The outbreak of war With Serbia already much aggrandized by the two Balkan Wars (1912–13, 1913), Serbian nationalists turned their attention back to the idea of “liberating” the South Slavs of Austri

The outbreak of war

With Serbia already much aggrandized by the two Balkan Wars (1912–13, 1913), Serbian nationalists turned their attention back to the idea of "liberating" the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, head of Serbia's military intelligence, was also, under the alias "Apis," head of the secret society Union or Death, pledged to the pursuit of this pan-Serbian ambition. Believing that the Serbs' cause would be served by the death of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, and learning that the Archduke was about to visit Bosnia on a tour of military inspection, Apis plotted his assassination. Nikola Pašić, the Serbian prime minister and an enemy of Apis, heard of the plot and warned the Austrian government of it, but his message was too cautiously worded to be understood.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg

At 11:15 AM on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. The chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, Franz, Graf (count) Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the foreign minister, Leopold, Graf von Berchtold, saw the crime as the occasion for measures to humiliate Serbia and so to enhance Austria-Hungary's prestige in the Balkans. Conrad had already (October 1913) been assured by William II of Germany's support if Austria-Hungary should start a preventive war against Serbia. This assurance was confirmed in the week following the assassination, before William, on July 6, set off upon his annual cruise to the North Cape, off Norway.

Louis IX of France (St. Louis), stained glass window of Louis IX during the Crusades. (Unknown location.)

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The Austrians decided to present an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia and then to declare war, relying on Germany to deter Russia from intervention. Though the terms of the ultimatum were finally approved on July 19, its delivery was postponed to the evening of July 23, since by that time the French president, Raymond Poincaré, and his premier, René Viviani, who had set off on a state visit to Russia on July 15, would be on their way home and therefore unable to concert an immediate reaction with their Russian allies. When the delivery was announced, on July 24, Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia.

Serbia replied to the ultimatum on July 25, accepting most of its demands but protesting against two of them—namely, that Serbian officials (unnamed) should be dismissed at Austria-Hungary's behest and that Austro-Hungarian officials should take part, on Serbian soil, in proceedings against organizations hostile to Austria-Hungary. Though Serbia offered to submit the issue to international arbitration, Austria-Hungary promptly severed diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilization.

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Home from his cruise on July 27, William learned on July 28 how Serbia had replied to the ultimatum. At once he instructed the German Foreign Office to tell Austria-Hungary that there was no longer any justification for war and that it should content itself with a temporary occupation of Belgrade. But, meanwhile, the German Foreign Office had been giving such encouragement to Berchtold that already on July 27 he had persuaded Franz Joseph to authorize war against Serbia. War was in fact declared on July 28, and Austro-Hungarian artillery began to bombard Belgrade the next day. Russia then ordered partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary, and on July 30, when Austria-Hungary was riposting conventionally with an order of mobilization on its Russian frontier, Russia ordered general mobilization. Germany, which since July 28 had still been hoping, in disregard of earlier warning hints from Great Britain, that Austria-Hungary's war against Serbia could be "localized" to the Balkans, was now disillusioned insofar as eastern Europe was concerned. On July 31 Germany sent a 24-hour ultimatum requiring Russia to halt its mobilization and an 18-hour ultimatum requiring France to promise neutrality in the event of war between Russia and Germany.

Both Russia and France predictably ignored these demands. On August 1 Germany ordered general mobilization and declared war against Russia, and France likewise ordered general mobilization. The next day Germany sent troops into Luxembourg and demanded from Belgium free passage for German troops across its neutral territory. On August 3 Germany declared war against France.

In the night of August 3–4 German forces invaded Belgium. Thereupon, Great Britain, which had no concern with Serbia and no express obligation to fight either for Russia or for France but was expressly committed to defend Belgium, on August 4 declared war against Germany.

Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia on August 5; Serbia against Germany on August 6; Montenegro against Austria-Hungary on August 7 and against Germany on August 12; France and Great Britain against Austria-Hungary on August 10 and on August 12, respectively; Japan against Germany on August 23; Austria-Hungary against Japan on August 25 and against Belgium on August 28.

Romania had renewed its secret anti-Russian alliance of 1883 with the Central Powers on February 26, 1914, but now chose to remain neutral. Italy had confirmed the Triple Alliance on December 7, 1912, but could now propound formal arguments for disregarding it: first, Italy was not obliged to support its allies in a war of aggression; second, the original treaty of 1882 had stated expressly that the alliance was not against England.

On September 5, 1914, Russia, France, and Great Britain concluded the Treaty of London, each promising not to make a separate peace with the Central Powers. Thenceforth, they could be called the Allied, or Entente, powers, or simply the Allies.

Witness the beginning of World War I with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914

Witness the beginning of World War I with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914See all videos for this article

The outbreak of war in August 1914 was generally greeted with confidence and jubilation by the peoples of Europe, among whom it inspired a wave of patriotic feeling and celebration. Few people imagined how long or how disastrous a war between the great nations of Europe could be, and most believed that their country's side would be victorious within a matter of months. The war was welcomed either patriotically, as a defensive one imposed by national necessity, or idealistically, as one for upholding right against might, the sanctity of treaties, and international morality.

Forces and resources of the combatant nations in 1914

When war broke out, the Allied powers possessed greater overall demographic, industrial, and military resources than the Central Powers and enjoyed easier access to the oceans for trade with neutral countries, particularly with the United States.

Table 1 shows the population, steel production, and armed strengths of the two rival coalitions in 1914.

Strength of the belligerents, Aug. 4, 1914

resources Central Powers Allied Powers

population (in millions) 115.2 265.5

steel production (in millions of metric tons) 17.0 15.3

army divisions available for mobilization 146 212

modern battleships 20 39

All the initial belligerents in World War I were self-sufficient in food except Great Britain and Germany. Great Britain's industrial establishment was slightly superior to Germany's (17 percent of world trade in 1913 as compared with 12 percent for Germany), but Germany's diversified chemical industry facilitated the production of ersatz, or substitute, materials, which compensated for the worst shortages ensuing from the British wartime blockade. The German chemist Fritz Haber was already developing a process for the fixation of nitrogen from air; this process made Germany self-sufficient in explosives and thus no longer dependent on imports of nitrates from Chile.

Of all the initial belligerent nations, only Great Britain had a volunteer army, and this was quite small at the start of the war. The other nations had much larger conscript armies that required three to four years of service from able-bodied males of military age, to be followed by several years in reserve formations. Military strength on land was counted in terms of divisions composed of 12,000–20,000 officers and men. Two or more divisions made up an army corps, and two or more corps made up an army. An army could thus comprise anywhere from 50,000 to 250,000 men.

