World War I campaign of 1915. Important dates and events of the first world war

The 1915 campaign revealed the real dimensions of the world war and marked the further stages for its completion. The determination of Great Britain to break the military and naval might of Germany, as the most dangerous rival in dominance on the seas, was clearly revealed. The struggle with Germany, which began in the field of politics a few years before the armed conflict, was carried out in terms of and the extent of its economic strangulation, as the most reliable way to bring it to its knees. Due to the economic situation, Germany had to wage a short decisive war according to Schiffen's plan of operations. But he did not succeed, England skillfully took advantage of this and built a plan of action for the Entente on the slow exhausting of German energy. The 1915 campaign unfolds the struggle of both coalitions on the clash of these opposing aspirations. Germany continues to try to deliver a decisive blow and, along the way, push apart the iron ring that is pinching her ever more closely. Outwardly, Germany's military achievements in 1915 were enormous: the Eastern Front — the Russian army was finally pushed back from its borders into the Polesie swamps (beyond the Stokhod River) and was paralyzed at least until late spring of next year; Galicia is liberated; Poland and part of Lithuania were cleared of Russians; Austria-Hungary is saved from the final defeat; Serbia is destroyed; Bulgaria joined the Central Union; Romania refused to join the Entente; complete failure of the Dardanelles expedition and the risky position of the Anglo-French troops at Thessaloniki. All these laurels of German arms in 1915 could have given hope for the ultimate victory for the Central Powers. Even a military action by Italy provides an opportunity for an ally - Austria - to restore its military prestige with cheap successes. The merciless submarine war undertaken, although it soon died down, revealed in German hands a formidable means of infringing upon the vital interests of England.

But the results of a victory in the east, which went far beyond just the defeat of the Russian army, could seem especially abundant for Germany. Inside Russia, general dissatisfaction with the existing regime burst out, showing a complete inability to cope with the supply of the front and with the elimination of food difficulties in the country itself. The autocracy seriously hesitated, and in the frequent changes of some ministers one could only see the blindness and powerless stubbornness of the supreme power to ignore the formidable harbingers of the impending revolution. Under the pressure of internal discontent in the country, an outlet was opened for the manifestation of "public initiative" to help the government supply the front. On June 7, 1915, a special meeting was formed to provide the active army with supplies with the participation of State Duma deputies and representatives of industrialists. At the same time, military-industrial committees arose with the aim of uniting and regulating the activities of industry for the needs of the war. The total number of such committees reached 200. By 1917, the results of this activity of the bourgeoisie, of course, greatly facilitated the work of the military department, but at the same time this activity prepared the transfer of power from the decaying tsarism into the hands of bourgeois parties. Germany was already quite confident in the Russian revolution, and such confidence served as one of the reasons for planning a strike against France at Verdun by 1916.

But along with the listed great achievements of the central coalition in 1915, some breaks within this still victorious union could not hide from an inquisitive eye. The most serious danger, not yet clearly felt in the depths of the people of Germany and Austria-Hungary, was the prospect of a long war, on which the Entente was betting. Submarine warfare shook public opinion in America and in England itself was cleverly used by Lloyd George to enact a law on universal conscription, as a result of which Great Britain could eventually field up to 5,000 thousand fighters. Meanwhile, if official Germany still breathed the slogan "win or die", then all its allies were stiff pendants that had to be continuously revived with material support in all forms, since otherwise they turned into dead ballast. Germany, itself already feeling by the end of 1915 an extreme shortage of many vital resources of the struggle, had to share them with Austria, Turkey, Bulgaria.

The recognition by the commanding leaders of Germany of this true, not ostentatious position is confirmed by the fact that twice in 1915 her government sounded the ground for concluding a separate peace with Russia. Falkenhain twice raised the question of this world before the Imperial Chancellor. On a second attempt in July 1915, Bethmann-Hollweg willingly met halfway and took some diplomatic steps that met with resistance from Russia, and Germany, as Falkenhain writes, found it more appropriate to "temporarily completely destroy the bridges to the East."

The German population was finally transferred to starvation rations and felt a complete shortage of the most essential food products, which could not be eliminated by any food surrogates. These deprivations had a depressing effect on the people's psyche, especially when the long-term nature of the war began to become clear.

The German navy - an expression of the "German future on the seas" - was firmly locked in the "sea triangle" (Heligoland Bay) and, after a timid attempt to be active in January 1915 at Dogger Bank, doomed itself to complete inactivity. In return, the German High Command began to launch zeppelin raids on Paris and London. But these raids belonged to random means of intimidating the civilian population of the capitals, and after the adoption of air defense measures, they could not produce significant results. By the end of 1915, with the rapid development of the war industry, the Entente had already caught up with Germany in the supply of technical means of warfare, especially with heavy artillery shells, and in the future even began to surpass it.

At the turn of 1915 and 1916. Britain and France gained much more confidence in their final victory than a year earlier, and the forthcoming fall from the alliance of Russia was replaced by preparations for the entry into the alliance of the United States, to which the efforts of Great Britain were already directed. Finally, the results of the 1915 campaign on the Russian front brought up the question of the position of Russia. There was no longer any doubt that the regime that existed in it was leading the country to final defeat, and the Entente was striving to squeeze out all the benefits for itself as soon as possible, while the Russian army had not yet surrendered. The balance of forces of the Central Alliance on the Russian and French fronts at the beginning of the war and by the end of 1915 was as follows:

Troops of the Central Union:

1) At the beginning of the war:
a) against Russia - 42 infantry. and 13 cav. divisions;
b) against France - 80 infantry. and 10 cav. divisions.

a) against Russia - 116 infantry. and 24 cav. divisions;
b) against France - the same number of troops - 90 infantry. and 1 cav. division.

If at the beginning of the war Russia pulled back only 31% of all hostile forces, then a year later Russia attracted more than 50% of the enemy's forces.

In 1915, the Russian theater was the main theater of the world war and provided France and England with a respite, which was widely used by them to achieve the final victory over Germany. The 1915 campaign clearly revealed the service role of tsarism for Anglo-French capital. The 1915 campaign at the Russian theater also revealed that Russia, both economically and politically, cannot adapt to the scale and nature of the war. Since the beginning of the war, the Russian army has lost almost all of its personnel (3400 thousand people, of which 312 600 killed and 1548 thousand captured and missing; 45 thousand officers and doctors, of which 6147 were killed and 12 782 captured and wounded). In the future, the Russian army could not recover enough to wage a successful war with Germany.

On August 10, 1915, on the initiative of the State Duma and the military-industrial committees, a Special Meeting on Defense was formed, supplemented by representatives of legislative institutions and public organizations. The statute on them was approved only on August 27, 1915. Small and medium industry associations were not included in the terms of reference of the military-industrial committees and did not enjoy their support.

On both sides it pursued aggressive goals. Germany sought to weaken Great Britain and France, seize new colonies on the African continent, tear away Poland and the Baltic states from Russia, Austria-Hungary - to establish itself on the Balkan Peninsula, Great Britain and France - to retain their colonies and weaken Germany as a competitor in the world market, Russia - to seize Galicia and take possession of the Black Sea straits.

Causes

Intending to start a war against Serbia, Austria-Hungary enlisted the support of Germany. The latter believed that the war would take on a local character if Russia did not defend Serbia. But if she renders assistance to Serbia, then Germany will be ready to fulfill its treaty obligations and support Austria-Hungary. In an ultimatum presented to Serbia on July 23, Austria-Hungary demanded that its military formations be admitted to Serbia in order to suppress hostile actions together with Serbian forces. The answer to the ultimatum was given within the agreed 48-hour period, but it did not satisfy Austria-Hungary, and on July 28 she declared war on Serbia. On July 30, Russia announced a general mobilization; Germany used this pretext to declare war on Russia on August 1 and France on August 3. After the German invasion of Belgium on 4 August, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Now all the great powers of Europe were embroiled in the war. Together with them, their dominions and colonies were involved in the war.

The course of the war

1914 year

The war consisted of five campaigns. During the first campaign in the city of Germany, it invaded Belgium and the northern regions of France, but was defeated in the battle on the Marne. Russia captured part of East Prussia and Galicia (East Prussian operation and Battle of Galicia), but was then defeated by the German and Austro-Hungarian counteroffensive. As a result, there was a transition from maneuverable to positional forms of struggle.

1915 year

Italy, the disruption of the German plan to withdraw Russia from the war and bloody fruitless battles on the Western Front.

During this campaign, Germany and Austria-Hungary, concentrating their main efforts on the Russian front, carried out the so-called Gorlitsky breakthrough and drove out Russian troops from Poland and parts of the Baltic, but in the Vilna operation they were defeated and were forced to go over to positional defense.

On the Western Front, both sides fought strategically. Private operations (at Ypres, Champagne and Artois) were not successful, despite the use of poisonous gases.

On the Southern Front, Italian troops launched an unsuccessful operation against Austria-Hungary on the Isonzo River. German-Austrian troops managed to defeat Serbia. Anglo-French troops successfully carried out the Thessaloniki operation in Greece, but were unable to capture the Dardanelles. On the Transcaucasian front, as a result of the Alashkert, Khamadan and Sarykamysh operations, Russia reached the approaches to Erzurum.

1916 year

The campaign of the city is associated with Romania's entry into the war and the waging of a grueling trench warfare on all fronts. Germany again shifted efforts against France, but did not succeed in the Battle of Verdun. The operations of the Anglo-French troops on Somna were also unsuccessful, despite the use of tanks.

On the Italian front, the Austro-Hungarian forces launched the Trentino offensive, but were driven back by the Italian counteroffensive. On the Eastern Front, the troops of the Southwestern Russian Front conducted a successful operation in Galicia on a wide front up to 550 km long (Brusilov Breakthrough) and advanced 60-120 km, occupied the eastern regions of Austria-Hungary, which forced the enemy to transfer up to 34 divisions to this front from the Western and Italian fronts.

On the Transcaucasian front, the Russian army carried out the Erzurum and then the Trebizond offensive operations, which remained incomplete.

The decisive Battle of Jutland took place on the Baltic Sea. As a result of the campaign, conditions were created for the seizure of the strategic initiative by the Entente.

1917 year

The campaign of the city is associated with the entry into the war of the United States, the revolutionary withdrawal of Russia from the war, and the conduct of a number of successive offensive operations on the Western Front (Operation Nivelle, operations in the Messines region, on Ypres, near Verdun, near Cambrai). These operations, despite the use in them of large forces of artillery, tanks and aviation, practically did not change the general situation in the Western European theater of operations. In the Atlantic at this time, Germany launched an unlimited submarine war, during which both sides suffered heavy losses.

1918 year

The campaign of the city was characterized by a transition from positional defense to a general offensive by the armed forces of the Entente. First, Germany launched the Allied March offensive in Picardy, private operations in Flanders, on the Aisne and Marne rivers. But due to lack of strength, they did not receive development.

From the second half of the year, when the United States entered the war, the Allies prepared and launched retaliatory offensive operations (Amiens, Saint-Miill, Marne), during which they eliminated the results of the German offensive, and in September they went over to a general offensive, forcing Germany to surrender ( Compiegne Armistice).

Outcomes

The final terms of the peace treaty were developed at the Paris Conference of 1919-1920. ; during the sessions, agreements on five peace treaties were determined. After its completion, the following were signed: 1) the Versailles Peace Treaty with Germany on June 28; 2) Saint-Germain peace treaty with Austria on September 10, 1919; 3) Neiji peace treaty with Bulgaria on November 27; 4) Trianon Peace Treaty with Hungary on June 4; 5) Sevres peace treaty with Turkey on August 20. Subsequently, according to the Treaty of Lausanne, on July 24, 1923, the Treaty of Sevres was amended.

As a result of the First World War, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were liquidated. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were divided, and Russia and Germany, having ceased to be monarchies, were cut back territorially and economically. Revanchist sentiments in Germany led to World War II. The First World War accelerated the development of social processes, was one of the prerequisites for the revolutions in Russia, Germany, Hungary, Finland. As a result, a new military-political situation was created in the world.

In total, the First World War lasted 51 months and 2 weeks. It covered the territories of Europe, Asia and Africa, the waters of the Atlantic, the North, Baltic, Black and Mediterranean seas. This is the first military conflict on a global scale, in which 38 of the 59 independent states that existed at that time were involved. Two thirds of the world's population took part in the war. The number of the fighting armies exceeded 37 million people. The total number of those mobilized into the armed forces was about 70 million. The length of the fronts was up to 2.5-4 thousand km. The casualties of the parties amounted to about 9.5 million killed and 20 million wounded.

In the war, new types of troops were developed and widely used: aviation, armored troops, anti-aircraft troops, anti-tank weapons, and submarine forces. New forms and methods of armed struggle began to be used: army and front-line operations, breaking through the fortifications of the fronts. New strategic categories have emerged: operational deployment of the Armed Forces, operational cover, border battles, and the initial and subsequent periods of the war.

