heavy artillery. Their best troops, and Austro-Hungarian offensive shattered the quickly proved disastrous. But the such as the Alpini and the Bersaglieri, Italian line at Caporetto 248\u201349 \u276f\u276f. timing of Italy\u2019s declaration of war was were impressive, but many others fortuitous for Austria-Hungary because were poorly trained peasant conscripts ITALIAN POET (1863\u20131938) at that very moment the successful from southern Italy who had little emotional connection with the north GABRIELE D\u2019ANNUNZIO of the country. Italian poet and nationalist Gabriele The initial Isonzo offensive failed, d\u2019Annunzio campaigned in favor of despite the Austro-Hungarians being Italy going to war in 1915, and outnumbered by the Italians, as did maintained a high pro\ufb01le throughout three more Isonzo offensives before the con\ufb02ict. He took part in a daring, the end of 1915. Italy lost around if futile, naval raid on the Austro- Hungarian port of Bakar and, in August 217 The number of Italian 1918, led an air squadron on a 700-mile generals fired by Chief (1,100 km) \ufb02ight to Vienna, dropping of Staff Luigi Cadorna between propaganda lea\ufb02ets on the Austrian June 1915 and October 1917. capital. After the war, D\u2019Annunzio protested against the treatment of Italy \u201c Blessed are those in their 27,000 soldiers in the four battles, and in the peace treaty and led a private twenties\u2026 who are hungry the ground gained was minimal. Losses army to occupy the disputed port of and thirsty for glory, for on the Austro-Hungarian side were Fiume (now Rijeka in Croatia), which he they shall be ful\ufb01lled.\u201d also heavy. Shells exploding on the held for over a year. rocky terrain showered sharp rock GABRIELE D\u2019ANNUNZIO, PRO-WAR SPEECH IN GENOA, MAY 4, 1915 fragments over a wide area, causing 107 more casualties per shell than in the soft soil of France. The Austro-Hungarians clung to their defensive positions and were gradually reinforced. Cadorna, a much feared commander, dismissed many of his generals and imposed brutal discipline on troops, but he had no tactical or strategic solution to the stalemate on the Isonzo Front.","STALEMATE 1915 Anzac Troops Turndown collar with bronze insignia of the rising sun \u201c You are going out to \ufb01ght for Australia... strive to keep a \ufb01t man and do your duty.\u201d CHARLES GREENWOOD OF VICTORIA, LETTER TO HIS SON, AUGUST 1918 I n 1914, Australia and New Zealand Expeditionary Force assembled on were self-governing colonies within Australia\u2019s west coast, from which the British Empire. At the outbreak they sailed to Egypt. of war, they unhesitatingly joined the war against Germany in solidarity with Fearsome reputation what most of their white population The New Zealanders were primarily regarded as \u201cthe mother country.\u201d farmers; the Australians a more mixed An appeal for volunteers to serve in group, with city dwellers as numerous Europe met an enthusiastic response. as men from the outback and miners. Although the colonies\u2019 armies were They had in common a tough spirit tiny, all male Australians and New of independence and a distinct distaste Zealanders had 60 PERCENT of Australians for formal received basic serving on the Western discipline and military training. Front were killed or wounded. normal military etiquette. Both countries were sparsely 53 PERCENT of New Zealand Lodged in populated, with troops serving on the training camps Australians Western Front were killed alongside the numbering almost or wounded. Egyptian 5 million and New pyramids, the Zealanders about a million\u2014yet they Anzac troops soon developed a provided a remarkably high number of fearsome reputation among soldiers in the course of the war, with British of\ufb01cers and the Egyptian some 416,000 enlisting in Australia civilian population. and 124,000 in New Zealand, including It was in Egypt that they were a Maori contingent. In October 1914, designated the Australian and the \ufb01rst convoys of the Australian New Zealand Army Corps, soon Imperial Force and the New Zealand conveniently abbreviated to Anzac. A British of\ufb01cer, General Sir William Birdwood, was given command of the corps. It was a good appointment because he won the enduring respect of the Anzac soldiers, a unique achievement for a senior British commander. In contrast, General Sir Alexander Godley, who led the New \ufb01rst time at the Gallipoli landings in to Australia despite censorship, and April 1915. From the start, the enthusiasm for volunteering faltered. Zealanders throughout the war, was Australians and New Zealanders New Zealand introduced conscription showed themselves to be resourceful, in mid-1916, but Australians rejected savagely disliked. Friction over the dauntless \ufb01ghters under some of it in two referendums. the worst conditions experienced quality of British generals and their anywhere in the war. The Gallipoli Campaign would forever after de\ufb01ne World War I for perceived carelessness with the lives But frustration and discontent soared Australians and New Zealanders, yet as the campaign became bogged down it was merely the beginning of their of colonial troops became acute after in stalemate. News of heavy casualties soldiers\u2019 contribution to the war. suffered in ill-conceived attacks, such Anzac soldiers entered action for the as the bayonet charges ordered by After Gallipoli, some Anzac troops Godley at the Nek in August, fed back stayed in the Mediterranean, forming General Sir John Monash a mounted division to \ufb01ght the Turks One of the most respected Allied generals of the war, Monash was an Australian of German Jewish origin. From May 1918, he commanded the Australian Corps, the largest corps on the Western Front. 108","ANZAC TROOPS Australian service tunic in the Sinai and Palestine. TIMELINE Soldiers were issued a distinctive khaki tunic made of Because they did not Australian wool. A thoroughly practical garment, it was correspond to the British \u25a0 November\u2013December 1914 Troops of the a looser fit than the standard British tunic and had four notion of proper cavalry, Australian Imperial Force and the New Zealand large external pockets at the front. these troops were Expeditionary Force sail for Egypt, where they designated as \u201cmounted are trained and organized into the Anzac Arm patch with infantry,\u201d carrying only Corps under General Sir William Birdwood. Australian insignia ri\ufb02e and bayonet and denied the cavalryman\u2019s \u25a0 April\u2013May 1915 The Anzac troops take a Khaki twill-weave sword until nearly the leading part in the landings at Gallipoli, Turkey, cloth tunic end of the war. Their on April 25, now celebrated as Anzac Day. performance was They defend a foothold on Anzac Cove against eventually recognized Recruitment poster fierce Turkish counterattacks. as outstanding and A wartime poster encourages young Australians to join they enjoyed the the troops at Gallipoli. The Australian Imperial Force \u25a0 August 1915 An attempted breakout from satisfaction of riding consisted entirely of volunteers, but it became more Anzac Cove leads to heavy Australian and New into both Jerusalem difficult to attract new recruits as the war went on. Zealand casualties at Lone Pine, the Nek, and and Damascus by the Sari Bair. war\u2019s end. key attacks in the Hundred Days Offensive that \ufb01nally won the war \u25a0 December 1915 Australian and New Zealand Most Australian and on the Western Front. forces are evacuated from Anzac Cove at the New Zealand troops end of the failed Gallipoli Campaign and transferred to the Some 330,000 Australians and over returned to Egypt, where I and II Anzac Corps Western Front, serving in France from 90,000 New Zealanders served in the are formed. spring 1916. Fighting in some of the war overseas. About 60,000 \ufb01ercest actions of the trench war, they Australians and 17,000 New Zealand \u25a0 March 1916 The Anzac Mounted Division earned a reputation as elite troops, soldiers were killed. An experience is formed in Egypt; the Australians and New especially feared and respected by the that was never to be forgotten in Zealanders go on to serve with distinction as Germans, while remaining critical of the histories of the two countries, light cavalry in the campaigns against Turkey the British high command\u2019s acceptance World War I accelerated a nascent in Palestine and Syria. of the need for heavy losses. sense of independent nationhood. \u25a0 March\u2013April 1916 The two Anzac corps are Peaceful penetration New Zealand hat transferred to Europe, and the first Australian This khaki felt hat was worn by a and New Zealand troops take up position in By spring 1918, the now-independent soldier in the New Zealand Cyclist the trenches on the Western Front. Australian Corps had become a focus Corps. Bicycles were a useful for the development of new battle source of mobility in World LONE PINE ANZAC CEMETERY, GALLIPOLI tactics, dubbed \u201cpeaceful penetration,\u201d War I and Anzac cyclists which were designed to exploit the made a significant \u25a0 July\u2013September 1916 Anzac troops potential of artillery and tanks as contribution in participate in the Battle of the Somme. The a support role. Australians suffer heavy losses in the capture offensive weapons and minimize and defense of Pozi\u00e8res (July 23\u2013August 7). infantry casualties. \u25a0 June 1917 New Zealand and Australian Finally under Australian divisions are prominent in the successful command, with General John Battle of Messines on the Flanders front. Monash leading the corps from \u25a0 September\u2013October 1917 Australian and May 1918, they spearheaded New Zealand soldiers suffer heavy casualties in the Battle of Passchendaele, fought in the New Zealand Cyclist rain and mud of Flanders. Corps badge \u25a0 December 1917 The five Australian divisions \u201c Somewhere between the landing at Anzac form the Australian Corps under General and the end of the Battle of the Somme, New Birdwood and the New Zealand Division Zealand very de\ufb01nitely became a nation.\u201d becomes part of British XXII Corps under General Alexander Godley. \u25a0 July 1918 Under the command of General John Monash, the Australian Corps mounts a successful offensive on the Western Front at Le Hamel (July 4). \u25a0 August\u2013November 1918 The Australian Corps spearheads a British offensive at Amiens, beginning the war-winning Hundred Days Offensive. ORMOND BURTON, NEW ZEALAND STRETCHER-BEARER AND INFANTRYMAN, LATER PACIFIST 109","STALEMATE 1915 BEFORE The Gallipoli Campaign Turkey\u2019s decision to enter the war on The Allies initially attempted a naval breakthrough in the Dardanelles strait. When this failed, the side of Germany in October 1914 they embarked upon a land campaign on Turkey\u2019s Gallipoli peninsula\u2014a disastrous operation led Britain and France to consider that was a harrowing initiation for Australian and New Zealand troops. ways of attacking the Turks. T he idea for an attack on the British 29th Division and the Shore bombardment TURKISH TARGETS Dardanelles appealed to British Australian and New Zealand Army HMS Cornwallis, here bombarding Turkish positions, The narrow channel of the Dardanelles politicians, who wanted large Corps (Anzac) were to assemble, along was present at Gallipoli from February 1915 to the provided sea access from the Mediterranean to gains at small cost. An Allied naval with a French colonial division, at the evacuation of troops in December. the Turkish capital, Constantinople, and from force, they thought, would break Greek island of Lemnos, under General there to the Black Sea and Russia\u2019s southern through to Constantinople (modern Sir Ian Hamilton. a mine and sank, taking 639 members of coast. British Admiralty chief Winston Istanbul), where the threat of its guns its crew with it. Then a British battle Churchill sent ships to bombard Turkish would force Turkey to surrender, Destroyed by mines cruiser and two British pre-dreadnoughts forts at the mouth of the Dardanelles within opening up a sea route to Russia. struck mines. There would be no further days of Turkey joining the war \u276e\u276e 74\u201375. Meanwhile, the naval bid to breech attempt at a naval breakthrough. But Winston Churchill, the minister the Dardanelles reached its climax. DIVERSIONARY TACTIC responsible for the Admiralty and the On March 18, Admiral John de The task of the army landing force was Churchill\u2019s suggestion for further attacks on prime advocate of the operation, Robeck sent his battleships to take the Turkish positions defending the Dardenelles was blocked by the British War ignored one detail: The Royal Navy forward. Four French pre- the straits, after which the mines could Council until the start of 1915, when the did not believe it could be done. The dreadnoughts engaged in a be cleared and the navy could sail Russians, hard-pressed by Turkish forces in Dardanelles was blocked by mine\ufb01elds close-range duel the Caucasus, asked their Western allies to and defended by a series of forts and with forts \ufb02anking Landing plans mount a diversionary attack. The idea of German mobile howitzers. the Narrows, The Allies intended Anzac troops attacking the Dardanelles was then revived, while the to cut across the Gallipoli attracting support as an alternative to the On February 19, British Admiral trawlers cleared peninsula while other costly fighting on the Western Front. Sackville Carden opened the naval the mines. British troops advanced attack. He had a sizable Anglo-French After one of from Cape Helles. They BRITISH POLITICIAN (1874\u20131965) \ufb02eet, including Britain\u2019s super- the French expected to capture dreadnought HMS Queen Elizabeth, but battleships the peninsula in a WINSTON CHURCHILL the rest were \u201cpre-dreadnoughts\u201d\u2014 was beached to few days. dating from before HMS Dreadnought, avoid sinking, At the start of World War I, Churchill launched in 1906, set a new standard Robeck ordered the Suvla was a prominent member of Britain\u2019s for warships. Their only minesweepers others to withdraw. In Plain Liberal government. As First Lord of the were trawlers equipped with mine- the process, the French Karakol Dagh Admiralty, in command of the Royal clearing equipment. By February 25, battleship Bouvet struck Gulf of Xer Navy, he took the blame for early the Turks had been driven from forts at setbacks in British naval operations and the entrance to the strait, but beyond for the \ufb01asco at Gallipoli. Relegated to that progress had stalled. a minor government post in May 1915, he resigned in November to serve as an In the second week of infantry of\ufb01cer on the Western Front. In March, British Minister July 1917, he returned to government for War Lord Kitchener as an energetic Minister of Munitions. ordered landings on Gallipoli was continually cited against the Gallipoli Churchill until it was overshadowed by peninsula. The his performance as British prime minister in World War II. Turkish hand grenade 110 The 2.8 in (73 mm) Tufenjieff hand grenade was much used by the Turkish army in trench warfare at Gallipoli. Activated by lighting the rope fuse, it was then lobbed at the enemy. \u201cIf the Fleet gets through, N os Suvla Constantinople will fall\u2026 Point and you will have won not 6 km a battle, but the war.\u201d 0 km 4 miles 0 miles LORD KITCHENER, MINISTER FOR WAR, MARCH 1915 Diversionary attack by Royal Naval Division.","THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN through in peace. Hamilton had little Death trap information on the terrain of the area or Australian and New Zealand soldiers move among the on Turkish defensive positions. dead and wounded on the beach at Anzac Cove. The landing site turned into a trap from which the troops Allied landings could never break out. A plan was hastily put together for the British 29th Division to land on beaches, coded S, V, W, X, and Y, at Cape Helles, the peninsula\u2019s southern tip. The Anzac troops were to land at an undefended cove farther north, while the French staged a diversionary landing on the Asian shore. On the morning of April 25, Robeck\u2019s warships appeared off Gallipoli. As they bombarded the shore, the troops 18,000 The number of Allied soldiers who came ashore on the first day of the Gallipoli landings, April 25, 1915. 