However, the German General Staff underestimated both the fighting qualities and the interaction of the Entente troops. The resistance of the Belgian and French armies, taken by surprise by the Germans' roundabout maneuver through Belgium and Luxembourg, thwarted the plan for a blitzkrieg. The course of the operation was also influenced by the offensive of the Russian army in East Prussia in the second half of August. It forced the German command to throw into battle the reserves intended for the west. In the battle on the Marne River on September 5-12, the French army and the British expeditionary forces successfully counterattacked the enemy. The German troops were forced to go on the defensive, without reaching strategic goals. The Schlieffen Plan collapsed.
However, the Russian army, due to command errors, was unable to hold East Prussia. But her offensive against the Austro-Hungarian troops, which began at the end of August, developed successfully. By the end of September, she had mastered all of Galicia, and there was a threat of a Russian invasion of Hungary and Silesia, an important industrial region of Germany. In October-November, fierce battles unfolded between the Vistula and Warta between the German and Austro-Hungarian troops, on the one hand, and the Russians, on the other. They did not give a decisive advantage to either side.
The war became protracted. The rivalry of the warring powers for neutral countries began. Germany and Austria-Hungary needed new allies to replenish rapidly dwindling raw material, food and human resources. The Entente countries sought to prevent a breakthrough in international isolation, in which the "Central Powers" actually found themselves at the beginning of the war. As for the neutral countries, some of them have made their participation in the war the subject of shameless bargaining.
The largest "prize" in the diplomatic rivalry between the warring powers was Italy. Being an ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary under the treaty of 1882, she preferred neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after negotiations with both coalitions, she decided that the promises of the Entente looked more tempting. May 23, 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. However, the hopes that the allies had placed on her were far from fully justified. Repeated attempts by the Italian troops to break through the enemy's defenses were unsuccessful.
On the other hand, Austro-German diplomacy in the Balkans operated successfully. Back in August 1914, Turkey signed an alliance treaty with Germany and three months later began military operations against Russia in the Black Sea and Transcaucasia, and against Great Britain in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Bulgaria hesitated for a long time, but by the end of 1915 she considered that the chances of the "Central Powers" to win were preferable. On October 14, her army crossed the Serbian border and supported the offensive of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops, as a result of which, by the beginning of 1916, Serbia and Montenegro were captured, and the remnants of their armies were forced out to the Greek island of Corfu. After such a defeat, little consolation for the Entente was Greece's consent to the landing of Anglo-French troops in Thessaloniki and the creation of the so-called Thessaloniki Front in the north of the country.
As a result of the increase in the number of belligerent states in 1915, the main fronts of the First World War were formed - in Europe and the Middle East. Military operations were also carried out in other parts of the world—in Africa, the Far East, Oceania—but on an immeasurably smaller scale and were connected mainly with the seizure of German colonies. The actions of the navies were mainly limited to the protection of the coast and shipping. Undoubtedly, the main and decisive for the course of the war were two fronts - the French-German and the Austro-German-Russian, usually referred to as Western and Eastern.
Approximately equal in strength, which participated in the battles on both sides, these fronts differed in a number of features. The Western one was two to three times as long as the Eastern one, but it surpassed it in terms of the density of troops and weapons. This, along with a denser network of defensive structures stretching in a continuous line on both sides of the front from the coast of the North Sea to the border of Switzerland, sharply limited the possibilities of conducting mobile warfare in the west. Since autumn
In 1914, the fighting there acquired a positional character. At the same time, the troops, deprived of mobility, were an excellent target for heavy artillery aimed fire and suffered heavy losses. Under such conditions, offensive operations rarely led to a breakthrough of the front. Usually they ended with the capture of several trenches, completely destroyed by artillery fire and left by the enemy, who retreated to previously prepared positions in the deep defense echelons.
In 1915, there was a lull on the Western Front, due to the fact that the shock forces of the German army were busy in the east. But the 1916 campaign was marked by a number of major battles. Among them is the famous battle of Verdun, which glorified the names of the French generals Petain and Nivelle. This fortress, wedged into the positions of the German troops, was a key point in the defense of the French. If the Germans had taken it, they would have opened their way into the depths of France. Realizing that Verdun would defend itself to the last soldier, the German command sought to bleed the enemy as much as possible. The battle of Verdun lasted 10 months. She went down in history not only as the largest battle of the First World War, but also as an example of senseless bloodshed (“Verdun Meat Grinder”). The Germans, having failed to capture the fortress, lost up to 600 thousand soldiers in battles, the French - 358 thousand. To alleviate the situation at Verdun, the Anglo-French troops launched an offensive on the Somme in the summer of 1916. But, despite a threefold superiority in manpower and artillery, in 5 months they managed to move forward only 10 km, losing up to 900 thousand soldiers.
The length of the Eastern Front, which led to the dispersal of forces and means, provided the opponents with great opportunities for mobile warfare. In January 1915, Russian troops resumed their offensive in the Carpathians. In February, the Germans in East Prussia also became more active. But the Eastern Front really set in motion in May, when a powerful grouping of German and Austro-Hungarian troops under the command of General Mackensen fell upon the Russian positions. The Russian army retreated with fighting, leaving Poland, Lithuania, Volyn, Galicia. Only in autumn
In 1915, she gained a foothold in new positions. Since that time, the war on the Eastern Front also acquired a positional character. But not for long - in the summer
In 1916, Russian troops under the command of General Brusilov managed to break through the enemy defenses in the area of the city of Lutsk and re-occupy part of Galicia and Volhynia.
