Military History

1916 witnessed two of the most costly and least-inspired military operations in history, when both camps were already experiencing severe shortages of manpower (to the extent that in Britain it was necessary to institute compulsory military service for the first time). Both sides decided on offence.

The dramatic sinking of the Lusitania by a german submarine marked the second year of World War I. Most notable were also the battles at Neuve-Chapelle, of Woëvre, the second battle of Ypres, Vimy Ridge, renewed fighting in Champagne and Artois and finally the battle of Loos.

Germany’s strategy, decided long before the war, was to contain Russia on the Eastern Front and make a lightning attack on France; and having defeated that nation, transport the bulk of the German forces to mount an offensive against Russia, a plan made practical by the swift movement possible on the extensive railway system.

Enver Pasha (1881–1922), a “Young Turk,” was one of the cadre of determined Turkish military officers who engineered the transformation of the archaic and ailing Ottoman Empire into modern Turkey.

As the British initially saw it, the strategic importance of Mesopotamia lay in its oil fields. Although most of the Royal Navy ran on coal in 1914–18, oil was still essential as a lubricant and as fuel for land vehicles.

Despite its alliance with the Central Powers, Italy maintained neutrality at the outbreak of war while the Allies applied adroit diplomacy, promising Italy territorial gains at the expense of Austria-Hungary in exchange for an alliance.

Although the western front of World War I has received the most attention from historians, the war on the eastern front was a tremendously costly, large-scale conflict, which did much to precipitate the Russian revolutions of 1917 and bring an end to czarist rule.

Two wars had destabilized the region (First and Second Balkan War), and although the Western powers intervened to restore peace, neither of the Balkan Wars resolved the tensions that had been mounting in this part of Europe.