So I made another movie. But I couldn't be the director of this movie. Because it was called Genghis Khan. So I just went to the theatre to watch it. And the story is:
Genghis Khan
| Genghis Khan | |
|---|---|
| Supreme Khan of the Mongols | |
Genghis Khan as portrayed in a 14th century Yuan era album. |
|
| Reign | Spring 1206 – August 1227 |
| Coronation | Spring 1206 in khurultai at the Onon River, Mongolia |
| Full name |
Genghis Khan Mongol: Чингис хаан Chinggis Khaan Mongol script (right): Chinggis Khagan[note 1] |
| Titles | Khan, Khagan Temple name: Chinese: 元太祖; pinyin: Yuán Tàizǔ Posthumous name: Emperor Fatian Qiyun Shengwu (法天啟運聖武皇帝) |
| Born | likely 1162[2] |
| Birthplace | Khentii Mountains, Mongolia |
| Died | August 1227[3] (aged c. 65) |
| Successor | Ögedei Khan |
| Consort | Börte Üjin Khulan Yesugen Yesui others |
| Offspring | Jochi Chagatai Ögedei Tolui Others |
| Royal House | Borjigin |
| Father | Yesügei |
| Mother | Oulen |
He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were often accompanied by wholesale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in Khwarezmia. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China.
Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and split his empire into khanates among his sons and grandsons.[6] He died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at an unknown location. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Many of these invasions repeated the earlier large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result Genghis Khan and his empire have a fearsome reputation in local histories.[7]
Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways. He decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire's writing system. He also promoted religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, and created a unified empire from the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. Present-day Mongolians regard him as the founding father of Mongolia.[8]
Contents |
Early life
Lineage
Main article: Family tree of Genghis Khan
Temujin was related on his father's side to Khabul Khan, Ambaghai and Hotula Khan who had headed the Khamag Mongol confederation and were descendants of Bodonchar Munkhag (c. 900CE). When the Chinese Jin Dynasty switched support from the Mongols to the Tatars in 1161, they destroyed Khabul Khan.[9] Temujin's father, Yesügei (leader of the Borjigin
clan and nephew to Ambaghai and Hotula Khan), emerged as the head of
the ruling clan of the Mongols, but this position was contested by the
rival Tayichi’ud clan, who descended directly from Ambaghai. When the Tatars grew too powerful after 1161, the Jin switched their support from the Tatars to the Keraits.Birth
The Onon River, Mongolia, in autumn, the region where Temujin was born and grew up.
Temujin was born in 1162 or 1155[2] in Delüün Boldog near Burkhan Khaldun mountain and the Onon and Kherlen Rivers in modern-day northern Mongolia, not far from the current capital, Ulaanbaatar. The Secret History of the Mongols reports that Temüjin was born with a blood clot grasped in his fist, a traditional sign that he was destined to become a great leader. He was the third-oldest son of his father Yesügei, a Khamag Mongol's major chief of the Kiyad and an ally of Toghrul Khan of the Kerait tribe,[10] and the oldest son of his mother Hoelun. According to the Secret History, Temujin was named after a Tatar chieftain, Temujin-üge, whom his father had just captured. The name also suggests that they may have been descended from a family of blacksmiths (see section Name and title below).
Yesukhei's clan was called Borjigin (Боржигин), and Hoelun was from the Olkhunut, the sub-lineage of the Onggirat tribe.[11][12] Like other tribes, they were nomads. Because his father was a chieftain, as were his predecessors, Temüjin was of a noble background. This higher social standing made it easier to solicit help from and eventually consolidate the other Mongol tribes.[citation needed]
No accurate portraits of Genghis Khan exist today, and any surviving depictions are considered to be artistic interpretations. Persian historian Rashid-al-Din recorded in his "Chronicles" that the legendary "glittering" ancestor of Genghis Khan was tall, long-bearded, red-haired, and green-eyed. Rashid al-Din also described the first meeting of Genghis and Kublai Khan, when Genghis Khan was surprised to find that Kublai had not inherited his red hair.[13] Also according to al-Din Genghis' Borjigid clan, had a legend involving their origins: it began as the result of an affair between Alan-ko and a stranger to her land, a glittering man who happened to have red hair and bluish-green eyes. Modern historian Paul Ratchnevsky has suggested in his Genghis biography that the "glittering man" may have been from the Kyrgyz people, who historically displayed these same characteristics. However these traits can also be found among modern Mongolians where they have a predominate Mongoloid appearance and with frequent occurrence of blue eyes, green eyes and red hair.[14] A certain number of Mongols, particularly the Oirat tribe in western Mongolia tend to exhibit lighter features such as fair skin, blue or green eyes, varying shades of brown hair, and sometimes even red or blonde hair.[15] Some of the Mongols today who exhibit some slight Caucasoid features most likely stem from historical intermixing with ancient Central Asian and Siberian Europoids, as opposed to recent intermixing with Slavics and other Europeans.[16] Intermixing between the Mongoloid and Europoid population in Northern Mongolia have already existed during the Xiongnu period long before the time of Genghis Khan.[17] Skulls of the well preserved Xiongnu and pre-Xiongnu tomb were examined and were found to have been an hybrid population with physical appearance of predominately Mongoloid with some Europoid admixture.[18] Genghis Khan was identified to have been Haplogroup C-M217, a common mongoloid paternal marker among Tungusic males.[19]
Early life and family
Temujin had three brothers named Hasar, Hachiun, and Temüge, and one sister named Temülen, as well as two half-brothers named Behter and Belgutei. Like many of the nomads of Mongolia, Temujin's early life was difficult. His father arranged a marriage for him, and at nine years of age, he was delivered by his father to the family of his future wife Börte, who was a member of the tribe Onggirat. Temujin was to live there in service to Dai Setsen, the head of the new household, until he reached the marriageable age of 12. While heading home, his father ran into the neighboring Tatars, who had long been enemies of the Mongols, and he was subsequently poisoned by the food they offered. Upon learning this, Temujin returned home to claim his father's position as chieftain of the tribe; however, his father's tribe refused to be led by a boy so young. They abandoned Hoelun and her children, leaving them without protection.
Jurchen inscription (1196) in Mongolia relating to Genghis Khan's alliance with the Jin against the Tatars.
At this time, none of the tribal confederations of Mongolia were united politically, and arranged marriages were often used to solidify temporary alliances. Temujin grew up observing the tough political climate of Mongolia, which included tribal warfare, thievery, raids, corruption and continuing acts of revenge carried out between the various confederations, all compounded by interference from foreign forces such as the Chinese dynasties to the south. Temujin's mother Hoelun taught him many lessons about the unstable political climate of Mongolia, especially the need for alliances.
As previously arranged by his father, Temujin married Börte of the Onggirat tribe when he was around 16 in order to cement alliances between their respective tribes. Soon after Börte's marriage to Temujin, she was kidnapped by the Merkits, and reportedly given away as a wife. Temüjin rescued her with the help of his friend and future rival, Jamukha, and his protector, Toghrul Khan of the Kerait tribe. She gave birth to a son, Jochi (1185–1226), nine months later, clouding the issue of his parentage. Despite speculation over Jochi, Börte would be his only empress, though Temujin did follow tradition by taking several morganatic wives.[21] Börte had three more sons, Chagatai (1187—1241), Ögedei (1189—1241), and Tolui (1190–1232). Genghis Khan also had many other children with his other wives, but they were excluded from the succession. While the names of sons were documented, daughters were not. The names of at least six daughters are known, and while they played significant roles behind the scenes during his lifetime, no documents have survived that definitively provide the number or names of daughters born to the consorts of Genghis Khan.[22]
Temujin valued loyalty above all else and also valued brotherhood.[23] Jamukha was one of Temujin's best friends growing up. But their friendship was tested later in life, when Temujin was fighting to become a khan. Jamukha said this to Temujin before he was killed, "What use is there in my becoming a companion to you? On the contrary, sworn brother, in the black night I would haunt your dreams, in the bright day I would trouble your heart. I would be the louse in your collar, I would become the splinter in your door-panel....as there was room for only one sun in the sky, there was room only for one Mongol lord."[23]
Religion
The Secret History of the Mongols chronicles Genghis praying to the Burhan Haldun mountain.He was religiously tolerant and interested in learning philosophical and moral lessons from other religions. To do so, he consulted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christian missionaries, and the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji.[24]
Uniting the confederations
The Central Asian plateau (north of China) around the time of Temüjin (the early 13th century) was divided into several tribes or confederations, among them Naimans, Merkits, Tatars, Khamag Mongols, and Keraits, that were all prominent in their own right and often unfriendly toward each other as evidenced by random raids, revenge attacks, and plundering.Temujin began his slow ascent to power by offering himself as an ally (or, according to others sources, a vassal) to his father's anda (sworn brother or blood brother) Toghrul, who was Khan of the Kerait, and is better known by the Chinese title "Wang Khan", which the Jin Empire granted him in 1197. This relationship was first reinforced when Börte was captured by the Merkits; it was Toghrul to whom Temujin turned for support. In response, Toghrul offered his vassal 200,000 of his Kerait warriors and suggested that he also involve his childhood friend Jamukha, who had himself become Khan (ruler) of his own tribe, the Jadaran.[25] Although the campaign was successful and led to the recapture of Börte and utter defeat of the Merkits, it also paved the way for the split between the childhood friends, Temujin and Jamukha. Temujin had become blood brother (anda) with Jamukha earlier, and they had vowed to remain eternally faithful.
The main opponents of the Mongol confederation (traditionally the "Mongols") around 1200 were the Naimans to the west, the Merkits to the north, Tanguts to the south, and the Jin and Tatars to the east. By 1190, Temujin, his followers, and their advisors, had united the smaller Mongol confederation only. In his rule and his conquest of rival tribes, Temujin broke with Mongol tradition in a few crucial ways. He delegated authority based on merit and loyalty, rather than family ties. As an incentive for absolute obedience and following his rule of law, the Yassa code, Temujin promised civilians and soldiers wealth from future possible war spoils. As he defeated rival tribes, he did not drive away enemy soldiers and abandon the rest. Instead, he took the conquered tribe under his protection and integrated its members into his own tribe. He would even have his mother adopt orphans from the conquered tribe, bringing them into his family. These political innovations inspired great loyalty among the conquered people, making Temujin stronger with each victory.[26]
Genghis Khan proclaimed Khagan of all Mongols. Illustration from a 15th century Jami' al-tawarikh manuscript
The next direct threat to Temüjin was the Naimans (Naiman Mongols), with whom Jamukha and his followers took refuge. The Naimans did not surrender, although enough sectors again voluntarily sided with Temujin. In 1201, a khuruldai elected Jamukha as Gür Khan, "universal ruler", a title used by the rulers of the Kara-Khitan Khanate. Jamukha's assumption of this title was the final breach with Temüjin, and Jamukha formed a coalition of tribes to oppose him. Before the conflict, however, several generals abandoned Jamukha, including Subutai, Jelme's well-known younger brother. After several battles, Jamukha was finally turned over to Temujin by his own men in 1206.
According to the Secret History, Temujin again offered his friendship to Jamukha, asking him to return to his side. Temujin had killed the men who betrayed Jamukha, stating that he did not want disloyal men in his army. Jamukha refused the offer of friendship and reunion, saying that there can only be one Sun in the sky, and he asked for a noble death. The custom is to die without spilling blood, which is granted by breaking the back. Jamukha requested this form of death, despite the fact that in the past Jamukha had been known to have boiled his opponent's generals alive. The rest of the Merkit clan that sided with the Naimans were defeated by Subutai, who was by then a member of Temujin's personal guard and later became one of the most successful commanders of Genghis Khan. The Naimans' defeat left Genghis Khan as the sole ruler of the Mongol plains – all the prominent confederations fell or united under Temüjin's Mongol confederation.
Accounts of Genghis Khan's life are marked by claims of a series of betrayals and conspiracies. These include rifts with his early allies such as Jamukha (who also wanted to be a ruler of Mongol tribes) and Wang Khan (his and his father's ally), his son Jochi, and problems with the most important shaman, who was allegedly trying to drive a wedge between him and his loyal brother Khasar. His military strategies showed a deep interest in gathering good intelligence and understanding the motivations of his rivals as exemplified by his extensive spy network and Yam route systems. He seemed to be a quick student, adopting new technologies and ideas that he encountered, such as siege warfare from the Chinese. He was also ruthless, as demonstrated by his measuring against the linchpin tactic used against the tribes led by Jamukha.
As a result by 1206 Temüjin had managed to unite or subdue the Merkits, Naimans, Mongols, Keraits, Tatars, Uyghurs and other disparate smaller tribes under his rule. It was a monumental feat for the "Mongols" (as they became known collectively). At a Khuruldai, a council of Mongol chiefs, he was acknowledged as "Khan" of the consolidated tribes and took the new title "Genghis Khan". The title Khagan was not conferred on Genghis until after his death, when his son and successor, Ögedei, took the title for himself and extended it posthumously to his father (as he was also to be posthumously declared the founder of the Yuan Dynasty). This unification of all confederations by Genghis Khan established peace between previously warring tribes and a single political and military force under Genghis Khan.
See also: Mongols before Genghis Khan and Mongols
Military campaigns
See also: Mongol invasions
Western Xia Dynasty
During the 1206 political rise of Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire created by Genghis Khan and his allies shared its western borders with the Tanguts' Western Xia Dynasty. To its east and south was the Jin Dynasty, founded by the Manchurian Jurchens, who ruled northern China as well as being the traditional overlords of the Mongolian tribes for centuries.Genghis Khan organized his people, army, and his state to first prepare for war with Western Xia, or Xi Xia, which was closer to the Mongolian lands. He correctly believed that the more powerful Jin Dynasty's young ruler would not come to the aid of Xi Xia. When the Tanguts requested help from the Jin Dynasty, they were refused.[27] Despite initial difficulties in capturing its well-defended cities, Genghis Khan forced the surrender of Western Xia by 1209.
Jin Dynasty
Main article: Mongol–Jin War
In 1211, after the conquest of Western Xia, Genghis Khan planned again to conquer the Jin Dynasty.
The commander of the Jin Dynasty army made a tactical mistake in not
attacking the Mongols at the first opportunity. Instead, the Jin
commander sent a messenger, Ming-Tan, to the Mongol side, who defected
and told the Mongols that the Jin army was waiting on the other side of
the pass. At this engagement fought at Badger Pass the Mongols massacred
thousands of Jin troops. In 1215 Genghis besieged, captured, and sacked
the Jin capital of Yanjing (later known as Beijing). This forced the
Emperor Xuanzong to move his capital south to Kaifeng, abandoning the northern half of his kingdom to the Mongols.Kara-Khitan Khanate
Main article: Kara-Khitan Khanate
Kuchlug, the deposed Khan of the Naiman confederation that Temüjin defeated and folded into his Mongol Empire, fled west and usurped the khanate of Kara-Khitan (also known as the Western Liao, as it was originally established as remnants of the Liao Dynasty). Genghis Khan decided to conquer the Kara-Khitan khanate and defeat Kuchlug,
possibly to take him out of power. By this time the Mongol army was
exhausted from ten years of continuous campaigning in China against the Western Xia and Jin Dynasty. Therefore Genghis sent only two tumen (20,000 soldiers) against Kuchlug, under his younger general, Jebe, known as "The Arrow".With such a small force, the invading Mongols were forced to change strategies and resort to inciting internal revolt among Kuchlug's supporters, leaving the Khara-Khitan khanate more vulnerable to Mongol conquest. As a result, Kuchlug's army was defeated west of Kashgar. Kuchlug fled again, but was soon hunted down by Jebe's army and executed. By 1218, as a result of defeat of Kara-Khitan khanate, the Mongol Empire and its control extended as far west as Lake Balkhash, which bordered the Khwarezmia (Khwarezmid Empire), a Muslim state that reached the Caspian Sea to the west and Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea to the south.
Khwarezmian Empire
Main article: Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia
Khwarezmid Empire (1190–1220)
The Mongol army under Genghis Khan, generals and his sons crossed the Tien Shan mountains by entering the area controlled by the Khwarezmian Empire. After compiling intelligence from many sources Genghis Khan carefully prepared his army, which was divided into three groups. His son Jochi led the first division into the northeast of Khwarezmia. The second division under Jebe marched secretly to the southeast part of Khwarzemia to form, with the first division, a pincer attack on Samarkand. The third division under Genghis Khan and Tolui marched to the northwest and attacked Khwarzemia from that direction.
