The Great War: The First World War

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The Great War
It has been taught for some time that the First World War was a European conflict, and thought it began in Europe limiting the war’s scope to one continent alone neglects a large number of soldiers’ contributions to the fight. The popular images of the war’s origins are “European statesmen sliding into a war that nobody wanted” (Lieber 155). The First World War was fought between two groups formed from alliances of several major nations. The aggressor side was known as the Central Powers, it consisted of an alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The Germans “provoked a war to achieve their goal of dominating the European continent”; the war would be preventative, to “forestall a situation where Germany …show more content…
Germany enacted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, which would attack any ship aiding the war effort of Britain (Cole and Symes 828). This included merchant ships, and resulted in the sinking of the Lusitania. The Lusitania was a cruise ship sunk by German U-boats in the year 1915. However, the United States continued to delay entry into the war for another two years until the Zimmermann Telegraph was intercepted by the British, decoded, and sent to the United States (Alexander 266). The telegraph was sent from the German foreign minister to the German Minister to Mexico and proposed that, “we… make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you…” (Zimmermann). In the month following the publication of the Zimmermann Telegraph, the United States mobilized for war (Alexander 266). Troops landed in the summer of 1918, and by that November the war was …show more content…
Both world wars would break out during Britain’s eighty-nine year rule of the nation. As a result, one and a half million Indian troops were put into service for the First World War and were sent to fight in battles around the world in places like Mesopotamia and Persia (Cole and Symes 813). Australia on the other hand would have a desire to fight in the war, as they were eager to support their mother land. On August 4, 1914, “Britain declared war upon Germany, the whole of the Australian people was behind its Government in offering unreserved help” (Bean 18). In this way, the colonial armies contributed to the war effort.
Both of these colonial armies fought alongside each other during the Gallipoli Campaign. The Gallipoli peninsula is situated between modern-day Bulgaria and Turkey, placing it under the control of the Ottoman Empire. During this battle, the Allied Powers sought to provide aid to their ally Russia as well as to remove the Ottomans from the war. The battle lasted for eight and a half months, and resulted in failure for the Allied powers, and a victory for the Ottoman Empire that enabled it to stay in the
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