Viking

In fact, the formal close-quarters style of Viking combat (either in shield walls or aboard "ship islands") would have made horned helmets cumbersome and hazardous to the warrior's own side. World War I has also been called "The Great War" (a title previously used to refer to the Napoleonic Wars) or sometimes "the war to end all wars" until World War II. Apart from two or three representations of (ritual) helmets with protrusions that may be either snakes or horns, no depiction of Viking Age warriors' helmets, and no actually preserved helmet, has horns. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe, Russia, Germany, and France. While the earliest groups had little claim for historical accuracy, the seriousness and accuracy of re-enactors has increased dramatically during the 1990s, including many re-enactment groups concentrating on an accurate representation of the Viking Age. Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they had never known before. Since the 1960s, there has been rising enthusiasm for historical reenactment. Many people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism.

This renewed interest of Romanticism in the Old North had political implications. The experiences of the war led to a sort of collective national trauma afterwards for all the participating countries. The word was taken to refer to romanticized, idealized naval warriors, who had very little to do with the historical Viking culture.
. According to the Swedish writer, Jan Guillou, the word Viking was popularized, with positive connotations, by Erik Gustaf Geijer in the poem, The Viking, written at the beginning of the 19th century. Like their British counterparts, Canadians commemorate the war dead on Remembrance Day. The pace of publication increased during the 17th century with Latin translations of the Edda (notably Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum of 1665). Indeed, many Canadians refer to their country as a nation "forged from fire," as Canadians were respected internationally as an independent nation from the conflagarations of war and bravery.

Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Olaus Magnus, 1555), and the first edition of the 13th century Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus in 1514. Similarly, Anglo-Canadians believe that they proved they were their own country, not just subjects of the British Empire. Early modern publications, dealing with what we now call Viking culture, appeared in the 16th century, e.g. Anzac Day (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) is thus held in great reverence by many Australians and New Zealanders. See also 19th century Viking revival.. In Australian and New Zealand popular legend, the First World War is known as the nation's "baptism of fire", as it was the first major war which the newly established countrys fought, and is one of the first cases where Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Empire. The influence of the Norse, seeing themselves then as part of wider European civilization, as well as technical advances in warfare, made the Viking raids less desirable and less profitable, and eventually the political structures based on them were replaced by structures based more on continental feudalism. Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs, who had roots of power back to the days of the Crusades, all fell during or after the war.

However, elements of the old faith and secret blóts remained until the 19th century (and played a role in the emergence of Asatru in the mid 20th century). No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically--four empires were shattered: the German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the Russian. After decades of trade and settlement, Christianity was introduced into Scandinavia by the 11th century, and the process of Christianization was mostly completed during the Middle Ages. The direct consequences of World War I brought many old regimes crashing to the ground, and ultimately, would lead to the end of 300 years of European hegemony in the world. Yet their continuing presence in the Biscay area may help to explain why the Basques have so many traditions (such as whale hunting) with possible Nordic origins, and perhaps why they are said to have reached America one hundred years before Christopher Colombus. The First World War ended with a Europe scarred by trenches, spent resources, and littered with the bodies of the millions who died in battle. The Gascons of Nordic origin were allowed to stay in the country which had become rich under their rule, but they were condemned not to mix with other communities, becoming (according to one legend) the despised and ostracized Agotes or Cagots. Dirigible balloons were part of the new found aerial warfare of World War I.

Their army was finally defeated in 982 by forces from Gascony, Périgord and Navarre. The Germans conducted air raids during 1915 and 1916 on England and London with dirigible balloons with the intent of damaging the morale and will to fight of the British and cause aircraft to be reassigned to England away from the front lines. Gascony stayed under the Vikings’ control for 140 years. Blimps and balloons helped contribute to the stalemate of the trench warfare of World War I, and the dirigible balloons contributed to air to air combat among the aircraft to defend the skies for air superiority due to its significant reconnaissance value. Northumbria, Mercia, Frisia, Aquitaine, Bretagne and Normandy were all affected by these attempts to found Scandinavian settlements. Recognized for their value as observer platforms, they were important targets of enemy aircraft; fixed, they were also heavily defended by antiaircraft guns. Then a new war began: the Danish chiefs tried to emulate the success of Björn in Gascony and to create their own overseas kingdoms. Balloons commonly had a crew of two with parachutes: upon an enemy air attack on the flammable balloon the balloon crew would parachute out.

The first Viking war was over: the Danes had set up a new trade network in place of an older and opposing one. Dirigible balloons were used as stationary reconnaissance points on the front lines. In 863, Dorestad in Frisia, the Franks' main commercial centre on the Rhine, was definitively destroyed. Their first use proved tanks needed infantry support and massed formations, but within a year the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai, in November 1917, breaking the Hindenburg Line while capturing 8000 enemy and 100 artillery guns. He obtained a commercial treaty from the Byzantine Emperor intended to attract trade away from the Rhône to the Ebro. The infantry was armed mostly with a bolt action magazine rifle, but the machine gun with the ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute stalemated infantry attacks as a defensive weapon; therefore, the British sought a solution and created the tank. While Hastein set about disorganizing trade in the Rhine valley and Italy, Björn attacked Constantinople, after joining up with the Swedish Varyags who had come across Russia. Trenches, the machine gun, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped stalemate the battle lines of World War I by making massed infantry attacks deadly for the attacker.

He then sailed with Hastein to the Mediterranean Sea. This was not as successful as intended, but as a start the tanks proved their value against the machine gun. In the following year, Björn forced the king of Navarre to make a treaty allowing the Danes to cross Navarre to reach the river Ebro and Tortosa. The first use of tanks was during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. In 858, having crushed the Frankish kingdom, Björn concluded a treaty with Charles the Bald whereby the Danes were formally granted all the country south of the river Garonne, an area which was thereafter no longer mentioned in the Frankish annals. The first tank was nicknamed Mother. The Danish war in the north of France began with two objectives: to weaken the power of King Charles the Bald and to prevent the Franks from attacking in the south. Tanks were introduced in World War I by the British and created mechanized warfare that dominated the rest of the 20th century.

Effectively, by 845 all the lands around the Bay of Biscay were under Danish control. Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need. In 845 Asgeir began to settle in Saintonge in Aquitania. To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Hastein had occupied Noirmoutier in 843. The deaths of British merchantmen and the invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of several countermeasures: depth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS R-1, 1917), ahead-throwing weapons, & dipping hydrophones (both abandoned 1918). The leader of the invasion, Björn Ironside, became the ruler of the area and gave his name to Bayonne (originally "Björnhamn"). Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare during the First Battle of the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy of defeating the British Empire through a tonnage war.