The Shah's army was split by diverse internal disquisitions and by the Shah's decision to divide his army into small groups concentrated in various cities. This fragmentation was decisive in Khwarezmia's defeats, as it allowed the Mongols, although exhausted from the long journey, to immediately set about defeating small fractions of the Khwarzemi forces instead of facing a unified defense. The Mongol army quickly seized the town of Otrar, relying on superior strategy and tactics. Genghis Khan ordered the wholesale massacre of many of the civilians, enslaved the rest of the population and executed Inalchuq by pouring molten silver into his ears and eyes, as retribution for his actions. Near the end of the battle the Shah fled rather than surrender. Genghis Khan charged Subutai and Jebe with hunting him down, giving them two years and 20,000 men. The Shah died under mysterious circumstances on a small island within his empire.
The Mongols' conquest, even by their own standards, was brutal. After the capital Samarkand fell, the capital was moved to Bukhara by the remaining men, and Genghis Khan dedicated two of his generals and their forces to completely destroying the remnants of the Khwarezmid Empire, including not only royal buildings, but entire towns, populations and even vast swaths of farmland. According to stories, Genghis Khan even went so far as to divert a river through the Khwarezmid emperor's birthplace, erasing it from the map.
The Mongols attacked Samarkand using prisoners as body shields. After several days only a few remaining soldiers, die-hard supporters of the Shah, held out in the citadel. After the fortress fell, Genghis supposedly reneged on his surrender terms and executed every soldier that had taken arms against him at Samarkand. The people of Samarkand were ordered to evacuate and assemble in a plain outside the city, where they were killed and pyramids of severed heads raised as a symbol of victory.[28] Ata-Malik Juvayni, a high official in the service of the Mongol empire, wrote that in Termez, on the Oxus, "all the people, both men and women, were driven out onto the plain, and divided in accordance with their usual custom, then they were all slain".[28]
The city of Bukhara was not heavily fortified, with a moat and a single wall, and the citadel typical of Khwarezmi cities. The city leaders opened the gates to the Mongols, though a unit of Turkish defenders held the city's citadel for another twelve days. Survivors from the citadel were executed, artisans and craftsmen were sent back to Mongolia, young men who had not fought were drafted into the Mongolian army and the rest of the population was sent into slavery. As the Mongol soldiers looted the city, a fire broke out, razing most of the city to the ground.[29] Genghis Khan had the city's surviving population assemble in the main mosque of the town, where he declared that he was the flail of God, sent to punish them for their sins.
Meanwhile, the wealthy trading city of Urgench was still in the hands of Khwarezmian forces. The assault on Urgench proved to be the most difficult battle of the Mongol invasion and the city fell only after the defenders put up a stout defense, fighting block for block. Mongolian casualties were higher than normal, due to the unaccustomed difficulty of adapting Mongolian tactics to city fighting.
As usual, the artisans were sent back to Mongolia, young women and children were given to the Mongol soldiers as slaves, and the rest of the population was massacred. The Persian scholar Juvayni states that 50,000 Mongol soldiers were given the task of executing twenty-four Urgench citizens each, which would mean that 1.2 million people were killed. While this is a bit of an exaggeration[citation needed], the sacking of Urgench is considered one of the bloodiest massacres in human history.
In the meantime, Genghis Khan selected his third son Ögedei as his successor before his army set out, and specified that subsequent Khans should be his direct descendants. Genghis Khan also left Muqali, one of his most trusted generals, as the supreme commander of all Mongol forces in Jin China while he was out battling the Khwarezmid Empire to the west.
Georgia, Crimea, Kievan Rus and Volga Bulgaria
Main articles: Mongol invasions of Georgia and Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria
After the defeat of the Khwarezmian Empire in 1220, Genghis Khan gathered his forces in Persia and Armenia to return to the Mongolian steppes. Under the suggestion of Subutai, the Mongol army was split into two forces. Genghis Khan led the main army on a raid through Afghanistan and northern India towards Mongolia, while another 20,000 (two tumen) contingent marched through the Caucasus and into Russia under generals Jebe and Subutai. They pushed deep into Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Mongols destroyed the kingdom of Georgia, sacked the Genoese trade-fortress of Caffa in Crimea and overwintered near the Black Sea. Heading home, Subutai's forces attacked the allied forces of the Cuman–Kipchaks and the poorly coordinated 80,000 Kievan Rus' troops led by Mstislav the Bold of Halych and Mstislav III of Kiev who went out to stop the Mongols' actions in the area. Subutai sent emissaries to the Slavic princes calling for a separate peace, but the emissaries were executed. At the Battle of Kalka River in 1223, Subutai's forces defeated the larger Kievan force, while losing the battle of Samara Bend
against the neighboring Volga Bulgars – one of the Mongol's few, if not
only, utter defeat; the Khwarizmi historian al-Nasawi says only 4,000
survived.[30] The Russian princes then sued for peace. Subutai
agreed but was in no mood to pardon the princes. As was customary in
Mongol society for nobility, the Russian princes were given a bloodless
death. Subutai had a large wooden platform constructed on which he ate
his meals along with his other generals. Six Russian princes, including Mstislav III of Kiev, were put under this platform and crushed to death.The Mongols learned from captives of the abundant green pastures beyond the Bulgar territory, allowing for the planning for conquest of Hungary and Europe. Genghis Khan recalled Subutai back to Mongolia soon afterwards, and Jebe died on the road back to Samarkand. Subutai and Jebe's famous cavalry expedition, in which they encircled the entire Caspian Sea defeating all armies in their path, except for that of the Volga Bulgars – who were said to be one of the few, if not the only people to ever defeat Genghis Khan, remains unparalleled to this day, and word of the Mongol triumphs began to trickle to other nations, particularly Europe. These two campaigns are generally regarded as reconnaissance campaigns that tried to get the feel of the political and cultural elements of the regions. In 1225 both divisions returned to Mongolia. These invasions added Transoxiana and Persia to an already formidable empire while destroying any resistance along the way. Later under Genghis Khan's grandson Batu and the Golden Horde, the Mongols returned to conquer Volga Bulgaria and the Kievan Rus in 1237, concluding the campaign in 1240.
Western Xia and Jin Dynasty
Main article: Mongol invasion of China
The vassal emperor of the Tanguts (Western Xia)
had earlier refused to take part in the war against the Khwarezmid
Empire after Genghis Khan and the main army marched towards Kharezmian
Empire. Plus Western Xia and the defeated Jin Dynasty
formed a coalition to resist the Mongols, counting on the campaign
against the Khwarezmians to drain the Mongols' ability to respond
effectively.In 1226, immediately after returning from the west, Genghis Khan began a retaliatory attack on the Tanguts. His armies quickly took Heisui, Ganzhou and Suzhou (not the Suzhou in Jiangsu province), and in the autumn he took Xiliang-fu. One of the Tangut generals challenged the Mongols to a battle near Helanshan, but was defeated. In November, Genghis laid siege to the Tangut city Lingzhou, and crossed the Yellow River, defeating the Tangut relief army. According to legend, it was here that Genghis Khan reportedly saw a line of five stars arranged in the sky, and interpreted it as an omen of his victory.
In 1227, Genghis Khan's army attacked and destroyed the Tangut capital of Ning Hia, and continued to advance, seizing Lintiao-fu, Xining province, Xindu[disambiguation needed]-fu, and Deshun province in quick succession in the Spring. At Deshun, the Tangut general Ma Jianlong put up a fierce resistance for several days and personally led charges against the invaders outside the city gate. Ma Jianlong later died from wounds received from arrows in battle. Genghis Khan, after conquering Deshun, went to Liupanshan (Qingshui County, Gansu Province) to escape the severe summer. The new Tangut emperor quickly surrendered to the Mongols, and the rest of the Tanguts officially surrendered soon after. Not happy with their betrayal and resistance, Genghis Khan ordered the entire imperial family to be executed, effectively ending the Tangut lineage.
Some accounts say that Genghis Khan was castrated by a Tangut princess using a hidden knife, who wanted revenge against his treatment of the Tanguts and stop him from raping her.[31][32][33] After his castration, Genghis Khan died, and the Tangut princess committed suicide by drowning in the Yellow River according to the legend.[34][35] In some mythical legends, it is claimed that Genghis fell into a trance after being castrated and is waiting to be sent back to the Mongol people.[36][37]
Succession
Genghis Khan and three of his four sons. Illustration from a 15th century Jami' al-tawarikh manuscript
Mongol "Great Khans" coin, minted at Balk, Afghanistan, AH 618, 1221 AD.
Jochi
Jochi died in 1226, during his father's lifetime. Some scholars, notably Ratchnevsky, have commented on the possibility that Jochi was secretly poisoned by an order from Genghis Khan. Rashid al-Din reports that the great Khan sent for his sons in the spring of 1223, and while his brothers heeded the order, Jochi remained in Khorasan. Juzjani suggests that the disagreement arose from a quarrel between Jochi and his brothers in the siege of Urgench. Jochi had attempted to protect Urgench from destruction, as it belonged to territory allocated to him as a fief. He concludes his story with the clearly apocryphal statement by Jochi: "Genghis Khan is mad to have massacred so many people and laid waste so many lands. I would be doing a service if I killed my father when he is hunting, made an alliance with Sultan Muhammad, brought this land to life and gave assistance and support to the Muslims." Juzjani claims that it was in response to hearing of these plans that Genghis Khan ordered his son secretly poisoned; however, as Sultan Muhammad was already dead in 1223, the accuracy of this story is questionable.[39]Genghis Khan was aware of this friction between his sons (particularly between Chagatai and Jochi) and worried of possible conflict between them if he died and therefore he decided to divide his empire among his sons and make all of them Khan in their own right and by appointing one of his sons as his successor. Chagatai was considered unstable due to his temper and rash behavior because of his statements he made that he would not follow Jochi if he were to become his father's successor. Tolui, Genghis Khan's youngest son was not to be his successor because he was the youngest and in the Mongol culture, youngest sons were not given a huge responsibility due to their age. If Jochi was to become successor, it was likely that Chagatai would engage in warfare with him and collapse the empire. Therefore Genghis Khan decided to give the throne to Ögedei. Ögedei was seen by Genghis Khan as dependable in character and relatively stable and down to earth and would be a neutral candidate and might defuse the situation between his brothers.
Death and burial
Main article: Tomb of Genghis Khan
In late August 1227, after defeating the Tangut people, Genghis Khan died (according to The Secret History of the Mongols).
The reason for his death is uncertain and speculations abound. Some
historians maintain that he fell off his horse during a horseback
pursuit from the land of present day Egypt due to battle wounds and
physical fatigue, dying of his injuries.[40] Others contend that he was felled by a protracted illness such as pneumonia. The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle
alleges he was killed by the Tanguts in battle. Later Mongol chronicles
connect Genghis' death with a Tangut princess taken as war booty. One
chronicle from the early 17th century even relates that the princess hid
a small dagger and stabbed him. Some Mongol authors have doubted this
version and suspected it to be an invention by the rival Oirads.[41]Years before his death, Genghis Khan asked to be buried without markings, according to the customs of his tribe. After he died, his body was returned to Mongolia and presumably to his birthplace in Khentii Aimag, where many assume he is buried somewhere close to the Onon River and the Burkhan Khaldun mountain (part of the Kentii mountain range). According to legend, the funeral escort killed anyone and anything across their path to conceal where he was finally buried. The Genghis Khan Mausoleum, constructed many years after his death, is his memorial, but not his burial site.
In 1939 Guomindang Chinese Nationalist soldiers took the mausoleum from its position at the 'Lord's Enclosure' (Mongolian: Edsen Khoroo) in Mongolia to protect it from Japanese troops. It was taken through Communist-held territory in Yan'an some 900 km on carts to safety at a Buddhist monastery, the Dongshan Dafo Dian, where it remained for ten years. In 1949, as Communist troops advanced, the Nationalist soldiers moved it another 200 km farther west to the famous Tibetan monastery of Kumbum Monastery or Ta'er Shi near Xining, which soon fell under Communist control. In early 1954, Genghis Khan's bier and relics were returned to the Lord's Enclosure in Mongolia. By 1956 a new temple was erected there to house them.[42] In 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards destroyed almost everything of value. The "relics" were remade in the 1970s and a great marble statue of Genghis was completed in 1989.[43]
On October 6, 2004, a joint Japanese-Mongolian archaeological dig uncovered what is believed to be Genghis Khan's palace in rural Mongolia, which raises the possibility of actually locating the ruler's long-lost burial site.[44] Folklore says that a river was diverted over his grave to make it impossible to find (the same manner of burial as the Sumerian King Gilgamesh of Uruk and Atilla the Hun). Other tales state that his grave was stampeded over by many horses, and that trees were then planted over the site, and the permafrost also did its part in hiding the burial site.
Genghis Khan left behind an army of more than 129,000 men; 28,000 were given to his various brothers and his sons. Tolui, his youngest son, inherited more than 100,000 men. This force contained the bulk of the elite Mongolian cavalry. By tradition, the youngest son inherits his father's property. Jochi, Chagatai, Ögedei Khan, and Kulan's son Gelejian received armies of 4,000 men each. His mother and the descendants of his three brothers received 3,000 men each.
Mongol Empire
Main article: Mongol Empire
Politics and economics
Main article: Organization of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan
The Mongol Empire was governed by a civilian and military code, called the Yassa, created by Genghis Khan. The Mongol Empire did not emphasize the importance of ethnicity and race in the administrative realm, instead adopting an approach grounded in meritocracy.
The exception was the role of Genghis Khan and his family. The Mongol
Empire was one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse empires in
history, as befitted its size. Many of the empire's nomadic inhabitants
considered themselves Mongols in military and civilian life, including Turks, Mongols, and others and included many diverse Khans of various ethnicities as part of the Mongol Empire such as Muhammad Khan.There were tax exemptions for religious figures and, to some extent, teachers and doctors. The Mongol Empire practiced religious tolerance because Mongol tradition had long held that religion was a personal concept, and not subject to law or interference.[citation needed] Sometime before the rise of Genghis Khan, Ong Khan, his mentor and eventual rival, had converted to Nestorian Christianity. Various Mongol tribes were Buddhist, Muslim, shamanist or Christian. Religious tolerance was thus a well established concept on the Asian steppe.
Modern Mongolian historians say that towards the end of his life, Genghis Khan attempted to create a civil state under the Great Yassa that would have established the legal equality of all individuals, including women.[45] However, there is no contemporary evidence of this, or of the lifting of discriminatory policies towards sedentary peoples such as the Chinese. Women played a relatively important role in Mongol Empire and in family, for example Töregene Khatun was briefly in charge of the Mongol Empire when next male Khagan was being chosen. Modern scholars refer to the alleged policy of encouraging trade and communication as the Pax Mongolica (Mongol Peace).
Genghis Khan realised that he needed people who could govern cities and states conquered by him. He also realised that such administrators could not be found among his Mongol people because they were nomads and thus had no experience governing cities. For this purpose Genghis Khan invited a Khitan prince, Chu'Tsai, who worked for the Jin and had been captured by the Mongol army after the Jin Dynasty were defeated. Jin had captured power by displacing Khitan. Genghis told Chu'Tsai, who was a lineal descendant of Khitan rulers, that he had avenged Chu'Tsai's forefathers. Chu'Tsai responded that his father served the Jin Dynasty honestly and so did he; also he did not consider his own father his enemy, so the question of revenge did not apply. This reply impressed Genghis Khan. Chu'Tsai administered parts of the Mongol Empire and became a confidant of the successive Mongol Khans.
Military
Main article: Mongol military tactics and organization
Genghis Khan put absolute trust in his generals, such as Muqali, Jebe and Subutai,
and regarded them as close advisors, often extending them the same
privileges and trust normally reserved for close family members. He
allowed them to make decisions on their own when they embarked on
campaigns far from the Mongol Empire capital Karakorum.
Genghis Khan expected unwavering loyalty from his generals, and granted
them a great deal of autonomy in making command decisions. Muqali, a
trusted general, was given command of the Mongol forces against the Jin
Dynasty while Genghis Khan was fighting in Central Asia, and Subutai and Jebe were allowed to pursue the Great Raid into the Caucausus and Kievan Rus', an idea they had presented to the Khagan on their own initiative. The Mongol military was also successful in siege warfare,
cutting off resources for cities and towns by diverting certain rivers,
taking enemy prisoners and driving them in front of the army, and
adopting new ideas, techniques and tools from the people they conquered,
particularly in employing Muslim and Chinese siege engines and
engineers to aid the Mongol cavalry in capturing cities. Another
standard tactic of the Mongol military was the commonly practiced feigned retreat to break enemy formations and to lure small enemy groups away from the larger group and defended position for ambush and counterattack.Another important aspect of the military organization of Genghis Khan was the communications and supply route or Yam, adapted from previous Chinese models. Genghis Khan dedicated special attention to this in order to speed up the gathering of military intelligence and official communications. To this end, Yam waystations were established all over the empire.[46] The followers of Temujin consisted of several Christians, three Muslims, and several Buddhists. They were united only in their devotion to Temujin and their oath to him and each other. The oaths sworn at Baljuna created a type of brotherhood, and in transcending kinship, ethnicity, and religion, it came close to being a type of modern civic citizenship based upon personal choice and commitment. This connection became a metaphor for the new type of community among Temujin's followers that eventually dominated as the basis of unity within the Mongol Empire.
