how did people's opinions change throughout the course of ww1?

Question

I am doing a world war one project and i could do with the following info:
what changed
what stayed the same
were the changes local or national
were they rapid of gradual
were the progress or regress
and would everyone feel the same way?
and how complex were they?
Thank you so much for any help with this!! xx
y project has to be in for Friday and im having a real bad time trying to finish it!
thanks again ! xxxxxxxxxxxxxx lul xxxx

Answer 1

There are so many social conceptions and institutions that broke down in the western world because of the Great War it would be next to impossible to get them all. Let me try and get a few of the big ones.

GENDER: Over ten million young, military age men were killed in the Great War from every western nation involved. Countless more millions were maimed physically, emotionally, and mentally. Now that number may seem trifling to the death toll of WWII, but that bloodletting included old men, women, and children. The Great War's toll was borne almost entirely men 18-35. That meant there was countless war widows and orphans, other young women left with very little prospects for marriage, and even more who were stuck with disabled and even invalid men at home. This fact completely destroyed the whole Victorian concept of the division of the genders. Prior to the war it was considered desirable for women to be something like a porceline doll kept at home and sheltered by her man from the harsh realities of the world. They didn't get jobs, or vote, or run businesses or ever consider not getting married. After the war this just wasn't possible anymore. They had to do all these things now or they were going to starve to death.

If you need proof, just look at a picture of how a woman would have dressed in 1910 versus 1920 and then compare to styles over any other ten year gap. That alone should speak volumes.

CLASS: Even in the US prior to the Great War there was very, very clear class lines in society. There were those that were rich and leisured; the pillars of the community sorta thing. Then there was the working class who could achieve little without the governance of their supposed "natural superiors". After a few years in the trenches, these conceptions were deader than a door nail. First there was the issue of just where these old class perceptions put their respective members. The field officers who would have been responsible for leading the charges in 1914-15 would have been the sons of industrialists and aristocrats and since they were the first guys out of the trench, they were very often the first to die. Once they were gone, the duty of leadership was left open to whoever could do it and this is where a new culture of rewarding ability and experience replaced the old requirement of social privledge.

THE END OF EMPIRES: As a direct result of the Great War the 500+ year old Habsburg Empire disintegrated into several ethnic states. The German Empire fell apart and was replaced by troubled German Republic while several provinces were spun into other states. The Russian Empire turned into the Soviet Union. The 500+ year old Ottoman Empire was torn to shreds and replaced by several "mandates" controlled by the western powers and the rump state of the Turkish Republic. The British Empire began it's decline as the "white dominions" secured further political privledges which made them into de facto independant countries all of which was made official in 1932. In the meantime other areas of the empire (India, Mahatma Gandhi in particular) were begging to mount efforts to leave the Empire. Similar phenomenon was also occurring in the French possessions and even in other European possessions.

Anyway those are three good places to start, but like I said there is a lot more than can range from art and literature to science and technology. These changes were felt the world over and all happened extremely quick. It was a nasty and ugly, ugly affair. I don't think even the most informed person today could ever truly understand what happened.

Good luck with your project.

Answer 2

I can only answer that for germany,sorry.
Opinions of people at home (far arway from the war) did not change much since they didn't see the war.Even in 1917, they still believed Germany was winning.Hence the shock when Germany surrendered und the refusal to believe the german army had actually been beaten (stab-in-the-back legend).One change however was that in the beginning everyone (in every country) believed it was going to be a short war.
Of course, soldiers opinions on the war, on the other hand, changed quickly from enthusiastical to desperate.Hence the communist rebellions at the end of the war, especially from Navy crewnmen when being ordered to fight a last, useless battle against the overwhelming british navy.

Answer 3

The uniquely barbaric, destructive, and costly characteristics of the war caused many Europeans to hate war, eliminated an entire generation of young men in Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. It also caused the Russian Revolution (which could have been inevitable) and basically created the Cold War. Further, the international debt structure set up at Versailles and the War Responsibility Clause placed in the treaty for the Germans manufactured an environment favorable for collapse (think Great Depression) and, thus, the adoption of the modern bureaucracy, Fascism, the end of colonialism, and WWII/nuclear weapons.

Answer 4

Here is a link to a very interesting and imfomative artical on the subject. It now only explans how but why people's opinions changed throughout the course of WWI.

You will also find an audio version. I would recomend using that. I hate to read long articals on the computer.

