On August 3, 1914 Germany declares war on France. World War 1 started because the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary. His death at the hands of Gavrilo Princip – a Serbian nationalist with ties to the secretive military group known as the Black Hand – propelled the major European military powers towards war. The War was from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. The war grew out involving 32 countries. The Allies included Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States. These countries fought against the Central Powers which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand's assassination on June 28, 1914, at the hand of a Serbian terrorist group the "Black Hand," led to the beginning of World War I. He was born on December 18, 1863, in Graz, Austria. In 1914, a Serb nationalist assassinated him. One month later, Austria declared war on Serbia and World War I began. He began his military career at age 12 and was quickly promoted through the ranks becoming a major general at age 31. After the suicide of the emperor's son, Crown Prince Rudolf, in 1889, and his own father's death from typhoid fever in 1896, Franz Ferdinand was groomed to inherit the throne.
Hawaiian Annexation
On the Hawaiian Islands, a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives. In January 1893, a revolutionary “Committee of Safety,” organized by Sanford B. Dole, staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani with the tacit support of the United States. On February 1, Minister John Stevens recognized Dole’s new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation. Imperialism is a system where a powerful nation rules and exploits one or more colonies. In most cases the imperialist nation establishes control over new territory by coercion, for example, through infiltration and annexation, political pressure, war and military conquest. Once conquered, this territory is claimed as a colony of the imperialist nation. Pearl Harbor centres on a cloverleaf-shaped, artificially improved harbour on the southern coast of Oahu, 6 miles (10 km) west of Honolulu. The harbour is virtually surrounded (west to east) by the cities of Ewa, Waipahu, Pearl City, Aiea, and Honolulu. It has 10 square miles (26 square km) of navigable water and hundreds of anchorages and covers a land area of more than 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares). Its four lochs are formed by the Waipio and Pearl City peninsulas and Ford Island. Pearl Harbor Entrance (channel) connects its virtually landlocked bay with the Pacific Ocean. Pearl Harbor was called Wai Momi (“Pearl Waters”) by the Hawaiians because of the pearl oysters that once grew there.
Hawaiian Monarch Queen Liliuokalani
Queen Liliuokalani (1838-1917) was the last sovereign of the Kamehameha dynasty, which had ruled a unified Hawaiian kingdom since 1810. She was born in September 2, 1838 in Honolulu. When Liliuokalani acted to restore these powers, a U.S. military-backed coup deposed her in 1893 and formed a provisional government; Hawaii was declared a republic in 1894.
The Events Led Up & Triggered WW1
Nationalism was a significant cause of World War I. In the years prior to war, many Europeans nurtured a firm belief in the cultural, economic and military supremacy of their nation. Imperialism is a system where a powerful nation rules and exploits one or more colonies (collectively known as an empire). In most cases the imperialist nation establishes control over new territory by coercion. The German army officer described militarism as the “domination of the military man over the civilian, an undue preponderance of military demands, an emphasis on military considerations”. An alliance is a formal political, military or economic agreement between two or more nations. Militarism, nationalism and imperialism were intrinsically connected. In the 19th and early 20th centuries military forces were considered a manifestation of national and imperial strength. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, 1914 led us up to WW1. They shoot him alone with his wife on June 28, 1914 by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. June 28 was also Franz Ferdinand’s wedding anniversary. His beloved wife, Sophie, a former lady-in-waiting, was denied royal status in Austria due to her birth as a poor Czech aristocrat, as were the couple’s children. On August 1, 1914, four days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, two more great European powers—Russia and Germany—declare war on each other; the same day, France orders a general mobilization.
