Saturday 9 June, 2012

Starting of the First World War

Hi Viewers,
In the last post we told you that how and what were the main events that led to the outbreak of the First World War. We know that the war started in the year 1914 and lasted till 1918 until the settlement of the Versallies. To sum up with once again we would like to tell you the main countries involved in the First World War.

The Allies -
  • Britain
  • France
  • Russia (left in December 1917)
  • United States of America (entered in 1917)
  • Italy (entered in May 1915)
  • Romania (entered in August 1916)
  • Belgium
  • Serbia
The Central Powers -
  • Germany
  • Austria-Hungary
  • Bulgaria (entered in October 1915)
  • Turkey (entered in November 1914)
Starting of the First World War (1914) -
The Schlieffen Plan
The First World War turned out to be much more than it was anticipated. Many anticipated that the war will not last longer and fade out like the recent wars before it. On 3 August 1914, German troops entered Belgium with a view to put their Schlieffen Plan to success. [The Schlieffen Plan proposed the moving of German troops through Belgium and capture their channel ports and the flank Paris(France) from the west and south which will ultimately result in surrounding of the French armies within 6 weeks of time.] The Schlieffen Plan failed because it took Germany more than two weeks take Brussels the Belgian capital. The delaying of the plan gave the opportunity to the 
The Battle of Marne
British of mobilizing themselves and leaving the channel ports free so that the British Expeditionary Force could land. The Germans threw away from the plan because of the shortage of time and instead of capturing the channel ports they headed straight for Paris through the east. They even penetrated within twenty miles of the city and the French government shifted to Bordeaux. The German impetus slowed as the advanced towards the city. The main problem was supplies as they could not reach the troops in time and they got exhausted in the August heat. Then in September the French under Joffre attacked the Germans and drove them back to the River Aisne (Battle of Marne) where the Germans were able to dig trenches. The Battle of Marne was of critical importance because it totally ruined the Schlieffen Plan and the hopes of a short war were dashed,  the Germans now had to face full-scale war on the two fronts which they had never intended, trenches were dug and the lines eventually stretched form the Alps to the Channel coasts and lastly the British navy had time to bring its blockade into action for the German ports.
The Battle of Tannenburg
In the east the Russian mobilized faster than Germany and made a huge mistake of invading both Germany and Austria-Hungary at the same time. They were sucessfull in Austria capturing the province of Galicia but they were defeated twice in Germany at Tannenburg in August and Masurian Lakes in September. The Germans eventually drove the Russian out of Germany under the command of Hindenburg who was brought out of retirement for the war. In these battles the Russian lost vast amount arms, ammunitions and equipment which had taken years to build up. Russia never recovered from this setback where on the other side German morale was boosted. At this point the Serbs drove out an Austrian invasion which also was a plus point for the Allies.

These events basically marked the starting of the war and as we have written before that the war turned out much more than it was anticipated. In our next post we will continue to mark further events and learn about Trench warfare, the Falkenhayn's invasion of Russia 1915 and much more. Please don't forget to share and comment. Thank You.

No comments:

Post a Comment