Used materials

• Dictionary "War and Peace in Terms and Definitions", World War I
• Encyclopedia "Krugosvet"

Sends a secret ultimatum China, "21 Requirements", which requires the granting of rights for the development of minerals and the use of the railway network on the Shandong Peninsula, as well as the lease of all of Manchuria.

the date is in the Gregorian calendar only, and the date in the Julian calendar is indicated in brackets along with the description of the event. In chronological tables describing the periods before the introduction of the new style by Pope Gregory XIII, (in the column DATES) dates are only in the Julian calendar... At the same time, the translation into the Gregorian calendar is not done, because such did not exist.

Read about the events of the year:

Spiridovich A.I. "The Great War and the February Revolution of 1914-1917" All-Slavic Publishing House, New York. 1-3 books. 1960, 1962

Conducted. book Gabriel Konstantinovich. In a marble palace. From the chronicle of our family. New York. 1955:

Chapter thirty-two... Autumn 1914 - winter 1915. At the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander in Baranovichi - In Petrograd - Trip to Ostashevo and Moscow - Prince Vladimir Paley.

Chapter thirty-three... Spring 1915. Rumors of "treason" - Death at the front of Kostya Bagration.

Chapter thirty-four... Autumn 1915 - winter 1916. Trip to Crimea - Bad things at the front - Nicholas II takes over the post of Supreme Commander.

Russian-Swedish War 1808-1809
	Europe, Africa and the Middle East (briefly in China and the Pacific Islands)
	Economic imperialism, territorial and economic claims, trade barriers, arms race, militarism and autocracy, balance of power, local conflicts, allied obligations of European powers.
	Victory of the Entente. February and October revolutions in Russia and November revolution in Germany. Collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. The beginning of the penetration of American capital into Europe.
Opponents
	Bulgaria (from 1915)
Italy (from 1915)
Romania (from 1916)
USA (since 1917)
Greece (from 1917)
Commanders
Nicholas II †	Franz Joseph I †
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich
M. V. Alekseev †	F. von Götzendorff
A. A. Brusilov	A. von Straussenburg
L. G. Kornilov †	Wilhelm II
A.F. Kerensky	E. von Falkenhain
N.N.Dukhonin †	Paul von Hindenburg
N. V. Krylenko	H. von Moltke (the Younger)
R. Poincaré
J. Clemenceau	E. Ludendorff
	Crown Prince Ruprecht
	Mehmed V †
R. Nivelles
	Enver Pasha
	M. Ataturk
G. Asquith	Ferdinand I
D. Lloyd George
J. Jellicoe	G. Stoyanov-Todorov
G. Kitchener †
L. Densterville
Prince Regent Alexander
R. Putnik †
Albert I
J. Vukotic
Victor Emmanuel III
L. Cadorna
Prince luigi
Ferdinand I
K. Presan
A. Averescu
T. Wilson
J. Pershing
P. Danglis
Okuma Shigenobu
Terauchi Masatake
Hussein bin Ali
War losses
Military killed: 5,953,372 Military wounded: 9 723 991 Soldiers missing: 4,000,676	Soldiers killed: 4,043,397 Military wounded: 8 465 286 Soldiers missing: 3,470,138

(July 28, 1914 - November 11, 1918) - one of the largest armed conflicts in the history of mankind.

This name became firmly established in historiography only after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. In the interwar period, the name " Great War"(Eng. TheGreatWar, fr. La grandeguerre), in the Russian Empire it was sometimes called “ Second Patriotic", As well as informally (both before the revolution and after) -" German"; then in the USSR - " imperialist war».

The immediate reason for the war was the Sarajevo assassination on June 28, 1914 of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by 19-year-old Serbian student Gavrila Princip, who was one of the members of the Mlada Bosna terrorist organization, which fought to unite all the South Slavic peoples into one state.

As a result of the war, four empires ceased to exist: Russian, Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman. The participating countries lost about 12 million people killed (counting civilians), about 55 million were injured.

Participants

Allies of the Entente(supported the Entente in the war): USA, Japan, Serbia, Italy (participated in the war on the side of the Entente since 1915, despite being a member of the Triple Alliance), Montenegro, Belgium, Egypt, Portugal, Romania, Greece, Brazil, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Siam, Haiti, Liberia, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador.

Chronology of the declaration of war
	Who declared war	Who was war declared
	Germany
	Germany
	Germany
		Germany
		Germany
		Germany
	British Empire and France
		Germany
	British Empire and France
	Germany	Portugal
		Germany
		Germany
	Panama and Cuba	Germany
		Germany
		Germany
		Germany
		Germany
	Brazil	Germany
	The end of the war

Background to the conflict

Long before the war, contradictions between the great powers - Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Russia - were growing in Europe.

The German Empire, formed after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, strove for political and economic dominance on the European continent. Having joined the struggle for the colonies only after 1871, Germany wanted to redistribute the colonial possessions of England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal in her favor.

Russia, France and Great Britain sought to oppose Germany's hegemonic aspirations. Why the Entente was formed.

Austria-Hungary, being a multinational empire, due to internal interethnic contradictions was a constant hotbed of instability in Europe. She tried to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina captured by her in 1908 (see: Bosnian Crisis). They opposed Russia, which took on the role of the defender of all Slavs in the Balkans, and Serbia, which claimed the role of a unifying center for the southern Slavs.

In the Middle East, the interests of almost all powers collided, striving to have time to divide the crumbling Ottoman Empire (Turkey). According to the agreements reached between the members of the Entente, at the end of the war, all the straits between the Black and Aegean Seas withdrew to Russia, thus Russia would receive full control of the Black Sea and Constantinople.

The confrontation between the Entente countries on the one hand and Germany with Austria-Hungary on the other led to the First World War, where the opponents of the Entente: Russia, Great Britain and France - and its allies were a bloc of the Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, - in which Germany played a leading role. By 1914, two blocks were finally formed:

The Entente bloc (formed by 1907 after the conclusion of Russian-French, Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian allied treaties):

• United Kingdom;

Block Triple Alliance:

• Germany;

Italy, however, entered the war in 1915 on the side of the Entente - but Turkey and Bulgaria joined Germany and Austria-Hungary during the war, forming the Quadruple Alliance (or a bloc of the Central Powers).

The reasons for the war mentioned in various sources include economic imperialism, trade barriers, the arms race, militarism and autocracy, the balance of power, local conflicts that took place the day before (the Balkan wars, the Italo-Turkish war), orders for general mobilization in Russia and Germany, territorial claims and the allied obligations of the European powers.

The state of the armed forces at the beginning of the war

A strong blow to the German army was the reduction in its number: the reason for this is the short-sighted policy of the Social Democrats. For the period 1912-1916 in Germany, it was planned to reduce the army, which in no way contributed to an increase in its combat effectiveness. The Social Democratic government constantly cut funding for the army (which, however, does not apply to the navy).

This destructive policy towards the army led to the fact that by the beginning of 1914, unemployment in Germany increased by 8% (compared with 1910). The army experienced a chronic shortage of the necessary military equipment. There was a lack of modern weapons. There were not enough funds to sufficiently equip the army with machine guns - Germany lagged behind in this area. The same was true for aviation - the German aircraft fleet was large, but outdated. The main aircraft of the German Luftstreitkrafte was the most massive, but at the same time hopelessly outdated aircraft in Europe - a monoplane of the "Taube" type.

During the mobilization, a significant number of civil and mail aircraft were also requisitioned. Moreover, aviation was assigned to a separate branch of the armed forces only in 1916, before that it was listed in the "transport troops" ( Kraftfahrers). But aviation was given little importance in all armies, except for the French, where aviation had to carry out regular air raids on the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, Rhineland, and the Bavarian Palatinate. The total financial expenditures on military aviation in France in 1913 amounted to 6 million francs, in Germany - 322 thousand marks, in Russia - about 1 million rubles. The latter achieved significant success, having built, shortly before the start of the war, the world's first four-engine aircraft, which was destined to become the first strategic bomber. Since 1865, GAU and the Obukhov plant have successfully cooperated with the Krupp firm. This company "Krupp" cooperated with Russia and France until the very beginning of the war.

German shipyards (including Blohm & Voss) built, but did not manage to finish building 6 destroyers for Russia before the start of the war, according to the project of the later famous "Novik", built at the Putilov plant and armed with weapons produced at the Obukhov plant. Despite the Russian-French alliance, Krupp and other German firms regularly sent their latest weapons to Russia for testing. But under Nicholas II, preference was given to French guns. Thus, Russia, taking into account the experience of two leading artillery manufacturers, entered the war with good artillery of small and medium calibers, while having 1 barrel for 786 soldiers against 1 barrel for 476 soldiers in the German army, but in heavy artillery the Russian army lagged significantly behind of the German army, having 1 barrel for 22 241 soldiers and officers against 1 barrel for 2798 soldiers in the German army. And that's not counting the mortars, which were already in service with the German army and which were not at all in the Russian army in 1914.

Also, it should be noted that the saturation of infantry units with machine guns in the Russian army was not inferior to the German and French armies. So the Russian infantry regiment of the 4 battalion (16 company) composition had in its staff on May 6, 1910 a machine-gun command of 8 Maxim machine guns, that is, 0.5 machine guns per company, “in the German, and in the French armies there were six to the regiment "12 company composition.

Events before the outbreak of the First World War

On June 28, 1914, Gabriel Princip, a nineteen-year-old Bosnian Serb, student, member of the nationalist Serbian terrorist organization Mlada Bosna, murders in Sarajevo the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia Chotek. The Austrian and German ruling circles decided to use this Sarajevo murder as a pretext for unleashing a European war. On July 5, Germany promises to support Austria-Hungary in the event of a conflict with Serbia.

On July 23, Austria-Hungary, having declared that Serbia was behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, announces an ultimatum to her, in which it demands that Serbia fulfill deliberately impossible conditions, including: to purge the state apparatus and army from officers and officials seen in anti-Austrian propaganda; arrest suspects of aiding terrorism; to allow the Austro-Hungarian police to conduct investigations and punishments on the Serbian territory of those guilty of anti-Austrian actions. The answer was given in only 48 hours.

On the same day, Serbia begins mobilization, however, agrees to all the demands of Austria-Hungary, except for the admission of the Austrian police to its territory. Germany is persistently pushing Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia.

On July 25, Germany begins a hidden mobilization: without announcing it officially, they began to send summons to the reservists to the recruiting offices.

On July 26, Austria-Hungary announces mobilization and begins to concentrate troops on the border with Serbia and Russia.

On July 28, Austria-Hungary, declaring that the requirements of the ultimatum were not fulfilled, declares war on Serbia. Russia declares that it will not allow the occupation of Serbia.

On the same day, Germany gives Russia an ultimatum: stop conscription or Germany will declare war on Russia. France, Austria-Hungary and Germany are mobilizing. Germany is pulling troops to the Belgian and French borders.

At the same time, on the morning of August 1, British Foreign Minister E. Gray promised the German ambassador in London Lichnovsky that in the event of a war between Germany and Russia, England would remain neutral, provided that France was not attacked.

Campaign of 1914

The war unfolded in two main theaters of military operations - in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Balkans, in Northern Italy (since May 1915), in the Caucasus and the Middle East (since November 1914) in the colonies of European states - in Africa, in China, Oceania. In 1914, all participants in the war were going to end the war in a few months by a decisive offensive; no one expected the war to become protracted.

The beginning of the first world war

Germany, in accordance with a pre-developed plan for waging a blitzkrieg (Schlieffen plan), sent the main forces to the western front, hoping to defeat France with a quick blow before the mobilization and deployment of the Russian army was completed, and then to deal with Russia.

The German command intended to deliver the main blow through Belgium to the unprotected north of France, bypass Paris from the west and take the French army, the main forces of which were concentrated on the fortified eastern, Franco-German border, into a huge "cauldron".

On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, on the same day the Germans invaded Luxembourg without any declaration of war.

France turned to England for help, but the British government, by 12 votes to 6, refused to support France, stating that "France should not count on assistance that we are currently unable to provide," while adding that "if the Germans invade to Belgium and occupy only the "corner" of this country closest to Luxembourg, and not the coast, England will remain neutral. "

To which the French ambassador to Great Britain, Cambo, said that if England now betrayed her allies: France and Russia, then after the war she herself will have a bad time, regardless of who will be the winner. The British government, in fact, pushed the Germans into aggression. The German leadership decided that England would not enter the war and took decisive action.

On August 2, German troops finally occupied Luxembourg, and an ultimatum was issued to Belgium to allow the German armies to pass to the border with France. Only 12 hours were given for reflection.

On August 3, Germany declared war on France, accusing her of "organized attacks and aerial bombardments of Germany" and "violation of Belgian neutrality."

On August 4, German troops poured across the Belgian border. King Albert of Belgium asked for help from the guarantor countries of Belgian neutrality. London, contrary to its previous statements, sent an ultimatum to Berlin: stop the invasion of Belgium or England will declare war on Germany, to which Berlin declared "treason". After the expiration of the ultimatum, Great Britain declared war on Germany and sent 5.5 divisions to aid France.

The First World War has begun.