12,000 The number of Anzac troops who landed at Gallipoli the same day. disembarked into rowboats, towed to Unfortunately, the Anzac troops had a Turkish counterattack was under guns. He reached Sari Bair Ridge in shore in lines behind steam pinnaces come ashore in the wrong place. They way. The Turkish army and its chief time to \ufb01re down on Anzac troops (small naval boats). At W Beach on found themselves crowded into a small German adviser, General Otto Liman caught in midclimb. After a week\u2019s Cape Helles, the Lancashire Fusiliers curve of beach enclosed by ridges and von Sanders, had known an attack was \ufb01ghting failed to drive the Australians suffered more than 50 percent ravines\u2014later known as Anzac Cove. coming but not where the landings and New Zealanders back into the sea, casualties, coming under ri\ufb02e and There were no Turkish forces, but would be made. Kemal ordered his men to dig trenches. machine gun \ufb01re as they approached reaching the top of Sari Bair Ridge The rest of the Cape Helles landings the shore and then \ufb01nding their way 2 miles (3 km) inland was a daunting As soon as the naval bombardment suffered the same fate, bogging down blocked by barbed wire. At nearby physical challenge. As Anzac troops began on April 25, General Mustafa in early May in front of Krithia, V Beach, Turkish machine guns killed clawed their way toward the summit, Kemal marched his Turkish 19th just a few miles inland. hundreds of British soldiers coming Division towards the sound of the ashore on gangplanks from the troopship SS River Clyde. Despite the losses, all the beaches were taken. Most of the Turkish Turkish 9th Division was Turkish mine\ufb01elds Mobile Turkish howitzer New mine\ufb01eld laid by Turks on KEY 19th Division was concentrated stationed on the plateau of Kilid guarding the narrowest batteries positioned on both March 8. Four British and French British or Anzac landing Bahr ready to repel any landings. parts of the Dardanelles. warships struck mines here during Planned British or Anzac advance near Boghali. sides of the straits. the naval attack of March 18. French landing\/advance Allied objective Chanak Kale French position Turkish position The Narrows Turkish fortified town Kilid Bahr Turkish minefield Turkish encampment Sari B Boghali Maidos Road air Ridge Azm Dardan Biyuk Anafarta ak DereAnafarta Maghram elles Sagir Achi Baba Nibrunesi Beach ACnozvaec Gaba Krithia S BEACH Tepe Salt Y BEACH Lake Morto Bay Kum Kale Sedd El Bahr V BEACH Suvla Bay Nibrunesi Point Cape Helles X BEACH Aegean Sea W BEACH First-day objective First-day objective Anzac troops were to cross the Planned direction First-day objective of French diversionary attack to of the main Anzac of advance Anzac units. peninsula, cutting off Turkish troops of advance from the Helles landings. keep Turkish forces on the to the south. Cape Helles. Asian side of the Dardenelles. landing force. 111","STALEMATE 1915 TURKISH GENERAL (1881\u20131938) An assault at Achi Baba Anzac push to capture in mid-July was a costly Sari Bair Ridge and various MUSTAFA KEMAL ATAT\u00dcRK failure. Meanwhile, the diversionary attacks to keep other ground forces lost the Turkish forces occupied. An of\ufb01cer in Turkey\u2019s wars in Libya and the backup support of naval The landings at Suvla Bay took place Balkans before World War I, Mustafa Kemal guns as the warships on August 6, 1915. Some 20,000 men was a divisional commander at Gallipoli, were withdrawn in the came ashore easily against only light where his performance made him a national face of attacks by opposition, but inert leadership from hero. After the war, he led a Turkish German U-boats. the elderly commander of the Suvla national revival, driving the Greek out of force, General Frederick Stopford, Anatolia in 1921\u201322 and replacing the The failure of the left the soldiers waiting on the beaches Ottoman Empire with a Turkish Republic, Gallipoli landings was a factor while Kemal organized a swift and with himself as president. From 1934, he in\ufb02uencing a change in British vigorous counterattack. was known as \u201cAtat\u00fcrk\u201d\u2014father of the government in May 1915. Churchill, Turks. He introduced many reforms including the person most publicly identi\ufb01ed the emancipation of women, banning with the Dardanelles Campaign, lost traditional Islamic dress, and replacing control of the Admiralty. Arabic script with the Western alphabet. While France continually pushed for all resources to be focused on the Western Front, Britain was not Spring mutated into an being killed or wounded. The heaps of 6 The number of Victoria Crosses Close-quarter battles unbearably hot summer without corpses in no man\u2019s land were so awarded to the Lancashire signi\ufb01cant movement. Trenches and unbearable that a temporary truce was Fusiliers in the contested landing at Meanwhile, Anzac troops engaged in bunkers swarmed with \ufb02ies feasting on negotiated so that the dead on both W Beach, Gallipoli, on April 25, 1915. some of the \ufb01ercest \ufb01ghting of the war. unburied corpses, and dysentery sides could be buried. A mere diversionary attack by the decimated the ranks. Anzac troops 7 The number of Victoria Crosses Australians at Lone Pine developed carrying food, water, and ammunition Renewed offensives awarded to Australians for their into an epic close-quarter struggle up from the beach to men perched on role in the Battle of Lone Pine, on when the attackers broke into the the rocky slopes passed the wounded In June and July, the British who were August 6\u201310, 1915. Turkish trench system. Fighting with and dead being carried down in the entrenched in the north of Cape Helles, grenades and bayonets in a warren of opposite direction. now supported by the French on their prepared to accept a humiliating defeat. tunnels and bunkers, the Australians On May 19, Kemal launched a mass right \ufb02ank, attempted new offensives. Fresh divisions were found for General attack at Anzac Cove, attempting to Reinforced by Gurkhas and newly Hamilton, who was ordered to break swamp the Anzac positions with sheer arrived Territorials, the Allies the deadlock. A plan was devised for numbers. It ended in 13,000 of his men succeeded in gaining a certain amount new landings at Suvla Bay, north of of ground to no decisive effect. Anzac Cove, to coincide with a major","THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN Turkish rifle repeated futile frontal assaults ordered successor, General Sir Charles Monro, Kitchener at Gallipoli The Turkish army ordered large numbers of 9.5 mm by General Alexander Godley. They took a swift look at the situation and British Minister for War Lord Kitchener visits the Mauser rifles and carbines in 1888 and some were still suffered more than 60 percent recommended withdrawal. His view trenches at Gallipoli in November 1915 to view the in use in World War I, alongside 7.65 mm Mausers. casualties. By August 10, stalemate had did not win easy acceptance in London, situation firsthand. The evacuation of Allied forces Most Turkish equipment was supplied by Germany. resumed. On August 21, the British where bold spirits were pushing for began the following month. attempted to reignite the campaign a new attempt at a naval breakthrough eventually took the position, winning with attacks against Scimitar Hill from in the Dardanelles. After visiting was carried out with skill and an astonishing seven Victoria Crosses. Suvla Bay and Hill 60 from Anzac Gallipoli, Kitchener put an end to such ef\ufb01ciency. More than 100,000 Cove, but the frontal charges against fantasies and proposed evacuation of troops were embarked from Suvla In the main Sidi Bair offensive, New prepared Turkish positions, poorly Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove. Bay and Anzac Cove between the tenth Zealanders captured the ridge of supported by artillery, ended in failure. and twentieth of December, followed Chanuk Bair in two days of savage Allied evacuation by the remaining 35,000 from Cape combat, only to be driven off again Disease and hardship Helles by January 9, 1916. This by artillery \ufb01re and a Turkish On December 7, the British cabinet logistical feat was the most successful counterattack. Australian troops There was no more serious \ufb01ghting ordered the evacuation of all troops episode in the whole campaign. designated to attack another key at Gallipoli, but the terrible losses from Gallipoli. This tricky operation objective, Hill 971, became lost in the continued. Disease took a heavy toll maze of ridges and gullies and never on troops in the trenches. They were found their target. poorly supplied with food and drink and had very limited medical support. In a notorious incident on August 7, The excessive heat of the Turkish at a ridge known as the Nek, soldiers of summer was followed by deadly the Australian Light Horse, \ufb01ghting as \ufb02oods and blizzards in the autumn infantry, were thrown forward in and winter months. Complaints about the state of the troops and the quality of command, especially from Australia, led to Hamilton\u2019s dismissal in October. His British artillery in action A British 60-pounder heavy field gun bombards Turkish trenches at Cape Helles. The gun required a crew of ten men, who could fire two rounds per minute to a range of over 10,000 yd (9,000 m). \u201c Accept this honorable desire of ours and make our bayonets sharper so we may destroy our enemy!\u201d HASSAN ETHEM, TURKISH SOLDIER, PRAYER, 1915 AFTER More than 44,000 Allied colonies and on their road to becoming troops died at Gallipoli. independent nations. The campaign The Turkish death toll was much higher, with also had a marked emotional possibly as many as 90,000 significance for Turkey, killed in the successful a country evolving from a defense of their country. multinational empire into a nation-state. Militarily, its LASTING EFFECTS effect was to allow Turkey to The British and French suffered \ufb01ght on for three more years. far more casualties at Gallipoli The Allied failure than the Australians and New encouraged Bulgaria to Zealanders, but the campaign enter the war on the side would always have a special of the Central Powers in significance in the history of the October 1915, sealing the fate TURKISH ARMY UNIFORM of Serbia 140\u201341 \u276f\u276f. 113","EYEWITNESS August 6, 1915 Battle of Lone Pine On August 6, 1915, the First Australian Division made a diversionary attack at Lone Pine to support the Allied landings at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli. While the initial assault succeeded in capturing the Turkish trenches, the Australians soon faced waves of Turkish counterattacks. Lone Pine developed into a brutal, five-day, close-quarter battle ending in up to 3,000 Australian and 7,000 Turkish casualties. \u201cWe reached the Turkish lines and found the first trench covered in with logs and branches\u2026 There was a partial check, some men fired in through the loopholes, others tried to pull the logs apart. Out runs our officer, old Dickie Seldon, waving a revolver, \u2018This won\u2019t do men! On! On! On!\u2019 I slid down into the trench\u2026 The Turks ran round a corner and got into a large cave place\u2026 Captain Milson took command\u2026 and asked if we would follow him. We all said \u2018yes\u2019 so he threw a bomb and dashed across. A dozen Turks shot him and he fell dead\u2026 I was next and as I ran I threw my rifle into the possie and pulled the trigger. I suppose they had never got time to load\u2026 but no one followed and I was there alone with no bombs and only my rifle. I felt a little dickie I can tell you\u2026 Whack! Like a sledgehammer on the head and down I went across Milson\u2019s body and several Turks, some of whom were only wounded, and groaned and squirmed from time to time. I bled pretty freely and then I got a crack on the shoulder from a shrapnel pellet, which hurt badly\u2026 Soon I heard someone call behind me \u2018Hullo Australia\u2019 and I crawled down the trench and found Seldon with one eye shot out, but still going, leading a party, and I explained the position to him and he sent me away to a temporary dressing station while he went and fixed up the Turks\u2026 I got my head bandaged and a drink of rum\u2026 I picked up a rifle and\u2026 went on\u2026 to dig in the now \u201dcaptured trench. HUGH ANDERSON, FIRST BRIGADE, AUSTRALIAN IMPERIAL FORCE, IN A LETTER TO HIS PARENTS Anzac troops at Gallipoli The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915, the first major engagement of Anzac troops in the war, was a series of fierce battles lasting more than eight months. It resulted in thousands of casualties on both sides. 114","","STALEMATE 1915 BEFORE The Armenian Massacre Russia and Ottoman Turkey were The massacre and deportation of Turkey\u2019s Armenian population took place against multinational empires. Where their a background of fighting between Turkish and Russian forces on the Caucasus front. territory met in the Caucasus, It has been described by some as the first genocide of the 20th century. Armenians lived on both sides of the border. D uring Turkey\u2019s disastrous he ordered all Armenians serving in \ufb01ghting alongside the Russians also offensive in the Caucasus in the Turkish army to be disarmed and committed atrocities in Muslim villages ARMENIAN NATIONALISM the winter of 1915, Armenians transferred to labor battalions. that fell into their hands. The Christian Armenians in Turkey had a fought as conscripts in the armies history of conflict with the Ottoman Empire\u2019s of both Turkey and Russia. However, Ethnic resentments The situation came to a head in April Muslim rulers. In the 1890s, Armenian the Russian forces also included units 1915, when the Armenian population nationalist agitation provided a pretext of Armenian volunteers who were Meanwhile, the situation in eastern in the eastern Turkish city of Van, for Turkey\u2019s massacres of thousands of \ufb01ghting for the liberation of Armenians Anatolia was confused and unstable. which was under threat from Russian Armenians. In August 1914, the Turkish from Turkish rule. Russia was happy Ethnic tensions had become acute. forces, rose in armed revolt against government asked Armenian representatives, to encourage an Armenian revolt Much of the region\u2019s population its Turkish governor. On April 19, gathered at Erzurum in eastern Turkey, to against Turkey, in the same way that consisted of Muslims who, having the Armenians seized control of the agree to incite rebellion against the Turks hoped for an uprising by been displaced from the Russian-ruled town and held it against Turkish Russian rule in the Caucasus in case of war. Turkic peoples and Muslim Kurds Caucasus in the 19th century, bitterly counterattacks until the Russians The Armenians, tempted by Russian offers of living in the Russian Empire. resented the Christian, allegedly arrived. In the Armenian view, autonomy, rejected the proposal. After pro-Russian, Armenians. Turkey entered World War I, the Caucasus and The Turkish army suffered a major eastern Anatolia became a war zone. defeat on the Caucasus front at The Kurds, another element in the Sarikamish between December 1914 region\u2019s ethnic mix, also nourished a Armenian refugees and January 1915. The Turkish hatred of the Armenian population. In September 1915, thousands of Armenians from War Minister Enver Pasha, who Incidents of attacks on Armenians villages in southern Turkey were taken aboard warships commanded the Turkish forces in proliferated. Turkish soldiers, ill-fed, of the French Mediterranean fleet. The refugees were person, blamed his humiliating defeat undisciplined, and demoralized, carried to Port Said in Egypt. on Armenian treachery. In February, murdered Armenians and looted their villages. The Armenian nationalists","THE ARMENIAN MASSACRE Kurdish horsemen Turkey\u2019s Caucasus campaigns against Russia included Kurdish light cavalry. Kurds engaged in much casual killing of Armenians, their tradional enemy, during the deportations of 1915\u201316. the \ufb01ghters in Van were acting in self-defense, forestalling a planned Turkish massacre of the male population. To the Turks, it was con\ufb01rmation that the Armenians constituted a disloyal minority that could undermine their war effort. Mass deportations Army commanders had speci\ufb01c road\u2026 with their already swollen AFTER instructions \u201cto crush without faces exposed to the sun\u201d. For most On April 24, as the Allies were mercy\u2026 all resistance.