Answer 5

On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, and his wife, in Sarajevo after purchasing a sandwich. Princip was a member of Young Bosnia, a group whose aims included the unification of the South Slavs and independence from Austria-Hungary (see also: the Black Hand). The assassination in Sarajevo set into motion a series of fast-moving events that escalated into a full-scale war. However, the ultimate causes of the conflict were multiple and complex.


[edit] Arms races
The naval arms race that developed between Britain and Germany was intensified by the 1906 launch of HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary warship that rendered all previous battleships obsolete. (Britain maintained a large lead over Germany in all categories of warship.) Paul Kennedy has pointed out that both nations believed in Alfred Thayer Mahan's thesis that command of the sea was vital to a great nation.

David Stevenson described the armaments race as "a self-reinforcing cycle of heightened military preparedness", while David Herrman viewed the shipbuilding rivalry as part of a general movement towards war. However, Niall Ferguson argues that Britain’s ability to maintain an overall advantage signifies that change within this realm was insignificant and therefore not a factor in the movement towards war.

The naval strength of the powers in 1914
Country Personnel Large
Naval Vessels
Tonnage
Russia 54,000 4 328,000
France 68,000 10 731,000
Britain 209,000 29 2,205,000
TOTAL 331,000 43 3,264,000
Germany 79,000 17 1,019,000
Austria-Hungary 16,000 3 249,000
TOTAL 95,000 20 1,268,000
Source: Ferguson 1999 p 85


[edit] Plans, distrust and mobilization
Closely related is the thesis adopted by many political scientists that the war plans of Germany, France and Russia automatically escalated the conflict. Fritz Fischer and his followers have emphasized the inherently aggressive nature of the Schlieffen Plan, which outlined German strategy if at war with both France and Russia. Conflict on two fronts meant Germany had to eliminate one opponent quickly before taking on the other, relying on a strict timetable. It called for a strong right flank attack, to seize Belgium and cripple the French army by preempting its mobilization.

After the attack, the German army would then rush to the eastern front by railroad and quickly destroy the more slowly mobilizing military of Russia.

In a greater context, France's own Plan XVII called for an offensive thrust into Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley which would cripple Germany’s ability to wage war.

Russia’s revised Plan XIX implied a mobilization of its armies against both Austria-Hungary and Germany.

All three created an atmosphere where generals and planning staffs were anxious to seize the initiative and achieve decisive victories. Elaborate mobilization plans with precise timetables were prepared. Once the mobilization orders were issued, both generals and statesmen alike understood that there was little or no possibility of turning back or a key advantage would be sacrificed. Furthermore, the problem of communications in 1914 should not be underestimated; all nations still used telegraphy and ambassadors as the main form of communication, which resulted in delays of hours or even days.


[edit] Militarism and autocracy
President of the United States Woodrow Wilson and other observers blamed the war on militarism.[2] The idea was that aristocrats and military elites had too much control over Germany, Russia and Austria, and the war was a consequence of their desire for military power and disdain for democracy. This was a theme that figured prominently in anti-German propaganda, which cast Kaiser Wilhelm II and Prussian military tradition in a negative light. Consequently, supporters of this theory called for the abdication of such rulers, the end of the aristocratic system and the end of militarism — all of which justified American entry into the war once Czarist Russia dropped out of the Allied camp.

Wilson hoped the League of Nations and universal disarmament would secure a lasting peace. He also acknowledged variations of militarism that, in his opinion, existed within the British and French political systems.


[edit] Economic imperialism
Vladimir Lenin asserted that the worldwide system of imperialism was responsible for the war. In this, he drew upon the economic theories of Karl Marx and English economist John A. Hobson, who had earlier predicted the outcome of economic imperialism, or unlimited competition for expanding markets, would lead to a global military conflict.[3] This argument proved popular in the immediate wake of the war and assisted in the rise of Marxism and Communism. Lenin argued that large banking interests in the various capitalist-imperialist powers had pulled the strings in the various governments and led them into the war.[4]


[edit] Trade barriers
Cordell Hull believed that trade barriers were the root cause of both World War I and World War II, and designed the Bretton Woods Agreements to reduce trade barriers, and thus eliminate what he saw as the root cause of the two world wars.