The course of hostilities

French Theater of War - Western Front

Strategic plans of the parties for the beginning of the war. By the beginning of the war, Germany was guided by a rather old military doctrine - the Schlieffen plan - which provided for an instant defeat of France before the "clumsy" Russia could mobilize and move its army to the borders. The attack was envisaged through the territory of Belgium (with the aim of bypassing the main French forces), it was originally supposed to take Paris in 39 days. In a nutshell, the essence of the plan was outlined by Wilhelm II: "We will have lunch in Paris, and dinner in St. Petersburg"... In 1906, the plan was modified (under the leadership of General Moltke) and acquired a not so categorical character - a significant part of the troops was still supposed to be left on the Eastern Front, the attack should have been through Belgium, but without touching neutral Holland.

France, in turn, was guided by a military doctrine (the so-called Plan-17), prescribing to start the war with the liberation of Alsace-Lorraine. The French expected that the main forces of the German army would initially be concentrated against Alsace.

The invasion of Belgium by the German army. Crossing the Belgian border on the morning of August 4, the German army, following the Schlieffen Plan, easily swept away the weak screens of the Belgian army and moved deep into Belgium. The Belgian army, which the Germans outnumbered by more than 10 times, unexpectedly put up active resistance, which, however, could not significantly delay the enemy. Bypassing and blocking the well-fortified Belgian fortresses: Liege (fell on August 16, see: Storming of Liege), Namur (fell on August 25) and Antwerp (fell on October 9), the Germans drove the Belgian army in front of them and took Brussels on August 20, the same day, having entered into contact with the Anglo-French forces. The movement of the German troops was swift, the Germans, without stopping, bypassed the cities and fortresses that continued to defend themselves. The Belgian government fled to Le Havre. King Albert I continued to defend Antwerp with the last remaining combat-ready units. The invasion of Belgium came as a surprise to the French command, but the French were able to organize the transfer of their units in the direction of the breakthrough much faster than was anticipated by the German plans.

Actions in Alsace and Lorraine. On August 7, the French, with the forces of the 1st and 2nd armies, launched an offensive in Alsace, and on August 14, in Lorraine. The offensive had symbolic meaning for the French - the territory of Alsace-Lorraine was annexed from France in 1871, after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. Although initially they managed to penetrate German territory, capturing Saarbrücken and Mulhouse, at the same time the unfolding German offensive in Belgium forced them to transfer part of their troops there. The ensuing counterattacks did not meet with sufficient resistance from the French, and by the end of August the French army withdrew to its former positions, leaving Germany with a small part of French territory.

Frontier battle. On August 20, the Anglo-French and German troops came into contact - the Battle of the Border began. By the time the war began, the French command did not expect that the main offensive of the German troops would take place through Belgium, the main forces of the French troops were concentrated against Alsace. From the beginning of the invasion of Belgium, the French began to actively move units in the direction of the breakthrough, by the time of contact with the Germans, the front was in sufficient disarray, and the French and British were forced to engage in battle with three non-contiguous groups of troops. On the territory of Belgium, at Mons, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was located, to the southeast, at Charleroi, was the 5th French army. In the Ardennes, approximately along the border of France with Belgium and Luxembourg, the 3rd and 4th French armies were stationed. In all three areas, the Anglo-French troops suffered a heavy defeat (the Battle of Mons, the Battle of Charleroi, the Ardennes operation (1914)), having lost about 250 thousand people, and the Germans from the north invaded France with a wide front, delivering the main blow to the west, bypassing Paris, thus taking the French army in giant pincers.

The German armies moved forward swiftly. British units retreated in disarray to the coast, the French command was not sure of the possibility of holding Paris, on September 2, the French government moved to Bordeaux. The defense of the city was led by the energetic General Gallieni. The French forces were regrouping to a new line of defense along the river Marne. The French were vigorously preparing to defend the capital by taking extraordinary measures. An episode is widely known when Gallieni ordered the urgent transfer of an infantry brigade to the front, using Parisian taxis for this purpose.

The unsuccessful actions of the French army in August forced its commander, General Joffre, to immediately replace a large number (up to 30% of the total number) of poor generals; the renewal and rejuvenation of the French generals was subsequently assessed extremely positively.

Battle of the Marne. To complete the operation to bypass Paris and encircle the French army, the German army did not have enough strength. The troops, having passed hundreds of kilometers with battles, were exhausted, communications stretched out, there was nothing to cover the flanks and emerging gaps, there were no reserves, they had to maneuver with the same units, driving them back and forth, so the Headquarters agreed with the commander's proposal: von Kluck's army to reduce the front of the offensive and not to make a deep coverage of the French army bypassing Paris, but to turn east north of the French capital and strike in the rear of the main forces of the French army.

Turning to the east north of Paris, the Germans exposed their right flank and rear to the attack of the French grouping concentrated for the defense of Paris. There was nothing to cover the right flank and rear: 2 corps and a cavalry division, originally intended to strengthen the advancing group, were sent to East Prussia to help the defeated German 8th Army. Nevertheless, the German command went on a fatal maneuver: it turned its troops to the east before reaching Paris, hoping for the passivity of the enemy. The French command did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity and hit the open flank and rear of the German army. The First Battle of the Marne began, in which the Allies managed to turn the tide of hostilities in their favor and drive back the German troops on the front from Verdun to Amiens 50-100 kilometers back. The battle on the Marne was intense, but short-lived - the main battle began on September 5, on September 9 the defeat of the German army became obvious, by September 12-13, the withdrawal of the German army to the line along the Aisne and Vel rivers was completed.

The Battle of the Marne was of great moral importance to all sides. For the French, it was the first victory over the Germans, overcoming the shame of defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. After the Battle of the Marne, surrender sentiment in France markedly began to decline. The British realized the insufficient combat power of their troops, and subsequently took a course towards increasing their armed forces in Europe and strengthening their combat training. German plans to quickly crush France failed; Moltke, who headed the Field General Staff, was replaced by Falkenhain. Joffre, on the other hand, gained immense prestige in France. The Battle of the Marne was a turning point in the war in the French theater of operations, after which the continuous retreat of the Anglo-French troops ceased, the front stabilized, and the forces of the opponents were approximately equal.

"Run to the Sea". Battles in Flanders. The battle on the Marne turned into the so-called "Run to the Sea" - while moving, both armies tried to flank each other, which only led to the fact that the front line closed, resting on the coast of the North Sea. The actions of armies in this flat, inhabited, saturated with roads and railways were characterized by extreme mobility; as soon as one clash ended with the stabilization of the front, both sides quickly moved their troops north, towards the sea, and the battle resumed at the next stage. At the first stage (the second half of September), battles were fought along the borders of the Oise and Somme rivers, then, at the second stage (September 29 - October 9), battles were fought along the Scarpa River (the battle of Arras); at the third stage, battles took place at Lille (October 10-15), on the Isère River (October 18-20), at Ypres (October 30-November 15). On October 9, the last center of resistance of the Belgian army, Antwerp, fell, and the battered Belgian units joined the Anglo-French, occupying the extreme northern position at the front.

By November 15, the entire space between Paris and the North Sea was densely filled with troops of both sides, the front stabilized, the offensive potential of the Germans was exhausted, both sides switched to positional combat. An important success of the Entente can be considered the fact that it managed to hold the ports most convenient for sea communication with England (primarily Calais).

By the end of 1914, Belgium was almost completely conquered by Germany. For the Entente remained only a small western part of Flanders with the city of Ypres. Further south to Nancy, the front passed through French territory (the territory lost by the French had the shape of a spindle, 380-400 km long along the front, 100-130 km deep at its widest point from the pre-war border of France towards Paris). Lille was given to the Germans, Arras and Lahn remained with the French; closest to Paris (about 70 km), the front approached in the area of ​​Noyon (behind the Germans) and Soissons (behind the French). The front then turned east (Reims remained with the French) and moved into the Verdun fortified area. After that, in the Nancy region (behind the French), the zone of active hostilities of 1914 ended, the front further went on as a whole along the border of France and Germany. Neutral Switzerland and Italy did not participate in the war.

Results of the 1914 campaign in the French theater of operations. The 1914 campaign was extremely dynamic. Large armies of both sides actively and quickly maneuvered, which was facilitated by the saturated road network of the combat area. The disposition of troops did not always form a continuous front, the troops did not erect long-term defensive lines. By November 1914, a stable front line began to take shape. Both sides, having exhausted their offensive potential, proceeded to build trenches and barbed wire, designed for permanent use. The war has entered a positional phase. Since the length of the entire Western Front (from the North Sea to Switzerland) was a little more than 700 kilometers, the density of the deployment of troops on it was significantly higher than on the Eastern Front. A special feature of the company was that intensive military operations were conducted only in the northern half of the front (north of the Verdun fortified area), where both sides concentrated their main forces. The front from Verdun and further south was regarded by both sides as secondary. The zones lost by the French (centered in Picardy) were densely populated and significant both agriculturally and industrially.

By the beginning of 1915, the warring powers were faced with the fact that the war took on a character that was not envisaged by the pre-war plans of either side - it became protracted. Although the Germans managed to capture almost all of Belgium and a significant part of France, their main goal - a swift victory over the French - was completely inaccessible. Both the Entente and the Central Powers had, in essence, to start a new type of war, which mankind had never seen before - exhausting, long, requiring total mobilization of the population and economies.

Germany's relative failure had another important result - Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance, refrained from entering the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

East Prussian operation. On the Eastern Front, the war began with the East Prussian operation. On August 4 (17), the Russian army crossed the border, launching an offensive on East Prussia. 1st army moved to Konigsberg from the north of the Masurian Lakes, 2nd army - from the west of them. During the first week, the actions of the Russian armies were successful, the numerically inferior Germans gradually retreated; The Gumbinen-Goldap battle on August 7 (20) ended in favor of the Russian army. However, the Russian command was unable to take advantage of the fruits of the victory. The movement of the two Russian armies slowed down and became mismatched, which the Germans did not hesitate to take advantage of, who attacked the open flank of the 2nd army from the west. On August 13-17 (26-30), the 2nd army of General Samsonov was completely defeated, a significant part was surrounded and taken prisoner. In German tradition, these events are called the Battle of Tanneberg. After that, the Russian 1st Army, under the threat of encirclement by superior German forces, was forced to retreat to its original position with battles, the withdrawal was completed on September 3 (16). The actions of the commander of the 1st Army, General Rennenkampf, were considered unsuccessful, which was the first episode of the subsequent characteristic distrust of military leaders with German surnames, and, in general, disbelief in the ability of the military command. In the German tradition, the events were mythologized and considered the greatest victory of German weapons; a huge memorial was built on the site of the battles, in which Field Marshal Hindenburg was later buried.

Battle of Galicia. On August 16 (23), the Battle of Galicia began - a huge-scale battle between the Russian troops of the South-Western Front (5 armies) under the command of General N. Ivanov and four Austro-Hungarian armies under the command of Archduke Friedrich. Russian troops launched an offensive along a wide (450-500 km) front, with the center of the offensive in Lvov. The fighting of large armies, taking place on an extended front, was divided into numerous independent operations, accompanied by both offensives and retreats on both sides.

Actions on the southern part of the border with Austria were initially unfavorable for the Russian army (the Lublin-Kholm operation). By August 19-20 (September 1-2), Russian troops retreated to the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, to Lublin and Kholm. Actions in the center of the front (Galich-Lvov operation) were unsuccessful for the Austro-Hungarians. The Russian offensive began on August 6 (19) and developed very quickly. After the first retreat, the Austro-Hungarian army put up fierce resistance on the borders of the Zolotaya Lipa and Rotten Lipa rivers, but was forced to retreat. The Russians took Lvov on August 21 (September 3), and Galich on August 22 (September 4). Until August 31 (September 12), the Austro-Hungarians did not stop trying to recapture Lviv, the battles went 30-50 km west and north-west of the city (Gorodok - Rava-Russkaya), but ended in complete victory for the Russian army. On August 29 (September 11), a general retreat of the Austrian army began (more like a flight, since the resistance to the advancing Russians was insignificant). The Russian army maintained a high rate of advance and in the shortest possible time captured a huge, strategically important territory - Eastern Galicia and part of Bukovina. By 13 (26 September) the front had stabilized at a distance of 120-150 km west of Lvov. The strong Austrian fortress of Przemysl was under siege in the rear of the Russian army.

The significant victory sparked jubilation in Russia. The capture of Galicia, with a predominantly Orthodox (and Uniate) Slavic population in it, was perceived in Russia not as an occupation, but as the return of the severed part of historical Russia (see Galician General Government). Austria-Hungary lost faith in the strength of its army, and in the future did not risk embarking on major operations without the help of German troops.

Military operations in the Kingdom of Poland. The pre-war border of Russia with Germany and Austria-Hungary had a configuration far from smooth - in the center of the border, the territory of the Kingdom of Poland sharply protruded to the west. Obviously, both sides began the war with attempts to flatten the front - the Russians tried to equalize the "dents", advancing in the north on East Prussia, and in the south - on Galicia, while Germany sought to remove the "ledge", advancing in the center on Poland. After the Russian offensive in East Prussia failed, Germany could only advance southward, in Poland, so that the front would not fall apart into two disconnected parts. In addition, the success of the offensive in the southern part of Poland could have helped the Austro-Hungarians who were suffering defeat.