\u201d of the refugees who reached camps in The aspiration of Armenian beginning their landings at Gallipoli, Syria, there awaited a slow and painful nationalists to found a durable Turkish Interior Minister Talaat Pasha The clearance of a village often death through disease, hardship, independent state were not ordered the arrest of some 250 began with the massacre of its male or malnutrition. ful\ufb01lled until 75 years after the members of the Armenian urban elite population, considered a potential end of World War I. living in Constantinople. It was in source of such \u201cresistance,\u201d so that the The Allies, kept informed of the effect a public declaration that the deportees on the roads toward Syria deportation chie\ufb02y by neutral HOPES DESTROYED Armenians constituted an internal were mostly women and children. Americans in Turkey, lodged vigorous The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 enemy. Several hundred more These refugees were given no time protests but did almost nothing ended the Russian invasion of Anatolia prominent Armenians were detained to prepare for the arduous journey to intervene. A small number and allowed the Turks to invade the over the following weeks. It took until before setting out. Food supplies were of Armenians on the coast were Caucasus, \ufb01ghting the Armenians who had May 29 for an outright attack on inadequate or nonexistent. En route, carried to safety on Allied warships. declared a republic there. Part of Anatolia was Turkey\u2019s Armenian population to the Armenians came under attack from granted to Armenia by the Treaty of be enshrined in law. The Tehcir hostile Kurds, against whom they Several hundred thousand Armenians S\u00e8vres, which was imposed on Turkey after (\u201cdeportation\u201d) law authorized the were defenseless. Walter Geddes, an took refuge in Russian-held territory, World War I. However, a successful military American businessman who was but their fate turned out to be little campaign by Turkish nationalists in 600,000 The estimated traveling in eastern Turkey at the time, better than that of the deportees in 1920 and the Bolshevik occupation of number of described seeing deportees \u201cactually Syria, with half of them dying of Russian Armenia swiftly destroyed the Armenians killed in the deportation dying of thirst,\u201d and young girls \u201cso diseases such as cholera and typhus Armenian republic. and massacres, according to some exhausted they had fallen on the before the war\u2019s end. historians. Other scholars put the NATIONHOOD AT LAST figure at around 1.3 million. Shortages at the front An independent Armenia was \ufb01nally created after the collapse of the Soviet relocation of anyone considered to Meanwhile, \ufb01ghting on the Caucasus Union in 1991. Debate continues as to be a threat to the country\u2019s defenses. front continued. But Russian forces, whether the Armenian massacre of 1915\u201316 The law gave the Turkish military constitutes \u201cgenocide,\u201d a label that Turkey has authorities a free hand to embark upon led by General Nikolai Yudenich, always denied. the mass deportation of Armenians were hampered by a shortage from Anatolia. The measure was of military supplies. They could GENOCIDE MEMORIAL, YEREVAN, ARMENIA presented as a necessary response attempt only limited action to a wartime emergency but it also through 1915, consolidating their 117 embodied the long-held attitudes position west of Lake Van. In the of extreme Turkish nationalists \ufb01rst half of 1916, Yudenich went in the government. Men such on the offensive in Anatolia, as Talaat Pasha and Enver capturing the fortress town of Pasha were happy to see Erzurum and the port of Trabzon Anatolia, popularly regarded as in February. By then, the area\u2019s a Turkish heartland, \u201ccleansed\u201d Armenians had vanished. of an alien minority. They had no intention of allowing the Russian military hat Armenians ever to return. In winter, Russian soldiers wore a sheepskin papakha. Such hats were vital in the freezing Death and disease conditons of the Caucasus. The Armenians were ordered to be deported from Anatolia to Syria and Iraq. The deportations were carried out in a brutal manner that ensured a massive death toll. \u201c As the exiles moved, they left\u2026 another caravan\u2014that of dead and unburied bodies.\u201d HENRY MORGENTHAU, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY IN WORLD WAR I, DESCRIBING THE ARMENIAN DEPORTATIONS","STALEMATE 1915 In the Service of Empire \u201c Don\u2019t be grieved at my death, because I shall die arms in hand\u2026 This is the most happy death that anyone can die.\u201d INDAR SINGH, SIKH SOLDIER, WRITING HOME FROM FRANCE, SEPTEMBER 1916 B efore World War I, large areas loyal, providing that such matters Berbers and Arabs from Algeria, West African soldiers of Africa and Asia were ruled by as dietary customs and religious Morocco, and Tunisia supplied the Newly arrived troops of the Tirailleurs S\u00e9n\u00e9galais pose the European powers. Lacking observances were respected. for the camera on the Western Front at the time of the suf\ufb01cient resources to police, defend, Tirailleurs. Also of high repute First Battle of the Marne. and expand their empires with troops The colonial authorities preferred to among French colonial troops were sent out from home, the mother recruit from ethnic groups thought to the Tirailleurs S\u00e9n\u00e9galais, drawn army in a future European con\ufb02ict, his countries recruited soldiers locally, display a traditional warrior spirit. In from all parts of French West Africa. views were considered interesting but either as volunteers or conscripts. British-ruled India, Sikhs, Nepalese controversial by fellow militarists. Placed under European command, Gurkhas, and Punjabis were the main Summoning the troops these colonial troops usually proved source of recruits. The French found As it happened, the demands of World soldiers in North Africa, where That colonial forces might be of use War I led to the exploitation of every in a European war was by no means resource the combatant countries had obvious. When, in 1910, French available. Troops from French North General Charles Mangin argued the Africa were shipped across to France as case for black troops from the colonies soon as war was declared. The supplementing France\u2019s conscript Tirailleurs S\u00e9n\u00e9galais followed later, along with soldiers from Madagascar and French Indochina. In total, about Indian troops in France Turbaned lancers of the British Indian Army ride along a French rural road near Amiens in autumn 1914. The Indians generally received a warm and enthusiastic welcome from the French people. 118","IN THE SERVICE OF EMPIRE 200,000 Algerians, Moroccans, and French colonial troops TIMELINE Tunisians fought on the Western Front A company of Tirailleurs and at Gallipoli, along with more than Annamites\u2014infantry from \u25a0 1904 Commander-in-chief of the British Indian 160,000 West African troops. The West French Indochina\u2014wait for Army, Lord Kitchener, reorganizes the force to Africans were engaged in some of the action after joining the Allied create a field army of 10 divisions. harshest \ufb01ghting of the war, and about forces at Salonika, Greece, 30,000 died in the conflict. late in the war. The diversity \u25a0 1910 French General Charles Mangin publishes of troops underscored the his book La Force Noire, advocating the use of TIRAILLEURS A French term for global nature of the conflict. colonial troops to defend France in the event lightly armed skirmishers or of a European war. riflemen. It was applied in troops \ufb01ghting being asked to \ufb01ght fellow Muslims. In indiscriminately to all locally in fragmented fact, Turkey\u2019s call for all Muslims to \u25a0 August 1914 French colonial troops from recruited French colonial troops. formations under join in a jihad against the Allies had Africa are ferried to France at the outbreak unfamiliar of\ufb01cers. little effect. There were rare instances of war and take part in the first battles on The French colonies also helped in the By December 1915, of soldiers refusing to \ufb01ght\u2014such as the Western Front. production of munitions. Some 50,000 all Indian infantry when the 15th Lancers in Basra would Vietnamese and 13,000 Chinese from were being transferred from the not march on Baghdad in February \u25a0 September 1, 1914 Indian troops land at French Indochina worked in French Western Front to Mesopotamia, where 1916\u2014but on the whole, Muslim Mombasa in British East Africa for a campaign munitions factories. Tens of thousands it was thought they would be more soldiers fought the Turks without against German East Africa; they suffer a of Chinese laborers, recruited by the used to the terrain and hot climate. reservation, whether at Gallipoli, in defeat at the Battle of Tanga on November 5. British and the French, were brought Mesopotamia, or in Palestine. to perform support work on the In total, 1.25 million Indian soldiers \u25a0 September 26, 1914 Indian Expeditionary Western Front. contributed to the British war effort. For their personal honor, the Force A lands in France to join the British More than 70,000 were killed in the honor of their regiments, and their Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. The Indian Army service of the empire. meager pay, they served the empires to the end. \u25a0 October 1914 Indian troops see action for the Britain could call on troops from The question of loyalty first time on the Western Front, at La Bass\u00e9e. its self-governing, white-ruled colonies\u2014Canada, Australia, New A large proportion of the colonial \u25a0 November 5, 1914 Indian Army Force D lands Zealand, and South Africa\u2014but India troops employed by both France and in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and goes on to occupy was a potentially much larger source Britain were Muslim. The entry of Basra on November 3. of manpower. The regular army of Turkey into the war in October 1914 India numbered around 155,000 raised the possibility of such troops \u25a0 November 11, 1914 Ottoman Sultan soldiers at the beginning of the Mehmed V calls on all Muslim subjects war. These were organized into \u201cGurkhas had crawled far of Britain and France to join a jihad against divisions, each of which included a behind enemy lines\u2026 and dealt the colonial powers. battalion of British troops alongside out destruction with their the Indian battalions. kukris before being killed.\u201d GURKHA KUKRI Primarily intended for use on India\u2019s CAPTAIN R.F.E. LAIDLAW, AT GULLY RAVINE, GALLIPOLI, JUNE 1915 \u25a0 February 1915 Indian infantry stage a mutiny northern frontier or for suppressing against their British officers in Singapore. The internal revolts, the Indian Army was KEY MOMENT mutiny is quickly suppressed. short of modern weapons and equipment, and its of\ufb01cers were not THE SINGAPORE MUTINY \u25a0 March 1915 On the Western Front, two Indian used to the demands of European divisions play a prominent part in the failed warfare. The standard of its troops at Early in the war, Germany backed an 40 British soldiers and European civilians British offensive at Neuve Chapelle. the start of the war was high, but the attempt by an Indian nationalist group, the were killed. German prisoners were offered quality was diluted by the rapid Ghadar Party, to promote an anti-British arms, but they refused to join the \u25a0 April 22, 1915 French colonial troops are expansion in numbers. mutiny in the Indian Army. Ghadar agents mutineers. Marines and sailors from British, among the casualties in the first poison gas achieved in\ufb02uence over the Muslim Indian French, and Russian ships combined to attack on the Western Front at Second Ypres. An Indian expeditionary force of Fifth Light Infantry garrisoned in Singapore. suppress the mutiny. A court martial Some break rank in panic. two infantry divisions and a cavalry Falsely informed that they were to be sent condemned 47 of the mutineers to death division reached France in time to take to \ufb01ght Muslim Turkey, the regiment by \ufb01ring squad. The executions took place \u25a0 April 1915 British Indian troops and French part in the \ufb01ghting in Flanders from mutinied on February 15, 1915. More than in public at Outram Prison. colonial soldiers, the Tirailleurs S\u00e9n\u00e9galais, October 1914. When the war take part in the Gallipoli landings. descended into the stalemate of trench warfare, they proved a valuable \u25a0 November 1915 The Indian Corps is addition to Britain\u2019s overstretched and withdrawn from the Western Front and depleted frontline forces, and they transferred to Mesopotamia. fought bravely at Neuve Chapelle, the Second Battle of Ypres, and Loos. The \u25a0 April 30, 1916 Indian troops of the Sixth Germans especially feared the Gurkhas (Poona) Division surrender to the Turks at because of their skill at mounting silent the siege of Kut al-Amara in Mesopotamia. raids across no man\u2019s land with their sharp-edged kukris (knives with a \u25a0 October 24, 1916 During the Battle of Verdun, curved blade). French colonial troops perform outstandingly in the retaking of Fort Douaumont. Transferred to Mesopotamia \u25a0 March 1917\u2013October 1918 A large By autumn 1915, the morale of Indian contingent of Indian troops takes part in the troops in France was in serious decline, successful British campaign against Turkey mostly because of a loss of vital in Palestine. cohesion. Heavy casualties resulted \u25a0 June 1918 The British cabinet approves a proposal by Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, for an increased measure of representative government in India. 119","French colonial cavalry The Spahis were Arab and Berber cavalry regiments, brought from French North Africa to fight in France at the start of the war. Their appearance attracted the photographer Jules Gervais-Courtellemont, who took this colo-r autochrome image in 1915.","","Turkish-German cooperation A unit of Bavarian artillery struggles forward to aid the Turks in their campaign in Mesopotamia. Movement of troops and equipment was difficult, especially during seasonal floods along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. BEFORE Disaster in Mesopotamia The Ottoman sultan\u2019s call for a Muslim holy war against the British Empire In 1915, British Indian forces advanced from Basra toward Baghdad in an overt display in November 1914 was a direct of imperial authority. But the prestige of the British Empire suffered a humiliating blow challenge to Britain\u2019s position in when British forces had to surrender to the Turks at Kut al-Amara in April 1916. India and the Middle East. T he operation in Mesopotamia was authorities in Cairo, the Government the Turks in the Gallipoli Campaign, FAILURE TO STIR REVOLT launched and controlled by the of India felt no inclination to encourage the conquest of Mesopotamia was Turkish and German plans to carry the war British Government of India in an Arab revolt against the Turks. Local seen as a way for Britain to reassert through Persia to Afghanistan and Calcutta. Initially only a few thousand Arab irregulars thus sided with Turkish its prestige in the eyes of its Muslim Muslim areas of northern India came to troops of the Indian Army were landed forces in a vigorous counterattack in subject peoples. nothing. Egypt also failed to rise up at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab April 1915. This was repulsed by against British rule, even when the Turks waterway, in southern Mesopotamia, entrenched Anglo-Indian troops at The Anglo-Indian advance and their mission was limited. They Shaiba outside Basra. 