LECTURE#15

What had caused first 2 Russian revolutions? The first Marxist party (1898). The Russo - Japanese war (1904 - 1905). The “Bloody Sunday” & the First Russian revolution (1905). The formation of an elective body: the State Duma as a «parliament in embryo». The agrarian reform of Peter Stolypin. World War I. Gregory Rasputin. The February Democratic revolution 1917. Tsar abdicates from the throne.

The Russian Revolution of 1905

Background.
Unrest was an expected component of the Russian Empire, but in the decades up to 1905 serious disturbances were rare. Political discontent had been building, especially since the controversial emancipation of the serfs in 1861 by Alexander II. The emancipation was dangerously conditional, with years of ''redemption'' payments to the dvoryanstvo and only limited, technical freedom for the narod (common people). They were still embedded in a range of duties and rules which were only for those of their class.

The emancipation was only part of a range of government, legal, social and economic changes from the 1860s as the country moved, ever so slowly, away from feudal absolutism towards market-driven capitalism. Most significantly the political system was almost unchanged while economic, social and cultural structures had been liberalised. Political change was sternly resisted by the monarchy and the bureaucracy, even agreed development was limited, for example less than forty provinces had zemstvo (rural councils) fifty years after the legislation was introduced. This raising of expectations and limited progress produced frustration. A feeling that the demand for ''land and liberty'' could only be truly met by revolution.

The active revolutionaries were almost exclusively drawn from the intelligentsia and is encompassed by the term narodnichestvo, revolutionary populism. It was not a unified movement, but a enormous spectrum of radical groups, usually tiny, pushing in all directions. The early ideological came from the pre-emancipation work of the noble Alexander Herzen and his synthesis of European socialism and Slavic peasant collectivism. Russian society was still pre-industrial, and an idealized view saw the narod and the obshchina (peasant commune) as the base for revolutionary change - there was no industrial proletariat. More perceptive thinkers have argued that the Russian peasants were a force of extreme conservatism, loyal to their household-village-commune and no-one else, caring only for their land, and in a deep way anti-democratic, almost anti-freedom - at least in a Western sense. Later Russian ideologues moved more to the idea of a leading revolutionary ''elite'', a concept put into action in 1917.

The most obvious outcome of the intellectual revolutionaries was the death of Alexander II on March 1, 1881. Killed in a bomb-blast by Narodnaya volya, a splinter of the second Zemlya i volya party. He was succeeded by Alexander III, a deeply conservative man and heavily influenced by Constantin Pobedonostsev, a devotee of autocratic government.

There was a country-wide suppression of revolutionaries and even existing proto-democratic forms. The Russian police political serive (Okhranka) was highly efficient. The most obvious feature was the scattering of the Russian intelligensia through imprisonment, exile or pre-emptive emigration. This exodus brought Russian ideas into contact with Marxism - the first Russian Marxist group was formed in 1883 (although a significant bloc did not form until 1898). There were also legislative measures against non-''Russians'' and against followers of religions other than Orthodoxy. The Jewish community was especially singled out.

Against this social stifling the 1880s and 1890s were marked by huge leaps in industrialization - although from a miserably low base. This growth continued and intensified in the 1890s, with the construction of the trans-Siberian railway and the "Witte system". Sergei Witte was made Minister of Finance in 1892. Faced with a constant budget deficit, he sought to boost revenues by boosting the economy. He worked hard to attract foreign investment and in 1897 put the rouble on the gold standard. The growth was concentrated in a few areas (Moscow, St Petersburg, the Ukraine, Baku etc). Roughly half of all invested capital was foreign and foreign experts and entrepreneurs were vital.
By 1905 revolutionary groups are recovered from the 1880s. The Marxist RSDLP (Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) was formed in 1898 and then split in 1903, creating the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. Lenin had published What is to be Done? in 1902. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) was founded in Kharkov in 1900, and its ''Combat Organization'' assassinated many prominent political figures up to 1905 including two ''Prime Ministers'' (Ministers of the Interior), including the roundly hated Viacheslav Plehve on July 15, 1904. These killings resulted in the granting of even more draconian powers to the police, but Plehve was replaced by the more liberal Prince Sviatopolk-Mirskii. Oddly the head of the ''Combat Organization'' was an informer on the police payroll.

The war with Japan, initially popular was now feeding into the discontent, as military failures and unclear causes alienated the people. The deep inequality of the emancipation was being re-examined - the peasants were burning farms all across Russia. The boom of the 1890s had fallen into a slump and workers were expressing their grievances at their abysmal conditions. In 1903 one-third of the Russian army in western Russia had engaged in "repressive action". Nicholas II had come to power in 1894 but, both incompetent and stubborn, steadfastly refused any political changes.

Revolution.
On January 22 (January 9), 1905, the day known as "Bloody Sunday", there was a protest march in St. Petersburg that was put down by armed force with more than 1,000 killed or injured.
This event was the needed spark for many groups in Russian society to move into active protest. Each group had its own aims and even within similar classes there was no overall direction. The main protestors were the peasants (economic), the workers (economic, anti-industrialist), intelligentsia and liberals (civil rights), the armed forces (economic), and minority national groups (political and cultural freedom).

The economic situation of the peasants was appalling, but leaderless each splinter sought its own objectives. Unrest was spread across the year, reaching peaks in early summer and autumn before culminating in November. Renters wanted lower rents, hirelings wanted better wages, land-holders wanted bigger plots of land. The actual activities were land-seizures, sometimes followed by violence and burning; looting the larger estates and illegal hunting and logging in the forests. The level of animosity displayed had a direct link to the condition of the peasants - the landless of Livland and Kurland attacked and burned, while the better-off in the neighbouring Grodno, Kovno and Minsk took little destructive action.
However, after the events of 1905, peasant unrest returned in 1906 and lasted until 1908. The government concessions were seen as support for the redistribution of land, so there were attacks to force landlords and ''non-peasant'' land-holders to flee. Believing a country-wide redistribution was imminent, the peasants took the opportunity to ''pre-empt'' the decision-makers. They were strongly suppressed.

The workers act of resistance was the strike. There were widespread strikes in St. Petersburg immediately after Bloody Sunday; over 400,000 workers were involved by the end of January. The action quickly spread to other industrial centres in Poland and the Baltic coast. In Riga 70 protestors were killed on January 13, and in Warsaw a few days later over 100 strikers were shot on the streets. By February there were strikes in the Caucasus and by April in the Urals and beyond. In March all higher academic institutions were forcibly closed for the remainder of the year, adding radical students to the striking workers. In October the ephemeral St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers'' Deputies, a Menshevik group, organized over 200 factories to strike, the ''Great October Strike''. This action quickly spread to Moscow and by October 13 there was almost no active railway in all Russia.

With the unsuccessful and bloody Russo-Japanese War with Japan there had been unrest in army reserve units since 1904. In February 1905 the Russian army was defeated at Mukden, losing almost 90,000 men in the process, in May Port Arthur was lost and the Russian fleet mauled at Tsushima. Witte was quickly dispatched to make peace, negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (signed September 5). In 1905 there were naval mutinies at Sevastopol, Vladivostok and Kronstadt, peaking in June, with the mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin - some sources claim over 2,000 sailors died in the restoration of order. The mutinies were disorganized and quickly crushed. The armed forces were largely apolitical and remained mostly loyal, if dis-satisfied, and was widely used by the government to control the 1905 unrest.

