first world war

World War I (World War I[19], First World War or Great War, WWI or WW1, July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918[10]), abbreviated as "World War I", was a world-class imperialist war that broke out in order to redivide the world and compete for global hegemony during the transition of capitalist countries to imperialism in the early 20th century. [1] The course of the war was mainly fighting between the Allies and the Allies. The German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria belonged to the Central Powers; The British Empire, the French Third Republic, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the United States of America, the Republic of China, the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Greece belonged to the Entente camp. [1] The battlefields are mainly in Europe, divided into western and eastern fronts, and parts of Africa and Asia are also affected. The war began in July 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, ending with the surrender of Germany in November 1918.[23][36] The First World War was one of the most destructive wars in European history, bringing great suffering to mankind. 33 countries took part in the war, more than 70 million people committed to the army, 1.5 billion people were involved in the war, 8.5 million soldiers and 13 million civilians died, and 21 million were wounded.[19][34][35] The economic losses caused by the war amounted to $ 270 billion [23] . But objectively it has promoted the development of science and technology. In the First World War, various new weapons, such as aircraft, poison gas, tanks, and long-range artillery, were successively thrown into the war, which was an important stage in the history of weapons development [28][32] . At the same time, it also brought about a great progress in science and technology, which greatly strengthened the political, economic, scientific, technological, cultural and military aspects of various countries, and at the same time accelerated the pace of realizing human rights in the First World War. After the war, national consciousness was formed, national concepts flourished, and the international order was rebuilt. [8] Background of the war

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, with the second industrial revolution and the emergence of monopolies, the major capitalist powers developed into the imperialist stage. Under the influence and influence of the law of unbalanced capitalist economic and political development, these imperialist countries have waged fierce struggles for world hegemony and colonies. The imbalance in the economic and political development of the imperialist countries has brought about major changes in the balance of power, and the contradictions between the great powers have become more complicated. Among them, there are four pairs of basic contradictions, namely, the Anglo-German contradiction, the Russian-German contradiction, the Franco-German contradiction and the Russian-Austrian contradiction. [1] [10] The four pairs of contradictions are roughly as follows: Anglo-German contradiction: Britain, proceeding from its traditional foreign policy, sought to maintain the balance of power on the European continent, neither wanting the rising Germany to become too strong nor to see Russia's power expand too much in the Balkans. At the beginning of the 20th century, German industry surpassed that of Britain, which was seen as a "declining country". German goods crowded out Britain everywhere. Germany attempted to challenge the British Empire, which had achieved world hegemony, hoping to establish an "equatorial African empire" from East Africa to Southwest Africa, and clashed with the "Three Cs" plan (Cape Town to Cairo to Calcutta) formulated by the British. In the Middle East, Germany built the Baghdad Railway from Constantinople and Berlin to Baghdad and the Persian Gulf, openly advocating that this railway was opening the way for Germany to Iran and Afghanistan. This directly harmed British interests in the Middle East and threatened British India. The main goal of German expansion was clearly to seize Britain's overseas colonies, and Germany's massive naval expansion made Britain feel that Germany was its main enemy. [27] With the intensification of the conflict over the colonial question, the Anglo-German contradiction began to intensify, and some researchers regarded it as the main contradiction between the imperialist countries at that time.