JAIPUR NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Seedling school of law and governance

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Dr. S. Krishnan Gauri Dwivedi
Associate professor BA LLB
SSLG, JNU 3rd SEM.
.

1
 DECLARATION

This is to certify that the project work entitled “THE FIRST WORLD WAR” submitted
by Gauri Dwivedi in the partial fulfillment of the award of U.G. B.A. LL.B of the
Jaipur national university, seedling school of law and governance is a record of her
work under my supervision and guidance. The matter embodied in the dissertation has
not been submitted elsewhere.

Date of submission: Supervisor:

3rd September, 2021 Dr. S. Krishnan
Associate professor
SSLG

2
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my sincere gratitude, regards and thanks to my respected project

guide Dr. S. Krishnan for his excellent guidance and unstained support. It is my
achievement to be guided by him. He is a constant soured of encouragement and
momentum that any intricacy becomes simple. I gained a lot of valuable and prompt
suggestions from him during my assignment work.

3
 PREFACE

World War I, known as the "war to end all wars," occurred between July 1914 and November
11, 1918. By the end of the war, over 17 million people had been killed.
World War I began in the Balkans on July 28, 1914 and hostilities ended on November 11,
1918, leaving 17 million dead and 25 million wounded.
World War I saw a change in warfare, from the hand-to-hand style of older wars to the
inclusion of weapons that used technology and removed the individual from close combat.
The war had extremely high casualties over 15 million dead and 20 million injured. The face
of warfare would never be the same again.
World War I or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, was a global war
originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.
Contemporaneously known as the Great War, the World War, and "the war to end all wars",
it led to the mobilization of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million
Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, and also one of the deadliest conflicts
in history, with an estimated 8.5 million combatant deaths and 13 million civilian deaths as a
direct result of the war. Resulting genocides and the related 1918 Spanish flu pandemic
caused another 17–100 million deaths worldwide, including an estimated 2.64 million
Spanish flu deaths in Europe and as many as 675,000 in the United States.

4
 WHAT WERE THE REASONS LEADING TO
THE FIRST WORLD WAR?
The identification of the causes of World War I remains controversial.
Scholars looking at the long term seek to explain why two rival sets of powers (the German
Empire and Austria-Hungary against the Russian Empire, France, the British Empire and
later the United States) came into conflict by 1914. They look at such factors as political,
territorial and economic competition; militarism, a complex web of alliances and
alignments; imperialism, the growth of nationalism; and the power vacuum created by
the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Other important long-term or structural factors that are
often studied include unresolved territorial disputes, the perceived breakdown of the
European balance of power, convoluted and fragmented governance, the arms races of the
previous decades, and military planning.

Scholars seeking short-term analysis focus on the summer of 1914 ask whether the conflict
could have been stopped or deeper causes made it inevitable. The immediate causes lay in
decisions made by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis, which was triggered by
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by the Bosnian
Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip, who had been supported by a nationalist organization
in Serbia. The crisis escalated as the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was joined
by their allies Russia, Germany, France, and ultimately Belgium and the United Kingdom.
Other factors that came into play during the diplomatic crisis leading up to the war included
misperceptions of intent (such as the German belief that Britain would remain neutral),
fatalism that war was inevitable, and the speed of the crisis, which was exacerbated by delays
and misunderstandings in diplomatic communications.

The crisis followed a series of diplomatic clashes among the Great Powers (Italy, France,
Germany, United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary and Russia) over European and colonial issues
in the decades before 1914 that had left tensions high. In turn, the public clashes can be
traced to changes in the balance of power in Europe since 1867.

Consensus on the origins of the war remains elusive since historians disagree on key factors
and place differing emphasis on a variety of factors. That is compounded by historical
arguments changing over time, particularly as classified historical archives become available,
and as perspectives and ideologies of historians have changed. The deepest division among
historians is between those who see Germany and Austria-Hungary driving events and those
who focus on power dynamics among a wider group of actors and factors. Secondary fault
lines exist between those who believe that Germany deliberately planned a European war,
those who believe that the war was largely unplanned but was still caused principally by
Germany and Austria-Hungary taking risks, and those who believe that some or all of the
other powers (Russia, France, Serbia, United Kingdom) played a more significant role in
causing the war than has been traditionally suggested.

5
 THE BEGINNING

On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist and member of the
Serbian Black Hand military society, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz
Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, Austria-Hungary issued an
ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, and the two
moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a
bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe. By July 1914, the great
powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente, consisting of France,
Russia, and Britain; and the premade Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and
Italy. The Triple Alliance was only defensive in nature, allowing Italy to stay out of the war
until 26 April 1915, when it joined the Allied Powers after its relations with Austria-Hungary
deteriorated. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia, and approved partial mobilisation after
Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade, which was a few kilometres from
the border, on 28 July 1914. Full Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30
July; the following day, Austria-Hungary and Germany did the same, while Germany
demanded Russia demobilise within twelve hours. When Russia failed to comply, Germany
declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914 in support of Austria-Hungary, the latter following
suit on 6 August 1914. France ordered full mobilisation in support of Russia on 2 August
1914.In the end, World War I would see the continent of Europe split into two major
opposing alliances; the Allied Powers, primarily composed of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the United States, France, the Russian Empire, Italy, Japan, Portugal,
Greece, Serbia and Montenegro; and the Central Powers, primarily composed of the German
Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.

