Part of a series on Buddhism
History Buddhism History of Buddhism Timeline Councils Gautama Buddha Later Buddhists Category: Buddhism
Teachings concepts Dharma Four Noble Truths Five Aggregates Impermanence Suffering Non-self Dependent Origination Middle Way Emptiness Karma Rebirth Samsara Cosmology Category: Buddhist terms
Practices Threefold Training Three Jewels Noble Eightfold Path Morality Meditation Wisdom Perfections Mindfulness Compassion Aids to Enlightenment Monasticism Laity
Nirvana Nirvāṇa Four Stages Arahant Buddha Bodhisattva
Traditions Schools of Buddhism Hinayana Theravāda Mahāyāna Vajrayāna Tibetan
Texts Buddhist texts Pali Canon Chinese Buddhist canon
Buddhism by country General Countries India India Southern Transmission Sri Lanka Thailand Cambodia Laos Burma Eastern Transmission China Japan Korea Vietnam Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Northern Transmission Tibet Bhutan Mongolia Nepal Russia Western Transmission Western countries USA
Outline Buddhism portal view talk edit

Buddhist modernism (also referred to as Protestant Buddhism, Modern Buddhism^[1] and modernist Buddhism^[2]) consists of the "forms of Buddhism that have emerged out of an engagement with the dominant cultural and intellectual forces of modernity."^[3] While there can be no complete, essential definition of what constitutes a Buddhist Modernist tradition, most scholars agree that the influence of Protestant and Enlightenment values have largely defined some of their more conspicuous attributes.^[4] David McMahan cites "western monotheism; rationalism and scientific naturalism; and Romantic expressivism" as influences.^[5]

Examples of such movements and traditions of thought may include Humanistic Buddhism and Engaged Buddhism (which started in the Sinitic World and constitute the foundations of the contemporary Buddhist revival in China, Taiwan, Japan and Vietnam as well as of the propagation of non-denominational forms of Buddhism in the Western World), linkages between Buddhism and Gnosticism, the Japanese-initiated Nichiren Buddhism and Soka Gakkai, the New Kadampa Tradition and the missionary activity of Tibetan Buddhist masters in the West (leading the quickly growing Buddhist movement in France), the Vipassana Movement, the Triratna Buddhist Community, Fo Guang Shan and Juniper Foundation.

Overview[link]

Buddhist modernist traditions often consist of a deliberate de-emphasis of the ritual and metaphysical elements of the religion, as these elements are seen as incommensurate with the discourses of modernity. Renunciation of worldly matters, devotional practices, ceremonies and the invocation of bodhisattvas among other traditionally widespread practices are often perceived as culturally contingent, therefore rather dispensable, sometimes inconvenient or impracticable. A number of Buddhist Modernist traditions, especially during the colonial period, have also been characterized as a defensive reaction against the threat of Western hegemony, wherein Buddhist Modernists attempted to protect their native Buddhist traditions from modernist attacks by presenting their traditions as being more commensurate with, and often transcending, modernity.^[6] Buddhist Modernist traditions have also been characterized as being "detraditionalized", in that they are often presented in such a way that occludes their historical construction. Instead, Buddhist Modernists often employ an essentialized description of their tradition, where key tenets are described as universal and sui generis.

D.T. Suzuki[link]

For a number of reasons, several scholars have identified D.T. Suzuki—whose works were popular in the West from the 1930s onward, and particularly in the 1950s and 60s—as a "Buddhist Modernist." Suzuki's depiction of Zen Buddhism can be classified as Buddhist Modernist in that it employs all of these traits. That he was a university-educated intellectual steeped in knowledge of Western philosophy and literature allowed him to be particularly successful and persuasive in arguing his case to a Western audience. As Suzuki presented it, Zen Buddhism was a highly practical religion whose emphasis on direct experience made it particularly comparable to forms of mysticism that scholars such as William James had emphasized as the fountainhead of all religious sentiment.^[7] As McMahan explains, "In his discussion of humanity and nature, Suzuki takes Zen literature out of its social, ritual, and ethical contexts and reframes it in terms of a language of metaphysics derived from German Romantic idealism, English Romanticism, and American Transcendentalism."^[8] Drawing on these traditions, Suzuki presents a version of Zen that can be described as detraditionalized and essentialized:

Zen is the ultimate fact of all philosophy and religion. Every intellectual effort must culminate in it, or rather must start from it, if it is to bear any practical fruits. Every religious faith must spring from it if it has to prove at all efficiently and livingly workable in our active life. Therefore Zen is not necessarily the fountain of Buddhist thought and life alone; it is very much alive also in Christianity, Mohammedanism, in Taoism, and even positivistic Confucianism. What makes all these religions and philosophies vital and inspiring, keeping up their usefulness and efficiency, is due to the presence in them of what I may designate as the Zen element.^[9]

Scholars such as Robert Sharf have argued that such statements also betray inklings of nationalist sentiment, common to many early Buddhist Modernists, in that they portray Zen, which Suzuki had described as representing the essence of the Japanese people, as superior to all other religions.

"New Buddhism" and Japanese Nationalism[link]

Scholars such as Martin Verhoeven and Robert Sharf, as well as Japanese Zen monk G. Victor Sogen Hori, have argued that the breed of Japanese Zen that was propagated by New Buddhism ideologues, such as Imakita Kosen and Soen Shaku, was not typical of Japanese Zen during their time, nor is it typical of Japanese Zen now. Although greatly altered by the Meiji Restoration, Japanese Zen still flourishes as a monastic tradition. The Zen Tradition in Japan, aside from the New Buddhism style of it, required a great deal of time and discipline from monks that laity would have difficulty finding. Zen monks were often expected to have spent several years in intensive doctrinal study, memorizing sutras and poring over commentaries, before even entering the monastery to undergo koan practice in sanzen with the roshi.^[10] The fact that Suzuki himself was able to do so as a layman was largely the invention of New Buddhism.

At the onset of the Meiji period, in 1868, when Japan entered into the international community and began to industrialize and modernize at an astounding rate, Buddhism was briefly persecuted in Japan as "a corrupt, decadent, anti-social, parasitic, and superstitious creed, inimical to Japans need for scientific and technological advancement."^[11] The Japanese government dedicated itself to the eradication of the tradition, which was seen as a foreign Other, incapable of fostering the nativist sentiments that would be vital for national, ideological cohesion. In addition to this, industrialization had taken its toll on the Buddhist establishment as well, leading to the breakdown of the parishioner system that had funded monasteries for centuries.^[12] In response to this seemingly intractable state of turmoil, a group of modern Buddhist leaders emerged to argue for the Buddhist cause.^[12] These leaders stood in agreement with the government persecution of Buddhism, stating that the Buddhist institution was indeed corrupted and in need of revitalization.

This movement was known as shin bukkyo, or "New Buddhism." The leaders themselves were university-educated intellectuals who had been exposed to a vast body of Western intellectual literature. The fact that what was presented to the West as Japanese Zen would be so commensurate with the Enlightenment critique of "superstitious," institutional, or ritual-based religion is due to this fact, as such ideals directly informed the creation this new tradition. Proponents of New Buddhism were concerned with internal reform and a return to "pure" or original Buddhism, what they saw as the vital essence of Buddhism, devoid of ritual and superstition, highly empirical and scientific, an ideal tradition that Western scholars themselves had largely created a few decades earlier, beginning with the work of Eugène Burnouf in the 1840s.^[4] Imakita Kosen, who would become D.T. Suzuki's teacher in Zen until his death in 1892, was an important figure in this movement. Largely responding to the Reformation critique of elite institutionalism, he opened Engakuji monastery to lay practitioners, which would allow students like Suzuki unprecedented access to Zen practice.

Advocates of New Buddhism, like Kosen and his successor Soen Shaku, not only saw this movement as a defense of Buddhism against government persecution, they also saw it as a way to bring their nation into the modern world as a competitive, cultural force. Kosen himself was even employed by the Japanese government as a "national evangelist" during the 1870s.^[13] The cause of Japanese nationalism and the portrayal of Japan as a superior cultural entity on the international scene was at the heart of the Zen missionary movement. Zen would be touted as the essential Japanese religion, fully embodied by the bushido, or samurai spirit, an expression of the Japanese people in the fullest sense, in spite of the fact that this version of Zen was a recent invention in Japan that was largely based on the Western philosophical ideals.