WORLD WAR I EVENTS

World War I

Battle of the Frontiers

August 4, 1914 - September 6, 1914

Western Front; World War I

Battle of Mons

August 23, 1914

Battle of Tannenberg

August 26, 1914 - August 30, 1914

World War I

First Battle of the Marne

September 6, 1914 - September 12, 1914

Ypres, Belgium

First Battle of Ypres

October 19, 1914 - November 22, 1914

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Battle of Tanga

November 2, 1914 - November 5, 1914

Falkland Islands Map

Battle of the Falkland Islands

December 8, 1914

Christmas Truce

December 24, 1914 - December 25, 1914

World War I: Allied troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula

Gallipoli Campaign

February 16, 1915 - January 9, 1916

Dardanelles

Naval Operations in the Dardanelles Campaign

February 19, 1915 - March 18, 1915

gas masks at the Second Battle of Ypres

Second Battle of Ypres

April 22, 1915 - May 25, 1915

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Battles of the Isonzo

June 23, 1915 - October 24, 1917

Australia and New Zealand Army Corps troops

Battle of Lone Pine

August 6, 1915 - August 10, 1915

Battle of Verdun

February 21, 1916 - December 18, 1916

Battle of Jutland

May 31, 1916 - June 1, 1916

Aleksey A. Brusilov

Brusilov Offensive

June 4, 1916 - August 10, 1916

Somme; machine gun

First Battle of the Somme

July 1, 1916 - November 13, 1916

Cloth Hall; Battle of Ypres

Battle of Messines

June 7, 1917 - June 14, 1917

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June Offensive

July 1, 1917 - c. July 4, 1917

Ypres, Belgium, 1918

Battle of Passchendaele

July 31, 1917 - November 6, 1917

Cadorna, Luigi

Battle of Caporetto

October 24, 1917 - December 19, 1917

Cambrai, Battle of; tank

Battle of Cambrai

November 20, 1917 - December 8, 1917

treaties of Brest-Litovsk

February 9, 1918; March 3, 1918

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Battle of Belleau Wood

June 1, 1918 - June 26, 1918

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Battle of Amiens

August 8, 1918 - August 11, 1918

Pershing, John J.

Battle of Saint-Mihiel

September 12, 1918 - September 16, 1918

World War I: British army

Battle of Cambrai

September 27, 1918 - October 11, 1918

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Battle of Mons

November 11, 1918

The land forces of the belligerent nations at the outbreak of war in August 1914 are shown in Table 2.

Land forces of the belligerents, Aug. 4, 1914

country regular divisions (with number of field armies) other land forces total manpower

*Restricted in 1914 to service at home.

Central Powers Germany 98 (8) 27 Landwehr brigades 1,900,000

Austria-Hungary 48 (6) 450,000

Allied Powers Russia 102 (6) 1,400,000

France 72 (5) 1,290,000

Serbia 11 (3) 190,000

Belgium 7 (1) 69,000 fortress troops 186,000

Great Britain 6 (1) 14 territorial divisions* 120,000

The higher state of discipline, training, leadership, and armament of the German army reduced the importance of the initial numerical inferiority of the armies of the Central Powers. Because of the comparative slowness of mobilization, poor higher leadership, and lower scale of armament of the Russian armies, there was an approximate balance of forces between the Central Powers and the Allies in August 1914 that prevented either side from gaining a quick victory.

Germany and Austria also enjoyed the advantage of "interior lines of communication," which enabled them to send their forces to critical points on the battlefronts by the shortest route. According to one estimate, Germany's railway network made it possible to move eight divisions simultaneously from the Western Front to the Eastern Front in four and a half days.

Even greater in importance was the advantage that Germany derived from its strong military traditions and its cadre of highly efficient and disciplined regular officers. Skilled in directing a war of movement and quick to exploit the advantages of flank attacks, German senior officers were to prove generally more capable than their Allied counterparts at directing the operations of large troop formations.

Sea power was largely reckoned in terms of capital ships, or dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers having extremely large guns. Despite intensive competition from the Germans, the British had maintained their superiority in numbers, with the result that, in capital ships, the Allies had an almost two-to-one advantage over the Central Powers.

The strength of the two principal rivals at sea, Great Britain and Germany, is compared in Table 3.

British and German naval strength, August 1914

type British German

*Including Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand destroyers of all classes.

dreadnought battleships 20 14

battle cruisers 9 4

pre-dreadnought battleships 39 22

armoured cruisers 34 9

cruisers 64 41

destroyers 301* 144

submarines 65 28

The numerical superiority of the British navy, however, was offset by the technological lead of the German navy in many categories, such as range-finding equipment, magazine protection, searchlights, torpedoes, and mines. Great Britain relied on the Royal Navy not only to ensure necessary imports of food and other supplies in wartime but also to sever the Central Powers' access to the markets of the world. With superior numbers of warships, Great Britain could impose a blockade that gradually weakened Germany by preventing imports from overseas.

To be continued

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