Non-Russian national groups had been angered by the Russification undertaken since Alexander II. The Poles, Finns, and the Baltic provinces all sought autonomy, and also freedom to use their national languages and promote their own culture. Moslem groups were also active, the First Congress of the Moslem Union took place in August 1905. Although certain groups took the opportunity to settle differences with each other rather than the government. Some nationalists undertook anti-Jewish pogroms, possibly with government aid.

Outcome.
The government responded fairly quickly. The Tsar had hoped to resist any major change, he dismissed Sviatopolk-Mirskii on January 18. Following the assassination of his relative, Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich on February 4 he agreed to certain concessions. On February 18 he signed three declarations, the most important of which announced a consultative assembly, a State Duma, was to be created. On August 6 electoral rules were issued, the so-called Bulygin Constitution, but when the powers of the Duma were revealed and the limits to the electorate, unrest redoubled. Reaching an almost general strike in early October.

Finally on October 17 the Tsar signed a manifesto, the October Manifesto. It was written by Witte and Alexis Obolenskii and closed followed the demands of the September Zemstvo Congress, in granting basic civil rights, allowing the formation of political parties, extending the franchise some-way towards universal suffrage, and establishing the Duma as the central legislative body. The manifesto was written on October 14 and the Tsar waited and argued for some days before signing, only a desire to avoid a massacre and a realization that there was insufficient available force made him sign. He regretted signing the document, feeling it had been under duress.

When the manifesto was proclaimed there were spontaneous demonstrations of support in all the major cities. The strikes in St Petersburg and elsewhere were either officially ended or quickly collapsed. A political amnesty was also offered. The concessions came hand-in-hand with renewed, and brutal, action against the unrest. There was also a backlash from the conservative elements of society, notably in spasmodic anti-Jewish attacks - around five hundred were killed in a single day in Odessa - the Tsar himself claimed that 90 % of revolutionaries were Jews.

The uprisings finally ended in December when a final spasm in Moscow. Between December 5 and 7 a Bolshevik committee enforced a general strike by threatening violence on these who worked. The government sent in troops on the 7th and a bitter street-by-street fight began. A week later the Semenovskii Regiment was deployed, and used artillery to break-up demonstrations and shell worker''s districts. On December 18, with around a thousand people dead and parts of the city in ruins, the Bolsheviks surrendered. In the subsequent reprisals the number beaten or killed is unknown.
Among the political parties formed, or made legal, was the liberal-intelligentsia Constitutional Democratic party (the Kadets), the peasant leaders'' Labour Group (Trudoviks), the less liberal Union of October 17 (the Octobrists), and the positively reactionary Union of Land-Owners.
The electoral laws were promulgated in December 1905, franchise to the over 25''s electing through four electoral colleges. The first elections to the Duma took place in March 1906 and were boycotted by the socialists, the SRs and the Bolsheviks. In the First Duma there were 170 Kadets, 90 Trudoviks, 100 non-aligned peasant representatives, 63 nationalists of various hues, and 16 Octobrists.
In April 1906 the government issued the Fundamental Law, setting the limits of this new order. The tsar was confirmed as absolute leader, with complete control of the executive, foreign policy, Church, and the armed forces. The Duma was moved to become the lower chamber below the tsar-appointed State Council. Legislation had to be approved by the Duma, the Council and the Tsar to become law and in ''exceptional conditions'' the government could bypass the Duma.

Also in April Sergei Witte, having negotiated a loan of almost 900 million roubles to repair Russian finances, resigned. Apparently the Tsar had ''lost confidence'' in him. "Late Imperial Russia''s most outstanding politician" (even if that is hardly a resounding compliment) was replaced by Ivan Goremykin, an Imperial lackey.

Demanding further liberalization and acting as a platform for ''agitators'' the First Duma was dissolved by the Tsar in July 1906. Despite the hopes of the Kadets and the fears of the government there was no wide-spread popular reaction. However, an assassination attempt on Petr Stolypin led to the establishment of field trials for terrorists and over the next eight months over a thousand people were given Stolypin neckties.

In essence the country was unchanged, political power remained with the tsar, wealth and land with the nobility, society was unchanged. The introduction of the Duma and the clamp-down did, however, successfully disrupt the revolutionary groups. Leaders were imprisoned or exiled and the groups were confused and uncertain, should they join the Duma or stay outside? The resulting splits and internal divisions kept the radicals disorganized until the stimulus of World War I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1905

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V. I. Lenin. “The Beginning of the Revolution in Russia”
Published: Vperyod, No. 4, January 31(18), 1905.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962, Moscow, Volume 8, pages 97-100.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor Lasker
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2003.

Geneva, Wednesday, January 25 (12)
Events of the greatest historical importance are developing in Russia. The proletariat has risen against tsarism. The proletariat was driven to revolt by the government. There can hardly be any doubt now that the government deliberately allowed the strike movement to develop and a wide demonstration to be started more or less without hindrance in order to bring matters to a point where military force could be used. Its manoeuvre was successful. Thousands of killed and wounded—such is the toll of Bloody Sunday, January 9, in St. Petersburg. The army defeated unarmed workers, women, and children. The army vanquished the enemy by shooting prostrate workers. “We have taught them a good lesson!" the tsar’s henchmen and their European flunkeys from among the conservative bourgeoisie say with consummate cynicism.

Yes, it was a great lesson, one which the Russian proletariat will not forget. The most uneducated, backward sections of the working class, who naïvely trusted the tsar and sincerely wished to put peacefully before “the tsar himself” the petition of a tormented people, were all taught a lesson by the troops led by the tsar or his uncle, the Grand Duke Vladimir.

The working class has received a momentous lesson in civil war; the revolutionary education of the proletariat made more progress in one day than it could have made in months and years of drab, humdrum, wretched existence. The slogan of the heroic St. Petersburg proletariat, “Death or freedom!" is reverberating throughout Russia. Events are developing with astonishing rapidity. The general strike in St. Petersburg is spreading. All industrial, public, and political activities are paralysed. On Monday, January 10, still more violent clashes occurred between the workers and the military. Contrary to the mendacious government reports, blood is flowing in many parts of the capital. The workers of Kolpino are rising. The proletariat is arming itself and the people. The workers are said to have seized the Sestroretsk Arsenal. They are providing themselves with revolvers, forging their tools into weapons, and procuring bombs for a desperate bid for freedom. The general strike is spreading to the provinces. Ten thousand have already ceased work in Moscow, and a general strike has been called there for tomorrow (Thursday, January 13). An uprising has broken out in Riga. The workers are demonstrating in Lodz, an uprising is being prepared in Warsaw, proletarian demonstrations are taking place in Helsingfors. Unrest is growing among the workers and the strike is spreading in Baku, Odessa, Kiev, Kharkov, Koyno, and Vilna. In Sevastopol, the naval stores and arsenals are ablaze, and the troops refuse to shoot at the mutineers. Strikes in Revel and in Saratov. Workers and reservists clash with the troops in Radom.