100 MILLION The estimated were to establish a defensible position Despite doubts expressed by the number of Muslims living and prevent any Turkish interference A newly appointed commander of War Of\ufb01ce in London, Nixon was under British rule in 1914. This with British-owned oil \ufb01elds across the the expeditionary force, the ambitious authorized by the Government of was more than a third of the border in southern Persia (now Iran). General Sir John Nixon, took this India to advance troops \ufb01rst to Kut world\u2019s entire Muslim population defensive victory as a springboard for al-Amara, reached in late September, at the time. The need for a \u201cforward defense\u201d the occupation of the whole of and then onward toward the historic led to the occupation \ufb01rst of the port southern Mesopotamia as far north as Muslim city of Baghdad. While Nixon attacked the Suez Canal \u276e\u276e 75 in February of Basra and then of Qurna, farther Nasiriya and Amara, expanding the stayed in Basra, the troops on the 1915. The situation inside Persia was north at the junction of the Tigris and campaign well beyond its original ground were commanded by General precarious, with Russia, Britain, and Euphrates Rivers. Unlike the British goals. Given the Allies\u2019 setbacks against Sir Charles Townshend, an of\ufb01cer with Germany vying to extend their in\ufb02uence there. In November 1914, an expeditionary force from British India occupied Basra in southern Mesopotamia to strengthen the British position in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. 122","DISASTER IN MESOPOTAMIA \u201c We drink river water\u2026 Except for the barren, naked plain there is nothing to see\u2026 our hope is in God alone.\u201d ABDUL RAUF KHAN, 21ST COMBINED FIELD AMBULANCE, MESOPOTAMIA, LETTER, MARCH 7, 1916 an experience of colonial warfare in Decorated water flask a relief effort. Plagued by problems of Townshend at Kut al-Amara India, including holding the fort at A British soldier\u2019s water bottle is engraved with scenes transportation and logistics\u2014there An officer in the British Indian Army, General Sir Charles Chitral against a rebel siege. However, from the Mesopotamian Campaign. Lack of clean were no proper roads or railroads, and Townshend commanded the Sixth Indian Division in the Townshend was not con\ufb01dent in his drinking water was a major cause of illness for the the river seemed always either too low Mesopotamian Campaign from April 1915 to the mission. Every step toward Baghdad troops operating in what is now Iraq. or in \ufb02ood\u2014British relief forces pushed surrender at the siege of Kut a year later. extended the overstretched supply line northward from Basra. They were that linked him to the base at Basra. continue the withdrawal to Basra. repeatedly repelled by determined AFTER Moreover, men were decimated by On December 7, Nur ud-Din\u2019s forces Turkish troops, who were dug into disease and debilitated by the heat. arrived, and after failing to take Kut by defensive positions south of Kut. Viewing the surrender at Kut as a assault, settled into trenches for a siege. blow to its prestige, Britain devoted The Turkish forces Meanwhile, inside Kut conditions much time and many resources to the In Basra, the British reorganized. were quickly deteriorating. Disease capture of Mesopotamia. As Townshend\u2019s forces advanced up Nixon was dismissed and a new and lack of food reduced the garrison the Tigris, accompanied by river Tigris Corps was created to mount RETAKING KUT gunboats, Turkish forces prepared to a pitiable condition. Mules and In summer 1916, London took over control of to defend Baghdad. Under the horses were slaughtered for meat. the Mesopotamian Campaign from the Indian command of Ottoman General Morale collapsed and relations Government. Basra\u2019s port facilities were Khalil Pasha and German veteran between the British of\ufb01cers and expanded, roads and railroads built, Baron Colmar von der Goltz, their Indian soldiers rapidly and modern weaponry supplied. Under the Turks dug into trenches at deteriorated. An attempt at General Sir Stanley Maude, British forces Ctesiphon south of Baghdad. breakout was out of the question; retook Kut al-Amara in February 1917 and The commander on the ground Townshend was unable even to occupied Baghdad in March. After Maude was Nur ud-Din Pasha. mount harassing attacks against the died of cholera in November, the British effort Turkish siege trenches. was scaled down. The British occupied the Townshend attacked the Turkish oil town of Mosul at the end of the war. position on November 22. The frontline Forced to surrender trench was taken and then held against Turkish counterattacks, but by On April 22, the last British relief November 25 Townshend had only expedition was brought to a halt 10 4,500 men \ufb01t enough to \ufb01ght\u2014less miles (16 km) from Kut. Four days than half his original force. He decided later, Townshend opened negotiations to withdraw back down the Tigris to with Khalil Pasha, proposing to pay for Kut al-Amara. his force to be paroled. This improbable offer was refused and on April 29 The Anglo-Indian force reached Kut Townshend surrendered. Some 10,000 in poor condition. They had been British and Indian troops passed into harassed en route by Arab tribesmen. Turkish hands. Their treatment The many sick and wounded lacked was harsh, with about 4,000 adequate medical care. Townshend dying in captivity. Townshend, had only a hazy notion of the state meanwhile, was allowed to live of his food supplies, but decided to sit in a comfortable house near tight and await relief rather than Istanbul for the rest of the war. 0 300 km 300 miles 0 PERSIA Aleppo Mosul OTTOMAN EMPIRE TURKISH BUGLE CYPRUS Tigris Homs Tikrit 6 1916 Tripoli British build a 2 1915 railroad across Beirut 5 April 29, 1916 SEPT 26\u201328, 1915; In an attempt to seize the Sinai Desert Haifa DEC 5, 1915; APR 29, 1916 the Suez Canal, Turkish to aid an attack S y r i a n D e s e r t The British surrender Kut. troops are turned back on Palestine. Kut-al-Amara Damascus 4 Nov 22\u201326, 1915 Baghdad War in Egypt and Mesopotamia by the British. JUN 3, 1915 British forces repelled a Turkish attack on Egypt at the The British advance to Baghdad is NOV 21, 1915 Suez Canal, but in Mesopotamia a British advance was Port Said repelled at Ctesiphon. The British Amara stopped by the Turks at Ctesiphon and then forced back Ctesiphon to the garrison at Kut al-Amara. FEB 3, 1915 Jaffa withdraw to Kut al-Amara. Gaza Jerusalem MESOPOTAMIA FEB 4, 1915 Ismailia 3 May 1915 After the Turks attempt to retake Basra, British JUL 24, 1915 Ahwaz Euph El Arish troops are reinforced. They move up the Karun Nasiriya rates Beersheba valley, forcing a Turkish withdrawal to Amara. KEY MAY 30, 1915 British offensive Turkish offensive Cairo Nile Suez Canal Petra ARABIA Qurna NOV 21, 1914 Abadan Battle or siege British retreat Fao Major railroad Turkish retreat Suez 1 Nov 6, 1914 Basra Oil pipeline British launch Mesopotamian Persian EGYPT Akaba Offensive, taking Basra on Nov 21. KUWAIT Gulf 123 Sinai (British protectorate)","STALEMATE 1915 BEFORE The Battle of Dogger Bank Britain\u2019s Royal Navy had experienced a mixed start to the war in 1914, with In January 1915, the standoff between the British and German fleets in the North Sea flared a number of successes offset by into battle at Dogger Bank. Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper\u2019s German battle cruisers were met humiliating setbacks. by a British force under Vice Admiral David Beatty and narrowly avoided a major defeat. BRITISH ERRORS G erman naval strategy was built posts to monitor the radio German commander In August 1914, Britain made the on the hope of eroding Britain\u2019s traf\ufb01c of German ships. By Admiral Franz von Hipper, the mistake of allowing the German naval superiority through 1915, the code breakers commander of the battle cruisers warships SMS Goeben and SMS piecemeal destruction of warships, in Hall\u2019s Room 40 at of 1 Scouting Group, led the Breslau to sail to Constantinople especially by mines and submarines. the Admiralty in German squadron that fought To avoid this, the Royal Navy did not London could warn the British at Dogger Bank. \u276e\u276e 74\u201375, helping to bring attempt a \u201cclose blockade\u201d of the of a sortie before the Turkey into the war on the German coast, which would have put German ships had cruisers were the German side. Britain also lost British ships at risk, but used its control left port. stars of naval ships to German submarines and of the exits from the North Sea (around warfare, with guns mines and suffered a defeat in Scotland in the north and Dover and German aims as heavy as those on the Pacific at Coronel \u276e\u276e 83 in Dunkirk in the south) to maintain a battleships but with November. For the British public, the \u201cdistant blockade\u201d of Germany. On January 23, 1915, more speed. worst incident came on December 16 Vice Admiral Franz When Room 40 when German battle cruisers In principle, this strategy left the von Hipper, who had led informed the Admiralty shelled towns on the east coast German surface \ufb02eet free to sortie into a raid on English coastal that Hipper was setting to of England. the North Sea at will. However, if towns in December, was sea, Vice Admiral David Beatty German warships left port, the Royal ordered to take his \ufb02eet into the was ordered to lead the Royal Navy\u2019s NAVAL BLOCKADE Navy aimed to drive them back home North Sea to attack British trawlers and response. Leaving the Scottish port of The British had recorded victories or, preferably, destroy them. The patrol boats at Dogger Bank, a shallow Rosyth, he steamed south with \ufb01ve at Heligoland Bight in the North British Admiralty had a secret weapon area 62 miles (100 km) off England\u2019s battle cruisers\u2014his \ufb02agship HMS Lion Sea, on August 28, 1914, and at the in this cat-and-mouse game. Naval east coast. Hipper had three battle leading Tiger, Princess Royal, Indomitable, Battle of the Falkland Islands intelligence under Admiral Reginald cruisers\u2014his \ufb02agship SMS Seydlitz and New Zealand\u2014joining up with light \u276e\u276e 83 in the South Atlantic, on \u201cBlinker\u201d Hall had obtained German leading Moltke and Derf\ufb02inger\u2014plus cruisers and destroyers at Harwich. December 8. Germany remained naval code books and set up listening destroyers and light cruisers. Battle under British naval blockade and its High Seas Fleet was unable to leave port for fear of destruction by the Royal Navy\u2019s Grand Fleet. TURKISH SWORD BAYONET Sinking of SMS Bl\u00fccher German sailors scramble to escape from the cruiser Bl\u00fccher as it capsizes at the end of the battle. There were only 234 survivors out of a crew of more than 1,000 men.","THE BATTLE OF DOGGER BANK Battle cruiser HMS Lion AFTER The flagship at the Battle of Dogger Bank, HMS Lion was, like other battle cruisers, fast and heavily The British and German navies drew armed, but it proved vulnerable to well-directed very different conclusions from German shells. their experience of the Battle of Dogger Bank. Shortly after 7am on January 24, the so hits were infrequent. At 9:43am, and as the range shortened, their shells outlying ships of the opposing forces the Lion landed the \ufb01rst major blow, hit the Lion with increasing frequency. SUBMARINE WARFARE exchanged \ufb01re. Hipper quickly realized exploding Seydlitz\u2019s two aft turrets with By 10:45, Beatty\u2019s \ufb02agship was so Kaiser Wilhelm II was appalled by the risk he had fallen into a trap and turned an armor-penetrating shell. More than battered it came to a stop. The battle that had been taken with his precious warships for home at full speed. Beatty led the 160 men were killed, and a worse cruiser Tiger was also badly damaged. and banned further sorties, not relenting chase in the fast-moving Lion, with his disaster was averted only through the until the following year. The commander of the other battle cruisers trying to keep up. heroism of a German sailor, Wilhelm From the British point of view, the German High Seas Fleet, Admiral Friedrich von Leading the German \ufb02eet on board the Heidkamp, who \ufb02ooded the magazines battle that had opened so promisingly Ingenohl, was replaced by Hugo von Pohl, who Seydlitz, Hipper was hampered by the to protect them from \ufb01re. Bl\u00fccher also degenerated into a mess. Beatty \ufb01rst need to keep in touch with his slower took a battering and fell farther behind ordered an unnecessary turn to avoid THE IMPERIAL GERMAN NAVY FLAG ships, especially the out-of-date the rest of the German force. a nonexistent U-boat and then, using armored cruiser Bl\u00fccher. \ufb02ag signals instead of radio, failed to in February 1917 gave the order to adopt Missed opportunity convey his order for the pursuit to be unrestricted submarine warfare Gaining on the Germans, the British resumed with all speed. Instead, 220\u201321 \u276f\u276f against Allied shipping. battle cruisers opened \ufb01re shortly The British, however, failed to Beatty\u2019s subordinates concentrated the THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND before 9am. The range was extreme\u2014 distribute their \ufb01re evenly between the \ufb01re of their four battle cruisers on the To counter superior German gunnery, more than 11 miles (18 km)\u2014and the German ships. The battle cruisers Bl\u00fccher, which Hipper had resolved to the British concluded they must increase their ships were moving at maximum speed, Moltke and Derf\ufb02inger were untouched, abandon to its fate. The Bl\u00fccher \ufb01nally rate of \ufb01re at the expense of safety procedures. capsized and sank, while Hipper led his This led to many deaths at the Battle of battle cruisers safely back to port. Jutland 170\u201371 \u276f\u276f. The crippled Lion was towed back to Rosyth, where it received a hero\u2019s welcome. The battle had, after all, been a demonstration of British naval strength. But Beatty had fumbled an opportunity to in\ufb02ict a crushing defeat on the German navy. \u201c The ship was capsizing\u2026 men fell or ran down her side into the water\u2026\u201d PAYMASTER HUGH MILLER ON THE CRUISER HMS ARETHUSA, DESCRIBING THE SINKING OF THE BL\u00dcCHER","STALEMATE 1915 BEFORE The Sinking After its defeat at the Battle of the Falklands, the German navy started using submarines to attack of the Lusitania Allied shipping. CHANGE OF STRATEGY Germany\u2019s submarines were initially intended for use in coastal defense and to sink In February 1915, Germany launched a campaign of submarine attacks against Allied British warships. The German navy planned to use surface commerce raiders against Allied shipping off the British coastline. This led to the notorious sinking of the transatlantic merchant shipping. However, after liner Lusitania and set the Germans on course for a confrontation with the United States. Germany\u2019s decisive defeat at the Battle of the Falkland Islands \u276e\u276e 83 in December G ermany began discussing the submerged. The risk of outraging were liable to be destroyed. 1914, its ability to threaten Allied commerce possibility of a systematic with surface vessels was curtailed. submarine campaign against neutral opinion in doing this, especially Nevertheless, on May 1, the liner left in the United States, was outweighed New York for Liverpool with almost NORTH SEA WAR ZONE merchant shipping in the late autumn by the need for a more effective 2,000 people on board. In the hold While trade to Britain was unimpeded, the of 1914. The U-boat \ufb02eet numbered response to Britain\u2019s naval blockade. was a small amount of military Royal Navy maintained a maritime only a few dozen boats, but they were cargo, chie\ufb02y ri\ufb02e ammunition. blockade of Germany. In November 1914, On the afternoon of May 7, proving capable of attacks on merchant Easy prey ships in the North Sea. On February 4, 1915, Germany Captain Walther Schwieger, Submarine commanders announced that Allied merchant ships commanding the submarine U-20, were respecting accepted in waters around Britain and Ireland sighted the Lusitania off the south U-BOAT LINE- \u201cprize rules,\u201d which meant they had to were liable to be coast of Ireland. The THROWING GUN surface, stop a ship, and allow its crew sunk and it would be and passengers to disembark before impossible \u201cto avert 1.9 The average number U-boat was too slow the British declared the North Sea of merchant ships to mount a pursuit, a war zone, which German ships would sinking it. If a more intensive campaign the danger thereby being sunk by U-boats every especially when it enter at their peril. German submarines began was to be mounted, U-boats would threatened to crew day by August 1915. was submerged to attacks against British merchant shipping. need permission to attack without and passengers.