[edit] Ethnic and political rivalries, both old and new
A localized war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was considered inevitable due to Austria-Hungary’s deteriorating world position and the Pan-Slavic separatist movement in the Balkans. The expansion of such ethnic sentiments coincided with the growth of Serbia, where anti-Austrian sentiment was perhaps at its most fervent; Austria-Hungary had occupied the ethnically Serb province of Bosnia-Herzegovina since 1878 and formally annexed it in 1908. The nationalistic sentiments also coincided with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, which formerly held sway over much of the region. Imperial Russia supported the Pan-Slavic movement, motivated by ethnic and religious loyalties, dissatisfaction with Austria (dating back to the Crimean War, but most recently concerning a failed Russian-Austrian treaty) and a century-old dream of a warm water port.[5]

As for Germany, its location in the center of Europe led to the decision for an active defense, culminating in the Schlieffen Plan. At the same time, the transfer of the contested Alsace and Lorraine territories and defeat in the Franco-Prussian War influenced France’s policy, characterized by revanchism. The French formed an alliance with Russia and a two-front war became a distinct possibility for Germany.

See also: Powder keg of Europe
Image:WWI.png
Map of the world with the Participants in World War I. The Allies are depicted in green, the Central Powers in orange and neutral countries in grey
[edit] July crisis and declarations of war
After the assassination of June 28, Austria-Hungary waited for 3 weeks before deciding on a course of action, obtaining first a "blank check" from Germany that promised support for whatever it decided. The Austro-Hungarian government, once assured of support, moved to crush Serbia. On July 23 Austro-Hungary issued the July Ultimatum to Serbia, demanding among other things that Austrian agents be allowed to take part in the investigation of the assassination, and that Serbia should take responsibility for it.[6]

The Serbian government accepted all the terms of the ultimatum, with the exception of those relating to the participation of the Austrian agents in the inquiry, which Serbia regarded as a violation of its sovereignty. Breaking diplomatic relations, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28 and proceeded to bombard Belgrade with artillery on July 29. On July 30, both Austria-Hungary and Russia ordered general mobilizations of their armies.

Having pledged its support to Austria-Hungary, Germany issued Russia an ultimatum on July 31, demanding a halt to mobilization within 12 hours. On August 1, with the ultimatum expired, the German ambassador to Russia formally declared war.

On August 2, Germany occupied Luxembourg, as a preliminary step to the invasion of Belgium and implementation of the Schlieffen Plan (which was rapidly going awry, as the Germans had not intended to be at war with a mobilised Russia this quickly).

Yet another ultimatum was delivered to Belgium on August 2, requesting free passage for the German army on the way to France. The Belgians refused. At the very last moment, the Kaiser Wilhelm II asked Moltke, the German Chief of General Staff, to cancel the invasion of France in the hope this would keep Britain out of the war. Moltke refused on the grounds that it would be impossible to change the rail schedule—“once settled, it cannot be altered”.[7]

On August 3, Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium on August 4. This act violated Belgian neutrality, the status to which Germany, France, and Britain were all committed by treaty. It was inconceivable that Great Britain would remain neutral if Germany declared war on France; German violation of Belgian neutrality provided the casus belli that the British government sought. German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg told the Reichstag that the German invasions of Belgium and Luxemburg was in violation of international law, but argued that Germany was "in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law." Later that same day, in a conversation with the British ambassador Sir Edward Goschen, Bethmann Hollweg expressed astonishment that the British would go to war with Germany over the 1839 treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, referring to the treaty dismissively as a "scrap of paper," a statement that outraged public opinion in Britain and the United States.[8] Britain's guarantee to Belgium prompted Britain, which had been neutral, to declare war on Germany on August 4. The British government expected a limited war, in which it would primarily use its great naval strength.[9]


[edit] Opening hostilities

European military alliances in 1914. The Central Powers are depicted in puce, the Entente Powers in grey, and neutral countries in yellow
[edit] Confusion among the Central Powers
In Europe, the Central Powers suffered from mutual miscommunication and lack of intelligence regarding the intentions of each other’s army. Germany had originally guaranteed to support Austria-Hungary’s invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of this policy differed. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover the northern flank against Russia. Germany, however, had planned for Austria-Hungary to focus the majority of its troops on Russia while Germany dealt with France on the Western Front. This confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian Army to split its troop concentrations. Somewhat more than half of the army went to fight the Russians on their border, and the remainder were allocated to invade and conquer Serbia.