The revolution is spreading. The government is beginning to lose its head. From the policy of bloody repression it is attempting to change over to economic concessions and to save itself by throwing a sop to the workers or promising the nine-hour day. But the lesson of Bloody Sunday cannot be forgotten. The demand of the insurgent St. Petersburg workers—the immediate convocation of a Constituent Assembly on the basis of universal, direct, and equal suffrage by secret ballot—must become the demand of all the striking workers. Immediate overthrow of the government— this was the slogan with which even the St. Petersburg workers who had believed in the tsar answered the massacre of January 9; they answered through their leader, the priest Georgi Gapon, who declared after that bloody day: “We no longer have a tsar. A river of blood divides the tsar from the people. Long live the fight for freedom!"

Long live the revolutionary proletariat! say we. The general strike is rousing and rallying increasing masses of the working class and the urban poor. The arming of the people is becoming an immediate task of the revolutionary moment.

Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty. The sooner the proletariat succeeds in arming, and the longer it holds its fighting positions as striker and revolutionary, the sooner will the army begin to waver; more and more soldiers will at last begin to realise what they are doing and they will join sides with the people against the fiends, against the tyrant, against the murderers of defenceless workers and of their wives and children. No matter what the outcome of the present uprising in St. Petersburg may be, it will, in any case, be the first step to a wider, more conscious, better organised uprising. The government may possibly succeed in putting off the day of reckoning, but the postponement will only make the next step of the revolutionary onset more stupendous. This will only mean that the Social-Democrats will take advantage of this postponement to rally the organised fighters and spread the news about the start made by the St. Petersburg workers. The proletariat will join in the struggle, it will quit mill and factory and will prepare arms for itself. The slogans of the struggle for freedom will be carried more and more widely into the midst of the urban poor and of the millions of peasants. Revolutionary committees will be set up at every factory, in every city district, in every large village. The people in revolt will overthrow all the government institutions of the tsarist autocracy and proclaim the immediate convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
The immediate arming of the workers and of all citizens in general, the preparation and organisation of the revolutionary forces for overthrowing the government authorities and institutions—this is the practical basis on which revolutionaries of every variety can and must unite to strike the common blow. The proletariat must always pursue its own independent path, never weakening its connection with the Social-Democratic Party, always bearing in mind its great, ultimate objective, which is to rid mankind of all exploitation. But this independence of the Social Democratic proletarian party will never cause us to forget the importance of a common revolutionary onset at the moment of actual revolution. We Social-Democrats can and must act independently of the bourgeois-democratic revolutionaries and guard the class independence of the proletariat. But we must go hand in hand with them during the up rising, when direct blows are being struck at tsarism, when resistance is offered the troops, when the bastilles of the accursed enemy of the entire Russian people are stormed.
The proletariat of the whole world is now looking eagerly towards the proletariat of Russia. The overthrow of tsarism in Russia, so valiantly begun by our working class, will be the turning-point in the history of all countries; it will facilitate the task of the workers of all nations, in all states, in all parts of the globe. Let, therefore, every Social-Democrat, every class-conscious worker bear in mind the immense tasks of the broad popular struggle that now rest upon his shoulders. Let him not forget that he represents also the needs and interests of the whole peasantry, of all who toil, of all who are exploited, of the whole people against their enemy. The proletarian heroes of St. Petersburg now stand as an example to all.

Long live the revolution! Long live the insurgent proletariat!

http://marxists.nigilist.ru/archive/lenin/works

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PETER STOLYPIN

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin (Russian: Пётр Арка́дьевич Столы́пин) (April 14 (April 2 Old Style) 1862 - September 18 (September 5 Old Style) 1911) served as Nicholas II''s Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) from 1906 to 1911. He became known for his heavy-handed attempts to battle revolutionary groups and for instituting the agrarian reform.

Stolypin was a high-born member of the Russian aristocracy, related on his father''s side to the poet Mikhail Lermontov. He had a good education and served in the government bureaucracy. His successes led to him first being appointed interior minister under Ivan Goremykin. A few months later, Nicholas appointed Stolypin to replace Goremykin as Prime Minister.

Russia in 1906 was plagued by revolutionary unrest and wide discontent amongst the population. Leftist organisations were waging campaigns against the autocracy, and had wide support; throughout Russia, police officials and bureaucrats were being assassinated. To respond to these attacks Stolypin introduced a system of military tribunals that held quick trials of any accused rebels. If the accused was sentenced to death, as often happened, the sentence would be carried out within a day. Thousands of Russian radicals were killed under Stolypin''s system. The gallows hence acquired the nickname Stolypin''s necktie.

He dissolved the First Duma on July 22 (July 9, Old Style) 1906, after the discontent of some of its more radical members to co-operate with the government and calls for land reform. To help quell dissent Stolypin also hoped to remove some of the causes of grievance amongst the peasantry. Thus, he introduced important land reforms. Stolypin also tried to improve the lives of the urban workers and worked to increase the power of local governments.

Opinions about Stolypin''s work are very divided. In the unruly atmosphere after the Revolution of 1905 he had to suppress violent revolt and anarchy. His agrarian reform held out much promise, however. Stolypin''s phrase that it was a "wager on the strong" has often been maliciously misrepresented. Stolypin and his collaborators (among whom in the first place his Minister of Agriculture Alexander Krivoshein and the Danish-born agronomist Andrei Andreievich Køfød should be mentioned) tried to give as many peasants as possible a chance to raise themselves out of poverty, by promoting consolidation of scattered plots, introducing banking facilities for peasants, stimulating emigration form overcrowded areas to virgin lands in Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia.
The aim of Stolypin was to create a moderately wealthy class of peasants, who would be supporters of societal order. (See article "Stolypin Reform").

At some point in the spring of 1911, Stolypin proposed a bill whose failure to pass led to his resignation. He proposed spreading the system of zemstva to the southwestern provinces of Russia. It was originally slated to pass with a narrow majority, but Stolypin''s partisan foes had it defeated. In his anger, he resigned as Prime Minister of the Third Duma.

Lenin was afraid Stolypin might succeed in helping Russia avoid a violent revolution. Many German political leaders feared that a successful economic transformation of Russia would undermine Germany''s dominating position in Europe within a generation. Some historians believe that German leaders in 1914 chose to provoke a war with Tsarist Russia, in order to defeat it before it would grow too strong. On the other hand, the Tsar did not give Stolypin unreserved backing. In fact, it was believed that his position at Court was already seriously undermined by the time he fell victim to an assassination attempt in 1911.

Stolypin''s reforms did not survive the turmoil of the World War I, October Revolution and Russian Civil War.

Stolypin changed the nature of the Duma to attempt to make it more willing to pass legislation proposed by the government. After dissolving the Second Duma in June 1907, he changed the weight of votes more in favour of the nobility and wealthy, reducing the value of lower class votes. This effected the elections to the Third Duma, which returned much more conservative members, more willing to co-operate with the government.

