On the morning of August 4, German troops crossed the Belgian frontier hoping to quickly invade France. The British were outraged and declared war to protect Belgian neutrality. The war that most people in Europe both wanted and dreaded had started.  The initial reaction was one of enthusiasm although not by everyone. Many rushed to join the armies, wanting to participate in the war before it was over; most people had thought that the war would end by Christmas 1914. The entire population of young men from local villages enlisted for the war.

Figure 4: German Soldiers Off to Fight in 1914

After a slow but successful invasion of Belgium, the Germans quickly advanced through northern France. However, just before they reached Paris, they ran out of r supply lines which the French targeted to slow down and eventually stop the German offensive. The British rushed troops over into France. In response to the relatively equally matched forces, the British used a system of trenches, developed from the Swiss Alps to English Channel, that gradually grew in complexity and scope until it became nearly impossible for attacks to succeed. The Battle of the Marne was a French and British operation that finally stopped the German offensive into France. As neither side could displace the other, a system of trench warfare began developing. It also dawned on those involved in the combat that the war would be much longer and most deadlier than many had anticipated. Still, the battle saved the French from certain defeat by ensuring that the war would last much longer and millions of soldiers would die in the battle line.

Donald Fraser of Canada remembers: Tonight we had our introduction to dug-out life. The dug-outs were small, damp and cold and overrun with rats. It is needless to add once a fighting soldier leaves England he practically sleeps in his clothes till he gets back there again. Taking off our boots, there were three of us in the dug-out, we lay down between our waterproof sheet and overcoat and snatched as many winks as we could. There is a change of sentry every two hours, so the chances are you get wakened up between the shifts, either by your mate getting up or coming in or being wakened by mistake for guard….Tonight we had our introduction to dug-out life. The dug-outs were small, damp and cold and overrun with rats. It is needless to add once a fighting soldier leaves England he practically sleeps in his clothes till he gets back there again. Taking off our boots, there were three of us in the dug-out, we lay down between our waterproof sheet and overcoat and snatched as many winks as we could. There is a change of sentry every two hours, so the chances are you get wakened up between the shifts, either by your mate getting up or coming in or being wakened by mistake for guard.”

The Battle of Verdun was a massive German offensive found from February 21 to December 18, 1916 in which the Germans attacked the French fortifications at Verdun. The Germans realized their numerical superiority and simply wanted to clobber the French to the point of surrender. However, French built a series of defensive lines and brought in large numbers of reinforcements to delay the German advance. Both the Germans and the French lost over three hundred thousand soldiers.

Figure 5: French Soldiers charging at entrenched positions

Battle of the Somme was a British attack designed to relieve the pressure on the French forces at Verdun. Starting in September, 1916, the British concentrated their manpower and fire on the German lines. After the failure of a chlorinate attack, the mostly British forces gained two miles of ground at the expense of 61,000 dead, captured or wounded in a single day. Over the course of the attack, the Germans killed, wounded or captured 250,000 British soldiers making it costly for the British army. In the end, a total of over one million men were killed or wounded, in one of the bloodiest battles in history. Even so, the British General Haig remarked: This cannot be considered severe in view of the large number engaged and the length of front attacked. The British and French were able to seize about six miles of German territory before being repulsed.

Figure 6: A British Trench at the Somme

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun In the wild purple of the glowering sun, Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, Men jostle and climb to, meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, They leave their trenches, going over the top, While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!Source:From Siegfried Sassoon, Collected Poems (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1918)

All Quiet on the Western Front: The air becomes acrid with the smoke of the guns and the fog. The fumes of powder taste bitter on the tongue. The roar of the guns makes our lorry stagger, the reverberation rolls raging away to the rear, everything quakes. Our faces change imperceptibly. We are not, indeed, in the front-line, but only in the reserves, yet in every face can be read: This is the Front, now we are within its embrace.It is not fear. Men who have been up as often as we have become thick skinned. Only the young recruits are agitated. Kat explains to them: “That was a twelve-inch. You hear the explosion first and afterwards comes the sound of the gun.”But the hollow sound of the firing does not reach us. It is swallowed up in the general murmur of the front. Kat listens: “There’ll be a bombardment to-night.” At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. One cannot explain it. A man is walking along without thought or heed;– suddenly he throws himself down on the ground and a storm of fragments flies harmlessly over him;-yet he cannot remember either to have heard the shell coming or to have thought of flinging himself down. But had he not abandoned himself to the impulse he would now be a heap of mangled flesh. It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how. If it were not so, there would not be one man alive from Flanders to the Vosges.

The Gallipoli Campaign took place from 1915 to 1916. The Allies hoped that an attack on the Ottoman Empire would result in their removal from the war and a major, and much needed coup, for the Allied forces. The Allies also hoped to seize the Dardanelles Straits and use the resulting access to the Black Sea to assist the Russian War effort. With a colonial mentality by the Allies underestimating the strength of the Ottoman Empire, the campaign was doomed. Mines sank several British warships and the Allies landed further from Istanbul than they planned. Despite heavy casualties, the Allied forces, consisting largely of Australian and New Zealand soldiers, landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula but remained pinned down there. The bloody and intense fighting resulted more than 250,000 casualties, including some 46,000 dead for the Allies and the same number of dead for the Turks. The evacuation of the peninsula started in December and was completed in January with no territory gained for the Allied side.

Figure 7: Australian Troops at Gallipoli