Gascony fell under their complete control as early as 844. U-boats (submarines) were used in combat shortly after the war began. In 840, the Danes began their attacks on the Frankish Empire – not on the Seine but on the Adour. Strategic bombing aircraft were created principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins to this end as well. As this course was deemed too risky, they decided to reach the oriental markets by crossing the Pyrenees, passing through Mundaka (Guernika), Pamplona and then Tortosa, which was the main slave market in Europe. Initial uses consisted primarily of reconnaissance, though this developed into ground-attack and fighter duties as well. On this route they met the Moors, who were the masters of the Strait of Gibraltar. Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily during the First World War.

The Danes therefore decided to create their own route to the south along the Frankish coast. Effective countermeasures to gas were found in gas masks and hence in the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, in many cases its effectiveness was diminished. The Franks initiated a form of commercial blockade in an effort to weaken the Danish kingdom. Only a small proportion of total war casualties were caused by gas, but it achieved harassment and psychological effects. The main western European trading route between the south and the north was the Rhine-Rhône axis. Gases used ranged from tear gas to disabling chemicals such as mustard gas and killing agents like phosgene. According to Supéry, the intention of these Vikings was to create a commercial route to the Mediterranean Sea, then the centre of the world's trade. Chemical warfare was a major distinguishing factor of the war.

In 823 and 825, their presence was recorded on the Ria Mundaka in Biscaya. The First World War also saw the use of chemical warfare and aerial bombardment, both of which had been outlawed under the 1907 Hague Convention. In AD 816, Northmen were in Pamplona fighting together with a Navarrese army against the Moors. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties during the First World War. In 799, the Franks attacked them in Noirmoutier ; in 812, a Viking fleet was seen off Perpignan on the Mediterranean Sea. Such battles include Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Marne, Cambrai, Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. In AD 795, long before the start of the Danish invasion proper in 840, Scandinavians were present in Asturias, on the northern shore of Spain, where they fought with the local king against the Moors. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War.

According to Joel Supéry, the French author of “Le Secret des Vikings”, the Scandinavian attacks against the Frankish Empire were carried out not by raiding adventurers looking for gold and silver but by armies applying a military strategy. Much of the war's combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each metre of land gained. Thus it may be noted that the end of the Viking Age (9th–11th ct.) for the Scandinavians also marks the start of their relatively brief Middle Ages. This time, millions of soldiers, both volunteers and conscripts fought on all sides, with Kitchener's Army being a notable all volunteer force. The names of Scandinavian kings are known only for the later part of the Viking Age, and only after the end of the Viking Age did the separate kingdoms acquire a distinct identity as nations, which went hand in hand with their christianization. The First World War was a clash of 20th century technology with 19th century tactics. But the three nations were not yet clearly separated, and still united by the common Old Norse language. In the aftermath of World War I, post-war economic depression and nationalist (retributionist) views were a prominent aspect of German public sentiment, an important cornerstone of what would become Nazi ideology.

Generally speaking, the Norwegians expanded to the north and west, the Danes to England, settling in the Danelaw, and the Swedes to the east. It has also been proposed that the experience of the war established with German youths a militaristic and fascist mindset that made it possible for the Nazi party to take control of Germany two decades later. Important trading ports during the period include Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, Staraja Ladoga, Novgorod and Kiev. The popularity of the Dolchstoßlegende later helped to garner support for the movement for National Socialism. From 839, there were Varangian mercenaries in Byzantine service (most famously Harald Hardrada, who campaigned in North Africa and Jerusalem in the 1030s). Jews and communists quickly became targets of accusation. During three centuries, Vikings appeared along the coasts and rivers of Europe, as raiders, but increasingly also as traders, and even as settlers. The "Dolchstoßlegende" (literally dagger push legend) suggested that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by those not committed to the cause.

Viking navigators also opened the road to new lands to the north and to the west, resulting in the colonization of Shetland, Orkney, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and even a short expedition to Newfoundland, circa AD 1000. It was proposed that Germany had been betrayed from within. Contemporary with the European Viking Age, the Byzantine Empire experienced the greatest period of stability (circa 800–1071) it would enjoy after the initial wave of Muslim conquests in the mid-seventh century. Accounts from soldiers at the front, as well as the statements made by influential figures such as Ludendorff, seemed to confirm the theory that Germany had not really lost the war. Geographically, a "Viking Age" may be assigned not only to the Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, and southern Norway and Sweden), but also to territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland. At the same time, the nature of Germany's defeat became another topic of controversy. The period of North Germanic expansion, usually taken to last from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, is commonly called the 'Viking Age.' The Vikings may be seen as late joiners in the Migrations period, and thus the period links Late Antiquity with the high Middle Ages. Germany's new democratic government became associated with the Treaty in the public eye.

See main article Viking Age. The severity of the Treaty helped to raise suspicions about the Weimar Republic. Thus, our knowledge of the actual boats Vikings used is limited. Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden pushed through a Military Service Act that caused the Conscription Crisis of 1917. Nor has any "Viking" boat construction site, or harbour, been found or excavated. This issue was particularly explosive in Canada, and opened a political gap between the French-Canadians, who claimed their true loyalty was to Canada and not the British Empire, and the English-speaking majority which saw the war as a duty to both Empire and Canada, and a way of demonstrating leadership and high-contribution to the British Empire. There is no evidence connecting any discovered longship to any particular classical Viking raid. As the war slowly turned into a war of attrition, conscription was implemented in some countries.

Scholars also debate whether or not Vikings had cooking fires aboard their ships. Since the German public had been under the impression that the war was a defensive measure all along, the harsh terms of the agreement did little to discredit this theory. It is suspected that most Viking ships had an average length/width ratio of 4.5:1. For the defeated, the post-war world was an even greater disappointment, for the Treaty of Versailles was a bitter pill to swallow after the armistice. The term "Viking ships" has entered common usage, however, possibly because of its Romantic associations. Instead of feeling jubilation, the victors entered a period of mourning. These boats were identical to those used by the Scandinavian defense fleets, known as the ledung. For combatants and non-combatants alike, the war had been justified for reasons that future generations simply would not be able to understand without seeing the war in the context of the "spirit of 1914".

