Can someone explain World War I to me?

That really helps. I know it's a broad outline, but it's a good "skeleton" for me to go on! Thanks for doing that!

I found "A World Undone" at our library, so I'll have to check it out!

Great post, sc1957. I wasn't expecting any serious and helpful replies to this question, just the usual "Do your own homework" sort of replies (understandably). Like the OP, I've tried researching it and been stonewalled beyond my will to pursue it. It's a massive amount of unfamiliar information for most modern people to absorb. As you say, it was a different world, and most of the countries (empires!) involved don't exist anymore. And of course, we haven't absorbed the basic mythology of it by osmosis our whole lives like we have with World War II. In the U.S. at least, WWI is rarely even talked about. Thanks for the excellent synopsis.


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SC1957 offers a pretty good explanation. Still, it helps to understand that:

1-There was a certain semi-eagerness or acceptance for conflict amongst militarists and others in the Summer of 1914 - none foresaw the massive slaughter that awaited Europe.

2-The inexcusable German attack on neutral Belgium (to Attack France) angered many neutrals and helped spur Britain to enter the conflict against Germany.

3-Russia's Czar abdicated and was replaced by a provisional goverment that was later overthrown by the Bolsheviks in one of the tragic offshoots of that horrid conflict.

4-You might check GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman for more info.

My mother said the reason why more people know about WWII is because they had all the pictures and the news footage of it for everyone to see, they didn't have quite as much of it for the first war.

Like the OP I was was quite in the dark about the nitty-gritty details of WWI and I'm reading The Guns of August now to remedy this lack of knowledge. It's quite good but very dense and very detailed; I think it's aimed more at folks who already have some background knowledge of European history. We watched All Quiet on the Western Front over the weekend and found it a powerful, haunting experience. I also want to comment that this entire thread is excellent and I appreciate the extra general background information provided by several here. It's a pleasure to read a discussion on IMDB that doesn't descend into name calling and petty arguments.

Good, but also not completely correct. In 1914 Germany had a mutual assistance pact with Austria-Hungary, Italy and Romania. Russia was relatively loosely allied with France, and to an even lower degree with Britain (they had no mutual assistance pact, because they all were afraid to be instrumentalized by one another). Belgium had been neutral since the signing of the Treaty of London in 1839, that had become a cornerstone of European politics.

In 1914 an Austria-Hungarian archduke was assassinated in Serbia, and Austria-Hungary went bonkers. They thought the Serbian government had their hands in the assassination and requested the permission to carry out their own investigation, which Serbia refused, after Russia told them they would protect them. So Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and attacked Serbia. Russia mobilized their troops, and Germany requested them to stop. Russia refused and Germany declared war on them and France. Germany then requested Belgium to allow them to transfer German troups through Belgium to attack France, which Belgium refused (they were neutral after all). So Germany told Britain that they would invade Belgium and that Britain shouldn't go to war with Germany over a shred of paper. The Britains didn't take that so well, and when Germany invaded Belgium (without declaration of war) the British declared war on the German Empire. The Italians chickened their way out of the mutual assistance pact by telling everyone that Germany and Austria-Hungary were the aggressors and Italy was neutral (they were later bribed by the allies to join their side and entered the war in 1915). Six days after Germany had declared war on Russia Austria-Hungary also declared war on Russia, even though they were the reason for Germanys declaration of war in the first place.

If you had asked all rulers of their respective countries in 1914 all of them would have told you that they had no other choice and that it was not their fault the war began. But all sides were actually quite happy that it did begin (that also included the general populations).

By the end of 1916 the war was basically at a stalemate, no side was strong enough to overthrow the other, but then in February 1917 the US entered the war, basically for economical reasons, joining the allied side. Also in February 1917 the russian revolution started, leading to not one but two new Russian governments (a democratic one and the Sowjets), but they both decided to go on with the war. It was not until Lenin and his followers (who were able to return to Russia from exile in Switzerland with the help of Germany, partially even using German trains) overpowered the democratic government (Russian October Revolution) that Russia decided to end the war, basically ending the war on the eastern front. Ironically, the Germans helping Lenin return to Russia later lead to Germany being split into two states after WWII, if Kerenski and the democratic revolution had won, who knows what would have happened?

In 1918 Germany was still able to fight on (allied troups had not entered German mainland when the war ended on November 11, 1918) and could probably have fought for another year (which would have lead to the complete destruction of Germany, much like the end of WWII did), but the general German population was tired of the war, and when German High Command decided that the German Navy should go down in one last glorious battle the seamen simply decided that they didn't want to carry out that suicide mission and mutinied. The general German population joined them and forced the German Emperor to resign (German October Revolution), and German politicians declared Germany to be a republic and surrendered unconditionally to the allies (the military High Command declared that the war wasn't their problem any more, so the civilian leaders had to surrender, and Hitler later claimed that those civilian leaders had basically been traitors and that if they hadn't surrendered Germany would have still been able to win the war, the so-called Dolchstoßlegende, of course that wasn't true).

Also the harsh terms the allies forced on Germany (and to some intend on Austria too) were only one of massive problems that lead to WWII. The situations aren't quite comparable though. In 1914 almost anything could have ignited the war. Yes, Germany was the first one to declare war, but any of the sides were eager to go to war. In 1939 the British didn't want the war and had done quite a lot to prevent it from happening (they had basically ignored Hitler breaking the peace treaties and almost any other contract he signed) and if it hadn't been for Churchill they may have made peace with Hitler in 1940. They still remembered the horrors of WWI, the Germans had started glorifying it instead. So if Hitler hadn't started WWII, it wouldn't have happened.

Some very good essays above, but one point that should also be mentioned is that, unlike previous wars and WWII which followed it, WWI was known for the static nature of the front (on the "Western Front" separating Germany from France, anyway). For most of four years, neither side was able to achieve a significant breakthrough and advance past the enemy's trench lines. This was caused by the military technology of the time (machine gun and artillery)and, to a lesser extent, doctrine. Toward the end of the war, certain techniques (sturmtruppen, also called stosstruppen) and technology (tanks) were developed which would later allow breakthrough (called "Blitzkrieg" in WWII).