On September 14 (September 1 Old Style) 1911, Stolypin was assassinated by a leftist radical, Dmitri Bogrov, while attending a performance at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the Tsar and his family. He died four days later.
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WWI

World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, the War of the Nations and the War to End All Wars, was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. The war was fought by the Allies on one side, and the Central Powers on the other. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers or involved so many in the field of battle. By its end, the war had become the second bloodiest conflict in recorded history (behind the Taiping Rebellion), though it was surpassed within a generation by World War II.

World War I became infamous for trench warfare, where troops were confined to trenches because of tight defenses. This was especially true of the Western Front. Over 9 million died on the battlefield, and nearly that many more on the home front due to food shortages, genocide, and ground combat. Among other notable events, chemical weapons were used for the first time, the first large-scale bombing from the air was undertaken, and some of the century''s first large-scale civilian massacres took place.

The causes of World War I were complex developments by themselves (see causes below).
World War I proved to be the decisive break with the old world order, marking the final demise of absolutist monarchy in Europe. Four empires were shattered: The German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, and the Russian. Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs, who had roots of power back to the days of the Crusades, all fell during or after the war.

The post-war failure to deal effectively with many of the causes and results of the War would lead to the rise of Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany and the outbreak of World War II within a generation. The War was the catalyst for the Bolshevik Russian Revolution, which would inspire later Communist revolutions in countries as diverse as China and Cuba, and would lay the basis for the Cold War standoff between the Communist Soviet Union and the United States. In the east, the demise of the Ottoman Empire laid the basis for a modern democratic successor state, Turkey. In Central Europe, new states Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were born and Poland was re-created.

Activity by the French and British Empire forces in the eastern part of the former Ottoman Empire would give rise to several modern conflicts, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Greco-Turkish conflict over Cyprus, the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the 1990s by Iraq. The Greco-Turkish conflict, which ended in 1924, was the last direct major conflict of the war.
Causes

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student. He was part of a group of fifteen assassins, acting with support from the Black Hand, a secret society founded by pan-Serbian nationalists, with links to the Serbian military. The assassination sparked little initial concern in Europe. The Archduke himself was not popular, least of all in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While there were riots in Sarajevo following the Archduke''s death these were largely aimed at the Serbian minority. Though this assassination has been linked as the direct trigger for World War I, the war''s real origins lie further back, in the complex web of alliances and counterbalances that developed between the various European powers after the defeat of France and formation of the German state under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck in 1871.

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Reasons & Responsibilities
The reasons for the outbreak of World War I are a complicated issue; there are many factors which intertwine. Some examples are:
Fervent and uncompromising nationalism
Unresolved previous disputes
The intricate system of alliances
Convoluted and fragmented governance
Delays and misunderstandings in diplomatic communications
The arms races of the previous decades.
Rigidity in military planning

There are many different hypotheses that try to explain who, or what, is to blame for the outbreak of the First World War. Early explanations, prominent in the 1920s and 1930s, stressed the official version of responsibility as enumerated in the Treaty of Versailles and Treaty of Trianon, that Germany and its allies were solely responsible for the war. However, as time progressed, scholars began looking toward the rigidity of both German and Russian military planning, each of which stressed the importance of striking first and executing plans quickly.
Another cause of the war was the building of alliances and arms races. Nations in the Triple Entente became fearful of the Triple Alliance and vice-versa. Germany would lead by advancing military technology, and Britain, as a sea faring nation, would follow suit with stronger ships. The civilian leaders of the European powers also found themselves facing a wave of nationalist zeal that had been building across Europe for years. This left governments with ever fewer options and little room to manoeuvre as the last weeks of July 1914 slipped away. Frantic diplomatic efforts to mediate the Austrian-Serbian quarrel simply became irrelevant, as the automatic military escalations between Germany and Russia reinforced one another.
Furthermore, the problem of communications in 1914 should not be underestimated; all nations still used telegraphy and ambassadors as the main form of communication, resulting in delays from hours to even days. There is probably no single concise or conclusive assessment of the exact cause of the First World War.

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Outbreak of war
Austria–Hungary was created in the "Ausgleich of 1867" after Austria was defeated by Prussia. As agreed in 1867, the Habsburgs would be Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary. Hungary would gain a parliament and have certain rights similar to home rule. This compromise was agreed to by Franz Josef and others in the German aristocracy in hopes of preserving their power. It did not solve the more fundamental problems of the Austro–Hungarian Empire. With the formation of the Dual Monarchy, Franz Josef became leader of a nation with sixteen ethnic groups and five major religions speaking no fewer than nine languages.

In large measure because of the vast disparities that existed within the Empire, Austrians and Hungarians always viewed growing Slavic nationalism with deep suspicion and concern. Thus the Austro-Hungarian government grew worried with the near-doubling in size of neighbouring Serbia''s territory as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. Serbia, for its part, made no qualms about the fact that it viewed all of Southern Austria–Hungary as part of a future Great South Slavic Union. This view had also garnered considerable support in Russia. Many in the Austrian leadership, not least Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph, and Conrad von Hötzendorf, worried that Serbian nationalist agitation in the southern provinces of the Empire would lead to further unrest among the Austro-Hungarian Empire''s other disparate ethnic groups. The Austro-Hungarian government worried that a nationalist Russia would back Serbia to annex Slavic areas of Austria–Hungary. The feeling was that it was better to destroy Serbia before they were given the opportunity to launch a campaign.
After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, after nearly a month of debate, the government of Austria–Hungary sent a 10-point ultimatum to Serbia (July 23, 1914) — the so called July Ultimatum — to be unconditionally accepted within 48 hours. The ultimatum was the first of a series of diplomatic events known as the July Crisis which set off a chain reaction and a general war in Europe.

The Serbian government agreed to all but one of the demands in the ultimatum, noting that participation in its judicial proceedings by a foreign power would violate its constitution. Austria–Hungary nonetheless broke off diplomatic relations (July 25) and declared war (July 28) through a telegram sent to the Serbian government.

The Russian government, which had pledged in 1909 to uphold Serbian independence in return for Serbia''s acceptance of the Bosnia annexation, mobilised its military reserves on 30 July following a breakdown in crucial telegram communications between Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas II (the famous "Willy and Nicky" correspondence), who was under pressure by his military staff to prepare for war. Germany demanded (31 July) that Russia stand down its forces, but the Russian government persisted, as demobilization would have made it impossible to re-activate its military schedule in the short term. Germany declared war against Russia on August 1 and, two days later, against the latter''s ally France.

The outbreak of the conflict is often attributed to the alliances established over the previous decades — Germany-Austria-Italy vs France-Russia; Britain and Serbia being aligned with the latter. In fact, none of the alliances were activated in the initial outbreak, though Russian general mobilization and Germany''s declaration of war against France were motivated by fear of the opposing alliance being brought into play.

Britain declared war against Germany on August 4. This was ostensibly provoked by Germany''s invasion of Belgium on August 4, 1914, whose independence Britain had guaranteed to uphold in the Treaty of London of 1839, and which stood astride the planned German route for invasion of Russia''s ally France. Unofficially, it was already generally accepted in government that Britain could not remain neutral, since without the co-operation of France and Russia its colonies in Africa and India would be under threat, while German occupation of the French Atlantic ports would be an even larger threat to British trade as a whole.

