Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
Colour	#DEDEE2
Name	Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr.
Series	Indiana Jones
First	''Raiders of the Lost Ark''
Latest	''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull''
Creator	George LucasSteven Spielberg
Portrayer	Films:Harrison Ford (ages 36–58)River Phoenix (age 13)TV series:Neil Boulane (baby)Corey Carrier (ages 8–10)Sean Patrick Flanery (ages 16–21)George Hall (age 93)Video games:Doug Lee (voice)David Esch (voice)
Birthdate	July 1st, 1899
Birthplace	New Jersey (U.S.)
Nickname	IndianaIndyHenri DefenseMungo KidogoCaptain Dynamite, Scourge of the KaiserJonesy
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Occupation	ArchaeologistAssociate deanCollege professorSoldierSpy
Title	DoctorColonel
Education	University of Chicago
Family	Henry Walton Jones, Sr. (father, deceased)Anna Mary Jones (mother, deceased)Susie Jones (sister, deceased)
Spouse	Deirdre Campbell Jones (1926)Marion Ravenwood Jones (1957–present)
Children	Henry Walton "Mutt" Jones IIISon
Relatives	Pete (uncle)Fred (uncle)Grace Jones (aunt)Frank (cousin)Caroline (granddaughter, probably via his daughter)Henry Walton "Spike" Jones IV (grandson, probably via Mutt)Lucy (granddaughter, probably via his daughter)Annie Jones (great-granddaughter, probably via Mutt)Henry Walton "Harry" Jones V (great-grandson, probably via Mutt)
Nationality	American
Religion	Christian}}

Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is the central protagonist of the ''Indiana Jones'' franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials. The character first appeared in the 1981 film ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'', to be followed by ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'' in 1984, ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' in 1989, ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' from 1992 to 1996, and ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' in 2008. Alongside the more widely known films and television programs, the character is also featured in novels, comics, video games, and other media. Jones is also featured in the theme park attraction ''Indiana Jones Adventure'', which exists in similar forms at Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.

Jones is most famously played by Harrison Ford and has also been portrayed by River Phoenix (as the young Jones in ''The Last Crusade''), and in the television series ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' by Corey Carrier, Sean Patrick Flanery, and George Hall. Doug Lee has supplied Jones's voice to two LucasArts video games, ''Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis'' and ''Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine'', while David Esch supplied his voice to ''Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb''.

Particularly notable facets of the character include his iconic look (bullwhip, fedora, and leather jacket), sense of humor, deep knowledge of many ancient civilizations and languages, and fear of snakes.

Indiana Jones remains one of cinema's most revered movie characters. In 2003, he was ranked as the second greatest movie hero of all time by the American Film Institute. He was also named the sixth greatest movie character by ''Empire'' magazine. ''Entertainment Weekly'' ranked Indy 2nd on their list of ''The All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture''. ''Premiere'' magazine also placed Indy at number 7 on their list of ''The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time''. Since his first appearance in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'', he has become a worldwide star. On their list of the ''100 Greatest Fictional Characters'', Fandomania.com ranked Indy at number 10. In 2010, he ranked #2 on ''Time'' Magazine's list of the greatest fictional characters of all time, surpassed only by Sherlock Holmes.

Appearances

Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, was first introduced in the 1981 film ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'', set in 1936. The character is presented as an adventurer reminiscent of the 1930s film serial treasure hunters and pulp action heroes, whose research is funded by Marshall College (named after producer Frank Marshall) a fictional college in Connecticut, where he is a professor of archaeology. His students are predominantly female. In this first adventure, he is pitted against the Nazis, traveling the world to prevent them from recovering the Ark of the Covenant (see also Biblical archaeology). He is aided by Marion Ravenwood and Sallah. The Nazis are led by Jones's archrival, a Nazi-sympathizing French archaeologist named René Belloq, and Arnold Toht, a sinister Gestapo agent.

The 1984 prequel, ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'', set in 1935, took the character into a more horror-oriented story, skipping his legitimate teaching job and globe trotting, and taking place almost entirely in India. This time, Jones attempts to recover children and the Sankara stones from the bloodthirsty Thuggee cult. He is aided by Short Round and accompanied by Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw).

The third film, 1989's ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'', set in 1938, returned to the formula of the original, reintroducing characters such as Sallah and Marcus Brody, a scene from Professor Jones's classroom (he now teaches at Barnett College), the globe trotting element of multiple locations, and the return of the infamous Nazi mystics, this time trying to find the Holy Grail. The film's introduction, set in 1912, provided some back story to the character, specifically the origin of his fear of snakes, his use of a bullwhip, the scar on his chin, and his hat; the film's epilogue also reveals that "Indiana" is not Jones's first name, but a nickname he took from the family dog. The film was a buddy movie of sorts, teaming Jones with his father, often to comical effect. Although Lucas intended at the time to do five films, this ended up being the last for over eighteen years, as Lucas could not think of a good plot element to drive the next installment.

The 2008 film, ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'', became the latest film in the series. Set in 1957, 19 years after the third film, it pits an older, wiser Indiana Jones against Soviet agents bent on harnessing the power of a crystal skull discovered in South America by his former colleague Harold Oxley (John Hurt). He is aided in his adventure by an old lover, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and her son—a young greaser named Henry "Mutt" Williams (Shia LaBeouf), later revealed to be his biological child, Henry Jones III. There were rumors that LaBeouf will take over the Indy franchise. This film also reveals that Jones was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (a predecessor department to the CIA) during World War II, attaining the rank of Colonel and running covert operations with MI6 agent George McHale on the Soviet Union.

Television

From 1992 to 1996, George Lucas executive-produced a television series named ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'', which was designed as an educational program for children, spotlighting historical figures and important events, using the concept of a prequel to the films as a draw. The show featured a standard formula of a 93-year-old Jones (George Hall), wearing an eye patch, introducing a story, and then an adventure with either a 17-year-old Jones (Sean Patrick Flanery) or a 10-year-old Jones (Corey Carrier), and even a baby Indy (Neil Boulane). Historical figures featured on the show include Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Leo Tolstoy, Pancho Villa, Charles de Gaulle, Elliot Ness, Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Pearse, Vladimir Lenin, T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Herman Göring, Theodore Roosevelt, Manfred von Richthofen, and John Ford, in such diverse locations as Egypt, Austria-Hungary, India, China, and the whole of Europe.

One episode, "Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues", is bookended by Harrison Ford, reprising his role as the character. Indiana loses one of his eyes sometime between 1957 and when the "Old Indy" segments take place.

The show provided some backstory for the films, as well as new information regarding the character. He was born July 1, 1899, and his middle name is Walton (Lucas's middle name). It is also mentioned that he had a sister called Suzie who died as an infant of fever, and that he eventually has a daughter and grandchildren who appear in some episode introductions and epilogues. His relationship with his father, first introduced in ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'', was further fleshed out with stories about his travels with his father as a young boy. A large portion of the series centered around his activities during World War I.

In 1999, Lucas removed the episode introductions and epilogues by George Hall for the VHS and DVD releases, as he re-edited the episodes into chronologically ordered feature-length stories. The series title was also changed to ''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones''.

Video games

The character has appeared in several officially licensed games, including Lego Indiana Jones video games, beginning with adaptations of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'', ''Temple of Doom'', two adaptations of ''The Last Crusade'' (one with purely action mechanics, one with an adventure and puzzle based structure) and Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures which included the storylines from all three of the original films.

Following this, the games branched off into original storylines with Indiana Jones in the Lost Kingdom, ''Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis'', ''Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine'', ''Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb'' and ''Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings''. ''Emperor's Tomb'' sets up Jones's companion Wu Han and the search for Nurhaci's ashes seen at the beginning of ''Temple of Doom''. The first two games were developed by Hal Barwood and starred Doug Lee as the voice of Indiana Jones; ''Emperor's Tomb'' had David Esch fill the role and ''Staff of Kings'' starred John Armstrong.

There is also a small game from Lucas Arts ''Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures''. A video game was made for young Indy called ''Young Indiana Jones and the Instruments of Chaos'', as well as a video game version of ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles''.

Two Lego Indiana Jones games have also been released. ''Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures'' was released in 2008 and follows the plots of the first three films. It was followed by ''LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues'' in late 2009. The sequel includes an abbreviated reprise of the first three films, but focuses on the plot of ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull''.

Indiana Jones has also made cameo appearances as an unlockable character in the games ''Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction'' and ''Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga''.

Theme parks

Indiana Jones is featured at several Walt Disney theme park attractions. The Indiana Jones Adventure attractions at Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea ("Temple of the Forbidden Eye" and "Temple of the Crystal Skull," respectively) place Indy at the forefront of two similar archaeological discoveries. These two temples each contain a wrathful deity who threatens the guests who ride through in World War II troop transports. The attractions, some of the most expensive of their kind at the time, opened in 1995 and 2001, respectively, with sole design credit attributed to Walt Disney Imagineering. Disney did not license Harrison Ford's likeness for the North American version; nevertheless, a differentiated Indiana Jones audio-animatronic character appears at three points in both attractions. However, the Indiana Jones featured in the DisneySea version does use Harrison Ford's likeness but uses Japanese audio for all of his speaking parts. In 2010, some of the Indy audio-animatronics at the Disneyland version have been replaced and now resemble Ford.

Disneyland Resort Paris also features an Indiana Jones-titled ride where people speed off through ancient ruins in a runaway mine wagon similar to that found in ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom''. ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril'' is a looping roller coaster engineered by Intamin AG, designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, and opened in 1993.

The ''Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!'' is a live show that has been presented in the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park of the Walt Disney World Resort with few changes since the park's 1989 opening under a different name. The 25-minute show presents various stunts framed in the context of a feature film production, and recruits members of the audience to participate in the show. Stunt artists in the show re-create and ultimately reveal some of the secrets of the stunts of the ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' films, including the well-known "running-from-the-boulder" scene. Stunt performer Anislav Varbanov was fatally injured in August 2009, while rehearsing the popular show. Also at Disney's Hollywood Studios, an audio-animatronic Indiana Jones appears in another attraction; during the The Great Movie Ride's ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' segment.

Character description and formation

In his role as a college professor of archaeology, Henry Jones Jr. is scholarly and learned in a tweed suit, lecturing on ancient civilizations. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it is revealed that Jones is influenced by the Marxist Archaeologist, Vere Gordon Childe, whose qualified acceptance of cultural diffusionism theory he propounds. Ironically, though Childe loathes fieldwork, Indy goes on to say, "If you want to be a good archaeologist, you gotta get out of the library." This is in tongue-in-cheek contrast to the previous film's comment, "Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library."

However, at the opportunity to recover important artifacts, Dr. Jones transforms into "Indiana," a "non-superhero superhero" image he has concocted for himself. Producer Frank Marshall said, "Indy [is] a fallible character. He makes mistakes and gets hurt. [...] That's the other thing people like: He's a real character, not a character with superpowers." Spielberg said there "was the willingness to allow our leading man to get hurt and to express his pain and to get his mad out and to take pratfalls and sometimes be the butt of his own jokes. I mean, Indiana Jones is not a perfect hero, and his imperfections, I think, make the audience feel that, with a little more exercise and a little more courage, they could be just like him." According to Spielberg biographer Douglas Brode, Indiana created his heroic figure so as to escape the dullness of teaching at a school. Both of Indiana's personas reject one another in philosophy, creating a duality. Harrison Ford said the fun of playing the character was because Indiana is both a romantic and a cynic, while scholars have analyzed Indiana as having traits of a lone wolf; a man on a quest; a noble treasure hunter; a hardboiled detective; a human superhero; and an American patriot.

Like many characters in his films, Jones has some autobiographical elements of Spielberg. Indiana lacks a proper father figure because of his strained relationship with his father, Henry Senior. His own contained anger is misdirected at the likes of Professor Abner Ravenwood, his mentor at the University of Chicago, leading to a strained relationship with Marion Ravenwood. The teenage Indiana bases his own look on a figure from the prologue of ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'', after being given his hat. Marcus Brody acts as Indiana's positive role model at the college. Indiana's own insecurities are made worse by the absence of his mother. In ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'', the character becomes the father in a temporary family unit with Willie Scott and Short Round to survive. Indiana is rescued from the evil of Kali by Short Round's dedication. Indiana also saves many children from slavery.

Because of Indiana's strained relationship with his father, who was absent much of Indiana's youth searching for the Holy Grail, the character does not pursue the more spiritual aspects of the cultures he studies. Indiana uses his knowledge of Shiva to ultimately defeat Mola Ram. In ''Raiders'', however, he is wise enough to close his eyes in the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant. By contrast, his rival Rene Belloq dies horribly for having the audacity to try to communicate directly with God.

In ''Crusade'''s prologue, Indiana's intentions are revealed as prosocial, as he believes artifacts "belong in a museum." In the film's climax, Indiana undergoes "literal" tests of faith to retrieve the Grail and save his father's life. He also remembers Jesus as a historical figure – a humble carpenter – rather than an exalted figure when he recognizes the simple nature and tarnished appearance of the real Grail amongst a large assortment of much more ornately decorated ones. Henry Senior rescues his son from falling to his death when reaching for the fallen Grail, telling him to "let it go," overcoming his mercenary nature. ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' explains how Indiana becomes solitary and less idealistic after fighting in World War I. In ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'', Jones is older and wiser, whereas his sidekicks Mutt and Mac are youthfully arrogant and greedy, respectively.

Origins and inspirations

Indiana Jones is modeled after the strong-jawed heroes of the matinée serials and pulp magazines that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg enjoyed in their childhoods (such as the Republic Pictures serials, and the Doc Savage series). Sir H. Rider Haggard's safari guide/big game hunter Allan Quatermain of ''King Solomon's Mines'', who dates back to 1885, is a notable template for Jones. The two friends first discussed the project in Hawaii around the time of the release of the first ''Star Wars'' film. Spielberg told Lucas how he wanted his next project to be something fun, like perhaps a James Bond film. According to sources, Lucas responded to the effect that he had something "even better," or that he "got that beat."

The other clear basis for "Indiana" Jones is Professor Challenger, Professor George Challenger, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1912 for his novel, ''The Lost World''. Doyle based Prof. Challenger on his old physiology professor, Sir William Rutherford. As an adventuring academic, albeit a zoologist/anthropologist, Professor Challenger is the clear and singular inspiration for "Indiana" Jones. However, it appears the primary source for Indiana Jones was Charlton Heston's character of Harry Steele in "Secret of the Incas", Paramount, 1954.

The character was originally named "Indiana Smith" (perhaps in a nod to the 1966 Western film ''Nevada Smith''), after an Alaskan Malamute Lucas owned in the 1970s ("Indiana"); however, Spielberg disliked the name "Smith," and Lucas casually suggested "Jones" as an alternative based off the archaeologist Vendell Jones. Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis said the inspiration for Indiana's outfit was Charlton Heston's Harry Steele in ''Secret of the Incas'': "We did watch this film together as a crew several times, and I always thought it strange that the filmmakers did not credit it later as the inspiration for the series."

Upon requests by Spielberg and Lucas, the costume designer gave the character a distinctive silhouette through the styling of the hat; after examining many hats, the designers chose a tall-crowned, wide-brimmed fedora. As a documentary of ''Raiders'' pointed out, the hat served a practical purpose. Following the lead of the old "B"-movies that inspired the ''Indiana Jones'' series, the fedora hid the actor's face sufficiently to allow doubles to perform the more dangerous stunts seamlessly. Examples in ''Raiders'' include the wider-angle shot of Indy and Marion crashing a statue through a wall, and Indy sliding under a fast-moving vehicle from front to back. Thus it was necessary for the hat to stay in place much of the time.

The hat became so iconic that the filmmakers could only come up with very good reasons or jokes to remove it. If it ever fell off during a take, filming would have to stop to put it back on. In jest, Ford put a stapler against his head to stop his from falling off when a documentary crew visited during shooting of ''The Last Crusade''. This created the urban legend that Ford stapled the hat to his head. Although other hats were also used throughout the movies, the general style and profile remained the same. Elements of the outfit include: The fedora was supplied by Herbert Johnson Hatters in England for the first three films. It was referred to as "The Australian Model" by costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis and was fitted with a Petersham bow. Indy's fedora for ''Crystal Skull'' was made by Steve Delk and Marc Kitter of the Adventurebilt Hat Company.

The leather jacket, a hybrid of the "Type 440" and the A-2 jacket, were made by Leather Concessionaires (now known as Wested Leather Co) for ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' and ''The Last Crusade''. For ''Temple of Doom'', jackets were made in-house at Bermans & Nathans in London based on a stunt jacket they provided for Raiders of The Lost Ark. Tony Nowak made the jacket in ''Kingdom of the Crystal Skull''.

The bag was a modified Mark VII British gas mask bag, usually worn under the jacket with the exception of Crystal Skull where the bag was inexplicably worn over the jacket.

The whip was a bullwhip crafted by David Morgan for the first three films. The whips for ''Crystal Skull'' were crafted by a variety of people, including Terry Jacka, Joe Strain and Morgan (different lengths and styles were likely used in specific stunts). The pistol was usually a World War I-era revolver, including the Webley Government (''Last Crusade'' and ''Crystal Skull''), or a .45 ACP Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector 2nd model revolver (''Raiders''). He has also used an M1917 revolver (''Temple of Doom''), a Nagant M1895 (''Young Indiana Jones''), and a 9 mm Browning Hi-Power (''Raiders''). The weapon is carried in a military pattern flap holster. The shoes were made by Alden. A stock style that had been a favorite of Ford's before the movies, they are still sold today (though in a redder (brick) shade of brown than seen in the movies) and are popularly known as "Indy Boots."

Jones's fedora and leather jacket (as used in ''The Last Crusade'') are on display at the Smithsonian's American History Museum in Washington, D.C. The collection of props and clothing from the films has become a thriving hobby for some aficionados of the franchise. Jones' whip was the third most popular film weapon, as shown by a 2008 poll held by 20th Century Fox, which surveyed approximately two thousand film fans.

