Warfare of the Great War

Most of the fighting during World War I was carried out by land armies in Europe. Naval forces were used primarily to prevent food and supplies from reaching their destinations. Airplanes were also used in a major military campaign for the first time during World War I, although they played a small role in the war’s outcome.

A Land Warfare

Most of the decisive land campaigns of World War I occurred on the continent of Europe. The two chief centers of operations were the western front and the eastern front. On the western front, German armies confronted those of the British Empire, France, Belgium, and, later, the United States. Most of the fighting on this front took place in northeastern France. The trenches of the western front ran from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. On the eastern front, where German and Austro-Hungarian armies faced the Russians, the fighting began in the frontier regions between Germany and Poland (then divided among the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and German Empires) and between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Gradually the battle lines moved eastward and northeastward, deep into Russian territory.

A subsidiary theater of war in Europe was the alpine frontier between Italy and Austria-Hungary, where the two countries fought each other after Italy joined the Allies in the spring of 1915. Another subsidiary theater was the Balkan Peninsula, where Serbia, Romania, and the Greek-held area of Salonika (see Thessalonнki) were successively the scenes of local campaigns.

Since the major participants in the war had colonial empires in Africa, Asia, and what is now called the Middle East, the war quickly spread to those parts of the world. Although Germany was a late entry in the race for overseas colonies, it had obtained the rudiments of a colonial empire in Africa, including Togo, Cameroon, German South-West Africa, and German East Africa. It also had an assortment of islands in the Pacific Ocean, including the Marshall, Mariana, and Caroline islands; German New Guinea; the Bismarck Archipelago; the Solomon Islands; and Samoa. Germany also possessed a land grant with special economic and residence rights at Kiaochow (Jiaozhou) on China's Shantung (Shandong) Peninsula.

At the outbreak of war in Europe, British, French, Belgian, and South African military forces invaded German possessions in Africa. Japan seized Germany's island possessions north of the equator while Australia and New Zealand took control of the German islands to the south. The remnants of the Ottoman Empire, located in the area later known as the Middle East, came under military attack from British forces based in Egypt.

World War I saw advances in the area of battlefield weapons. At the start of the war, the principal infantry weapon was the bolt-action magazine rifle, which was capable of firing 6 to 10 aimed shots per minute The machine gun, which had been developed in the 1880s, was just gaining acceptance by the major European armies as the war began. It could fire rifle ammunition automatically at a rate of 200 to 250 shots per minute. It was an excellent defensive weapon, capable of devastating waves of cavalry and infantry. Other important weapons developed during the war were the flamethrower, the hand grenade, poison gas, and the tank. All these weapons were designed to restore mobility to the troops huddled in the trenches avoiding machine gun and heavy artillery fire.

B Naval Warfare

Naval operations were carried out primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the North Sea. At the start of the war, Britain had decisive superiority in heavy battleships, which were the cornerstone of sea power at that time. But Germany eventually challenged British dominance of the seas with its submarine, or U-Boat, campaign.

The war at sea was mainly important economically. The Allies were concerned