WORLD WAR I

Time for history

21. May 2022

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Introduction

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Start of the war

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During the war

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The end of the war

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INTRODUCTION

• The First World War lasted from July 28, 1914, to November 11, 1918.

World War I

• - The war was fought by two major alliances. The Entente powers initially consisted of the United Kingdom, Russia, and France and their territories and protectorates. Numerous other states joined the Entente Powers, most notably Italy, which joined in April 1915, and the United States, which entered the war in April 1917. Before the war began, the Central Powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, which after joined the Entente Powers under the Treaty of London (April 26, 1915), which gave Italy part of Dalmatia, Istria, Gorizia, the Kvarner Islands, and the Dodecanese. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October 1914, and Bulgaria a year later. Until the end of the war, only the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries remained officially neutral among the European countries.

• More than 70 million people were under arms, of which more than 60 million were mobilized in Europe. More than 10 million people died in this war, and about 20 million were wounded. Those directly involved in the war also suffered enormous destruction of infrastructure and the economy.
• Until World War II, this war was called the Great War, the World War, the war that will end all wars, the Kaiser's War, the War of the Nations.

chart of deaths in the World War I

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START AND CAUSES OF THE WAR

Cause of the outbreak

• The immediate cause of the outbreak of the war was the Sarajevo assassination and the cause of the unresolved crisis between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in July 1914, but the causes of the war lie in the decades-long complex military-political situation and rivalry between the great powers in Europe, which needed a reason to go from prosperity to a general state of war within a few months.

• On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Serb from Bosnia, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip was a member of Young Bosnia, an organization whose main goals were the unification of the South Slavs and liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule. This assassination was one of the events that triggered the crisis that then led to the outbreak of war. Austria-Hungary took the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as an opportunity to solve the Serbian question, which was supported by Germany.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Gavrilo Princip

• On July 23, an ultimatum was issued to Serbia in which Austria-Hungary outlined its demands in ten points, some of which were unacceptable to a sovereign state.
• However, the Serbian government conditionally accepted all the demands of the ultimatum, except for point number six, which violated the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Serbia and contradicted the Constitution.
• The Austro-Hungarian government was not satisfied with Serbia's response and declared war on the country on July 28, triggering a series of alliances that set off a chain reaction of war declarations.
• By the end of August 1914, the biggest part of Europe was at war.

DURING THE WAR

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During the war

• The fighting initially took place on three main fronts: the Western, Eastern, and Balkan fronts. With Turkey's entry into the war on November 2, 1914, fighting broke out over the Dardanelles between Turkey and Great Britain, and before the end of 1915, two more main fronts were opened: the Italian and Thessaloniki Fronts. The biggest battles of World War I took place on the Western Front in 1916. In order to finally break the French defenses, Germany attacked the well-fortified city of Verdun on February 21, 1916. To support the French army, the British launched an offensive on the Soma River and the Russians launched a Brusilov offensive to destroy Verdun's defenses. The battle ended on December 19 of the same year, and France managed to defend itself with heavy losses on both sides (about 250,000 soldiers were killed). In the same year, the largest naval battle of the First World War took place near Jutland in Denmark.

The Battle of Jutland

• The Battle of Jutland, involving the British and German fleets, took place in the North Sea near Jutland off the Skagerrak. About 240 ships took part in this battle, with the British fleet having the upper hand. The battle lasted only two days: May 31 and June 1, 1916. The battle was fierce: the British lost 14 ships (6 heavy and 8 light) and 6,200 people, while the Germans lost 11 ships (2 heavy and 9 light) and 2,500 people. From these data, one could conclude that the German fleet won. However, the stronger British fleet was able to absorb these losses more easily and its superiority came into full play. With this battle, the Germans did not manage to change the balance of forces at sea or influence the course of war operations. The Battle of Jutland was one of the largest in naval warfare history, but also the last major battle on a narrow battlefield.

The United States, which had financially supported the Entente since the beginning of the war, declared war on Germany in April 1917. It was not until the following year that American soldiers became more involved on the Western Front, and with their help, French General Foch forced German troops to withdraw from France in March 1918. In mid-September, Serbian and French troops launched an offensive against the Bulgarians and broke through the front at Thessaloniki. Bulgaria and Turkey were soon excluded from the war, followed by Austria-Hungary and Germany, leading to the end of the First World War.

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THE END OF THE WAR

Peace treaties

• The war ended with a series of peace treaties, of which the Peace of Versailles was the most important. Bulgaria was the first country to sign an armistice in Thessaloniki on September 29, 1918, and the Ottoman Empire surrendered in Mudros on October 30. The armistice with Austria-Hungary was signed at Villa Giusti near Padua on November 3. Austria and Hungary signed a special armistice agreement after the fall of the Habsburg monarchy. A revolution broke out in Germany and the Republic was proclaimed on November 9. The German Emperor Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands, where he was granted asylum. Two days later, on November 11, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage in the French town of Compiègne near Paris. The formal state of war between the two sides lasted another seven months until the Peace of Versailles was signed with Germany on June 28, 1919. Peace treaties were later signed with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire.

Peace of Versailles

• Canadian soldier George Lawrence Price, who was hit by a German sniper in the Belgian town of Villa Suren, is traditionally considered the last casualty of the First World War. He died at 10:58 a.m. on November 11, 1918, while peace was signed two minutes later - at 11:00.

New territorial division of Europe

• The most striking consequence of the war was the new territorial division of Europe, which brought significant changes, especially in Eastern and Central Europe. All members of the Central Powers lost territories, and four empires perished: Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, and Russia. Four dynasties with their noble families also perished after the war: the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs.

• New states were founded, and some smaller nations, which had been crushed for centuries by Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, got their own states. The German Empire lost its colonies, was held responsible for the war and had to pay large indemnities. Austria-Hungary was dissolved, and from its territories - Austria, Hungary, and entirely new states, Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of SCS, were created. The Ottoman Empire was dissolved, and the territories of the Empire outside Anatolia (which later gave rise to new states in the Middle East) were assigned to the Entente powers as protectorates, while the core of the Ottoman Empire was reorganized as the Republic of Turkey. In addition, the states of Armenia and Georgia were created. The Russian Empire, which emerged from the war after the October Revolution, lost a large part of its territory in the West, where new states were established: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland (after more than a century Poland was re-established as an independent state). and Russia became part of the Soviet Union.

Economic consequences

• The war also had profound economic consequences. The great epidemic of Spanish flu, which broke out in the last months of the war, cost the lives of millions of people in Europe and spread throughout the world (in all, about 50 million people died of influenza). After the war, the League of Nations was formed, an international organization with the goal of preventing future wars by settling disputes between states through diplomatic means. World War I marked the end of the order that had existed after the Napoleonic Wars and was an important factor contributing to the outbreak of World War II.

Literature

1. Ivan Mihajlović “Prvi svetski rat - najbitnije činjenice i događaji” zrnoznanja.com, 23. october 2020.
2. Dimitrije Djordjević “Istorija moderne Srbije 1800-1918.”, Zavod za udžbenike, Belgrade 2017.
3. Suzana Rajić, Danko Leovac “Istorija srpskog naroda u 19. i početkom 20. veka”, Zavod za udžbenike, Belgrade 2018.
4. vIvan M. Becić “Istorija za II razred srednjih stručnih škola”, Zavod za udžbenike, Belgrade 2008.
5. Wikipedia - “World War I” sr.wikipedia.org
6. Herodot - “Prvi svetski rat” herodotistorija

Thank you

for your attention!

Bjelić Katarina, Femić Mina, Koman Luka, Čapko Srdjan, Starčević Uglješa, Ademović Stefan