[29] Russian-German contradiction: Germany banned the import of Russian livestock and restricted Russian grain imports. Russia also retaliated against Germany by restricting imports of German industrial goods. [27] Relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate as a result of this constant trade friction. [10] Franco-German contradiction: France, defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, lost its original hegemony in Western and Central Europe, and after the war, eastern Lorraine and Alsace were ceded to Germany, and all classes in the country demanded revenge. In order to prevent a French comeback, Germany tried to expand its armaments. In addition, Franco-German relations over the North African colonies were also tense. [10] Russian-Austrian contradiction: The Russian-Austrian contradiction manifested itself in the struggle for the Balkans. Over the years, under the banner of Great Slavism, the Russian Empire expanded into the Slavic settlements of the southern Balkans, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a political union in Central Europe, continued to expand into the northwestern Balkans, fearing that the southern Slavs under their rule would be instigated by Russia to become independent. In 1879, under the impetus of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Germany and Austria-Hungary signed the Treaty of Alliance, which was distinctly anti-Russian. Later, as Italy lost the struggle with France for Tunisia, Bismarck took the opportunity to win Italy together against France. In 1882, Germany, Austria and Italy signed the Treaty of Alliance, and the Triple Alliance was formally established. Germany became the nucleus of the Triple Alliance. [4] After the Triple Entente between Russia and Germany, Russia, which was growing in the industrial revolution, needed foreign capital to build railways, and France needed capital exports, so the French government used loans to develop diplomatic relations between the two countries. In 1892, France and Russia concluded the Franco-Russian Military Agreement, which entered into force the following year. [27] The agreement stipulated that in the event that France was attacked by Germany or German-backed Italy, Russia would attack Germany with full military force, and that if Russia was attacked by Germany or German-backed Austria-Hungary, France should attack Germany with all its military force. After the formation of the Russian-French alliance, a confrontation between the two major military blocs began in Europe. It was also the first step in the direction of the Triple Entente, and in the face of the common enemy Germany, the contradictions between Britain and France gradually eased. In 1904, the Anglo-French Entente was signed, which coordinated the dispute between the two countries in the colony. France recognized Anglo-occupied Egypt; Britain recognized French interests in Morocco and diplomatically supported France's conquest of Morocco. The contradictions between Britain and Russia in the Near and Far East turned out to be very sharp, and after the Russo-Japanese War, Russia was weakened, which eliminated Britain's fear of Russia, and Germany's Baghdad railway plan had both the intention of dealing with Britain and blocking Russia's Black Sea exports, so Britain and Russia had a common enemy in the Near East, and the original contradictions were retreated to a secondary position. On the other hand, Russia's dependence on British and French capital has increased. In this way, in 1907, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Entente, which coordinated the disputes between the two countries in Persia, Tibet and Afghanistan. [27] At this point, the Triple Entente was formally established, which finally formed two major military blocs in Europe. [4] The Spanish-American War of 1898 was the first imperialist war in which the great powers redivided the colonies, "opening the curtain on a larger scale of war in the era of imperialism." [10] In the early 20th century, two successive Moroccan crises in North Africa strengthened the Anglo-French Entente, and the Anglo-German contradiction became clearer and deeper, which was one of the factors in the outbreak of World War I. [28] In 1912 and 1913, two large-scale wars broke out in the strategically important Balkans. The two major military blocs of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente intervened in the affairs of the Balkans, causing the Balkan alliance that had previously fought against the Ottoman Empire to collapse and split into two blocs. [16] The Balkans at the beginning of the 20th century were Europe's veritable "powder keg". [26] The main entry on the fuse of the Great War: On June 28, 1914 (Serbia's "National Day of Shame"), Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sofia were shot and killed by Serbian nationalist Gavríjo Princip while visiting Sarajevo. The Entente and the Allies took advantage of this sudden event to fuel the rapid deterioration of the international situation[10]. The Sarajevo Incident is later considered the trigger for the First World War