America Mobilizes & New Kind of War
America for 3 years reveled in its moral superiority, staying out of the European war. There was no great public demand for involvement. Most Americans wanted no part of the War, a sentiment that was particularly strong in the geavily German populated Mid-West. Unlike Europe, however, American had no reserve force to quickly mobilize. The Selective Service Act was enacted on May 18, 1917 requiring all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register with locally administered draft boards for military conscription by national lottery. The age limits for the draft were later extended to include all men from ages 18 to 45. President Woodrow Wilson reluctantly accepted the recommendation for the new draft law by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. The law was drafted by General Enoch H. Crowder, the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, and Captain Hugh Johnson. The Selective Service Act, aka or Selective Draft Act, was canceled with the end of World War 1 in November, 1918. The machine gun, which so came to dominate and even to personify the battlefields of World War One, was a fairly primitive device when general war began in August 1914. Machine guns of all armies were largely of the heavy variety and decidedly ill-suited to portability for use by rapidly advancing infantry troops. Each weighed somewhere in the 30kg-60kg range - often without their mountings, carriages and supplies. As war broke out across Europe in August 1914, Britain had very few military airships. While Germany had invested time, money and faith in airship development, Britain had a handful of non-rigid and semi-rigid experimental (and foreign) airships with just 195 airship personnel. Germany on the other hand had ten tried-and-tested airships operated by both the German Navy and Army. The French were actually the first to utilise them in conflict, when they attempted to use tear gas against the German army in August 1914. The precise agent used seems to be uncertain, with both xylyl bromide and ethyl bromoacetate being mentioned; both are colourless liquids, with the former having an odour described as ‘pleasant and aromatic’, and the latter being described as ‘fruity and pungent’. These tear gases weren’t designed to kill; rather, to incapacitate the enemy and render them unable to defend their positions. Tanks in WW1 played an extremely important role as they increased mobility on the Western Front and eventually broke the stalemate of trench warfare.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th American President, led America through World War I and crafted the Versailles Treaty's "Fourteen Points," the last of which was creating a League of Nations to ensure world peace. Wilson also created the Federal Reserve and supported the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote. Also served in office from March 4, 1913 to March 4, 1921. One of the important events during his presidency was the Selective Service Act. Woodrow Wilson, born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia. He died at the age of 67, on February 3, 1924. He was buried in the Washington National Cathedral.
End Of The War
The final Allied push towards the German border began on October 17, 1918. As the British, French and American armies advanced, the alliance between the Central Powers began to collapse. Turkey signed an armistice at the end of October, Austria-Hungary followed on November 3. German Republic was declared and peace feelers extended to the Allies. At 5 AM on the morning of November 11 an armistice was signed in a railroad car parked in a French forest near the front lines. The terms of the agreement called for the cessation of fighting along the entire Western Front to begin at precisely 11 AM that morning. After over four years of bloody conflict, the Great War was at an end. In an address before a joint meeting of Congress, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson discusses the aims of the United States in World War 1 and outlines his 14 Points for achieving a lasting peace in Europe on January 8, 1918. World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. The treaty, negotiated between January and June 1919 in Paris, was written by the Allies with almost no participation by the Germans. The negotiations revealed a split between the French, who wanted to dismember Germany to make it impossible for it to renew war with France, and the British and Americans, who did not want to create pretexts for a new war. March 19, 1920 Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles for second and finally time by a vote of 49-35, falling seven votes short of a two-thirds majority needed for approval. The Treaty of Versailles was a formal peace between the World War 1 Allies and Germany. A treaty between the Untied States and Germany, signed on August 25, 1921, to restore friendly relations existing between the two nations to war.
General John J. Pershing
U.S. Army general John J. Pershing (1860-1948) commanded the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War I. The president and first captain of the West Point class of 1886, he served in the Spanish and Philippine, American Wars and was tasked to lead a raid against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson selected Pershing to command the American troops being sent to Europe. Although Pershing aimed to maintain the independence of the AEF, his willingness to integrate into Allied operations helped bring about the armistice with Germany. After the war, Pershing served as army chief of staff from 1921 to 1924. Returning to the military academy as a tactical officer in 1897, he was nicknamed “Nigger Jack,” or “Black Jack,” by cadets who resented his iron discipline.