On September 15 (28), the German offensive began the Warsaw-Ivangorod operation. The offensive went in a northeastern direction, aiming at Warsaw and the Ivangorod fortress. On September 30 (October 12) the Germans reached Warsaw and reached the border of the Vistula River. Fierce battles began, in which the advantage of the Russian army was gradually determined. On October 7 (20), the Russians began to cross the Vistula, and on October 14 (27), the German army began a general retreat. By October 26 (November 8), the German troops, having failed to achieve results, withdrew to their original positions.

On October 29 (November 11), the Germans from the same positions along the pre-war border undertook a second offensive in the same northeastern direction (Lodz operation). The center of the battle was the city of Lodz, captured and abandoned by the Germans a few weeks earlier. In a dynamically unfolding battle, the Germans first surrounded Lodz, then themselves were surrounded by superior Russian forces and retreated. The results of the battles were uncertain - the Russians managed to defend both Lodz and Warsaw; but at the same time Germany managed to capture the northwestern part of the Kingdom of Poland - the front, which had stabilized by October 26 (November 8), went from Lodz to Warsaw.

The positions of the parties by the end of 1914. By the new 1915, the front looked like this - on the border of East Prussia and Russia, the front went along the pre-war border, then a gap poorly filled by the troops of both sides followed, after which a stable front began again from Warsaw to Lodz (northeast and east of the Kingdom of Poland with Petrokov , Czestochow and Kalisz was occupied by Germany), in the region of Krakow (remained behind Austria-Hungary), the front crossed the pre-war border of Austria-Hungary with Russia and crossed into the Austrian territory captured by the Russians. Most of Galicia went to Russia, Lviv (Lemberg) fell into the deep (180 km from the front) rear. In the south, the front rested on the Carpathians, which were practically unoccupied by the troops of both sides. Bukovina, located to the east of the Carpathians, with Chernivtsi passed to Russia. The total length of the front was about 1200 km.

Results of the 1914 campaign on the Russian front. The campaign as a whole has developed in favor of Russia. Clashes with the German army ended in favor of the Germans, and on the German part of the front, Russia lost part of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. The defeat of Russia in East Prussia was morally painful and accompanied by heavy losses. But Germany was not able to achieve the results it had planned at any point, all of its successes from a military point of view were modest. Meanwhile, Russia managed to inflict a major defeat on Austria-Hungary and capture significant territories. A certain pattern of actions of the Russian army formed - the Germans were treated with caution, the Austro-Hungarians were considered a weaker enemy. Austria-Hungary has turned for Germany from a full-fledged ally into a weak partner requiring continuous support. The fronts stabilized by the new 1915, and the war passed into a positional phase; but at the same time, the front line (in contrast to the French theater of military operations) continued to remain unsmoothed, and the armies of the sides filled it unevenly, with large gaps. This unevenness next year will make events on the Eastern Front much more dynamic than on the Western. By the new year, the Russian army began to feel the first signs of an impending ammunition supply crisis. It also turned out that the Austro-Hungarian soldiers are prone to surrender, while the German ones are not.

The Entente countries were able to coordinate actions on two fronts - the offensive of Russia in East Prussia coincided with the most difficult moment of the fighting for France, Germany was forced to fight in two directions at the same time, as well as to transfer troops from front to front.

Balkan theater of war

On the Serbian front, things were not going well for the Austrians. Despite their large numerical superiority, they managed to occupy Belgrade, located on the border, only on December 2, but on December 15, the Serbs recaptured Belgrade and drove the Austrians out of their territory. Although the demands of Austria-Hungary against Serbia were the direct reason for the outbreak of the war, it was in Serbia that the military operations of 1914 were rather sluggish.

Japan's entry into the war

In August 1914, the Entente countries (primarily England) managed to persuade Japan to oppose Germany, despite the fact that these two countries did not have significant conflicts of interest. On August 15, Japan presented an ultimatum to Germany, demanding the withdrawal of troops from China, and on August 23, it declared war (see Japan in the First World War). In late August, the Japanese army began a siege of Qingdao, the only German naval base in China, which ended on November 7 with the surrender of the German garrison (see Siege of Qingdao).

In September-October, Japan actively began to seize the island colonies and bases of Germany (German Micronesia and German New Guinea. The Caroline Islands were captured on September 12, the Marshall Islands on September 29. In October, the Japanese landed in the Caroline Islands and captured the key port of Rabaul. At the end August, New Zealand troops captured German Samoa.Australia and New Zealand concluded an agreement with Japan on the division of the German colonies, the equator was adopted as the dividing line.The forces of Germany in the region were insignificant and sharply inferior to the Japanese, so that the hostilities were not accompanied by large losses.

The participation of Japan in the war on the side of the Entente turned out to be extremely beneficial for Russia, completely securing its Asian part. Russia no longer had the need to spend resources on the maintenance of the army, navy and fortifications directed against Japan and China. In addition, Japan has gradually become an important source of supplies for Russia with raw materials and weapons.

The entry into the war of the Ottoman Empire and the opening of the Asian theater of military operations

With the outbreak of the war in Turkey, there was no agreement - whether to enter the war and on whose side. In the unofficial Young Turkish triumvirate, Minister of War Enver Pasha and Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat Pasha were supporters of the Triple Alliance, but Jemal Pasha was a supporter of the Entente. On August 2, 1914, a German-Turkish allied treaty was signed, according to which the Turkish army was actually surrendered under the leadership of the German military mission. Mobilization was announced in the country. However, at the same time, the Turkish government issued a declaration of neutrality. On August 10, the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau entered the Dardanelles, leaving the pursuit of the British fleet in the Mediterranean. With the appearance of these ships, not only the Turkish army, but also the fleet were under the command of the Germans. On September 9, the Turkish government announced to all powers that it had decided to abolish the capitulation regime (preferential legal status of foreign citizens). This provoked a protest from all powers.

However, most of the members of the Turkish government, including the grand vizier, still opposed the war. Then Enver Pasha, together with the German command, began a war without the consent of the rest of the government, putting the country in front of a fait accompli. Turkey has declared "jihad" (holy war) to the Entente countries. On October 29-30 (November 11-12), the Turkish fleet under the command of the German admiral Sushon shelled Sevastopol, Odessa, Feodosia and Novorossiysk. On November 2 (15), Russia declared war on Turkey. England and France followed on 5 and 6 November.

The Caucasian Front arose between Russia and Turkey. In December 1914 - January 1915, during the Sarykamysh operation, the Russian Caucasian army stopped the Turkish offensive on Kars, and then defeated them and launched a counteroffensive (see Caucasian Front).

The usefulness of Turkey as an ally was diminished by the fact that the Central Powers had no communication with her either by land (between Turkey and Austria-Hungary was located Serbia, which had not yet been captured and so far neutral Romania), or by sea (the Mediterranean Sea was controlled by the Entente).

At the same time, Russia also lost the most convenient route of communication with its allies - through the Black Sea and the Straits. Russia has two ports left, suitable for the transportation of a large amount of cargo - Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok; the carrying capacity of the railways approaching these ports was low.

Fighting at sea

With the outbreak of war, the German fleet deployed cruising operations throughout the oceans, which, however, did not lead to a significant disruption of the merchant shipping of its opponents. Nevertheless, part of the fleet of the Entente countries was diverted to fight the German raiders. The German squadron of Admiral von Spee managed to defeat the English squadron in the battle at Cape Coronel (Chile) on November 1, but later it was itself defeated by the British in the Falklands battle on December 8.

In the North Sea, the fleets of the opposing sides carried out raiding operations. The first major clash occurred on 28 August at Helgoland Island (Battle of Helgoland). The English fleet was victorious.

The Russian fleets were passive. The Baltic Fleet of Russia occupied a defensive position, to which the German fleet, occupied with operations in other theaters, did not even come close. The Black Sea Fleet, which did not have large ships of the modern type, did not dare to clash with the two newest German-Turkish ships.

Campaign of 1915

The course of hostilities

French Theater of War - Western Front

Actions of the beginning of 1915. The intensity of operations on the Western Front since the beginning of 1915 has significantly decreased. Germany concentrated its forces on preparing operations against Russia. The French and British also preferred to take advantage of the resulting pause for the accumulation of forces. The first four months of the year at the front was almost complete calm, hostilities were conducted only in Artois, in the area of ​​the city of Arras (an attempt by the French in February) and southeast of Verdun, where the German positions formed the so-called Ser-Miel salient towards France (an attempt French offensive in April). In March, the British made an unsuccessful attempt at an offensive near the village of Neuve Chapelle.

The Germans, in turn, launched a counterattack in the north of the front, in Flanders at Ypres, against the British troops (April 22 - May 25, see Second Battle of Ypres). At the same time, Germany, for the first time in the history of mankind and with complete surprise for the Anglo-French, used chemical weapons (chlorine was released from the cylinders). The gas affected 15 thousand people, of which 5 thousand died. The Germans did not have sufficient reserves to take advantage of the gas attack and break through the front. After the Ypres gas attack, both sides very quickly managed to develop gas masks of various designs, and further attempts to use chemical weapons no longer took large masses of troops by surprise.

In the course of these hostilities, which yielded the most insignificant results with noticeable casualties, both sides became convinced that the assault on well-equipped positions (several lines of trenches, dugouts, barbed wire fences) was futile without active artillery preparation.

Spring operation in Artois. On May 3, the Entente launched a new offensive in Artois. The offensive was carried out by joint Anglo-French forces. The French advanced north of Arras, the British - in the adjacent area in the Neuve Chapelle area. The offensive was organized in a new way: huge forces (30 infantry divisions, 9 cavalry corps, more than 1,700 guns) were concentrated on 30 kilometers of the offensive sector. The offensive was preceded by a six-day artillery preparation (2.1 million shells were spent), which, as expected, was supposed to completely suppress the resistance of the German troops. The calculations did not come true. The huge losses of the Entente (130 thousand people), incurred in six weeks of fighting, did not completely correspond to the results achieved - by mid-June, the French advanced 3-4 km along the front of 7 km, and the British - less than 1 km along the front of 3 km.

Autumn operation in Champagne and Artois. By the beginning of September, the Entente prepared a new major offensive, the task of which was to liberate the north of France. The offensive began on September 25 and took place simultaneously in two sectors spaced 120 km from each other - 35 km of the front in Champagne (east of Reims) and 20 km of the front in Artois (near Arras). If successful, the troops advancing from both sides were to close on the French border (at Mons) after 80-100 km, which would lead to the liberation of Picardy. Compared with the spring offensive in Artois, the scale was increased: 67 infantry and cavalry divisions were involved in the offensive, up to 2,600 guns; during the operation, more than 5 million shells were fired. The Anglo-French troops used the new offensive tactics in several "waves". At the time of the offensive, the German troops managed to improve their defensive positions - a second defensive line was arranged 5-6 kilometers behind the first defensive line, poorly visible from the enemy's positions (each of the defensive lines consisted, in turn, of three rows of trenches). The offensive, which lasted until October 7, led to extremely limited results - in both sectors it was possible to break through only the first line of the German defense and recapture no more than 2-3 km of territory. At the same time, the losses on both sides were enormous - the Anglo-French lost 200 thousand people killed and wounded, the Germans - 140 thousand people.

The positions of the parties by the end of 1915 and the results of the campaign. For the whole of 1915, the front practically did not move - the result of all fierce offensives was the movement of the front line by no more than 10 km. Both sides, more and more strengthening their defensive positions, could not work out tactics that would allow them to break through the front, even under conditions of an extremely high concentration of forces and many days of artillery preparation. The huge sacrifices on both sides did not produce any meaningful result. The situation, however, allowed Germany to increase the onslaught on the Eastern Front - the entire strengthening of the German army was aimed at fighting Russia, while the improvement of defensive lines and defense tactics allowed the Germans to be confident in the strength of the Western Front while gradually reducing the troops involved.

The actions of the beginning of 1915 showed that the prevailing type of military operations creates a huge burden on the economies of the belligerent countries. New battles required not only the mobilization of millions of citizens, but also a gigantic amount of weapons and ammunition. The pre-war stocks of weapons and ammunition were exhausted, and the belligerent countries began to actively rebuild their economies for military needs. The war from a battle of armies gradually began to turn into a battle of economies. The development of new military equipment has intensified as a means of overcoming the stalemate at the front; armies became more and more mechanized. The armies noticed the significant benefits of aviation (reconnaissance and adjustment of artillery fire) and automobiles. The methods of trench warfare improved - trench guns, light mortars, and hand grenades appeared.

France and Russia again attempted to coordinate the actions of their armies - the spring offensive in Artois was intended to distract the Germans from an active offensive against the Russians. On July 7, the first Inter-Allied Conference opened in Chantilly, aimed at planning joint actions of the allies on different fronts and organizing various kinds of economic and military assistance. The second conference was held there on November 23-26. It was considered necessary to begin preparations for a coordinated offensive by all allied armies in the three main theaters - French, Russian and Italian.