Casting

Originally, Spielberg suggested Harrison Ford; Lucas resisted the idea, since he had already cast the actor in three of his movies (''American Graffiti'', ''Star Wars'', and ''The Empire Strikes Back''), and did not want Ford to become known as his "Bobby De Niro" (in reference to the fact that fellow director Martin Scorsese regularly cast Robert De Niro in his films). During an intensive casting process, Lucas and Spielberg auditioned many actors, and finally cast then little-known actor Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones. Shortly afterward pre-production began in earnest on ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''.

However, CBS refused to release Selleck from his contractual commitment to ''Magnum, P.I.'' (which was gradually gaining momentum in the ratings), forcing him to turn down the role. One of CBS's concerns was that shooting for ''Magnum P.I.'' conflicted with shooting for ''Raiders'', both of which were to begin about the same time. However, Selleck was to say later in an interview that shooting for ''Magnum P.I.'' was delayed and did not actually begin until shooting for ''Raiders'' had concluded. Sadly for Selleck, he could have finished his participation in ''Raiders'' and still had time to return for ''Magnum''.

After Spielberg suggested Ford again, Lucas gave in, and Ford was cast in the role less than three weeks before filming of ''Raiders'' began.

Models

Many people are said to be the real-life inspiration of the Indiana Jones character—although none of the following have been confirmed as inspirations by George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. There are some suggestions, listed here In alphabetical order by last name: Beloit College professor and paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews. Italian archaeologist and circus strongman Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778–1823). Yale University professor, historian, and explorer Hiram Bingham III, who rediscovered and excavated the lost city of Machu Picchu, and chronicled his find in the bestselling book ''The Lost City of the Incas'' in 1948. University of Chicago archaeologist Robert Braidwood. University of Chicago archaeologist James Henry Breasted. The British archaeologist Percy Fawcett, who spent much of his life exploring the jungles of northern Brazil, and who was last seen in 1925 returning to the Amazon Basin to look for the Lost City Of Z. A fictionalized version of Fawcett appears to Jones in the book ''Indiana Jones And The Seven Veils''. British archaeologist and soldier T. E. Lawrence. The Northwestern University anthropologist, professor and adventurer William Montgomery McGovern. Frederick Albert Mitchell-Hedges. German archaeologist Otto Rahn.

George Lucas has said on various occasions that Sean Connery's portrayal of British secret agent James Bond was one of the primary inspirations for Jones, a reason Connery was chosen for the role of Indiana's father in the third film, ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade''.

Influence

Though some archaeologists criticize Indy's methods as befitting a "looter" rather more than a careful worker of precious sites, many have adopted the popular figure as something of a standard-bearer for their profession. The industry magazine ''Archaeology'', believing that Jones, as one editor said, was "a horrible archaeologist but a great diplomat for archaeology," named eight past and current archaeologists who they felt "embodied [Jones'] spirit" as recipients of the "Indy Spirit Awards" in 2008. That same year Ford himself was elected to the Board of Directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. Commenting that "understanding the past can only help us in dealing with the present and the future," Ford was praised by the association's president for his character's "significant role in stimulating the public's interest in archaeological exploration."

While himself a homage to various prior adventurers, aspects of Indiana Jones also directly influenced some subsequent characterizations: Lara Croft, the female archaeologist of the ''Tomb Raider'' franchise, was originally designed as a man, but was changed to a woman, partly because the developers felt that the original design was too similar to Indiana Jones. Paramount Pictures, which distributed the Indiana Jones film series, would later make two films based on the ''Tomb Raider'' games.

Nathan Drake, The main protagonist of the Uncharted Video game series.

''Prince of Persia'' producer Ben Mattes explained that their "inspiration was anything Harrison Ford has ever done: Indiana Jones, Han Solo." The video game series ''Uncharted'' is also very heavily influenced by Indiana Jones, as well as some of the influences that led to Indiana Jones himself, such as pulp magazines and movie serials. The design team felt the sources shared themes of mystery and "what-if scenarios" that romanticized adventure and aimed to include those in ''Uncharted''.

Jack West Jr, a character featured in 3 Matthew Reilly books, (''Seven Ancient Wonders'', ''The Six Sacred Stones'' and ''The Five Greatest Warriors'') is heavily influenced by Indiana Jones. Reilly himself is a big fan of George Lucas.

Rick O'Connell of ''The Mummy'' and its sequels.

Ben Franklin Gates of the ''National Treasure'' film series.

In the game ''World of Warcraft'' there is an NPC named Harrison Jones, a reference to Indiana Jones and the actor Harrison Ford. This NPC teaches Archaeology to the character, making them able to find ancient treasures around the world. Furthermore, the game area Uldum has numerous playable quests with Harrison Jones as the main character, which contain a number of lines and references from ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''.

The Tia Carrere television show ''Relic Hunter''.

Robert Langdon from such Dan Brown novels as ''Angels & Demons'', ''The Da Vinci Code'', and ''The Lost Symbol'', adapted for cinema.

References

External links

IndianaJones.com – the official Indiana Jones site

The Indiana Jones Wiki – A wiki devoted to ''Indiana Jones''

Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1981 Category:Fictional archaeologists Category:Fictional characters from New Jersey Category:Fictional professors Category:Fictional American people of Scottish descent Category:Fictional secret agents and spies Category:Fictional colonels Category:Child characters in television Category:Fictional World War I veterans Category:Fictional World War II veterans Category:Indiana Jones characters

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Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
Name	José Doroteo Arango Arámbula
Birth date	5 June 1878
Death date	July 20, 1923
Birth place	La Coyotada, San Juan del Río, Durango, Mexico
Death place	Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico
Nickname	Francisco VillaPancho Villa''''El Centauro del Norte'' (The Centaur of the North)
Allegiance	Mexico (''antireeleccionista'' revolutionary forces)
Battles	Mexican Revolution First Battle of Agua Prieta Battle of Nogales Battle of Ciudad Juarez Siege of Nogales Battle of Columbus
Rank	General
Commands	División del Norte}}

José Doroteo Arango Arámbula (5 June 1878 – 20 July 1923) – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals.

As commander of the ''División del Norte'' (Division of the North), he was the veritable ''caudillo'' of the Northern Mexican state of Chihuahua which, given its size, mineral wealth, and proximity to the United States of America, provided him with extensive resources. Villa was also provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. Although he was prevented from being accepted into the "panteón" of national heroes until some 20 years after his death, today his memory is honored by Mexicans, U.S. citizens, and many people around the world. In addition, numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named in his honor.

Villa and his supporters seized hacienda land for distribution to peasants and soldiers. He robbed and commandeered trains, and, like the other revolutionary generals, printed fiat money to pay for his cause. Villa's men and supporters became known as ''Villistas'' during the revolution from 1910 to roughly 1920.

Villa's dominance in northern Mexico was broken in 1915 through a series of defeats he suffered at Celaya and Agua Prieta at the hands of Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles. After Villa's famous raid on Columbus in 1916, US Army General John J. Pershing tried unsuccessfully to capture Villa in a nine-month pursuit that ended when Pershing was called back as the United States entry into World War I was assured. Villa retired in 1920 and was given a large estate which he turned into a "military colony" for his former soldiers. In 1923, he decided to re-involve himself in Mexican politics and as a result was assassinated, most likely on the orders of Obregón.

Early life

Villa was born as Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula to poor peasants Agustín Arango and Micaela Arambula at the Rancho de la Coyotada, which was located in San Juan del Rio and was one of the largest haciendas in the state of Durango. Doroteo was the oldest of five children and as such helped his mother care for his siblings after Agustín died. As a child, Doroteo received some education from a local church-run school, but quit school and became a sharecropper after his father died.

According to his own later statements, at the age of sixteen, Doroteo moved to Chihuahua, but swiftly returned to Durango to track down Agustín Lopez Negrete, the owner of the hacienda who had raped Doroteo's sister. However, historians have questioned the veracity of this story. After he shot and killed Negrete, Doroteo stole a horse and fled to the Sierra Madre Occidental region in Durango, where he roamed the hills as a bandit. Eventually, he became a member of an outlaw "super group" headed by Ignacio Parra, one of the most famous bandits of Durango at the time. As a bandit he went by the name "Orango." After crushing the Orozco rebellion, Victoriano Huerta, with the federal army he commanded, held the majority of military power in Mexico. Huerta saw an opportunity to make himself the dictator of Mexico, and he began to conspire with men such as Bernardo Reyes, Félix Díaz (nephew of Porfirio Díaz), and the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, which resulted in ''La decena trágica'' (the "Ten Tragic Days") and the assassination of President Madero.

After Madero's murder, Huerta proclaimed himself provisional president. Venustiano Carranza then proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe to oust Huerta as an unconstitutional usurper. Despite his strong dislike of Carranza, Villa alligned with him afterwards to overthrow Huerta; Between Huerta and Carranza, Carranza would be regarded as only the lesser of two evils and would also be regarded as the butt of Villa's jokes and pranks. The politicians and generals (who included Pablo González, Álvaro Obregón, Emiliano Zapata and Villa) who supported Carranza's plan were collectively styled the ''Ejército Constitucionalista de México'' (Constitutionalist Army of Mexico), the ''constitucionalista'' adjective was added to stress the point that Huerta had not obtained power through methods prescribed by Mexico's Constitution of 1857.

Operating in conjunction with Carranza's Constitutionalist Army of Mexico, Villa operated in the northern provinces. Villa's hatred of Huerta became more personal and intense after 7 March 1913, when Huerta ordered the murder of Villa's dear friend political mentor, Abraham González, who had worked with Madero and Villa since 1910. González had been one of Madero's political advisors. He recruited Francisco Villa in 1910 to support Madero with the Plan de San Luis which started the first part of the Mexican Revolution with the armed movement of 20 November 1910. The Plan de San Luis was conceived to force Dictator Porfirio Diaz (Mexican president for 33 years) to leave the presidency and allow for a Mexican democracy. Villa later recovered González's remains and gave his friend a proper funeral in Chihuahua.

Villa joined the rebellion against Huerta, entering the valley of the Río Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande) into Ciudad Juárez initially with a mere 8 men, 2 pounds of coffee, 2 pounds of sugar, and 500 rounds of rifle ammunition. The new United States president, Woodrow Wilson, dismissed Ambassador Wilson, and began to support Carranza's cause. Villa's remarkable generalship and recruiting appeal, combined with ingenious fundraising methods to support his rebellion, were a key factor in forcing Huerta from office a little over a year later, on 15 July 1914.

This was the time of Villa's greatest fame and success. He recruited soldiers and able subordinates (both Mexican and mercenary) such as Felipe Ángeles, Manuel Chao, Sam Dreben and Ivor Thord-Gray, and raised money using methods such as forced assessments on hostile hacienda owners, and train robberies. In one notable escapade, he held 122 bars of silver ingot from a train robbery (and a Wells Fargo employee) hostage and forced Wells Fargo to help him sell the bars for cash. A rapid, hard-fought series of victories at Ciudad Juárez, Tierra Blanca, Chihuahua and Ojinaga followed. The well known American journalist and fiction writer Ambrose Bierce, then in his seventies, accompanied Villa's army during this period and witnessed the battle of Tierra Blanca. Bierce vanished while still with Villa's army in or after December 1913. Oral accounts of his execution by firing squad were never verified.

Governor of Chihuahua

Against the wishes of Carranza, who wanted to name Manuel Chao as the provisional governor of Chihuahua, Villa's was named as the provisional governor of the state of Chihuahua in 1913, after the local military commanders in the region elected him. As Governor of Chihuahua, Villa recruited more experienced generals, such as Toribio Ortega, Porfirio Talamantes and Calixto Contreas, in his military staff and achieved more success than ever. Following his appointment as Governor of Chihuahua, Villa's secretary Perez Rul divided his army into two groups, one led by Ortega, Contreras and Orestes Pereyra and the other led by Talamantes and Contreras' deputy Severianco Ceniceros.

According to some of the references, Villa considered Tierra Blanca his most spectacular victory, though Talamantes died while fighting the the battle as well. Villa's war tactics were studied by the United States Army and a contract with Hollywood was made. Hollywood would be allowed to film Villa's movements and 50% of the profit would be paid to Villa to support the Revolution.

As governor of Chihuahua, Villa raised more money for a drive to the south by printing his own currency. He decreed his paper money to be traded and accepted at par with gold Mexican pesos, then forced the wealthy to give loans that would allow him to pay salaries to the army as well as food and clothes. He also took some of the land owned by the ''hacendados'' (owners of the ''haciendas'') to give it to the widows and family of dead revolutionaries. The forced loans would also support the war machinery of the Mexican Revolution. He also confiscated gold from specific banks, in the case of the Banco Minero, by holding hostage a member of the bank's owning family, the extremely wealthy Terrazas clan, until the location of the bank's hidden gold was revealed.

Villa's political stature at that time was so high that banks in El Paso, Texas, accepted his paper pesos at face value. His generalship drew enough admiration from the U.S. military that he and Álvaro Obregón were invited to Fort Bliss to meet Brigadier General John J. Pershing. Returning to Mexico, Villa gathered supplies for a drive to the south.

The new pile of money was used to purchase draft animals, cavalry horses, arms, ammunition, mobile hospital facilities (railroad cars and horse ambulances staffed with Mexican and foreign volunteer doctors, known as ''Servicio sanitario''), and food, as well as to rebuild the railroad south of Chihuahua City. As governor, he also recruited fighters from Chihuahua and Durango and became leader of a large army known as the ''The Division del Norte (Division of the North)'', the most powerful and feared military unit in all of Mexico. The rebuilt railroad transported Villa's troops and artillery south, where he defeated Federal forces at Gómez Palacio, Torreón, and eventually at the heart of Huerta's regime in Zacatecas. Of all of Villa's generals, Felipe Angeles was considered to be his best one.

Carranza tries to halt the Villa advance, the fall of Zacatecas

After Villa successfully captured Torreón, Carranza issued a puzzling order for Villa to break off action south of Torreón and instead ordered him to divert to attack Saltillo, and threatened to cut off Villa's coal supply if he did not comply. Coal was needed for railroad locomotives to pull trains transporting soldiers and supplies. This was widely seen as an attempt by Carranza to divert Villa from a direct assault on Mexico City, so as to allow Carranza's forces under Álvaro Obregón, driving in from the west via Guadalajara, to take the capital first. This was an expensive and disruptive diversion for the ''División del Norte'', since Villa's enlisted men were paid the then enormous sum of a peso per day, and each day of delay cost thousands of pesos. Villa did attack Saltillo as ordered, winning that battle.

Villa, disgusted by what he saw as egoism, complied with Carranza's order to divert his attacks towards Saltillo, but then offered his resignation after capturing the city. Felipe Ángeles and the rest of Villa's staff officers argued for Villa to withdraw his resignation, defy Carranza's orders, and proceed to attack Zacatecas, a strategic mountainous city that was heavily defended by Federal troops and considered nearly impregnable. Zacatecas was the source of much of Mexico's silver, and thus a supply of funds for whoever held it. Victory in Zacatecas would mean that Huerta's chances of holding the remainder of the country would be slim. Villa accepted his staff's advice, cancelled his resignation, and the ''División del Norte'' defied Carranza and attacked Zacatecas. Attacking up steep slopes, the ''División del Norte'' defeated the Federals in the ''Toma de Zacatecas'' (Taking of Zacatecas), the single bloodiest battle of the Revolution, with the military forces counting approximately 7,000 dead and 5,000 wounded, and unknown numbers of civilian casualties. (A memorial to and museum of the ''Toma de Zacatecas'' is on the ''Cerro de la Bufa'', one of the key defense points in the battle of Zacatecas. Tourists use a ''teleférico'' (aerial tramway) to reach it, owing to the steep approaches. From the top, tourists may appreciate the difficulties Villa's troops had trying to dislodge Federal troops from the peak.) The loss of Zacatecas in June 1914 broke the back of the Huerta regime, and Huerta left for exile on 14 July 1914.

However, in August 1914, Carranza and his army entered Mexico City ahead of Villa. Villa despised Carranza and saw him as another Porfirio Diaz-like dictator. Nevertheless, Villa, who did not want to be named President of Mexico, accepted Carranza as the Chief of the Revolution. The revolutionary caudillos convened a National Convention, and conducted a series of meetings in Aguascalientes. This National Convention set rules for Mexico's path towards democracy. None of the armed revolutionaries were allowed to be nominated for government positions. They chose an interim president, Eulalio Gutierrez. Emiliano Zapata, a military general from southern Mexico, and Pancho Villa met at the convention. Zapata was sympathetic to Villa's views of Carranza and told Villa he feared Carranza's intentions were those of a dictator and not of a democratic president. True to Zapata's prediction, Carranza decided to oppose the agreements of the National Convention, setting off a civil war. Fearing that Carranza was imposing a dictatorship, Villa and Zapata broke with him.

Battling Carranza

Following the Convention, Carranza was deposed as President and fled to Veracruz. Following Carranza's departure, Villa and Zapata occupied Mexico City. Although Villa had a more formidable army, Carranza's general Alvadro Obregon was a better tactician. With Obergon's help, Carranza was able to use the Mexican press to portray Villa as a sociopathic bandit. In late 1914, one of Villa's top generals, Toribio Ortega died of typhus. In 1915, Villa was forced to abandon the capital after a number of incidents involving his troops. This helped pave the way for the return of Carranza and his followers.

To combat Villa, Carranza sent his ablest general, Álvaro Obregón north. Meeting at the Battle of Celaya, a battle fought between April 6 and April 15, 1915, Villa was badly defeated suffering 4,000 killed and 6,000 captured. Obergon would encounter Villa again at the Battle of Trinidad, which was fought between April 29 and June 5, 1915, where Villa suffered another huge loss. In October of 1915, Villa crossed into Sonora, the main stronghold of Obergon and Carranza's armies, where hoped to crush Carranza's regime. Carranza had reinforced Sonora, however, and Villa was badly defeated. Rodolfo Fierro, his most loyal officer and cruel hatchet man, was killed while Villa's army was crossing into Sonora as well.

After losing the Battle of Agua Prieta in Sonora, an overwheming number of Villa's men in the ''Division del Norte'' were killed and 1,500 of the army's surviving members soon turned on him and accepted an amnesty offer from Carranza. In November of 1915, Carranza's forces had captured and executed Contreras, Pereyra and Pereyra's son. Severianco Ceniceros also accepted amnesty from Carranza and turned on Villa as well. Although Villa's secretary Perez Rul also broke with Villa, he refused to become a supporter of Carranza.