Khanates
Several years before his death, Genghis Khan divided his empire among his sons Ögedei, Chagatai, Tolui, and Jochi (Jochi's death several months before Genghis Khan meant that his lands were instead split between his sons, Batu and Orda) into several Khanates designed as sub-territories: their Khans were expected to follow the Great Khan, who was, initially, Ögedei.
Modern day location of capital Kharakhorum
- Empire of the Great Khan: Ögedei Khan, as Great Khan, took most of Eastern Asia, including China; this territory later to comprise the Yuan Dynasty under Kublai Khan.
- Mongol homeland (present day Mongolia, including Karakorum): Tolui Khan, being the youngest son, received a small territory near the Mongol homeland, following Mongol custom.
- Chagatai Khanate: Chagatai Khan, Genghis Khan's second son, was given Central Asia and northern Iran.
- Blue Horde to Batu Khan, and White Horde to Orda Khan, both were later combined into the Kipchak Khanate, or Khanate of the Golden Horde, under Toqtamysh. Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi, had received most of the distant Russia and Ruthenia. Because Jochi died before Genghis Khan, his territory was further split up between his sons. Batu Khan launched an invasion of Russia, and later Hungary and Poland, and crushed several armies before being summoned back by the news of Ögedei's death.
See also: List of Mongol Khans
After Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan's son and successor, Ögedei Khan
Perceptions
Like other notable conquerors, Genghis Khan is portrayed differently by those he conquered and those who conquered with him. Negative views of Genghis Khan persist within histories written by many different cultures, from a number of different geographical regions. They often cite the cruelties and destruction brought upon by Mongol armies, not to mention the systematic slaughter of civilians in the conquered regions; other authors cite positive aspects of Genghis Khan's conquests as well.Positive
Genghis Khan is credited with bringing the Silk Road under one cohesive political environment. This allowed increased communication and trade between the West, Middle East and Asia, thus expanding the horizons of all three cultural areas. Some historians have noted that Genghis Khan instituted certain levels of meritocracy in his rule, was tolerant of different religions and explained his policies clearly to all his soldiers.[47] In Turkey, Genghis Khan is looked on as a great military leader, and it is popular for male children to carry his title as name.[48]In Mongolia
Traditionally Genghis Khan had been revered for centuries among the Mongols, and also among certain other ethnic groups such as the Turks, largely because of his association with Mongol statehood, political and military organization, and his historic victories in war. He eventually evolved into a larger-than-life figure chiefly among the Mongols and is still considered the symbol of Mongolian culture.
Equestrian statue of Genghis Khan, the largest (40 metres tall) in the world, near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
In the early 1990s the memory of Genghis Khan with the Mongolian national identity has had a powerful revival partly because of his perception during the Mongolian People's Republic period. Genghis Khan became one of the central figures of the national identity. He is looked upon positively by Mongolians for his role in uniting various warring tribes. For example, it is not uncommon for Mongolians to refer to Mongolia as "Genghis Khan's Mongolia", to themselves as "Genghis Khan's children", and to Genghis Khan as the "father of the Mongols" especially among the younger generation. However, there is a chasm in the perception of his brutality, Mongolians maintain that the historical records written by non-Mongolians are unfairly biased against Genghis Khan, and that his butchery is exaggerated, while his positive role is underrated.[50]
Genghis Khan on the Mongolian 1,000 tögrög banknote
Genghis Khan is regarded as one of the prominent leaders in Mongolia's history.[53] He is credited with the popular quotation: "it's not how many breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away." used in the 2007 film Hitch starring Will Smith. He is responsible for the emergence of the Mongols as a political and ethnic identity because there was no unified identity between the various tribes that had cultural similarity. He reinforced many Mongol traditions and provided stability and unity during a time of almost endemic warfare between various tribes. He is also given credit for the introduction of the traditional Mongolian script and the creation of the Ikh Zasag, the first written Mongolian law.[54] In summary, Mongolians see him as the fundamental figure in the founding of the Mongol Empire, and therefore the basis for Mongolia as a country.
Mixed
In China
Genghis Khan Monument in Hohhot
China suffered a drastic decline in population.[56] North China (then the most populous part) is thought to have lost about three- quarters of its population. The census of 1195 showed a population of 50 million people in north China [whereas] the first Mongol census of 1235–36 counted only 8.5 million. Admittedly, some of the population decline in Northern China must also be attributed to the large migration to Southern China, but exact figures are hard to find.[57] Within China many people still retain the more traditional view that Genghis Khan was a barbarian invader.
Negative
Main article: Destruction under the Mongol Empire
Invasions like the Battle of Baghdad by his grandson are treated as brutal and are seen negatively in Iraq. This illustration is from a 14th century Jami' al-tawarikh manuscript.
The invasions of Baghdad, Samarkand, Urgench, Kiev, Vladimir among others caused mass murders, such as when portions of southern Khuzestan were completely destroyed. His descendant, Hulagu Khan destroyed much of Iran's northern part and sacked Baghdad although his forces were halted by the Mamluks of Egypt. According to the works of the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the Mongols killed more than 70,000 people in Merv and more than 190,000 in Nishapur. In 1237 Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, launched an invasion into Kievan Rus'. Over the course of three years, the Mongols destroyed and annihilated all of the major cities of Eastern Europe with the exceptions of Novgorod and Pskov.
Giovanni de Plano Carpini, the Pope's envoy to the Mongol Great Khan, traveled through Kiev in February 1246 and wrote:
"They [the Mongols] attacked Rus, where they made great havoc, destroying cities and fortresses and slaughtering men; and they laid siege to Kiev, the capital of Rus; after they had besieged the city for a long time, they took it and put the inhabitants to death. When we were journeying through that land we came across countless skulls and bones of dead men lying about on the ground. Kiev had been a large and heavily populated town, but now it has been reduced almost to nothing, for there are at the present time scarce two hundred houses there and the inhabitants are kept in complete slavery."[61]
The Mongol invasion of Hungary. The dismounted Mongols, with captured women, are on the left, the Hungarians, with one saved woman, on the right.
Although the famous Mughal Emperors were proud descendants of Genghis Khan and particularly Timur, they clearly distanced themselves from the Mongol atrocities committed against the Khwarizim Shahs, Turks, Persians, the citizens of Baghdad and Damascus, Nishapur, Bukhara and historical figures such as Attar of Nishapur and many other notable Muslims. However, Mughal Emperors directly patronized the legacies of Genghis Khan and Timur, together their names were synonymous with the names of other distinguished personalities particularly among the Muslim populations of South Asia.
In much of Russia, Middle East, Korea, China, Ukraine, Poland and Hungary, Genghis Khan and his regime are credited with considerable damage, destruction and loss of population.
Descent
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Main article: Descent from Genghis Khan
Zerjal et al. [2003][19] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage
present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of
the world total). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation
within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in
Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Because the rate of such a spread would
be too rapid to have occurred by genetic drift,
the authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line
descendants of Genghis Khan, and that it has spread through social
selection. In Mongolia alone as many as 200,000 of the country's 2
million people could be Khan descendants.[7] In addition to most of the Mongol nobility up to the 20th century, the Mughal emperor Babur's mother was a descendant. Timur
(also known as Tamerlane), the 14th century military leader, claimed
descent from Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was one of the most powerful
warlords during his reign, as a result the harem that he kept was of
enormous size. It is said that his harem reached anywhere from
2,000–3,000 women.[who?]
There are so many descendants of Genghis Khan not only because of the
size of his harem, but also because of the size of his sons' harems and
that they ruled their own separate kingdoms.Physical appearance
There is some debate[by whom?] as to whether Genghis Khan was fully Mongoloid or mixed Mongoloid/Caucasoid as there is no historical portrait of Genghis Khan.[64] The only piece of evidence attributed to his Caucasoidness was the description from Rashid al-Din that recorded him having red hair and green eyes. However, these traits still exist in some modern Mongols who are predominantly Mongoloid in appearance but have inherited all light hair and light eyes traits such as blue or green eyes and blonde or red hair. A certain number of Mongols, particularly the Oirats in western Mongolia, tend to exhibit lighter features such as fair skin, blue or green eyes, varying shades of brown hair, and sometimes even red or blonde hair.[15] Zerjal et al. identified Genghis Khan's paternal DNA Y-chromosomal lineage to be Haplogroup C3, a common mongoloid marker among Tungusic people, which would make Genghis Khan more likely to be either predominately Mongoloid or at least a Euro-Mongoloid hybrid. Genetic testing of ethnic Mongolians mtDNA in Xinjiang, China were found to have 14.3% west Eurasian mtDNA,[65] which shows a significant amount of Europoid maternal contribution into the Mongolian mtDNA gene pool. Historically, the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang was home to the west Eurasian/Europoid populations.[66]Depictions in modern culture
There have been several films, novels and other adaptation works on the Mongolian ruler.Films
- Genghis Khan, a 1950 Philippine film directed by Manuel Conde.
- Changez Khan, a 1957 Indian film directed by Kedar Kapoor.
- Changez Khan, a 1958 Pakistani film.
- The Conqueror, released in 1956 and starring John Wayne as Temüjin and Susan Hayward as Börte.
- Genghis Khan (1965 film) starring Omar Sharif.
- Under The Eternal Blue Sky a Mongolian film directed by Baljinnyam released in 1990.
- Genghis Khan (1992 film) starring Richard Tyson, Charlton Heston and Pat Morita.
- Genghis Khan - A Proud Son Of Heaven (1998 film), made in Mongolian, with English subtitles.
- Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea, also known as The Descendant of Gray Wolf, a Japanese-Mongolian film released in 2007.
- Mongol, a film by Sergei Bodrov released in 2007. (Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film).
- No Right to Die - Chinggis Khaan, a Mongolian film released in 2008.
- By the Will of Genghis Khan, a Russian film released in 2009.
TV series
| Year | Production | Lead actor | Additional information |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | TVB (Hong Kong) | Alex Man | see Genghis Khan (TVB) |
| 1987 | ATV (Hong Kong) | Tony Liu | 20 episodes |
| 2004 | China | Ba Sen | see Genghis Khan (2004 TV series) |
Novels
- Jenghiz Khan and Batu Khan by Vasili Yan, trans. L. E. Britton, publisher. Hutchinson
- The Conqueror series of novels by Conn Iggulden
- Steppe by Piers Anthony
- Jenghiz Khan translated in Telugu (Indian language) by Thenneti Suri
Short stories
Music
- West German pop band Dschinghis Khan took its name from Genghis Khan. They participated in the Eurovision contest of 1979 with a song of the same name.
Video games
- Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
- Aoki Ookami to Shiroki Mejika IV: Genghis Khan
- Sid Meier's Civilization Series
- Genghis Khan (video game)
- Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf
- Cengiz Han II: Demir Yumruk (Turkish MMORPG)[67]
Name and title
There are many theories about the origins of Temüjin's title. Since people of the Mongol nation later associated the name with ching (Mongolian for strength), such confusion is obvious, though it does not follow etymology.One theory suggests the name stems from a palatalised version of the Mongolian and Turkic word tenggis, meaning "ocean", "oceanic" or "wide-spreading". (Lake Baikal and ocean were called tenggis by the Mongols. However, it seems that if they had meant to call Genghis tenggis they could have said, and written, "Tenggis Khan", which they did not.) Zhèng (Chinese: 正) meaning "right", "just", or "true", would have received the Mongolian adjectival modifier -s, creating "Jenggis", which in medieval romanization would be written "Genghis". It is likely that the 13th century Mongolian pronunciation would have closely matched "Chinggis".[68]
The English spelling "Genghis" is of unclear origin. Weatherford claims it derives from a spelling used in original Persian reports. Even at this time some Iranians pronounce his name as "Ghengiss". However, review of historical Persian sources does not confirm this.[69]
According to the Secret History of the Mongols, Temüjin was named after a powerful warrior of the Tatar tribe that his father Yesügei had taken prisoner. The name "Temüjin" is believed to derive from the word temür, meaning iron (modern Mongolian: төмөр, tömör). The name would imply skill as a blacksmith.
More likely, as no evidence has survived to indicate that Genghis Khan had any exceptional training or reputation as a blacksmith, the name indicated an implied lineage in a family once known as blacksmiths. The latter interpretation is supported by the names of Genghis Khan's siblings, Temülin and Temüge, which are derived from the same root word.
Monument in Hulunbuir
Name and spelling variations
Genghis Khan's name is spelled in variety of ways in different languages such as English Chinghiz, Chinghis, and Chingiz, Chinese: 成吉思汗; pinyin: Chéngjísī Hán, Turkic: Cengiz Han, Çingiz Xan, Çingiz Han, Chingizxon, Çıñğız Xan, Chengez Khan, Chinggis Khan, Chinggis Xaan, Chingis Khan, Jenghis Khan, Chinggis Qan, Djingis Kahn, Russian: Чингисхан (Čingiskhan) or Чингиз-хан (Čingiz-khan), etc. Temüjin is written in Chinese as simplified Chinese: 铁木真; traditional Chinese: 鐵木眞; pinyin: Tiěmùzhēn.When Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, he had his grandfather Genghis Khan placed on the official record as the founder of the dynasty or Taizu (Chinese: 太祖). Thus, Genghis Khan is also referred to as Yuan Taizu (Chinese: 元太祖) in Chinese historiography.
Timeline
- Probably 1155, 1162, or 1167: Temüjin was born in the Khentii mountains.
- At the age of nine, Temüjin's father Yesükhei was poisoned by Tatars, leaving him and his family destitute.
- c. 1184: Temüjin's wife Börte was kidnapped by Merkits; he called on blood brother Jamukha and Wang Khan for aid, and they rescued her.
- c. 1185: First son Jochi was born; leading to doubt about his paternity later among Genghis' children, because he was born shortly after Börte's rescue from the Merkits.
- 1190: Temüjin united the Mongol tribes, became leader, and devised code of law Yassa.
- 1201: Victory over Jamukha's Jadarans.
- 1202: Adopted as Wang Khan's heir after successful campaigns against Tatars.
- 1203: Victory over Wang Khan's Keraits. Wang Khan himself is killed by accident by allied Naimans.
- 1204: Victory over Naimans (all these confederations are united and become the Mongols).
- 1206: Jamukha was killed. Temüjin was given the title Genghis Khan by his followers in a Kurultai (around 40 years of age).
- 1207–1210: Genghis led operations against the Western Xia, which comprises much of northwestern China and parts of Tibet. Western Xia ruler submitted to Genghis Khan. During this period, the Uyghurs also submitted peacefully to the Mongols and became valued administrators throughout the empire.
- 1211: After the kurultai, Genghis led his armies against the Jin Dynasty ruling northern China.
- 1215: Beijing fell; Genghis Khan turned to west and the Khara-Kitan Khanate.
- 1219–1222: Conquered Khwarezmid Empire.
- 1226: Started the campaign against the Western Xia for forming coalition against the Mongols, the second battle with the Western Xia.
- 1227: Genghis Khan died after conquering the Tangut people. Cause of death is uncertain, although legend states that he was thrown off his horse in the battle and contracted a deadly fever soon after.
Notes
- ^ Chinese: 成吉思汗; pinyin: Chéng Jí Sī Hán
Birth name:
Temujin /təˈmuːdʒɪn/;
Mongolian: Тэмүжин Temujin [tʰemutʃiŋ] (
listen);
Middle Mongolian: Temujin;[1]
traditional Chinese: 鐵木真; simplified Chinese: 铁木真; pinyin: Tiě mù zhēn
Footnotes
- ^ Central Asiatic Journal (O. Harrassowitz) 5: 239. 1959. http://books.google.com/books?id=PjjjAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved July 29, 2011.
- ^ a b Rashid al-Din asserts that Genghis Khan was born in 1155, while the Yuanshi (元史, History of the Yuan dynasty records his year of birth as 1162. According to Ratchnevsky, accepting a birth in 1155 would render Genghis Khan a father at the age of 30 and would imply that he personally commanded the expedition against the Tanguts at the age of 72. Also, according to the Altan Tobci, Genghis Khan's sister, Temülin, was nine years younger than he; but the Secret History relates that Temülin was an infant during the attack by the Merkits, during which Genghis Khan would have been 18, had he been born in 1155. Zhao Hong reports in his travelogue that the Mongols he questioned did not know and had never known their ages.
- ^ Ratchnevsky, Paul (1991). Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Blackwell Publishing. p. 142. ISBN 0-631-16785-4. "It is possible, however, to say with certainty that Genghis Khan died in August 1227; only in specifying the actual day of his death do our sources disagree."