Russian theater of military operations - Eastern Front

Winter operation in East Prussia. In February, the Russian army undertook another attempt to attack East Prussia, this time from the southeast, from Masuria, from the city of Suwalki. The offensive, poorly prepared, unsecured with artillery support, instantly collapsed and went over to a counterattack by the German troops, the so-called August operation (after the city of Augustow). By February 26, the Germans managed to advance to drive out the Russian troops from the territory of East Prussia and advance 100-120 km deep into the Kingdom of Poland, capturing Suwalki, after which in the first half of March the front stabilized, Grodno remained behind Russia. XX Russian corps was surrounded and surrendered. Despite the victory of the Germans, their hopes for a complete collapse of the Russian front did not come true. During the next battle - the Prasnysh operation (February 25 - the end of March), the Germans met with fierce resistance from the Russian troops, which launched a counterattack in the Prasnysh area, which led to the withdrawal of the Germans to the pre-war border of East Prussia (the Suwalk province remained with Germany).

Winter operation in the Carpathians. On February 9-11, Austro-German troops launched an offensive in the Carpathians, pressing especially hard on the weakest part of the Russian front in the south, in Bukovina. At the same time, the Russian army launched a counter offensive, hoping to cross the Carpathians and invade Hungary from north to south. In the northern part of the Carpathians, closer to Krakow, the enemy forces turned out to be equal, and the front practically did not move during the battles in February and March, remaining in the foothills of the Carpathians on the Russian side. But in the south of the Carpathians, the Russian army did not manage to group, and by the end of March the Russians lost most of Bukovina with Chernivtsi. On March 22, the besieged Austrian fortress of Przemysl fell, more than 120 thousand people surrendered. The capture of Przemysl was the last major success of the Russian army in 1915.

Gorlitsky breakthrough. The beginning of the Great retreat of the Russian armies - the loss of Galicia. By mid-spring, the situation at the front in Galicia had changed. The Germans expanded their area of ​​operations, transferring their troops to the northern and central part of the front in Austria-Hungary, the weaker Austro-Hungarians were now responsible only for the southern part of the front. In a 35 km sector, the Germans concentrated 32 divisions and 1,500 guns; Russian troops were 2 times inferior in number, and were completely deprived of heavy artillery, and the lack of shells of the main (three-inch) caliber began to affect. On April 19 (May 2), German troops launched an offensive against the center of the Russian position in Austria-Hungary - Gorlice - aiming the main blow at Lvov. Further events developed unfavorably for the Russian army: the numerical predominance of the Germans, unsuccessful maneuvering and the use of reserves, the growing shortage of shells and the complete predominance of German heavy artillery led to the fact that by April 22 (May 5) the front in the Gorlitz region was broken through. The beginning of the withdrawal of the Russian armies continued until June 9 (22) (see The Great Retreat of 1915). The entire front south of Warsaw moved towards Russia. In the Kingdom of Poland, the Radom and Keletsk provinces were left, the front passed through Lublin (behind Russia); from the territories of Austria-Hungary, most of Galicia was left (the newly taken Przemysl was left on June 3 (16), and Lviv - on June 9 (22)), the Russians only left a small (up to 40 km deep) strip with Brody, the entire region Tarnopol and a small part of Bukovina. The retreat, which began in the breakthrough of the Germans, by the time Lvov was abandoned acquired a planned character, the Russian troops were retreating in relative order. But nevertheless, such a major military failure was accompanied by the loss of the Russian army's morale and massive surrenders.

Continuation of the Great Retreat of the Russian armies - the loss of Poland. Having achieved success in the southern part of the theater of operations, the German command decided to immediately continue an active offensive in its northern part - in Poland and in East Prussia - the Ostsee Territory. Since the Gorlitsky breakthrough did not ultimately lead to the complete fall of the Russian front (the Russians were able to stabilize the situation and close the front at the cost of a significant retreat), this time the tactics were changed - it was not supposed to break through the front at one point, but three independent offensives. Two directions of the offensive aimed at the Kingdom of Poland (where the Russian front continued to form a protrusion towards Germany) - the Germans planned front breakthroughs from the north, from East Prussia (a breakthrough to the south between Warsaw and Lomza, in the area of ​​the Narew River), and from the south, from sides of Galicia (to the north along the interfluve of the Vistula and the Bug); at the same time, the directions of both breakthroughs converged on the border of the Kingdom of Poland, in the region of Brest-Litovsk; if the German plan was fulfilled, the Russian troops had to leave all of Poland in order to avoid encirclement in the Warsaw area. The third offensive, from East Prussia towards Riga, was planned as an offensive on a wide front, without concentration in a narrow sector and a breakthrough.

The offensive between the Vistula and the Bug was launched on June 13 (26), and on June 30 (July 13) the Narew operation began. After fierce battles, the front was broken through in both places, and the Russian army, as envisaged by the German plan, began a general withdrawal from the Kingdom of Poland. On July 22 (August 4) Warsaw and the Ivangorod fortress were abandoned, on August 7 (20) the Novogeorgievsk fortress fell, on August 9 (22) - the Osovets fortress, on August 13 (26) the Russians left Brest-Litovsk, and on August 19 (September 2) - Grodno.

The offensive from East Prussia (the Rigo-Shavel operation) began on July 1 (14). For a month of fighting, Russian troops were pushed back beyond the Neman, the Germans captured Kurland with Mitava and the most important naval base Libava, Kovno, and came close to Riga.

The success of the German offensive was facilitated by the fact that by the summer the crisis in the military supply of the Russian army had reached its maximum. Of particular importance was the so-called "shell hunger" - an acute shortage of shells for the 75-mm guns prevailing in the Russian army. The capture of the Novogeorgievsk fortress, accompanied by the surrender of large units of troops and intact weapons and property without a fight, caused a new outbreak of spy mania and rumors of treason in Russian society. The Kingdom of Poland gave Russia about a quarter of coal production, the loss of Polish deposits was never compensated for, from the end of 1915 a fuel crisis began in Russia.

Completion of the great retreat and stabilization of the front. On August 9 (22), the Germans shifted the direction of the main attack; now the main offensive took place along the front north of Vilna, in the Sventsyan region, and was directed towards Minsk. On August 27-28 (September 8-9), the Germans, taking advantage of the leaky location of the Russian units, were able to break through the front (Sventsiansky breakthrough). The result was that the Russians were able to fill the front only after they had retreated directly to Minsk. The Vilna province was lost by the Russians.

On December 14 (27), the Russians launched an offensive against the Austro-Hungarian troops on the Strypa River, in the Ternopil region, due to the need to divert the Austrians from the Serbian front, where the situation of the Serbs became very difficult. The offensive attempts were unsuccessful, and on January 15 (29), the operation was stopped.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal of the Russian armies continued to the south of the Sventsyansky breakthrough zone. In August, the Russians left Vladimir-Volynsky, Kovel, Lutsk, Pinsk. On the more southern part of the front, the situation was stable, since by that time the forces of the Austro-Hungarians had been diverted by battles in Serbia and on the Italian front. By the end of September - the beginning of October, the front stabilized, and a lull set in along its entire length. The offensive potential of the Germans was exhausted, the Russians began to restore their troops, which had been badly damaged during the retreat, and to strengthen new defensive lines.

The positions of the parties by the end of 1915. By the end of 1915, the front had become practically a straight line connecting the Baltic and Black seas; the protrusion of the front in the Kingdom of Poland completely disappeared - Poland was completely occupied by Germany. Courland was occupied by Germany, the front came close to Riga and then went along the Western Dvina to the fortified region of Dvinsk. Further, the front passed through the North-Western Territory: Kovenskaya, Vilenskaya, Grodno provinces, the western part of the Minsk province was occupied by Germany (Minsk remained with Russia). Then the front passed through the South-Western Territory: the western third of the Volyn province with Lutsk was occupied by Germany, Exactly remained with Russia. After that, the front moved to the former territory of Austria-Hungary, where the Russians retained a part of the Tarnopol region in Galicia. Further, to the Bessarabian province, the front returned to the pre-war border with Austria-Hungary and ended at the border with neutral Romania.

The new configuration of the front, which did not have protrusions and was densely filled with troops from both sides, naturally prompted a transition to trench warfare and defensive tactics.

Results of the 1915 campaign on the Eastern Front. The results of the 1915 campaign for Germany in the east were in a certain way similar to the 1914 campaign in the west: Germany was able to achieve significant military victories and capture enemy territory, Germany's tactical advantage in mobile warfare was obvious; but at the same time, the general goal - the complete defeat of one of the opponents and his withdrawal from the war - was not achieved in 1915 either. With tactical victories, the Central Powers were unable to completely defeat the leading adversaries as their economies grew weaker and weaker. Russia, despite heavy losses in territory and manpower, fully retained the ability to continue the war (although its army lost its offensive spirit during the long period of retreat). In addition, by the end of the Great Retreat, the Russians were able to overcome the military supply crisis, and the situation with artillery and shells for it returned to normal by the end of the year. Fierce struggle and great human losses led the economies of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary to overstrain, the negative results of which will be more and more noticeable in the following years.

Russia's failures were accompanied by important personnel changes. On June 30 (July 13), Minister of War V. A. Sukhomlinov was replaced by A. A. Polivanov. Subsequently, Sukhomlinov was brought to trial, which caused another outbreak of suspicion and spy mania. On August 10 (23), Nicholas II took over the duties of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, moving the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich to the Caucasian front. In this case, the actual leadership of military operations passed from N.N. Yanushkevich to M.V. Alekseev. The assumption of the supreme command by the tsar entailed extremely significant internal political consequences.

Italy's entry into the war

With the outbreak of the war, Italy remained neutral. On August 3, 1914, the Italian king informed William II that the conditions for the outbreak of war did not correspond to the conditions in the Treaty of the Triple Alliance, under which Italy should enter the war. On the same day, the Italian government issued a declaration of neutrality. After lengthy negotiations between Italy and the Central Powers and the Entente countries, the London Pact was concluded on April 26, 1915, according to which Italy pledged to declare war on Austria-Hungary within a month, as well as to oppose all the enemies of the Entente. A number of territories were promised as “payment for the blood” of Italy. England gave Italy a loan of 50 million pounds. Despite the subsequent reciprocal offers of territories from the Central Powers, against the background of fierce internal political clashes between opponents and supporters of the two blocs, on May 23, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary.

Balkan theater of operations, entry into the war of Bulgaria

There was no activity on the Serbian front until autumn. By the beginning of autumn, after the completion of a successful campaign to oust the Russian troops from Galicia and Bukovina, the Austro-Hungarians and Germans were able to transfer a large number of troops to attack Serbia. At the same time, it was expected that Bulgaria, impressed by the successes of the Central Powers, intends to enter the war on their side. In this case, a sparsely populated Serbia with a small army found itself surrounded by enemies from two fronts, and it faced inevitable military defeat. Anglo-French aid arrived with a great delay - only on October 5 did the troops begin to land in Thessaloniki (Greece); Russia could not help, since neutral Romania refused to let the Russian troops pass. On October 5, the offensive of the Central Powers from Austria-Hungary began, on October 14 Bulgaria declared war on the Entente countries and began military operations against Serbia. The troops of the Serbs, British and French were outnumbered by the forces of the Central Powers by more than 2 times and had no chance of success.

By the end of December, Serbian troops left Serbia, leaving for Albania, from where in January 1916 their remnants were evacuated to the island of Corfu and to Bizerta. In December, the Anglo-French troops withdrew to the territory of Greece, to Thessaloniki, where they were able to gain a foothold, forming the Thessaloniki Front along the Greek border with Bulgaria and Serbia. The cadres of the Serbian army (up to 150 thousand people) were retained and in the spring of 1916 they strengthened the Thessaloniki front.

The accession of Bulgaria to the Central Powers and the fall of Serbia opened up direct communication by land with Turkey for the Central Powers.

Military operations in the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula

By the beginning of 1915, the Anglo-French command developed a joint operation to break through the Dardanelles and enter the Sea of ​​Marmara, to Constantinople. The task of the operation was to ensure free sea traffic through the straits and to divert Turkish forces from the Caucasian front.

According to the original plan, the breakthrough was to be carried out by the British fleet, which was to destroy the coastal batteries without landing. After the first unsuccessful attacks with small forces (19-25 February), the British fleet launched a general attack on 18 March, which involved more than 20 battleships, battle cruisers and obsolete battleships. After the loss of 3 ships, the British, without having achieved success, left the strait.

After that, the Entente's tactics changed - it was decided to land an expeditionary force on the Gallicpolian Peninsula (on the European side of the straits) and on the opposite Asian coast. The Entente landing force (80 thousand people), consisting of the British, French, Australians and New Zealanders, began landing on 25 April. The landing took place at three bridgeheads divided between the participating countries. The attackers managed to hold out only in one of the sections of Gallipoli, where the Australian-New Zealand Corps (ANZAC) was parachuted. Fierce battles and the transfer of new Entente reinforcements continued until mid-August, but none of the attempts to attack the Turks yielded significant results. By the end of August, the failure of the operation became obvious, and the Entente began to prepare for a gradual evacuation of troops. The last troops from Gallipoli were evacuated in early January 1916. A bold strategic plan, initiated by W. Churchill, ended in complete failure.