Only 200 men in Villa's army would remain loyal to him and he was soon forced to retreat back into the mountains of Chihuahua. However, Villa and his men were determined to keep fighting Carranza's forces. Villa's position was further weakened by the United States' refusal to sell him weapons. By the end of 1915, Villa was on the run and the United States Government recognized Carranza.

Split with the United States and the Punitive Expedition

After years of public and documented support for Villa's fight, the United States, following the diplomatic policies of Woodrow Wilson, who believed that supporting Carranza was the best way to expedite establishment of a stable Mexican government, refused to allow more arms to be supplied to Villa's army, and allowed Carranza's troops to be relocated over U.S. railroads. Villa felt betrayed by the Americans. He was further enraged by Obregón's use of searchlights, powered by American electricity, to help repel a ''Villista'' night attack on the border town of Agua Prieta, Sonora, on 1 November 1915. In January 1916, a group of ''Villistas'' attacked a train on the Mexico North Western Railway, near Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, and killed several American employees of the ASARCO company. The passengers included eighteen Americans, fifteen of whom worked for American Smelting and Refining Company. There was only one survivor, who gave the details to the press. Villa admitted to ordering the attack, but denied that he had authorized the shedding of American blood.

After meeting with a Mexican mayor named Juan Muñoz, Villa recruited more men into his guerrilla militia and now had 400 men under his command. Villa then met with his Lieutenants Martin Lopez, Pablo Lopez, Francisco Beltran, Candelario Cervantes and commissioned an additional 100 men to the command of Joaquin Alvarez, Bernabe Cifuentes and Ernesto Rios; Pablo Lopez and Cervantes were later killed in the early part of 1916. Villa and his 500 guerrillas then started planning an attack on US soil.

Cross-border attack on New Mexico

On 9 March 1916, General Villa ordered nearly 100 Mexican members of his revolutionary group to make a cross-border attack against Columbus, New Mexico. The raid was conducted because of the U.S. government's official recognition of the Carranza regime and for the loss of lives in battle due to defective bullets purchased from the United States. They attacked a detachment of the 13th Cavalry Regiment (United States), burned the town and seized 100 horses and mules and other military supplies. 18 Americans and about 80 Villistas were killed. There are other attacks in US territory that have been said to be done by Villa, however, none of these attacks were ever confirmed to be performed by Villistas. These unconfirmed attacks are: 1) On 15 May, it is claimed that they attacked Glenn Spring, Texas, killing a civilian and wounding three American soldiers; 2) on 15 June, bandits killed four soldiers at San Ygnacio, Texas; 3) on 31 July, one American soldier and a U.S. customs inspector were killed. Villa's raid on Columbus would also mark the first time any foreign armed force conducted an attack on American soil since the War of 1812.

Punitive Expedition

In response to Villa's raid on Columbus, President Wilson dispatched General John Pershing and 10,000 men to Mexico to capture Villa. Employing aircraft and trucks for the first time, the US Army chased Villa until January of 1917. The search for Villa would be unsucessful. However, some of Villa's senior commanders-Colonel Candelario Cervantes, General Francisco Beltran, Beltran's son and Villa's second-in-command Julio Cardenas- and a total of 190 of his men were killed during the expedition.

The Mexican population were against US troops in Mexican territories. There were several demonstrations of their disagreement with the Punitive Expedition and that counted towards the failure of that expedition. During the course of the expedition, one of Villa's top generals, Pablo Lopez, was captured by Carranza's forces and was executed on June 13, 1916.

Villa's battles and military actions

First Battle of Ciudad Juárez (1911 won)

Second Battle of Ciudad Juarez (1913 won)

Battle of Tierra Blanca (1913 won)

Battle of Chihuahua (1913 won)

Battle of Ojinaga (1913 won)

First Battle of Torreón (1914 won)

Battle of Gómez Palacio (1914 won)

Battle of Saltillo (1914 won)

Battle of Zacatecas (1914 won)

Siege of Nogales (1915 lost)

Battle of Celaya (1915 lost)

Battle of Trinidad (1915 lost)

Battle of Agua Prieta (1915 lost)

Battle of Columbus (1916)

German involvement in Villa's later campaigns

Before the Villa-Carranza irregular forces had left to the mountains in 1915, there is no credible evidence that Villa co-operated with or accepted any help from the German government or agents. Villa was supplied arms from the USA, employed international (Americans included) mercenaries and doctors, was portrayed as a hero in the US media, made business arrangements with Hollywood, and did not object to the 1914 US naval occupation of Veracruz. Villa's observation was that the occupation merely hurt Huerta. Villa opposed the armed participation of the United States in Mexico, but he did not act against the Veracruz occupation in order to maintain the connections in the United States necessary to buy bullets and other supplies. The German consul in Torreón did make entreaties to Villa, offering him arms and money to occupy the port and oil fields of Tampico to enable German ships to dock there, but the offer was rejected by Villa.

German agents did attempt to interfere, unsuccessfully, in the Mexican Revolution. Germans attempted to plot with Victoriano Huerta to assist him to retake the country, and in the infamous Zimmermann Telegram to the Mexican government, proposed an alliance with the government of Venustiano Carranza.

There were documented contacts between Villa and the Germans, after Villa's split with the Constitutionalists. Principally this was in the person of Felix A. Sommerfeld (noted in Katz's book), who allegedly, in 1915, funneled $340,000 of German money to the Western Cartridge Company to purchase ammunition. However, the actions of Sommerfeld indicate he was likely acting in his own self-interest (he acted as a double agent for Carranza). Villa's actions were hardly that of a German catspaw; rather, it appears that Villa only resorted to German assistance after other sources of money and arms were cut off.

At the time of Villa's attack on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, Villa's military power had been marginalized (he was repulsed at Columbus by a small cavalry detachment, albeit after doing a lot of damage), his theater of operations was mainly limited to western Chihuahua, he was ''persona non grata'' with Mexico's ruling Carranza constitutionalists, and the subject of an embargo by the United States; so communication or further shipments of arms between the Germans and Villa would have been difficult.

A plausible explanation of any Villa-German contacts after 1915 would be that they were a futile extension of increasingly desperate German diplomatic efforts and ''Villista'' pipe dreams of victory as progress of their respective wars bogged down. Villa effectively did not have anything useful to offer in exchange for German help at that point.

When weighing claims of Villa conspiring with Germans, one should take into account that at the time, portraying Villa as a German sympathizer served the propaganda ends of both Carranza and Wilson.

The use of Mauser rifles and carbines by Villa's forces does not necessarily indicate any German connection. These weapons were widely used by all parties in the Mexican Revolution, Mauser longarms being enormously popular. They were standard issue in the Mexican Army, which had begun adopting 7 mm Mauser system arms as early as 1895.

Personal Life

On May 29 1911, Villa married María Luz Corral. a woman whom he met when he and his army rode into San Andres and asked for monetary contributions. Together, Villa and his wife had only one child, a daughter who died within a few years after birth. While Villa had engaged in several bogus marriage ceremonies with many of his mistresses, Corral was his only legal wife. Corral would also take care of the children Villa fathered through his various extramaritial affairs. At the time of his death, Corral and five different women each claimed to be his widow. While Villa still remained active, Carranza shifted his focus to dealing with the more dangerous threat posed by Zapata in the south. By the end of 1915, Villa no longer had an army and had gone back to being a guerrilla leader in the mountains of Chihuahua. Villa's last major military action would be a raid against Ciudad Juarez in 1919. Following the raid, Villa would suffer yet another major blow after Felipe Angeles, who had returned to Mexico in 1918 after living in exile for three years as a dairy farmer in Texas, left Villa and his now small militia. Angeles was also later captured by Carranza's forces and was executed on November 26, 1919.

After losing his final battle at Ciudad Juarez, Villa agreed that he would cease fighting if it were made worth his while. However, the siege failed and Villa's new second-in-command, his longtime lieutenant Martín López, was killed during the fighting.

On May 21, 1920, a break for Villa came when Carranza, along as his top advisors and supporters, was assassinated by supporters of Álvaro Obregón. With his archnemesis dead, Villa was now ready to negotiate a peace settlement and retire. On July 22, 1920, Villa was finally able to send a telegram to Mexican intern President Adolfo de la Huerta, which stated that he recognized Huerta's presidency and requested amnesty. Six days later, Adolfo de la Huerta met with Villa successfully negotiated a peace settlement.

In exchange for his retirement, Villa was given a 25,000 acre hacienda in Canutillo, just outside of Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, by the national government. This was in addition to the Quinta Luz estate that he owned with his wife, María Luz Corral de Villa, in Chihuahua, Chihuahua. The last remaining 200 guerrillas and veterans of Villa's milita who still maintained a loyalty to him would reside with him in his new hacienda as well and the Mexican government also granted them a pension that totalled 500,000 gold pesos. The 50 guerrillas who still remained in Villa's small calvary would also be allowed to serve as Villa's personal bodyguards.

On Friday, 20 July 1923, Villa was killed while visiting Parral. Usually accompanied by his entourage of ''Dorados'' (his bodyguards) Pancho Villa frequently made trips from his ranch to Parral for banking and other errands. This day, however, Villa had gone into the town without them, taking only a few associates with him. He went to pick up a consignment of gold from the local bank with which to pay his Canutillo ranch staff. While driving back through the city in his black 1919 Dodge roadster, Villa passed by a school and a pumpkinseed vendor ran toward Villa's car and shouted ''Viva Villa!'' – a signal for a group of seven riflemen who then appeared in the middle of the road and fired over 40 shots into the automobile. In the fusillade of shots, Villa was hit by nine bullets in his head and upper chest, killing him instantly. He was found in the driver seat of the car, with one hand reaching for his gun.

One of Villa's bodyguards, Ramon Contreras, was also badly wounded but managed to kill at least one of the assassins before he himself managed to escape; he would be the only person who accompanied Villa during this assassination who managed to survive. Two other bodyguards, Claro Huertado and Villa's main personal bodyguard Rafael Madreno, who were with him also died,, who served as his chauffeur. Villa is sometimes reported to have died saying: "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." However, there is no contemporary evidence he survived his shooting even momentarily, and his biographer, Katz, confirms that Villa died instantly; Time Magazine also reported in 1951 that both Villa and one his aides were killed instantly. The next day, Villa's funeral was held and thousands of his grieving supporters in Parral followed his casket to his burial site while Villa's men and his closest friends remained at the haceinda in the Canitullo armed and ready for an attack by the government troops. The six surviving assassins hide out in the desert and were soon captured,

Shortly after his death, two theories emerged about why he was killed. In 1914, Jose de la Luz Herrera and his family betrayed Villa and joined Carranza. Villa then made it a goal to exterminate the Herrera clan.

In 1915, Herrera's son Maclovio was accidently killed by friendly fire while fighting Villa on the outskirts of Nuevo Larado, Tamaulipas. Another one Herrera's sons, General Luis Herrera, was captured in a hotel by Villa's soldiers after the Battle of Torreon in 1916 and was executed. In 1919, Jose de la Luz Herrera and his two sons Zeferino and Melchor, along with a number of the men their militia, were captured by Villa's soldiers after an unsuccessful on Villa's base in Parral and were executed; Villa, however, suprisingly pardoned and released the remaining prisoners who were captured. After Villa retired, Jesus Herrera was determined to use his family's wealth to seek revenge on Villa. In 1922, a secret war began between Herrera and Villa and lasted over a year. According to Villa, Herrera had bribed a number of men, including some of his own former generals, to kill him and was unsuccessful.

The other theory that emerged was that Villa was killed for political reasons. most historians attribute Villa's death to a well planned conspiracy, most likely initiated by Plutarco Elías Calles and Joaquin Amaro with at least tacit approval of the then president of Mexico, Obregon. At the time, a state legislator from Durango, Jesus Salas Barraza, who Villa once whipped during a quarrel over a woman, claimed sole responsibility for the plot. Barraza admitted that he told his friend Gabriel Chavez, who worked as a dealer for General Motors, that he would kill Villa if he were paid 50,000 pesos. Chavez, who wasn't wealthy and didn't have 50,000 pesos on hand, then collected money from enemies of Villa and managed to collect a total of 100,000 pesos for Barraza and his other co-conspirators. Barraza also admitted that he and his co-conspirators watched Villa's daily car-rides and paid the pumpkinseed vendor at the scene of Villa's assassination to shout "Viva Villa!" either once if Villa was sitting in the front part of the car or twice if he was sitting in the back.

Despite the that he did not want to have a sitting politician arrested, Obregon gave into the people's demands and had Barraza arrested. Barraza was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison, The following month, however, Barraza's sentence was commuted to three months by the Governor of Chihuahua; Barraza eventually became a colonel in the Mexican Army. In a letter to the governor of Durango, Jesus Castro, Barraza agreed to be the "fall guy" and the same arrangement is mentioned in letters exchanged between Castro and Amaro. Others involved in the conspiracy were Felix Lara, the commander of federal troops in Parral, who was paid 50,000 pesos by Calles to remove his soldiers and policemen from the town on the day of the assassination, and Meliton Lozoya, the former owner of Villa's hacienda whom Villa was demanding pay back funds he had embezzled. It was Lozoya who planned the details of the assassination and found the men who carried it out. It was reported that before Barraza died of a stroke in his Mexico City home in 1951, his last words were "I'm not a murderer. I rid humanity of a monster."

Villa's purported death mask was hidden at the Radford School in El Paso, Texas, until the 1970s, when it was sent to the Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution in Chihuahua; other museums have ceramic and bronze representations that do not match this mask.

Villa was buried in the city cemetery of Parral, Chihuahua, Tombs for Villa exist in Chihuahua and Mexico City.

Period newsreel showing views of the assassination location in Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, news reporters at the scene, and Villa's bullet riddled corpse and auto still exist to this day. Villa's skull was stolen from his grave in 1926.

Villa's last living son, Ernesto Nava, died in Castro Valley, California, at the age of 94, on 31 December 2009. Nava appeared yearly in festival events in his hometown of Durango, Mexico, enjoying celebrity status until he became too weak to attend.

In films, video, and television

thumb|right|Monument to Pancho Villa in Bufa Zacatecas mountain rangeVilla appeared as himself in films in 1912, 1913, 1914 and 1916:

''Life of Villa'' (1912)

''With General Pancho Villa in Mexico'' (1913, unconfirmed)

''The Life of General Villa'' (1914)

''Following the Flag in Mexico'' (1916)

The 1934 biopic ''Viva Villa!'' was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Actors that have portrayed Villa include:

Raoul Walsh (1912, 1914) ''The Life of General Villa''

Wallace Beery (1917) ''Patria''

George Humbert (1918) ''Why America Will Win''

Wallace Beery (1934) ''Viva Villa!'', with Phillip Cooper (Pancho Villa as a boy)

Juan F. Triana (1935) ''El Tesoro de Pancho Villa''

Domingo Soler (1936) ''¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa!''

Maurice Black (1937) ''Under Strange Flags''

Leo Carrillo (1949) ''Pancho Villa Returns''

Pedro Armendáriz (1950, 1957, 1960 twice)

Alan Reed (1952) ''Viva Zapata!''

Victor Alcocer (1955) ''El siete leguas''

Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr. (1958) ''Villa!!''

Rafael Campos (1959) ''Have Gun Will Travel, Season 3-Episode 6 (Pancho)''

José Elías Moreno (1967) ''El Centauro Pancho Villa''

Ricardo Palacios (1967) ''Los Siete de Pancho Villa''

Yul Brynner (1968) ''Villa Rides''

Telly Savalas (1971) ''Pancho Villa''!

Heraclio Zepeda (1973) ''Reed, México insurgente''

Antonio Aguilar (1974) ''La Muerte de Pancho Villa''

Héctor Elizondo (1976) ''Wanted: The Sundance Woman'' (TV)

Freddy Fender (1977) ''She Came to the Valley''

José Villamor (1980) ''Viva México'' (TV)

Jorge Reynoso (1982) ''Red Bells: Mexico in Flames''

Gaithor Brownne (1985) ''Blood Church''

Guillermo Gil (1987) ''Senda de Gloria'' (TV series)

Pedro Armendáriz, Jr. (1989) ''Old Gringo''

Mike Moroff (1992) ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'', ''Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal'', "Mexico, March 1916", ''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Spring Break Adventure''

Antonio Aguilar (1993) ''La sangre de un valiente''

Alonso Echánove (1993) ''By Our Own Correspondent''

Jesús Ochoa (1995) ''Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda''

Carlos Roberto Majul (1999) ''Ah! Silenciosa''

Peter Butler (2000) ''From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter''

Antonio Banderas (2003) ''And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself''

Alejandro Calva (2009) ''Chico Grande''

''Wild Roses, Tender Roses'' (2012), based on the novel ''The Friends of Pancho Villa'', by James Carlos Blake

References

Further reading

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, "Pancho Villa: Una Biografia Narrativa", Planeta (30 August 2006). ISBN 9703703348, ISBN 978-9703703340.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, "Pancho Villa", History Channel Documentary, 2008.

Guadalupe Villa y Rosa Helia Villa (eds.), ''Retrato autobiográfico, 1894–1914'', Mexico City, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: Taurus: Santillana Ediciones Generales, c2003 (2004 printing). ISBN 968-19-1311-6.

Katz, Friedrich. ''Life and Times of Pancho Villa'', Stanford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8047-3046-6.

Pancho Villa Page http://www.ojinaga.com/villa/.

Eric J. Hobsbawm, ''Bandits'' 1969, New Pr. 2000. ISBN 1565846192 resp. ISBN 978-1565846197.

Jeff Howell, Pancho Villa, Outlaw, Hero, Patriot, Cutthroat: Evaluating the Many Faces of Historical Text Archive.

Micro-biographies, Figures in Mexican History. Francisco Villa, México, 1993. http://www.elbalero.gob.mx/kids/history/html/rev/biovilla.html, 1993.

External links

Statue of Pancho Villa, the Mexican Revolutionary Leader in Tucson, Arizona, United States

Encyclopædia Britannica, Pancho Villa

Photos of Villa and the Mexican Revolution – some graphic images, and some also in the book ''The Wind That Swept Mexico''.