After the events in Sarajevo, the German Emperor Wilhelm II issued an "empty promise" to Austria-Hungary, causing Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary to present an "ultimatum" to Serbia at 6 p.m. [26] on July 23, 1914 (see the entry Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia), and the Serbian government accepted all but articles V and VI, which violated its own constitution and undermined sovereignty, and began a general mobilization for war. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28 because the Serbian side did not accept all the terms, and World War I officially broke out. [10] [17] [30] The warring sides were divided into two blocs: Central Powers and Triple Entente. After the outbreak of World War I, wars were mainly fought on the European battlefield: the Western Front where the armies of Britain, France and Belgium confronted the German army (see entry World War I Western Front), and the Russian army against Austria-Hungary and German armies (see entry World War I Eastern Front) was the main front. Among them, the Western Front played a decisive role. [6] There have also been sporadic battles in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. The offensive 1914 was the first phase of the war. [6] On July 30, 1914, Russia and Austria-Hungary began war mobilization. On July 31, Germany issued a "double ultimatum" to France and Russia. On August 1, France and Germany began to mobilize for war, and Germany declared a state of war with Russia. On 2 August, German troops entered the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. On August 3, Germany declared war on France. Britain began to mobilize for war. On August 4, Germany declared war on the Kingdom of Belgium and Britain declared war on Germany. Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia on August 5. [17] Beginning in August, the Germans intended to launch a large-scale offensive on the Western Front first, based on the revised Schlieffen Plan developed before the war. However , due to the vigorous resistance of the British, French and Belgian armies at the First Battle of the Marne ( September 5–12 ) , the German plan for a quick victory was thwarted. After the First Battle of the Marne , the Germans retreated to the Aisne , and the Anglo-French forces attacked the German lines from 15 to 18 September , but were repulsed ( see the entry Battle of the Aisne ) . Since then, the two sides have turned into positional warfare in the section from the Oise River to the Swiss border. [18] In September-October, Anglo-French forces and German forces fought the "Run to the Sea" campaign in the vast area between the Oise River and the Calais, in which both sides tried unsuccessfully to detour the flank of the other. At the end of October, the Germans launched the first Battle of Ypres, in which the two sides won each other and finally reached a stalemate. From then on, the Western Front formed a long front from the Swiss border to the Calais Strait, entering the stage of positional warfare. On the Eastern Front, the Russian First and Second Armies took the lead in attacking East Prussia on 16 August, but the Second Army was annihilated under German encirclement (see Battle of Tannenberg). In September , the Russian Northwestern Front launched an offensive against the German 8th Army , but was defeated and suffered heavy casualties ( see entry on the Battle of Lake Masuria ) . Although the Russian offensive suffered failure, it also dispersed German forces and affected the war on the Western Front. At the same time, the Russians drove the Austro-Hungarian army out of Lemburg, forcing it to withdraw to the Carpathian Mountains. [6] On October 29, the Ottoman Empire joined the Allies. This was followed by a war of some scale with Britain in the Middle East. In early November, Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, and in order to expand its power in East Asia and invade China, Japan in East Asia declared war on Germany in 1914 under the pretext of the "Anglo-Japanese Alliance" concluded in 1902, and quickly occupied the German sphere of influence in Shandong, China (see entry Battle of Qingdao). [6] The stalemate of 1915-1916 was the second phase of the war. On February 19, 1915, Britain and France launched the Battle of Gallipoli in order to forcibly enter the Dardanelles, controlled by the Ottoman Empire, in order to open the Bosphorus and occupy its capital Istanbul. As a result, the British and French were forced to make a major retreat from November of the same year to January 1916, although they committed a large number of troops to attack. [25] On April 26, 1915, Italy, formerly part of the Allied camp, decided to defect after receiving territorial compensation promised by the Allies and signed the Treaty of London with the Entente camp. In May, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, severed diplomatic relations with Germany, and officially joined the Entente. [22] [23] In October, after witnessing the defeat of the Russian army on the Eastern Front and the difficulties of Britain and France at the Battle of Gallipoli, the Kingdom of Bulgaria joined the Allies and joined Germany and the Ottoman Empire to occupy all of Serbia. In August 1916, the Kingdom of Romania joined the Entente, but the Allied forces quickly defeated the Romanian army and occupied the Romanian capital Bucharest in December of the same year. [25] Since both sides regarded 1916 as a decisive year, the year saw three major land battles: the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme on the Western Front. From February 21 to 25, 1916, the Germans stormed the fortress of Verdun in northeastern France to fight the French army. Initially, the first line of defense of the French army was breached. The French government hurriedly reinforced 190,000 troops, 25,000 tons of arms and 3,900 vehicles, and