\u201d attack, but the liner The \ufb01rst merchant ship destroyed by a German warning, \ufb01ring torpedoes while About 20 U-boats were dispatched turned into its path. Schwieger U-boat was the steamship SS Glitra, sunk off to seek suitable targets. With no struck the Lusitania with a single Norway on October 20, 1914. convoy system in place, isolated torpedo in the center of the ship. merchant ships were easy prey. On Desperate attempts to launch the April 22, the German embassy in ship\u2019s lifeboats were cut short Washington, D.C., published a warning when the liner sank only 18 minutes to passengers intending to cross the after being hit. Final voyage Atlantic on the British liner Lusitania, The death toll of 1,198 consisted of The Cunard liner Lusitania leaves New York on what reminding them that ships 785 passengers and 413 crew. Almost was to be its last voyage, on May 1, 1915. Launched entering the war zone 100 of the victims were children, and in 1906, it was awarded the coveted Blue Riband the around the British Isles 128 were U.S. citizens. Germany tried following year for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic. 126","THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA TECHNOLOGY SUBMARINES The submarines used in World War I are more properly called \u201csubmersibles,\u201d since they chie\ufb02y traveled on the surface, submerging for periods of a few hours at most. They cruised under the power of diesel-electric engines (engines fueled by diesel that also charged batteries for use when the vessel was submerged). Submarines had a crew of 30 to 40 of\ufb01cers and men packed into a constricted space. They carried only a small number of torpedoes\u2014six on board a German Type U-19\u2014so these had to be employed sparingly. A quick-\ufb01ring gun on the deck was a useful alternative when engaging merchant ships. Submarines improved in speed and range through technological developments in the course of the war. Lusitania relic AFTER This life preserver from the ship is equipped with The German U-boat campaign canvas breeches. The liner had the continued into early 1916, further equipment to evacuate all its passengers antagonizing the United States. and crew, but only six of its 48 lifeboats were launched successfully before the ship sank. AMERICA ENTERS THE WAR On August 19, 1915, a German U-boat sank in vain to argue The submarine campaign was not neutral ships. Merchant captains were the White Star liner Arabic, killing 44 that the Lusitania immediately suspended, but U-boat encouraged to \ufb01ght back if stopped by people, including three Americans. On the was a legitimate target. commanders were ordered to take a U-boat in accordance with prize same day, a U-boat was sunk by the British To most people in Allied and neutral care in choosing targets and follow rules, a form of self-defense that Q-ship Baralong and all the survivors were countries, the sinking appeared to be prize rules where possible. outraged the Germans. executed. President Wilson, more concerned by straightforward mass murder. There the Arabic sinking, obtained a German pledge were riots in cities in Britain and its British tactics In summer 1915, the Royal Navy to avoid further attacks on passenger ships. dominions, with German-owned shops began equipping innocent-looking However, in March 1916, a U-boat sank the looted. The worst disorders occurred To counter the submarine campaign, merchant steamers with hidden guns. ferry Sussex in the English Channel. in the city of Liverpool, where many Britain\u2019s merchant ships \ufb02ew the \ufb02ags These Q-ships, as they were called, of the crew had lived. of neutral countries, knowing that lured U-boats into making a surface Germany was temporarily deterred from U-boats had orders to avoid sinking attack and then blasted them out of submarine warfare by The American president, Woodrow the sea. This tactic encouraged the hostility in the U.S. Wilson, responded to the attack with a Germans to make submerged attacks Renewed attacks series of indignant notes to the German without warning, which the British in February government, in which the sinking was could then denounce as immoral. 1917 led to the denounced as illegal and counter to U.S. joining \u201cthe rights of humanity.\u201d Germany was \u201cWe can no longer remain neutral the war left in little doubt that if it continued spectators\u2026 Our position\u2026 is being 212\u201313 \u276f\u276f. attacking unarmed merchant ships\u2014 assessed by mankind.\u201d especially passenger ships\u2014without LUSITANIA warning, then the United States might AMERICAN ENVOY COLONEL EDWARD HOUSE, TELEGRAM TO PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON, MAY 7, 1915 COMMEMORATIVE be provoked into entering the war. MEDAL 127","STALEMATE 1915 Wartime Posters Propaganda posters were used by all the combatant nations for a number of different purposes\u2014to inspire patriotism, convince volunteers to enlist, or persuade civilians to give financial aid through plans such as war bonds. 1 A Russian soldier unfurls a banner that reads, \u201cWar early 1917. U-Boat captains were often portrayed as daring 1 CALL TO CONTINUE THE WAR 2 WARTIME THRIFT (FRENCH) until victory.\u201d After the overthrow of the tsar in March 1917, heroes in German propaganda. 9 Advertising an (RUSSIAN) Russia\u2019s new Provisional Government attempted to keep exhibition of aircraft and captured war material, this Russia in the war. 2 A French poster explains the German poster shows a plummeting British biplane. importance of agricultural production to the war effort; the 10 Appealing to German patriotism, this poster depicts caption reads, \u201cI\u2019m a brave War Hen. I don\u2019t eat much and I the battle against British tanks. It urges German civilians produce a lot.\u201d 3 British men are urged to join the army to support the \ufb01ght by subscribing to a war bond. or face the guilt of nonparticipation in this recruitment 11 An Austro-Hungarian poster shows a 16th-century poster. Conscription, introduced in Britain in 1916, reduced soldier waving a \ufb02ag bearing the Hapsburg coat of arms. the need for such campaigns. 4 American women in this 12 This Australian propaganda poster shows a blood- home front poster, published in 1918, are encouraged to soaked beast wearing a pickelhaube, the distinctive take up war work in the factories. 5 A German poster German helmet.The beast grasps a globe, showing it to advertises the unveiling of a wooden knight monument at be vulnerable to the expansionist ambitions of Germany. K\u00f6nigsberg. Nails could be driven into such statues by 13 Germany is depicted as a thuggish ape in this American members of the public in exchange for donations to support poster. The image played on perceptions of Germany\u2019s the war effort. 6 Designed for Australia\u2019s last recruitment wartime barbarism. 14 Men are encouraged to join the U.S. campaign in 1918, this poster appeals for volunteers. Tank Corps in this recruitment poster. The Tank Corps \ufb01rst Australia did not introduce conscription at any point during went into combat in September 1918. 15 American posters the war. 7 Italian civilians are urged to buy war bonds to often showed Uncle Sam, the national personi\ufb01cation. This support the soldiers serving at the front. 8 This poster one is based on a British poster design featuring Lord advertises a German U-Boat propaganda \ufb01lm released in Kitchener striking a similar pose. 5 THE IRON WARRIOR (GERMAN) 8 THE U-BOATS ARE OUT! (GERMAN) 9 WAR BOOTY (GERMAN) 10 CALL TO BUY WAR BONDS (GERMAN) 11 SUBSCRIBE TO THE WAR LOAN (AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN) 128","3 DADDY, WHAT DID YOU DO 4 WOMEN WORKERS (U.S.) IN THE GREAT WAR? (BRITISH) 7 EVERYONE MUST DO THEIR DUTY! (ITALIAN) 6 RECRUITMENT POSTER (AUSTRALIAN) 12 ANTI-GERMAN PROPAGANDA 13 CALL TO DESTROY GERMANY (U.S) 14 TANK CORPS RECRUITMENT (U.S.) 15 I WANT YOU (U.S.) (AUSTRALIAN) 129","Pro-war march America and The Preparedness Movement campaigned for the the European War neutral United States to expand its military forces. It attracted those Americans who wanted their country to fulfill the role of a great power. BEFORE In the early 20th century, the U.S. was When war broke out, President Woodrow Wilson declared the United States neutral. But a fast-growing economic power, with Americans soon found themselves drawn toward involvement, whether through economic a rapidly expanding population. interests, the ties of sentiment, or outrage at the aggressive actions of combatant countries. OVERSEAS INVOLVEMENT T he initial decision to avoid dif\ufb01cult confrontation between ethnic Torpedo factory The United States had limited experience involvement in the war was and American identities. The governing An American naval workshop manufactures torpedoes of military involvement overseas. The uncontroversial in the United elite of the United States was mainly for the U.S. Navy. The industrial capacity of the United Americans had fought a brief one-sided war States. The U.S. traditionally avoided of British stock, but approximately States was vital to the Allies in their struggle against against Spain in 1898, which left them in what Founding Father Thomas 10 percent of Americans were of Germany, even before the U.S. entered the war. possession of the Philippines, where Jefferson had dubbed \u201centangling German origin, and Scandinavian they conducted a vicious counterinsurgency alliances\u201d with foreign powers. immigrants also tended to identify with campaign against Filipinos seeking Germany. Those most hostile to the independence. They also intervened in Central Although the United States had a Allied cause were the Irish Americans, America and the Caribbean, including in population of about 100 million in 1914, who were inclined to be more anti- Nicaragua from 1912 and Haiti from 1915. its army was small, with fewer than British than the Irish in Ireland. 100,000 troops, a third of the size of the THE U.S. PRESIDENCY army of Belgium. The U.S. did, however, German provocations In 1912, Woodrow Wilson 214\u201315 \u276f\u276f, a have a strong modern navy, re\ufb02ecting Democrat, was elected president. During his the recognized need for defense of the During the \ufb01rst year of the war, \ufb01rst two years in of\ufb01ce he was preoccupied country\u2019s shores and trade routes, as the United States shifted from with economic and social reforms. He was also well as concern for the international noninvolvement toward support for distracted by the death of his wife in the \ufb01rst prestige possession of a \ufb02eet conferred. Britain and France. Germany alienated week of the war. American opinion by its mistreatment The natural decision for a nonmilitarist of the Belgians at the start of the war. 130 country with no vital interests at stake, Other German actions, such as the neutrality also avoided a potentially","AMERICA AND THE EUROPEAN WAR bombing of European cities by AFTER Zeppelins and the \ufb01rst use of poison In the presidential elections of 1916, Wilson was reelected as \u201cthe man gas created an image of Germany as a who kept us out of the war.\u201d But this stance didn\u2019t last. militarist aggressor. Nonetheless, THE UNITED STATES DECLARES WAR President Wilson\u2019s Secretary of State in Wilson\u2019s preferred role was as a mediator. He sent his envoy, \u201cColonel\u201d Edward House, 1914, William Jennings Bryan, was to European capitals to seek a peace settlement, but in vain. Meanwhile, determined to maintain U.S. neutrality evidence of hostile German intent mounted, including the Zimmermann Telegram and noninvolvement. He was outraged 212\u201313 \u276f\u276f of January 1917, encouraging Mexico to attack the United States. Congress by the British naval blockade of declared war in April 1917 after Germany adopted unrestricted submarine Germany, which interfered with warfare, which affected U.S. shipping. America\u2019s right of free trade. On the other hand, the British were courteous, listened politely to American concerns, paid compensation for con\ufb01scated goods, and did not kill Americans. Germany had no means of blockading Britain except by using submarines. The U-boat sinking of the liner RMS Lusitania in May 1915, with heavy American loss of life, tipped the balance of U.S. public opinion\u2014and Wilson\u2019s personal stance\u2014against Germany. The paci\ufb01stic Bryan was replaced by Robert Lansing as Secretary of State. Lansing British assets in the United States, but To the rescue American volunteers drove ambulances from the start adopted \u201cbenevolent neutrality\u201d\u2014still from 1915 American banks were of the war, helping British, Belgian, and French troops. This painting by Victor White shows the American Field aiming to keep the United States out of authorized to supply massive loans to Service aiding a wounded soldier at Cappy-sur-Somme. the war if possible but backing the Allies. \ufb01nance trade with the Allies\u2014money they knew they would never see again Financial motives if the Allies lost the war. The United States also had a strong Business boomed, with U.S. exports Meanwhile, many individual American volunteers had been actively involved economic interest in the Allied war rising to double their prewar level in the European war from its earliest stages. In 1914, the expatriate colony effort. It had a third of the world\u2019s by the end of 1915 and share prices of Americans resident in Paris embraced the French cause. They set industrial capacity, as well as being a on Wall Street going up by 80 percent. up the American Field Service, which became a valued source of medical major producer of $2.3 BILLION The sum German agents in support for Allied forces in the \ufb01eld. food and raw lent by U.S. banks the United States Those Americans with a taste for materials. The to the Allies by April 1917. mounted a campaign combat joined the French Foreign Central Powers and of sabotage, such as Legion, including the Harvard- educated poet Alan Seeger, who wrote the Allies wanted to $27 MILLION The sum setting \ufb01re to ships one of the war\u2019s most famous poems, draw on these I Have a Rendezvous with Death, before lent by U.S. banks to and warehouses, to being killed on the Western Front. American volunteers \ufb02ew as pilots in immense resources. Germany by the same date. inhibit the supply French air units, forming the Lafayette WARTIME PROPAGANDA POSTER Escadrille (Squadron) that fought in German agents of war material to the the skies over Verdun in 1916. would unite the nation\u2019s ethnically fragmented population. This stance worked at purchasing vital goods and Allies. The British intelligence services Tension builds was opposed by antiwar groups, notably socialists, women\u2019s groups, routing them through neutral countries made sure the U.S. authorities were In 1915, pro- and antiwar argument and church organizations. raged. The Preparedness Movement, to avoid the British naval blockade, but kept informed of these illegal activities. led by former U.S. Chief of Staff The consequence of contradictory General Leonard Wood and former pressures was a compromise: the their efforts had limited success. Franz von Papen, the military attach\u00e9 president Teddy Roosevelt, argued that National Defense Act of June 1916. the United States needed to prepare for The army was to double in size, but The British and French were able to at the German embassy in Washington, war by introducing universal military there would be no conscription, and service. It argued that conscription the National Guard was to be enlarged. place orders and ship goods at will. was expelled in December 1915 for The outcome was seen as a defeat for the Preparedness Movement and a Initially this was funded by selling off promoting sabotage attacks. victory for those who wanted to keep the United States out of the war. FIGHTER PILOT (1894\u20131961) \u201c There is such a thing as a EUGENE BULLARD nation being so right it does The world\u2019s \ufb01rst black \ufb01ghter pilot, Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, not need to convince others Georgia. He left the United States as a teenager and emigrated \ufb01rst to Britain and by force that it is right.