History UsefulNotes / WorldWarI

Two of the most iconic German symbols of the war—the spiked "Pickelhaube" helmet and the bright red Fokker Triplane—were relatively short-lived. The Pickelhaube looked cool (sort of) but was useless for keeping the wearer's head safe so was quickly replaced by the end of 1915 by the Stahlhelm, "coal-scuttle" helmet, whose improved version became the symbol of the German forces in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The Triplane was never that successful and quickly withdrawn after April 1917. The only red ones were flown by the RedBaron, Manfred von Richthofen, and his younger brother Lothar—the iconic image simply stuck. The war also ushered in modern espionage, to say nothing of modern spy fiction (although it had already had a leg up from Erskine Childer's ''The Riddle of the Sands'', which was actually semi-predicting the war at the beginning of the 20th century). The most famous spy was of course the Dutch courtesan known as UsefulNotes/MataHari who was arguably the most famous spy (real and fictional) until the UsefulNotes/ColdWar era and the advent of ''Literature/JamesBond''. Modern history confirms alas, that she was most definitely guilty.\\\

* UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships
* UsefulNotes/CanucksWithChinooks
* UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades

* UsefulNotes/KiplingsFinest

* UsefulNotes/NewRomanLegions

* UsefulNotes/TurksWithTroops

* UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks

Etienne Mantoux, the French economist and later historians argued that the Treaty was truly lenient on Germany and that by the mid-20s, the Weimar Republic was on the road to recovery. Furthermore the calls to demobilize and reduce the size of the German army cut the defense budget and allowed for more investment in the civilian sector. The true failure some argue is the inadequacy of the League of Nations and other organizations to truly sustain and hold Germany to task. Likewise, by the middle of the 1920s, the Weimar Republic's great statesman, Gustav Stresemann won a Nobel Peace Prize for rebuilding foreign alliances and making the terms imposed by the Treaty even more lenient than it was. The prominence of the treaty in German and international media was seen by later historians as a means of delegitimising the Weimar Republic itself, with claims that the new republican government by accepting such an unfair treaty allowed the brave spotless German Army to be "stabbed-in-the-back."[[note]]A demonstrable falsehood given that the German War Ministry agreed to the surrender before the formation of the new republic for the plain fact that they were about to lose.[[/note]]\\\

Pre-''Dreadnought'' Battleships were equipped with dozens of guns of various calibres, so that they could counter any threat fielded against them. The largest of the guns could fire several kilometres and were expected to do most of the work in destroying enemy ships—by getting a lucky shot on a ship’s 'bridge'[[note]]the command booth from which the Captain commanded the ship[[/note]] or simply hitting it with so many hundreds of shells over the course of several hours that it would either surrender or catch fire and blow up.[[note]]Both of these results were seen in the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar of 1905.[[/note]] The new ''Dreadnought''-type Battleships, however, mounted guns all of the same large calibre[[note]] Meaning that it was much easier to tell which enemy ships were being fired on effectively or not by watching the fall of shot and the splashes they made, as well as requiring onyl one set of targeting calculations for the whole ship[[/note]], and could sink another Battleship in just a couple of dozen shots and within just a few tens of minutes. This started a race to equip the battleships of the world with these new 'computing machines' and 'rangefinders', and all new-build battleships were designed with the innovations of the ''Dreadnought'' in mind. In the post-''Dreadnought'' period British ships specialized in an absurd output of fire, with massive guns and quicker fire rates. German ships were designed more on superior targeting optics and maneuverability. Other ship types such as battlecruisers, destroyers, and submarines (such as the German U-Boat) would be integral to the war, but the battleship was dominant. Some new forces like radio became important to naval combat as well.\\\

* Germany declares war on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary, as Kaiser Wilhelm had promised to support Austria-Hungary no matter what. On 1 August France and Germany mobilize their reserves simultaneously, Germany's mobilization coming with a formal declaration of war (upon France, Belgium, and Luxembourg). Britain declares war upon Germany,[[note]]because the Cabinet had agreed that they would go to war if Germany declared war on Belgium. There was a group of hardliners who wanted war with Germany no matter what, but the Cabinet as a whole felt that entering a war and formally joining the Entente Cordiale would be deeply unpopular unless it was done in response to an invasion of Belgium. Unspoken was the way the war was a marvelous opportunity to submerge internal dissent (chiefly Irish devolution, safe working conditions and livable pay, and women's rights) and cripple the German economy,[[/note]] and members of the British Commonwealth - India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, among others - follow suit.