appointed Henri Philippe Pétain as commander of Verdun. Although the Germans attacked with all their might and made a breakthrough, they were never able to take Verdun and went on the defensive from the end of August. On October 21, the French launched a major counteroffensive and by December 18 had recovered all the lost territory. The battle is considered a turning point in the First World War [25] . At the same time as the Battle of Verdun was going on, in order to reduce the pressure on the French army in the Verdun area, the Anglo-French forces attacked the Germans on July 1 along the Somme. The fighting continued until 18 November, when the two sides engaged in a tug-of-war in a narrow strip of land on both sides of the Somme, with the Allies using aircraft to cooperate and the British using new weapons and tanks for the first time. This war of attrition cost Britain, France and Germany more than 1 million troops and became known as the "Somme Hell". [23] At the same time, the Russian forces on the Eastern Front launched a summer offensive known as the "Brusilov Breakthrough" from 4 June to 20 September 1916. The battle was described as the most successful Russian offensive of World War I, with Austria-Hungary losing 1.1 million men and German casualties reaching 350,000; But Russia itself suffered heavy losses (500,000 casualties), which weakened the Allied ability to continue to fight. [24] At sea, Britain implemented a policy of naval blockade, preparing to target the German fleet in the Baltic Sea as its main target. In order to reverse the unfavorable situation, Germany urgently needs to break through the naval blockade, attempt to take the initiative and seek an opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the other side. On the afternoon of 31 May 1916, the Anglo-German fleet met in the northwestern waters of Jutland and fought (see entry on the Battle of Jutland). The battle was the largest naval battle of World War I in history. With the British fleet numerically superior and still having sea supremacy, Germany's attempt to break the blockade failed. [23] In June 1916, at the instigation of the British, Hussein ibn Ali of Sharif in Mecca launched the Great Arab Revolt,[24] and the British commander-in-chief in the Middle East, Edmund Allenbee, launched a general offensive against the Ottoman Empire in 1917. As a result, the Arabian Peninsula and Syria were completely freed from Ottoman rule in 1918. [17] The German East African colonies, led by Commander Paul von Leto-Forbeck, fought against British, Belgian and Portuguese armies at the beginning of the war. British Rhodesian and Indian forces occupied Morogoro, the administrative center of German East Africa, in August 1916, but the Allies were unable to occupy all of German East Africa until Germany surrendered. [24] After several battles during this phase, the strategic initiative of the Great War shifted to the side of the Allies, and the whole situation was transformed in favor of the Allies. [7] [23] [25] The 1917-1918 counteroffensive was the third phase of the war. In February 1917, Germany announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. In April, the United States, which had always been a neutral country that favored the Allies, was angered by this policy and officially fought against Germany. [25] At the invitation of the United States, the Beiyang government of the Republic of China announced on March 14 that it would renounce diplomatic relations with Germany, and from March 16, 1917, Chinese police entered the German concessions in Tianjin and Hankou, occupied the consulates, management organs, police stations and barracks in the concessions, lowered the German flag, raised the Chinese five-color flag, and changed the concessions to the jurisdiction of the special zone administration set up by the Chinese side. [37] On August 14, Grand President Feng Guozhang issued a "Grand Presidential Proclamation", declaring that from 10 a.m. on the same day, war on Germany and Austria-Hungary would be declared, and that "all treaties and other international clauses and international agreements previously concluded between the mainland and Germany and Austria that belong to Sino-German and Sino-Austrian relations shall be abrogated in accordance with public international law and practice." China recovered the German barracks in Qinhuangdao, Tanggu and other places, and the Admiralty sent personnel to Shanghai to supervise the dismantling of the radio facilities of German merchant ships and the dismantling of the main navigation tools. The German garrisons in China were all disarmed by the Chinese army and placed under centralized supervision. [31] [37] After that, China joined the Allies in declaring war on Germany and Austria in the form of "work for war", and sent more than 100,000 laborers to the European battlefield. [10] Beginning at the beginning of the same year, the "February Revolution" and the "October Revolution" broke out in Russia, and after the failed "Kerensky Offensive" of the Russian Provisional Government, the newly established Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany, announcing its