[edit] African campaigns
Main article: African theatre of World War I
Some of the first actions of the war involved British Empire, French and German colonial forces in Africa. On August 7, French and British forces invaded the German protectorate of Togoland in West Africa. On August 10, German forces based in South-West Africa attacked South Africa. However, sporadic and fierce fighting continued in East Africa for the remainder of the war, as German forces recruited native soldiers and evaded capture.


[edit] Serbian campaign

Haut-Rhin, France, 1917.Main article: Serbian Campaign (World War I)
The Serbian army fought a defensive battle against the invading Austrian army (called the Battle of Cer) starting on August 12. The Serbians occupied defensive positions on the south side of the Drina and Sava rivers. Over the next two weeks Austrian attacks were thrown back with heavy losses. This marked the first major Allied victory of the war. Austrian expectations of a swift victory over Serbia were not realized and as a result, Austria had to keep a very sizable force on the Serbian front, which weakened their armies facing Russia.


[edit] German forces in Belgium and France
Main article: Western Front (World War I)

French postcard depicting the arrival of 15th Sikh Regiment in France during World War I. The post card reads, "Gentlemen of India marching to chasten German hooligans".

Initially, the Germans had great successes in the Battle of the Frontiers (August 14–August 24). However, Russia attacked in East Prussia and diverted German forces intended for the Western Front. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg (August 17–September 2). This diversion exacerbated problems of insufficient speed of advance from railheads not allowed for by the German General Staff. Originally, the Schlieffen Plan called for the right flank of the German advance to pass to the west of Paris. However, the capacity and low speed of horse-drawn transport hampered the German supply train, allowing French and British forces to finally halt the German advance east of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 5–12), thereby denying the Central Powers a quick victory over France and forcing them to fight a war on two fronts. The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself in the months of August and September. Yet communications problems and questionable command decisions (such as Moltke transferring troops from the right to protect Sedan) cost Germany the chance for an early victory over France with its very ambitious war plan.


[edit] Asia and the Pacific
Main article: Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
New Zealand occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on August 30. On September 11, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of German New Guinea. Japan seized Germany’s Micronesian colonies and after Battle of Tsingtao, the German coaling port of Qingdao, in the Chinese Shandong peninsula. Within a few months, the Allied forces had seized all the German territories in the Pacific.


[edit] Early stages

In the trenches: Infantry with gas masks, Ypres, 1917
[edit] Trench warfare begins
Main article: Western Front (World War I)
Military tactics in the early part of World War I failed to keep pace with advances in military technology. These new technologies allowed the construction of formidable static defenses, which obsolete attack strategies could not penetrate. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances; artillery, now vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground a nightmarish prospect. Germans introduced poison gas in 1915, at the first battle of Ypres, which soon became a weapon used by both sides. Poisonous gas never won a battle; however, its effects were brutally horrific, causing slow and painfully gruesome deaths which made life even more miserable in the trenches. It became one of the most feared and longest remembered horrors of the war. Tacticians on both sides failed to develop tactics capable of breaking through entrenched positions without massive casualties until technology began to yield new offensive weapons. The war saw the invention of tanks as another attempt to break the trench warfare stalemate. The British and French primarily used them, though the Germans used captured Allied tanks and a small number of their own design.

After the First Battle of the Marne, both Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking maneuvers to try to force the other to retreat, in the so-called Race to the Sea. Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German positions from Lorraine to Belgium’s Flemish coast. Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended occupied territories. One consequence was that German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy: Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be “temporary” before their forces broke through German defenses. Some hoped to break the stalemate by utilizing science and technology. In April 1915, the Germans used chlorine gas, for the first time, which opened a 6 kilometer (4 mi) wide hole in the Allied lines when French colonial troops retreated before it. Allied soldiers closed this breach at the Second Battle of Ypres (where over 5,000 mainly Canadian soldiers were gassed to death) and Third Battle of Ypres, where Canadian forces took the village of Passchendaele.

On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British Army saw the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties and 19,240 dead.

Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916, and the Entente’s failure at the Somme, in the summer of 1916, brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse. Futile attempts at frontal assault—with a rigid adherence to unimaginative maneuver—came at a high price for both the British and the French poilu (infantry) and led to widespread mutinies especially during the time of the Nivelle Offensive in the spring of 1917. News of the Russian Revolution gave a new incentive to socialist sentiments among the troops, with its seemingly inherent promise of peace. Red flags were hoisted, and the Internationale was sung on several occasions. At the height of the mutiny, 30,000 to 40,000 French soldiers participated.