On the Caucasian front in July, Russian troops repelled the Turkish offensive in the area of ​​Lake Van, while losing part of the territory (Alashkert operation). The fighting spread to the territory of Persia. On October 30, Russian troops landed in the port of Anzali, by the end of December they defeated the pro-Turkish armed detachments and took control of the territory of Northern Persia, preventing Persia from advancing against Russia and securing the left flank of the Caucasian army.

Campaign of 1916

Having failed to achieve decisive success on the Eastern Front in the 1915 campaign, the German command decided in 1916 to deliver the main blow in the west and withdraw France from the war. It planned with powerful flanking attacks at the base of the Verdun salient to cut it off, surrounding the entire Verdun enemy grouping, and thereby create a huge gap in the allied defenses, through which it was then supposed to strike at the flank and rear of the central French armies and defeat the entire Allied front.

On February 21, 1916, German troops launched an offensive operation in the area of ​​the fortress of Verdun, called the Battle of Verdun. After stubborn battles with huge losses on both sides, the Germans managed to advance 6-8 kilometers ahead and take some of the forts of the fortress, but their advance was stopped. This battle lasted until December 18, 1916. The French and British lost 750 thousand people, the Germans - 450 thousand.

During the Battle of Verdun, a new weapon was used for the first time by Germany - a flamethrower. In the skies over Verdun, for the first time in the history of wars, the principles of aircraft warfare were worked out - the American squadron "Lafayette" fought on the side of the Entente troops. The Germans first began to use a fighter plane in which machine guns fired through a rotating propeller without damaging it.

On June 3, 1916, a large offensive operation of the Russian army began, called the Brusilov Breakthrough after the front commander A.A. Brusilov. As a result of the offensive operation, the Southwestern Front inflicted a heavy defeat on the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in Galicia and Bukovina, the total losses of which amounted to more than 1.5 million people. At the same time, the Naroch and Baranovichi operations of the Russian troops ended unsuccessfully.

In June, the Battle of the Somme began, which lasted until November, during which tanks were used for the first time.

On the Caucasian front in January-February in the Erzurum battle, Russian troops utterly defeated the Turkish army and captured the cities of Erzurum and Trebizond.

The successes of the Russian army prompted Romania to side with the Entente. On August 17, 1916, an agreement was concluded between Romania and the four Entente powers. Romania pledged to declare war on Austria-Hungary. For this she was promised Transylvania, part of Bukovina and Banat. On August 28, Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary. However, by the end of the year, the Romanian army was defeated and most of the country was occupied.

The military campaign of 1916 was marked by an important event. May 31 - June 1, the largest sea battle of Jutland in the entire war took place.

All the previous events described have demonstrated the superiority of the Entente. By the end of 1916, both sides had lost 6 million people killed, about 10 million were injured. In November-December 1916, Germany and its allies offered peace, but the Entente rejected the offer, stating that peace is impossible "until the restoration of violated rights and freedoms, recognition of the principle of nationalities and the free existence of small states is ensured."

Campaign of 1917

The position of the Central Powers in 1917 became catastrophic: there were no more reserves for the army, the scale of hunger, transport disruption and a fuel crisis grew. The Entente countries began to receive significant assistance from the United States (food, manufactured goods, and later reinforcements), while simultaneously strengthening the economic blockade of Germany, and their victory, even without offensive operations, became only a matter of time.

Nevertheless, when, after the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government, which came to power under the slogan of ending the war, concluded an armistice with Germany and its allies on December 15, the German leadership had hope for a favorable outcome of the war.

Eastern front

On February 1-20, 1917, the Petrograd Conference of the Entente countries was held, at which the plans for the 1917 campaign and, unofficially, the internal political situation in Russia were discussed.

In February 1917, the size of the Russian army, after a major mobilization, exceeded 8 million people. After the February Revolution in Russia, the Provisional Government advocated the continuation of the war, which was opposed by the Bolsheviks led by Lenin.

On April 6, the United States took the side of the Entente (after the so-called "Zimmermann telegram"), which finally changed the balance of forces in favor of the Entente, but the offensive that began in April (the Nivelle Offensive) was unsuccessful. Private operations in the area of ​​the city of Messin, on the Ypres River, near Verdun and at Cambrai, where tanks were first used on a massive scale, did not change the general situation on the Western Front.

On the Eastern Front, due to the defeatist agitation of the Bolsheviks and the indecisive policy of the Provisional Government, the Russian army was decaying and losing its combat effectiveness. The offensive undertaken in June by the forces of the Southwestern Front failed, and the armies of the front withdrew 50-100 km. However, despite the fact that the Russian army had lost the ability to actively engage in military operations, the Central Powers, which suffered huge losses in the 1916 campaign, could not use the opportunity created for themselves to inflict a decisive defeat on Russia and withdraw it from the war by military means.

On the Eastern Front, the German army limited itself to private operations that did not in any way affect the strategic position of Germany: as a result of Operation Albion, German troops captured the islands of Dago and Ezel and forced the Russian fleet to withdraw from the Gulf of Riga.

On the Italian front in October-November, the Austro-Hungarian army inflicted a major defeat on the Italian army at Caporetto and advanced 100-150 km deep into Italian territory, reaching the approaches to Venice. Only with the help of the British and French troops transferred to Italy was it possible to stop the Austrian offensive.

In 1917, there was a relative calm on the Thessaloniki front. In April 1917, the Allied forces (which consisted of British, French, Serbian, Italian and Russian troops) launched an offensive operation that brought little tactical results to the Entente forces. However, this offensive failed to change the situation on the Thessaloniki front.

Due to the extremely harsh winter of 1916-1917, the Russian Caucasian army did not conduct active operations in the mountains. In order not to incur unnecessary losses from frost and disease, Yudenich left only combat outposts at the achieved lines, and placed the main forces in the valleys in settlements. In early March, the 1st Caucasian Cavalry Corps, gen. Baratov defeated the Persian grouping of the Turks and, having seized the important road junction of Sinnach (Senendej) and the city of Kermanshah in Persia, moved south-west to Euphrates towards the British. In mid-March, units of the 1st Caucasian Cossack Division of Raddats and the 3rd Kuban Division, having overcome more than 400 km, joined up with the allies at Kizyl Rabat (Iraq). Turkey lost Mesopotamia.

After the February Revolution, the Russian army did not conduct active hostilities on the Turkish front, and after the conclusion of the Bolshevik government in December 1917, the armistice with the countries of the Quadruple Alliance ceased completely.

On the Mesopotamian Front, British forces in 1917 made significant strides. Having increased the number of troops to 55 thousand people, the British army launched a decisive offensive in Mesopotamia. The British captured a number of important cities: Al-Kut (January), Baghdad (March), and others. On the side of the British troops fought volunteers from the Arab population, who met the advancing British troops as liberators. Also, by the beginning of 1917, British troops invaded Palestine, where fierce battles began near Gaza. In October, having brought the number of their troops to 90 thousand people, the British launched a decisive offensive near Gaza and the Turks were forced to retreat. By the end of 1917, the British captured a number of settlements: Jaffa, Jerusalem and Jericho.

In East Africa, the German colonial troops under the command of Colonel Lettov-Forbeck, significantly outnumbered by the enemy, put up prolonged resistance and in November 1917, under pressure from the Anglo-Portuguese-Belgian troops, invaded the territory of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

Diplomatic efforts

On July 19, 1917, the German Reichstag adopted a resolution on the need for peace by mutual agreement and without annexations. But on the part of the governments of England, France and the United States, this resolution did not meet with a sympathetic response. In August 1917, Pope Benedict XV offered his mediation to conclude peace. However, the Entente governments rejected the papal proposal, as Germany stubbornly refused to give unequivocal consent to the restoration of Belgian independence.

Campaign of 1918

Decisive victories of the Entente

After the conclusion of peace treaties with the Ukrainian People's Republic (ukr. Berestyeisky world), Soviet Russia and Romania and the elimination of the Eastern Front, Germany was able to concentrate almost all of its forces on the Western Front and try to inflict a decisive defeat on the Anglo-French troops before the main forces of the American army arrived at the front.

In March-July, the German army launched a powerful offensive in Picardy, Flanders, on the Aisne and Marne rivers, and during fierce battles advanced 40-70 km, but could neither defeat the enemy nor break through the front. The limited human and material resources of Germany were depleted during the war years. In addition, having occupied the vast territories of the former Russian Empire after the signing of the Brest Peace, the German command was forced to leave large forces in the east to maintain control over them, which negatively affected the course of hostilities against the Entente. General Kuhl, chief of staff of Prince Ruprecht's Army Group, estimates the number of German troops on the Western Front at about 3.6 million; on the Eastern Front, including Romania and excluding Turkey, there were about 1 million people.

In May, American troops began to operate at the front. In July-August, the second battle of the Marne took place, which marked the beginning of the Entente's counteroffensive. By the end of September, the Entente troops, in the course of a number of operations, eliminated the results of the previous German offensive. In the course of a further general offensive in October and early November, most of the captured French territory and part of the Belgian territory were liberated.

At the Italian Theater in late October, Italian forces defeated the Austro-Hungarian army at Vittorio Veneto and liberated Italian territory captured by the enemy the previous year.

In the Balkan theater, the Entente offensive began on 15 September. By November 1, the Entente troops liberated the territory of Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, entered after the armistice into the territory of Bulgaria and invaded the territory of Austria-Hungary.

On September 29, an armistice with the Entente was concluded by Bulgaria, on October 30 - Turkey, on November 3 - Austria-Hungary, on November 11 - Germany.

Other theaters of war

There was a lull on the Mesopotamian front throughout 1918, fighting here ended on November 14, when the British army, without encountering resistance from the Turkish troops, occupied Mosul. There was also a lull in Palestine, as the eyes of the parties were turned to the more important theaters of war. In the fall of 1918, the British army launched an offensive and occupied Nazareth, the Turkish army was surrounded and defeated. Having conquered Palestine, the British invaded Syria. The fighting here ended on October 30.

In Africa, German forces, pressed by superior enemy forces, continued to resist. Leaving Mozambique, the Germans invaded the English colony of Northern Rhodesia. It was only when the Germans learned of Germany's defeat in the war that the colonial troops (which numbered only 1,400 people) laid down their arms.

Results of the war

Political results

In 1919, the Germans were forced to sign the Versailles Peace Treaty, which was drawn up by the winning states at the Paris Peace Conference.

Peace treaties with

• Germany (Treaty of Versailles (1919))
• Austria (Peace Treaty of Saint Germain (1919))
• Bulgaria (Treaty of Neuilly (1919))
• Hungary (Trianon Peace Treaty (1920))
• Turkey (Peace Treaty of Sevres (1920)).

The results of the First World War were the February and October revolutions in Russia and the November revolution in Germany, the elimination of three empires: the Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, and the latter two were separated. Germany, having ceased to be a monarchy, is cut territorially and economically weakened. The Civil War began in Russia, on July 6-16, 1918, the Left Social Revolutionaries (supporters of Russia's continued participation in the war) organized the assassination of the German ambassador, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach in Moscow and the royal family in Yekaterinburg, in order to disrupt the Brest Peace between Soviet Russia and Kaiser Germany. After the February Revolution, despite the war with Russia, the Germans worried about the fate of the Russian imperial family, because the wife of Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, was German, and their daughters were both Russian princesses and German princesses. The United States has become a great power. The difficult conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty for Germany (payment of reparations, etc.) and the national humiliation suffered by it gave rise to revanchist sentiments, which became one of the prerequisites for the Nazis coming to power, who unleashed World War II.

Territorial changes

As a result of the war, the following occurred: the annexation of Tanzania and South-West Africa, Iraq and Palestine, parts of Togo and Cameroon by Britain; Belgium - Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda; Greece - Eastern Thrace; Denmark - Northern Schleswig; Italy - South Tyrol and Istria; Romania - Transylvania and Southern Dobrudja; France - Alsace-Lorraine, Syria, parts of Togo and Cameroon; Japan - the German islands in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator; the occupation of the Saar by France.

The independence of the Belarusian People's Republic, the Ukrainian People's Republic, Hungary, Danzig, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland and Yugoslavia was proclaimed.

Austrian Republic founded. The German Empire became a de facto republic.

The Rhineland and the Black Sea straits have been demilitarized.

Military results

The First World War spurred the development of new weapons and means of warfare. For the first time, tanks, chemical weapons, gas masks, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns were used. Airplanes, machine guns, mortars, submarines, and torpedo boats have become widespread. The firepower of the troops increased dramatically. New types of artillery appeared: anti-aircraft, anti-tank, infantry escort. Aviation became an independent branch of the military, which began to be subdivided into reconnaissance, fighter and bomber. Tank troops, chemical troops, air defense troops, and naval aviation emerged. The role of engineering troops increased and the role of cavalry decreased. Also appeared "trench tactics" of warfare with the aim of exhausting the enemy and depleting his economy, working on military orders.

