![]() ![]() The naval blockade was keeping food shipments from reaching the country. The Ottomans gave up on the same day.īy this time, the German people were starving. On October 30 the Austrians asked for a cease-fire (an end to fighting). The Bulgarians gave up on September 29, 1918. By November, they had driven back the Germans to the battle lines of 1914. After the Second Battle of the Marne, in July 1918, the Allies had taken control of the war. However, the German troops were worn out. The Germans had some success at the Second Battle of the Somme. They staged several attacks against the British and French to weaken them before the Americans arrived in force. ![]() The Germans knew that the Americans were building up forces. In 1918 the situation changed, as nearly 10,000 U.S. In 1918 they took Syria as well.ĭuring the winter of 1917–18, there were more German soldiers than Allied soldiers on the Western Front. Later that year, the British took Palestine. In 1915 British-led troops tried and failed to take Baghdad (now the capital of Iraq). When the war began, the Ottoman Empire ruled Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). The Italians lost many soldiers fighting the Austrians. Allied troops from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand tried to stop the Ottomans on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula, but they failed. However, the Allies made little progress until the end of the war.Īt the end of 1914 the Ottoman Empire (centered in what is now Turkey) joined the Central Powers. An Allied force landed at Salonika (now Thessaloníki) in Greece to help the Serbs. The troops of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria took Serbia. The Germans responded to the Russian advance with a crushing blow at the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. In 1914 Russian armies pushed west into Germany and Austria-Hungary. Armies moved faster on the Eastern Front. The British first used tanks in 1916 at the First Battle of the Somme.īattlefields east of Germany were called the Eastern Front. Tanks used crawler tracks to move themselves through trenches and barbed wire. The British invented an armored car called a tank. Soldiers got gas masks for protection against them. Both sides then tried other chemical weapons. In April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used a poison gas called chlorine against Allied troops. The French and the Germans fought another long battle near the French town of Verdun in 1916.īoth sides tried new ways to break through trench defenses. They gained only about 5 miles (8 kilometers) of ground. More than 600,000 soldiers on each side were killed, wounded, or captured. The First Battle of the Somme took place near the Somme River in France from July to November. Soldiers fought two of the war’s worst battles on the Western Front in 1916. Both sides used rapid-firing machine guns against anyone who tried to get across the no-man’s land. A “no-man’s land” covered with barbed wire lay between the trenches. The soldiers stayed in these trenches for protection. The trenches stretched from the coast of Belgium to the border of Switzerland. Each side dug long trenches into the ground. The armies on the Western Front then began four years of trench warfare. But in September 1914 the Allies forced back the Germans at the First Battle of the Marne, near the Marne River in France. The Germans had hoped for an easy victory on the Western Front. Italy did not go to war at first.īattlefields west of Germany were called the Western Front. The Triple Alliance became the Central Powers, and the Triple Entente became the Allies. Within a few weeks most of the countries of Europe were at war. Their group was called the Triple Entente. Russia’s friends were France and the United Kingdom (Great Britain). Serbia was a small country, but Russia protected it. Their group was called the Triple Alliance. Austria-Hungary’s friends were Germany and Italy. Both countries asked for help from their friends. On July 28 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Austria-Hungary accused Serbia of planning the crime. On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian Serb shot and killed the Austro-Hungarian emperor’s nephew, Archduke Francis Ferdinand. They wanted Serbs living in Bosnia to break free of Austro-Hungarian control. Serbian patriots wanted all Serbs to unite. For many years, Austria-Hungary and its neighbor Serbia had been unfriendly. Sarajevo was the capital of Bosnia, a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A murder in the city of Sarajevo led to the war.
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