Canadian troops advancing behind a Canadian Mark II tank at the Battle of Vimy RidgeThroughout 1915–17, the British Empire and France suffered far more casualties than Germany. However, while the Germans only mounted a single main offensive at Verdun, each failed attempt by the Entente to break through German lines was met with an equally fierce German counteroffensive to recapture lost positions. Around 800,000 soldiers from the British Empire were on the Western Front at any one time. 1,000 battalions, occupying sectors of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway. The front contained over 9,600 kilometers (6,000 mi) of trenches. Each battalion held its sector for about a week before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas.

In the British-led Battle of Arras during the 1917 campaign, the only military success was the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian forces under Sir Arthur Currie and Julian Byng. It provided the British allies with great military advantage that had a lasting impact on the war and is considered by many historians as the founding myth of Canada.


[edit] Naval War
Main article: Naval Warfare of World War I
At the start of the war, the German Empire had cruisers scattered across the globe that they subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping. The British Royal Navy thereafter systematically hunted them down: at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, for example, Germany lost a fleet of 2 armoured cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 2 transports.

Soon after the war began, Britain initiated a Naval Blockade of Germany, preventing supply ships from reaching German ports. This strategy proved extremely effective, cutting off vital supplies from the German army and devastating Germany's economy in the homefront, leading to mass famine and starvation across the country. Furthermore, due to Britain's control of the sea, they were able to carry out their blockade often without firing a shot by simply boarding the ships, confiscating their cargo, and then letting the ship go afterwards. This strategy minimized casualties from ships belonging to nations not involved in the war. As a result, none of the neutral nations ever made a serious demand to end the blockade.

The 1916 Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht, or "Battle of the Skagerrak") developed into the largest naval battle of the war, and - remarkably - the only full-scale clash of battleships between the two sides. The Battle of Jutland was fought on May 31–June 1, 1916, in the North Sea off Jutland, the mainland of Denmark. The combatants were the Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer and the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The battle was a standoff as the Germans, outmaneuvered by the larger British fleet, managed to escape to base. Strategically, the British demonstrated their control of the seas, and the German navy thereafter remained largely confined to port, where disgruntled sailors eventually mutinied in October 1918.

German U-boats threatened to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. Due to the need to maintain positional secrecy, attacks came without warning, giving the crews of the targeted ships little chance to escape. The United States protested, and Germany modified its rules of engagement and - after the infamous sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915 - it promised not to sink passenger liners. Britain armed its merchant ships. Finally, in early 1917 Germany decided on a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, realising the Americans would enter the war. Germany gambled that it would be able to strangle the Allied supply line before the Americans could train and transport a large army.

The U-boat threat was solved in 1917 by herding merchant ships into convoys escorted by destroyers. This tactic made it much harder for U-boats to find targets, and the destroyers made it likely that a highly effective new weapon, the depth charge, would sink the slower submarines. The losses to submarine attacks became quite small, but the convoy system slowed the flow of supplies, because the convoy traveled at the speed of the slowest ship, and ships had to wait to be assembled and wait again to be unloaded. The solution to the delays was a massive program of building new freighters. Troop ships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys.

The First World War also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918.


[edit] Southern theatres

[edit] Ottoman Empire
Main article: Middle Eastern theatre of World War I
The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October and November 1914, because of the secret Ottoman-German Alliance, by three Pashas, which was signed in August 1914. It threatened Russia’s Caucasian territories and Britain’s communications with India and the East via the Suez Canal. The British and French opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns. In Gallipoli, the Turks were successful in repelling the British, French, and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) and forced their eventual withdrawal and evacuation. In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Empire forces reorganized and captured Baghdad in March 1917. Further to the west in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British failures were overcome when Jerusalem was captured in December 1917, and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, under Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, broke the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918.

Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Turkish armed forces, was a very ambitious man with a dream to conquer central Asia. He was not, however, a practical soldier. He launched an offensive with 100,000 troops against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914. Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the mountains in the heart of winter, Enver lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamis.

The Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, General Yudenich, with a string of victories over the Ottoman forces, drove the Turks out of much of the southern Caucasus.