There were no specific "Viking ships" or "Viking longships"; Vikings used any of the common Scandinavian longships. In reality, the war failed to deliver on both sides. They may even have been considered outlaws - several sources name Vikings in association with Jomsborg or Julin, which, according to modern history, was a refugee center for Slavic pirates, as opposed to the descriptions in the Norse saga. At the outbreak of the war, it was a widely held belief that the war would usher in a new age of humanity. Still, in Scandinavia, Vikings were not seen as an accepted part of society. The impotence of military leaders, who could not, did not, adapt to modern warfare, and the breakdown of the three empires and subsequent redrawing of borders after the war created a leadership void that gave an extra impulse to new ideologies, including Bolshevism (in Russia), socialism (in the trenches) and Nazism (after the war). Numbers of them fled to Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but the Norse sagas are rather subjective in their descriptions, and hence the Vikings in those sagas are sometimes characterized as heroes, later shaping the attitude towards Vikings during the 18th century Romantic period. The longlasting proximity of the trenches often created feelings of comradery across the lines.

King Harald I of Norway finally was forced to make an expedition to the west to clear the islands and Scottish mainland of Vikings. In several places, shots were fired for form only, aimed to miss, even at executions for desertion. The sagas state that the Vikings built settlements and were skilled craftsmen and traders. The pointlessness of many (suicide) actions had caused a loss of respect for the leaders. Vikings in those sagas are described as if they often struck at accessible and poorly defended targets, usually with impunity. From the first year, there had been spontaneous armistices (such as the 1914 Christmas truce), uprisings and mutinies (such as in France in May 1917) on both sides. An overwhelming amount of the sagas were written in Iceland. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.

However, the transmission of this information was primarily oral, and we are reliant upon the writings of (later) Christian scholars, such as the Icelanders Snorri Sturluson and Sæmundr fróði, for much of this. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost laborers sent to war. Norse mythology, Norse sagas and Old Norse literature tell us about their religion through tales of heroic and mythological heroes. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers, at least in many of the Entente powers. The rune stones are important sources in the study of the entire Norse society and early medieval Scandinavia, not only of the Viking segment of the population (Sawyer, P H: 1997). Families were altered by the departure of many men. Other rune stones mention men who died on Viking expeditions, among them the around 25 Ingvar stones in the Mälardalen district of Sweden erected to commemorate members of a disastrous expedition into present-day Russia in the early 11th century. Here, however, the long term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments.

Many rune stones in Scandinavia record the names of participants in Viking expeditions. At the same time, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratized governments such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. By the next century piracy from Saracens superceded the Viking scourge. New taxes were levied, and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort, many of which have lasted to this day. Soon the dockyards at Seville were extended, it was employed to patrol the Iberian coastline under the caliphs Abd al-Rahman III (912–61) and Al-Hakam II (961–76). In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. In the Islamic south, the first navy of the Emirate was called into being after the humiliating Viking ascent of the Guadalquivir, 844, and was tested in repulsing Vikings in 859. One of the most dramatic effects was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire.

1036–66) repulsed a Viking foray and built the fortress at Torres del Oeste to protect Compostela from the Atlantic approaches. Many consider World War I to have been the first modern war, a total war where the civilian populations were deliberately endangered as a direct tactic of war, which has continued in all subsequent wars. Bishop Cresconio of Compostela (ca. One of the most distinguishing impacts of the war was that the reality of totality set in. Ransom was a motive for abductions: Fletcher instances Amarelo Mestáliz, who was forced to raise money on the security of his land in order to ransom his daughters who had been captured by the Vikings in 1015. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and the loans were never repaid. After Tuy was sacked early in the 11th century, its bishopric remained vacant for the next half-century. After 1919, the US demanded repayment of these loans, which, in part, were funded by German reparations, which, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany.

Richard Fletcher attests raids on the Galician coast in 844 and 858: "Alfonso III was sufficiently worried by the threat of Viking attack to establish fortified strong points near his coastline, as other rulers were doing elsewhere." In 968 bishop Sisnando of Compostela was killed, the monastery of Curtis was sacked, and measures were ordered for the defence of the inland town of Lugo. Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but with war imminent with Germany, he allowed a massive increase in US government lending to the Allies. By the reign of Alfonso III of León Vikings were stifling the already weak threads of sea communications that tied Galicia to the rest of Europe. To pay for purchases in the US, the UK cashed in its massive investments in American railroads, then began borrowing heavily on Wall Street. 1, note 51), there were Viking attacks on coastal Galicia in the far northwest of the peninsula, though historical sources are too meagre to assess how frequent or how early raiding was. All nations had increases in the government's share of GDP, surpassing fifty percent in both Germany and France and nearly reaching fifty percent in the UK. [[By the mid 9th century, though apparently not before (Fletcher 1984, ch. In Austria, for example, most of the hogs were slaughtered and, at war's end, there was no meat.

As members of the leidang fleet, as well as farmers and fishers now and then, were attacked by Vikings, most Scandinavians probably saw Vikings as their enemies and fought against them with all their might. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire reached 30 to 40 percent. Though a common practice today, calling all northmen (Scandinavians) Vikings, rather than reserving the word solely for those involved in piracy, can lead to misunderstanding and confusion. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased for the main Allies (the UK, Italy, and U.S.), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the main three Central Powers. As the Scandinavian shores were attacked by enemy forces, they established the defence fleet called leidang, which was also used as protection against Vikings. Many war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versaille treaty was signed, 1919; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the Armistice of 1918; however, the formal ending of all hostilities was not until 1923. They were farmers, fishers and hunters, as were most other people in Europe at the time. However, the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife and a final peace treaty was signed by the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey, at Lausanne on 24 July 1923.

Scandinavians, in general, were not Vikings. Germain, Trianon, Neuilly and Sèvres. It should be noted, however, that no written sources, in the cases of Vinland, Rus', or Varyags, use the term "Viking.". A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months until it was finally ended by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 with Germany and the following treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and The Ottoman Empire signed at St. Early Scandinavian colonies in North America are also labelled as "Viking" by modern English speakers. Canadian George Lawrence Price is traditionally regarded as the last soldier killed in the Great War. During the last century, speculations began about whether foreign traders, known as varyags who had trade posts along the Russian rivers down to the Byzantine Empire were of Scandinavian origin, and since then, the term has been interpreted also to refer to tradesmen from Scandinavia who established colonies in Russia. At 1100 hours that day ("eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"), a ceasefire came into effect and the opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions.