- ^ "Genghis Khan". Webster's New World College Dictionary. Wiley Publishing. 2004. Retrieved July 29, 2011.
- ^ "Genghis Khan". Oxford Dictionaries Online. Oxford University Press. 2011. Retrieved July 29, 2011.
- ^ John Joseph Saunders The History of the Mongol Conquests
- ^ a b Ian Jeffries (2007). Mongolia: a guide to economic and political developments. Taylor & Francis. pp. 5–7. ISBN 0-415-42545-X
- ^ "Genghis Khan". North Georgia College and State University. Retrieved January 26, 2010.
- ^ Ratchnevsky, Paul (1991). Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 9–10. ISBN 0-631-16785-4.
- ^ Morgan, David (1990). The Mongols (Peoples of Europe). p. 58.
- ^ Guida Myrl Jackson-Laufer, Guida M. Jackson Encyclopedia of traditional epics, p. 527
- ^ Paul Kahn, Francis Woodman Cleaves The secret history of the Mongols, p.192
- ^ "THE MONGOLS — PART I". Republican China. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
- ^ Iconographic encyclopaedia of science, literature, and art, Volume 2
- ^ a b "Eurasian Women Warriors and Priestesses". Csen.org. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Camilla Trever, Excavations in Northern Mongolia (1924–1925), Leningrad: J. Fedorov Printing House, 1932
- ^ Ancient bronzes, ceramics, and seals: the Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection of ancient Near Eastern, central Asiatic, and European art, gift of the Ahmanson Foundation [2]
- ^ a b c Zerjal, et el.; Xue, Y; Bertorelle, G; Wells, RS; Bao, W; Zhu, S; Qamar, R; Ayub, Q et al. (2003). "The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols". The American Journal of Human Genetics 72 (3): 717–721. doi:10.1086/367774. PMC 1180246. PMID 12592608. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
- ^ "The Emperors of Emperors". California State University. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
- ^ "Genghis Khan Biography (1162/7)". The Biography Channel. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
- ^ Weatherford, Jack (2010). The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire. New York: Crown Publishing Group. pp. xiii, 2.
- ^ a b Weatherford, Jack (2004). Genghis Khan: War of the Khans. New York: Random House, Inc. p. 63.
- ^ Eskildsen, Stephen (2004). The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters. SUNY Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-7914-6045-0.
- ^ Grousset, Rene (1944). Conqueror of the World: The Life of Chingis-khagan. New York: Viking Press.
- ^ Weatherford, Jack (2004). "2: Tale of Three Rivers". Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Three Rivers Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-609-80964-4.
- ^ a b Man, John (2004). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. London; New York: Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05044-4.
- ^ a b "Central Asian world cities", University of Washington.
- ^ Morgan, David (1986). The Mongols. The Peoples of Europe. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-17563-6.
- ^ De Hartog, Leo (1988). Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World. London, UK: I. B. Tauris. pp. 122–123.
- ^ CHRISTOPHER HUDSON (May 22, 2007). "Genghis Khan: The daddy of all lovers". Daily Mail. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
- ^ Rolf Potts (Tuesday, Nov 9, 1999). "Horse races, open spaces and the fate of Genghis Khan's balls". Salon.com. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
- ^ Lynn Pan (1985). Into China's heart: an emigré's journey along the Yellow River (illustrated ed.). Weatherhill. p. 267. ISBN 0-8348-0205-8. Retrieved January 9, 2011.(Original from the University of Michigan)
- ^ Allan D. Cooper (2009). The geography of genocide. University Press of America. p. 255. ISBN 0-7618-4097-4. Retrieved January 9, 2011.
- ^ Československá spolećnost orientalistická (1960). New Orient, Volumes 1–3. Czechoslovak Society for Eastern Studies. p. iv. Retrieved January 9, 2011.(Original from the University of Michigan)
- ^ John Man (2007). Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection (reprint, illustrated ed.). Macmillan. p. 400. ISBN 0-312-36624-8. Retrieved January 9, 2011.
- ^ John DeFrancis (1993). In the footsteps of Genghis Khan (illustrated ed.). University of Hawaii Press. p. 284. ISBN 0-8248-1493-2. Retrieved January 11, 2011.
- ^ Ratchnevsky 1991, p. 126
- ^ Ratchnevsky 1991, pp. 136–7
- ^ Haenisch, Erich (1948). Die Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen. Leipzig. pp. 133, 136.
- ^ Heissig, Walther (1964). Die Mongolen. Ein Volk sucht seine Geschichte. Düsseldorf. p. 124.
- ^ Man (2004), pp. 329–333.
- ^ Man (2004), p. 338.
- ^ "Palace of Genghis Khan unearthed". BBC. October 7, 2004. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
- ^ Pocha, Jehangir S. (May 10, 2005). "Mongolia sees Genghis Khan's good side". International Herald Tribune. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
- ^ Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan: War of the Khans (New York: Random House, Inc., 2004), 58
- ^ Clive Foss, The Tyrants, page 57, Quercus, London, 2007.
- ^ "Ismi Didikle" (in Turkish). Ismi Didikle. Retrieved May 5, 2008.
- ^ Christopher Kaplonski: The case of the disappearing Chinggis Khaan.
- ^ Griffiths, Daniel (January 11, 2007). "Asia-Pacific | Post-communist Mongolia's struggle.". BBC News. Retrieved August 3, 2009.
- ^ Once Shunned, Genghis Khan Conquers Mongolia Again.
- ^ "Business | Genghis Khan may get protection.". BBC News. October 6, 2006. Retrieved August 3, 2009.
- ^ "ASIA-PACIFIC | Mongolia glorifies Genghis Khan.". BBC News. May 3, 2002. Retrieved August 3, 2009.
- ^ "The Yasa of Chingis Khan". Retrieved February 16, 2010.
- ^ Inner Mongolia Travel Guide.
- ^ William Bonner, Addison Wiggin (2006). "Empire of debt: the rise of an epic financial crisis". John Wiley and Sons. pp.43–44. ISBN 0-471-73902-2
- ^ Graziella Caselli, Gillaume Wunsch, Jacques Vallin (2005). "Demography: Analysis and Synthesis, Four Volume Set: A Treatise in Population". Academic Press. p.34. ISBN 0-12-765660-X
- ^ "The Legacy of Genghis Khan" at Los Angeles County Museum of Art—again.
- ^ R. Ward, Steven (2009). Immortal: a military history of Iran and its armed forces. Georgetown University Press. p. 39. ISBN 1-58901-258-5.
- ^ Genetics: Analysis Of Genes And Genomes by Daniel L. Hartl, Elizabeth W. Jones, p. 309.
- ^ The Destruction of Kiev
- ^ Phoenix From the Ashes: A Tale of the Book in Iran
- ^ "ivilizations: How we see others, how others see us".
- ^ http://thegenghiskhan.wordpress.com/
- ^ "Different Matrilineal Contributions to Genetic Structure of Ethnic Groups in the Silk Road Region in China". Mbe.oxfordjournals.org. 2004-08-18. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- ^ Saiget, Robert J. (April 19, 2005). "Caucasians preceded East Asians in basin". The Washington Times (News World Communications). Archived from the original on April 20, 2005. Retrieved August 20, 2007. "After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proved that Caucasians roamed China's Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived."
- ^ "Joy Game / Cengiz Han 2 MMORPG Game.
- ^ Lister, R. P. (2000 [c1969]). Genghis Khan. Lanham, Maryland: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0-8154-1052-2.
- ^ Timothy May. "Book Review". North Georgia College and State University. Retrieved February 20, 2008.
References
- Ratchnevsky, Paul (1992, c1991). Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy [Čingis-Khan: sein Leben und Wirken]. tr. & ed. Thomas Nivison Haining. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts, US: B. Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-16785-4.
- Man, John (2004). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. Bantam Press, London. ISBN 978-0-553-81498-9.
Further reading
- Brent, Peter (1976). The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan: His Triumph and His Legacy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. ISBN 0-297-77137-X.
- Bretschneider, Emilii (1888, repr. 2001). Mediæval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources; Fragments Towards the Knowledge of the Geography & History of Central & Western Asia. Trübner's Oriental Series. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co (repr. Munshirm Manoharlal Pub Pvt Ltd). ISBN 81-215-1003-1.
- Cable, Mildred; Francesca French (1943). The Gobi Desert. London: Landsborough Publications.
- Chapin, David (2012). Long Lines: Ten of the World's Longest Continuous Family Lineages. College Station, Texas: VirtualBookWorm.com. ISBN 978-1-60264-933.
- Charney, Israel W. (ed.) (1994). Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. New York: Facts on File Publications.
- De Hartog, Leo (1988). Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd..
- (French) Farale, Dominique (2002). De Gengis Khan à Qoubilaï Khan : la grande chevauchée mongole. Campagnes & stratégies. Paris: Economica. ISBN 2-7178-4537-2.
- (French) Farale, Dominique (2007). La Russie et les Turco-Mongols : 15 siècles de guerre. Paris: Economica. ISBN 978-2-7178-5429-9.
- "Genghis Khan". Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. World Almanac Education Group. 2005. Archived from the original on January 13, 2006. Retrieved May 22, 2008. Via the Internet Archive's copy of the History Channel Web site.
- Smitha, Frank E. "Genghis Khan and the Mongols". Macrohistory and World Report. Retrieved June 30, 2005.
- Kahn, Paul (adaptor) (1998). Secret History of the Mongols: The Origin of Chingis Khan (expanded edition): An Adaptation of the Yüan chʾao pi shih, Based Primarily on the English Translation by Francis Woodman Cleaves. Asian Culture Series. Boston: Cheng & Tsui Co.. ISBN 0-88727-299-1.
- Kennedy, Hugh (2002). Mongols, Huns & Vikings. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-35292-6.
- Kradin, Nikolay; Tatiana Skrynnikova (2006). Imperiia Chingis-khana (Chinggis Khan Empire). Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura. ISBN 5-02-018521-3. (Russian) (summary in English)
- Kradin, Nikolay; Tatiana Skrynnikova (2006). "Why do we call Chinggis Khan's Polity 'an Empire'". Ab Imperio 7 (1): 89–118. 5-89423-110-8.
- Lamb, Harold (1927). Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men. New York: R. M. McBride & company.
- Lister, R. P. (2000 [c1969]). Genghis Khan. Lanham, Maryland: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0-8154-1052-2.
- Man, John (2004). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. London; New York: Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05044-4.
- Man, John (1997, 1998, 1999). Gobi: Tracking the Desert. London; New Haven, Conn: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Yale University Press. ISBN 0-7538-0161-2.
- Martin, Henry Desmond (1950). The Rise of Chingis Khan and his Conquest of North China. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
- May, Timothy (2001). "Mongol Arms". Explorations in Empire: Pre-Modern Imperialism Tutorial: The Mongols. San Antonio College History Department. Retrieved May 22, 2008.
- Morgan, David (1986). The Mongols. The Peoples of Europe. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-17563-6.
- Saunders, J.J. (1972, repr. 2001). History of the Mongol Conquests. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1766-7.
- Stevens, Keith. "Heirs to Discord: The Supratribal Aspirations of Jamukha, Toghrul, and Temüjin" PDF (72.1 KB) Retrieved May 22, 2008.
- Stewart, Stanley (2001). In the Empire of Genghis Khan: A Journey among Nomads. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-653027-3.
- Turnbull, Stephen (2003). Genghis Khan & the Mongol Conquests 1190–1400. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-523-6.
- Valentino, Benjamin A. (2004). Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3965-5.
- Weatherford, Jack (2004). Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (review). New York: Crown. ISBN 0-609-61062-7.
- Zerjal, Xue, Bertorelle, Wells, Bao, Zhu, Qamar, Ayub, Mohyuddin, Fu, Li, Yuldasheva, Ruzibakiev, Xu, Shu, Du, Yang, Hurles, Robinson, Gerelsaikhan, Dashnyam, Mehdi, Tyler-Smith (2003). "The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols" ( – Scholar search). The American Journal of Human Genetics 72 (3): 717–721;. doi:10.1086/367774. PMC 1180246. PMID 12592608.[dead link]
Primary sources
- Juvaynī, Alā al-Dīn Atā Malik, 1226–1283 (1997). Genghis Khan: The History of the World-Conqueror [Tarīkh-i jahāngushā]. tr. John Andrew Boyle. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97654-3.
- Juvaini, 'ala-ad-Din 'Ata-Malik (1958). History of the World-Conqueror. tr. John Andrew Boyle. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 361. Retrieved 2012-04-16.
- Rashid al-Din Tabib (1995). A Compendium of Chronicles: Rashid al-Din's Illustrated History of the World Jami' al-Tawarikh. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, Vol. XXVII. Sheila S. Blair (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-727627-X.
- Rashid al-Din Tabib (1971). The Successors of Genghis Khan (extracts from Jami’ Al-Tawarikh). UNESCO Collection of Representative Works: Persian heritage series. tr. from the Persian by John Andrew Boyle. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-03351-6.
- The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century [Yuan chao bi shi]. Brill's Inner Asian Library vol. 7. tr. Igor de Rachewiltz. Leiden; Boston: Brill. 2004. ISBN 90-04-13159-0.
But it had too much data. But I still loved it. The rating of this new movie was 10.11 on IMDB. So I got jealous so I wanted to make my own move. But this time I gave it a rating PG-13. So teenagers and adults would rate it. So I made my movie. It was black and white. I made a WW-I movie. Because most of the people made WW-II movie. Here is the WW-I story:
World War I
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the major war of 1914–1918. For other uses, see World War One (disambiguation) and Great War (disambiguation).
"WW1" and "WWI" redirect here. For the album by White Whale, see WWI (album).
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Long-term causes of the war included the imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, including the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, the French Republic, and Italy. The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by a Yugoslav nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia was the proximate trigger of the war. It resulted in a Habsburg ultimatum against the Kingdom of Serbia.[10][11] Several alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked, so, within weeks, the major powers were at war; via their colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.
On 28 July, the conflict opened with the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia,[12][13] followed by the German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg and France; and a Russian attack against Germany. After the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917. In the East, the Russian army successfully fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces, but was forced back from East Prussia and Poland by the German army. Additional fronts opened after the Ottoman Empire joined the war in 1914, Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Romania in 1916. The Russian Empire collapsed in March 1917, and Russia left the war after the October Revolution later that year. After a 1918 German offensive along the western front, the Allies drove back the German armies in a series of successful offensives and United States forces began entering the trenches. Germany, which had its own trouble with revolutionaries at this point, agreed to a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day. The war had ended in victory for the Allies.
Events on the home fronts were as tumultuous as on the battle fronts, as the participants tried to mobilize their manpower and economic resources to fight a total war. By the end of the war, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires—ceased to exist. The successor states of the former two lost a great amount of territory, while the latter two were dismantled entirely. The map of central Europe was redrawn into several smaller states.[14] The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war and the breakup of empires, the repercussions of Germany's defeat and problems with the Treaty of Versailles are agreed to be factors contributing to World War II.[15]
Names
In Canada, Maclean's Magazine in October 1914 said, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War."[16] A history of the origins and early months of the war published in New York in late 1914 was titled The World War.[17] During the Interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries.After the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the terms World War I or the First World War became standard, with British and Canadian historians favouring the First World War, and Americans World War I. Both of these terms had also been used during the Interwar period. The term "First World War" was first used in September 1914 by the German philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word."[18] The First World War was also the title of a 1920 history by the officer and journalist Charles à Court Repington.