The spread of war
1914
July 23: Austria-Hungary ultimatum to Serbia.
July 28: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
July 31: Russia begins mobilization.
August 1: Germany declares war on Russia.
August 2: German troops occupy Luxembourg.
August 3: Germany declares war on France.
August 4: Germany invades neutral Belgium; the United Kingdom declares war on Germany in response.
August 6: Montenegro sides with its traditional ally, Serbia, and declares war on Austria-Hungary.
August 10: Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.
August 12: The United Kingdom and France declare war on Austria-Hungary.
August 23: Japan declares war on Germany.
September: Unity Pact signed by France, Britain, and Russia.
October 9: Belgium falls to German troops at the Siege of Antwerp.
October 29: The Ottoman Empire enters the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
November 2: Russia declares war on the Ottoman sultanate.
November 5: France and United Kingdom declare war on the Ottoman sultanate.
December 25: Christmas Truce in the Trenches.
1915
April 24: Young Turk Ottoman government begins deportation and murder of Armenians and Assyrians accusing them of collaboration with the Allies.
April 25: Gallipoli campaign commences.
April 26: Italy secretly signs the London Pact with the Triple Entente.
May 23: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
October 14: Bulgaria declares war on Serbia and enters the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
1916
March 9: Germany declares war on Portugal (see Portugal in the Great War).
August 27: Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary.
August 28: Italy declares war on Germany.
1917
January 16: Germany sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing an alliance against the United States.
April 6: The United States declares war on Germany.
June 27: Greece enters the war on the side of the Entente.
August 14: The Republic of China declares war on Germany.
October 26: Brazil declares war on Germany.
November 7: The October Revolution takes place in Russia.
December 7: United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1918
3 March: Russia and the Central Powers sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, marking Russia''s exit from World War I.
October 30: Mudros/Turkish Armistice signed opening Turkish territory to Entente military operations.
November 11: Armistice signed, end of World War I.
1919
28 June: Treaty of Versailles, official end to World War I between the Entente and Central Powers.
1920
4 June: Treaty of Trianon, partition of Austro-Hungarian Empire''s Kingdom of Hungary.

_________________________________________

Opening battles
Some of the very first actions of the war occurred far from Europe, in Africa and in the Pacific Ocean. On August 8 1914 a combined French and British Empire force invaded the German protectorate of Togoland. On August 10 German forces based in South-West Africa attacked South Africa. New Zealand occupied German Samoa (30 August 1914) and on September 11 the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu-Pommern, which formed part of German New Guinea. Within a few months the Entente forces had accepted the surrender of or driven out German forces in the Pacific. But sporadic and fierce fighting continued in Africa for the remainder of the war.
In Europe, Germany and Austria-Hungary suffered from miscommunication regarding each army''s intentions. Germany had originally guaranteed to support Austria-Hungary''s invasion of Serbia, but the interpretations of this idea differed. Austro-Hungarian leaders thought that Germany would cover their northern flank against Russia, but Germany had planned for Austria-Hungary to focus the majority of its troops on Russia while Germany dealt with France on the Western Front. This confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian army to split its troop concentrations from the south in order to meet the Russians in the north. The Serb army, coming up from the south of the country, met the Austrian army at the Battle of Cer on 12 August 1914.

The Serbians occupied defensive positions against the Austrians. The first attack came on August 16th, between parts of the 21st Austro–Hungarian division and parts of the Serbian Combined division. In harsh night-time fighting the battle ebbed and flowed, until Stepa Stepanovic rallied the Serbian line. Three days later the Austrians retreated across the Danube, having suffered 21,000 casualties as against 16,000 Serbian casualties. This marked the first major Allied victory of the war. The Austrians had not achieved their main goal of eliminating Serbia, and it became increasingly likely that Germany would have to maintain forces on two fronts.

Germany''s plan (named the Schlieffen plan) to deal with the Franco-Russian alliance involved delivering a knock-out blow to the French and then turning to deal with the more slowly mobilized Russian army. Rather than invading eastern France directly, German planners deemed it prudent to attack France from the north. To do so, the German army had to march through Belgium. Germany demanded free passage from the Belgian government, promising to treat Belgium as Germany''s firm ally if the Belgians agreed. When Belgium refused, Germany invaded and began marching through Belgium anyway, after first invading and securing Luxembourg. It soon encountered resistance before the forts of the Belgian city of Liège, although the army as a whole continued to make rapid progress into France. Britain sent an army to France (the British Expeditionary Force, or BEF), which advanced into Belgium. Initially the Germans had great successes in the Battle of the Frontiers (14–24 August 1914).

However, the delays brought about by the resistance of the Belgian, French and British forces and the unexpectedly rapid mobilization of the Russians upset the German plans. Russia attacked in East Prussia, diverting German forces intended for the Western Front. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the (second) Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September), but this diversion allowed French and British forces to finally halt the German advance on Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 1914) as the Entente forced the Central Powers into fighting a war on two fronts. However, 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 in the months of August and September.

Early stages: from romanticism to the trenches
The perception of war in 1914 was romanticized by many people, and its declaration was met with great enthusiasm by these people. The common view was that it would be a short war of manoeuvre with a few sharp actions (to "teach the enemy a lesson") and would end with a victorious entry into the capital (the enemy capital, naturally) then home for a victory parade or two and back to "normal" life. However, many people regarded the coming war with great pessimism and worry. Many military commanders on both sides, like Lord Kitchener, predicted the war would be a long one. Other political leaders, such as Bethmann Hollweg in Germany, were concerned by the potential social consequences of a war. International bond and financial markets entered severe crises in late July and early August reflecting worry about the financial consequences of war.

The perceived excitement of war captured the imagination of many in the warring nations. Spurred on by propaganda and nationalist fervour, many eagerly joined the ranks in search of adventure. Few were prepared for what they actually encountered at the front.

Trench warfare begins
After their initial success on the Marne, Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking manoeuvres to try to force the other to retreat, in the so-called Race to the Sea. Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German positions from Lorraine to Belgium''s Flemish coast. The British and French sought to take the offensive while Germany sought to defend the territories it had occupied. One consequence of this was that the German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy: the Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be ''temporary'' before their forces broke through the German defences. Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next four years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout (1916), and the Entente''s failure at the Somme in the summer of 1916 brought the French army to the brink of collapse. Futile attempts at more frontal assaults, at terrible cost to the French poilu infantry, led to mutinies which threatened the integrity of the front line in 1917 after the Nivelle Offensive in the spring of 1917. Throughout 1915-17 the British Empire and French armies suffered many more casualties than the German one, but both sides lost millions of soldiers to injury and death.
Around 800,000 soldiers from the British Empire were on the Western Front at any one time, 1,000 battalions each occupying a sector of the line from Belgium to the Arne and operating a month-long four stage system, unless an offensive was underway. The front contained over 6,000 miles of trenches. Each battalion held its sector for around a week before moving back to support lines and then the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas.

