Portal:World War I

American Civil War · American Revolutionary War · British Army · Cold War · Crusades · Iraq War · Italian Wars · Military history of Africa · Military history of France · Military history of the Ottoman Empire · Military of ancient Rome · Military of Australia · Military of Greece · Military of the United States · NATO · Royal Air Force · Royal Navy · United States Air Force · United States Army · United States Coast Guard · United States Marine Corps · United States Navy · War · Weapons of mass destruction · World War I · World War II

edit

The World War I Portal

World War I (abbreviated WWI), also known as the First World War, the Great War and The War to End All Wars was a global military conflict that took place mostly in Europe between 1914 and 1918. The main combatants were the Allied Powers, led by France, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, Serbia, and later Italy, Romania and the United States, who fought against the Central Powers: Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire.

Much of the fighting in World War I took place along the Western Front, within a system of opposing manned trenches and fortifications (separated by a "no man's land") running from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. On the Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate from developing, although the scale of the conflict was just as large. Hostilities also occurred on and under the sea and — for the first time — in the air. More than nine million soldiers died on the various battlefields, and millions more civilians perished.

The war caused the disintegration of four empires: the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian. Germany lost its overseas empire, and states such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were created, or recreated, as was the cases of Lithuania and Poland. This contributed to a decisive break with the world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, which was modified by the mid-19th century’s nationalistic revolutions. The results of World War I would also be important factors in the development of World War II just over two decades later.

Show new selections edit

Selected event

The First Battle of the Marne (also known as the Miracle of the Marne) was a World War I battle fought from September 5 to September 12, 1914. It was a Franco-British victory against the German army under German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

The battle of the Marne was a major turning point of World War I. By the end of August 1914, the whole Allied army on the Western Front had been forced into a general retreat back towards Paris. Meanwhile the two main German armies continued through France. It seemed that Paris would be taken as both the French and the British fell back towards the Marne River.

Selected equipment

The Lewis Gun is a pre-World War I era squad automatic weapon/machine gun of American design that was most widely used by the forces of the British Empire. It first saw combat with the Belgian Army in World War I, and continued in service all the way through to World War II. It is visually distinctive because of a wide tubular cooling shroud around the barrel and top mounted pan magazines. The British quickly claimed it as their own, adopting it in late 1915 (much like their invention of the Peabody-Martini-Henry rifle). Each Lewis Gun required a team of two gunners, one to fire and one to carry ammunition and reload, and the whole rifle squad was trained to fire it in case the gunners were incapacitated.

Selected quote

"We will support Britain to the last man and the last shilling."

— Andrew Fisher, August 1914

edit

Selected picture

The evacuation of W Beach, Helles, on 7 January, 1916.

Photo credit: Lt. Ernest Brooks.

edit

Selected biography

Armando Diaz(December 5, 1861–February 29, 1928) was an Italiangeneral and a Marshal of Italy. On the outbreak of the World War I, he was assigned to the high command as head of the unit's operations under General Luigi Cadorna. He was promoted to 2-star generalin June, 1916, and assumed the command of the 49th division and then the 23rd army corps. The Battle of Caporetto, in October 1917, was disastrous to the army, and on November 8, 1917, he was called to succeed Cadorna as chief of general staff. Recovered what remained of the army, he organized the resistance on Mount Grappaand at the Battle of the Piave River. In 1918he led the Italian troops in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, and in his famous bollettino della Vittoria (Victory Address) he communicated the rout of the Austrian army and success of the Italians.