As an adjective, the word is used in expressions like "Viking age," "Viking culture," "Viking colony," etc., generally referring to medieval Scandinavia. On 11 November, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne in France where Germans had previously dictated terms to France, ending the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to the raiders, but also to the entire period; it is now, somewhat confusingly, used as a noun both in the original meaning of raiders, warriors or navigators, and sometimes to refer to the Scandinavian population in general. The Kaiser fled the next day to the Netherlands, which granted him political asylum (see Weimar Republic for details). The word disappeared in Middle English, and was reintroduced as viking during 18th century Romanticism. Following the outbreak of the German Revolution, a Republic was proclaimed on 9 November, marking the end of the monarchy, but not of the German Empire, as the Republic still called officially itself "Deutsches Reich". Indeed, when Scandinavian raiders left their boats, stole horses and rode across country, they were never referred to as "vikings" in English sources. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Widsith, and the writings of Adam von Bremen), a viking is a pirate, and not a name for the people or culture in general. The Armistice with Austria was granted to take effect at three o'clock on the afternoon of November 4. In medieval use (eg. The terms, having been arranged by telegraph with the Entente Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian Commander, and were accepted. In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the 6th or 7th century in the Anglo-Saxon poem, “Widsith.”. On November 3, Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce to the Italian Commander to ask an Armistice and terms of peace. In the Icelandic sagas, víking refers to an overseas expedition (Old Norse farar i vikingr "to go on an expedition"), and víkingr, to a seaman or warrior taking part in such an expedition. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated.

The word viking appears on several rune stones found in Scandinavia. When Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the German High Seas Fleet to sortie against the Entente's navies, the sailors mutinied in Wilhelmshaven, starting 29 October. "trading city" (cognate to Latin vicus, "village"). Germany requested a ceasefire on 3 October 1918. A second etymology suggested that the term is derived from Old English, wíc, ie. Bulgaria was the first of the Central Powers to sign an armistice (29 September 1918). Later on, the term, viking, became synonymous with "naval expedition" or "naval raid", and a vikingr was a member of such expeditions. The end of the fighting came swiftly.

In Old Norse, this would be spelled vikingr. Imperial Germany had died, and a new Germany had been born: the Weimar Republic. One path might be from the Old Norse word, vík, meaning "bay," "creek," or "inlet," and the suffix -ing, meaning "coming from" or "belonging to." Thus, viking would be a 'person of the bay', or "bayling" for lack of a better word. Von Baden then announced that the Kaiser was to abdicate—before the Kaiser had himself made up his mind. The etymology of "Viking" is somewhat vague. However, the matter was taken out of his hands by Philipp Scheidemann, who, on November 9, 1918, declared Germany to be a Republic, from a balcony atop the Reichstag. Hey ALL!!!!. In the matter of the German monarchy, he was torn between the idea of a constitutional monarchy or complete abolition.

. Negotiations for a peace began immediately upon his appointment. The medieval Scandinavian population, in general, is more properly referred to as Norse. Prince Max von Baden was put in charge of the new German government. Today, somewhat controversially, the word is also used as a generic adjective, referring to the Viking Age Scandinavians. These politicians had "stabbed Germany in the back"--a self-serving sentiment by Ludendorff that would be later used to great effect by various German patriotic nationalist groups, including the Nazis. The word “Viking” was introduced to the English language with romantic connotations in the 18th century. Soon after, Ludendorff had a dramatic change of heart and began to claim that the very parties to whom he had handed power had lost Germany the war.

This period of European history (generally dated to AD 793 - AD 1066) is often referred to as the Viking Age. With 5,989,758 German casualties (1,773,700 killed, 4,216,058 wounded), they did just that. Vikings traveled to the west and Varangians, who were best known as the Varangian Guards of the Byzantine emperors, to the east. Therefore, with Ludendorff handing more power to these parties, they would have the obligation and authority to request an armistice. The name Viking is a loanword from the native Scandinavian term for the Norse warriors who raided the coasts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, and other parts of Europe from the late 8th century to the 11th century. His reforms would hand power over to the members of the Reichstag—particularly the ruling parties at this time: the centre party, the liberals, and the social democrats. (1980) The Northern World. However, some historians believe Ludendorff had an ulterior motive in his plan.

Wilson, David M. He believed democratization would show the German people that the government was prepared to change, thus reducing the chance of a socialist style revolt, as occurred in Russia in 1917. (1970) The Vikings and their Origins. Although he was a traditionalist conservative, he decided to try and incite a controlled political revolution, by introducing new reforms that "democratized" Germany, while also satisfying the monarchists with the Kaiser's reign continuing unabridged. Wilson, David M. Since the end of September 1918, Ludendorff had been concocting a political plan for Germany. The Age of the Vikings. It was Ludendorff who took the blame for this—the Kaiser dismissed him on 26 October.

(1962). Many rebelled and were arrested, refusing to be part of a Naval offensive which they believed to be nothing more than a suicide bid. H. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Sawyer, P. Knowing any such action would be vetoed by the government of Max von Baden, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Naval commander Admiral Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last ditch attempt to restore the "valour" of the German Navy.

(1997). The threat of general mutiny was rife. H. Meanwhile, news of Germany's impending military defeat had spread throughout the German Armed forces. Sawyer, P. The Allied pressure did not let up until the end of the war. Medieval Scandinavia. During October, Pershing's artillery continued to unrelentingly pound the exhausted and bewildered Germans, all along the Meuse-Argonne front.

(date?). He recommended the latter to senior German officials at a summit in Spa, Belgium on that very same day. H. Regardless of this, Ludendorff had decided, by October 1, that Germany had two ways out of the War—total annihilation or an armistice. Sawyer, P. Many tanks were once again breaking down, and those actually operable were rendered useless due to impassable terrain. Viking Age Denmark. By the start of October, it was evident that things were not going according to plan for the Allies.

Roesdahl, Else (date?). Montfaucon was captured on 27 September; however, failure to take it the day before proved to be one of the most costly mistakes of the entire campaign. Vikings!. This failure allowed the Germans to recover and regroup. Magnusson, Magnus (1980). 79th Infantry Division, which met stiff resistance at Montfaucon and was unable to progress on the first day of the battle. A History of the Vikings. All divisions were successful in capturing their initial objectives, except the U.S.

Jones, Gwyn (1984). The Allied attempt to take the Hindenburg Line (the Meuse-Argonne Offensive) began September 26, as 260,000 American soldiers went "over the top". The Viking World. The town of Bapaume was captured on August 29 and by September 2, the Germans were on the Hindenburg Line, the starting point of the War. (date?). The Second German Army was pushed back over a 55km front. Graham-Campbell, J. It was an overwhelming success for the Allies.