Camp Furlong and Columbus, New Mexico – 1916

Documentary about Pancho Villa

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ar:بانشو فيا az:Panço Vilya bs:Pancho Villa bg:Панчо Виля ca:Pancho Villa cs:Pancho Villa da:Pancho Villa de:Pancho Villa el:Πάντσο Βίλα es:Pancho Villa eo:Francisco Villa eu:Pancho Villa fr:Pancho Villa gl:Pancho Villa ko:판초 비야 hr:Pancho Villa os:Вилья, Панчо it:Pancho Villa he:פנצ'ו וייה nl:Pancho Villa ja:パンチョ・ビリャ no:Pancho Villa pl:Pancho Villa pt:Pancho Villa ro:Pancho Villa qu:Pancho Villa ru:Панчо Вилья sl:Pancho Villa sr:Панчо Виља fi:Pancho Villa sv:Pancho Villa tr:Pancho Villa war:Pancho Villa

Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
Conflict	World War I
Date	28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918 (Armistice) Treaty of Versailles signed 28 June 1919
Place	Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, China and off the coast of South and North America
Casus	Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (28 June) followed by Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Kingdom of Serbia (28 July) and Russian mobilisation against Austria–Hungary (29 July).
Result	Allied victory End of the German, Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires Formation of new countries in Europe and the Middle East Transfer of German colonies and regions of the former Ottoman Empire to other powers Establishment of the League of Nations. (more...)
Combatant1	Allied (Entente) Powers (1914–17) France (1915–18) (1917–18) (1916–18) (1917–18) Portugal (1916–18) (1914–16) ''and others''
Combatant2	Central Powers (1915–18)
Commander1	Leaders and commanders Nicholas II Nicholas Nikolaevich H. H. Asquith David Lloyd George Douglas Haig Raymond Poincaré Georges Clemenceau Ferdinand Foch Antonio Salandra Vittorio Orlando Luigi Cadorna Woodrow Wilson John J. Pershing ''and others''
Commander2	Leaders and commanders Wilhelm II Paul von Hindenburg Erich Ludendorff Franz Joseph I Karl I Conrad von Hötzendorf Mehmed V Enver Pasha Ferdinand I Nikola Zhekov ''and others''
Strength1	Allies 12,000,000 8,841,541 8,660,000 5,093,140 4,743,826 1,234,000 800,000 707,343 380,000 250,000 200,000 50,000 ''Total: 42,959,850''
Strength2	Central Powers 13,250,000 7,800,000 2,998,321 1,200,000 ''Total: 25,248,321''
Casualties1	Military dead:5,525,000Military wounded:12,831,500Military missing:4,121,000Total:22,477,500 KIA, WIA or MIA ...''further details''.
Casualties2	Military dead:4,386,000Military wounded:8,388,000Military missing:3,629,000Total: 16,403,000 KIA, WIA or MIA ...''further details''.
Campaignbox	}}

World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (centred around the Triple Entente) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance). More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of great technological advances in firepower without corresponding advances in mobility. It was the sixth deadliest conflict in world history.

The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was the proximate trigger of the war. Long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, including the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, France, and Italy, played a major role. Ferdinand's assassination by a Yugoslav nationalist resulted in a Habsburg ultimatum against the Kingdom of Serbia. Several alliances formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; via their colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.

On 28 July, the conflict opened with the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, followed by the German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg and France; and a Russian attack against Germany. After the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917. In the East, the Russian army successfully fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces but was forced back by the German army. Additional fronts opened after the Ottoman Empire joined the war in 1914, Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Romania in 1916. The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, and Russia left the war after the October Revolution later that year. After a 1918 German offensive along the western front, United States forces entered the trenches and the Allies drove back the German armies in a series of successful offensives. Germany agreed to a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day.

By the war's end, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated and ceased to exist. The successor states of the former two lost a great amount of territory, while the latter two were dismantled entirely. The map of central Europe was redrawn into several smaller states. The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war and the breakup of empires, the repercussions of Germany's defeat and problems with the Treaty of Versailles are generally agreed to be factors in the beginning of World War II.

Etymology

During the Interwar period the War was known by a variety of names in English-speaking countries. Besides being called the ''World War'' and the ''Great War'',. which were the most common names, it was also referred to merely as ''The War'', or ''The War in Europe'', ''the War of Nations'' , ''the 1914 War'', or some variation on these and other names. Occasionally different names were used interchangeably within a single work, as in this ''Time'' article from 1924. After the onset of the Second World War in 1939 the terms ''World War I'' or ''the First World War'' became standard, with British and Canadian historians favouring the ''First World War'' and Americans ''World War I''. The notion that the "World War" was merely the first in a series was not a new idea at the time, however; it was first introduced in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that, "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War'" ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word." In France and Belgium, the war was sometimes referred to as ''La Guerre du Droit'' (''the War for Justice'') or ''La Guerre Pour la Civilisation'' / ''de Oorlog tot de Beschaving'' (''the War to Preserve Civilisation''), especially on medals and commemorative monuments.

Background

In the 19th Century, the major European powers had gone to great lengths to maintain a balance of power throughout Europe, resulting by 1900 in a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent. These had started in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Then, in October 1873, German Chancellor Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors (German: ''Dreikaiserbund'') between the monarchs of Austria–Hungary, Russia and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria–Hungary and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and Austria–Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879, called the Dual Alliance. This was seen as a method of countering Russian influence in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire continued to weaken. In 1882, this alliance was expanded to include Italy in what became the Triple Alliance.

After 1870, European conflict was averted largely through a carefully planned network of treaties between the German Empire and the remainder of Europe orchestrated by Chancellor Bismarck. He especially worked to hold Russia at Germany's side to avoid a two-front war with France and Russia. When Wilhelm II ascended to the throne as German Emperor (''Kaiser''), Bismarck's alliances were gradually de-emphasised. For example, the Kaiser refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1890. Two years later, the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. In 1904, the United Kingdom sealed an alliance with France, the Entente cordiale and in 1907, the United Kingdom and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention. This system of interlocking bilateral agreements formed the Triple Entente.

German industrial and economic power had grown greatly after unification and the foundation of the Empire in 1870. From the mid-1890s on, the government of Wilhelm II used this base to devote significant economic resources to building up the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial German Navy), established by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, in rivalry with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy. As a result, both nations strove to out-build each other in terms of capital ships. With the launch of in 1906, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German rivals. The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to producing the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict. Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50 percent.

Austria-Hungary precipitated the Bosnian crisis of 1908–1909 by officially annexing the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had occupied since 1878. This angered the Kingdom of Serbia and its patron, the Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russian Empire. Russian political manoeuvring in the region destabilised peace accords that were already fracturing in what was known as "the Powder keg of Europe".

In 1912 and 1913, the First Balkan War was fought between the Balkan League and the fracturing Ottoman Empire. The resulting Treaty of London further shrank the Ottoman Empire, creating an independent Albanian State while enlarging the territorial holdings of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. When Bulgaria attacked both Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913, it lost most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece and Southern Dobruja to Romania in the 33-day Second Balkan War, further destabilising the region.

On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian-Serb student and member of Young Bosnia, assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This began a period of diplomatic manoeuvring among Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain called the July Crisis. Wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia, Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands intentionally made unacceptable, intending to provoke a war with Serbia. When Serbia agreed to only eight of the ten demands, Austria-Hungary declared war on 28 July 1914. Strachan argues, "Whether an equivocal and early response by Serbia would have made any difference to Austria-Hungary's behaviour must be doubtful. Franz Ferdinand was not the sort of personality who commanded popularity, and his demise did not cast the empire into deepest mourning".

The Russian Empire, unwilling to allow Austria–Hungary to eliminate its influence in the Balkans, and in support of its longtime Serb protégés, ordered a partial mobilisation one day later. When the German Empire began to mobilise on 30 July 1914, France, angry about the German conquest of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War, ordered French mobilisation on 1 August. Germany declared war on Russia on the same day. The United Kingdom declared war on Germany, on 4 August 1914, following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.

Chronology

Opening hostilities

Confusion among the Central Powers

The strategy of the Central Powers suffered from miscommunication. Germany had promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously-tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but never tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Germany, however, envisioned Austria-Hungary directing most of its troops against Russia, while Germany dealt with France. This confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian Army to divide its forces between the Russian and Serbian fronts.

On 9 September 1914, the Septemberprogramm, a possible plan which detailed Germany's specific war aims and the conditions that Germany sought to force on the Allied Powers, was outlined by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. It was never officially adopted.

African campaigns

Some of the first clashes of the war involved British, French and German colonial forces in Africa. On 7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorate of Togoland. On 10 August, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa, led by Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, fought a guerrilla warfare campaign during World War I and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe.

Serbian campaign

The Serbian army fought the Battle of Cer against the invading Austro-Hungarians, beginning on 12 August, occupying defensive positions on the south side of the Drina and Sava rivers. Over the next two weeks Austrian attacks were thrown back with heavy losses, which marked the first major Allied victory of the war and dashed Austro-Hungarian hopes of a swift victory. As a result, Austria had to keep sizeable forces on the Serbian front, weakening its efforts against Russia.

German forces in Belgium and France

At the outbreak of the First World War, the German army (consisting in the West of seven field armies) carried out a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, designed to quickly attack France through neutral Belgium before turning southwards to encircle the French army on the German border. The plan called for the right flank of the German advance to converge on Paris and initially, the Germans were successful, particularly in the Battle of the Frontiers (14–24 August). By 12 September, the French with assistance from the British forces halted the German advance east of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September). The last days of this battle signified the end of mobile warfare in the west. The French offensive into Germany launched on 7 August with the Battle of Mulhouse had limited success.

In the east, only one Field Army defended East Prussia and when Russia attacked in this region it diverted German forces intended for the Western Front. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September), but this diversion aggravated problems of insufficient speed of advance from rail-heads not foreseen by the German General Staff. The Central Powers were denied a quick victory and forced to fight a war on two fronts. The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of early victory.

Asia and the Pacific

New Zealand occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on 30 August. On 11 September, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of German New Guinea. Japan seized Germany's Micronesian colonies and, after the Siege of Tsingtao, the German coaling port of Qingdao in the Chinese Shandong peninsula. Within a few months, the Allied forces had seized all the German territories in the Pacific; only isolated commerce raiders and a few holdouts in New Guinea remained.

Early stages

Trench warfare begins

Military tactics before World War I had failed to keep pace with advances in technology. These advances allowed for impressive defence systems, which out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances. Artillery, vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground extremely difficult. The Germans introduced poison gas; it soon became used by both sides, though it never proved decisive in winning a battle. Its effects were brutal, causing slow and painful death, and poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties.

In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as the tank. Britain and France were its primary users; the Germans employed captured Allied tanks and small numbers of their own design. After the First Battle of the Marne, both Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking manoeuvres, in the so-called "Race to the Sea". Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German forces from Lorraine to Belgium's coast. Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended the occupied territories; consequently, German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy. Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be "temporary" before their forces broke through German defences. Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances. On 22 April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans (violating the Hague Convention) used chlorine gas for the first time on the Western Front. Algerian troops retreated when gassed and a six-kilometre (four-mile) hole opened in the Allied lines that the Germans quickly exploited, taking Kitcheners' Wood. Canadian soldiers closed the breach at the Second Battle of Ypres. At the Third Battle of Ypres, Canadian and ANZAC troops took the village of Passchendaele. On 1 July 1916, the British Army endured the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Most of the casualties occurred in the first hour of the attack. The entire Somme offensive cost the British Army almost half a million men.

Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916, combined with the bloodletting at the Somme, brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse. Futile attempts at frontal assault came at a high price for both the British and the French ''poilu'' (infantry) and led to widespread mutinies, especially during the Nivelle Offensive.

Throughout 1915–17, the British Empire and France suffered more casualties than Germany, because of both the strategic and tactical stances chosen by the sides. Strategically, while the Germans only mounted a single main offensive at Verdun, the Allies made several attempts to break through German lines. Tactically, German commander Erich Ludendorff's doctrine of "elastic defence" was well suited for trench warfare. This defence had a lightly defended forward position and a more powerful main position farther back beyond artillery range, from which an immediate and powerful counter-offensive could be launched.

Ludendorff wrote on the fighting in 1917, }}

On the battle of the Menin Road Ridge, Ludendorff wrote,

Around 1.1 to 1.2 million soldiers from the British and Dominion armies were on the Western Front at any one time. A thousand battalions, occupying sectors of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway. The front contained over of trenches. Each battalion held its sector for about a week before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas.

In the 1917 Battle of Arras, the only significant British military success was the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie and Julian Byng. The assaulting troops could, for the first time, overrun, rapidly reinforce and hold the ridge defending the coal-rich Douai plain.

Naval war

At the start of the war, the German Empire had cruisers scattered across the globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping. The British Royal Navy systematically hunted them down, though not without some embarrassment from its inability to protect Allied shipping. For example, the German detached light cruiser SMS ''Emden'', part of the East-Asia squadron stationed at Tsingtao, seized or destroyed 15 merchantmen, as well as sinking a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. However, most of the German East-Asia squadron—consisting of the armoured cruisers and , light cruisers and and two transport ships—did not have orders to raid shipping and was instead underway to Germany when it met British warships. The German flotilla and sank two armoured cruisers at the Battle of Coronel, but was almost destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, with only ''Dresden'' and a few auxiliaries escaping, but at the Battle of Más a Tierra these too were destroyed or interned.

Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany. The strategy proved effective, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies, although this blockade violated accepted international law codified by several international agreements of the past two centuries. Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships. Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.

The 1916 Battle of Jutland (German: ''Skagerrakschlacht'', or "Battle of the Skagerrak") developed into the largest naval battle of the war, the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history. It took place on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in the North Sea off Jutland. The Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, squared off against the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, led by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The engagement was a stand off, as the Germans, outmanoeuvred by the larger British fleet, managed to escape and inflicted more damage to the British fleet than they received. Strategically, however, the British asserted their control of the sea, and the bulk of the German surface fleet remained confined to port for the duration of the war.

German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival. The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the notorious sinking of the passenger ship RMS ''Lusitania'' in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond the protection of the "cruiser rules" which demanded warning and placing crews in "a place of safety" (a standard which lifeboats did not meet). Finally, in early 1917 Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, realising the Americans would eventually enter the war. Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the U.S. could transport a large army overseas, but could maintain only five long-range U-boats on station, to limited effect.

The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships began travelling in convoys, escorted by destroyers. This tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses; after the hydrophone and depth charges were introduced, accompanying destroyers might attack a submerged submarine with some hope of success. Convoys slowed the flow of supplies, since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled. The solution to the delays was an extensive program to build new freighters. Troopships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys. The U-boats had sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at a cost of 199 submarines.

World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS ''Furious'' launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol.

Southern theatres

War in the Balkans

Faced with Russia, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia. After suffering heavy losses, the Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital, Belgrade. A Serbian counter attack in the battle of Kolubara, however, succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. For the first ten months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats, however, scored a coup by persuading Bulgaria to join in attacking Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary, invading Serbia as well as fighting Russia and Italy. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia.

Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month. The attack began in October, when the Central Powers launched an offensive from the north; four days later the Bulgarians joined the attack from the east. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into Albania, halting only once to make a stand against the Bulgarians. The Serbs suffered defeat near modern day Gnjilane in the Battle of Kosovo. Montenegro covered the Serbian retreat towards the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac in 6–7 January 1916, but ultimately the Austrians conquered Montenegro, too. Serbian forces were evacuated by ship to Greece.

In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece, to offer assistance and to pressure the government to declare war against the Central Powers. Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos, before the Allied expeditionary force could arrive. The friction between the king of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the National Schism, which effectively divided Greece between regions still loyal to the king and the new provisional government of Venizelos in Salonica. After intensive diplomatic negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Allied and royalist forces (an incident known as Noemvriana) the king of Greece resigned, and his second son Alexander took his place. Venizelos returned to Athens on 29 May 1917 and Greece, now unified, officially joined the war on the side of the Allies. The entire Greek army was mobilized and began to participate in military operations against the Central Powers on the Macedonian front. After conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. Bulgarians commenced Bulgarization of the Serbian population in their occupation zone, banishing Serbian Cyrillic and the Serbian Orthodox Church. After forced conscription of the Serbian population into the Bulgarian army in 1917, the Toplica Uprising began. Serbian rebels liberated for a short time the area between the Kopaonik mountains and the South Morava river. The uprising was crushed by joint efforts of Bulgarian and Austrian forces at the end of March 1917.

The Macedonian Front was mostly static. Serbian forces retook part of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on 19 November 1916. Only at the end of the conflict did the Entente powers break through, after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had withdrawn. The Bulgarians suffered their only defeat of the war at the Battle of Dobro Pole but days later, they decisively defeated British and Greek forces at the Battle of Doiran, avoiding occupation. Bulgaria signed an armistice on 29 September 1918. Hindenburg and Ludendorff concluded that the strategic and operational balance had now shifted decidedly against the Central Powers and a day after the Bulgarian collapse, during a meeting with government officials, insisted on an immediate peace settlement.

The disappearance of the Macedonian front meant that the road to Budapest and Vienna was now opened for the 670,000-strong army of general Franchet d'Esperey as the Bulgarian surrender deprived the Central Powers of the 278 infantry battalions and 1,500 guns (the equivalent of some 25 to 30 German divisions) that were previously holding the line. The German high command responded by sending only seven infantry and one cavalry division but these forces were far from enough for a front to be reestablished.

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in the war, the secret Ottoman-German Alliance having been signed in August 1914. It threatened Russia's Caucasian territories and Britain's communications with India via the Suez Canal. The British and French opened overseas fronts with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns. In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs). In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Imperial forces reorganised and captured Baghdad in March 1917.