withdrawal from World War I. [On January 8, 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson proposed the "Fourteen-Point Peace Principle", stipulating that Germany's acceptance of the Fourteen Points was a prerequisite for all peace talks.] [15] In March-May, the Germans began their offensive on the Western Front, only 60 kilometers from Paris, but the Allied offensive against the Marne region in July failed. The Allies then counterattacked and ended the fighting on 6 August. The Germans retreated to the areas of the Viller and Aisne rivers, and the Allies occupied the protrusion of the Marne (i.e., the Second Battle of the Marne, see Battle of the Marne). [23] On 8 August, the Allied forces, under the command of French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, began a counteroffensive to expel the Germans from the borders of France and Belgium, and the main German force began to disintegrate rapidly. On September 15, the Bulgarian army was defeated and surrendered to the Allies on the 29th. On October 31, the Ottoman Empire surrendered. On 3 November, Austria-Hungary surrendered. On 4 November, the sailors of the naval fleet in Kiel harbor staged an uprising (see entry Kiel Sailors Uprising on the 9th, Berlin workers and soldiers staged a general strike and an armed uprising (see entry German November Revolution). Forced to abdicate due to internal and external difficulties, Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands on 10 November

On November 11, 1918, Germany officially announced its surrender. German representatives sign the Armistice of the Forest de Compiègne in the Foch carriage at the Gédée de Compiègne station in northeastern France, north of Paris. Effective time is 11 a.m. Thus ended the First World War. [2] [17] Impact of the war

Material and spiritual damage to mankind, the First World War brought unprecedented catastrophe to mankind and great disasters to the countries participating in the war. The Entente led by Britain, France, and Russia and the Allies led by Germany and Austria waged a life-and-death struggle in the main theater of operations, and in this war, all sides used a large number of modern war equipment to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy. Thirty-three countries were involved (28 officially declared war and five severed diplomatic relations with one or more allied countries), more than 70 million troops (60 million), 1.5 billion people were drawn into war, some 8.5 million (say nearly 13 million) soldiers and 13 million (more than 9 million) civilians died in the war, more than 21 million were wounded (3.5 million of them permanently disabled[10]), and nearly 6 million prisoners and missing were killed. The economic damage caused by the war amounted to $270 billion and caused enormous material and moral damage to humanity. The massive movement of troops and refugees accelerated the spread of the "Spanish flu", which claimed as many as 50 million lives in 1918-1919. In countries that were previously involved in the war, it is difficult for veterans to find a good job to return to normal society; The lives of many disabled veterans are in an extremely difficult situation. For millions of war widows and orphans, poverty has become a harsh daily reality. Those at the top of society feared that the communist revolution in Russia would spread further. In Germany, right-wingers formed militias to resist socialists, while in Britain and other countries, the army clashed many times in the streets with strikers and other protesters. [28] At the same time, trends of thought such as "pacifism" and "idealism" emerged. The cruelty before the First World War led to the emergence of anti-war, war-weariness and war-phobic social trends in Europe and the United States, which led to the upsurge of the peace movement in the 20s of the 20th century and promoted the development of international law that restricted and opposed war to a certain extent. Since then, the appeasement of the peace movement has laid the ideological and social foundation for the formation and smooth implementation of the appeasement policy. [45] Redivision of regional powers, growth of ethnic hatred: After the end of World War I, the victorious powers convened the Postwar Entente Conference at the Palace of Versailles in Paris in January 1919. After fierce contests and mutual compromises, on June 28, the victorious powers signed the Treaty of Peace with Germany, the Treaty of Versailles, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles. According to the Treaty of Versailles and a series of subsequent treaties, the map of Europe was redrawn. Austria-Hungary collapsed, Austria and Hungary became independent states, and Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were established. Romania took over part of the territory from Hungary and Bulgaria. The Baltic states, on the other hand, became independent, most of them carved off from the Russian Empire. Poland, which also gained independence, included parts of the territory formerly part of Germany and entered the sea via the "Polish Corridor" in Danzig. France regained Alsace and Lorraine, lost in the