Wilson (1970) The Viking Achievement. Some 130,000 United States troops were involved, along with soldiers from Third and Fourth British Armies. Foote, Peter G., and David M. This Second Battle of the Somme began on August 21. Chapter 1 "Galicia" (on-line text). On 15 August 1918, General Haig called a halt and began planning a new offensive in Albert. Saint James's Catapult: The Life and Times of Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela (Oxford University Press). However, after a few days, the offensive had slowed down— British Empire units had encountered problems with all but seven tanks.

(1984). Erich Ludendorff referred to this day as "the Black Day of the German army". Fletcher, R.A. The Entente forces advanced as far as twelve kilometres into German- held territory in just seven hours. ISBN 0049400495. It involved 414 tanks of the Mark IV and Mark V type, and 120,000 men. London: Allen and Unwin. The Battle of Amiens developed with III Corps Fourth British Army on the left, the First French Army on the right, and the Canadian and Australian Corps spearheading the offensive in the centre.

The Viking Road to Byzantium. The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive began on August 8, 1918. Ellis (1976). Industrial output had fallen 53% from 1913. R. Anti-war marches were a frequent occurrence and morale within the army was at low levels. Davidson, H. Meanwhile, Germany was crumbling internally as well.

Baltimore: Penguin Books. Following this last phase of the ground war in the West, the German Army never again held the initiative. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. By July 20, 1918, the Germans were back at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines, having achieved nothing. Ellis (1964). The resulting Entente counterattack marked the Entente's first successful offensive of the war. R. Next, Operation Marne was launched on 15 July as an attempt to encircle Reims, beginning the Second Battle of the Marne.

Davidson, H. Operations Blücher and Yorck were then conducted by the German Army to the south, broadly towards Paris. ISBN 0140204598. This was halted, by the Allies, with less significant territorial gains to Germany. New translation 1965. Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette to the north against the Channel ports. Harmondsworth: Penguin. A supreme command of Entente forces was created at the Doullens Conference, in which British Field Marshal Douglas Haig handed control of his forces over to Ferdinand Foch.

Kalle Skov. United States divisions, which Pershing had sought to field as an independent force, were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on 28 March. The Vikings, trans. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000. Brøndsted, Johannes (1960). Many Germans thought victory to be close; however, after heavy fighting, the German offensive was halted. Monty Python's "Spam Song". The initial stages of the offensive were so successful that German Kaiser Wilhelm II declared March 24 a national holiday.

Viking ship. Three super-heavy Krupp railway guns advanced and fired 183 shells on Paris, causing many Parisians to flee the city. Viking Age arms and armour. The front line had now moved to within 120 kilometres of Paris. Hill forts, Viking ring castles. German success relied greatly on this tactic. Jomsvikings. These isolated positions were then destroyed by more heavily armed infantry.

Iceland. However, in the Spring Offensive, the German Army used artillery briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points, attacking command and logistics areas and surrounding points of serious resistance. Greenland. Up to this time, attacks had been characterized by long artillery bombardments and continuous-front mass assaults. Miklagard. British and French trenches were defeated using novel infiltration tactics. Serkland. For the first time since 1914, manoeuvre had returned to the battlefield.

Gardariki. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 km. Hjaltland. It was Ludendorff's intention to split the British Empire and French armies at this point. Vinland. Operation Michael opened on 21 March 1918, with an attack against British Empire forces, towards the rail junction at Amiens. Markland. Before the offensive even began, Ludendorff made what may have been a fatal mistake by leaving the elite Eighth Army in Russia and sending over only a small portion of the German forces from the east to aid the offensive in the west.

Helluland. The German leadership hoped to strike a decisive blow against the enemy before significant United States forces could be deployed. Bjarmland. This Spring Offensive sought to divide the British Empire and French armies in a series of feints and advances. Danelaw. German General Ludendorff drew up plans (codenamed Operation Michael) for a 1918 general offensive along the Western Front. Visby lenses. As a result, the AEF suffered a very high rate of casualties in its operations in the summer and fall of 1918.

Tollund Man. Without experience in this type of warfare, Pershing ordered the use of frontal assaults, which had been discarded by that time by British Empire and French commanders as too costly in lives of their troops. Temple at Uppsala. Pershing, American Expeditionary Force (AEF) commander, resisted breaking up American units and using them as reinforcements for British Empire and French units. Old Uppsala. However, General John J. Leidang. Indeed, throughout the war, the American forces were short of their own artillery, aviation, and engineering units.

L'Anse aux Meadows. The British and French wanted the United States to send its infantry to reinforce their troops already on the battlelines. Helgö. However, it would be some time before the United States would be able to contribute significant manpower to the Western and Italian fronts. Hedeby. Marines were also dispatched to France. Birka. Several regiments of U.S.

Snorri Sturluson. The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, a number of destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and several submarines to the Azores and to Bantry Bay, Ireland to help guard convoys. Saxo Grammaticus. intervention, gambling that they would win the war before America could make an impact on the battlefield. Adam of Bremen. For these reasons, the Germans had made the decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, despite the threat of U.S. Skald. Still, the United States had been in a state of full military-related production, aiding the Entente for quite some time, and had also loaned the Allied powers vast sums of money.

Norse art. Germany calculated that it would be some time before large numbers of American troops could be sent to Europe, and that, in any event, the U-boat offensive would prevent their arrival. Norse sagas. Although the American contribution to the war was important, particularly in terms of the threat posed by an increasing US infantry presence in Europe, the United States was never formally a member of the Entente, but an "Associated Power." Significant numbers of American troops only arrived in Europe in the summer of 1918. Norse mythology. Wilson hoped a separate peace could be achieved with Austria-Hungary; however, when it kept its loyalty to Germany, the US declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917. Old Norse poetry. The House approved the war resolution 373-50, the Senate 82-6.

Blót. After further U-boat attacks on American merchant ships, President Woodrow Wilson requested that Congress declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917 (see: Woodrow Wilson declares war on Germany on Wikisource). Pathfinder (In pn). This, combined with public indignation over the Zimmermann telegram, led to a final break of relations with the Central Powers. The Northmen (In production). Early in 1917, Germany resumed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Beowulf (In production). America's long-standing policy of isolationism left the United States reluctant to involve itself with what was popularly perceived, among the American public, as a European war.

Beowulf & Grendel (2005). Both sides urgently sought a decisive, rapid victory on the Western Front as they were both fearful of collapse or stalemate. Ring of the Nibelungs (2004). Furthermore, rulers of both the Central Powers and the Entente became more fearful of the threat first raised by Ivan Bloch in 1899, that protracted industrialized war threatened social collapse and revolution throughout Europe. The 13th Warrior (1999). The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war now that American forces were certain to be arriving in increasing numbers, but held high hopes for a rapid offensive in the West, using their reinforced troops and new infantry tactics. The Viking Sagas (1995). With both German reinforcements and new American troops pouring into the Western Front, the final outcome of the war was to be decided in that front.