In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed senior control over the Caucasus front. Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. But, in March of 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian army began to slowly fall apart.


[edit] Italian participation
Main article: Italian Campaign (World War I)
Italy had been allied to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882. However, Italy had its own designs against Austrian territory in the Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia, and maintained a secret 1902 understanding with France, which effectively nullified its alliance commitments. Italy refused to join Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war because their alliance (the "Triple Alliance") was defensive, while Austria-Hungary was the attacker. The Austrian government started negotiations to obtain Italian neutrality in exchange for French territories (Tunisia), but Italy joined the Entente by signing the London Pact in April and declaring war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915; it declared war against Germany fifteen months later.

In general, the Italians had numerical superiority but this advantage was squandered (along with the later increase in the size and quality of artillery which by 1917 rivalled the British and French gun parks) by the obstinacy with which Italian Generalissimo Luigi Cadorna insisted on attacking the Soča Front. Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, had dreams of breaking into the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and then threatening Vienna itself; it was a Napoleonic plan which had no realistic chance in the age of barbed wire and machine guns. Cadorna unleashed 11 offensives (Soča Battles) with total disregard for his men's lives. The Italians went on the offensive to relieve pressure on the other Allied fronts and achieve their territorial goals. In the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarian defense took advantage of the elevation of their bases in the mostly mountainous terrain, which was not suitable for military offensives. After an initial Austro-Hungarian strategic retreat to better positions, the front remained mostly unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen and Italian Alpini fought bitter close combat battles during summer and tried to survive during winter in the high mountains. The Austro-Hungarians counterattacked in the Altopiano of Asiago towards Verona and Padua in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but they also made little progress.

Beginning in 1915, the Italians mounted 11 major offensives along the Soča River north of Trieste, known collectively as the Battle of Soča. These eleven battles were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians who had the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained practically stable for over a year, despite several Italian offensives. In the fall of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large reinforcements, including German assault troops. The Central Powers launched a crushing offensive on October 26 that was spearheaded by German troops and supported by the Austrians and Hungarians. The attack resulted in the victory at Caporetto: the Italian army was routed, but after retreating more than 100 km, it was able to reorganise and hold at the Piave River. In 1918, the Austrians repeatedly failed to break the Italian line in battles such as the battle on the Asiago Plateau and, decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, surrendered to the Entente powers in November.


[edit] War in the Balkans
Main articles: Balkans Campaign (World War I), Serbian Campaign (World War I), and Macedonian front (World War I)
Faced with the Russian threat, Austria-Hungary could spare only one third of its army for Serbia. After suffering tremendous losses, the Austrians briefly captured the Serbian capital, but Serb counterattacks succeeded in expelling the invaders from the country by the end of 1914. For the first 10 months of 1915, Austria used most of its spare armies to fight Italy. However, German and Austrian diplomats scored a great coup by convincing Bulgaria to join in a new attack on Serbia.

The conquest of Serbia was finally accomplished in a little more than a month, starting on October 7, when the Austrians and Germans attacked from the north. Four days later the Bulgarians attacked from the east. The Serbian army, attacked from two directions and facing certain defeat, retreated east and south into Albania, stopping only once to make a stand against the Bulgarians, near modern day Gjilan, Kosovo, where they again suffered defeat. From Albania they went by ship to Greece.

In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek government into war against the Central Powers. Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos, before the allied expeditionary force had even arrived.

The Salonica Front proved entirely immobile, so much so that it was joked that Salonica was the largest German prisoner of war camp. Only at the very end of the war were the Entente powers able to make a breakthrough, which was after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been removed, leaving the Front held by the Bulgarians alone. The Bulgarians suffered their only defeat in the war in the battle of Dobro Pole but days after this they decisively defeated the English and the Greeks in the battle of Doiran, which saved the country from enemy occupation. This led to Bulgaria’s signing an armistice on September 29, 1918.


[edit] Eastern Front

[edit] Initial actions
Main article: Eastern Front (World War I)

A German trench in the swamp area near the Mazuric Lakes on the Eastern Front, February 1915, just before the German winter offensive in heavy snowstormsWhile the Western Front had reached stalemate in the trenches, the war continued in the east. The Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia’s initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia’s less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership was instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and in May, the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland’s southern fringes, capturing Warsaw on August 5 and forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Poland. This became known as the “Great Retreat” by the Russian Empire and the “Great Advance” by Germany.