World War I Essay, Research Paper

At 11 p.m. on 4th August 1914 Great Britain found herself at war in Europe. Four old ages and three months subsequently before morning on 11th November, 1918, British soldiers recaptured the Belgian town of Mons. On this same twenty-four hours an Armistice was signed at 5 a.m. in a railroad passenger car in the Forest of Compi? gne in Northern France and

belligerencies ceased six hours subsequently at eleven o & # 8217 ; clock. During the War & # 8217 ; s early old ages Britain and her Allies, France and Russia, fought against Germany and Austro-Hungary. At the War & # 8217 ; s end many more states were involved, including ; the United States,

Turkey, Japan, Italy. What had started over the blackwash of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, inheritor to the throne of the disintegrating Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the

Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on 28th June 1914 merely concluded after the deceases of 10s of 1000000s of soldiers and civilians. The imperiums of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and Russia had disappeared, states had lost land or gained land, new counties were created ( for illustration, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia ) , and new endangering political systems had taken over, or were about to take over in Russia and Germany severally.

The Great War was radically different from wars fought in the yesteryear. Contending, between voluntary or conscripted soldiers in trenches separated by no-man & # 8217 ; s-land from their enemy in similar trenches, continued all twelvemonth ; and new, improved methods of killing had evolved such that the graduated table of hurt and decease was beyond that which any

individual had believed possible. With industrialisation in Europe, innovation and greatly enhanced mass-production fabrication techniques gave rise to plentiful

supplies of toxicant gases, armored combat vehicles, powerful explosives, flame-throwers, hand-grenades, combatant and bomber aircraft, and, above all, machine-guns, and accurate

long-range heavy weapon. Killing was on a elephantine graduated table, and Generals who developed their new scheme of & # 8220 ; abrasion & # 8221 ; forgot surprise and ingeniousness.

Particularly on the Western Front, where all excessively frequently merely minimum land was lost or won, conflicts for months, and casualties were of 100s and 1000s.

Brita

in’s war was centered on the Western Front. This was an intricate system of trenches, which ran from the Belgium seashore, through northern France, to the German boundary line. The British subdivision likely extended for about 75 stat mis. Not all this length was involved in conflict all the clip, though even quiet parts suffered non infrequently from blasting, and trench foraies. One country, nevertheless, did endure from uninterrupted, ceaseless warfare ; this was the country, which stretched around the Belgium town of Ypres. Overlooked on three sides by the Germans it was shelled twenty-four hours and dark for four old ages. During the Battle of Third Ypres, from August to November, 1917 British and Commonwealth soldiers attacked out from this salient and, after enduring approximately 400,000 casualties, they gained non more than approximately four stat mis of land.

In the early winter, after Passchendaele had drawn to its stopping point, the War still had a twelvemonth to run, and the Battle of Cambrai, the monolithic German Spring Offensive of

1918, the American onslaughts at St. Mihiel and in the Argonne, and the Allies concluding three months progress still had to be paid for with the lives of a battalion immature

soldiers.

At the Armistice there was really small jubilation by the battle-weary front-line soldiers. That the War had ended and that they, despite fearful odds, were still alive

was frequently hard to grok. Once the fact had been assimilated, nevertheless, all they wanted to make was to travel back place to a state they knew and to care for relations and households. In the undermentioned old ages many former soldiers suffered many letdowns for, after the initial euphory of their return was over, they felt themselves to be unthanked and thankless. In Britain living conditions in industrialised towns were hapless and work really difficult to come-by & # 8211 ; particularly during the Depression old ages of the 1930s.

Many ne’er talked to anyone about their experiences in the trenches. Possibly they merely wanted to set from their heads the disking memories of those atrocious times ;

or possibly they thought that no 1 who had non been at that place could perchance to understand the awful conditions, which they had endured. A few unbroken journals of their

wartime experiences.