\u201d then to France. In 1914, he joined the French Foreign Legion and saw action as an infantryman on the Western Front, for which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In 1917, Bullard learned to \ufb02y and joined the Lafayette Escadrille Squadron, American volunteers serving in the French air service. He \ufb02ew on combat missions between August and November 1917. His fellow American pilots joined the U.S. Army after the United States entered the war, but Bullard was rejected on account of his race. PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON, SPEECH IN PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1915 131","STALEMATE 1915 The Zeppelin Raids In 1915, Germany mounted bombing raids using Zeppelin and Sch\u00fctte-Lanz airships against Paris, London, and other cities. Although limited in effect, the nighttime attacks of these giant aircraft made an indelible impression on the people who witnessed them. D eployed by the German army and navy from the start of the war, airships proved effective in a naval reconnaissance role, and the idea of also using them to bomb targets in Britain fascinated German military commanders. Kaiser Wilhelm had qualms about authorizing bombing raids on Britain, but was led by stages to lift restrictions on airship operations. Mounting a bombing campaign was, however, no easy matter. The airships\u2019 Airship firebomb huge bulk and slow speed\u2014the largest This incendiary bomb was dropped by Zeppelin LZ38 in the first airship raid on London on May 31, 1915. Too were 650 ft (200 m) long and traveled small to cause much damage, the bomb was released by hand out of the airship\u2019s gondola. at 50\u201360 mph (80\u201395 kph)\u2014made them BEFORE vulnerable to being shot down. To Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, prevent this, attacks were made at a former German cavalry of\ufb01cer, developed his \ufb01rst airship, LZ1, in night, but this posed a challenge to 1900. \u201cZeppelin\u201d became a generic term for all lighter-than-air craft. navigators, especially after Britain MILITARY POTENTIAL and France introduced blackouts. In homes. Politicians responded to public Zeppelin lookout The possibility of airships attacking The captain (left) looks out of the side of a gondola cities with bombs was widely imagined addition, airships required favorable opinion by switching resources from under the airship\u2019s gas bag, while a coxswain steers before World War I\u2014appearing, for example, the craft. Operating an airship was a complex business, in H.G. Wells\u2019s 1908 fantasy novel The War weather. Many missions were aborted the Western Front to home defense. typically requiring at least 16 crew members. in the Air\u2014and was discussed by senior German commanders. because of poor weather or operating Fighter aircraft were brought back from unheated, unpressurized craft. Five \u201cheight-climbers\u201d were lost on a single Germany had acquired a dozen metal- problems such as engine failure. the front to intercept the raiders, and mission against Britain in October framed Zeppelin and wooden-framed 1917. The airship bombing campaign Sch\u00fctte-Lanz rigid airships by the outbreak London was ringed with searchlights had in effect been defeated. of the war. Other combatants used a range of rigid airships and nonrigid airships known Bombing Britain and antiaircraft guns in an effort to AFTER as \u201cblimps,\u201c but Germany was well ahead of them in this \ufb01eld. The campaign against Britain began repel the airships. Airplanes began to replace airships in bombing campaigns against Britain, with attacks on England\u2019s east coast Air attacks were mounted, with though airships were still sometimes used to transport supplies. towns in January 1915. London was some success, against Zeppelin sheds REPLACED BY PLANES bombed for the \ufb01rst time on May 31 in Belgium and Germany. Through Germany revitalized its bombing campaign against Britain and France in summer 1917 by and raids later 1916, the airships using Gotha airplanes instead of airships 232\u201333 \u276f\u276f, in\ufb02icting more damage at lower spread to the 71 The number of people faced more losses. In cost. Occasional airship raids on Britain Midlands and killed in the war\u2019s February, two were continued until August 1918, when German naval airship chief Peter Strasser was northeast England. deadliest airship raid on London, shot down by killed in an attack across the North Sea. Captain Peter on October 31, 1915. One bomb antiaircraft \ufb01re over -BANNED BY VERSAILLES Germany was banned from possessing Strasser, head of struck London\u2019s Lyceum theater, the French city of military airships after the war under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles 338\u201339 \u276f\u276f, the German navy\u2019s killing or injuring 37 people. Nancy. In June, an but in the 1920s it resumed its lead in commercial lighter-than-air \ufb02ights. By World airship \ufb02eet, airship returning from War II, all countries had abandoned airships as impractical. imagined Britain being overcome by an abortive raid on Britain was \u201cextensive destruction of cities, factory destroyed over Belgium when a British complexes, dockyards\u2026\u201d But Germany pilot dropped bombs on its gas bag. never had many airships\u201416 took part in the largest raid of the war\u2014and De\ufb02ated and defeated their bomb load was modest. In total, The development of incendiary rounds 51 German airship raids on Britain are made it easier for airplanes to attack estimated to have killed 556 people, airships. On the night of September 2, and damage to buildings and other Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson, infrastructure was limited. The \ufb02ying a BE2c biplane, shot down moral impact was out of all airship SL11 within sight of London. proportion to the material By the year\u2019s end, \ufb01ve more airships effect. British civilians had been shot down over Britain by felt fear and outrage at ground \ufb01re or pursuit aircraft. being attacked in their These were unsustainable losses for Germany. Refusing to abandon the Yarmouth raided campaign, the German navy lightened The east coast port of Great its airships to make them \u201cheight- Yarmouth was hit in the first climbers,\u201d operating at altitudes that German airship raid on Britain on airplanes could not reach. This made January 19, 1915. Four people were them invulnerable to enemy action but killed in the attack by two German problematic for their crews, who were navy Zeppelins, L3 and L4. \ufb02ying at over 16,000 ft (4,900 m) in 132","Zeppelin downed by an aircraft This painting, Lieutenant Warneford\u2019s Great Exploit by F. Gordon, depicts the first German airship to be destroyed by an Allied aircraft. Warneford, of the Royal Navy Air Service and flying a Morane-Saulnier monoplane, bombed the airship over Belgium.","STALEMATE 1915 Campaigns on the high Carpathian passes. Considering Eastern Front that Russian soldiers had been short of every form of equipment, from In 1915, the overstretched Russian armies fought a series of disastrous battles, from ri\ufb02es, bullets, and shells to boots and the Baltic to the Carpathians. By contrast, the Austro-German Gorlice-Tarnow overcoats, they had put up a creditable offensive was one of the most successful campaigns of the whole war. performance on both fronts. The Gorlice-Tarnow offensive Animosity between German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn and the Hindenburg-Ludendorff partnership shaped the next moves. Rejecting Hindenburg\u2019s and Ludendorff\u2019s pleas for an offensive in I n early 1915, the Russians and the On the Carpathian front, in March, Riga LATVIA Central Powers had more or less Austria-Hungary was rocked by the symmetrical plans for offensives. fall of the fortress of Przemysl and its MAY 8 6 Aug 18 Russia aimed to strike against East 120,000-strong garrison after a Russian German 10th Army takes Kovno. Prussia in the north and through siege lasting 133 days. Neither side Libau Subsequent assaults on Vilnius the Carpathian Mountains into made much progress in \ufb01ghting in the are beaten back until Sept 18. Hungary in the south. Field Marshal LITHUANIA Hindenburg and General Ludendorff The Eastern Front in 1915 Dvinsk planned a German offensive at the Between the Gorlice-Tarnow offensive on May 2 and the Memel Masurian Lakes in East Prussia, to end of September 1915, the Russians suffered a series of 5TH ARMY coincide with an Austro-Hungarian severe reversals, obliging them to abandon Poland and NIEMEN ARMY offensive in the Carpathians. Lithuania to German and Austro-Hungarian forces. 1ST ARMY 5TH ARMY The Central Powers struck \ufb01rst. Tilsit At the Second Battle of the Masurian Niemen Lakes, launched in a snowstorm on February 7, Hindenburg and KEY K\u00f6nigsberg 10TH ARMY AUG18 Ludendorff attempted to trap the Russian Tenth Army with a vast pincer 0 Major fort\/fortified town Gumbinnen Kovno SEPT 18 2ND ARMY movement. One Russian corps, \ufb01nding Austro-Hungarian army itself encircled, surrendered en masse German army Danzig Vilnius in the Augustow Forest, but the rest Russian army of the Tenth Army escaped, and Austro-German movements EAST the front restabilized. Russian positions, May 1 Russian positions, Jun 1 PRUSSIA Lakes Augustow Forest 10TH ARMY BEFORE Russian positions, Jul 13 Russian positions, Aug 15 urian 8TH ARMY 10TH ARMY The \ufb01ghting on the Eastern Front in Russian positions, Aug 30 SEPT 2 1914 had produced no decisive result. Date of capture by a s The Russians suffered defeats against Austro-Germans Grodno the Germans but won victories over Major battle Graudenz M Johannisburg 4TH ARMY Austria-Hungary. Niemen la Tannenberg 12TH ARMY FOCUS ON THE EAST Vistu Narew Baranovichi Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his Thorn 12TH ARMY AUG 27 Chief of Staff Erich Ludendorff, in East Prussia, argued for maximum resources to knock Bialystok Russia out of the war. German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn did not 1ST ARMY RUSSIAN believe Russia could be easily defeated, but EMPIRE agreed to stand on the defensive on the Western Front and transfer troops AUG 20 Bug to the East. Novo-Georgievsk AUG 5 AUG 26 3RD ARMY Pripet RUSSIAN GAINS AND LOSSES By the start of 1915, Russia had pushed the Kutno 2ND ARMY Warsaw Brest-Litovsk Pinsk Austro-Hungarians back to the Carpathian Mountains and was besieging the Galician 9TH ARMY Bolimov fortress of Przemysl \u276e\u276e 71. The Russians had defeated Turkish forces at Sarikamish Pripet Marshes \u276e\u276e 75 on the Caucasus front. They had, however, been forced to pull back behind Lodz Lodz in Russian Poland \u276e\u276e 70\u201371. 5 Jul 13 4TH ARMY AUG 8 Kowel Austro-German forces begin Ivangorod advance toward Warsaw. Lublin WOYRSCH DET ARMY Chenstokhov Kielce Krasnik Bug 8TH ARMY 3 May 15 Sandomierz San Lutsk Rovno Despite Russian resistance, the retreat 1ST ARMY Vistula 7 Last week continues. By Jun 1, Austrians and of Sept Opatow Rava russka Austro-Hungarian Germans are established east of the San. forces are unable BUG ARMY JUN 22 11TH ARMY to capture Rovno Cracow MAY 6 due to strong Lemberg Russian resistance. 4TH ARMY Tarnow JUN 3 11TH ARMY MAY 2 Przemysl 1 6:00, May 2 Gorlice GALICIA Tarnopol Following a heavy artillery 3RD ARMY 4 Jun 12 bombardment, Austro-German forces 3RD ARMY Austro-German attack in the Gorlice-Tarnow sector. 8TH ARMY Stansilaw niester D forces resume 7TH ARMY offensive. Austro-German 2 May 4 Ca r p a 2ND ARMY 11TH ARMY forces achieve a 9TH ARMY thian M complete breakthrough; the Russian SUD ARMY 3rd Army retreats in disarray. o ntains u A U S T R IA-HUNGARY 7TH ARMY Czernowitz 100 km 0 100 miles 134","CAMPAIGNS ON THE EASTERN FRONT East Prussia, Falkenhayn concentrated Khaki wool Reversible AFTER his resources on a new Eleventh Army shoulder strap under General August von Mackensen with rank and Despite suffering casualties of in northern Galicia. Mackensen was unit number between one and two million in the also given effective command of the battles of 1915, including hundreds of Austro-Hungarian Fourth Army. Brass thousands of soldiers taken prisoner, buckle Russia was prepared to \ufb01ght on. On May 2, this Austro-German force TSAR NICHOLAS TAKES CHARGE launched an offensive between Gorlice plate On September 1, 1915, Tsar Nicholas II and Tarnow, in the gap between the assumed supreme command of the Carpathians and the Vistula River. The Russian tunic resources to the enemy spilled over into Russian armies. This ensured he would be Russian Third Army holding the sector The Russian army modernized its uniform after its looting and attacks on civilians, personally identi\ufb01ed with any future military was woefully ill-prepared. A four-hour defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904\u201305. Soldiers especially Jews. Hundreds of thousands reversals. Meanwhile, the poor state of artillery bombardment destroyed entered World War I wearing a khaki version of the of refugees were driven in front of the supply to the troops at the front was poorly constructed trenches and drove 19th-century pullover shirt-tunic, the gymnasterka. retreating armies. No provision was popularly blamed on corruption and the Russian infantry into headlong made for this displaced population, who treachery at the tsarist court and in the \ufb02ight. Neither the Russian system of authorized Mackensen to continue his ended up starving in Russian towns. government. In fact, a surprising command nor their railroad network advance, turning northeast across the improvement in arms production was capable of a rapid movement of Vistula towards Brest-Litovsk. The Russian commanders achieved meant that Russia\u2019s armies were equipped to reserves to block the breakthrough. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were their objective as a defensive line was continue the war in 1916, with mixed success. By May 10, the Russians had retreated reduced to a supporting role, stabilized in September, but a blow had CONQUEST OF SERBIA to the San River, which was crossed by commanding offensives from East been delivered to the Russian Empire. In the last months of 1915, Germany and Austro-German forces a week later. Prussia into Lithuania and the north Austria-Hungary turned their attention to the Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, of the Polish salient. Imperial visitor conquest of Serbia 140\u201341 \u276f\u276f. While this reduced to \ufb01ghting with bayonets due Tsar Nicholas II (second from left) visits the front in May was under way, Falkenhayn made the decision to lack of ammunition, surrendered. For their part, the Russians were 1915. In September 1915, Nicholas took over from his to divert resources from the Eastern determined not to be encircled and uncle, Grand Duke Nikolai (far right) as commander-in- Front for a major offensive against the French Russian counterattacks failed and on were ready to sacri\ufb01ce territory to keep chief of the Russian forces. at Verdun 154\u201355 \u276f\u276f. This prevented Field June 3 Przemysl was retaken by their armies intact. The Germans Marshal Hindenburg and General Ludendorff Austria-Hungary. The retreat of the advanced across Poland in July and from pursuing an offensive strategy and Russian Third Army forced the armies August, but they were slowed by the allowed the Russians to regain the initiative to its south to pull back as well. By poor roads and lack of railroads. The with the Brusilov Offensive 174\u201375 \u276f\u276f in early July, most of Galicia was in the Russians withdrew in front of them. the summer of 1916. hands of the Central Powers. This became known as the Great Retreat. As they withdrew, the Russian 135 Russian retreat troops adopted scorched-earth tactics. Crops were burned, animals killed, Hindenburg and Ludendorff scorned bridges blown up, and buildings Falkenhayn\u2019s breakthrough, arguing destroyed. A policy of denying that in driving the Russians back he was missing the chance to encircle and destroy them. They envisaged an offensive from East Prussia to the Pripet Marshes that would cut off the Russian armies in Poland. Falkenhayn instead The Germans conquer Vilnius \u201cNo cartridges, A poster celebrates Germany\u2019s final success against the no shells. Bloody Russians in 1915\u2014the capture of Vilnius, capital of the \ufb01ghting and Russian Baltic province of Lithuania. Hindenburg and dif\ufb01cult marches Ludendorff are given pride of place in the center. day after day.