Southern theatres. Entry of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October–November 1914, due to the secret Turco-German Alliance signed on August 2, 1914, threatening Russia''s Caucasian territories and Britain''s communications with India and the East via the Suez canal. British Empire action opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamia campaigns, though initially the Turks were successful in repelling enemy incursion. But in Mesopotamia, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Empire forces reorganized and captured Baghdad in March 1917. Further to the west in Palestine, initial British failures were overcome with Jerusalem being captured in December 1917 and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under Edmund Allenby going on to break the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo (September 1918).

Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Turkish armed forces, was a very ambitious man, with a dream to conquer central Asia. He was not a practical soldier. He launched an offensive with 100,000 troops against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914. Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the mountains in the heart of winter, Enver lost 86% of his force. A new Russian commander on the front in the fall of 1915, Grand Duke Nicholas, brought new vigour. A major offensive in 1916 drove the Turks out of much of present-day Armenia, and tragically provided a context for the deportation and genocide against the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia. With control of part of the southern Black Sea coast, Nicholas pushed forward the construction of railway lines to bring up supplies. He was ready for an offensive in the spring of 1917. If it had gone ahead, there was a very good chance that Turkey would have been knocked out of the war in the summer of 1917. But, because of the Russian Revolution, Grand Duke Nicholas was recalled and the Russian armies soon fell apart.

Italian participation
Italy had been nominally allied to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882, but had its own designs against Austrian territory in the South Tyrol, Istria and Dalmatia, and a secret 1902 understanding with France effectively nullifying its alliance commitments. Italy refused to join Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war and joined the Entente by signing the London Pact in April and declaring war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915; it declared war against Germany fifteen months later.

In general, the Italians enjoyed numerical superiority, but were poorly equipped; instead, the Austro-Hungarian defence took advantage of the mostly mountainous terrain, which was anything but suitable for military offensives. For the most part the Front in Ice and Snow remained unchanged during the war, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen and Italian Alpini fought bitter close combat battles during summer and tried to survive during winter in the high mountains. Beginning in 1915, the Italians mounted 17 major offensives on the Isonzo front (the part of the border which was closest to Trieste), but all were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who had the higher ground. The Austro-Hungarians counter-attacked from the Altopiano of Asiago towards Verona and Padua in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but they also made little progress. In the summer, the Italians took back the initiative, capturing the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained practically stable for over one year, despite several Italian offensives, again all on the Isonzo front. In the fall of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large reinforcements, including German assault troops. On October 26, they launched a crushing offensive that resulted in the victory of Kobarid (Caporetto): the Italian army was routed, but after retreating more than 100 km, it was able to reorganize and hold ground at the Battle of the Piave River. In 1918 the Austrians repeatedly failed to break this Italian line, and surrendered to the Entente powers in November.
Throughout the war Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, Conrad von Hötzendorf had a deep hatred for the Italians because he had always perceived them to be the greatest threat to his state. Their betrayal in 1914 enraged him even further. His hatred for Italy blinded him in many ways, and he made many foolish tactical and strategic errors during the campaigns in Italy.

Fall of Serbia
After repelling three Austrian invasions in August-December 1914, Serbia fell to combined German, Austrian and Bulgarian invasion in October 1915. Serbian troops continued to hold out in Albania and Greece, where a Franco-British force had landed to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek government into war against the Central Powers.

The Eastern Front
While the Western Front had reached stalemate in the trenches, the war continued in the east. The Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia''s initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia''s less-developed economic and military organization soon proved unequal to the combined might of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. In the spring of 1915 the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and in May the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland''s southern fringes, capturing Warsaw on August 5 and forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Poland, known as the "Great Retreat".
The Russian Revolution
Dissatisfaction with the Russian government''s conduct of the war grew despite the success of the June 1916 Brusilov offensive in eastern Galicia against the Austrians, when Russian success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces in support of the victorious sector commander. Allied fortunes revived only temporarily with Romania''s entry into the war on August 27: German forces came to the aid of embattled Austrian units in Transylvania, and Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on December 6. Meanwhile, internal unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar remained out of touch at the front, while Empress Alexandra''s increasingly incompetent rule drew protests from all segments of Russian political life, resulting in the murder of Alexandra''s favourite Rasputin by conservative noblemen at the end of 1916.

In March 1917, demonstrations in St. Petersburg culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak centrist Provisional Government, which shared power with the socialists of the Petrograd Soviet. This division of power led to confusion and chaos, both on the front and at home, and the army became progressively less able to effectively resist Germany. Meanwhile, the war, and the government, became more and more unpopular, and the discontent was used strategically by the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, in order to gain power.
The triumph of the Bolsheviks in November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany. At first, the Bolsheviks refused to agree to the harsh German terms, but when Germany resumed the war and marched with impunity across Ukraine, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, which took Russia out of the war and ceded vast territories including Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers.
After the Russians initially dropped out of the war, Entente led a small-scale invasion of Russia. The invasion was made with intent to punish the Russians for dropping out of World War I and to support the Tsarists in the Russian Revolution. Troops landed in Archangel and in another city on the Pacific coast of Russia. The Entente forces were initially told they were invading to defend supplies from German troops. In reality, they were defending them from communist Russians. A memorial commemorating the event is located in White Chapel Cemetery in Troy, Michigan. The force also included a number of Canadians who were based in Vladivostok. The Canadian force contained an artillery unit, but they saw minimal combat.

The Last Half
Events of 1917 would prove decisive in ending the war, although their effects would not fully be felt until 1918. The Entente''s naval blockade of Germany began to have serious impact on morale and productivity on the German home-front. In response, in February 1917, the German General Staff (OHL) were able to convince Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war. Tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tonnes per month from February until July, peaking at 860,000 tonnes in April. After July, the newly introduced convoy system was extremely effective in neutralizing the U-boat threat. Britain was safe from the threat of starvation.

The decisive victory of Germany at the Battle of Caporetto led to the Entente decision at the Rapallo Conference to form the Supreme Allied Council at Versailles to co-ordinate plans and action. Previously British Empire and French armies had operated under separate command systems.
In December, the Central Powers signed an Armistice with Russia, thereby releasing troops from the eastern front for use in the west. Ironically, German troop transfers could have been greater if their territorial acquisitions had not been so dramatic. With both German reinforcements and new American troops pouring into the Western Front, the final outcome of the war was to be decided in that front. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war now that American forces were certain to be arriving in increasing numbers, but held high hopes for a rapid offensive in the West, using their reinforced troops and new infantry tactics. Furthermore, rulers of both the Central Powers and the Entente became more fearful of the threat first raised by Ivan Bloch in 1899, that protracted industrialized war threatened social collapse and revolution throughout Europe. Both sides urgently sought a decisive, rapid victory on the Western Front as they were both fearful of collapse or stalemate.

Entry of the United States

A long stretch of American isolationism left the United States reluctant to involve itself with what was popularly conceived as a European dispute.

Early in 1917 Germany resumed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This, combined with public indignation over the Zimmermann telegram, led to a final break of relations with the Central Powers. President Woodrow Wilson requested that the U.S. Congress declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917 (see: Woodrow Wilson declares war on Germany on Wikisource). The Senate approved the war resolution 82-6, the House with 373-50. Wilson hoped a separate peace could be achieved with Austria-Hungary, however when it kept its loyalty to Germany, the US declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917.