At the end of TheEdwardianEra, from 1914 to 1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named for the ''Entente Cordiale'',[[note]]French for "Cordial Agreement"[[/note]] signed between France and the United Kingdom) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the wealthiest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, thereby leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested only by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its own successor]].[[note]]Some other wars are sometimes estimated to have had a higher death toll than [=WWI=], but these have less certain numbers and/or were really a series of related conflicts that occurred over the course of at least several decades.[[/note]] [=WWI=] left tens of millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. Its combined death count was at least 14 million (9M military, 5M civilian) but probably more than 20 million. For large numbers of people throughout the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence and trauma upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, it became clear that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the rug the way it had been by nation-states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts.

Meanwhile, the war in the sky was on. Planes, up to this point, had only been equipped as scouts. However, a French pilot named Roland Garros equipped his plane with machine guns and became the first pilot to shoot down an enemy craft as such. The Germans reverse engineered his plane and started producing fighter pilots. They had made a marginally better airforce, and their heavy deployments of fighters meant the Entente were blind, having all their scouts shot down. This became one of the first examples of the arms race that both sides engaged in to break the stalemate. Initially, the forward-facing guns on planes had to shoot through the propellers, meaning that a pilot could easily shoot himself down. The guns were simply too unreliable to mount on the wings; they had to be in a reachable position. Garros had been the one to pioneer the successful application of a machine gun to a plane. He asked an engineer to install a synchronization mechanism on the motor to line it up with the guns. The Vickers still had a habit of hitting the propellers, so the propellers had to be armored to protect the pilot. By 1915 this started to become standard after Garros had successfully managed to shoot down several enemy planes before the Germans brought him down. They took his synchronization gear, reverse-engineered it, and then perfected it. Fokker was granted the first production contracts, and their planes, particularly their stark-red Triplane, have since become iconic in the war.\\\

The nature of the war is such that its end is usually celebrated in multiple countries as Armistice Day, or ceasefire, rather than victory. Most were simply grateful that the war had ''finally'' ended and that the ones who'd survived could go home, with the really lucky ones going back uninjured. The First World War is generally considered to be [[DawnOfAnEra the true beginning of]] {{the 20th Century}}, severing continuity with the conformity, stability, and -- in retrospect -- comforting illusions of progress and decency that people had previously ascribed to European civilization. Four of Europe's great empires (UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austria-Hungary]], UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire) cracked apart in its wake, resulting in the liberation and formation of new nations, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober culminating in a revolution]] of a size and scale [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution not seen since 1789]]. The empires and nations that did come out ''status quo ante bellum'', such as UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire and UsefulNotes/TheFrenchColonialEmpire found their power and uncontested influence weakened and challenged, both at home and in their colonies. It marked the beginning of the end of the age of empires that had defined the 19th Century, with the United States of America taking the role of a global leader for the first time, under President UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson. The world would not see such a dramatic cultural and political turning point again until the start and end of World War II, and in the face of all other major turning points in modern history, this still stands as perhaps the biggest of them all: not one bit of any social, political, or cultural concept that emerged after November 1918 would exist in the form that it did/does had it not been for World War I.

At the end of TheEdwardianEra, from 1914 to 1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named for the ''Entente Cordiale'',[[note]]French for "Cordial Agreement"[[/note]] signed between France and the United Kingdom) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the wealthiest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, thereby leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested only by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its own successor]].[[note]]Some other wars are sometimes estimated to have had a higher death toll than [=WWI=], but these have less certain numbers and/or were really a series of related conflicts that occurred over the course of at least several decades.[[/note]] [=WWI=] left tens of millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. Its combined death count was at least 14 million (9M military, 5M civilian) but probably more than 20 million. For large numbers of people throughout the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet in the way it had been by nation-states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts.