\u201d RUSSIAN GENERAL ANTON DENIKIN, IN HIS MEMOIR, OCHERKI","","War horses A Russian field gun is hauled across a stream on the Eastern Front. Horses were used for combat and logistical purposes. Millions of them died from injuries, accidents, exhaustion, or neglect.","STALEMATE 1915 Machine Guns Machine guns were heavy and limited in number at the outbreak of war, but they were highly effective in defensive roles. As the war progressed, lighter models capable of accompanying infantry assaults were introduced. 1 Lewis gun (British) From its adoption in 1915, the Lewis gun 3 HOTCHKISS M1914 (FRENCH) remained the standard British infantry light machine gun 7 AMMUNITION BELT throughout the war. It was also mounted on Allied aircraft. 2 Lewis gun drum magazine (British) The Lewis gun\u2019s distinctive circular magazine came in two sizes: this version held 47 rounds, the other 97. 3 Hotchkiss M1914 (French) Nearly 50,000 of these tripod-mounted heavy machine guns were delivered to the French army during the course of the war. 4 Schwarzlose M7\/12 (Austro-Hungarian) Adopted in 1907, this model had just 10 working parts, which reduced the likelihood of mechanical failure. Captured models were used by both the Russians and Italians. 5 Schwarzlose M7\/12 ammunition (Austro-Hungarian) This weapon was fed via a 250-round ammunition belt and could \ufb01re up to 500 rounds per minute. 6 Vickers gun (British) Usually operated by a team of six men, the Vickers gun was effective but unwieldy. It was replaced by the Lewis gun starting in late 1915. 7 Ammunition belt Made of fabric and brass, this device fed cartridges into many different types of machine guns (as seen on No.10). 8 MG 08\/15 (German) A hurried attempt to produce a light machine gun, the sledge-mounted MG 08 was modi\ufb01ed by the addition of a bipod, gunstock, and pistol grip. This helped improve its portability, but it remained relatively heavy. 9 Browning M1918 automatic ri\ufb02e (U.S.) Introduced late in 1918, this model was designed to be operated by a single soldier. It was light enough to be \ufb01red from the hip as troops advanced on enemy positions. 10 Pulemyot Maxima 1910 (Russian) A highly durable and reliable machine gun, this model remained in service with the Russian army until World War II. 11 Chauchat M1915 (French) The principal French light machine gun, the Chauchat gained a reputation for unreliability; mud and grit would enter the weapon through its open-sided magazine, which often caused it to jam. 12 Browning M1917 (U.S.) Due to delays in production, this heavy machine gun did not see service until the \ufb01nal months of the war. It could \ufb01re around 450 rounds per minute. 10 PULEMYOT MAXIMA 1910 (RUSSIAN) 138","MACHINE GUNS 1 LEWIS GUN (BRITISH) 2 LEWIS GUN DRUM MAGAZINE (BRITISH) 4 SCHWARZLOSE M7\/12 (AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN) 5 SCHWARZLOSE M7\/12 AMMUNITION (AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN) 6 VICKERS GUN (BRITISH) 8 MG 08\/15 (GERMAN) 9 BROWNING M1918 AUTOMATIC RIFLE (U.S.) 11 CHAUCHAT M1915 (FRENCH) 12 BROWNING M1917 (U.S.) 139","STALEMATE 1915 BEFORE Serbia Crushed Although World War I started with The defeat of Serbia in the final months of 1915 completed a Austria-Hungary\u2019s declaration of war year of almost unrelieved military failure for the Allies. About against Serbia, by 1915 the Serbian a quarter of the Serbian population is thought to have died in front had become a backwater. the course of the war, mostly from hardship and disease. THE SERBIAN FRONT I n September 1915, negotiations This was not to the liking of Austro- After Serbia\u2019s successful resistance against between the Central Powers and Hungarian Chief of Staff General invasion by Austro-Hungarian forces Bulgaria were brought to a Conrad von H\u00f6tzendorf, who was \u276e\u276e 68\u201369 in the \ufb01rst months of the war, successful conclusion. In return for increasingly worried by German \ufb01ghting subsided. Austria-Hungary did not a promise of substantial territorial dominance, but it suited German have the resources to defeat Serbia while also gains, the Bulgarians signed the Pless Chief of the General Staff Erich von \ufb01ghting Russia and, from May 1915, Italy. Convention on September 6, agreeing to join in an invasion of Serbia within Falkenhayn. He BULGARIA\u2019S STANCE 35 days. Unimpressed by the wanted a swift Serbia\u2019s neutral neighbor Bulgaria had lost performance of Austro-Hungarian defeat of Serbia territory to Serbia, Greece, Turkey, and forces, they stipulated that the that would bind Romania in the Second Balkan War of invasion must include Bulgaria into an 1913. It was courted both by the Allies and the German troops and be alliance with the Central Central Powers. Allied failure against Turkey under German Powers and open up a direct line at Gallipoli \u276e\u276e 110\u201313 and the Russian command. of communication between retreat from Poland \u276e\u276e 52\u20133 Germany and Turkey. in\ufb02uenced Bulgaria\u2019s leaders to form an alliance with the Central Powers. Invasion of Serbia German and Austro-Hungarian King Peter I of Serbia forces under the command of Born in 1844, King Peter passed executive power to his General August von Mackensen son, Crown Prince Alexander, shortly before the start of launched the offensive on October 6. the war. The king remained a focus of Serbian loyalty and stayed with the army through the retreat of 1915. Their main thrust was directed across the Danube. The river was southward high but the crossing was achieved with the support of heavy artillery and the guns of Austro-Hungarian gunboats. The Serbian forces were in poor shape. In addition to being outnumbered and short of weapons and munitions, they had been decimated by a typhus epidemic. The capital, Belgrade, had already fallen by the time the Bulgarian army attacked across Serbia\u2019s eastern border on October 11. Under its experienced Serbia attacked An illustration in the French magazine Le Petit Journal shows Serbia defending itself against Austria-Hungary\u2019s Emperor Franz Joseph and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany while being stabbed in the back by Bulgaria.","SERBIA CRUSHED Serbian Campaign, 1915 Danube 2 Oct 7 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AFTER Attacked by Germany and Austria-Hungary from the Austro-German forces begin to north and Bulgaria from the east, the defeated Serbian cross Sava and Danube Rivers. OCT 9 There were outbreaks of revolt in forces withdrew into Albania. Allied troops who had Serbia against harsh rule by Austro- landed at Salonika in Greece were unable to intervene. 3RD ARMY Belgrade Hungarian and Bulgarian occupation forces, but the Balkan front remained KEY Sava Shabatz 11TH ARMY largely inactive until 1918. Austro-Hungarian army Bulgarian army BOSNIA Orsova PARTIAL WITHDRAWAL German army In autumn 1916, Allied forces from Salonika, Serbian army 1ST ARMY 3RD ARMY including Serbian troops, advanced across the Serbian position, Oct 6 border from Greece and forced the Austro-German offensives, Morava ROMANIA Bulgarians to withdraw from part of Oct 6\u2013 Nov 23 Drina southern Serbia. No further progress was made Bulgarian offensives, Valdevo in 1917, as the Allies focused on persuading Oct 6\u2013 Nov 23 Greece to join the war, a goal achieved in June Serbian retreat from Nov 25 Vidin 1917. Serbia was liberated by an Allied Anglo-French landings offensive launched in September 1918. French relief force TIMOK ARMY 1ST ARMY The Corfu Declaration of July 1917 Town captured by Central foreshadowed the creation of the Serbian-led Powers, with date SERBIA 3 Oct 11 postwar state of Yugoslavia. Major railroad Bulgarian forces begin their attack. \u201cWe slowly creep toward Nish the sheer cliffs\u2026 step 2ND ARMY by step on the compacted MONTENEGRO KOSOVO snow.\u201d Scutari Pristina OCT 22 So\ufb01a JOSIP JERAS, SERBIAN REFUGEE, DIARY Gnjilane ENTRY, DECEMBER 1915 Kumanova BULGARIA achieved under German command. Phizrendi Skopje 2ND ARMY Relations between Austro-Hungarian MACEDONIAN ARMY and German leaders deteriorated and cooperation declined. Meanwhile, commander, Field Marshal Radomir Corfu became the seat of a Serbian government-in-exile, complete with Putnik, the Serbian army retreated 4 Nov 25 parliament. Much of the Serbian army joined the Allied forces in Salonika, southward in the face of the Austro- Tirana Serbians begin Strumitsa waiting for the chance to wage a war Hungarian advance. to retreat of national liberation. Durazzo through the ALBANIA mountains. Doiran Cornered in Kosovo Monastir Lake Doiran Putnik\u2019s hopes of avoiding Lake MACEDONIA encirclement were dashed by 5 Jan 1916 Ohrid Gornichevo the speedy progress of the Allied warships Salonika Bulgarians. By November, evacuate Serbian Berat Lake the Serbians were trapped in forces to Corfu. Ostrovo Valona Kastoria 1 Oct 3 Kosovo, facing a choice between Konitsa Advance elements of Anglo- a \ufb01ght to the death or a retreat across French force reach Salonika. The French push north, establishing the mountains. position in Doiran area. Under Serbia might have hoped for some increasing Bulgarian pressure, Doiran assistance from the Allies, but none position is abandoned on Dec 3. was forthcoming. Only Curved mouth CORFU GREECE 0 100 km of pipe three days before the 0 100 miles launch of the Austro-German adequate food or shelter for a invasion, advanced sudden in\ufb02ux of 140,000 military parties of an Anglo- and civilian refugees. French force, known in The Germans made no attempt to France as the Army of the Soldier\u2019s pipe continue the Serbian Campaign Orient, had landed at Salonika The underused Allied troops at Salonika had towards Salonika, where the Army in neutral Greece, where they plenty of time on their hands. This pipe of the Orient was in a potentially were to proceed by rail to Serbia. was carved by a British private in the perilous position. Falkenhayn decided But their arrival provoked a political Durham Light Infantry. to leave the Balkan front dormant crisis in Greece. The prime minister, while he turned his attention to an Eleftherios Venizelos, who had invited 200,000 soldiers and civilians set off offensive against the the Allied troops, was dismissed by on this trek, including the Serbian French at Verdun. the country\u2019s pro-German King government and the 71-year-old King Bulgaria was satis\ufb01ed Constantine. The Allies suddenly Peter, carried in a sedan chair. The with its victory over the found themselves unwelcome. roads were deep in snow and Serbs. Austria-Hungary, Under the command of General temperatures were far below freezing. however, was not\u2014 Maurice Sarrail, some 45,000 French Thousands died of exposure. Although Conrad disliked the fact troops advanced across Macedonia into bad weather dissuaded enemy forces that it had been southern Serbia. After brief clashes from mounting a pursuit, Albanian with the Bulgarians, they withdrew warlords attacked the Serbians passing Serbians flee again to Salonika. through their territory. The winter retreat of the Serbian Flight through the mountains The survivors reached the Adriatic army through the mountains into coast after about three weeks. From Albania was a nightmare of In the last week of November, Putnik there, they were evacuated by Allied hardship. At least 50,000 Serbian ordered a general retreat across the transport ships, chie\ufb02y to the Greek soldiers and civilians died on the mountains to the Adriatic. Some island of Corfu. But the island had no journey to the Adriatic coast. 141","STALEMATE 1915 The Artois-Loos Offensive BEFORE In September 1915, the Allied offensives in Champagne and Artois resulted in over 300,000 Allied casualties, including large numbers of British volunteers. The failure of At a conference held at Chantilly Britain\u2019s contribution to the offensives led to the dismissal of its commander-in-chief. on July 7, 1915, the Allied countries agreed that they must take action F rench commander-in-chief Hard hat other fronts, Joffre justi\ufb01ed the together to put maximum pressure General Joseph Joffre\u2019s long-held Introduced in autumn 1915, the French Adrian helmet offensives as essential to maintain on the Central Powers. plan for cracking the German was the first steel helmet issued to troops of any morale. Otherwise, he said, \u201cour troops trench system was to mount country in World War I. Its light steel offered will little by little lose their physical OPPORTUNITY FOR THE ALLIES major offensives in Artois and protection against shrapnel. and moral qualities.\u201d British Minister With Russia suffering severe setbacks Champagne, on the northern and for War Lord Kitchener told his in Poland \u276e\u276e 70\u201371, and Italy engaged in southern \ufb02anks of the salient commander-in-chief Sir John French, offensives on the Isonzo \u276e\u276e 106\u201307, occupied by the German army \u201cWe must do our utmost to help the France and Britain realized they needed to in France. Joffre and British French, even though by so doing, we mount a major offensive on the Western commander-in-chief Field Front. However, they knew that attacking Marshal Sir John French had suffer very heavy losses indeed.\u201d the German trenches was unlikely to a clear idea how the campaign achieve a breakthrough, as failures earlier in might be won. Heavy artillery The plan unfolds the year, both in Artois and Champagne bombardment would devastate \u276e\u276e 142\u201343, had con\ufb01rmed. A window of German trenches, allowing infantry The British, reinforced by the opportunity arose when large numbers of to occupy the enemy front line, \ufb01rst volunteer troops of German soldiers were transferred to the after which reserves would be Kitchener\u2019s New Armies, held east for the onslaught against Russia, brought through to continue the most of the Artois front with a leaving their troops on the Western Front offensive in depth. single French army on their right. heavily outnumbered by the Allies. French forces were concentrated on Whether the commanders really the Champagne front, where they expected to succeed is doubtful. Apart outnumbered the German defenders from the need to support Allies on three to one. Joffre assembled over 2,000 artillery pieces for the French troops at Artois Zouaves (French light infantry) from North Africa in the Artois sector of the front. By this stage, they had abandoned their traditional uniforms, but had not yet been issued steel helmets.","THE ARTOIS-LOOS OFFENSIVE German \u201cThey told us it would be a bit of cake Luger pistol and all we\u2019d got to do for this attack was This semiautomatic to dawdle along and take these trenches pistol was much used by the German which we\u2019d \ufb01nd pulverized by our guns.