Introduction: Scope & the Distinction From World History III, German Political History & Military History: The British Empire

Military History: World War I

Chapter 1 · Introduction: Scope & the Distinction From World History III, German Political History & Military History: The British Empire

This is the ninth entry in this site's Military History sub-series. It follows the First World War (1914–1918) as a war: the plans that failed, the stalemate that followed, the weapons and tactics armies invented to break it, and the campaigns of 1918 that finally did. The US Civil War course ended by calling that war a bridge to 1914. This course starts on the other side of the bridge.

What This Course Covers, and What It Doesn't

The war already appears in several places on this site. This course deliberately covers only what they don't.

TopicWhere it's covered
The war's global, political, and colonial dimensionsWorld History III: The Modern World (Chapter 5)
The war's effect inside Germany: the Kaiser's fall and the November RevolutionGerman Political History I (Chapter 3)
Imperial and Commonwealth troops: Gallipoli, the Indian Army, Vimy Ridge, labour corpsMilitary History: The British Empire (Chapter 8)
The Ottoman defence of GallipoliMilitary History: The Ottoman Empire (Chapter 10)
War plans, the Western Front, trench warfare, Verdun, the Somme, the war at sea, the Eastern Front's collapse, and 1918This course
The Western Front at the Centre The war was fought on many fronts — the Eastern Front, Italy, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, and at sea. This course gives the most space to the Western Front in France and Belgium, where the main German, French, and British armies faced each other and where the war was eventually decided, with separate chapters on the naval war (Chapter 7) and the East (Chapter 8).

The Two Sides

Allies (the Entente)Central Powers
France, the British Empire, and Russia (until its collapse in 1917–18)Germany and Austria-Hungary
Serbia and Belgium (from the start); Japan (1914)The Ottoman Empire (from November 1914)
Italy (from 1915), Romania (1916), the United States (from April 1917), and othersBulgaria (from 1915)

The Scale of the War

Duration

From 28 July 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, to the Armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918 — just over four years and three months.

Military Deaths

An estimated 9–11 million soldiers died. About two-thirds were killed in battle; most of the rest died from disease, including the 1918 influenza pandemic.

All Deaths

Counting civilians, estimates run from about 15 to 22 million. Numbers vary so widely because each country recorded and classified deaths differently.

The Numbers Are Uncertain Like the Civil War death toll (Military History: The US Civil War, Chapter 1), First World War figures are estimates, not counts. Russian and Ottoman losses in particular are poorly documented. When this course gives a number, treat it as the best available estimate, not an exact fact.

What Made This War Different

Firepower Beat Movement

Machine guns, magazine rifles, barbed wire, and above all massed artillery made defending far easier than attacking. Artillery caused more casualties than any other weapon.

Whole Nations Mobilised

Tens of millions of men were called up, and whole economies were turned over to producing shells, guns, and supplies. The war became a test of industrial endurance.

New Weapons

Poison gas, tanks, military aircraft, and submarine warfare were all used on a large scale for the first time — mostly as attempts to break a deadlock the older weapons had created.

Lessons That Were Already Available Almost none of this was completely new. Trenches and mines appeared at Petersburg and Vicksburg (Military History: The US Civil War, Chapters 7, 9, 10); smokeless-powder rifles fired from entrenched positions were devastating in the Boer War (Military History: The British Empire, Chapter 7). What was new was the scale — and the fact that every major army faced the same problem at once.
"The Great War" People at the time called it the Great War or simply the World War. The phrase "First World War" was used as early as September 1914 — a grim prediction that there would be another — but only became standard after 1939.

The Real Arc This Course Traces

  • July–August 1914 The July Crisis and the German war plan (Chapter 2).
  • September 1914 The Battle of the Marne ends hopes of a short war (Chapter 3).
  • 1915–1917 Trench warfare and the search for a way to break the stalemate (Chapter 4).
  • 1916 Verdun (Chapter 5) and the Somme (Chapter 6).
  • 1914–1918 Jutland and the U-boat campaign (Chapter 7).
  • 1914–1918 The Eastern Front and Russia's collapse (Chapter 8).
  • 1918 The German Spring Offensive and the Allied Hundred Days (Chapter 9).
  • 11 November 1918 The Armistice and what the war taught armies (Chapter 10).

Questions to Sit With

If warning signs about trench warfare were visible in earlier wars, why might European armies still have been unprepared in 1914?
Why might it be useful to separate the military history of a war from its political and social history — and what might you lose by doing so?
What does it tell you that people named it the "First" World War as early as 1914?

Quick Reference — Chapter 1

  • This course covers war plans, campaigns, tactics, and technology; the war's global politics, its effect inside Germany, and imperial troops are covered in other courses
  • Allies: France, the British Empire, Russia (to 1917–18), Italy (1915), the US (1917), and others; Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria
  • The war ran from 28 July 1914 to the Armistice of 11 November 1918
  • An estimated 9–11 million military deaths and 15–22 million total deaths; figures vary widely between sources
  • Firepower, especially artillery, favoured defence; mass mobilisation made it a war of industrial endurance; gas, tanks, aircraft, and submarines were used on a large scale for the first time

What's Next

Chapter 2: The July Crisis & the Real Schlieffen Plan.