Two very different wars were fought between 1914 and 1918. The first was a war of soldiers, sailors and airmen, of merchant seamen and civilian populations under occupation, where individual suffering and distress were on a massive scale, particularly in the front-line trenches. The second was a war of War Cabinets and sovereigns, of propagandists and idealists, replete with political and territorial ambitions and ideals, determining the future of Empires, nations and peoples as sharply as the battlefield.
There were times, particularly in 1917 and 1918, when the war of armies and the war of ideologies combined, leading to revolution and capitulation, and to the emergence of new national and political forces. The war changed the map and destiny of Europe as much as it seared its skin and scarred its soul.
“Many national aspirations, and many territorial changes, depended upon the success of the naval attack at the Dardanelles, which began on the morning of the March 18. It was nearly successful. Six British and four French battleships took part. The Turkish forts at the entrance to the Straits had been put out of action by naval bombardment in the preceding days. … an unexpected line of twenty mines, which had been laid parallel to the shore by a small Turkish steamer … wreaked havoc.”
First World War, A Complete History
It was the war to end all wars. It began at 11.15 on 28 June,1914 in Sarajevo. It ended – officially – almost five years later. Unofficially, it has never ended: the horrors we live with today were born in the First World War. It left millions maimed or dead.…
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From its origins to its terrible legacy, the course of the First World War is vividly set out in a series of 173 maps. Together, these maps form a comprehensive and compelling picture of the war that devastated large parts of Europe, destroying three Empires; these maps illustrate the military,…
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The battle of the Somme was one of the most costly battles in the history of warfare. On the first day alone, 19,240 British soldiers were killed and more than 36,000 wounded. Between 1 July 1916, when it began at the height of summer, and 19 November 1916, when it…
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