Hvíti víkingurinn, (The White Viking) (1991). Ironically, German troop transfers could have been greater if their territorial acquisitions had not been so dramatic. Erik the Viking (1989). In December, the Central Powers signed an Armistice with Russia, thereby releasing troops from the eastern front for use in the west. Í skugga hrafnsins, (In the Shadow of the Raven) (1988). Previously British Empire and French armies had operated under separate command systems. Ofelas, (Pathfinder) (1987). The decisive victory of Germany at the Battle of Caporetto led to the Entente decision at the Rapallo Conference to form the Supreme Allied Council at Versailles to co-ordinate plans and action.

Hrafninn flýgur, (Revenge of the Barbarians/ When the Raven Flies) (1984). Britain was safe from the threat of starvation. The Norseman (1978). After July, the newly introduced convoy system was extremely effective in neutralizing the U-boat threat. Island at the Top of the World (1974). Tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February until July, peaking at 860,000 tons in April. The Longships (1963). In response, in February 1917, the German General Staff (OHL) were able to convince Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war.

The Vikings (1958). The Entente's naval blockade of Germany began to have a serious impact on morale and productivity on the German home-front. The Viking World by Christine Hatt. Events of 1917 would prove decisive in ending the war, although their effects would not be fully felt until 1918. The Vikings by Neil Grant. The Entente troops were told they were invading to defend supplies from German troops; in reality, they were defending them from communist Russians. Going to War in Viking Times by Christopher Gravett. Troops landed in Archangel (see North Russia Campaign) and in Vladivostok.

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. The invasion was made with intent to punish the Russians for dropping out of the war and to support the Tsarists in the Russian Revolution. The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavrieal Kay. After the Russians dropped out of the war, Entente powers led a small-scale invasion of Russia. Thorfinn Karlsefni (colonizer of Vinland). At first, the Bolsheviks refused to agree to the harsh German terms, but when Germany resumed the war and marched with impunity across Ukraine, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, which took Russia out of the war and ceded vast territories, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers. Styrbjörn Sterki (conqueror of Jomsborg). The triumph of the Bolsheviks in November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany.

Skagul Toste (the first Viking to exact the Danegeld). The war, and the government, became more and more unpopular, and the discontent led to a rise in popularity of the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, who were able to gain power. Rurik (founder of the Rus' rule in Eastern Europe). This division of power led to confusion and chaos, both on the front and at home, and the army became progressively less able to effectively resist Germany. Rollo of Normandy (founder of Normandy). Petersburg culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak centrist Provisional Government, which shared power with the socialists of the Petrograd Soviet. Ragnar Lodbrok (captured Paris). In March 1917, demonstrations in St.

Oleg of Kiev (conquered Kiev, founded Kievan Rus' and attacked Constantinople). Meanwhile, internal unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar remained out of touch at the front, while Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew protests from all segments of Russian political life, resulting in the murder of Alexandra's favourite Rasputin by conservative noblemen at the end of 1916. Leif Eriksson (discoverer of Vinland). Allied and Russian fortunes revived only temporarily with Romania's entry into the war on August 27: German forces came to the aid of embattled Austrian units in Transylvania, and Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on December 6. Ingólfur Arnarson (settled in Iceland). Dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew despite the success of the June 1916 Brusilov offensive in eastern Galicia against the Austrians, when Russian success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces in support of the victorious sector commander. Ivar the Boneless (disabled son of Ragnar Lodbrok who, despite having to be carried on a shield, nevertheless conquered York). In the spring of 1915, the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and, in May, the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern fringes, capturing Warsaw on August 5 and forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Poland, an action known as the "Great Retreat".

Ingvar the Far-Travelled (the leader of the last great Swedish viking expedition, which pillaged the shores of the Caspian Sea). Russia's less-developed economic and military organization soon proved unequal to the combined might of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Harald Hardrada (king of Norway and member of the Varangian Guard). Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Harald Finehair (founder and first king of Norway; some dispute, as part of the etymological dispute discussed above, whether he really merits the label "Viking" at all). The Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Guthrum (colonised England). While the Western Front had reached stalemate in the trenches, the war continued in the east.

Gardar Svavarsson (discoverer of Iceland). This lead to Bulgaria's signing an armistice on September 29, 1918. Erik the Red (discoverer of Greenland). Only at the very end of the war, after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been removed, leaving the Front held by the Bulgarians alone, were the Entente powers able to make a breakthrough. Egill Skallagrímsson (popular icelandic warrior and skald, see also Egils saga). Meanwhile, the Salonica Front proved entirely immobile, so much so that it was joked that Salonica was the largest German prisoner of war camp. Björn Ironside (pillaged in Italy and son of Ragnar Lodbrok). The King then further prevented official Greek entry into the war for two years, until 1917.

Askold and Dir (legendary Varangian conquerors of Kiev). Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-allied Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos was dismissed, by the pro-German King Constantine I, before the allied expeditionary force had even arrived. Beowulf. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek government into war against the Central Powers. Voluspá. The Serbian army retreated into Albania and Greece. After repelling three Austrian invasions during August-December 1914, Serbia fell to combined invasion by Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, (the latter of which joined the Central Powers in September, 1915) in October 1915.

His hatred for Italy blinded him in many ways, and he made many foolish tactical and strategic errors during the campaigns in Italy. Their betrayal in 1915 enraged him even further. Throughout the war, Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, Conrad von Hötzendorf had a deep hatred for the Italians because he had always perceived them to be the greatest threat to his state. In 1918, the Austrians repeatedly failed to break the Italian line, and, decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, surrendered to the Entente powers in November.

On October 26, they launched a crushing offensive that resulted in the victory of Caporetto: the Italian army was routed, but after retreating more than 100km, it was able to reorganize and hold at the Battle of the Piave River. In the fall of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large reinforcements, including German assault troops. After this minor victory, the front remained practically stable for over one year, despite several Italian offensives, again all on the Isonzo front. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia.

Beginning in 1915, the Italians mounted 11 major offensives on the other front, the Isonzo front (the part of the border north of Trieste), all repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who had the higher ground. The Austro-Hungarians counter-attacked in the Altopiano of Asiago towards Verona and Padua in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but they also made little progress. After an initial Austro-Hungaric strategic retreat to better positions, the front remained mostly unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen and Italian Alpini fought bitter close combat battles during summer and tried to survive during winter in the high mountains. In the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarian defence took advantage of the elevation of their bases in the mostly mountainous terrain, which was anything but suitable for military offensives.