Soen Shaku, Suzuki's teacher in Zen after Kosen's death in 1892, made this telling statement about what was at stake in bringing Buddhism to the west: "Religion is the only force in which the Western people know that they are inferior to the nations of the East ... Let us wed the Great Vehicle [Mahayana Buddhism] to Western thought…at Chicago next year [referring to the 1893 World Parliament of Religions] the fitting time will come.” ^[14] According to Martin Verhoeven, "The spiritual crisis of the West exposed its Achilles' heel to be vanquished. Though economically and technologically bested by the Western powers, Japan saw a chance to reassert its sense of cultural superiority via religion."^[14]

Other "New Buddhisms"[link]

Others have used "New Buddhism" to describe various movements real and aspirational, such as David Brazier, who wrote a 2001 book called The New Buddhism,^[15] and James William Coleman, who wrote a 2001 book of the same name.^[16] The former is a "manifesto for a socially engaged Buddhism" while the latter is a study of Buddhism in the West emphasizing departures from tradition.

Lopez's concept of "Modern Buddhism"[link]

Donald S. Lopez Jr. uses the term "Modern Buddhism" to describe the entirety of Buddhist modernist traditions, which he suggests "has developed into a kind of transnational Buddhist sect", "an international Buddhism that transcends cultural and national boundaries, creating...a cosmopolitan network of intellectuals, writing most often in English". This "sect" is rooted neither in geography nor in traditional schools but is the modern aspect of a variety of Buddhist schools in different locations. Moreover, it has its own cosmopolitan lineage and canonical "scriptures," mainly the works of popular and semischolarly authors—figures from the formative years of modern Buddhism, including Soen Shaku, Dwight Goddard, D. T. Suzuki, and Alexandra David-Neel, as well as more recent figures like Shunryu Suzuki, Sangharakshita, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chögyam Trungpa, and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama."^[17]

See also[link]

• Zen Narratives
• Islam and modernity
• Modern Orthodox Judaism
• Modernism (Roman Catholicism)

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

James, Alan; Jacqui, James (1989). Modern Buddhism. Aucana. ISBN 0-9511769-1-9. 

James, William (June 1902). The varieties of religious experience : a study in human nature. London: Longmans, Green & Co.. pp. 534. ISBN 0-585-23263-6. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/621. 

Lopez, Jr., Donald S. (2008). Buddhism & science : a guide for the perplexed. Buddhism and modernity. University of Chicago Press. pp. 264. ISBN 978-0-226-49312-1. 

Lopez, Jr., Donald S. (2002). A Modern Buddhist Bible. Beacon Press Books. ISBN 0-8070-1243-2. 

Masuzawa, Tomoko (May 2005). The invention of world religions, or, How European universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism (1st ed.). University of Chicago Press. pp. 359. ISBN 978-0-226-50988-4. 

McMahan, David L. (October 2008). The Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford University Press. pp. 320. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183276.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-518327-6. 

Metraux, Daniel A. (2001). The International Expansion of a Modern Buddhist Movement: The Soka Gakkai in Southeast Asia and Australia. University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-1904-2. 

Prebish, Charles S.; Baumann, Martin (2002). Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23490-1. 

Satō, Giei; Nishimura, Nishin (1973). Unsui: a Diary of Zen Monastic Life (illustrated ed.). University of Hawaii Press. pp. 114. ISBN 978-0-8248-0272-1. http://books.google.com/?id=wtKHC6gW_uMC. Retrieved 28 May 2009. 

Sharf, Robert H. (August 1993). "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism". History of Religions (The University of Chicago Press) 33 (1): 1–43. DOI:10.1086/463354. ISSN 0018-2710. JSTOR 1062782. 

Suzuki, D. T. (1996) [1956]. Barrett, William. ed. Zen Buddhism : selected writings of D.T. Suzuki. New York: Three Leaves. pp. 294. ISBN 978-0-385-48349-0. 

