The Russians fail in Galicia and lose Poland and other provinces, 1915 trench warfare went on almost incessantly, with the aid of machine guns, shells, and huge cannon. Airplanes flew hither and thither, observing the enemy's positions and operations and dropping bombs in their midst. Poisonous gases and liquid fire, introduced by Germany, added their horrors to the situation. On the Eastern Front the Russians at first advanced far more rapidly than had been expected. They succeeded in invading East Prussia but were soon driven out by Hindenburg and his army. They made their main attack on the Austrians in Galicia but were forced to withdraw, owing to the operations of the German and Austrian armies in Poland. These had combined in a drive on Warsaw and thus threatened the Russians on the north. During the winter of 1915 the Russians made fierce attempts to pass the Carpathians and invade AustriaHungary. They failed, however, on account of lack of supplies, and hundreds of thousands of lives were sacrificed in vain. In August, 1915, Russia was forced to surrender Warsaw and other large Polish towns to the Germans, who pushed on beyond Poland and occupied Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia. They therefore held (before the armistice, November, 1918) very important Russian territory in addition to their control of Poland' (see map, p. lxi). 1 Inasmuch as the fate of Poland was one of the problems raised by the war, we may recall the following facts: At the end of the eighteenth century the ancient kingdom of Poland disappeared in a series of three partitions arranged by Prussia, Russia, and Austria. (See Development of Modern Europe, Vol. I, pp. 76 $94.) After Napoleon succeeded in defeating both Austria and Prussia, 1805-1806, he erected the Grand Duchy of Warsaw out of the territory which Austria and Prussia had received in the third partition of Poland and what Prussia had acquired in the second. As he was on good terms with Russia at that time, he left her in undisturbed possession of her part of the old Polish kingdom. At the Congress of Vienna the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was turned over to the Tsar, who promised to give it a constitutional form of government. But the region around Posen was given back to Prussia, and the Prussian government has roused constant irritation and opposition by its efforts to stamp out the Polish language in the Province of Posen and to Germanize the people. As for the Kingdom of Poland created by the Congress of Vienna, that has given the Russians much trouble. The term "Poland," as used before the war, included but a small part of the ancient kingdom of Poland as it existed before the three partitions. It comprised Napoleon's Grand Duchy of Warsaw, less Posen and, to the south, Cracow, which had fallen into Austrian hands. Germany-Austria-Hungary and their Allies THE EASTERN FRONT, 1914-1917 Germany loses all her colonies Turkey joins the Central Powers, November, 1914 The Gallipoli disaster The war early began to show an irresistible tendency to envelop the whole world. Japan quickly captured the German port of Kiau Chau and took possession of the German stations in the northern Pacific, while the Australians and New Zealanders captured those in the southern Pacific. Troops from the South African Union, with the hearty coöperation of the Boers, Britain's late enemies, occupied German Southwest Africa. The remaining German colonies, Togoland, Kamerun, and German East Africa, gradually fell into the hands of the English or French. So while Germany was able, as we shall see, to conquer important portions of central Europe as the war proceeded, she lost all her colonies. The question whether she was to have them back or even be indemnified for them was one of the great problems to be adjusted at the end of the war. In November, 1914, the Teutonic allies were reënforced by Turkey. The Sultan issued a call to all faithful Mohammedans to wage a Holy War on the "enemies of Islam." But, contrary to the hopes of Germany, there was no general rising of the Mohammedans in India and Egypt against the British rule. Nor were the plans announced for capturing the Suez Canal carried out. England seized the opportunity to declare Egypt altogether independent of Turkey, December, 1914, and established a new ruler, who was given the title of Sultan of Egypt and accepted an English protectorate over his country. The English also invaded Mesopotamia and later Syria, and finally captured the famous old city of Bagdad, in March, 1917, and then the holy city of Jerusalem, in December, 1917. An attempt of the English and French in 1915 to take Constantinople proved, however, a terrible failure. In April of that year their forces, greatly strengthened by contingents from Australia and New Zealand, who had come to the Mediterranean by way of the Red Sea, tried to force their way up the Dardanelles. The Turks, well supplied with German commanders and equipment, defended themselves with such success that the Allies, in spite of the sacrifice of a hundred thousand men, killed and wounded, were unable to hold their positions on the peninsula of Gallipoli, where they had secured a footing. After some months the English government was obliged to recognize that it had made a tragic mistake, and the attempt was given up. In May, 1915, Italy finally decided that it was to her interest to enter the war on the side of the Entente Allies against her former allies of the Triple Alliance. She hoped to win "Italia Irredenta," those portions of the Italian people still unredeemed from Austrian rule, who live around Trent, in Istria, and the great seaport of Triest, and along the Dalmatian coast. So this added another "front" which the Central Powers had to defend. Italy enters the war, 1915 The bellig erents at the opening year of the war So the line-up at the opening of the second year of the war consisted of the Central Powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, — opposed to Russia, France, Italy, Great Britain of the second (including Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and East Indian troops, all ready to shed their blood in the cause of the British Empire), Belgium, Serbia, Japan, and the tiny countries of Montenegro and San Marino, twelve belligerents in all, scattered over the whole globe. But, as we all know, the infection of war was not destined to stop at this point but was to reach hundreds of millions of people who were at that time still neutral. of German It was the war on the sea that raised the chief problems for Extinction the world at large. At the beginning of the war many people commerce supposed that there would soon be a great and perhaps decisive naval engagement between the German and British fleets, but no such decisive combat took place.1 The Germans kept their dreadnaughts safe in their harbors, protected by cruisers and 1 Once only, on May 31, 1916, a portion of the German fleet ventured out of the Baltic and fell in with a strong detachment of the British fleet. After a few hours the mist, smoke, and darkness put an end to the fight. Several important vessels were sunk, the English losing about twice as many ships and men as the Germans. Both claimed to have gained a victory, for the English declared that the Germans only saved themselves from a complete disaster by stealing off as darkness approached. This was the so-called Battle of Jutland. |