Further to the west, the Suez Canal was successfully defended from Ottoman attacks in 1915 and 1916; in August a joint German and Ottoman force was defeated at the Battle of Romani. Following this victory, a British Empire force advanced across the Sinai Peninsula, pushing Ottoman forces back to the Battle of Magdhaba in December and to the Battle of Rafa on the border between the Egyptian Sinai and Ottoman Palestine in January 1917. In March and April at the First and Second Battles of Gaza, German and Ottoman forces stopped the advance but at the end of October the Sinai and Palestine Campaign resumed, when Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force won the Battle of Beersheba. Two Ottoman armies were defeated a few weeks later at the Battle of Mughar Ridge and early in December Jerusalem was captured following another Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Jerusalem (1917). About this time Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein was relieved of his duties as the Eighth Army's commander, to be replaced by Djevad Pasha and a few months later the commander of the Ottoman Army in Palestine Erich von Falkenhayn was replaced by Otto Liman von Sanders.

The Egyptian Expeditionary Force, under Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, broke the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918. In six weeks, during virtually continuous operations, battles were successfully fought by British infantry and Australian, New Zealand and British Light Horse, Mounted Rifle and Yeomanry mounted brigades across the Jordan River to Amman in the east and northwards to capture Nablus and Tulkarm in the Judean Hills and following the Mediterranean coast into the Jezreel Valley (Esdraelon Plain) where Jenin and Nazareth were captured along with Daraa on the Hejaz railway, Semakh and Tiberias on to the Sea of Gallilee and finally Damascus and Aleppo. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October when two and a half Ottoman armies had been defeated and captured.

Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Ottoman armed forces, was ambitious and dreamed of re-conquering central Asia, and areas that had been lost to Russia previously. He was, however, a poor commander. He launched an offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus in December 1914 with 100,000 troops; insisting on a frontal attack against mountainous Russian positions in winter, he lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamish.

General Yudenich, the Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, drove the Turks out of most of the southern Caucasus with a string of victories. In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed command of the Caucasus front. Nicholas planned a railway from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories, so that fresh supplies could be brought up for a new offensive in 1917. However, in March 1917, (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian Caucasus Army began to fall apart.

The army corps of Armenian volunteer units realigned under the command of General Tovmas Nazarbekian, with Dro as a civilian commissioner of the Administration for Western Armenia. The front line had three main divisions commanded by Movses Silikyan, Andranik, and Mikhail Areshian. Another regular unit was under Colonel Korganian. More than 40,000 men in Armenian partisan guerrilla detachments accompanied the main units.

Instigated by the Arab bureau of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Arab Revolt started with the help of Britain in June 1916 at the Battle of Mecca, led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca, and ended with the Ottoman surrender of Damascus. Fakhri Pasha, the Ottoman commander of Medina, resisted for more than two and half years during the Siege of Medina.

Along the border of Italian Libya and British Egypt, the Senussi tribe, incited and armed by the Turks, waged a small-scale guerrilla war against Allied troops. The British were forced to dispatch 12,000 troops to oppose them in the Senussi Campaign. Their rebellion was finally crushed in mid-1916.

Italian participation

Italy had been allied with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882 as part of the Triple Alliance. However, the nation had its own designs on Austrian territory in Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia. Rome had a secret 1902 pact with France, effectively nullifying its alliance. At the start of hostilities, Italy refused to commit troops, arguing that the Triple Alliance was defensive and that Austria–Hungary was an aggressor. The Austro-Hungarian government began negotiations to secure Italian neutrality, offering the French colony of Tunisia in return. The Allies made a counter-offer in which Italy would receive the Southern Tyrol, Julian March and territory on the Dalmatian coast after the defeat of Austria-Hungary. This was formalised by the Treaty of London. Further encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915, Italy joined the Triple Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May. Fifteen months later Italy declared war on Germany.

Militarily, the Italians had numerical superiority. This advantage, however, was lost, not only because of the difficult terrain in which fighting took place, but also because of the strategies and tactics employed. Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, had dreams of breaking into the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. It was a Napoleonic plan, which had no realistic chance of success in an age of barbed wire, machine guns, and indirect artillery fire, combined with hilly and mountainous terrain.

On the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarians took advantage of the mountainous terrain, which favoured the defender. After an initial strategic retreat, the front remained largely unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen engaged Italian Alpini in bitter hand-to-hand combat throughout the summer. The Austro-Hungarians counter attacked in the Altopiano of Asiago, towards Verona and Padua, in the spring of 1916 (''Strafexpedition''), but made little progress.

Beginning in 1915, the Italians under Cadorna mounted eleven offensives on the Isonzo front along the Isonzo River, north east of Trieste. All eleven offensives were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who held the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained static for over a year, despite several Italian offensives. In the autumn of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austro-Hungarian troops received large numbers of reinforcements, including German Stormtroopers and the elite Alpenkorps. The Central Powers launched a crushing offensive on 26 October 1917, spearheaded by the Germans. They achieved a victory at Caporetto. The Italian Army was routed and retreated more than 100 kilometres (60 mi.) to reorganise, stabilising the front at the Piave River. Since in the Battle of Caporetto the Italian Army had heavy losses, the Italian Government called to arms the so-called '''99 Boys'' (''Ragazzi del '99''): that is, all males who were 18 years old. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarians failed to break through, in a series of battles on the Piave River and, finally being decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in October of that year. Austria-Hungary surrendered in early November 1918.

Romanian participation

Romania had been allied with the Central Powers since 1882. When the war began, however, it declared its neutrality, arguing that because Austria-Hungary had itself declared war on Serbia, Romania was under no obligation to join the war. When the Entente Powers promised Romania large territories of eastern Hungary (Transylvania and Banat), that had a large Romanian population, in exchange for Romania’s declaring war on the Central Powers, the Romanian government renounced its neutrality, and on 27 August 1916 the Romanian Army launched an attack against Austria-Hungary, with limited Russian support. The Romanian offensive was initially successful, pushing back the Austro-Hungarian troops in Transylvania, but a counter attack by the forces of the Central Powers drove back the Russo-Romanian forces and as a result of the Battle of Bucharest the Central Powers occupied Bucharest on 6 December 1916. Fighting in Moldova continued in 1917, resulting in a costly stalemate for the Central Powers. As Russia withdrew from the war in late 1917 as a result of the October Revolution, Romania was forced to sign an armistice with the Central Powers on 9 December 1917.

In January 1918, Romanian forces established control over Bessarabia as the Russian Army abandoned the province. Although a treaty was signed by the Romanian and the Bolshevik Russian government following talks between 5–9 March 1918 on the withdrawal of Romanian forces from Bessarabia within two months, on 27 March 1918 Romania attached Bessarabia to its territory, formally based on a resolution passed by the local assembly of the territory on the unification with Romania.

Romania officially made peace with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Bucharest on 7 May 1918. Under that treaty, Romania was obliged to end war with the Central Powers and make small territorial concessions for Austria-Hungary, ceding control of some passes in the Carpathian Mountains and grant oil concessions for Germany. In exchange, the Central Powers recognised the sovereignty of Romania over Bessarabia. The treaty was renounced in October 1918 by the Alexandru Marghiloman government and Romania nominally re-entered the war on 10 November 1918. The next day, the Treaty of Bucharest was nullified by the terms of the Armistice of Compiègne. Total Romanian deaths from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within contemporary borders, were estimated at 748,000.

The role of India

The war began with an unprecedented outpouring of loyalty and goodwill towards the United Kingdom from within the mainstream political leadership, contrary to initial British fears of an Indian revolt. The Indian Army in fact outnumbered the British Army at the beginning of the war. India under British rule contributed greatly to the British war effort by providing men and resources. This was done by the Indian Congress in hope of achieving self-government as India was very much under the control of the British. The United Kingdom disappointed the Indians by not providing self-governance, leading to the Gandhian Era in Indian history. About 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while both the Indian government and the princes sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. In all 140,000 men served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East. Casualties of Indian soldiers totalled 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded during World War I.

Eastern Front

Initial actions

While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued in East Europe. Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership was instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated into Galicia, and in May the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern frontiers. On 5 August they captured Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland.

Russian Revolution

Despite the success of the June 1916 Brusilov Offensive in eastern Galicia, dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew. The success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces to support the victory. Allied and Russian forces were revived only temporarily with Romania's entry into the war on 27 August. German forces came to the aid of embattled Austro-Hungarian units in Transylvania and Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on 6 December. Meanwhile, unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar remained at the front. Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew protests and resulted in the murder of her favourite, Rasputin, at the end of 1916.

In March 1917, demonstrations in Petrograd culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak Provisional Government which shared power with the Petrograd Soviet socialists. This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home. The army became increasingly ineffective. The war and the government became increasingly unpopular. Discontent led to a rise in popularity of the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin. He promised to pull Russia out of the war and was able to gain power. The triumph of the Bolsheviks in November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany. At first the Bolsheviks refused the German terms, but when Germany resumed the war and marched across Ukraine with impunity, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918. It took Russia out of the war and ceded vast territories, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, parts of Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers. The manpower required for German occupation of former Russian territory may have contributed to the failure of the Spring Offensive, however, and secured relatively little food or other materiel.

With the adoption of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Entente no longer existed. The Allied powers led a small-scale invasion of Russia, partly to stop Germany from exploiting Russian resources and, to a lesser extent, to support the "Whites" (as opposed to "Reds") in the Russian Civil War. Allied troops landed in Archangel and in Vladivostok.

Central Powers proposal for starting peace negotiations

In December 1916, after ten brutal months of the Battle of Verdun and a successful offensive against Romania, the Germans attempted to negotiate a peace with the Allies. Soon after, U.S. President Wilson attempted to intervene as a peacemaker, asking in a note for both sides to state their demands. Lloyd George's War Cabinet considered the German offer as a ploy to create divisions amongst the Allies. After initial outrage and much deliberation, they took Wilson's note as a separate effort, signalling that the U.S. was on the verge of entering the war against Germany following the "submarine outrages". While the Allies debated a response to Wilson's offer, the Germans chose to rebuff it in favour of "a direct exchange of views". Learning of the German response, the Allied governments were free to make clear demands in their response of 14 January. They sought restoration of damages, the evacuation of occupied territories, reparations for France, Russia and Romania, and a recognition of the principle of nationalities. This included the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Romanians, Czecho-Slovaks, and the creation of a "free and united Poland". On the question of security, the Allies sought guarantees that would prevent or limit future wars, complete with sanctions, as a condition of any peace settlement. The negotiations failed and the Entente powers rejected the German offer, because Germany did not state any specific proposals. To Wilson the Entente powers stated, that they will not start peace negotiations until the Central powers evacuated all occupied Allied territories and provided indemnities for all damage which was done.

1917–1918

Developments in 1917

Events of 1917 proved decisive in ending the war, although their effects were not fully felt until 1918.

The British naval blockade began to have a serious impact on Germany. In response, in February 1917, the German General Staff convinced Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war. German planners estimated that unrestricted submarine warfare would cost Britain a monthly shipping loss of 600,000 tons. While it was realised that the policy was also likely to bring the United States into the conflict, British shipping losses would be so high that it would be forced to sue for peace after 5 to 6 months, before American intervention could make an impact. In reality, tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February to July. It peaked at 860,000 tons in April. After July, the newly re-introduced convoy system became extremely effective in reducing the U-boat threat. Britain was safe from starvation while German industrial output fell, and the United States troops joined the war in large numbers far earlier than Germany had anticipated.

On 3 May 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, the weary French 2nd Colonial Division, veterans of the Battle of Verdun, refused their orders, arriving drunk and without their weapons. Their officers lacked the means to punish an entire division, and harsh measures were not immediately implemented. Then, mutinies afflicted an additional 54 French divisions and saw 20,000 men desert. The other Allied forces attacked but sustained tremendous casualties. However, appeals to patriotism and duty, as well as mass arrests and trials, encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches, although the French soldiers refused to participate in further offensive action. Robert Nivelle was removed from command by 15 May, replaced by General Philippe Pétain, who suspended bloody large-scale attacks.

The victory of Austria–Hungary and Germany at the Battle of Caporetto led the Allies at the Rapallo Conference to form the Supreme War Council to coordinate planning. Previously, British and French armies had operated under separate commands.

In December, the Central Powers signed an armistice with Russia. This released large numbers of German troops for use in the west. With German reinforcements and new American troops pouring in, the outcome was to be decided on the Western front. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war, but they held high hopes for success based on a final quick offensive. Furthermore, the leaders of the Central Powers and the Allies became increasingly fearful of social unrest and revolution in Europe. Thus, both sides urgently sought a decisive victory.

Entry of the United States

Non-Intervention

The United States originally pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. When a German U-boat sank the British liner ''Lusitania'' in 1915, with 128 Americans aboard, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson vowed, "America is too proud to fight" and demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. He repeatedly warned the U.S. would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, in violation of international law and U.S. ideas of human rights. Wilson was under pressure from former president Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German acts as "piracy". Wilson's desire to have a seat at negotiations at war's end to advance the League of Nations also played a role. Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, whose opinions had been ignored, resigned as he could no longer support the president's policy. Public opinion was angered at suspected German sabotage of Black Tom in Jersey City, New Jersey, and the Kingsland Explosion.

In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. The German Foreign minister, in the Zimmermann Telegram, told Mexico that U.S. entry was likely once unrestricted submarine warfare began, and invited Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States. In return, the Germans would send Mexico money and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona that Mexico lost during the Mexican-American War 70 years earlier. Wilson released the Zimmerman note to the public and Americans saw it as a ''casus belli''—a cause for war.

U.S. declaration of war on Germany

After the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917.

First active U.S. participation

The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power". The United States had a small army, but, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, it drafted 2.8 million men and by summer 1918 was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. In 1917, the U.S. Congress gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. Germany had miscalculated, believing it would be many more months before they would arrive and that the arrival could be stopped by U-boats.

The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of U.S. Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted U.S. units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The U.S. rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up U.S. units to be used as reinforcements for British Empire and French units. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to be used in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, earning a unit Croix de guerre for their actions at Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood and Sechault. AEF doctrine called for the use of frontal assaults, which had long since been discarded by British Empire and French commanders because of the large loss of life.

Austrian offer of separate peace

In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria secretly attempted separate peace negotiations with Clemenceau, with his wife's brother Sixtus in Belgium as an intermediary, without the knowledge of Germany. When the negotiations failed, his attempt was revealed to Germany, resulting in a diplomatic catastrophe.

German Spring Offensive of 1918

German General Erich Ludendorff drew up plans (codenamed Operation Michael) for the 1918 offensive on the Western Front. The Spring Offensive sought to divide the British and French forces with a series of feints and advances. The German leadership hoped to strike a decisive blow before significant U.S. forces arrived. The operation commenced on 21 March 1918 with an attack on British forces near Amiens. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometres (40 miles).

British and French trenches were penetrated using novel infiltration tactics, also named ''Hutier'' tactics, after General Oskar von Hutier. Previously, attacks had been characterised by long artillery bombardments and massed assaults. However, in the Spring Offensive of 1918, Ludendorff used artillery only briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points. They attacked command and logistics areas and bypassed points of serious resistance. More heavily armed infantry then destroyed these isolated positions. German success relied greatly on the element of surprise.

The front moved to within 120 kilometres (75 mi) of Paris. Three heavy Krupp railway guns fired 183 shells on the capital, causing many Parisians to flee. The initial offensive was so successful that Kaiser Wilhelm II declared 24 March a national holiday. Many Germans thought victory was near. After heavy fighting, however, the offensive was halted. Lacking tanks or motorised artillery, the Germans were unable to consolidate their gains. This situation was not helped by the supply lines now being stretched as a result of their advance. The sudden stop was also a result of the four Australian Imperial Force (AIF) divisions that were "rushed" down, thus doing what no other army had done and stopping the German advance in its tracks. During that time the first Australian division was hurriedly sent north again to stop the second German breakthrough.

General Foch pressed to use the arriving American troops as individual replacements. Pershing sought instead to field American units as an independent force. These units were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on 28 March. A Supreme War Council of Allied forces was created at the Doullens Conference on 5 November 1917. General Foch was appointed as supreme commander of the allied forces. Haig, Petain and Pershing retained tactical control of their respective armies; Foch assumed a coordinating role, rather than a directing role and the British, French and U.S. commands operated largely independently.

Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette against the northern English Channel ports. The Allies halted the drive with limited territorial gains for Germany. The German Army to the south then conducted Operations Blücher and Yorck, broadly towards Paris. Operation Marne was launched on 15 July, attempting to encircle Reims and beginning the Second Battle of the Marne. The resulting counterattack, starting the Hundred Days Offensive, marked their first successful Allied offensive of the war.

By 20 July the Germans were back across the Marne at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines, having achieved nothing. Following this last phase of the war in the West, the German Army never again regained the initiative. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000, including many highly trained stormtroopers.

Meanwhile, Germany was falling apart at home. Anti-war marches became frequent and morale in the army fell. Industrial output was 53 percent of 1913 levels.

New states under war zone

In 1918, the internationally recognized Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Democratic Republic of Armenia and Democratic Republic of Georgia bordering the Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire were established, as well as the unrecognized Centrocaspian Dictatorship and South West Caucasian Republic. Later, these unrecognized states were eliminated by Azerbaijan and Turkey.

In 1918, the Dashnaks of the Armenian national liberation movement declared the Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA) through the Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians (unified form of Armenian National Councils) after the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. Tovmas Nazarbekian became the first Commander-in-chief of the DRA. Enver Pasha ordered the creation of a new army to be named the Army of Islam. He ordered the Army of Islam into the DRA, with the goal of taking Baku on the Caspian Sea. This new offensive was strongly opposed by the Germans. In early May 1918, the Ottoman army attacked the newly declared DRA. Although the Armenians managed to inflict one defeat on the Ottomans at the Battle of Sardarabad, the Ottoman army won a later battle and scattered the Armenian army. The Republic of Armenia signed the Treaty of Batum in June 1918.

Allied victory: summer and autumn 1918

The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, began on 8 August 1918. The Battle of Amiens developed with III Corps British Fourth Army on the left, the French First Army on the right, and the Australian and Canadian Corps spearheading the offensive in the centre through Harbonnières. It involved 414 tanks of the Mark IV and Mark V type, and 120,000 men. They advanced 12 kilometres (7 miles) into German-held territory in just seven hours. Erich Ludendorff referred to this day as the "Black Day of the German army".