The Italians went on the offense to achieve their territorial goals. In general, the Italians enjoyed numerical superiority, but were poorly equipped. The Austrian government started negotiations to obtain Italian neutrality in exchange for French territories (Tunisia), but Italy joined the Entente by signing the London Pact in April and declaring war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915; it declared war against Germany fifteen months later. Italy refused to join Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war, because their alliance was defensive, while Austria had declared war on Serbia.

Italy had been allied to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882, but had its own designs against Austrian territory in the Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia, and maintained a secret 1902 understanding with France, effectively nullifying its alliance commitments. But, in March of 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Tsar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian army began to slowly fall apart. Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed senior control over the Caucasus front.

The Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, General Nikolai Yudenich, with a string of victories over the Ottoman forces, drove the Turks out of much of present-day Armenia, and tragically provided a context for the deportation of the Armenian population in eastern Armenia. Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the mountains in the heart of winter, Enver lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamis. He launched an offensive with 100,000 troops against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914. He was not, however, a practical soldier.

Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Turkish armed forces, was a very ambitious man, with a dream to conquer central Asia. Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Further to the west in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British failures were overcome with Jerusalem being captured in December 1917 and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force,under Field Marshall Edmund Allenby, going on to break the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918. In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Empire forces reorganized and captured Baghdad in March 1917.

In Gallipoli, the Turks were successful in repelling the ANZAC'S (Australian New Zealand Army Core), forcing their eventual withdrawal and evacuation. The British Empire opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October–November 1914, due to the secret Turko-German Alliance signed on August 2, 1914, threatening Russia's Caucasian territories and Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez canal. See the Battle of Vimy Ridge for more information.

It provided the allies with great military advantage and greatly contributed to the identity of Canada. In the British-led Battle of Arras during the 1916 campaign, the only military success was the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie. Each battalion held its sector for around a week before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas. The front contained over 6,000 miles of trenches.

1,000 battalions, each occupying a sector of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway. Around 800,000 soldiers from the British Empire were on the Western Front at any one time. Throughout 1915-17, the British Empire and France suffered many more casualties than Germany, but both sides lost millions of soldiers to injury and disease. At the height of the mutiny, 30,000 to 40,000 French soldiers participated.

Red flags were hoisted and the Internationale was sung on several occasions. News of the Russian Revolution gave a new incentive to socialist sentiments among the troops. Futile attempts at more frontal assaults, at terrible cost to the French poilu (infantry), led to mutinies which threatened the integrity of the front line, after the Nivelle Offensive in spring of 1917. Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next four years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916, and the Entente's failure at the Somme, in the summer of 1916, brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse.

This breach was closed by Canadian soldiers at both the Second Battle of Ypres (the first time where a colonial force drove back a European power), and Third Battle of Ypres, (where over 5000 Canadian soldiers were gassed to death), earning German respect. In April 1915, the Germans used chlorine gas for the first time, opening a four mile wide hole in the Allied lines when French colonial troops retreated before it. Some hoped to break the stalemate by utilizing science and technology. One consequence was that German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy: Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be 'temporary' before their forces broke through German defences.

Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended occupied territories. Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German positions from Lorraine to Belgium's Flemish coast. After the First Battle of the Marne, both Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking manoeuvres to try to force the other to retreat, in the so-called Race to the Sea. Neither side ever won a battle with gas, but it made life even more miserable in the trenches and became one of the most feared, and longest remembered, horrors of the war.

By 1915 both sides were using poison gas. Civil War and were often indifferent to massive loss of life (British General Haig's diaries are particularly striking in this respect). General Staffs of European armies had uniformly ignored the lessons of the U.S. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances; artillery, now vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machineguns, made crossing open ground a nightmarish prospect.

Advances in military technology meant that defensive firepower out-weighed offensive capabilities, making the war particularly murderous, as tactics had failed to keep up. Few were prepared for what they actually encountered at the front. Spurred on by propaganda and nationalist fervor, many eagerly joined the ranks in search of adventure. The perceived excitement of war captured the imagination of many in the warring nations.

International bond and financial markets entered severe crises in late July and early August reflecting worry about the financial consequences of war. Some political leaders, such as Bethmann Hollweg in Germany, were concerned by the potential social consequences of a war. Some military figures, such as Lord Kitchener and Erich Ludendorff, predicted the war would be a long one. Others, however, regarded the coming war with great pessimism and worry.

Many thought it would have finished by Christmas of that year. The common view on both sides was that it would be a short war of manoeuvre, with a few sharp actions (to "teach the enemy a lesson") and would end with a victorious entry into the enemy capital, then home for a victory parade or two and back to "normal" life. In 1914, the perception of war was romanticized by many people, and its declaration was met with great enthusiasm by these people. Yet staff incompetence and leadership timidity, as Ludendorff had needlessly transferred troops from the right to protect Sedan, cost Germany the chance for an early knockout.

The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself in the months of August and September. This diversion exacerbated problems of insufficient speed of advance from railheads, not allowed for by the German General Staff, allowed French and British forces to finally halt the German advance on Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 1914) and the Entente forced the Central Powers into fighting a war on two fronts. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September). Russia attacked in East Prussia, diverting German forces intended for the Western Front.

However, the delays brought about by the resistance of the Belgian, French and British forces; the unexpectedly rapid mobilization of the Russians; and overly-ambitious objectives upset the German plans. Initially the Germans had great successes in the Battle of the Frontiers (14–24 August 1914). The first British Empire soldier killed in the war was John Parr, on 21 August 1914, near Mons. Britain sent an army to France (the British Expeditionary Force, or BEF), which advanced into Belgium.

It soon encountered resistance before the forts of the Belgian city of Liège, although the army as a whole continued to make rapid progress into France. When Belgium refused, Germany invaded and began marching through Belgium anyway, after first invading and securing Luxembourg. Germany demanded free passage from the Belgian government, promising to treat Belgium as Germany's firm ally if the Belgians agreed. To do so, the German army had to march through Belgium.

Rather than invading eastern France directly, German planners deemed it prudent to attack France from the north. The Schlieffen plan to deal with the Franco-Russian alliance involved delivering a knock-out blow to the French and then turning to deal with the more slowly mobilized Russian army. The Austrians had not achieved their main goal of eliminating Serbia, and it became increasingly likely that Germany would have to maintain forces on two fronts. This marked the first major Allied victory of the war.