Economic results

The enormous scale and protracted nature of the First World War led to the militarization of the economy unprecedented for industrial states. This influenced the course of economic development of all large industrial states in the period between the two world wars: strengthening of state regulation and planning of the economy, the formation of military-industrial complexes, the acceleration of the development of national economic infrastructures (energy systems, a network of paved roads, etc.) , an increase in the share of production of defense products and dual-use products.

Opinions of contemporaries

Humanity has never been in such a position. Without reaching a significantly higher level of virtue and without using much wiser guidance, people for the first time received such tools in their hands with which they can destroy all of humanity without a miss. This is the achievement of all their glorious history, all glorious works of previous generations. And people will do well if they stop and reflect on this new responsibility of theirs. Death stands on the alert, obedient, expectant, ready to serve, ready to sweep away all peoples "en masse", ready, if necessary, to turn into powder, without any hope of rebirth, all that remains of civilization. She only waits for the word of the command. She is waiting for this word from a fragile, frightened creature that has long been her victim and who has now become her master for a single time. Churchill

Churchill on Russia in the First World War:

Losses in the First World War

The losses of the armed forces of all the countries participating in the world war amounted to about 10 million people. Until now, there is no generalized data on the loss of civilians from the impact of military equipment. Famine and epidemics caused by the war have killed at least 20 million people.

Memory of war

France, UK, Poland

Armistice Day (fr. jour de l "Armistice) 1918 (November 11) is the national holiday of Belgium and France, celebrated annually. In England, Armistice Day (eng. ArmisticeDay) is celebrated on the Sunday closest to November 11 as Remembrance Sunday. On this day, the fallen of both the First and Second World Wars are commemorated.

In the first years after the end of the First World War, each municipality in France erected a monument to the fallen soldiers. In 1921, the main monument appeared - the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

The main British monument to those killed in the First World War is the Cenotaph (Greek Cenotaph - "empty coffin") in London on Whitehall Street, a monument to the Unknown Soldier. It was built in 1919 on the first anniversary of the end of the war. On the second Sunday of every November, the Cenotaph becomes the center of the National Memorial Day. A week earlier, millions of British people have small plastic poppies on their chests, which are bought from a special charity Fund to help veterans and widows of the military. At 11 o'clock on Sunday, the queen, ministers, generals, bishops and ambassadors lay poppy wreaths at the Cenotaph, and the whole country stops for two minutes of silence.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw was also originally built in 1925 in memory of those who fell on the fields of the First World War. Now this monument is a monument to those who fell for the Motherland in different years.

Russia and Russian emigration

In Russia, there is no official day of remembrance for those killed in the First World War, despite the fact that Russia's losses in this war were the largest of all the countries that participated in it.

Tsarskoe Selo was to become a special place of memory of the war, according to the plan of Emperor Nicholas II. Laid there back in 1913, the Tsar's War Chamber was supposed to become the Museum of the Great War. By order of the emperor, a special area was allocated for the burial of the dead and deceased ranks of the Tsarskoye Selo garrison. This site became known as the "Cemetery of Heroes". At the beginning of 1915, the “Heroes' Cemetery” was named the First Bratsk Cemetery. On its territory on August 18, 1915, the laying of a temporary wooden church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Satisfy my sorrows" took place for the funeral service of soldiers who died and died from wounds. After the end of the war, instead of a temporary wooden church, it was planned to build a temple - a monument to the Great War, designed by the architect S. N. Antonov.

However, these plans were not destined to come true. In 1918, the people's museum of the war of 1914-1918 was created in the building of the War Chamber, but already in 1919 it was abolished, and its exhibits replenished the funds of other museums and depositories. In 1938, the temporary wooden church at the Bratsk cemetery was dismantled, and a wasteland overgrown with grass remained from the graves of the soldiers.

On June 16, 1916, a monument to the heroes of the Second Patriotic War was unveiled in Vyazma. This monument was destroyed in the 1920s.

On November 11, 2008, a memorial stele (cross) dedicated to the heroes of the First World War was erected on the territory of the Bratsk cemetery in the city of Pushkin.

Also in Moscow on August 1, 2004, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, at the site of the Moscow City Bratsk Cemetery in the Sokol district, commemorative signs were erected: "To the Fallen in the World War of 1914-1918", "Russian Sisters of Mercy", "Russian Aviators buried in the Moscow city fraternal cemetery. "

# war # history #World War I

The year 1915 began with the intensification of hostilities between the belligerents. Symbolizing the emergence of sinister new weapons of war on January 19, German zeppelins began to raid the east coast of England. Several people died in the ports of Norfolk, and several bombs fell near the royal house in Sendringham. On January 24, a short but fierce battle took place at Dogger Banks in the North Sea, during which the German cruiser Blucher was sunk and two battle cruisers were damaged. The British battle cruiser Lion was also seriously damaged.

Second Masurian battle

In February 1915, Germany began large offensive operations in East Prussia (Augustow and Prasnysh), which was named the second Masurian battle. On February 7, 1915, the 8th (General von Belov) and 10th (General Eichhorn) German armies went on the offensive from East Prussia. Their main blow fell in the area of ​​the Polish city of Augustow, where the 10th Russian Army (General Sivers) was stationed. Having created a numerical superiority in this direction, the Germans attacked the flanks of the Sievers army and tried to surround it.

At the second stage, a breakthrough of the entire North-Western Front is envisaged. But because of the resilience of the soldiers of the 10th Army, the Germans did not succeed in taking it completely in the pincers. Only the 20th corps of General Bulgakov was surrounded. For 10 days, he valiantly repulsed the attacks of the German units in the snow-covered forests near Augustus, preventing them from conducting a further offensive. Having spent all the ammunition, the remnants of the corps ata-forged the German positions in the hope of breaking through to their own. Having overturned the German infantry in hand-to-hand combat, the Russian soldiers died heroically under the fire of German guns. “The attempt to break through was sheer madness.

But this is holy madness of heroism, which showed the Russian warrior in his full light, which we know from the time of Skobelev, the time of the storming of Plevna, the battle in the Caucasus and the storming of Warsaw! The Russian soldier knows how to fight very well, he endures all sorts of hardships and is able to be steadfast, even if certain death is inevitable! ", Wrote the German war correspondent R. Brandt in those days. Thanks to this courageous resistance, the 10th Army was able to withdraw most of its forces from the attack by mid-February and took up defenses on the Kovno-Osovets line. The North-Western Front held out, and then managed to partially restore the lost

position. The heroic defense of the Osovets fortress rendered great assistance in stabilizing the front. Almost simultaneously, fighting broke out in another section of the East Prussian border, where the 12th Russian army (General Plehve) was stationed. On February 20, in the Prasnysh region (Poland), it was attacked by units of the 8th German Army (General von Belov). The city was defended by a detachment under the command of Colonel Barybin, who for several days heroically repelled the attacks of superior German forces. On February 24, 1915, Prasnysh fell. But his staunch defenses gave the Russians time to pull up the necessary reserves, which were being prepared in accordance with the Russian plan for the winter offensive in East Prussia. On February 25, the 1st Siberian corps of General Pleshkov approached Prasnysh, attacking the Germans on the move. In a two-day winter battle, the Siberians crushed the German formations head-on and drove them out of the city. Soon, the entire 12th Army, replenished with reserves, went on a general offensive, which, after stubborn battles, threw the Germans back to the borders of East Prussia; In the meantime, the 10th Army also launched an offensive, clearing the Augustow forests of the Germans. The front was restored, but the Russian troops could not achieve more. The Germans lost about 40 thousand people in this battle, the Russians - about 100 thousand. On February 12, the French launched a new offensive in Champagne. The losses were enormous, the French lost about 50 thousand people, moving forward almost 500 yards. This was followed by an offensive by the British on Nevstal in March 1915 and a new offensive by the French in April in an easterly direction. However, these actions did not bring tangible results to the allies.

In the east, on March 22, after the siege, Russian troops captured the Przemysl fortress, which dominated the bridgehead on the San River in Galicia. More than 100 thousand Austrians were taken prisoner, not counting the heavy losses suffered by Austria in unsuccessful attempts to lift the siege. Russia's strategy at the beginning of 1915 was reduced to an offensive in the direction of Silesia and Hungary, while securing reliable flanks. In the course of this campaign, the capture of Przemysl was the main success of the Russian army (although it managed to hold this fortress for only two months). In early May 1915, a major offensive by the troops of the Central Powers in the East began. Gorlitsky breakthrough. The beginning of the Great Retreat Unable to press the Russian troops at the borders of East Prussia and in the Carpathians, the German command decided to implement the third option for a breakthrough. It was supposed to be carried out between the Vistula and the Carpathians, in the region of Gorlitsy. By that time, more than half of the armed forces of the Austro-German bloc were concentrated against Russia. But, before starting an offensive in the Gorlitsy area, the German command undertook a number of offensive operations in

East Prussia and Poland against the troops of the North-Western Front. Moreover, in an offensive against Russian troops near Warsaw on May 31, 1915, the Germans successfully used gases for the first time. More than nine thousand Russian soldiers were poisoned, of which 1183 people died. The Russian troops did not use gas masks then. On the 35-kilometer section of the breakthrough near Gorlitsa, a shock group was created under the command of General Mackensen. It included the newly formed 11; the German army, consisting of three selected German corps and the 6th Austrian corps, which included the Hungarians (the Hungarians were considered the best soldiers of the mixed Austrian army). In addition, the 10th German Corps and the 4th Austrian Army were subordinated to Mackenzin. Mackenzin's group outnumbered the 3rd Russian army (General Radko-Dmitriev) standing in this area in manpower - twice, in light artillery - three times, in heavy artillery - 40 times, in machine guns - two and a half times ... On May 2, 1915, the Mackensen group (357 thousand people) went on the offensive. The Russian command, knowing about the build-up of forces in this sector, did not provide a timely counterattack. Large reinforcements were sent here with a delay, were brought into battle in parts and quickly perished in battles with superior enemy forces. The Gorlitsky breakthrough clearly highlighted the problem of lack of ammunition, especially shells.

The overwhelming superiority in heavy artillery was one of the main reasons for this largest German success on the Russian front. “Eleven days of the terrible roar of German heavy artillery, literally tearing down whole rows of trenches along with their defenders,” recalled General A. I. Denikin, a participant in those events. - We almost did not answer - there was nothing. The regiments, exhausted to the last degree, repulsed one attack after another - with bayonets or point-blank shooting, blood was pouring, the ranks were thinning, burial mounds grew ... Two regiments were almost destroyed by one fire. " The Gorlitsky breakthrough created a threat to encircle the Russian troops in the Carpathians. Other Austro-Hungarian armies, reinforced by German corps, also went on the offensive. The troops of the Southwestern Front began a widespread withdrawal. At the same time, the 48th division of General L. G. Kornilov fell into a difficult situation, which withdrew from the encirclement with battles, but Kornilov himself with the headquarters were captured. I had to leave the cities conquered by the Russians with such great blood: Przemysl, Lviv, and others. By June 22, 1915, having lost 500 thousand people, Russian troops left all of Galicia. Noah, the enemy lost a lot, only Mackensen's group lost two-thirds of its personnel. Through courageous resistance

Russian soldiers and Mackensen's group were unable to quickly enter the operational space. On the whole, her offensive was reduced to "pushing through" the Russian front. He was seriously pushed to the east, but not defeated. The strike forces of the 11th German Army of Field Marshal Mackensen, supported by the 40th Austro-Hungarian Army, went on the offensive on a 20-mile sector of the front in Western Galicia. Russian troops were forced to leave Lviv and

Warsaw. In the summer, the German command carried out a breakthrough of the Russian front near Gorlitsa. Soon the Germans launched an offensive in the Baltic, and Russian troops lost Galicia, Poland, part of Latvia and Belarus. The enemy was preoccupied with the need to repel the impending offensive against Serbia, as well as return troops to the Western Front before the start of a new French offensive. During the four-month campaign, Russia lost only 800 thousand prisoners in captivity. However, the Russian command, having switched to strategic defense, managed to withdraw its armies from enemy attacks and halt its advance. The worried and exhausted Austro-German armies in October went over to the defensive along the entire front. Germany was faced with the need to continue a long war on two fronts. The main burden of the struggle was borne by Russia, which provided France and England with a respite to mobilize the economy for the needs of the war. On February 16, 1915, British and French warships began shelling Turkish defenses in the Dardanelles. With interruptions due in part to bad weather, this naval operation lasted for two months.