\u201d army in trench warfare. This one has a 32-round external \u201csnail\u201dmagazine in addition to the usual 8-round box magazine. \u201cSnail\u201c magazine Champagne offensive, including PRIVATE C.H. RUSSELL, LONDON SCOTTISH REGIMENT AT LOOS heavy guns removed from the forts at Verdun. After a reinforcements had arrived gas cylinders were opened, despite Allied commanders four-day bombardment, from the Eastern Front by train the changeable wind direction, while General Haig talks to General Joffre while Sir John the French infantry assault and no further progress was smoke candles provided a screen for French strides alongside. By October 1915, Haig was was launched on possible. On the Artois front, the advancing infantry. Some of the gas the rising star among British commanders. September 25. French Tenth Army had a similar blew back into British trenches, causing experience attacking the German chaos and a number of casualties, but it Initially, the French positions at Vimy Ridge. helped weaken the German defenses. offensive appeared to be The British operation at Loos was a success, with German conducted by the First Army Launched at 6:30am, the British positions penetrated to a depth commander Douglas Haig. His men attack was highly successful in its of several miles and large numbers faced the complex terrain of a mining southern sector. Soldiers from the of prisoners taken. But the Germans district, dotted with slag heaps, mining Territorial Army broke through to had constructed a second trench line pits, and factories. To compensate for capture Loos and reach the outskirts of 3 miles (5 km) behind the front one too few guns and shells, reliance was Lens, before being held up by German and placed concealed concrete machine placed upon the use of chlorine gas, gun posts between the two. In this 320,000 The approximate defensive zone, the French infantry which the Allies had by number of Allied was brought to a halt by German then developed. casualties incurred in the Artois and artillery and machine guns. By the On the morning of Champagne offensives in the time the French tried to renew the September 25, the autumn of 1915. offensive on October 6, German 100,000 The approximate number of German casualties in the battles. machine guns. By 9:30am, Haig was AFTER appealing to Field Marshal Sir John French for reserves to be rushed The failure of the autumn offensives forward to exploit the opening. in Artois and Champagne brought Decision-making was slow, however, no fundamental change in Allied and the reserves\u2014two divisions of strategy or tactics, although Kitchener\u2019s volunteer New Army political consensus in France was troops\u2014were too far away. Marching put under strain. along the cobbled roads, unrested and unfed, they were not in a position to COORDINATED PLAN join the \ufb01ghting until the following A second inter-Allied conference at day. By then, the Germans were Chantilly in December 1915 agreed that holding their second line of defense. coordinated offensives should be The New Army divisions marched mounted on the different fronts\u2014Western, forward without artillery support into Eastern, and Italian\u2014in 1916, to dissuade the \ufb01re of German machine guns. the Germans from shifting troops from one front to another. German Chief of the Attributing blame General Staff General Erich von Falkenhayn had his own plans, however. He About 8,000 out of 15,000 men were intended to launch a major offensive on killed or wounded before a withdrawal, the Western Front at Verdun 154\u201355 \u276f\u276f with many of them caught in uncut that would drive the French out of the war. barbed wire. The British then endured German counterattacks that ended FRENCH SUPPORT WAVERS hopes of further progress. Among the The heavy losses incurred in Artois and victims was John Kipling, the 18-year- Champagne put strain upon the \u201cunion old son of the author Rudyard Kipling. sacr\u00e9e\u201d (sacred union) of French political He had been shot in the face during the parties in support of the war effort. At the end Irish Guards\u2019 defense of a chalk pit. of October 1915, however, a new coalition government under Aristide Briand After the offensive was abandoned, reaf\ufb01rmed the shaky political consensus. Haig made sure that Sir John French was held responsible for not bringing up 143 reserves, which was in turn blamed for the failure of the offensive. In mid- December, French was dismissed and Haig was appointed to take his place.","STALEMATE 1915 Reconnaissance 144 and Communication \u201c[He was] under heavy \ufb01re\u2026 with a coil of wire upon his back among corpses.\u201d LIEUTENANT COLONEL BARNETT BARKER, DESCRIBING A BRITISH SIGNALER AT THE SOMME, AUGUST 2, 1916 A revolution in communications Armies and navies were also quick to commanders were to maintain contact was under way in the early adopt new technologies. Almost all with their large-scale forces amid the 20th century, with \u201cwireless warships were equipped with radio relentless chaos of battle. telegraphy\u201d\u2014radio\u2014and the by 1914, giving land-based admiralties telephone beginning to replace unprecedented control over their Using code the electric telegraph. From 1915, commanders at sea. observation aircraft were equipped Radio communication was also with radios, enabling aerial observers In their current state of development, inherently insecure, because anyone to communicate with artillery positions however, radio and telephone did not could listen to messages, which were on where shells were falling or the solve the communication problems generally tapped out on a Morse key. whereabouts of advancing troops. This of armies in World War I. There were The use of codes was time-consuming was a major development, although it two main problem areas. One was and sometimes beyond the skills was only toward the end of the war coordination between artillery and of the operators. Even encoded that air-to-ground communication infantry, which was considered the messages were vulnerable to enemy approached full ef\ufb01ciency. key to successful offensives. This cryptographers. On the Eastern Front, required a constant feedback of the Germans were at times able to information to the gunners about anticipate Russian movements through the position of friendly and hostile listening into uncoded radio messages. forces, where their shells were falling, The lack of security was one reason for and where they were needed. The preferring the use of telephone other problem was how battle landlines where feasible. Field telephones For troops on the ground, radios were too cumbersome and too unreliable for general use. Field telephones worked better. Signal personnel laid landlines connecting forward artillery observers with the gunners, or linking divisional headquarters with battalions at the front. In an offensive, compact telephone sets, \ufb01tted into a shoulder bag, were carried forward with troops. Signalers would unroll cable from drums while constantly under \ufb01re. Unfortunately, the shallowly buried cables were easily severed by artillery \ufb01re and had to be constantly repaired. Telephone contact between troops and supporting artillery or commanders in the rear was usually lost where the German field telephone post With their key for Morse and handset for voice communication, field telephones were in principle an excellent form of communication. In practice, their lines were often severed by gunfire.","RECONNAISSANCE AND COMMUNICATION Communications rocket tethered behind the TIMELINE Small rockets were sometimes used to send front line as observation messages. This slender black metal rocket platforms at a height of \u25a0 1792 The Chappe telegraph, a visual has a hollow nose compartment in which a about 3,000 ft (900 m), semaphore system, establishes long-distance written message could be concealed. with the balloon crews military communication across France. communicating with \ufb01ghting was \ufb01ercest. In the ground staff via a \u25a0 1794 The French Revolutionary army uses a heat of battle, communication telephone cable. balloon for observation at the Battle of Fleurus, often depended on courageous the first aerial reconnaissance. runners carrying written Aircraft were sent on messages back and forth through missions over the enemy \u25a0 1837 American Samuel Morse patents his the storm of shelling and trenches. While the pilot version of the electric telegraph, developing machine gun \ufb01re. This was a dodged antiaircraft \ufb01re and a practical code for transmitting messages. slow means of communication attacks by enemy \ufb01ghters, and depended upon the man his colleague, the aerial \u25a0 1854 The British Telegraph Detachment surviving his hazardous journey, observer, mapped troop makes the first military use of the electric which often he did not. movements and scribbled telegraph in the notes on what was Crimean War. Reconnaissance happening below. Aerial photography AUTOMATIC The use of aircraft revolutionized Observers\u2019 impressionistic An observer in a German reconnaissance aircraft takes TELEGRAPH reconnaissance in World War I. sketches and reports were an aerial photograph. The camera\u2019s photographic TRANSMITTER, 1858 Although observation from soon rendered redundant plates had to be changed manually each time a aircraft was initially distrusted as by aerial photography. photograph was taken. \u25a0 1876 Alexander Graham Bell wins the race a novelty by generals, it rapidly Equipped with box to patent a telephone, transmitting voice became apparent that making cameras, slow-moving Visual communication was another messages along a line. the best use of this new aircraft trundled at low option. Semaphore \ufb02ags and \ufb02ashing method of reconnaissance altitude back and forth lights were used, although they \u25a0 1896 Guglielmo Marconi invents the first would have a military over enemy positions, an generally put the exposed signaler at commercially viable long-distance wireless advantage. It was superior inviting target for enemy too much risk. Limited communication telegraph, or radio. to cavalry, whose role it had \ufb01re. Interpreting the resulting aerial could also be achieved through traditionally been to locate photographs required considerable prearranged coded signals. Hard- \u25a0 1904\u201305 The Japanese army uses field enemy forces and report back skill, but intelligence of\ufb01cers soon pressed troops \ufb01red a particular- telephones and its navy employs radio on on their movements. became adept at building up composite colored \ufb02are or rocket, for example, to warships in the Russo-Japanese War. images of enemy trench systems and call for an artillery bombardment As early as the end of August gun emplacements. \u25a0 1911 European armies begin experimenting 1914, French commander General 95 PERCENT The estimated with the use of aircraft for reconnaissance. Joseph Joffre was urging his armies Animal messengers success rate of pigeons to \u201cimitate the enemy in the use carrying messages in World War I. \u25a0 August 1914 Aerial reconnaissance and of airplanes.\u201d At sea, aerial Where humans could not carry intercepted radio messages help the reconnaissance from planes and messages, animals were sometimes in response to an enemy raid or Germans encircle and destroy a Russian airships soon proved their worth as used. Dogs were employed on all counterattack. Rockets were also force at Tannenberg. a way of looking beyond the horizon. fronts. Fast and agile, they could leap used to carry written messages. barbed wire, with messages in a tube \u25a0 September 1914 Aerial observation of the An eye on the enemy attached to their collars. Carrier None of this solved the fundamental movement of German armies helps the Allies pigeons were also a common means of problem of command and control mount a successful counterattack at the First On the Western Front from 1915, of offensives. Commanders at Battle of the Marne. observation from aircraft or \ufb01xed communication. An estimated headquarters in the rear were balloons provided information on half a million pigeons were supposed to receive a \ufb02ow of \u25a0 1915 Aerial photography is introduced on enemy positions and gave vital used by the combatant information, analyze it, and distribute the Western Front, and some reconnaissance feedback to artillery on where their appropriate orders. But once their aircraft are equipped with radios. shells were falling. Balloons were nations, with some birds forces had begun an offensive, the achieving fame for voyaging generals mostly had little idea where \u25a0 1915\u201318 German airships conducting night through heavy gun\ufb01re. the men were and little hope of bombing raids are guided to their targets by directing a coherent response to a a radio navigation system. rapidly changing situation. \u25a0 May 1916 Interception of German naval radio Carrier pigeons transmissions allows the Royal Navy to attack A basket of homing pigeons was standard equipment German warships at the Battle of Jutland. for signalers in World War I. A pigeon that carried messages out of Fort Vaux during the Battle of Verdun \u25a0 June 1916 French troops who are besieged was awarded the L\u00e9gion d\u2019honneur. inside Fort Vaux during the Battle of Verdun communicate with the outside world using carrier pigeons. \u25a0 1918 Germany introduces the Rumpler C.VII reconnaissance aircraft, taking photographs with an automatic camera at high altitude. \u25a0 August\u2013November 1918 In their final Hundred Days Offensive, the Allied armies make increasing use of radios. 145","","4 YEAR OF BATTLES 1916 The vast attritional battles at Verdun and the Somme exacted an unprecedented death toll for trivial gains. The war effort also strained the social and political cohesion of the warring countries, forcing political change and stirring revolt.","YEAR OF BATTLES 1916 YEAR OF BATTLES Dublin\u2019s Easter Rising In the Battle of Verdun, The Battle of Jutland, fought in the against British rule in Ireland Fort Douaumont is a key North Sea, is the only encounter between fails. Fourteen of the rebels, objective of the German celebrated in this painting, are the main British and German fleets in executed. The Irish nationalists offensive. It is captured by World War I. Britain\u2019s Royal Navy suffers the Germans in February heavier losses, but the German warships had hoped for German 1916 but retaken by a have to flee for home to escape destruction. support for their uprising, but French assault after eight months\u2019 fighting. little was forthcoming. Y ICELAND A N NORW SWEDE EUROPE N O R W AY BRITAIN SWEDEN FAEROE ISLANDS GERMANY (Denmark) tic Sea AT L A N T I C AUSTRIA- RUSSIAN EMPIRE FRANCE HUNGARY OCEAN I TA LY Black Sea Caspian Sea North PORTUGAL S PA I N TUNISIA OTTOMAN N Sea DENMARK Bal SPANISH MOROCCO EMPIRE P E R S I A AFGHANISTA MOROCCO CYPRUS BAHRAIN TIBET (autonomous) BRITAIN NETH. G E R M A N Y RUSSIAN ALGERIA LIBYA EGYPT KUWAIT QATAR NEPAL EMPIRE BEL. LUX. RIO DE ORO NEJD INDIA TRUCIAL ANGLO- HEJAZ (Saudi) OMAN EGYPTIAN OMAN FRANCE AUSTRIA- FRENCH WEST AFRICA SUDAN HADHRAMAUT HUNGARY SWITZ. GAMBIA TOGO FRENCH (British mandate) ADEN PROTECTORATE PORTUGUESE GUINEA EQUATORIAL ERITREA FRENCH SOMALILAND CEYLON SIERRA LEONE NIGERIA AFRICA ABYSSINIA BRITISH SERBIA ROMANIA LIBERIA GOLD CAMEROON SOMALILAND COAST IT BULGARIA B l a c k S e a ITALIAN ALY MONT. BRITISH EAST SOMALILAND PORTUGAL SPAIN ALB. RIO MUNI FRENCH BELGIAN AFRICA (Spain) CONGO GERMAN CONGO OTTOMAN EAST INDIAN Me diterr GREECE EMPIRE Food shortages are acute in Germany AFRICA ean Se ALGERIA TUNISIA DODECANESE during the hard winter of 1916. Like ANGOLA OCEAN (France) (France) (Italy) many other countries, Germany is hit by a n shortages and malnutrition in the course NORTHERN a CYPRUS of the war, leading to a sharp increase in civilian death rates. RHODESIA MADAGASCAR MOROCCO SOUTHERN RHODESIA GERMAN (France) (Britain) SOUTH WEST BECHUANA- PORTUGUESE AFRICA LAND EAST LIBYA AFRICA (Italy) EGYPT (Britain) UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA On the first day of the Somme The Arab Revolt against Offensive on July 1, 1916, almost Turkey\u2019s Ottoman Empire is 20,000 British troops are killed, making it the most costly single day led by Emir Faisal and in the history of the British army. T.E. Lawrence. Arab Here, British soldiers bound for the Somme raise a cheer for the camera. irregulars function as guerrilla fighters, attacking railroads and garrisons. D uring 1916, the scale of the war effort and the vast sacrifice scale at the Somme from July, partly to relieve presssure on Verdun. of life it entailed began to push some combatant states Both Verdun and the Somme, however, became scenes of epic toward the brink of collapse. In February, Germany launched a large- slaughter in which fighting lasted for months, and death tolls scale offensive against the French at Verdun, hoping to drive France mounted into the hundreds of thousands. Despite the introduction of out of the war either through a demoralizing defeat or through the tanks and the beginning of air combat between fighter squadrons, sheer reduction of its military manpower. The British, having trained a neither battle achieved any significant objective except the killing of mass citizen army since the start of the war, led an offensive of similar large numbers of soldiers on both sides. 148"]