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Essays States Social Aspects of the War The Course of the War Historiography States Germany The First World War was the apotheosis of the bourgeois era and the beginning of the end of European world hegemony. It ended with the disintegration of the conservative monarchies of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and of the Tsarist Empire. During the Bismarck era and the subsequent period of Wilhelminism, the German Empire had risen to the status of a hegemonic
Ypres Belgian city in West Flanders located along the Ypres-Comines Canal. After four years at the center of positional warfare, it was fully destroyed. After the First Battle of Flanders, the German Fourth and (on the right flank) Sixth Army resumed the offensive in November 10–18, 1914, with the limited goal of retaking the Ypres Salient and capturing the city. This operation was intended to end the German 1914 Campaign with clear success, before troops were shifted to the Eastern Front. Reinforced by French units
Cambrai City in the north of France on the canalized River Scheldt (L’Escaut). The “Tank Battle of Cambrai” in November of 1917 saw the first operational massed deployment of British tank forces – a veritable revolution on the battlefield. On November 20, after only a brief burst of fire and without the normal artillery preparation lasting several days, the newly-created British Tank Corps breached the German Hindenburg Line near Havrincourt. The 400 tracked vehicles were supported by six infantry and
Compiègne French town and railway junction on the River Oise, some 60 km northeast of Paris; in 1917 it became the seat of the French Headquarters (GQG) and later the site of the 1918 Armistice. On November 11, 1918, at around 5:20 am, the Armistice between the Entente represented by chief negotiator Marshal Ferdinand Foch, and the German Empire was signed in a wooded area near Compiègne. The act itself took place in a railway carriage parked in a siding that belonged to a disused railway gun emplacement. The German
Champagne With the onset of positional warfare the front between Reims and the Forest of Argonne became the theater for two major French offensives in 1915. The battles in Champagne saw the emergence of what came to be known in Germany as Materialschlachten (battles of matériel). These were characterized by artillery bombardments which would last for several days and would rise in intensity to the level of a continuous barrage ( Trommelfeuer ). The intention was to bring about the utter demoralization and material
Sports When the World War broke out, the Burgfrieden (Fortress Truce) between Turner (German workers’ sports movement) gymnasts and other athletes crumbled in the face of the possible awarding of the 1916 Olympic Games to Berlin. The Turner movement was critical of the ‘international Olympiad,’ rejecting its games as “English attempts to break records,” and not for Germans. Once it became clear that the war would last awhile, the idea grew of replacing the Olympiad with “German war games” as their “national
Tannenberg Location of a battle in East Prussia on August 26–30, 1914, which ended when the German Eighth Army enveloped and then destroyed the Russian Second Army. Since the Russian leadership had begun their offensive against East Prussia earlier than anticipated, at France’s insistence, the German war plan for the Eastern Front proved illusory. The Russian Northwest Forces under their Commander General Zhilinski planned a two-pronged advance: the first from north of Lötzen Fortress by the Njemen Army under General
comparatively greater. Despite being engaged in positional warfare, the French and British maintained their cavalry in order to pursue the enemy during a penetration of the front. The Germans, however, largely disbanded their cavalry units on the Western Front in order to detail dismounted cavalry units to the trenches in a “cavalry rifle” division. French Army mobile pigeon loft. Prussian army memorial certificate for a deceased “war dog
’Urbal). However, Field Marshal French and General Haig disagreed with Joffre’s troop deployment, as they were of the opinion that the densely settled area afforded the enemy a strong defensive advantage, but also because the terrain offered little possibility of spotting the German artillery. Only political pressure from London and the assurance that sufficient amounts of poison gas would be made available finally convinced them to participate in the offensive. Aerial supremacy was also established, and orders were issued to bomb the railway facilities and tracks in order to
Argonne Forest Densely wooded plateau between the Champagne region and the Côtes Lorraines (Meuse Valley), extending some 12 km east to west, and about 50–60 km north to south. In World War I it was the theater of a tenacious small-scale war of attrition that was being fought on the edges of the larger decisive battles. During the German advance in late August and early September of 1914, neither the German Fifth (operating immediately to the west of Verdun) and Fourth Armies, nor the retreating French Fourth and