The nature of the war is such that its end is usually celebrated in multiple countries as Armistice Day, or ceasefire, rather than victory. Most were simply grateful that the war had ''finally'' ended and that the ones who survived could go home, with the really lucky ones going back uninjured. The First World War is generally considered to be [[DawnOfAnEra the true beginning of]] {{the 20th Century}}, severing continuity with the conformity, stability, and -- in retrospect -- comforting illusions of progress and decency that people had previously ascribed to European civilization. Four of Europe's great empires (UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austria-Hungary]], UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire) cracked apart in its wake, resulting in the liberation and formation of new nations, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober culminating in a revolution]] of a size and scale [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution not seen since 1789]]. The empires and nations that did come out ''status quo ante bellum'', such as UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire and UsefulNotes/TheFrenchColonialEmpire found their power and uncontested influence weakened and challenged, both at home and in their colonies. It marked the beginning of the end of the age of empires that had defined the 19th Century, with the United States of America taking the role of a global leader for the first time, under President UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson. The world would not see such a dramatic cultural and political turning point again until the start and end of World War II, and in the face of all other major turning points in modern history, this still stands as perhaps the biggest of them all: not one bit of any social, political, or cultural concept that emerged after November 1918 would exist in the form that it did/does had it not been for World War I.

At the end of TheEdwardianEra, from 1914 to 1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named for the ''Entente Cordiale'',[[note]]French for "Cordial Agreement"[[/note]] signed between France and the United Kingdom) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the wealthiest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, thereby leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested only by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its own successor]].[[note]]Some other wars are sometimes estimated to have had a higher death toll than [=WW1=], but these have less certain numbers and/or were really a series of related conflicts that occurred over the course of at least several decades.[[/note]] It left tens of millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. The death toll was at least 14 million (9M military and 5M civilians) but probably more than 20 million. For large numbers of people around the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet the way it had been by nation states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts.

Towards the end of TheEdwardianEra, between 1914–1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named after the ''Entente Cordiale'', French for "Cordial Agreement", signed between the United Kingdom and France) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the richest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested only by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its own successor]].[[note]]Some other wars are sometimes estimated to have had a higher death toll than [=WW1=], but these have less certain numbers and/or were really a series of related conflicts that occurred over the course of at least several decades.[[/note]] It left tens of millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. The death toll was at least 14 million (9M military and 5M civilians) but probably more than 20 million. For large numbers of people around the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet the way it had been by nation states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts.

Pre-''Dreadnought'' Battleships were equipped with dozens of smaller, but less powerful, guns that could fire several kilometres and were expected to do most of the work in destroying enemy ships—by getting a lucky shot on a ship’s 'bridge'[[note]]the command booth from which the Captain commanded the ship[[/note]] or simply hitting it with so many hundreds of shells over the course of several hours that it would either surrender or catch fire and blow up.[[note]]Both of these results were seen in the UsefulNotes/RussoJapaneseWar of 1905.[[/note]] The new ''Dreadnought''-type Battleships, however, could sink another Battleship in just a couple of dozen shots and within just a few tens of minutes. This started a race to equip the battleships of the world with these new 'computing machines' and 'rangefinders', and all new-build battleships were designed with the innovations of the ''Dreadnought'' in mind. In the post-''Dreadnought'' period British ships specialized in an absurd output of fire, with massive guns and quicker fire rates. German ships were designed more on superior targeting optics and maneuverability. Other ship types such as battlecruisers, destroyers, and submarines (such as the German U-Boat) would be integral to the war, but the battleship was dominant. Some new forces like radio became important to naval combat as well.\\\

The short version of just what started the war is this: a centuries-long buildup of interlocking treaties (many of which required that Nation A automatically join in defense of Nation B, which required that Nation C join in, etc), betrayals, and long-simmering ethnic and national feuds (Germans and French hated one another, Austrians and Serbs hated one another, and on and on) put Europe in a position where the slightest spark would set off a global conflict that had become more or less inevitable.(Though [[http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/baliga/htm/hobbesiantrap.pdf at least one person]] has noted that the war might not have been as inevitable had everyone not ''thought'' it was inevitable—in other words, that The War Is Coming anyway, so "we" might as well get The First Blow in.) The long story involves a lot more {{Realpolitik}}, incompetence and the efforts of the powers' own military forces to steer their countries into a war. For a long time, we didn't have a proper picture of all the factors that led to the war as we know it—there was an awful lot of data to be collated and analysis to be translated, and some (classified) sources weren't made available until many decades afterwards—by which time many histories of the War had already been written. In particular, an overreliance on diplomatic service communiqués and records—which were readily available and easy to access—and the need to keep it simple for schoolchildren’s sake led to an overemphasis on the importance of the treaty system. In any case, it was expected that there would be a European war at some point in the next decade or so. Just who it would involve and how big it would be was largely a matter of conjecture, but it would almost certainly be a civilized affair—as one would expect of the most civilized nation-states on earth.\\\