Background
Main article: Causes of World War I
Map of the participants in World War I: Allied Powers in green, Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey
After 1870, European conflict was averted largely through a carefully planned network of treaties between the German Empire and the remainder of Europe orchestrated by Bismarck. He especially worked to hold Russia at Germany's side to avoid a two-front war with France and Russia. When Wilhelm II ascended to the throne as German Emperor (Kaiser), Bismarck was compelled to retire and his system of alliances was gradually de-emphasised. For example, the Kaiser refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1890. Two years later, the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. In 1904, the United Kingdom signed a series of agreements with France, the Entente Cordiale, and in 1907, the United Kingdom and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention. While these agreements did not formally ally the United Kingdom with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia probable, and the system of interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the Triple Entente.[6]
German industrial and economic power had grown greatly after unification and the foundation of the Empire in 1871. From the mid-1890s on, the government of Wilhelm II used this base to devote significant economic resources for building up the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy), established by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, in rivalry with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy.[20] As a result, each nation strove to out-build the other in terms of capital ships. With the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German rival.[20] The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to producing the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict.[21] Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50 percent.[22]
Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, was arrested immediately after he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
In 1912 and 1913, the First Balkan War was fought between the Balkan League and the fracturing Ottoman Empire. The resulting Treaty of London further shrank the Ottoman Empire, creating an independent Albanian State while enlarging the territorial holdings of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. When Bulgaria attacked both Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913, it lost most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece and Southern Dobruja to Romania in the 33-day Second Balkan War, further destabilising the region.[24]
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student and member of Young Bosnia, assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia.[25] This began a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain called the July Crisis. Wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia, Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands intentionally made unacceptable, intending to provoke a war with Serbia.[26] When Serbia agreed to only eight of the ten demands, Austria-Hungary declared war on 28 July 1914. Strachan argues, "Whether an equivocal and early response by Serbia would have made any difference to Austria-Hungary's behaviour must be doubtful. Franz Ferdinand was not the sort of personality who commanded popularity, and his demise did not cast the empire into deepest mourning".[27]
The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria–Hungary to eliminate its influence in the Balkans, and in support of its longtime Serb protégés, ordered a partial mobilisation one day later.[19] The German Empire mobilized on 30 July 1914, ready to apply the "Schlieffen Plan", which planned a quick, massive invasion of France to eliminate the French army, then to turn east against Russia. The French cabinet resisted military pressure to commence immediate mobilisation, and ordered its troops to withdraw 10 km from the border to avoid any incident. France only mobilized on the evening of 2 August, when Germany invaded Belgium and attacked French troops. Germany declared war on Russia on the same day.[28] The United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.[29]
Theatres of conflict
Opening hostilities
Confusion among the Central Powers
The strategy of the Central Powers suffered from miscommunication. Germany had promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but the replacements had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia.[30] Germany, however, envisioned Austria-Hungary directing most of its troops against Russia, while Germany dealt with France. This confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian Army to divide its forces between the Russian and Serbian fronts.On 9 September 1914, the Septemberprogramm, a possible plan that detailed Germany's specific war aims and the conditions that Germany sought to force on the Allied Powers, was outlined by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. It was never officially adopted.
African campaigns
Main article: African theatre of World War I
Some of the first clashes of the war involved British, French, and
German colonial forces in Africa. On 7 August, French and British troops
invaded the German protectorate of Togoland. On 10 August, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa, led by Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, fought a guerrilla warfare campaign during World War I and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe.[31]Serbian campaign
Main article: Serbian Campaign (World War I)
Serbian artillery positions in the Battle of Kolubara.
German forces in Belgium and France
Main article: Western Front (World War I)
At the outbreak of the First World War, the German army (consisting in the West of seven field armies) carried out a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan.
This marched German armies through neutral Belgium and into France,
before turning southwards to encircle the French army on the German
border.[10]
Since France had declared that it would "keep full freedom of acting in
case of a war between Germany and Russia", Germany had to expect the
possibility of an attack by France on one front and by Russia on the
other. To meet such a scenario, the Schlieffen Plan stated that Germany
must try to defeat France quickly (as had happened in the Franco-Prussian War
of 1870-71). It further suggested that to repeat a fast victory in the
west, Germany should not attack through the difficult terrain of
Alsace-Lorraine (which had a direct border west of the river Rhine),
instead, the idea was to try to quickly cut Paris off from the English
Channel and British assistance, and take Paris, thus winning the war.
Then the armies would be moved over to the east to meet Russia. Russia
was believed to need a long period of mobilization before they could become a real threat to the Central Powers.The only existing German plan for a two-front war had German armies marching through Belgium. Germany wanted free escort through Belgium (and originally Holland as well, which plan Kaiser Wilhelm II rejected) to invade France. Neutral Belgium rejected this idea, so the Germans decided to invade through Belgium instead. France also wanted to move their troops into Belgium, but Belgium originally rejected this "suggestion" as well, in the hope of avoiding any war on Belgian soil. In the end, after the German invasion, Belgium did try to join their army with the French (but a large part of the Belgian army retreated to Antwerp where they were forced to surrender when all hope of help was gone).
The plan called for the right flank of the German advance to bypass the French armies (which were concentrated on the Franco-German border, leaving the Belgian border without significant French forces) and move south to Paris. Initially the Germans were successful, particularly in the Battle of the Frontiers (14–24 August). By 12 September, the French, with assistance from the British forces, halted the German advance east of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September), and pushed the German forces back some 50 km. The last days of this battle signified the end of mobile warfare in the west.[10] The French offensive into Southern Alsace, launched on 20 August with the Battle of Mulhouse, had limited success.
In the east, the Russians invaded with two armies, surprising the German staff who had not expected the Russians to move so early. A field army, the 8th, was rapidly moved from its previous role as reserve for the invasion of France, to East Prussia by rail across the German Empire. This army, led by general Paul von Hindenburg defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September). But the failed Russian invasion, causing the fresh German troops to move to the east, allowed the tactical Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne. The Central Powers were denied a quick victory in France and forced to fight a war on two fronts. The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of early victory.[34]
Asia and the Pacific
Main article: Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
Men in Melbourne collecting recruitment papers, 1914.
Western Front
Main article: Western Front (World War I)
Trench warfare begins (1914–1915)
Military tactics before World War I had failed to keep pace with advances in technology. These advances allowed for impressive defence systems, which out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances. Artillery, vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground extremely difficult.[37] The Germans introduced poison gas; it soon became used by both sides, though it never proved decisive in winning a battle. Its effects were brutal, causing slow and painful death, and poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war.[38] Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as the tank.[39]After the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914), both Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking manoeuvres, in the so-called "Race to the Sea". Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German forces from Lorraine to Belgium's coast.[10] Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended the occupied territories. Consequently, German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy; Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be "temporary" before their forces broke through German defences.[40]
In the trenches: Royal Irish Rifles in a communications trench on the first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916.
Trench warfare continues (1916–1917)
Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years. Around 1.1 to 1.2 million soldiers from the British and Dominion armies were on the Western Front at any one time.[42] A thousand battalions, occupying sectors of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway. The front contained over 9,600 kilometres (5,965 mi) of trenches. Each battalion held its sector for about a week before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas.
Officers and senior enlisted men of the Bermuda Militia Artillery's Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, in Europe.
On 1 July 1916, the British Army endured the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Most of the casualties occurred in the first hour of the attack. The entire Somme offensive cost the British Army almost half a million men.[43]
A battleship squadron of the Hochseeflotte at sea
Tactically, German commander Erich Ludendorff's doctrine of "elastic defence" was well suited for trench warfare. This defence had a lightly defended forward position and a more powerful main position farther back beyond artillery range, from which an immediate and powerful counter-offensive could be launched.[46][47]
Ludendorff wrote on the fighting in 1917,
On the battle of the Menin Road Ridge, Ludendorff wrote,The 25th of August concluded the second phase of the Flanders battle. It had cost us heavily ... The costly August battles in Flanders and at Verdun imposed a heavy strain on the Western troops. In spite of all the concrete protection they seemed more or less powerless under the enormous weight of the enemy's artillery. At some points they no longer displayed the firmness which I, in common with the local commanders, had hoped for. The enemy managed to adapt himself to our method of employing counter attacks ... I myself was being put to a terrible strain. The state of affairs in the West appeared to prevent the execution of our plans elsewhere. Our wastage had been so high as to cause grave misgivings, and had exceeded all expectation.[48]
In the 1917 Battle of Arras, the only significant British military success was the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie and Julian Byng. The assaulting troops could – for the first time – overrun, rapidly reinforce, and hold the ridge defending the coal-rich Douai plain.[50][51]Another terrific assault was made on our lines on the 20 September ... The enemy's onslaught on the 20th was successful, which proved the superiority of the attack over the defence. Its strength did not consist in the tanks; we found them inconvenient, but put them out of action all the same. The power of the attack lay in the artillery, and in the fact that ours did not do enough damage to the hostile infantry as they were assembling, and above all, at the actual time of the assault.[49]
Main article: Naval warfare of World War I
At the start of the war, the German Empire had cruisers scattered across the globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping. The British Royal Navy
systematically hunted them down, though not without some embarrassment
from its inability to protect Allied shipping. For example, the German
detached light cruiser SMS Emden,
part of the East-Asia squadron stationed at Tsingtao, seized or
destroyed 15 merchantmen, as well as sinking a Russian cruiser and a
French destroyer. However, most of the German East-Asia squadron—consisting of the armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, light cruisers Nürnberg and Leipzig
and two transport ships—did not have orders to raid shipping and was
instead underway to Germany when it met British warships. The German
flotilla and Dresden sank two armoured cruisers at the Battle of Coronel, but was almost destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, with only Dresden and a few auxiliaries escaping, but at the Battle of Más a Tierra these too were destroyed or interned.[52]Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany. The strategy proved effective, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies, although this blockade violated accepted international law codified by several international agreements of the past two centuries.[53] Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships.[54] Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.[55]
The 1916 Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht, or "Battle of the Skagerrak") developed into the largest naval battle of the war, the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history. It took place on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in the North Sea off Jutland. The Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, squared off against the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, led by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The engagement was a stand off, as the Germans, outmanoeuvred by the larger British fleet, managed to escape and inflicted more damage to the British fleet than they received. Strategically, however, the British asserted their control of the sea, and the bulk of the German surface fleet remained confined to port for the duration of the war.[56]
German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain.[57] The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival.[57][58] The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond the protection of the "cruiser rules", which demanded warning and placing crews in "a place of safety" (a standard that lifeboats did not meet).[59] Finally, in early 1917, Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, realising that the Americans would eventually enter the war.[57][60] Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the U.S. could transport a large army overseas, but could maintain only five long-range U-boats on station, to limited effect.[57]
U-155 exhibited near Tower Bridge in London after the First World War.
World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol.[63]
Southern theatres
War in the Balkans
Main articles: Balkans Campaign (World War I), Serbian Campaign (World War I), and Macedonian front (World War I)
Austro-Hungarian troops executing captured Serbians. Serbia lost about
850,000 people during the war, a quarter of its pre-war population.[64]
Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month, as the Central Powers, now including Bulgaria, sent in 600,000 troops. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into northern Albania (which they had invaded at the beginning of the war[dubious ]). The Serbs suffered defeat in the Battle of Kosovo. Montenegro covered the Serbian retreat towards the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac in 6–7 January 1916, but ultimately the Austrians conquered Montenegro, too. The 70,000 surviving Serbian soldiers were evacuated by ship to Greece.[66]
In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece, to offer assistance and to pressure the government to declare war against the Central Powers. Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force could arrive.[67] The friction between the King of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the National Schism, which effectively divided Greece between regions still loyal to the king and the new provisional government of Venizelos in Salonica. After intensive diplomatic negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Allied and royalist forces (an incident known as Noemvriana), the King of Greece resigned, and his second son Alexander took his place. Venizelos returned to Athens on 29 May 1917 and Greece, now unified, officially joined the war on the side of the Allies. The entire Greek army was mobilized and began to participate in military operations against the Central Powers on the Macedonian front.
After conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. In 1917, the Serbs launched the Toplica Uprising and, for a short time, liberated the area between the Kopaonik mountains and the South Morava river. The uprising was crushed by the joint effort of Bulgarian and Austrian forces at the end of March 1917.
In the beginning, the Macedonian Front was mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on 19 November 1916 following the costly Monastir Offensive, which brought stabilization of the front.
Serbian and French troops finally made a breakthrough, after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had withdrawn. This breakthrough was significant in defeating Bulgaria and Austro-Hungary, which led to the final victory of WWI. The Bulgarians suffered their only defeat of the war at the Battle of Dobro Pole, but, days later, they decisively defeated British and Greek forces at the Battle of Doiran, avoiding occupation. After the Serbian breakthrough of Bulgarian lines, Bulgaria capitulated on 29 September 1918.[68] Hindenburg and Ludendorff concluded that the strategic and operational balance had now shifted decidedly against the Central Powers and a day after the Bulgarian collapse, during a meeting with government officials, insisted on an immediate peace settlement.[69]
The disappearance of the Macedonian front meant that the road to Budapest and Vienna was now opened for the 670,000-strong army of general Franchet d'Esperey as the Bulgarian surrender deprived the Central Powers of the 278 infantry battalions and 1,500 guns (the equivalent of some 25 to 30 German divisions) that were previously holding the line.[70] The German high command responded by sending only seven infantry and one cavalry division, but these forces were far to weak too reestablish a front.[70]
Ottoman Empire
Main article: Middle Eastern theatre of World War I
The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in the war, the secret Ottoman-German Alliance having been signed in August 1914.[71] It threatened Russia's Caucasian territories and Britain's communications with India via the Suez Canal. The British and French opened overseas fronts with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns. In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French, and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs). In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Imperial forces reorganised and captured Baghdad in March 1917.
Main article: Sinai and Palestine Campaign
Further to the west, the Suez Canal was successfully defended from Ottoman attacks in 1915 and 1916; in August, a joint German and Ottoman force was defeated at the Battle of Romani by the Anzac Mounted and the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Divisions. Following this victory, a British Empire Egyptian Expeditionary Force advanced across the Sinai Peninsula, pushing Ottoman forces back in the Battle of Magdhaba in December and the Battle of Rafa on the border between the Egyptian Sinai and Ottoman Palestine in January 1917.Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Ottoman armed forces, was ambitious and dreamed of re-conquering central Asia and areas that had been lost to Russia previously. He was, however, a poor commander.[72] He launched an offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus in December 1914 with 100,000 troops; insisting on a frontal attack against mountainous Russian positions in winter, he lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamish.[73]
General Yudenich, the Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, drove the Turks out of most of the southern Caucasus with a string of victories.[73] In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed command of the Caucasus front. Nicholas planned a railway from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories, so that fresh supplies could be brought up for a new offensive in 1917. However, in March 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian Caucasus Army began to fall apart.
Instigated by the Arab bureau of the British Foreign Office, the Arab Revolt started with the help of Britain in June 1916 at the Battle of Mecca, led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca, and ended with the Ottoman surrender of Damascus. Fakhri Pasha, the Ottoman commander of Medina, resisted for more than two and half years during the Siege of Medina.[74]
Along the border of Italian Libya and British Egypt, the Senussi tribe, incited and armed by the Turks, waged a small-scale guerrilla war against Allied troops. The British were forced to dispatch 12,000 troops to oppose them in the Senussi Campaign. Their rebellion was finally crushed in mid-1916.[75]
Italian participation
Main article: Italian Campaign (World War I)
Further information: Battles of the Isonzo
Italy had been allied with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882 as part of the Triple Alliance. However, the nation had its own designs on Austrian territory in Trentino, Istria, and Dalmatia. Rome had a secret 1902 pact with France, effectively nullifying its alliance.[76]
At the start of hostilities, Italy refused to commit troops, arguing
that the Triple Alliance was defensive and that Austria–Hungary was an
aggressor. The Austro-Hungarian government began negotiations to secure
Italian neutrality, offering the French colony of Tunisia in return. The
Allies made a counter-offer in which Italy would receive the Southern Tyrol, Julian March and territory on the Dalmatian coast after the defeat of Austria-Hungary. This was formalised by the Treaty of London.
Further encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915,
Italy joined the Triple Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary on
23 May. Fifteen months later, Italy declared war on Germany.Militarily, the Italians had numerical superiority. This advantage, however, was lost, not only because of the difficult terrain in which fighting took place, but also because of the strategies and tactics employed. Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, had dreams of breaking into the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. Cadorna's plan did not take into account the difficulties of the rugged Alpine terrain, or the technological changes that created trench warfare, giving rise to a series of bloody and inconclusive stalemated offensives.
On the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarians took advantage of the mountainous terrain, which favoured the defender. After an initial strategic retreat, the front remained largely unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen engaged Italian Alpini in bitter hand-to-hand combat throughout the summer. The Austro-Hungarians counterattacked in the Altopiano of Asiago, towards Verona and Padua, in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but made little progress.
Beginning in 1915, the Italians under Cadorna mounted eleven offensives on the Isonzo front along the Isonzo River, northeast of Trieste. All eleven offensives were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who held the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained static for over a year, despite several Italian offensives. In the autumn of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austro-Hungarian troops received large numbers of reinforcements, including German Stormtroopers and the elite Alpenkorps.
Depiction of the Battle of Doberdò, fought in August 1916 between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian army.
Romanian participation
Main article: Romania during World War I
Marshal Joffre inspecting Romanian troops
In January 1918, Romanian forces established control over Bessarabia as the Russian Army abandoned the province. Although a treaty was signed by the Romanian and the Bolshevik Russian government following talks from 5–9 March 1918 on the withdrawal of Romanian forces from Bessarabia within two months, on 27 March 1918 Romania attached Bessarabia to its territory, formally based on a resolution passed by the local assembly of the territory on the unification with Romania.