Verhoeven, Martin (1998). "Americanizing the Buddha: Paul Carus and the Transformation of Asian Thought". In Prebish, Charles; Tanaka, Kenneth. The faces of Buddhism in America. University of California Press. pp. 370. ISBN 978-0-520-21301-2. 

World War I Clockwise from top: trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes Date 28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918 (Armistice) Treaty of Versailles signed 28 June 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye signed 10 September 1919 Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine signed 27 November 1919 Treaty of Trianon signed 4 June 1920 Treaty of Sèvres signed 10 August 1920 Location Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, China and off the coast of South and North America 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...) Belligerents Allied (Entente) Powers French Third Republic British Empire  Russia (1914–17)  Italy (1915–18)  United States (1917–18)  Romania (1916–18) Empire of Japan Kingdom of Serbia  Belgium  Greece (1917–18) and others Central Powers German Empire  Austria-Hungary  Ottoman Empire  Bulgaria (1915–18) Commanders and leaders Leaders and commanders Raymond Poincaré Georges Clemenceau Ferdinand Foch H. H. Asquith David Lloyd George Douglas Haig Nicholas II Nicholas Nikolaevich Antonio Salandra Vittorio Orlando Luigi Cadorna Woodrow Wilson John J. Pershing Ferdinand I and others Leaders and commanders Wilhelm II Paul von Hindenburg Erich Ludendorff Franz Joseph I Karl I Conrad von Hötzendorf Mehmed V Enver Pasha Mustafa Kemal Ferdinand I Nikola Zhekov and others Strength Entente[1] 12,000,000 8,841,541[2][3] 8,660,000[4] 5,093,140 4,743,826 1,234,000 800,000 707,343 380,000 250,000 Total: 42,959,850 Central Powers[1] 13,250,000 7,800,000 2,998,321 1,200,000 Total: 25,248,321 Casualties and losses Military dead: 5,525,000 Military wounded: 12,831,500 Military missing: 4,121,000 Total: 22,477,500 KIA, WIA or MIA ...further details. Military dead: 4,386,000 Military wounded: 8,388,000 Military missing: 3,629,000 Total: 16,403,000 KIA, WIA or MIA ...further details.

v t e Theatres of World War I European: Balkans Western Front Eastern Front Italian Front Middle Eastern: Caucasus Persia Gallipoli Mesopotamia Sinai and Palestine South Arabia African: South-West Africa West Africa East Africa North Africa Asian and Pacific theatre Other theatres: America Atlantic Ocean Mediterranean

World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), 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,^[5] which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war).^[6] These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history.^[7][8] More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.^[9]

Long-term causes of the war included the 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, the French Republic, and Italy. The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by a Yugoslav nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the proximate trigger of the war. It resulted in a Habsburg ultimatum against the Kingdom of Serbia.^[10][11] Several alliances formed over the previous 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,^[12][13] 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 from East Prussia and Poland 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 March 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, which had its own trouble with revolutionaries at this point, agreed to a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day. The war had ended in victory for the Allies.

Events on the home fronts were as tumultuous as on the battle fronts, as the participants tried to mobilize their manpower and economic resources to fight a total war. By the end of the war, four major imperial powers — the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires — 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.^[14] 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 agreed to be factors contributing to World War II.^[15]

Names[link]

In Canada, Maclean's Magazine in October 1914 said, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War."^[16] During the Interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War, in English-speaking countries.

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 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."^[17] The First World War was the title of a 1920 history by the officer and journalist Charles à Court Repington.

Background[link]

Map of the participants in World War I: Allied Powers in green, Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey

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.^[6] 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.^[6] In 1882, this alliance was expanded to include Italy in what became the Triple Alliance.^[18]

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 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.^[6]

HMS Dreadnought. A naval arms race existed between the United Kingdom and Germany.