The Dardanelles operation was undertaken at the request of Russia to deliver a diversionary strike against Turkey, which would ease the pressure on the Russians who fought the Turks in the Caucasus. In January, the target was the Dardanelles, a strait about 40 miles long and 1 to 4 miles wide, connecting the Aegean Sea with the Marmara Sea. The operation to capture the Dardanelles, opening the way for an attack on Constantinople, figured in the military plans of the Allies before the outbreak of the war, but was dismissed as too difficult. With Turkey's entry into the war, this plan was revised as possible, albeit risky. Initially, a purely naval operation was planned, but it immediately became clear that it was necessary to undertake a combined naval and land operation. This plan found active support from the English First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. The outcome of the operation, and if it succeeded, would have opened the "back door" for Russia.

obsolete warships. In the beginning, Turkey had only two divisions to defend the strait. At the time of the landing of the Allied forces, it had six divisions and outnumbered the five Allied divisions, not counting the presence of magnificent natural fortifications. In the early morning of April 25, 1915, Allied forces landed at two points on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The British landed at Cape Ilyas, at the southern tip of the peninsula, while the Australians and New Zealand units advanced along the Aegean coast about 15 miles north. At the same time, the French brigade launched a diversionary strike on Kumkala on the Anatolian coast. Despite barbed wire and heavy machine-gun fire, both groups managed to capture the bridgehead. However, the Turks owned the heights, as a result of which the British, Australian and New Zealand forces were unable to advance.

As a result, as on the Western Front, there was a calm here. In August, British troops landed in Suvla Bay, trying to capture the central part of the peninsula opposite the passage. Although the landing in the bay was sudden, the command of the troops was unsatisfactory, and the opportunity for a breakthrough was lost. The advance in the south was also unsuccessful. The British government decided to withdraw its troops. W. Churchill was forced to resign from the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. On May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria, signing a secret treaty with the Allies in London in April. The Triple Alliance, linking Italy with the Central Powers, was denounced, although at this time she refused to declare war on Germany.

At the beginning of the war, Italy declared its neutrality on the grounds that the Triple Alliance did not oblige it to take part in an aggressive war. However, the main reason for Italy's actions was the desire to obtain territorial acquisitions at the expense of Austria. Austria did not want to make the concessions that Italy sought, for example, to give up Trieste. In addition, by 1915, public opinion began to lean in favor of the Allies, and former pacifists and radical socialists, led by Mussolini, saw an opportunity to revolutionize in the absence of stability in society during the war. In March, the Austrian government took steps to meet Italy's demands, but it was too late. Under the London Treaty, Italians got what they wanted, or most of what they wanted. In accordance with this agreement, Italy was promised Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and other predominantly Italian-speaking regions. On May 30, the Italians began military operations against Austria with the transition to the offensive of the 2nd and 3rd armies under the general command of General Cadorna in the northeastern direction.

Italy had very limited capabilities for waging war; its army had a low combat capability, especially after the Libyan campaign. The Italians' offensive was bogged down, and the fighting in 1915 took on a positional character.

Change of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief During the Great Retreat, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief moved from Baradovichi to Mogilev in mid-August 1915. Soon after the change in Headquarters, there was a change in the commander-in-chief. On September 5, 1915, this mission was undertaken by the sovereign himself - Nicholas II. He took over command of the army in the most critical period of the struggle against an external enemy, thereby showing close ties of unity with his people and the Russian Imperial Army. Many tried to dissuade him, but the sovereign insisted on his own. Nikolai Alexandrovich was then 47 years old: By nature, he was a modest man, extremely delicate, simple in dealing with people. He loved his wife and children very much, was an impeccable family man.

Shied away from pomp, flattery, luxury, almost did not drink alcohol. He was also distinguished by deep faith. The surrounding people often did not understand the tsar's actions, but only because they themselves had lost the sincerity and purity of faith. The sovereign managed to keep it. He directly and directly perceived his calling as God's anointed one and was guided by it as he understood it. All his contemporaries noted his colossal self-control and self-control, and Nikolai Aleksandrovich explained: “If you see that I am so calm, this is because I have a firm and resolute belief that the fate of Russia, my fate and the fate of my family are in the will of God that gave me this power. Whatever happens, I commit myself to His will, realizing that I can think of nothing else but serving the country that He has entrusted to me. "

The fact that the monarch becomes the supreme commander in chief was common in many states. But this was always done in anticipation of victory laurels. Nicholas II took upon himself a colossal burden at the most difficult moment of the war. Nikolai Nikolaevich was appointed commander of the Caucasian Front, but having concentrated the affairs of the rear in his hands, he left the leadership of military operations to General Yudenich. In the army, the change of the supreme commander-in-chief was taken calmly. The soldiers already considered the king to be their supreme leader. And the officers understood that the chief of staff would play an important role under the sovereign, and they heatedly discussed who would take this position. When they learned that it was General Alekseev, it made everyone happy. General Evert became the commander-in-chief of the North-Western Front. 1916 began with the offensive of Russian troops in the Caucasus. On February 16, they took the Turkish fortress Erzurum. In the meantime, in England, Parliament approved a law on universal conscription, which was strongly opposed by trade unions and Labor. Conservatives and

some liberals led by D. Lloyd George. And in the capital of Germany, a food riot broke out in Berlin, there was a catastrophic shortage of food. In the same year, the battles at Verdun and on the Somme ended.

These battles were the bloodiest during the war on the Western Front. They were distinguished by the massive use of artillery, aviation, infantry, cavalry and did not bring success to either side. The main reason for this balance was the absolute advantage of defensive methods of warfare over offensive methods. The Verdun offensive signified the desire of the chief of the German General Staff, Falkenhain, to deliver a decisive blow on the Western Front, postponed in 1915 after the successes achieved in the East. Falkenhain believed that the main enemy of Germany was England, but at the same time he recognized that England could not be conquered partly due to the fact that an offensive in the English sector gave little chance of success, and also because a military defeat in Europe would not lead England from the war. Submarine warfare was the main hope for such a possibility, and Falkenhain saw his task in defeating the British allies in Europe.

Russia seemed already defeated, and the Austrians showed that they could cope with the Italians. France remained. Given the proven strength of the defense in trench warfare, Falkenhain gave up the idea of ​​trying to break through the French positions. At Verdun, he chose a strategy of war of attrition. He planned to launch a series of strikes to lure out the French reserves and destroy them with artillery. Verdun was chosen in part because it was on a ledge and disrupted German communications, and because of the important historical significance of this large fortress. As soon as the battle began, the Germans were determined to capture Verdun and the French to defend it. Falkenhain was correct in his assumption that the French would not give up Verdun easily. However, the task was complicated by the fact that Verdun was no longer a solid fortress and was practically devoid of artillery. And, nevertheless, the French, forced to retreat, kept the forts, while reinforcements infiltrated along a very narrow corridor that was not subjected to artillery fire from the Germans. By the time General Pétain, commander of the Second Army, was dispatched to Verdun at the end of the month to lead its defenses, the immediate threat had passed. The German Crown Prince, who commanded the army corps, ordered the main offensive for March 4. After two days of shelling, the offensive began, but by March 9, it was stopped. However, Falkenhain's strategy remained the same.

On June 7, the Germans captured Fort Vaud, which controlled the right flank of the French positions at Verdun. The next day they captured Fort Tiomon, which had already changed hands twice since the attack began on June 1. The impression was that an imminent threat loomed over Verdun. In March, the Germans failed to win a quick victory at Verdun, but they continued with great stubbornness the attacks, which were carried out at short intervals. The French repulsed them and launched a series of counterattacks.

German troops continued their offensive. On October 24, who took over the 2nd Army after Petain became commander-in-chief, General Nivelles launched a counteroffensive at Verdun. With the start of the offensive on the Somme in July, German reserves were no longer sent to Verdun. The French counterattack was covered by a "creeping artillery attack", a new invention in which the infantry moved behind a gradually moving wave of artillery fire in accordance with a precisely set time schedule. As a result, the troops captured the originally set targets and captured 6 thousand prisoners. The next offensive at the end of November was hampered by bad weather, but it was renewed in December and became known as the Battle of Louvemen.

Almost 10 thousand prisoners were taken and more than 100 guns were captured. In December, the Battle of Verdun ended. In the Verdun meat grinder "about 120 divisions were ground, including 69 French and 50 German. During the battle of Verdun, the Allies began an offensive on the Somme River on July 1, 1916, after a week of artillery preparation. the main part of the offensive forces, and England is the leading power of the Allies on the Western Front.The Battle of the Somme was the place where tanks of a new type of weapons first appeared on September 15. The effect of British vehicles, which were initially called "land ships", was rather uncertain, but the number The number of tanks taking part in the battle was small, and in the autumn the British advance was blocked by swamps.

The Battle of the Somme, which lasted from July to the end of November 1916, was unsuccessful for either side. Their losses were enormous, 1 million 300 thousand people. The situation on the Eastern Front was more successful for the Entente. In the midst of the fighting at Verdun, the French command again turned to Russia for help. On June 4, the 8th Russian army under the command of General Kaledin advanced into the Lutsk region, which was considered as a reconnaissance operation. To the surprise of the Russians, the Austrian line of defense collapsed. And General Aleksey Brusilov, who was in charge of the general command of the southern sector of the front, immediately strengthened his offensive, bringing 3 armies into battle. The Austrians were soon put on a stampede. In three days, the Russians captured 200,000 prisoners. General Brusilov's army broke through the Austrian front on the Lutsk Chernivtsi line. Russian troops again occupied most of

Galicia and Bukovina, putting Austria-Hungary on the brink of military defeat. And, although by August 1916 the offensive had dried up, the "Brusilov Breakthrough" suspended the activity of the Austrians on the Italian front and largely eased the position of the Anglo-French troops at Verdun and on the Somme.

The naval war boiled down to the question of whether Germany would be able to successfully counter England's traditional maritime supremacy. As well as on land, the presence of new types of weapons of aircraft, submarines, mines, torpedoes, radio equipment made defense easier than attack. The Germans, with a smaller fleet, believed that the British would seek to destroy it in a battle they were trying to avoid. However, the British strategy was aimed at achieving other goals. Having relocated the fleet to Skala Flow on the Orkney Islands at the beginning of the war and thereby establishing control over the North Sea, the British, being wary of mines and torpedoes and the hard-to-reach coast of Germany, chose a long blockade, being always ready in case of an attempt to break through the German fleet. At the same time, being dependent on supplies by sea, they had to ensure security on ocean routes.

In August 1914, the Germans had relatively few battleships based abroad, although the cruisers Goeben and Breslau successfully reached Constantinople at the beginning of the war, and their presence contributed to Turkey's entry into the war on the side of the central powers. The most significant forces, including the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were destroyed during the fighting off the Falkland Islands, and by the end of 1914 the oceans were at least on the surface cleared of German raiders. The main threat to the ocean trade routes was not from combat squadrons, but from submarines. As the war escalated, Germany's lagging behind in large ships forced it to increasingly concentrate its efforts on submarines, which the British, suffering heavy losses in the Atlantic, viewed as an illegal means of warfare. Ultimately, the policy of unlimited war using submarines boats, which turned out to be almost disastrous for England, indirectly brought death to Germany, since it was the direct reason for the entry into the war of the United States of America in 1917.

On May 7, 1915, the huge American liner Lusitania, flying from New York to Liverpool, was sunk by a torpedo attack by a German submarine off the Irish coast. The steamer quickly sank, and with it about 1200 people, almost three-quarters of all on board, left forever in the cold waters of the ocean. The sinking of the Lusitania, whose speed was believed to make it invulnerable to torpedoes, prompted an appropriate response. The fact that the Germans had issued a cautious warning to the Americans not to sail on this ship only confirmed that the attack on it was rather planned in advance. It provoked violent anti-German protests in many countries, primarily in the United States. Nearly 200 American citizens were killed, including famous figures such as millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt.

This sinking greatly influenced President Woodrow Wilson's declared policy of strict neutrality, and from that time on, US entry into the war became potentially possible. On July 18, 1915, the Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi sank, torpedoed by an Austrian submarine. A few days earlier, the British cruiser Dublin was attacked in a similar manner, however, she managed to escape, despite serious damage. The French fleet, based in Malta, was tasked with blockading the Adriatic Sea. Austrian submarines were active, and after the loss of the battleship Jean Bar in December 1914, the French were wary of releasing their heavy ships, relying on cruisers and destroyers. German submarines also entered the Mediterranean in the summer of 1915, and the Allies' position was complicated by the task of protecting the numerous transports and supply vessels making raids to and from the Gallipoli Peninsula, and later to Thessaloniki. In September, an attempt was made to block the Otranto Strait with the help of nets, however, German submarines managed to pass under them. Hostilities in the Baltic intensified.

Russian sailors disabled a German minelayer, and an English submarine torpedoed the cruiser Prince Adalbert. The naval forces of Russia, supplemented by several British submarines, as a rule, successfully thwarted the plans of the Germans, which provided for the landing of troops in Courland, and prevented the laying of mines. British submarines also attempted to disrupt the supply of iron and steel to Germany from Sweden, sinking 14 ships engaged in these shipments later in 1915. But the losses of the British also grew. By the end of 1915, the total number of British merchant ships sunk by German submarines exceeded 250. The battle of Jutland between the British and German fleets in the summer of 1916 resulted in large mutual losses, but strategically it changed little. England retained supremacy at sea and the blockade of Germany continued. The Germans had to return to submarine warfare again. However, its effectiveness became less and less, especially after the entry into the war of the United States.