Romania officially made peace with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Bucharest on 7 May 1918. Under that treaty, Romania was obliged to end the war with the Central Powers and make small territorial concessions to Austria-Hungary, ceding control of some passes in the Carpathian Mountains, and grant oil concessions to Germany. In exchange, the Central Powers recognised the sovereignty of Romania over Bessarabia. The treaty was renounced in October 1918 by the Alexandru Marghiloman government, and Romania nominally re-entered the war on 10 November 1918. The next day, the Treaty of Bucharest was nullified by the terms of the Armistice of Compiègne.[83][84] Total Romanian deaths from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within contemporary borders, were estimated at 748,000.[85]
The role of India
Further information: Third Anglo-Afghan War and Hindu-German Conspiracy
Contrary to British fears of a revolt in India, the outbreak of the
war saw an unprecedented outpouring of loyalty and goodwill towards the
United Kingdom.[86][87] Indian political leaders from the Indian National Congress
and other groups were eager to support the British war effort, since
they believed that strong support for the war effort would further the
cause of Indian Home Rule. The Indian Army
in fact outnumbered the British Army at the beginning of the war; about
1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and
the Middle East, while both the central government and the princely states
sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. In all, 140,000 men
served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East.
Casualties of Indian soldiers totalled 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded
during World War I.[88]
The suffering engendered by the war, as well as the failure of the
British government to grant self-government to India after the end of
hostilities, bred disillusionment and fuelled the campaign for full independence that would be led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and others.Eastern Front
Initial actions
Main article: Eastern Front (World War I)
While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued in
East Europe. Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of
Austrian Galicia
and German East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia
was largely successful, it was driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914.[89][90]
Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military
leadership was instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring
of 1915, the Russians had retreated to Galicia, and, in May, the Central
Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern
frontiers.[91] On 5 August, they captured Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland.Russian Revolution
Main article: Russian Revolution (1917)
Further information: North Russia Campaign
Despite the success of the June 1916 Brusilov Offensive in eastern Galicia,[92]
dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew.
The offensive's success was undermined by the reluctance of other
generals to commit their forces to support the victory. Allied and
Russian forces were revived only temporarily by Romania's entry into the
war on 27 August. German forces came to the aid of embattled
Austro-Hungarian units in Transylvania, and Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on 6 December. Meanwhile, unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar remained at the front. Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew protests and resulted in the murder of her favourite, Rasputin, at the end of 1916.In March 1917, demonstrations in Petrograd culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak Provisional Government, which shared power with the Petrograd Soviet socialists. This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home. The army became increasingly ineffective.[91]
Signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (9 February 1918) are: 1. Count Ottokar von Czernin, 2. Richard von Kühlmann, and 3. Vasil Radoslavov
With the adoption of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Entente no longer existed. The Allied powers led a small-scale invasion of Russia, partly to stop Germany from exploiting Russian resources and, to a lesser extent, to support the "Whites" (as opposed to the "Reds") in the Russian Civil War.[94] Allied troops landed in Arkhangelsk and in Vladivostok.
Central Powers proposal for starting peace negotiations
On the way to Verdun. "They shall not pass" is a phrase typically associated with the defense of Verdun.
1917–1918
French troopers under General Gouraud, with their machine guns amongst the ruins of a cathedral near the Marne, driving back the Germans. 1918
Developments in 1917
Events of 1917 proved decisive in ending the war, although their effects were not fully felt until 1918.The British naval blockade began to have a serious impact on Germany. In response, in February 1917, the German General Staff convinced Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war. German planners estimated that unrestricted submarine warfare would cost Britain a monthly shipping loss of 600,000 tons. The General Staff acknowledged that the policy would almost certainly bring the United States into the conflict, but calculated that British shipping losses would be so high that they would be forced to sue for peace after 5 to 6 months, before American intervention could make an impact. In reality, tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February to July. It peaked at 860,000 tons in April. After July, the newly re-introduced convoy system became extremely effective in reducing the U-boat threat. Britain was safe from starvation, while German industrial output fell and the United States troops joined the war in large numbers far earlier than Germany had anticipated.
On 3 May 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, the weary French 2nd Colonial Division, veterans of the Battle of Verdun, refused their orders, arriving drunk and without their weapons. Their officers lacked the means to punish an entire division, and harsh measures were not immediately implemented. Then, mutinies afflicted an additional 54 French divisions and saw 20,000 men desert. The other Allied forces attacked, but sustained tremendous casualties.[97] However, appeals to patriotism and duty, as well as mass arrests and trials, encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches, although the French soldiers refused to participate in further offensive action.[98] Robert Nivelle was removed from command by 15 May, replaced by General Philippe Pétain, who suspended bloody large-scale attacks.
The victory of Austria–Hungary and Germany at the Battle of Caporetto, led the Allies to convenve the Rapallo Conference at which they formed the Supreme War Council to coordinate planning. Previously, British and French armies had operated under separate commands.
Haut-Rhin, France, 1917
Ottoman Empire conflict in 1917
Main article: Sinai and Palestine Campaign
In March and April 1917, at the First and Second Battles of Gaza, German and Ottoman forces stopped the advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which had begun in August 1916 at Romani. At the end of October, the Sinai and Palestine Campaign resumed, when General Edmund Allenby's XXth Corps, XXI Corps and Desert Mounted Corps won the Battle of Beersheba. Two Ottoman armies were defeated a few weeks later at the Battle of Mughar Ridge and, early in December, Jerusalem was captured following another Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Jerusalem (1917). About this time, Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein was relieved of his duties as the Eighth Army's commander, replaced by Djevad Pasha, and a few months later the commander of the Ottoman Army in Palestine, Erich von Falkenhayn, was replaced by Otto Liman von Sanders.Entry of the United States
Main article: American entry into World War I
Non-intervention
At the outbreak of the war, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. When a German U-boat sank the British liner RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915 with 128 Americans among the dead, President Woodrow Wilson insisted that "America is too proud to fight" but demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. However, he also repeatedly warned that the U.S.A. would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, in violation of international law. Former president Theodore Roosevelt denounced German acts as "piracy".[100] Wilson was narrowly reelected in 1916 as his supporters emphasized "he kept us out of war".In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, realizing it would mean American entry. The German Foreign Minister, in the Zimmermann Telegram, invited Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States. In return, the Germans would finance Mexico's war and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.[101] Wilson released the Zimmerman note to the public, and Americans saw it as casus belli—a cause for war. Wilson called on antiwar elements to end all wars, by winning this one and eliminating militarism from the globe. He argued that the war was so important that the U.S. had to have a voice in the peace conference.[102]
President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with Germany on 3 February 1917.
U.S. declaration of war on Germany
After the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany,[103] which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917.First active U.S. participation
The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power". The United States had a small army, but, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, it drafted 2.8 million men,[104] and, by summer 1918, was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. In 1917, the U.S. Congress gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. Germany had miscalculated, believing it would be many more months before American soldiers would arrive and that their arrival could be stopped by U-boats.[105]The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland, and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of U.S. Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted U.S. units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The U.S. rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up U.S. units to be used as reinforcements for British Empire and French units. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to be used in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, earning a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Sechault.[106] AEF doctrine called for the use of frontal assaults, which had long since been discarded by British Empire and French commanders because of the large loss of life.[107]
Austrian offer of separate peace
In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria secretly attempted separate peace negotiations with Clemenceau, with his wife's brother Sixtus in Belgium as an intermediary, without the knowledge of Germany. When the negotiations failed, his attempt was revealed to Germany, resulting in a diplomatic catastrophe.[108][109]German Spring Offensive of 1918
Main article: Spring Offensive
German General Erich Ludendorff drew up plans (codenamed Operation Michael)
for the 1918 offensive on the Western Front. The Spring Offensive
sought to divide the British and French forces with a series of feints
and advances. The German leadership hoped to strike a decisive blow
before significant U.S. forces arrived. The operation commenced on 21
March 1918, with an attack on British forces near Amiens. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometres (37 mi).[110]British and French trenches were penetrated using novel infiltration tactics, also named Hutier tactics, after General Oskar von Hutier. Previously, attacks had been characterised by long artillery bombardments and massed assaults. However, in the Spring Offensive of 1918, Ludendorff used artillery only briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points. They attacked command and logistics areas and bypassed points of serious resistance. More heavily armed infantry then destroyed these isolated positions. German success relied greatly on the element of surprise.[111]
The front moved to within 120 kilometres (75 mi) of Paris. Three heavy Krupp railway guns fired 183 shells on the capital, causing many Parisians to flee. The initial offensive was so successful that Kaiser Wilhelm II declared 24 March a national holiday. Many Germans thought victory was near. After heavy fighting, however, the offensive was halted. Lacking tanks or motorised artillery, the Germans were unable to consolidate their gains. This situation was not helped by the supply lines now being stretched as a result of their advance.[112] The sudden stop was also a result of the four Australian Imperial Force (AIF) divisions that were "rushed" down, thus doing what no other army had done: stopping the German advance in its tracks. During that time, the 1st Australian Division was hurriedly sent back north to stop the second German breakthrough.
British 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division troops blinded by tear gas during the Battle of Estaires, 10 April 1918.
Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette against the northern English Channel ports. The Allies halted the drive after limited territorial gains by Germany. The German Army to the south then conducted Operations Blücher and Yorck, pushing broadly towards Paris. Operation Marne was launched on 15 July, attempting to encircle Reims and beginning the Second Battle of the Marne. The resulting counterattack, starting the Hundred Days Offensive, marked the first successful Allied offensive of the war.
By 20 July, the Germans were back across the Marne at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines,[114] having achieved nothing. Following this last phase of the war in the West, the German Army never regained the initiative. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000, including many highly trained storm troopers.
Meanwhile, Germany was falling apart at home. Anti-war marches became frequent and morale in the army fell. Industrial output was 53 percent of 1913 levels.
Ottoman Empire conflict 1918
Main article: Sinai and Palestine Campaign
Early in 1918, the front line was extended into the Jordan Valley, which continued to be occupied, following the First Transjordan and the Second Transjordan
attack by British Empire forces in March and April 1918, into the
summer. During March, most of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's British
infantry and Yeomanry
cavalry were sent to fight on the Western Front as a consequence of the
Spring Offensive. They were replaced by Indian Army units. During
several months of reorganisation and training during the summer, a number of attacks
were carried out on sections of the Ottoman front line. These pushed
the front line north to more advantageous positions in preparation for
an attack and to acclimatise the newly arrived Indian Army infantry. It
was not until the middle of September that the integrated force was
ready for large-scale operations.The reorganised Egyptian Expeditionary Force, with an additional mounted division, broke Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918. In two days the British and Indian infantry supported by a creeping barrage broke the Ottoman front line and captured the headquarters of the Eighth Army (Ottoman Empire) at Tulkarm, the continuous trench lines at Tabsor, Arara and the Seventh Army (Ottoman Empire) headquarters at Nablus. The Desert Mounted Corps rode through the break in the front line created by the infantry and, during virtually continuous operations by Australian Light Horse, British mounted Yeomanry, Indian Lancers and New Zealand Mounted Rifle brigades in the Jezreel Valley, they captured Nazareth, Afulah and Beisan, Jenin, along with Haifa on the Mediterranean coast and Daraa east of the Jordan River on the Hejaz railway. Samakh and Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, were captured on the way northwards to Damascus. Meanwhile, Chaytor's Force of Australian light horse, New Zealand mounted rifles, Indian, British West Indies and Jewish infantry captured the crossings of the Jordan River, Es Salt, Amman and at Ziza most of the Fourth Army (Ottoman Empire). The Armistice of Mudros, signed at the end of October ended hostilities with the Ottoman Empire when fighting was continuing north of Aleppo.
New states under war zone
Main articles: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Democratic Republic of Armenia, Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and Democratic Republic of Georgia
In the late spring of 1918, three new states were formed in the South Caucasus: the Democratic Republic of Armenia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which declared their independence from the Russian Empire.[115] Two other minor entities were established, the Centrocaspian Dictatorship and South West Caucasian Republic
(the former was liquidated by Azerbaijan in the autumn of 1918 and the
latter by a joint Armenian-British task force in early 1919). With the
withdrawal of the Russian armies from the Caucasus front in the winter
of 1917–18, the three major republics braced for an imminent Ottoman
advance, which commenced in the early months of 1918. Solidarity was
briefly maintained when the Transcaucasian Federative Republic
was created in the spring of 1918, but this collapsed in May, when the
Georgians asked and received protection from Germany and the
Azerbaijanis concluded a treaty with the Ottoman Empire that was more
akin to a military alliance. Armenia was left to fend for itself and
struggled for five months against the threat of a full-fledged
occupation by the Ottoman Turks.[116]Allied victory: summer and autumn 1918
Main articles: Hundred Days Offensive and Weimar Republic
The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, began on 8 August 1918. The Battle of Amiens developed with III Corps British Fourth Army on the left, the French First Army on the right, and the Australian and Canadian Corps spearheading the offensive in the centre through Harbonnières.[117][118] It involved 414 tanks of the Mark IV and Mark V
type, and 120,000 men. They advanced 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) into
German-held territory in just seven hours. Erich Ludendorff referred to
this day as the "Black Day of the German army".[117][119]
Aerial view of ruins of Vaux-devant-Damloup, France, 1918
Canadian Scottish advancing during the Battle of the Canal du Nord, September 1918
The British Third Army's 15-mile (24 km) front north of Albert progressed after stalling for a day against the main resistance line to which the enemy had withdrawn.[121] Rawlinson's British Fourth Army was able to push its left flank forward between Albert and the Somme, straightening the line between the advanced positions of the Third Army and the Amiens front, which resulted in recapturing Albert at the same time.[120] On 26 August the British First Army on the left of the Third Army was drawn into the battle, extending it northward to beyond Arras. The Canadian Corps, already back in the vanguard of the First Army, fought its way from Arras eastward 5 miles (8 km) astride the heavily defended Arras-Cambrai area before reaching the outer defences of the Hindenburg Line, breaching them on the 28 and 29 August. Bapaume fell on 29 August to the New Zealand Division of the Third Army, and the Australians, still leading the advance of the Fourth Army, were again able to push forward at Amiens to take Peronne and Mont Saint-Quentin on 31 August. Further south, the French First and Third Armies had slowly fought forward while the Tenth Army, which had by now crossed the Ailette and was east of the Chemin des Dames, neared the Alberich position of the Hindenburg Line.[122] During the last week of August the pressure along a 70-mile (113 km) front against the enemy was heavy and unrelenting. From German accounts, "Each day was spent in bloody fighting against an ever and again on-storming enemy, and nights passed without sleep in retirements to new lines."[120] Even to the north in Flanders the British Second and Fifth Armies during August and September were able to make progress, taking prisoners and positions that had previously been denied them.[122]
American troops in Vladivostok, Siberia, August 1918
Close-up view of an American major in the basket of an observation balloon flying over territory near front lines
September saw the Germans continuing to fight strong rear-guard actions and launching numerous counterattacks on lost positions, but only a few succeeded, and then only temporarily. Contested towns, villages, heights, and trenches in the screening positions and outposts of the Hindenburg Line continued to fall to the Allies, with the BEF alone taking 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September. Further small advances eastward would follow the Third Army's victory at Ivincourt on 12 September, the Fourth Army's at Epheny on 18 September, and the French gain of Essigny-le-Grand a day later. On 24 September a final assault by both the British and French on a 4-mile (6.4 km) front would come within 2 miles (3.2 km) of St. Quentin.[122] With the outposts and preliminary defensive lines of the Siegfried and Alberich Positions eliminated, the Germans were now completely back in the Hindenburg Line. With the Wotan position of that line already breached and the Siegfried position in danger of being turned from the north, the time had now come for an Allied assault on the whole length of the line.
The Allied attack on the Hindenburg Line, begun on 26 September, included U.S. soldiers. The still-green American troops suffered problems coping with supply trains for large units on a difficult landscape.[125] The following week, cooperating French and American units broke through in Champagne at the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge, forcing the Germans off the commanding heights, and closing towards the Belgian frontier.[126] The last Belgian town to be liberated before the armistice was Ghent, which the Germans held as a pivot until the Allies brought up artillery.[127][128] The German army had to shorten its front and use the Dutch frontier as an anchor to fight rear-guard actions.
Men of U.S. 64th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, celebrate the news of the Armistice, 11 November 1918
Meanwhile, news of Germany's impending military defeat spread throughout the German armed forces. The threat of mutiny was rife. Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last attempt to restore the "valour" of the German Navy. Knowing the government of Prince Maximilian of Baden would veto any such action, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Many, refusing to be part of a naval offensive, which they believed to be suicidal, rebelled and were arrested. Ludendorff took the blame; the Kaiser dismissed him on 26 October. The collapse of the Balkans meant that Germany was about to lose its main supplies of oil and food. Its reserves had been used up, even as U.S. troops kept arriving at the rate of 10,000 per day.[131]
Having suffered over 6 million casualties, Germany moved towards peace. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of a new government as Chancellor of Germany to negotiate with the Allies. Telegraphic negotiations with President Wilson began immediately, in the vain hope that he would offer better terms than the British and French. Instead, Wilson demanded the abdication of the Kaiser. There was no resistance when the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann on 9 November declared Germany to be a republic. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born: the Weimar Republic.[132]
Armistices and capitulations
Entrance in Metz the 8 December 1918: decoration ceremony of Marshal Philippe Pétain by French President Raymond Poincaré in presence of Allies General Douglas Haig, General John J. Pershing, General Cyriaque Gillain, General Alberico Albricci, and Lieutenant General Józef Haller. The city of Metz was then an important geo-political symbol of the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871.