Franco-Prussian War, and Belgium and Denmark gained some German territory. In total, Germany lost 13% of its pre-war territory, and its colonies became new possessions of one or the other in the Entente. The distribution of these territories was not satisfactory, and most countries were dissatisfied with the established national boundaries, which sowed the seeds of subsequent disputes. At the urging of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the League of Nations, the world's first permanent international organization of sovereign states, was established. The League of Nations is the quintessential example of the international order established to maintain post-war world peace. However, the Covenant of the League of Nations has huge loopholes and serious problems in decision-making mechanisms such as maintaining peace, maintaining collective security, and stopping war; The powers of the League of Nations were extremely limited; The prevalence of great power politics has crippled the post-war international order established by the victorious countries through the League of Nations, and its role in safeguarding world peace is quite limited, and even objectively encourages the arrogance of aggression. [44] On the other hand, the major result of the First World War was that it severely weakened the power of imperialism, with the collapse of the Christian state of the Russian Empire in eastern Europe, the German Empire in the Christian state of central Europe, the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Christian dual monarchy in central Europe and the northwestern Balkans, and the Ottoman Empire, which was formerly a feudal military empire of Islam across Europe, Asia and Africa. Imperialist countries such as France and Italy were weakened. This result promoted the formation of independent states of Asian and African peoples and the awakening of colonial peoples. [6] In the later stages of the war, the Russian proletariat, located on the eastern frontier of Europe, opened a weak link in the imperialist chain and won the victory of the October Revolution in Russia. In the early post-war period, the proletarian revolutionary movements in the capitalist countries and the national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America emerged in a new situation. [8] The world began to split into two opposing but coexisting social systems, socialism and capitalism. [28] In the process of deep reflection on capitalist civilization, socialism began to move from theory to practice, forming a worldwide impact. In the East, India's Rabindrabendranat Tagore fiercely criticized the scourge of Western capitalist civilization, and a large number of advanced elements in China also awakened and embarked on the road of striving for independence, freedom, and democratic nation-building. The transformation of the economic model, the development of science and technology, Britain and France are plagued by various factors and are unwilling to play a leading role in the work of peaceful settlement. Its role as an international coalition to build and maintain the post-war international order is rather limited. Germany was forced to accept that the war was entirely Germany's fault" (not entirely in line with historical facts) and to pay huge financial compensation for the damage and damage caused by the war. Its armed forces were drastically reduced. Domestic revenge is growing. [21] In the years following World War I, Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy began to take root. Then, after a period of economic boom and seemingly friendly international relations, U.S. stock prices collapsed in 1929, ushering in the Great Depression and another era of political turmoil. The war also accelerated the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state monopoly capitalism, which had a profound impact on the development of both modern capitalism and socialism. [28] The First World War was a period of great development of modern military technology, which had a huge impact on the development of modern armed forces and services, as well as the popularization and development of science and technology. [28] In this world war, the role of artillery was played to an extent unimaginable, and machine guns were used extensively. In addition to the shells fired by the cannon, various bombs dropped by hand, dropped by aircraft, and placed in the sea were added. The two camps began a deadly gas war one after another. The Allies built iron tanks, which were fitted with gasoline engines and knocked down trees, pillars, and fences. Aircraft were also widely used in major wars, filming and reconnaissance of enemy movements, driving enemy aircraft, and dropping bombs on strategic points on enemy fronts. [32] Hot air balloons are used in warfare to spy on enemy situations or to protect vulnerable strongholds from enemy aircraft. [33] The belligerents began to wage poison gas warfare. German spaceship designer Ferdinand von Zeppelin invented the Zeppelin capable of crossing the French border to Paris and even across the North Sea, dropping bombs on British cities and countryside. Medical technology has advanced. [34]