Towards the end of TheEdwardianEra, between 1914–1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named after the ''Entente Cordiale'', French for "Cordial Agreement", signed between the United Kingdom and France) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the richest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested only by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its own successor]]. It left tens of millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. The death toll was at least 14 million (9M military and 5M civilians) but probably more than 20 million. For large numbers of people around the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet the way it had been by nation states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts.

Towards the end of TheEdwardianEra, between 1914–1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named after the ''Entente Cordiale'', French for "Cordial Agreement", signed between the United Kingdom and France) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the richest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its direct successor]] (which is also the ''only'' western war to beat out this one in terms of scope and slaughter). It left millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. For large numbers of people around the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet the way it had been by nation states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts. The death toll was at least 14 million (9M military and 5M civilians), but probably more than 20 million.

Towards the end of TheEdwardianEra, between 1914–1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named after the ''Entente Cordiale'', French for "Cordial Agreement", signed between the United Kingdom and France) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the richest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its direct successor]] (which is also the ''only'' western war to beat out this one in terms of scope and slaughter). It left millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. For large numbers of people around the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet the way it had been by nation states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts. At least 14 million people (9M military and 5M civilians) died as a direct result of the war, but the true death toll was probably over 20 million.

Towards the end of TheEdwardianEra, between 1914–1918, a war broke out between two alliances: the French-led Entente Powers (named after the ''Entente Cordiale'', French for "Cordial Agreement", signed between the United Kingdom and France) and the German-led Central Powers.[[note]]These are terms a lot of academic articles and books have been using lately, and which we kindly ask you to use when editing this page since it helps avoid confusion with World War II.[[/note]] These two power blocs collectively comprised the richest and most powerful empires and nation-states on earth, commanding empires in Europe and abroad, leading to the biggest, bloodiest, most expensive, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatizing war the world had ever seen up to that point, ultimately being bested by [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII its direct successor]] (which is also the ''only'' western war to beat out this one in terms of scope and slaughter). It left millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving, and bitter. For large numbers of people around the world and across the political spectrum, it forever shattered the notion that WarIsGlorious: as new technologies of warfare unleashed such violence upon the human body and mind, on such a scale and in such a mass-produced, industrial manner, that war's essential [[WarIsHell hellishness]] could no longer be romanticized, downplayed, or swept under the carpet the way it had been by nation states and their {{propaganda machine}}s in previous conflicts.

The nature of the war is such that its end is usually celebrated in multiple countries as Armistice Day, or ceasefire, rather than victory. Most were simply grateful that the war had ''finally'' ended and that the ones who survived could go home, with the really lucky ones going back uninjured. The First World War is generally considered to be [[DawnOfAnEra the true beginning of]] [[The20thCentury the 20th Century]], severing continuity with the conformity, stability, and -- in retrospect -- comforting illusions of progress and decency that people had previously ascribed to European civilization. Four of Europe's great empires (UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austria-Hungary]], UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire) cracked apart in its wake, resulting in the liberation and formation of new nations, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober culminating in a revolution]] of a size and scale [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution not seen since 1789]]. The empires and nations that did come out ''status quo ante bellum'', such as UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire and UsefulNotes/TheFrenchColonialEmpire found their power and uncontested influence weakened and challenged, both at home and in their colonies. It marked the beginning of the end of the age of empires that had defined the 19th Century, with the United States of America taking the role of a global leader for the first time, under President UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson. The world would not see such a dramatic cultural and political turning point again until the start and end of World War II, and in the face of all other major turning points in modern history, this still stands as perhaps the biggest of them all: not one bit of any social, political, or cultural concept that emerged after November 1918 would exist in the form that it did/does had it not been for World War I.