Of course all soldiers are originally and eventually civilians, but there is a great difference between a civilian operating as such and the same man being inducted into the Army and operating as part of the military machine. The general public and even some Army officials felt the Army could not run its own affairs and that civilian personnel and methods should be adopted. Postmaster General had offered to aid in establishing an organization to assist in handling the mail for our forces. Pershing stated in his memoirs, "The prompt dispatch and delivery of mail was difficult, yet its bearing on the morale of the army and the folks at home made it very important."Īs far back as June 1917, the U.S. Such statistics contributed to a general revulsion against war, leading many to put their trust in multinational disarmament pacts and in the newly formed League of Nations. A total of 65 million men and women had served in the armies and navies an estimated 10 million persons had been killed and double that number wounded. The war itself had been one of the bloodiest in history, without a single decisive battle. Replacing them were governments ranging from monarchies and sheikhdoms through constitutional republics to the Marxist socialist state of the USSR. The Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties that ended the war changed the face of Europe and the Middle East.įour great empires - Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey - had disappeared by the end of the war. The Turkish and Austro-Hungarian empires, disintegrating from within, surrendered to the Allies, as did Bulgaria.Īfter revolution erupted in Germany, the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. The Germans were stopped just short of Paris in the second battle of the Marne, and an Allied counteroffensive was successful. In March 1918 the new Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers. to enter the war on the side of the Allies.Īn American Expeditionary Force, commanded by General Pershing, landed in France and saw its first action at Chateau-Thierry (June 1917). By 1917 unrestricted German submarine warfare had caused the U.S. neutrality had been threatened since 1915, when the British ship Lusitania was sunk. Lawrence stirred Arab revolt against Turkey. In Turkey, the Allies' ambitious Gallipoli Campaign (1915), an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, was a costly failure. In the south, the Italian campaigns were inconclusive, though they benefited the Allied cause by keeping large numbers of Austrian troops tied up down there. Serbia and Montenegro fell by the end of 1915. The Germans defeated the Russians at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes (Aug.-Sept. On the Eastern Front, the Central Powers were more successful. Grueling trench warfare and the use of poison gas began all along the front and, for the next three years, the battle lines remained virtually stationary despite huge casualties at Verdun and in the Somme offensive during 1916. After the first battles of the Marne and Ypres, however, the Germans became stalled. On the Western Front, the Germans smashed through Belgium, advanced on Paris, and approached the English Channel. Other declarations of war followed quickly, and soon every major power in Europe was in the war. One month later, after its humiliating demands were refused, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated at Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist. However, it was rampant nationalism - especially evident in the Austro-Hungarian empire - that furnished the immediate cause of hostilities. The Germans were also intent on challenging the naval superiority of Britain. The German empire in particular was determined to establish itself as the preeminent power on the Continent. Prominent among the war's causes were the imperialist, territorial, and economic rivalries of the great powers. On one side were the Allies (chiefly France, Britain, Russia, and the U.S.) on the other were the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey). World War I, 1914-18, also called the Great War, was a conflict, chiefly in Europe, among most of the world's great powers.
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