In the forest of Compiègne after agreeing to the armistice that ended the war, Foch
is seen second from the right. The carriage seen in the background,
where the armistice was signed, was later chosen as the symbolic setting
of Pétain's June 1940 armistice. It was moved to Berlin as a prize, but
because of Allied bombing was eventually moved to Crawinkel, Thuringia, where it was deliberately destroyed by SS troops in 1945.[133]
On 24 October, the Italians began a push that rapidly recovered territory lost after the Battle of Caporetto. This culminated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which marked the end of the Austro-Hungarian Army as an effective fighting force. The offensive also triggered the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the last week of October, declarations of independence were made in Budapest, Prague, and Zagreb. On 29 October, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice. But the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine, and Trieste. On 3 November, Austria–Hungary sent a flag of truce to ask for an Armistice. The terms, arranged by telegraph with the Allied Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian commander and accepted. The Armistice with Austria was signed in the Villa Giusti, near Padua, on 3 November. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Following the outbreak of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, a republic was proclaimed on 9 November. The Kaiser fled to the Netherlands.
On 11 November, at 5:00 am, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 am on 11 November 1918 — "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" — a ceasefire came into effect. During the six hours between the signing of the armistice and its taking effect, opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions, but fighting continued along many areas of the front, as commanders wanted to capture territory before the war ended. Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was shot by a German sniper at 10:57 and died at 10:58.[135] American Henry Gunther was killed 60 seconds before the armistice came into force while charging astonished German troops who were aware the Armistice was nearly upon them.[136] The last British soldier to die was Pte George Edwin Ellison. The last casualty of the war was a German, Lieutenant Thomas, who, after 11 am, was walking towards the line to inform Americans who had not yet been informed of the Armistice that they would be vacating the buildings behind them.[137] The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces.
Allied superiority and the stab-in-the-back legend, November 1918
In November 1918, the Allies had ample supplies of men and materiel to invade Germany. Yet at the time of the armistice, no Allied force had crossed the German frontier; the Western Front was still almost 900 mi (1,400 km) from Berlin; and the Kaiser's armies had retreated from the battlefield in good order. These factors enabled Hindenburg and other senior German leaders to spread the story that their armies had not really been defeated. This resulted in the stab-in-the-back legend,[138][139] which attributed Germany's defeat not to its inability to continue fighting (even though up to a million soldiers were suffering from the 1918 flu pandemic and unfit to fight), but to the public's failure to respond to its "patriotic calling" and the supposed intentional sabotage of the war effort, particularly by Jews, Socialists, and Bolsheviks.Treaty of Versailles, June 1919
A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on 28 June 1919. However, the American public opposed ratification of the treaty, mainly because of the League of Nations the treaty created; the U.S. did not formally end its involvement in the war until the Knox–Porter Resolution was signed in 1921. After the Treaty of Versailles, treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were signed. However, the negotiation of the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife (the Turkish War of Independence), and a final peace treaty between the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey was not signed until 24 July 1923, at Lausanne.Some war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versailles Treaty was signed in 1919, which was when many of the troops serving abroad finally returned to their home countries; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the armistice of 11 November 1918. Legally, the formal peace treaties were not complete until the last, the Treaty of Lausanne, was signed. Under its terms, the Allied forces divested Constantinople on 23 August 1923.
Technology
See also: Technology during World War I and Weapons of World War I
A Canadian soldier with mustard gas burns, ca. 1917–1918.
Artillery also underwent a revolution. In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone. Counter-battery missions became commonplace, also, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.
Germany was far ahead of the Allies in utilising heavy indirect fire. The German Army employed 150 and 210 mm howitzers in 1914, when typical French and British guns were only 75 and 105 mm. The British had a 6 inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. The Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm and 420 mm guns and, even at the beginning of the war, had inventories of various calibers of Minenwerfer, which were ideally suited for trench warfare.[142]
Much of the combat involved trench warfare, in which hundreds often died for each yard gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Germans employed the Haber process of nitrogen fixation to provide their forces with a constant supply of gunpowder despite the British naval blockade.[143] Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties[144] and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the Adrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German Stahlhelm, a design, with improvements, still in use today.
| "Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!... Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."- Wilfred Owen, DULCE ET DECORUM EST, 1917[145] |
The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns weighing hundreds of tons apiece. These were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres (62 mi), though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms (210 lb). While the Allies also had railway guns, German models severely out-ranged and out-classed them.
Aviation
-
Main article: Aviation in World War I
RAF Sopwith Camel. In April 1917, the average life expectancy of a British pilot on the Western Front was 93 flying hours.[149]
Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes,[152] so that if there was an enemy air attack the crew could parachute to safety. (At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft (with their marginal power output), and smaller versions were not developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice.)[153]
German trench destroyed by a mine explosion. Approximately 10,000 German troops were killed when the 19 mines were simultaneously detonated.
Germany deployed U-boats (submarines) after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, the Kaiserliche Marine employed them to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS R-1, 1917), forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918).[154] To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.
Ground warfare
British Vickers machine gun
Flamethrowers and subterranean transport
Another new weapon, the flamethrower, was first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, the flamethrower was a powerful, demoralising weapon that caused terror on the battlefield. It was a dangerous weapon to wield, as its heavy weight made operators vulnerable targets.Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for automobiles and trucks/lorries eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.
War crimes
Genocide and ethnic cleansing
Main article: Ottoman casualties of World War I
Austro-Hungarian soldiers executing Serb civilians during the occupation of Mačva, 1914
Picture showing Armenians killed during the Armenian Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, written by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and published in 1918.[164]
Russian Empire
Main article: Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire
Many pogroms accompanied the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War. 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire.[165]"Rape of Belgium"
Main article: Rape of Belgium
The German invaders treated any resistance—such as sabotaging rail
lines—as illegal and immoral, and shot the offenders and burned
buildings in retaliation. In addition, they tended to suspect that most
civilians were potential "franc-tireurs" and, accordingly, took and
sometimes killed hostages from among the civilian population. The German
army executed over 6,500 French and Belgian civilians between August
and November 1914, usually in near-random large-scale shootings of
civilians ordered by junior German officers. The German Army destroyed
15,000–20,000 buildings—most famously the university library at Louvain—and
generated a refugee wave of over a million people. Over half the German
regiments in Belgium were involved in major incidents.[166] Thousands of workers were shipped to Germany to work in factories. British propaganda dramatizing the "Rape of Belgium"
attracted much attention in the U.S., while Berlin said it was legal
and necessary because of the threat of "franc-tireurs" (guerrillas) like
those in France in 1870.[167]
The British and French magnified the reports and disseminated them at
home and in the U.S., where they played a major role in dissolving
support for Germany.[168][169]Soldiers' experiences
Main articles: List of last surviving World War I veterans by country, World War I casualties, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and American Battle Monuments Commission
The First Contingent of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps to the 1 Lincolns, training in Bermuda for the Western Front, winter 1914–1915. The two BVRC contingents suffered 75% casualties.
Prisoners of war
Main article: World War I prisoners of war in Germany
About 8 million men surrendered and were held in POW camps during the war. All nations pledged to follow the Hague Conventions on fair treatment of prisoners of war. POWs' rate of survival was generally much higher than that of their peers at the front.[171] Individual surrenders were uncommon; large units usually surrendered en masse. At the Battle of Tannenberg 92,000 Russians surrendered. When the besieged garrison of Kaunas
surrendered in 1915, some 20,000 Russians became prisoners. Over half
of Russian losses (as a proportion of those captured, wounded, or
killed) were to prisoner status; for Austria-Hungary 32%, for Italy 26%,
for France 12%, for Germany 9%; for Britain 7%. Prisoners from the
Allied armies totalled about 1.4 million (not including Russia, which
lost 2.-3.5[clarification needed] million men as prisoners.) From the Central Powers about 3.3 million men became prisoners.[172]Germany held 2.5 million prisoners; Russia held 2.9 million; while Britain and France held about 720,000. Most were captured just prior to the Armistice. The U.S. held 48,000. The most dangerous moment was the act of surrender, when helpless soldiers were sometimes gunned down.[173][174] Once prisoners reached a camp, conditions were, in general, satisfactory (and much better than in World War II), thanks in part to the efforts of the International Red Cross and inspections by neutral nations. However, conditions were terrible in Russia: starvation was common for prisoners and civilians alike; about 15–20% of the prisoners in Russia died. In Germany, food was scarce, but only 5% died.[175][176][177]
The Ottoman Empire often treated POWs poorly.[178] Some 11,800 British Empire soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the Siege of Kut in Mesopotamia in April 1916; 4,250 died in captivity.[179] Although many were in very bad condition when captured, Ottoman officers forced them to march 1,100 kilometres (684 mi) to Anatolia. A survivor said: "We were driven along like beasts; to drop out was to die."[180] The survivors were then forced to build a railway through the Taurus Mountains.
In Russia, when the prisoners from the Czech Legion of the Austro-Hungarian army were released in 1917, they re-armed themselves and briefly became a military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War.
While the Allied prisoners of the Central Powers were quickly sent home at the end of active hostilities, the same treatment was not granted to Central Power prisoners of the Allies and Russia, many of whom served as forced labor, e.g., in France until 1920. They were released only after many approaches by the Red Cross to the Allied Supreme Council.[181] German prisoners were still being held in Russia as late as 1924.[182]
Military attachés and war correspondents
Military and civilian observers from every major power closely followed the course of the war. Many were able to report on events from a perspective somewhat akin to modern "embedded" positions within the opposing land and naval forces. These military attachés and other observers prepared voluminous first-hand accounts of the war and analytical papers.For example, former U.S. Army Captain Granville Fortescue followed the developments of the Gallipoli Campaign from an embedded perspective within the ranks of the Turkish defenders; and his report was passed through Turkish censors before being printed in London and New York.[183] However, this observer's role was abandoned when the U.S. entered the war, as Fortescue immediately re-enlisted, sustaining wounds at Forest of Argonne in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, September 1918.[184]
In-depth observer narratives of the war and more narrowly focused professional journal articles were written soon after the war; and these post-war reports conclusively illustrated the battlefield destructiveness of this conflict. This was not the first time the tactics of entrenched positions for infantry defended with machine guns and artillery became vitally important. The Russo-Japanese War had been closely observed by military attachés, war correspondents and other observers; but, from a 21st century perspective, it is now apparent that a range of tactical lessons were disregarded or not used in the preparations for war in Europe and throughout the Great War.[185]
Support and opposition to the war
Main articles: Opposition to World War I and French Army Mutinies (1917)
Support
In the Balkans, Yugoslav nationalists such as the leader Ante Trumbić in the Balkans strongly supported the war, desiring the freedom of Yugoslavs from Austria-Hungary and other foreign powers and the creation of an independent Yugoslavia.[186] The Yugoslav Committee was formed in Paris on 30 April 1915 but shortly moved its office to London; Trumbić led the Committee.[186]In the Middle East, Arab nationalism soared in Ottoman territories in response to the rise of Turkish nationalism during the war, with Arab nationalist leaders advocating the creation of a pan-Arab state.[187] In 1916, the Arab Revolt began in Ottoman-controlled territories of the Middle East in an effort to achieve independence.[187]
Italian nationalism was stirred by the outbreak of the war and was initially strongly supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio, who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war.[188] The Italian Liberal Party, under the leadership of Paolo Boselli, promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and utilised the Dante Alighieri Society to promote Italian nationalism.[189]
A number of socialist parties initially supported the war when it began in August 1914.[190] But European socialists split on national lines, with the concept of class conflict held by radical socialists such as Marxists and syndicalists being overborne by their patriotic support for war.[191] Once the war began, Austrian, British, French, German, and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their countries' intervention in the war.[192]
Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it; some were militant supporters of the war, including Benito Mussolini and Leonida Bissolati.[193] However, the Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors were killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week.[194] The Italian Socialist Party purged itself of pro-war nationalist members, including Mussolini.[194] Mussolini, a syndicalist who supported the war on grounds of irredentist claims on Italian-populated regions of Austria-Hungary, formed the pro-interventionist Il Popolo d'Italia and the Fasci Riviluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista ("Revolutionary Fasci for International Action") in October 1914 that later developed into the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919, the origin of fascism.[195] Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create Il Popolo d'Italia to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war.[196]
In April 1918, the Rome Congress of Oppressed Nationalities met, including Czechoslovak, Italian, Polish, Transylvanian, and Yugoslav representatives who urged the Allies to support national self-determination for the peoples residing within Austria-Hungary.[190]
Opposition
Shortly before the war, British General Horace Smith-Dorrien predicted a catastrophic war which should be avoided at almost any cost.
Benedict XV, elected to the papacy less than three months into World War I, made the war and its consequences the main focus of his early pontificate. In stark contrast to his predecessor,[197] five days after his election he spoke of his determination to do what he could to bring peace. His first encyclical, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, given 1 November 1914, was concerned with this subject. Seen as being biased in favour of the other and resented for weakening national morale, Benedict XV found his abilities and unique position as a religious emissary of peace ignored by the belligerent powers.
The 1915 Treaty of London between Italy and the Triple Entente included secret provisions whereby the Allies agreed with Italy to ignore papal peace moves towards the Central Powers. Consequently, the publication of Benedict's proposed seven-point Peace Note of August 1917 was roundly ignored by all parties except Austria-Hungary.[198]
In Britain, in 1914, the Public Schools Officers' Training Corps annual camp was held at Tidworth Pennings, near Salisbury Plain. Head of the British Army Lord Kitchener was to review the cadets, but the imminence of the war prevented him. General Horace Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring (in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, a Bermudian cadet who was present), that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance I, and many of us, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust—probably not more than one-quarter of us—learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it.[199] Voicing these sentiments did not hinder Smith-Dorien's career, or prevent him from doing his duty in World War I to the best of his abilities.
1917 – Execution at Verdun at the time of the mutinies.
The revolt of Czech units in Rumburk in May 1918 was brutally suppressed, and its leaders executed.
Other opposition came from conscientious objectors – some socialist, some religious – who refused to fight. In Britain, 16,000 people asked for conscientious objector status.[203] Some of them, most notably prominent peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse, refused both military and alternative service.[204] Many suffered years of prison, including solitary confinement and bread and water diets. Even after the war, in Britain many job advertisements were marked "No conscientious objectors need apply".
The Central Asian Revolt started in the summer of 1916, when the Russian Empire government ended its exemption of Muslims from military service.[205]
In 1917, a series of mutinies in the French army led to dozens of soldiers being executed and many more imprisoned.
In Milan, in May 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries organised and engaged in rioting calling for an end to the war, and managed to close down factories and stop public transportation.[206] The Italian army was forced to enter Milan with tanks and machine guns to face Bolsheviks and anarchists, who fought violently until 23 May when the army gained control of the city. Almost 50 people (including three Italian soldiers) were killed and over 800 people arrested.[206]
German Revolution, November 1918
In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria secretly entered into peace negotiations with the Allied powers, with his brother-in-law Sixtus as intermediary, without the knowledge of his ally Germany. He failed, however, because of the resistance of Italy.[209]
In September 1917, Russian soldiers in France began questioning why they were fighting for the French at all and mutinied.[210] In Russia, opposition to the war led to soldiers also establishing their own revolutionary committees, which helped foment the October Revolution of 1917, with the call going up for "bread, land, and peace". The Bolsheviks agreed to a peace treaty with Germany, the peace of Brest-Litovsk, despite its harsh conditions.
In northern Germany, the end of October 1918, saw the beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war which they saw as good as lost; this initiated the uprising. The sailors' revolt which then ensued in the naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel spread across the whole country within days and led to the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918 and shortly thereafter to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Conscription
As the war slowly turned into a war of attrition, conscription was implemented in some countries. This issue was particularly explosive in Canada and Australia. In the former, it opened a political gap between French Canadians, who believed their true loyalty should be to Canada and not to the British Empire, and members of the Anglophone majority, who saw the war as a duty to both Britain and Canada. Prime Minister Robert Borden pushed through a Military Service Act, provoking the Conscription Crisis of 1917. In Australia, a sustained pro-conscription campaign by Prime Minister Billy Hughes caused a split in the Australian Labor Party, so Hughes formed the Nationalist Party of Australia in 1917 to pursue the matter. Nevertheless, the labour movement, the Catholic Church, and Irish nationalist expatriates successfully opposed Hughes' push, which was rejected in two plebiscites.Conscription put into uniform nearly every physically fit man in Britain, six of ten million eligible. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives and 1,700,000 were wounded. Most deaths were to young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers.[211]
Aftermath
Main article: Aftermath of World War I
Health and economic effects
The French military cemetery with Douaumont ossuary, which contains the remains of more than 130,000 unknown soldiers.