In the autumn of 1916, the Eastern Front became several hundred kilometers longer. On August 27, after much deliberation, Romania joined the Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary. But the Romanian army was soon defeated. In order to save Romania from defeat, large Russian forces taken from other sectors of the front were transferred to her aid.
At the end of the 1916 campaign, the Entente countries, despite heavy territorial losses, were filled with optimism. They frustrated the strategic plans of the enemy and managed to recover from the defeats of the first years of the war. Thanks to the multiple growth of military production, their warehouses were bursting with stocks of weapons and equipment. They did not experience serious difficulties with the replenishment of the armies. Reinforcements from the colonial empires of Great Britain and France were constantly arriving on the Western Front: Canadians, Australians, Indians, Moroccans, Senegalese and others. In 1917 the command of the Entente was preparing an offensive on all fronts.
The prospects of the "central powers" looked more complicated. They were given a great advantage by the fact that military operations were conducted on foreign territory. In the conditions of trench warfare, they could have held out for a very long time if they had not faced a shortage of basic resources. It was not possible to overcome it either by purchases in neutral countries, or by the plundering of the wealth of the occupied regions of France, Belgium, Russia, Serbia. The human losses were completely irreparable. The prolongation of the war really threatened the depletion of resources. In order to save them, the "Central Powers" in 1917 planned to go on the defensive on all fronts.
But the social and political upheavals experienced by the warring states made adjustments to the military plans.
The outbreak of the war caused a surge of patriotic feelings everywhere, although with an admixture of nationalism (evidence of this are the insults and violence to which "hostile" foreigners were subjected). For a short time, an atmosphere of national unity of all classes and parties in the name of victory over the external enemy was established in the belligerent countries. In France, it was called "sacred unity", in Germany - "civil peace", etc. Yesterday's political opponents announced the end of the strife. The socialist parties supported the "bourgeois" governments to which they had previously been in opposition, voted for war loans, and in some countries even accepted ministerial portfolios. Only small revolutionary groups (Bolsheviks in Russia, revolutionary syndicalists in France, "Spartacists" in Germany and others) condemned these actions as a "betrayal" of workers and socialism.
However, the patriotic wave soon subsided. The reason for this was not only material deprivation and human casualties that affected the majority of the population. The war lost its meaning as hopes for an early victory faded. The exorbitant profits of military suppliers were outraged. The opposition revived and became more and more active. One part of it criticized governments for insufficiently vigorous methods of warfare, the other offered to make peace without waiting for victory. Revolutionary groups called for an uprising against war and capitalism at the same time.
In countries with a democratic system of government, such as France or Great Britain, governments hastened to calm the dissatisfied. In the midst of the war, deep social and political reforms were launched there, for which democratic forces had struggled for decades to no avail. In 1917 France passed a law on progressive income tax, and in Great Britain - on universal suffrage. The governments themselves were reorganized. They were led by popular and energetic politicians - Lloyd George in Great Britain and Clemenceau in France. All this made it possible to contain the growth of popular discontent, which almost got out of control, as, for example, in France in May-June 1917, when strikes in factories and demonstrations in cities coincided with a protest movement in the army in the field.
On the contrary, in countries with an authoritarian system of government, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary or Russia, governments have remained deaf to the murmurs of citizens. Kaiser Wilhelm II only promised to introduce universal suffrage in Prussia after the war. Charles I, who replaced the aged Franz Joseph in Austria-Hungary in 1916, and Nicholas II got off with even more vague promises. Such stubbornness cost them dearly. The anti-government movement embraced broad sections of the population and acquired a spontaneous, uncontrollable character. In 1917, signs of anarchy intensified in Germany and especially in Austria-Hungary, and a revolution took place in Russia that overthrew the autocracy.
The warring countries tried to take advantage of the difficulties of the enemy. The Entente powers wanted to sow discord among the former independent states that became part of the German Empire. In particular, they encouraged the separatism of the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary: Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, etc. However, this did not prevent France from secretly hinting to the Vienna court about the possibility of maintaining the integrity of the Habsburg monarchy in the event of a separate peace.
The "Central Powers" acted on a grand scale and with invention. As early as the end of 1916, they tried to drive a wedge between the countries of the Entente, proposing to conclude a general peace. The Entente unanimously rejected this proposal. But it still planted seeds of doubt in public opinion. During 1917, the question of world peace was at the center of political discussions and gave rise to many conflicts in the camp of the enemy. The "Central Powers" used their peace initiatives as a cover for secret operations against the Entente. Their goal was to provoke by any means - up to direct financing - anti-war and revolutionary actions that would weaken the enemy. Traces of such activity were found in all countries of the Entente, but it was especially successful in Russia, where the revolution opened the green light to the penetration of agents of the German General Staff.
Internal unrest undermined the combat effectiveness of the Entente, which had to abandon plans for a decisive blow to the enemy. Attack attempts in April on the Western Front and June
1917 failed in Vostochny. The "Central Powers" received an unforeseen respite from which they were quick to capitalize. In February 1917, Germany launched a submarine war against the Entente, seeking to paralyze its Atlantic trade. But the main chance for salvation was given to them by the anarchy that engulfed Russia after the overthrow of the autocracy and soon led to the collapse of the Russian army. With the fall of the Provisional Government in November 1917, the vast empire actually disintegrated into a number of independent states. The Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars, which came to power in Petrograd, concluded a truce with Germany and Austria-Hungary and, along with the government of Ukraine, entered into peace negotiations with them. This major political victory of the "Central Powers" was preceded by the success of the offensive on the Italian front in October-November 1917. As a result, the military initiative again passed to them.
