World War I: who fought with whom? Now this question is likely to perplex many inhabitants. But the Great War, as it was called in the world until 1939, claimed more than 20 million lives and forever changed the course of history. For 4 bloody years, empires collapsed, peoples disappeared, alliances were concluded. Therefore, it is necessary to know about it at least for the purpose of general development.
Reasons for the outbreak of war
By the beginning of the 19th century, the crisis in Europe was obvious to all major powers. Many historians and analysts cite various populist reasons why the First World War began. Who fought with whom before, what peoples were brotherly to each other, and so on - all this had practically no significance for most countries. The goals of the warring powers in World War I were different, but the main reason was the desire of big capital to spread its influence and gain new markets.
First of all, it is worth considering the desire of Germany, since it was she who became the aggressor and actually unleashed the war. But at the same time, one should not assume that only the German Empire wanted war, and the rest of the countries did not prepare plans for an attack and only defended themselves.
Germany goals
By the beginning of the 20th century, Germany continued to develop rapidly. The empire had a good army, modern types of weapons, a powerful economy. The main problem was that it was possible to unite the German lands under a single flag only in the middle of the 19th century. It was then that the Germans became an important player on the world stage. But by the time Germany became a great power, the period of active colonization had already been lost. England, France, Russia and other countries had many colonies. They opened a good market for the capital of these countries, made it possible to have cheap labor, an abundance of food and specific goods. Germany did not have this. Commodity overproduction led to stagnation. Population growth and limited territories of their settlement formed a food shortage. Then the German leadership decided to move away from the idea of being a member of the commonwealth of countries, having a secondary voice. Somewhere towards the end of the 19th century, political doctrines were aimed at building the German Empire as the world's leading power. And the only way to this is war.
Year 1914. World War I: with whom were they fought?
Other countries thought the same way. The capitalists pushed the governments of all major states to expand. First of all, Russia wanted to unite as many Slavic lands under its banners as possible, especially in the Balkans, especially since the local population was loyal to such patronage.
An important role was played by Turkey. Leading world players closely watched the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and waited for a moment to bite off a piece of this giant. Crisis and expectation were felt throughout Europe. There was a series of bloody wars on the territory of modern Yugoslavia, after which the First World War followed. Who fought with whom in the Balkans, sometimes did not remember the locals themselves South Slavic countries. The capitalists drove the soldiers forward, changing allies depending on profit. It was already clear that, most likely, something larger than a local conflict would occur in the Balkans. And so it happened. At the end of June, Gavrila Princip killed the Archduke Ferdinand. The Austrian-Hungarian empire used this event as a pretext for declaring war.
Party Expectations
The warring countries of the First World War did not think what the conflict would result in. If you study in detail the plans of the parties, it is clearly seen that each was going to win as a result of the rapid offensive. No more than a few months were allotted to the fighting. This was due, among other things, to the fact that before that there had been no similar precedents in history when almost all the powers took part in the war.
World War I: who fought against whom?
On the eve of 1914, two alliances were concluded: the Entente and the Triple. The first included Russia, Britain, France. In the second - Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy. Smaller countries came together around one of these alliances when World War I broke out. Who did Russia fight with? With Bulgaria, Turkey, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Albania. As well as a number of armed groups in other countries.
After the Balkan crisis in Europe, two main theaters of operations were formed - Western and Eastern. Also, hostilities were fought in the Caucasus and in various colonies in the Middle East and Africa. It is difficult to list all the conflicts that generated the First World War. Who fought with whom, depended on belonging to a certain alliance and territorial claims. For example, France has long dreamed of recovering the lost Alsace and Lorraine. And Turkey is the land in Armenia.
For the Russian Empire, the war was the most costly. And not only in economic terms. At the fronts, Russian troops suffered the greatest losses.
This was one of the reasons for the beginning of the October Revolution, as a result of which a socialist state was formed. The people simply did not understand why those mobilized by the thousands were sent to the West, and few returned.
Intensive was mainly only the first year of the war. The subsequent ones were characterized by a positional struggle. Many kilometers of trenches were dug, countless many defensive structures were erected.
The atmosphere of positional permanent warfare is very well described in Remarque's book “On the Western Front without Change”. It was in the trenches that the lives of soldiers were grinded, and the economies of the countries worked exclusively for war, cutting costs on all other institutions. 11 million peaceful lives were claimed by the First World War. Who fought with whom? There can only be one answer to this question: capitalists with capitalists.