The Australian-Canadian spearhead at Amiens, a battle that was the beginning of Germany’s downfall, helped pull the British armies to the north and the French armies to the south forward. While German resistance on the British Fourth Army front at Amiens stiffened, after an advance as far as and concluded the battle there, the French Third Army lengthened the Amiens front on 10 August, when it was thrown in on the right of the French First Army, and advanced liberating Lassigny in fighting which lasted until 16 August. South of the French Third Army, General Charles Mangin (The Butcher) drove his French Tenth Army forward at Soissons on 20 August to capture eight thousand prisoners, two hundred guns and the Aisne heights overlooking and menacing the German position north of the Vesle. Another "Black day" as described by Erich Ludendorff.

Meanwhile General Byng of the Third British Army, reporting that the enemy on his front was thinning in a limited withdrawal, was ordered to attack with 200 tanks towards Bapaume, opening the Battle of Albert, with the specific orders of "To break the enemy's front, in order to outflank the enemies present battle front" (opposite the British Fourth Army at Amiens). Allied leaders had now realised that to continue an attack after resistance had hardened was a waste of lives and it was better to turn a line than to try to roll over it. Attacks were being undertaken in quick order to take advantage of the successful advances on the flanks and then broken off when that attack lost its initial impetus.

The British Third Army's front north of Albert progressed after stalling for a day against the main resistance line to which the enemy had withdrawn. Rawlinson’s Fourth British Army was able to battle its left flank forward between Albert and the Somme straightening the line between the advanced positions of the Third Army and the Amiens front which resulted in recapturing Albert at the same time. On 26 August the British First Army on the left of the Third Army was drawn into the battle extending it northward to beyond Arras. The Canadian Corps already being back in the vanguard of the First Army fought their way from Arras eastward astride the heavily defended Arras-Cambrai before reaching the outer defences of the Hindenburg Line, breaching them on the 28 and 29 August. Bapaume fell on the 29 August to the New Zealand Division of the Third Army and the Australians, still leading the advance of the Fourth Army, were again able to push forward at Amiens to take Peronne and Mont Saint-Quentin on 31 August. Further south the French First and Third Armies had slowly fought forward while the Tenth Army, who had by now crossed the Ailette and was east of the Chemin des Dames, was now near to the Alberich position of the Hindenburg Line. During the last week of August the pressure along a front against the enemy was heavy and unrelenting. From German accounts, "Each day was spent in bloody fighting against an ever and again on-storming enemy, and nights passed without sleep in retirements to new lines." Even to the north in Flanders the British Second and Fifth Armies during August and September were able to make progress taking prisoners and positions that were previously denied them.

thumb|left|upright|Close-up view of an American major in the basket of an observation balloon flying over territory near front linesOn 2 September the Canadian Corps outflanking of the Hindenburg line, with the breaching of the Wotan Position, made it possible for the Third Army to advance and sent repercussions all along the Western Front. That same day Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL) had no choice but to issue orders to six armies for withdrawal back into the Hindenburg Line in the south, behind the Canal du Nord on the Canadian-First Army's front and back to a line east of the Lys in the north, giving up without a fight the salient seized in the previous April. According to Ludendorff “We had to admit the necessity ... to withdraw the entire front from the Scarpe to the Vesle.”

In nearly four weeks of fighting since 8 August, over 100,000 German prisoners were taken, 75,000 by the BEF and the rest by the French. Since "The Black Day of the German Army" the German High Command realised the war was lost and made attempts for a satisfactory end. The day after the battle Ludenforff told Colonel Mertz "We cannot win the war any more, but we must not lose it either." On 11 August he offered his resignation to the Kaiser, who refused it and replied, "I see that we must strike a balance. We have nearly reached the limit of our powers of resistance. The war must be ended." On 13 August at Spa, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Chancellor and Foreign Minister Hintz agreed that the war could not be ended militarily and on the following day the German Crown Council decided victory in the field was now most improbable. Austria and Hungary warned that they could only continue the war until December and Ludendorff recommended immediate peace negotiations, to which the Kaiser responded by instructing Hintz to seek the mediation of the Queen of the Netherlands. Prince Rupprecht warned Prince Max of Baden "Our military situation has deteriorated so rapidly that I no longer believe we can hold out over the winter; it is even possible that a catastrophe will come earlier." On 10 September Hindenburg urged peace moves to Emperor Charles of Austria and Germany appealed to the Netherlands for mediation. On the 14 September Austria sent a note to all belligerents and neutrals suggesting a meeting for peace talks on neutral soil and on 15 September Germany made a peace offer to Belgium. Both peace offers were rejected and on 24 September OHL informed the leaders in Berlin that armistice talks were inevitable.

September saw the Germans continuing to fight strong rear guard actions and launching numerous counter attacks on lost positions, with only a few succeeding and then only temporarily. Contested towns, villages, heights and trenches in the screening positions and outposts of the Hindenburg Line continued to fall to the Allies, with the BEF alone taking 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September. Further small advances eastward would follow the Third Army victory at Ivincourt on 12 September, the Fourth Armies at Epheny on 18 September and the French gain of Essigny-le-Grand a day later. On 24 September a final assault by both the British and French on a 4 mile (6 km) front would come within 2 miles (3 km) of St. Quentin. With the outposts and preliminary defensive lines of the Siegfried and Alberich Positions eliminated the Germans were now completely back in the Hindenburg Line. With the Wotan position of that line already breached and the Siegfried position in danger of being turned from the north the time had now come for an assault on the whole length of the line.

The Allied attack on the Hindenburg Line began on 26 September including U.S. soldiers. The still-green American troops suffered problems coping with supply trains for large units on a difficult landscape. The following week cooperating French and American units broke through in Champagne at the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge, forcing the Germans off the commanding heights, and closing towards the Belgian frontier. The last Belgian town to be liberated before the armistice was Ghent, which the Germans held as a pivot until Allied artillery was brought up. The German army had to shorten its front and use the Dutch frontier as an anchor to fight rear-guard actions.

When Bulgaria signed a separate armistice on 29 September, the Allies gained control of Serbia and Greece. Ludendorff, having been under great stress for months, suffered something similar to a breakdown. It was evident that Germany could no longer mount a successful defence.

Meanwhile, news of Germany's impending military defeat spread throughout the German armed forces. The threat of mutiny was rife. Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last attempt to restore the "valour" of the German Navy. Knowing the government of Prince Maximilian of Baden would veto any such action, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Many rebelled and were arrested, refusing to be part of a naval offensive which they believed to be suicidal. Ludendorff took the blame—the Kaiser dismissed him on 26 October. The collapse of the Balkans meant that Germany was about to lose its main supplies of oil and food. The reserves had been used up, but U.S. troops kept arriving at the rate of 10,000 per day.

Having suffered over 6 million casualties, Germany moved towards peace. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of a new government as Chancellor of Germany to negotiate with the Allies. Telegraphic negotiations with President Wilson began immediately, in the vain hope that better terms would be offered than by the British and French. Instead Wilson demanded the abdication of the Kaiser. There was no resistance when the social democrat Philipp Scheidemann on 9 November declared Germany to be a republic. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born: the Weimar Republic.

Armistices and capitulations

The collapse of the Central Powers came swiftly. Bulgaria was the first to sign an armistice on 29 September 1918 at Saloniki. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated at Moudros (Armistice of Mudros).

On 24 October, the Italians began a push which rapidly recovered territory lost after the Battle of Caporetto. This culminated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which marked the end of the Austro-Hungarian Army as an effective fighting force. The offensive also triggered the disintegration of Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the last week of October declarations of independence were made in Budapest, Prague and Zagreb. On 29 October, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice. But the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine and Trieste. On 3 November Austria–Hungary sent a flag of truce to ask for an Armistice. The terms, arranged by telegraph with the Allied Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian Commander and accepted. The Armistice with Austria was signed in the Villa Giusti, near Padua, on 3 November. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Following the outbreak of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, a republic was proclaimed on 9 November. The Kaiser fled to the Netherlands. On 11 November an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918; "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"; a ceasefire came into effect. Opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions. Canadian Private George Lawrence Price is traditionally regarded as the last soldier killed in the Great War: he was shot by a German sniper at 10:57 and died at 10:58.

Allied superiority and the stab-in-the-back legend, November 1918

In November 1918 the Allies had ample supplies of men and materiel to invade Germany, yet at the time of the armistice, no Allied force had crossed the German frontier and Berlin was still almost from the Western Front. The Kaiser's armies had also retreated from the battlefield in good order which enabled Hindenburg and other senior German leaders to spread the story that their armies had not really been defeated. This resulted in the stab-in-the-back legend which attributed Germany's losing the war not to its inability to continue fighting (even though up to a million soldiers were suffering from the 1918 flu pandemic and unfit to fight), but to the public's failure to respond to its "patriotic calling" and the intentional sabotaging of the war effort, particularly by Jews, Socialists and Bolsheviks.

A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on 28 June 1919. Later treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were signed. However, the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife (the Turkish War of Independence) and a final peace treaty was signed between the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey, at Lausanne on 24 July 1923.

Some war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versailles treaty was signed in 1919; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the armistice of 11 November 1918. Legally the last formal peace treaties were not signed until the Treaty of Lausanne. Under its terms, the Allied forces divested Constantinople on 23 August 1923.

Technology

The First World War began as a clash of 20-century technology and 19th-century tactics, with inevitably large casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernised and were making use of telephone, wireless communication, armoured cars, tanks, and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganised, so that 100 man companies were no longer the main unit of manoeuvre. Instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured. Artillery also underwent a revolution.

In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone. Counter-battery missions became commonplace, also, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.

Germany was far ahead of the Allies in utilising heavy indirect fire. She employed 150 and 210 mm howitzers in 1914 when the typical French and British guns were only 75 and 105 mm. The British had a 6 inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm and 420 mm guns, and already by the beginning of the war had inventories of various calibers of ''Minenwerfer'' ideally suited for trench warfare.

Much of the combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each yard gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Haber process of nitrogen fixation was employed to provide the German forces with a constant supply of gunpowder, in the face of British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head-wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the Adrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German ''Stahlhelm'', a design, with improvements, still in use today. {|class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#white; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5" |style="text-align: left;"|"''Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!... Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."''- Wilfred Owen, ''DULCE ET DECORUM EST'', 1917 |} The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas and phosgene. Few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing were both outlawed by the 1907 Hague Conventions, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination.

The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns weighing hundreds of tons apiece. These were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres (60 mi), though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms (210 lb). While the Allies had railway guns, German models severely out-ranged and out-classed them.

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya 23 October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year. By 1914 the military utility was obvious. They were initially used for reconnaissance and ground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed. Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins as well. Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMS ''Furious'' launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in 1918. German U-boats (submarines) were deployed after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS ''R-1'', 1917), forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918). To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.

Trenches, machine guns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The British sought a solution with the creation of the tank and mechanised warfare. The first tanks were used during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability became an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while combined arms teams captured 8000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Light automatic weapons and submachine guns were also introduced during the conflict, such as the Lewis Gun, the Browning automatic rifle, and the Bergmann MP18.

Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes. If there was an enemy air attack, the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft (with their marginal power output) and smaller versions would not be developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice. Recognised for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets of enemy aircraft. To defend against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were even tried. Blimps and balloons contributed to air-to-air combat among aircraft, because of their reconnaissance value, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines. The resulting panic took several squadrons of fighters from France.

Another new weapon, flamethrowers, were first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, they were a powerful, demoralising weapon and caused terror on the battlefield. It was a dangerous weapon to wield, as its heavy weight made operators vulnerable targets.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for wheeled vehicles eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.

War crimes

Genocide and ethnic cleansing

Ottoman Empire

The ethnic cleansing of the Ottoman Empire's Christian population, with the most prominent among them being the deportation and massacres of Armenians (similar policies were enacted against the Assyrians and Ottoman Greeks) during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is considered genocide. The Ottomans saw the entire Armenian population as an enemy that had chosen to side with Russia at the beginning of the war. In early 1915, a number of Armenian nationalist groups, such as the Armenakan, Dashnak and Hunchak organisations, joined the Russian forces, and the Ottoman government used this as a pretext to issue the Tehcir Law. This authorised the deportation of the Armenians from eastern Anatolia to Syria between 1915 and 1917. The exact number of deaths is unknown, although Balakian gives a range of 250,000 to 1.5 million for the deaths of Armenians, the International Association of Genocide Scholars estimates over 1 million. The government of Turkey has consistently rejected charges of genocide, arguing that those who died were victims of inter-ethnic fighting, famine or disease during the First World War.

Russian Empire

Approximately 200,000 Germans living in Volhynia and about 600,000 Jews were deported by the Russian authorities. In 1916, an order was issued to deport around 650,000 Volga Germans to the east as well, but the Russian Revolution prevented this from being carried out. Many pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire.

Rape of Belgium

In Belgium, German troops, in fear of French and Belgian guerrilla fighters, or ''francs-tireurs'', massacred townspeople in Andenne (211 dead), Tamines (384 dead), and Dinant (612 dead). On 25 August 1914, the Germans set fire to the town of Leuven, burned the library containing about 230,000 books, killed 209 civilians and forced 42,000 to evacuate. These actions brought worldwide condemnation.

Soldiers' experiences

The soldiers of the war were initially volunteers, except for Italy, but increasingly were conscripted into service. Britain's Imperial War Museum has collected more than 2,500 recordings of soldiers' personal accounts and selected transcripts, edited by military author Max Arthur, have been published. The museum believes that historians have not taken full account of this material and accordingly has made the full archive of recordings available to authors and researchers. Surviving veterans, returning home, often found that they could only discuss their experiences amongst themselves. Grouping together, they formed "veterans' associations" or "Legions".

Prisoners of war

About 8 million men surrendered and were held in POW camps during the war. All nations pledged to follow the Hague Conventions on fair treatment of prisoners of war. A POW's rate of survival was generally much higher than their peers at the front. Individual surrenders were uncommon. Large units usually surrendered en masse. At the Battle of Tannenberg 92,000 Russians surrendered. When the besieged garrison of Kaunas surrendered in 1915, some 20,000 Russians became prisoners. Over half of Russian losses were prisoners (as a proportion of those captured, wounded or killed); for Austria-Hungary 32%, for Italy 26%, for France 12%, for Germany 9%; for Britain 7%. Prisoners from the Allied armies totalled about 1.4 million (not including Russia, which lost 2.-3.5 million men as prisoners.) From the Central Powers about 3.3 million men became prisoners.

Germany held 2.5 million prisoners; Russia held 2.9 million; while Britain and France held about 720,000. Most were captured just prior to the Armistice. The U.S. held 48,000. The most dangerous moment was the act of surrender, when helpless soldiers were sometimes gunned down. Once prisoners reached a camp, in general, conditions were satisfactory (and much better than in World War II), thanks in part to the efforts of the International Red Cross and inspections by neutral nations. Conditions were terrible in Russia, starvation was common for prisoners and civilians alike; about 15–20% of the prisoners in Russia died. In Germany food was scarce, but only 5% died.

The Ottoman Empire often treated POWs poorly. Some 11,800 British Empire soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the Siege of Kut, in Mesopotamia, in April 1916, 4,250 died in captivity. Although many were in very bad condition when captured, Ottoman officers forced them to march to Anatolia. A survivor said: "we were driven along like beasts, to drop out was to die." The survivors were then forced to build a railway through the Taurus Mountains.

In Russia, where the prisoners from the Czech Legion of the Austro-Hungarian army were released in 1917 they re-armed themselves and briefly became a military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War.

While the Allied prisoners of the Central Powers were quickly sent home at the end of active hostilities, the same treatment was not granted to Central Power prisoners of the Allies and Russia, many of which had to serve as forced labor, e.g. in France until 1920. They were only released after many approaches by the Red Cross to the Allied Supreme Council. There were still German prisoners being held in Russia as late as 1924.

Military attachés and war correspondents

Military and civilian observers from every major power closely followed the course of the war. Many were able to report on events from a perspective somewhat akin to modern "embedded" positions within the opposing land and naval forces. These military attachés and other observers prepared voluminous first-hand accounts of the war and analytical papers.

For example, former U.S. Army Captain Granville Fortescue followed the developments of the Gallipoli Campaign from an embedded perspective within the ranks of the Turkish defenders; and his report was passed through Turkish censors before being printed in London and New York. However, this observer's role was abandoned when the U.S. entered the war, as Fortescue immediately re-enlisted, sustaining wounds at Forest of Argonne in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, September 1918.

In-depth observer narratives of the war and more narrowly focused professional journal articles were written soon after the war; and these post-war reports conclusively illustrated the battlefield destructiveness of this conflict. This was not the first time the tactics of entrenched positions for infantry defended with machine guns and artillery became vitally important. The Russo-Japanese War had been closely observed by Military attachés, war correspondents and other observers; but, from a 21st century perspective, it is now apparent that a range of tactical lessons were disregarded or not used in the preparations for war in Europe and throughout the Great War.

Support and opposition to the war

Support

The war was primarily supported by nationalists, industrial producers, and imperialists. In the Balkans, Yugoslav nationalists such as Yugoslav nationalist leader Ante Trumbić in the Balkans strongly supported the war, desiring the freedom of Yugoslavs from Austria-Hungary and other foreign powers and the creation of an independent Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Committee was formed in Paris on 30 April 1915 but shortly moved its office to London, Trumbić led the Committee.

In the Middle East, Arab nationalism soared in Ottoman territories in response to the rise of Turkish nationalism during the war, with Arab nationalist leaders advocating the creation of a pan-Arab state. In 1916, the Arab Revolt began in Ottoman-controlled territories of the Middle East in an effort to achieve independence.

Italian nationalism was stirred by the outbreak of the war and was initially strongly supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war. The Italian Liberal Party under the leadership of Paolo Boselli promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and utilised the Dante Aligheri Society to promote Italian nationalism.

A number of socialist parties initially supported the war when it began in August 1914. Initially European socialists became split on national lines with the conception of class conflict held by radical socialists such as Marxists and syndicalists being overstepped by their support for war. Once the war began, Austrian, British, French, German and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their country's intervention in the war.

Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it, some were militant supporters of the war including Benito Mussolini and Leonida Bissolati. However the Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors had been killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week. The Italian Socialist Party purged itself of pro-war nationalist members, including Mussolini. Mussolini, a syndicalist who supported the war on grounds of irredentist claims on Italian-populated regions of Austria-Hungary, formed the pro-interventionist ''Il Popolo d'Italia'' and the ''Fasci Riviluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista'' ("Revolutionary Fasci for International Action") in October 1914 that later developed into the ''Fasci di Combattimento'' in 1919 and the origin of fascism. Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create ''Il Popolo d'Italia'' to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war.

In April 1918 the Rome Congress of Oppressed Nationalities was held that included Czechoslovak, Italian, Polish, Transylvanian, and Yugoslav representatives that urged the Allies to support national self-determination for the peoples residing within Austria-Hungary.

Opposition

The trade union and socialist movements had long voiced their opposition to a war, which they argued, meant only that workers would kill other workers in the interest of capitalism. Once war was declared, however, many socialists and trade unions backed their governments. Among the exceptions were the Bolsheviks, the Socialist Party of America, and the Italian Socialist Party, and individuals such as Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and their followers in Germany. There were also small anti-war groups in Britain and France.

In Britain, in 1914, the Public Schools Officers' Training Corps annual camp was held at Tidworth Pennings, near Salisbury Plain. Head of the British Army Lord Kitchener was to review the cadets, but the imminence of the war prevented him. General Horace Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring (in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, a Bermudian cadet who was present) ''that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance I, and many of us, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust-probably not more than one-quarter of us - learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it.'' Having voiced these sentiments did not hinder Smith-Dorien's career, or preventing him from doing his duty in World War I to the best of his abilities.

E.D.Morel had been extremely suspicious of the secret diplomacy pursued by the British Foreign Office and in 1911, he showed how a secret understanding between Britain and France over the control of Morocco, followed by a campaign in the British press based on misleading Foreign Office briefings, had stitched up Germany and very nearly caused a European war. In February 1912, he warned that ''"no greater disaster could befall both peoples [Britain and Germany], and all that is most worthy of preservation in modern civilization, than a war between them".'' Convinced that Britain had struck a second secret agreement with France that would drag the nation into any war which involved Russia, he campaigned for such treaties to be made public; for recognition that Germany had been hoodwinked over Morocco; and for the British government to seek to broker a reconciliation between France and Germany. In response, British ministers lied. The prime minister and the foreign secretary repeatedly denied that there was any secret agreement with France. Only on the day war was declared did the foreign secretary admit that a treaty had been in place since 1906. It ensured that Britain would have to fight from the moment Russia mobilised. Morel continued to oppose the war, was reviled in the press and physically attacked seven times for it, eventually being imprisoned in 1917.

At the end of July, 1914, when it became clear to the British government that the country was on the verge of war with Germany, four senior members of the government, David Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Sir Charles Trevelyan (Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education), John Burns (President of the Local Government Board) and John Morley (Secretary of State for India), were opposed to the country becoming involved in a European war. They informed the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, that they intended to resign over the issue. When war was declared on 4th August, three of the men, Trevelyan, Burns and Morley, resigned, but Asquith managed to persuade Lloyd George, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, to change his mind. The day after war was declared, Trevelyan began contacting friends about a new political organisation he intended to form to oppose the war. This included two pacifist members of the Liberal Party, Norman Angell and E. D. Morel, and Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Labour Party. A meeting was held and after considering names such as the Peoples' Emancipation Committee and the Peoples' Freedom League, they selected the Union of Democratic Control. The four men agreed that one of the main reasons for the conflict was the secret diplomacy of people like Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. The founders of the Union of Democratic Control produced a manifesto and invited people to support it. Over the next few weeks several leading figures joined the organisation. This included J. A. Hobson, Charles Buxton, Ottoline Morrell, Philip Morrell, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, Arnold Rowntree, Morgan Philips Price, George Cadbury, Helena Swanwick, Fred Jowett, Tom Johnston, Bertrand Russell, Philip Snowden, Ethel Snowden, David Kirkwood, William Anderson, Mary Sheepshanks, Isabella Ford, H. H. Brailsford, Israel Zangwill, Margaret Llewelyn Davies, Konni Zilliacus, Margaret Sackville and Olive Schreiner.

Ramsay MacDonald came under attack from newspapers because of his opposition to the First World War. On 1st October 1914, The Times published a leading article entitled Helping the Enemy, in which it wrote that ''"no paid agent of Germany had served her better"'' than MacDonald had done. The newspaper also included an article by Ignatius Valentine Chirol, who argued: ''"We may be rightly proud of the tolerance we display towards even the most extreme licence of speech in ordinary times... Mr. MacDonald' s case is a very different one. In time of actual war... Mr. MacDonald has sought to besmirch the reputation of his country by openly charging with disgraceful duplicity the Ministers who are its chosen representatives, and he has helped the enemy State ... Such action oversteps the bounds of even the most excessive toleration, and cannot be properly or safely disregarded by the British Government or the British people."''

Many countries jailed those who spoke out against the conflict. These included Eugene Debs in the United States and Bertrand Russell in Britain. In the U.S., the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 made it a federal crime to oppose military recruitment or make any statements deemed "disloyal". Publications at all critical of the government were removed from circulation by postal censors, and many served long prison sentences for statements of fact deemed unpatriotic.

A number of nationalists opposed intervention, particularly within states that the nationalists held hostility to. Irish nationalists staunchly opposed taking part in intervention with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The war had begun amid the Home Rule crisis in Ireland that had begun in 1912 and by 1914 there was a serious possibility of an outbreak of civil war in Ireland between Irish unionists and republicans. Irish nationalists and Marxists attempted to pursue Irish independence, culminating in the Easter Rising of 1916, with Germany sending 20,000 rifles to Ireland in order to stir unrest in the United Kingdom. The UK government placed Ireland under martial law in response to the Easter Rising.

Other opposition came from conscientious objectors – some socialist, some religious – who refused to fight. In Britain 16,000 people asked for conscientious objector status. Many suffered years of prison, including solitary confinement and bread and water diets. Even after the war, in Britain many job advertisements were marked "No conscientious objectors need apply".

The Central Asian Revolt started in the summer of 1916, when the Russian Empire government ended its exemption of Muslims from military service.

In 1917, a series of mutinies in the French army led to dozens of soldiers being executed and many more imprisoned.

In Milan in May 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries organised and engaged in rioting calling for an end to the war, and managed to close down factories and stop public transportation. The Italian army was forced to enter Milan with tanks and machine guns to face Bolsheviks and anarchists who fought violently until May 23 when the army gained control of the city with almost fifty people killed (three of which were Italian soldiers) and over 800 people arrested.

The Conscription Crisis of 1917 in Canada erupted when conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden brought in compulsory military service over the objection of French-speaking Quebecers. Out of approximately 625,000 Canadians who served, about 60,000 were killed and another 173,000 were wounded.

In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria secretly entered into peace negotiations with the Allied powers, with his brother-in-law Sixtus as intermediary, without the knowledge of his ally Germany. He failed, however, because of the resistance of Italy.

In September 1917, the Russian soldiers in France began questioning why they were fighting for the French at all and mutinied. In Russia, opposition to the war led to soldiers also establishing their own revolutionary committees and helped foment the October Revolution of 1917, with the call going up for "bread, land, and peace". The Bolsheviks reached a peace treaty with Germany, the peace of Brest-Litovsk, despite its harsh conditions.

The end of October 1918, in northern Germany, saw the beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war which they saw as good as lost, initiating the uprising. The sailors' revolt which then ensued in the naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel spread across the whole country within days and led to the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918 and shortly thereafter to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Conscription

As the war slowly turned into a war of attrition, conscription was implemented in some countries. This issue was particularly explosive in Canada and Australia. In the former it opened a political gap between French-Canadians, who claimed their true loyalty was to Canada and not the British Empire, and the Anglophone majority who saw the war as a duty to both Britain and Canada. Prime Minister Robert Borden pushed through a Military Service Act, provoking the Conscription Crisis of 1917. In Australia, a sustained pro-conscription campaign by Prime Minister Billy Hughes, caused a split in the Australian Labor Party and Hughes formed the Nationalist Party of Australia in 1917 to pursue the matter. Nevertheless, the labour movement, the Catholic Church, and Irish nationalist expatriates successfully opposed Hughes' push, which was rejected in two plebiscites.

Conscription put into uniform nearly every physically fit man in Britain, six of ten million eligible. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives and 1,700,000 were wounded. Most deaths were to young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers.

Aftermath

Health and economic effects

{|class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 99%; background:#white; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5" |style="text-align: left;"| ''..."Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."'' ''"None," said the other, "Save the undone years"...'' |- |style="text-align: left;" |— Wilfred Owen, ''Strange Meeting'', 1918 |}

No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically — four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the Russian. Four dynasties: the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburg, Romanovs and the Ottomans, together with their ancillary aristocracies, all fell after the war. Belgium and Serbia were badly damaged, as was France with 1.4 million soldiers dead, not counting other casualties. Germany and Russia were similarly affected.

The war had profound economic consequences. Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilised from 1914–1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. Germany lost 15.1% of its active male population, Austria–Hungary lost 17.1%, and France lost 10.5%. About 750,000 German civilians died from starvation caused by the British blockade during the war. By the end of the war, famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon. The best estimates of the death toll from the Russian famine of 1921 run from 5 million to 10 million people. By 1922, there were between 4.5 million and 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the subsequent famine of 1920–1922. Numerous anti-Soviet Russians fled the country after the Revolution; by the 1930s the northern Chinese city of Harbin had 100,000 Russians. Thousands more emigrated to France, England and the United States. Diseases flourished in the chaotic wartime conditions. In 1914 alone, louse-borne epidemic typhus killed 200,000 in Serbia. From 1918 to 1922, Russia had about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus. Whereas before World War I, Russia had about 3.5 million cases of malaria, its people suffered more than 13 million cases in 1923. In addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the 1918 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people.

Lobbying by Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the USA to support Germany culminated in the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917, endorsing creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. A total of more than 1,172,000 Jewish soldiers served in the Allied and Central Power forces in World War I, including 450,000 in Czarist Russia and 275,000 in Austria-Hungary.

The social disruption and widespread violence of the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War sparked more than 2,000 pogroms in the former Russian Empire, mostly in the Ukraine. An estimated 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities.

In the aftermath of World War I, Greece fought against Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal, a war which resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the Treaty of Lausanne. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Pontic Greeks died during this period.

Peace treaties and national boundaries

After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war. Building on Wilson's 14th point, the Treaty of Versailles also brought into being the League of Nations on 28 June 1919.

In signing the treaty, Germany acknowledged responsibility for the war, agreeing to pay enormous war reparations and award territory to the victors. The "Guilt Thesis" became a controversial explanation of later events among analysts in Britain and the United States. The Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements, especially the Nazis, exploited with a conspiracy theory they called the ''Dolchstosslegende'' (Stab-in-the-back legend). The Weimar Republic lost the former colonial possessions and was saddled with accepting blame for the war, as well as paying punitive reparations for it. Unable to pay them with exports (a result of territorial losses and postwar recession), Germany did so by borrowing from the United States. Runaway inflation in the 1920s contributed to the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic and the reparations were suspended in 1931 following the Stock Market Crash in 1929 and the beginnings of the Great Depression worldwide.

Austria–Hungary was partitioned into several successor states, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, largely but not entirely along ethnic lines. Transylvania was shifted from Hungary to Greater Romania. The details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, 3.3 million Hungarians came under foreign rule. Although the Hungarians made up 54% of the population of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary, only 32% of its territory was left to Hungary. Between 1920 and 1924, 354,000 Hungarians fled former Hungarian territories attached to Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The Russian Empire, which had withdrawn from the war in 1917 after the October Revolution, lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were carved from it. Bessarabia was re-attached to the Greater Romania, as it had been a Romanian territory for more than a thousand years.

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated, and much of its non-Anatolian territory was awarded as protectorates of various Allied powers. The Turkish core was reorganised as the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. This treaty was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish republican movement, leading to the Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Legacy

The first tentative efforts to comprehend the meaning and consequences of modern warfare began during the initial phases of the war, and this process continued throughout and after the end of hostilities.

Memorials

Memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns. Close to battlefields, the improvised burial grounds were gradually moved to formal graveyards under the care of organisations such as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the German War Graves Commission and Le Souvenir français. Many of these graveyards also have central monuments to the missing or unidentified dead, such as the Menin Gate memorial and the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.

On 3 May 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer was killed. At his graveside, his friend John McCrae, M.D., of Guelph, Ontario, Canada wrote the memorable poem ''In Flanders Fields'' as a salute to those who perished in the Great War. Published in ''Punch'' on 8 December 1915, it is still recited today, especially on Remembrance Day and Memorial Day.

Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri is a United States memorial dedicated to all Americans who served in World War I. The site for the Liberty Memorial was dedicated on November 1, 1921. On this day, the supreme Allied commanders spoke to a crowd of more than 100,000 people. It was the only time in history these leaders were together in one place. In attendance were Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium; General Armando Diaz of Italy; Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France; General Pershing of the United States; and Admiral D. R. Beatty of Great Britain. After three years of construction, the Liberty Memorial was completed and President Calvin Coolidge delivered the dedication speech to a crowd of 150,000 people in 1926.

Liberty Memorial is also home to The National World War I Museum, the only museum dedicated solely to World War I in the United States.

Cultural memory

The First World War had a lasting impact on social memory. It was seen by many in Britain as signalling the end of Victorian England, and across Europe many regarded it as a watershed moment. Historian Samuel Hynes explained:

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This has become the most common perception of the First World War, perpetuated by the art, cinema, poems and stories published subsequently. Films such as ''All Quiet on the Western Front'', ''Paths of Glory'' and ''For King and Country'' have perpetuated the idea; while war-time films including ''Camrades'', ''Flanders Poppies'' and ''Shoulder Arms'' indicate that the most contemporary views of the war were overall far more positive. Likewise, the art of Paul Nash, John Nash, Christopher Nevison and Henry Tonks in Britain painted a negative view of the conflict in keeping with the growing perception, while popular war-time artists such as Muirhead Bone painted more serene and pleasant interpretations subsequently rejected as inaccurate. Several historians have since countered these interpretations:

These beliefs did not become widely shared because they offered the only accurate interpretation of wartime events. In every respect, the war was much more complicated than they suggest. In recent years, historians have argued persuasively against almost every popular cliché of the First World War. It has been pointed out that, although the losses were devastating, their greatest impact was socially and geographically limited. The many emotions other than horror experienced by soldiers in and out of the front line, including comradeship, boredom and even enjoyment, have been recognised. The war is not now seen as a 'fight about nothing', but as a war of ideals, a struggle between aggressive militarism and more or less liberal democracy. It has been acknowledged that British generals were often capable men facing difficult challenges, and that it was under their command that the British army played a major part in the defeat of the Germans in 1918: a great forgotten victory.

Though these historians have discounted as "myths" these perceptions of the war, they are nevertheless prevalent across much of society. They have dynamically changed according to contemporary influences, reflecting in the 1950s perceptions of the war as 'aimless' following the contrasting Second World War, and emphasising conflict within the ranks during times of class conflict in the 1960s. The majority of additions to the contrary are often rejected.

Social trauma

The social trauma caused by unprecedented rates of casualties manifested itself in different ways, which have been the subject of subsequent historical debate. Some people were revolted by nationalism and its results, and so they began to work towards a more internationalist world, supporting organisations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only strength and military could be relied upon in a chaotic and inhumane world. Anti-modernist views were an outgrowth of the many changes taking place in society.

The experiences of the war led to a collective trauma shared by many from all participating countries. The optimism of ''la belle époque'' was destroyed and those who fought in the war were referred to as the Lost Generation. For years afterwards, people mourned the dead, the missing, and the many disabled. Many soldiers returned with severe trauma, suffering from shell shock (also called neurasthenia, now called posttraumatic stress disorder). Many more returned home with few after-effects; however, their silence about the war contributed to the conflict's growing mythological status. In the United Kingdom, mass-mobilisation, large casualty rates and the collapse of the Edwardian era made a strong impression on society. Though many participants did not share in the experiences of combat or spend any significant time at the front, or had positive memories of their service, the images of suffering and trauma became the widely shared perception. Such historians as Dan Todman, Paul Fussell and Samuel Heyns have all published works since the 1990s arguing that these common perceptions of the war are factually incorrect.

Discontent in Germany

The rise of Nazism and fascism included a revival of the nationalist spirit and a rejection of many post-war changes. Similarly, the popularity of the Stab-in-the-back legend (German: ''Dolchstoßlegende'') was a testament to the psychological state of defeated Germany and was a rejection of responsibility for the conflict. This conspiracy theory of betrayal became common, and the German populace came to see themselves as victims. The ''Dolchstoßlegende'''s popular acceptance in Germany played a significant role in the rise of Nazism. A sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced, with nihilism growing. Many believed the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it because of the high fatalities among a generation of men, the dissolution of governments and empires, and the collapse of capitalism and imperialism.

Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory and enjoyed a new level of popularity. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or harshly affected by the war. Out of German discontent with the still controversial Treaty of Versailles, Adolf Hitler was able to gain popularity and power. World War II was in part a continuation of the power struggle never fully resolved by the First World War; in fact, it was common for Germans in the 1930s and 1940s to justify acts of international aggression because of perceived injustices imposed by the victors of the First World War.

The establishment of the modern state of Israel and the roots of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict are partially found in the unstable power dynamics of the Middle East which resulted from World War I. Prior to the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire had maintained a modest level of peace and stability throughout the Middle East. With the fall of Ottoman government, power vacuums developed and conflicting claims to land and nationhood began to emerge. The political boundaries drawn by the victors of the First World War were quickly imposed, sometimes after only cursory consultation with the local population. In many cases, these continue to be problematic in the 21st-century struggles for national identity. While the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I was pivotal in contributing to the modern political situation of the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, the end of Ottoman rule also spawned lesser known disputes over water and other natural resources.