Although the American contribution to the war was important, particularly in terms of the threat posed by increased US presence in Europe, the United States was never formally a member of the Entente, but an "Associated Power". Significant numbers of American troops only arrived in Europe in the summer of 1918.

The United States Army and the National Guard had mobilized in 1916 to pursue the Mexican "bandit" Pancho Villa, which helped speed up the mobilization. The United States Navy was able to send a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, a number of destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and several divisions of submarines to the Azores and Bantry Bay, Ireland to help guard convoys. However, it would be some time before the United States forces would be able to contribute significant manpower to the Western and Italian fronts.

The British and French insisted that the United States emphasize sending infantry to reinforce the line. Throughout the war, the American forces were short of their own artillery, aviation, and engineering units. However, General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Force commander, resisted breaking up American units and using them as reinforcements for British Empire and French units, as suggested by the Allies. Pershing also maintained the use of frontal assaults, which had been discarded by that time by British Empire and French commanders. As a result the American Expeditionary Force suffered a very high rate of casualties in its operations in the summer and fall of 1918.

German Spring Offensive of 1918
Ludendorff made plans for a 1918 general offensive along the Western Front. The Spring Offensive sought to divide the British Empire and French armies in a series of feints and advances. The German leadership hoped to strike a decisive blow before the United States forces could be deployed. Before the offensives even began, Ludendorff may have made the mistake of leaving the elite eighth army in Russia and sending over only a small portion of the forces from the east to aid the offensive in the west.

Operation Michael opened on 21 March 1918 with an attack against British Empire forces, towards the rail junction at Amiens. It was Ludendorff''s intention to split the British Empire and French armies at this point. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 km. For the first time since 1914, manoeuvre had returned to the battlefield.

British Empire and French trenches were defeated using novel infiltration tactics. To this time, attacks had been characterized by long artillery bombardments and continuous-front mass assaults. However, in the Spring Offensive the German Army used artillery briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points, attacking command and logistics areas and surrounding points of serious resistance. These isolated positions were then destroyed by more heavily armed infantry. German success relied greatly on this tactic.

The frontline had now moved to within 120 kilometres of Paris. Three super-heavy Krupp railway guns advanced to fire 183 shells on Paris, causing many Parisians to flee the city. The initial stages of the offensive were so successful that Wilhelm II declared March 24 a national holiday. Many Germans thought victory to be close. However, supply shortages and attrition caused the German offensive to halt. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000.

United States divisions, which Pershing sought to field as an independent force, were assigned to depleted French and British Empire commands on 28 March. A supreme command of Entente forces was created at the Doullers conference in which British Field Marshal Douglas Haig handed control of his forces over to Ferdinand Foch.

Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette to the north against the Channel ports. This was halted with less significant territorial gains. Operations Blucher and Yorck were then conducted by the German Army to the south, broadly towards Paris. Operation Marne was then launched on 15 July as an attempt to encircle Reims, beginning the Second Battle of the Marne. The resulting Entente counter attack marked the first successful Entente''s offensive of the war. By July 20, 1918, the Germans were at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines. Following the last phase, the German
Army never again held the initiative.

Meanwhile, Germany was crumbling internally as well. Anti-war marches were a frequent occurrence and morale within the army was at low levels. Industrial output had fallen 53% from 1913.
On August 8, 1918, the predicted counter-offensive occurred. It involved 414 tanks of the Mark IV and Mark V type, and 120,000 men. The Entente forces had advanced twelve kilometres into German held territory in just seven hours. Erich Ludendorff referred to this day as "the Black Day of the German army".

Entente''s victory
However, after a few days the offensive had slowed down— British Empire units had encountered problems with all but seven of their 414 tanks. On 15 August 1918, Haig called an end to the offensive and began to plan for an offensive in Albert. That offensive came on August 21. Some 130,000 United States troops were involved, along with soldiers from British Third and Fourth Armies. The offensive was an overwhelming success. The German Second Army had been pushed back over a 55 kilometre front. The town of Bapaume was captured on August 29 and by September 2, the Germans had been forced back to the Hindenburg Line.
The attempt to take the Hindenburg Line occurred on September 26 (known as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive): 260,000 American soldiers went "over the top" towards the Hindenburg Line. All divisions were successful in capturing their initial objectives, except the 79th division of the AEF. They met stiff resistance at Montfaucon and were unable to progress. This failure allowed the Germans to recover and regroup. Montfaucon was captured on 27 September; however, failure to take it the day before proved to be one of the most costly mistakes of the entire campaign.

By the start of October it was evident that things were not going according to plan for the Germans. Many tanks were once again breaking down, and those that were actually operable were rendered useless due to tank commanders finding the terrain impossible to navigate. Regardless of this, Ludendorff had decided by October 1 that Germany had two ways out—total annihilation or an armistice. He recommended the latter to senior figures at a summit in Spa, Belgium on that very same day. Pershing continued to pound the exhausted and bewildered Germans without relent for all of October along the Meuse-Argonne front. This would continue until the end of the war.

Meanwhile, news of Germany''s impending defeat had spread throughout the German Armed forces. The threat of mutiny was rife. Naval commander Admiral Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last ditch attempt to restore the "valour" of the German navy. He knew that any such action would be vetoed by the government of Max von Baden, so he made the decision not to inform him. Via word of mouth or otherwise, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Many of the sailors took unofficial leave—refusing to be part of an offensive which they believed to be nothing more than a suicide bid. It was mostly Ludendorff who took the fall for this—the Kaiser dismissing him on 26 October.

However, since the end of September 1918, Ludendorff had been concocting a plan of his own. Although he was a traditionalist conservative, he decided to try and incite a political revolution by introducing new reforms that "democratized" Germany; also satisfying the monarchists as the Kaiser''s reign would continue unabridged. He believed that democratization would show the German people that the government was prepared to change, thus reducing the chance of a socialist style revolt as was seen in Russia in 1917. However, it is the belief of some historians that by doing so Ludendorff had an ulterior motive. His reforms would hand more power over to the members of the Reichstag -particularly the ruling parties, at this time the centre party (under Matthias Erzberger), the liberals, and the social democrats. Therefore, with Ludendorff handing more power to these parties they would have the authority to request an armistice. With 5,989,758 Germans casualties (4,216,058 wounded, 1,773,700 killed), they did just that. Soon after that, Ludendorff had a dramatic change of heart—and began to claim that the very parties who he handed power to had lost Germany the war. These politicians had "stabbed Germany in the back". Prince Max von Baden (SDP) was put in charge. Negotiations for a peace were immediately put into place on his appointment. Also, he was torn between the idea of a constitutional monarchy or complete abolition. However, the matter was taken out of his hands by Philipp Scheidemann, who on November 9, 1918, declared Germany a Republic from a balcony atop the Reichstag. Von Baden announced that the Kaiser was to abdicate—before the Kaiser had himself made up his mind. Imperial Germany had died, and a new Germany had been born: the Weimar Republic.