German industrial and economic power had grown greatly after unification and the foundation of the Empire in 1871. 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.^[19] As a result, each nation strove to out-build the other in terms of capital ships. With the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German rival.^[19] 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.^[20] Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50 percent.^[21]

Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian-Serb student, was arrested immediately after he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

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.^[22] Russian political manoeuvring in the region destabilised peace accords that were already fracturing in what was known as "the powder keg of Europe".^[22]

Ethno-linguistic map of Austria–Hungary, 1910

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.^[23]

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.^[24] 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.^[25] 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".^[26]

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.^[18] When the German Empire began to mobilise on 30 July 1914, France, resentful of 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.^[27] 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.^[28]

Theatres of conflict[link]

Opening hostilities[link]

Confusion among the Central Powers[link]

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 the replacements had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia.^[29] 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[link]

Lettow surrendering his forces to the British at Abercorn

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.^[30]

Serbian campaign[link]

Declaration of war. Austro-Hungarian government's telegram to the government of Serbia on 28 July 1914.

Austria invaded and fought the Serbian army at the Battle of Cer and Battle of Kolubara beginning on 12 August. Over the next two weeks Austrian attacks were thrown back with heavy losses, which marked the first major Allied victories of the war and dashed Austro-Hungarian hopes of a swift victory. As a result, Austria had to keep sizable forces on the Serbian front, weakening its efforts against Russia.^[31] Serbia’s defeat of the Austro-Hungarian invasion of 1914 counts among the major upset victories of the last century.^[32]

German forces in Belgium and France[link]

German soldiers in a railway goods van on the way to the front in 1914. A message on the car spells out "Trip to Paris"; early in the war all sides expected the conflict to be a short one.

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.^[10] 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.^[10] 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.^[33]

Asia and the Pacific[link]

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.^[34][35]

Early stages[link]

Trench warfare begins[link]

Sir Winston Churchill with the Royal Scots Fusiliers, 1916

Sunlight Soap ad, placed in a trench (1915)

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.^[36] 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^[37] 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.^[10] 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.^[38] 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.^[39] At the Third Battle of Ypres, Canadian and ANZAC troops took the village of Passchendaele.

Men in Melbourne collecting recruitment papers

In the trenches: Royal Irish Rifles in a communications trench on the first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916.

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.^[40]

Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916,^[41] 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.^[42]

Canadian troops advancing behind a British Mark II tank at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

A French assault on German positions. Champagne, France, 1917.

Officers and senior enlisted men of the Bermuda Militia Artillery's Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, in Europe.

A battleship squadron of the Hochseeflotte at sea

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.^[43][44]

Ludendorff wrote on the fighting in 1917,

The 25th of August concluded the second phase of the Flanders battle. It had cost us heavily ... The costly August battles in Flanders and at Verdun imposed a heavy strain on the Western troops. In spite of all the concrete protection they seemed more or less powerless under the enormous weight of the enemy's artillery. At some points they no longer displayed the firmness which I, in common with the local commanders, had hoped for. The enemy managed to adapt himself to our method of employing counter attacks ... I myself was being put to a terrible strain. The state of affairs in the West appeared to prevent the execution of our plans elsewhere. Our wastage had been so high as to cause grave misgivings, and had exceeded all expectation.^[45]

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

Another terrific assault was made on our lines on the 20 September ... The enemy's onslaught on the 20th was successful, which proved the superiority of the attack over the defence. Its strength did not consist in the tanks; we found them inconvenient, but put them out of action all the same. The power of the attack lay in the artillery, and in the fact that ours did not do enough damage to the hostile infantry as they were assembling, and above all, at the actual time of the assault.^[46]

Around 1.1 to 1.2 million soldiers from the British and Dominion armies were on the Western Front at any one time.^[47] 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 9,600 kilometres (5,965 mi) 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.^[48][49]

Naval war[link]

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 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, light cruisers Nürnberg and Leipzig 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 Dresden 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.^[50]

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.^[51] Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships.^[52] Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.^[53]

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.^[54]

German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain.^[55] The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival.^[55][56] 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).^[57] Finally, in early 1917 Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, realising the Americans would eventually enter the war.^[55][58] 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.^[55]

U-155 exhibited near Tower Bridge in London after the First World War.

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.^[59] The U-boats had sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at a cost of 199 submarines.^[60]

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.^[61]