Views in the United States

U.S. intervention in the war, as well as the Wilson administration, became deeply unpopular. This was reflected in the U.S. Senate's rejection of the Versailles treaty and membership in the League of Nations. In the interwar era a consensus arose that U.S. intervention was a mistake, and the Congress passed laws in an attempt to preserve U.S. neutrality in any future conflict. Polls taken in 1937 and the opening months of World War II established that nearly 60% regarded the intervention as a mistake, with only 28% opposing that view. But, in the period between the fall of France and the attack on Pearl Harbor, public opinion changed dramatically and, for the first time, a narrow plurality rejected the idea that the war was a mistake.

New national identities

Poland reemerged as an independent country, after more than a century. As a "minor Entente nation" and the country with the largest casualties per head the Kingdom of Serbia and its dynasty became the backbone of the new multinational state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). Czechoslovakia, combining the Kingdom of Bohemia with parts of the Kingdom of Hungary, became a new nation. Russia became the Soviet Union and lost Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which became independent countries. The Ottoman Empire was soon replaced by Turkey and several other countries in the Middle East.

In the British Empire, the war unleashed new forms of nationalism. In Australia and New Zealand the Battle of Gallipoli became known as those nations' "Baptism of Fire". It was the first major war in which the newly established countries fought and it was one of the first times that Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Crown. Anzac Day, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, celebrates this defining moment.

After the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where the Canadian divisions fought together for the first time as a single corps, Canadians began to refer to theirs as a nation "forged from fire". Having succeeded on the same battleground where the "mother countries" had previously faltered, they were for the first time respected internationally for their own accomplishments. Canada entered the war as a Dominion of the British Empire and remained so afterwards, although she emerged with a greater measure of independence. While the other Dominions were represented by Britain, Canada was an independent negotiator and signatory of the Versailles Treaty.

Economic effects

One of the most dramatic effects of the war was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire. In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. New taxes were levied and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort; many of which have lasted to this day. Similarly, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratised governments such as in Austria–Hungary and Germany; however, any analysis of the long-term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments. Gross domestic product (GDP) increased for three Allies (Britain, Italy, and U.S.), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the main three Central Powers. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire reached 30 to 40%. In Austria, for example, most of the pigs were slaughtered and, at war's end, there was no meat.

All nations had increases in the government's share of GDP, surpassing fifty percent in both Germany and France and nearly reaching fifty percent in Britain. To pay for purchases in the United States, Britain cashed in its extensive investments in American railroads and then began borrowing heavily on Wall Street. President Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but allowed a great increase in U.S. government lending to the Allies. After 1919, the U.S. demanded repayment of these loans, which, in part, were funded by German reparations, which, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and the loans were never repaid. In 1934, Britain owed the US $4.4 billion of World War I debt.

Macro- and micro-economic consequences devolved from the war. Families were altered by the departure of many men. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost labourers sent to war. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.

In Britain, rationing was finally imposed in early 1918, limited to meat, sugar, and fats (butter and oleo), but not bread. The new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918 trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million. Work stoppages and strikes became frequent in 1917–1918 as the unions expressed grievances regarding prices, alcohol control, pay disputes, fatigue from overtime and working on Sundays and inadequate housing.

Britain turned to her colonies for help in obtaining essential war materials whose supply had become difficult from traditional sources. Geologists such as Albert Ernest Kitson were called upon to find new resources of precious minerals in the African colonies. Kitson discovered important new deposits of manganese, used in munitions production, in the Gold Coast.

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles (the so-called "war guilt" clause) declared Germany and its allies responsible for all "loss and damage" suffered by the Allies during the war and provided the basis for reparations. The total reparations demanded was 132 billion gold marks which was far more than the total German gold or foreign exchange. The economic problems that the payments brought, and German resentment at their imposition, are usually cited as one of the more significant factors that led to the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. After Germany’s defeat in World War II, payment of the reparations was not resumed. There was, however, outstanding German debt that the Weimar Republic had used to pay the reparations. Germany finished paying off the reparations in October 2010.

Media

{| |- | | | | |}

See also

European Civil War

World War I casualties

List of surviving veterans of World War I

List of last surviving World War I veterans by country

List of people associated with World War I

List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll

Lists of wars

Lists of World War I topics

World War One – Medal Abbreviations

Effect of World War I on children in the United States

Despina Storch

Notes

References

For a comprehensive bibliography see List of books about World War I (translated from the German) , reviewed in . | publisher=University of California Press| issn=0030-8684}} , Wilson's maneuvering U.S. into war , general military history }} also published by Harper as "Ludendorff's Own Story, August 1914 – November 1918: The Great War from the Siege of Liege to the Signing of the Armistice as Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army" (original title ''Meine Kriegserinnerungen, 1914–1918'') | journal=The Journal of Military History| volume=60| issue=3| month=July| year=1996| pages=495–511| doi=10.2307/2944522| publisher=Society for Military History| jstor=2944522}} cites "Cf. articles signed XXX in ''La Revue de Deux Mondes'', March 1 and March 15, 1920" Deals with technical developments, including the first dipping hydrophones | doi=10.2307/1986064| publisher=Society for Military History| jstor=1986064 }} , major reinterpretation : the major scholarly synthesis. Thorough coverage of 1914 , reviewed at , tells of the opening diplomatic and military manoeuvres

External links

A multimedia history of World War I

British Pathé Online film archive containing extensive coverage of World War I

The Heritage of the Great War, Netherlands

The World War I Document Archive Wiki, Brigham Young University

Animated maps

An animated map "Europe plunges into war"

An animated map of Europe at the end of the war

A collection of vintage maps from all theaters of World War I

Category:Articles containing video clips Category:Contemporary German history Category:Contemporary Italian history Category:Edwardian era Category:French Third Republic Category:Global conflicts Category:History of Austria-Hungary Category:History of Montenegro Category:History of Serbia Category:History of the United States (1865–1918) Category:Russo-Ottoman Wars Category:Wars involving Armenia Category:Wars involving Australia Category:Wars involving Austria Category:Wars involving Belgium Category:Wars involving Brazil Category:Wars involving British India Category:Wars involving Bulgaria Category:Wars involving Canada Category:Wars involving Costa Rica Category:Wars involving Croatia Category:Wars involving Czechoslovakia Category:Wars involving France Category:Wars involving Germany Category:Wars involving Greece Category:Wars involving Guatemala Category:Wars involving Haiti Category:Wars involving Hungary Category:Wars involving Ireland Category:Wars involving Italy Category:Wars involving Japan Category:Wars involving Liberia Category:Wars involving Montenegro Category:Wars involving New Zealand Category:Wars involving Nicaragua Category:Wars involving Panama Category:Wars involving Portugal Category:Wars involving Romania Category:Wars involving Russia Category:Wars involving Serbia Category:Wars involving South Africa Category:Wars involving Sri Lanka Category:Wars involving Thailand Category:Wars involving the Ottoman Empire Category:Wars involving the states and peoples of Oceania Category:Wars involving the Republic of China Category:Wars involving the United Kingdom Category:Wars involving the United States

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Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
name	Bill Thomas
image name	Bill Thomas, official photo portrait color.jpg
birth date	December 06, 1941
birth place	Wallace, Idaho
alma mater	Garden Grove High School, Santa Ana College, San Francisco State University
occupation	college professor
state	California
district	22nd
term start	January 3, 1979
term end	January 3, 2007
preceded	William M. Ketchum
succeeded	Kevin McCarthy
party	Republican
religion	Baptist
spouse	Sharon Thomas
residence	Morro Bay, California }}

William Marshall Thomas (born December 6, 1941), commonly known as Bill Thomas, is an American politician, and a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1979–2007, finishing his tenure representing California's 22nd congressional district and as the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Early life and family

Thomas was born in Wallace, Idaho, moving with his parents to the Southern California area. He graduated from Garden Grove High School, attended Santa Ana College, earning an associate's degree before transferring to San Francisco State University, where he earned his bachelor's degree and master's degree in political science in 1963 and 1965, respectively. He became an instructor at Bakersfield College before running in the California State Assembly in 1974. He won election to the House of Representatives in 1978, representing the 18th congressional district.

Thomas married the former Sharon Lynn Hamilton in 1968. They have two grown children. He and his wife are Baptists.

Career

When ''Washingtonian'' magazine polled congressional aides on the "best and worst" of Congress, Thomas was voted #2 for "brainiest", #3 for "workhorse", and #1 for "meanest" and overwhelmingly for "hottest temper" in the House. Thomas is known for being able to comprehend and communicate the intricacies of obscure legislative matters, studying testimony and research reports himself instead of relying on executive summaries from his aides. Thomas is also known for losing his temper when people are unprepared, earning a reputation for sharp interrogations. "He's revered, but he's also reviled to some degree", fellow representative Mark Foley told ''CQ Weekly''.

Thomas was a key proponent of several of President George W. Bush's agenda items, including three major tax cut bills and the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (PL 108-173), and was also instrumental in the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

On March 6, 2006, Thomas announced he would not seek reelection, retiring after 28 years in the House. A major influence on his decision was the internal GOP term limits that would require him to relinquish his Ways and Means chairmanship even if he were re-elected. Thomas endorsed a former aide, Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy, who was elected to replace him.

In 2007, after leaving the House, Thomas joined the American Enterprise Institute as a visiting fellow working on tax policy, trade policy, and health care policy. Thomas also joined law and lobbying firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney.

Election history

1978 — Defeated Bob Sogge - 59%-41%

1980 — Defeated Mary Pat Timmermans - 71%-29%

1982 — Defeated Robert J. Bethea - 68%-32%

1984 — Defeated Michael T. LeSage - 71%-29%

1986 — Defeated Jules H. Moquin -73%-27%

1988 — Defeated Lita Reid - 71%-27%

1990 — Defeated Michael Thomas — 60%-34%

1992 — Defeated Deborah Vollmer — 65%-35%

1994 — Defeated John Evans — 69%-28%

1996 — Defeated Deborah Vollmer — 66%-27%

1998 — Defeated John Evans — 79%-21%

2000 — Defeated Pete Martinez — 72%-25%

2002 — Defeated Jaime Corvera — 73%-24%

2004 — Unopposed

Congressional committees

U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means — Chairman (2001–2006)

U.S. House Committee on Administration — Chairman (1995–2001)

1992 Congressional banking scandal

In the 1992 Rubbergate banking scandal, involving House members writing checks when the funds were not available, Bill Thomas bounced 119 checks, more than any other Republican member of Congress, and was tenth on the overall list of worst offenders, though not in terms of the most money involved.

2001 Alleged affair with lobbyist

The Bakersfield Californian published an article on Thomas about an affair with Deborah Steelman, a lobbyist for Cigna, Pfizer, Aetna, United Healthcare Corporation, the Healthcare Leadership Council, and Prudential. Thomas was then chair of the House subcommittee that regulates HMOs. "Any personal failures of commitment or responsibility to my wife, family or friends are just that, personal," the former congressman wrote in an "open letter to friends and neighbors." Neither he nor Deborah Steelman explicitly denied the allegations. Deborah Steelman was pormoted to VP of Eli Lilly, steered huge campaign gifts to Thomas' war chest and the health care industry scored big with the passage of Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.

2003 controversy involving U.S. Capitol police

In July 2003, Thomas called the U.S. Capitol Police to eject Democrats from a meeting room. A few days later, he tearfully apologized on the House floor for what he called his "just plain stupid" decision to ask the police to eject the Congressmen.

External links

OnTheIssues

Voting record maintained by the Washington Post

Voting record maintained by the Vote-Smart.org

References

Category:1941 births Category:American Enterprise Institute Category:Living people Category:Members of the California State Assembly Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from California Category:San Francisco State University alumni Category:California Republicans Category:Baptists from the United States

Coordinates	12°2′36″N77°1′42″N
Name	Sean Patrick Flanery
Birth name	Sean Patrick Flanery
Birth date	October 11, 1965
Birth place	Lake Charles, Louisiana, U.S.
Yearsactive	1987 – present
Website	}}

Sean Patrick Flanery (born October 11, 1965) is an American actor known for such roles as Connor MacManus in ''The Boondock Saints'', Greg Stillson in ''The Dead Zone'' and for portraying Indiana Jones in ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'', as well as Bobby Dagen in ''Saw 3D''.

Early life

Flanery was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana and was raised in Houston, Texas. His father was a medical equipment salesman and his mother a real estate broker. After attending Awty International School, Flanery graduated from Dulles High School in Sugar Land and attended the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

Acting career

Flanery started acting in college after he joined an acting class to meet a girl that he had a crush on. He later moved to Los Angeles, California, in order to pursue his acting career. Since 1988, he has appeared in over 53 films, including ''Powder'', ''Simply Irresistible'' and ''D-Tox''. However he is best known for playing Connor MacManus in ''The Boondock Saints'' and Indiana Jones in ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles''. He had a brief role as the ascended being Orlin in the ''Stargate SG-1'' episode "Ascension". He appeared on the TV show ''The Dead Zone'' in the role of Vice-President Greg Stillson, until its cancellation. Flanery also appeared in an installment of Showtime's ''Masters of Horror'' playing a town sheriff who later became one of the antagonistic entity's possessed hosts in the episode "The Damned Thing". In March 2010, he was cast in the lead role in the sci-fi horror film ''Mongolian Death Worm''. He also had a supporting role in 2010's ''Saw 3D''. In April 2011, Flanery headed to the CBS soap ''The Young and the Restless,'' playing the part of "Sam," Sharon Newman's boyfriend from New Mexico.

Personal life

Name	Sean Patrick Flanery
Martial art	Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Karate
Teacher	Shawn Williams
Rank	Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt in Karate }}

Flanery has a black belt (promoted May 4, 2008) in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Shawn Williams and a black belt in Karate. He has a dog named Donut, named after the donuts she devoured shortly after being adopted by Flanery.

Flanery won the 1997 Toyota Pro-Celebrity Race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach as the celebrity driver; the "Alfonso Ribeiro rule" forced him to "defend" his title as a professional driver under TGPLB rules, and won the 1998 race as a professional driver.

Filmography

+ Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987	''A Tiger's Tale''	Buddy
1993			Direct to video
1994	''Frank & Jesse''	Zack Murphy
1995		Riley Henderson
1995	''Raging Angels''	Chris
1995		Jeremy 'Powder' Reed
1996	''Just Your Luck''	Ray	Direct to video
1996	''The Method''	Christian
1996	''Eden''	Dave Edgerton
1997	''Pale Saints''	Louis
1997	''Suicide Kings''	Max Minot
1997	''Best Men''	Billy Phillips
1998		Todd Sparrow
1998	''Zach and Reba''	Zack Blanton
1999		Tom Bartlett
1999	''The Boondock Saints''	Connor MacManus
1999	''Body Shots''	Rick Hamilton
2002		Tom Terranova
2002	''Con Express''	Alex Brooks	Direct to video
2002	''D-Tox''	Conner
2002	''Lone Hero''	John
2002	''Borderline''	Ed Baikman
2004	''The Gunman''	Ben Simms
2005	''The Storyteller''	John
2005		Jake Greyman
2007	''The Insatiable''	Harry Balbo	Direct to video
2007	''Veritas, Prince of Truth''	Veritas
2007	''Ten Inch Hero''	Noah
2007	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Love's Sweet Song''	Indiana Jones	Direct to video
2007	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Demons of Deception''	Indiana Jones	Direct to video
2007	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Espionage Escapade''	Indiana Jones	Direct to video
2008	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Winds of Change''	Indiana Jones	Direct to video
2008	''Crystal River''	Clay Arrendal
2009	''Deadly Impact''	Tom Armstrong
2009		Gary Langston
2009	''The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day''	Connor MacManus
2009		Colin	William Kaufman
2010	''Scavengers''	Captain Jekel
2010	''Saw 3D''
2011	''InSight''	Det. Peter Rafferty

+ Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1990	''Just Perfect''		Television film
1990	''My Life as a Babysitter''		Television film
1992–1993	''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles''	Indiana Jones	22 episodes
1993		The Driver	Television film
1994		King Arthur	Television film
1994	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Hollywood Follies''	Young Indiana Jones	Television film
1995	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Treasure of the Peacock's Eye''	Young Indiana Jones	Television film
1995	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Attack of the Hawkmen''	Indiana Jones	Television film
1996	''The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father''	Indiana Jones (age 20)	Television film
1999–2000		Elvis Ford	10 episodes
2000	''Run the Wild Fields''	Tom Walker	Television film
2000		Eric	Episode: "Stasis"
2001	''The Diamond Hunters''	Johnny Lance	unknown episodes
2001	''Acceptable Risk''	Bobby	Television film
2001	''Stargate SG-1''	Orlin
2001	''Touched by an Angel''	Daniel Lee Corbitt
2002	''Charmed''	Adam
2002–2007		Greg Stillson / Vice President Greg Stillson	19 episodes
2003	''Then Came Jones''	Sheriff Ben Jones	Television film
2003	''The Twilight Zone''	Dr. Paul Thorson	Episode: "Cold Fusion"
2004	''Dead Lawyers''	Jimmy Blake	Television film
2004	''30 Days Until I'm Famous''	Cole Thompson	Television film
2005		Walter Harwig, Jr.	Television film
2006		Randall Cain	Television film
2006	''Secrets of a Small Town''	Jimmy Lee Daniels	Pilot episode
2006	''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation''	The Big Hombre
2006	''Masters of Horror''	Sheriff Kevin Reddle	Episode: "The Damned Thing"
2007	''KAW''	Wayne	Syfy film
2007	''Numb3rs''	Jeff Upchurch
2009	''Criminal Minds''	Darrin Call
2010		Daniel	Television film
2011	''The Young and the Restless	Sam Gibson	Soap opera

References

External links

Category:1965 births Category:Actors from Louisiana Category:American film actors Category:American karateka Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American practitioners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Category:American television actors Category:Dulles High School (Sugar Land, Texas) alumni Category:The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Category:Living people Category:People from Lake Charles, Louisiana Category:People from Houston, Texas Category:University of St. Thomas (Texas) alumni

da:Sean Patrick Flanery de:Sean Patrick Flanery es:Sean Patrick Flanery fr:Sean Patrick Flanery it:Sean Patrick Flanery ja:ショーン・パトリック・フラナリー no:Sean Patrick Flanery pt:Sean Patrick Flanery ru:Флэнери, Шон Патрик fi:Sean Patrick Flanery sv:Sean Patrick Flanery