Germany's strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to rapidly
concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within 6 weeks, then shift forces
to the East before Russia could fully mobilise; this was later known as the Schlieffen Plan.
On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in
achieving a quick victory over France. When this was refused, German forces invaded
Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day; the Belgian government
invoked the 1839 Treaty of London and, in compliance with its obligations under this treaty,
Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August. On 12 August, Britain and France also
declared war on Austria-Hungary; on 23 August, Japan sided with Britain, seizing German
possessions in China and the Pacific. In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the
war on the side of Austria-Hungary and Germany, opening fronts in the Caucasus,
Mesopotamia, and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in (and drew upon) each power's
colonial empire also, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe.
The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of
1914, the Western Front settled into a war of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines
that changed little until 1917 (the Eastern Front, by contrast, was marked by much greater
exchanges of territory). In 1915, Italy joined the Allied Powers and opened a front in the

6
Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917,
expanding the war in the Balkans. The United States initially remained neutral, though even
while neutral it became an important supplier of war materiel to the Allies. Eventually, after
the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the declaration by Germany
that its navy would resume unrestricted attacks on neutral shipping, and the revelation that
Germany was trying to incite Mexico to initiate war against the United States, the U.S.
declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces did not begin arriving at
the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force ultimately
reached some two million troops.

World War I was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It led to
the fall of four great imperial dynasties (in Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey),
resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and, in its destabilization of European society,
laid the groundwork for World War II.

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.
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.
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 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.

7
THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE U.S. AND THE END OF “THE
WAR TO END ALL WARS”
There were few efforts by any of the Central or Allied Powers to achieve a negotiated peace
in the first two years of the war. By 1916 the most promising signs for peace seemed to exist
only in the intentions of two statesmen in power—the German chancellor Bethmann and the
U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, having proclaimed the neutrality of the United
States in August 1914, strove for the next two years to maintain it. Early in 1916 he sent his
confidant, Colonel Edward M. House, to sound London and Paris about the possibility of
U.S. mediation between the belligerents. House’s conversations with the British foreign
secretary, Sir Edward Grey, resulted in the House–Grey Memorandum (Feb. 22, 1916),
declaring that the United States might enter the war if Germany rejected Wilson’s mediation
but that Great Britain reserved the right to initiate U.S. mediatory action. By mid-1916, the
imminent approach of the presidential election in the United States caused Wilson to suspend
his moves for peace. On Dec. 18, 1916, Wilson invited both belligerent camps to state their
“war aims.” The Allies were secretly encouraged by the U.S. secretary of state to offer terms
too sweeping for German acceptance; and the Germans, suspecting collusion between Wilson
and the Allies, agreed in principle to the opening of negotiations but left their statement of
December 12 practically unchanged and privately decided that Wilson should not actually
take part in any negotiation that he might bring about. By mid-January 1917 the December
overtures had ended. Strangely enough, Wilson’s next appeal, a speech of Jan. 22, 1917,
preaching international conciliation and a “peace without victory,” elicited a confidential
response from the British expressing readiness to accept his mediation. In the opposite camp,
Austria-Hungary would likewise have listened readily to peace proposals, but Germany had
already decided, on January 9, to declare unrestricted submarine warfare. Bethmann’s
message restating Germany’s peace terms and inviting Wilson to persevere in his efforts was
delivered on January 31 but was paradoxically accompanied by the announcement that
unrestricted submarine warfare would begin the next day. Arthur Zimmermann had
succeeded Jagow as Germany’s secretary of state for foreign affairs in November 1916; and
in that same month the Mexican president, Venustiano Carranza, whose country’s relations
with the United States had been critical since March, had virtually offered bases on the
Mexican coast to the Germans for their submarines. Zimmermann on Jan. 16, 1917, sent a
coded telegram to his ambassador in Mexico instructing him to propose to the Mexican
government that, if the United States should enter the war against Germany, Mexico should
become Germany’s ally with a view to recovering Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona from the
United States. Intercepted and decoded by the British Admiralty Intelligence, this message
was communicated to Wilson on February 24. It was published in the U.S. press on March 1,
and it immediately set off a nationwide demand for war against Germany.
After the rupture of diplomatic relations with Germany on Feb. 3, 1917, events pushed the
United States inexorably along the road to war. Using his authority as commander in chief,
Wilson on March 9 ordered the arming of American merchant ships so that they could defend
themselves against U-boat attacks. German submarines sank three U.S. merchant ships during
March 16–18 with heavy loss of life. Supported by his Cabinet, by most newspapers, and by
a large segment of public opinion, Wilson made the decision on March 20 for the United
States to declare war on Germany, and on March 21 he called Congress to meet in special
session on April 2. He delivered a ringing war message to that body, and the war resolution

8
was approved by the Senate on April 3 and by the House of Representatives on April 6. The
presidential declaration of war followed immediately. The U.S. Navy was the second largest
in the world when America entered the war in 1917. The Navy soon abandoned its plans for
the construction of battleships and instead concentrated on building the destroyers and
submarine chasers so desperately needed to protect Allied shipping from the U-boats. By July
1917 there were already 35 U.S. destroyers stationed at Queenstown (Cobh) on the coast of
Ireland—enough to supplement British destroyers for a really effective transatlantic convoy
system. By the end of the war there were more than 380 U.S. craft stationed overseas.
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m.
that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion,
signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.
The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany,
Russia, Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives.
In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.
World War I was known as the “war to end all wars” because of the great slaughter and
destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict—the
Treaty of Versailles of 1919—forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe
and laid the groundwork for World War II.

9
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 www.wikepedia.com
 www.britanica.com
 www.history.com

10