Three days later the Austrians retreated across the Danube, having suffered 21,000 casualties as against 16,000 Serbian. In harsh night-time fighting, the battle ebbed and flowed, until Stepa Stepanovic rallied the Serbian line. The first attack came on August 16, between parts of the 21st Austro–Hungarian division and parts of the Serbian Combined division. The Serbians occupied defensive positions against the Austrians.

The Serbian army, coming up from the south of the country, met the Austrian army at the Battle of Cer on 12 August. This confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian army to split its troop concentrations from the south in order to meet the Russians in the north. Germany, however, had planned for Austria-Hungary to focus the majority of its troops on Russia while Germany dealt with France on the Western Front. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover her northern flank against Russia.

Germany had originally guaranteed to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but practical interpretation of this idea differed. In Europe, the Central Powers — the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire - suffered from mutual miscommunication and lack of intelligence regarding the intentions of each other's army. Sporadic and fierce fighting, however, continued in Africa for the remainder of the war. Within a few months, the Entente forces had driven out or had accepted the surrender of all German forces in the Pacific.

Another British Dominion, New Zealand, occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on 30 August; on September 11 the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of German New Guinea. Shortly thereafter, on August 10, German forces based in South-West Africa attacked South Africa, part of the British Empire. On 8 August 1914 a combined French and British Empire force invaded the German protectorate of Togoland in West Africa. Some of the first hostilities of the war occurred in Africa and in the Pacific Ocean, in the colonies and territories of the European powers.

The warring parties were divided into two camps:. (Which is what indeed happened.). The implication was that victory required the abdication of those rulers, the end of the aristocratic system, and the end of militarism. Their goal was military power and glory, the theory says, regardless of the needs and wishes of the people.

The military, reporting directly to the king, and not elected civilian governments, controlled Germany, Austria, Russia and Turkey. Woodrow Wilson and most Americans blamed the war on militarism. Frantic diplomatic efforts to mediate the Austrian-Serbian quarrel simply became irrelevant, as the automatic military escalations between Germany and Russia reinforced one another. This left governments with even fewer options and little room to manoeuvre as the last weeks of July 1914 slipped away.

The civilian leaders of the European powers found themselves facing a wave of nationalist zeal that had been building across Europe for years. Once the mobilization order was issued there was no turning back. Once put into effect they were indeed capable of easily defeating their neighbor, unless their neighbor also unleashed its mobilization plan. Thus the military general staffs had elaborate mobilization plans.

Closely related is the thesis adopted by many political scientists that the war plans of each power automatically escalated the conflict until it was out of control. Paul Kennedy is the historian who most recently has propounded this thesis. Overall, nations in the Triple Entente became fearful of the Triple Alliance and vice versa. The major participants in the race were Britain and Germany due to new imperialism.

Ironically, this development diminished Britain's naval supremacy as the new type of vessel opened a new chapter in naval warfare, which annihilated the old status-quo in this area and sparked a new major naval arms race in shipbuilding among the world's nations on a more level playing field. An example of the latter is the 1906 launch of HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary battleship that rendered all previous warships obsolete as "pre-dreadnoughts". Another cause of the war was the escalating arms race. As time progressed, scholars looked at other factors, such as the rigidity of both German and Russian military planning, each of which stressed the importance of striking first and executing plans quickly.

Berghahn. This idea was later backed by such leading German academics as Franz Fischer, Imanuel Geiss, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Wolfgang Mommsen, and V.R. The point is that responsibility for the war lies with Germany and Austro-Hungary for their aggression, and that Russia, France and Britain were reacting legitimately against this aggression. The idea was that the war had begun when the Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded the Kingdom of Serbia, backed by the German Empire, and that Germany later invaded Belgium without provocation.

Early explanations, prominent in the 1920s, stressed the official version of responsibility as described in the Treaty of Versailles and Treaty of Trianon, that Germany and its allies were solely responsible for the war. Likewise no one agrees on how the war could have been avoided. Historians and political scientists have grappled for nearly a century without reaching a consensus on what were the most important causes. Though this assassination is usually considered the immediate trigger for the war, its origins can be traced back to the complex web of alliances and counterbalances that developed between the various European powers after 1871.

Princip was supported by pan-Serbian nationalists, with links to the Serbian military. The Archduke was there to assert imperial authority over a disputed province. On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student.
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. Problems unresolved or created by the war would be highly important factors in the outbreak, within 20 years, of World War II. Shortly after the war, in 1923, Fascists came to power in Italy; in 1933, 14 years after the war, Nazism took over Germany. In Central Europe, the new states of Czechoslovakia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Yugoslavia were born and Austria, Hungary and Poland were re-created.

In the east, the demise of the Ottoman Empire paved the way for the states such as Republic of Turkey and a number of successor states and territories throughout the Middle East. The following decades would see the transformation of the old Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a global power. World War I witnessed the first advent of Communism as a means of government in Russia. Three European imperial dynasties, represented by the Hohenzollern, the Hapsburg and the Romanov families in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia respectively, also fell during the war.

In the Balkans and the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire experienced the same fate. Three European land empires were shattered and subsequently dismembered to varying degrees: the German, the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian. Ultimately, World War I created a decisive break with the old world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, as modified by the mid-19th century national revolutions, the processes of European national unification and European colonialism. In World War I, only some 5% of the casualties (directly caused by the war) were civilian - in World War II, this figure approached 50%.

More than 9 million soldiers died on the various battlefields, and nearly that many more in the participating countries' home fronts on account of food shortages and genocide committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conflicts. Hostilities were also prosecuted, however, by more dynamic invasion and battle, by fighting at sea and - for the first time - in and from the air. World War I is infamous for the protracted stalemate of trench warfare along the Western Front, embodied within a system of opposing manned trenches and fortifications (separated by a "No man's land") running from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. The Allied Powers (led by Britain, France, and, later, the United States) defeated the Central Powers (led by Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire), and led to the collapse of four empires and a radical change in the map of Europe.

World War I, also known as the First World War and (before 1939) the Great War, the War of the Nations, War to End All Wars, was a world conflict lasting from August 1914 to the final Armistice (cessation of hostilities) on November 11, 1918. A Very Long Engagement (2004), movie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The Lost Battalion (2001), movie and screenplay directed by Russell Mulcahy. Paths of Glory (1957), movie directed by Stanley Kubrick.

All Quiet On The Western Front (1979), movie directed by Delbert Mann. All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), movie directed by Lewis Milestone. All Quiet On The Western Front (1929), novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. Central Powers.

Allies of World War I, also referred to as the Entente Forces or the Entente Powers.