Trench Warfare
Expectations that war will be swift and short
were belied. Soon, it got deadlocked into
positional trench warfare along the Western
Front; a massive seize of 600 miles from
Switzerland to the North Sea. This continuous
front marked the end of local, small, isolated
and restricted warfare. Now millions of men faced
each other across the sand-bagged, parapets of
trenches, under which they lived like, and with
rats and lice. The opposing systems of zigzag,
timber-revitts, sand-bag reinforced trenches were
fronted by tangles of barbed wire and scattered
covered dugouts for providing shelter for troops.
The heavy artillery and machine gun fire used
by the opposing armies made it almost impossible
to achieve any breakthrough. In order to break
the stalemate, each side tried to expand its warproduction.
This necessitated total mobilization
of human and industrial resources. e.g. The battle
of Verdun (February-July, 1916) in which the
Germans attempted a breakthrough was a battle
of 2 millions, with one million casualties. The
British offensive on the Somme, designed to force
the Germans to break off the Verdun offensive
cost Britain 420,000 lives.
In this battle, British artillery was provided
with 23,000 tons of projectiles whereas the French
Artillery in the celebrated battle of Waterloo had
used only 100 tons. Karl von Clausewitz, the
philosopher of war had defined War as "an act
of violence pushed to its utmost bounds". The
phrase 'home front' acquired wider usage during
World War I. The supply line of opponent became
the first natural target of military strategy. The
economic warfare was symbolized by naval
blockade and unrestricted submarine warfare
during World War I.
Naval Blockade
The Allies attempted naval blockade on the
Central Powers (Germany, Austria, Hungry) and
their co-belligerents Turkey and Bulgaria. The
blockade proved unsuccessful as the Central
Powers continued to get their supplies through
neutral countries. Germany launched attacks on
Allied commercial shipping in October, 1914
through its submarines-the-U-boats. Such attacks
intensified in 1915-1917. By mid-1915, average
monthly sinking of Allied ships was 116,000 gross
tones and touched 866,000 tonnes by April, 1917.
However, the political disadvantages outweighed
any logistical damage, since there was strong
American reaction to these sinking.
Technological Innovations
By the end of the nineteenth century, black
powder was supplanted by nitrocellulose based
propellants popularly known as 'gun-cotton'.
Alfred Krupp (1851) built an all steel gun drilled
out of a single block of cast metal. Breech-loading
mechanism used in 1860s and 1870s helped in
cutting spiral grooves into the bores of artillery
pieces or solved the problem of rifling. Its
advantages were immense. By imparting spin to
the projectiles, rifling produced greater accuracy.
Another technical device solved the recoiling
problem by absorbing the shock of discharge and
leaving the gun in approximately same position
after firing as before. The trench warfare of
World War I gave an impetus to the production
of heavier guns in greater number with longer
ranges and better fire-control. Shooting became
based on map coordinates and carefully
calculated ballistic parameters without a forward
observer. Artillery communications also improved
aided by field telephones and radios.
The World War I witnessed development of
heavy machine-guns. The first successful
automatic machine-gun was invented by Hiram
Stevens Maxim. These were first used by the
British army in 1895. After 1915, lighter machine
guns such as British Lewis guns, French
Chauchat and US Browning automatic rifle
(BAR) were used for greater mobility and
portability. In 1918, a German named Louis
Schmeisser first developed a sub machinegun.
Some new forces of mechanized warfare such
as tanks, aircrafts (fighter and bombers),
submarines, aircraft carriers were discovered
during World War I but their destructive potential
was realized only in the Second World War. First
tanks- 'Little Willie' and 'Big Willie' were designed
in Britain in 1915. French developed the
Schneider. Submarines became a major factor in
World War I. Germany employed U-Boats to
destroy surface merchant ships by using a selfpropelled
underwater missile or torpedo. German
Zeppelins were early military aircraft used during
World War I. Their use did not prove very
effective.
Germany used chlorine along a six kilometers
front at Ypres on 22 April 1915 against French
and Algerian Territorial Army. Later phosgene
and mustard gas were also used during the
World War I. However, introduction of better
gas masks, protective clothing reduced the effects
of chemical warfare.
End of War
The ‘Great War’, as it was known before the
Second World War made this the First, carried
on for more than four years, with neither side
on any front willing to accept defeat or negotiate
peace. The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought
a cease-fire on the eastern front in December
with Russia losing substantial territory and
monies to Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
The US declared war on Germany only on April
6, 1917 but the entry of American troops, aero
plans and fresh supplies in 1918 nullified German
gains on both fronts. An armistice was declared
on November 11, 1918 and a peace conference
opened in Paris on 18 January 1919.
In the World War I, the total number of
people killed and dead for other war-related
reasons was well over 8 million. It was also an
age of mass flight. The aftermath of World War
I saw a large number of homeless and stateless
people, including the two millions who fled from
the Russian Revolution and accompanying civil
strife. 13 million Greeks were repatriated to
Greece mainly from Turkey. In all, the period
1914-22 created roughly 4-5 million refugees. A
new document, a certificate delivered by national
authorities on the recommendations of League
of Nations High Commissioners for Refugees in
1920s, the so-called 'Nansen passport' was
accepted as a travel document by over 50
countries.
Post War Developments
US President Woodrow Wilson was a
dominating figure of the peace conference so that
his moralistic ‘fourteen points’ were incorporated
into the resulting treaties, which transformed the
map of Europe on the principle of ‘selfdetermination
of nations’, and established a
League of Nations to uphold the peace on the
principle of ‘collective security’.
Germany was punished territorially and
financially. Alsace-Lorraine was restored to
France. The port of Danzig was made a free city
and a Polish Corridor ran through the eastern
provinces of Germany. Rearmament of any kind
was forbidden, as was fortification of the
Rhineland or union with Austria. Colonial
possessions were detached and unspecified
amounts demanded in reparations.
The Habsburg Dynasty was dismissed and
its Austria-Hungary Empire dismantled.
Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland became
independent. Austria ceded South Tyrol, Istria,
the Dalmatian, coast and some Adriatic Islands
to Italy, and its southern Slav provinces of
Slovenia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina to Yugoslavia. Other territorial
transfers took from Bulgaria and added to
Romania. The Ottoman Empire too was abolished
with the Treaty of Sevres, 1920; Turkey became
a republic, its Arab provinces were placed under
British/French mandate.