End of the war
Bulgaria was the first of the Central Powers to sign an armistice (29 September 1918). Germany requested a cease-fire on 3 October 1918. When Wilhelm II ordered the German High Seas Fleet to sortie against the Entente''s navies, they mutinied in Wilhelmshaven starting 29 October 1918. On 30 October the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On November 3 Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce to the Italian Commander to ask an Armistice and terms of peace. The terms having been arranged by telegraph with the Entente Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian Commander, and were accepted. The Armistice with Austria was granted to take effect at three o''clock on the afternoon of November 4. Austria and Hungary had signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy.

Following the outbreak of the German Revolution, a Republic was proclaimed on 9 November, marking the end of the German Empire. The Kaiser fled the next day to the Netherlands, which granted him political asylum. On 11 November Germany signed in a railroad car at Compiègne, in France, an armistice with the Entente. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour it was official, the war was over.

Social effects
One of the distinguishing features of the war was its totality. All aspects of the societies fighting were affected by the conflict, often causing profound social change, even if the countries were not in the war zone.

One of the most dramatic such effects was the expansion of government, its powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire. In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. New taxes were levied, and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort, many of which have lasted to this day.

At the same time, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratized governments such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. Here, however, the long term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments.

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 least in many of the Entente powers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost laborers sent to war. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.

At the outbreak of the war, it was a widely held belief that the war would usher in a new age of humanity. In reality, the war failed to deliver on both sides. For combatants and non-combatants alike, the war had been justified for reasons future generations simply would not be able to understand without seeing the war in the context of the "spirit of 1914". Instead of feeling jubilation, the victors entered a period of mourning. For the defeated, the post-war world was an even greater disappointment, for the Treaty of Versailles was a bitter pill to swallow after the armistice.
The severity of the treaty helped to raise suspicions about the Weimar Republic. Germany''s new democratic government became associated with the treaty in the public eye. At the same time, the nature of Germany''s defeat became another topic of controversy. Accounts from soldiers at the front, as well as the statements made by influencial figures such as Ludendorff, seemed to confirm the theory that Germany had not really lost the war. Instead, it was proposed that Germany had been betrayed from within. The Dolchstoßlegende (literally dagger push legend) suggested that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by those not committed to the cause. Jews and communists quickly became targets of accusation.

The popularity of the Dolchstoßlegende helped to garner support for the movement for National Socialism. It has also been proposed that the experience of the war established with German youths a militaristic and fascist mindset that made it possible for the Nazi party to take control of Germany two decades later. In the aftermath of WWI, post-war depression and nationalist (retributionist) views were a prominent aspect of German public sentiment; an important cornerstone of what would become Nazi ideology.

Technology
The First World War was different from prior military conflicts: it was a meeting of 20th century technology with 19th century mentality and tactics. This time, millions of soldiers, both volunteers and conscripts fought on all sides with Kitchener''s Army being a notable volunteer force.
Much of the war''s combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each metre of land gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Marne, Cambrai, Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties during the First World War.
The First World War also saw the use of chemical warfare and aerial bombardment, both of which had been outlawed under the 1907 Hague Convention.

Chemical warfare was a major distinguishing factor of the war. Gases used ranged from tear gas to disabling chemicals such as mustard gas and killing agents like phosgene. Only a small proportion of casualties were caused by gas, but it achieved harassment and psychological effects. Effective countermeasures to gas were found in gas masks and hence in the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, in many cases its effectiveness was diminished.

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily during the First World War. Initial uses consisted principally of reconnaissance, though this developed into ground-attack and fighter duties as well. Strategic bombing aircraft were created principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins to this end as well.

U-boats, or submarines were first used in combat shortly after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare during the First Battle of the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy of weakening the British Empire by attacking its merchant shipping. In 1915, the RMS Lusitania liner was sunk with United States citizens aboard, affecting the United States'' entry into the war.
Tanks were developed and used for the first time during this war.

Aftermath
The First World War ended with a Europe scarred by trenches, spent of resources, and littered with the bodies of the millions who died in battle. The direct consequences of WWI brought many old regimes crashing to the ground, and ultimately, would lead to the end of 300 years of European hegemony.
No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically - four empires were shattered: The German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the Russian. Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs, who had roots of power back to the days of the Crusades, all fell during or after the war.

Casualties
___Country ___ Casualties ___ Dead ___ Wounded
Russia___ 6,650,000 ___ 1,700,000 ___ 5,950,000
Germany ___ 5,989,758 ___ 2,037,700 ___ 4,216,057
France ___ 5,623,800 ___ 1,357,800___ 4,266,000
Austria-Hungary ___ 4,820,000 ___ 1,200,000___ 3,620,000
British Empire*___ 2,998,671 ___ 908,371 ___2,090,300
Serbia ___ 1,700,000 ___ 450,000 ___950,000
Italy ___ 1,597,000 ___ 650,000 ___947,000
Ottoman Empire ___ 725,000 ___ 325,000 ___400,000
Romania ___ 455,706 ___ 335,706 ___120,000
United States*** ___ 360,300 ___ 126,000 ___234,300
Bulgaria ___ 239,890 ___ 87,500 ___152,390
Canada* ___ 239,605 ___ 66,655___ 172,950
Australia* ___ 218,501 ___ 59,330 ___159,171
New Zealand ___ 76,692 ___ 18,166 ___ 58,526
Montenegro ___ 60,000 ___ 50,000 ___ 10,000
Belgium ___ 58,402 ___ 13,716 ___ 44,686
Greece ___ 26,000 ___ 5,000 ___ 21,000
Portugal ___ 20,973 ___ 7,222 ___ 13,751
Newfoundland** ___ 3,565 ___ 1,251 ___ 2,314
Japan ___ 1,207 ___ 300 ___ 907
Totals ___ 31,266,438 ___ 9,381,551 ___23,148,975 (+ 6.5 mln. civilians)

* British Empire includes Canadian, Irish, Australian, and Indian casualties.
** Newfoundland was a dominion at the time, and not part of Canada.
*** United States official figures, given April 1, 1920 read: 35,560 killed in action; 14,720 died of wounds; 57,460 died of disease; 7,920 died of other causes; 205,690 wounded; 46 missing; 4,480 prisoners. Source: The Communication Trench, Anecdotes & Statistics from The Great War 1914-1918 by Will R. Bird (pg. 75)

Quotations
"Yesterday I visited the battlefield of last year. The place was scarcely recognisable. Instead of a wilderness of ground torn up by shell, the ground was a garden of wild flowers and tall grasses. Most remarkable of all was the appearance of many thousands of white butterflies which fluttered around. It was as if the souls of the dead soldiers had come to haunt the spot where so many fell. It was eerie to see them. And the silence! It was so still that I could almost hear the beat of the butterflies'' wings." - a British officer, 1919.
"The First World War killed fewer victims than the Second World War, destroyed fewer buildings, and uprooted millions instead of tens of millions - but in many ways it left even deeper scars both on the mind and on the map of Europe. The old world never recovered from the shock." - Edmond Taylor, in "The Fossil Monarchies"
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
- John McCrae, from the poem "In Flanders Fields"

"Gott strafe England" was a common slogan of the German Army, which means "May God punish England".

"In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth." - S. Sassoon in ''Memoirs of an Infantry Officer''.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I