The war had profound economic consequences. Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilised from 1914 to 1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. Germany lost 15.1% of its active male population, Austria–Hungary lost 17.1%, and France lost 10.5%.[214] About 750,000 German civilians died from starvation caused by the British blockade during the war.[215] By the end of the war, famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon.[216] The best estimates of the death toll from the Russian famine of 1921 run from 5 million to 10 million people.[217] By 1922, there were between 4.5 million and 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the subsequent famine of 1920–1922.[218] Numerous anti-Soviet Russians fled the country after the Revolution; by the 1930s, the northern Chinese city of Harbin had 100,000 Russians.[219] Thousands more emigrated to France, England, and the United States.
In Australia, the effects of the war on the economy were no less severe. The then Prime Minister Hughes wrote to the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, "You have assured us that you cannot get better terms. I much regret it, and hope even now that some way may be found of securing agreement for demanding reparation commensurate with the tremendous sacrifices made by the British Empire and her Allies."[220] Australia received ₤5,571,720 war reparations, but the direct cost of the war to Australia had been ₤376,993,052, and, by the mid-1930s, repatriation pensions, war gratuities, interest and sinking fund charges were ₤831,280,947.[220] Of about 416,000 Australians who served, about 60,000 were killed and another 152,000 were wounded.[221]
Diseases flourished in the chaotic wartime conditions. In 1914 alone, louse-borne epidemic typhus killed 200,000 in Serbia.[222] From 1918 to 1922, Russia had about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus.[223] Whereas before World War I Russia had about 3.5 million cases of malaria, its people suffered more than 13 million cases in 1923.[224] In addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the 1918 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people.[225][226]
Emergency military hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed about 675,000 people in the United States alone. Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918
The social disruption and widespread violence of the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War sparked more than 2,000 pogroms in the former Russian Empire, mostly in the Ukraine.[229] An estimated 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities.[230]
In the aftermath of World War I, Greece fought against Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal, a war which resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the Treaty of Lausanne.[231] According to various sources,[232] several hundred thousand Pontic Greeks died during this period.[233]
Peace treaties and national boundaries
After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war. Building on Wilson's 14th point, the Treaty of Versailles also brought into being the League of Nations on 28 June 1919.[234][235]In signing the treaty, Germany acknowledged responsibility for the war, and agreed to pay enormous war reparations and award territory to the victors. The "Guilt Thesis" became a controversial explanation of later events among analysts in Britain and the United States. The Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements, especially the Nazis, exploited with a conspiracy theory they called the Dolchstosslegende (Stab-in-the-back legend). The Weimar Republic lost the former colonial possessions and was saddled with accepting blame for the war, as well as paying punitive reparations for it. Unable to pay them with exports (as a result of territorial losses and postwar recession),[236] Germany did so by borrowing from the United States. Runaway inflation in the 1920s contributed to the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic, and the payment of reparations was suspended in 1931 following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the beginnings of the Great Depression worldwide.
Greek refugees from Smyrna, Turkey, 1922
The Russian Empire, which had withdrawn from the war in 1917 after the October Revolution, lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were carved from it. Bessarabia was re-attached to Greater Romania, as it had been a Romanian territory for more than a thousand years.[237]
The Ottoman Empire disintegrated, and much of its non-Anatolian territory was awarded to various Allied powers as protectorates. The Turkish core was reorganised as the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920. This treaty was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish republican movement, leading to the Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
Legacy
| ..."Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years"... |
| — Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting, 1918[145] |
Main articles: World War I in popular culture and World War I memorials
The first tentative efforts to comprehend the meaning and
consequences of modern warfare began during the initial phases of the
war, and this process continued throughout and after the end of
hostilities.Memorials
The Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial in the Somme.
On 3 May 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer was killed. At his graveside, his friend John McCrae, M.D., of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, wrote the memorable poem In Flanders Fields as a salute to those who perished in the Great War. Published in Punch on 8 December 1915, it is still recited today, especially on Remembrance Day and Memorial Day.[238][239]
Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, is a United States memorial dedicated to all Americans who served in World War I. The site for the Liberty Memorial was dedicated on 1 November 1921. On this day, the supreme Allied commanders spoke to a crowd of more than 100,000 people. It was the only time in history these leaders were together in one place. In attendance were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium; General Armando Diaz of Italy; Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France; General Pershing of the United States; and Admiral D. R. Beatty of Great Britain. After three years of construction, the Liberty Memorial was completed and President Calvin Coolidge delivered the dedication speech to a crowd of 150,000 people in 1926.
Liberty Memorial is also home to The National World War I Museum, the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to World War I.
Cultural memory
The First World War had a lasting impact on social memory. It was seen by many in Britain as signalling the end of an era of stability stretching back to the Victorian period, and across Europe many regarded it as a watershed.[240] Historian Samuel Hynes explained:A generation of innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory and England, went off to war to make the world safe for democracy. They were slaughtered in stupid battles planned by stupid generals. Those who survived were shocked, disillusioned and embittered by their war experiences, and saw that their real enemies were not the Germans, but the old men at home who had lied to them. They rejected the values of the society that had sent them to war, and in doing so separated their own generation from the past and from their cultural inheritance.[241]
A village war memorial to soldiers killed in World War I.
Siegfried Sassoon (May 1915)
These beliefs did not become widely shared because they offered the only accurate interpretation of wartime events. In every respect, the war was much more complicated than they suggest. In recent years, historians have argued persuasively against almost every popular cliché of the First World War. It has been pointed out that, although the losses were devastating, their greatest impact was socially and geographically limited. The many emotions other than horror experienced by soldiers in and out of the front line, including comradeship, boredom, and even enjoyment, have been recognised. The war is not now seen as a 'fight about nothing', but as a war of ideals, a struggle between aggressive militarism and more or less liberal democracy. It has been acknowledged that British generals were often capable men facing difficult challenges, and that it was under their command that the British army played a major part in the defeat of the Germans in 1918: a great forgotten victory.[242]Though these historians have discounted as "myths"[241][243] these perceptions of the war, they are common.[citation needed] They have dynamically changed according to contemporary influences, reflecting in the 1950s perceptions of the war as 'aimless' following the contrasting Second World War and emphasising conflict within the ranks during times of class conflict in the 1960s.[242] The majority of additions to the contrary are often rejected.[242]
Social trauma
The social trauma caused by unprecedented rates of casualties manifested itself in different ways, which have been the subject of subsequent historical debate.[244] Some people[who?] were revolted by nationalism and its results, and began to work towards a more internationalist world, supporting organisations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only strength and military might could be relied upon in a chaotic and inhumane world. Anti-modernist views were an outgrowth of the many changes taking place in society.
Book distributed by the U.S. War Department to veterans in 1919
Discontent in Germany
The rise of Nazism and fascism included a revival of the nationalist spirit and a rejection of many post-war changes. Similarly, the popularity of the Stab-in-the-back legend (German: Dolchstoßlegende) was a testament to the psychological state of defeated Germany and was a rejection of responsibility for the conflict. This conspiracy theory of betrayal became common, and the German populace came to see themselves as victims. The Dolchstoßlegende's popular acceptance in Germany played a significant role in the rise of Nazism. A sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced, with nihilism growing. Many believed the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it because of the high fatalities among a generation of men, the dissolution of governments and empires, and the collapse of capitalism and imperialism.Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory and enjoyed a new level of popularity. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or harshly affected by the war. Out of German discontent with the still controversial Treaty of Versailles, Adolf Hitler was able to gain popularity and power.[248][249] World War II was in part a continuation of the power struggle never fully resolved by the First World War; in fact, it was common for Germans in the 1930s and 1940s to justify acts of international aggression because of perceived injustices imposed by the victors of the First World War.[250][251][252] American historian William Rubinstein wrote that:
"The 'Age of Totalitarianism' included nearly all of the infamous examples of genocide in modern history, headed by the Jewish Holocaust, but also comprising the mass murders and purges of the Communist world, other mass killings carried out by Nazi Germany and its allies, and also the Armenian genocide of 1915. All these slaughters, it is argued here, had a common origin, the collapse of the elite structure and normal modes of government of much of central, eastern and southern Europe as a result of the First World War, without which surely neither Communism nor Fascism would have existed except in the minds of unknown agitators and crackpots".[253]The establishment of the modern state of Israel and the roots of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict are partially found in the unstable power dynamics of the Middle East that resulted from World War I.[254] Prior to the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire had maintained a modest level of peace and stability throughout the Middle East.[255] With the fall of the Ottoman government, power vacuums developed and conflicting claims to land and nationhood began to emerge.[256] The political boundaries drawn by the victors of the First World War were quickly imposed, sometimes after only cursory consultation with the local population. In many cases, these continue to be problematic in the 21st-century struggles for national identity.[257][258] While the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I was pivotal in contributing to the modern political situation of the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli conflict,[259][260][261] the end of Ottoman rule also spawned lesser known disputes over water and other natural resources.[262]
Further information: Sykes–Picot Agreement
Views in the United States
U.S. intervention in the war, as well as the Wilson administration itself, became deeply unpopular. This was reflected in the U.S. Senate's rejection of the Versailles Treaty and membership in the League of Nations. In the interwar era, a consensus arose that U.S. intervention had been a mistake, and the Congress passed laws in an attempt to preserve U.S. neutrality in any future conflict. Polls taken in 1937 and the opening months of World War II established that nearly 60% regarded intervention in WWI as a mistake, with only 28% opposing that view. But, in the period between the fall of France and the attack on Pearl Harbor, public opinion changed dramatically and, for the first time, a narrow plurality rejected the idea that the war had been a mistake.[263]New national identities
Poland reemerged as an independent country, after more than a century. As a "minor Entente nation" and the country with the most casualties per capita,[264][265][266] the Kingdom of Serbia and its dynasty became the backbone of the new multinational state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). Czechoslovakia, combining the Kingdom of Bohemia with parts of the Kingdom of Hungary, became a new nation. Russia became the Soviet Union and lost Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, which became independent countries. The Ottoman Empire was soon replaced by Turkey and several other countries in the Middle East.In the British Empire, the war unleashed new forms of nationalism. In Australia and New Zealand the Battle of Gallipoli became known as those nations' "Baptism of Fire". It was the first major war in which the newly established countries fought, and it was one of the first times that Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Crown. Anzac Day, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, celebrates this defining moment.[267][268]
After the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where the Canadian divisions fought together for the first time as a single corps, Canadians began to refer to theirs as a nation "forged from fire".[269] Having succeeded on the same battleground where the "mother countries" had previously faltered, they were for the first time respected internationally for their own accomplishments. Canada entered the war as a Dominion of the British Empire and remained so, although it emerged with a greater measure of independence.[270][271] When Britain declared war in 1914, the dominions were automatically at war; at the conclusion, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were individual signatories of the Treaty of Versailles.[272]
Economic effects
Germany, 1923: banknotes had lost so much value that they were used as
wallpaper. Millions of middle-class Germans were ruined by hyperinflation. When the war began in 1914, a dollar was worth 4.2 marks; by November 1923, the dollar was at 4.2 trillion[273] marks.[274]
Gross domestic product (GDP) increased for three Allies (Britain, Italy, and U.S.), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the three main Central Powers. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire reached 30 to 40%. In Austria, for example, most pigs were slaughtered, so at war's end there was no meat.
In all nations, the government's share of GDP increased, surpassing fifty percent in both Germany and France and nearly reaching that level in Britain. To pay for purchases in the United States, Britain cashed in its extensive investments in American railroads and then began borrowing heavily on Wall Street. President Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but allowed a great increase in U.S. government lending to the Allies. After 1919, the U.S. demanded repayment of these loans. The repayments were, in part, funded by German reparations, which, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and the loans were never repaid. In 1934, Britain owed the US $4.4 billion[275] of World War I debt.[276]
Macro- and micro-economic consequences devolved from the war. Families were altered by the departure of many men. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost labourers sent to war. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.[277]
World War I further compounded the gender imbalance, adding to the phenomenon of surplus women. The deaths of nearly one million men during the war increased the gender gap by almost a million; from 670,000 to 1,700,000. The number of unmarried women seeking economic means grew dramatically. In addition, demobilisation and economic decline following the war caused high unemployment. The war increased female empolyment; however, the return of demoblised men displaced many from the workforce, as did the closure of many of the wartime factories. Hence women who had worked during the war found themselves struggling to find jobs and those approaching working age were not offered the opportunity.
In Britain, rationing was finally imposed in early 1918, limited to meat, sugar, and fats (butter and oleo), but not bread. The new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918, trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million. Work stoppages and strikes became frequent in 1917–1918 as the unions expressed grievances regarding prices, alcohol control, pay disputes, fatigue from overtime and working on Sundays, and inadequate housing.
Britain turned to her colonies for help in obtaining essential war materials whose supply had become difficult from traditional sources. Geologists such as Albert Ernest Kitson were called on to find new resources of precious minerals in the African colonies. Kitson discovered important new deposits of manganese, used in munitions production, in the Gold Coast.[278]
Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles (the so-called "war guilt" clause) declared Germany and its allies responsible for all "loss and damage" suffered by the Allies during the war and provided the basis for reparations. The total reparations demanded was 132 billion gold marks, which was far more than the total German gold or foreign exchange. The economic problems that the payments brought, and German resentment at their imposition, are usually cited as one of the more significant factors that led to the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. After Germany's defeat in World War II, payment of the reparations was not resumed. There was, however, outstanding German debt that the Weimar Republic had used to pay the reparations. Germany finished paying off the reparations in October 2010.[279]
See also
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
- European Civil War
- List of last surviving World War I veterans by country
- List of people associated with World War I
- List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll
- Lists of wars
- Lists of World War I topics
- World War I medal abbreviations
- Death rates in the 20th century
Media
Notes
- ^ a b Tucker & Roberts 2005, p. 273
- ^ "British Army statistics of the Great War". 1914-1918.net. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
- ^ Figures are for the British Empire
- ^ Figures are for Metropolitan France and its colonies
- ^ Willmott 2003, pp. 10–11
- ^ a b c d Willmott 2003, p. 15
- ^ Keegan 1988, p. 8
- ^ Bade & Brown 2003, pp. 167–168
- ^ Willmott 2003, p. 307
- ^ a b c d Taylor 1998, pp. 80–93
- ^ Djokić 2003, p. 24
- ^ Evans 2004, p. 12
- ^ Martel 2003, p. xii ff
- ^ Keegan 1988, p. 7
- ^ Keegan 1988, p. 11
- ^ See "great, adj., adv., and n." in Oxford English Dictionary (Second edition, 1989; online version March 2012)
- ^ Baldwin, Elbert Francis. The World War: How It Looks to the Nations Involved and What It Means to Us (New York: MacMillan Company, 1914). This book covers the war up to 20 November 1914.
- ^ Shapiro 2006, p. 329 citing a wire service report in The Indianapolis Star, 20 September 1914
- ^ a b Keegan 1998, p. 52
- ^ a b Willmott 2003, p. 21
- ^ Prior 1999, p. 18
- ^ Fromkin 2004, p. 94
- ^ a b Keegan 1998, pp. 48–49
- ^ Willmott 2003, pp. 2–23
- ^ Willmott 2003, p. 26
- ^ Willmott 2003, p. 27
- ^ Strachan 2003, p. 68
- ^ Willmott 2003, p. 29
- ^ "Daily Mirror Headlines: The Declaration of War, Published 4 August 1914". BBC. Retrieved 9 February 2010.
- ^ Strachan 2003, pp. 292–296, 343–354
- ^ Farwell 1989, p. 353
- ^ Tucker & Roberts 2005, p. 172
- ^ John R. Schindler, "Disaster on the Drina: The Austro-Hungarian Army in Serbia, 1914," War In History (April 2002) 9#2 pp 159–195 [1]
- ^ Tucker & Roberts 2005, pp. 376–8
- ^ Keegan 1968, pp. 224–232
- ^ Falls 1960, pp. 79–80
- ^ Raudzens 1990, pp. 424
- ^ Michael Duffy (22 August 2009). "Weapons of War: Poison Gas". Firstworldwar.com. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
- ^ Raudzens 1990, pp. 421–423
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- ^ Love 1996
- ^ Perry 1988, p. 27
- ^ Duffy
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References
- For a comprehensive bibliography see List of books about World War I
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External links
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